Encyclopaedia Briticannia
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@@@ *@@@ @ @@ @ @: %@@ % @@@ @@@ :-+
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:+ @@@ .@%%@@ .@- @*@@@ . -@@@ :.@@:@ .@@ @@ @ @@ @@##@@ @@@@ @@
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@@@ #@@@ @@@% @@@@@: @@ @ #@ @ @@@ @@ .@@@@@@ @@@@@@@@ @@@
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@@ @@#%@@ :@%%@. @ @@ @ @ @@# @@@@@@@ @@%#@@+ @
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@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ %@@@@@@@@@@@@
*@@@ @@@@#@@ @@@@@@ @@@@#
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Volume _
TABLE OF CONTENTS
ITALY
ITEM
ITHACA
ITHACA
ITINERARIUM
ITIUS PORTUS
ITO, HIROBUMI, PRINCE
ITRI
ITURBIDE
ITZA
ITZEHOE
IUKA
IULUS
IVAN
IVAN I
IVAN II
IVAN III
IVAN IV
IVAN V
IVAN VI
IVANGOROD
IVANOVO-VOZNESENSK
IVARR, BEINLAUSI
IVIZA, IBIZA
IVORY, SIR JAMES
IVORY
IVORY COAST
IVREA
IVRY-SUR-SEINE
IVY
IWAKURA, TOMOMI, PRINCE
IXION
IXTACCIHUATL
IYRCAE
IZBARTA
IZHEVSK
IZMAIL
IZU-NO-SHICHI-TO
JA'ALIN
JABIRU
JABLOCHKOV, PAUL
JABLONSKI, DANIEL ERNST
JABORANDI
JACA
JACAMAR
JACANA
JACINI, STEFANO, COUNT
JACK
JACKAL
JACKDAW
JACKSON, ANDREW
JACKSON, CYRIL
JACKSON, FREDERICK GEORGE
JACKSON, HELEN MARIA
JACKSON, MASON
JACKSON, THOMAS
JACKSON, THOMAS JONATHAN
JACKSON, WILLIAM
JACKSON
JACKSON
JACKSON
JACKSONVILLE
JACKSONVILLE
JACOB
JACOB, JOHN
JACOB BEN ASHER
JACOB OF EDESSA
JACOB OF JUTERBOGK
JACOB OF SERUGH
JACOBA
JACOBABAD
JACOBEAN STYLE
JACOBI, FRIEDRICH HEINRICH
JACOBI, JOHANN GEORG
JACOBI, KARL GUSTAV JACOB
JACOBINS, THE
JACOBITE CHURCH
JACOBITES
JACOBS, CHRISTIAN FRIEDRICH WILHELM
JACOBS CAVERN
JACOBSEN, JENS PETER
JACOB'S WELL
JACOBUS DE VORAGINE
JACOTOT, JOSEPH
JACQUARD, JOSEPH MARIE
JACQUERIE, THE
JACTITATION
JADE
JADE
JAEN
JAEN
JAFARABAD
JAFFNA
JAGER, GUSTAV
JAGERNDORF
JAGERSFONTEIN
JAGO, RICHARD
JAGUAR
JAGUARONDI
JAHANABAD
JAHANGIR
JAHIZ
JAHN, FRIEDRICH LUDWIG
JAHN, JOHANN
JAHN, OTTO
JAHRUM
JAINS
JAIPUR
JAISALMER
JAJCE
JAJPUR
JAKOB, LUDWIG HEINRICH VON
JAKOVA
JAKUNS
JALALABAD
JALAP
JALAPA, XALAPA
JALAUN
JALISCO, XALISCO
JALNA
JALPAIGURI
JAMAICA
JAMAICA
JAMB
JAMES
JAMES
JAMES I
JAMES II
JAMES I
JAMES II
JAMES III
JAMES IV
JAMES V
JAMES I
JAMES II
JAMES II
JAMES III
JAMES
JAMES, DAVID
JAMES, GEORGE PAYNE RAINSFORD
JAMES, HENRY
JAMES, JOHN ANGELL
JAMES, THOMAS
JAMES, WILLIAM
JAMES, WILLIAM
JAMES OF HEREFORD, HENRY JAMES, 1ST BARON
JAMES, EPISTLE OF
JAMESON, ANNA BROWNELL
JAMESON
JAMESON, LEANDER STARR
JAMESON, ROBERT
JAMESTOWN
JAMESTOWN
JAMESTOWN
JAMI
JAMIESON, JOHN
JAMIESON, ROBERT
JAMKHANDI
JAMMU
JAMNIA
JAMRUD
JAMS AND JELLIES
JANESVILLE
JANET, PAUL
JANGIPUR
JANIN, JULES GABRIEL
JANISSARIES
JANIUAY
JANJIRA
JAN MAYEN
JANSEN, CORNELIUS
JANSENISM
JANSSEN
JANSSEN, JOHANNES
JANSSEN, PIERRE JULES CESAR
JANSSENS
JANSSENS
JANUARIUS, ST
JANUARY
JANUS
JAORA
JAPAN
JAPANNING
JAPHETH
JAR
JARGON
JARGOON
JARIR IBN 'ATIYYA UL-KHATFI
JARKENT
JARNAC
JARO
JAROSITE
JARRAH WOOD
JARROW
JARRY, NICOLAS
JARVIS, JOHN WESLEY
JASHAR, BOOK OF
JASHPUR
JASMIN, JACQUES
JASMINE
JASON
JASON OF CYRENE
JASPER
JASSY
JATAKA
JATH
JATIVA
JATS
JAUBERT, PIERRE AMEDEE EMILIEN PROBE
JAUCOURT, ARNAIL FRANCOIS, MARQUIS DE
JAUER
JAUHARI
JAUNDICE
JAUNPUR
JAUNTING-CAR
JAUREGUI, JUAN
JAUREGUIBERRY, JEAN BERNARD
JAUREGUI Y AGUILAR, JUAN MARTINEZ DE
JAURES, JEAN LEON
JAVA
JAVELIN
JAW
JAWALIQI, ABU MANSUR MAUHUB UL-JAWALIQI
JAWHAR
JAWOROW
JAY, JOHN
JAY, WILLIAM
JAY
JEALOUSY
JEAN D'ARRAS
JEAN DE MEUN
JEANNETTE
JEANNIN, PIERRE
JEBB, JOHN
JEBB, SIR RICHARD CLAVERHOUSE
JEBEIL
JEBEL
JEDBURGH
JEEJEEBHOY
JEFFERIES, RICHARD
JEFFERSON, JOSEPH
JEFFERSON, THOMAS
JEFFERSON CITY
JEFFERSONVILLE
JEFFREY, FRANCIS JEFFREY, LORD
JEFFREYS, GEORGE JEFFREYS, 1ST BARON
JEHOIACHIN
JEHOIAKIM
JEHOL
JEHORAM
JEHOSHAPHAT
JEHOVAH
JEHU
JEKYLL, SIR JOSEPH
JELLACHICH, JOSEF, COUNT
JELLINEK, ADOLF
JEMAPPES
JENA
JENATSCH, GEORG
JENGHIZ KHAN
JENKIN, HENRY CHARLES FLEEMING
JENKINS, SIR LEOLINE
JENKINS, ROBERT
JENKS, JEREMIAH WHIPPLE
JENNE
JENNER, EDWARD
JENNER, SIR WILLIAM, BART
JENNET
JENOLAN CAVES
JENSEN, WILHELM
JENYNS, SOAME
JEOPARDY
JEPHSON, ROBERT
JEPHTHAH
JERAHMEEL,
JERBA
JERBOA
JERDAN, WILLIAM
JEREMIAH
JEREMY, EPISTLE OF
JEREZ DE LA FRONTERA
JEREZ DE LOS CABALLEROS
JERICHO
JERKIN
JEROBOAM
JEROME, ST
JEROME, JEROME KLAPKA
JEROME OF PRAGUE
JERROLD, DOUGLAS WILLIAM
JERRY
JERSEY, EARLS OF
JERSEY
JERSEY CITY
JERUSALEM
JERUSALEM, SYNOD OF
JESI
JESSE
JESSE, EDWARD
JESSE, JOHN HENEAGE
JESSEL, SIR GEORGE
JESSORE
JESTER
JESUATI
JESUITS
JESUP, MORRIS KETCHUM
JESUS CHRIST
JET
JETHRO
JETTY
JEVER
JEVEROS
JEVONS, WILLIAM STANLEY
JEW, THE WANDERING
JEWEL, JOHN
JEWELRY
JEWETT, SARAH ORNE
JEWS
JEWSBURY, GERALDINE ENDSOR
JEW'S EARS
JEW'S HARP
JEZEBEL
JEZREEL
JHABUA
JHALAWAR
JHANG
JHANSI
JHELUM
JHELUM
JHERING, RUDOLF VON
JIBITOS
JIBUTI
JICARILLA
JIDDA
JIG
JIHAD
JIMENES
JIND
JINGO
JINN
JIRECEK, JOSEF
JIRECEK, KONSTANTIN JOSEF
JIZAKH
JOAB
JOACHIM OF FLORIS
JOACHIM I
JOACHIM II
JOACHIM, JOSEPH
JOAN
JOAN OF ARC
JOANES
JOANNA
JOANNA I
JOANNA II
JOASH
JOB
JOBST
JOB'S TEARS
JOCASTA
JOCKEY
JODELLE, ETIENNE
JODHPUR
JOEL
JOEL, MANUEL
JOFFRIN, JULES FRANCOIS ALEXANDRE
JOGUES, ISAAC
JOHANAN BEN ZACCAI, PALESTINIAN
JOHANNESBURG
JOHANNISBERG
JOHN
JOHN, THE APOSTLE
JOHN THE BAPTIST
JOHN I
JOHN II
JOHN III
JOHN IV
JOHN V
JOHN VI
JOHN VII
JOHN VIII
JOHN IX
JOHN X
JOHN XI
JOHN XII
JOHN XIII
JOHN XIV
JOHN XV
JOHN XVI
JOHN XVII
JOHN XVIII
JOHN XIX
JOHN XXI
JOHN XXI
JOHN XXII
JOHN XXIII
JOHN I
JOHN II
JOHN III
JOHN IV
JOHN V
JOHN VI
JOHN VI
JOHN
JOHN I
JOHN II
JOHN
JOHN I
JOHN II
JOHN I
JOHN II
JOHN
JOHN OF BRIENNE
JOHN III
JOHN I
JOHN II
JOHN III
JOHN IV
JOHN V
JOHN VI
JOHN
JOHN I
JOHN
JOHN
JOHN
JOHN, DON
JOHN, DON
JOHN OF BEVERLEY, ST
JOHN OF THE CROSS, ST
JOHN OF ASIA
JOHN OF DAMASCUS
JOHN OF HEXHAM
JOHN OF IRELAND
JOHN OF RAVENNA
JOHN OF SALISBURY
JOHN
JOHN, THE EPISTLES OF
JOHN, GOSPEL OF ST
JOHN ALBERT
JOHN ANGELUS
JOHN FREDERICK I
JOHN FREDERICK
JOHN GEORGE I
JOHN GEORGE II
JOHN GEORGE III
JOHN GEORGE IV
JOHN O' GROAT'S HOUSE
JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY
JOHNSON, ANDREW
JOHNSON, BENJAMIN
JOHNSON, EASTMAN
JOHNSON, REVERDY
JOHNSON, RICHARD
JOHNSON, RICHARD MENTOR
JOHNSON, SAMUEL
JOHNSON, SIR THOMAS
JOHNSON, THOMAS, ENGLISH
JOHNSON, SIR WILLIAM
JOHNSTON, ALBERT SIDNEY
JOHNSTON, ALEXANDER
JOHNSTON, ALEXANDER KEITH
JOHNSTON, ARTHUR
JOHNSTON, SIR HENRY HAMILTON
JOHNSTON, JOSEPH EGGLESTON
JOHNSTONE
JOHNSTOWN
JOHNSTOWN
JOHOR
JOIGNY
JOINDER
JOINERY
JOINT
JOINTS
JOINTS
JOINTS
JOINTURE
JOINVILLE
JOINVILLE, JEAN, SIRE DE
JOIST
JOKAI, MAURUS
JOKJAKARTA
JOLIET
JOLLY
JOLY DE LOTBINIERE, SIR HENRI GUSTAVE
JOMINI, ANTOINE HENRI, BARON
JOMMELLI, NICCOLA
JONAH
JONAH, RABBI
JONAS, JUSTUS
JONATHAN
JONCIERES, VICTORIN
JONES, ALFRED GILPIN
JONES, SIR ALFRED LEWIS
JONES, EBENEZER
JONES, ERNEST CHARLES
JONES, HENRY
JONES, HENRY ARTHUR
JONES, INIGO
JONES, JOHN
JONES, JOHN PAUL
JONES, MICHAEL
JONES, OWEN
JONES, OWEN
JONES, RICHARD
JONES, THOMAS RUPERT
JONES, WILLIAM
JONES, SIR WILLIAM
JONKOPING
JOPLIN
JOPPA
JORDAENS, JACOB
JORDAN, CAMILLE
JORDAN, DOROTHEA
JORDAN, THOMAS
JORDAN, WILHELM
JORDAN
JORDANES,[1]
JORDANUS
JORIS, DAVID
JORTIN, JOHN
JOSEPH
JOSEPH
JOSEPH OF ARIMATHAEA,[1]
JOSEPH I
JOSEPH II
JOSEPH, FATHER
JOSEPHINE
JOSEPHUS, FLAVIUS
JOSHEKAN
JOSHUA, BOOK OF
JOSHUA THE STYLITE
JOSIAH
JOSIKA, MIKLOS [NICHOLAS], BARON
JOSIPPON
JOSS
JOST, ISAAK MARKUS
JOTUNHEIM
JOUBERT, BARTHELEMY CATHERINE
JOUBERT, JOSEPH
JOUBERT, PETRUS JACOBUS
JOUFFROY, JEAN
JOUFFROY, THEODORE SIMON
JOUGS, JUGGS
JOULE, JAMES PRESCOTT
JOURDAN, JEAN BAPTISTE, COUNT
JOURNAL
JOURNEY
JOUVENET, JEAN
JOUY, VICTOR JOSEPH ETIENNE DE
JOVELLANOS
JOVELLAR Y SOLER, JOAQUIN
JOVIAN
JOVINIANUS
JOVIUS, PAULUS
JOWETT, BENJAMIN
JOYEUSE
JOYEUSE ENTREE
JUAN FERNANDEZ ISLANDS
JUANGS
JUAN MANUEL, DON
JUAREZ, BENITO PABLO
JUBA
JUBA I
JUBA II
JUBA
JUBBULPORE
JUBE
JUBILEE
JUBILEES, BOOK OF
JUBILEE YEAR
JUCAR
JUD, LEO
JUDAEA
JUDAH
JUDAS ISCARIOT
JUDAS-TREE
JUDD, SYLVESTER
JUDE, THE GENERAL EPISTLE OF
JUDGE
JUDGE-ADVOCATE-GENERAL
JUDGES, THE BOOK OF
JUDGMENT
JUDGMENT DEBTOR
JUDGMENT SUMMONS
JUDICATURE ACTS
JUDITH, THE BOOK OF
JUDSON, ADONIRAM
JUEL, JENS
JUEL, NIELS
JUG
JUGE, BOFFILLE DE
JUGGERNAUT
JUGGLER
JUGURTHA
JUJU
JUJUBE
JUJUY
JUKES, JOSEPH BEETE
JULIAN
JULICH
JULICH
JULIEN, STANISLAS
JULIUS
JULIUS I
JULIUS II
JULIUS III
JULLIEN, LOUIS ANTOINE
JULLUNDUR
JULY
JUMALA
JUMIEGES
JUMILLA
JUMNA
JUMPING,[1]
JUMPING-HARE
JUMPING-MOUSE
JUMPING-SHREW
JUNAGARH
JUNCACEAE
JUNCTION CITY
JUNE
JUNEAU
JUNG, JOHANN HEINRICH
JUNG BAHADUR, SIR, MAHARAJAH
JUNG-BUNZLAU
JUNGFRAU
JUNGLE
JUNIN
JUNIPER
JUNIUS
JUNIUS, FRANZ
JUNK
JUNKER, WILHELM
JUNKET
JUNO
JUNOT, ANDOCHE, DUKE OF ABRABANTES
JUNOT, LAURE, DUCHESS OF ABRANTES
JUNTA
JUPITER
JUPITER
JUR
JURA
JURA
JURA
JURASSIC
JURAT
JURIEN DE LA GRAVIERE, JEAN BAPTISTE EDMOND
JURIEU, PIERRE
JURIS
JURISDICTION
JURISPRUDENCE
JURISPRUDENCE, COMPARATIVE
JURJANI
JURY
JUS PRIMAE NOCTIS
JUS RELICTAE
JUSSERAND, JEAN ADRIEN ANTOINE JULES
JUSSIEU, DE
JUSTICE
JUSTICE OF THE PEACE
JUSTICIAR
JUSTICIARY, HIGH COURT OF
JUSTIFICATION
JUSTIN I
JUSTIN II
JUSTIN
JUSTINIAN I
JUSTINIAN II
JUSTIN MARTYR
JUTE
JUTERBOG
JUTES
JUTIGALPA
JUTLAND
JUTURNA
JUVENAL
JUVENCUS, GAIUS VETTIUS AQUILINUS, CHRISTIAN
JUVENILE OFFENDERS
JUVENTAS
JUXON, WILLIAM
KA'BA, KAABA
KABARDIA
KABBA
KABBABISH
KABBALAH
KABINDA
KABIR
KABUL
KABUL RIVER
KABYLES
KACH GANDAVA
KACHIN HILLS
KADUR
KAEMPFER, ENGELBRECHT
KAFFA
KAFFIR BREAD
KAFFIRS
KAFFRARIA
KAFIRISTAN
KAGERA
KAHLUR
KAHN, GUSTAVE
KAHNIS, KARL FRIEDRICH AUGUST
K'AI-FENG FU
KAILAS
KAIN
KAIRA
KAIRAWAN
KAISERSLAUTERN
KAISERSWERTH
KAITHAL
KAKAPO
KAKAR
KALA-AZAR
KALABAGH
KALACH
KALAHANDI
KALAHARI DESERT
KALAMATA
KALAMAZOO
KALAPUYA
KALAT
KALAT-I-GHILZAI
KALB, JOHANN
KALCKREUTH
KALCKREUTH, LEOPOLD, COUNT VON
KALEIDOSCOPE
KALERGIS, DIMITRI
KALEWALA
KALGAN
KALGOORLIE
KALI
KALIDASA
KALIMPONG
KALINGA
KALINJAR
KALIR [QALIR], ELEAZER, HEBREW
KALISCH, ISIDOR
KALISCH, MARCUS
KALISPEL
KALISZ
KALISZ
KALK
KALKAS
KALKBRENNER, FRIEDRICH WILHELM
KALLAY, BENJAMIN VON
KALMAR
KALMUCK
KALNOKY, GUSTAV SIEGMUND, COUNT
KALOCSA
KALPI
KALUGA
KALUGA
KALYAN
KAMA
KAMALA
KAMCHATKA
KAME
KAMENETS PODOLSKIY
KAMENZ
KAMES, HENRY HOME, LORD
KAMMIN
KAMPEN
KAMPTEE
KAMRUP
KAMYSHIN
KANAKA
KANARA
KANARESE
KANARIS
KANAUJ
KANDAHAR
KANDI
KANDY
KANE, ELISHA KENT
KANE
KANGAROO
KANGAROO-RAT
KANGAVAR
KANGRA
KANISHKA
KANKAKEE
KANKER
KANO
KANSAS
KANSAS CITY
KANSAS CITY
KANSK
KAN-SUH
KANT, IMMANUEL
KANURI
KAOLIN
KAPUNDA
KAPURTHALA
KARACHI
KARAGEORGE
KARA-HISSAR
KARAISKAKIS, GEORGES
KARAJICH, VUK STEFANOVICH
KARA-KALPAKS
KARAKORUM
KARA-KUL
KARA-KUM
KARAMAN
KARAMANIA
KARAMNASA |
KARA MUSTAFA
KARAMZIN, NIKOLAI MIKHAILOVICH
KARA SEA
KARASU-BAZAR
KARATEGHIN
KARAULI
KAREN
KAREN-NI
KARIKAL
KARLI
KARLOWITZ
KARLSKRONA [CARLSCRONA,]
KARLSRUHE
KARLSTAD [CARLSTAD]
KARMA
KARMAN, JOZSEF
KARNAK
KARNAL
KAROLYI, ALOYS, COUNT
KAROSS
KARR, JEAN BAPTISTE ALPHONSE
KARRER, FELIX
KARROO
KARS
KARS
KARSHI
KARST
KARSTEN, KARL JOHANN BERNHARD
KARTIKEYA
KARUN
KARWAR
KARWI
KARYOGAMY
KASAI
KASBEK
KASHAN
KASHGAR
KASHI
KASHMIR
KASHMIRI
KASHUBES
KASIMOV
KASSA
KASSALA
KASSASSIN
KASSITES
KASTAMUNI
KASTORIA
KASUR
KATAGUM
KATANGA
KATER, HENRY
KATHA
KATHIAWAR
KATKOV, MICHAEL NIKIFOROVICH
KATMANDU
KATO, TAKA-AKIRA
KATRINE, LOCH
KATSENA
KATSURA, TARO, MARQUESS
KATTERFELTO
KATTOWITZ
KATWA
KATYDID
KAUFBEUREN
KAUFFMANN, [MARIA ANNA] ANGELICA
KAUFMANN, CONSTANTINE PETROVICH
KAUKAUNA
KAULBACH, WILHELM VON
KAUNITZ-RIETBURG, WENZEL ANTON, PRINCE VON
KAUP, JOHANN JAKOB
KAURI PINE
KAVA
KAVADH
KAVALA
KAVANAGH, ARTHUR MACMORROUGH
KAVANAGH, JULIA
KAVASS
KAVIRONDO
KAW
KAWARDHA
KAY, JOHN
KAY, JOSEPH
KAYAK
KAYASTH
KAYE, SIR JOHN WILLIAM
KAYSER, FRIEDRICH HEINRICH EMANUEL
KAY-SHUTTLEWORTH, SIR JAMES PHILLIPS, BART
KAZALA
KAZAN
KAZAN
KAZERUN
KAZINCZY, FERENCZ
KAZVIN
KEAN, EDMUND
KEANE, JOHN JOSEPH
KEARNEY
KEARNY, PHILIP
KEARNY
KEARY, ANNIE
KEATE, JOHN
KEATS, JOHN
KEBLE, JOHN
KECSKEMET
KEDDAH
KEDGEREE
KEEL
KEELEY, MARY ANNE
KEELING ISLANDS
KEEL-MOULDING
KEENE, CHARLES SAMUEL
KEENE, LAURA
KEENE
KEEP, ROBERT PORTER
KEEP
KEEWATIN
KEF
KEHL
KEIGHLEY
KEIM, KARL THEODOR
KEITH
GEORGE, 10
ROBERT KEITH
KEITH, FRANCIS EDWARD JAMES
KEITH, GEORGE
KEITH, GEORGE KEITH ELPHINSTONE, VISCOUNT
KEITH
KEJ
KEKULE, FRIEDRICH AUGUST
KELLER, ALBERT
KELLER, GOTTFRIED
KELLER, HELEN ADAMS
KELLERMANN, FRANCOIS CHRISTOPHE DE
KELLGREN, JOHAN HENRIK
KELLOGG, CLARA LOUISE
KELLS
KELLY, EDWARD
KELLY, SIR FITZROY
KELLY, HUGH
KELLY, MICHAEL
KELP
KELSO
KELVIN, WILLIAM THOMSON, BARON
KEMBLE
JOHN PHILIP KEMBLE
STEPHEN KEMBLE
CHARLES KEMBLE
ELIZABETH WHITLOCK
FRANCES ANNE KEMBLE
ADELAIDE KEMBLE
KEMBLE, JOHN MITCHELL
KEMENY, ZSIGMOND, BARON
KEMP, WILLIAM
KEMPE, JOHN
KEMPEN
KEMPENFELT, RICHARD
KEMPT, SIR JAMES
KEMPTEN
KEN, THOMAS
KEN
KENA
KENDAL, DUKEDOM OF
KENDAL, WILLIAM HUNTER
KENDAL
KENDALL, HENRY CLARENCE
KENEALY, EDWARD VAUGHAN HYDE
KENG TUNG
KENILWORTH
KENITES
KENMORE
KENMURE, WILLIAM GORDON, 6TH
KENNEDY
KENNEDY, BENJAMIN HALL
KENNEDY, THOMAS FRANCIS
KENNEDY, WALTER
KENNEL
KENNETH
KENNETH I
KENNETH II
KENNETT, WHITE
KENNEY, JAMES
KENNGOTT, GUSTAV ADOLPH
KENNICOTT, BENJAMIN
KENNINGTON
KENORA
KENOSHA
KENSETT, JOHN FREDERICK
KENSINGTON
KENT, EARLS AND DUKES OF
KENT, JAMES
KENT, WILLIAM
KENT
KENT
KENTIGERN, ST
KENTON
KENT'S CAVERN
KENTUCKY
KENYA
KENYON, LLOYD KENYON, 1ST BARON
KEOKUK
KEONJHAR
KEONTHAL
KEPLER, JOHANN
KEPPEL, AUGUSTUS KEPPEL, VISCOUNT
KEPPEL, SIR HENRY
KER, JOHN
KERAK
KERALA
KERASUND
KERATRY, AUGUSTE HILARION, COMTE DE
KERBELA
KERCH
KERCKHOVEN, JAN POLYANDER VAN DEN
KERGUELEN ISLAND, KERGUELEN'S LAND
KERGUELEN'S LAND CABBAGE
KERKUK
KERMADEC
KERMAN
KERMAN
KERMANSHAH
KERMANSHAH
KERMES
KERMESSE
KERN, JAN HENDRIK
KERNEL
KERNER, JUSTINUS ANDREAS CHRISTIAN
KERRY
KERSAINT, ARMAND GUY SIMON DE COETNEMPREN, COMTE DE
KERVYN DE LETTENHOVE, CONSTANTINE BRUNO, BARON,
KESHUB CHUNDER SEN
KESMARK
KESTREL
KESWICK
KESWICK CONVENTION
KET
KETCH, JOHN
KETCHUP
KETENES
KETI
KETONES
DIKETONES
KETTELER, WILHELM EMMANUEL, BARON VON
KETTERING
KETTLE, SIR RUPERT ALFRED
KEUPER
KEW
KEWANEE
KEY, SIR ASTLEY COOPER
KEY, THOMAS HEWITT
KEY
KEYBOARD
KEYSTONE
KEY WEST
KHABAROVSK
KHAIRAGARH
KHAIREDDIN
KHAIRPUR
KHAJRAHO
KHAKI
KHALIFA, THE
KHAMGAON
KHAMSEH
KHAMSIN
KHAMTIS
KHAN
KHANDESH, EAST
KHANDWA
KHANSA
KHAR
KHARAGHODA
KHARGA
KHARKOV
KHARKOV
KHARPUT
KHARSAWAN
KHARTUM
KHASI AND JAINTIA HILLS
KHASKOY
KHATTAK
KHAZARS
KHEDIVE
KHERI
KHERSON
KHERSON
KHEVENHULLER, LUDWIG ANDREAS
KHEVSURS
KHILCHIPUR
KHINGAN
KHIVA
KHIVA
KHNOPFF, FERNAND EDMOND JEAN MARIE
KHOI
KHOJENT
KHOKAND
KHOLM
KHONDS
KHORASAN
KHORREMABAD
KHORSABAD
KHOTAN
KHOTIN
KHULNA
KHUNSAR
KHURJA
KHYBER PASS
KIAKHTA
KIANG-SI
KIANG-SU
KIAOCHOW BAY
KICKAPOO
KIDD, JOHN
KIDD, THOMAS
KIDD, WILLIAM [CAPTAIN KIDD]
KIDDERMINSTER
KIDNAPPING
KIDNEY DISEASES
KIDWELLY
KIEF, KEF
KIEL
KIELCE
KIELCE
KIEPERT, HEINRICH
KIERKEGAARD, SOREN AABY
KIEV, KIEFF
KIEV
KILBARCHAN
KILBIRNIE
KILBRIDE, WEST
KILDARE
KILDARE
KILHAM, ALEXANDER
KILIA
KILIAN
KILIMANJARO
KILIN
KILKEE
KILKENNY
KILKENNY
KILKENNY, STATUTE OF
KILLALA
KILLALOE
KILLARNEY
KILLDEER
KILLIECRANKIE
KILLIGREW, SIR HENRY
KILLIGREW, THOMAS
KILLIN
KILLIS
KILLYBEGS
KILLYLEAGH
KILMAINE, CHARLES EDWARD
KILMALLOCK
KILMARNOCK
KILMAURS
KILN
KILPATRICK, NEW
KILPATRICK, OLD
KILRUSH
KILSYTH
KILT
KILWA
KILWARDBY, ROBERT
KILWINNING
KIMBERLEY, JOHN WODEHOUSE, 1ST EARL OF
KIMBERLEY
KIMERIDGIAN
KIMHI
DAVID KIMHI
KIN
KINCARDINESHIRE
KINCHINJUNGA
KIND
KINDERGARTEN
KINDI [ABU YUSUF YA'QUB IBN ISHAQ UL-KINDI
KINEMATICS
KINETICS
KING, CHARLES WILLIAM
KING, CLARENCE
KING, EDWARD
KING, EDWARD
KING, HENRY
KING, RUFUS
KING, THOMAS
KING, WILLIAM
KING, WILLIAM
KING [OF OCKHAM], PETER KING, 1ST BARON
KING
KING-BIRD
KING-CRAB
KINGFISHER
KINGHORN
KINGLAKE, ALEXANDER WILLIAM
KINGLET
KINGS, FIRST AND SECOND BOOKS OF
KING'S BENCH, COURT OF
KINGSBRIDGE
KING'S COUNTY
KINGSDOWN, THOMAS PEMBERTON LEIGH, BARON
KING'S EVIL
KINGSFORD, WILLIAM
KINGSLEY, CHARLES
KINGSLEY, HENRY
KINGSLEY, MARY HENRIETTA
KING'S LYNN
KING'S MOUNTAIN
KINGSTON, ELIZABETH, DUCHESS OF
KINGSTON, WILLIAM HENRY GILES
KINGSTON
KINGSTON
KINGSTON
KINGSTON
KINGSTON-ON-THAMES
KINGSTON-UPON-HULL, EARLS AND DUKES OF
ROBERT PIERREPONT
EVELYN PIERREPONT
KINGSTOWN
KING-TE CHEN
KINGUSSIE
KING WILLIAM'S TOWN
KINKAJOU
KINKEL, JOHANN GOTTFRIED
KINNING PARK
KINNOR
KINO
KINORHYNCHA
KINROSS-SHIRE
KINSALE
KINTORE
KIOTO
KIOWAS
KIPLING, RUDYARD
KIPPER
KIPPIS, ANDREW
KIRBY, WILLIAM
KIRCHER, ATHANASIUS
KIRCHHEIM-UNTER-TECK
KIRCHHOFF, GUSTAV ROBERT
KIRCHHOFF, JOHANN WILHELM ADOLF
KIRGHIZ
KIRIN
KIRK, SIR JOHN
KIRKBY, JOHN
KIRKCALDY
KIRKCALDY OF GRANGE, SIR WILLIAM
KIRKCUDBRIGHT
KIRKCUDBRIGHTSHIRE
KIRKE, PERCY
KIRKEE
KIRKINTILLOCH
KIRK-KILISSEH
KIRKSVILLE
KIRKWALL
KIRRIEMUIR
KIRSCH
KIR-SHEHER
KIRWAN, RICHARD
KISFALUDY, KAROLY [CHARLES]
SANDOR [ALEXANDER] KISFALUDY
KISH
KISHANGARH
KISHINEV
KISHM
KISKUNFELEGYHAZA
KISLOVODSK
KISMET
KISS
KISSAR
KISSINGEN
KISTNA
KISTNA
KIT
KITAZATO, SHIBASABURO
KIT-CAT CLUB
KITCHEN
KITCHENER, HORATIO HERBERT KITCHENER, VISCOUNT
KITE,[1]
KITE-FLYING
KIT-FOX
KITTO, JOHN
KITTUR
KITZINGEN
KIU-KIANG FU
KIUSTENDIL
KIVU
KIWI
KIZILBASHES
KIZIL IRMAK
KIZLYAR
KIZYL-KUM
KJERULF, HALFDAN
KJERULF, THEODOR
KLADNO
KLAFSKY, KATHARINA
KLAGENFURT
KLAJ
KLAMATH
KLAPKA, GEORG
KLAPROTH, HEINRICH JULIUS
KLAPROTH, MARTIN HEINRICH
KLEBER, JEAN BAPTISTE
KLEIN, JULIUS LEOPOLD
KLEIST, BERND HEINRICH WILHELM VON
KLEIST, EWALD CHRISTIAN VON
KLERKSDORP
KLESL
KLINGER, FRIEDRICH MAXIMILIAN VON
KLINGER, MAX
KLIPSPRINGER
KLONDIKE
KLOPP, ONNO
KLOPSTOCK, GOTTLIEB FRIEDRICH
KLOSTERNEUBURG
KLOTZ, REINHOLD
KNARESBOROUGH
KNAVE
KNEBEL, KARL LUDWIG VON
KNEE
KNELLER, SIR GODFREY
KNICKERBOCKER, HARMEN JANSEN
KNIFE
KNIGGE, ADOLF FRANZ FRIEDRICH, FREIHERR VON
KNIGHT, CHARLES
KNIGHT, DANIEL RIDGWAY
KNIGHT, JOHN BUXTON
THE ORDER OF THE GARTER
THE BATH
KNIGHT-SERVICE
KNIGHTS OF THE GOLDEN CIRCLE
KNIPPERDOLLINCK
KNITTING
KNOBKERRIE
KNOLLES, RICHARD
KNOLLES
KNOLLYS
KNOT
KNOT
KNOUT
KNOWLES, SIR JAMES
KNOWLES, JAMES SHERIDAN
KNOW NOTHING
KNOX, HENRY
KNOX, JOHN
KNOX, PHILANDER CHASE
KNOXVILLE
KNUCKLE
KNUCKLEBONES
KNUTSFORD
KOALA
KOBDO
KOBELL, WOLFGANG XAVER FRANZ, BARON VON
KOCH, ROBERT
KOCH
KOCK, CHARLES PAUL DE
KODAIKANAL
KODAMA, GENTARO, COUNT
KODUNGALUR
KOENIG, KARL DIETRICH EBERHARD
KOESFELD
KOHAT
KOHAT PASS
KOHISTAN
KOHL
KOHLHASE, HANS
KOKOMO
KOKO-NOR
KOKSHAROV, NIKOLAI IVANOVICH VON
KOKSTAD
KOLA
KOLABA
KOLAR
KOLBE, ADOLPHE WILHELM HERMANN
KOLBERG
KOLCSEY, FERENCZ
KOLDING
KOLGUEV, KOLGUEFF
KOLHAPUR
KOLIN
KOLIS
KOLLIKER, RUDOLPH ALBERT VON
KOLLONTAJ, HUGO
KOLOMEA
KOLOMNA
KOLOZSVAR
KOLPINO
KOLS
KOLYVAN
KOMAROM
KOMATI
KOMOTAU
KOMURA, JUTARO, COUNT
KONG
KONGSBERG
KONIA
KONIECPOLSKI, STANISLAUS
KONIG, KARL RUDOLPH
KONIGGRATZ
KONIGINHOF
KONIGSBERG
KONIGSBORN
KONIGSHUTTE
KONIGSLUTTER
KONIGSMARK, MARIA AURORA, COUNTESS OF
KONIGSMARK, PHILIPP CHRISTOPH, COUNT OF
KONIGSSEE
KONIGSTEIN
KONIGSWINTER
KONINCK, LAURENT GUILLAUME DE
KONINCK, PHILIP DE [DE
KONITZ
KONKAN
KONTAGORA
KOORINGA [BURRA]
KOPENICK
KOPISCH, AUGUST
KOPP, HERMANN FRANZ MORITZ
KOPRULU
KORA
KORAN
KORAT
KORDOFAN
KOREA
KOREA
KORESHAN ECCLESIA, THE
KORIN, OGATA
KORKUS
KORMOCZBANYA
KORNER, KARL THEODOR
KORNEUBURG
KOROCHA
KORSOR
KORTCHA
KORYAKS
KOSCIUSCO
KOSCIUSZKO, TADEUSZ ANDRZEJ BONAWENTURA
KOSEN
KOSHER
KOSLIN
KOSSOVO
KOSSUTH, FERENCZ LAJOS AKOS
KOSSUTH, LAJOS [L
KOSTER
KOSTROMA
KOSTROMA
KOSZEG
KOTAH
KOTAS
KOTKA
KOTRI
KOTZEBUE, AUGUST FRIEDRICH FERDINAND VON
KOTZEBUE, OTTO VON
KOUMISS
KOUMOUNDOUROS, ALEXANDROS
KOUSSO
KOVALEVSKY, SOPHIE
KOVNO
KOVNO
KOVROV
KOWTOW
KOZLOV
KRAAL
KRAFFT
KRAGUYEVATS
KRAKATOA
KRAKEN
KRALYEVO
KRANTZ
KRASNOVODSK
KRASNOYARSK
KRASZEWSKI, JOSEPH IGNATIUS
KRAUSE, KARL CHRISTIAN FRIEDRICH
KRAWANG
KRAY VON KRAJOVA, PAUL, FREIHERR
KREMENCHUG
KREMENETS
KREMS
KREMSIER,
KREUTZER, KONRADIN
KREUTZER, RUDOLPH
KREUZBURG
KREUZNACH
KRIEGSPIEL
KRIEMHILD
KRILOFF
KRISHNA
KRISHNAGAR
KRISTIANSTAD
KRIVOY ROG
KROCHMAL, NAHMAN
KRONENBERG
KROONSTAD
KROPOTKIN, PETER ALEXEIVICH, PRINCE
KROTOSCHIN
KRUDENER, BARBARA JULIANA, BARONESS VON
KRUG, WILHELM TRAUGOTT
KRUGER, STEPHANUS JOHANNES PAULUS
KRUGERSDORP
KRUMAU
KRUMBACHER, CARL
KRUMEN
KRUMMACHER, FRIEDRICH ADOLF
FRIEDRICH WILHELM KRUMMACHER
EMIL WILHELM KRUMMACHER
KRUPP, ALFRED
KRUSENSTERN, ADAM IVAN
KRUSHEVATS
KSHATTRIYA
KUBAN
KUBAN
KUBELIK, JAN
KUBERA
KUBLAI KHAN
KUBUS
KUCHAN
KUCHAN
KUCH BEHAR
KUDU
KUENEN, ABRAHAM
KUEN-LUN
KUFA
KUHN, FRANZ FELIX ADALBERT
KUHNE, WILLY
KUKA
KU KLUX KLAN
KUKU KHOTO
KULJA
KULM
KULMBACH
KULMSEE
KULP
KULU
KUM
KUM
KUMAIT IBN ZAID
KUMAON
KUMASI
KUMISHAH
KUMQUAT
KUMTA
KUMYKS
KUNAR
KUNBIS
KUNDT, AUGUST ADOLPH EDUARD EBERHARD
KUNDUZ
KUNENE
KUNERSDORF
KUNGRAD
KUNGUR
KUNKEL
KUNLONG
KUNZITE
KUOPIO
KUOPIO
KUPRILI
KURAKIN, BORIS IVANOVICH, PRINCE
KURBASH
KURDISTAN
KURDISTAN
KURGAN
KURIA MURIA ISLANDS
KURILES
KURISCHES HAFF
KURNOOL
KUROKI, ITEI, COUNT
KUROPATKIN, ALEXEI NIKOLAIEVICH
KURO SIWO
KURRAM
KURSEONG
KURSK
KURSK
KURTZ, JOHANN HEINRICH
KURUMAN
KURUNEGALA
KURUNTWAD
KURZ, HERMANN
KUSAN
KUSHALGARH
KUSHK
KUSTANAISK
KUSTENLAND
KUTAIAH, KUTAYA
KUTAIS
KUTAIS
KUT-EL-AMARA
KUTENAI
KUTTALAM
KUTTENBERG
KUWET
KUZNETSK
KVASS
KWAKIUTL
KWANGCHOW BAY
KWANG-SI
KWANG-TUNG
KWANZA
KWEI-CHOW
KYAUKPYU
KYAUKSE
KYD, THOMAS
KYFFHAUSER
KYNASTON, EDWARD
KYNETON
KYOSAI, SHO-FU
KYRIE
KYRLE, JOHN
KYSHTYM
|
Articles
ITALY (_Italia_), the name[1] applied both in ancient and in modern
times to the great peninsula that projects from the mass of central
Europe far to the south into the Mediterranean Sea, where the island of
Sicily may be considered as a continuation of the continental
promontory. The portion of the Mediterranean commonly termed the
Tyrrhenian Sea forms its limit on the W. and S., and the Adriatic on the
E.; while to the N., where it joins the main continent of Europe, it is
separated from the adjacent regions by the mighty barrier of the Alps,
which sweeps round in a vast semicircle from the head of the Adriatic to
the shores of Nice and Monaco.
Boundaries.
_Topography._--The land thus circumscribed extends between the parallels
of 46 deg. 40' and 36 deg. 38' N., and between 6 deg. 30' and 18 deg.
30' E. Its greatest length in a straight line along the mainland is from
N.W. to S.E., in which direction it measures 708 m. in a direct line
from the frontier near Courmayeur to Cape Sta Maria di Leuca, south of
Otranto, but the great mountain peninsula of Calabria extends about two
degrees farther south to Cape Spartivento in lat. 37 deg. 55'. Its
breadth is, owing to its configuration, very irregular. The northern
portion, measured from the Alps at the Monte Viso to the mouth of the
Po, has a breadth of about 270 m., while the maximum breadth, from the
Rocca Chiardonnet near Susa to a peak in the valley of the Isonzo, is
354 m. But the peninsula of Italy, which forms the largest portion of
the country, nowhere exceeds 150 m. in breadth, while it does not
generally measure more than 100 m. across. Its southern extremity,
Calabria, forms a complete peninsula, being united to the mass of
Lucania or the Basilicata by an isthmus only 35 m. in width, while that
between the gulfs of Sta Eufemia and Squillace, which connects the two
portions of the province, does not exceed 20 m. The area of the kingdom
of Italy, exclusive of the large islands, is computed at 91,277 sq. m.
Though the Alps form throughout the northern boundary of Italy, the
exact limits at the extremities of the Alpine chain are not clearly
marked. Ancient geographers appear to have generally regarded the
remarkable headland which descends from the Maritime Alps to the sea
between Nice and Monaco as the limit of Italy in that direction, and in
a purely geographical point of view it is probably the best point that
could be selected. But Augustus, who was the first to give to Italy a
definite political organization, carried the frontier to the river Varus
or Var, a few miles west of Nice, and this river continued in modern
times to be generally recognized as the boundary between France and
Italy. But in 1860 the annexation of Nice and the adjoining territory to
France brought the political frontier farther east, to a point between
Mentone and Ventimiglia which constitutes no natural limit.
Towards the north-east, the point where the Julian Alps approach close
to the seashore (just at the sources of the little stream known in
ancient times as the Timavus) would seem to constitute the best natural
limit. But by Augustus the frontier was carried farther east so as to
include Tergeste (Trieste), and the little river Formio (Risano) was in
the first instance chosen as the limit, but this was subsequently
transferred to the river Arsia (the Arsa), which flows into the Gulf of
Quarnero, so as to include almost all Istria; and the circumstance that
the coast of Istria was throughout the middle ages held by the republic
of Venice tended to perpetuate this arrangement, so that Istria was
generally regarded as belonging to Italy, though certainly not forming
any natural portion of that country. Present Italian aspirations are
similarly directed.
The only other part of the northern frontier of Italy where the boundary
is not clearly marked by nature is Tirol or the valley of the Adige.
Here the main chain of the Alps (as marked by the watershed) recedes so
far to the north that it has never constituted the frontier. In ancient
times the upper valleys of the Adige and its tributaries were inhabited
by Raetian tribes and included in the province of Raetia; and the line
of demarcation between that province and Italy was purely arbitrary, as
it remains to this day. Tridentum or Trent was in the time of Pliny
included in the tenth region of Italy or Venetia, but he tells us that
the inhabitants were a Raetian tribe. At the present day the frontier
between Austria and the kingdom of Italy crosses the Adige about 30 m.
below Trent--that city and its territory, which previous to the treaty
of Luneville in 1801 was governed by sovereign archbishops, subject only
to the German emperors, being now included in the Austrian empire.
While the Alps thus constitute the northern boundary of Italy, its
configuration and internal geography are determined almost entirely by
the great chain of the Apennines, which branches off from the Maritime
Alps between Nice and Genoa, and, after stretching in an unbroken line
from the Gulf of Genoa to the Adriatic, turns more to the south, and is
continued throughout Central and Southern Italy, of which it forms as
it were the backbone, until it ends in the southernmost extremity of
Calabria at Cape Spartivento. The great spur or promontory projecting
towards the east to Brindisi and Otranto has no direct connexion with
the central chain.
One chief result of the manner in which the Apennines traverse Italy
from the Mediterranean to the Adriatic is the marked division between
Northern Italy, including the region north of the Apennines and
extending thence to the foot of the Alps, and the central and more
southerly portions of the peninsula. No such line of separation exists
farther south, and the terms Central and Southern Italy, though in
general use among geographers and convenient for descriptive purposes,
do not correspond to any natural divisions.
1. _Northern Italy._--By far the larger portion of Northern Italy is
occupied by the basin of the Po, which comprises the whole of the
broad plain extending from the foot of the Apennines to that of the
Alps, together with the valleys and slopes on both sides of it. From
its source in Monte Viso to its outflow into the Adriatic--a distance
of more than 220 m. in a direct line--the Po receives all the waters
that flow from the Apennines northwards, and all those that descend
from the Alps towards the south, Mincio (the outlet of the Lake of
Garda) inclusive. The next river to the E. is the Adige, which, after
pursuing a parallel course with the Po for a considerable distance,
enters the Adriatic by a separate mouth. Farther to the N. and N.E.
the various rivers of Venetia fall directly into the Gulf of Venice.
There is no other instance in Europe of a basin of similar extent
equally clearly characterized--the perfectly level character of the
plain being as striking as the boldness with which the lower slopes of
the mountain ranges begin to rise on each side of it. This is most
clearly marked on the side of the Apennines, where the great Aemilian
Way, which has been the high road from the time of the Romans to our
own, preserves an unbroken straight line from Rimini to Piacenza, a
distance of more than 150 m., during which the underfalls of the
mountains continually approach it on the left, without once crossing
the line of road.
The geography of Northern Italy will be best described by following
the course of the Po. That river has its origin as a mountain torrent
descending from two little dark lakes on the north flank of Monte
Viso, at a height of more than 6000 ft. above the sea; and after a
course of less than 20 m. it enters the plain at Saluzzo, between
which and Turin, a distance of only 30 m., it receives three
considerable tributaries--the Chisone on its left bank, bringing down
the waters from the valley of Fenestrelle, and the Varaita and Maira
on the south, contributing those of two valleys of the Alps
immediately south of that of the Po itself. A few miles below Valenza
it is joined by the Tanaro, a large stream, which brings with it the
united waters of the Stura, the Bormida and several minor rivers.
More important are the rivers that descend from the main chain of the
Graian and Pennine Alps and join the Po on its left bank. Of these the
Dora (called for distinction's sake Dora Riparia), which unites with
the greater river just below Turin, has its source in the Mont
Genevre, and flows past Susa at the foot of the Mont Cenis. Next comes
the Stura, which rises in the glaciers of the Roche Melon; then the
Orca, flowing through the Val di Locana; and then the Dora Baltea, one
of the greatest of all the Alpine tributaries of the Po, which has its
source in the glaciers of Mont Blanc, above Courmayeur, and thence
descends through the Val d'Aosta for about 70 m. till it enters the
plain at Ivrea, and, after flowing about 20 m. more, joins the Po a
few miles below Chivasso. This great valley--one of the most
considerable on the southern side of the Alps--has attracted special
attention, in ancient as well as modern times, from its leading to two
of the most frequented passes across the great mountain chain--the
Great and the Little St Bernard--the former diverging at Aosta, and
crossing the main ridges to the north into the valley of the Rhone,
the other following a more westerly direction into Savoy. Below Aosta
also the Dora Baltea receives several considerable tributaries, which
descend from the glaciers between Mont Blanc and Monte Rosa.
About 25 m. below its confluence with the Dora, the Po receives the
Sesia, also a large river, which has its source above Alagna at the
southern foot of Monte Rosa, and after flowing by Varallo and Vercelli
falls into the Po about 14 m. below the latter city. About 30 m. east
of this confluence--in the course of which the Po makes a great bend
south to Valenza, and then returns again to the northward--it is
joined by the Ticino, a large and rapid river, which brings with it
the outflow of Lago Maggiore and all the waters that flow into it. Of
these the Ticino itself has its source about 10 m. above Airolo at the
foot of the St Gotthard, and after flowing above 36 m. through the Val
Leventina to Bellinzona (where it is joined by the Moesa bringing down
the waters of the Val Misocco) enters the lake through a marshy plain
at Magadino, about 10 m. distant. On the west side of the lake the
Toccia or Tosa descends from the pass of the Gries nearly due south to
Domodossola, where it receives the waters of the Doveria from the
Simplon, and a few miles lower down those of the Val d'Anzasca from
the foot of Monte Rosa, and 12 m. farther has its outlet into the
lake between Baveno and Pallanza. The Lago Maggiore is also the
receptacle of the waters of the Lago di Lugano on the east and the
Lago d'Orta on the west.
The next great affluent of the Po, the Adda, forms the outflow of the
Lake of Como, and has also its sources in the Alps, above Bormio,
whence it flows through the broad and fertile valley of the Valtellina
for more than 65 m. till it enters the lake near Colico. The Adda in
this part of its course has a direction almost due east to west; but
at the point where it reaches the lake, the Liro descends the valley
of S. Giacomo, which runs nearly north and south from the pass of the
Splugen, thus affording one of the most direct lines of communication
across the Alps. The Adda flows out of the lake at its south-eastern
extremity at Lecco, and has thence a course through the plain of above
70 m. till it enters the Po between Piacenza and Cremona. It flows by
Lodi and Pizzighettone, and receives the waters of the Brembo,
descending from the Val Brembana, and the Serio from the Val Seriana
above Bergamo. The Oglio, a more considerable stream than either of
the last two, rises in the Monte Tonale above Edolo, and descends
through the Val Camonica to Lovere, where it expands into a large
lake, called Iseo from the town of that name on its southern shore.
Issuing thence at its south-west extremity, the Oglio has a long and
winding course through the plain before it finally reaches the Po a
few miles above Borgoforte. In this lower part it receives the smaller
streams of the Mella, which flows by Brescia, and the Chiese, which
proceeds from the small Lago d'Idro, between the Lago d'Iseo and that
of Garda.
The last of the great tributaries of the Po is the Mincio, which flows
from the Lago di Garda, and has a course of about 40 m. from
Peschiera, where it issues from the lake at its south-eastern angle,
till it joins the Po. About 12 m. above the confluence it passes under
the walls of Mantua, and expands into a broad lake-like reach so as
entirely to encircle that city. Notwithstanding its extent, the Lago
di Garda is not fed by the snows of the high Alps, nor is the stream
which enters it at its northern extremity (at Riva) commonly known as
the Mincio, though forming the main source of that river, but is
termed the Sarca; it rises at the foot of Monte Tonale.
The Adige, formed by the junction of two streams--the Etsch or Adige
proper and the Eisak, both of which belong to Tirol rather than to
Italy--descends as far as Verona, where it enters the great plain,
with a course from north to south nearly parallel to the rivers last
described, and would seem likely to discharge its waters into those of
the Po, but below Legnago it turns eastward and runs parallel to the
Po for about 40 m., entering the Adriatic by an independent mouth
about 8 m. from the northern outlet of the greater stream. The waters
of the two rivers have, however, been made to communicate by
artificial cuts and canals in more than one place.
The Po itself, which is here a very large stream, with an average
width of 400 to 600 yds., continues to flow with an undivided mass of
waters as far as Sta Maria di Ariano, where it parts into two arms,
known as the Po di Maestra and Po di Goro, and these again are
subdivided into several other branches, forming a delta above 20 m. in
width from north to south. The point of bifurcation, at present about
25 m. from the sea, was formerly much farther inland, more than 10 m.
west of Ferrara, where a small arm of the river, still called the Po
di Ferrara, branches from the main stream. Previous to the year 1154
this channel was the main stream, and the two small branches into
which it subdivides, called the Po di Volano and Po di Primaro, were
in early times the two main outlets of the river. The southernmost of
these, the Po di Primaro, enters the Adriatic about 12 m. north of
Ravenna, so that if these two arms be included, the delta of the Po
extends about 36 m. from south to north. The whole course of the
river, including its windings, is estimated at about 450 m.
Besides the delta of the Po and the large marshy tracts which it
forms, there exist on both sides of it extensive lagoons of salt
water, generally separated from the Adriatic by narrow strips of sand
or embankments, partly natural and partly artificial, but having
openings which admit the influx and efflux of the sea-water, and serve
as ports for communication with the mainland. The best known and the
most extensive of these lagoons is that in which Venice is situated,
which extends from Torcello in the north to Chioggia and Brondolo in
the south, a distance of above 40 m.; but they were formerly much more
extensive, and afforded a continuous means of internal navigation, by
what were called "the Seven Seas" (Septem Maria), from Ravenna to
Altinum, a few miles north of Torcello. That city, like Ravenna,
originally stood in the midst of a lagoon; and the coast east of it to
near Monfalcone, where it meets the mountains, is occupied by similar
expanses of water, which are, however, becoming gradually converted
into dry land.
The tract adjoining this long line of lagoons is, like the basin of
the Po, a broad expanse of perfectly level alluvial plain, extending
from the Adige eastwards to the Carnic Alps, where they approach close
to the Adriatic between Aquileia and Trieste, and northwards to the
foot of the great chain, which here sweeps round in a semicircle from
the neighbourhood of Vicenza to that of Aquileia. The space thus
included was known in ancient times as Venetia, a name applied in the
middle ages to the well-known city; the eastern portion of it became
known in the middle ages as the Frioul or Friuli.
Returning to the south of the Po, the tributaries of that river on its
right bank below the Tanaro are very inferior in volume and importance
to those from the north. Flowing from the Ligurian Apennines, which
never attain the limit of perpetual snow, they generally dwindle in
summer into insignificant streams. Beginning from the Tanaro, the
principal of them are--(1) the Scrivia, a small but rapid stream
flowing from the Apennines at the back of Genoa; (2) the Trebbia, a
much larger river, though of the same torrent-like character, which
rises near Torriglia within 20 m. of Genoa, flows by Bobbio, and joins
the Po a few miles above Piacenza; (3) the Nure, a few miles east of
the preceding; (4) the Taro, a more considerable stream; (5) the
Parma, flowing by the city of the same name; (6) the Enza; (7) the
Secchia, which flows by Modena; (8) the Panaro, a few miles to the
east of that city; (9) the Reno, which flows by Bologna, but instead
of holding its course till it discharges its waters into the Po, as it
did in Roman times, is turned aside by an artificial channel into the
Po di Primaro. The other small streams east of this--of which the most
considerable are the Solaro, the Santerno, flowing by Imola, the
Lamone by Faenza, the Montone by Forli, all in Roman times tributaries
of the Po--have their outlet in like manner into the Po di Primaro, or
by artificial mouths into the Adriatic between Ravenna and Rimini. The
river Marecchia, which enters the sea immediately north of Rimini, may
be considered as the natural limit of Northern Italy. It was adopted
by Augustus as the boundary of Gallia Cispadana; the far-famed Rubicon
was a trifling stream a few miles farther north, now called Fiumicino.
The Savio is the only other stream of any importance which has always
flowed directly into the Adriatic from this side of the Tuscan
Apennines.
The narrow strip of coast-land between the Maritime Alps, the
Apennines and the sea--called in ancient times Liguria, and now known
as the Riviera of Genoa--is throughout its extent, from Nice to Genoa
on the one side, and from Genoa to Spezia on the other, almost wholly
mountainous. It is occupied by the branches and offshoots of the
mountain ranges which separate it from the great plain to the north,
and send down their lateral ridges close to the water's edge, leaving
only in places a few square miles of level plains at the mouths of the
rivers and openings of the valleys. The district is by no means devoid
of fertility, the steep slopes facing the south enjoying so fine a
climate as to render them very favourable for the | growth of fruit
trees, especially the olive, which is cultivated in terraces to a
considerable height up the face of the mountains, while the openings
of the valleys are generally occupied by towns or villages, some of
which have become favourite winter resorts.
From the proximity of the mountains to the sea none of the rivers in
this part of Italy has a long course, and they are generally mere
mountain torrents, rapid and swollen in winter and spring, and almost
dry in summer. The largest and most important are those which descend
from the Maritime Alps between Nice and Albenga. The most considerable
of them are--the Roja, which rises in the Col di Tenda and descends to
Ventimiglia; the Taggia, between San Remo and Oneglia; and the Centa,
which enters the sea at Albenga. The Lavagna, which enters the sea at
Chiavari, is the only stream of any importance between Genoa and the
Gulf of Spezia. But immediately east of that inlet (a remarkable
instance of a deep landlocked gulf with no river flowing into it) the
Magra, which descends from Pontremoli down the valley known as the
Lunigiana, is a large stream, and brings with it the waters of another
considerable stream, the Vara. The Magra (Macra), in ancient times the
boundary between Liguria and Etruria, may be considered as
constituting on this side the limit of Northern Italy.
The Apennines (q.v.), as has been already mentioned, here traverse the
whole breadth of Italy, cutting off the peninsula properly so termed
from the broader mass of Northern Italy by a continuous barrier of
considerable breadth, though of far inferior elevation to that of the
Alps. The Ligurian Apennines may be considered as taking their rise in
the neighbourhood of Savona, where a pass of very moderate elevation
connects them with the Maritime Alps, of which they are in fact only a
continuation. From the neighbourhood of Savona to that of Genoa they
do not rise to more than 3000 to 4000 ft., and are traversed by passes
of less than 2000 ft. As they extend towards the east they increase in
elevation; the Monte Bue rises to 5915 ft., while the Monte Cimone, a
little farther east, attains 7103 ft. This is the highest point in the
northern Apennines, and belongs to a group of summits of nearly equal
altitude; the range which is continued thence between Tuscany and what
are now known as the Emilian provinces presents a continuous ridge
from the mountains at the head of the Val di Mugello (due north of
Florence) to the point where they are traversed by the celebrated
Furlo Pass. The highest point in this part of the range is the Monte
Falterona, above the sources of the Arno, which attains 5410 ft.
Throughout this tract the Apennines are generally covered with
extensive forests of chestnut, oak and beech; while their upper slopes
afford admirable pasturage. Few towns of any importance are found
either on their northern or southern declivity, and the former region
especially, though occupying a tract of from 30 to 40 m. in width,
between the crest of the Apennines and the plain of the Po, is one of
the least known and at the same time least interesting portions of
Italy.
2. _Central Italy._--The geography of Central Italy is almost wholly
determined by the Apennines, which traverse it in a direction from
about north-north-east to south-south-west, almost precisely parallel
to that of the coast of the Adriatic from Rimini to Pescara. The line
of the highest summits and of the watershed ranges is about 30 to 40
m. from the Adriatic, while about double that distance separates it
from the Tyrrhenian Sea on the west. In this part of the range almost
all the highest points of the Apennines are found. Beginning from the
group called the Alpi della Luna near the sources of the Tiber, which
attain 4435 ft., they are continued by the Monte Nerone (5010 ft.),
Monte Catria (5590), and Monte Maggio to the Monte Pennino near Nocera
(5169 ft.), and thence to the Monte della Sibilla, at the source of
the Nar or Nera, which attains 7663 ft. Proceeding thence southwards,
we find in succession the Monte Vettore (8128 ft.), the Pizzo di Sevo
(7945 ft.), and the two great mountain masses of the Monte Corno,
commonly called the Gran Sasso d'Italia, the most lofty of all the
Apennines, attaining to a height of 9560 ft., and the Monte della
Maiella, its highest summit measuring 9170 ft. Farther south no very
lofty summits are found till we come to the group of Monti del Matese,
in Samnium (6660 ft.), which according to the division here adopted
belongs to Southern Italy. Besides the lofty central masses enumerated
there are two other lofty peaks, outliers from the main range, and
separated from it by valleys of considerable extent. These are the
Monte Terminillo, near Leonessa (7278 ft.), and the Monte Velino near
the Lake Fucino, rising to 8192 ft., both of which are covered with
snow from November till May. But the Apennines of Central Italy,
instead of presenting, like the Alps and the northern Apennines, a
definite central ridge, with transverse valleys leading down from it
on both sides, in reality constitute a mountain mass of very
considerable breadth, composed of a number of minor ranges and groups
of mountains, which preserve a generally parallel direction, and are
separated by upland valleys, some of them of considerable extent as
well as considerable elevation above the sea. Such is the basin of
Lake Fucino, situated in the centre of the mass, almost exactly midway
between the two seas, at an elevation of 2180 ft. above them; while
the upper valley of the Aterno, in which Aquila is situated, is 2380
ft. above the sea. Still more elevated is the valley of the Gizio (a
tributary of the Aterno), of which Sulmona is the chief town. This
communicates with the upper valley of the Sangro by a level plain
called the Piano di Cinque Miglia, at an elevation of 4298 ft.,
regarded as the most wintry spot in Italy. Nor do the highest summits
form a continuous ridge of great altitude for any considerable
distance; they are rather a series of groups separated by tracts of
very inferior elevation forming natural passes across the range, and
broken in some places (as is the case in almost all limestone
countries) by the waters from the upland valleys turning suddenly at
right angles, and breaking through the mountain ranges which bound
them. Thus the Gran Sasso and the Maiella are separated by the deep
valley of the Aterno, while the Tronto breaks through the range
between Monte Vettore and the Pizzo di Sevo. This constitution of the
great mass of the central Apennines has in all ages exercised an
important influence upon the character of this portion of Italy, which
may be considered as divided by nature into two great regions, a cold
and barren upland country, bordered on both sides by rich and fertile
tracts, enjoying a warm but temperate climate.
The district west of the Apennines, a region of great beauty and
fertility, though inferior in productiveness to Northern Italy,
coincides in a general way with the countries familiar to all students
of ancient history as Etruria and Latium. Until the union of Italy
they were comprised in Tuscany and the southern Papal States. The
northern part of Tuscany is indeed occupied to a considerable extent
by the underfalls and offshoots of the Apennines, which, besides the
slopes and spurs of the main range that constitutes its northern
frontier towards the plain of the Po, throw off several outlying
ranges or groups. Of these the most remarkable is the group between
the valleys of the Serchio and the Magra, commonly known as the
mountains of Carrara, from the celebrated marble quarries in the
vicinity of that city. Two of the summits of this group, the Pizzo
d'Uccello and the Pania della Croce, attain 6155 and 6100 ft. Another
lateral range, the Prato Magno, which branches off from the central
chain at the Monte Falterona, and separates the upper valley of the
Arno from its second basin, rises to 5188 ft.; while a similar branch,
called the Alpe di Catenaja, of inferior elevation, divides the upper
course of the Arno from that of the Tiber.
The rest of this tract is for the most part a hilly, broken country,
of moderate elevation, but Monte Amiata, near Radicofani, an isolated
mass of volcanic origin, attains a height of 5650 ft. South of this
the country between the frontier of Tuscany and the Tiber is in great
part of volcanic origin, forming hills with distinct crater-shaped
basins, in several instances occupied by small lakes (the Lake of
Bolsena, Lake of Vico and Lake of Bracciano). This volcanic tract
extends across the Campagna of Rome, till it rises again in the lofty
group of the Alban hills, the highest summit of which, the Monte Cavo,
is 3160 ft. above the sea. In this part the Apennines are separated
from the sea, distant about 30 m. by the undulating volcanic plain of
the Roman Campagna, from which the mountains rise in a wall-like
barrier, of which the highest point, the Monte Gennaro, attains 4165
ft. South of Palestrina again, the main mass of the Apennines throws
off another lateral mass, known in ancient times as the Volscian
mountains (now called the Monti Lepini), separated from the central
ranges by the broad valley of the Sacco, a tributary of the Liri
(Liris) or Garigliano, and forming a large and rugged mountain mass,
nearly 5000 ft. in height, which descends to the sea at Terracina, and
between that point and the mouth of the Liri throws out several
rugged mountain headlands, which may be considered as constituting the
natural boundary between Latium and Campania, and consequently the
natural limit of Central Italy. Besides these offshoots of the
Apennines there are in this part of Central Italy several detached
mountains, rising almost like islands on the seashore, of which the
two most remarkable are the Monte Argentaro on the coast of Tuscany
near Orbetello (2087 ft.) and the Monte Circello (1771 ft.) at the
angle of the Pontine Marshes, by the whole breadth of which it is
separated from the Volscian Apennines.
The two valleys of the Arno and the Tiber (Ital. _Tevere_) may be
considered as furnishing the key to the geography of all this portion
of Italy west of the Apennines. The Arno, which has its source in the
Monte Falterona, one of the most elevated summits of the main chain of
the Tuscan Apennines, flows nearly south till in the neighbourhood of
Arezzo it turns abruptly north-west, and pursues that course as far as
Pontassieve, where it again makes a sudden bend to the west, and
pursues a westerly course thence to the sea, passing through Florence
and Pisa. Its principal tributary is the Sieve, which joins it at
Pontassieve, bringing down the waters of the Val di Mugello. The Elsa
and the Era, which join it on its left bank, descending from the hills
near Siena and Volterra, are inconsiderable streams; and the Serchio,
which flows from the territory of Lucca and the Alpi Apuani, and
formerly joined the Arno a few miles from its mouth, now enters the
sea by a separate channel. The most considerable rivers of Tuscany
south of the Arno are the Cecina, which flows through the plain below
Volterra, and the Ombrone, which rises in the hills near Siena, and
enters the sea about 12 m. below Grosseto.
The Tiber, a much more important river than the Arno, and the largest
in Italy with the exception of the Po, rises in the Apennines, about
20 m. east of the source of the Arno, and flows nearly south by Borgo
S. Sepolcro and Citta di Castello, then between Perugia and Todi to
Orte, just below which it receives the Nera. The Nera, which rises in
the lofty group of the Monte della Sibilla, is a considerable stream,
and brings with it the waters of the Velino (with its tributaries the
Turano and the Salto), which joins it a few miles below its celebrated
waterfall at Terni. The Teverone or Anio, which enters the Tiber a few
miles above Rome, is an inferior stream to the Nera, but brings down a
considerable body of water from the mountains above Subiaco. It is a
singular fact in the geography of Central Italy that the valleys of
the Tiber and Arno are in some measure connected by that of the
Chiana, a level and marshy tract, the waters from which flow partly
into the Arno and partly into the Tiber.
The eastern declivity of the central Apennines towards the Adriatic is
far less interesting and varied than the western. The central range
here approaches much nearer to the sea, and hence, with few
exceptions, the rivers that flow from it have short courses and are of
comparatively little importance. They may be enumerated, proceeding
from Rimini southwards: (1) the Foglia; (2) the Metauro, of historical
celebrity, and affording access to one of the most frequented passes
of the Apennines; (3) the Esino; (4) the Potenza; (5) the Chienti; (6)
the Aso; (7) the Tronto; (8) the Vomano; (9) the Aterno; (10) the
Sangro; (11) the Trigno, which forms the boundary of the southernmost
province of the Abruzzi, and may therefore be taken as the limit of
Central Italy.
The whole of this portion of Central Italy is a hilly country, much
broken and cut up by the torrents from the mountains, but fertile,
especially in fruit-trees, olives and vines; and it has been, both in
ancient and modern times, a populous district, containing many small
towns though no great cities. Its chief disadvantage is the absence of
ports, the coast preserving an almost unbroken straight line, with the
single exception of Ancona, the only port worthy of the name on the
eastern coast of Central Italy.
3. _Southern Italy._--The great central mass of the Apennines, which
has held its course throughout Central Italy, with a general direction
from north-west to south-east, may be considered as continued in the
same direction for about 100 m. farther, from the basin-shaped group
of the Monti del Matese (which rises to 6660 ft.) to the neighbourhood
of Potenza, in the heart of the province of Basilicata, corresponding
nearly to the ancient Lucania. The whole of the district known in
ancient times as Samnium (a part of which retains the name of Sannio,
though officially designated the province of Campobasso) is occupied
by an irregular mass of mountains, of much inferior height to those of
Central Italy, and broken up into a number of groups, intersected by
rivers, which have for the most part a very tortuous course. This
mountainous tract, which has an average breadth of from 50 to 60 m.,
is bounded west by the plain of Campania, now called the Terra di
Lavoro, and east by the much broader and more extensive tract of
Apulia or Puglia, composed partly of level plains, but for the most
part of undulating downs, contrasting strongly with the mountain
ranges of the Apennines, which rise abruptly above them. The central
mass of the mountains, however, throws out two outlying ranges, the
one to the west, which separates the Bay of Naples from that of
Salerno, and culminates in the Monte S. Angelo above Castellammare
(4720 ft.), while the detached volcanic cone of Vesuvius (nearly 4000
ft.) is isolated from the neighbouring mountains by an intervening
strip of plain. On the east side in like manner the Monte Gargano
(3465 ft.), a detached limestone mass which projects in a bold
spur-like promontory into the Adriatic, forming the only break in the
otherwise uniform coast-line of Italy on that sea, though separated
from the great body of the Apennines by a considerable interval of low
country, may be considered as merely an outlier from the central mass.
From the neighbourhood of Potenza, the main ridge of the Apennines is
continued by the Monti della Maddalena in a direction nearly due
south, so that it approaches within a short distance of the Gulf of
Policastro, whence it is carried on as far as the Monte Pollino, the
last of the lofty summits of the Apennine chain, which exceeds 7000
ft. in height. The range is, however, continued through the province
now called Calabria, to the southern extremity or "toe" of Italy, but
presents in this part a very much altered character, the broken
limestone range which is the true continuation of the chain as far as
the neighbourhood of Nicastro and Catanzaro, and keeps close to the
west coast, being flanked on the east by a great mass of granitic
mountains, rising to about 6000 ft., and covered with vast forests,
from which it derives the name of La Sila. A similar mass, separated
from the preceding by a low neck of Tertiary hills, fills up the whole
of the peninsular extremity of Italy from Squillace to Reggio. Its
highest point is called Aspromonte (6420 ft.).
While the rugged and mountainous district of Calabria, extending
nearly due south for a distance of more than 150 m., thus derives its
character and configuration almost wholly from the range of the
Apennines, the long spur-like promontory which projects towards the
east to Brindisi and Otranto is merely a continuation of the low tract
of Apulia, with a dry calcareous soil of Tertiary origin. The Monte
Volture, which rises in the neighbourhood of Melfi and Venosa to 4357
ft., is of volcanic origin, and in great measure detached from the
adjoining mass of the Apennines. Eastward from this the ranges of low
bare hills called the Murgie of Gravina and Altamura gradually sink
into the still more moderate level of those which constitute the
peninsular tract between Brindisi and Taranto as far as the Cape of
Sta Maria di Leuca, the south-east extremity of Italy. This projecting
tract, which may be termed the "heel" or "spur" of Southern Italy, in
conjunction with the great promontory of Calabria, forms the deep Gulf
of Taranto, about 70 m. in width, and somewhat greater depth, which
receives a number of streams from the central mass of the Apennines.
None of the rivers of Southern Italy is of any great importance. The
Liri (Liris) or Garigliano, which has its source in the central
Apennines above Sora, not far from Lake Fucino, and enters the Gulf of
Gaeta about 10 m. east of the city of that name, brings down a
considerable body of water; as does also the Volturno, which rises in
the mountains between Castel di Sangro and Agnone, flows past Isernia,
Venafro and Capua, and enters the sea about 15 m. from the mouth of
the Garigliano. About 16 m. above Capua it receives the Calore, which
flows by Benevento. The Silarus or Sele enters the Gulf of Salerno a
few miles below the ruins of Paestum. Below this the watershed of the
Apennines is too near to the sea on that side to allow the formation
of any large streams. Hence the rivers that flow in the opposite
direction into the Adriatic and the Gulf of Taranto have much longer
courses, though all partake of the character of mountain torrents,
rushing down with great violence in winter and after storms, but
dwindling in the summer into scanty streams, which hold a winding and
sluggish course through the great plains of Apulia. Proceeding south
from the Trigno, already mentioned as constituting the limit of
Central Italy, there are (1) the Biferno and (2) the Fortore, both
rising in the mountains of Samnium, and flowing into the Adriatic west
of Monte Gargano; (3) the Cervaro, south of the great promontory; and
(4) the Ofanto, the Aufidus of Horace, whose description of it is
characteristic of almost all the rivers of Southern Italy, of which it
may be taken as the typical representative. It rises about 15 m. west
of Conza, and only about 25 m. from the Gulf of Salerno, so that it is
frequently (though erroneously) described as traversing the whole
range of the Apennines. In its lower course it flows near Canosa and
traverses the celebrated battlefield of Cannae. (5) The Bradano, which
rises near Venosa, almost at the foot of Monte Volture, flows towards
the south-east into the Gulf of Taranto, as do the Basento, the Agri
and the Sinni, all of which descend from the central chain of the
Apennines south of Potenza. The Crati, which flows from Cosenza
northwards, and then turns abruptly eastward to enter the same gulf,
is the only stream worthy of notice in the rugged peninsula of
Calabria; while the arid limestone hills projecting eastwards to Capo
di Leuca do not give rise to anything more than a mere streamlet, from
the mouth of the Ofanto to the south-eastern extremity of Italy.
Lakes.
The only important lakes are those on or near the north frontier,
formed by the expansion of the tributaries of the Po. They have been
already noticed in connexion with the rivers by which they are formed,
but may be again enumerated in order of succession. They are,
proceeding from west to east, (1) the Lago d'Orta, (2) the Lago
Maggiore, (3) the Lago di Lugano, (4) the Lago di Como, (5) the Lago
d'Iseo, (6) the Lago d'Idro, and (7) the Lago di Garda. Of these the
last named is considerably the largest, covering an area of 143 sq. m.
It is 32(1/4) m. long by 10 broad; while the Lago Maggiore,
notwithstanding its name, though considerably exceeding it in length
(37 m.), falls materially below it in superficial extent. They are all
of great depth--the Lago Maggiore having an extreme depth of 1198
ft., while that of Como attains to 1365 ft. Of a wholly different
character is the Lago di Varese, between the Lago Maggiore and that of
Lugano, which is a mere shallow expanse of water, surrounded by hills
of very moderate elevation. Two other small lakes in the same
neighbourhood, as well as those of Erba and Pusiano, between Como and
Lecco, are of a similar character.
[Illustration: Map of Italy (Modern).]
The lakes of Central Italy, which are comparatively of trifling
dimensions, belong to a wholly different class. The most important of
these, the Lacus Fucinus of the ancients, now called the Lago di
Celano, situated almost exactly in the centre of the peninsula,
occupies a basin of considerable extent, surrounded by mountains and
without any natural outlet, at an elevation of more than 2000 ft. Its
waters have been in great part carried off by an artificial channel,
and more than half its surface laid bare. Next in size is the Lago
Trasimeno, a broad expanse of shallow waters, about 30 m. in
circumference, surrounded by low hills. The neighbouring lake of
Chiusi is of similar character, but much smaller dimensions. All the
other lakes of Central Italy, which are scattered through the volcanic
districts west of the Apennines, are of an entirely different
formation, and occupy deep cup-shaped hollows, which have undoubtedly
at one time formed the craters of extinct volcanoes. Such is the Lago
di Bolsena, near the city of the same name, which is an extensive
sheet of water, as well as the much smaller Lago di Vico (the Ciminian
lake of ancient writers) and the Lago di Bracciano, nearer Rome, while
to the south of Rome the well known lakes of Albano and Nemi have a
similar origin.
The only lake properly so called in southern Italy is the Lago del
Matese, in the heart of the mountain group of the same name, of small
extent. The so-called lakes on the coast of the Adriatic north and
south of the promontory of Gargano are brackish lagoons communicating
with the sea.
Islands.
The three great islands of Sicily, Sardinia and Corsica are closely
connected with Italy, both by geographical position and community of
language, but they are considered at length in separate articles. Of
the smaller islands that lie near the coasts of Italy, the most
considerable is that of Elba, off the west coast of central Italy,
about 50 m. S. of Leghorn, and separated from the mainland at Piombino
by a strait of only about 6 m. in width. North of this, and about
midway between Corsica and Tuscany, is the small island of Capraia,
steep and rocky, and only 4(1/2) m. long, but with a secure port;
Gorgona, about 25 m. farther north, is still smaller, and is a mere
rock, inhabited by a few fishermen. South of Elba are the equally
insignificant islets of Pianosa and Montecristo, while the more
considerable island of Giglio lies much nearer the mainland,
immediately opposite the mountain promontory of Monte Argentano,
itself almost an island. The islands farther south in the Tyrrhenian
Sea are of an entirely different character. Of these Ischia and
Procida, close to the northern headland of the Bay of Naples, are of
volcanic origin, as is the case also with the more distant group of
the Ponza Islands. These are three in number--Ponza, Palmarola and
Zannone; while Ventotene (also of volcanic formation) is about midway
between Ponza and Ischia. The island of Capri, on the other hand,
opposite the southern promontory of the Bay of Naples, is a
precipitous limestone rock. The Aeolian or Lipari Islands, a
remarkable volcanic group, belong rather to Sicily than to Italy,
though Stromboli, the most easterly of them, is about equidistant from
Sicily and from the mainland.
The Italian coast of the Adriatic presents a great contrast to its
opposite shores, for while the coast of Dalmatia is bordered by a
succession of islands, great and small, the long and uniform
coast-line of Italy from Otranto to Rimini presents not a single
adjacent island; and the small outlying group of the Tremiti Islands
(north of the Monte Gargano and about 15 m. from the mainland) alone
breaks the monotony of this part of the Adriatic.
_Geology._--The geology of Italy is mainly dependent upon that of the
Apennines (q.v.). On each side of that great chain are found extensive
Tertiary deposits, sometimes, as in Tuscany, the district of
Monferrat, &c., forming a broken, hilly country, at others spreading
into broad plains or undulating downs, such as the Tavoliere of
Puglia, and the tract that forms the spur of Italy from Bari to
Otranto.
Besides these, and leaving out of account the islands, the Italian
peninsula presents four distinct volcanic districts. In three of them
the volcanoes are entirely extinct, while the fourth is still in great
activity.
1. The Euganean hills form a small group extending for about 10 m.
from the neighbourhood of Padua to Este, and separated from the lower
offshoots of the Alps by a portion of the wide plain of Padua. Monte
Venda, their highest peak, is 1890 ft. high.
2. The Roman district, the largest of the four, extends from the hills
of Albano to the frontier of Tuscany, and from the lower slopes of the
Apennines to the Tyrrhenian Sea. It may be divided into three groups:
the Monti Albani, the second highest[2] of which, Monte Cavo (3115
ft.), is the ancient Mons Albanus, on the summit of which stood the
temple of Jupiter Latialis, where the assemblies of the cities forming
the Latin confederation were held; the Monti Cimini, which extend from
the valley of the Tiber to the neighbourhood of Civita Vecchia, and
attain at their culminating point an elevation of 3454 ft.; and the
mountains of Radicofani and Monte Amiata, the latter of which is 5688
ft. high. The lakes of Bolsena (Vulsiniensis), of Bracciano
(Sabatinus), of Vico (Ciminus), of Albano (Albanus), of Nemi
(Nemorensis), and other smaller lakes belong to this district; while
between its south-west extremity and Monte Circello the Pontine
Marshes form a broad strip of alluvial soil infested by malaria.
3. The volcanic region of the Terra di Lavoro is separated by the
Volscian mountains from the Roman district. It may be also divided
into three groups. Of Roccamonfina, at the N.N.W. end of the Campanian
Plain, the highest cone, called Montagna di Santa Croce, is 3291 ft.
The Phlegraean Fields embrace all the country round Baiae and Pozzuoli
and the adjoining islands. Monte Barbaro (Gaurus), north-east of the
site of Cumae, Monte San Nicola (Epomeus), 2589 ft. in Ischia, and
Camaldoli, 1488 ft., west of Naples, are the highest cones. The lakes
Averno (Avernus), Lucrino (Lucrinus), Fusaro (Palus Acherusia), and
Agnano are within this group, which has shown activity in historical
times. A stream of lava issued in 1198 from the crater of the
Solfatara, which still continues to exhale steam and noxious gases;
the Lava dell' Arso came out of the N.E. flank of Monte Epomeo in
1302; and Monte Nuovo, north-west of Pozzuoli (455 ft.), was thrown up
in three days in September 1538. Since its first historical eruption
in A.D. 79, Vesuvius or Somma, which forms the third group, has been
in constant activity. The Punta del Nasone, the highest point of
Somma, is 3714 ft. high, while the Punta del Palo, the highest point
of the brim of the crater of Vesuvius, varies materially with
successive eruptions from 3856 to 4275 ft.
4. The Apulian volcanic formation consists of the great mass of Monte
Volture, which rises at the west end of the plains of Apulia, on the
frontier of Basilicata, and is surrounded by the Apennines on its
south-west and north-west sides. Its highest peak, the Pizzuto di
Melfi, attains an elevation of 4365 ft. Within the widest crater there
are the two small lakes of Monticchio and San Michele. In connexion
with the volcanic districts we may mention _Le Mofete_, the pools of
Ampsanctus, in a wooded valley S.E. of Frigento, in the province of
Avellino, Campania (Virgil, _Aeneid_, vii. 563-571), The largest is
not more than 160 ft. in circumference, and 7 ft. deep.
The whole of the great plain of Lombardy is covered by Pleistocene and
recent deposits. It is a great depression--the continuation of the
Adriatic Sea--filled up by deposits brought down by the rivers from
the mountains. The depression was probably formed during the later
stages of the growth of the Alps.
_Climate and Vegetation._--The geographical position of Italy,
extending from about 46 deg. to 38 deg. N., renders it one of the
hottest countries in Europe. But the effect of its southern latitude
is tempered by its peninsular character, bounded as it is on both
sides by seas of considerable extent, as well as by the great range of
the Alps with its snows and glaciers to the north. There are thus
irregular variations of climate. Great differences also exist with
regard to climate between northern and southern Italy, due in great
part to other circumstances as well as to differences of latitude.
Thus the great plain of northern Italy is chilled by the cold winds
from the Alps, while the damp warm winds from the Mediterranean are to
a great extent intercepted by the Ligurian Apennines. Hence this part
of the country has a cold winter climate, so that while the mean
summer temperature of Milan is higher than that of Sassari, and equal
to that of Naples, and the extremes reached at Milan and Bologna are a
good deal higher than those of Naples, the mean winter temperature of
Turin is actually lower than that of Copenhagen. The lowest recorded
winter temperature at Turin is 5 deg. Fahr. Throughout the region
north of the Apennines no plants will thrive which cannot stand
occasional severe frosts in winter, so that not only oranges and
lemons but even the olive tree cannot be grown, except in specially
favoured situations. But the strip of coast between the Apennines and
the sea, known as the Riviera of Genoa, is not only extremely
favourable to the growth of olives, but produces oranges and lemons in
abundance, while even the aloe, the cactus and the palm flourish in
many places.
Central Italy also presents striking differences of climate and
temperature according to the greater or less proximity to the
mountains. Thus the greater part of Tuscany, and the provinces thence
to Rome, enjoy a mild winter climate, and are well adapted to the
growth of mulberries and olives as well as vines, but it is not till
after passing Terracina, in proceeding along the western coast towards
the south, that the vegetation of southern Italy develops in its full
luxuriance. Even in the central parts of Tuscany, however, the climate
is very much affected by the neighbouring mountains, and the
increasing elevation of the Apennines as they proceed south produces a
corresponding effect upon the temperature. But it is when we reach the
central range of the Apennines that we find the coldest districts of
Italy. In all the upland valleys of the Abruzzi snow begins to fall
early in November, and heavy storms occur often as late as May; whole
communities are shut out for months from any intercourse with their
neighbours, and some villages are so long buried in snow that regular
passages are made between the different houses for the sake of
communication among the inhabitants. The district from the south-east
of Lake Fucino to the Piano di Cinque Miglia, enclosing the upper
basin of the Sangro and the small lake of Scanno, is the coldest and
most bleak part of Italy south of the Alps. Heavy falls of snow in
June are not uncommon, and only for a short time towards the end of
July are the nights totally exempt from light frosts. Yet less than 40
m. E. of this district, and even more to the north, the olive, the
fig-tree and the orange thrive luxuriantly on the shores of the
Adriatic from Ortona to Vasto. In the same way, whilst in the plains
and hills round Naples snow is rarely seen, and never remains long,
and the thermometer seldom descends to the freezing-point, 20 m. E.
from it in the fertile valley of Avellino, of no great elevation, but
encircled by high mountains, light frosts are not uncommon as late as
June; and 18 m. farther east, in the elevated region of San Angelo dei
Lombardi and Bisaccia, the inhabitants are always warmly clad, and
vines grow with difficulty and only in sheltered places. Still farther
south-east, Potenza has almost the coldest climate in Italy, and
certainly the lowest summer temperatures. But nowhere are these
contrasts so striking as in Calabria. The shores, especially on the
Tyrrhenian Sea, present almost a continued grove of olive, orange,
lemon and citron trees, which attain a size unknown in the north of
Italy. The sugar-cane flourishes, the cotton-plant ripens to
perfection, date-trees are seen in the gardens, the rocks are clothed
with the prickly-pear or Indian fig, the enclosures of the fields are
formed by aloes and sometimes pomegranates, the liquorice-root grows
wild, and the mastic, the myrtle and many varieties of oleander and
cistus form the underwood of the natural forests of arbutus and
evergreen oak. If we turn inland but 5 or 6 m. from the shore, and
often even less, the scene changes. High districts covered with oaks
and chestnuts succeed to this almost tropical vegetation; a little
higher up and we reach the elevated regions of the Pollino and the
Sila, covered with firs and pines, and affording rich pastures even in
the midst of summer, when heavy dews and light frosts succeed each
other in July and August, and snow begins to appear at the end of
September or early in October. Along the shores of the Adriatic, which
are exposed to the north-east winds, blowing coldly from over the
Albanian mountains, delicate plants do not thrive so well in general
as under the same latitude along the shores of the Tyrrhenian Sea.
Southern Italy indeed has in general a very different climate from the
northern portion of the kingdom; and, though large tracts are still
occupied by rugged mountains of sufficient elevation to retain the
snow for a considerable part of the year, the districts adjoining the
sea enjoy a climate similar to that of Greece and the southern
provinces of Spain. Unfortunately several of these fertile tracts
suffer severely from malaria (q.v.), and especially the great plain
adjoining the Gulf of Tarentum, which in the early ages of history was
surrounded by a girdle of Greek cities--some of which attained to
almost unexampled prosperity--has for centuries past been given up to
almost complete desolation.[3]
It is remarkable that, of the vegetable productions of Italy, many
which are at the present day among the first to attract the attention
of the visitor are of comparatively late introduction, and were
unknown in ancient times. The olive indeed in all ages clothed the
hills of a large part of the country; but the orange and lemon, are a
late importation from the East, while the cactus or Indian fig and the
aloe, both of them so conspicuous on the shores of southern Italy, as
well as of the Riviera of Genoa, are of Mexican origin, and
consequently could not have been introduced earlier than the 16th
century. The same remark applies to the maize or Indian corn. Many
botanists are even of opinion that the sweet chestnut, which now
constitutes so large a part of the forests that clothe the sides both
of the Alps and the Apennines, and in some districts supplies the
chief food of the inhabitants, is not originally of Italian growth; it
is certain that it had not attained in ancient times to anything like
the extension and importance which it now possesses. The eucalyptus is
of quite modern introduction; it has been extensively planted in
malarious districts. The characteristic cypress, ilex and stone-pine,
however, are native trees, the last-named flourishing especially near
the coast. The proportion of evergreens is large, and has a marked
effect on the landscape in winter.
_Fauna._--The chamois, bouquetin and marmot are found only in the
Alps, not at all in the Apennines. In the latter the bear was found in
Roman times, and there are said to be still a few remaining. Wolves
are more numerous, though only in the mountainous districts; the
flocks are protected against them by large white sheepdogs, who have
some wolf blood in them. Wild boars are also found in mountainous and
forest districts. Foxes are common in the neighbourhood of Rome. The
sea mammals include the common dolphin (_Delphinus delphis_). The
birds are similar to those of central Europe; in the mountains
vultures, eagles, buzzards, kites, falcons and hawks are found.
Partridges, woodcock, snipe, &c., are among the game birds; but all
kinds of small birds are also shot for food, and their number is thus
kept down, while many members of the migratory species are caught by
traps in the foothills on the south side of the Alps, especially near
the Lake of Como, on their passage. Large numbers of quails are shot
in the spring. Among reptiles, the various kinds of lizard are
noticeable. There are several varieties of snakes, of which three
species (all vipers) are poisonous. Of sea-fish there are many
varieties, the tunny, the sardine and the anchovy being commercially
the most important. Some of the other edible fish, such as the
palombo, are not found in northern waters. Small cuttlefish are in
common use as an article of diet. Tortoiseshell, an important article
of commerce, is derived from the _Thalassochelys caretta_, a sea
turtle. Of freshwater fish the trout of the mountain streams and the
eels of the coast lagoons may be mentioned. The tarantula spider and
the scorpion are found in the south of Italy. The aquarium of the
zoological station at Naples contains the finest collection in the
world of marine animals, showing the wonderful variety of the
different species of fish, molluscs, crustacea, &c., found in the
Mediterranean. (E. H. B.; T. As.)
_Population._--The following table indicates the areas of the several
provinces (sixty-nine in number), and the population of each according
to the censuses of the 31st of December 1881 and the 9th of February
1901. (The larger divisions or compartments in which the provinces are
grouped are not officially recognized.)
+----------------------------------+---------+-------------------------+
| | | Population. |
| Provinces and Compartments. | Area in +------------+------------+
| | sq. m. | 1881. | 1901. |
+----------------------------------+---------+------------+------------+
| Alessandria | 1950 | 729,710 | 825,745 |
| Cuneo | 2882 | 635,400 | 670,504 |
| Novara | 2553 | 675,926 | 763,830 |
| Turin | 3955 | 1,029,214 | 1,147,414 |
| +---------+------------+------------+
| Piedmont | 11,340 | 3,070,250 | 3,407,493 |
| +---------+------------+------------+
| Genoa | 1582 | 760,122 | 931,156 |
| Porto Maurizio | 455 | 132,251 | 144,604 |
| +---------+------------+------------+
| Liguria | 2037 | 892,373 | 1,075,760 |
| +---------+------------+------------+
| Bergamo | 1098 | 390,775 | 467,549 |
| Brescia | 1845 | 471,568 | 541,765 |
| Como | 1091 | 515,050 | 594,304 |
| Cremona | 695 | 302,097 | 329,471 |
| Mantua | 912 | 295,728 | 315,448 |
| Milan | 1223 | 1,114,991 | 1,450,214 |
| Pavia | 1290 | 469,831 | 504,382 |
| Sondrio | 1232 | 120,534 | 130,966 |
| +---------+------------+------------+
| Lombardy | 9386 | 3,680,574 | 4,334,099 |
| +---------+------------+------------+
| Belluno | 1293 | 174,140 | 214,803 |
| Padua | 823 | 397,762 | 444,360 |
| Rovigo | 685 | 217,700 | 222,057 |
| Treviso | 960 | 375,704 | 416,945 |
| Udine | 2541 | 501,745 | 614,720 |
| Venice | 934 | 356,708 | 399,823 |
| Verona | 1188 | 394,065 | 427,018 |
| Vicenza | 1052 | 396,349 | 453,621 |
| +---------+------------+------------+
| Venetia | 9476 | 2,814,173 | 3,193,347 |
| +---------+------------+------------+
| Bologna | 1448 | 464,879 | 529,619 |
| Ferrara | 1012 | 230,807 | 270,558 |
| Forli | 725 | 251,110 | 283,996 |
| Modena | 987 | 279,254 | 323,598 |
| Parma | 1250 | 267,306 | 303,694 |
| Piacenza | 954 | 226,758 | 250,491 |
| Ravenna | 715 | 218,359 | 234,656 |
| Reggio (Emilia) | 876 | 244,959 | 281,085 |
| +---------+------------+------------+
| Emilia | 7967 | 2,183,432 | 2,477,697 |
| +---------+------------+------------+
| Arezzo | 1273 | 238,744 | 275,588 |
| Florence | 2265 | 790,776 | 945,324 |
| Grosseto | 1738 | 114,295 | 137,795 |
| Leghorn | 133 | 121,612 | 121,137 |
| Lucca | 558 | 284,484 | 329,986 |
| Massa and Carrara | 687 | 169,469 | 202,749 |
| Pisa | 1179 | 283,563 | 319,854 |
| Siena | 1471 | 205,926 | 233,874 |
| +---------+------------+------------+
| Tuscany | 9304 | 2,208,869 | 2,566,307 |
| +---------+------------+------------+
| Ancona | 762 | 267,338 | 308,346 |
| Ascoli Piceno | 796 | 209,185 | 251,829 |
| Macerata | 1087 | 239,713 | 269,505 |
| Pesaro and Urbino | 1118 | 223,043 | 259,083 |
| +---------+------------+------------+
| Marches | 3763 | 939,279 | 1,088,763 |
| +---------+------------+------------+
| Perugia--Umbria | 3748 | 572,060 | 675,352 |
| +---------+------------+------------+
| Rome--Lazio | 4663 | 903,472 | 1,142,526 |
| Aquila degli Abruzzi (Abruzzo | | | |
| Ulteriore II.) | 2484 | 353,027 | 436,367 |
| Campobasso (Molise) | 1691 | 365,434 | 389,967 |
| Chieti (Abruzzo Citeriore) | 1138 | 343,948 | 387,604 |
| Teramo (Abruzzo Ulteriore I.) | 1067 | 254,806 | 312,188 |
| +---------+------------+------------+
| Abruzzi and Molise | 6380 | 1,317,215 | 1,526,135 |
| +---------+------------+------------+
| Avellino (Principato Ulteriore) | 1172 | 392,619 | 421,766 |
| Benevento | 818 | 238,425 | 265,460 |
| Caserta (Terra di Lavoro) | 2033 | 714,131 | 805,345 |
| Naples | 350 | 1,001,245 | 1,141,788 |
| Salerno (Principato Citeriore) | 1916 | 550,157 | 585,132 |
| +---------+------------+------------+
| Campania | 6289 | 2,896,577 | 3,219,491 |
| +---------+------------+------------+
| Bari delle Puglie (Terra di Bari)| 2065 | 679,499 | 837,683 |
| Foggia (Capitanata) | 2688 | 356,267 | 421,115 |
| Lecce (Terra di Otranto) | 2623 | 553,298 | 705,382 |
| +---------+------------+------------+
| Apulia | 7376 | 1,589,064 | 1,964,180 |
| +---------+------------+------------+
| Potenza (Basilicata) | 3845 | 524,504 | 491,558 |
| +---------+------------|------------+
| Catanzaro (Calabria Ulteriore | | | |
| II.) | 2030 | 433,975 | 498,791 |
| Cosenza (Calabria Citeriore) | 2568 | 451,185 | 503,329 |
| Reggio di Calabria (Calabria | | | |
| Ulteriore I.) | 1221 | 372,723 | 437,209 |
| +---------+------------+------------+
| Calabria | 5819 | 1,257,883 | 1,439,329 |
| +---------+------------+------------+
| Caltanisetta | 1263 | 266,379 | 329,449 |
| Catania | 1917 | 563,457 | 703,598 |
| Girgenti | 1172 | 312,487 | 380,666 |
| Messina | 1246 | 460,924 | 550,895 |
| Palermo | 1948 | 699,151 | 796,151 |
| Syracuse | 1442 | 341,526 | 433,796 |
| Trapani | 948 | 283,977 | 373,569 |
| +---------+------------+------------+
| Sicily | 9936 | 2,927,901 | 3,568,124 |
| +---------+------------+------------+
| Cagliari | 5204 | 420,635 | 486,767 |
| Sassari | 4090 | 261,367 | 309,026 |
| +---------+------------+------------+
| Sardinia | 9294 | 682,002 | 795,793 |
| +---------+------------+------------+
| Kingdom of Italy | 110,623 | 28,459,628 | 32,965,504 |
+----------------------------------+---------+------------+------------+
The number of foreigners in Italy in 1901 was 61,606, of whom 37,762
were domiciled within the kingdom.
The population given in the foregoing table is the resident or "legal"
population, which is also given for the individual towns. This is
490,251 higher than the actual population, 32,475,253, ascertained by
the census of the 10th of February 1901; the difference is due to
temporary absences from their residences of certain individuals on
military service, &c., who probably were counted twice, and also to
the fact that 469,020 individuals were returned as absent from Italy,
while only 61,606 foreigners were in Italy at the date of the census.
The kingdom is divided into 69 provinces, 284 regions, of which 197
are classed as _circondarii_ and 87 as districts (the latter belonging
to the province of Mantua and the 8 provinces of Venetia), 1806
administrative divisions (_mandamenti_) and 8262 communes. These were
the figures at the date of the census. In 1906 there were 1805
_mandamenti_ and 8290 communes, and 4 boroughs in Sardinia not
connected with communes. The _mandamenti_ or administrative divisions
no longer correspond to the judicial divisions (_mandamenti
giudiziarii_) which in November 1891 were reduced from 1806 to 1535 by
a law which provided that judicial reform should not modify existing
administrative and electoral divisions. The principal elective local
administrative bodies are the provincial and the communal councils.
The franchise is somewhat wider than the parliamentary. Both bodies
are elected for six years, one-half being renewed every three years.
The provincial council elects a provincial commission and the communal
council a municipal council from among its own members; these smaller
bodies carry on the business of the larger while they are not sitting.
The syndic of each commune is elected by ballot by the communal
council from among its own members.
The actual (not the resident or "legal") population of Italy since
1770 is approximately given in the following table (the first census
of the kingdom as a whole was taken in 1871):--
1770 14,689,317 | 1861 25,016,801
1800 17,237,421 | 1871 26,801,154
1825 19,726,977 | 1881 28,459,628
1848 23,617,153 | 1901 32,475,253
The average density increased from 257.21 per sq. m. in 1881 to 293.28
in 1901. In Venetia, Emilia, the Marches, Umbria and Tuscany the
proportion of concentrated population is only from 40 to 55%; in
Piedmont, Liguria and Lombardy the proportion rises to from 70 to 76%;
in southern Italy, Sicily and Sardinia it attains a maximum of from 76
to 93%.
The population of towns over 100,000 is given in the following table
according to the estimates for 1906. The population of the town itself
is distinguished from that of its commune, which often includes a
considerable portion of the surrounding country.
Town. Commune.
Bologna 105,153 160,423
Catania 135,548 159,210
Florence 201,183 226,559
Genoa 255,294 267,248
Messina 108,514 165,007
Milan 560,613 ..
Naples 491,614 585,289
Palermo 264,036 323,747
Rome 403,282 516,580
Turin 277,121 361,720
Venice 146,940 169,563
The population of the different parts of Italy differs in character and
dialect; and there is little community of sentiment between them. The
modes of life and standards of comfort and morality in north Italy and
in Calabria are widely different; the former being far in front of the
latter. Much, however, is effected towards unification, by compulsory
military service, it being the principle that no man shall serve within
the military district to which he belongs. In almost all parts the idea
of personal loyalty (e.g. between master and servant) retains an almost
feudal strength. The inhabitants of the north--the Piedmontese, Lombards
and Genoese especially--have suffered less than those of the rest of the
peninsula from foreign domination and from the admixture of inferior
racial elements, and the cold winter climate prevents the heat of summer
from being enervating. They, and also the inhabitants of central Italy,
are more industrious than the inhabitants of the southern provinces, who
have by no means recovered from centuries of misgovernment and
oppression, and are naturally more hot-blooded and excitable, but less
stable, capable of organization or trustworthy. The southerners are
apathetic except when roused, and socialist doctrines find their chief
adherents in the north. The Sicilians and Sardinians have something of
Spanish dignity, but the former are one of the most mixed and the latter
probably one of the purest races of the Italian kingdom. Physical
characteristics differ widely; but as a whole the Italian is somewhat
short of stature, with dark or black hair and eyes, often good looking.
Both sexes reach maturity early. Mortality is decreasing, but if we may
judge from the physical conditions of the recruits the physique of the
nation shows little or no improvement. Much of this lack of progress is
attributed to the heavy manual (especially agricultural) work undertaken
by women and children. The women especially age rapidly, largely owing
to this cause (E. Nathan, _Vent' anni di vita italiana attraverso all'
annuario_, 169 sqq.).
_Births, Marriages, Deaths._--Birth and marriage rates vary
considerably, being highest in the centre and south (Umbria, the
Marches, Apulia, Abruzzi and Molise, and Calabria) and lowest in the
north (Piedmont, Liguria and Venetia), and in Sardinia. The death-rate
is highest in Apulia, in the Abruzzi and Molise, and in Sardinia, and
lowest in the north, especially in Venetia and Piedmont.
Taking the statistics for the whole kingdom, the annual marriage-rate
for the years 1876-1880 was 7.53 per 1000; in 1881-1885 it rose to
8.06; in 1886-1890 it was 7.77; in 1891-1895 it was 7.41, and in
1896-1900 it had gone down to 7.14 (a figure largely produced by the
abnormally low rate of 6.88 in 1898), and in 1902 was 7.23. Divorce is
forbidden by the Roman Catholic Church, and only 839 judicial
separations were obtained from the courts in 1902, more than half of
the demands made having been abandoned. Of the whole population in
1901, 57.5% were unmarried, 36.0% married, and 6.5% widowers or
widows. The illegitimate births show a decrease, having been 6.95 per
100 births in 1872 and 5.72 in 1902, with a rise, however, in the
intermediate period as high as 7.76 in 1883. The birth-rate shows a
corresponding decrease from 38.10 per 1000 in 1881 to 33.29 in 1902.
The male births have since 1872 been about 3% (3.14 in 1872-1875 and
2.72 in 1896-1900) in excess of the female births, which is rather
more than compensated for by the greater male mortality, the excess
being 2.64 in 1872-1875 and having increased to 4.08 in 1896-1900.
(The calculations are made in both cases on the total of births and
deaths of both sexes.) The result is that, while in 1871 there was an
excess of 143,370 males over females in the total population, in 1881
the excess was only 71,138, and in 1901 there were 169,684 more
females than males. The death-rate (excluding still-born children)
was, in 1872, 30.78 per 1000, and has since steadily decreased--less
rapidly between 1886-1890 than during other years; in 1902 it was only
22.15 and in 1899 was as low as 21.89. The excess of births over
deaths shows considerable variations--owing to a very low birth-rate,
it was only 3.12 per 1000 in 1880, but has averaged 11.05 per 1000
from 1896 to 1900, reaching 11.98 in 1899 and 11.14 in 1902. For the
four years 1899-1902 24.66% died under the age of one year, 9.41
between one and two years. The average expectation of life at birth
for the same period was 52 years and 11 months, 62 years and 2 months
at the age of three years, 52 years at the age of fifteen, 44 years at
the age of twenty-four, 30 years at the age of forty; while the
average period of life, which was 35 years 3 months per individual in
1882, was 43 years per individual in 1901. This shows a considerable
improvement, largely, but not entirely, in the diminution of infant
mortality; the expectation of life at birth in 1882, it is true, was
only 33 years and 6 months, and at three years of age 56 years 1
month; but the increase, both in the expectation of life and in its
average duration, goes all through the different ages.
_Occupations._--In the census of 1901 the population over nine years
of age (both male and female) was divided as follows as regards the
main professions:--
+---------------------------------+-----------+-----------+-----------+
| | Total. | Males. | Females. |
+---------------------------------+-----------+-----------+-----------+
| Agricultural (including hunting | | | |
| and fishing) | 9,666,467 | 6,466,165 | 3,200,302 |
| Industrial | 4,505,736 | 3,017,393 | 1,488,343 |
| Commerce and transport | | | |
| (public and private services) | 1,003,888 | 885,070 | 118,818 |
| Domestic service, &c. | 574,855 | 171,875 | 402,980 |
| Professional classes, | | | |
| administration, &c. | 1,304,347 | 855,217 | 449,130 |
| Defence | 204,012 | 204,012 | .. |
| Religion | 129,893 | 89,329 | 40,564 |
+---------------------------------+-----------+-----------+-----------+
_Emigration._--The movement of emigration may be divided into two
currents, temporary and permanent--the former going chiefly towards
neighbouring European countries and to North Africa, and consisting of
manual labourers, the latter towards trans-oceanic countries,
principally Brazil, Argentina and the United States. These emigrants
remain abroad for several years, even when they do not definitively
establish themselves there. They are composed principally of peasants,
unskilled workmen and other manual labourers. There was a tendency
towards increased emigration during the last quarter of the 19th
century. The principal causes are the growth of population, and the
over-supply of and low rates of remuneration for manual labour in
various Italian provinces. Emigration has, however, recently assumed
such proportions as to lead to scarcity of labour and rise of wages in
Italy itself. Italians form about half of the total emigrants to
America.
+-------+----------------------------+----------------------------+
| | Temporary Emigration. | Permanent Emigration. |
| +--------------+-------------+--------------+-------------+
| Year. | Total No. of | Per every | Total No. of | Per every |
| | Emigrants. | 100,000 of | Emigrants. | 100,000 of |
| | | Population. | | Population. |
+-------+--------------+-------------+--------------+-------------+
| 1881 | 94,225 | 333 | 41,607 | 147 |
| 1891 | 118,111 | 389 | 175,520 | 578 |
| 1901 | 281,668 | 865 | 251,577 | 772 |
+-------+--------------+-------------+--------------+-------------+
The increased figures may, to a minor extent, be due to better
registration, in consequence of the law of 1901.
From the next table will be seen the direction of emigration in the
years specified:--
+------------------+---------+---------+---------+---------+---------+---------+
| | 1900. | 1901. | 1902. | 1903. | 1904. | 1905. |
+------------------+---------+---------+---------+---------+---------+---------+
| Europe | 181,047 | 244,298 | 236,066 | 215,943 | 209,942 | 266,982 |
| N. Africa | 5,417 | 9,499 | 11,771 | 9,452 | 14,709 | 11,910 |
| U.S. and Canada | 89,400 | 124,636 | 196,723 | 200,383 | 173,537 | 322,627 |
| Mexico (Central | | | | | | |
| America) | 2,069 | 997 | 766 | 1,311 | 1,828 | 2,044 |
| South America | 74,168 | 152,543 | 85,097 | 78,699 | 74,209 | 111,943 |
| Asia and Oceania | 691 | 1,272 | 1,086 | 2,168 | 2,966 | 2,715 |
| +---------+---------+---------+---------+---------+---------+
| Total | 352,792 | 533,245 | 531,509 | 507,956 | 477,191 | 718,221 |
+------------------+---------+---------+---------+---------+---------+---------+
The figures for 1905 show that the total of 718,221 emigrants was made
up, as regards numbers, mainly by individuals from Venetia, Sicily,
Campania, Piedmont, Calabria and the Abruzzi; while the percentage was
highest in Calabria (4.44), the Abruzzi, Venetia, Basilicata, the
Marches, Sicily (2.86), Campania, Piedmont (2.02). Tuscany gives 1.20,
Latium 1.14%, Apulia only 1.02, while Sardinia with 0.34% occupies an
exceptional position. The figure for Sicily, which was 106,000 in
1905, reached 127,000 in 1906 (3.5%), and of these about
three-fourths would be adults; in the meantime, however, the
population increases so fast that even in 1905 there was a net
increase in Sicily of 20,000 souls; so that in three years 220,000
workers were replaced by 320,000 infants.
The phenomenon of emigration in Sicily cannot altogether be explained
by low wages, which have risen, though prices have done the same. It
has been defined as apparently "a kind of collective madness."
_Agriculture._--Accurate statistics with regard to the area occupied in
different forms of cultivation are difficult to obtain, both on account
of their varied and piecemeal character and from the lack of a complete
cadastral survey. A complete survey was ordered by the law of the 1st of
March 1886, but many years must elapse before its completion. The law,
however, enabled provinces most heavily burdened by land tax to
accelerate their portion of the survey, and to profit by the
re-assessment of the tax on the new basis. An idea of the effects of the
survey may be gathered from the fact that the assessments in the four
provinces of Mantua, Ancona, Cremona and Milan, which formerly amounted
to a total of L1,454,696, are now L2,788,080, an increase of 91%. Of the
total area of Italy, 70,793,000 acres, 71% are classed as "productive."
The unproductive area comprises 16% of the total area (this includes 4%
occupied by lagoons or marshes, and 1.75% of the total area susceptible
of _bonificazione_ or improvement by drainage. Between 1882 and 1902
over L4,000,000 was spent on this by the government). The uncultivated
area is 13%. This includes 3.50% of the total susceptible of
cultivation.
The cultivated area may be divided into five agrarian regions or
zones, named after the variety of tree culture which flourishes in
them. (1) Proceeding from south to north, the first zone is that of
the _agrumi_ (oranges, lemons and similar fruits). It comprises a
great part of Sicily. In Sardinia it extends along the southern and
western coasts. It predominates along the Ligurian Riviera from
Bordighera to Spezia, and on the Adriatic, near San Benedetto del
Tronto and Gargano, and, crossing the Italian shore of the Ionian Sea,
prevails in some regions of Calabria, and terminates around the gulfs
of Salerno, Sorrento and Naples. (2) The region of _olives_ comprises
the internal Sicilian valleys and part of the mountain slopes; in
Sardinia, the valleys near the coast on the S.E., S.W. and N.W.; on
the mainland it extends from Liguria and from the southern extremities
of the Romagna to Cape Santa Maria di Leuca in Apulia, and to Cape
Spartivento in Calabria. Some districts of the olive region are near
the lakes of upper Italy and in Venetia, and the territories of
Verona, Vicenza, Treviso and Friuli. (3) The vine region begins on the
sunny slopes of the Alpine spurs and in those Alpine valleys open
towards the south, extending over the plains of Lombardy and Emilia.
In Sardinia it covers the mountain slopes to a considerable height,
and in Sicily covers the sides of the Madonie range, reaching a level
above 3000 ft. on the southern slope of Etna. The Calabrian Alps, the
less rocky sides of the Apulian Murgie and the whole length of the
Apennines are covered at different heights, according to their
situation. The hills of Tuscany, and of Monferrato in Piedmont,
produce the most celebrated Italian vintages. (4) The region of
_chestnuts_ extends from the valleys to the high plateaus of the Alps,
along the northern slopes of the Apennines in Liguria, Modena,
Tuscany, Romagna, Umbria, the Marches and along the southern Apennines
to the Calabrian and Sicilian ranges, as well as to the mountains of
Sardinia. (5) The wooded region covers the Alps and Apennines above
the chestnut level. The woods consist chiefly of pine and hazel upon
the Apennines, and upon the Calabrian, Sicilian and Sardinian
mountains of oak, ilex, hornbeam and similar trees.
Between these regions of tree culture lie zones of different
herbaceous culture, cereals, vegetables and textile plants. The style
of cultivation varies according to the nature of the ground, terraces
supported by stone walls being much used in mountainous districts.
Cereal cultivation occupies the foremost place in area and quantity
though it has been on the decline since 1903, still representing,
however, an advance on previous years. Wheat is the most important
crop and is widely distributed. In 1905 12,734,491 acres, or about 18%
of the total area, produced 151,696,571 bushels of wheat, a yield of
only 12 bushels per acre. The importation has, however, enormously
increased since 1882--from 164,600 to 1,126,368 tons; while the extent
of land devoted to corn cultivation has slightly decreased. Next in
importance to wheat comes maize, occupying about 7% of the total area
of the country, and cultivated almost everywhere as an alternative
crop. The production of maize in 1905 reached about 96,250,000
bushels, a slight increase on the average. The production of maize is,
however, insufficient, and 208,719 tons were imported in 1902--about
double the amount imported in 1882.
Rice is cultivated in low-lying, moist lands, where spring and summer
temperatures are high. The Po valley and the valleys of Emilia and the
Romagna are best adapted for rice, but the area is diminishing on
account of the competition of foreign rice and of the impoverishment
of the soil by too intense cultivation. The area is about 0.5% of the
total of Italy. The area under rye is about 0.5% of the total, of
which about two-thirds lie in the Alpine and about one-third in the
Apennine zone. The barley zone is geographically extensive but
embraces not more than 1% of the total area, of which half is situated
in Sardinia and Sicily. Oats, cultivated in the Roman and Tuscan
maremma and in Apulia, are used almost exclusively for horses and
cattle. The area of oats cultivation is 1.5% of the total area. The
other cereals, millet and _panico sorgo_ (_Panicum italicum_), have
lost much of their importance in consequence of the introduction of
maize and rice. Millet, however, is still cultivated in the north of
Italy, and is used as bread for agricultural labourers, and as forage
when mixed with buckwheat (_Sorghum saccaratum_). The manufacture of
macaroni and similar foodstuff is a characteristic Italian industry.
It is extensively distributed, but especially flourishes in the
Neapolitan provinces. The exportation of "corn-flour pastes" sank,
however, from 7100 tons to 350 between 1882 and 1902.
The cultivation of green forage is extensive and is divided into the
categories of temporary and perennial. The temporary includes vetches,
pulse, lupine, clover and trifolium; and the perennial,
meadow-trefoil, lupinella, sulla (_Hedysarum coronarium_), lucerne and
darnel. The natural grass meadows are extensive, and hay is grown all
over the country, but especially in the Po valley. Pasture occupies
about 30% of the total area of the country, of which Alpine pastures
occupy 1.25%. Seed-bearing vegetables are comparatively scarce. The
principal are: white beans, largely consumed by the working classes;
lentils, much less cultivated than beans; and green peas, largely
consumed in Italy, and exported as a spring vegetable. Chick-pease are
extensively cultivated in the southern provinces. Horse beans are
grown, especially in the south and in the larger islands; lupines are
also grown for fodder.
Among tuberous vegetables the potato comes first. The area occupied is
about 0.7% of the whole of the country. Turnips are grown principally
in the central provinces as an alternative crop to wheat. They yield
as much as 12 tons per acre. Beetroot (_Beta vulgaris_) is used as
fodder, and yields about 10 tons per acre. Sugar beet is extensively
grown to supply the sugar factories. In 1898-1899 there were only four
sugar factories, with an output of 5972 tons; in 1905 there were
thirty-three, with an output of 93,916 tons.
Market gardening is carried on both near towns and villages, where
products find ready sale, and along the great railways, on account of
transport facilities. Rome is an exception to the former rule and
imports garden produce largely from the neighbourhood of Naples and
from Sardinia.
Among the chief industrial plants is tobacco, which grows wherever
suitable soil exists. Since tobacco is a government monopoly, its
cultivation is subject to official concessions and prescriptions.
Experiments hitherto made show that the cultivation of Oriental
tobacco may profitably be extended in Italy. The yield for 1901 was
5528 tons, but a large increase took place subsequently, eleven
million new plants having been added in southern Italy in 1905.
The chief textile plants are hemp, flax and cotton. Hemp is largely
cultivated in the provinces of Turin, Ferrara, Bologna, Forli, Ascoli
Piceno and Caserta. Bologna hemp is specially valued. Flax covers
about 160,000 acres, with a product, in fibre, amounting to about
20,000 tons. Cotton (_Gossypium herbaceum_), which at the beginning of
the 19th century, at the time of the Continental blockade, and again
during the American War of Secession, was largely cultivated, is now
grown only in parts of Sicily and in a few southern provinces. Sumach,
liquorice and madder are also grown in the south.
The vine is cultivated throughout the length and breadth of Italy, but
while in some of the districts of the south and centre it occupies
from 10 to 20% of the cultivated area, in some of the northern
provinces, such as Sondrio, Belluno, Grosseto, &c., the average is
only about 1 or 2%. The methods of cultivation are varied; but the
planting of the vines by themselves in long rows of insignificant
bushes is the exception. In Lombardy, Emilia, Romagna, Tuscany, the
Marches, Umbria and the southern provinces, they are trained to trees
which are either left in their natural state or subjected to pruning
and pollarding. In Campania the vines are allowed to climb freely to
the tops of the poplars. In the rest of Italy the elm and the maple
are the trees mainly employed as supports. Artificial props of several
kinds--wires, cane work, trellis work, &c.--are also in use in many
districts (in the neighbourhood of Rome canes are almost exclusively
employed), and in some the plant is permitted to trail along the
ground. The vintage takes place, according to locality and climate,
from the beginning of September to the beginning of November. The vine
has been attacked by the _Oidium Tuckeri_, the _Phylloxera vastatrix_
and the _Peronospora viticola_, which in rapid succession wrought
great havoc in Italian vineyards. American vines, are, however, immune
and have been largely adopted. The production of wine in the vintage
of 1907, which was extraordinarily abundant all over the country, was
estimated at 1232 million gallons (56 million hectolitres), the
average for 1901-1903 being some 352 million gallons less; of this the
probable home consumption was estimated at rather over half, while a
considerable amount remained over from 1906. The exportation in 1902
only reached about 45 million gallons (and even that is double the
average), while an equally abundant vintage in France and Spain
rendered the exportation of the balance of 1907 impossible, and fiscal
regulations rendered the distillation of the superfluous amount
difficult. The quality, too, owing to bad weather at the time of
vintage, was not good; Italian wine, indeed, never is sufficiently
good to compete with the best wines of other countries, especially
France (though there is more opening for Italian wines of the Bordeaux
and Burgundy type); nor will many kinds of it stand keeping, partly
owing to their natural qualities and partly to the insufficient care
devoted to their preparation. There has been some improvement,
however, while some of the heavier white wines, noticeably the Marsala
of Sicily, have excellent keeping qualities. The area cultivated as
vineyards has increased enormously, from about 4,940,000 acres to
9,880,000 acres, or about 14% of the total area of the country.
Over-production seems thus to be a considerable danger, and
improvement of quality is rather to be sought after. This has been
encouraged by government prizes since 1904.
Next to cereals and the vine the most important object of cultivation
is the olive. In Sicily and the provinces of Reggio, Catanzaro,
Cosenza and Lecce this tree flourishes without shelter; as far north
as Rome, Aquila and Teramo it requires only the slightest protection;
in the rest of the peninsula it runs the risk of damage by frost every
ten years or so. The proportion of ground under olives is from 20 to
36% at Porto Maurizio, and in Reggio, Lecce, Bari, Chieti and Leghorn
it averages from 10 to 19%. Throughout Piedmont, Lombardy, Venetia and
the greater part of Emilia, the tree is of little importance. In the
olive there is great variety of kinds, and the methods of cultivation
differ greatly in different districts; in Bari, Chieti and Lecce, for
instance, there are regular woods of nothing but olive-trees, while in
middle Italy there are olive-orchards with the interspaces occupied by
crops of various kinds. The Tuscan oils from Lucca, Calci and Buti are
considered the best in the world; those of Bari, Umbria and western
Liguria rank next. The wood of the olive is also used for the
manufacture of small articles. The olive-growing area occupies about
3.5% of the total area of the country, and the crop in 1905 produced
about 75,000,000 gallons of oil. The falling off of the crop,
especially in 1899, was due to bad seasons and to insects, notably the
_Cycloconium oleoginum_, and the _Dacus oleae_, or oil-fly, which have
ravaged the olive-yards, and it is noticeable that lately good and bad
seasons seem to alternate; between 1900 and 1905 the crops were
alternately one half of, and equal to, that of the latter year. With
the development of agricultural knowledge, notable improvements have
been effected in the manufacture of oil. The steam mills give the best
results. The export trade, however, is decreasing considerably, while
the home consumption is increasing. In 1901, 1985 imperial tuns of oil
were shipped from Gallipoli for abroad--two-thirds to the United
Kingdom, one-third to Russia--and 666 to Italian ports; while in 1904
the figures were reversed, 1633 tuns going to Italian ports, and only
945 tuns to foreign ports. The other principal port of shipping is
Gioia Tauro, 30 m. N.N.E. of Reggio Calabria. A certain amount of
linseed-oil is made in Lombardy, Sicily, Apulia and Calabria; colza in
Piedmont, Lombardy, Venetia and Emilia; and castor-oil in Venetia and
Sicily. The product is principally used for industrial purposes, and
partly in the preparation of food, but the amount is decreasing.
The cultivation of oranges, lemons and their congeners (collectively
designated in Italian by the term _agrumi_) is of comparatively modern
date, the introduction of the _Citrus Bigaradia_ being probably due to
the Arabs. Sicily is the chief centre of cultivation--the area
occupied by lemon and orange orchards in the province of Palermo alone
having increased from 11,525 acres in 1854 to 54,340 in 1874. Reggio
Calabria, Catanzaro, Cosenza, Lecce, Salerno, Naples and Caserta are
the continental provinces which come next after Sicily. In Sardinia
the cultivation is extensive, but receives little attention. Both
crude and concentrated lime-juice is exported, and essential oils are
extracted from the rind of the _agrumi_, more particularly from that
of the lemon and the bergamot. In northern and central Italy, except
in the province of Brescia, the _agrumi_ are almost non-existent. The
trees are planted on irrigated soil and the fruit gathered between
November and August. Considerable trade is done in _agro di limone_ or
lemon extract, which forms the basis of citric acid. Extraction is
extensively carried on in the provinces of Messina and Palermo.
Among other fruit trees, apple-trees have special importance. Almonds
are widely cultivated in Sicily, Sardinia and the southern provinces;
walnut trees throughout the peninsula, their wood being more important
than their fruit; hazel nuts, figs, prickly pears (used in the south
and the islands for hedges, their fruit being a minor consideration),
peaches, pears, locust beans and pistachio nuts are among the other
fruits. The mulberry-tree (_Morus alba_), whose leaves serve as food
for silkworms, is cultivated in every region, considerable progress
having been made in its cultivation and in the rearing of silkworms
since 1850. Silkworm-rearing establishments of importance now exist
in the Marches, Umbria, in the Abruzzi, Tuscany, Piedmont and Venetia.
The chief silk-producing provinces are Lombardy, Venetia and Piedmont.
During the period 1900-1904 the average annual production of silk
cocoons was 53,500 tons, and of silk 5200 tons.
The great variety in physical and social conditions throughout the
peninsula gives corresponding variety to the methods of agriculture.
In the rotation of crops there is an amazing diversity--shifts of two
years, three years, four years, six years, and in many cases whatever
order strikes the fancy of the farmer. The fields of Tuscany for the
most part bear wheat one year and maize the next, in perpetual
interchanges, relieved to some extent by green crops. A similar method
prevails in the Abruzzi, and in the provinces of Salerno, Benevento
and Avellino. In Lombardy a six-year shift is common: either wheat,
clover, maize, rice, rice, rice (the last year manured with lupines)
or maize, wheat followed by clover, clover, clover ploughed in, and
rice, rice and rice manured with lupines. The Emilian region is one
where regular rotations are best observed--a common shift being grain,
maize, clover, beans and vetches, &c., grain, which has the
disadvantage of the grain crops succeeding each other. In the province
of Naples, Caserta, &c., the method of fallows is widely adopted, the
ground often being left in this state for fifteen or twenty years; and
in some parts of Sicily there is a regular interchange of fallow and
crop year by year. The following scheme indicates a common Sicilian
method of a type which has many varieties: fallow, grain, grain,
pasture, pasture--other two divisions of the area following the same
order, but beginning respectively with the two years of grain and the
two of pasture.
Woods and forests.
Woods and forests play an important part, especially in regard to the
consistency of the soil and to the character of the watercourses. The
chestnut is of great value for its wood and its fruit, an article of
popular consumption. Good timber is furnished by the oak and beech,
and pine and fir forests of the Alps and Apennines. Notwithstanding
the efforts of the government to unify and co-ordinate the forest laws
previously existing in the various states, deforestation has continued
in many regions. This has been due to speculation, to the unrestricted
pasturage of goats, to the rights which many communes have over the
forests, and to some extent to excessive taxation, which led the
proprietors to cut and sell the trees and then abandon the ground to
the Treasury. The results are--a lack of water-supply and of
water-power, the streams becoming mere torrents for a short period and
perfectly dry for the rest of the year; lack of a sufficient supply of
timber; the denudation of the soil on the hills, and, where the
valleys below have insufficient drainage, the formation of swamps. If
the available water-power of Italy, already very considerable, be
harnessed, converted into electric power (which is already being done
in some districts), and further increased by reafforestation, the
effect upon the industries of Italy will be incalculable, and the
importation of coal will be very materially diminished. The area of
forest is about 14.3% of the total, and of the chestnut-woods 1.5
more; and its products in 1886 were valued at L3,520,000 (not
including chestnuts). A quantity of it is really brushwood, used for
the manufacture of charcoal and for fuel, coal being little used
except for manufacturing purposes. Forest nurseries have also been
founded.
Live stock.
According to an approximate calculation the number of head of live
stock in Italy in 1890 was 16,620,000, thus divided:--horses, 720,000;
asses, 1,000,000; mules, 300,000; cattle, 5,000,000; sheep, 6,000,000;
goats, 1,800,000; swine, 1,800,000.
The breed of cattle most widely distributed is that known as the
Podolian, usually with white or grey coat and enormous horns. Of the
numerous sub-varieties, the finest is said to be that of the Val di
Chiana, where the animals are stall-fed all the year round; next is
ranked the so-called Valle Tiberina type. Wilder varieties roam in
vast herds over the Tuscan and Roman _maremmas_, and the corresponding
districts in Apulia and other regions. In the Alpine districts there
is a stock distinct from the Podolian, generally called _razza
montanina_. These animals are much smaller in stature and more regular
in form than the Podolians; they are mainly kept for dairy purposes.
Another stock, with no close allies nearer than the south of France,
is found in the plain of Racconigi and Carmagnola; the mouse-coloured
Swiss breed occurs in the neighbourhood of Milan: the Tirolese breed
stretches south to Padua and Modena; and a red-coated breed named of
Reggio or Friuli is familiar both in what were the duchies of Parma
and Modena, and in the provinces of Udine and Treviso. In Sicily the
so-called Modica race is of note; and in Sardinia there is a distinct
stock which seldom exceeds the weight of 700 lb. Buffaloes are kept in
several districts, more particularly of southern Italy.
Enormous flocks are possessed by professional sheep-farmers, who
pasture them in the mountains in the summer, and bring them down to
the plains in the winter. At Saluzzo in Piedmont there is a stock with
hanging ears, arched face and tall stature, kept for its dairy
qualities; and in the Biellese the merino breed is maintained by some
of the larger proprietors. In the upper valleys of the Alps there are
many local varieties, one of which at Ossola is like the Scottish
blackface. Liguria is not much adapted for sheep-farming on a large
scale; but a number of small flocks come down to the plain of Tuscany
in the winter. With the exception of a few sub-Alpine districts near
Bergamo and Brescia, the great Lombard plain is decidedly unpastoral.
The Bergamo sheep is the largest breed in the country; that of Cadore
and Belluno approaches it in size. In the Venetian districts the
farmers often have small stationary flocks. Throughout the Roman
province, and Umbria, Apulia, the Abruzzi, Basilicata and Calabria, is
found in its full development a remarkable system of pastoral
migration with the change of seasons which has been in existence from
the most ancient times, and has attracted attention as much by its
picturesqueness as by its industrial importance (see APULIA). Merino
sheep have been acclimatized in the Abruzzi, Capitanata and
Basilicata. The number of sheep, however, is on the decrease.
Similarly, the number of goats, which are reared only in hilly
regions, is decreasing, especially on account of the existing forest
laws, as they are the chief enemies of young plantations.
Horse-breeding is on the increase. The state helps to improve the
breeds by placing choice stallions at the disposal of private breeders
at a low tariff. The exportation is, however, unimportant, while the
importation is largely on the increase, 46,463 horses having been
imported in 1902. Cattle-breeding varies with the different regions.
In upper Italy cattle are principally reared in pens and stalls; in
central Italy cattle are allowed to run half wild, the stall system
being little practised; in the south and in the islands cattle are
kept in the open air, few shelters being provided. The erection of
shelters, however, is encouraged by the state. Swine are extensively
reared in many provinces. Fowls are kept on all farms and, though
methods are still antiquated, trade in fowls and eggs is rapidly
increasing.
In 1905 Italy exported 32,786 and imported 17,766 head of cattle;
exported 33,574 and imported 6551 sheep; exported 95,995 and imported
1604 swine. The former two show a very large decrease and the latter a
large increase on the export figures for 1882. The export of
agricultural products shows a large increase.
The north of Italy has long been known for its great dairy districts.
Parmesan cheese, otherwise called Lodigiano (from Lodi) or _grana_,
was presented to King Louis XII. as early as 1509. Parmesan is not
confined to the province from which it derives its name; it is
manufactured in all that part of Emilia in the neighbourhood of the
Po, and in the provinces of Brescia, Bergamo, Pavia, Novara and
Alessandria. Gorgonzola, which takes its name from a town in the
province, has become general throughout the whole of Lombardy, in the
eastern parts of the "ancient provinces," and in the province of
Cuneo. The cheese known as the _cacio-cavallo_ is produced in regions
extending from 37 deg. to 43 deg. N. lat. Gruyere, extensively
manufactured in Switzerland and France, is also produced in Italy in
the Alpine regions and in Sicily. With the exception of Parmesan,
Gorgonzola, La Fontina and Gruyere, most of the Italian cheese is
consumed in the locality of its production. Co-operative dairy farms
are numerous in north Italy, and though only about half as many as in
1889 (114 in 1902) are better organized. Modern methods have been
introduced.
Drainage, &c.
The drainage of marshes and marshy lands has considerably extended. A
law passed on the 22nd of March 1900 gave a special impulse to this
form of enterprise by fixing the ratio of expenditure incumbent
respectively upon the State, the provinces, the communes, and the
owners or other private individuals directly interested.
Agrarian economics.
The Italian Federation of Agrarian Unions has greatly contributed to
agricultural progress. Government travelling teachers of agriculture,
and fixed schools of viticulture, also do good work. Some unions
annually purchase large quantities of merchandise for their members,
especially chemical manures. The importation of machinery amounted to
over 5000 tons in 1901.
Income from land has diminished on the whole. The chief diminution has
taken place in the south in regard to oranges and lemons, cereals and
(for some provinces) vines. Since 1895, however, the heavy import corn
duty has caused a slight rise in the income from corn lands. The
principal reasons for the general decrease are the fall in prices
through foreign competition and the closing of certain markets, the
diseases of plants and the increased outlay required to combat them,
and the growth of State and local taxation. One of the great evils of
Italian agricultural taxation is its lack of elasticity and of
adaptation to local conditions. Taxes are not sufficiently
proportioned to what the land may reasonably be expected to produce,
nor sufficient allowance made for the exceptional conditions of a
southern climate, in which a few hours' bad weather may destroy a
whole crop. The Italian agriculturist has come to look (and often in
vain) for action on a large scale from the state, for irrigation,
drainage of uncultivated low-lying land, which may be made fertile,
river regulation, &c.; while to the small proprietor the state often
appears only as a hard and inconsiderate tax-gatherer.
The relations between owners and tillers of the soil are still
regulated by the ancient forms of agrarian contract, which have
remained almost untouched by social and political changes. The
possibility of reforming these contracts in some parts of the kingdom
has been studied, in the hope of bringing them into closer harmony
with the needs of rational cultivation and the exigencies of social
justice.
Peasant proprietorship is most common in Lombardy and Piedmont, but it
is also found elsewhere. Large farms are found in certain of the more
open districts; but in Italy generally, and especially in Sardinia,
the land is very much subdivided. The following forms of contract are
most usual in the several regions: In Piedmont the _mezzadria_
(_metayage_), the _terzieria_, the _colonia parziaria_, the _boaria_,
the _schiavenza_ and the _affitto_, or lease, are most usual. Under
_mezzadria_ the contract generally lasts three years. Products are
usually divided in equal proportions between the owner and the tiller.
The owner pays the taxes, defrays the cost of preparing the ground,
and provides the necessary implements. Stock usually belongs to the
owner, and, even if kept on the half-and-half system, is usually
bought by him. The peasant, or _mezzadro_, provides labour. Under
_terzieria_ the owner furnishes stock, implements and seed, and the
tiller retains only one-third of the principal products. In the
_colonia parziaria_ the peasant executes all the agricultural work, in
return for which he is housed rent-free, and receives one-sixth of the
corn, one-third of the maize and has a small money wage. This contract
is usually renewed from year to year. The _boaria_ is widely diffused
in its two forms of _cascina fatta_ and _paghe_. In the former case a
peasant family undertakes all the necessary work in return for payment
in money or kind, which varies according to the crop; in the latter
the money wages and the payment in kind are fixed beforehand.
_Schiavenza_, either simple or with a share in the crops, is a form of
contract similar to the _boaria_, but applied principally to large
holdings. The wages are lower than under the _boaria_. In the
_affitto_, or lease, the proprietor furnishes seed and the implements.
Rent varies according to the quality of the soil.
In Lombardy, besides the _mezzadria_, the lease is common, but the
_terzieria_ is rare. The lessee, or farmer, tills the soil at his own
risk; usually he provides live stock, implements and capital, and has
no right to compensation for ordinary improvements, nor for
extraordinary improvements effected without the landlord's consent. He
is obliged to give a guarantee for the fulfilment of his engagements.
In some places he pays an annual tribute in grapes, corn and other
produce. In some of the Lombard _mezzadria_ contracts taxes are paid
by the cultivator.
In Venetia it is more common than elsewhere in Italy for owners to
till their own soil. The prevalent forms of contract are the
_mezzadria_ and the lease. In Liguria, also, _mezzadria_ and lease are
the chief forms of contract.
In Emilia both _mezzadria_ and lease tenure are widely diffused in the
provinces of Ferrara, Reggio and Parma; but other special forms of
contract exist, known as the _famiglio da spesa_, _boaria_,
_braccianti obbligati_ and _braccianti disobbligati_. In the _famiglio
da spesa_ the tiller receives a small wage and a proportion of certain
products. The _boaria_ is of two kinds. If the tiller receives as much
as 45 lire per month, supplemented by other wages in kind, it is said
to be _boaria a salario_; if the principal part of his remuneration is
in kind, his contract is called _boaria a spesa_.
In the Marches, Umbria and Tuscany, _mezzadria_ prevails in its purest
form. Profits and losses, both in regard to produce and stock, are
equally divided. In some places, however, the landlord takes
two-thirds of the olives and the whole of the grapes and the mulberry
leaves. Leasehold exists in the province of Grosseto alone. In Latium
leasehold and farming by landlords prevail, but cases of _mezzadria_
and of "improvement farms" exist. In the _agro Romano_, or zone
immediately around Rome, land is as a rule left for pasturage. It
needs, therefore, merely supervision by guardians and mounted
overseers, or _butteri_, who are housed and receive wages. Large
landlords are usually represented by _ministri_, or factors, who
direct agricultural operations and manage the estates, but the estate
is often let to a middleman, or _mercante di campagna_. Wherever corn
is cultivated, leasehold predominates. Much of the work is done by
companies of peasants, who come down from the mountainous districts
when required, permanent residence not being possible owing to the
malaria. Near Velletri and Frosinone "improvement farms" prevail. A
piece of uncultivated land is made over to a peasant for from 20 to 29
years. Vines and olives are usually planted, the landlord paying the
taxes and receiving one-third of the produce. At the end of the
contract the landlord either cultivates his land himself or leases it,
repaying to the improver part of the expenditure incurred by him. This
repayment sometimes consists of half the estimated value of the
standing crops.
In the Abruzzi and in Apulia leasehold is predominant. Usually leases
last from three to six years. In the provinces of Foggia and Lecce
long leases (up to twenty-nine years) are granted, but in them it is
explicitly declared that they do not imply _enfiteusi_ (perpetual
leasehold), nor any other form of contract equivalent to
co-proprietorship. _Mezzadria_ is rarely resorted to. On some small
holdings, however, it exists with contracts lasting from two to six
years. Special contracts, known as _colonie immovibili_ and _colonie
temporanee_ are applied to the _latifondi_ or huge estates, the owners
of which receive half the produce, except that of the vines,
olive-trees and woods, which he leases separately. "Improvement
contracts" also exist. They consist of long leases, under which the
landlord shares the costs of improvements and builds farm-houses; also
leases of orange and lemon gardens, two-thirds of the produce of which
go to the landlord, while the farmer contributes half the cost of
farming besides the labour. Leasehold, varying from four to six years
for arable land and from six to eighteen years for forest-land,
prevails also in Campania, Basilicata and Calabria. The _estaglio_, or
rent, is often paid in kind, and is equivalent to half the produce of
good land and one-third of the produce of bad land. "Improvement
contracts" are granted for uncultivated bush districts, where one
fourth of the produce goes to the landlord, and for plantations of
fig-trees, olive-trees and vines, half of the produce of which belongs
to the landlord, who at the end of ten years reimburses the tenant for
a part of the improvements effected. Other forms of contract are the
_piccola mezzadria_, or sub-letting by tenants to under-tenants, on
the half-and-half system; _enfiteusi_, or perpetual leases at low
rents--a form which has almost died out; and _mezzadria_ (in the
provinces of Caserta and Benevento).
In Sicily leasehold prevails under special conditions. In pure
leasehold the landlord demands at least six months' rent as guarantee,
and the forfeiture of any fortuitous advantages. Under the _gabella_
lease the contract lasts twenty-nine years, the lessee being obliged
to make improvements, but being sometimes exempted from rent during
the first years. _Inquilinaggio_ is a form of lease by which the
landlord, and sometimes the tenant, makes over to tenant or sub-tenant
the sowing of corn. There are various categories of _inquilinaggio_,
according as rent is paid in money or in kind. Under _mezzadria_ or
_metateria_ the landlord divides the produce with the farmer in
various proportions. The farmer provides all labour. _Latifondi_ farms
are very numerous in Sicily. The landlord lets his land to two or more
persons jointly, who undertake to restore it to him in good condition
with one-third of it "_interrozzito_," that is, fallow, so as to be
cultivated the following year according to triennial rotation. These
lessees are usually speculators, who divide and sub-let the estate.
The sub-tenants in their turn let a part of their land to peasants in
_mezzadria_, thus creating a system disastrous both for agriculture
and the peasants. At harvest-time the produce is placed in the barns
of the lessor, who first deducts 25% as premium, then 16% for
_battiteria_ (the difference between corn before and after winnowing),
then deducts a proportion for rent and subsidies, so that the portion
retained by the actual tiller of the soil is extremely meagre. In bad
years the tiller, moreover, gives up seed corn before beginning
harvest.
In Sardinia landlord-farming and leasehold prevail. In the few cases
of _mezzadria_ the Tuscan system is followed.
_Mines._--The number of mines increased from 589 in 1881 to 1580 in
1902. The output in 1881 was worth about L2,800,000, but by 1895 had
decreased to L1,800,000, chiefly on account of the fall in the price
of sulphur. It afterwards rose, and was worth more than L3,640,000 in
1899, falling again to L3,118,600 in 1902 owing to severe American
competition in sulphur (see SICILY). The chief minerals are sulphur,
in the production of which Italy holds one of the first places, iron,
zinc, lead; these, and, to a smaller extent, copper of an inferior
quality, manganese and antimony, are successfully mined. The bulk of
the sulphur mines are in Sicily, while the majority of the lead and
zinc mines are in Sardinia; much of the lead smelting is done at
Pertusola, near Genoa, the company formed for this purpose having
acquired many of the Sardinian mines. Iron is mainly mined in Elba.
Quicksilver and tin are found (the latter in small quantities) in
Tuscany. Boracic acid is chiefly found near Volterra, where there is
also a little rock salt, but the main supply is obtained by
evaporation. The output of stone from quarries is greatly diminished
(from 12,500,000 tons, worth L1,920,000, in 1890, to 8,000,000 tons,
worth L1,400,000, in 1899), a circumstance probably attributable to
the slackening of building enterprise in many cities, and to the
decrease in the demand for stone for railway, maritime and river
embankment works. The value of the output had, however, by 1902 risen
to L1,600,000, representing a tonnage of about 10,000,000. There is
good travertine below Tivoli and elsewhere in Italy; the finest
granite is found at Baveno. Lava is much used for paving-stones in the
neighbourhood of volcanic districts, where pozzolana (for cement) and
pumice stone are also important. Much of Italy contains Pliocene clay,
which is good for pottery and brickmaking. Mineral springs are very
numerous, and of great variety.
_Fisheries._--The number of boats and smacks engaged in the fisheries
has considerably increased. In 1881 the total number was 15,914, with
a tonnage of 49,103. In 1902 there were 23,098 boats, manned by
101,720 men, and the total catch was valued at just over half a
million sterling--according to the government figures, which are
certainly below the truth. The value has, however, undoubtedly
diminished, though the number of boats and crews increases. Most of
the fishing boats, properly so called, start from the Adriatic coast,
the coral boats from the western Mediterranean coast, and the sponge
boats from the western Mediterranean and Sicilian coasts. Fishing and
trawling are carried on chiefly off the Italian (especially Ligurian),
Austrian and Tunisian coasts; coral is found principally near Sardinia
and Sicily, and sponges almost exclusively off Sicily and Tunisia in
the neighbourhood of Sfax. For sponge fishing no accurate statistics
are available before 1896; in that year 75 tons of sponges were
secured, but there has been considerable diminution since, only 31
tons being obtained in 1902. A considerable proportion was obtained by
foreign boats. The island of Lampedusa may be considered its centre.
Coral fishing, which fell off between 1889 and 1892 on account of the
temporary closing of the Sciacca coral reefs has greatly decreased
since 1884, when the fisheries produced 643 tons, whereas in 1902 they
only produced 225 tons. The value of the product has, however,
proportionately increased, so that the sum realized was little less,
while less than half the number of men was employed. Sardinian coral
commands from L3 to L4 per kilogramme (2.204 lb.), and is much more
valuable than the Sicilian coral. The Sciacca reefs were again closed
for three winters by a decree of 1904. The fishing is largely carried
on by boats from Torre del Greco, in the Gulf of Naples, where the
best coral beds are now exhausted. In 1879 4000 men were employed; in
1902 only just over 1000. In 1902 there were 48 tunny fisheries,
employing 3006 men, and 5116 tons of fish worth L80,000 were caught.
The main fisheries are in Sardinia, Sicily and Elba. Anchovy and
sardine fishing (the products of which are reckoned among the general
total) are also of considerable importance, especially along the
Ligurian and Tuscan coasts. The lagoon fisheries are also of great
importance, more especially those of Comacchio, the lagoon of
Orbetello and the Mare Piccolo at Taranto &c. The deep-sea fishing
boats in 1902 numbered 1368, with a total tonnage of 16,149; 100 of
these were coral-fishing boats and 111 sponge-fishing boats.
_Industrial Progress._--The industrial progress of Italy has been great
since 1880. Many articles formerly imported are now made at home, and
some Italian manufactures have begun to compete in foreign markets.
Italy has only unimportant lignite and anthracite mines, but water power
is abundant and has been largely applied to industry, especially in
generating electricity. The electric power required for the tramways and
the illumination of Rome is entirely supplied by turbines situated at
Tivoli, and this is the case elsewhere, and the harnessing of this
water-power is capable of very considerable extension. A sign of
industrial development is to be found in the growing number of
manufacturing companies, both Italian and foreign.
Mechanical industries.
The chief development has taken place in mechanical industries, though
it has also been marked in metallurgy. Sulphur mining supplies large
industries of sulphur-refining and grinding, in spite of American
competition. Very little pig iron is made, most of the iron ore being
exported, and iron manufactured consists of old iron resmelted. For
steel-making foreign pig iron is chiefly used. The manufacture of
steel rails, carried on first at Terni and afterwards at Savona, began
in Italy in 1886. Tin has been manufactured since 1892. Lead,
antimony, mercury and copper are also produced. The total salt
production in 1902 was 458,497 tons, of which 248,215 were produced in
the government salt factories and the rest in the free salt-works of
Sicily. Great progress has been made in the manufacture of machinery;
locomotives, railway carriages, electric tram-cars, &c., and machinery
of all kinds, are now largely made in Italy itself, especially in the
north and in the neighbourhood of Naples. At Turin the manufacture of
motor-cars has attained great importance and the F.I.A.T. (Fabbrica
Italiana Automobili Torino) factory employs 2000 workmen, while eight
others employ 2780 amongst them.
Textiles.
The textile industries, some of which are of ancient date, are among
those that have most rapidly developed. Handlooms and small spinning
establishments have, in the silk industry, given place to large
establishments with steam looms. The production of raw silk at least
tripled itself between 1875 and 1900, and the value of the silks woven
in Italy, estimated in 1890 to be L2,200,000, is now, on account of
the development of the export trade, calculated to be almost
L4,000,000. Lombardy (especially Como, Milan and Bergamo), Piedmont
and Venetia are the chief silk-producing regions. There are several
public assay offices in Italy for silk; the first in the world was
established in Turin in 1750. The cotton industry has also rapidly
developed. Home products not only supply the Italian market in
increasing degree, but find their way into foreign markets. While
importation of raw cotton increases importations of cotton thread and
of cotton stuffs have rapidly decreased. The value of the annual
produce of the various branches of the cotton industry, which in 1885
was calculated to be L7,200,000, was in 1900, notwithstanding the fall
in prices, about L12,000,000. The industry is chiefly developed in
Lombardy, Piedmont and Liguria; to some extent also in Campania,
Venetia and Tuscany, and to a less extent in Lazio (Rome), Apulia,
Emilia, the Marches, Umbria, the Abruzzi and Sicily. A government
weaving school was established in Naples in 1906. As in the case of
cotton, Italian woollen fabrics are conquering the home market in
increasing degree. The industry centres chiefly in Piedmont (province
of Novara), Venetia (province of Vicenza), Tuscany (Florence),
Lombardy (Brescia), Campania (Caserta), Genoa, Umbria, the Marches and
Rome. To some extent the industry also exists in Emilia, Calabria,
Basilicata, the Abruzzi, Sardinia and Sicily. It has, however, a
comparatively small export trade.
The other textile industries (flax, jute, &c.) have made notable
progress. The jute industry is concentrated in a few large factories,
which from 1887 onwards have more than supplied the home market, and
have begun considerably to export.
Chemicals.
Chemical industries show an output worth L2,640,000 in 1902 as against
L1,040,000 in 1893. The chief products are sulphuric acid; sulphate of
copper, employed chiefly as a preventive of certain maladies of the
vine; carbonate of lead, hyperphosphates and chemical manures; calcium
carbide; explosive powder; dynamite and other explosives.
Pharmaceutical industries, as distinguished from those above
mentioned, have kept pace with the general development of Italian
activity. The principal product is quinine, the manufacture of which
has acquired great importance, owing to its use as a specific against
malaria. Milan and Genoa are the principal centres, and also the
government military pharmaceutical factory at Turin. Other industries
of a semi-chemical character are candle-, soap-, glue-, and
perfume-making, and the preparation of india-rubber. The last named
has succeeded, by means of the large establishments at Milan in
supplying not only the whole Italian market but an export trade.
The match-making industry is subject to special fiscal conditions. In
1902-1903 there were 219 match factories scattered throughout Italy,
but especially in Piedmont, Lombardy and Venetia. The number has been
reduced to less than half since 1897 by the suppression of smaller
factories, while the production has increased from 47,690 millions to
59,741 millions.
The beetroot-sugar industry has attained considerable proportions in
Umbria, the Marches, Lazio, Venetia and Piedmont since 1890. In
1898-1899, 5972 tons were produced, while in 1905 the figure had risen
to 93,916. The rise of the industry has been favoured by protective
tariffs and by a system of excise which allows a considerable premium
to manufacturers.
Alcohol has undergone various oscillations, according to the
legislation governing distilleries. In 1871 only 20 hectolitres were
produced, but in 1881 the output was 318,000 hectolitres, the maximum
hitherto attained. Since then special laws have hampered development,
some provinces, as for instance Sardinia, being allowed to manufacture
for their own consumption but not for export. In other parts the
industry is subjected to an almost prohibitive excise-duty. The
average production is about 180,000 hectolitres per annum. The
greatest quantity is produced in Lombardy, Piedmont, Venetia and
Tuscany. The quantity of beer is about the same, the greater part of
the beer drunk being imported from Germany, while the production of
artificial mineral waters has somewhat decreased. There is a
considerable trade (not very large for export, however) in natural
mineral waters, which are often excellent.
Paper-making is highly developed in the provinces of Novara, Caserta,
Milan, Vicenza, Turin, Como, Lucca, Ancona, Genoa, Brescia, Cuneo,
Macerata and Salerno. The hand-made paper of Fabriano is especially
good.
Furniture-making in different styles is carried on all over Italy,
especially as a result of the establishment of industrial schools.
Each region produces a special type, Venetia turning out imitations of
16th- and 17th-century styles, Tuscany the 15th-century or cinquecento
style, and the Neapolitan provinces the Pompeian style. Furniture and
cabinet-making in great factories are carried on particularly in
Lombardy and Piedmont. Bent-wood factories have been established in
Venetia and Liguria.
A characteristic Italian industry is that of straw-plaiting for
hat-making, which is carried on principally in Tuscany, in the
district of Fermo, in the Alpine villages of the province of Vicenza,
and in some communes of the province of Messina. The plaiting is done
by country women, while the hats are made up in factories. Both plaits
and hats are largely exported.
Tobacco is entirely a government monopoly; the total amount
manufactured in 1902-1903 was 16,599 tons--a fairly constant figure.
The finest glass is made in Tuscany and Venetia; Venetian glass is
often coloured and of artistic form.
Artistic industries.
In the various ceramic arts Italy was once unrivalled, but the ancient
tradition for a long time lost its primeval impulse. The works at
Vinovo, which had fame in the 18th century, came to an untimely end in
1820; those of Castelli (in the Abruzzi), which have been revived,
were supplanted by Charles III.'s establishment at Capodimonte, 1750,
which after producing articles of surprising execution was closed
before the end of the century. The first place now belongs to the
Della Doccia works at Florence. Founded in 1735 by the marquis Carlo
Ginori, they maintained a reputation of the very highest kind down to
about 1860; but since then they have not kept pace with their younger
rivals in other lands. They still, however, are commercially
successful. Other cities where the ceramic industries keep their
ground are Pesaro, Gubbio, Faenza (whose name long ago became the
distinctive term for the finer kind of potter's work in France,
faience), Savona and Albissola, Turin, Mondovi, Cuneo, Castellamonte,
Milan, Brescia, Sassuolo, Imola, Rimini, Perugia, Castelli, &c. In all
these the older styles, by which these places became famous in the
16th-18th centuries, have been revived. It is estimated that the total
production of the finer wares amounts on the average to L400,000 per
annum. The ruder branches of the art--the making of tiles and common
wares--are pretty generally diffused.
The jeweller's art received large encouragement in a country which had
so many independent courts; but nowhere has it attained a fuller
development than at Rome. A vast variety of trinkets--in coral, glass,
lava, &c.--is exported from Italy, or carried away by the annual host
of tourists. The copying of the paintings of the old masters is
becoming an art industry of no small mercantile importance in some of
the larger cities.
The production of mosaics is an industry still carried on with much
success in Italy, which indeed ranks exceedingly high in the
department. The great works of the Vatican are especially famous
(more than 17,000 distinct tints are employed in their productions),
and there are many other establishments in Rome. The Florentine
mosaics are perhaps better known abroad; they are composed of larger
pieces than the Roman. Those of the Venetian artists are remarkable
for the boldness of their colouring. There is a tendency towards the
fostering of feminine home industries--lace-making, linen-weaving, &c.
_Condition of the Working Classes._--The condition of the numerous
agricultural labourers (who constitute one-third of the population) is,
except in some regions, hard, and in places absolutely miserable. Much
light was thrown upon their position by the agricultural inquiry
(_inchiesta agraria_) completed in 1884. The large numbers of emigrants,
who are drawn chiefly from the rural classes, furnish another proof of
poverty. The terms of agrarian contracts and leases (except in districts
where _mezzadria_ prevails in its essential form), are in many regions
disadvantageous to the labourers, who suffer from the obligation to
provide guarantees for payment of rent, for repayment of seed corn and
for the division of products.
Malaria.
It was only at the close of the 19th century that the true cause of
malaria--the conveyance of the infection by the bite of the _Anopheles
claviger_--was discovered. This mosquito does not as a rule enter the
large towns; but low-lying coast districts and ill-drained plains are
especially subject to it. Much has been done in keeping out the
insects by fine wire netting placed on the windows and the doors of
houses, especially in the railwaymen's cottages. In 1902 the state
took up the sale of quinine at a low price, manufacturing it at the
central military pharmaceutical laboratory at Turin. Statistics show
the difference produced by this measure.
+---------------+-----------------------+------------------+
|Financial Year.|Pounds of quinine sold.|Deaths by Malaria.|
+---------------+-----------------------+------------------+
| 1901-1902 | .. | 13,358 |
| 1902-1903 | 4,932 | 9,908 |
| 1903-1904 | 15,915 | 8,513 |
| 1904-1905 | 30,956 | 8,501 |
| 1905-1906 | 41,166 | 7,838 |
| 1906-1907 | 45,591 | 4,875 |
+---------------+-----------------------+------------------+
The profit made by the state, which is entirely devoted to a special
fund for means against malaria, amounted in these five years to
L41,759. It has been established that two 3-grain pastilles a day are
a sufficient prophylactic; and the proprietors of malarious estates
and contractors for public works in malarious districts are bound by
law to provide sufficient quinine for their workmen, death for want of
this precaution coming under the provisions of the workmen's
compensation act. Much has also been, though much remains to be, done
in the way of _bonificamento_, i.e. proper drainage and improvement of
the (generally fertile) low-lying and hitherto malarious plains.
In Venetia the lives of the small proprietors and of the salaried
peasants are often extremely miserable. There and in Lombardy the
disease known as _pellagra_ is most widely diffused. The disease is
due to poisoning by micro-organisms produced by deteriorated maize,
and can be combated by care in ripening, drying and storing the maize.
The most recent statistics show the disease to be diminishing. Whereas
in 1881 there were 104,067 (16.29 per 1000) peasants afflicted by the
disease, in 1899 there were only 72,603 (10.30 per 1000) peasants,
with a maximum of 39,882 (34.32 per 1000) peasants in Venetia, and
19,557 (12.90 per 1000) peasants in Lombardy. The decrease of the
disease is a direct result of the efforts made to combat it, in the
form of special hospitals or _pellagrosari_, economic kitchens, rural
bakeries and maize-drying establishments. A bill for the better
prevention of pellagra was introduced in the spring of 1902. The
deaths from it dropped in that year to 2376, from 3054 in the previous
year and 3788 in 1900.
In Liguria, on account of the comparative rarity of large estates,
agricultural labourers are in a better condition. Men earn between 1s.
3d. and 2s. 1d. a day, and women from 5d. to 8d. In Emilia the day
labourers, known as _disobbligati_, earn, on the contrary, low wages,
out of which they have to provide for shelter and to lay by something
against unemployment. Their condition is miserable. In Tuscany,
however, the prevalence of _mezzadria_, properly so called, has raised
the labourers' position. Yet in some Tuscan provinces, as, for
instance, that of Grosseto, where malaria rages, labourers are
organized in gangs under "corporals," who undertake harvest work. They
are poverty-stricken, and easily fall victims to fever. In the Abruzzi
and in Apulia both regular and irregular workmen are engaged by the
year. The _curatori_ or _curatoli_ (factors) receive L40 a year, with
a slight interest in the profits; the stockmen hardly earn in money
and kind L13; the muleteers and under-workmen get between L5 to L8,
plus firewood, bread and oil; irregular workmen have even lower
wages, with a daily distribution of bread, salt and oil. In Campania
and Calabria the _curatoli_ and _massari_ earn, in money and kind,
about L12 a year; cowmen, shepherds and muleteers about L10; irregular
workmen are paid from 8(1/2)d. to 1s. 8d. per day, but only find
employment, on an average, 230 days in the year. The condition of
Sicilian labourers is also miserable. The huge extent of the
_latifondi_, or large estates, often results in their being left in
the hands of speculators, who exploit both workmen and farmers with
such usury that the latter are often compelled, at the end of a scanty
year, to hand over their crops to the usurers before harvest. In
Sardinia wage-earners are paid 10d. a day, with free shelter and an
allotment for private cultivation. Irregular adult workmen earn
between 10d. and 1s. 3d., and boys from 6d. to 10d. a day. Woodcutters
and vine-waterers, however, sometimes earn as much as 3s. a day.
The peasants somewhat rarely use animal food--this is most largely
used in Sardinia and least in Sicily--bread and polenta or macaroni
and vegetables being the staple diet. Wine is the prevailing drink.
The condition of the workmen employed in manufactures has improved
during recent years. Wages are higher, the cost of the prime necessaries
of life is, as a rule, lower, though taxation on some of them is still
enormous; so that the remuneration of work has improved. Taking into
account the variations in wages and in the price of wheat, it may be
calculated that the number of hours of work requisite to earn a sum
equal to the price of a cwt. of wheat fell from 183 in 1871 to 73 in
1894. In 1898 it was 105, on account of the rise in the price of wheat,
and since then up till 1902 it oscillated between 105 and 95.
Wages have risen from 22.6 centimes per hour (on an average) to 26.3
centimes, but not in all industries. In the mining and woollen
industries they have fallen, but have increased in mechanical,
chemical, silk and cotton industries. Wages vary greatly in different
parts of Italy, according to the cost of the necessaries of life, the
degree of development of working-class needs and the state of
working-class organization, which in some places has succeeded in
increasing the rates of pay. Women are, as a rule, paid less than men,
and though their wages have also increased, the rise has been slighter
than in the case of men. In some trades, for instance the silk trade,
women earn little more than 10d. a day, and, for some classes of work,
as little as 7d. and 4(1/2)d. The general improvement in sanitation has
led to a corresponding improvement in the condition of the working
classes, though much still remains to be done, especially in the
south. On the other hand, it is generally the case that even in the
most unpromising inn the bedding is clean.
Strikes.
The number of industrial strikes has risen from year to year,
although, on account of the large number of persons involved in some
of them, the rise in the number of strikers has not always
corresponded to the number of strikes. During the years 1900 and 1901
strikes were increasingly numerous, chiefly on account of the growth
of Socialist and working-class organizations.
The greatest proportion of strikes takes place in northern Italy,
especially Lombardy and Piedmont, where manufacturing industries are
most developed. Textile, building and mining industries show the
highest percentage of strikes, since they give employment to large
numbers of men concentrated in single localities. Agricultural
strikes, though less frequent than those in manufacturing industries,
have special importance in Italy. They are most common in the north
and centre, a circumstance which shows them to be promoted less by the
more backward and more ignorant peasants than by the better-educated
labourers of Lombardy and Emilia, among whom Socialist organizations
are widespread. Since 1901 there have been, more than once, general
strikes at Milan and elsewhere, and one in the autumn of 1905 caused
great inconvenience throughout the country, and led to no effective
result.
Although in some industrial centres the working-class movement has
assumed an importance equal to that of other countries, there is no
general working-class organization comparable to the English trade
unions. Mutual benefit and co-operative societies serve the purpose of
working-class defence or offence against the employers. In 1893, after
many vicissitudes, the Italian Socialist Labour Party was founded, and
has now become the Italian Socialist Party, in which the majority of
Italian workmen enrol themselves. Printers and hat-makers, however,
possess trade societies. In 1899 an agitation began for the
organization of "Chambers of Labour," intended to look after the
technical education of workmen and to form commissions of arbitration
in case of strikes. They act also as employment bureaux, and are often
centres of political propaganda. At present such "chambers" exist in
many Italian cities, while "leagues of improvement," or of
"resistance," are rapidly spreading in the country districts. In many
cases the action of these organizations has proved, at least
temporarily, advantageous to the working classes.
Labour legislation is backward in Italy, on account of the late
development of manufacturing industry and of working-class
organization. On the 17th of April 1898 a species of Employers'
Liability Act compelled employers of more than five workmen in certain
industries to insure their employees against accidents. On the 17th
of July 1898 a national fund for the insurance of workmen against
illness and old age was founded by law on the principle of optional
registration. In addition to an initial endowment by the state, part
of the annual income of the fund is furnished in various forms by the
state (principally by making over a proportion of the profits of the
Post Office Savings Bank), and part by the premiums of the workmen.
The minimum annual premium is six lire for an annuity of one lira per
day at the age of sixty, and insurance against sickness. The low level
of wages in many trades and the jealousies of the "Chambers of Labour"
and other working-class organizations impede rapid development.
A law came into operation in February 1908, according to which a
weekly day of rest (with few exceptions) was established on Sunday in
every case in which it was possible, and otherwise upon some other day
of the week.
The French institution of _Prudhommes_ was introduced into Italy in
1893, under the name of _Collegi di Probiviri_. The institution has
not attained great vogue. Most of the colleges deal with matters
affecting textile and mechanical industries. Each "college" is founded
by royal decree, and consists of a president, with not fewer than ten
and not more than twenty members. A conciliation bureau and a jury are
elected to deal with disputes concerning wages, hours of work, labour
contracts, &c., and have power to settle the disputes, without appeal,
whenever the amounts involved do not exceed L8.
Provident Institutions.
Provident institutions have considerably developed in Italy under the
forms of savings banks, assurance companies and mutual benefit
societies. Besides the Post Office Savings Bank and the ordinary savings
banks, many co-operative credit societies and ordinary credit banks
receive deposits of savings.
The greatest number of savings banks exists in Lombardy; Piedmont and
Venetia come next. Campania holds the first place in the south, most
of the savings of that region being deposited in the provident
institutions of Naples. In Liguria and Sardinia the habit of thrift is
less developed. Assurance societies in Italy are subject to the
general dispositions of the commercial code regarding commercial
companies. Mutual benefit societies have increased rapidly, both
because their advantages have been appreciated, and because, until
recently, the state had taken no steps directly to insure workmen
against illness. The present Italian mutual benefit societies resemble
the ancient beneficent corporations, of which in some respects they
may be considered a continuation. The societies require government
recognition if they wish to enjoy legal rights. The state (law of the
15th of April 1896) imposed this condition in order to determine
exactly the aims of the societies, and, while allowing them to give
help to their sick, old or feeble members, or aid the families of
deceased members, to forbid them to pay old-age pensions, lest they
assumed burdens beyond their financial strength. Nevertheless, the
majority of societies have not sought recognition, being suspicious of
fiscal state intervention.
Co-operation.
Co-operation, for the various purposes of credit, distribution,
production and labour, has attained great development in Italy. Credit
co-operation is represented by a special type of association known as
People's Banks (_Banche Popolari_). They are not, as a rule, supported
by workmen or peasants, but rather by small tradespeople, manufacturers
and farmers. They perform a useful function in protecting their clients
from the cruel usury which prevails, especially in the south. A recent
form of co-operative credit banks are the _Casse Rurali_ or rural banks,
on the Raffeisen system, which lend money to peasants and small
proprietors out of capital obtained on credit or by gift. These loans
are made on personal security, but the members of the bank do not
contribute any quota of the capital, though their liability is unlimited
in case of loss. They are especially widespread in Lombardy and Venetia.
Distributive co-operation is confined almost entirely to Piedmont,
Liguria, Lombardy, Venetia, Emilia and Tuscany, and is practically
unknown in Basilicata, the Abruzzi and Sardinia.
Co-operative dairies are numerous. They have, however, much decreased
in number since 1889. More numerous are the agricultural and
viticultural co-operative societies, which have largely increased in
number. They are to be found mainly in the fertile plains of north
Italy, where they enjoy considerable success, removing the cause of
labour troubles and strikes, and providing for cultivation on a
sufficiently large scale. The richest, however, of the co-operative
societies, though few in number, are those for the production of
electricity, for textile industries and for ceramic and glass
manufactures.
Co-operation in general is most widely diffused, in proportion to
population, in central Italy; less so in northern Italy, and much less
so in the south and the islands. It thus appears that co-operation
flourishes most in the districts in which the _mezzadria_ system has
been prevalent.
_Railways._--The first railway in Italy, a line 16 m. long from Naples
to Castellammare, was opened in 1840. By 1881 there were some 5500 m.
open, in 1891 some 8000 m., while in 1901 the total length was 9317 m.
In July 1905 all the principal lines, which had been constructed by
the state, but had been since 1885 let out to three companies
(Mediterranean, Adriatic, Sicilian), were taken over by the state;
their length amounted in 1901 to 6147 m., and in 1907 to 8422 m. The
minor lines (many of them narrow gauge) remain in the hands of private
companies. The total length, including the Sardinian railways, was
10,368 m. in 1907. The state, in taking over the railways, did not
exercise sufficient care to see that the lines and the rolling stock
were kept up to a proper state of efficiency and adequacy for the work
they had to perform; while the step itself was taken somewhat hastily.
The result was that for the first two years of state administration
the service was distinctly bad, and the lack of goods trucks at the
ports was especially felt. A capital expenditure of L4,000,000
annually was decided on to bring the lines up to the necessary state
of efficiency to be able to cope with the rapidly increasing traffic.
It was estimated in 1906 that this would have to be maintained for a
period of ten years, with a further total expenditure of L14,000,000
on new lines.
Comparing the state of things in 1901 with that of 1881, for the whole
country, we find the passenger and goods traffic almost doubled
(except the cattle traffic), the capital expenditure almost doubled,
the working expenses per mile almost imperceptibly increased, and the
gross receipts per mile slightly lower. The _personnel_ had increased
from 70,568 to 108,690. The construction of numerous unremunerative
lines, and the free granting of concessions to government and other
employees (and also of cheap tickets on special occasions for
congresses, &c., in various towns, without strict inquiry into the
qualifications of the claimants) will account for the failure to
realize a higher profit. The fares (in slow trains, with the addition
of 10% for expenses) are: 1st class, 1.85d.; 2nd, 1.3d.; 3rd, 0.725d.
per mile. There are, however, considerable reductions for distances
over 93 m., on a scale increasing in proportion to the distance.
The taking over of the main lines by the state has of course produced
a considerable change in the financial situation of the railways. The
state incurred in this connexion a liability of some L20,000,000, of
which about L16,000,000 represented the rolling stock. The state has
considerably improved the engines and passenger carriages. The capital
value of the whole of the lines, rolling stock, &c., for 1908-1909 was
calculated approximately at L244,161,400, and the profits at
L5,295,019, or 2.2%.
Milan is the most important railway centre in the country, and is
followed by Turin, Genoa, Verona, Bologna, Rome, Naples. Lombardy and
Piedmont are much better provided with railways in proportion to their
area than any other parts of Italy; next come Venetia, Emilia and the
immediate environs of Naples.
The northern frontier is crossed by the railway from Turin to
Ventimiglia by the Col di Tenda, the Mont Cenis line from Turin to
Modane (the tunnel is 7 m. in length), the Simplon line (tunnel 11 m.
in length) from Domodossola to Brigue, the St Gotthard from Milan to
Chiasso (the tunnel is entirely in Swiss territory), the Brenner from
Verona to Trent, the line from Udine to Tarvis and the line from
Venice to Triest by the Adriatic coast. Besides these international
lines the most important are those from Milan to Turin (via Vercelli
and via Alessandria), to Genoa via Tortona, to Bologna via Parma and
Modena, to Verona, and the shorter lines to the district of the lakes
of Lombardy; from Turin to Genoa via Savona and via Alessandria; from
Genoa to Savona and Ventimiglia along the Riviera, and along the
south-west coast of Italy, via Sarzana (whence a line runs to Parma)
to Pisa (whence lines run to Pistoia and Florence) and Rome; from
Verona to Modena, and to Venice via Padua; from Bologna to Padua, to
Rimini (and thence along the north-east coast via Ancona,
Castellammare Adriatico and Foggia to Brindisi and Otranto), and to
Florence and Rome; from Rome to Ancona, to Castellammare Adriatico and
to Naples; from Naples to Foggia, via Metaponto (with a junction for
Reggio di Calabria), to Brindisi and to Reggio di Calabria. (For the
Sicilian and Sardinian lines, see SICILY and SARDINIA.) The speed of
the trains is not high, nor are the runs without stoppage long as a
rule. One of the fastest runs is from Rome to Orte, 52.40 m. in 69
min., or 45.40 m. per hour, but this is a double line with little
traffic. The low speed reduces the potentiality of the lines. The
insufficiency of rolling stock, and especially of goods wagons, is
mainly caused by delays in "handling" traffic consequent on this or
other causes, among which may be mentioned the great length of the
single lines south of Rome. It is thus a matter of difficulty to
provide trucks for a sudden emergency, e.g. the vintage season; and in
1905-1907 complaints were many, while the seaports were continually
short of trucks. This led to deficiencies in the supply of coal to the
manufacturing centres, and to some diversion elsewhere of shipping.
_Steam and Electric Tramways._--Tramways with mechanical traction have
developed rapidly. Between 1875, when the first line was opened, and
1901, the length of the lines grew to 1890 m. of steam and 270 m. of
electric tramways. These lines exist principally in Lombardy
(especially in the province of Milan), in Piedmont, especially in the
province of Turin, and in other regions of northern and central Italy.
In the south they are rare, on account partly of the mountainous
character of the country, and partly of the scarcity of traffic. All
the important towns of Italy are provided with internal electric
tramways, mostly with overhead wires.
_Carriage-roads_ have been greatly extended in modern times, although
their ratio to area varies in different localities. In north Italy
there are 1480 yds. of road per sq. m.; in central Italy 993; in
southern Italy 405; in Sardinia 596, and in Sicily only 244. They are
as a rule well kept up in north and central Italy, less so in the
south, where, especially in Calabria, many villages are inaccessible
by road and have only footpaths leading to them. By the act of 1903
the state contributes half and the province a quarter of the cost of
roads connecting communes with the nearest railway stations or landing
places.
_Inland Navigation._--Navigable canals had in 1886 a total length of
about 655 m.; they are principally situated in Piedmont, Lombardy and
Venetia, and are thus practically confined to the Po basin. Canals
lead from Milan to the Ticino, Adda and Po. The Po is itself navigable
from Turin downwards, but through its delta it is so sandy that canals
are preferred, the Po di Volano and the Po di Primaro on the right,
and the Canale Bianco on the left. The total length of navigable
rivers is 967 m.
_Posts, Telegraphs and Telephones._--The number of post offices
(including collettorie, or collecting offices, which are rapidly being
eliminated) increased from 2200 in 1862 to 4823 in 1881, 6700 in 1891
and 8817 in 1904. In spite of a large increase in the number of
letters and post cards (i.e. nearly 10 per inhabitant per annum in
1904, as against 5.65 in 1888) the average is considerably below that
of most other European countries. The number of state telegraph
offices was 4603, of other offices (railway and tramway stations,
which accept private telegrams for transmission) 1930. The telephone
system is considerably developed; in 1904, 92 urban and 66 inter-urban
systems existed. They were installed by private companies, but have
been taken over by the state. International communication between Rome
and Paris, and Italy and Switzerland also exists. The parcel post and
money order services have largely increased since 1887-1888, the
number of parcels having almost doubled (those for abroad are more
than trebled), while the number of money orders issued is trebled and
their value doubled (about L40,000,000). The value of the foreign
orders paid in Italy increased from L1,280,000 to L2,356,000--owing to
the increase of emigration and of the savings sent home by emigrants.
At the end of 1907 Italy was among the few countries that had not
adopted the reduction of postage sanctioned at the Postal Union
congress, held in Rome in 1906, by which the rates became 2(1/2)d. for
the first oz., and 1(1/2)d. per oz. afterwards. The internal rate is
15c. (1(1/2)d.) per 1/2 oz.; post-cards 10c. (1d.), reply 15c. On the
other hand, letters within the postal district are only 5c. (1/2d.)
per 1/2 oz. Printed matter is 2c. (1/5d.) per 50 grammes (1(2/3) oz.).
The regulations provide that if there is a greater weight of
correspondence (including book-packets) than 1(1/4) lb. for any
individual by any one delivery, notice shall be given him that it is
lying at the post office, he being then obliged to arrange for
fetching it. Letters insured for a fixed sum are not delivered under
any circumstances.
Money order cards are very convenient and cheap (up to 10 lire [8s.]
for 10c. [1d.]), as they need not be enclosed in a letter, while a
short private message can be written on them. Owing to the
comparatively small amount of letters, it is found possible to have a
travelling post office on all principal trains (while almost every
train has a travelling sorter, for whom a compartment is reserved)
without a late fee being exacted in either case. In the principal
towns letters may be posted in special boxes at the head office just
before the departure of any given mail train, and are conveyed direct
to the travelling post office. Another convenient arrangement is the
provision of letter-boxes on electric tram-cars in some cities.
_Mercantile Marine._--Between the years 1881 and 1905 the number of
ships entered and cleared at Italian ports decreased slightly (219,598
in 1881 and 208,737 in 1905), while their aggregate tonnage increased
(32,070,704 in 1881 and 80,782,030 in 1905). In the movement of
shipping, trade with foreign countries prevails (especially as regards
arrivals) over trade between Italian ports. Most of the merchandise
and passengers bound for and hailing from foreign ports sail under
foreign flags. Similarly, foreign vessels prevail over Italian vessels
in regard to goods embarked. European countries absorb the greater
part of Italian sea-borne trade, whereas most of the passenger traffic
goes to North and South America. The substitution of steamships for
sailing vessels has brought about a diminution in the number of
vessels belonging to the Italian mercantile marine, whether employed
in the coasting trade, the fisheries or in traffic on the high seas.
Thus:--
+------+--------+-------------------+-------------------+
| | Total | Steamships. | Sailing Vessels. |
| Year.| No. of +---------+---------+---------+---------+
| | Ships. | Number. | Tonnage | Number. | Tonnage |
| | | | (Net). | | (Net.) |
+------+--------+---------+---------+---------+---------+
| 1881 | 7815 | 176 | 93,698 | 7,639 | 895,359 |
| 1905 | 5596 | 513 | 462,259 | 5,083 | 570,355 |
+------+--------+---------+---------+---------+---------+
Among the steamers the increase has chiefly taken place in vessels of
more than 1000 tons displacement, but the number of large sailing
vessels has also increased. The most important Italian ports are (in
order): Genoa, Naples, Palermo, Leghorn, Messina, Venice, Catania.
_Foreign Trade._--Italian trade with foreign countries (imports and
exports) during the quinquennium 1872-1876 averaged L94,000,000 a
year; in the quinquennium 1893-1897 it fell to L88,960,000 a year. In
1898, however, the total rose to L104,680,000, but the increase was
principally due to the extra importation of corn in that year. In 1899
it was nearly L120,000,000. Since 1899 there has been a steady
increase both in imports and exports. Thus:--
+------+---------------------------------------+
| | Trade with Foreign Countries in L1000 |
| | (exclusive of Precious Metals).* |
| Year.+--------+--------+--------+------------+
| | | | | Excess of |
| | Totals.|Imports.|Exports.|Imports over|
| | | | | Exports. |
+------+--------+--------+--------+------------+
| 1871 | 81,966 | 38,548 | 43,418 | -4,870 |
| 1881 | 96,208 | 49,587 | 46,621 | 2,966 |
| 1891 | 80,135 | 45,063 | 35,072 | 9,991 |
| 1900 |121,538 | 68,009 | 53,529 | 14,480 |
| 1904 |140,437 | 76,549 | 63,888 | 12,661 |
+------+--------+--------+--------+------------+
* No account has here been taken of fluctuations of exchange.
The great extension of Italian coast-line is thought by some to be not
really a source of strength to the Italian mercantile marine, as few
of the ports have a large enough hinterland to provide them with
traffic, and in this hinterland (except in the basin of the Po) there
are no canals or navigable rivers. Another source of weakness is the
fact that Italy is a country of transit and the Italian mercantile
marine has to enter into competition with the ships of other
countries, which call there in passing. A third difficulty is the
comparatively small tonnage and volume of Italian exports relatively
to the imports, the former in 1907 being about one-fourth of the
latter, and greatly out of proportion to the relative value; while a
fourth is the lack of facilities for handling goods, especially in the
smaller ports.
The total imports for the first six months of 1907 amounted to
L57,840,000, an increase of L7,520,000 as compared with the
corresponding period of 1906. The exports for the corresponding period
amounted to L35,840,000, a diminution of L1,520,000 as compared with
the corresponding period of 1906. The diminution was due to a smaller
exportation of raw silk and oil. The countries with which this trade
is mainly carried on are: (imports) United Kingdom, Germany, United
States, France, Russia and India; (exports) Switzerland, United
States, Germany, France, United Kingdom and Argentina.
The most important imports are minerals, including coal and metals
(both in pig and wrought); silks, raw, spun and woven; stone, potter's
earths, earthenware and glass; corn, flour and farinaceous products;
cotton, raw, spun and woven; and live stock. The principal exports are
silk and cotton tissues, live stock, wines, spirits and oils; corn,
flour, macaroni and similar products; and minerals, chiefly sulphur.
Before the tariff reform of 1887 manufactured articles, alimentary
products and raw materials for manufacture held the principal places
in the imports. In the exports, alimentary products came first, while
raw materials for manufacture and manufactured articles were of little
account. The transformation of Italy from a purely agricultural into a
largely industrial country is shown by the circumstance that trade in
raw stuffs, semi-manufactured and manufactured materials, now
preponderates over that in alimentary products and wholly-manufactured
articles, both the importation of raw materials and the exportation of
manufactured articles having increased. The balance of Italian trade
has undergone frequent fluctuations. The large predominance of imports
over exports after 1884 was a result of the falling off of the export
trade in live stock, olive oil and wine, on account of the closing of
the French market, while the importation of corn from Russia and the
Balkan States increased considerably. In 1894 the excess of imports
over exports fell to L2,720,000, but by 1898 it had grown to
L8,391,000, in consequence chiefly of the increased importation of
coal, raw cotton and cotton thread, pig and cast iron, old iron,
grease and oil-seeds for use in Italian industries. In 1899 the excess
of imports over exports fell to L3,006,000; but since then it has
never been less than L12,000,000.
_Education._--Public instruction in Italy is regulated by the state,
which maintains public schools of every grade, and requires that other
public schools shall conform to the rules of the state schools. No
private person may open a school without state authorization. Schools
may be classed thus:--
1. Elementary, of two grades, of the lower of which there must legally
be at least one for boys and one for girls in each commune; while the
upper grade elementary school is required in communes having normal and
secondary schools or over 4000 inhabitants. In both the instruction is
free. They are maintained by the communes, sometimes with state help.
The age limit is six to nine years for the lower grade, and up to
twelve for the higher grade, attendance being obligatory at the latter
also where it exists. 2. Secondary instruction (i.) classical in the
_ginnasi_ and _licei_, the latter leading to the universities; (ii.)
technical. 3. Higher education--universities, higher institutes and
special schools.
Of the secondary and higher educatory methods, in the normal schools and
licei the state provides for the payment of the staff and for scientific
material, and often largely supports the ginnasi and technical schools,
which should by law be supported by the communes. The universities are
maintained by the state and by their own ancient resources; while the
higher special schools are maintained conjointly by the state, the
province, the commune and (sometimes) the local chamber of commerce.
The number of persons unable to read and write has gradually decreased,
both absolutely and in proportion to the number of inhabitants. The
census of 1871 gave 73% of illiterates, that of 1881, 67%, and that of
1901, 56%, i.e. 51.8 for males and 60.8 for females. In Piedmont there
were 17.7% of illiterates above six years (the lowest) and in Calabria
78.7% (the highest), the figures for the whole country being 48.5. As
might be expected, progress has been most rapid wherever education, at
the moment of national unification, was most widely diffused. For
instance, the number of bridegrooms unable to write their names in 1872
was in the province of Turin 26%, and in the Calabrian province of
Cosenza 90%; in 1899 the percentage in the province of Turin had fallen
to 5%, while in that of Cosenza it was still 76%. Infant asylums (where
the first rudiments of instruction are imparted to children between two
and a half and six years of age) and elementary schools have increased
in number. There has been a corresponding increase in the number of
scholars. Thus:--
+---------+---------------------+------------------------+
| | Infant Asylums |Daily Elementary Schools|
| |(Public and Private).| (Public and Private). |
| Year. +----------+----------+------------+-----------+
| |Number of |Number of | Number of | Number of |
| | Asylums | Scholars.|Schoolrooms.| Scholars. |
+---------+----------+----------+------------+-----------+
| 1885-86 | 2083 | 240,365 | 53,628 | 2,252,898 |
| 1890-91 | 2296 | 278,204 | 57,077 | 2,418,692 |
| 1901-02 | 3314 | 355,594 | 61,777 | 2,733,349 |
+---------+----------+----------+------------+-----------+
The teachers in 1901-1902 numbered 65,739 (exclusive of 576 non-teaching
directors and 322 teachers of special subjects) or about 41.5 scholars
per teacher.
The rate of increase in the public state-supported schools has been
much greater than in the private schools. School buildings have been
improved and the qualifications of teachers raised. Nevertheless, many
schools are still defective, both from a hygienic and a teaching point
of view; while the economic position of the elementary teachers, who
in Italy depend upon the communal administrations and not upon the
state, is still in many parts of the country extremely low.
The law of 1877 rendering education compulsory for children between
six and nine years of age has been the principal cause of the spread
of elementary education. The law is, however, imperfectly enforced for
financial reasons. In 1901-1902 only 65% out of the whole number of
children between six and nine years of age were registered in the
lower standards of the elementary and private schools. The evening
schools have to some extent helped to spread education. Their number
and that of their scholars have, however, decreased since the
withdrawal of state subsidies. In 1871-1872 there were 375,947
scholars at the evening schools and 154,585 at the holiday schools,
while in 1900-1901 these numbers had fallen to 94,510 and 35,460
respectively. These are, however, the only institutions in which a
decrease is shown, and by the law of 1906 5000 of these institutions
are to be provided in the communes where the proportion of illiterates
is highest. In 1895 they numbered 4245, with 138,181 scholars.
Regimental schools impart elementary education to illiterate soldiers.
Whereas the levy of 1894 showed 40% of the recruits to be completely
illiterate, only 27% were illiterate when the levy was discharged in
1897. Private institutions and working-class associations have striven
to improve the intellectual conditions of the working classes. Popular
universities have lately attained considerable development. The number
of institutes devoted to secondary education remained almost unchanged
between 1880-1881 and 1895-1896. In some places the number has even
been diminished by the suppression of private educational institutes.
But the number of scholars has considerably increased, and shows a
ratio superior to the general increase of the population. The
greatest increase has taken place in technical education, where it
has been much more rapid than in classical education. There are three
higher commercial schools, with academic rank, at Venice, Genoa and
Bari, and eleven secondary commercial schools; and technical and
commercial schools for women at Florence and Milan. The number of
agricultural schools has also grown, although the total is relatively
small when compared with population. The attendance at the various
classes of secondary schools in 1882 and 1902 is shown by the
following table:--
+---------------------------+-------+---------+--------+
| | 1882. | 1902. | No. of |
| | | |Schools.|
+---------------------------+-------+---------+--------+
| Ginnasi-- | | | |
| Government |13,875 | 24,081 | 192 |
| On an equal footing with| | | |
| government schools | 6,417 | 7,208 | 76 |
| Not on such a footing |22,609 | 24,850* | 442 |
| +-------+---------+--------+
| Total |42,811 | 56,139 | 710 |
| +-------+---------+--------+
| Technical schools-- | | | |
| Government | 7,510 | 30,411 | 188 |
| On an equal footing | 8,653 | 12,055 | 101 |
| Not on such a footing | 8,670 | 3,623* | 106* |
| +-------+---------+--------+
| Total |24,833 | 46,089 | 395 |
| +-------+---------+--------+
| Licei-- | | | |
| Government | 6,623 | 10,983 | 121 |
| On an equal footing | 1,167 | 1,955 | 33 |
| Not on such a footing | 4,600 | 4,962* | 187 |
| +-------+---------+--------+
| Total |12,390 | 17,900 | 341 |
| +-------+---------+--------+
| Technical institutes-- | | | |
| Government | 5,555 | 9,654 | 54 |
| On an equal footing | 1,684 | 1,898 | 18 |
| Not on such a footing | 619 | 378* | 7 |
| +-------+---------+--------+
| Total | 7,858 | 11,930 | 79 |
| +-------+---------+--------+
| Nautical institutes-- | | | |
| Government | 758 | 1,878 | 18 |
| On an equal footing | 69 | 38 | 1 |
| Not on such a footing | 13 | 29* | 1 |
| +-------+---------+--------+
| Total | 816 | 1,945 | 20 |
+---------------------------+-------+---------+--------+
* 1: 1896.
The schools which do not obtain equality with government schools are
either some of those conducted by religious orders, or else those in
which a sufficient standard is not reached. The total number of such
schools was, in 1896, 742 with 33,813 pupils.
The pupils of the secondary schools reach a maximum of 6.60 per 1000
in Liguria and 5.92 in Latium, and a minimum of 2.30 in the Abruzzi,
2.27 in Calabria and 1.65 in Basilicata.
For the boarding schools, or _convitti_, there are only incomplete
reports except for the institutions directly dependent on the ministry
of public instruction, which are comparatively few. The rest are
largely directed by religious institutions. In 1895-1896 there were
919 convitti for boys, with 59,066 pupils, of which 40, with 3814
pupils, were dependent on the ministry (in 1901-1902 there were 43 of
these with 4036 pupils); and 1456 for girls, with 49,367 pupils, of
which only 8, with about 600 pupils, were dependent on the ministry.
The _scuole normali_ or training schools (117 in number, of which 75
were government institutions) for teachers had 1329 male students in
1901-1902, showing hardly any increase, while the female students
increased from 8005 in 1882-1883 to 22,316 in 1895-1896, but decreased
to 19,044 in 1901-1902, owing to the admission of women to telegraph
and telephone work. The female secondary schools in 1881-1882 numbered
77, of which 7 were government institutions, with 3569 pupils; in
1901-1902 there were 233 schools (9 governmental) with 9347 pupils.
The total attendance of students in the various faculties at the
different universities and higher institutes is as follows:--
+--------------------------------+--------+--------+
| | 1882. | 1902. |
+--------------------------------+--------+--------+
| Law | 4,801 | 8,385 |
| Philosophy and letters | 419 | 1,703 |
| Medicine and surgery | 4,428 | 9,055 |
| Professional diploma, pharmacy | 798 | 3,290 |
| Mathematics and natural science| 1,364 | 3,500 |
| Engineering | 982 | 1,293 |
| Agriculture | 145 | 507 |
| Commerce | 128 | 167 |
| +--------+--------+
| Total | 13,065 | 27,900 |
+--------------------------------+--------+--------+
Thus a large all-round increase in secondary and higher education is
shown--satisfactory in many respects, but showing that more young men
devote themselves to the learned professions (especially to the law)
than the economic condition of the country will justify. There are 21
universities--Bologna, Cagliari, Camerino, Catania, Ferrara, Genoa,
Macerata, Messina, Modena, Naples, Padua, Palermo, Parma, Pavia,
Perugia, Pisa, Rome, Sassari, Siena, Turin, Urbino, of which Camerino,
Ferrara, Perugia and Urbino are not state institutions; university
courses are also given at Aquila, Bari and Catanzaro. Of these the
most frequented in 1904-1905 were: Naples (4745), Turin (3451), Rome
(2630), Bologna (1711), Pavia (1559), Padua (1364), Genoa (1276), and
the least frequented, Cagliari (254), Siena (235) and Sassari (200).
The professors are ordinary and extraordinary, and free professors
(_liberi docenti_), corresponding to the German _Privatdozenten_, are
also allowed to be attached to the universities.
The institutions which co-operate with the universities are the
special schools for engineers at Turin, Naples, Rome and Bologna (and
others attached to some of the universities), the higher technical
institute at Milan, the higher veterinary schools of Milan, Naples and
Turin, the institute for higher studies at Florence (_Istituto di
studi superiori, pratici e di perfezionamento_), the literary and
scientific academy of Milan, the higher institutes for the training of
female teachers at Florence and Rome, the Institute of Social Studies
at Florence, the higher commercial schools at Venice, Bari and Genoa,
the commercial university founded by L. Bocconi at Milan in 1902, the
higher naval school at Genoa, the higher schools of agriculture at
Milan and Portici, the experimental institute at Perugia, the school
of forestry at Vallambrosa, the industrial museum at Turin. The
special secondary institutions, distinct from those already reckoned
under the universities and allied schools, include an Oriental
institute at Naples with 243 pupils; 34 schools of agriculture with
(1904-1905) 1925 students; 2 schools of mining (at Caltanisetta and
Iglesias) with (1904-1905) 83 students; 308 industrial and commercial
schools with (1903-1904) 46,411 students; 174 schools of design and
moulding with (1898) 12,556 students; 13 government fine art
institutes (1904-1905) with 2778 students and 13 non-government with
1662 students; 5 government institutes of music with 1026 students,
and 51 non-government with 4109 pupils (1904-1905). Almost all of
these show a considerable increase.
_Libraries_ are numerous in Italy, those even of small cities being
often rich in manuscripts and valuable works. Statistics collected in
1893-1894 and 1896 revealed the existence of 1831 libraries, either
private (but open to the public) or completely public. The public
libraries have been enormously increased since 1870 by the incorporation
of the treasures of suppressed monastic institutions. The richest in
manuscripts is that of the Vatican, especially since the purchase of the
Barberini Library in 1902; it now contains over 34,000 MSS. The Vatican
archives are also of great importance. Most large towns contain
important state or communal archives, in which a considerable amount of
research is being done by local investigators; the various societies for
local history (_Societa di Storia Patria_) do very good work and issue
valuable publications; the treasures which the archives contain are by
no means exhausted. Libraries and archives are under the superintendence
of the Ministry of Public Instruction. A separate department of this
ministry under a director-general has the charge of antiquities and fine
arts, making archaeological excavations and supervising those undertaken
by private persons (permission to foreigners, even to foreign schools,
to excavate in Italy is rarely granted), and maintaining the numerous
state museums and picture galleries. The exportation of works of art and
antiquities from Italy without leave of the ministry is forbidden
(though it has in the past been sometimes evaded). An inventory of those
subjects, the exportation of which can in no case be permitted, has been
prepared; and the ministry has at its disposal a fund of L200,000 for
the purchase of important works of art of all kinds.
_Charities._--In Italy there is no legal right in the poor to be
supported by the parish or commune, nor any obligation on the commune to
relieve the poor--except in the case of forsaken children and the sick
poor. Public charity is exercised through the permanent charitable
foundations (_opere pie_), which are, however, very unequally
distributed in the different provinces. The districts of Italy which
show between 1881 and 1903 the greatest increase of new institutions, or
of gifts to old ones, are Lombardy, Piedmont, Liguria, while Sardinia,
Calabria and Basilicata stand lowest, Latium standing comparatively low.
The patrimony of Italian charitable institutions is considerable and
is constantly increasing. In 1880 the number of charitable
institutions (exclusive of public pawnshops, or _Monti di Pieta_, and
other institutions which combine operations of credit with charity)
was approximately 22,000, with an aggregate patrimony of nearly
L80,000,000. The revenue was about L3,600,000; after deduction of
taxes, interest on debts, expenses of management, &c., L2,080,000.
Adding to this L1,240,000 of communal and provincial subsidies, the
product of the labour of inmates, temporary subscriptions, &c., the
net revenue available for charity was, during 1880, L3,860,000. Of
this sum L260,000 was spent for religious purposes. Between 1881 and
1905 the bequests to existing institutions and sums left for the
endowment of new institutions amounted to about L16,604,600.
Charitable institutions take, as a rule, the two forms of outdoor and
indoor relief and attendance. The indoor institutions are the more
important in regard to endowment, and consist of hospitals for the
infirm (a number of these are situated at the seaside); of hospitals
for chronic and incurable diseases; of orphan asylums; of poorhouses
and shelters for beggars; of infant asylums or institutes for the
first education of children under six years of age; of lunatic
asylums; of homes for the deaf and dumb; and of institutes for the
blind. The outdoor charitable institutions include those which
distribute help in money or food; those which supply medicine and
medical help; those which aid mothers unable to rear their own
children; those which subsidize orphans and foundlings; those which
subsidize educational institutes; and those which supply marriage
portions. Between 1881 and 1898 the chief increases took place in the
endowments of hospitals; orphan asylums; infant asylums; poorhouses;
almshouses; voluntary workhouses; and institutes for the blind. The
least creditably administered of these are the asylums for abandoned
infants; in 1887, of a total of 23,913, 53.77% died; while during the
years 1893-1896 (no later statistics are available) of 117,970 51.72%
died. The average mortality under one year for the whole of Italy in
1893-1896 was only 16.66%.
Italian charity legislation was reformed by the laws of 1862 and 1890,
which attempted to provide efficacious protection for endowments, and
to ensure the application of the income to the purposes for which it
was intended. The law considers as "charitable institutions" (_opere
pie_) all poorhouses, almshouses and institutes which partly or wholly
give help to able-bodied or infirm paupers, or seek to improve their
moral and economic condition; and also the _Congregazioni di carita_
(municipal charity boards existing in every commune, and composed of
members elected by the municipal council), which administer funds
destined for the poor in general. All charitable institutions were
under the protection of provincial administrative junta, existing in
every province, and empowered to control the management of charitable
endowments. The supreme control was vested in the minister of the
Interior. The law of 1890 also empowers every citizen to appeal to the
tribunals on behalf of the poor, for whose benefit a given charitable
institution may have been intended. A more recent law provides for the
formation of a central body, with provincial commissions under it. Its
effect, however, has been comparatively small.
Public pawnshops or _Monti di pieta_ numbered 555 in 1896, with a net
patrimony of L2,879,625. In that year their income, including revenue
from capital, was L416,385, and their expenditure L300,232. The amount
lent on security was L4,153,229.
The _Monti frumentarii_ or co-operative corn deposits, which lend seed
corn to farmers, and are repaid after harvest with interest in kind,
numbered 1615 in 1894, and possessed a patrimony of L240,000.
In addition to the regular charitable institutions, the communal and
provincial authorities exercise charity, the former (in 1899) to the
extent of L1,827,166 and the latter to the extent of L919,832 per
annum. Part of these sums is given to hospitals, and part spent
directly by the communal and provincial authorities. Of the sum spent
by the communes, about 1/2 goes for the sanitary service (doctors,
midwives, vaccination), 1/8 for the maintenance of foundlings, 1/10
for the support of the sick in hospitals, and 1/22 for sheltering the
aged and needy. Of the sum spent by the provincial authorities, over
half goes to lunatic asylums and over a quarter to the maintenance of
foundling hospitals.
_Religion._--The great majority of Italians--97.12%--are Roman
Catholics. Besides the ordinary Latin rite, several others are
recognized. The Armenians of Venice maintain their traditional
characteristics. The Albanians of the southern provinces still employ
the Greek rite and the Greek language in their public worship, and their
priests, like those of the Greek Church, are allowed to marry. Certain
peculiarities introduced by St Ambrose distinguish the ritual of Milan
from that of the general church. Up to 1871 the island of Sicily was,
according to the bull of Urban II., ecclesiastically dependent on the
king, and exempt from the canonical power of the pope.
Though the territorial authority of the papal see was practically
abolished in 1870, the fact that Rome is the seat of the administrative
centre of the vast organization of the church is not without
significance to the nation. In the same city in which the administrative
functions of the body politic are centralized there still exists the
court of the spiritual potentate which in 1879 consisted of 1821
persons. Protestants number some 65,000, of whom half are Italian and
half foreign. Of the former 22,500 are Waldensians. The number of Jews
was returned as 36,000, but is certainly higher. There are, besides, in
Italy some 2500 members of the Greek Orthodox Church. There were in 1901
20,707 parishes in Italy, 68,444 secular clergy and 48,043 regulars
(monks, lay brothers and nuns). The size of parishes varies from
province to province, Sicily having larger parishes in virtue of the old
Sicilian church laws, and Naples, and some parts of central Italy,
having the smallest. The Italian parishes had in 1901 a total gross
revenue, including assignments from the public worship endowment fund,
of L1,280,000 or an average of L63 per parish; 51% of this gross sum
consists of revenue from glebe lands.
The kingdom is divided into 264 sees and ten abbeys, or prelatures
_nullius dioceseos_. The dioceses are as follows:--
A. 6 suburbicarian sees--Ostia and Velletri, Porto and Sta Rufina,
Albano, Frascati, Palestrina, Sabina--all held by cardinal bishops.
B. 74 sees immediately subject to the Holy See, of which 12 are
archiepiscopal and 61 episcopal.
C. 37 ecclesiastical provinces, each under a metropolitan, composed of
148 suffragan dioceses. Their position is indicated in the following
table:--
_Metropolitans._ _Suffragans._
Acerenza-Matera Anglona-Tursi, Tricarico, Venosa.
Bari Conversano, Ruvo-Bitonto.
Benevento S. Agata de' Goti, Alife, Ariano, Ascoli
Satriano Cerignola, Avellino, Bojano,
Bovino, Larino, Lucera, S. Severo, Telese
(Cerreto), Termoli.
Bologna Faenza, Imola.
Brindisi and Ostuni No suffragan.
Cagliari Galtelli-Nuoro, Iglesias, Ogliastra.
Capua Caiazzo, Calvi-Teano, Caserta,
Isernia-Venafro, Sessa.
Chieti and Vasto No suffragan.
Conza and Campagna S. Angelo de' Lombardi-Bisaccia, Lacedonia,
Muro Lucano.
Fermo Macerata-Tolentino, Montalto, Ripatransone,
S. Severino.
Florence Borgo S. Sepolcro, Colle di Val d'Elsa,
Fiesole, S. Miniato, Modigliana,
Pistoia-Prato.
Genoa Albenga, Bobbio, Chiavari, Savona-Noli,
Tortona, Ventimiglia.
Lanciano and Ortona No suffragan.
Manfredonia and Viesti No suffragan.
Messina Lipari, Nicosia, Patti.
Milan Bergamo, Brescia, Como, Crema, Cremona, Lodi,
Mantua, Pavia.
Modena Carpi, Guastalla, Massa-Carrara, Reggio.
Monreale Caltanisetta, Girgenti.
Naples Acerra, Ischia, Nola, Pozzuoli.
Oristano Ales-Terralba.
Otranto Gallipoli, Lecce, Ugento.
Palermo Cefalu, Mazzara, Trapani.
Pisa Leghorn, Pescia, Pontremoli, Volterra.
Ravenna Bertinoro, Cervia, Cesena, Comacchio, Forli,
Rimini, Sarsina.
Reggio Calabria Bova, Cassano, Catanzaro, Cotrone, Gerace,
Nicastro, Oppido, Nicotera-Tropea,
Squillace.
Salerno Acerno, Capaccio-Vallo, Diano, Marsico-Nuovo
and Potenza, Nocera dei Pagani, Nusco,
Policastro.
Sassari Alghero, Ampurias and Tempio, Bisarhio, Bosa.
S. Severino Cariati.
Siena Chiusi-Pienza, Grosseto, Massa Marittima,
Sovana-Pitigliano.
Syracuse Caltagirone, Noto, Piazza-Armerina.
Sorrento Castellammare.
Taranto Castellaneta, Oria.
Trani-Nazareth-
Barletta, Bisceglie Andria.
Turin Acqui, Alba, Aosta, Asti, Cuneo, Fossano,
Ivrea, Mondovi, Pinerolo, Saluzzo, Susa.
Urbino S. Angelo in Vado-Urbania, Cagli-Pergola,
Fossombrone, Montefeltro, Pesaro,
Sinigaglia.
Venice (patriarch) Adria, Belluno-Feltre, Ceneda (Vittorio),
Chioggia, Concordia-Portogruaro, Padua,
Treviso, Verona, Vicenza.
Vercelli Alessandria della Paglia, Biella, Casale,
Monferrato, Novara, Vigevano.
Twelve archbishops and sixty-one bishops are independent of all
metropolitan supervision, and hold directly of the Holy See. The
archbishops are those of Amalfi, Aquila, Camerino and Treia, Catania,
Cosenza, Ferrara, Gaeta, Lucca, Perugia, Rossano, Spoleto, and Udine,
and the bishops those of Acireale, Acquapendente, Alatri, Amelia,
Anagni, Ancona-Umana, Aquino-Sora-Pontecorvo, Arezzo, Ascoli, Assisi,
Aversa, Bagnorea, Borgo San Donnino, Cava-Sarno, Citta di Castello,
Citta della Pieve, Civita Castellana-Orte-Gallese, Corneto-Civita
Vecchia, Cortona, Fabriano-Matelica, Fano, Ferentino, Foggia, Foligno,
Gravina-Montepeloso, Gubbio, Jesi, Luni-Sarzana and Bragnato, S.
Marco-Bisignano, Marsi (Pescina), Melfi-Rapolla, Mileto,
Molfetta-Terlizzi-Giovennazzo, Monopoli, Montalcino, Montefiascone,
Montepulciano, Nardo, Narni, Nocera in Umbria, Norcia, Orvieto,
Osimo-Cingoli, Parma, Penne-Atri, Piacenza, Poggio Mirteto,
Recanati-Loreto, Rieti, Segni, Sutri-Nepi, Teramo, Terni,
Terracina-Piperno-Sezze, Tivoli, Todi, Trivento, Troia, Valva-Sulmona,
Veroli, Viterbo-Toscanella. Excluding the diocese of Rome and
suburbicarian sees, each see has an average area of 430 sq. m. and a
population of 121,285 souls. The largest sees exist in Venetia and
Lombardy, and the smallest in the provinces of Naples, Leghorn, Forli,
Ancona, Pesaro, Urbino, Caserta, Avellino and Ascoli. The Italian sees
(exclusive of Rome and of the suburbicarian sees) have a total annual
revenue of L206,000 equal to an average of L800 per see. The richest
is that of Girgenti, with L6304, and the poorest that of Porto
Maurizio, with only L246. In each diocese is a seminary or diocesan
school.
Religious Foundations.
In 1855 an act was passed in the Sardinian states for the
disestablishment of all houses of the religious orders not engaged in
preaching, teaching or the care of the sick, of all chapters of
collegiate churches not having a cure of souls or existing in towns of
less than 20,000 inhabitants, and of all private benefices for which
no service was paid by the holders. The property and money thus
obtained were used to form an ecclesiastical fund (_Cassa
Ecclesiastica_) distinct from the finances of the state. This act
resulted in the suppression of 274 monasteries with 3733 friars, of 61
nunneries with 1756 nuns and of 2722 chapters and benefices. In 1860
and 1861 the royal commissioners (even before the constitution of the
new kingdom of Italy had been formally declared) issued decrees by
which there were abolished--(1) in Umbria, 197 monasteries and 102
convents with 1809 male and 2393 female associates, and 836 chapters
or benefices; (2) in the Marches, 292 monasteries and 127 convents
with 2950 male and 2728 female associates; (3) in the Neapolitan
provinces, 747 monasteries and 275 convents with 8787 male and 7493
female associates. There were thus disestablished in seven or eight
years 2075 houses of the regular clergy occupied by 31,649 persons;
and the confiscated property yielded a revenue of L398,298. And at the
same time there had been suppressed 11,889 chapters and benefices of
the secular clergy, which yielded an annual income of L199,149. The
value of the capital thus potentially freed was estimated at
L12,000,000; though hitherto the ecclesiastical possessions in
Lombardy, Emilia, Tuscany and Sicily had been untouched. As yet the
Cassa Ecclesiastica had no right to dispose of the property thus
entrusted to it; but in 1862 an act was passed by which it transferred
all its real property to the national domain, and was credited with a
corresponding amount by the exchequer. The property could now be
disposed of like the other property of the domain; and except in
Sicily, where the system of emphyteusis was adopted, the church lands
began to be sold by auction. To encourage the poorer classes of the
people to become landholders, it was decided that the lots offered for
sale should be small, and that the purchaser should be allowed to pay
by five or ten yearly instalments. By a new act in 1866 the process of
secularization was extended to the whole kingdom. All the members of
the suppressed communities received full exercise of all the ordinary
political and civil rights of laymen; and annuities were granted to
all those who had taken permanent religious vows prior to the 18th of
January 1864. To priests and choristers, for example, of the
proprietary or endowed orders were assigned L24 per annum if they were
upwards of sixty years of age, L16 if upwards of 40, and L14, 8s. if
younger. The Cassa Ecclesiastica was abolished, and in its stead was
instituted a _Fondo pel Culto_, or public worship fund. From the
general confiscation were exempted the buildings actually used for
public worship, as episcopal residences or seminaries, &c., or which
had been appropriated to the use of schools, poorhouses, hospitals,
&c.; as well as the buildings, appurtenances, and movable property of
the abbeys of Monte Casino, Della Cava dei Tirreni, San Martino della
Scala, Monreale, Certosa near Pavia, and other establishments of the
same kind of importance as architectural or historical monuments. An
annuity equal to the ascertained revenue of the suppressed
institutions was placed to the credit of the fund in the government 5%
consols. A fourth of this sum was to be handed to the communes to be
employed on works of beneficence or education as soon as a surplus was
obtained from that part of the annuity assigned for the payment of
monastic pensions; and in Sicily, 209 communes entered on their
privileges as soon as the patrimony was liquidated. Another act in
1867 decreed the suppression of certain foundations which had escaped
the action of previous measures, put an extraordinary tax of 30% on
the whole of the patrimony of the church, and granted the government
the right of issuing 5% bonds sufficient to bring into the treasury
L16,000,000, which were to be accepted at their nominal value as
purchase money for the alienated property. The public worship
endowment fund has relieved the state exchequer of the cost of public
worship; has gradually furnished to the poorer parish priests an
addition to their stipends, raising them to L32 per annum, with the
prospect of further raising them to L40; and has contributed to the
outlay incurred by the communes for religious purposes. The monastic
buildings required for public purposes have been made over to the
communal and provincial authorities, while the same authorities have
been entrusted with the administration of the ecclesiastical revenues
previously set apart for charity and education, and objects of art and
historical interest have been consigned to public libraries and
museums. By these laws the reception of novices was forbidden in the
existing conventual establishments the extinction of which had been
decreed, and all new foundations were forbidden, except those engaged
in instruction and the care of the sick. But the laws have not been
rigorously enforced of late years; and the ecclesiastical possessions
seized by the state were thrown on the market simultaneously, and so
realized very low prices, being often bought up by wealthy religious
institutions. The large number of these institutions was increased
when these bodies were expelled from France.
On the 30th of June 1903 the patrimony of the endowment fund amounted
to L17,339,040, of which only L264,289 were represented by buildings
still occupied by monks or nuns. The rest was made up of capital and
interest. The liabilities of the fund (capitalized) amounted to
L10,668,105, of which monastic pensions represented a rapidly
diminishing sum of L2,564,930. The chief items of annual expenditure
drawn from the fund are the supplementary stipends to priests and the
pensions to members of suppressed religious houses. The number of
persons in receipt of monastic pensions on the 30th of June 1899 was
13,255; but while this item of expenditure will disappear by the
deaths of those entitled to pensions, the supplementary stipends and
contributions are gradually increasing. The following table shows the
course of the two main categories of the fund from 1876 to
1902-1903:--
+----------------------------+----------+----------+----------+----------+
| | 1876. |1885-1886.|1898-1899.|1902-1903.|
+----------------------------+----------+----------+----------+----------+
| Monastic pensions, | | | | |
| liquidation of religious | | | | |
| property and provision of| | | | |
| shelter for nuns | L749,172 | L491,339 | L220,479 | L165,144 |
| Supplementary stipends to | | | | |
| bishops and parochial | | | | |
| clergy, assignments to | | | | |
| Sardinian clergy and | | | | |
| expenditure for education| | | | |
| and charitable purposes | 142,912 | 128,521 | 210,020 | 347,940 |
+----------------------------+----------+----------+----------+----------+
_Roman Charitable and Religious Fund._--The law of the 19th of June
1873 contained special provisions, in conformity with the character of
Rome as the seat of the papacy, and with the situation created by the
Law of Guarantees. According to the census of 1871 there were in the
city and province of Rome 474 monastic establishments (311 for monks,
163 for nuns), occupied by 4326 monks and 3825 nuns, and possessing a
gross revenue of 4,780,891 lire. Of these, 126 monasteries and 90
convents were situated in the city, 51 monasteries and 22 convents in
the "suburbicariates." The law of 1873 created a special charitable
and religious fund of the city, while it left untouched 23 monasteries
and 49 convents which had either the character of private institutions
or were supported by foreign funds. New parishes were created, old
parishes were improved, the property of the suppressed religious
corporations was assigned to charitable and educational institutions
and to hospitals, while property having no special application was
used to form a charitable and religious fund. On the 30th of June 1903
the balance-sheet of this fund showed a credit amounting to L1,796,120
and a debit of L460,819. Expenditure for the year 1902-1903 was
L889,858 and revenue L818,674.
_Constitution and Government._--The Vatican palace itself (with St
Peter's), the Lateran palace, and the papal villa at Castel Gandolfo
have secured to them the privilege of extraterritoriality by the law of
1871. The small republic of San Marino is the only other enclave in
Italian territory. Italy is a constitutional monarchy, in which the
executive power belongs exclusively to the sovereign, while the
legislative power is shared by him with the parliament. He holds supreme
command by land and sea, appoints ministers and officials, promulgates
the laws, coins money, bestows honours, has the right of pardoning, and
summons and dissolves the parliament. Treaties with foreign powers,
however, must have the consent of parliament. The sovereign is
irresponsible, the ministers, the signature of one of whom is required
to give validity to royal decrees, being responsible. Parliament
consists of two chambers, the senate and the Chamber of Deputies, which
are nominally on an equal footing, though practically the elective
chamber is the more important. The senate consists of princes of the
blood who have attained their majority, and of an unlimited number of
senators above forty years of age, who are qualified under any one of
twenty-one specified categories--by having either held high office, or
attained celebrity in science, literature, &c. In 1908 there were 318
senators exclusive of five members of the royal family. Nomination is by
the king for life. Besides its legislative functions, the senate is the
highest court of justice in the case of political offences or the
impeachment of ministers. The deputies to the lower house are 508 in
number, i.e. one to every 64,893 of the population, and all the
constituencies are single-member constituencies. The party system is not
really strong. The suffrage is extended to all citizens over twenty-one
years of age who can read and write and have either attained a certain
standard of elementary education or are qualified by paying a rent which
varies from L6 in communes of 2500 inhabitants to L16 in communes of
150,000 inhabitants, or, if peasant farmers, 16s. of rent; or by being
sharers in the profits of farms on which not less than L3, 4s. of direct
(including provincial) taxation is paid; or by paying not less than L16
in direct (including provincial) taxation. Others, e.g. members of the
professional classes, are qualified to vote by their position. The
number of electors (2,541,327) at the general election in 1904 was 29%
of the male population over twenty-one years of age, and 7.6% of the
total population--exclusive of those temporarily disfranchised on
account of military service; and of these 62.7% voted. No candidate can
be returned unless he obtains more than half the votes given and more
than one-sixth of the total number on the register; otherwise a second
ballot must be held. Nor can he be returned under the age of thirty, and
he must be qualified as an elector. All salaried government officials
(except ministers, under-secretaries of state and other high
functionaries, and officers in the army or navy), and ecclesiastics, are
disqualified for election. Senators and deputies receive no salary but
have free passes on railways throughout Italy and on certain lines of
steamers. Parliaments are quinquennial, but the king may dissolve the
Chamber of Deputies at any time, being bound, however, to convoke a new
chamber within four months. The executive must call parliament together
annually. Each of the chambers has the right of introducing new bills,
as has also the government; but all money bills must originate in the
Chamber of Deputies. The consent of both chambers and the assent of the
king is necessary to their being passed. Ministers may attend the
debates of either house but can only vote in that of which they are
members. The sittings of both houses are public, and an absolute
majority of the members must be present to make a sitting valid. The
ministers are eleven in number and have salaries of about L1000 each;
the presidency of the council of ministers (created in 1889) may be held
by itself or (as is usual) in conjunction with any other portfolio. The
ministries are: interior (under whom are the prefects of the several
provinces), foreign affairs, treasury (separated from finance in 1889),
finance, public works, justice and ecclesiastical affairs, war, marine,
public instruction, commerce, industry and agriculture, posts and
telegraphs (separated from public works in 1889). Each minister is aided
by an under-secretary of state at a salary of L500. There is a council
of state with advisory functions, which can also decide certain
questions of administration, especially applications from local
authorities and conflicts between ministries, and a court of accounts,
which has the right of examining all details of state expenditure. In
every country the bureaucracy is abused, with more or less reason, for
unprogressiveness, timidity and "red-tape," and Italy is no exception to
the rule. The officials are not well paid, and are certainly numerous;
while the manifold checks and counterchecks have by no means always been
sufficient to prevent dishonesty.
_Titles of Honour._--The former existence of so many separate
sovereignties and "fountains of honour" gave rise to a great many
hereditary titles of nobility. Besides many hundreds of princes,
dukes, marquesses, counts, barons and viscounts, there are a large
number of persons of "patrician" rank, persons with a right to the
designation _nobile_ or _signori_, and certain hereditary knights or
cavalieri. In the "Golden Book of the Capitol" (_Libro d'Oro del
Campidoglio_) are inscribed 321 patrician families, and of these 28
have the title of prince and 8 that of duke, while the others are
marquesses, counts or simply patricians. For the Italian orders of
knighthood see KNIGHTHOOD AND CHIVALRY: _Orders of Knighthood_. The
king's uncle is duke of Aosta, his son is prince of Piedmont and his
cousin is duke of Genoa.
_Justice._--The judiciary system of Italy is mainly framed on the
French model. Italy has courts of cassation at Rome, Naples, Palermo,
Turin, Florence, 20 appeal court districts, 162 tribunal districts and
1535 _mandamenti_, each with its own magistracy (_pretura_). In 13 of
the principal towns there are also _pretori_ who have exclusively
penal jurisdiction. For minor civil cases involving sums up to 100
lire (L4), _giudici conciliatori_ have also jurisdiction, while they
may act as arbitrators up to any amount by request. The Roman court of
cassation is the highest, and in both penal and civil matters has a
right to decide questions of law and disputes between the lower
judicial authorities, and is the only one which has jurisdiction in
penal cases, while sharing with the others the right to revise civil
cases.
The _pretori_ have penal jurisdiction concerning all misdemeanours
(_contravvenzioni_) or offences (_delitti_) punishable by imprisonment
not exceeding three months or by fine not exceeding 1000 lire (L40).
The penal tribunals have jurisdiction in cases involving imprisonment
up to ten years, or a fine exceeding L40, while the assize courts,
with a jury, deal with offences involving imprisonment for life or
over ten years, and have exclusive jurisdiction (except that the
senate is on occasion a high court of justice) over all political
offences. Appeal may be made from the sentences of the _pretori_ to
the tribunals, and from the tribunals to the courts of appeal; from
the assize courts there is no appeal except on a point of form, which
appeal goes to the court of cassation at Rome. This court has the
supreme power in all questions of legality of a sentence, jurisdiction
or competency.
The penal code was unified and reformed in 1890. A reform of late
years is the _condanna condizionale_, equivalent to the English "being
bound over to appear for judgment if called upon," applied in 94,489
cases in 1907. In civil matters there is appeal from the _giudice
conciliatore_ to the _pretore_ (who has jurisdiction up to a sum of
1500 lire = L60) from the _pretore_ to the civil tribunal, from the
civil tribunal to the court of appeal, and from the court of appeal to
the court of cassation.
The judges of all kinds are very poorly paid. Even the first president
of the Rome court of cassation only receives L600 a year.
The statistics of civil proceedings vary considerably from province to
province. Lombardy, with 25 lawsuits per 1000 inhabitants, holds the
lowest place; Emilia comes next with 31 per 1000; Tuscany has 39;
Venetia, 42; Calabria, 144; Rome, 146; Apulia, 153; and Sardinia, 360
per 1000. The high average in Sardinia is chiefly due to cases within
the competence of the conciliation offices. The number of penal
proceedings, especially those within the competence of praetors, has
also increased, chiefly on account of the frequency of minor
contraventions of the law referred to in the section _Crime_. The
ratio of criminal proceedings to population is, as a rule, much higher
in the south than in the north.
A royal decree, dated February 1891, established three classes of
prisons: judiciary prisons, for persons awaiting examination or
persons sentenced to arrest, detention or seclusion for less than six
months; penitentiaries of various kinds (_ergastoli_, _case di
reclusione_, _detenzione_ or _custodia_), for criminals condemned to
long terms of imprisonment; and reformatories, for criminals under age
and vagabonds. Capital punishment was abolished in 1877, penal
servitude for life being substituted. This generally involves solitary
confinement of the most rigorous nature, and, as little is done to
occupy the mind, the criminal not infrequently becomes insane. Certain
types of dangerous individuals are relegated after serving a sentence
in the ordinary convict prisons, and by administrative, not by
judicial process, to special penal colonies known as _domicilii
coatti_ or "forced residences." These establishments are, however,
unsatisfactory, being mostly situated on small islands, where it is
often difficult to find work for the _coatti_, who are free by day,
being only confined at night. They receive a small and hardly
sufficient, allowance for food of 50 _centesimi_ a day, which they are
at liberty to supplement by work if they can find it or care to do it.
Notwithstanding the construction of new prisons and the transformation
of old ones, the number of cells for solitary confinement is still
insufficient for a complete application of the penal system
established by the code of 1890, and the moral effect of the
association of the prisoners is not good, though the system of
solitary confinement as practised in Italy is little better. The total
number of prisoners, including minors and inhabitants of enforced
residences, which from 76,066 (2.84 per 1000 inhabitants) on the 31st
of December 1871 rose to a maximum of 80,792 on the 31st of December
1879 (2.87 per 1000), decreased to a minimum of 60,621 in 1896 (1.94
per 1000), and on the 31st of December 1898 rose again to 75,470
(2.38 per 1000), of whom 7038, less than one-tenth, were women. The
lowness of the figures regarding women is to be noticed throughout. On
the 31st of December 1903 it had decreased to 65,819, of which 6044
were women. Of these, 31,219 were in lockups, 25,145 in penal
establishments, 1837 minors in government, and 4547 in private
reformatories, and 3071 (males) were inmates of forced residences.
_Crime._--Statistics of offences, including _contravvenzioni_ or
breaches of by-laws and regulations, exhibit a considerable increase
per 100,000 inhabitants since 1887, and only a slight diminution on
the figures of 1897. The figure was 1783.45 per 100,000 in 1887,
2164.46 in 1892, 2546.49 in 1897, 2497.90 in 1902. The increase is
partly covered by _contravvenzioni_, but almost every class of penal
offence shows a rise except homicide, and even in that the diminution
is slow, 5418 in 1880, 3966 in 1887, 4408 in 1892, 4005 in 1897, 3202
in 1902; and Italy remains, owing to the frequent use of the knife,
the European country in which it is most frequent. Libels, insults,
&c., resistance to public authority, offences against good customs,
thefts and frauds, have increased; assaults are nearly stationary.
There is also an increase in juvenile delinquency. From 1890 to 1900
the actual number rose by one-third (from 30,108 to 43,684), the
proportion to the rest of those sentenced from one-fifth to
one-fourth; while in 1905 the actual number rose to 67,944, being a
considerable proportionate rise also. In Naples, the Camorra and in
Sicily, the Mafia are secret societies whose power of resistance to
authority is still not inconsiderable.
Procedure, both civil and criminal, is somewhat slow, and the
preliminary proceedings before the _juge d'instruction_ occupy much
time; and recent murder trials, by the large number of witnesses
called (including experts) and the lengthy speeches of counsel, have
been dragged out to an unconscionable length. In this, as in the
intervention of the presiding judge, the French system has been
adopted; and it is said (e.g. by Nathan, _Vent' anni di vita
italiana_, p. 241) that the efforts of the _juge d'instruction_ are,
as a rule, in fact, though not in law, largely directed to prove that
the accused is guilty. In 1902 of 884,612 persons accused of penal
offences, 13.12% were acquitted during the period of the
_instruction_, 30.31 by the courts, 46.32 condemned and the rest
acquitted in some other way. This shows that charges, often involving
preliminary imprisonment, are brought against an excessive proportion
of persons who either are not or cannot be proved to be guilty. The
courts of appeal and cassation, too, often have more than they can do;
in the year 1907 the court of cassation at Rome decided 948 appeals on
points of law in civil cases, while no fewer than 460 remained to be
decided.
As in most civilized countries, the number of suicides in Italy has
increased from year to year.
The Italian suicide rate of 63.6 per 1,000,000 is, however, lower than
those of Denmark, Switzerland, Germany and France, while it
approximates to that of England. The Italian rate is highest in the
more enlightened and industrial north, and lowest in the south. Emilia
gives a maximum rate of 10.48 per 100,000, while that of Liguria and
Lazio is little lower. The minimum of 1.27 is found in the Basilicata,
though Calabria gives only 2.13. About 20% of the total are women, and
there is an increase of nearly 3% since 1882 in the proportion of
suicides under twenty years of age.
_Army._--The Italian army grew out of the old Piedmontese army with
which in the main the unification of Italy was brought about. This
unification meant for the army the absorption of contingents from all
parts of Italy and presenting serious differences in physical and moral
aptitudes, political opinions and education. Moreover the strategic
geography of the country required the greater part of the army to be
stationed permanently within reach of the north-eastern and
north-western frontiers. These conditions made a territorial system of
recruiting or organization, as understood in Germany, practically
impossible. To secure fairly uniform efficiency in the various corps,
and also as a means of unifying Italy, Piedmontese, Umbrians and
Neapolitans are mixed in the same corps and sleep in the same barrack
room. But on leaving the colours the men disperse to their homes, and
thus a regiment has, on mobilization, to draw largely on the nearest
reservists, irrespective of the corps to which they belong. The remedy
for this condition of affairs is sought in a most elaborate and
artificial system of transferring officers and men from one unit to
another at stated intervals in peace-time, but this is no more than a
palliative, and there are other difficulties of almost equal importance
to be surmounted. Thus in Italy the universal service system, though
probably the best organization both for the army and the nation, works
with a maximum of friction. "Army Reform," therefore, has been very much
in the forefront of late years owing to the estrangement of Austria
(which power can mobilize much more rapidly), but financial difficulties
have hitherto stood in the way of any radical and far-reaching reforms,
and even the proposals of the Commission of 1907, referred to below,
have only been partially accepted.
The law of 1875 therefore still regulates the principles of military
service in Italy, though an important modification was made in
1907-1908. By this law, every man liable and accepted for service
served for eight or nine years on the _Active Army_ and its _Reserve_
(of which three to five were spent with the colours), four or five in
the _Mobile Militia_, and the rest of the service period of nineteen
years in the _Territorial Militia_. Under present regulations the term
of liability is divided into nine years in the _Active Army and
Reserve_ (three or two years with the colours) four in the _Mobile
Militia_ and six in the _Territorial Militia_. But these figures do
not represent the actual service of every able-bodied Italian. Like
almost all "Universal Service" countries, Italy only drafts a small
proportion of the available recruits into the army.
The following table shows the operation of the law of 1875, with the
figures of 1871 for comparison:--
+----------------------+---------------------+---------------------+
| | 30th Sept. | 30th June. |
| +----------+----------+----------+----------+
| | 1871. | 1881. | 1891. | 1901. |
+----------------------+----------+----------+----------+----------+
| Officers* | 14,070 | 22,482 | 36,739 | 36,718 |
| Men | 521,969 |1,833,554 |2,821,367 |3,330,202 |
| Acting Army & Reserve| 536,039 | 731,149 | 843,160 | 734,401 |
| Mobile Militia | .. | 294,714 | 445,315 | 320,170 |
| Territorial Militia | .. | 823,970 |1,553,784 |2,275,631 |
+----------------------+----------+----------+----------+----------+
* Including officers on special service or in the reserve.
Thus, on the 30th of September 1871 the various categories of the army
included only 2% of the population, but on the 30th of June 1898 they
included 10%. But in 1901 the strength of the active army and reserve
shows a marked diminution, which became accentuated in the year
following. The table below indicates that up to 1907 the army, though
always below its nominal strength, never absorbed more than a quarter
of the available contingent.
+--------------------------------+--------+--------+--------+--------+
| | 1902. | 1903. | 1904. | 1906. |
+--------------------------------+--------+--------+--------+--------+
| Liable |441,171 |453,640 |469,860 |475,737 |
+--------------------------------+--------+--------+--------+--------+
| Physically unfit | 91,176 | 98,065 |119,070 |122,559 |
| Struck off | 12,270 | 13,189 | 13,130 | 18,222 |
| Failed to appear | 33,634 | 34,711 | 39,219 | 40,226 |
| Put back for re-examination |108,835 |108,618 |107,173 |122,205 |
+--------------------------------+--------+--------+--------+--------+
| Assigned to Territorial Militia| | | | |
| and excused peace service | 92,952 | 96,916 | 94,136 | 87,032 |
+--------------------------------+--------+--------+--------+--------+
| Assigned to active army |102,204 |102,141 | 97,132 | 87,493 |
| Joined active army | 88,666 | 86,448 | 81,581 | 66,836 |
+--------------------------------+--------+--------+--------+--------+
The serious condition of recruiting was quickly noticed, and the
tabulation of each year's results was followed by a new draft law, but
no solution was achieved until a special commission assembled. The
inquiries made by this body revealed an unsatisfactory condition in
the national defences, traceable in the main to financial exigencies,
and as regards recruiting a new law was brought into force in
1907-1908.
One specially difficult point concerned the effectives of the
peace-strength army. Hitherto the actual time of training had been
less than the nominal. The recruits due to join in November were not
incorporated till the following March, and thus in the winter months
Italy was defenceless. The army is always maintained at a low peace
effective (about one-quarter of war establishment) and even this was
reduced, by the absence of the recruits, until there were often only
15 rank and file with a company, whose war strength is about 230. Even
in the summer and autumn a large proportion of the army consisted of
men with but a few months' service--a highly dangerous state of things
considering the peculiar mobilization conditions of the country.
Further--and this case no legislation can cover--the contingent, and
(what is more serious) the reserves, are being steadily weakened by
emigration. The increase in the numbers rejected as unfit is accounted
for by the fact that if only a small proportion of the contingent can
be taken for service, the medical standard of acceptance is high.
The new recruiting scheme of 1907 re-established three categories of
recruits,[4] the 2nd category corresponding practically to the German
_Ersatz-Reserve_. The men classed in it have to train for six months,
and they are called up in the late summer to bridge the gap above
mentioned. The new terms of service for the other categories have been
already stated. In consequence, in 1908, of 490,000 liable, some
110,000 actually joined for full training and 24,000 of the new 2nd
category for short training, which contrasts very forcibly with the
feeble embodiments of 1906 and 1907. These changes threw a
considerable strain on the finances, but the imminence of the danger
caused their acceptance.
The peace strength under the new scheme is nominally 300,000, but
actually (average throughout the year) about 240,000. The army is
organized in 12 army corps (each of 2 divisions), 6 of which are
quartered on the plain of Lombardy and Venetia and on the frontiers, and
2 more in northern Central Italy. Their headquarters are: I. Turin, II.
Alessandria, III. Milan, IV. Genoa, V. Verona, VI. Bologna, VII. Ancona,
VIII. Florence, IX. Rome, X. Naples, XI. Bari, XII. Palermo, Sardinian
division Cagliari. In addition there are 22 "Alpini" battalions and 15
mountain batteries stationed on the Alpine frontiers.
The war strength was estimated in 1901 as, _Active Army_ (incl. Reserve)
750,000, _Mobile Militia_ 320,000, _Territorial Militia_ 2,300,000 (more
than half of the last-named untrained). These figures are, with a
fractional increase in the Regular Army, applicable to-day. When the
1907 scheme takes full effect, however, the Active Army and the Mobile
Militia will each be augmented by about one-third. In 1915 the field
army should, including officers and permanent _cadres_, be about
1,012,000 strong. The Mobile Militia will not, however, at that date
have felt the effects of the scheme, and the Territorial Militia
(setting the drain of emigration against the increased population) will
probably remain at about the same figure as in 1901.
The army consists of 96 three-battalion regiments of infantry of the
line and 12 of _bersaglieri_ (riflemen), each of the latter having a
cyclist company (Bersaglieri cyclist battalions are being (1909)
provisionally formed); 26 regiments of cavalry, of which 10 are
lancers, each of 6 squadrons; 24 regiments of artillery, each of 8
batteries;[5] 1 regiment of horse artillery of 6 batteries; 1 of
mountain artillery of 12 batteries, and 3 independent mountain
batteries. The armament of the infantry is the Mannlicher-Carcano
magazine rifle of 1891. The field and horse artillery was in 1909 in
process of rearmament with a Krupp quick-firer. The garrison artillery
consists of 3 coast and 3 fortress regiments, with a total of 72
companies. There are 4 regiments (11 battalions) of engineers. The
_carabinieri_ or gendarmerie, some 26,500 in number, are part of the
standing army; they are recruited from selected volunteers from the
army. In 1902 the special corps in Eritrea numbered about 4700 of all
ranks, including nearly 4000 natives.
Ordinary and extraordinary military expenditure for the financial year
1898-1899 amounted to nearly L10,000,000, an increase of L4,000,000 as
compared with 1871. The Italian Chamber decided that from the 1st of
July 1901 until the 30th of June 1907 Italian military expenditure
proper should not exceed the maximum of L9,560,000 per annum fixed by
the Army Bill of May 1897, and that military pensions should not
exceed L1,440,000. Italian military expenditure was thus until 1907
L11,000,000 per annum. In 1908 the ordinary and extraordinary
expenditure was L10,000,000. The demands of the Commission were only
partly complied with, but a large special grant was voted amounting to
at least L1,000,000 per annum for the next seven years. The amount
spent is slight compared with the military expenditure of other
countries.
The Alpine frontier is fortified strongly, although the condition of
the works was in many cases considered unsatisfactory by the 1907
Commission. The fortresses in the basin of the Po chiefly belong to
the era of divided Italy and are now out of date; the chief coast
fortresses are Vado, Genoa, Spezia, Monte Argentaro, Gaeta, Straits of
Messina, Taranto, Maddalena. Rome is protected by a circle of forts
from a _coup de main_ from the sea, the coast, only 12 m. off, being
flat and deserted.
_Navy._--For purposes of naval organization the Italian coast is divided
into three maritime departments, with headquarters at Spezia, Naples and
Venice; and into two _comandi militari_, with headquarters at Taranto
and at the island of Maddalena. The _personnel_ of the navy consists of
the following corps: (1) General staff; (2) naval engineers, chiefly
employed in building and repairing war vessels; (3) sanitary corps; (4)
commissariat corps, for supplies and account-keeping; (5) crews.
The _materiel_ of the Italian navy has been completely transformed,
especially in virtue of the bill of the 31st of March 1875. Old types of
vessels have been sold or demolished, and replaced by newer types.
In March 1907 the Italian navy contained, excluding ships of no
fighting value:--
+---------------------+----------+-----------+----------+
| |Effective.|Completing.|Projected.|
+---------------------+----------+-----------+----------+
| Modern battleships | 4 | 4 | 3 |
| Old battleships | 10 | .. | .. |
| Armoured cruisers | 6 | 2 | .. |
| Protected cruisers | 14 | .. | .. |
| Torpedo gunboats | 13 | .. | .. |
| Destroyers | 13 | 4 | 10 |
| Modern torpedo boats| 34 | .. | 15 |
| Submarines | 1 | 4 | 2 |
+---------------------+----------+-----------+----------+
The four modern ships--the "Vittorio Emanuele" class, laid down in
1897--have a tonnage of 12,625, two 12-in. and twelve 8-in. guns, an
I.H.P. of 19,000, and a designed speed of 22 knots, being intended to
avoid any battleship and to carry enough guns to destroy any cruiser.
The _personnel_ on active service consisted of 1799 officers and
25,000 men, the former being doubled and the latter trebled since
1882.
Naval expenditure has enormously increased since 1871, the total for
1871 having been about L900,000, and the total for 1905-1906 over
L5,100,000. Violent fluctuations have, however, taken place from year
to year, according to the state of Italian finances. To permit the
steady execution of a normal programme of shipbuilding, the Italian
Chamber, in May 1901, adopted a resolution limiting naval expenditure,
inclusive of naval pensions and of premiums on mercantile
shipbuilding, to the sum of L4,840,000 for the following six years,
i.e. from 1st July 1901 until 30th June 1907. This sum consists of
L4,240,000 of naval expenditure proper, L220,000 for naval pensions
and L380,000 for premiums upon mercantile shipbuilding. During the
financial year ending on the 30th of June 1901 these figures were
slightly exceeded.
_Finance._--The volume of the Italian budget has considerably increased
as regards both income and expenditure. The income of L60,741,418 in
1881 rose in 1899-1900 to L69,917,126; while the expenditure increased
from L58,705,929 in 1881 to L69,708,706 in 1899-1900, an increase of
L9,175,708 in income and L11,002,777 in expenditure, while there has
been a still further increase since, the figures for 1905-1906 showing
(excluding items which figure on both sides of the account) an increase
of L8,766,995 in income and L5,434,560 in expenditure over 1899-1900.
These figures include not only the categories of "income and
expenditure" proper, but also those known as "movement of capital,"
"railway constructions" and "_partite di giro_" which do not constitute
real income and expenditure.[6] Considering only income and expenditure
proper, the approximate totals are:--
+---------------+------------+------------+------------+
|Financial Year.| Revenue. |Expenditure.|Surpluses or|
| | | | Deficits. |
+---------------+------------+------------+------------+
| 1882 |L52,064,800 |L51,904,800 |L+ 160,000 |
| 1885-1886 | 56,364,000 | 57,304,400 | - 940,000 |
| 1890-1891 | 61,600,000 | 64,601,600 | -3,001,600 |
| 1895-1896 | 65,344,000 | 67,962,800 | -2,618,800 |
| 1898-1899 | 66,352,800 | 65,046,400 | +1,306,400 |
| 1899-1900 | 66,860,800 | 65,323,600 | +1,537,200 |
| 1900-1901 | 68,829,200 | 66,094,400 | +2,734,800 |
| 1905-1906 | 77,684,100 | 75,143,300 | +2,540,900 |
+---------------+------------+------------+------------+
The financial year 1862 closed with a deficit of more than
L16,000,000, which increased in 1866 to L28,840,000 on account of the
preparations for the war against Austria. Excepting the increases of
deficit in 1868 and 1870, the annual deficits tended thenceforward to
decrease, until in 1875 equilibrium between expenditure and revenue
was attained, and was maintained until 1881. Advantage was taken of
the equilibrium to abolish certain imposts, amongst them the grist
tax, which prior to its gradual repeal produced more than L3,200,000
a year. From 1885-1886 onwards, outlay on public works, military and
colonial expenditure, and especially the commercial and financial
crises, contributed to produce annual deficits; but owing to drastic
reforms introduced in 1894-1895 and to careful management the year
1898-1899 marked a return of surpluses (nearly L1,306,400).
The revenue in the Italian financial year 1905-1906 (July 1, 1905 to
June 30, 1906) was L102,486,108, and the expenditure L99,945,253, or,
subtracting the _partite di giro_, L99,684,121 and L97,143,266,
leaving a surplus of L2,540,855.[7] The surplus was made up by
contributions from every branch of the effective revenue, except the
"contributions and repayments from local authorities." The railways
showed an increase of L351,685; registration transfer and succession,
L295,560; direct taxation, L42,136 (mainly from income tax, which more
than made up for the remission of the house tax in the districts of
Calabria visited by the earthquake of 1906); customs and excise,
L1,036,742; government monopolies, L291,027; posts, L41,310;
telegraphs, L23,364; telephones, L65,771. Of the surplus L1,000,000
was allocated to the improvement of posts, telegraphs and telephones;
L1,000,000 to public works (L720,000 for harbour improvement and
L280,000 for internal navigation); L200,000 to the navy (L132,000 for
a second dry dock at Taranto and L68,000 for coal purchase); and
L200,000 as a nucleus of a fund for the purchase of valuable works of
art which are in danger of exportation.
Taxation.
The state therefore draws its principal revenues from the imposts, the
taxes and the monopolies. According to the Italian tributary system,
"imposts," properly so called are those upon land, buildings and
personal estate. The impost upon land is based upon the cadastral
survey independently of the vicissitudes of harvests. In 1869 the main
quota to the impost was increased by one-tenth, in addition to the
extra two-tenths previously imposed in 1866. Subsequently, it was
decided to repeal these additional tenths, the first being abolished
in 1886 and the rest in 1887. On account of the inequalities still
existing in the cadastral survey, in spite of the law of 1886 (see
_Agriculture_, above), great differences are found in the land tax
assessments in various parts of Italy. Land is not so heavily burdened
by the government quota as by the additional centimes imposed by the
provincial and communal authorities. On an average Italian landowners
pay nearly 25% of their revenues from land in government and local
land tax. The buildings impost has been assessed since 1866 upon the
basis of 12.50% of "taxable revenue." Taxable revenue corresponds to
two-thirds of actual income from factories and to three-fourths of
actual income from houses; it is ascertained by the agents of the
financial administration. In 1869, however, a third additional tenth
was added to the previously existing additional two-tenths, and,
unlike the tenths of the land tax, they have not been abolished. At
present the main quota with the additional three-tenths amounts to
16.25% of taxable income. The imposts on incomes from personal estate
(_ricchezza mobile_) were introduced in 1866; it applies to incomes
derived from investments, industry or personal enterprise, but not to
landed revenues. It is proportional, and is collected by deduction
from salaries and pensions paid to servants of the state, where it is
assessed on three-eighths of the income, and from interest on
consolidated stock, where it is assessed on the whole amount; and by
register in the cases of private individuals, who pay on three-fourths
of their income, professional men, capitalists or manufacturers, who
pay on one-half or nine-twentieths of their income. From 1871 to 1894
it was assessed at 13.20% of taxable income, this quota being formed
of 12% main quota and 1.20% as an additional tenth. In 1894 the quota,
including the additional tenth, was raised to the uniform level of
20%. One-tenth of the tax is paid to the communes as compensation for
revenues made over to the state.
Taxes proper are divided into (a) taxes on business transactions and
(b) taxes on articles of consumption. The former apply principally to
successions, stamps, registrations, mortgages, &c.; the latter to
distilleries, breweries, explosives, native sugar and matches, though
the customs revenue and octrois upon articles of general consumption,
such as corn, wine, spirits, meat, flour, petroleum, butter, tea,
coffee and sugar, may be considered as belonging to this class. The
monopolies are those of salt, tobacco and the lottery.
Since 1880, while income from the salt and lotto monopolies has
remained almost stationary, and that from land tax and octroi has
diminished, revenue derived from all other sources has notably
increased, especially that from the income tax on personal estate, and
the customs, the yield from which has been nearly doubled.
It will be seen that the revenue is swollen by a large number of taxes
which can only be justified by necessity; the reduction and, still
more, the readjustment of taxation (which now largely falls on
articles of primary necessity) is urgently needed. The government in
presenting the estimates for 1907-1908 proposed to set aside a sum of
nearly L800,000 every year for this express purpose. It must be
remembered that the sums realized by the octroi go in the main to the
various communes. It is only in Rome and Naples that the octroi is
collected directly by the government, which pays over a certain
proportion to the respective communes.
The external taxation is not only strongly protectionist, but is
applied to goods which cannot be made in Italy; hardly anything comes
in duty free, even such articles as second-hand furniture paying duty,
unless within six months of the date at which the importer has
declared domicile in Italy. The application, too, is somewhat
rigorous, e.g. the tax on electric light is applied to foreign ships
generating their own electricity while lying in Italian ports.
The annual consumption per inhabitant of certain kinds of food and
drink has considerably increased, e.g. grain from 270 lb. per head in
1884-1885 to 321 lb. in 1901-1902 (maize remains almost stationary at
158 lb.); wine from 73 to 125 litres per head; oil from 12 to 13 lb.
per head (sugar is almost stationary at 7(1/4) lb. per head, and
coffee at about 1 lb.); salt from 14 to 16 lb. per head. Tobacco
slightly diminished in weight at a little over 1 lb. per head, while
the gross receipts are considerably increased--by over 2(1/4) millions
sterling since 1884-1885--showing that the quality consumed is much
better. The annual expenditure on tobacco was 5s. per inhabitant in
1902-1903, and is increasing.
The annual surpluses are largely accounted for by the heavy taxation
on almost everything imported into the country,[8] and by the
monopolies on tobacco and on salt; and are as a rule spent, and well
spent, in other ways. Thus, that of 1907-1908 was devoted mainly to
raising the salaries of government officials and university
professors; even then the maximum for both (in the former class, for
an under-secretary of state) was only L500 per annum. The case is
frequent, too, in which a project is sanctioned by law, but is then
not carried into execution, or only partly so, owing to the lack of
funds. Additional stamp duties and taxes were imposed in 1909 to meet
the expenditure necessitated by the disastrous earthquake at the end
of 1908.
The way in which the taxes press on the poor may be shown by the
number of small proprietors sold up owing to inability to pay the land
and other taxes. In 1882 the number of landed proprietors was 14.52%
of the population, in 1902 only 12.66, with an actual diminution of
some 30,000. Had the percentage of 1882 been kept up there would have
been in 1902 600,000 more proprietors than there were. Between 1884
and 1902 no fewer than 220,616 sales were effected for failure to pay
taxes, while, from 1886 to 1902, 79,208 expropriations were effected
for other debts not due to the state. In 1884 there were 20,422 sales,
of which 35.28% were for debts of 4s. or less, and 51.95 for debts
between 4s. and L2; in 1902 there were 4857 sales, but only 11.01% for
debts under 4s. (the treasury having given up proceeding in cases
where the property is a tiny piece of ground, sometimes hardly capable
of cultivation), and 55.69% for debts between 4s. and L2. The
expropriations deal as a rule with properties of higher value; of
these there were 3217 in 1886, 5993 in 1892 (a period of agricultural
depression), 3910 in 1902. About 22% of them are for debts under L40,
about 49% from L40 to L200, about 26% from L200 to L2000.
Expenditure.
Of the expenditure a large amount is absorbed by interest on debt.
Debt has continually increased with the development of the state. The
sum paid in interest on debt amounted to L17,640,000 in 1871,
L19,440,000 in 1881, L25,600,000 in 1891-1892 and L27,560,000 in
1899-1900; but had been reduced to L23,100,409 by the 30th of June
1906. The public debt at that date was composed as follows:--
Part I.--_Funded Debt._
Grand Livre-- Amount.
Consolidated 5% L316,141,802
" 3% 6,404,335
" 4(1/2)% net 28,872,511
" 4% " 7,875,592
" 3(1/2)% " 37,689,880
------------
Total L396,984,120
Debts to be transferred to the Grand Livre. 60,868
Perpetual annuity to the Holy See 2,580,000
Perpetual debts (Modena, Sicily, Naples) 2,591,807
Total L402,216,795
Part II.--_Unfunded Debt._
Debts separately inscribed in the Grand
Livre 10,042,027
Various railway obligations, redeemable, &c. 56,375,351
Sicilian indemnities 195,348
Capital value of annual payment to South
Austrian Company 37,102,908
Long date Treasury warrants, law of July 7,
1901 1,416,200
Railway certificates (3.65% net),
Art. 6 of law, June 25, 1905, No. 261 14,220,000
------------
Total L119,351,834
Part I. L402,216,795
------------
Grand Total L521,568,629
The debt per head of population was, in 1905, L14, 16s. 3d., and the
interest 13s. 5d.
In July 1906 the 5% gross (4% net), and 4% net rente were successfully
converted into 3(3/4)% stock (to be reduced to 3(1/2)% after five
years), to a total amount of L324,017,393. The demands for
reimbursement at par represented a sum of only L187,588 and the market
value of the stock was hardly affected; while the saving to the
Treasury was to be L800,000 per annum for the first five years and
about double the amount afterwards.
_Currency._--The _lira_ (plural _lire_) of 100 _centesimi_ (centimes)
is equal in value to the French franc. The total coinage (exclusive of
Eritrean currency) from the 1st of January 1862 to the end of 1907 was
1,104,667,116 lire (exclusive of recoinage), divided as follows: gold,
427,516,970 lire; silver, 570,097,025 lire; nickel, 23,417,000 lire;
bronze, 83,636,121 lire. The forced paper currency, instituted in
1866, was abolished in 1881, in which year were dissolved the Union of
Banks of Issue created in 1874 to furnish to the state treasury a
milliard of lire in notes, guaranteed collectively by the banks. Part
of the Union notes were redeemed, part replaced by 10 lire and 5 lire
state notes, payable at sight in metallic legal tender by certain
state banks. Nevertheless the law of 1881 did not succeed in
maintaining the value of the state notes at a par with the metallic
currency, and from 1885 onwards there reappeared a gold premium, which
during 1899 and 1900 remained at about 7%, but subsequently fell to
about 3% and has since 1902 practically disappeared. The paper
circulation to the debit of the state and the paper currency issued by
the authorized state banks is shown below:--
+-------------------+----------------------------+---------------+---------------+
| | Direct Liability of State. | Notes issued | Aggregate |
| Date. +-------------+--------------+ by State | Paper |
| | State Notes.| Bons de | Banks. | Currency. |
| | | Caisse.* | | |
+-------------------+-------------+--------------+---------------+---------------+
| | Lire. | Lire. | Lire. | Lire. |
|31st December 1881 | 940,000,000 | .. | 735,579,197 | 1,675,579,197 |
| " 1886 | 446,665,535 | .. | 1,031,869,712 | 1,478,535,247 |
| " 1891 | 341,949,237 | .. | 1,121,601,079 | 1,463,550,316 |
| " 1896 | 400,000,000 | 110,000,000 | 1,069,233,376 | 1,579,233,376 |
| " 1899 | 451,431,780 | 42,138,152 | 1,180,110,330 | 1,673,680,262 |
| " 1905 | 441,304,780 | 1,874,184 | 1,406,474,800 | 1,848,657,764 |
+-------------------+-------------+--------------+---------------+---------------+
* These ceased to have legal currency at the end of 1901; they were
notes of 1 and 2 lire.
_Banks._--Until 1893 the juridical status of the Banks of Issue was
regulated by the laws of the 30th of April 1874 on paper currency and
of the 7th of April 1881 on the abolition of forced currency. At that
time four limited companies were authorized to issue bank notes,
namely, the National Bank, the National Bank of Tuscany, the Roman
Bank and the Tuscan Credit Bank; and two banking corporations, the
Bank of Naples and the Bank of Sicily. In 1893 the Roman Bank was put
into liquidation, and the other three limited companies were fused, so
as to create the Bank of Italy, the privilege of issuing bank notes
being thenceforward confined to the Bank of Italy, the Bank of Naples
and the Bank of Sicily. The gold reserve in the possession of the
Banca d'Italia on September 30th 1907 amounted to L32,240,984, and the
silver reserve to L4,767,861; the foreign treasury bonds, &c. amounted
to L3,324,074, making the total reserve L40,332,919; while the
circulation amounted to L54,612,234. The figures were on the 31st of
December 1906:
+------------------+--------------+--------------+
| | Paper | Reserve. |
| | Circulation. | |
+------------------+--------------+--------------+
| Banca d'Italia | L47,504,352 | L36,979,235 |
| Banca di Napoli | 13,893,152 | 9,756,284 |
| Banca di Sicilia | 2,813,692 | 2,060,481 |
+------------------+--------------+--------------+
| Total | L64,211,196 | L48,796,000 |
+------------------+--------------+--------------+
This is considerably in excess of the circulation, L40,404,000, fixed
by royal decree of 1900; but the issue of additional notes was
allowed, provided they were entirely covered by a metallic reserve,
whereas up to the fixed limit a 40% reserve only was necessary. These
notes are of 50, 100, 500 and 1000 lire; while the state issues notes
for 5, 10 and 25 lire, the currency of these at the end of October
1906 being L17,546,967; with a total guarantee of L15,636,000 held
against them. They were in January 1908 equal in value to the metallic
currency of gold and silver.
The price of Italian consolidated 5% (gross, 4% net, allowing for the
20% income tax) stock, which is the security most largely negotiated
abroad, and used in settling differences between large financial
institutions, has steadily risen during recent years. After being
depressed between 1885 and 1894, the prices in Italy and abroad
reached, in 1899, on the Rome Stock Exchange, the average of 100.83
and of 94.8 on the Paris Bourse. By the end of 1901 the price of
Italian stock on the Paris Bourse had, however, risen to par or
thereabouts. The average price of Italian 4% in 1905 was 105.29; since
the conversion to 3(3/4)% net (to be further reduced to 3(1/2) in five
more years), the price has been about 103.5. Rates of exchange, or, in
other words the gold premium, favoured Italy during the years
immediately following the abolition of the forced currency in 1881. In
1885, however, rates tended to rise, and though they fell in 1886 they
subsequently increased to such an extent as to reach 110% at the end
of August 1894. For the next four years they continued low, but rose
again in 1898 and 1899. In 1900 the maximum rate was 107.32, and the
minimum 105.40, but in 1901 rates fell considerably, and were at par
in 1902-1909.
There are in Italy six clearing houses, namely, the ancient one at
Leghorn, and those of Genoa, Milan, Rome, Florence and Turin, founded
since 1882.
The number of ordinary banks, which diminished between 1889 and 1894,
increased in the following years, and was 158 in 1898. At the same
time the capital employed in banking decreased by nearly one-half,
namely, from about L12,360,000 in 1880 to about L6,520,000 in 1898.
This decrease was due to the liquidation of a number of large and
small banks, amongst others the Bank of Genoa, the General Bank, and
the Societa di Credito Mobiliare Italiano of Rome, and the Genoa
Discount Bank--establishments which alone represented L4,840,000 of
paid-up capital. Ordinary credit operations are also carried on by the
co-operative credit societies, of which there are some 700.
Agrarian Credit Banks.
Certain banks make a special business of lending money to owners of
land or buildings (_credito fondiario_). Loans are repayable by
instalments, and are guaranteed by first mortgages not greater in
amount than half the value of the hypothecated property. The banks may
buy up mortgages and advance money on current account on the security
of land or buildings. The development of the large cities has induced
these banks to turn their attention rather to building enterprise than
to mortgages on rural property. The value of their land certificates
or _cartelle fondiarie_ (representing capital in circulation) rose
from L10,420,000 in 1881 to L15,560,000 in 1886, and to L30,720,000 in
1891, but fell to L29,320,000 in 1896, to L27,360,000 in 1898, and to
L24,360,000 in 1907; the amount of money lent increased from
L10,440,000 in 1881 to L15,600,000 in 1886, and L30,800,000 in 1891,
but fell to L29,320,000 in 1896, to L27,360,000 in 1899, and to
L21,720,000 in 1907. The diminution was due to the law of the 10th of
April 1893 upon the banks of issue, by which they were obliged to
liquidate the loan and mortgage business they had previously carried
on.
Various laws have been passed to facilitate agrarian credit. The law
of the 23rd of January 1887 (still in force) extended the dispositions
of the Civil Code with regard to "privileges,"[9] and established
special "privileges" in regard to harvested produce, produce stored in
barns and farm buildings, and in regard to agricultural implements.
Loans on mortgage may also be granted to landowners and agricultural
unions, with a view to the introduction of agricultural improvements.
These loans are regulated by special disposition, and are guaranteed
by a share of the increased value of the land after the improvements
have been carried out. Agrarian credit banks may, with the permission
of the government, issue _cartelle agrarie_, or agrarian bonds,
repayable by instalments and bearing interest.
_Internal Administration._--It was not till 1865 that the
administrative unity of Italy was realized. Up to that year some of
the regions of the kingdom, such as Tuscany, continued to have a kind
of autonomy; but by the laws of the 20th of March the whole country
was divided into 69 provinces and 8545 communes. The extent to which
communal independence had been maintained in Italy through all the
centuries of its political disintegration was strongly in its favour.
The syndic (_sindaco_) or chief magistrate of the commune was
appointed by the king for three years, and he was assisted by a
"municipal junta."
Local government was modified by the law of the 10th of February 1889
and by posterior enactments. The syndics (or mayors) are now elected
by a secret ballot of the communal council, though they are still
government officials. In the provincial administrations the functions
of the prefects have been curtailed. Each province has a prefect,
responsible to and appointed by the Ministry of the Interior, while
each of the regions (called variously _circondarii_ and _distretti_)
has its sub-prefect. Whereas the prefect was formerly _ex-officio_
president of the provincial deputation or executive committee of the
provincial council, his duties under the present law are reduced to
mere participation in the management of provincial affairs, the
president of the provincial deputation being chosen among and elected
by the members of the deputation. The most important change introduced
by the new law has been the creation in every province of a provincial
administrative junta entrusted with the supervision of communal
administrations, a function previously discharged by the provincial
deputation. Each provincial administrative junta is composed, in part,
of government nominees, and in larger part of elective elements,
elected by the provincial council for four years, half of whom require
to be elected every two years. The acts of communal administration
requiring the sanction of the provincial administrative junta are
chiefly financial. Both communal councils and prefects may appeal to
the government against the decision of the provincial administrative
juntas, the government being guided by the opinion of the Council of
State. Besides possessing competence in regard to local government
elections, which previously came within the jurisdiction of the
provincial deputations, the provincial administrative juntas discharge
magisterial functions in administrative affairs, and deal with appeals
presented by private persons against acts of the communal and
provincial administrations. The juntas are in this respect organs of
the administrative jurisprudence created in Italy by the law of the
1st of May 1890, in order to provide juridical protection for those
rights and interests outside the competence of the ordinary tribunals.
The provincial council only meets once a year in ordinary session.
The former qualifications for electorship in local government
elections have been modified, and it is now sufficient to pay five
lire annually in direct taxes, five lire of certain communal taxes, or
a certain rental (which varies according to the population of a
commune), instead of being obliged to pay, as previously, at least
five lire annually of direct taxes to the state. In consequence of
this change the number of local electors increased by more than
one-third between 1887-1889; it decreased, however, as a result of an
extraordinary revision of the registers in 1894. The period for which
both communal and provincial councils are elected is six years,
one-half being renewed every three years.
The ratio of local electors to population is in Piedmont 79%, but in
Sicily less than 45%. The ratio of voters to qualified electors tends
to increase; it is highest in Campania, Basilicata and in the south
generally; the lowest percentages are given by Emilia and Liguria.
Local finance.
Local finance is regulated by the communal and provincial law of May
1898, which instituted provincial administrative juntas, empowered to
examine and sanction the acts of the communal financial
administrations. The sanction of the provincial administrative junta
is necessary for sales or purchases of property, alterations of rates
(although in case of increase the junta can only act upon request of
ratepayers paying an aggregate of one-twentieth of the local direct
taxation), and expenditure affecting the communal budget for more than
five years. The provincial administrative junta is, moreover,
empowered to order "obligatory" expenditure, such as the upkeep of
roads, sanitary works, lighting, police (i.e. the so-called "guardie
di pubblica sicurezza," the "carabinieri" being really a military
force; only the largest towns maintain a municipal police force),
charities, education, &c., in case such expenditure is neglected by
the communal authorities. The cost of fire brigades, infant asylums,
evening and holiday schools, is classed as "optional" expenditure.
Communal revenues are drawn from the proceeds of communal property,
interest upon capital, taxes and local dues. The most important of the
local dues is the gate tax, or _dazio di consumo_, which may be either
a surtax upon commodities (such as alcoholic drinks or meat), having
already paid customs duty at the frontier, in which case the local
surtax may not exceed 50% of the frontier duty, or an exclusively
communal duty limited to 10% on flour, bread and farinaceous
products,[10] and to 20% upon other commodities. The taxes thus vary
considerably in different towns.
In addition, the communes have a right to levy a surtax not exceeding
50% of the quota levied by the state upon lands and buildings; a
family tax, or _fuocatico_, upon the total incomes of families, which,
for fiscal purposes, are divided into various categories; a tax based
upon the rent-value of houses, and other taxes upon cattle, horses,
dogs, carriages and servants; also on licences for shopkeepers, hotel
and restaurant keepers, &c.; on the slaughter of animals, stamp
duties, one-half of the tax on bicycles, &c. Occasional sources of
interest are found in the sale of communal property, the realization
of communal credits, and the contraction of debt.
The provincial administrations are entrusted with the management of
the affairs of the provinces in general, as distinguished from those
of the communes. Their expenditure is likewise classed as "obligatory"
and "optional." The former category comprises the maintenance of
provincial roads, bridges and watercourse embankments; secondary
education, whenever this is not provided for by private institutions
or by the state (elementary education being maintained by the
communes), and the maintenance of foundlings and pauper lunatics.
"Optional" expenditure includes the cost of services of general public
interest, though not strictly indispensable. Provincial revenues are
drawn from provincial property, school taxes, tolls and surtaxes on
land and buildings. The provincial surtaxes may not exceed 50% of the
quotas levied by the state. In 1897 the total provincial revenue was
L3,732,253, of which L3,460,000 was obtained from the surtax upon
lands and buildings. Expenditure amounted to L3,768,888, of which the
principal items were L760,000 for roads and bridges, L520,000 for
lunatic asylums, L240,000 for foundling hospitals, L320,000 for
interest on debt and L200,000 for police. Like communal revenue,
provincial revenue has considerably increased since 1880, principally
on account of the increase in the land and building surtax.
The Italian local authorities, communes and provinces alike, have
considerably increased their indebtedness since 1882. The ratio of
communal and provincial debt per inhabitant has grown from 30.79 lire
(L1, 4s. 7(1/2)d.) to 43.70 lire (L1, 14s. 11d.), an increase due in
great part to the need for improved buildings, hygienic reforms and
education, but also attributable in part to the manner in which the
finances of many communes are administered. The total was in 1900,
L49,496,193 for the communes and L6,908,022 for the provinces. The
former total is more than double and the latter more than treble the
sum in 1873, while there is an increase of 62% in the former and 26%
in the latter over the totals for 1882.
See _Annuario statistico italiano_ (not, however, issued regularly
each year) for general statistics; and other official publications; W.
Deecke, _Italy; a Popular Account of the Country, its People and its
Institutions_ (translated by H. A. Nesbitt, London, 1904); B. King and
T. Okey, _Italy to-day_ (London, 1901); E. Nathan, _Vent' Anni di vita
italiana attraverso all' Annuario_ (Rome, 1906); G. Strafforello,
_Geografia dell' Italia_ (Turin, 1890-1902). (T. As.)
HISTORY
The difficulty of Italian history lies in the fact that until modern
times the Italians have had no political unity, no independence, no
organized existence as a nation. Split up into numerous and mutually
hostile communities, they never, through the fourteen centuries which
have elapsed since the end of the old Western empire, shook off the yoke
of foreigners completely; they never until lately learned to merge their
local and conflicting interests in the common good of undivided Italy.
Their history is therefore not the history of a single people,
centralizing and absorbing its constituent elements by a process of
continued evolution, but of a group of cognate populations, exemplifying
divers types of constitutional developments.
The early history of Italy will be found under ROME and allied headings.
The following account is therefore mainly concerned with the periods
succeeding A.D. 476, when Romulus Augustulus was deposed by Odoacer.
Prefixed to this are two sections dealing respectively with (A) the
ethnographical and philological divisions of ancient Italy, and (B) the
unification of the country under Augustus, the growth of the road system
and so forth. The subsequent history is divided into five periods: (C)
From 476 to 1796; (D) From 1796 to 1814; (E) From 1815 to 1870; (F) From
1870 to 1902; (G) From 1902 to 1910.
A. ANCIENT LANGUAGES AND PEOPLES
The ethnography of ancient Italy is a very complicated and difficult
subject, and notwithstanding the researches of modern scholars is still
involved in some obscurity. The great beauty and fertility of the
country, as well as the charm of its climate, undoubtedly attracted,
even in early ages, successive swarms of invaders from the north, who
sometimes drove out the previous occupants of the most favoured
districts, at others reduced them to a state of serfdom, or settled down
in the midst of them, until the two races gradually coalesced. Ancient
writers are agreed as to the composite character of the population of
Italy, and the diversity of races that were found within the limits of
the peninsula. But unfortunately the traditions they have transmitted to
us are often various and conflicting, while the only safe test of the
affinities of nations, derived from the comparison of their languages,
is to a great extent inapplicable, from the fact that the idioms that
prevailed in Italy in and before the 5th century B.C. are preserved, if
at all, only in a few scanty and fragmentary inscriptions, though from
that date onwards we have now a very fair record of many of them (see,
e.g. LATIN LANGUAGE, OSCA LINGUA, IGUVIUM, VOLSCI, ETRURIA: section
_Language_, and below). These materials, imperfect as they are, when
combined with the notices derived from ancient writers and the evidence
of archaeological excavations, may be considered as having furnished
some results of reasonable certainty.
It must be observed that the name "Italians" was at one time confined to
the Oenotrians; indeed, according to Antiochus of Syracuse (_apud_ Dion.
Hal. _Ant. Rom._ ii. 1), the name of Italy was first still more limited,
being applied only to the southern portion of the Bruttium peninsula
(now known as Calabria). But in the time of that historian, as well as
of Thucydides, the names of Oenotria and Italia, which appear to have
been at that period regarded as synonymous, had been extended to include
the shore of the Tarentine Gulf as far as Metapontum and from thence
across to the gulfs of Laus and Posidonia on the Tyrrhenian Sea. It
thus still comprised only the two provinces subsequently known as
Lucania and Bruttium (see references s.v. "Italia" in R. S. Conway's
_Italic Dialects_, p. 5). The name seems to be a Graecized form of an
Italic _Vitelia_, from the stem _vitlo_-, "calf" (Lat. _vitulus_, Gr.
[Greek: italos]), and perhaps to have meant "calf-land," "grazing-land";
but the origin is more certain than the meaning; the calf may be one of
the many animals connected with Italian tribes (see HIRPINI, SAMNITES).
Taking the term Italy to comprise the whole peninsula with the northern
region as far as the Alps, we must first distinguish the tribe or tribes
which spoke Indo-European languages from those who did not. To the
latter category it is now possible to refer with certainty only the
Etruscans (for the chronology and limits of their occupation of Italian
soil see ETRURIA: section _Language_). Of all the other tribes that
inhabited Italy down to the classical period, of whose speech there is
any record (whether explicit or in the form of names and glosses), it is
impossible to maintain that any one does not belong to the Indo-European
group. Putting aside the Etruscan, and also the different Greek dialects
of the Greek colonies, like Cumae, Neapolis, Tarentum, and proceeding
from the south to the north, the different languages or dialects, of
whose separate existence at some time between, say, 600 and 200 B.C., we
can be sure, may be enumerated as follows: (1) Sicel, (2) South Oscan
and Oscan, (3) Messapian, (4) North Oscan, (5) Volscian, (6) East Italic
or "Sabellic," (7) Latinian, (8) Sabine, (9) Iguvine or "Umbrian," (10)
Gallic, (11) Ligurian and (12) Venetic.
Between several of these dialects it is probable that closer affinities
exist. (1) It is probable, though not very clearly demonstrated, that
Venetic, East Italic and Messapian are connected together and with the
ancient dialects spoken in Illyria (q.v.), so that these might be
provisionally entitled the Adriatic group, to which the language spoken
by the Eteocretes of the city of Praesos in Crete down to the 4th
century B.C. was perhaps akin. (2) Too little is known of the Sicel
language to make clear more than its Indo-European character. But it
must be reckoned among the languages of Italy because of the
well-supported tradition of the early existence of the Sicels in Latium
(see SICULI). Their possible place in the earlier stratum of
Indo-European population is discussed under SABINI. How far also the
language or languages spoken in Bruttium and at certain points of
Lucania, such as Anxia, differed from the Oscan of Samnium and Campania
there is not enough evidence to show (see BRUTTII). (3) It is doubtful
whether there are any actual inscriptions which can be referred with
certainty to the language of the Ligures, but some other evidence seems
to link them with the -_CO_- peoples, whose early distribution is
discussed under VOLSCI and LIGURIA. (4) It is difficult to point to any
definite evidence by which we may determine the dates of the earliest
appearance of Gallic tribes in the north of Italy. No satisfactory
collection has been made of the Celtic inscriptions of Cisalpine Gaul,
though many are scattered about in different museums. For our present
purpose it is important to note that the archaeological stratification
in deposits like those of Bologna shows that the Gallic period
supervened upon the Etruscan. Until a scientific collection of the local
and personal names of this district has been made, and until the
archaeological evidence is clearly interpreted, it is impossible to go
beyond the region of conjecture as to the tribe or tribes occupying the
valley of the Po before the two invasions. It is clear, however, that
the Celtic and Etruscan elements together occupied the greater part of
the district between the Apennines and the Alps down to its
Romanization, which took place gradually in the course of the 2nd
century B.C. Their linguistic neighbours were Ligurian in the south and
south-west, and the Veneti on the east.
We know from the Roman historians that a large force of Gauls came as
far south as Rome in the year 390 B.C., and that some part of this horde
settled in what was henceforward known as the _Ager Gallicus_, the
easternmost strip of coast in what was later known as Umbria, including
the towns of Caesena, Ravenna and Ariminum. A bilingual inscription
(Gallic and Latin) of the 2nd century B.C. was found as far south as
Tuder, the modern Todi (_Italic Dialects_, ii. 528; Stokes,
_Bezzenberger's Beitrage_, 11, p. 113).
(5) Turning now to the languages which constitute the Italic group in
the narrower sense, (a) Oscan; (b) the dialect of Velitrae, commonly
called Volscian; (c) Latinian (i.e. Latin and its nearest congeners,
like Faliscan); and (d) Umbrian (or, as it may more safely be called,
Iguvine), two principles of classification offer themselves, of which
the first is purely linguistic, the second linguistic and topographical.
Writers on the ethnology of Italy have been hitherto content with the
first, namely, the broad distinction between the dialects which
preserved the Indo-European velars (especially the breathed plosive _q_)
as velars or back-palatals (gutturals), with or without the addition of
a _w_-sound, and the dialects which converted the velars wholly into
labials, for example, Latinian _quis_ contrasted with Oscan, Volscian
and Umbrian _pis_ (see further LATIN LANGUAGE).
This distinction, however, takes us but a little way towards an
historical grouping of the tribes, since the only Latinian dialects of
which, besides Latin, we have inscriptions are Faliscan and Marsian (see
FALISCI, MARSI); although the place-names of the Aequi (q.v.) suggest
that they belong to the same group in this respect. Except, therefore,
for a very small and apparently isolated area in the north of Latium and
south of Etruria, all the tribes of Italy, though their idioms differed
in certain particulars, are left undiscriminated. This presents a strong
contrast to the evidence of tradition, which asserts very strongly (1)
the identity of the Sabines and Samnites; (2) the conquest of an earlier
population by this tribe; and which affords (3) clear evidence of the
identity of the Sabines with the ruling class, i.e. the patricians, at
Rome itself (see SABINI; and ROME: _Early History and Ethnology_).
Some clue to this enigma may perhaps be found in the second principle of
classification proposed by the present writer at the Congresso
Internationale di Scienze Storiche at Rome (_Atti del Congresso_, ii) in
1903. It was on that occasion pointed out that the ethnica or tribal and
oppidan names of communities belonging to the Sabine stock were marked
by the use of the suffix -_NO_- as in _Sabini_; and that there was some
linguistic evidence that this stratum of population overcame an earlier
population, which used, generally, ethnica in -_CO_- or -_TI_- (as in
_Marruci_, _Ardeates_, transformed later into _Marrucini_, _Ardeatini_).
The validity of this distinction and its results are discussed under
SABINI and VOLSCI, but it is well to state here its chief consequences.
1. Latin will be counted the language of the earlier plebeian stratum of
the population of Rome and Latium, probably once spread over a large
area of the peninsula, and akin in some degree to the language or
languages spoken in north Italy before either the Etruscan or the Gallic
invasions began.
2. It would follow, on the other hand, that what is called Oscan
represented the language of the invading Sabines (more correctly
Safines), whose racial affinities would seem to be of a distinctly more
northern cast, and to mark them, like the Dorians or Achaeans in Greece,
as an early wave of the invaders who more than once in later history
have vitally influenced the fortunes of the tempting southern land into
which they forced their way.
3. What is called Volscian, known only from the important inscription of
the town of Velitrae, and what is called Umbrian, known from the famous
Iguvine Tables with a few other records, would be regarded as Safine
dialects, spoken by Safine communities who had become more or less
isolated in the midst of the earlier and possibly partly Etruscanized
populations, the result being that as early as the 4th century B.C.
their language had suffered corruptions which it escaped both in the
Samnite mountains and in the independent and self-contained community of
Rome.
For fuller details the reader must be referred to the separate
articles already mentioned, and to IGUVIUM, PICENUM, OSCA LINGUA,
MARSI, AEQUI, SICULI and LIGURIA. Such archaeological evidence as can
be connected with the linguistic data will there be discussed.
(R. S. C.)
B. CONSOLIDATION OF ITALY
We have seen that the name of Italy was originally applied only to the
southernmost part of the peninsula, and was only gradually extended so
as to comprise the central regions, such as Latium and Campania, which
were designated by writers as late as Thucydides and Aristotle as in
Opicia. The progress of this change cannot be followed in detail, but
there can be little doubt that the extension of the Roman arms, and the
gradual union of the nations of the peninsula under one dominant power,
would contribute to the introduction, or rather would make the necessity
felt, for the use of one general appellation. At first, indeed, the term
was apparently confined to the regions of the central and southern
districts, exclusive of Cisalpine Gaul and the whole tract north of the
Apennines, and this continued to be the official or definite
signification of the name down to the end of the republic. But the
natural limits of Italy are so clearly marked that the name came to be
generally employed as a geographical term at a much earlier period. Thus
we already find Polybius repeatedly applying it in this wider
signification to the whole country, as far as the foot of the Alps; and
it is evident from many passages in the Latin writers that this was the
familiar use of the term in the days of Cicero and Caesar. The official
distinction was, however, still retained. Cisalpine Gaul, including the
whole of northern Italy, still constituted a "province," an appellation
never applied to Italy itself. As such it was assigned to Julius Caesar,
together with Transalpine Gaul, and it was not till he crossed the
Rubicon that he entered Italy in the strict sense of the term.
Augustus was the first who gave a definite administrative organization
to Italy as a whole, and at the same time gave official sanction to that
wider acceptation of the name which had already established itself in
familiar usage, and which has continued to prevail ever since.
The division of Italy into eleven regions, instituted by Augustus for
administrative purposes, which continued in official use till the reign
of Constantine, was based mainly on the territorial divisions previously
existing, and preserved with few exceptions the ancient limits.
The first region comprised Latium (in the more extended sense of the
term, as including the land of the Volsci, Hernici and Aurunci),
together with Campania and the district of the Picentini. It thus
extended from the mouth of the Tiber to that of the Silarus (see
LATIUM).
The second region included Apulia and Calabria (the name by which the
Romans usually designated the district known to the Greeks as Messapia
or Iapygia), together with the land of the Hirpini, which had usually
been considered as a part of Samnium.
The third region contained Lucania and Bruttium; it was bounded on the
west coast by the Silarus, on the east by the Bradanus.
The fourth region comprised all the Samnites (except the Hirpini),
together with the Sabines and the cognate tribes of the Frentani,
Marrucini, Marsi, Peligni, Vestini and Aequiculi. It was separated from
Apulia on the south by the river Tifernus, and from Picenum on the north
by the Matrinus.
The fifth region was composed solely of Picenum, extending along the
coast of the Adriatic from the mouth of the Matrinus to that of the
Aesis, beyond Ancona.
The sixth region was formed by Umbria, in the more extended sense of the
term, as including the Ager Gallicus, along the coast of the Adriatic
from the Aesis to the Ariminus, and separated from Etruria on the west
by the Tiber.
The seventh region consisted of Etruria, which preserved its ancient
limits, extending from the Tiber to the Tyrrhenian Sea, and separated
from Liguria on the north by the river Macra.
The eighth region, termed Gallia Cispadana, comprised the southern
portion of Cisalpine Gaul, and was bounded on the north (as its name
implied) by the river Padus or Po, from above Placentia to its mouth. It
was separated from Etruria and Umbria by the main chain of the
Apennines; and the river Ariminus was substituted for the far-famed
Rubicon as its limit on the Adriatic.
[Illustration: Map of Italy (Ancient)]
The ninth region comprised Liguria, extending along the sea-coast from
the Varus to the Macra, and inland as far as the river Padus, which
constituted its northern boundary from its source in Mount Vesulus to
its confluence with the Trebia just above Placentia.
The tenth region included Venetia from the Padus and Adriatic to the
Alps, to which was annexed the neighbouring peninsula of Istria, and to
the west the territory of the Cenomani, a Gaulish tribe, extending from
the Athesis to the Addua, which had previously been regarded as a part
of Gallia Cisalpina.
The eleventh region, known as Gallia Transpadana, included all the rest
of Cisalpine Gaul from the Padus on the south and the Addua on the east
to the foot of the Alps.
The arrangements thus established by Augustus continued almost unchanged
till the time of Constantine, and formed the basis of all subsequent
administrative divisions until the fall of the Western empire.
Roads.
The mainstay of the Roman military control of Italy first, and of the
whole empire afterwards, was the splendid system of roads. As the
supremacy of Rome extended itself over Italy, the Roman road system grew
step by step, each fresh conquest being marked by the pushing forward of
roads through the heart of the newly-won territory, and the
establishment of fortresses in connexion with them. It was in Italy that
the military value of a network of roads was first appreciated by the
Romans, and the lesson stood them in good stead in the provinces. And it
was for military reasons that from mere cart-tracks they were developed
into permanent highways (T. Ashby, in _Papers of the British School at
Rome_, i. 129). From Rome itself roads radiated in all directions.
Communications with the south-east were mainly provided by the Via Appia
(the "queen of Roman roads," as Statius called it) and the Via Latina,
which met close to Casilinum, at the crossing of the Volturnus, 3 m.
N.W. of Capua, the second city in Italy in the 3rd century B.C., and the
centre of the road system of Campania. Here the Via Appia turned
eastward towards Beneventum, while the Via Popilia continued in a
south-easterly direction through the Campanian plain and thence
southwards through the mountains of Lucania and Bruttii as far as
Rhegium. Coast roads of minor importance as means of through
communication also existed on both sides of the "toe" of the boot. Other
roads ran south from Capua to Cumae, Puteoli (the most important harbour
of Campania), and Neapolis, which could also be reached by a coast road
from Minturnae on the Via Appia. From Beneventum, another important road
centre, the Via Appia itself ran south-east through the mountains past
Venusia to Tarentum on the south-west coast of the "heel," and thence
across Calabria to Brundusium, while Trajan's correction of it,
following an older mule-track, ran north-east through the mountains and
then through the lower ground of Apulia, reaching the coast at Barium.
Both met at Brundusium, the principal port for the East. From Aequum
Tuticum, on the Via Traiana, the Via Herculia ran to the south-east,
crossing the older Via Appia, then south to Potentia and so on to join
the Via Popilia in the centre of Lucania.
The only highroad of importance which left Rome and ran eastwards, the
Via Valeria, was not completed as far as the Adriatic before the time of
Claudius; but on the north and north-west started the main highways
which communicated with central and northern Italy, and with all that
part of the Roman empire which was accessible by land. The Via Salaria,
a very ancient road, with its branch, the Via Caecilia, ran
north-eastwards to the Adriatic coast and so also did the Via Flaminia,
which reached the coast at Fanum Fortunae, and thence followed it to
Ariminum. The road along the east coast from Fanum Fortunae down to
Barium, which connected the terminations of the Via Salaria and Via
Valeria, and of other roads farther south crossing from Campania, had no
special name in ancient times, as far as we know. The Via Flaminia was
the earliest and most important road to the north; and it was soon
extended (in 187 B.C.) by the Via Aemilia running through Bononia as
far as Placentia, in an almost absolutely straight line between the
plain of the Po and the foot of the Apennines. In the same year a road
was constructed over the Apennines from Bononia to Arretium, but it is
difficult to suppose that it was not until later that the Via Cassia was
made, giving a direct communication between Arretium and Rome. The Via
Clodia was an alternative route to the Cassia for the first portion out
of Rome, a branch having been built at the same time from Florentia to
Lucca and Luna. Along the west coast the Via Aurelia ran up to Pisa and
was continued by another Via Aemilia to Genoa. Thence the Via Postumia
led to Dertona, Placentia and Cremona, while the Via Aemilia and the Via
Julia Augusta continued along the coast into Gallia Narbonensis.
The road system of Cisalpine Gaul was mainly conditioned by the rivers
which had to be crossed, and the Alpine passes which had to be
approached.
Cremona, on the north bank of the Po, was an important meeting point of
roads and Postilia (Ostiglia) another; so also was Patavium, farther
east, and Altinum and Aquileia farther east still. Roads, indeed, were
almost as plentiful as railways at the present day in the basin of the
Po.
As to the roads leading out of Italy, from Aquileia roads diverged
northward into Raetia, eastward to Noricum and Pannonia, and southwards
to the Istrian and Dalmatian coasts. Farther west came the roads over
the higher Alpine passes--the Brenner from Verona, the Septimer and the
Splugen from Clavenna (Chiavenna), the Great and the Little St Bernard
from Augusta Praetoria (Aosta), and the Mont Genevre from Augusta
Taurinorum (Turin).
Westward two short but important roads led on each side of the Tiber to
the great harbour at its mouth; while the coast of Latium was supplied
with a coast road by Septimius Severus. To the south-west the roads were
short and of little importance.
On ancient Italian geography in general see articles in Pauly-Wissowa,
_Realencyclopadie_ (1899, sqq.); _Corpus inscriptionum Latinarum_
(Berlin, 1862 sqq.); G. Strafforello, _Geografia dell' Italia_ (Turin,
1890-1892); H. Nissen, _Italische Landeskunde_ (Berlin, 1883-1902);
also references in articles ROME, LATIUM, &c. (T. As.)
C. FROM 476 to 1796
The year 476 opened a new age for the Italian people. Odoacer, a chief
of the Herulians, deposed Romulus, the last Augustus of the West, and
placed the peninsula beneath the titular sway of the Byzantine emperors.
At Pavia the barbarian conquerors of Italy proclaimed him king, and he
received from Zeno the dignity of Roman patrician. Thus began that
system of mixed government, Teutonic and Roman, which, in the absence of
a national monarch, impressed the institutions of new Italy from the
earliest date with dualism. The same revolution vested supreme authority
in a non-resident and inefficient autocrat, whose title gave him the
right to interfere in Italian affairs, but who lacked the power and will
to rule the people for his own or their advantage. Odoacer inaugurated
that long series of foreign rulers--Greeks, Franks, Germans, Spaniards
and Austrians--who have successively contributed to the misgovernment of
Italy from distant seats of empire.
I. _Gothic and Lombard Kingdoms._--In 488 Theodoric, king of the East
Goths, received commission from the Greek emperor, Zeno, to undertake
the affairs of Italy. He defeated Odoacer, drove him to Ravenna,
besieged him there, and in 493 completed the conquest of the country by
murdering the Herulian chief with his own hand. Theodoric respected the
Roman institutions which he found in Italy, held the Eternal City
sacred, and governed by ministers chosen from the Roman population. He
settled at Ravenna, which had been the capital of Italy since the days
of Honorius, and which still testifies by its monuments to the Gothic
chieftain's Romanizing policy. Those who believe that the Italians would
have gained strength by unification in a single monarchy must regret
that this Gothic kingdom lacked the elements of stability. The Goths,
except in the valley of the Po, resembled an army of occupation rather
than a people numerous enough to blend with the Italic stock. Though
their rule was favourable to the Romans, they were Arians; and
religious differences, combined with the pride and jealousies of a
nation accustomed to imperial honours, rendered the inhabitants of Italy
eager to throw off their yoke. When, therefore, Justinian undertook the
reconquest of Italy, his generals, Belisarius and Narses, were supported
by the south. The struggle of the Greeks and the Goths was carried on
for fourteen years, between 539 and 553, when Teias, the last Gothic
king, was finally defeated in a bloody battle near Vesuvius. At its
close the provinces of Italy were placed beneath Greek dukes, controlled
by a governor-general, entitled exarch, who ruled in the Byzantine
emperor's name at Ravenna.
The Lombards.
This new settlement lasted but a few years. Narses had employed Lombard
auxiliaries in his campaigns against the Goths; and when he was recalled
by an insulting message from the empress in 565, he is said to have
invited this fiercest and rudest of the Teutonic clans to seize the
spoils of Italy. Be this as it may, the Lombards, their ranks swelled by
the Gepidae, whom they had lately conquered, and by the wrecks of other
barbarian tribes, passed southward under their king Alboin in 568. The
Herulian invaders had been but a band of adventurers; the Goths were an
army; the Lombards, far more formidable, were a nation in movement.
Pavia offered stubborn resistance; but after a three years' siege it was
taken, and Alboin made it the capital of his new kingdom.
In order to understand the future history of Italy, it is necessary to
form a clear conception of the method pursued by the Lombards in their
conquest. Penetrating the peninsula, and advancing like a glacier or
half-liquid stream of mud, they occupied the valley of the Po, and moved
slowly downward through the centre of the country. Numerous as they were
compared with their Gothic predecessors, they had not strength or
multitude enough to occupy the whole peninsula. Venice, which since the
days of Attila had offered an asylum to Roman refugees from the northern
cities, was left untouched. So was Genoa with its Riviera. Ravenna,
entrenched within her lagoons, remained a Greek city. Rome, protected by
invincible prestige, escaped. The sea-coast cities of the south, and the
islands, Sicily, Sardinia and Corsica, preserved their independence.
Thus the Lombards neither occupied the extremities nor subjugated the
brain-centre of the country. The strength of Alboin's kingdom was in the
north; his capital, Pavia. As his people pressed southward, they omitted
to possess themselves of the coasts; and what was worse for the future
of these conquerors, the original impetus of the invasion was checked by
the untimely murder of Alboin in 573. After this event, the
semi-independent chiefs of the Lombard tribe, who borrowed the title of
dukes from their Roman predecessors, seem to have been contented with
consolidating their power in the districts each had occupied. The
duchies of Spoleto in the centre, and of Benevento in the south,
inserted wedge-like into the middle of the peninsula, and enclosing
independent Rome, were but loosely united to the kingdom at Pavia. Italy
was broken up into districts, each offering points for attack from
without, and fostering the seeds of internal revolution. Three separate
capitals must be discriminated--Pavia, the seat of the new Lombard
kingdom; Ravenna, the garrison city of the Byzantine emperor; and Rome,
the rallying point of the old nation, where the successor of St Peter
was already beginning to assume that national protectorate which proved
so influential in the future.
It is not necessary to write the history of the Lombard kingdom in
detail. Suffice it to say that the rule of the Lombards proved at first
far more oppressive to the native population, and was less intelligent
of their old customs, than that of the Goths had been. Wherever the
Lombards had the upper hand, they placed the country under military
rule, resembling in its general character what we now know as the feudal
system. Though there is reason to suppose that the Roman laws were still
administered within the cities, yet the Lombard code was that of the
kingdom; and the Lombards being Arians, they added the oppression of
religious intolerance to that of martial despotism and barbarous
cupidity. The Italians were reduced to the last extremity when Gregory
the Great (590-604), having strengthened his position by diplomatic
relations with the duchy of Spoleto, and brought about the conversion of
the Lombards to orthodoxy, raised the cause of the remaining Roman
population throughout Italy. The fruit of his policy, which made of Rome
a counterpoise against the effete empire of the Greeks upon the one hand
and against the pressure of the feudal kingdom on the other, was seen in
the succeeding century. When Leo the Isaurian published his decrees
against the worship of images in 726, Gregory II. allied himself with
Liudprand, the Lombard king, threw off allegiance to Byzantium, and
established the autonomy of Rome. This pope initiated the dangerous
policy of playing one hostile force off against another with a view to
securing independence. He used the Lombards in his struggle with the
Greeks, leaving to his successors the duty of checking these unnatural
allies. This was accomplished by calling the Franks in against the
Lombards. Liudprand pressed hard, not only upon the Greek dominions of
the exarchate, but also upon Rome. His successors, Rachis and Aistolf,
attempted to follow the same game of conquest. But the popes, Gregory
III., Zachary and Stephen II., determining at any cost to espouse the
national cause and to aggrandize their own office, continued to rely
upon the Franks. Pippin twice crossed the Alps, and forced Aistolf to
relinquish his acquisitions, including Ravenna, Pentapolis, the coast
towns of Romagna and some cities in the duchy of Spoleto. These he
handed over to the pope of Rome. This donation of Pippin in 756
confirmed the papal see in the protectorate of the Italic party, and
conferred upon it sovereign rights. The virtual outcome of the contest
carried on by Rome since the year 726 with Byzantium and Pavia was to
place the popes in the position held by the Greek exarch, and to confirm
the limitation of the Lombard kingdom. We must, however, be cautious to
remember that the south of Italy was comparatively unaffected. The dukes
of the Greek empire and the Lombard dukes of Benevento, together with a
few autonomous commercial cities, still divided Italy below the Campagna
of Rome (see LOMBARDS).
Charles the Great and the Carolingians.
II. _Frankish Emperors._--The Franko-Papal alliance, which conferred a
crown on Pippin and sovereign rights upon the see of Rome, held within
itself that ideal of mutually supporting papacy and empire which
exercised so powerful an influence in medieval history. When Charles the
Great (Charlemagne) deposed his father-in-law Desiderius, the last
Lombard king, in 774, and when he received the circlet of the empire
from Leo III. at Rome in 800, he did but complete and ratify the compact
offered to his grandfather, Charles Martel, by Gregory III. The
relations between the new emperor and the pope were ill defined; and
this proved the source of infinite disasters to Italy and Europe in the
sequel. But for the moment each seemed necessary to the other; and that
sufficed. Charles took possession of the kingdom of Italy, as limited by
Pippin's settlement. The pope was confirmed in his rectorship of the
cities ceded by Aistolf, with the further understanding, tacit rather
than expressed, that, even as he had wrung these provinces for the
Italic people from both Greeks and Lombards, so in the future he might
claim the protectorate of such portions of Italy, external to the
kingdom, as he should be able to acquire. This, at any rate, seems to be
the meaning of that obscure re-settlement of the peninsula which Charles
effected. The kingdom of Italy, transmitted on his death by Charles the
Great, and afterwards confirmed to his grandson Lothar by the peace of
Verdun in 843, stretched from the Alps to Terracina. The duchy of
Benevento remained tributary, but independent. The cities of Gaeta and
Naples, Sicily and the so-called Theme of Lombardy in South Apulia and
Calabria, still recognized the Byzantine emperor. Venice stood aloof,
professing a nominal allegiance to the East. The parcels into which the
Lombards had divided the peninsula remained thus virtually unaltered,
except for the new authority acquired by the see of Rome.
Internally Charles left the affairs of the Italian kingdom much as he
found them, except that he appears to have pursued the policy of
breaking up the larger fiefs of the Lombards, substituting counts for
their dukes, and adding to the privileges of the bishops. We may reckon
these measures among the earliest advantages extended to the cities,
which still contained the bulk of the old Roman population, and which
were destined to intervene with decisive effect two centuries later in
Italian history. It should also here be noticed that the changes
introduced into the holding of the fiefs, whether by altering their
boundaries or substituting Frankish for Lombard vassals, were chief
among the causes why the feudal system took no permanent hold in Italy.
Feudalism was not at any time a national institution. The hierarchy of
dukes and marquises and counts consisted of foreign soldiers imposed on
the indigenous inhabitants; and the rapid succession of conquerors,
Lombards, Franks and Germans following each other at no long interval,
and each endeavouring to weaken the remaining strength of his
predecessor, prevented this alien hierarchy from acquiring fixity by
permanence of tenure. Among the many miseries inflicted upon Italy by
the frequent changes of her northern rulers, this at least may be
reckoned a blessing.
Frankish and Italian kings.
The Italians acknowledged eight kings of the house of Charles the Great,
ending in Charles the Fat, who was deposed in 888. After them followed
ten sovereigns, some of whom have been misnamed Italians by writers too
eager to catch at any resemblance of national glory for a people passive
in the hands of foreign masters. The truth is that no period in Italian
history was less really glorious than that which came to a close in 961
by Berengar II.'s cession of his rights to Otto the Great. It was a
period marked in the first place by the conquests of the Saracens, who
began to occupy Sicily early in the 9th century, overran Calabria and
Apulia, took Bari and threatened Rome. In the second place it was marked
by a restoration of the Greeks to power. In 890 they established
themselves again at Bari, and ruled the Theme of Lombardy by means of an
officer entitled Catapan. In the third place it was marked by a decline
of good government in Rome. Early in the 10th century the papacy fell
into the hands of a noble family, known eventually as the counts of
Tusculum, who almost succeeded in rendering the office hereditary, and
in uniting the civil and ecclesiastical functions of the city under a
single member of their house. It is not necessary to relate the scandals
of Marozia's and Theodora's female reign, the infamies of John XII. or
the intrigues which tended to convert Rome into a duchy. The most
important fact for the historian of Italy to notice is that during this
time the popes abandoned, not only their high duties as chiefs of
Christendom, but also their protectorate of Italian liberties. A fourth
humiliating episode in this period was the invasion of the Magyar
barbarians, who overran the north of Italy, and reduced its fairest
provinces to the condition of a wilderness. Anarchy and misery are
indeed the main features of that long space of time which elapsed
between the death of Charles the Great and the descent of Otto. Through
the almost impenetrable darkness and confusion we only discern this
much, that Italy was powerless to constitute herself a nation.
The discords which followed on the break-up of the Carolingian power,
and the weakness of the so-called Italian emperors, who were unable to
control the feudatories (marquises of Ivrea and Tuscany, dukes of Friuli
and Spoleto), from whose ranks they sprang, exposed Italy to
ever-increasing misrule. The country by this time had become thickly
covered over with castles, the seats of greater or lesser nobles, all of
whom were eager to detach themselves from strict allegiance to the
"Regno." The cities, exposed to pillage by Huns in the north and
Saracens in the south, and ravaged on the coast by Norse pirates,
asserted their right to enclose themselves with walls, and taught their
burghers the use of arms. Within the circuit of their ramparts, the
bishops already began to exercise authority in rivalry with the counts,
to whom, since the days of Theodoric, had been entrusted the government
of the Italian burghs. Agreeably to feudal customs, these nobles, as
they grew in power, retired from the town, and built themselves
fortresses on points of vantage in the neighbourhood. Thus the titular
king of Italy found himself simultaneously at war with those great
vassals who had chosen him from their own class, with the turbulent
factions of the Roman aristocracy, with unruly bishops in the growing
cities and with the multitude of minor counts and barons who occupied
the open lands, and who changed sides according to the interests of the
moment. The last king of the quasi-Italian succession, Berengar II.,
marquis of Ivrea (951-961), made a vigorous effort to restore the
authority of the regno; and had he succeeded, it is not impossible that
now at the last moment Italy might have become an independent nation.
But this attempt at unification was reckoned to Berengar for a crime. He
only won the hatred of all classes, and was represented by the obscure
annalists of that period as an oppressor of the church and a remorseless
tyrant. In Italy, divided between feudal nobles and almost hereditary
ecclesiastics, of foreign blood and alien sympathies, there was no
national feeling. Berengar stood alone against a multitude, unanimous in
their intolerance of discipline. His predecessor in the kingdom, Lothar,
had left a young and beautiful widow, Adelheid. Berengar imprisoned her
upon the Lake of Como, and threatened her with a forced marriage to his
son Adalbert. She escaped to the castle of Canossa, where the great
count of Tuscany espoused her cause, and appealed in her behalf to Otto
the Saxon. The king of Germany descended into Italy, and took Adelheid
in marriage. After this episode Berengar was more discredited and
impotent than ever. In the extremity of his fortunes he had recourse
himself to Otto, making a formal cession of the Italian kingdom, in his
own name and that of his son Adalbert, to the Saxon as his overlord. By
this slender tie the crown of Italy was joined to that of Germany; and
the formal right of the elected king of Germany to be considered king of
Italy and emperor may be held to have accrued from this epoch.
Saxon and Franconian emperors.
III. _The German Emperors._--Berengar gained nothing by his act of
obedience to Otto. The great Italian nobles, in their turn, appealed to
Germany. Otto entered Lombardy in 961, deposed Berengar, assumed the
crown in San Ambrogio at Milan, and in 962 was proclaimed emperor by
John XII. at Rome. Henceforward Italy changed masters according as one
or other of the German families assumed supremacy beyond the Alps. It is
one of the strongest instances furnished by history of the fascination
exercised by an idea that the Italians themselves should have grown to
glory in this dependence of their nation upon Caesars who had nothing
but a name in common with the Roman Imperator of the past.
The first thing we have to notice in this revolution which placed Otto
the Great upon the imperial throne is that the Italian kingdom, founded
by the Lombards, recognized by the Franks and recently claimed by
eminent Italian feudatories, virtually ceased to exist. It was merged in
the German kingdom; and, since for the German princes Germany was of
necessity their first care, Italy from this time forward began to be
left more and more to herself. The central authority of Pavia had always
been weak; the regno had proved insufficient to combine the nation. But
now even that shadow of union disappeared, and the Italians were
abandoned to the slowly working influences which tended to divide them
into separate states. The most brilliant period of their chequered
history, the period which includes the rise of communes, the exchange of
municipal liberty for despotism and the gradual discrimination of the
five great powers (Milan, Venice, Florence, the Papacy and the kingdom
of Naples), now begins. Among the centrifugal forces which determined
the future of the Italian race must be reckoned, first and foremost, the
new spirit of municipal independence. We have seen how the cities
enclosed themselves with walls, and how the bishops defined their
authority against that of the counts. Otto encouraged this revolution by
placing the enclosures of the chief burghs beyond the jurisdiction of
the counts. Within those precincts the bishops and the citizens were
independent of all feudal masters but the emperor. He further broke the
power of the great vassals by redivisions of their feuds, and by the
creation of new marches which he assigned to his German followers. In
this way, owing to the dislocation of the ancient aristocracy, to the
enlarged jurisdiction of a power so democratic as the episcopate, and to
the increased privileges of the burghs, feudalism received a powerful
check in Italy. The Italian people, that people which gave to the world
the commerce and the arts of Florence, was not indeed as yet apparent.
But the conditions under which it could arise, casting from itself all
foreign and feudal trammels, recognizing its true past in ancient Rome,
and reconstructing a civility out of the ruins of those glorious
memories, were now at last granted. The nobles from this time forward
retired into the country and the mountains, fortified themselves in
strong places outside the cities, and gave their best attention to
fostering the rural population. Within the cities and upon the open
lands the Italians, in this and the next century, doubled, trebled and
quadrupled their numbers. A race was formed strong enough to keep the
empire itself in check, strong enough, except for its own internecine
contests, to have formed a nation equal to its happier neighbours.
The recent scandals of the papacy induced Otto to deprive the Romans of
their right to elect popes. But when he died in 973, his son Otto II.
(married to Theophano of the imperial Byzantine house) and his grandson,
Otto III., who descended into Italy in 996, found that the affairs of
Rome and of the southern provinces were more than even their imperial
powers could cope with. The faction of the counts of Tusculum raised its
head from time to time in the Eternal City, and Rome still claimed to be
a commonwealth. Otto III.'s untimely death in 1002 introduced new
discords. Rome fell once more into the hands of her nobles. The Lombards
chose Ardoin, marquis of Ivrea, for king, and Pavia supported his claims
against those of Henry of Bavaria, who had been elected in Germany.
Milan sided with Henry; and this is perhaps the first eminent instance
of cities being reckoned powerful allies in the Italian disputes of
sovereigns. It is also the first instance of that bitter feud between
the two great capitals of Lombardy, a feud rooted in ancient antipathies
between the Roman population of Mediolanum and the Lombard garrison of
Alboin's successors, which proved so disastrous to the national cause.
Ardoin retired to a monastery, where he died in 1015. Henry nearly
destroyed Pavia, was crowned in Rome and died in 1024. After this event
Heribert, the archbishop of Milan, invited Conrad, the Franconian king
of Germany, into Italy, and crowned him with the iron crown of the
kingdom.
Heribert and the Lombard burghs.
The intervention of this man, Heribert, compels us to turn a closer
glance upon the cities of North Italy. It is here, at the present epoch
and for the next two centuries, that the pith and nerve of the Italian
nation must be sought; and among the burghs of Lombardy, Milan, the
eldest daughter of ancient Rome, assumes the lead. In Milan we hear for
the first time the word _Comune_. In Milan the citizens first form
themselves into a _Parlamento_. In Milan the archbishop organizes the
hitherto voiceless, defenceless population into a community capable of
expressing its needs, and an army ready to maintain its rights. To
Heribert is attributed the invention of the _Carroccio_, which played so
singular and important a part in the warfare of Italian cities. A huge
car drawn by oxen, bearing the standard of the burgh, and carrying an
altar with the host, this carroccio, like the ark of the Israelites,
formed a rallying point in battle, and reminded the armed artisans that
they had a city and a church to fight for. That Heribert's device proved
effectual in raising the spirit of his burghers, and consolidating them
into a formidable band of warriors, is shown by the fact that it was
speedily adopted in all the free cities. It must not, however, be
supposed that at this epoch the liberties of the burghs were fully
developed. The mass of the people remained unrepresented in the
government; and even if the consuls existed in the days of Heribert,
they were but humble legal officers, transacting business for their
constituents in the courts of the bishop and his viscount. It still
needed nearly a century of struggle to render the burghers independent
of lordship, with a fully organized commune, self-governed in its
several assemblies. While making these reservations, it is at the same
time right to observe that certain Italian communities were more
advanced upon the path of independence than others. This is specially
the case with the maritime ports. Not to mention Venice, which has not
yet entered the Italian community, and remains a Greek free city, Genoa
and Pisa were rapidly rising into ill-defined autonomy. Their command of
fleets gave them incontestable advantages, as when, for instance, Otto
II. employed the Pisans in 980 against the Greeks in Lower Italy, and
the Pisans and Genoese together attacked the Saracens of Sardinia in
1017. Still, speaking generally, the age of independence for the burghs
had only begun when Heribert from Milan undertook the earliest
organization of a force that was to become paramount in peace and war.
Rome.
Next to Milan, and from the point of view of general politics even more
than Milan, Rome now claims attention. The destinies of Italy depended
upon the character which the see of St Peter should assume. Even the
liberties of her republics in the north hung on the issue of a contest
which in the 11th and 12th centuries shook Europe to its farthest
boundaries. So fatally were the internal affairs of that magnificent but
unhappy country bound up with concerns which brought the forces of the
civilized world into play. Her ancient prestige, her geographical
position and the intellectual primacy of her most noble children
rendered Italy the battleground of principles that set all Christendom
in motion, and by the clash of which she found herself for ever
afterwards divided. During the reign of Conrad II., the party of the
counts of Tusculum revived in Rome; and Crescentius, claiming the title
of consul in the imperial city, sought once more to control the election
of the popes. When Henry III., the son of Conrad, entered Italy in 1046,
he found three popes in Rome. These he abolished, and, taking the
appointment into his own hands, gave German bishops to the see. The
policy thus initiated upon the precedent laid down by Otto the Great was
a remedy for pressing evils. It saved Rome from becoming a duchy in the
hands of the Tusculum house. But it neither raised the prestige of the
papacy, nor could it satisfy the Italians, who rightly regarded the
Roman see as theirs. These German popes were short-lived and
inefficient. Their appointment, according to notions which defined
themselves within the church at this epoch, was simoniacal; and during
the long minority of Henry IV., who succeeded his father in 1056, the
terrible Tuscan monk, Hildebrand of Soana, forged weapons which he used
with deadly effect against the presumption of the empire. The condition
of the church seemed desperate, unless it could be purged of crying
scandals--of the subjection of the papacy to the great Roman nobles, of
its subordination to the German emperor and of its internal
demoralization. It was Hildebrand's policy throughout three papacies,
during which he controlled the counsels of the Vatican, and before he
himself assumed the tiara, to prepare the mind of Italy and Europe for a
mighty change. His programme included these three points: (1) the
celibacy of the clergy; (2) the abolition of ecclesiastical appointments
made by the secular authority; (3) the vesting of the papal election in
the hands of the Roman clergy and people, presided over by the curia of
cardinals. How Hildebrand paved the way for these reforms during the
pontificates of Nicholas II. and Alexander II., how he succeeded in
raising the papal office from the depths of degradation and subjection
to illimitable sway over the minds of men in Europe, and how his warfare
with the empire established on a solid basis the still doubtful
independence of the Italian burghs, renewing the long neglected
protectorate of the Italian race, and bequeathing to his successors a
national policy which had been forgotten by the popes since his great
predecessor Gregory II., forms a chapter in European history which must
now be interrupted. We have to follow the fortunes of unexpected allies,
upon whom in no small measure his success depended.
Norman conquest of the Two Sicilies.
In order to maintain some thread of continuity through the perplexed and
tangled vicissitudes of the Italian race, it has been necessary to
disregard those provinces which did not immediately contribute to the
formation of its history. For this reason we have left the whole of the
south up to the present point unnoticed. Sicily in the hands of the
Mussulmans, the Theme of Lombardy abandoned to the weak suzerainty of
the Greek catapans, the Lombard duchy of Benevento slowly falling to
pieces and the maritime republics of Naples, Gaeta and Amalfi extending
their influence by commerce in the Mediterranean, were in effect
detached from the Italian regno, beyond the jurisidiction of Rome,
included in no parcel of Italy proper. But now the moment had arrived
when this vast group of provinces, forming the future kingdom of the Two
Sicilies, was about to enter definitely and decisively within the bounds
of the Italian community. Some Norman adventurers, on pilgrimage to St
Michael's shrine on Monte Gargano, lent their swords in 1017 to the
Lombard cities of Apulia against the Greeks. Twelve years later we find
the Normans settled at Aversa under their Count Rainulf. From this
station as a centre the little band of adventurers, playing the Greeks
off against the Lombards, and the Lombards against the Greeks, spread
their power in all directions, until they made themselves the most
considerable force in southern Italy. William of Hauteville was
proclaimed count of Apulia. His half-brother, Robert Wiskard or
Guiscard, after defeating the papal troops at Civitella in 1053,
received from Leo IX. the investiture of all present and future
conquests in Apulia, Calabria and Sicily, which he agreed to hold as
fiefs of the Holy See. Nicholas II. ratified this grant, and confirmed
the title of count. Having consolidated their possessions on the
mainland, the Normans, under Robert Guiscard's brother, the great Count
Roger, undertook the conquest of Sicily in 1060. After a prolonged
struggle of thirty years, they wrested the whole island from the
Saracens; and Roger, dying in 1101, bequeathed to his son Roger a
kingdom in Calabria and Sicily second to none in Europe for wealth and
magnificence. This, while the elder branch of the Hauteville family
still held the title and domains of the Apulian duchy; but in 1127, upon
the death of his cousin Duke William, Roger united the whole of the
future realm. In 1130 he assumed the style of king of Sicily, inscribing
upon his sword the famous hexameter--
"Appulus et Calaber Siculus mihi servit et Afer."
This Norman conquest of the two Sicilies forms the most romantic episode
in medieval Italian history. By the consolidation of Apulia, Calabria
and Sicily into a powerful kingdom, by checking the growth of the
maritime republics and by recognizing the over-lordship of the papal
see, the house of Hauteville influenced the destinies of Italy with more
effect than any of the princes who had previously dealt with any portion
of the peninsula. Their kingdom, though Naples was from time to time
separated from Sicily, never quite lost the cohesion they had given it;
and all the disturbances of equilibrium in Italy were due in after days
to papal manipulation of the rights acquired by Robert Guiscard's act of
homage. The southern regno, in the hands of the popes, proved an
insurmountable obstacle to the unification of Italy, led to French
interference in Italian affairs, introduced the Spaniard and maintained
in those rich southern provinces the reality of feudal sovereignty long
after this alien element had been eliminated from the rest of Italy (see
NORMANS; SICILY: _History_).
War of investitures.
For the sake of clearness, we have anticipated the course of events by
nearly a century. We must now return to the date of Hildebrand's
elevation to the papacy in 1073, when he chose the memorable name of
Gregory VII. In the next year after his election Hildebrand convened a
council, and passed measures enforcing the celibacy of the clergy. In
1075 he caused the investiture of ecclesiastical dignitaries by secular
potentates of any degree to be condemned. These two reforms, striking at
the most cherished privileges and most deeply-rooted self-indulgences of
the aristocratic caste in Europe, inflamed the bitterest hostility.
Henry IV., king of Germany, but not crowned emperor, convened a diet in
the following year at Worms, where Gregory was deposed and
excommunicated. The pope followed with a counter excommunication, far
more formidable, releasing the king's subjects from their oaths of
allegiance. War was thus declared between the two chiefs of western
Christendom, that war of investitures which out-lasted the lives of both
Gregory and Henry, and was not terminated till the year 1122. The
dramatic episodes of this struggle are too well known to be enlarged
upon. In his single-handed duel with the strength of Germany, Gregory
received material assistance from the Countess Matilda of Tuscany. She
was the last heiress of the great house of Canossa, whose fiefs
stretched from Mantua across Lombardy, passed the Apennines, included
the Tuscan plains, and embraced a portion of the duchy of Spoleto. It
was in her castle of Canossa that Henry IV. performed his three days'
penance in the winter of 1077; and there she made the cession of her
vast domains to the church. That cession, renewed after the death of
Gregory to his successors, conferred upon the popes indefinite rights,
of which they afterwards availed themselves in the consolidation of
their temporal power. Matilda died in the year 1115. Gregory had passed
before her from the scene of his contest, an exile at Salerno, whither
Robert Guiscard carried him in 1084 from the anarchy of rebellious Rome.
With unbroken spirit, though the objects of his life were unattained,
though Italy and Europe had been thrown into confusion, and the issue of
the conflict was still doubtful, Gregory expired in 1085 with these
words on his lips: "I loved justice, I hated iniquity, therefore in
banishment I die."
The greatest of the popes thus breathed his last; but the new spirit he
had communicated to the papacy was not destined to expire with him.
Gregory's immediate successors, Victor III., Urban II. and Paschal II.,
carried on his struggle with Henry IV. and his imperial antipopes,
encouraging the emperor's son to rebel against him, and stirring up
Europe for the first crusade. When Henry IV. died, his own son's
prisoner, in 1106, Henry V. crossed the Alps, entered Rome, wrung the
imperial coronation from Paschal II. and compelled the pope to grant his
claims on the investitures. Scarcely had he returned to Germany when the
Lateran disavowed all that the pope had done, on the score that it had
been extorted by force. France sided with the church. Germany rejected
the bull of investiture. A new descent into Italy, a new seizure of
Rome, proved of no avail. The emperor's real weakness was in Germany,
where his subjects openly expressed their discontent. He at last
abandoned the contest which had distracted Europe. By the concordat of
Worms, 1122, the emperor surrendered the right of investiture by ring
and staff, and granted the right of election to the clergy. The popes
were henceforth to be chosen by the cardinals, the bishops by the
chapters subject to the pope's approval. On the other hand the pope
ceded to the emperor the right of investiture by the sceptre. But the
main issue of the struggle was not in these details of ecclesiastical
government; principles had been at stake far deeper and more widely
reaching. The respective relations of pope and emperor, ill-defined in
the compact between Charles the Great and Leo III., were brought in
question, and the two chief potentates of Christendom, no longer tacitly
concordant, stood against each other in irreconcilable rivalry. Upon
this point, though the battle seemed to be a drawn one, the popes were
really victors. They remained independent of the emperor, but the
emperor had still to seek the crown at their hands. The pretensions of
Otto the Great and Henry III. to make popes were gone for ever (see
PAPACY; INVESTITURE).
Rise of free cities.
IV. _Age of the Communes._--The final gainers, however, by the war of
investitures were the Italians. In the first place, from this time
forward, owing to the election of popes by the Roman curia, the Holy See
remained in the hands of Italians; and this, though it was by no means
an unmixed good, was a great glory to the nation. In the next place, the
antagonism of the popes to the emperors, which became hereditary in the
Holy College, forced the former to assume the protectorate of the
national cause. But by far the greatest profit the Italians reaped was
the emancipation of their burghs. During the forty-seven years' war,
when pope and emperor were respectively bidding for their alliance, and
offering concessions to secure their support, the communes grew in
self-reliance, strength and liberty. As the bishops had helped to free
them from subservience to their feudal masters, so the war of
investitures relieved them of dependence on their bishops. The age of
real autonomy, signalized by the supremacy of consuls in the cities, had
arrived.
In the republics, as we begin to know them after the war of
investitures, government was carried on by officers called consuls,
varying in number according to custom and according to the division of
the town into districts. These magistrates, as we have already seen,
were originally appointed to control and protect the humbler classes.
But, in proportion as the people gained more power in the field the
consuls rose into importance, superseded the bishops and began to
represent the city in transactions with its neighbours. Popes and
emperors who needed the assistance of a city, had to seek it from the
consuls, and thus these officers gradually converted an obscure and
indefinite authority into what resembles the presidency of a
commonwealth. They were supported by a deliberative assembly, called
_credenza_, chosen from the more distinguished citizens. In addition to
this privy council, we find a _gran consiglio_, consisting of the
burghers who had established the right to interfere immediately in
public affairs, and a still larger assembly called _parlamento_, which
included the whole adult population. Though the institutions of the
communes varied in different localities, this is the type to which they
all approximated. It will be perceived that the type was rather
oligarchical than strictly democratic. Between the parlamento and the
consuls with their privy council, or credenza, was interposed the gran
consiglio of privileged burghers. These formed the aristocracy of the
town, who by their wealth and birth held its affairs within their
custody. There is good reason to believe that, when the term _popolo_
occurs, it refers to this body and not to the whole mass of the
population. The _comune_ included the entire city--bishop, consuls,
oligarchy, councils, handicraftsmen, proletariate. The _popolo_ was the
governing or upper class. It was almost inevitable in the transition
from feudalism to democracy that this intermediate ground should be
traversed; and the peculiar Italian phrases, _primo popolo_, _secondo
popolo_, _terzo popolo_, and so forth, indicate successive changes,
whereby the oligarchy passed from one stage to another in its progress
toward absorption in democracy or tyranny.
Under their consuls the Italian burghs rose to a great height of
prosperity and splendour. Pisa built her Duomo. Milan undertook the
irrigation works which enriched the soil of Lombardy for ever. Massive
walls, substantial edifices, commodious seaports, good roads, were the
benefits conferred by this new government on Italy. It is also to be
noticed that the people now began to be conscious of their past. They
recognized the fact that their blood was Latin as distinguished from
Teutonic, and that they must look to ancient Rome for those memories
which constitute a people's nationality. At this epoch the study of
Roman law received a new impulse, and this is the real meaning of the
legend that Pisa, glorious through her consuls, brought the pandects in
a single codex from Amalfi. The very name consul, no less than the
Romanizing character of the best architecture of the time, points to the
same revival of antiquity.
Republic in Rome.
The rise of the Lombard communes produced a sympathetic revolution in
Rome, which deserves to be mentioned in this place. A monk, named Arnold
of Brescia, animated with the spirit of the Milanese, stirred up the
Romans to shake off the temporal sway of their bishop. He attempted, in
fact, upon a grand scale what was being slowly and quietly effected in
the northern cities. Rome, ever mindful of her unique past, listened to
Arnold's preaching. A senate was established, and the republic was
proclaimed. The title of patrician was revived and offered to Conrad,
king of Italy, but not crowned emperor. Conrad refused it, and the
Romans conferred it upon one of their own nobles. Though these
institutions borrowed high-sounding titles from antiquity, they were in
reality imitations of the Lombard civic system. The patrician stood for
the consuls. The senate, composed of nobles, represented the credenza
and the gran consiglio. The pope was unable to check this revolution,
which is now chiefly interesting as further proof of the insurgence of
the Latin as against the feudal elements in Italy at this period (see
ROME: _History_).
Municipal wars.
Though the communes gained so much by the war of investitures, the
division of the country between the pope's and emperor's parties was no
small price to pay for independence. It inflicted upon Italy the
ineradicable curse of party-warfare, setting city against city, house
against house, and rendering concordant action for a national end
impossible. No sooner had the compromise of the investitures been
concluded than it was manifest that the burghers of the new enfranchised
communes were resolved to turn their arms against each other. We seek in
vain an obvious motive for each separate quarrel. All we know for
certain is that, at this epoch, Rome attempts to ruin Tivoli, and Venice
Pisa; Milan fights with Cremona, Cremona with Crema, Pavia with Verona,
Verona with Padua, Piacenza with Parma, Modena and Reggio with Bologna,
Bologna and Faenza with Ravenna and Imola, Florence and Pisa with Lucca
and Siena, and so on through the whole list of cities. The nearer the
neighbours, the more rancorous and internecine is the strife; and, as in
all cases where animosity is deadly and no grave local causes of dispute
are apparent, we are bound to conclude that some deeply-seated permanent
uneasiness goaded these fast growing communities into rivalry. Italy
was, in fact, too small for her children. As the towns expanded, they
perceived that they must mutually exclude each other. They fought for
bare existence, for primacy in commerce, for the command of seaports,
for the keys of mountain passes, for rivers, roads and all the avenues
of wealth and plenty. The pope's cause and the emperor's cause were of
comparatively little moment to Italian burghers; and the names of Guelph
and Ghibelline, which before long began to be heard in every street, on
every market-place, had no meaning for them. These watchwords are said
to have arisen in Germany during the disputed succession of the empire
between 1135 and 1152, when the Welfs of Bavaria opposed the Swabian
princes of Waiblingen origin. But in Italy, although they were severally
identified with the papal and imperial parties, they really served as
symbols for jealousies which altered in complexion from time to time and
place to place, expressing more than antagonistic political principles,
and involving differences vital enough to split the social fabric to its
foundation.
Swabian emperors.
Frederick Barbarossa and the Lombard cities.
Under the imperial rule of Lothar the Saxon (1125-1137) and Conrad the
Swabian (1138-1152), these civil wars increased in violence owing to the
absence of authority. Neither Lothar nor Conrad was strong at home; the
former had no influence in Italy, and the latter never entered Italy at
all. But when Conrad died, the electors chose his nephew Frederick,
surnamed Barbarossa, who united the rival honours of Welf and
Waiblingen, to succeed him; and it was soon obvious that the empire had
a master powerful of brain and firm of will. Frederick immediately
determined to reassert the imperial rights in his southern provinces,
and to check the warfare of the burghs. When he first crossed the Alps
in 1154, Lombardy was, roughly speaking, divided between two parties,
the one headed by Pavia professing loyalty to the empire, the other
headed by Milan ready to oppose its claims. The municipal animosities of
the last quarter of a century gave substance to these factions; yet
neither the imperial nor the anti-imperial party had any real community
of interest with Frederick. He came to supersede self-government by
consuls, to deprive the cities of the privilege of making war on their
own account and to extort his regalian rights of forage, food and
lodging for his armies. It was only the habit of inter-urban jealousy
which prevented the communes from at once combining to resist demands
which threatened their liberty of action, and would leave them passive
at the pleasure of a foreign master. The diet was opened at Roncaglia
near Piacenza, where Frederick listened to the complaints of Como and
Lodi against Milan, of Pavia against Tortona and of the marquis of
Montferrat against Asti and Chieri. The plaintiffs in each case were
imperialists; and Frederick's first action was to redress their supposed
grievances. He laid waste Chieri, Asti and Tortona, then took the
Lombard crown at Pavia, and, reserving Milan for a future day, passed
southward to Rome. Outside the gates of Rome he was met by a deputation
from the senate he had come to supersede, who addressed him in words
memorable for expressing the republican spirit of new Italy face to face
with autocratic feudalism: "Thou wast a stranger, I have made thee a
citizen"; it is Rome who speaks: "Thou earnest as an alien from beyond
the Alps, I have conferred on thee the principality." Moved only to
scorn and indignation by the rhetoric of these presumptuous enthusiasts,
Frederick marched into the Leonine city, and took the imperial crown
from the hands of Adrian IV. In return for this compliance, the emperor
delivered over to the pope his troublesome rival Arnold of Brescia, who
was burned alive by Nicholas Breakspear, the only English successor of
St Peter. The gates of Rome itself were shut against Frederick; and even
on this first occasion his good understanding with Adrian began to
suffer. The points of dispute between them related mainly to Matilda's
bequest, and to the kingdom of Sicily, which the pope had rendered
independent of the empire by renewing its investiture in the name of the
Holy See. In truth, the papacy and the empire had become irreconcilable.
Each claimed illimitable authority, and neither was content to abide
within such limits as would have secured a mutual tolerance. Having
obtained his coronation, Frederick withdrew to Germany, while Milan
prepared herself against the storm which threatened. In the ensuing
struggle with the empire, that great city rose to the altitude of
patriotic heroism. By their sufferings no less than by their deeds of
daring, her citizens showed themselves to be sublime, devoted and
disinterested, winning the purest laurels which give lustre to Italian
story. Almost in Frederick's presence, they rebuilt Tortona, punished
Pavia, Lodi, Cremona and the marquis of Montferrat. Then they fortified
the Adda and Ticino, and waited for the emperor's next descent. He came
in 1158 with a large army, overran Lombardy, raised his imperial allies,
and sat down before the walls of Milan. Famine forced the burghers to
partial obedience, and Frederick held a victorious diet at Roncaglia.
Here the jurists of Bologna appeared, armed with their new lore of Roman
law, and expounded Justinian's code in the interests of the German
empire. It was now seen how the absolutist doctrines of autocracy
developed in Justinian's age at Byzantium would bear fruits in the
development of an imperial idea, which was destined to be the fatal
mirage of medieval Italy. Frederick placed judges of his own
appointment, with the title of podesta, in all the Lombard communes; and
this stretch of his authority, while it exacerbated his foes, forced
even his friends to join their ranks against him. The war, meanwhile,
dragged on. Crema yielded after an heroic siege in 1160, and was
abandoned to the cruelty of its fierce rival Cremona. Milan was invested
in 1161, starved into capitulation after nine months' resistance, and
given up to total destruction by the Italian imperialists of Frederick's
army, so stained and tarnished with the vindictive passions of municipal
rivalry was even this, the one great glorious strife of Italian annals.
Having ruined his rebellious city, but not tamed her spirit, Frederick
withdrew across the Alps. But, in the interval between his second and
third visit, a league was formed against him in north-eastern Lombardy.
Verona, Vicenza, Padua, Treviso, Venice entered into a compact to defend
their liberties; and when he came again in 1163 with a brilliant staff
of German knights, the imperial cities refused to join his standards.
This was the first and ominous sign of a coming change.
Lombard League.
Meanwhile the election of Alexander III. to the papacy in 1159 added a
powerful ally to the republican party. Opposed by an anti-pope whom the
emperor favoured, Alexander found it was his truest policy to rely for
support upon the anti-imperialist communes. They in return gladly
accepted a champion who lent them the prestige and influence of the
church. When Frederick once more crossed the Alps in 1166, he advanced
on Rome, and besieged Alexander in the Coliseum. But the affairs of
Lombardy left him no leisure to persecute a recalcitrant pontiff. In
April 1167 a new league was formed between Cremona, Bergamo, Brescia,
Mantua and Ferrara. In December of the same year this league allied
itself with the elder Veronese league, and received the addition of
Milan, Lodi, Piacenza, Parma, Modena and Bologna. The famous league of
Lombard cities, styled Concordia in its acts of settlement, was now
established. Novara, Vercelli, Asti and Tortona swelled its ranks; only
Pavia and Montferrat remained imperialist between the Alps and
Apennines. Frederick fled for his life by the Mont Cenis, and in 1168
the town of Alessandria was erected to keep Pavia and the marquisate in
check. In the emperor's absence, Ravenna, Rimini, Imola and Forli joined
the league, which now called itself the "Society of Venice, Lombardy,
the March, Romagna and Alessandria." For the fifth time, in 1174,
Frederick entered his rebellious dominions. The fortress town of
Alessandria stopped his progress with those mud walls contemptuously
named "of straw," while the forces of the league assembled at Modena and
obliged him to raise the siege. In the spring of 1176 Frederick
threatened Milan. His army found itself a little to the north of the
town near the village of Legnano, when the troops of the city, assisted
only by a few allies from Piacenza, Verona, Brescia, Novara and
Vercelli, met and overwhelmed it. The victory was complete. Frederick
escaped alone to Pavia, whence he opened negotiations with Alexander. In
consequence of these transactions, he was suffered to betake himself
unharmed to Venice. Here, as upon neutral ground, the emperor met the
pope, and a truce for six years was concluded with the Lombard burghs.
Looking back from the vantage-ground of history upon the issue of this
long struggle, we are struck with the small results which satisfied the
Lombard communes. They had humbled and utterly defeated their foreign
lord. They had proved their strength in combination. Yet neither the
acts by which their league was ratified nor the terms negotiated for
them by their patron Alexander evince the smallest desire of what we now
understand as national independence. The name of Italy is never
mentioned. The supremacy of the emperor is not called in question. The
conception of a permanent confederation, bound together in Offensive and
defensive alliance for common objects, has not occurred to these hard
fighters and stubborn asserters of their civic privileges. All they
claim is municipal autonomy; the right to manage their own affairs
within the city walls, to fight their battles as they choose, and to
follow their several ends unchecked. It is vain to lament that, when
they might have now established Italian independence upon a secure
basis, they chose local and municipal privileges. Their mutual
jealousies, combined with the prestige of the empire, and possibly with
the selfishness of the pope, who had secured his own position, and was
not likely to foster a national spirit that would have threatened the
ecclesiastical supremacy, deprived the Italians of the only great
opportunity they ever had of forming themselves into a powerful nation.
Peace of Constance.
When the truce expired in 1183, a permanent peace was ratified at
Constance. The intervening years had been spent by the Lombards, not in
consolidating their union, but in attempting to secure special
privileges for their several cities. Alessandria della Paglia, glorious
by her resistance to the emperor in 1174, had even changed her name to
Cesarea! The signatories of the peace of Constance were divided between
leaguers and imperialists. On the one side we find Vercelli, Novara,
Milan, Lodi, Bergamo, Brescia, Mantua, Verona, Vicenza, Padua, Treviso,
Bologna, Faenza, Modena, Reggio, Parma, Piacenza; on the other, Pavia,
Genoa, Alba, Cremona, Como, Tortona, Asti, Cesarea. Venice, who had not
yet entered the Italian community, is conspicuous by her absence.
According to the terms of this treaty, the communes were confirmed in
their right of self-government by consuls, and their right of warfare.
The emperor retained the supreme courts of appeal within the cities, and
his claim for sustenance at their expense when he came into Italy.
War of cities against nobles.
The privileges confirmed to the Lombard cities by the peace of Constance
were extended to Tuscany, where Florence, having ruined Fiesole, had
begun her career of freedom and prosperity. The next great chapter in
the history of Italian evolution is the war of the burghs against the
nobles. The consular cities were everywhere surrounded by castles; and,
though the feudal lords had been weakened by the events of the preceding
centuries, they continued to be formidable enemies. It was, for
instance, necessary to the well-being of the towns that they should
possess territory round their walls, and this had to be wrested from the
nobles. We cannot linger over the details of this warfare. It must
suffice to say that, partly by mortgaging their property to rich
burghers, partly by entering the service of the cities as _condottieri_
(mercenary leaders), partly by espousing the cause of one town against
another, and partly by forced submission after the siege of their strong
places, the counts were gradually brought into connexion of dependence
on the communes. These, in their turn, forced the nobles to leave their
castles, and to reside for at least a portion of each year within the
walls. By these measures the counts became citizens, the rural
population ceased to rank as serfs, and the Italo-Roman population of
the towns absorbed into itself the remnants of Franks, Germans and other
foreign stocks. It would be impossible to exaggerate the importance of
this revolution, which ended by destroying the last vestige of
feudality, and prepared that common Italian people which afterwards
distinguished itself by the creation of European culture. But, like all
the vicissitudes, of the Italian race, while it was a decided step
forward in one direction, it introduced a new source of discord. The
associated nobles proved ill neighbours to the peaceable citizens. They
fortified their houses, retained their military habits, defied the
consuls, and carried on feuds in the streets and squares. The war
against the castles became a war against the palaces; and the system of
government by consuls proved inefficient to control the clashing
elements within the state. This led to the establishment of podestas,
who represented a compromise between two radically hostile parties in
the city, and whose business it was to arbitrate and keep the peace
between them. Invariably a foreigner, elected for a year with power of
life and death and control of the armed force, but subject to a strict
account at the expiration of his office, the podesta might be compared
to a dictator invested with limited authority. His title was derived
from that of Frederick Barbarossa's judges; but he had no dependence on
the empire. The citizens chose him, and voluntarily submitted to his
rule. The podesta marks an essentially transitional state in civic
government, and his intervention paved the way for despotism.
Innocent III.
The thirty years which elapsed between Frederick Barbarossa's death in
1190 and the coronation of his grandson Frederick II. in 1220 form one
of the most momentous epochs in Italian history. Barbarossa, perceiving
the advantage that would accrue to his house if he could join the crown
of Sicily to that of Germany, and thus deprive the popes of their allies
in Lower Italy, procured the marriage of his son Henry VI. to Constance,
daughter of King Roger, and heiress of the Hauteville dynasty. When
William II., the last monarch of the Norman race, died, Henry VI.
claimed that kingdom in his wife's right, and was recognized in 1194.
Three years afterwards he died, leaving a son, Frederick, to the care of
Constance, who in her turn died in 1198, bequeathing the young prince,
already crowned king of Germany, to the guardianship of Innocent III. It
was bold policy to confide Frederick to his greatest enemy and rival;
but the pope honourably discharged his duty, until his ward outgrew the
years of tutelage, and became a fair mark for ecclesiastical hostility.
Frederick's long minority was occupied by Innocent's pontificate. Among
the principal events of that reign must be reckoned the foundation of
the two orders, Franciscan and Dominican, who were destined to form a
militia for the holy see in conflict with the empire and the heretics of
Lombardy. A second great event was the fourth crusade, undertaken in
1198, which established the naval and commercial supremacy of the
Italians in the Mediterranean. The Venetians, who contracted for the
transport of the crusaders, and whose blind doge Dandolo was first to
land in Constantinople, received one-half and one-fourth of the divided
Greek empire for their spoils. The Venetian ascendancy in the Levant
dates from this epoch; for, though the republic had no power to occupy
all the domains ceded to it, Candia was taken, together with several
small islands and stations on the mainland. The formation of a Latin
empire in the East increased the pope's prestige; while at home it was
his policy to organize Countess Matilda's heritage by the formation of
Guelph leagues, over which he presided. This is the meaning of the three
leagues, in the March, in the duchy of Spoleto and in Tuscany, which now
combined the chief cities of the papal territory into allies of the holy
see. From the Tuscan league Pisa, consistently Ghibelline, stood aloof.
Rome itself again at this epoch established a republic, with which
Innocent would not or could not interfere. The thirteen districts in
their council nominated four _caporioni_, who acted in concert with a
_senator_, appointed, like the podesta of other cities, for supreme
judicial functions. Meanwhile the Guelph and Ghibelline factions were
beginning to divide Italy into minute parcels. Not only did commune
range itself against commune under the two rival flags, but party rose
up against party within the city walls. The introduction of the factions
into Florence in 1215, owing to a private quarrel between the
Buondelmonti, Amidei and Donati, is a celebrated instance of what was
happening in every burgh.
Frederick II. Emperor.
Frederick II. was left without a rival for the imperial throne in 1218
by the death of Otto IV., and on the 22nd of November 1220, Honorius
III., Innocent's successor, crowned him in Rome. It was impossible for
any section of the Italians to mistake the gravity of his access to
power. In his single person he combined the prestige of empire with the
Crowns of Italy, Sicily, Sardinia, Germany and Burgundy; and in 1225, by
marriage with Yolande de Brienne, he added that of Jerusalem. There was
no prince greater or more formidable in the habitable globe. The
communes, no less than the popes, felt that they must prepare themselves
for contest to the death with a power which threatened their existence.
Already in 1218, the Guelphs of Lombardy had resuscitated their old
league, and had been defeated by the Ghibellines in a battle near
Ghibello. Italy seemed to lie prostrate before the emperor, who
commanded her for the first time from the south as well as from the
north. In 1227 Frederick, who had promised to lead a crusade, was
excommunicated by Gregory IX. because he was obliged by illness to defer
his undertaking; and thus the spiritual power declared war upon its
rival. The Guelph towns of Lombardy again raised their levies. Frederick
enlisted his Saracen troops at Nocera and Luceria, and appointed the
terrible Ezzelino da Romano his vicar in the Marches of Verona to quell
their insurrection. It was 1236, however, before he was able to take the
field himself against the Lombards. Having established Ezzelino in
Verona, Vicenza and Padua, he defeated the Milanese and their allies at
Cortenuova in 1237, and sent their carroccio as a trophy of his victory
to Rome. Gregory IX. feared lest the Guelph party would be ruined by
this check. He therefore made alliance with Venice and Genoa, fulminated
a new excommunication against Frederick, and convoked a council at Rome
to ratify his ban in 1241. The Genoese undertook to bring the French
bishops to this council. Their fleet was attacked at Meloria by the
Pisans, and utterly defeated. The French prelates went in silver chains
to prison in the Ghibelline capital of Tuscany. So far Frederick had
been successful at all points. In 1243 a new pope, Innocent IV., was
elected, who prosecuted the war with still bitterer spirit. Forced to
fly to France, he there, at Lyons, in 1245, convened a council, which
enforced his condemnation of the emperor. Frederick's subjects were
freed from their allegiance, and he was declared dethroned and deprived
of all rights. Five times king and emperor as he was, Frederick, placed
under the ban of the church, led henceforth a doomed existence. The
mendicant monks stirred up the populace to acts of fanatical enmity. To
plot against him, to attempt his life by poison or the sword, was
accounted virtuous. His secretary, Piero delle Vigne, was wrongly
suspected of conspiring. The crimes of his vicar Ezzelino, who laid
whole provinces waste and murdered men by thousands in his Paduan
prisons, increased the horror with which he was regarded. Parma revolted
from him, and he spent months in 1247-1248 vainly trying to reduce this
one time faithful city. The only gleam of success which shone on his ill
fortune was the revolution which placed Florence in the hands of the
Ghibellines in 1248. Next year Bologna rose against him, defeated his
troops and took his son Enzio, king of Sardinia, prisoner at Fossalta.
Hunted to the ground and broken-hearted, Frederick expired at the end of
1250 in his Apulian castle of Fiorentino. It is difficult to judge his
career with fairness. The only prince who could, with any probability of
success, have established the German rule in Italy, his ruin proved the
impossibility of that long-cherished scheme. The nation had outgrown
dependence upon foreigners, and after his death no German emperor
interfered with anything but miserable failure in Italian affairs. Yet
from many points of view it might be regretted that Frederick was not
suffered to rule Italy. By birth and breeding an Italian, highly gifted
and widely cultivated, liberal in his opinions, a patron of literature,
a founder of universities, he anticipated the spirit of the Renaissance.
At his court Italian started into being as a language. His laws were
wise. He was capable of giving to Italy a large and noble culture. But
the commanding greatness of his position proved his ruin. Emperor and
king of Sicily, he was the natural enemy of popes, who could not
tolerate so overwhelming a rival.
Papal war against Frederick's successors.
After Frederick's death, the popes carried on their war for eighteen
years against his descendants. The cause of his son Conrad was sustained
in Lower Italy by Manfred, one of Frederick's many natural children;
and, when Conrad died in 1254, Manfred still acted as vicegerent for the
Swabians, who were now represented by a boy Conradin. Innocent IV. and
Alexander IV. continued to make head against the Ghibelline party. The
most dramatic incident in this struggle was the crusade preached against
Ezzelino. This tyrant had made himself justly odious; and when he was
hunted to death in 1259, the triumph was less for the Guelph cause than
for humanity outraged by the iniquities of such a monster. The battle
between Guelph and Ghibelline raged with unintermitting fury. While the
former faction gained in Lombardy by the massacre of Ezzelino, the
latter revived in Tuscany after the battle of Montaperti, which in 1260
placed Florence at the discretion of the Ghibellines. Manfred, now
called king of Sicily, headed the Ghibellines, and there was no strong
counterpoise against him. In this necessity Urban IV. and Clement IV.
invited Charles of Anjou to enter Italy and take the Guelph command.
They made him senator of Rome and vicar of Tuscany, and promised him the
investiture of the regno provided he stipulated that it should not be
held in combination with the empire. Charles accepted these terms, and
was welcomed by the Guelph party as their chief throughout Italy. He
defeated Manfred in a battle at Grandella near Benevento in 1266.
Manfred was killed; and, when Conradin, a lad of sixteen, descended from
Germany to make good his claims to the kingdom, he too was defeated at
Tagliacozzo in 1267. Less lucky than his uncle, Conradin escaped with
his life, to die upon a scaffold at Naples. His glove was carried to his
cousin Constance, wife of Peter of Aragon, the last of the great
Norman-Swabian family. Enzio died in his prison four years later. The
popes had been successful; but they had purchased their bloody victory
at a great cost. This first invitation to French princes brought with it
incalculable evils.
Civil War of Guelphs and Ghibellines.
Charles of Anjou, supported by Rome, and recognized as chief in Tuscany,
was by far the most formidable of the Italian potentates. In his turn he
now excited the jealousy of the popes, who began, though cautiously, to
cast their weight into the Ghibelline scale. Gregory initiated the
policy of establishing an equilibrium between the parties, which was
carried out by his successor Nicholas III. Charles was forced to resign
the senatorship of Rome and the signoria of Lombardy and Tuscany. In
1282 he received a more decided check, when Sicily rose against him in
the famous rebellion of the Vespers. He lost the island, which gave
itself to Aragon; and thus the kingdom of Sicily was severed from that
of Naples, the dynasty in the one being Spanish and Ghibelline, in the
other French and Guelph. Meanwhile a new emperor had been elected, the
prudent Rudolf of Habsburg, who abstained from interference with Italy,
and who confirmed the territorial pretensions of the popes by solemn
charter in 1278. Henceforth Emilia, Romagna, the March of Ancona, the
patrimony of St Peter and the Campagna of Rome held of the Holy See, and
not of the empire. The imperial chancery, without inquiring closely into
the deeds furnished by the papal curia, made a deed of gift, which
placed the pope in the position of a temporal sovereign. While Nicholas
III. thus bettered the position of the church in Italy, the Guelph party
grew stronger than ever, through the crushing defeat of the Pisans by
the Genoese at Meloria in 1284. Pisa, who had ruined Amalfi, was now
ruined by Genoa. She never held her head so high again after this
victory, which sent her best and bravest citizens to die in the Ligurian
dungeons. The Mediterranean was left to be fought for by Genoa and
Venice, while Guelph Florence grew still more powerful in Tuscany. Not
long after the battle of Meloria Charles of Anjou died, and was
succeeded by his son Charles II. of Naples, who played no prominent part
in Italian affairs. The Guelph party was held together with a less tight
hand even in cities so consistent as Florence. Here in the year 1300 new
factions, subdividing the old Guelphs and Ghibellines under the names of
Neri and Bianchi, had acquired such force that Boniface VIII., a
violently Guelph pope, called in Charles of Valois to pacify the
republic and undertake the charge of Italian affairs. Boniface was a
passionate and unwise man. After quarrelling with the French king,
Philip le Bel, he fell into the hands of the Colonna family at Anagni,
and died, either of the violence he there received or of mortification,
in October 1303.
Translation of the Papacy to Avignon.
After the short papacy of Benedict XI. a Frenchman, Clement V., was
elected, and the seat of the papacy was transferred to Avignon. Thus
began that Babylonian exile of the popes which placed them in subjection
to the French crown and ruined their prestige in Italy. Lasting seventy
years, and joining on to the sixty years of the Great Schism, this
enfeeblement of the papal authority, coinciding as it did with the
practical elimination of the empire from Italian affairs, gave a long
period of comparative independence to the nation. Nor must it be
forgotten that this exile was due to the policy which induced the
pontiffs, in their detestation of Ghibellinism, to rely successively
upon the houses of Anjou and of Valois. This policy it was which
justified Dante's fierce epigram--the _puttaneggiar co regi_.
The period we have briefly traversed was immortalized by Dante in an
epic which from one point of view might be called the poem of the
Guelphs and Ghibellines. From the foregoing bare narration of events it
is impossible to estimate the importance of these parties, or to
understand their bearing on subsequent Italian history. We are therefore
forced to pause awhile, and probe beneath the surface. The civil wars
may be regarded as a continuation of the previous municipal struggle,
intensified by recent hostilities between the burghers and the nobles.
The quarrels of the church and empire lend pretexts and furnish
war-cries; but the real question at issue is not the supremacy of pope
or emperor. The conflict is a social one, between civic and feudal
institutions, between commercial and military interests, between
progress and conservatism. Guelph democracy and industry idealize the
pope. The banner of the church waves above the camp of those who aim at
positive prosperity and republican equality. Ghibelline aristocracy and
immobility idealize the emperor. The prestige of the empire, based upon
Roman law and feudal tradition, attracts imaginative patriots and
systematic thinkers. The two ideals are counterposed and mutually
exclusive. No city calls itself either Guelph or Ghibelline till it has
expelled one-half of its inhabitants; for each party is resolved to
constitute the state according to its own conception, and the
affirmation of the one programme is the negation of the other. The
Ghibelline honestly believes that the Guelphs will reduce society to
chaos. The Guelph is persuaded that the Ghibellines will annihilate
freedom and strangle commerce. The struggle is waged by two sets of men
who equally love their city, but who would fain rule it upon
diametrically opposite principles, and who fight to the death for its
possession. This contradiction enters into the minutest details of
life--armorial bearings, clothes, habits at table, symbolize and
accentuate the difference. Meanwhile each party forms its own
organization of chiefs, finance-officers and registrars at home, and
sends ambassadors to foreign cities of the same complexion. A network of
party policy embraces and dominates the burghs of Italy, bringing the
most distant centres into relation, and by the very division of the
country augmenting the sense of nationality. The Italians learn through
their discords at this epoch that they form one community. The victory
in the conflict practically falls to the hitherto unenfranchised
plebeians. The elder noble families die out or lose their preponderance.
In some cities, as notably in Florence after the date 1292, it becomes
criminal to be _scioperato_, or unemployed in industry. New houses rise
into importance; a new commercial aristocracy is formed. Burghers of all
denominations are enrolled in one or other of the arts or gilds, and
these trading companies furnish the material from which the government
or signoria of the city is composed. Plebeian handicrafts assert their
right to be represented on an equality with learned professions and
wealthy corporations. The ancient classes are confounded and obliterated
in a population more homogeneous, more adapted for democracy and
despotism.
New constitution of the free cities.
In addition to the parliament and the councils which have been already
enumerated, we now find a _council of the party_ established within the
city. This body tends to become a little state within the state, and, by
controlling the victorious majority, disposes of the government as it
thinks best. The consuls are merged in _ancients_ or _priors_, chosen
from the arts. A new magistrate, the _gonfalonier of justice_, appears
in some of the Guelph cities, with the special duty of keeping the
insolence of the nobility in check. Meanwhile the podesta still
subsists; but he is no longer equal to the task of maintaining an
equilibrium of forces. He sinks more and more into a judge, loses more
and more the character of dictator. His ancient place is now occupied by
a new functionary, no longer acting as arbiter, but concentrating the
forces of the triumphant party. The _captain of the people_, acting as
head of the ascendant Guelphs or Ghibellines, undertakes the
responsibility of proscriptions, decides on questions of policy, forms
alliances, declares war. Like all officers created to meet an emergency,
the limitations to his power are ill-defined, and he is often little
better than an autocrat.
Origin of Tyrannies.
V. _Age of the Despots._--Thus the Italians, during the heat of the
civil wars, were ostensibly divided between partisans of the empire and
partisans of the church. After the death of Frederick II. their affairs
were managed by Manfred and by Charles of Anjou, the supreme captains of
the parties, under whose orders acted the captains of the people in each
city. The contest being carried on by warfare, it followed that these
captains in the burghs were chosen on account of military skill; and,
since the nobles were men of arms by profession, members of ancient
houses took the lead again in towns where they had been absorbed into
the bourgeoisie. In this way, after the downfall of the Ezzelini of
Romano, the Della Scala dynasty arose in Verona, and the Carraresi in
Padua. The Estensi made themselves lords of Ferrara; the Torriani headed
the Guelphs of Milan. At Ravenna we find the Polenta family, at Rimini
the Malatestas, at Parma the Rossi, at Piacenza the Scotti, at Faenza
the Manfredi. There is not a burgh of northern Italy but can trace the
rise of a dynastic house to the vicissitudes of this period. In Tuscany,
where the Guelph party was very strongly organized, and the commercial
constitution of Florence kept the nobility in check, the communes
remained as yet free from hereditary masters. Yet generals from time to
time arose, the Conte Ugolino della Gheradesca at Pisa, Uguccione della
Faggiuola at Lucca, the Conte Guido di Montefeltro at Florence, who
threatened the liberties of Tuscan cities with military despotism.
Left to themselves by absentee emperors and exiled popes, the Italians
pursued their own course of development unchecked. After the
commencement of the 14th century, the civil wars decreased in fury, and
at the same time it was perceived that their effect had been to confirm
tyrants in their grasp upon free cities. Growing up out of the captain
of the people or signore of the commune, the tyrant annihilated both
parties for his own profit and for the peace of the state. He used the
dictatorial powers with which he was invested to place himself above the
law, resuming in his person the state-machinery which had preceded him.
In him, for the first time, the city attained self-consciousness; the
blindly working forces of previous revolutions were combined in the will
of a ruler. The tyrant's general policy was to favour the multitude at
the expense of his own caste. He won favour by these means, and
completed the levelling down of classes, which had been proceeding ever
since the emergence of the communes.
Decline of civil wars. Advent of the bourgeoisie.
In 1309 Robert, grandson of Charles, the first Angevine sovereign,
succeeded to the throne of Naples, and became the leader of the Guelphs
in Italy. In the next year Henry VII. of Luxembourg crossed the Alps
soon after his election to the empire, and raised the hopes of the
Ghibellines. Dante from his mountain solitudes passionately called upon
him to play the part of a Messiah. But it was now impossible for any
German to control the "Garden of the Empire." Italy had entered on a new
phase of her existence, and the great poet's _De monarchia_ represented
a dream of the past which could not be realized. Henry established
imperial vicars in the Lombard towns, confirming the tyrants, but
gaining nothing for the empire in exchange for the titles he conferred.
After receiving the crown in Rome, he died at Buonconvento, a little
walled town south of Siena, on his backward journey in 1313. The profits
of his inroad were reaped by despots, who used the Ghibelline prestige
for the consolidation of their own power. It is from this epoch that the
supremacy of the Visconti, hitherto the unsuccessful rivals of the
Guelphic Torriani for the signory of Milan, dates. The Scaligers in
Verona and the Carraresi in Padua were strengthened; and in Tuscany
Castruccio Castracane, Uguccione's successor at Lucca, became
formidable. In 1325 he defeated the Florentines at Alto Pascio, and
carried home their carroccio as a trophy of his victory over the
Guelphs. Louis of Bavaria, the next emperor, made a similar excursion in
the year 1327, with even greater loss of imperial prestige. He deposed
Galeazzo Visconti on his downward journey, and offered Milan for a sum
of money to his son Azzo upon his return. Castruccio Castracane was
nominated by him duke of Lucca; and this is the first instance of a
dynastic title conferred upon an Italian adventurer by the emperor.
Castruccio dominated Tuscany, where the Guelph cause, in the weakness of
King Robert, languished. But the adventurer's death in 1328 saved the
stronghold of republican institutions, and Florence breathed freely for
a while again. Can Grande della Scala's death in the next year inflicted
on the Lombard Ghibellines a loss hardly inferior to that of
Castruccio's on their Tuscan allies. Equally contemptible in its
political results and void of historical interest was the brief visit of
John of Bohemia, son of Henry VII., whom the Ghibellines next invited to
assume their leadership. He sold a few privileges, conferred a few
titles, and recrossed the Alps in 1333. It is clear that at this time
the fury of the civil wars was spent. In spite of repeated efforts on
the part of the Ghibellines, in spite of King Robert's supine
incapacity, the imperialists gained no permanent advantage. The Italians
were tired of fighting, and the leaders of both factions looked
exclusively to their own interests. Each city which had been the cradle
of freedom thankfully accepted a master, to quench the conflagration of
party strife, encourage trade, and make the handicraftsmen comfortable.
Even the Florentines in 1342 submitted for a few months to the despotism
of the duke of Athens. They conferred the signory upon him for life;
and, had he not mismanaged matters, he might have held the city in his
grasp. Italy was settling down and turning her attention to home
comforts, arts and literature. Boccaccio, the contented bourgeois,
succeeded to Dante, the fierce aristocrat.
The most marked proof of the change which came over Italy towards the
middle of the 14th century is furnished by the companies of adventure.
It was with their own militia that the burghers won freedom in the war
of independence, subdued the nobles, and fought the battles of the
parties. But from this time forward they laid down their arms, and
played the game of warfare by the aid of mercenaries. Ecclesiastical
overlords, interfering from a distance in Italian politics; prosperous
republics, with plenty of money to spend but no leisure or inclination
for camp-life; cautious tyrants, glad of every pretext to emasculate
their subjects, and courting popularity by exchanging conscription for
taxation--all combined to favour the new system. Mercenary troops are
said to have been first levied from disbanded Germans, together with
Breton and English adventurers, whom the Visconti and Castruccio took
into their pay. They soon appeared under their own captains, who hired
them out to the highest bidder, or marched them on marauding expeditions
up and down the less protected districts. The names of some of these
earliest captains of adventure, Fra Moriale, Count Lando and Duke
Werner, who styled himself the "Enemy of God and Mercy," have been
preserved to us. As the companies grew in size and improved their
discipline, it was seen by the Italian nobles that this kind of service
offered a good career for men of spirit, who had learned the use of
arms. To leave so powerful and profitable a calling in the hands of
foreigners seemed both dangerous and uneconomical. Therefore, after the
middle of the century, this profession fell into the hands of natives.
The first Italian who formed an exclusively Italian company was Alberico
da Barbiano, a nobleman of Romagna, and founder of the Milanese house of
Belgiojoso. In his school the great condottieri Braccio da Montone and
Sforza Attendolo were formed; and henceforth the battles of Italy were
fought by Italian generals commanding native troops. This was better in
some respects than if the mercenaries had been foreigners. Yet it must
not be forgotten that the new companies of adventure, who decided
Italian affairs for the next century, were in no sense patriotic. They
sold themselves for money, irrespective of the cause which they upheld;
and, while changing masters, they had no care for any interests but
their own. The name condottiero, derived from _condotta_, a paid
contract to supply so many fighting men in serviceable order,
sufficiently indicates the nature of the business. In the hands of able
captains, like Francesco Sforza or Piccinino, these mercenary troops
became moving despotisms, draining the country of its wealth, and always
eager to fasten and found tyrannies upon the provinces they had been
summoned to defend. Their generals substituted heavy-armed cavalry for
the old militia, and introduced systems of campaigning which reduced the
art of war to a game of skill. Battles became all but bloodless;
diplomacy and tactics superseded feats of arms and hard blows in pitched
fields. In this way the Italians lost their military vigour, and wars
were waged by despots from their cabinets, who pulled the strings of
puppet captains in their pay. Nor were the people only enfeebled for
resistance to a real foe; the whole political spirit of the race was
demoralized. The purely selfish bond between condottieri and their
employers, whether princes or republics, involved intrigues and
treachery, checks and counterchecks, secret terror on the one hand and
treasonable practice on the other, which ended by making statecraft in
Italy synonymous with perfidy.
Change in type of despotism.
It must further be noticed that the rise of mercenaries was synchronous
with a change in the nature of Italian despotism. The tyrants, as we
have already seen, established themselves as captains of the people,
vicars of the empire, vicars for the church, leaders of the Guelph and
Ghibelline parties. They were accepted by a population eager for
repose, who had merged old class distinctions in the conflicts of
preceding centuries. They rested in large measure on the favour of the
multitude, and pursued a policy of sacrificing to their interests the
nobles. It was natural that these self-made princes should seek to
secure the peace which they had promised in their cities, by freeing the
people from military service and disarming the aristocracy. As their
tenure of power grew firmer, they advanced dynastic claims, assumed
titles, and took the style of petty sovereigns. Their government became
paternal; and, though there was no limit to their cruelty when stung by
terror, they used the purse rather than the sword, bribery at home and
treasonable intrigue abroad in preference to coercive measures or open
war. Thus was elaborated the type of despot which attained completeness
in Gian Galeazzo Visconti and Lorenzo de' Medici. No longer a tyrant of
Ezzelino's stamp, he reigned by intelligence and terrorism masked
beneath a smile. He substituted cunning and corruption for violence. The
lesser people tolerated him because he extended the power of their city
and made it beautiful with public buildings. The bourgeoisie, protected
in their trade, found it convenient to support him. The nobles, turned
into courtiers, placemen, diplomatists and men of affairs, ended by
preferring his authority to the alternative of democratic institutions.
A lethargy of well-being, broken only by the pinch of taxation for
war-costs, or by outbursts of frantic ferocity and lust in the less
calculating tyrants, descended on the population of cities which had
boasted of their freedom. Only Florence and Venice, at the close of the
period upon which we are now entering, maintained their republican
independence. And Venice was ruled by a close oligarchy; Florence was
passing from the hands of her oligarchs into the power of the Medicean
merchants.
Discrimination of the five great powers.
Between the year 1305, when Clement V. settled at Avignon, and the year
1447, when Nicholas V. re-established the papacy upon a solid basis at
Rome, the Italians approximated more nearly to self-government than at
any other epoch of their history. The conditions which have been
described, of despotism, mercenary warfare and bourgeois prosperity,
determined the character of this epoch, which was also the period when
the great achievements of the Renaissance were prepared. At the end of
this century and a half, five principal powers divided the peninsula;
and their confederated action during the next forty-five years
(1447-1492) secured for Italy a season of peace and brilliant
prosperity. These five powers were the kingdom of Naples, the duchy of
Milan, the republic of Florence, the republic of Venice and the papacy.
The subsequent events of Italian history will be rendered most
intelligible if at this point we trace the development of these five
constituents of Italian greatness separately.
The Two Sicilies.
When Robert of Anjou died in 1343, he was succeeded by his
grand-daughter Joan, the childless wife of four successive husbands,
Andrew of Hungary, Louis of Taranto, James of Aragon and Otto of
Brunswick. Charles of Durazzo, the last male scion of the Angevine house
in Lower Italy, murdered Joan in 1382, and held the kingdom for five
years. Dying in 1387, he transmitted Naples to his son Ladislaus, who
had no children, and was followed in 1414 by his sister Joan II. She
too, though twice married, died without issue, having at one time
adopted Louis III. of Provence and his brother Rene, at another Alfonso
V. of Aragon, who inherited the crown of Sicily. After her death in
February 1435 the kingdom was fought for between Rene of Anjou and
Alfonso, surnamed the Magnanimous. Rene found supporters among the
Italian princes, especially the Milanese Visconti, who helped him to
assert his claims with arms. During the war of succession which ensued,
Alfonso was taken prisoner by the Genoese fleet in August 1435, and was
sent a prisoner to Filippo Maria at Milan. Here he pleaded his own cause
so powerfully, and proved so incontestably the advantage which might
ensue to the Visconti from his alliance, if he held the regno, that he
obtained his release and recognition as king. From the end of the year
1435 Alfonso reigned alone and undisturbed in Lower Italy, combining
for the first time since the year 1282 the crowns of Sicily and Naples.
The former he held by inheritance, together with that of Aragon. The
latter he considered to be his by conquest. Therefore, when he died in
1458, he bequeathed Naples to his natural son Ferdinand, while Sicily
and Aragon passed together to his brother John, and so on to Ferdinand
the Catholic. The twenty-three years of Alfonso's reign were the most
prosperous and splendid period of South Italian history. He became an
Italian in taste and sympathy, entering with enthusiasm into the
humanistic ardour of the earlier Renaissance, encouraging men of letters
at his court, administering his kingdom on the principles of an
enlightened despotism, and lending his authority to establish that
equilibrium in the peninsula upon which the politicians of his age
believed, not without reason, that Italian independence might be
secured.
Duchy of Milan.
The last member of the Visconti family of whom we had occasion to speak
was Azzo, who bought the city in 1328 from Louis of Bavaria. His uncle
Lucchino succeeded, but was murdered in 1349 by a wife against whose
life he had been plotting. Lucchino's brother John, archbishop of Milan,
now assumed the lordship of the city, and extended the power of the
Visconti over Genoa and the whole of north Italy, with the exception of
Piedmont, Verona, Mantua, Ferrara and Venice. The greatness of the
family dates from the reign of this masterful prelate. He died in 1354,
and his heritage was divided between three members of his house, Matteo,
Bernabo and Galeazzo. In the next year Matteo, being judged incompetent
to rule, was assassinated by order of his brothers, who made an equal
partition of their subject cities--Bernabo residing in Milan, Galeazzo
in Pavia. Galeazzo was the wealthiest and most magnificent Italian of
his epoch. He married his daughter Violante to our duke of Clarence, and
his son Gian Galeazzo to a daughter of King John of France. When he died
in 1378, this son resolved to reunite the domains of the Visconti; and,
with this object in view, he plotted and executed the murder of his
uncle Bernabo. Gian Galeazzo thus became by one stroke the most
formidable of Italian despots. Immured in his castle at Pavia,
accumulating wealth by systematic taxation and methodical economy, he
organized the mercenary troops who eagerly took service under so good a
paymaster; and, by directing their operations from his cabinet, he
threatened the whole of Italy with conquest. The last scions of the
Della Scala family still reigned in Verona, the last Carraresi in Padua;
the Estensi were powerful in Ferrara, the Gonzaghi in Mantua. Gian
Galeazzo, partly by force and partly by intrigue, discredited these
minor despots, pushed his dominion to the very verge of Venice, and,
having subjected Lombardy to his sway, proceeded to attack Tuscany. Pisa
and Perugia were threatened with extinction, and Florence dreaded the
advance of the Visconti arms, when the plague suddenly cut short his
career of treachery and conquest in the year 1402. Seven years before
his death Gian Galeazzo bought the title of duke of Milan and count of
Pavia from the emperor Wenceslaus, and there is no doubt that he was
aiming at the sovereignty of Italy. But no sooner was he dead than the
essential weakness of an artificial state, built up by cunning and
perfidious policy, with the aid of bought troops, dignified by no
dynastic title, and consolidated by no sense of loyalty, became
apparent. Gian Galeazzo's duchy was a masterpiece of mechanical
contrivance, the creation of a scheming intellect and lawless will. When
the mind which had planned it was withdrawn, it fell to pieces, and the
very hands which had been used to build it helped to scatter its
fragments. The Visconti's own generals, Facino Cane, Pandolfo Malatesta,
Jacopo dal Verme, Gabrino Fondulo, Ottobon Terzo, seized upon the
tyranny of several Lombard cities. In others the petty tyrants whom the
Visconti had uprooted reappeared. The Estensi recovered their grasp upon
Ferrara, and the Gonzaghi upon Mantua. Venice strengthened herself
between the Adriatic and the Alps. Florence reassumed her Tuscan
hegemony. Other communes which still preserved the shadow of
independence, like Perugia and Bologna, began once more to dream of
republican freedom under their own leading families. Meanwhile Gian
Galeazzo had left two sons, Giovanni Maria and Filippo Maria. Giovanni,
a monster of cruelty and lust, was assassinated by some Milanese nobles
in 1412; and now Filippo set about rebuilding his father's duchy. Herein
he was aided by the troops of Facino Cane, who, dying opportunely at
this period, left considerable wealth, a well-trained band of
mercenaries, and a widow, Beatrice di Tenda. Filippo married and then
beheaded Beatrice after a mock trial for adultery, having used her money
and her influence in reuniting several subject cities to the crown of
Milan. He subsequently spent a long, suspicious, secret and
incomprehensible career in the attempt to piece together Gian Galeazzo's
Lombard state, and to carry out his schemes of Italian conquest. In this
endeavour he met with vigorous opponents. Venice and Florence, strong in
the strength of their resentful oligarchies, offered a determined
resistance; nor was Filippo equal in ability to his father. His infernal
cunning often defeated its own aims, checkmating him at the point of
achievement by suggestions of duplicity or terror. In the course of
Filippo's wars with Florence and Venice, the greatest generals of this
age were formed--Francesco Carmagnola, who was beheaded between the
columns at Venice in 1432; Niccolo Piccinino, who died at Milan in 1444;
and Francesco Sforza, who survived to seize his master's heritage in
1450. Son of Attendolo Sforza, this Francesco received the hand of
Filippo's natural daughter, Bianca, as a reward for past service and a
pledge of future support. When the Visconti dynasty ended by the duke's
death in 1447, he pretended to espouse the cause of the Milanese
republic, which was then re-established; but he played his cards so
subtly as to make himself, by the help of Cosimo de' Medici in Florence,
duke _de facto_ if not _de jure_. Francesco Sforza was the only
condottiero among many aspiring to be tyrants who planted themselves
firmly on a throne of first-rate importance. Once seated in the duchy of
Milan, he displayed rare qualities as a ruler; for he not only entered
into the spirit of the age, which required humanity and culture from a
despot, but he also knew how to curb his desire for territory. The
conception of confederated Italy found in him a vigorous supporter. Thus
the limitation of the Milanese duchy under Filippo Maria Visconti, and
its consolidation under Francesco Sforza, were equally effectual in
preparing the balance of power to which Italian politics now tended.
[Illustration: Map of the Unification of Italy 1859-1870.]
This balance could not have been established without the concurrent aid
of Florence. After the expulsion of the duke of Athens in 1343, and the
great plague of 1348, the Florentine proletariate rose up against the
merchant princes. This insurgence of the artisans, in a republic which
had been remodelled upon economical principles by Giano della Bella's
constitution of 1292, reached a climax in 1378, when the Ciompi
rebellion placed the city for a few years in the hands of the Lesser
Arts. The revolution was but temporary, and was rather a symptom of
democratic tendencies in the state than the sign of any capacity for
government on the part of the working classes. The necessities of war
and foreign affairs soon placed Florence in the power of an oligarchy
headed by the great Albizzi family. They fought the battles of the
republic with success against the Visconti, and widely extended the
Florentine domain over the Tuscan cities. During their season of
ascendancy Pisa was enslaved, and Florence gained the access to the sea.
But throughout this period a powerful opposition was gathering strength.
It was led by the Medici, who sided with the common people, and
increased their political importance by the accumulation and wise
employment of vast commercial wealth. In 1433 the Albizzi and the Medici
came to open strife. Cosimo de' Medici, the chief of the opposition, was
exiled to Venice. In the next year he returned, assumed the presidency
of the democratic party, and by a system of corruption and
popularity-hunting, combined with the patronage of arts and letters,
established himself as the real but unacknowledged dictator of the
commonwealth. Cosimo abandoned the policy of his predecessors. Instead
of opposing Francesco Sforza in Milan, he lent him his prestige and
influence, foreseeing that the dynastic future of his own family and the
pacification of Italy might be secured by a balance of power in which
Florence should rank on equal terms with Milan and Naples.
Venice.
The republic of Venice differed essentially from any other state in
Italy; and her history was so separate that, up to this point, it would
have been needless to interrupt the narrative by tracing it. Venice,
however, in the 14th century took her place at last as an Italian power
on an equality at least with the very greatest. The constitution of the
commonwealth had slowly matured itself through a series of revolutions,
which confirmed and defined a type of singular stability. During the
earlier days of the republic the doge had been a prince elected by the
people, and answerable only to the popular assemblies. In 1032 he was
obliged to act in concert with a senate, called _pregadi_; and in 1172
the grand council, which became the real sovereign of the state, was
formed. The several steps whereby the members of the grand council
succeeded in eliminating the people from a share in the government, and
reducing the doge to the position of their ornamental representative,
cannot here be described. It must suffice to say that these changes
culminated in 1297, when an act was passed for closing the grand
council, or in other words for confining it to a fixed number of
privileged families, in whom the government was henceforth vested by
hereditary right. This ratification of the oligarchical principle,
together with the establishment in 1311 of the Council of Ten, completed
that famous constitution which endured till the extinction of the
republic in 1797. Meanwhile, throughout the middle ages, it had been the
policy of Venice to refrain from conquests on the Italian mainland, and
to confine her energies to commerce in the East. The first entry of any
moment made by the Venetians into strictly Italian affairs was in 1336,
when the republics of Florence and St Mark allied themselves against
Mastino della Scala, and the latter took possession of Treviso. After
this, for thirty years, between 1352 and 1381, Venice and Genoa
contested the supremacy of the Mediterranean. Pisa's maritime power
having been extinguished in the battle of Meloria (1284), the two
surviving republics had no rivals. They fought their duel out upon the
Bosporus, off Sardinia, and in the Morea, with various success. From the
first great encounter, in 1355, Venice retired well-nigh exhausted, and
Genoa was so crippled that she placed herself under the protection of
the Visconti. The second and decisive battle was fought upon the
Adriatic. The Genoese fleet under Luciano Doria defeated the Venetians
off Pola in 1379, and sailed without opposition to Chioggia, which was
stormed and taken. Thus the Venetians found themselves blockaded in
their own lagoons. Meanwhile a fleet was raised for their relief by
Carlo Zeno in the Levant, and the admiral Vittore Pisani, who had been
imprisoned after the defeat at Pola, was released to lead their forlorn
hope from the city side. The Genoese in their turn were now blockaded in
Chioggia, and forced by famine to surrender. The losses of men and money
which the war of Chioggia, as it was called, entailed, though they did
not immediately depress the spirit of the Genoese republic, signed her
naval ruin. During this second struggle to the death with Genoa, the
Venetians had been also at strife with the Carraresi of Padua and the
Scaligers of Verona. In 1406, after the extinction of these princely
houses they added Verona, Vicenza and Padua to the territories they
claimed on _terra firma_. Their career of conquest, and their new policy
of forming Italian alliances and entering into the management of Italian
affairs were confirmed by the long dogeship of Francesco Foscari
(1423-1457), who must rank with Alfonso, Cosimo de' Medici, Francesco
Sforza and Nicholas V., as a joint-founder of confederated Italy. When
Constantinople fell in 1453, the old ties between Venice and the Eastern
empire were broken, and she now entered on a wholly new phase of her
history. Ranking as one of the five Italian powers, she was also
destined to defend Western Christendom against the encroachments of the
Turk in Europe. (See VENICE: _History_.)
The Papacy.
By their settlement in Avignon, the popes relinquished their
protectorate of Italian liberties, and lost their position as Italian
potentates. Rienzi's revolution in Rome (1347-1354), and his
establishment of a republic upon a fantastic basis, half classical,
half feudal, proved the temper of the times; while the rise of dynastic
families in the cities of the church, claiming the title of papal
vicars, but acting in their own interests, weakened the authority of the
Holy See. The predatory expeditions of Bertrand du Poiet and Robert of
Geneva were as ineffective as the descents of the emperors; and, though
the cardinal Albornoz conquered Romagna and the March in 1364, the
legates who resided in those districts were not long able to hold them
against their despots. At last Gregory XI. returned to Rome; and Urban
VI., elected in 1378, put a final end to the Avignonian exile. Still the
Great Schism, which now distracted Western Christendom, so enfeebled the
papacy, and kept the Roman pontiffs so engaged in ecclesiastical
disputes, that they had neither power nor leisure to occupy themselves
seriously with their temporal affairs. The threatening presence of the
two princely houses of Orsini and Colonna, alike dangerous as friends or
foes, rendered Rome an unsafe residence. Even when the schism was
nominally terminated in 1415 by the council of Constance, the next two
popes held but a precarious grasp upon their Italian domains. Martin V.
(1417-1431) resided principally at Florence. Eugenius IV. (1431-1447)
followed his example. And what Martin managed to regain Eugenius lost.
At the same time, the change which had now come over Italian politics,
the desire on all sides for a settlement, and the growing conviction
that a federation was necessary, proved advantageous to the popes as
sovereigns. They gradually entered into the spirit of their age, assumed
the style of despots and made use of the humanistic movement, then at
its height, to place themselves in a new relation to Italy. The election
of Nicholas V. in 1447 determined this revolution in the papacy, and
opened a period of temporal splendour, which ended with the
establishment of the popes as sovereigns. Thomas of Sarzana was a
distinguished humanist. Humbly born, he had been tutor in the house of
the Albizzi, and afterwards librarian of the Medici at Florence, where
he imbibed the politics together with the culture of the Renaissance.
Soon after assuming the tiara, he found himself without a rival in the
church; for the schism ended by Felix V.'s resignation in 1449. Nicholas
fixed his residence in Rome, which he began to rebuild and to fortify,
determining to render the Eternal City once more a capital worthy of its
high place in Europe. The Romans were flattered; and, though his reign
was disturbed by republican conspiracy, Nicholas V. was able before his
death in 1455 to secure the modern status of the pontiff as a splendid
patron and a wealthy temporal potentate.
Confederated Italy.
Italy was now for a brief space independent. The humanistic movement had
created a common culture, a common language and sense of common
nationality. The five great powers, with their satellites--dukes of
Savoy and Urbino, marquesses of Ferrara and Mantua, republics of
Bologna, Perugia, Siena--were constituted. All political institutions
tended toward despotism. The Medici became yearly more indispensable to
Florence, the Bentivogli more autocratic in Bologna, the Baglioni in
Perugia; and even Siena was ruled by the Petrucci. But this despotism
was of a mild type. The princes were Italians; they shared the common
enthusiasms of the nation for art, learning, literature and science;
they studied how to mask their tyranny with arts agreeable to the
multitude. When Italy had reached this point, Constantinople was taken
by the Turks. On all sides it was felt that the Italian alliance must be
tightened; and one of the last, best acts of Nicholas V.'s pontificate
was the appeal in 1453 to the five great powers in federation. As
regards their common opposition to the Turk, this appeal led to nothing;
but it marked the growth of a new Italian consciousness.
Between 1453 and 1492 Italy continued to be prosperous and tranquil.
Nearly all wars during this period were undertaken either to check the
growing power of Venice or to further the ambition of the papacy. Having
become despots, the popes sought to establish their relatives in
principalities. The word nepotism acquired new significance in the
reigns of Sixtus IV. and Innocent VIII. Though the country was convulsed
by no great struggle, these forty years witnessed a truly appalling
increase of political crime. To be a prince was tantamount to being the
mark of secret conspiracy and assassination. Among the most noteworthy
examples of such attempts may be mentioned the revolt of the barons
against Ferdinand I. of Naples (1464), the murder of Galeazzo Maria
Sforza at Milan (1476) and the plot of the Pazzi to destroy the Medici
(1478). After Cosimo de' Medici's death in 1464, the presidency of the
Florentine republic passed to his son Piero, who left it in 1469 to his
sons Lorenzo and Giuliano. These youths assumed the style of princes,
and it was against their lives that the Pazzi, with the sanction of
Sixtus IV., aimed their blow. Giuliano was murdered, Lorenzo escaped, to
tighten his grasp upon the city, which now loved him and was proud of
him. During the following fourteen years of his brilliant career he made
himself absolute master of Florence, and so modified her institutions
that the Medici were henceforth necessary to the state. Apprehending the
importance of Italian federation, Lorenzo, by his personal tact and
prudent leadership of the republic, secured peace and a common
intelligence between the five powers. His own family was fortified by
the marriage of his daughter to a son of Innocent VIII., which procured
his son Giovanni's elevation to the cardinalate, and involved two
Medicean papacies and the future dependence of Florence upon Rome.
Invasion of Charles VIII.
VI. _Age of Invasions._--The year 1492 opened a new age for Italy. In
this year Lorenzo died, and was succeeded by his son, the vain and weak
Piero; France passed beneath the personal control of the inexperienced
Charles VIII.; the fall of Granada freed Spain from her embarrassments;
Columbus discovered America, destroying the commercial supremacy of
Venice; last, but not least, Roderigo Borgia assumed the tiara with the
famous title of Alexander VI. In this year the short-lived federation of
the five powers was shaken, and Italy was once more drawn into the
vortex of European affairs. The events which led to this disaster may be
briefly told. After Galeazzo Maria's assassination, his crown passed to
a boy, Gian Galeazzo, who was in due course married to a grand-daughter
of Ferdinand I. of Naples. But the government of Milan remained in the
hands of this youth's uncle, Lodovico, surnamed Il Moro. Lodovico
resolved to become duke of Milan. The king of Naples was his natural
enemy, and he had cause to suspect that Piero de' Medici might abandon
his alliance. Feeling himself alone, with no right to the title he was
bent on seizing, he had recourse to Charles VIII. of France, whom he
urged to make good his claim to the kingdom of Naples. This claim, it
may be said in passing, rested on the will of King Rene of Anjou. After
some hesitation, Charles agreed to invade Italy. He crossed the Alps in
1495, passed through Lombardy, entered Tuscany, freed Pisa from the yoke
of Florence, witnessed the expulsion of the Medici, marched to Naples
and was crowned there--all this without striking a blow. Meanwhile
Lodovico procured his nephew's death, and raised a league against the
French in Lombardy. Charles hurried back from Naples, and narrowly
escaped destruction at Fornovo in the passes of the Apennines. He made
good his retreat, however, and returned to France in 1495. Little
remained to him of his light acquisitions; but he had convulsed Italy by
this invasion, destroyed her equilibrium, exposed her military weakness
and political disunion, and revealed her wealth to greedy and more
powerful nations.
Louis XII.
The princes of the house of Aragon, now represented by Frederick, a son
of Ferdinand I., returned to Naples. Florence made herself a republic,
adopting a form of constitution analogous to that of Venice. At this
crisis she was ruled by the monk Girolamo Savonarola, who inspired the
people with a thirst for freedom, preached the necessity of reformation,
and placed himself in direct antagonism to Rome. After a short but
eventful career, the influence of which was long effective, he lost his
hold upon the citizens. Alexander VI. procured a mock trial, and his
enemies burned him upon the Piazza in 1498. In this year Louis XII.
succeeded Charles VIII. upon the throne of France. As duke of Orleans he
had certain claims to Milan through his grandmother Valentina, daughter
of Gian Galeazzo, the first duke. They were not valid, for the
investiture of the duchy had been granted only to male heirs. But they
served as a sufficient pretext, and in 1499 Louis entered and subdued
the Milanese. Lodovico escaped to Germany, returned the next year, was
betrayed by his Swiss mercenaries and sent to die at Loches in France.
In 1500 Louis made the blunder of calling Ferdinand the Catholic to help
him in the conquest of Naples. By a treaty signed at Granada, the French
and Spanish kings were to divide the spoil. The conquest was easy; but,
when it came to a partition, Ferdinand played his ally false. He made
himself supreme over the Two Sicilies, which he now reunited under a
single crown. Three years later, unlessoned by this experience, Louis
signed the treaty of Blois (1504), whereby he invited the emperor
Maximilian to aid him in the subjugation of Venice. No policy could have
been less far-sighted; for Charles V., joint heir to Austria, Burgundy,
Castile and Aragon, the future overwhelming rival of France, was already
born.
The stage was now prepared, and all the actors who were destined to
accomplish the ruin of Italy trod it with their armies. Spain, France,
Germany, with their Swiss auxiliaries, had been summoned upon various
pretexts to partake her provinces. Then, too late, patriots like
Machiavelli perceived the suicidal self-indulgence of the past, which,
by substituting mercenary troops for national militias, left the
Italians at the absolute discretion of their neighbours. Whatever parts
the Italians themselves played in the succeeding quarter of a century,
the game was in the hands of French, Spanish and German invaders.
Meanwhile, no scheme for combination against common foes arose in the
peninsula. Each petty potentate strove for his own private advantage in
the confusion; and at this epoch the chief gains accrued to the papacy.
Aided by his terrible son, Cesare Borgia, Alexander VI. chastised the
Roman nobles, subdued Romagna and the March, threatened Tuscany, and
seemed to be upon the point of creating a Central Italian state in
favour of his progeny, when he died suddenly in 1503. His conquests
reverted to the Holy See. Julius II., his bitterest enemy and powerful
successor, continued Alexander's policy, but no longer in the interest
of his own relatives. It became the nobler ambition of Julius to
aggrandize the church, and to reassume the protectorate of the Italian
people. With this object, he secured Emilia, carried his victorious arms
against Ferrara, and curbed the tyranny of the Baglioni in Perugia.
Julius II. played a perilous game; but the stakes were high, and he
fancied himself strong enough to guide the tempest he evoked.
Quarrelling with the Venetians in 1508, he combined the forces of all
Europe by the league of Cambray against them; and, when he had succeeded
in his first purpose of humbling them even to the dust, he turned round
in 1510, uttered his famous resolve to expel the barbarians from Italy,
and pitted the Spaniards against the French. It was with the Swiss that
he hoped to effect this revolution; but the Swiss, now interfering for
the first time as principals in Italian affairs, were incapable of more
than adding to the already maddening distractions of the people. Formed
for mercenary warfare, they proved a perilous instrument in the hands of
those who used them, and were hardly less injurious to their friends
than to their foes. In 1512 the battle of Ravenna between the French
troops and the allies of Julius--Spaniards, Venetians and Swiss--was
fought. Gaston de Foix bought a doubtful victory dearly with his death;
and the allies, though beaten on the banks of the Ronco, immediately
afterwards expelled the French from Lombardy. Yet Julius II. had failed,
as might have been foreseen. He only exchanged one set of foreign
masters for another, and taught a new barbarian race how pleasant were
the plains of Italy. As a consequence of the battle of Ravenna, the
Medici returned in 1512 to Florence.
When Leo X. was elected in 1513, Rome and Florence rejoiced; but Italy
had no repose. Louis XII. had lost the game, and the Spaniards were
triumphant. But new actors appeared upon the scene, and the same old
struggle was resumed with fiercer energy. By the victory of Marignano in
1515 Francis I., having now succeeded to the throne of France, regained
the Milanese, and broke the power of the Swiss, who held it for
Massimiliano Sforza, the titular duke. Leo for a while relied on
Francis; for the vast power of Charles V., who succeeded to the empire
in 1519, as in 1516 he had succeeded to the crowns of Spain and Lower
Italy, threatened the whole of Europe. It was Leo's nature, however, to
be inconstant. In 1521 he changed sides, allied himself to Charles, and
died after hearing that the imperial troops had again expelled the
French from Milan. During the next four years the Franco-Spanish war
dragged on in Lombardy until the decisive battle of Pavia in 1525, when
Francis was taken prisoner, and Italy lay open to the Spanish armies.
Meanwhile Leo X. had been followed by Adrian VI., and Adrian by Clement
VII., of the house of Medici, who had long ruled Florence. In the reign
of this pope Francis was released from his prison in Madrid (1526), and
Clement hoped that he might still be used in the Italian interest as a
counterpoise to Charles. It is impossible in this place to follow the
tangled intrigues of that period. The year 1527 was signalized by the
famous sack of Rome. An army of mixed German and Spanish troops,
pretending to act for the emperor, but which may rather be regarded as a
vast marauding party, entered Italy under their leader Frundsberg. After
his death, the Constable de Bourbon took command of them; they marched
slowly down, aided by the marquis of Ferrara, and unopposed by the duke
of Urbino, reached Rome, and took it by assault. The constable was
killed in the first onslaught; Clement was imprisoned in the castle of
St Angelo; Rome was abandoned to the rage of 30,000 ruffians. As an
immediate result of this catastrophe, Florence shook off the Medici, and
established a republic. But Clement, having made peace with the emperor,
turned the remnants of the army which had sacked Rome against his native
city. After a desperate resistance, Florence fell in 1530. Alessandro
de' Medici was placed there with the title of duke of Civita di Penna;
and, on his murder in 1537, Cosimo de' Medici, of the younger branch of
the ruling house, was made duke. Acting as lieutenant for the Spaniards,
he subsequently (1555) subdued Siena, and bequeathed to his descendants
the grand-duchy of Tuscany.
Settlement of Italy by Spain.
VII. _Spanish-Austrian Ascendancy._--It was high time, after the sack of
Rome in 1527, that Charles V. should undertake Italian affairs. The
country was exposed to anarchy, of which this had been the last and most
disgraceful example. The Turks were threatening western Europe, and
Luther was inflaming Germany. By the treaty of Barcelona in 1529 the
pope and emperor made terms. By that of Cambray in the same year France
relinquished Italy to Spain. Charles then entered the port of Genoa, and
on the 5th of November met Clement VII. at Bologna. He there received
the imperial crown, and summoned the Italian princes for a settlement of
all disputed claims. Francesco Sforza, the last and childless heir of
the ducal house, was left in Milan till his death, which happened in
1535. The republic of Venice was respected in her liberties and Lombard
territories. The Este family received a confirmation of their duchy of
Modena and Reggio, and were invested in their fief of Ferrara by the
pope. The marquessate of Mantua was made a duchy; and Florence was
secured, as we have seen, to the Medici. The great gainer by this
settlement was the papacy, which held the most substantial Italian
province, together with a prestige that raised it far above all rivalry.
The rest of Italy, however parcelled, henceforth became but a dependence
upon Spain. Charles V., it must be remembered, achieved his conquest and
confirmed his authority far less as emperor than as the heir of Castile
and Aragon. A Spanish viceroy in Milan and another in Naples, supported
by Rome and by the minor princes who followed the policy dictated to
them from Madrid, were sufficient to preserve the whole peninsula in a
state of somnolent inglorious servitude.
From 1530 until 1796, that is, for a period of nearly three centuries,
the Italians had no history of their own. Their annals are filled with
records of dynastic changes and redistributions of territory, consequent
upon treaties signed by foreign powers, in the settlement of quarrels
which no wise concerned the people. Italy only too often became the
theatre of desolating and distracting wars. But these wars were fought
for the most part by alien armies; the points at issue were decided
beyond the Alps; the gains accrued to royal families whose names were
unpronounceable by southern tongues. The affairs of Europe during the
years when Habsburg and Bourbon fought their domestic battles with the
blood of noble races may teach grave lessons to all thoughtful men of
our days, but none bitterer, none fraught with more insulting
recollections, than to the Italian people, who were haggled over like
dumb driven cattle in the mart of chaffering kings. We cannot wholly
acquit the Italians of their share of blame. When they might have won
national independence, after their warfare with the Swabian emperors,
they let the golden opportunity slip. Pampered with commercial
prosperity, eaten to the core with inter-urban rivalries, they submitted
to despots, renounced the use of arms, and offered themselves in the
hour of need, defenceless and disunited to the shock of puissant
nations. That they had created modern civilization for Europe availed
them nothing. Italy, intellectually first among the peoples, was now
politically and practically last; and nothing to her historian is more
heart-rending than to watch the gradual extinction of her spirit in this
age of slavery.
Pontificate of Paul III.
In 1534 Alessandro Farnese, who owed his elevation to his sister Giulia,
one of Alexander VI.'s mistresses, took the tiara with the title of Paul
III. It was his ambition to create a duchy for his family; and with this
object he gave Parma and Piacenza to his son Pier Luigi. After much
wrangling between the French and Spanish parties, the duchy was
confirmed in 1586 to Ottaviano Farnese and his son Alessandro, better
known as Philip II.'s general, the prince of Parma. Alessandro's
descendants reigned in Parma and Piacenza till the year 1731. Paul
III.'s pontificate was further marked by important changes in the
church, all of which confirmed the spiritual autocracy of Rome. In 1540
this pope approved of Loyola's foundation, and secured the powerful
militia of the Jesuit order. The Inquisition was established with almost
unlimited powers in Italy, and the press was placed under its
jurisdiction. Thus free thought received a check, by which not only
ecclesiastical but political tyrants knew how to profit. Henceforth it
was impossible to publish or to utter a word which might offend the
despots of church or state; and the Italians had to amuse their leisure
with the polite triflings of academics. In 1545 a council was opened at
Trent for the reformation of church discipline and the promulgation of
orthodox doctrine. The decrees of this council defined Roman Catholicism
against the Reformation; and, while failing to regenerate morality, they
enforced a hypocritical observance of public decency. Italy to outer
view put forth blossoms of hectic and hysterical piety, though at the
core her clergy and her aristocracy were more corrupt than ever.
Reign of Philip II.
In 1556 Philip II., by the abdication of his father Charles V., became
king of Spain. He already wore the crown of the Two Sicilies, and ruled
the duchy of Milan. In the next year Ferdinand, brother of Charles, was
elected emperor. The French, meanwhile, had not entirely abandoned their
claims on Italy. Gian Pietro Caraffa, who was made pope in 1555 with the
name of Paul IV., endeavoured to revive the ancient papal policy of
leaning upon France. He encouraged the duke of Guise to undertake the
conquest of Naples, as Charles of Anjou had been summoned by his
predecessors. But such schemes were now obsolete and anachronistic. They
led to a languid lingering Italian campaign, which was settled far
beyond the Alps by Philip's victories over the French at St Quentin and
Gravelines. The peace of Cateau Cambresis, signed in 1559, left the
Spanish monarch undisputed lord of Italy. Of free commonwealths there
now survived only Venice, which, together with Spain, achieved for
Europe the victory of Lepanto in 1573; Genoa, which, after the
ineffectual Fieschi revolution in 1547, abode beneath the rule of the
great Doria family, and held a feeble sway in Corsica; and the two
insignificant republics of Lucca and San Marino.
The future hope of Italy, however, was growing in a remote and hitherto
neglected corner. Emmanuel Philibert, duke of Savoy, represented the
oldest and not the least illustrious reigning house in Europe, and his
descendants were destined to achieve for Italy the independence which no
other power or prince had given her since the fall of ancient Rome. (See
SAVOY, HOUSE OF.)
When Emmanuel Philibert succeeded to his father Charles III. in 1553, he
was a duke without a duchy. But the princes of the house of Savoy were a
race of warriors; and what Emmanuel Philibert lost as sovereign he
regained as captain of adventure in the service of his cousin Philip II.
The treaty of Cateau Cambresis in 1559, and the evacuation of the
Piedmontese cities held by French and Spanish troops in 1574, restored
his state. By removing the capital from Chambery to Turin, he completed
the transformation of the dukes of Savoy from Burgundian into Italian
sovereigns. They still owned Savoy beyond the Alps, the plains of
Bresse, and the maritime province of Nice.
Emmanuel Philibert was succeeded by his son Charles Emmanuel I., who
married Catherine, a daughter of Philip II. He seized the first
opportunity of annexing Saluzzo, which had been lost to Savoy in the
last two reigns, and renewed the disastrous policy of his grandfather
Charles III. by invading Geneva and threatening Provence. Henry IV. of
France forced him in 1601 to relinquish Bresse and his Burgundian
possessions. In return he was allowed to keep Saluzzo. All hopes of
conquest on the transalpine side were now quenched; but the keys of
Italy had been given to the dukes of Savoy; and their attention was
still further concentrated upon Lombard conquests. Charles Emmanuel now
attempted the acquisition of Montferrat, which was soon to become vacant
by the death of Francesco Gonzaga, who held it together with Mantua. In
order to secure this territory, he went to war with Philip III. of
Spain, and allied himself with Venice and the Grisons to expel the
Spaniards from the Valtelline. When the male line of the Gonzaga family
expired in 1627, Charles, duke of Nevers, claimed Mantua and Montferrat
in right of his wife, the only daughter of the last duke. Charles
Emmanuel was now checkmated by France, as he had formerly been by Spain.
The total gains of all his strenuous endeavours amounted to the
acquisition of a few places on the borders of Montferrat.
Extinction of old ducal families.
Not only the Gonzagas, but several other ancient ducal families, died
out about the date which we have reached. The legitimate line of the
Estensi ended in 1597 by the death of Alfonso II., the last duke of
Ferrara. He left his domains to a natural relative, Cesare d'Este, who
would in earlier days have inherited without dispute, for bastardy had
been no bar on more than one occasion in the Este pedigree. Urban VIII.,
however, put in a claim to Ferrara, which, it will be remembered, had
been recognized a papal fief in 1530. Cesare d'Este had to content
himself with Modena and Reggio, where his descendants reigned as dukes
till 1794. Under the same pontiff, the Holy See absorbed the duchy of
Urbino on the death of Francesco Maria II., the last representative of
Montefeltro and Della Rovere. The popes were now masters of a fine and
compact territory, embracing no inconsiderable portion of Countess
Matilda's legacy, in addition to Pippin's donation, and the patrimony of
St Peter. Meanwhile Spanish fanaticism, the suppression of the Huguenots
in France and the Catholic policy of Austria combined to strengthen
their authority as pontiffs. Urban's predecessor, Paul V., advanced so
far as to extend his spiritual jurisdiction over Venice, which, up to
the date of his election (1605), had resisted all encroachments of the
Holy See. Venice offered the single instance in Italy of a national
church. The republic managed the tithes, and the clergy acknowledged no
chief above their own patriarch. Paul V. now forced the Venetians to
admit his ecclesiastical supremacy; but they refused to readmit the
Jesuits, who had been expelled in 1606. This, if we do not count the
proclamation of James I. of England (1604), was the earliest instance of
the order's banishment from a state where it had proved disloyal to the
commonwealth.
Decline of Venice and Spain.
Venice rapidly declined throughout the 17th century. The loss of trade
consequent upon the closing of Egypt and the Levant, together with the
discovery of America and the sea-route to the Indies, had dried up her
chief source of wealth. Prolonged warfare with the Ottomans, who forced
her to abandon Candia in 1669, as they had robbed her of Cyprus in 1570,
still further crippled her resources. Yet she kept the Adriatic free of
pirates, notably by suppressing the sea-robbers called Uscocchi
(1601-1617), maintained herself in the Ionian Islands, and in 1684 added
one more to the series of victorious episodes which render her annals so
romantic. In that year Francesco Morosini, upon whose tomb we still may
read the title Peloponnesiacus, wrested the whole of the Morea from the
Turks. But after his death in 1715 the republic relaxed her hold upon
his conquests. The Venetian nobles abandoned themselves to indolence and
vice. Many of them fell into the slough of pauperism, and were saved
from starvation by public doles. Though the signory still made a brave
show upon occasions of parade, it was clear that the state was rotten to
the core, and sinking into the decrepitude of dotage. The Spanish
monarchy at the same epoch dwindled with apparently less reason.
Philip's Austrian successors reduced it to the rank of a secondary
European power. This decline of vigour was felt, with the customary
effects of discord and bad government, in Lower Italy. The revolt of
Masaniello in Naples (1647), followed by rebellions at Palermo and
Messina, which placed Sicily for a while in the hands of Louis XIV.
(1676-1678) were symptoms of progressive anarchy. The population, ground
down by preposterous taxes, ill-used as only the subjects of Spaniards,
Turks or Bourbons are handled, rose in blind exasperation against their
oppressors. It is impossible to attach political importance to these
revolutions; nor did they bring the people any appreciable good. The
destinies of Italy were decided in the cabinets and on the battlefields
of northern Europe. A Bourbon at Versailles, a Habsburg at Vienna, or a
thick-lipped Lorrainer, with a stroke of his pen, wrote off province
against province, regarding not the populations who had bled for him or
thrown themselves upon his mercy.
Wars of Succession.
This inglorious and passive chapter of Italian history is continued to
the date of the French Revolution with the records of three dynastic
wars, the war of the Spanish succession, the war of the Polish
succession, the war of the Austrian succession, followed by three
European treaties, which brought them respectively to diplomatic
terminations. Italy, handled and rehandled, settled and resettled, upon
each of these occasions, changed masters without caring or knowing what
befell the principals in any one of the disputes. Humiliating to human
nature in general as are the annals of the 18th-century campaigns in
Europe, there is no point of view from which they appear in a light so
tragi-comic as from that afforded by Italian history. The system of
setting nations by the ears with the view of settling the quarrels of a
few reigning houses was reduced to absurdity when the people, as in
these cases, came to be partitioned and exchanged without the assertion
or negation of a single principle affecting their interests or rousing
their emotions.
Spanish Succession.
In 1700 Charles II. died, and with him ended the Austrian family in
Spain. Louis XIV. claimed the throne for Philip, duke of Anjou. Charles,
archduke of Austria, opposed him. The dispute was fought out in
Flanders; but Lombardy felt the shock, as usual, of the French and
Austrian dynasties. The French armies were more than once defeated by
Prince Eugene of Savoy, who drove them out of Italy in 1707. Therefore,
in the peace of Utrecht (1713), the services of the house of Savoy had
to be duly recognized. Victor Amadeus II. received Sicily with the title
of king. Montferrat and Alessandria were added to his northern
provinces, and his state was recognized as independent. Charles of
Austria, now emperor, took Milan, Mantua, Naples and Sardinia for his
portion of the Italian spoil. Philip founded the Bourbon line of Spanish
kings, renouncing in Italy all that his Habsburg predecessors had
gained. Discontented with this diminution of the Spanish heritage,
Philip V. married Elisabetta Farnese, heiress to the last duke of Parma,
in 1714. He hoped to secure this duchy for his son, Don Carlos; and
Elisabetta further brought with her a claim to the grand-duchy of
Tuscany, which would soon become vacant by the death of Gian Gastone de'
Medici. After this marriage Philip broke the peace of Europe by invading
Sardinia. The Quadruple Alliance was formed, and the new king of Sicily
was punished for his supposed adherence to Philip V. by the forced
exchange of Sicily for the island of Sardinia. It was thus that in 1720
the house of Savoy assumed the regal title which it bore until the
declaration of the Italian kingdom in the last century. Victor Amadeus
II.'s reign was of great importance in the history of his state. Though
a despot, as all monarchs were obliged to be at that date, he reigned
with prudence, probity and zeal for the welfare of his subjects. He took
public education out of the hands of the Jesuits, which, for the future
development of manliness in his dominions, was a measure of incalculable
value. The duchy of Savoy in his days became a kingdom, and Sardinia,
though it seemed a poor exchange for Sicily, was a far less perilous
possession than the larger and wealthier island would have been. In 1730
Victor Amadeus abdicated in favour of his son Charles Emmanuel III.
Repenting of this step, he subsequently attempted to regain Turin, but
was imprisoned in the castle of Rivoli, where he ended his days in 1732.
Polish Succession.
The War of the Polish Succession which now disturbed Europe is only
important in Italian history because the treaty of Vienna in 1738
settled the disputed affairs of the duchies of Parma and Tuscany. The
duke Antonio Farnese died in 1731; the grand-duke Gian Gastone de'
Medici died in 1737. In the duchy of Parma Don Carlos had already been
proclaimed. But he was now transferred to the Two Sicilies, while
Francis of Lorraine, the husband of Maria Theresa, took Tuscany and
Parma. Milan and Mantua remained in the hands of the Austrians. On this
occasion Charles Emmanuel acquired Tortona and Novara.
Austrian Succession.
Worse complications ensued for the Italians when the emperor Charles
VI., father of Maria Theresa, died in 1740. The three branches of the
Bourbon house, ruling in France, Spain and the Sicilies, joined with
Prussia, Bavaria and the kingdom of Sardinia to despoil Maria Theresa of
her heritage. Lombardy was made the seat of war; and here the king of
Sardinia acted as in some sense the arbiter of the situation. After war
broke out, he changed sides and supported the Habsburg-Lorraine party.
At first, in 1745, the Sardinians were defeated by the French and
Spanish troops. But Francis of Lorraine, elected emperor in that year,
sent an army to the king's support, which in 1746 obtained a signal
victory over the Bourbons at Piacenza. Charles Emmanuel now threatened
Genoa. The Austrian soldiers already held the town. But the citizens
expelled them, and the republic kept her independence. In 1748 the
treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, which put an end to the War of the Austrian
Succession, once more redivided Italy. Parma, Piacenza and Guastalla
were formed into a duchy for Don Philip, brother of Charles III. of the
Two Sicilies, and son of Philip V. of Spain. Charles III. was confirmed
in his kingdom of the Two Sicilies. The Austrians kept Milan and
Tuscany. The duchy of Modena was placed under the protection of the
French. So was Genoa, which in 1755, after Paoli's insurrection against
the misgovernment of the republic, ceded her old domain of Corsica to
France.
Forty-four years' peace.
From the date of this settlement until 1792, Italy enjoyed a period of
repose and internal amelioration under her numerous paternal despots. It
became the fashion during these forty-four years of peace to encourage
the industrial population and to experimentalize in economical reforms.
The Austrian government in Lombardy under Maria Theresa was
characterized by improved agriculture, regular administration, order,
reformed taxation and increased education. A considerable amount of
local autonomy was allowed, and dependence on Vienna was very slight and
not irksome. The nobles and the clergy were rich and influential, but
kept in order by the civil power. There was no feeling of nationality,
but the people were prosperous, enjoyed profound peace and were placidly
content with the existing order of things. On the death of Maria Theresa
in 1780, the emperor Joseph II. instituted much wider reforms. Feudal
privileges were done away with, clerical influence diminished and many
monasteries and convents suppressed, the criminal law rendered more
humane and torture abolished largely as a result of G. Beccaria's famous
pamphlet _Dei delitti e delle pene_. At the same time Joseph's
administration was more arbitrary, and local autonomy was to some extent
curtailed. His anti-clerical laws produced some ill-feeling among the
more devout part of the population. On the whole the Austrian rule in
pre-revolutionary days was beneficial and far from oppressive, and
helped Lombardy to recover from the ill-effects of the Spanish
domination. It did little for the moral education of the people, but the
same criticism applies more or less to all the European governments of
the day. The emperor Francis I. ruled the grand-duchy of Tuscany by
lieutenants until his death in 1765, when it was given, as an
independent state, to his second son, Peter Leopold. The reign of this
duke was long remembered as a period of internal prosperity, wise
legislation and important public enterprise. Leopold, among other useful
works, drained the Val di Chiana, and restored those fertile upland
plains to agriculture. In 1790 he succeeded to the empire, and left
Tuscany to his son Ferdinand. The kingdom of Sardinia was administered
upon similar principles, but with less of geniality. Charles Emmanuel
made his will law, and erased the remnants of free institutions from his
state. At the same time he wisely followed his father's policy with
regard to education and the church. This is perhaps the best that can be
said of a king who incarnated the stolid absolutism of the period. From
this date, however, we are able to trace the revival of independent
thought among the Italians. The European ferment of ideas which preceded
the French Revolution expressed itself in men like Alfieri, the fierce
denouncer of tyrants, Beccaria, the philosopher of criminal
jurisprudence, Volta, the physicist, and numerous political economists
of Tuscany. Moved partly by external influences and partly by a slow
internal reawakening, the people was preparing for the efforts of the
19th century. The papacy, during this period, had to reconsider the
question of the Jesuits, who made themselves universally odious, not
only in Italy, but also in France and Spain. In the pontificate of
Clement XIII. they ruled the Vatican, and almost succeeded in embroiling
the pope with the concerted Bourbon potentates of Europe. His successor,
Clement XIV. suppressed the order altogether by a brief of 1773.
(J. A. S.)
D. ITALY IN THE NAPOLEONIC PERIOD, 1796-1814
The campaign of 1796 which led to the awakening of the Italian people to
a new consciousness of unity and strength is detailed in the article
NAPOLEONIC CAMPAIGNS. Here we can attempt only a general survey of the
events, political, civic and social, which heralded the _Risorgimento_
in its first phase. It is desirable in the first place to realize the
condition of Italy at the time when the irruption of the French and the
expulsion of the Austrians opened up a new political vista for that
oppressed and divided people.
Influence of the French Revolution.
Bonaparte in Italy.
For many generations Italy had been bandied to and fro between the
Habsburgs and the Bourbons. The decline of French influence at the close
of the reign of Louis XIV. left the Habsburgs and the Spanish Bourbons
without serious rivals. The former possessed the rich duchies of Milan
(including Mantua) and Tuscany; while through a marriage alliance with
the house of Este of Modena (the Archduke Ferdinand had married the
heiress of Modena) its influence over that duchy was supreme. It also
had a few fiefs in Piedmont and in Genoese territory. By marrying her
daughter, Maria Amelia, to the young duke of Parma, and another
daughter, Maria Carolina, to Ferdinand of Naples, Maria Theresa
consolidated Habsburg influence in the north and south of the peninsula.
The Spanish Bourbons held Naples and Sicily, as well as the duchy of
Parma. Of the nominally independent states the chief were the kingdom
of Sardinia, ruled over by the house of Savoy, and comprising Piedmont,
the isle of Sardinia and nominally Savoy and Nice, though the two
provinces last named had virtually been lost to the monarchy since the
campaign of 1793. Equally extensive, but less important in the political
sphere, were the Papal States and Venetia, the former torpid under the
obscurantist rule of pope and cardinals, the latter enervated by luxury
and the policy of unmanly complaisance long pursued by doge and council.
The ancient rival of Venice, Genoa, was likewise far gone in decline.
The small states, Lucca and San Marino, completed the map of Italy. The
worst governed part of the peninsula was the south, where feudalism lay
heavily on the cultivators and corruption pervaded all ranks. Milan and
Piedmont were comparatively well governed; but repugnance to Austrian
rule in the former case, and the contagion of French Jacobinical
opinions in the latter, brought those populations into increasing
hostility to the rulers. The democratic propaganda, which was permeating
all the large towns of the peninsula, then led to the formation of
numerous and powerful clubs and secret societies; and the throne of
Victor Amadeus III., of the house of Savoy, soon began to totter under
the blows delivered by the French troops at the mountain barriers of his
kingdom and under the insidious assaults of the friends of liberty at
Turin. Plotting was rife at Milan, as also at Bologna, where the memory
of old liberties predisposed men to cast off clerical rule and led to
the first rising on behalf of Italian liberty in the year 1794. At
Palermo the Sicilians struggled hard to establish a republic in place of
the odious government of an alien dynasty. The anathemas of the pope,
the bravery of Piedmontese and Austrians, and the subsidies of Great
Britain failed to keep the league of Italian princes against France
intact. The grand-duke of Tuscany was the first of the European
sovereigns who made peace with, and recognized the French republic,
early in 1795. The first fortnight of Napoleon's campaign of 1796
detached Sardinia from alliance with Austria and England. The enthusiasm
of the Italians for the young Corsican "liberator" greatly helped his
progress. Two months later Ferdinand of Naples sought for an armistice,
the central duchies were easily overrun, and, early in 1797, Pope Pius
VI. was fain to sign terms of peace with Bonaparte at Tolentino,
practically ceding the northern part of his states, known as the
Legations. The surrender of the last Habsburg stronghold, Mantua, on the
2nd of February 1797 left the field clear for the erection of new
political institutions.
The Cispadane Republic.
Already the men of Reggio, Modena and Bologna had declared for a
democratic policy, in which feudalism and clerical rule should have no
place, and in which manhood suffrage, together with other rights
promised by Bonaparte to the men of Milan in May 1796, should form the
basis of a new order of things. In taking this step the Modenese and
Romagnols had the encouragement of Bonaparte, despite the orders which
the French directory sent to him in a contrary sense. The result was the
formation of an assembly at Modena which abolished feudal dues and
customs, declared for manhood suffrage and established the Cispadane
Republic (October 1796).
The Cisalpine Republic.
The close of Bonaparte's victorious campaign against the Archduke
Charles in 1797 enabled him to mature those designs respecting Venice
which are detailed in the article NAPOLEON. On a far higher level was
his conduct towards the Milanese. While the French directory saw in that
province little more than a district which might be plundered and
bargained for, Bonaparte, though by no means remiss in the exaction of
gold and of artistic treasures, was laying the foundation of a friendly
republic. During his sojourn at the castle of Montebello or Mombello,
near Milan, he commissioned several of the leading men of northern Italy
to draw up a project of constitution and list of reforms for that
province. Meanwhile he took care to curb the excesses of the Italian
Jacobins and to encourage the Moderates, who were favourable to the
French connexion as promising a guarantee against Austrian domination
and internal anarchy. He summed up his conduct in the letter of the 8th
of May 1797 to the French directory, "I cool the hot heads here and warm
the cool ones." The Transpadane Republic, or, as it was soon called, the
Cisalpine Republic, began its organized life on the 9th of July 1797,
with a brilliant festival at Milan. The constitution was modelled on
that of the French directory, and, lest there should be a majority of
clerical or Jacobinical deputies, the French Republic through its
general, Bonaparte, nominated and appointed the first deputies and
administrators of the new government. In the same month it was joined by
the Cispadane Republic; and the terms of the treaty of Campo Formio
(October 17, 1797), while fatal to the political life of Venice, awarded
to this now considerable state the Venetian territories west of the
river Adige. A month later, under the pretence of stilling the civil
strifes in the Valtelline, Bonaparte absorbed that Swiss district in the
Cisalpine Republic, which thus included all the lands between Como and
Verona on the north, and Rimini on the south.
End of the Venetian Republic.
Early in the year 1798 the Austrians, in pursuance of the scheme of
partition agreed on at Campo Formio, entered Venice and brought to an
end its era of independence which had lasted some 1100 years. Venice
with its mainland territories east of the Adige, inclusive of Istria and
Dalmatia, went to the Habsburgs, while the Venetian isles of the
Adriatic (the Ionian Isles) and the Venetian fleet went to strengthen
France for that eastern expedition on which Bonaparte had already set
his heart. Venice not only paid the costs of the war to the two chief
belligerents, but her naval resources also helped to launch the young
general on his career of eastern adventure. Her former rival, Genoa, had
also been compelled, in June 1797, to bow before the young conqueror,
and had undergone at his hands a remodelling on the lines already
followed at Milan. The new Genoese republic, French in all but name, was
renamed the Ligurian Republic.
French occupation of Rome.
Before he set sail for Egypt, the French had taken possession of Rome.
Already masters of the papal fortress of Ancona, they began openly to
challenge the pope's authority at the Eternal City itself. Joseph
Bonaparte, then French envoy to the Vatican, encouraged democratic
manifestations; and one of them, at the close of 1797, led to a scuffle
in which a French general, Duphot, was killed. The French directory at
once ordered its general, Berthier, to march to Rome: the Roman
democrats proclaimed a republic on the 15th of February 1798, and on
their invitation Berthier and his troops marched in. The pope, Pius VI.,
was forthwith haled away to Siena and a year later to Valence in the
south of France, where he died. Thus fell the temporal power. The
"liberators" of Rome thereupon proceeded to plunder the city in a way
which brought shame on their cause and disgrace (perhaps not wholly
deserved) on the general left in command, Massena.
Naples.
The Parthenopaean Republic.
These events brought revolution to the gates of the kingdom of Naples,
the worst-governed part of Italy, where the boorish king, Ferdinand IV.
(_il re lazzarone_, he was termed), and his whimsical consort, Maria
Carolina, scarcely held in check the discontent of their own subjects. A
British fleet under Nelson, sent into the Mediterranean in May 1798
primarily for their defence, checkmated the designs of Bonaparte in
Egypt, and then, returning to Naples, encouraged that court to adopt a
spirited policy. It is now known that the influence of Nelson and of the
British ambassador, Sir William Hamilton, and Lady Hamilton precipitated
the rupture between Naples and France. The results were disastrous. The
Neapolitan troops at first occupied Rome, but, being badly handled by
their leader, the Austrian general, Mack, they were soon scattered in
flight; and the Republican troops under General Championnet, after
crushing the stubborn resistance of the lazzaroni, made their way into
Naples and proclaimed the Parthenopaean Republic (January 23, 1799). The
Neapolitan Democrats chose five of their leading men to be directors,
and tithes and feudal dues and customs were abolished. Much good work
was done by the Republicans during their brief tenure of power, but it
soon came to an end owing to the course of events which favoured a
reaction against France. The directors of Paris, not content with
overrunning and plundering Switzerland, had outraged German sentiment in
many ways. Further, at the close of 1798 they virtually compelled the
young king of Sardinia, Charles Emmanuel IV., to abdicate at Turin. He
retired to the island of Sardinia, while the French despoiled Piedmont,
thereby adding fuel to the resentment rapidly growing against them in
every part of Europe.
Suvarov in Italy.
The outcome of it all was the War of the Second Coalition, in which
Russia, Austria, Great Britain, Naples and some secondary states of
Germany took part. The incursion of an Austro-Russian army, led by that
strange but magnetic being, Suvarov, decided the campaign in northern
Italy. The French, poorly handled by Scherer and Serurier, were
everywhere beaten, especially at Magnano (April 5) and Cassano (April
27). Milan and Turin fell before the allies, and Moreau, who took over
the command, had much difficulty in making his way to the Genoese
coast-line. There he awaited the arrival of Macdonald with the army of
Naples. That general, Championnet's successor, had been compelled by
these reverses and by the threatening pressure of Nelson's fleet to
evacuate Naples and central Italy. In many parts the peasants and
townsfolk, enraged by the licence of the French, hung on his flank and
rear. The republics set up by the French at Naples, Rome and Milan
collapsed as soon as the French troops retired; and a reaction in favour
of clerical and Austrian influence set in with great violence. For the
events which then occurred at Naples, so compromising to the reputation
of Nelson, see NELSON and NAPLES. Sir William Hamilton was subsequently
recalled in a manner closely resembling a disgrace, and his place was
taken by Paget, who behaved with more dignity and tact.
Meanwhile Macdonald, after struggling through central Italy, had
defeated an Austrian force at Modena (June 12, 1799), but Suvarov was
able by swift movements utterly to overthrow him at the Trebbia (June
17-19). The wreck of his force drifted away helplessly towards Genoa. A
month later the ambitious young general, Joubert, who took over Moreau's
command and rallied part of Macdonald's following, was utterly routed by
the Austro-Russian army at Novi (August 15) with the loss of 12,000 men.
Joubert perished in the battle. The growing friction between Austria and
Russia led to the transference of Suvarov and his Russians to
Switzerland, with results which were to be fatal to the allies in that
quarter. But in Italy the Austrian successes continued. Melas defeated
Championnet near Coni on the 4th of November; and a little later the
French garrisons at Ancona and Coni surrendered. The tricolour, which
floated triumphantly over all the strongholds of Italy early in the
year, at its close waved only over Genoa, where Massena prepared for a
stubborn defence. Nice and Savoy also seemed at the mercy of the
invaders. Everywhere the old order of things was restored. The death of
the aged Pope Pius VI. at Valence (August 29, 1799) deprived the French
of whatever advantage they had hoped to gain by dragging him into exile;
on the 24th of March 1800 the conclave, assembled for greater security
on the island of San Giorgio at Venice, elected a new pontiff, Pius VII.
Campaign of Marengo.
Treaty of Luneville.
Such was the position of affairs when Bonaparte returned from Egypt and
landed at Frejus. The contrast presented by his triumphs, whether real
or imaginary, to the reverses sustained by the armies of the French
directory, was fatal to that body and to popular institutions in France.
After the _coup d'etat_ of Brumaire (November 1799) he, as First Consul,
began to organize an expedition against the Austrians (Russia having now
retired from the coalition), in northern Italy. The campaign culminating
at Marengo was the result. By that triumph (due to Desaix and Kellermann
rather than directly to him), Bonaparte consolidated his own position in
France and again laid Italy at his feet. The Austrian general, Melas,
signed an armistice whereby he was to retire with his army beyond the
river Mincio. Ten days earlier, namely on the 4th of June, Massena had
been compelled by hunger to capitulate at Genoa; but the success at
Marengo, followed up by that of Macdonald in north Italy, and Moreau at
Hohenlinden (December 2, 1800), brought the emperor Francis to sue for
peace which was finally concluded at Luneville on the 9th of February
1801. The Cisalpine and Ligurian Republics (reconstituted soon after
Marengo) were recognized by Austria on condition that they were
independent of France. The rule of Pius VII. over the Papal States was
admitted; and Italian affairs were arranged much as they were at Campo
Formio: Modena and Tuscany now reverted to French control, their former
rulers being promised compensation in Germany. Naples, easily worsted by
the French, under Miollis, left the British alliance, and made peace by
the treaty of Florence (March 1801), agreeing to withdraw her troops
from the Papal States, to cede Piombino and the Presidii (in Tuscany) to
France and to close her ports to British ships and commerce. King
Ferdinand also had to accept a French garrison at Taranto, and other
points in the south.
Napoleon's reorganization of Italy.
Other changes took place in that year, all of them in favour of France.
By complex and secret bargaining with the court of Madrid, Bonaparte
procured the cession to France of Louisiana, in North America, and
Parma; while the duke of Parma (husband of an infanta of Spain) was
promoted by him to the duchy of Tuscany, now renamed the kingdom of
Etruria. Piedmont was declared to be a military division at the disposal
of France (April 21, 1801); and on the 21st of September 1802,
Bonaparte, then First Consul for life, issued a decree for its
definitive incorporation in the French Republic. About that time, too,
Elba fell into the hands of Napoleon. Piedmont was organized in six
departments on the model of those of France, and a number of French
veterans were settled by Napoleon in and near the fortress of
Alessandria. Besides copying the Roman habit of planting military
colonies, the First Consul imitated the old conquerors of the world by
extending and completing the road-system of his outlying districts,
especially at those important passes, the Mont Cenis and Simplon. He
greatly improved the rough track over the Simplon Pass, so that, when
finished in 1807, it was practicable for artillery. Milan was the
terminus of the road, and the construction of the Foro Buonaparte and
the completion of the cathedral added dignity to the Lombard capital.
The Corniche road was improved; and public works in various parts of
Piedmont, and the Cisalpine and Ligurian Republics attested the
foresight and wisdom of the great organizer of industry and quickener of
human energies. The universities of Pavia and Bologna were reopened and
made great progress in this time of peace and growing prosperity.
Somewhat later the Pavia canal was begun in order to connect Lake Como
with the Adriatic for barge-traffic.
The personal nature of the tie binding Italy to France was illustrated
by a curious incident of the winter of 1802-1803. Bonaparte, now First
Consul for life, felt strong enough to impose his will on the Cisalpine
Republic and to set at defiance one of the stipulations of the treaty of
Luneville. On the pretext of consolidating that republic, he invited 450
of its leading men to come to Lyons to a _consulta_. In reality he and
his agents had already provided for the passing of proposals which were
agreeable to him. The deputies having been dazzled by fetes and reviews,
Talleyrand and Marescalchi, ministers of foreign affairs at Paris and
Milan, plied them with hints as to the course to be followed by the
_consulta_; and, despite the rage of the more democratic of their
number, everything corresponded to the wishes of the First Consul. It
remained to find a chief. Very many were in favour of Count Melzi, a
Lombard noble, who had been chief of the executive at Milan; but again
Talleyrand and French agents set to work on behalf of their master, with
the result that he was elected president for ten years. He accepted that
office because, as he frankly informed the deputies, he had found no one
who "for his services rendered to his country, his authority with the
people and his separation from party has deserved such an office."
Melzi was elected vice-president with merely honorary functions. The
constitution comprised a _consulta_ charged with executive duties, a
legislative body of 150 members and a court charged with the maintenance
of the fundamental laws. These three bodies were to be chosen by three
electoral colleges consisting of (a) landed proprietors, (b) learned men
and clerics, (c) merchants and traders, holding their sessions
biennially at Milan, Bologna and Brescia respectively. In practice the
_consulta_ could override the legislature; and, as the _consulta_ was
little more than the organ of the president, the whole constitution may
be pronounced as autocratic as that of France after the changes brought
about by Bonaparte in August 1802. Finally we must note that the
Cisalpine now took the name of the Italian Republic, and that by a
concordat with the pope, Bonaparte regulated its relations to the Holy
See in a manner analogous to that adopted in the famous French concordat
promulgated at Easter 1802 (see CONCORDAT). It remains to add that the
Ligurian Republic and that of Lucca remodelled their constitutions in a
way somewhat similar to that of the Cisalpine.
Kingdom of Italy.
Bonaparte's ascendancy did not pass unchallenged. Many of the Italians
retained their enthusiasm for democracy and national independence. In
1803 movements in these directions took place at Rimini, Brescia and
Bologna; but they were sharply repressed, and most Italians came to
acquiesce in the Napoleonic supremacy as inevitable and indeed
beneficial. The complete disregard shown by Napoleon for one of the
chief conditions of the treaty of Luneville (February 1801)--that
stipulating for the independence of the Ligurian and Cisalpine
Republics--became more and more apparent every year. Alike in political
and commercial affairs they were for all practical purposes dependencies
of France. Finally, after the proclamation of the French empire (May 18,
1804) Napoleon proposed to place his brother Joseph over the Italian
state, which now took the title of kingdom of Italy. On Joseph
declining, Napoleon finally decided to accept the crown which Melzi,
Marescalchi, Serbelloni and others begged him to assume. Accordingly, on
the 26th of May 1805, in the cathedral at Milan, he crowned himself with
the iron crown of the old Lombard kings, using the traditional formula,
"God gave it me: let him beware who touches it." On the 7th of June he
appointed his step-son, Eugene Beauharnais, to be viceroy. Eugene soon
found that his chief duty was to enforce the will of Napoleon. The
legislature at Milan having ventured to alter some details of taxation,
Eugene received the following rule of conduct from his step-father:
"Your system of government is simple: the emperor wills it to be thus."
Republicanism was now everywhere discouraged. The little republic of
Lucca, along with Piombino, was now awarded as a principality by the
emperor to Elisa Bonaparte and her husband, Bacciocchi.
In June 1805 there came a last and intolerable affront to the emperors
of Austria and Russia, who at that very time were seeking to put bounds
to Napoleon's ambition and to redress the balance of power. The French
emperor, at the supposed request of the doge of Genoa, declared the
Ligurian Republic to be an integral part of the French empire. This
defiance to the sovereigns of Russia and Austria rekindled the flames of
war. The third coalition was formed between Great Britain, Russia and
Austria, Naples soon joining its ranks.
Joseph Bonaparte in Naples.
For the chief events of the ensuing campaigns see Napoleonic Campaigns.
While Massena pursued the Austrians into their own lands at the close of
1805, Italian forces under Eugene and Gouvion St Cyr (q.v.) held their
ground against allied forces landed at Naples. After Austerlitz
(December 2, 1805) Austria made peace by the treaty of Pressburg, ceding
to the kingdom of Italy her part of Venetia along with the provinces of
Istria and Dalmatia. Napoleon then turned fiercely against Maria
Carolina of Naples upbraiding her with her "perfidy." He sent Joseph
Bonaparte and Massena southwards with a strong column, compelled the
Anglo-Russian forces to evacuate Naples, and occupied the south of the
peninsula with little opposition except at the fortress of Gaeta. The
Bourbon court sailed away to Palermo, where it remained for eight years
under the protection afforded by the British fleet and a British army of
occupation. On the 15th of February 1806 Joseph Bonaparte entered Naples
in triumph, his troops capturing there two hundred pieces of cannon.
Gaeta, however, held out stoutly against the French. Sir Sidney Smith
with a British squadron captured Capri (February 1806), and the peasants
of the Abruzzi and Calabria soon began to give trouble. Worst of all was
the arrival of a small British force in Calabria under Sir John Stuart,
which beat off with heavy loss an attack imprudently delivered by
General Reynier on level ground near the village of Maida (July 4). The
steady volleys of Kempt's light infantry were fatal to the French, who
fell back in disorder under a bayonet charge of the victors, with the
loss of some 2700 men. Calabria now rose in revolt against King Joseph,
and the peasants dealt out savage reprisals to the French troops. On the
18th of July, however, Gaeta surrendered to Massena, and that marshal,
now moving rapidly southwards, extricated Reynier, crushed the Bourbon
rising in Calabria with great barbarity, and compelled the British force
to re-embark for Sicily. At Palermo Queen Maria Carolina continued to
make vehement but futile efforts for the overthrow of King Joseph.
It is more important to observe that under Joseph and his ministers or
advisers, including the Frenchmen Roederer, Dumas, Miot de Melito and
the Corsican Saliceti, great progress was made in abolishing feudal laws
and customs, in reforming the judicial procedure and criminal laws on
the model of the _Code Napoleon_, and in attempting the beginnings of
elementary education. More questionable was Joseph's policy in closing
and confiscating the property of 213 of the richer monasteries of the
land. The monks were pensioned off, but though the confiscated property
helped to fill the empty coffers of the state, the measure aroused
widespread alarm and resentment among that superstitious people.
The peace of Tilsit (July 7, 1807) enabled Napoleon to press on his
projects for securing the command of the Mediterranean, thenceforth a
fundamental axiom of his policy. Consequently, in the autumn of 1807 he
urged on Joseph the adoption of vigorous measures for the capture of
Sicily. Already, in the negotiations with England during the summer of
1806, the emperor had shown his sense of the extreme importance of
gaining possession of that island, which indeed caused the breakdown of
the peace proposals then being considered; and now he ordered French
squadrons into the Mediterranean in order to secure Corfu and Sicily.
His plans respecting Corfu succeeded. That island and some of the
adjacent isles fell into the hands of the French (some of them were
captured by British troops in 1809-10); but Sicily remained
unassailable. Capri, however, fell to the French on the 18th of October
1808, shortly after the arrival at Naples of the new king, Murat.
Murat, King of Naples.
This ambitious marshal, brother-in-law of Napoleon, foiled in his hope
of gaining the crown of Spain, received that of Naples in the summer of
1808, Joseph Bonaparte being moved from Naples to Madrid. This
arrangement pleased neither of the relatives of the emperor; but his
will now was law on the continent. Joseph left Naples on the 23rd of May
1808; but it was not until the 6th of September that Joachim Murat made
his entry. A fortnight later his consort Caroline arrived, and soon
showed a vigour and restlessness of spirit which frequently clashed with
the dictates of her brother, the emperor and the showy, unsteady policy
of her consort. The Spanish national rising of 1808 and thereafter the
Peninsular War diverted Napoleon's attention from the affairs of south
Italy. In June 1809, during his campaign against Austria, Sir John
Stuart with an Anglo-Sicilian force sailed northwards, captured Ischia
and threw Murat into great alarm; but on the news of the Austrian defeat
at Wagram, Stuart sailed back again.
Central Italy.
It is now time to turn to the affairs of central Italy. Early in 1808
Napoleon proceeded with plans which he had secretly concerted after the
treaty of Tilsit for transferring the infanta of Spain who, after the
death of her consort, reigned at Florence on behalf of her young son,
Charles Louis, from her kingdom of Etruria to the little principality of
Entre Douro e Minho which he proposed to carve out from the north of
Portugal. Etruria reverted to the French empire, but the Spanish
princess and her son did not receive the promised indemnity. Elisa
Bonaparte and her husband, Bacciocchi, rulers of Lucca and Piombino,
became the heads of the administration in Tuscany, Elisa showing decided
governing capacity.
Napoleon and the Papacy.
Annexation of the Papal States.
The last part of the peninsula to undergo the Gallicizing influence was
the papal dominion. For some time past the relations between Napoleon
and the pope, Pius VII., had been severely strained, chiefly because the
emperor insisted on controlling the church, both in France and in the
kingdom of Italy, in a way inconsistent with the traditions of the
Vatican, but also because the pontiff refused to grant the divorce
between Jerome Bonaparte and the former Miss Patterson on which Napoleon
early in the year 1806 laid so much stress. These and other disputes led
the emperor, as successor of Charlemagne, to treat the pope in a very
highhanded way. "Your Holiness (he wrote) is sovereign of Rome, but I am
its emperor"; and he threatened to annul the presumed "donation" of Rome
by Charlemagne, unless the pope yielded implicit obedience to him in all
temporal affairs. He further exploited the Charlemagne tradition for the
benefit of the continental system, that great engine of commercial war
by which he hoped to assure the ruin of England. This aim prompted the
annexation of Tuscany, and his intervention in the affairs of the Papal
States. To this the pope assented under pressure from Napoleon; but the
latter soon found other pretexts for intervention, and in February 1808
a French column under Miollis occupied Rome, and deposed the papal
authorities. Against this violence Pius VII. protested in vain. Napoleon
sought to push matters to an extreme, and on the 2nd of April he adopted
the rigorous measure of annexing to the kingdom of Italy the papal
provinces of Ancona, Urbino, Macerata and Camerina. This measure, which
seemed to the pious an act of sacrilege, and to Italian patriots an
outrage on the only independent sovereign of the peninsula, sufficed for
the present. The outbreak of war in Spain, followed by the rupture with
Austria in the spring of 1809, distracted the attention of the emperor.
But after the occupation of Vienna the conqueror dated from that capital
on the 17th of May 1809 a decree virtually annexing Rome and the
_Patrimonium Petri_ to the French empire. Here again he cited the action
of Charlemagne, his "august predecessor," who had merely given "certain
domains to the bishops of Rome as fiefs, though Rome did not thereby
cease to be part of his empire."
In reply the pope prepared a bull of excommunication against those who
should infringe the prerogatives of the Holy See in this matter.
Thereupon the French general, Miollis, who still occupied Rome, caused
the pope to be arrested and carried him away northwards into Tuscany,
thence to Savona; finally he was taken, at Napoleon's orders, to
Fontainebleau. Thus, a second time, fell the temporal power of the
papacy. By an imperial decree of the 17th of February 1810, Rome and the
neighbouring districts, including Spoleto, became part of the French
empire. Rome thenceforth figured as its second city, and entered upon a
new life under the administration of French officials. The Roman
territory was divided into two departments--the Tiber and Trasimenus;
the _Code Napoleon_ was introduced, public works were set on foot and
great advance was made in the material sphere. Nevertheless the
harshness with which the emperor treated the Roman clergy and suppressed
the monasteries caused deep resentment to the orthodox.
Character of Napoleon's rule.
Collapse of Napoleon's rule.
There is no need to detail the fortunes of the Napoleonic states in
Italy. One and all they underwent the influences emanating from Paris;
and in respect to civil administration, law, judicial procedure,
education and public works, they all experienced great benefits, the
results of which never wholly disappeared. On the other hand, they
suffered from the rigorous measures of the continental system, which
seriously crippled trade at the ports and were not compensated by the
increased facilities for trade with France which Napoleon opened up. The
drain of men to supply his armies in Germany, Spain and Russia was also
a serious loss. A powerful Italian corps marched under Eugene
Beauharnais to Moscow, and distinguished itself at Malo-Jaroslavitz, as
also during the horrors of the retreat in the closing weeks of 1812. It
is said that out of 27,000 Italians who entered Russia with Eugene, only
333 saw their country again. That campaign marked the beginning of the
end for the Napoleonic domination in Italy as elsewhere. Murat, left in
command of the Grand Army at Vilna, abandoned his charge and in the next
year made overtures to the allies who coalesced against Napoleon. For
his vacillations at this time and his final fate, see Murat. Here it
must suffice to say that the uncertainty caused by his policy in
1813-1814 had no small share in embarrassing Napoleon and in
precipitating the downfall of his power in Italy. Eugene Beauharnais,
viceroy of the kingdom of Italy, showed both constancy and courage; but
after the battle of Leipzig (October 16-19, 1813) his power crumbled
away under the assaults of the now victorious Austrians. By an
arrangement with Bavaria, they were able to march through Tirol and down
the valley of the Adige in force, and overpowered the troops of Eugene
whose position was fatally compromised by the defection of Murat and the
dissensions among the Italians. Very many of them, distrusting both of
these kings, sought to act independently in favour of an Italian
republic. Lord William Bentinck with an Anglo-Sicilian force landed at
Leghorn on the 8th of March 1814, and issued a proclamation to the
Italians bidding them rise against Napoleon in the interests of their
own freedom. A little later he gained possession of Genoa. Amidst these
schisms the defence of Italy collapsed. On the 16th of April 1814
Eugene, on hearing of Napoleon's overthrow at Paris, signed an armistice
at Mantua by which he was enabled to send away the French troops beyond
the Alps and entrust himself to the consideration of the allies. The
Austrians, under General Bellegarde, entered Milan without resistance;
and this event precluded the restoration of the old political order.
The arrangements made by the allies in accordance with the treaty of
Paris (June 12, 1814) and the Final Act of the congress of Vienna (June
9, 1815), imposed on Italy boundaries which, roughly speaking,
corresponded to those of the pre-Napoleonic era. To the kingdom of
Sardinia, now reconstituted under Victor Emmanuel I., France ceded its
old provinces, Savoy and Nice; and the allies, especially Great Britain
and Austria, insisted on the addition to that monarchy of the
territories of the former republic of Genoa, in respect of which the
king took the title of duke of Genoa, in order to strengthen it for the
duty of acting as a buffer state between France and the smaller states
of central Italy. Austria recovered the Milanese, and all the
possessions of the old Venetian Republic on the mainland, including
Istria and Dalmatia. The Ionian Islands, formerly belonging to Venice,
were, by a treaty signed at Paris on the 5th of November 1815, placed
under the protection of Great Britain. By an instrument signed on the
24th of April 1815, the Austrian territories in north Italy were erected
into the kingdom of Lombardo-Venetia, which, though an integral part of
the Austrian empire, was to enjoy a separate administration, the symbol
of its separate individuality being the coronation of the emperors with
the ancient iron crown of Lombardy ("Proclamation de l'empereur
d'Autriche, &c.," April 7, 1815, _State Papers_, ii. 906). Francis IV.,
son of the archduke Ferdinand of Austria and Maria Beatrice, daughter of
Ercole Rinaldo, the last of the Estensi, was reinstated as duke of
Modena. Parma and Piacenza were assigned to Marie Louise, daughter of
the Austrian emperor and wife of Napoleon, on behalf of her son, the
little Napoleon, but by subsequent arrangements (1816-1817) the duchy
was to revert at her death to the Bourbons of Parma, then reigning at
Lucca. Tuscany was restored to the grand-duke Ferdinand III. of
Habsburg-Lorraine. The duchy of Lucca was given to Marie Louise of
Bourbon-Parma, who, at the death of Marie Louise of Austria, would
return to Parma, when Lucca would be handed over to Tuscany. The pope,
Pius VII., who had long been kept under restraint by Napoleon at
Fontainebleau, returned to Rome in May 1814, and was recognized by the
congress of Vienna (not without some demur on the part of Austria) as
the sovereign of all the former possessions of the Holy See. Ferdinand
IV. of Naples, not long after the death of his consort, Maria Carolina,
in Austria, returned from Sicily to take possession of his dominions on
the mainland. He received them back in their entirety at the hands of
the powers, who recognized his new title of Ferdinand I. of the Two
Sicilies. The rash attempt of Murat in the autumn of 1815, which led to
his death at Pizzo in Calabria, enabled the Bourbon dynasty to crush
malcontents with all the greater severity. The reaction, which was dull
and heavy in the dominions of the pope and of Victor Emmanuel,
systematically harsh in the Austrian states of the north, and
comparatively mild in Parma and Tuscany, excited the greatest loathing
in southern Italy and Sicily, because there it was directed by a dynasty
which had aroused feelings of hatred mingled with contempt.
There were special reasons why Sicily should harbour these feelings
against the Bourbons. During eight years (1806-1814) the chief places of
the island had been garrisoned by British troops; and the commander of
the force which upheld the tottering rule of Ferdinand at Palermo
naturally had great authority. The British government, which awarded a
large annual subsidy to the king and queen at Palermo, claimed to have
some control over the administration. Lord William Bentinck finally took
over large administrative powers, seeing that Ferdinand, owing to his
dulness, and Maria Carolina, owing to her very suspicious intrigues with
Napoleon, could never be trusted. The contest between the royal power
and that of the Sicilian estates threatened to bring matters to a
deadlock, until in 1812, under the impulse of Lord William Bentinck, a
constitution modelled largely on that of England was passed by the
estates. After the retirement of the British troops in 1814 the
constitution lapsed, and the royal authority became once more absolute.
But the memory of the benefits conferred by "the English constitution"
remained fresh and green amidst the arid waste of repression which
followed. It lived on as one of the impalpable but powerful influences
which spurred on the Sicilians and the democrats of Naples to the
efforts which they put forth in 1821, 1830, 1848 and 1860.
This result, accruing from British intervention, was in some respects
similar to that exerted by Napoleon on the Italians of the mainland. The
brutalities of Austria's white coats in the north, the unintelligent
repression then characteristic of the house of Savoy, the petty spite of
the duke of Modena, the medieval obscurantism of pope and cardinals in
the middle of the peninsula and the clownish excesses of Ferdinand in
the south, could not blot out from the minds of the Italians the
recollection of the benefits derived from the just laws, vigorous
administration and enlightened aims of the great emperor. The hard but
salutary training which they had undergone at his hands had taught them
that they were the equals of the northern races both in the council
chamber and on the field of battle. It had further revealed to them that
truth, which once grasped can never be forgotten, that, despite
differences of climate, character and speech, they were in all
essentials a nation. (J. Hl. R.)
E. THE RISORGIMENTO, 1815-1870
As the result of the Vienna treaties, Austria became the real mistress
of Italy. Not only did she govern Lombardy and Venetia directly, but
Austrian princes ruled in Modena, Parma and Tuscany; Piacenza, Ferrara
and Comacchio had Austrian garrisons; Prince Metternich, the Austrian
chancellor, believed that he could always secure the election of an
Austrophil pope, and Ferdinand of Naples, reinstated by an Austrian
army, had bound himself, by a secret article of the treaty of June 12,
1815, not to introduce methods of government incompatible with those
adopted in Austria's Italian possessions. Austria also concluded
offensive and defensive alliances with Sardinia, Tuscany and Naples;
and Metternich's ambition was to make Austrian predominance over Italy
still more absolute, by placing an Austrian archduke on the Sardinian
throne.
Reaction in the Italian States.
Victor Emmanuel I., the king of Sardinia, was the only native ruler in
the peninsula, and the Savoy dynasty was popular with all classes. But
although welcomed with enthusiasm on his return to Turin, he introduced
a system of reaction which, if less brutal, was no less uncompromising
than that of Austrian archdukes or Bourbon princes. His object was to
restore his dominions to the conditions preceding the French occupation.
The French system of taxation was maintained because it brought in
ampler revenues; but feudalism, the antiquated legislation and
bureaucracy were revived, and all the officers and officials still
living who had served the state before the Revolution, many of them now
in their dotage, were restored to their posts; only nobles were eligible
for the higher government appointments; all who had served under the
French administration were dismissed or reduced in rank, and in the army
beardless scions of the aristocracy were placed over the heads of
war-worn veterans who had commanded regiments in Spain and Russia. The
influence of a bigoted priesthood was re-established, and "every form of
intellectual and moral torment, everything save actual persecution and
physical torture that could be inflicted on the 'impure' was inflicted"
(Cesare Balbo's _Autobiography_). All this soon provoked discontent
among the educated classes. In Genoa the government was particularly
unpopular, for the Genoese resented being handed over to their old enemy
Piedmont like a flock of sheep. Nevertheless the king strongly disliked
the Austrians, and would willingly have seen them driven from Italy.
Austrian rule in Italy.
Reaction in Rome.
Naples.
In Lombardy French rule had ended by making itself unpopular, and even
before the fall of Napoleon a national party, called the _Italici puri_,
had begun to advocate the independence of Lombardy, or even its union
with Sardinia. At first a part of the population were content with
Austrian rule, which provided an honest and efficient administration;
but the rigid system of centralization which, while allowing the
semblance of local autonomy, sent every minute question for settlement
to Vienna; the severe police methods; the bureaucracy, in which the best
appointments were usually conferred on Germans or Slavs wholly dependent
on Vienna, proved galling to the people, and in view of the growing
disaffection the country was turned into a vast armed camp. In Modena
Duke Francis proved a cruel tyrant. In Parma, on the other hand, there
was very little oppression, the French codes were retained, and the
council of state was consulted on all legislative matters. Lucca too
enjoyed good government, and the peasantry were well cared for and
prosperous. In Tuscany the rule of Ferdinand and of his minister
Fossombroni was mild and benevolent, but enervating and demoralizing.
The Papal States were ruled by a unique system of theocracy, for not
only the head of the state but all the more important officials were
ecclesiastics, assisted by the Inquisition, the Index and all the
paraphernalia of medieval church government. The administration was
inefficient and corrupt, the censorship uncompromising, the police
ferocious and oppressive, although quite unable to cope with the
prevalent anarchy and brigandage; the antiquated pontifical statutes
took the place of the French laws, and every vestige of the vigorous old
communal independence was swept away. In Naples King Ferdinand retained
some of the laws and institutions of Murat's regime, and many of the
functionaries of the former government entered his service; but he
revived the Bourbon tradition, the odious police system and the
censorship; and a degrading religious bigotry, to which the masses were
all too much inclined, became the basis of government and social life.
The upper classes were still to a large extent inoculated with French
ideas, but the common people were either devoted to the dynasty or
indifferent. In Sicily, which for centuries had enjoyed a feudal
constitution modernized and Anglicized under British auspices in 1812,
and where anti-Neapolitan feeling was strong, autonomy was suppressed,
the constitution abolished in 1816, and the island, as a reward for its
fidelity to the dynasty, converted into a Neapolitan province governed
by Neapolitan bureaucrats.
Secret societies. The Carbonari.
To the mass of the people the restoration of the old governments
undoubtedly brought a sense of relief, for the terrible drain in men and
money caused by Napoleon's wars had caused much discontent, whereas now
there was a prospect of peace and rest. But the restored governments in
their terror of revolution would not realize that the late regime had
wafted a breath of new life over the country and left ineffaceable
traces in the way of improved laws, efficient administration, good roads
and the sweeping away of old abuses; while the new-born idea of Italian
unity, strengthened by a national pride revived on many a stricken field
from Madrid to Moscow, was a force to be reckoned with. The oppression
and follies of the restored governments made men forget the evils of
French rule and remember only its good side. The masses were still more
or less indifferent, but among the nobility and the educated middle
classes, cut off from all part in free political life, there was
developed either the spirit of despair at Italy's moral degradation, as
expressed in the writings of Foscolo and Leopardi, or a passion of
hatred and revolt, which found its manifestation, in spite of severe
laws, in the development of secret societies. The most important of
these were the Carbonari lodges, whose objects were the expulsion of the
foreigner and the achievement of constitutional freedom (see CARBONARI).
Revolution in Naples, 1820.
When Ferdinand returned to Naples in 1815 he found the kingdom, and
especially the army, honeycombed with Carbonarism, to which many
noblemen and officers were affiliated; and although the police
instituted prosecutions and organized the counter-movement of the
_Calderai_, who may be compared to the "Black Hundreds" of modern
Russia, the revolutionary spirit continued to grow, but it was not at
first anti-dynastic. The granting of the Spanish constitution of 1820
proved the signal for the beginning of the Italian liberationist
movement; a military mutiny led by two officers, Silvati and Morelli,
and the priest Menichini, broke out at Monteforte, to the cry of "God,
the King, and the Constitution!" The troops sent against them commanded
by General Guglielmo Pepe, himself a Carbonaro, hesitated to act, and
the king, finding that he could not count on the army, granted the
constitution (July 13, 1820), and appointed his son Francis regent. The
events that followed are described in the article on the history of
Naples (q.v.). Not only did the constitution, which was modelled on the
impossible Spanish constitution of 1812, prove unworkable, but the
powers of the Grand Alliance, whose main object was to keep the peace of
Europe, felt themselves bound to interfere to prevent the evil precedent
of a successful military revolution. The diplomatic developments that
led to the intervention of Austria are sketched elsewhere (see EUROPE:
_History_); in general the result of the deliberations of the congresses
of Troppau and Laibach was to establish, not the general right of
intervention claimed in the Troppau Protocol, but the special right of
Austria to safeguard her interests in Italy. The defeat of General Pepe
by the Austrians at Rieti (March 7, 1821) and the re-establishment of
King Ferdinand's autocratic power under the protection of Austrian
bayonets were the effective assertion of this principle.
Military revolt in Piedmont.
The movement in Naples had been purely local, for the Neapolitan
Carbonari had at that time no thought save of Naples; it was, moreover,
a movement of the middle and upper classes in which the masses took
little interest. Immediately after the battle of Rieti a Carbonarist
mutiny broke out in Piedmont independently of events in the south. Both
King Victor Emmanuel and his brother Charles Felix had no sons, and the
heir presumptive to the throne was Prince Charles Albert, of the
Carignano branch of the house of Savoy. Charles Albert felt a certain
interest in Liberal ideas and was always surrounded by young nobles of
Carbonarist and anti-Austrian tendencies, and was therefore regarded
with suspicion by his royal relatives. Metternich, too, had an
instinctive dislike for him, and proposed to exclude him from the
succession by marrying one of the king's daughters to Francis of Modena,
and getting the Salic law abolished so that the succession would pass to
the duke and Austria would thus dominate Piedmont. The Liberal movement
had gained ground in Piedmont as in Naples among the younger nobles and
officers, and the events of Spain and southern Italy aroused much
excitement. In March 1821, Count Santorre di Santarosa and other
conspirators informed Charles Albert of a constitutional and
anti-Austrian plot, and asked for his help. After a momentary hesitation
he informed the king; but at his request no arrests were made, and no
precautions were taken. On the 10th of March the garrison of Alessandria
mutinied, and its example was followed on the 12th by that of Turin,
where the Spanish constitution was demanded, and the black, red and blue
flag of the Carbonari paraded the streets. The next day the king
abdicated after appointing Charles Albert regent. The latter immediately
proclaimed the constitution, but the new king, Charles Felix, who was at
Modena at the time, repudiated the regent's acts and exiled him to
Tuscany; and, with his consent, an Austrian army invaded Piedmont and
crushed the constitutionalists at Novara. Many of the conspirators were
condemned to death, but all succeeded in escaping. Charles Felix was
most indignant with the ex-regent, but he resented, as an unwarrantable
interference, Austria's attempt to have him excluded from the succession
at the congress of Verona (1822). Charles Albert's somewhat equivocal
conduct also roused the hatred of the Liberals, and for a long time the
_esecrato Carignano_ was regarded, most unjustly, as a traitor even by
many who were not republicans.
Liberalism in Lombardy.
Carbonarism had been introduced into Lombardy by two Romagnols, Count
Laderchi and Pietro Maroncelli, but the leader of the movement was Count
F. Confalonieri, who was in favour of an Italian federation composed of
northern Italy under the house of Savoy, central Italy under the pope,
and the kingdom of Naples. There had been some mild plotting against
Austria in Milan, and an attempt was made to co-operate with the
Piedmontese movement of 1821; already in 1820 Maroncelli and the poet
Silvio Pellico had been arrested as Carbonari, and after the movement in
Piedmont more arrests were made. The mission of Gaetano Castiglia and
Marquis Giorgio Pallavicini to Turin, where they had interviewed Charles
Albert, although without any definite result--for Confalonieri had
warned the prince that Lombardy was not ready to rise--was accidentally
discovered, and Confalonieri was himself arrested. The plot would never
have been a menace to Austria but for her treatment of the conspirators.
Pellico and Maroncelli were immured in the Spielberg; Confalonieri and
two dozen others were condemned to death, their sentences being,
however, commuted to imprisonment in that same terrible fortress. The
heroism of the prisoners, and Silvio Pellico's account of his
imprisonment (_Le mie Prigioni_), did much to enlist the sympathy of
Europe for the Italian cause.
The Papal States.
Revolutions of 1830.
During the next few years order reigned in Italy, save for a few
unimportant outbreaks in the Papal States; there was, however, perpetual
discontent and agitation, especially in Romagna, where misgovernment was
extreme. Under Pius VII. and his minister Cardinal Consalvi oppression
had not been very severe, and Metternich's proposal to establish a
central inquisitorial tribunal for political offences throughout Italy
had been rejected by the papal government. But on the death of Pius in
1823, his successor Leo XII. (Cardinal Della Genga) proved a ferocious
reactionary under whom barbarous laws were enacted and torture
frequently applied. The secret societies, such as the Carbonari, the
Adelfi and the Bersaglieri d'America, which flourished in Romagna,
replied to these persecutions by assassinating the more brutal officials
and spies. The events of 1820-1821 increased the agitation in Romagna,
and in 1825 large numbers of persons were condemned to death,
imprisonment or exile. The society of the Sanfedisti, formed of the
dregs of the populace, whose object was to murder every Liberal, was
openly protected and encouraged. Leo died in 1829, and the mild,
religious Pius VIII. (Cardinal Castiglioni) only reigned until 1830,
when Gregory XVI. (Cardinal Cappellari) was elected through Austrian
influence, and proved another _zelante_. The July revolution in Paris
and the declaration of the new king, Louis Philippe, that France, as a
Liberal monarchy, would not only not intervene in the internal affairs
of other countries, but would not permit other powers to do so, aroused
great hopes among the oppressed peoples, and was the immediate cause of
a revolution in Romagna and the Marches. In February 1831 these
provinces rose, raised the red, white and green tricolor (which
henceforth took the place of the Carbonarist colours as the Italian
flag), and shook off the papal yoke with surprising ease.[11] At Parma
too there was an outbreak and a demand for the constitution; Marie
Louise could not grant it because of her engagements with Austria, and,
therefore, abandoned her dominions. In Modena Duke Francis, ambitious of
enlarging his territories, coquetted with the Carbonari of Paris, and
opened indirect negotiations with Menotti, the revolutionary leader in
his state, believing that he might assist him in his plans. Menotti, for
his part, conceived the idea of a united Italian state under the duke. A
rising was organized for February 1831; but Francis got wind of it, and,
repenting of his dangerous dallying with revolution, arrested Menotti
and fled to Austrian territory with his prisoner. In his absence the
insurrection took place, and Biagio Nardi, having been elected dictator,
proclaimed that "Italy is one; the Italian nation one sole nation." But
the French king soon abandoned his principle of non-intervention on
which the Italian revolutionists had built their hopes; the Austrians
intervened unhindered; the old governments were re-established in Parma,
Modena and Romagna; and Menotti and many other patriots were hanged. The
Austrians evacuated Romagna in July, but another insurrection having
broken out immediately afterwards which the papal troops were unable to
quell, they returned. This second intervention gave umbrage to France,
who by way of a counterpoise sent a force to occupy Ancona. These two
foreign occupations, which were almost as displeasing to the pope as to
the Liberals, lasted until 1838. The powers, immediately after the
revolt, presented a memorandum to Gregory recommending certain moderate
reforms, but no attention was paid to it. These various movements proved
in the first place that the masses were by no means ripe for revolution,
and that the idea of unity, although now advocated by a few
revolutionary leaders, was far from being generally accepted even by the
Liberals; and, secondly, that, in spite of the indifference of the
masses, the despotic governments were unable to hold their own without
the assistance of foreign bayonets.
Mazzini and "Young Italy."
On the 27th of April 1831, Charles Albert succeeded Charles Felix on the
throne of Piedmont. Shortly afterwards he received a letter from an
unknown person, in which he was exhorted with fiery eloquence to place
himself at the head of the movement for liberating and uniting Italy and
expelling the foreigner, and told that he was free to choose whether he
would be "the first of men or the last of Italian tyrants." The author
was Giuseppe Mazzini, then a young man of twenty-six years, who, though
in theory a republican, was ready to accept the leadership of a prince
of the house of Savoy if he would guide the nation to freedom. The only
result of his letter, however, was that he was forbidden to re-enter
Sardinian territory. Mazzini, who had learned to distrust Carbonarism
owing to its lack of a guiding principle and its absurd paraphernalia of
ritual and mystery, had conceived the idea of a more serious political
association for the emancipation of his country not only from foreign
and domestic despotism but from national faults of character; and this
idea he had materialized in the organization of a society called the
_Giovane Italia_ (Young Italy) among the Italian refugees at Marseilles.
After the events of 1831 he declared that the liberation of Italy could
only be achieved through unity, and his great merit lies in having
inspired a large number of Italians with that idea at a time when
provincial jealousies and the difficulty of communications maintained
separatist feelings. Young Italy spread to all centres of Italian
exiles, and by means of literature carried on an active propaganda in
Italy itself, where the party came to be called "Ghibellini," as though
reviving the traditions of medieval anti-Papalism. Though eventually
this activity of the Giovane Italia supplanted that of the older
societies, in practice it met with no better success; the two attempts
to invade Savoy in the hope of seducing the army from its allegiance
failed miserably, and only resulted in a series of barbarous sentences
of death and imprisonment which made most Liberals despair of Charles
Albert, while they called down much criticism on Mazzini as the
organizer of raids in which he himself took no part. He was now forced
to leave France, but continued his work of agitation from London. The
disorders in Naples and Sicily in 1837 had no connexion with Mazzini,
but the forlorn hope of the brothers Bandiera, who in 1844 landed on the
Calabrian coast, was the work of the Giovane Italia. The rebels were
captured and shot, but the significance of the attempt lies in the fact
that it was the first occasion on which north Italians (the Bandieras
were Venetians and officers in the Austrian navy) had tried to raise the
standard of revolt in the south.
Romagna had continued a prey to anarchy ever since 1831; the government
organized armed bands called the Centurioni (descended from the earlier
Sanfedisti), to terrorize the Liberals, while the secret societies
continued their "propaganda by deeds." It is noteworthy that Romagna was
the only part of Italy where the revolutionary movement was accompanied
by murder. In 1845 several outbreaks occurred, and a band led by Pietro
Renzi captured Rimini, whence a proclamation drawn up by L. C. Farini
was issued demanding the reforms advocated by the powers' memorandum of
1831. But the movement collapsed without result, and the leaders fled to
Tuscany.
Liberalism and economic development.
Side by side with the Mazzinian propaganda in favour of a united
Italian republic, which manifested itself in secret societies, plots
and insurrections, there was another Liberal movement based on the
education of opinion and on economic development. In Piedmont, in
spite of the government's reactionary methods, a large part of the
population were genuinely attached to the Savoy dynasty, and the idea
of a regeneration of Italy under its auspices began to gain ground.
Some writers proclaimed the necessity of building railways, developing
agriculture and encouraging industries, before resorting to
revolution; while others, like the Tuscan Gino Capponi, inspired by
the example of England and France, wished to make the people fit for
freedom by means of improved schools, books and periodicals. Vincenzo
Gioberti (q.v.) published in 1843 his famous treatise _Del primato
morale e civile degli Italiani_, a work, which, in striking contrast
to the prevailing pessimism of the day, extolled the past greatness
and achievements of the Italian people and their present virtues. His
political ideal was a federation of all the Italian states under the
presidency of the pope, on a basis of Catholicism, but without a
constitution. In spite of all its inaccuracies and exaggerations the
book served a useful purpose in reviving the self-respect of a
despondent people. Another work of a similar kind was _Le Speranze
d'Italia_ (1844) by the Piedmontese Count Cesare Balbo (q.v.). Like
Gioberti he advocated a federation of Italian states, but he declared
that before this could be achieved Austria must be expelled from Italy
and compensation found for her in the Near East by making her a
Danubian power--a curious forecast that Italy's liberation would begin
with an eastern war. He extolled Charles Albert and appealed to his
patriotism; he believed that the church was necessary and the secret
societies harmful; representative government was undesirable, but he
advocated a consultative assembly. Above all Italian character must be
reformed and the nation educated. A third important publication was
Massimo d'Azeglio's _Degli ultimi casi di Romagna_, in which the
author, another Piedmontese nobleman, exposed papal misgovernment
while condemning the secret societies and advocating open resistance
and protest. He upheld the papacy in principle, regarded Austria as
the great enemy of Italian regeneration, and believed that the means
of expelling her were only to be found in Piedmont.
The Italian exiles.
Besides the revolutionists and republicans who promoted conspiracy and
insurrection whenever possible, and the moderates or "Neo-Guelphs," as
Gioberti's followers were called, we must mention the Italian exiles
who were learning the art of war in foreign countries--in Spain, in
Greece, in Poland, in South America--and those other exiles who, in
Paris or London, eked out a bare subsistence by teaching Italian or
by their pen, and laid the foundations of that love of Italy which,
especially in England, eventually brought the weight of diplomacy into
the scales for Italian freedom. All these forces were equally
necessary--the revolutionists to keep up agitation and make government
by bayonets impossible; the moderates to curb the impetuosity of the
revolutionists and to present a scheme of society that was neither
reactionary nor anarchical; the volunteers abroad to gain military
experience; and the more peaceful exiles to spread the name of Italy
among foreign peoples. All the while a vast amount of revolutionary
literature was being printed in Switzerland, France and England, and
smuggled into Italy; the poet Giusti satirized the Italian princes,
the dramatist G. B. Niccolini blasted tyranny in his tragedies, the
novelist Guerrazzi re-evoked the memories of the last struggle for
Florentine freedom in _L'Assedio di Firenze_, and Verdi's operas
bristled with political _double entendres_ which escaped the censor
but were understood and applauded by the audience.
Election of Pius IX.
On the death of Pope Gregory XVI. in 1846 Austria hoped to secure the
election of another zealot; but the Italian cardinals, who did not want
an Austrophil, finished the conclave before the arrival of Cardinal
Gaysruck, Austria's mouthpiece, and in June elected Giovanni Maria
Mastai Ferretti as Pius IX. The new pope, who while bishop of Imole had
evinced a certain interest in Liberalism, was a kindly man, of inferior
intelligence, who thought that all difficulties could be settled with a
little good-will, some reforms and a political amnesty. The amnesty
which he granted was the beginning of the immense if short-lived
popularity which he was to enjoy. But he did not move so fast in the
path of reform as was expected, and agitation continued throughout the
papal states.[12] In 1847 some administrative reforms were enacted, the
laity were admitted to certain offices, railways were talked about, and
political newspapers permitted. In April Pius created a _Consulta_, or
consultative assembly, and soon afterwards a council of ministers and a
municipality for Rome. Here he would willingly have stopped, but he soon
realized that he had hardly begun. Every fresh reform edict was greeted
with demonstrations of enthusiasm, but the ominous cry "Viva Pio Nono
solo!" signified dissatisfaction with the whole system of government. A
lay ministry was now demanded, a constitution, and an Italian federation
for war against Austria. Rumours of a reactionary plot by Austria and
the Jesuits against Pius, induced him to create a national guard and to
appoint Cardinal Ferretti as secretary of state.
Revolutionary agitation, 1847.
Events in Rome produced widespread excitement throughout Europe.
Metternich had declared that the one thing which had not entered into
his calculations was a Liberal pope, only that was an impossibility;
still he was much disturbed by Pius's attitude, and tried to stem the
revolutionary tide by frightening the princes. Seizing the agitation in
Romagna as a pretext, he had the town of Ferrara occupied by Austrian
troops, which provoked the indignation not only of the Liberals but also
of the pope, for according to the treaties Austria had the right of
occupying the citadel alone. There was great resentment throughout
Italy, and in answer to the pope's request Charles Albert declared that
he was with him in everything, while from South America Giuseppe
Garibaldi wrote to offer his services to His Holiness. Charles Albert,
although maintaining his reactionary policy, had introduced
administrative reforms, built railways, reorganized the army and
developed the resources of the country. He had little sympathy with
Liberalism and abhorred revolution, but his hatred of Austria and his
resentment at the galling tutelage to which she subjected him had gained
strength year by year. Religion was still his dominant passion, and when
a pope in Liberal guise appeared on the scene and was bullied by
Austria, his two strongest feelings--piety and hatred of Austria--ceased
to be incompatible. In 1847 Lord Minto visited the Italian courts to try
to induce the recalcitrant despots to mend their ways, so as to avoid
revolution and war, the latter being England's especial anxiety; this
mission, although not destined to produce much effect, aroused
extravagant hopes among the Liberals. Charles Louis, the opera-bouffe
duke of Lucca, who had coquetted with Liberalism in the past, now
refused to make any concessions to his subjects, and in 1847 sold his
duchy to Leopold II. of Tuscany (the successor of Ferdinand III. since
1824) to whom it would have reverted in any case at the death of the
duchess of Parma. At the same time Leopold ceded Lunigiana to Parma and
Modena in equal parts, an arrangement which provoked the indignation of
the inhabitants of the district (especially of those destined to be
ruled by Francis V. of Modena, who had succeeded to Francis IV. in
1846), and led to disturbances at Fivizzano. In September 1847, Leopold
gave way to the popular agitation for a national guard, in spite of
Metternich's threats, and allowed greater freedom of the press; every
concession made by the pope was followed by demands for a similar
measure in Tuscany.
Ferdinand I. of the Two Sicilies had died in 1825, and was succeeded by
Francis I. At the latter's death in 1830 Ferdinand II. succeeded, and
although at first he gave promise of proving a wiser ruler, he soon
reverted to the traditional Bourbon methods. An ignorant bigot, he
concentrated the whole of the executive into his own hands, was
surrounded by priests and monks, and served by an army of spies. In 1847
there were unimportant disturbances in various parts of the kingdom, but
there was no anti-dynastic outbreak, the jealousy between Naples and
Sicily largely contributing to the weakness of the movement. On the 12th
of January, however, a revolution, the first of the many throughout
Europe that was to make the year 1848 memorable, broke out at Palermo
under the leadership of Ruggiero Settimo. The Neapolitan army sent to
crush the rising was at first unsuccessful, and the insurgents demanded
the constitution of 1812 or complete independence. Disturbances occurred
at Naples also, and the king, who could not obtain Austrian help, as the
pope refused to allow Austrian troops to pass through his dominions, on
the advice of his prime minister, the duke of Serracapriola, granted a
constitution, freedom of the press, the national guard, &c. (January
28).
Revolutions of 1848.
The news from Naples strengthened the demand for a constitution in
Piedmont. Count Camillo Cavour, then editor of a new and influential
paper called _Il Risorgimento_, had advocated it strongly, and monster
demonstrations were held every day. The king disliked the idea, but
great pressure was brought to bear on him, and finally, on the 4th of
March 1848, he granted the charter which was destined to be the
constitution of the future Italian kingdom. It provided for a nominated
senate and an elective chamber of deputies, the king retaining the right
of veto; the press censorship was abolished, and freedom of meeting, of
the press and of speech were guaranteed. Balbo was called upon to form
the first constitutional ministry. Three days later the grand-duke of
Tuscany promised similar liberties, and a charter, prepared by a
commission which included Gino Capponi and Bettino Ricasoli, was
promulgated on the 17th.
In the Austrian provinces the situation seemed calmer, and the
government rejected the moderate proposals of Daniele Manin and N.
Tommaseo. A demonstration in favour of Pius IX. on the 3rd of January at
Milan was dispersed with unnecessary severity, and martial law was
proclaimed the following month. The revolution which broke out on the
8th of March in Vienna itself and the subsequent flight of Metternich
(see AUSTRIA-HUNGARY: _History_), led to the granting of feeble
concessions to Lombardy and Venetia, which were announced in Milan on
the 18th. But it was too late; and in spite of the exhortations of the
mayor, Gabrio Casati, and of the republican C. Cattaneo, who believed
that a rising against 15,000 Austrian soldiers under Field-Marshal
Radetzky was madness, the famous Five Days' revolution began. It was a
popular outburst of pent-up hate, unprepared by leaders, although
leaders such as Luciano Manara soon arose. Radetzky occupied the citadel
and other points of vantage; but in the night barricades sprang up by
the hundred and were manned by citizens of all classes, armed with every
kind of weapon. The desperate struggle lasted until the 22nd, when the
Austrians, having lost 5000 killed and wounded, were forced to evacuate
the city. The rest of Lombardy and Venetia now flew to arms, and the
Austrian garrisons, except in the Quadrilateral (Verona, Peschiera,
Mantua and Legnano) were expelled. In Venice the people, under the
leadership of Manin, rose in arms and forced the military and civil
governors (Counts Zichy and Palffy) to sign a capitulation on the 22nd
of March, after which the republic was proclaimed. At Milan, where there
was a division of opinion between the monarchists under Casati and the
republicans under Cattaneo, a provisional administration was formed and
the question of the form of government postponed for the moment. The
duke of Modena and Charles Louis of Parma (Marie Louise was now dead)
abandoned their capitals; in both cities provisional governments were
set up which subsequently proclaimed annexation to Piedmont. In Rome the
pope gave way to popular clamour, granting one concession after another,
and on the 8th of February he publicly called down God's blessing on
Italy--that Italy hated by the Austrians, whose name it had hitherto
been a crime to mention. On the 10th of March he appointed a new
ministry, under Cardinal Antonelli, which included several Liberal
laymen, such as Marco Minghetti, G. Pasolini, L. C. Farini and Count G.
Recchi. On the 11th a constitution drawn up by a commission of
cardinals, without the knowledge of the ministry, was promulgated, a
constitution which attempted the impossible task of reconciling the
pope's temporal power with free institutions. In the meanwhile
preparations for war against Austria were being carried on with Pius's
sanction.
First war of Italy against Austria.
There were now three main political tendencies, viz. the union of north
Italy under Charles Albert and an alliance with the pope and Naples, a
federation of the different states under their present rulers, and a
united republic of all Italy. All parties, however, were agreed in
favour of war against Austria, for which the peoples forced their
unwilling rulers to prepare. But the only state capable of taking the
initiative was Piedmont, and the king still hesitated. Then came the
news of the Five Days of Milan, which produced the wildest excitement in
Turin; unless the army were sent to assist the struggling Lombards at
once the dynasty was in jeopardy. Cavour's stirring articles in the
_Risorgimento_ hastened the king's decision, and on the 23rd of March he
declared war (see for the military events ITALIAN WARS, 1848-70). But
much precious time had been lost, and even then the army was not ready.
Charles Albert could dispose of 90,000 men, including some 30,000 from
central Italy, but he took the field with only half his force. He might
yet have cut off Radetzky on his retreat, or captured Mantua, which was
only held by 300 men. But his delays lost him both chances and enabled
Radetzky to receive reinforcements from Austria. The pope, unable to
resist the popular demand for war, allowed his army to depart (March 23)
under the command of General Durando, with instructions to act in
concert with Charles Albert, and he corresponded with the grand-duke of
Tuscany and the king of Naples with a view to a military alliance. But
at the same time, fearing a schism in the church should he attack
Catholic Austria, he forbade his troops to do more than defend the
frontier, and in his Encyclical of the 29th of April stated that, as
head of the church, he could not declare war, but that he was unable to
prevent his subjects from following the example of other Italians. He
then requested Charles Albert to take the papal troops under his
command, and also wrote to the emperor of Austria asking him voluntarily
to relinquish Lombardy and Venetia. Tuscany and Naples had both joined
the Italian league; a Tuscan army started for Lombardy on the 30th of
April, and 17,000 Neapolitans commanded by Pepe (who had returned after
28 years of exile) went to assist Durando in intercepting the Austrian
reinforcements under Nugent. The Piedmontese defeated the enemy at
Pastrengo (April 30), but did not profit by the victory. The Neapolitans
reached Bologna on the 17th of May, but in the meantime a dispute had
broken out at Naples between the king and parliament as to the nature of
the royal oath; a cry of treason was raised by a group of factious
youngsters, barricades were erected and street fighting ensued (May 15).
On the 17th Ferdinand dissolved parliament and recalled the army. On
receiving the order to return, Pepe, after hesitating for some time
between his oath to the king and his desire to fight for Italy, finally
resigned his commission and crossed the Po with a few thousand men, the
rest of his force returning south. The effects of this were soon felt. A
force of Tuscan volunteers was attacked by a superior body of Austrians
at Curtatone and Montanaro and defeated after a gallant resistance on
the 27th of May; Charles Albert, after wasting precious time round
Peschiera, which capitulated on the 30th of May, defeated Radetzky at
Goito. But the withdrawal of the Neapolitans left Durando too weak to
intercept Nugent and his 30,000 men; and the latter, although harassed
by the inhabitants of Venetia and repulsed at Vicenza, succeeded in
joining Radetzky, who was soon further reinforced from Tirol. The whole
Austrian army now turned on Vicenza, which after a brave resistance
surrendered on the 10th of June. All Venetia except the capital was thus
once more occupied by the Austrians. On the 23rd, 24th and 25th of July
(first battle of Custozza) the Piedmontese were defeated and forced to
retire on Milan with Radetzky's superior force in pursuit. The king was
the object of a hostile demonstration in Milan, and although he was
ready to defend the city to the last, the town council negotiated a
capitulation with Radetzky. The mob, egged on by the republicans,
attacked the palace where the king was lodged, and he escaped with
difficulty, returning to Piedmont with the remnants of his army. On the
6th of August Radetzky re-entered Milan, and three days later an
armistice was concluded between Austria and Piedmont, the latter
agreeing to evacuate Lombardy and Venetia. The offer of French
assistance, made after the proclamation of the republic in the spring of
1848, had been rejected mainly because France, fearing that the creation
of a strong Italian state would be a danger to her, would have demanded
the cession of Nice and Savoy, which the king refused to consider.
Daniele Manin and Venice.
Proclamation of the Roman Republic.
Meanwhile, the republic had been proclaimed in Venice; but on the 7th of
July the assembly declared in favour of fusion with Piedmont, and Manin,
who had been elected president, resigned his powers to the royal
commissioners. Soon after Custozza, however, the Austrians blockaded the
city on the land side. In Rome the pope's authority weakened day by day,
and disorder increased. The Austrian attempt to occupy Bologna was
repulsed by the citizens, but unfortunately this success was followed by
anarchy and murder, and Farini only with difficulty restored a semblance
of order. The Mamiani ministry having failed to achieve anything, Pius
summoned Pellegrino Rossi, a learned lawyer who had long been exiled in
France, to form a cabinet. On the 15th of November he was assassinated,
and as no one was punished for this crime the insolence of the
disorderly elements increased, and shots were exchanged with the Swiss
Guard. The terrified pope fled in disguise to Gaeta (November 25), and
when parliament requested him to return he refused even to receive the
deputation. This meant a complete rupture; on the 5th of February 1849 a
constituent assembly was summoned, and on the 9th it voted the downfall
of the temporal power and proclaimed the republic. Mazzini hurried to
Rome to see his dream realized, and was chosen head of the Triumvirate.
On the 18th Pius invited the armed intervention of France, Austria,
Naples and Spain to restore his authority. In Tuscany the government
drifted from the moderates to the extreme democrats; the Ridolfi
ministry was succeeded after Custozza by that of Ricasoli, and the
latter by that of Capponi. The lower classes provoked disorders, which
were very serious at Leghorn, and were only quelled by Guerrazzi's
energy. Capponi resigned in October 1848, and Leopold reluctantly
consented to a democratic ministry led by Guerrazzi and Montanelli, the
former a very ambitious and unscrupulous man, the latter honest but
fantastic. Following the Roman example, a constituent assembly was
demanded to vote on union with Rome and eventually with the rest of
Italy. The grand-duke, fearing an excommunication from the pope, refused
the request, and left Florence for Siena and S. Stefano; on the 8th of
February 1849 the republic was proclaimed, and on the 21st, at the
pressing request of the pope and the king of Naples, Leopold went to
Gaeta.
Ferdinand did not openly break his constitutional promises until Sicily
was reconquered. His troops had captured Messina after a bombardment
which earned him the sobriquet of "King Bomba"; Catania and Syracuse
fell soon after, hideous atrocities being everywhere committed with his
sanction. He now prorogued parliament, adopted stringent measures
against the Liberals, and retired to Gaeta, the haven of refuge for
deposed despots.
Charles Albert renews the war.
Accession of Victor Emmanuel II.
But so long as Piedmont was not completely crushed none of the princes
dared to take decisive measures against their subjects; in spite of
Custozza, Charles Albert still had an army, and Austria, with
revolutions in Vienna, Hungary and Bohemia on her hands, could not
intervene. In Piedmont the Pinelli-Revel ministry, which had continued
the negotiations for an alliance with Leopold and the pope, resigned as
it could not count on a parliamentary majority, and in December the
returned exile Gioberti formed a new ministry. His proposal to reinstate
Leopold and the pope with Piedmontese arms, so as to avoid Austrian
intervention, was rejected by both potentates, and met with opposition
even in Piedmont, which would thereby have forfeited its prestige
throughout Italy. Austrian mediation was now imminent, as the Vienna
revolution had been crushed, and the new emperor, Francis Joseph,
refused to consider any settlement other than on the basis of the
treaties of 1815. But Charles Albert, who, whatever his faults, had a
generous nature, was determined that so long as he had an army in being
he could not abandon the Lombards and the Venetians, whom he had
encouraged in their resistance, without one more effort, though he knew
full well that he was staking all on a desperate chance. On the 12th of
March 1849, he denounced the armistice, and, owing to the want of
confidence in Piedmontese strategy after 1848, gave the chief command to
the Polish General Chrzanowski. His forces amounted to 80,000 men,
including a Lombard corps and some Roman, Tuscan and other volunteers.
But the discipline and moral of the army were shaken and its
organization faulty. General Ramorino, disobeying his instructions,
failed to prevent a corps of Austrians under Lieut. Field-Marshal
d'Aspre from seizing Mortara, a fault for which he was afterwards
court-martialled and shot, and after some preliminary fighting Radetzky
won the decisive battle of Novara (March 23) which broke up the
Piedmontese army. The king, who had sought death in vain all day, had to
ask terms of Radetzky; the latter demanded a slice of Piedmont and the
heir to the throne (Victor Emmanuel) as a hostage, without a reservation
for the consent of parliament. Charles Albert, realizing his own failure
and thinking that his son might obtain better terms, abdicated and
departed at once for Portugal, where he died in a monastery a few months
later. Victor Emmanuel went in person to treat with Radetzky on the 24th
of March. The Field-Marshal received him most courteously and offered
not only to waive the demand for a part of Piedmontese territory, but to
enlarge the kingdom, on condition that the constitution should be
abolished and the blue Piedmontese flag substituted for the tricolor.
But the young king was determined to abide by his father's oath, and had
therefore to agree to an Austrian occupation of the territory between
the Po, the Ticino and the Sesia, and of half the citadel of
Alessandria, until peace should be concluded, the evacuation of all
districts occupied by his troops outside Piedmont, the dissolution of
his corps of Lombard, Polish and Hungarian volunteers and the withdrawal
of his fleet from the Adriatic.
Novara set Austria free to reinstate the Italian despots. Ferdinand at
once re-established autocracy in Naples; though the struggle in Sicily
did not end until May, when Palermo, after a splendid resistance,
capitulated. In Tuscany disorder continued, and although Guerrazzi, who
had been appointed dictator, saved the country from complete anarchy, a
large part of the population, especially among the peasantry, was still
loyal to the grand-duke. After Novara the chief question was how to
avoid an Austrian occupation, and owing to the prevailing confusion the
town council of Florence took matters into its own hands and declared
the grand-duke reinstated, but on a constitutional basis and without
foreign help (April 12). Leopold accepted as regards the constitution,
but said nothing about foreign intervention. Count Serristori, the
grand-ducal commissioner, arrived in Florence on the 4th of May 1849;
the national guard was disbanded; and on the 25th, the Austrians under
d'Aspre entered Florence.
On the 28th of July Leopold returned to his capital, and while that
event was welcomed by a part of the people, the fact that he had come
under Austrian protection ended by destroying all loyalty to the
dynasty, and consequently contributed not a little to Italian unity.
Garibaldi.
France and the Roman Republic.
In Rome the triumvirate decided to defend the republic to the last. The
city was quieter and more orderly than it had ever been before, for
Mazzini and Ciceruacchio successfully opposed all class warfare; and in
April the defenders received a priceless addition to their strength in
the person of Garibaldi, who, on the outbreak of the revolution in 1848,
had returned with a few of his followers from his exile in South
America, and in April 1849 entered Rome with some 500 men to fight for
the republic. At this time France, as a counterpoise to Austrian
intervention in other parts of Italy, decided to restore the pope,
regardless of the fact that this action would necessitate the crushing
of a sister republic. As yet, however, no such intention was publicly
avowed. On the 25th of April General Oudinot landed with 8000 men at
Civitavecchia, and on the 30th attempted to capture Rome by surprise,
but was completely defeated by Garibaldi, who might have driven the
French into the sea, had Mazzini allowed him to leave the city. The
French republican government, in order to gain time for reinforcements
to arrive, sent Ferdinand de Lesseps to pretend to treat with Mazzini,
the envoy himself not being a party to this deception. Mazzini refused
to allow the French into the city, but while the negotiations were being
dragged on Oudinot's force was increased to 35,000 men. At the same time
an Austrian army was marching through the Legations, and Neapolitan and
Spanish troops were advancing from the south. The Roman army (20,000
men) was commanded by General Rosselli, and included, besides
Garibaldi's red-shirted legionaries, volunteers from all parts of Italy,
mostly very young men, many of them wealthy and of noble family. The
Neapolitans were ignominiously beaten in May and retired to the
frontier; on the 1st of June Oudinot declared that he would attack Rome
on the 4th, but by beginning operations on the 3rd, when no attack was
expected, he captured an important position in the Pamphili gardens.
In spite of this success, however, it was not until the end of the
month, and after desperate fighting, that the French penetrated within
the walls and the defence ceased (June 29). The Assembly, which had
continued in session, was dispersed by the French troops on the 2nd of
July, but Mazzini escaped a week later. Garibaldi quitted the city,
followed by 4000 of his men, and attempted to join the defenders of
Venice. In spite of the fact that he was pursued by the armies of four
Powers, he succeeded in reaching San Marino; but his force melted away
and, after hiding in the marshes of Ravenna, he fled across the
peninsula, assisted by nobles, peasants and priests, to the Tuscan
coast, whence he reached Piedmont and eventually America, to await a new
call to fight for Italy (see GARIBALDI).
Reduction of Venice by Austria.
After a heroic defence, conducted by Giuseppe Martinengo, Brescia was
recaptured in April by the Austrians under Lieut. Field-Marshal von
Haynau, the atrocities which followed earning for Haynau the name of
"The Hyena of Brescia." In May they seized Bologna, and Ancona in June,
restoring order in those towns by the same methods as at Brescia. Venice
alone still held out; after Novara the Piedmontese commissioners
withdrew and Manin again took charge of the government. The assembly
voted: "Venice resists the Austrians at all costs," and the citizens
and soldiers, strengthened by the arrival of volunteers from all parts
of Italy, including Pepe, who was given the chief command of the
defenders, showed the most splendid devotion in their hopeless task. By
the end of May the city was blockaded by land and sea, and in July the
bombardment began. On the 24th the city, reduced by famine, capitulated
on favourable terms. Manin, Pepe and a few others were excluded from the
amnesty and went into exile.
Thus were despotism and foreign predominance re-established throughout
Italy save in Piedmont. Yet the "terrible year" was by no means all
loss. The Italian cause had been crushed, but revolution and war had
strengthened the feeling of unity, for Neapolitans had fought for
Venice, Lombards for Rome, Piedmontese for all Italy. Piedmont was shown
to possess the qualities necessary to constitute the nucleus of a great
nation. It was now evident that the federal idea was impossible, for
none of the princes except Victor Emmanuel could be trusted, and that
unity and freedom could not be achieved under a republic, for nothing
could be done without the Piedmontese army, which was royalist to the
core. All reasonable men were now convinced that the question of the
ultimate form of the Italian government was secondary, and that the
national efforts should be concentrated on the task of expelling the
Austrians; the form of government could be decided afterwards. Liberals
were by no means inclined to despair of accomplishing this task; for
hatred of the foreigners, and of the despots restored by their bayonets,
had been deepened by the humiliations and cruelties suffered during the
war into a passion common to all Italy.
Piedmont after the war.
Cavour.
When the terms of the Austro-Piedmontese armistice were announced in the
Chamber at Turin they aroused great indignation, but the king succeeded
in convincing the deputies that they were inevitable. The peace
negotiations dragged on for several months, involving two changes of
ministry, and D'Azeglio became premier. Through Anglo-French mediation
Piedmont's war indemnity was reduced from 230,000,000 to 75,000,000
lire, but the question of the amnesty remained. The king declared
himself ready to go to war again if those compromised in the Lombard
revolution were not freely pardoned, and at last Austria agreed to
amnesty all save a very few, and in August the peace terms were agreed
upon. The Chamber, however, refused to ratify them, and it was not until
the king's eloquent appeal from Moncalieri to his people's loyalty, and
after a dissolution and the election of a new parliament, that the
treaty was ratified (January 9, 1850). The situation in Piedmont was far
from promising, the exchequer was empty, the army disorganized, the
country despondent and suspicious of the king. If Piedmont was to be
fitted for the part which optimists expected it to play, everything must
be built up anew. Legislation had to be entirely reformed, and the bill
for abolishing the special jurisdiction for the clergy (_foro
ecclesiastico_) and other medieval privileges aroused the bitter
opposition of the Vatican as well as of the Piedmontese clericals. This
same year (1850) Cavour, who had been in parliament for some time and
had in his speech of the 7th of March struck the first note of
encouragement after the gloom of Novara, became minister of agriculture,
and in 1851 also assumed the portfolio of finance. He ended by
dominating the cabinet, but owing to his having negotiated a union of
the Right Centre and the Left Centre (the _Connubio_) in the conviction
that the country needed the moderate elements of both parties, he
quarrelled with D'Azeglio (who, as an uncompromising conservative,
failed to see the value of such a move) and resigned. But D'Azeglio was
not equal to the situation, and he, too, resigned in November 1852;
whereupon the king appointed Cavour prime minister, a position which
with short intervals he held until his death.
Austrian rule after 1849.
The Austrians in the period from 1849 to 1859, known as the _decennio
della resistenza_ (decade of resistance), were made to feel that they
were in a conquered country where they could have no social intercourse
with the people; for no self-respecting Lombard or Venetian would even
speak to an Austrian. Austria, on the other hand, treated her Italian
subjects with great severity. The Italian provinces were the most
heavily taxed in the whole empire, and much of the money thus levied was
spent either for the benefit of other provinces or to pay for the huge
army of occupation and the fortresses in Italy. The promise of a
constitution for the empire, made in 1849, was never carried out; the
government of Lombardo-Venetia was vested in Field-Marshal Radetzky; and
although only very few of the revolutionists were excluded from the
amnesty, the carrying of arms or the distribution or possession of
revolutionary literature was punished with death. Long terms of
imprisonment and the bastinado, the latter even inflicted on women, were
the penalties for the least expression of anti-Austrian opinion.
The Lombard republicans had been greatly weakened by the events of 1848,
but Mazzini still believed that a bold act by a few revolutionists would
make the people rise _en masse_ and expel the Austrians. A conspiracy,
planned with the object, among others, of kidnapping the emperor while
on a visit to Venice and forcing him to make concessions, was postponed
in consequence of the _coup d'etat_ by which Louis Napoleon became
emperor of the French (1852); but a chance discovery led to a large
number of arrests, and the state trials at Mantua, conducted in the most
shamelessly inquisitorial manner, resulted in five death sentences,
including that of the priest Tazzoli, and many of imprisonment for long
terms. Even this did not convince Mazzini of the hopelessness of such
attempts, for he was out of touch with Italian public opinion, and he
greatly weakened his influence by favouring a crack-brained outbreak at
Milan on the 6th of February 1853, which was easily quelled, numbers of
the insurgents being executed or imprisoned. Radetzky, not satisfied
with this, laid an embargo on the property of many Lombard emigrants who
had settled in Piedmont and become naturalized, accusing them of
complicity. The Piedmontese government rightly regarded this measure as
a violation of the peace treaty of 1850, and Cavour recalled the
Piedmontese minister from Vienna, an action which was endorsed by
Italian public opinion generally, and won the approval of France and
England.
Cavour's ideal for the present was the expulsion of Austria from Italy
and the expansion of Piedmont into a north Italian kingdom; and,
although he did not yet think of Italian unity as a question of
practical policy, he began to foresee it as a future possibility. But in
reorganizing the shattered finances of the state and preparing it for
its greater destinies, he had to impose heavy taxes, which led to
rioting and involved the minister himself in considerable though
temporary unpopularity. His ecclesiastical legislation, too, met with
bitter opposition from the Church.
Crimean War.
Italy and the Congress of Paris, 1856.
But the question was soon forgotten in the turmoil caused by the Crimean
War. Cavour believed that by taking part in the war his country would
gain for itself a military status and a place in the councils of the
great Powers, and establish claims on Great Britain and France for the
realization of its Italian ambitions. One section of public opinion
desired to make Piedmont's co-operation subject to definite promises by
the Powers; but the latter refused to bind themselves, and both Victor
Emmanuel and Cavour realized that, even without such promises,
participation would give Piedmont a claim. There was also the danger
that Austria might join the allies first and Piedmont be left isolated;
but there were also strong arguments on the other side, for while the
Radical party saw no obvious reason why Piedmont should fight other
people's battles, and therefore opposed the alliance, there was the risk
that Austria might join the alliance together with Piedmont, which would
have constituted a disastrous situation. Da Bormida, the minister for
foreign affairs, resigned rather than agree to the proposal, and other
statesmen were equally opposed to it. But after long negotiations the
treaty of alliance was signed in January 1855, and while Austria
remained neutral, a well-equipped Piedmontese force of 15,000 men, under
General La Marmora, sailed for the Crimea. Everything turned out as
Cavour had hoped. The Piedmontese troops distinguished themselves in
the field, gaining the sympathies of the French and English; and at the
subsequent congress of Paris (1856), where Cavour himself was Sardinian
representative, the Italian question was discussed, and the intolerable
oppression of the Italian peoples by Austria and the despots ventilated.
Austria at last began to see that a policy of coercion was useless and
dangerous, and made tentative efforts at conciliation. Taxation was
somewhat reduced, the censorship was made less severe, political
amnesties were granted, humaner officials were appointed and the
Congregations (a sort of shadowy consultative assembly) were revived. In
1856 the emperor and empress visited their Italian dominions, but were
received with icy coldness; the following year, on the retirement of
Radetzky at the age of ninety-three, the archduke Maximilian, an able,
cultivated and kind-hearted man, was appointed viceroy. He made
desperate efforts to conciliate the population, and succeeded with a few
of the nobles, who were led to believe in the possibility of an Italian
confederation, including Lombardy and Venetia which would be united to
Austria by a personal union alone; but the immense majority of all
classes rejected these advances, and came to regard union with Piedmont
with increasing favour.[13]
Restored governments after 1849.
Persecution of Liberals in Naples.
Meanwhile Francis V. of Modena, restored to his duchy by Austrian
bayonets, continued to govern according to the traditions of his house.
Charles II. of Parma, after having been reinstated by the Austrians,
abdicated in favour of his son Charles III. a drunken libertine and a
cruel tyrant (May 1849); the latter was assassinated in 1854, and a
regency under his widow, Marie Louise, was instituted during which the
government became somewhat more tolerable, although by no means free
from political persecution; in 1857 the Austrian troops evacuated the
duchy. Leopold of Tuscany suspended the constitution, and in 1852
formally abolished it by order from Vienna; he also concluded a treaty
of semi-subjection with Austria and a Concordat with the pope for
granting fresh privileges to the Church. His government, however, was
not characterized by cruelty like those of his brother despots, and
Guerrazzi and the other Liberals of 1849, although tried and sentenced
to long terms of imprisonment, were merely exiled. Yet the opposition
gained recruits among all the ablest and most respectable Tuscans. In
Rome, after the restoration of the temporal power by the French troops,
the pope paid no attention to Louis Napoleon's advice to maintain some
form of constitution, to grant a general amnesty, and to secularize the
administration. He promised, indeed, a consultative council of state,
and granted an amnesty from which no less than 25,000 persons were
excluded; but on his return to Rome (12th April 1850), after he was
quite certain that France had given up all idea of imposing
constitutional limitations on him, he re-established his government on
the old lines of priestly absolutism, and, devoting himself to religious
practices, left political affairs mostly to the astute cardinal
Antonelli, who repressed with great severity the political agitation
which still continued. At Naples a trifling disturbance in September
1849, led to the arrest of a large number of persons connected with the
_Unita Italiana_, a society somewhat similar to the Carbonari. The
prisoners included Silvio Spaventa, Luigi Settembrini, Carlo Poerio and
many other cultured and worthy citizens. Many condemnations followed,
and hundreds of "politicals" were immured in hideous dungeons, a state
of things which provoked Gladstone's famous letters to Lord Aberdeen, in
which Bourbon rule was branded for all time as "the negation of God
erected into a system of government." But oppressive, corrupt and
inefficient as it was, the government was not confronted by the
uncompromising hostility of the whole people; the ignorant priest-ridden
masses were either indifferent or of mildly Bourbon sympathies; the
opposition was constituted by the educated middle classes and a part of
the nobility. The revolutionary attempts of Bentivegna in Sicily (1856)
and of the Mazzinian Carlo Pisacane, who landed at Sapri in Calabria
with a few followers in 1857, failed from lack of popular support, and
the leaders were killed.
New Unionist movement.
Napoleon III. and Italy.
The decline of Mazzini's influence was accompanied by the rise of a new
movement in favour of Italian unity under Victor Emmanuel, inspired by
the Milanese marquis Giorgio Pallavicini, who had spent 14 years in the
Spielberg, and by Manin, living in exile in Paris, both of them
ex-republicans who had become monarchists. The propaganda was organized
by the Sicilian La Farina by means of the _Societa Nazionale_. All who
accepted the motto "Unity, Independence and Victor Emmanuel" were
admitted into the society. Many of the republicans and Mazzinians joined
it, but Mazzini himself regarded it with no sympathy. In the Austrian
provinces and in the duchies it carried all before it, and gained many
adherents in the Legations, Rome and Naples, although in the latter
regions the autonomist feeling was still strong even among the Liberals.
In Piedmont itself it was at first less successful; and Cavour, although
he aspired ultimately to a united Italy with Rome as the capital,[14]
openly professed no ambition beyond the expulsion of Austria and the
formation of a North Italian kingdom. But he gave secret encouragement
to the movement, and ended by practically directing its activity through
La Farina. The king, too, was in close sympathy with the society's aims,
but for the present it was necessary to hide this attitude from the eyes
of the Powers, whose sympathy Cavour could only hope to gain by
professing hostility to everything that savoured of revolution. Both the
king and his minister realized that Piedmont alone, even with the help
of the National Society, could not expel Austria from Italy without
foreign assistance. Piedmontese finances had been strained to
breaking-point to organize an army obviously intended for other than
merely defensive purposes. Cavour now set himself to the task of
isolating Austria and securing an alliance for her expulsion. A British
alliance would have been preferable, but the British government was too
much concerned with the preservation of European peace. The emperor
Napoleon, almost alone among Frenchmen, had genuine Italian sympathies.
But were he to intervene in Italy, the intervention would not only have
to be successful; it would have to bring tangible advantages to France.
Hence his hesitations and vacillations, which Cavour steadily worked to
overcome. Suddenly on the 14th of January 1858 Napoleon's life was
attempted by Felice Orsini (q.v.) a Mazzinian Romagnol, who believed
that Napoleon was the chief obstacle to the success of the revolution in
Italy. The attempt failed and its author was caught and executed, but
while it appeared at first to destroy Napoleon's Italian sympathies and
led to a sharp interchange of notes between Paris and Turin, the emperor
was really impressed by the attempt and by Orsini's letter from prison
exhorting him to intervene in Italy. He realized how deep the Italian
feeling for independence must be, and that a refusal to act now might
result in further attempts on his life, as indeed Orsini's letter
stated. Consequently negotiations with Cavour were resumed, and a
meeting with him was arranged to take place at Plombieres (20th and 21st
of July 1858). There it was agreed that France should supply 200,000 men
and Piedmont 100,000 for the expulsion of the Austrians from Italy, that
Piedmont should be expanded into a kingdom of North Italy, that central
Italy should form a separate kingdom, on the throne of which the emperor
contemplated placing one of his own relatives, and Naples another,
possibly under Lucien Murat; the pope, while retaining only the
"Patrimony of St Peter" (the Roman province), would be president of the
Italian confederation. In exchange for French assistance Piedmont would
cede Savoy and perhaps Nice to France; and a marriage between Victor
Emmanuel's daughter Clothilde and Jerome Bonaparte, to which Napoleon
attached great importance, although not made a definite condition, was
also discussed. No written agreement, however, was signed.
Italian war of 1859.
Armistice of Villafranca.
On the 1st of January 1859, Napoleon astounded the diplomatic world by
remarking to Baron Hubner, the Austrian ambassador, at the New Year's
reception at the Tuileries, that he regretted that relations between
France and Austria were "not so good as they had been"; and at the
opening of the Piedmontese parliament on the 10th Victor Emmanuel
pronounced the memorable words that he could not be insensible to the
cry of pain (_il grido di dolore_) which reached him from all parts of
Italy. Yet after these warlike declarations and after the signing of a
military convention at Turin, the king agreeing to all the conditions
proposed by Napoleon, the latter suddenly became pacific again, and
adopted the Russian suggestion that Italian affairs should be settled by
a congress. Austria agreed on condition that Piedmont should disarm and
should not be admitted to the congress. Lord Malmesbury urged the
Sardinian government to yield; but Cavour refused to disarm, or to
accept the principle of a congress, unless Piedmont were admitted to it
on equal terms with the other Powers. As neither the Sardinian nor the
Austrian government seemed disposed to yield, the idea of a congress had
to be abandoned. Lord Malmesbury now proposed that all three Powers
should disarm simultaneously and that, as suggested by Austria, the
precedent of Laibach should be followed and all the Italian states
invited to plead their cause at the bar of the Great Powers. To this
course Napoleon consented, to the despair of King Victor Emmanuel and
Cavour, who saw in this a proof that he wished to back out of his
engagement and make war impossible. When war seemed imminent volunteers
from all parts of Italy, especially from Lombardy, had come pouring into
Piedmont to enrol themselves in the army or in the specially raised
volunteer corps (the command of which was given to Garibaldi), and "to
go to Piedmont" became a test of patriotism throughout the country.
Urged by a peremptory message from Napoleon, Cavour saw the necessity of
bowing to the will of Europe, of disbanding the volunteers and reducing
the army to a peace footing. The situation, however, was saved by a
false move on the part of Austria. At Vienna the war party was in the
ascendant; the convention for disarmament had been signed, but so far
from its being carried out, the reserves were actually called out on the
12th of April; and on the 23rd, before Cavour's decision was known at
Vienna, an Austrian ultimatum reached Turin, summoning Piedmont to
disarm within three days on pain of invasion. Cavour was filled with joy
at the turn affairs had taken, for Austria now appeared as the
aggressor. On the 29th Francis Joseph declared war, and the next day his
troops crossed the Ticino, a move which was followed, as Napoleon had
stated it would be, by a French declaration of war. The military events
of the Italian war of 1859 are described under ITALIAN WARS. The actions
of Montebello (May 20), Palestro (May 31) and Melegnano (June 8) and the
battles of Magenta (June 4) and Solferino (June 24) all went against the
Austrians. Garibaldi's volunteers raised the standard of insurrection
and held the field in the region of the Italian lakes. After Solferino
the allies prepared to besiege the Quadrilateral. Then Napoleon suddenly
drew back, unwilling, for many reasons, to continue the campaign.
Firstly, he doubted whether the allies were strong enough to attack the
Quadrilateral, for he saw the defects of his own army's organization;
secondly, he began to fear intervention by Prussia, whose attitude
appeared menacing; thirdly, although really anxious to expel the
Austrians from Italy, he did not wish to create a too powerful Italian
state at the foot of the Alps, which, besides constituting a potential
danger to France, might threaten the pope's temporal power, and Napoleon
believed that he could not stand without the clerical vote; fourthly,
the war had been declared against the wishes of the great majority of
Frenchmen and was even now far from popular. Consequently, to the
surprise of all Europe, while the allied forces were drawn up ready for
battle, Napoleon, without consulting Victor Emmanuel, sent General
Fleury on the 6th of July to Francis Joseph to ask for an armistice,
which was agreed to. The king was now informed, and on the 8th Generals
Vaillant, Della Rocca and Hess met at Villafranca and arranged an
armistice until the 15th of August. But the king and Cavour were
terribly upset by this move, which meant peace without Venetia; Cavour
hurried to the king's headquarters at Monzambano and in excited, almost
disrespectful, language implored him not to agree to peace and to
continue the war alone, relying on the Piedmontese army and a general
Italian revolution. But Victor Emmanuel on this occasion proved the
greater statesman of the two; he understood that, hard as it was, he
must content himself with Lombardy for the present, lest all be lost. On
the 11th the two emperors met at Villafranca, where they agreed that
Lombardy should be ceded to Piedmont, and Venetia retained by Austria
but governed by Liberal methods; that the rulers of Tuscany, Parma and
Modena, who had been again deposed, should be restored, the Papal States
reformed, the Legations given a separate administration and the pope
made president of an Italian confederation including Austria as mistress
of Venetia. It was a revival of the old impossible federal idea, which
would have left Italy divided and dominated by Austria and France.
Victor Emmanuel regretfully signed the peace preliminaries, adding,
however, _pour ce qui me concerne_ (which meant that he made no
undertaking with regard to central Italy), and Cavour resigned office.
Unionist movements in Central Italy.
The Lombard campaign had produced important effects throughout the rest
of Italy. The Sardinian government had formally invited that of Tuscany
to participate in the war of liberation, and on the grand-duke rejecting
the proposal, moderates and democrats combined to present an ultimatum
to Leopold demanding that he should abdicate in favour of his son, grant
a constitution and take part in the campaign. On his refusal Florence
rose as one man, and he, feeling that he could not rely on his troops,
abandoned Tuscany on the 27th of April 1859. A provisional government
was formed, led by Ubaldino Peruzzi, and was strengthened on the 8th of
May by the inclusion of Baron Bettino Ricasoli, a man of great force of
character, who became the real head of the administration, and all
through the ensuing critical period aimed unswervingly at Italian unity.
Victor Emmanuel, at the request of the people, assumed the protectorate
over Tuscany, where he was represented by the Sardinian minister
Boncompagni. On the 23rd of May Prince Napoleon, with a French army
corps, landed at Leghorn, his avowed object being to threaten the
Austrian flank;[15] and in June these troops, together with a Tuscan
contingent, departed for Lombardy. In the duchy of Modena an
insurrection had broken out, and after Magenta Duke Francis joined the
Austrian army in Lombardy, leaving a regency in charge. But on the 14th
of June the municipality formed a provisional government and proclaimed
annexation to Piedmont; L. C. Farini was chosen dictator, and 4000
Modenese joined the allies. The duchess-regent of Parma also withdrew to
Austrian territory, and on the 11th of June annexation to Piedmont was
proclaimed. At the same time the Austrians evacuated the Legations and
Cardinal Milesi, the papal representative, departed. The municipality of
Bologna formed a _Giunta_, to which Romagna and the Marches adhered, and
invoked the dictatorship of Victor Emmanuel; at Perugia, too, a
provisional government was constituted under F. Guardabassi. But the
Marches were soon reoccupied by pontifical troops, and Perugia fell, its
capture being followed by an indiscriminate massacre of men, women and
children. In July the marquis D'Azeglio arrived at Bologna as royal
commissioner.
After the meetings at Villafranca Napoleon returned to France. The
question of the cession of Nice and Savoy had not been raised; for the
emperor had not fulfilled his part of the bargain, that he would drive
the Austrians out of Italy, since Venice was yet to be freed. At the
same time he was resolutely opposed to the Piedmontese annexations in
central Italy. But here Cavour intervened, for he was determined to
maintain the annexations, at all costs. Although he had resigned, he
remained in office until Rattazzi could form a new ministry; and while
officially recalling the royal commissioners according to the
preliminaries of Villafranca, he privately encouraged them to remain and
organize resistance to the return of the despots, if necessary by force
(see CAVOUR). Farini, who in August was elected dictator of Parma as
well as Modena, and Ricasoli, who since, on the withdrawal of the
Sardinian commissioner Boncompagni, had become supreme in Tuscany, were
now the men who by their energy and determination achieved the
annexation of central Italy to Piedmont, in spite of the strenuous
opposition of the French emperor and the weakness of many Italian
Liberals. In August Marco Minghetti succeeded in forming a military
league and a customs union between Tuscany, Romagna and the duchies, and
in procuring the adoption of the Piedmontese codes; and envoys were sent
to Paris to mollify Napoleon. Constituent assemblies met and voted for
unity under Victor Emmanuel, but the king could not openly accept the
proposal owing to the emperor's opposition, backed by the presence of
French armies in Lombardy; at a word from Napoleon there might have been
an Austrian, and perhaps a Franco-Austrian, invasion of central Italy.
But to Napoleon's statement that he could not agree to the unification
of Italy, as he was bound by his promises to Austria at Villafranca,
Victor Emmanuel replied that he himself, after Magenta and Solferino,
was bound in honour to link his fate with that of the Italian people;
and General Manfredo Fanti was sent by the Turin government to organize
the army of the Central League, with Garibaldi under him.
Treaty of Zurich.
The terms of the treaty of peace signed at Zurich on the 10th of
November were practically identical with those of the preliminaries of
Villafranca. It was soon evident, however, that the Italian question was
far from being settled. Central Italy refused to be bound by the treaty,
and offered the dictatorship to Prince Carignano, who, himself unable to
accept owing to Napoleon's opposition, suggested Boncompagni, who was
accordingly elected. Napoleon now realized that it would be impossible,
without running serious risks, to oppose the movement in favour of
unity. He suggested an international congress on the question; inspired
a pamphlet, _Le Pape et le Congres_, which proposed a reduction of the
papal territory, and wrote to the pope advising him to cede Romagna in
order to obtain better guarantees for the rest of his dominions. The
proposed congress fell through, and Napoleon thereupon raised the
question of the cession of Nice and Savoy as the price of his consent to
the union of the central provinces with the Italian kingdom. In January
1866 the Rattazzi ministry fell, after completing the fusion of Lombardy
with Piedmont, and Cavour was again summoned by the king to the head of
affairs.
Cavour well knew the unpopularity that would fall upon him by consenting
to the cession of Nice, the birthplace of Garibaldi, and Savoy, the
cradle of the royal house; but he realized the necessity of the
sacrifice, if central Italy was to be won. The negotiations were long
drawn out; for Cavour struggled to save Nice and Napoleon was anxious to
make conditions, especially as regards Tuscany. At last, on the 24th of
March, the treaty was signed whereby the cession was agreed upon, but
subject to the vote of the populations concerned and ratification by the
Italian parliament. The king having formally accepted the voluntary
annexation of the duchies, Tuscany and Romagna, appointed the prince of
Carignano viceroy with Ricasoli as governor-general (22nd of March), and
was immediately afterwards excommunicated by the pope. On the 2nd of
April 1860 the new Italian parliament, including members from central
Italy, assembled at Turin. Three weeks later the treaty of Turin ceding
Savoy and Nice to France was ratified, though not without much
opposition, and Cavour was fiercely reviled for his share in the
transaction, especially by Garibaldi, who even contemplated an
expedition to Nice, but was induced to desist by the king.
Naples under Francis II.
In May 1859 Ferdinand of Naples was succeeded by his son Francis II.,
who gave no signs of any intention to change his father's policy, and,
in spite of Napoleon's advice, refused to grant a constitution or to
enter into an alliance with Sardinia. The result was a revolutionary
agitation which in Sicily, stirred up by Mazzini's agents, Rosalino Pilo
and Francesco Crispi, culminated, on the 5th of April 1860, in open
revolt. An invitation had been sent Garibaldi to put himself at the head
of the movement; at first he had refused, but reports of the progress of
the insurrection soon determined him to risk all on a bold stroke, and
on the 5th of May he embarked at Quarto, near Genoa, with Bixio, the
Hungarian Turr and some 1000 picked followers, on two steamers. The
preparations for the expedition, openly made, were viewed by Cavour with
mixed feelings. With its object he sympathized; yet he could not give
official sanction to an armed attack on a friendly power, nor on the
other hand could he forbid an action enthusiastically approved by public
opinion. He accordingly directed the Sardinian admiral Persano only to
arrest the expedition should it touch at a Sardinian port; while in
reply to the indignant protests of the continental powers he disclaimed
all knowledge of the affair. On the 11th Garibaldi landed at Marsala,
without opposition, defeated the Neapolitan forces at Calatafimi on the
15th, and on the 27th entered Palermo in triumph, where he proclaimed
himself, in King Victor Emmanuel's name, dictator of Sicily. By the end
of July, after the hard-won victory of Milazzo, the whole island, with
the exception of the citadel of Messina and a few unimportant ports, was
in his hands.
From Cavour's point of view, the situation was now one of extreme
anxiety. It was certain that, his work in Sicily done, Garibaldi would
turn his attention to the Neapolitan dominions on the mainland; and
beyond these lay Umbria and the Marches and--Rome. It was all-important
that whatever victories Garibaldi might win should be won for the
Italian kingdom, and, above all, that no ill-timed attack on the Papal
States should provoke an intervention of the powers. La Farina was
accordingly sent to Palermo to urge the immediate annexation of Sicily
to Piedmont. But Garibaldi, who wished to keep a free hand, distrusted
Cavour and scorned all counsels of expediency, refused to agree; Sicily
was the necessary base for his projected invasion of Naples; it would be
time enough to announce its union with Piedmont when Victor Emmanuel had
been proclaimed king of United Italy in Rome. Foiled by the dictator's
stubbornness, Cavour had once more to take to underhand methods; and,
while continuing futile negotiations with King Francis, sent his agents
into Naples to stir up disaffection and create a sentiment in favour of
national unity strong enough, in any event, to force Garibaldi's hand.
Garibaldi in Naples.
On the 8th of August, in spite of the protests and threats of most of
the powers, the Garibaldians began to cross the Straits, and in a short
time 20,000 of them were on the mainland. The Bourbonists in Calabria,
utterly disorganized, broke before the invincible red-shirts, and the
40,000 men defending the Salerno-Avellino line made no better
resistance, being eventually ordered to fall back on the Volturno. On
the 6th of September King Francis, with his family and several of the
ministers, sailed for Gaeta, and the next day Garibaldi entered Naples
alone in advance of the army, and was enthusiastically welcomed. He
proclaimed himself dictator of the kingdom, with Bertani as secretary of
state, but as a proof of his loyalty he consigned the Neapolitan fleet
to Persano.
Intervention of Piedmont.
His rapid success, meanwhile, inspired both the French emperor and the
government of Turin with misgivings. There was a danger that Garibaldi's
_entourage_, composed of ex-Mazzinians, might induce him to proclaim a
republic and march on Rome; which would have meant French intervention
and the undoing of all Cavour's work. King Victor Emmanuel and Cavour
both wrote to Garibaldi urging him not to spoil all by aiming at too
much. But Garibaldi poured scorn on all suggestions of compromise; and
Cavour saw that the situation could only be saved by the armed
participation of Piedmont in the liberation of south Italy.
The situation was, indeed, sufficiently critical. The unrest in Naples
had spread into Umbria and the Marches, and the papal troops, under
General Lamoriciere, were preparing to suppress it. Had they succeeded,
the position of the Piedmontese in Romagna would have been imperilled;
had they failed, the road would have been open for Garibaldi to march on
Rome. In the circumstances, Cavour decided that Piedmont must anticipate
Garibaldi, occupy Umbria and the Marches and place Italy between the
red-shirts and Rome. His excuse was the pope's refusal to dismiss his
foreign levies (September 7). On the 11th of September a Piedmontese
army of 35,000 men crossed the frontier at La Cattolica; on the 18th the
pontifical army was crushed at Castelfidardo; and when, on the 29th,
Ancona fell, Umbria and the Marches were in the power of Piedmont. On
the 15th of October King Victor Emmanuel crossed the Neapolitan border
at the head of his troops.
It had been a race between Garibaldi and the Piedmontese. "If we do not
arrive at the Volturno before Garibaldi reaches La Cattolica," Cavour
had said, "the monarchy is lost, and Italy will remain in the
prison-house of the Revolution."[16] Fortunately for his policy, the
red-shirts had encountered a formidable obstacle to their advance in the
Neapolitan army entrenched on the Volturno under the guns of Capua. On
the 19th of September the Garibaldians began their attack on this
position with their usual impetuous valour; but they were repulsed again
and again, and it was not till the 2nd of October, after a two days'
pitched battle, that they succeeded in carrying the position. The way
was now open for the advance of the Piedmontese, who, save at Isernia,
encountered practically no resistance. On the 29th Victor Emmanuel and
Garibaldi met, and on the 7th of November they entered Naples together.
Garibaldi now resigned his authority into the king's hands and, refusing
the title and other honours offered to him, retired to his island home
of Caprera.[17]
Recognition of the united kingdom of Italy.
Gaeta remained still to be taken. The Piedmontese under Cialdini had
begun the siege on the 5th of November, but it was not until the 10th of
January 1861, when at the instance of Great Britain Napoleon withdrew
his squadron, that the blockade could be made complete. On the 13th of
February the fortress surrendered, Francis and his family having
departed by sea for papal territory. The citadel of Messina capitulated
on the 22nd, and Civitella del Tronto, the last stronghold of
Bourbonism, on the 21st of March. On the 18th of February the first
Italian parliament met at Turin, and Victor Emmanuel was proclaimed king
of Italy. The new kingdom was recognized by Great Britain within a
fortnight, by France three months later, and subsequently by other
powers. It included the whole peninsula except Venetia and Rome, and
these the government and the nation were determined to annex sooner or
later.
Problems of the new government.
Brigandage.
There were, however, other serious problems calling for immediate
attention. The country had to be built up and converted from an
agglomeration of scattered medieval principalities into a unified
modern nation. The first question which arose was that of brigandage
in the south. Brigandage had always existed in the Neapolitan kingdom,
largely owing to the poverty of the people; but the evil was now
aggravated by the mistake of the new government in dismissing the
Bourbon troops, and then calling them out again as recruits. A great
many turned brigands rather than serve again, and together with the
remaining adherents of Bourbon rule and malefactors of all kinds, were
made use of by the ex-king and his _entourage_ to harass the Italian
administration. Bands of desperadoes were formed, commanded by the
most infamous criminals and by foreigners who came to fight in what
they were led to believe was an Italian _Vendee_, but which was in
reality a campaign of butchery and plunder. Villages were sacked and
burnt, men, women and children mutilated, tortured or roasted alive,
and women outraged. The authors of these deeds when pursued by troops
fled into papal territory, where they were welcomed by the authorities
and allowed to refit and raise fresh recruits under the aegis of the
Church. The prime organizers of the movement were King Francis's
uncle, the count of Trapani, and Mons. de Merode, a Belgian
ecclesiastic who enjoyed immense influence at the Vatican. The task
of suppressing brigandage was entrusted to Generals La Marmora and
Cialdini; but in spite of extreme severity, justifiable in the
circumstances, it took four or five years completely to suppress the
movement. Its vitality, indeed, was largely due to the mistakes made
by the new administration, conducted as this was by officials ignorant
of southern conditions and out of sympathy with a people far more
primitive than in any other part of the peninsula. Politically, its
sole outcome was to prove the impossibility of allowing the
continuance of an independent Roman state in the heart of Italy.
Garibaldi's volunteers.
Another of the government's difficulties was the question of what to
do with Garibaldi's volunteers. Fanti, the minister of war, had three
armies to incorporate in that of Piedmont, viz. that of central Italy,
that of the Bourbons and that of Garibaldi. The first caused no
difficulty; the rank and file of the second were mostly disbanded, but
a number of the officers were taken into the Italian army; the third
offered a more serious problem. Garibaldi demanded that all his
officers should be given equivalent rank in the Italian army, and in
this he had the support of Fanti. Cavour, on the other hand, while
anxious to deal generously with the Garibaldians, recognized the
impossibility of such a course, which would not only have offended the
conservative spirit of the Piedmontese military caste, which disliked
and despised irregular troops, but would almost certainly have
introduced into the army an element of indiscipline and disorder.
Death of Cavour.
On the 18th of April the question of the volunteers was discussed in one
of the most dramatic sittings of the Italian parliament. Garibaldi,
elected member for Naples, denounced Cavour in unmeasured terms for his
treatment of the volunteers and for the cession of Nice, accusing him of
leading the country to civil war. These charges produced a tremendous
uproar, but Bixio by a splendid appeal for concord succeeded in calming
the two adversaries. On the 23rd of April they were formally reconciled
in the presence of the king, but the scene of the 18th of April hastened
Cavour's end. In May the Roman question was discussed in parliament.
Cavour had often declared that in the end the capital of Italy must be
Rome, for it alone of all Italian cities had an unquestioned claim to
moral supremacy, and his views of a free church in a free state were
well known. He had negotiated secretly with the pope through unofficial
agents, and sketched out a scheme of settlement of the Roman question,
which foreshadowed in its main features the law of papal guarantees. But
it was not given him to see this problem solved, for his health was
broken by the strain of the last few years, during which practically the
whole administration of the country was concentrated in his hands. He
died after a short illness on the 6th of June 1861, at a moment when
Italy had the greatest need of his statesmanship.
Ricasoli Ministry. Financial difficulties.
Rattazzi Ministry.
Garibaldi and Rome. Affair of Aspromonte, 1862.
Minghetti Ministry.
Ricasoli now became prime minister, Cavour having advised the king to
that effect. The financial situation was far from brilliant, for the
expenses of the administration of Italy were far larger than the total
of those of all the separate states, and everything had to be created or
rebuilt. The budget of 1861 showed a deficit of 344,000,000 lire, while
the service of the debt was 110,000,000; deficits were met by new loans
issued on unfavourable terms (that of July 1861 for 500,000,000 lire
cost the government 714,833,000), and government stock fell as low as
36. It was now that the period of reckless finance began which, save for
a lucid interval under Sella, was to last until nearly the end of the
century. Considering the state of the country and the coming war for
Venice, heavy expenditure was inevitable, but good management might have
rendered the situation less dangerous. Ricasoli, honest and capable as
he was, failed to win popularity; his attitude on the Roman question,
which became more uncompromising after the failure of his attempt at
conciliation, and his desire to emancipate Italy from French
predominance, brought down on him the hostility of Napoleon. He fell in
March 1862, and was succeeded by Rattazzi, who being more pliable and
intriguing managed at first to please everybody, including Garibaldi. At
this time the extremists and even the moderates were full of schemes for
liberating Venice and Rome. Garibaldi had a plan, with which the premier
was connected, for attacking Austria by raising a revolt in the Balkans
and Hungary, and later he contemplated a raid into the Trentino; but
the government, seeing the danger of such an attempt, arrested several
Garibaldians at Sarnico (near Brescia), and in the _emeute_ which
followed several persons were shot. Garibaldi now became an opponent of
the ministry, and in June went to Sicily, where, after taking counsel
with his former followers, he decided on an immediate raid on Rome. He
summoned his legionaries, and in August crossed over to Calabria with
1000 men. His intentions in the main were still loyal, for he desired to
capture Rome for the kingdom; and he did his best to avoid the regulars
tardily sent against him. On the 29th of August 1862, however, he
encountered a force under Pallavicini at Aspromonte, and, although
Garibaldi ordered his men not to fire, some of the raw Sicilian
volunteers discharged a few volleys which were returned by the regulars.
Garibaldi himself was seriously wounded and taken prisoner. He was shut
up in the fortress of Varignano, and after endless discussions as to
whether he should be tried or not, the question was settled by an
amnesty. The affair made the ministry so unpopular that it was forced to
resign. Farini, who succeeded, retired almost at once on account of
ill-health, and Minghetti became premier, with Visconti-Venosta as
minister for foreign affairs. The financial situation continued to be
seriously embarrassing; deficit was piled on deficit, loan upon loan,
and the service of the debt rose from 90,000,000 lire in 1860 to
220,000,000 in 1864.
France, Italy and the Roman question.
Capital transferred to Florence, 1865.
La Marmora Ministry.
Negotiations were resumed with Napoleon for the evacuation of Rome by
the French troops; but the emperor, though he saw that the temporal
power could not for ever be supported by French bayonets, desired some
guarantee that the evacuation should not be followed, at all events
immediately, by an Italian occupation, lest Catholic opinion should lay
the blame for this upon France. Ultimately the two governments concluded
a convention on the 15th of September 1864, whereby France agreed to
withdraw her troops from Rome so soon as the papal army should be
reorganized, or at the outside within two years, Italy undertaking not
to attack it nor permit others to do so, and to transfer the capital
from Turin to some other city within six months.[18] The change of
capital would have the appearance of a definite abandonment of the _Roma
capitale_ programme, although in reality it was to be merely a _tappa_
(stage) on the way. The convention was kept secret, but the last clause
leaked out and caused the bitterest feeling among the people of Turin,
who would have been resigned to losing the capital provided it were
transferred to Rome, but resented the fact that it was to be established
in any other city, and that the convention was made without consulting
parliament. Demonstrations were held which were repressed with
unnecessary violence, and although the change of capital was not
unpopular in the rest of Italy, where the _Piemontesismo_ of the new
regime was beginning to arouse jealousy, the secrecy with which the
affair was arranged and the shooting down of the people in Turin raised
such a storm of disapproval that the king for the first time used his
privilege of dismissing the ministry. Under La Marmora's administration
the September convention was ratified, and the capital was transferred
to Florence the following year. This affair resulted in an important
political change, for the Piedmontese deputies, hitherto the bulwarks of
moderate conservatism, now shifted to the Left or constitutional
opposition.
Venetian question.
Prusso-Italian Alliance of 1866.
Meanwhile, the Venetian question was becoming more and more acute. Every
Italian felt the presence of the Austrians in the lagoons as a national
humiliation, and between 1859 and 1866 countless plots were hatched for
their expulsion. But, in spite of the sympathy of the king, the attempt
to raise armed bands in Venetia had no success, and it became clear that
the foreigner could only be driven from the peninsula by regular war. To
wage this alone Italy was still too weak, and it was necessary to look
round for an ally. Napoleon was sympathetic; he desired to see the
Austrians expelled, and the Syllabus of Pius IX., which had stirred up
the more aggressive elements among the French clergy against his
government, had brought him once more into harmony with the views of
Victor Emmanuel; but he dared not brave French public opinion by another
war with Austria, nor did Italy desire an alliance which would only have
been bought at the price of further cessions. There remained Prussia,
which, now that the Danish campaign of 1864 was over, was completing her
preparations for the final struggle with Austria for the hegemony of
Germany; and Napoleon, who saw in the furthering of Bismarck's plans the
surest means of securing his own influence in a divided Europe,
willingly lent his aid in negotiating a Prusso-Italian alliance. In the
summer of 1865 Bismarck made formal proposals to La Marmora; but the
_pourparlers_ were interrupted by the conclusion of the convention of
Gastein (August 14), to which Austria agreed partly under pressure of
the Prusso-Italian _entente_. To Italy the convention seemed like a
betrayal; to Napoleon it was a set-back which he tried to retrieve by
suggesting to Austria the peaceful cession of Venetia to the Italian
kingdom, in order to prevent any danger of its alliance with Prussia.
This proposal broke on the refusal of the emperor Francis Joseph to cede
Austrian territory except as the result of a struggle; and Napoleon, won
over by Bismarck at the famous interview at Biarritz, once more took up
the idea of a Prusso-Italian offensive and defensive alliance. This was
actually concluded on the 8th of April 1866. Its terms, dictated by a
natural suspicion on the part of the Italian government, stipulated that
it should only become effective in the event of Prussia declaring war on
Austria within three months. Peace was not to be concluded until Italy
should have received Venetia, and Prussia an equivalent territory in
Germany.
The outbreak of war was postponed by further diplomatic complications.
On the 12th of June Napoleon, whose policy throughout had been obscure
and contradictory, signed a secret treaty with Austria, under which
Venice was to be handed over to him, to be given to Italy in the event
of her making a separate peace. La Marmora, however, who believed
himself bound in honour to Prussia, refused to enter into a separate
arrangement. On the 16th the Prussians began hostilities, and on the
20th Italy declared war.
Ricasoli Ministry.
Battle of Koniggratz.
Victor Emmanuel took the supreme command of the Italian army, and La
Marmora resigned the premiership (which was assumed by Ricasoli), to
become chief of the staff. La Marmora had three army corps (130,000 men)
under his immediate command, to operate on the Mincio, while Cialdini
with 80,000 men was to operate on the Po. The Austrian southern army
consisting of 95,000 men was commanded by the archduke Albert, with
General von John as chief of the staff. On the 23rd of June La Marmora
crossed the Mincio, and on the 24th a battle was fought at Custozza,
under circumstances highly disadvantageous to the Italians, which after
a stubborn contest ended in a crushing Austrian victory. Bad
generalship, bad organization and the jealousy between La Marmora and
Della Rocca were responsible for this defeat. Custozza might have been
afterwards retrieved, for the Italians had plenty of fresh troops
besides Cialdini's army; but nothing was done, as both the king and La
Marmora believed the situation to be much worse than it actually was. On
the 3rd of July the Prussians completely defeated the Austrians at
Koniggratz, and on the 5th Austria ceded Venetia to Napoleon, accepting
his mediation in favour of peace. The Italian iron-clad fleet commanded
by the incapable Persano, after wasting much time at Taranto and Ancona,
made an unsuccessful attack on the Dalmatian island of Lissa on the 18th
of July, and on the 20th was completely defeated by the Austrian
squadron, consisting of wooden ships, but commanded by the capable
Admiral Tegethoff.
Venice united to Italy.
On the 22nd Prussia, without consulting Italy, made an armistice with
Austria, while Italy obtained an eight days' truce on condition of
evacuating the Trentino, which had almost entirely fallen into the
hands of Garibaldi and his volunteers. Ricasoli wished to go on with the
war, rather than accept Venetia as a gift from France; but the king and
La Marmora saw that peace must be made, as the whole Austrian army of
350,000 men was now free to fall on Italy. An armistice was accordingly
signed at Cormons on the 12th of August; Austria handed Venetia over to
General Leboeuf, representing Napoleon; and on the 3rd of October peace
between Austria and Italy was concluded at Vienna. On the 19th Leboeuf
handed Venetia over to the Venetian representatives, and at the
plebiscite held on the 21st and 22nd, 647,246 votes were returned in
favour of union with Italy, only 69 against it. When this result was
announced to the king by a deputation from Venice he said: "This is the
finest day of my life; Italy is made, but it is not complete." Rome was
still wanting.
Revolt in Sicily, 1866.
Rattazzi Ministry.
Garibaldi attacks Rome.
Menabrea Ministry.
Battle of Mentana.
Custozza and Lissa were not Italy's only misfortunes in 1866. There had
been considerable discontent in Sicily, where the government had made
itself unpopular. The priesthood and the remnants of the Bourbon party
fomented an agitation, which in September culminated in an attack on
Palermo by 3000 armed insurgents, and in similar outbreaks elsewhere.
The revolt was put down owing to the energy of the mayor of Palermo,
Marquis A. Di Rudini, and the arrival of reinforcements. The Ricasoli
cabinet fell over the law against the religious houses, and was
succeeded by that of Rattazzi, who with the support of the Left was
apparently more fortunate. The French regular troops were withdrawn from
Rome in December 1866; but the pontifical forces were largely recruited
in France and commanded by officers of the imperial army, and service
under the pope was considered by the French war office as equivalent to
service in France. This was a violation of the letter as well as of the
spirit of the September convention, and a stronger and more
straightforward statesman than Rattazzi would have declared Italy
absolved from its provisions. Mazzini now wanted to promote an
insurrection in Roman territory, whereas Garibaldi advocated an invasion
from without. He delivered a series of violent speeches against the
papacy, and made open preparations for a raid, which were not interfered
with by the government; but on the 23rd of September 1867 Rattazzi had
him suddenly arrested and confined to Caprera. In spite of the vigilance
of the warships he escaped on the 14th of October and landed in Tuscany.
Armed bands had already entered papal territory, but achieved nothing in
particular. Their presence, however, was a sufficient excuse for
Napoleon, under pressure of the clerical party, to send another
expedition to Rome (26th of October). Rattazzi, after ordering a body of
troops to enter papal territory with no definite object, now resigned,
and was succeeded by Menabrea. Garibaldi joined the bands on the 23rd,
but his ill-armed and ill-disciplined force was very inferior to his
volunteers of '49, '60 and '66. On the 24th he captured Monte Rotondo,
but did not enter Rome as the expected insurrection had not broken out.
On the 29th a French force, under de Failly, arrived, and on the 3rd of
November a battle took place at Mentana between 4000 or 5000 red-shirts
and a somewhat superior force of French and pontificals. The
Garibaldians, mowed down by the new French _chassepot_ rifles, fought
until their last cartridges were exhausted, and retreated the next day
towards the Italian frontier, leaving 800 prisoners.
Lanza Ministry.
The affair of Mentana caused considerable excitement throughout Europe,
and the Roman question entered on an acute stage. Napoleon suggested his
favourite expedient of a congress but the proposal broke down owing to
Great Britain's refusal to participate; and Rouher, the French premier,
declared in the Chamber (5th of December 1867) that France could never
permit the Italians to occupy Rome. The attitude of France strengthened
that anti-French feeling in Italy which had begun with Villafranca; and
Bismarck was not slow to make use of this hostility, with a view to
preventing Italy from taking sides with France against Germany in the
struggle between the two powers which he saw to be inevitable. At the
same time Napoleon was making overtures both to Austria and to Italy,
overtures which were favourably received. Victor Emmanuel was sincerely
anxious to assist Napoleon, for in spite of Nice and Savoy and Mentana
he felt a chivalrous desire to help the man who had fought for Italy.
But with the French at Civitavecchia (they had left Rome very soon after
Mentana) a war for France was not to be thought of, and Napoleon would
not promise more than the literal observance of the September
convention. Austria would not join France unless Italy did the same, and
she realized that that was impossible unless Napoleon gave way about
Rome. Consequently the negotiations were suspended. A scandal concerning
the tobacco monopoly led to the fall of Menabrea, who was succeeded in
December 1869 by Giovanni Lanza, with Visconti-Venosta at the foreign
office and Q. Sella as finance minister. The latter introduced a sounder
financial policy, which was maintained until the fall of the Right in
1876. Mazzini, now openly hostile to the monarchy, was seized with a
perfect monomania for insurrections, and promoted various small risings,
the only effect of which was to show how completely his influence was
gone.
Italian occupation of Rome.
In December 1869 the XXI. oecumenical council began its sittings in
Rome, and on the 18th of July 1870 proclaimed the infallibility of the
pope (see VATICAN COUNCIL). Two days previously Napoleon had declared
war on Prussia, and immediately afterwards he withdrew his troops from
Civitavecchia; but he persuaded Lanza to promise to abide by the
September convention, and it was not until after Worth and Gravelotte
that he offered to give Italy a free hand to occupy Rome. Then it was
too late; Victor Emmanuel asked Thiers if he could give his word of
honour that with 100,000 Italian troops France could be saved, but
Thiers remained silent. Austria replied like Italy: "It is too late." On
the 9th of August Italy made a declaration of neutrality, and three
weeks later Visconti-Venosta informed the powers that Italy was about to
occupy Rome. On the 3rd of September the news of Sedan reached Florence,
and with the fall of Napoleon's empire the September convention ceased
to have any value. The powers having engaged to abstain from
intervention in Italian affairs, Victor Emmanuel addressed a letter to
Pius IX. asking him in the name of religion and peace to accept Italian
protection instead of the temporal power, to which the pope replied that
he would only yield to force. On the 11th of September General Cadorna
at the head of 60,000 men entered papal territory. The garrison of
Civitavecchia surrendered to Bixio, but the 10,000 men in Rome, mostly
French, Belgians, Swiss and Bavarians, under Kanzler, were ready to
fight. Cardinal Antonelli would have come to terms, but the pope decided
on making a sufficient show of resistance to prove that he was yielding
to force. On the 20th the Italians began the attack, and General Maze de
la Roche's division having effected a breach in the Porta Pia, the pope
ordered the garrison to cease fire and the Italians poured into the
Eternal City followed by thousands of Roman exiles. By noon the whole
city on the left of the Tiber was occupied and the garrison laid down
their arms; the next day, at the pope's request, the Leonine City on the
right bank was also occupied. It had been intended to leave that part of
Rome to the pope, but by the earnest desire of the inhabitants it too
was included in the Italian kingdom. At the plebiscite there were
133,681 votes for union and 1507 against it. In July 1872 King Victor
Emmanuel made his solemn entry into Rome, which was then declared the
capital of Italy. Thus, after a struggle of more than half a century, in
spite of apparently insuperable obstacles, the liberation and the unity
of Italy were accomplished.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.--A vast amount of material on the Risorgimento has been
published both in Italy and abroad as well as numerous works of a
literary and critical nature. The most detailed Italian history of the
period is Carlo Tivaroni's _Storia critica del Risorgimento Italiano_
in 9 vols. (Turin, 1888-1897), based on a diligent study of the
original authorities and containing a large amount of information; the
author is a Mazzinian, which fact should be taken into account, but
he generally quotes the opinions of those who disagree with him as
well. Another voluminous but less valuable work is F. Bertolini's
_Storia d'Italia dal 1814 al 1878_, in 2 parts (Milan, 1880-1881.) L.
Chiala's _Lettere del Conte di Cavour_ (7 vols., Turin, 1883-1887) and
D. Zanichelli's _Scritti del Conte di Cavour_ (Bologna, 1892) are very
important, and so are Prince Metternich's _Memoires_ (7 vols., Paris,
1881). P. Orsi's _L'Italia moderna_ (Milan, 1901) should also be
mentioned. N. Bianchi's _Storia della diplomazia europea in Italia_ (8
vols., Turin, 1865) is an invaluable and thoroughly reliable work. See
also Zini's _Storia d' Italia_ (4 vols., Milan, 1875); Gualterio's
_Gli ultimi rivolgimenti italiani_ (4 vols., Florence, 1850) is
important for the period from 1831 to 1847, and so also is L. Farina's
_Storia d' Italia dal 1815 al 1849_ (5 vols., Turin, 1851); W. R.
Thayer's _Dawn of Italian Independence_ (Boston, 1893) is gushing and
not always accurate; C. Cantu's _Dell' indipendenza italiana
cronistoria_ (Naples, 1872-1877) is reactionary and often unreliable;
V. Bersezio, _Il Regno di Vittorio Emanuele II_ (8 vols., Turin, 1889,
&c.). For English readers Countess E. Martinengo Cesaresco's
_Liberation of Italy_ (London, 1895) is to be strongly recommended,
and is indeed, for accuracy, fairness and synthesis, as well as for
charm of style, one of the very best books on the subject in any
language; Bolton King's _History of Italian Unity_ (2 vols., London,
1899) is bulkier and less satisfactory, but contains a useful
bibliography. A succinct account of the chief events of the period
will be found in Sir Spencer Walpole's _History of Twenty-Five Years_
(London, 1904). See also the _Cambridge Modern History_, vols. x. and
xi. (Cambridge, 1907, &c.), where full bibliographies will be found.
(L. V.*)
F. HISTORY, 1870-1902
Italian occupation of Rome.
The downfall of the temporal power was hailed throughout Italy with
unbounded enthusiasm. Abroad, Catholic countries at first received the
tidings with resignation, and Protestant countries with joy. In France,
where the Government of National Defence had replaced the Empire,
Cremieux, as president of the government delegation at Tours, hastened
to offer his congratulations to Italy. The occupation of Rome caused no
surprise to the French government, which had been forewarned on 11th
September of the Italian intentions. On that occasion Jules Favre had
recognized the September convention to be dead, and, while refusing
explicitly to denounce it, had admitted that unless Italy went to Rome
the city would become a prey to dangerous agitators. At the same time he
made it clear that Italy would occupy Rome upon her own responsibility.
Agreeably surprised by this attitude on the part of France,
Visconti-Venosta lost no time in conveying officially the thanks of
Italy to the French government. He doubtless foresaw that the language
of Favre and Cremieux would not be endorsed by the French Clericals.
Prussia, while satisfied at the fall of the temporal power, seemed to
fear lest Italy might recompense the absence of French opposition to the
occupation of Rome by armed intervention in favour of France. Bismarck,
moreover, was indignant at the connivance of the Italian government in
the Garibaldian expedition to Dijon, and was irritated by
Visconti-Venosta's plea in the Italian parliament for the integrity of
French territory. The course of events in France, however, soon calmed
German apprehensions. The advent of Thiers, his attitude towards the
petition of French bishops on behalf of the pope, the recall of Senard,
the French minister at Florence--who had written to congratulate Victor
Emmanuel on the capture of Rome--and the instructions given to his
successor, the comte de Choiseul, to absent himself from Italy at the
moment of the king's official entry into the new capital (2nd July
1871), together with the haste displayed in appointing a French
ambassador to the Holy See, rapidly cooled the cordiality of
Franco-Italian relations, and reassured Bismarck on the score of any
dangerous intimacy between the two governments.
Attitude of the Vatican.
The friendly attitude of France towards Italy during the period
immediately subsequent to the occupation of Rome seemed to cow and to
dishearten the Vatican. For a few weeks the relations between the Curia
and the Italian authorities were marked by a conciliatory spirit. The
secretary-general of the Italian foreign office, Baron Blanc, who had
accompanied General Cadorna to Rome, was received almost daily by
Cardinal Antonelli, papal secretary of state, in order to settle
innumerable questions arising out of the Italian occupation. The royal
commissioner for finance, Giacomelli, had, as a precautionary measure,
seized the pontifical treasury; but upon being informed by Cardinal
Antonelli that among the funds deposited in the treasury were 1,000,000
crowns of Peter's Pence offered by the faithful to the pope in person,
the commissioner was authorized by the Italian council of state not only
to restore this sum, but also to indemnify the Holy See for moneys
expended for the service of the October coupon of the pontifical debt,
that debt having been taken over by the Italian state. On the 29th of
September Cardinal Antonelli further apprised Baron Blanc that he was
about to issue drafts for the monthly payment of the 50,000 crowns
inscribed in the pontifical budget for the maintenance of the pope, the
Sacred College, the apostolic palaces and the papal guards. The Italian
treasury at once honoured all the papal drafts, and thus contributed a
first instalment of the 3,225,000 lire per annum afterwards placed by
Article 4 of the Law of Guarantees at the disposal of the Holy See.
Payments would have been regularly continued had not pressure from the
French Clerical party coerced the Vatican into refusing any further
instalment.
The Law of Guarantees.
Once in possession of Rome, and guarantor to the Catholic world of the
spiritual independence of the pope, the Italian government prepared
juridically to regulate its relations to the Holy See. A bill known as
the Law of Guarantees was therefore framed and laid before parliament.
The measure was an amalgam of Cavour's scheme for a "free church in a
free state," of Ricasoli's Free Church Bill, rejected by parliament four
years previously, and of the proposals presented to Pius IX. by Count
Ponza di San Martino in September 1870. After a debate lasting nearly
two months the Law of Guarantees was adopted in secret ballot on the
21st of March 1871 by 185 votes against 106.
It consisted of two parts. The first, containing thirteen articles,
recognized (Articles 1 and 2) the person of the pontiff as sacred and
intangible, and while providing for free discussion of religious
questions, punished insults and outrages against the pope in the same
way as insults and outrages against the king. Royal honours were
attributed to the pope (Article 3), who was further guaranteed the
same precedence as that accorded to him by other Catholic sovereigns,
and the right to maintain his Noble and Swiss guards. Article 4
allotted the pontiff an annuity of 3,225,000 lire (L129,000) for the
maintenance of the Sacred College, the sacred palaces, the
congregations, the Vatican chancery and the diplomatic service. The
sacred palaces, museums and libraries were, by Article 5, exempted
from all taxation, and the pope was assured perpetual enjoyment of the
Vatican and Lateran buildings and gardens, and of the papal villa at
Castel Gandolfo. Articles 6 and 7 forbade access of any Italian
official or agent to the above-mentioned palaces or to any eventual
conclave or oecumenical council without special authorization from the
pope, conclave or council. Article 8 prohibited the seizure or
examination of any ecclesiastical papers, documents, books or
registers of purely spiritual character. Article 9 guaranteed to the
pope full freedom for the exercise of his spiritual ministry, and
provided for the publication of pontifical announcements on the doors
of the Roman churches and basilicas. Article 10 extended immunity to
ecclesiastics employed by the Holy See, and bestowed upon foreign
ecclesiastics in Rome the personal rights of Italian citizens. By
Article 11, diplomatists accredited to the Holy See, and papal
diplomatists while in Italy, were placed on the same footing as
diplomatists accredited to the Quirinal. Article 12 provided for the
transmission free of cost in Italy of all papal telegrams and
correspondence both with bishops and foreign governments, and
sanctioned the establishment, at the expense of the Italian state, of
a papal telegraph office served by papal officials in communication
with the Italian postal and telegraph system. Article 13 exempted all
ecclesiastical seminaries, academies, colleges and schools for the
education of priests in the city of Rome from all interference on the
part of the Italian government.
This portion of the law, designed to reassure foreign Catholics, met
with little opposition; but the second portion, regulating the
relations between state and church in Italy, was sharply criticized by
deputies who, like Sella, recognized the ideal of a "free church in a
free state" to be an impracticable dream. The second division of the
law abolished (Article 14) all restrictions upon the right of meeting
of members of the clergy. By Article 15 the government relinquished
its rights to apostolic legation in Sicily, and to the appointment of
its own nominees to the chief benefices throughout the kingdom.
Bishops were further dispensed from swearing fealty to the king,
though, except in Rome and suburbs, the choice of bishops was limited
to ecclesiastics of Italian nationality. Article 16 abolished the need
for royal _exequatur_ and _placet_ for ecclesiastical publications,
but subordinated the enjoyment of temporalities by bishops and
priests to the concession of state _exequatur_ and _placet_. Article
17 maintained the independence of the ecclesiastical jurisdiction in
spiritual and disciplinary matters, but reserved for the state the
exclusive right to carry out coercive measures.
On the 12th of July 1871, Articles 268, 269 and 270 of the Italian Penal
Code were so modified as to make ecclesiastics liable to imprisonment
for periods varying from six months to five years, and to fines from
1000 to 3000 lire, for spoken or written attacks against the laws of the
state, or for the fomentation of disorder. An encyclical of Pius IX. to
the bishops of the Catholic Church on the 15th of May 1871 repudiated
the Law of Guarantees, and summoned Catholic princes to co-operate in
restoring the temporal power. Practically, therefore, the law has
remained a one-sided enactment, by which Italy considers herself bound,
and of which she has always observed the spirit, even though the
exigencies of self-defence may have led in some minor respects to
non-observance of the letter. The annuity payable to the pope has, for
instance, been made subject to quinquennial prescription, so that in the
event of tardy recognition of the law the Vatican could at no time claim
payment of more than five years' annuity with interest.
For a few months after the occupation of Rome pressing questions
incidental to a new change of capital and to the administration of a new
domain distracted public attention from the real condition of Italian
affairs. The rise of the Tiber and the flooding of Rome in December 1870
(tactfully used by Victor Emmanuel as an opportunity for a first visit
to the new capital) illustrated the imperative necessity of reorganizing
the drainage of the city and of constructing the Tiber embankment. In
spite of pressure from the French government, which desired Italy to
maintain Florence as the political and to regard Rome merely as the
moral capital of the realm, the government offices and both legislative
chambers were transferred in 1871 to the Eternal City. Early in the year
the crown prince Humbert with the Princess Margherita took up their
residence in the Quirinal Palace, which, in view of the Vatican refusal
to deliver up the keys, had to be opened by force. Eight monasteries
were expropriated to make room for the chief state departments, pending
the construction of more suitable edifices. The growth of Clerical
influence in France engendered a belief that Italy would soon have to
defend with the sword her newly-won unity, while the tremendous lesson
of the Franco-Prussian War convinced the military authorities of the
need for thorough military reform. General Ricotti Magnani, minister of
war, therefore framed an Army Reform Bill designed to bring the Italian
army as nearly as possible up to the Prussian standard. Sella, minister
of finance, notwithstanding the sorry plight of the Italian exchequer,
readily granted the means for the reform. "We must arm," he said, "since
we have overturned the papal throne," and he pointed to France as the
quarter from which attack was most likely to come.
Finance.
Though perhaps less desperate than during the previous decade, the
condition of Italian finance was precarious indeed. With taxation
screwed up to breaking point on personal and real estate, on all forms
of commercial and industrial activity, and on salt, flour and other
necessaries of life; with a deficit of L8,500,000 for the current year,
and the prospect of a further aggregate deficit of L12,000,000 during
the next quinquennium, Sella's heroic struggle against national
bankruptcy was still far from a successful termination. He chiefly had
borne the brunt and won the laurels of the unprecedented fight against
deficit in which Italy had been involved since 1862. As finance minister
in the Rattazzi cabinet of that year he had been confronted with a
public debt of nearly L120,000,000, and with an immediate deficit of
nearly L18,000,000. In 1864, as minister in the La Marmora cabinet, he
had again to face an excess of expenditure over income amounting to more
than L14,600,000. By the seizure and sale of Church lands, by the sale
of state railways, by "economy to the bone" and on one supreme occasion
by an appeal to taxpayers to advance a year's quota of the land-tax, he
had met the most pressing engagements of that troublous period. The king
was persuaded to forgo one-fifth of his civil list, ministers and the
higher civil servants were required to relinquish a portion of their
meagre salaries, but, in spite of all, Sella had found himself in 1865
compelled to propose the most hated of fiscal burdens--a grist tax on
cereals. This tax (_macinato_) had long been known in Italy. Vexatious
methods of assessment and collection had made it so unpopular that the
Italian government in 1859-1860 had thought it expedient to abolish it
throughout the realm. Sella hoped by the application of a mechanical
meter both to obviate the odium attaching to former methods of
collection and to avoid the maintenance of an army of inspectors and
tax-gatherers, whose stipends had formerly eaten up most of the proceeds
of the impost. Before proposing the reintroduction of the tax, Sella and
his friend Ferrara improved and made exhaustive experiments with the
meter. The result of their efforts was laid before parliament in one of
the most monumental and most painstaking preambles ever prefixed to a
bill. Sella, nevertheless, fell before the storm of opposition which his
scheme aroused. Scialoja, who succeeded him, was obliged to adopt a
similar proposal, but parliament again proved refractory. Ferrara,
successor of Scialoja, met a like fate; but Count Cambray-Digny, finance
minister in the Menabrea cabinet of 1868-1869, driven to find means to
cover a deficit aggravated by the interest on the Venetian debt,
succeeded, with Sella's help, in forcing a Grist Tax Bill through
parliament, though in a form of which Sella could not entirely approve.
When, on the 1st of January 1869, the new tax came into force, nearly
half the flour-mills in Italy ceased work. In many districts the
government was obliged to open mills on its own account. Inspectors and
tax-gatherers did their work under police protection, and in several
parts of the country riots had to be suppressed _manu militari_. At
first the net revenue from the impost was less than L1,100,000; but
under Sella's firm administration (1869-1873), and in consequence of
improvements gradually introduced by him, the net return ultimately
exceeded L3,200,000. The parliamentary opposition to the impost, which
the Left denounced as "the tax on hunger," was largely factitious. Few,
except the open partisans of national bankruptcy, doubted its necessity;
yet so strong was the current of feeling worked up for party purposes by
opponents of the measure, that Sella's achievement in having by its
means saved the financial situation of Italy deserves to rank among the
most noteworthy performances of modern parliamentary statesmanship.
Under the stress of the appalling financial conditions represented by
chronic deficit, crushing taxation, the heavy expenditure necessary for
the consolidation of the kingdom, the reform of the army and the
interest on the pontifical debt, Sella, on the 11th of December 1871,
exposed to parliament the financial situation in all its nakedness. He
recognized that considerable improvement had already taken place.
Revenue from taxation had risen in a decade from L7,000,000 to
L20,200,000; profit on state monopolies had increased from L7,000,000 to
L9,400,000; exports had grown to exceed imports; income from the working
of telegraphs had tripled itself; railways had been extended from 2200
to 6200 kilometres, and the annual travelling public had augmented from
15,000,000 to 25,000,000 persons. The serious feature of the situation
lay less in the income than in the "intangible" expenditure, namely, the
vast sums required for interest on the various forms of public debt and
for pensions. Within ten years this category of outlay had increased
from L8,000,000 to L28,800,000. During the same period the assumption of
the Venetian and Roman debts, losses on the issue of loans and the
accumulation of annual deficits, had caused public indebtedness to rise
from L92,000,000 to L328,000,000, no less than L100,000,000 of the
latter sum having been sacrificed in premiums and commissions to bankers
and underwriters of loans. By economies and new taxes Sella had reduced
the deficit to less than L2,000,000 in 1871, but for 1872 he found
himself confronted with a total expenditure of L8,000,000 in excess of
revenue. He therefore proposed to make over the treasury service to the
state banks, to increase the forced currency, to raise the stamp and
registration duties and to impose a new tax on textile fabrics. An
optional conversion of sundry internal loans into consolidated stock at
a lower rate of interest was calculated to effect considerable saving.
The battle over these proposals was long and fierce. But for the tactics
of Rattazzi, leader of the Left, who, by basing his opposition on party
considerations, impeded the secession of Minghetti and a part of the
Right from the ministerial majority, Sella would have been defeated. On
the 23rd of March 1872, however, he succeeded in carrying his programme,
which not only provided for the pressing needs of the moment, but laid
the foundation of the much-needed equilibrium between expenditure and
revenue.
Religious Orders Bill.
In the spring of 1873 it became evident that the days of the Lanza-Sella
cabinet were numbered. Fear of the advent of a Radical administration
under Rattazzi alone prevented the Minghettian Right from revolting
against the government. The Left, conscious of its strength, impatiently
awaited the moment of accession to power. Sella, the real head of the
Lanza cabinet, was worn out by four years' continuous work and
disheartened by the perfidious misrepresentation in which Italian
politicians, particularly those of the Left, have ever excelled. By
sheer force of will he compelled the Chamber early in 1873 to adopt some
minor financial reforms, but on the 29th of April found himself in a
minority on the question of a credit for a proposed state arsenal at
Taranto. Pressure from all sides of the House, however, induced the
ministry to retain office until after the debate on the application to
Rome and the Papal States of the Religious Orders Bill (originally
passed in 1866)--a measure which, with the help of Ricasoli, was carried
at the end of May. While leaving intact the general houses of the
various confraternities (except that of the Jesuits), the bill abolished
the corporate personality of religious orders, handed over their schools
and hospitals to civil administrators, placed their churches at the
disposal of the secular clergy, and provided pensions for nuns and
monks, those who had families being sent to reside with their relatives,
and those who by reason of age or bereavement had no home but their
monasteries being allowed to end their days in religious houses
specially set apart for the purpose. The proceeds of the sale of the
suppressed convents and monasteries were partly converted into pensions
for monks and nuns, and partly allotted to the municipal charity boards
which had undertaken the educational and charitable functions formerly
exercised by the religious orders. To the pope was made over L16,000 per
annum as a contribution to the expense of maintaining in Rome
representatives of foreign orders; the Sacred College, however, rejected
this endowment, and summoned all the suppressed confraternities to
reconstitute themselves under the ordinary Italian law of association. A
few days after the passage of the Religious Orders Bill, the death of
Rattazzi (5th June 1873) removed all probability of the immediate advent
of the Left. Sella, uncertain of the loyalty of the Right, challenged a
vote on the immediate discussion of further financial reforms, and on
the 23rd of June was overthrown by a coalition of the Left under
Depretis with a part of the Right under Minghetti and the Tuscan Centre
under Correnti. The administration which thus fell was unquestionably
the most important since the death of Cavour. It had completed national
unity, transferred the capital to Rome, overcome the chief obstacles to
financial equilibrium, initiated military reform and laid the foundation
of the relations between state and church.
Minghetti.
The succeeding Minghetti-Visconti-Venosta cabinet--which held office
from the 10th of July 1873 to the 18th of March 1876--continued in
essential points the work of the preceding administration. Minghetti's
finance, though less clear-sighted and less resolute than that of Sella,
was on the whole prudent and beneficial. With the aid of Sella he
concluded conventions for the redemption of the chief Italian railways
from their French and Austrian proprietors. By dint of expedients he
gradually overcame the chronic deficit, and, owing to the normal
increase of revenue, ended his term of office with the announcement of a
surplus of some L720,000. The question whether this surplus was real or
only apparent has been much debated, but there is no reason to doubt its
substantial reality. It left out of account a sum of L1,000,000 for
railway construction which was covered by credit, but, on the other
hand, took no note of L360,000 expended in the redemption of debt.
Practically, therefore, the Right, of which the Minghetti cabinet was
the last representative administration, left Italian finance with a
surplus of L80,000. Outside the all-important domain of finance, the
attention of Minghetti and his colleagues was principally absorbed by
strife between church and state, army reform and railway redemption. For
some time after the occupation of Rome the pope, in order to
substantiate the pretence that his spiritual freedom had been
diminished, avoided the creation of cardinals and the nomination of
bishops. On the 22nd of December 1873, however, he unexpectedly created
twelve cardinals, and subsequently proceeded to nominate a number of
bishops. Visconti-Venosta, who had retained the portfolio for foreign
affairs in the Minghetti cabinet, at once drew the attention of the
European powers to this proof of the pope's spiritual freedom and of the
imaginary nature of his "imprisonment" in the Vatican. At the same time
he assured them that absolute liberty would be guaranteed to the
deliberations of a conclave. In relation to the Church in Italy,
Minghetti's policy was less perspicacious. He let it be understood that
the announcement of the appointment of bishops and the request for the
royal _exequatur_ might be made to the government impersonally by the
congregation of bishops and regulars, by a municipal council or by any
other corporate body--a concession of which the bishops were quick to
take advantage, but which so irritated Italian political opinion that,
in July 1875, the government was compelled to withdraw the temporalities
of ecclesiastics who had neglected to apply for the _exequatur_, and to
evict sundry bishops who had taken possession of their palaces without
authorization from the state. Parliamentary pressure further obliged
Bonghi, minister of public instruction, to compel clerical seminaries
either to forgo the instruction of lay pupils or to conform to the laws
of the state in regard to inspection and examination, an ordinance which
gave rise to conflicts between ecclesiastical and lay authorities, and
led to the forcible dissolution of the Mantua seminary and to the
suppression of the Catholic university in Rome.
Military and naval reform.
More noteworthy than its management of internal affairs were the efforts
of the Minghetti cabinet to strengthen and consolidate national defence.
Appalled by the weakness, or rather the non-existence, of the navy,
Admiral Saint-Bon, with his coadjutor Signor Brin, addressed himself
earnestly to the task of recreating the fleet, which had never recovered
from the effects of the disaster of Lissa. During his three years of
office he laid the foundation upon which Brin was afterwards to build up
a new Italian navy. Simultaneously General Ricotti Magnani matured the
army reform scheme which he had elaborated under the preceding
administration. His bill, adopted by parliament on the 7th of June 1875,
still forms the ground plan of the Italian army.
Foreign policy under the Right.
It was fortunate for Italy that during the whole period 1860-1876 the
direction of her foreign policy remained in the experienced hands of
Visconti-Venosta, a statesman whose trustworthiness, dignity and
moderation even political opponents have been compelled to recognize.
Diplomatic records fail to substantiate the accusations of lack of
initiative and instability of political criterion currently brought
against him by contemporaries. As foreign minister of a young state
which had attained unity in defiance of the most formidable religious
organization in the world and in opposition to the traditional policy of
France, it could but be Visconti-Venosta's aim to uphold the dignity of
his country while convincing European diplomacy that United Italy was an
element of order and progress, and that the spiritual independence of
the Roman pontiff had suffered no diminution. Prudence, moreover,
counselled avoidance of all action likely to serve the predominant
anti-Italian party in France as a pretext for violent intervention in
favour of the pope. On the occasion of the Metrical Congress, which met
in Paris in 1872, he, however, successfully protested against the
recognition of the Vatican delegate, Father Secchi, as a representative
of a "state," and obtained from Count de Remusat, French foreign
minister, a formal declaration that the presence of Father Secchi on
that occasion could not constitute a diplomatic precedent. The
irritation displayed by Bismarck at the Francophil attitude of Italy
towards the end of the Franco-German War gave place to a certain show of
goodwill when the great chancellor found himself in his turn involved in
a struggle against the Vatican and when the policy of Thiers began to
strain Franco-Italian relations. Thiers had consistently opposed the
emperor Napoleon's pro-Italian policy. In the case of Italy, as in that
of Germany, he frankly regretted the constitution of powerful
homogeneous states upon the borders of France. Personal pique
accentuated this feeling in regard to Italy. The refusal of Victor
Emmanuel II. to meet Thiers at the opening of the Mont Cenis tunnel (a
refusal not unconnected with offensive language employed at Florence in
October 1870 by Thiers during his European tour, and with his
instructions to the French minister to remain absent from Victor
Emmanuel's official entry into Rome) had wounded the _amour propre_ of
the French statesman, and had decreased whatever inclination he might
otherwise have felt to oppose the French Clerical agitation for the
restoration of the temporal power, and for French interference with the
Italian Religious Orders Bill. Consequently relations between France and
Italy became so strained that in 1873 both the French minister to the
Quirinal and the Italian minister to the Republic remained for several
months absent from their posts. At this juncture the emperor of Austria
invited Victor Emmanuel to visit the Vienna Exhibition, and the Italian
government received a confidential intimation that acceptance of the
invitation to Vienna would be followed by a further invitation from
Berlin. Perceiving the advantage of a visit to the imperial and
apostolic court after the Italian occupation of Rome and the suppression
of the religious orders, and convinced of the value of more cordial
intercourse with the German empire, Visconti-Venosta and Minghetti
advised their sovereign to accept both the Austrian and the subsequent
German invitations. The visit to Vienna took place on the 17th to the
22nd of September, and that to Berlin on the 22nd to the 26th of
September 1873, the Italian monarch being accorded in both capitals a
most cordial reception, although the contemporaneous publication of La
Marmora's famous pamphlet, _More Light on the Events of 1866_, prevented
intercourse between the Italian ministers and Bismarck from being
entirely confidential. Visconti-Venosta and Minghetti, moreover, wisely
resisted the chancellor's pressure to override the Law of Guarantees and
to engage in an Italian _Kulturkampf_. Nevertheless the royal journey
contributed notably to the establishment of cordial relations between
Italy and the central powers, relations which were further strengthened
by the visit of the emperor Francis Joseph to Victor Emmanuel at Venice
in April 1875, and by that of the German emperor to Milan in October of
the same year. Meanwhile Thiers had given place to Marshal Macmahon, who
effected a decided improvement in Franco-Italian relations by recalling
from Civitavecchia the cruiser "Orenoque," which since 1870 had been
stationed in that port at the disposal of the pope in case he should
desire to quit Rome. The foreign policy of Visconti-Venosta may be said
to have reinforced the international position of Italy without sacrifice
of dignity, and without the vacillation and short-sightedness which was
to characterize the ensuing administrations of the Left.
First Depretis Cabinet.
The fall of the Right on the 18th of March 1876 was an event destined
profoundly and in many respects adversely to affect the course of
Italian history. Except at rare and not auspicious intervals, the Right
had held office from 1849 to 1876. Its rule was associated in the
popular mind with severe administration; hostility to the democratic
elements represented by Garibaldi, Crispi, Depretis and Bertani;
ruthless imposition and collection of taxes in order to meet the
financial engagements forced upon Italy by the vicissitudes of her
Risorgimento; strong predilection for Piedmontese, Lombards and Tuscans,
and a steady determination, not always scrupulous in its choice of
means, to retain executive power and the most important administrative
offices of the state for the _consorteria_, or close corporation, of its
own adherents. For years the men of the Left had worked to inoculate the
electorate with suspicion of Conservative methods and with hatred of the
imposts which they nevertheless knew to be indispensable to sound
finance. In regard to the grist tax especially, the agitators of the
Left had placed their party in a radically false position. Moreover, the
redemption of the railways by the state--contracts for which had been
signed by Sella in 1875 on behalf of the Minghetti cabinet with
Rothschild at Basel and with the Austrian government at Vienna--had been
fiercely opposed by the Left, although its members were for the most
part convinced of the utility of the operation. When, at the beginning
of March 1876, these contracts were submitted to parliament, a group of
Tuscan deputies, under Cesare Correnti, joined the opposition, and on
the 18th of March took advantage of a chance motion concerning the date
of discussion of an interpellation on the grist tax to place the
Minghetti cabinet in a minority. Depretis, ex-pro-dictator of Sicily,
and successor of Rattazzi in the leadership of the Left, was entrusted
by the king with the formation of a Liberal ministry. Besides the
premiership, Depretis assumed the portfolio of finance; Nicotera, an
ex-Garibaldian of somewhat tarnished reputation, but a man of energetic
and conservative temperament, was placed at the ministry of the
interior; public works were entrusted to Zanardelli, a Radical
doctrinaire of considerable juridical attainments; General Mezzacapo and
Signor Brin replaced General Ricotti Magnani and Admiral Saint-Bon at
the war office and ministry of marine; while to Mancini and Coppino,
prominent members of the Left, were allotted the portfolios of justice
and public instruction. Great difficulty was experienced in finding a
foreign minister willing to challenge comparison with Visconti-Venosta.
Several diplomatists in active service were approached, but, partly on
account of their refusal, and partly from the desire of the Left to
avoid giving so important a post to a diplomatist bound by ties of
friendship or of interest to the Right, the choice fell upon Melegari,
Italian minister at Bern.
Programme of the Left.
The new ministers had long since made monarchical professions of faith,
but, up to the moment of taking office, were nevertheless considered to
be tinged with an almost revolutionary hue. The king alone appeared to
feel no misgiving. His shrewd sense of political expediency and his
loyalty to constitutional principles saved him from the error of
obstructing the advent and driving into an anti-dynastic attitude
politicians who had succeeded in winning popular favour. Indeed, the
patriotism and loyalty of the new ministers were above suspicion. Danger
lay rather in entrusting men schooled in political conspiracy and in
unscrupulous parliamentary opposition with the government of a young
state still beset by enemies at home and abroad. As an opposition party
the Left had lived upon the facile credit of political promises, but had
no well-considered programme nor other discipline nor unity of purpose
than that born of the common eagerness of its leaders for office and
their common hostility to the Right. Neither Depretis, Nicotera, Crispi,
Cairoli nor Zanardelli was disposed permanently to recognize the
superiority of any one chief. The dissensions which broke out among them
within a few months of the accession of their party to power never
afterwards disappeared, except at rare moments when it became necessary
to unite in preventing the return of the Conservatives. Considerations
such as these could not be expected to appeal to the nation at large,
which hailed the advent of the Left as the dawn of an era of unlimited
popular sovereignty, diminished administrative pressure, reduction of
taxation and general prosperity. The programme of Depretis corresponded
only in part to these expectations. Its chief points were extension of
the franchise, incompatibility of a parliamentary mandate with an
official position, strict enforcement of the rights of the State in
regard to the Church, protection of freedom of conscience, maintenance
of the military and naval policy inaugurated by the Conservatives,
acceptance of the railway redemption contracts, consolidation of the
financial equilibrium, abolition of the forced currency, and,
eventually, fiscal reform. The long-promised abolition of the grist tax
was not explicitly mentioned, opposition to the railway redemption
contracts was transformed into approval, and the vaunted reduction of
taxation replaced by lip-service to the Conservative deity of financial
equilibrium. The railway redemption contracts were in fact immediately
voted by parliament, with a clause pledging the government to legislate
in favour of farming out the railways to private companies.
Nicotera, minister of the interior, began his administration of home
affairs by a sweeping change in the _personnel_ of the prefects,
sub-prefects and public prosecutors, but found himself obliged to incur
the wrath of his supporters by prohibiting Radical meetings likely to
endanger public order, and by enunciating administrative principles
which would have befitted an inveterate Conservative. In regard to the
Church, he instructed the prefects strictly to prevent infraction of the
law against religious orders. At the same time the cabinet, as a whole,
brought in a Clerical Abuses Bill, threatening with severe punishment
priests guilty of disturbing the peace of families, of opposing the laws
of the state, or of fomenting disorder. Depretis, for his part, was
compelled to declare impracticable the immediate abolition of the grist
tax, and to frame a bill for the increase of revenue, acts which caused
the secession of some sixty Radicals and Republicans from the
ministerial majority, and gave the signal for an agitation against the
premier similar to that which he himself had formerly undertaken against
the Right. The first general election under the Left (November 1876) had
yielded the cabinet the overwhelming majority of 421 Ministerialists
against 87 Conservatives, but the very size of the majority rendered it
unmanageable. The Clerical Abuses Bill provoked further dissensions:
Nicotera was severely affected by revelations concerning his political
past; Zanardelli refused to sanction the construction of a railway in
Calabria in which Nicotera was interested; and Depretis saw fit to
compensate the supporters of his bill for the increase of revenue by
decorating at one stroke sixty ministerial deputies with the Order of
the Crown of Italy. A further derogation from the ideal of democratic
austerity was committed by adding L80,000 per annum to the king's civil
list (14th May 1877) and by burdening the state exchequer with royal
household pensions amounting to L20,000 a year. The civil list, which
the law of the 10th of August 1862 had fixed at L650,000 a year, but
which had been voluntarily reduced by the king to L530,000 in 1864, and
to L490,000 in 1867, was thus raised to L570,000 a year. Almost the only
respect in which the Left could boast a decided improvement over the
administration of the Right was the energy displayed by Nicotera in
combating brigandage and the mafia in Calabria and Sicily. Successes
achieved in those provinces failed, however, to save Nicotera from the
wrath of the Chamber, and on the 14th of December 1877 a cabinet crisis
arose over a question concerning the secrecy of telegraphic
correspondence. Depretis thereupon reconstructed his administration,
excluding Nicotera, Melegari and Zanardelli, placing Crispi at the home
office, entrusting Magliani with finance, and himself assuming the
direction of foreign affairs.
Foreign policy of the Left.
In regard to foreign affairs, the debut of the Left as a governing party
was scarcely more satisfactory than its home policy. Since the war of
1866 the Left had advocated an Italo-Prussian alliance in opposition to
the Francophil tendencies of the Right. On more than one occasion
Bismarck had maintained direct relations with the chiefs of the Left,
and had in 1870 worked to prevent a Franco-Italian alliance by
encouraging the "party of action" to press for the occupation of Rome.
Besides, the Left stood for anti-clericalism and for the retention by
the State of means of coercing the Church, in opposition to the men of
the Right, who, with the exception of Sella, favoured Cavour's ideal of
"a free Church in a free State," and the consequent abandonment of state
control over ecclesiastical government. Upon the outbreak of the
Prussian _Kulturkampf_ the Left had pressed the Right to introduce an
Italian counterpart to the Prussian May laws, especially as the
attitude of Thiers and the hostility of the French Clericals obviated
the need for sparing French susceptibilities. Visconti-Venosta and
Minghetti, partly from aversion to a Jacobin policy, and partly from a
conviction that Bismarck sooner or later would undertake his _Gang nach
Canossa_, regardless of any tacit engagement he might have assumed
towards Italy, had wisely declined to be drawn into any infraction of
the Law of Guarantees. It was, however, expected that the chiefs of the
Left, upon attaining office, would turn resolutely towards Prussia in
search of a guarantee against the Clerical menace embodied in the regime
of Marshal Macmahon. On the contrary, Depretis and Melegari, both of
whom were imbued with French Liberal doctrines, adopted towards the
Republic an attitude so deferential as to arouse suspicion in Vienna and
Berlin. Depretis recalled Nigra from Paris and replaced him by General
Cialdini, whose ardent plea for Italian intervention in favour of France
in 1870, and whose comradeship with Marshal Macmahon in 1859, would, it
was supposed, render him _persona gratissima_ to the French government.
This calculation was falsified by events. Incensed by the elevation to
the rank of embassies of the Italian legation in Paris and the French
legation to the Quirinal, and by the introduction of the Italian bill
against clerical abuses, the French Clerical party not only attacked
Italy and her representative, General Cialdini, in the Chamber of
Deputies, but promoted a monster petition against the Italian bill. Even
the _coup d'etat_ of the 16th of May 1877 (when Macmahon dismissed the
Jules Simon cabinet for opposing the Clerical petition) hardly availed
to change the attitude of Depretis. As a precaution against an eventual
French attempt to restore the temporal power, orders were hurriedly
given to complete the defences of Rome, but in other respects the
Italian government maintained its subservient attitude. Yet at that
moment the adoption of a clear line of policy, in accord with the
central powers, might have saved Italy from the loss of prestige
entailed by her bearing in regard to the Russo-Turkish War and the
Austrian acquisition of Bosnia, and might have prevented the
disappointment subsequently occasioned by the outcome of the Congress of
Berlin. In the hope of inducing the European powers to "compensate"
Italy for the increase of Austrian influence on the Adriatic, Crispi
undertook in the autumn of 1877, with the approval of the king, and in
spite of the half-disguised opposition of Depretis, a semi-official
mission to Paris, Berlin, London and Vienna. The mission appears not to
have been an unqualified success, though Crispi afterwards affirmed in
the Chamber (4th March 1886) that Depretis might in 1877 "have harnessed
fortune to the Italian chariot." Depretis, anxious only to avoid "a
policy of adventure," let slip whatever opportunity may have presented
itself, and neglected even to deal energetically with the impotent but
mischievous Italian agitation for a "rectification" of the
Italo-Austrian frontier. He greeted the treaty of San Stefano (3rd March
1878) with undisguised relief, and by the mouth of the king,
congratulated Italy (7th March 1878) on having maintained with the
powers friendly and cordial relations "free from suspicious
precautions," and upon having secured for herself "that most precious of
alliances, the alliance of the future"--a phrase of which the empty
rhetoric was to be bitterly demonstrated by the Berlin Congress and the
French occupation of Tunisia.
Crispi.
Deaths of Victor Emmanuel II. and Pius IX.
Leo XIII.
The entry of Crispi into the Depretis cabinet (December 1877) placed at
the ministry of the interior a strong hand and sure eye at a moment when
they were about to become imperatively necessary. Crispi was the only
man of truly statesmanlike calibre in the ranks of the Left. Formerly a
friend and disciple of Mazzini, with whom he had broken on the question
of the monarchical form of government which Crispi believed
indispensable to the unification of Italy, he had afterwards been one of
Garibaldi's most efficient coadjutors and an active member of the "party
of action." Passionate, not always scrupulous in his choice and use of
political weapons, intensely patriotic, loyal with a loyalty based
rather on reason than sentiment, quick-witted, prompt in action,
determined and pertinacious, he possessed in eminent degree many
qualities lacking in other Liberal chieftains. Hardly had he assumed
office when the unexpected death of Victor Emmanuel II. (9th January
1878) stirred national feeling to an unprecedented depth, and placed the
continuity of monarchical institutions in Italy upon trial before
Europe. For thirty years Victor Emmanuel had been the centre point of
national hopes, the token and embodiment of the struggle for national
redemption. He had led the country out of the despondency which followed
the defeat of Novara and the abdication of Charles Albert, through all
the vicissitudes of national unification to the final triumph at Rome.
His disappearance snapped the chief link with the heroic period, and
removed from the helm of state a ruler of large heart, great experience
and civil courage, at a moment when elements of continuity were needed
and vital problems of internal reorganization had still to be faced.
Crispi adopted the measures necessary to ensure the tranquil accession
of King Humbert with a quick energy which precluded any Radical or
Republican demonstrations. His influence decided the choice of the Roman
Pantheon as the late monarch's burial-place, in spite of formidable
pressure from the Piedmontese, who wished Victor Emmanuel II. to rest
with the Sardinian kings at Superga. He also persuaded the new ruler to
inaugurate, as King Humbert I., the new dynastical epoch of the kings of
Italy, instead of continuing as Humbert IV. the succession of the kings
of Sardinia. Before the commotion caused by the death of Victor Emmanuel
had passed away, the decease of Pius IX (7th February 1878) placed
further demands upon Crispi's sagacity and promptitude. Like Victor
Emmanuel, Pius IX. had been bound up with the history of the
Risorgimento, but, unlike him, had represented and embodied the
anti-national, reactionary spirit. Ecclesiastically, he had become the
instrument of the triumph of Jesuit influence, and had in turn set his
seal upon the dogma of the Immaculate Conception, the Syllabus and Papal
Infallibility. Yet, in spite of all, his jovial disposition and
good-humoured cynicism saved him from unpopularity, and rendered his
death an occasion of mourning. Notwithstanding the pontiff's bestowal of
the apostolic benediction _in articulo mortis_ upon Victor Emmanuel, the
attitude of the Vatican had remained so inimical as to make it doubtful
whether the conclave would be held in Rome. Crispi, whose strong
anti-clerical convictions did not prevent him from regarding the papacy
as preeminently an Italian institution, was determined both to prove to
the Catholic world the practical independence of the government of the
Church and to retain for Rome so potent a centre of universal attraction
as the presence of the future pope. The Sacred College having decided to
hold the conclave abroad, Crispi assured them of absolute freedom if
they remained in Rome, or of protection to the frontier should they
migrate, but warned them that, once evacuated, the Vatican would be
occupied in the name of the Italian government and be lost to the Church
as headquarters of the papacy. The cardinals thereupon overruled their
former decision, and the conclave was held in Rome, the new pope,
Cardinal Pecci, being elected on the 20th of February 1878 without let
or hindrance. The Italian government not only prorogued the Chamber
during the conclave to prevent unseemly inquiries or demonstrations on
the part of deputies, but by means of Mancini, minister of justice, and
Cardinal di Pietro, assured the new pope protection during the
settlement of his outstanding personal affairs, an assurance of which
Leo XIII. on the evening after his election, took full advantage. At the
same time the duke of Aosta, commander of the Rome army corps, ordered
the troops to render royal honours to the pontiff should he officially
appear in the capital. King Humbert addressed to the pope a letter of
congratulation upon his election, and received a courteous reply. The
improvement thus signalized in the relations between Quirinal and
Vatican was further exemplified on the 18th of October 1878, when the
Italian government accepted a papal formula with regard to the granting
of the royal _exequatur_ for bishops, whereby they, upon nomination by
the Holy See, recognized state control over, and made application for,
the payment of their temporalities.
Cairoli.
The Depretis-Crispi cabinet did not long survive the opening of the new
reign. Crispi's position was shaken by a morally plausible but
juridically untenable charge of bigamy, while on the 8th of March the
election of Cairoli, an opponent of the ministry and head of the
extremer section of the Left, to the presidency of the Chamber, induced
Depretis to tender his resignation to the new king. Cairoli succeeded in
forming an administration, in which his friend Count Corti, Italian
ambassador at Constantinople, accepted the portfolio of foreign affairs,
Zanardelli the ministry of the interior, and Seismit Doda the ministry
of finance. Though the cabinet had no stable majority, it induced the
Chamber to sanction a commercial treaty which had been negotiated with
France and a general "autonomous" customs tariff. The commercial treaty
was, however, rejected by the French Chamber in June 1878, a
circumstance necessitating the application of the Italian general
tariff, which implied a 10 to 20% increase in the duties on the
principal French exports. A highly imaginative financial exposition by
Seismit Doda, who announced a surplus of L2,400,000, paved the way for a
Grist Tax Reduction Bill, which Cairoli had taken over from the Depretis
programme. The Chamber, though convinced of the danger of this reform,
the perils of which were incisively demonstrated by Sella, voted by an
overwhelming majority for an immediate reduction of the impost by
one-fourth, and its complete abolition within four years. Cairoli's
premiership was, however, destined to be cut short by an attempt made
upon the king's life in November 1878, during a royal visit to Naples,
by a miscreant named Passanante. In spite of the courage and presence of
mind of Cairoli, who received the dagger thrust intended for the king,
public and parliamentary indignation found expression in a vote which
compelled the ministry to resign.
Italy and the Berlin Congress.
Irredentism.
Though brief, Cairoli's term of office was momentous in regard to
foreign affairs. The treaty of San Stefano had led to the convocation of
the Berlin Congress, and though Count Corti was by no means ignorant of
the rumours concerning secret agreements between Germany, Austria and
Russia, and Germany, Austria and Great Britain, he scarcely seemed alive
to the possible effect of such agreements upon Italy. Replying on the
9th of April 1878 to interpellations by Visconti-Venosta and other
deputies on the impending Congress of Berlin, he appeared free from
apprehension lest Italy, isolated, might find herself face to face with
a change of the balance of power in the Mediterranean, and declared that
in the event of serious complications Italy would be "too much sought
after rather than too much forgotten." The policy of Italy in the
congress, he added, would be to support the interests of the young
Balkan nations. Wrapped in this optimism, Count Corti proceeded, as
first Italian delegate, to Berlin, where he found himself obliged, on
the 28th of May, to join reluctantly in sanctioning the Austrian
occupation of Bosnia and Herzegovina. On the 8th of July the revelation
of the Anglo-Ottoman treaty for the British occupation of Cyprus took
the congress by surprise. Italy, who had made the integrity of the
Ottoman empire a cardinal point of her Eastern policy, felt this change
of the Mediterranean _status quo_ the more severely inasmuch as, in
order not to strain her relations with France, she had turned a deaf ear
to Austrian, Russian and German advice to prepare to occupy Tunisia in
agreement with Great Britain. Count Corti had no suspicion that France
had adopted a less disinterested attitude towards similar suggestions
from Bismarck and Lord Salisbury. He therefore returned from the German
capital with "clean" but empty hands, a plight which found marked
disfavour in Italian eyes, and stimulated anti-Austrian Irredentism.
Ever since Venetia had been ceded by Austria to the emperor Napoleon,
and by him to Italy, after the war of 1866, secret revolutionary
committees had been formed in the northern Italian provinces to prepare
for the "redemption" of Trent and Trieste. For twelve years these
committees had remained comparatively inactive, but in 1878 the presence
of the ex-Garibaldian Cairoli at the head of the government, and popular
dissatisfaction at the spread of Austrian sway on the Adriatic,
encouraged them to begin a series of noisy demonstrations. On the
evening of the signature at Berlin of the clause sanctioning the
Austrian occupation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, an Irredentist riot took
place before the Austrian consulate at Venice. The Italian government
attached little importance to the occurrence, and believed that a
diplomatic expression of regret would suffice to allay Austrian
irritation. Austria, indeed, might easily have been persuaded to ignore
the Irredentist agitation, had not the equivocal attitude of Cairoli and
Zanardelli cast doubt upon the sincerity of their regret. The former at
Pavia (15th October 1878), and the latter at Arco (3rd November),
declared publicly that Irredentist manifestations could not be prevented
under existing laws, but gave no hint of introducing any law to sanction
their prevention. "Repression, not prevention" became the official
formula, the enunciation of which by Cairoli at Pavia caused Count Corti
and two other ministers to resign.
Finance.
The fall of Cairoli, and the formation of a second Depretis cabinet in
1878, brought no substantial change in the attitude of the government
towards Irredentism, nor was the position improved by the return of
Cairoli to power in the following July. Though aware of Bismarck's
hostility towards Italy, of the conclusion of the Austro-German alliance
of 1879, and of the undisguised ill-will of France, Italy not only made
no attempt to crush an agitation as mischievous as it was futile, but
granted a state funeral to General Avezzana, president of the
Irredentist League. In Bonghi's mordant phrase, the foreign policy of
Italy during this period may be said to have been characterized by
"enormous intellectual impotence counterbalanced by equal moral
feebleness." Home affairs were scarcely better managed. Parliament had
degenerated into a congeries of personal groups, whose members were
eager only to overturn cabinets in order to secure power for the leaders
and official favours for themselves. Depretis, who had succeeded Cairoli
in December 1878, fell in July 1879, after a vote in which Cairoli and
Nicotera joined the Conservative opposition. On 12th July Cairoli formed
a new administration, only to resign on 24th November, and to
reconstruct his cabinet with the help of Depretis. The administration of
finance was as chaotic as the condition of parliament. The L2,400,000
surplus announced by Seismit Doda proved to be a myth. Nevertheless
Magliani, who succeeded Seismit Doda, had neither the perspicacity nor
the courage to resist the abolition of the grist tax. The first vote of
the Chamber for the immediate diminution of the tax, and for its total
abolition on 1st January 1883, had been opposed by the Senate. A second
bill was passed by the Chamber on 18th July 1879, providing for the
immediate repeal of the grist tax on minor cereals, and for its total
abolition on 1st January 1884. While approving the repeal in regard to
minor cereals, the Senate (24th January 1880) again rejected the repeal
of the tax on grinding wheat as prejudicial to national finance. After
the general election of 1880, however, the Ministerialists, aided by a
number of factious Conservatives, passed a third bill repealing the
grist tax on wheat (10th July 1880), the repeal to take effect from the
1st of January 1884 onwards. The Senate, in which the partisans of the
ministry had been increased by numerous appointments ad hoc, finally set
the seal of its approval upon the measure. Notwithstanding this
prospective loss of revenue, parliament showed great reluctance to vote
any new impost, although hardly a year previously it had sanctioned
(30th June 1879) Depretis's scheme for spending during the next eighteen
years L43,200,000 in building 5000 kilometres of railway, an expenditure
not wholly justified by the importance of the lines, and useful
principally as a source of electoral sops for the constituents of
ministerial deputies. The unsatisfactory financial condition of the
Florence, Rome and Naples municipalities necessitated state help, but
the Chamber nevertheless proceeded with a light heart (23rd February
1881) to sanction the issue of a foreign loan for L26,000,000, with a
view to the abolition of the forced currency, thus adding to the burdens
of the exchequer a load which three years later again dragged Italy into
the gulf of chronic deficit.
Tunisia.
In no modern country is error or incompetence on the part of
administrators more swiftly followed by retribution than in Italy; both
at home and abroad she is hemmed in by political and economic conditions
which leave little margin for folly, and still less for "mental and
moral insufficiency," such as had been displayed by the Left. Nemesis
came in the spring of 1881, in the form of the French invasion of
Tunisia. Guiccioli, the biographer of Sella, observes that Italian
politicians find it especially hard to resist "the temptation of
appearing crafty." The men of the Left believed themselves subtle enough
to retain the confidence and esteem of all foreign powers while
coquetting at home with elements which some of these powers had reason
to regard with suspicion. Italy, in constant danger from France, needed
good relations with Austria and Germany, but could only attain the
goodwill of the former by firm treatment of the revolutionary
Irredentist agitation, and of the latter by clear demonstration of
Italian will and ability to cope with all anti-monarchical forces.
Depretis and Cairoli did neither the one nor the other. Hence, when
opportunity offered firmly to establish Italian predominance in the
central Mediterranean by an occupation of Tunisia, they found themselves
deprived of those confidential relations with the central powers, and
even with Great Britain, which might have enabled them to use the
opportunity to full advantage. The conduct of Italy in declining the
suggestions received from Count Andrassy and General Ignatiev on the eve
of the Russo-Turkish War--that Italy should seek compensation in Tunisia
for the extension of Austrian sway in the Balkans--and in subsequently
rejecting the German suggestion to come to an arrangement with Great
Britain for the occupation of Tunisia as compensation for the British
occupation of Cyprus, was certainly due to fear lest an attempt on
Tunisia should lead to a war with France, for which Italy knew herself
to be totally unprepared. This very unpreparedness, however, rendered
still less excusable her treatment of the Irredentist agitation, which
brought her within a hair's-breadth of a conflict with Austria. Although
Cairoli, upon learning of the Anglo-Ottoman convention in regard to
Cyprus, had advised Count Corti of the possibility that Great Britain
might seek to placate France by conniving at a French occupation of
Tunisia, neither he nor Count Corti had any inkling of the verbal
arrangement made between Lord Salisbury and Waddington at the instance
of Bismarck, that, when convenient, France should occupy Tunisia, an
agreement afterwards confirmed (with a reserve as to the eventual
attitude of Italy) in despatches exchanged in July and August 1878
between the Quai d'Orsay and Downing Street. Almost up to the moment of
the French occupation of Tunisia the Italian government believed that
Great Britain, if only out of gratitude for the bearing of Italy in
connexion with the Dulcigno demonstration in the autumn of 1880, would
prevent French acquisition of the Regency. Ignorant of the assurance
conveyed to France by Lord Granville that the Gladstone cabinet would
respect the engagements of the Beaconsfield-Salisbury administration,
Cairoli, in deference to Italian public opinion, endeavoured to
neutralize the activity of the French consul Roustan by the appointment
of an equally energetic Italian consul, Maccio. The rivalry between
these two officials in Tunisia contributed not a little to strain
Franco-Italian relations, but it is doubtful whether France would have
precipitated her action had not General Menabrea, Italian ambassador in
London, urged his government to purchase the Tunis-Goletta railway from
the English company by which it had been constructed. A French attempt
to purchase the line was upset in the English courts, and the railway
was finally secured by Italy at a price more than eight times its real
value. This pertinacity engendered a belief in France that Italy was
about to undertake in Tunisia a more aggressive policy than necessary
for the protection of her commercial interests. Roustan therefore
hastened to extort from the bey concessions calculated to neutralize the
advantages which Italy had hoped to secure by the possession of the
Tunis-Goletta line, and at the same time the French government prepared
at Toulon an expeditionary corps for the occupation of the Regency. In
the spring of 1881 the Kroumir tribe was reported to have attacked a
French force on the Algerian border, and on the 9th of April Roustan
informed the bey of Tunis that France would chastise the assailants. The
bey issued futile protests to the powers. On the 26th of April the
island of Tabarca was occupied by the French, Bizerta was seized on the
2nd of May, and on the 12th of May the bey signed the treaty of Bardo
accepting the French protectorate. France undertook the maintenance of
order in the Regency, and assumed the representation of Tunisia in all
dealings with other countries.
Italian indignation at the French _coup de main_ was the deeper on
account of the apparent duplicity of the government of the Republic. On
the 11th of May the French foreign minister, Barthelemy Saint Hilaire,
had officially assured the Italian ambassador in Paris that France "had
no thought of occupying Tunisia or any part of Tunisian territory,
beyond some points of the Kroumir country." This assurance, dictated by
Jules Ferry to Barthelemy Saint Hilaire in the presence of the Italian
ambassador, and by him telegraphed _en clair_ to Rome, was considered a
binding pledge that France would not materially alter the _status quo_
in Tunisia. Documents subsequently published have somewhat attenuated
the responsibility of Ferry and Saint Hilaire for this breach of faith,
and have shown that the French forces in Tunisia acted upon secret
instructions from General Farre, minister of war in the Ferry cabinet,
who pursued a policy diametrically opposed to the official declarations
made by the premier and the foreign minister. Even had this circumstance
been known at the time, it could scarcely have mitigated the intense
resentment of the whole Italian nation at an event which was considered
tantamount not only to the destruction of Italian aspirations to
Tunisia, but to the ruin of the interests of the numerous Italian colony
and to a constant menace against the security of the Sicilian and south
Italian coasts.
Had the blow thus struck at Italian influence in the Mediterranean
induced politicians to sink for a while their personal differences and
to unite in presenting a firm front to foreign nations, the crisis in
regard to Tunisia might not have been wholly unproductive of good.
Unfortunately, on this, as on other critical occasions, deputies proved
themselves incapable of common effort to promote general welfare. While
excitement over Tunisia was at its height, but before the situation was
irretrievably compromised to the disadvantage of Italy, Cairoli had been
compelled to resign by a vote of want of confidence in the Chamber. The
only politician capable of dealing adequately with the situation was
Sella, leader of the Right, and to him the crown appealed. The faction
leaders of the Left, though divided by personal jealousies and mutually
incompatible ambitions, agreed that the worst evil which could befall
Italy would be the return of the Right to power, and conspired to
preclude the possibility of a Sella cabinet. An attempt by Depretis to
recompose the Cairoli ministry proved fruitless, and after eleven
precious days had been lost, King Humbert was obliged, on the 19th of
April 1881, to refuse Cairoli's resignation. The conclusion of the
treaty of Bardo on the 12th of May, however, compelled Cairoli to
sacrifice himself to popular indignation. Again Sella was called upon,
but again the dog-in-the-manger policy of Depretis, Cairoli, Nicotera
and Baccarini, in conjunction with the intolerant attitude of some
extreme Conservatives, proved fatal to his endeavours. Depretis then
succeeded in recomposing the Cairoli cabinet without Cairoli, Mancini
being placed at the foreign office. Except in regard to an increase of
the army estimates, urgently demanded by public opinion, the new
ministry had practically no programme. Public opinion was further
irritated against France by the massacre of some Italian workmen at
Marseilles on the occasion of the return of the French expedition from
Tunisia, and Depretis, in response to public feeling, found himself
obliged to mobilize a part of the militia for military exercises. In
this condition of home and foreign affairs occurred disorders at Rome in
connexion with the transfer of the remains of Pius IX. from St Peter's
to the basilica of San Lorenzo. Most of the responsibility lay with the
Vatican, which had arranged the procession in the way best calculated to
irritate Italian feeling, but little excuse can be offered for the
failure of the Italian authorities to maintain public order. In
conjunction with the occupation of Tunisia, the effect of these
disorders was to exhibit Italy as a country powerless to defend its
interests abroad or to keep peace at home. The scandal and the pressure
of foreign Catholic opinion compelled Depretis to pursue a more
energetic policy, and to publish a formal declaration of the
intangibility of the Law of Guarantees.
Growth of the Triple Alliance.
Meanwhile a conviction was spreading that the only way of escape from
the dangerous isolation of Italy lay in closer agreement with Austria
and Germany. Depretis tardily recognized the need for such agreement, if
only to remove the "coldness and invincible diffidence" which, by
subsequent confession of Mancini, then characterized the attitude of the
central powers; but he was opposed to any formal alliance, lest it might
arouse French resentment, while the new Franco-Italian treaty was still
unconcluded, and the foreign loan for the abolition of the forced
currency had still to be floated. He, indeed, was not disposed to
concede to public opinion anything beyond an increase of the army, a
measure insistently demanded by Garibaldi and the Left. The Right
likewise desired to strengthen both army and navy, but advocated cordial
relations with Berlin and Vienna as a guarantee against French
domineering, and as a pledge that Italy would be vouchsafed time to
effect her armaments without disturbing financial equilibrium. The Right
also hoped that closer accord with Germany and Austria would compel
Italy to conform her home policy more nearly to the principles of order
prevailing in those empires. More resolute than Right or Left was the
Centre, a small group led by Sidney Sonnino, a young politician of
unusual fibre, which sought in the press and in parliament to spread a
conviction that the only sound basis for Italian policy would be close
alliance with the central powers and a friendly understanding with Great
Britain in regard to Mediterranean affairs. The principal Italian public
men were divided in opinion on the subject of an alliance. Peruzzi,
Lanza and Bonghi pleaded for equal friendship with all powers, and
especially with France; Crispi, Minghetti, Cadorna and others, including
Blanc, secretary-general to the foreign office, openly favoured a
pro-Austrian policy. Austria and Germany, however, scarcely reciprocated
these dispositions. The Irredentist agitation had left profound traces
at Berlin as well as at Vienna, and had given rise to a distrust of
Depretis which nothing had yet occurred to allay. Nor, in view of the
comparative weakness of Italian armaments, could eagerness to find an
ally be deemed conclusive proof of the value of Italian friendship.
Count di Robilant, Italian ambassador at Vienna, warned his government
not to yield too readily to pro-Austrian pressure, lest the dignity of
Italy be compromised, or her desire for an alliance be granted on
onerous terms. Mancini, foreign minister, who was as anxious as Depretis
for the conclusion of the Franco-Italian commercial treaty, gladly
followed this advice, and limited his efforts to the maintenance of
correct diplomatic relations with the central powers. Except in regard
to the Roman question, the advantages and disadvantages of an Italian
alliance with Austria and Germany counterbalanced each other. A
_rapprochement_ with France and a continuance of the Irredentist
movement could not fail to arouse Austro-German hostility; but, on the
other hand, to draw near to the central powers would inevitably
accentuate the diffidence of France. In the one hypothesis, as in the
other, Italy could count upon the moral support of Great Britain, but
could not make of British friendship the keystone of a Continental
policy. Apart from resentment against France on account of Tunisia there
remained the question of the temporal power of the pope to turn the
scale in favour of Austria and Germany. Danger of foreign interference
in the relations between Italy and the papacy had never been so great
since the Italian occupation of Rome, as when, in the summer of 1881,
the disorders during the transfer of the remains of Pius IX. had lent an
unwonted ring of plausibility to the papal complaint concerning the
"miserable" position of the Holy See. Bismarck at that moment had
entered upon his "pilgrimage to Canossa," and was anxious to obtain from
the Vatican the support of German Catholics. What resistance could
Italy have offered had the German chancellor, seconded by Austria, and
assuredly supported by France, called upon Italy to revise the Law of
Guarantees in conformity with Catholic exigencies, or had he taken the
initiative of making papal independence the subject of an international
conference? Friendship and alliance with Catholic Austria and powerful
Germany could alone lay this spectre. This was the only immediate
advantage Italy could hope to obtain by drawing nearer the central
Powers.
The political conditions of Europe favoured the realization of Italian
desires. Growing rivalry between Austria and Russia in the Balkans
rendered the continuance of the "League of the Three Emperors" a
practical impossibility. The Austro-German alliance of 1879 formally
guaranteed the territory of the contracting parties, but Austria could
not count upon effectual help from Germany in case of war, since Russian
attack upon Austria would certainly have been followed by French attack
upon Germany. As in 1860-1870, it therefore became a matter of the
highest importance for Austria to retain full disposal of all her troops
by assuring herself against Italian aggression. The tsar, Alexander
III., under the impression of the assassination of his father, desired,
however, the renewal of the _Dreikaiserbund_, both as a guarantee of
European peace and as a conservative league against revolutionary
parties. The German emperor shared this desire, but Bismarck and the
Austrian emperor wished to substitute for the imperial league some more
advantageous combination. Hence a tacit understanding between Bismarck
and Austria that the latter should profit by Italian resentment against
France to draw Italy into the orbit of the Austro-German alliance. For
the moment Germany was to hold aloof lest any active initiative on her
part should displease the Vatican, of whose help Bismarck stood in need.
At the beginning of August 1881 the Austrian press mooted the idea of a
visit from King Humbert to the emperor Francis Joseph. Count di
Robilant, anxious that Italy should not seem to beg a smile from the
central Powers, advised Mancini to receive with caution the suggestions
of the Austrian press. Depretis took occasion to deny, in a form
scarcely courteous, the probability of the visit. Robilant's opposition
to a precipitate acceptance of the Austrian hint was founded upon fear
lest King Humbert at Vienna might be pressed to disavow Irredentist
aspirations, and upon a desire to arrange for a visit of the emperor
Francis Joseph to Rome in return for King Humbert's visit to Vienna.
Seeing the hesitation of the Italian government, the Austrian and German
semi-official press redoubled their efforts to bring about the visit. By
the end of September the idea had gained such ground in Italy that the
visit was practically settled, and on the 7th of October Mancini
informed Robilant (who was then in Italy) of the fact. Though he
considered such precipitation impolitic, Robilant, finding that
confidential information of Italian intentions had already been conveyed
to the Austrian government, sought an interview with King Humbert, and
on the 17th of October started for Vienna to settle the conditions of
the visit. Depretis, fearing to jeopardize the impending conclusion of
the Franco-Italian commercial treaty, would have preferred the visit to
take the form of an act of personal courtesy between sovereigns. The
Austrian government, for its part, desired that the king should be
accompanied by Depretis, though not by Mancini, lest the presence of the
Italian foreign minister should lend to the occasion too marked a
political character. Mancini, unable to brook exclusion, insisted,
however, upon accompanying the king. King Humbert with Queen Margherita
reached Vienna on the morning of the 27th of October, and stayed at the
Hofburg until the 31st of October. The visit was marked by the greatest
cordiality, Count Robilant's fears of inopportune pressure with regard
to Irredentism proving groundless. Both in Germany and Austria the visit
was construed as a preliminary to the adhesion of Italy to the
Austro-German alliance. Count Hatzfeldt, on behalf of the German Foreign
Office, informed the Italian ambassador in Berlin that whatever was
done at Vienna would be regarded as having been done in the German
capital. Nor did nascent irritation in France prevent the conclusion of
the Franco-Italian commercial treaty, which was signed at Paris on the
3rd of November.
In Italy public opinion as a whole was favourable to the visit,
especially as it was not considered an obstacle to the projected
increase of the army and navy. Doubts, however, soon sprang up as to its
effect upon the minds of Austrian statesmen, since on the 8th of
November the language employed by Kallay and Count Andrassy to the
Hungarian delegations on the subject of Irredentism was scarcely
calculated to soothe Italian susceptibilities. But on 9th November the
European situation was suddenly modified by the formation of the
Gambetta cabinet, and, in view of the policy of revenge with which
Gambetta was supposed to be identified, it became imperative for
Bismarck to assure himself that Italy would not be enticed into a
Francophil attitude by any concession Gambetta might offer. As usual
when dealing with weaker nations, the German chancellor resorted to
intimidation. He not only re-established the Prussian legation to the
Vatican, suppressed since 1874, and omitted from the imperial message to
the Reichstag (17th November 1881) all reference to King Humbert's visit
to Vienna, but took occasion on the 29th of November to refer to Italy
as a country tottering on the verge of revolution, and opened in the
German semi-official press a campaign in favour of an international
guarantee for the independence of the papacy. These manoeuvres produced
their effect upon Italian public opinion. In the long and important
debate upon foreign policy in the Italian Chamber of Deputies (6th to
9th December) the fear was repeatedly expressed lest Bismarck should
seek to purchase the support of German Catholics by raising the Roman
question. Mancini, still unwilling frankly to adhere to the
Austro-German alliance, found his policy of "friendship all round"
impeded by Gambetta's uncompromising attitude in regard to Tunisia.
Bismarck nevertheless continued his press campaign in favour of the
temporal power until, reassured by Gambetta's decision to send Roustan
back to Tunis to complete as minister the anti-Italian programme begun
as consul, he finally instructed his organs to emphasize the common
interests of Germany and Italy on the occasion of the opening of the St
Gothard tunnel. But the effect of the German press campaign could not be
effaced in a day. At the new year's reception of deputies King Humbert
aroused enthusiasm by a significant remark that Italy intended to remain
"mistress in her own house"; while Mancini addressed to Count de Launay,
Italian ambassador in Berlin, a haughty despatch, repudiating the
supposition that the pope might (as Bismarckian emissaries had suggested
to the Vatican) obtain abroad greater spiritual liberty than in Rome, or
that closer relations between Italy and Germany, such as were required
by the interests and aspirations of the two countries, could be made in
any way contingent upon a modification of Italian freedom of action in
regard to home affairs.
Death of Garibaldi.
Signature of the Treaty, 1882.
The sudden fall of Gambetta (26th January 1882) having removed the fear of
immediate European complications, the cabinets of Berlin and Vienna again
displayed diffidence towards Italy. So great was Bismarck's distrust of
Italian parliamentary instability, his doubts of Italian capacity for
offensive warfare and his fear of the Francophil tendencies of Depretis,
that for many weeks the Italian ambassador at Berlin was unable to obtain
audience of the chancellor. But for the Tunisian question Italy might
again have been drawn into the wake of France. Mancini tried to impede the
organization of French rule in the Regency by refusing to recognize the
treaty of Bardo, yet so careless was Bismarck of Italian susceptibilities
that he instructed the German consul at Tunis to recognize French decrees.
Partly under the influence of these circumstances, and partly in response
to persuasion by Baron Blanc, secretary-general for foreign affairs,
Mancini instructed Count di Robilant to open negotiations for an
Italo-Austrian alliance--instructions which Robilant neglected until
questioned by Count Kalnoky on the subject. The first exchange of ideas
between the two Governments proved fruitless, since Kalnoky, somewhat
Clerical-minded, was averse from guaranteeing the integrity of all Italian
territory, and Mancini was equally unwilling to guarantee to Austria
permanent possession of Trent and Trieste. Mancini, moreover, wished the
treaty of alliance to provide for reciprocal protection of the chief
interests of the contracting Powers, Italy undertaking to second
Austria-Hungary in the Balkans, and Austria and Germany pledging
themselves to support Italy in Mediterranean questions. Without some such
proviso Italy would, in Mancini's opinion, be exposed single-handed to
French resentment. At the request of Kalnoky, Mancini defined his proposal
in a memorandum, but the illness of himself and Depretis, combined with an
untoward discussion in the Italian press on the failure of the Austrian
emperor to return in Rome King Humbert's visit to Vienna, caused
negotiations to drag. The pope, it transpired, had refused to receive the
emperor if he came to Rome on a visit to the Quirinal, and Francis Joseph,
though anxious to return King Humbert's visit, was unable to offend the
feelings of his Catholic subjects. Meanwhile (11th May 1882) the Italian
parliament adopted the new Army Bill, involving a special credit of
L5,100,000 for the creation of two new army corps, by which the war
footing of the regular army was raised to nearly 850,000 men and the
ordinary military estimates to L8,000,000 per annum. Garibaldi, who, since
the French occupation of Tunis, had ardently worked for the increase of
the army, had thus the satisfaction of seeing his desire realized before
his death at Caprera, on the 2nd of June 1882. "In spirit a child, in
character a man of classic mould," Garibaldi had remained the nation's
idol, an almost legendary hero whose place none could aspire to fill.
Gratitude for his achievements and sorrow for his death found expression
in universal mourning wherein king and peasant equally joined. Before his
death, and almost contemporaneously with the passing of the Army Bill,
negotiations for the alliance were renewed. Encouraged from Berlin,
Kalnoky agreed to the reciprocal territorial guarantee, but declined
reciprocity in support of special interests. Mancini had therefore to be
content with a declaration that the allies would act in mutually friendly
intelligence. Depretis made some opposition, but finally acquiesced, and
the treaty of triple alliance was signed on the 20th of May 1882, five
days after the promulgation of the Franco-Italian commercial treaty in
Paris. Though partial revelations have been made, the exact tenor of the
treaty of triple alliance has never been divulged. It is known to have
been concluded for a period of five years, to have pledged the contracting
parties to join in resisting attack upon the territory of any one of them,
and to have specified the military disposition to be adopted by each in
case attack should come either from France, or from Russia, or from both
simultaneously. The Italian General Staff is said to have undertaken, in
the event of war against France, to operate with two armies on the
north-western frontier against the French armee des Alpes, of which the
war strength is about 250,000 men. A third Italian army would, if
expedient, pass into Germany, to operate against either France or Russia.
Austria undertook to guard the Adriatic on land and sea, and to help
Germany by checkmating Russia on land. Germany would be sufficiently
employed in carrying on war against two fronts. Kalnoky desired that both
the terms of the treaty and the fact of its conclusion should remain
secret, but Bismarck and Mancini hastened to hint at its existence, the
former in the Reichstag on the 12th of June 1882, and the latter in the
Italian semi-official press. A revival of Irredentism in connexion with
the execution of an Austrian deserter named Oberdank, who after escaping
into Italy endeavoured to return to Austria with explosive bombs in his
possession, and the cordial references to France made by Depretis at
Stradella (8th October 1882), prevented the French government from
suspecting the existence of the alliance, or from ceasing to strive after
a Franco-Italian understanding. Suspicion was not aroused until March
1883, when Mancini, in defending himself against strictures upon his
refusal to co-operate with Great Britain in Egypt, practically revealed
the existence of the treaty, thereby irritating France and destroying
Depretis's secret hope of finding in the triple alliance the advantage of
an Austro-German guarantee without the disadvantage of French enmity. In
Italy the revelation of the treaty was hailed with satisfaction except by
the Clericals, who were enraged at the blow thus struck at the restoration
of the pope's temporal power, and by the Radicals, who feared both the
inevitable breach with republican France and the reinforcement of Italian
constitutional parties by intimacy with strong monarchical states such as
Germany and Austria. These very considerations naturally combined to
recommend the fact to constitutionalists, who saw in it, besides the
territorial guarantee, the elimination of the danger of foreign
interference in the relations between Italy and the Vatican, such as
Bismarck had recently threatened and such as France was believed ready to
propose.
First renewal of the Triple Alliance.
Nevertheless, during its first period (1882-1887) the triple alliance
failed to ensure cordiality between the contracting Powers. Mancini
exerted himself in a hundred ways to soothe French resentment. He not
only refused to join Great Britain in the Egyptian expedition, but
agreed to suspend Italian consular jurisdiction in Tunis, and deprecated
suspicion of French designs upon Morocco. His efforts were worse than
futile. France remained cold, while Bismarck and Kalnoky, distrustful of
the Radicalism of Depretis and Mancini, assumed towards their ally an
attitude almost hostile. Possibly Germany and Austria may have been
influenced by the secret treaty signed between Austria, Germany and
Russia on the 21st of March 1884, and ratified during the meeting of the
three emperors at Skierniewice in September of that year, by which
Bismarck, in return for "honest brokerage" in the Balkans, is understood
to have obtained from Austria and Russia a promise of benevolent
neutrality in case Germany should be "forced" to make war upon a fourth
power--France. Guaranteed thus against Russian attack, Italy became in
the eyes of the central powers a negligible quantity, and was treated
accordingly. Though kept in the dark as to the Skierniewice arrangement,
the Italian government soon discovered from the course of events that
the triple alliance had practically lost its object, European peace
having been assured without Italian co-operation. Meanwhile France
provided Italy with fresh cause for uneasiness by abating her hostility
to Germany. Italy in consequence drew nearer to Great Britain, and at
the London conference on the Egyptian financial question sided with
Great Britain against Austria and Germany. At the same time negotiations
took place with Great Britain for an Italian occupation of Massawa, and
Mancini, dreaming of a vast Anglo-Italian enterprise against the Mahdi,
expatiated in the spring of 1885 upon the glories of an Anglo-Italian
alliance, an indiscretion which drew upon him a scarcely-veiled
_dementi_ from London. Again speaking in the Chamber, Mancini claimed
for Italy the principal merit in the conclusion of the triple alliance,
but declared that the alliance left Italy full liberty of action in
regard to interests outside its scope, "especially as there was no
possibility of obtaining protection for such interests from those who by
the alliance had not undertaken to protect them." These words, which
revealed the absence of any stipulation in regard to the protection of
Italian interests in the Mediterranean, created lively dissatisfaction
in Italy and corresponding satisfaction in France. They hastened
Mancini's downfall (17th June 1885), and prepared the advent of count di
Robilant, who three months later succeeded Mancini at the Italian
Foreign Office. Robilant, for whom the Skierniewice pact was no secret,
followed a firmly independent policy throughout the Bulgarian crisis of
1885-1886, declining to be drawn into any action beyond that required by
the treaty of Berlin and the protection of Italian interests in the
Balkans. Italy, indeed, came out of the Eastern crisis with enhanced
prestige and with her relations to Austria greatly improved. Towards
Prince Bismarck Robilant maintained an attitude of dignified
independence, and as, in the spring of 1886, the moment for the renewal
of the triple alliance drew near, he profited by the development of the
Bulgarian crisis and the threatened Franco-Russian understanding to
secure from the central powers "something more" than the bare
territorial guarantee of the original treaty. This "something more"
consisted, at least in part, of the arrangement, with the help of
Austria and Germany, of an Anglo-Italian naval understanding having
special reference to the Eastern question, but providing for common
action by the British and Italian fleets in the Mediterranean in case of
war. A vote of the Italian Chamber on the 4th of February 1887, in
connexion with the disaster to Italian troops at Dogali, in Abyssinia,
brought about the resignation of the Depretis-Robilant cabinet. The
crisis dragged for three months, and before its definitive solution by
the formation of a Depretis-Crispi ministry, Robilant succeeded (17th
March 1887) in renewing the triple alliance on terms more favourable to
Italy than those obtained in 1882. Not only did he secure concessions
from Austria and Germany corresponding in some degree to the improved
state of the Italian army and navy, but, in virtue of the Anglo-Italian
understanding, assured the practical adhesion of Great Britain to the
European policy of the central powers, a triumph probably greater than
any registered by Italian diplomacy since the completion of national
unity.
Internal reforms.
The railway conventions.
The period between May 1881 and July 1887 occupied, in the region of
foreign affairs, by the negotiation, conclusion and renewal of the
triple alliance, by the Bulgarian crisis and by the dawn of an Italian
colonial policy, was marked at home by urgent political and economic
problems, and by the parliamentary phenomena known as _trasformismo_. On
the 29th of June 1881 the Chamber adopted a Franchise Reform Bill, which
increased the electorate from 600,000 to 2,000,000 by lowering the
fiscal qualification from 40 to 19.80 lire in direct taxation, and by
extending the suffrage to all persons who had passed through the two
lower standards of the elementary schools, and practically to all
persons able to read and write. The immediate result of the reform was
to increase the political influence of large cities where the proportion
of illiterate workmen was lower than in the country districts, and to
exclude from the franchise numbers of peasants and small proprietors
who, though of more conservative temperament and of better economic
position than the artizan population of the large towns, were often
unable to fulfil the scholarship qualification. On the 12th of April
1883 the forced currency was formally abolished by the resumption of
treasury payments in gold with funds obtained through a loan of
L14,500,000 issued in London on the 5th of May 1882. Owing to the
hostility of the French market, the loan was covered with difficulty,
and, though the gold premium fell and commercial exchanges were
temporarily facilitated by the resumption of cash payments, it is
doubtful whether these advantages made up for the burden of L640,000
additional annual interest thrown upon the exchequer. On the 6th of
March 1885 parliament finally sanctioned the conventions by which state
railways were farmed out to three private companies--the Mediterranean,
Adriatic and Sicilian. The railways redeemed in 1875-1876 had been
worked in the interval by the government at a heavy loss. A commission
of inquiry reported in favour of private management. The conventions,
concluded for a period of sixty years, but terminable by either party
after twenty or forty years, retained for the state the possession of
the lines (except the southern railway, viz. the line from Bologna to
Brindisi belonging to the Societa Meridionale to whom the Adriatic lines
were now farmed), but sold rolling stock to the companies, arranged
various schedules of state subsidy for lines projected or in course of
construction, guaranteed interest on the bonds of the companies and
arranged for the division of revenue between the companies, the reserve
fund and the state. National control of the railways was secured by a
proviso that the directors must be of Italian nationality. Depretis and
his colleague Genala, minister of public works, experienced great
difficulty in securing parliamentary sanction for the conventions, not
so much on account of their defective character, as from the opposition
of local interests anxious to extort new lines from the government. In
fact, the conventions were only voted by a majority of twenty-three
votes after the government had undertaken to increase the length of new
state-built lines from 1500 to 2500 kilometres. Unfortunately, the
calculation of probable railway revenue on which the conventions had
been based proved to be enormously exaggerated. For many years the
37(1/2)% of the gross revenue (less the cost of maintaining the rolling
stock, incumbent on the state) scarcely sufficed to pay the interest on
debts incurred for railway construction and on the guaranteed bonds.
Gradually the increase of traffic consequent upon the industrial
development of Italy decreased the annual losses of the state, but the
position of the government in regard to the railways still remained so
unsatisfactory as to render the resumption of the whole system by the
state on the expiration of the first period of twenty years in 1905
inevitable.
Finance.
Intimately bound up with the forced currency, the railway conventions
and public works was the financial question in general. From 1876, when
equilibrium between expenditure and revenue had first been attained,
taxation yielded steady annual surpluses, which in 1881 reached the
satisfactory level of L2,120,000. The gradual abolition of the grist tax
on minor cereals diminished the surplus in 1882 to L236,000, and in 1883
to L110,000, while the total repeal of the grist tax on wheat, which
took effect on the 1st of January 1884, coincided with the opening of a
new and disastrous period of deficit. True, the repeal of the grist tax
was not the only, nor possibly even the principal, cause of the deficit.
The policy of "fiscal transformation" inaugurated by the Left increased
revenue from indirect taxation from L17,000,000 in 1876 to more than
L24,000,000 in 1887, by substituting heavy corn duties for the grist
tax, and by raising the sugar and petroleum duties to unprecedented
levels. But partly from lack of firm financial administration, partly
through the increase of military and naval expenditure (which in 1887
amounted to L9,000,000 for the army, while special efforts were made to
strengthen the navy), and principally through the constant drain of
railway construction and public works, the demands upon the exchequer
grew largely to exceed the normal increase of revenue, and necessitated
the contraction of new debts. In their anxiety to remain in office
Depretis and the finance minister, Magliani, never hesitated to mortgage
the financial future of their country. No concession could be denied to
deputies, or groups of deputies, whose support was indispensable to the
life of the cabinet, nor, under such conditions, was it possible to
place any effective check upon administrative abuses in which
politicians or their electors were interested. Railways, roads and
harbours which contractors had undertaken to construct for reasonable
amounts were frequently made to cost thrice the original estimates.
Minghetti, in a trenchant exposure of the parliamentary condition of
Italy during this period, cites a case in which a credit for certain
public works was, during a debate in the Chamber, increased by the
government from L6,600,000 to L9,000,000 in order to conciliate local
political interests. In the spring of 1887 Genala, minister of public
works, was taken to task for having sanctioned expenditure of
L80,000,000 on railway construction while only L40,000,000 had been
included in the estimates. As most of these credits were spread over a
series of years, succeeding administrations found their financial
liberty of action destroyed, and were obliged to cover deficit by
constant issues of consolidated stock. Thus the deficit of L940,000 for
the financial year 1885-1886 rose to nearly L2,920,000 in 1887-1888, and
in 1888-1889 attained the terrible level of L9,400,000.
Nevertheless, in spite of many and serious shortcomings, the long series
of Depretis administrations was marked by the adoption of some useful
measures. Besides the realization of the formal programme of the Left,
consisting of the repeal of the grist tax, the abolition of the forced
currency, the extension of the suffrage and the development of the
railway system, Depretis laid the foundation for land tax re-assessment
by introducing a new cadastral survey. Unfortunately, the new survey was
made largely optional, so that provinces which had reason to hope for a
diminution of land tax under a revised assessment hastened to complete
their survey, while others, in which the average of the land tax was
below a normal assessment, neglected to comply with the provisions of
the scheme. An important undertaking, known as the Agricultural Inquiry,
brought to light vast quantities of information valuable for future
agrarian legislation. The year 1885 saw the introduction and adoption of
a measure embodying the principle of employers' liability for accidents
to workmen, a principle subsequently extended and more equitably defined
in the spring of 1899. An effort to encourage the development of the
mercantile marine was made in the same year, and a convention was
concluded with the chief lines of passenger steamers to retain their
fastest vessels as auxiliaries to the fleet in case of war. Sanitation
and public hygiene received a potent impulse from the cholera epidemic
of 1884, many of the unhealthiest quarters in Naples and other cities
being demolished and rebuilt, with funds chiefly furnished by the state.
The movement was strongly supported by King Humbert, whose intrepidity
in visiting the most dangerous spots at Busca and Naples while the
epidemic was at its height, reassuring the panic-stricken inhabitants by
his presence, excited the enthusiasm of his people and the admiration of
Europe.
"Trasformismo."
During the accomplishment of these and other reforms the condition of
parliament underwent profound change. By degrees the administrations of
the Left had ceased to rely solely upon the Liberal sections of the
Chamber, and had carried their most important bills with the help of the
Right. This process of transformation was not exclusively the work of
Depretis, but had been initiated as early as 1873, when a portion of the
Right under Minghetti had, by joining the Left, overturned the
Lanza-Sella cabinet. In 1876 Minghetti himself had fallen a victim to a
similar defection of Conservative deputies. The practical annihilation
of the old Right in the elections of 1876 opened a new parliamentary
era. Reduced in number to less than one hundred, and radically changed
in spirit and composition, the Right gave way, if not to despair, at
least to a despondency unsuited to an opposition party. Though on more
than one occasion personal rancour against the men of the Moderate Left
prevented the Right from following Sella's advice and regaining, by
timely coalition with cognate parliamentary elements, a portion of its
former influence, the bulk of the party, with singular inconsistency,
drew nearer and nearer to the Liberal cabinets. The process was
accelerated by Sella's illness and death (14th March 1884), an event
which cast profound discouragement over the more thoughtful of the
Conservatives and Moderate Liberals, by whom Sella had been regarded as
a supreme political reserve, as a statesman whose experienced vigour and
patriotic sagacity might have been trusted to lift Italy from any depth
of folly or misfortune. By a strange anomaly the Radical measures
brought forward by the Left diminished instead of increasing the
distance between it and the Conservatives. Numerically insufficient to
reject such measures, and lacking the fibre and the cohesion necessary
for the pursuance of a far-sighted policy, the Right thought prudent not
to employ its strength in uncompromising opposition, but rather, by
supporting the government, to endeavour to modify Radical legislation in
a Conservative sense. In every case the calculation proved fallacious.
Radical measures were passed unmodified, and the Right was compelled
sadly to accept the accomplished fact. Thus it was with the abolition of
the grist tax, the reform of the suffrage, the railway conventions and
many other bills. When, in course of time, the extended suffrage
increased the Republican and Extreme Radical elements in the Chamber,
and the Liberal "Pentarchy" (composed of Crispi, Cairoli, Nicotera,
Zanardelli and Baccarini) assumed an attitude of bitter hostility to
Depretis, the Right, obeying the impulse of Minghetti, rallied openly to
Depretis, lending him aid without which his prolonged term of office
would have been impossible. The result was parliamentary chaos, baptized
_trasformismo_. In May 1883 this process received official recognition
by the elimination of the Radicals Zanardelli and Baccarini from the
Depretis cabinet, while in the course of 1884 a Conservative, Signor
Biancheri, was elected to the presidency of the Chamber, and another
Conservative, General Ricotti, appointed to the War Office. Though
Depretis, at the end of his life in 1887, showed signs of repenting of
the confusion thus created, he had established a parliamentary system
destined largely to sterilize and vitiate the political life of Italy.
Colonial policy.
Contemporaneously with the vicissitudes of home and foreign policy under
the Left there grew up in Italy a marked tendency towards colonial
enterprise. The tendency itself dated from 1869, when a congress of the
Italian chambers of commerce at Genoa had urged the Lanza cabinet to
establish a commercial depot on the Red Sea. On the 11th of March 1870
an Italian shipper, Signor Rubattino, had bought the bay of Assab, with
the neighbouring island of Darmakieh, from Beheran, sultan of Raheita,
for L1880, the funds being furnished by the government. The Egyptian
government being unwilling to recognize the sovereignty of Beheran over
Assab or his right to sell territory to a foreign power,
Visconti-Venosta thought it opportune not then to occupy Assab. No
further step was taken until, at the end of 1879, Rubattino prepared to
establish a commercial station at Assab. The British government made
inquiry as to his intentions, and on the 19th of April 1880 received a
formal undertaking from Cairoli that Assab would never be fortified nor
be made a military establishment. Meanwhile (January 1880) stores and
materials were landed, and Assab was permanently occupied. Eighteen
months later a party of Italian sailors and explorers under Lieutenant
Biglieri and Signor Giulietti were massacred in Egyptian territory.
Egypt, however, refused to make thorough inquiry into the massacre, and
was only prevented from occupying Raheita and coming into conflict with
Italy by the good offices of Lord Granville, who dissuaded the Egyptian
government from enforcing its sovereignty. On the 20th of September 1881
Beheran formally accepted Italian protection, and in the following
February an Anglo-Italian convention established the Italian title to
Assab on condition that Italy should formally recognise the suzerainty
of the Porte and of the khedive over the Red Sea coast, and should
prevent the transport of arms and munitions of war through the territory
of Assab. This convention was never recognized by the Porte nor by the
Egyptian government. A month later (10th March 1882) Rubattino made over
his establishment to the Italian government, and on the 12th of June the
Chamber adopted a bill constituting Assab an Italian crown colony.
The Egyptian Question.
Disaster of Dogali.
Within four weeks of the adoption of this bill the bombardment of
Alexandria by the British fleet (11th July 1882) opened an era destined
profoundly to affect the colonial position of Italy. The revolt of Arabi
Pasha (September 1881) had led to the meeting of an ambassadorial
conference at Constantinople, promoted by Mancini, Italian minister for
foreign affairs, in the hope of preventing European intervention in
Egypt and the permanent establishment of an Anglo-French condominium to
the detriment of Italian influence. At the opening of the conference
(23rd June 1882) Italy secured the signature of a self-denying protocol
whereby all the great powers undertook to avoid isolated action; but the
rapid development of the crisis in Egypt, and the refusal of France to
co-operate with Great Britain in the restoration of order, necessitated
vigorous action by the latter alone. In view of the French refusal, Lord
Granville on the 27th of July invited Italy to join in restoring order
in Egypt; but Mancini and Depretis, in spite of the efforts of Crispi,
then in London, declined the offer. Financial considerations, lack of
proper transports for an expeditionary corps, fear of displeasing
France, dislike of a "policy of adventure," misplaced deference towards
the ambassadorial conference in Constantinople, and unwillingness to
thwart the current of Italian sentiment in favour of the Egyptian
"nationalists," were the chief motives of the Italian refusal, which had
the effect of somewhat estranging Great Britain and Italy. Anglo-Italian
relations, however, regained their normal cordiality two years later,
and found expression in the support lent by Italy to the British
proposal at the London conference on the Egyptian question (July 1884).
About the same time Mancini was informed by the Italian agent in Cairo
that Great Britain would be well disposed towards an extension of
Italian influence on the Red Sea coast. Having sounded Lord Granville,
Mancini received encouragement to seize Beilul and Massawa, in view of
the projected restriction of the Egyptian zone of military occupation
consequent on the Mahdist rising in the Sudan. Lord Granville further
inquired whether Italy would co-operate in pacifying the Sudan, and
received an affirmative reply. Italian action was hastened by news that,
in December 1884, an exploring party under Signor Bianchi, royal
commissioner for Assab, had been massacred in the Aussa (Danakil)
country, an event which aroused in Italy a desire to punish the
assassins and to obtain satisfaction for the still unpunished massacre
of Signor Giulietti and his companions. Partly to satisfy public
opinion, partly in order to profit by the favourable disposition of the
British government, and partly in the hope of remedying the error
committed in 1882 by refusal to co-operate with Great Britain in Egypt,
the Italian government in January 1885 despatched an expedition under
Admiral Caimi and Colonel Saletta to occupy Massawa and Beilul. The
occupation, effected on the 5th of February, was accelerated by fear
lest Italy might be forestalled by France or Russia, both of which
powers were suspected of desiring to establish themselves firmly on the
Red Sea and to exercise a protectorate over Abyssinia. News of the
occupation reached Europe simultaneously with the tidings of the fall of
Khartum, an event which disappointed Italian hopes of military
co-operation with Great Britain in the Sudan. The resignation of the
Gladstone-Granville cabinet further precluded the projected Italian
occupation of Suakin, and the Italians, wisely refraining from an
independent attempt to succour Kassala, then besieged by the Mahdists,
bent their efforts to the increase of their zone of occupation around
Massawa. The extension of the Italian zone excited the suspicions of
John, negus of Abyssinia, whose apprehensions were assiduously fomented
by Alula, ras of Tigre, and by French and Greek adventurers. Measures,
apparently successful, were taken to reassure the negus, but shortly
afterwards protection inopportunely accorded by Italy to enemies of Ras
Alula, induced the Abyssinians to enter upon hostilities. In January
1886 Ras Alula raided the village of Wa, to the west of Zula, but
towards the end of the year (23rd November) Wa was occupied by the
irregular troops of General Gene, who had superseded Colonel Saletta at
Massawa. Angered by this step, Ras Alula took prisoners the members of
an Italian exploring party commanded by Count Salimbeni, and held them
as hostages for the evacuation of Wa. General Gene nevertheless
reinforced Wa and pushed forward a detachment to Saati. On the 25th of
January 1887 Ras Alula attacked Saati, but was repulsed with loss. On
the following day, however, the Abyssinians succeeded in surprising,
near the village of Dogali, an Italian force of 524 officers and men
under Colonel De Cristoforis, who were convoying provisions to the
garrison of Saati. The Abyssinians, 20,000 strong, speedily overwhelmed
the small Italian force, which, after exhausting its ammunition, was
destroyed where it stood. One man only escaped. Four hundred and seven
men and twenty-three officers were killed outright, and one officer and
eighty-one men wounded. Dead and wounded alike were horribly mutilated
by order of Alula. Fearing a new attack, General Gene withdrew his
forces from Saati, Wa and Arafali; but the losses of the Abyssinians at
Saati and Dogali had been so heavy as to dissuade Alula from further
hostilities.
Abyssinia.
Treaty of Uccialli.
In Italy the disaster of Dogali produced consternation, and caused the
fall of the Depretis-Robilant cabinet. The Chamber, eager for revenge,
voted a credit of L200,000, and sanctioned the despatch of
reinforcements. Meanwhile Signor Crispi, who, though averse from
colonial adventure, desired to vindicate Italian honour, entered the
Depretis cabinet as minister of the interior, and obtained from
parliament a new credit of L800,000. In November 1887 a strong
expedition under General di San Marzano raised the strength of the
Massawa garrison to nearly 20,000 men. The British government, desirous
of preventing an Italo-Abyssinian conflict, which could but strengthen
the position of the Mahdists, despatched Mr (afterwards Sir) Gerald
Portal from Massawa on the 29th of October to mediate with the negus.
The mission proved fruitless. Portal returned to Massawa on the 25th of
December 1887, and warned the Italians that John was preparing to attack
them in the following spring with an army of 100,000 men. On the 28th of
March 1888 the negus indeed descended from the Abyssinian high plateau
in the direction of Saati, but finding the Italian position too strong
to be carried by assault, temporized and opened negotiations for peace.
His tactics failed to entice the Italians from their position, and on
the 3rd of April sickness among his men compelled John to withdraw the
Abyssinian army. The negus next marched against Menelek, king of Shoa,
whose neutrality Italy had purchased with 5000 Remington rifles and a
supply of ammunition, but found him with 80,000 men too strongly
entrenched to be successfully attacked. Tidings of a new Mahdist
incursion into Abyssinian territory reaching the negus induced him to
postpone the settlement of his quarrel with Menelek until the dervishes
had been chastised. Marching towards the Blue Nile, he joined battle
with the Mahdists, but on the 10th of March 1889 was killed, in the hour
of victory, near Gallabat. His death gave rise to an Abyssinian war of
succession between Mangasha, natural son of John, and Menelek, grandson
of the Negus Sella-Sellassie. Menelek, by means of Count Antonelli,
resident in the Shoa country, requested Italy to execute a diversion in
his favour by occupying Asmara and other points on the high plateau.
Antonelli profited by the situation to obtain Menelek's signature to a
treaty fixing the frontiers of the Italian colony and defining
Italo-Abyssinian relations. The treaty, signed at Uccialli on the 2nd of
May 1899, arranged for regular intercourse between Italy and Abyssinia
and conceded to Italy a portion of the high plateau, with the positions
of Halai, Saganeiti and Asmara. The main point of the treaty, however,
lay in clause 17:--
"His Majesty the king of kings of Ethiopia _consents_ to make use of
the government of His Majesty the king of Italy for the treatment of
all questions concerning other powers and governments."
Upon this clause Italy founded her claim to a protectorate over
Abyssinia. In September 1889 the treaty of Uccialli was ratified in
Italy by Menelek's lieutenant, the Ras Makonnen. Makonnen further
concluded with the Italian premier, Crispi, a convention whereby Italy
recognized Menelek as emperor of Ethiopia, Menelek recognized the
Italian colony, and arranged for a special Italo-Abyssinian currency and
for a loan. On the 11th of October Italy communicated article 17 of the
treaty of Uccialli to the European powers, interpreting it as a valid
title to an Italian protectorate over Abyssinia. Russia alone neglected
to take note of the communication, and persisted in the hostile attitude
she had assumed at the moment of the occupation of Massawa. Meanwhile
the Italian mint coined thalers bearing the portrait of King Humbert,
with an inscription referring to the Italian protectorate, and on the
1st of January 1890 a royal decree conferred upon the colony the name of
"Eritrea."
Operations in Abyssinia.
In the colony itself General Baldissera, who had replaced General
Saletta, delayed the movement against Mangasha desired by Menelek. The
Italian general would have preferred to wait until his intervention was
requested by both pretenders to the Abyssinian throne. Pressed by the
home government, he, however, instructed a native ally to occupy the
important positions of Keren and Asmara, and prepared himself to take
the offensive against Mangasha and Ras Alula. The latter retreated south
of the river Mareb, leaving the whole of the cis-Mareb territory,
including the provinces of Hamasen, Agameh, Serae and Okule-Kusai, in
Italian hands. General Orero, successor of Baldissera, pushed offensive
action more vigorously, and on the 26th of January 1890 entered Adowa, a
city considerably to the south of the Mareb--an imprudent step which
aroused Menelek's suspicions, and had hurriedly to be retraced.
Mangasha, seeing further resistance to be useless, submitted to Menelek,
who at the end of February ratified at Makalle the additional
convention to the treaty of Uccialli, but refused to recognize the
Italian occupation of the Mareb. The negus, however, conformed to
article 17 of the treaty of Uccialli by requesting Italy to represent
Abyssinia at the Brussels anti-slavery conference, an act which
strengthened Italian illusions as to Menelek's readiness to submit to
their protectorate. Menelek had previously notified the chief European
powers of his coronation at Entotto (14th December 1889), but Germany
and Great Britain replied that such notification should have been made
through the Italian government. Germany, moreover, wounded Menelek's
pride by employing merely the title of "highness." The negus took
advantage of the incident to protest against the Italian text of article
17, and to contend that the Amharic text contained no equivalent for the
word "_consent_," but merely stipulated that Abyssinia "_might_" make
use of Italy in her relations with foreign powers. On the 28th of
October 1890 Count Antonelli, negotiator of the treaty, was despatched
to settle the controversy, but on arriving at Adis Ababa, the new
residence of the negus, found agreement impossible either with regard to
the frontier or the protectorate. On the 10th of April 1891, Menelek
communicated to the powers his views with regard to the Italian
frontier, and announced his intention of re-establishing the ancient
boundaries of Ethiopia as far as Khartum to the north-west and Victoria
Nyanza to the south. Meanwhile the marquis de Rudini, who had succeeded
Crispi as Italian premier, had authorized the abandonment of article 17
even before he had heard of the failure of Antonelli's negotiations.
Rudini was glad to leave the whole dispute in abeyance and to make with
the local ras, or chieftains, of the high plateau an arrangement
securing for Italy the cis-Mareb provinces of Serae and Okule-Kusai
under the rule of an allied native chief named Bath-Agos. Rudini,
however, was able to conclude two protocols with Great Britain (March
and April 1891) whereby the British government definitely recognized
Abyssinia as within the Italian sphere of influence in return for an
Italian recognition of British rights in the Upper Nile.
First Crispi Cabinet.
Tosti and conciliation.
Terms of the "Roman Question."
The period 1887-1890 was marked in Italy by great political activity.
The entry of Crispi into the Depretis cabinet as minister of the
interior (4th April 1887) introduced into the government an element of
vigour which had long been lacking. Though sixty-eight years of age,
Crispi possessed an activity, a rapidity of decision and an energy in
execution with which none of his contemporaries could vie. Within four
months the death of Depretis (29th July 1887) opened for Crispi the way
to the premiership. Besides assuming the presidency of the council of
ministers and retaining the ministry of the interior, Crispi took over
the portfolio of foreign affairs which Depretis had held since the
resignation of Count di Robilant. One of the first questions with which
he had to deal was that of conciliation between Italy and the Vatican.
At the end of May the pope, in an allocution to the cardinals, had
spoken of Italy in terms of unusual cordiality, and had expressed a wish
for peace. A few days later Signor Bonghi, one of the framers of the Law
of Guarantees, published in the _Nuova Antologia_ a plea for
reconciliation on the basis of an amendment to the Law of Guarantees and
recognition by the pope of the Italian title to Rome. The chief incident
cf the movement towards conciliation consisted, however, in the
publication of a pamphlet entitled _La Conciliazione_ by Father Tosti, a
close friend and confidant of the pope, extolling the advantages of
peace between Vatican and Quirinal. Tosti's pamphlet was known to
represent papal ideas, and Tosti himself was _persona grata_ to the
Italian government. Reconciliation seemed within sight when suddenly
Tosti's pamphlet was placed on the Index, ostensibly on account of a
phrase, "The whole of Italy entered Rome by the breach of Porta Pia; the
king cannot restore Rome to the pope, since Rome belongs to the Italian
people." On the 4th of June 1887 the official Vatican organ, the
_Osservatore Romano_, published a letter written by Tosti to the pope
conditionally retracting the views expressed in the pamphlet. The letter
had been written at the pope's request, on the understanding that it
should not be published. On the 15th of June the pope addressed to
Cardinal Rampolla del Tindaro, secretary of state, a letter reiterating
in uncompromising terms the papal claim to the temporal power, and at
the end of July Cardinal Rampolla reformulated the same claim in a
circular to the papal nuncios abroad. The dream of conciliation was at
an end, but the Tosti incident had served once more to illustrate the
true position of the Vatican in regard to Italy. It became clear that
neither the influence of the regular clergy, of which the Society of
Jesus is the most powerful embodiment, nor that of foreign clerical
parties, which largely control the Peter's Pence fund, would ever permit
renunciation of the papal claim to temporal power. France, and the
French Catholics especially, feared lest conciliation should diminish
the reliance of the Vatican upon France, and consequently French hold
over the Vatican. The Vatican, for its part, felt its claim to temporal
power to be too valuable a pecuniary asset and too efficacious an
instrument of church discipline lightly to be thrown away. The legend of
an "imprisoned pope," subject to every whim of his gaolers, had never
failed to arouse the pity and loosen the purse-strings of the faithful;
dangerous innovators and would-be reformers within the church could be
compelled to bow before the symbol of the temporal power, and their
spirit of submission tested by their readiness to forgo the realization
of their aims until the head of the church should be restored to his
rightful domain. More important than all was the interest of the Roman
curia, composed almost exclusively of Italians, to retain in its own
hands the choice of the pontiff and to maintain the predominance of the
Italian element and the Italian spirit in the ecclesiastical hierarchy.
Conciliation with Italy would expose the pope and his Italian
_entourage_ to suspicion of being unduly subject to Italian political
influence--of being, in a word, more Italian than Catholic. Such a
suspicion would inevitably lead to a movement in favour of the
internationalization of the curia and of the papacy. In order to avoid
this danger it was therefore necessary to refuse all compromise, and, by
perpetual reiteration of a claim incompatible with Italian territorial
unity, to prove to the church at large that the pope and the curia were
more Catholic than Italian. Such rigidity of principle need not be
extended to the affairs of everyday contact between the Vatican and the
Italian authorities, with regard to which, indeed, a tacit _modus
vivendi_ was easily attainable. Italy, for her part, could not go back
upon the achievements of the Risorgimento by restoring Rome or any
portion of Italian territory to the pope. She had hoped by conciliation
to arrive at an understanding which should have ranged the church among
the conservative and not among the disruptive forces of the country, but
she was keenly desirous to retain the papacy as a preponderatingly
Italian institution, and was ready to make whatever formal concessions
might have appeared necessary to reassure foreign Catholics concerning
the reality of the pope's spiritual independence. The failure of the
conciliation movement left profound irritation between Vatican and
Quirinal, an irritation which, on the Vatican side, found expression in
vivacious protests and in threats of leaving Rome; and, on the Italian
side, in the deposition of the syndic of Rome for having visited the
cardinal-vicar, in the anti-clerical provisions of the new penal code,
and in the inauguration (9th June 1889) of a monument to Giordano Bruno
on the very site of his martyrdom.
The internal situation inherited by Crispi from Depretis was very
unsatisfactory. Extravagant expenditure on railways and public works,
loose administration of finance, the cost of colonial enterprise, the
growing demands for the army and navy, the impending tariff war with
France, and the over-speculation in building and in industrial ventures,
which had absorbed all the floating capital of the country, had combined
to produce a state of affairs calling for firm and radical treatment.
Crispi, burdened by the premiership and by the two most important
portfolios in the cabinet, was, however, unable to exercise efficient
control over all departments of state. Nevertheless his administration
was by no means unfruitful. Zanardelli, minister of justice, secured in
June 1888 the adoption of a new penal code; state surveillance was
extended to the _opere pie_, or charitable institutions; municipal
franchise was reformed by granting what was practically manhood suffrage
with residential qualification, provision being made for minority
representation; and the central state administration was reformed by a
bill fixing the number and functions of the various ministries. The
management of finance was scarcely satisfactory, for though Giolitti,
who had succeeded Magliani and Perazzi at the treasury, suppressed the
former's illusory "pension fund," he lacked the fibre necessary to deal
with the enormous deficit of nearly L10,000,000 in 1888-1889, the
existence of which both Perazzi and he had recognized. The most
successful feature of Crispi's term of office was his strict maintenance
of order and the suppression of Radical and Irredentist agitation. So
vigorous was his treatment of Irredentism that he dismissed without
warning his colleague Seismit Doda, minister of finance, for having
failed to protest against Irredentist speeches delivered in his presence
at Udine. Firmness such as this secured for him the support of all
constitutional elements, and after three years' premiership his position
was infinitely stronger than at the outset. The general election of 1890
gave the cabinet an almost unwieldy majority, comprising four-fifths of
the Chamber. A lengthy term of office seemed to be opening out before
him when, on the 31st of January 1891, Crispi, speaking in a debate upon
an unimportant bill, angrily rebuked the Right for its noisy
interruptions. The rebuke infuriated the Conservative deputies, who,
protesting against Crispi's words in the name of the "sacred memories"
of their party, precipitated a division and placed the cabinet in a
minority. The incident, whether due to chance or guile, brought about
the resignation of Crispi. A few days later he was succeeded in the
premiership by the marquis di Rudini, leader of the Right, who formed a
coalition cabinet with Nicotera and a part of the Left.
Rudini.
Second renewal of the Triple Alliance.
Giolitti.
The sudden fall of Crispi wrought a great change in the character of
Italian relations with foreign powers. His policy had been characterized
by extreme cordiality towards Austria and Germany, by a close
understanding with Great Britain in regard to Mediterranean questions,
and by an apparent animosity towards France, which at one moment seemed
likely to lead to war. Shortly before the fall of the Depretis-Robilant
cabinet Count Robilant had announced the intention of Italy to denounce
the commercial treaties with France and Austria, which would lapse on
the 31st of December 1887, and had intimated his readiness to negotiate
new treaties. On the 24th of June 1887, in view of a possible rupture of
commercial relations with France, the Depretis-Crispi cabinet introduced
a new general tariff. The probability of the conclusion of a new
Franco-Italian treaty was small, both on account of the protectionist
spirit of France and of French resentment at the renewal of the triple
alliance, but even such slight probability vanished after a visit paid
to Bismarck by Crispi (October 1887) within three months of his
appointment to the premiership. Crispi entertained no a priori animosity
towards France, but was strongly convinced that Italy must emancipate
herself from the position of political dependence on her powerful
neighbour which had vitiated the foreign policy of the Left. So far was
he from desiring a rupture with France, that he had subordinated
acceptance of the portfolio of the interior in the Depretis cabinet to
an assurance that the triple alliance contained no provision for
offensive warfare. But his ostentatious visit to Friedrichsruh, and a
subsequent speech at Turin, in which, while professing sentiments of
friendship and esteem for France, he eulogized the personality of
Bismarck, aroused against him a hostility on the part of the French
which he was never afterwards able to allay. France was equally careless
of Italian susceptibilities, and in April 1888 Goblet made a futile but
irritating attempt to enforce at Massawa the Ottoman regime of the
capitulations in regard to non-Italian residents. In such circumstances
the negotiations for the new commercial treaty could but fail, and
though the old treaty was prolonged by special arrangement for two
months, differential tariffs were put in force on both sides of the
frontier on the 29th of February 1888. The value of French exports into
Italy decreased immediately by one-half, while Italian exports to France
decreased by nearly two-thirds. At the end of 1889 Crispi abolished the
differential duties against French imports and returned to the general
Italian tariff, but France declined to follow his lead and maintained
her prohibitive dues. Meanwhile the enthusiastic reception accorded to
the young German emperor on the occasion of his visit to Rome in October
1888, and the cordiality shown towards King Humbert and Crispi at Berlin
in May 1889, increased the tension of Franco-Italian relations; nor was
it until after the fall of Prince Bismarck in March 1890 that Crispi
adopted towards the Republic a more friendly attitude by sending an
Italian squadron to salute President Carnot at Toulon. The chief
advantage derived by Italy from Crispi's foreign policy was the increase
of confidence in her government on the part of her allies and of Great
Britain. On the occasion of the incident raised by Goblet with regard to
Massawa, Bismarck made it clear to France that, in case of
complications, Italy would not stand alone; and when in February 1888 a
strong French fleet appeared to menace the Italian coast, the British
Mediterranean squadron demonstrated its readiness to support Italian
naval dispositions. Moreover, under Crispi's hand Italy awoke from the
apathy of former years and gained consciousness of her place in the
world. The conflict with France, the operations in Eritrea, the vigorous
interpretation of the triple alliance, the questions of Morocco and
Bulgaria, were all used by him as means to stimulate national sentiment.
With the instinct of a true statesman, he felt the pulse of the people,
divined their need for prestige, and their preference for a government
heavy-handed rather than lax. How great had been Crispi's power was seen
by contrast with the policy of the Rudini cabinet which succeeded him in
February 1891. Crispi's so-called "megalomania" gave place to
retrenchment in home affairs and to a deferential attitude towards all
foreign powers. The premiership of Rudini was hailed by the Radical
leader, Cavallotti, as a pledge of the non-renewal of the triple
alliance, against which the Radicals began a vociferous campaign. Their
tactics, however, produced a contrary effect, for Rudini, accepting
proposals from Berlin, renewed the alliance in June 1891 for a period of
twelve years. None of Rudini's public utterances justify the supposition
that he assumed office with the intention of allowing the alliance to
lapse on its expiry in May 1892; indeed, he frankly declared it to form
the basis of his foreign policy. The attitude of several of his
colleagues was more equivocal, but though they coquetted with French
financiers in the hope of obtaining the support of the Paris Bourse for
Italian securities, the precipitate renewal of the alliance destroyed
all probability of a close understanding with France. The desire of
Rudini to live on the best possible terms with all powers was further
evinced in the course of a visit paid to Monza by M. de Giers in October
1891, when the Russian statesman was apprised of the entirely defensive
nature of Italian engagements under the triple alliance. At the same
time he carried to a successful conclusion negotiations begun by Crispi
for the renewal of commercial treaties with Austria and Germany upon
terms which to some extent compensated Italy for the reduction of her
commerce with France, and concluded with Great Britain conventions for
the delimitation of British and Italian spheres of influence in
north-east Africa. In home affairs his administration was weak and
vacillating, nor did the economies effected in naval and military
expenditure and in other departments suffice to strengthen the position
of a cabinet which had disappointed the hopes of its supporters. On the
14th of April 1892 dissensions between ministers concerning the
financial programme led to a cabinet crisis, and though Rudini succeeded
in reconstructing his administration, he was defeated in the Chamber on
the 5th of May and obliged to resign. King Humbert, who, from lack of
confidence in Rudini, had declined to allow him to dissolve parliament,
entrusted Signor Giolitti, a Piedmontese deputy, sometime treasury
minister in the Crispi cabinet, with the formation of a ministry of the
Left, which contrived to obtain six months' supply on account, and
dissolved the Chamber.
Bank scandals.
The ensuing general election (November 1892), marked by unprecedented
violence and abuse of official pressure upon the electorate, fitly
ushered in what proved to be the most unfortunate period of Italian
history since the completion of national unity. The influence of
Giolitti was based largely upon the favour of a court clique, and
especially of Rattazzi, minister of the royal household. Early in 1893 a
scandal arose in connexion with the management of state banks, and
particularly of the Banca Romana, whose managing director, Tanlongo, had
issued L2,500,000 of duplicate bank-notes. Giolitti scarcely improved
matters by creating Tanlongo a member of the senate, and by denying in
parliament the existence of any mismanagement. The senate, however,
manifested the utmost hostility to Tanlongo, whom Giolitti, in
consequence of an interpellation in the Chamber, was compelled to
arrest. Arrests of other prominent persons followed, and on the 3rd of
February the Chamber authorized the prosecution of De Zerbi, a
Neapolitan deputy accused of corruption. On the 20th of February De
Zerbi suddenly expired. For a time Giolitti successfully opposed inquiry
into the conditions of the state banks, but on the 21st of March was
compelled to sanction an official investigation by a parliamentary
commission composed of seven members. On the 23rd of November the report
of the commission was read to the Chamber amid intense excitement. It
established that all Italian cabinets since 1880 had grossly neglected
the state banks; that the two preceding cabinets had been aware of the
irregularities committed by Tanlongo; that Tanlongo had heavily
subsidized the press, paying as much as L20,000 for that purpose in 1888
alone; that a number of deputies, including several ex-ministers, had
received from him loans of a considerable amount, which they had
apparently made no effort to refund; that Giolitti had deceived the
Chamber with regard to the state banks, and was open to suspicion of
having, after the arrest of Tanlongo, abstracted a number of documents
from the latter's papers before placing the remainder in the hands of
the judicial authorities. In spite of the gravity of the charges
formulated against many prominent men, the report merely "deplored" and
"disapproved" of their conduct, without proposing penal proceedings.
Fear of extending still farther a scandal which had already attained
huge dimensions, and the desire to avoid any further shock to national
credit, convinced the commissioners of the expediency of avoiding a long
series of prosecutions. The report, however, sealed the fate of the
Giolitti cabinet, and on the 24th of November it resigned amid general
execration.
Aigues-Mortes massacre.
Insurrection in Sicily.
Apart from the lack of scruple manifested by Giolitti in the bank
scandals, he exhibited incompetence in the conduct of foreign and home
affairs. On the 16th and 18th of August 1893 a number of Italian workmen
were massacred at Aigues-Mortes. The French authorities, under whose
eyes the massacre was perpetrated, did nothing to prevent or repress it,
and the mayor of Marseilles even refused to admit the wounded Italian
workmen to the municipal hospital. These occurrences provoked
anti-French demonstrations in many parts of Italy, and revived the
chronic Italian rancour against France. The Italian foreign minister,
Brin, began by demanding the punishment of the persons guilty of the
massacre, but hastened to accept as satisfactory the anodyne measures
adopted by the French government. Giolitti removed the prefect of Rome
for not having prevented an expression of popular anger, and presented
formal excuses to the French consul at Messina for a demonstration
against that consulate. In the following December the French tribunal at
Angouleme acquitted all the authors of the massacre. At home Giolitti
displayed the same weakness. Riots at Naples in August 1893 and symptoms
of unrest in Sicily found him, as usual, unprepared and vacillating. The
closing of the French market to Sicilian produce, the devastation
wrought by the phylloxera and the decrease of the sulphur trade had
combined to produce in Sicily a discontent of which Socialist agitators
took advantage to organize the workmen of the towns and the peasants of
the country into groups known as _fasci_. The movement had no
well-defined object. Here and there it was based upon a bastard
Socialism, in other places it was made a means of municipal party
warfare under the guidance of the local mafia, and in some districts it
was simply popular effervescence against the local octrois on bread and
flour. As early as January 1893 a conflict had occurred between the
police and the populace, in which several men, women and children were
killed, an occurrence used by the agitators further to inflame the
populace. Instead of maintaining a firm policy, Giolitti allowed the
movement to spread until, towards the autumn of 1893, he became alarmed
and drafted troops into the island, though in numbers insufficient to
restore order. At the moment of his fall the movement assumed the aspect
of an insurrection, and during the interval between his resignation
(24th November) and the formation of a new Crispi cabinet (10th
December) conflicts between the public forces and the rioters were
frequent. The return of Crispi to power--a return imposed by public
opinion as that of the only man capable of dealing with the desperate
situation--marked the turning-point of the crisis. Intimately acquainted
with the conditions of his native island, Crispi adopted efficacious
remedies. The _fasci_ were suppressed, Sicily was filled with troops,
the reserves were called out, a state of siege proclaimed, military
courts instituted and the whole movement crushed in a few weeks. The
chief agitators were either sentenced to heavy terms of imprisonment or
were compelled to flee the country. A simultaneous insurrection at
Massa-Carrara was crushed with similar vigour. Crispi's methods aroused
great outcry in the Radical press, but the severe sentences of the
military courts were in time tempered by the Royal prerogative of
amnesty.
Financial crisis.
But it was not alone in regard to public order that heroic measures were
necessary. The financial situation inspired serious misgivings. While
engagements contracted by Depretis in regard to public works had more
than neutralized the normal increase of revenue from taxation, the whole
credit of the state had been affected by the severe economic and
financial crises of the years 1889-1893. The state banks, already
hampered by maladministration, were encumbered by huge quantities of
real estate which had been taken over as compensation for unredeemed
mortgages. Baron Sidney Sonnino, minister of finance in the Crispi
cabinet, found a prospective deficit of L7,080,000, and in spite of
economies was obliged to face an actual deficit of more than L6,000,000.
Drastic measures were necessary to limit expenditure and to provide new
sources of revenue. Sonnino applied, and subsequently amended, the Bank
Reform Bill passed by the previous Administration (August 10, 1893) for
the creation of a supreme state bank, the Bank of Italy, which was
entrusted with the liquidation of the insolvent Banca Romana. The new
law forbade the state banks to lend money on real estate, limited their
powers of discounting bills and securities, and reduced the maximum of
their paper currency. In order to diminish the gold premium, which under
Giolitti had risen to 16%, forced currency was given to the existing
notes of the banks of Italy, Naples and Sicily, while special state
notes were issued to meet immediate currency needs. Measures were
enforced to prevent Italian holders of consols from sending their
coupons abroad to be paid in gold, with the result that, whereas in 1893
L3,240,000 had been paid abroad in gold for the service of the January
coupons and only L680,000 in paper in Italy, the same coupon was paid a
year later with only L1,360,000 abroad and L2,540,000 at home. Economies
for more than L1,000,000, were immediately effected, taxes, calculated
to produce L2,440,000, were proposed to be placed upon land, incomes,
salt and corn, while the existing income-tax upon consols (fixed at 8%
by Cambray-Digny in 1868, and raised to 13.20% by Sella in 1870) was
increased to 20% irrespectively of the stockholders' nationality. These
proposals met with opposition so fierce as to cause a cabinet crisis,
but Sonnino who resigned office as minister of finance, returned to
power as minister of the treasury, promulgated some of his proposals by
royal decree, and in spite of vehement opposition secured their
ratification by the Chamber. The tax upon consols, which, in conjunction
with the other severe fiscal measures, was regarded abroad as a pledge
that Italy intended at all costs to avoid bankruptcy, caused a rise in
Italian stocks. When the Crispi cabinet fell in March 1896 Sonnino had
the satisfaction of seeing revenue increased by L3,400,000, expenditure
diminished by L2,800,000, the gold premium reduced from 16 to 5%,
consolidated stock at 95 instead of 72, and, notwithstanding the
expenditure necessitated by the Abyssinian War, financial equilibrium
practically restored.
Attacks on Crispi.
While engaged in restoring order and in supporting Sonnino's courageous
struggle against bankruptcy, Crispi became the object of fierce attacks
from the Radicals, Socialists and anarchists. On the 16th of June an
attempt by an anarchist named Lega was made on Crispi's life; on the
24th of June President Carnot was assassinated by the anarchist Caserio;
and on the 30th of June an Italian journalist was murdered at Leghorn
for a newspaper attack upon anarchism--a series of outrages which led
the government to frame and parliament to adopt (11th July) a Public
Safety Bill for the prevention of anarchist propaganda and crime. At the
end of July the trial of the persons implicated in the Banca Romana
scandal revealed the fact that among the documents abstracted by
Giolitti from the papers of the bank manager, Tanlongo, were several
bearing upon Crispi's political and private life. On the 11th of
December Giolitti laid these and other papers before the Chamber, in the
hope of ruining Crispi, but upon examination most of them were found to
be worthless, and the rest of so private a nature as to be unfit for
publication. The effect of the incident was rather to increase
detestation of Giolitti than to damage Crispi. The latter, indeed,
prosecuted the former for libel and for abuse of his position when
premier, but after many vicissitudes, including the flight of Giolitti
to Berlin in order to avoid arrest, the Chamber refused authorization
for the prosecution, and the matter dropped. A fresh attempt of the same
kind was then made against Crispi by the Radical leader Cavallotti, who
advanced unproven charges of corruption and embezzlement. These attacks
were, however, unavailing to shake Crispi's position, and in the general
election of May 1895 his government obtained a majority of nearly 200
votes. Nevertheless public confidence in the efficacy of the
parliamentary system and in the honesty of politicians was seriously
diminished by these unsavoury occurrences, which, in combination with
the acquittal of all the defendants in the Banca Romana trial, and the
abandonment of the proceedings against Giolitti, reinforced to an
alarming degree the propaganda of the revolutionary parties.
Complications in Eritrea.
The foreign policy of the second Crispi Administration, in which the
portfolio of foreign affairs was held by Baron Blanc, was, as before,
marked by a cordial interpretation of the triple alliance, and by close
accord with Great Britain. In the Armenian question Italy seconded with
energy the diplomacy of Austria and Germany, while the Italian fleet
joined the British Mediterranean squadron in a demonstration off the
Syrian coast. Graver than any foreign question were the complications in
Eritrea. Under the arrangement concluded in 1891 by Rudini with native
chiefs in regard to the Italo-Abyssinian frontier districts, relations
with Abyssinia had remained comparatively satisfactory. Towards the
Sudan, however, the Mahdists, who had recovered from a defeat inflicted
by an Italian force at Agordat in 1890, resumed operations in December
1893. Colonel Arimondi, commander of the colonial forces in the absence
of the military governor, General Baratieri, attacked and routed a
dervish force 10,000 strong on the 21st of December. The Italian troops,
mostly native levies, numbered only 2200 men. The dervish loss was more
than 1000 killed, while the total Italian casualties amounted to less
than 230. General Baratieri, upon returning to the colony, decided to
execute a _coup de main_ against the dervish base at Kassala, both in
order to relieve pressure from that quarter and to preclude a combined
Abyssinian and dervish attack upon the colony at the end of 1894. The
protocol concluded with Great Britain on the 15th of April 1891, already
referred to, contained a clause to the effect that, were Kassala
occupied by the Italians, the place should be transferred to the
Egyptian government as soon as the latter should be in a position to
restore order in the Sudan. Concentrating a little army of 2600 men,
Baratieri surprised and captured Kassala on the 17th of July 1894, and
garrisoned the place with native levies under Italian officers.
Meanwhile Menelek, jealous of the extension of Italian influence to a
part of northern Somaliland and to the Benadir coast, had, with the
support of France and Russia, completed his preparations for asserting
his authority as independent ruler of Ethiopia. On the 11th of May 1893
he denounced the treaty of Uccialli, but the Giolitti cabinet, absorbed
by the bank scandals, paid no heed to his action. Possibly an adroit
repetition in favour of Mangasha and against Menelek of the policy
formerly followed in favour of Menelek against the negus John might have
consolidated Italian influence in Abyssinia by preventing the ascendancy
of any single chieftain. The Italian government, however, neglected this
opening, and Mangasha came to terms with Menelek. Consequently the
efforts of Crispi and his envoy, Colonel Piano, to conclude a new treaty
with Menelek in June 1894 not only proved unsuccessful, but formed a
prelude to troubles on the Italo-Abyssinian frontier. Bath-Agos, the
native chieftain who ruled the Okule-Kusai and the cis-Mareb provinces
on behalf of Italy, intrigued with Mangasha, ras of the trans-Mareb
province of Tigre, and with Menelek, to raise a revolt against Italian
rule on the high plateau. In December 1894 the revolt broke out, but
Major Toselli with a small force marched rapidly against Bath Agos, whom
he routed and killed at Halai. General Baratieri, having reason to
suspect the complicity of Mangasha in the revolt, called upon him to
furnish troops for a projected Italo-Abyssinian campaign against the
Mahdists. Mangasha made no reply, and Baratieri crossing the Mareb
advanced to Adowa, but four days later was obliged to return northwards.
Mangasha thereupon took the offensive and attempted to occupy the
village of Coatit in Okule-Kusai, but was forestalled and defeated by
Baratieri on the 13th of January 1895. Hurriedly retreating to Senafe,
hard pressed by the Italians, who shelled Senafe on the evening of the
15th of January, Mangasha was obliged to abandon his camp and provisions
to Baratieri, who also secured a quantity of correspondence establishing
the complicity of Menelek and Mangasha in the revolt of Bath-Agos.
Conquest of Tigre.
Battle of Adowa.
The comparatively facile success achieved by Baratieri against Mangasha
seems to have led him to undervalue his enemy, and to forget that
Menelek, negus and king of Shoa, had an interest in allowing Mangasha to
be crushed, in order that the imperial authority and the superiority of
Shoan over Tigrin arms might be the more strikingly asserted. After
obtaining the establishment of an apostolic prefecture in Eritrea under
the charge of Italian Franciscans, Baratieri expelled from the colony
the French Lazarist missionaries for their alleged complicity in the
Bath-Agos insurrection, and in March 1895 undertook the conquest of
Tigre. Occupying Adigrat and Makalle, he reached Adowa on the 1st of
April, and thence pushed forward to Axum, the holy city of Abyssinia.
These places were garrisoned, and during the rainy season Baratieri
returned to Italy, where he was received with unbounded enthusiasm.
Whether he or the Crispi cabinet had any inkling of the enterprise to
which they were committed by the occupation of Tigre is more than
doubtful. Certainly Baratieri made no adequate preparations to repel an
Abyssinian attempt to reconquer the province. Early in September both
Mangasha and Menelek showed signs of activity, and on the 20th of
September Makonnen, ras of Harrar, who up till then had been regarded as
a friend and quasi-ally by Italy, expelled all Italians from his
territory and marched with 30,000 men to join the negus. On returning to
Eritrea, Baratieri mobilized his native reserves and pushed forward
columns under Major Toselli and General Arimondi as far south as Amba
Alagi. Mangasha fell back before the Italians, who obtained several
minor successes; but on the 6th of December Toselli's column, 2000
strong, which through a misunderstanding continued to hold Amba Alagi,
was almost annihilated by the Abyssinian vanguard of 40,000 men. Toselli
and all but three officers and 300 men fell at their posts after a
desperate resistance. Arimondi, collecting the survivors of the Toselli
column, retreated to Makalle and Adigrat. At Makalle, however, he left a
small garrison in the fort, which on the 7th of January 1896 was
invested by the Abyssinian army. Repeated attempts to capture the fort
having failed, Menelek and Makonnen opened negotiations with Baratieri
for its capitulation, and on the 21st of January the garrison, under
Major Galliano, who had heroically defended the position, were permitted
to march out with the honours of war. Meanwhile Baratieri received
reinforcements from Italy, but remained undecided as to the best plan of
campaign. Thus a month was lost, during which the Abyssinian army
advanced to Hausen, a position slightly south of Adowa. The Italian
commander attempted to treat with Menelek, but his negotiations merely
enabled the Italian envoy, Major Salsa, to ascertain that the
Abyssinians were nearly 100,000 strong mostly armed with rifles and well
supplied with artillery. The Italians, including camp-followers,
numbered less than 25,000 men, a force too small for effective action,
but too large to be easily provisioned at 200 m. from its base, in a
roadless, mountainous country, almost devoid of water. For a moment
Baratieri thought of retreat, especially as the hope of creating a
diversion from Zaila towards Harrar had failed in consequence of the
British refusal to permit the landing of an Italian force without the
consent of France. The defection of a number of native allies (who,
however, were attacked and defeated by Colonel Stevani on the 18th of
February) rendered the Italian position still more precarious; but
Baratieri, unable to make up his mind, continued to manoeuvre in the
hope of drawing an Abyssinian attack. These futile tactics exasperated
the home government, which on the 22nd of February despatched General
Baldissera, with strong reinforcements, to supersede Baratieri. On the
25th of February Crispi telegraphed to Baratieri, denouncing his
operations as "mllitary phthisis," and urging him to decide upon some
strategic plan. Baratieri, anxious probably to obtain some success
before the arrival of Baldissera, and alarmed by the rapid diminution of
his stores, which precluded further immobility, called a council of war
(29th of February) and obtained the approval of the divisional
commanders for a plan of attack. During the night the army advanced
towards Adowa in three divisions, under Generals Dabormida, Arimondi and
Albertone, each division being between 4000 and 5000 strong, and a
brigade 5300 strong under General Ellena remaining in reserve. All the
divisions, save that of Albertone, consisted chiefly of Italian troops.
During the march Albertone's native division mistook the road, and found
itself obliged to delay in the Arimondi column by retracing its steps.
Marching rapidly, however, Albertone outdistanced the other columns,
but, in consequence of allowing his men an hour's rest, arrived upon the
scene of action when the Abyssinians, whom it had been hoped to surprise
at dawn, were ready to receive the attack. Pressed by overwhelming
forces, the Italians, after a violent combat, began to give way. The
Dabormida division, unsupported by Albertone, found itself likewise
engaged in a separate combat against superior numbers. Similarly the
Arimondi brigade was attacked by 30,000 Shoans, and encumbered by the
debris of Albertone's troops. Baratieri vainly attempted to push forward
the reserve, but the Italians were already overwhelmed, and the
battle--or rather, series of distinct engagements--ended in a general
rout. The Italian loss is estimated to have been more than 6000, of whom
3125 were whites. Between 3000 and 4000 prisoners were taken by the
Abyssinians, including General Albertone, while Generals Arimondi and
Dabormida were killed and General Ellena wounded. The Abyssinians lost
more than 5000 killed and 8000 wounded. Baratieri, after a futile
attempt to direct the retreat, fled in haste and reached Adi-Caje before
the debris of his army. Thence he despatched telegrams to Italy throwing
blame for the defeat upon his troops, a proceeding which subsequent
evidence proved to be as unjustifiable as it was unsoldier-like. Placed
under court-martial for his conduct, Baratieri was acquitted of the
charge for having been led to give battle by other than military
considerations, but the sentence "deplored that in such difficult
circumstances the command should have been given to a general so
inferior to the exigencies of the situation."
Abyssinian settlement.
In Italy the news of the defeat of Adowa caused deep discouragement and
dismay. On the 5th of March the Crispi cabinet resigned before an
outburst of indignation which the Opposition had assiduously fomented,
and five days later a new cabinet was formed by General Ricotti-Magnani,
who, however, made over the premiership to the marquis di Rudini. The
latter, though leader of the Right, had long been intriguing with
Cavallotti, leader of the Extreme Left, to overthrow Crispi, but without
the disaster of Adowa his plan would scarcely have succeeded. The first
act of the new cabinet was to confirm instructions given by its
predecessor to General Baldissera (who had succeeded General Baratieri
on the 2nd of March) to treat for peace with Menelek if he thought
desirable. Baldissera opened negotiations with the negus through Major
Salsa, and simultaneously reorganized the Italian army. The negotiations
having failed, he marched to relieve the beleaguered garrison of
Adigrat; but Menelek, discouraged by the heavy losses at Adowa, broke up
his camp and returned southwards to Shoa. At the same time Baldissera
detached Colonel Stevani with four native battalions to relieve Kassala,
then hard pressed by the Mahdists. Kassala was relieved on the 1st of
April, and Stevani a few days later severely defeated the dervishes at
Jebel Mokram and Tucruff. Returning from Kassala Colonel Stevani
rejoined Baldissera, who on the 4th of May relieved Adigrat after a
well-executed march. By adroit negotiations with Mangasha the Italian
general obtained the release of the Italian prisoners in Tigre, and
towards the end of May withdrew his whole force north of the Mareb.
Major Nerazzini was then despatched as special envoy to the negus to
arrange terms of peace. On the 26th of October Nerazzini succeeded in
concluding, at Adis Ababa, a provisional treaty annulling the treaty of
Uccialli; recognizing the absolute independence of Ethiopia; postponing
for one year the definitive delimitation of the Italo-Abyssinian
boundary, but allowing the Italians meanwhile to hold the strong
Mareb-Belesa-Muna line; and arranging for the release of the Italian
prisoners after ratification of the treaty in exchange for an indemnity
of which the amount was to be fixed by the Italian government. The
treaty having been duly ratified, and an indemnity of L400,000 paid to
Menelek, the Shoan prisoners were released, and Major Nerazzini once
more returned to Abyssinia with instructions to secure, if possible,
Menelek's assent to the definitive retention of the Mareb-Belesa-Muna
line by Italy. Before Nerazzini could reach Adis Ababa, Rudini, in order
partially to satisfy the demands of his Radical supporters for the
abandonment of the colony, announced in the Chamber the intention of
Italy to limit her occupation to the triangular zone between the points
Asmara, Keren and Massawa, and, possibly, to withdraw to Massawa alone.
This declaration, of which Menelek was swiftly apprised by French
agents, rendered it impossible to Nerazzini to obtain more than a
boundary leaving to Italy but a small portion of the high plateau and
ceding to Abyssinia the fertile provinces of Serae and Okule-Kusai. The
fall of the Rudini cabinet in June 1898, however, enabled Signor
Ferdinando Martini and Captain Cicco di Cola, who had been appointed
respectively civil governor of Eritrea and minister resident at Adis
Ababa, to prevent the cession of Serae and Okule-Kusai, and to secure
the assent of Menelek to Italian retention of the Mareb-Belesa-Muna
frontier. Eritrea has now approximately the same extent as before the
revolt of Bath-Agos, except in regard (1) to Kassala, which was
transferred to the Anglo-Egyptian authorities on the 25th of December
1897, in pursuance of the above-mentioned Anglo-Italian convention; and
(2) to slight rectifications of its northern and eastern boundaries by
conventions concluded between the Eritrean and the Anglo-Egyptian
authorities. Under Signor Ferdinando Martini's able administration
(1898-1906) the cost of the colony to Italy was reduced and its trade
and agriculture have vastly improved.
While marked in regard to Eritrea by vacillation and undignified
readiness to yield to Radical clamour, the policy of the marquis di
Rudini was in other respects chiefly characterized by a desire to
demolish Crispi and his supporters. Actuated by rancour against Crispi,
he, on the 29th of April 1896, authorized the publication of a Green
Book on Abyssinian affairs, in which, without the consent of Great
Britain, the confidential Anglo-Italian negotiations in regard to the
Abyssinian war were disclosed. This publication, which amounted to a
gross breach of diplomatic confidence, might have endangered the
cordiality of Anglo-Italian relations, had not the esteem of the British
government for General Ferrero, Italian ambassador in London, induced it
to overlook the incident. Fortunately for Italy, the marquis Visconti
Venosta shortly afterwards consented to assume the portfolio of foreign
affairs, which had been resigned by Duke Caetani di Sermoneta, and again
to place, after an interval of twenty years, his unrivalled experience
at the service of his country. In September 1896 he succeeded in
concluding with France a treaty with regard to Tunisia in place of the
old Italo-Tunisian treaty, denounced by the French Government a year
previously. During the Greco-Turkish War of 1897 Visconti Venosta
laboured to maintain the European concert, joined Great Britain in
preserving Greece from the worst consequences of her folly, and lent
moral and material aid in establishing an autonomous government in
Crete. At the same time he mitigated the Francophil tendencies of some
of his colleagues, accompanied King Humbert and Queen Margherita on
their visit to Homburg in September 1897, and, by loyal observance of
the spirit of the triple alliance, retained for Italy the confidence of
her allies without forfeiting the goodwill of France.
Riots of May, 1898.
The home administration of the Rudini cabinet compared unfavourably with
that of foreign affairs. Bound by a secret understanding with the
Radical leader Cavallotti, an able but unscrupulous demagogue, Rudini
was compelled to bow to Radical exigencies. He threw all the influence
of the government against Crispi, who was charged with complicity in
embezzlements perpetrated by Favilla, managing director of the Bologna
branch of the Bank of Naples. After being subjected to persecution for
nearly two years, Crispi's character was substantially vindicated by the
report of a parliamentary commission appointed to inquire into his
relations with Favilla. True, the commission proposed and the Chamber
adopted a vote of censure upon Crispi's conduct in 1894, when, as
premier and minister of the interior, he had borrowed L12,000 from
Favilla to replenish | the secret service fund, and had subsequently
repaid the money as instalments for secret service were in due course
furnished by the treasury. Though irregular, his action was to some
extent justified by the depletion of the secret service fund under
Giolitti and by the abnormal circumstances prevailing in 1893-1894, when
he had been obliged to quell the insurrections in Sicily and
Massa-Carrara. But the Rudini-Cavallotti alliance was destined to
produce other results than those of the campaign against Crispi. Pressed
by Cavallotti, Rudini in March 1897 dissolved the Chamber and conducted
the general election in such a way as to crush by government pressure
the partisans of Crispi, and greatly to strengthen the (Socialist,
Republican and Radical) revolutionary parties. More than ever at the
mercy of the Radicals and of their revolutionary allies, Rudini
continued so to administer public affairs that subversive propaganda and
associations obtained unprecedented extension. The effect was seen in
May 1898, when, in consequence of a rise in the price of bread,
disturbances occurred in southern Italy. The corn duty was reduced to
meet the emergency, but the disturbed area extended to Naples, Foggia,
Bari, Minervino-Murge, Molfetta and thence along the line of railway
which skirts the Adriatic coast. At Faenza, Piacenza, Cremona, Pavia and
Milan, where subversive associations were stronger, it assumed the
complexion of a political revolt. From the 7th to the 9th of May Milan
remained practically in the hands of the mob. A palace was sacked,
barricades were erected and for forty-eight hours the troops under
General Bava-Beccaris, notwithstanding the employment of artillery, were
unable to restore order. In view of these occurrences, Rudini authorized
the proclamation of a state of siege at Milan, Florence, Leghorn and
Naples, delegating the suppression of disorder to special military
commissioners. By these means order was restored, though not without
considerable loss of life at Milan and elsewhere. At Milan alone the
official returns confessed to eighty killed and several hundred wounded,
a total generally considered below the real figures. As in 1894,
excessively severe sentences were passed by the military tribunals upon
revolutionary leaders and other persons considered to have been
implicated in the outbreak, but successive royal amnesties obliterated
these condemnations within three years.
Pelloux and obstruction.
Death of King Humbert.
Accession of King Victor Emmanuel III.
No Italian administration since the death of Depretis underwent so many
metamorphoses as that of the marquis di Rudini. Modified a first time
within five months of its formation (July 1896) in connexion with
General Ricotti's Army Reform Bill, and again in December 1897, when
Zanardelli entered the cabinet, it was reconstructed for a third time at
the end of May 1898 upon the question of a Public Safety Bill, but fell
for the fourth and last time on the 18th of June 1898, on account of
public indignation at the results of Rudini's home policy as exemplified
in the May riots. On the 29th of June Rudini was succeeded in the
premiership by General Luigi Pelloux, a Savoyard, whose only title to
office was the confidence of the king. The Pelloux cabinet possessed no
clear programme except in regard to the Public Safety Bill, which it had
taken over from its predecessor. Presented to parliament in November
1898, the bill was read a second time in the following spring, but its
third reading was violently obstructed by the Socialists, Radicals and
Republicans of the Extreme Left. After a series of scenes and scuffles
the bill was promulgated by royal decree, the decree being postdated to
allow time for the third reading. Again obstruction precluded debate,
and on the 22nd of July 1899 the decree automatically acquired force of
law, pending the adoption of a bill of indemnity by the Chamber. In
February 1900 it was, however, quashed by the supreme court on a point
of procedure, and the Public Safety Bill as a whole had again to be
presented to the Chamber. In view of the violence of Extremist
obstruction, an effort was made to reform the standing orders of the
Lower House, but parliamentary feeling ran so high that General Pelloux
thought it expedient to appeal to the country. The general election of
June 1900 not only failed to reinforce the cabinet, but largely
increased the strength of the extreme parties (Radicals, Republicans and
Socialists), who in the new Chamber numbered nearly 100 out of a total
of 508. General Pelloux therefore resigned, and on the 24th of June a
moderate Liberal cabinet was formed by the aged Signor Saracco,
president of the senate. Within five weeks of its formation King Humbert
was shot by an anarchist assassin named Bresci while leaving an athletic
festival at Monza, where his Majesty had distributed the prizes (29th
July 1900). The death of the unfortunate monarch, against whom an
attempt had previously been made by the anarchist Acciarito (22nd April
1897), caused an outburst of profound sorrow and indignation. Though not
a great monarch, King Humbert had, by his unfailing generosity and
personal courage, won the esteem and affection of his people. During the
cholera epidemic at Naples and Busca in 1884, and the Ischia earthquake
of 1885, he, regardless of danger, brought relief and encouragement to
sufferers, and rescued many lives. More than L100,000 of his civil list
was annually devoted to charitable purposes. Humbert was succeeded by
his only son, Victor Emmanuel III. (b. November 11, 1869), a
liberal-minded and well-educated prince, who at the time of his father's
assassination was returning from a cruise in the eastern Mediterranean.
The remains of King Humbert were laid to rest in the Pantheon at Rome
beside those of his father, Victor Emmanuel II. (9th August). Two days
later Victor Emmanuel III. swore fidelity to the constitution before the
assembled Houses of Parliament and in the presence of his consort, Elena
of Montenegro, whom he had married in October 1896.
Foreign affairs.
The later course of Italian foreign policy was marked by many
vicissitudes. Admiral Canevaro, who had gained distinction as commander
of the international forces in Crete (1896-1898), assumed the direction
of foreign affairs in the first period of the Pelloux administration.
His diplomacy, though energetic, lacked steadiness. Soon after taking
office he completed the negotiations begun by the Rudini administration
for a new commercial treaty with France (October 1898), whereby
Franco-Italian commercial relations were placed upon a normal footing
after a breach which had lasted for more than ten years. By the despatch
of a squadron to South America he obtained satisfaction for injuries
inflicted thirteen years previously upon an Italian subject by the
United States of Colombia. In December 1898 he convoked a diplomatic
conference in Rome to discuss secret means for the repression of
anarchist propaganda and crime in view of the assassination of the
empress of Austria by an Italian anarchist (Luccheni), but it is
doubtful whether results of practical value were achieved. The action of
the tsar of Russia in convening the Peace Conference at The Hague in May
1900 gave rise to a question as to the right of the Vatican to be
officially represented, and Admiral Canevaro, supported by Great Britain
and Germany, succeeded in preventing the invitation of a papal delegate.
Shortly afterwards his term of office was brought to a close by the
failure of an attempt to secure for Italy a coaling station at Sanmen
and a sphere of influence in China; but his policy of active
participation in Chinese affairs was continued in a modified form by his
successor, the Marquis Visconti Venosta, who, entering the reconstructed
Pelloux cabinet in May 1899, retained the portfolio of foreign affairs
in the ensuing Saracco administration, and secured the despatch of an
Italian expedition, 2000 strong, to aid in repressing the Chinese
outbreak and in protecting Italian interests in the Far East (July
1900). With characteristic foresight, Visconti Venosta promoted an
exchange of views between Italy and France in regard to the Tripolitan
hinterland, which the Anglo-French convention of 1899 had placed within
the French sphere of influence--a modification of the _status quo ante_
considered highly detrimental to Italian aspirations in Tripoli. For
this reason the Anglo-French convention had caused profound irritation
in Italy, and had tended somewhat to diminish the cordiality of
Anglo-Italian relations. Visconti Venosta is believed, however, to have
obtained from France a formal declaration that France would not
transgress the limits assigned to her influence by the convention.
Similarly, in regard to Albania, Visconti Venosta exchanged notes with
Austria with a view to the prevention of any misunderstanding through
the conflict between Italian and Austrian interests in that part of the
Adriatic coast. Upon the fall of the Saracco cabinet (9th February 1901)
Visconti Venosta was succeeded at the foreign office by Signor Prinetti,
a Lombard manufacturer of strong temperament, but without previous
diplomatic experience. The new minister continued in most respects the
policy of his predecessor. The outset of his administration was marked
by Franco-Italian fetes at Toulon (10th to 14th April 1901), when the
Italian fleet returned a visit paid by the French Mediterranean squadron
to Cagliari in April 1899; and by the despatch of three Italian warships
to Prevesa to obtain satisfaction for damage done to Italian subjects by
Turkish officials.
Zanardelli-Giolitti Cabinet.
The Saracco administration, formed after the obstructionist crisis of
1899-1900 as a cabinet of transition and pacification, was overthrown in
February 1901 in consequence of its vacillating conduct towards a dock
strike at Genoa. It was succeeded by a Zanardelli cabinet, in which the
portfolio of the interior was allotted to Giolitti. Composed mainly of
elements drawn from the Left, and dependent for a majority upon the
support of the subversive groups of the Extreme Left, the formation of
this cabinet gave the signal for a vast working-class movement, during
which the Socialist party sought to extend its political influence by
means of strikes and the organization of labour leagues among
agricultural labourers and artisans. The movement was confined chiefly
to the northern and central provinces. During the first six months of
1901 the strikes numbered 600, and involved more than 1,000,000 workmen.
(H. W. S.)
G. 1902-1909
Labour troubles.
In 1901-1902 the social economic condition of Italy was a matter of
grave concern. The strikes and other economic agitations at this time
may be divided roughly into three groups: strikes in industrial centres
for higher wages, shorter hours and better labour conditions generally;
strikes of agricultural labourers in northern Italy for better contracts
with the landlords; disturbances among the south Italian peasantry due
to low wages, unemployment (particularly in Apulia), and the claims of
the labourers to public land occupied illegally by the landlords,
combined with local feuds and the struggle for power of the various
influential families. The prime cause in most cases was the
unsatisfactory economic condition of the working classes, which they
realized all the more vividly for the very improvements that had been
made in it, while education and better communications enabled them to
organize themselves. Unfortunately these genuine grievances were taken
advantage of by the Socialists for their own purposes, and strikes and
disorders were sometimes promoted without cause and conciliation impeded
by outsiders who acted from motives of personal ambition or profit.
Moreover, while many strikes were quite orderly, the turbulent character
of a part of the Italian people and their hatred of authority often
converted peaceful demands for better conditions into dangerous riots,
in which the dregs of the urban population (known as _teppisti_ or the
_mala vita_) joined.
Whereas in the past the strikes had been purely local and due to local
conditions, they now appeared of more general and political character,
and the "sympathy" strike came to be a frequent and undesirable addition
to the ordinary economic agitation. The most serious movement at this
time was that of the railway servants. The agitation had begun some
fifteen years before, and the men had at various times demanded better
pay and shorter hours, often with success. The next demand was for
greater fixity of tenure and more regular promotion, as well as for the
recognition by the companies of the railwaymen's union. On the 4th of
January 1902, the employees of the Mediterranean railway advanced these
demands at a meeting at Turin, and threatened to strike if they were not
satisfied. By the beginning of February the agitation had spread all
over Italy, and the government was faced by the possibility of a strike
which would paralyse the whole economic life of the country. Then the
Turin gas men struck, and a general "sympathy" strike broke out in that
city in consequence, which resulted in scenes of violence lasting two
days. The government called out all the railwaymen who were army
reservists, but continued to keep them at their railway work, exercising
military discipline over them and thus ensuring the continuance of the
service. At the same time it mediated between the companies and the
employees, and in June a settlement was formally concluded between the
ministers of public works and of the treasury and the directors of the
companies concerning the grievances of the employees.
One consequence of the agrarian agitations was the increased use of
machinery and the reduction in the number of hands employed, which if it
proved advantageous to the landlord and to the few labourers retained,
who received higher wages, resulted in an increase of unemployment. The
Socialist party, which had grown powerful under a series of weak-kneed
administrations, now began to show signs of division; on the one hand
there was the revolutionary wing, led by Signor Enrico Ferri, the
Mantuan deputy, which advocated a policy of uncompromising class
warfare, and on the other the _riformisti_, or moderate Socialists, led
by Signor Filippo Turati, deputy for Milan, who adopted a more
conciliatory attitude and were ready to ally themselves with other
parliamentary parties. Later the division took another aspect, the
extreme wing being constituted by the _sindacalisti_, who were opposed
to all legislative parliamentary action and favoured only direct
revolutionary propaganda by means of the _sindacati_ or unions which
organized strikes and demonstrations. In March 1902 agrarian strikes
organized by the _leghe_ broke out in the district of Copparo and
Polesine (lower valley of the Po), owing to a dispute about the labour
contracts, and in Apulia on account of unemployment. In August there
were strikes among the dock labourers of Genoa and the iron workers of
Florence; the latter agitation developed into a general strike in that
city, which aroused widespread indignation among the orderly part of the
population and ended without any definite result. At Como 15,000 textile
workers remained on strike for nearly a month, but there were no
disorders.
General strike of 1904.
The year 1903, although not free from strikes and minor disturbances,
was quieter, but in September 1904 a very serious situation was brought
about by a general economic and political agitation. The troubles began
with the disturbances at Buggeru in Sardinia and Castelluzzo in Sicily,
in both of which places the troops were compelled to use their arms and
several persons were killed and wounded; at a demonstration at Sestri
Ponente in Liguria to protest against what was called the Buggeru
"massacre," four carabineers and eleven rioters were injured. The Monza
labour exchange then took the initiative of proclaiming a general strike
throughout Italy (September 15th) as a protest against the government
for daring to maintain order. The strike spread to nearly all the
industrial centres, although in many places it was limited to a few
trades. At Milan it was more serious and lasted longer than elsewhere,
as the movement was controlled by the anarchists under Arturo Labriola;
the hooligans committed many acts of savage violence, especially against
those workmen who refused to strike, and much property was wilfully
destroyed. At Genoa, which was in the hands of the _teppisti_ for a
couple of days, three persons were killed and 50 wounded, including 14
policemen, and railway communications were interrupted for a short time.
Venice was cut off from the mainland for two days and all the public
services were suspended. Riots broke out also in Naples, Florence, Rome
and Bologna. The deputies of the Extreme Left, instead of using their
influence in favour of pacification, could think of nothing better than
to demand an immediate convocation of parliament in order that they
might present a bill forbidding the troops and police to use their arms
in all conflicts between capital and labour, whatever the provocation
might be. This preposterous proposal was of course not even discussed,
and the movement caused a strong feeling of reaction against Socialism
and of hostility to the government for its weakness; for, however much
sympathy there might be with the genuine grievances of the working
classes, the September strikes were of a frankly revolutionary character
and had been fomented by professional agitators and kept going by the
dregs of the people. The mayor of Venice sent a firm and dignified
protest to the government for its inaction, and the people of Liguria
raised a large subscription in favour of the troops, in recognition of
their gallantry and admirable discipline during the troubles.
Unrest of 1905.
Early in 1905 there was a fresh agitation among the railway servants,
who were dissatisfied with the clauses concerning the personnel in the
bill for the purchase of the lines by the state. They initiated a system
of obstruction which hampered and delayed the traffic without altogether
suspending it. On the 17th of April a general railway strike was ordered
by the union, but owing to the action of the authorities, who for once
showed energy, the traffic was carried on. Other disturbances of a
serious character occurred among the steelworkers of Terni, at
Grammichele in Sicily and at Alessandria. The extreme parties now began
to direct especial attention to propaganda in the army, with a view to
destroying its cohesion and thus paralysing the action of the
government. The campaign was conducted on the lines of the
anti-militarist movement in France identified with the name of Herve.
Fortunately, however, this policy was not successful, as military
service is less unpopular in Italy than in many other countries;
aggressive militarism is quite unknown, and without it anti-militarism
can gain no foothold. No serious mutinies have ever occurred in the
Italian army, and the only results of the propaganda were occasional
meetings of hooligans, where Herveist sentiments were expressed and
applauded, and a few minor disturbances among reservists unexpectedly
called back to the colours. In the army itself the _esprit de corps_ and
the sense of duty and discipline nullified the work of the
propagandists.
Strikes in 1907.
In June and July 1907 there were again disturbances among the
agricultural labourers of Ferrara and Rovigo, and a widespread strike
organized by the _leghe_ throughout those provinces caused very serious
losses to all concerned. The _leghisti_, moreover, were guilty of much
criminal violence; they committed one murder and established a veritable
reign of terror, boycotting, beating and wounding numbers of peaceful
labourers who would not join the unions, and brutally maltreating
solitary policemen and soldiers. The authorities, however, by arresting
a number of the more prominent leaders succeeded in restoring order.
Almost immediately afterwards an agitation of a still less defensible
character broke out in various towns under the guise of
anti-clericalism. Certain scandals had come to light in a small convent
school at Greco near Milan. This was seized upon as a pretext for
violent anti-clerical demonstrations all over Italy and for brutal and
unprovoked attacks on unoffending priests; at Spezia a church was set on
fire and another dismantled, at Marino Cardinal Merry del Val was
attacked by a gang of hooligans, and at Rome the violence of the
_teppisti_ reached such a pitch as to provoke reaction on the part of
all respectable people, and some of the aggressors were very roughly
handled. The Socialists and the Freemasons were largely responsible for
the agitation, and they filled the country with stories of other
priestly and conventual immoralities, nearly all of which, except the
original case at Greco, proved to be without foundation. In September
1907 disorders in Apulia over the repartition of communal lands broke
out anew, and were particularly serious at Ruvo, Bari, Cerignola and
Satriano del Colle. In some cases there was foundation for the
labourers' claims, but unfortunately the movement got into the hands of
professional agitators and common swindlers, and the leader, a certain
Giampetruzzi, who at one time seemed to be a worthy colleague of
Marcelin Albert, was afterwards tried and condemned for having cheated
his own followers.
In October 1907 there was again a general strike at Milan, which was
rendered more serious on account of the action of the railway servants,
and extended to other cities; traffic was disorganized over a large part
of northern Italy, until the government, being now owner of the
railways, dismissed the ringleaders from the service. This had the
desired effect, and although the _Sindacato dei ferrovieri_ (railway
servants' union) threatened a general railway strike if the dismissed
men were not reinstated, there was no further trouble. In the spring of
1908 there were agrarian strikes at Parma; the labour contracts had
pressed hardly on the peasantry, who had cause for complaint; but while
some improvement had been effected in the new contracts, certain
unscrupulous demagogues, of whom Alceste De Ambris, representing the
"syndacalist" wing of the Socialist party, was the chief, organized a
widespread agitation. The landlords on their part organized an agrarian
union to defend their interests and enrolled numbers of non-union
labourers to carry on the necessary work and save the crops. Conflicts
occurred between the strikers and the independent labourers and the
police; the trouble spread to the city of Parma, where violent scenes
occurred when the labour exchange was occupied by the troops, and many
soldiers and policemen, whose behaviour as usual was exemplary
throughout, were seriously wounded. The agitation ceased in June with
the defeat of the strikers, but not until a vast amount of damage had
been done to the crops and all had suffered heavy losses, including the
government, whose expenses for the maintenance of public order ran into
tens of millions of lire. The failure of the strike caused the
Socialists to quarrel among themselves and to accuse each other of
dishonesty in the management of party funds; it appeared in fact that
the large sums collected throughout Italy on behalf of the strikers had
been squandered or appropriated by the "syndacalist" leaders. The spirit
of indiscipline had begun to reach the lower classes of state employees,
especially the school teachers and the postal and telegraph clerks, and
at one time it seemed as though the country were about to face a
situation similar to that which arose in France in the spring of 1909.
Fortunately, however, the government, by dismissing the ringleader, Dr
Campanozzi, in time nipped the agitation in the bud, and it did attempt
to redress some of the genuine grievances. Public opinion upheld the
government in its attitude, for all persons of common sense realized
that the suspension of the public services could not be permitted for a
moment in a civilized country.
Internal politics, 1902.
In parliamentary politics the most notable event in 1902 was the
presentation of a divorce bill by Signor Zanardelli's government; this
was done not because there was any real demand for it, but to please the
doctrinaire anti-clericals and freemasons, divorce being regarded not as
a social institution but as a weapon against Catholicism. But while the
majority of the deputies were nominally in favour of the bill, the
parliamentary committee reported against it, and public opinion was so
hostile that an anti-divorce petition received 3,500,000 signatures,
including not only those of professing Catholics, but of free-thinkers
and Jews, who regarded divorce as unsuitable to Italian conditions. The
opposition outside parliament was in fact so overwhelming that the
ministry decided to drop the bill. The financial situation continued
satisfactory; a new loan at 3(1/2)% was voted by the Chamber in April
1902, and by June the whole of it had been placed in Italy. In October
the rate of exchange was at par, the premium on gold had disappeared,
and by the end of the year the budget showed a surplus of sixteen
millions.
1903-1905.
In January 1903 Signor Prinetti, the minister for foreign affairs,
resigned on account of ill-health, and was succeeded by Admiral Morin,
while Admiral Bettolo took the latter's place as minister of marine. The
unpopularity of the ministry forced Signor Giolitti, the minister of the
interior, to resign (June 1903), and he was followed by Admiral Bettolo,
whose administration had been violently attacked by the Socialists; in
October Signor Zanardelli, the premier, resigned on account of his
health, and the king entrusted the formation of the cabinet to Signor
Giolitti. The latter accepted the task, and the new administration
included Signor Tittoni, late prefect of Naples, as foreign minister,
Signor Luigi Luzzatti, the eminent financier, at the treasury, General
Pedotti at the war office, and Admiral Mirabello as minister of marine.
Almost immediately after his appointment Signor Tittoni accompanied the
king and queen of Italy on a state visit to France and then to England,
where various international questions were discussed, and the cordial
reception which the royal pair met with in London and at Windsor served
to dispel the small cloud which had arisen in the relations of the two
countries on account of the Tripoli agreements and the language question
in Malta. The premier's programme was not well received by the Chamber,
although the treasury minister's financial statement was again
satisfactory. The weakness of the government in dealing with the strike
riots caused a feeling of profound dissatisfaction, and the so-called
"experiment of liberty," conducted with the object of conciliating the
extreme parties, proved a dismal failure. In October 1904, after the
September strikes, the Chamber was dissolved, and at the general
elections in November a ministerial majority was returned, while the
deputies of the Extreme Left (Socialists, Republicans and Radicals) were
reduced from 107 to 94, and a few mild clericals elected. The municipal
elections in several of the larger cities, which had hitherto been
regarded as strongholds of socialism, marked an overwhelming triumph for
the constitutional parties, notably in Milan, Turin and Genoa, for the
strikes had wrought as much harm to the working classes as to the
bourgeoisie. In spite of its majority the Giolitti cabinet, realizing
that it had lost its hold over the country, resigned in March 1905.
1905-1906.
Signor Fortis then became premier and minister of the interior, Signor
Maiorano finance minister and Signor Carcano treasury minister, while
Signor Tittoni, Admiral Mirabello and General Pedotti retained the
portfolios they had held in the previous administration. The new
government was colourless in the extreme, and the premier's programme
aroused no enthusiasm in the House, the most important bill presented
being that for the purchase of the railways, which was voted in June
1905. But the ministry never had any real hold over the country or
parliament, and the dissatisfaction caused by the _modus vivendi_ with
Spain, which would have wrought much injury to the Italian wine-growers,
led to demonstrations and riots, and a hostile vote in the Chamber
produced a cabinet crisis (December 17, 1905); Signor Fortis, however,
reconstructed the ministry, inducing the marquis di San Giuliano to
accept the portfolio of foreign affairs. This last fact was significant,
as the new foreign secretary, a Sicilian deputy and a specialist on
international politics, had hitherto been one of Signor Sonnino's
staunchest adherents; his defection, which was but one of many, showed
that the more prominent members of the Sonnino party were tired of
waiting in vain for their chief's access to power. Even this cabinet was
still-born, and a hostile vote in the Chamber on the 30th of January
1906 brought about its fall.
1906-1909.
Now at last, after waiting so long, Signor Sonnino's hour had struck,
and he became premier for the first time. This result was most
satisfactory to all the best elements in the country, and great hopes
were entertained that the advent of a rigid and honest statesman would
usher in a new era of Italian parliamentary life. Unfortunately at the
very outset of its career the composition of the new cabinet proved
disappointing; for while such men as Count Guicciardini, the minister
for foreign affairs, and Signor Luzzatti at the treasury commanded
general approval, the choice of Signor Sacchi as minister of justice and
of Signor Pantano as minister of agriculture and trade, both of them
advanced and militant Radicals, savoured of an unholy compact between
the premier and his erstwhile bitter enemies, which boded ill for the
success of the administration. For this unfortunate combination Signor
Sonnino himself was not altogether to blame; having lost many of his
most faithful followers, who, weary of waiting for office, had gone over
to the enemy, he had been forced to seek support among men who had
professed hostility to the existing order of things and thus to secure
at least the neutrality of the Extreme Left and make the public realize
that the "reddest" of Socialists, Radicals and Republicans may be tamed
and rendered harmless by the offer of cabinet appointments. A similar
experiment had been tried in France not without success. Unfortunately
in the case of Signor Sonnino public opinion expected too much and did
not take to the idea of such a compromise. The new premier's first act
was one which cannot be sufficiently praised: he suppressed all
subsidies to journalists, and although this resulted in bitter attacks
against him in the columns of the "reptile press" it commanded the
approval of all right-thinking men. Signor Sonnino realized, however,
that his majority was not to be counted on: "The country is with me," he
said to a friend, "but the Chamber is against me." In April 1906 an
eruption of Mount Etna caused the destruction of several villages and
much loss of life and damage to property; in appointing a committee to
distribute the relief funds the premier refused to include any of the
deputies of the devastated districts among its members, and when asked
by them for the reason of this omission, he replied, with a frankness
more characteristic of the man than politic, that he knew they would
prove more solicitous in the distribution of relief for their own
electors than for the real sufferers. A motion presented by the
Socialists in the Chamber for the immediate discussion of a bill to
prevent "the massacres of the proletariate" having been rejected by an
enormous majority, the 28 Socialist deputies resigned their seats; on
presenting themselves for re-election their number was reduced to 25. A
few days later the ministry, having received an adverse vote on a
question of procedure, sent in its resignation (May 17).
The fall of Signor Sonnino, the disappointment caused by the
non-fulfilment of the expectations to which his advent to power had
given rise throughout Italy and the dearth of influential statesmen,
made the return to power of Signor Giolitti inevitable. An appeal to the
country might have brought about a different result, but it is said that
opposition from the highest quarters rendered this course practically
impossible. The change of government brought Signor Tittoni back to the
foreign office; Signor Maiorano became treasury minister, General Vigano
minister of war, Signor Cocco Ortu, whose chief claim to consideration
was the fact of his being a Sardinian (the island had rarely been
represented in the cabinet) minister of agriculture, Signor Gianturco of
justice, Signor Massimini of finance, Signor Schanzer of posts and
telegraphs and Signor Fusinato of education. The new ministry began
auspiciously with the conversion of the public debt from 4% to 3(3/4)%,
to be eventually reduced to 3(1/2)%. This operation had been prepared by
Signor Luzzatti under Signor Sonnino's leadership, and although carried
out by Signor Maiorano it was Luzzatti who deservedly reaped the honour
and glory; the bill was presented, discussed and voted by both Houses on
the 29th of June, and by the 7th of July the conversion was completed
most successfully, showing on how sound a basis Italian finance was now
placed. The surplus for the year amounted to 65,000,000 lire. In
November Signor Gianturco died, and Signor Pietro Bertolini took his
place as minister of public works; the latter proved perhaps the ablest
member of the cabinet, but the acceptance of office under Giolitti of a
man who had been one of the most trusted and valuable lieutenants of
Signor Sonnino marked a further step in the _degringolade_ of that
statesman's party, and was attributed to the fact that Signor Bertolini
resented not having had a place in the late Sonnino ministry. General
Vigano was succeeded in December by Senator Casana, the first civilian
to become minister of war in Italy. He made various reforms which were
badly wanted in army administration, but on the whole the experiment of
a civilian "War Lord" was not a complete success, and in April 1909
Senator Casana retired and was succeeded by General Spingardi, an
appointment which received general approval.
The elections of March 1909 returned a chamber very slightly different
from its predecessor. The ministerial majority was over three hundred,
and although the Extreme Left was somewhat increased in numbers it was
weakened in tone, and many of the newly elected "reds" were hardly more
than pale pink.
Church and State.
Meanwhile, the relations between Church and State began to show signs of
change. The chief supporters of the claims of the papacy to temporal
power were the clericals of France and Austria, but in the former
country they had lost all influence, and the situation between the
Church and the government was becoming every day more strained. With the
rebellion of her "Eldest Daughter," the Roman Church could not continue
in her old attitude of uncompromising hostility towards United Italy,
and the Vatican began to realize the folly of placing every Italian in
the dilemma of being _either_ a good Italian _or_ a good Catholic, when
the majority wished to be both. Outside of Rome relations between the
clergy and the authorities were as a rule quite cordial, and in May 1903
Cardinal Sarto, the patriarch of Venice, asked for and obtained an
audience with the king when he visited that city, and the meeting which
followed was of a very friendly character. In July following Leo XIII.
died, and that same Cardinal Sarto became pope under the style of Pius
X. The new pontiff, although nominally upholding the claims of the
temporal power, in practice attached but little importance to it. At the
elections for the local bodies the Catholics had already been permitted
to vote, and, availing themselves of the privilege, they gained seats in
many municipal councils and obtained the majority in some. At the
general parliamentary elections of 1904 a few Catholics had been elected
as such, and the encyclical of the 11th of June 1905 on the political
organization of the Catholics, practically abolished the _non expedit_.
In September of that year a number of religious institutions in the Near
East, formerly under the protectorate of the French government, in view
of the rupture between Church and State in France, formally asked to be
placed under Italian protection, which was granted in January 1907. The
situation thus became the very reverse of what it had been in Crispi's
time, when the French government, even when anti-clerical, protected the
Catholic Church abroad for political purposes, whereas the conflict
between Church and State in Italy extended to foreign countries, to the
detriment of Italian political interests. A more difficult question was
that of religious education in the public elementary schools. Signor
Giolitti wished to conciliate the Vatican by facilitating religious
education, which was desired by the majority of the parents, but he did
not wish to offend the Freemasons and other anti-clericals too much, as
they could always give trouble at awkward moments. Consequently the
minister of education, Signor Rava, concocted a body of rules which, it
was hoped, would satisfy every one: religious instruction was to be
maintained as a necessary part of the curriculum, but in communes where
the majority of the municipal councillors were opposed to it it might be
suppressed; the council in that case must, however, facilitate the
teaching of religion to those children whose parents desire it. In
practice, however, when the council has suppressed religious instruction
no such facilities are given. At the general elections of March 1909,
over a score of Clerical deputies were returned, Clericals of a very
mild tone who had no thought of the temporal power and were supporters
of the monarchy and anti-socialists; where no Clerical candidate was in
the field the Catholic voters plumped for the constitutional candidate
against all representatives of the Extreme Left. On the other hand, the
attitude of the Vatican towards Liberalism within the Church was one of
uncompromising reaction, and under the new pope the doctrines of
Christian Democracy and Modernism were condemned in no uncertain tone.
Don Romolo Murri, the Christian Democratic leader, who exercised much
influence over the younger and more progressive clergy, having been
severely censured by the Vatican, made formal submission, and declared
his intention of retiring from the struggle. But he appeared again on
the scene in the general elections of 1909, as a Christian Democratic
candidate; he was elected, and alone of the Catholic deputies took his
seat in the Chamber on the Extreme Left, where all his neighbours were
violent anti-clericals.
Earthquake of December 1908.
At 5 A.M. on the 28th of December 1908, an earthquake of appalling
severity shook the whole of southern Calabria and the eastern part of
Sicily, completely destroying the cities of Reggio and Messina, the
smaller towns of Canitello, Scilla, Villa San Giovanni, Bagnara, Palmi,
Melito, Porto Salvo and Santa Eufemia, as well as a large number of
villages. In the case of Messina the horror of the situation was
heightened by a tidal wave. The catastrophe was the greatest of its kind
that has ever occurred in any country; the number of persons killed was
approximately 150,000, while the injured were beyond calculation.
Foreign affairs.
The characteristic feature of Italy's foreign relations during this
period was the weakening of the bonds of the Triple Alliance and the
improved relations with France, while the traditional friendship with
England remained unimpaired. Franco-Italian friendship was officially
cemented by the visit of King Victor Emmanuel and Queen Elena in October
1903 to Paris where they received a very cordial welcome. The visit was
returned in April 1904 when M. Loubet, the French president, came to
Rome; this action was strongly resented by the pope, who, like his
predecessor since 1870, objected to the presence of foreign Catholic
rulers in Rome, and led to the final rupture between France and the
Vatican. The Franco-Italian understanding had the effect of raising
Italy's credit, and the Italian _rente_, which had been shut out of the
French bourses, resumed its place there once more, a fact which
contributed to increase its price and to reduce the unfavourable rate of
exchange. That agreement also served to clear up the situation in
Tripoli; while Italian aspirations towards Tunisia had been ended by the
French occupation of that territory, Tripoli and Bengazi were now
recognized as coming within the Italian "sphere of influence." The
Tripoli hinterland, however, was in danger of being absorbed by other
powers having large African interests; the Anglo-French declaration of
the 21st of March 1899 in particular seemed likely to interfere with
Italian activity.
The Triple Alliance was maintained and renewed as far as paper documents
were concerned (in June 1902 it was reconfirmed for 12 years), but
public opinion was no longer so favourably disposed towards it.
Austria's petty persecutions of her Italian subjects in the _irredente_
provinces, her active propaganda incompatible with Italian interests in
the Balkans, and the anti-Italian war talk of Austrian military circles,
imperilled the relations of the two "allies"; it was remarked, indeed,
that the object of the alliance between Austria and Italy was to prevent
war between them. Austria had persistently adopted a policy of
pin-pricks and aggravating police provocation towards the Italians of
the Adriatic Littoral and of the Trentino, while encouraging the
Slavonic element in the former and the Germans in the latter. One of the
causes of ill-feeling was the university question; the Austrian
government had persistently refused to create an Italian university for
its Italian subjects, fearing lest it should become a hotbed of
"irredentism," the Italian-speaking students being thus obliged to
attend the German-Austrian universities. An attempt at compromise
resulted in the institution of an Italian law faculty at Innsbruck, but
this aroused the violent hostility of the German students and populace,
who gave proof of their superior civilization by an unprovoked attack on
the Italians in October 1902. Further acts of violence were committed by
the Germans in 1903, which led to anti-Austrian demonstrations in Italy.
The worst tumults occurred in November 1904, when Italian students and
professors were attacked at Innsbruck without provocation; being
outnumbered by a hundred to one the Italians were forced to use their
revolvers in self-defence, and several persons were wounded on both
sides. Anti-Italian demonstrations occurred periodically also at Vienna,
while in Dalmatia and Croatia Italian fishermen and workmen (Italian
citizens, not natives) were subject to attacks by gangs of half-savage
Croats, which led to frequent diplomatic "incidents." A further cause of
resentment was Austria's attitude towards the Vatican, inspired by the
strong clerical tendencies of the imperial family, and indeed of a large
section of the Austrian people. But the most serious point at issue was
the Balkan question. Italian public opinion could not view without
serious misgivings the active political propaganda which Austria was
conducting in Albania. The two governments frequently discussed the
situation, but although they had agreed to a self-denying ordinance
whereby each bound itself not to occupy any part of Albanian territory,
Austria's declarations and promises were hardly borne out by the
activity of her agents in the Balkans. Italy, therefore, instituted a
counter-propaganda by means of schools and commercial agencies. The
Macedonian troubles of 1903 again brought Austria and Italy into
conflict. The acceptance by the powers of the Murzsteg programme and the
appointment of Austrian and Russian financial agents in Macedonia was an
advantage for Austria and a set-back for Italy; but the latter scored a
success in the appointment of General de Giorgis as commander of the
international Macedonian gendarmerie; she also obtained, with the
support of Great Britain, France and Russia, the assignment of the
partly Albanian district of Monastir to the Italian officers of that
corps.
In October 1908 came the bombshell of the Austrian annexation of Bosnia,
announced to King Victor Emmanuel and to other rulers by autograph
letters from the emperor-king. The news caused the most widespread
sensation, and public opinion in Italy was greatly agitated at what it
regarded as an act of brigandage on the part of Austria, when Signor
Tittoni in a speech at Carate Brianza (October 6th) declared that "Italy
might await events with serenity, and that these could find her neither
unprepared nor isolated." These words were taken to mean that Italy
would receive compensation to restore the balance of power upset in
Austria's favour. When it was found that there was to be no direct
compensation for Italy a storm of indignation was aroused against
Austria, and also against Signor Tittoni.
On the 29th of October, however, Austria abandoned her military posts in
the sandjak of Novibazar, and the frontier between Austria and Turkey,
formerly an uncertain one, which left Austria a half-open back door to
the Aegean, was now a distinct line of demarcation. Thus the danger of a
"pacific penetration" of Macedonia by Austria became more remote.
Austria also gave way on another point, renouncing her right to police
the Montenegrin coast and to prevent Montenegro from having warships of
its own (paragraphs 5, 6 and 11 of art. 29 of the Berlin Treaty) in a
note presented to the Italian foreign office on the 12th of April 1909.
Italy had developed some important commercial interests in Montenegro,
and anything which strengthened the position of that principality was a
guarantee against further Austrian encroachments. The harbour works in
the Montenegrin port of Antivari, commenced in March 1905 and completed
early in 1909, were an Italian concern, and Italy became a party to the
agreement for the Danube-Adriatic Railway (June 2, 1908) together with
Russia, France and Servia; Italy was to contribute 35,000,000 lire out
of a total capital of 100,000,000, and to be represented by four
directors out of twelve. But the whole episode was a warning to Italy,
and the result was a national movement for security. Credits for the
army and navy were voted almost without a dissentient voice; new
battleships were laid down, the strength of the army was increased, and
the defences of the exposed eastern border were strengthened. It was
clear that so long as Austria, bribed by Germany, could act in a way so
opposed to Italian interests in the Balkans, the Triple Alliance was a
mockery, and Italy could only meet the situation by being prepared for
all contingencies.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.--It is difficult to indicate in a short space the most
important sources of general Italian history. Muratori's great
collection, the _Rerum Italicarum scriptores_ in combination with his
_Dissertationes_, the chronicles and other historical material
published by the _Archivio Storico Italiano_, and the works of
detached annalists of whom the Villani are the most notable, take
first rank. Next we may mention Muratori's _Annali d' Italia_,
together with Guicciardini's _Storia d' Italia_ and its modern
continuation by Carlo Botta. Among the more recent contributions S. de
Sismondi's _Republiques italiennes_ (Brussels, 1838) and Carlo Troya's
_Storia d' Italia nel medio evo_ are among the most valuable general
works, while the large _Storia Politica d' Italia_ by various authors,
published at Milan, is also important--F. Bertolini, _I Barbari_; F.
Lanzani, _Storia dei comuni italiani dalle origini fino al 1313_
(1882); C. Cipolla, _Storia delle Signorie Italiane dal 1313 al 1530_
(1881); A. Cosci, _L' Italia durante le preponderanze straniere,
1530-1789_ (1875); A. Franchetti, _Storia d' Italia dal 1789 al 1799_;
G. de Castro, _Storia d' Italia dal 1789 al 1814_ (1881). For the
beginnings of Italian history the chief works are T. Hodgkin's _Italy
and her Invaders_ (Oxford, 1892-1899) and P. Villari's _Le Invasioni
barbariche_ (Milan, 1900), both based on original research and sound
scholarship. The period from 1494 to modern times is dealt with in
various volumes of the _Cambridge Modern History_, especially in vol.
i., "The Renaissance," which contains valuable bibliographies.
Giuseppe Ferrari's _Rivoluzioni d' Italia_ (1858) deserves notice as a
work of singular vigour, though no great scientific importance, and
Cesare Balbo's _Sommario_ (Florence, 1856) presents the main outlines
of the subject with brevity and clearness. For the period of the
French revolution and the Napoleonic wars see F. Lemmi's _Le Origini
del risorgimento italiano_ (Milan, 1906); E. Bonnal de Ganges, _La
Chute d'une republique [Venise]_ (Paris, 1885); D. Carutti, _Storia
della corte di Savoia durante la rivoluzione e l' impero francese_ (2
vols., Turin, 1892); G. de Castro, _Storia d' Italia dal 1797 al 1814_
(Milan, 1881); A. Dufourcq, _Le Regime jacobin en Italie, 1796-1799_
(Paris, 1900); A. Franchetti, _Storia d' Italia dal 1789 al 1799_
(Milan, 1878); P. Gaffarel, _Bonaparte et les republiques italiennes_
(1796-1799) (Paris, 1895); R. M. Johnston, _The Napoleonic Empire in
Southern Italy_ (2 vols., with full bibliography, London, 1904); E.
Ramondini, _L' Italia durante la dominazione francese_ (Naples, 1882);
E. Ruth, _Geschichte des italienischen Volkes unter der napoleonischen
Herrschaft_ (Leipzig, 1859). For modern times, see Bolton King's
_History of Italian Unity_ (1899) and Bolton King and Thomas Okey's
_Italy To-day_ (1901). With regard to the history of separate
provinces it may suffice to notice N. Machiaveili's _Storia
fiorentina_, B. Corio's _Storia di Milano_, G. Capponi's _Storia della
repubblica di Firenze_ (Florence, 1875), P. Villari's _I primi due
secoli della storia di Firenze_ (Florence, 1905), F. Pagano's _Istoria
del regno di Napoli_ (Palermo-Naples, 1832, &c.), P. Romanin's _Storia
documentata di Venezia_ (Venice, 1853), M. Amari's _Musulmani di
Sicilia_ (1854-1875), F. Gregorovius's _Geschichte der Stadt Rom_
(Stuttgart, 1881), A. von Reumont's _Geschichte der Stadt Rom_
(Berlin, 1867), L. Cibrario's _Storia della monarchia piemontese_
(Turin, 1840), and D. Carutti's _Storia della diplomazia della corte
di Savoia_ (Rome, 1875). The _Archivii storici_ and _Deputazioni di
storia patria_ of the various Italian towns and provinces contain a
great deal of valuable material for local history. From the point of
view of papal history, L. von Ranke's _History of the Popes_ (English
edition, London, 1870), M. Creighton's _History of the Papacy_
(London, 1897) and L. Pastor's _Geschichte der Papste_ (Freiburg i.
B., 1886-1896), should be mentioned. From the point of view of general
culture, Jacob Burckhardt's _Cultur der Renaissance in Italien_
(Basel, 1860), E. Guinet's _Revolutions d' Italie_ (Paris, 1857), and
J. A. Symonds's _Renaissance in Italy_ (5 vols., London, 1875, &c.)
should be consulted. (L. V.*)
FOOTNOTES:
[1] On the derivation see below, _History_, section A, _ad. init_.
[2] The actually highest point is the Maschio delle Faete (3137 ft.).
(See ALBANUS MONS.)
[3] On the influence of malaria on the population of Early Italy see
W. H. S. Jones in _Annals of Archaeology and Anthropology_, ii. 97
sqq. (Liverpool, 1909).
[4] The 2nd category of the 1875 law had practically ceased to exist.
[5] This may be reduced, in consequence of the adoption of the new
Q.F. gun, 1 to 6.
[6] "Movement of capital" consists, as regards "income," of the
proceeds of the sale of buildings, Church or Crown lands, old
prisons, barracks, &c., or of moneys derived from sale of
consolidated stock. Thus "income" really signifies diminution of
patrimony or increase of debt. In regard to "expenditure," "movement
of capital" refers to extinction of debt by amortization or
otherwise, to purchases of buildings or to advances made by the
state. Thus "expenditure" really represents a patrimonial
improvement, a creation of credit or a decrease of indebtedness. The
items referring to "railway construction" represent, on the one hand,
repayments made to the exchequer by the communes and provinces of
money disbursed on their account by the State Treasury; and, on the
other, the cost of new railways incurred by the Treasury. The items
of the "_partite di giro_" are inscribed both on the credit and debit
sides of the budget, and have merely a figurative value.
[7] Financial operations (mainly in connexion with railway purchase)
figure on each side of the account for about L22,000,000.
[8] For example, wheat, the price of which was in 1902 26 lire per
cwt., pays a tax of 7(1/2) lire; sugar pays four times its wholesale
value in tax; coffee twice its wholesale value.
[9] "Privileges" assure to creditors priority of claim in case of
foreclosure for debt or mortgage. Prior to the law of the 23rd of
January 1887 harvested produce and agricultural implements were
legally exempt from "privilege."
[10] At the beginning of 1902 the Italian parliament sanctioned a
bill providing for the abolition of municipal duties on bread and
farinaceous products within three years of the promulgation of the
bill on 1st July 1902.
[11] Among the insurgents of Romagna was Louis Napoleon, afterwards
emperor of the French.
[12] In Rome itself a certain Angelo Brunetti, known as Ciceruacchio,
a forage merchant of lowly birth and a Carbonaro, exercised great
influence over the masses and kept the peace where the authorities
would have failed.
[13] The popular cry of "Viva Verdi!" did not merely express
enthusiasm for Italy's most eminent musician, but signified, in
initials: "Viva Vittorio Emanuele Re d' Italia!"
[14] La Farina's _Epistolario_, ii. 426.
[15] In reality the emperor was contemplating an Etrurian kingdom
with the prince at its head.
[16] N. Bianchi, _Cavour_, p. 118.
[17] He asked for the Neapolitan viceroyalty for life, which the king
very wisely refused.
[18] The counterblast of Pius IX. to this convention was the
encyclical _Quanta Cura_ of Dec. 8, 1864, followed by the famous
_Syllabus_.
ITEM (a Latin adverb meaning "also," "likewise"), originally used
adverbially in English at the beginning of each separate head in a list
of articles, or each detail in an account book or ledger or in a legal
document. The word is thus applied, as a noun, to the various heads in
any such enumeration and also to a piece of information or news.
ITHACA ([Greek: Ithake]), vulgarly Thiaki ([Greek: Thiake]), next to
Paxo the smallest of the seven Ionian Islands, with an area of about 44
sq. m. It forms an eparchy of the nomos of Cephalonia in the kingdom of
Greece, and its population, which was 9873 in 1870, is now about 13,000.
The island consists of two mountain masses, connected by a narrow
isthmus of hills, and separated by a wide inlet of the sea known as the
Gulf of Molo. The northern and greater mass culminates in the heights of
Anoi (2650 ft.), and the southern in Hagios Stephanos, or Mount
Merovigli (2100 ft.). Vathy ([Greek: Bathu] = "deep"), the chief town
and port of the island, lies at the northern foot of Mount Stephanos,
its whitewashed houses stretching for about a mile round the deep bay in
the Gulf of Molo, to which it owes its name. As there are only one or
two small stretches of arable land in Ithaca, the inhabitants are
dependent on commerce for their grain supply; and olive oil, wine and
currants are the principal products obtained by the cultivation of the
thin stratum of soil that covers the calcareous rocks. Goats are fed in
considerable number on the brushwood pasture of the hills; and hares (in
spite of Aristotle's supposed assertion of their absence) are
exceptionally abundant. The island is divided into four districts:
Vathy, Aeto (or Eagle's Cliff), Anoge (Anoi) or Upland, and Exoge (Exoi)
or Outland.
The name has remained attached to the island from the earliest
historical times with but little interruption of the tradition; though
in Brompton's travels (12th century) and in the old Venetian maps we
find it called Fale or Val de Compar, and at a later date it not
unfrequently appears as Little Cephalonia. This last name indicates the
general character of Ithacan history (if history it can be called) in
modern and indeed in ancient times; for the fame of the island is almost
solely due to its position in the Homeric story of Odysseus. Ithaca,
according to the Homeric epos, was the royal seat and residence of King
Odysseus. The island is incidentally described with no small variety of
detail, picturesque and topographical; the Homeric localities for which
counterparts have been sought are Mount Neritos, Mount Neion, the
harbour of Phorcys, the town and palace of Odysseus, the fountain of
Arethusa, the cave of the Naiads, the stalls of the swineherd Eumaeus,
the orchard of Laertes, the Korax or Raven Cliff and the island Asteris,
where the suitors lay in ambush for Telemachus. Among the
"identificationists" there are two schools, one placing the town at
Polis on the west coast in the northern half of the island (Leake,
Gladstone, &c.), and the other at Aeto on the isthmus. The latter site,
which was advocated by Sir William Gell (_Topography and Antiquities of
Ithaca_, London, 1807), was supported by Dr H. Schliemann, who carried
on excavations in 1873 and 1878 (see H. Schliemann, _Ithaque, le
Peloponnese, Troie_, Paris, 1869, also published in German; his letter
to _The Times_, 26th of September, 1878; and the author's life prefixed
to _Ilios_, London, 1880). But his results were mainly negative. The
fact is that no amount of ingenuity can reconcile the descriptions given
in the _Odyssey_ with the actual topography of this island. Above all,
the passage in which the position of Ithaca is described offers great
difficulties. "Now Ithaca lies low, farthest up the sea line towards the
darkness, but those others face the dawning and the sun" (Butcher and
Lang). Such a passage fits very ill an island lying, as Ithaca does,
just to the east of Cephalonia. Accordingly Professor W. Dorpfeld has
suggested that the Homeric Ithaca is not the island which was called
Ithaca by the later Greeks, but must be identified with Leucas (Santa
Maura, q.v.). He succeeds in fitting the Homeric topography to this
latter island, and suggests that the name may have been transferred in
consequence of a migration of the inhabitants. There is no doubt that
Leucas fits the Homeric descriptions much better than Ithaca; but, on
the other hand, many scholars maintain that it is a mistake to treat the
imaginary descriptions of a poet as if they were portions of a
guide-book, or to look, in the author of the _Odyssey_, for a close
familiarity with the geography of the Ionian islands.
See, besides the works already referred to, the separate works on
Ithaca by Schreiber (Leipzig, 1829); Ruhle von Lilienstern (Berlin,
1832); N. Karavias Grivas ([Greek: Historia tes nesou Ithakes])
(Athens, 1849); Bowen (London, 1851); and Gandar, (Paris, 1854);
Hercher, in _Hermes_ (1866); Leake's _Northern Greece_; Mure's _Tour
in Greece_; Bursian's _Geogr. von Griechenland_; Gladstone, "The
Dominions of Ulysses," in _Macmillan's Magazine_ (1877). A history of
the discussions will be found in Buchholz, _Die Homerischen Realien_
(Leipzig, 1871); Partsch, _Kephallenia und Ithaka_ (1890); W. Dorpfeld
in _Melanges Perrot_, pp. 79-93 (1903); P. Goessler, _Leukas-Ithaka_
(Stuttgart, 1904). (E. Gr.)
ITHACA, a city and the county-seat of Tompkins county, New York, U.S.A.,
at the southern end of Cayuga Lake, 60 m. S.W. of Syracuse. Pop. (1890)
11,079, (1900) 13,136, of whom 1310 were foreign-born, (1910 census)
14,802. It is served by the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western and the
Lehigh Valley railways and by inter-urban electric line; and steamboats
ply on the lake. Most of the city is in the level valley, from which it
spreads up the heights on the south, east and west. The finest
residential district is East Hill, particularly Cornell and Cayuga
Heights (across Fall Creek from the Cornell campus). Renwick Beach, at
the head of the lake, is a pleasure resort. The neighbouring region is
one of much beauty, and is frequented by summer tourists. Near the city
are many waterfalls, the most notable being Taughannock Falls (9 m. N.),
with a fall of 215 ft. Through the city from the east run Fall,
Cascadilla and Six Mile Creeks, the first two of which have cut deep
gorges and have a number of cascades and waterfalls, the largest, Ithaca
Fall in Fall Creek, being 120 ft. high. Six Mile Creek crosses the south
side of the city and empties into Cayuga Inlet, which crosses the
western and lower districts, often inundated in the spring. The Inlet
receives the waters of a number of small streams descending from the
south-western hills. Among the attractions in this direction are
Buttermilk Falls and ravine, on the outskirts of the city, Lick Brook
Falls and glen and Enfield Falls and glen, the last 7 m. distant. Fall
Creek furnishes good water-power. The city has various manufactures,
including fire-arms, calendar clocks, traction engines, electrical
appliances, patent chains, incubators, autophones, artesian well drills,
salt, cement, window glass and wall-paper. The value of the factory
product increased from $1,500,604 in 1900 to $2,080,002 in 1905, or
38.6%. Ithaca is also a farming centre and coal market, and much fruit
is grown in the vicinity. The city is best known as the seat of Cornell
University (q.v.). It has also the Ezra Cornell Free Library of about
28,000 volumes, the Ithaca Conservatory of Music, the Cascadilla School
and the Ithaca High School. Ithaca was settled about 1789, the name
being given to it by Simeon De Witt in 1806. It was incorporated as a
village in 1821, and was chartered as a city in 1888. At Buttermilk
Falls stood the principal village of the Tutelo Indians, Coreorgonel,
settled in 1753 and destroyed in 1779 by a detachment of Sullivan's
force.
ITINERARIUM (i.e. road-book, from Lat. _iter_, road), a term applied to
the extant descriptions of the ancient Roman roads and routes of
traffic, with the stations and distances. It is usual to distinguish two
classes of these, _Itineraria adnotata_ or _scripta_ and _Itineraria
picta_--the former having the character of a book, and the latter being
a kind of travelling map. Of the Itineraria Scripta the most important
are: (1) _It. Antonini_ (see ANTONINI ITINERARIUM), which consists of
two parts, the one dealing with roads in Europe, Asia and Africa, and
the other with familiar sea-routes--the distances usually being measured
from Rome; (2) _It. Hierosolymitanum_ or _Burdigalense_, which belongs
to the 4th century, and contains the route of a pilgrimage from Bordeaux
to Jerusalem and from Heraclea by Rome to Milan (ed. G. Parthey and M.
Pinder, 1848, with the _Itinerarium Antonini_); (3) _It. Alexandria_
containing a sketch of the march-route of Alexander the Great, mainly
derived from Arrian and prepared for Constantius's expedition in A.D.
340-345 against the Persians (ed. D. Volkmann, 1871). A collected
edition of the ancient itineraria, with ten maps, was issued by Fortia
d'Urban, _Recueil des itineraires anciens_ (1845). Of the Itineraria
Picta only one great example has been preserved. This is the famous
_Tabula Peutingeriana_, which, without attending to the shape or
relative position of the countries, represents by straight lines and
dots of various sizes the roads and towns of the whole Roman world
(facsimile published by K. Miller, 1888; see also MAP).
ITIUS PORTUS, the name given by Caesar to the chief harbour which he
used when embarking for his second expedition to Britain in 54 B.C. (_De
bello Gallico_, v. 2). It was certainly near the uplands round Cape
Grisnez (_Promuntorium Itium_), but the exact site has been violently
disputed ever since the renaissance of learning. Many critics have
assumed that Caesar used the same port for his first expedition, but the
name does not appear at all in that connexion (_B. G._ iv. 21-23). This
fact, coupled with other considerations, makes it probable that the two
expeditions started from different places. It is generally agreed that
the first embarked at Boulogne. The same view was widely held about the
second, but T. Rice Holmes in an article in the _Classical Review_ (May
1909) gave strong reasons for preferring Wissant, 4 m. east of Grisnez.
The chief reason is that Caesar, having found he could not set sail from
the small harbour of Boulogne with even 80 ships simultaneously, decided
that he must take another point for the sailing of the "more than 800"
ships of the second expedition. Holmes argues that, allowing for change
in the foreshore since Caesar's time, 800 specially built ships could
have been hauled above the highest spring-tide level, and afterwards
launched simultaneously at Wissant, which would therefore have been
"commodissimus" (v. 2) or opposed to "brevissimus traiectus" (iv. 21).
See T. R. Holmes in _Classical Review_ (May 1909), in which he
partially revises the conclusions at which he arrived in his _Ancient
Britain_ (1907), pp. 552-594; that the first expedition started from
Boulogne is accepted, e.g. by H. Stuart Jones, in _English Historical
Review_ (1909), xxiv. 115; other authorities in Holmes's article.
ITO, HIROBUMI, PRINCE (1841-1909), Japanese statesman, was born in 1841,
being the son of Ito Juzo, and (like his father) began life as a
retainer of the lord of Choshu, one of the most powerful nobles of
Japan. Choshu, in common with many of his fellow Daimyos, was bitterly
opposed to the rule of the shogun or tycoon, and when this rule resulted
in the conclusion of the treaty with Commodore M. C. Perry in 1854, the
smouldering discontent broke out into open hostility against both
parties to the compact. In these views Ito cordially agreed with his
chieftain, and was sent on a secret mission to Yedo to report to his
lord on the doings of the government. This visit had the effect of
causing Ito to turn his attention seriously to the study of the British
and of other military systems. As a result he persuaded Choshu to
remodel his army, and to exchange the bows and arrows of his men for
guns and rifles. But Ito felt that his knowledge of foreigners, if it
was to be thorough, should be sought for in Europe, and with the
connivance of Choshu he, in company with Inouye and three other young
men of the same rank as himself, determined to risk their lives by
committing the then capital offence of visiting a foreign country. With
great secrecy they made their way to Nagasaki, where they concluded an
arrangement with the agent of Messrs Jardine, Matheson & Co. for
passages on board a vessel which was about to sail for Shanghai (1863).
At that port the adventurers separated, three of their number taking
ship as passengers to London, while Ito and Inouye preferred to work
their passages before the mast in the "Pegasus," bound for the same
destination. For a year these two friends remained in London studying
English methods, but then events occurred in Japan which recalled them
to their country. The treaties lately concluded by the shogun with the
foreign powers conceded the right to navigate the strait of Shimonoseki,
leading to the Inland Sea. On the northern shores of this strait
stretched the feudal state ruled over by Prince Choshu, who refused to
recognize the clause opening the strait, and erected batteries on the
shore, from which he opened fire on all ships which attempted to force
the passage. The shogun having declared himself unable in the
circumstances to give effect to the provision, the treaty powers
determined to take the matter into their own hands. Ito, who was better
aware than his chief of the disproportion between the fighting powers of
Europe and Japan, memorialized the cabinets, begging that hostilities
should be suspended until he should have had time to use his influence
with Choshu in the interests of peace. With this object Ito hurried back
to Japan. But his efforts were futile. Choshu refused to give way, and
suffered the consequences of his obstinacy in the destruction of his
batteries and in the infliction of a heavy fine. The part played by Ito
in these negotiations aroused the animosity of the more reactionary of
his fellow-clansmen, who made repeated attempts to assassinate him. On
one notable occasion he was pursued by his enemies into a tea-house,
where he was concealed by a young lady beneath the floor of her room.
Thus began a romantic acquaintance, which ended in the lady becoming the
wife of the fugitive. Subsequently (1868) Ito was made governor of
Hiogo, and in the course of the following year became vice-minister of
finance. In 1871 he accompanied Iwakura on an important mission to
Europe, which, though diplomatically a failure, resulted in the
enlistment of the services of European authorities on military, naval
and educational systems.
After his return to Japan Ito served in several cabinets as head of the
bureau of engineering and mines, and in 1886 he accepted office as prime
minister, a post which, when he resigned in 1901, he had held four
times. In 1882 he was sent on a mission to Europe to study the various
forms of constitutional government; on this occasion he attended the
coronation of the tsar Alexander III. On his return to Japan he was
entrusted with the arduous duty of drafting a constitution. In 1890 he
reaped the fruits of his labours, and nine years later he was destined
to witness the abrogation of the old treaties, and the substitution in
their place of conventions which place Japan on terms of equality with
the European states. In all the great reforms in the Land of the Rising
Sun Ito played a leading part. It was mainly due to his active interest
in military and naval affairs that he was able to meet Li Hung-chang at
the end of the Chinese and Japanese War (1895) as the representative of
the conquering state, and the conclusion of the Anglo-Japanese Alliance
in 1902 testified to his triumphant success in raising Japan to the
first rank among civilized powers. As a reward for his conspicuous
services in connexion with the Chinese War Ito was made a marquis, and
in 1897 he accompanied Prince Arisugawa as a joint representative of the
Mikado at the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Victoria. At the close of 1901 he
again, though in an unofficial capacity, visited Europe and the United
States; and in England he was created a G.C.B. After the Russo-Japanese
War (1905) he was appointed resident general in Korea, and in that
capacity he was responsible for the steps taken to increase Japanese
influence in that country. In September 1907 he was advanced to the rank
of prince. He retired from his post in Korea in July 1909, and became
president of the privy council in Japan. But on the 26th of October,
when on a visit to Harbin, he was shot dead by a Korean assassin.
He is to be distinguished from Admiral Count Yuko Ito (b. 1843), the
distinguished naval commander.
ITRI, a town of Campania, Italy, in the province of Caserta, 6 m. by
road N.W. of Formia. Pop. (1901) 5797. The town is picturesquely
situated 690 ft. above sea-level, in the mountains which the Via Appia
traverses between Fondi and Formia. Interesting remains of the
substruction wall supporting the ancient road are preserved in Itri
itself; and there are many remains of ancient buildings near it. The
brigand Fra Diavolo, the hero of Auber's opera, was a native of Itri,
and the place was once noted for brigandage.
ITURBIDE (or YTURBIDE), AUGUSTIN DE (1783-1824), emperor of Mexico from
May 1822 to March 1823, was born on the 27th of September 1783, at
Valladolid, now Morelia, in Mexico, where his father, an Old Spaniard
from Pampeluna, had settled with his creole wife. After enjoying a
better education than was then usual in Mexico, Iturbide entered the
military service, and in 1810 held the post of lieutenant in the
provincial regiment of his native city. In that year the insurrection
under Hidalgo broke out, and Iturbide, more from policy, it would seem,
than from principle, served in the royal army. Possessed of splendid
courage and brilliant military talents, which fitted him especially for
guerilla warfare, the young creole did signal service, and rapidly rose
in military rank. In December 1813 Colonel Iturbide, along with General
Llano, dealt a crushing blow to the revolt by defeating Morelos, the
successor of Hidalgo, in the battle of Valladolid; and the former
followed it up by another decisive victory at Puruaran in January 1814.
Next year Don Augustin was appointed to the command of the army of the
north and to the governorship of the provinces of Valladolid and
Guanajuato, but in 1816 grave charges of extortion and violence were
brought against him, which led to his recall. Although the general was
acquitted, or at least although the inquiry was dropped, he did not
resume his commands, but retired into private life for four years,
which, we are told, he spent in a rigid course of penance for his former
excesses. In 1820 Apodaca, viceroy of Mexico, received instructions from
the Spanish cortes to proclaim the constitution promulgated in Spain in
1812, but although obliged at first to submit to an order by which his
power was much curtailed, he secretly cherished the design of reviving
the absolute power for Ferdinand VII. in Mexico. Under pretext of
putting down the lingering remains of revolt, he levied troops, and,
placing Iturbide at their head, instructed him to proclaim the absolute
power of the king. Four years of reflection, however, had modified the
general's views, and now, led both by personal ambition and by patriotic
regard for his country, Iturbide resolved to espouse the cause of
national independence. His subsequent proceedings--how he issued the
_Plan of Iguala_, on the 24th of February 1821, how by the refusal of
the Spanish cortes to ratify the treaty of Cordova, which he had signed
with O'Donoju, he was transformed from a mere champion of monarchy into
a candidate for the crown, and how, hailed by the soldiers as Emperor
Augustin I. on the 18th of May 1822, he was compelled within ten months,
by his arrogant neglect of constitutional restraints, to tender his
abdication to a congress which he had forcibly dissolved--will be found
detailed under Mexico. Although the congress refused to accept his
abdication on the ground that to do so would be to recognize the
validity of his election, it permitted the ex-emperor to retire to
Leghorn in Italy, while in consideration of his services in 1820 a
yearly pension of L5000 was conferred upon him. But Iturbide resolved to
make one more bid for power; and in 1824, passing from Leghorn to
London, he published a _Statement_, and on the 11th of May set sail for
Mexico. The congress immediately issued an act of outlawry against him,
forbidding him to set foot on Mexican soil on pain of death. Ignorant of
this, the ex-emperor landed in disguise at Soto la Marina on the 14th of
July. He was almost immediately recognized and arrested, and on the 19th
of July 1824 was shot at Padilla, by order of the state of Tamaulipas,
without being permitted an appeal to the general congress. Don Augustin
de Iturbide is described by his contemporaries as being of handsome
figure and ingratiating manner. His brilliant courage and wonderful
success made him the idol of his soldiers, though towards his prisoners
he displayed the most cold-blooded cruelty, boasting in one of his
despatches of having honoured Good Friday by shooting three hundred
excommunicated wretches. Though described as amiable in his private
life, he seems in his public career to have been ambitious and
unscrupulous, and by his haughty Spanish temper, impatient of all
resistance or control, to have forfeited the opportunity of founding a
secure imperial dynasty. His grandson Augustin was chosen by the
ill-fated emperor Maximilian as his successor.
See _Statement of some of the principal events in the public life of
Augustin de Iturbide_, written by himself (Eng. trans., 1824).
ITZA, an American-Indian people of Mayan stock, inhabiting the country
around Lake Peten in northern Guatemala. Chichen-Itza, among the most
wonderful of the ruined cities of Yucatan, was the capital of the Itzas.
Thence, according to their traditions they removed, on the breaking up
of the Mayan kingdom in 1420, to an island in the lake where another
city was built. Cortes met them in 1525, but they preserved their
independence till 1697, when the Spaniards destroyed the city and
temples, and a library of sacred books, written in hieroglyphics on bark
fibre. The Itzas were one of the eighteen semi-independent Maya states,
whose incessant internecine wars at length brought about the
dismemberment of the empire of Xibalba and the destruction of Mayan
civilization.
ITZEHOE, a town of Germany, in the Prussian province of
Schleswig-Holstein, on the Stor, a navigable tributary of the Elbe, 32
m. north-west of Hamburg and 15 m. north of Gluckstadt. Pop. (1900)
15,649. The church of St Lawrence, dating from the 12th century, and the
building in which the Holstein estates formerly met, are noteworthy. The
town has a convent founded in 1256, a high school, a hospital and other
benevolent institutions. Itzehoe is a busy commercial place. Its sugar
refineries are among the largest in Germany. Ironfounding, shipbuilding
and wool-spinning are also carried on, and the manufactures include
machinery, tobacco, fishing-nets, chicory, soap, cement and beer.
Fishing employs some of the inhabitants, and the markets for cattle and
horses are important. A considerable trade is carried on in agricultural
products and wood, chiefly with Hamburg and Altona.
Itzehoe is the oldest town in Holstein. Its nucleus was a castle, built
in 809 by Egbert, one of Charlemagne's counts, against the Danes. The
community which sprang up around it was diversely called Esseveldoburg,
Eselsfleth and Ezeho. In 1201 the town was destroyed, but it was
restored in 1224. To the new town the Lubeck rights were granted by
Adolphus IV. in 1238, and to the old town in 1303. During the Thirty
Years' War Itzehoe was twice destroyed by the Swedes, in 1644 and 1657,
but was rebuilt on each occasion. It passed to Prussia in 1867, with the
duchy of Schleswig-Holstein.
IUKA, the county-seat of Tishomingo county, Mississippi, U.S.A., about
25 m. S.E. of Corinth in the N.E. corner of the state and 8 m. S. of the
Tennessee river. Pop. (1900) 882; (1910) 1221. It is served by the
Southern railway, and has a considerable trade in cotton and farm
products. Its mineral springs make it a health resort. In the American
Civil War, a Confederate force under General Sterling Price occupied the
town on the 14th of September 1862, driving out a small Union garrison;
and on the 19th of September a partial engagement took place between
Price and a Federal column commanded by General Rosecrans, in which the
Confederate losses were 700 and the Union 790. Price, whose line of
retreat was threatened by superior forces under General Grant, withdrew
from Iuka on the morning of the 20th of September.
IULUS, in Roman legend: (a) the eldest son of Ascanius and grandson of
Aeneas, founder of the Julian gens (_gens Iulia_), deprived of his
kingdom of Latium by his younger brother Silvius (Dion. Halic. i. 70);
(b) another name for, or epithet of, Ascanius.
IVAN (JOHN), the name of six grand dukes of Muscovy and tsars of Russia.
IVAN I., called _Kalita_, or Money-Bag (d. 1341), grand duke of
Vladimir, was the first _sobiratel_, or "gatherer" of the scattered
Russian lands, thereby laying the foundations of the future autocracy as
a national institution. This he contrived to do by adopting a policy of
complete subserviency to the khan of the Golden Horde, who, in return
for a liberal and punctual tribute, permitted him to aggrandize himself
at the expense of the lesser grand dukes. Moscow and Tver were the first
to fall. The latter Ivan received from the hand of the khan, after
devastating it with a host of 50,000 Tatars (1327). When Alexander of
Tver fled to the powerful city of Pskov, Ivan, not strong enough to
attack Pskov, procured the banishment of Alexander by the aid of the
metropolitan, Theognost, who threatened Pskov with an interdict. In 1330
Ivan extended his influence over Rostov by the drastic methods of
blackmail and hanging. But Great Novgorod was too strong for him, and
twice he threatened that republic in vain. In 1340 Ivan assisted the
khan to ravage the domains of Prince Ivan of Smolensk, who had refused
to pay the customary tribute to the Horde. Ivan's own domains, at any
rate during his reign, remained free from Tatar incursions, and
prospered correspondingly, thus attracting immigrants and their wealth
from the other surrounding principalities. Ivan was a most careful, not
to say niggardly economist, keeping an exact account of every village or
piece of plate that his money-bags acquired, whence his nickname. The
most important event of his reign was the transference of the
metropolitan see from Vladimir to Moscow, which gave Muscovy the
pre-eminence over all the other Russian states, and made the
metropolitan the ecclesiastical police-superintendent of the grand duke.
The Metropolitan Peter built the first stone cathedral of Moscow, and
his successor, Theognost, followed suit with three more stone churches.
Simultaneously Ivan substituted stone walls for the ancient wooden ones
of the Kreml', or citadel, which made Moscow a still safer place of
refuge.
See S. M. Solov'ev, _History of Russia_ (Rus.), vol. iii. (St
Petersburg, 1895); Polezhaev, _The Principality of Moscow in the first
half of the 14th Century_ (Rus.) (St Petersburg, 1878).
IVAN II. (1326-1359), grand duke of Vladimir, a younger son of Ivan
Kalita, was born in 1326. In 1353 he succeeded his elder brother Simeon
as grand duke, despite the competition of Prince Constantine of Suzdal,
the Khan Hanibek preferring to bestow the _yarluik_, or letter of
investiture, upon Ivan rather than upon Constantine. At first the
principalities of Suzdal, Ryazan and the republic of Novgorod refused to
recognize him as grand duke, and waged war with him till 1354. The
authority of the grand duchy sensibly diminished during the reign of
Ivan II. The surrounding principalities paid but little attention to
Moscow, and Ivan, "a meek, gentle and merciful prince," was ruled to a
great extent by the _tuisyatsky_, or chiliarch, Alexis Khvost, and,
after his murder by the jealous boyars in 1357, by Bishop Alexis. He
died in 1359. Like most of his predecessors, Ivan, by his last will,
divided his dominions among his children.
See Dmitry Ilovaisky, _History of Russia_ (Rus.), vol. ii. (Moscow,
1876-1894).
IVAN III. (1440-1505), grand duke of Muscovy, son of Vasily (Basil)
Vasilievich the Blind, grand duke of Moscow, and Maria Yaroslavovna, was
born in 1440. He was co-regent with his father during the latter years
of his life and succeeded him in 1462. Ivan tenaciously pursued the
unifying policy of his predecessors. Nevertheless, cautious to timidity,
like most of the princes of the house of Rurik, he avoided as far as
possible any violent collision with his neighbours until all the
circumstances were exceptionally favourable, always preferring to attain
his ends gradually, circuitously and subterraneously. Muscovy had by
this time become a compact and powerful state, whilst her rivals had
grown sensibly weaker, a condition of things very favourable to the
speculative activity of a statesman of Ivan III.'s peculiar character.
His first enterprise was a war with the republic of Novgorod, which,
alarmed at the growing dominancy of Muscovy, had placed herself beneath
the protection of Casimir IV., king of Poland, an alliance regarded at
Moscow as an act of apostasy from orthodoxy. Ivan took the field against
Novgorod in 1470, and after his generals had twice defeated the forces
of the republic, at Shelona and on the Dvina, during the summer of 1471,
the Novgorodians were forced to sue for peace, which they obtained on
engaging to abandon for ever the Polish alliance, ceding a considerable
portion of their northern colonies, and paying a war indemnity of 15,500
roubles. From henceforth Ivan sought continually a pretext for
destroying Novgorod altogether; but though he frequently violated its
ancient privileges in minor matters, the attitude of the republic was so
wary that his looked-for opportunity did not come till 1477. In that
year the ambassadors of Novgorod played into his hands by addressing him
in public audience as "Gosudar" (sovereign) instead of "Gospodin"
("Sir") as heretofore. Ivan at once seized upon this as a recognition of
his sovereignty, and when the Novgorodians repudiated their ambassadors,
he marched against them. Deserted by Casimir IV., and surrounded on
every side by the Muscovite armies, which included a Tatar contingent,
the republic recognized Ivan as autocrat, and surrendered (January 14,
1478) all her prerogatives and possessions (the latter including the
whole of northern Russia from Lapland to the Urals) into his hands.
Subsequent revolts (1479-1488) were punished by the removal _en masse_
of the richest and most ancient families of Novgorod to Moscow, Vyatka
and other central Russian cities. After this, Novgorod, as an
independent state, ceased to exist. The rival republic of Pskov owed the
continuance of its own political existence to the readiness with which
it assisted Ivan against its ancient enemy. The other principalities
were virtually absorbed, by conquest, purchase or marriage
contract--Yaroslavl in 1463, Rostov in 1474, Tver in 1485.
Ivan's refusal to share his conquests with his brothers, and his
subsequent interference with the internal politics of their inherited
principalities, involved him in several wars with them, from which,
though the princes were assisted by Lithuania, he emerged victorious.
Finally, Ivan's new rule of government, formally set forth in his last
will to the effect that the domains of all his kinsfolk, after their
deaths, should pass directly to the reigning grand duke instead of
reverting, as hitherto, to the princes' heirs, put an end once for all
to these semi-independent princelets. The further extension of the
Muscovite dominion was facilitated by the death of Casimir IV. in 1492,
when Poland and Lithuania once more parted company. The throne of
Lithuania was now occupied by Casimir's son Alexander, a weak and
lethargic prince so incapable of defending his possessions against the
persistent attacks of the Muscovites that he attempted to save them by a
matrimonial compact, and wedded Helena, Ivan's daughter. But the clear
determination of Ivan to appropriate as much of Lithuania as possible at
last compelled Alexander in 1499 to take up arms against his
father-in-law. The Lithuanians were routed at Vedrosha (July 14, 1500),
and in 1503 Alexander was glad to purchase peace by ceding to Ivan
Chernigov, Starodub, Novgorod-Syeversk and sixteen other towns.
It was in the reign of Ivan III. that Muscovy rejected the Tatar yoke.
In 1480 Ivan refused to pay the customary tribute to the grand Khan
Ahmed. When, however, the grand khan marched against him, Ivan's courage
began to fail, and only the stern exhortations of the high-spirited
bishop of Rostov, Vassian, could induce him to take the field. All
through the autumn the Russian and Tatar hosts confronted each other on
opposite sides of the Ugra, till the 11th of November, when Ahmed
retired into the steppe. In the following year the grand khan, while
preparing a second expedition against Moscow, was suddenly attacked,
routed and slain by Ivak, the khan of the Nogai Tatars, whereupon the
Golden Horde suddenly fell to pieces. In 1487 Ivan reduced the khanate
of Kazan (one of the offshoots of the Horde) to the condition of a
vassal-state, though in his later years it broke away from his
suzerainty. With the other Mahommedan powers, the khan of the Crimea and
the sultan of Turkey, Ivan's relations were pacific and even amicable.
The Crimean khan, Mengli Girai, helped him against Lithuania and
facilitated the opening of diplomatic intercourse between Moscow and
Constantinople, where the first Russian embassy appeared in 1495.
The character of the government of Muscovy under Ivan III. changed
essentially and took on an autocratic form which it had never had
before. This was due not merely to the natural consequence of the
hegemony of Moscow over the other Russian lands, but even more to the
simultaneous growth of new and exotic principles falling upon a soil
already prepared for them. After the fall of Constantinople, orthodox
canonists were inclined to regard the Muscovite grand dukes as the
successors by the Byzantine emperors. This movement coincided with a
change in the family circumstances of Ivan III. After the death of his
first consort, Maria of Tver (1467), at the suggestion of Pope Paul II.
(1469), who hoped thereby to bind Russia to the holy see, Ivan III.
wedded the Catholic Zoe Palaeologa (better known by her orthodox name of
Sophia), daughter of Thomas, despot of the Morea, who claimed the throne
of Constantinople as the nearest relative of the last Greek emperor. The
princess, however, clave to her family traditions, and awoke imperial
ideas in the mind of her consort. It was through her influence that the
ceremonious etiquette of Constantinople (along with the imperial
double-headed eagle and all that it implied) was adopted by the court of
Moscow. The grand duke henceforth held aloof from his boyars. The old
patriarchal systems of government vanished. The boyars were no longer
consulted on affairs of state. The sovereign became sacrosanct, while
the boyars were reduced to the level of slaves absolutely dependent on
the will of the sovereign. The boyars naturally resented so insulting a
revolution, and struggled against it, at first with some success. But
the clever Greek lady prevailed in the end, and it was her son Vasily,
not Maria of Tver's son, Demetrius, who was ultimately crowned co-regent
with his father (April 14, 1502). It was in the reign of Ivan III. that
the first Russian "Law Book," or code, was compiled by the scribe Gusev.
Ivan did his utmost to promote civilization in his realm, and with that
object invited many foreign masters and artificers to settle in Muscovy,
the most noted of whom was the Italian Ridolfo di Fioravante, nicknamed
Aristotle because of his extraordinary knowledge, who built the
cathedrals of the Assumption (Uspenski) and of Saint Michael or the Holy
Archangels in the Kreml.
See P. Pierling, _Mariage d'un tsar au Vatican, Ivan III. et Sophie
Paleologue_ (Paris, 1891); E. I. Kashprovsky, _The Struggle of Ivan
III. with Sigismund I._ (Rus.) (Nizhni, 1899); S. M. Solov'ev,
_History of Russia_ (Rus.), vol. v. (St Petersburg, 1895).
IVAN IV., called "the Terrible" (1530-1584), tsar of Muscovy, was the
son of Vasily [Basil] III. Ivanovich, grand duke of Muscovy, by his
second wife, Helena Glinska. Born on the 25th of August 1530, he was
proclaimed grand duke on the death of his father (1533), and took the
government into his own hands in 1544, being then fourteen years old.
Ivan IV. was in every respect precocious; but from the first there was
what we should now call a neurotic strain in his character. His father
died when he was three, his mother when he was only seven, and he grew
up in a brutal and degrading environment where he learnt to hold human
life and human dignity in contempt. He was maltreated by the leading
boyars whom successive revolutions placed at the head of affairs, and
hence he conceived an inextinguishable hatred of their whole order and a
corresponding fondness for the merchant class, their natural enemies. At
a very early age he entertained an exalted idea of his own divine
authority, and his studies were largely devoted to searching in the
Scriptures and the Slavonic chronicles for sanctions and precedents for
the exercise and development of his right divine. He first asserted his
power by literally throwing to the dogs the last of his boyar tyrants,
and shortly afterwards announced his intention of assuming the title of
tsar, a title which his father and grandfather had coveted but never
dared to assume publicly. On the 16th of January 1547, he was crowned
the first Russian tsar by the metropolitan of Moscow; on the 3rd of
February in the same year he selected as his wife from among the virgins
gathered from all parts of Russia for his inspection, Anastasia
Zakharina-Koshkina, the scion of an ancient and noble family better
known by its later name of Romanov.
Hitherto, by his own showing, the private life of the young tsar had
been unspeakably abominable, but his sensitive conscience (he was
naturally religious) induced him, in 1550, to summon a _Zemsky Sobor_ or
national assembly, the first of its kind, to which he made a curious
public confession of the sins of his youth, and at the same time
promised that the realm of Russia (for whose dilapidation he blamed the
boyar regents) should henceforth be governed justly and mercifully. In
1551 the tsar submitted to a synod of prelates a hundred questions as to
the best mode of remedying existing evils, for which reason the decrees
of this synod are generally called _stoglav_ or _centuria_. The
decennium extending from 1550 to 1560 was the good period of Ivan IV.'s
reign, when he deliberately broke away from his disreputable past and
surrounded himself with good men of lowly origin. It was not only that
he hated and distrusted the boyars, but he was already statesman enough
to discern that they could not be fitted into the new order of things
which he aimed at introducing. Ivan meditated the regeneration of
Muscovy, and the only men who could assist him in his task were men who
could look steadily forward to the future because they had no past to
look back upon, men who would unflinchingly obey their sovereign because
they owed their whole political significance to him alone. The chief of
these men of good-will were Alexis Adashev and the monk Sylvester, men
of so obscure an origin that almost every detail of their lives is
conjectural, but both of them, morally, the best Muscovites of their
day. Their influence upon the young tsar was profoundly beneficial, and
the period of their administration coincides with the most glorious
period of Ivan's reign--the period of the conquest of Kazan and
Astrakhan.
In the course of 1551 one of the factions of Kazan offered the whole
khanate to the young tsar, and on the 20th of August 1552 he stood
before its walls with an army of 150,000 men and 50 guns. The siege was
long and costly; the army suffered severely; and only the tenacity of
the tsar kept it in camp for six weeks. But on the 2nd of October the
fortress, which had been heroically defended, was taken by assault. The
conquest of Kazan was an epoch-making event in the history of eastern
Europe. It was not only the first territorial conquest from the Tatars,
before whom Muscovy had humbled herself for generations; at Kazan Asia,
in the name of Mahomet, had fought behind its last trench against
Christian Europe marshalled beneath the banner of the tsar of Muscovy.
For the first time the Volga became a Russian river. Nothing could now
retard the natural advance of the young Russian state towards the east
and the south-east. In 1554 Astrakhan fell almost without a blow. By
1560 all the Finnic and Tatar tribes between the Oka and the Kama had
become Russian subjects. Ivan was also the first tsar who dared to
attack the Crimea. In 1555 he sent Ivan Sheremetev against Perekop, and
Sheremetev routed the Tatars in a great two days' battle at
Sudbishenska. Some of Ivan's advisers, including both Sylvester and
Adashev, now advised him to make an end of the Crimean khanate, as he
had already made an end of the khanates of Kazan and Astrakhan. But
Ivan, wiser in his generation, knew that the thing was impossible, in
view of the immense distance to be traversed, and the predominance of
the Grand Turk from whom it would have to be wrested. It was upon
Livonia that his eyes were fixed, which was comparatively near at hand
and promised him a seaboard and direct communication with western
Europe. Ivan IV., like Peter I. after him, clearly recognized the
necessity of raising Muscovy to the level of her neighbours. He proposed
to do so by promoting a wholesale immigration into his tsardom of
master-workmen and skilled artificers. But all his neighbours,
apprehensive of the consequences of a civilized Muscovy, combined to
thwart him. Charles V. even went so far as to disperse 123 skilled
Germans whom Ivan's agent had collected and brought to Lubeck for
shipment to a Baltic port. After this, Ivan was obliged to help himself
as best he could. His opportunity seemed to have come when, in the
middle of the 16th century, the Order of the Sword broke up, and the
possession of Livonia was fiercely contested between Sweden, Poland and
Denmark. Ivan intervened in 1558 and quickly captured Narva, Dorpat and
a dozen smaller fortresses; then, in 1560, Livonia placed herself
beneath the protection of Poland, and King Sigismund II. warned Ivan off
the premises.
By this time, Ivan had entered upon the second and evil portion of his
reign. As early as 1553 he had ceased to trust Sylvester and Adashev,
owing to their extraordinary backwardness in supporting the claims of
his infant son to the throne while he himself lay at the point of death.
The ambiguous and ungrateful conduct of the tsar's intimate friends and
proteges on this occasion has never been satisfactorily explained, and
he had good reason to resent it. Nevertheless, on his recovery, much to
his credit, he overlooked it, and they continued to direct affairs for
six years longer. Then the dispute about the Crimea arose, and Ivan
became convinced that they were mediocre politicians as well as
untrustworthy friends. In 1560 both of them disappeared from the scene,
Sylvester into a monastery at his own request, while Adashev died the
same year, in honourable exile as a general in Livonia. The death of his
deeply beloved consort Anastasia and his son Demetrius, and the
desertion of his one bosom friend Prince Kurbsky, about the same time,
seem to have infuriated Ivan against God and man. During the next ten
years (1560-1570) terrible and horrible things happened in the realm of
Muscovy. The tsar himself lived in an atmosphere of apprehension,
imagining that every man's hand was against him. On the 3rd of December
1564 he quitted Moscow with his whole family. On the 3rd of January 1565
he declared in an open letter addressed to the metropolitan his
intention to abdicate. The common people, whom he had always favoured at
the expense of the boyars, thereupon implored him to come back on his
own terms. He consented to do so, but entrenched himself within a
peculiar institution, the _oprichina_ or "separate estate." Certain
towns and districts all over Russia were separated from the rest of the
realm, and their revenues were assigned to the maintenance of the tsar's
new court and household, which was to consist of 1000 carefully selected
boyars and lower dignitaries, with their families and suites, in the
midst of whom Ivan henceforth lived exclusively. The _oprichina_ was no
constitutional innovation. The _duma_, or council, still attended to all
the details of the administration; the old boyars still retained their
ancient offices and dignities. The only difference was that the tsar had
cut himself off from them, and they were not even to communicate with
him except on extraordinary and exceptional occasions. The _oprichniki_,
as being the exclusive favourites of the tsar, naturally, in their own
interests, hardened the tsar's heart against all outsiders, and trampled
with impunity upon every one beyond the charmed circle. Their first and
most notable victim was Philip, the saintly metropolitan of Moscow, who
was strangled for condemning the _oprichina_ as an unchristian
institution, and refusing to bless the tsar (1569). Ivan had stopped at
Tver, to murder St Philip, while on his way to destroy the second
wealthiest city in his tsardom--Great Novgorod. A delator of infamous
character, one Peter, had accused the authorities of the city to the
tsar of conspiracy; Ivan, without even confronting the Novgorodians with
their accuser, proceeded at the end of 1569 to punish them. After
ravaging the land, his own land, like a wild beast, he entered the city
on the 8th of January 1570, and for the next five weeks, systematically
and deliberately, day after day, massacred batches of every class of the
population. Every monastery, church, manor-house, warehouse and farm
within a circuit of 100 m. was then wrecked, plundered and left
roofless, all goods were pillaged, all cattle destroyed. Not till the
13th of February were the miserable remnants of the population permitted
to rebuild their houses and cultivate their fields once more.
An intermittent and desultory war, with Sweden and Poland
simultaneously, for the possession of Livonia and Esthonia, went on from
1560 to 1582. Ivan's generals (he himself rarely took the field) were
generally successful at first, and bore down their enemies by sheer
numbers, capturing scores of fortresses and towns. But in the end the
superior military efficiency of the Swedes and Poles invariably
prevailed. Ivan was also unfortunate in having for his chief antagonist
Stephen Bathory, one of the greatest captains of the age. Thus all his
strenuous efforts, all his enormous sacrifices, came to nothing. The
West was too strong for him. By the peace of Zapoli (January 15th, 1582)
he surrendered Livonia with Polotsk to Bathory, and by the truce of
Ilyusa he at the same time abandoned Ingria to the Swedes. The Baltic
seaboard was lost to Muscovy for another century and a half. In his
latter years Ivan cultivated friendly relations with England, in the
hope of securing some share in the benefits of civilization from the
friendship of Queen Elizabeth, one of whose ladies, Mary Hastings, he
wished to marry, though his fifth wife, Martha Nagaya, was still alive.
Towards the end of his life Ivan was partially consoled for his failure
in the west by the unexpected acquisition of the kingdom of Siberia in
the east, which was first subdued by the Cossack hetman Ermak or Yermak
in 1581.
In November 1580 Ivan in a fit of ungovernable fury at some
contradiction or reproach, struck his eldest surviving son Ivan, a
prince of rare promise, whom he passionately loved, a blow which proved
fatal. In an agony of remorse, he would now have abdicated "as being
unworthy to reign longer"; but his trembling boyars, fearing some dark
ruse, refused to obey any one but himself. Three years later, on the
18th of March 1584, while playing at chess, he suddenly fell backwards
in his chair and was removed to his bed in a dying condition. At the
last moment he assumed the hood of the strictest order of hermits, and
died as the monk Jonah.
Ivan IV. was undoubtedly a man of great natural ability. His political
foresight was extraordinary. He anticipated the ideals of Peter the
Great, and only failed in realizing them because his material resources
were inadequate. But admiration of his talents must not blind us to his
moral worthlessness, nor is it right to cast the blame for his excesses
on the brutal and vicious society in which he lived. The same society
which produced his infamous favourites also produced St Philip of
Moscow, and by refusing to listen to St Philip Ivan sank below even the
not very lofty moral standard of his own age. He certainly left
Muscovite society worse than he found it, and so prepared the way for
the horrors of "the Great Anarchy." Personally, Ivan was tall and
well-made, with high shoulders and a broad chest. His eyes were small
and restless, his nose hooked, he had a beard and moustaches of imposing
length. His face had a sinister, troubled expression; but an enigmatical
smile played perpetually around his lips. He was the best educated and
the hardest worked man of his age. His memory was astonishing, his
energy indefatigable. As far as possible he saw to everything
personally, and never sent away a petitioner of the lower orders.
See S. M. Solov'ev, _History of Russia_ (Rus.) vol. v. (St Petersburg,
1895); A. Bruckner, _Geschichte Russlands bis zum Ende des 18ten
Jahrhunderts_ (Gotha, 1896); E. Tikhomirov, _The first Tsar of
Moscovy, Ivan IV._ (Rus.) (Moscow, 1888); L. G. T. Tidander, _Kriget
mellan Sverige och Ryssland aren 1555-1557_ (Vesteras, 1888); P.
Pierling, _Un Arbitrage pontifical au XVI^e siecle entre la Pologne et
la Russie_ (Bruxelles, 1890); V. V. Novodvorsky, _The Struggle for
Livonia, 1570-1582_ (Rus.) (St Petersburg, 1904); K. Waliszewski,
_Ivan le terrible_ (Paris, 1904); R. N. Bain, _Slavonic Europe_, ch. 5
(Cambridge, 1907).
IVAN V.[1] (1666-1696), tsar of Russia, was the son of Tsar Alexius
Mikhailovich and his first consort Miloslavzkoya. Physically and
mentally deficient, Ivan was the mere tool of the party in Muscovy who
would have kept the children of the tsar Alexis, by his second consort
Natalia Naruishkina, from the throne. In 1682 the party of progress,
headed by Artamon Matvyeev and the tsaritsa Natalia, passed Ivan over
and placed his half-brother, the vigorous and promising little tsarevich
Peter, on the throne. On the 23rd of May, however, the Naruishkin
faction was overthrown by the _stryeltsi_ (musketeers), secretly worked
upon by Ivan's half-sister Sophia, and Ivan was associated as tsar with
Peter. Three days later he was proclaimed "first tsar," in order still
further to depress the Naruishkins, and place the government in the
hands of Sophia exclusively. In 1689 the name of Ivan was used as a
pretext by Sophia in her attempt to oust Peter from the throne
altogether. Ivan was made to distribute beakers of wine to his sister's
adherents with his own hands, but subsequently, beneath the influence of
his uncle Prozorovsky, he openly declared that "even for his sister's
sake, he would quarrel no longer with his dear brother." During the
reign of his colleague Peter, Ivan V. took no part whatever in affairs,
but devoted himself "to incessant prayer and rigorous fasting." On the
9th of January 1684 he married Praskovia Saltuikova, who bore him five
daughters, one of whom, Anne, ultimately ascended the Russian throne. In
his last years Ivan was a paralytic. He died on the 29th of January
1696.
See R. Nisbet Bain, _The First Romanovs_ (London, 1905); M. P.
Pogodin, _The First Seventeen Years of the Life of Peter the Great_
(Rus.) (Moscow, 1875).
IVAN VI. (1740-1764), emperor of Russia, was the son of Prince Antony
Ulrich of Brunswick, and the princess Anna Leopoldovna of Mecklenburg,
and great-nephew of the empress Anne, who adopted him and declared him
her successor on the 5th of October 1740, when he was only eight weeks
old. On the death of Anne (October 17th) he was proclaimed emperor, and
on the following day Ernest Johann Biren, duke of Courland, was
appointed regent. On the fall of Biren (November 8th), the regency
passed to the baby tsar's mother, though the government was in the hands
of the capable vice-chancellor, Andrei Osterman. A little more than
twelve months later, a _coup d'etat_ placed the tsesarevna Elizabeth on
the throne (December 6, 1741), and Ivan and his family were imprisoned
in the fortress of Dunamunde (Ust Dvinsk) (December 13, 1742) after a
preliminary detention at Riga, from whence the new empress had at first
decided to send them home to Brunswick. In June 1744 they were
transferred to Kholmogory on the White Sea, where Ivan, isolated from
his family, and seeing nobody but his gaoler, remained for the next
twelve years. Rumours of his confinement at Kholmogory having leaked
out, he was secretly transferred to the fortress of Schlusselburg
(1756), where he was still more rigorously guarded, the very commandant
of the fortress not knowing who "a certain arrestant" committed to his
care really was. On the accession of Peter III. the condition of the
unfortunate prisoner seemed about to be ameliorated, for the
kind-hearted emperor visited and sympathized with him; but Peter himself
was overthrown a few weeks later. In the instructions sent to Ivan's
guardian, Prince Churmtyev, the latter was ordered to chain up his
charge, and even scourge him should he become refractory. On the
accession of Catherine still more stringent orders were sent to the
officer in charge of "the nameless one." If any attempt were made from
outside to release him, the prisoner was to be put to death; in no
circumstances was he to be delivered alive into any one's hands, even if
his deliverers produced the empress's own sign-manual authorizing his
release. By this time, twenty years of solitary confinement had
disturbed Ivan's mental equilibrium, though he does not seem to have
been actually insane. Nevertheless, despite the mystery surrounding him,
he was well aware of his imperial origin, and always called himself
_gosudar_ (sovereign). Though instructions had been given to keep him
ignorant, he had been taught his letters and could read his Bible. Nor
could his residence at Schlusselburg remain concealed for ever, and its
discovery was the cause of his ruin. A sub-lieutenant of the garrison,
Vasily Mirovich, found out all about him, and formed a plan for freeing
and proclaiming him emperor. At midnight on the 5th of July 1764,
Mirovich won over some of the garrison, arrested the commandant,
Berednikov, and demanded the delivery of Ivan, who there and then was
murdered by his gaolers in obedience to the secret instructions already
in their possession.
See R. Nisbet Bain, _The Pupils of Peter the Great_ (London, 1897); M.
Semevsky, _Ivan VI. Antonovich_ (Rus.) (St Petersburg, 1866); A.
Bruckner, _The Emperor Ivan VI. and his Family_ (Rus.) (Moscow, 1874);
V. A. Bilbasov, _Geschichte Catherine II._ (vol. ii., Berlin,
1891-1893). (R. N. B.)
FOOTNOTE:
[1] Ivan V., if we count from the first grand duke of that name, as
most Russian historians do; Ivan II., if, with the minority, we
reckon from Ivan the Terrible as the first Russian tsar.
IVANGOROD, a fortified town of Russian Poland, in the government of
Lublin, 64 m. by rail S.E. from Warsaw, at the confluence of the Wieprz
with the Vistula. It is defended by nine forts on the right bank of the
Vistula and by three on the left bank, and, with Warsaw, Novo-Georgievsk
and Brest-Litovsk, forms the Polish "quadrilateral."
IVANOVO-VOZNESENSK, a town of middle Russia, in the government of
Vladimir, 86 m. by rail N. of the town of Vladimir. Pop. (1887) 22,000;
(1900) 64,628. It consists of what were originally two villages--Ivanovo,
dating from the 16th century, and Voznesensk, of much more recent
date--united into a town in 1861. Of best note among the public buildings
are the cathedral, and the church of the Intercession of the Virgin,
formerly associated with an important monastery founded in 1579 and
abandoned in 1754. One of the colleges of the town contains a public
library. Linen-weaving was introduced in 1751, and in 1776 the
manufacture of chintzes was brought from Schlusselburg. The town has
cotton factories, calico print-works, iron-works and chemical works.
IVARR, BEINLAUSI (d. 873), son of Ragnar Lothbrok, the great Viking
chieftain, is known in English and Continental annals as Inuaer, Ingwar
or Hingwar. He was one of the Danish leaders in the Sheppey expedition
of 855 and was perhaps present at the siege of York in 867. The chief
incident in his life was his share in the martyrdom of St Edmund in 870.
He seems to have been the leader of the Danes on that occasion, and by
this act he probably gained the epithet "crudelissimus" by which he is
usually described. It is probable that he is to be identified with
Imhar, king of the Norsemen of all Ireland and Britain, who was active
in Ireland between the years 852 and 873, the year of his death.
IVIZA, IBIZA or IVICA, an island in the Mediterranean Sea, belonging to
Spain, and forming part of the archipelago known as the Balearic Islands
(q.v.). Pop. (1900) 23,524; area 228 sq. m. Iviza lies 50 m. S.W. of
Majorca and about 60 m. from Cape San Martin on the coast of Spain. Its
greatest length from north-east to south-west is about 25 m. and its
greatest breadth about 13 m. The coast is indented by numerous small
bays, the principal of which are those of San Antonio on the north-west,
and of Iviza on the south-east. Of all the Balearic group, Iviza is the
most varied in its scenery and the most fruitful. The hilly parts which
culminate in the Pico de Atalayasa (1560 ft.), are richly wooded. The
climate is for the most part mild and agreeable, though the hot winds
from the African coast are sometimes troublesome. Oil, corn and fruits
(of which the most important are the fig, prickly pear, almond and
carob-bean) are the principal products; hemp and flax are also grown,
but the inhabitants are rather indolent, and their modes of culture are
very primitive. There are numerous salt-pans along the coast, which were
formerly worked by the Spanish government. Fruit, salt, charcoal, lead
and stockings of native manufacture are exported. The imports are rice,
flour, sugar, woollen goods and cotton. The capital of the island, and,
indeed, the only town of much importance--for the population is
remarkably scattered--is Iviza or La Ciudad (6527), a fortified town on
the south-east coast, consisting of a lower and upper portion, and
possessing a good harbour, a 13th-century Gothic collegiate church and
an ancient castle. Iviza was the see of a bishop from 1782 to 1851.
South of Iviza lies the smaller and more irregular island of Formentera
(pop., 1900, 2243; area, 37 sq. m.), which is said to derive its name
from the production of wheat. With Iviza it agrees both in general
appearance and in the character of its products, but it is altogether
destitute of streams. Goats and sheep are found in the mountains, and
the coasts are greatly frequented by flamingoes. Iviza and Formentera
are the principal islands of the lesser or western Balearic group,
formerly known as the Pityusae or Pine Islands.
IVORY, SIR JAMES (1765-1842), Scottish mathematician, was born in Dundee
in 1765. In 1779 he entered the university of St Andrews, distinguishing
himself especially in mathematics. He then studied theology; but, after
two sessions at St Andrews and one at Edinburgh, he abandoned all idea
of the church, and in 1786 he became an assistant-teacher of mathematics
and natural philosophy in a newly established academy at Dundee. Three
years later he became partner in and manager of a flax-spinning company
at Douglastown in Forfarshire, still, however, prosecuting in moments of
leisure his favourite studies. He was essentially a self-trained
mathematician, and was not only deeply versed in ancient and modern
geometry, but also had a full knowledge of the analytical methods and
discoveries of the continental mathematicians. His earliest memoir,
dealing with an analytical expression for the rectification of the
ellipse, is published in the _Transactions of the Royal Society of
Edinburgh_ (1796); and this and his later papers on "Cubic Equations"
(1799) and "Kepler's Problem" (1802) evince great facility in the
handling of algebraic formulae. In 1804 after the dissolution of the
flax-spinning company of which he was manager, he obtained one of the
mathematical chairs in the Royal Military College at Marlow (afterwards
removed to Sandhurst); and till the year 1816, when falling health
obliged him to resign, he discharged his professional duties with
remarkable success. During this period he published in the
_Philosophical Transactions_ several important memoirs, which earned for
him the Copley medal in 1814 and ensured his election as a Fellow of the
Royal Society in 1815. Of special importance in the history of
attractions is the first of these earlier memoirs (_Phil. Trans._,
1809), in which the problem of the attraction of a homogeneous ellipsoid
upon an external point is reduced to the simpler case of the attraction
of another but related ellipsoid upon a corresponding point interior to
it. This theorem is known as Ivory's theorem. His later papers in the
_Philosophical Transactions_ treat of astronomical refractions, of
planetary perturbations, of equilibrium of fluid masses, &c. For his
investigations in the first named of these he received a royal medal in
1826 and again in 1839. In 1831, on the recommendation of Lord Brougham,
King William IV. granted him a pension of L300 per annum, and conferred
on him the Hanoverian Guelphic order of knighthood. Besides being
directly connected with the chief scientific societies of his own
country, the Royal Society of Edinburgh, the Royal Irish Academy, &c.,
he was corresponding member of the Royal Academy of Sciences both of
Paris and Berlin, and of the Royal Society of Gottingen. He died at
London on the 21st of September 1842.
A list of his works is given in the _Catalogue of Scientific Papers of
the Royal Society of London_.
IVORY (Fr. _ivoire_, Lat. _ebur_), strictly speaking a term confined to
the material represented by the tusk of the elephant, and for commercial
purposes almost entirely to that of the male elephant. In Africa both
the male and female elephant produce good-sized tusks; in the Indian
variety the female is much less bountifully provided, and in Ceylon
perhaps not more than 1% of either sex have any tusks at all. Ivory is
in substance very dense, the pores close and compact and filled with a
gelatinous solution which contributes to the beautiful polish which may
be given to it and makes it easy to work. It may be placed between bone
and horn; more fibrous than bone and therefore less easily torn or
splintered. For a scientific definition it would be difficult to find a
better one than that given by Sir Richard Owen. He says:[1] "The name
ivory is now restricted to that modification of dentine or tooth
substance which in transverse sections or fractures shows lines of
different colours, or striae, proceeding in the arc of a circle and
forming by their decussations minute curvilinear lozenge-shaped spaces."
These spaces are formed by an immense number of exceedingly minute tubes
placed very close together, radiating outwards in all directions. It is
to this arrangement of structure that ivory owes its fine grain and
almost perfect elasticity, and the peculiar marking resembling the
engine-turning on the case of a watch, by which many people are guided
in distinguishing it from celluloid or other imitations. Elephants'
tusks are the upper incisor teeth of the animal, which, starting in
earliest youth from a semi-solid vascular pulp, grow during the whole of
its existence, gathering phosphates and other earthy matters and
becoming hardened as in the formation of teeth generally. The tusk is
built up in layers, the inside layer being the last produced. A large
proportion is embedded in the bone sockets of the skull, and is hollow
for some distance up in a conical form, the hollow becoming less and
less as it is prolonged into a narrow channel which runs along as a
thread or as it is sometimes called, nerve, towards the point of the
tooth. The outer layer, or bark, is enamel of similar density to the
central part. Besides the elephant's tooth or tusk we recognize as
ivory, for commercial purposes, the teeth of the hippopotamus, walrus,
narwhal, cachalot or sperm-whale and of some animals of the wild boar
class, such as the warthog of South Africa. Practically, however,
amongst these the hippo and walrus tusks are the only ones of importance
for large work, though boars' tusks come to the sale-rooms in
considerable quantities from India and Africa.
Generally speaking, the supply of ivory imported into Europe comes from
Africa; some is Asiatic, but much that is shipped from India is really
African, coming by way of Zanzibar and Mozambique to Bombay. A certain
amount is furnished by the vast stores of remains of prehistoric animals
still existing throughout Russia, principally in Siberia in the
neighbourhood of the Lena and other rivers discharging into the Arctic
Ocean. The mammoth and mastodon seem at one time to have been common
over the whole surface of the globe. In England tusks have been recently
dug up--for instance at Dungeness--as long as 12 ft. and weighing 200
lb. The Siberian deposits have been worked for now nearly two centuries.
The store appears to be as inexhaustible as a coalfield. Some think that
a day may come when the spread of civilization may cause the utter
disappearance of the elephant in Africa, and that it will be to these
deposits that we may have to turn as the only source of animal ivory. Of
late years in England the use of mammoth ivory has shown signs of
decline. Practically none passed through the London sale-rooms during
1903-1906. Before that, parcels of 10 to 20 tons were not uncommon. Not
all of it is good; perhaps about half of what comes to England is so,
the rest rotten; specimens, however, are found as perfect and in as fine
condition as if recently killed, instead of having lain hidden and
preserved for thousands of years in the icy ground. There is a
considerable literature (see Shooting) on the subject of big-game
hunting, which includes that of the elephant, hippopotamus and smaller
tusk-bearing animals. Elephants until comparatively recent times roamed
over the whole of Africa from the northern deserts to the Cape of Good
Hope. They are still abundant in Central Africa and Uganda, but
civilization has gradually driven them farther and farther into the
wilds and impenetrable forests of the interior.
The quality of ivory varies according to the districts whence it is
obtained, the soft variety of the eastern parts of the continent being
the most esteemed. When in perfect condition African ivory should be if
recently cut of a warm, transparent, mellow tint, with as little as
possible appearance of grain or mottling. Asiatic ivory is of a denser
white, more open in texture and softer to work. But it is apt to turn
yellow sooner, and is not so easy to polish. Unlike bone, ivory requires
no preparation, but is fit for immediate working. That from the
neighbourhood of Cameroon is very good, then ranks the ivory from
Loango, Congo, Gabun and Ambriz; next the Gold Coast, Sierra Leone and
Cape Coast Castle. That of French Sudan is nearly always "ringy," and
some of the Ambriz variety also. We may call Zanzibar and Mozambique
varieties soft; Angola and Ambriz all hard. Ambriz ivory was at one time
much esteemed, but there is comparatively little now. Siam ivory is
rarely if ever soft. Abyssinian has its soft side, but Egypt is
practically the only place where both descriptions are largely
distributed. A drawback to Abyssinian ivory is a prevalence of a rather
thick bark. Egyptian is liable to be cracked, from the extreme
variations of temperature; more so formerly than now, since better
methods of packing and transit are used. Ivory is extremely sensitive to
sudden extremes of temperature; for this reason billiard balls should be
kept where the temperature is fairly equable.
The market terms by which descriptions of ivory are distinguished are
liable to mislead. They refer to ports of shipment rather than to places
of origin. For instance, "Malta" ivory is a well-understood term, yet
there are no ivory producing animals in that island.
Tusks should be regular and tapering in shape, not very curved or
twisted, for economy in cutting; the coat fine, thin, clear and
transparent. The substance of ivory is so elastic and flexible that
excellent riding-whips have been cut longitudinally from whole tusks.
The size to which tusks grow and are brought to market depends on race
rather than on size of elephants. The latter run largest in equatorial
Africa. Asiatic bull elephant tusks seldom exceed 50 lb. in weight,
though lengths of 9 ft. and up to 150 lb. weight are not entirely
unknown. Record lengths for African tusks are the one presented to
George V., when prince of Wales, on his marriage (1893), measuring 8 ft.
7(1/2) in. and weighing 165 lb., and the pair of tusks which were
brought to the Zanzibar market by natives in 1898, weighing together
over 450 lb. One of the latter is new in the Natural History Museum at
South Kensington; the other is in Messrs Rodgers & Co.'s collection at
Sheffield. For length the longest known are those belonging to Messrs
Rowland Ward, Piccadilly, which measure 11 ft. and 11 ft. 5 in.
respectively, with a combined weight of 293 lb. Osteodentine, resulting
from the effects of injuries from spearheads or bullets, is sometimes
found in tusks. This formation, resembling stalactites, grows with the
tusk, the bullets or iron remaining embedded without trace of their
entry.
The most important commercial distinction of the qualities of ivory is
that of the _hard_ and _soft_ varieties. The terms are difficult to
define exactly. Generally speaking, hard or bright ivory is distinctly
harder to cut with the saw or other tools. It is, as it were, glassy and
transparent. Soft contains more moisture, stands differences of climate
and temperature better, and does not crack so easily. The expert is
guided by the shape of the tooth, by the colour and quality of the bark
or skin, and by the transparency when cut, or even before, as at the
point of the tooth. Roughly, a line might be drawn almost centrally down
the map of Africa, on the west of which the hard quality prevails, on the
east the soft. In choosing ivory for example for knife-handles--people
rather like to see a pretty grain, strongly marked; but the finest
quality in the hard variety, which is generally used for them, is the
closest and freest from grain. The curved or canine teeth of the
hippopotamus are valuable and come in considerable quantities to the
European markets. Owen describes this variety as "an extremely dense,
compact kind of dentine, partially defended on the outside by a thin
layer of enamel as hard as porcelain; so hard as to strike fire with
steel." By reason of this hardness it is not at all liked by the turner
and ivory workers, and before being touched by them the enamel has to be
removed by acid, or sometimes by heating and sudden cooling, when it can
be scaled off. The texture is slightly curdled, mottled or damasked.
Hippo ivory was at one time largely used for artificial teeth, but now
mostly for umbrella and stick-handles; whole (in their natural form) for
fancy door-handles and the like. In the trade the term is not
"riverhorse" but "seahorse teeth." Walrus ivory is less dense and coarser
than hippo, but of fine quality--what there is of it, for the oval centre
which has more the character of coarse bone unfortunately extends a long
way up. At one time a large supply came to the market, but of late years
there has been an increasing scarcity, the animals having been almost
exterminated by the ruthless persecution to which they have been
subjected in their principal haunts in the northern seas. It is little
esteemed now, though our ancestors thought highly of it. Comparatively
large slabs are to be found in medieval sculpture of the 11th and 12th
centuries, and the grips of most oriental swords, ancient and modern, are
made from it. The ivory from the single tusk or horn of the narwhal is
not of much commercial value except as an ornament or curiosity. Some
horns attain a length of 8 to 10 ft., 4 in. thick at the base. It is
dense in substance and of a fair colour, but owing to the central cavity
there is little of it fit for anything larger than napkin-rings.
_Ivory in Commerce, and its Industrial Applications._--Almost the whole
of the importation of ivory to Europe was until recent years confined to
London, the principal distributing mart of the world. But the opening up
of the Congo trade has placed the port of Antwerp in a position which
has equalled and, for a time, may surpass that of London. Other
important markets are Liverpool and Hamburg; and Germany, France and
Portugal have colonial possessions in Africa, from which it is imported.
America is a considerable importer for its own requirements. From the
German Cameroon alone, according to Schilling, there were exported
during the ten years ending 1905, 452,100 kilos of ivory. Mr Buxton
estimates the amount of ivory imported into the United Kingdom at about
500 tons. If we give the same to Antwerp we have from these two ports
alone no less than 1000 tons a year to be provided. Allowing a weight so
high as 30 lb. per pair of tusks (which is far too high, perhaps twice
too high) we should have here alone between thirty and forty thousand
elephants to account for. It is true that every pair of tusks that comes
to the market represents a dead elephant, but not necessarily by any
means a slain or even a recently killed one, as is popularly supposed
and unfortunately too often repeated. By far the greater proportion is
the result of stores accumulated by natives, a good part coming from
animals which have died a natural death. Not 20% is _live_ ivory or
recently killed; the remainder is known in the trade as _dead_ ivory.
In 1827 the principal London ivory importers imported 3000 cwt. in
1850, 8000 cwt. The highest price up to 1855 was L55 per cwt. At the
July sales in 1905 a record price was reached for billiard-ball teeth
of L167 per cwt. The total imports into the United Kingdom were,
according to Board of Trade returns, in 1890, 14,349 cwt.; in 1895,
10,911 cwt.; in 1900, 9889 cwt.; in 1904, 9045 cwt.
From Messrs Hale & Son's (ivory brokers, 10 Fenchurch Avenue) Ivory
Report of the second quarterly sales in London, April 1906, it appears
that the following were offered:--
Tons.
From Zanzibar, Bombay, Mozambique and Siam 17
Egyptian 19(1/4)
West Coast African 11
Lisbon 1
Abyssinian 6(3/4)
-------
55
Sea horse (hippopotamus teeth) 1(3/4)
Walrus (1/4)
Waste ivory 10(1/4)
-------
67(1/4)
Hard ivory was scarce. West Coast African was principally of the Gabun
description, and some of very fine quality. There was very little
inquiry for walrus. The highest prices ranged as follows: Soft East
Coast tusks (Zanzibar, Mozambique, Bombay and Siam), 102 to 143 lb.
each L66, 10s. to L75, 10s. per cwt. Billiard-ball scrivelloes, L104
per cwt. Cut points for billiard-balls (3(1/8) in. to 2(3/8) to 3 in.)
L114 to L151 per cwt. Seahorse (for best), 3s. 6d. to 4s. 1d. per lb.
Boars' tusks, 6d. to 7d. per lb.
_Quantities of ivory offered to Public auction (from Messrs Hale &
Son's Reports)._
+--------------------------------------+----------+----------+----------+
| | 1903. | 1904. | 1905. |
+--------------------------------------+----------+----------+----------+
| | Tons. | Tons. | Tons. |
| Zanzibar, Bombay, Mozambique and Siam| 81 | 75 | 76 |
| Egyptian | 49(3/4) | 72(3/4) | 81(3/4) |
| Abyssinian | 22(3/4) | 9(3/4) | 23(1/4) |
| West Coast African | 46(3/4) | 39(1/2) | 41(1/2) |
| Lisbon | 3 | 3 | 1(3/4) |
| +----------+----------+----------+
| | 203(1/4) | 200 | 224(1/4) |
| Seahorse teeth and Boars' tusks | 7 | 9(3/4) | 7 |
| +----------+----------+----------+
| | 210(1/4) | 209(3/4) | 231(1/2) |
+--------------------------------------+----------+----------+----------+
_Fluctuations in prices of ivory at the London Sale-Room (from Messrs
Hale & Son's Charts, which show the prices at each quarterly sale from
1870)._
+--------------------------------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+
| |1870.|1880.|1890.|1900.|1905.|
| +-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+
| Billiard Ball pieces | L55 | L90 |L112 | L68 |L167 |
|Averages-- | | | | | |
| Hard Egyptian 36 to 50 lb. | 30 | 38 | 50 | 29 | 48 |
| Soft East Indian 50 to 70 lb. | 67 | 55 | 88 | 57 | 72 |
| West Coast African 50 to 70 lb.| 36 | 57 | 65 | 48 | 61 |
| Hard East African 50 to 70 lb. | 37 | 49 | 64 | 48 | 61 |
+--------------------------------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+
In October 1889 soft East Indian fetched an average of L82 per cwt.,
but in several instances higher prices were realized, and one lot
reached L88 per cwt. At the Liverpool April sales 1906 about 7(1/4)
tons were offered from Gabun, Angola, and Cameroon (from the last
5(3/4) tons). To the port of Antwerp the imports were 6830 cwt. in
1904 and 6570 cwt. in 1905; of which 5310 cwt. and 4890 cwt.
respectively were from the Congo State.
The leading London sales are held quarterly in Mincing Lane, a very
interesting and wonderful display of tusks and ivory of all kinds
being laid out previously for inspection in the great warehouses known
as the "Ivory Floor" in the London docks. The quarterly Liverpool
sales follow the London ones, with a short interval.
The important part which ivory plays in the industrial arts not only for
decorative, but also for domestic applications is hardly sufficiently
recognized. Nothing is wasted of this valuable product. Hundreds of
sacks full of cuttings and shavings, and scraps returned by
manufacturers after they have used what they require for their
particular trade, come to the mart. The dust is used for polishing, and
in the preparation of Indian ink, and even for food in the form of ivory
jelly. The scraps come in for inlaying and for the numberless purposes
in which ivory is used for small domestic and decorative objects. India,
which has been called the backbone of the trade, takes enormous
quantities of the rings left in the turning of billiard-balls, which
serve as women's bangles, or for making small toys and models, and in
other characteristic Indian work. Without endeavouring to enumerate all
the applications, a glance may be cast at the most important of those
which consume the largest quantity. Chief among these is the manufacture
of billiard-balls, of cutlery handles, of piano-keys and of brushware
and toilet articles. Billiard-balls demand the highest quality of ivory;
for the best balls the soft description is employed, though recently,
through the competition of bonzoline and similar substitutes, the hard
has been more used in order that the weight may be assimilated to that
of the artificial kind. Therefore the most valuable tusks of all are
those adapted for the billiard-ball trade. The term used is
"scrivelloes," and is applied to teeth proper for the purpose, weighing
not over about 7 lb. The division of the tusk into smaller pieces for
subsequent manufacture, in order to avoid waste, is a matter of
importance.
[Illustration: FIG. 1.]
The accompanying diagrams (figs. 1 and 2) show the method; the cuts
are made radiating from an imaginary centre of the curve of the tusk.
In after processes the various trades have their own particular
methods for making the most of the material. In making a billiard-ball
of the English size the first thing to be done is to rough out, from
the cylindrical section, a sphere about 2(1/4) in. in diameter, which
will eventually be 2(1/16) or sometimes for professional players a
little larger. One hemisphere--as shown in the diagrams (fig. 2)--is
first turned, and the resulting ring detached with a parting tool. The
diameter is accurately taken and the subsequent removals taken off in
other directions. The ball is then fixed in a wooden chuck, the half
cylinder reversed, and the operation repeated for the other
hemisphere. It is now left five years to season and then turned dead
true. The rounder and straighter the tusk selected for ball-making the
better. Evidently, if the tusk is oval and the ball the size of the
least diameter, its sides which come nearer to the bark or rind will
be coarser and of a different density from those portions further
removed from this outer skin. The matching of billiard-balls is
important, for extreme accuracy in weight is essential. It is usual to
bleach them, as the purchaser--or at any rate the distributing
intermediary--likes to have them of a dead white. But this is a
mistake, for bleaching with chemicals takes out the gelatine to some
extent, alters the quality and affects the density; it also makes them
more liable to crack, and they are not nearly so nice-looking.
Billiard-balls should be bought in summer time when the temperature is
most equable, and gently used till the winter season. On an average
three balls of fine quality are got out of a tooth. The stock of more
than one great manufacturer surpasses at times 30,000 in number. But
although ball teeth rose in 1905 to L167 a cwt., the price of
billiard-balls was the same in 1905 as it was in 1885. Roughly
speaking, there are about twelve different qualities and prices of
billiard-balls, and eight of pyramid- and pool-balls, the latter
ranging from half a guinea to two guineas each.
The ivory for piano-keys is delivered to the trade in the shape of what
are known as heads and tails, the former for the parts which come under
the fingers, the latter for that running up between the black keys. The
two are joined afterwards on the keyboard with extreme accuracy.
Piano-keys are bleached, but organists for some reason or other prefer
unbleached keys. The soft variety is mostly used for high-class work and
preferably of the Egyptian type.
The great centres of the ivory industry for the ordinary objects of
common domestic use are in England, for cutlery handles Sheffield, for
billiard-balls and piano-keys London. For cutlery a large firm such as
Rodgers & Sons uses an average of some twenty tons of ivory annually,
mostly of the hard variety. But for billiard-balls and piano-keys
America is now a large producer, and a considerable quantity is made in
France and Germany. Brush backs are almost wholly in English hands.
Dieppe has long been famous for the numberless little ornaments and
useful articles such as statuettes, crucifixes, little bookcovers,
paper-cutters, combs, serviette-rings and _articles de Paris_ generally.
And St Claude in the Jura, and Geislingen in Wurtemberg, and Erbach in
Hesse, Germany, are amongst the most important centres of the industry.
India and China supply the multitude of toys, models, chess and
draughtsmen, puzzles, workbox fittings and other curiosities.
[Illustration: FIG. 2.]
_Vegetable Ivory, &c._--Some allusion may be made to vegetable ivory
and artificial substitutes. The plants yielding the vegetable ivory of
commerce represent two or more species of an anomalous genus of palms,
and are known to botanists as _Phytelephas_. They are natives of
tropical South America, occurring chiefly on the banks of the river
Magdalena, Colombia, always found in damp localities, not only,
however, on the lower coast region as in Darien, but also at a
considerable elevation above the sea. They are mostly found in
separate groves, not mixed with other trees or shrubs. The plant is
severally known as the "tagua" by the Indians on the banks of the
Magdalena, as the "anta" on the coast of Darien, and as the
"pulli-punta" and "homero" in Peru. It is stemless or short-stemmed,
and crowned with from twelve to twenty very long pinnatifid leaves.
The plants are dioecious, the males forming higher, more erect and
robust trunks than the females. The male inflorescence is in the form
of a simple fleshy cylindrical spadix covered with flowers; the female
flowers are also in a single spadix, which, however, is shorter than
in the male. The fruit consists of a conglomerated head composed of
six or seven drupes, each containing from six to nine seeds, and the
whole being enclosed in a walled woody covering forming altogether a
globular head as large as that of a man. A single plant sometimes
bears at the same time from six to eight of these large heads of
fruit, each weighing from 20 to 25 lb. In its very young state the
seed contains a clear insipid fluid, which travellers take advantage
of to allay thirst. As it gets older this fluid becomes milky and of a
sweet taste, and it gradually continues to change both in taste and
consistence until it becomes so hard as to make it valuable as a
substitute for animal ivory. In their young and fresh state the fruits
are eaten with avidity by bears, hogs and other animals. The seeds, or
nuts as they are usually called when fully ripe and hard, are used by
the American Indians for making small ornamental articles and toys.
They are imported into Britain in considerable quantities, frequently
under the name of "Corozo" nuts, a name by which the fruits of some
species of _Attalea_ (another palm with hard ivory-like seeds) are
known in Central America--their uses being chiefly for small articles
of turnery. Of vegetable ivory Great Britain imported in 1904 1200
tons, of which about 400 tons were re-exported, principally to
Germany. It is mainly and largely used for coat buttons.
Many artificial compounds have, from time to time, been tried as
substitutes for ivory; amongst them potatoes treated with sulphuric
acid. Celluloid is familiar to us nowadays. In the form of bonzoline,
into which it is said to enter, it is used largely for billiard balls;
and a new French substitute--a caseine made from milk, called
gallalith--has begun to be much used for piano keys in the cheaper
sorts of instrument. Odontolite is mammoth ivory, which through lapse
of time and from surroundings becomes converted into a substance known
as fossil or blue ivory, and is used occasionally in jewelry as
turquoise, which it very much resembles. It results from the tusks of
antediluvian mammoths buried in the earth for thousands of years,
during which time under certain conditions the ivory becomes slowly
penetrated with the metallic salts which give it the peculiar vivid
blue colour of turquoise.
_Ivory Sculpture and the Decorative Arts._--The use of ivory as a
material peculiarly adapted for sculpture and decoration has been
universal in the history of civilization. The earliest examples which
have come down to us take us back to prehistoric times, when, so far as
our knowledge goes, civilization as we understand it had attained no
higher degree than that of the dwellers in caves, or of the most
primitive races. Throughout succeeding ages there is continued evidence
that no other substance--except perhaps wood, of which we have even
fewer ancient examples--has been so consistently connected with man's
art-craftsmanship. It is hardly too much to say that to follow properly
the history of ivory sculpture involves the study of the whole world's
art in all ages. It will take us back to the most remote antiquity, for
we have examples of the earliest dynasties of Egypt and Assyria. Nor is
there entire default when we come to the periods of the highest
civilization of Greece and Rome. It has held an honoured place in all
ages for the adornment of the palaces of the great, not only in
sculpture proper but in the rich inlay of panelling, of furniture,
chariots and other costly articles. The Bible teems with references to
its beauty and value. And when, in the days of Pheidias, Greek sculpture
had reached the highest perfection, we learn from ancient writers that
colossal statues were constructed--notably the "Zeus of Olympia" and the
"Athena of the Parthenon." The faces, hands and other exposed portions
of these figures were of ivory, and the question, therefore, of the
method of production of such extremely large slabs as perhaps were used
has been often debated. A similar difficulty arises with regard to other
pieces of considerable size, found, for example, amongst consular
diptychs. It has been conjectured that some means of softening and
moulding ivory was known to the ancients, but as a matter of fact though
it may be softened it cannot be again restored to its original
condition. If up to the 4th century we are unable to point to a large
number of examples of sculpture in ivory, from that date onwards the
chain is unbroken, and during the five or six hundred years of unrest
and strife from the decline of the Roman empire in the 5th century to
the dawn of the Gothic revival of art in the 11th or 12th, ivory
sculpture alone of the sculptural arts carries on the preservation of
types and traditions of classic times in central Europe. Most important
indeed is the role which existing examples of ivory carving play in the
history of the last two centuries of the consulates of the Western and
Eastern empires. Though the evidences of decadence in art may be marked,
the close of that period brings us down to the end of the reign of
Justinian (527-563). Two centuries later the iconoclastic persecutions
in the Eastern empire drive westward and compel to settle there numerous
colonies of monks and artificers. Throughout the Carlovingian period,
the examples of ivory sculpture which we possess in not inconsiderable
quantity are of extreme importance in the history of the early
development of Byzantine art in Europe. And when the Western world of
art arose from its torpor, freed itself from Byzantine shackles and
traditions, and began to think for itself, it is to the sculptures in
ivory of the Gothic art of the 13th and 14th centuries that we turn with
admiration of their exquisite beauty of expression. Up to about the 14th
century the influence of the church was everywhere predominant in all
matters relating to art. In ivories, as in mosaics, enamels or miniature
painting it would be difficult to find a dozen examples, from the age of
Constantine onwards, other than sacred ones or of sacred symbolism. But
as the period of the Renaissance approached, the influence of romantic
literature began to assert itself, and a feeling and style similar to
those which are characteristic of the charming series of religious art
in ivory, so touchingly conceived and executed, meet us in many objects
in ivory destined for ordinary domestic uses and ornament. Mirror cases,
caskets for jewelry or toilet purposes, combs, the decoration of arms,
or of saddlery or of weapons of the chase, are carved and chased with
scenes of real life or illustrations of the romances, which bring home
to us in a vivid manner details of the manners and customs, amusements,
dresses and domestic life of the times. With the Renaissance and a
return to classical ideas, joined with a love of display and of gorgeous
magnificence, art in ivory takes a secondary place. There is a want of
simplicity and of originality. It is the period of the commencement of
decadence. Then comes the period nicknamed _rococo_, which persisted so
long. Ivory carving follows the vulgar fashion, is content with copying
or adapting, and until the revival in our own times is, except in rare
instances, no longer to be classed as a fine art. It becomes a trade and
is in the hands of the mechanic of the workshop. In this necessarily
brief and condensed sketch we have been concerned mainly with ivory
carving in Europe. It will be necessary to give also, presently, some
indications enabling the inquirer to follow the history--or at least to
put him on the track of it--not only in the different countries of the
West but also in India, China and Japan.
_Prehistoric Ivory Carvings._--These are the result of investigations
made about the middle of the 19th century in the cave dwellings of the
Dordogne in France and also of the lake dwellings of Switzerland. As
records they are unique in the history of art. Further than this our
wonderment is excited at finding these engravings or sculptures in the
round, these chiselled examples of the art of the uncultivated savage,
conceived and executed with a feeling of delicacy and restraint which
the most modern artist might envy. Who they were who executed them must
be left to the palaeontologist and geologist to decide. We can only be
certain that they were contemporary with the period when the mammoth and
the reindeer still roved freely in southern France. The most important
examples are the sketch of the mammoth (see PAINTING, Plate I.), on a
slab of ivory now in the museum of the Jardin des Plantes, the head and
shoulders of an ibex carved in the round on a piece of reindeer horn,
and the figure of a woman (instances of representations of the human
form are most rare) naked and wearing a necklace and bracelet. Many of
the originals are in the museum at St Germain-en-Laye, and casts of a
considerable number are in the British Museum.
[Illustration: FIG. 3.--Panel with Cartouche, Nineveh.]
_Ancient Assyrian, Egyptian, Greek and Roman Ivories._--We know from
ancient writers that the Egyptians were skilled in ivory carving and
that they procured ivory in large quantities from Ethiopia. The Louvre
possesses examples of a kind of flat castanets or clappers, in the form
of the curve of the tusks themselves, engraved in outline, beautifully
modelled hands forming the tapering points; and large quantities of
small objects, including a box of plain form and simple decoration
identified from the inscribed praenomen as the fifth dynasty, about 4000
B.C. The British Museum and the museum at Cairo are also comparatively
rich. But no other collection in the world contains such an interesting
collection of ancient Assyrian ivories as that in the British Museum.
Those exhibited number some fifty important pieces, and many other
fragments are, on account of their fragility or state of decay, stowed
away. The collection is the result of the excavations by Layard about
1840 on the supposed site of Nineveh opposite the modern city of Mosul.
When found they were so decomposed from the lapse of time as scarcely to
bear touching or the contact of the external air. Layard hit upon the
ingenious plan of boiling in a solution of gelatine and thus restoring
to them the animal matter which had dried up in the course of centuries.
Later, the explorations of Flinders Petrie and others at Abydos brought
to light a considerable number of sculptured fragments which may be even
two thousand years older than those of Nineveh. They have been exhibited
in London and since distributed amongst various museums at home and
abroad.
[Illustration: From photo by W. A. Mansell & Co.
FIG. 4.--Leaf of diptych showing combats with stags; in the Liverpool
Museum.]
_Consular and Official and Private Diptychs._--About fifty of the
remarkable plaques called "consular diptychs," of the time of the three
last centuries of the consulates of the Roman and Greek empire have been
preserved. They range in date from perhaps mid-fourth to mid-sixth
centuries, and as with two or three exceptions the dates are certain it
would be difficult to overestimate their historic or intrinsic value.
The earliest of absolutely certain date is the diptych of Aosta (A.D.
408), the first after the recognition of Christianity; or, if the Monza
diptych represents, as some think, the Consul Stilicon, then we may
refer back six years earlier. At any rate the edict of Theodosius in
A.D. 384, concerning the restriction of the use of ivory to the diptychs
of the regular consuls, is evidence that the custom must have been long
established. According to some authorities the beautiful leaf of diptych
in the Liverpool Museum (fig. 4) is a consular one and to be ascribed to
Marcus Julius Philippus (A.D. 248). Similarly the Gherardesca leaf in
the British Museum may be accepted as of the Consul Marcus Aurelius
(A.D. 308). But the whole question of the half dozen earliest examples
is conjectural. With a few notable exceptions they show decadence in
art. Amongst the finest may be cited the leaf with the combats with
stags at Liverpool, the diptych of Probianus at Berlin and the two
leaves, one of Anastasius, the other of Orestes, in the Victoria and
Albert Museum. The literature concerning these diptychs is voluminous,
from the time of the erudite treatise by Gori published in 1759 to the
present day. The latest of certain date is that of Basilius, consul of
the East in 541, the last of the consuls. The diptychs of private
individuals or of officials number about sixteen, and in the case of the
private ones have a far greater artistic value. Of these the Victoria
and Albert Museum possesses the most beautiful leaf of perhaps the
finest example of ancient ivory sculpture which has come down to us,
diptychon Meleretense, representing a Bacchante (fig. 5). The other
half, which is much injured, is in the Cluny Museum. Other important
pieces are the Aesculapius and Hygeia at Liverpool, the Hippolytus and
Phaedra at Brescia, the Barberini in the Bargello and at Vienna and the
Rufius Probianus at Berlin. Besides the diptychs ancient Greek and Roman
ivories before the recognition of Christianity are comparatively small
in number and are mostly in the great museums of the Vatican, Naples,
the British Museum, the Louvre and the Cluny Museum. Amongst them are
the statuette of Penthea, perhaps of the 3rd century (Cluny), a large
head of a woman (museum of Vienna) and the Bellerophon (British Museum),
nor must those of the Roman occupation in England and other countries be
forgotten. Notable instances are the plaque and ivory mask found at
Caerleon. Others are now in the Guildhall and British Museums, and most
continental European museums have examples connected with their own
history.
[Illustration: FIG. 5.--Leaf of Roman diptych, representing a Bacchante;
in the Victoria and Albert Museum.]
[Illustration: From photo by W. A. Mansell & Co.
FIG. 6.--Leaf of Diptych, representing Archangel; in the British Museum.]
_Early Christian and Early Byzantine Ivories._--The few examples we
possess of Christian ivories previous to the time of Constantine are not
of great importance from the point of view of the history of art. But
after that date the ivories which we may ascribe to the centuries from
the end of the 4th to at least the end of the 9th become of considerable
interest, on account of their connexion with the development of
Byzantine art in western Europe. With regard to exact origins and dates
opinions are largely divergent. In great part they are due to the
carrying on of traditions and styles by which the makers of the
sarcophagi were inspired, and the difficulties of ascription are
increased when in addition to the primitive elements the influence of
Byzantine systems introduced many new ideas derived from many extraneous
sources. The questions involved are of no small archaeological,
iconographical and artistic importance, but it must be admitted that we
are reduced to conjecture in many cases, and compelled to theorize. And
it would seem to be impossible to be more precise as to dates than
within a margin of sometimes three centuries. Then, again, we are met by
the question how far these ivories are connected with Byzantine art;
whether they were made in the West by immigrant Greeks, or indigenous
works, or purely imported productions. Some German critics have
endeavoured to construct a system of schools, and to form definite
groups, assigning them to Rome, Ravenna, Milan and Monza. Not only so,
but they claim to be precise in dating even to a certain decade of a
century. But it is certainly more than doubtful whether there is
sufficient evidence on which to found such assumptions. It is at least
probable that a considerable number of the ivories whose dates are given
by such a number of critics so wide a range as from the 4th to the 10th
century are nothing more than the work of the monks of the numerous
monasteries founded throughout the Carlovingian empire, copying and
adapting from whatever came into their hands. Many of them were Greek
immigrants exiled at the time of the iconoclastic persecutions. To these
must be added the Celtic and Anglo-Saxon missionaries, who brought with
them and disseminated their own national feeling and technique. We have
to take into account also the relations which existed not only with
Constantinople but also with the great governing provinces of Syria and
Egypt. Where all our information is so vague, and in the face of so much
conflicting opinion amongst authorities, it is not unreasonable to hold
with regard to very many of these ivories that instead of assigning them
to the age of Justinian or even the preceding century we ought rather to
postpone their dating from one to perhaps three centuries later and to
admit that we cannot be precise even within these limits. It would be
impossible to follow here the whole of the arguments relating to this
most important period of the development of ivory sculpture or to
mention a tithe of the examples which illustrate it. Amongst the most
striking the earliest is the very celebrated leaf of a diptych in the
British Museum representing an archangel (fig. 6). It is generally
admitted that we have no ivory of the 5th or 6th centuries or in fact of
any early medieval period which can compare with it in excellence of
design and workmanship. There is no record (it is believed) from whence
the museum obtained the ivory. There are at least plausible grounds for
surmising that it is identical with the "Angelus longus eburneus" of a
book-cover among the books brought to England by St Augustine which is
mentioned in a list of things belonging to Christchurch, Canterbury (see
Dart, _App._ p. xviii.). The dating of the four Passion plaques, also in
the British Museum, varies from the 5th to the 7th century. But although
most recent authorities accept the earlier date, the present writer
holds strongly that they are not anterior to, at earliest, the 7th
century. Even then they will remain, with the exception of the Monza oil
flask and perhaps the St Sabina doors, the earliest known representation
of the crucifixion. The ivory vase, with cover, in the British Museum,
appears to possess defined elements of the farther East, due perhaps to
the relations between Syria and Christian India or Ceylon. Other
important early Christian ivories are the series of pyxes, the diptych
in the treasury of St Ambrogio at Milan, the chair of Maximian at
Ravenna (most important as a type piece), the panel with the "Ascension"
in the Bavarian National Museum, the Brescia casket, the "Lorsch"
bookcovers of the Vatican and Victoria and Albert Museum, the Bodleian
and other bookcovers, the St Paul diptych in the Bargello at Florence
and the "Annunciation" plaque in the Trivulzio collection. So far as
unquestionably oriental specimens of Byzantine art are concerned they
are few in number, but we have in the famous Harbaville triptych in the
Louvre a super-excellent example.
[Illustration: FIG. 7.--Mirror Case, illustrating the Storming of the
Castle of Love; in the Victoria and Albert Museum.]
_Gothic Ivories._--The most generally charming period of ivory sculpture
is unquestionably that which, coincident with the Gothic revival in art,
marked the beginning of a great and lasting change. The formalism
imposed by Byzantine traditions gave place to a brighter, more delicate
and tenderer conception. This golden age of the ivory carver--at its
best in the 13th century--was still in evidence during the 14th, and
although there is the beginning of a transition in style in the 15th
century, the period of neglect and decadence which set in about the
beginning of the 16th hardly reached the acute stage until well on into
the 17th. To review the various developments both of religious art which
reigned almost alone until the 14th century, or of the secular side as
exemplified in the delightful mirror cases and caskets carved with
subjects from the romantic stories which were so popular, would be
impossible here. Almost every great museum and famous private collection
abounds in examples of the well-known diptychs and triptychs and little
portable oratories of this period. Some, as in a famous panel in the
British Museum, are marvels of minute workmanship, others of delicate
openwork and tracery. Others, again, are remarkable for the wonderful
way in which, in the compass of a few inches, whole histories and
episodes of the scriptural narratives are expressed in the most vivid
and telling manner. Charming above all are the statuettes of the Virgin
and Child which French and Flemish art, especially, have handed down to
us. Of these the Victoria and Albert Museum possesses a representative
collection. Another series of interest is that of the croziers or
pastoral staves, the development of which the student of ivories will be
careful to study in connexion with the earlier ones and the tau-headed
staves. In addition there are shrines, reliquaries, bookcovers,
liturgical combs, portable altars, pyxes, holy water buckets and
sprinklers, _flabella_ or liturgical fans, rosaries, _memento mori_,
paxes, small figures and groups, and almost every conceivable adjunct of
the sanctuary or for private devotion. It is to French or Flemish art
that the greater number and the most beautiful must be referred. At the
same time, to take one example only--the diptych and triptych of Bishop
Grandison in the British Museum--we have evidence that English ivory
carvers were capable of rare excellence of design and workmanship. Nor
can crucifixes be forgotten, though they are of extreme rarity before
the 17th century. A most beautiful 13th-century figure for one--though
only a fragment--is in the Victoria and Albert Museum. Amongst secular
objects of this period, besides the mirror cases (fig. 7) and caskets,
there are hunting horns (the earlier ones probably oriental, or more or
less faithfully copied from oriental models), chess and draughtsmen
(especially the curious set from the isle of Lewis), combs, marriage
coffers (at one period remarkable Italian ones of bone), memorandum
tablets, seals, the pommels and cantles of saddles and a unique harp now
in the Louvre. The above enumeration will alone suffice to show that the
inquirer must be referred for details to the numerous works which treat
of medieval ivory sculpture.
_Ivory Sculpture from the 16th to the 19th Century._--Compared with the
wealth of ivory carving of the two preceding centuries, the 15th, and
especially the 16th, centuries are singularly poor in really fine work.
But before we arrive at the period of real decadence we shall come
across such things as the knife of Diana of Poitiers in the Louvre, the
sceptre of Louis XIII., the Rothschild hunting horn, many Italian powder
horns, the German Psyche in the Louvre, or the "Young Girl and Death" in
the Munich Museum, in which there is undoubtedly originality and talent
of the first order. The practice of ivory carving became extremely
popular throughout the 17th and 18th centuries, especially in the
Netherlands and in Germany, and the amount of ivory consumed must have
been very great. But, with rare exceptions, and these for the most part
Flemish, it is art of an inferior kind, which seems to have been
abandoned to second-rate sculptors and the artisans of the workshop.
There is little originality, the rococo styles run riot, and we seem to
be condemned to wade through an interminable series of gods and
goddesses, bacchanalians and satyrs, pseudo-classical copies from the
antique and imitations of the schools of Rubens. As a matter of fact few
great museums, except the German ones, care to include in their
collections examples of these periods. Some exceptions are made in the
case of Flemish sculptors of such talent as Francois Duquesnoy
(Fiammingo), Gerard van Obstal or Lucas Fayd'herbe. In a lesser degree,
in Germany, Christoph Angermair, Leonhard Kern, Bernhard Strauss,
Elhafen, Kruger and Rauchmiller; and, in France, Jean Guillermin, David
le Marchand and Jean Cavalier. Crucifixes were turned out in enormous
numbers, some of not inconsiderable merit, but, for the most part, they
represent anatomical exercises varying but slightly from a pattern of
which a celebrated one attributed to Faistenberger may be taken as a
type. Tankards abound, and some, notably the one in the Jones
collection, than which perhaps no finer example exists, are also of a
high standard. Duquesnoy's work is well illustrated by the charming
series of six plaques in the Victoria and Albert Museum known as the
"Fiammingo boys." Amongst the crowd of objects in ivory of all
descriptions of the early 18th century, the many examples of the curious
implements known as _rappoirs_, or tobacco graters, should be noticed.
It may perhaps be necessary to add that although the character of art in
ivory in these periods is not of the highest, the subject is not one
entirely unworthy of attention and study, and there are a certain number
of remarkable and even admirable examples.
_Ivory Sculpture of Spain, Portugal, India, China and Japan._--Generally
speaking, with regard to Spain and Portugal, there is little reason to
do otherwise than confine our attention to a certain class of important
Moorish or Hispano-Moresque ivories of the time of the Arab occupation
of the Peninsula, from the 8th to the 15th centuries. Some fine examples
are in the Victoria and Albert Museum. Of Portuguese work there is
little except the hybrid productions of Goa and the Portuguese
settlements in the East. Some mention must be made also of the
remarkable examples of mixed Portuguese and savage art from Benin, now
in the British Museum. Of Indian ivory carving the India Museum at
Kensington supplies a very large and varied collection which has no
equal elsewhere. But there is little older than the 17th century, nor
can it be said that Indian art in ivory can occupy a very high place in
the history of the art. What we know of Chinese carving in ivory is
confined to those examples which are turned out for the European market,
and can hardly be considered as appealing very strongly to cultivated
tastes. A brief reference to the well-known delightful _netsukes_ and
the characteristic inlaid work must suffice here for the ivories of
Japan (see JAPAN: _Art_).
_Ivory Sculpture in the 19th Century and of the Present Day._--Few
people are aware of the extent to which modern ivory sculpture is
practised by distinguished artists. Year by year, however, a certain
amount is exhibited in the Royal Academy and in most foreign salons, but
in England the works--necessarily not very numerous--are soon absorbed
in private collections. On the European continent, on the contrary, in
such galleries as the Belgian state collections or the Luxembourg,
examples are frequently acquired and exhibited. In Belgium the
acquisition of the Congo and the considerable import of ivory therefrom
gave encouragement to a definite revival of the art. Important
exhibitions have been held in Belgium, and a notable one in Paris in
1904. Though ivory carving is as expensive as marble sculpture, all
sculptors delight in following it, and the material entails no special
knowledge or training. Of 19th-century artists there were in France
amongst the best known, besides numerous minor workers of Dieppe and St
Claude, Augustin Moreau, Vautier, Soitoux, Belleteste, Meugniot,
Pradier, Triqueti and Gerome; and in the first decade of the 20th
century, besides such distinguished names in the first rank as Jean
Dampt and Theodore Riviere, there were Vever, Gardet, Caron, Barrias,
Allouard, Ferrary and many others. Nor must the decorative work of Rene
Lalique be omitted. No less than forty Belgian sculptors exhibited work
in ivory at the Brussels exhibition of 1887. The list included artists
of such distinction as J. Dillens, Constantin Meunier, van der Stappen,
Khnopff, P. Wolfers, Samuel and Paul de Vigne, and amongst contemporary
Belgian sculptors are also van Beurden, G. Devreese, Vincotte, de Tombay
and Lagae. In England the most notable work includes the "Lamia" of
George Frampton, the "St Elizabeth" of Alfred Gilbert, the "Mors Janua
Vitae" of Harry Bates, the "Launcelot" of W. Reynolds-Stephens and the
use of ivory in the applied arts by Lynn Jenkins, A. G. Walker,
Alexander Fisher and others.
AUTHORITIES.--See generally A. Maskell, _Ivories_ (1906), and the
bibliography there given.
On Early Christian and Early Byzantine ivories, the following works
may be mentioned: Abbe Cabrol, _Dictionnaire de l'archeologie
chretienne_ (in progress); O. M. Dalton, _Catalogue of Early Christian
Antiquities in British Museum_ (1902); E. Dobbert, _Zur Geschichte der
Elfenbeinsculptur_ (1885); H. Graeven, _Antike Schnitzereien_ (1903);
R. Kanzler, _Gli avori ... Vaticana_ (1903); Kondakov, _L'Art
byzantin_; A. Maskell, _Cantor Lectures_, Soc. of Arts (1906) (lecture
II., "Early Christian and Early Byzantine Ivories"); Strzygowski,
_Byzantinische Denkmaler_ (1891); V. Schulze, _Archaologie der
altchristlichen Kunst_ (1895); G. Stuhlfauth, _Die altchristl.
Elfenbeinplastik_ (1896).
On the consular diptychs, see H. F. Clinton, _Fasti Romani_
(1845-1850); A. Gori, _Thesaurus veterum diptychorum_ (1759); C.
Lenormant, _Tresor de numismatique et de glyptique_ (1834-1846); F.
Pulszky, _Catalogue of the Fejervary Ivories_ (1856).
On the artistic interest generally, see also C. Alabaster, _Catalogue
of Chinese Objects in the South Kensington Museum_; Sir R. Alcock,
_Art and Art Industries in Japan_ (1878); Barraud et Martin, _Le Baton
pastoral_ (1856); Bouchot, _Les Reliures d'art a la Bibliotheque
Nationale_; Bretagne, _Sur les peignes liturgiques_; H. Cole, _Indian
Art at Delhi_ (1904); R. Garrucci, _Storia dell' arte Christiana_
(1881); A. Jacquemart, _Histoire du mobilier_ (1876); J. Labarte,
_Histoire des arts industriels_ (1864); C. Lind, _Uber den Krummstab_
(1863); Sir F. Madden, "Lewis Chessmen" (in _Archaeologia_, vol. xxiv.
1832); W. Maskell, _Ivories, Ancient and Medieval in the South
Kensington Museum_ (1872); A. Michel, _Histoire de l'art_; E.
Molinier, _Histoire generale des arts_ (1896); E. Oldfield, _Catalogue
of Fictile Ivories sold by the Arundel Society_ (1855); A. H. Pitt
Rivers, _Antique Works of Art from Benin_ (1900); A. C. Quatremere de
Quincy, _Le Jupiter Olympien_ (1815); Charles Scherer,
_Elfenbeinplastik seit der Renaissance_ (1903); E. du Sommerard, _Les
Arts au moyen age_ (1838-1846); G. Stephens, _Runic Caskets_
(1866-1868); A. Venturi, _Storia dell' arte Italiana_ (1901); Sir G.
Watt, _Indian Art at Delhi_ (1904); J. O. Westwood, _Fictile Ivories
in the South Kensington Museum_ (1876). Sir M. D. Wyatt, _Notices of
Sculpture in Ivory_ (1856). (A. Ml.)
FOOTNOTE:
[1] Lecture before the Society of Arts (1856).
IVORY COAST (_Cote d'Ivoire_), a French West African colony, bounded S.
by the Gulf of Guinea, W. by Liberia and French Guinea, N. by the colony
of Upper Senegal and Niger, E. by the Gold Coast. Its area is
approximately 120,000 sq. m., and its population possibly 2,000,000, of
whom some 600 are Europeans. Official estimates (1908) placed the native
population as low as 980,000.
_Physical Features._--The coast-line extends from 70 deg. 30' to 3
deg. 7' W. and has a length of 380 m. It forms an arc of a circle of
which the convexity turns slightly to the north; neither bay nor
promontory breaks the regularity of its outline. The shore is low,
bordered in its eastern half with lagoons, and difficult of access on
account of the submarine bar of sand which stretches along nearly the
whole of the coast, and also because of the heavy surf caused by the
great Atlantic billows. The principal lagoons, going W. to E. are
those of Grand Lahou, Grand Bassam or Ebrie and Assini. The coast
plains extend inland about 40 m. Beyond the ground rises in steep
slopes to a general level of over 1000 ft., the plateau being
traversed in several directions by hills rising 2000 ft. and over, and
cut by valleys with a general south-eastern trend. In the north-east,
in the district of Kong (q.v.), the country becomes mountainous, Mt.
Kommono attaining a height of 4757 ft. In the north-west, by the
Liberian frontier, the mountains in the Gon region rise over 6000 ft.
Starting from the Liberian frontier, the chief rivers are the Cavalla
(or Kavalli), the San Pedro, the Sassandra (240 m. long), the Bandama
(225 m.), formed by the White and the Red Bandama, the Komoe (360 m.)
and the Bia. All these streams are interrupted by rapids as they
descend from the highlands to the plain and are unnavigable by
steamers save for a few miles from their mouths. The rivers named all
drain to the Gulf of Guinea; the rivers in the extreme north of the
colony belong to the Niger system, being affluents of the Bani or
Mahel Balevel branch of that river. The watershed runs roughly from 9
deg. N. in the west to 10 deg. N. in the east, and is marked by a line
of hills rising about 650 ft. above the level of the plateau. The
climate is in general very hot and unhealthy, the rainfall being very
heavy. In some parts of the plateau healthier conditions prevail. The
fauna and flora are similar to those of the Gold Coast and Liberia.
Primeval forest extends from the coast plains to about 8 deg. N.,
covering nearly 50,000 sq. m.
_Inhabitants._--The coast districts are inhabited by Negro tribes allied
on the one hand to the Krumen (q.v.) and on the other to the people of
Ashanti (q.v.). The Assinis are of Ashanti origin, and chiefly of the
Ochin and Agni tribes. Farther west are found the "Jack-Jacks" and the
"Kwa-Kwas," sobriquets given respectively to the Aradian and Avikom by
the early European traders. The Kwa-Kwa are said to be so called because
their salutation "resembles the cry of a duck." In the interior the
Negro strain predominates but with an admixture of Hamitic or Berber
blood. The tribes represented include Jamans, Wongaras and Mandingos
(q.v.), some of whom are Moslems. The Mandingos have intermarried
largely with the Bambara or Sienuf, an agricultural people of more than
average intelligence widely spread over the country, of which they are
considered to be the indigenous race. The Bambara themselves are perhaps
only a distinct branch of the original Mandingo stock. The Baule, who
occupy the central part of the colony, are of Agni-Ashanti origin. The
bulk of the inhabitants are fetish worshippers. On the northern confines
of the great forest belt live races of cannibals, whose existence was
first made known by Captain d'Ollone in 1899. In general the coast
tribes are peaceful. They have the reputation of being neither
industrious nor intelligent. The traders are chiefly Fanti, Sierra
Leonians, Senegalese and Mandingos.
_Towns._--The chief towns on the coast are Grand and Little Bassam,
Jackville and Assini in the east and Grand Lahou, Sassandra and Tabu
in the west. Grand and Little Bassam are built on the strip of sand
which separates the Grand Bassam or Ebrie lagoon from the sea. This
lagoon forms a commodious harbour, once the bar has been crossed.
Grand Bassam is situated at the point where the lagoon and the river
Komoe enter the sea and there is a minimum depth of 12 ft. of water
over the bar. The town (pop. 5000, including about 100 Europeans) is
the seat of the customs administration and of the judicial department,
and is the largest centre for the trade of the colony. A wharf
equipped with cranes extends beyond the surf line and the town is
served by a light railway. It is notoriously unhealthy; yellow fever
is endemic. Little Bassam, renamed by the French Port Bouet, possesses
an advantage over the other ports on the coast, as at this point there
is no bar. The sea floor is here rent by a chasm, known as the
"Bottomless Pit," the waters having a depth of 65 ft. Abijean
(Abidjan), on the north side of the lagoon opposite Port Bouet is the
starting-point of a railway to the oil and rubber regions. The
half-mile of foreshore separating the port from the lagoon was in
1904-1907 pierced by a canal, but the canal silted up as soon as cut,
and in 1908 the French decided to make Grand Bassam the chief port of
the colony. Assini is an important centre for the rubber trade of
Ashanti. On the northern shore of the Bassam lagoon, and 19 m. from
Grand Bassam, is the capital of the colony, the native name Adjame
having been changed into Bingerville, in honour of Captain L. G.
Binger (see below). The town is built on a hill and is fairly healthy.
In the interior are several towns, though none of any size
numerically. The best known are Koroko, Kong and Bona, entrepots for
the trade of the middle Niger, and Bontuku, on the caravan route to
Sokoto and the meeting-place of the merchants from Kong and Timbuktu
engaged in the kola-nut trade with Ashanti and the Gold Coast. Bontuku
is peopled largely by Wongara and Hausa, and most of the inhabitants,
who number some 3000, are Moslems. The town, which was founded in the
15th century or earlier, is walled, contains various mosques and
generally presents the appearance of an eastern city.
_Agriculture and Trade._--The natives cultivate maize, plantains,
bananas, pineapples, limes, pepper, cotton, &c., and live easily on
the products of their gardens, with occasional help from fishing and
hunting. They also weave cloth, make pottery and smelt iron. Europeans
introduced the cultivation of coffee, which gives good results. The
forests are rich in palm-tree products, rubber and mahogany, which
constitute the chief articles of export. The rubber goes almost
exclusively to England, as does also the mahogany. The palm-oil and
palm kernels are sent almost entirely to France. The value of the
external trade of the colony exceeded L1,000,000 for the first time in
1904. About 50% of the trade is with Great Britain. The export of
ivory, for which the country was formerly famous, has almost ceased,
the elephants being largely driven out of the colony. Cotton goods, by
far the most important of the imports, come almost entirely from Great
Britain. Gold exists and many native villages have small "placer"
mines. In 1901 the government of the colony began the granting of
mining concessions, in which British capital was largely invested.
There are many ancient mines in the country, disused since the close
of the 18th century, if not earlier.
_Communications._--The railway from Little Bassam serves the east
central part of the colony and runs to Katiola, in Kong, a total
distance of 250 m. The line is of metre gauge. The cutting of two
canals, whereby communication is effected by lagoon between Assini and
Grand Lahou via Bassam, followed the construction of the railway.
Grand and Little Bassam are in regular communication by steamer with
Bordeaux, Marseilles, Liverpool, Antwerp and Hamburg. Grand Bassam is
connected with Europe by submarine cable via Dakar. Telegraph lines
connect the coast with all the principal stations in the interior,
with the Gold Coast, and with the other French colonies in West
Africa.
_Administration, &c._--The colony is under the general superintendence
of the government general of French West Africa. At the head of the
local administration is a lieutenant-governor, who is assisted by a
council on which nominated unofficial members have seats. To a large
extent the native forms of government are maintained under European
administrators responsible for the preservation of order, the colony
for this purpose being divided into a number of "circles" each with
its local government. The colony has a separate budget and is
self-supporting. Revenue is derived chiefly from customs receipts and
a capitation tax of frs. 2.50 (2s.), instituted in 1901 and levied on
all persons over ten years old. The budget for 1906 balanced at
L120,400.
_History._--The Ivory Coast is stated to have been visited by Dieppe
merchants in the 14th century, and was made known by the Portuguese
discoveries towards the end of the 15th century. It was thereafter
frequented by traders for ivory, slaves and other commodities. There was
a French settlement at Assini, 1700-1704, and a French factory was
maintained at Grand Bassam from 1700 to 1707. In the early part of the
19th century several French traders had established themselves along the
coast. In 1830 Admiral (then Commandant) Bouet-Willaumez (1808-1871)
began a series of surveys and expeditions which yielded valuable
results. In 1842 he obtained from the native chiefs cessions of
territory at Assini and Grand Bassam to France and the towns named were
occupied in 1843. From that time French influence gradually extended
along the coast, but no attempt was made to penetrate inland. As one
result of the Franco-Prussian War, France in 1872 withdrew her
garrisons, handing over the care of the establishments to a merchant
named Verdier, to whom an annual subsidy of L800 was paid. This merchant
sent an agent into the interior who made friendly treaties between
France and some of the native chiefs. In 1883, in view of the claims of
other European powers to territory in Africa, France again took over the
actual administration of Assini and Bassam. Between 1887 and 1889
Captain Binger (an officer of marine infantry, and subsequently director
of the African department at the colonial ministry) traversed the whole
region between the coast and the Niger, visited Bontuku and the Kong
country, and signed protectorate treaties with the chiefs. The kingdom
of Jaman, it may be mentioned, was for a few months included in the Gold
Coast hinterland. In January 1889 a British mission sent by the governor
of the Gold Coast concluded a treaty with the king of Jaman at Bontuku,
placing his dominions under British protection. The king had, however,
previously concluded treaties of "commerce and friendship" with the
French, and by the Anglo-French agreement of August 1889 Jaman, with
Bontuku, was recognized as French territory. In 1892 Captain Binger made
further explorations in the interior of the Ivory Coast, and in 1893 he
was appointed the first governor of the colony on its erection into an
administration distinct from that of Senegal. Among other famous
explorers who helped to make known the hinterland was Colonel (then
Captain) Marchand. It was to the zone between the Kong states and the
hinterland of Liberia that Samory (see SENEGAL) fled for refuge before
he was taken prisoner (1898), and for a short time he was master of
Kong. The boundary of the colony on the west was settled by
Franco-Liberian agreements of 1892 and subsequent dates; that on the
east by the Anglo-French agreements of 1893 and 1898. The northern
boundary was fixed in 1899 on the division of the middle Niger
territories (up to that date officially called the French Sudan) among
the other French West African colonies. The systematic development of
the colony, the opening up of the hinterland and the exploitation of its
economic resources date from the appointment of Captain Binger as
governor, a post he held for over three years. The work he began has
been carried on zealously and effectively by subsequent governors, who
have succeeded in winning the co-operation of the natives.
In the older books of travel are often found the alternative names for
this region, Tooth Coast (_Cote des Dents_) or Kwa-Kwa Coast, and, less
frequently, the Coast of the Five and Six Stripes (alluding to a kind of
cotton fabric in favour with the natives). The term Cote des Dents
continued in general use in France until the closing years of the 19th
century.
See _Dix ans a la Cote d'Ivoire_ (Paris, 1906) by F. J. Clozel,
governor of the colony, and _Notre colonie de la Cote d'Ivoire_
(Paris, 1903) by R. Villamur and Richaud. These two volumes deal with
the history, geography, zoology and economic condition of the Ivory
Coast. _La Cote d'Ivoire_ by Michellet and Clement describes the
administrative and land systems, &c. Another volume also called _La
Cote d'Ivoire_ (Paris, 1908) is an official monograph on the colony.
For ethnology consult _Coutumes indigenes de la Cote d'Ivoire_ (Paris,
1902) by F. J. Clozel and R. Villamur, and _Les Coutumes Agni_, by R.
Villamur and Delafosse. Of books of travel see _Du Niger au Golfe de
Guinee par Kong_ (Paris, 1892) by L. G. Binger, and _Mission
Hostains-d'Ollone 1890-1900_ (Paris, 1901) by Captain d'Ollone. A
_Carte de la Cote d'Ivoire_ by A. Meunier, on the scale of 1:500,000
(6 sheets), was published in Paris, 1905. Annual reports on the colony
are published by the French colonial and the British foreign offices.
IVREA (anc. _Eporedia_), a town and episcopal see of Piedmont, Italy, in
the province of Turin, from which it is 38 m. N.N.E. by rail and 27 m.
direct, situated 770 ft. above sea-level, on the Dora Baltea at the
point where it leaves the mountains. Pop. (1901) 6047 (town), 11,696
(commune). The cathedral was built between 973 and 1005; the gallery
round the back of the apse and the crypt have plain cubical capitals of
this period. The two _campanili_ flanking the apse at each end of the
side aisle are the oldest example of this architectural arrangement. The
isolated tower, which is all that remains of the ancient abbey of S.
Stefano, is slightly later. The hill above the town is crowned by the
imposing Castello delle Quattro Torri, built in 1358, and now a prison.
One of the four towers was destroyed by lightning in 1676. A tramway
runs to Santhia.
The ancient Eporedia, standing at the junction of the roads from Augusta
Taurinorum and Vercellae, at the point where the road to Augusta
Praetoria enters the narrow valley of the Duria (Dora Baltea), was a
military position of considerable importance belonging to the Salassi
who inhabited the whole upper valley of the Duria. The importance of the
gold-mines of the district led to its seizure by the Romans in 143 B.C.
The centre of the mining industry seems to have been Victumulae (see
TICINUM), until in 100 B.C. a colony of Roman citizens was founded at
Eporedia itself; but the prosperity of this was only assured when the
Salassi were finally defeated in 25 B.C. and Augusta Praetoria founded.
There are remains of a theatre of the time of the Antonines and the
Ponte Vecchio rests on Roman foundations.
In the middle ages Ivrea was the capital of a Lombard duchy, and later
of a marquisate; both Berengar II. (950) and Arduin (1002) became kings
of Italy for a short period. Later it submitted to the marquises of
Monferrato, and in the middle of the 14th century passed to the house of
Savoy. (T. As.)
IVRY-SUR-SEINE, a town of northern France, in the department of Seine,
near the left bank of the Seine, less than 1 m. S.S.E. of the
fortifications of Paris. Pop. (1906) 30,532. Ivry has a large hospital
for incurables. It manufactures organs, earthenware, wall-paper and
rubber, and has engineering works, breweries, and oil-works, its trade
being facilitated by a port on the Seine. The town is dominated by a
fort of the older line of defence of Paris.
IVY (A.S. _ifig_, Ger. _Epheu_, perhaps connected with _apium_, [Greek:
apion]), the collective designation of certain species and varieties of
_Hedera_, a member of the natural order Araliaceae. There are fifty
species of ivy recorded in modern books, but they may be reduced to two,
or at the most, three. The European ivy, _Hedera Helix_ (fig. 1), is a
plant subject to infinite variety in the forms and colours of its
leaves, but the tendency of which is always to a three- to five-lobed
form when climbing and a regular ovate form of leaf when producing
flower and fruit. The African ivy, _H. canariensis_, often regarded as a
variety of _H. Helix_ and known as the Irish ivy, is a native of North
Africa and the adjacent islands. It is the common large-leaved climbing
ivy, and also varies, but in a less degree than _H. Helix_, from which
its leaves differ in their larger size, rich deep green colour, and a
prevailing tendency to a five-lobed outline. When in fruit the leaves
are usually three-lobed, but they are sometimes entire and broadly
ovate. The Asiatic ivy, _H. colchica_ (fig. 2), now considered to be a
form of _H. Helix_, has ovate, obscurely three-lobed leaves of a
coriaceous texture and a deep green colour; in the tree or fruiting form
the leaves are narrower than in the climbing form, and without any trace
of lobes. Distinctive characters are also to be found in the appendages
of the pedicels and calyx, _H. Helix_ having six-rayed stellate hairs,
_H. canariensis_ fifteen-rayed hairs and _H. colchica_ yellowish
two-lobed scales.
[Illustration: FIG. 1.--Ivy (_Hedera Helix_) fruiting branch. 1. Flower.
2. Fruit.]
[Illustration: FIG. 2.--_Hedera colchica._]
The Australian ivy, _H. australiana_, is a small glabrous shrub with
pinnate leaves. It is a native of Queensland, and is practically unknown
in cultivation.
It is of the utmost importance to note the difference of characters of
the same species of ivy in its two conditions of climbing and fruiting.
The first stage of growth, which we will suppose to be from the seed, is
essentially scandent, and the leaves are lobed more or less. This stage
is accompanied with a plentiful production of the claspers or modified
roots by means of which the plant becomes attached and obtains support.
When it has reached the summit of the tree or tower, the stems, being no
longer able to maintain a perpendicular attitude, fall over and become
horizontal or pendent. Coincidently with this change they cease to
produce claspers, and the leaves are strikingly modified in form, being
now narrower and less lobed than on the ascending stems. In due time
this tree-like growth produces terminal umbels of greenish flowers,
which have the parts in fives, with the styles united into a very short
one. These flowers are succeeded by smooth black or yellow berries,
containing two to five seeds. The yellow-berried ivy is met with in
northern India and in Italy, but in northern Europe it is known only as
a curiosity of the garden, where, if sufficiently sheltered and
nourished, it becomes an exceedingly beautiful and fruitful tree.
[Illustration: FIG. 3.--Climbing Shoot of Ivy.]
It is stated in books that some forms of sylvestral ivy never flower,
but a negative declaration of this kind is valueless. Sylvestral ivies
of great age may be found in woods on the western coasts of Britain that
have apparently never flowered, but this is probably to be explained by
their inability to surmount the trees supporting them, for until the
plant can spread its branches horizontally in full daylight, the
flowering or tree-like growth is never formed.
A question of great practical importance arises out of the relation of
the plant to its means of support. A moderate growth of ivy is not
injurious to trees; still the tendency is from the first inimical to the
prosperity of the tree, and at a certain stage it becomes deadly.
Therefore the growth of ivy on trees should be kept within reasonable
bounds, more especially in the case of trees that are of special value
for their beauty, history, or the quality of their timber. In regard to
buildings clothed with ivy, there is nothing to be feared so long as the
plant does not penetrate the substance of the wall by means of any
fissure. Should it thrust its way in, the natural and continuous
expansion of its several parts will necessarily hasten the decay of the
edifice. But a fair growth of ivy on sound walls that afford no entrance
beyond the superficial attachment of the claspers is, without any
exception whatever, beneficial. It promotes dryness and warmth, reduces
to a minimum the corrosive action of the atmosphere, and is altogether
as conservative as it is beautiful.
The economical uses of the ivy are not of great importance. The leaves
are eaten greedily by horses, deer, cattle and sheep, and in times of
scarcity have proved useful. The flowers afford a good supply of honey
to bees; and, as they appear in autumn, they occasionally make amends
for the shortcomings of the season. The berries are eaten by wood
pigeons, blackbirds and thrushes. From all parts of the plant a balsamic
bitter may be obtained, and this in the form of _hederic acid_ is the
only preparation of ivy known to chemists.
In the garden the uses of the ivy are innumerable, and the least known
though not the least valuable of them is the cultivation of the plant as
a bush or tree, the fruiting growth being selected for this purpose. The
variegated tree forms of _H. Helix_, with leaves of creamy white, golden
green or rich deep orange yellow, soon prove handsome miniature trees,
that thrive almost as well in smoky town gardens as in the pure air of
the country, and that no ordinary winter will injure in the least. The
tree-form of the Asiatic ivy (_H. colchica_) is scarcely to be equalled
in beauty of leafage by any evergreen shrub known to English gardens,
and, although in the course of a few years it will attain to a stature
of 5 or 6 ft., it is but rarely we meet with it, or indeed with tree
ivies of any kind, but little attention having been given to this
subject until recent years. The scandent forms are more generally
appreciated, and are now much employed in the formation of marginal
lines, screens and trained pyramids, as well as for clothing walls. A
very striking example of the capabilities of the commonest ivies, when
treated artistically as garden plants, may be seen in the Zoological
Gardens of Amsterdam, where several paddocks are enclosed with wreaths,
garlands and bands of ivy in a most picturesque manner.
About sixty varieties known in gardens are figured and described in _The
Ivy, a Monograph_, by Shirley Hibberd (1872). To cultivate these is an
extremely simple matter, as they will thrive in a poor soil and endure a
considerable depth of shade, so that they may with advantage be planted
under trees. The common Irish ivy is often to be seen clothing the
ground beneath large yew trees where grass would not live, and it is
occasionally planted in graveyards in London to form an imitation of
grass turf, for which purpose it is admirably suited.
The ivy, like the holly, is a scarce plant on the American continent. In
the northern United States and British America the winters are not more
severe than the ivy can endure, but the summers are too hot and dry, and
the requirements of the plant have not often obtained attention. In
districts where native ferns abound the ivy will be found to thrive, and
the varieties of _Hedera Helix_ should have the preference. But in the
drier districts ivies might often be planted on the north side of
buildings, and, if encouraged with water and careful training for three
or four years, would then grow rapidly and train themselves. A strong
light is detrimental to the growth of ivy, but this enhances its value,
for we have no hardy plants that may be compared with it for variety and
beauty that will endure shade with equal patience.
The North American poison ivy (poison oak), _Rhus Toxicodendron_ (nat.
order Anacardiaceae), is a climber with pinnately compound leaves, which
are very attractive in their autumn colour but poisonous to the touch to
some persons, while others can handle the plant without injury. The
effects are redness and violent itching followed by fever and a
vesicular eruption.
The ground ivy, _Nepeta Glechoma_ (nat. order Labiatae), is a small
creeping plant with rounded crenate leaves and small blue-purple
flowers, occurring in hedges and thickets.
IWAKURA, TOMOMI, PRINCE (1835-1883), Japanese statesman, was born in
Kioto. He was one of the court nobles (_kuge_) of Japan, and he traced
his descent to the emperor Murakami (A.D. 947-967). A man of profound
ability and singular force of character, he acted a leading part in the
complications preceding the fall of the Tokugawa _shogunate_, and was
obliged to fly from Kioto accompanied by his coadjutor, Prince Sanjo.
They took refuge with the _Daimyo_ of Choshu, and, while there,
established relations which contributed greatly to the ultimate union of
the two great fiefs, Satsuma and Choshu, for the work of the
Restoration. From 1867 until the day of his death Iwakura was one of the
most prominent figures on the political stage. In 1871 he proceeded to
America and Europe at the head of an imposing embassy of some fifty
persons, the object being to explain to foreign governments the actual
conditions existing in Japan, and to pave the way for negotiating new
treaties consistent with her sovereign rights. Little success attended
the mission. Returning to Japan in 1873, Iwakura found the cabinet
divided as to the manner of dealing with Korea's insulting attitude. He
advocated peace, and his influence carried the day, thus removing a
difficulty which, though apparently of minor dimensions, might have
changed the whole course of Japan's modern history.
IXION, in Greek legend, son of Phlegyas, king of the Lapithae in
Thessaly (or of Ares), and husband of Dia. According to custom he
promised his father-in-law, Deioneus, a handsome bridal present, but
treacherously murdered him when he claimed the fulfilment of the
promise. As a punishment, Ixion was seized with madness, until Zeus
purified him of his crime and admitted him as a guest to Olympus. Ixion
abused his pardon by trying to seduce Hera; but the goddess substituted
for herself a cloud, by which he became the father of the Centaurs. Zeus
bound him on a fiery wheel, which rolls unceasingly through the air or
(according to the later version) in the underworld (Pindar, _Pythia_,
ii. 21; Ovid, _Metam._ iv. 461; Virgil, Aeneid, vi. 601). Ixion is
generally taken to represent the eternally moving sun. Another
explanation connects the story with the practice (among certain peoples
of central Europe) of carrying a blazing, revolving wheel through fields
which needed the heat of the sun, the legend being invented to explain
the custom and subsequently adopted by the Greeks (see Mannhardt, _Wald-
und Feldkulte_, ii. 1905, p. 83). In view of the fact that the oak was
the sun-god's tree and that the mistletoe grew upon it, it is suggested
by A. B. Cook (_Class. Rev._ xvii. 420) that [Greek: Ixion] is derived
from [Greek: ixos] (mistletoe), the sun's fire being regarded as an
emanation from the mistletoe. Ixion himself is probably a by-form of
Zeus (Usener in _Rhein. Mus._ liii. 345).
"The Myth of Ixion" (by C. Smith, in _Classical Review_, June 1895)
deals with the subject of a red-figure cantharus in the British
Museum.
IXTACCIHUATL, or IZTACCIHUATL ("white woman"), a lofty mountain of
volcanic origin, 10 m. N. of Popocatepetl and about 40 m. S.S.E of the
city of Mexico, forming part of the short spur called the Sierra Nevada.
According to Angelo Heilprin (1853-1907) its elevation is 16,960 ft.;
other authorities make it much less. Its apparent height is dwarfed
somewhat by its elongated summit and the large area covered. It has
three summits of different heights standing on a north and south line,
the central one being the largest and highest and all three rising above
the permanent snow-line. As seen from the city of Mexico the three
summits have the appearance of a shrouded human figure, hence the poetic
Aztec appellation of "white woman" and the unsentimental Spanish
designation "_La mujer gorda_." The ascent is difficult and perilous,
and is rarely accomplished.
Heilprin says that the mountain is largely composed of trachytic rocks
and that it is older than Popocatepetl. It has no crater and no trace
of lingering volcanic heat. It is surmised that its crater, if it ever
had one, has been filled in and its cone worn away by erosion through
long periods of time.
IYRCAE, an ancient nation on the north-east trade route described by
Herodotus (iv. 22) beyond the Thyssagetae, somewhere about the upper
basins of the Tobol and the Irtysh. They were distinguished by their
mode of hunting, climbing a tree to survey their game, and then pursuing
it with trained horses and dogs. They were almost certainly the
ancestors of the modern Magyars, also called Jugra.
The reading [Greek: Tyrkai] is an anachronism, and when Pliny (_N.H._
vi. 19) and Mela (i. 116) speak of Tyrcae it is also probably due to a
false correction. (E. H. M.)
IZBARTA, or SPARTA [anc. _Baris_], the chief town of the Hamid-abad
sanjak of the Konia vilayet, in Asia Minor, well situated on the edge of
a fertile plain at the foot of Aghlasun Dagh. It was once the capital of
the Emirate of Hamid. It suffered severely from the earthquake of the
16th-17th of January 1889. It is a prosperous place with an enlightened
Greek element in its population (hence the numerous families called
"Spartali" in Levantine towns); and it is, in fact, the chief inland
colony of Hellenism in Anatolia; Pop. 20,000 (Moslems 13,000, Christians
7000). The new Aidin railway extends from Dineir to Izbarta via Buldur.
IZHEVSK, a town of Russia, in the government of Vyatka, 140 m. S.W. of
Perm and 22 m. W. from the Kama, on the Izh river. Pop. (1897) 21,500.
It has one of the principal steel and rifle works of the Russian crown,
started in 1807. The making of sporting guns is an active industry.
IZMAIL, or ISMAIL, a town of Russia, in the government of Bessarabia, on
the left bank of the Kilia branch of the Danube, 35 m. below Reni
railway station. Pop. (1866) 31,779, (1900) 33,607, comprising Great and
Little Russians, Bulgarians, Jews and Gipsies. There are flour-mills and
a trade in cereals, wool, tallow and hides. Originally a Turkish
fortified post, Izmail had by the end of the 18th century grown into a
place of 30,000 inhabitants. It was occupied by the Russians in 1770,
and twenty years later its capture was one of the brilliant achievements
of the Russian general, Count A. V. Suvarov. On that occasion the
garrison was 40,000 strong, and the assault cost the assailants 10,000
and the defenders 30,000 men. The victory was the theme of one of the
Russian poet G. R. Derzhavin's odes. In 1809 the town was again captured
by the Russians; and, when in 1812 it was assigned to them by the
Bucharest peace, they chose it as the central station for their Danube
fleet. It was about this time that the town of Tuchkov, with which it
was later (1830) incorporated, grew up outside of the fortifications.
These were dismantled in accordance with the treaty of Paris (1856), by
which Izmail was made over to Rumania. The town was again transferred to
Russia by the peace of Berlin (1878).
IZU-NO-SHICHI-TO, the seven (_shichi_) islands (_to_) of Izu, included
in the empire of Japan. They stretch in a southerly direction from a
point near the mouth of Tokyo Bay, and lie between 33 deg. and 34 deg.
48' N. and between 139 deg. and 140 deg. E. Their names, beginning from
the north, are Izu-no-Oshima, To-shima, Nii-shima, Kozu-shima,
Miyake-shima and Hachijo-shima. There are some islets in their immediate
vicinity. Izu-no-Oshima, an island 10 m. long and 5(1/2) m. wide, is 15
m. from the nearest point of the Izu promontory. It is known to western
cartographers as Vries Island, a name derived from that of Captain
Martin Gerritsz de Vries, a Dutch navigator, who is supposed to have
discovered the island in 1643. But the group was known to the Japanese
from a remote period, and used as convict settlements certainly from the
12th century and probably from a still earlier era. Hachijo, the most
southerly, is often erroneously written "Fatsisio" on English charts.
Izu-no-Oshima is remarkable for its smoking volcano, Mihara-yama (2461
ft.), a conspicuous object to all ships bound for Yokohama. Three others
of the islands--Nii-shima, Kozu-shima and Miyake-shima--have active
volcanoes. Those on Nii-shima and Kozu-shima are of inconsiderable size,
but that on Miyake-shima, namely, Oyama, rises to a height of 2707 ft.
The most southerly island, Hachijo-shima, has a still higher peak,
Dsubotake (2838 ft.), but it does not emit any smoke.
J A letter of the alphabet which, as far as form is concerned, is only a
modification of the Latin I and dates back with a separate value only to
the 15th century. It was first used as a special form of initial I, the
ordinary form being kept for use in other positions. As, however, in
many cases initial _i_ had the consonantal value of the English _y_ in
_iugum_ (yoke), &c., the symbol came to be used for the value of y, a
value which it still retains in German: _Ja! jung_, &c. Initially it is
pronounced in English as an affricate _dzh_. The great majority of
English words beginning with _j_ are (1) of foreign (mostly French)
origin, as "jaundice," "judge"; (2) imitative of sound, like "jar" (the
verb); or (3) influenced by analogy, like "jaw" (influenced by _chaw_,
according to Skeat). In early French _g_ when palatalized by _e_ or _i_
sounds became confused with consonantal _i_ (_y_), and both passed into
the sound of _j_ which is still preserved in English. A similar
sound-change takes place in other languages, e.g. Lithuanian, where the
resulting sound is spelt _dz_. Modern French and also Provencal and
Portuguese have changed _j = dzh_ into _z_ (_zh_). The sound initially
is sometimes represented in English by _g_: _gem_, _gaol_ as well as
_jail_. At the end of modern English words the same sound is represented
by -_dge_ as in _judge_, French _juge_. In this position, however, the
sound occurs also in genuine English words like _bridge_, _sedge_,
_singe_, but this is true only for the southern dialects on which the
literary language is founded. In the northern dialects the pronunciation
as _brig_, _seg_, _sing_ still survives. (P. Gi.)
JA'ALIN (from _Ja'al_, to settle, i.e. "the squatters"), an African
tribe of Semitic stock. They formerly occupied the country on both banks
of the Nile from Khartum to Abu Hamed. They claim to be of the Koreish
tribe and even trace descent from Abbas, uncle of the prophet. They are
of Arab origin, but now of very mixed blood. According to their own
tradition they emigrated to Nubia in the 12th century. They were at one
time subject to the Funj kings, but their position was in a measure
independent. At the Egyptian invasion in 1820 they were the most
powerful of Arab tribes in the Nile valley. They submitted at first, but
in 1822 rebelled and massacred the Egyptian garrison at Shendi. The
revolt was mercilessly suppressed, and the Ja'alin were thenceforward
looked on with suspicion. They were almost the first of the northern
tribes to join the mahdi in 1884, and it was their position to the north
of Khartum which made communication with General Gordon so difficult.
The Ja'alin are now a semi-nomad agricultural people. Many are employed
in Khartum as servants, scribes and watchmen. They are a proud religious
people, formerly notorious as cruel slave dealers. J. L. Burckhardt says
the true Ja'alin from the eastern desert is exactly like the Bedouin of
eastern Arabia.
See _The Anglo-Egyptian Sudan_, edited by Count Gleichen (London,
1905).
JABIRU, according to Marcgrave the Brazilian name of a bird, subsequently
called by Linnaeus _Mycteria americana_, one of the largest of the
storks, _Ciconiidae_, which occurs from Mexico southwards to the
territory of the Argentine Republic. It stands between 4 and 5 ft. in
height, and is conspicuous for its massive bill, slightly upturned, and
its entirely white plumage; but the head and neck are bare and black,
except for about the lower third part of the latter, which is bright red
in the living bird. Very nearly allied to _Mycteria_, and also commonly
called jabirus, are the birds of the genera _Xenorhynchus_ and
_Ephippiorhynchus_--the former containing one or (in the opinion of some)
two species, _X. australis_ and _X. indicus_, and the latter one only,
_E. senegalensis_. These belong to the countries indicated by their
names, and differ chiefly by their feathered head and neck, while the
last is sometimes termed the saddle-billed stork from the very singular
shape of its beak. Somewhat more distantly related are the gigantic birds
known to Europeans in India and elsewhere as adjutant birds, belonging to
the genus _Leptoptilus_, distinguished by their sad-coloured plumage,
their black scabrous head, and their enormous tawny pouch, which depends
occasionally some 16 in. or more in length from the lower part of the
neck, and seems to be connected with the respiratory and not, as commonly
believed, with the digestive system. In many parts of India _L. dubius_,
the largest of these birds, the _hargila_ as Hindus call it, is a most
efficient scavenger, sailing aloft at a vast height and descending on the
discovery of offal, though frogs and fishes also form part of its diet.
It familiarly enters the large towns, in many of which an account of its
services it is strictly protected from injury, and, having satisfied its
appetite, seeks the repose it has earned, sitting with its feet extended
in front in a most grotesque attitude. A second and smaller species, _L.
javanicus_, has a more southern and eastern range; while a third, _L.
crumenifer_, of African origin, and often known as the marabou-stork,
gives its name to the beautifully soft feathers so called, which are the
under-tail-coverts; the "marabout" feathers of the plume-trade are mostly
supplied by other birds, the term being apparently applied to any downy
feathers. (A. N.)
[Illustration: Jabiru.]
JABLOCHKOV, PAUL (1847-1894), Russian electrical engineer and inventor,
was born at Serdobsk, in the government of Saratov, on the 14th of
September 1847, and educated at St Petersburg. In 1871 he was appointed
director of the telegraph lines between Moscow and Kursk, but in 1875 he
resigned his position in order to devote himself to his researches on
electric lighting by arc lamps, which he had already taken up. In 1876
he settled in Paris, and towards the end of the year brought out his
famous "candles," known by his name, which consisted of two carbon
parallel rods, separated by a non-conducting partition; alternating
currents were employed, and the candle was operated by a high-resistance
carbon match connecting the tips of the rods, a true arc forming between
the parallel carbons when this burnt off, and the separators
volatilizing as the carbons burnt away. For a few years his system of
electric lighting was widely adopted, but it was gradually superseded
(see LIGHTING: _Electric_) and is no longer in use. Jablochkov made
various other electrical inventions, but he died in poverty, having
returned to Russia on the 19th of March 1894.
JABLONSKI, DANIEL ERNST (1660-1741), German theologian, was born at
Nassenhuben, near Danzig, on the 20th of November 1660. His father was a
minister of the Moravian Church, who had taken the name of Peter Figulus
on his baptism; the son, however, preferred the Bohemian family name of
Jablonski. His maternal grandfather, Johann Amos Comenius (d. 1670), was
a bishop of the Moravian Church. Having studied at Frankfort-on-the-Oder
and at Oxford, Jablonski entered upon his career as a preacher at
Magdeburg in 1683, and then from 1686 to 1691 he was the head of the
Moravian college at Lissa, a position which had been filled by his
grandfather. Still retaining his connexion with the Moravians, he was
appointed court preacher at Konigsberg in 1691 by the elector of
Brandenburg, Frederick III., and here, entering upon a career of great
activity, he soon became a person of influence in court circles. In 1693
he was transferred to Berlin as court preacher, and in 1699 he was
consecrated a bishop of the Moravian Church. At Berlin Jablonski worked
hard to bring about a union between the followers of Luther and those of
Calvin; the courts of Berlin, Hanover, Brunswick and Gotha were
interested in his scheme, and his principal helper was the philosopher
Leibnitz. His idea appears to have been to form a general union between
the German, the English and the Swiss Protestants, and thus to establish
_una eademque sancta catholica et apostolica eademque evangelica et
reformata ecclesia_. For some years negotiations were carried on with a
view to attaining this end, but eventually it was found impossible to
surmount the many difficulties in the way; Jablonski and Leibnitz,
however, did not cease to believe in the possibility of accomplishing
their purpose. Jablonski's next plan was to reform the Church of Prussia
by introducing into it the episcopate, and also the liturgy of the
English Church, but here again he was unsuccessful. As a scholar
Jablonski brought out a Hebrew edition of the Old Testament, and
translated Bentley's _A Confutation of Atheism_ into Latin (1696). He
had some share in founding the Berlin Academy of Sciences, of which he
was president in 1733, and he received a degree from the university of
Oxford. He died on the 25th of May 1741.
Jablonski's son, Paul Ernst Jablonski (1693-1757), was professor of
theology and philosophy at the university of Frankfort-on-the-Oder.
Editions of the letters which passed between Jablonski and Leibnitz,
relative to the proposed union, were published at Leipzig in 1747 and
at Dorpat in 1899.
JABORANDI, a name given in a generic manner in Brazil and South America
generally to a number of different plants, all of which possess more or
less marked sialogogue and sudorific properties. In the year 1875 a drug
was introduced under the above name to the notice of medical men in
France by Dr Coutinho of Pernambuco, its botanical source being then
unknown. _Pilocarpus pennatifolius_, a member of the natural order
Rutaceae, the plant from which it is obtained, is a slightly branched
shrub about 10 ft. high, growing in Paraguay and the eastern provinces
of Brazil. The leaves, which are placed alternately on the stem, are
often 1(1/2) ft. long, and consist of from two to five pairs of opposite
leaflets, the terminal one having a longer pedicel than the others. The
leaflets are oval, lanceolate, entire and obtuse, with the apex often
slightly indented, from 3 to 4 in. long and 1 to 1(1/2) in. broad in the
middle. When held up to the light they may be observed to have scattered
all over them numerous pellucid dots or receptacles of secretion
immersed in the substance of the leaf. The leaves in size and texture
bear some resemblance to those of the cherry-laurel (_Prunus
laurocerasus_), but are less polished on the upper surface. The flowers,
which are produced in spring and early summer, are borne on a raceme, 6
or 8 in. long, and the fruit consists of five carpels, of which not more
than two or three usually arrive at maturity. The leaves are the part of
the plant usually imported, although occasionally the stems and roots
are attached to them. The active principle for which the name
_pilocarpine_, suggested by Holmes, was ultimately adopted, was
discovered almost simultaneously by Hardy in France and Gerrard in
England, but was first obtained in a pure state by Petit of Paris. It is
a liquid alkaloid, slightly soluble in water, and very soluble in
alcohol, ether and chloroform. It strongly rotates the plane of
polarization to the right, and forms crystalline salts of which the
nitrate is that chiefly used in medicine. The nitrate and phosphate are
insoluble in ether, chloroform and benzol, while the hydrochlorate and
hydrobromate dissolve both in these menstrua and in water and alcohol;
the sulphate and acetate being deliquescent are not employed
medicinally. The formula of the alkaloid is C11H16N2O2.
Certain other alkaloids are present in the leaves. They have been named
_jaborine, jaboridine and pilocarpidine_. The first of these is the most
important and constant. It is possibly derived from pilocarpine, and has
the formula C22H32N4O4. Jaborine resembles atropine pharmacologically,
and is therefore antagonistic to pilocarpine. The various preparations
of jaborandi leaves are therefore undesirable for therapeutic purposes,
and only the nitrate of pilocarpine itself should be used. This is a
white crystalline powder, soluble in the ratio of about one part in ten
of cold water. The dose is (1/20)-(1/2) grain by the mouth, and up to
one-third of a grain hypodermically, in which fashion it is usually
given.
[Illustration: Jaborandi--a, leaf (reduced); b, leaflet (natural size);
c, flower; d, fruit (natural size).]
The action of this powerful alkaloid closely resembles that of
physostigmine, but whereas the latter is specially active in
influencing the heart, the eye and the spinal cord, pilocarpine exerts
its greatest power on the secretions. It has no external action. When
taken by the mouth the drug is rapidly absorbed and stimulates the
secretions of the entire alimentary tract, though not of the liver.
The action on the salivary glands is the most marked and the best
understood. The great flow of saliva is due to an action of the drug,
after absorption, on the terminations of the chorda tympani,
sympathetic and other nerves of salivary secretion. The gland cells
themselves are unaffected. The nerves are so violently excited that
direct stimulation of them by electricity adds nothing to the rate of
salivary flow. The action is antagonized by atropine, which paralyses
the nerve terminals. About (1/100)th of a grain of atropine
antagonizes half a grain of pilocarpine. The circulation is depressed
by the drug, the pulse being slowed and the blood pressure falling.
The cardiac action is due to stimulation of the vagus, but the
dilatation of the blood-vessels does not appear to be due to a
specific action upon them. The drug does not kill by its action on the
heart. Its dangerous action is upon the bronchial secretion, which is
greatly increased. Pilocarpine is not only the most powerful
sialogogue but also the most powerful diaphoretic known. One dose may
cause the flow of nearly a pint of sweat in an hour. The action is
due, as in the case of the salivation, to stimulation of the terminals
of the sudorific nerves. According to K. Binz there is also in both
cases an action on the medullary centres for these secretions. Just as
the saliva is a true secretion containing a high proportion of ptyalin
and salts, and is not a mere transudation of water, so the
perspiration is found to contain a high ratio of urea and chlorides.
The great diaphoresis and the depression of the circulation usually
cause a fall in temperature of about 2 deg. F. The drug is excreted
unchanged in the urine. It is a mild diuretic. When given internally
or applied locally to the eye it powerfully stimulates the terminals
of the oculomotor nerves in the iris and ciliary muscle, causing
extreme contraction of the pupil and spasm of accommodation. The
tension of the eyeball is at first raised but afterwards lowered.
The chief therapeutic use of the drug is as a diaphoretic in chronic
Bright's disease. It is also used to aid the growth of the hair--in
which it is sometimes successful; in cases of inordinate thirst, when
one-tenth of a grain with a little bismuth held in the mouth may be of
much value; in cases of lead and mercury poisoning, where it aids the
elimination of the poison in the secretions; as a galactagogue; and in
cases of atropine poisoning (though here it is of doubtful value).
JACA, a city of northern Spain, in the province of Huesca, 114 m. by
rail N. by W. of Saragossa, on the left bank of the river Aragon, and
among the southern slopes of the Pyrenees, 2380 ft. above the sea. Pop.
(1900), 4934. Jaca is an episcopal see, and was formerly the capital of
the Aragonese county of Sobrarbe. Its massive Gothic cathedral dates at
least from the 11th century, and possibly from the 9th. The city derives
some importance from its position on the ancient frontier road from
Saragossa to Pau. In August 1904 the French and Spanish governments
agreed to supplement this trade-route by building a railway from Oloron
in the Basses Pyrenees to Jaca. Various frontier defence works were
constructed in the neighbourhood at the close of the 19th century.
The origin of the city is unknown. The Jaccetani ([Greek: Iakketanoi])
are mentioned as one of the most celebrated of the numerous small tribes
inhabiting the basin of the Ebro by Strabo, who adds that their
territory was the theatre of the wars which took place in the 1st
century B.C. between Sertorius and Pompey. They are probably identical
with the Lacetani of Livy (xxi. 60, 61) and Caesar (_B.C._ i. 60). Early
in the 8th century Jaca fell into the possession of the Moors, by whose
writers it is referred to under the name of Dyaka as one of the chief
places in the province of Sarkosta (Saragossa). The date of its
reconquest is uncertain, but it must have been before the time of Ramiro
I. of Aragon (1035-1063), who gave it the title of "city," and in 1063
held within its walls a council, which, inasmuch as the people were
called in to sanction its decrees, is regarded as of great importance in
the history of the parliamentary institutions of the Peninsula. In 1705
Jaca supported King Philip V. from whom, in consequence, it received the
title of _muy noble, muy leal y vencedora_, "most noble, most loyal and
victorious." During the Peninsular War it surrendered to the French in
1809, and was recaptured in 1814.
JACAMAR, a word formed by Brisson from _Jacameri_, the Brazilian name of
a bird, as given by Marcgrave, and since adopted in most European tongues
for the species to which it was first applied and others allied to it,
forming the family _Galbulidae_[1] of ornithologists, the precise
position of which is uncertain, since the best authorities differ. All
will agree that the jacamars belong to the great heterogeneous group
called by Nitzsch Picariae, but further into detail it is hardly safe to
go. The _Galbulidae_ have zygodactylous or pair-toed feet, like the
_Cuculidae_, _Bucconidae_ and _Picidae_, they also resemble both the
latter in laying glossy white eggs, but in this respect they bear the
same resemblance to the _Momotidae_, _Alcedinidae_, _Meropidae_ and some
other groups, to which affinity has been claimed for them. In the opinion
of Sclater (_A Monograph of the Jacamars and Puff-birds_) the jacamars
form two groups--one consisting of the single genus and species
_Jacamerops aureus_ (_J. grandis_ of most authors), and the other
including all the rest, viz. _Urogalba_ with two species, _Galbula_ with
nine, _Brachygalba_ with five, and _Jacamaralcyon_ and _Galbalcyrhynchus_
with one each. They are all rather small birds, the largest known being
little over 10 in. in length, with long and sharply pointed bills, and
the plumage more or less resplendent with golden or bronze reflections,
but at the same time comparatively soft. _Jacamaralcyon tridactyla_
differs from all the rest in possessing but three toes (as its name
indicates), on each foot, the hallux being deficient. With the exception
of _Galbula melanogenia_, which is found also in Central America and
southern Mexico, all the jacamars inhabit the tropical portions of South
America eastward of the Andes, _Galbula ruficauda_, however, extending
its range to the islands of Trinidad and Tobago.[2] Very little is known
of the habits of any of the species. They are seen sitting motionless on
trees, sometimes solitarily, at other times in companies, whence they
suddenly dart off at any passing insect, catch it on the wing, and return
to their perch. Of their nidification almost nothing has been recorded,
but the species occurring in Tobago is said by Kirk to make its nest in
marl-banks, digging a hole about an inch and a half in diameter and some
18 in. deep. (A. N.)
FOOTNOTES:
[1] _Galbula_ was first applied to Marcgrave's bird by Moehring. It
is another form of _Galgulus_, and seems to have been one of the many
names of the golden oriole. See ICTERUS.
[2] The singular appearance, recorded by Canon Tristram (_Zoologist_,
p. 3906), of a bird of this species in Lincolnshire seems to require
notice. No instance seems to be known of any jacamar having been kept
in confinement or brought to this country alive; but expert
aviculturists are often not communicative, and many importations of
rare birds have doubtless passed unrecorded.
JACANA, the Brazilian name, according to Marcgrave, of certain birds,
since found to have some allies in other parts of the world, which are
also very generally called by the same appellation. They have been most
frequently classed with the water-hens or rails (_Rallidae_), but are
now recognized by many systematists as forming a separate family,
_Parridae_,[1] whose leaning seems to be rather towards the _Limicolae_,
as apparently first suggested by Blyth, a view which is supported by the
osteological observations of Parker (_Proc. Zool. Society_, 1863, p.
513), though denied by A. Milne-Edwards (_Ois. foss. de la France_, ii.
p. 110). The most obvious characteristic of this group of birds is the
extraordinary length of their toes and claws, whereby they are enabled
to walk with ease over water-lilies and other aquatic plants growing in
rivers and lakes. The family has been divided into four genera--of which
_Parra_, as now restricted, inhabits South America; _Metopidius_, hardly
differing from it, has representatives in Africa, Madagascar and the
Indian region; _Hydralector_, also very nearly allied to _Parra_,
belongs to the northern portion of the Australian region; and
_Hydrophasianus_, the most extravagant form of the whole, is found in
India, Ceylon and China. In habits the jacanas have much in common with
the water-hens, but that fact is insufficient to warrant the affinity
asserted to exist between the two groups; for in their osteological
structure there is much difference, and the resemblance seems to be only
that of analogy. The _Parridae_ lay very peculiar eggs of a rich
olive-brown colour, in most cases closely marked with dark lines, thus
presenting an appearance by which they may be readily known from those
of any other birds, though an approach to it is occasionally to be
noticed in those of certain _Limicolae_, and especially of certain
_Charadriidae_. (A. N.)
[Illustration: Pheasant-tailed Jacana.]
FOOTNOTE:
[1] The classic _Parra_ is by some authors thought to have been the
golden oriole (see ICTERUS), while others suppose it was a jay or
pie. The word seems to have been imported into ornithology by
Aldrovandus, but the reason which prompted Linnaeus to apply it, as
he seems first to have done, to a bird of this group, cannot be
satisfactorily stated.
JACINI, STEFANO, COUNT (1827-1891), Italian statesman and economist, was
descended from an old and wealthy Lombard family. He studied in
Switzerland, at Milan, and in German universities. During the period of
the Austrian restoration in Lombardy (1849-1859) he devoted himself to
literary and economic studies. For his work on _La Proprieta fondiaria
in Lombardia_ (Milan, 1856) he received a prize from the Milanese
_Societa d'incoraggiamento di scienze e lettere_ and was made a member
of the Istituto Lombardo. In another work, _Sulle condizioni economiche
della Valtellina_ (Milan, 1858, translated into English by W. E.
Gladstone), he exposed the evils of Austrian rule, and he drew up a
report on the general conditions of Lombardy and Venetia for Cavour. He
was minister of Public Works under Cavour in 1860-1861, in 1864 under La
Marmora, and down to 1867 under Ricasoli. In 1866 he presented a bill
favouring Italy's participation in the construction of the St Gotthard
tunnel. He was instrumental in bringing about the alliance with Prussia
for the war of 1866 against Austria, and in the organization of the
Italian railways. From 1881 to 1886 he was president of the commission
to inquire into the agricultural conditions of Italy, and edited the
voluminous report on the subject. He was created senator in 1870, and
given the title of count in 1880. He died in 1891.
L. Carpi's _Risorgimento italiano_, vol. iv. (Milan, 1888), contains a
short sketch of Jacini's life.
JACK, a word with a great variety of meanings and applications, all
traceable to the common use of the word as a by-name of a man. The
question has been much discussed whether "Jack" as a name is an
adaptation of Fr. _Jacques_, i.e. James, from Lat. _Jacobus_, Gr.
[Greek: Iakobos], or whether it is a direct pet formation from John,
which is its earliest and universal use in English. In the _History of
the Monastery of St Augustine_ at Canterbury, 1414, Jack is given as a
form of John--_Mos est Saxonum ... verba et nomina transformare ... ut
... pro Johanne Jankin sive Jacke_ (see E. W. B. Nicholson, _The
Pedigree of Jack and other Allied Names_, 1892). "Jack" was early used
as a general term for any man of the common people, especially in
combination with the woman's name Jill or Gill, as in the nursery rhyme.
The _New English Dictionary_ quotes from the _Coventry Mysteries_, 1450:
"And I wole kepe the feet this tyde Thow ther come both Iakke and
Gylle." Familiar examples of this generic application of the name are
Jack or Jack Tar for a sailor, which seems to date from the 17th
century, and such compound uses as cheap-jack and steeple-jack, or such
expressions as "jack in office," "jack of all trades," &c. It is a
further extension of this that gives the name to the knave in a pack of
cards, and also to various animals, as jackdaw, jack-snipe, jack-rabbit
(a species of large prairie-hare); it is also used as a general name for
pike.
The many applications of the word "jack" to mechanical devices and other
objects follow two lines of reference, one to objects somewhat smaller
than the ordinary, the other to appliances which take the place of
direct manual labour or assist or save it. Of the first class may be
noticed the use of the term for the small object bowl in the game of
bowls or for jack rafters, those rafters in a building shorter than the
main rafters, especially the end rafters in a hipped roof. The use of
jack as the name for a particular form of ship's flag probably arose
thus, for it is always a smaller flag than the ensign. The jack is flown
on a staff on the bowsprit of a vessel. In the British navy the jack is
a small Union flag. (The Union flag should not be styled a Union Jack
except when it is flown as a jack.) The jack of other nations is usually
the canton of the ensign, as in the German and the United States navies,
or else is a smaller form of the national ensign, as in France. (See
FLAG.)
The more common use of "jack" is for various mechanical and other
devices originally used as substitutes for men or boys. Thus the origin
of the boot-jack and the meat-jack is explained in Isaac Watts's
_Logic_, 1724: "So foot boys, who had frequently the common name of Jack
given them, were kept to turn the spit or pull off their masters' boots,
but when instruments were invented for both these services, they were
both called jacks." The _New English Dictionary_ finds a transitional
sense in the use of the name "jack" for mechanical figures which strike
the hours on a bell of a clock. Such a figure in the clock of St
Lawrence Church at Reading is called a jack in the parish accounts for
1498-1499. There are many different applications of "jack," to certain
levers and other parts of textile machinery, to metal plugs used for
connecting lines in a telephone exchange, to wooden uprights connecting
the levers of the keys with the strings in the harpsichord and virginal,
to a framework forming a seat or staging which can be fixed outside a
window for cleaning or painting purposes, and to many devices containing
a roller or winch, as in a jack towel, a long towel hung on a roller.
The principal mechanical application of the word, however, is to a
machine for raising weights from below. A jack chain, so called from its
use in meat-jacks, is one in which the links, formed each in a figure of
eight, are set in planes at right angles to each other, so that they are
seen alternately flat or edgeways.
In most European languages the word "jack" in various forms appears for
a short upper outer garment, particularly in the shape of a sleeveless
(quilted) leather jerkin, sometimes with plates or rings of iron sewn to
it. It was the common coat of defence of the infantry of the middle
ages. The word in this case is of French origin and was an adaptation of
the common name _Jacques_, as being a garment worn by the common people.
In French the word is _jaque_, and it appears in Italian as _giaco_, or
_giacco_, in Dutch _jak_, Swedish _jacka_ and German _Jacke_, still the
ordinary name for a short coat, as is the English jacket, from the
diminutive French _jaquette_. It was probably from some resemblance to
the leather coat that the well-known leather vessels for holding liquor
or for drinking were known as jacks or black jacks. These drinking
vessels, which are often of great size, were not described as black
jacks till the 16th century, though known as jacks much earlier. Among
the important specimens that have survived to this day is one with the
initials and crown of Charles I. and the date, 1646, which came from
Kensington Palace and is now in the British Museum; one each at Queen's
College and New College, Oxford; two at Winchester College; one at Eton
College; and six at the Chelsea Hospital. Many specimens are painted
with shields of arms, initials and other devices; they are very seldom
mounted in silver, though spurious specimens with silver medallions of
Cromwell and other prominent personages exist. At the end of the 17th
century a smaller jack of a different form, like an ordinary drinking
mug with a tapering cylindrical body, often mounted in silver, came into
vogue in a limited degree. The black jack is a distinct type of drinking
vessel from the leather botel and the bombard. The jack-boot, the heavy
riding boot with long flap covering the knee and part of the thigh, and
worn by troopers first during the 17th century, was so called probably
from association with the leather jack or jerkin. The jack-boot is still
worn by the Household Cavalry, and the name is applied to a high riding
boot reaching to the knee as distinguished from the riding boot with
tops, used in full hunting-kit or by grooms or coachmen.
Jack, sometimes spelled jak, is the common name for the fruit of the
tree _Artiocarpus integrifolia_, found in the East Indies. The word is
an adaptation of the Portuguese _jaca_ from the Malay name _chakka_.
(See BREAD FRUIT.)
The word "jackanapes," now used as an opprobrious term for a swaggering
person with impertinent ways and affected airs and graces, has a
disputed and curious history. According to the _New English Dictionary_
it first appears in 1450 in reference to William de la Pole, duke of
Suffolk (_Political Poems_, "Rolls Series," II. 224), "Jack Napys with
his clogge hath tiede Talbot oure gentille dogge." Suffolk's badge was a
clog and chain, such as was often used for an ape kept in captivity, and
he is alluded to (ibid. 222) as "Ape clogge." Jack Napes, Jack o' Napes,
Jackanapes, was a common name for a tame ape from the 16th century, and
it seems more likely that the word is a fanciful name for a monkey than
that it is due to the nickname of Suffolk.
JACKAL (Turk, _chakal_), a name properly restricted to _Canis aureus_, a
wolf-like wild member of the dog family inhabiting eastern Europe and
southern Asia, but extended to include a number of allied species.
Jackals resemble wolves and dogs in their dentition, the round
eye-pupils, the period of gestation, and to a large extent also in
habits. The European species grows to a height of 15 in. at the
shoulders, and to a length of about 2 ft., exclusive of its bushy tail.
Typically the fur is greyish-yellow, darker on the back and lighter
beneath. The range of the common jackal (_C. aureus_) extends from
Dalmatia to India, the species being represented by several local races.
In Senegal this species is replaced by _C. anthus_, while in Egypt
occurs the much larger _C. lupaster_, commonly known as the Egyptian
wolf. Nearly allied to the last is the so-called Indian wolf (_C.
pallipes_). Other African species are the black-backed jackal (_C.
mesomelas_), the variegated jackal (_C. variegatus_), and the dusky
jackal (_C. adustus_). Jackals are nocturnal animals, concealing
themselves until dusk in woody jungles and other natural lurking places,
and then sallying forth in packs, which sometimes number two hundred
individuals, and visiting farmyards, villages and towns in search of
food. This consists for the most part of the smaller mammals and
poultry; although the association in packs enables these marauders to
hunt down antelopes and sheep. When unable to obtain living prey, they
feed on carrion and refuse of all kinds, and are thus useful in removing
putrescent matter from the streets. They are also fond of grapes and
other fruits, and are thus the pests of the vineyard as well as the
poultry-yard. The cry of the jackal is even more appalling than that of
the hyena, a shriek from one member of a pack being the signal for a
general chorus of screams, which is kept up during the greater part of
the night. In India these animals are hunted with foxhounds or
greyhounds, and from their cunning and pluck afford excellent sport.
Jackals are readily tamed; and domesticated individuals are said, when
called by their masters, to wag their tails, crouch and throw themselves
on the ground, and otherwise behave in a dog-like fashion. The jackal,
like the fox, has an offensive odour, due to the secretion of a gland at
the base of the tail.
[Illustration: Egyptian Jackal (_Canis lupaster_).]
JACKDAW, or simply DAW (Old Low German, _Daha_; Dutch, _Kaauw_), one of
the smallest species of the genus _Corvus_ (see CROW), and a very well
known inhabitant of Europe, the _C. monedula_ of ornithologists. In some
of its habits it much resembles its congener the rook, with which it
constantly associates during a great part of the year; but, while the
rook only exceptionally places its nest elsewhere than on the boughs of
trees and open to the sky, the daw almost invariably chooses holes,
whether in rocks, hollow trees, rabbit-burrows or buildings. Nearly
every church-tower and castle, ruined or not, is more or less numerously
occupied by daws. Chimneys frequently give them the accommodation they
desire, much to the annoyance of the householder, who finds the funnel
choked by the quantity of sticks brought together by the birds, since
their industry in collecting materials for their nests is as marvellous
as it often is futile. In some cases the stack of loose sticks piled up
by daws in a belfry or tower has been known to form a structure 10 or 12
ft. in height, and hence this species may be accounted one of the
greatest nest-builders in the world. The style of architecture practised
by the daw thus brings it more than the rook into contact with man, and
its familiarity is increased by the boldness of its disposition which,
though tempered by discreet cunning, is hardly surpassed among birds.
Its small size, in comparison with most of its congeners, alone
incapacitates it from inflicting the serious injuries of which some of
them are often the authors, yet its pilferings are not to be denied,
though on the whole its services to the agriculturist are great, for in
the destruction of injurious insects it is hardly inferior to the rook,
and it has the useful habit of ridding sheep, on whose backs it may be
frequently seen perched, of some of their parasites.
The daw displays the glossy black plumage so characteristic of the true
crows, varied only by the hoary grey of the ear-coverts, and of the nape
and sides of the neck, which is the mark of the adult; but examples from
the east of Europe and western Asia have these parts much lighter,
passing into a silvery white, and hence have been deemed by some
authorities to constitute a distinct species (_C. collaris_, Drumm.).
Further to the eastward occurs the _C. dauuricus_ of Pallas, which has
not only the collar broader and of a pure white, but much of the lower
parts of the body white also. Japan and northern China are inhabited
also by a form resembling that of western Europe, but wanting the grey
nape of the latter. This is the _C. neglectus_ of Professor Schlegel,
and is said by Dresser, on the authority of Swinhoe, to interbreed
frequently with _C. dauuricus_. These are all the birds that seem
entitled to be considered daws, though Dr Bowdler Sharpe (_Cat. B. Brit.
Museum_, iii. 24) associates with them (under the little-deserved
separate generic distinction _Coloeus_) the fish-crow of North America,
which appears both in structure and in habits to be a true crow.
(A. N.)
JACKSON, ANDREW (1767-1845), seventh president of the United States, was
born on the 15th of March 1767, at the Waxhaw or Warsaw settlement, in
Union county, North Carolina, or in Lancaster county, South Carolina,
whither his parents had immigrated from Carrickfergus, Ireland, in 1765.
He played a slight part in the War of Independence, and was taken
prisoner in 1781, his treatment resulting in a lifelong dislike of Great
Britain. He studied law at Salisbury, North Carolina, was admitted to
the bar there in 1787, and began to practise at McLeansville, Guilford
county, North Carolina, where for a time he was a constable and
deputy-sheriff. In 1788, having been appointed prosecuting attorney of
the western district of North Carolina (now the state of Tennessee), he
removed to Nashville, the seat of justice of the district. In 1791 he
married Mrs Rachel Robards (_nee_ Donelson), having heard that her
husband had obtained a divorce through the legislature of Virginia. The
legislative act, however, had only authorized the courts to determine
whether or not there were sufficient grounds for a divorce and to grant
or withhold it accordingly. It was more than two years before the
divorce was actually granted, and only on the basis of the fact that
Jackson and Mrs Robards were then living together. On receiving this
information, Jackson had the marriage ceremony performed a second time.
In 1796 Jackson assisted in framing the constitution of Tennessee. From
December 1796 to March 1797 he represented that state in the Federal
House of Representatives, where he distinguished himself as an
irreconcilable opponent of President Washington, and was one of the
twelve representatives who voted against the address to him by the
House. In 1797 he was elected a United States senator; but he resigned
in the following year. He was judge of the supreme court of Tennessee
from 1798 to 1804. In 1804-1805 he contracted a friendship with Aaron
Burr; and at the latter's trial in 1807 Jackson was one of his
conspicuous champions. Up to the time of his nomination for the
presidency, the biographer of Jackson finds nothing to record but
military exploits in which he displayed perseverance, energy and skill
of a very high order, and a succession of personal acts in which he
showed himself ignorant, violent, perverse, quarrelsome and
astonishingly indiscreet. His combative disposition led him into
numerous personal difficulties. In 1795 he fought a duel with Colonel
Waitstill Avery (1745-1821), an opposing counsel, over some angry words
uttered in a court room; but both, it appears, intentionally fired wild.
In 1806 in another duel, after a long and bitter quarrel, he killed
Charles Dickinson, and Jackson himself received a wound from which he
never fully recovered. In 1813 he exchanged shots with Thomas Hart
Benton and his brother Jesse in a Nashville tavern, and received a
second wound. Jackson and Thomas Hart Benton were later reconciled.
In 1813-1814, as major-general of militia, he commanded in the campaign
against the Creek Indians in Georgia and Alabama, defeated them (at
Talladega, on the 9th of November 1813, and at Tohopeka, on the 29th of
March 1814), and thus first attracted public notice by his talents. In
May 1814 he was commissioned as major-general in the regular army to
serve against the British; in November he captured Pensacola, Florida,
then owned by Spain, but used by the British as a base of operations;
and on the 8th of January 1815 he inflicted a severe defeat on the enemy
before New Orleans, the contestants being unaware that a treaty of peace
had already been signed. During his stay in New Orleans he proclaimed
martial law, and carried out his measures with unrelenting sternness,
banishing from the town a judge who attempted resistance. When civil law
was restored, Jackson was fined $1000 for contempt of court; in 1844
Congress ordered the fine with interest ($2700) to be repaid. In 1818
Jackson received the command against the Seminoles. His conduct in
following them up into the Spanish territory of Florida, in seizing
Pensacola, and in arresting and executing two British subjects,
Alexander Arbuthnot and Robert Ambrister, gave rise to much hostile
comment in the cabinet and in Congress; but the negotiations for the
purchase of Florida put an end to the diplomatic difficulty. In 1821
Jackson was military governor of the territory of Florida, and there
again he came into collision with the civil authority. From this, as
from previous troubles, John Quincy Adams, then secretary of state,
extricated him.
In July 1822 the general assembly of Tennessee nominated Jackson for
president; and in 1823 he was elected to the United States Senate, from
which he resigned in 1825. The rival candidates for the office of
president in the campaign of 1824 were Jackson, John Quincy Adams, W. H.
Crawford and Henry Clay. Jackson obtained the largest number of votes
(99) in the electoral college (Adams receiving 84, Crawford 41 and Clay
37); but no one had an absolute majority, and it thus became the duty of
the House of Representatives to choose one of the three
candidates--Adams, Jackson and Crawford--who had received the greatest
numbers of electoral votes. At the election by the house (February 9,
1825) Adams was chosen, receiving the votes of 13 states, while Jackson
received the votes of 7 and Crawford the votes of 4. Jackson, however,
was recognized by the abler politicians as the coming man. Martin Van
Buren and others, going into opposition under his banner, waged from the
first a relentless and factious war on the administration. Van Buren was
the most adroit politician of his time; and Jackson was in the hands of
very astute men, who advised and controlled him. He was easy to lead
when his mind was in solution; and he gave his confidence freely where
he had once placed it. He was not suspicious, but if he withdrew his
confidence he was implacable. When his mind crystallized on a notion
that had a personal significance to himself, that notion became a hard
fact that filled his field of vision. When he was told that he had been
cheated in the matter of the presidency,[1] he was sure of it, although
those who told him were by no means so.
There was great significance in the election of Jackson in 1828. A new
generation was growing up under new economic and social conditions. They
felt great confidence in themselves and great independence. They
despised tradition and Old World ways and notions; and they accepted the
Jeffersonian dogmas, not only as maxims, but as social forces--the
causes of the material prosperity of the country. By this generation,
therefore, Jackson was recognized as a man after their own heart. They
liked him because he was vigorous, brusque, uncouth, relentless,
straightforward and open. They made him president in 1828, and he
fulfilled all their expectations. He had 178 votes in the electoral
college against 83 given for Adams. Though the work of redistribution of
offices began almost at his inauguration, it is yet an incorrect account
of the matter to say that Jackson corrupted the civil service. His
administration is rather the date at which a system of democracy,
organized by the use of patronage, was introduced into the federal arena
by Van Buren. It was at this time that the Democratic or Republican
party divided, largely along personal lines, into Jacksonian Democrats
and National Republicans, the latter led by such men as Henry Clay and
J. Q. Adams. The administration itself had two factions in it from the
first, the faction of Van Buren, the secretary of state in 1829-1831,
and that of Calhoun, vice-president in 1829-1832. The refusal of the
wives of the cabinet and of Mrs Calhoun to accord social recognition to
Mrs J. H. Eaton brought about a rupture, and in April 1831 the whole
cabinet was reorganized. Van Buren, a widower, sided with the president
in this affair and grew in his favour. Jackson in the meantime had
learned that Calhoun as secretary of war had wished to censure him for
his actions during the Seminole war in Florida in 1818, and henceforth
he regarded the South Carolina statesman as his enemy. The result was
that Jackson transferred to Van Buren his support for succession in the
presidency. The relations between Jackson and his cabinet were unlike
those existing under his predecessors. Having a military point of view,
he was inclined to look upon the cabinet members as inferior officers,
and when in need of advice he usually consulted a group of personal
friends, who came to be called the "Kitchen Cabinet." The principal
members of this clique were William B. Lewis (1784-1866), Amos Kendall
and Duff Green, the last named being editor of the _United States
Telegraph_, the organ of the administration.
In 1832 Jackson was re-elected by a large majority (219 electoral votes
to 49) over Henry Clay, his chief opponent. The battle raged mainly
around the re-charter of the Bank of the United States. It is probable
that Jackson's advisers in 1828 had told him, though erroneously, that
the bank had worked against him, and then were not able to control him.
The first message of his first presidency had contained a severe
reflection on the bank; and in the very height of this second campaign
(July 1832) he vetoed the re-charter, which had been passed in the
session of 1831-1832. Jackson interpreted his re-election as an approval
by the people of his war on the bank, and he pushed it with energy. In
September 1833 he ordered the public deposits in the bank to be
transferred to selected local banks, and entered upon the "experiment"
whether these could not act as fiscal agents for the government, and
whether the desire to get the deposits would not induce the local banks
to adopt sound rules of currency. During the next session the Senate
passed a resolution condemning his conduct. Jackson protested, and after
a hard struggle, in which Jackson's friends were led by Senator Thomas
Hart Benton, the resolution was ordered to be expunged from the record,
on the 16th of January 1837.
In 1832, when the state of South Carolina attempted to "nullify" the
tariff laws, Jackson at once took steps to enforce the authority of the
federal government, ordering two war vessels to Charleston and placing
troops within convenient distance. He also issued a proclamation warning
the people of South Carolina against the consequences of their conduct.
In the troubles between Georgia and the Cherokee Indians, however, he
took a different stand. Shortly after his first election Georgia passed
an act extending over the Cherokee country the civil laws of the state.
This was contrary to the rights of the Cherokees under a federal treaty,
and the Supreme Court consequently declared the act void (1832).
Jackson, however, having the frontiersman's contempt for the Indian,
refused to enforce the decision of the court (see NULLIFICATION;
GEORGIA: _History_).
Jackson was very successful in collecting old claims against various
European nations for spoliations inflicted under Napoleon's continental
system, especially the French spoliation claims, with reference to which
he acted with aggressiveness and firmness. Aiming at a currency to
consist largely of specie, he caused the payment of these claims to be
received and imported in specie as far as possible; and in 1836 he
ordered land-agents to receive for land nothing but specie. About the
same time a law passed Congress for distributing among the states some
$35,000,000 balance belonging to the United States, the public debt
having all been paid. The eighty banks of deposit in which it was lying
had regarded this sum almost as a permanent loan, and had inflated
credit on the basis of it. The necessary calling in of their loans in
order to meet the drafts in favour of the states, combining with the
breach of the overstrained credit between America and Europe and the
decline in the price of cotton, brought about a crash which prostrated
the whole financial, industrial and commercial system of the country for
six or seven years. The crash came just as Jackson was leaving office;
the whole burden fell on his successor, Van Buren.
In the 18th century the influences at work in the American colonies
developed democratic notions. In fact, the circumstances were those
which create equality of wealth and condition, as far as civilized men
ever can be equal. The War of Independence was attended by a grand
outburst of political dogmatism of the democratic type. A class of men
were produced who believed in very broad dogmas of popular power and
rights. There were a few rich men, but they were almost ashamed to
differ from their neighbours and, in some known cases, they affected
democracy in order to win popularity. After the 19th century began the
class of rich men rapidly increased. In the first years of the century a
little clique at Philadelphia became alarmed at the increase of the
"money power," and at the growing perils to democracy. They attacked
with some violence, but little skill, the first Bank of the United
States, and they prevented its re-charter. The most permanent interest
of the history of the United States is the picture it offers of a
primitive democratic society transformed by prosperity and the
acquisition of capital into a great republican commonwealth. The
denunciations of the "money power" and the reiteration of democratic
dogmas deserve earnest attention. They show the development of classes
or parties in the old undifferentiated mass. Jackson came upon the
political stage just when a wealthy class first existed. It was an
industrial and commercial class greatly interested in the tariff, and
deeply interested also in the then current forms of issue banking. The
southern planters also were rich, but were agriculturists and remained
philosophical Democrats. Jackson was a man of low birth, uneducated,
prejudiced, and marked by strong personal feeling in all his beliefs and
disbeliefs. He showed, in his military work and in his early political
doings, great lack of discipline. The proposal to make him president won
his assent and awakened his ambition. In anything which he undertook he
always wanted to carry his point almost regardless of incidental effects
on himself or others. He soon became completely engaged in the effort to
be made president. The men nearest to him understood his character and
played on it. It was suggested to him that the money power was against
him. That meant that, to the educated or cultivated class of that day,
he did not seem to be in the class from which a president should be
chosen. He took the idea that the Bank of the United States was leading
the money power against him, and that he was the champion of the masses
of democracy and of the common people. The opposite party, led by Clay,
Adams, Biddle, &c., had schemes for banks and tariffs, enterprises which
were open to severe criticism. The political struggle was very intense
and there were two good sides to it. Men like Thomas H. Benton, Edward
Livingston, Amos Kendall, and the southern statesmen, found material for
strong attacks on the Whigs. The great mass of voters felt the issue as
Jackson's managers stated it. That meant that the masses recognized
Jackson as their champion. Therefore, Jackson's personality and name
became a power on the side opposed to banks, corporations and other
forms of the new growing power of capital. That Jackson was a typical
man of his generation is certain. He represents the spirit and temper of
the free American of that day, and it was a part of his way of thinking
and acting that he put his whole life and interest into the conflict. He
accomplished two things of great importance in the history: he crushed
excessive state-rights and established the contrary doctrine in fact and
in the political orthodoxy of the democrats; he destroyed the great
bank. The subsequent history of the bank left it without an apologist,
and prejudiced the whole later judgment about it. The way in which
Jackson accomplished these things was such that it cost the country ten
years of the severest liquidation, and left conflicting traditions of
public policy in the Democratic party. After he left Washington, Jackson
fell into discord with his most intimate old friends, and turned his
interest to the cause of slavery, which he thought to be attacked and in
danger.
Jackson is the only president of whom it may be said that he went out of
office far more popular than he was when he entered. When he went into
office he had no political opinions, only some popular notions. He left
his party strong, perfectly organized and enthusiastic on a platform of
low expenditure, payment of the debt, no expenditure for public
improvement or for glory or display in any form and low taxes. His name
still remained a spell to conjure with, and the politicians sought to
obtain the assistance of his approval for their schemes; but in general
his last years were quiet and uneventful. He died at his residence, "The
Hermitage," near Nashville, Tennessee, on the 8th of June 1845.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.--Of the early biographies, that by J. H. Eaton
(Philadelphia, 1824) is a history of Jackson's early military
exploits, written for political purposes. Amos Kendall's _Life_ (New
York, 1843) is incomplete, extending only to 1814. James Parton's
elaborate work (3 vols., New York, 1860) is still useful. Parton
prepared a shorter biography for the "Great Commanders Series" (New
York, 1893), which emphasizes Jackson's military career. W. G.
Sumner's _Andrew Jackson_ in the "American Statesmen Series" (Boston,
1882; revised, 1899) combines the leading facts of Jackson's life with
a history of his times. W. G. Brown wrote an appreciative sketch
(Boston, 1900) for the "Riverside Biographical Series." Of more recent
works the most elaborate are the _History of Andrew Jackson_, by A. C.
Buell (New York, 1904), marred by numerous errors, and the _Life and
Times of Andrew Jackson_, by A. S. Colyar (Nashville, 1904). Charles
H. Peck's _The Jacksonian Epoch_ (New York, 1899) is an account of
national politics from 1815 to 1840, in which the antagonism of
Jackson and Clay is emphasized. (W. G. S.)
FOOTNOTE:
[1] The charge was freely made then and afterwards (though, it is now
believed, without justification) that Clay had supported Adams and by
influencing his followers in the house had been instrumental in
securing his election, as the result of a bargain by which Adams had
agreed to pay him for his support by appointing him secretary of
state.
JACKSON, CYRIL (1746-1819), dean of Christ Church, Oxford, was born in
Yorkshire, and educated at Westminster and Oxford. In 1771 he was chosen
to be sub-preceptor to the two eldest sons of George III., but in 1776
he was dismissed, probably through some household intrigues. He then
took orders, and was appointed in 1779 to the preachership at Lincoln's
Inn and to a canonry at Christ Church, Oxford. In 1783 he was elected
dean of Christ Church. His devotion to the college led him to decline
the bishopric of Oxford in 1799 and the primacy of Ireland in 1800. He
took a leading part in framing the statute which, in 1802, launched the
system of public examinations at Oxford, but otherwise he was not
prominent in university affairs. On his resignation in 1809 he settled
at Felpham, in Sussex, where he remained till his death.
JACKSON, FREDERICK GEORGE (1860- ), British Arctic explorer, was
educated at Denstone College and Edinburgh University. His first voyage
in Arctic waters was on a whaling-cruise in 1886-1887, and in 1893 he
made a sledge-journey of 3000 miles across the frozen _tundra_ of
Siberia lying between the Ob and the Pechora. His narrative of this
journey was published under the title of _The Great Frozen Land_ (1895).
On his return, he was given the command of the Jackson-Harmsworth Arctic
expedition (1894-1897), which had for its objective the general
exploration of Franz Josef Land. In recognition of his services he
received a knighthood of the first class of the Danish Royal Order of St
Olaf in 1898, and was awarded the gold medal of the Paris Geographical
Society in 1899. His account of the expedition was published under the
title of _A Thousand Days in the Arctic_ (1899). He served in South
Africa during the Boer War, and obtained the rank of captain. His
travels also include a journey across the Australian deserts.
JACKSON, HELEN MARIA (1831-1885), American poet and novelist, who wrote
under the initials of "H. H." (Helen Hunt), was born in Amherst,
Massachusetts, on the 18th of October 1831, the daughter of Nathan Welby
Fiske (1798-1847), who was a professor in Amherst College. In October
1852 she married Lieutenant Edward Bissell Hunt (1822-1863), of the U.S.
corps of engineers. In 1870 she published a little volume of meditative
_Verses_, which was praised by Emerson in the preface to his _Parnassus_
(1874). In 1875 she married William S. Jackson, a banker, of Colorado
Springs. She became a prolific writer of prose and verse, including
juvenile tales, books of travel, household hints and novels, of which
the best is _Ramona_ (1884), a defence of the Indian character. In 1883,
as a special commissioner with Abbot Kinney (b. 1850), she investigated
the condition and needs of the Mission Indians in California. _A Century
of Dishonor_ (1881) was an arraignment of the treatment of the Indians
by the United States. She died on the 12th of August 1885 in San
Francisco.
In addition to her publications referred to above, _Mercy Philbrick's
Choice_ (1876), _Hetty's Strange History_ (1877), _Zeph_ (1886), and
_Sonnets and Lyrics_ (1886) may be mentioned.
JACKSON, MASON (c. 1820-1903), British engraver, was born at
Berwick-on-Tweed about 1820, and was trained as a wood engraver by his
brother, John Jackson, the author of a history of this art. In the
middle of the 19th century he made a considerable reputation by his
engravings for the Art Union of London, and for Knight's _Shakespeare_
and other standard books; and in 1860 he was appointed art editor of the
_Illustrated London News_, a post which he held for thirty years. He
wrote a history of the rise and progress of illustrated journalism. He
died in December 1903.
JACKSON, THOMAS (1579-1640), president of Corpus Christi College,
Oxford, and dean of Peterborough, was born at Witton-le-Wear, Durham,
and educated at Oxford. He became a probationer fellow of Corpus in
1606, and was soon afterwards elected vice-president. In 1623 he was
presented to the living of St Nicholas, Newcastle, and about 1625 to the
living of Winston, Durham. Five years later he was appointed president
of Corpus, and in 1632 the king presented him to the living of Witney,
Oxfordshire. He was made a prebendary of Winchester in 1635, and was
dean of Peterborough in 1635-1639. Although originally a Calvinist, he
became in later life an Arminian.
His chief work was a series of commentaries on the Apostles' Creed,
the first complete edition being entitled _The Works of Thomas
Jackson, D.D._ (London, 1673). The commentaries were, however,
originally published in 1613-1657, as twelve books with different
titles, the first being _The Eternal Truth of Scriptures_ (London,
1613).
JACKSON, THOMAS JONATHAN (1824-1863), known as "Stonewall Jackson,"
American general, was born at Clarksburg, Virginia (now West Virginia),
on the 21st of January 1824, and was descended from an Ulster family. At
an early age he was left a penniless orphan, and his education was
acquired in a small country school until he procured, mainly by his own
energy, a nomination to the Military Academy. Lack of social graces and
the deficiencies of his early education impeded him at first, but "in
the end 'Old Jack,' as he was always called, with his desperate
earnestness, his unflinching straightforwardness, and his high sense of
honour, came to be regarded with something like affection." Such
qualities he displayed not less amongst the light-hearted cadets than
afterwards at the head of troops in battle. After graduating he took
part, as second lieutenant in the 1st U.S. Artillery, in the Mexican
War. At Vera Cruz he won the rank of first lieutenant, and for gallant
conduct at Contreras and Chapultepec respectively he was brevetted
captain and major, a rank which he attained with less than one year's
service. During his stay in the city of Mexico his thoughts were
seriously directed towards religion, and, eventually entering the
Presbyterian communion, he ruled every subsequent action of his life by
his faith. In 1851 he applied for and obtained a professorship at the
Virginia military institute, Lexington; and here, except for a short
visit to Europe, he remained for ten years, teaching natural science,
the theory of gunnery and battalion drill. Though he was not a good
teacher, his influence both on his pupils and on those few intimate
friends for whom alone he relaxed the gravity of his manner was
profound, and, little as he was known to the white inhabitants of
Lexington, he was revered by the slaves, to whom he showed uniform
kindness, and for whose moral instruction he worked unceasingly. As to
the great question at issue in 1861, Major Jackson's ruling motive was
devotion to his state, and when Virginia seceded, on the 17th of April,
and the Lexington cadets were ordered to Richmond, Jackson went thither
in command of the corps. His intimate friend, Governor Letcher,
appreciating his gifts, sent him as a colonel of infantry to Harper's
Ferry, where the first collision with the Union forces was hourly
expected. In June he received the command of a brigade, and in July
promotion to the rank of brigadier-general. He had well employed the
short time at his disposal for training his men, and on the first field
of Bull Run they won for themselves and their brigadier, by their rigid
steadiness at the critical moment of the battle, the historic name of
"Stonewall."
After the battle of Bull Run Jackson spent some time in the further
training of his brigade which, to his infinite regret, he was compelled
to leave behind him when, in October, he was assigned as a major-general
to command in the Shenandoah Valley. His army had to be formed out of
local troops, and few modern weapons were available, but the Valley
regiments retained the impress of Jackson's training till the days of
Cedar Creek. Discipline was not acquired at once, however, and the first
ventures of the force were not very successful. At Kernstown, indeed,
Jackson was tactically defeated by the Federals under Shields (March 23,
1862). But the Stonewall brigade had been sent to its old leader in
November, and by the time that the famous Valley Campaign (see
SHENANDOAH VALLEY CAMPAIGNS) began, the forces under Jackson's command
had acquired cohesion and power of manoeuvre. On the 8th of May 1862 was
fought the combat of McDowell, won by Jackson against the leading troops
of Fremont's command from West Virginia. Three weeks later the forces
under Banks were being driven over the Potomac at Harper's Ferry, and
Jackson was master of the Valley. Every other plan of campaign in
Virginia was at once subordinated to the scheme of "trapping Jackson."
But the Confederates, marching swiftly up the Valley, slipped between
the converging columns of Fremont from the west and McDowell from the
east, and concluded a most daring campaign by the victorious actions of
Cross Keys and Port Republic (8th and 9th of June). While the forces of
the North were still scattered, Jackson secretly left the Valley to take
a decisive part in Lee's campaign before Richmond. In the "Seven Days"
Jackson was frequently at fault, but his driving energy bore no small
part in securing the defeat of McClellan's advance on Richmond. Here he
passed for the first time under the direct orders of Robert Lee, and the
rest of his career was spent in command of the II. corps of the Army of
Northern Virginia. As Lee's chief and most trusted subordinate he was
throughout charged with the execution of the more delicate and difficult
operations of his commander's hazardous strategy. After his victory over
Banks at Cedar Mountain, near Culpeper, Virginia, Jackson led the daring
march round the flank of General Pope's army, which against all
theoretical rules ended in the great victory of second Bull Run. In the
Maryland campaign Lieut.-General Jackson was again detached from the
main army. Eleven thousand Federals, surrounded in Harper's Ferry, were
forced to surrender, and Jackson rejoined Lee just in time to oppose
McClellan's advance. At the Antietam his corps bore the brunt of the
battle, which was one of the most stubborn of modern warfare. At
Fredericksburg his wing of Lee's line of battle was heavily engaged, and
his last battle, before Chancellorsville, in the thickets of the
Wilderness, was his greatest triumph. By one of his swift and secret
flank marches he placed his corps on the flank of the enemy, and on the
2nd of May flung them against the Federal XI. corps, which was utterly
routed. At the close of a day of victory he was reconnoitring the
hostile positions when suddenly the Confederate outposts opened fire
upon his staff, whom they mistook in the dark and tangled forest for
Federal cavalry. Jackson fell wounded, and on the 10th of May he died at
Guinea's station. He was buried, according to his own wish, at
Lexington, where a statue and a memorial hall commemorate his connexion
with the place; and on the spot where he was mortally wounded stands a
plain granite pillar. The first contribution towards the bronze statue
at Richmond was made by the negro Baptist congregation for which Jackson
had laboured so earnestly in his Lexington years. He was twice married,
first to Eleanor (d. 1854), daughter of George Junkin, president of
Washington College, Virginia, and secondly in 1857 to Mary Anna
Morrison, daughter of a North Carolina clergyman.
That Jackson's death, at a critical moment of the fortunes of the
Confederacy, was an irreparable loss was disputed by no one. Lee said
that he had lost his right arm, and, good soldiers as were the other
generals, not one amongst them was comparable to Jackson, whose name was
dreaded in the North like that of Lee himself. His military character
was the enlargement of his personal character--"desperate earnestness,
unflinching straightforwardness," and absolute, almost fatalist, trust
in the guidance of providence. At the head of his troops, who idolized
him, he was a Cromwell, adding to the zeal of a fanatic and the energy
of the born leader the special military skill and trained soldierly
spirit which the English commander had to gain by experience. His
Christianity was conspicuous, even amongst deeply religious men like Lee
and Stuart, and penetrated every part of his character and conduct.
See lives by R. L. Dabney (New York, 1883), J. E. Cooke (New York,
1866), M. A. Jackson (General Jackson's widow) (New York, 1892); and
especially G. F. R. Henderson, _Stonewall Jackson_ (London, 1898), and
H. A. White, _Stonewall Jackson_ (Philadelphia, 1909).
JACKSON, WILLIAM (1730-1803), English musician, was born at Exeter on
the 29th of May 1730. His father, a grocer, bestowed a liberal education
upon him, but, on account of the lad's strong predilection for music,
was induced to place him under the care of John Silvester, the organist
of Exeter Cathedral, with whom he remained about two years. In 1748 he
went to London, and studied under John Travers, organist of the king's
chapel. Returning to Exeter, he settled there as a teacher and composer,
and in 1777 was appointed subchanter, organist, lay-vicar and master of
the choristers of the cathedral. In 1755 he published his first work,
_Twelve Songs_, which became at once highly popular. His next
publication, _Six Sonatas for the Harpsichord_, was a failure. His third
work, _Six Elegies for three voices, preceded by an Invocation, with an
Accompaniment_, placed him among the first composers of his day. His
fourth work was another set of _Twelve Songs_, now very scarce; and his
fifth work was again a set of _Twelve Songs_, all of which are now
forgotten. He next published _Twelve Hymns_, with some good remarks upon
that style of composition, although his precepts were better than his
practice. A set of _Twelve Songs_ followed, containing some good
compositions. Next came an _Ode to Fancy_, the words by Dr Warton.
_Twelve Canzonets for two voices_ formed his ninth work; and one of
them--"Time has not thinned my Flowing Hair"--long held a place at
public and private concerts. His tenth work was _Eight Sonatas for the
Harpsichord_, some of which were novel and pleasing. He composed three
dramatic pieces,--_Lycidas_ (1767), _The Lord of the Manor_, to General
Burgoyne's words (1780), and _The Metamorphoses_, a comic opera produced
at Drury Lane in 1783, which did not succeed. In the second of these
dramatic works, two airs--"Encompassed in an Angel's Form" and "When
first this Humble Roof I knew"--were great favourites. His church music
was published after his death by James Paddon (1820); most of it is
poor, but "Jackson in F" was for many years popular. In 1782 he
published _Thirty Letters on Various Subjects_, in which he severely
attacked canons, and described William Bird's _Non nobis Domine_ as
containing passages not to be endured. But his anger and contempt were
most strongly expressed against catches of all kinds, which he denounced
as barbarous. In 1791 he put forth a pamphlet, _Observations on the
Present State of Music in London_, in which he found fault with
everything and everybody. He published in 1798 _The Four Ages, together
with Essays on Various Subjects_,--a work which gives a favourable idea
of his character and of his literary acquirements. Jackson also
cultivated a taste for landscape painting, and imitated, not
unsuccessfully, the style of his friend Gainsborough. He died on the 5th
of July 1803.
JACKSON, a city and the county-seat of Jackson county, Michigan, U.S.A.,
on both sides of the Grand River, 76 m. W. of Detroit. Pop. (1890),
20,798; (1900), 25,180, of whom 3843 were foreign-born (1004 German, 941
English Canadian); (1910 census) 31,433. It is served by the Michigan
Central, the Lake Shore & Michigan Southern, the Grand Trunk and the
Cincinnati Northern railways, and by inter-urban electric lines. It is
the seat of the state prison (established 1839). Coal is mined in the
vicinity; the city has a large trade with the surrounding agricultural
district (whose distinctive product is beans); the Michigan Central
railway has car and machine shops here; and the city has many
manufacturing establishments. The total factory product in 1904 was
valued at $8,348,125, an increase of 24.4% over that of 1900. The
municipality owns and operates its water-works. The place was formerly a
favourite camping ground of the Indians, and was settled by whites in
1829. In 1830 it was laid out as a town, selected for the county-seat,
and named Jacksonburg in honour of Andrew Jackson; the present name was
adopted in 1838. Jackson was incorporated as a village in 1843, and in
1857 was chartered as a city. It was at a convention held at Jackson on
the 6th of July 1854 that the Republican party was first organized and
so named by a representative state body.
JACKSON, a city and the county-seat of Hinds county, Mississippi,
U.S.A., and the capital of the state, on the W. bank of the Pearl River,
about 40 m. E. of Vicksburg and 185 m. N. of New Orleans, Louisiana.
Pop. (1890), 5920; (1900), 7816, of whom 4447 were negroes. According to
the Federal census taken in 1910 the population had increased to 21,262.
Jackson is served by the Illinois Central, the Alabama & Vicksburg, the
Gulf & Ship Island, New Orleans Great Northern, and the Yazoo &
Mississippi Valley railways, and during the winter by small freight and
passenger steamboats on the Pearl River. In Jackson is the state
library, with more than 80,000 volumes. The new state capitol was
finished in 1903. The old state capitol, dating from 1839, is of
considerable interest; in it were held the secession convention (1861),
the "Black and Tan Convention" (1868), and the constitutional convention
of 1890, and in it Jefferson Davis made his last speech (1884). Jackson
is the seat of Millsaps College, chartered in 1890 and opened in 1892
(under the control of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South), and
having, in 1907-1908, 12 instructors and 297 students; of Belhaven
College (non-sectarian, 1894), for girls; and of Jackson College
(founded in 1877 at Natchez by the American Baptist Home Mission
Society; in 1883 removed to Jackson), for negroes, which had 356
students in 1907-1908. The city is a market for cotton and farm
products, and has a number of manufactories. In 1821 the site was
designated as the seat of the state government, and early in the
following year the town, named in honour of Andrew Jackson, was laid
out. The legislature first met here in December 1822. It was not until
1840 that it was chartered as a city. During the Civil War Jackson was
in the theatre of active campaigning. On the 14th of May 1863 Johnston
who then held the city, was attacked on both sides by Sherman and
McPherson with two corps of Grant's army, which, after a sharp
engagement, drove the Confederates from the town. After the fall of
Vicksburg Johnston concentrated his forces at Jackson, which had been
evacuated by the Federal troops, and prepared to make a stand behind the
intrenchments. On the 9th of July Sherman began an investment of the
place, and during the succeeding week a sharp bombardment was carried
on. In the night of the 16th Johnston, taking advantage of a lull in the
firing, withdrew suddenly from the city. Sherman's army entered on the
17th and remained five days, burning a considerable part of the city and
ravaging the surrounding country.
JACKSON, a city and the county-seat of Madison county, Tennessee,
U.S.A., situated on the Forked Deer river, about 85 m. N.E. of Memphis.
Pop. (1890), 10,039; (1900), 14,511, of whom 6108 were negroes; (1910
census), 15,779. It is served by the Mobile & Ohio, the Nashville,
Chattanooga & St Louis and the Illinois Central railways. The state
supreme court holds its sessions here for the western district of
Tennessee. The city is the seat of Union University (co-educational),
chartered in 1875 as Southwestern Baptist University, and conducted
under that name at Jackson until 1907, when the present name was
adopted. In 1907-1908 the university had 17 instructors and 280
students. At Jackson, also, are St Mary's Academy (Roman Catholic); the
Memphis Conference Female Institute (Methodist Episcopal, South, 1843),
and Lane College (for negroes), under the control of the Colored
Methodist Episcopal Church. Jackson is an important cotton market, and
is a shipping point for the farm products and fruits of the surrounding
country. It has also numerous manufactures and railway shops. The total
value of the factory product in 1905 was $2,317,715. The municipality
owns and operates the electric-lighting plant and the water-works. There
is in the city an electro-chalybeate well with therapeutic properties.
Jackson was settled about 1820, incorporated as a town in 1823,
chartered as a city in 1854, and in 1907 received a new charter by which
the sale of intoxicating liquors is forever prohibited. After General
Grant's advance into Tennessee in 1862 Jackson was fortified and became
an important base of operations for the Federal army, Grant himself
establishing his headquarters here in October.
JACKSONVILLE, a city and the county-seat of Duval county, Florida,
U.S.A., in the N.E. part of the state, on the left bank of the St John's
River, 14 m. from the Atlantic Ocean as the crow flies and about 27 m.
by water. Pop. (1890), 17,201; (1900), 28,429, of whom 16,236 were
negroes and 1166 foreign-born; (1910 census) 57,699; the city being the
largest in the state. It is served by the Southern, the Atlantic Coast
Line, the Seaboard Air Line, the Georgia Southern & Florida and the
Florida East Coast railways, and by several steamship lines.[1] It is
the largest railway centre in the state, and is popularly known as the
Gate City of Florida. In appearance Jacksonville is very attractive. It
has many handsome buildings, and its residential streets are shaded with
live-oaks, water oaks and bitter-orange trees. Jacksonville is the seat
of two schools for negroes, the Florida Baptist Academy and Cookman
Institute (1872; Methodist Episcopal). Many winter visitors are annually
attracted by the excellent climate, the mean temperature for the winter
months being about 55 deg. F. Among the places of interest in the
vicinity is the large Florida ostrich farm. There are numerous municipal
and other parks. The city owns and operates its electric-lighting plant
and its water-works system. The capital invested in manufacturing
increased from $1,857,844 in 1900 to $4,837,281 in 1905, or 160.4%, and
the value of the factory product rose from $1,798,607 in 1900 to
$5,340,264 in 1905, or 196.9%. Jacksonville is the most important
distributing centre in Florida, and is a port of entry. In 1909 its
foreign imports were valued at $513,439; its foreign exports at
$2,507,373.
The site of Jacksonville was called Cow Ford (a version of the Indian
name, Wacca Pilatka), from the excellent ford of the St John's River,
over which went the King's Road, a highway built by the English from St
Augustine to the Georgia line. The first settlement was made in 1816. In
1822 a town was laid out here and was named in honour of General Andrew
Jackson; in 1833 Jacksonville was incorporated. During the Civil War the
city was thrice occupied by Federal troops. In 1888 there was an
epidemic of yellow fever. On the 3rd of May 1901 a fire destroyed nearly
150 blocks of buildings, constituting nearly the whole of the business
part of the city, the total loss being more than $15,000,000; but within
two years new buildings greater in number than those destroyed were
constructed, and up to December 1909 about 9000 building permits had
been granted.
FOOTNOTE:
[1] Shoals in the river and sand rock at its mouth long prevented the
development of an extensive water trade, but in 1896 the United
States Government made an appropriation (supplemented in 1902, 1903
and 1904) for deepening, for a width of 300 ft., the channel
connecting the city and the ocean to 24 ft., and on the bar 27 ft.
(mean low water), and by 1909 the work had been completed; further
dredging to a 24 ft. depth between the navigable channel and pierhead
lines was authorized in 1907 and completed by 1910.
JACKSONVILLE, a city and the county-seat of Morgan county, Illinois,
U.S.A., on Mauvaiseterre Creek, about 33 m. W. of Springfield. Pop.
(1890), 12,935; (1900), 15,078, of whom 1497 were foreign-born; (1910
census), 15,326. It is served by the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy, the
Chicago & Alton, the Chicago, Peoria & St Louis and the Wabash railways.
It is the seat of several educational and philanthropic institutions.
Illinois College (Presbyterian), founded in 1829 through the efforts of
the Rev. John Millot Ellis (1793-1855), a missionary of the American
Home Missionary Society and of the so-called Yale Band (seven Yale
graduates devoted to higher education in the Middle West), is one of the
oldest colleges in the Central States of the United States. The
Jacksonville Female Academy (1830) and the Illinois Conservatory of
Music (1871) were absorbed in 1903 by Illinois College, which then
became co-educational. The college embraces, besides the collegiate
department, Whipple Academy (a preparatory department), the Illinois
Conservatory of Music and a School of Art, and in 1908-1909 had 21
instructors and 173 students. The Rev. Edward Beecher was the first
president of the college (from 1830 to 1844), and among its prominent
graduates have been Richard Yates, jun., the Rev. Thomas K. Beecher,
Newton Bateman (1822-1897), superintendent of public instruction of
Illinois from 1865 to 1875 and president of Knox College in 1875-1893,
Bishop Theodore N. Morrison (b. 1850), Protestant Episcopal Bishop of
Iowa after 1898, and William J. Bryan. The Illinois Woman's College
(Methodist Episcopal; chartered in 1847 as the Illinois Conference
Female Academy) received its present name in 1899. The State Central
Hospital for the Insane (opened in 1851), the State School for the deaf
(established in 1839, opened in 1845, and the first charitable
institution of the state) and the State School for the Blind (1849) are
also in Jacksonville. Morgan Lake and Duncan Park are pleasure resorts.
The total value of the factory product in 1905 was $1,981,582, an
increase of 17.7% since 1900. Jacksonville was laid out in 1825 as the
county-seat of Morgan county, was named probably in honour of Andrew
Jackson, and was incorporated as a town in 1840, chartered as a city in
1867, and re-chartered in 1887. The majority of the early settlers came
from the southern and border states, principally from Missouri and
Kentucky; but subsequently there was a large immigration of New England
and Eastern people, and these elements were stronger in the population
of Jacksonville than in any other city of southern Illinois. The city
was a station of the "Underground Railroad."
JACOB (Hebrew _ya'aqob_, derived, according to Gen. xxv. 26, xxvii. 36,
from a root meaning "to seize the heel" or "supplant"), son of Isaac and
Rebekah in the Biblical narrative, and the father of the twelve tribes
of Israel. Jacob and his twin brother Esau are the eponyms of the
Israelites and Edomites. It was said of them that they would be two
nations, and that the elder would serve the younger. Esau was born
first, but lost his superiority by relinquishing his birthright, and
Jacob by an act of deceit gained the paternal blessing intended for Esau
(Gen. xxvii., J and E).[1] The popular view regarding Israel and Edom is
expressed when the story makes Jacob a tent-dweller, and Esau a hunter,
a man of the field. But whilst Esau married among the Canaanite
"daughters of the land" (P in xxvi. 34; xxviii. 8 seq.), Jacob was sent,
or (according to a variant tradition) fled from Beer-sheba, to take a
wife from among his Syrian kinsfolk at Haran. On the way he received a
revelation at Bethel ("house of God") promising to him and to his
descendants the whole extent of the land. The beautiful story of Jacob's
fortunes at Haran is among the best examples of Hebrew narrative: how he
served seven years for Rachel, "and they seemed a few days for the love
he had to her," and was tricked by receiving the elder sister Leah, and
how he served yet another seven years, and at last won his love. The
patriarch's increasing wealth caused him to incur the jealousy of his
father-in-law, Laban, and he was forced to flee in secret with his
family. They were overtaken at Gilead,[2] whose name (interpreted "heap
of witness") is explained by the covenant into which Jacob and Laban
entered (xxxi. 47 sqq.). Passing Mahanaim ("camps"), where he saw the
camps of God, Jacob sent to Esau with friendly overtures. At the Jabbok
he wrestled with a divine being and prevailed (cf. Hos. xii. 3 sqq.),
hence he called the place Peniel or Penuel ("the face of God"), and
received the new name Israel. He then effected an unexpected
reconciliation with Esau, passed to Succoth, where he built "booths" for
his cattle (hence its name), and reached Shechem. Here he purchased
ground from the clan Hamor (cf. Judg. ix. 28), and erected an altar to
"God (El) the God of Israel." This was the scene of the rape of Dinah
and of the attack of Simeon and Levi which led to their ruin (xxxiv.;
see DAN, LEVITES, SIMEON). Thence Jacob went down south to Bethel, where
he received a divine revelation (P), similar to that recorded by the
earlier narrator (J), and was called Israel (xxxv. 9-13, 15). Here
Deborah, Rebekah's nurse, died, on the way to Ephrath. Rachel died in
giving birth to Benjamin (q.v.), and further south Reuben was guilty of
a grave offence (cf. xlix. 4). According to P, Jacob came to Hebron, and
it was at this juncture that Jacob and Esau separated (a second time)
and the latter removed to Mount Seir (xxxvi. 6 sqq.; cf. the parallel in
xiii. 5 sqq.). Compelled by circumstances, described with much fullness
and vividness, Jacob ultimately migrated to Egypt, receiving on the way
the promise that God would make of him a great nation, which should come
again out of Egypt (see JOSEPH). After an interview with the Pharaoh
(recorded only by P, xlvii. 5-11), he dwelt with his sons in the land of
Goshen, and as his death drew near pronounced a formal benediction upon
the two sons of Joseph (Manasseh and Ephraim), intentionally exalting
the younger. Then he summoned all the "sons" to gather round his bed,
and told them "what shall befall in the latter days" (xlix.). He died at
the age of 147 (so P), and permission was given to carry his body to
Canaan to be buried.
These narratives are full of much valuable evidence regarding marriage
customs, pastoral life and duties, popular beliefs and traditions, and
are evidently typical of what was currently retailed. Their historical
value has been variously estimated. The _name_ existed long before the
traditional date of Jacob, and the Egyptian phonetic equivalent of
Jacob-el (cf. Isra-el, Ishma-el) appears to be the name of a district of
central Palestine (or possibly east of Jordon) about 1500 B.C. But the
stories in their present form are very much later. The close relation
between Jacob and Aramaeans confirms the view that some of the tribes of
Israel were partly of Aramaean origin; his entrance into Palestine from
beyond the Jordan is parallel to Joshua's invasion at the head of the
Israelites; and his previous journey from the south finds independent
support in traditions of another distinct movement from this quarter.
Consequently, it would appear that these extremely elevated and richly
developed narratives of Jacob-Israel embody, among a number of other
features, a recollection of two distinct traditions of migration which
became fused among the Israelites. See further GENESIS; JEWS.
(S. A. C.)
FOOTNOTES:
[1] For the symbols J, E, P, as regards the sources of the book of
Genesis, see GENESIS; BIBLE: _Old Test. Criticism._
[2] Since it is some 300 m. from Haran to Gilead it is probable that
Laban's home, only seven days' journey distant, was nearer Gilead
than the current tradition allows (Gen. xxxi. 22 sqq.).
JACOB, JOHN (1812-1858), Indian soldier and administrator, was born on
the 11th of January 1812, educated at Addiscombe, and entered the Bombay
artillery in 1828. He served in the first Afghan War under Sir John
Keane, and afterwards led his regiment with distinction at the battles
of Meeanee, Shahdadpur, and Umarkot; but it is as commandant of the Sind
Horse and political superintendent of Upper Sind that he was chiefly
famous. He was the pacificator of the Sind frontier, reducing the tribes
to quietude as much by his commanding personality as by his ubiquitous
military measures. In 1853 he foretold the Indian Mutiny, saying: "There
is more danger to our Indian empire from the state of the Bengal army,
from the feeling which there exists between the native and the European,
and thence, spreads throughout the length and breadth of the land, than
from all other causes combined. Let government look to this; it is a
serious and most important truth"; but he was only rebuked by Lord
Dalhousie for his pains. He was a friend of Sir Charles Napier and Sir
James Outram, and resembled them in his outspoken criticisms and
independence of authority. He died at the early age of 46 of brain
fever, brought on by excessive heat and overwork. The town of Jacobabad,
which has the reputation of being the hottest place in India, is named
after him.
See A. I. Shand, _General John Jacob_ (1900).
JACOB BEN ASHER (1280-1340), codifier of Jewish law, was born in Germany
and died in Toledo. A son of Asher ben Yehiel (q.v.), Jacob helped to
re-introduce the older elaborate method of legal casuistry which had
been overthrown by Maimonides (q.v.). The Asheri family suffered great
privations but remained faithful in their devotion to the Talmud. Jacob
ben Asher is known as the Ba'al ha-turim (literally "Master of the
Rows") from his chief work, the four _Turim_ or Rows (the title is
derived from the four _Turim_ or rows of jewels in the High Priest's
breastplate). In this work Jacob ben Asher codified Rabbinic law on
ethics and ritual, and it remained a standard work of reference until it
was edited with a commentary by Joseph Qaro, who afterwards simplified
the code into the more popular _Shulhan Aruch_. Jacob also wrote two
commentaries on the Pentateuch.
See Graetz, _History of the Jews_ (Eng. trans.), vol. iv. ch. iii.;
Weiss, _Dor dor we-dorashav_, v. 118-123. (I. A.)
JACOB OF EDESSA, who ranks with Barhebraeus as the most distinguished
for scholarship among Syriac writers,[1] was born at 'En-debha in the
province of Antioch, probably about A.D. 640. From the trustworthy
account of his life by Barhebraeus (_Chron. Eccles._ i. 289) we learn
that he studied first at the famous monastery of Ken-neshre (on the left
bank of the Euphrates, opposite Jerabis) and afterwards at Alexandria,
which had of course been for some time in the hands of the Moslems.[2]
On his return he was appointed bishop of Edessa by his friend Athanasius
II. (of Balad), probably in 684,[3] but held this office only for three
or four years, as the clergy withstood his strict enforcement of the
Church canons and he was not supported by Julian, the successor of
Athanasius in the patriarchate. Accordingly, having in anger publicly
burnt a copy of the canons in front of Julian's residence, Jacob retired
to the monastery of Kaisum near Samosata, and from there to the
monastery of Eusebhona,[4] where for eleven years he taught the Psalms
and the reading of the Scriptures in Greek. But towards the close of
this period he again encountered opposition, this time from monks "who
hated the Greeks," and so proceeded to the great convent of Tell 'Adda
or Teleda (? modern Telladi, N.W. of Aleppo), where he spent nine years
in revising and emending the Peshitta version of the Old Testament by
the help of the various Greek versions. He was finally recalled to the
bishopric of Edessa in 708, but died four months later, on the 5th of
June.
In doctrine Jacob was undoubtedly Monophysite.[5] Of the very large
number of his works, which are mostly in prose, not many have as yet
been published, but much information may be gathered from Assemani's
_Bibliotheca Orientalis_ and Wright's _Catalogue of Syriac MSS. in the
British Museum_. (1) Of the Syriac Old Testament Jacob produced what
Wright calls "a curious eclectic or patchwork text," of which five
volumes survive in Europe (Wright's _Catalogue_ 38). It was "the last
attempt at a revision of the Old Testament in the Monophysite Church."
Jacob was also the chief founder of the Syriac Massorah among the
Monophysites, which produced such MSS. as the one (Vat. cliii.)
described by Wiseman in _Horae syriacae_, part iii. (2) Jacob was the
author both of commentaries and of scholia on the sacred books; of
these specimens are given by Assemani and Wright. They were largely
quoted by later commentators, who often refer to Jacob as "the
interpreter of the Scriptures." With the commentaries may be mentioned
his _Hexahemeron_, or treatise on the six days of creation, MSS. of
which exist at Leiden and at Lyons. It was his latest work, and being
left incomplete was finished by his friend George the bishop of the
Arabs. Among apocrypha, the _History of the Rechabites_ composed by
Zosimus was translated from Greek into Syriac by Jacob (Wright's
_Catalogue_ 1128, and Nau in _Revue semitique_ vi. 263, vii. 54, 136).
(3) Mention has been made above of Jacob's zeal on behalf of
ecclesiastical canons. In his letter to the priest Addai we possess a
collection of canons from his pen, given in the form of answers to
Addai's questions. These were edited by Lagarde in _Reliquiae juris
eccl. syriace_, pp. 117 sqq. and Lamy in _Dissert._ pp. 98 sqq.
Additional canons were given in Wright's _Notulae syriacae_. The whole
have been translated and expounded by Kayser, _Die Canones Jacobs von
Edessa_ (Leipzig, 1886). (4) Jacob made many contributions to Syriac
liturgy, both original and translated (Wright, _Short Hist._ p. 145
seq.). (5) To philosophical literature his chief original contribution
was his _Enchiridion_, a tract on philosophical terms (Wright's
_Catalogue_ 984). The translations of works of Aristotle which have
been attributed to him are probably by other hands (Wright, _Short
Hist._ p. 149; Duval, _Litterature syriaque_, pp. 255, 258). The
treatise _De causa omnium causarum_, which was the work of a bishop of
Edessa, was formerly attributed to Jacob; but the publication of the
whole by Kayser[6] has made it clear that the treatise is of much
later date. (6) An important historical work by Jacob--a _Chronicle_
in continuation of that of Eusebius--has unfortunately perished all
except a few leaves. Of these a full account is given in Wright's
_Catalogue_ 1062. (7) Jacob's fame among his countrymen rests most of
all on his labours as a grammarian. In his letter to George, bishop of
Serugh, on Syriac orthography (published by Phillips in London 1869,
and by Martin in Paris the same year) he sets forth the importance of
fidelity by scribes in the copying of minutiae of spelling. In his
grammar[7] (of which only some fragments remain), while expressing his
sense of the disadvantage under which Syriac labours through its
alphabet containing only consonants, he declined to introduce a
general system of vowel-signs, lest the change should contribute to
the neglect and loss of the older books written without vowels. At the
same time he invented, by adaptation of the Greek vowels, such a
system of signs as might serve for purposes of grammatical exposition,
and elaborated the rules by which certain consonants serve to indicate
vowels. He also systematized and extended the use of diacritical
points. It is still a moot question how far Jacob is to be regarded as
the author of the five vowel-signs derived from Greek which soon after
came into use among the Jacobites.[8] In any case he made the most
important contribution to Syriac grammar down to the time of
Barhebraeus. (8) As a translator Jacob's greatest achievement was his
Syriac version of the _Homiliae cathedrales_ of Severus, the
monophysite patriarch of Antioch (512-518, 535-536). This important
collection is now in part known to us by E. W. Brooks's edition and
translation of the 6th book of selected epistles of Severus, according
to another Syriac version made by Athanasius of Nisibis in 669. (9) A
large number of letters by Jacob to various correspondents have been
found in various MSS. Besides those on the canon law to Addai, and on
grammar to George of Serugh referred to above, there are others
dealing with doctrine, liturgy, &c. A few are in verse.
Jacob impresses the modern reader mainly as an _educator_ of his
countrymen, and particularly of the clergy. His writings lack the
fervid rhetoric and graceful style of such authors as Isaac of
Antioch, Jacob of Serugh and Philoxenus of Mabbog. But judged by the
standard of his time he shows the qualities of a truly scientific
theologian and scholar. (N. M.)
FOOTNOTES:
[1] "In the literature of his country Jacob holds much the same place
as Jerome among the Latin fathers" (Wright, _Short Hist. of Syr.
Lit._ p. 143).
[2] Merx infers that the fact of Jacob's going to Alexandria as a
student tells against the view that the Arabs burned the great
library (_Hist. artis gramm. apud Syros_, p. 35). On this question
cf. Krehl in _Alli del iv. congr. internaz. degli Orientalisti_
(Florence, 1880), pp. 433 sqq.
[3] Pseudo-Dionysius of Tell-Mahre says 677; but Athanasius was
patriarch only 684-687.
[4] According to Merx (_op. cit._ p. 43) this may be the celebrated
convent of Eusebius near Apamea.
[5] Assemani tried hard to prove him orthodox (_B.O._ i. 470 sqq.)
but changed his opinion on reading his biography by Barhebraeus (ib.
ii. 337). See especially Lamy, _Dissert. de Syrorum fide_, pp. 206
sqq.
[6] Text at Leipzig 1889 (_Das Buch der Erkenntniss der Wahrheit oder
der Ursache aller Ursachen_): translation (posthumously) at
Strassburg 1893.
[7] The surviving fragments were published by Wright (London, 1871)
and by Merx, _op. cit._ p. 73 sqq. of Syriac text.
[8] An affirmative answer is given by Wiseman (_Horae syr._ pp.
181-8) and Wright (_Catalogue_ 1168; _Fragm. of the Syriac Grammar of
Jacob of Edessa_, preface; Short Hist. p. 151 seq.). But Martin (in
_Jour. As._ May-June 1869, pp. 456 sqq.), Duval (_Grammaire
syriaque_, p. 71) and Merx (_op. cit._ p. 50) are of the opposite
opinion. The date of the introduction of the seven Nestorian
vowel-signs is also uncertain.
JACOB OF JUTERBOGK (c. 1381-1465), monk and theologian. Benedict
Stolzenhagen, known in religion as Jacob, was born at Juterbogk in
Brandenburg of poor peasant stock. He became a Cistercian at the
monastery of Paradiz in Poland, and was sent by the abbot to the
university of Cracow, where he became master in philosophy and doctor of
theology. He returned to his monastery, of which he became abbot. In
1441, however, discontented with the absence of strict discipline in his
community, he obtained the leave of the papal legate at the council of
Basel to transfer himself to the Carthusians, entering the monastery of
Salvatorberg near Erfurt, of which he became prior. He lectured on
theology at the university of Erfurt, of which he was rector in 1455. He
died on the 30th of April 1465.
Jacob's main preoccupation was the reform of monastic life, the grave
disorders of which he deplored, and to this end he wrote his
_Petitiones religiosorum pro reformatione sui status_. Another work,
_De negligentia praelatorum_, was directed against the neglect of
their duties by the higher clergy, and he addressed a petition for the
reform of the church (_Advisamentum pro reformatione ecclesiae_) to
Pope Nicholas V. This having no effect, he issued the most outspoken
of his works, _De Septem ecclesiae statibus_, in which he reviewed the
work of the reforming councils of his time, and, without touching the
question of doctrine, championed a drastic reform of life and practice
of the church on the lines laid down at Constance and Basel.
His principal works are collected in Walch, _Monimenta med. aev._ i.
and ii. (1757, 1771), and Engelbert Klupfel, _Vetus bibliotheca
eccles_. (Freiburg-im-Breisgau, 1780).
JACOB OF SERUGH, one of the best Syriac authors, named by one of his
biographers "the flute of the Holy Spirit and the harp of the believing
church," was born in 451 at Kurtam, a village on the Euphrates to the
west of Harran, and was probably educated at Edessa. At an early age he
attracted the attention of his countrymen by his piety and his literary
gifts, and entered on the composition of the long series of metrical
homilies on religious themes which formed the great work of his life.
Having been ordained to the priesthood, he became periodeutes or
episcopal visitor of Haura, in Serugh, not far from his birthplace. His
tenure of this office extended over a time of great trouble to the
Christian population of Mesopotamia, due to the fierce war carried on by
Kavadh II. of Persia within the Roman borders. When on the 10th of
January 503 Amid was captured by the Persians after a three months'
siege and all its citizens put to the sword or carried captive, a panic
seized the whole district, and the Christian inhabitants of many
neighbouring cities planned to leave their homes and flee to the west of
the Euphrates. They were recalled to a more courageous frame of mind by
the letters of Jacob.[1] In 519, at the age of 68, Jacob was made bishop
of Batnan, another town in the district of Serugh, but only lived till
November 521.
From the various extant accounts of Jacob's life and from the number
of his known works, we gather that his literary activity was
unceasing. According to Barhebraeus (_Chron. Eccles._ i. 191) he
employed 70 amanuenses and wrote in all 760 metrical homilies, besides
expositions, letters and hymns of different sorts. Of his merits as a
writer and poet we are now well able to judge from P. Bedjan's
excellent edition of selected metrical homilies, of which four volumes
have already appeared (Paris 1905-1908), containing 146 pieces.[2]
They are written throughout in dodecasyllabic metre, and those
published deal mainly with biblical themes, though there are also
poems on such subjects as the deaths of Christian martyrs, the fall of
the idols, the council of Nicaea, &c.[3] Of Jacob's prose works, which
are not nearly so numerous, the most interesting are his letters,
which throw light upon some of the events of his time and reveal his
attachment to the Monophysite doctrine which was then struggling for
supremacy in the Syrian churches, and particularly at Edessa, over the
opposite teaching of Nestorius.[4] (N. M.)
FOOTNOTES:
[1] See the contemporary _Chronicle_ called that of Joshua the
Stylite, chap. 54.
[2] Assemani (_Bibl. Orient._ i. 305-339) enumerates 231 which he had
seen in MSS.
[3] Some other historical poems M. Bedjan has not seen fit to
publish, on account of their unreliable and legendary character (vol.
i. p. ix. of preface).
[4] A full list of the older editions of works by Jacob is given by
Wright in _Short History of Syriac Literature_, pp. 68-72.
JACOBA, or JACQUELINE (1401-1436), countess of Holland, was the only
daughter and heiress of William, duke of Bavaria and count of Holland,
Zeeland and Hainaut. She was married as a child to John, duke of
Touraine, second son of Charles VI., king of France, who on the death of
his elder brother Louis became dauphin. John of Touraine died in April
1417, and two months afterwards Jacoba lost her father. Acknowledged as
sovereign in Holland and Zeeland, Jacoba was opposed by her uncle John
of Bavaria, bishop of Liege. She had the support of the Hook faction in
Holland. Meanwhile she had been married in 1418 by her uncle, John the
Fearless, duke of Burgundy, to her cousin John IV., duke of Brabant. By
the mediation of John the Fearless, a treaty of partition was concluded
in 1419 between Jacoba and John of Bavaria; but it was merely a truce,
and the contest between uncle and niece soon began again and continued
with varying success. In 1420 Jacoba fled to England; and there,
declaring that her marriage with John of Brabant was illegal, she
contracted a marriage with Humphrey, duke of Gloucester, in 1422. Two
years later Jacoba, with Humphrey, invaded Holland, where she was now
opposed by her former husband, John of Brabant, John of Bavaria having
died of poison. In 1425 Humphrey deserted his wife, who found herself
obliged to seek refuge with her cousin, Philip V., duke of Burgundy, to
whom she had to submit, and she was imprisoned in the castle of Ghent.
John of Brabant now mortgaged the two counties of Holland and Zeeland to
Philip, who assumed their protectorate. Jacoba, however, escaped from
prison in disguise, and for three years struggled gallantly to maintain
herself in Holland against the united efforts of Philip of Burgundy and
John of Brabant, and met at first with success. The death of the weak
John of Brabant (April 1427) freed the countess from her quondam
husband; but nevertheless the pope pronounced Jacoba's marriage with
Humphrey illegal, and Philip, putting out his full strength, broke down
all opposition. By a treaty, made in July 1428, Jacoba was left
nominally countess, but Philip was to administer the government of
Holland, Zeeland and Hainaut, and was declared heir in case Jacoba
should die without children. Two years later Philip mortgaged Holland
and Zeeland to the Borselen family, of which Francis, lord of Borselen,
was the head. Jacoba now made her last effort. In 1432 she secretly
married Francis of Borselen, and endeavoured to foment a rising in
Holland against the Burgundian rule. Philip invaded the country,
however, and threw Borselen into prison. Only on condition that Jacoba
abdicated her three countships in his favour would he allow her liberty
and recognize her marriage with Borselen. She submitted in April 1432,
retained her title of duchess in Bavaria, and lived on her husband's
estates in retirement. She died on the 9th of October 1436, leaving no
children.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.--F. von Loher, _Jakobaa von Bayern und ihre Zeit_ (2
vols., Nordlingen, 1862-1869); W. J. F. Nuyens, _Jacoba van Beieren en
de eerste helft der XV. eeuw_ (Haarlem, 1873); A. von Overstraten,
_Jacoba van Beieren_ (Amsterdam, 1790). (G. E.)
JACOBABAD, a town of British India, the administrative headquarters of
the Upper Sind frontier district in Bombay; with a station on the Quetta
branch of the North-Western railway, 37 m. from the junction at Ruk, on
the main line. Pop. (1901), 10,787. It is famous as having consistently
the highest temperature in India. During the month of June the
thermometer ranges between 120 deg. and 127 deg. F. The town was founded
on the site of the village of Khangarh in 1847 by General John Jacob,
for many years commandant of the Sind Horse, who died here in 1858. It
has cantonments for a cavalry regiment, with accommodation for caravans
from Central Asia. It is watered by two canals. An annual horse show is
held in January.
JACOBEAN STYLE, the name given to the second phase of the early
Renaissance architecture in England, following the Elizabethan style.
Although the term is generally employed of the style which prevailed in
England during the first quarter of the 17th century, its peculiar
decadent detail will be found nearly twenty years earlier at Wollaton
Hall, Nottinghamshire, and in Oxford and Cambridge examples exist up to
1660, notwithstanding the introduction of the purer Italian style by
Inigo Jones in 1619 at Whitehall. Already during Queen Elizabeth's reign
reproductions of the classic orders had found their way into English
architecture, based frequently upon John Shute's _The First and Chief
Grounds of Architecture_, published in 1563, with two other editions in
1579 and 1584. In 1577, three years before the commencement of Wollaton
Hall, a copybook of the orders was brought out in Antwerp by Jan
Vredeman de Vries. Though nominally based on the description of the
orders by Vitruvius, the author indulged freely not only in his
rendering of them, but in suggestions of his own, showing how the orders
might be employed in various buildings. Those suggestions were of a most
decadent type, so that even the author deemed it advisable to publish a
letter from a canon of the Church, stating that there was nothing in his
architectural designs which was contrary to religion. It is to
publications of this kind that Jacobean architecture owes the perversion
of its forms and the introduction of strap work and pierced crestings,
which appear for the first time at Wollaton (1580); at Bramshill,
Hampshire (1607-1612), and in Holland House, Kensington (1624), it
receives its fullest development. (R. P. S.)
JACOBI, FRIEDRICH HEINRICH (1743-1819), German philosopher, was born at
Dusseldorf on the 25th of January 1743. The second son of a wealthy
sugar merchant near Dusseldorf, he was educated for a commercial career.
Of a retiring, meditative disposition, Jacobi associated himself at
Geneva mainly with the literary and scientific circle of which the most
prominent member was Lesage. He studied closely the works of Charles
Bonnet, and the political ideas of Rousseau and Voltaire. In 1763 he was
called back to Dusseldorf, and in the following year he married and took
over the management of his father's business. After a short period he
gave up his commercial career, and in 1770 became a member of the
council for the duchies of Julich and Berg, in which capacity he
distinguished himself by his ability in financial affairs, and his zeal
in social reform. Jacobi kept up his interest in literary and
philosophic matters by an extensive correspondence, and his mansion at
Pempelfort, near Dusseldorf, was the centre of a distinguished literary
circle. With C. M. Wieland he helped to found a new literary journal.
_Der Teutsche Mercur_, in which some of his earliest writings, mainly on
practical or economic subjects, were published. Here too appeared in
part the first of his philosophic works, _Edward Allwills Briefsammlung_
(1776), a combination of romance and speculation. This was followed in
1779 by _Woldemar_, a philosophic novel, of very imperfect structure,
but full of genial ideas, and giving the most complete picture of
Jacobi's method of philosophizing. In 1779 he visited Munich as member
of the privy council, but after a short stay there differences with his
colleagues and with the authorities of Bavaria drove him back to
Pempelfort. A few unimportant tracts on questions of theoretical
politics were followed in 1785 by the work which first brought Jacobi
into prominence as a philosopher. A conversation which he had held with
Lessing in 1780, in which Lessing avowed that he knew no philosophy, in
the true sense of that word, save Spinozism, led him to a protracted
study of Spinoza's works. The _Briefe uber die Lehre Spinozas_ (1785;
2nd ed., much enlarged and with important _Appendices_, 1789) expressed
sharply and clearly Jacobi's strenuous objection to a dogmatic system in
philosophy, and drew upon him the vigorous enmity of the Berlin clique,
led by Moses Mendelssohn. Jacobi was ridiculed as endeavouring to
re-introduce into philosophy the antiquated notion of unreasoning
belief, was denounced as an enemy of reason, as a pietist, and as in all
probability a Jesuit in disguise, and was especially attacked for his
use of the ambiguous term "belief." Jacobi's next important work, _David
Hume uber den Glauben, oder Idealismus und Realismus_ (1787), was an
attempt to show not only that the term _Glaube_ had been used by the
most eminent writers to denote what he had employed it for in the
_Letters on Spinoza_, but that the nature of the cognition of facts as
opposed to the construction of inferences could not be otherwise
expressed. In this writing, and especially in the _Appendix_, Jacobi
came into contact with the critical philosophy, and subjected the
Kantian view of knowledge to searching examination.
The outbreak of the war with the French republic induced Jacobi in 1793
to leave his home near Dusseldorf, and for nearly ten years he resided
in Holstein. While there he became intimately acquainted with Reinhold
(in whose _Beitrage_, pt. iii., 1801, his important work _Uber das
Unternehmen des Kriticismus, die Vernunft zu Verstande zu bringen_ was
first published), and with Matthias Claudius, the editor of the
_Wandsbecker Bote_. During the same period the excitement caused by the
accusation of atheism brought against Fichte at Jena led to the
publication of Jacobi's _Letter to Fichte_ (1799), in which he made more
precise the relation of his own philosophic principles to theology. Soon
after his return to Germany, Jacobi received a call to Munich in
connexion with the new academy of sciences just founded there. The loss
of a considerable portion of his fortune induced him to accept this
offer; he settled in Munich in 1804, and in 1807 became president of the
academy. In 1811 appeared his last philosophic work, directed against
Schelling specially (_Von den gottlichen Dingen und ihrer Offenbarung_),
the first part of which, a review of the _Wandsbecker Bote_, had been
written in 1798. A bitter reply from Schelling was left without answer
by Jacobi, but gave rise to an animated controversy in which Fries and
Baader took prominent part. In 1812 Jacobi retired from the office of
president, and began to prepare a collected edition of his works. He
died before this was completed, on the 10th of March 1819. The edition
of his writings was continued by his friend F. Koppen, and was completed
in 1825. The works fill six volumes, of which the fourth is in three
parts. To the second is prefixed an introduction by Jacobi, which is at
the same time an introduction to his philosophy. The fourth volume has
also an important preface.
The philosophy of Jacobi is essentially unsystematic. A certain
fundamental view which underlies all his thinking is brought to bear
in succession upon those systematic doctrines which appear to stand
most sharply in contradiction to it, and any positive philosophic
results are given only occasionally. The leading idea of the whole is
that of the complete separation between understanding and apprehension
of real fact. For Jacobi understanding, or the logical faculty, is
purely formal or elaborative, and its results never transcend the
given material supplied to it. From the basis of immediate experience
or perception thought proceeds by comparison and abstraction,
establishing connexions among facts, but remaining in its nature
mediate and finite. The principle of reason and consequent, the
necessity of thinking each given fact of perception as conditioned,
impels understanding towards an endless series of identical
propositions, the records of successive comparisons and abstractions.
The province of the understanding is therefore strictly the region of
the conditioned; to it the world must present itself as a mechanism.
If, then, there is objective truth at all, the existence of real facts
must be made known to us otherwise than through the logical faculty of
thought; and, as the regress from conclusion to premises must depend
upon something not itself capable of logical grounding, mediate
thought implies the consciousness of immediate truth. Philosophy
therefore must resign the hopeless ideal of a systematic (i.e.
intelligible) explanation of things, and must content itself with the
examination of the facts of consciousness. It is a mere prejudice of
philosophic thinkers, a prejudice which has descended from Aristotle,
that mediate or demonstrated cognition is superior in cogency and
value to the immediate perception of truths or facts.
As Jacobi starts with the doctrine that thought is partial and
limited, applicable only to connect facts, but incapable of explaining
their existence, it is evident that for him any demonstrative system
of metaphysic which should attempt to subject all existence to the
principle of logical ground must be repulsive. Now in modern
philosophy the first and greatest demonstrative system of metaphysic
is that of Spinoza, and it lay in the nature of things that upon
Spinoza's system Jacobi should first direct his criticism. A summary
of the results of his examination is thus presented (_Werke_, i.
216-223): (1) Spinozism is atheism; (2) the Kabbalistic philosophy, in
so far as it is philosophy, is nothing but undeveloped or confused
Spinozism; (3) the philosophy of Leibnitz and Wolff is not less
fatalistic than that of Spinoza, and carries a resolute thinker to the
very principles of Spinoza; (4) every demonstrative method ends in
fatalism; (5) we can demonstrate only similarities (agreements, truths
conditionally necessary), proceeding always in identical propositions;
every proof presupposes something already proved, the principle of
which is immediately given (_Offenbarung_, revelation, is the term
here employed by Jacobi, as by many later writers, e.g. Lotze, to
denote the peculiar character of an immediate, unproved truth); (6)
the keystone (_Element_) of all human knowledge and activity is belief
(_Glaube_). Of these propositions only the first and fourth require
further notice. Jacobi, accepting the law of reason and consequent as
the fundamental rule of demonstrative reasoning, and as the rule
explicitly followed by Spinoza, points out that, if we proceed by
applying this principle so as to recede from particular and qualified
facts to the more general and abstract conditions, we land ourselves,
not in the notion of an active, intelligent creator of the system of
things, but in the notion of an all-comprehensive, indeterminate
_Nature_, devoid of will or intelligence. Our unconditioned is either
a pure _abstraction_, or else the impossible notion of a completed
system of conditions. In either case the result is atheism, and this
result is necessary if the demonstrative method, the method of
understanding, is regarded as the only possible means of knowledge.
Moreover, the same method inevitably lands in fatalism. For, if the
action of the human will is to be made intelligible to understanding,
it must be thought as a conditioned phenomenon, having its sufficient
ground in preceding circumstances, and, in ultimate abstraction, as
the outflow from nature which is the sum of conditions. But this is
the fatalist conception, and any philosophy which accepts the law of
reason and consequent as the essence of understanding is fatalistic.
Thus for the scientific understanding there can be no God and no
liberty. It is impossible that there should be a God, for if so he
would of necessity be finite. But a finite God, a God that is _known_,
is no God. It is impossible that there should be liberty, for if so
the mechanical order of phenomena, by means of which they are
comprehensible, would be disturbed, and we should have an
unintelligible world, coupled with the requirement that it shall be
understood. Cognition, then, in the strict sense, occupies the middle
place between sense perception, which is belief in matters of sense,
and reason, which is belief in supersensuous fact.
The best introduction to Jacobi's philosophy is the preface to the
second volume of the _Works_, and Appendix 7 to the _Letters on
Spinoza's Theory_. See also J. Kuhn, _Jacobi und die Philosophie
seiner Zeit_ (1834); F. Deycks, _F. H. Jacobi im Verhaltnis zu seinen
Zeitgenossen_ (1848); H. Duntzer, _Freundesbilder aus Goethes Leben_
(1853); E. Zirngiebl, _F. H. Jacobis Leben, Dichten, und Denken_,
1867; F. Harms, _Uber die Lehre von F. H. Jacobi_ (1876). Jacobi's
_Auserlesener Briefwechsel_ has been edited by F. Roth in 2 vols.
(1825-1827).
JACOBI, JOHANN GEORG (1740-1814), German poet, elder brother of the
philosopher, F. H. Jacobi (1743-1819), was born at Dusseldorf on the 2nd
of September 1740. He studied theology at Gottingen and jurisprudence at
Helmstedt, and was appointed, in 1766, professor of philosophy in Halle.
In this year he made the acquaintance of J. W. L. ("Vater") Gleim, who,
attracted by the young poet's _Poetische Versuche_ (1764), became his
warm friend, and a lively literary correspondence ensued between Gleim
in Halberstadt and Jacobi in Halle. In order to have Jacobi near him,
Gleim succeeded in procuring for him a prebendal stall at the cathedral
of Halberstadt in 1769, and here Jacobi issued a number of anacreontic
lyrics and sonnets. He tired, however, of the lighter muse, and in 1774,
to Gleim's grief, left Halberstadt, and for two years (1774-1776) edited
at Dusseldorf the _Iris_, a quarterly for women readers. Meanwhile, he
wrote many charming lyrics, distinguished by exquisite taste and true
poetical feeling. In 1784 he became professor of literature at the
university of Freiburg im Breisgau, a post which he held until his death
there on the 4th of January 1814. In addition to the earlier _Iris_, to
which Goethe, his brother F. H. Jacobi, Gleim and other poets
contributed, he published, from 1803-1813, another periodical, also
called _Iris_, in which Klopstock, Herder, Jean Paul, Voss and the
brothers Stollberg also collaborated.
Jacobi's _Sammtliche Werke_ were published in 1774 (Halberstadt, 3
vols.). Other editions appeared at Zurich in 1807-1813 and 1825. See
_Ungedruckte Briefe von und an Johann Georg Jacobi_ (Strassburg,
1874); biographical notice by Daniel Jacoby in _Allg. Deutsche
Biographie_; Longo, _Laurence Sterne und Johann Georg Jacobi_ (Vienna,
1898); and _Leben J. G. Jacobis, von einem seiner Freunde_ (1822).
JACOBI, KARL GUSTAV JACOB (1804-1851), German mathematician, was born at
Potsdam, of Jewish parentage, on the 10th of December 1804. He studied
at Berlin University, where he obtained the degree of doctor of
philosophy in 1825, his thesis being an analytical discussion of the
theory of fractions. In 1827 he became extraordinary and in 1829
ordinary professor of mathematics at Konigsberg, and this chair he
filled till 1842, when he visited Italy for a few months to recruit his
health. On his return he removed to Berlin, where he lived as a royal
pensioner till his death, which occurred on the 18th of February 1851.
His investigations in elliptic functions, the theory of which he
established upon quite a new basis, and more particularly his
development of the theta-function, as given in his great treatise
_Fundamenta nova theoriae functionum ellipticarum_ (Konigsberg, 1829),
and in later papers in _Crelle's Journal_, constitute his grandest
analytical discoveries. Second in importance only to these are his
researches in differential equations, notably the theory of the last
multiplier, which is fully treated in his _Vorlesungen uber Dynamik_,
edited by R. F. A. Clebsch (Berlin, 1866). It was in analytical
development that Jacobi's peculiar power mainly lay, and he made many
important contributions of this kind to other departments of
mathematics, as a glance at the long list of papers that were
published by him in _Crelle's Journal_ and elsewhere from 1826 onwards
will sufficiently indicate. He was one of the early founders of the
theory of determinants; in particular, he invented the functional
determinant formed of the n^2 differential coefficients of n given
functions of n independent variables, which now bears his name
(Jacobian), and which has played an important part in many analytical
investigations (see ALGEBRAIC FORMS). Valuable also are his papers on
Abelian transcendents, and his investigations in the theory of
numbers, in which latter department he mainly supplements the labours
of K. F. Gauss. The planetary theory and other particular dynamical
problems likewise occupied his attention from time to time. He left a
vast store of manuscript, portions of which have been published at
intervals in _Crelle's Journal_. His other works include _Commentatio
de transformatione integralis duplicis indefiniti in formam
simpliciorem_ (1832), _Canon arithmeticus_ (1839), and _Opuscula
mathematica_ (1846-1857). His _Gesammelte Werke_ (1881-1891) were
published by the Berlin Academy.
See Lejeune-Dirichlet, "Gedachtnisrede auf Jacobi" in the
_Abhandlungen der Berliner Akademie_ (1852).
JACOBINS, THE, the most famous of the political clubs of the French
Revolution. It had its origin in the Club Breton, which was established
at Versailles shortly after the opening of the States General in 1789.
It was at first composed exclusively of deputies from Brittany, but was
soon joined by others from various parts of France, and counted among
its early members Mirabeau, Sieyes, Barnave, Petion, the Abbe Gregoire,
Charles and Alexandre Lameth, Robespierre, the duc d'Aiguillon, and La
Revelliere-Lepeaux. At this time its meetings were secret and little is
known of what took place at them. After the emeute of the 5th and 6th of
October the club, still entirely composed of deputies, followed the
National Assembly to Paris, where it rented the refectory of the
monastery of the Jacobins in the Rue St Honore, near the seat of the
Assembly. The name "Jacobins," given in France to the Dominicans,
because their first house in Paris was in the Rue St Jacques, was first
applied to the club in ridicule by its enemies. The title assumed by the
club itself, after the promulgation of the constitution of 1791, was
_Societe des amis de la constitution seants aux Jacobins a Paris_, which
was changed on the 21st of September 1792, after the fall of the
monarchy, to _Societe des Jacobins, amis de la liberte et de l'egalite_.
It occupied successively the refectory, the library, and the chapel of
the monastery.
Once transferred to Paris, the club underwent rapid modifications. The
first step was its expansion by the admission as members or associates
of others besides deputies; Arthur Young was so admitted on the 18th of
January 1790. On the 8th of February the society was formally
constituted on this broader basis by the adoption of the rules drawn up
by Barnave, which were issued with the signature of the duc d'Aiguillon,
the president. The objects of the club were defined as (1) to discuss in
advance questions to be decided by the National Assembly; (2) to work
for the establishment and strengthening of the constitution in
accordance with the spirit of the preamble (i.e. of respect for legally
constituted authority and the rights of man); (3) to correspond with
other societies of the same kind which should be formed in the realm. At
the same time the rules of order and forms of election were settled, and
the constitution of the club determined. There were to be a president,
elected every month, four secretaries, a treasurer, and committees
elected to superintend elections and presentations, the correspondence,
and the administration of the club. Any member who by word or action
showed that his principles were contrary to the constitution and the
rights of man was to be expelled, a rule which later on facilitated the
"purification" of the society by the expulsion of its more moderate
elements. By the 7th article the club decided to admit as associates
similar societies in other parts of France and to maintain with them a
regular correspondence.
This last provision was of far-reaching importance. By the 10th of
August 1790 there were already one hundred and fifty-two affiliated
clubs; the attempts at counter-revolution led to a great increase of
their number in the spring of 1791, and by the close of the year the
Jacobins had a network of branches all over France. It was this
widespread yet highly centralized organization that gave to the Jacobin
Club its formidable power.
At the outset the Jacobin Club was not distinguished by extreme
political views. The somewhat high subscription confined its membership
to men of substance, and to the last it was--so far as the central
society in Paris was concerned--composed almost entirely of professional
men, such as Robespierre, or well-to-do _bourgeois_, like Santerre. From
the first, however, other elements were present. Besides Louis Philippe,
duc de Chartres (afterwards king of the French), liberal aristocrats of
the type of the duc d'Aiguillon, the prince de Broglie, or the vicomte
de Noailles, and the _bourgeois_ who formed the mass of the members, the
club contained such figures as "Pere" Michel Gerard, a peasant
proprietor from Tuel-en-Montgermont, in Brittany, whose rough common
sense was admired as the oracle of popular wisdom, and whose
countryman's waistcoat and plaited hair were later on to become the
model for the Jacobin fashion.[1] The provincial branches were from the
first far more democratic, though in these too the leadership was
usually in the hands of members of the educated or propertied classes.
Up to the very eve of the republic, the club ostensibly supported the
monarchy; it took no part in the petition of the 17th of July 1790 for
the king's dethronement; nor had it any official share even in the
insurrections of the 20th of June and the 10th of August 1792; it only
formally recognized the republic on the 21st of September. But the
character and extent of the club's influence cannot be gauged by its
official acts alone, and long before it emerged as the principal focus
of the Terror, its character had been profoundly changed by the
secession of its more moderate elements, some to found the Club of 1789,
some in 1791--among them Barnave, the Lameths, Duport and Bailly--to
found the club of the Feuillants scoffed at by their former friends as
the _club monarchique_. The main cause of this change was the admission
of the public to the sittings of the club, which began on the 14th of
October 1791. The result is described in a report of the Department of
Paris on "the state of the empire," presented on the 12th of June 1792,
at the request of Roland, the minister of the interior, and signed by
the duc de La Rochefoucauld, which ascribes to the Jacobins all the woes
of the state. "There exists," it runs, "in the midst of the capital
committed to our care a public pulpit of defamation, where citizens of
every age and both sexes are admitted day by day to listen to a criminal
propaganda.... This establishment, situated in the former house of the
Jacobins, calls itself a society; but it has less the aspect of a
private society than that of a public spectacle: vast tribunes are
thrown open for the audience; all the sittings are advertised to the
public for fixed days and hours, and the speeches made are printed in a
special journal and lavishly distributed."[2] In this society--the
report continues--murder is counselled or applauded, all authorities are
calumniated and all the organs of the law bespattered with abuse; as to
its power, it exercises "by its influence, its affiliations and its
correspondence a veritable ministerial authority, without title and
without responsibility, while leaving to the legal and responsible
authorities only the shadow of power" (Schmidt, _Tableaux_ i. 78, &c.).
The constituency to which the club was henceforth responsible, and from
which it derived its power, was in fact the _peuple bete_ of Paris; the
_sans-culottes_--decayed lackeys, cosmopolitan ne'er-do-wells, and
starving workpeople--who crowded its tribunes. To this audience, and not
primarily to the members of the club, the speeches of the orators were
addressed and by its verdict they were judged. In the earlier stages of
the Revolution the mob had been satisfied with the fine platitudes of
the _philosophes_ and the vague promise of a political millennium; but
as the chaos in the body politic grew, and with it the appalling
material misery, it began to clamour for the blood of the "traitors" in
office by whose corrupt machinations the millennium was delayed, and
only those orators were listened to who pandered to its suspicions.
Hence the elimination of the moderate elements from the club; hence the
ascendancy of Marat, and finally of Robespierre, the secret of whose
power was that they really shared the suspicions of the populace, to
which they gave a voice and which they did not shrink from translating
into action. After the fall of the monarchy Robespierre was in effect
the Jacobin Club; for to the tribunes he was the oracle of political
wisdom, and by his standard all others were judged.[3] With his fall the
Jacobins too came to an end.
Not the least singular thing about the Jacobins is the very slender
material basis on which their overwhelming power rested. France groaned
under their tyranny, which was compared to that of the Inquisition, with
its system of espionage and denunciations which no one was too
illustrious or too humble to escape. Yet it was reckoned by competent
observers that, at the height of the Terror, the Jacobins could not
command a force of more than 3000 men in Paris. But the secret of their
strength was that, in the midst of the general disorganization, they
alone were organized. The police agent Dutard, in a report to the
minister Garat (April 30, 1793), describing an episode in the Palais
Egalite (Royal), adds: "Why did a dozen Jacobins strike terror into two
or three hundred aristocrats? It is that the former have a
rallying-point and that the latter have none." When the _jeunesse doree_
did at last organize themselves, they had little difficulty in flogging
the Jacobins out of the cafes into comparative silence. Long before this
the Girondin government had been urged to meet organization by
organization, force by force; and it is clear from the daily reports of
the police agents that even a moderate display of energy would have
saved the National Convention from the humiliation of being dominated by
a club, and the French Revolution from the blot of the Terror. But
though the Girondins were fully conscious of the evil, they were too
timid, or too convinced of the ultimate triumph of their own persuasive
eloquence, to act. In the session of the 30th of April 1793 a proposal
was made to move the Convention to Versailles out of reach of the
Jacobins, and Buzot declared that it was "impossible to remain in Paris"
so long as "this abominable haunt" should exist; but the motion was not
carried, and the Girondins remained to become the victims of the
Jacobins.
Meanwhile other political clubs could only survive so long as they were
content to be the shadows of the powerful organization of the Rue St
Honore. The Feuillants had been suppressed on the 18th of August 1792.
The turn of the Cordeliers came so soon as its leaders showed signs of
revolting against Jacobin supremacy, and no more startling proof of this
ascendancy could be found than the ease with which Hebert and his
fellows were condemned and the readiness with which the Cordeliers,
after a feeble attempt at protest, acquiesced in the verdict. It is idle
to speculate on what might have happened had this ascendancy been
overthrown by the action of a strong government. No strong government
existed, nor, in the actual conditions of the country, could exist on
the lines laid down by the constitution. France was menaced by civil war
within, and by a coalition of hostile powers without; the discipline of
the Terror was perhaps necessary if she was to be welded into a united
force capable of resisting this double peril; and the revolutionary
leaders saw in the Jacobin organization the only instrument by which
this discipline could be made effective. This is the apology usually put
forward for the Jacobins by republican writers of later times; they
were, it is said (and of some of them it is certainly true), no mere
doctrinaires and visionary sectaries, but practical and far-seeing
politicians, who realized that "desperate ills need desperate remedies,"
and, by having the courage of their convictions, saved the gains of the
Revolution for France.
The Jacobin Club was closed after the fall of Robespierre on the 9th of
Thermidor of the year III., and some of its members were executed. An
attempt was made to re-open the club, which was joined by many of the
enemies of the Thermidorians, but on the 21st of Brumaire, year III.
(Nov. 11, 1794), it was definitively closed. Its members and their
sympathizers were scattered among the cafes, where a ruthless war of
sticks and chairs was waged against them by the young "aristocrats"
known as the _jeunesse doree_. Nevertheless the "Jacobins" survived, in
a somewhat subterranean fashion, emerging again in the club of the
Pantheon, founded on the 25th of November 1795, and suppressed in the
following February (see BABEUF; FRANCOIS NOEl). The last attempt to
reorganize them was the foundation of the _Reunion d'amis de l'egalite
et de la liberte_, in July 1799, which had its headquarters in the
_Salle du Manege_ of the Tuileries, and was thus known as the _Club du
Manege_. It was patronized by Barras, and some two hundred and fifty
members of the two councils of the legislature were enrolled as members,
including many notable ex-Jacobins. It published a newspaper called the
_Journal des Libres_, proclaimed the apotheosis of Robespierre and
Babeuf, and attacked the Directory as a _royaute pentarchique_. But
public opinion was now preponderatingly moderate or royalist, and the
club was violently attacked in the press and in the streets, the
suspicions of the government were aroused; it had to change its
meeting-place from the Tuileries to the church of the Jacobins (Temple
of Peace) in the Rue du Bac, and in August it was suppressed, after
barely a month's existence. Its members revenged themselves on the
Directory by supporting Napoleon Bonaparte.
Long before the suppression of the Jacobin Club the name of "Jacobins"
had been popularly applied to all promulgators of extreme revolutionary
opinions. In this sense the word passed beyond the borders of France and
long survived the Revolution. Canning's paper, _The Anti-Jacobin_,
directed against the English Radicals, consecrated its use in England;
and in the correspondence of Metternich and other leaders of the
repressive policy which followed the second fall of Napoleon, "Jacobin"
is the term commonly applied to anyone with Liberal tendencies, even to
so august a personage as the emperor Alexander I. of Russia.
The most important source of information for the history of the
Jacobins is F. A. Aulard's _La societe des Jacobins, Recueil de
documents_ (6 vols., Paris, 1889, &c.), where a critical bibliography
will be found. This collection does not contain all the printed
sources--notably the official Journal of the Club is omitted--but
these sources, when not included, are indicated. The documents
published are furnished with valuable explanatory notes. See also W.
A. Schmidt, _Tableaux de la revolution francaise_ (3 vols., Leipzig,
1867-1870), notably for the reports of the secret police, which throw
much light on the actual working of the Jacobin propaganda.
(W. A. P.)
FOOTNOTES:
[1] "When I first sat among you I heard so many beautiful speeches
that I might have believed myself in heaven, had there not been so
many lawyers present." Instead of practical questions "we have become
involved in a _galimatias_ of Rights of Man of which I understand
mighty little but that it is worth nothing." _Motion du Pere Gerard_
in the Jacobins of the 27th of April 1790 (Aulard i. 63).
[2] i.e. _Journal des debats et de la correspondance de la Societe_,
&c. For the various newspapers published under the auspices of the
Jacobins see Aulard i. p. cx., &c.
[3] In the published reports only the speeches of members are given,
not the interruptions from the tribunes. But see the report (May 18,
1793) of Dutard to Garat on a meeting of the Jacobins (Schmidt,
_Tableaux_ ii. 242).
JACOBITE CHURCH. The name of "Jacobites" is first found in a synodal
decree of Nicaea A.D. 787, and was invented by hostile Greeks for the
Syrian Monophysite Church as founded, or rather restored, by Jacob or
James Baradaeus, who was ordained its bishop A.D. 541 or 543. The
Monophysites, who like the Greeks knew themselves simply as the
Orthodox, were grievously persecuted by the emperor Justinian and the
graecizing patriarchs of Antioch, because they rejected the decrees of
the council of Chalcedon, in which they--not without good reason--saw
nothing but a thinly veiled relapse into those opinions of Nestorius
which the previous council of Ephesus had condemned. James was born a
little before A.D. 500 at Tella or Tela, 55 m. east of Edessa, of a
priestly family, and entered the convent of Phesilta on Mount Isla.
About 528 he went with a fellow-monk Sergius to Constantinople to plead
the cause of his co-religionists with the empress Theodora, and lived
there fifteen years. Justinian during those years imprisoned, deprived
or exiled most of the recalcitrant clergy of Syria, Mesopotamia,
Cilicia, Cappadocia, and the adjacent regions. Once ordained bishop of
Edessa, with the connivance of Theodora, James, disguised as a ragged
beggar (whence his name Baradaeus, Syriac _Burdeana_, Arabic
_al-Baradia_), traversed these regions preaching, teaching and ordaining
new clergy to the number, it is said, of 80,000. His later years were
embittered by squabbles with his own clergy, and he died in 578. His
work, however, endured, and in the middle ages the Jacobite hierarchy
numbered 150 archbishops and bishops under a patriarch and his
_maphrian_. About the year 728 six Jacobite bishops present at the
council of Manazgert established communion with the Armenians, who
equally rejected Chalcedon; they were sent by the patriarch of Antioch,
and among them were the metropolitan of Urha (Edessa) and the bishops of
Qarhan, Gardman, Nferkert and Amasia. How long this union lasted is not
known. In 1842, when the Rev. G. P. Badger visited the chief Jacobite
centres, their numbers in all Turkey had dwindled to about 100,000
souls, owing to vast secessions to Rome. At Aleppo at that date only ten
families out of several hundred remained true to their old faith, and
something like the same proportion at Damascus and Bagdad. Badger
testifies that the Syrian proselytes to Rome were superior to their
Jacobite brethren, having established schools, rebuilt their churches,
increased their clergy, and, above all, having learned to live with each
other on terms of peace and charity. As late as 1850 there were 150
villages of them in the Jebel Toor to the north-east of Mardin, 50 in
the district of Urfah and Gawar, and a few in the neighbourhoods of
Diarbekr, Mosul and Damascus. From about 1860, the seceders to Rome were
able, thanks to French consular protection, to seize the majority of the
Jacobite churches in Turkey; and this injustice has contributed much to
the present degradation and impoverishment of the Jacobites.
They used leavened bread in the Eucharist mixed with salt and oil, and
like other Monophysites add to the _Trisagion_ the words "Who wast
crucified for our sake." They venerate pictures or images, and make the
sign of the cross with one finger to show that Christ had but one
nature. Deacons, as in Armenia, marry before taking priests' orders.
Their patriarch is styled of Antioch, but seldom comes west of Mardin.
His _maphrian_ (fertilizer) since 1089 has lived at Mosul and ordains
the bishops. Monkery is common among them, but there are no nuns. Next
to the Roman Uniats (whom they term _Rassen_ or Venal) they most hate
the Nestorian Syrians of Persia. In 1882, at the instance of the British
government, the Turks began to recognize them as a separate
organization.
See M. Klein, _Jacobus Baradaeus_ (Leiden, 1882); Assemani, _Bibl.
Or._ ii. 62-69, 326 and 331; G. P. Badger, _The Nestorians_ (London,
1852); Rubens Duval, _La literature syriaque_ (Paris, 1899); G.
Kruger, _Monophysitische Streitigkeiten_ (Jena, 1884); Silbernagel,
_Verfassung der Kirchen des Orients_ (Landshut, 1865); and G. Wright,
_History of Syriac Literature_ (London, 1894). (F. C. C.)
JACOBITES (from Lat. _Jacobus_, James), the name given after the
revolution of 1688 to the adherents, first of the exiled English king
James II., then of his descendants, and after the extinction of the
latter in 1807, of the descendants of Charles I., i.e. of the exiled
house of Stuart.
The history of the Jacobites, culminating in the risings of 1715 and
1745, is part of the general history of England (q.v.), and especially
of Scotland (q.v.), in which country they were comparatively more
numerous and more active, while there was also a large number of
Jacobites in Ireland. They were recruited largely, but not solely, from
among the Roman Catholics, and the Protestants among them were often
identical with the Non-Jurors. Owing to a variety of causes Jacobitism
began to lose ground after the accession of George I. and the
suppression of the revolt of 1715; and the total failure of the rising
of 1745 may be said to mark its end as a serious political force. In
1765 Horace Walpole said that "Jacobitism, the concealed mother of the
latter (i.e. Toryism), was extinct," but as a sentiment it remained for
some time longer, and may even be said to exist to-day. In 1750, during
a strike of coal workers at Elswick, James III. was proclaimed king; in
1780 certain persons walked out of the Roman Catholic Church at Hexham
when George III. was prayed for; and as late as 1784 a Jacobite rising
was talked about. Northumberland was thus a Jacobite stronghold; and in
Manchester, where in 1777 according to an American observer Jacobitism
"is openly professed," a Jacobite rendezvous known as "John Shaw's Club"
lasted from 1733 to 1892. North Wales was another Jacobite centre. The
"Cycle of the White Rose"--the white rose being the badge of the
Stuarts--composed of members of the principal Welsh families around
Wrexham, including the Williams-Wynns of Wynnstay, lasted from 1710
until some time between 1850 and 1860. Jacobite traditions also lingered
among the great families of the Scottish Highlands; the last person to
suffer death as a Jacobite was Archibald Cameron, a son of Cameron of
Lochiel, who was executed in 1753. Dr Johnson's Jacobite sympathies are
well known, and on the death of Victor Emmanuel I., the ex-king of
Sardinia, in 1824, Lord Liverpool wrote to Canning saying "there are
those who think that the ex-king was the lawful king of Great Britain."
Until the accession of King Edward VII. finger-bowls were not placed
upon the royal dinner-table, because in former times those who secretly
sympathized with the Jacobites were in the habit of drinking to the king
_over the water_. The romantic side of Jacobitism was stimulated by Sir
Walter Scott's _Waverley_, and many Jacobite poems were written during
the 19th century.
The chief collections of Jacobite poems are: Charles Mackay's
_Jacobite Songs and Ballads of Scotland, 1688-1746, with Appendix of
Modern Jacobite Songs_ (1861); G. S. Macquoid's _Jacobite Songs and
Ballads_ (1888); and _English Jacobite Ballads_, edited by A. B.
Grosart from the Towneley manuscripts (1877).
Upon the death of Henry Stuart, Cardinal York, the last of James II.'s
descendants, in 1807, the rightful occupant of the British throne
according to legitimist principles was to be found among the descendants
of Henrietta, daughter of Charles I., who married Philip I., duke of
Orleans. Henrietta's daughter, Anne Marie (1669-1728), became the wife
of Victor Amadeus II., duke of Savoy, afterwards king of Sardinia; her
son was King Charles Emmanuel III., and her grandson Victor Amadeus III.
The latter's son, King Victor Emmanuel I., left no sons, and his eldest
daughter, Marie Beatrice, married Francis IV., duke of Modena, whose
son Ferdinand (d. 1849) left an only daughter, Marie Therese (b. 1849).
This lady, the wife of Prince Louis of Bavaria, was in 1910 the senior
member of the Stuart family, and according to the legitimists the
rightful sovereign of Great Britain and Ireland.
_Table showing the succession to the crown of Great Britain and
Ireland according to Jacobite principles._
Charles I. (1600-1649)
|
Henrietta (1644-1670) =
Philip I., duke of Orleans (1640-1701)
|
Anne Marie (1669-1728) =
Victor Amadeus II, king of Sardinia (1666-1732)
|
Charles Emmanuel III.
king of Sardinia (1701-1773)
|
Victor Amadeus III.
king of Sardinia (1726-1796)
|
Victor Emmanuel I.
king of Sardinia (1759-1824)
|
Marie Beatrice (c. 1780-1840) =
Francis IV., duke of Modena (1779-1846)
|
Ferdinand (1821-1849)
|
Marie Therese (b. 1849) =
Louis, prince of Bavaria (b. 1845)
|
+--------------------+------------+------------+
| | |
Rupert, prince Charles Francis
of Bavaria (b. 1869) (b. 1874) (b. 1875)
+---------------+--------------+
| | |
Luitpold Albert Rudolph
(b. 1901) (b. 1905) (b. 1909)
Among the modern Jacobite, or legitimist, societies perhaps the most
important is the "Order of the White Rose," which has a branch in
Canada and the United States. The order holds that sovereign authority
is of divine sanction, and that the execution of Charles I. and the
revolution of 1688 were national crimes; it exists to study the
history of the Stuarts, to oppose all democratic tendencies, and in
general to maintain the theory that kingship is independent of all
parliamentary authority and popular approval. The order, which was
instituted in 1886, was responsible for the Stuart exhibition of 1889,
and has a newspaper, the _Royalist_. Among other societies with
similar objects in view are the "Thames Valley Legitimist Club" and
the "Legitimist Jacobite League of Great Britain and Ireland."
See _Historical Papers relating to the Jacobite Period_, edited by J.
Allardyce (Aberdeen, 1895-1896); James Hogg, _The Jacobite Relics of
Scotland_ (Edinburgh, 1819-1821); and F. W. Head, _The Fallen Stuarts_
(Cambridge, 1901). The marquis de Ruvigny has compiled _The Jacobite
Peerage_ (Edinburgh, 1904), a work which purports to give a list of
all the titles and honours conferred by the kings of the exiled House
of Stuart. (A. W. H.*)
JACOBS, CHRISTIAN FRIEDRICH WILHELM (1764-1847), German classical
scholar, was born at Gotha on the 6th of October 1764. After studying
philology and theology at Jena and Gottingen, in 1785 he became teacher
in the gymnasium of his native town, and in 1802 was appointed to an
office in the public library. In 1807 he became classical tutor in the
lyceum of Munich, but, disgusted at the attacks made upon him by the old
Bavarian Catholic party, who resented the introduction of "north German"
teachers, he returned to Gotha in 1810 to take charge of the library and
the numismatic cabinet. He remained in Gotha till his death on the 30th
of March 1847. Jacobs was an extremely successful teacher; he took great
interest in the affairs of his country, and was a publicist of no mean
order. But his great work was an edition of the Greek Anthology, with
copious notes, in 13 volumes (1798-1814), supplemented by a revised text
from the Codex Palatinus (1814-1817). He published also notes on Horace,
Stobaeus, Euripides, Athenaeus and the _Iliaca_ of Tzetzes; translations
of Aelian (_History of Animals_); many of the Greek romances;
Philostratus; poetical versions of much of the Greek Anthology;
miscellaneous essays on classical subjects; and some very successful
school books. His translation of the political speeches of Demosthenes
was undertaken with the express purpose of rousing his country against
Napoleon, whom he regarded as a second Philip of Macedon.
See E. F. Wustemann, _Friderici Jacobsii laudatio_ (Gotha, 1848); C.
Bursian, _Geschichte der classischen Philologie in Deutschland_; and
the appreciative article by C. Regel in _Allgemeine deutsche
Biographie_.
JACOBS CAVERN, a cavern in latitude 36 deg. 35' N., 2 m. E. of Pineville,
McDonald county, Missouri, named after its discoverer, E. H. Jacobs, of
Bentonville, Arkansas. It was scientifically explored by him, in company
with Professors Charles Peabody and Warren K. Moorehead, in 1903. The
results were published in that year by Jacobs in the _Benton County
Sun_; by C. N. Gould in _Science_, July 31, 1903; by Peabody in the _Am.
Anthropologist_, Sept. 1903; and in the _Am. Journ. Archaeology_, 1904;
and by Peabody and Moorehead, 1904, as _Bulletin I._ of the Dept. of
Archaeology in Phillips Academy, Andover, Mass., in the museum of which
are exhibits, maps and photographs.
Jacobs Cavern is one of the smaller caves, hardly more than a
rock-shelter, and is entirely in the "St Joe Limestone" of the
sub-carboniferous age. Its roof is a single flat stratum of limestone;
its walls are well marked by lines of stratification; dripstone also
partly covers the walls, fills a deep fissure at the end of the cave,
and spreads over the floor, where it mingles with an ancient bed of
ashes, forming an ash-breccia (mostly firm and solid) that encloses
fragments of sandstone, flint spalls, flint implements, charcoal and
bones. Underneath is the true floor of the cave, a mass of homogeneous
yellow clay, one metre in thickness. It holds scattered fragments of
limestone, and is itself the result of limestone degeneration. The
length of the opening is over 21 metres; its depth 14 metres, and the
height of roof above the undisturbed ash deposit varied from 1 m. 20 cm.
to 2 m. 60 cm. The bone recess at the end was from 50 cm. to 80 cm. in
height. The stratum of ashes was from 50 cm. to 1 m. 50 cm. thick.
The ash surface was staked off into square metres, and the substance
carefully removed in order. Each stalactite, stalagmite and pilaster was
measured, numbered, and removed in sections. Six human skeletons were
found buried in the ashes. Seven-tenths of a cubic metre of animal bones
were found: deer, bear, wolf, raccoon, opossum, beaver, buffalo, elk,
turkey, woodchuck, tortoise and hog; all contemporary with man's
occupancy. Three stone metates, one stone axe, one celt and fifteen
hammer-stones were found. Jacobs Cavern was peculiarly rich in flint
knives and projectile points. The sum total amounts to 419 objects,
besides hundreds of fragments, cores, spalls and rejects, retained for
study and comparison. Considerable numbers of bone or horn awls were
found in the ashes, as well as fragments of pottery, but no "ceremonial"
objects.
The rude type of the implements, the absence of fine pottery, and the
peculiarities of the human remains, indicate a race of occupants more
ancient than the "mound-builders." The deepest implement observed was
buried 50 cm. under the stalagmitic surface. Dr. Hovey has proved that
the rate of stalagmitic growth in Wyandotte Cave, Indiana, is .0254 cm.
annually; and if that was the rate in Jacobs Cavern, 1968 years would
have been needed for the embedding of that implement. Polished rocks
outside the cavern and pictographs in the vicinity indicate the work of
a prehistoric race earlier than the Osage Indians, who were the historic
owners previous to the advent of the white man. (H. C. H.)
JACOBSEN, JENS PETER (1847-1885), Danish imaginative writer, was born at
Thisted in Jutland, on the 7th of April 1847; he was the eldest of the
five children of a prosperous merchant. He became a student at the
university of Copenhagen in 1868. As a boy he showed a remarkable turn
for science, particularly for botany. In 1870, although he was secretly
writing verses already, Jacobsen definitely adopted botany as a
profession. He was sent by a scientific body in Copenhagen to report on
the flora of the islands of Anholt and Laeso. About this time the
discoveries of Darwin began to exercise a fascination over him, and
finding them little understood in Denmark, he translated into Danish
_The Origin of Species_ and _The Descent of Man_. In the autumn of
1872, while collecting plants in a morass near Ordrup, he contracted
pulmonary disease. His illness, which cut him off from scientific
investigation, drove him to literature. He met the famous critic, Dr
Georg Brandes, who was struck by his powers of expression, and under his
influence, in the spring of 1873, Jacobsen began his great historical
romance of _Marie Grubbe_. His method of composition was painful and
elaborate, and his work was not ready for publication until the close of
1876. In 1879 he was too ill to write at all; but in 1880 an improvement
came, and he finished his second novel, _Niels Lyhne_. In 1882 he
published a volume of six short stories, most of them written a few
years earlier, called, from the first of them, _Mogens_. After this he
wrote no more, but lingered on in his mother's house at Thisted until
the 30th of April 1885. In 1886 his posthumous fragments were collected.
It was early recognized that Jacobsen was the greatest artist in prose
that Denmark has produced. He has been compared with Flaubert, with De
Quincey, with Pater; but these parallelisms merely express a sense of
the intense individuality of his style, and of his untiring pursuit of
beauty in colour, form and melody. Although he wrote so little, and
crossed the living stage so hurriedly, his influence in the North has
been far-reaching. It may be said that no one in Denmark or Norway has
tried to write prose carefully since 1880 whose efforts have not been in
some degree modified by the example of Jacobsen's laborious art.
His _Samlede Skrifter_ appeared in two volumes in 1888; in 1899 his
letters (_Breve_) were edited by Edvard Brandes. In 1896 an English
translation of part of the former was published under the title of
_Siren Voices: Niels Lyhne_, by Miss E. F. L. Robertson. (E. G.)
JACOB'S WELL, the scene of the conversation between Jesus and the "woman
of Samaria" narrated in the Fourth Gospel, is described as being in the
neighbourhood of an otherwise unmentioned "city called Sychar." From the
time of Eusebius this city has been identified with Sychem or Shechem
(modern Nablus), and the well is still in existence 1(1/2) m. E. of the
town, at the foot of Mt Gerizim. It is beneath one of the ruined arches
of a church mentioned by Jerome, and is reached by a few rough steps.
When Robinson visited it in 1838 it was 105 ft. deep, but it is now much
shallower and often dry.
For a discussion of Sychar as distinct from Shechem see T. K. Cheyne,
art. "Sychar," in _Ency. Bibl._, col. 4830. It is possible that Sychar
should be placed at Tulul Balata, a mound about 1/2 m. W. of the well
(_Palestine Exploration Fund Statement_, 1907, p. 92 seq.); when that
village fell into ruin the name may have migrated to 'Askar, a village
on the lower slopes of Mt Ebal about 1(3/4) m. E.N.E. from Nablus and
1/2 m. N. from Jacob's Well. It may be noted that the difficulty is
not with the location of the well, but with the identification of
Sychar.
JACOBUS DE VORAGINE (c. 1230-c. 1298), Italian chronicler, archbishop of
Genoa, was born at the little village of Varazze, near Genoa, about the
year 1230. He entered the order of the friars preachers of St Dominic in
1244, and besides preaching with success in many parts of Italy, taught
in the schools of his own fraternity. He was provincial of Lombardy from
1267 till 1286, when he was removed at the meeting of the order in
Paris. He also represented his own province at the councils of Lucca
(1288) and Ferrara (1290). On the last occasion he was one of the four
delegates charged with signifying Nicholas IV.'s desire for the
deposition of Munio de Zamora, who had been master of the order from
1285, and was deprived of his office by a papal bull dated the 12th of
April 1291. In 1288 Nicholas empowered him to absolve the people of
Genoa for their offence in aiding the Sicilians against Charles II.
Early in 1292 the same pope, himself a Franciscan, summoned Jacobus to
Rome, intending to consecrate him archbishop of Genoa with his own
hands. He reached Rome on Palm Sunday (March 30), only to find his
patron ill of a deadly sickness, from which he died on Good Friday
(April 4). The cardinals, however, "propter honorem Communis Januae,"
determined to carry out this consecration on the Sunday after Easter. He
was a good bishop, and especially distinguished himself by his' efforts
to appease the civil discords of Genoa. He died in 1298 or 1299, and was
buried in the Dominican church at Genoa. A story, mentioned by the
chronicler Echard as unworthy of credit, makes Boniface VIII., on the
first day of Lent, cast the ashes in the archbishop's eyes instead of on
his head, with the words, "Remember that thou art a Ghibelline, and with
thy fellow Ghibellines wilt return to naught."
Jacobus de Voragine left a list of his own works. Speaking of himself
in his _Chronicon januense_, he says, "While he was in his order, and
after he had been made archbishop, he wrote many works. For he
compiled the legends of the saints (_Legendae sanctorum_) in one
volume, adding many things from the _Historia tripartita et
scholastica_, and from the chronicles of many writers." The other
writings he claims are two anonymous volumes of "Sermons concerning
all the Saints" whose yearly feasts the church celebrates. Of these
volumes, he adds, one is very diffuse, but the other short and
concise. Then follow _Sermones de omnibus evangeliis dominicalibus_
for every Sunday in the year; _Sermones de omnibus evangeliis_, i.e. a
book of discourses on all the Gospels, from Ash Wednesday to the
Tuesday after Easter; and a treatise called "_Marialis_, qui totus est
de B. Maria compositus," consisting of about 160 discourses on the
attributes, titles, &c., of the Virgin Mary. In the same work the
archbishop claims to have written his _Chronicon januense_ in the
second year of his pontificate (1293), but it extends to 1296 or 1297.
To this list Echard adds several other works, such as a defence of the
Dominicans, printed at Venice in 1504, and a _Summa virtutum et
vitiorum Guillelmi Peraldi_, a Dominican who died about 1250. Jacobus
is also said by Sixtus of Siena (_Biblioth. Sacra_, lib. ix.) to have
translated the Old and New Testaments into his own tongue. "But," adds
Echard, "if he did so, the version lies so closely hid that there is
no recollection of it," and it may be added that it is highly
improbable that the man who compiled the Golden Legend ever conceived
the necessity of having the Scriptures in the vernacular.
His two chief works are the _Chronicon januense_ and the _Golden
Legend_ or _Lombardica hystoria_. The former is partly printed in
Muratori (_Scriptores Rer. Ital._ ix. 6). It is divided into twelve
parts. The first four deal with the mythical history of Genoa from the
time of its founder, Janus, the first king of Italy, and its enlarger,
a second Janus "citizen of Troy", till its conversion to Christianity
"about twenty-five years after the passion of Christ." Part v.
professes to treat of the beginning, the growth and the perfection of
the city; but of the first period the writer candidly confesses he
knows nothing except by hearsay. The second period includes the
Genoese crusading exploits in the East, and extends to their victory
over the Pisans (c. 1130), while the third reaches down to the days of
the author's archbishopric. The sixth part deals with the constitution
of the city, the seventh and eighth with the duties of rulers and
citizens, the ninth with those of domestic life. The tenth gives the
ecclesiastical history of Genoa from the time of its first known
bishop, St Valentine, "whom we believe to have lived about 530 A.D.,"
till 1133, when the city was raised to archiepiscopal rank. The
eleventh contains the lives of all the bishops in order, and includes
the chief events during their pontificates; the twelfth deals in the
same way with the archbishops, not forgetting the writer himself.
The _Golden Legend_, one of the most popular religious works of the
middle ages, is a collection of the legendary lives of the greater
saints of the medieval church. The preface divides the ecclesiastical
year into four periods corresponding to the various epochs of the
world's history, a time of deviation, of renovation, of reconciliation
and of pilgrimage. The book itself, however, falls into five
sections:--(a) from Advent to Christmas (_cc._ 1-5); (b) from
Christmas to Septuagesima (6-30); (c) from Septuagesima to Easter
(31-53); (d) from Easter Day to the octave of Pentecost (54-76); (e)
from the octave of Pentecost to Advent (77-180). The saints' lives are
full of puerile legend, and in not a few cases contain accounts of
13th-century miracles wrought at special places, particularly with
reference to the Dominicans. The last chapter but one (181), "De
Sancto Pelagio Papa," contains a kind of history of the world from the
middle of the 6th century; while the last (182) is a somewhat
allegorical disquisition, "De Dedicatione Ecclesiae."
The _Golden Legend_ was translated into French by Jean Belet de Vigny
in the 14th century. It was also one of the earliest books to issue
from the press. A Latin edition is assigned to about 1469; and a dated
one was published at Lyons in 1473. Many other Latin editions were
printed before the end of the century. A French translation by Master
John Bataillier is dated 1476; Jean de Vigny's appeared at Paris,
1488; an Italian one by Nic. Manerbi (? Venice, 1475); a Bohemian one
at Pilsen, 1475-1479, and at Prague, 1495; Caxton's English versions,
1483, 1487 and 1493; and a German one in 1489. Several 15th-century
editions of the _Sermons_ are also known, and the Mariale was printed
at Venice in 1497 and at Paris in 1503.
For bibliography see Potthast, _Bibliotheca hist. med. aev._ (Berlin,
1896), p. 634; U. Chevalier, _Repertoire des sources hist. Bio.-bibl._
(Paris, 1905), s.v. "Jacques de Voragine."
JACOTOT, JOSEPH (1770-1840), French educationist, author of the method
of "emancipation intellectuelle," was born at Dijon on the 4th of March
1770. He was educated at the university of Dijon, where in his
nineteenth year he was chosen professor of Latin, after which he studied
law, became advocate, and at the same time devoted a large amount of his
attention to mathematics. In 1788 he organized a federation of the youth
of Dijon for the defence of the principles of the Revolution; and in
1792, with the rank of captain, he set out to take part in the campaign
of Belgium, where he conducted himself with bravery and distinction.
After for some time filling the office of secretary of the "commission
d'organisation du mouvement des armees," he in 1794 became deputy of the
director of the Polytechnic school, and on the institution of the
central schools at Dijon he was appointed to the chair of the "method of
sciences," where he made his first experiments in that mode of tuition
which he afterwards developed more fully. On the central schools being
replaced by other educational institutions, Jacotot occupied
successively the chairs of mathematics and of Roman law until the
overthrow of the empire. In 1815 he was elected a representative to the
chamber of deputies; but after the second restoration he found it
necessary to quit his native land, and, having taken up his residence at
Brussels, he was in 1818 nominated by the Government teacher of the
French language at the university of Louvain, where he perfected into a
system the educational principles which he had already practised with
success in France. His method was not only adopted in several
institutions in Belgium, but also met with some approval in France,
England, Germany and Russia. It was based on three principles: (1) all
men have equal intelligence; (2) every man has received from God the
faculty of being able to instruct himself; (3) everything is in
everything. As regards (1) he maintained that it is only in the will to
use their intelligence that men differ; and his own process, depending
on (3), was to give any one learning a language for the first time a
short passage of a few lines, and to encourage the pupil to study, first
the words, then the letters, then the grammar, then the meaning, until a
single paragraph became the occasion for learning an entire literature.
After the revolution of 1830 Jacotot returned to France, and he died at
Paris on the 30th of July 1840.
His system was described by him in _Enseignement universel, langue
maternelle_, Louvain and Dijon, 1823--which passed through several
editions--and in various other works; and he also advocated his views
in the _Journal de l'emancipation intellectuelle_. For a complete list
of his works and fuller details regarding his career, see _Biographie
de J. Jacotot_, by Achille Guillard (Paris, 1860).
JACQUARD, JOSEPH MARIE (1752-1834), French inventor, was born at Lyons
on the 7th of July 1752. On the death of his father, who was a working
weaver, he inherited two looms, with which he started business on his
own account. He did not, however, prosper, and was at last forced to
become a lime-burner at Bresse, while his wife supported herself at
Lyons by plaiting straw. In 1793 he took part in the unsuccessful
defence of Lyons against the troops of the Convention; but afterwards
served in their ranks on the Rhone and Loire. After seeing some active
service, in which his young son was shot down at his side, he again
returned to Lyons. There he obtained a situation in a factory, and
employed his spare time in constructing his improved loom, of which he
had conceived the idea several years previously. In 1801 he exhibited
his invention at the industrial exhibition at Paris; and in 1803 he was
summoned to Paris and attached to the Conservatoire des Arts et Metiers.
A loom by Jacques de Vaucanson (1700-1782), deposited there, suggested
various improvements in his own, which he gradually perfected to its
final state. Although his invention was fiercely opposed by the
silk-weavers, who feared that its introduction, owing to the saving of
labour, would deprive them of their livelihood, its advantages secured
its general adoption, and by 1812 there were 11,000 Jacquard looms in
use in France. The loom was declared public property in 1806, and
Jacquard was rewarded with a pension and a royalty on each machine. He
died at Oullins (Rhone) on the 7th of August 1834, and six years later a
statue was erected to him at Lyons (see WEAVING).
JACQUERIE, THE, an insurrection of the French peasantry which broke out
in the Ile de France and about Beauvais at the end of May 1358. The
hardships endured by the peasants in the Hundred Years' War and their
hatred for the nobles who oppressed them were the principal causes which
led to the rising, though the immediate occasion was an affray which
took place on the 28th of May at the village of Saint-Leu between
"brigands" (militia infantry armoured in brigandines) and countryfolk.
The latter having got the upper hand united with the inhabitants of the
neighbouring villages and placed Guillaume Karle at their head. They
destroyed numerous chateaux in the valleys of the Oise, the Breche and
the Therain, where they subjected the whole countryside to fire and
sword, committing the most terrible atrocities. Charles the Bad, king of
Navarre, crushed the rebellion at the battle of Mello on the 10th of
June, and the nobles then took violent reprisals upon the peasants,
massacring them in great numbers.
See Simeon Luce, _Histoire de la Jacquerie_ (Paris, 1859 and 1895).
(J. V.*)
JACTITATION (from Lat. _jactitare_, to throw out publicly), in English
law, the maliciously boasting or giving out by one party that he or she
is married to the other. In such a case, in order to prevent the common
reputation of their marriage that might ensue, the procedure is by suit
of jactitation of marriage, in which the petitioner alleges that the
respondent boasts that he or she is married to the petitioner, and prays
a declaration of nullity and a decree putting the respondent to
perpetual silence thereafter. Previously to 1857 such a proceeding took
place only in the ecclesiastical courts, but by express terms of the
Matrimonial Causes Act of that year it can now be brought in the
probate, divorce and admiralty division of the High Court. To the suit
there are three defences: (1) denial of the boasting; (2) the truth of
the representations; (3) allegation (by way of estoppel) that the
petitioner acquiesced in the boasting of the respondent. In _Thompson_
v. _Rourke_, 1893, Prob. 70, the court of appeal laid down that the
court will not make a decree in a jactitation suit in favour of a
petitioner who has at any time acquiesced in the assertion of the
respondent that they were actually married. Jactitation of marriage is a
suit that is very rare.
JADE, or JAHDE, a deep bay and estuary of the North Sea, belonging to
the grand-duchy of Oldenburg, Germany. The bay, which was for the most
part made by storm-floods in the 13th and 16th centuries, measures 70
sq. m., and has communication with the open sea by a fairway, a mile and
a half wide, which never freezes, and with the tide gives access to the
largest vessels. On the west side of the entrance to the bay is the
Prussian naval port of Wilhelmshaven. A tiny stream, about 14 m. long,
also known as the Jade, enters the head of the bay.
JADE, a name commonly applied to certain ornamental stones, mostly of a
green colour, belonging to at least two distinct species, one termed
nephrite and the other jadeite. Whilst the term jade is popularly used
in this sense, it is now usually restricted by mineralogists to
nephrite. The word jade[1] is derived (through Fr. _le jade_ for
_l'ejade_) from Span. _ijada_ (Lat. _ilia_), the loins, this mineral
having been known to the Spanish conquerors of Mexico and Peru under the
name of _piedra de ijada_ or _yjada_ (colic stone). The reputed value of
the stone in renal diseases is also suggested by the term nephrite (so
named by A. G. Werner from Gr. [Greek: nephros], kidney), and by its old
name _lapis nephriticus_.
Jade, in its wide and popular sense, has always been highly prized by
the Chinese, who not only believe in its medicinal value but regard it
as the symbol of virtue. It is known, with other ornamental stones,
under the name of _yu_ or _yu-chi_ (yu-stone). According to Professor H.
A. Giles, it occupies in China the highest place as a jewel, and is
revered as "the quintessence of heaven and earth." Notwithstanding its
toughness or tenacity, due to a dense fibrous structure, it is wrought
into complicated forms and elaborately carved. On many prehistoric
sites in Europe, as in the Swiss lake-dwellings, celts and other carved
objects both in nephrite and in jadeite have not infrequently been
found; and as no kind of jade had until recent years been discovered _in
situ_ in any European locality it was held, especially by Professor L.
H. Fischer, of Freiburg im Breisgau, Baden, that either the raw material
or the worked objects must have been brought by some of the early
inhabitants from a jade locality probably in the East, or were obtained
by barter, thus suggesting a very early trade-route to the Orient.
Exceptional interest, therefore, attached to the discovery of jade in
Europe, nephrite having been found in Silesia, and jadeite or a similar
rock in the Alps, whilst pebbles of jade have been obtained from many
localities in Austria and north Germany, in the latter case probably
derived from Sweden. It is, therefore, no longer necessary to assign the
old jade implements to an exotic origin. Dr A. B. Meyer, of Dresden,
always maintained that the European jade objects were indigenous, and
his views have become generally accepted. Now that the mineral
characters of jade are better understood, and its identification less
uncertain, it may possibly be found with altered peridotites, or with
amphibolites, among the old crystalline schists of many localities.
Nephrite, or true jade, may be regarded as a finely fibrous or compact
variety of amphibole, referred either to actinolite or to tremolite,
according as its colour inclines to green or white. Chemically it is a
calcium-magnesium silicate, CaMg3(SiO3)4. The fibres are either more
or less parallel or irregularly felted together, rendering the stone
excessively tough; yet its hardness is not great, being only about 6
or 6.5. The mineral sometimes tends to become schistose, breaking with
a splintery fracture, or its structure may be horny. The specific
gravity varies from 2.9 to 3.18, and is of determinative value, since
jadeite is much denser. The colour of jade presents various shades of
green, yellow and grey, and the mineral when polished has a rather
greasy lustre. Professor F. W. Clarke found the colours due to
compounds of iron, manganese and chromium. One of the most famous
localities for nephrite is on the west side of the South Island of New
Zealand, where it occurs as nodules and veins in serpentine and
talcose rocks, but is generally found as boulders. It was known to the
Maoris as _pounamu_, or "green stone," and was highly prized, being
worked with great labour into various objects, especially the
club-like implement known as the _mere_, or _pattoo-pattoo_, and the
breast ornament called _hei-tiki_. The New Zealand jade, called by old
writers "green talc of the Maoris," is now worked in Europe as an
ornamental stone. The green jade-like stone known in New Zealand as
_tangiwai_ is bowenite, a translucent serpentine with enclosures of
magnesite. The mode of occurrence of the nephrite and bowenite of New
Zealand has been described by A. M. Finlayson (_Quart. Jour. Geol.
Soc._, 1909, p. 351). It appears that the Maoris distinguished six
varieties of jade. Difference of colour seems due to variations in the
proportion of ferrous silicate in the mineral. According to Finlayson,
the New Zealand nephrite results from the chemical alteration of
serpentine, olivine or pyroxene, whereby a fibrous amphibole is
formed, which becomes converted by intense pressure and movement into
the dense nephrite.
Nephrite occurs also in New Caledonia, and perhaps in some of the
other Pacific islands, but many of the New Caledonian implements
reputed to be of jade are really made of serpentine. From its use as a
material for axe-heads, jade is often known in Germany as _Beilstein_
("axe-stone"). A fibrous variety, of specific gravity 3.18, found in
New Caledonia, and perhaps in the Marquesas, was distinguished by A.
Damour under the name of "oceanic jade."
Much of the nephrite used by the Chinese has been obtained from
quarries in the Kuen-lun mountains, on the sides of the Kara-kash
valley, in Turkestan. The mineral, generally of pale colour, occurs in
nests and veins running through hornblende-schists and gneissose
rocks, and it is notable that when first quarried it is comparatively
soft. It appears to have a wide distribution in the mountains, and has
been worked from very ancient times in Khotan. Nephrite is said to
occur also in the Pamir region, and pebbles are found in the beds of
many streams. In Turkestan, jade is known as _yashm_ or _yeshm_, a
word which appears in Arabic as _yeshb_, perhaps cognate with [Greek:
iaspis] or jasper. The "jasper" of the ancients may have included
jade. Nephrite is said to have been discovered in 1891 in the Nan-shan
mountains in the Chinese province of Kan-suh, where it is worked. The
great centre of Chinese jade-working is at Peking, and formerly the
industry was active at Su-chow Fu. Siberia has yielded very fine
specimens of dark green nephrite, notably from the neighbourhood of
the Alibert graphite mine, near Batugol, Lake Baikal. The jade seems
to occur as a rock in part of the Sajan mountain system. New deposits
in Siberia were opened up to supply material for the tomb of the tsar
Alexander III. A gigantic monolith exists at the tomb of Tamerlane at
Samarkand. The occurrence of the Siberian jade has been described by
Professor L. von Jaczewski.
Jade implements are widely distributed in Alaska and British Columbia,
being found in Indian graves, in old shell-heaps and on the sites of
deserted villages. Dr G. M. Dawson, arguing from the discovery of some
boulders of jade in the Fraser river valley, held that they were not
obtained by barter from Siberia, but were of native origin; and the
locality was afterwards discovered by Lieut. G. M. Stoney. It is known
as the Jade Mountains, and is situated north of Kowak river, about 150
miles from its mouth. The study of a large collection of jade
implements by Professor F. W. Clarke and Dr G. P. Merrill proved that
the Alaskan jade is true nephrite, not to be distinguished from that
of New Zealand.
Jadeite is a mineral species established by A. Damour in 1863,
differing markedly from nephrite in that its relation lies with the
pyroxenes rather than with the amphiboles. It is an aluminium sodium
silicate, NaAl(SiO3)2, related to spodumene. S. L. Penfield showed, by
measurement, that jadeite is monoclinic. Its colour is commonly very
pale, and white jadeite, which is the purest variety, is known as
"camphor jade." In many cases the mineral shows bright patches of
apple-green or emerald-green, due to the presence of chromium. Jadeite
is much more fusible than nephrite, and is rather harder (6.5 to 7),
but its most readily determined character is found in its higher
specific gravity, which ranges from 3.20 to 3.41. Some jadeite seems
to be a metamorphosed igneous rock.
The Burmese jade, discovered by a Yunnan trader in the 13th century,
is mostly jadeite. The quarries, described by Dr F. Noetling, are
situated on the Uru river, about 120 m. from Mogaung, where the
jadeite occurs in serpentine, and is partly extracted by fire-setting.
It is also found as boulders in alluvium, and when these occur in a
bed of laterite they acquire a red colour, which imparts to them
peculiar value. According to Dr W. G. Bleeck, who visited the jade
country of Upper Burma after Noetling, jadeite occurs at three
localities in the Kachin Hills--Tawmaw, Hweka and Mamon. The jadeite
is known as _chauk-sen_, and is sent either to China or to Mandalay,
by way of Bhamo, whence Bhamo has come erroneously to be regarded as a
locality for jade. Jadeite occurs in association with the nephrite of
Turkestan, and possibly in some other Asiatic localities. In certain
cases nephrite is formed by the alteration of jadeite, as shown by
Professor J. P. Iddings. The Chinese _feits'ui_, sometimes called
"imperial jade," is a beautiful green stone, which seems generally to
be jadeite, but it is said that in some cases it may be chrysoprase.
It is named from its resemblance in colour to the plumage of the
kingfisher. The resonant character of jade has led to its occasional
use as a musical stone.
In Mexico, in Central America and in the northern part of South
America, objects of jadeite are common. The Kunz votive adze from
Oaxaca, in Mexico, is now in the American Museum of Natural History,
New York. At the time of the Spanish conquest of Mexico amulets of
green stone were highly venerated, and it is believed that jadeite was
one of the stones prized under the name of _chalchihuitl_. Probably
turquoise was another stone included under this name, and indeed any
green stone capable of being polished, such as the Amazon stone, now
recognized as a green feldspar, may have been numbered among the Aztec
amulets. Dr Kunz suggests that the chalchihuitl was jadeite in
southern Mexico and Central America, and turquoise in northern Mexico
and New Mexico. He thinks that Mexican jadeite may yet be discovered
in places (_Gems and Precious Stones of Mexico_, by G. F. Kunz:
Mexico, 1907).
Chloromelanite is Damour's name for a dense, dark mineral which has
been regarded as a kind of jade, and was used for the manufacture of
celts found in the dolmens of France and in certain Swiss
lake-dwellings. It is a mineral of spinach-green or dark-green colour,
having a specific gravity of 3.4, or even as high as 3.65, and may be
regarded as a variety of jadeite rich in iron. Chloromelanite occurs
in the Cyclops Mountains in New Guinea, and is used for hatchets or
agricultural implements, whilst the sago-clubs of the island are
usually of serpentine. Sillimanite, or fibrolite, is a mineral which,
like chloromelanite, was used by the Neolithic occupants of western
Europe, and is sometimes mistaken for a pale kind of jade. It is an
aluminium silicate, of specific gravity about 3.2, distinguished by
its infusibility. The _jade tenace_ of J. R. Hauy, discovered by H. B.
de Saussure in the Swiss Alps, is now known as saussurite. Among other
substances sometimes taken for jade may be mentioned prehnite, a
hydrous calcium-aluminium silicate, which when polished much resembles
certain kinds of jade. Pectolite has been used, like jade, in Alaska.
A variety of vesuvianite (idocrase) from California, described by Dr.
G. F. Kunz as californite, was at first mistaken for jade. The name
jadeolite has been given by Kunz to a green chromiferous syenite from
the jadeite mines of Burma. The mineral called bowenite, at one time
supposed to be jade, is a hard and tough variety of serpentine. Some
of the common Chinese ornaments imitating jade are carved in steatite
or serpentine, while others are merely glass. The _pate de riz_ is a
fine white glass. The so-called "pink jade" is mostly quartz,
artificially coloured, and "black jade," though sometimes mentioned,
has no existence.
An exhaustive description of jade will be found in a sumptuous work,
entitled _Investigations and Studies in Jade_ (New York, 1906). This
work, edited by Dr G. F. Kunz, was prepared in illustration of the
famous jade collection made by Heber Reginald Bishop, and presented
by him to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. The work, which is
in two folio volumes, superbly illustrated, was printed privately, and
after 100 copies had been struck off on American hand-made paper, the
type was distributed and the material used for the illustrations was
destroyed. The second volume is a catalogue of the collection, which
comprises 900 specimens arranged in three classes: mineralogical,
archaeological and artistic. The important section on Chinese jade was
contributed by Dr S. W. Bushell, who also translated for the work a
discourse on jade--_Yu-shuo_ by T'ang Jung-tso, of Peking. Reference
should also be made to Heinrich Fischer's _Nephrit und Jadeit_ (2nd
ed., Stuttgart, 1880), a work which at the date of its publication was
almost exhaustive. (F. W. R.*)
FOOTNOTE:
[1] The English use of the word for a worthless, ill-tempered horse,
a "screw," also applied as a term of reproach to a woman, has been
referred doubtfully to the same Spanish source as the O. Sp.
_ijadear_, meaning to pant, of a broken-winded horse.
JAEN, an inland province of southern Spain, formed in 1833 of districts
belonging to Andalusia; bounded on the N. by Ciudad Real and Albacete,
E. by Albacete and Granada, S. by Granada, and W. by Cordova. Pop.
(1900), 474,490; area, 5848 sq. m. Jaen comprises the upper basin of the
river Guadalquivir, which traverses the central districts from east to
west, and is enclosed on the north, south and east by mountain ranges,
while on the west it is entered by the great Andalusian plain. The
Sierra Morena, which divides Andalusia from New Castile, extends along
the northern half of the province, its most prominent ridges being the
Loma de Chiclana and the Loma de Ubeda; the Sierras de Segura, in the
east, derive their name from the river Segura, which rises just within
the border; and between the last-named watershed, its continuation the
Sierra del Pozo, and the parallel Sierra de Cazorla, is the source of
the Guadalquivir. The loftiest summits in the province are those of the
Sierra Magina (7103 ft.) farther west and south. Apart from the
Guadalquivir the only large rivers are its right-hand tributaries the
Jandula and Guadalimar, its left-hand tributary the Guadiana Menor, and
the Segura, which flows east and south to the Mediterranean.
In a region which varies so markedly in the altitude of its surface,
the climate is naturally unequal; and, while the bleak, wind-swept
highlands are only available as sheep-walks, the well-watered and
fertile valleys favour the cultivation of the vine, the olive and all
kinds of cereals. The mineral wealth of Jaen has been known since
Roman times, and mining is an important industry, with its centre at
Linares. Over 400 lead mines were worked in 1903; small quantities of
iron, copper and salt are also obtained. There is some trade in sawn
timber and cloth; esparto fabrics, alcohol and oil are manufactured.
The roads, partly owing to the development of mining, are more
numerous and better kept than in most Spanish provinces. Railway
communication is also very complete in the western districts, as the
main line Madrid-Cordova-Seville passes through them and is joined
south of Linares by two important railways--from Algeciras and Malaga
on the south-west, and from Almeria on the south-east. The eastern
half of Jaen is inaccessible by rail. In the western half are Jaen,
the capital (pop. (1900), 26,434), with Andujar (16,302), Baeza
(14,379), Bailen (7420), Linares (38,245), Martos (17,078) and Ubeda
(19,913). Other towns of more than 7000 inhabitants are Alcala la
Real, Alcaudete, Arjona, La Carolina and Porcuna, in the west; and
Cazorla, Quesada, Torredonjimeno, Villacarillo and Villanueva del
Arzobispo, in the east.
JAEN, the capital of the Spanish province of Jaen, on the Linares-Puente
Genil railway, 1500 ft. above the sea. Pop. (1900), 26,434. Jaen is
finely situated on the well-wooded northern slopes of the Jabalcuz
Mountains, overlooking the picturesque valleys of the Jaen and
Guadalbullon rivers, which flow north into the Guadalquivir. The
hillside upon which the narrow and irregular city streets rise in
terraces is fortified with Moorish walls and a Moorish citadel. Jaen is
an episcopal see. Its cathedral was founded in 1532; and, although it
remained unfinished until late in the 18th century, its main
characteristics are those of the Renaissance period. The city contains
many churches and convents, a library, art galleries, theatres, barracks
and hospitals. Its manufactures include leather, soap, alcohol and
linen; and it was formerly celebrated for its silk. There are hot
mineral springs in the mountains, 2 m. south.
The identification of Jaen with the Roman Aurinx, which has sometimes
been suggested, is extremely questionable. After the Moorish conquest
Jaen was an important commercial centre, under the name of Jayyan; and
ultimately became capital of a petty kingdom, which was brought to an
end only in 1246 by Ferdinand III. of Castille, who transferred hither
the bishopric of Baeza in 1248. Ferdinand IV. died at Jaen in 1312. In
1712 the city suffered severely from an earthquake.
JAFARABAD, a state of India, in the Kathiawar agency of Bombay, forming
part of the territory of the nawab of Janjira; area, 42 sq. m.; pop.
(1901), 12,097; estimated revenue, L4000. The town of Jafarabad (pop.
6038), situated on the estuary of a river, carries on a large coasting
trade.
JAFFNA, a town of Ceylon, at the northern extremity of the island. The
fort was described by Sir J. Emerson Tennent as "the most perfect little
military work in Ceylon--a pentagon built of blocks of white coral." The
European part of the town bears the Dutch stamp more distinctly than any
other town in the island; and there still exists a Dutch Presbyterian
church. Several of the church buildings date from the time of the
Portuguese. In 1901 Jaffna had a population of 33,879, while in the
district or peninsula of the same name there were 300,851 persons,
nearly all Tamils, the only Europeans being the civil servants and a few
planters. Coco-nut planting has not been successful of recent years. The
natives grow palmyras freely, and have a trade in the fibre of this
palm. They also grow and export tobacco, but not enough rice for their
own requirements. A steamer calls weekly, and there is considerable
trade. The railway extension from Kurunegala due north to Jaffna and the
coast was commenced in 1900. Jaffna is the seat of a government agent
and district judge, and criminal sessions of the supreme court are
regularly held. Jaffna, or, as the natives call it, Yalpannan, was
occupied by the Tamils about 204 B.C., and there continued to be Tamil
rajahs of Jaffna till 1617, when the Portuguese took possession of the
place. As early as 1544 the missionaries under Francis Xavier had made
converts in this part of Ceylon, and after the conquest the Portuguese
maintained their proselytizing zeal. They had a Jesuit college, a
Franciscan and a Dominican monastery. The Dutch drove out the Portuguese
in 1658. The Church of England Missionary Society began its work in
Jaffna in 1818, and the American Missionary Society in 1822.
JAGER, GUSTAV (1832- ), German naturalist and hygienist, was born at
Burg in Wurttemberg on the 23rd of June 1832. After studying medicine at
Tubingen he became a teacher of zoology at Vienna. In 1868 he was
appointed professor of zoology at the academy of Hohenheim, and
subsequently he became teacher of zoology and anthropology at Stuttgart
polytechnic and professor of physiology at the veterinary school. In
1884 he abandoned teaching and started practice as a physician in
Stuttgart. He wrote various works on biological subjects, including _Die
Darwinsche Theorie und ihre Stellung zu Moral und Religion_ (1869),
_Lehrbuch der allgemeinen Zoologie_ (1871-1878), and _Die Entdeckung der
Seele_ (1878). In 1876 he suggested an hypothesis in explanation of
heredity, resembling the germ-plasm theory subsequently elaborated by
August Weismann, to the effect that the germinal protoplasm retains its
specific properties from generation to generation, dividing in each
reproduction into an ontogenetic portion, out of which the individual is
built up, and a phylogenetic portion, which is reserved to form the
reproductive material of the mature offspring. In _Die Normalkleidung
als Gesundheitsschutz_ (1880) he advocated the system of clothing
associated with his name, objecting especially to the use of any kind of
vegetable fibre for clothes.
JAGERNDORF (Czech, _Krnov_), a town of Austria, in Silesia, 18 m. N.W.
of Troppau by rail. Pop. (1900), 14,675, mostly German. It is situated
on the Oppa and possesses a chateau belonging to Prince Liechtenstein,
who holds extensive estates in the district. Jagerndorf has large
manufactories of cloth, woollens, linen and machines, and carries on an
active trade. On the neighbouring hill of Burgberg (1420 ft.) are a
church, much visited as a place of pilgrimage, and the ruins of the seat
of the former princes of Jagerndorf. The claim of Prussia to the
principality of Jagerndorf was the occasion of the first Silesian war
(1740-1742), but in the partition, which followed, Austria retained the
larger portion of it. Jagerndorf suffered severely during the Thirty
Years' War, and was the scene of engagements between the Prussians and
Austrians in May 1745 and in January 1779.
JAGERSFONTEIN, a town in the Orange Free State, 50 m. N.W. by rail of
Springfontein on the trunk line from Cape Town to Pretoria. Pop. (1904),
5657--1293 whites and 4364 coloured persons. Jagersfontein, which
occupies a pleasant situation on the open veld about 4500 ft. above the
sea, owes its existence to the valuable diamond mine discovered here in
1870. The first diamond, a stone of 50 carats, was found in August of
that year, and digging immediately began. The discovery a few weeks
later of the much richer mines at Bultfontein and Du Toits Pan, followed
by the great finds at De Beers and Colesberg Kop (Kimberley) caused
Jagersfontein to be neglected for several years. Up to 1887 the claims
in the mine were held by a large number of individuals, but coincident
with the efforts to amalgamate the interest in the Kimberley mines a
similar movement took place at Jagersfontein, and by 1893 all the claims
became the property of one company, which has a working arrangement with
the De Beers corporation. The mine, which is worked on the open system
and has a depth of 450 ft., yields stones of very fine quality, but the
annual output does not exceed in value L500,000. In 1909 a shaft 950 ft.
deep was sunk with a view to working the mine on the underground system.
Among the famous stones found in the mine are the "Excelsior" (weighing
971 carats, and larger than any previously discovered) and the "Jubilee"
(see DIAMOND). The town was created a municipality in 1904.
Fourteen miles east of Jagersfontein is Boomplaats, the site of the
battle fought in 1848 between the Boers under A. W. Pretorius and the
British under Sir Harry Smith (see ORANGE FREE STATE: _History_).
JAGO, RICHARD (1715-1781), English poet, third son of Richard Jago,
rector of Beaudesert, Warwickshire, was born in 1715. He went up to
University College, Oxford, in 1732, and took his degree in 1736. He was
ordained to the curacy of Snitterfield, Warwickshire, in 1737, and
became rector in 1754; and, although he subsequently received other
preferments, Snitterfield remained his favourite residence. He died
there on the 8th of May 1781. He was twice married. Jago's best-known
poem, _The Blackbirds_, was first printed in Hawkesworth's _Adventurer_
(No. 37, March 13, 1753), and was generally attributed to Gilbert West,
but Jago published it in his own name, with other poems, in R. Dodsley's
_Collection of Poems_ (vol. iv., 1755). In 1767 appeared a topographical
poem, _Edge Hill, or the Rural Prospect delineated and moralized_; two
separate sermons were published in 1755; and in 1768 _Labour and Genius,
a Fable_. Shortly before his death Jago revised his poems, and they were
published in 1784 by his friend, John Scott Hylton, as _Poems Moral and
Descriptive_.
See a notice prefixed to the edition of 1784; A. Chalmers, _English
Poets_ (vol. xvii., 1810); F. L. Colvile, _Warwickshire Worthies_
(1870); some biographical notes are to be found in the letters of
Shenstone to Jago printed in vol. iii. of Shenstone's _Works_ (1769).
JAGUAR (_Felis onca_), the largest species of the _Felidae_ found on the
American continent, where it ranges from Texas through Central and South
America to Patagonia. In the countries which bound its northern limit it
is not frequently met with, but in South America it is quite common, and
Don Felix de Azara states that when the Spaniards first settled in the
district between Montevideo and Santa Fe, as many as two thousand were
killed yearly. The jaguar is usually found singly (sometimes in pairs),
and preys upon such quadrupeds as the horse, tapir, capybara, dogs or
cattle. It often feeds on fresh-water turtles; sometimes following the
reptiles into the water to effect a capture, it inserts a paw between
the shells and drags out the body of the turtle by means of its sharp
claws. Occasionally after having tasted human flesh, the jaguar becomes
a confirmed man-eater. The cry of this great cat, which is heard at
night, and most frequently during the pairing season, is deep and hoarse
in tone, and consists of the sound _pu, pu_, often repeated. The female
brings forth from two to four cubs towards the close of the year, which
are able to follow their mother in about fifteen days after birth. The
ground colour of the jaguar varies greatly, ranging from white to black,
the rosette markings in the extremes being but faintly visible. The
general or typical coloration is, however, a rich tan upon the head,
neck, body, outside of legs, and tail near the root. The upper part of
the head and sides of the face are thickly marked with small black
spots, and the rest of body is covered with rosettes, formed of rings of
black spots, with a black spot in the centre, and ranged lengthwise
along the body in five to seven rows on each side. These black rings are
heaviest along the back. The lips, throat, breast and belly, the inside
of the legs and the lower sides of tail are pure white, marked with
irregular spots of black, those on the breast being long bars and on the
belly and inside of legs large blotches. The tail has large black spots
near the root, some with light centres, and from about midway of its
length to the tip it is ringed with black. The ears are black behind,
with a large buff spot near the tip. The nose and upper lip are light
rufous brown. The size varies, the total length of a very large specimen
measuring 6 ft. 9 in.; the average length, however, is about 4 ft. from
the nose to root of tail. In form the jaguar is thick-set; it does not
stand high upon its legs; and in comparison with the leopard is heavily
built; but its movements are very rapid, and it is fully as agile as its
more graceful relative. The skull resembles that of the lion and tiger,
but is much broader in proportion to its length, and may be identified
by the presence of a tubercle on the inner edge of the orbit. The
species has been divided into a number of local forms, regarded by some
American naturalists as distinct species, but preferably ranked as
sub-species or races.
[Illustration: The Jaguar (_Felis onca_).]
JAGUARONDI, or YAGUARONDI (_Felis jaguarondi_), a South American wild
cat, found in Brazil, Paraguay and Guiana, ranging to north-eastern
Mexico. This relatively small cat, uniformly coloured, is generally of
some shade of brownish-grey, but in some individuals the fur has a
rufous coat, while in others grey predominates. These cats are said by
Don Felix de Azara to keep to cover, without venturing into open places.
They attack tame poultry and also young fawns. The names jaguarondi and
eyra are applied indifferently to this species and _Felis eyra_.
JAHANABAD, a town of British India in Gaya district, Bengal, situated on
a branch of the East Indian railway. Pop. (1901), 7018. It was once a
flourishing trading town, and in 1760 it formed one of the eight
branches of the East India Company's central factory at Patna. Since the
introduction of Manchester goods, the trade of the town in cotton cloth
has almost entirely ceased; but large numbers of the Jolaha or
Mahommedan weaver caste live in the neighbourhood.
JAHANGIR, or JEHANGIR (1569-1627), Mogul emperor of Delhi, succeeded his
father Akbar the Great in 1605. His name was Salim, but he assumed the
title of Jahangir, "Conqueror of the World," on his accession. It was in
his reign that Sir Thomas Roe came as ambassador of James I., on behalf
of the English company. He was a dissolute ruler, much addicted to
drunkenness, and his reign is chiefly notable for the influence enjoyed
by his wife Nur Jahan, "the Light of the World." At first she influenced
Jahangir for good, but surrounding herself with her relatives she
aroused the jealousy of the imperial princes; and Jahangir died in 1627
in the midst of a rebellion headed by his son, Khurram or Shah Jahan,
and his greatest general, Mahabat Khan. The tomb of Jahangir is situated
in the gardens of Shahdera on the outskirts of Lahore.
JAHIZ (ABU 'UTHMAN 'AMR IBN BAHR UL-JAHIZ; i.e. "the man the pupils of
whose eyes are prominent") (d. 869), Arabian writer. He spent his life
and devoted himself in Basra chiefly to the study of polite literature.
A Mu'tazilite in his religious beliefs, he developed a system of his own
and founded a sect named after him. He was favoured by Ibn uz-Zaiyat,
the vizier of the caliph Wathiq.
His work, the _Kitab ul-Bayan wat-Tabyin_, a discursive treatise on
rhetoric, has been published in two volumes at Cairo (1895). The
_Kitab ul-Mahasin wal-Addad_ was edited by G. van Vloten as _Le Livre
des beautes et des antitheses_ (Leiden, 1898); the _Kitab ul-Bu-hala_.
_Le Livre des avares_, ed. by the same (Leiden, 1900); two other
smaller works, the _Excellences of the Turks_ and the _Superiority in
Glory of the Blacks over the Whites_, also prepared by the same. The
_Kitab ul-Hayawan,_ or "Book of Animals," a philological and literary,
not a scientific, work, was published at Cairo (1906). (G. W. T.)
JAHN, FRIEDRICH LUDWIG (1778-1852), German pedagogue and patriot,
commonly called _Turnvater_ ("Father of Gymnastics"), was born in Lanz
on the 11th of August 1778. He studied theology and philology from 1796
to 1802 at Halle, Gottingen and Greifswald. After Jena he joined the
Prussian army. In 1809 he went to Berlin, where he became a teacher at
the Gymnasium zum Grauen as well as at the Plamann School. Brooding upon
the humiliation of his native land by Napoleon, he conceived the idea of
restoring the spirits of his countrymen by the development of their
physical and moral powers through the practice of gymnastics. The first
_Turnplatz_, or open-air gymnasium, was opened by him at Berlin in 1811,
and the movement spread rapidly, the young gymnasts being taught to
regard themselves as members of a kind of gild for the emancipation of
their fatherland. This patriotic spirit was nourished in no small degree
by the writings of Jahn. Early in 1813 he took an active part at Breslau
in the formation of the famous corps of Lutzow, a battalion of which he
commanded, though during the same period he was often employed in secret
service. After the war he returned to Berlin, where he was appointed
state teacher of gymnastics. As such he was a leader in the formation of
the student _Burschenschaften_ (patriotic fraternities) in Jena.
A man of democratic nature, rugged, honest, eccentric and outspoken,
Jahn often came into collision with the reactionary spirit of the time,
and this conflict resulted in 1819 in the closing of the _Turnplatz_ and
the arrest of Jahn himself. Kept in semi-confinement at the fortress of
Kolberg until 1824, he was then sentenced to imprisonment for two years;
but this sentence was reversed in 1825, though he was forbidden to live
within ten miles of Berlin. He therefore took up his residence at
Freyburg on the Unstrut, where he remained until his death, with the
exception of a short period in 1828, when he was exiled to Colleda on a
charge of sedition. In 1840 he was decorated by the Prussian government
with the Iron Cross for bravery in the wars against Napoleon. In the
spring of 1848 he was elected by the district of Naumburg to the German
National Parliament. Jahn died on the 15th of October 1852 in Freyburg,
where a monument was erected in his honour in 1859.
Among his works are the following: _Bereicherung des hochdeutschen
Sprachschatzes_ (Leipzig, 1806), _Deutsches Volksthum_ (Lubeck, 1810),
_Runenblatter_ (Frankfort, 1814), _Neue Runenblatter_ (Naumburg,
1828), _Merke zum deutschen Volksthum_ (Hildburghausen, 1833), and
_Selbstvertheidigung_ (Vindication) (Leipzig, 1863). A complete
edition of his works appeared at Hof in 1884-1887. See the biography
by Schultheiss (Berlin, 1894), and _Jahn als Erzieher_, by Friedrich
(Munich, 1895).
JAHN, JOHANN (1750-1816), German Orientalist, was born at Tasswitz,
Moravia, on the 18th of June 1750. He studied philosophy at Olmutz, and
in 1772 began his theological studies at the Premonstratensian convent
of Bruck, near Znaim. Having been ordained in 1775, he for a short time
held a cure at Mislitz, but was soon recalled to Bruck as professor of
Oriental languages and Biblical hermeneutics. On the suppression of the
convent by Joseph II. in 1784, Jahn took up similar work at Olmutz, and
in 1789 he was transferred to Vienna as professor of Oriental languages,
biblical archaeology and dogmatics. In 1792 he published his _Einleitung
ins Alte Testament_ (2 vols.), which soon brought him into trouble; the
cardinal-archbishop of Vienna laid a complaint against him for having
departed from the traditional teaching of the Church, e.g. by asserting
Job, Jonah, Tobit and Judith to be didactic poems, and the cases of
demoniacal possession in the New Testament to be cases of dangerous
disease. An ecclesiastical commission reported that the views themselves
were not necessarily heretical, but that Jahn had erred in showing too
little consideration for the views of German Catholic theologians in
coming into conflict with his bishop, and in raising difficult problems
by which the unlearned might be led astray. He was accordingly advised
to modify his expressions in future. Although he appears honestly to
have accepted this judgment, the hostility of his opponents did not
cease until at last (1806) he was compelled to accept a canonry at St
Stephen's, Vienna, which involved the resignation of his chair. This
step had been preceded by the condemnation of his _Introductio in libros
sacros veteris foederis in compendium redacta_, published in 1804, and
also of his _Archaeologia biblica in compendium redacta_ (1805). The
only work of importance, outside the region of mere philology,
afterwards published by him, was the _Enchiridion Hermeneuticae_ (1812).
He died on the 16th of August 1816.
Besides the works already mentioned, he published _Hebraische
Sprachlehre fur Anfanger_ (1792); _Aramaische od. Chaldaische u.
Syrische Sprachlehre fur Anfanger_(1793); _Arabische Sprachlehre_
(1796); _Elementarbuch der hebr. Sprache_ (1799); _Chaldaische
Chrestomathie_ (1800); _Arabische Chrestomathie_ (1802); _Lexicon
arabico-latinum chrestomathiae accommodatum_ (1802); an edition of
the Hebrew Bible (1806); _Grammatica linguae hebraicae_ (1809); a
critical commentary on the Messianic passages of the Old Testament
(_Vaticinia prophetarum de Jesu Messia_, 1815). In 1821 a collection
of _Nachtrage_ appeared, containing six dissertations on Biblical
subjects. The English translation of the _Archaeologia_ by T. C. Upham
(1840) has passed through several editions.
JAHN, OTTO (1813-1869), German archaeologist, philologist, and writer on
art and music, was born at Kiel on the 16th of June 1813. After the
completion of his university studies at Kiel, Leipzig and Berlin, he
travelled for three years in France and Italy; in 1839 he became
privatdocent at Kiel, and in 1842 professor-extraordinary of archaeology
and philology at Greifswald (ordinary professor 1845). In 1847 he
accepted the chair of archaeology at Leipzig, of which he was deprived
in 1851 for having taken part in the political movements of 1848-1849.
In 1855 he was appointed professor of the science of antiquity, and
director of the academical art museum at Bonn, and in 1867 he was called
to succeed E. Gerhard at Berlin. He died at Gottingen, on the 9th of
September 1869.
The following are the most important of his works: 1. Archaeological:
_Palamedes_ (1836); _Telephos u. Troilos_ (1841); _Die Gemalde des
Polygnot_ (1841); _Pentheus u. die Manaden_ (1841); _Paris u. Oinone_
(1844); _Die hellenische Kunst_ (1846); _Peitho, die Gottin der
Uberredung_ (1847); _Uber einige Darstellungen des Paris-Urteils_
(1849); _Die Ficoronische Cista_ (1852); _Pausaniae descriptio arcis
Athenarum_ (3rd ed., 1901); _Darstellungen griechischer Dichter auf
Vasenbildern_ (1861). 2. Philological: Critical editions of Juvenal,
Persius and Sulpicia (3rd ed. by F. Bucheler, 1893); Censorinus
(1845); Florus (1852); Cicero's _Brutus_ (4th ed., 1877); and _Orator_
(3rd ed., 1869); the _Periochae_ of Livy (1853); the _Psyche et
Cupido_ of Apuleius (3rd ed., 1884; 5th ed., 1905); Longinus (1867;
3rd ed. by J. Vahlen, 1905). 3. Biographical and aesthetic: _Ueber
Mendelssohn's Paulus_ (1842); _Biographie Mozarts_, a work of
extraordinary labour, and of great importance for the history of music
(3rd ed. by H. Disters, 1889-1891; Eng. trans. by P. D. Townsend,
1891); _Ludwig Uhland_ (1863); _Gesammelte Aufsatze uber Musik_
(1866); _Biographische Aufsatze_ (1866). His _Griechische
Bilderchroniken_ was published after his death, by his nephew A.
Michaelis, who has written an exhaustive biography in _Allgemeine
Deutsche Biographie_, xiii.; see also J. Vahlen, _Otto Jahn_ (1870);
C. Bursian, _Geschichte der classischen Philologie in Deutschland_.
JAHRUM, a town and district of Persia in the province of Fars, S.E. of
Shiraz and S.W. of Darab. The district has thirty-three villages and is
famous for its celebrated _shahan_ dates, which are exported in great
quantities; it also produces much tobacco and fruit. The water supply is
scanty, and most of the irrigation is by water drawn from wells. The
town of Jahrum, situated about 90 m. S.E. of Shiraz, is surrounded by a
mud-wall 3 m. in circuit which was constructed in 1834. It has a
population of about 15,000, one half living inside and the other half
outside the walls. It is the market for the produce of the surrounding
districts, has six caravanserais and a post office.
JAINS, the most numerous and influential sect of heretics, or
nonconformists to the Brahmanical system of Hinduism, in India. They are
found in every province of upper Hindustan, in the cities along the
Ganges and in Calcutta. But they are more numerous to the west--in
Mewar, Gujarat, and in the upper part of the Malabar coast--and are also
scattered throughout the whole of the southern peninsula. They are
mostly traders, and live in the towns; and the wealth of many of their
community gives them a social importance greater than would result from
their mere numbers. In the Indian census of 1901 they are returned as
being 1,334,140 in number. Their magnificent series of temples and
shrines on Mount Abu, one of the seven wonders of India, is perhaps the
most striking outward sign of their wealth and importance.
The Jains are the last direct representatives on the continent of India
of those schools of thought which grew out of the active philosophical
speculation and earnest spirit of religious inquiry that prevailed in
the valley of the Ganges during the 5th and 6th centuries before the
Christian era. For many centuries Jainism was so overshadowed by that
stupendous movement, born at the same time and in the same place, which
we call Buddhism, that it remained almost unnoticed by the side of its
powerful rival. But when Buddhism, whose widely open doors had absorbed
the mass of the community, became thereby corrupted from its pristine
purity and gradually died away, the smaller school of the Jains, less
diametrically opposed to the victorious orthodox creed of the Brahmans,
survived, and in some degree took its place.
Jainism purports to be the system of belief promulgated by Vaddhamana,
better known by his epithet of Maha-vira (the great hero), who was a
contemporary of Gotama, the Buddha. But the Jains, like the Buddhists,
believe that the same system had previously been proclaimed through
countless ages by each one of a succession of earlier teachers. The
Jains count twenty-four such prophets, whom they call Jinas, or
Tirthankaras, that is, conquerors or leaders of schools of thought. It
is from this word Jina that the modern name Jainas, meaning followers of
the Jina, or of the Jinas, is derived. This legend of the twenty-four
Jinas contains a germ of truth. Maha-vira was not an originator; he
merely carried on, with but slight changes, a system which existed
before his time, and which probably owes its most distinguishing
features to a teacher named Parswa, who ranks in the succession of Jinas
as the predecessor of Maha-vira. Parswa is said, in the Jain chronology,
to have been born two hundred years before Maha-vira (that is, about 760
B.C.); but the only conclusion that it is safe to draw from this
statement is that Parswa was considerably earlier in point of time than
Maha-vira. Very little reliance can be placed upon the details reported
in the Jain books concerning the previous Jinas in the list of the
twenty-four Tirthankaras. The curious will find in them many
reminiscences of Hindu and Buddhist legend; and the antiquary must
notice the distinctive symbols assigned to each, in order to recognize
the statues of the different Jinas, otherwise identical, in the
different Jain temples.
The Jains are divided into two great parties--the _Digambaras_, or
Sky-clad Ones, and the _Svetambaras_, or the White-robed Ones. The
latter have only as yet been traced, and that doubtfully, as far back as
the 5th century after Christ; the former are almost certainly the same
as the Niganthas, who are referred to in numerous passages of the
Buddhist Pali Pitakas, and must therefore be at least as old as the 6th
century B.C. In many of these passages the Niganthas are mentioned as
contemporaneous with the Buddha; and details enough are given concerning
their leader Nigantha Nata-putta (that is, the Nigantha of the Jnatrika
clan) to enable us to identify him, without any doubt, as the same
person as the Vaddhamana Maha-vira of the Jain books. This remarkable
confirmation, from the scriptures of a rival religion, of the Jain
tradition is conclusive as to the date of Maha-vira. The Niganthas are
referred to in one of Asoka's edicts (_Corpus Inscriptionum_, Plate
xx.). Unfortunately the account of the teachings of Nigantha Nata-putta
given in the Buddhist scriptures are, like those of the Buddha's
teachings given in the Brahmanical literature, very meagre.
_Jain Literature._--The Jain scriptures themselves, though based on
earlier traditions, are not older in their present form than the 5th
century of our era. The most distinctively sacred books are called the
forty-five Agamas, consisting of eleven Angas, twelve Upangas, ten
Pakinnakas, six Chedas, four Mula-sutras and two other books. Devaddhi
Ganin, who occupies among the Jains a position very similar to that
occupied among the Buddhists by Buddhaghosa, collected the then
existing traditions and teachings of the sect into these forty-five
Agamas. Like the Buddhist scriptures, the earlier Jain books are
written in a dialect of their own, the so-called Jaina Prakrit; and it
was not till between A.D. 1000 and 1100 that the Jains adopted
Sanskrit as their literary language. Considerable progress has been
made in the publication and elucidation of these original authorities.
But a great deal remains yet to be done. The oldest books now in the
possession of the modern Jains purport to go back, not to the
foundation of the existing order in the 6th century B.C., but only to
the time of Bhadrabahu, three centuries later. The whole of the still
older literature, on which the revision then made was based, the
so-called _Purvas_, have been lost. And the existing canonical books,
while preserving a great deal that was probably derived from them,
contain much later material. The problem remains to sort out the older
from the later, to distinguish between the earlier form of the faith
and its subsequent developments, and to collect the numerous data for
the general, social, industrial, religious and political history of
India. Professor Weber gave a fairly full and carefully-drawn-up
analysis of the whole of the more ancient books in the second part of
the second volume of his _Catalogue of the Sanskrit MSS. at Berlin_,
published in 1888, and in vols. xvi. and xvii. of his _Indische
Studien_. An English translation of these last was published first in
the _Indian Antiquary_, and then separately at Bombay, 1893. Professor
Bhandarkar gave an account of the contents of many later works in his
_Report on the Search for Sanskrit MSS._, Bombay, 1883. Only a small
beginning has been made in editing and translating these works. The
best _precis_ of a long book can necessarily only deal with the more
important features in it. And in the choice of what should be included
the _precis_-writer will often omit the points some subsequent
investigator may most especially want. All the older works ought
therefore to be edited and translated in full and properly indexed.
The Jains themselves have now printed in Bombay a complete edition of
their sacred books. But the critical value of this edition, and of
other editions of separate texts printed elsewhere in India, leaves
much to be desired. Professor Jacobi has edited and translated the
_Kalpa Sutra_, containing a life of the founder of the Jain order; but
this can scarcely be older than the 5th century of our era. He has
also edited and translated the _Ayaranya Sutta_ of the Svetambara
Jains. The text, published by the Pali Text Society, is of 140 pages
octavo. The first part of it, about 50 pages, is a very old document
on the Jain views as to conduct, and the remainder consists of
appendices, added at different times, on the same subject. The older
part may go back as early as the 3rd century B.C., and it sets out
more especially the Jain doctrine of _tapas_ or self-mortification, in
contradistinction to the Buddhist view, which condemned asceticism.
The rules of conduct in this book are for members of the order. Dr
Rudolf Hoernle edited and translated an ancient work on the rules of
conduct for laymen, the _Uvasaga Dasao_.[1] Professor Leumann edited
another of the older works, the _Aupapatika Sutra_, and a fourth,
entitled the _Dasa-vaikalika Satra_, both of them published by the
German Oriental Society. Professor Jacobi translated two more, the
_Uttaradhyayana_ and the _Sutra Kritanga_.[2] Finally Dr Barnett has
translated two others in vol. xvii. of the _Oriental Translation Fund_
(new series, London, 1907). Thus about one-fiftieth part of these
interesting and valuable old records is now accessible to the European
scholar. The sect of the Svetambaras has preserved the oldest
literatures. Dr Hoernle has treated of the early history of the sect
in the _Proceedings of the Asiatic Society of Bengal_ for 1898.
Several scholars--notably Bhagvanlal Indraji, Mr Lewis Rice and
Hofrath Buhler[3]--have treated of the remarkable archaeological
discoveries lately made. These confirm the older records in many
details, and show that the Jains, in the centuries before the
Christian era, were a wealthy and important body in widely separated
parts of India.
_Jainism._--The most distinguishing outward peculiarity of Maha-vira and
of his earliest followers was their practice of going quite naked,
whence the term _Digambara_. Against this custom, Gotama, the Buddha,
especially warned his followers; and it is referred to in the well-known
Greek phrase, _Gymnosophist_, used already by Megasthenes, which applies
very aptly to the Niganthas. Even the earliest name Nigantha, which
means "free from bonds," may not be without allusions to this curious
belief in the sanctity of nakedness, though it also alluded to freedom
from the bonds of sin and of transmigration. The statues of the Jinas in
the Jain temples, some of which are of enormous size, are still always
quite naked; but the Jains themselves have abandoned the practice, the
Digambaras being sky-clad at meal-time only, and the Svetambaras being
always completely clothed. And even among the Digambaras it is only the
recluses or _Yatis_, men devoted to a religious life, who carry out this
practice. The Jain laity--the _Sravakas_, or disciples--do not adopt it.
The Jain views of life were, in the most important and essential
respects, the exact reverse of the Buddhist views. The two orders,
Buddhist and Jain, were not only, and from the first, independent, but
directly opposed the one to the other. In philosophy the Jains are the
most thorough-going supporters of the old animistic position. Nearly
everything, according to them, has a soul within its outward visible
shape--not only men and animals, but also all plants, and even particles
of earth, and of water (when it is cold), and fire and wind. The
Buddhist theory, as is well known, is put together without the
hypothesis of "soul" at all. The word the Jains use for soul is _jiva_,
which means life; and there is much analogy between many of the
expressions they use and the view that the ultimate cells and atoms are
all, in a more or less modified sense, alive. They regard good and evil
and space as ultimate substances which come into direct contact with the
minute souls in everything. And their best-known position in regard to
the points most discussed in philosophy is _Syad-vada_, the doctrine
that you may say "Yes" and at the same time "No" to everything. You can
affirm the eternity of the world, for instance, from one point of view,
and at the same time deny it from another; or, at different times and in
different connexions, you may one day affirm it and another day deny it.
This position both leads to vagueness of thought and explains why
Jainism has had so little influence over other schools of philosophy in
India. On the other hand, the Jains are as determined in their views of
asceticism (_tapas_) as they were compromising in their views of
philosophy. Any injury done to the "souls" being one of the worst of
iniquities, the good monk should not wash his clothes (indeed, the most
austere will reject clothes altogether), nor even wash his teeth, for
fear of injuring living things. "Subdue the body, chastise thyself,
weaken thyself, just as fire consumes dry wood." It was by suppressing,
through such self-torture, the influence on his soul of all sensations
that the Jain could obtain salvation. It is related of the founder
himself, the Maha-vira, that after twelve years' penance he thus
obtained Nirvana (Jacobi, _Jaina Sutras_, i. 201) before he entered upon
his career as a teacher. And through the rest of his life, till he died
at Pava, shortly before the Buddha, he followed the same habit of
continual self-mortification. The Buddha, on the other hand, obtained
Nirvana in his 35th year, under the Bo tree, after he had abandoned
penance; and through the rest of his life he spoke of penance as quite
useless from his point of view.
There is no manual of Jainism as yet published, but there is a great
deal of information on various points in the introductions to the works
referred to above. Professor Jacobi, who is the best authority on the
history of this sect, thus sums up the distinction between the Maha-vira
and the Buddha: "Maha-vira was rather of the ordinary class of religious
men in India. He may be allowed a talent for religious matters, but he
possessed not the genius which Buddha undoubtedly had.... The Buddha's
philosophy forms a system based on a few fundamental ideas, whilst that
of Maha-vira scarcely forms a system, but is merely a sum of opinions
(_pannattis_) on various subjects, no fundamental ideas being there to
uphold the mass of metaphysical matter. Besides this ... it is the
ethical element that gives to the Buddhist writings their superiority
over those of the Jains. Maha-vira treated ethics as corollary and
subordinate to his metaphysics, with which he was chiefly concerned."
ADDITIONAL AUTHORITIES.--Bhadrabahu's _Kalpa Sutra_, the recognized
and popular manual of the Svetambara Jains, edited with English
introduction by Professor Jacobi (Leipzig, 1879); Hemacandra's "Yoga
S'astram," edited by Windisch, in the _Zeitschrift der deutschen morg.
Ges._ for 1874; "Zwei Jaina Stotra," edited in the _Indische Studien_,
vol. xv.; _Ein Fragment der Bhagavati_, by Professor Weber; _Memoires
de l'Academie de Berlin_ (1866); _Nirayavaliya Sutta_, edited by Dr
Warren, with Dutch introduction (Amsterdam, 1879); _Over de
godsdienstige en wijsgeerige Begrippen der Jainas_, by Dr Warren (his
doctor-dissertation, Zwolle, 1875); _Beitrage zur Grammatik des
Jaina-prakrit_, by Dr Edward Muller (Berlin, 1876); Colebrooke's
_Essays_, vol. ii. Mr J. Burgess has an exhaustive account of the Jain
Cave Temples (none older than the 7th century) in Fergusson and
Burgess's _Cave Temples in India_ (London, 1880).
See also Hopkins' _Religions of India_ (London, 1896), pp. 280-96, and
J. G. Buhler _On the Indian Sect of the Jainas_, edited by J. Burgess
(London, 1904). (T. W. R. D.)
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Published in the _Bibliotheca Indica_, Calcutta, 1888.
[2] These two, and the other two mentioned above, form vols. i. and
ii. of his _Jaina Sutras_, published in the _Sacred Books of the
East_ (1884, 1895).
[3] The _Hatthi Gumpha_ and three other inscriptions at Cuttack
(Leyden, 1885); _Sravana Belgola_ inscriptions (Bangalore, 1889);
_Vienna Oriental Journal_, vols. ii.-v.; _Epigraphia Indica_, vols.
i-vii.
JAIPUR, or JEYPORE, a city and native state of India in the Rajputana
agency. The city is a prosperous place of comparatively recent date. It
derives its name from the famous Maharaja Jai Singh II., who founded it
in 1728. It is built of pink stucco in imitation of sandstone, and is
remarkable for the width and regularity of its streets. It is the only
city in India that is laid out in rectangular blocks, and it is divided
by cross streets into six equal portions. The main streets are 111 ft.
wide and are paved, while the city is lighted by gas. The regularity of
plan, and the straight streets with the houses all built after the same
pattern, deprive Jaipur of the charm of the East, while the painted mud
walls of the houses give it the meretricious air of stage scenery. The
huge palace of the maharaja stands in the centre of the city. Another
noteworthy building is Jai Singh's observatory. The chief industries are
in metals and marble, which are fostered by a school of art, founded in
1868. There is also a wealthy and enterprising community of native
bankers. The city has three colleges and several hospitals. Pop. (1901),
160,167. The ancient capital of Jaipur was Amber.
The STATE OF JAIPUR, which takes its name from the city, has a total
area of 15,579 sq. m. Pop. (1901), 2,658,666, showing a decrease of 6%
in the decade. The estimated revenue is L430,000, and the tribute
L27,000. The centre of the state is a sandy and barren plain 1,600 ft.
above sea-level, bounded on the E. by ranges of hills running north and
south. On the N. and W. it is bounded by a broken chain of hills, an
offshoot of the Aravalli mountains, beyond which lies the sandy desert
of Rajputana. The soil is generally sandy. The hills are more or less
covered with jungle trees, of no value except for fuel. Towards the S.
and E. the soil becomes more fertile. Salt is largely manufactured and
exported from the Sambhar lake, which is worked by the government of
India under an arrangement with the states of Jaipur and Jodhpur. It
yields salt of a very high quality. The state is traversed by the
Rajputana railway, with branches to Agra and Delhi.
The maharaja of Jaipur belongs to the Kachwaha clan of Rajputs, claiming
descent from Rama, king of Ajodhya. The state is said to have been
founded about 1128 by Dhula Rai, from Gwalior, who with his Kachwahas is
said to have absorbed or driven out the petty chiefs. The Jaipur house
furnished to the Moguls some of their most distinguished generals. Among
them were Man Singh, who fought in Orissa and Assam; Jai Singh,
commonly known by his imperial title of Mirza Raja, whose name appears
in all the wars of Aurangzeb in the Deccan; and Jai Singh II., or Sawai
Jai Singh, the famous mathematician and astronomer, and the founder of
Jaipur city. Towards the end of the 18th century the Jats of Bharatpur
and the chief of Alwar each annexed a portion of the territory of
Jaipur. By the end of the century the state was in great confusion,
distracted by internal broils and impoverished by the exactions of the
Mahrattas. The disputes between the chiefs of Jaipur and Jodhpur had
brought both states to the verge of ruin, and Amir Khan with the
Pindaris was exhausting the country. By a treaty in 1818 the protection
of the British was extended to Jaipur and an annual tribute fixed. In
1835 there was a serious disturbance in the city, after which the
British government took measures to insist upon order and to reform the
administration as well as to support its effective action; and the state
has gradually become well-governed and prosperous. During the Mutiny of
1857 the maharaja assisted the British in every way that lay in his
power. Maharaja Madho Singh, G.C.S.I., G.C.V.O., was born in 1861, and
succeeded in 1882. He is distinguished for his enlightened
administration and his patronage of art. He was one of the princes who
visited England at the time of King Edward's coronation in 1902. It was
he who started and endowed with a donation of 15 lakhs, afterwards
increased to 20 lakhs, of rupees (L133,000) the "Indian People's Famine
Fund." The Jaipur imperial service transport corps saw service in the
Chitral and Tirah campaigns.
JAISALMER, or JEYSULMERE, a town and native state of India in the
Rajputana agency. The town stands on a ridge of yellowish sandstone,
crowned by a fort, which contains the palace and several ornate Jain
temples. Many of the houses and temples are finely sculptured. Pop.
(1901), 7137. The area of the state is 16,062 sq. m. In 1901 the
population was 73,370, showing a decrease of 37% in ten years, as a
consequence of famine. The estimated revenue is about L6000; there is no
tribute. Jaisalmer is almost entirely a sandy waste, forming a part of
the great Indian desert. The general aspect of the country is that of an
interminable sea of sandhills, of all shapes and sizes, some rising to a
height of 150 ft. Those in the west are covered with _phog_ bushes,
those in the east with tufts of long grass. Water is scarce, and
generally brackish; the average depth of the wells is said to be about
250 ft. There are no perennial streams, and only one small river, the
Kakni, which, after flowing a distance of 28 m., spreads over a large
surface of flat ground, and forms a lake or _jhil_ called the Bhuj-Jhil.
The climate is dry and healthy. Throughout Jaisalmer only rain-crops,
such as _bajra_, _joar_, _moth_, _til_, &c., are grown; spring crops of
wheat, barley, &c., are very rare. Owing to the scant rainfall,
irrigation is almost unknown.
The main part of the population lead a wandering life, grazing their
flocks and herds. Large herds of camels, horned cattle, sheep and
goats are kept. The principal trade is in wool, _ghi_, camels, cattle
and sheep. The chief imports are grain, sugar, foreign cloth,
piece-goods, &c. Education is at a low ebb. Jain priests are the chief
schoolmasters, and their teaching is elementary. The ruler of
Jaisalmer is styled _maharawal_. The state suffered from famine in
1897, 1900 and other years, to such an extent that it has had to incur
a heavy debt for extraordinary expenditure. There are no railways.
The majority of the inhabitants are Bhatti Rajputs, who take their
name from an ancestor named Bhatti, renowned as a warrior when the
tribe were located in the Punjab. Shortly after this the clan was
driven southwards, and found a refuge in the Indian desert, which was
thenceforth its home. Deoraj, a famous prince of the Bhatti family, is
esteemed the real founder of the present Jaisalmer dynasty, and with
him the title of _rawal_ commenced. In 1156 Jaisal, the sixth in
succession from Deoraj, founded the fort and city of Jaisalmer, and
made it his capital. In 1294 the Bhattis so enraged the emperor
Ala-ud-din that his army captured and sacked the fort and city of
Jaisalmer, so that for some time it was quite deserted. After this
there is nothing to record till the time of Rawal Sabal Singh, whose
reign marks an epoch in Bhatti history in that he acknowledged the
supremacy of the Mogul emperor Shah Jahan. The Jaisalmer princes had
now arrived at the height of their power, but from this time till the
accession of Rawal Mulraj in 1762 the fortunes of the state rapidly
declined, and most of its outlying provinces were lost. In 1818 Mulraj
entered into political relations with the British. Maharawal
Salivahan, born in 1887, succeeded to the chief ship in 1891.
JAJCE (pronounced _Yaitse_), a town of Bosnia, situated on the Pliva and
Vrbas rivers, and at the terminus of a branch railway from Serajevo, 62
m. S.E. Pop. (1895), about 4000. Jajce occupies a conical hill,
overlooking one of the finest waterfalls in Europe, where the Pliva
rushes down into the Vrbas, 100 ft. below. The 14th century citadel
which crowns this hill is said to have been built for Hrvoje, duke of
Spalato, on the model of the Castel del' Uovo at Naples; but the
resemblance is very slight, and although both _jajce_ and _uovo_ signify
"an egg," the town probably derives its name from the shape of the hill.
The ruined church of St Luke, said by legend to be the Evangelist's
burial place, has a fine Italian belfry, and dates from the 15th
century. Jezero, 5 m. W. of Jajce, contains the Turkish fort of
Djol-Hissar, or "the Lake-Fort." In this neighbourhood a line of
waterfalls and meres, formed by the Pliva, stretches for several miles,
enclosed by steep rocks and forest-clad mountains. The power supplied by
the main fall, at Jajce, is used for industrial purposes, but the beauty
of the town remains unimpaired.
From 1463 to 1528 Jajce was the principal outwork of eastern Christendom
against the Turks. Venice contributed money for its defence, and Hungary
provided armies; while the pope entreated all Christian monarchs to
avert its fall. In 1463 Mahomet II. had seized more than 75 Bosnian
fortresses, including Jajce itself; and the last independent king of
Bosnia, Stephen Tomasevic, had been beheaded, or, according to one
tradition, flayed alive, before the walls of Jajce, on a spot still
called _Kraljeva Polje_, the "King's Field." His coffin and skeleton are
still displayed in St Luke's Church. The Hungarians, under King Matthias
I., came to the rescue, and reconquered the greater part of Bosnia
during the same year; and, although Mahomet returned in 1464, he was
again defeated at Jajce, and compelled to flee before another Hungarian
advance. In 1467 Hungarian bans, or military governors, were appointed
to rule in north-west Bosnia, and in 1472 Matthias appointed Nicolaus
Ujlaki king of the country, with Jajce for his capital. This kingdom
lasted, in fact, for 59 years; but, after the death of Ujlaki, in 1492,
its rulers only bore the title of _ban_, and of _vojvod_. In 1500 the
Turks, under Bajazet II., were crushed at Jajce by the Hungarians under
John Corvinus; and several other attacks were repelled between 1520 and
1526. But in 1526 the Hungarian power was destroyed at Mohacs; and in
1528 Jajce was forced to surrender.
See Brass, "Jajce, die alte Konigstadt Bosniens," in _Deutsche geog.
Blatter_, pp. 71-85 (Bremen, 1899).
JAJPUR, or JAJPORE, a town of British India, in Cuttack district,
Bengal, situated on the right bank of the Baitarani river. Pop. (1901),
12,111. It was the capital of Orissa under the Kesari dynasty until the
11th century, when it was superseded by Cuttack. In Jajpur are numerous
ruins of temples, sculptures, &c., and a large and beautiful sun pillar.
JAKOB, LUDWIG HEINRICH VON (1759-1827), German economist, was born at
Wettin on the 26th of February 1759. In 1777 he entered the university
of Halle. In 1780 he was appointed teacher at the gymnasium, and in 1791
professor of philosophy at the university. The suppression of the
university of Halle having been decreed by Napoleon, Jakob betook
himself to Russia, where in 1807 he was appointed professor of political
economy at Kharkoff, and in 1809 a member of the government commission
to inquire into the finances of the empire. In the following year he
became president of the commission for the revision of criminal law, and
he at the same time obtained an important office in the finance
department, with the rank of counsellor of state; but in 1816 he
returned to Halle to occupy the chair of political economy. He died at
Lauchstadt on the 22nd of July 1827.
Shortly after his first appointment to a professorship in Halle Jakob
had begun to turn his attention rather to the practical than the
speculative side of philosophy, and in 1805 he published at Halle
_Lehrbuch der Nationalokonomie_, in which he was the first to
advocate in Germany the necessity of a distinct science dealing
specially with the subject of national wealth. His principal other
works are _Grundriss der allgemeinen Logik_ (Halle, 1788); _Grundsatze
der Polizeigesetzgebung und Polizeianstalten_ (Leipzig, 1809);
_Einleitung in das Studium der Staatswissenschaften_ (Halle, 1819);
_Entwurf eines Criminalgesetzbuchs fur das russische Reich_ (Halle,
1818) and _Staatsfinanzwissenschaft_ (2 vols., Halle, 1821).
JAKOVA (also written DIAKOVA, GYAKOVO and GJAKOVICA), a town of Albania,
European Turkey, in the vilayet of Kossovo; on the river Erenik, a
right-hand tributary of the White Drin. Pop. (1905) about 12,000. Jakova
is the chief town of the Alpine region which extends from the
Montenegrin frontier to the Drin and White Drin. This region has never
been thoroughly explored, or brought under effective Turkish rule, on
account of the inaccessible character of its mountains and forests, and
the lawlessness of its inhabitants--a group of two Roman Catholic and
three Moslem tribes, known collectively as the Malsia Jakovs, whose
official representative resides in Jakova.
JAKUNS, an aboriginal race of the Malay Peninsula. They have become much
mixed with other tribes, and are found throughout the south of the
peninsula and along the coasts. The purest types are straight-haired,
exhibit marked Mongolian characteristics and are closely related to the
Malays. They are probably a branch of the Pre-Malays, the "savage
Malays" of A. R. Wallace. They are divided into two groups: (1) Jakuns
of the jungle, (2) Jakuns of the sea or Orang Laut. The latter set of
tribes now comprise the remnants of the pirates or "sea-gipsies" of the
Malaccan straits. The Jakuns, who must be studied in conjunction with
the other aboriginal peoples of the Malay Peninsula, the Semangs and the
Sakais, are not so dwarfish as those. The head is round; the skin varies
from olive-brown to dark copper; the face is flat and the lower jaw
square. The nose is thick and short, with wide, open nostrils. The
cheekbones are high and well marked. The hair has a blue-black tint,
eyes are black and the beard is scanty. The Jakuns live a wild forest
life, and in general habits much resemble the Sakai, being but little in
advance of the latter in social conditions except where they come into
close contact with the Malay peoples.
JALALABAD, or JELLALABAD, a town and province of Afghanistan. The town
lies at a height of 1950 ft. in a plain on the south side of the Kabul
river, 96 m. from Kabul and 76 from Peshawar. Estimated pop., 4000.
Between it and Peshawar intervenes the Khyber Pass, and between it and
Kabul the passes of Jagdalak, Khurd Kabul, &c. The site was chosen by
the emperor Baber, and he laid out some gardens here; but the town
itself was built by his grandson Akbar in A.D. 1560. It resembles the
city of Kabul on a smaller scale, and has one central bazaar, the
streets generally being very narrow. The most notable episode in the
history of the place is the famous defence by Sir Robert Sale during the
first Afghan war, when he held the town from November 1841 to April
1842. On its evacuation in 1842 General Pollock destroyed the defences,
but they were rebuilt in 1878. The town is now fortified, surrounded by
a high wall with bastions and loopholes. The province of Jalalabad is
about 80 m. in length by 35 in width, and includes the large district of
Laghman north of the Kabul river, as well as that on the south called
Ningrahar. The climate of Jalalabad is similar to that of Peshawar. As a
strategical centre Jalalabad is one of the most important positions in
Afghanistan, for it dominates the entrances to the Laghman and the Kunar
valleys; commanding routes to Chitral or India north of the Khyber, as
well as the Kabul-Peshawar road.
JALAP, a cathartic drug consisting of the tuberous roots of _Ipomaea
Purga_, a convolvulaceous plant growing on the eastern declivities of
the Mexican Andes at an elevation of 5000 to 8000 ft. above the level of
the sea, more especially about the neighbourhood of Chiconquiaco, and
near San Salvador on the eastern slope of the Cofre de Perote. Jalap has
been known in Europe since the beginning of the 17th century, and
derives its name from the city of Jalapa in Mexico, near which it grows,
but its botanical source was not accurately determined until 1829, when
Dr. J. R. Coxe of Philadelphia published a description and coloured
figure taken from living plants sent him two years previously from
Mexico. The jalap plant has slender herbaceous twining stems, with
alternately placed heart-shaped pointed leaves and salver-shaped deep
purplish-pink flowers. The underground stems are slender and creeping;
their vertical roots enlarge and form turnip-shaped tubers. The roots
are dug up in Mexico throughout the year, and are suspended to dry in a
net over the hearth of the Indians' huts, and hence acquire a smoky
odour. The large tubers are often gashed to cause them to dry more
quickly. In their form they vary from spindle-shaped to ovoid or
globular, and in size from a pigeon's egg to a man's fist. Externally
they are brown and marked with small transverse paler scars, and
internally they present a dirty white resinous or starchy fracture. The
ordinary drug is distinguished in commerce as Vera Cruz jalap, from the
name of the port whence it is shipped.
[Illustration: Jalap (_Ipomaea Purga_); about half natural size.]
Jalap has been cultivated for many years in India, chiefly at
Ootacamund, and grows there as easily as a yam, often producing clusters
of tubers weighing over 9 lb.; but these, as they differ in appearance
from the commercial article, have not as yet obtained a place in the
English market. They are found, however, to be rich in resin, containing
18%. In Jamaica also the plant has been grown, at first amongst the
cinchona trees, but more recently in new ground, as it was found to
exhaust the soil.
Besides Mexican or Vera Cruz jalap, a drug called Tampico jalap has been
imported for some years in considerable quantity. It has a much more
shrivelled appearance and paler colour than ordinary jalap, and lacks
the small transverse scars present in the true drug. This kind of jalap,
the Purga de Sierra Gorda of the Mexicans, was traced by Hanbury to
_Ipomaea simulans_. It grows in Mexico along the mountain range of the
Sierra Gorda in the neighbourhood of San Luis de la Paz, from which
district it is carried down to Tampico, whence it is exported. A third
variety of jalap known as woody jalap, male jalap, or Orizaba root, or
by the Mexicans as Purgo macho, is derived from _Ipomaea orizabensis_, a
plant of Orizaba. The root occurs in fibrous pieces, which are usually
rectangular blocks of irregular shape, 2 in. or more in diameter, and
are evidently portions of a large root. It is only occasionally met with
in commerce.
The dose of jalap is from five to twenty grains, the British
Pharmacopeia directing that it must contain from 9 to 11% of the resin,
which is given in doses of two to five grains. One preparation of this
drug is in common use, the _Pulvis Jalapae Compositus_, which consists
of 5 parts of jalap, 9 of cream of tartar, and 1 of ginger. The dose is
from 20 grains to a drachm. It is best given in the maximum dose which
causes the minimum of irritation.
The chief constituents of jalap resin are two glucosides--_convolvulin_
and _jalapin_--sugar, starch and gum. Convolvulin constitutes nearly
20% of the resin. It is insoluble in ether, and is more active than
jalapin. It is not used separately in medicine. Jalapin is present in
about the same proportions. It dissolves readily in ether, and has a
soft resinous consistence. It may be given in half-grain doses. It is
the active principle of the allied drug _scammony_. According to Mayer,
the formula of convolvulin is C34H50O16, and that of jalapin C31H50O16.
Jalap is a typical hydragogue purgative, causing the excretion of more
fluid than scammony, but producing less stimulation of the muscular
wall of the bowel. For both reasons it is preferable to scammony. It
was shown by Professor Rutherford at Edinburgh to be a powerful
secretory cholagogue, an action possessed by few hydragogue purgatives.
The stimulation of the liver is said to depend upon the solution of the
resin by the intestinal secretion. The drug is largely employed in
cases of Bright's disease and dropsy from any cause, being especially
useful when the liver shares in the general venous congestion. It is
not much used in ordinary constipation.
JALAPA, XALAPA, or HALAPA, a city of the state of Vera Cruz, Mexico, 70
m. by rail N.W. of the port of Vera Cruz. Pop. (1900), 20,388. It is
picturesquely situated on the slopes of the sierra which separates the
central plateau from the _tierra caliente_ of the Gulf Coast, at an
elevation of 4300 ft., and with the Cofre de Perote behind it rising to
a height of 13,419 ft. Its climate is cool and healthy and the town is
frequented in the hot season by the wealthier residents of Vera Cruz.
The city is well built, in the old Spanish style. Among its public
buildings are a fine old church, a Franciscan convent founded by Cortez
in 1556, and three hospitals, one of which, that of San Juan de Dios,
dates from colonial times. The neighbouring valleys and slopes are
fertile, and in the forests of this region is found the plant (jalap),
which takes its name from the place. Jalapa was for a time the capital
of the state, but its political and commercial importance has declined
since the opening of the railway between Vera Cruz and the city of
Mexico. It manufactures pottery and leather.
JALAUN, a town and district of British India, in the Allahabad division
of the United Provinces. Pop. of town (1901), 8573. Formerly it was the
residence of a Mahratta governor, but never the headquarters of the
district, which are at Orai.
The DISTRICT OF JALAUN has an area of 1477 sq. m. It lies entirely
within the level plain of Bundelkhand, north of the hill country, and is
almost surrounded by the Jumna and its tributaries the Betwa and Pahuj.
The central region thus enclosed is a dead level of cultivated land,
almost destitute of trees, and sparsely dotted with villages. The
southern portion presents almost one unbroken sheet of cultivation. The
boundary rivers form the only interesting feature in Jalaun. The river
Non flows through the centre of the district, which it drains by
innumerable small ravines instead of watering. Jalaun has suffered much
from the noxious _kans_ grass, owing to the spread of which many
villages have been abandoned and their lands thrown out of cultivation.
Pop. (1901), 399,726, showing an increase of 1%. The two largest towns
are Kunch (15,888), and Kalpi (10,139). The district is traversed by the
line of the Indian Midland railway from Jhansi to Cawnpore. A small part
of it is watered by the Betwa canal. Grain, oil-seeds, cotton and _ghi_
are exported.
In early times Jalaun seems to have been the home of two Rajput clans,
the Chandels in the east and the Kachwahas in the west. The town of
Kalpi on the Jumna was conquered for the princes of Ghor as early as
1196. Early in the 14th century the Bundelas occupied the greater part
of Jalaun, and even succeeded in holding the fortified post of Kalpi.
That important possession was soon recovered by the Mussulmans, and
passed under the sway of the Mogul emperors. Akbar's governors at Kalpi
maintained a nominal authority over the surrounding district; and the
Bundela chiefs were in a state of chronic revolt, which culminated in
the war of independence under Chhatar Sal. On the outbreak of his
rebellion in 1671 he occupied a large province to the south of the
Jumna. Setting out from this basis, and assisted by the Mahrattas, he
reduced the whole of Bundelkhand. On his death he bequeathed one-third
of his dominions to his Mahratta allies, who before long succeeded in
annexing the whole of Bundelkhand. Under Mahratta rule the country was a
prey to constant anarchy and intestine strife. To this period must be
traced the origin of the poverty and desolation which are still
conspicuous throughout the district. In 1806 Kalpi was made over to the
British, and in 1840, on the death of Nana Gobind Ras, his possessions
lapsed to them also. Various interchanges of territory took place, and
in 1856 the present boundaries were substantially settled. Jalaun had a
bad reputation during the Mutiny. When the news of the rising at
Cawnpore reached Kalpi, the men of the 53rd native infantry deserted
their officers, and in June the Jhansi mutineers reached the district,
and began their murder of Europeans. The inhabitants everywhere revelled
in the licence of plunder and murder which the Mutiny had spread through
all Bundelkhand, and it was not till September 1858 that the rebels were
finally defeated.
JALISCO, XALISCO, or GUADALAJARA, a Pacific coast state of Mexico, of
very irregular shape, bounded, beginning on the N., by the territory of
Tepic and the states of Durango, Zacatecas, Aguas Calientes, Guanajuato,
Michoacan, and Colima. Pop. (1900), 1,153,891. Area, 31,846 sq. m.
Jalisco is traversed from N.N.W. to S.S.E. by the Sierra Madre, locally
known as the Sierra de Nayarit and Sierra de Jalisco, which divides the
state into a low heavily forested coastal plain and a high plateau
region, part of the great Anahuac table-land, with an average elevation
of about 5000 ft., broken by spurs and flanking ranges of moderate
height. The sierra region is largely volcanic and earthquakes are
frequent; in the S. are the active volcanoes of Colima (12,750 ft.) and
the Nevado de Colima (14,363 ft.). The _tierra caliente_ zone of the
coast is tropical, humid, and unfavourable to Europeans, while the
inland plateaus vary from subtropical to temperate and are generally
drier and healthful. The greater part of the state is drained by the Rio
Grande de Lerma (called the Santiago on its lower course) and its
tributaries, chief of which is the Rio Verde. Lakes are numerous; the
largest are the Chapala, about 80 m. long by 10 to 35 m. wide, which is
considered one of the most beautiful inland sheets of water in Mexico,
the Sayula and the Magdalena, noted for their abundance of fish. The
agricultural products of Jalisco include Indian corn, wheat and beans on
the uplands, and sugar-cane, cotton, rice, indigo and tobacco in the
warmer districts. Rubber and palm oil are natural forest products of the
coastal zone. Stock-raising is an important occupation in some of the
more elevated districts. The mineral resources include silver, gold,
cinnabar, copper, bismuth, and various precious stones. There are
reduction works of the old-fashioned type and some manufactures,
including cotton and woollen goods, pottery, refined sugar and leather.
The commercial activities of the state contribute much to its
prosperity. There is a large percentage of Indians and mestizos in the
population. The capital is Guadalajara, and other important towns with
their populations in 1900 (unless otherwise stated) are: Zapotlanejo
(20,275), 21 m. E. by N. of Guadalajara; Ciudad Guzman (17,374 in 1895),
60 m. N.E. of Colima; Lagos (14,716 in 1895), a mining town 100 m.
E.N.E. of Guadalajara on the Mexican Central railway; Tamazula (8783 in
1895); Sayula (7883); Autlan (7715); Teocaltiche (8881); Ameca (7212 in
1895), in a fertile agricultural region on the western slopes of the
sierras; Cocula (7090 in 1895); and Zacoalco (6516). Jalisco was first
invaded by the Spaniards about 1526 and was soon afterwards conquered by
Nuno de Guzman. It once formed part of the reyno of Nueva Galicia, which
also included Aguas Calientes and Zacatecas. In 1889 its area was much
reduced by a subdivision of its coastal zone, which was set apart as the
territory of Tepic.
JALNA, or JAULNA, a town in Hyderabad state, India, on the Godavari
branch of the Nizam's railway, and 210 m. N.E. of Bombay. Pop. (1901),
20,270. Until 1903 it was a cantonment of the Hyderabad contingent,
originally established in 1827. Its gardens produce fruit, which is
largely exported. On the opposite bank of the river Kundlika is the
trading town of Kadirabad; pop. (1901), 11,159.
JALPAIGURI, or JULPIGOREE, a town and district of British India, in the
Rajshahi division of Eastern Bengal and Assam. The town is on the right
bank of the river Tista, with a station on the Eastern Bengal railway
about 300 m. due N. of Calcutta. Pop. (1901), 9708. It is the
headquarters of the commissioner of the division.
The DISTRICT OF JALPAIGURI (organized in 1869) occupies an irregularly
shaped tract south of Darjeeling and Bhutan and north of the state of
Kuch Behar. It includes the Western Dwars, annexed from Bhutan after the
war of 1864-1865. Area, 2,962 sq. m. Pop. (1901), 787,380, an increase
of 16% in the decade. The district is divided into a "regulation" tract,
lying towards the south-west, and a strip of country, about 22 m. in
width, running along the foot of the Himalayas, and known as the Western
Dwars. The former is a continuous expanse of level paddy fields, only
broken by groves of bamboos, palms, and fruit-trees. The frontier
towards Bhutan is formed by the Sinchula mountain range, some peaks of
which attain an elevation of 6000 ft. It is thickly wooded from base to
summit. The principal rivers, proceeding from west to east, are the
Mahananda, Karatoya, Tista, Jaldhaka, Duduya, Mujnai, Tursa, Kaljani,
Raidak, and Sankos. The most important is the Tista, which forms a
valuable means of water communication. Lime is quarried in the lower
Bhutan hills. The Western Dwars are the principal centre of tea
cultivation in Eastern Bengal. The other portion of the district
produces jute. Jalpaiguri is traversed by the main line of the Eastern
Bengal railway to Darjeeling. It is also served by the Bengal Dwars
railway.
JAMAICA, the largest island in the British West Indies. It lies about 80
m. S. of the eastern extremity of Cuba, between 17 deg. 43' and 18 deg.
32' N. and 76 deg. 10' and 78 deg. 20' W., is 144 m. long, 50 m. in
extreme breadth, and has an area of 4207 sq. m. The coast-line has the
form of a turtle, the mountain ridges representing the back. A
mountainous backbone runs through the island from E. to W., throwing off
a number of subsidiary ridges, mostly in a north-westerly or
south-easterly direction. In the east this range is more distinctly
marked, forming the Blue Mountains, with cloud-capped peaks and numerous
bifurcating branches. They trend W. by N., and are crossed by five
passes at altitudes varying from 3000 to 4000 ft. They culminate in Blue
Mountain Peak (7360 ft.), after which the heights gradually decrease
until the range is merged into the hills of the western plateau.
Two-thirds of the island are occupied by this limestone plateau, a
region of great beauty broken by innumerable hills, valleys and
sink-holes, and covered with luxuriant vegetation. The uplands usually
terminate in steep slopes or bluffs, separated from the sea, in most
cases, by a strip of level land. On the south coast, especially, the
plains are often large, the Liguanea plain, on which Kingston stands,
having an area of 200 sq. m. Upwards of a hundred rivers and streams
find their way to the sea, besides the numerous tributaries which issue
from every ravine in the mountains. These streams for the most part are
not navigable, and in times of flood they become devastating torrents.
In the parish of Portland, the Rio Grande receives all the smaller
tributaries from the west. In St Thomas in the east the main range is
drained by the Plantain Garden river, the tributaries of which form deep
ravines and narrow gorges. The valley of the Plantain Garden expands
into a picturesque and fertile plain. The Black river flows through a
level country, and is navigable by small craft for about 30 m. The Salt
river and the Cabaritta, also in the south, are navigable by barges.
Other rivers of the south are the Rio Cobre (on which are irrigation
works for the sugar and fruit plantations), the Yallahs and the Rio
Minho; in the north are the Martha Brae, the White river, the Great
Spanish river, and the Rio Grande. Vestiges of intermittent volcanic
action occur, and there are several medicinal springs. Jamaica has 16
harbours, the chief of which are Port Morant, Kingston, Old Harbour,
Montego Bay, Falmouth, St Ann's Bay, Port Maria and Port Antonio.
_Geology._--The greater part of Jamaica is covered by Tertiary
deposits, but in the Blue Mountain and some of the other ranges the
older rocks rise to the surface. The foundation of the island is
formed by a series of stratified shales and conglomerates, with tuffs
and other volcanic rocks and occasional bands of marine limestone. The
limestones contain Upper Cretaceous fossils, and the whole series has
been strongly folded. Upon this foundation rests unconformably a
series of marls and limestones of Eocene and early Oligocene age. Some
of the limestones are made of Foraminifera, together with Radiolaria,
and indicate a subsidence to abyssal depths. Nevertheless, the higher
peaks of the island still remained above the sea. Towards the middle
of the Oligocene period, mountain folding took place on an extensive
scale, and the island was raised far above its present level and was
probably connected with the rest of the Greater Antilles and perhaps
with the mainland also. At the same time plutonic rocks of various
kinds were intruded into the deposits already formed, and in some
cases produced considerable metamorphism. During the Miocene and
Pliocene periods the island again sank, but never to the depths which
it reached in the Eocene period. The deposits formed were
shallow-water conglomerates, marls and limestones, with mollusca,
brachiopoda, corals, &c. Finally, a series of successive elevations of
small amount, less than 500 ft. in the aggregate, raised the island to
its present level. The terraces which mark the successive stages in
this elevation are well shown in Montego Bay and elsewhere. The
remarkable depressions of the Cockpit country and the closed basin of
the Hector river are similar in origin to swallow-holes, and were
formed by the solution of a limestone layer resting upon insoluble
rocks. The island produces a great variety of marbles, porphyrites,
granite and ochres. Traces of gold have been found associated with
some of the oxidized copper ores (blue and green carbonates) in the
Clarendon mines. Copper ores are widely diffused but are very
expensive to work; as are the lead and cobalt which are also found.
Manganese iron ores and a form of arsenic occur.
_Climate._--The climate is one of the island's chief attractions. Near
the coast it is warm and humid, but that of the uplands is delightfully
mild and equable. At Kingston the temperature ranges from 70.7 deg. to
87.8 deg. F., and this is generally the average of all the low-lying
coast land. At Cinchona, 4907 ft. above the sea, it varies from 57.5
deg. to 68.5 deg. The vapours from the rivers and the ocean produce in
the upper regions clouds saturated with moisture which induce vegetation
belonging to a colder climate. During the rainy seasons there is such an
accumulation of these vapours as to cause a general coolness and
occasion sudden heavy showers, and sometimes destructive floods. The
rainy seasons, in May and October, last for about three weeks, although,
as a rule no month is quite without rain. The fall varies greatly; while
the annual average for the island is 66.3 in., at Kingston it is 32.6
in., at Cinchona 105.5 in., and at some places in the north-east it
exceeds 200 in. The climate of the Santa Cruz Mountains is extremely
favourable to sufferers from tubercular and rheumatic diseases.
Excepting near morasses and lagoons, the island is very healthy, and
yellow fever, once prevalent, now rarely occurs. In the early part of
the 19th century, hurricanes often devastated Jamaica, but now, though
they pass to the N.E. and S.W. with comparative frequency, they rarely
strike the island itself.
_Flora._--The flora is remarkable, showing types from North, Central,
and South America, with a few European forms, besides the common
plants found everywhere in the tropics. Of flowering plants there are
2180 distinct species, and of ferns 450 species, several of both being
indigenous. The largeness of these numbers may be to some extent
accounted for by differences of altitude, temperature and humidity.
There are many beautiful flowers, such as the aloe, the yucca, the
datura, the mountain pride and the _Victoria regia_; and the cactus
tribe is well represented. The Sensitive Plant grows in pastures, and
orchids in the woods. There are forest trees fit for every purpose;
including the ballata, rosewood, satinwood, mahogany, lignum vitae,
lancewood and ebony. The logwood and fustic are exported for dyeing.
There are also the Jamaica cedar, and the silk cotton tree (_Ceiba
Bombax_). Pimento (peculiar to Jamaica) is indigenous, and furnishes
the allspice. The bamboo, coffee and cocoa are well known. Several
species of palm abound,--the macaw, the fan palm, screw palm, and
palmetto royal. There are plantations of coconut palm. The other
noticeable trees and plants are the mango, the breadfruit tree, the
papaw, the lacebark tree, and the guava. The _Palma Christi_, from
which castor oil is made, is a very abundant annual. English
vegetables grow in the hills, and the plains produce plantains, cocoa,
yams, cassava, ochra, beans, pease, ginger and arrowroot. Maize and
guinea-corn are cultivated, and the guinea-grass, accidentally
introduced in 1750, is very valuable for horses and cattle,--so much
so that pen-keeping or cattle farming is a highly profitable
occupation. Among the principal fruits are the orange, shaddock, lime,
grape or cluster fruit, pine-apple, mango, banana, grapes, melons,
avocado pear, breadfruit, and tamarind.
_Fauna._--There are fourteen sorts of _lampyridae_ or fireflies,
besides the _elateridae_ or lantern beetles. There are no venomous
serpents, but numerous harmless snakes and lizards exist. The
land-crab is considered a table delicacy, and the land-turtle also is
eaten. The scorpion and centipede, though poisonous, are not very
dangerous. Ants, sandflies and mosquitoes swarm in the lowlands. There
are twenty different song-birds, and forty-three varieties of birds
are presumed to be peculiar to the island. The sea and the rivers
swarm with fish. Turtles abound, and the seal, the manatee and the
crocodile are sometimes found. The coral reefs, with their varied
polyps and anemones, the numerous alcyonarians and diverse
coral-dwelling animals are readily accessible to the student, and the
island is also celebrated for the number of species of its
land-shells.
_People._--The population of the island was estimated in 1905 at
806,690. Jamaica is rich in traces of its former Arawak inhabitants.
Aboriginal petaloid celts and other implements, flattened skulls and
vessels are common, and images are sometimes found in the large
limestone caverns of the island. The present inhabitants, of whom only
2% are white, include Maroons, the descendants of the slaves of the
Spaniards who fled into the interior when the island was captured by the
British; descendants of imported African slaves; mixed race of British
and African blood; coolies from India; a few Chinese, and the British
officials and white settlers. The Maroons live by themselves and are few
in number, while the half-castes enter into trade and sometimes into the
professions. The number of white inhabitants other than British is very
small. A negro peasant population is encouraged, with a view to its
being a support to the industries of the island; but, in many cases a
field negro will not work for his employer more than four days a week.
He may till his own plot of ground on one of the other days or not, as
the spirit moves him, but four days' work a week will keep him easily.
He has little or no care for the future. He has probably squatted on
someone's land, and has no rent to pay. Clothes he need hardly buy, fuel
he needs only for cooking, and food is ready to his hand for the
picking. Unfortunately a widespread indulgence in predial larceny is a
great hindrance to agriculture as well as to moral progress. But that
habits of thrift are being inculcated is shown by the steady increase in
the accounts in the government savings banks. That gross superstition is
still prevalent is shown by the cases of _obeah_ or witchcraft that come
before the courts from time to time. Another indication of the status of
the negro may be found in the fact that more than 60% of the births are
illegitimate, a percentage that shows an unfortunate tendency to
increase rather than diminish.
The capital, Kingston, stands on the south-east coast, and near it is
the town of Port Royal. Spanish Town (pop. 5019), the former capital,
is in the parish of St Catherine, Middlesex, 11(3/4) m. by rail west of
Kingston. Since the removal of the seat of government to Kingston, the
town has gradually sunk in importance. In the cathedral many of the
governors of the island are buried. A marble statue of Rodney
commemorates his victory over the count de Grasse off Dominica in
1782. Montego Bay (pop. 4803), on the north-west coast, is the second
town on the island, and is also a favourite bathing resort. Port
Antonio (1784) lies between two secure harbours on the north-east, and
owes its prosperity mainly to the development of the trade in fruit,
for which it is the chief place of shipment.
_Industries._--Agricultural enterprise falls into two
classes--planting and pen-keeping, i.e. the breeding of horses, mules,
cattle and sheep. The chief products are bananas, oranges, coffee,
sugar, rum, logwood, cocoa, pimento, ginger, coco-nuts, limes,
nutmegs, pineapples, tobacco, grape-fruit and mangoes. There is a
board of agriculture, with an experimental station at Hope; there is
also an agricultural society with 26 branches throughout the colony.
Bee-keeping is a growing industry, especially among the peasants. The
land as a rule is divided into small holdings, the vast majority
consisting of five acres and less. The manufactures are few. In
addition to the sugar and coffee estates and cigar factories, there
are tanneries, distilleries, breweries, electric light and gas works,
ironfoundries, potteries and factories for the production of coconut
oil, essential oils, ice, matches and mineral waters. There is an
important establishment at Spanish Town for the production of logwood
extract. The exports, more than half of which go to the United States,
mostly comprise fruit, sugar and rum. The United States also
contributes the majority of the imports. More than half the revenue of
the colony is derived from import duties, the remainder is furnished
by excise, stamps and licences. With the exception of that of the
parish boards, there is no direct taxation.
_Communications._--In 1900 an Imperial Direct West India Line of
steamers was started by Elder, Dempster & Co., to encourage the fruit
trade with England; it had a subsidy of L40,000, contributed jointly
by the Imperial and Jamaican governments. Two steamers go round the
island once a week, calling at the principal ports, the circuit
occupying about 120 hours. A number of sailing "droghers" also ply
from port to port. Jamaica has a number of good roads and bridle
paths; the main roads, controlled by the public works department,
encircle the island, with several branches from north to south. The
parochial roads are maintained by the parish boards. A railway
traverses the island from Kingston in the south-east to Montego Bay in
the north-west, and also branches to Port Antonio and to Ewarton.
Jamaica is included in the Postal Union and in the Imperial penny
post, and there is a weekly mail service to and from England by the
Royal Mail Line, but mails are also carried by other companies. The
island is connected by cable with the United States via Cuba, and with
Halifax, Nova Scotia via Bermuda.
[Illustration: Map of Jamaica.]
There is a government savings bank at Kingston with branches
throughout the island, and there are also branches of the Colonial
Bank of London and the Bank of Nova Scotia. The coins in circulation
are British gold and silver, but not bronze, instead of which local
nickel is used. United States gold passes as currency. English weights
and measures are used.
_Administration, &c._--The island is divided into three counties, Surrey
in the east, Middlesex in the centre, and Cornwall in the west, and each
of these is subdivided into five parishes. The parish is the unit of
local government, and has jurisdiction over roads, markets, sanitation,
poor relief and waterworks. The management is vested in a parish board,
the members of which are elected. The chairman or custos is appointed by
the governor. The island is administered by a governor, who bears the
old Spanish title of captain-general, assisted by a legislative council
of five _ex officio_ members, not more than ten nominated members, and
fourteen members elected on a limited suffrage. There is also a privy
council of three _ex officio_ and not more than eight nominated members.
There is an Imperial garrison of about 2000 officers and men, with
headquarters at Newcastle, consisting of Royal Engineers, Royal
Artillery, infantry and four companies of the West India Regiment. There
is a naval station at Port Royal, and the entrance to its harbour is
strongly fortified. In addition there is a militia of infantry and
artillery, about 800 strong.
Previous to 1870 the Church of England was established in Jamaica, but
in that year a disestablishment act was passed which provided for
gradual disendowment. It is still the most numerous body, and is
presided over by the bishop of Jamaica, who is also archbishop of the
West Indies. The Baptists, Wesleyans, Presbyterians, Moravians and
Roman Catholics are all represented; there is a Jewish synagogue at
Kingston, and the Salvation Army has a branch on the island. The Church
of England maintains many schools, a theological college, a deaconesses'
home and an orphanage. The Baptists have a theological college; and the
Roman Catholics support a training college for teachers, two industrial
schools and two orphanages. Elementary education is in private hands,
but fostered, since 1867, by government grants; it is free but not
compulsory, although the governor has the right to compel the attendance
of all children from 6 to 14 years of age in such towns and districts as
he may designate. The teachers in these schools are for the most part
trained in the government-aided training colleges of the various
denominations. For higher education there are the University College and
high school at Hope near Kingston, Potsdam School in St Elizabeth, the
Mico School and Wolmer's Free School in Kingston, founded (for boys and
girls) in 1729, the Montego Bay secondary school, and numerous other
endowed and self-supporting establishments. The Cambridge Local
Examinations have been held regularly since 1882.
_History._--Jamaica was discovered by Columbus on the 3rd of May 1494.
Though he called it Santiago, it has always been known by its Indian
name Jaymaca, "the island of springs," modernized in form and
pronunciation into Jamaica. Excepting that in 1505 Columbus once put in
for shelter, the island remained unvisited until 1509, when Diego, the
discoverer's son, sent Don Juan d'Esquivel to take possession, and
thenceforward it passed under Spanish rule. Sant' Iago de la Vega, or
Spanish Town, which remained the capital of the island until 1872, was
founded in 1523. Sir Anthony Shirley, a British admiral, attacked the
island in 1596, and plundered and burned the capital, but did not follow
up his victory. Upon his retirement the Spaniards restored their capital
and were unmolested until 1635, when the island was again raided by the
British under Colonel Jackson. The period of the Spanish occupation is
mainly memorable for the annihilation of the gentle and peaceful Arawak
Indian inhabitants; Don Pedro d'Esquivel was one of their cruellest
oppressors. The whole island was divided among eight noble Spanish
families, who discouraged immigration to such an extent that when
Jamaica was taken by the British the white and slave population together
did not exceed 3000. Under the vigorous foreign policy of Cromwell an
attempt was made to crush the Spanish power in the West Indies, and an
expedition under Admirals Penn and Venables succeeded in capturing and
holding Jamaica in 1655. The Spanish were entirely expelled in 1658.
Their slaves then took to the mountains, and down to the end of the 18th
century the disaffection of these Maroons, as they were called, caused
constant trouble. Jamaica continued to be governed by military authority
until 1661, when Colonel D'Oyley was appointed captain-general and
governor-in-chief with an executive council, and a constitution was
introduced resembling that of England. He was succeeded in the next year
by Lord Windsor, under whom a legislative council was established.
Jamaica soon became the chief resort of the buccaneers, who not
infrequently united the characters of merchant or planter with that of
pirate or privateer. By the Treaty of Madrid, 1670, the British title to
the island was recognized, and the buccaneers were suppressed. The Royal
African Company was formed in 1672 with a monopoly of the slave trade,
and from this time Jamaica was one of the greatest slave marts in the
world. The sugar-industry was introduced about this period, the first
pot of sugar being sent to London in 1673. An attempt was made in 1678
to saddle the island with a yearly tribute to the Crown and to restrict
the free legislature. The privileges of the legislative assembly,
however, were restored in 1682; but not till 46 years later was the
question of revenue settled by a compromise by which Jamaica undertook
to settle L8000 (an amount afterwards commuted to L6000) per annum on
the Crown, provided that English statute laws were made binding in
Jamaica.
During these years of political struggle the colony was thrice afflicted
by nature. A great earthquake occurred in 1692, when the chief part of
the town of Port Royal, built on a shelving bank of sand, slipped into
the sea. Two dreadful hurricanes devastated the island in 1712 and 1722,
the second of which did so much damage that the seat of commerce had to
be transferred from Port Royal to Kingston.
The only prominent event in the history of the island during the later
years of the 18th century, was the threatened invasion by the French and
Spanish in 1782, but Jamaica was saved by the victory of Rodney and Hood
off Dominica. The last attempt at invasion was made in 1806, when the
French were defeated by Admiral Duckworth. When the slave trade was
abolished the island was at the zenith of its prosperity; sugar, coffee,
cocoa, pimento, ginger and indigo were being produced in large
quantities, and it was the depot of a very lucrative trade with the
Spanish main. The anti-slavery agitation in Great Britain found its echo
in the island, and in 1832 the negroes revolted, believing that
emancipation had been granted. They killed a number of whites and
destroyed a large amount of valuable property. Two years later the
Emancipation Act was passed, and, subject to a short term of
apprenticeship, the slaves were free. Emancipation left the planters in
a pitiable condition financially. The British government awarded them
compensation at the rate of L19 per slave, the market value of slaves at
the time being L35, but most of this compensation went into the hands of
the planters' creditors. They were left with over-worked estates, a poor
market and a scarcity of labour. Nor was this the end of their
misfortunes. During the slavery times the British government had
protected the planter by imposing a heavy differential duty on foreign
sugar; but on the introduction of free trade the price of sugar fell by
one-half and reduced the profits of the already impoverished planter.
Many estates, already heavily mortgaged, were abandoned, and the trade
of the island was at a standstill. Differences between the executive,
the legislature, and the home government, as to the means of retrenching
the public expenditure, created much bitterness. Although some slight
improvement marked the administration of Sir Charles Metcalfe and the
earl of Elgin, when coolie immigration was introduced to supply the
scarcity and irregularity of labour and the railway was opened, the
improvement was not permanent. In 1865 Edward John Eyre became governor.
Financial affairs were at their lowest ebb and the colonial treasury
showed a deficit of L80,000. To meet this difficulty new taxes were
imposed and discontent was rife among the negroes. Dr Underhill, the
secretary of a Baptist organization known as the British Union, wrote to
the colonial secretary in London, pointing out the state of affairs.
This letter became public in Jamaica, and in the opinion of the governor
added in no small measure to the popular excitement. On the 11th of
October 1865 the negroes rose at Morant Bay and murdered the custos and
most of the white inhabitants. The slight encounter which followed
filled the island with terror, and there is no doubt that many excesses
were committed on both sides. The assembly passed an act by which
martial law was proclaimed, and the legislature passed an act abrogating
the constitution.
The action of Governor Eyre, though generally approved throughout the
West Indies, caused much controversy in England, and he was recalled. A
prosecution was instituted against him, resulting in an elaborate
exposition of martial law by Chief Justice Cockburn, but the jury threw
out the bill and Eyre was discharged. He was succeeded in the government
of Jamaica by Sir Henry Storks, and under the crown colony system of
government the state of the island made slow but steady progress. In
1868 the first fruit shipment took place from Port Antonio, the
immigration of coolies was revived, and cinchona planting was
introduced. The method of government was changed in 1884, when a new
constitution, slightly modified in 1895, was granted to the island.
In the afternoon of the 14th of January 1907 a terrible earthquake
visited Kingston. Almost every building in the capital and in Port
Royal, and many in St Andrews, were destroyed or seriously injured. The
loss of life was variously estimated, but probably exceeded one
thousand. Among those killed was Sir James Fergusson, 6th baronet (b.
1832). The principal shock was followed by many more of slighter
intensity during the ensuing fortnight and later. On the 17th of January
assistance was brought by three American war-ships under Rear-Admiral
Davis, who however withdrew them on the 19th, owing to a
misunderstanding with the governor of the island, Sir Alexander
Swettenham, on the subject of the landing of marines from the vessels
with a view to preserving order. The incident caused considerable
sensation, and led to Sir A. Swettenham's resignation in the following
March, Sir Sydney Olivier, K.C.M.G., being appointed governor. Order was
speedily restored; but the destructive effect of the earthquake was a
severe check to the prosperity of the island.
See Bryan Edwards, _History of the West Indies_ (London, 1809, and
appendix, 1819); P. H. Gosse, _Journal of a Naturalist in Jamaica_
(London, 1851) and _Birds of Jamaica_ (1847); _Jamaica Handbook_
(London, annual); Bacon and Aaron, _New Jamaica_ (1890); W. P.
Livingstone, _Black Jamaica_ (London, 1900), F. Cundall, _Bibliotheca
Jamaicensis_. (Kingston, 1895), and _Studies in Jamaica History_
(1900); W. J. Gardner, _History of Jamaica_ (New York, 1909). For
geology, see R. T. Hill, "The Geology and Physical Geography of
Jamaica," _Bull. Mus. Com. Zool. Harvard_, xxxiv. (1899).
JAMAICA, formerly a village of Queens county, Long Island, New York,
U.S.A., but after the 1st of January 1898 a part of the borough of
Queens, New York City. Pop. (1890) 5361. It is served by the Long Island
railroad, the lines of which from Brooklyn and Manhattan meet here and
then separate to serve the different regions of the island.[1] King's
Park (about 10 acres) comprises the estate of John Alsop King
(1788-1867), governor of New York in 1857-1859, from whose heirs in 1897
the land was purchased by the village trustees. In South Jamaica there
is a race track, at which meetings are held in the spring and autumn.
The headquarters of the Queens Borough Department of Public Works and
Police are in the Jamaica town-hall, and Jamaica is the seat of a city
training school for teachers (until 1905 one of the New York State
normal schools). For two guns, a coat, and a quantity of powder and
lead, several New Englanders obtained from the Indians a deed for a
tract of land here in September 1655. In March 1657 they received
permission from Governor Stuyvesant to found a town, which was chartered
in 1660 and was named Rustdorp by Stuyvesant, but the English called it
Jamaica; it was rechartered in 1666, 1686 and 1788. The village was
incorporated in 1814 and reincorporated in 1855. In 1665 it was made the
seat of justice of the north riding; in 1683-1788 it was the shire town
of Queens county. With Hempstead, Gravesend, Newtown and Flushing, also
towns of New England origin and type, Jamaica was early disaffected
towards the provincial government of New York. In 1669 these towns
complained that they had no representation in a popular assembly, and in
1670 they protested against taxation without representation. The
founders of Jamaica were mostly Presbyterians, and they organized one of
the first Presbyterian churches in America. At the beginning of the War
of Independence Jamaica was under the control of Loyalists; after the
defeat of the Americans in the battle of Long Island (27th August 1776)
it was occupied by the British; and until the end of the war it was the
headquarters of General Oliver Delancey, who had command of all Long
Island.
FOOTNOTE:
[1] In June 1908 the subway lines of the interborough system of New
York City were extended to the Flatbush (Brooklyn) station of the Long
Island railroad, thus bringing Jamaica into direct connexion with
Manhattan borough by way of the East river tunnel, completed in the
same year.
JAMB (from Fr. _jambe_, leg), in architecture, the side-post or lining
of a doorway or other aperture. The jambs of a window outside the frame
are called "reveals." Small shafts to doors and windows with caps and
bases are known as "jamb-shafts"; when in the inside arris of the jamb
of a window they are sometimes called "scoinsons."
JAMES (a variant of the name Jacob, Heb. [Hebrew: Yaacov], one who holds
by the heel, outwitter, through O. Fr. _James_, another form of
_Jacques_, _Jaques_, from Low Lat. _Jacobus_; cf. Ital. _Jacopo_
[Jacob], _Giacomo_ [James], Prov. _Jacme_, Cat. _Jaume_, Cast.
_Jaime_), a masculine proper name popular in Christian countries as
having been that of two of Christ's apostles. It has been borne by many
sovereigns and other princes, the most important of whom are noticed
below, after the heading devoted to the characters in the New Testament,
in the following order: (1) kings of England and Scotland, (2) other
kings in the alphabetical order of their countries, (3) the "Old
Pretender." The article on the Epistle of James in the New Testament
follows after the remaining biographical articles in which James is a
surname.
JAMES (Gr. [Greek: Iakobos], the Heb. _Ya'akob_ or Jacob), the name of
several persons mentioned in the New Testament.
1. JAMES, the son of Zebedee. He was among the first who were called to
be Christ's immediate followers (Mark i. 19 seq.; Matt. iv. 21 seq., and
perhaps Luke v. 10), and afterwards obtained an honoured place in the
apostolic band, his name twice occupying the second place after Peter's
in the lists (Mark iii. 17; Acts i. 13), while on at least three notable
occasions he was, along with Peter and his brother John, specially
chosen by Jesus to be with him (Mark v. 37; Matt. xvii. i, xxvi. 37).
This same prominence may have contributed partly to the title
"Boanerges" or "sons of thunder" which, according to Mark iii. 17, Jesus
himself gave to the two brothers. But its most natural interpretation is
to be found in the impetuous disposition which would have called down
fire from heaven on the offending Samaritan villagers (Luke ix. 54), and
afterwards found expression, though in a different way, in the ambitious
request to occupy the places of honour in Christ's kingdom (Mark x. 35
seq.). James is included among those who after the ascension waited at
Jerusalem (Acts i. 13) for the descent of the Holy Ghost on the day of
Pentecost. And though on this occasion only his name is mentioned, he
must have been a zealous and prominent member of the Christian
community, to judge from the fact that when a victim had to be chosen
from among the apostles, who should be sacrificed to the animosity of
the Jews, it was on James that the blow fell first. The brief notice is
given in Acts xii. 1, 2. Eusebius (_Hist. Eccl._ ii. 9) has preserved
for us from Clement of Alexandria the additional information that the
accuser of the apostle "beholding his confession and moved thereby,
confessed that he too was a Christian. So they were both led away to
execution together; and on the road the accuser asked James for
forgiveness. Gazing on him for a little while, he said, 'Peace be with
thee,' and kissed him. And then both were beheaded together."
The later, and wholly untrustworthy, legends which tell of the
apostle's preaching in Spain, and of the translation of his body to
Santiago de Compostela, are to be found in the _Acta Sanctorum_ (July
25), vi. 1-124; see also Mrs Jameson's _Sacred and Legendary Art_, i.
230-241.
2. JAMES, the son of Alphaeus. He also was one of the apostles, and is
mentioned in all the four lists (Matt. x. 3; Mark iii. 18; Luke vi. 15;
Acts i. 13) by this name. We know nothing further regarding him, unless
we believe him to be the same as James "the little."
3. JAMES, the little. He is described as the son of a Mary (Matt, xxvii.
56; Mark xv. 40), who was in all probability the wife of Clopas (John
xix. 25). And on the ground that Clopas is another form of the name
Alphaeus, this James has been thought by some to be the same as 2. But
the evidence of the Syriac versions, which render Alphaeus by
_Chalphai_, while Clopas is simply transliterated _Kleopha_, makes it
extremely improbable that the two names are to be identified. And as we
have no better ground for finding in Clopas the Cleopas of Luke xxiv.
18, we must be content to admit that James the little is again an almost
wholly unknown personality, and has no connexion with any of the other
Jameses mentioned in the New Testament.
4. JAMES, the father of Judas. There can be no doubt that in the mention
of "Judas of James" in Luke vi. 16 the ellipsis should be supplied by
"the son" and not as in the A.V. by "the brother" (cf. Luke iii. 1, vi.
14; Acts xii. 2, where the word [Greek: adelphos] is inserted). This
Judas, known as Thaddaeus by Matthew and Mark, afterwards became one of
the apostles, and is expressly distinguished by St John from the traitor
as "not Iscariot" (John xiv. 22).
5. JAMES, the Lord's brother. In Matt. xiii. 55 and Mark vi. 3 we read
of a certain James as, along with Joses and Judas and Simon, a "brother"
of the Lord. The exact nature of the relationship there implied has been
the subject of much discussion. Jerome's view (_de vir. ill._ 2), that
the "brothers" were in reality cousins, "sons of Mary the sister of the
Lord's mother," rests on too many unproved assumptions to be entitled to
much weight, and may be said to have been finally disposed of by Bishop
Lightfoot in his essay on "The Brothers of the Lord" (_Galatians_, pp.
252 sqq., _Dissertations on the Apostolic Age_, pp. 1 sqq.). Even
however if we understand the word "brethren" in its natural sense, it
may be applied either to the sons of Joseph by a former wife, in which
case they would be the step-brothers of Jesus, or to sons born to Joseph
and Mary after the birth of Jesus. The former of these views, generally
known as the _Epiphanian_ view from its most zealous advocate in the 4th
century, can claim for its support the preponderating voice of tradition
(see the catena of references given by Lightfoot, _loc. cit._, who
himself inclines to this view). On the other hand the _Helvidian_ theory
as propounded by Helvidius, and apparently accepted by Tertullian (cf.
_adv. Marc._ iv. 29), which makes James a brother of the Lord, as truly
as Mary was his mother, undoubtedly seems more in keeping with the
direct statements of the Gospels, and also with the after history of the
brothers in the Church (see W. Patrick, _James the Brother of the Lord_,
1906, p. 5). In any case, whatever the exact nature of James's
antecedents, there can be no question as to the important place which he
occupied in the early Church. Converted to a full belief in the living
Lord, perhaps through the special revelation that was granted to him (1
Cor. xv. 7), he became the recognized head of the Church at Jerusalem
(Acts xii. 17, xv. 13, xxi. 18), and is called by St Paul (Gal. ii. 9),
along with Peter and John, a "pillar" of the Christian community. He was
traditionally the author of the epistle in the New Testament which bears
his name (see JAMES, EPISTLE OF). From the New Testament we learn no
more of the history of James the Lord's brother, but Eusebius (_Hist.
Eccl._ ii. 23) has preserved for us from Hegesippus the earliest
ecclesiastical traditions concerning him. By that authority he is
described as having been a Nazarite, and on account of his eminent
righteousness called "Just" and "Oblias." So great was his influence
with the people that he was appealed to by the scribes and Pharisees for
a true and (as they hoped) unfavourable judgment about the Messiahship
of Christ. Placed, to give the greater publicity to his words, on a
pinnacle of the temple, he, when solemnly appealed to, made confession
of his faith, and was at once thrown down and murdered. This happened
immediately before the siege. Josephus (_Antiq._ xx. 9, 1) tells that it
was by order of Ananus the high priest, in the interval between the
death of Festus and the arrival of his successor Albinus, that James was
put to death; and his narrative gives the idea of some sort of judicial
examination, for he says that along with some others James was brought
before an assembly of judges, by whom they were condemned and delivered
to be stoned. Josephus is also cited by Eusebius (_Hist. Eccl._ ii. 23)
to the effect that the miseries of the siege were due to divine
vengeance for the murder of James. Later writers describe James as an
[Greek: episkopos] (Clem. Al. _apud_ Eus. _Hist. Ecc._ ii. 1) and even
as an [Greek: episkopos episkopon] (Clem. _Hom., ad init._). According
to Eusebius (_Hist. Eccl._ vii. 19) his episcopal chair was still shown
at Jerusalem at the time when Eusebius wrote.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.--In addition to the relevant literature cited above, see
the articles under the heading "James" in Hastings's _Dictionary of
the Bible_ (Mayor) and _Dictionary of Christ and the Gospels_
(Fulford), and in the _Encycl. Biblica_ (O. Cone); also the
introductions to the Commentaries on the Epistle of James by Mayor and
Knowling. Zahn has an elaborate essay on _Bruder und Vettern Jesu_
("The Brothers and Cousins of Jesus") in the _Forschungen zur
Geschichte des neutestamentlichen Kanons_, vi. 2 (Leipzig, 1900).
(G. Mi.)
JAMES I. (1566-1625), king of Great Britain and Ireland, formerly king
of Scotland as James VI., was the only child of Mary Queen of Scots, and
her second husband, Henry Stewart Lord Darnley. He was born in the
castle of Edinburgh on the 19th of June 1566, and was proclaimed king of
Scotland on the 24th of July 1567, upon the forced abdication of his
mother. Until 1578 he was treated as being incapable of taking any real
part in public affairs, and was kept in the castle of Stirling for
safety's sake amid the confused fighting of the early years of his
minority.
The young king was a very weakly boy. It is said that he could not stand
without support until he was seven, and although he lived until he was
nearly sixty, he was never a strong man. In after life he was a constant
and even a reckless rider, but the weakness in his legs was never quite
cured. During a great part of his life he found it necessary to be tied
to the saddle. When on one occasion in 1621 his horse threw him into the
New River near his palace of Theobalds in the neighbourhood of London,
he had a very narrow escape of being drowned; yet he continued to ride
as before. At all times he preferred to lean on the shoulder of an
attendant when walking. This feebleness of body, which had no doubt a
large share in causing certain corresponding deficiencies of character,
was attributed to the agitations and the violent efforts forced on his
mother by the murder of her secretary Rizzio when she was in the sixth
month of her pregnancy. The fact that James was a bold rider, in spite
of this serious disqualification for athletic exercise, should be borne
in mind when he is accused of having been a coward.
The circumstances surrounding him in boyhood were not favourable to the
development of his character. His immediate guardian or foster-father,
the earl of Mar, was indeed an honourable man, and the countess, who had
charge of the nursing of the king, discharged her duty so as to win his
lasting confidence. James afterwards entrusted her with the care of his
eldest son, Henry. When the earl died in 1572 his place was well filled
by his brother, Sir Alexander Erskine. The king's education was placed
under the care of George Buchanan, assisted by Peter Young, and two
other tutors. Buchanan, who did not spare the rod, and the other
teachers, who had more reverence for the royal person, gave the boy a
sound training in languages. The English envoy, Sir Henry Killigrew, who
saw him in 1574, testified to his proficiency in translating from and
into Latin and French. As it was very desirable that he should be
trained a Protestant king, he was well instructed in theology. The
exceptionally scholastic quality of his education helped to give him a
taste for learning, but also tended to make him a pedant.
James was only twelve when the earl of Morton was driven from the
regency, and for some time after he can have been no more than a puppet
in the hands of intriguers and party leaders. When, for instance, in
1582 he was seized by the faction of nobles who carried out the
so-called raid of Ruthven, which was in fact a kidnapping enterprise
carried out in the interest of the Protestant party, he cried like a
child. One of the conspirators, the master of Glamis, Sir Thomas Lyon,
told him that it was better "bairns should greet [children should cry]
than bearded men." It was not indeed till 1583, when he broke away from
his captors, that James began to govern in reality.
For the history of his reign reference may be made to the articles on
the histories of England and Scotland. James's work as a ruler can be
divided, without violating any sound rule of criticism, into black and
white--into the part which was a failure and a preparation for future
disaster, and the part which was solid achievement, honourable to
himself and profitable to his people. His native kingdom of Scotland had
the benefit of the second. Between 1583 and 1603 he reduced the
anarchical baronage of Scotland to obedience, and replaced the
subdivision of sovereignty and consequent confusion, which had been the
very essence of feudalism, by a strong centralized royal authority. In
fact he did in Scotland the work which had been done by the Tudors in
England, by Louis XI. in France, and by Ferdinand and Isabella in Spain.
It was the work of all the strong rulers of the Renaissance. But James
not only brought his disobedient and intriguing barons to order--that
was a comparatively easy achievement and might well have been performed
by more than one of his predecessors, had their lives been prolonged--he
also quelled the attempts of the Protestants to found what Hallam has
well defined as a "Presbyterian Hildebrandism." He enforced the
superiority of the state over the church. Both before his accession to
the throne of England (1603) and afterwards he took an intelligent
interest in the prosperity of his Scottish kingdom, and did much for the
pacification of the Hebrides, for the enforcement of order on the
Borders, and for the development of industry. That he did so much
although the crown was poor (largely it must be confessed because he
made profuse gifts of the secularized church lands), and although the
armed force at his disposal was so small that to the very end he was
exposed to the attacks of would-be kidnappers (as in the case of the
Gowrie conspiracy of 1600), is proof positive that he was neither the
mere poltroon nor the mere learned fool he has often been called.
James's methods of achieving ends in themselves honourable and
profitable were indeed of a kind which has made posterity unjust to his
real merits. The circumstances in which he passed his youth developed in
him a natural tendency to craft. He boasted indeed of his "king-craft"
and probably believed that he owed it to his studies. But it was in
reality the resource of the weak, the art of playing off one possible
enemy against another by trickery, and so deceiving all. The marquis de
Fontenay, the French ambassador, who saw him in the early part of his
reign, speaks of him as cowed by the violence about him. It is certain
that James was most unscrupulous in making promises which he never meant
to keep, and the terror in which he passed his youth sufficiently
explains his preference for guile. He would make promises to everybody,
as when he wrote to the pope in 1584 more than hinting that he would be
a good Roman Catholic if helped in his need. His very natural desire to
escape from the poverty and insecurity of Scotland to the opulent
English throne not only kept him busy in intrigues to placate the Roman
Catholics or anybody else who could help or hinder him, but led him to
behave basely in regard to the execution of his mother in 1587. He
blustered to give himself an air of courage, but took good care to do
nothing to offend Elizabeth. When the time came for fulfilling his
promises and half-promises, he was not able, even if he had been
willing, to keep his word to everybody. The methods which had helped him
to success in Scotland did him harm in England, where his reign prepared
the way for the great civil war. In his southern kingdom his failure was
in fact complete. Although England accepted him as the alternative to
civil war, and although he was received and surrounded with fulsome
flattery, he did not win the respect of his English subjects. His
undignified personal appearance was against him, and so were his
garrulity, his Scottish accent, his slovenliness and his toleration of
disorders in his court, but, above all, his favour for handsome male
favourites, whom he loaded with gifts and caressed with demonstrations
of affection which laid him open to vile suspicions. In ecclesiastical
matters he offended many, who contrasted his severity and rudeness to
the Puritan divines at the Hampton Court conference (1604) with his
politeness to the Roman Catholics, whom he, however, worried by fits and
starts. In a country where the authority of the state had been firmly
established and the problem was how to keep it from degenerating into
the mere instrument of a king's passions, his insistence on the doctrine
of divine right aroused distrust and hostility. In itself, and in its
origin, the doctrine was nothing more than a necessary assertion of the
independence of the state in face of the "Hildebrandism" of Rome and
Geneva alike. But when Englishmen were told that the king alone had
indefeasible rights, and that all the privileges of subjects were
revocable gifts, they were roused to hostility. His weaknesses cast
suspicion on his best-meant schemes. His favour for his countrymen
helped to defeat his wise wish to bring about a full union between
England and Scotland. His profusion, which had been bad in the poverty
of Scotland and was boundless amid the wealth of England, kept him
necessitous, and drove him to shifts. Posterity can give him credit for
his desire to forward religious peace in Europe, but his Protestant
subjects were simply frightened when he sought a matrimonial alliance
with Spain. Sagacious men among his contemporaries could not see the
consistency of a king who married his daughter Elizabeth to the elector
palatine, a leader of the German Protestants, and also sought to marry
his son to an infanta of Spain. The king's subservience to Spain was
indeed almost besotted. He could not see her real weakness, and he
allowed himself to be befooled by the ministers of Philip III. and
Philip IV. The end of his scheming was that he was dragged into a
needless war with Spain by his son Charles and his favourite George
Villiers, duke of Buckingham, just before his death on the 5th of March
1625 at his favourite residence, Theobalds.
James married in 1589 Anne, second daughter of Frederick II., king of
Denmark. His voyage to meet his bride, whose ship had been driven into a
Norwegian port by bad weather, is the only episode of a romantic
character in the life of this very prosaic member of a poetic family. By
this wife James had three children who survived infancy: Henry
Frederick, prince of Wales, who died in 1612; Charles, the future king;
and Elizabeth, wife of the elector palatine, Frederick V.
Not the least of James's many ambitions was the desire to excel as an
author. He left a body of writings which, though of mediocre quality as
literature, entitle him to a unique place among English kings since
Alfred for width of intellectual interest and literary faculty. His
efforts were inspired by his preceptor George Buchanan, whose memory he
cherished in later years. His first work was in verse, _Essayes of a
Prentise in the Divine Art of Poesie_ (Edin. Vautrollier, 1584),
containing fifteen sonnets, "Ane Metaphoricall invention of a tragedie
called Phoenix," a short poem "Of Time," translations from Du Bartas,
Lucan and the Book of Psalms ("out of Tremellius"), and a prose tract
entitled "Ane short treatise, containing some Reulis and Cautelis to be
observit and eschewit in Scottis Poesie." The volume is introduced by
commendatory sonnets, including one by Alexander Montgomerie. The chief
interest of the book lies in the "Treatise" and the prefatory sonnets
"To the Reader" and "Sonnet decifring the perfyte poete." There is
little originality in this youthful production. It has been surmised
that it was compiled from the exercises written when the author was
Buchanan's pupil at Stirling, and that it was directly suggested by his
preceptor's _De Prosodia_ and his annotations on Vives. On the other
hand, it shows intimate acquaintance with the critical reflections of
Ronsard and Du Bellay, and of Gascoigne in his _Notes of Instruction_
(1575). In 1591 James published _Poeticall Exercises at Vacant Houres_,
including a translation of the _Furies_ of Du Bartas, his own _Lepanto_,
and Du Bartas's version of it, _La Lepanthe_. His _Daemonologie_, a
prose treatise denouncing witchcraft and exhorting the civil power to
the strongest measures of suppression, appeared in 1599. In the same
year he printed the first edition (seven copies) of his _Basilikon
Doron_, strongly Protestant in tone. A French edition, specially
translated for presentation to the pope, has a disingenuous preface
explaining that certain phrases (e.g. "papistical doctrine") are
omitted, because of the difficulty of rendering them in a foreign
tongue. The original edition was, however, translated by order of the
suspicious pope, and was immediately placed on the Index. Shortly after
going to England James produced his famous _Counterblaste to Tobacco_
(London, 1604), in which he forsakes his Scots tongue for Southern
English. The volume was published anonymously. James's prose works
(including his speeches) were collected and edited (folio, 1616) by
James Montagu, bishop of Winchester, and were translated into Latin by
the same hand in a companion folio, in 1619 (also Frankfort, 1689). A
tract, entitled "The True Law of Free Monarchies," appeared in 1603; "An
Apology for the Oath of Allegiance" in 1607; and a "_Declaration du Roy
Jacques I. ... pour le droit des Rois_" in 1615. In 1588 and 1589 James
issued two small volumes of _Meditations_ on some verses of (a)
Revelations and (b) 1 Chronicles. Other two "meditations" were printed
posthumously.
See T. F. Henderson, _James I. and VI._ (London, 1904); P. Hume Brown,
_History of Scotland_, vol. ii. (Edinburgh and Cambridge, 1902); and
Andrew Lang, _History of Scotland_, vol. ii. (Edinburgh, 1902) and
_James VI. and the Gowrie Mystery_ (London, 1902); _The Register of
the Privy Council of Scotland_ (Edinburgh, 1877, &c.), vols. ii. to
xiii.; S. R. Gardiner, _History of England 1603-1642_ (London,
1883-1884). A comprehensive bibliography will be found in the
_Cambridge Modern Hist._ iii. 847 (Cambridge, 1904).
For James's literary work, see Edward Arber's reprint of the _Essayes
and Counterblaste_ ("English Reprints," 1869, &c.); R. S. Rait's
_Lusus Regius_ (1900); G. Gregory Smith's _Elizabethan Critical
Essays_ (1904), vol. i., where the _Treatise_ is edited for the first
time; A. O. Meyer's "Clemens VIII. und Jacob I. von England" in
_Quellen und Forschungen_ (Preuss. Hist. Inst.), VII. ii., for an
account of the issues of the _Basilikon Doron_; P. Hume Brown's
_George Buchanan_ (1890), pp. 250-261, for a sketch of James's
association with Buchanan.
JAMES II. (1633-1701), king of Great Britain and Ireland, second
surviving son of Charles I. and Henrietta Maria, was born at St James's
on the 15th of October 1633, and created duke of York in January 1643.
During the Civil War James was taken prisoner by Fairfax (1646), but
contrived to escape to Holland in 1648. Subsequently he served in the
French army under Turenne, and in the Spanish under Conde, and was
applauded by both commanders for his brilliant personal courage.
Returning to England with Charles II. in 1660 he was appointed lord high
admiral and warden of the Cinque Ports. Pepys, who was secretary to the
navy, has recorded the patient industry and unflinching probity of his
naval administration. His victory over the Dutch in 1665, and his drawn
battle with De Ruyter in 1672, show that he was a good naval commander
as well as an excellent administrator. These achievements won him a
reputation for high courage, which, until the close of 1688, was amply
deserved. His private record was not as good as his public. In December
1660 he admitted to having contracted, under discreditable
circumstances, a secret marriage with Anne Hyde (1637-1671), daughter of
Lord Clarendon, in the previous September. Both before and after the
marriage he seems to have been a libertine as unblushing though not so
fastidious as Charles himself. In 1672 he made a public avowal of his
conversion to Roman Catholicism. Charles II. had opposed this project,
but in 1673 allowed him to marry the Catholic Mary of Modena as his
second wife. Both houses of parliament, who viewed this union with
abhorrence, now passed the Test Act, forbidding Catholics to hold
office. In consequence of this James was forced to resign his posts. It
was in vain that he married his daughter Mary to the Protestant prince
of Orange in 1677. Anti-Catholic feeling ran so high that, after the
discovery of the Popish Plot, he found it wiser to retire to Brussels
(1679), while Shaftesbury and the Whigs planned to exclude him from the
succession. He was lord high commissioner of Scotland (1680-1682), where
he occupied himself in a severe persecution of the Covenanters. In 1684
Charles, having triumphed over the Exclusionists, restored James to the
office of high admiral by use of his dispensing power.
James ascended the throne on the 16th of February 1685. The nation
showed its loyalty by its firm adherence to him during the rebellions of
Argyll in Scotland and Monmouth in England (1685). The savage reprisals
on their suppression, in especial the "Bloody Assizes" of Jeffreys,
produced a revulsion of public feeling. James had promised to defend the
existing Church and government, but the people now became suspicious.
James was not a mere tyrant and bigot, as the popular imagination
speedily assumed him to be. He was rather a mediocre but not altogether
obtuse man, who mistook tributary streams for the main currents of
national thought. Thus he greatly underrated the strength of the
Establishment, and preposterously exaggerated that of Dissent and
Catholicism. He perceived that opinion was seriously divided in the
Established Church, and thought that a vigorous policy would soon prove
effective. Hence he publicly celebrated Mass, prohibited preaching
against Catholicism, and showed exceptional favour to renegades from the
Establishment. By undue pressure he secured a decision of the judges, in
the test case of _Godden_ v. _Hale_ (1687), by which he was allowed to
dispense Catholics from the Test Act. Catholics were now admitted to the
chief offices in the army, and to some important posts in the state, in
virtue of the dispensing power of James. The judges had been intimidated
or corrupted, and the royal promise to protect the Establishment
violated. The army had been increased to 20,000 men and encamped at
Hounslow Heath to overawe the capital. Public alarm was speedily
manifested and suspicion to a high degree awakened. In 1687 James made a
bid for the support of the Dissenters by advocating a system of joint
toleration for Catholics and Dissenters. In April 1687 he published a
Declaration of Indulgence--exempting Catholics and Dissenters from penal
statutes. He followed up this measure by dissolving parliament and
attacking the universities. By an unscrupulous use of the dispensing
power he introduced Dissenters and Catholics into all departments of
state and into the municipal corporations, which were remodelled in
their interests. Then in April 1688 he took the suicidal step of issuing
a proclamation to force the clergy and bishops to read the Declaration
in their pulpits, and thus personally advocate a measure they detested.
Seven bishops refused, were indicted by James for libel, but acquitted
amid the indescribable enthusiasm of the populace. Protestant nobles of
England, enraged at the tolerant policy of James, had been in
negotiation with William of Orange since 1687. The trial of the seven
bishops, and the birth of a son to James, now induced them to send
William a definite invitation (June 30, 1688). James remained in a
fool's paradise till the last, and only awakened to his danger when
William landed at Torbay (November 5, 1688) and swept all before him.
James pretended to treat, and in the midst of the negotiations fled to
France. He was intercepted at Faversham and brought back, but the
politic prince of Orange allowed him to escape a second time (December
23, 1688).
At the end of 1688 James seemed to have lost his old courage. After his
defeat at the Boyne (July 1, 1690) he speedily departed from Ireland,
where he had so conducted himself that his English followers had been
ashamed of his incapacity, while French officers had derided him. His
proclamations and policy towards England during these years show
unmistakable traces of the same incompetence. On the 17th of May 1692 he
saw the French fleet destroyed before his very eyes off Cape La Hogue.
He was aware of, though not an open advocate of the "Assassination
Plot," which was directed against William. By its revelation and failure
(February 10, 1696) the third and last serious attempt of James for his
restoration failed. He refused in the same year to accept the French
influence in favour of his candidature to the Polish throne, on the
ground that it would exclude him from the English. Henceforward he
neglected politics, and Louis of France ceased to consider him as a
political factor. A mysterious conversion had been effected in him by an
austere Cistercian abbot. The world saw with astonishment this vicious,
rough, coarse-fibred man of the world transformed into an austere
penitent, who worked miracles of healing. Surrounded by this odour of
sanctity, which greatly edified the faithful, James lived at St Germain
until his death on the 17th of September 1701.
The political ineptitude of James is clear; he often showed firmness
when conciliation was needful, and weakness when resolution alone could
have saved the day. Moreover, though he mismanaged almost every
political problem with which he personally dealt, he was singularly
tactless and impatient of advice. But in general political morality he
was not below his age, and in his advocacy of toleration decidedly above
it. He was more honest and sincere than Charles II., more genuinely
patriotic in his foreign policy, and more consistent in his religious
attitude. That his brother retained the throne while James lost it is an
ironical demonstration that a more pitiless fate awaits the ruler whose
faults are of the intellect, than one whose faults are of the heart.
By Anne Hyde James had eight children, of whom two only, Mary and Anne,
both queens of England, survived their father. By Mary of Modena he had
seven children, among them being James Francis Edward (the Old
Pretender) and Louisa Maria Theresa, who died at St Germain in 1712. By
one mistress, Arabella Churchill (1648-1730), he had two sons, James,
duke of Berwick, and Henry (1673-1702), titular duke of Albemarle and
grand prior of France, and a daughter, Henrietta (1667-1730), who
married Sir Henry Waldegrave, afterwards Baron Waldegrave; and by
another, Catherine Sedley, countess of Dorchester (1657-1717), a
daughter, Catherine (d. 1743), who married James Annesley, 5th earl of
Anglesey, and afterwards John Sheffield, duke of Buckingham and
Normanby.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.--_Original Authorities_: J. S. Clarke, _James II. Life_
(London, 1816); James Macpherson, _Original Papers_ (2 vols., London,
1775); Gilbert Burnet, _Supplement to History_, ed. H. C. Foxcroft
(Oxford, 1902); Earl of Clarendon and Earl of Rochester,
_Correspondence_, vol. ii. (London, 1828); John Evelyn, _Diary and
Correspondence and Life_, edited by Bray and Wheatley (London, 1906);
Sir John Reresby, _Memoirs_, ed. A. Ivatt (1904); _Somers Tracts_,
vols, ix.-xi. (London, 1823). _Modern Works_: Lord Acton, _Lectures on
Modern History_, pp. 195-276 (London, 1906); Moritz Brosch,
_Geschichte von England_, Bd. viii. (Gotha, 1903); Onno Klopp, _Der
Fall des Hauses Stuart_, Bde. i.-ix. (Vienna, 1875-1878); L. von
Ranke, _History of England_, vols, iv.-vi. (Oxford, 1875); and Allan
Fea, _James II. and his Wives_ (1908).
JAMES I. (1394-1437), king of Scotland and poet, the son of King Robert
III., was born at Dunfermline in July 1394. After the death of his
mother, Annabella Drummond of Stobhall, in 1402, he was placed under the
care of Henry Wardlaw (d. 1440), who became bishop of St Andrews in
1403, but soon his father resolved to send him to France. Robert
doubtless decided upon this course owing to the fact that in 1402 his
elder son, David, duke of Rothesay, had met his death in a mysterious
fashion, being probably murdered by his uncle, Robert, duke of Albany,
who, as the king was an invalid, was virtually the ruler of Scotland. On
the way to France, however, James fell into the hands of some English
sailors and was sent to Henry IV., who refused to admit him to ransom.
The chronicler Thomas Walsingham, says that James's imprisonment began
in 1406, while the future king himself places it in 1404; February 1406
is probably the correct date. On the death of Robert III. in April 1406
James became nominally king of Scotland, but he remained a captive in
England, the government being conducted by his uncle, Robert of Albany,
who showed no anxiety to procure his nephew's release. Dying in 1420,
Albany was succeeded as regent by his son, Murdoch. At first James was
confined in the Tower of London, but in June 1407 he was removed to the
castle at Nottingham, whence about a month later he was taken to
Evesham. His education was continued by capable tutors, and he not only
attained excellence in all manly sports, but became perhaps more
cultured than any other prince of his age. In person he was short and
stout, but well-proportioned and very strong. His agility was not less
remarkable than his strength; he excelled in all athletic feats which
demanded suppleness of limb and quickness of eye. As regards his
intellectual attainments he is reported to have been acquainted with
philosophy, and it is evident from his subsequent career that he had
studied jurisprudence; moreover, besides being proficient in vocal and
instrumental music, he cultivated the art of poetry with much success.
When Henry V. became king in March 1413, James was again imprisoned in
the Tower of London, but soon afterwards he was taken to Windsor and was
treated with great consideration by the English king. In 1420, with the
intention of detaching the Scottish auxiliaries from the French
standard, he was sent to take part in Henry's campaign in France; this
move failed in its immediate object and he returned to England after
Henry's death in 1422. About this time negotiations for the release of
James were begun in earnest, and in September 1423 a treaty was signed
at York, the Scottish nation undertaking to pay a ransom of 60,000 marks
"for his maintenance in England." By the terms of the treaty James was
to wed a noble English lady, and on the 12th of February 1424 he was
married at Southwark to Jane, daughter of John Beaufort, earl of
Somerset, a lady to whom he was faithful through life. Ten thousand
marks of his ransom were remitted as Jane's dowry, and in April 1424
James and his bride entered Scotland.
With the reign of James I., whose coronation took place at Scone on the
21st of May 1424, constitutional sovereignty may be said to begin in
Scotland. By the introduction of a system of statute law, modelled to
some extent on that of England, and by the additional importance
assigned to parliament, the leaven was prepared which was to work
towards the destruction of the indefinite authority of the king, and of
the unbridled licence of the nobles. During the parliament held at Perth
in March 1425 James arrested Murdoch, duke of Albany, and his son,
Alexander; together with Albany's eldest son, Walter, and Duncan, earl
of Lennox, who had been seized previously; they were sentenced to death,
and the four were executed at Stirling. In a parliament held at
Inverness in 1427 the king arrested many turbulent northern chiefs, and
his whole policy was directed towards crushing the power of the nobles.
In this he was very successful. Expeditions reduced the Highlands to
order; earldom after earldom was forfeited; but this vigour aroused the
desire for revenge, and at length cost James his life. Having been
warned that he would never again cross the Forth, the king went to
reside in Perth just before Christmas 1436. Among those whom he had
angered was Sir Robert Graham (d. 1437), who had been banished by his
orders. Instigated by the king's uncle, Walter Stewart, earl of Atholl
(d. 1437), and aided by the royal chamberlain, Sir Robert Stewart, and
by a band of Highlanders, Graham burst into the presence of James on the
night of the 20th of February 1437 and stabbed the king to death. Graham
and Atholl were afterwards tortured and executed. James had two sons:
Alexander, who died young, and James II., who succeeded to the throne;
and six daughters, among them being Margaret, the queen of Louis XI. of
France. His widow, Jane, married Sir James Stewart, the "black knight of
Lorne," and died on the 15th of July 1445.
During the latter part of James's reign difficulties arose between
Scotland and England and also between Scotland and the papacy. Part of
the king's ransom was still owing to England; other causes of discord
between the two nations existed, and in 1436 these culminated in a short
war. In ecclesiastical matters James showed himself merciless towards
heretics, but his desire to reform the Scottish Church and to make it
less dependent on Rome brought him into collision with Popes Martin V.
and Eugenius IV.
James was the author of two poems, the _Kingis Quair_ and _Good Counsel_
(a short piece of three stanzas). The _Song of Absence_, _Peblis to the
Play_ and _Christis Kirk on the Greene_ have been ascribed to him
without evidence. _The Kingis Quair_ (preserved in the Selden MS. B. 24
in the Bodleian) is an allegorical poem of the _cours d'amour_ type,
written in seven-lined Chaucerian stanzas and extending to 1379 lines.
It was composed during James's captivity in England and celebrates his
courtship of Lady Jane Beaufort. Though in many respects a Chaucerian
_pastiche_, it not rarely equals its model in verbal and metrical
felicity. Its language is an artificial blend of northern and southern
(Chaucerian) forms, of the type shown in _Lancelot of the Laik_ and the
_Quair of Jelusy_.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.--The contemporary authorities for the reign of James I.
are Andrew of Wyntoun, _The Orygynale Cronykil of Scotland_, edited by
D. Laing (Edinburgh, 1872-1879); and Walter Bower's continuation of
John of Fordun's _Scotichronicon_, edited by T. Hearne (Oxford, 1722).
See also J. Pinkerton, _History of Scotland_ (1797); A. Lang, _History
of Scotland_, vol. i. (1900); and G. Burnett, _Introduction to the
Exchequer Rolls of Scotland_ (Edinburgh, 1878-1901). _The Kingis
Quair_ was first printed in the _Poetical Remains of James the First_,
edited by William Tytler (1783). Later editions are Morison's reprint
(Perth, 1786); J. Sibbald's, in his _Chronicle of Scottish Poetry_
(1802, vol. i.); Thomson's in 1815 and 1824; G. Chalmers's, in his
_Poetic Remains of some of the Scottish Kings_ (1824); Rogers's
_Poetical Remains of King James the First_ (1873); Skeat's edition
published by the Scottish Text Society (1884). An attempt has been
made to dispute James's authorship of the poem, but the arguments
elaborated by J. T. T. Brown (_The Authorship of the Kingis Quair_,
Glasgow, 1896) have been convincingly answered by Jusserand in his
_Jacques I^{er} d'Ecosse fut-il poete? Etude sur l'authenticite du
cahier du roi_ (Paris, 1897, reprinted from the _Revue historique_,
vol. lxiv.). See also the full correspondence in the _Athenaeum_
(July-Aug. 1896 and Dec. 1899); W. A. Neilson, _Origins and Sources of
the Court of Love_ (Boston, 1899) pp. 152 &c., 235 &c.; and Gregory
Smith, _Transition Period_ (1900), pp. 40, 41.
JAMES II. (1430-1460), king of Scotland, the only surviving son of James
I. and his wife, Jane, daughter of John Beaufort, earl of Somerset, was
born on the 16th of October 1430. Crowned king at Holyrood in March
1437, shortly after the murder of his father, he was at first under the
guardianship of his mother, while Archibald, 5th earl of Douglas, was
regent of the kingdom, and considerable power was possessed by Sir
Alexander Livingstone and Sir William Crichton (d. 1454). When about
1439 Queen Jane was married to Sir James Stewart, the knight of Lorne,
Livingstone obtained the custody of the young king, whose minority was
marked by fierce hostility between the Douglases and the Crichtons, with
Livingstone first on one side and then on the other. About 1443 the
royal cause was espoused by William, 8th earl of Douglas, who attacked
Crichton in the king's name, and civil war lasted until about 1446. In
July 1449 James was married to Mary (d. 1463), daughter of Arnold, duke
of Gelderland, and undertook the government himself; and almost
immediately Livingstone was arrested, but Douglas retained the royal
favour for a few months more. In 1452, however, this powerful earl was
invited to Stirling by the king, and, charged with treachery, was
stabbed by James and then killed by the attendants. Civil war broke out
at once between James and the Douglases, whose lands were ravaged; but
after the Scots parliament had exonerated the king, James, the new earl
of Douglas, made his submission. Early in 1455 this struggle was
renewed. Marching against the rebels James gained several victories,
after which Douglas was attainted and his lands forfeited. Fortified by
this success and assured of the support of the parliament and of the
great nobles, James, acting as an absolute king, could view without
alarm the war which had broken out with England. After two expeditions
across the borders, a truce was made in July 1457, and the king employed
the period of peace in strengthening his authority in the Highlands.
During the Wars of the Roses he showed his sympathy with the Lancastrian
party after the defeat of Henry VI. at Northampton by attacking the
English possessions to the south of Scotland. It was while conducting
the siege of Roxburgh Castle that James was killed, through the bursting
of a cannon, on the 3rd of August 1460. He left three sons, his
successor, James III., Alexander Stewart, duke of Albany, and John
Stewart, earl of Mar (d. 1479); and two daughters. James, who is
sometimes called "Fiery Face," was a vigorous and popular prince, and,
although not a scholar like his father, showed interest in education.
His reign is a period of some importance in the legislative history of
Scotland, as measures were passed with regard to the tenure of land, the
reformation of the coinage, and the protection of the poor, while the
organization for the administration of justice was greatly improved.
JAMES III. (1451-1488), king of Scotland, eldest son of James II., was
born on the 10th of July 1451. Becoming king in 1460 he was crowned at
Kelso. After the death of his mother in 1463, and of her principal
supporter, James Kennedy, bishop of St Andrews, two years later, the
person of the young king, and with it the chief authority in the
kingdom, were seized by Sir Alexander Boyd and his brother Lord Boyd,
while the latter's son, Thomas, was created earl of Arran and married to
the king's sister, Mary. In July 1469 James himself was married to
Margaret (d. 1486), daughter of Christian I., king of Denmark and
Norway, but before the wedding the Boyds had lost their power. Having
undertaken the government in person, the king received the submission of
the powerful earl of Ross, and strengthened his authority in other ways.
But his preference for a sedentary and not for an active life and his
increasing attachment to favourites of humble birth diminished his
popularity, and he had some differences with his parliament. About 1479,
probably with reason both suspicious and jealous, James arrested his
brothers, Alexander, duke of Albany, and John, earl of Mar; Mar met his
death in a mysterious fashion at Craigmillar, but Albany escaped to
France and then visited England, where in 1482 Edward IV. recognized him
as king of Scotland by the gift of the king of England. War broke out
with England, but James, made a prisoner by his nobles, was unable to
prevent Albany and his ally, Richard, duke of Gloucester (afterwards
Richard III.), from taking Berwick and marching to Edinburgh. Peace with
Albany followed, but soon afterwards the duke was again in
communication with Edward, and was condemned by the parliament after
the death of the English king in April 1483. Albany's death in France in
1485 did not end the king's troubles. His policy of living at peace with
England and of arranging marriages between the members of the royal
families of the two countries did not commend itself to the turbulent
section of his nobles; his artistic tastes and lavish expenditure added
to the discontent, and a rebellion broke out. Fleeing into the north of
his kingdom James collected an army and came to terms with his foes; but
the rebels, having seized the person of the king's eldest son,
afterwards James IV., renewed the struggle. The rival armies met at the
Sauchieburn near Bannockburn, and James soon fled. Reaching Beaton's
Mill he revealed his identity, and, according to the popular story, was
killed on the 11th of June 1488 by a soldier in the guise of a priest
who had been called in to shrive him. He left three sons--his successor,
James IV.; James Stewart, duke of Ross, afterwards archbishop of St
Andrews, and John Stewart, earl of Mar. James was a cultured prince with
a taste for music and architecture, but was a weak and incapable king.
His character is thus described by a chronicler: "He was ane man that
loved solitude, and desired nevir to hear of warre, bot delighted more
in musick and policie and building nor he did in the government of the
realme."
JAMES IV. (1473-1513), king of Scotland, eldest son of James III., was
born on the 17th of March 1473. He was nominally the leader of the
rebels who defeated the troops of James III. at the Sauchieburn in June
1488, and became king when his father was killed. As he adopted an
entirely different policy with the nobles from that of his father, and,
moreover, showed great affability towards the lower class of his
subjects, among whom he delighted to wander incognito, few if any of the
kings of Scotland have won such general popularity, or passed a reign so
untroubled by intestine strife. Crowned at Scone a few days after his
accession, James began at once to take an active part in the business of
government. A slight insurrection was easily suppressed, and a plot
formed by some nobles to hand him over to the English king, Henry VII.,
came to nothing. In spite of this proceeding Henry wished to live at
peace with his northern neighbour, and soon contemplated marrying his
daughter to James, but the Scottish king was not equally pacific. When,
in 1495, Perkin Warbeck, pretending to be the duke of York, Edward IV.'s
younger son, came to Scotland, James bestowed upon him both an income
and a bride, and prepared to invade England in his interests. For
various reasons the war was confined to a few border forays. After
Warbeck left Scotland in 1497, the Spanish ambassador negotiated a
peace, and in 1502 a marriage was definitely arranged between James and
Henry's daughter Margaret (1489-1541). The wedding took place at
Holyrood in August 1503, and it was this union which led to the
accession of the Stewart dynasty to the English throne.
About the same time James crushed a rebellion in the western isles, into
which he had previously led expeditions, and parliament took measures to
strengthen the royal authority therein. At this date too, or a little
earlier, the king of Scotland began to treat as an equal with the
powerful princes of Europe, Maximilian I., Louis XII. and others;
sending assistance to his uncle Hans, king of Denmark, and receiving
special marks of favour from Pope Julius II., anxious to obtain his
support. But his position was weakened when Henry VIII. followed Henry
VII. on the English throne in 1509. Causes of quarrel already existed,
and other causes, both public and private, soon arose between the two
kings; sea-fights took place between their ships, while war was brought
nearer by the treaty of alliance which James concluded with Louis XII.
in 1512. Henry made a vain effort to prevent, or to postpone, the
outbreak of hostilities; but urged on by his French ally and his queen,
James declared for war, in spite of the counsels of some of his
advisers, and (it is said) of the warning of an apparition. Gathering a
large and well-armed force, he took Norham and other castles in August
1513, spending some time at Ford Castle, where, according to report, he
was engaged in an amorous intrigue with the wife of its owner. Then he
moved out to fight the advancing English army under Thomas Howard, earl
of Surrey. The battle, which took place at Flodden, or more correctly,
at the foot of Brankston Hill, on Friday the 9th of September 1513, is
among the most famous and disastrous, if not among the most momentous,
in the history of Scotland. Having led his troops from their position of
vantage, the king himself was killed while fighting on foot, together
with nearly all his nobles; there was no foundation for the rumour that
he had escaped from the carnage. He left one legitimate child, his
successor James V., but as his gallantries were numerous he had many
illegitimate children, among them (by Marion Boyd) Alexander Stewart,
archbishop of St Andrews and chancellor of Scotland, who was killed at
Flodden, and (by Janet Kennedy) James Stewart, earl of Moray (d. 1544).
One of his other mistresses was Margaret Drummond (d. 1501).
James appears to have been a brave and generous man, and a wise and
energetic king. According to one account, he was possessed of
considerable learning; during his reign the Scottish court attained some
degree of refinement, and Scotland counted in European politics as she
had never done before. Literature flourished under the royal patronage,
education was encouraged, and the material condition of the country
improved enormously. Prominent both as an administrator and as a
lawgiver, the king by his vigorous rule did much to destroy the
tendencies to independence which existed in the Highlands and Islands;
but, on the other hand, his rash conduct at Flodden brought much misery
upon his kingdom. He was specially interested in his navy. The
tournaments which took place under his auspices were worthy of the best
days of chivalry in France and England. James shared to the full in the
superstitions of the age which was quickly passing away. He is said to
have worn an iron belt as penance for his share in his father's death;
and by his frequent visits to shrines, and his benefactions to religious
foundations, he won a reputation for piety.
JAMES V. (1512-1542), king of Scotland, son of James IV., was born at
Linlithgow on the 10th of April 1512, and became king when his father
was killed at Flodden in 1513. The regency was at first vested in his
mother, but after Queen Margaret's second marriage, with Archibald
Douglas, 6th earl of Angus, in August 1514, it was transferred by the
estates to John Stewart, duke of Albany. Henceforward the minority of
James was disturbed by constant quarrels between a faction, generally
favourable to England, under Angus, and the partisans of France under
Albany; while the queen-mother and the nobles struggled to gain and to
regain possession of the king's person. The English had not followed up
their victory at Flodden, although there were as usual forays on the
borders, but Henry VIII. was watching affairs in Scotland with an
observant eye, and other European sovereigns were not indifferent to the
possibility of a Scotch alliance. In 1524, when Albany had retired to
France, the parliament declared that James was fit to govern, but that
he must be advised by his mother and a council. This "erection" of James
as king was mainly due to the efforts of Henry VIII. In 1526 Angus
obtained control of the king, and kept him in close confinement until
1528, when James, escaping from Edinburgh to Stirling, put vigorous
measures in execution against the earl, and compelled him to flee to
England. In 1529 and 1530 the king made a strong effort to suppress his
turbulent vassals in the south of Scotland; and after several raids and
counter-raids negotiations for peace with England were begun, and in May
1534 a treaty was signed. At this time, as on previous occasions, Henry
VIII. wished James to marry his daughter Mary, while other ladies had
been suggested by the emperor Charles V.; but the Scottish king,
preferring a French bride, visited France, and in January 1537 was
married at Paris to Madeleine, daughter of King Francis I. Madeleine
died soon after her arrival in Scotland, and in 1538 James made a much
more important marriage, being united to Mary (1515-1560), daughter of
Claude, duke of Guise, and widow of Louis of Orleans, duke of
Longueville. It was this connexion, probably, which finally induced
James to forsake his vacillating foreign policy, and to range himself
definitely among the enemies of England. In 1536 he had refused to meet
Henry VIII. at York, and in the following year had received the gift of
a cap and sword from Pope Paul III., thus renouncing the friendship of
his uncle. Two plots to murder the king were now discovered, and James
also foiled the attempts of Henry VIII. to kidnap him. Although in 1540
the English king made another attempt to win the support, or at least
the neutrality, of James for his religious policy, the relations between
the two countries became very unfriendly, and in 1542 Henry sent an army
to invade Scotland. James was not slow to make reprisals, but his nobles
were angry or indifferent, and on the 25th of November 1542 his forces
were easily scattered at the rout of Solway Moss. This blow preyed upon
the king's mind, and on the 14th of December he died at Falkland, having
just heard of the birth of his daughter. His two sons had died in
infancy, and his successor was his only legitimate child, Mary. He left
several bastards, among them James Stewart, earl of Murray (the regent
Murray), Lord John Stewart (1531-1563) prior of Coldingham, and Lord
Robert Stewart, earl of Orkney (d. 1592).
Although possessing a weak constitution, which was further impaired by
his irregular manner of life, James showed great vigour and independence
as a sovereign, both in withstanding the machinations of his uncle,
Henry VIII., and in opposing the influence of the nobles. The
persecutions to which heretics were exposed during this reign were due
mainly to the excessive influence exercised by the ecclesiastics,
especially by David Beaton, archbishop of St Andrews. The king's habit
of mingling with the peasantry secured for him a large amount of
popularity, and probably led many to ascribe to him the authorship of
poems describing scenes in peasant life, _Christis Kirk on the Grene_,
_The Gaberlunzie Man_ and _The Jolly Beggar_. There is no proof that he
was the author of any of these poems, but from expressions in the poems
of Sir David Lindsay, who was on terms of intimacy with him, it appears
that occasionally he wrote verses.
JAMES I., the Conqueror (1208-1276), king of Aragon, son of Peter II.,
king of Aragon, and of Mary of Montpellier, whose mother was Eudoxia
Comnena, daughter of the emperor Manuel, was born at Montpellier on the
2nd of February 1208. His father, a man of immoral life, was with
difficulty persuaded to cohabit with his wife. He endeavoured to
repudiate her, and she fled to Rome, where she died in April 1213.
Peter, whose possessions in Provence entangled him in the wars between
the Albigenses and Simon of Montfort, endeavoured to placate the
northern crusaders by arranging a marriage between his son James and
Simon's daughter. In 1211 the boy was entrusted to Montfort's care to be
educated, but the aggressions of the crusaders on the princes of the
south forced Peter to take up arms against them, and he was slain at
Muret on the 12th of September 1213. Montfort would willingly have used
James as a means of extending his own power. The Aragonese and Catalans,
however, appealed to the pope, who forced Montfort to surrender him in
May or June 1214. James was now entrusted to the care of Guillen de
Monredon, the head of the Templars in Spain and Provence. The kingdom
was given over to confusion till in 1216 the Templars and some of the
more loyal nobles brought the young king to Saragossa. At the age of
thirteen he was married to Leonora, daughter of Alphonso VIII. of
Castile, whom he divorced later on the ground of consanguinity. A son
born of the marriage, Alphonso, was recognized as legitimate, but died
before his father, childless. It was only by slow steps that the royal
authority was asserted, but the young king, who was of gigantic stature
and immense strength, was also astute and patient. By 1228 he had so far
brought his vassals to obedience, that he was able to undertake the
conquest of the Balearic Islands, which he achieved within four years.
At the same time he endeavoured to bring about a union of Aragon with
Navarre, by a contract of mutual adoption between himself and the
Navarrese king, Sancho, who was old enough to be his grandfather. The
scheme broke down, and James abstained from a policy of conquest. He
wisely turned to the more feasible course of extending his dominions at
the expense of the decadent Mahommedan princes of Valencia. On the 28th
of September 1238 the town of Valencia surrendered, and the whole
territory was conquered in the ensuing years. Like all the princes of
his house, James took part in the politics of southern France. He
endeavoured to form a southern state on both sides of the Pyrenees,
which should counterbalance the power of France north of the Loire. Here
also his policy failed against physical, social and political obstacles.
As in the case of Navarre, he was too wise to launch into perilous
adventures. By the Treaty of Corbeil, with Louis IX., signed the 11th of
May 1258, he frankly withdrew from conflict with the French king, and
contented himself with the recognition of his position, and the
surrender of antiquated French claims to the overlordship of Catalonia.
During the remaining twenty years of his life, James was much concerned
in warring with the Moors in Murcia, not on his own account, but on
behalf of his son-in-law Alphonso the Wise of Castile. As a legislator
and organizer he occupies a high place among the Spanish kings. He would
probably have been more successful but for the confusion caused by the
disputes in his own household. James, though orthodox and pious, had an
ample share of moral laxity. After repudiating Leonora of Castile he
married Yolande (in Spanish Violante) daughter of Andrew II. of Hungary,
who had a considerable influence over him. But she could not prevent him
from continuing a long series of intrigues. The favour he showed his
bastards led to protest from the nobles, and to conflicts between his
sons legitimate and illegitimate. When one of the latter, Fernan
Sanchez, who had behaved with gross ingratitude and treason to his
father, was slain by the legitimate son Pedro, the old king recorded his
grim satisfaction. At the close of his life King James divided his
states between his sons by Yolande of Hungary, Pedro and James, leaving
the Spanish possessions on the mainland to the first, the Balearic
Islands and the lordship of Montpellier to the second--a division which
inevitably produced fratricidal conflicts. The king fell very ill at
Alcira, and resigned his crown, intending to retire to the monastery of
Poblet, but died at Valencia on the 27th of July 1276.
King James was the author of a chronicle of his own life, written or
dictated apparently at different times, which is a very fine example
of autobiographical literature. A translation into English by J.
Forster, with notes by Don Pascual de Gayangos, was published in
London in 1883. See also _James I. of Aragon_, by F. Darwin Swift
(Clarendon Press, 1894), in which are many references to authorities.
JAMES II. (c. 1260-1327), king of Aragon, grandson of James I., and son
of Peter III. by his marriage with Constance, daughter of Manfred of
Beneventum, was left in 1285 as king of Sicily by his father. In 1291,
on the death of his elder brother, Alphonso, to whom Aragon had fallen,
he resigned Sicily and endeavoured to arrange the quarrel between his
own family and the Angevine House, by marriage with Blanca, daughter of
Charles of Anjou, king of Naples.
JAMES II. (1243-1311), king of Majorca, inherited the Balearic Islands
from his father James I. of Aragon. He was engaged in constant conflict
with his brother Pedro III. of Aragon, and in alliance with the French
king against his own kin.
JAMES III. (1315-1349), king of Majorca, grandson of James II., was
driven out of his little state and finally murdered by his cousin Pedro
IV. of Aragon, who definitely reannexed the Balearic Islands to the
crown.
JAMES (JAMES FRANCIS EDWARD STUART) (1688-1766), prince of Wales, known
to the Jacobites as James III. and to the Hanoverian party as the Old
Pretender, the son and heir of James II. of England, was born in St
James's Palace, London, on the 10th of June 1688. The scandalous story
that he was a supposititious child, started and spread abroad by
interested politicians at the time of his birth, has been completely
disproved, and most contemporary writers allude to his striking family
likeness to the Royal Stuarts. Shortly before the flight of the king to
Sheerness, the infant prince together with his mother was sent to
France, and afterwards he continued to reside with his father at the
court of St Germain. On the death of his father, on the 16th of
September 1701, he was immediately proclaimed king by Louis XIV. of
France, but a fantastic attempt to perform a similar ceremony in London
so roused the anger of the populace that the mock pursuivants barely
escaped with their lives. A bill of attainder against him received the
royal assent a few days before the death of William III. in 1702, and
the Princess Anne, half-sister of the Pretender, succeeded William on
the throne. An influential party still, however, continued to adhere to
the Jacobite cause; but an expedition from Dunkirk planned in favour of
James in the spring of 1708 failed of success, although the French ships
under the comte de Fourbin, with James himself on board, reached the
Firth of Forth in safety. At the Peace of Utrecht James withdrew from
French territory to Bar-le-Duc in Lorraine. A rebellion in the Highlands
of Scotland was inaugurated in September 1715 by the raising of the
standard on the braes of Mar, and by the solemn proclamation of James
Stuart, "the chevalier of St George," in the midst of the assembled
clans, but its progress was arrested in November by the indecisive
battle of Sheriffmuir and by the surrender at Preston. Unaware of the
gloomy nature of his prospects, the chevalier landed in December 1715 at
Peterhead, and advanced as far south as Scone, accompanied by a small
force under the earl of Mar; but on learning of the approach of the duke
of Argyll, he retreated to Montrose, where the Highlanders dispersed to
the mountains, and he embarked again for France. A Spanish expedition
sent out in his behalf in 1719, under the direction of Alberoni, was
scattered by a tempest, only two frigates reaching the appointed
rendezvous in the island of Lewis.
In 1718 James had become affianced to the young princess Maria
Clementina Sobieski, grand-daughter of the warrior king of Poland, John
Sobieski. The intended marriage was forbidden by the emperor, who in
consequence kept the princess and her mother in honourable confinement
at Innsbruck in Tirol. An attempt to abduct the princess by means of a
ruse contrived by a zealous Jacobite gentleman, Charles Wogan, proved
successful; Clementina reached Italy in safety, and she and James were
ultimately married at Montefiascone on the 1st of September 1719. James
and Clementina were now invited to reside in Rome at the special request
of Pope Clement XI., who openly acknowledged their titles of British
King and Queen, gave them a papal guard of troops, presented them with a
villa at Albano and a palace (the Palazzo Muti in the Piazza dei Santi
Apostoli) in the city, and also made them an annual allowance of 12,000
crowns out of the papal treasury. At the Palazzo Muti, which remained
the chief centre of Jacobite intriguing, were born James's two sons,
Charles Edward (the Young Pretender) and Henry Benedict Stuart. James's
married life proved turbulent and unhappy, a circumstance that was
principally due to the hot temper and jealous nature of Clementina, who
soon after Henry's birth in 1725 left her husband and spent over two
years in a Roman convent. At length a reconciliation was effected, which
Clementina did not long survive, for she died at the early age of 32 in
February 1735. Full regal honours were paid to the Stuart queen at her
funeral, and the splendid but tasteless monument by Pietro Bracchi
(1700-1773) in St Peter's was erected to her memory by order of Pope
Benedict XIV.
His wife's death seems to have affected James's health and spirits
greatly, and he now began to grow feeble and indifferent, so that the
political adherents of the Stuarts were gradually led to fix their hopes
upon the two young princes rather than upon their father. Travellers to
Rome at this period note that James appeared seldom in public, and that
much of his time was given up to religious exercises; he was _devot a
l'exces_, so Charles de Brosses, an unprejudiced Frenchman, informs us.
It was with great reluctance that James allowed his elder son to leave
Italy for France in 1744; nevertheless in the following year, he
permitted Henry to follow his brother's example, but with the news of
Culloden he evidently came to regard his cause as definitely lost. The
estrangement from his elder and favourite son, which arose over Henry's
adoption of an ecclesiastical career, so embittered his last years that
he sank into a moping invalid and rarely left his chamber. With the
crushing failure of the "Forty-five" and his quarrel with his heir, the
once-dreaded James soon became a mere cipher in British politics, and
his death at Rome on the 2nd of January 1766 passed almost unnoticed in
London. He was buried with regal pomp in St Peter's, where Canova's
famous monument, erected by Pius VII. in 1819, commemorates him and his
two sons. As to James's personal character, there is abundant evidence
to show that he was grave, high-principled, industrious, abstemious and
dignified, and that the unflattering portrait drawn of him by Thackeray
in _Esmond_ is utterly at variance with historical facts. Although a
fervent Roman Catholic, he was far more reasonable and liberal in his
religious views than his father, as many extant letters testify.
See Earl Stanhope, _History of England and Decline of the Last
Stuarts_ (1853); _Calendar of the Stuart Papers at Windsor Castle_; J.
H. Jesse, _Memories of the Pretenders and their Adherents_ (1845); Dr
John Doran, _"Mann" and Manners at the Court of Florence_ (1876);
_Relazione della morte di Giacomo III., Re d'Inghilterra_; and Charles
de Brosses, _Lettres sur l'Italie_ (1885). (H. M. V.)
JAMES, DAVID (1839-1893), English actor, was born in London, his real
name being Belasco. He began his stage career at an early age, and after
1863 gradually made his way in humorous parts. His creation, in 1875, of
the part of Perkyn Middlewick in Our Boys made him famous as a comedian,
the performance obtaining for the piece a then unprecedented run from
the 16th of January 1875 till the 18th of April 1879. In 1885 he had
another notable success as Blueskin in _Little Jack Sheppard_ at the
Gaiety Theatre, his principal associates being Fred Leslie and Nellie
Farren. His song in this burlesque, "Botany Bay," became widely popular.
In the part of John Dory in _Wild Oats_ he again made a great hit at the
Criterion Theatre in 1886; and among his other most successful
impersonations were Simon Ingot in _David Garrick_, Tweedie in
_Tweedie's Rights_, Macclesfield in _The Guv'nor_, and Eccles in
_Caste_. His unctuous humour and unfailing spirits made him a great
favourite with the public. He died on the 2nd of October 1893.
JAMES, GEORGE PAYNE RAINSFORD (1799-1860), English novelist, son of
Pinkstan James, physician, was born in George Street, Hanover Square,
London, on the 9th of August 1799. He was educated at a private school
at Putney, and afterwards in France. He began to write early, and had,
according to his own account, composed the stories afterwards published
as _A String of Pearls_ before he was seventeen. As a contributor to
newspapers and magazines, he came under the notice of Washington Irving,
who encouraged him to produce his _Life of Edward the Black Prince_
(1822). _Richelieu_ was finished in 1825, and was well thought of by Sir
Walter Scott (who apparently saw it in manuscript), but was not brought
out till 1829. Perhaps Irving and Scott, from their natural amiability,
were rather dangerous advisers for a writer so inclined by nature to
abundant production as James. But he took up historical romance writing
at a lucky moment. Scott had firmly established the popularity of the
style, and James in England, like Dumas in France, reaped the reward of
their master's labours as well as of their own. For thirty years the
author of _Richelieu_ continued to pour out novels of the same kind
though of varying merit. His works in prose fiction, verse narrative,
and history of an easy kind are said to number over a hundred, most of
them being three-volume novels of the usual length. Sixty-seven are
catalogued in the British Museum. The best examples of his style are
perhaps _Richelieu_ (1829); _Philip Augustus_ (1831); _Henry Masterton_,
probably the best of all (1832); _Mary of Burgundy_ (1833); _Darnley_
(1839); _Corse de Leon_ (1841); _The Smuggler_ (1845). His poetry does
not require special mention, nor does his history, though for a short
time during the reign of William IV. he held the office of
historiographer royal. After writing copiously for about twenty years,
James in 1850 went to America as British Consul for Massachusetts. He
was consul at Richmond, Virginia, from 1852 to 1856, when he was
appointed to a similar post at Venice, where he died on the 9th of June
1860.
James has been compared to Dumas, and the comparison holds good in
respect of kind, though by no means in respect of merit. Both had a
certain gift of separating from the picturesque parts of history what
could without much difficulty be worked up into picturesque fiction, and
both were possessed of a ready pen. Here, however, the likeness ends. Of
purely literary talent James had little. His plots are poor, his
descriptions weak, his dialogue often below even a fair average, and he
was deplorably prone to repeat himself. The "two cavaliers" who in one
form or another open most of his books have passed into a proverb, and
Thackeray's good-natured but fatal parody of _Barbazure_ is likely to
outlast _Richelieu_ and _Darnley_ by many a year. Nevertheless, though
James cannot be allowed any very high rank among novelists, he had a
genuine narrative gift, and, though his very best books fall far below
_Les trois mousquetaires_ and _La reine Margot_, there is a certain even
level of interest to be found in all of them. James never resorted to
illegitimate methods to attract readers, and deserves such credit as may
be due to a purveyor of amusement who never caters for the less
creditable tastes of his guests.
His best novels were published in a revised form in 21 volumes
(1844-1849).
JAMES, HENRY (1843- ), American author, was born in New York on the
15th of April 1843. His father was Henry James (1811-1882), a
theological writer of great originality, from whom both he and his
brother Professor William James derived their psychological subtlety and
their idiomatic, picturesque English. Most of Henry's boyhood was spent
in Europe, where he studied under tutors in England, France and
Switzerland. In 1860 he returned to America, and began reading law at
Harvard, only to find speedily that literature, not law, was what he
most cared for. His earliest short tale, "The Story of a Year," appeared
in 1865, in the _Atlantic Monthly_, and frequent stories and sketches
followed. In 1869 he again went to Europe, where he subsequently made
his home, for the most part living in London, or at Rye in Sussex. Among
his specially noteworthy works are the following: _Watch and Ward_
(1871); _Roderick Hudson_ (1875); _The American_ (1877); _Daisy Miller_
(1878); _French Poets and Novelists_ (1878); _A Life of Hawthorne_
(1879); _The Portrait of a Lady_ (1881); _Portraits of Places_ (1884);
_The Bostonians_ (1886); _Partial Portraits_ (1888); _The Tragic Muse_
(1890); _Essays in London_ (1893); _The Two Magics_ (1898); _The Awkward
Age_ (1898); _The Wings of the Dove_ (1902); _The Ambassadors_ (1903);
_The Golden Bowl_ (1904); _English Hours_ (1905); _The American Scene_
(1907); _The High Bid_ (1909); _Italian Hours_ (1909).
As a novelist, Henry James is a modern of the moderns both in subject
matter and in method. He is entirely loyal to contemporary life and
reverentially exact in his transcription of the phase. His characters
are for the most part people of the world who conceive of life as a fine
art and have the leisure to carry out their theories. Rarely are they at
close quarters with any ugly practical task. They are subtle and complex
with the subtlety and the complexity that come from conscious
preoccupation with themselves. They are specialists in conduct and past
masters in casuistry, and are full of variations and shadows of turning.
Moreover, they are finely expressive of _milieu_; each belongs
unmistakably to his class and his race; each is true to inherited moral
traditions and delicately illustrative of some social code. To reveal
the power and the tragedy of life through so many minutely limiting and
apparently artificial conditions, and by means of characters who are
somewhat self-conscious and are apt to make of life only a pleasant
pastime, might well seem an impossible task. Yet it is precisely in this
that Henry James is pre-eminently successful. The essentially human is
what he really cares for, however much he may at times seem preoccupied
with the _technique_ of his art or with the mask of conventions through
which he makes the essentially human reveal itself. Nor has "the vista
of the spiritual been denied him." No more poignant spiritual tragedy
has been recounted in recent fiction than the story of Isabel Archer in
_The Portrait of a Lady_. His method, too, is as modern as his subject
matter. He early fell in love with the "point of view," and the good
and the bad qualities of his work all follow from this literary passion.
He is a very sensitive impressionist, with a technique that can fix the
most elusive phase of character and render the most baffling surface.
The skill is unending with which he places his characters in such
relations and under such lights that they flash out in due succession
their continuously varying facets. At times he may seem to forget that a
character is something incalculably more than the sum of all its phases;
and then his characters tend to have their existence, as Positivists
expect to have their immortality, simply and solely in the minds of
other people. But when his method is at its best, the delicate phases of
character that he transcribes coalesce perfectly into clearly defined
and suggestive images of living, acting men and women. Doubtless, there
is a certain initiation necessary for the enjoyment of Mr James. He
presupposes a cosmopolitan outlook, a certain interest in art and in
social artifice, and no little abstract curiosity about the workings of
the human mechanism. But for speculative readers, for readers who care
for art in life as well as for life in art, and for readers above all
who want to encounter and comprehend a great variety of very modern and
finely modulated characters, Mr James holds a place of his own,
unrivalled as an interpreter of the world of to-day.
For a list of the short stories of Mr Henry James, collections of them
in volume form, and other works, see bibliographies by F. A. King, in
_The Novels of Henry James_, by Elisabeth L. Cary (New York and
London, 1905), and by Le Roy Phillips, _A Bibliography of the Writings
of Henry James_ (Boston, Mass., 1906). In 1909 an _edition de luxe_ of
Henry James's novels was published in 24 volumes.
JAMES, JOHN ANGELL (1785-1859), English Nonconformist divine, was born
at Blandford, Dorsetshire, on the 6th of June 1785. At the close of his
seven years' apprenticeship to a linen-draper at Poole he decided to
become a preacher, and in 1802 he went to David Bogue's training
institution at Gosport. A year and a half later, on a visit to
Birmingham, his preaching was so highly esteemed by the congregation of
Carr's Lane Independent chapel that they invited him to exercise his
ministry amongst them; he settled there in 1805, and was ordained in May
1806. For several years his success as a preacher was comparatively
small; but he jumped into popularity about 1814, and began to attract
large crowds wherever he officiated. At the same time his religious
writings, the best known of which are _The Anxious Inquirer_ and _An
Earnest Ministry_, acquired a wide circulation. James was a typical
Congregational preacher of the early 19th century, massive and elaborate
rather than original. His preaching displayed little or nothing of
Calvinism, the earlier severity of which had been modified in Birmingham
by Edward Williams, one of his predecessors. He was one of the founders
of the Evangelical Alliance and of the Congregational Union of England
and Wales. Municipal interests appealed strongly to him, and he was also
for many years chairman of Spring Hill (afterwards Mansfield) College.
He died at Birmingham on the 1st of October 1859.
A collected edition of James's works appeared in 1860-1864. See _A
Review of the Life and Character of J. Angell James_ (1860), by J.
Campbell, and _Life and Letters of J. A. James_ (1861), edited by his
successor, R. W. Dale, who also contributed a sketch of his
predecessor to _Pulpit Memorials_ (1878).
JAMES, THOMAS (c. 1573-1629), English librarian, was born at Newport,
Isle of Wight. He was educated at Winchester and New College, Oxford,
and became a fellow of New College in 1593. His wide knowledge of books,
together with his skill in deciphering manuscripts and detecting
literary forgeries, secured him in 1602 the post of librarian to the
library founded in that year by Sir Thomas Bodley at Oxford. At the same
time he was made rector of St Aldate's, Oxford. In 1605 he compiled a
classified catalogue of the books in the Bodleian Library, but in 1620
substituted for it an alphabetical catalogue. The arrangement in 1610,
whereby the Stationers' Company undertook to supply the Bodleian Library
with every book published, was James's suggestion. Ill health compelled
him to resign his post in 1620, and he died at Oxford in August 1629.
JAMES, WILLIAM (d. 1827), English naval historian, author of the _Naval
History of Great Britain from the Declaration of War by France in 1793
to the Accession of George IV._, practised as a proctor in the admiralty
court of Jamaica between 1801 and 1813. He was in the United States when
the war of 1812 broke out, and was detained as a prisoner, but escaped
to Halifax. His literary career began by letters to the _Naval
Chronicle_ over the signature of "Boxer." In 1816 he published _An
Inquiry into the Merits of the Principal Naval Actions between Great
Britain and the United States_. In this pamphlet, which James reprinted
in 1817, enlarged and with a new title, his object was to prove that the
American frigates were stronger than their British opponents nominally
of the same class. In 1819 he began his _Naval History_, which appeared
in five volumes (1822-1824), and was reprinted in six volumes (1826). It
is a monument of painstaking accuracy in all such matters as dates,
names, tonnage, armament and movements of ships, though no attempt is
ever made to show the connexion between the various movements. James
died on the 28th of May 1827 in London, leaving a widow who received a
civil list pension of L100.
An edition of the _Naval History_ in six volumes, with additions and
notes by Capt. F. Chamier, was published in 1837, and a further one in
1886. An edition epitomized by R. O'Byrne appeared in 1888, and an
_Index_ by C. G. Toogood was issued by the Navy Records Society in
1895.
JAMES, WILLIAM (1842-1910), American philosopher, son of the
Swedenborgian theologian Henry James, and brother of the novelist Henry
James, was born on the 11th of January 1842 at New York City. He
graduated M.D. at Harvard in 1870. Two years after he was appointed a
lecturer at Harvard in anatomy and physiology, and later in psychology
and philosophy. Subsequently he became assistant professor of philosophy
(1880-1885), professor (1885-1889), professor of psychology (1889-1897)
and professor of philosophy (1897-1907). In 1899-1901 he delivered the
Gifford lectures on natural religion at the university of Edinburgh, and
in 1908 the Hibbert lectures at Manchester College, Oxford. With the
appearance of his _Principles of Psychology_ (2 vols., 1890), James at
once stepped into the front rank of psychologists as a leader of the
physical school, a position which he maintained not only by the
brilliance of his analogies but also by the freshness and
unconventionality of his style. In metaphysics he upheld the idealist
position from the empirical standpoint. Beside the _Principles of
Psychology_, which appeared in a shorter form in 1892 (_Psychology_),
his chief works are: _The Will to Believe_ (1897); _Human Immortality_
(Boston, 1898); _Talks to Teachers_ (1899); _The Varieties of Religious
Experience_ (New York, 1902); _Pragmatism--a New Name for some Old Ways
of Thinking_ (1907); _A Pluralistic Universe_ (1909; Hibbert lectures),
in which, though he still attacked the hypothesis of absolutism, he
admitted it as a legitimate alternative. He received honorary degrees
from Padua (1893), Princeton (1896), Edinburgh (1902), Harvard (1905).
He died on the 27th of August 1910.
JAMES OF HEREFORD, HENRY JAMES, 1ST BARON (1828- ), English lawyer and
statesman, son of P. T. James, surgeon, was born at Hereford on the 30th
of October 1828, and educated at Cheltenham College. A prizeman of the
Inner Temple, he was called to the bar in 1852 and joined the Oxford
circuit, where he soon came into prominence. In 1867 he was made
"postman" of the court of exchequer, and in 1869 became a Q.C. At the
general election of 1868 he obtained a seat in parliament for Taunton as
a Liberal, by the unseating of Mr Serjeant Cox on a scrutiny in March
1869, and he kept the seat till 1885, when he was returned for Bury. He
attracted attention in parliament by his speeches in 1872 in the debates
on the Judicature Act. In 1873 (September) he was made solicitor-general,
and in November attorney-general, and knighted; and when Gladstone
returned to power in 1880 he resumed his office. He was responsible for
carrying the Corrupt Practices Act of 1883. On Gladstone's conversion to
Home Rule, Sir Henry James parted from him and became one of the most
influential of the Liberal Unionists: Gladstone had offered him the lord
chancellorship in 1886, but he declined it; and the knowledge of the
sacrifice he had made in refusing to follow his old chief in his new
departure lent great weight to his advocacy of the Unionist cause in the
country. He was one of the leading counsel for _The Times_ before the
Parnell Commission, and from 1892 to 1895 was attorney-general to the
prince of Wales. From 1895 to 1902 he was a member of the Unionist
ministry as chancellor for the duchy of Lancaster, and in 1895 he was
made a peer as Baron James of Hereford. In later years he was a prominent
opponent of the Tariff Reform movement, adhering to the section of Free
Trade Unionists.
JAMES, EPISTLE OF, a book of the New Testament. The superscription (Jas.
i. 1) ascribes it to that pre-eminent "pillar" (Gal. ii. 9) of the
original mother church who later came to be regarded in certain quarters
as the "bishop of bishops" (Epist. of James to Clement, _ap. Clem. Hom._
Superscription). As such he appears in a position to address an
encyclical to "the twelve tribes of the dispersion"; for the context (i.
18, v. 7 seq.) and literary relation (cf. 1 Pet. i. 1, 3, 23-25) prove
this to be a figure for the entire new people of God, without the
distinction of carnal birth, as Paul had described "the Israel of God"
(Gal. vi. 16), spiritually begotten, like Isaac, by the word received in
faith (Gal. iii. 28 seq., iv. 28; Rom. ix. 6-9, iv. 16-18). This idea of
the spiritually begotten Israel becomes current after 1 Pet., as appears
in John i. 11-13, iii. 3-8; Barn. iv. 6, xiii. 13; 2 Clem. ii. 2, &c.
The interpretation which takes the expression "the twelve tribes"
literally, and conceives the brother of the Lord as sending an epistle
written in the Greek language throughout the Christian world, but as
addressing Jewish Christians only (so e.g. Sieffert, s.v. "Jacobus im
N.T." in Hauck, _Realencykl._ ed. 1900, vol. viii.), assumes not only
such divisive interference as Paul might justly resent (cf. Gal. ii.
1-10), but involves a strange idea of conditions. Were worldliness,
tongue religion, moral indifference, the distinctive marks of the Jewish
element? Surely the rebukes of James apply to conditions of the whole
Church and not sporadic Jewish-Christian conventicles in the
Greek-speaking world, if any such existed.
It is at least an open question whether the superscription (connected
with that of Jude) be not a later conjecture prefixed by some compiler
of the catholic epistles, but of the late date implied in our
interpretation of ver. 1 there should be small dispute. Whatever the
currency in classical circles of the epistle as a literary form, it is
irrational to put first in the development of Christian literature a
general epistle, couched in fluent, even rhetorical, Greek, and
afterwards the Pauline letters, which both as to origin and subsequent
circulation were a product of urgent conditions. The order consonant
with history is (1) Paul's "letters" to "the churches of" a province
(Gal. i. 2; 2 Cor. i. 1); (2) the address to "the elect of the
dispersion" in a group of the Pauline provinces (1 Pet. i. 1); (3) the
address to "the twelve tribes of the dispersion" everywhere (Jas. i. 1;
cf. Rev. vii. 2-4). James, like 1 John, is a homily, even more lacking
than 1 John in every epistolary feature, not even supplied with the
customary epistolary farewell. The superscription, if original, compels
us to treat the whole writing as not only late but pseudonymous. If
prefixed by conjecture, to secure recognition and authority for the
book, even this was at first a failure. The earliest trace of any
recognition of it is in Origen (A.D. 230) who refers to it as "said to
be from James" ([Greek: pheromege he Iakobou Epistole]), seeming thus to
regard ver. 1 as superscription rather than part of the text. Eusebius
(A.D. 325) classifies it among the disputed books, declaring that it is
regarded as spurious, and that not many of the ancients have mentioned
it. Even Jerome (A.D. 390), though personally he accepted it, admits
that it was "said to have been published by another in the name of
James." The Syrian canon of the Peshitta was the first to admit it.
Modern criticism naturally made the superscription its starting-point,
endeavouring first to explain the contents of the writing on this
theory of authorship, but generally reaching the conclusion that the
two do not agree. Conservatives as a rule avoid the implication of a
direct polemic against Paul in ii. 14-26, which would lay open the
author to the bitter accusations launched against the interlopers of 2
Cor. x.-xiii., by dating before the Judaistic controversy. Other
critics regard the very language alone as fatal to such a theory of
date, authorship and circle addressed. The contents, ignoring the
conflict of Jew and Gentile, complaining of worldiness and
tongue-religion (cf. 1 John iii. 17 seq. with James ii. 14-16) suggest
a much later date than the death of James (A.D. 62-66). They also
require a different character in the author, if not also a different
circle of readers from those addressed in i. 1.
The prevalent conditions seem to be those of the Greek church of the
post-apostolic period, characterized by worldiness of life, profession
without practice, and a contentious garrulity of teaching (1 John iii.
3-10, 18; 1 Tim. i. 6 seq., vi. 3-10; 2 Tim. iii. 1-5, iv. 3 seq.).
The author meets these with the weapons commanded for the purpose in 1
Tim. vi. 3, but quite in the spirit of one of the "wise men" of the
Hebrew wisdom literature. His gospel is completely denationalized,
humanitarian; but, while equally universalistic, is quite
unsympathetic towards the doctrine and the mysticism of Paul. He has
nothing whatever to say of the incarnation, life, example, suffering
or resurrection of Jesus, and does not interest himself in the
doctrines of Christ's person, which were hotly debated up to this
time. The absence of all mention of Christ (with the single exception
of ii. 1, where there is reason to think the words [Greek: hemou Iesou
Xristou] interpolated) has even led to the theory, ably but
unconvincingly maintained by Spitta, that the writing is a mere recast
of a Jewish moralistic writing like the _Two Ways_. The thoughts are
loosely strung together: yet the following seems to be the general
framework on which the New Testament preacher has collected his
material.
1. The problem of evil (i. 1-19a). Outward trials are for our
development through aid of divinely given "wisdom" (2-11). Inward
(moral) trials are not to be imputed to God, the author of all good,
whose purpose is the moral good of his creation (12-19a; cf. 1 John i.
5).
2. The righteousness God intends is defined in the eternal moral law.
It is a product of deeds, not words (i. 19b-27).
3. The "royal law" of love is violated by discrimination against the
poor (ii. 1-13); and by professions of faith barren of good works
(14-26).
4. The true spirit of wisdom appears not in aspiring to teach, but in
goodness and meekness of life (ch. iii.). Strife and self-exaltation
are fruits of a different spirit, to be resisted and overcome by
humble prayer for more grace (iv. 1-10).
5. God's judgment is at hand. The thought condemns censoriousness (iv.
11 et seq.), presumptuous treatment of life (13-17), and the tyranny
of the rich (v. 1-6). It encourages the believer to patient endurance
to the end without murmuring or imprecations (7-12). It impels the
church to diligence in its work of worship, care and prayer (13-18),
and in the reclamation of the erring (19-20).
The use made by James of earlier material is as important for
determining the _terminus a quo_ of its own date as the use of it by
later writers for the _terminus ad quem_. Acquaintance with the
evangelic tradition is apparent. It is conceived, however, more in the
Matthaean sense of "commandments to be observed" (Matt. xxviii. 20)
than the Pauline, Markan and Johannine of the drama of the incarnation
and redemption. There is no traceable literary contact with the
synoptic gospels. Acquaintance, however, with some of the Pauline
epistles "must be regarded as incontestably established" (O. Cone,
_Ency. Bibl._ ii. 2323). Besides scattered reminiscences of Romans, 1
Corinthians and Galatians, enumerated in the article referred to, the
section devoted to a refutation of the doctrine of "justification by
faith apart from works" undeniably presupposes the Pauline
terminology. Had the author been consciously opposing the great
apostle to the Gentiles he would probably have treated the subject
less superficially. What he really opposes is the same ultra-Pauline
moral laxity which Paul himself had found occasion to rebuke among
would-be adherents in Corinth (1 Cor. vi. 12; viii. 1-3, 11, 12; x. 23
seq., 32 seq.) and which appears still more marked in the pastoral
epistles and 1 John. In rebuking it James unconsciously retracts the
misapplied Pauline principle itself. To suppose that the technical
terminology of Paul, including even his classic example of the faith
of Abraham, could be employed here independently of Rom. ii. 21-23,
iii. 28, iv. 1; Gal. ii. 16, iii. 6, is to pass a judgment which in
every other field of literary criticism would be at once repudiated.
To imagine it current in pre-Pauline Judaism is to misconceive the
spirit of the synagogue.[1] To make James the coiner and Paul the
borrower not only throws back James to a date incompatible with the
other phenomena, but implies a literary polemic tactlessly waged by
Paul against the head of the Jerusalem church. Acquaintance with
Hebrews is only slightly less probable, for James ii. 25 adds an
explication of the case of Rahab also, cited in Heb. xi. 31 along with
Abraham as an example of justification by faith only, to his
correction of the Pauline scriptural argument. The question whether
James is dependent on 1 Peter or conversely is still actively
disputed. As regards the superscription the relation has been defined
above. Dependence on Revelation (A.D. 95) is probable (cf. i. 12 and
ii. 5 with Rev. ii. 9, 10 and v. 9 with Rev. iii. 20), but the
contacts with Clement of Rome (A.D. 95-120) indicate the reverse
relation. James iv. 6 and v. 20 = 1 Clem. xlix. 5 and xxx. 2; but as
both passages are also found in 1 Peter (iv. 8, v. 5), the latter may
be the common source. Clement's further development of the cases of
Abraham and Rahab, however, adding as it does to the demonstration of
James from Scripture of their justification "by works and not by faith
only," that the particular good work which "wrought with the faith" of
Abraham and Rahab to their justification was "hospitality" (1 Clem,
x.-xii.) seems plainly to presuppose James. Priority is more difficult
to establish in the case of Hermas (A.D. 120-140), where the contacts
are undisputed (cf. James iv. 7, 12 with Mand. xii, 5, 6; Sim. ix.
23).[2]
The date (A.D. 95-120) implied by the literary contacts of James of
course precludes authorship by the Lord's brother, though this does not
necessarily prove the superscription later still. The question whether
the writing as a whole is pseudonymous, or only the superscription a
mistaken conjecture by the scribe of Jude 1 is of secondary importance.
A date about 100-120 for the substance of the writing is accepted by the
majority of modern scholars and throws real light upon the author's
endeavour. Pfleiderer in pointing out the similarities of James and the
_Shepherd_ of Hermas declares it to be "certain that both writings
presuppose like historical circumstances, and, from a similar point of
view, direct their admonitions to their contemporaries, among whom a lax
worldly-mindedness and unfruitful theological wrangling threatened to
destroy the religious life."[3] Holtzmann has characterized this as "the
right visual angle" for the judgment of the book. Questions as to the
obligation of Mosaism and the relations of Jew and Gentile have utterly
disappeared below the horizon. Neither the attachment to the religious
forms of Judaism, which we are informed was characteristic of James, nor
that personal relation to the Lord which gave him his supreme
distinction are indicated by so much as a single word. Instead of being
written in Aramaic, as it would almost necessarily be if antecedent to
the Pauline epistles, or even in the Semitic style characteristic of the
older and more Palestinian elements of the New Testament we have a Greek
even more fluent than Paul's and metaphors and allusions (i. 17, iii.
1-12) of a type more like Greek rhetoric than anything else in the New
Testament. Were we to judge by the contacts with Hebrews, Clement of
Rome and Hermas and the similarity of situation evidenced in the
last-named, Rome would seem the most natural place of origin. The
history of the epistle's reception into the canon is not opposed to
this; for, once it was attributed to James, Syria would be more likely
to take it up, while the West, more sceptical, if not better informed as
to its origin, held back; just as happened in the case of Hebrews.
It is the author's conception of the nature of the gospel which mainly
gives us pause in following this pretty general disposition of modern
scholarship. With all the phenomena of vocabulary and style which seem
to justify such conceptions as von Soden's that c. iii. and iv. 11-v. 6
represent excerpts respectively from the essay of an Alexandrian scribe,
and a triple fragment of Jewish apocalypse, the analysis above given
will be found the exponent of a real logical sequence. We might almost
admit a resemblance in form to the general literary type which Spitta
adduces. The term "wisdom" in particular is used in the special and
technical sense of the "wise men" of Hebrew literature (Matt. xxiii.
34), the sense of "the wisdom of the just" of Luke i. 17. True, the
mystical sense given to the term in one of the sources of Luke, by Paul
and some of the Church fathers, is not present. While the gospel is
pre-eminently the divine gift of "wisdom," "wisdom" is not personified,
but conceived primarily as a system of humanitarian ethics, i. 21-25,
and only secondarily as a spiritual effluence, imparting the regenerate
disposition, the "mind that was in Christ Jesus," iii. 13-18. And yet
for James as well as for Paul Christ is "the wisdom of God." The
difference in conception of the term is similar to that between
Ecclesiasticus and the Wisdom of Solomon. Our author, like Paul, expects
the hearers of the word to be "a kind of first-fruits to God of his
creation." (i. 18 cf. 1 Pet. i. 23), and bids them depend upon the gift
of grace (i. 5, iv. 5 seq.), but for the evils of the world he has no
remedy but the patient endurance of the Christian philosopher (i. 2-18).
For the faithlessness ([Greek: dipsychia] i. 6-8; cf. _Didache_ and
Hermas), worldliness (ii. 1-13) and hollow profession (ii. 14-26) of the
church life of his time, with its "theological wrangling" (iii. 1-12),
his remedy is again the God-given, peaceable spirit of the Christian
philosopher (iii. 13-18), which is the antithesis of the spirit of
self-seeking and censoriousness (iv. 1-12), and which appreciates the
pettiness of earthly life with its sordid gains and its unjust
distribution of wealth (iv. 13-v. 6). This attitude of the Christian
stoic will maintain the individual in his patient waiting for the
expected "coming of the Lord" (v. 7-11); while the church sustains its
official functions of healing and prayer, and reclamation of the erring
(v. 13-20).[4] For this conception of the gospel and of the officially
organized church, our nearest analogy is in Matthew, or rather in the
blocks of precepts of the Lord which after subtraction of the Markan
narrative framework are found to underlie our first gospel. It may be
mere coincidence that the material in Matthew as well as in the
_Didache_ seems to be arranged in five divisions, beginning with a
commendation of the right way, and ending with warnings of the judgment,
while the logical analysis of James yields something similar; but of the
affinity of spirit there can be no doubt.
The type of ethical thought exemplified in James has been called
Ebionite (Hilgenfeld). It is clearly manifest in the humanitarianism of
Luke also. But with the possible exception of the prohibition of oaths
there is nothing which ought to suggest the epithet. The strong sense of
social wrongs, the impatience with tongue-religion, the utter ignoring
of ceremonialism, the reflection on the value and significance of
"life," are distinctive simply of the "wisdom" writers. Like these our
author holds himself so far aloof from current debate of ceremonial or
doctrine as to escape our principal standards of measurement regarding
place and time. Certain general considerations, however, are fairly
decisive. The prolonged effort, mainly of English scholarship, to
vindicate the superscription, even on the condition of assuming priority
to the Pauline epistles, grows only increasingly hopeless with
increasing knowledge of conditions, linguistic and other, in that early
period. The moralistic conception of the gospel as a "law of liberty,"
the very phrase recalling the expression of Barn. ii., "the new law of
Christ, which is without the yoke of constraint," the conception of the
church as primarily an ethical society, its functions already officially
distributed, suggest the period of the _Didache_, Barnabas and Clement
of Rome. Independently of the literary contacts we should judge the
period to be about A.D. 100-120. The connexions with the Pauline
epistles are conclusive for a date later than the death of James; those
with Clement and Hermas are perhaps sufficient to date it as prior to
the former, and suggest Rome as the place of origin. The connexions with
wisdom-literature favour somewhat the Hellenistic culture of Syria, as
represented for example at Antioch.
The most important commentaries on the epistle are those of Matt.
Schneckenburger (1832), K. G. W. Theile (1833), J. Kern (1838), G. H.
Ewald (1870), C. F. D. Erdmann (1881), H. v. Soden (1898), J. B. Mayor
(1892) and W. Patrick (1906). The pre-Pauline date is championed by B.
Weiss (_Introd._), W. Beyschlag (Meyer's _Commentary_), Th. Zahn
(_Introd._), J. B. Mayor and W. Patrick. J. V. Bartlet (_Ap. Age_, pp.
217-250) pleads for it, and the view is still common among English
interpreters. F. K. Zimmer (_Z. w. Th._, 1893) showed the priority of
Paul, with many others. A. Hilgenfeld (_Einl._) and A. C. McGiffert
(_Ap. Age_) place it in the period of Domitian; Baur (_Ch. History_),
Schwegler (_Nachap. Zeitalt._), Zeller, Volkmar (_Z. w. Th._),
Hausrath (_Ap. Age_), H. J. Holtzmann (_Einl._), Julicher (_Einl._),
Usteri (St. _u. Kr._, 1889), W. Bruckner (_Chron._), H. v. Soden
(_Handcomm._) and A. Harnack (_Chron._) under Hadrian. A convenient
synopsis of results will be found in J. Moffat, _Historical New
Test._^2 (pp. 576-581), and in the articles _s.v._ "James" in _Encycl.
Bibl._ and the Bible Dictionaries. (B. W. B.)
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Nothing adduced by Lightfoot (_Comm. on Gal._ Exc. "The faith of
Abraham") justifies the unsupported and improbable assertion that the
quotation James ii. 21 seq. "was probably in common use among the
Jews to prove that orthodoxy of doctrine sufficed for salvation"
(Mayor, s.v. "James, Epistle of" in Hasting's _Dict. Bible_, p. 546).
[2] On the contacts in general see Moffat, _Hist. N.T._^2 p. 578, on
relation to Clem. R. see Bacon, "Doctrine of Faith in Hebrews, James
and Clement of Rome," in _Jour. of Bib. Lit._, 1900, pp. 12-21.
[3] _Das Urchristenthum_, 868, quoted by Cone, _loc. cit._
[4] The logical relation of v. 12 to the context is problematical.
Perhaps it may be accounted for by the order of the compend of
Christian ethics the writer was following. Cf. Matt. v. 34-37 in
relation to Matt. v. 12 (cf. ver. 10) and vi. 19 sqq. (cf. ver. 2,
and iv. 13 seq.). The non-charismatic conception of healing, no
longer the "gift" of some layman in the community (1 Cor. xii. 9
seq.) but a function of "the elders" (1 Tim. iv. 14), is another
indication of comparatively late date.
JAMESON, ANNA BROWNELL (1794-1860), British writer, was born in Dublin
on the 17th of May 1794. Her father, Denis Brownell Murphy (d. 1842), a
miniature and enamel painter, removed to England in 1798 with his
family, and eventually settled at Hanwell, near London. At sixteen years
of age Anna became governess in the family of the marquis of Winchester.
In 1821 she was engaged to Robert Jameson. The engagement was broken
off, and Anna Murphy accompanied a young pupil to Italy, writing in a
fictitious character a narrative of what she saw and did. This diary she
gave to a bookseller on condition of receiving a guitar if he secured
any profits. Colburn ultimately published it as _The Diary of an
Ennuyee_ (1826), which attracted much attention. The author was
governess to the children of Mr Littleton, afterwards Lord Hatherton,
from 1821 to 1825, when she married Robert Jameson. The marriage proved
unhappy; when, in 1829, Jameson was appointed puisne judge in the island
of Dominica the couple separated without regret, and Mrs Jameson visited
the Continent again with her father.
The first work which displayed her powers of original thought was her
_Characteristics of Women_ (1832). These analyses of Shakespeare's
heroines are remarkable for delicacy of critical insight and fineness of
literary touch. They are the result of a penetrating but essentially
feminine mind, applied to the study of individuals of its own sex,
detecting characteristics and defining differences not perceived by the
ordinary critic and entirely overlooked by the general reader. German
literature and art had aroused much interest in England, and Mrs Jameson
paid her first visit to Germany in 1833. The conglomerations of hard
lines, cold colours and pedantic subjects which decorated Munich under
the patronage of King Louis of Bavaria, were new to the world, and Mrs
Jameson's enthusiasm first gave them an English reputation.
In 1836 Mrs Jameson was summoned to Canada by her husband, who had been
appointed chancellor of the province of Toronto. He failed to meet her
at New York, and she was left to make her way alone at the worst season
of the year to Toronto. After six months' experiment she felt it useless
to prolong a life far from all ties of family happiness and
opportunities of usefulness. Before leaving, she undertook a journey to
the depths of the Indian settlements in Canada; she explored Lake Huron,
and saw much of emigrant and Indian life unknown to travellers, which
she afterwards embodied in her _Winter Studies and Summer Rambles_. She
returned to England in 1838. At this period Mrs Jameson began making
careful notes of the chief private art collections in and near London.
The result appeared in her _Companion to the Private Galleries_ (1842),
followed in the same year by the _Handbook to the Public Galleries_. She
edited the _Memoirs of the Early Italian Painters_ in 1845. In the same
year she visited her friend Ottilie von Goethe. Her friendship with Lady
Byron dates from about this time and lasted for some seven years; it was
brought to an end apparently through Lady Byron's unreasonable temper. A
volume of essays published in 1846 contains one of Mrs Jameson's best
pieces of work, _The House of Titian_. In 1847 she went to Italy with
her niece and subsequent biographer (_Memoirs_, 1878), Geraldine Bate
(Mrs Macpherson), to collect materials for the work on which her
reputation rests--her series of _Sacred and Legendary Art_. The time was
ripe for such contributions to the traveller's library. The _Acta
Sanctorum_ and the _Book of the Golden Legend_ had had their readers,
but no one had ever pointed out the connexion between these tales and
the works of Christian art. The way to these studies had been pointed
out in the preface to Kugler's _Handbook of Italian Painting_ by Sir
Charles Eastlake, who had intended pursuing the subject himself.
Eventually he made over to Mrs Jameson the materials and references he
had collected. She recognized the extent of the ground before her as a
mingled sphere of poetry, history, devotion and art. She infected her
readers with her own enthusiastic admiration; and, in spite of her
slight technical and historical equipment, Mrs. Jameson produced a book
which thoroughly deserved its great success.
She also took a keen interest in questions affecting the education,
occupations and maintenance of her own sex. Her early essay on _The
Relative Social Position of Mothers and Governesses_ was the work of one
who knew both sides; and in no respect does she more clearly prove the
falseness of the position she describes than in the certainty with which
she predicts its eventual reform. To her we owe the first popular
enunciation of the principle of male and female co-operation in works of
mercy and education. In her later years she took up a succession of
subjects all bearing on the same principles of active benevolence and
the best ways of carrying them into practice. Sisters of charity,
hospitals, penitentiaries, prisons and workhouses all claimed her
interest--all more or less included under those definitions of "the
communion of love and communion of labour" which are inseparably
connected with her memory. To the clear and temperate forms in which she
brought the results of her convictions before her friends in the shape
of private lectures--published as _Sisters of Charity_ (1855) and _The
Communion of Labour_ (1856)--may be traced the source whence later
reformers and philanthropists took counsel and courage.
Mrs Jameson died on the 17th of March 1860. She left the last of her
_Sacred and Legendary Art_ series in preparation. It was completed,
under the title of _The History of Our Lord in Art_, by Lady Eastlake.
JAMESON (or JAMESONE), GEORGE (c. 1587-1644), Scottish portrait-painter,
was born at Aberdeen, where his father was architect and a member of the
guild. After studying painting under Rubens at Antwerp, with Vandyck as
a fellow pupil, he returned in 1620 to Aberdeen, where he was married in
1624 and remained at least until 1630, after which he took up his
residence in Edinburgh. He was employed by the magistrates of Edinburgh
to copy several portraits of the Scottish kings for presentation to
Charles I. on his first visit to Scotland in 1633, and the king rewarded
him with a diamond ring from his own finger. This circumstance at once
established Jameson's fame, and he soon found constant employment in
painting the portraits of the Scottish nobility and gentry. He also
painted a portrait of Charles, which he declined to sell to the
magistrates of Aberdeen for the price they offered. He died at Edinburgh
in 1644.
JAMESON, LEANDER STARR (1853- ), British colonial statesman, son of R.
W. Jameson, a writer to the signet in Edinburgh, was born at Edinburgh
in 1853, and was educated for the medical profession at University
College Hospital, London (M.R.C.S. 1875; M.D. 1877). After acting as
house physician, house surgeon and demonstrator of anatomy, and showing
promise of a successful professional career in London, his health broke
down from overwork in 1878, and he went out to South Africa and settled
down in practice at Kimberley. There he rapidly acquired a great
reputation as a medical man, and, besides numbering President Kruger and
the Matabele chief Lobengula among his patients, came much into contact
with Cecil Rhodes. In 1888 his influence with Lobengula was successfully
exerted to induce that chieftain to grant the concessions to the agents
of Rhodes which led to the formation of the British South Africa
Company; and when the company proceeded to open up Mashonaland, Jameson
abandoned his medical practice and joined the pioneer expedition of
1890. From this time his fortunes were bound up with Rhodes's schemes in
the north. Immediately after the pioneer column had occupied
Mashonaland, Jameson, with F. C. Selous and A. R. Colquhoun, went east
to Manicaland and was instrumental in securing the greater part of that
country, to which Portugal was laying claim, for the Chartered Company.
In 1891 Jameson succeeded Colquhoun as administrator of Rhodesia. The
events connected with his vigorous administration and the wars with the
Matabele are narrated under RHODESIA. At the end of 1894 "Dr Jim" (as he
was familiarly called) came to England and was feted on all sides; he
was made a C.B., and returned to Africa in the spring of 1895 with
enhanced prestige. On the last day of that year the world was startled
to learn that Jameson, with a force of 600 men, had made a raid into the
Transvaal from Mafeking in support of a projected rising in
Johannesburg, which had been connived at by Rhodes at the Cape (see
RHODES and TRANSVAAL). Jameson's force was compelled to surrender at
Doornkop, receiving a guarantee that the lives of all would be spared;
he and his officers were sent to Pretoria, and, after a short delay,
during which time sections of the Boer populace clamoured for the
execution of Jameson, President Kruger on the surrender of Johannesburg
(January 7) handed them over to the British government for punishment.
They were tried in London under the Foreign Enlistment Act in May 1896,
and Dr Jameson was sentenced to fifteen months' imprisonment at
Holloway. He served a year in prison, and was then released on account
of ill health. He still retained the affections of the white population
of Rhodesia, and subsequently returned there in an unofficial capacity.
He was the constant companion of Rhodes on his journeys up to the end of
his life, and when Rhodes died in May 1902 Jameson was left one of the
executors of his will. In 1903 Jameson came forward as the leader of the
Progressive (British) party in Cape Colony; and that party being
victorious at the general election in January-February 1904, Jameson
formed an administration in which he took the post of prime minister. He
had to face a serious economic crisis and strenuously promoted the
development of the agricultural and pastoral resources of the colony. He
also passed a much needed Redistribution Act, and in the session of 1906
passed an Amnesty Act restoring the rebel voters to the franchise.
Jameson, as prime minister of Cape Colony, attended the Colonial
conference held in London in 1907. In September of that year the Cape
parliament was dissolved, and as the elections for the legislative
council went in favour of the Bond, Jameson resigned office, 31st of
January 1908 (see CAPE COLONY: _History_). In 1908 he was chosen one of
the delegates from Cape Colony to the intercolonial convention for the
closer union of the South African states, and he took a prominent part
in settling the terms on which union was effected in 1909. It was at
Jameson's suggestion that the Orange River Colony was renamed Orange
Free State Province.
JAMESON, ROBERT (1774-1854), Scottish naturalist and mineralogist, was
born at Leith on the 11th of July 1774. He became assistant to a surgeon
in his native town; but, having studied natural history under Dr John
Walker in 1792 and 1793, he felt that his true province lay in that
science. He went in 1800 to Freiberg to study for nearly two years under
Werner, and spent two more in continental travel. In 1804 he succeeded
Dr Walker as regius professor of natural history in Edinburgh
university, and became perhaps the first eminent exponent in Great
Britain of the Wernerian geological system; but when he found that
theory untenable, he frankly announced his conversion to the views of
Hutton. As a teacher, Jameson was remarkable for his power of imparting
enthusiasm to his students, and from his class-room there radiated an
influence which gave a marked impetus to the study of geology in
Britain. His energy also, by means of government aid, private donation
and personal outlay, amassed a great part of the splendid collection
which now occupies the natural history department of the Royal Scottish
Museum in Edinburgh. In 1819 Jameson, with Sir David Brewster, started
the _Edinburgh Philosophical Journal_, which after the tenth volume
remained under his sole conduct till his death, which took place in
Edinburgh on the 19th of April 1854. His bust now stands in the hall of
the Edinburgh University library.
Jameson was the author of _Outline of the Mineralogy of the Shetland
Islands and of the Island of Arran_ (1798), incorporated with
_Mineralogy of the Scottish Isles_ (1800); _Mineralogical Description
of Scotland_, vol. i. pt. 1. (Dumfries, 1805); this was to have been
the first of a series embracing all Scotland; _System of Mineralogy_
(3 vols., 1804-1808; 3rd ed., 1820); _Elements of Geognosy_ (1809);
_Mineralogical Travels through the Hebrides, Orkney and Shetland
Islands_ (2 vols., 1813); and _Manual of Mineralogy_ (1821); besides a
number of occasional papers, of which a list will be found in the
_Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal_ for July 1854, along with a
portrait and biographical sketch of the author.
JAMESTOWN, a city and the county-seat of Stutsman county, North Dakota,
U.S.A., on the James River, about 93 m. W. of Fargo. Pop. (1900), 2853,
of whom 587 were foreign-born; (1905) 5093; (1910) 4358. Jamestown is
served by the Northern Pacific railway, of which it is a division
headquarters. At Jamestown is St John's Academy, a school for girls,
conducted by the Sisters of St Joseph. The state hospital for the insane
is just beyond the city limits. The city is the commercial centre of a
prosperous farming and stock-raising region in the James River valley,
and has grain-elevators and flour-mills. Jamestown was first settled in
1873, near Fort Seward, a U.S. military post established in 1872 and
abandoned in 1877, and was chartered as a city in 1883.
JAMESTOWN, a city of Chautauqua county, New York, U.S.A., at the S.
outlet of Chautauqua Lake, 68 m. S. by W. of Buffalo. Pop. (1900),
22,892, of whom 7270 were foreign-born, mostly Swedish; (1910 census)
31,297. It is served by the Erie and the Jamestown, Chautauqua & Lake
Erie railways, by electric lines extending along Lake Chautauqua to Lake
Erie on the N. and to Warren, Pennsylvania, on the S., and by summer
steamboat lines on Lake Chautauqua. Jamestown is situated among the
hills of Chautauqua county, and is a popular summer resort. There is a
free public library. A supply of natural gas (from Pennsylvania) and a
fine water-power combine to render Jamestown a manufacturing centre of
considerable importance. In 1905 the value of its factory products was
$10,349,752, an increase of 33.9% since 1900. The city owns and operates
its electric-lighting plant and its water-supply system, the water, of
exceptional purity, being obtained from artesian wells 4 m. distant.
Jamestown was settled in 1810, was incorporated in 1827, and was
chartered as a city in 1886. The city was named in honour of James
Prendergast, an early settler.
JAMESTOWN, a former village in what is now James City county, Virginia,
U.S.A., on Jamestown Island, in the James River, about 40 m. above
Norfolk. It was here that the first permanent English settlement in
America was founded on the 13th of May 1607, that representative
government was inaugurated on the American Continent in 1619, and that
negro servitude was introduced into the original thirteen colonies, also
in 1619. In Jamestown was the first Anglican church built in America.
The settlement was in a low marshy district which proved to be
unhealthy; it was accidentally burned in January 1608, was almost
completely destroyed by Nathaniel Bacon in September 1676, the state
house and other buildings were again burned in 1698, and after the
removal of the seat of government of Virginia from Jamestown to the
Middle Plantations (now Williamsburg) in 1699 the village fell rapidly
into decay. Its population had never been large: it was about 490 in
1609, and 183 in 1623; the mortality was always very heavy. By the
middle of the 19th century the peninsula on which Jamestown had been
situated had become an island, and by 1900 the James River had worn away
the shore but had hardly touched the territory of the "New Towne"
(1619), immediately E. of the first settlement; almost the only visible
remains, however, were the tower of the brick church and a few
gravestones. In 1900 the association for the preservation of Virginia
antiquities, to which the site was deeded in 1893, induced the United
States government to build a wall to prevent the further encroachment of
the river; the foundations of several of the old buildings have since
been uncovered, many interesting relics have been found, and in 1907
there were erected a brick church (which is as far as possible a
reproduction of the fourth one built in 1639-1647), a marble shaft
marking the site of the first settlement, another shaft commemorating
the first house of burgesses, a bronze monument to the memory of Captain
John Smith, and another monument to the memory of Pocahontas. At the
head of Jamestown peninsula Cornwallis, in July 1781, attempted to
trick the Americans under Lafayette and General Anthony Wayne by
displaying a few men on the peninsula and concealing the principal part
of his army on the mainland; but when Wayne discovered the trap he made
first a vigorous charge, and then a retreat to Lafayette's line. Early
in the Civil War the Confederates regarded the site (then an island) as
of such strategic importance that (near the brick church tower and
probably near the site of the first fortifications by the original
settlers) they erected heavy earthworks upon it for defence. (For
additional details concerning the early history of Jamestown, see
VIRGINIA: _History_.)
The founding at Jamestown of the first permanent English-speaking
settlement in America was celebrated in 1907 by the Jamestown
tercentennial exposition, held on grounds at Sewell's Point on the shore
of Hampton Roads. About twenty foreign nations, the federal government,
and most of the states of the union took part in the exposition.
See L. G. Tyler, _The Cradle of the Republic: Jamestown and James
River_ (Richmond, 2nd ed., 1906); Mrs R. A. Pryor, _The Birth of the
Nation: Jamestown, 1607_ (New York, 1907); and particularly S. H.
Yonge, _The Site of Old "James Towne," 1607-1698_ (Richmond, 1904),
embodying the results of the topographical investigations of the
engineer in charge of the river-wall built in 1900-1901.
JAMI (NUR-ED-DIN 'ABD-UR-RAHMAN IBN AHMAD) (1414-1492), Persian poet and
mystic, was born at Jam in Khorasan, whence the name by which he is
usually known. In his poems he mystically utilizes the connexion of the
name with the same word meaning "wine-cup." He was the last great
classic poet of Persia, and a pronounced mystic of the Sufic philosophy.
His three _diwans_ (1479-1401) contain his lyrical poems and odes; among
his prose writings the chief is his _Baharistan_ ("Spring-garden")
(1487); and his collection of romantic poems, _Haft Aurang_ ("Seven
Thrones"), contains the _Salaman wa Absal_ and his _Yusuf wa Zalikha_
(Joseph and Potiphar's wife).
On Jami's life and works see V. von Rosenzweig, _Biographische Notizen
uber Mewlana Abdurrahman Dschami_ (Vienna, 1840); Gore Ouseley,
_Biographical Notices of Persian Poets_ (1846); W. N. Lees, _A
Biographical Sketch of the Mystic Philosopher and Poet Jami_
(Calcutta, 1859); E. Beauvois _s.v._ Djami in _Nouvelle Biographie
generale_; and H. Ethe in Geiger and Kuhn's _Grundriss der iranischen
Philologie_, ii. There are English translations of the _Baharistan_ by
E. Rehatsek (Benares, 1887) and Sorabji Fardunji (Bombay, 1899); of
_Salaman wa Absal_ by Edward FitzGerald (1856, with a notice of Jami's
life); of _Yusuf wa Zalikha_ by R. T. H. Griffith (1882) and A. Rogers
(1892); also selections in English by F. Hadland Davis, _The Persian
Mystics: Jami_ (1908). (See also PERSIA: _Literature_.)
JAMIESON, JOHN (1759-1838), Scottish lexicographer, son of a minister,
was born in Glasgow, on the 3rd of March 1759. He was educated at
Glasgow University, and subsequently attended classes in Edinburgh.
After six years' theological study, Jamieson was licensed to preach in
1789 and became pastor of an Anti-burgher congregation in Forfar; and in
1797 he was called to the Anti-burgher church in Nicolson Street,
Edinburgh. The union of the Burgher and Anti-burgher sections of the
Secession Church in 1820 was largely due to his exertions. He retired
from the ministry in 1830 and died in Edinburgh on the 12th of July
1838.
Jamieson's name stands at the head of a tolerably long list of works
in the _Bibliotheca britannica_; but by far his most important book is
the laborious and erudite compilation, best described by its own
title-page: _An Etymological Dictionary of the Scottish Language;
illustrating the words in their different significations by examples
from Ancient and Modern Writers; shewing their Affinity to those of
other Languages, and especially the Northern; explaining many terms
which though now obsolete in England were formerly common to both
countries; and elucidating National Rites, Customs and Institutions in
their Analogy to those of other nations; to which is prefixed a
Dissertation on the Origin of the Scottish Language_. This appeared in
2 vols., 4to, at Edinburgh in 1808, followed in 1825 by a
_Supplement_, in 2 vols., 4to, in which he was assisted by scholars in
all parts of the country. A revised edition by Longmuir and Donaldson
was issued in 1879-1887.
JAMIESON, ROBERT (c. 1780-1844), Scottish antiquary, was born in
Morayshire. In 1806 he published a collection of _Popular Ballads and
Songs from Tradition, Manuscript and Scarce Editions_. Two pleasing
lyrics of his own were included. Scott, through whose assistance he
received a government post at Edinburgh, held Jamieson in high esteem
and pointed out his skill in discovering the connexion between
Scandinavian and Scottish legends. Jamieson's work preserved much oral
tradition which might otherwise have been lost. He was associated with
Henry Weber and Scott in _Illustrations of Northern Antiquities_ (1814).
He died on the 24th of September 1844.
JAMKHANDI, a native state of India, in the Deccan division of Bombay,
ranking as one of the southern Mahratta Jagirs. Area, 524 sq. m. Pop.
(1901), 105,357; estimated revenue, L37,000; tribute, L1300. The chief
is a Brahman of the Patwardhan family. Cotton, wheat and millet are
produced, and cotton and silk cloth are manufactured, though not
exported. The town of JAMKHANDI, the capital, is situated 68 m. E. of
Kolhapur. Pop. (1901), 13,029.
JAMMU, or JUMMOO, the capital of the state of Jammu and Kashmir in
Northern India, on the river Tavi (Ta-wi), a tributary of the Chenab.
Pop. (1901), 36,130. The town and palace stand upon the right bank of
the river; the fort overhangs the left bank at an elevation of 150 ft.
above the stream. The lofty whitened walls of the palace and citadel
present a striking appearance from the surrounding country. Extensive
pleasure grounds and ruins of great size attest the former prosperity of
the city when it was the seat of a Rajput dynasty whose dominions
extended into the plains and included the modern district of Sialkot. It
was afterwards conquered by the Sikhs, and formed part of Ranjit Singh's
dominions. After his death it was acquired by Gulab Singh as the nucleus
of his dominions, to which the British added Kashmir in 1846. It is
connected with Sialkot in the Punjab by a railway 16 m. long. In 1898
the town was devastated by a fire, which destroyed most of the public
offices.
The state of Jammu proper, as opposed to Kashmir, consists of a
submontane tract, forming the upper basin of the Chenab. Pop. (1901),
1,521,307, showing an increase of 5% in the decade. A land settlement
has recently been introduced under British supervision.
JAMNIA ([Greek: Iamnia] or [Greek: Iamneia]), the Greek form of the
Hebrew name Jabneel--i.e. "God causeth to build" (Josh. xv. 11)--or
Jabneh (2 Chron. xxvi. 6), the modern Arabic YEBNA, a town of Palestine,
on the border between Dan and Judah, situated 13 m. S. of Jaffa, and 4
m. E. of the seashore. The modern village stands on an isolated sandy
hillock, surrounded by gardens with olives to the north and sand-dunes
to the west. It contains a small crusaders' church, now a mosque. Jamnia
belonged to the Philistines, and Uzziah of Judah is said to have taken
it (2 Chron. xxvi. 6). In Maccabean times Joseph and Azarias attacked it
unsuccessfully (1 Macc. v. 55-62; 2 Macc. xii. 8 seq. is untrustworthy).
Alexander Jannaeus subdued it, and under Pompey it became Roman. It
changed hands several times, is mentioned by Strabo (xvi. 2) as being
once very populous, and in the Jewish war was taken by Vespasian. The
population was mainly Jewish (Philo, _Leg. ad Gaium_, S 30), and the
town is principally famous as having been the seat of the Sanhedrin and
the religious centre of Judaism from A.D. 70 to 135. It sent a bishop to
Nicaea in 325. In 1144 a crusaders' fortress was built on the hill,
which is often mentioned under the name Ibelin. There was also a Jabneel
in Lower Galilee (Josh. xix. 33), called later Caphar Yama, the present
village Yemma, 8 m. S. of Tiberias; and another fortress in Upper
Galilee was named Jamnia (Josephus, _Vita_, 37). Attempts have been made
to unify these two Galilean sites, but without success.
JAMRUD, a fort and cantonment in India, just beyond the border of
Peshawar district, North-West Frontier Province, situated at the mouth
of the Khyber Pass, 10(1/2) m. W. of Peshawar city, with which it is
connected by a branch railway. It was occupied by Hari Singh, Ranjit
Singh's commander in 1836; but in April 1837 Dost Mahommed sent a body
of Afghans to attack it. The Sikhs gained a doubtful victory, with the
loss of their general. During the military operations of 1878-79 Jamrud
became a place of considerable importance as the frontier outpost on
British territory towards Afghanistan, and it was also the base of
operations for a portion of the Tirah campaign in 1897-1898. It is the
headquarters of the Khyber Rifles, and the collecting station for the
Khyber tolls. Pop. (1901), 1848.
JAMS AND JELLIES. In the article FOOD PRESERVATION it is pointed out
that concentrated sugar solution inhibits the growth of organisms and
has, therefore, a preservative action. The preparation of jams and
jellies is based upon that fact. All fresh and succulent fruit contains
a large percentage of water, amounting to at least four-fifths of the
whole, and a comparatively small proportion of sugar, not exceeding as a
rule from 10 to 15%. Such fruit is naturally liable to decomposition
unless the greater proportion of the water is removed or the percentage
of sugar is greatly increased. The jams and jellies of commerce are
fruit preserves containing so much added sugar that the total amount of
sugar forms about two-thirds of the weight of the articles. All ordinary
edible fruit can be and is made into jam. The fruit is sometimes pulped
and stoned, sometimes used whole and unbroken; oranges are sliced or
shredded. For the preparation of jellies only certain fruit is suitable,
namely such as contains a peculiar material which on boiling becomes
dissolved and on cooling solidifies with the formation of a gelatinous
mass. This material, often called pectin, occurs mainly in comparatively
acid fruit like gooseberries, currants and apples, and is almost absent
from strawberries and raspberries. It is chemically a member of the
group of carbohydrates, is closely allied with vegetable gums abundantly
formed by certain sea-weeds and mosses (agar-agar and Iceland moss), and
is probably a mixture of various pentoses. Pentoses are devoid of
food-value, but, like animal gelatine, with which they are in no way
related, can form vehicles for food material. Some degree of
gelatinization is aimed at also in jams; hence to such fruits as have no
gelatinizing power an addition of apple or gooseberry juice, or even of
Iceland moss or agar-agar, is made. Animal gelatin is very rarely used.
The art of jam and jelly making was formerly domestic, but has become a
very large branch of manufacture. For the production of a thoroughly
satisfactory conserve the boiling-down must be carried out very rapidly,
so that the natural colour of the fruit shall be little affected.
Considerable experience is required to stop at the right point; too
short boiling leaves an excess of water, leading to fermentation, while
over-concentration promotes crystallization of the sugar. The
manufactured product is on that account, as a rule, more uniform and
bright than the domestic article. The finish of the boiling is mostly
judged by rule of thumb, but in some scientifically conducted factories
careful thermometric observation is employed. Formerly jams and jellies
consisted of nothing but fruit and sugar; now starch-glucose is
frequently used by manufacturers as an ingredient. This permits of the
production of a slightly more aqueous and gelatinous product, alleged
also to be devoid of crystallizing power, as compared with the homemade
article. The addition of starch-glucose is not held to be an
adulteration. Aniline colours are very frequently used by manufacturers
to enhance the colour, and the effect of an excess of water is sought to
be counteracted by the addition of some salicylic acid or other
preservative. There has long been, and still exists to some extent, a
popular prejudice in favour of sugar obtained from the sugar-cane as
compared with that of the sugar-beet. This prejudice is absolutely
baseless, and enormous quantities of beet-sugar are used in the boiling
of jam. Adulteration in the gross sense, such as a substantial addition
of coarse pulp, like that of turnips or mangolds, very rarely occurs;
but the pulp of apple and other cheap fruit is often admixed without
notice to the purchaser. The use of colouring matters and preservatives
is discussed at length in the article ADULTERATION. (O. H.*)
JANESVILLE, a city and the county-seat of Rock County, Wisconsin,
U.S.A., situated on both sides of the Rock river, 70 m. S.W. of
Milwaukee and 90 m. N.W. of Chicago. Pop. (1900), 13,185, of whom 2409
were foreign-born; (1910 census), 13,894. It is served by the Chicago &
North-Western and the Chicago, Milwaukee & St Paul railways, and by
electric lines connecting with Madison and Beloit, Wis., and Rockford,
Illinois. The Rock river is not commercially navigable at this point,
but furnishes valuable water-power for manufacturing purposes. The city
is picturesquely situated on bluffs above the river. Janesville is the
centre of the tobacco trade of the state, and has various manufactures.
The total value of the city's factory product in 1905 was $3,846,038, an
increase of 20.8% since 1900. Its public buildings include a city hall,
court house, post office, city hospital and a public library. It is the
seat of a school for the blind, opened as a private institution in 1849
and taken over by the state in 1850, the first charitable institution
controlled by the state, ranking as one of the most successful of its
kind in the United States. The first settlement was made here about
1834. Janesville was named in honour of Henry F. Janes, an early
settler, and was chartered as a city in 1853.
JANET, PAUL (1823-1899), French philosophical writer, was born in Paris
on the 30th of April 1823. He was professor of moral philosophy at
Bourges (1845-1848) and Strassburg (1848-1857), and of logic at the
lycee Louis-le-Grand, Paris (1857-1864). In 1864 he was appointed to the
chair of philosophy at the Sorbonne, and elected a member of the academy
of the moral and political sciences. He wrote a large number of books
and articles upon philosophy, politics and ethics, on idealistic lines:
_La Famille, Histoire de la philosophie dans l'antiquite et dans le
temps moderne, Histoire de la science politique, Philosophie de la
Revolution Francaise_, &c. They are not characterized by much
originality of thought. In philosophy he was a follower of Victor
Cousin, and through him of Hegel. His principal work in this line,
_Theorie de la morale_, is little more than a somewhat patronizing
reproduction of Kant. He died in October 1899.
JANGIPUR, or JAHANGIRPUR, a town of British India, in Murshidabad
district, Bengal, situated on the Bhagirathi. Pop. (1901), 10,921. The
town is said to have been founded by the Mogul emperor Jahangir. During
the early years of British rule it was an important centre of the silk
trade, and the site of one of the East India Company's commercial
residencies. Jangipur is now best known as the toll station for
registering all the traffic on the Bhagirathi. The number of boats
registered annually is about 10,000.
JANIN, JULES GABRIEL (1804-1874), French critic, was born at St Etienne
(Loire) on the 16th of February 1804, and died near Paris on the 19th of
June 1874. His father was a lawyer, and he was well educated, first at
St Etienne, and then at the lycee Louis-le-Grand in Paris. He betook
himself to journalism very early, and worked on the _Figaro_, the
_Quotidienne_, &c., until in 1830 he became dramatic critic of the
_Journal des Debats_. Long before this, however, he had made a
considerable literary reputation, for which indeed his strange novel
_L'Ane mort et la femme guillotinee_ (1829) would have sufficed. _La
Confession_ (1830), which followed, was less remarkable in substance but
even more so in style; and in _Barnave_ (1831) he attacked the Orleans
family. From the day, however, when Janin became the theatrical critic
of the _Debats_, though he continued to write books indefatigably, he
was to most Frenchmen a dramatic critic and nothing more. He was
outrageously inconsistent, and judged things from no general point of
view whatsoever, though his judgment was usually good-natured. Few
journalists have ever been masters of a more attractive fashion of
saying the first thing that came into their heads. After many years of
_feuilleton_ writing he collected some of his articles in the work
called _Histoire de la litterature dramatique en France_ (1853-1858),
which by no means deserves its title. In 1865 he made his first attempt
upon the Academy, but was not successful till five years later.
Meanwhile he had not been content with his _feuilletons_, written
persistently about all manner of things. No one was more in request with
the Paris publishers for prefaces, letterpress to illustrated books and
such trifles. He travelled (picking up in one of his journeys a curious
windfall, a country house at Lucca, in a lottery), and wrote accounts of
his travels; he wrote numerous tales and novels, and composed many other
works, of which by far the best is the _Fin d'un monde et du neveu de
Rameau_ (1861), in which, under the guise of a sequel to Diderot's
masterpiece, he showed his great familiarity with the late 18th century.
He married in 1841; his wife had money, and he was always in easy
circumstances. In the early part of his career he had many quarrels,
notably one with Felix Pyat (1810-1889), whom he prosecuted successfully
for defamation of character. For the most part his work is mere
improvisation, and has few elements of vitality except a light and vivid
style. His _Oeuvres choisies_ (12 vols., 1875-1878) were edited by A. de
la Fitzeliere.
A study on Janin with a bibliography was published by A. Piedagnel in
1874. See also Sainte-Beuve, _Causeries du lundi_, ii. and v., and
Gustave Planche, _Portraits litteraires_.
JANISSARIES (corrupted from Turkish _yeni cheri_, new troops), an
organized military force constituting until 1826 the standing army of
the Ottoman empire. At the outset of her history Turkey possessed no
standing army. All Moslems capable of bearing arms served as a kind of
volunteer yeomanry known as _akinjis_; they were summoned by public
criers, or, if the occasion required it, by secret messengers. It was
under Orkhan that a regular paid army was first organized: the soldiers
were known as _yaya_ or _piyade_. The result was unsatisfactory, as the
Turcomans, from whom these troops were recruited, were unaccustomed to
fight on foot or to submit to military discipline. Accordingly in 1330,
on the advice of Chendereli Kara Khalil, the system known as _devshurme_
or forced levy, was adopted, whereby a certain number of Christian
youths (at first 1000) were every year taken from their parents and,
after undergoing a period of apprenticeship, were enrolled as _yeni
cheri_ or new troops. The venerable saint Haji Bektash, founder of the
Bektashi dervishes, blessed the corps and promised them victory; he
remained ever after the patron saint of the janissaries.
At first the corps was exclusively recruited by the forced levy of
Christian children, for which purpose the officer known as
_tournaji-bashi_, or head-keeper of the cranes, made periodical tours in
the provinces. The fixed organization of the corps dates only from
Mahommed II., and its regulations were subsequently modified by Suleiman
I. In early days all Christians were enrolled indiscriminately; later
those from Albania, Bosnia and Bulgaria were preferred. The recruits
while serving their apprenticeship were instructed in the principles of
the faith by _khojas_, but according to D'Ohsson (vii. 327) they were
not obliged to become Moslems.
The entire corps, commanded by the aga of the janissaries, was known as
the _ojak_ (hearth); it was divided into _ortas_ or units of varying
numbers; the _oda_ (room) was the name given to the barracks in which
the janissaries were lodged. There were, after the reorganization of
Suleiman I., 196 ortas of three classes, viz. the _jemaat_, comprising
101 ortas, the _beuluk_, 61 ortas, and the _sekban_, or _seimen_, 34
ortas; to these must be added 34 ortas of _ajami_ or apprentices. The
strength of the orta varied greatly, sometimes being as low as 100,
sometimes rising considerably beyond its nominal war strength of 500.
The distinction between the different classes seems to have been
principally in name; in theory the jemaat, or _yaya beiler_, were
specially charged with the duty of frontier-guards; the _beuluks_ had
the privilege of serving as the sultan's guards and of keeping the
sacred banner in their custody.
Until the accession of Murad III. (1574) the total effective of the
janissaries, including the ajami or apprentices, did not exceed 20,000.
In 1582 irregularities in the mode of admission to the ranks began. Soon
parents themselves begged to have their children enrolled, so great were
the privileges attaching to the corps; later the privilege of enlistment
was restricted to the children or relatives of former janissaries;
eventually the regulations were much relaxed, and any person was
admitted, only negroes being excluded. In 1591 the ojak numbered 48,688
men. Under Ibrahim (1640-1648) it was reduced by Kara Mustafa to 17,000;
but it soon rose again, and at the accession of Mahommed IV. (1648),
the accession-bakshish was distributed to 50,000 janissaries. During the
war of 1683-1698 the rules for admission were suspended, 30,000 recruits
being received at one time, and the effective of the corps rising to
70,000; about 1805 it numbered more than 112,000; it went on increasing
until the destruction of the janissaries, when it reached 135,000. It
would perhaps be more correct to say that these are the numbers figuring
on the pay-sheets, and that they doubtless largely exceed the total of
the men actually serving in the ranks.
Promotion to the rank of warrant officer was obtained by long or
distinguished service; it was by seniority up to the rank of _odabashi_,
but odabashis were promoted to the rank of _chorbaji_ (commander of an
orta) solely by selection. Janissaries advanced in their own orta, which
they left only to assume the command of another. Ortas remained
permanently stationed in the fortress towns in which they were in
garrison, being displaced in time of peace only when some violent
animosity broke out between two companies. There were usually 12 in
garrison at Belgrade, 14 at Khotin, 16 at Widdin, 20 at Bagdad, &c. The
commander was frequently changed. A new chorbaji was usually appointed
to the command of an orta stationed at a frontier post; he was then
transferred elsewhere, so that in course of time he passed through
different provinces.
In time of peace the janissary received no pay. At first his war pay was
limited to one aspre per diem, but it was eventually raised to a minimum
of three aspres, while veterans received as much as 29 aspres, and
retired officers from 30 to 120. The aga received 24,000 piastres per
annum; the ordinary pay of a commander was 120 aspres per diem. The aga
and several of his subordinates received a percentage of the pay and
allowance of the troops; they also inherited the property of deceased
janissaries. Moreover, the officers profited largely by retaining the
names of dead or fictitious janissaries on the pay-rolls. Rations of
mutton, bread and candles were furnished by the government, the supply
of rice, butter and vegetables being at the charge of the commandant.
The rations would have been entirely inadequate if the janissaries had
not been allowed, contrary to the regulations, to pursue different
callings, such as those of baker, butcher, glazier, boatman, &c. At
first the janissaries bore no other distinctive mark save the white felt
cap. Soon the red cap with gold embroidery was substituted. Later a
uniform was introduced, of which the distinctive mark was less the
colour than the cut of the coat and the shape of the head-dress and
turban. The only distinction in the costume of commanding officers was
in the colour of their boots, those of the beuluks being red while the
others were yellow; subordinate officers wore black boots.
The fundamental laws of the janissaries, which were very early
infringed, were as follows: implicit obedience to their officers;
perfect accord and union among themselves; abstinence from luxury,
extravagance and practices unseemly for a soldier and a brave man;
observance of the rules of Haji Bektash and of the religious law;
exclusion from the ranks of all save those properly levied; special
rules for the infliction of the death-penalty; promotion to be by
seniority; janissaries to be admonished or punished by their own
officers only; the infirm and unfit to be pensioned; janissaries were
not to let their beards grow, not to marry, nor to leave their barracks,
nor to engage in trade; but were to spend their time in drill and in
practising the arts of war.
In time of peace the state supplied no arms, and the janissaries on
service in the capital were armed only with clubs; they were forbidden
to carry any arm save a cutlass, the only exception being at the
frontier-posts. In time of war the janissaries provided their own arms,
and these might be any which took their fancy. However, they were
induced by rivalry to procure the best obtainable and to keep them in
perfect order. The banner of the janissaries was of white silk on which
verses from the Koran were embroidered in gold. This banner was planted
beside the aga's tent in camp, with four other flags in red cases, and
his three horse-tails. Each orta had its flag, half-red and
half-yellow, placed before the tent of its commander. Each orta had two
or three great caldrons used for boiling the soup and pilaw; these were
under the guard of subordinate officers. A particular superstition
attached to them: if they were lost in battle all the officers were
disgraced, and the orta was no longer allowed to parade with its
caldrons in public ceremonies. The janissaries were stationed in most of
the guard-houses of Constantinople and other large towns. No sentries
were on duty, but rounds were sent out two or three times a day. It was
customary for the sultan or the grand vizier to bestow largess on an
orta which they might visit.
The janissaries conducted themselves with extreme violence and brutality
towards civilians. They extorted money from them on every possible
pretext: thus, it was their duty to sweep the streets in the immediate
vicinity of their barracks, but they forced the civilians, especially if
rayas, to perform this task or to pay a bribe. They were themselves
subject to severe corporal punishments; if these were to take place
publicly the ojak was first asked for its consent.
At first a source of strength to Turkey as being the only well-organized
and disciplined force in the country, the janissaries soon became its
bane, thanks to their lawlessness and exactions. One frequent means of
exhibiting their discontent was to set fire to Constantinople; 140 such
fires are said to have been caused during the 28 years of Ahmed III.'s
reign. The janissaries were at all times distinguished for their want of
respect towards the sultans; their outbreaks were never due to a real
desire for reforms of abuses or of misgovernment, but were solely caused
to obtain the downfall of some obnoxious minister.
The first recorded revolt of the janissaries is in 1443, on the occasion
of the second accession of Mahommed II., when they broke into rebellion
at Adrianople. A similar revolt happened at his death, when Bayazid II.
was forced to yield to their demands and thus the custom of the
accession-bakshish was established; at the end of his reign it was the
janissaries who forced Bayazid to summon Prince Selim and to hand over
the reins of power to him. During the Persian campaign of Selim I. they
mutinied more than once. Under Osman II. their disorders reached their
greatest height and led to the dethronement and murder of the sultan. It
would be tedious to recall all their acts of insubordination. Throughout
Turkish history they were made use of as instruments by unscrupulous and
ambitious statesmen, and in the 17th century they had become a
praetorian guard in the worst sense of the word. Sultan Selim III. in
despair endeavoured to organize a properly drilled and disciplined
force, under the name of _nizam-i-jedid_, to take their place; for some
time the janissaries regarded this attempt in sullen silence; a curious
detail is that Napoleon's ambassador Sebastiani strongly dissuaded the
sultan from taking this step. Again serving as tools, the janissaries
dethroned Selim III. and obtained the abolition of the nizam-i-jedid.
But after the successful revolution of Bairakdar Pasha of Widdin the new
troops were re-established and drilled: the resentment of the
janissaries rose to such a height that they attacked the grand vizier's
house, and after destroying it marched against the sultan's palace. They
were repulsed by cannon, losing 600 men in the affair (1806). But such
was the excitement and alarm caused at Constantinople that the
nizam-i-jedid, or _sekbans_ as they were now called, had to be
suppressed. During the next 20 years the misdeeds and turbulence of the
janissaries knew no bounds. Sultan Mahmud II., powerfully impressed by
their violence and lawlessness at his accession, and with the example of
Mehemet Ali's method of suppressing the Mamlukes before his eyes,
determined to rid the state of this scourge; long biding his time, in
1825 he decided to form a corps of regular drilled troops known as
_eshkenjis_. A _fetva_ was obtained from the Sheikh-ul-Islam to the
effect that it was the duty of Moslems to acquire military science. The
imperial decree announcing the formation of the new troops was
promulgated at a grand council, and the high dignitaries present
(including certain of the principal officers of the janissaries who
concurred) undertook to comply with its provisions. But the janissaries
rose in revolt, and on the 10th of June 1826, began to collect on the
Et Meidan square at Constantinople; at midnight they attacked the house
of the aga of janissaries, and, finding he had made good his escape,
proceeded to overturn the caldrons of as many ortas as they could find,
thus forcing the troops of those ortas to join the insurrection. Then
they pillaged and robbed throughout the town. Meanwhile the government
was collecting its forces; the ulema, consulted by the sultan, gave the
following fetva: "If unjust and violent men attack their brethren, fight
against the aggressors and send them before their natural judge!" On
this the sacred standard of the prophet was unfurled, and war was
formally declared against these disturbers of order. Cannon were brought
against the Et Meidan, which was surrounded by troops. Ibrahim Aga,
known as Kara Jehennum, the commander of the artillery, made a last
appeal to the janissaries to surrender; they refused, and fire was
opened upon them. Such as escaped were shot down as they fled; the
barracks where many found refuge were burnt; those who were taken
prisoner were brought before the grand vizier and hanged. Before many
days were over the corps had ceased to exist, and the janissaries, the
glory of Turkey's early days and the scourge of the country for the last
two centuries, had passed for ever from the page of her history.
See M. d'Ohsson, _Tableaux de l'empire ottoman_ (Paris, 1787-1820);
Ahmed Vefyk, _Lehje-i-osmanie_ (Constantinople, 1290-1874); A. Djevad
Bey, _Etat militaire ottoman_ (Constantinople, 1885).
JANIUAY, a town of the province of Iloilo, Panay, Philippine Islands, on
the Suague river, about 20 m. W.N.W. of Iloilo, the capital. Pop.
(1903), 27,399, including Lambunao (6661) annexed to Janiuay in 1903.
The town commands delightful views of mountain and valley scenery. An
excellent road connects it with Pototan, about 10 m. E. The surrounding
country is hilly but fertile and well cultivated, producing rice, sugar,
tobacco, vegetables (for the Iloilo market), hemp and Indian corn. The
women weave and sell beautiful fabrics of pina, silk, cotton and abaca.
The language is Panay-Visayan. Janiuay was founded in 1578; it was first
established in the mountains and was subsequently removed to its present
site.
JANJIRA, a native state of India, in the Konkan division of Bombay,
situated along the coast among the spurs of the Western Ghats, 40 m. S.
of Bombay city. Area, 324 sq. m. Pop. (1901), 85,414, showing an
increase of 4% in the decade. The estimated revenue is about L37,000;
there is no tribute. The chief, whose title is Nawab Sahib, is by
descent a Sidi or Abyssinian Mahommedan; and his ancestors were for many
generations admirals of the Mahommedan rulers of the Deccan. The state,
popularly known as Habsan (= Abyssinian), did not come under direct
subordination to the British until 1870. It supplies sailors and
fishermen, and also fire-wood, to Bombay, with which it is in regular
communication by steamer.
The Nawab of Janjira is also chief of the state of JAFARABAD (q.v.).
JAN MAYEN, an arctic island between Greenland and the north of Norway,
about 71 deg. N. 8 deg. W. It is 34 m. long and 9 in greatest breadth,
and is divided into two parts by a narrow isthmus. The island is of
volcanic formation and mountainous, the highest summit being Beerenberg
in the north (8350 ft.). Volcanic eruptions have been observed. Glaciers
are fully developed. Henry Hudson discovered the island in 1607 and
called it Hudson's Tutches or Touches. Thereafter it was several times
observed by navigators who successively claimed its discovery and
renamed it. Thus, in 1611 or the following year whalers from Hull named
it Trinity Island; in 1612 Jean Vrolicq, a French whaler, called it Ile
de Richelieu; and in 1614 Joris Carolus named one of its promontories
Jan Meys Hoek after the captain of one of his ships. The present name of
the island is derived from this, the claim of its discovery by a Dutch
navigator, Jan Mayen, in 1611, being unsupportable. The island is not
permanently inhabited, but has been frequently visited by explorers,
sealers and whalers; and an Austrian station for scientific observations
was maintained here for a year in 1882-1883. During this period a mean
temperature of 27.8 deg. F. was recorded.
JANSEN, CORNELIUS (1585-1638), bishop of Ypres, and father of the
religious revival known as Jansenism, was born of humble Catholic
parentage at Accoy in the province of Utrecht on the 28th of October
1585. In 1602 he entered the university of Louvain, then in the throes
of a violent conflict between the Jesuit, or scholastic, party and the
followers of Michael Baius, who swore by St Augustine. Jansen ended by
attaching himself strongly to the latter party, and presently made a
momentous friendship with a like-minded fellow-student, Du Vergier de
Hauranne, afterwards abbot of Saint Cyran. After taking his degree he
went to Paris, partly to recruit his health by a change of scene, partly
to study Greek. Eventually he joined Du Vergier at his country home near
Bayonne, and spent some years teaching at the bishop's college. All his
spare time was spent in studying the early Fathers with Du Vergier, and
laying plans for a reformation of the Church. In 1616 he returned to
Louvain, to take charge of the college of St Pulcheria, a hostel for
Dutch students of theology. Pupils found him a somewhat choleric and
exacting master and academic society a great recluse. However, he took
an active part in the university's resistance to the Jesuits; for these
had established a theological school of their own in Louvain, which was
proving a formidable rival to the official faculty of divinity. In the
hope of repressing their encroachments, Jansen was sent twice to Madrid,
in 1624 and 1626; the second time he narrowly escaped the Inquisition.
He warmly supported the Catholic missionary bishop of Holland, Rovenius,
in his contests with the Jesuits, who were trying to evangelize that
country without regard to the bishop's wishes. He also crossed swords
more than once with the Dutch Presbyterian champion, Voetius, still
remembered for his attacks on Descartes. Antipathy to the Jesuits
brought Jansen no nearer Protestantism; on the contrary, he yearned to
beat these by their own weapons, chiefly by showing them that Catholics
could interpret the Bible in a manner quite as mystical and pietistic as
theirs. This became the great object of his lectures, when he was
appointed regius professor of scriptural interpretation at Louvain in
1630. Still more was it the object of his _Augustinus_, a bulky treatise
on the theology of St Augustine, barely finished at the time of his
death. Preparing it had been his chief occupation ever since he went
back to Louvain. But Jansen, as he said, did not mean to be a
school-pedant all his life; and there were moments when he dreamed
political dreams. He looked forward to a time when Belgium should throw
off the Spanish yoke and become an independent Catholic republic on the
model of Protestant Holland. These ideas became known to his Spanish
rulers, and to assuage them he wrote a philippic called the _Mars
gallicus_ (1635), a violent attack on French ambitions generally, and on
Richelieu's indifference to international Catholic interests in
particular. The _Mars gallicus_ did not do much to help Jansen's friends
in France, but it more than appeased the wrath of Madrid with Jansen
himself; in 1636 he was appointed bishop of Ypres. Within two years he
was cut off by a sudden illness on the 6th of May 1638; the
_Augustinus_, the book of his life, was published posthumously in 1640.
Full details as to Jansen's career will be found in Reuchlin's
_Geschichte von Port Royal_ (Hamburg, 1839), vol. i. See also
_Jansenius_ by the Abbes Callawaert and Nols (Louvain, 1893).
(St C.)
JANSENISM, the religious principles laid down by Cornelius Jansen in his
_Augustinus_. This was simply a digest of the teaching of St Augustine,
drawn up with a special eye to the needs of the 17th century. In
Jansen's opinion the church was suffering from three evils. The official
scholastic theology was anything but evangelical. Having set out to
embody the mysteries of faith in human language, it had fallen a victim
to the excellence of its own methods; language proved too strong for
mystery. Theology sank into a branch of dialectic; whatever would not
fit in with a logical formula was cast aside as useless. But average
human nature does not take kindly to a syllogism, and theology had
ceased to have any appreciable influence on popular religion. Simple
souls found their spiritual pasture in little mincing "devotions"; while
robuster minds built up for themselves a natural moralistic religion,
quite as close to Epictetus as to Christianity. All these three evils
were attacked by Jansen. As against the theologians, he urged that in a
spiritual religion experience, not reason, must be our guide. As against
the stoical self-sufficiency of the moralists, he dwelt on the
helplessness of man and his dependence on his maker. As against the
ceremonialists, he maintained that no amount of church-going will save a
man, unless the love of God is in him. But this capacity for love no one
can give himself. If he is born without the religious instinct, he can
only receive it by going through a process of "conversion." And whether
God converts this man or that depends on his good pleasure. Thus
Jansen's theories of conversion melt into predestination; although, in
doing so, they somewhat modify its grimness. Even for the worst
miscreant there is hope--for who can say but that God may yet think fit
to convert him? Jansen's thoughts went back every moment to his two
spiritual heroes, St Augustine and St Paul, each of whom had been "the
chief of sinners."
Such doctrines have a marked analogy to those of Calvin; but in many
ways Jansen differed widely from the Protestants. He vehemently rejected
their doctrine of justification by faith; conversion might be
instantaneous, but it was only the beginning of a long and gradual
process of justification. Secondly, although the one thing necessary in
religion was a personal relation of the human soul to its maker, Jansen
held that that relation was only possible in and through the Roman
Church. Herein he was following Augustine, who had managed to couple
together a high theory of church authority and sacramental grace with a
strongly personal religion. But the circumstances of the 17th century
were not those of the 5th; and Jansen landed his followers in an
inextricable confusion. What were they to do, when the outward church
said one thing, and the inward voice said another? Some time went by,
however, before the two authorities came into open conflict. Jansen's
ideas were popularized in France by his friend Du Vergier, abbot of St
Cyran; and he dwelt mainly on the practical side of the matter--on the
necessity of conversion and love of God, as the basis of the religious
life. This brought him into conflict with the Jesuits, whom he accused
of giving absolution much too easily, without any serious inquiry into
the dispositions of their penitent. His views are expounded at length by
his disciple, Antoine Arnauld, in a book on _Frequent Communion_ (1643).
This book was the first manifestation of Jansenism to the general public
in France, and raised a violent storm. But many divines supported
Arnauld; and no official action was taken against his party till 1649.
In that year the Paris University condemned five propositions from
Jansen's _Augustinus_, all relative to predestination. This censure,
backed by the signatures of eighty-five bishops, was sent up to Rome for
endorsement; and in 1653 Pope Innocent X. declared all five propositions
heretical.
This decree placed the Jansenists between two fires; for although the
five propositions only represented one side of Jansen's teaching, it was
recognized by both parties that the whole question was to be fought out
on this issue. Under the leadership of Arnauld, who came of a great
family of lawyers, the Jansenists accordingly took refuge in a series of
legal tactics. Firstly, they denied that Jansen had meant the
propositions in the sense condemned. Alexander VII. replied (1656) that
his predecessor had condemned them in the sense intended by their
author. Arnauld retorted that the church might be infallible in abstract
questions of theology; but as to what was passing through an author's
mind it knew no more than any one else. However, the French government
supported the pope. In 1656 Arnauld was deprived of his degree, in spite
of Pascal's _Provincial Letters_ (1656-1657), begun in an attempt to
save him (see PASCAL; CASUISTRY). In 1661 a formulary, or solemn
renunciation of Jansen, was imposed on all his suspected followers;
those who would not sign it went into hiding, or to the Bastille. Peace
was only restored under Clement IX. in 1669.
This peace was treated by Jansenist writers as a triumph; really it was
the beginning of their downfall. They had set out to reform the Church
of Rome; they ended by having to fight hard for a doubtful foothold
within it. Even that foothold soon gave way. Louis XIV. was a fanatic
for uniformity, civil and religious; the last thing he was likely to
tolerate was a handful of eccentric recluses, who believed themselves to
be in special touch with Heaven, and therefore might at any moment set
their conscience up against the law. During the lifetime of his cousin,
Madame de Longueville, the great protectress of the Jansenists, Louis
stayed his hand; on her death (1679) the reign of severity began. That
summer Arnauld, who had spent the greater part of his life in hiding,
was forced to leave France for good.
Six years later he was joined in exile by Pasquier Quesnel who succeeded
him as leader of the party. Long before his flight from France Quesnel
had published a devotional commentary--_Reflexions morales sur le
Nouveau Testament_--which had gone through many editions without
exciting official suspicion. But in 1695 Louis Antoine de Noailles,
bishop of Chalons, was made archbishop of Paris. He was known to be very
hostile to the Jesuits, and at Chalons had more than once expressed
official approval of Quesnel's _Reflexions_. So the Jesuit party
determined to wreck archbishop and book at the same time. The Jansenists
played into their hands by suddenly raising (1701) in the Paris divinity
school the question whether it was necessary to accept the condemnation
of Jansen with interior assent, or whether a "respectful silence" was
enough. Very soon ecclesiastical France was in a blaze. In 1703 Louis
XIV. wrote to Pope Clement XI., proposing that they should take joint
action to make an end of Jansenism for ever. Clement replied in 1705
with a bull condemning respectful silence. This measure only whetted
Louis's appetite. He was growing old and increasingly superstitious; the
affairs of his realm were going from bad to worse; he became frenziedly
anxious to propitiate the wrath of his maker by making war on the
enemies of the Church. In 1711 he asked the pope for a second, and still
stronger bull, that would tear up Jansenism by the roots. The pope's
choice of a book to condemn fell on Quesnel's _Reflexions_; in 1713
appeared the bull _Unigenitus_, anathematizing no less than
one-hundred-and-one of its propositions. Indeed, in his zeal against the
Jansenists the pope condemned various practices in no way peculiar to
their party; thus, for instance, many orthodox Catholics were
exasperated at the heavy blow he dealt at popular Bible reading. Hence
the bull met with much opposition from Archbishop de Noailles and others
who did not call themselves Jansenists. In the midst of the conflict
Louis XIV. died (September 1715); but the freethinking duke of Orleans,
who succeeded him as regent, continued after some wavering to support
the bull. Thereupon four bishops appealed against it to a general
council; and the country became divided into "appellants" and
"acceptants" (1717). The regent's disreputable minister, Cardinal
Dubois, patched up an abortive truce in 1720, but the appellants
promptly "re-appealed" against it. During the next ten years, however,
they were slowly crushed, and in 1730 the _Unigenitus_ was proclaimed
part and parcel of the law of France. This led to a great quarrel with
the judges, who were intensely Gallican in spirit (see GALLICANISM), and
had always regarded the _Unigenitus_ as a triumph of ultramontanism. The
quarrel dragged indefinitely on through the 18th century, though the
questions at issue were really constitutional and political rather than
religious.
Meanwhile the most ardent Jansenists had followed Quesnel to Holland.
Here they met with a warm welcome from the Dutch Catholic body, which
had always been in close sympathy with Jansenism, although without
regarding itself as formally pledged to the _Augustinus_. But it had
broken loose from Rome in 1702, and was now organizing itself into an
independent church (see UTRECHT). The Jansenists who remained in France
had meanwhile fallen on evil days. Persecution usually begets hysteria
in its victims; and the more extravagant members of the party were far
advanced on the road which leads to apocalyptic prophecy and "speaking
with tongues." About 1728 the "miracles of St Medard" became the talk of
Paris. This was the cemetery where was buried Francois de Paris, a
young Jansenist deacon of singularly holy life, and a perfervid
opponent of the _Unigenitus_. All sorts of miraculous cures were
believed to have been worked at his tomb, until the government closed
the cemetery in 1732. This gave rise to the famous epigram:
_De par le roi, defense a Dieu
De faire miracle en ce lieu._
On the miracles soon followed the rise of the so-called Convulsionaries.
These worked themselves up, mainly by the use of frightful
self-tortures, into a state of frenzy, in which they prophesied and
cured diseases. They were eventually disowned by the more reputable
Jansenists, and were severely repressed by the police. But in 1772 they
were still important enough for Diderot to enter the field against them.
Meanwhile genuine Jansenism survived in many country parsonages and
convents, and led to frequent quarrels with the authorities. Only one of
its latter-day disciples, however, rose to real eminence; this was the
Abbe Henri Gregoire, who played a considerable part in the French
Revolution. A few small Jansenist congregations still survive in France;
and others have been started in connexion with the Old Catholic Church
in Holland.
LITERATURE.--For the 17th century see the _Port Royal_ of Sainte-Beuve
(5th ed., Paris, 1888) in six volumes. See also H. Reuchlin,
_Geschichte von Port Royal_ (2 vols., Hamburg, 1839-1844), and C.
Beard, _Port Royal_ (2 vols., London, 1861). No satisfactory Roman
Catholic history of the subject exists, though reference may be made
to Count Joseph de Maistre's _De l'eglise gallicane_ (last ed., Lyons,
1881). On the Jansenism of the 18th century no single work exists,
though much information will be found in the _Gallican Church_ of
Canon Jervis (2 vols., London, 1872). For a series of excellent
sketches see also Seche, _Les Derniers Jansenistes_ (3 vols., Paris,
1891). A more detailed list of books bearing on the subject will be
found in the 5th volume of the _Cambridge Modern History_; and J.
Paquier's _Le Jansenisme_ (Paris, 1909) may also be consulted.
(St C.)
JANSSEN, or JANSEN (sometimes JOHNSON), CORNELIUS (1593-1664), Flemish
painter, was apparently born in London, and baptized on the 14th of
October 1593. There seems no reason to suppose, as was formerly stated,
that he was born at Amsterdam. He worked in England from 1618 to 1643,
and afterwards retired to Holland, working at Middelburg, Amsterdam, The
Hague and Utrecht, and dying at one of the last two places about 1664.
In England he was patronized by James I. and the court, and under
Charles I. he continued to paint the numerous portraits which adorn many
English mansions and collections. Janssen's pictures, chiefly portraits,
are distinguished by clear colouring, delicate touch, good taste and
careful finish. He generally painted upon panel, and often worked on a
small scale, sometimes producing replicas of his larger works. A
characteristic of his style is the very dark background, which throws
the carnations of his portraits into rounded relief. In all probability
his earliest portrait (1618) was that of John Milton as a boy of ten.
JANSSEN, JOHANNES (1820-1891), German historian, was born at Xanten on
the 10th of April 1829, and was educated as a Roman Catholic at Munster,
Louvain, Bonn and Berlin, afterwards becoming a teacher of history at
Frankfort-on-the-Main. He was ordained priest in 1860; became a member
of the Prussian Chamber of Deputies in 1875; and in 1880 was made
domestic prelate to the pope and apostolic pronotary. He died at
Frankfort on the 24th of December 1891. Janssen was a stout champion of
the Ultramontane party in the Roman Catholic Church. His great work is
his _Geschichte des deutschen Volkes seit dem Ausgang des Mittelalters_
(8 vols., Freiburg, 1878-1894). In this book he shows himself very
hostile to the Reformation, and attempts to prove that the Protestants
were responsible for the general unrest in Germany during the 16th and
17th centuries. The author's partisanship led to some controversy, and
Janssen wrote _An meine Kritiker_ (Freiburg, 1882) and _Ein zweites Wort
an meine Kritiker_ (Freiburg, 1883) in reply to the _Janssens Geschichte
des deutschen Volkes_ (Munich, 1883) of M. Lenz, and other criticisms.
The _Geschichte_, which has passed through numerous editions, has been
continued and improved by Ludwig Pastor, and the greater part of it
has been translated into English by M. A. Mitchell and A. M. Christie
(London, 1896, fol.). Of his other works perhaps the most important
are: the editing of _Frankfurts Reichskorrespondenz, 1376-1519_
(Freiburg, 1863-1872); and of the _Leben, Briefe und kleinere
Schriften_ of his friend J. F. Bohmer (Leipzig, 1868); a monograph,
_Schiller als Historiker_ (Freiburg, 1863); and _Zeit- und
Lebensbilder_ (Freiburg, 1875).
See L. Pastor, _Johannes Janssen_ (Freiburg, 1893); F. Meister,
_Erinnerung an Johannes Janssen_ (Frankfort, 1896); Schwann, _Johannes
Janssen und die Geschichte der deutschen Reformation_ (Munich, 1892).
JANSSEN, PIERRE JULES CESAR (1824-1907), French astronomer, was born in
Paris on the 22nd of February 1824, and studied mathematics and physics
at the faculty of sciences. He taught at the lycee Charlemagne in 1853,
and in the school of architecture 1865-1871, but his energies were
mainly devoted to various scientific missions entrusted to him. Thus in
1857 he went to Peru in order to determine the magnetic equator; in
1861-1862 and 1864, he studied telluric absorption in the solar spectrum
in Italy and Switzerland; in 1867 he carried out optical and magnetic
experiments at the Azores; he successfully observed both transits of
Venus, that of 1874 in Japan, that of 1882 at Oran in Algeria; and he
took part in a long series of solar eclipse-expeditions, e.g. to Trani
(1867), Guntoor (1868), Algiers (1870), Siam (1875), the Caroline
Islands (1883), and to Alcosebre in Spain (1905). To see the eclipse of
1870 he escaped from besieged Paris in a balloon. At the great Indian
eclipse of 1868 he demonstrated the gaseous nature of the red
prominences, and devised a method of observing them under ordinary
daylight conditions. One main purpose of his spectroscopic inquiries was
to answer the question whether the sun contains oxygen or not. An
indispensable preliminary was the virtual elimination of
oxygen-absorption in the earth's atmosphere, and his bold project of
establishing an observatory on the top of Mont Blanc was prompted by a
perception of the advantages to be gained by reducing the thickness of
air through which observations have to be made. This observatory, the
foundations of which were fixed in the snow that appears to cover the
summit to a depth of ten metres, was built in September 1893, and
Janssen, in spite of his sixty-nine years, made the ascent and spent
four days taking observations. In 1875 he was appointed director of the
new astrophysical observatory established by the French government at
Meudon, and set on foot there in 1876 the remarkable series of solar
photographs collected in his great _Atlas de photographies solaires_
(1904). The first volume of the _Annales de l'observatoire de Meudon_
was published by him in 1896. He died at Paris on the 23rd of December
1907.
See A. M. Clerke, _Hist. of Astr. during the 19th Century_ (1903); H.
Macpherson, _Astronomers of To-Day_ (1905).
JANSSENS (or JANSENS), VICTOR HONORIUS (1664-1739), Flemish painter, was
born at Brussels. After seven years in the studio of an obscure painter
named Volders, he spent four years in the household of the duke of
Holstein. The next eleven years Janssens passed in Rome, where he took
eager advantage of all the aids to artistic study, and formed an
intimacy with Tempesta, in whose landscapes he frequently inserted
figures. Rising into popularity, he painted a large number of cabinet
historical scenes; but, on his return to Brussels, the claims of his
increasing family restricted him almost entirely to the larger and more
lucrative size of picture, of which very many of the churches and
palaces of the Netherlands contain examples. In 1718 Janssens was
invited to Vienna, where he stayed three years, and was made painter to
the emperor. The statement that he visited England is based only upon
the fact that certain fashionable interiors of the time in that country
have been attributed to him. Janssen's colouring was good, his touch
delicate and his taste refined.
JANSSENS (or JANSENS) VAN NUYSSEN, ABRAHAM (1567-1632), Flemish painter,
was born at Antwerp in 1567. He studied under Jan Snellinck, was a
"master" in 1602, and in 1607 was dean of the master-painters. Till the
appearance of Rubens he was considered perhaps the best historical
painter of his time. The styles of the two artists are not unlike. In
correctness of drawing Janssens excelled his great contemporary; in
bold composition and in treatment of the nude he equalled him; but in
faculty of colour and in general freedom of disposition and touch he
fell far short. A master of chiaroscuro, he gratified his taste for
strong contrasts of light and shade in his torchlights and similar
effects. Good examples of this master are to be seen in the Antwerp
museum and the Vienna gallery. The stories of his jealousy of Rubens and
of his dissolute life are quite unfounded. He died at Antwerp in 1632.
JANUARIUS, ST, or SAN GENNARO, the patron saint of Naples. According to
the legend, he was bishop of Benevento, and flourished towards the close
of the 3rd century. On the outbreak of the persecution by Diocletian and
Maximian, he was taken to Nola and brought before Timotheus, governor of
Campania, on account of his profession of the Christian religion. After
various assaults upon his constancy, he was sentenced to be cast into
the fiery furnace, through which he passed wholly unharmed. On the
following day, along with a number of fellow martyrs, he was exposed to
the fury of wild beasts, which, however, laid themselves down in tame
submission at his feet. Timotheus, again pronouncing sentence of death,
was struck with blindness, but immediately healed by the powerful
intercession of the saint, a miracle which converted nearly five
thousand men on the spot. The ungrateful judge, only roused to further
fury by these occurrences, caused the execution of Januarius by the
sword to be forthwith carried out. The body was ultimately removed by
the inhabitants of Naples to that city, where the relic became very
famous for its miracles, especially in counteracting the more dangerous
eruptions of Vesuvius. Whatever the difficulties raised by his _Acta_,
the cult of St Januarius, bishop and martyr, is attested historically at
Naples as early as the 5th century (_Biblioth. hagiog. latina_, No.
6558). Two phials preserved in the cathedral are believed to contain the
blood of the martyr. The relic is shown twice a year--in May and
September. On these occasions the substance contained in the phial
liquefies, and the Neapolitans see in this phenomenon a supernatural
manifestation. The "miracle of St Januarius" did not occur before the
middle of the 15th century.
A great number of saints of the name of Januarius are mentioned in the
martyrologies. The best-known are the Roman martyr (festival, the 10th
of July), whose epitaph was written by Pope Damasus (De Rossi,
_Bullettino_, p. 17, 1863), and the martyr of Cordova, who forms along
with Faustus and Martialis the group designated by Prudentius
(_Peristephanon_, iv. 20) by the name of _tres coronae_. The festival of
these martyrs is celebrated on the 13th of October.
See _Acta sanctorum_, September, vi. 761-891; G. Scherillo, _Esame di
un codice greco pubblicato nel tomo secondo della bibliotheca
casinensis_ (Naples, 1876); G. Taglialatela, _Memorie storico-critiche
del culto del sangue di S. Gennaro_ (Naples, 1893), which contains
many facts, but little criticism; G. Albini, _Sulla mobilita dei
liquidi viscosi non omogenei_ (_Societa reale di Napoli, Rendiconti_,
2nd series, vol. iv., 1890); _Acta sanctorum_, October, vi. 187-193.
(H. De.)
JANUARY, the first month in the modern calendar, consisting of
thirty-one days. The name (Lat. _Januarius_) is derived from the
two-faced Roman god Janus, to whom the month was dedicated. As
doorkeeper of heaven, as looking both into the past and the future, and
as being essentially the deity who busied himself with the beginnings of
all enterprises, he was appropriately made guardian of the fortunes of
the new year. The consecration of the month took place by an offering of
meal, salt, frankincense and wine, each of which was new. The
Anglo-Saxons called January _Wulfmonath_, in allusion to the fact that
hunger then made the wolves bold enough to come into the villages. The
principal festivals of the month are: New Year's Day; Feast of the
Circumcision; Epiphany; Twelfth-Day; and Conversion of St Paul (see
CALENDAR).
JANUS, in Roman mythology one of the principal Italian deities. The name
is generally explained as the masculine form of Diana (Jana), and Janus
as originally a god of light and day, who gradually became the god of
the beginning and origin of all things. According to some, however, he
is simply the god of doorways (_januae_) and in this connexion is the
patron of all entrances and beginnings. According to Mommsen, he was
"the spirit of opening," and the double-head was connected with the gate
that opened both ways. Others, attributing to him an Etruscan origin,
regard him as the god of the vault of heaven, which the Etruscan arch is
supposed to resemble. The rationalists explained him as an old king of
Latium, who built a citadel for himself on the Janiculum. It was
believed that his worship, which was said to have existed as a local
cult before the foundation of Rome, was introduced there by Romulus, and
that a temple was dedicated to him by Numa. This temple, in reality only
an arch or gateway (_Janus geminus_) facing east and west, stood at the
north-east end of the forum. It was open during war and closed during
peace (Livy i. 19); it was shut only four times before the Christian
era. A possible explanation is, that it was considered a bad omen to
shut the city gates while the citizens were outside fighting for the
state; it was necessary that they should have free access to the city,
whether they returned victorious or defeated. Similarly, the door of a
private house was kept open while the members of the family were away,
but when all were at home it was closed to keep out intruders. There was
also a temple of Janus near the theatre of Marcellus, in the forum
olitorium, erected by Gaius Duilius (Tacitus, _Ann._ ii. 49), if not
earlier.
The beginning of the day (hence his epithet Matutinus), of the month,
and of the year (January) was sacred to Janus; on the 9th of January the
festival called Agonia was celebrated in his honour. He was invoked
before any other god at the beginning of any important undertaking; his
priest was the Rex Sacrorum, the representative of the ancient king in
his capacity as religious head of the state. All gateways, housedoors
and entrances generally, were under his protection; he was the inventor
of agriculture (hence Consivius, "he who sows or plants"), of civil
laws, of the coining of money and of religious worship. He was
worshipped on the Janiculum as the protector of trade and shipping; his
head is found on the as, together with the prow of a ship. He is usually
represented on the earliest coins with two bearded faces, looking in
opposite directions; in the time of Hadrian the number of faces is
increased to four. In his capacity as porter or doorkeeper he holds a
staff in his right hand, and a key (or keys) in his left; as such he is
called Patulcius (opener) and Clusius (closer). His titles Curiatius,
Patricius, Quirinus originate in his worship in the gentes, the curiae
and the state, and have no reference to any special functions or
characteristics. In late times, he is both bearded and unbearded; in
place of the staff and keys, the fingers of his right hand show the
number 300 (CCC.), those of his left the number of the remaining days of
the year (LXV.). According to A. B. Cook (_Classical Review_, xviii.
367), Janus is only another form of Jupiter, the name under which he was
worshipped by the pre-Latin (aboriginal) inhabitants of Rome; after
their conquest by the Italians, Janus and Jana took their place as
independent divinities by the side of the Italian Jupiter and Juno. He
considers it probable that the three-headed Janus was a triple oak-god
worshipped in the form of two vertical beams and a cross-bar (such as
the _tigillum sororium_, for which see HORATII); hence also the door,
consisting of two lintels and side-posts, was sacred to Janus. The
three-headed type may have been the original, from which the two-headed
and four-headed types were developed. J. G. Frazer (_The Early History
of the Kingship_, pp. 214, 285), who also identifies Janus with Jupiter,
is of opinion that Janus was not originally a doorkeeper, but that the
door was called after him, not vice versa. _Janua_ may be an adjective,
_janua foris_ meaning a door with a symbol of Janus close by the chief
entrance, to serve as a protection for the house; then _janua_ alone
came to mean a door generally, with or without the symbol of Janus. The
double head may have been due to the desire to make the god look both
ways for greater protection. By J. Rhys (_Hibbert Lectures_, 1886, pp.
82, 94) Janus is identified with the three-faced (sometimes
three-headed) Celtic god Cernunnus, a chthonian divinity, compared by
Rhys with the Teutonic Heimdal, the warder of the gods of the
under-world; like Janus, Cernunnus and Heimdal were considered to be the
fons et origo of all things.
See S. Linde, _De Jano summo romanorum deo_ (Lund, 1891); J. S.
Speyer, "Le Dieu romain Janus," in _Revue de l'histoire des religions_
(xxvi., 1892); G. Wissowa, _Religion und Kultus der Romer_ (1902); W.
Deecke, _Etruskische Forschungen_, vol. ii.; W. Warde Fowler, _The
Roman Festivals of the Period of the Republic_ (1899), pp. 282-290;
articles in W. H. Roscher's _Lexikon der Mythologie_ and Daremberg and
Saglio's _Dictionnaire des Antiquites_; J. Toutain, _Etudes de
Mythologie_ (1909). On other jani (arched passages) in Rome,
frequented by business men and money changers, see O. Richter,
_Topographie der Stadt Rom_ (1901). (J. H. F.)
JAORA, a native state of Central India, in the Malwa agency. It consists
of two isolated tracts, between Ratlam and Neemuch Area, with the
dependencies of Piplauda and Pant Piplauda, 568 sq. m. Pop. (1901),
84,202. The estimated revenue is L57,000; tribute, L9000. The chief,
whose title is nawab, is a Mahommedan of Afghan descent. The state was
confirmed by the British government in 1818 by the Treaty of Mandsaur.
Nawab Mahommed Ismail, who died in 1895, was an honorary major in the
British army. His son, Iftikhar Ali Khan, a minor at his accession, was
educated in the Daly College at Indore, with a British officer for his
tutor, and received powers of administration in 1906. The chief crops
are millets, cotton, maize and poppy. The last supplies a large part of
the Malwa opium of commerce. The town of JAORA is on the Rajputana-Malwa
railway, 20 m. N. of Ratlam. Pop. (1901), 23,854. It is well laid out,
with many good modern buildings, and has a high school and dispensary.
To celebrate Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee, the Victoria Institute
and a zenana dispensary were opened in 1898.
JAPAN, an empire of eastern Asia, and one of the great powers of the
world. The following article is divided for convenience into ten
sections:--I. GEOGRAPHY; II. THE PEOPLE; III. LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE;
IV. ART; V. ECONOMIC CONDITIONS; VI. GOVERNMENT AND ADMINISTRATION; VII.
RELIGION; VIII. FOREIGN INTERCOURSE; IX. DOMESTIC HISTORY; X. THE CLAIM
OF JAPAN.
I.--GEOGRAPHY
Position and Extent.
The continent of Asia stretches two arms into the Pacific Ocean,
Kamchatka in the north and Malacca in the south, between which lies a
long cluster of islands constituting the Japanese empire, which covers
37 deg. 14' of longitude and 29 deg. 11' of latitude. On the extreme
north are the Kuriles (called by the Japanese _Chishima_, or the "myriad
isles"), which extend to 156 deg. 32' E. and to 50 deg. 56' N.; on the
extreme south is Formosa (called by the Japanese _Taiwan_), which
extends to 122 deg. 6' E., and to 21 deg. 45' N. There are six large
islands, namely Sakhalin (called by the Japanese _Karafuto_); Yezo or
Ezo (which with the Kuriles is designated _Hokkaido_, or the north-sea
district); Nippon (the "origin of the sun"), which is the main island;
Shikoku (the "four provinces"), which lies on the east of Nippon;
Kiushiu or Kyushu (the "nine provinces"), which lies on the south of
Nippon, and Formosa, which forms the most southerly link of the chain.
Formosa and the Pescadores were ceded to Japan by China after the war of
1894-1895, and the southern half of Sakhalin--the part south of 50 deg.
N.--was added to Japan by cession from Russia in 1905. Korea, annexed in
August 1910, is separately noticed.
_Coast-line._--The following table shows the numbers, the lengths of
coast-line, and the areas of the various groups of islands, only those
being indicated that have a coast-line of at least 1 _ri_ (2(1/2) m.),
or that, though smaller, are inhabited; except in the case of Formosa
and the Pescadores, where the whole numbers are given:--
Length of Area
Number. coast in in square
miles. miles.
Nippon 1 4,765.03 99,373.57
Isles adjacent to Nippon 167 1,275.09 470.30
Shikoku 1 1,100.85 6,461.39
Isles adjacent to Shikoku 75 548.12 175.40
Kiushiu 1 2,101.28 13,778.68
Isles adjacent to Kiushiu 150 2,405.06 1,821.85
Yezo 1 1,423.32 30,148.41
Isles adjacent to Yezo 13 110.24 30.51
Sakhalin (Karafuto) 1 Unsurveyed 12,487.64
Sado 1 130.05 335.92
Okishima 1 182.27 130.40
Isles adjacent to Okishima 1 3.09 0.06
Awaji 1 94.43 217.83
Isles adjacent to Awaji 1 5.32 0.83
Iki 1 86.47 50.96
Isles adjacent to Iki 1 4.41 0.47
Tsushima 1 409.23 261.72
Isles adjacent to Tsushima 5 118.80 4.58
Riukiu (or Luchu) Islands 55 768.74 935.18
Kuriles (Chishima) 31 1,496.23 6,159.42
Bonin (Ogasawara Islands) 20 174.65 26.82
Taiwan (Formosa) 1 731.31 13,429.31
Isles adjacent to Formosa 7 128.32 Not surveyed
Pescadores (Hoko-to) 12 98.67 85.50
--- --------- ----------
Totals 549 18,160.98 173,786.75
If the various smaller islands be included, a total of over 3000 is
reached, but there has not been any absolutely accurate enumeration.
[Illustration: Map of Japan and Korea.]
It will be observed that the coast-line is very long in proportion to
the area, the ratio being 1 m. of coast to every 9.5 in. of area. The
Pacific Ocean, which washes the eastern shores, moulds their outline
into much greater diversity than does the Sea of Japan which washes
the western shores. Thus the Pacific sea-board measures 10,562 m.
against 2887 m. for that of the Japan Sea. In depth of water, too, the
advantage is on the Pacific side. There the bottom slopes very
abruptly, descending precipitously at a point not far from the
north-east coast of the main island, where soundings have shown 4655
fathoms. This, the deepest sea-bed in the world, is called the
Tuscarora Deep, after the name of the United States' man-of-war which
made the survey. The configuration seems to point to a colossal crater
under the ocean, and many of the earthquakes which visit Japan appear
to have their origin in this submarine region. On the other hand, the
average depth of the Japan Sea is only 1200 fathoms, and its maximum
depth is 3200. The east coast, from Cape Shiriya (Shiriyazaki) in the
north to Cape Inuboye (Inuboesaki) near Tokyo Bay, though abounding in
small indentations, has only two large bays, those of Sendai and
Matsushima; but southward from Tokyo Bay to Cape Satta (Satanomisaki)
in Kiushiu there are many capacious inlets which offer excellent
anchorage, as the Gulf of Sagami (Sagaminada), the Bays of Suruga
(Surugawan), Ise (Isenumi) and Osaka, the Kii Channel, the Gulf of
Tosa (Tosonada), &c. Opening into both the Pacific and the Sea of
Japan and separating Shikoku and Kiushiu from the main island as well
as from each other, is the celebrated Inland Sea, one of the most
picturesque sheets of water in the world. Its surface measures 1325
sq. m.; it has a length of 255 m. and a maximum width of 56 m.; its
coast-lines aggregate 700 m.; its depth is nowhere more than 65
fathoms, and it is studded with islands which present scenery of the
most diverse and beautiful character. There are four narrow avenues
connecting this remarkable body of water with the Pacific and the
Japan Sea; that on the west, called Shimonoseki Strait, has a width of
3000 yds., that on the south, known as Hayamoto Strait, is 8 m.
across; and the two on the north, Yura and Naruto Straits, measure
3000 and 1500 yds. respectively. It need scarcely be said that these
restricted approaches give little access to the storms which disturb
the seas outside. More broken into bays and inlets than any other part
of the coast is the western shore of Kiushiu. Here three
promontories--Nomo, Shimabara and Kizaki--enclose a large bay having
on its shores Nagasaki, the great naval port of Sasebo, and other
anchorages. On the south of Kiushiu the Bay of Kagoshima has
historical interest, and on the west are the bays of Ariakeno-ura and
Yatsushiro. To the north of Nagasaki are the bays of Hakata, Karatsu
and Imari. Between this coast and the southern extremity of the Korean
peninsula are situated the islands of Iki and Tsushima, the latter
being only 30 m. distant from the peninsula. Passing farther north,
the shoreline of the main island along the Japan Sea is found to be
comparatively straight and monotonous, there being only one noteworthy
indentation, that of Wakasa-wan, where are situated the naval port of
Maizuru and the harbour of Tsuruga, the Japanese point of
communication with the Vladivostok terminus of the Trans-Asian
railway. From this harbour to Osaka Japan's waist measures only 77 m.,
and as the great lake of Biwa and some minor sheets of water break the
interval, a canal may be dug to join the Pacific and the Sea of Japan.
Yezo is not rich in anchorages. Uchiura (Volcano Bay), Nemuro
(Walfisch) Bay and Ishikari Bay are the only remarkable inlets. As for
Formosa, the peculiarity of its outline is that the eastern coast
falls precipitously into deep water, while the western slopes slowly
to shelving bottoms and shoals. The Pescadores Islands afford the best
anchorage in this part of Japan.
_Mountains._--The Japanese islands are traversed from north to south
by a range of mountains which sends out various lateral branches.
Lofty summits are separated by comparatively low passes, which lie at
the level of crystalline rocks and schists constituting the original
uplands upon which the summits have been piled by volcanic action. The
scenery among the mountains is generally soft. Climatic agencies have
smoothed and modified everything rugged or abrupt, until an impression
of gentle undulation rather than of grandeur is suggested. Nowhere is
the region of eternal snow reached, and masses of foliage enhance the
gentle aspect of the scenery and glorify it in autumn with tints of
striking brilliancy. Mountain alternates with valley, so that not more
than one-eighth of the country's entire area is cultivable.
Fuji.
The king of Japanese mountains is Fuji-yama or Fuji-san (peerless
mount), of which the highest point (Ken-ga-mine) is 12,395 ft. above
sea-level. The remarkable grace of this mountain's curve--an inverted
catenary--makes it one of the most beautiful in the world, and has
obtained for it a prominent place in Japanese decorative art. Great
streams of lava flowed from the crater in ancient times. The course of
one is still visible to a distance of 15 m. from the summit, but the
rest are covered, for the most part, with deep deposits of ashes and
scoriae. On the south Fuji slopes unbroken to the sea, but on the
other three sides the plain from which it rises is surrounded by
mountains, among which, on the north and west, a series of most
picturesque lakes has been formed in consequence of the rivers having
been dammed by ashes ejected from Fuji's crater. To a height of some
1500 ft. the slopes of the mountain are cultivated; a grassy moorland
stretches up the next 2500 ft.; then follows a forest, the upper edge
of which climbs to an altitude of nearly 8000 ft., and finally there
is a wide area of ashes and scoriae. There is entire absence of the
Alpine plants found abundantly on the summits of other high mountains
in Japan, a fact due, doubtless, to the comparatively recent activity
of the volcano. The ascent of Fuji presents no difficulties. A
traveller can reach the usual point of departure, Gotemba, by rail
from Yokohama, and thence the ascent and descent may be made in one
day by a pedestrian.
The Japanese Alps.
The provinces of Hida and Etchiu are bounded on the east by a chain of
mountains including, or having in their immediate vicinity, the
highest peaks in Japan after Fuji. Six of these summits rise to a
height of 9000 ft. or upwards, and constitute the most imposing
assemblage of mountains in the country. The ridge runs due north and
south through 60 to 70 m., and has a width of 5 to 10 m. It is mostly
of granite, only two of the mountains--Norikura and Tateyama--showing
clear traces of volcanic origin. Its lower flanks are clothed with
forests of beech, conifers and oak. Farther south, in the same range,
stands Ontake (10,450 ft.), the second highest mountain in Japan
proper (as distinguished from Formosa); and other remarkable though
not so lofty peaks mark the same regions. This grand group of
mountains has been well called the "Alps of Japan," and a good account
of them may be found in The _Japanese Alps_ (1896) by the Rev. W.
Weston. On the summit of Ontake are eight large and several small
craters, and there also may be seen displays of trance and "divine
possession," such as are described by Mr Percival Lowell in _Occult
Japan_ (1895).
The Nikko Mountains.
Even more picturesque, though less lofty, than the Alps of Japan, are
the Nikko mountains, enclosing the mausolea of the two greatest of the
Tokugawa _shoguns_. The highest of these are Shirane-san (7422 ft.),
Nantai-san (8169 ft.), Nyoho-zan (8100 ft.), and Omanago (7546 ft.).
They are clothed with magnificent vegetation, and everywhere they echo
the voices of waterfalls and rivulets.
Mountains of the North.
In the north of the main island there are no peaks of remarkable
height. The best known are Chiokai-zan, called "Akita-Fuji" (the Fuji
of the Akita province), a volcano 7077 ft. high, which was active as
late as 1861; Ganju-san (6791 ft.), called also "Nambu-Fuji" or
Iwate-zan, remarkable for the beauty of its logarithmic curves;
Iwaki-san (5230 ft.), known as Tsugaru-Fuji, and said by some to be
even more imposing than Fuji itself; and the twin mountains Gassan
(6447 ft.) and Haguro-san (5600 ft.). A little farther south,
enclosing the fertile plain of Aizu (Aizu-taira, as it is called)
several important peaks are found, among them being Iide-san (6332
ft.); Azuma-yama (7733 ft.), which, after a long interval of
quiescence, has given many evidences of volcanic activity during
recent years; Nasu-dake (6296 ft.), an active volcano; and Bandai-san
(6037 ft.). A terrible interest attaches to the last-named mountain,
for, after having remained quiet so long as to lull the inhabitants of
the neighbouring district into complete security, it suddenly burst
into fierce activity on the 15th of July 1888, discharging a vast
avalanche of earth and rock, which dashed down its slopes like an
inundation, burying four hamlets, partially destroying seven villages,
killing 461 people and devastating an area of 27 sq. m.
Mountains of Kozuke, Kai and Shinano.
In the province of Kozuke, which belongs to the central part of the
main island, the noteworthy mountains are Asama-yama (8136 ft.), one
of the best known and most violently active volcanoes of Japan;
Akagi-san, a circular range of peaks surrounding the basin of an old
crater and rising to a height of 6210 ft.; the Haruna group,
celebrated for scenic beauties, and Myogi-san, a cluster of pinnacles
which, though not rising higher than 3880 ft., offer scenery which
dispels the delusion that nature as represented in the classical
pictures (_bunjingwa_) of China and Japan exists only in the artist's
imagination. Farther south, in the province of Kai (Koshiu), and
separating two great rivers, the Fuji-kawa and the Tenriu-gawa, there
lies a range of hills with peaks second only to those of the Japanese
Alps spoken of above. The principal elevations in this range are
Shirane-san--with three summits, Nodori (9970 ft.), Ai-no-take (10,200
ft.) and Kaigane (10,330 ft.)--and Hoozan (9550 ft.). It will be
observed that all the highest mountains of Japan form a species of
belt across the widest part of the main island, beginning on the west
with the Alps of Etchiu, Hida and Shinano, and ending on the east with
Fuji-yama. In all the regions of the main island southward of this
belt the only mountains of conspicuous altitude are Omine (6169 ft.)
and Odai-gaharazan (5540 ft.) in Yamato and Daisen or Oyama (5951 ft.)
in Hoki.
Mountains of Shikoku.
The island of Shikoku has no mountains of notable magnitude. The
highest is Ishizuchi-zan (7727 ft.), but there are several peaks
varying from 3000 to 6000 ft.
Mountains of Kiushiu.
Kiushiu, though abounding in mountain chains, independent or
connected, is not remarkable for lofty peaks. In the neighbourhood of
Nagasaki, over the celebrated solfataras of Unzen-take (called also
Onsen) stands an extinct volcano, whose summit, Fugen-dake, is 4865
ft. high. More notable is Aso-take, some 20 m. from Kumamoto; for,
though the highest of its five peaks has an altitude of only 5545 ft.,
it boasts the largest crater in the world, with walls nearly 2000 ft.
high and a basin from 10 to 14 m. in diameter. Aso-take is still an
active volcano, but its eruptions during recent years have been
confined to ashes and dust. Only two other mountains in Kiushiu need
be mentioned--a volcano (3743 ft.) on the island Sakura-jima, in the
extreme south; and Kirishima-yama (5538 ft.), on the boundary of
Hiuga, a mountain specially sacred in Japanese eyes, because on its
eastern peak (Takachiho-dake) the god Ninigi descended as the
forerunner of the first Japanese sovereign, Jimmu.
Volcanoes.
Among the mountains of Japan there are three volcanic ranges, namely,
that of the Kuriles, that of Fuji, and that of Kirishima. Fuji is the
most remarkable volcanic peak. The Japanese regard it as a sacred
mountain, and numbers of pilgrims make the ascent in midsummer. From
500 to 600 ft. is supposed to be the depth of the crater. There are
neither sulphuric exhalations nor escapes of steam at present, and it
would seem that this great volcano is permanently extinct. But
experience in other parts of Japan shows that a long quiescent crater
may at any moment burst into disastrous activity. Within the period of
Japan's written history several eruptions are recorded the last having
been in 1707, when the whole summit burst into flame, rocks were
shattered, ashes fell to a depth of several inches even in Yedo
(Tokyo), 60 m. distant, and the crater poured forth streams of lava.
Among still active volcanoes the following are the best known:--
Name of Volcano.
Height in feet. Remarks.
Tarumai (Yezo) 2969.
Forms southern wall of a large ancient crater now occupied by a lake
(Shikotsu). A little steam still issues from several smaller cones
on the summit of the ridge, as well as from one, called Eniwa, on
the northern side.
Noboribetsu (Yezo) 1148.
In a state of continuous activity, with frequent detonations and
rumblings. The crater is divided by a wooded rock-wall. The northern
part is occupied by a steaming lake, while the southern part
contains numerous solfataras and boiling springs.
Komagatake (Yezo) 3822.
The ancient crater-wall, with a lofty pinnacle on the western side,
contains a low new cone with numerous steaming rifts and vents. In a
serious eruption in 1856 the S.E. flank of the mountain and the
country side in that direction were denuded of trees.
Esan 2067.
A volcano-promontory at the Pacific end of the Tsugaru Strait: a
finely formed cone surrounded on three sides by the sea, the crater
breached on the land side. The central vent displays considerable
activity, while the rocky walls are stained with red, yellow and
white deposits from numerous minor vents.
Agatsuma (Iwaki) 5230.
Erupted in 1903 and killed two geologists.
Bandai-san (Iwashiro) 6037.
Erupted in 1888 after a long period of quiescence. The outbreak
was preceded by an earthquake of some severity, after which about 20
explosions took place. A huge avalanche of earth and rocks buried
the Nagase Valley with its villages and inhabitants, and devastated
an area of over 27 sq. m. The number of lives lost was 461; four
hamlets were completely entombed with their inhabitants and cattle;
seven villages were partially wrecked; forests were levelled or the
trees entirely denuded of bark; rivers were blocked up, and lakes
were formed. The lip of the fracture is now marked by a line of
steaming vents.
Azuma-yama (Fukushima) 7733.
Long considered extinct, but has erupted several times since 1893,
the last explosion having been in 1900, when 82 sulphur-diggers were
killed or injured; ashes were thrown to a distance of 5 m.,
accumulating in places to a depth of 5 ft.; and a crater 300 ft. in
diameter, and as many in depth, was formed on the E. side of the
mountain. This crater is still active. The summit-crater is occupied
by a beautiful lake. On the Fukushima (E.) side of the volcano rises
a large parasitic cone, extinct.
Nasu (Tochigi) 6296.
Has both a summit and a lateral crater, which are apparently
connected and perpetually emitting steam. At or about the main vents
are numerous solfataras. The whole of the upper part of the cone
consists of grey highly acidic lava. At the base is a thermal
spring, where baths have existed since the 7th century.
Shirane (Nikko) 7422.
The only remaining active vent of the once highly volcanic Nikko
district. Eruption in 1889.
Shirane (Kai) 10,330.
Eruption in 1905, when the main crater was enlarged to a length of
3000 ft. It is divided into three parts, separated by walls, and
each containing a lake, of which the middle one emits steam and the
two others are cold. The central lake, during the periods of
eruption (which are frequent), displays a geyser-like activity.
These lakes contain free sulphuric acid, mixed with iron and alum.
Unzen (Hizen) 4865.
A triple-peaked volcano in the solfatara stage, extinct at the
summit, but displaying considerable activity at its base in the form
of numerous fumaroles and boiling sulphur springs.
Aso-take (Higo) 5545.
Remarkable for the largest crater in the world. It measures 10 m. by
15, and rises almost symmetrically to a height of about 2000 ft.,
with only one break through which the river Shira flows. The centre
is occupied by a mass of peaks, on the W. flank of which lies the
modern active crater. Two of the five compartments into which it is
divided by walls of deeply striated volcanic ash are constantly
emitting steam, while a new vent displaying great activity has been
opened at the base of the cone on the south side. Eruptions have
been recorded since the earliest days of Japanese history. In 1884
the ejected dust and ashes devastated farmlands through large areas.
An outbreak in 1894 produced numerous rifts in the inner walls from
which steam and smoke have issued ever since.
Kaimon (Kagoshima Bay) 3041.
One of the most beautiful volcanoes of Japan, known as the
Satsuma-Fuji. The symmetry of the cone is marred by a convexity on
the seaward (S.) side. This volcano is all but extinct.
Sakura-jima (Kagomshima Bay) 3743.
An island-volcano, with several parasitic cones (extinct), on the N.
and E. sides. At the summit are two deep craters, the southern of
which emits steam. Grass grows, however, to the very edges of the
crater. The island is celebrated for thermal springs, oranges and
_daikon_ (radishes), which sometimes grow to a weight of 70 lb.
Kiri-shima (Kagoshima Bay) 5538.
A volcanic range of which Takachiho, the only active cone, forms the
terminal (S.E.) peak. The crater, situated on the S.W. side of the
volcano, lies some 500 ft. below the summit-peak. It is of
remarkably regular formation, and the floor is pierced by a number
of huge fumaroles whence issue immense volumes of steam.
Izuno Oshima (Vries Island) (Izu) 2461.
The volcano on this island is called Mihara. There is a double
crater, the outer being almost complete. The diameter of the outer
crater, within which rises the modern cone to a height of 500 ft.
above the surrounding floor, is about 2 m.; while the present
crater, which displays incessant activity, has itself a diameter of
1/4 m.
Asama (Ise) 8136.
The largest active volcano in Japan. An eruption in 1783, with a
deluge of lava, destroyed an extensive forest and overwhelmed
several villages. The present cone is the third, portions of two
concentric crater rings remaining. The present crater is remarkable
for the absolute perpendicularity of its walls, and has an immense
depth--from 600 to 800 ft. It is circular, 3/4 m. in circumference,
with sides honeycombed and burned to a red hue.
Some of the above information is based upon Mr. C. E. Bruce-Mitford's
valuable work (see _Geog. Jour._, Feb. 1908, &c.).
_Earthquakes._--Japan is subject to marked displays of seismic
violence. One steadily exercised influence is constantly at work, for
the shores bordering the Pacific Ocean are slowly though appreciably
rising, while on the side of the Japan Sea a corresponding subsidence
is taking place. Japan also experiences a vast number of petty
vibrations not perceptible without the aid of delicate instruments.
But of earthquakes proper, large or small, she has an exceptional
abundance. Thus in the thirteen years ending in 1897--that is to say,
the first period when really scientific apparatus for recording
purposes was available--she was visited by no fewer than 17,750
shocks, being an average of something over 3(1/2) daily. The frequency
of these phenomena is in some degree a source of security, for the
minor vibrations are believed to exercise a binding effect by removing
weak cleavages. Nevertheless the annals show that during the three
centuries before 1897 there were 108 earthquakes sufficiently
disastrous to merit historical mention. If the calculation be carried
farther back--as has been done by the seismic disaster investigation
committee of Japan, a body of scientists constantly engaged in
studying these phenomena under government auspices,--it is found that,
since the country's history began to be written in the 8th century
A.D., there have been 2006 major disturbances; but inasmuch as 1489 of
these occurred before the beginning of the Tokugawa administration
(early in the 17th century, and therefore in an era when methods of
recording were comparatively defective), exact details are naturally
lacking. The story, so far as it is known, may be gathered from the
following table:--
Date A.D. Region. Houses Deaths.
destroyed.
684 Southern part of Tosa -- -- (1)
869 Mutsu -- -- (2)
1361 Kioto -- --
1498 Tokaido -- 2,000(3)
1569 Bungo -- 700
1596 Kioto -- 2,000
1605 (31/1) Pacific Coast -- 5,000
1611 (27/9) Aizu -- 3,700
1614 (2/12) Pacific Coast (N.E.) -- 1,700
1662 (16/6) Kioto 5,500 500
1666 (2/2) Pacific Coast (N.E.) -- 1,500
1694 (19/12) Ugo 2,760 390
1703 (30/12) Tokyo 20,162 5,233
1707 (28/10) Pacific Coast of Kiushiu
and Shikoku 29,000 4,900
1751 (20/5) Echigo 9,100 1,700
1766 (8/3) Hirosaki 7,500 1,335
1792 (10/2) Hizen and Higo 12,000 15,000
1828 (18/2) Echigo 11,750 1,443
1844 (8/5) Echigo 34,000 12,000
1854 (6/7) Yamato, Iga, Ise 5,000 2,400
1854 (23/12) Tokaido (Shikoku) 60,000 3,000
1855 (11/11) Yedo, (Tokyo) 50,000 6,700
1891 (28/10) Mino, Owari 222,501 7,273
1894 (22/10) Shonai 8,403 726
1896 (15/6) Sanriku 13,073 27,122
1896 (31/8) Ugo, Rikuchu 8,996 209
1906 (12/2) Formosa 5,556 1,228
(1) An area of over 1,200,000 acres swallowed up by the sea.
(2) Tidal wave killed thousands of people.
(3) Hamana lagoon formed.
In the capital (Tokyo) the average yearly number of shocks throughout
the 26 years ending in 1906 was 96, exclusive of minor vibrations, but
during the 50 years then ending there were only two severe shocks
(1884 and 1894), and they were not directly responsible for any damage
to life or limb. The Pacific coast of the Japanese islands is more
liable than the western shore to shocks disturbing a wide area.
Apparent proof has been obtained that the shocks occurring in the
Pacific districts originate at the bottom of the sea--the Tuscarora
Deep is supposed to be the centre of seismic activity--and they are
accompanied in most cases by tidal waves. It would seem that of late
years Tajima, Hida, Kozuke and some other regions in central Japan
have enjoyed the greatest immunity, while Musashi (in which province
Tokyo is situated) and Sagami have been most subject to disturbance.
_Plains._--Japan, though very mountainous, has many extensive plains.
The northern island--Yezo--contains seven, and there are as many more
in the main and southern islands, to say nothing of flat lands of
minor dimensions. The principal are given in the following table:--
Name. Situation. Area. Remarks.
Tokachi plain Yezo. 744,000 acres. --
Ishikari " " 480,000 " --
Kushiro " " 1,229,000 " --
Nemuro " " 320,000 " --
Kitami " " 230,000 " --
Hidaka " " 200,000 " --
Teshio " " 180,000 " --
Echigo " Main Island. Unascertained. --
Sendai " " " --
Kwanto " " " In this plain lie the
capital, Tokyo, and the
town of Yokohama. It
supports about 6 millions
of people.
Mino-Owari " " " Has 1(1/2) million inhabitants.
Kinai " " " Has the cities of Osaka,
Kioto and Kobe, and 2(1/2)
million people.
Tsukushi " Kiushiu. " The chief coalfield of
Japan.
_Rivers._--Japan is abundantly watered. Probably no country in the
world possesses a closer network of streams, supplemented by canals
and lakes. But the quantity of water carried seawards varies within
wide limits; for whereas, during the rainy season in summer and while
the snows of winter are melting in spring, great volumes of water
sweep down from the mountains, these broad rivers dwindle at other
times to petty rivulets trickling among a waste of pebbles and
boulders. Nor are there any long rivers, and all are so broken by
shallows and rapids that navigation is generally impossible except by
means of flat-bottomed boats drawing only a few inches. The chief
rivers are given in the following table:--
Length
in miles. Source. Mouth.
Ishikari-gawa 275 Ishikari-dake Otaru.
Shinano-gawa 215 Kimpu-san Niigata.
Teshio-gawa 192 Teshio-take Sea of Japan.
Tone-gawa 177 Monju-zan, Kozuke Choshi (Shimosa).
Mogami-gawa 151 Dainichi-dake(Uzen) Sakata.
Yoshino-gawa 149 Yahazu-yama (Tosa) Tokushima (Awa).
Kitakami-gawa 146 Nakayama-dake Ishinomaki
(Rikuchiu) (Rikuzen).
Tenriu-gawa 136 Suwako (Shinano) Totomi Bay.
Go-gawa or
Iwa-megawa 122 Maruse-yama (Bingo) Iwami Bay.
Abukuma-gawa 122 Asahi-take (Iwashiro) Matsushima Bay.
Tokachi-gawa 120 Tokachi-dake Tokachi Bay.
Sendai-gawa 112 Kunimi-zan (Hiuga) Kumizaki (Satsuma).
Oi-gawa 112 Shirane-san (Kai) Suruga Bay.
Kiso-gawa 112 Kiso-zan (Shinano) Bay of Isenumi.
Arakawa 104 Chichibu-yama Tokyo Bay.
Naga-gawa 102 Nasu-yama (Shimotsuke) Naka-no-minato
(Huachi).
_Lakes and Waterfalls._--Japan has many lakes, remarkable for the
beauty of their scenery rather than for their extent. Some are
contained in alluvial depressions in the river valleys; others have
been formed by volcanic eruptions, the ejecta damming the rivers until
exits were found over cliffs or through gorges. Some of these lakes
have become favourite summer resorts for foreigners. To that category
belong especially the lakes of Hakone, of Chiuzenji, of Shoji, of
Inawashiro, and of Biwa. Among these the highest is Lake Chiuzenji,
which is 4375 ft. above sea-level, has a maximum depth of 93 fathoms,
and empties itself at one end over a fall (Kegon) 250 ft. high. The
Shoji lakes lie at a height of 3160 ft., and their neighbourhood
abounds in scenic charms. Lake Hakone is at a height of 2428 ft.;
Inawashiro, at a height of 1920 ft. and Biwa at a height of 328 ft.
The Japanese associate Lake Biwa (Omi) with eight views of special
loveliness (_Omi-no-hakkei_). Lake Suwa, in Shinano, which is emptied
by the Tenriu-gawa, has a height of 2624 ft. In the vicinity of many
of these mountain lakes thermal springs, with remarkable curative
properties, are to be found. (F. By.)
_Geology._--It is a popular belief that the islands of Japan consist
for the most part of volcanic rocks. But although this conception
might reasonably be suggested by the presence of many active and
extinct volcanoes, Professor J. Milne has pointed out that it is
literally true of the Kuriles alone, partially true for the northern
half of the Main Island and for Kiushiu, and quite incorrect as
applied to the southern half of the Main Island and to Shikoku. This
authority sums up the geology of Japan briefly and succinctly as
follows (in _Things Japanese_, by Professor Chamberlain): "The
backbone of the country consists of primitive gneiss and schists.
Amongst the latter, in Shikoku, there is an extremely interesting rock
consisting largely of piedmontite. Overlying these amongst the
Palaeozoic rocks, we meet in many parts of Japan with slates and other
rocks possibly of Cambrian or Silurian age. Trilobites have been
discovered in Rikuzen. Carboniferous rocks are represented by mountain
masses of _Fusulina_ and other limestones. There is also amongst the
Palaeozoic group an interesting series of red slates containing
Radiolaria. Mesozoic rocks are represented by slates containing
_Ammonites_ and _Monotis_, evidently of Triassic age, rocks containing
_Ammonites Bucklandi_ of Liassic age, a series of beds rich in plants
of Jurassic age, and beds of Cretaceous age containing _Trigonia_ and
many other fossils. The Cainozoic or Tertiary system forms a fringe
round the coasts of many portions of the empire. It chiefly consists
of stratified volcanic tuffs rich in coal, lignite, fossilized plants
and an invertebrate fauna. Diatomaceous earth exists at several places
in Yezo. In the alluvium which covers all, the remains have been
discovered of several species of elephant, which, according to Dr
Edmund Naumann, are of Indian origin. The most common eruptive rock is
andesite. Such rocks as basalt, diorite and trachyte are comparatively
rare. Quartz porphyry, quartzless porphyry, and granite are largely
developed." Drs von Richthofen and Rein discuss the subject in greater
detail. They have pointed out that in the mountain system of Japan
there are three main lines. One runs from S.W. to N.E.; another from
S.S.W. to N.N.E., and the third is meridional. These they call
respectively the "southern schist range," the "northern schist range,"
and the "snow range," the last consisting mainly of old crystalline
massive rocks. The rocks predominating in Japan fall also into three
groups. They are, first, plutonic rocks, especially granite; secondly,
volcanic rocks, chiefly trachyte and dolerite; and thirdly, palaeozoic
schists. On the other hand, limestone and sandstone, especially of the
Mesozoic strata, are strikingly deficient. The strike of the old
crystalline rocks follows, in general, the main direction of the
islands (S.W. to N.E.). They are often overlain by schists and
quartzites, or broken through by volcanic masses. "The basis of the
islands consist of granite, syenite, diorite, diabase and related
kinds of rock, porphyry appearing comparatively seldom. Now the
granite, continuing for long distances, forms the prevailing rock;
then, again, it forms the foundation for thick strata of schist and
sandstone, itself only appearing in valleys of erosion and river
boulders, in rocky projections on the coasts or in the ridges of the
mountains.... In the composition of many mountains in Hondo (the main
island) granite plays a prominent part.... It appears to form the
central mass which crops up in hundreds of places towards the coast
and in the interior. Old schists, free from fossils and rich in
quartz, overlie it in parallel chains through the whole length of the
peninsula, especially in the central and highest ridges, and bear the
ores of Chu-goku (the central provinces), principally copper pyrites
and magnetic pyrites. These schist ridges rich in quartz show, to a
depth of 20 metres, considerable disintegration. The resulting pebble
and quartz-sand is very unproductive, and supports chiefly a poor
underwood and crippled pines with widely spreading roots which seek
their nourishment afar. In the province of Settsu granite everywhere
predominates, which may be observed also in the railway cuttings
between Hiogo and Osaka, as well as in the temples and walls of these
towns. The waterfalls near Kobe descend over granite walls and the
_mikageishi_ (stone of Mikage), famous throughout Japan, is granite
from Settsu.... In the hill country on the borders of Ise, Owari,
Mikawa and Totomi, on the one side, and Omi, Mino and Shinano, on the
other, granite frequently forms dark grey and much disintegrated
rock-projections above schist and diluvial quartz pebbles. The
feldspar of a splendid pegmatite and its products of disintegration on
the borders of Owari, Mino and Mikawa form the raw material of the
very extensive ceramic industry of this district, with its chief
place, Seto. Of granite are chiefly formed the meridional mountains of
Shinano. Granite, diorite and other plutonic rocks hem in the winding
upper valleys of the Kiso-gawa, the Saigawa (Shinano river) and many
other rivers of this province, their clear water running over granite.
Also in the hills bordering on the plain of Kwanto these old
crystalline rocks are widely spread. Farther northwards they give way
again, as in the south, to schists and eruptive rocks. Yet even here
granite may be traced in many places. Of course it is not always a
pure granite; even hablit and granite-porphyry are found here and
there. Thus, for instance, near Nikko in the upper valley of the
Daiya-gawa, and in several other places in the neighbouring mountains,
a granite-porphyry appears with large, pale, flesh-coloured crystals
of orthoclase, dull triclinic felspar, quartz and hornblende." "From
the mine of Ichinokawa in Shikoku come the wonderful crystals of
antimonite, which form such conspicuous objects in the mineralogical
cabinets of Europe." (Rein's _Japan_ and Milne in _Things Japanese_.)
The above conditions suggest the presence of tertiary formations, yet
only the younger groups of that formation appear to be developed. Nor
is there any sign of moraines, glacier-scorings or other traces of the
ice-age.
The oldest beds which have yielded fossils in any abundance belong to
the Carboniferous System. The Trias proper is represented by truly
marine deposits, while the Rhaetic beds contain plant remains. The
Jurassic and Cretaceous beds are also in part marine and in part
terrestrial. During the whole of the Mesozoic era Japan appears to
have lain on or near the margin of the Asiatic continent, and the
marine deposits are confined for the most part to the eastern side of
the islands.
The igneous rocks occur at several geological horizons, but the great
volcanic eruptions did not begin until the Tertiary period. The
existing volcanoes belong to four separate arcs or chains. On the
south is the arc of the Luchu islands, which penetrates into Kiu Shiu.
In the centre there is the arc of the Izu-no-Shichito islands, which
is continued into Hondo along the Fossa Magna. In North Hondo the
great Bandai arc forms the axis of the island and stretches into Yezo
(Hokkaido). Finally in the east of Yezo rise the most westerly
volcanoes of the Kurile chain. The lavas and ashes ejected by these
volcanoes consist of liparite, dacite, andesite and basalt.
Structurally Japan is divided into two regions by a depression (the
"Fossa Magna" of Naumann) which stretches across the island of Hondo
from Shimoda to Nagano. The depression is marked by a line of
volcanoes, including Fuji, and is in part buried beneath the products
of their eruptions. It is supposed to be due to a great fault along
its western margin. South and west of the Fossa Magna the beds are
thrown into folds which run approximately parallel to the general
direction of the coast, and two zones may be recognized--an outer,
consisting of Palaeozoic and Mesozoic beds, and an inner, consisting
of Archaean and Palaeozoic rocks, with granitic intrusions. Nearly
along the boundary between the two zones lie the inland seas of south
Japan. Towards the Fossa Magna the folds bend northwards.
North and east of the Fossa Magna the structure is concealed, to a
very large extent, by the outpourings of the volcanoes which form so
marked a feature in the northern part of Hondo. But the foundation on
which the volcanoes rest is exposed along the east coast of Hondo (in
the Kwanto, Abukuma and Kitakami hills), and also in the island of
Yezo. This foundation consists of Archean, Palaeozoic and Mesozoic
beds folded together, the direction of the folds being N. by W. to S.
by E., that is to say, slightly oblique to the general direction of
this part of the island. Towards the Fossa Magna the folds bend
sharply round until they are nearly parallel to the Fossa itself.
(P. La.)
Secular Movement
It has been abundantly demonstrated by careful observations that the
east coasts of Japan are slowly rising. This phenomenon was first
noticed in the case of the plain on which stands the capital, Tokyo.
Maps of sufficiently trustworthy accuracy show that in the 11th
century Tokyo Bay penetrated much more deeply in a northern direction
than it does now; the point where the city's main river (Sumida or
Arakawa) enters the sea was considerably to the north of its present
position, and low-lying districts, to-day thickly populated, were
under water. Edmund Naumann was the discoverer of these facts, and his
attention was first drawn to them by learning that an edible sea-weed,
which flourishes only in salt water, is called Asakusa-nori, from the
place (Asakusa) of its original provenance, which now lies some 3 m.
inland. Similar phenomena were found in Sakhalin by Schmidt and on the
north-east coast of the main island by Rein, and there can be little
doubt that they exist at other places also. Naumann has concluded that
"formerly Tokyo Bay stretched further over the whole level country of
Shimosa and Hitachi and northwards as far as the plain of Kwanto
extends;" that "the mountain country of Kasusa-Awa emerged from it an
island, and that a current ran in a north-westerly direction between
this island and the northern mountain margin of the present plain
toward the north-east into the open ocean."
_Mineral Springs._--The presence of so many active volcanoes is
partially compensated by a wealth of mineral springs. Since many of
these thermal springs possess great medicinal value, Japan may become
one of the world's favourite health-resorts. There are more than a
hundred spas, some hot, some cold, which, being easily accessible and
highly efficacious, are largely visited by the Japanese. The most
noteworthy are as follows:--
Name of Spa. Prefecture. Quality. Temp., F deg.
Arima Hiogo Salt 100
Asama Nagano Pure 111--127
Asamushi Aomori Salt 134--168
Atami Shizuoka " 131--226
Beppu Oita Carbonic Acid 109--132
Bessho Nagano Pure or Sulphurous 108--113
Dogo Ehime Pure 70--110
Hakone Kanagawa Pure, Salt or Sulphurous 98--168
Higashi-yama Fukushima Pure or Salt 117--144
Ikao Gumma Salt 111--127
Isobe " " Cold
Kusatsu " Sulphurous 127--148
Nasu Tochigi Sulphurous 162--172
Noboribetsu Ishikari " 125
Shibu Nagano Salt 98--115
Chiuzenji Shizuoka Carbonate of Soda and
Sulphur 114--185
Takarazuka Hiogo Carbonic Acid Cold
Ureshino Saga " 230
Unzen Nagasaki Sulphurous 158--204
Wagura Ishikawa Salt 180
Yamashiro " " 165
Yunoshima Hiogo " 104--134
_Climate._--The large extension of the Japanese islands in a northerly
and southerly direction causes great varieties of climate. General
characteristics are hot and humid though short summers, and long, cold
and clear winters. The equatorial currents produce conditions
differing from those existing at corresponding latitudes on the
neighbouring continent. In Kiushiu, Shikoku and the southern half of
the main island, the months of July and August alone are marked by
oppressive heat at the sea-level, while in elevated districts a cool
and even bracing temperature may always be found, though the direct
rays of the sun retain distressing power. Winter in these districts
does not last more than two months, from the end of December to the
beginning of March; for although the latter month is not free from
frost and even snow, the balminess of spring makes itself plainly
perceptible. In the northern half of the main island, in Yezo and in
the Kuriles, the cold is severe during the winter, which lasts for at
least four months, and snow falls sometimes to great depths. Whereas
in Tokyo the number of frosty nights during a year does not average
much over 60, the corresponding number in Sapporo on the north-west of
Yezo is 145. But the variation of the thermometer in winter and summer
being considerable--as much as 72 deg. F. in Tokyo--the climate proves
somewhat trying to persons of weak constitution. On the other hand,
the mean daily variation is in general less than that in other
countries having the same latitude: it is greatest in January, when it
reaches 18 deg. F., and least in July, when it barely exceeds 9 deg.
F. The monthly variation is very great in March, when it usually
reaches 43 deg. F.
Meteorology.
During the first 40 years of the _Meiji_ era numerous meteorological
stations were established. Reports are constantly forwarded by
telegraph to the central observatory in Tokyo, which issues daily
statements of the climatic conditions during the previous twenty-four
hours, as well as forecasts for the next twenty-four. The whole
country is divided into districts for meteorological purposes, and
storm-warnings are issued when necessary. At the most important
stations observations are taken every hour; at the less important, six
observations daily; and at the least important, three observations.
From the record of three decades the following yearly averages of
temperature are obtained:--
F deg.
Taihoku (in Formosa) 71
Nagasaki (Kiushiu) 60
Kobe (Main Island) 59
Osaka (Main Island) 59
Okayama (Main Island) 58
Nagoya (Main Island) 58
Sakai (Main Island) 58
Tokyo (Capital) 57
Kioto (Main Island) 57
Niigata (Main Island) 55
Ishinomaki (Main Island) 52
Aomori (Main Island) 50
Sapporo (Yezo) 44
The following table affords data for comparing the climates of Peking,
Shanghai, Hakodate, Tokyo and San Francisco:--
Mean
Longitude. Latitude. Temp., F deg.
Peking 116 deg. 29' E. 39 deg. 57' N. 53
Shanghai 121 deg. 20' E. 31 deg. 12' N. 59
Hakodate 140 deg. 45' E. 41 deg. 46' N. 47
Tokyo 138 deg. 47' E. 35 deg. 41' N. 57
San Francisco 122 deg. 25' E. 37 deg. 48' N. 56
Mean Temp. of
Hottest Month. Hottest Month.
Peking July 80
Shanghai " 84
Hakodate August 71
Tokyo " 79
San Francisco September 63
Mean Temp. of
Coldest Month. Coldest Month.
Peking January 22
Shanghai " 26
Hakodate " 28
Tokyo " 36
San Francisco " 49
Rainfall.
There are three wet seasons in Japan: the first, from the middle of
April to the beginning of May; the second, from the middle of June to
the beginning of July; and the third, from early in September to early
in October. The dog days (_doyo_) are from the middle of July till the
second half of August. September is the wettest month; January the
driest. During the four months from November to February inclusive
only about 18% of the whole rain for the year falls. In the district
on the east of the main island the snowfall is insignificant, seldom
attaining a depth of more than four or five inches and generally
melting in a few days, while bright, sunny skies are usual. But in the
mountainous provinces of the interior and in those along the western
coast, deep snow covers the ground throughout the whole winter, and
the sky is usually wrapped in a veil of clouds. These differences are
due to the action of the north-westerly wind that blows over Japan
from Siberia. The intervening sea being comparatively warm, this wind
arrives at Japan having its temperature increased and carrying
moisture which it deposits as snow on the western faces of the
Japanese mountains. Crossing the mountains and descending their
eastern slopes, the wind becomes less saturated and warmer, so that
the formation of clouds ceases. Japan is emphatically a wet country so
far as quantity of rainfall is concerned, the average for the whole
country being 1570 mm. per annum. Still there are about four sunny
days for every three on which rain or snow falls, the actual figures
being 150 days of snow or rain and 215 days of sunshine.
Wind.
During the cold season, which begins in October and ends in April,
northerly and westerly winds prevail throughout Japan. They come from
the adjacent continent of Asia, and they develop considerable strength
owing to the fact that there is an average difference of some 22 mm.
between the atmospheric pressure (750 mm.) in the Pacific and that
(772 mm.) in the Japanese islands. But during the warm season, from
May to September, these conditions of atmospheric pressure are
reversed, that in the Pacific rising to 767 mm. and that in Japan
falling to 750 mm. Hence throughout this season the prevailing winds
are light breezes from the west and south. A comparison of the force
habitually developed by the wind in various parts of the islands shows
that at Suttsu in Yezo the average strength is 9 metres per second,
while Izuhara in the island Tsushima, Kumamoto in Kiushiu and Gifu in
the east centre of the main island stand at the bottom of the list
with an average wind velocity of only 2 metres. A calamitous
atmospheric feature is the periodical arrival of storms called
"typhoons" (Japanese _tai-fu_ or "great wind"). These have their
origin, for the most part, in the China Sea, especially in the
vicinity of Luzon. Their season is from June to October, but they
occur in other months also, and they develop a velocity of 5 to 75 m.
an hour. The meteorological record for ten years ended 1905 shows a
total of 120 typhoons, being an average of 12 annually. September had
14 of these phenomena, March 11 and April 10, leaving 85 for the
remaining 9 months. But only 65 out of the whole number developed
disastrous force. It is particularly unfortunate that September should
be the season of greatest typhoon frequency, for the earlier varieties
of rice flower in that month and a heavy storm does much damage. Thus,
in 1902--by no means an abnormal year--statistics show the following
disasters owing to typhoons: casualties to human life, 3639; ships and
boats lost, 3244; buildings destroyed wholly or partially, 695,062;
land inundated, 1,071,575 acres; roads destroyed, 1236 m.; bridges
washed away, 13,685; embankments broken, 705 m.; crops damaged,
8,712,655 bushels. The total loss, including cost of repairs, was
estimated at nearly 3 millions sterling, which may be regarded as an
annual average.
_Flora._--The flora of Japan has been carefully studied by many
scientific men from Siebold downwards. Foreigners visiting Japan are
immediately struck by the affection of the people for flowers, trees
and natural beauties of every kind. In actual wealth of blossom or
dimensions of forest trees the Japanese islands cannot claim any
special distinction. The spectacles most admired by all classes are
the tints of the foliage in autumn and the glory of flowering trees in
the spring. In beauty and variety of pattern and colour the autumnal
tints are unsurpassed. The colours pass from deep brown through purple
to yellow and white, thrown into relief by the dark green of
non-deciduous shrubs and trees. Oaks and wild prunus, wild vines and
sumachs, various kinds of maple, the dodan (_Enkianthus Japonicus_
Hook.)--a wonderful bush which in autumn develops a hue of ruddy
red--birches and other trees, all add multitudinous colours to the
brilliancy of a spectacle which is further enriched by masses of
feathery bamboo. The one defect is lack of green sward. The grass used
for Japanese lawns loses its verdure in autumn and remains from
November to March a greyish-brown blot upon the scene. Spring is
supposed to begin in February when, according to the old calendar, the
new year sets in, but the only flowers then in bloom are the _camellia
japonica_ and some kinds of daphne. The former--called by the Japanese
_tsubaki_--may often be seen glowing fiery red amid snow, but the pink
(_otome tsubaki_), white (_shiro-tsubaki_) and variegated
(_shibori-no-tsubaki_) kinds do not bloom until March or April.
Neither the camellia nor the daphne is regarded as a refined flower:
their manner of shedding their blossoms is too unsightly. Queen of
spring flowers is the plum (_ume_). The tree lends itself with
peculiar readiness to the skilful manipulation of the gardener, and
is by him trained into shapes of remarkable grace. Its pure white or
rose-red blossoms, heralding the first approach of genial weather, are
regarded with special favour and are accounted the symbol of
unassuming hardihood. The cherry (_sakura_) is even more esteemed. It
will not suffer any training, nor does it, like the plum, improve by
pruning, but the sunshine that attends its brief period of bloom in
April, the magnificence of its flower-laden boughs and the picturesque
flutter of its falling petals, inspired an ancient poet to liken it to
the "soul of Yamato" (Japan), and it has ever since been thus
regarded. The wild peach (_momo_) blooms at the same time, but
attracts little attention. All these trees--the plum, the cherry and
the peach--bear no fruit worthy of the name, nor do they excel their
Occidental representatives in wealth of blossom, but the admiring
affection they inspire in Japan is unique. Scarcely has the cherry
season passed when that of the wistaria (_fuji_) comes, followed by
the azalea (_tsutsuji_) and the iris (_shobu_), the last being almost
contemporaneous with the peony (_botan_), which is regarded by many
Japanese as the king of flowers and is cultivated assiduously. A
species of weeping maple (_shidare-momiji_) dresses itself in
peachy-red foliage and is trained into many picturesque shapes, though
not without detriment to its longevity. Summer sees the lotus
(_renge_) convert wide expanses of lake and river into sheets of white
and red blossoms; a comparatively flowerless interval ensues until, in
October and November, the chrysanthemum arrives to furnish an excuse
for fashionable gatherings. With the exception of the dog-days and the
dead of winter, there is no season when flowers cease to be an object
of attention to the Japanese, nor does any class fail to participate
in the sentiment. There is similar enthusiasm in the matter of
gardens. From the 10th century onwards the art of landscape gardening
steadily grew into a science, with esoteric as well as exoteric
aspects, and with a special vocabulary. The underlying principle is to
reproduce nature's scenic beauties, all the features being drawn to
scale, so that however restricted the space, there shall be no
violation of proportion. Thus the artificial lakes and hills, the
stones forming rockeries or simulating solitary crags, the trees and
even the bushes are all selected or manipulated so as to fall
congruously into the general scheme. If, on the one hand, huge stones
are transported hundreds of miles from seashore or river-bed where, in
the lapse of long centuries, waves and cataracts have hammered them
into strange shapes, and if the harmonizing of their various colours
and the adjustment of their forms to environment are studied with
profound subtlety, so the training and tending of the trees and shrubs
that keep them company require much taste and much toil. Thus the red
pine (_aka-matsu_ or _pinus densiflora_), which is the favourite
garden tree, has to be subjected twice a year to a process of
spray-dressing which involves the careful removal of every weak or
aged needle. One tree occupies the whole time of a gardener for about
ten days. The details are endless, the results delightful. But it has
to be clearly understood that there is here no mention of a
flower-garden in the Occidental sense of the term. Flowers are
cultivated, but for their own sakes, not as a feature of the landscape
garden. If they are present, it is only as an incident. This of course
does not apply to shrubs which blossom at their seasons and fall
always into the general scheme of the landscape. Forests of
cherry-trees, plum-trees, magnolia trees, or _hiyaku-jikko_
(_Lagerstroemia indica_), banks of azalea, clumps of hydrangea, groups
of camellia--such have their permanent places and their foliage adds
notes of colour when their flowers have fallen. But chrysanthemums,
peonies, roses and so forth, are treated as special shows, and are
removed or hidden when out of bloom. There is another remarkable
feature of the Japanese gardener's art. He dwarfs trees so that they
remain measurable only by inches after their age has reached scores,
even hundreds, of years, and the proportions of leaf, branch and stem
are preserved with fidelity. The pots in which these wonders of
patient skill are grown have to be themselves fine specimens of the
ceramist's craft, and as much as L200 is sometimes paid for a notably
well trained tree.
There exists among many foreign observers an impression that Japan is
comparatively poor in wild-flowers; an impression probably due to the
fact that there are no flowery meadows or lanes. Besides, the flowers
are curiously wanting in fragrance. Almost the only notable exceptions
are the _mokusei_ (_Osmanthus fragrans_), the daphne and the magnolia.
Missing the perfume-laden air of the Occident, a visitor is prone to
infer paucity of blossoms. But if some familiar European flowers are
absent, they are replaced by others strange to Western eyes--a wealth
of _lespedeza_ and _Indigo-fera_; a vast variety of lilies; graceful
grasses like the eulalia and the _ominameshi_ (_Patrina
scabiosaefolia_); the richly-hued _Pyrus japonica_; azaleas,
diervillas and deutzias; the _kikyo_ (_Platycodon grandiflorum_), the
_giboshi_ (_Funkia ovata_), and many another. The same is true of
Japanese forests. It has been well said that "to enumerate the
constituents and inhabitants of the Japanese mountain-forests would be
to name at least half the entire flora."
According to Franchet and Savatier Japan possesses:--
Families. Genera. Species.
Dicotyledonous plants 121 795 1934
Monocotyledonous plants 28 202 613
Higher Cryptogamous plants 5 38 196
--- ---- ----
Vascular plants 154 1035 2743
The investigations of Japanese botanists are adding constantly to the
above number, and it is not likely that finality will be reached for
some time. According to a comparison made by A. Gray with regard to
the numbers of genera and species respectively represented in the
forest trees of four regions of the northern hemisphere, the following
is the case:--
Atlantic Forest-region of N. America 66 genera and 155 species.
Pacific Forest-region of N. America 31 genera and 78 species.
Japan and Manchuria Forest-region 66 genera and 168 species.
Forests of Europe 33 genera and 85 species.
While there can be no doubt that the luxuriance of Japan's flora is
due to rich soil, to high temperature and to rainfall not only
plentiful but well distributed over the whole year, the wealth and
variety of her trees and shrubs must be largely the result of
immigration. Japan has four insular chains which link her to the
neighbouring continent. On the south, the Riukiu Islands bring her
within reach of Formosa and the Malayan archipelago; on the west, Oki,
Iki, and Tsushima bridge the sea between her and Korea; on the
north-west Sakhalin connects her with the Amur region; and on the
north, the Kuriles form an almost continuous route to Kamchatka. By
these paths the germs of Asiatic plants were carried over to join the
endemic flora of the country, and all found suitable homes amid
greatly varying conditions of climate and physiography.
_Fauna._--Japan is an exception to the general rule that continents
are richer in fauna than are their neighbouring islands. It has been
said with truth that "an industrious collector of beetles,
butterflies, neuroptera, &c., finds a greater number of species in a
circuit of some miles near Tokyo than are exhibited by the whole
British Isles."
Of mammals 50 species have been identified and catalogued. Neither the
lion nor the tiger is found. The true Carnivora are three only, the
bear, the dog and the marten. Three species of bears are
scientifically recognized, but one of them, the ice-bear (_Ursus
maritimus_), is only an accidental visitor, carried down by the Arctic
current. In the main island the black bear (_kuma_, _Ursus japonicus_)
alone has its habitation, but the island of Yezo has the great brown
bear (called _shi-guma_, _oki-kuma_ or _aka-kuma_), the "grisly" of
North America. The bear does not attract much popular interest in
Japan. Tradition centres rather upon the fox (_kitsune_) and the
badger (_mujina_), which are credited with supernatural powers, the
former being worshipped as the messenger of the harvest god, while the
latter is regarded as a mischievous rollicker. Next to these comes the
monkey (_saru_), which dwells equally among the snows of the north and
in the mountainous regions of the south. _Saru_ enters into the
composition of many place-names, an evidence of the people's
familiarity with the animal. There are ten species of bat (_komori_)
and seven of insect-eaters, and prominent in this class are the mole
(_mugura_) and the hedgehog (_hari-nezumi_). Among the martens there
is a weasel (_itachi_), which, though useful as a rat-killer, has the
evil repute of being responsible for sudden and mysterious injuries to
human beings; there is a river-otter (_kawauso_), and there is a
sea-otter (_rakko_) which inhabits the northern seas and is highly
valued for its beautiful pelt. The rodents are represented by an
abundance of rats, with comparatively few mice, and by the ordinary
squirrel, to which the people give the name of tree-rat (_ki-nezumi_),
as well as the flying squirrel, known as the _momo-dori_ (peach-bird)
in the north, where it hides from the light in hollow tree-trunks, and
in the south as the _ban-tori_ (or bird of evening). There are no
rabbits, but hares (_usagi_) are to be found in very varying numbers,
and those of one species put on a white coat during winter. The wild
boar (_shishi_ or _ii-no-shishi_) does not differ appreciably from its
European congener. Its flesh is much relished, and for some
unexplained reason is called by its vendors "mountain-whale"
(_yama-kujira_). A very beautiful stag (_shika_), with eight-branched
antlers, inhabits the remote woodlands, and there are five species of
antelope (_kamo-shika_) which are found in the highest and least
accessible parts of the mountains. Domestic animals have for
representatives the horse (_uma_), a small beast with little beauty of
form though possessing much hardihood and endurance; the ox (_ushi_)
mainly a beast of burden or draught; the pig (_buta_), very
occasionally; the dog (_inu_), an unsightly and useless brute; the cat
(_neko_), with a stump in lieu of a tail; barndoor fowl (_niwa-tori_),
ducks (_ahiro_) and pigeons (_hato_). The turkey (_shichi-mencho_) and
the goose (_gacho_) have been introduced but are little appreciated as
yet.
Although so-called singing birds exist in tolerable numbers, those
worthy of the name of songster are few. Eminently first is a species
of nightingale (_uguisu_), which, though smaller than its congener of
the West, is gifted with exquisitely modulated flute-like notes of
considerable range. The _uguisu_ is a dainty bird in the matter of
temperature. After May it retires from the low-lying regions and
gradually ascends to higher altitudes as midsummer approaches. A
variety of the cuckoo called _holotogisu_ (_Cuculus poliocephalus_) in
imitation of the sound of its voice, is heard as an accompaniment of
the _uguisu_, and there are also three other species, the _kakkodori_
(_Cuculus canorus_), the _tsutsu-dori_ (_C. himalayanus_), and the
_masuhakari_, or _juichi_ (_C. hyperythrus_). To these the lark,
_hibari_ (_Alauda japonica_), joins its voice, and the cooing of the
pigeon (_hato_) is supplemented by the twittering of the ubiquitous
sparrow (_suzume_), while over all are heard the raucous caw of the
raven (_karasu_) and the harsh scream of the kite (_tombi_), between
which and the raven there is perpetual feud. The falcon (_taka_),
always an honoured bird in Japan, where from time immemorial hawking
has been an aristocratic pastime, is common enough, and so is the
sparrow-hawk (_hai-taka_), but the eagle (_washi_) affects solitude.
Two English ornithologists, Blakiston and Pryer, are the recognized
authorities on the birds of Japan, and in a contribution to the
_Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan_ (vol. x.) they have
enumerated 359 species. Starlings (_muku-dori_) are numerous, and so
are the wagtail (_sekirei_), the swallow (_tsubame_) the martin
(_ten_), the woodchat (_mozu_) and the jay (_kakesu_ or _kashi-dori_),
but the magpie (_togarasu_), though common in China, is rare in Japan.
Blackbirds and thrushes are not found, nor any species of parrot, but
on the other hand, we have the hoopoe (_yatsugashira_), the red-breast
(_komadori_), the bluebird (_ruri_), the wren (_miso-sazai_), the
golden-crested wren (_itadaki_), the golden-eagle (_inu-washi_), the
finch (_hiwa_), the longtailed rose-finch (_benimashiko_), the
ouzel--brown (_akahara_), dusky (_tsugumi_) and water
(_kawa-garasu_)--the kingfisher (_kawasemi_), the crake (_kuina_) and
the tomtit (_kara_). Among game-birds there are the quail (_uzura_),
the heathcock (_ezo-racho_), the ptarmigan (_ezo-raicho_ or
_ezo-yama-dori_), the woodcock (hodo-shigi), the snipe
(_ta-shigi_)--with two special species, the solitary snipe
(_yama-shigi_) and the painted snipe (_tama-shigi_)--and the pheasant
(_kiji_). Of the last there are two species, the _kiji_ proper, a bird
presenting no remarkable features, and the copper pheasant, a
magnificent bird with plumage of dazzling beauty. Conspicuous above
all others, not only for grace of form but also for the immemorial
attention paid to them by Japanese artists, are the crane (_tsuru_)
and the heron (_sagi_). Of the crane there are seven species, the
stateliest and most beautiful being the _Grus japonensis_ (_tancho_ or
_tancho-zuru_), which stands some 5 ft. high and has pure white
plumage with a red crown, black tail-feathers and black upper neck. It
is a sacred bird, and it shares with the tortoise the honour of being
an emblem of longevity. The other species are the demoiselle crane
(_anewa-zuru_), the black crane (_kuro-zuru_ or _nezumi-zuru_, i.e.
_Grus cinerea_), the _Grus leucauchen_ (_mana-zuru_), the _Grus
monachus_ (_nabe-zuru_), and the white crane (_shiro-zuru_). The
Japanese include in this category the stork (_kozuru_), but it may be
said to have disappeared from the island. The heron (_sagi_)
constitutes a charming feature in a Japanese landscape, especially the
silver heron (_shira-sagi_), which displays its brilliant white
plumage in the rice-fields from spring to early autumn. The
night-heron (_goi-sagi_) is very common. Besides these waders there
are plover (_chidori_); golden (_muna-guro_ or _ai-guro_); gray
(_daizen_); ringed (_shiro-chidori_); spur-winged (_keri_) and
Harting's sand-plover (_ikaru-chidori_); sand-pipers--green
(_ashiro-shigi_) and spoon-billed (_hera-shigi_)--and water-hens
(_ban_). Among swimming birds the most numerous are the gull
(_kamome_), of which many varieties are found; the cormorant
(_u_)--which is trained by the Japanese for fishing purposes--and
multitudinous flocks of wild-geese (_gan_) and wild-ducks (_kamo_),
from the beautiful mandarin-duck (_oshi-dori_), emblem of conjugal
fidelity, to teal (_kogamo_) and widgeon (_hidori-gamo_) of several
species. Great preserves of wild-duck and teal used to be a frequent
feature in the parks attached to the feudal castles of old Japan, when
a peculiar method of netting the birds or striking them with falcons
was a favourite aristocratic pastime. A few of such preserves still
exist, and it is noticeable that in the Palace-moats of Tokyo all
kinds of water-birds, attracted by the absolute immunity they enjoy
there, assemble in countless numbers at the approach of winter and
remain until the following spring, wholly indifferent to the close
proximity of the city.
Of reptiles Japan has only 30 species, and among them is included the
marine turtle (_umi-game_) which can scarcely be said to frequent her
waters, since it is seen only at rare intervals on the southern coast.
This is even truer of the larger species (the _shogakubo_, i.e.
_Chelonia cephalo_). Both are highly valued for the sake of the shell,
which has always been a favourite material for ladies' combs and
hairpins. By carefully selecting certain portions and welding them
together in a perfectly flawless mass, a pure amber-coloured object is
obtained at heavy cost. Of the fresh-water tortoise there are two
kinds, the _suppon_ (_Trionyx japonica_) and the _kame-no-ko_ (_Emys
vulgaris japonica_). The latter is one of the Japanese emblems of
longevity. It is often depicted with a flowing tail, which appendix
attests close observation of nature; for the _mino-game_, as it is
called, represents a tortoise to which, in the course of many scores
of years, confervae have attached themselves so as to form an
appendage of long green locks as the creature swims about. Sea-snakes
occasionally make their way to Japan, being carried thither by the
Black Current (Kuro Shiwo) and the monsoon, but they must be regarded
as merely fortuitous visitors. There are 10 species of land-snakes
(_hebi_), among which one only (the _mamushi_, or _Trigonocephalus
Blomhoffi_) is venomous. The others for the most part frequent the
rice-fields and live upon frogs. The largest is the _aodaisho_
(_Elaphis virgatus_), which sometimes attains a length of 5 ft., but
is quite harmless. Lizards (_tokage_), frogs (_kawazu_ or _kaeru_),
toads (_ebogayeru_) and newts (_imori_) are plentiful, and much
curiosity attaches to a giant salamander (_sansho-uwo_, called also
_hazekai_ and other names according to localities), which reaches to a
length of 5 ft., and (according to Rein) is closely related to the
_Andrias Scheuchzeri_ of the Oeningen strata.
The seas surrounding the Japanese islands may be called a resort of
fishes, for, in addition to numerous species which abide there
permanently, there are migatory kinds, coming and going with the
monsoons and with the great ocean streams that set to and from the
shores. In winter, for example, when the northern monsoon begins to
blow, numbers of denizens of the Sea of Okhotsk swim southward to the
more genial waters of north Japan; and in summer the Indian Ocean and
the Malayan archipelago send to her southern coasts a crowd of
emigrants which turn homeward again at the approach of winter. It thus
falls out that in spite of the enormous quantity of fish consumed as
food or used as fertilizers year after year by the Japanese, the seas
remain as richly stocked as ever. Nine orders of fishes have been
distinguished as the piscifauna of Japanese waters. They may be found
carefully catalogued with all their included species in Rein's
_Japan_, and highly interesting researches by Japanese physiographists
are recorded in the Journal of the College of Science of the Imperial
University of Tokyo. Briefly, the chief fish of Japan are the bream
(_tai_), the perch (_suzuki_), the mullet (_bora_), the rock-fish
(_hatatate_), the grunter (_oni-o-koze_), the mackerel (_saba_), the
sword-fish (_tachi-uwo_), the wrasse (_kusabi_), the haddock (_tara_),
the flounder (_karei_), and its congeners the sole (_hirame_) and the
turbot (_ishi-garei_), the shad (_namazu_), the salmon (_shake_), the
_masu_, the carp (_koi_), the _funa_, the gold fish (_kingyo_), the
gold carp (_higoi_), the loach (_dojo_), the herring (_nishin_), the
_iwashi_(_Clupea melanosticta_), the eel (_unagi_), the conger eel
(_anago_), the coffer-fish (_hako-uwo_), the _fugu_ (_Tetrodon_), the
_ai_ (_Plecoglossus altivelis_), the sayori (_Hemiramphus sayori_),
the shark (same), the dogfish (_manuka-zame_), the ray (_e_), the
sturgeon (_cho-zame_) and the _maguro_ (_Thynnus sibi_).
The insect life of Japan broadly corresponds with that of temperate
regions in Europe. But there are also a number of tropical species,
notably among butterflies and beetles. The latter--for which the
generic term in Japan is _mushi_ or _kaichu_--include some beautiful
species, from the "jewel beetle" (_tama-mushi_), the "gold beetle"
(_kogane-mushi_) and the _Chrysochroa fulgidissima_, which glow and
sparkle with the brilliancy of gold and precious stones, to the jet
black _Melanauster chinensis_, which seems to have been fashioned out
of lacquer spotted with white. There is also a giant nasicornous
beetle. Among butterflies (_chocho_) Rein gives prominence to the
broad-winged kind (_Papilio_), which recall tropical brilliancy. One
(_Papilio macilentus_) is peculiar to Japan. Many others seem to be
practically identical with European species. That is especially true
of the moths (_yacho_), 100 species of which have been identified with
English types. There are seven large silk-moths, of which two only
(_Bombyx mori_ and _Antheraea yama-mai_) are employed in producing
silk. Fishing lines are manufactured from the cocoons of the
_genjiki-mushi_ (_Caligula japonica_), which is one of the commonest
moths in the islands. Wasps, bees and hornets, generically known as
_hachi_, differ little from their European types, except that they are
somewhat larger and more sluggish. The gad-fly (_abu_), the housefly
(_hai_), the mosquito (_ka_), the flea (_nomi_) and occasionally the
bedbug (called by the Japanese _kara-mushi_ because it is believed to
be imported from China), are all fully represented, and the dragon-fly
(_tombo_) presents itself in immense numbers at certain seasons.
Grasshoppers (_batta_) are abundant, and one kind (_inago_), which
frequent the rice-fields when the cereal is ripening, are caught and
fried in oil as an article of food. On the moors in late summer the
mantis (_kama-kiri-mushi_) is commonly met with, and the cricket
(_kurogi_) and the cockroach abound. Particularly obtrusive is the
cicada (_semi_), of which there are many species. Its strident voice
is heard most loudly at times of great heat, when the song of the
birds is hushed. The dragon-fly and the cicada afford ceaseless
entertainment to the Japanese boy. He catches them by means of a rod
smeared with bird-lime, and then tying a fine string under their
wings, he flies them at its end. Spiders abound, from a giant species
to one of the minutest dimensions, and the tree-bug is always ready to
make a destructive lodgment in any sickly tree-stem. The scorpion
(_sasori_) exists but is not poisonous.
Japanese rivers and lakes are the habitation of several--seven or
eight--species of fresh-water crab (_kani_), which live in holes on
the shore and emerge in the daytime, often moving to considerable
distances from their homes. Shrimps (_kawa-ebi_) also are found in the
rivers and rice-fields. These shrimps as well as a large species of
crab--_mokuzo-gani_--serve the people as an article of food, but the
small crabs which live in holes have no recognized _raison d'etre_. In
Japan, as elsewhere, the principal crustacea are found in the sea.
Flocks of _lupa_ and other species swim in the wake of the tropical
fishes which move towards Japan at certain seasons. Naturally these
migratory crabs are not limited to Japanese waters. Milne Edwards has
identified ten species which occur in Australian seas also, and Rein
mentions, as belonging to the same category, the "helmet-crab" or
"horse-shoe crab" (_kabuto-gani_; _Limulus longispina_ Hoeven). Very
remarkable is the giant _Taka-ashi_--long legs (_Macrocheirus
Kaempferi_), which has legs 1(1/2) metres long and is found in the
seas of Japan and the Malay archipelago. There is no lobster on the
coasts of Japan, but there are various species of crayfish
(_Palinurus_ and _Scyllarus_) the principal of which, under the names
of ise-ebi (_Palinurus japonicus_) and _kuruma-ebi_ (_Penaeus
canaliculatus_) are greatly prized as an article of diet.
Already in 1882, Dunker in his _Index Molluscorum Maris Japonici_
enumerated nearly 1200 species of marine molluscs found in the
Japanese archipelago, and several others have since then been added
to the list. As for the land and fresh-water molluscs, some 200 of
which are known, they are mainly kindred with those of China and
Siberia, tropical and Indian forms being exceptional. There are 57
species of _Helix_ (_maimaitsuburi_, _dedemushi_, _katatsumuri_ or
_kwagyu_) and 25 of Clausilia (_kiseru-gai_ or pipe-snail), including
the two largest snails in Japan, namely the _Cl. Martensi_ and the
_Cl. Yoko-hamensis_, which attain to a length of 58 mm. and 44 mm.
respectively. The mussel (_i-no-kai_) is well represented by the
species _numa-gai_ (marsh-mussel), _karasu-gai_ (raven-mussel),
_kamisori-gai_ (razor-mussel), _shijimi-no-kai_ (_Corbicula_), of
which there are nine species, &c. Unlike the land-molluscs, the great
majority of Japanese sea-molluscs are akin to those of the Indian
Ocean and the Malay archipelago. Some of them extend westward as far
as the Red Sea. The best known and most frequent forms are the _asari_
(_Tapes philippinarum_), the _hamaguri_ (_Meretrix lusoria_), the
_baka_ (_Mactra sulcataria_), the _aka-gai_ (_Scapharca inflata_), the
_kaki_ (oyster), the _awabi_ (_Haliotis japonica_), the _sazae_
(_Turbo cornutus_), the _hora-gai_ (_Tritonium tritonius_), &c. Among
the cephalopods several are of great value as articles of food, e.g.
the _surume_ (_Onychotheuthis Banksii_), the _tako_ (octopus), the
_shidako_ (Eledone), the _ika_ (Sepia) and the _tako-fune_
(Argonauta).
Greeff enumerates, as denizens of Japanese seas, 26 kinds of
sea-urchins (_gaze_ or _uni_) and 12 of starfish (_hitode_ or
_tako-no-makura_). These, like the mollusca, indicate the influence of
the Kuro Shiwo and the south-west monsoon, for they have close
affinity with species found in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. For
edible purposes the most valuable of the Japanese echinoderms is the
sea-slug or _beche de mer_ (_namako_), which is greatly appreciated
and forms an important staple of export to China. Rein writes: "Very
remarkable in connexion with the starfishes is the occurrence of
_Asterias rubens_ on the Japanese coast. This creature displays an
almost unexampled frequency and extent of distribution in the whole
North Sea, in the western parts of the Baltic, near the Faroe Islands,
Iceland, Greenland and the English coasts, so that it may be regarded
as a characteristic North Sea echinoderm form. Towards the south this
starfish disappears, it seems, completely; for it is not yet known
with certainty to exist either in the Mediterranean or in the southern
parts of the Atlantic Ocean. In others also _Asterias rubens_ is not
known--and then it suddenly reappears in Japan. _Archaster typicus_
has a pretty wide distribution over the Indian Ocean; other
_Asteridae_ of Japan, on the other hand, appear to be confined to its
shores."
Japan is not rich in corals and sponges. Her most interesting
contributions are crust-corals (_Gorgonidae_, _Corallium_, _Isis_,
&c.), and especially flint-sponges, called by the Japanese _hoshi-gai_
and known as "glass-coral" (_Hyalonema sieboldi_). These last have not
been found anywhere except at the entrance of the Bay of Tokyo at a
depth of some 200 fathoms.
II.--THE PEOPLE
_Population._--The population was as follows on the 31st of December
1907:--
Population
Population. Males. Females. Totals. per sq. m.
Japan proper 24,601,658 24,172,627 48,774,285 330
Formosa (Taiwan) 1,640,778 1,476,137 3,116,915 224
Sakhalin 7,175 3,631 10,806 0.1
---------- ---------- ----------
Totals 26,249,611 25,652,395 51,902,006
The following table shows the rate of increase in the four quadrennial
periods between 1891 and 1907 in Japan proper:--
Average Population
Year. Males. Females. Totals. increase per
per cent. sq. m.
1891 20,563,416 20,155,261 40,718,677 1.09 272
1895 21,345,750 20,904,870 42,270,620 1.09 286
1899 22,330,112 21,930,540 44,260,652 1.14 299
1903 23,601,640 23,131,236 46,732,876 1.54 316
1907 24,601,658 24,172,627 48,774,285 1.13 330
The population of Formosa (Taiwan) during the ten-year period 1898-1907
grew as follows:--
Average Population
Year. Males. Females. Totals. increase per
per cent. sq. m.
1898 1,307,428 1,157,539 2,464,967 -- 182
1902 1,513,280 1,312,067 2,825,347 2.70 209
1907 1,640,778 1,476,137 3,116,915 2.37 224
According to quasi-historical records, the population of the empire in
the year A.D. 610 was 4,988,842, and in 736 it had grown to 8,631,770.
It is impossible to say how much reliance may be placed on these
figures, but from the 18th century, when the name of every subject had
to be inscribed on the roll of a temple as a measure against his
adoption of Christianity, a tolerably trustworthy census could always
be taken. The returns thus obtained show that from the year 1723 until
1846 the population remained almost stationary, the figure in the
former year being 26,065,422, and that in the latter year 26,907,625.
There had, indeed, been five periods of declining population in that
interval of 124 years, namely, the periods 1738-1744, 1759-1762,
1773-1774, 1791-1792, and 1844-1846. But after 1872, when the census
showed a total of 33,110,825, the population grew steadily, its
increment between 1872 and 1898 inclusive, a period of 27 years, being
10,649,990. Such a rate of increase invests the question of
subsistence with great importance. In former times the area of land
under cultivation increased in a marked degree. Returns prepared at
the beginning of the 10th century showed 2(1/2) million acres under
crops, whereas the figure in 1834 was over 8 million acres. But the
development of means of subsistence has been outstripped by the growth
of population in recent years. Thus, during the period between 1899
and 1907 the population received an increment of 11.6% whereas the
food-producing area increased by only 4.4%. This discrepancy caused
anxiety at one time, but large fields suitable for colonization have
been opened in Sakhalin, Korea, Manchuria and Formosa, so that the
problem of subsistence has ceased to be troublesome. The birth-rate,
taking the average of the decennial period ended 1907, is 3.05% of the
population, and the death-rate is 2.05. Males exceed females in the
ratio of 2% approximately. But this rule does not hold after the age
of 65, where for every 100 females only 83 males are found. The
Japanese are of low stature as compared with the inhabitants of
Western Europe: about 16% of the adult males are below 5 ft. But there
are evidences of steady improvement in this respect. Thus, during the
period of ten years between 1893 and 1902, it was found that the
percentage of recruits of 5 ft. 5 in. and upward grew from 10.09 to
12.67, the rate of increase having been remarkably steady; and the
percentage of those under 5 ft. declined from 20.21 to 16.20.
_Towns._--There are in Japan 23 towns having a population of over
50,000, and there are 76 having a population of over 20,000. The
larger towns, their populations and the growth of the latter during
the five-year period commencing with 1898 were as follow:--
URBAN POPULATIONS
1898. 1903.
Tokyo 1,440,121 1,795,128
Osaka 821,235 988,200
Kioto 353,139 379,404
Nagoya 244,145 284,829
Kobe 215,780 283,839
Yokohama 193,762 324,776
Hiroshima 122,306 113,545
Nagasaki 107,422 151,727
Kanazawa 83,595 97,548
Sendai 83,325 93,773
Hakodate 78,040 84,746
Fukuoka 66,190 70,107
Wakayama 63,667 67,908
Tokushima 61,501 62,998
Kumamoto 61,463 55,277
Toyama 59,558 86,276
Okayama 58,025 80,140
Otaru 56,961 79,746
Kagoshima 53,481 58,384
Niigata 53,366 58,821
Sakai 50,203 --
Sapporo -- 55,304
Kure -- 62,825
Sasebo -- 52,607
The growth of Kure and Sasebo is attributable to the fact that they
have become the sites of large ship-building yards, the property of
the state.
The number of houses in Japan at the end of 1903, when the census was
last taken, was 8,725,544, the average number of inmates in each house
being thus 5.5.
_Physical Characteristics._--The best authorities are agreed that the
Japanese people do not differ physically from their Korean and Chinese
neighbours as much as the inhabitants of northern Europe differ from
those of southern Europe. It is true that the Japanese are shorter in
stature than either the Chinese or the Koreans. Thus the average height
of the Japanese male is only 5 ft. 3(1/2) in., and that of the female 4
ft. 10(1/2) in., whereas in the case of the Koreans and the northern
Chinese the corresponding figures for males are 5 ft. 5(3/4) in. and 5
ft. 7 in. respectively. Yet in other physical characteristics the
Japanese, the Koreans and the Chinese resemble each other so closely
that, under similar conditions as to costume and coiffure, no
appreciable difference is apparent. Thus since it has become the fashion
for Chinese students to flock to the schools and colleges of Japan,
there adopting, as do their Japanese fellow-students, Occidental
garments and methods of hairdressing, the distinction of nationality
ceases to be perceptible. The most exhaustive anthropological study of
the Japanese has been made by Dr E. Baelz (emeritus professor of
medicine in the Imperial University of Tokyo), who enumerates the
following sub-divisions of the race inhabiting the Japanese islands. The
first and most important is the Manchu-Korean type; that is to say, the
type which prevails in north China and in Korea. This is seen specially
among the upper classes in Japan. Its characteristics are exceptional
tallness combined with slenderness and elegance of figure; a face
somewhat long, without any special prominence of the cheekbones but
having more or less oblique eyes; an aquiline nose; a slightly receding
chin; largish upper teeth; a long neck; a narrow chest; a long trunk,
and delicately shaped, small hands with long, slender fingers. The most
plausible hypothesis is that men of this type are descendants of Korean
colonists who, in prehistoric times, settled in the province of Izumo,
on the west coast of Japan, having made their way thither from the
Korean peninsula by the island of Oki, being carried by the cold current
which flows along the eastern coast of Korea. The second type is the
Mongol. It is not very frequently found in Japan, perhaps because, under
favourable social conditions, it tends to pass into the Manchu-Korean
type. Its representative has a broad face, with prominent cheekbones,
oblique eyes, a nose more or less flat and a wide mouth. The figure is
strongly and squarely built, but this last characteristic can scarcely
be called typical. There is no satisfactory theory as to the route by
which the Mongols reached Japan, but it is scarcely possible to doubt
that they found their way thither at one time. More important than
either of these types as an element of the Japanese nation is the Malay.
Small in stature, with a well-knit frame, the cheekbones prominent, the
face generally round, the nose and neck short, a marked tendency to
prognathism, the chest broad and well developed, the trunk long, the
hands small and delicate--this Malay type is found in nearly all the
islands along the east coast of the Asiatic continent as well as in
southern China and in the extreme south-west of Korean peninsula.
Carried northward by the warm current known as the Kuro Shiwo, the
Malays seem to have landed in Kiushiu--the most southerly of the main
Japanese islands--whence they ultimately pushed northward and conquered
their Manchu-Korean predecessors, the Izumo colonists. None of the above
three, however, can be regarded as the earliest settlers in Japan.
Before them all was a tribe of immigrants who appear to have crossed
from north-eastern Asia at an epoch when the sea had not yet dug broad
channels between the continent and the adjacent islands. These
people--the Ainu--are usually spoken of as the aborigines of Japan. They
once occupied the whole country, but were gradually driven northward by
the Manchu-Koreans and the Malays, until only a mere handful of them
survived in the northern island of Yezo. Like the Malay and the Mongol
types they are short and thickly built, but unlike either they have
prominent brows, bushy locks, round deep-set eyes, long divergent
lashes, straight noses and much hair on the face and the body. In short,
the Ainu suggest much closer affinity with Europeans than does any other
of the types that go to make up the population of Japan. It is not to be
supposed, however, that these traces of different elements indicate any
lack of homogeneity in the Japanese race. Amalgamation has been
completely effected in the course of long centuries, and even the Ainu,
though the small surviving remnant of them now live apart, have left a
trace upon their conquerors.
The typical Japanese of the present day has certain marked physical
peculiarities. In the first place, the ratio of the height of his head
to the length of his body is greater than it is in Europeans. The
Englishman's head is often one-eighth of the length of his body or even
less, and in continental Europeans, as a rule, the ratio does not
amount to one-seventh; but in the Japanese it exceeds the latter figure.
In all nations men of short stature have relatively large heads, but in
the case of the Japanese there appears to be some racial reason for the
phenomenon. Another striking feature is shortness of legs relatively to
length of trunk. In northern Europeans the leg is usually much more than
one-half of the body's length, but in Japanese the ratio is one-half or
even less; so that whereas the Japanese, when seated, looks almost as
tall as a European, there may be a great difference between their
statures when both are standing. This special feature has been
attributed to the Japanese habit of kneeling instead of sitting, but
investigation shows that it is equally marked in the working classes who
pass most of their time standing. In Europe the same physical
traits--relative length of head and shortness of legs--distinguish the
central race (Alpine) from the Teutonic, and seem to indicate an
affinity between the former and the Mongols. It is in the face, however,
that we find specially distinctive traits, namely, in the eyes, the
eye-lashes, the cheekbones and the beard. Not that the eyeball itself
differs from that of an Occidental. The difference consists in the fact
that "the socket of the eye is comparatively small and shallow, and the
osseous ridges at the brows being little marked, the eye is less deeply
set than in the European. In fact, seen in profile, forehead and upper
lip often form an unbroken line." Then, again, the shape of the eye, as
modelled by the lids, shows a striking peculiarity. For whereas the open
eye is almost invariably horizontal in the European, it is often oblique
in the Japanese on account of the higher level of the upper corner. "But
even apart from obliqueness, the shape of the corners is peculiar in the
Mongolian eye. The inner corner is partly or entirely covered by a fold
of the upper lid continuing more or less into the lower lid. This fold
often covers also the whole free rim of the upper lid, so that the
insertion of the eye-lashes is hidden" and the opening between the lids
is so narrowed as to disappear altogether at the moment of laughter. As
for the eye-lashes, not only are they comparatively short and sparse,
but also they converge instead of diverging, so that whereas in a
European the free ends of the lashes are further distant from each other
than their roots, in a Japanese they are nearer together. Prominence of
cheekbones is another special feature, but it is much commoner in the
lower than in the upper classes, where elongated faces may almost be
said to be the rule. Finally, there is marked paucity of hair on the
face of the average Japanese--apart from the Ainu--and what hair there
is is nearly always straight. It is not to be supposed, however, that
because the Japanese is short of stature and often finely moulded, he
lacks either strength or endurance. On the contrary, he possesses both
in a marked degree, and his deftness of finger is not less remarkable
than the suppleness and activity of his body.
_Moral Characteristics._--The most prominent trait of Japanese
disposition is gaiety of heart. Emphatically of a laughter-loving
nature, the Japanese passes through the world with a smile on his lips.
The petty ills of life do not disturb his equanimity. He takes them as
part of the day's work, and though he sometimes grumbles, rarely, if
ever, does he repine. Exceptional to this general rule, however, is a
mood of pessimism which sometimes overtakes youths on the threshold of
manhood. Finding the problem of life insolvable, they abandon the
attempt to solve it and take refuge in the grave. It seems as though
there were always a number of young men hovering on the brink of such
suicidal despair. An example alone is needed finally to destroy the
equilibrium. Some one throws himself over a cataract or leaps into the
crater of a volcano, and immediately a score or two follow. Apparently
the more picturesquely awful the manner of the demise, the greater its
attractive force. The thing is not a product of insanity, as the term is
usually interpreted; letters always left behind by the victims prove
them to have been in full possession of their reasoning faculties up to
the last moment. Some observers lay the blame at the door of Buddhism, a
creed which promotes pessimism by begetting the anchorite, the ascetic
and the shuddering believer in seven hells. But Buddhism did not
formerly produce such incidents, and, for the rest, the faith of Shaka
has little sway over the student mind in Japan. The phenomenon is
modern: it is not an outcome of Japanese nature nor yet of Buddhist
teaching, but is due to the stress of endeavouring to reach the
standards of Western acquirement with grievously inadequate equipment,
opportunities and resources. In order to support himself and pay his
academic fees many a Japanese has to fall into the ranks of the physical
labourer during a part of each day or night. Ill-nourished, over-worked
and, it may be, disappointed, he finds the struggle intolerable and so
passes out into the darkness. But he is not a normal type. The normal
type is light-hearted and buoyant. One naturally expects to find, and
one does find, that this moral sunshine is associated with good temper.
The Japanese is exceptionally serene. Irascibility is regarded as
permissible in sickly children only: grown people are supposed to be
superior to displays of impatience. But there is a limit of
imperturbability, and when that limit is reached, the subsequent passion
is desperately vehement. It has been said that these traits go to make
the Japanese soldier what he is. The hardships of a campaign cause him
little suffering since he never frets over them, but the hour of combat
finds him forgetful of everything save victory. In the case of the
military class--and prior to the Restoration of 1867 the term "military
class" was synonymous with "educated class"--this spirit of stoicism was
built up by precept on a solid basis of heredity. The _samurai_
(soldier) learned that his first characteristic must be to suppress all
outward displays of emotion. Pain, pleasure, passion and peril must all
find him unperturbed. The supreme test, satisfied so frequently as to be
commonplace, was a shocking form of suicide performed with a placid
mien. This capacity, coupled with readiness to sacrifice life at any
moment on the altar of country, fief or honour, made a remarkably heroic
character. On the other hand, some observers hold that the education of
this stoicism was effected at the cost of the feelings it sought to
conceal. In support of that theory it is pointed out that the average
Japanese, man or woman, will recount a death or some other calamity in
his own family with a perfectly calm, if not a smiling, face. Probably
there is a measure of truth in the criticism. Feelings cannot be
habitually hidden without being more or less blunted. But here another
Japanese trait presents itself--politeness. There is no more polite
nation in the world than the Japanese. Whether in real courtesy of heart
they excel Occidentals may be open to doubt, but in all the forms of
comity they are unrivalled. Now one of the cardinal rules of politeness
is to avoid burdening a stranger with the weight of one's own woes.
Therefore a mother, passing from the chamber which has just witnessed
her paroxysms of grief, will describe calmly to a stranger--especially a
foreigner--the death of her only child. The same suppression of
emotional display in public is observed in all the affairs of life.
Youths and maidens maintain towards each other a demeanour of reserve
and even indifference, from which it has been confidently affirmed that
love does not exist in Japan. The truth is that in no other country do
so many dual suicides occur--suicides of a man and woman who, unable to
be united in this world, go to a union beyond the grave. It is true,
nevertheless, that love as a prelude to marriage finds only a small
place in Japanese ethics. Marriages in the great majority of cases are
arranged with little reference to the feelings of the parties concerned.
It might be supposed that conjugal fidelity must suffer from such a
custom. It does suffer seriously in the case of the husband, but
emphatically not in the case of the wife. Even though she be
cognisant--as she often is--of her husband's extra-marital relations,
she abates nothing of the duty which she has been taught to regard as
the first canon of female ethics. From many points of view, indeed,
there is no more beautiful type of character than that of the Japanese
woman. She is entirely unselfish; exquisitely modest without being
anything of a prude; abounding in intelligence which is never obscured
by egoism; patient in the hour of suffering; strong in time of
affliction; a faithful wife; a loving mother; a good daughter; and
capable, as history shows, of heroism rivalling that of the stronger
sex. As to the question of sexual virtue and morality in Japan, grounds
for a conclusive verdict are hard to find. In the interests of hygiene
prostitution is licensed, and that fact is by many critics construed as
proof of tolerance. But licensing is associated with strict segregation,
and it results that the great cities are conspicuously free from
evidences of vice, and that the streets may be traversed by women at all
hours of the day and night with perfect impunity and without fear of
encountering offensive spectacles. The ratio of marriages is
approximately 8.46 per thousand units of the population, and the ratio
of divorces is 1.36 per thousand. There are thus about 16 divorces for
every hundred marriages. Divorces take place chiefly among the lower
orders, who frequently treat marriage merely as a test of a couple's
suitability to be helpmates in the struggles of life. If experience
develops incompatibility of temper or some other mutually repellent
characteristic, separation follows as a matter of course. On the other
hand, divorces among persons of the upper classes are comparatively
rare, and divorces on account of a wife's unfaithfulness are almost
unknown.
Concerning the virtues of truth and probity, extremely conflicting
opinions have been expressed. The Japanese _samurai_ always prided
himself on having "no second word." He never drew his sword without
using it; he never gave his word without keeping it. Yet it may be
doubted whether the value attached in Japan to the abstract quality,
truth, is as high as the value attached to it in England, or whether the
consciousness of having told a falsehood weighs as heavily on the heart.
Much depends upon the motive. Whatever may be said of the upper class,
it is probably true that the average Japanese will not sacrifice
expediency on the altar of truth. He will be veracious only so long as
the consequences are not seriously injurious. Perhaps no more can be
affirmed of any nation. The "white lie" of the Anglo-Saxon and the
_hoben no uso_ of the Japanese are twins. In the matter of probity,
however, it is possible to speak with more assurance. There is
undoubtedly in the lower ranks of Japanese tradesmen a comparatively
large fringe of persons whose standard of commercial morality is
defective. They are descendants of feudal days when the mercantile
element, being counted as the dregs of the population, lost its
self-respect. Against this blemish--which is in process of gradual
correction--the fact has to be set that the better class of merchants,
the whole of the artisans and the labouring classes in general, obey
canons of probity fully on a level with the best to be found elsewhere.
For the rest, frugality, industry and patience characterize all the
bread-winners; courage and burning patriotism are attributes of the
whole nation.
There are five qualities possessed by the Japanese in a marked degree.
The first is frugality. From time immemorial the great mass of the
people have lived in absolute ignorance of luxury in any form and in the
perpetual presence of a necessity to economize. Amid these circumstances
there has emerged capacity to make a little go a long way and to be
content with the most meagre fare. The second quality is endurance. It
is born of causes cognate with those which have begotten frugality. The
average Japanese may be said to live without artificial heat; his paper
doors admit the light but do not exclude the cold. His brazier barely
suffices to warm his hands and his face. Equally is he a stranger to
methods of artificial cooling. He takes the frost that winter inflicts
and the fever that summer brings as unavoidable visitors. The third
quality is obedience; the offspring of eight centuries passed under the
shadow of military autocracy. Whatever he is authoritatively bidden to
do, that the Japanese will do. The fourth quality is altruism. In the
upper classes the welfare of the family has been set above the interests
of each member. The fifth quality is a genius for detail. Probably this
is the outcome of an extraordinarily elaborate system of social
etiquette. Each generation has added something to the canons of its
predecessor, and for every ten points preserved not more than one has
been discarded. An instinctive respect for minutiae has thus been
inculcated, and has gradually extended to all the affairs of life. That
this accuracy may sometimes degenerate into triviality, and that such
absorption in trifles may occasionally hide the broad horizon, is
conceivable. But the only hitherto apparent evidence of such defects is
an excessive clinging to the letter of the law; a marked reluctance to
exercise discretion; and that, perhaps, is attributable rather to the
habit of obedience. Certainly the Japanese have proved themselves
capable of great things, and their achievements seem to have been helped
rather than retarded by their attention to detail.
III.--LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE
_Language._--Since the year 1820, when Klaproth concluded that the
Japanese language had sprung from the Ural-Altaic stock, philologists
have busied themselves in tracing its affinities. If the theories
hitherto held with regard to the origin of the Japanese people be
correct, close relationship should exist between the Japanese and the
Korean tongues, and possibly between the Japanese and the Chinese. Aston
devoted much study to the former question, but although he proved that
in construction the two have a striking similarity, he could not find
any corresponding likeness in their vocabularies. As far back as the
beginning of the Christian era the Japanese and the Koreans could not
hold intercourse without the aid of interpreters. If then the languages
of Korea and Japan had a common stock, they must have branched off from
it at a date exceedingly remote. As for the languages of Japan and
China, they have remained essentially different throughout some twenty
centuries in spite of the fact that Japan adopted Chinese calligraphy
and assimilated Chinese literature. Mr K. Hirai has done much to
establish his theory that Japanese and Aryan had a common parent. But
nothing has yet been substantiated. Meanwhile an inquirer is confronted
by the strange fact that of three neighbouring countries between which
frequent communication existed, one (China) never deviated from an
ideographic script; another (Korea) invented an alphabet, and the third
(Japan) devised a syllabary. Antiquaries have sought to show that Japan
possessed some form of script before her first contact with either Korea
or China. But such traces of prehistoric letters as are supposed to have
been found seem to be corruptions of the Korean alphabet rather than
independent symbols. It is commonly believed that the two Japanese
syllabaries--which, though distinct in form, have identical sounds--were
invented by Kukai (790) and Kibi Daijin (760) respectively. But the
evidence of old documents seems to show that these syllabaries had a
gradual evolution and that neither was the outcome of a single scholar's
inventive genius.
The sequence of events appears to have been this:--Japan's earliest
contact with an over-sea people was with the Koreans, and she made
some tentative efforts to adapt their alphabet to the expression of
her own language. Traces of these efforts survived, and inspired the
idea that the art of writing was practised by the Japanese before the
opening of intercourse with their continental neighbours. Korea,
however, had neither a literary nor an ethical message to deliver, and
thus her script failed to attract much attention. Very different was
the case when China presented her noble code of Confucian philosophy
and the literature embodying it. The Japanese then recognized a lofty
civilization and placed themselves as pupils at its feet, learning its
script and deciphering its books. Their veneration extended to
ideographs. At first they adapted them frankly to their own tongue.
For example, the ideographs signifying _rice_ or _metal_ or _water_ in
Chinese were used to convey the same ideas in Japanese. Each ideograph
thus came to have two sounds, one Japanese, the other Chinese--e.g.
the ideograph for _rice_ had for Japanese sound _kome_ and for Chinese
sound _bei_. Nor was this the whole story. There were two epochs in
Japan's study of the Chinese language: first, the epoch when she
received Confucianism through Korea; and, secondly, the epoch when she
began to study Buddhism direct from China. Whether the sounds that
came by Korea were corrupt, or whether the interval separating these
epochs had sufficed to produce a sensible difference of pronunciation
in China itself, it would seem that the students of Buddhism who
flocked from Japan to the Middle Kingdom during the Sui era (A.D.
589-619) insisted on the accuracy of the pronunciation acquired there,
although it diverged perceptibly from the pronunciation already
recognized in Japan. Thus, in fine, each word came to have three
sounds--two Chinese, known as the _kan_ and the _go_, and one
Japanese, known as the _kun_. For example:--
"KAN" "GO" JAPANESE
SOUND. SOUND. SOUND. MEANING.
_Sei_ _Jo_ _Koe_ Voice
_Nen_ _Zen_ _Toshi_ Year
_Jinkan_ _Ningen_ _Hito no aida_ Human being.
As to which of the first two methods of pronunciation had
chronological precedence, the weight of opinion is that the kan came
later than the _go_. Evidently this triplication of sounds had many
disadvantages, but, on the other hand, the whole Chinese language may
be said to have been grafted on the Japanese. Chinese has the widest
capacity of any tongue ever invented. It consists of thousands of
monosyllabic roots, each having a definite meaning. These
monosyllables may be used singly or combined, two, three or four at a
time, so that the resulting combinations convey almost any conceivable
shades of meaning. Take, for example, the word "electricity." The very
idea conveyed was wholly novel in Japan. But scholars were immediately
able to construct the following:--
Lightning. _Den._
Exhalation. _Ki._
Electricity. _Denki._
Telegram. _Dempo._ _Ho_ = tidings.
Electric light. _Dento._ _To_ = lamp.
Negative electricity. _Indenki._ _In_ = the negative principle.
Positive electricity. _Yodenki._ _Yo_ = the positive principle.
Thermo-electricity. _Netsudenki._ _Netsu_ = heat.
Dynamic-electricity. _Ryudo-denki._ _Ryudo_ = fluid.
Telephone. _Denwa._ _Wa_= conversation.
Every branch of learning can thus be equipped with a vocabulary.
Potent, however, as such a vehicle is for expressing thought, its
ideographic script constitutes a great obstacle to general
acquisition, and the Japanese soon applied themselves to minimizing
the difficulty by substituting a phonetic system. Analysis showed that
all the required sounds could be conveyed with 47 syllables, and
having selected the ideographs that corresponded to those sounds, they
reduced them, first, to forms called _hiragana_, and, secondly, to
still more simplified forms called _katakana_.
Such, in brief, is the story of the Japanese language. When we come to
dissect it, we find several striking characteristics. First, the
construction is unlike that of any European tongue: all qualifiers
precede the words they qualify, except prepositions which become
postpositions. Thus instead of saying "the house of Mr Smith is in
that street," a Japanese says "Smith Mr of house that street in is."
Then there is no relative pronoun, and the resulting complication
seems great to an English-speaking person, as the following
illustration will show:--
JAPANESE. ENGLISH.
_Zenaku wo saiban suru tame no_ The unique standard which is used
Virtue vice-judging sake of for judging virtue or vice is
_mochiitaru yuitsu no hyojun wa_ benevolent conduct solely.
used unique standard
_jiai no koi tada_
benevolence of conduct only
_kore nomi._
this alone.
It will be observed that in the above sentence there are two
untranslated words, _wo_ and _wa_. These belong to a group of four
auxiliary particles called _te_ _ni_ _wo_ _ha_ (or _wa_), which serve
to mark the cases of nouns, _te_ (or _de_) being the sign of the
instrumental ablative; _ni_ that of the dative; _wo_ that of the
objective, and _wa_ that of the nominative. These exist in the Korean
language also, but not in any other tongue. There are also polite and
ordinary forms of expression, often so different as to constitute
distinct languages; and there are a number of honorifics which
frequently discharge the duty of pronouns. Another marked peculiarity
is that active agency is never attributed to neuter nouns. A Japanese
does not say "the poison killed him" but "he died on account of the
poison;" nor does he say "the war has caused commodities to
appreciate," but "commodities have appreciated in consequence of the
war." That the language loses much force owing to this limitation
cannot be denied: metaphor and allegory are almost completely
banished.
The difficulties that confront an Occidental who attempts to learn
Japanese are enormous. There are three languages to be acquired:
first, the ordinary colloquial; second, the polite colloquial; and,
third, the written. The ordinary colloquial differs materially from
its polite form, and both are as unlike the written form as modern
Italian is unlike ancient Latin. "Add to this," writes Professor B. H.
Chamberlain, "the necessity of committing to memory two syllabaries,
one of which has many variant forms, and at least two or three
thousand Chinese ideographs, in forms standard and
cursive--ideographs, too, most of which are susceptible of three or
four different readings according to circumstance,--add, further, that
all these kinds of written symbols are apt to be encountered pell mell
on the same page, and the task of mastering Japanese becomes almost
Herculean." In view of all this there is a strong movement in favour
of romanizing the Japanese script: that is to say, abolishing the
ideograph and adopting in its place the Roman alphabet. But while
every one appreciates the magnitude of the relief that would thus be
afforded, there has as yet been little substantial progress. A
language which has been adapted from its infancy to ideographic
transmission cannot easily be fitted to phonetic uses.
_Dictionaries._--F. Brinkley, _An Unabridged Japanese-English
Dictionary_ (Tokyo, 1896); Y. Shimada, _English-Japanese Dictionary_,
(Tokyo, 1897); _Webster's Dictionary, trans. into Japanese_, (Tokyo,
1899); J. H. Gubbins, _Dictionary of Chinese-Japanese Words_ (3
vols., London, 1889); J. C. Hepburn, _Japanese-English and
English-Japanese Dictionary_ (London, 1903); E. M. Satow and I.
Masakata, _English-Japanese Dictionary_ (London, 1904).
_Literature._--From the neighbouring continent the Japanese derived the
art of transmitting ideas to paper. But as to the date of that
acquisition there is doubt. An authenticated work compiled A.D. 720
speaks of historiographers having been appointed to collect local
records for the first time in 403, from which it is to be inferred that
such officials had already existed at the court. There is also a
tradition that some kind of general history was compiled in 620 but
destroyed by fire in 645. At all events, the earliest book now extant
dates from 712. Its origin is described in its preface. When the emperor
Temmu (673-686) ascended the throne, he found that there did not exist
any revised collection of the fragmentary annals of the chief families.
He therefore caused these annals to be collated. There happened to be
among the court ladies one Hiyeda no Are, who was gifted with an
extraordinary memory. Measures were taken to instruct her in the genuine
traditions and the old language of former ages, the intention being to
have the whole ultimately dictated to a competent scribe. But the
emperor died before the project could be consummated, and for
twenty-five years Are's memory remained the sole depository of the
collected annals. Then, under the auspices of the empress Gemmyo, the
original plan was carried out in 712, Yasumaro being the scribe. The
work that resulted is known as the _Kojiki_ (_Record of Ancient
Matters_). It has been accurately translated by Professor B. H.
Chamberlain (_Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan_, vol. x.),
who, in a preface justly regarded by students of Japan as an exegetical
classic, makes the pertinent comment: "Taking the word Altaic in its
usual acceptation, viz. as the generic name of all the languages
belonging to the Manchu, Mongolian, Turkish and Finnish groups, not only
the archaic, but the classical, literature of Japan carries us back
several centuries beyond the earliest extant documents of any other
Altaic tongue." By the term "archaic" is to be understood the pure
Japanese language of earliest times, and by the term "classical" the
quasi-Chinese language which came into use for literary purposes when
Japan appropriated the civilization of her great neighbours. The
_Kojiki_ is written in the archaic form: that is to say, the language is
the language of old Japan, the script, although ideographic, is used
phonetically only, and the case-indicators are represented by Chinese
characters having the same sounds. It is a species of saga, setting
forth not only the heavenly beginnings of the Japanese race, but also
the story of creation, the succession of the various sovereigns and the
salient events of their reigns, the whole interspersed with songs, many
of which may be attributed to the 6th century, while some doubtless date
from the fourth or even the third. This _Kojiki_ marks the parting of
the ways. Already by the time of its compilation the influence of
Chinese civilization and Chinese literature had prevailed so greatly in
Japan that the next authentic work, composed only eight years later, was
completely Chinese in style and embodied Chinese traditions and Chinese
philosophical doctrines, not distinguishing them from their Japanese
context. This volume was called the _Nihongi_ (_Chronicles of Japan_).
It may be said to have wholly supplanted its predecessor in popular
favour, for the classic style--that is to say, the Chinese--had now come
to be regarded as the only erudite script. The _Chronicles_ re-traversed
much of the ground already gone over by the _Record_, preserving many of
the songs in occasionally changed form, omitting some portions,
supplementing others, and imparting to the whole such an exotic
character as almost to disqualify the work for a place in Japanese
literature. Yet this was the style which thenceforth prevailed among the
litterati of Japan. "Standard Chinese soon became easier to understand
than archaic Japanese, as the former alone was taught in the schools,
and the native language changed rapidly during the century or two that
followed the diffusion of the foreign tongue and civilization"
(CHAMBERLAIN). The neglect into which the _Kojiki_ fell lasted until the
17th century. Almost simultaneously with its appearance in type (1644)
and its consequent accessibility, there arose a galaxy of scholars
under whose influence the archaic style and the ancient Japanese
traditions entered a period of renaissance. The story of this period and
of its products has been admirably told by Sir Ernest Satow ("Revival of
Pure Shinto," _Proceedings of the Asiatic Society of Japan_, vol. iii.),
whose essay, together with Professor Chamberlain's _Kojiki_, the same
author's introduction to _The Classical Poetry of the Japanese_, and Mr
W. G. Aston's _Nihongi_, are essential to every student of Japanese
literature. To understand this 17th century renaissance, knowledge of
one fact is necessary, namely, that about the year A. D. 810, a
celebrated Buddhist priest, Kukai, who had spent several years studying
in China, compounded out of Buddhism, Confucianism and Shinto a system
of doctrine called _Ryobu Shinto_ (Dual Shinto), the prominent tenet of
which was that the Shinto deities were merely transmigrations of
Buddhist divinities. By this device Japanese conservatism was
effectually conciliated, and Buddhism became in fact the creed of the
nation, its positive and practical precepts entirely eclipsing the
agnostic intuitionalism of Shinto. Against this hybrid faith several
Japanese scholars arrayed themselves in the 17th and 18th centuries, the
greatest of them being Mabuchi and Motoori. The latter's _magnum opus_,
_Kojikiden_ (_Exposition of the Record of Ancient Matters_), declared by
Chamberlain to be "perhaps the most admirable work of which Japanese
erudition can boast," consists of 44 large volumes, devoted to
elucidating the _Kojiki_ and resuscitating the Shinto cult as it existed
in the earliest days. This great work of reconstruction was only one
feature of the literary activity which marked the 17th and 18th
centuries, when, under Tokugawa rule, the blessing of long-unknown peace
came to the nation. Iyeyasu himself devoted the last years of his life
to collecting ancient manuscripts. In his country retreat at Shizuoka he
formed one of the richest libraries ever brought together in Japan, and
by will he bequeathed the Japanese section of it to his eighth son, the
feudal chief of Owari, and the Chinese section to his ninth son, the
prince of Kishu, with the result that under the former feudatory's
auspices two works of considerable merit were produced treating of
ancient ceremonials and supplementing the _Nihongi_. Much more
memorable, however, was a library formed by Iyeyasu's grandson the
feudal chief of Mito (1662-1700), who not only collected a vast quantity
of books hitherto scattered among Shinto and Buddhist monasteries and
private houses, but also employed a number of scholars to compile a
history unprecedented in magnitude, the _Dai-Nihon-shi_. It consisted of
240 volumes, and it became at once the standard in its own branch of
literature. Still more comprehensive was a book emanating from the same
source and treating of court ceremonials. It ran to more than 500
volumes, and the emperor honoured the work by bestowing on it the title
_Reigi Ruiten_ (_Rules of Ceremonials_). These compilations together
with the _Nihon Gwaishi_ (_History of Japan Outside the Court_), written
by Rai Sanyo and published in 1827, constituted the chief sources of
historical knowledge before the Meiji era. Rai Sanyo devoted twenty
years to the preparation of his 22 volumes and took his materials from
259 Japanese and Chinese works. But neither he nor his predecessors
recognized in history anything more than a vehicle for recording the
mere sequence of events and their relations, together with some account
of the personages concerned. Their volumes make profoundly dry reading.
Vicarious interest, however, attaches to the productions of the Mito
School on account of the political influence they exercised in
rehabilitating the nation's respect for the throne by unveiling the
picture of an epoch prior to the usurpations of military feudalism. The
struggles of the great rival clans, replete with episodes of the most
tragic and stirring character, inspired quasi-historical narrations of a
more popular character, which often took the form of illuminated
scrolls. But it was not until the Meiji era that history, in the modern
sense of the term, began to be written. During recent times many
students have turned their attention to this branch of literature. Works
of wide scope and clear insight have been produced, and the
Historiographers' section in the Imperial University of Tokyo has been
for several years engaged in collecting and collating materials for a
history which will probably rank with anything of the kind in existence.
Poetry.
In their poetry above everything the Japanese have remained impervious
to alien influences. It owes this conservation to its prosody. Without
rhyme, without variety of metre, without elasticity of dimensions, it
is also without known counterpart. To alter it in any way would be to
deprive it of all distinguishing characteristics. At some remote date
a Japanese maker of songs seems to have discovered that a peculiar and
very fascinating rhythm is produced by lines containing 5 syllables
and 7 syllables alternately. That is Japanese poetry (_uta_ or
_tanka_). There are generally five lines: the first and third
consisting of 5 syllables, the second, fourth and fifth of 7, making a
total of 31 in all. The number of lines is not compulsory: sometimes
they may reach to thirty, forty or even more, but the alternation of 5
and 7 syllables is compulsory. The most attenuated form of all is the
_hokku_ (or _haikai_) which consists of only three lines, namely, 17
syllables. Necessarily the ideas embodied in such a narrow vehicle
must be fragmentary. Thus it results that Japanese poems are, for the
most part, impressionist; they suggest a great deal more than they
actually express. Here is an example:--
Momiji-ha wo \
Kaze ni makasete | More fleeting than the glint of
Miru yori mo > withered leaf wind-blown, the
Hakanaki mono wa | thing called life.
Inochi nari keri /
There is no English metre with this peculiar cadence.
It is not to be inferred that the writers of Japan, enamoured as they
were of Chinese ideographs and Chinese style, deliberately excluded
everything Chinese from the realm of poetry. On the contrary, many of
them took pleasure in composing versicles to which Chinese words were
admitted and which showed something of the "parallelism" peculiar to
Chinese poetry, since the first ideograph of the last line was
required to be identical with the final ideograph. But rhyme was not
attempted, and the syllabic metre of Japan was preserved, the
alternation of 5 and 7 being, however, dispensed with. Such couplets
were called _shi_ to distinguish them from the pure Japanese _uta_ or
_tanka_. The two greatest masters of Japanese poetry were Hitomaro and
Akahito, both of the early 8th century, and next to them stands
Tsurayuki, who flourished at the beginning of the 10th century, and is
not supposed to have transmitted his mantle to any successor. The
choicest productions of the former two with those of many other poets
were brought together in 756 and embodied in a book called the
_Manyoshu (Collection of a Myriad Leaves)_. The volume remained unique
until the beginning of the 10th century, when (A.D. 905) Tsurayuki and
three coadjutors compiled the _Kokinshu (Collection of Odes Ancient
and Modern)_, the first of twenty-one similar anthologies between the
11th and the 15th centuries, which constitute the _Niju-ichi Dai-shu
(Anthologies of the One-and-Twenty Reigns)_. If to these we add the
_Hyaku-ninshu (Hundred Odes by a Hundred Poets)_ brought together by
Teika Kyo in the 13th century, we have all the classics of Japanese
poetry. For the composition of the _uta_ gradually deteriorated from
the end of the 9th century, when a game called _uta-awase_ became a
fashionable pastime, and aristocratic men and women tried to string
together versicles of 31 syllables, careful of the form and careless
of the thought. The _uta-awase_, in its later developments, may not
unjustly be compared to the Occidental game of _bouts-rimes_. The
poetry of the nation remained immovable in the ancient groove until
very modern times, when, either by direct access to the originals or
through the medium of very defective translations, the nation became
acquainted with the masters of Occidental song. A small coterie of
authors, headed by Professor Toyama, then attempted to revolutionize
Japanese poetry by recasting it on European lines. But the project
failed signally, and indeed it may well be doubted whether the
Japanese language can be adapted to such uses.
Influence of Women in Japanese Literature.
It was under the auspices of an empress (Suiko) that the first
historical manuscript is said to have been compiled in 620. It was
under the auspices of an empress (Gemmyo) that the _Record of Ancient
Matters_ was transcribed (712) from the lips of a court lady. And it
was under the auspices of an empress that the _Chronicles of Japan_
were composed (720). To women, indeed, from the 8th century onwards
may be said to have been entrusted the guardianship of the pure
Japanese language, the classical, or Chinese, form being adopted by
men. The distinction continued throughout the ages. To this day the
spoken language of Japanese women is appreciably simpler and softer
than that of the men, and to this day while the educated woman uses
the hiragana syllabary in writing, eschews Chinese words and rarely
pens an ideograph, the educated man employs the ideograph entirely,
and translates his thoughts as far as possible into the mispronounced
Chinese words without recourse to which it would be impossible for him
to discuss any scientific subject, or even to refer to the details of
his daily business. Japan was thus enriched with two works of very
high merit, the _Genji Monogatari_ (c. 1004) and the _Makura no Zoshi_
(about the same date). The former, by Murasaki no Shikibu--probably a
pseudonym--was the first novel composed in Japan. Before her time
there had been many _monogatari_ (narratives), but all consisted
merely of short stories, mythical or quasi-historical, whereas
Murasaki no Shikibu did for Japan what Fielding and Richardson did for
England. Her work was "a prose epic of real life," the life of her
hero, _Genji_. Her language is graceful and natural, her sentiments
are refined and sober; and, as Mr Aston well says, her "story flows on
easily from one scene of real life to another, giving us a varied and
minutely detailed picture of life and society in Kioto, such as we
possess for no other country at the same period." The _Makura no Zoshi
(Pillow Sketches)_, like the _Genji Monogatari_, was by a noble
lady--Sei Shonagon--but it is simply a record of daily events and
fugitive thoughts, though not in the form of a diary. The book is one
of the most natural and unaffected compositions ever written.
Undesignedly it conveys a wonderfully realistic picture of
aristocratic life and social ethics in Kioto at the beginning of the
11th century. "If we compare it with anything that Europe has to show
at this period, it must be admitted that it is indeed a remarkable
work. What a revelation it would be if we had the court life of
Alfred's or Canute's reign depicted to us in a similar way?"
The Dark Age.
The period from the early part of the 14th century to the opening of
the 17th is generally regarded as the dark age of Japanese literature.
The constant wars of the time left their impress upon everything. To
them is due the fact that the two principal works compiled during this
epoch were, one political, the other quasi-historical. In the former,
_Jinkoshoto-ki (History of the True Succession of the Divine
Monarchs)_, Kitabatake Chikafusa (1340) undertook to prove that of the
two sovereigns then disputing for supremacy in Japan, Go-Daigo was the
rightful monarch; in the latter, _Taihei-ki (History of Great Peace)_,
Kojima (1370) devoted his pages to describing the events of
contemporaneous history. Neither work can be said to possess signal
literary merit, but both had memorable consequences. For the
_Jinkoshoto-ki_, by its strong advocacy of the mikado's administrative
rights as against the usurpations of military feudalism, may be said
to have sowed the seeds of Japan's modern polity; and the _Taihei-ki_,
by its erudite diction, skilful rhetoric, simplification of old
grammatical constructions and copious interpolation of Chinese words,
furnished a model for many imitators and laid the foundations of
Japan's 19th-century style. The _Taihei-ki_ produced another notable
effect; it inspired public readers who soon developed into historical
_raconteurs_; a class of professionals who are almost as much in vogue
to-day as they were 500 years ago. Belonging to about the same period
as the _Jinkoshoto-ki_, another classic occupies a leading place in
Japanese esteem. It is the _Tsure-zure-gusa (Materials for Dispelling
Ennui)_, by Kenko-boshi, described by Mr Aston as "one of the most
delightful oases in Japanese literature; a collection of short
sketches, anecdotes and essays on all imaginable subjects, something
in the manner of Selden's _Table Talk_."
The Drama.
The so-called dark age of Japanese literature was not entirely
unproductive: it gave the drama (_No_) to Japan. Tradition ascribes
the origin of the drama to a religious dance of a pantomimic
character, called _Kagura_ and associated with Shinto ceremonials. The
No, however, owed its development mainly to Buddhist influence. During
the medieval era of internecine strife the Buddhist priests were the
sole depositaries of literary talent, and seeing that, from the close
of the 14th century, the Shinto mime (Kagura) was largely employed by
the military class to invoke or acknowledge the assistance of the
gods, the monks of Buddha set themselves to compose librettos for this
mime, and the performance, thus modified, received the name of No.
Briefly speaking, the No was a dance of the most stately character,
adapted to the incidents of dramas "which embrace within their scope a
world of legendary lore, of quaint fancies and of religious
sentiment." Their motives were chiefly confined to such themes as the
law of retribution to which all human beings are subjected, the
transitoriness of life and the advisability of shaking off from one's
feet the dust of this sinful world. But some were of a purely martial
nature. This difference is probably explained by the fact that the
idea of thus modifying the Kagura had its origin in musical
recitations from the semi-romantic semi-historical narratives of the
14th century. Such recitations were given by itinerant Bonzes, and it
is easy to understand the connexion between them and the No. Very soon
the No came to occupy in the estimation of the military class a
position similar to that held by the _tanka_ as a literary pursuit,
and the _gagaku_ as a musical, in the Imperial court. All the great
aristocrats not only patronized the No but were themselves ready to
take part in it. Costumes of the utmost magnificence were worn, and
the chiselling of masks for the use of the performers occupied scores
of artists and ranked as a high glyptic accomplishment. There are 335
classical dramas of this kind in a compendium called the _Yokyoka
Tsuge_, and many of them are inseparably connected with the names of
Kwanami Kiyotsugu (1406) and his son Motokiyo (1455), who are counted
the fathers of the art. For a moment, when the tide of Western
civilization swept over Japan, the No seemed likely to be permanently
submerged. But the renaissance of nationalism (_kokusui hoson_) saved
the venerable drama, and owing to the exertions of Prince Iwakura, the
artist Hosho Kuro and Umewaka Minoru, it stands as high as ever in
popular favour. Concerning the five schools into which the No is
divided, their characteristics and their differences--these are
matters of interest to the initiated alone.
The Farce.
The Japanese are essentially a laughter-loving people. They are highly
susceptible of tragic emotions, but they turn gladly to the brighter
phases of life. Hence a need was soon felt of something to dispel the
pessimism of the No, and that something took the form of comedies
played in the interludes of the No and called _Kyogen_ (mad words).
The Kyogen needs no elaborate description: it is a pure farce, never
immodest or vulgar.
The Theatre.
The classic drama No and its companion the Kyogen had two children,
the _Joruri_ and the _Kabuki_. They were born at the close of the 16th
century and they owed their origin to the growing influence of the
commercial class, who asserted a right to be amused but were excluded
from enjoyment of the aristocratic No and the Kyogen. The Joruri is a
dramatic ballad, sung or recited to the accompaniment of the _samisen_
and in unison with the movements of puppets. It came into existence in
Kioto and was thence transferred to Yedo (Tokyo), where the greatest
of Japanese playwrights, Chikamatsu Monzaemon (1653-1724), and a
musician of exceptional talent, Takemoto Gidayu, collaborated to
render this puppet drama a highly popular entertainment. It flourished
for nearly 200 years in Yedo, and is still occasionally performed in
Osaka. Like the No the Joruri dealt always with sombre themes, and was
supplemented by the Kabuki (farce). This last owed its inception to a
priestess who, having abandoned her holy vocation at the call of love,
espoused dancing as a means of livelihood and trained a number of
girls for the purpose. The law presently interdicted these female
comedians (_onna-kabuki_) in the interests of public morality, and
they were succeeded by "boy comedians" (_wakashu-kabuki_) who
simulated women's ways and were vetoed in their turn, giving place to
_yaro-kabuki_ (comedians with queues). Gradually the Kabuki developed
the features of a genuine theatre; the actor and the playwright were
discriminated, and, the performances taking the form of domestic drama
(_Wagoto_ and _Sewamono_) or historical drama (_Aragoto_ or
_Jidaimono_), actors of perpetual fame sprang up, as Sakata Tojuro and
Ichikawa Danjinro (1660-1704). Mimetic posture-dances (_Shosagoto_)
were always introduced as interludes; past and present
indiscriminately contributed to the playwright's subjects; realism was
carried to extremes; a revolving stage and all mechanical accessories
were supplied; female parts were invariably taken by males, who
attained almost incredible skill in these simulations; a chorus--relic
of the No--chanted expositions of profound sentiments or thrilling
incidents; and histrionic talent of the very highest order was often
displayed. But the _Kabuki-za_ and its _yakusha_ (actors) remained
always a plebeian institution. No _samurai_ frequented the former or
associated with the latter. With the introduction of Western
civilization in modern times, however, the theatre ceased to be
tabooed by the aristocracy. Men and women of all ranks began to visit
it; the emperor himself consented (1887) to witness a performance by
the great stars of the stage at the private residence of Marquis
Inouye; a dramatic reform association was organized by a number of
prominent noblemen and scholars; drastic efforts were made to purge
the old historical dramas of anachronisms and inconsistencies, and at
length a theatre (the _Yuraku-za_) was built on purely European lines,
where instead of sitting from morning to night witnessing one
long-drawn-out drama with interludes of whole farces, a visitor may
devote only a few evening-hours to the pastime. The Shosagoto has not
been abolished, nor is there any reason why it should be. It has
graces and beauties of its own. There remains to be noted the
incursion of amateurs into the histrionic realm. In former times the
actor's profession was absolutely exclusive in Japan. Children were
trained to wear their fathers' mantles, and the idea that a
non-professional could tread the hallowed ground of the stage did not
enter any imagination. But with the advent of the new regimen in Meiji
days there arose a desire for social plays depicting the life of the
modern generation, and as these "croppy dramas" (_zampatsu-mono_)--so
called in allusion to the European method of cutting the hair
close--were not included in the repertoire of the orthodox theatre,
amateur troupes (known as _soshi-yakusha_) were organized to fill the
void. Even Shakespeare has been played by these amateurs, and the
abundant wit of the Japanese is on the way to enrich the stage with
modern farces of unquestionable merit.
Literature of the Tokugawa Era.
The Tokugawa era (1603-1867), which popularized the drama, had other
memorable effects upon Japanese literature. Yedo, the shogun's
capital, displaced Kioto as the centre of literary activity. Its
population of more than a million, including all sorts and conditions
of men--notably wealthy merchants and mechanics--constituted a new
audience to which authors had to address themselves; and an
unparalleled development of mental activity necessitated wholesale
drafts upon the Chinese vocabulary. To this may be attributed the
appearance of a group of men known as _kangakusha_ (Chinese scholars).
The most celebrated among them were: Fujiwara Seikwa (1560-1619), who
introduced his countrymen to the philosophy of Chu-Hi; Hayashi Rasan
(1583-1657), who wrote 170 treatises on scholastic and moral subjects;
Kaibara Ekken (1630-1714), teacher of a fine system of ethics; Arai
Hakuseki (1657-1725), historian, philosopher, statesman and financier:
and Muro Kiuso, the second great exponent of Chu-Hi's philosophy.
"Japan owes a profound debt of gratitude to the _kangakusha_ of that
time. For their day and country they were emphatically the salt of
earth." But naturally not all were believers in the same philosophy.
The fervour of the followers of Chu-Hi (the orthodox school) could not
fail to provoke opposition. Thus some arose who declared allegiance to
the idealistic intuitionalism of Wang Yang-ming, and others advocated
direct study of the works of Confucius and Mencius. Connected with
this rejection of Chu-Hi were such eminent names as those of Ito
Junsai (1627-1718), Ito Togai (1617-1736), Ogyu Sorai (1666-1728) and
Dazai Shuntai (1679-1747). These Chinese scholars made no secret of
their contempt for Buddhism, and in their turn they were held in
aversion by the Buddhists and the Japanese scholars (_wagakusha_), so
that the second half of the 18th century was a time of perpetual
wrangling and controversy. The worshippers at the shrine of Chinese
philosophy evoked a reactionary spirit of nationalism, just as the
excessive worship of Occidental civilization was destined to do in the
19th century.
Apart from philosophical researches and the development of the drama,
as above related, the Tokugawa era is remarkable for folk-lore, moral
discourses, fiction and a peculiar form of poetry. This last does not
demand much attention. Its principal variety is the _haikai_, which is
nothing more than a _tanka_ shorn of its concluding fourteen
syllables, and therefore virtually identical with the _hokku_, already
described. The name of Basho is immemorially associated with this kind
of lilliputian versicle, which reached the extreme of impressionism. A
more important addition to Japanese literature was made in the 17th
century in the form of children's tales (_Otogibanashi_). They are
charmingly simple and graceful, and they have been rendered into
English again and again since the beginning of the Meiji era. But
whether they are to be regarded as genuine folk-lore or merely as a
branch of the fiction of the age when they first appeared in book
form, remains uncertain. Of fiction proper there was an abundance. The
pioneer of this kind of literature is considered to have been Saikaku
(1641-1693), who wrote sketches of everyday life as he saw it, short
tales of some merit and novels which deal with the most disreputable
phases of human existence. His notable successors in the same line
were two men of Kioto, named Jisho (1675-1745) and Kiseki (1666-1716).
They had their own publishing house, and its name _Hachimonji-ya_
(figure-of-eight store) came to be indelibly associated with this kind
of literature. But these men did little more than pave the way for the
true romantic novel, which first took shape under the hand of Santo
Kyoden (1761-1816), and culminated in the works of Bakin, Tanehiko,
Samba, Ikku, Shunsui and their successors. Of nearly all the books in
this class it may be said that they deal largely in sensationalism and
pornography, though it does not follow that their language is either
coarse or licentious. The life of the virtuous Japanese woman being
essentially uneventful, these romancists not unnaturally sought their
female types among dancing-girls and courtesans. The books were
profusely illustrated with woodcuts and chromoxylographs from pictures
of the _ukiyoe_ masters, who, like the playwright, the actor and the
romancer, ministered to the pleasure of the "man in the street." Brief
mention must also be made of two other kinds of books belonging to
this epoch; namely, the _Shingaku-sho_ (ethical essays) and the
_Jitsuroku-mono_ (true records). The latter were often little more
than historical novels founded on facts; and the former, though
nominally intended to engraft the doctrines of Buddhism and Shinto
upon the philosophy of China, were really of rationalistic tendency.
The Meiji Era.
Although the incursions made into Chinese philosophy and the revival
of Japanese traditions during the Tokugawa Epoch contributed
materially to the overthrow of feudalism and the restoration of the
Throne's administrative power, the immediate tendency of the last two
events was to divert the nation's attention wholly from the study of
either Confucianism or the _Record of Ancient Matters_. A universal
thirst set in for Occidental science and literature, so that students
occupied themselves everywhere with readers and grammars modelled on
European lines rather than with the Analects or the _Kojiki_. English
at once became the language of learning. Thus the three colleges which
formed the nucleus of the Imperial University of Tokyo were presided
over by a graduate of Michigan College (Professor Toyama), a member of
the English bar (Professor Hozumi) and a graduate of Cambridge (Baron
Kikuchi). If Japan was eminently fortunate in the men who directed her
political career at that time, she was equally favoured in those that
presided over her literary culture. Fukuzawa Yukichi, founder of the
Keio Gijuku, now one of Japan's four universities, did more than any
of his contemporaries by writing and speaking to spread a knowledge of
the West, its ways and its thoughts, and Nakamura Keiu laboured in the
same cause by translating Smiles's _Self-help_ and Mill's
_Representative Government_. A universal geography (by Uchida Masao);
a history of nations (by Mitsukuri Rinsho); a translation of
_Chambers's Encyclopaedia_ by the department of education; Japanese
renderings of Herbert Spencer and of Guizot and Buckle--all these made
their appearance during the first fourteen years of the epoch. The
influence of politics may be strongly traced in the literature of that
time, for the first romances produced by the new school were all of a
political character: _Keikoku Bidan_ (_Model for Statesmen_, with
Epaminondas for hero) by Yano Fumio; _Setchubai (Plum-blossoms in
snow)_ and _Kwakwan-o (Nightingale Among Flowers)_ by Suyehiro. This
idea of subserving literature to political ends is said to have been
suggested by Nakae Tokusuke's translation of Rousseau's _Contrat
social_. The year 1882 saw _Julius Caesar_ in a Japanese dress. The
translator was Tsubouchi Shoyo, one of the greatest writers of the
Meiji era. His _Shosetsu Shinsui (Essentials of a Novel)_ was an
eloquent plea for realism as contrasted with the artificiality of the
characters depicted by Bakin, and his own works illustrative of this
theory took the public by storm. He also brought out the first
literary periodical published in Japan, namely, the _Waseda Bungaku_,
so called because Tsubouchi was professor of literature in the Waseda
University, an institution founded by Count Okuma, whose name cannot
be omitted from any history of Meiji literature, not as an author but
as a patron. As illustrating the rapid development of familiarity with
foreign authors, a Japanese retrospect of the Meiji era notes that
whereas Macaulay's _Essays_ were in the curriculum of the Imperial
University in 1881-1882, they were studied, five or six years later,
in secondary schools, and pupils of the latter were able to read with
understanding the works of Goldsmith, Tennyson and Thackeray. Up to
Tsubouchi's time the Meiji literature was all in the literary
language, but there was then formed a society calling itself
_Kenyusha_, some of whose associates--as Bimyosai--used the colloquial
language in their works, while others--as Koyo, Rohan, &c.--went back
to the classical diction of the Genroku era (1655-1703). Rohan is one
of the most renowned of Japan's modern authors, and some of his
historical romances have had wide vogue. Meanwhile the business of
translating went on apace. Great numbers of European and American
authors were rendered into Japanese--Calderon, Lytton, Disraeli,
Byron, Shakespeare, Milton, Turgueniev, Carlyle, Daudet, Emerson,
Hugo, Heine, De Quincey, Dickens, Korner, Goethe--their name is legion
and their influence upon Japanese literature is conspicuous. In 1888 a
special course of German literature was inaugurated at the Imperial
University, and with it is associated the name of Mori Ogai, Japan's
most faithful interpreter of German thought and speech. Virtually
every literary magnate of the Occident has found one or more
interpreters in modern Japan. Accurate reviewers of the era have
divided it into periods of two or three years each, according to the
various groups of foreign authors that were in vogue, and every year
sees a large addition to the number of Japanese who study the
masterpieces of Western literature in the original.
Newspapers and Periodicals.
Newspapers, as the term is understood in the West, did not exist in
old Japan, though block-printed leaflets were occasionally issued to
describe some specially stirring event. Yet the Japanese were not
entirely unacquainted with journalism. During the last decades of the
factory at Deshima the Dutch traders made it a yearly custom to submit
to the governor of Nagasaki selected extracts from newspapers arriving
from Batavia, and these extracts, having been translated into
Japanese, were forwarded to the court in Yedo together with their
originals. To such compilations the name of _Oranda fusetsu-sho (Dutch
Reports)_ was given. Immediately after the conclusion of the first
treaty in 1857, the Yedo authorities instructed the office for
studying foreign books _(Bunsho torishirabe-dokoro)_ to translate
excerpts from European and American journals. Occasionally these
translations were copied for circulation among officials, but the bulk
of the people knew nothing of them. Thus the first real newspaper did
not see the light until 1861, when a Yedo publisher brought out the
_Batavia News_, a compilation of items from foreign newspapers,
printed on Japanese paper from wooden blocks. Entirely devoid of local
interest, this journal did not survive for more than a few months. It
was followed, in 1864, by the _Shimbun-shi (News)_, which was
published in Yokohama, with Kishida Ginko for editor and John Hiko for
sub-editor. The latter had been cast away, many years previously, on
the coast of the United States and had become a naturalized American
citizen. He retained a knowledge of spoken Japanese, but the
ideographic script was a sealed book to him, and his editorial part
was limited to oral translations from American journals which the
editor committed to writing. The _Shimbun-shi_ essayed to collect
domestic news as well as foreign. It was published twice a month and
might possibly have created a demand for its wares had not the editor
and sub-editor left for America after the issue of the 10th number.
The example, however, had now been set. During the three years that
separated the death of the _Shimbun-shi_ from the birth of the Meiji
era (October 1867) no less than ten quasi-journals made their
appearance. They were in fact nothing better than inferior magazines,
printed from wood-blocks, issued weekly or monthly, and giving little
evidence of enterprise or intellect, though connected with them were
the names of men destined to become famous in the world of literature,
as Fukuchi Genichiro, Tsuji Shinji (afterwards Baron Tsuji) and Suzuki
Yuichi. These publications attracted little interest and exercised no
influence. Journalism was regarded as a mere pastime. The first
evidence of its potentialities was furnished by the _Koko Shimbun (The
World)_ under the editorship of Fukuchi Genichiro and Sasano Dempei.
To many Japanese observers it seemed that the restoration of 1867 had
merely transferred the administrative authority from the Tokugawa
Shogun to the clans of Satsuma and Choshu. The _Koko Shimbun_ severely
attacked the two clans as specious usurpers. It was not in the mood of
Japanese officialdom at that time to brook such assaults. The _Koko
Shimbun_ was suppressed; Fukuchi was thrust into prison, and all
journals or periodicals except those having official sanction were
vetoed. At the beginning of 1868 only two newspapers remained in the
field. Very soon, however, the enlightened makers of modern Japan
appreciated the importance of journalism, and in 1871 the _Shimbun
Zasshi (News Periodical)_ was started under the auspices of the
illustrious Kido. Shortly afterwards there appeared in
Yokohama--whence it was subsequently transferred to Tokyo--the
_Mainichi Shimbun (Daily News)_, the first veritable daily and also
the first journal printed with movable types and foreign presses. Its
editors were Numa Morikage, Shimada Saburo and Koizuka Ryu, all
destined to become celebrated not only in the field of journalism but
also in that of politics. It has often been said of the Japanese that
they are slow in forming a decision but very quick to act upon it.
This was illustrated in the case of journalism. In 1870 the country
possessed only two quasi-journals, both under official auspices. In
1875 it possessed over 100 periodicals and daily newspapers. The most
conspicuous were the _Nichi Nichi Shimbun (Daily News)_, the _Yubin
Hochi (Postal Intelligence)_, the _Choya Shimbun (Government and
People News)_, the _Akebono Shimbun (The Dawn)_, and the _Mainichi
Shimbun (Daily News)_. These were called "the five great journals."
The _Nichi Nichi Shimbun_ had an editor of conspicuous literary
ability in Fukuchi Genichiro, and the _Hochi Shimbun_, its chief
rival, received assistance from such men as Yano Fumio, Fujita
Makichi, Inukai Ki and Minoura Katsundo. Japan had not yet any
political parties, but the ferment that preceded their birth was
abroad. The newspaper press being almost entirely in the hands of men
whose interests suggested wider opening of the door to official
preferment, nearly all editorial pens were directed against the
government. So strenuous did this campaign become that, in 1875, a
press law was enacted empowering the minister of home affairs and the
police to suspend or suppress a journal and to fine or imprison its
editor without public trial. Many suffered under this law, but the
ultimate effect was to invest the press with new popularity, and very
soon the newspapers conceived a device which effectually protected
their literary staff, for they employed "dummy editors" whose sole
function was to go to prison in lieu of the true editor.
Japanese journalistic writing in these early years of Meiji was marred
by extreme and pedantic classicism. There had not yet been any real
escape from the tradition which assigned the crown of scholarship to
whatever author drew most largely upon the resources of the Chinese
language and learning. The example set by the Imperial court, and
still set by it, did not tend to correct this style. The sovereign,
whether speaking by rescript or by ordinance, never addressed the bulk
of his subjects. His words were taken from sources so classical as to
be intelligible to only the highly educated minority. The newspapers
sacrificed their audience to their erudition and preferred classicism
to circulation. Their columns were thus a sealed book to the whole of
the lower middle classes and to the entire female population. The
_Yomiuri Shimbun (Buy and Read News)_ was the first to break away from
this pernicious fashion. Established in 1875, it adopted a style
midway between the classical and the colloquial, and it appended the
syllabic characters to each ideograph, so that its columns became
intelligible to every reader of ordinary education. It was followed by
the _Yeiri Shimbun (Pictorial Newspaper)_, the first to insert
illustrations and to publish _feuilleton_ romances. Both of these
journals devoted space to social news, a radical departure from the
austere restrictions observed by their aristocratic contemporaries.
Era of Political Parties.
The year 1881 saw the nation divided into political parties and within
measured distance of constitutional government. Thenceforth the great
majority of the newspapers and periodicals ranged themselves under the
flag of this or that party. An era of embittered polemics ensued. The
journals, while fighting continuously against each other's principles,
agreed in attacking the ministry, and the latter found it necessary to
establish organs of its own which preached the German system of state
autocracy. Editors seemed to be incapable of rising above the dead
level of political strife, and their utterances were not relieved even
by a semblance of fairness. Readers turned away in disgust, and
journal after journal passed out of existence. The situation was saved
by a newspaper which from the outset of its career obeyed the best
canons of journalism. Born in 1882, the _Jiji Shimpo (Times)_ enjoyed
the immense advantage of having its policy controlled by one of the
greatest thinkers of modern Japan, Fukuzawa Yukichi. Its basic
principle was liberty of the individual, liberty of the family and
liberty of the nation; it was always found on the side of broad-minded
justice, and it derived its materials from economic, social and
scientific sources. Other newspapers of greatly improved character
followed the _Jiji Shimpo_, especially notable among them being the
_Kokumin Shimbun_.
Commercial Journalism.
In the meanwhile Osaka, always pioneer in matters of commercial
enterprise, had set the example of applying the force of capital to
journalistic development. Tokyo journals were all on a literary or
political basis, but the _Osaka Asahi Shimbun (Osaka Rising Sun News)_
was purely a business undertaking. Its proprietor, Maruyama Ryuhei,
spared no expense to obtain news from all quarters of the world, and
for the first time the Japanese public learned what stores of
information may be found in the columns of a really enterprising
journal. Very soon the Asahi had a keen competitor in the _Osaka
Mainichi Shimbun_ (_Osaka Daily News_) and these papers ultimately
crushed all rivals in Osaka. In 1888 Maruyama established another
_Asahi_ in Tokyo, and thither he was quickly followed by his Osaka
rival, which in Tokyo took the name of _Mainichi Dempo_ (_Daily
Telegraph_). These two newspapers now stand alone as purveyors of
copious telegraphic news, and in the next rank, not greatly lower,
comes the _Jiji Shimpo_.
With the opening of the diet in 1890, politics again obtruded
themselves into newspaper columns, but as practical living issues now
occupied attention, readers were no longer wearied by the abstract
homilies of former days. Moreover, freedom of the press was at length
secured. Already (1887) the government had voluntarily made a great
step in advance by divesting itself of the right to imprison or fine
editors by executive order. But it reserved the power of suppressing
or suspending a newspaper, and against that reservation a majority of
the lower house voted, session after session, only to see the bill
rejected by the peers, who shared the government's opinion that to
grant a larger measure of liberty would certainly encourage licence.
Not until 1897 was this opposition fully overcome. A new law, passed
by both houses and confirmed by the emperor, took from the executive
all power over journals, except in cases of lese majeste, and nothing
now remains of the former arbitrary system except that any periodical
having a political complexion is required to deposit security varying
from 175 to 1000 yen. The result has falsified all sinister
forebodings. A much more moderate tone pervades the writings of the
press since restrictions were entirely removed, and although there are
now 1775 journals and periodicals published throughout the empire,
with a total annual circulation of some 700 million copies,
intemperance of language, such as in former times would have provoked
official interference, is practically unknown to-day. Moreover, the
best Japanese editors have caught with remarkable aptitude the spirit
of modern journalism. But a few years ago they used to compile
laborious essays, in which the inspiration was drawn from Occidental
textbooks, and the alien character of the source was hidden under a
veneer of Chinese aphorisms. To-day they write terse, succinct,
closely-reasoned articles, seldom diffuse, often witty; and generally
free from extravagance of thought or diction. Incidentally they are
hastening the assimilation of the written and the spoken languages
(_genbun itchi_) which may possibly prelude a still greater reform,
abolition of the ideographic script. Yet, with few exceptions, the
profession of journalism is not remunerative. Very low rates of
subscription, and almost prohibitory charges for advertising, are
chiefly to blame.[1] The vicissitudes of the enterprise may be
gathered from the fact that, whereas 2767 journals and periodicals
were started between 1889 and 1894 (inclusive), no less than 2465
ceased publishing. The largest circulation recorded in 1908 was about
150,000 copies daily, and the honour of attaining that exceptional
figure belonged to the _Osaka Asahi Shimbun_. (F. By.)
IV.--JAPANESE ART
Pictorial Art.
_Painting and Engraving._--In Japanese art the impressionist element is
predominant. Pictures, as the term is understood in Europe, can scarcely
be said to have existed at any time in Japan. The artist did not depict
emotion: he depicted the subjects that produce emotion. Therefore he
took his motives from nature rather than from history; or, if he
borrowed from the latter, what he selected was a scene, not the pains or
the passions of its actors. Moreover, he never exhausted his subject,
but was always careful to leave a wide margin for the imagination of the
spectator. This latter consideration sometimes impelled him to represent
things which, to European eyes, seem trivial or insignificant, but which
really convey hints of deep significance. In short, Japanese pictures
are like Japanese poetry: they do not supply thought but only awaken it.
Often their methods show conventionalism, but it is conventionalism so
perfect and free in its allurements that nature seems to suggest both
the motive and the treatment. Thus though neither botanically nor
ornithologically correct, their flowers and their birds show a truth to
nature, and a habit of minute observation in the artist, which cannot be
too much admired. Every blade of grass, each leaf and feather, has been
the object of loving and patient study.
It has been rashly assumed by some writers that the Japanese do not
study from nature. All their work is an emphatic protest against this
supposition. It can in fact be shown conclusively that the Japanese have
derived all their fundamental ideas of symmetry, so different from
ours, from a close study of nature and her processes in the attainment
of endless variety. A special feature of their art is that, while often
closely and minutely imitating natural objects, such as birds, flowers
and fishes, the especial objects of their predilection and study, they
frequently combine the facts of external nature with a conventional mode
of treatment better suited to their purpose. During the long
apprenticeship that educated Japanese serve to acquire the power of
writing with the brush the complicated characters borrowed from Chinese,
they unconsciously cultivate the habit of minute observation and the
power of accurate imitation, and with these the delicacy of touch and
freedom of hand which only long practice can give. A hair's-breadth
deviation in a line is fatal to good calligraphy, both among the Chinese
and the Japanese. When they come to use the pencil in drawing, they
already possess accuracy of eye and free command of the brush. Whether a
Japanese art-worker sets himself to copy what he sees before him or to
give play to his fancy in combining what he has seen with some ideal in
his mind, the result shows perfect facility of execution and easy grace
in all the lines.
The beauties of the human form never appealed to the Japanese artist.
Associating the nude solely with the performance of menial tasks, he
deemed it worse than a solecism to transfer such subjects to his canvas,
and thus a wide field of motive was closed to him. On the other hand,
the draped figure received admirable treatment from his brush, and the
naturalistic school of the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries reached a high
level of skill in depicting men, women and children in motion. Nor has
there ever been a Japanese Landseer. Sosen's monkeys and badgers
constitute the one possible exception, but the horses, oxen, deer,
tigers, dogs, bears, foxes and even cats of the best Japanese artists
were ill drawn and badly modelled. In the field of landscape the
Japanese painter fully reached the eminence on which his great Chinese
masters stood. He did not obey the laws of linear perspective as they
are formulated in the Occident, nor did he show cast shadows, but his
aerial perspective and his foreshortening left nothing to be desired. It
has been suggested that he deliberately eschewed chiaroscuro because his
pictures, destined invariably to hang in an alcove, were required to be
equally effective from every aspect and had also to form part of a
decorative scheme. But the more credible explanation is that he merely
followed Chinese example in this matter, as he did also in linear
perspective, accepting without question the curious canon that lines
converge as they approach the spectator.
Decorative Art.
It is in the realm of decorative art that the world has chiefly
benefited by contact with Japan. Her influence is second only to that of
Greece. Most Japanese decorative designs consist of natural objects,
treated sometimes in a more or less conventional manner, but always
distinguished by delicacy of touch, graceful freedom of conception and
delightfully harmonized tints. Perhaps the admiration which the Japanese
artist has won in this field is due not more to his wealth of fancy and
skilful adaptation of natural forms, than to his individuality of
character in treating his subjects. There is complete absence of
uniformity and monotony. Repetition without any variation is abhorrent
to every Japanese. He will not tolerate the stagnation and tedium of a
dull uniformity by mechanical reproduction. His temperament will not let
him endure the labour of always producing the same pattern. Hence the
repetition of two articles exactly like each other, and, generally, the
division of any space into equal parts are instinctively avoided, as
nature avoids the production of any two plants, or even any two leaves
of the same tree, which in all points shall be exactly alike.
[Illustration: PLATE I. PAINTING
(_These illustrations are reproduced by permission of the Kokka
Company, Tokyo, Japan._)
FIG. 1.--MANJUSRI, DEITY OF WISDOM. Kose School (13th century).
FIG. 2.--WATERFALL OF NACHI. Attributed to Kanaoka (9th century).
FIG. 3.--PORTRAIT OF THE PRIEST DAITO-KOKUSHI. Tosa School (14th
century).]
[Illustration: PLATE II. PAINTING
FIG. 4.--PRIESTS CARICATURED BY ANIMALS. By Toba Sojo (1053-1140).
FIG. 5.--ESCAPE OF THE EMPEROR DISGUISED AS A WOMAN. Scene from the
Civil War. By Keion (13th century).]
The application of this principle in the same free spirit is the secret
of much of the originality and the excellence of the decorative art of
Japan. Her artists and artisans alike aim at symmetry, not by an equal
division of parts, as we do, but rather by a certain balance of
corresponding parts, each different from the other, and not numerically
even, with an effect of variety and freedom from formality. They seek
it, in fact, as nature attains the same end. If we take for instance the
skins of animals that are striped or spotted, we have the best
possible illustration of nature's methods in this direction. Examining
the tiger or the leopard, in all the beauty of their symmetrical
adornment, we do not see in any one example an exact repetition of the
same stripes or spots on each side of the mesial line. They seem to be
alike, and yet are all different. The line of division along the spine,
it will be observed, is not perfectly continuous or defined, but in part
suggested; and each radiating stripe on either side is full of variety
in size, direction, and to some extent in colour and depth of shade.
Thus nature works, and so, following in her footsteps, works the
Japanese artist. The same law prevailing in all nature's creation, in
the plumage of birds, the painting of butterflies' wings, the marking of
shells, and in all the infinite variety and beauty of the floral
kingdom, the lesson is constantly renewed to the observant eye. Among
flowers the orchids, with all their fantastic extravagance and mimic
imitations of birds and insects, are especially prolific in examples of
symmetrical effects without any repetition of similar parts or divisions
into even numbers.
The orchids may be taken as offering fair types of the Japanese artist's
ideal in all art work. And thus, close student of nature's processes,
methods, and effects as the Japanese art workman is, he ever seeks to
produce humble replicas from his only art master. Thus he proceeds in
all his decorative work, avoiding studiously the exact repetition of any
lines and spaces, and all diametrical divisions, or, if these be forced
upon him by the shape of the object, exercising the utmost ingenuity to
disguise the fact, and train away the eye from observing the weak point,
as nature does in like circumstances. Thus if a lacquer box in the form
of a parallelogram is the object, Japanese artists will not divide it in
two equal parts by a perpendicular line, but by a diagonal, as offering
a more pleasing line and division. If the box be round, they will seek
to lead the eye away from the naked regularity of the circle by a
pattern distracting attention, as, for example, by a zigzag breaking the
circular outline, and supported by other ornaments. A similar feeling is
shown by them as colourists, and, though sometimes eccentric and daring
in their contrasts, they never produce discords in their chromatic
scale. They have undoubtedly a fine sense of colour, and a similarly
delicate and subtle feeling for harmonious blending of brilliant and
sober hues. As a rule they prefer a quiet and refined style, using full
but low-toned colours. They know the value of bright colours, however,
and how best to utilize them, both supporting and contrasting them with
their secondaries and complementaries.
Division into Periods.
The development of Japanese painting may be divided into the following
six periods, each signalized by a wave of progress. (1) From the middle
of the 6th to the middle of the 9th century: the naturalization of
Chinese and Chino-Buddhist art. (2) From the middle of the 9th to the
middle of the 15th century: the establishment of great native schools
under Kose no Kanaoka and his descendants and followers, the pure
Chinese school gradually falling into neglect. (3) From the middle of
the 15th to the latter part of the 17th century: the revival of the
Chinese style. (4) From the latter part of the 17th to the latter part
of the 18th century: the establishment of a popular school. (5) From the
latter part of the 18th to the latter part of the 19th century: the
foundation of a naturalistic school, and the first introduction of
European influence into Japanese painting; the acme and decline of the
popular school. (6) From about 1875 to the present time: a period of
transition.
First Period.
Tradition refers to the advent of a Chinese artist named Nanriu, invited
to Japan in the 5th century as a painter of the Imperial banners, but of
the labours and influence of this man and of his descendants we have no
record. The real beginnings of the study of painting and sculpture in
their higher branches must be dated from the introduction of Buddhism
from China in the middle of the 6th century, and for three centuries
after this event there is evidence that the practice of the arts was
carried on mainly by or under the instruction of Korean and Chinese
immigrants.
The paintings of which we have any mention were almost limited to
representations of Buddhist masters of the Tang dynasty (618-905),
notably Wu Tao-zu (8th century), of whose genius romantic stories are
related. The oldest existing work of this period is a mural decoration
in the hall of the temple of Horyu-ji, Nara, attributed to a Korean
priest named Doncho, who lived in Japan in the 6th century; and this
painting, in spite of the destructive effects of time and exposure,
shows traces of the same power of line, colour and composition that
stamps the best of the later examples of Buddhist art.
Second Period.
The native artist who crested the first great wave of Japanese painting
was a court noble named Kose no Kanaoka, living under the patronage of
the emperor Seiwa (850-859) and his successors down to about the end of
the 9th century, in the midst of a period of peace and culture. Of his
own work few, if any, examples have reached us; and those attributed
with more or less probability to his hand are all representations of
Buddhist divinities, showing a somewhat formal and conventional design,
with a masterly calligraphic touch and perfect harmony of colouring.
Tradition credits him with an especial genius for the delineation of
animals and landscape, and commemorates his skill by a curious anecdote
of a painted horse which left its frame to ravage the fields, and was
reduced to pictorial stability only by the sacrifice of its eyes. He
left a line of descendants extending far into the 15th century, all
famous for Buddhist pictures, and some engaged in establishing a native
style, the _Wa-gwa-ryu_.
At the end of the 9th century there were two exotic styles of painting,
Chinese and Buddhist, and the beginning of a native style founded upon
these. All three were practised by the same artists, and it was not
until a later period that each became the badge of a school.
Chinese Style.
The Chinese style (_Kara-ryu_), the fundamental essence of all
Japanese art, has a fairly distinct history, dating back to the
introduction of Buddhism into China (A.D. 62), and it is said to have
been chiefly from the works of Wu Tao-zu, the master of the 8th
century, that Kanaoka drew his inspiration. This early Chinese manner,
which lasted in the parent country down to the end of the 13th
century, was characterized by a virile grace of line, a grave dignity
of composition, striking simplicity of technique, and a strong but
incomplete naturalistic ideal. The colouring, harmonious but subdued
in tone, held a place altogether secondary to that of the outline, and
was frequently omitted altogether, even in the most famous works.
Shadows and reflections were ignored, and perspective, approximately
correct for landscape distances, was isometrical for near objects,
while the introduction of a symbolic sun or moon lent the sole
distinction between a day and a night scene. The art was one of
imperfect evolution, but for thirteen centuries it was the only living
pictorial art in the world, and the Chinese deserve the honour of
having created landscape painting. The materials used were
water-colours, brushes, usually of deer-hair, and a surface of unsized
paper, translucid silk or wooden panel. The chief motives were
landscapes of a peculiarly wild and romantic type, animal life, trees
and flowers, and figure compositions drawn from Chinese and Buddhist
history and Taoist legend; and these, together with the grand aims and
strange shortcomings of its principles and the limited range of its
methods, were adopted almost without change by Japan. It was a noble
art, but unfortunately the rivalry of the Buddhist and later native
styles permitted it to fall into comparative neglect, and it was left
for a few of the faithful, the most famous of whom was a priest of the
14th century named Kawo, to preserve it from inanition till the great
Chinese renaissance that lent its stamp to the next period. The
reputed founder of Japanese caricature may also be added to the list.
He was a priest named Kakuyu, but better known as the abbot of Toba,
who lived in the 12th century. An accomplished artist in the Chinese
manner, he amused himself and his friends by burlesque sketches,
marked by a grace and humour that his imitators never equalled. Later,
the motive of the Toba pictures, as such caricatures were called,
tended to degenerate, and the elegant figures of Kakuyu were replaced
by scrawls that often substituted indecency and ugliness for art and
wit. Some of the old masters of the Yamato school were, however,
admirable in their rendering of the burlesque, and in modern times
Kyosai, the last of the Hokusai school, outdid all his predecessors in
the riotous originality of his weird and comic fancies. A new phase of
the art now lives in the pages of the newspaper press.
Buddhist Style.
The Buddhist style was probably even more ancient than the Chinese,
for the scheme of colouring distinctive of the Buddhist picture was
almost certainly of Indian origin; brilliant and decorative, and
heightened by a lavish use of gold, it was essential to the effect of
a picture destined for the dim light of the Buddhist temple. The style
was applied only to the representations of sacred personages and
scenes, and as the traditional forms and attributes of the Brahmanic
and Buddhist divinities were mutable only within narrow limits, the
subjects seldom afforded scope for originality of design or
observation of nature. The principal Buddhist painters down to the
14th century were members of the Kose, Takuma and Kasuga lines, the
first descended from Kanaoka, the second from Takuma Tameuji (ending
10th century), and the third from Fujiwara no Motomitsu (11th
century). The last and greatest master of the school was a priest
named Meicho, better known as Cho Densu, the Japanese Fra Angelico. It
is to him that Japan owes the possession of some of the most stately
and most original works in her art, sublime in conception, line and
colour, and deeply instinct with the religious spirit. He died in
1427, at the age of seventy-six, in the seclusion of the temple where
he had passed the whole of his days.
Native Style.
The native style, _Yamato_ or _Wa-gwa-ryu_, was an adaptation of
Chinese art canons to motives drawn from the court life, poetry and
stories of old Japan. It was undoubtedly practised by the Kose line,
and perhaps by their predecessors, but it did not take shape as a
school until the beginning of the 11th century under Fujiwara no
Motomitsu, who was a pupil of Kose no Kinmochi; it then became known
as _Yamato-ryu_, a title which two centuries later was changed to that
of _Tosa_, on the occasion of one of its masters, Fujiwara no
Tsunetaka, assuming that appellation as a family name. The Yamato-Tosa
artists painted in all styles, but that which was the speciality of
the school, to be found in nearly all the historical rolls bequeathed
to us by their leaders, was a lightly-touched outline filled in with
flat and bright body-colours, in which verdigris-green played a great
part. The originality of the motive did not prevent the adoption of
all the Chinese conventions, and of some new ones of the artist's own.
The curious expedient of spiriting away the roof of any building of
which the artist wished to show the interior was one of the most
remarkable of these. Amongst the foremost names of the school are
those of Montomitsu (11th century), Nobuzane (13th century), Tsunetaka
(13th century), Mitsunobu (15th and 16th centuries), his son
Mitsushige, and Mitsuoki (17th century). The struggle between the
Taira and Minamoto clans for the power that had long been practically
abandoned by the Imperial line lasted through the 11th and the greater
part of the 12th centuries, ending only with the rise of Yoritomo to
the shogunate in 1185. These internecine disturbances had been
unfavourable to any new departure in art, except in matters
appertaining to arms and armour, and the strife between two puppet
emperors for a shadow of authority in the 14th century brought another
distracting element. It was not until the triumph of the northern
dynasty was achieved through the prowess of an interested champion of
the Ashikaga clan that the culture of ancient Japan revived. The
palace of the Ashikaga shoguns then replaced the Imperial court as the
centre of patronage of art and literature and established a new era in
art history.
Third Period.
Towards the close of the Ashikaga shogunate painting entered on a new
phase. Talented representatives of the Kose, Takuma and Tosa lines
maintained the reputation of the native and Buddhist schools, and the
long-neglected Chinese school was destined to undergo a vigorous
revival. The initiation of the new movement is attributed to a priest
named Josetsu, who lived in the early part of the 15th century, and of
whom little else is known. It is not even certain whether he was of
Chinese or Japanese birth; he is, however, believed by some authorities
to have been the teacher of three great artists--Shubun, Sesshu and Kano
Masanobu--who became the leaders of three schools: Shubun, that of the
pure Chinese art of the Sung and Yuan dynasties (10th and 13th
centuries); Sesshu, that of a modified school bearing his name; and
Masanobu, of the great Kano school, which has reached to the present
day. The qualities of the new Chinese schools were essentially those of
the older dynasties: breadth, simplicity, a daringly calligraphic play
of brush that strongly recalled the accomplishments of the famous
scribes, and a colouring that varied between sparing washes of flat
local tints and a strength and brilliancy of decorative effort that
rivalled even that of the Buddhist pictures. The motives remained almost
identical with those of the Chinese masters, and so imbued with the
foreign spirit were many of the Japanese disciples that it is said they
found it difficult to avoid introducing Chinese accessories even into
pictures of native scenery.
Sesshu (1421-1507) was a priest who visited China and studied painting
there for several years, at length returning in 1469, disappointed
with the living Chinese artists, and resolved to strike out a style of
his own, based upon that of the old masters. He was the boldest and
most original of Japanese landscape artists, leaving powerful and
poetic records of the scenery of his own land as well as that of
China, and trusting more to the sure and sweeping stroke of the brush
than to colour. Shubun was an artist of little less power, but he
followed more closely his exemplars, the Chinese masters of the 12th
and 13th centuries; while Kano Masanobu (1424-1520), trained in the
love of Chinese art, departed little from the canons he had learned
from Josetsu or Oguri Sotan. It was left to his more famous son,
Motonobu, to establish the school which bears the family name. Kano
Motonobu (1477-1559) was one of the greatest Japanese painters, an
eclectic of genius, who excelled in every style and every branch of
his art. His variety was inexhaustible, and he remains to this day a
model whom the most distinguished artists are proud to imitate. The
names of the celebrated members of this long line are too many to
quote here, but the most accomplished of his descendants was Tanyu,
who died in 1674, at the age of seventy-three. The close of this long
period brought a new style of art, that of the Korin school. Ogata
Korin (1653-1716) is claimed by both the Tosa and Kano schools, but
his work bears more resemblance to that of an erratic offshoot of the
Kano line named Sotatsu than to the typical work of the academies. He
was an artist of eccentric originality, who achieved wonders in bold
decorative effects in spite of a studied contempt for detail. As a
lacquer painter he left a strong mark upon the work of his
contemporaries and successors. His brother and pupil, Kenzan, adopted
his style, and left a reputation as a decorator of pottery hardly less
brilliant than Korin's in that of lacquer; and a later follower,
Hoitsu (1762-1828), greatly excelled the master in delicacy and
refinement, although inferior to him in vigour and invention. Down to
the end of this era painting was entirely in the hands of a patrician
caste--courtiers, priests, feudal nobles and their military retainers,
all men of high education and gentle birth, living in a polished
circle. It was practised more as a phase of aesthetic culture than
with any utilitarian views. It was a labour of loving service,
untouched by the spirit of material gain, conferring upon the work of
the older masters a dignity and poetic feeling which we vainly seek in
much of the later work. Unhappily, but almost inevitably, over-culture
led to a gradual falling-off from the old virility. The strength of
Meicho, Sesshu, Motonobu and Tanyu gave place to a more or less
slavish imitation of the old Japanese painters and their Chinese
exemplars, till the heirs to the splendid traditions of the great
masters preserved little more than their conventions and shortcomings.
It was time for a new departure, but there seemed to be no sufficient
strength left within the charmed circle of the orthodox schools, and
the new movement was fated to come from the masses, whose voice had
hitherto been silent in the art world.
Fourth Period: Popular School.
A new era in art began in the latter half of the 17th century with the
establishment of a popular school under an embroiderer's draughtsman
named Hishigawa Moronobu (c. 1646-1713). Perhaps no great change is ever
entirely a novelty. The old painters of the Yamato-Tosa line had
frequently shown something of the daily life around them, and one of the
later scions of the school, named Iwasa Matahei, had even made a
specialty of this class of motive; but so little is known of Matahei and
his work that even his period is a matter of dispute, and the few
pictures attributed to his pencil are open to question on grounds of
authenticity. He probably worked some two generations before the time of
Moronobu, but there is no reason to believe that his labours had any
material share in determining the creation and trend of the new school.
Moronobu was a consummate artist, with all the delicacy and
calligraphic force of the best of the Tosa masters, whom he
undoubtedly strove to emulate in style; and his pictures are not only
the most beautiful but also the most trustworthy records of the life
of his time. It was not to his paintings, however, that he owed his
greatest influence, but to the powerful impulse he gave to the
illustration of books and broadsides by wood-engravings. It is true
that illustrated books were known as early as 1608, if not before, but
they were few and unattractive, and did little to inaugurate the great
stream of _ehon_, or picture books, that were to take so large a share
in the education of his own class. It is to Moronobu that Japan owes
the popularization of artistic wood-engravings, for nothing before his
series of xylographic albums approached his best work in strength and
beauty, and nothing since has surpassed it. Later there came abundant
aid to the cause of popular art, partly from pupils of the Kano and
Tosa schools, but mainly from the artisan class. Most of these artists
were designers for books and broadsides by calling, painters only on
occasion, but a few of them did nothing for the engravers. Throughout
the whole of this period, embracing about a hundred years, there still
continued to work, altogether apart from the men who were making the
success of popular art, a large number of able painters of the Kano,
Tosa and Chinese schools, who multiplied pictures that had every merit
except that of originality. These men, living in the past, paid little
attention to the great popular movement, which seemed to be quite
outside their social and artistic sphere and scarcely worthy of
cultured criticism. It was in the middle of the 18th century that the
decorative, but relatively feeble, Chinese art of the later Ming
period found favour in Japan and a clever exponent in a painter named
Ryurikyo. It must be regarded as a sad decadence from the old Chinese
ideals, which was further hastened, from about 1765, by the popularity
of the southern Chinese style. This was a weak affectation that found
its chief votaries amongst literary men ambitious of an easily earned
artistic reputation. The principal Japanese supporter of this school
was Taigado (1722-1775), but the volume of copies of his sketches,
_Taigado sansui juseki_, published about 1870, is one of the least
attractive albums ever printed in Japan.
Fifth Period: Naturalistic School.
The fifth period was introduced by a movement as momentous as that which
stamped its predecessor--the foundation of a naturalistic school under a
group of men outside the orthodox academical circles. The naturalistic
principle was by no means a new one; some of the old Chinese masters
were naturalistic in a broad and noble manner, and their Japanese
followers could be admirably and minutely accurate when they pleased;
but too many of the latter were content to construct their pictures out
of fragmentary reminiscences of ancient Chinese masterpieces, not
presuming to see a rock, a tree, an ox, or a human figure, except
through Chinese spectacles. It was a farmer's son named Okyo, trained in
his youth to paint in the Chinese manner, who was first bold enough to
adopt as a canon what his predecessors had only admitted under rare
exceptions, the principle of an exact imitation of nature.
Unfortunately, even he had not all the courage of his creed, and while
he would paint a bird or a fish with perfect realism, he no more dared
to trust his eyes in larger motives than did the most devout follower of
Shubun or Motonobu. He was essentially a painter of the classical
schools, with the speciality of elaborate reproduction of detail in
certain sections of animal life, but fortunately this partial concession
to truth, emphasized as it was by a rare sense of beauty, did large
service.
Okyo rose into notice about 1775, and a number of pupils flocked to
his studio in Shijo Street, Kioto (whence Shijo school). Amongst these
the most famous were Goshun (1742-1811), who is sometimes regarded as
one of the founders of the school; Sosen (1757-1821), an animal
painter of remarkable power, but especially celebrated for pictures of
monkey life; Shuho, the younger brother of the last, also an animal
painter; Rosetsu (1755-1799), the best landscape painter of his
school; Keibun, a younger brother of Goshun, and some later followers
of scarcely less fame, notably Hoyen, a pupil of Keibun; Tessan, an
adopted son of Sosen; Ippo and Yosai (1788-1878), well known for a
remarkable set of volumes, the _Zenken kojitsu_, containing a long
series of portraits of ancient Japanese celebrities. Ozui and Ojyu,
the sons of Okyo, painted in the style of their father, but failed to
attain great eminence. Lastly, amongst the associates of the Shijo
master was the celebrated Ganku (1798-1837), who developed a special
style of his own, and is sometimes regarded as the founder of a
distinct school. He was, however, greatly influenced by Okyo's
example, and his sons, Gantai, Ganryo, and Gantoku or Renzan, drifted
into a manner almost indistinguishable from that of the Shijo school.
European School.
It remains only to allude to the European school, if school it can be
called, founded by Kokan and Denkichi, two contemporaries of Okyo. These
artists, at first educated in one of the native schools, obtained from a
Hollander in Nagasaki some training in the methods and principles of
European painting, and left a few oil paintings in which the laws of
light and shade and perspective were correctly observed. They were not,
however, of sufficient capacity to render the adopted manner more than a
subject of curiosity, except to a few followers who have reached down to
the present generation. It is possible that the essays in perspective
found in the pictures of Hokusai, Hiroshige, and some of the popular
artists of the 19th century, were suggested by Kokan's drawings and
writings.
Sixth Period.
The sixth period began about 1875, when an Italian artist was engaged by
the government as a professor of painting in the Engineering College at
Tokyo. Since that time some distinguished European artists have visited
Japan, and several Japanese students have made a pilgrimage to Europe to
see for themselves what lessons may be gained from Western art. These
students, confronted by a strong reaction in favour of pure Japanese
art, have fought manfully to win public sympathy, and though their
success is not yet crowned, it is not impossible that an Occidental
school may ultimately be established. Thus far the great obstacle has
been that pictures painted in accordance with Western canons are not
suited to Japanese interiors and do not appeal to the taste of the most
renowned Japanese connoisseurs. Somewhat more successful has been an
attempt--inaugurated by Hashimoto Gaho and Kawabata Gyokusho--to combine
the art of the West with that of Japan by adding to the latter the
chiaroscuro and the linear perspective of the former. If the disciples
of this school could shake off the Sesshu tradition of strong outlines
and adopt the Kano Motonobu revelation of modelling by mass only, their
work would stand on a high place. But they, too, receive little
encouragement. The tendency of the time is conservative in art matters.
A series of magnificent publications has popularized art and its best
products in a manner such as could never have been anticipated. The
_Kokka_, a monthly magazine richly and beautifully illustrated and
edited by Japanese students, has reached its 223rd number; the _Shimbi
Daikan_, a colossal album containing chromoxylographic facsimiles of
celebrated examples in every branch of art, has been completed in 20
volumes; the masterpieces of Korin and Motonobu have been reproduced
in similar albums; the masterpieces of the _Ukiyo-e_ are in process of
publication, and it seems certain that the Japanese nation will
ultimately be educated to such a knowledge of its own art as will make
for permanent appreciation. Meanwhile the intrepid group of painters
in oil plod along unflinchingly, having formed themselves into an
association (the _hakuba-kai_) which gives periodical exhibitions, and
there are, in Tokyo and Kioto, well-organized and flourishing art
schools which receive a substantial measure of state aid, as well as a
private academy founded by Okakura with a band of seceders from the
hybrid fashions of the Gaho system. Altogether the nation seems to be
growing more and more convinced that its art future should not wander
far from the lines of the past. (W. An.; F. By.)
Engraving.
Although a little engraving on copper has been practised in Japan of
late years, it is of no artistic value, and the only branch of the art
which calls for recognition is the cutting of wood-blocks for use either
with colours or without. This, however, is of supreme importance, and as
its technique differs in most respects from the European practice, it
demands a somewhat detailed description.
The wood used is generally that of the cherry-tree, _sakura_, which
has a grain of peculiar evenness and hardness. It is worked plankwise
to a surface parallel with the grain, and not across it. A design is
drawn by the artist, to whom the whole credit of the production
generally belongs, with a brush on thin paper, which is then pasted
face downwards on the block. The engraver, who is very rarely the
designer, then cuts the outlines into the block with a knife,
afterwards removing the superfluous wood with gouges and chisels.
Great skill is shown in this operation, which achieves perhaps the
finest facsimile reproduction of drawings ever known without the aid
of photographic processes. A peculiar but highly artistic device is
that of gradually rounding off the surfaces where necessary, in order
to obtain in printing a soft and graduated mass of colour which does
not terminate too abruptly. In printing with colours a separate block
is made in this manner for each tint, the first containing as a rule
the mere lines of the composition, and the others providing for the
masses of tint to be applied. In all printing the paper is laid on the
upper surface of the block, and the impression rubbed off with a
circular pad, composed of twisted cord within a covering of paper
cloth and bamboo-leaf, and called the _baren_. In colour-printing, the
colours, which are much the same as those in use in Europe, are mixed,
with rice-paste as a medium, on the block for each operation, and the
power of regulating the result given by this custom to an intelligent
craftsman (who, again, is neither the artist nor the engraver) was
productive in the best period of very beautiful and artistic effects,
such as could never have been obtained by any mechanical device. A
wonderfully accurate register, or successive superposition of each
block, is got mainly by the skill of the printer, who is assisted only
by a mark defining one corner and another mark showing the opposite
side limit.
The origins of this method of colour-printing are obscure. It has been
practised to some extent in China and Korea, but there is no evidence of
its antiquity in these countries. It appears to be one of the few
indigenous arts of Japan. But before accepting this conclusion as final,
one must not lose sight of the fact that the so-called chiaroscuro
engraving was at the height of its use in Italy at the same time that
embassies from the Christians in Japan visited Rome, and that it is thus
possible that the suggestion at least may have been derived from
Europe. The fact that no traces of it have been discovered in Japan
would be easily accounted for, when it is remembered that the examples
taken home would almost certainly have been religious pictures, would
have been preserved in well-known and accessible places, and would thus
have been entirely destroyed in the terrible and minute extermination of
Christianity by Hideyoshi at the beginning of the 17th century. Japanese
tradition ascribes the invention of colour-printing to Idzumiya
Gonshiro, who, about the end of the 17th century, first made use of a
second block to apply a tint of red (_beni_) to his prints. Sir Ernest
Satow states more definitely that "Sakakibara attributes its origin to
the year 1695, when portraits of the actor Ichikawa Danjiuro, coloured
by this process, were sold in the streets of Yedo for five cash apiece."
The credit of the invention is also given to Torii Kiyonobu, who worked
at about this time, and, indeed, is said to have made the prints above
mentioned. But authentic examples of his work now remaining, printed in
three colours, seem to show a technique too complete for an origin quite
so recent. However, he is the first artist of importance to have
produced the broadsheets--for many years chiefly portraits of notable
actors, historical characters and famous courtesans--which are the
leading and characteristic use to which the art was applied. Pupils, the
chief of whom were Kiyomasa, Kiyotsume, Kiyomitsu, Kiyonaga and
Kiyomine, carried on his tradition until the end of the 18th century,
the three earlier using but few colours, while the works of the two last
named show a technical mastery of all the capabilities of the process.
The next artist of importance is Suzuki Harunobu (worked c.
1760-1780), to whom the Japanese sometimes ascribe the invention of
the process, probably on the grounds of an improvement in his
technique, and the fact that he seems to have been one of the first of
the colour-print makers to attain great popularity. Katsukawa Shunsho
(d. 1792) must next be mentioned, not only for the beauty of his own
work, but because he was the first master of Hokusai; then Yeishi
(worked c. 1781-1800), the founder of the Hosoda school; Utamaro
(1754-1806), whose prints of beautiful women were collected by
Dutchmen while he was still alive, and have had in our own day a vogue
greater, perhaps, than those of any other of his fellows; and Toyokuni
I. (1768-1825), who especially devoted himself to broadsheet portraits
of actors and dramatic scenes. The greatest of all the artists of the
popular school was, however, Hokusai (1760-1849). His most famous
series of broadsheets is the _Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji_
(1823-1829), which, in spite of the conventional title, includes at
least forty-six. His work is catalogued in detail by E. de Goncourt.
At the beginning of the 19th century the process was technically at
its greatest height, and in the hands of the great landscape artist,
Hiroshige I., as well as the pupils of Toyokuni I.--Kunisada and
Kuniyoshi--and those of Hokusai, it at first kept up an excellent
level. But an undue increase in the number of blocks used, combined
with the inferiority of the imported colours and carelessness or loss
of skill in printing, brought about a rapid decline soon after 1840.
This continued until the old traditions were well-nigh exhausted, but
since 1880 there has been a distinct revival. The prints of the
present day are cut with great skill, and the designs are excellent,
though both these branches seem to lack the vigour of conception and
breadth of execution of the older masters. The colours now used are
almost invariably of cheap German origin, and though they have a
certain prettiness--ephemeral, it is to be feared--they again can not
compare with the old native productions. Among workers in this style,
Yoshitoshi (d. c. 1898) was perhaps the best. Living artists in 1908
included Toshihide, Miyagawa Shuntei, Yoshiu Chikanobu--one of the
elder generation--Tomisuka Yeishu, Toshikata and Gekko. Formerly the
colour-print artist was of mean extraction and low social position,
but he now has some recognition at the hands of the professors of more
esteemed branches of art. This change is doubtless due in part to
Occidental appreciation of the products of his art, which were
formerly held in little honour by his own countrymen, the place
assigned to them being scarcely higher than that accorded to magazine
illustrations in Europe and America. But it is also largely due to his
displays of unsurpassed skill in preparing xylographs for the
beautiful art publications issued by the _Shimbi Shoin_ and the
_Kokka_ company. These xylographs prove that the Japanese art-artisan
of the present day was not surpassed by the greatest of his
predecessors in this line. (E. F. S.; F. By.)
Book Illustration.
The history of the illustrated book in Japan may be said to begin with
the _Ise monogatari_, a romance first published in the 10th century, of
which an edition adorned with woodcuts appeared in 1608. In the course
of the 17th century many other works of the same nature were issued,
including some in which the cuts were roughly coloured by hand; but the
execution of these is not as good as contemporary European work. The
date of the first use of colour-printing in Japanese book illustration
is uncertain. In 1667 a collection of designs for _kimono_ (garments)
appeared, in which inks of several colours were made use of; but these
were only employed in turn for single printings, and in no case were two
of them used on the same print. It is certain, however, that the mere
use of coloured inks must soon have suggested the combination of two or
more of them, and it is probable that examples of this will be
discovered much earlier in date than those known at present.
About the year 1680 Hishigawa Moronobu achieved a great popularity for
woodcut illustration, and laid the foundations of the splendid school
which followed. The names of the engravers who cut his designs are not
known, and in fact the reputation of these craftsmen is curiously
subordinated to that of the designers in all Japanese work of the
kind. With Moronobu must be associated Okumura Masanobu, a little
later perhaps in date, whose work is also of considerable value.
During the ensuing thirty years numerous illustrated books appeared,
including the earliest yet known which are illustrated by
colour-printing. Nishikawa Sukenobu (1671-1751) illustrated a very
large number of books, many of which were not published until after
his death. With him may be associated Ichio Shumboku (d. c. 1773) and
Tsukioka Tange (1717-1786), the latter of whom made the drawings for
many of the _meisho_ or guide-books which form so interesting and
distinctive a branch of Japanese illustration. The work of Tachibana
Morikuni (1670-1748) is also of great importance. The books
illustrated by the men of this school were mainly collections of
useful information, guide-books, romances and historical and religious
compilations; but much of the best of their work is to be found in the
collections of pictorial designs, very often taken from Chinese
sources, which were produced for the use of workers in lacquer,
pottery and similar crafts. These, both for design and for skill of
cutting, hold their own with the best work of European wood-cutting of
any period. The development of the art of Japanese colour-printing
naturally had its effect on book-illustration, and the later years of
the 18th and the earlier of the 19th century saw a vast increase of
books illustrated by this process. The subjects also now include a new
series of landscapes and views drawn as seen by the designers, and not
reproductions of the work of other men; and also sketches of scenes
and characters of everyday life and of the folk-lore in which Japan is
so rich. Among the artists of this period, as of all others in Japan,
Hokusai (1760-1849) is absolutely pre-eminent. His greatest production
in book-illustration was the _Mangwa_, a collection of sketches which
cover the whole ground of Japanese life and legend, art and
handicraft. It consists of fifteen volumes, which appeared at
intervals from 1812 to 1875, twelve being published during his life
and the others from material left by him. Among his many other works
may be mentioned the _Azuma Asobi_ (_Walks round Yedo_, 1799). Of his
pupils, Hokkei (1780-1856) and Kyosai were the greatest. Most of the
artists, whose main work was the designing of broadsheets, produced
elaborately illustrated books; and this series includes specimens of
printing in colours from wood-blocks, which for technique have never
been excelled. Among them should be mentioned Shunsho (_Seiro bijin
awase kagami_, 1776); Utamaro (_Seiro nenjyu gyoji_, 1804); Toyokuni
I. (_Yakusha kono teikishiwa_, 1801); as well as Harunobu Yeishi
(_Onna sanjyu rokkasen_, 1798), Kitao Masanobu and Tachibana Minko,
each of whom produced beautiful work of the same nature. In the period
next following, the chief artists were Keisai Yeisen (_Keisai so-gwa_,
1832) and Kikuchi Yosai (_Zenken kojitsu_), the latter of whom ranks
perhaps as highly as any of the artists who confined their work to
black and white. The books produced in the period 1880-1908 in Japan
are still of high technical excellence. The colours are,
unfortunately, of cheap European manufacture; and the design, although
quite characteristic and often beautiful, is as a rule merely pretty.
The engraving is as good as ever. Among the book-illustrators of our
own generation must be again mentioned Kyosai; Kono Bairei (d. 1895),
whose books of birds--the _Bairei hyakucho gwafu_ (1881 and 1884) and
_Yuaka-no-tsuki_ (1889)--are unequalled of their kind; Imao Keinen,
who also issued a beautiful set of illustrations of birds and flowers
(_Keinen kwacho gwafu_), engraved by Tanaka Jirokichi and printed by
Miki Nisaburo (1891-1892); and Watanabe Seitei, whose studies of
similar subjects have appeared in _Seitei kwacho gwafu_ (1890-1891)
and the _Bijutsu sekai_ (1894), engraved by Goto Tokujiro. Mention
should also be made of several charming series of fairy tales, of
which that published in English by the _Kobunsha_ in Tokyo in 1885 is
perhaps the best. In their adaptation of modern processes of
illustration the Japanese are entirely abreast of Western nations, the
chromo-lithographs and other reproductions in the _Kokka_, a
periodical record of Japanese works of art (begun in 1889), in the
superb albums of the _Shimbi Shoin_, and in the publications of Ogawa
being of quite a high order of merit. (E. F. S.; F. By.)
[Illustration: PLATE III. PAINTING
FIG. 6.--KWANNON, GODDESS OF MERCY. By Mincho or Cho Densu
(1352-1431).
FIG. 7.--LANDSCAPE IN SNOW. By Kano Motonobu (1476-1559).
FIG. 8.--JUROJIN. By Sesshiu (1420-1506).]
[Illustration: PLATE IV. PAINTING
FIG. 9.--PLUM TREES AND STREAM--SCREEN ON GOLD GROUND. By Korin
(1661-1716).
FIG. 10.--PEACOCKS. By Ganku (1749-1838).]
Historical Sketch.
_Sculpture and Carving._--Sculpture in wood and metal is of ancient
date in Japan. Its antiquity is not, indeed, comparable to that of
ancient Egypt or Greece, but no country besides Japan can boast a living
and highly developed art that has numbered upwards of twelve centuries
of unbroken and brilliant productiveness. Setting aside rude prehistoric
essays in stone and metal, which have special interest for the
antiquary, we have examples of sculpture in wood and metal, magnificent
in conception and technique, dating from the earliest periods of what we
may term historical Japan; that is, from near the beginning of the great
Buddhist propaganda under the emperor Kimmei (540-571) and the princely
hierarch, Shotoku Taishi (573-621). Stone has never been in favour in
Japan as a material for the higher expression of the sculptor's art.
First Period.
The first historical period of glyptic art in Japan reaches from the end
of the 6th to the end of the 12th century, culminating in the work of
the great Nara sculptors, Unkei and his pupil Kwaikei. Happily, there
are still preserved in the great temples of Japan, chiefly in the
ancient capital of Nara, many noble relics of this period.
The place of honour may perhaps be conferred upon sculptures in wood,
representing the Indian Buddhists, Asangha and Vasabandhu, preserved
in the Golden Hall of Kofuku-ji, Nara. These are attributed to a
Kamakura sculptor of the 8th or 9th century, and in simple and
realistic dignity of pose and grand lines of composition are worthy of
comparison with the works of ancient Greece. With these may be named
the demon lantern-bearers, so perfect in the grotesque treatment of
the diabolical heads and the accurate anatomical forms of the sturdy
body and limbs; the colossal temple guardians of the great gate of
Todai-ji, by Unkei and Kwaikei (11th century), somewhat
conventionalized, but still bearing evidence of direct study from
nature, and inspired with intense energy of action; and the smaller
but more accurately modelled temple guardians in the Saikondo, Nara,
which almost compare with the "fighting gladiator" in their
realization of menacing strength. The "goddess of art" of
Akishino-dera, Nara, attributed to the 8th century, is the most
graceful and least conventional of female sculptures in Japan, but
infinitely remote from the feminine conception of the Greeks. The
wooden portrait of Vimalakirtti, attributed to Unkei, at Kofuku-ji,
has some of the qualities of the images of the two Indian Buddhists.
The sculptures attributed to Jocho, the founder of the Nara school,
although powerful in pose and masterly in execution, lack the truth of
observation seen in some of the earlier and later masterpieces.
The most perfect of the ancient bronzes is the great image of
Bhaicha-djyaguru in the temple of Yakushi-ji, Nara, attributed to a
Korean monk of the 7th century, named Giogi. The bronze image of the
same divinity at Horyu-ji, said to have been cast at the beginning of
the 7th century by Tori Busshi, the grandson of a Chinese immigrant,
is of good technical quality, but much inferior in design to the
former. The colossal Nara Daibutsu (Vairocana) at Todai-ji, cast in
749 by a workman of Korean descent, is the largest of the great
bronzes in Japan, but ranks far below the Yakushi-ji image in artistic
qualities. The present head, however, is a later substitute for the
original, which was destroyed by fire.
The great Nara school of sculpture in wood was founded in the early
part of the 11th century by a sculptor of Imperial descent named
Jocho, who is said to have modelled his style upon that of the Chinese
wood-carvers of the Tang dynasty; his traditions were maintained by
descendants and followers down to the beginning of the 13th century.
All the artists of this period were men of aristocratic rank and
origin, and were held distinct from the carpenter-architects of the
imposing temples which were to contain their works.
Sacred images were not the only specimens of glyptic art produced in
these six centuries; reliquaries, bells, vases, incense-burners,
candlesticks, lanterns, decorated arms and armour, and many other
objects, showing no less mastery of design and execution, have reached
us. Gold and silver had been applied to the adornment of helmets and
breastplates from the 7th century, but it was in the 12th century that
the decoration reached the high degree of elaboration shown us in the
armour of the Japanese Bayard, Yoshitsune, which is still preserved at
Kasuga, Nara.
Wooden masks employed in the ancient theatrical performances were made
from the 7th century, and offer a distinct and often grotesque phase
of wood-carving. Several families of experts have been associated with
this class of sculpture, and their designs have been carefully
preserved and imitated down to the present day.
Second Period.
The second period in Japanese glyptic art extends from the beginning of
the 13th to the early part of the 17th century. The great struggle
between the Taira and Minamoto clans had ended, but the militant spirit
was still strong, and brought work for the artists who made and
ornamented arms and armour. The Miyochins, a line that claimed ancestry
from the 7th century, were at the head of their calling, and their work
in iron breastplates and helmets, chiefly in _repousse_, is still
unrivalled. It was not until the latter half of the 15th century that
there came into vogue the elaborate decoration of the sword, a fashion
that was to last four hundred years.
The metal guard (_tsuba_), made of iron or precious alloy, was adorned
with engraved designs, often inlaid with gold and silver. The free end
of the hilt was crowned with a metallic cap or pommel (_kashira_), the
other extremity next the tsuba was embraced by an oval ring (_fuchi_),
and in the middle was affixed on each side a special ornament called
the _menuki_, all adapted in material and workmanship to harmonize
with the guard. The _kodzuka_, or handle of a little knife implanted
into the sheath of the short sword or dagger, was also of metal and
engraved with like care. The founder of the first great line of tsuba
and menuki artists was Goto Yujo (1440-1512), a friend of the painter
Kano Motonobu, whose designs he adopted. Many families of sword
artists sprang up at a later period, furnishing treasures for the
collector even down to the present day, and their labours reached a
level of technical mastery and refined artistic judgment almost
without parallel in the art industries of Europe. Buddhist sculpture
was by no means neglected during this period, but there are few works
that call for special notice. The most noteworthy effort was the
casting by Ono Goroyemon in 1252 of the well-known bronze image, the
Kamakura Daibutsu.
Third Period.
The third period includes the 17th, 18th and the greater part of the
19th centuries. It was the era of the artisan artist. The makers of
Buddhist images and of sword ornaments carried on their work with
undiminished industry and success, and some famous schools of the latter
arose during this period. The Buddhist sculptors, however, tended to
grow more conventional and the metal-workers more naturalistic as the
18th century began to wane. It was in connexion with architecture that
the great artisan movement began. The initiator was Hidari Jingoro
(1594-1652), at first a simple carpenter, afterwards one of the most
famous sculptors in the land of great artists. The gorgeous decoration
of the mausoleum of Iyeyasu at Nikko, and of the gateway of the Nishi
Hongwan temple at Kioto, are the most striking instances of his
handiwork or direction.
The pillars, architraves, ceilings, panels, and almost every available
part of the structure, are covered with arabesques and sculptured
figures of dragons, lions, tigers, birds, flowers, and even pictorial
compositions with landscapes and figures, deeply carved in solid or
open work--the wood sometimes plain, sometimes overlaid with pigment
and gilding, as in the panelled ceiling of the chapel of Iyeyasu in
Tokyo. The designs for these decorations, like those of the sword
ornaments, were adopted from the great schools of painting, but the
invention of the sculptor was by no means idle. From this time the
temple carvers, although still attached to the carpenters' guild, took
a place apart from the rest of their craft, and the genius of Hidari
Jingoro secured for one important section of the artisan world a
recognition like that which Hishigawa Moronobu, the painter and
book-illustrator, afterwards won for another.
A little later arose another art industry, also emanating from the
masses. The use of tobacco, which became prevalent in the 17th century,
necessitated the pouch. In order to suspend this from the girdle there
was employed a kind of button or toggle--the _netsuke_. The metallic
bowl and mouthpiece of the pipe offered a tempting surface for
embellishment, as well as the clasp of the pouch; and the netsuke, being
made of wood, ivory or other material susceptible of carving, also gave
occasion for art and ingenuity.
The engravers of pipes, pouch clasps, and the metallic discs
(_kagami-buta_) attached to certain netsuke, sprang from the same
class and were not less original. They worked, too, with a skill
little inferior to that of the Gotos, Naras, and other aristocratic
sculptors of sword ornaments, and often with a refinement which their
relative disadvantages in education and associations render especially
remarkable. The netsuke and the pipe, with all that pertained to it,
were for the commoners what the sword-hilt and guard were for the
gentry. Neither class cared to bestow jewels upon their persons, but
neither spared thought or expense in the embellishment of the object
they most loved. The final manifestation of popular glyptic art was
the _okimono_, an ornament pure and simple, in which utility was
altogether secondary in intention to decorative effect. Its
manufacture as a special branch of art work dates from the rise of the
naturalistic school of painting and the great expansion of the popular
school under the Katsugawa, but the okimono formed an occasional
amusement of the older glyptic artists. Some of the most exquisite and
most ingenious of these earlier productions, such as the magnificent
iron eagle in the South Kensington Museum, the wonderful articulated
models of crayfish, dragons, serpents, birds, that are found in many
European collections, came from the studios of the Miyochins; but
these were the play of giants, and were not made as articles of
commerce. The new artisan makers of the okimono struck out a line for
themselves, one influenced more by the naturalistic and popular
schools than by the classical art, and the quails of Kamejo, the
tortoises of Seimin, the dragons of Toun and Toryu, and in recent
years the falcons and the peacocks of Suzuki Chokichi, are the joy of
the European collector. The best of these are exquisite in
workmanship, graceful in design, often strikingly original in
conception, and usually naturalistic in ideal. They constitute a phase
of art in which Japan has few rivals.
The present generation is more systematically commercial in its glyptic
produce than any previous age. Millions of commercial articles in
metal-work, wood and ivory flood the European markets, and may be bought
in any street in Europe at a small price, but they offer a variety of
design and an excellence of workmanship which place them almost beyond
Western competition. Above all this, however, the Japanese sculptor is a
force in art. He is nearly as thorough as his forefathers, and maintains
the same love of all things beautiful; and if he cannot show any
epoch-making novelty, he is at any rate doing his best to support
unsurpassed the decorative traditions of the past.
Sword-making Families.
History has been eminently careful to preserve the names and records of
the men who chiselled sword furniture. The sword being regarded as the
soul of the samurai, every one who contributed to its manufacture,
whether as forger of the blade or sculptor of the furniture, was held in
high repute. The Goto family worked steadily during 14 generations, and
its 19th century representative--Goto Ichijo--will always be remembered
as one of the family's greatest experts. But there were many others
whose productions fully equalled and often excelled the best efforts of
the Goto. The following list gives the names and periods of the most
renowned families:--
(It should be noted that the division by centuries indicates the time
of a family's origin. In a great majority of cases the representatives
of each generation worked on through succeeding centuries).
_15th and 16th Centuries._
Miyochin; Goto; Umetada; Muneta; Aoki; Soami; Nakai.
_17th Century._
Kuwamura; Mizuno; Koichi; Nagayoshi;
Kuninaga; Yoshishige; Katsugi; Tsuji;
Muneyoshi; Tadahira; Shoami; Hosono;
Yokoya; Nara; Okada; Okamoto; Kinai; Akao;
Yoshioka; Hirata; Nomura; Wakabayashi; Inouye;
Yasui; Chiyo; Kaneko; Uemura; Iwamoto.
_18th Century._
Gorobei; Shoemon; Kikugawa; Yasuyama; Noda; Tamagawa; Fujita; Kikuoka;
Kizaemon; Hamano; Omori; Okamoto; Kashiwaya; Kusakari; Shichibei; Ito.
_19th Century._
Natsuo; Ishiguro; Yanagawa; Honjo; Tanaka; Okano; Kawarabayashi; Oda;
and many masters of the Omori, Hamano and Iwamoto families, as well as
the five experts, Shuraku, Temmin, Ryumin, Minjo and Minkoku.
(W. An.; F. By.)
Japanese Point of View.
There is a radical difference between the points of view of the Japanese
and the Western connoisseur in estimating the merits of sculpture in
metal. The quality of the chiselling is the first feature to which the
Japanese directs his attention; the decorative design is the prime
object of the Occidental's attention. With very rare exceptions, the
decorative motives of Japanese sword furniture were always supplied by
painters. Hence it is that the Japanese connoisseur draws a clear
distinction between the decorative design and its technical execution,
crediting the former to the pictorial artist and the latter to the
sculptor. He detects in the stroke of a chisel and the lines of a
graving tool subjective beauties which appear to be hidden from the
great majority of Western dilettanti. He estimates the rank of a
specimen by the quality of the chisel-work. The Japanese _kinzoku-shi_
(metal sculptor) uses thirty-six principal classes of chisel, each with
its distinctive name, and as most of these classes comprise from five to
ten sub-varieties, his cutting and graving tools aggregate about two
hundred and fifty.
The Field for Sculptured Decoration.
Scarcely less important in Japanese eyes than the chiselling of the
decorative design itself is the preparation of the field to which it is
applied. There used to be a strict canon with reference to this in
former times. _Namako_ (fish-roe) grounds were essential for the
mountings of swords worn on ceremonial occasions, the _ishime_
(stone-pitting) or _jimigaki_ (polished) styles being considered less
aristocratic.
Namako is obtained by punching the whole surface--except the portion
carrying the decorative design--into a texture of microscopic dots.
The first makers of namako did not aim at regularity in the
distribution of these dots; they were content to produce the effect of
millet-seed sifted haphazard over the surface. But from the 15th
century the punching of the dots in rigidly straight lines came to be
considered essential, and the difficulty involved was so great that
namako-making took its place among the highest technical achievements
of the sculptor. When it is remembered that the punching tool was
guided solely by the hand and eye, and that three or more blows of the
mallet had to be struck for every dot, some conception may be formed
of the patience and accuracy needed to produce these tiny
protuberances in perfectly straight lines, at exactly equal intervals
and of absolutely uniform size. Namako disposed in straight parallel
lines originally ranked at the head of this kind of work. But a new
kind was introduced in the 16th century. It was obtained by punching
the dots in intersecting lines, so arranged that the dots fell
uniformly into diamond-shaped groups of five each. This is called
_go-no-me-namako_, because of its resemblance to the disposition of
chequers in the Japanese game of _go_. A century later, the _daimyo
namako_ was invented, in which lines of dots alternated with lines of
polished ground. _Ishime_ may be briefly described as diapering. There
is scarcely any limit to the ingenuity and skill of the Japanese
expert in diapering a metal surface. It is not possible to enumerate
here even the principal styles of ishime, but mention may be made of
the _zara-maki_ (broad-cast), in which the surface is finely but
irregularly pitted after the manner of the face of a stone; the
_nashi-ji_ (pear-ground), in which we have a surface like the rind of
a pear; the _hari-ishime_ (needle ishime), where the indentations are
so minute that they seem to have been made with the point of a needle;
the _gama-ishime_, which is intended to imitate the skin of a toad;
the _tsuya-ishime_, produced with a chisel sharpened so that its
traces have a lustrous appearance; the _ore-kuchi_ (broken-tool), a
peculiar kind obtained with a jagged tool; and the _gozame_, which
resembles the plaited surface of a fine straw mat.
Patina.
Great importance has always been attached by Japanese experts to the
patina of metal used for artistic chiselling. It was mainly for the
sake of their patina that value attached to the remarkable alloys
_shakudo_ (3 parts of gold to 97 of copper) and _shibuichi_ (1 part of
silver to 3 of copper). Neither metal, when it emerges from the
furnace, has any beauty, shakudo being simply dark-coloured copper and
shibuichi pale gun-metal. But after proper treatment[2] the former
develops a glossy black patina with violet sheen, and the latter shows
beautiful shades of grey with silvery lustre. Both these compounds
afford delicate, unobtrusive and effective grounds for inlaying with
gold, silver and other metals, as well as for sculpture, whether
incised or in relief. Copper, too, by patina-producing treatment, is
made to show not merely a rich golden sheen with pleasing limpidity,
but also red of various hues, from deep coral to light vermilion,
several shades of grey, and browns of numerous tones from dead-leaf to
chocolate. Even greater value has always been set upon the patina of
iron, and many secret recipes were preserved in artist families for
producing the fine, satin-like texture so much admired by all
connoisseurs.
Methods of Chiselling.
In Japan, as in Europe, three varieties of relief carving are
distinguished--_alto_ (_taka-bori_), mezzo (_chuniku-bori_) and
_basso_ (_usuniku-bori_). In the opinion of the Japanese expert, these
styles hold the same respective rank as that occupied by the three
kinds of ideographic script in caligraphy. High relief carving
corresponds to the _kaisho_, or most classical form of writing; medium
relief to the _gyosho_, or semi-cursive style; and low relief to the
_sosho_ or grass character. With regard to incised chiselling, the
commonest form is _kebori_ (hair-carving), which may be called
engraving, the lines being of uniform thickness and depth. Very
beautiful results are obtained by the kebori method, but incomparably
the finest work in the incised class is that known as
_kata-kiri-bori_. In this kind of chiselling the Japanese artist can
claim to be unique as well as unrivalled. Evidently the idea of the
great Yokoya experts, the originators of the style, was to break away
from the somewhat formal monotony of ordinary engraving, where each
line performs exactly the same function, and to convert the chisel
into an artist's brush instead of using it as a common cutting tool.
They succeeded admirably. In the kata-kiri-bori every line has its
proper value in the pictorial design, and strength and directness
become cardinal elements in the strokes of the burin just as they do
in the brushwork of the picture-painter. The same fundamental rule
applied, too, whether the field of the decoration was silk, paper or
metal. The artist's tool, be it brush or burin, must perform its task
by one effort. There must be no appearance of subsequent deepening, or
extending, or re-cutting or finishing. Kata-kiri-bori by a great
expert is a delight. One is lost in astonishment at the nervous yet
perfectly regulated force and the unerring fidelity of every trace of
the chisel. Another variety of carving much affected by artists of the
17th century, and now largely used, is called _shishi-ai-bori_ or
_niku-ai-bori_. In this style the surface of the design is not raised
above the general plane of the field, but an effect of projection is
obtained either by recessing the whole space immediately surrounding
the design, or by enclosing the latter in a scarped frame. Yet another
and very favourite method, giving beautiful results, is to model the
design on both faces of the metal so as to give a sculpture in the
round. The fashion is always accompanied by chiselling _a jour_
(_sukashi-bori_), so that the sculptured portions stand out in their
entirety.
Inlaying.
Inlaying with gold or silver was among the early forms of decoration
in Japan. The skill developed in modern times is at least equal to
anything which the past can show, and the results produced are much
more imposing. There are two principal kinds of inlaying: the first
called _hon-zogan_ (true inlaying), the second _nunome-zogan_
(linen-mesh inlaying). As to the former, the Japanese method does not
differ from that seen in the beautiful iron censers and vases inlaid
with gold which the Chinese produced from the _Suen-te_ era
(1426-1436). In the surface of the metal the workman cuts grooves
wider at the base than at the top, and then hammers into them gold or
silver wire. Such a process presents no remarkable features, except
that it has been carried by the Japanese to an extraordinary degree of
elaborateness. The nunome-zogan is more interesting. Suppose, for
example, that the artist desires to produce an inlaid diaper. His
first business is to chisel the surface in lines forming the basic
pattern of the design. Thus, for a diamond-petal diaper the chisel is
carried across the face of the metal horizontally, tracing a number of
parallel bands divided at fixed intervals by ribs which are obtained
by merely straightening the chisel and striking it a heavy blow. The
same process is then repeated in another direction, so that the new
bands cross the old at an angle adapted to the nature of the design.
Several independent chisellings may be necessary before the lines of
the diaper emerge clearly, but throughout the whole operation no
measurement of any kind is taken, the artist being guided entirely by
his hand and eye. The metal is then heated, not to redness, but
sufficiently to develop a certain degree of softness, and the workman,
taking a very thin sheet of gold (or silver), hammers portions of it
into the salient points of the design. In ordinary cases this is the
sixth process. The seventh is to hammer gold into the outlines of the
diaper; the eighth, to hammer it into the pattern filling the spaces
between the lines, and the ninth and tenth to complete the details. Of
course the more intricate the design the more numerous the processes.
It is scarcely possible to imagine a higher effort of hand and eye
than this _nunome-zogan_ displays, for while intricacy and
elaborateness are carried to the very extreme, absolute mechanical
accuracy is obtained. Sometimes in the same design we see gold of
three different hues, obtained by varying the alloy. A third kind of
inlaying, peculiar to Japan, is _sumi-zogan_ (ink-inlaying), so called
because the inlaid design gives the impression of having been painted
with Indian ink beneath the transparent surface of the metal. The
difference between this process and ordinary inlaying is that for
_sumi-zogan_ the design to be inlaid is fully chiselled out of an
independent block of metal with sides sloping so as to be broader at
the base than at the top. The object which is to receive the
decoration is then channelled in dimensions corresponding to those of
the design block, and the latter having been fixed in the channels,
the surface is ground and polished until an intimate union is obtained
between the inlaid design and the metal forming its field. Very
beautiful effects are thus produced, for the design seems to have
grown up to the surface of the metal field rather than to have been
planted in it. Shibuichi inlaid with shakudo used to be the commonest
combination of metals in this class of decoration, and the objects
usually depicted were bamboos, crows, wild-fowl under the moon, peony
sprays and so forth.
Wood-grained Grounds.
A variety of decoration much practised by early experts, and carried
to a high degree of excellence in modern times, is _mokume-ji_
(wood-grained ground). The process in this case is to take a thin
plate of metal and beat it into another plate of similar metal, so
that the two, though welded together, retain their separate forms. The
mass, while still hot, is coated with _hena-tsuchi_ (a kind of marl)
and rolled in straw ash, in which state it is roasted over a charcoal
fire raised to glowing heat with the bellows. The clay having been
removed, another plate of the same metal is beaten in, and the same
process is repeated. This is done several times, the number depending
on the quality of graining that the expert desires to produce. The
manifold plate is then heavily punched from one side, so that the
opposite face protrudes in broken blisters, which are then hammered
down until each becomes a centre of wave propagation. In fine work the
apex of the blister is ground off before the final hammering. Iron was
the metal used exclusively for work of this kind down to the 16th
century, but various metals began thenceforth to be combined. Perhaps
the choicest variety is gold graining in a shakudo field. By repeated
hammering and polishing the expert obtains such control of the
wood-grain pattern that its sinuosities and eddies seem to have
developed symmetry without losing anything of their fantastic grace.
There are other methods of producing _mokume-ji_.
Modern and Ancient Skill.
It has been frequently asserted by Western critics that the year (1876)
which witnessed the abolition of sword-wearing in Japan, witnessed also
the end of her artistic metal-work. That is a great mistake. The art has
merely developed new phases in modern times. Not only are its masters as
skilled now as they were in the days of the Goto, the Nara, the Yokoya
and the Yanagawa celebrities, but also their productions must be called
greater in many respects and more interesting than those of their
renowned predecessors. They no longer devote themselves to the
manufacture of sword ornaments, but work rather at vases, censers,
statuettes, plaques, boxes and other objects of a serviceable or
ornamental nature. All the processes described above are practised by
them with full success, and they have added others quite as remarkable.
Of these, one of the most interesting is called _kiribame_
(insertion). The decorative design having been completely chiselled in
the round, is then fixed in a field of a different metal, in which a
design of exactly similar outline has been cut out. The result is that
the picture has no blank reverse. For example, on the surface of a
shibuichi box-lid we see the backs of a flock of geese chiselled in
silver, and when the lid is opened, their breasts and the under-sides
of their pinions appear. The difficulty of such work is plain.
Microscopic accuracy has to be attained in cutting out the space for
the insertion of the design, and while the latter must be soldered
firmly in its place, not the slightest trace of solder or the least
sign of junction must be discernible between the metal of the inserted
picture and that of the field in which it is inserted. Suzuki Gensuke
is the inventor of this method. He belongs to a class of experts
called _uchimono-shi_ (hammerers) who perform preparatory work for
glyptic artists in metal. The skill of these men is often wonderful.
Using the hammer only, some of them can beat out an intricate shape as
truly and delicately as a sculptor could carve it with his chisels.
Ohori Masatoshi, an uchimono-shi of Aizu (d. 1897), made a silver
cake-box in the form of a sixteen-petalled chrysanthemum. The shapes
of the body and lid corresponded so intimately that, whereas the lid
could be slipped on easily and smoothly without any attempt to adjust
its curves to those of the body, it always fitted so closely that the
box could be lifted by grasping the lid only. Another feat of his was
to apply a lining of silver to a shakudo box by shaping and hammering
only, the fit being so perfect that the lining clung like paper to
every part of the box. Suzuki Gensuke and Hirata Soko are scarcely
less expert. The latter once exhibited in Tokyo a silver game-cock
with soft plumage and surface modelling of the most delicate
character. It had been made by means of the hammer only. Suzuki's
kiribame process is not to be confounded with the _kiribame-zogan_
(inserted inlaying) of Toyoda Koko, also a modern artist. The gist of
the latter method is that a design chiselled _a jour_ has its outlines
veneered with other metal which serves to emphasize them. Thus, having
pierced a spray of flowers in a thin sheet of shibuichi, the artist
fits a slender rim of gold, silver or shakudo to the petals, leaves
and stalks, so that an effect is produced of transparent blossoms
outlined in gold, silver or purple. Another modern achievement--also
due to Suzuki Gensuke--is _maze-gane_ (mixed metals). It is a singular
conception, and the results obtained depend largely on chance.
Shibuichi and shakudo are melted separately, and when they have cooled
just enough not to mingle too intimately, they are cast into a bar
which is subsequently beaten flat. The plate thus obtained shows
accidental clouding, or massing of dark tones, and these patches are
taken as the basis of a pictorial design to which final character is
given by inlaying with gold and silver, and by kata-kiri sculpture.
Such pictures partake largely of the impressionist character, but they
attain much beauty in the hands of the Japanese artist with his
extensive _repertoire_ of suggestive symbols. A process resembling
maze-gane, but less fortuitous, is _shibuichi-doshi_ (combined
shibuichi), which involves beating together two kinds of shibuichi and
then adding a third variety, after which the details of the picture
are worked in as in the case of maze-gane. The charm of these methods
is that certain parts of the decorative design seem to float, not on
the surface of the metal, but actually within it, an admirable effect
of depth and atmosphere being thus produced. Mention must also be made
of an extraordinarily elaborate and troublesome process invented by
Kajima Ippu, a great artist of the present day. It is called
_togi-dashi-zogan_ (ground-out inlaying). In this exquisite and
ingenious kind of work the design appears to be growing up from the
depths of the metal, and a delightful impression of atmosphere and
water is obtained. All these processes, as well as that of _repousse_,
in which the Japanese have excelled from a remote period, are now
practised with the greatest skill in Tokyo, Kioto, Osaka and Kanazawa.
At the art exhibitions held twice a year in the principal cities there
may be seen specimens of statuettes, alcove ornaments, and household
utensils which show that the Japanese worker in metals stands more
indisputably than ever at the head of the world's artists in that
field. The Occident does not yet appear to have full realized the
existence of such talent in Japan; partly perhaps because its displays
in former times were limited chiefly to sword-furniture, possessing
little interest for the average European or American; and partly
because the Japanese have not yet learned to adapt their skill to
foreign requirements. They confine themselves at present to decorating
plaques, boxes and cases for cigars or cigarettes, and an occasional
tea or coffee service; but the whole domain of salvers,
dessert-services, race-cups and so on remains virtually unexplored.
Only within the past few years have stores been established in the
foreign settlements for the sale of silver utensils, and already the
workmanship on these objects displays palpable signs of the
deterioration which all branches of Japanese art have undergone in the
attempt to cater for foreign taste. In a general sense the European or
American connoisseur is much less exacting than the Japanese. Broad
effects of richness and splendour captivate the former, whereas the
latter looks for delicacy of finish, accuracy of detail and, above
all, evidences of artistic competence. It is nothing to a Japanese
that a vase should be covered with profuse decoration of flowers and
foliage: he requires that every blossom and every leaf shall be
instinct with vitality, and the comparative costliness of fine
workmanship does not influence his choice. But if the Japanese
sculptor adopted such standards in working for foreign patrons, his
market would be reduced to very narrow dimensions. He therefore adapts
himself to his circumstances, and, using the mould rather than the
chisel, produces specimens which snow tawdry handsomeness and are
attractively cheap. It must be admitted, however, that even though
foreign appreciative faculty were sufficiently educated, the Japanese
artist in metals would still labour under the great difficulty of
devising shapes to take the place of those which Europe and America
have learned to consider classical.
Bronze Casting.
Bronze is called by the Japanese _kara-kane_, a term signifying "Chinese
metal" and showing clearly the source from which knowledge of the alloy
was obtained. It is a copper-lead-tin compound, the proportions of its
constituents varying from 72 to 88% of copper, from 4 to 20% of lead and
from 2 to 8% of tin. There are also present small quantities of arsenic
and antimony, and zinc is found generally as a mere trace, but sometimes
reaching to 6%. Gold is supposed to have found a place in ancient
bronzes, but its presence has never been detected by analysis, and of
silver not more than 2% seems to have been admitted at any time. Mr W.
Gowland has shown that, whatever may have been the practice of Japanese
bronze makers in ancient and medieval eras, their successors in later
days deliberately introduced arsenic and antimony into the compound in
order to harden the bronze without impairing its fusibility, so that it
might take a sharper impression of the mould. Japanese bronze is well
suited for castings, not only because of its low melting-point, great
fluidity and capacity for taking sharp impressions, but also because it
has a particularly smooth surface and readily develops a fine patina.
One variety deserves special mention. It is a golden yellow bronze,
called _sentoku_--this being the Japanese pronunciation of _Suen-te_,
the era of the Ming dynasty of China when this compound was invented.
Copper, tin, lead and zinc, mixed in various proportions by different
experts, are the ingredients, and the beautiful golden hues and glossy
texture of the surface are obtained by patina-producing processes, in
which branch of metal-work the Japanese show altogether unique skill.
From the time when they began to cast bronze statues, Japanese experts
understood how to employ a hollow, removable core round which the
metal was run in a skin just thick enough for strength without waste
of material; and they also understood the use of wax for modelling
purposes. In ordinary circumstances, a casting thus obtained took the
form of a shell without any break of continuity. But for very large
castings the process had to be modified. The great image of Lochana
Buddha at Nara, for example, would measure 138 ft. in height were it
standing erect, and its weight is about 550 tons. The colossal Amida
at Kamakura has a height only 3 ft. less. It would have been scarcely
possible to cast such statues in one piece _in situ_, or, if cast
elsewhere, to transport them and elevate them on their pedestals. The
plan pursued was to build them up gradually in their places by
casting segment after segment. Thus, for the Nara Daibutsu, the mould
was constructed in a series of steps ascending 12 in. at a time, until
the head and neck were reached, which, of course, had to be cast in
one shell, 12 ft. high.
The term "parlour bronzes" serves to designate objects for domestic
use, as flower-vases, incense-burners and alcove ornaments.
Bronze-casters began to turn their attention to these objects about
the middle of the 17th century. The art of casting bronze reached its
culmination in the hands of a group of great experts--Seimin, Toun,
Masatune, Teijo, Somin, Keisai, Takusai, Gido, Zenryusai and
Hotokusai--who flourished during the second half of the 18th century
and the first half of the 19th. Many brilliant specimens of these
men's work survive, their general features being that the motives are
naturalistic, that the quality of the metal is exceptionally fine,
that in addition to beautifully clear casting obtained by highly
skilled use of the _cera-perduta_ process, the chisel was employed to
impart delicacy and finish to the design, and that modelling in high
relief is most successfully introduced. But it is a mistake to assert,
as many have asserted, that after the era of the above ten
masters--the latest of whom, Somin, ceased to work in 1871--no bronzes
comparable with theirs were cast. Between 1875 and 1879 some of the
finest bronzes ever produced in Japan were turned out by a group of
experts working under the business name of Sanseisha. Started by two
brothers, Oshima Katsujiro (art-name Joun) and Oshima Yasutaro
(art-name Shokaku), this association secured the services of a number
of skilled chisellers of sword-furniture, who had lost their
occupation by the abandonment of sword-wearing. Nothing could surpass
the delicacy of the works executed at the Sanseisha's atelier in
Tokyo, but unfortunately such productions were above the standard of
the customers for whom they were intended. Foreign buyers, who alone
stood in the market at that time, failed to distinguish the fine and
costly bronzes of Joun, Shokaku and their colleagues from cheap
imitations which soon began to compete with them, so that ultimately
the Sanseisha had to be closed. This page in the modern history of
Japan's bronzes needs little alteration to be true of her applied art
in general. Foreign demand has shown so little discrimination that
experts, finding it impossible to obtain adequate remuneration for
first-class work, have been obliged to abandon the field altogether,
or to lower their standard to the level of general appreciation, or by
forgery to cater for the perverted taste which attaches unreasoning
value to age. Joun has produced, and is thoroughly capable of
producing, bronzes at least equal to the best of Seimin's
masterpieces, yet he has often been induced to put Seimin's name on
objects for the sake of attracting buyers who attach more value to
cachet than to quality. If to the names of Joun and his brilliant
pupil Ryuki we add those of Suzuki Chokichi, Okazaki Sessei, Hasegawa
Kumazo, Kanaya Gorosaburo and Jomi Eisuke, we have a group of modern
bronze-casters who unquestionably surpass the ten experts beginning
with Seimin and ending with Somin. Okazaki Sessei has successfully
achieved the casting of huge panels carrying designs in high relief;
and whether there is question of patina or of workmanship, Jomi Eisuke
has never been surpassed.
Occidental influence has been felt, of course, in the field of modern
bronze-casting. At a school of art officially established in Tokyo in
1873 under the direction of Italian teachers--a school which owed its
signal failure partly to the incompetence and intemperate behaviour of
some of its foreign professors, and partly to a strong renaissance of
pure Japanese classicism--one of the few accomplishments successfully
taught was that of modelling in plaster and chiselling in marble after
Occidental methods. Marble statues are out of place in the wooden
buildings as well as in the parks of Japan, and even plaster busts or
groups, though less incongruous perhaps, have not yet found favour.
Hence the skill undoubtedly possessed by several graduates of the
defunct art school has to be devoted chiefly to a subordinate purpose,
namely, the fashioning of models for metal-casters. To this
combination of modellers in European style and metal-workers of such
force as Suzuki and Okazaki, Japan owes various memorial bronzes and
effigies which are gradually finding a place in her parks, her
museums, her shrines or her private houses. There is here little
departure from the well-trodden paths of Europe. Studies in drapery,
prancing steeds, ideal poses, heads with fragments of torsos attached
(in extreme violation of true art), crouching beasts of prey--all the
stereotyped styles are reproduced. The imitation is excellent.
Carving in Wood and Ivory.
Among the artists of early times it is often difficult to distinguish
between the carver of wood and the caster of bronze. The latter
sometimes made his own models in wax, sometimes chiselled them in wood,
and sometimes had recourse to a specialist in wood-carving. The group of
splendid sculptors in wood that graced the 11th, 12th and 13th centuries
left names never to be forgotten, but undoubtedly many other artists of
scarcely less force regarded bronze-casting as their principal business.
Thus the story of wood-carving is very difficult to trace. Even in the
field of architectural decoration for interiors, tradition tells us
scarcely anything about the masters who carved such magnificent works as
those seen in the Kioto temples, the Tokugawa mausolea, and some of the
old castles. There are, however, no modern developments of such work to
be noted. The ability of former times exists and is exercised in the old
way, though the field for its employment has been greatly narrowed.
[Illustration: PLATE V. SCULPTURE
FIG. 11.--VAJRA MALLA. By Unkei (13th century).
FIG. 12.--STATUE OF ASANGA (12th century, artist unknown).
FIG. 13.--STATUES OF BUDDHA AMI'TABHA AND TWO BODHISATTVAS (7th
century).]
[Illustration: PLATE VI. METAL WORK AND LACQUER
FIG 14.--DOOR OF BRONZE LANTERN IN THE TODAI TEMPLE (8th century).
FIG. 15.--BRONZE DUCK INCENSE BURNER (15th century). British Museum.
FIG. 16.--BRONZE MIRROR (12th to 13th century).
FIG. 17.--INKSTONE BOX IN LACQUER. By Koyetsu (1557-1637).]
Netsuke Carvers.
When Japanese sculpture in wood or ivory is spoken of, the first idea
that presents itself is connected with the netsuke, which, of all the
art objects found in Japan, is perhaps the most essentially Japanese.
If Japan had given us nothing but the netsuke, we should still have no
difficulty in differentiating the bright versatility of her national
genius from the comparatively sombre, mechanic and unimaginative
temperament of the Chinese. But the netsuke may now be said to be a
thing of the past. The _inro_ (medicine-box), which it mainly served
to fix in the girdle, has been driven out of fashion by the new
civilization imported from the West, and artists who would have carved
netsuke in former times now devote their chisels to statuettes and
alcove ornaments. It is not to be inferred, however, though it is a
favourite assertion of collectors, that no good netsuke have been made
in modern times. That theory is based upon the fact that after the
opening of the country to foreign intercourse in 1857, hundreds of
inferior specimens of netsuke were chiselled by inexpert hands,
purchased wholesale by treaty-port merchants, and sent to New York,
London and Paris, where, though they brought profit to the exporter,
they also disgusted the connoisseur and soon earned discredit for
their whole class. But in fact the glyptic artists of Tokyo, Osaka and
Kioto, though they now devote their chisels chiefly to works of more
importance than the netsuke, are in no sense inferior to their
predecessors of feudal days, and many beautiful netsuke bearing their
signatures are in existence. As for the modern ivory statuette or
alcove ornament, of which great numbers are now carved for the foreign
market, it certainly stands on a plane much higher than the netsuke,
since anatomical defects which escape notice in the latter owing to
its diminutive size, become obtrusive in the former.
The Realistic Departure.
One of the most remarkable developments of figure sculpture in modern
Japan was due to Matsumoto Kisaburo (1830-1869). He carved human
figures with as much accuracy as though they were destined for
purposes of surgical demonstration. Considering that this man had
neither art education nor anatomical instruction, and that he never
enjoyed an opportunity of studying from a model in a studio, his
achievements were remarkable. He and the craftsmen of the school he
established completely refute the theory that the anatomical solecisms
commonly seen in the works of Japanese sculptors are due to faulty
observation. Without scientific training of any kind Matsumoto and his
followers produced works in which the eye of science cannot detect any
error. But it is impossible to admit within the circle of high-art
productions these wooden figures of everyday men and women, unrelieved
by any subjective element, and owing their merit entirely to the
fidelity with which their contours are shaped, their muscles modelled,
and their anatomical proportions preserved. They have not even the
attraction of being cleanly sculptured in wood, but are covered with
thinly lacquered muslin, which, though doubtless a good preservative,
accentuates their puppet-like character. Nevertheless, Matsumoto's
figures marked an epoch in Japanese wood sculpture. Their vivid
realism appealed strongly to the taste of the average foreigner. A
considerable school of carvers soon began to work in the Matsumoto
style, and hundreds of their productions have gone to Europe and
America, finding no market in Japan.
The Semi-foreign School.
Midway between the Matsumoto school and the pure style approved by the
native taste in former times stand a number of wood-carvers headed by
Takamura Koun, who occupies in the field of sculpture much the same
place as that held by Hashimoto Gaho in the realm of painting. Koun
carves figures in the round which not only display great power of
chisel and breadth of style, but also tell a story not necessarily
drawn from the motives of the classical school. This departure from
established canons must be traced to the influence of the short-lived
academy of Italian art established by the Japanese government early in
the Meiji era. In the forefront of the new movement are to be found
men like Yoneharu Unkai and Shinkai Taketaro; the former chiselled a
figure of Jenner for the Medical Association of Japan when they
celebrated the centenary of the great physician, and the latter has
carved life-size effigies of two Imperial princes who lost their lives
in the war with China (1894-95). The artists of the Koun school,
however, do much work which appeals to emotions in general rather than
to individual memories. Thus Arakawa Reiun, one of Koun's most
brilliant pupils, has exhibited a figure of a swordsman in the act of
driving home a furious thrust. The weapon is not shown. Reiun
sculptured simply a man poised on the toes of one foot, the other foot
raised, the arm extended, and the body straining forward in strong yet
elastic muscular effort. A more imaginative work by the same artist
is a figure of a farmer who has just shot an eagle that swooped upon
his grandson. The old man holds his bow still raised. Some of the
eagle's feathers, blown to his side, suggest the death of the bird; at
his feet lies the corpse of the little boy, and the horror, grief and
anger that such a tragedy would inspire are depicted with striking
realism in the farmer's face. Such work has very close affinities with
Occidental conceptions. The chief distinguishing feature is that the
glyptic character is preserved at the expense of surface finish. The
undisguised touches of the chisel tell a story of technical force and
directness which could not be suggested by perfectly smooth surfaces.
To subordinate process to result is the European canon; to show the
former without marring the latter is the Japanese ideal. Many of
Koun's sculptures appear unfinished to eyes trained in Occidental
galleries, whereas the Japanese connoisseur detects evidence of a
technical feat in their seeming roughness.
Private Dwellings.
_Architecture._--From the evidence of ancient records it appears that
before the 5th century the Japanese resided in houses of a very rude
character. The sovereign's palace itself was merely a wooden hut. Its
pillars were thrust into the ground and the whole framework--consisting
of posts, beams, rafters, door-posts and window-frames--was tied
together with cords made by twisting the long fibrous stems of climbing
plants. The roof was thatched, and perhaps had a gable at each end with
a hole to allow the smoke of the wood fire to escape. Wooden doors swung
on a kind of hook; the windows were mere holes in the walls. Rugs of
skins or rush matting were used for sitting on, and the whole was
surrounded with a palisade. In the middle of the 5th century
two-storeyed houses seem to have been built, but the evidence on the
subject is slender. In the 8th century, however, when the court was
moved to Nara, the influence of Chinese civilization made itself felt.
Architects, turners, tile-makers, decorative artists and sculptors,
coming from China and from Korea, erected grand temples for the worship
of Buddha enshrining images of much beauty and adorned with paintings
and carvings of considerable merit. The plan of the city itself was
taken from that of the Chinese metropolis. A broad central avenue led
straight to the palace, and on either side of it ran four parallel
streets, crossed at right angles by smaller thoroughfares. During this
century the first sumptuary edict ordered that the dwellings of all high
officials and opulent civilians should have tiled roofs and be coloured
red, the latter injunction being evidently intended to stop the use of
logs carrying their bark. Tiles thenceforth became the orthodox covering
for a roof, but vermilion, being regarded as a religious colour, found
no favour in private dwellings. In the 9th century, after the capital
had been established at Kioto, the palace of the sovereigns and the
mansions of ministers and nobles were built on a scale of unprecedented
grandeur. It is true that all the structures of the time had the defect
of a box-like appearance. Massive, towering roofs, which impart an air
of stateliness even to a wooden building and yet, by their graceful
curves, avoid any suggestion of ponderosity, were still confined to
Buddhist edifices. The architect of private dwellings attached more
importance to satin-surfaced boards and careful joinery than to any
appearance of strength or solidity.
Except for the number of buildings composing it, the palace had little
to distinguish it from a nobleman's mansion. The latter consisted of a
principal hall, where the master of the house lived, ate and slept,
and of three suites of chambers, disposed on the north, the east and
the west of the principal hall. In the northern suite the lady of the
house dwelt, the eastern and western suites being allotted to other
members of the family. Corridors joined the principal hall to the
subordinate edifices, for as yet the idea had not been conceived of
having more than one chamber under the same roof. The principal hall
was usually 42 ft. square. Its centre was occupied by a "parent
chamber," 30 ft. square, around which ran an ambulatory and a veranda,
each 6 ft. wide. The parent chamber and the ambulatory were ceiled,
sometimes with interlacing strips of bark or broad laths, so as to
produce a plaited effect; sometimes with plain boards. The veranda had
no ceiling. Sliding doors, a characteristic feature of modern Japanese
houses, had not yet come into use, and no means were provided for
closing the veranda, but the ambulatory was surrounded by a wall of
latticed timber or plain boards, the lower half of which could be
removed altogether, whereas the upper half, suspended from hooks,
could be swung upward and outward. Privacy was obtained by blinds of
split bamboo, and the parent chamber was separated from the
ambulatory by similar bamboo blinds with silk cords for raising or
lowering them, or by curtains. The thick rectangular mats of uniform
size which, fitting together so as to present a level unbroken
surface, cover the floor of all modern Japanese houses, were not yet
in use: floors were boarded, having only a limited space matted. This
form of mansion underwent little modification until the 12th century,
when the introduction of the Zen sect of Buddhism with its
contemplative practice called for greater privacy. Interiors were then
divided into smaller rooms by means of sliding doors covered with thin
rice-paper, which permitted the passage of light while obstructing
vision; the hanging lattices were replaced by wooden doors which could
be slid along a groove so as to be removable in the daytime, and an
alcove was added in the principal chamber for a sacred picture or
Buddhist image to serve as an object of contemplation for a devotee
while practising the rite of abstraction. Thus the main features of
the Japanese dwelling-house were evolved, and little change took place
subsequently, except that the brush of the painter was freely used for
decorating partitions, and in aristocratic mansions unlimited care was
exercised in the choice of rare woods.
Buddhist Temple Architecture.
The Buddhist temple underwent little change at Japanese hands except in
the matter of decoration. Such as it was in outline when first erected
in accordance with Chinese models, such it virtually remained, though in
later times all the resources of the sculptor and the painter were
employed to beautify it externally and internally.
"The building, sometimes of huge dimensions, is invariably surrounded
by a raised gallery, reached by a flight of steps in the centre of the
approach front, the balustrade of which is a continuation of the
gallery railing. This gallery is sometimes supported upon a deep
system of bracketing, corbelled out from the feet of the main pillars.
Within this raised gallery, which is sheltered by the over-sailing
eaves, there is, in the larger temples, a columned loggia passing
round the two sides and the front of the building, or, in some cases,
placed on the facade only. The ceilings of the loggias are generally
sloping, with richly carved roof-timbers showing below at intervals;
and quaintly carved braces connect the outer pillars with the main
posts of the building. Some temples are to be seen in which the
ceiling of the loggia is boarded flat and decorated with large
paintings of dragons in black and gold. The intercolumniation is
regulated by a standard of about six or seven feet, and the general
result of the treatment of columns, wall-posts, &c., is that the whole
mural space, not filled in with doors or windows, is divided into
regular oblong panels, which sometimes receive plaster, sometimes
boarding and sometimes rich framework and carving or painted panels.
Diagonal bracing or strutting is nowhere to be found, and in many
cases mortises and other joints are such as very materially to weaken
the timbers at their points of connexion. It would seem that only the
immense weight of the roofs and their heavy projections prevent a
collapse of some of these structures in high winds. The principal
facade of the temple is filled in one, two or three compartments with
hinged doors, variously ornamented and folding outwards, sometimes in
double folds. From these doorways, generally left open, the interior
light is principally obtained, windows, as the term is generally
understood, being rare. An elaborate cornice of wooden bracketing
crowns the walls, forming one of the principal ornaments of the
building. The whole disposition of pillars, posts, brackets and
rafters is harmonically arranged according to some measure of the
standard of length. A very important feature of the facade is the
portico or porch-way, which covers the principal steps and is
generally formed by producing the central portion of the main roof
over the steps and supporting such projection upon isolated wooden
pillars braced together near the top with horizontal ties, carved,
moulded and otherwise fantastically decorated. Above these ties are
the cornice brackets and beams, corresponding in general design to the
cornice of the walls, and the intermediate space is filled with open
carvings of dragons or other characteristic designs. The forms of roof
are various, but mostly they commence in a steep slope at the top,
gradually flattening towards the eaves so as to produce a slightly
concave appearance, this concavity being rendered more emphatic by the
tilt which is given to the eaves at the four corners. The appearance
of the ends of the roof is half hip, half gable. Heavy ribs of
tile-cresting with large terminals are carried along the ridge and the
slope of the gable. The result of the whole is very picturesque, and
has the advantage of looking equally satisfactory from any point of
view. The interior arrangement of wall columns, horizontal beams and
cornice bracketing corresponds with that on the outside. The ceiling
is invariably boarded and subdivided by ribs into small rectangular
coffers. Sometimes painting is introduced into these panels and
lacquer and metal clasps are added to the ribs. When the temple is of
very large dimensions an interior peristyle of pillars is introduced
to assist in supporting the roof, and in such cases each pillar
carries profuse bracketing corresponding to that of the cornice. The
construction of the framework of the Japanese roof is such that the
weights all act vertically; there is no thrust on the outer walls,
and every available point of the interior is used as a means of
support.
"The floor is partly boarded and partly matted. The shrines, altars
and oblatory tables are placed at the back in the centre, and there
are often other secondary shrines at the sides. In temples of the best
class the floor of the gallery and of the central portion of the main
building from entrance to altar are richly lacquered; in those of
inferior class they are merely polished by continued rubbing."--(J.
Conder, in the _Proceedings of the Royal Institute of British
Architects._)
Shinto Architecture.
None of the magnificence of the Buddhist temple belongs to the Shinto
shrine. In the case of the latter conservatism has been absolute from
time immemorial. The shrines of Ise, which may be called the Mecca of
Shinto devotees, are believed to present to-day precisely the appearance
they presented in 478, when they were moved thither in obedience to a
revelation from the Sun-goddess. It has been the custom to rebuild them
every twentieth year, alternately on each of two sites set apart for the
purpose, the features of the old edifice being reproduced in the new
with scrupulous accuracy.
They are enlarged replicas of the primeval wooden hut described above,
having rafters with their upper ends crossed; thatched or shingled
roof; boarded floors, and logs laid on the roof-ridge at right angles
for the purpose of binding the ridge and the rafters firmly together.
A thatched roof is imperative in the orthodox shrine, but in modern
days tiles or sheets of copper are sometimes substituted. At Ise,
however, no such novelties are tolerated. The avenue of approach
generally passes under a structure called _torii_. Originally designed
as a perch for fowls which sang to the deities at daybreak, this torii
subsequently came to be erroneously regarded as a gateway
characteristic of the Shinto shrine. It consists of two thick trunks
placed upright, their upper ends mortised into a horizontal log which
projects beyond them at either side. The structure derives some grace
from its extreme simplicity.
_Textile Fabrics and Embroidery._--In no branch of applied art does the
decorative genius of Japan show more attractive results than in that of
textile fabrics, and in none has there been more conspicuous progress
during recent years. Her woven and embroidered stuffs have always been
beautiful; but in former times few pieces of size and splendour were
produced, if we except the curtains used for draping festival cars and
the hangings of temples. Tapestry, as it is employed in Europe, was not
thought of, nor indeed could the small hand-looms of the period be
easily adapted to such work. All that has been changed, however. Arras
of large dimensions, showing remarkable workmanship and grand
combinations of colours, is now manufactured in Kioto, the product of
years of patient toil on the part of weaver and designer alike.
Kawashima of Kioto has acquired high reputation for work of this kind.
He inaugurated the new departure a few years ago by copying a Gobelin,
but it may safely be asserted that no Gobelin will bear comparison with
the pieces now produced in Japan.
The most approved fashion of weaving is called _tsuzure-ori_
(linked-weaving); that is to say, the cross threads are laid in with
the fingers and pushed into their places with a comb by hand, very
little machinery being used. The threads extend only to the outlines
of each figure, and it follows that every part of the pattern has a
rim of minute holes like pierced lines separating postage stamps in a
sheet, the effect being that the design seems to hang suspended in the
ground--linked into it, as the Japanese term implies.[3] A specimen of
this nature recently manufactured by Kawashima's weavers measured 20
ft. by 13, and represented the annual festival at the Nikko mausolea.
The chief shrine was shown, as were also the gate and the long flight
of stone steps leading up to it, several other buildings, the groves
of cryptomeria that surround the mausolea, and the festival
procession. All the architectural and decorative details, all the
carvings and colours, all the accessories--everything was wrought in
silk, and each of the 1500 figures forming the procession wore exactly
appropriate costume. Even this wealth of detail, remarkable as it was,
seemed less surprising than the fact that the weaver had succeeded in
producing the effect of atmosphere and aerial perspective. Through the
graceful cryptomerias distant mountains and the still more distant sky
could be seen, and between the buildings in the foreground and those
in the middle distance atmosphere appeared to be perceptible. Two
years of incessant labour with relays of artisans working steadily
throughout the twenty-four hours were required to finish this piece.
Naturally such specimens are not produced in large numbers. Next in
decorative importance to tsuzure-ori stands _yuzen birodo_, commonly
known among English-speaking people as cut velvet. Dyeing by the
_yuzen_ process is an innovation of modern times. The design is
painted on the fabric, after which the latter is steamed, and the
picture is ultimately fixed by methods which are kept secret. The soft
silk known as _habutaye_ is a favourite ground for such work, but silk
crape also is largely employed. No other method permits the decorator
to achieve such fidelity and such boldness of draughtsmanship. The
difference between the results of the ordinary and the yuzen processes
of dyeing is, in fact, the difference between a stencilled sketch and
a finished picture. In the case of cut velvet, the yuzen process is
supplemented as follows: The cutter, who works at an ordinary wooden
bench, has no tool except a small sharp chisel with a V-shaped point.
This chisel is passed into an iron pencil having at the end guards,
between which the point of the chisel projects, so that it is
impossible for the user to cut beyond a certain depth. When the velvet
comes to him, it already carries a coloured picture permanently fixed
by the yuzen process, but the wires have not been withdrawn. It is, in
fact, velvet that has passed through all the usual stages of
manufacture except the cutting of the thread along each wire and the
withdrawal of the wires. The cutting artist lays the piece of
unfinished velvet on his bench, and proceeds to carve into the pattern
with his chisel, just as though he were shading the lines of the
design with a steel pencil. When the pattern is lightly traced, he
uses his knife delicately; when the lines are strong and the shadows
heavy, he makes the point pierce deeply. In short, the little chisel
becomes in his fingers a painter's brush, and when it is remembered
that, the basis upon which he works being simply a thread of silk, his
hand must be trained to such delicacy of muscular effort as to be
capable of arresting the edge of the knife at varying depths within
the diameter of the tiny filament, the difficulty of the achievement
will be understood. Of course it is to be noted that the edge of the
cutting tool is never allowed to trespass upon a line which the
exigencies of the design require to be solid. The veining of a cherry
petal, for example, the tessellation of a carp's scales, the serration
of a leaf's edge--all these lines remain intact, spared by the
cutter's tool, while the leaf itself, or the petal, or the scales of
the fish, have the threads forming them cut so as to show the velvet
nap and to appear in soft, low relief. In one variety of this fabric,
a slip of gold foil is laid under each wire, and left in position
after the wire is withdrawn, the cutting tool being then used with
freedom in some parts of the design, so that the gold gleams through
the severed thread, producing a rich and suggestive effect. Velvet,
however, is not capable of being made the basis for pictures so
elaborate and microscopically accurate as those produced by the yuzen
process on silk crape or habutaye. The rich-toned, soft plumage of
birds or the magnificent blending of colours in a bunch of peonies or
chrysanthemums cannot be obtained with absolute fidelity on the ribbed
surface of velvet.
Embroidery.
The embroiderer's craft has been followed for centuries in Japan with
eminent success, but whereas it formerly ranked with dyeing and weaving,
it has now come to be regarded as an art. Formerly the embroiderer was
content to produce a pattern with his needle, now he paints a picture. So
perfectly does the modern Japanese embroiderer elaborate his scheme of
values that all the essential elements of pictorial effects--chiaroscuro,
aerial perspective and atmosphere are present in his work. Thus a
graceful and realistic school has replaced the comparatively stiff and
conventional style of former times.
Further, an improvement of a technical character was recently made,
which has the effect of adding greatly to the durability of these
embroideries. Owing to the use of paper among the threads of the
embroidery and sizing in the preparation of the stuff forming the
ground, every operation of folding used to cause perceptible injury to
a piece, so that after a few years it acquired a crumpled and dingy
appearance. But by the new method embroiderers now succeed in
producing fabrics which defy all destructive influences--except, of
course, dirt and decay.
Early Period.
_Ceramics._--All research proves that up to the 12th century of the
Christian era the ceramic ware produced in Japan was of a very rude
character. The interest attaching to it is historical rather than
technical. Pottery was certainly manufactured from an early date, and
there is evidence that kilns existed in some fifteen provinces in the
10th century. But although the use of the potter's wheel had long been
understood, the objects produced were simple utensils to contain
offerings of rice, fruit and fish at the austere ceremonials of the
Shinto faith, jars for storing seeds, and vessels for common domestic
use. In the 13th century, however, the introduction of tea from China,
together with vessels for infusing and serving it, revealed to the
Japanese a new conception of ceramic possibilities, for the potters of
the Middle Kingdom had then (Sung dynasty) fully entered the road which
was destined to carry them ultimately to a high pinnacle of their craft.
It had long been customary in Japan to send students to China for the
purpose of studying philosophy and religion, and she now (1223) sent a
potter, Kato Shirozaemon, who, on his return, opened a kiln at Seto in
the province of Owari, and began to produce little jars for preserving
tea and cups for drinking it. These were conspicuously superior to
anything previously manufactured. Kato is regarded as the father of
Japanese ceramics. But the ware produced by him and his successors at
the Seto kilns, or by their contemporaries in other parts of the
country, had no valid claim to decorative excellence. Nearly three
centuries elapsed before a radically upward movement took place, and on
this occasion also the inspiration came from China. In 1520 a potter
named Gorodayu Goshonzui (known to posterity as Shonzui) made his way to
Fuchow and thence to King-te-chen, where, after five years' study, he
acquired the art of manufacturing porcelain, as distinguished from
pottery, together with the art of applying decoration in blue under the
glaze. He established his kiln at Arita in Hizen, and the event marked
the opening of the second epoch of Japanese ceramics. Yet the new
departure then made did not lead far. The existence of porcelain clay in
Hizen was not discovered for many years, and Shonzui's pieces being made
entirely with kaolin imported from China, their manufacture ceased after
his death, though knowledge of the processes learned by him survived and
was used in the production of greatly inferior wares. The third clearly
differentiated epoch was inaugurated by the discovery of true kaolin at
Izumi-yama in Hizen, the discoverer being one of the Korean potters who
came to Japan in the train of Hideyoshi's generals returning from the
invasion of Korea, and the date of the discovery being about 1605. Thus
much premised, it becomes possible to speak in detail of the various
wares for which Japan became famous.
The principal kinds of ware are Hizen, Kioto, Satsuma, Kutani, Owari,
Bizen, Takatori, Banko, Izumo and Yatsushiro.
Hizen.
There are three chief varieties of Hizen ware, namely, (1) the
enamelled porcelain of Arita--the "old Japan" of European collectors;
(2) the enamelled porcelain of Nabeshima; and (3) the blue and white,
or plain white, porcelain of Hirado. The earliest manufacture of
porcelain--as distinguished from pottery--began in the opening years
of the 16th century, but its materials were exotic. Genuine Japanese
porcelain dates from about a century later. The decoration was
confined to blue under the glaze, and as an object of art the ware
possessed no special merit. Not until the year 1620 do we find any
evidence of the style for which Arita porcelain afterwards became
famous, namely, decoration with vitrifiable enamels. The first efforts
in this direction were comparatively crude; but before the middle of
the 17th century, two experts--Goroshichi and Kakiemon--carried the
art to a point of considerable excellence. From that time forward the
Arita factories turned out large quantities of porcelain profusely
decorated with blue under the glaze and coloured enamels over it. Many
pieces were exported by the Dutch, and some also were specially
manufactured to their order. Specimens of the latter are still
preserved in European collections, where they are classed as genuine
examples of Japanese ceramic art, though beyond question their style
of decoration was greatly influenced by Dutch interference. The
porcelains of Arita were carried to the neighbouring town of Imari for
sale and shipment. Hence the ware came to be known to Japanese and
foreigners alike as _Imari-yaki_ (_yaki_ = anything baked; hence
ware).
Nabeshima.
The Nabeshima porcelain--so called because of its production at
private factories under the special patronage of Nabeshima Naoshige,
feudal chief of Hizen--was produced at Okawachiyama. It differed from
Imari-yaki in the milky whiteness and softness of its glaze, the
comparative sparseness of its enamelled decoration, and the relegation
of blue _sous couverte_ to an entirely secondary place. This is
undoubtedly the finest jewelled porcelain in Japan; the best examples
leave nothing to be desired. The factory's period of excellence began
about the year 1680, and culminated at the close of the 18th century.
Hirado.
The Hirado porcelain--so called because it enjoyed the special
patronage of Matsuura, feudal chief of Hirado--was produced at
Mikawa-uchi-yama, but did not attain excellence until the middle of
the 18th century, from which time until about 1830 specimens of rare
beauty were produced. They were decorated with blue under the glaze,
but some were pure white with exquisitely chiselled designs incised or
in relief. The production was always scanty, and, owing to official
prohibitions, the ware did not find its way into the general market.
Kioto.
The history of Kioto ware--which, being for the most part faience,
belongs to an entirely different category from the Hizen porcelains
spoken of above--is the history of individual ceramists rather than of
special manufactures. Speaking broadly, however, four different
varieties are usually distinguished. They are _raku-yaki_,
_awata-yaki_, _iwakura-yaki_ and _kiyomizu-yaki_.
Raku.
Raku-yaki is essentially the domestic faience of Japan; for, being
entirely hand-made and fired at a very low temperature, its
manufacture offers few difficulties, and has consequently been carried
on by amateurs in their own homes at various places throughout the
country. The raku-yaki of Kioto is the parent of all the rest. It was
first produced by a Korean who emigrated to Japan in the early part of
the 16th century. But the term _raku-yaki_ did not come into use until
the close of the century, when Chojiro (artistic name, Choryu)
received from Hideyoshi (the Taiko) a seal bearing the ideograph
_raku_, with which he thenceforth stamped his productions. Thirteen
generations of the same family carried on the work, each using a stamp
with the same ideograph, its calligraphy, however, differing
sufficiently to be identified by connoisseurs. The faience is thick
and clumsy, having soft, brittle and very light _pate_. The staple
type has black glaze showing little lustre, and in choice varieties
this is curiously speckled and pitted with red. Salmon-coloured, red,
yellow and white glazes are also found, and in late specimens gilding
was added. The raku faience owed much of its popularity to the
patronage of the tea clubs. The nature of its paste and glaze adapted
it for the infusion of powdered tea, and its homely character suited
the austere canons of the tea ceremonies.
Awata.
Awata-yaki is the best known among the ceramic productions of Kioto.
There is evidence to show that the art of decoration with enamels over
the glaze reached Kioto from Hizen in the middle of the 17th century.
Just at that time there flourished in the Western capital a potter of
remarkable ability, called Nomura Seisuke. He immediately utilized the
new method, and produced many beautiful examples of jewelled faience,
having close, hard _pate_, yellowish-white, or brownish-white, glaze
covered with a network of fine crackle, and sparse decoration in pure
full-bodied colours--red, green, gold and silver. He worked chiefly at
Awata, and thus brought that factory into prominence. Nomura Seisuke,
or Ninsei as he is commonly called, was one of Japan's greatest
ceramists. Genuine examples of his faience have always been highly
prized, and numerous imitations were subsequently produced, all
stamped with the ideograph Ninsei. After Ninsei's time, the most
renowned ceramists of the Awata factories were Kenzan (1688-1740);
Ebisei, a contemporary of Kenzan; Dohachi (1751-1763), who
subsequently moved to Kiyomizu-zaka, another part of Kioto, the
faience of which constitutes the Kiyomizu-yaki mentioned above;
Kinkozan (1745-1760); Hozan (1690-1721); Taizan (1760-1800); Bizan
(1810-1838); and Tanzan, who was still living in 1909. It must be
noted that several of these names, as Kenzan, Dohachi, Kinkozan, Hozan
and Taizan, were not limited to one artist. They are family names, and
though the dates we have given indicate the eras of the most noted
ceramists in each family, amateurs must not draw any chronological
conclusion from the mere fact that a specimen bears such and such a
name.
Iwakura.
The origin of the Iwakura-yaki is somewhat obscure, and its history,
at an early date, becomes confused with that of the Awata yaki, from
which, indeed, it does not materially differ.
Kiyomizu.
In the term Kiyomizu-yaki may be included roughly all the faience of
Kioto, with the exception of the three varieties described above. The
distinction between Kiyomizu, Awata and Iwakura is primarily local.
They are parts of the same city, and if their names have been used to
designate particular classes of pottery, it is not because the
technical or decorative features of each class distinguish it from the
other two, but chiefly for the purpose of identifying the place of
production. On the slopes called Kiyomizu-zaka and Gojo-zaka lived a
number of ceramists, all following virtually the same models with
variations due to individual genius. The principal Kiyomizu artists
were: Ebisei, who moved from Awata to Gojo-zaka in 1688; Eisen and
Rokubei, pupils of Ebisei; Mokubei, a pupil of Eisen, but more
celebrated than his master; Shuhei (1790-1810), Kentei (1782-1820),
and Zengoro Hozen, generally known as Eiraku (1790-1850). Eisen was
the first to manufacture porcelain (as distinguished from faience) in
Kioto, and this branch of the art was carried to a high standard of
excellence by Eiraku, whose speciality was a rich coral-red glaze with
finely executed decoration in gold. The latter ceramist excelled also
in the production of purple, green and yellow glazes, which he
combined with admirable skill and taste. Some choice ware of the
latter type was manufactured by him in Kishu, by order of the feudal
chief of that province. It is known as _Kaira-ku-yen-yaki_ (ware of
the Kairaku park).
[Illustration: PLATE VIII. POTTERY AND PORCELAIN
FIG. 23.--TEA BOWL. By Kenzan.
FIG. 24.--TEA JAR. By Ninsei.
FIG. 25.--FIGURE. By Kakiemon. Arita porcelain.
FIG. 26.--LION. By Chojiro Raku.
FIG. 27.--CENSER, WITH KOCHI GLAZE. By Eisen.
FIG. 28.--TEA JAR. By Ninsei.
FIG. 29.--BIZEN WARE. Samantabhadra
FIG. 30.--CENSER. By Kenzan.]
[Illustration: PLATE VII. LACQUER
FIG. 18.--LID OF BOX. By Korin.
FIG. 19.--CASE FOR HEAD OF A SKAKUJO.
FIG. 20.--OWL ON A BRANCH. By Ritsuo.
FIG. 21.--BOX WITH BUTTERFLIES AND FLOWERS IN GOLD (12th century).
FIG. 22.--LACQUERED BOXES. By Koami (1598-1651).]
Satsuma.
No phrase is commoner in the mouths of Western collectors than "Old
Satsuma"; no ware is rarer in Western collections. Nine hundred and
ninety-nine pieces out of every thousand that do duty as genuine
examples of this prince of faiences are simply examples of the skill
of modern forgers. In point of fact, the production of faience
decorated with gold and coloured enamels may be said to have commenced
at the beginning of the eighth century in Satsuma. Some writers maintain
that it did actually commence then, and that nothing of the kind had
existed there previously. Setting aside, however, the strong
improbability that a style of decoration so widely practised and so
highly esteemed could have remained unknown during a century and a
half to experts working for one of the most puissant chieftains in
Japan, we have the evidence of trustworthy traditions and written
records that enamelled faience was made by the potters at
Tatsumonji--the principal factory of Satsuma-ware in early days--as
far back as the year 1676. Mitsuhisa, then feudal lord of Satsuma, was
a munificent patron of art. He summoned to his fief the painter
Tangen--a pupil of the renowned Tanyu, who died in 1674--and employed
him to paint faience or to furnish designs for the ceramists of
Tatsumonji. The ware produced under these circumstances is still known
by the name of Satsuma Tangen. But the number of specimens was small.
Destined chiefly for private use or for presents, their decoration was
delicate rather than rich, the colour chiefly employed being brown, or
reddish brown, under the glaze, and the decoration over the glaze
being sparse and chaste. Not until the close of the l8th century or
the beginning of the 19th did the more profuse fashion of enamelled
decoration come to be largely employed. It was introduced by two
potters who had visited Kioto, and there observed the ornate methods
so well illustrated in the wares of Awata and Kiyomizu. At the same
time a strong impetus was given to the production of faience at
Tadeno--then the chief factory in Satsuma--owing to the patronage of
Shimazu Tamanobu, lord of the province. To this increase in production
and to the more elaborate application of verifiable enamels may be
attributed the erroneous idea that Satsuma faience decorated with gold
and coloured enamels had its origin at the close of the 18th century.
For all the purposes of the ordinary collector it may be said to have
commenced then, and to have come to an end about 1860; but for the
purposes of the historian we must look farther back.
The ceramic art in Satsuma owed much to the aid of a number of Korean
experts who settled there after the return of the Japanese forces from
Korea. One of these men, Boku Heii, discovered (1603) clay fitted for
the manufacture of white _craquele_ faience. This was the subsequently
celebrated _Satsuma-yaki_. But in Boku's time, and indeed as long as
the factories flourished, many other kinds of faience were produced,
the principal having rich black or _flambe_ glazes, while a few were
green or yellow monochromes. One curious variety, called _same-yaki_,
had glaze chagrined like the skin of a shark. Most of the finest
pieces of enamelled faience were the work of artists at the Tadeno
factory, while the best specimens of other kinds were by the artists
of Tatsumonji.
Kutani.
The porcelain of Kutani is among those best known to Western
collectors, though good specimens ofthe old ware have always been
scarce. Its manufacture dates from the close of the 17th century, when
the feudal chief of Kaga took the industry under his patronage. There
were two principal varieties of the ware: _ao-Kutani_, so called
because of a green (_ao_) enamel of great brilliancy and beauty which
was largely used in its decoration, and Kutani with painted and
enamelled _pate_ varying from hard porcelain to pottery. Many of the
pieces are distinguished by a peculiar creamy whiteness of glaze,
suggesting the idea that they were intended to imitate the soft-paste
wares of China. The enamels are used to delineate decorative subjects
and are applied in masses, the principal colours being green, yellow
and soft Prussian blue, all brilliant and transparent, with the
exception of the last which is nearly opaque. In many cases we find
large portions of the surface completely covered with green or yellow
enamel overlying black diapers or scroll patterns. The second variety
of Kutani ware may often be mistaken for "old Japan" (i.e. Imari
porcelain). The most characteristic examples of it are
distinguishable, however, by the preponderating presence of a peculiar
russet red, differing essentially from the full-bodied and
comparatively brilliant colour of the Arita pottery. Moreover, the
workmen of Kaga did not follow the Arita precedent of massing blue
under the glaze. In the great majority of cases they did not use blue
at all in this position, and when they did, its place was essentially
subordinate. They also employed silver freely for decorative purposes,
whereas we rarely find it thus used on "old Japan" porcelain.
About the time (1843) of the ao-Kutani revival, a potter called lida
Hachiroemon introduced a style of decoration which subsequently came
to be regarded as typical of all Kaga procelains. Taking the Eiraku
porcelains of Kioto as models, Hachiroemon employed red grounds with
designs traced on them in gold. The style was not absolutely new in
Kaga. We find similar decoration on old and choice examples of
Kutani-yaki. But the character of the old red differs essentially from
that of the modern manufacture--the former being a soft, subdued
colour, more like a bloom than an enamel; the latter a glossy and
comparatively crude pigment. In Hachiroemon's time and during the
twenty years following the date of his innovation, many beautiful
examples of elaborately decorated Kutani porcelain were produced. The
richness, profusion and microscopic accuracy of their decoration could
scarcely have been surpassed; but, with very rare exceptions, their
lack of delicacy of technique disqualifies them to rank as fine
porcelains.
Owari.
It was at the little village of Seto, some five miles from Nagoya, the
chief town of the province of Owari, or Bishu, that the celebrated
Kato Shirozaemon made the first Japanese faience worthy to be
considered a technical success. Shirozaemon produced dainty little
tea-jars, ewers and other _cha-no-yu_ utensils. These, being no longer
stoved in an inverted position, as had been the habit before
Shirozaemon's time, were not disfigured by the bare, blistered lips of
their predecessors. Their _pate_ was close and well-manufactured
pottery, varying in colour from dark brown to russet, and covered with
thick, lustrous glazes--black, amber-brown, chocolate and yellowish
grey. These glazes were not monochromatic: they showed differences of
tint, and sometimes marked varieties of colour; as when
chocolate-brown passed into amber, or black was relieved by streaks
and clouds of grey and dead-leaf red. This ware came to be known as
_Toshiro-yaki_, a term obtained by combining the second syllable of
Kato with the two first of Shirozaemon. A genuine example of it is at
present worth many times its weight in gold to Japanese dilettanti,
though in foreign eyes it is little more than interesting. Shirozaemon
was succeeded at the kiln by three generations of his family, each
representative retaining the name of Toshiro, and each distinguishing
himself by the excellence of his work. Thenceforth Seto became the
headquarters of the manufacture of _cha-no-yu_ utensils, and many of
the tiny pieces turned out there deserve high admiration, their
technique being perfect, and their mahogany, russet-brown, amber and
buff glazes showing wonderful lustre and richness. Seto, in fact,
acquired such a widespread reputation for its ceramic productions that
the term _seto-mono_ (Seto article) came to be used generally for all
pottery and porcelain, just as "China" is in the West. Seto has now
ceased to be a pottery-producing centre, and has become the chief
porcelain manufactory of Japan. The porcelain industry was inaugurated
in 1807 by Tamikichi, a local ceramist, who had visited Hizen and
spent three years there studying the necessary processes. Owari
abounds in porcelain stone; but it does not occur in constant or
particularly simple forms, and as the potters have not yet learned to
treat their materials scientifically, their work is often marred by
unforeseen difficulties. For many years after Tamikichi's processes
had begun to be practised, the only decoration employed was blue under
the glaze. Sometimes Chinese cobalt was used, sometimes Japanese, and
sometimes a mixture of both. To Kawamoto Hansuke, who flourished about
1830-1845, belongs the credit of having turned out the richest and
most attractive ware of this class. But, speaking generally, Japanese
blues do not rank on the same decorative level with those of China. At
Arita, although pieces were occasionally turned out of which the
colour could not be surpassed in purity and brilliancy, the general
character of the blue _sous couverte_ was either thin or dull. At
Hirado the ceramists affected a lighter and more delicate tone than
that of the Chinese, and, in order to obtain it, subjected the choice
pigment of the Middle Kingdom to refining processes of great severity.
The Hirado blue, therefore, belongs to a special aesthetic category.
But at Owari the experts were content with an inferior colour, and
their blue-and-white porcelains never enjoyed a distinguished
reputation, though occasionally we find a specimen of great merit.
Decoration with vitrifiable enamels over the glaze, though it began to
be practised at Owari about the year 1840, never became a speciality
of the place. Nowadays, indeed, numerous examples of porcelains
decorated in this manner are classed among Owari products. But they
receive their decoration, almost without exception, in Tokyo or
Yokohama, where a large number of artists, called _e-tsuke-shi_,
devote themselves entirely to porcelain-painting. These men seldom use
vitrifiable enamels, pigments being much more tractable and less
costly. The dominant feature of the designs is pictorial. They are
frankly adapted to Western taste. Indeed, of this porcelain it may be
said that, from the monster pieces of blue-and-white manufactured at
Seto--vases six feet high and garden pillar-lamps half as tall again
do not dismay the Bishu ceramist--to tiny coffee-cups decorated in
Tokyo, with their delicate miniatures of birds, flowers, insects,
fishes and so forth, everything indicates the death of the old severe
aestheticism. To such a depth of debasement had the ceramic art fallen
in Owari, that before the happy renaissance of the past ten years,
Nagoya discredited itself by employing porcelain as a base for
cloisonne enamelling. Many products of this vitiated industry have
found their way into the collections of foreigners.
Bizen.
Pottery was produced at several hamlets in Bizen as far back as the
14th century, but ware worthy of artistic notice did not make its
appearance until the close of the 16th century, when the Taiko himself
paid a visit to the factory at Imbe. Thenceforth utensils for the use
of the tea clubs began to be manufactured. This _Bizen-yaki_ was red
stoneware, with thin diaphanous glaze. Made of exceedingly refractory
clay, it underwent stoving for more than three weeks, and was
consequently remarkable for its hardness and metallic timbre. Some
fifty years later, the character of the choicest Bizen-yaki underwent
a marked change. It became slate-coloured or bluish-brown faience,
with _pate_ as fine as pipe-clay, but very hard. In the _ao-Bizen_
(blue Bizen), as well as in the red variety, figures of mythical
beings and animals, birds, fishes and other natural objects, were
modelled with a degree of plastic ability that can scarcely be spoken
of in too high terms. Representative specimens are truly
admirable--every line, every contour faithful. The production was very
limited, and good pieces soon ceased to be procurable except at long
intervals and heavy expense. The Bizen-yaki familiar to Western
collectors is comparatively coarse brown or reddish brown, stoneware,
modelled rudely, though sometimes redeemed by touches of the genius
never entirely absent from the work of the Japanese artisan-artist.
Easy to be confounded with it is another ware of the same type
manufactured at Shidoro in the province of Totomi.
Takatori.
The Japanese potters could never vie with the Chinese in the
production of glazes: the wonderful monochromes and polychromes of the
Middle Kingdom had no peers anywhere. In Japan they were most closely
approached by the faience of Takatori in the province of Chikuzen. In
its early days the ceramic industry of this province owed something to
the assistance of Korean experts who settled there after the
expedition of 1592. But its chief development took place under the
direction of Igarashi Jizaemon, an amateur ceramist, who, happening to
visit Chikuzen about 1620, was taken under the protection of the chief
of the fief and munificently treated. Taking the renowned
_yao-pien-yao_, or "transmutation ware" of China as a model, the
Takatori potters endeavoured, by skilful mixing of colouring
materials, to reproduce the wonderful effects of oxidization seen in
the Chinese ware. They did not, indeed, achieve their ideal, but they
did succeed in producing some exquisitely lustrous glazes of the
_flambe_ type, rich transparent brown passing into claret colour, with
flecks or streaks of white and clouds of "iron dust." The _pate_ of
this faience was of the finest description, and the technique in every
respect faultless. Unfortunately, the best experts confined themselves
to working for the tea clubs, and consequently produced only
insignificant pieces, as tea-jars, cups and little ewers. During the
18th century, a departure was made from these strict canons. From this
period date most of the specimens best known outside Japan--cleverly
modelled figures of mythological beings and animals covered with
lustrous variegated glazes, the general colours being grey or buff,
with tints of green, chocolate, brown and sometimes blue.
Awaji.
A ware of which considerable quantities have found their way westward
of late years in the _Awaji-yaki_, so called from the island of Awaji
where it is manufactured in the village of Iga. It was first produced
between the years 1830 and 1840 by one Kaju Mimpei, a man of
considerable private means who devoted himself to the ceramic art out
of pure enthusiasm. His story is full of interest, but it must suffice
here to note the results of his enterprise. Directing his efforts at
first to reproducing the deep green and straw-yellow glazes of China,
he had exhausted almost his entire resources before success came, and
even then the public was slow to recognize the merits of his ware.
Nevertheless he persevered, and in 1838 we find him producing not only
green and yellow monochromes, but also greyish white and mirror-black
glazes of high excellence. So thoroughly had he now mastered the
management of glazes that he could combine yellow, green, white and
claret colour in regular patches to imitate tortoise-shell. Many of
his pieces have designs incised or in relief, and others are skilfully
decorated with gold and silver. Awaji-yaki, or _Mimpei-yaki_ as it is
often called, is generally porcelain, but we occasionally find
specimens which may readily be mistaken for Awata faience.
Banko.
Banko faience is a universal favourite with foreign collectors. The
type generally known to them is exceedingly light ware, for the most
part made of light grey, unglazed clay, and having hand-modelled
decoration in relief. But there are numerous varieties. Chocolate or
dove-coloured grounds with delicate diapers in gold and _engobe_;
brown or black faience with white, yellow and pink designs incised or
in relief; pottery curiously and deftly marbled by combinations of
various coloured clays--these and many other kinds are to be found,
all, however, presenting one common feature, namely, skilful
finger-moulding and a slight roughening of the surface as though it
had received the impression of coarse linen or crape before baking.
This modern _banko-yaki_ is produced chiefly at Yokkaichi in the
province of Ise. It is entirely different from the original banko-ware
made in Kuwana, in the same province, by Numanami Gozaemon at the
close of the 18th century. Gozaemon was an imitator. He took for his
models the raku faience of Kioto, the masterpieces of Ninsei and
Kenzan, the rococo wares of Korea, the enamelled porcelain of China,
and the blue-and-white ware of Delft. He did not found a school,
simply because he had nothing new to teach, and the fact that a modern
ware goes by the same name as his productions is simply because his
seal--the inscription on which (_banko_, everlasting) suggested the
name of the ware--subsequently (1830) fell into the hands of one Mori
Yusetsu, who applied it to his own ware. Mori Yusetsu, however, had
more originality than Numanami. He conceived the idea of shaping his
pieces by putting the mould inside and pressing the clay with the hand
into the matrix. The consequence was that his wares received the
design on the inner as well as the outer surface, and were moreover
thumb-marked--essential characteristics of the banko-yaki now so
popular.
Izumo.
Among a multitude of other Japanese wares, space allows us to mention
only two, those of Izumo and Yatsushiro. The chief of the former is
faience, having light grey, close _pate_ and yellow or straw-coloured
glaze, with or without crackle, to which is applied decoration in
gold and green enamel. Another variety has chocolate glaze, clouded
with amber and flecked with gold dust. The former faience had its
origin at the close of the 17th century, the latter at the close of
the 18th; but the _Izumo-yaki_ now procurable is a modern production.
Yatsushiro.
The Yatsushiro faience is a production of the province of Higo, where
a number of Korean potters settled at the close of the 17th century.
It is the only Japanese ware in which the characteristics of a Korean
original are unmistakably preserved. Its diaphanous, pearl-grey glaze,
uniform, lustrous and finely crackled, overlying encaustic decoration
in white slip, the fineness of its warm reddish _pate_, and the
general excellence of its technique, have always commanded admiration.
It is produced now in considerable quantities, but the modern ware
falls far short of its predecessor.
Many examples of the above varieties deserve the enthusiastic admiration
they have received, yet they unquestionably belong to a lower rank of
ceramic achievements than the choice productions of Chinese kilns. The
potters of the Middle Kingdom, from the early eras of the Ming dynasty
down to the latest years of the 18th century, stood absolutely without
rivals as makers of porcelain. Their technical ability was
incomparable--though in grace of decorative conception they yielded the
palm to the Japanese--and the representative specimens they bequeathed
to posterity remained, until quite recently, far beyond the imitative
capacity of European or Asiatic experts. As for faience and pottery,
however, the Chinese despised them in all forms, with one notable
exception, the _yi-hsing-yao_, known in the Occident as _boccaro_. Even
the _yi-hsing-yao_, too, owed much of its popularity to special utility.
It was essentially the ware of the tea-drinker. If in the best specimens
exquisite modelling, wonderful accuracy of finish and _pates_ of
interesting tints are found, such pieces are, none the less, stamped
prominently with the character of utensils rather than with that of
works of art. In short, the artistic output of Chinese kilns in their
palmiest days was, not faience or pottery, but porcelain, whether of
soft or hard paste. Japan, on the contrary, owes her ceramic distinction
in the main to her faience. A great deal has been said by enthusiastic
writers about the _famille chrysanthemo-peonienne_ of Imari and the
_genre Kakiemon_ of Nabeshima, but these porcelains, beautiful as they
undoubtedly are, cannot be placed on the same level with the _kwan-yao_
and _famille rose_ of the Chinese experts. The Imari ware, even though
its thick biscuit and generally ungraceful shapes be omitted from the
account, shows no enamels that can rival the exquisitely soft, broken
tints of the _famille rose_; and the _Kakiemon_ porcelain, for all its
rich though chaste contrasts, lacks the delicate transmitted tints of
the shell-like _kwan-yao_. So, too, the blue-and-white porcelain of
Hirado, though assisted by exceptional tenderness of sous-pate colour,
by milk-white glaze, by great beauty of decorative design, and often by
an admirable use of the modelling or graving tool, represents a ceramic
achievement palpably below the soft paste _kai-pien-yao_ of
King-te-chen. It is a curious and interesting fact that this last
product of Chinese skill remained unknown in Japan down to very recent
days. In the eyes of a Chinese connoisseur, no blue-and-white porcelain
worthy of consideration exists, or ever has existed, except the
_kai-pien-yao_, with its imponderable _pate_, its wax-like surface, and
its rich, glowing blue, entirely free from superficiality or garishness
and broken into a thousand tints by the microscopic crackle of the
glaze. The Japanese, although they obtained from their neighbour almost
everything of value she had to give them, did not know this wonderful
ware, and their ignorance is in itself sufficient to prove their ceramic
inferiority. There remains, too, a wide domain in which the Chinese
developed high skill, whereas the Japanese can scarcely be said to have
entered it at all; namely, the domain of monochromes and polychromes,
striking every note of colour from the richest to the most delicate; the
domain of _truite_ and _flambe_ glazes, of _yo-pien-yao_ (transmutation
ware), and of egg-shell with incised or translucid decoration. In all
that region of achievement the Chinese potters stood alone and seemingly
unapproachable. The Japanese, on the contrary, made a specialty of
faience, and in that particular line they reached a high standard of
excellence. No faience produced either in China or any other Oriental
country can dispute the palm with really representative specimens of
Satsuma ware. Not without full reason have Western connoisseurs lavished
panegyrics upon that exquisite production. The faience of the Kioto
artists never reached quite to the level of the Satsuma in quality of
_pate_ and glowing mellowness of decoration; their materials were
slightly inferior. But their skill as decorators was as great as its
range was wide, and they produced a multitude of masterpieces on which
alone Japan's ceramic fame might safely be rested.
Change of Style after the Restoration.
When the mediatization of the fiefs, in 1871, terminated the local
patronage hitherto extended so munificently to artists, the Japanese
ceramists gradually learned that they must thenceforth depend chiefly
upon the markets of Europe and America. They had to appeal, in short, to
an entirely new public, and how to secure its approval was to them a
perplexing problem. Having little to guide them, they often interpreted
Western taste incorrectly, and impaired their own reputation in a
corresponding degree. Thus, in the early years of the Meiji era, there
was a period of complete prostitution. No new skill was developed, and
what remained of the old was expended chiefly upon the manufacture of
meretricious objects, disfigured by excess of decoration and not
relieved by any excellence of technique. In spite of their artistic
defects, these specimens were exported in considerable numbers by
merchants in the foreign settlements, and their first cost being very
low, they found a not unremunerative market. But as European and
American collectors became better acquainted with the capacities of the
pre-Meiji potters, the great inferiority of these new specimens was
recognized, and the prices commanded by the old wares gradually
appreciated. What then happened was very natural: imitations of the old
wares were produced, and having been sufficiently disfigured by staining
and other processes calculated to lend an air of rust and age, they were
sold to ignorant persons, who laboured under the singular yet common
hallucination that the points to be looked for in specimens from early
kilns were, not technical excellence, decorative tastefulness and
richness of colour, but dinginess, imperfections and dirt; persons who
imagined, in short, that defects which they would condemn at once in new
porcelains ought to be regarded as merits in old. Of course a trade of
that kind, based on deception, could not have permanent success. One of
the imitators of "old Satsuma" was among the first to perceive that a
new line must be struck out. Yet the earliest results of his awakened
perception helped to demonstrate still further the depraved spirit that
had come over Japanese art. For he applied himself to manufacture wares
having a close affinity with the shocking monstrosities used for
sepulchral purposes in ancient Apulia, where fragments of dissected
satyrs, busts of nymphs or halves of horses were considered graceful
excrescences for the adornment of an amphora or a pithos. This _Makuzu_
faience, produced by the now justly celebrated Miyagawa Shozan of Ota
(near Yokohama), survives in the form of vases and pots having birds,
reptiles, flowers, crustacea and so forth plastered over the
surface--specimens that disgrace the period of their manufacture, and
represent probably the worst aberration of Japanese ceramic conception.
Adoption of Chinese Models.
A production so degraded as the early Makuzu faience could not possibly
have a lengthy vogue. Miyagawa soon began to cast about for a better
inspiration, and found it in the monochromes and polychromes of the
Chinese _Kang-hsi_ and _Yung-cheng kilns_. The extraordinary value
attaching to the incomparable red glazes of China, not only in the
country of their origin but also in the United States, where collectors
showed a fine instinct in this matter, seems to have suggested to
Miyagawa the idea of imitation. He took for model the rich and delicate
"liquid-dawn" monochrome, and succeeded in producing some specimens of
considerable merit. Thenceforth his example was largely followed, and it
may now be said that the tendency of many of the best Japanese ceramists
is to copy Chinese _chefs-d'oeuvre_. To find them thus renewing their
reputation by reverting to Chinese models, is not only another tribute
to the perennial supremacy of Chinese porcelains, but also a fresh
illustration of the eclectic genius of Japanese art. All the products of
this new effort are porcelains proper. Seven kilns are devoted, wholly
or in part, to the new wares: belonging to Miyagawa Shozan of Ota, Seifu
Yohei of Kioto, Takemoto Hayata and Kato Tomojiro of Tokyo, Higuchi
Haruzane of Hirado, Shida Yasukyo of Kaga and Kato Masukichi of Seto.
Seifu of Kioto.
Among the seven ceramists here enumerated, Seifu of Kioto probably
enjoys the highest reputation. If we except the ware of Satsuma, it
may be said that nearly all the fine faience of Japan was manufactured
formerly in Kioto. Nomura Ninsei, in the middle of the 17th century,
inaugurated a long era of beautiful productions with his cream-like
"fish-roe" _craquele_ glazes, carrying rich decoration of clear and
brilliant vitrifiable enamels. It was he who gave their first really
artistic impulse to the kilns of Awata, Mizoro and Iwakura, whence so
many delightful specimens of faience issued almost without
interruption until the middle of the 19th century and continue to
issue to-day. The three Kenzan, of whom the third died in 1820;
Ebisei; the four Dohachi, of whom the fourth was still alive in 1909;
the Kagiya family, manufacturers of the celebrated Kinkozan ware;
Hozan, whose imitations of Delft faience and his _pate-sur-pate_
pieces with fern-scroll decoration remain incomparable; Taizan Yohei,
whose ninth descendant of the same name now produces fine specimens of
Awata ware for foreign markets; Tanzan Yoshitaro and his son Rokuro,
to whose credit stands a new departure in the form of faience having
_pate-sur-pate_ decoration of lace patterns, diapers and archaic
designs executed in low relief with admirable skill and minuteness;
the two Bizan, renowned for their representations of richly apparelled
figures as decorative motives; Rokubei, who studied painting under
Maruyama Okyo and followed the naturalistic style of that great
artist; Mokubei, the first really expert manufacturer of translucid
porcelain in Kioto; Shuhei, Kintei, and above all, Zengoro Hozen, the
celebrated potter of Eiraku wares--these names and many others give to
Kioto ceramics an eminence as well as an individuality which few other
wares of Japan can boast. Nor is it to be supposed that the ancient
capital now lacks great potters. Okamura Yasutaro, commonly called
Shozan, produces specimens which only a very acute connoisseur can
distinguish from the work of Nomura Ninsei; Tanzan Rokuro's half-tint
enamels and soft creamy glazes would have stood high in any epoch;
Taizan Yohei produces Awata faience not inferior to that of former
days; Kagiya Sobei worthily supports the reputation of the Kinkozan
ware; Kawamoto Eijiro has made to the order of a well-known Kioto firm
many specimens now figuring in foreign collections as old
masterpieces; and Ito Tozan succeeds in decorating faience with seven
colours _sous couverte_ (black, green, blue, russet-red, tea-brown,
purple and peach), a feat never before accomplished. It is therefore
an error to assert that Kioto has no longer a title to be called a
great ceramic centre. Seifu Yohei, however, has the special faculty of
manufacturing monochromatic and jewelled porcelain and faience, which
differ essentially from the traditional Kioto types, their models
being taken directly from China. But a sharp distinction has to be
drawn between the method of Seifu and that of the other six ceramists
mentioned above as following Chinese fashions. It is this, that
whereas the latter produce their chromatic effects by mixing the
colouring matter with the glaze, Seifu paints the biscuit with a
pigment over which he runs a translucid colourless glaze. The Kioto
artist's process is much easier than that of his rivals, and although
his monochromes are often of most pleasing delicacy and fine tone,
they do not belong to the same category of technical excellence as the
wares they imitate. From this judgment must be excepted, however, his
ivory-white and _celadon_ wares, as well as his porcelains decorated
with blue, or blue and red _sous couverte_, and with vitrifiable
enamels over the glaze. In these five varieties he is emphatically
great. It cannot be said, indeed, that his _celadon_ shows the velvety
richness of surface and tenderness of colour that distinguished the
old _Kuang-yao_ and _Lungchuan-yao_ of China, or that he has ever
essayed the moss-edged crackle of the beautiful _Ko-yao_. But his
_celadon_ certainly equals the more modern Chinese examples from the
_Kang-hsi_ and _Yung-cheng_ kilns. As for his ivory-white, it
distinctly surpasses the Chinese Ming _Chen-yao_ in every quality
except an indescribable intimacy of glaze and _pate_ which probably
can never be obtained by either Japanese or European methods.
Miyagawa Shozan.
Miyagawa Shozan, or Makuzu, as he is generally called, has never
followed Seifu's example in descending from the difficult manipulation
of coloured glazes to the comparatively simple process of painted
biscuit. This comment does not refer to the use of blue and red _sous
couverte_. In that class of beautiful ware the application of pigment
to the unglazed _pate_ is inevitable, and both Seifu and Miyagawa,
working on the same lines as their Chinese predecessors, produce
porcelains that almost rank with choice Kang-hsi specimens, though
they have not yet mastered the processes sufficiently to employ them
in the manufacture of large imposing pieces or wares of moderate
price. But in the matter of true monochromatic and polychromatic
glazes, to Shozan belongs the credit of having inaugurated Chinese
fashions, and if he has never fully succeeded in achieving _lang-yao_
(sang-de-boeuf), _chi-hung_ (liquid-dawn red), _chiang-tou-hung_
(bean-blossom red, the "peach-blow" of American collectors), or above
all _pin-kwo-tsing_ (apple-green with red bloom), his efforts to
imitate them have resulted in some very interesting pieces.
Tokyo Ceramists.
Takemoto and Kato of Tokyo entered the field subsequently to Shozan,
but followed the same models approximately. Takemoto, however, has
made a speciality of black glazes, his aim being to rival the _Sung
Chien-yao_, with its glaze of mirror-black or raven's-wing green, and
its leveret fur streaking or russet-moss dappling, the prince of all
wares in the estimation of the Japanese tea-clubs. Like Shozan, he is
still very far from his original, but, also like Shozan, he produces
highly meritorious pieces in his efforts to reach an ideal that will
probably continue to elude him for ever. Of Kato there is not much to
be said. He has not succeeded in winning great distinction, but he
manufactures some very delicate monochromes, fully deserving to be
classed among prominent evidences of the new departure. Tokyo was
never a centre of ceramic production. Even during the 300 years of its
conspicuous prosperity as the administrative capital of the Tokugawa
shoguns, it had no noted factories, doubtless owing to the absence of
any suitable potter's clay in the immediate vicinity. Its only notable
production of a ceramic character was the work of Miura Kenya
(1830-1843), who followed the methods of the celebrated Haritsu
(1688-1704) of Kioto in decorating plain or lacquered wood with
mosaics of raku faience having coloured glazes. Kenya was also a
skilled modeller of figures, and his factory in the Imado suburb
obtained a considerable reputation for work of that nature. He was
succeeded by Tozawa Benshi, an old man of over seventy in 1909, who,
using clay from Owari or Hizen, has turned out many porcelain
statuettes of great beauty. But although the capital of Japan formerly
played only an insignificant part in Japanese ceramics, modern Tokyo
has an important school of artist-artisans. Every year large
quantities of porcelain and faience are sent from the provinces to the
capital to receive surface decoration, and in wealth of design as well
as carefulness of execution the results are praiseworthy. But of the
pigments employed nothing very laudatory could be said until very
recent times. They were generally crude, of impure tone, and without
depth or brilliancy. Now, however, they have lost these defects and
entered a period of considerable excellence. Figure-subjects
constitute the chief feature of the designs. A majority of the artists
are content to copy old pictures of Buddha's sixteen disciples, the
seven gods of happiness, and other similar assemblages of mythical or
historical personages, not only because such work offers large
opportunity for the use of striking colours and the production of
meretricious effects, dear to the eye of the average Western
householder and tourist, but also because a complicated design, as
compared with a simple one, has the advantage of hiding the technical
imperfections of the ware. Of late there have happily appeared some
decorators who prefer to choose their subjects from the natural field
in which their great predecessors excelled, and there is reason to
hope that this more congenial and more pleasing style will supplant
its modern usurper. The best known factory in Tokyo for decorative
purposes is the Hyochi-en. It was established in the Fukagawa suburb
in 1875, with the immediate object of preparing specimens for the
first Tokyo exhibition held at that time. Its founders obtained a
measure of official aid, and were able to secure the services of some
good artists, among whom may be mentioned Obanawa and Shimauchi. The
porcelains of Owari and Arita naturally received most attention at the
hands of the Hyochi-en decorators, but there was scarcely one of the
principal wares of Japan upon which they did not try their skill, and
if a piece of monochromatic Minton or Sevres came in their way, they
undertook to improve it by the addition of designs copied from old
masters or suggested by modern taste. The cachet of the Fukagawa
atelier was indiscriminately applied to all such pieces, and has
probably proved a source of confusion to collectors. Many other
factories for decoration were established from time to time in Tokyo.
Of these some still exist; others, ceasing to be profitable, have been
abandoned. On the whole, the industry may now be said to have assumed
a domestic character. In a house, presenting no distinctive features
whatsoever, one finds the decorator with a cupboard full of bowls and
vases of glazed biscuit, which he adorns, piece by piece, using the
simplest conceivable apparatus and a meagre supply of pigments.
Sometimes he fixes the decoration himself, employing for that purpose
a small kiln which stands in his back garden; sometimes he entrusts
this part of the work to a factory. As in the case of everything
Japanese, there is no pretence, no useless expenditure about the
process. Yet it is plain that this school of Tokyo decorators, though
often choosing their subjects badly, have contributed much to the
progress of the ceramic art during the past few years. Little by
little there has been developed a degree of skill which compares not
unfavourably with the work of the old masters. Table services of Owari
porcelain--the ware itself excellently manipulated and of almost
egg-shell fineness--are now decorated with floral scrolls, landscapes,
insects, birds, figure-subjects and all sorts of designs, chaste,
elaborate or quaint; and these services, representing so much artistic
labour and originality, are sold for prices that bear no due ratio to
the skill required in their manufacture.
There is only one reservation to be made in speaking of the modern
decorative industry of Japan under its better aspects. In Tokyo,
Kioto, Yokohama and Kobe--in all of which places decorating ateliers
(_etsuke-dokoro_), similar to those of Tokyo, have been established in
modern times--the artists use chiefly pigments, seldom venturing to
employ vitrifiable enamels. That the results achieved with these
different materials are not comparable is a fact which every
connoisseur must admit. The glossy surface of a porcelain glaze is ill
fitted for rendering artistic effects with ordinary colours. The
proper field for the application of these is the biscuit, in which
position the covering glaze serves at once to soften and to preserve
the pigment. It can scarcely be doubted that the true instincts of the
ceramist will ultimately counsel him to confine his decoration over
the glaze to vitrifiable enamels, with which the Chinese and Japanese
potters of former times obtained such brilliant results. But to employ
enamels successfully is an achievement demanding special training and
materials not easy to procure or to prepare. The Tokyo decorators are
not likely, therefore, to change their present methods immediately.
An impetus was given to ceramic decoration by the efforts of a new
school, which owed its origin to Dr G. Wagener, an eminent German
expert formerly in the service of the Japanese government. Dr Wagener
conceived the idea of developing the art of decoration under the
glaze, as applied to faience. Faience thus decorated has always been
exceptional in Japan. Rare specimens were produced in Satsuma and
Kioto, the colour employed being chiefly blue, though brown and black
were used in very exceptional instances. The difficulty of obtaining
clear, rich tints was nearly prohibitive, and though success, when
achieved, seemed to justify the effort, this class of ware never
received much attention in Japan. By careful selection and preparation
of _pate_, glaze and pigments, Dr Wagener proved not only that the
manufacture was reasonably feasible, but also that decoration thus
applied to pottery possesses unique delicacy and softness. Ware
manufactured by his direction at the Tokyo school of technique
(_shokko gakko_), under the name of _asahi-yaki_, ranks among the
interesting productions of modern Japan. The decorative colour chiefly
employed is chocolate brown, which harmonizes excellently with the
glaze. But the ware has never found favour in Japanese eyes, an
element of unpleasant garishness being imparted to it by the vitreous
appearance of the glaze, which is manufactured according to European
methods. The modern faience of Ito Tozan of Kioto, decorated with
colour under the glaze, is incomparably more artistic than the Tokyo
_asahi-yaki_, from which, nevertheless, the Kioto master doubtless
borrowed some ideas. The decorative industry in Tokyo owed much also
to the kosho-kaisha, an institution started by Wakai and Matsuo in
1873, with official assistance. Owing to the intelligent patronage of
this company, and the impetus given to the ceramic trade by its
enterprise, the style of the Tokyo _etsuke_ was much improved and the
field of their industry extended. It must be acknowledged, however,
that the Tokyo artists often devote their skill to purposes of
forgery, and that their imitations, especially of old Satsuma-yaki,
are sometimes franked by dealers whose standing should forbid such
frauds. In this context it may be mentioned that, of late years,
decoration of a remarkably microscopic character has been successfully
practised in Kioto, Osaka and Kobe, its originator being Meisan of
Osaka. Before dismissing the subject of modern Tokyo ceramics, it may
be added that Kato Tomataro, mentioned above in connexion with the
manufacture of special glazes, has also been very successful in
producing porcelains decorated with blue _sous couverte_ at his
factory in the Koishikawa suburb.
Modern Wares of Hirado.
Higuchi of Hirado is to be classed with ceramists of the new school on
account of one ware only, namely, porcelain having translucid
decoration, the so-called "grains of rice" of American collectors,
designated _hotaru-de_ (firefly style) in Japan. That, however, is an
achievement of no small consequence, especially since it had never
previously been essayed outside China. The Hirado expert has not yet
attained technical skill equal to that of the Chinese. He cannot, like
them, cover the greater part of a specimen's surface with a lacework
of transparent decoration, exciting wonder that _pate_ deprived so
greatly of continuity could have been manipulated without accident.
But his artistic instincts are higher than those of the Chinese, and
there is reasonable hope that in time he may excel their best works.
In other respects the Hirado factories do not produce wares nearly so
beautiful as those manufactured there between 1759 and 1840, when the
_Hirado-yaki_ stood at the head of all Japanese porcelain on account
of its pure, close-grained _pate_, its lustrous milk-white glaze, and
the soft clear blue of its carefully executed decoration.
Ware of Owari.
The Owari potters were slow to follow the lead of Miyagawa Shozan and
Seifu Yohei. At the industrial exhibition in Kioto (1895) the first
results of their efforts were shown, attracting attention at once. In
medieval times Owari was celebrated for faience glazes of various
colours, much affected by the tea-clubs, but its staple manufacture
from the beginning of the 19th century was porcelain decorated with
blue under the glaze, the best specimens of which did not approach
their Chinese prototypes in fineness of _pate_, purity of glaze or
richness of colour. During the first twenty-five years of the Meiji
era the Owari potters sought to compensate the technical and artistic
defects of their pieces by giving them magnificent dimensions; but at
the Tokyo industrial exhibition (1891) they were able to contribute
some specimens showing decorative, plastic and graving skill of no
mean order. Previously to that time, one of the Seto experts, Kato
Gosuke, had developed remarkable ability in the manufacture of
_celadon_, though in that field he was subsequently distanced by Seifu
of Kioto. Only lately did Owari feel the influence of the new movement
towards Chinese types. Its potters took _flambe_ glazes for models,
and their pieces possessed an air of novelty that attracted
connoisseurs. But the style was not calculated to win general
popularity, and the manufacturing processes were too easy to occupy
the attention of great potters. On a far higher level stood egg-shell
porcelain, remarkable examples of which were sent from Seto to the
Kioto industrial exhibition of 1895. Chinese potters of the Yung-lo
era (1403-1414) enriched their country with a quantity of ware to
which the name of _totai-ki_ (bodiless utensil) was given on account
of its wonderfully attenuated _pate_. The finest specimens of this
porcelain had incised decoration, sparingly employed but adding much
to the beauty of the piece. In subsequent eras the potters of
King-te-chen did not fail to continue this remarkable manufacture, but
its only Japanese representative was a porcelain distinctly inferior
in more than one respect, namely, the egg-shell utensils of Hizen and
Hirado, some of which had finely woven basket-cases to protect their
extreme fragility. The Seto experts, however, are now making bowls,
cups and vases that rank nearly as high as the celebrated Yung-lo
totai-ki. In purity of tone and velvet-like gloss of surface there is
distinct inferiority on the side of the Japanese ware, but in thinness
of _pate_ it supports comparison, and in profusion and beauty of
incised decoration it excels its Chinese original.
Ware of Kaga.
Latest of all to acknowledge the impulse of the new departure have
been the potters of Kaga. For many years their ware enjoyed the
credit, or discredit, of being the most lavishly decorated porcelain
in Japan. It is known to Western collectors as a product blazing with
red and gold, a very degenerate offspring of the Chinese Ming type,
which Hozen of Kioto reproduced so beautifully at the beginning of the
19th century under the name of _eiraku-yaki_. Undoubtedly the best
specimens of this _kinran-de_ (brocade) porcelain of Kaga merit praise
and admiration; but, on the whole, ware so gaudy could not long hold a
high place in public esteem. The Kaga potters ultimately appreciated
that defect. They still manufacture quantities of tea and coffee sets,
and dinner or dessert services of red-and-gold porcelain for foreign
markets; but about 1885 some of them made zealous and patient efforts
to revert to the processes that won so much fame for the old
Kutani-yaki, with its grand combinations of rich, lustrous, soft-toned
glazes. The attempt was never entirely successful, but its results
restored something of the Kaga kilns' reputation. Since 1895, again, a
totally new departure has been made by Morishita Hachizaemon, a
ceramic expert, in conjunction with Shida Yasukyo, president of the
Kaga products joint stock company (_Kaga bussan kabushiki kaisha_) and
teacher in the Kaga industrial school. The line chosen by these
ceramists is purely Chinese. Their great aim seems to be the
production of the exquisite Chinese monochromes known as
_u-kwo-tien-tsing_ (blue of the sky after rain) and _yueh-peh_
(_clair-de-lune_). But they also devote much attention to porcelains
decorated with blue or red _sous couverte_. Their work shows much
promise, but like all fine specimens of the Sino-Japanese school, the
prices are too high to attract wide custom.
Summary.
The sum of the matter is that the modern Japanese ceramist, after many
efforts to cater for the taste of the Occident, evidently concludes that
his best hope consists in devoting all his technical and artistic
resources to reproducing the celebrated wares of China. In explanation
of the fact that he did not essay this route in former times, it may be
noted, first, that he had only a limited acquaintance with the wares in
question; secondly, that Japanese connoisseurs never attached any value
to their countrymen's imitation of Chinese porcelains so long as the
originals were obtainable; thirdly, that the ceramic art of China not
having fallen into its present state of decadence, the idea of competing
with it did not occur to outsiders; and fourthly, that Europe and
America had not developed their present keen appreciation of Chinese
masterpieces. Yet it is remarkable that China, at the close of the 19th
century, should have again furnished models to Japanese eclecticism.
_Lacquer._--Japan derived the art of lacquering from China (probably
about the beginning of the 6th century), but she ultimately carried it
far beyond Chinese conception. At first her experts confined themselves
to plain black lacquer. From the early part of the 8th century they
began to ornament it with dust of gold or mother-of-pearl, and
throughout the Heian epoch (9th to 12th century) they added pictorial
designs, though of a formal character, the chief motives being floral
subjects, arabesques and scrolls. All this work was in the style known
as _hira-makie_ (flat decoration); that is to say, having the decorative
design in the same plane as the ground. In the days of the great
dilettante Yoshimasa (1449-1490), lacquer experts devised a new style,
_taka-makie_, or decoration in relief, which immensely augmented the
beauty of the ware, and constituted a feature altogether special to
Japan. Thus when, at the close of the 16th century, the Taiko
inaugurated the fashion of lavishing all the resources of applied art on
the interior decoration of castles and temples, the services of the
lacquerer were employed to an extent hitherto unknown, and there
resulted some magnificent work on friezes, coffered ceilings, door
panels, altar-pieces and cenotaphs. This new departure reached its
climax in the Tokugawa mausolea of Yedo and Nikko, which are enriched by
the possession of the most splendid applications of lacquer decoration
the world has ever seen, nor is it likely that anything of comparable
beauty and grandeur will be again produced in the same line. Japanese
connoisseurs indicate the end of the 17th century as the golden period
of the art, and so deeply rooted is this belief that whenever a date has
to be assigned to any specimen of exceptionally fine quality, it is
unhesitatingly referred to the time of Joken-in (Tsunayoshi).
Among the many skilled artists who have practised this beautiful craft
since the first on record, Kiyohara Norisuye (c. 1169), may be
mentioned Koyetsu (1558-1637) and his pupils, who are especially noted
for their inro (medicine-cases worn as part of the costume); Kajikawa
Kinjiro (c. 1680), the founder of the great Kajikawa family, which
continued up to the 19th century; and Koma Kyuhaku (d. 1715), whose
pupils and descendants maintained his traditions for a period of equal
length. Of individual artists, perhaps the most notable is Ogata Korin
(d. 1716), whose skill was equally great in the arts of painting and
pottery. He was the eldest son of an artist named Ogato Soken, and
studied the styles of the Kano and Tosa schools successively. Among
the artists who influenced him were Kano Tsunenobu, Nomura Sotatsu and
Koyetsu. His lacquer-ware is distinguished for a bold and at times
almost eccentric impressionism, and his use of inlay is strongly
characteristic. Ritsuo (1663-1747), a pupil and contemporary of Korin,
and like him a potter and painter also, was another lacquerer of great
skill. Then followed Hanzan, the two Shiome, Yamamoto Shunsho and his
pupils, Yamada Joka and Kwanshosai Toyo (late 18th century). In the
beginning of the 19th century worked Shokwasai, who frequently
collaborated with the metal-worker Shibayama, encrusting his lacquer
with small decorations in metal by the latter.
Modern Work.
No important new developments have taken place during modern times in
Japan's lacquer manufacture. Her artists follow the old ways
faithfully; and indeed it is not easy to see how they could do better.
On the other hand, there has not been any deterioration; all the skill
of former days is still active. The contrary has been repeatedly
affirmed by foreign critics, but no one really familiar with modern
productions can entertain such a view. Lacquer-making, however, being
essentially an art and not a mere handicraft, has its eras of great
masters and its seasons of inferior execution. Men of the calibre of
Koyetsu Korin, Ritsuo, Kajikawa and Mitsutoshi must be rare in any
age, and the epoch when they flourished is justly remembered with
enthusiasm. But the Meiji era has had its Zeshin, and it had in 1909
Shirayama Fukumatsu, Kawanabe Itcho, Ogawa Shomin, Uematsu Homin,
Shibayama Soichi, Morishita Morihachi and other lesser experts, all
masters in designing and execution. Zeshin, shortly before he died,
indicated Shirayama Fukumatsu as the man upon whom his mantle should
descend, and that the judgment of this really great craftsman was
correct cannot be denied by any one who has seen the works of
Shirayama. He excels in his representations of landscapes and
waterscapes, and has succeeded in transferring to gold-lacquer panels
tender and delicate pictures of nature's softest moods--pictures that
show balance, richness, harmony and a fine sense of decorative
proportion. Kawanabe Itcho is celebrated for his representations of
flowers and foliage, and Morishita Morihachi and Asano Saburo (of
Kaga) are admirable in all styles, but especially, perhaps, in the
charming variety called _togi-dashi_ (ground down), which is
pre-eminent for its satin-like texture and for the atmosphere of
dreamy softness that pervades the decoration. The togi-dashi design,
when finely executed, seems to hang suspended in the velvety lacquer
or to float under its silky surface. The magnificent sheen and
richness of the pure _kin-makie_ (gold lacquer) are wanting, but in
their place we have inimitable tenderness and delicacy.
New Development.
The only branch of the lacquerer's art that can be said to have shown
any marked development in the Meiji era is that in which parts of the
decorative scheme consist of objects in gold, silver, shakudo,
shibuichi, iron, or, above all, ivory or mother-of-pearl. It might
indeed be inferred, from some of the essays published in Europe on the
subject of Japan's ornamental arts, that this application of ivory and
mother-of-pearl holds a place of paramount importance. Such is not the
case. Cabinets, fire-screens, plaques and boxes resplendent with gold
lacquer grounds carrying elaborate and profuse decoration of ivory and
mother-of-pearl[4] are not objects that appeal to Japanese taste. They
belong essentially to the catalogue of articles called into existence
to meet the demand of the foreign market, being, in fact, an attempt
to adapt the lacquerer's art to decorative furniture for European
houses. On the whole it is a successful attempt. The plumage of
gorgeously-hued birds, the blossoms of flowers (especially the
hydrangea), the folds of thick brocade, microscopic diapers and
arabesques, are built up with tiny fragments of iridescent shell, in
combination with silver-foil, gold-lacquer and coloured bone, the
whole producing a rich and sparkling effect. In fine specimens the
workmanship is extraordinarily minute, and every fragment of metal,
shell, ivory or bone, used to construct the decorative scheme, is
imbedded firmly in its place. But in a majority of cases the work of
building is done by means of paste and glue only, so that the result
lacks durability. The employment of mother-of-pearl to ornament
lacquer grounds dates from a period as remote as the 8th century, but
its use as a material for constructing decorative designs began in the
17th century, and was due to an expert called Shibayama, whose
descendant, Shibayama Soichi, has in recent years been associated with
the same work in Tokyo.
Processes.
In the manufacture of Japanese lacquer there are three processes. The
first is the extraction and preparation of the lac; the second, its
application; and the third, the decoration of the lacquered surface.
The lac, when taken from an incision in the trunk of the _Rhus
vernicifera_ (_urushi-no-ki_), contains approximately 70% of lac acid,
4% of gum arabic, 2% of albumen, and 24% of water. It is strained,
deprived of its moisture, and receives an admixture of gamboge,
cinnabar, acetous protoxide or some other colouring matter. The object
to be lacquered, which is generally made of thin white pine, is
subjected to singularly thorough and painstaking treatment, one of the
processes being to cover it with a layer of Japanese paper or thin
hempen cloth, which is fixed by means of a pulp of rice-paste and
lacquer. In this way the danger of warping is averted, and exudations
from the wooden surface are prevented from reaching the overlaid coats
of lacquer. Numerous operations of luting, sizing, lacquering,
polishing, drying, rubbing down, and so on, are performed by the
_nurimono-shi_, until, after many days' treatment, the object emerges
with a smooth, lustre-like dark-grey or coloured surface, and is ready
to pass into the hands of the makie-shi, or decorator. The latter is
an artist; those who have performed the preliminary operations are
merely skilled artisans. The _makie-shi_ may be said to paint a
picture on the surface of the already lacquered object. He takes for
subject a landscape, a seascape, a battle-scene, flowers, foliage,
birds, fishes, insects--in short, anything. This he sketches in
outline with a paste of white lead, and then, having filled in the
details with gold and colours, he superposes a coat of translucid
lacquer, which is finally subjected to careful polishing. If parts of
the design are to be in relief, they are built up with a putty of
black lacquer, white lead, camphor and lamp-black. In all fine
lacquers gold predominates so largely that the general impression
conveyed by the object is one of glow and richness. It is also an
inviolable rule that every part must show beautiful and highly
finished work, whether it be an external or an internal part. The
makie-shi ranks almost as high as the pictorial artist in Japanese
esteem. He frequently signs his works, and a great number of names
have been thus handed down during the past two centuries.
_Cloisonne Enamel._--Cloisonne enamel is essentially of modern
development in Japan. The process was known at an early period, and was
employed for the purpose of subsidiary decoration from the close of the
16th century, but not until the 19th century did Japanese experts begin
to manufacture the objects known in Europe as "enamels;" that is to say,
vases, plaques, censers, bowls, and so forth, having their surface
covered with vitrified pastes applied either in the _champleve_ or the
_cloisonne_ style. It is necessary to insist upon this fact, because it
has been stated with apparent authority that numerous specimens which
began to be exported from 1865 were the outcome of industry commencing
in the 16th century and reaching its point of culmination at the
beginning of the 18th. There is not the slenderest ground for such a
theory. The work began in 1838, and Kaji Tsunekichi of Owari was its
originator. During 20 years previously to the reopening of the country
in 1858, cloisonne enamelling was practised in the manner now
understood by the term; when foreign merchants began to settle in
Yokohama, several experts were working skilfully in Owari after the
methods of Kaji Tsunekichi. Up to that time there had been little demand
for enamels of large dimensions, but when the foreign market called for
vases, censers, plaques and such things, no difficulty was found in
supplying them. Thus, about the year 1865, there commenced an export of
enamels which had no prototypes in Japan, being destined frankly for
European and American collectors. From a technical point of view these
specimens had much to recommend them. The base, usually of copper, was
as thin as cardboard; the cloisons, exceedingly fine and delicate, were
laid on with care and accuracy; the colours were even, and the designs
showed artistic judgment. Two faults, however, marred the work--first,
the shapes were clumsy and unpleasing, being copied from bronzes whose
solidity justified forms unsuited to thin enamelled vessels; secondly,
the colours, sombre and somewhat impure, lacked the glow and mellowness
that give decorative superiority to the technically inferior Chinese
enamels of the later Ming and early Tsing eras. Very soon, however, the
artisans of Nagoya (Owari), Yokohama and Tokyo--where the art had been
taken up--found that faithful and fine workmanship did not pay. The
foreign merchant desired many and cheap specimens for export, rather
than few and costly. There followed then a period of gradual decline,
and the enamels exported to Europe showed so much inferiority that they
were supposed to be the products of a widely different era and of
different makers. The industry was threatened with extinction, and would
certainly have dwindled to insignificant dimensions had not a few
earnest artists, working in the face of many difficulties and
discouragements, succeeded in striking out new lines and establishing
new standards for excellence.
New Schools.
Three clearly differentiated schools now (1875) came into existence.
One, headed by Namikawa Yasuyuki of Kioto, took for its objects the
utmost delicacy and perfection of technique, richness of decoration,
purity of design and harmony of colour. The thin clumsily-shaped vases
of the Kaji school, with their uniformly distributed decoration of
diapers, scrolls and arabesques in comparatively dull colours, ceased
altogether to be produced, their place being taken by graceful
specimens, technically flawless, and carrying designs not only free
from stiffness, but also executed in colours at once rich and soft.
This school may be subdivided, Kioto representing one branch, Nagoya,
Tokyo and Yokohama the other. In the products of the Kioto branch the
decoration generally covered the whole surface of the piece; in the
products of the other branch the artist aimed rather at pictorial
effect, placing the design in a monochromatic field of low tone. It is
plain that such a method as the latter implies great command of
coloured pastes, and, indeed, no feature of the manufacture is more
conspicuous than the progress made during the period 1880-1900 in
compounding and firing vitrifiable enamels. Many excellent examples of
cloisonne enamel have been produced by each branch of this school.
There has been nothing like them in any other country, and they stand
at an immeasurable distance above the works of the early Owari school
represented by Kaji Tsunekichi and his pupils and colleagues.
Cloisonless Enamels.
The second of the modern schools is headed by Namikawa Sosuke of
Tokyo. It is an easily traced outgrowth of the second branch of the
first school just described, for one can readily understand that from
placing the decorative design in a monochromatic field of low tone,
which is essentially a pictorial method, development would proceed in
the direction of concealing the mechanics of the art in order to
enhance the pictorial effect. Thus arose the so-called "cloisonless
enamels" (_musenjippo_). They are not always without cloisons. The
design is generally framed at the outset with a ribbon of thin metal,
precisely after the manner of ordinary cloisonne ware. But as the work
proceeds the cloisons are hidden--unless their presence is necessary
to give emphasis to the design--and the final result is a picture in
vitrified enamels.
Monochromatic Enamels.
The characteristic productions of the third among the modern schools
are monochromatic and translucid enamels. All students of the ceramic
art know that the monochrome porcelains of China owe their beauty to
the fact that the colour is in the glaze, not under it. The ceramist
finds no difficulty in applying a uniform coat of pigment to porcelain
biscuit, and covering the whole with a diaphanous glaze. The colour is
fixed and the glaze set by secondary firing at a lower temperature
than that necessary for hardening the _pate_. Such porcelains,
however, lack the velvet-like softness and depth of tone so justly
prized in the genuine monochrome, where the glaze itself contains the
colouring matter, _pate_ and glaze being fired simultaneously at the
same high temperature. It is apparent that a vitrified enamel may be
made to perform, in part at any rate, the function of a porcelain
glaze. Acting upon that theory, the experts of Tokyo and Nagoya have
produced many very beautiful specimens of monochrome enamel--yellow
(canary or straw), _rose du Barry_, liquid-dawn, red, aubergine
purple, green (grass or leaf), dove-grey and lapis lazuli blue. The
pieces do not quite reach the level of Chinese monochrome porcelains,
but their inferiority is not marked. The artist's great difficulty is
to hide the metal base completely. A monochrome loses much of its
attractiveness when the colour merges into a metal rim, or when the
interior of a vase is covered with crude unpolished paste. But to
spread and fix the enamel so that neither at the rim nor in the
interior shall there be any break of continuity, or any indication
that the base is copper, not porcelain, demands quite exceptional
skill.
Translucid Enamel.
The translucid enamels of the modern school are generally associated
with decorative bases. In other words, a suitable design is chiselled
in the metal base so as to be visible through the diaphanous enamel.
Very beautiful effects of broken and softened lights, combined with
depth and delicacy of colour, are thus obtained. But the decorative
designs which lend themselves to such a purpose are not numerous. A
gold base deeply chiselled in wave-diaper and overrun with a paste of
aubergine purple is the most pleasing. A still higher achievement is
to apply to the chiselled base designs executed in coloured enamels,
finally covering the whole with translucid paste. Admirable results
are thus produced; as when, through a medium of cerulean blue, bright
goldfish and blue-backed carp appear swimming in silvery waves, or
brilliantly plumaged birds seem to soar among fleecy clouds. The
artists of this school show also much skill in using enamels for the
purposes of subordinate decoration--suspending enamelled butterflies,
birds or floral sprays, among the reticulations of a silver vase
chiselled a jour; or filling with translucid enamels parts of a
decorative scheme sculptured in iron, silver, gold or shakudo.
V.--ECONOMIC CONDITIONS
Roads and Posts in Early Times.
_Communications._--From the conditions actually existing in the 8th
century after the Christian era the first compilers of Japanese history
inferred the conditions which might have existed in the 7th century
before that era. One of their inferences was that, in the early days,
communication was by water only, and that not until 549 B.C. did the
most populous region of the empire--the west coast--come into possession
of public roads. Six hundred years later, the local satraps are
represented as having received instructions to build regular highways,
and in the 3rd century the massing of troops for an over-sea expedition
invested roads with new value. Nothing is yet heard, however, about
posts. These evidences of civilization did not make their appearance
until the first great era of Japanese reform, the Taika period
(645-650), when stations were established along the principal highways,
provision was made of post-horses, and a system of bells and checks was
devised for distinguishing official carriers. In those days ordinary
travellers were required to carry passports, nor had they any share in
the benefits of the official organization, which was entirely under the
control of the minister of war. Great difficulties attended the
movements of private persons. Even the task of transmitting to the
central government provincial taxes paid in kind had to be discharged by
specially organized parties, and this journey from the north-eastern
districts to the capital generally occupied three months. At the close
of the 7th century the emperor Mommu is said to have enacted a law that
wealthy persons living near the highways must supply rice to travellers,
and in 745 an empress (Koken) directed that a stock of medical
necessaries must be kept at the postal stations. Among the benevolent
acts attributed to renowned Buddhist priests posterity specially
remembers their efforts to encourage the building of roads and bridges.
The great emperor Kwammu (782-806) was constrained to devote a space of
five years to the reorganization of the whole system of post-stations.
Owing to the anarchy which prevailed during the 10th, 11th and 12th
centuries, facilities of communication disappeared almost entirely, even
for men of rank a long journey involved danger of starvation or fatal
exposure, and the pains and perils of travel became a household word
among the people.
Yoritomo, the founder of feudalism at the close of the 12th century,
was too great a statesman to underestimate the value of roads and
posts. The highway between his stronghold, Kamakura, and the imperial
city, Kioto, began in his time to develop features which ultimately
entitled it to be called one of the finest roads in the world. But
after Yoritomo's death the land became once more an armed camp, in
which the rival barons discouraged travel beyond the limits of their
own domains. Not until the Tokugawa family obtained military control
of the whole empire (1603), and, fixing its capital at Yedo, required
the feudal chiefs to reside there every second year, did the problem
of roads and post-stations force itself once more on official
attention. Regulations were now strictly enforced, fixing the number
of horses and carriers available at each station, the loads to be
carried by them and their charges, as well as the transport services
that each feudal chief was entitled to demand and the fees he had to
pay in return. Tolerable hostelries now came into existence, but they
furnished only shelter, fuel and the coarsest kind of food. By
degrees, however, the progresses of the feudal chiefs to and from
Yedo, which at first were simple and economical, developed features of
competitive magnificence, and the importance of good roads and
suitable accommodation received increased attention. This found
expression in practice in 1663. A system more elaborate than anything
antecedent was then introduced under the name of "flying transport."
Three kinds of couriers operated. The first class were in the direct
employment of the shogunate. They carried official messages between
Yedo and Osaka--a distance of 348 miles--in four days by means of a
well organized system of relays. The second class maintained
communications between the fiefs and the Tokugawa court as well as
their own families in Yedo, for in the alternate years of a
feudatory's compulsory residence in that city his family had to live
there. The third class were maintained by a syndicate of 13 merchants
as a private enterprise for transmitting letters between the three
great cities of Kioto, Osaka and Yedo and intervening places. This
syndicate did not undertake to deliver a letter direct to an
addressee. The method pursued was to expose letters and parcels at
fixed places in the vicinity of their destination, leaving the
addressees to discover for themselves that such things had arrived.
Imperfect as this system was, it represented a great advance from the
conditions in medieval times.
The Tokaido.
The Nakasendoo.
The Oshukaido.
The nation does not seem to have appreciated the deficiencies of the
syndicate's service, supplemented as it was by a network of waterways
which greatly increased the facilities for transport. After the
cessation of civil wars under the sway of the Tokugawa, the building
and improvement of roads went on steadily. It is not too much to say,
indeed, that when Japan opened her doors to foreigners in the middle
of the 19th century, she possessed a system of roads some of which
bore striking testimony to her medieval greatness. The most remarkable
was the Tokaido (eastern-seaway), so called because it ran eastward
along the coast from Kioto. This great highway, 345 m. long, connected
Osaka and Kioto with Yedo. The date of its construction is not
recorded, but it certainly underwent signal improvement in the 12th
and 13th centuries, and during the two and a half centuries of
Tokugawa sway in Yedo. A wide, well-made and well-kept avenue, it was
lined throughout the greater part of its length by giant pine-trees,
rendering it the most picturesque highway in the world. Iyeyasu, the
founder of the Tokugawa dynasty of shoguns, directed that his body
should be interred at Nikko, a place of exceptional beauty,
consecrated eight hundred years previously. This meant an extension of
the Tokaido (under a different name) nearly a hundred miles northward,
for the magnificent shrines erected then at Nikko and the periodical
ceremonies thenceforth performed there demanded a correspondingly fine
avenue of approach. The original Tokaido was taken for model, and Yedo
and Nikko were joined by a highway flanked by rows of cryptomeria.
Second only to the Tokaido is the Nakasendo (mid-mountain road), which
also was constructed to join Kioto with Yedo, but follows an inland
course through the provinces of Yamashiro, Omi, Mino, Shinshu, Kotzuke
and Musashi. Its length is 340 m., and though not flanked by trees or
possessing so good a bed as the Tokaido, it is nevertheless a
sufficiently remarkable highway. A third road, the Oshukaido runs
northward from Yedo (now Tokyo) to Aomori on the extreme north of the
main island, a distance of 445 m., and several lesser highways give
access to other regions.
Modern Superintendence of Roads.
The question of road superintendence received early attention from the
government of the restoration. At a general assembly of local prefects
held at Tokyo in June 1875 it was decided to classify the different
roads throughout the empire, and to determine the several sources from
which the sums necessary for their maintenance and repair should be
drawn. After several days' discussion all roads were eventually ranged
under one or other of the following heads:--
I. National roads, consisting of--
Class 1. Roads leading from Tokyo to the various treaty ports.
Class 2. Roads leading from Tokyo to the ancestral shrines in the
province of Ise, and also to the cities or to military stations.
Class 3. Roads leading from Tokyo to the prefectural offices, and
those forming the lines of connexion between cities and military
stations.
II. Prefectural roads, consisting of--
Class 1. Roads connecting different prefectures, or leading from
military stations to their outposts.
Class 2. Roads connecting the head offices of cities and prefectures
with their branch offices.
Class 3. Roads connecting noted localities with the chief town of
such neighbourhoods, or leading to seaports convenient of access.
III. Village roads, consisting of--
Class 1. Roads passing through several localities in succession, or
merely leading from one locality to another.
Class 2. Roads specially constructed for the convenience of
irrigation, pasturage, mines, factories, &c., in accordance with
measures determined by the people of the locality.
Class 3. Roads constructed for the benefit of Shinto shrines,
Buddhist temples, or to facilitate the cultivation of rice-fields
and arable land.
Of the above three headings, it was decided that all national roads
should be maintained at the national expense, the regulations for their
up-keep being entrusted to the care of the prefectures along the line of
route, and the cost incurred being paid from the Imperial treasury.
Prefectural roads are maintained by a joint contribution from the
government and from the particular prefecture, each paying one-half of
the sum needed. Village roads, being for the convenience of local
districts alone, are maintained at the expense of such districts under
the general supervision of the corresponding prefecture. The width of
national roads was determined at 42 ft. for class 1, 36 ft. for class 2,
and 30 ft. for class 3; the prefectural roads were to be from 24 to 30
ft., and the dimensions of the village roads were optional, according to
the necessity of the case.
Vehicles.
The Jinrikisha.
The vehicles chiefly employed in ante-Meiji days were ox-carriages,
_norimono_, _kago_ and carts drawn by hand. Ox-carriages were used
only by people of the highest rank. They were often constructed of
rich lacquer; the curtains suspended in front were of the finest
bamboo workmanship, with thick cords and tassels of plaited silk, and
the draught animal, an ox of handsome proportions, was brilliantly
caparisoned. The care and expense lavished upon these highly ornate
structures would have been deemed extravagant even in medieval Europe.
They have passed entirely out of use, and are now to be seen in
museums only, but the type still exists in China. The norimono
resembled a miniature house slung by its roof-ridge from a massive
pole which projected at either end sufficiently to admit the shoulders
of a carrier. It, too, was frequently of very ornamental nature and
served to carry aristocrats or officials of high position. The kago
was the humblest of all conveyances recognized as usable by the upper
classes. It was an open palanquin, V-shaped in cross section, slung
from a pole which rested on the shoulders of two bearers.
Extraordinary skill and endurance were shown by the men who carried
the norimono and the kago, but none the less these vehicles were both
profoundly uncomfortable. They have now been relegated to the
warehouses of undertakers, where they serve as bearers for folks too
poor to employ catafalques, their place on the roads and in the
streets having been completely taken by the _jinrikisha_, a
two-wheeled vehicle pulled by one or two men who think nothing of
running 20 m. at the rate of 6 m. an hour. The jinrikisha was devised
by a Japanese in 1870, and since then it has come into use throughout
the whole of Asia eastward of the Suez Canal. Luggage, of course,
could not be carried by norimono or kago. It was necessary to have
recourse to packmen, pack-horses or baggage-carts drawn by men or
horses. All these still exist and are as useful as ever within certain
limits. In the cities and towns horses used as beasts of burden are
now shod with iron, but in rural or mountainous districts straw shoes
are substituted, a device which enables the animals to traverse rocky
or precipitous roads with safety.
_Railways._--It is easy to understand that an enterprise like railway
construction, requiring a great outlay of capital with returns long
delayed, did not at first commend itself to the Japanese, who were
almost entirely ignorant of co-operation as a factor of business
organization. Moreover, long habituated to snail-like modes of travel,
the people did not rapidly appreciate the celerity of the locomotive.
Neither the ox-cart, the norimono, nor the kago covered a daily distance
of over 20 m. on the average, and the packhorse was even slower. Amid
such conditions the idea of railways would have been slow to germinate
had not a catastrophe furnished some impetus. In 1869 a rice-famine
occurred in the southern island, Kiushiu, and while the cereal was
procurable abundantly in the northern provinces, people in the south
perished of hunger owing to lack of transport facilities. Sir Harry
Parkes, British representative in Tokyo, seized this occasion to urge
the construction of railways. Ito and Okuma, then influential members of
the government, at once recognized the wisdom of his advice.
Arrangements were made for a loan of a million sterling in London on the
security of the customs revenue, and English engineers were engaged to
lay a line between Tokyo and Yokohama (18 m.). Vehement voices of
opposition were at once raised in private and official circles alike,
all persons engaged in transport business imagined themselves threatened
with ruin, and conservative patriots detected loss of national
independence in a foreign loan. So fierce was the antagonism that the
military authorities refused to permit operations of survey in the
southern suburb of Tokyo, and the road had to be laid on an embankment
constructed in the sea. Ito and Okuma, however, never flinched, and they
were ably supported by Marquis M. Inouye and M. Mayejima. The latter
published, in 1870, the first Japanese work on railways, advocating the
building of lines from Tokyo to Kioto and Osaka; the former, appointed
superintendent of the lines, held that post for 30 years, and is justly
spoken of as "the father of Japanese railways."
September 1872 saw the first official opening of a railway (the
Tokyo-Yokohama line) in Japan, the ceremony being performed by the
emperor himself, a measure which effectually silenced all further
opposition. Eight years from the time of turning the first sod saw 71
m. of road open to traffic, the northern section being that between
Tokyo and Yokohama, and the southern that between Kioto and Kobe. A
period of interruption now ensued, owing to domestic troubles and
foreign complications, and when, in 1878, the government was able to
devote attention once again to railway problems, it found the treasury
empty. Then for the first time a public works loan was floated in the
home market, and about L300,000 of the total thus obtained passed into
the hands of the railway bureau, which at once undertook the building
of a road from Kioto to the shore of Lake Biwa, a work memorable as
the first line built in Japan without foreign assistance.[5] During
all this time private enterprise had remained wholly inactive in the
matter of railways, and it became a matter of importance to rouse the
people from this apathetic attitude. For the ordinary process of
organizing a joint-stock company and raising share-capital the nation
was not yet prepared. But shortly after the abolition of feudalism
there had come into the possession of the former feudatories state
loan-bonds amounting to some 18 millions sterling, which represented
the sum granted by the treasury in commutation of the revenues
formerly accruing to these men from their fiefs. Already events had
shown that the feudatories, quite devoid of business experience, were
not unlikely to dispose of these bonds and devote the proceeds to
unsound enterprises. Prince Iwakura, one of the leaders of the Meiji
statesmen, persuaded the feudatories to employ a part of the bonds as
capital for railway construction, and thus the first private railway
company was formed in Japan under the name _Nippon tetsudo kaisha_
(Japan railway company), the treasury guaranteeing 8% on the paid-up
capital for a period of 15 years. Some time elapsed before this
example found followers, but ultimately a programme was elaborated and
carried out having for its basis a grand trunk line extending the
whole length of the main island from Aomori on the north to
Shimonoseki on the south, a distance of 1153 m.; and a continuation of
the same line throughout the length of the southern island of Kiushiu,
from Moji on the north--which lies on the opposite side of the strait
from Shimonoseki--to Kagoshima on the south, a distance of 232(3/4)
m.; as well as a line from Moji to Nagasaki, a distance of 163(1/2) m.
Of this main road the state undertook to build the central section
(376 m.), between Tokyo and Kobe (via Kioto); the Japan railway
company undertook the portion (457 m.) northward of Tokyo to Aomori;
the Sanyo railway company undertook the portion (320 m.) southward of
Tokyo to Shimonoseki; and the Kiushiu railway company undertook the
lines in Kiushiu. The whole line is now in operation. The first
project was to carry the Tokyo-Kioto line through the interior of the
island so as to secure it against enterprises on the part of a
maritime enemy. Such engineering difficulties presented themselves,
however, that the coast route was ultimately chosen, and though the
line through the interior was subsequently constructed, strategical
considerations were not allowed completely to govern its direction.
When this building of railways began in Japan, much discussion was
taking place in England and India as to the relative advantages of the
wide and narrow gauges, and so strongly did the arguments in favour of
the latter appeal to the English advisers of the Japanese government
that the metre gauge was chosen. Some fitful efforts made in later
years to change the system proved unsuccessful. The lines are single,
for the most part; and as the embankments, the cuttings, the culverts
and the bridge-piers have not been constructed for a double line, any
change now would be very costly. The average speed of passenger trains
in Japan is 18 m. an hour, the corresponding figure over the
metre-gauge roads in India being 16 m., and the figure for English
parliamentary trains from 19 to 28 m. British engineers surveyed the
routes for the first lines and superintended the work of construction,
but within a few years the Japanese were able to dispense with foreign
aid altogether, both in building and operating their railways. They
also construct carriages, wagons and locomotives, and they may
therefore be said to have become entirely independent in the matter of
railways, for a government iron-foundry at Wakamatsu in Kiushiu is
able to manufacture steel rails.
The total length of lines open for traffic at the end of March 1906
was 4746 m., 1470 m. having been built by the state and 3276 by
private companies; the former at a cost of 16 millions sterling for
construction and equipment, and the latter at a cost of 25 millions.
Thus the expenditure by the state averaged L10,884 per mile, and that
by private companies, L7631. This difference is explained by the facts
that the state lines having been the pioneers, portions of them were
built before experience had indicated cheap methods; that a very large
and costly foreign staff was employed on these roads in the early
days, whereas no such item appeared in the accounts of private lines;
that extensive works for the building of locomotives and rolling stock
are connected with the government's roads, and that it fell to the lot
of the state to undertake lines in districts presenting exceptional
engineering difficulties, such districts being naturally avoided by
private companies. The gross earnings of all the lines during the
fiscal year 1905-1906 were 7 millions sterling, approximately, and the
gross expenses (including the payment of interest on loans and
debentures) were under 3(1/2) millions, so that there remained a net
profit of 3(1/2) millions, being at the rate of a little over 8(1/2)%
on the invested capital. The facts that the outlays averaged less than
47% of the gross income, and that accidents and irregularities are not
numerous, prove that Japanese management in this kind of enterprise is
efficient.
Nationalization of Private Railways.
When the fiscal year 1906-1907 opened, the number of private companies
was no less than 36, owning and operating 3276 m. of railway. To say
that this represented an average of 91 m. per company is to convey an
over-favourable idea, for, as a matter of fact, 15 of the companies
averaged less than 24 m. Anything like efficient co-operation was
impossible in such circumstances, and constant complaints were heard
about delays in transit and undue expense. The defects of divided
ownership had long suggested the expediency of nationalization, but
not until 1906 could the diet be induced to give its consent. On March
31 of that year, a railway nationalization law was promulgated. It
enacted that, within a period of 10 years from 1906 to 1915, the state
should purchase the 17 principal private roads, which had a length of
2812 m., and whose cost of construction and equipment had been 23(1/2)
millions sterling. The original scheme included 15 other railways,
with an aggregate mileage of only 353 m.; but these were eliminated as
being lines of local interest only. The actual purchase price of the
17 lines was calculated at 43 millions sterling (about double their
cost price), on the following basis: (a) An amount equal to 20 times
the sum obtained by multiplying the cost of construction at the date
of purchase by the average ratio of the profit to the cost of
construction during the six business terms of the company from the
second half-year of 1902 to the first half-year of 1905. (b) The
amount of the actual cost of stored articles converted according to
current prices thereof into public loan-bonds at face value, except in
the case of articles which had been purchased with borrowed money. The
government agreed to hand over the purchase money within 5 years from
the date of the acquisition of the lines, in public loan-bonds bearing
5% interest calculated at their face value; the bonds to be redeemed
out of the net profits accruing from the purchased railways. It was
calculated that this redemption would be effected in a period of 32
years, after which the annual profit accruing to the state from the
lines would be 5(1/2) millions sterling. But the nationalization
scheme, though apparently the only effective method of linking
together and co-ordinating an excessively subdivided system of lines,
has proved a source of considerable financial embarrassment. For when
the state constituted itself virtually the sole owner of railways, it
necessarily assumed responsibility for extending them so that they
should suffice to meet the wants of a nation numbering some 50
millions. Such extension could be effected only by borrowing money.
Now the government was pledged by the diet in 1907 to an expenditure
of 11(1/2) millions (spread over 8 years) for extending the old state
system of roads, and an expenditure of 6(1/4) millions (spread over 12
years) for improving them. But from the beginning of that year, a
period of extreme commercial and financial depression set in, and the
treasury had to postpone all recourse to loans for whatever purpose,
so that railway progress was completely checked in the field alike of
the original and the acquired state lines. Moreover, all securities
underwent such sharp depreciation that, on the one hand, the
government hesitated to hand over the bonds representing the
purchase-price of the railways, lest such an addition to the volume of
stocks should cause further depreciation, and, on the other, the
former owners of the nationalized lines found the character of their
bargain greatly changed. In these circumstances the government decided
to take a strong step, namely, to place the whole of the railways
owned by it--the original state lines as well as those
nationalized--in an account independent of the regular budget, and to
devote their entire profits to works of extension and improvement,
supplementing the amount with loans from the treasury when necessary.
South Manchuria Railway.
In the sequel of the war of 1904-5 Japan, with China's consent,
acquired from Russia the lease of the portion of the South-Manchuria
railway (see MANCHURIA) between Kwang-cheng-tsze (Chang-chun) on the
north and Tairen (Dalny), Port Arthur and Niuchwang on the south--a
total length of 470 m. At the close of 1906 this road was handed over
to a joint-stock company with a capital of 20 millions sterling, the
government contributing 10 millions in the form of the road and its
associated properties; the public subscribing 2 millions, and the
company being entitled to issue debentures to the extent of 8
millions, the principal and interest of these debentures being
officially guaranteed. Four millions' worth of debentures were issued
in London in 1907 and 4 millions in 1908. This company's programme is
not limited to operating the railway. It also works coal-fields at
Yentai and Fushun; has a line of steamers plying between Tairen and
Shanghai; and engages in enterprises of electricity, warehousing and
the management of houses and lands within zones 50 _li_ (17 m.) wide
on either side of the line. The government guarantees 6% interest on
the capital paid up by the general public.
Electric Railways.
Not until 1905 did Japan come into possession of an electric railway.
It was a short line of 8 m., built in Kioto for the purposes of a
domestic exhibition held in that city. Thenceforth this class of
enterprise grew steadily in favour, so that, in 1907, there were 16
companies with an aggregate capital of 8 millions sterling, having 165
m. open to traffic and 77 m. under construction. Fifteen other
companies with an aggregate capital of 3 millions had also obtained
charters. The principal of these is the Tokyo railway company, with a
subscribed capital of 6 millions (3(1/2) paid up), 90(1/2) m. of line
open and 149 m. under construction. In 1907 it carried 153 million
passengers, and its net earnings were L300,000.
Maritime Communications.
The traditional story of prehistoric Japan indicates that the first
recorded emperor was an over-sea invader, whose followers must therefore
have possessed some knowledge of ship-building and navigation. But in
what kind of craft they sailed and how they handled them, there is
nothing to show clearly. Nine centuries later, but still 500 years
before the era of surviving written annals, an empress is said to have
invaded Korea, embarking her forces at Kobe (then called Takekura) in
500 vessels. In the middle of the 6th century we read of a general named
Abe-no-hirafu who led a flotilla up the Amur river to the invasion of
Manchuria (then called Shukushin). All these things show that the
Japanese of the earliest era navigated the high sea with some skill, and
at later dates down to medieval times they are found occasionally
sending forces to Korea and constantly visiting China in vessels which
seem to have experienced no difficulty in making the voyage. The 16th
century was a period of maritime activity so marked that, had not
artificial checks been applied, the Japanese, in all probability, would
have obtained partial command of Far-Eastern waters. They invaded Korea;
their corsairs harried the coasts of China; two hundred of their
vessels, sailing under authority of the Taiko's vermilion seal, visited
Siam, Luzon, Cochin China and Annam, and they built ships in European
style which crossed the Pacific to Acapulco. But this spirit of
adventure was chilled at the close of the 16th century and early in the
17th, when events connected with the propagation of Christianity taught
the Japanese to believe that national safety could not be secured
without international isolation. In 1638 the ports were closed to all
foreign ships except those flying the flag of Holland or of China, and a
strictly enforced edict forbade the building of any vessel having a
capacity of more than 500 _koku_ (150 tons) or constructed for purposes
of ocean navigation. Thenceforth, with rare exceptions, Japanese craft
confined themselves to the coastwise trade. Ocean-going enterprise
ceased altogether.
Things remained thus until the middle of the 19th century, when a
growing knowledge of the conditions existing in the West warned the
Tokugawa administration that continued isolation would be suicidal. In
1853 the law prohibiting the construction of sea-going ships was revoked
and the Yedo government built at Uraga a sailing vessel of European type
aptly called the "Phoenix" ("Howo Maru"). Just 243 years had elapsed
since the founder of the Tokugawa dynasty constructed Japan's first ship
after a foreign model, with the aid of an English pilot, Will Adams. In
1853 Commodore M. C. Perry made his appearance, and thenceforth
everything conspired to push Japan along the new path. The Dutch, who
had been proximately responsible for the adoption of the seclusion
policy in the 17th century, now took a prominent part in promoting a
liberal view. They sent to the Tokugawa a present of a man-of-war and
urged the vital necessity of equipping the country with a navy. Then
followed the establishment of a naval college at Tsukiji in Yedo, the
building of iron-works at Nagasaki, and the construction at Yokosuka of
a dockyard destined to become one of the greatest enterprises of its
kind in the East. This last undertaking bore witness to the patriotism
of the Tokugawa rulers, for they resolutely carried it to completion
during the throes of a revolution which involved the downfall of their
dynasty. Their encouragement of maritime enterprise had borne fruit, for
when, in 1867, they restored the administration to the Imperial court,
44 ocean-going ships were found among their possessions and 94 were in
the hands of the feudatories, a steamer and 20 sailing vessels having
been constructed in Japan and the rest purchased abroad.
If the Tokugawa had been energetic in this respect, the new government
was still more so. It caused the various maritime carriers to amalgamate
into one association called the _Nippon-koku yubin jokisen kaisha_ (Mail
SS. Company of Japan), to which were transferred, free of charge, the
steamers, previously the property of the Tokugawa or the feudatories,
and a substantial subsidy was granted by the state. This, the first
steamship company ever organized in Japan, remained in existence only
four years. Defective management and incapacity to compete with
foreign-owned vessels plying between the open ports caused its downfall
(1875). Already, however, an independent company had appeared upon the
scene. Organized and controlled by a man (Iwasaki Yataro) of exceptional
enterprise and business faculty, this _mitsubishi kaisha_ (three lozenge
company, so called from the design on its flag), working with steamers
chartered from the former feudatory of Tosa, to which clan Iwasaki
belonged, proved a success from the outset, and grew with each
vicissitude of the state. For when (1874) the Meiji government's first
complications with a foreign country necessitated the despatch of a
military expedition to Formosa, the administration had to purchase 63
foreign steamers for transport purposes, and these were subsequently
transferred to the mitsubishi company together with all the vessels (17)
hitherto in the possession of the Mail SS. Company, the Treasury further
granting to the mitsubishi a subsidy of L50,000 annually. Shortly
afterwards it was decided to purchase a service maintained by the
Pacific Mail SS. Company with 4 steamers between Yokohama and Shanghai,
and money for the purpose having been lent by the state to the
mitsubishi, Japan's first line of steamers to a foreign country was
firmly established, just 20 years after the law interdicting the
construction of ocean-going vessels had been rescinded.
The next memorable event in this chapter of history occurred in 1877,
when the Satsuma clan, eminently the most powerful and most warlike
among all the former feudatories, took the field in open rebellion.
For a time the fate of the government hung in the balance, and only by
a flanking movement over-sea was the rebellion crushed. This strategy
compelled the purchase of 10 foreign steamers, and these too were
subsequently handed over to the mitsubishi company, which, in 1880,
found itself possessed of 32 ships aggregating 25,600 tons, whereas
all the other vessels of foreign type in the country totalled only 27
with a tonnage of 6500. It had now become apparent that the country
could not hope to meet emergencies which might at any moment arise,
especially in connexion with Korean affairs, unless the development of
the mercantile marine proceeded more rapidly. Therefore in 1881 the
formation of a new company was officially promoted. It had the name of
the _kyodo unyu kaisha_ (Union Transport Company); its capital was
about a million sterling; it received a large subsidy from the state,
and its chief purpose was to provide vessels for military uses and as
commerce-carriers. Japan had now definitely embraced the policy of
entrusting to private companies rather than to the state the duty of
acquiring a fleet of vessels capable of serving as transports or
auxiliary cruisers in time of war. But there was now seen the curious
spectacle of two companies (the Mitsubishi and the Union Transport)
competing in the same waters and both subsidized by the treasury.
After this had gone on for four years, the two companies were
amalgamated (1885) into the _Nippon yusen kaisha_ (Japan Mail SS.
Company) with a capital of L1,100,000 and an annual subsidy of
L88,000, fixed on the basis of 8% of the capital. Another company had
come into existence a few months earlier. Its fleet consisted of 100
small steamers, totalling 10,000 tons, which had hitherto been
competing in the Inland Sea.
Japan now possessed a substantial mercantile marine, the rate of whose
development is indicated by the following figures:--
Year. Steamers. Sailing Vessels. Totals.
Number. Tons. Number. Tons. Number. Tons.
1870 35 15,498 11 2,454 46 17,952
1892 642 122,300 780 46,065 1,422 168,365
Nevertheless, only 23% of the exports and imports was transported in
Japanese bottoms in 1892, whereas foreign steamers took 77%. This
discrepancy was one of the subjects discussed in the first session of
the diet, but a bill presented by the government for encouraging
navigation failed to obtain parliamentary consent, and in 1893 the
Japan Mail SS. Company, without waiting for state assistance, opened a
regular service to Bombay mainly for the purpose of carrying raw
cotton from India to supply the spinning industry which had now
assumed great importance in Japan. Thus the rising sun flag flew for
the first time outside Far-Eastern waters. Almost immediately after
the establishment of this line, Japan had to engage in war with China,
which entailed the despatch of some two hundred thousand men to the
neighbouring continent and their maintenance there for more than a
year. All the country's available shipping resources did not suffice
for this task. Additional vessels had to be purchased or chartered,
and thus, by the beginning of 1896, the mercantile marine of Japan had
grown to 899 steamers of 373,588 tons, while the sailing vessels had
diminished to 644 of 44,000 tons.
In 1897 there occurred an event destined to exercise a potent
influence on the fortunes not only of Japan herself but also of her
mercantile marine. No sooner had she exchanged with China
ratifications of a treaty of peace which seemed to prelude a long
period of tranquillity, than Russia, Germany and France ordered her to
restore all the continental territory ceded to her by China. Japan
then recognized that her hope of peace was delusive, and that she must
be prepared to engage in a struggle incomparably more serious than the
one from which she had just emerged. Determined that when the crucial
moment came she should not be found without ample means for
transporting her armies, the government, under the leadership of
Prince Ito and with the consent of the diet, enacted, in March 1896
laws liberally encouraging ship-building and navigation. Under the
navigation law "any Japanese subject or any commercial company whose
partners or shareholders were all Japanese subjects, engaged in
carrying passengers and cargo between Japan and foreign countries or
between foreign ports, in their own vessels, which must be of at least
1000 tons and registered in the shipping list of the Empire, became
entitled to subsidies proportionate to the distance run and the
tonnage of the vessels"; and under the ship-building law, bounties
were granted for the construction of iron or steel vessels of not less
than 700 tons gross by any Japanese subject or any commercial company
whose partners and shareholders were all Japanese. The effect of this
legislation was marked. In the period of six years ended 1902, no less
than 835 vessels of 455,000 tons were added to the mercantile marine,
and the treasury found itself paying encouragement money which
totalled six hundred thousand pounds annually. Ship-building underwent
remarkable development. Thus, while in 1870 only 2 steamers
aggregating 57 tons had been constructed in Japanese yards, 53
steamers totalling 5380 tons and 193 sailing vessels of 17,873 tons
were launched in 1900. By the year 1907 Japan had 216 private ship
yards and 42 private docks,[6] and while the government yards were
able to build first-class line-of-battle ships of the largest size,
the private docks were turning out steamers of 9000 tons burden. When
war broke out with Russia in 1904, Japan had 567,000 tons of steam
shipping, but that stupendous struggle obliged her to materially
augment even this great total. In operations connected with the war
she lost 71,000 tons, but on the other hand, she built 27,000 tons at
home and bought 177,000 abroad, so that the net increase to her
mercantile fleet of steamers was 133,000 tons. The following table
shows the growth of her marine during the ten years ending 1907:--
Steamers. Sailing Vessels. Totals.
Gross Gross Gross
Year. Number. Tonnage. Number. Tonnage. Number. Tonnage.
1898 1130 477,430 1914 170,194 3044 648,324
1899 1221 510,007 3322 286,923 4543 467,930
1900 1329 543,365 3850 320,572 5179 863,937
1901 1395 583,532 4026 336,528 5471 920,060
1902 1441 610,445 3907 336,154 5348 946,600
1903 1570 663,220 3934 328,953 5504 992,173
1904 1815 798,240 3940 329,125 5755 1,127,365
1905 1988 939,749 4132 336,571 6170 1,276,320
1906 2103 1,041,569 4547 353,356 6700 1,395,925
1907 2139 1,115,880 4728 365,559 6867 1,481,439
With regard to the development of ship-building in Japanese yards the
following figures convey information:--
NUMBERS OF VESSELS BUILT IN JAPAN AND NUMBERS PURCHASED ABROAD
Built in Japan. Purchased abroad.
Year. Steamers. Sailing Vessels. Steamers. Sailing Vessels.
1898 479 1301 194 9
1899 554 2771 199 12
1900 653 3302 206 7
1901 754 3559 215 6
1902 813 3585 220 6
1903 855 5304 233 8
1904 947 3324 277 8
1905 1028 3508 357 11
1906 1100 3859 387 11
1907 1150 4033 419 12
In the building of iron and steel ships the Japanese are obliged to
import much of the material used, but a large steel-foundry has been
established under government auspices at Wakamatsu in Kiushiu, that
position having been chosen on account of comparative proximity to the
Taiya iron mine in China, where the greater part of the iron ore used
for the foundry is procured.
Seamen.
Simultaneously with the growth of the mercantile marine there has been
a marked development in the number of licensed mariners; that is to
say, seamen registered by the government as having passed the
examination prescribed by law. In 1876 there were only 4 Japanese
subjects who satisfied that definition as against 74 duly qualified
foreigners holding responsible positions. In 1895 the numbers were
4135 Japanese and 835 foreigners, and ten years later the
corresponding figures were 16,886 and 349 respectively. In 1904 the
ordinary seamen of the mercantile marine totalled 202,710.
Education of Mariners.
There are in Japan various institutions where the theory and practice
of navigation are taught. The principal of these is the _Tokyo shosen
gakko_ (Tokyo mercantile marine college, established in 1875), where
some 600 of the men now serving as officers arid engineers have
graduated. Well equipped colleges exist also in seven other places,
all having been established with official co-operation. Mention must
be made of a mariners' assistance association (_kaiin ekizai-kai_,
established in 1800) which acts as a kind of agency for supplying
mariners to shipowners, and of a distressed mariners' relief
association (_suinan kyusai-kai_) which has succoured about a hundred
thousand seamen since its establishment in 1899.
Maritime Administration.
The duty of overseeing all matters relating to the maritime carrying
trade devolves on the department of state for communications, and is
delegated by the latter to one of its bureaus (the _Kwansen-kyoku_, or
ships superintendence bureau), which, again, is divided into three
sections: one for inspecting vessels, one for examining mariners, and
one for the general control of all shipping in Japanese waters. For
the better discharge of its duties this bureau parcels out the empire
into 4 districts, having their headquarters at Tokyo, Osaka, Nagasaki
and Hakodate; and these four districts are in turn subdivided into 18
sections, each having an office of marine affairs (_kwaiji-kyoku_).
Competition between Japanese and Foreign Ships.
Competition between Japanese and foreign ships in the carriage of the
country's over-sea trade soon began to assume appreciable dimensions.
Thus, whereas in 1891 the portion carried in Japanese bottoms was only
1(1/2) millions sterling against 12(1/2) millions carried by foreign
vessels, the corresponding figures in 1902 were 20(1/2) millions
against 32(1/4) millions. In other words, Japanese steamers carried
only 11% of the total trade in 1891, but their share rose to 39% in
1902. The prospect suggested by this record caused some uneasiness,
which was not allayed by observing that while the tonnage of Japanese
vessels in Chinese ports was only 2% in 1896 as compared with foreign
vessels, the former figure grew to 16% in 1902; while in Korean ports
Japanese steamers almost monopolized the carrying trade, leaving only
18% to their foreign rivals, and even in Hong-Kong the tonnage of
Japanese ships increased from 3% in 1896 to 13% in 1900. In 1898 Japan
stood eleventh on the list of the thirteen principal maritime
countries of the world, but in 1907 she rose to the fifth place. Her
principal company, the Nippon yusen kaisha, though established as
lately as 1885, now ranks ninth in point of tonnage among the 21
leading maritime companies of the world. This company was able to
supply 55 out of a total fleet of 207 transports furnished by all the
steamship companies of Japan for military and naval purposes during
the war with Russia in 1904-5. It may be noted in conclusion that the
development of Japan's steam-shipping during the five decades ended
1907 was as follows:--
Tons.
At the end of 1868 17,952
At the end of 1878 63,468
At the end of 1888 197,365
At the end of 1898 648,324
At the end of 1907 1,115,880
Open Ports.
There are 33 ports in Japan open as places of call for foreign
steamers. Their names with the dates of their opening are as follow:--
Name. Date of Opening. Situation.
Yokohama 1859 Main Island.
Kobe 1868 "
Niigata 1867 "
Osaka 1899 "
Yokkaichi " "
Shimonoseki " "
Itozaki " "
Taketoyo " "
Shimizu " "
Tsuruga " "
Nanao " "
Fushiki " "
Sakai " "
Hamada " "
Miyazu " "
Aomori 1906 "
Nagasaki 1859 Kiushiu.
Moji 1899 "
Hakata " "
Karatsu " "
Kuchinotsu " "
Misumi " "
Suminoye 1906 "
Izuhara 1899 Tsushima.
Sasuna " "
Shikami " "
Nafa " Riukiu.
Otaru " Yezo.
Kushiro " "
Mororan " "
Hakodate 1865 "
Kelung 1899 Formosa.
Tamsui " "
Takow " "
Anping " "
_Emigration._--Characteristic of the Japanese is a spirit of adventure:
they readily emigrate to foreign countries if any inducement offers. A
strong disposition to exclude them has displayed itself in the United
States of America, in Australasia and in British Columbia, and it is
evident that, since one nation cannot force its society on another at
the point of the sword, this anti-Asiatic prejudice will have to be
respected, though it has its origin in nothing more respectable than the
jealousy of the labouring classes. One result is an increase in the
number of Japanese emigrating to Korea, Manchuria and S. America. The
following table shows the numbers residing at various places outside
Japan in 1904 and 1906 respectively:--
Number in Number in
Place. 1904. 1906.
China 9,417 27,126
Korea 31,093 100,000
Manchuria -- 43,823
Hong-Kong 600 756
Singapore 1,292 1,428
British India 413 530
Europe 183 697
United States of America 33,849 130,228
Canada 3,838 5,088
Mexico 456 1,294
S. America 1,496 2,500
Philippines 2,652 2,185
Hawaii 65,008 64,319
Australasia 71,129 3,274
_Foreign Residents._--The number of foreigners residing in Japan and
their nationalities in 1889, 1899 and 1906, respectively, were as
follow:--
1889. 1899. 1906.
Americans 899 1,296 1,650
British 1,701 2,013 2,155
Russians 63 134 211
French 335 463 540
Portuguese 108 158 165
Germans 550 532 670
Chinese 4,975 6,372 12,425
Koreans 8 188 254
There are also small numbers of Dutch, Peruvians, Belgians, Swiss,
Italians, Danes, Swedes, Austrians, Hungarians, &c. This slow growth of
the foreign residents is remarkable when contrasted with the fact that
the volume of the country's foreign trade, which constitutes their main
business, grew in the same period from 13(1/2) millions sterling to 92
millions.
_Posts and Telegraphs._--The government of the Restoration did not wait
for the complete abolition of feudalism before organizing a new system
of posts in accordance with modern needs. At first, letters only were
carried, but before the close of 1871 the service was extended so as to
include newspapers, printed matter, books and commercial samples, while
the area was extended so as to embrace all important towns between
Hakodate in the northern island of Yezo and Nagasaki in the southern
island of Kiushiu. Two years later this field was closed to private
enterprise, the state assuming sole charge of the business. A few years
later saw Japan in possession of an organization comparable in every
respect with the systems existing in Europe. In 1892 a foreign service
was added. Whereas in 1871 the number of post-offices throughout the
empire was only 179, it had grown to 6449 in 1907, while the mail matter
sent during the latter year totalled 1254 millions (including 15
millions of parcels), and 67,000 persons were engaged in handling it.
Japan labours under special difficulties for postal purposes, owing to
the great number of islands included in the empire, the exceptionally
mountainous nature of the country, and the wide areas covered by the
cities in proportion to the number of their inhabitants. It is not
surprising to find, therefore, that the means of distribution are
varied. The state derives a net revenue of 5 million _yen_ approximately
from its postal service. It need scarcely be added that the system of
postal money-orders was developed _pari passu_ with that of ordinary
correspondence, but in this context one interesting fact may be noted,
namely, that while Japan sends abroad only some L25,000 annually to
foreign countries through the post, she receives over L450,000 from her
over-sea emigrants.
Postal Savings Bank.
Japan at the time of the Restoration (1867) was not entirely without
experience which prepared her for the postal money-order system. Some
600 years ago the idea of the bill of exchange was born in the little
town of Totsugawa (Yamato province), though it did not obtain much
development before the establishment of the Tokugawa shogunate in the
17th century. The feudal chiefs, having then to transmit large sums to
Yedo for the purposes of their compulsory residence there, availed
themselves of bills of exchange, and the shogun's government, which
received considerable amounts in Osaka, selected ten brokers to whom
the duty of effecting the transfer of these funds was entrusted.
Subsequently the 10 chosen brokers were permitted to extend their
services to the general public, and a recent Japanese historian notes
that Osaka thus became the birthplace of banking business in Japan.
Postal money-orders were therefore easily appreciated at the time of
their introduction in 1875. This was not true of the postal savings
bank, however, an institution which came into existence in the same
year. It was altogether a novel idea that the public at large,
especially the lower sections of it, should entrust their savings to
the government for safe keeping, especially as the minimum and maximum
deposited at one time were fixed at such petty sums as 10 _sen_
(2(1/4)d.) and 50 _sen_ (1s.), respectively. Indeed, in the
circumstances, the fact that L1500 was deposited in the first year
must be regarded as notable. Subsequently deposits were taken in
postage stamps, and arrangements were effected for enabling depositors
to pay money to distant creditors through the bank by merely stating
the destination and the amount of the nearest post office. In 1908 the
number of depositors in the post office savings bank was 8217, and
their deposits exceeded 10 millions sterling. Thirty per cent. of the
depositors belonged to the agricultural classes, 13 to the commercial
and only 6 to the industrial.
Telegraphs.
Rapid communication by means of beacons was not unknown in ancient
Japan, but code-signalling by the aid of flags was not introduced
until the 17th century and was probably suggested by observing the
practice of foreign merchantmen. Its use, however, was peculiar. The
central office stood at Osaka, between which city and many of the
principal provincial towns rudely constructed towers were placed at
long distances, and from one to another of these intelligence as to
the market price of rice was flashed by flag-shaking, the signals
being read with telescopes. The Japanese saw a telegraph for the first
time in 1854, when Commodore Perry presented a set of apparatus to the
shogun, and four years later the feudal chief of Satsuma (Shimazu
Nariakira) caused wires to be erected within the enclosure of his
castle. The true value of electric telegraphy was first demonstrated
to the Japanese in connexion with an insurrection in 1877, under the
leadership of Saigo, the favourite of this same Shimazu Nariakira.
Before that time, however, a line of telegraph had been put up between
Tokyo and Yokohama (18 m.) and a code of regulations had been enacted.
Sudden introduction to such a mysterious product of foreign science
created superstitious dread in the minds of a few of the lower orders,
and occasional attempts were made at the outset to wreck the wires. In
1886 the postal and telegraph offices were amalgamated and both
systems underwent large development. Whereas the length of wires at
the end of the fourth year after the introduction of the system was
only 53 m., and the number of messages 20,000, these figures had grown
in 1907 to 95,623 and 25 millions, respectively. Several cables are
included in these latter figures, the longest being that to Formosa
(1229 m.). Wireless telegraphy began to come into general use in 1908,
when several vessels belonging to the principal steamship companies
were equipped with the apparatus. It had already been employed for
some years by the army and navy, especially during the war with
Russia, when the latter service installed a new system, the joint
invention of Captain Tonami of the navy, Professor S. Kimura of the
naval college and Mr M. Matsushiro of the department of
communications. The telegraph service in Japan barely pays the cost of
operating and maintenance.
Telephones.
The introduction of the telephone into Japan took place in 1877, but
it served official purposes solely during 13 years, and even when
(1890) it was placed at the disposal of the general public its
utilities found at first few appreciators. But this apathy soon
yielded to a mood of eager employment, and the resources of the
government (which monopolized the enterprise) proved inadequate to
satisfy public demand. Automatic telephones were ultimately set up at
many places in the principal towns and along the most frequented
highways. The longest distance covered was from Tokyo to Osaka (348
m.). In 1907 Japan had 140,440 m. of telephone wires, 262 exchanges,
159 automatic telephones, and the approximate number of messages sent
was 160 millions. The telephone service pays a net revenue of about
L100,000 annually.
_Agriculture._--The gross area of land in Japan--excluding Formosa and
Sakhalin--is 89,167,880 acres, of which 53,487,022 acres represent the
property of the crown, the state and the communes, the rest (35,680,868
acres) being owned by private persons. Of the grand total the arable
lands represent 15,301,297 acres. With regard to the immense expanse
remaining unproductive, experts calculate that if all lands inclined at
less than 15 deg. be considered cultivable, an area of 10,684,517 acres
remains to be reclaimed, though whether the result would repay the cost
is a question hitherto unanswered. The cultivated lands are thus
classified, namely, wet fields (called also paddy fields or rice lands),
6,871,437 acres; dry fields (or upland farms), 5,741,745 acres, and
others, 2,688,115 acres.
Rice.
Paddy fields are to be seen in every valley or dell where farming is
practicable; they are divided into square, oblong or triangular plots
by grass-grown ridges a few inches in height and on an average a foot
in breadth--the rice being planted in the soft mud thus enclosed.
Narrow pathways intersect these rice-valleys at intervals, and
rivulets (generally flowing between low banks covered with clumps of
bamboo) feed ditches cut for purposes of irrigation. The fields are
generally kept under water to a depth of a few inches while the crops
are young, but are drained immediately before harvesting. They are
then dug up, and again flooded before the second crop is planted out.
The rising grounds which skirt the rice-land are tilled by the hoe,
and produce Indian corn, millet and edible roots. The well-wooded
slopes supply the peasants with timber and firewood. Thirty-six per
cent. of the rice-fields yield two crops yearly. The seed is sown in
small beds, and the seedlings are planted out in the fields after
attaining the height of about 4 in. The finest rice is produced in the
fertile plains watered by the Tone-gawa in the province of Shimosa,
but the grain of Kaga and of the two central provinces of Settsu and
Harima is also very good.
Sake.
Not only does rice form the chief food of the Japanese but also the
national beverage, called sake, is brewed from it. In colour the best
sake resembles very pale sherry; the taste is rather acid. None but
the finest grain is used in its manufacture. Of sake there are many
varieties, from the best quality down to _shiro-zake_ or "white sake,"
and the turbid sort, drunk only in the poorer districts, known as
_nigori-zake_; there is also a sweet sort, called _mirin_.
The various cereal and other crops cultivated in Japan, the areas
devoted to them and the annual production are shown in the following
table:--
1898. 1902. 1906.
Acres. Acres. Acres.
Rice 7,044,060 7,117,990 7,246,982
Barley 1,649,240 1,613,270 1,674,595
Rye 1,703,410 1,688,635 1,752,095
Wheat 1,164,020 1,210,435 1,107,967
Millet 693,812 652,492 594,280
Beans 1,503,395 1,488,600 1,478,345
Buckwheat 450,100 414,375 402,575
Rape-seed 377,070 392,612 352,807
Potatoes 92,297 105,350 140,197
Sweet Potatoes 668,130 693,427 717,620
Cotton 100,720 51,750 24,165
Hemp 62,970 42,227 34,845
Indigo (leaf) 122,180 92,982 40,910
1903. 1905. 1906.
Sugar Cane 41,750 43,308 45,087
It is observable that no marked increase is taking place in the area
under cultivation, and that the business of growing cotton, hemp and
indigo is gradually diminishing, these staples being supplied from
abroad. In Germany and Italy the annual additions made to the arable
area average 8% whereas in Japan the figure is only 5%. Moreover, of
the latter amount the rate for paddy fields is only 3.3% against 7.9%
in the case of upland farms. This means that the population is rapidly
outgrowing its supply of home-produced rice, the great food-stuff of
the nation, and the price of that cereal consequently shows a steady
tendency to appreciate. Thus whereas the market value was 5s. 5d. per
bushel in 1901, it rose to 6s. 9d. in 1906.
Silk and Tea.
Scarcely less important to Japan than the cereals she raises are her
silk and tea, both of which find markets abroad. Her production of the
latter staple does not show any sign of marked development, for though
tea is almost as essential an article of diet in Japan as rice, its
foreign consumers are practically limited to the United States and
their demand does not increase. The figures for the 10-year period
ended 1906 are as follow:--
Area under cultivation Tea produced
(acres). (lb. av.).
1897 147,230 70,063,076
1901 122,120 57,975,486
1906 126,125 58,279,286
Sericulture, on the contrary, shows steady development year by year.
The demand of European and American markets has very elastic limits,
and if Japanese growers are content with moderate, but still
substantial, gains they can find an almost unrestricted sale in the
West. The development from 1886 to 1906 was as follows:--
Raw silk produced
yearly (lb.).
Average from 1886 to 1889 8,739,273
1895 19,087,310
1900 20,705,644
1905 21,630,829
1906 24,215,324
The chief silk-producing prefectures in Japan, according to the order
of production, are Nagano, Gumma, Yamanashi, Fukushima, Aichi and
Saitama. At the close of 1906 there were 3843 filatures throughout the
country, and the number of families engaged in sericulture was
397,885.
Lacquer, vegetable wax and tobacco are also important staples of
production. The figures for the ten-year period, 1897 to 1906, are as
follow:--
Lacquer Vegetable Tobacco
(lb.). wax (lb.). (lb.).
1897 344,267 25,850,790 110,572,925
1906 668,266 39,714,661 101,718,592
While the quantity of certain products increases, the number of
filatures and factories diminishes, the inference being that
industries are coming to be conducted on a larger scale than was
formerly the case. Thus in sericulture the filatures diminished from
4723 in 1897 to 3843 in 1906; the number of lacquer factories from
1637 to 1123 at the same dates, and the number of wax factories from
2619 to 1929.
Agricultural Improvements.
It is generally said that whereas more than 60% of Japan's entire
population is engaged in agriculture, she remains far behind the
progressive nations of Europe in the application of scientific
principles to farming. Nevertheless if we take for unit the average
value of the yield per hectare in Italy, we obtain the following
figures:--
Yield per hectare
Italy 100
India 51
Germany 121
France 122
Egypt 153
Japan 213
In the realm of agriculture, as in all departments of modern Japan's
material development, abundant traces are found of official activity.
Thus, in the year 1900, the government enacted laws designed to
correct the excessive subdivision of farmers' holdings; to utilize
unproductive areas lying between cultivated fields; to straighten
roads; to facilitate irrigation; to promote the use of machinery; to
make known the value of artificial fertilizers; to conserve streams
and to prevent inundations. Further, in order to furnish capital for
the purposes of farming, 46 agricultural and commercial banks--one in
each prefecture--were established with a central institution called
the hypothec bank which assists them to collect funds. A Hokkaido
colonial bank and subsequently a bank of Formosa were also organized,
and a law was framed to encourage the formation of co-operative
societies which should develop a system of credit, assist the business
of sale and purchase and concentrate small capitals. Experimental
stations were another official creation. Their functions were to carry
on investigations relating to seeds, diseases of cereals, insect
pests, stock-breeding, the use of implements, the manufacture of
agricultural products and cognate matters. Encouragement by grants in
aid was also given to the establishment of similar experimental farms
by private persons in the various prefectures, and such farms are now
to be found everywhere. This official initiative, with equally
successful results, extended to the domain of sericulture and
tea-growing. There are two state sericultural training institutions
where not only the rearing of silk-worms and the management of
filatures are taught, but also experiments are made; and these
institutions, like the state agricultural stations, have served as
models for institutes on the same lines under private auspices. A
silk-conditioning house at Yokohama; experimental tea-farms; laws to
prevent and remove diseases of plants, cereals, silk-worms and cattle,
and regulations to check dishonesty in the matter of fertilizers,
complete the record of official efforts in the realm of agriculture
during the Meiji era.
Stockbreeding.
One of the problems of modern Japan is the supply of cattle. With a
rapidly growing taste for beef--which, in former days, was not an
article of diet--there is a slow but steady diminution in the stock of
cattle. Thus while the number of the latter in 1897 was 1,214,163, out
of which total 158,504 were slaughtered, the corresponding figures in
1906 were 1,190,373 and 167,458, respectively. The stock of sheep
(3500 in 1906) increases slowly, and the stocks of goats (58,694 in
1897 and 74,750 in 1906) and swine (206,217 in 1897 and 284,708 in
1906) grow with somewhat greater rapidity, but mutton and pork do not
suit Japanese taste, and goats are kept mainly for the sake of their
milk. The government has done much towards the improvement of cattle
and horses by importing bulls and sires, but, on the whole, the mixed
breed is not a success, and the war with Russia in 1904-5 having
clearly disclosed a pressing need of heavier horses for artillery and
cavalry purposes, large importations of Australian, American and
European cattle are now made, and the organization of race-clubs has
been encouraged throughout the country.
_Forests._--Forests occupy an area of 55 millions of acres, or 60% of
the total superficies of Japan, and one-third of that expanse, namely,
18 million acres, approximately, is the property of the state. It
cannot be said that any very practical attempt has yet been made to
develop this source of wealth. The receipts from forests stood at only
13 million _yen_ in the budget for 1907-1908, and even that figure
compares favourably with the revenue of only 3 millions derived from
the same source in the fiscal year 1904-1905. This failure to utilize
a valuable asset is chiefly due to defective communications, but the
demand for timber has already begun to increase. In 1907 a revised
forestry law was promulgated, according to which the administration is
competent to prevent the destruction of forests and to cause the
planting of plains and waste-lands, or the re-planting of denuded
areas. A plan was also elaborated for systematically turning the state
forests to valuable account, while, at the same time, providing for
their conservation.
_Fisheries._--From ancient times the Japanese have been great
fishermen. The seas that encircle their many-coasted islands teem with
fish and aquatic products, which have always constituted an essential
article of diet. Early in the 18th century, the Tokugawa
administration, in pursuance of a policy of isolation, interdicted the
construction of ocean-going ships, and the people's enterprise in the
matter of deep-sea fishing suffered a severe check. But shortly after
the Restoration in 1867, not only was this veto rescinded, but also
the government, organizing a marine bureau and a marine products
examination office, took vigorous measures to promote pelagic
industry. Then followed the formation of the marine products
association under the presidency of an imperial prince. Fishery
training schools were the next step; then periodical exhibitions of
fishery and marine products; then the introduction and improvement of
fishing implements; and then by rapid strides the area of operations
widened until Japanese fishing boats of improved types came to be seen
in Australasia, in Canada, in the seas of Sakhalin, the Maritime
Province, Korea and China; in the waters of Kamchatka and in the Sea
of Okhotsk. No less than 9000 fishermen with 2000 boats capture yearly
about L300,000 worth of fish in Korean waters; at least 8000 find a
plentiful livelihood off the coasts of Sakhalin and Siberia, and 200
Japanese boats engage in the salmon-fishing of the Fraser River. In
1893, the total value of Japanese marine products and fish captured
did not exceed 1(1/4) millions sterling, whereas in 1906 the figure
had grown to 5(1/2) millions, to which must be added 3{1/8} millions
of manufactured marine products. Fourteen kinds of fish represent more
than 50% of the whole catch, namely, (in the order of their
importance) bonito (_katsuo_), sardines (_iwashi_), pagrus (_toi_),
cuttle-fish and squid (_tako_ and _ika_), mackerel (_saba_), yellow
tail (_buri_), tunny-fish (_maguro_), prawns (_ebi_), sole (_karei_),
grey mullet (_bora_), eels (_unagi_), salmon (_shake_), sea-ear
(_awabi_) and carp (_koi_). Altogether 700 kinds of aquatic products
are known in Japan, and 400 of them constitute articles of diet. Among
manufactured aquatic products the chief are (in the order of their
importance) dried bonito, fish guano, dried cuttle-fish, dried and
boiled sardines, dried herring and dried prawns. The export of marine
products amounted to L900,000 in 1906 against L400,000 ten years
previously; China is the chief market. As for imports, they were
insignificant at the beginning of the Meiji era, but by degrees a
demand was created for salted fish, dried sardines (for fertilizing),
edible sea-weed, canned fish and turtle-shell, so that whereas the
total imports were only L1600 in 1868, they grew to over L400,000 in
1906.
_Minerals._--Crystalline schists form the axis of Japan. They run in a
general direction from south-west to north-east, with chains starting
east and west from Shikoku. On these schists rocks of every age are
superimposed, and amid these somewhat complicated geological
conditions numerous minerals occur. Precious stones, however, are not
found, though crystals of quartz and antimony as well as good
specimens of topaz and agate are not infrequent.
Gold.
Gold occurs in quartz veins among schists, paleozoic or volcanic rocks
and in placers. The quantity obtained is not large, but it shows
tolerably steady development, and may possibly be much increased by
more generous use of capital and larger recourse to modern methods.
Silver.
The value of the silver mined is approximately equal to that of the
gold. It is found chiefly in volcanic rocks (especially tuff), in the
form of sulphide, and it is usually associated with gold, copper, lead
or zinc.
Copper.
Much more important in Japan's economics than either of the precious
metals is copper. Veins often showing a thickness of from 70 to 80
ft., though of poor quality (2 to 8%), are found bedded in crystalline
schists or paleozoic sedimentary rocks, but the richest (10 to 30%)
occur in tuff and other volcanic rocks.
Iron.
There have not yet been found any evidences that Japan is rich in iron
ores. Her largest known deposit (magnetite) occurs at Kamaishi in
Iwate prefecture, but the quantity of pig-iron produced from the ore
mined there does not exceed 37,000 tons annually, and Japan is obliged
to import from the neighbouring continent the greater part of the iron
needed by her for ship-building and armaments.
Coal.
Considerable deposits of coal exist, both anthracite and bituminous.
The former, found chiefly at Amakusa, is not greatly inferior to the
Cardiff mineral; and the latter--obtained in abundance in Kiuushiu and
Yezo--is a brown coal of good medium quality. Altogether there are 29
coal-fields now actually worked in Japan, and she obtained an
important addition to her sources of supply in the sequel to the war
with Russia, when the Fushun mines near Mukden, Manchuria, were
transferred to her. During the 10 years ending in 1906, the market
value of the coal mined in Japan grew from less than 2 millions
sterling to over 6 millions.
Petroleum.
Petroleum also has of late sprung into prominence on the list of her
mineral products. The oil-bearing strata--which occur mainly in
tertiary rocks--extend from Yezo to Formosa, but the principal are in
Echigo, which yields the greater part of the petroleum now obtained,
the Yezo and Formosa wells being still little exploited, the quantity
of petroleum obtained in Japan in 1897 was 9 million gallons, whereas
the quantity obtained in 1906 was 55 millions.
Japanese mining enterprise was more than trebled during the decade
1897 to 1906, for the value of the minerals taken out in the former
year was only 3(1/2) millions sterling, whereas the corresponding
figure for 1906 was 11 millions. The earliest mention of gold-mining
in Japan takes us back to the year A.D. 696, and by the 16th century
the country had acquired the reputation of being rich in gold. During
the days of her medieval intercourse with the outer world, her stores
of the precious metals were largely reduced, for between the years
1602 and 1766, Holland, Spain, Portugal and China took from her
313,800 lb. (troy) of gold and 11,230,000 lb. of silver.
Copper occupied a scarcely less important place in Old Japan. From a
period long anterior to historic times this metal was employed to
manufacture mirrors and swords, and the introduction of Buddhism in
the 6th century was quickly followed by the casting of sacred images,
many of which still survive. Finding in the 18th century that her
foreign intercourse not only had largely denuded her of gold and
silver, but also threatened to denude her of copper, Japan set a limit
(3415 tons) to the yearly export of the latter metal. After the
resumption of administrative power by the emperor in 1867, attention
was quickly directed to the question of mineral resources; several
Western experts were employed to conduct surveys and introduce
Occidental mining methods, and ten of the most important mines were
worked under the direct auspices of the state in order to serve as
object lessons. Subsequently these mines were all transferred to
private hands, and the government now retains possession of only a few
iron and coal mines whose products are needed for dockyard and arsenal
purposes. The following table shows the recent progress and present
condition of mining industry in Japan:--
Gold Silver Copper Lead
Quantity. Value. Quantity. Value. Quantity. Value. Quantity Value.
oz. L oz. L Tons. L Tons. L
1897 34,553 136,834 1,809,805 208,200 19,722 869,266 746 10,343
1901 82,517 330,076 1,824,842 211,682 26,495 1,625,244 1,744 24,640
1906 90,842 363,715 2,623,212 243,914 37,254 3,007,992 2,721 49,690
Iron Coal Petroleum Sulphur
Quantity. Value. Quantity. Value. Quantity. Value. Quantity. Value.
Tons. L Tons. L Gallons. L Tons. L
1897 35,178 103,559 5,229,662 1,899,592 9,248,800 44,389 13,138 33,588
1901 46,456 123,701 9,025,325 3,060,931 39,351,960 227,841 16,007 38,612
1906 85,203 268,911 12,980,103 6,314,400 55,135,880 314,550 27,406 61,386
Antimony Manganese Others
Quantity. Value. Quantity. Value. Value. Total Values.
Tons. L Tons. L L L
1897 1,133 27,362 13,175 8,758 3,863 3,345,662
1901 529 13,481 15,738 10,846 3,450 5,670,508
1906 293 22,862 12,322 51,365 41,338 10,839,783
The number of mine employees in 1907 was 190,000, in round numbers;
the number of mining companies, 189; and the aggregate paid-up
capital, 10 millions sterling.
_Industries._--In the beginning of the Meiji era Japan was practically
without any manufacturing industries, as the term is understood in the
Occident, and she had not so much as one joint-stock company. At the end
of 1906, her joint-stock companies and partnerships totalled 9329, their
paid up capital exceeded 100 millions sterling, and their reserves
totalled 26 millions. It is not to be inferred, however, from the
absence of manufacturing organizations 50 years ago that such pursuits
were deliberately eschewed or despised in Japan. On the contrary, at the
very dawn of the historical epoch we find that sections of the people
took their names from the work carried on by them, and that specimens of
expert industry were preserved in the sovereign's palace side by side
with the imperial insignia. Further, skilled artisans from the
neighbouring continent always found a welcome in Japan, and when Korea
was successfully invaded in early times, one of the uses which the
victors made of their conquest was to import Korean weavers and dyers.
Subsequently the advent of Buddhism, with its demand for images,
temples, gorgeous vestments and rich paraphernalia, gave a marked
impulse to the development of artistic industry, which at the outset
took its models from China, India and Greece, but gradually, while
assimilating many of the best features of the continental schools,
subjected them to such great modifications in accordance with Japanese
genius that they ceased to retain more than a trace of their originals.
From the 9th century luxurious habits prevailed in Kioto under the sway
of the Fujiwara regents, and the imperial city's munificent patronage
drew to its precincts a crowd of artisans. But these were not
industrials, in the Western sense of the term, and, further, their
organization was essentially domestic, each family selecting its own
pursuit and following it from generation to generation without
co-operation or partnership with any outsider. The establishment of
military feudalism in the 12th century brought a reaction from the
effeminate luxury of the metropolis, and during nearly 300 years no
industry enjoyed large popularity except that of the armourer and the
sword-smith. No sooner, however, did the prowess of Oda Nobunaga and,
above all, of Hideyoshi, the taiko, bring within sight a cessation of
civil war and the unification of the country, than the taste for
beautiful objects and artistic utensils recovered vitality. By degrees
there grew up among the feudal barons a keen rivalry in art industry,
and the shogun's court in Yedo set a standard which the feudatories
constantly strove to attain. Ultimately, in the days immediately
antecedent to its fall, the shogun's administration sought to induce a
more logical system by encouraging local manufacturers to supply local
needs only, leaving to Kioto and Yedo the duty of catering to general
wants.
But before this reform had approached maturity, the second advent of
Western nations introduced to Japan the products of an industrial
civilization centuries in advance of her own from the point of view of
utility, though nowise superior in the application of art. Immediately
the nation became alive to the necessity of correcting its own
inferiority in this respect. But the people being entirely without
models for organization, without financial machinery and without the
idea of joint stock enterprise, the government had to choose between
entering the field as an instructor, and leaving the nation to struggle
along an arduous and expensive way to tardy development. There could be
no question as to which course would conduce more to the general
advantage, and thus, in days immediately subsequent to the resumption of
administrative power by the emperor, the spectacle was seen of official
excursions into the domains of silk-reeling, cement-making, cotton and
silk spinning, brick-burning, printing and book-binding, soap-boiling,
type-casting and ceramic decoration, to say nothing of their
establishing colleges and schools where all branches of applied science
were taught. Domestic exhibitions also were organized, and specimens cf
the country's products and manufactures were sent under government
auspices to exhibitions abroad. On the other hand, the effect of this
new departure along Western lines could not but be injurious to the old
domestic industries of the country, especially to those which owed their
existence to tastes and traditions now regarded as obsolete. Here again
the government came to the rescue by establishing a firm whose functions
were to familiarize foreign markets with the products of Japanese
artisans, and to instruct the latter in adaptations likely to appeal to
Occidental taste. Steps were also taken for training women as artisans,
and the government printing bureau set the example of employing female
labour, an innovation which soon developed large dimensions. In short,
the authorities applied themselves to educate an industrial disposition
throughout the country, and as soon as success seemed to be in sight,
they gradually transferred from official to private direction the
various model enterprises, retaining only such as were required to
supply the needs of the state.
The result of all this effort was that whereas, in the beginning of
the Meiji era, Japan had virtually no industries worthy of the name,
she possessed in 1896--that is to say, after an interval of 25 years
of effort--no less than 4595 industrial and commercial companies,
joint stock or partnership, with a paid-up capital of 40 millions
sterling. Her development during the decade ending in 1906 is shown in
the following table:--
Reserves
Number of Paid-up capital (millions
companies. (millions sterling). sterling).
1897 6,113 53 6
1901 8,602 83 12
1906 9,329 107 26
What effect this development exercised upon the country's over-sea
trade may be inferred from the fact that, whereas the manufactured
goods exported in 1870 were nil, their value in 1901 was 8 millions
sterling, and in 1906 the figure rose to over 20 millions. In the
following table are given some facts relating to the principal
industries in which foreign markets are interested:--
COTTON YARNS
+------+----------+---------------+-------------+-------------------------+
| | | Operatives. | Quantity | |
| | Spindles.+-------+-------+ produced. | Remarks. |
| | | Male. |Female.| | |
+------+----------+-------+-------+-------------+-------------------------+
| | | | | lb. | This is a wholly new |
| 1897 | 768,328 | 9,933 |35,059 | 216,913,196 | had industry in Japan. |
| 1901 |1,181,762 |13,481 |49,540 | 274,861,380 | It no existence before |
| 1906 |1,425,406 |13,032 |59,281 | 383,359,113 | the Meiji era. |
+------+----------+-------+-------+-------------+-------------------------+
WOVEN GOODS
+------+--------+----------------+------------+--------------------------+
| | | Operatives. | Market | |
| | Looms. +----------------+ value of | Remarks. |
| | | Male. |Female. | products. | |
+------+--------+-------+--------+------------+--------------------------+
| | | | | Millions | It is observable that a |
| | | | | sterling. | decrease in the number of|
| 1897 |947,134 |54,119 |987,110 | 19 | operatives is concurrent |
| 1901 |719,550 |43,172 |747,946 | 24 | with an increase of |
| 1906 |736,828 |40,886 |751,605 | 36 | production. |
+------+--------+-------+--------+------------+--------------------------+
MATCHES
+------+--------+---------------+-----------+----------+-----------------------+
| |Families| Operatives. | Quantity | Value. | |
| |engaged.+-------+-------+ produced. | | Remarks. |
| | | Male. |Female.| | | |
+------+--------+-------+-------+-----------+----------+-----------------------+
| | | | | Gross. | L | This is an altogether |
| 1897 | 269 |21,447 |26,277 |24,038,960 | 654,849 | new industry. Japanese|
| 1901 | 261 | 5,656 |16,504 |32,901,319 | 926,689 | matches now hold the |
| 1906 | 250 | 5,468 |18,721 |54,802,293 |1,551,698 | leading place in all |
| | | | | | | Far-Eastern markets. |
+------+--------+-------+-------+-----------+----------+-----------------------+
FOREIGN PAPER (as distinguished from Japanese)
+------+----------+-------+-------+------------+----------+--------------------+
| | | Operatives. | Quantity | | |
| |Factories.+-------+-------+ produced. | Value. | Remarks. |
| | | Male. |Female.| | | |
+------+----------+-------+-------+------------+----------+--------------------+
| | | | | lb. | L | Had not Japanese |
| 1897 | 9 | 164 | 109 | 46,256,649 | 300,662 | factories been |
| 1901 | 13 | 2,635 | 1,397 |113,348,340 | 714,094 | established all |
| 1906 | 22 | 3,774 | 1,778 |218,022,434 |1,415,778 | this paper must |
| | | | | | | have been imported.| |
+------+----------+-------+-------+------------+----------+--------------------+
In the field of what may be called minor manufactures--as ceramic
wares, lacquers, straw-plaits, &c.--there has been corresponding
growth, for the value of these productions increased from 1(1/4)
millions sterling in 1897 to 3(1/2) millions in 1906. But as these
manufactures do not enter into competition with foreign goods in
either Eastern or Western markets, they are interesting only as
showing the development of Japan's producing power. They contribute
nothing to the solution of the problem whether Japanese industries are
destined ultimately to drive their foreign rivals from the markets of
Asia, if not to compete injuriously with them even in Europe and
America. Japan seems to have one great advantage over Occidental
countries: she possesses an abundance of dexterous and exceptionally
cheap labour. It has been said, indeed, that this latter advantage is
not likely to be permanent, since the wages of labour and the cost of
living are fast increasing. The average cost of labour doubled in the
interval between 1895 and 1906, but, on the other hand, the number of
manufacturing organizations doubled in the same time, while the amount
of their paid-up capital nearly trebled. As to the necessaries of
life, if those specially affected by government monopolies be
excluded, the rate of appreciation between 1900 and 1906 averaged
about 30%, and it thus appears that the cost of living is not
increasing with the same rapidity as the remuneration earned by
labour. The manufacturing progress of the nation seems, therefore, to
have a bright future, the only serious impediment being deficient
capital. There is abundance of coal, and steps have been taken on a
large scale to utilize the many excellent opportunities which the
country offers for developing electricity by water-power.
Silk-weaving
The fact that Japan's exports of raw silk amount to more than 12
millions sterling, while she sends over-sea only 3(1/2) millions'
worth of silk fabrics, suggests some marked inferiority on the part of
her weavers. But the true explanation seems to be that her distance
from the Occident handicaps her in catering for the changing fashions
of the West. There cannot be any doubt that the skill of Japanese
weavers was at one time eminent. The sun goddess herself, the
predominant figure in the Japanese pantheon, is said to have practised
weaving; the names of four varieties of woven fabrics were known in
prehistoric times; the 3rd century of the Christian era saw the
arrival of a Korean maker of cloth; after him came an influx of
Chinese who were distributed throughout the country to improve the
arts of sericulture and silk-weaving; a sovereign (Yuriaku) of the 5th
century employed 92 groups of naturalized Chinese for similar
purposes; in 421 the same emperor issued a decree encouraging the
culture of mulberry trees and calling for taxes on silk and cotton;
the manufacture of textiles was directly supervised by the consort of
this sovereign; in 645 a bureau of weaving was established; many other
evidences are conclusive as to the great antiquity of the art of silk
and cotton weaving in Japan.
The coming of Buddhism in the 6th century contributed not a little to
the development of the art, since not only did the priests require for
their own vestments and for the decoration of temples silken fabrics
of more and more gorgeous description, but also these holy men
themselves, careful always to keep touch with the continental
developments of their faith, made frequent voyages to China, whence
they brought back to Japan a knowledge of whatever technical or
artistic improvements the Middle Kingdom could show. When Kioto became
the permanent metropolis of the empire, at the close of the 8th
century, a bureau was established for weaving brocades and rich silk
stuffs to be used in the palace. This preluded an era of some three
centuries of steadily developing luxury in Kioto; an era when an
essential part of every aristocratic mansion's furniture was a
collection of magnificent silk robes for use in the sumptuous _No_.
Then, in the 15th century came the "Tea Ceremonial," when the brocade
mountings of a picture or the wrapper of a tiny tea-jar possessed an
almost incredible value, and such skill was attained by weavers and
dyers that even fragments of the fabrics produced by them command
extravagant prices to-day. Kioto always remained, and still remains,
the chief producing centre, and to such a degree has the science of
colour been developed there that no less than 4000 varieties of tint
are distinguished. The sense of colour, indeed, seems to have been a
special endowment of the Japanese people from the earliest times, and
some of the combinations handed down from medieval times are treasured
as incomparable examples. During the long era of peace under the
Tokugawa administration the costumes of men and women showed an
increasing tendency to richness and beauty. This culminated in the
Genroku epoch (1688-1700), and the aristocracy of the present day
delight in viewing histrionic performances where the costumes of that
age and of its rival, the Momoyama (end of the 16th century) are
reproduced.
It would be possible to draw up a formidable catalogue of the various
kinds of silk fabrics manufactured in Japan before the opening of the
Meiji era, and the signal ability of her weavers has derived a new
impulse from contact with the Occident. Machinery has been largely
introduced, and though the products of hand-looms still enjoy the
reputation of greater durability, there has unquestionably been a
marked development of producing power. Japanese looms now turn out
about 17 millions sterling of silk textiles, of which less than 4
millions go abroad. Nor is increased quantity alone to be noted, for
at the factory of Kawashima in Kioto Gobelins are produced such as
have never been rivalled elsewhere.
_Commerce in Tokugawa Times._--The conditions existing in Japan during
the two hundred and fifty years prefatory to the modern opening of the
country were unfavourable to the development alike of national and of
international trade. As to the former, the system of feudal government
exercised a crippling influence, for each feudal chief endeavoured to
check the exit of any kind of property from his fief, and free
interchange of commodities was thus prevented so effectually that cases
are recorded of one feudatory's subjects dying of starvation while those
of an adjoining fief enjoyed abundance. International commerce, on the
other hand, lay under the veto of the central government, which punished
with death anyone attempting to hold intercourse with foreigners. Thus
the fiefs practised a policy of mutual seclusion at home, and united to
maintain a policy of general seclusion abroad. Yet it was under the
feudal system that the most signal development of Japanese trade took
place, and since the processes of that development have much historical
interest they invite close attention.
As the bulk of a feudal chief's income was paid in rice, arrangements
had to be made for sending the grain to market and transmitting its
proceeds. This was effected originally by establishing in Osaka stores
(_kura-yashiki_), under the charge of samurai, who received the rice,
sold it to merchants in that city and remitted the proceeds by
official carriers. But from the middle of the 17th century these
stores were placed in the charge of tradesmen to whom was given the
name of _kake-ya_ (agent). They disposed of the products entrusted to
them by a fief and held the money, sending it by monthly instalments
to an appointed place, rendering yearly accounts and receiving
commission at the rate of from 2 to 4%. They had no special licence,
but they were honourably regarded and often distinguished by an
official title or an hereditary pension. In fact a kake-ya, of such
standing as the Mitsui and the Konoike families, was, in effect, a
banker charged with the finances of several fiefs. In Osaka the method
of sale was uniform. Tenders were invited, and these having been
opened in the presence of all the store officials and kake-ya, the
successful tenderers had to deposit bargain-money, paying the
remainder within ten days, and thereafter becoming entitled to take
delivery of the rice in whole or by instalments within a certain time,
no fee being charged for storage. A similar system existed in Yedo,
the shogun's capital. Out of the custom of deferred delivery developed
the establishment of exchanges where advances were made against sale
certificates, and purely speculative transactions came into vogue.
There followed an experience common enough in the West at one time:
public opinion rebelled against these transactions in margins on the
ground that they tended to enhance the price of rice. Several of the
brokers were arrested and brought to trial; marginal dealings were
thenceforth forbidden, and a system of licences was inaugurated in
Yedo, the number of licensed dealers[7] being restricted to 108.
The system of organized trading companies had its origin in the 12th
century, when, the number of merchants admitted within the confines of
Yedo being restricted, it became necessary for those not obtaining
that privilege to establish some mode of co-operation, and there
resulted the formation of companies with representatives stationed in
the feudal capital and share-holding members in the provinces. The
Ashikaga shoguns developed this restriction by selling to the highest
bidder the exclusive right of engaging in a particular trade, and the
Tokugawa administration had recourse to the same practice. But whereas
the monopolies instituted by the Ashikaga had for sole object the
enrichment of the exchequer, the Tokugawa regarded it chiefly as a
means of obtaining worthy representatives in each branch of trade. The
first licences were issued in Yedo to keepers of bath-houses in the
middle of the 17th century. As the city grew in dimensions these
licences increased in value, so that pawnbrokers willingly accepted
them in pledge for loans. Subsequently almanack-sellers were obliged
to take out licences, and the system was afterwards extended to
money-changers.
It was to the fishmongers, however, that the advantages of commercial
organization first presented themselves vividly. The greatest
fish-market in Japan is at Nihon-bashi in Tokyo (formerly Yedo). It
had its origin in the needs of the Tokugawa court. When Iyeyasu
(founder of the Tokugawa dynasty) entered Yedo in 1590, his train was
followed by some fishermen of Settsu, to whom he granted the privilege
of plying their trade in the adjacent seas, on condition that they
furnished a supply of their best fish for the use of the garrison. The
remainder they offered for sale at Nihon-bashi. Early in the 17th
century one Sukegoro of Yamato province (hence called Yamato-ya) went
to Yedo and organized the fishmongers into a great gild. Nothing is
recorded about this man's antecedents, though his mercantile genius
entitles him to historical notice. He contracted for the sale of all
the fish obtained in the neighbouring seas, advanced money to the
fishermen on the security of their catch, constructed preserves for
keeping the fish alive until they were exposed in the market, and
enrolled all the dealers in a confederation which ultimately consisted
of 391 wholesale merchants and 246 brokers. The main purpose of
Sukegoro's system was to prevent the consumer from dealing direct with
the producer. Thus in return for the pecuniary accommodation granted
to fishermen to buy boats and nets they were required to give every
fish they caught to the wholesale merchant from whom they had received
the advance; and the latter, on his side, had to sell in the open
market at prices fixed by the confederation. A somewhat similar system
applied to vegetables, though in this case the monopoly was never so
close.
It will be observed that this federation of fishmongers approximated
closely to a trust, as the term is now understood; that is to say, an
association of merchants engaged in the same branch of trade and
pledged to observe certain rules in the conduct of their business as
well as to adhere to fixed rates. The idea was extended to nearly
every trade, 10 monster confederations being organized in Yedo and 24
in Osaka. These received official recognition, and contributed a sum
to the exchequer under the euphonious name of "benefit money,"
amounting to nearly L20,000 annually. They attained a high state of
prosperity, the whole of the cities' supplies passing through their
hands.[8] No member of a confederation was permitted to dispose of his
licence except to a near relative, and if anyone not on the roll of a
confederation engaged in the same business he became liable to
punishment at the hands of the officials. In spite of the limits thus
imposed on the transfer of licences, one of these documents commanded
from L80 to L6,400, and in the beginning of the 19th century the
confederations, or gilds, had increased to 68 in Yedo, comprising 1195
merchants. The gild system extended to maritime enterprise also. In
the beginning of the 17th century a merchant of Sakai (near Osaka)
established a junk service between Osaka and Yedo, but this kind of
business did not attain any considerable development until the close
of that century, when 10 gilds of Yedo and 24 of Osaka combined to
organize a marine-transport company for the purpose of conveying their
own merchandise. Here also the principle of monopoly was strictly
observed, no goods being shipped for unaffiliated merchants. This
carrying trade rapidly assumed large dimensions. The number of junks
entering Yedo rose to over 1500 yearly. They raced from port to port,
just as tea-clippers from China to Europe used to race in recent
times, and troubles incidental to their rivalry became so serious that
it was found necessary to enact stringent rules. Each junk-master had
to subscribe a written oath that he would comply strictly with the
regulations and observe the sequence of sailing as determined by lot.
The junks had to call _en route_ at Uraga for the purpose of
undergoing official examination. The order of their arrival there was
duly registered, and the master making the best record throughout the
year received a present in money as well as a complimentary garment,
and became the shippers' favourite next season.
Operations relating to the currency also were brought under the
control of gilds. The business of money-changing seems to have been
taken up as a profession from the beginning of the 15th century, but
it was then in the hands of pedlars who carried strings of copper cash
which they exchanged for gold or silver coins, then in rare
circulation, or for parcels of gold dust. From the early part of the
17th century exchanges were opened in Yedo, and in 1718 the men
engaged in this business formed a gild after the fashion of the time.
Six hundred of these received licences, and no unlicensed person was
permitted to purchase the avocation. Four representatives of the chief
exchange met daily and fixed the ratio between gold and silver, the
figure being then communicated to the various exchanges and to the
shogun's officials. As for the prices of gold or silver in terms of
copper or bank-notes, 24 representatives of the exchanges met every
evening, and, in the presence of an official censor, settled the
figure for the following day and recorded the amount of transactions
during the past 24 hours, full information on these points being at
once sent to the city governors and the street elders.
The exchanges in their ultimate form approximated very closely to the
Occidental idea of banks. They not only bought gold, silver and copper
coins, but they also received money on deposit, made loans and issued
vouchers which played a very important part in commercial
transactions. The voucher seems to have come into existence in Japan
in the 14th century. It originated in the Yoshino market of Yamato
province, where the hilly nature of the district rendered the carriage
of copper money so arduous that rich merchants began to substitute
written receipts and engagements which quickly became current. Among
these documents there was a "joint voucher" (_kumiai-fuda_), signed by
several persons, any one of whom might be held responsible for its
redemption. This had large vogue, but it did not obtain official
recognition until 1636, when the third Tokugawa shogun selected 30
substantial merchants and divided them into 3 gilds, each authorized
to issue vouchers, provided that a certain sum was deposited by way of
security. Such vouchers were obviously a form of bank-note. Their
circulation by the exchange came about in a similar manner. During
many years the treasure of the shogun and of the feudal chiefs was
carried to Yedo by pack-horses and coolies of the regular postal
service. But the costliness of such a method led to the selection in
1691 of 10 exchange agents who were appointed bankers to the Tokugawa
government and were required to furnish money within 30 days of the
date of an order drawn on them. These agents went by the name of the
"ten-men gild." Subsequently the firm of Mitsui was added, but it
enjoyed the special privilege of being allowed 150 days to collect a
specified amount. The gild received moneys on account of the Tokugawa
or the feudal chiefs at provincial centres, and then made its own
arrangements for cashing the cheques drawn upon it by the shogun or
the daimyo in Yedo. If coin happened to be immediately available, it
was employed to cash the cheques; otherwise the vouchers of the gild
served instead. It was in Osaka, however, that the functions of the
exchanges acquired fullest development. That city has exhibited, in
all eras, a remarkable aptitude for trade. Its merchants, as already
shown, were not only entrusted with the duty of selling the rice and
other products of the surrounding fiefs, but also they became
depositories of the proceeds, which they paid out on account of the
owners in whatever sums the latter desired. Such an evidence of
official confidence greatly strengthened their credit, and they
received further encouragement from the second Tokugawa shogun
(1605-1623)and from Ishimaru Sadatsugu, governor of the city in 1661.
He fostered wholesale transactions, sought to introduce a large
element of credit into commerce by instituting a system of credit
sales; took measures to promote the circulation of cheques;
inaugurated market sales of gold and silver and appointed ten chiefs
of exchange who were empowered to oversee the business of
money-exchanging in general. These ten received exemption from
municipal taxation and were permitted to wear swords. Under them were
22 exchanges forming a gild, whose members agreed to honour one
another's vouchers and mutually to facilitate business. Gradually they
elaborated a regular system of banking, so that, in the middle of the
18th century, they issued various descriptions of paper-orders for
fixed sums payable at certain places within fixed periods; deposit
notes redeemable on the demand of an indicated person or his order;
bills of exchange drawn by _A_ upon _B_ in favour of _C_ (a common
form for use in monthly or annual settlements); promissory notes to be
paid at a future time, or cheques payable at sight, for goods
purchased; and storage orders engaging to deliver goods on account of
which earnest money had been paid. These last, much employed in
transactions relating to rice and sugar, were generally valid for a
period of 3 years and 3 months, were signed by a confederation of
exchanges or merchants on joint responsibility, and guaranteed the
delivery of the indicated merchandise independently of all accidents.
They passed current as readily as coin, and advances could always be
obtained against them from pawnbrokers.
All these documents, indicating a well-developed system of credit,
were duly protected by law, severe penalties being inflicted for any
failure to implement the pledges they embodied. The merchants of Yedo
and Osaka, working on the system of trusts here described, gradually
acquired great wealth and fell into habits of marked luxury. It is
recorded that they did not hesitate to pay L5 for the first bonito of
the season and L11 for the first egg-fruit. Naturally the spectacle of
such extravagance excited popular discontent. Men began to grumble
against the so-called "official merchants" who, under government
auspices, monopolized every branch of trade; and this feeling grew
almost uncontrollable in 1836, when rice rose to an unprecedented
price owing to crop failure. Men loudly ascribed that state of affairs
to regrating on the part of the wholesale companies, and murmurs
similar to those raised at the close of the 19th century in America
against the trust system began to reach the ears of the authorities
perpetually. The celebrated Fujita Toko of Mito took up the question.
He argued that the monopoly system, since it included Osaka, exposed
the Yedo market to all the vicissitudes of the former city, which had
then lost much of its old prosperity.
Finally, in 1841, the shogun's chief minister, Mizuno Echizen-no-Kami,
withdrew all trading licences, dissolved the gilds and proclaimed that
every person should thenceforth be free to engage in any commerce
without let or hindrance. This recklessly drastic measure, vividly
illustrating the arbitrariness of feudal officialdom, not only
included the commercial gilds, the shipping gilds, the exchange gilds
and the land transport gilds, but was also carried to the length of
forbidding any company to confine itself to wholesale dealings. The
authorities further declared that in times of scarcity wholesale
transactions must be abandoned altogether and retail business alone
carried on, their purpose being to bring retail and wholesale prices
to the same level. The custom of advancing money to fishermen or to
producers in the provincial districts was interdicted; even the
fuda-sashi might no longer ply their calling, and neither bath-house
keepers nor hairdressers were allowed to combine for the purpose of
adopting uniform rates of charges. But this ill-judged interference
produced evils greater than those it was intended to remedy. The gilds
had not really been exacting. Their organization had reduced the cost
of distribution, and they had provided facilities of transport which
brought produce within quick and cheap reach of central markets.
Ten years' experience showed that a modified form of the old system
would conduce to public interests. The gilds were re-established,
licence fees, however, being abolished, and no limit set to the
number of firms in a gild. Things remained thus until the beginning of
the Meiji era (1867), when the gilds shared the cataclysm that
overtook all the country's old institutions.
Japanese commercial and industrial life presents another feature which
seems to suggest special aptitude for combination. In mercantile or
manufacturing families, while the eldest son always succeeded to his
father's business, not only the younger sons but also the apprentices
and employees, after they had served faithfully for a number of years,
expected to be set up as branch houses under the auspices of the
principal family, receiving a place of business, a certain amount of
capital and the privilege of using the original house-name. Many an
old-established firm thus came to have a plexus of branches all
serving to extend its business and strengthen its credit, so that the
group held a commanding position in the business world. It will be
apparent from the above that commercial transactions on a large scale
in pre-Meiji days were practically limited to the two great cities of
Yedo and Osaka, the people in the provincial fiefs having no direct
association with the gild system, confining themselves, for the most
part, to domestic industries on a small scale, and not being allowed
to extend their business beyond the boundaries of the fief to which
they belonged.
_Foreign Commerce during the Meiji Era._--If Japan's industrial
development in modern times has been remarkable, the same may be said
even more emphatically about the development of her over-sea commerce.
This was checked at first not only by the unpopularity attaching to all
intercourse with outside nations, but also by embarrassments resulting
from the difference between the silver price of gold in Japan and its
silver price in Europe, the precious metals being connected in Japan by
a ratio of 1 to 8, and in Europe by a ratio of 1 to 15. This latter fact
was the cause of a sudden and violent appreciation of values; for the
government, seeing the country threatened with loss of all its gold,
tried to avert the catastrophe by altering and reducing the weights of
the silver coins without altering their denominations, and a
corresponding difference exhibited itself, as a matter of course, in the
silver quotations of commodities. Another difficulty was the attitude of
officialdom. During several centuries Japan's over-sea trade had been
under the control of officialdom, to whose coffers it contributed a
substantial revenue. But when the foreign exporter entered the field
under the conditions created by the new system, he diverted to his own
pocket the handsome profit previously accruing to the government; and
since the latter could not easily become reconciled to this loss of
revenue, or wean itself from its traditional habit of interference in
affairs of foreign commerce, and since the foreigner, on his side, not
only desired secrecy in order to prevent competition, but was also
tormented by inveterate suspicions of Oriental espionage, not a little
friction occurred from time to time. Thus the scanty records of that
early epoch suggest that trade was beset with great difficulties, and
that the foreigner had to contend against most adverse circumstances,
though in truth his gains amounted to 40 or 50%.
Tea and Silk.
The chief staples of the early trade were tea and silk. It happened that
just before Japan's raw silk became available for export, the production
of that article in France and Tea and Italy had been largely curtailed
owing to a novel disease of the silkworm. Thus, when the first bales of
Japanese silk appeared in London, and when it was found to possess
qualities entitling it to the highest rank, a keen demand sprang up.
Japanese green tea also, differing radically in flavour and bouquet from
the black tea of China, appealed quickly to American taste, so that by
the year 1907 Japan found herself selling to foreign countries tea to
the extent of 1(1/4) millions sterling, and raw silk to the extent of
12(1/4) millions. This remarkable development is typical of the general
history of Japan's foreign trade in modern times. Omitting the first
decade and a half, the statistics for which are imperfect, the volume of
the trade grew from 5 millions sterling in 1873--3 shillings per head of
the population--to 93 millions in 1907--or 38 shillings per head. It was
not a uniform growth. The period of 35 years divides itself
conspicuously into two eras: the first, of 15 years (1873-1887), during
which the development was from 5 millions to 9.7 millions, a ratio of 1
to 2, approximately; the second, of 20 years (1887-1907), during which
the development was from 9.7 millions to 93 millions, a ratio of 1 to
10.
That a commerce which scarcely doubled itself in the first fifteen years
should have grown nearly tenfold in the next twenty is a fact inviting
attention. There are two principal causes: one general, the other
special. The general cause was that several years necessarily elapsed
before the nation's material condition began to respond perceptibly to
the improvements effected by the Meiji government in matters of
administration, taxation and transport facilities. Fiscal burdens had
been reduced and security of life and property obtained, but railway
building and road-making, harbour construction, the growth of posts,
telegraphs, exchanges and banks, and the development of a mercantile
marine did not exercise a sensible influence on the nation's prosperity
until 1884 or 1885. From that time the country entered a period of
steadily growing prosperity, and from that time private enterprise may
be said to have finally started upon a career of independent activity.
The special cause which, from 1885, contributed to a marked growth of
trade was the resumption of specie payments. Up to that time the
treasury's fiat notes had suffered such marked fluctuations of specie
value that sound or successful commerce became very difficult. Against
the importing merchant the currency trouble worked with double potency.
Not only did the gold with which he purchased goods appreciate
constantly in terms of the silver for which he sold them, but the silver
itself appreciated sharply and rapidly in terms of the fiat notes paid
by Japanese consumers. Cursory reflection may suggest that these factors
should have stimulated exports as much as they depressed imports. But
such was not altogether the case in practice. For the exporter's
transactions were hampered by the possibility that a delay of a week or
even a day might increase the purchasing power of his silver in Japanese
markets by bringing about a further depreciation of paper, so that he
worked timidly and hesitatingly, dividing his operations as minutely as
possible in order to take advantage of the downward tendency of the fiat
notes. Not till this element of pernicious disturbance was removed did
the trade recover a healthy tone and grow so lustily as to tread closely
on the heels of the foreign commerce of China, with her 300 million
inhabitants and long-established international relations.
The Foreign Middleman.
Japan's trade with the outer world was built up chiefly by the energy
and enterprise of the foreign middleman. He acted the part of an almost
ideal agent. As an exporter, his command of cheap capital, his
experience, his knowledge of foreign markets, and his connexions enabled
him to secure sales such as must have been beyond reach of the Japanese
working independently. Moreover, he paid to native consumers ready cash
for their staples, taking upon his own shoulders all the risks of
finding markets abroad. As an importer, he enjoyed, in centres of
supply, credit which the Japanese lacked, and he offered to native
consumers foreign produce brought to their doors with a minimum of
responsibility on their part. Finally, whether as exporters or
importers, foreign middlemen always competed with each other so keenly
that their Japanese clients obtained the best possible terms from them.
Yet the ambition of the Japanese to oust them cannot be regarded as
unnatural. Every nation must desire to carry on its own commerce
independently of alien assistance; and moreover, the foreign middleman's
residence during many years within Japanese territory, but without the
pale of Japanese sovereignty, invested him with an aggressive character
which the anti-Oriental exclusiveness of certain Occidental nations
helped to accentuate. Thus from the point of view of the average
Japanese there are several reasons for wishing to dispense with alien
middlemen, and it is plain that these reasons are operative; for
whereas, in 1888, native merchants carried on only 12% of the country's
over-sea trade without the intervention of the foreign middlemen, their
share rose to 35% in 1899 and has since been slowly increasing.
Balance of Trade.
Analysis of Japan's foreign trade during the Meiji era shows that
during the 35-year period ending in 1907, imports exceeded exports in
21 years and exports exceeded imports in 14 years. This does not
suggest a very badly balanced trade. But closer examination
accentuates the difference, for when the figures are added, it is
found that the excesses of exports aggregated only 11 millions
sterling, whereas the excesses of imports totalled 71 millions, there
being thus a so-called "unfavourable balance" of 60 millions over all.
The movements of specie do not throw much light upon this subject, for
they are complicated by large imports of gold resulting from war
indemnities and foreign loans. Undoubtedly the balance is materially
redressed by the expenditures of the foreign communities in the former
settlements, of foreign tourists visiting Japan and of foreign vessels
engaged in the carrying trade, as well as by the earnings of Japanese
vessels and the interest on investments made by foreigners.
Nevertheless there remains an appreciable margin against Japan, and it
is probably to be accounted for by the consideration that she is still
engaged equipping herself for the industrial career evidently lying
before her.
Trade with Various Countries.
The manner in which Japan's over-sea trade was divided in 1907 among
the seven foreign countries principally engaged in it may be seen from
the following table:--
Exports to Imports from Total
L (millions). L (millions). L (millions).
United States 13(1/2) 8(1/2) 22
China 8(3/4) 6(1/4) 15
Great Britain 2(1/4) 11(3/4) 14
British India 1{1/3} 7(2/3) 9
Germany 1{1/8} 4(7/8) 6
France 4{1/3} (2/3) 5
Korea 3{1/3} 1(2/3) 5
Among the 33 open ports of Japan, the first place belongs to Yokohama
in the matter of foreign trade, and Kobe ranks second. The former far
outstrips the latter in exports, but the case is reversed when imports
are considered. As to the percentages of the whole trade standing to
the credit of the five principal ports, the following figures may be
consulted:--Yokohama, 40%; Kobe, 35.6; Osaka, 10; Moji, 5; and
Nagasaki, 2.
VI.--GOVERNMENT, ADMINISTRATION, &C.
_Emperor and Princes._--At the head of the Japanese State stands the
emperor, generally spoken of by foreigners as the _mikado_ (honourable
gate[9]), a title comparable with sublime porte and by his own subjects
as _tenshi_ (son of heaven) or _tenno_ (heavenly king). The emperor
Mutou Hito (q.v.) was the 121st of his line, according to Japanese
history, which reckons from 660 B.C., when Jimmu ascended the throne.
But as written records do not carry us back farther than A.D. 712, the
reigns and periods of the very early monarchs are more or less
apocryphal. Still the fact remains that Japan has been ruled by an
unbroken dynasty ever since the dawn of her history, in which respect
she is unique among all the nations in the world. There are four
families of princes of the blood, from any one of which a successor to
the throne may be taken in default of a direct heir: Princes Arisugawa,
Fushimi, Kanin and Higashi Fushimi. These families are all direct
descendants of emperors, and their heads have the title of _shinno_
(prince of the blood), whereas the other imperial princes, of whom there
are ten, have only the second syllable of _shinno_ (pronounced _wo_ when
separated from _shin_). Second and younger sons of a _shinno_ are all
_wo_, and eldest sons lose the title _shin_ and become _wo_ from the
fifth generation.
_The Peerage._--In former times there were no Japanese titles of
nobility, as the term is understood in the Occident. Nobles there were,
however, namely, _kuge_, or court nobles, descendants of younger sons of
emperors, and _daimyo_ (great name), some of whom could trace their
lineage to mikados; but all owed their exalted position as feudal chiefs
to military prowess. The Meiji restoration of 1867 led to the abolition
of the _daimyos_ as feudal chiefs, and they, together with the kuge,
were merged into one class called _kwazoku_ (flower families), a term
corresponding to aristocracy, all inferior persons being _heimin_
(ordinary folk). In 1884, however, the five Chinese titles of _ki_
(prince), _ko_ (marquis), _haku_ (count), _shi_ (viscount) and _dan_
(baron) were introduced, and patents were not only granted to the
ancient nobility but also conferred on men who had rendered conspicuous
public service. The titles are all hereditary, but they descend to the
firstborn only, younger children having no distinguishing appellation.
The first list in 1884 showed 11 princes, 24 marquises, 76 counts, 324
viscounts and 74 barons. After the war with China (1894-95) the total
grew to 716, and the war with Russia (1904-5) increased the number to
912, namely, 15 princes, 39 marquises, 100 counts, 376 viscounts and 382
barons.
_Household Department._--The Imperial household department is
completely differentiated from the administration of state affairs. It
includes bureaux of treasury, forests, peerage and hunting, as well as
boards of ceremonies and chamberlains, officials of the empress's
household and officials of the crown prince's household. The annual
allowance made to the throne is L300,000, and the Imperial estate
comprises some 12,000 acres of building land, 3,850,000 acres of
forests, and 300,000 acres of miscellaneous lands, the whole valued at
some 19 millions sterling, but probably not yielding an income of more
than L200,000 yearly. Further, the household owns about 3 millions
sterling (face value) of bonds and shares, from which a revenue of
some L250,000 is derived, so that the whole income amounts to
three-quarters of a million sterling, approximately. Out of this the
households of the crown prince and all the Imperial princes are
supported; allowances are granted at the time of conferring titles of
nobility; a long list of charities receive liberal contributions, and
considerable sums are paid to encourage art and education. The emperor
himself is probably one of the most frugal sovereigns that ever
occupied a throne.
_Departments of State._--There are nine departments of state presided
over by ministers--foreign affairs, home affairs, finance, war, navy,
justice, education, agriculture and commerce, communications. These
ministers form the cabinet, which is presided over by the minister
president of state, so that its members number ten in all. Ministers of
state are appointed by the emperor and are responsible to him alone. But
between the cabinet and the crown stand a small body of men, the
survivors of those by whose genius modern Japan was raised to her
present high position among the nations. They are known as "elder
statesmen" (_genro_). Their proved ability constitutes an invaluable
asset, and in the solution of serious problems their voice may be said
to be final. At the end of 1909 four of these renowned statesmen
remained--Prince Yamagata, Marquises Inouye and Matsukata and Count
Okuma. There is also a privy council, which consists of a variable
number of distinguished men--in 1909 there were 29, the president being
Field-Marshal Prince Yamagata. Their duty is to debate and advise upon
all matters referred to them by the emperor, who sometimes attends their
meetings in person.
_Civil Officials._--The total number of civil officials was 137,819 in
1906. It had been only 68,876 in 1898, from which time it grew
regularly year by year. The salaries and allowances paid out of the
treasury every year on account of the civil service are 4 millions
sterling, approximately, and the annual emoluments of the principal
officials are as follow:--Prime minister, L960; minister of a
department, L600; ambassador, L500, with allowances varying from L2200
to L3000; president of privy council, L500; resident-general in Seoul,
L600; governor-general of Formosa, L600; vice-minister, L400; minister
plenipotentiary, L400, with allowances from L1000 to L1700; governor
of prefecture, L300 to L360; judge of the court of cassation, L200 to
L500; other judges, L60 to L400; professor of imperial university,
from L80 to L160, with allowances from L40 to L120; privy councillor,
L400; director of a bureau, L300; &c.
_Legislature._--The first Japanese Diet was convoked the 29th of
November, 1890. There are two chambers, a house of peers (_kizoku-in_)
and a house of representatives (_shugi-in_). Each is invested with the
same legislative power.
The upper chamber consists of four classes of members. They are, first,
hereditary members, namely, princes and marquises, who are entitled to
sit when they reach the age of 25; secondly, counts, viscounts and
barons, elected--after they have attained their 25th year--by their
respective orders in the maximum ratio of one member to every five
peers; thirdly, men of education or distinguished service who are
nominated by the emperor; and, fourthly, representatives of the highest
tax-payers, elected, one for each prefecture, by their own class. The
minimum age limit for non-titled members is 30, and it is provided that
their total number must not exceed that of the titled members. The house
was composed in 1909 of 14 princes of the blood, 15 princes, 39
marquises, 17 counts, 69 viscounts, 56 barons, 124 Imperial nominees,
and 45 representatives of the highest tax-payers--that is to say, 210
titled members and 169 non-titled.
The lower house consists of elected members only. Originally the
property qualification was fixed at a minimum annual payment of 30s. in
direct taxes (i.e. taxes imposed by the central government), but in
1900 the law of election was amended, and the property qualification for
electors is now a payment of L1 in direct taxes, while for candidates no
qualification is required either as to property or as to locality.
Members are of two kinds, namely, those returned by incorporated cities
and those returned by prefectures. In each case the ratio is one member
for every 130,000 electors, and the electoral district is the city or
prefecture.
Voting is by ballot, one man one vote, and a general election must take
place once in 4 years for the house of representatives, and once in 7
years for the house of peers. The house of representatives, however, is
liable to be dissolved by order of the sovereign as a disciplinary
measure, in which event a general election must be held within 5 months
from the date of dissolution, whereas the house of peers is not liable
to any such treatment. Otherwise the two houses enjoy equal rights and
privileges, except that the budget must first be submitted to the
representatives. Each member receives a salary of L200; the president
receives L500, and the vice-president L300. The presidents are nominated
by the sovereign from three names submitted by each house, but the
appointment of a vice-president is within the independent right of each
chamber. The lower house consists of 379 members, of whom 75 are
returned by the urban population and 304 by the rural. Under the
original property qualification the number of franchise-holders was only
453,474, or 11.5 to every 1000 of the nation, but it is now 1,676,007,
or 15.77 to every 1000. By the constitution which created the diet
freedom of conscience, of speech and of public meeting, inviolability of
domicile and correspondence, security from arrest or punishment except
by due process of law, permanence of judicial appointments and all the
other essential elements of civil liberty were granted. In the diet full
legislative authority is vested: without its consent no tax can be
imposed, increased or remitted; nor can any public money be paid out
except the salaries of officials, which the sovereign reserves the right
to fix at will. In the emperor are vested the prerogatives of declaring
war and making peace, of concluding treaties, of appointing and
dismissing officials, of approving and promulgating laws, of issuing
urgent ordinances to take the temporary place of laws, and of conferring
titles of nobility.
_Procedure of the Diet._--It could scarcely have been expected that
neither tumult nor intemperance would disfigure the proceedings of a
diet whose members were entirely without parliamentary experience, but
not without grievances to ventilate, wrongs (real or fancied) to
avenge, and abuses to redress. On the whole, however, there has been a
remarkable absence of anything like disgraceful licence. The
politeness, the good temper, and the sense of dignity which
characterize the Japanese, generally saved the situation when it
threatened to degenerate into a "scene." Foreigners entering the house
of representatives in Tokyo for the first time might easily
misinterpret some of its habits. A number distinguishes each member.
It is painted in white on a wooden indicator, the latter being
fastened by a hinge to the face of the member's desk. When present he
sets the indicator standing upright, and lowers it when leaving the
house. Permission to speak is not obtained by catching the president's
eye, but by calling out the aspirant's number, and as members often
emphasize their calls by hammering their desks with the indicators,
there are moments of decided din. But, for the rest, orderliness and
decorum habitually prevail. Speeches have to be made from a rostrum.
There are few displays of oratory or eloquence. The Japanese
formulates his views with remarkable facility. He is absolutely free
from _gaucherie_ or self-consciousness when speaking in public: he can
think on his feet. But his mind does not usually busy itself with
abstract ideas and subtleties of philosophical or religious thought.
Flights of fancy, impassioned bursts of sentiment, appeals to the
heart rather than to the reason of an audience, are devices strange to
his mental habit. He can be rhetorical, but not eloquent. Among all
the speeches hitherto delivered in the Japanese diet it would be
difficult to find a passage deserving the latter epithet.
From the first the debates were recorded verbatim. Years before the
date fixed for the promulgation of the constitution, a little band of
students elaborated a system of stenography and adapted it to the
Japanese syllabary. Their labours remained almost without recognition
or remuneration until the diet was on the eve of meeting, when it was
discovered that a competent staff of shorthand reporters could be
organized at an hour's notice. Japan can thus boast that, alone among
the countries of the world, she possesses an exact record of the
proceedings of her Diet from the moment when the first word was spoken
within its walls.
A special feature of the Diet's procedure helps to discourage
oratorical displays. Each measure of importance has to be submitted to
a committee, and not until the latter's report has been received does
serious debate take place. But in ninety-nine cases out of every
hundred the committee's report determines the attitude of the house,
and speeches are felt to be more or less superfluous. One result of
this system is that business is done with a degree of celerity
scarcely known in Occidental legislatures. For example, the meetings
of the house of representatives during the session 1896-1897 were 32,
and the number of hours occupied by the sittings aggregated 116. Yet
the result was 55 bills debated and passed, several of them measures
of prime importance, such as the gold standard bill, the budget and a
statutory tariff law. It must be remembered that although actual
sittings of the houses are comparatively few and brief, the committees
remain almost constantly at work from morning to evening throughout
the twelve weeks of the session's duration.
_Divisions of the Empire._--The earliest traditional divisions of
Japan into provinces was made by the emperor Seimu (131-190), in whose
time the sway of the throne did not extend farther north than a line
curving from Sendai Bay, on the north-east coast of the main island,
to the vicinity of Niigata (one of the treaty ports), on the
north-west coast. The region northward of this line was then occupied
by barbarous tribes, of whom the Ainu (still to be found in Yezo) are
probably the remaining descendants. The whole country was then divided
into thirty-two provinces. In the 3rd century the empress Jingo, on
her return from her victorious expedition against Korea, portioned out
the empire into five home provinces and seven circuits, in imitation
of the Korean system. By the emperor Mommu (696-707) some of the
provinces were subdivided so as to increase the whole number to
sixty-six, and the boundaries then fixed by him were re-surveyed in
the reign of the emperor Shomu (723-756). The old division is as
follows[10]:--
I. The _Go-kinai_ or "five home provinces" i.e. those lying
immediately around Kyoto, the capital, viz.:--
_Yamashiro_, also called Joshu | Izumi, also called _Senshu_
_Yamato_ " Washu | _Settsu_ " Sesshu
_Kawachi_ " Kashu |
II. The seven circuits, as follow:--
1. The _Tokaido_, or "eastern-sea circuit," which comprised
fifteen provinces, viz.:--
_Iga_ or Ishu | Kai or _Koshyu_
_Ise_ " _Seishu_ | _Sagami_ " _Soshyu_
_Shima_ " Shinshu | Musashi " _Bushyu_
_Owari_ " _Bishu_ | Awa " _Boshu_
Mikawa " _Sanshu_ | Kazusa " Soshu
Totomi " _Enshu_ | Shimosa " Soshu
Suruga " _Sunshu_ | Hitachi " Joshu
_Izu_ " Dzushu |
2. The _Tozando_, or "eastern-mountain circuit," which comprised
eight provinces, viz.:--
Omi or _Goshu_ | Kozuke or _Joshu_
_Mino_ " Noshu | Shimotsuke " _Yashu_
_Hida_ " Hishu | Mutsu " _Oshu_
Shinano " _Shinshu_ | _Dewa_ " Ushu
3. The _Hokurikudo_, or "northern-land circuit," which comprised
seven provinces, viz.:--
Wakasa or _Jakushu_ | _Etchiu_ or Esshu
_Echizen_ " Esshu | _Echigo_ " Esshu
_Kaga_ " _Kashu_ | _Sado_ (island) " Sashu
_Noto_ " Noshu |
4. The _Sanindo_, or "mountain-back circuit," which comprised
eight provinces, viz.:--
_Tamba_ or Tanshu | _Hoki_ or Hakushu
_Tango_ " Tanshu | Izumo " _Unshu
_Tajima_ " Tanshu | Iwami " _Sekishu_
Inaba " _Inshu_ | _Oki_ (group of islands)
5. The _Sanyodo_, or "mountain-front circuit," which comprised
eight provinces, viz.:--
Harima or Banshu | _Bingo or Bishu
Mimasaka " Sakushu | Aki " _Geishu_
_Bizen_ " Bishu | _Suwo_ " Boshu
_Bitchiu_ " Bishu | Nagato " _Choshu_
6. The _Nankaido_, or "southern-sea circuit," which comprised,
six provinces, viz.:--
Kii or _Kishu_ | _Sanuki_ or Sanshu
_Awaji (island)_ " Tanshu | _Iyo_ " Yoshu
Awa " _Ashu_ | _Tosa_ " _Toshu_
7. The _Saikaido_, or "western-sea circuit," which comprised
nine provinces, viz:--
_Chikuzen_ or Chikushu | _Higo_ or Hishu
_Chikugo_ " Chikushu | _Hiuga_ " Nisshu
_Buzen_ " Hoshu | _Osumi_ " Gushu
_Bungo_ " Hoshu | Satsuma " _Sasshu_
_Hizen_ " Hishu |
III. The two islands, viz.:--
1. Tsushima or _Taishu_ | 2. _Iki_ or Ishu
Upon comparing the above list with a map of Japan, it will be seen
that the main island contains the Go-kinai, Tokaido, Tozando,
Hokurikudo, Sanindo, Sanyodo, and one province (Kishu) of the
Nankaido. Omitting also the island of Awaji, the remaining provinces
of the Nankaido give the name Shikoku (the "four provinces") to the
island in which they lie; while Saikaido coincides exactly with the
large island Kiushiu (the "nine provinces").
In 1868, when the rebellious nobles of Oshu and Dewa, in the Tozando,
had submitted to the emperor, those two provinces were subdivided,
Dewa into Uzen and Ugo, and Oshu into Iwaki, Iwashiro, Rikuzen,
Rikuchu and Michinoku (usually called Mutsu). This increased the old
number of provinces from sixty-six to seventy-one. At the same time
there was created a new circuit, called the _Hokkaido_, or
"northern-sea circuit," which comprised the eleven provinces into
which the large island of Yezo was then divided (viz. Oshima,
Shiribeshi, Ishikari, Teshibo, Kitami, Iburi, Hiaka, Tokachi, Kushiro,
and Nemuro) and the Kurile Islands (Chishima).
Another division of the old sixty-six provinces was made by taking as
a central point the ancient barrier of Osaka on the frontier of Omi
and Yamashiro,--the region lying on the east, which consisted of
thirty-three provinces, being called _Kwanto_, or "east of the
barrier," the remaining thirty-three provinces on the west being
styled _Kwansei_, or "west of the barrier." At the present time,
however, the term Kwanto is applied to only the eight provinces of
Musashi, Sagami, Kozuke, Shimotsuke, Kazusa, Shimosa, Awa and
Hitachi,--all lying immediately to the east of the old barrier of
Hakone, in Sagami.
_Chu-goku_, or "central provinces," is a name in common use for the
Sanindo and Sanyodo taken together. _Saikoku_, or "western provinces,"
is another name for Kiushiu, which in books again is frequently called
_Chinsei_.
_Local Administrative Divisions._--For purposes of local
administration Japan is divided into 3 urban prefectures (_fu_), 43
rural prefectures (_ken_), and 3 special dominions (_cho_), namely
Formosa; Hokkaido and South Sakhalin. Formosa and Sakhalin not having
been included in Japan's territories until 1895 and 1905,
respectively, are still under the military control of a
governor-general, and belong, therefore, to an administrative system
different from that prevailing throughout the rest of the country. The
prefectures and Hokkaido are divided again into 638 sub-prefectures
(_gun_ or _kori_); 60 towns (_shi_); 125 urban districts (_cho_) and
12,274 rural districts (_son_). The three urban prefectures are Tokyo,
Osaka and Kioto, and the urban and rural districts are distinguished
according to the number of houses they contain. Each prefecture is
named after its chief town, with the exception of Okinawa, which is
the appellation of a group of islands called also Riukiu (Luchu). The
following table shows the names of the prefectures, their areas,
populations, number of sub-prefectures, towns and urban and rural
divisions:--
Prefecture. Area in Population Sub- Towns Urban Rural
sq. m. Prefectures. Districts Districts
Tokyo 749.76 1,795,128* 8 1 20 157
Kanagawa 927.79 776,642 11 1 19 202
Saitama 1,585.30 1,174,094 9 -- 42 343
Chiba 1,943.85 1,273,387 12 -- 69 286
Ibaraki 2,235.67 1,131,556 14 1 45 335
Tochigi 2,854.14 788,324 8 1 30 145
Gumma 2,427.21 774,654 11 2 38 169
Nagano 5,088.41 1,237,584 16 1 22 371
Yamanashi 1,727.50 498,539 9 1 7 235
Shizuoka 3,002.76 1,199,805 13 1 38 306
Aichi 1,864.17 1,591,357 19 1 74 592
Miye 2,196.56 495,389 15 2 19 325
Gifu 4,001.84 996,062 18 1 42 299
Shiga 1,540.30 712,024 12 1 12 190
Fukui 1,621.50 633,840 11 1 9 171
Ishikawa 1,611.59 392,905 8 1 16 259
Toyama 1,587.80 785,554 8 2 31 239
The above 17 prefectures form Central Japan.
Niigata 4,914.55 1,812,289 16 1 47 401
Fukushima 5,042.57 1,057,971 17 1 37 388
Miyagi 3,223.11 835,830 16 1 31 172
Yamagata 3,576.89 829,210 11 2 24 206
Akita 4,493.84 775,077 9 1 42 197
Iwate 5,359.17 726,380 13 1 23 217
Aomori 3,617.89 612,171 8 2 9 159
The above 7 prefectures form Northern Japan.
Kioto 1,767.43 931,576* 18 1 20 260
Osaka 689.69 1,311,909* 9 2 13 289
Nara 1,200.46 538,507 10 1 18 142
Wakayama 1,851.29 681,572 7 1 16 215
Hiogo 3,318.31 1,667,226 25 2 29 403
Okayama 2,509.04 1,132,000 19 1 29 383
Hiroshima 3,103.84 1,436,415 16 3 27 420
Yamaguchi 1,324.34 986,161 11 1 10 215
Shimane 2,597.48 721,448 16 1 14 276
Tottori 1,335.99 418,929 6 1 8 227
The above 10 prefectures form Southern Japan.
Tokushima 1,616.82 699,398 10 1 2 137
Kagawa 976.46 700,462 7 2 12 166
Ehime 2,033.57 997,481 12 1 18 283
Kochi 2,720.13 616,549 6 1 14 183
The above 4 prefectures form the island of Shikoku.
Nagasaki 1,401.49 821,323 9 2 15 288
Saga 984.07 621,011 8 1 7 127
Fukuoka 1,894.14 1,362,743 19 4 38 340
Kumamoto 2,774.20 1,151,401 12 1 33 331
Oita 2,400.27 839,485 12 -- 28 251
Miyazaki 2,904.54 454,707 8 -- 9 91
Kagoshima 3,589.76 1,104,631 12 1 -- 380
Okinawa 935.18 469,203 5 2 -- 52
The above 8 prefectures form Kiushiu.
Hokkaido 36,328.34 610,155 88 3 19 456
* This is not the population of the city proper, but that of the
urban prefecture.
_Local Administrative System._--In the system of local administration
full effect is given to the principle of popular representation. Each
prefecture (urban or rural), each sub-prefecture, each town and each
district (urban or rural) has its local assembly, the number of members
being fixed in proportion to the population. There is no superior limit
of number in the case of a prefectural assembly, but the inferior limit
is 30. For a town assembly, however, the superior limit is 60 and the
inferior 30; for a sub-prefectural assembly the corresponding figures
are 40 and 15, and for a district assembly, 30 and 8. These bodies are
all elective. The property qualification for the franchise in the case
of prefectural and sub-prefectural assemblies is an annual payment of
direct national taxes to the amount of 3 _yen;_ and in the case of town
and district assemblies, 2 _yen_; while to be eligible for election to a
prefectural assembly a yearly payment of 10 _yen_ of direct national
taxes is necessary; to a sub-prefectural assembly, 5 _yen_, and to a
town or district assembly, 2 _yen_. Under these qualifications the
electors aggregate 2,009,745, and those eligible for election total
919,507. In towns and districts franchise-holders are further divided
into classes with regard to their payment of local taxes. Thus for town
electors there are three classes, differentiated by the following
process: On the list of ratepayers the highest are checked off until
their aggregate payments are equal to one-third of the total taxes.
These persons form the first class. Next below them the persons whose
aggregate payments represent one-third of the total amount are checked
off to form the second class, and all the remainder form the third
class. Each class elects one-third of the members of assembly. In the
districts there are only two classes, namely, those whose payments, in
order from the highest, aggregate one-half of the total, the remaining
names on the list being placed in the second class. Each class elects
one-half of the members. This is called the system of _o-jinushi_ (large
landowners) and is found to work satisfactorily as a device for
conferring representative rights in proportion to property. The
franchise is withheld from all salaried local officials, from judicial
officials, from ministers of religion, from persons who, not being
barristers by profession, assist the people in affairs connected with
law courts or official bureaux, and from every individual or member of a
company that contracts for the execution of public works or the supply
of articles to a local administration, as well as from persons unable to
write their own names and the name of the candidate for whom they vote.
Members of assembly are not paid. For prefectural and sub-prefectural
assemblies the term is four years; for town and district assemblies, six
years, with the provision that one-half of the members must be elected
every third year. The prefectural assemblies hold one session of 30 days
yearly; the sub-prefectural assemblies, one session of not more than 14
days. The town and district assemblies have no fixed session; they are
summoned by the mayor or the head-man when their deliberations appear
necessary, and they continue in session till their business is
concluded.
The chief function of the assemblies is to deal with all questions of
local finance. They discuss and vote the yearly budgets; they pass the
settled accounts; they fix the local taxes within a maximum limit
which bears a certain ratio to the national taxes; they make
representations to the minister for home affairs; they deal with the
fixed property of the locality; they raise loans, and so on. It is
necessary, however, that they should obtain the consent of the
minister for home affairs, and sometimes of the minister of finance
also, before disturbing any objects of scientific, artistic or
historical importance; before contracting loans; before imposing
special taxes or passing the normal limits of taxation; before
enacting new local regulations or changing the old; before dealing
with grants in aid made by the central treasury, &c. The governor of a
prefecture, who is appointed by the central administration, is
invested with considerable power. He oversees the carrying out of all
works undertaken at the public expense; he causes bills to be drafted
for discussion by an assembly; he is responsible for the
administration of the funds and property of the prefecture; he orders
payments and receipts; he directs the machinery for collecting taxes
and fees; he summons a prefectural assembly, opens it and closes it,
and has competence to suspend its session should such a course seem
necessary. Many of the functions performed by the governor with regard
to prefectural assemblies are discharged by a head-man (_gun-cho_) in
the case of sub-prefectural assemblies. This head-man is a salaried
official appointed by the central administration. He convenes, opens
and closes the sub-prefectural assembly; he may require it to
reconsider any of its financial decisions that seem improper,
explaining his reasons for doing so, and should the assembly adhere to
its original view, he may refer the matter to the governor of the
prefecture. On the other hand, the assembly is competent to appeal to
the home minister from the governor's decision. The sub-prefectural
head-man may also take upon himself, in case of emergency, any of the
functions falling within the competence of the sub-prefectural
assembly, provided that he reports the fact to the assembly and seeks
its sanction at the earliest possible opportunity. In each district
also there is a head-man, but his post is always elective and
generally non-salaried. He occupies towards a district assembly the
same position that the sub-prefecture head-man holds towards a
sub-prefectural assembly. Over the governors stands the minister for
home affairs, who discharges general duties of superintendence and
sanction, has competence to delete any item of a local budget, and
may, with the emperor's consent, order the dissolution of a local
assembly, provided that steps are taken to elect and convene another
within three months.
The machinery of local administration is completed by councils, of
which the governor of a prefecture, the mayor[11] of a town, or the
head-man of a sub-prefecture or district, is _ex officio_ president,
and the councillors are partly elective, partly nominated by the
central government. The councils may be said to stand in an executive
position towards the local legislatures, namely, the assemblies, for
the former give effect to the measures voted by the latter, take their
place in case of emergency and consider questions submitted by them.
This system of local government has now been in operation since 1885,
and has been found to work well. It constitutes a thorough method of
political education for the people. In feudal days popular
representation had no existence, but a very effective chain of local
responsibility was manufactured by dividing the people--apart from the
samurai--into groups of five families, which were held jointly liable
for any offence committed by one of their members. Thus it cannot be
said that the people were altogether unprepared for this new system.
The Ancient System.
_The Army._--The Japanese--as distinguished from the aboriginal
inhabitants of Japan--having fought their way into the country, are
naturally described in their annals as a nation of soldiers. The
sovereign is said to have been the commander-in-chief and his captains
were known as _o-omi_ and _o-muraji_, while the duty of serving in the
ranks devolved on all subjects alike. This information is indeed
derived from tradition only, since the first written record goes back
no further than 712. We are justified, however, in believing that at the
close of the 7th century of the Christian era, when the empress Jito sat
upon the throne, the social system of the Tang dynasty of China
commended itself for adoption; the distinction of civil and military is
said to have been then established for the first time, though it
probably concerned officials only. Certain officers received definitely
military commissions, as generals, brigadiers, captains and so on; a
military office (_hyobu-sho_) was organized, and each important district
throughout the empire had its military division (_gundan_).
One-third--some say one-fourth--of the nation's able-bodied males
constituted the army. Tactically there was a complete organization, from
the squad of 5 men to the division of 600 horse and 400 foot. Service
was for a defined period, during which taxes were remitted, so that
military duties always found men ready to discharge them. Thus the
hereditary soldier--afterwards known as the _samurai_ or _bushi_--did
not yet exist, nor was there any such thing as an exclusive right to
carry arms. Weapons of war, the property of the state, were served out
when required for fighting or for training purposes.
At the close of the 8th century stubborn insurrections on the part of
the aborigines gave new importance to the soldier. The conscription list
had to be greatly increased, and it came to be a recognized principle
that every stalwart man should bear arms, every weakling become a
bread-winner. Thus, for the first time, the distinction between
"soldier" and "working man"[12] received official recognition, and in
consequence of the circumstances attending the distinction a measure of
contempt attached to the latter. The next stage of development had its
origin in the assumption of high offices of state by great families, who
encroached upon the imperial prerogatives, and appropriated as
hereditary perquisites posts which should have remained in the gift of
the sovereign. The Fujiwara clan, taking all the civil offices, resided
in the capital, whereas the military posts fell to the lot of the Taira
and the Minamoto, who, settling in the provinces and being thus required
to guard and police the outlying districts, found it expedient to
surround themselves with men who made soldiering a profession. These
latter, in their turn, transmitted their functions to their sons, so
that there grew up in the shadow of the great houses a number of
military families devoted to maintaining the power and promoting the
interests of their masters, from whom they derived their own privileges
and emoluments.
From the middle of the 10th century, therefore, the terms _samurai_ and
_bushi_ acquired a special significance, being applied to themselves and
their followers by the local magnates, whose power tended more and more
to eclipse even that of the throne, and finally, in the 12th century,
when the Minamoto brought the whole country under the sway of military
organization, the privilege of bearing arms was restricted to the
samurai. Thenceforth the military class entered upon a period of
administrative and social superiority which lasted, without serious
interruption, until the middle of the 19th century. But it is to be
observed that the distinction between soldier and civilian, samurai and
commoner, was not of ancient existence, nor did it arise from any
question of race or caste, victor or vanquished, as is often supposed
and stated. It was an outcome wholly of ambitious usurpations, which,
relying for success on force of arms, gave practical importance to the
soldier, and invested his profession with factitious honour.
Weapons.
The bow was always the chief weapon of the fighting-man in Japan.
"War" and "bow-and-arrow" were synonymous terms. Tradition tells how
Tametomo shot an arrow through the crest of his brother's helmet, in
order to recall the youth's allegiance without injuring him; how
Nasuno Michitaka discharged a shaft that severed the stem of a fan
swayed by the wind; how Mutsuru, ordered by an emperor to rescue a
fish from the talons of an osprey without killing bird or fish, cut
off the osprey's feet with a crescent-headed arrow so that the fish
dropped into the palace lake and the bird continued its flight; and
there are many similar records of Japanese skill with the weapon.
Still better authenticated were the feats performed at the
"thirty-three-span halls" in Kioto and Yedo, where the archer had to
shoot an arrow through the whole length of a corridor 128 yards long
and only 16 ft. high. Wada Daihachi, in the 17th century, succeeded in
sending 8133 arrows from end to end of the corridor in 24 consecutive
hours, being an average of over 5 shafts per minute; and Masatoki, in
1852, made 5383 successful shots in 20 hours, more than 4 a minute.
The lengths of the bow and arrow were determined with reference to the
capacity of the archer. In the case of the bow, the unit of
measurement was the distance between the tips of the thumb and the
little finger with the hand fully stretched. Fifteen of these units
gave the length of the bow--the maximum being about 7(1/2) ft. The
unit for the arrow was from 12 to 15 hand-breadths, or from 3 ft. to
3(3/4) ft. Originally the bow was of unvarnished boxwood or _zelkowa_;
but subsequently bamboo alone came to be employed. Binding with cord
or rattan served to strengthen the bow, and for precision of flight
the arrow had three feathers, an eagle's wing being most esteemed for
that purpose, and after it, in order, that of the copper pheasant, the
crane, the adjutant and the snipe.
Next in importance to the bow came the sword, which is often spoken of
as the samurai's chief weapon, though there can be no doubt that
during long ages it ranked after the bow. It was a single-edged weapon
remarkable for its three exactly similar curves--edge, face-line and
back; its almost imperceptibly convexed blade; its admirable
tempering; its consummately skilled forging; its razor-like sharpness;
its cunning distribution of weight, giving a maximum efficiency of
stroke. The 10th century saw this weapon carried to perfection, and it
has been inferred that only from that epoch did the samurai begin to
esteem his sword as the greatest treasure he possessed, and to rely on
it as his best instrument of attack and defence. But it is evident
that the evolution of such a blade must have been due to an urgent,
long-existing demand, and that the _katana_ came as the sequel of
innumerable efforts on the part of the sword-smith and generous
encouragement on that of the soldier. Many pages of Japanese annals
and household traditions are associated with its use. In every age
numbers of men devoted their whole lives to acquiring novel skill in
swordsmanship. Many of them invented systems of their own, differing
from one another in some subtle details unknown to any save the master
himself and his favourite pupils. Not merely the method of handling
the weapon had to be studied. Associated with sword-play was an art
variously known as _shinobi_, _yawara_, and _jujutsu_, names which
imply the exertion of muscular force in such a manner as to produce a
maximum of effect with a minimum of effort, by directing an
adversary's strength so as to become auxiliary to one's own. It was an
essential element of the expert's art not only that he should be
competent to defend himself with any object that happened to be within
reach, but also that without an orthodox weapon he should be capable
of inflicting fatal or disabling injury on an assailant. In the many
records of great swordsmen instances are related of men seizing a
piece of firewood, a brazier-iron, or a druggist's pestle as a weapon
of offence, while, on the other side, an umbrella, an iron fan or even
a pot-lid served for protection. The samurai had to be prepared for
every emergency. Were he caught weaponless by a number of assailants,
his art of yawara was supposed to supply him with expedients for
emerging unscathed. Nothing counted save the issue. The methods of
gaining victory or the circumstances attending defeat were scarcely
taken into consideration. The true samurai had to rise superior to all
contingencies. Out of this perpetual effort on the part of hundreds of
experts to discover and perfect novel developments of swordsmanship,
there grew a habit which held its vogue down to modern times, namely,
that when a man had mastered one style of sword-play in the school of
a teacher, he set himself to study all others, and for that purpose
undertook a tour throughout the provinces, challenging every expert,
and, in the event of defeat, constituting himself the victor's pupil.
The sword exercised a potent influence on the life of the Japanese
nation. The distinction of wearing it, the rights that it conferred,
the deeds wrought with it, the fame attaching to special skill in its
use, the superstitions connected with it, the incredible value set
upon a fine blade, the honours bestowed on an expert sword-smith, the
traditions that had grown up around celebrated weapons, the profound
study needed to be a competent judge of a sword's qualities--all these
things conspired to give the katana an importance beyond the limits of
ordinary comprehension. A samurai carried at least two swords, a long
and a short. Their scabbards of lacquered wood were thrust into his
girdle, not slung from it, being fastened in their place by cords of
plaited silk. Sometimes he increased the number of swords to three,
four or even five, before going into battle, and this array was
supplemented by a dagger carried in the bosom. The short sword was not
employed in the actual combat. Its use was to cut off an enemy's head
after overthrowing him, and it also served a defeated soldier in his
last resort--suicide. In general the long sword did not measure more
than 3 ft., including the hilt; but some were 5 ft. long, and some 7.
Considering that the scabbard, being fastened to the girdle, had no
play, the feat of drawing one of these very long swords demanded
extraordinary aptitude.
Spear and glaive were also ancient Japanese weapons. The oldest form
of spear was derived from China. Its handle measured about 6 ft. and
its blade 8 in., and it had sickle-shaped horns at the junction of
blade and hilt (somewhat resembling a European _ranseur_). This weapon
served almost exclusively for guarding palisades and gates. In the
14th century a true lance came into use. Its length varied greatly,
and it had a hog-backed blade tempered almost as finely as the sword
itself. This, too, was a Chinese type, as was also the glaive. The
glaive (_naginata_, long sword) was a scimitar-like blade, some 3 ft.
in length, fixed on a slightly longer haft. Originally the warlike
monks alone employed this weapon, but from the 12th century it found
much favour among military men. Ultimately, however, its use may be
said to have been limited to women and priests. The spear, however,
formed a useful adjunct of the sword, for whereas the latter could not
be used except by troops in very loose formation, the former served
for close-order fighting.
Armour.
Japanese armour (_gusoku_) may be broadly described as plate armour,
but the essential difference between it and the European type was
that, whereas the latter took its shape from the body, the former
neither resembled nor was intended to resemble ordinary garments.
Hence the only changes that occurred in Japanese armour from
generation to generation had their origin in improved methods of
construction. In general appearance it differed from the panoply of
all other nations, so that, although to its essential parts we may
apply with propriety the European terms--helmet, corselet,
&c.--individually and in combination these parts were not at all like
the originals of those names. Perhaps the easiest way of describing
the difference is to say that whereas a European knight seemed to be
clad in a suit of metal clothes, a Japanese samurai looked as if he
wore protective curtains. The Japanese armour was, in fact, suspended
from, rather than fitted to, the person. Only one of its elements
found a counterpart in the European suit, namely, a tabard, which, in
the case of men of rank, was made of the richest brocade. Iron and
leather were the chief materials, and as the laminae were strung
together with a vast number of coloured cords--silk or leather--an
appearance of considerable brilliancy was produced. Ornamentation did
not stop there. Plating and inlaying with gold and silver, and finely
wrought decoration in chiselled, inlaid and _repousse_ work were
freely applied. On the whole, however, despite the highly artistic
character of its ornamentation, the loose, pendulous nature of
Japanese armour detracted greatly from its workmanlike aspect,
especially when the _horo_ was added--a curious appendage in the shape
of a curtain of fine transparent silk, which was either stretched in
front between the horns of the helmet and the tip of the bow, or worn
on the shoulders and back, the purpose in either case being to turn
the point of an arrow. A true samurai observed strict rules of
etiquette with regard even to the garments worn under his armour, and
it was part of his soldierly capacity to be able to bear the great
weight of the whole without loss of activity, a feat impossible to any
untrained man of modern days. Common soldiers were generally content
with a comparatively light helmet and a corselet.
War-horses.
The Japanese never had a war-horse worthy to be so called. The
mis-shapen ponies which carried them to battle showed qualities of
hardiness and endurance, but were so deficient in stature and
massiveness that when mounted by a man in voluminous armour they
looked painfully puny. Nothing is known of the early Japanese saddle,
but at the beginning of historic times it approximated closely to the
Chinese type. Subsequently a purely Japanese shape was designed. It
consisted of a wooden frame so constructed that a padded numnah could
be fastened to it. Galled backs or withers were unknown with such a
saddle: it fitted any horse. The stirrup, originally a simple affair
resembling that of China and Europe, afterwards took the form of a
shoe-sole with upturned toe. Both stirrups and saddle-frame were often
of beautiful workmanship, the former covered with rich gold lacquer,
the latter inlaid with gold or silver. In the latter part of the
military epoch chain-armour was adopted for the horse, and its head
was protected by a monster-faced mask of iron.
Early Strategy and Tactics.
Flags were used in battle as well as on ceremonial occasions. Some were
monochrome, as the red and white flags of the Taira and the Minamoto
clans in their celebrated struggle during the 12th century; and some
were streamers emblazoned with figures of the sun, the moon, a dragon, a
tiger and so forth, or with religious legends. Fans with iron ribs were
carried by commanding officers, and signals to advance or retreat were
given by beating drums and metal gongs and blowing conches. During the
military epoch a campaign was opened or a contest preluded by a human
sacrifice to the god of war, the victim at this rite of blood
(_chi-matsuri_) being generally a prisoner or a condemned criminal.
Although ambuscades and surprises played a large part in all strategy,
pitched battles were the general rule, and it was essential that notice
of an intention to attack should be given by discharging a singing
arrow. Thereafter the assaulting army, taking the word from its
commander, raised a shout of "Ei! Ei!" to which the other side replied,
and the formalities having been thus satisfied, the fight commenced. In
early medieval days tactics were of the crudest description. An army
consisted of a congeries of little bands, each under the order of a
chief who considered himself independent, and instead of subordinating
his movements to a general plan, struck a blow wherever he pleased. From
time immemorial a romantic value has attached in Japan to the first of
anything: the first snow of winter; the first water drawn from the well
on New Year's Day; the first blossom of the spring; the first note of
the nightingale. So in war the first to ride up to the foe or the
wielder of the first spear was held in high honour, and a samurai strove
for that distinction as his principal duty. It necessarily resulted,
too, not only from the nature of the weapons employed, but also from the
immense labour devoted by the true samurai to perfecting himself in
their use, that displays of individual prowess were deemed the chief
object in a battle. Some tactical formations borrowed from China were
familiar in Japan, but their intelligent use and their modification to
suit the circumstances of the time were inaugurated only by the great
captains of the 15th and 16th centuries. Prior to that epoch a battle
resembled a gigantic fencing match. Men fought as individuals, not as
units of a tactical formation, and the engagement consisted of a number
of personal duels, all in simultaneous progress. It was the samurai's
habit to proclaim his name and titles in the presence of the enemy,
sometimes adding from his own record or his father's any details that
might tend to dispirit his hearers. Then some one advancing to cross
weapons with him would perform the same ceremony of self-introduction,
and if either found anything to upbraid in the other's antecedents or
family history, he did not fail to make loud reference to it, such a
device being counted efficacious as a means of disturbing an adversary's
_sang-froid_, though the principle underlying the mutual introduction
was courtesy. The duellists could reckon on finishing their fight
undisturbed, but the victor frequently had to endure the combined
assault of a number of the comrades or retainers of the vanquished. Of
course a skilled swordsman did not necessarily seek a single combat; he
was equally ready to ride into the thick of the fight without
discrimination, and a group of common soldiers never hesitated to make a
united attack upon a mounted officer if they found him disengaged. But
the general feature of a battle was individual contests, and when the
fighting had ceased, each samurai proceeded to the tent[13] of the
commanding officer and submitted for inspection the heads of those whom
he had killed.
Change of Tactics.
The disadvantage of such a mode of fighting was demonstrated for the
first time when the Mongols invaded Japan in 1274. The invaders moved in
phalanx, guarding themselves with pavises, and covering their advance
with a host of archers shooting clouds of poisoned arrows.[14] When a
Japanese samurai advanced singly and challenged one of them to combat,
they opened their ranks, enclosed the challenger and cut him to pieces.
Many Japanese were thus slain, and it was not until they made a
concerted movement of attack that they produced any effect upon the
enemy. But although the advantage of massing strength seems to have been
recognized, the Japanese themselves did not adopt the formation which
the Mongols had shown to be so formidable. Individual prowess continued
to be the prominent factor in battles down to a comparatively recent
period. The great captains Takeda Shingen and Uyesugi Kenshin are
supposed to have been Japan's pioneer tacticians. They certainly
appreciated the value of a formation in which the action of the
individual should be subordinated to the unity of the whole. But when it
is remembered that fire-arms had already been in the hands of the
Japanese for several years, and that they had means of acquainting
themselves with the tactics of Europe through their intercourse with
the Dutch, it is remarkable that the changes attributed to Takeda and
Uyesugi were not more drastic. Speaking broadly, what they did was to
organize a column with the musqueteers and archers in front; the
spearmen and swordsmen in the second line; the cavalry in the third
line; the commanding officer in the rear, and the drums and standards in
the centre. At close quarters the spear proved a highly effective
weapon, and in the days of Hideyoshi (1536-1598) combined flank and
front attacks by bands of spearmen became a favourite device. The
importance of a strong reserve also received recognition, and in theory,
at all events, a tolerably intelligent system of tactics was adopted.
But not until the close of the 17th century did the doctrine of strictly
disciplined action obtain practical vogue. Yamaga Soko is said to have
been the successful inculcator of this principle, and from his time the
most approved tactical formation was known as the _Yamagaryu_ (Yamaga
style), though it showed no other innovation than strict subordination
of each unit to the general plan.
Military Principles.
Although, tactically speaking, the samurai was everything and the system
nothing before the second half of the 17th century, and although
strategy was chiefly a matter of deception, surprises and ambushes, it
must not be supposed that there were no classical principles. The
student of European military history searches in vain for the rules and
maxims of war so often invoked by glib critics, but the student of
Japanese history is more successful. Here, as in virtually every field
of things Japanese, retrospect discovers the ubiquitous Chinaman. The
treatises of Sung and 'Ng (called in Japan Son and Go) Chinese generals
of the third century after Christ, were the classics of Far-Eastern
captains through all generations. (See _The Book of War_, tr. E. F.
Calthrop, 1908.) Yoshitsune, in the 12th century, deceived a loving girl
to obtain a copy of Sung's work which her father had in his possession,
and Yamaga, in the 17th century, when he set himself to compose a book
on tactics, derived his materials almost entirely from the two Chinese
monographs. These treatises came into the hands of the Japanese in the
8th century, when the celebrated Kibi no Mabi went to study civilization
in China, just as his successors of the 19th century went to study a new
civilization in Europe and America. Thenceforth Son and Go became
household words among Japanese soldiers. Their volumes were to the
samurai what the _Mahayana_ was to the Buddhist. They were believed to
have collected whatever of good had preceded them, and to have forecast
whatever of good the future might produce. The character of their
strategic methods, somewhat analogous to those of 18th-century Europe,
may be gathered from the following:--
"An army undertaking an offensive campaign must be twice as numerous
as the enemy. A force investing a fortress should be numerically ten
times the garrison. When the adversary holds high ground, turn his
flank; do not deliver a frontal attack. When he has a mountain or a
river behind him, cut his lines of communication. If he deliberately
assumes a position from which victory is his only escape, hold him
there, but do not molest him. If you can surround him, leave one route
open for his escape, since desperate men fight fiercely. When you have
to cross a river, put your advance-guard and your rear-guard at a
distance from the banks. When the enemy has to cross a river, let him
get well engaged in the operation before you strike at him. In a
march, make celerity your first object. Pass no copse, enter no
ravine, nor approach any thicket until your scouts have explored it
fully."
Such precepts are multiplied; but when these ancient authors discuss
tactical formations, they do not seem to have contemplated anything like
rapid, well-ordered changes of mobile, highly trained masses of men from
one formation to another, or their quick transfer from point to point of
a battlefield. The basis of their tactics is _The Book of Changes_. Here
again is encountered the superstition that underlies nearly all Chinese
and Japanese institutions: the superstition that took captive even the
great mind of Confucius. The positive and the negative principles; the
sympathetic and the antipathetic elements; cosmos growing out of chaos;
chaos re-absorbing cosmos--on such fancies they founded their tactical
system. The result was a phalanx of complicated organization, difficult
to manoeuvre and liable to be easily thrown into confusion. Yet when
Yamaga in the 17th century interpreted these ancient Chinese treatises,
he detected in them suggestions for a very shrewd use of the principle
of echelon, and applied it to devise formations which combined much of
the frontal expansion of the line with the solidity of the column. More
than that cannot be said for Japanese tactical genius. The samurai was
the best fighting unit in the Orient--probably one of the best fighting
units the world ever produced. It was perhaps because of that excellence
that his captains remained indifferent tacticians.
Ethics of the Samurai.
In estimating the military capacity of the Japanese, it is essential to
know something of the ethical code of the samurai, the _bushido_ (way of
the warrior) as it was called. A typical example of the rules of conduct
prescribed by feudal chieftains is furnished in the code of Kato
Kiyomasa, a celebrated general of the 16th century:--
_Regulations for Samurai of every Rank; the Highest and Lowest alike._
1. The routine of service must be strictly observed. From 6 a.m.
military exercises shall be practised. Archery, gunnery and
horsemanship must not be neglected. If any man shows exceptional
proficiency he shall receive extra pay.
2. Those that desire recreation may engage in hawking, deer-hunting or
wrestling.
3. With regard to dress, garments of cotton or pongee shall be worn.
Any man incurring debts owing to extravagance of costume or living
shall be considered a law-breaker. If, however, being zealous in the
practice of military arts suitable to his rank, he desires to hire
instructors, an allowance may be granted to him for that purpose.
4. The staple of diet shall be unhulled rice. At social entertainments
one guest for one host is the proper limit. Only when men are
assembled for military exercises shall many dine together.
5. It is the duty of every samurai to make himself acquainted with the
principles of his craft. Extravagant displays of adornment are
forbidden in battle.
6. Dancing or organizing dances is unlawful; it is likely to betray
sword-carrying men into acts of violence. Whatever a man does should
be done with his heart. Therefore for the soldier military amusements
alone are suitable. The penalty for violating this provision is death
by suicide.
7. Learning shall be encouraged. Military books must be read. The
spirit of loyalty and filial piety must be educated before all things.
Poem-composing pastimes are not to be engaged in by samurai. To be
addicted to such amusements is to resemble a woman. A man born a
samurai should live and die sword in hand. Unless he is thus trained
in time of peace, he will be useless in the hour of stress. To be
brave and warlike must be his invariable condition.
8. Whosoever finds these rules too severe shall be relieved from
service. Should investigation show that any one is so unfortunate as
to lack manly qualities, he shall be singled out and dismissed
forthwith. The imperative character of these instructions must not be
doubted.
The plainly paramount purpose of these rules was to draw a sharp line of
demarcation between the samurai and the courtiers living in Kioto. The
dancing, the couplet-composing, the sumptuous living and the fine
costumes of the officials frequenting the imperial capital were strictly
interdicted by the feudatories. Frugality, fealty and filial
piety--these may be called the fundamental virtues of the samurai. Owing
to the circumstances out of which his caste had grown, he regarded all
bread-winning pursuits with contempt, and despised money. To be swayed
in the smallest degree by mercenary motives was despicable in his eyes.
Essentially a stoic, he made self-control the ideal of his existence,
and practised the courageous endurance of suffering so thoroughly that
he could without hesitation inflict on his own body pain of the most
horrible description. Nor can the courage of the samurai justly be
ascribed to bluntness of moral sensibility resulting from semi-savage
conditions of life. From the 8th century onwards the current of
existence in Japan set with general steadiness in the direction of
artistic refinement and voluptuous luxury, amidst which men could
scarcely fail to acquire habits and tastes inconsistent with acts of
high courage and great endurance. The samurai's mood was not a product
of semi-barbarism, but rather a protest against emasculating
civilization. He schooled himself to regard death by his own hand as a
normal eventuality. The story of other nations shows epochs when death
was welcomed as a relief and deliberately invited as a refuge from the
mere weariness of living. But wherever there has been liberty to choose,
and leisure to employ, a painless mode of exit from the world, men have
invariably selected it. The samurai, however, adopted in _harakiri_
(disembowelment) a mode of suicide so painful and so shocking that to
school the mind to regard it with indifference and perform it without
flinching was a feat not easy to conceive. Assistance was often rendered
by a friend who stood ready to decapitate the victim immediately after
the stomach had been gashed; but there were innumerable examples of men
who consummated the tragedy without aid, especially when the sacrifice
of life was by way of protest against the excesses of a feudal chief or
the crimes of a ruler, or when some motive for secrecy existed. It must
be observed that the suicide of the samurai was never inspired by any
doctrine like that of Hegesias. Death did not present itself to him as a
legitimate means of escaping from the cares and disappointments of life.
Self-destruction had only one consolatory aspect, that it was the
soldier's privilege to expiate a crime with his own sword, not under the
hand of the executioner. It rested with his feudal chief to determine
his guilt, and his peremptory duty was never to question the justice of
an order to commit suicide, but to obey without murmur or protest. For
the rest, the general motives for suicide were to escape falling into
the hands of a victorious enemy, to remonstrate against some official
abuse which no ordinary complaint could reach, or, by means of a dying
protest, to turn a liege lord from pursuing courses injurious to his
reputation and his fortune. This last was the noblest and by no means
the most infrequent reason for suicide. Scores of examples are recorded
of men who, with everything to make existence desirable, deliberately
laid down their lives at the prompting of loyalty. Thus the samurai rose
to a remarkable height of moral nobility. He had no assurance that his
death might not be wholly fruitless, as indeed it often proved. If the
sacrifice achieved its purpose, if it turned a liege lord from evil
courses, the samurai could hope that his memory would be honoured. But
if the lord resented such a violent and conspicuous mode of reproving
his excesses, then the faithful vassal's retribution would be an
execrated memory and, perhaps, suffering for his family and relatives.
Yet the deed was performed again and again. It remains to be noted that
the samurai entertained a high respect for the obligations of truth; "A
bushi has no second word," was one of his favourite mottoes. However, a
reservation is necessary here. The samurai's doctrine was not truth for
truth's sake, but truth for the sake of the spirit of uncompromising
manliness on which he based all his code of morality. A pledge or a
promise must never be broken, but the duty of veracity did not override
the interests or the welfare of others. Generosity to a defeated foe was
also one of the tenets of the samurai's ethics. History contains many
instances of the exercise of that quality.
Religious Influence.
Something more, however, than a profound conception of duty was needed
to nerve the samurai for sacrifices such as he seems to have been always
ready to make. It is true that Japanese parents of the military class
took pains to familiarize their children of both sexes from very tender
years with the idea of self-destruction at any time. But superadded to
the force of education and the incentive of tradition there was a
transcendental influence. Buddhism supplied it. The tenets of that creed
divided themselves, broadly speaking, into two doctrines, salvation by
faith and salvation by works, and the chief exponent of the latter
principle is the sect which prescribes meditation as the vehicle of
enlightenment. Whatever be the mental processes induced by this rite,
those who have practised it insist that it leads finally to a state of
absorption, in which the mind is flooded by an illumination revealing
the universe in a new aspect, absolutely free from all traces of
passion, interest or affection, and showing, written across everything
in flaming letters, the truth that for him who has found Buddha there is
neither birth nor death, growth nor decay. Lifted high above his
surroundings, he is prepared to meet every fate with indifference. The
attainment of that state seems to have been a fact in the case both of
the samurai of the military epoch and of the Japanese soldier to-day.
Abolition of the Samurai.
The policy of seclusion adopted by the Tokugawa administration after the
Shimabara insurrection included an order that no samurai should acquire
foreign learning. Nevertheless some knowledge could not fail to filter
in through the Dutch factory at Deshima, and thus, a few years before
the advent of the American ships, Takashima Shuhan, governor of
Nagasaki, becoming persuaded of the fate his country must invite if she
remained oblivious of the world's progress, memorialized the Yedo
government in the sense that, unless Japan improved her weapons of war
and reformed her military system, she could not escape humiliation such
as had just overtaken China. He obtained small arms and field-guns of
modern type from Holland, and, repairing to Yedo with a company of men
trained according to the new tactics, he offered an object lesson for
the consideration of the conservative officials. They answered by
throwing him into prison. But Egawa, one of his retainers, proved a
still more zealous reformer, and his foresight being vindicated by the
appearance of the American war-vessels in 1853, he won the government's
confidence and was entrusted with the work of planning and building
forts at Shinagawa and Shimoda. At Egawa's instance rifles and cannon
were imported largely from Europe, and their manufacture was commenced
in Japan, a powder-mill also being established with machinery obtained
from Holland. Finally, in 1862, the shogun's government adopted the
military system of the West, and organized three divisions of all arms,
with a total strength of 13,600 officers and men. Disbanded at the fall
of the shogunate in 1867, this force nevertheless served as a model for
a similar organization under the imperial government, and in the
meanwhile the principal fiefs had not been idle, some--as
Satsuma--adopting English tactics, others following France or Germany,
and a few choosing Dutch. There appeared upon the stage at this juncture
a great figure in the person of Omura Masujiro, a samurai of the Choshu
clan. He established Japan's first military school at Kioto in 1868; he
attempted to substitute for the hereditary soldier conscripts taken from
all classes of the people, and he conceived the plan of dividing the
whole empire into six military districts. An assassin's dagger removed
him on the threshold of these great reforms, but his statue now stands
in Tokyo and his name is spoken with reverence by all his countrymen. In
1870 Yamagata Aritomo (afterwards Field-Marshal Prince Yamagata) and
Saigo Tsugumichi (afterwards Field-Marshal Marquis Saigo) returned from
a tour of military inspection in Europe, and in 1872 they organized a
corps of Imperial guards, taken from the three clans which had been
conspicuous in the work of restoring the administrative power to the
sovereign, namely, the clans of Satsuma, Choshu and Tosa. They also
established garrisons in Tokyo, Sendai, Osaka and Kumamoto, thus placing
the military authority in the hands of the central government. Reforms
followed quickly. In 1872, the _hyobusho_, an office which controlled
all matters relating to war, was replaced by two departments, one of war
and one of the navy, and, in 1873, an imperial decree substituted
universal conscription for the system of hereditary militarism. Many
persons viewed this experiment with deep misgiving. They feared that it
would not only alienate the samurai, but also entrust the duty of
defending the country to men unfitted by tradition and custom for such a
task, namely, the farmers, artisans and tradespeople, who, after
centuries of exclusion from the military pale, might be expected to have
lost all martial spirit. The government, however, was not deterred by
these apprehensions. It argued that since the distinction of samurai and
commoner had not originally existed, and since the former was a product
simply of accidental conditions, there was no valid reason to doubt the
military capacity of the people at large. The justice of this reasoning
was put to a conclusive test a few years later. Originally the period of
service with the colours was fixed at 3 years, that of service with the
first and second reserves being 2 years each. One of the serious
difficulties encountered at the outset was that samurai conscripts were
too proud to stand in the ranks with common rustics or artisans, and
above all to obey the commands of plebeian officers. But patriotism soon
overcame this obstacle. The whole country--with the exception of the
northern island, Yezo--was parcelled out into six military districts
(headquarters Tokyo, Osaka, Nagoya, Sendai, Hiroshima and Kumamoto) each
furnishing a division of all arms and services. There was also from 1876
a guards division in Tokyo. The total strength on a peace footing was
31,680 of all arms, and on a war footing, 46,350. The defence of Yezo
was entrusted to a colonial militia. It may well be supposed that to
find competent officers for this army greatly perplexed its organizers.
The military school--now in Tokyo but originally founded by Omura in
Kioto--had to turn out graduates at high pressure, and private soldiers
who showed any special aptitude were rapidly promoted to positions of
command. French military instructors were engaged, and the work of
translating manuals was carried out with all celerity. In 1877, this new
army of conscripts had to endure a crucial test: it had to take the
field against the Satsuma samurai, the very flower of their class, who
in that year openly rebelled against the Tokyo government. The campaign
lasted eight months; as there had not yet been time to form the
reserves, the Imperial forces were soon seriously reduced in number by
casualties in the field and by disease, the latter claiming many victims
owing to defective commissariat. It thus became necessary to have
recourse to volunteers, but as these were for the most part samurai, the
expectation was that their hereditary instinct of fighting would
compensate for lack of training. That expectation was not fulfilled.
Serving side by side in the field, the samurai volunteer and the
heimin[15] regular were found to differ by precisely the degree of their
respective training. The fact was thus finally established that the
fighting qualities of the farmer and artisan reached as high a standard
as those of the bushi.
Thenceforth the story of the Japanese army is one of steady progress
and development. In 1878, the military duties of the empire were
divided among three offices: namely, the army department, the general
staff and the inspection department, while the six divisions of troops
were organized into three army corps.
In 1879, the total period of colour and reserve service became 10
years. In 1883 the period was extended to 12 years, the list of
exemptions was abbreviated, and above all substitution was no longer
allowed. Great care was devoted to the training of officers; promotion
went by merit, and at least ten of the most promising officers were
sent abroad every year to study. A comprehensive system of education
for the rank and file was organized. Great difficulty was experienced
in procuring horses suitable for cavalry, and indeed the Japanese army
long remained weak in this arm. In 1886, the whole littoral of the
empire was divided into five districts, each with its admiralty and
its naval port, and the army being made responsible for coast defence,
a battery construction corps was formed. Moreover, an exhaustive
scheme was elaborated to secure full co-operation between the army and
navy. In 1888 the seven divisions of the army first found themselves
prepared to take the field, and, in 1893, a revised system of
mobilization was sanctioned, to be put into operation the following
year, for the Chino-Japanese War (q.v.). At this period the division,
mobilized for service in the field, consisted of 12 battalions of
infantry, 3 troops of cavalry, 4 batteries of field and 2 of mountain
artillery, 2 companies of sappers and train, totalling 18,492 of all
arms with 5633 horses. The guards had only 8 battalions and 4
batteries (field). The field army aggregated over 120,000, with 168
field and 72 mountain guns, and the total of all forces, field,
garrison and depot, was 220,580 of all arms, with 47,220 horses and
294 guns. Owing, however, to various modifications necessitated by
circumstances, the numbers actually on duty were over 240,000, with
6495 non-combatant employees and about 100,000 coolies who acted as
carriers. The infantry were armed with the Murata single-loader rifle,
but the field artillery was inferior, and the only two divisions
equipped with magazine rifles and smokeless powder never came into
action. The experiences gained in this war bore large fruit. The total
term of service with the colours and the reserves was slightly
increased; the colonial militia of Yezo (Hokkaido) was organized as a
seventh line division; 5 new divisions were added, bringing the whole
number of divisions to 13 (including the guards); a mixed brigade was
stationed in Formosa (then newly added to Japan's dominions); a high
military council composed of field-marshals was created; the cavalry
was brigaded; the garrison artillery was increased; strenuous efforts
were made to improve the education of officers and men; and lastly,
sanitary arrangements underwent much modification. An arsenal had been
established in Tokyo, in 1868, for the manufacture of small arms and
small-arm ammunition; this was followed by an arsenal in Osaka for the
manufacture of guns and gun-ammunition; four powder factories were
opened, and in later years big-gun factories at Kure and Mororan.
Japan was able to make 12-inch guns in 1902, and her capacity for this
kind of work was in 1909 second to none. She has her own patterns of
rifle and field gun, so that she is independent of foreign aid so far
as armaments are concerned. In 1900, she sent a force to North China
to assist in the campaign for the relief of the foreign legations in
Peking, and on that occasion her troops were able to observe at first
hand the qualities and methods of European soldiers. In 1904 took
place the great war with Russia (see RUSSO-JAPANESE WAR). After the
war important changes were made in the direction of augmenting and
improving the armed forces. The number of divisions was increased to
19 (including the guards), of which one division is for service in
Korea and one for service in Manchuria. Various technical corps were
organized, as well as horse artillery, heavy field artillery and
machine-gun units. The field-gun was replaced by a quick-firer
manufactured at Osaka, and much attention was given to the question of
remounts--for, both in the war with China and in that with Russia, the
horsing of the cavalry had been poor. Perhaps the most far-reaching
change in all armies of late years is the shortening of the term of
service with the colours to 2 years for the infantry, 3 years
remaining the rule for other arms. This was adopted by Japan after the
war, the infantry period of service with the reserves being extended
to 14{1/3} years, and of course has the effect of greatly augmenting
the potential war strength. As to this, figures are kept secret, nor
can any accurate approximation be attempted without danger of error.
Rough estimates of Japan's war strength have, however, been made,
giving 550,000 as the war strength of the first line army, plus 34,000
for garrisons overseas and 150,000 special reserves (_hoju_); 370,000
second line or _kobi_, and 110,000 for the fully trained portion of
the territorial forces, or _Kokumin-hei_. All these branches can
further draw upon half-trained elements to the number of about 800,000
to replace losses. Japan's available strength in the last resort for
home defence was recently (1909) stated by the Russian _Novoye Vremya_
at 3,000,000. In 20 years, when the present system has produced its
full effect, the first line should be 740,000 strong, the second line
780,000, and the third line about 3,850,000 (3,000,000 untrained and
850,000 partly trained). Details can be found in _Journal of the R.
United Service Institution_, Dec. 1909-Jan. 1910.
Recruiting.
At 20 years of age every Japanese subject, of whatever status, becomes
liable for military service. But the difficulty of making service
universal in the case of a growing population is felt here as in
Europe, and practically the system has elements of the old-fashioned
conscription. The minimum height is 5.2 ft. (artillery and engineers,
5.4 ft.). There are four principal kinds of service, namely, service
with the colours (_genyeki_), for two years; service with the first
reserves (_yobi_), for 7{1/3} years; service with the second reserves
(_kobi_), for 7 years; and service with the territorial troops (_ko
kumin-hei_) up to the age of 40. Special reserve (_hoju_) takes up men
who, though liable for conscription and medically qualified, have
escaped the lot for service with the colours. It consists of two
classes, one of men remaining in the category of _hoju_ for 7{1/3}
years, the other for 1{1/3} year, before passing into the territorial
army. Their purpose is similar to that of special or _ersatz_ reserves
elsewhere. The first class receives the usual short initial training.
Men of the second class, in ordinary circumstances, pass, after their
1{1/3} year's inability, to the territorial army untrained. As for the
first and second general reserves (_yobi_ and _kobi_), each is called
out twice during its full term for short "refresher" courses. After
reaching the territorial army a man is relieved from all further
training. The total number of youths eligible for conscription each
year is about 435,000, but the annual contingent for full service is
not much more than 100,000. Conscripts in the active army may be
discharged before the expiration of two years if their conduct and
aptitude are exceptional.
A youth is exempted if it be clearly established[16] that his family
is dependent upon his earnings. Except for permanent deformities men
are put back for one year before being finally rejected on medical
grounds. Men who have been convicted of crime are disqualified, but
those who have been temporarily deprived of civil rights must present
themselves for conscription at the termination of their sentence.
Educated men may enrol themselves as one-year volunteers instead of
drawing lots, this privilege of entry enduring up to the age of 28,
after which, service for the full term without drawing lots is
imposed. Residence in a foreign country secures exemption up to the
age of 32--provided that official permission to go abroad has been
obtained. A man returning after the age of 32 is drafted into the
territorial army, but if he returns before that age he must volunteer
to receive training, otherwise he is taken without lot for service
with the colours. The system of volunteering is largely resorted to by
persons of the better classes. Any youth who possesses certain
educational qualifications is entitled to volunteer for training. If
accepted after medical inspection, he serves with the colours for one
year, during three months of which time he must live in
barracks--unless a special permit be granted by his commanding
officer. A volunteer has to contribute to his maintenance and
equipment, although youths who cannot afford the full expense, if
otherwise qualified, are assisted by the state. At the conclusion of a
year's training the volunteer is drafted into the first reserve for
6(1/4) years, and then into the second reserve for 5 years, so that
his total period (12(1/4) years) of service before passing into the
territorial army is the same as that of an ordinary conscript. The
main purpose of the one-year voluntariat, as in Germany, is to provide
officers for the reserves to territorial troops. Qualified teachers in
the public service are only liable to a very short initial training,
after which they pass at once into the territorial army. But if a
teacher abandons that calling before the age of 28, he becomes liable,
without lot,[17] to two years with the colours, unless he adopts the
alternative of volunteering.
Officers.
Officers are obtained in two ways. There are six local preparatory
cadet schools (_yonen-gakko_) in various parts of the empire, for boys
of from 13 to 15. After 3 years at one of these schools[18] a graduate
spends 21 months at the central preparatory school
(_chuo-yonen-gakko_), Tokyo, and if he graduates with sufficient
credit at the latter institution, he becomes eligible for admission to
the officers' college (_shikan-gakko_) without further test of
proficiency. The second method of obtaining officers is by competitive
examination for direct admission to the officers' college. In either
case the cadet is sent to serve with the colours for 6 to 12 months as
a private and non-commissioned officer, before commencing his course
at the officers' college. The period of study at the officers' college
is one year, and after graduating successfully the cadet serves with
troops for 6 months on probation. If at the end of that time he is
favourably reported on, he is commissioned as a sub-lieutenant. Young
officers of engineers and artillery receive a year's further training
at a special college. Officers' ranks are the same as in the British
army, but the nomenclature is more simple. The terms, with their
English equivalents, are _shoi_ (second lieutenant), _chui_ (first
lieutenant), _tai_ (captain), _shosa_ (major), _chusa_
(lieut.-colonel), _taisa_ (colonel), _shosho_ (major-general), _chujo_
(lieut.-general), _taisho_ (general), _gensui_ (field-marshal). All
these except the last apply to the same relative ranks in the navy.
Promotion of officers in the junior grades is by seniority or merit,
but after the rank of captain all promotion is by merit, and thus many
officers never rise higher than captain, in which case retirement is
compulsory at the age of 48. Except in the highest ranks, a certain
minimum period has to be spent in each rank before promotion to the
next.
Soldiers.
There are three grades of privates: upper soldiers (_joto-hei_),
first-class soldiers (_itto-sotsu_), and second-class soldiers
(_nito-sotsu_). A private on joining is a second-class soldier. For
proficiency and good conduct he is raised to the rank of first-class
soldier, and ultimately to that of upper soldier. Non-commissioned
officers are obtained from the ranks, or from those who wish to make
soldiering a profession, as in European armies. The grades are
corporal (_gocho_), sergeant (_gunso_), sergeant-major (_socho_) and
special sergeant-major (_tokumu-socho_).
The pay of the conscript is, as it is everywhere, a trifle (1s.
10d.-3s. 0(1/2)d. per month). The professional non-commissioned
officers are better paid, the lowest grade receiving three times as
much as an upper soldier. Officers' pay is roughly at about
three-quarters of the rates prevailing in Germany, sub-lieutenants
receiving about L34, captains L71, colonels L238 per annum, &c.
Pensions for officers and non-commissioned officers, according to
scale, can be claimed after 11 years' colour service.
The emperor is the commander-in-chief of the army, and theoretically
the sole source of military authority, which he exercises through a
general staff and a war department, with the assistance of a board of
field-marshals (_gensuifu_). The general staff has for chief a
field-marshal, and for vice-chief a general or lieutenant-general. It
includes besides the usual general staff departments, various survey
and topographical officers, and the military college is under its
direction. The war department is presided over by a general officer on
the active list, who is a member of the cabinet without being
necessarily affected by ministerial changes. There are, further,
artillery and engineer committees, and a remount bureau. The
headquarters of coast defences under general officers are Tokyo,
Yokohama, Shimonoseki and Yura. The whole empire is divided into three
military districts--eastern, central and western--each under the
command of a general or lieutenant-general. The divisional
headquarters are as follows:--Guard Tokyo, I. Tokyo, II. Sendai, III.
Nagoya, IV. Wakayama, V. Hiroshima, VI. Kumamoto, VII. Asahikawa,
VIII. Hirosaki, IX. Kasanava, X. Himeji, XI. Senzui, XII. Kokura,
XIII. Takata, XIV. Utsonomia, XV. Fushimi, XVI. Kioto, XVII. Okayama,
XVIII. Kurume. Some of these divisions are permanently on foreign
service, but their recruiting areas in Japan are maintained. There are
also four cavalry brigades, and a number of unassigned regiments of
field and mountain artillery, as well as garrison artillery and army
technical troops. The organization of the active army by regiments is
176 infantry regiments of 3 battalions; 27 cavalry regiments; 30 field
artillery regiments each of 6 and 3 mountain artillery regiments each
of 3 batteries; 6 regiments and 6 battalions of siege, heavy field and
fortress artillery; 20 battalions engineers; 19 supply and transport
battalions.
Medical Service.
The medical service is exceptionally well organized. It received
unstinted praise from European and American experts who observed it
closely during the wars of 1900 and 1904-5. The establishment of
surgeons to each division is approximately 100, and arrangements
complete in every detail are made for all lines of medical assistance.
Much help is rendered by the red cross society of Japan, which has an
income of 2,000,000 yen annually, a fine hospital in Tokyo, a large
nursing staff and two specially built and equipped hospital ships.
During the early part of the campaign in Pechili, in 1900, the French
column entrusted its wounded to the care of the Japanese.
Supply.
The staple article of commissariat for a Japanese army in the field is
_hoshii_ (dried rice), of which three days' supply can easily be
carried in a bag by the soldier. When required for use the rice, being
placed in water, swells to its original bulk, and is eaten with a
relish of salted fish, dried sea-weed or pickled plums. The task of
provisioning an army on these lines is comparatively simple. The
Japanese soldier, though low in stature, is well set up, muscular and
hardy. He has great powers of endurance, and manoeuvres with
remarkable celerity, doing everything at the run, if necessary, and
continuing to run without distress for a length of time astonishing to
European observers. He is greatly subject, however, to attacks of
_kakke_ (beri-beri), and if he has recourse to meat diet, which
appears to be the best preventive, he will probably lose something of
his capacity for prolonged rapid movement. He attacks with apparent
indifference to danger, preserves his cheerfulness amid hardships, is
splendidly patriotic and has always shown himself thoroughly amenable
to discipline.
Military Schools.
Of the many educational and training establishments, the most
important is the _rikugun daigakko_, or army college, where officers,
(generally subalterns), are prepared for service in the upper ranks
and for staff appointments, the course of study extending over three
years. The Toyama school stands next in importance. The courses
pursued there are attended chiefly by subaltern officers of dismounted
branches, non-commissioned officers also being allowed to take the
musketry course. The term of training is five months. Young officers
of the scientific branches are instructed at the _hokogakko_ (school
of artillery and engineers). There are, further, two special schools
of gunnery--one for field, the other for garrison artillery, attended
chiefly by captains and senior subalterns of the two branches. There
is an inspection department of military education, the
inspector-general being a lieutenant-general, under whom are fifteen
field and general officers, who act as inspectors of the various
schools and colleges and of military educational matters in general.
The Japanese officer's pay is small and his mode of life frugal. He
lives out of barracks, frequently with his own family. His uniform is
plain and inexpensive,[19] and he has no desire to exchange it for
mufti. He has no mess expenses, contribution to a band, or luxuries of
any kind, and as he is nearly always without private means to
supplement his pay, his habits are thoroughly economical. He devotes
himself absolutely to his profession, living for nothing else, and
since he is strongly imbued with an effective conception of the honour
of his cloth, instances of his incurring disgrace by debt or
dissipation are exceptional. The samurai may be said to have been
revived in the officers of the modern army, who preserve and act up to
all the old traditions. The system of promotion has evidently much to
do with this good result, for no Japanese officer can hope to rise
above the rank of captain unless, by showing himself really zealous
and capable, he obtains from his commanding officer the recommendation
without which all higher educational opportunities are closed to him.
Yet promotion by merit has not degenerated into promotion by favour,
and corruption appears to be virtually absent. In the stormiest days
of parliamentary warfare, when charges of dishonesty were freely
preferred by party politicians against all departments of officialdom,
no whisper ever impeached the integrity of army officers.
The training of the troops is thorough and strictly progressive, the
responsibility of the company, squadron and battery commanders for the
training of their commands, and the latitude granted them in choice of
means being, as in Germany, the keystone of the system.
Foreign Assistance.
Originally the government engaged French officers to assist in
organizing the army and elaborating its system of tactics and
strategy, and during several years a military mission of French
officers resided in Tokyo and rendered valuable aid to the Japanese.
Afterwards German officers were employed, with Jakob Meckel at their
head, and they left a perpetually grateful memory. But ultimately the
services of foreigners were dispensed with altogether, and Japan now
adopts the plan of sending picked men to complete their studies in
Europe. Up to 1904 she followed Germany in military matters almost
implicitly, but since then, having the experience of her own great war
to guide her, she has, instead of modelling herself on any one foreign
system, chosen from each whatever seemed most desirable, and also, in
many points, taken the initiative herself.
Military Finance.
When the power of the sword was nominally restored to the Imperial
government in 1868, the latter planned to devote one-fourth of the
state's ordinary revenue to the army and navy. Had the estimated
revenue accrued, this would have given a sum of about 3 millions
sterling for the two services. But not until 1871, when the troops of
the fiefs were finally disbanded, did the government find itself in a
position to include in the annual budgets an adequate appropriation on
account of armaments. Thenceforth, from 1872 to 1896, the ordinary
expenditures of the army varied from three-quarters of a million
sterling to 1(1/2) millions, and the extraordinary outlays ranged from
a few thousands of pounds to a quarter of a million. Not once in the
whole period of 25 years--if 1877 (the year of the Satsuma rebellion)
be excepted--did the state's total expenditures on account of the army
exceed 1(1/2) millions sterling, and it redounds to the credit of
Japan's financial management that she was able to organize, equip and
maintain such a force at such a small cost. In 1896, as shown above,
she virtually doubled her army, and a proportionate increase of
expenditure ensued, the outlays for maintenance jumping at once from
an average of about 1(1/4) millions sterling to 2(1/4) millions, and
growing thenceforth with the organization of the new army, until in
the year (1903) preceding the outbreak of war with Russia, they
reached the figure of 4 millions. Then again, in 1906, six divisions
were added, and additional expenses had to be incurred on account of
the new overseas garrisons, so that, in 1909, the ordinary outlays
reached a total of 7 millions, or about one-seventh of the ordinary
revenue of the state. This takes no account of extraordinary outlays
incurred for building forts and barracks, providing new patterns of
equipment, &c. In 1909 the latter, owing to the necessity of replacing
the weapons used in the Russian War, and in particular the field
artillery gun (which was in 1905 only a semi-quickfirer), involved a
relatively large outlay.
Early Japanese War-vessels.
_The Navy._--The traditions of Japan suggest that the art of navigation
was not unfamiliar to the inhabitants of a country consisting of
hundreds of islands and abounding in bays and inlets. Some interpreters
of her cosmography discover a great ship in the "floating bridge of
heaven" from which the divine procreators of the islands commenced their
work, and construe in a similar sense other poetically named vehicles of
that remote age. But though the seas were certainly traversed by the
early invaders of Japan, and though there is plenty of proof that in
medieval times the Japanese flag floated over merchantmen which voyaged
as far as Siam and India, and over piratical craft which harassed the
coasts of Korea and China, it is unquestionable that in the matter of
naval architecture Japan fell behind even her next-door neighbours.
Thus, when a Mongol fleet came to Kiushiu in the 13th century, Japan had
no vessels capable of contending against the invaders, and when, at the
close of the 16th century, a Japanese army was fighting in Korea,
repeated defeats of Japan's squadrons by Korean war-junks decided the
fate of the campaign on shore as well as on sea. It seems strange that
an enterprising nation like the Japanese should not have taken for
models the great galleons which visited the Far East in the second half
of the 16th century under the flags of Spain, Portugal, Holland and
England. With the exception, however, of two ships built by a castaway
English pilot to order of Iyeyasu, no effort in that direction appears
to have been made, and when an edict vetoing the construction of
sea-going vessels was issued in 1636 as part of the Tokugawa policy of
isolation, it can scarcely be said to have checked the growth of Japan's
navy, for she possessed nothing worthy of the name. It was to the object
lesson furnished by the American ships which visited Yedo bay in 1853
and to the urgent counsels of the Dutch that Japan owed the inception of
a naval policy. A seamen's training station was opened under Dutch
instructors in 1855 at Nagasaki, a building-slip was constructed and an
iron factory established at the same place, and shortly afterwards a
naval school was organized at Tsukiji in Yedo, a war-ship the "Kwanko
Maru"[20]--presented by the Dutch to the shogun's government--being used
for exercising the cadets. To this vessel two others, purchased from the
Dutch, were added in 1857 and 1858, and these, with one given by Queen
Victoria, formed the nucleus of Japan's navy. In 1860, we find the
Pacific crossed for the first time by a Japanese war-ship--the "Kwanrin
Maru"--and subsequently some young officers were sent to Holland for
instruction in naval science. In fact the Tokugawa statesmen had now
thoroughly appreciated the imperative need of a navy. Thus, in spite of
domestic unrest which menaced the very existence of the Yedo government,
a dockyard was established and fully equipped, the place chosen as its
site being, by a strange coincidence, the village of Yokosuka where
Japan's first foreign ship-builder, Will Adams, had lived and died 250
years previously. This dockyard was planned and its construction
superintended by a Frenchman, M. Bertin. But although the Dutch had been
the first to advise Japan's acquisition of a navy, and although French
aid was sought in the case of the important and costly work at Yokosuka,
the shogun's government turned to England for teachers of the art of
maritime warfare. Captain Tracey, R.N., and other British officers and
warrant-officers were engaged to organize and superintend the school at
Tsukiji. They arrived, however, on the eve of the fall of the Tokugawa
shogunate, and as the new administration was not prepared to utilize
their services immediately, they returned to England. It is not to be
inferred that the Imperial government underrated the importance of
organizing a naval force. One of the earliest Imperial rescripts ranked
a navy among "the country's most urgent needs" and ordered that it
should be "at once placed on a firm foundation." But during the four
years immediately subsequent to the restoration, a semi-interregnum
existed in military affairs, the power of the sword being partly
transferred to the hands of the sovereign and partly retained by the
feudal chiefs. Ultimately, not only the vessels which had been in the
possession of the shogunate but also several obtained from Europe by the
great feudatories had to be taken over by the Imperial government,
which, on reviewing the situation, found itself owner of a motley
squadron of 17 war-ships aggregating 13,812 tons displacement, of which
two were armoured, one was a composite ship, and the rest were of wood.
Steps were now taken to establish and equip a suitable naval college in
Tsukiji, and application having been made to the British government for
instructors, a second naval mission was sent from England in 1873,
consisting of 30 officers and warrant-officers under Commander
(afterwards Vice-Admiral Sir) Archibald Douglas. At the very outset
occasions for active service afloat presented themselves. In 1868, the
year after the fall of the shogunate, such ships as could be assembled
had to be sent to Yezo to attack the main part of the Tokugawa squadron
which had raised the flag of revolt and retired to Hakodate under the
command of the shogun's admiral, Enomoto. Then in 1874 the duty of
convoying a fleet of transports to Formosa had to be undertaken; and in
1877 sea power played its part in crushing the formidable rebellion in
Satsuma. Meanwhile the work of increasing and organizing the navy went
on steadily. The first steam war-ship constructed in Japan had been a
gunboat (138 tons) launched in 1866 from a building-yard established at
Ishikawajima, an island near the mouth of the Sumida river on which
Tokyo stands. At this yard and at Yokosuka two vessels of 897 tons and
1450 tons, respectively, were launched in 1875 and 1876, and Japan now
found herself competent not only to execute all repairs but also to
build ships of considerable size. An order was placed in England in
1875, which produced, three years later, the "Fuso," Japan's first
ironclad (3717 tons) and the "Kongo" and "Hiei," steel-frame
sister-cruisers of 2248 tons. Meanwhile training, practical and
theoretical, in seamanship, gunnery, torpedo-practice and naval
architecture went on vigorously, and in 1878 the Japanese flag was for
the first time seen in European waters, floating over the cruiser
"Seiki" (1897 tons) built in Japan and navigated solely by Japanese. The
government, constantly solicitous of increasing the fleet, inaugurated,
in 1882, a programme of 30 cruisers and 12 torpedo-boats, and in 1886
this was extended, funds being obtained by an issue of naval loan-bonds.
But the fleet did not yet include a single battleship. When the diet
opened for the first time in 1890, a plan for the construction of two
battleships encountered stubborn opposition in the lower house, where
the majority attached much less importance to voting money for war-ships
than to reducing the land tax. Not until 1892 was this opposition
overcome in deference to an order from the throne that thirty thousand
pounds sterling should be contributed yearly from the privy purse and
that a tithe of all official salaries should be devoted during the same
interval to naval needs. Had the house been more prescient, Japan's
position at the outbreak of war with China in 1894 would have been very
different. She entered the contest with 28 fighting craft, aggregating
57,600 tons, and 24 torpedo-boats, but among them the most powerful was
a belted cruiser of 4300 tons. Not one battleship was included, whereas
China had two ironclads of nearly 8000 tons each. Under these conditions
the result of the naval conflict was awaited with much anxiety in Japan.
But the Chinese suffered signal defeats (see CHINO-JAPANESE WAR) off the
Yalu and at Wei-hai-wei, and the victors took possession of 17 Chinese
craft, including one battleship. The resulting addition to Japan's
fighting force was, however, insignificant. But the naval strength of
Japan did not depend on prizes. Battleships and cruisers were ordered
and launched in Europe one after the other, and when the Russo-Japanese
War (q.v.) came, the fleet promptly asserted its physical and moral
superiority in the surprise of Port Arthur, the battle of the 10th of
August 1904, and the crowning victory of Tsushima.
As to the development of the navy from 1903 onwards, it is not
possible to detail with absolute accuracy the plans laid down by the
admiralty in Tokyo, but the actual state of the fleet in the year 1909
will be apparent from the figures given below.
Japan's naval strength at the outbreak of the war with Russia in 1904
was:--
Number. Displacement.
Tons.
Battleships 6 84,652
Armoured cruisers 8 73,982
Other cruisers 44 111,470
Destroyers 19 6,519
Torpedo-boats 80 7,119
-- -------
Totals 157 283,742
Losses during the war were:--
Battleships 2 27,300
Cruisers (second
and smaller classes) 8 18,009
Destroyers 2 705
Torpedo-boats 7 557
-- ------
Totals 19 46,571
The captured vessels repaired and added to the fleet were:--
Battleships 5 62,524
Cruisers 11 71,276
Destroyers 5 1,740
-- -------
Totals 21 135,530
The vessels built or purchased after the war and up to the close of
1908 were:--
Battleships 4 71,500
Armoured cruisers 4 56,700
Other cruisers 5 7,000
Destroyers 33 12,573
Torpedo-boats 5 760
-- -------
Totals 51 148,533
Some of the above have been superannuated, and the serviceable fleet
in 1909 was:--
Battleships 13 191,380
Armoured cruisers 12 130,683
Other cruisers, coast-
defence ships and
gun-boats 47 165,253
Destroyers 55 20,508
Torpedo-boats 77 7,258
--- -------
Totals 204 515,082
To the foregoing must be added two armoured cruisers--the "Kurama"
(14,000) launched at Yokosuka in October 1907, and the "Ibuki"
(14,700) launched at Kure in November 1907, but no other battleships
or cruisers were laid down in Japan or ordered abroad up to the close
of 1908.
Naval Dockyards.
There are four naval dockyards, namely, at Yokosuka, Kure, Sasebo and
Maizuru. Twenty-one vessels built at Yokosuka since 1876 included a
battleship (19,000 tons) and an armoured cruiser (14,000 tons); seven
built at Kure since 1898 included a battleship (19,000 tons) and an
armoured cruiser (14,000 tons). The yards at Sasebo and Maizuru had
not yet been used in 1909 for constructing large vessels. Two private
yards--the Mitsubishi at Nagasaki and Kobe, and the Kawasaki at the
latter place--have built several cruisers, gun-boats and torpedo
craft, and are competent to undertake more important work.
Nevertheless in 1909 Japan did not yet possess complete independence
in this matter, for she was obliged to have recourse to foreign
countries for a part of the steel used in ship-building. Kure
manufactures practically all the steel it requires, and there is a
government steel-foundry at Wakamatsu on which more than 3 millions
sterling had been spent in 1909, but it did not yet keep pace with the
country's needs. When this independence has been attained, it is hoped
to effect an economy of about 18% on the outlay for naval
construction, owing to the cheapness of manual labour and the
disappearance both of the manufacturer's profit and of the expenses of
transfer from Europe to Japan.
There are five admiralties--Yokosuka, Kure, Sasebo, Maizuru and Port
Arthur; and four naval stations--Takeshiki (in Tsushima), Mekong (in
the Pescadores), Ominato and Chinhai (in southern Korea).
Personnel.
The navy is manned partly by conscripts and partly by volunteers.
About 5500 are taken every year, and the ratio is, approximately, 55%
of volunteers and 45% of conscripts. The period of active service is 4
years and that of service with the reserve 7 years. On the average 200
cadets are admitted yearly, of whom 50 are engineers, and in 1906 the
personnel of the navy consisted of the following:--
Admirals, combative and non-combative 77
Officers, combative and non-combative,
below the rank of admiral 2,867
Warrant officers 9,075
Bluejackets 29,667
Cadets 721
------
Total 42,407
Naval Education.
The highest educational institution for the navy is the naval staff
college, in which there are five courses for officers alone. The
gunnery and torpedo schools are attended by officers, and also by
selected warrant-officers and bluejackets, who consent to extend their
service. There is also a mechanical school for junior engineers,
warrant-officers and ordinary artificers.
At the naval cadet academy--originally situated in Tokyo but now at
Etajima near Kure--aspirants for service as naval officers receive a 3
years' academical course and 1 year's training at sea; and, finally,
there is a naval engineering college collateral to the naval cadet
academy.
Since 1882, foreign instruction has been wholly dispensed with in the
Japanese navy; since 1886 she has manufactured her own prismatic
powder; since 1891 she has been able to make quick-firing guns and
Schwartzkopf torpedoes, and in 1892 one of her officers invented a
particularly potent explosive, called (after its inventor) Shimose
powder.
The Feudal Period.
_Finance._--Under the feudal system of the Tokugawa (1603-1871), all
land in Japan was regarded as state property, and parcelled out into 276
fiefs, great and small, which were assigned to as many feudatories.
These were empowered to raise revenue for the support of their
households, for administrative purposes, and for the maintenance of
troops. The basis of taxation varied greatly in different districts,
but, at the time of the Restoration in 1867, the general principle was
that four-tenths of the gross produce should go to the feudatory,
six-tenths to the farmer. In practice this rule was applied to the rice
crop only, the assessments for other kinds of produce being levied
partly in money and partly in manufactured goods. Forced labour also was
exacted, and artisans and tradesmen were subjected to pecuniary levies.
The yield of rice in 1867 was about 154 million bushels,[21] of which
the market value at prices then ruling was L24,000,000, or 240,000,000
_yen_.[22] Hence the grain tax represented, at the lowest calculation,
96,000,000 _yen_. When the administration reverted to the emperor in
1867 the central treasury was empty, and the funds hitherto employed for
governmental purposes in the fiefs continued to be devoted to the
support of the feudatories, to the payment of the samurai, and to
defraying the expenses of local administration, the central treasury
receiving only whatever might remain after these various outlays.
The shogun himself, whose income amounted to about L3,500,000, did not,
on abdicating, hand over to the sovereign either the contents of his
treasury or the lands from which he derived his revenues. He contended
that funds for the government of the nation as a whole should be levied
from the people at large. Not until 1871 did the feudal system cease to
exist. The fiefs being then converted into prefectures, their revenues
became an asset of the central treasury, less 10% allotted for the
support of the former feudatories.[23]
Paper Money.
But during the interval between 1867 and 1871, the men on whom had
devolved the direction of national affairs saw no relief from crippling
impecuniosity except an issue of paper money. This was not a novelty in
Japan. Paper money had been known to the people since the middle of the
17th century, and in the era of which we are now writing no less than
1694 varieties of notes were in circulation. There were gold notes,
silver notes, cash-notes, rice-notes, umbrella-notes, ribbon-notes,
lathe-article-notes, and so on through an interminable list, the
circulation of each kind being limited to the issuing fief. Many of
these notes had almost ceased to have any purchasing power, and nearly
all were regarded by the people as evidences of official greed. The
first duty of a centralized progressive administration should have been
to reform the currency. The political leaders of the time appreciated
that duty, but saw themselves compelled by stress of circumstances to
adopt the very device which in the hands of the feudal chiefs had
produced such deplorable results. The ordinary revenue amounted to only
3,000,000 _yen_, while the extraordinary aggregated 29,000,000, and was
derived wholly from issues of paper money or other equally unsound
sources.
Land Tax.
Even on the abolition of feudalism in 1871 the situation was not
immediately relieved. The land tax, which constituted nine-tenths of the
feudal revenues, had been assessed by varying methods and at various
rates by the different feudatories, and re-assessment of all the land
became a preliminary essential to establishing a uniform system. Such a
task, on the basis of accurate surveys, would have involved years of
work, whereas the financial needs of the state had to be met
immediately. Under the pressure of this imperative necessity a
re-assessment was roughly made in two years, and being continued
thereafter with greater accuracy, was completed in 1881. This survey,
eminently liberal to the agriculturists, assigned a value of
1,200,000,000 _yen_ to the whole of the arable land, and the treasury
fixed the tax at 3% of the assessed value of the land, which was about
one-half of the real market value. Moreover, the government contemplated
a gradual reduction of this already low impost until it should
ultimately fall to 1%. Circumstances prevented the consummation of that
purpose. The rate underwent only one reduction of (1/2)%, and thereafter
had to be raised on account of war expenditures. On the whole, however,
no class benefited more conspicuously from the change of administration
than the peasants, since not only was their burden of taxation light,
but also they were converted from mere tenants into actual proprietors.
In brief, they acquired the fee-simple of their farms in consideration
of paying an annual rent equal to about one sixty-sixth of the market
value of the land.
State Revenue.
In 1873, when these changes were effected, the ordinary revenue of the
state rose from 24,500,000 _yen_ to 70,500,000 _yen_. But seven millions
sterling is a small income for a country confronted by such problems as
Japan had to solve. She had to build railways; to create an army and a
navy; to organize posts, telegraphs, prisons, police and education; to
construct roads, improve harbours, light and buoy the coasts; to create
a mercantile marine; to start under official auspices numerous
industrial enterprises which should serve as object lessons to the
people, as well as to lend to private persons large sums in aid of
similar projects. Thus, living of necessity beyond its income, the
government had recourse to further issues of fiduciary notes, and in
proportion as the volume of the latter exceeded actual currency
requirements their specie value depreciated.
Banks.
This question of paper currency inaugurates the story of banking; a
story on almost every page of which are to be found inscribed the names
of Prince Ito, Marquis Inouye, Marquis Matsukata, Count Okuma and Baron
Shibusawa, the fathers of their country's economic and financial
progress in modern times. The only substitutes for banks in feudal days
were a few private firms--"households" would, perhaps, be a more correct
expression--which received local taxes in kind, converted them into
money, paid the proceeds to the central government or to the
feudatories, gave accommodation to officials, did some exchange
business, and occasionally extended accommodation to private
individuals. They were not banks in the Occidental sense, for they
neither collected funds by receiving deposits nor distributed capital by
making loans. The various fiefs were so isolated that neither social nor
financial intercourse was possible, and moreover the mercantile and
manufacturing classes were regarded with some disdain by the gentry. The
people had never been familiarized with combinations of capital for
productive purposes, and such a thing as a joint-stock company was
unknown. In these circumstances, when the administration of state
affairs fell into the hands of the men who had made the restoration,
they not only lacked the first essential of rule, money, but were also
without means of obtaining any, for they could not collect taxes in the
fiefs, these being still under the control of the feudal barons; and in
the absence of widely organized commerce or finance, no access to funds
presented itself. Doubtless the minds of these men were sharpened by the
necessities confronting them, yet it speaks eloquently for their
discernment that, samurai as they were, without any business training
whatever, one of their first essays was to establish organizations which
should take charge of the national revenue, encourage industry and
promote trade and production by lending money at comparatively low rates
of interest. The tentative character of these attempts is evidenced by
frequent changes. There was first a business bureau, then a trade
bureau, then commercial companies, and then exchange companies, these
last being established in the principal cities and at the open ports,
their personnel consisting of the three great families--Mitsui, Shimada
and Ono--houses of ancient repute, as well as other wealthy merchants in
Kioto, Osaka and elsewhere. These exchange companies were partnerships,
though not strictly of the joint-stock kind. They formed the nucleus of
banks in Japan, and their functions included, for the first time, the
receiving of deposits and the lending of money to merchants and
manufacturers. They had power to issue notes, and, at the same time, the
government issued notes on its own account. Indeed, in this latter fact
is to be found one of the motives for organizing the exchange companies,
the idea being that if the state's notes were lent to the companies, the
people would become familiarized with the use of such currency, and the
companies would find them convenient capital. But this system was
essentially unsound: the notes, alike of the treasury and of the
companies, though nominally convertible, were not secured by any fixed
stock of specie. Four years sufficed to prove the unpracticality of such
an arrangement, and in 1872 the exchange companies were swept away, to
be succeeded in July 1873 by the establishment of national banks on a
system which combined some of the features of English banking with the
general bases of American. Each bank had to pay into the treasury 60%
of its capital in government notes. It was credited in return with
interest-bearing bonds, which bonds were to be left in the treasury as
security for the issue of bank-notes to an equal amount, the banks being
required to keep in gold the remaining 40% of their capital as a fund
for converting the notes, which conversion must always be effected on
application. The elaborators of this programme were Ito, Inouye, Okuma
and Shibusawa. They added a provision designed to prevent the
establishment of too small banks, namely, that the capital of each bank
must bear a fixed ratio to the population of its place of business.
Evidently the main object of the treasury was gradually to replace its
own fiat paper with convertible bank-notes. But experience quickly
proved that the scheme was unworkable. The treasury notes had been
issued in such large volume that sharp depreciation had ensued; gold
could not be procured except at a heavy cost, and the balance of foreign
trade being against Japan, some 300,000,000 _yen_ in specie flowed out
of the country between 1872 and 1874.
It should be noted that at this time foreign trade was still invested
with a perilous character in Japanese eyes. In early days, while the
Dutch had free access to her ports, they sold her so much and bought
so little in return that an immense quantity of the precious metals
flowed out of her coffers. Again, when over-sea trade was renewed in
modern times, Japan's exceptional financial condition presented to
foreigners an opportunity of which they did not fail to take full
advantage. For, during her long centuries of seclusion, gold had come
to hold to silver in her coinage a ratio of 1 to 8, so that gold cost,
in terms of silver, only one-half of what it cost in the West. On the
other hand, the treaty gave foreign traders the right to exchange
their own silver coins against Japanese, weight for weight, and thus
it fell out that the foreigner, going to Japan with a supply of
Mexican dollars, could buy with them twice as much gold as they had
cost in Mexico. Japan lost very heavily by this system, and its
effects accentuated the dread with which her medieval experience had
invested foreign commerce. Thus, when the balance of trade swayed
heavily in the wrong direction between 1872 and 1874, the fact created
undue consternation, and moreover there can be no doubt that the
drafters of the bank regulations had over-estimated the quantity of
available gold in the country.
All these things made it impossible to keep the bank-notes long in
circulation. They were speedily returned for conversion; no deposits
came to the aid of the banks, nor did the public make any use of them.
Disaster became inevitable. The two great firms of Ono and Shimada,
which had stood high in the nation's estimation alike in feudal and in
imperial days, closed their doors in 1874; a panic ensued, and the
circulation of money ceased almost entirely.
Change of the Banking System.
Evidently the banking system must be changed. The government bowed to
necessity. They issued a revised code of banking regulations which
substituted treasury notes in the place of specie. Each bank was
thenceforth required to invest 80% of its capital in 6% state bonds,
and these being lodged with the treasury, the bank became competent to
issue an equal quantity of its own notes, forming with the remainder
of its capital a reserve of treasury notes for purposes of redemption.
This was a complete subversion of the government's original scheme.
But no alternative offered. Besides, the situation presented a new
feature. The hereditary pensions of the feudatories had been commuted
with bonds aggregating 174,000,000 _yen_. Were this large volume of
bonds issued at once, their heavy depreciation would be likely to
follow, and moreover their holders, unaccustomed to dealing with
financial problems, might dispose of the bonds and invest the proceeds
in hazardous enterprises. To devise some opportunity for the safe and
profitable employment of these bonds seemed, therefore, a pressing
necessity, and the newly organized national banks offered such an
opportunity. For bond-holders, combining to form a bank, continued to
draw from the treasury 6% on their bonds, while they acquired power to
issue a corresponding amount of notes which could be lent at
profitable rates. The programme worked well. Whereas, up to 1876, only
five banks were established under the original regulations, the number
under the new rule was 151 in 1879, their aggregate capital having
grown in the same interval from 2,000,000 _yen_ to 40,000,000 _yen_,
and their note issues from less than 1,000,000 to over 34,000,000.
Here, then, was a rapidly growing system resting wholly on state
credit. Something like a mania for bank-organizing declared itself,
and in 1878 the government deemed it necessary to legislate against
the establishment of any more national banks, and to limit to
34,000,000 _yen_ the aggregate note issues of those already in
existence.
It is possible that the conditions which prevailed immediately after
the establishment of the national banks might have developed some
permanency had not the Satsuma rebellion broken out in 1877. Increased
taxation to meet military outlay being impossible in such
circumstances, nothing offered except recourse to further note
issues. The result was that by 1881, fourteen years after the
Restoration, notes whose face value aggregated 164,000,000 _yen_ had
been put into circulation; the treasury possessed specie amounting to
only 8,000,000 _yen_, and 18 paper _yen_ could be purchased with 10
silver ones.
Resumption of Specie Payments.
Up to 1881 fitful efforts had been made to strengthen the specie value
of fiat paper by throwing quantities of gold and silver upon the
market from time to time, and 23,000,000 _yen_ had been devoted to the
promotion of industries whose products, it was hoped, would go to
swell the list of exports, and thus draw specie to the country. But
these devices were now finally abandoned, and the government applied
itself steadfastly to reducing the volume of the fiduciary currency on
the one hand, and accumulating a specie reserve on the other. The
steps of the programme were simple. By cutting down administrative
expenditure; by transferring certain charges from the treasury to the
local communes; by suspending all grants in aid of provincial public
works and private enterprises, and by a moderate increase of the tax
on alcohol, an annual surplus of revenue, totalling 7,500,000 _yen_,
was secured. This was applied to reducing the volume of the notes in
circulation. At the same time, it was resolved that all officially
conducted industrial and agricultural works should be sold--since
their purpose of instruction and example seemed now to have been
sufficiently achieved--and the proceeds, together with various
securities (aggregating 26,000,000 _yen_ in face value) held by the
treasury, were applied to the purchase of specie. Had the government
entered the market openly as a seller of its own fiduciary notes, its
credit must have suffered. There were also ample reasons to doubt
whether any available stores of precious metal remained in the
country. In obedience to elementary economical laws, the cheap money
had steadily driven out the dear, and although the government mint at
Osaka, founded in 1871, had struck gold and silver coins worth
80,000,000 _yen_ between that date and 1881, the customs returns
showed that a great part of this metallic currency had flowed out of
the country. In these circumstances Japanese financiers decided that
only one course remained: the treasury must play the part of national
banker. Produce and manufactures destined for export must be purchased
by the state with fiduciary notes, and the metallic proceeds of their
sales abroad must be collected and stored in the treasury. This
programme required the establishment of consulates in the chief marts
of the Occident, and the organization of a great central bank--the
present Bank of Japan--as well as of a secondary bank--the present
Specie Bank of Yokohama--the former to conduct transactions with
native producers and manufacturers, the latter to finance the business
of exportation. The outcome of these various arrangements was that, by
the middle of 1885, the volume of fiduciary notes had been reduced to
119,000,000 _yen_, their depreciation had fallen to 3%, and the
metallic reserve of the treasury had increased to 45,000,000 _yen_.
The resumption of specie payments was then announced, and became, in
the autumn of that year, an accomplished fact. From the time when this
programme began to be effective, Japan entered a period of favourable
balance of trade. According to accepted economic theories, the
influence of an appreciating currency should be to encourage imports;
but the converse was seen in Japan's case, for from 1882 her exports
annually exceeded her imports, the maximum excess being reached in
1886, the very year after the resumption of specie payments.
The above facts deserve to figure largely in a retrospect of Japanese
finance, not merely because they set forth a fine economic feat,
indicating clear insight, good organizing capacity, and courageous
energy, but also because volumes of adverse foreign criticism were
written in the margin of the story during the course of the incidents
it embodies. Now Japan was charged with robbing her own people because
she bought their goods with paper money and sold them for specie;
again, she was accused of an official conspiracy to ruin the foreign
local banks because she purchased exporters' bills on Europe and
America at rates that defied ordinary competition; and while some
declared that she was plainly without any understanding of her own
doings, others predicted that her heroic method of dealing with the
problem would paralyze industry, interrupt trade and produce
widespread suffering. Undoubtedly, to carry the currency of a nation
from a discount of 70 or 80% to par in the course of four years,
reducing its volume at the same time from 160 to 119 million _yen_,
was a financial enterprise violent and daring almost to rashness. The
gentler expedient of a foreign loan would have commended itself to the
majority of economists. But it may be here stated, once for all, that
until her final adoption of a gold standard in 1897, the foreign money
market was practically closed to Japan. Had she borrowed abroad it
must have been on a sterling basis. Receiving a fixed sum in silver,
she would have had to discharge her debt in rapidly appreciating gold.
Twice, indeed, she had recourse to London for small sums, but when she
came to cast up her accounts the cost of the accommodation stood out
in deterrent proportions. A 9% loan, placed in England in 1868 and
paid off in 1889, produced 3,750,000 _yen_, and cost altogether
11,750,000 _yen_ in round figures; and a 7% loan, made in 1872 and
paid off in 1897, produced 10,750,000 _yen_, and cost 36,000,000
_yen_. These considerations were supplemented by a strong aversion
from incurring pecuniary obligations to Western states before the
latter had consented to restore Japan's judicial and tariff autonomy.
The example of Egypt showed what kind of fate might overtake a
semi-independent state falling into the clutches of foreign
bond-holders. Japan did not wish to fetter herself with foreign debts
while struggling to emerge from the rank of Oriental powers.
Closing of the National Banks.
After the revision of the national bank regulations, semi-official
banking enterprise won such favour in public eyes that the government
found it necessary to impose limits. This conservative policy proved
an incentive to private banks and banking companies, so that, by the
year 1883, no less than 1093 banking institutions were in existence
throughout Japan with an aggregate capital of 900,000,000 yen. But
these were entirely lacking in arrangements for combination or for
equalizing rates of interest, and to correct such defects, no less
than ultimately to constitute the sole note-issuing institution, a
central bank (the Bank of Japan) was organized on the model of the
Bank of Belgium, with due regard to corresponding institutions in
other Western countries and to the conditions existing in Japan.
Established in 1882 with a capital of 4,000,000 yen, this bank has now
a capital of 30 millions, a security reserve of 206 millions, a
note-issue of 266 millions, a specie reserve of 160 millions, and
loans of 525 millions.
The banking machinery of the country being now complete, in a general
sense, steps were taken in 1883 for converting the national banks into
ordinary joint-stock concerns and for the redemption of all their
note-issues. Each national bank was required to deposit with the
treasury the government paper kept in its strong room as security for
its own notes, and further to take from its annual profits and hand to
the treasury a sum equal to 2(1/2)% of its notes in circulation. With
these funds the central bank was to purchase state bonds, devoting the
interest to redeeming the notes of the national banks. Formed with the
object of disturbing the money market as little as possible, this
programme encountered two obstacles. The first was that, in view of
the Bank of Japan's purchases, the market price of state bonds rose
rapidly, so that, whereas official financiers had not expected them to
reach par before 1897, they were quoted at a considerable premium in
1886. The second was that the treasury having in 1886 initiated the
policy of converting its 6% bonds into 5% consols, the former no
longer produced interest at the rate estimated for the purposes of the
banking scheme. The national banks thus found themselves in an
embarrassing situation and began to clamour for a revision of the
programme. But the government, seeing compensations for them in other
directions, adhered firmly to its scheme. Few problems have caused
greater controversy in modern Japan than this question of the ultimate
fate of the national banks. Not until 1896 could the diet be induced
to pass a bill providing for their dissolution at the close of their
charter terms, or their conversion into ordinary joint-stock concerns
without any note-issuing power, and not until 1899 did their notes
cease to be legal tender. Out of a total of 153 of these banks, 132
continued business as private institutions, and the rest were absorbed
or dissolved. Already (1890 and 1893) minute regulations had been
enacted bringing all the banks and banking institutions--except the
special banks to be presently described--within one system of
semi-annual balance-sheets and official auditing, while in the case of
savings banks the directors' responsibility was declared unlimited and
these banks were required to lodge security with the treasury for the
protection of their depositors.
Special Banks.
Just as the ordinary banks were all centred on the Bank of Japan[24]
and more or less connected with it, so in 1895, a group of special
institutions, called agricultural and commercial banks, were organized
and centred on a hypothec bank, the object of this system being to
supply cheap capital to farmers and manufacturers on the security of
real estate. The hypothec bank had its head office in Tokyo and was
authorized to obtain funds by issuing premium-bearing bonds, while an
agricultural and industrial bank was established in each prefecture
and received assistance from the hypothec bank. Two years later
(1900), an industrial bank--sometimes spoken of as the _credit
mobilier_ of Japan--was brought into existence under official
auspices, its purpose being to lend money against bonds, debentures
and shares as well as to public corporations. These various
institutions, together with clearing houses, bankers' associations,
the Hokkaido colonial bank, the bank of Formosa, savings banks
(including a post-office savings bank), and a mint complete the
financial machinery of modern Japan.
Review of Banking Development.
Reviewing this chapter of Japan's material development, we find that
whereas, at the beginning of the Meiji era (1867), the nation did not
possess so much as one banking institution worthy of the name, forty
years later it had 2211 banks, with a paid-up capital of L40,000,000,
reserves of L12,000,000, and deposits of L147,000,000; and whereas
there was not one savings bank in 1867, there were 487 in 1906 with
deposits of over L50,000,000. The average yearly dividends of these
banks in the ten years ending 1906 varied between 9.1 and 9.9%.
Insurance.
Necessarily the movement of industrial expansion was accompanied by a
development of insurance business. The beginnings of this kind of
enterprise did not become visible, however, until 1881, and even at
that comparatively recent date no Japanese laws had yet been enacted
for the control of such operations. The commercial code, published in
March 1890, was the earliest legislation which met the need, and from
that time the number of insurance companies and the volume of their
transactions grew rapidly. In 1897, there were 35 companies with a
total paid-up capital of 7,000,000 _yen_ and policies aggregating
971,000,000 _yen_, and in 1906 the corresponding figures were 65
companies, 22,000,000 _yen_ paid up and policies of 4,149,000,000
_yen_. The premium reserves grew in the same period from 7,000,000 to
108,000,000. The net profits of these companies in 1906 were (in round
numbers) 10,000,000 _yen_.
Clearing Houses.
The origin of clearing houses preceded that of insurance companies in
Japan by only two years (1879). Osaka set the example, which was
quickly followed by Tokyo, Kobe, Yokohama, Kioto and Nagoya. In 1898
the bills handled at these institutions amounted to 1,186,000,000
_yen_, and in 1907 to 7,484,000,000 _yen_. Japanese clearing houses
are modelled after those of London and New York.
Bourses.
Exchanges existed in Japan as far back as the close of the 17th
century. At that time the income of the feudal chiefs consisted almost
entirely of rice, and as this was sold to brokers, the latter found it
convenient to meet at fixed times and places for conducting their
business. Originally their transactions were all for cash, but
afterwards they devised time bargains which ultimately developed into
a definite form of exchange. The reform of abuses incidental to this
system attracted the early attention of the Meiji government, and in
1893 a law was promulgated for the control of exchanges, which then
numbered 146. Under this law the minimum share capital of a bourse
constituted as a joint-stock company was fixed at 100,000 _yen_, and
the whole of its property became liable for failure on the part of its
brokers to implement their contracts. There were 51 bourses in 1908.
The Government and Economic Development.
Not less remarkable than this economic development was the large part
acted in it by officialdom. There were two reasons for this. One was
that a majority of the men gifted with originality and foresight were
drawn into the ranks of the administration by the great current of the
revolution; the other, that the feudal system had tended to check
rather than to encourage material development, since the limits of
each fief were also the limits of economical and industrial
enterprise. Ideas for combination and co-operation had been confined
to a few families, and there was nothing to suggest the organization
of companies nor any law to protect them if organized. Thus the
opening of the Meiji era found the Japanese nation wholly unqualified
for the commercial and manufacturing competition in which it was
thenceforth required to engage, and therefore upon those who had
brought the country out of its isolation there devolved the
responsibility of speedily preparing their fellow countrymen for the
new situation. To these leaders banking facilities seemed to be the
first need, and steps were accordingly taken in the manner already
described. But how to educate men of affairs at a moment's notice? How
to replace by a spirit of intelligent progress the ignorance and
conservatism of the hitherto despised traders and artisans? When the
first bank was organized, its two founders--men who had been urged,
nay almost compelled, by officialdom to make the essay--were obliged
to raise four-fifths of the capital themselves, the general public not
being willing to subscribe more than one-fifth--a petty sum of 500,000
yen--and when its staff commenced their duties, they had not the most
shadowy conception of what to do. That was a faithful reflection of
the condition of the business world at large. If the initiative of the
people themselves had been awaited, Japan's career must have been slow
indeed.
Only one course offered, namely, that the government itself should
organize a number of productive enterprises on modern lines, so that
they might serve as schools and also as models. Such, as already noted
under _Industries_, was the programme adopted. It provoked much
hostile criticism from foreign onlookers, who had learned to decry all
official incursions into trade and industry, but had not properly
appreciated the special conditions existing in Japan. The end
justified the means. At the outset of its administration we find the
Meiji government not only forming plans for the circulation of money,
building railways and organizing posts and telegraphs, but also
establishing dockyards, spinning mills, printing-houses, silk-reeling
filatures, paper-making factories and so forth, thus by example
encouraging these kinds of enterprise and by legislation providing for
their safe prosecution. Yet progress was slow. One by one and at long
intervals joint-stock companies came into existence, nor was it until
the resumption of specie payments in 1886 that a really effective
spirit of enterprise manifested itself among the people. Railways,
harbours, mines, spinning, weaving, paper-making, oil-refining,
brick-making, leather-tanning, glass-making and other industries
attracted eager attention, and whereas the capital subscribed for such
works aggregated only 50,000,000 _yen_ in 1886, it exceeded
1,000,000,000 _yen_ in 1906.
Adoption of the Gold Standard.
When specie payments were resumed in 1885, the notes issued by the
Bank of Japan were convertible into silver on demand, the silver
standard being thus definitely adopted, a complete reversal of the
system inaugurated at the establishment of the national banks on
Prince Ito's return from the United States. Japanese financiers
believed from the outset in gold monometallism. But, in the first
place, the country's stock of gold was soon driven out by her
depreciated fiat currency; and, in the second, not only were all other
Oriental nations silver-using, but also the Mexican silver dollar had
long been the unit of account in Far-Eastern trade. Thus Japan
ultimately drifted into silver monometallism, the silver _yen_
becoming her unit of currency. So soon, however, as the indemnity that
she received from China after the war of 1894-95 had placed her in
possession of a stock of gold, she determined to revert to the gold
standard. Mechanically speaking, the operation was very easy. Gold
having appreciated so that its value in terms of silver had exactly
doubled during the first 30 years of the Meiji era, nothing was
necessary except to double the denominations of the gold coins in
terms of _yen_, leaving the silver subsidiary coins unchanged. Thus
the old 5-_yen_ gold piece, weighing 2.22221 _momme_ of 900 fineness,
became a 10-_yen_ piece in the new currency, and a new 5-_yen_ piece
of half the weight was coined. No change whatever was required in the
reckonings of the people. The _yen_ continued to be their coin of
account, with a fixed sterling value of a small fraction over two
shillings, and the denominations of the gold coins were doubled. Gold,
however, is little seen in Japan; the whole duty of currency is done
by notes.
It is not to be supposed that all this economic and financial
development was unchequered by periods of depression and severe panic.
There were in fact six such seasons: in 1874, 1881, 1889, 1897, 1900
and 1907. But no year throughout the whole period failed to witness an
increase in the number of Japan's industrial and commercial companies,
and in the amount of capital thus invested.
State Revenue.
To obtain a comprehensive idea of Japan's state finance, the simplest
method is to set down the annual revenue at quinquennial periods,
commencing with the year 1878-1879, because it was not until 1876 that
the system of duly compiled and published budgets came into existence.
REVENUE (omitting fractions)
+--------+-----------+-------------+-------------+
| | Ordinary |Extraordinary|Total Revenue|
| Year.* | Revenue | Revenue | (millions |
| | (millions | (millions | of _yen_). |
| | of _yen_).| of _yen_). | |
+--------+-----------+-------------+-------------+
| 1878-9 | 53 | 9 | 62 |
| 1883-4 | 76 | 7 | 83 |
| 1888-9 | 74 | 18 | 92 |
| 1893-4 | 86 | 28 | 114 |
| 1898-9 | 133 | 87 | 220 |
| 1903-4 | 224 | 36 | 260 |
| 1908-9 | 476 | 144 | 620 |
+--------+-----------+-------------+-------------+
* The Japanese fiscal year is from April 1 to March 31.
The most striking feature of the above table is the rapid growth of
revenue during the last three periods. So signal was the growth that
the revenue may be said to have sextupled in the 15 years ended 1909.
This was the result of the two great wars in which Japan was involved,
that with China in 1894-95 and that with Russia in 1904-5. The details
will be presently shown.
Turning now to the expenditure and pursuing the same plan, we have the
following figures:--
EXPENDITURE (omitting fractions)
+--------+-------------+-------------+-------------+
| | Ordinary |Extraordinary| Total |
| Year. | Expenditures| Expenditures| Expenditures|
| | (millions | (millions | (millions |
| | of _yen_). | of _yen_). | of _yen_). |
+--------+-------------+-------------+-------------+
| 1878-9 | 56 | 5 | 61 |
| 1883-4 | 68 | 15 | 83 |
| 1888-9 | 66 | 15 | 81 |
| 1893-4 | 64 | 20 | 84 |
| 1898-9 | 119 | 101 | 220 |
| 1903-4 | 170 | 80 | 250 |
| 1908-9 | 427 | 193 | 620 |
+--------+-------------+-------------+-------------+
It may be here stated that, with three exceptions, the working of the
budget showed a surplus in every one of the 41 years between 1867 and
1908.
The sources from which revenue is obtained are as follow:--
ORDINARY REVENUE
+--------------------+---------+---------+---------+---------+
| | 1894-5. | 1898-9. | 1903-4. | 1908-9. |
| +---------+---------+---------+---------+
| |millions |millions |millions |millions |
| |of _yen_.|of _yen_.|of _yen_.|of _yen_.|
+--------------------+---------+---------+---------+---------+
| Taxes | 70.50 | 96.20 | 146.10 | 299.61 |
| Receipts from | | | | |
| stamps and Public| | | | |
| Undertakings | 14.75 | 33.00 | 96.87 | 164.66 |
| Various Receipts | 4.58 | 3.67 | 8.15 | 11.48 |
+--------------------+---------+---------+---------+---------+
It appears from the above that during 15 years the weight of taxation
increased fourfold. But a correction has to be applied, first, on
account of the tax on alcoholic liquors and, secondly, on account of
customs dues, neither of which can properly be called general imposts.
The former grew from 16 millions in 1894-1895 to 72 millions in
1908-1909, and the latter from 5(1/4) millions to 41(1/2) millions. If
these increases be deducted, it is found that taxes, properly so
called, grew from 70.5 millions in 1894-1895 to 207.86 millions in
1908-1909, an increase of somewhat less than three-fold. Otherwise
stated, the burden per unit of population in 1894-1895 was 3s. 6d.,
whereas in 1908-1909 it was 8s. 4d. To understand the principle of
Japanese taxation and the manner in which the above development took
place, it is necessary to glance briefly at the chief taxes
separately.
Land Tax.
The land tax is the principal source of revenue. It was originally
fixed at 3% of the assessed value of the land, but in 1877 this ratio
was reduced to 2(1/2)%, on which basis the tax yielded from 37 to 38
million _yen_ annually. After the war with China (1894-1895) the
government proposed to increase this impost in order to obtain funds
for an extensive programme of useful public works and expanded
armaments (known subsequently as the "first _post bellum_ programme").
By that time the market value of agricultural land had largely
appreciated owing to improved communications, and urban land commanded
greatly enhanced prices. But the lower house of the diet, considering
itself guardian of the farmers' interests, refused to endorse any
increase of the tax. Not until 1889 could this resistance be overcome,
and then only on condition that the change should not be operative for
more than 5 years. The amended rates were 3.3% on rural lands and 5%
on urban building sites. Thus altered, the tax produced 46,000,000
_yen_, but at the end of the five-year period it would have reverted
to its old figure, had not war with Russia broken out. An increase was
then made so that the impost varied from 3% to 17(1/2)% according to
the class of land, and under this new system the tax yielded 85
millions. Thus the exigencies of two wars had augmented it from 38
millions in 1889 to 85 millions in 1907.
Income Tax.
The income tax was introduced in 1887. It was on a graduated scale,
varying from 1% on incomes of not less than 300 _yen_, to 3% on
incomes of 30,000 _yen_ and upwards. At these rates the tax yielded an
insignificant revenue of about 2,000,000 _yen_. In 1899, a revision
was effected for the purposes of the first _post bellum_ programme.
This revision increased the number of classes from five to ten,
incomes of 300 _yen_ standing at the bottom and incomes of 100,000
_yen_ or upwards at the top, the minimum and maximum rates being 1%
and 5(1/2)%. The tax now produced approximately 8,000,000 _yen_.
Finally in 1904, when war broke out with Russia, these rates were
again revised, the minimum now becoming 2%, and the maximum 8.2%. Thus
revised, the tax yields a revenue of 27,000,000 _yen_.
Business Tax.
The business tax was instituted in 1896, after the war with China, and
the rates have remained unchanged. For the purposes of the tax all
kinds of business are divided into nine classes, and the tax is levied
on the amounts of sales (wholesale and retail), on rental value of
buildings, on number of employees and on amount of capital. The yield
from the tax grows steadily. It was only 4,500,000 _yen_ in 1897, but
it figured at 22,000,000 _yen_ in the budget for 1908-1909.
Tax on Alcoholic Liquors.
The above three imposts constitute the only direct taxes in Japan.
Among indirect taxes the most important is that upon alcoholic
liquors. It was inaugurated in 1871; doubled, roughly speaking, in
1878; still further increased thenceforth at intervals of about 3
years, until it is now approximately twenty times as heavy as it was
originally. The liquor taxed is mainly sake; the rate is about 50
_sen_ (one shilling) per gallon, and the annual yield is 72,000,000
_yen_.
Customs Duties.
In 1859, when Japan re-opened her ports to foreign commerce, the
customs dues were fixed on a basis of 10% _ad valorem_, but this was
almost immediately changed to a nominal 5% and a real 3%. The customs
then yielded a very petty return--not more than three or four million
_yen_--and the Japanese government had no discretionary power to alter
the rates. Strenuous efforts to change this system were at length
successful, and, in 1899, the tariff was divided into two sections,
conventional and statutory; the rates in the former being governed by
a treaty valid for 12 years; those in the latter being fixed at
Japan's will. Things remained thus until the war with Russia
compelled a revision of the statutory tariff. Under this system the
ratio of the duties to the value of the dutiable goods was about
15.65%. The customs yield a revenue of about 42,000,000 _yen_.
Other Taxes.
In addition to the above there are eleven taxes, some in existence
before the war of 1904-5, and some created for the purpose of carrying
on the war or to meet the expenses of a _post bellum_ programme.
Taxes in existence before 1904-1905:--
Yield
Name. (millions of _yen_).
Tax on soy 4
Tax on sugar 16(1/4)
Mining tax 2
Tax on bourses 2
Tax on issue of bank-notes 1
Tonnage dues 1/2
Taxes created on account of the war (1904-5) or in its immediate
sequel:--
Yield
Name. (millions of _yen_).
Consumption tax on textile fabrics 19(1/2)
Tax on dealers in patent medicines (1/4)
Tax on communications 2(1/3)
Consumption tax on kerosene 1(1/2)
Succession tax 1(1/2)
Also, as shown above, the land tax was increased by 39 millions; the
income tax by 19 millions; the business tax by 15 millions; and the
tax on alcoholic liquors by 15 millions. On the whole, if taxes of
general incidence and those of special incidence be lumped together,
it appears that the burden swelled from 160,000,000 _yen_ before the
war to 320,000,000 after it.
State Monopolies and Manufactures.
The government of Japan carries on many manufacturing undertakings for
purposes of military and naval equipment, for ship-building, for the
construction of railway rolling stock, for the manufacture of
telegraph and light-house materials, for iron-founding and
steel-making, for printing, for paper-making and so forth. There are
48 of these institutions, giving employment to 108,000 male operatives
and 23,000 female, together with 63,000 labourers. But the financial
results do not appear independently in the general budget. Three other
government undertakings, however, constitute important budgetary
items: they are, the profits derived from the postal and telegraph
services, 39,000,000 _yen_; secondly, from forests, 13,000,000 _yen_;
and thirdly, from railways, 37,000,000 _yen_. The government further
exercises a monopoly of three important staples, tobacco, salt and
camphor. In each case the crude article is produced by private
individuals from whom it is taken over at a fair price by the
government, and, having been manufactured (if necessary), it is resold
by government agents at fixed prices. The tobacco monopoly yields a
profit of some 33,000,000 _yen_; the salt monopoly a profit of
12,000,000 _yen_, and the camphor monopoly a profit of 1,000,000
_yen_. Thus the ordinary revenue of the state consisted in 1908-1909
of:--
_Yen._
Proceeds of taxes 320,000,000
Proceeds of state enterprises (posts and
telegraphs, forests and railways) 89,000,000
Proceeds of monopolies 56,000,000
Sundries 11,000,000
-----------
Total 476,000,000
The ordinary expenditures of the nine departments of state
aggregated--in 1908-1909--427,000,000 _yen_, so that there was a
surplus revenue of 49,000,000 _yen_.
Extraordinary Expenditures.
Japanese budgets have long included an extraordinary section, so
called because it embodies outlays of a special and terminable
character as distinguished from ordinary and perpetually recurring
expenditures. The items in this extraordinary section possessed deep
interest in the years 1896 and 1907, because they disclosed the
special programmes mapped out by Japanese financiers and statesmen
after the wars with China and Russia. Both programmes had the same
bases--expansion of armaments and development of the country's
material resources. After her war with China, Japan received a plain
intimation that she must either fight again after a few years or
resign herself to a career of insignificance on the confines of the
Far East. No other interpretation could be assigned to the action of
Russia, Germany and France in requiring her to retrocede the territory
which she had acquired by right of conquest. Japan therefore made
provision for the doubling of her army and her navy, for the growth of
a mercantile marine qualified to supply a sufficiency of troop-ships,
and for the development of resources which should lighten the burden
of these outlays.
The war with Russia ensued nine years after these preparations had
begun, and Japan emerged victorious. It then seemed to the onlooking
nations that she would rest from her warlike efforts. On the contrary,
just as she had behaved after her war with China, so she now behaved
after her war with Russia--made arrangements to double her army and
navy and to develop her material resources. The government drafted for
the year 1907-1908 a budget with three salient features. First,
instead of proceeding to deal in a leisurely manner with the greatly
increased national debt, Japan's financiers made dispositions to pay
it off completely in the space of 30 years. Secondly, a total outlay
of 422,000,000 _yen_ was set down for improving and expanding the army
and the navy. Thirdly, expenditures aggregating 304,000,000 _yen_ were
estimated for productive purposes. All these outlays, included in the
extraordinary section of the budget, were spread over a series of
years commencing in 1907 and ending in 1913, so that the disbursements
would reach their maximum in the fiscal year 1908-1909 and would
thenceforth decline with growing rapidity. To finance this programme
three constant sources of annual revenue were provided, namely,
increased taxation, yielding some 30 millions yearly; domestic loans,
varying from 30 to 40 millions each year; and surpluses of ordinary
revenue amounting to from 45 to 75 millions. There were also some
exceptional and temporary assets: such as 100,000,000 _yen_ remaining
over from the war fund; 50 millions paid by Russia for the maintenance
of her officers and soldiers during their imprisonment in Japan;
occasional sales of state properties and so forth. But the backbone of
the scheme was the continuing revenue detailed above.
The house of representatives unanimously approved this programme. By
the bulk of the nation, however, it was regarded with something like
consternation, and a very short time sufficed to demonstrate its
impracticability. From the beginning of 1907 a cloud of commercial and
industrial depression settled down upon Japan, partly because of so
colossal a programme of taxes and expenditures, and partly owing to
excessive speculation during the year 1906 and to unfavourable
financial conditions abroad. To float domestic loans became a hopeless
task, and thus one of the three sources of extraordinary revenue
ceased to be available. There remained no alternative but to modify
the programme, and this was accomplished by extending the original
period of years so as correspondingly to reduce the annual outlays.
The nation, however, as represented by its leading men of affairs,
clamoured for still more drastic measures, and it became evident that
the government must study retrenchment, not expansion, eschewing above
all things any increase of the country's indebtedness. A change of
ministry took place, and the new cabinet drafted a programme on five
bases: first, that all expenditures should be brought within the
margin of actual visible revenue, loans being wholly abstained from;
secondly, that the estimates should not include any anticipated
surpluses of yearly revenue; thirdly, that appropriations of at least
50,000,000 _yen_ should be annually set aside to form a sinking fund,
the whole of the foreign debt being thus extinguished in 27 years;
fourthly, that the state railways should be placed in a separate
account, all their profits being devoted to extensions and repairs;
and fifthly, that the period for completing the _post bellum_
programme should be extended from 6 years to 11. This scheme had the
effect of restoring confidence in the soundness of the national
finances.
_National Debt._--When the fiefs were surrendered to the sovereign at
the beginning of the Meiji era, it was decided to provide for the
feudal nobles and the samurai by the payment of lump sums in
commutation, or by handing to them public bonds, the interest on which
should constitute a source of income. The result of this transaction
was that bonds having a total face value of 191,500,000 _yen_ were
issued, and ready-money payments were made aggregating 21,250,000
_yen_.[25] This was the foundation of Japan's national debt. Indeed,
these public bonds may be said to have represented the bulk of the
state's liabilities during the first 25 years of the Meiji period. The
government had also to take over the debts of the fiefs, amounting to
41,000,000 _yen_, of which 21,500,000 _yen_ were paid with
interest-bearing bonds, the remainder with ready money. If to the
above figures be added two foreign loans aggregating 16,500,000 _yen_
(completely repaid by the year 1897); a loan of 15,000,000 _yen_
incurred on account of the Satsuma revolt of 1877; loans of 33,000,000
_yen_ for public works, 13,000,000 _yen_ for naval construction, and
14,500,000 _yen_[26] in connexion with the fiat currency, we have a
total of 305,000,000 _yen_, being the whole national debt of Japan
during the first 28 years of her new era under Imperial
administration.
The second epoch dates from the war with China in 1894-95. The direct
expenditures on account of the war aggregated 200,000,000 _yen_, of
which 135,000,000 _yen_ were added to the national debt, the remainder
being defrayed with accumulations of surplus revenue, with a part of
the indemnity received from China, and with voluntary contributions
from patriotic subjects. As the immediate sequel of the war, the
government elaborated a large programme of armaments and public works.
The expenditure for these unproductive purposes, as well as for coast
fortifications, dockyards, and so on, came to 314,000,000 _yen_, and
the total of the productive expenditures included in the programme was
190,000,000 _yen_--namely, 120 millions for railways, telegraphs and
telephones; 20 millions for riparian improvements; 20 millions in aid
of industrial and agricultural banks and so forth--the whole programme
thus involving an outlay of 504,000,000 _yen_. To meet this large
figure, the Chinese indemnity, surpluses of annual revenue and other
assets, furnished 300 millions; and it was decided that the remaining
204 millions should be obtained by domestic loans, the programme to be
carried completely into operation--with trifling exceptions--by the
year 1905. In practice, however, it was found impossible to obtain
money at home without paying a high rate of interest. The government,
therefore, had recourse to the London market in 1899, raising a loan
of L10,000,000 at 4%, and selling the L100 bonds at 90. In 1902, it
was not expected that Japan would need any further immediate recourse
to foreign borrowing. According to her financiers' forecast at that
time, her national indebtedness would reach its maximum, namely,
575,000,000 _yen_, in the year 1903, and would thenceforward diminish
steadily. All Japan's domestic loans were by that time placed on a
uniform basis. They carried 5% interest, ran for a period of 5 years
without redemption, and were then to be redeemed within 50 years at
latest. The treasury had power to expedite the operation of redemption
according to financial convenience, but the sum expended on
amortization each year must receive the previous consent of the diet.
Within the limit of that sum redemption was effected either by
purchasing the stock of the loans in the open market or by drawing
lots to determine the bonds to be paid off. During the first two
periods (1867 to 1897) of the Meiji era, owing to the processes of
conversion, consolidation, &c., and to the various requirements of the
state's progress, twenty-two different kinds of national bonds were
issued; they aggregated 673,215,500 _yen_; 269,042,198 _yen_ of that
total had been paid off at the close of 1897, and the remainder was to
be redeemed by 1946, according to these programmes.
But at this point the empire became involved in war with Russia, and
the enormous resulting outlays caused a signal change in the financial
situation. Before peace was restored in the autumn of 1905, Japan had
been obliged to borrow 405,000,000 _yen_ at home and 1,054,000,000
abroad, so that she found herself in 1908 with a total debt of
2,276,000,000 _yen_, of which aggregate her domestic indebtedness
stood for 1,110,000,000 and her foreign borrowings amounted to
1,166,000,000. This meant that her debt had grown from 561,000,000
_yen_ in 1904 to 2,276,000,000 _yen_[27] in 1908; or from 11.3 _yen_
to 43.8 _yen_ per head of the population. Further, out of the grand
total, the sum actually spent on account of war and armaments
represented 1,357,000,000 _yen_. The debt carried interest varying
from 4 to 5%.
It will be observed that the country's indebtedness grew by
1,700,000,000 _yen_, in round numbers, owing to the war with Russia.
This added obligation the government resolved to discharge within the
space of 30 years, for which purpose the diet was asked to approve the
establishment of a national debt consolidation fund, which should be
kept distinct from the general accounts of revenue and expenditure,
and specially applied to payment of interest and redemption of
principal. The amount of this fund was never to fall below 110,000,000
_yen_ annually. Immediately after the war, the diet approved a cabinet
proposal for the nationalization of 17 private railways, at a cost of
500,000,000 _yen_, and this brought the state's debts to 2,776,000,000
_yen_ in all. The people becoming impatient of this large burden, a
scheme was finally adopted in 1908 for appropriating a sum of at least
50,000,000 _yen_ annually to the purpose of redemption.
_Local Finance._--Between 1878 and 1888 a system of local autonomy in
matters of finance was fully established. Under this system the total
expenditures of the various corporations in the last year of each
quinquennial period commencing from the fiscal year 1889-1890 were as
follow:--
Total Expenditure
Year. (millions of _yen_).
1889-1890 22
1893-1894 52
1898-1899 97
1903-1904[28] 158
1907-1908 167
In the same years the total indebtedness of the corporations was:--
Debts
Year. (millions of _yen_).
1890 3/4
1894 10
1899 32
1904 65
1907 89[29]
The chief purposes to which the proceeds of these loans were applied
are as follow:--
Millions of _yen_.
Education 5
Sanitation 12
Industries 13
Public works 52
Local corporations are not competent to incur unrestricted
indebtedness. The endorsement of the local assembly must be secured;
redemption must commence within 3 years after the date of issue and be
completed within 30 years; and, except in the case of very small
loans, the sanction of the minister of home affairs must be obtained.
_Wealth of Japan._--With reference to the wealth of Japan, there is no
official census. So far as can be estimated from statistics for the
year 1904-1905, the wealth of Japan proper, excluding Formosa,
Sakhalin and some rights in Manchuria, amounts to about 19,896,000,000
_yen_, the items of which are as follow:--
_Yen_ (10 _yen_ = L1).
Lands 12,301,000,000
Buildings 2,331,000,000
Furniture and fittings 1,080,000,000
Live stock 109,000,000
Railways, telegraphs and telephones 707,000,000
Shipping 376,000,000
Merchandise 873,000,000
Specie and bullion 310,000,000
Miscellaneous 1,809,000,000
--------------
Grand total 19,896,000,000
Early Education.
_Education._--There is no room to doubt that the literature and learning
of China and Korea were transported to Japan in very ancient times, but
tradition is the sole authority for current statements that in the 3rd
century a Korean immigrant was appointed historiographer to the Imperial
court of Japan and another learned man from the same country introduced
the Japanese to the treasures of Chinese literature. About the end of
the 6th century the Japanese court began to send civilians and
religionists direct to China, there to study Confucianism and Buddhism,
and among these travellers there were some who passed as much as 25 or
30 years beyond the sea. The knowledge acquired by these students was
crystallized into a body of laws and ordinances based on the
administrative and legal systems of the Sui dynasty in China, and in the
middle of the 7th century the first Japanese school seems to have been
established by the emperor Tenchi, followed some 50 years later by the
first university. Nara was the site of the latter, and the subjects of
study were ethics, law, history and mathematics.
Not until 794, the date of the transfer of the capital to Kioto,
however, is there any evidence of educational organization on a
considerable scale. A university was then opened in the capital, with
affiliated colleges; and local schools were built and endowed by noble
families, to whose scions admittance was restricted, but for general
education one institution only appears to have been provided. In this
Kioto university the curriculum included the Chinese classics,
calligraphy, history, law, etiquette, arithmetic and composition; while
in the affiliated colleges special subjects were taught, as medicine,
herbalism, acupuncture, shampooing, divination, the almanac and
languages. Admission was limited to youths of high social grade; the
students aggregated some 400, from 13 to 16 years of age; the faculty
included professors and teachers, who were known by the same titles
(_hakase_ and _shi_) as those applied to their successors to-day; and
the government supplied food and clothing as well as books. The family
schools numbered five, and their patrons were the Wage, the Fujiwara,
the Tachibana (one school each) and the Minamoto (two). At the one
institution--opened in 828--where youths in general might receive
instruction, the course embraced only calligraphy and the precepts of
Buddhism and Confucianism.
Combination of Native and Foreign Element.
The above retrospect suggests that Japan, in those early days, borrowed
her educational system and its subjects of study entirely from China.
But closer scrutiny shows that the national factor was carefully
preserved. The ethics of administration required a combination of two
elements, _wakon_, or the soul of Japan, and _kwansai_, or the ability
of China; so that, while adopting from Confucianism the doctrine of
filial piety, the Japanese grafted on it a spirit of unswerving loyalty
and patriotism; and while accepting Buddha's teaching as to three states
of existence, they supplemented it by a belief that in the life beyond
the grave the duty of guarding his country would devolve on every man.
Great academic importance attached to proficiency in literary
composition, which demanded close study of the ideographic script,
endlessly perplexing in form and infinitely delicate in sense. To be
able to compose and indite graceful couplets constituted a passport to
high office as well as to the favour of great ladies, for women vied
with men in this accomplishment. The early years of the 11th century
saw, grouped about the empress Aki, a galaxy of female authors whose
writings are still accounted their country's classics--Murasaki no
Shikibu, Akazome Emon, Izumi Shikibu, Ise Taiyu and several lesser
lights. To the first two Japan owes the _Genji monogatari_ and the _Eiga
monogatari_, respectively, and from the Imperial court of those remote
ages she inherited admirable models of painting, calligraphy, poetry,
music, song and dance. But it is to be observed that all this refinement
was limited virtually to the noble families residing in Kioto, and that
the first object of education in that era was to fit men for office and
for society.
Education in the Middle Ages.
Meanwhile, beyond the precincts of the capital there were rapidly
growing to maturity numerous powerful military magnates who despised
every form of learning that did not contribute to martial excellence. An
illiterate era ensued which reached its climax with the establishment of
feudalism at the close of the 12th century. It is recorded that, about
that time, only one man out of a force of five thousand could decipher
an Imperial mandate addressed to them. Kamakura, then the seat of feudal
government, was at first distinguished for absence of all intellectual
training, but subsequently the course of political events brought
thither from Kioto a number of court nobles whose erudition and
refinement acted as a potent leaven. Buddhism, too, had been from the
outset a strong educating influence. Under its auspices the first great
public library was established (1270) at the temple Shomyo-ji in
Kanazawa. It is said to have contained practically all the Chinese and
Japanese books then existing, and they were open for perusal by every
class of reader. To Buddhist priests, also, Japan owed during many years
all the machinery she possessed for popular education. They organized
schools at the temples scattered about in almost every part of the
empire, and at these _tera-koya_, as they were called, lessons in
ethics, calligraphy, reading and etiquette were given to the sons of
samurai and even to youths of the mercantile and manufacturing classes.
Education in the pre-Meiji Era.
When, at the beginning of the 17th century, administrative supremacy
fell into the hands of the Tokugawa, the illustrious founder of that
dynasty of shoguns, Iyeyasu, showed himself an earnest promoter of
erudition. He employed a number of priests to make copies of Chinese and
Japanese books; he patronized men of learning and he endowed schools. It
does not appear to have occurred to him, however, that the spread of
knowledge was hampered by a restriction which, emanating originally from
the Imperial court in Kioto, forbade any one outside the ranks of the
Buddhist priesthood to become a public teacher. To his fifth successor
Tsunayoshi (1680-1709) was reserved the honour of abolishing this veto.
Tsunayoshi, whatever his faults, was profoundly attached to literature.
By his command a pocket edition of the Chinese classics was prepared,
and the example he himself set in reading and expounding rare books to
audiences of feudatories and their vassals produced something like a
mania for erudition, so that feudal chiefs competed in engaging teachers
and founding schools. The eighth shogun, Yoshimune (1716-1749), was an
even more enlightened ruler. He caused a geography to be compiled and an
astronomical observatory to be constructed; he revoked the veto on the
study of foreign books; he conceived and carried out the idea of
imparting moral education through the medium of calligraphy by preparing
ethical primers whose precepts were embodied in the head-lines of
copy-books, and he encouraged private schools. Iyenari (1787-1838), the
eleventh shogun, and his immediate successor, Iyeyoshi (1838-1853),
patronized learning no less ardently, and it was under the auspices of
the latter that Japan acquired her five classics, the primers of _True
Words_, of _Great Learning_, of _Lesser Learning_, of _Female Ethics_
and of _Women's Filial Piety_.
Thus it may be said that the system of education progressed steadily
throughout the Tokugawa era. From the days of Tsunayoshi the number of
fief schools steadily increased, and as students were admitted free of
all charges, a duty of grateful fealty as well as the impulse of
interfief competition drew thither the sons of all samurai. Ultimately
the number of such schools rose to over 240, and being supported
entirely at the expense of the feudal chiefs, they did no little honour
to the spirit of the era. From 7 to 15 years of age lads attended as day
scholars, being thereafter admitted as boarders, and twice a year
examinations were held in the presence of high officials of the fief.
There were also several private schools where the curriculum consisted
chiefly of moral philosophy, and there were many temple schools, where
ethics, calligraphy, arithmetic, etiquette and, sometimes, commercial
matters were taught. A prominent feature of the system was the bond of
reverential affection uniting teacher and student. Before entering
school a boy was conducted by his father or elder brother to the home of
his future teacher, and there the visitors, kneeling before the teacher,
pledged themselves to obey him in all things and to submit
unquestioningly to any discipline he might impose. Thus the teacher came
to be regarded as a parent, and the veneration paid to him was embodied
in a precept: "Let not a pupil tread within three feet of his teacher's
shadow." In the case of the temple schools the priestly instructor had
full cognisance of each student's domestic circumstances and was guided
by that knowledge in shaping the course of instruction. The universally
underlying principle was, "serve the country and be diligent in your
respective avocations." Sons of samurai were trained in military arts,
and on attaining proficiency many of them travelled about the country,
inuring their bodies to every kind of hardship and challenging all
experts of local fame.
Unfortunately, however, the policy of national seclusion prevented for a
long time all access to the stores of European knowledge. Not until the
beginning of the 18th century did any authorized account of the great
world of the West pass into the hands of the people. A celebrated
scholar (Arai Hakuseki) then compiled two works--_Saiyo kibun_ (_Record
of Occidental Hearsay_), and _Sairan igen_ (_Renderings of Foreign
Languages_)--which embodied much information, obtained from Dutch
sources, about Europe, its conditions and its customs. But of course the
light thus furnished had very restricted influence. It was not
extinguished, however. Thenceforth men's interest centred more and more
on the astronomical, geographical and medical sciences of the West,
though such subjects were not included in academical studies until the
renewal of foreign intercourse in modern times. Then (1857), almost
immediately, the nation turned to Western learning, as it had turned to
Chinese thirteen centuries earlier. The Tokugawa government established
in Yedo an institution called _Bansho-shirabe-dokoro_ (place for
studying foreign books), where Occidental languages were learned and
Occidental works translated. Simultaneously a school for acquiring
foreign medical art (_Seiyo igaku-sho_) was opened, and, a little later
(1862), the _Kaisei-jo_ (place of liberal culture), a college for
studying European sciences, was added to the list of new institutions.
Thus the eve of the Restoration saw the Japanese people already
appreciative of the stores of learning rendered accessible to them by
contact with the Occident.
Commercial Education in Tokugawa Times.
Commercial education was comparatively neglected in the schools. Sons of
merchants occasionally attended the _tera-koya_, but the instruction
they received there had seldom any bearing upon the conduct of trade.
Mercantile knowledge had to be acquired by a system of apprenticeship. A
boy of 9 or 10 was apprenticed for a period of 8 or 9 years to a
merchant, who undertook to support him and teach him a trade. Generally
this young apprentice could not even read or write. He passed through
all the stages of shop menial, errand boy, petty clerk, salesman and
senior clerk, and in the evenings he received instruction from a
teacher, who used for textbooks the manual of letter-writing (_Shosoku
orai_) and the manual of commerce (_Shobai orai_). The latter contained
much useful information, and a youth thoroughly versed in its contents
was competent to discharge responsible duties. When an apprentice,
having attained the position of senior clerk, had given proof of
practical ability, he was often assisted by his master to start business
independently, but under the same firm-name, for which purpose a sum of
capital was given to him or a section of his master's customers were
assigned.
Education in Modern Japan.
When the government of the Restoration came into power, the emperor
solemnly announced that the administration should be conducted on the
principle of employing men of capacity wherever they could be found.
This amounted to a declaration that in choosing officials scholastic
acquirements would thenceforth take precedence of the claims of birth,
and thus unprecedented importance was seen to attach to education. But
so long as the feudal system survived, even in part, no general scheme
of education could be thoroughly enforced, and thus it was not until the
conversion of the fiefs into prefectures in 1871 that the government saw
itself in a position to take drastic steps. A commission of
investigation was sent to Europe and America, and on its return a very
elaborate and extensive plan was drawn up in accordance with French
models, which the commissioners had found conspicuously complete and
symmetrical. This plan subsequently underwent great modifications. It
will be sufficient to say that in consideration of the free education
hitherto provided by the feudatories in their various fiefs, the
government of the restoration resolved not only that the state should
henceforth shoulder the main part of this burden, but also that the
benefits of the system should be extended equally to all classes of the
population, and that the attendance at primary schools should be
compulsory. At the outset the sum to be paid by the treasury was fixed
at 2,000,000 _yen_, that having been approximately the expenditure
incurred by the feudatories. But the financial arrangements suffered
many changes from time to time, and finally, in 1877, the cost of
maintaining the schools became a charge on the local taxes, the central
treasury granting only sums in aid.
Every child, on attaining the age of six, must attend a common
elementary school, where, during a six-years' course, instruction is
given in morals, reading, arithmetic, the rudiments of technical work,
gymnastics and poetry. Year by year the attendance at these schools
has increased. Thus, whereas in the year 1900, only 81.67% of the
school-age children of both sexes received the prescribed elementary
instruction, the figure in 1905 was 94.93%. The desire for instruction
used to be keener among boys than among girls, as was natural in view
of the difference of inducement; but ultimately this discrepancy
disappeared almost completely. Thus, whereas the percentage of girls
attending school was 75.90 in 1900, it rose to 91.46 in 1905, and the
corresponding figures for boys were 90.55 and 97.10 respectively. The
tuition fee paid at a common elementary school in the rural districts
must not exceed 5s. yearly, and in the urban districts, 10s.; but in
practice it is much smaller, for these elementary schools form part of
the communal system, and such portion of their expenses as is not
covered by tuition fees, income from school property and miscellaneous
sources, must be defrayed out of the proceeds of local taxation. In
1909 there were 18,160 common elementary schools, and also 9105
schools classed as elementary but having sections where, subsequently
to the completion of the regular curriculum, a special supplementary
course of study might be pursued in agriculture, commerce or industry
(needle-work in the case of girls). The time devoted to these special
courses is two, three or four years, according to the degree of
proficiency contemplated, and the maximum fees are 15d. per month in
urban districts and one-half of that amount in rural districts.
There are also 294 kindergartens, with an attendance of 26,000
infants, whose parents pay 3d. per month on the average for each
child. In general the kindergartens are connected with elementary
schools or with normal schools.
If a child, after graduation at a common elementary school, desires to
extend its education, it passes into a common middle school, where
training is given for practical pursuits or for admission to higher
educational institutions. The ordinary curriculum at a common middle
school includes moral philosophy, English language, history,
geography, mathematics, natural history, natural philosophy,
chemistry, drawing and the Japanese language. Five years are required
to graduate, and from the fourth year the student may take up a
special technical course as well as the main course; or, in accordance
with local requirements, technical subjects may be taught conjointly
with the regular curriculum throughout the whole time. The law
provides that there must be at least one common middle school in each
prefecture. The actual number in 1909 was 216.
Great inducements attract attendance at a common middle school. Not
only does the graduation certificate carry considerable weight as a
general qualification, but it also entitles a young man to volunteer
for one year's service with the colours, thus escaping one of the two
years he would have to serve as an ordinary conscript.
The graduate of a common middle school can claim admittance, without
examination, to a high school, where he spends three years preparing
to pass to a university, or four years studying a special subject, as
law, engineering or medicine. By following the course in a high
school, a youth obtains exemption from conscription until the age of
28, when one year as a volunteer will free him from all service with
the colours. A high-school certificate of graduation entitles its
holder to enter a university without examination, and qualifies him
for all public posts.
For girls also high schools are provided, the object being to give a
general education of higher standard. Candidates for admission must be
over 12 years of age, and must have completed the second-year course
of a higher elementary school. The regular course of study requires 4
years, and supplementary courses as well as special art courses may be
taken.
In addition to the schools already enumerated, which may be said to
constitute the machinery of general education, there are special
schools, generally private, and technical schools (including a few
private), where instruction is given in medicine and surgery,
agriculture, commerce, mechanics, applied chemistry, navigation,
electrical engineering, art (pictorial and applied), veterinary
science, sericulture and various other branches of industry. There are
also apprentices' schools, classed under the heading of elementary,
where a course of not less than six months, and not more than four
years, may be taken in dyeing and weaving, embroidery, the making of
artificial flowers, tobacco manufacture, sericulture, reeling silk,
pottery, lacquer, woodwork, metal-work or brewing. There are also
schools--nearly all supported by private enterprise--for the blind and
the dumb.
Normal schools are maintained for the purpose of training teachers, a
class of persons not plentiful in Japan, doubtless because of an
exceptionally low scale of emoluments, the yearly pay not exceeding
L60 and often falling as low as L15.
There are two Imperial universities, one in Tokyo and one in Kioto. In
1909 the former had about 220 professors and instructors and 2880
students. Its colleges number six: law, medicine, engineering,
literature, science and agriculture. It has a university hall where
post-graduate courses are studied, and it publishes a quarterly
journal giving accounts of scientific researches, which indicate not
only large erudition, but also original talent. The university of
Kioto is a comparatively new institution and has not given any signs
of great vitality. In 1909 its colleges numbered four: law, medicine,
literature and science; its faculty consisted of about 60 professors
with 70 assistants, and its students aggregated about 1100.
Except in the cases specially indicated, all the figures given above
are independent of private educational institutions. The system
pursued by the state does not tend to encourage private education, for
unless a private school brings its curriculum into exact accord with
that prescribed for public institutions of corresponding grade, its
students are denied the valuable privilege of partial exemption from
conscription, as well as other advantages attaching to state
recognition. Thus the quality of the instruction being nominally the
same, the rate of fees must also be similar, and no margin offers to
tempt private enterprise.
Public education in Japan is strictly secular: no religious teaching
of any kind is permitted in the schools. There are about 100
libraries. Progress is marked in this branch, the rate of growth
having been from 43 to 100 in the five-year period ended 1905. The
largest library is the Imperial, in Tokyo. It had about half a million
volumes in 1909, and the daily average of visitors was about 430.
Apart from the universities, the public educational institutions in
Japan involve an annual expenditure of 3(1/2) millions sterling, out
of which total a little more than half a million is met by students'
fees; 2(3/4) millions are paid by the communes, and the remainder is
defrayed from various sources, the central government contributing
only some L28,000. It is estimated that public school property--in
land, buildings, books, furniture, &c., aggregates 11 millions
sterling.
VII.--RELIGION
Shinto.
The primitive religion of Japan is known by the name of Shinto, which
signifies "the divine way," but the Japanese maintain that this term is
of comparatively modern application. The term Shinto being obviously of
Chinese origin, cannot have been used in Japan before she became
acquainted with the Chinese language. Now Buddhism did not reach Japan
until the 6th century, and a knowledge of the Chinese language had
preceded it by only a hundred years. It is therefore reasonable to
conclude that the primitive religion of Japan had no name, and that it
did not begin to be called Shinto until Buddhism had entered the field.
The two creeds remained distinct, though not implacably antagonistic,
until the beginning of the 9th century, when they were welded together
into a system of doctrine to which the name _Ryobu-Shinto_ (dual Shinto)
was given. In this new creed the Shinto deities were regarded as avatars
of Buddhist divinities, and thus it may be said that Shinto was absorbed
into Buddhism. Probably that would have been the fate of the indigenous
creed in any circumstances, for a religion without a theory as to a
future state and without any code of moral duties could scarcely hope to
survive contact with a faith so well equipped as Buddhism in these
respects. But Shinto, though absorbed, was not obliterated. Its beliefs
survived; its shrines survived; its festivals survived, and something of
its rites survived also.
Shinto, indeed, may be said to be entwined about the roots of Japan's
national existence. Its scripture--as the _Kojiki_ must be
considered--resembles the Bible in that both begin with the cosmogony.
But it represents the gods as peopling the newly created earth with
their own offspring instead of with human beings expressly made for the
purpose. The actual work of creation was done by a male deity, Izanagi,
and a female deity, Izanami. From the right eye of the former was born
Amaterasu, who became goddess of the sun; from his left eye, the god of
the moon; and from his nose, a species of Lucifer. The grandson of the
sun goddess was the first sovereign of Japan, and his descendants have
ruled the land in unbroken succession ever since, the 121st being on the
throne in 1909. Thus it is to Amaterasu (the heaven-illuminating
goddess) that the Japanese pay reverence above all other deities, and it
is to her shrine at Ise that pilgrims chiefly flock.
The story of creation, as related in the _Kojiki_, is obviously based on
a belief that force is indestructible, and that every exercise of it is
productive of some permanent result. Thus by the motions of the creative
spirit there spring into existence all the elements that go to make up
the universe, and these, being of divine origin, are worshipped and
propitiated. Their number becomes immense when we add the deified ghosts
of ancestors who were descended from the gods and whose names are
associated with great deeds. These ancestors are often regarded as the
tutelary deities of districts, where they receive special homage and
where shrines are erected to them. The method of worship consists in
making offerings and in the recital of rituals (_norito_). Twenty-seven
of these rituals were reduced to writing and embodied in a work called
_Engishiki_ (927). Couched in antique language, these liturgies are
designed for the dedication of shrines, for propitiating evil, for
entreating blessings on the harvest, for purification, for obtaining
household security, for bespeaking protection during a journey, and so
forth. Nowhere is any reference found to a future state of reward or
punishment, to deliverance from evil, to assistance in the path of
virtue. One ceremonial only is designed to avert the consequences of sin
or crime; namely, the rite of purification, which, by washing with water
and by the sacrifice of valuables, removes the pollution resulting from
all wrong-doing. Originally performed on behalf of individuals, this
_o-barai_ ultimately came to be a semi-annual ceremony for sweeping away
the sins of all the people.
Shinto is thus a mixture of ancestor-worship and of nature-worship
without any explicit code of morals. It regards human beings as virtuous
by nature; assumes that each man's conscience is his best guide; and
while believing in a continued existence beyond the grave, entertains no
theory as to its pleasures or pains. Those that pass away become
disembodied spirits, inhabiting the world of darkness (_yomi-no-yo_) and
possessing power to bring sorrow or joy into the lives of their
survivors, on which account they are worshipped and propitiated. Purity
and simplicity being essential characteristics of the cult, its shrines
are built of white wood, absolutely without decorative features of any
kind, and fashioned as were the original huts of the first Japanese
settlers. There are no graven images--a fact attributed by some critics
to ignorance of the glyptic art on the part of the original
worshippers--but there is an emblem of the deity, which generally takes
the form of a sword, a mirror or a so-called jewel, these being the
insignia handed by the sun goddess to her grandson, the first ruler of
Japan. This emblem is not exposed to public view: it is enveloped in
silk and brocade and enclosed in a box at the back of the shrine. The
mirror sometimes prominent is a Buddhist innovation and has nothing to
do with the true emblem of the creed.
From the 9th century, when Buddhism absorbed Shinto, the two grew
together so intimately that their differentiation seemed hopeless. But
in the middle of the 17th century a strong revival of the indigenous
faith was effected by the efforts of a group of illustrious scholars and
politicians, at whose head stood Mabuchi, Motoori and Hirata. These men
applied themselves with great diligence and acumen to reproduce the pure
Shinto of the _Kojiki_ and to restore it to its old place in the
nation's reverence, their political purpose being to educate a spirit of
revolt against the feudal system which deprived the emperor of
administrative power. The principles thus revived became the basis of
the restoration of 1867; Shinto rites and Shinto rituals were readopted,
and Buddhism fell for a season into comparative disfavour, Shinto being
regarded as the national religion. But Buddhism had twined its roots too
deeply around the heart of the people to be thus easily torn up. It
gradually recovered its old place, though not its old magnificence, for
its disestablishment at the hands of the Meiji government robbed it of a
large part of its revenues.
Buddhism.
Buddhism entered China at the beginning of the Christian era, but not
until the 4th century did it obtain any strong footing. Thence, two
centuries later (522), it reached Japan through Korea. The reception
extended to it was not encouraging at first. Its images and its
brilliant appurtenances might well deter a nation which had never seen
an idol nor ever worshipped in a decorated temple. But the ethical
teachings and the positive doctrines of the foreign faith presented an
attractive contrast to the colourless Shinto. After a struggle, not
without bloodshed, Buddhism won its way. It owed much to the active
patronage of Shotoku taishi, prince-regent during the reign of the
empress Suiko (593-621). At his command many new temples were built; the
country was divided into dioceses under Buddhist prelates; priests were
encouraged to teach the arts of road-making and bridge-building, and
students were sent to China to investigate the mysteries of the faith at
its supposed fountain-head. Between the middle of the 7th century and
that of the 8th, six sects were introduced from China, all imperfect and
all based on the teachings of the Hinayana system. Up to this time the
propagandists of the creed had been chiefly Chinese and Korean teachers.
But from the 8th century onwards, when Kioto became the permanent
capital of the empire, Japanese priests of lofty intelligence and
profound piety began to repair to China and bring thence modified forms
of the doctrines current there. It was thus that Dengyo daishi (c. 800)
became the founder of the Tendai (heavenly tranquillity) sect and Kobo
daishi (774-834) the apostle of the Shingon (true word). Other sects
followed, until the country possessed six principal sects in all with
thirty-seven sub-sects. It must be remembered that Buddhism offers an
almost limitless field for eclecticism. There is not in the world any
literary production of such magnitude as the Chinese scriptures of the
Mahayana. "The canon is seven hundred times the amount of the New
Testament. Hsuan Tsang's translation of the _Prajna paramita_ is
twenty-five times as large as the whole Christian Bible."
It is natural that out of such a mass of doctrine different systems
should be elaborated. The Buddhism that came to Japan prior to the days
of Dengyo daishi was that of the Vaipulya school, which seems to have
been accepted in its entirety. But the Tendai doctrines, introduced by
Dengyo, Iikaku and other fellow-thinkers, though founded mainly on the
_Saddharma pundarika_, were subjected to the process of eclecticism
which all foreign institutions undergo at Japanese hands. Dengyo studied
it in the monastery of Tientai which "had been founded towards the close
of the 6th century of our era on a lofty range of mountains in the
province of Chehkiang by the celebrated preacher Chikai" (Lloyd,
"Developments of Japanese Buddhism," _Transactions of the Asiatic
Society of Japan_, vol. xxii.), and carrying it to Japan he fitted its
disciplinary and meditative methods to the foundations of the sects
already existing there.
This eclecticism was even more marked in the case of the Shingon (true
word) doctrines, taught by Dengyo's illustrious contemporary, Kobo
daishi, who was regarded as the incarnation of Vairocana. He led his
countrymen, by a path almost wholly his own, from the comparatively low
platform of Hinayana Buddhism, whose sole aim is individual salvation,
to the Mahayana doctrine, which teaches its devotee to strive after
perfect enlightenment, not for his own sake alone, but also that he may
help his fellows and intercede for them. Then followed the Jodo (Pure
Land) sect, introduced in 1153 by a priest, Senku, who is remembered by
later generations as Honen shonin. He taught salvation by faith
ritualistically expressed. The virtue that saves comes, not from
imitation of and conformity to the person and character of the saviour
Amida, but from blind trust in his efforts and ceaseless repetition of
pious formulae. It is really a religion of despair rather than of hope,
and in that respect it reflects the profound sympathy awakened in the
bosom of its teacher by the sorrows and sufferings of the troublous
times in which he lived.
A favourite pupil of Honen shonin was Shinran (1173-1262). He founded
the Jodo Shinshu (true sect of jodo), commonly called simply Shinshu and
sometimes Monto, which subsequently became the most influential of
Japanese sects, with its splendid monasteries, the two Hongwana-ji in
Kioto. The differences between the doctrines of this sect and those of
its predecessors were that the former "divested itself of all
metaphysics"; knew nothing of a philosophy of religion, dispensed with a
multiplicity of acts of devotion and the keeping of many commandments;
did not impose any vows of celibacy or any renunciation of the world,
and simply made faith in Amida the all in all. In modern days the
Shinshu sect has been the most progressive of all Buddhist sects and has
freely sent forth its promising priests to study in Europe and America.
Its devotees make no use of charms or spells, which are common among the
followers of other sects.
Anterior by a few years to that introduction of the Shinshu was the Zen
sect, which has three main divisions, the Rinzai (1168), the Soto (1223)
and the Obaku (1650). This is essentially a contemplative sect. Truth is
reached by pure contemplation, and knowledge can be transmitted from
heart to heart without the use of words. In that simple form the
doctrine was accepted by the Rinzai believers. But the founders of the
Soto branch--Shoyo taishi and Butsuji zenshi--added scholarship and
research to contemplation, and taught that the "highest wisdom and the
most perfect enlightenment are attained when all the elements of
phenomenal existence are recognized as empty, vain and unreal." This
creed played an important part in the development of Bushido, and its
priests have always been distinguished for erudition and indifference to
worldly possessions.
Last but not least important among Japanese sects of Buddhism is the
Nichiren or Hokke, called after its founder, Nichiren (1222-1282). It
was based on the _Saddharma pundarika_, and it taught that there was
only one true Buddha--the moon in the heavens--the other Buddhas being
like the moon reflected in the waters, transient, shadowy reflections of
the Buddha of truth. It is this being who is the source of all
phenomenal existence, and in whom all phenomenal existence has its
being. The imperfect Buddhism teaches a chain of cause and effect; true
Buddhism teaches that the first link in this chain of cause and effect
is the Buddha of original enlightenment. When this point has been
reached true wisdom has at length been attained. Thus the monotheistic
faith of Christianity was virtually reached in one God in whom all
creatures "live, move and have their being." It will readily be
conceived that these varied doctrines caused dissension and strife among
the sects professing them. Sectarian controversies and squabbles were
nearly as prominent among Japanese Buddhists as they were among European
Christians, but to the credit of Buddhism it has to be recorded that the
stake and the rack never found a place among its instruments of
self-assertion. On the other hand, during the wars that devastated Japan
from the 12th to the end of the 16th century, many of the monasteries
became military camps, and the monks, wearing armour and wielding
glaives, fought in secular as well as religious causes.
Christianity in Modern Japan.
The story of the first Christian missionaries to Japan is told
elsewhere (see S VIII. FOREIGN INTERCOURSE). Their work suffered an
interruption for more than 200 years until, in 1858, almost
simultaneously with the conclusion of the treaties, a small band of
Catholic fathers entered Japan from the Riukiu islands, where they had
carried on their ministrations since 1846. They found that, in the
neighbourhood of Nagasaki, there were some small communities where
Christian worship was still carried on. It would seem that these
communities had not been subjected to any severe official scrutiny.
But the arrival of the fathers revived the old question, and the
native Christians, or such of them as refused to apostatize, were
removed from their homes and sent into banishment. This was the last
example of religious intolerance in Japan. At the instance of the
foreign representatives in Tokyo the exiles were set at liberty in
1873, and from that time complete freedom of conscience existed in
fact, though it was not declared by law until the promulgation of the
constitution in 1889. In 1905 there were 60,000 Roman Catholic
converts in Japan forming 360 congregations, with 130 missionaries and
215 teachers, including 145 nuns. These were all European. They were
assisted by 32 Japanese priests, 52 Japanese nuns, 280 male catechists
and 265 female catechists and nurses. Three seminaries for native
priests existed, together with 58 schools and orphanages and two
lepers' homes. The whole was presided over by an archbishop and three
bishops.
The Anglican Church was established in Japan in 1859 by two American
clergymen who settled in Nagasaki, and now, in conjunction with the
Episcopal Churches of America and Canada, it has missions collectively
designated Nihon Sei-Kokai. There are 6 bishops--2 American and 4
English--with about 60 foreign and 50 Japanese priests and deacons,
besides many foreign lay workers of both sexes and Japanese catechists
and school teachers. The converts number 11,000. The Protestant
missions include Presbyterian (Nihon Kirisuto Kyokai), Congregational
(Kumi-ai), Methodist, Baptist and the Salvation Army (Kyusei-gun). The
pioneer Protestant mission was founded in 1859 by representatives of
the American Presbyterian and Dutch Reformed Churches. To this mission
belongs the credit of having published, in 1880, the first complete
Japanese version of the New Testament, followed by the Old Testament
in 1887. The Presbyterians, representing 7 religious societies, have
over a hundred missionaries; 12,400 converts; a number of boarding
schools for boys and girls and day schools. The Congregational
churches are associated exclusively with the mission of the American
board of commissioners for foreign missions. They have about 11,400
converts, and the largest Christian educational institution in Japan,
namely, the Doshisha in Kioto. The Methodists represent 6 American
societies and 1 Canadian. They have 130 missionaries and 10,000
converts; boarding schools, day schools, and the most important
Christian college in Tokyo, namely, the Awoyama Gaku-in. The Baptists
represent 4 American societies; have 60 missionaries, a theological
seminary, an academy for boys, boarding schools for girls, day schools
and 3500 converts. The Salvation Army, which did not enter Japan until
1895, has organized 15 corps, and publishes ten thousand copies of a
fortnightly magazine, the _War Cry_ (_Toki no Koe_). Finally, the
Society of Friends, the American and London Religious Tract Societies
and the Young Men's Christian Association have a number of missions.
It will be seen from the above that the missionaries in Japan, in the
space of half a century (1858 to 1908), had won 110,000 converts, in
round numbers. To these must be added the Orthodox Russian Church,
which has a fine cathedral in Tokyo, a staff of about 40 Japanese
priests and deacons and 27,000 converts, the whole presided over by a
bishop. Thus the total number of converts becomes 137,000. In spite
of the numerous sects represented in Japan there has been virtually no
sectarian strife, and it may be said of the Japanese converts that
they concern themselves scarcely at all about the subtleties of dogma
which divide European Christianity. Their tendency is to consider only
the practical aspects of the faith as a moral and ethical guide. They
are disposed, also, to adapt the creed to their own requirements just
as they adapted Buddhism, and this is a disposition which promises to
grow.
VIII.--FOREIGN INTERCOURSE
_Foreign Intercourse in Early and Medieval Times._--There can be no
doubt that commerce was carried on by Japan with China and Korea earlier
that the 8th century of the Christian era. It would appear that from the
very outset over-sea trade was regarded as a government monopoly.
Foreigners were allowed to travel freely in the interior of the country
provided that they submitted their baggage for official inspection and
made no purchases of weapons of war, but all imported goods were bought
in the first place by official appraisers who subsequently sold them to
the people at arbitrarily fixed prices. Greater importance attached to
the trade with China under the Ashikaga shoguns (14th, 15th and 16th
centuries), who were in constant need of funds to defray the cost of
interminable military operations caused by civil disturbances. In this
distress they turned to the neighbouring empire as a source from which
money might be obtained. This idea seems to have been suggested to the
shogun Takauji by a Buddhist priest, when he undertook the construction
of the temple Tenryu-ji. Two ships laden with goods were fitted out, and
it was decided that the enterprise should be repeated annually. Within a
few years after this development of commercial relations between the two
empires, an interruption occurred owing partly to the overthrow of the
Yuen Mongols by the Chinese Ming, and partly to the activity of Japanese
pirates and adventurers who raided the coasts of China. The shogun
Yoshimitsu (1368-1394), however, succeeded in restoring commercial
intercourse, though in order to effect his object he consented that
goods sent from Japan should bear the character of tribute and that he
himself should receive investiture at the hands of the Chinese emperor's
ambassador. The Nanking government granted a certain number of
commercial passports, and these were given by the shogun to Ouchi,
feudal chief of Cho-shu, which had long been the principal port for
trade with the neighbouring empire. Tribute goods formed only a small
fraction of a vessel's cargo: the bulk consisted of articles which were
delivered into the government's stores in China, payment being received
in copper cash. It was from this transaction that the shogun derived a
considerable part of his profits, for the articles did not cost him
anything originally, being either presents from the great temples and
provincial governors or compulsory contributions from the house of
Ouchi. As for the gifts by the Chinese government and the goods shipped
in China, they were arbitrarily distributed among the noble families in
Japan at prices fixed by the shogun's assessor. Thus, so far as the
shogun was concerned, these enterprises could not fail to be lucrative.
They also brought large profits to the Ouchi family, for, in the absence
of competition, the products and manufactures of each country found
ready sale in the markets of the other. The articles found most suitable
in China were swords, fans, screens, lacquer wares, copper and agate,
and the goods brought back to Japan were brocade and other silk fabrics,
ceramic productions, jade and fragrant woods. The Chinese seem to have
had a just appreciation of the wonderful swords of Japan. At first they
were willing to pay the equivalent of 12 guineas for a pair of blades,
but by degrees, as the Japanese began to increase the supply, the price
fell, and at the beginning of the 16th century all the diplomacy of the
Japanese envoys was needed to obtain good figures for the large and
constantly growing quantity of goods that they took over by way of
supplement to the tribute. Buddhist priests generally enjoyed the
distinction of being selected as envoys, for experience showed that
their subtle reasoning invariably overcame the economical scruples of
the Chinese authorities and secured a fine profit for their master, the
shogun. In the middle of the 16th century these tribute-bearing
missions came to an end with the ruin of the Ouchi family and the
overthrow of the Ashikaga shoguns, and they were never renewed.
With Korea.
Japan's medieval commerce with Korea was less ceremonious than that with
China. No passports had to be obtained from the Korean government. A
trader was sufficiently equipped when he carried a permit from the So
family, which held the island of Tsushima in fief. Fifty vessels were
allowed to pass yearly from ports in Japan to the three Japanese
settlements in Korea. Little is recorded about the nature of this trade,
but it was rudely interrupted by the Japanese settlers, who, offended at
some arbitrary procedure on the part of the local Korean authorities,
took up arms (A.D. 1510) and at first signally routed the Koreans. An
army from Seoul turned the tables, and the Japanese were compelled to
abandon the three settlements. Subsequently the shogun's
government--which had not been concerned in the struggle--approached
Korea with amicable proposals, and it was agreed that the ringleaders of
the raiders should be decapitated and their heads sent to Seoul, Japan's
compliance with this condition affording, perhaps, a measure of the
value she attached to neighbourly friendship. Thenceforth the number of
vessels was limited to 25 annually and the settlements were abolished.
Some years later, the Japanese again resorted to violent acts of
self-assertion, and on this occasion, although the offenders were
arrested by order of the shogun Yoshiharu, and handed over to Korea for
punishment, the Seoul court persisted in declining to restore the system
of settlements or to allow the trade to be resumed on its former basis.
Fifty years afterwards the taiko's armies invaded Korea, overrunning it
for seven years, and leaving, when they retired in 1598, a country so
impoverished that it no longer offered any attraction to commercial
enterprise from beyond the sea.
With Occidental Nations.
The Portuguese discovered Japan by accident in 1542 or 1543--the exact
date is uncertain. On a voyage to Macao from Siam, a junk carrying three
Portuguese was blown from her course and fetched Tanegashima, a small
island lying south of the province of Satsuma. The Japanese, always
hospitable and inquisitive, welcomed the newcomers and showed special
curiosity about the arquebuses carried by the Portuguese, fire-arms
being then a novelty in Japan and all weapons of war being in great
request. Conversation was impossible, of course, but, by tracing
ideographs upon the sand, a Chinese member of the crew succeeded in
explaining the cause of the junk's arrival. She was then piloted to a
more commodious harbour, and the Portuguese sold two arquebuses to the
local feudatory, who immediately ordered his armourer to manufacture
similar weapons. Very soon the news of the discovery reached all the
Portuguese settlements in the East, and at least seven expeditions were
fitted out during the next few years to exploit this new market. Their
objective points were all in the island of Kiushiu--the principal stage
where the drama--ultimately converted into a tragedy--of Christian
propagandism and European commercial intercourse was acted in the
interval between 1542 and 1637.
Arrival of the Jesuits.
It does not appear that the Jesuits at Macao, Goa or other centres of
Portuguese influence in the East took immediate advantage of the
discovery of Japan. The pioneer propagandist was Francis Xavier, who
landed at Kagoshima on the 15th of August 1549. During the interval of
six (or seven) years that separated this event from the drifting of the
junk to Tanegashima, the Portuguese had traded freely in the ports of
Kiushiu, had visited Kioto, and had reported the Japanese capital to be
a city of 96,000 houses, therefore larger than Lisbon. Xavier would
certainly have gone to Japan even though he had not been specially
encouraged, for the reports of his countrymen depicted the Japanese as
"very desirous of being instructed," and he longed to find a field more
promising than that inhabited by "all these Indian nations, barbarous,
vicious and without inclination to virtue." There were, however, two
special determinants. One was a request addressed by a feudatory,
supposed to have been the chief of the Bungo fief, to the viceroy of
the Indies at Goa; the other, an appeal made in person by a Japanese
named Yajiro, whom the fathers spoke of as Anjiro, and who subsequently
attained celebrity under his baptismal name, Paul of the holy faith. No
credible reason is historically assigned for the action of the Japanese
feudatory. Probably his curiosity had been excited by accounts which the
Portuguese traders gave of the noble devotion of their country's
missionaries, and being entirely without bigotry, as nearly all Japanese
were at that epoch, he issued the invitation partly out of curiosity and
partly from a sincere desire for progress. Anjiro's case was very
different. Labouring under stress of repentant zeal, and fearful that
his evil acts might entail murderous consequences, he sought an asylum
abroad, and was taken away in 1548 by a Portuguese vessel whose master
advised him to repair to Malacca for the purpose of confessing to
Xavier. This might well have seemed to the Jesuits a providential
dispensation, for Anjiro, already able to speak Portuguese, soon
mastered it sufficiently to interpret for Xavier and his
fellow-missionaries (without which aid they must have remained long
helpless in the face of the immense difficulty of the Japanese
language), and to this linguistic skill he added extraordinary gifts of
intelligence and memory. Xavier, with two Portuguese companions and
Anjiro, were excellently received by the feudal chiefs of Satsuma and
obtained permission to preach their doctrine in any part of the fief.
This permit is not to be construed as an evidence of official sympathy
with the foreign creed. Commercial considerations alone were in
question. A Japanese feudal chief in that era had sedulously to foster
every source of wealth or strength, and as the newly opened trade with
the outer world seemed full of golden promise, each feudatory was not
less anxious to secure a monopoly of it in the 16th century than the
Ashikaga shoguns had been in the 15th. The Satsuma daimyo was led to
believe that the presence of the Jesuits in Kagoshima would certainly
prelude the advent of trading vessels. But within a few months one of
the expected merchantmen sailed to Hirado without touching at Kagoshima,
and her example was followed by two others in the following year, so
that the Satsuma chief saw himself flouted for the sake of a petty
rival, Matsudaira of Hirado. This fact could not fail to provoke his
resentment. But there was another influence at work. Buddhism has always
been a tolerant religion, eclectic rather than exclusive. Xavier,
however, had all the bigoted intolerance of his time. The Buddhist
priests in Kagoshima received him with courtesy and listened
respectfully to the doctrines he expounded through the mouth of Anjiro.
Xavier rejoined with a display of aggressive intolerance which shocked
and alienated the Buddhists. They represented to the Satsuma chief that
peace and good order were inconsistent with such a display of militant
propagandism, and he, already profoundly chagrined by his commercial
disappointment, issued in 1550 an edict making it a capital offence for
any of his vassals to embrace Christianity. Xavier, or, more correctly
speaking, Anjiro, had won 150 converts, who remained without
molestation, but Xavier himself took ship for Hirado. There he was
received with salvoes of artillery by the Portuguese merchantmen lying
in the harbour and with marks of profound respect by the Portuguese
traders, a display which induced the local chief to issue orders that
courteous attention should be paid to the teaching of the foreign
missionaries. In ten days a hundred baptisms took place; another
significant index of the mood of the Japanese in the early era of
Occidental intercourse: the men in authority always showed a complaisant
attitude towards Christianity where trade could be fostered by so doing,
and wherever the men in authority showed such an attitude, considerable
numbers of the lower orders embraced the foreign faith. Thus, in
considering the commercial history of the era, the element of religion
constantly thrusts itself into the foreground.
First Visit of Europeans to Kioto.
Xavier next resolved to visit Kioto. The first town of importance he
reached on the way was Yamaguchi, capital of the Choshu fief, situated
on the northern shore of the Shimonoseki Strait. There the feudal chief,
Ouchi, though sufficiently courteous and inquisitive, showed no special
cordiality towards humble missionaries unconnected with commerce, and
the work of proselytizing made no progress, so that Xavier and his
companion, Fernandez, pushed on to Kioto. The time was mid-winter; the
two fathers suffered terrible privations during their journey of two
months on foot, and on reaching Kioto they found a city which had been
almost wholly reduced to ruins by internecine war. Necessarily they
failed to obtain audience of either emperor or shogun, at that time the
most inaccessible potentates in the world, the Chinese "son of heaven"
excepted, and nothing remained but street preaching, a strange resource,
seeing that Xavier, constitutionally a bad linguist, had only a most
rudimentary acquaintance with the profoundly difficult tongue in which
he attempted to expound the mysteries of a novel creed. A fortnight
sufficed to convince him that Kioto was unfruitful soil. He therefore
returned to Yamaguchi. But he had now learned a lesson. He saw that
propagandism without scrip or staff and without the countenance of those
sitting in the seats of power would be futile in Japan. So he obtained
from Hirado his canonicals, together with a clock and other novel
products of European skill, which, as well as credentials from the
viceroy of India, the governor of Malacca and the bishop of Goa, he
presented to the Choshu chief. His prayer for permission to preach
Christianity was now readily granted, and Ouchi issued a proclamation
announcing his approval of the introduction of the new religion and
according perfect liberty to embrace it. Xavier and Fernandez now made
many converts. They also gained the valuable knowledge that the road to
success in Japan lay in associating themselves with over-sea commerce
and its directors, and in thus winning the co-operation of the feudal
chiefs.
Christian Propagandists.
Nearly ten years had now elapsed since the first Portuguese landed in
Kagoshima, and during that time trade had gone on steadily and
prosperously. No attempt was made to find markets in the main island:
the Portuguese confined themselves to Kiushiu for two reasons: one, that
having no knowledge of the coasts, they hesitated to risk their ships
and their lives in unsurveyed waters; the other, that whereas the main
island, almost from end to end, was seething with internecine war,
Kiushiu remained beyond the pale of disturbance and enjoyed comparative
tranquillity. At the time of Xavier's second sojourn in Yamaguchi, a
Portuguese ship happened to be visiting Bungo, and at its master's
suggestion the great missionary proceeded thither, with the intention of
returning temporarily to the Indies. At Bungo there was then ruling
Otomo, second in power to only the Satsuma chief among the feudatories
of Kiushiu. By him the Jesuit father was received with all honour.
Xavier did not now neglect the lesson he had learned in Yamaguchi. He
repaired to the Bungo chieftain's court, escorted by nearly the whole of
the Portuguese crew, gorgeously bedizened, carrying their arms and with
banners flying. Otomo, a young and ambitious ruler, was keenly anxious
to attract foreign traders with their rich cargoes and puissant weapons
of war. Witnessing the reverence paid to Xavier by the Portuguese
traders, he appreciated the importance of gaining the goodwill of the
Jesuits, and accordingly not only granted them full freedom to teach and
preach, but also enjoined upon his younger brother, who, in the sequel
of a sudden rebellion, had succeeded to the lordship of Yamaguchi, the
advisability of extending protection to Torres and Fernandez, then
sojourning there. After some four months' stay in Bungo, Xavier set sail
for Goa in February 1552. Death overtook him in the last month of the
same year.
Xavier's departure from Japan marked the conclusion of the first epoch
of Christian propagandism. His sojourn in Japan extended to 27 months.
In that time he and his coadjutors won about 760 converts. In Satsuma
more than a year's labour produced 150 believers. There Xavier had the
assistance of Anjiro to expound his doctrines. No language lends itself
with greater difficulty than Japanese to the discussion of theological
questions. The terms necessary for such a purpose are not current among
laymen, and only by special study, which, it need scarcely be said,
must be preluded by an accurate acquaintance with the tongue itself, can
a man hope to become duly equipped for the task of exposition and
dissertation. It is open to grave doubt whether any foreigner has ever
attained the requisite proficiency. Leaving Anjiro in Kagoshima to care
for the converts made there, Xavier pushed on to Hirado, where he
baptized a hundred Japanese in a few days. Now we have it on the
authority of Xavier himself that in this Hirado campaign "none of us
knew Japanese." How then did they proceed? "By reciting a semi-Japanese
volume" (a translation made by Anjiro of a treatise from Xavier's pen)
"and by delivering sermons, we brought several over to the Christian
cult." Sermons preached in Portuguese or Latin to a Japanese audience on
the island of Hirado in the year 1550 can scarcely have attracted
intelligent interest. On his first visit to Yamaguchi, Xavier's means of
access to the understanding of his hearers was confined to the
rudimentary knowledge of Japanese which Fernandez had been able to
acquire in 14 months, a period of study which, in modern times, with all
the aids now procurable, would not suffice to carry a student beyond the
margin of the colloquial. No converts were won. The people of Yamaguchi
probably admired the splendid faith and devotion of these over-sea
philosophers, but as for their doctrine, it was unintelligible. In Kioto
the same experience was repeated, with an addition of much physical
hardship. But when the Jesuits returned to Yamaguchi in the early autumn
of 1551, they baptized 500 persons, including several members of the
military class. Still Fernandez with his broken Japanese was the only
medium for communicating the profound doctrines of Christianity. It must
be concluded that the teachings of the missionaries produced much less
effect than the attitude of the local chieftain.
Second Period of Christian Propagandism.
Only two missionaries, Torres and Fernandez, remained in Japan after the
departure of Xavier, but they were soon joined by three others. These
newcomers landed at Kagoshima and found that, in spite of the official
veto against the adoption of Christianity, the feudal chief had lost
nothing of his desire to foster foreign trade. Two years later, all the
Jesuits in Japan were assembled in Bungo. Their only church stood there;
and they had also built two hospitals. Local disturbances had compelled
them to withdraw from Yamaguchi, not, however, before their violent
disputes with the Buddhist priests in that town had induced the
feudatory to proscribe the foreign religion, as had previously been done
in Kagoshima. From Funai, the chief town of Bungo, the Jesuits began in
1579 to send yearly reports to their Generals in Rome. These reports,
known as the _Annual Letters_, comprise some of the most valuable
information available about the conditions then existing in Japan. They
describe a state of abject poverty among the lower orders; poverty so
cruel that the destruction of children by their famishing parents was an
everyday occurrence, and in some instances choice had to be made between
cannibalism and starvation. Such suffering becomes easily intelligible
when the fact is recalled that Japan had been racked by civil war during
more than 200 years, each feudal chief fighting for his own hand, to
save or to extend his territorial possessions. From these _Annual
Letters_ it is possible also to gather a tolerably clear idea of the
course of events during the years immediately subsequent to Xavier's
departure. There was no break in the continuity of the newly inaugurated
foreign trade. Portuguese ships visited Hirado as well as Bungo, and in
those days their masters and crews not only attended scrupulously to
their religious duties, but also showed such profound respect for the
missionaries that the Japanese received constant object lessons in the
influence wielded over the traders by the Jesuits. Thirty years later,
this orderly and reverential demeanour was exchanged for riotous
excesses such as had already made the Portuguese sailor a byword in
China. But in the early days of intercourse with Japan the crews of the
merchant vessels seem to have preached Christianity by their exemplary
conduct. Just as Xavier had been induced to visit Bungo by the anxiety
of a ship-captain for Christian ministrations, so in 1557 two of the
fathers repaired to Hirado in obedience to the solicitations of
Portuguese sailors. There the fathers, under the guidance of Vilela,
sent brothers to parade the streets ringing bells and chaunting
litanies; they organized bands of boys for the same purpose; they caused
the converts, and even children, to flagellate themselves at a model of
Mount Calvary, and they worked miracles, healing the sick by contact
with scourges or with a booklet in which Xavier had written litanies and
prayers. It may well be imagined that such doings attracted surprised
attention in Japan. They were supplemented by even more striking
practices. For a sub-feudatory of the Hirado chief, having been
converted, showed his zeal by destroying Buddhist temples and throwing
down the idols, thus inaugurating a campaign of violence destined to
mark the progress of Christianity throughout the greater part of its
history in Japan. There followed the overthrowing of a cross in the
Christian cemetery, the burning of a temple in the town of Hirado, and a
street riot, the sequel being that the Jesuit fathers were compelled to
return once more to Bungo. It is essential to follow all these events,
for not otherwise can a clear understanding be reached as to the aspects
under which Christianity presented itself originally to the Japanese.
The Portuguese traders, reverent as was their demeanour towards
Christianity, did not allow their commerce to be interrupted by
vicissitudes of propagandism. They still repaired to Hirado, and rumours
of the wealth-begetting effects of their presence having reached the
neighbouring fief of Omura, its chief, Sumitada, made overtures to the
Jesuits in Bungo, offering a port free from all dues for ten years, a
large tract of land, a residence for the missionaries and other
privileges. The Jesuits hastened to take advantage of this proposal, and
no sooner did the news reach Hirado than the feudatory of that island
repented of having expelled the fathers and invited them to return. But
while they hesitated, a Portuguese vessel arrived at Hirado, and the
feudal chief declared publicly that no need existed to conciliate the
missionaries, since trade went on without them. When this became known
in Bungo, Torres hastened to Hirado, was received with extraordinary
honours by the crew of the vessel, and at his instance she left the
port, her master declaring that "he could not remain in a country where
they maltreated those who professed the same religion as himself."
Hirado remained a closed port for some years, but ultimately the advent
of three merchantmen, which intimated their determination not to put in
unless the anti-Christian ban was removed, induced the feudal chief to
receive the Jesuits, once more. This incident was paralleled a few years
later in the island of Amakusa, where a petty feudatory, in order to
attract foreign trade, as the missionaries themselves frankly explain,
embraced Christianity and ordered all his vassals to follow his example;
but when no Portuguese ship appeared, he apostatized, required his
subjects to revert to Buddhism arid made the missionaries withdraw. In
fact, the competition for the patronage of Portuguese traders was so
keen that the Hirado feudatory attempted to burn several of their
vessels because they frequented the territorial waters of his neighbour
and rival, Sumitada. The latter became a most stalwart Christian when
his wish was gratified. He set himself to eradicate idolatry throughout
his fief with the strong arm, and his fierce intolerance provoked
results which ended in the destruction of the Christian town at the
newly opened free port. Sumitada, however, quickly reasserted his
authority, and five years later (1567), he took a step which had
far-reaching consequences, namely, the building of a church at Nagasaki,
in order that Portuguese commerce might have a centre and the Christians
an assured asylum. Nagasaki was then a little fishing village. In five
years it grew to be a town of thirty thousand inhabitants, and Sumitada
became one of the richest of the Kiushiu feudatories. When in 1573
successful conflicts with the neighbouring fiefs brought him an access
of territory, he declared that he owed these victories to the influence
of the Christian God, and shortly afterwards he publicly proclaimed
banishment for all who would not accept the foreign faith. There were
then no Jesuits by his side, but immediately two hastened to join him,
and "these, accompanied by a strong guard, but yet not without danger of
their lives, went round causing the churches of the Gentiles, with their
idols, to be thrown to the ground, while three Japanese Christians went
preaching the law of God everywhere. Three of us who were in the
neighbouring kingdoms all withdrew therefrom to work in this abundant
harvest, and in the space of seven months twenty thousand persons were
baptized, including the bonzes of about sixty monasteries, except a few
who quitted the State." In Bungo, however, where the Jesuits were
originally so well received, it is doubtful whether Christian
propagandism would not have ended in failure but for an event which
occurred in 1576, namely, the conversion of the chieftain's son, a youth
of some 16 years. Two years later Otomo himself came over to the
Christian faith. He rendered inestimable aid, not merely within his own
fief, but also by the influence he exercised on others. His
intervention, supported by recourse to arms, obtained for the Jesuits a
footing on the island of Amakusa, where one of the feudatories gave his
vassals the choice of conversion or exile, and announced to the Buddhist
priests that unless they accepted Christianity their property would be
confiscated and they themselves banished. Nearly the whole population of
the fief did violence to their conscience for the sake of their homes.
Christianity was then becoming established in Kiushiu by methods similar
to those of Islam and the inquisition. Another notable illustration is
furnished by the story of the Arima fief, adjoining that of Sumitada
(Omura), where such resolute means had been adopted to force
Christianity upon the vassals. Moreover, the heads of the two fiefs were
brothers. Accordingly, at the time of Sumitada's very dramatic
conversion, the Jesuits were invited to Arima and encouraged to form
settlements at the ports of Kuchinotsu and Shimabara, which thenceforth
began to be frequented by Portuguese merchantmen. The fief naturally
became involved in the turmoil resulting from Sumitada's iconoclastic
methods of propagandism; but, in 1576, the then ruling feudatory,
influenced largely by the object lesson of Sumitada's prosperity and
puissance, which that chieftain openly ascribed to the tutelary aid of
the Christian deity, accepted baptism and became the "Prince Andrew" of
missionary records. It is written in those records that "the first thing
Prince Andrew did after his baptism was to convert the chief temple of
his capital into a church, its revenues being assigned for the
maintenance of the building and the support of the missionaries. He then
took measures to have the same thing done in the other towns of his
fief, and he seconded the preachers of the gospel so well in everything
else that he could flatter himself that he soon would not have one
single idolater in his states." Thus in the two years that separated his
baptism from his death, twenty thousand converts were won in Arima. But
his successor was an enemy of the alien creed. He ordered the Jesuits to
quit his dominions, required the converts to return to their ancestral
faith, and caused "the holy places to be destroyed and the crosses to be
thrown down." Nearly one-half of the converts apostatized under this
pressure, but others had recourse to a device of proved potency. They
threatened to leave Kuchinotsu _en masse_, and as that would have
involved the loss of foreign trade, the hostile edict was materially
modified. To this same weapon the Christians owed a still more signal
victory. For just at that time the great ship from Macao, now an annual
visitor, arrived in Japanese waters carrying the visitor-general,
Valegnani. She put into Kuchinotsu, and her presence, with its suggested
eventualities, gave such satisfaction that the feudatory offered to
accept baptism and to sanction its acceptance by his vassals. This did
not satisfy Valegnani, a man of profound political sagacity. He saw that
the fief was menaced by serious dangers at the hands of its neighbours,
and seizing the psychological moment of its extreme peril, he used the
secular arm so adroitly that the fief's chance of survival seemed to be
limited to the unreserved adoption of Christianity. Thus, in 1580, the
chieftain and his wife were baptized; "all the city was made Christian;
they burned their idols and destroyed 40 temples, reserving some
materials to build churches."
Christian propagandism had now made substantial progress. The _Annual
Letter_ of 1582 recorded that at the close of 1581, thirty-two years
after the landing of Xavier in Japan, there were about 150,000 converts,
of whom some 125,000 were in Kiushiu and the remainder in Yamaguchi,
Kioto and the neighbourhood of the latter city. The Jesuits in the
empire then numbered 75, but down to the year 1563 there had never been
more than 9, and down to 1577, not more than 18. The harvest was
certainly great in proportion to the number of sowers. But it was a
harvest mainly of artificial growth; forced by the despotic insistence
of feudal chiefs who possessed the power of life and death over their
vassals, and were influenced by a desire to attract foreign trade. To
the Buddhist priests this movement of Christian propagandism had brought
an experience hitherto unknown to them, persecution on account of creed.
They had suffered for interfering in politics, but the fierce cruelty of
the Christian fanatic now became known for the first time to men
themselves conspicuous for tolerance of heresy and receptivity of
instruction. They had had no previous experience of humanity in the garb
of an Otomo of Bungo, who, in the words of Crasset, "went to the chase
of the bonzes as to that of wild beasts, and made it his singular
pleasure to exterminate them from his states."
First Japanese Embassy to Europe.
In 1582 the first Japanese envoys sailed from Nagasaki for Europe. The
embassy consisted of four youths, the oldest not more than 16,
representing the fiefs of Arima, Omura and Bungo. They visited Lisbon,
Madrid and Rome, and in all these cities they were received with
displays of magnificence such as 16th century Europe delighted to make.
That, indeed, had been the motive of Valegnani in organizing the
mission: he desired to let the Japanese see with their own eyes how
great were the riches and might of Western states.
Second Visit of Jesuits to Kioto.
In the above statistics of converts at the close of 1581 mention is made
of Christians in Kioto, though we have already seen that the visit by
Xavier and Fernandez to that city was wholly barren of results. A second
visit, however, made by Vilela in 1559, proved more successful. He
carried letters of recommendation from the Bungo chieftain, and the
proximate cause of his journey was an invitation from a Buddhist priest
in the celebrated monastery of Hiei-zan, who sought information about
Christianity. This was before the razing of temples and the overthrow of
idols had commenced in Kiushiu. On arrival at Hiei-zan, Vilela found
that the Buddhist prior who had invited him was dead and that only a
portion of the old man's authority had descended to his successor.
Nevertheless the Jesuit obtained an opportunity to expound his doctrines
to a party of bonzes at the monastery. Subsequently, through the good
offices of a priest, described as "one of the most respected men in the
city," and with the assistance of the Bungo feudatory's letter, Vilela
enjoyed the rare honour of being received by the shogun in Kioto, who
treated him with all consideration and assigned a house for his
residence. It may be imagined that, owing such a debt of gratitude to
Buddhist priests, Vilela would have behaved towards them and their creed
with courtesy. But the Jesuit fathers were proof against all influences
calculated to impair their stern sense of duty. Speaking through the
mouth of a Japanese convert, Vilela attacked the bonzes in unmeasured
terms and denounced their faith. Soon the bonzes, on their side, were
seeking the destruction of these uncompromising assailants with
insistence inferior only to that which the Jesuits themselves would have
shown in similar circumstances. Against these perils Vilela was
protected by the goodwill of the shogun, who had already issued a decree
threatening with death any one who injured the missionaries or
obstructed their work. In spite of all difficulties and dangers these
wonderful missionaries, whose courage, zeal and devotion are beyond all
eulogy, toiled on resolutely and even recklessly, and such success
attended their efforts that by 1564 many converts had been won and
churches had been established in five walled towns within a distance of
50 miles from Kioto. Among the converts were two Buddhist priests,
notoriously hostile at the outset, who had been nominated as official
commissioners to investigate and report upon the doctrine of
Christianity. The first conversion _en masse_ was due to pressure from
above. A petty feudatory, Takayama, whose fief lay at Takatsuki in the
neighbourhood of the capital, challenged Vilela to a public controversy,
the result of which was that the Japanese acknowledged himself
vanquished, embraced Christianity and invited his vassals as well as his
family to follow his example. This man's son--Takayama Yusho--proved one
of the stanchest supporters of Christianity in all Japan, and has been
immortalized by the Jesuits under the name of Don Justo Ucondono.
Incidentally this event furnishes an index to the character of the
Japanese samurai: he accepted the consequences of defeat as frankly as
he dared it. In the same year (1564) the feudatory of Sawa, a brother of
Takayama, became a Christian and imposed the faith on all his vassals,
just as Sumitada and other feudal chiefs had done in Kiushiu. But the
Kioto record differs from that of Kiushiu in one important respect--the
former is free from any intrusion of commercial motives.
Nobunaga and the Jesuits.
Kioto was at that time the scene of sanguinary tumults, which culminated
in the murder of the shogun (1565), and led to the issue of a decree by
the emperor proscribing Christianity. In Japanese medieval history this
is one of the only two instances of Imperial interference with Christian
propagandism. There is evidence that the edict was obtained at the
instance of one of the shogun's assassins and certain Buddhist priests.
The Jesuits--their number had been increased to three--were obliged to
take refuge in Sakai, now little more than a suburb of Osaka, but at
that time a great and wealthy mart, and the only town in Japan which did
not acknowledge the sway of any feudal chief. Three years later they
were summoned thence to be presented to Oda Nobunaga, one of the
greatest captains Japan has ever produced. In the very year of Xavier's
landing at Kagoshima, Nobunaga had succeeded to his father's fief, a
comparatively petty estate in the province of Owari. In 1568 he was
seated in Kioto, a maker of shoguns and acknowledged ruler of 30 among
the 66 provinces of Japan. Had Nobunaga, wielding such immense power,
adopted a hostile attitude towards Christianity, the fires lit by the
Jesuits in Japan must soon have been extinguished. Nobunaga, however, to
great breadth and liberality of view added strong animosity towards
Buddhist priests. Many of the great monasteries had become armed camps,
their inmates skilled equally in field-attacks and in the defence of
ramparts. One sect (the Nichiren), which was specially affected by the
samurai, had lent powerful aid to the murderers of the shogun three
years before Nobunaga's victories carried him to Kioto, and the armed
monasteries constituted _imperia in imperio_ which assorted ill with his
ambition of complete supremacy. He therefore welcomed Christianity for
the sake of its opposition to Buddhism, and when Takayama conducted
Froez from Sakai to Nobunaga's presence, the reception accorded to the
Jesuit was of the most cordial character. Throughout the fourteen years
of life that remained to him, Nobunaga continued to be the constant
friend of the missionaries in particular and of foreigners visiting
Japan in general. He stood between the Jesuits and the Throne when, in
reply to an appeal from the Buddhist priests, the emperor, for the
second time, issued an anti-Christian decree (1568); he granted a site
for a church and residence at Azuchi on Lake Biwa, where his new
fortress stood; he addressed to various powerful feudatories letters
signifying a desire for the spread of Christianity; he frequently made
handsome presents to the fathers, and whenever they visited him he
showed a degree of accessibility and graciousness very foreign to his
usually haughty and imperious demeanour. The Jesuits themselves said of
him: "This man seems to have been chosen by God to open and prepare the
way for our faith." Nevertheless they do not appear to have entertained
much hope at any time of converting Nobunaga. They must have understood
that their doctrines had not made any profound impression on a man who
could treat them as this potentate did in 1579, when he plainly showed
that political exigencies might at any moment induce him to sacrifice
them.[30] His last act, too, proved that sacrilege was of no account in
his eyes, for he took steps to have himself apotheosized at Azuchi with
the utmost pomp and circumstance. Still nothing can obscure the benefits
he heaped upon the propagandists of Christianity.
Hideyshi and the Christians.
The terrible tumult of domestic war through which Japan passed in the
15th and 16th centuries brought to her service three of the greatest men
ever produced in Occident or Orient. They were Oda Nobunaga, Toyotomi
Hideyoshi and Tokugawa Iyeyasu. Hideyoshi, as Nobunaga's lieutenant,
contributed largely to the building of the latter's fortunes, and,
succeeding him in 1582, brought the whole 66 provinces of the empire
under his own administrative sway. For the Jesuits now the absorbing
question was, what attitude Hideyoshi would assume towards their
propagandism. His power was virtually limitless. With a word he could
have overthrown the whole edifice created by them at the cost of so much
splendid effort and noble devotion. They were very quickly reassured. In
this matter Hideyoshi walked in Nobunaga's footsteps. He not only
accorded a friendly audience to Father Organtino, who waited on him as
representative of the Jesuits, but also he went in person to assign to
the company a site for a church and a residence in Osaka, where there
was presently to rise the most massive fortress ever built in the East.
At that time many Christian converts were serving in high positions, and
in 1584 the Jesuits placed it on record that "Hideyoshi was not only not
opposed to the things of God, but he even showed that he made much
account of them and preferred them to all the sects of the bonzes.... He
is entrusting to Christians his treasures, his secrets and his
fortresses of most importance, and shows himself well pleased that the
sons of the great lords about him should adopt our customs and our law."
Two years later in Osaka he received with every mark of cordiality and
favour a Jesuit mission which had come from Nagasaki seeking audience,
and on that occasion his visitor recorded that he spoke of an intention
of christianizing one half of Japan. Nor did Hideyoshi confine himself
to words. He actually signed a patent licensing the missionaries to
preach throughout all Japan, and exempting not only their houses and
churches from the billeting of soldiers but also the priests themselves
from local burdens. This was in 1586, on the eve of Hideyoshi's greatest
military enterprise, the invasion of Kiushiu and its complete reduction.
He carried that difficult campaign to completion by the middle of 1587,
and throughout its course he maintained a uniformly friendly demeanour
towards the Jesuits. But suddenly, when on the return journey he reached
Hakata in the north of the island, his policy underwent a radical
metamorphosis. Five questions were by his order propounded to the
vice-provincial of the Jesuits: "Why and by what authority he and his
fellow-propagandists had constrained Japanese subjects to become
Christians? Why they had induced their disciples and their sectaries to
overthrow temples? Why they persecuted the bonzes? Why they and other
Portuguese ate animals useful to men, such as oxen and cows? Why the
vice-provincial allowed merchants of his nation to buy Japanese to make
slaves of them in the Indies?" To these queries Coelho, the
vice-provincial, made answer that the missionaries had never themselves
resorted, or incited, to violence in their propagandism or persecuted
bonzes; that if their eating of beef were considered inadvisable, they
would give up the practice; and that they were powerless to prevent or
restrain the outrages perpetrated by their countrymen. Hideyoshi read
the vice-provincial's reply and, without comment, sent him word to
retire to Hirado, assemble all his followers there, and quit the country
within six months. On the next day (July 25, 1587) the following edict
was published:--
"Having learned from our faithful councillors that foreign priests
have come into our estates, where they preach a law contrary to that
of Japan, and that they even had the audacity to destroy temples
dedicated to our Kami and Hotoke; although the outrage merits the most
extreme punishment, wishing nevertheless to show them mercy, we order
them under pain of death to quit Japan within twenty days. During that
space no harm or hurt will be done to them. But at the expiration of
that term, we order that if any of them be found in our states, they
should be seized and punished as the greatest criminals. As for the
Portuguese merchants, we permit them to enter our ports, there to
continue their accustomed trade, and to remain in our states provided
our affairs need this. But we forbid them to bring any foreign priests
into the country, under the penalty of the confiscation of their ships
and goods."
How are we to account for this apparently rapid change of mood on the
part of Hideyoshi? Some historians insist that from the very outset he
conceived the resolve of suppressing Christianity and expelling its
propagandists, but that he concealed his design pending the subjugation
of Kiushiu, lest, by premature action, he might weaken his hand for that
enterprise. This hypothesis rests mainly on conjecture. Its formulators
found it easier to believe in a hidden purpose than to attribute to a
statesman so shrewd and far-seeing a sudden change of mind. A more
reasonable theory is that, shortly before leaving Osaka for Kiushiu,
Hideyoshi began to entertain doubts as to the expediency of tolerating
Christian propagandism, and that his doubts were signally strengthened
by direct observation of the state of affairs in Kiushiu. While still in
Osaka, he one day remarked publicly that "he feared much that all the
virtue of the European priests served only to conceal pernicious designs
against the empire." There had been no demolishing of temples or
overthrowing of images at Christian instance in the metropolitan
provinces. In Kiushiu, however, very different conditions prevailed.
There Christianity may be said to have been preached at the point of the
sword. Temples and images had been destroyed wholesale; vassals in
thousands had been compelled to embrace the foreign faith; and the
missionaries themselves had come to be treated as demi-gods whose nod
was worth conciliating at any cost of self-abasement. Brought into
direct contact with these evidences of the growth of a new power,
temporal as well as spiritual, Hideyoshi may well have reached the
conclusion that a choice had to be finally made between his own
supremacy and that of the alien creed, if not between the independence
of Japan and the yoke of the great Christian states of Europe.
Sequel of the Edict of Banishment.
Hideyoshi gauged the character of the medieval Christians with
sufficient accuracy to know that for the sake of their faith they would
at any time defy the laws of the island. His estimate received immediate
verification, for when the Jesuits, numbering 120, assembled at Hirado
and received his order to embark at once they decided that only those
should sail whose services were needed in China. The others remained and
went about their duties as usual, under the protection of the converted
feudatories. Hideyoshi, however, saw reason to wink at this disregard of
his authority. At first he showed uncompromising resolution. All the
churches in Kioto, Osaka and Sakai were demolished, while troops were
sent to raze the Christian places of worship in Kiushiu and seize the
port of Nagasaki. These troops were munificently dissuaded from their
purpose by the Christian feudatories. But Hideyoshi did not protest, and
in 1588 he allowed himself to be convinced by a Portuguese envoy that in
the absence of missionaries foreign trade must cease, since without the
intervention of the fathers peace and good order could not be maintained
among the merchants. Rather than suffer the trade to be interrupted
Hideyoshi agreed to the coming of priests, and thenceforth, during some
years, Christianity not only continued to flourish and grow in Kiushiu
but also found a favourable field of operations in Kioto itself. Care
was taken that Hideyoshi's attention should not be attracted by any
salient evidences of what he had called a "diabolical religion," and
thus for a time all went well. There is evidence that, like the feudal
chiefs in Kiushiu, Hideyoshi set great store by foreign trade and would
even have sacrificed to its maintenance and expansion something of the
aversion he had conceived for Christianity. He did indeed make one very
large concession. For on being assured that Portuguese traders could not
frequent Japan unless they found Christian priests there to minister to
them, he consented to sanction the presence of a limited number of
Jesuits. The statistics of 1595 show how Christianity fared under even
this partial tolerance, for there were then 137 Jesuits in Japan with
300,000 converts, among whom were 17 feudal chiefs, to say nothing of
many men of lesser though still considerable note, and even not a few
bonzes.
Hideyoshi's Final Attitude towards Christianity.
For ten years after his unlooked-for order of expulsion, Hideyoshi
preserved a tolerant mien. But in 1597 his forbearance gave place to a
mood of uncompromising severity. The reasons of this second change are
very clear, though diverse accounts have been transmitted. Up to 1593
the Portuguese had possessed a monopoly of religious propagandism and
over-sea commerce in Japan. The privilege was secured to them by
agreement between Spain and Portugal and by a papal bull. But the
Spaniards in Manila had long looked with somewhat jealous eyes on this
Jesuit reservation, and when news of the disaster of 1587 reached the
Philippines, the Dominicans and Franciscans residing there were fired
with zeal to enter an arena where the crown of martyrdom seemed to be
the least reward within reach. The papal bull, however, demanded
obedience, and to overcome that difficulty a ruse was necessary: the
governor of Manila agreed to send a party of Franciscans as ambassadors
to Hideyoshi. In that guise the friars, being neither traders nor
propagandists, considered that they did not violate either the treaty or
the bull. It was a technical subterfuge very unworthy of the object
contemplated, and the friars supplemented it by swearing to Hideyoshi
that the Philippines would submit to his sway. Thus they obtained
permission to visit Kioto, Osaka and Fushimi, but with the explicit
proviso that they must not preach. Very soon they had built a church in
Kioto, consecrated it with the utmost pomp, and were preaching sermons
and chaunting litanies there in flagrant defiance of Hideyoshi's veto.
Presently their number received an access of three friars who came
bearing gifts from the governor at Manila, and now they not only
established a convent in Osaka, but also seized a Jesuit church in
Nagasaki and converted the circumspect worship hitherto conducted there
by the fathers into services of the most public character. Officially
checked in Nagasaki, they charged the Jesuits in Kioto with having
intrigued to impede them, and they further vaunted the courageous
openness of their own ministrations as compared with the clandestine
timidity of the methods which wise prudence had induced the Jesuits to
adopt. Retribution would have followed quickly had not Hideyoshi's
attention been engrossed by an attempt to invade China through Korea. At
this stage, however, a memorable incident occurred. Driven out of her
course by a storm, a great and richly laden Spanish galleon, bound for
Acapulco from Manila, drifted to the coast of Tosa province, and
running--or being purposely run--on a sand-bank as she was being towed
into port by Japanese boats, broke her back. She carried goods to the
value of some 600,000 crowns, and certain officials urged Hideyoshi to
confiscate her as derelict, conveying to him at the same time a detailed
account of the doings of the Franciscans and their open flouting of his
orders. Hideyoshi, much incensed, commanded the arrest of the
Franciscans and despatched officers to Tosa to confiscate the "San
Felipe." The pilot of the galleon sought to intimidate these officers by
showing them on a map of the world the vast extent of Spain's dominions,
and being asked how one country had acquired such extended sway,
replied: "Our kings begin by sending into the countries they wish to
conquer missionaries who induce the people to embrace our religion, and
when they have made considerable progress, troops are sent who combine
with the new Christians, and then our kings have not much trouble in
accomplishing the rest."
The First Execution of Christians.
On learning of this speech Hideyoshi was overcome with fury. He
condemned the Franciscans to have their noses and ears cut off, to be
promenaded through Kioto, Osaka and Sakai, and to be crucified at
Nagasaki. "I have ordered these foreigners to be treated thus, because
they have come from the Philippines to Japan, calling themselves
ambassadors, although they were not so; because they have remained here
far too long without my permission; because, in defiance of my
prohibition, they have built churches, preached their religion and
caused disorders." Twenty-six suffered under this sentence--six
Franciscans, three Japanese Jesuits and seventeen native Christians,
chiefly domestic servants of the Franciscans.[31] They met their fate
with noble fortitude. Hideyoshi further issued a special injunction
against the adoption of Christianity by a feudal chief, and took steps
to give practical effect to his expulsion edict of 1587. The governor of
Nagasaki received instructions to send away all the Jesuits, permitting
only two or three to remain for the service of the Portuguese merchants.
But the Jesuits were not the kind of men who, to escape personal peril,
turn their back upon an unaccomplished work of grace. There were 125 of
them in Japan at that time. In October 1597 a junk sailed out of
Nagasaki harbour, her decks crowded with seeming Jesuits. In reality she
carried 11 of the company, the apparent Jesuits being disguised sailors.
It is not to be supposed that such a manoeuvre could be hidden from the
local authorities. They winked at it, until rumour became insistent that
Hideyoshi was about to visit Kiushiu in person, and all Japanese in
administrative posts knew how Hideyoshi visited disobedience and how
hopeless was any attempt to deceive him. Therefore, early in 1598,
really drastic steps were taken. Churches to the number of 137 were
demolished in Kiushiu, seminaries and residences fell, and the governor
of Nagasaki assembled there all the fathers of the company for
deportation to Macao by the great ship in the following year. But while
they waited, Hideyoshi died. It is not on record that the Jesuits openly
declared his removal from the earth to have been a special dispensation
in their favour. But they pronounced him an execrable tyrant and
consigned his "soul to hell for all eternity." Yet no impartial reader
of history can pretend to think that a 16th-century Jesuit general in
Hideyoshi's place would have shown towards an alien creed and its
propagandists even a small measure of the tolerance exercised by the
Japanese statesman towards Christianity and the Jesuits.
Foreign Policy of the Tokugawa Rulers.
Hideyoshi's death occurred in 1598. Two years later, his authority as
administrative ruler of all Japan had passed into the hands of Iyeyasu,
the Tokugawa chief, and thirty-nine years later the Tokugawa potentates
had not only exterminated Christianity in Japan but had also condemned
their country to a period of international isolation which continued
unbroken until 1853, an interval of 214 years. It has been shown that
even when they were most incensed against Christianity, Japanese
administrators sought to foster and preserve foreign trade. Why then did
they close the country's doors to the outside world and suspend a
commerce once so much esteemed? To answer that question some retrospect
is needed. Certain historians allege that from the outset Iyeyasu shared
Hideyoshi's misgivings about the real designs of Christian potentates
and Christian propagandists. But that verdict is not supported by facts.
The first occasion of the Tokugawa chief's recorded contact with a
Christian propagandist was less than three months after Hideyoshi's
death. There was then led into his presence a Franciscan, by name Jerome
de Jesus, originally a member of the fictitious embassy from Manila.
This man's conduct constitutes an example of the invincible zeal and
courage inspiring a Christian priest in those days. Barely escaping the
doom of crucifixion which overtook his companions, he had been deported
from Japan to Manila at a time when death seemed to be the certain
penalty of remaining. But no sooner had he been landed at Manila than he
took passage in a Chinese junk, and, returning to Nagasaki, made his way
secretly from the far south of Japan to the province of Kii. There
arrested, he was brought into the presence of Iyeyasu, and his own
record of what ensued is given in a letter subsequently sent to
Manila:--
"When the Prince saw me he asked how I had managed to escape the
previous persecution. I answered him that at that date God had
delivered me in order that I might go to Manila and bring back new
colleagues from there--preachers of the divine law--and that I had
returned from Manila to encourage the Christians, cherishing the
desire to die on the cross in order to go to enjoy eternal glory like
my former colleagues. On hearing these words the Emperor began to
smile, whether in his quality of a pagan of the sect of Shaka, which
teaches that there is no future life, or whether from the thought that
I was frightened at having to be put to death. Then, looking at me
kindly, he said, 'Be no longer afraid and no longer conceal yourself,
and no longer change your habit, for I wish you well; and as for the
Christians who every year pass within sight of the Kwanto where my
domains are, when they go to Mexico with their ships, I have a keen
desire for them to visit the harbours of this island, to refresh
themselves there, and to take what they wish, to trade with my vassals
and to teach them how to develop silver mines; and that my intentions
may be accomplished before my death, I wish you to indicate to me the
means to take to realize them.' I answered that it was necessary that
Spanish pilots should take the soundings of his harbours, so that
ships might not be lost in future as the 'San Felipe' had been, and
that he should solicit this service from the governor of the
Philippines. The Prince approved of my advice, and accordingly he has
sent a Japanese gentleman, a native of Sakai, the bearer of this
message.... It is essential to oppose no obstacle to the complete
liberty offered by the Emperor to the Spaniards and to our holy order,
for the preaching of the holy gospel.... The same Prince (who is about
to visit the Kwanto) invites me to accompany him to make choice of a
house, and to visit the harbour which he promises to open to us; his
desires in this respect are keener than I can express."
The above version of the Tokugawa chief's mood is confirmed by events,
for not only did he allow the contumelious Franciscan to build a
church--the first--in Yedo and to celebrate Mass there, but also he sent
three embassies to the Philippines, proposing reciprocal freedom of
commerce, offering to open ports in the Kwanto and asking for competent
naval architects. He never obtained the architects, and though the trade
came, its volume was small in comparison with the abundance of friars
that accompanied it. There is just a possibility that Iyeyasu saw in
these Spanish monks an instrument of counteracting the influence of the
Jesuits, for he must have known that the Franciscans opened their
mission in Yedo by "declaiming with violence against the fathers of the
company of Jesus." In short, the Spanish monks assumed towards the
Jesuits in Japan the same intolerant and abusive tone that the Jesuits
themselves had previously assumed towards Buddhism.
At that time there appeared upon the scene another factor destined
greatly to complicate events. It was a Dutch merchant ship, the
"Liefde." Until the Netherlands revolted from Spain, the Dutch had been
the principal distributors of all goods arriving at Lisbon from the Far
East; but in 1594 Philip II. closed the port of Lisbon to these rebels,
and the Dutch met the situation by turning their prows to the Orient to
invade the sources of Portuguese commerce. One of the first expeditions
despatched for that purpose set out in 1598, and of the five vessels
composing it one only was ever heard of again. This was the "Liefde."
She reached Japan during the spring of 1600, with only four-and-twenty
alive out of her original crew of 110. Towed into the harbour at Funai,
the "Liefde" was visited by Jesuits, who, on discovering her
nationality, denounced her to the local authorities as a pirate and
endeavoured to incense the Japanese against them. The "Liefde" had on
board in the capacity of "pilot major" an Englishman, Will Adams of
Gillingham in Kent, whom Iyeyasu summoned to Osaka, where there
commenced between the rough British sailor and the Tokugawa chief a
curiously friendly intercourse which was not interrupted until the death
of Adams twenty years later. The Englishman became master ship-builder
to the Yedo government; was employed as diplomatic agent when other
traders from his own country and from Holland arrived in Japan,
received in perpetual gift a substantial estate, and from first to last
possessed the implicit confidence of the shogun. Iyeyasu quickly
discerned the man's honesty, perceived that whatever benefits foreign
commerce might confer would be increased by encouraging competition
among the foreigners, and realized that English and Dutch trade
presented the wholesome feature of complete dissociation from religious
propagandism. On the other hand, he showed no intolerance to either
Spaniards or Portuguese. He issued (1601) two official patents
sanctioning the residence of the fathers in Kioto, Osaka and Nagasaki;
he employed Father Rodriguez as interpreter to the court at Yedo; and in
1603 he gave munificent succour to the Jesuits who were reduced to dire
straits owing to the capture of the great ship from Macao by the Dutch
and the consequent loss of several years' supplies for the mission in
Japan.
It is thus seen that each of the great trio of Japan's 16th-century
statesmen--Nobunaga, Hideyoshi and Iyeyasu--adopted at the outset a most
tolerant demeanour towards Christianity. The reasons of Hideyoshi's
change of mood have been set forth. We have now to examine the reasons
that produced a similar metamorphosis in the case of Iyeyasu. Two causes
present themselves immediately. The first is that, while tolerating
Christianity, Iyeyasu did not approve of it as a creed; the second, that
he himself, whether from state policy or genuine piety, strongly
encouraged Buddhism. Proof of the former proposition is found in an
order issued by him in 1602 to insure the safety of foreign merchantmen
entering Japanese ports: it concluded with the reservation, "but we
rigorously forbid them" (foreigners coming in such ships) "to promulgate
their faith." Proof of the latter is furnished by the facts that he
invariably carried about with him a miniature Buddhist image which he
regarded as his tutelary deity, and that he fostered the creed of Shaka
as zealously as Oda Nobunaga had suppressed it. There is much difficulty
in tracing the exact sequence of events which gradually educated a
strong antipathy to the Christian faith in the mind of the Tokugawa
chief. He must have been influenced in some degree by the views of his
great predecessor, Hideyoshi. But he did not accept those views
implicitly. At the end of the 16th century he sent a trusted emissary to
Europe for the purpose of directly observing the conditions in the home
of Christianity, and this man, the better to achieve his aim, embraced
the foreign faith, and studied it from within as well as from without.
The story that he had to tell on his return could not fail to shock the
ruler of a country where freedom of conscience had existed from time
immemorial. It was a story of the inquisition and of the stake; of
unlimited aggression in the name of the cross; of the pope's
overlordship which entitled him to confiscate the realm of heretical
sovereigns; of religious wars and of well-nigh incredible fanaticism.
Iyeyasu must have received an evil impression while he listened to his
emissary's statements. Under his own eyes, too, were abundant evidences
of the spirit of strife that Christian dogma engendered in those times.
From the moment when the Franciscans and Dominicans arrived in Japan, a
fierce quarrel began between them and the Jesuits; a quarrel which even
community of suffering could not compose. Not less repellent was an
attempt on the part of the Spaniards to dictate to Iyeyasu the expulsion
of all Hollanders from Japan, and on the part of the Jesuits to dictate
the expulsion of the Spaniards. The former proposal, couched almost in
the form of a demand, was twice formulated, and accompanied on the
second occasion by a scarcely less insulting offer, namely, that Spanish
men-of-war would be sent to Japan to burn all Dutch ships found in the
ports of the empire. If in the face of proposals so contumelious of his
sovereign authority Iyeyasu preserved a calm and dignified mien, merely
replying that his country was open to all comers, and that, if other
nations had quarrels among themselves, they must not take Japan for
battle-ground, it is nevertheless unimaginable that he did not strongly
resent such interference with his own independent foreign policy, and
that he did not interpret it as foreshadowing a disturbance of the
realm's peace by sectarian quarrels among Christians. These
experiences, predisposing Iyeyasu to dislike Christianity as a creed and
to distrust it as a political influence, were soon supplemented by
incidents of an immediately determinative character. The first was an
act of fraud and forgery committed in the interests of a Christian
feudatory by a trusted official, himself a Christian. Thereupon Iyeyasu,
conceiving it unsafe that Christians should fill offices at his court,
dismissed all those so employed, banished them from Yedo and forbade any
feudal chief to harbour them. The second incident was an attempted
survey of the coast of Japan by a Spanish mariner and a Franciscan
friar. Permission to take this step had been obtained by an envoy from
New Spain, but no deep consideration of reasons seems to have preluded
the permission on Japan's side, and when the mariner (Sebastian) and the
friar (Sotelo) hastened to carry out the project, Iyeyasu asked Will
Adams to explain this display of industry. The Englishman replied that
such a proceeding would be regarded in Europe as an act of hostility,
especially on the part of the Spaniards or Portuguese, whose aggressions
were notorious. He added, in reply to further questions, that "the Roman
priesthood had been expelled from many parts of Germany, from Sweden,
Norway, Denmark, Holland and England, and that although his own country
preserved the pure form of the Christian faith from which Spain and
Portugal had deviated, yet neither English nor Dutch considered that
that fact afforded them any reason to war with, or to annex, States
which were not Christian solely for the reason that they were
non-Christian." Iyeyasu reposed entire confidence in Adams. Hearing the
Englishman's testimony, he is said to have exclaimed, "If the sovereigns
of Europe do not tolerate these priests, I do them no wrong if I refuse
to tolerate them." Japanese historians add that Iyeyasu discovered a
conspiracy on the part of some Japanese Christians to overthrow his
government by the aid of foreign troops. It was not a widely ramified
plot, but it lent additional importance to the fact that the sympathy of
the fathers and their converts was plainly with the only magnate in the
empire who continued to dispute the Tokugawa supremacy, Hideyori, the
son of Hideyoshi. Nevertheless Iyeyasu shrank from proceeding to
extremities in the case of any foreign priest, and this attitude he
maintained until his death (1616). Possibly he might have been not less
tolerant towards native Christians also had not the Tokugawa authority
been openly defied by a Franciscan father--the Sotelo mentioned
above--in Yedo itself. Then (1613) the first execution of Japanese
converts took place, though the monk himself was released after a short
incarceration. At that time, as is still the case even in these more
enlightened days, insignificant differences of custom sometimes induced
serious misconceptions. A Christian who had violated the secular law was
crucified in Nagasaki. Many of his fellow-believers kneeled around his
cross and prayed for the peace of his soul. A party of converts were
afterwards burned to death in the same place for refusing to apostatize,
and their Christian friends crowded to carry off portions of their
bodies as holy relics. When these things were reported to Iyeyasu, he
said, "Without doubt that must be a diabolic faith which persuades
people not only to worship criminals condemned to death for their
crimes, but also to honour those who have been burned or cut in pieces
by the order of their lord" (feudal chief).
Suppression of Christianity.
The fateful edict ordering that all foreign priests should be collected
in Nagasaki preparatory to removal from Japan, that all churches should
be demolished, and that the converts should be compelled to abjure
Christianity, was issued on the 27th of January 1614. There were then in
Japan 122 Jesuits, 14 Franciscans, 9 Dominicans, 4 Augustins and 7
secular priests. Had these men obeyed the orders of the Japanese
authorities by leaving the country finally, not one foreigner would have
suffered for his faith in Japan, except the 6 Franciscans executed at
Nagasaki by order of Hideyoshi in 1597. But suffering and death counted
for nothing with the missionaries as against the possibility of winning
or keeping even one convert. Forty-seven of them evaded the edict, some
by concealing themselves at the time of its issue, the rest by leaving
their ships when the latter had passed out of sight of the shore of
Japan, and returning by boats to the scene of their former labours.
Moreover, in a few months, those that had actually crossed the sea
re-crossed it in various disguises, and soon the Japanese government had
to consider whether it would suffer its authority to be thus flouted or
resort to extreme measures.
During two years immediately following the issue of the anti-Christian
decree, the attention of the Tokugawa chief and indeed of all Japan was
concentrated on the closing episode of the great struggle which assured
to Iyeyasu final supremacy as administrative ruler of the empire. That
episode was a terrible battle under the walls of Osaka castle between
the adherents of the Tokugawa and the supporters of Hideyori. In this
struggle fresh fuel was added to the fire of anti-Christian resentment,
for many Christian converts threw in their lot with Hideyori, and in one
part of the field the Tokugawa troops found themselves fighting against
a foe whose banners were emblazoned with the cross and with images of
the Saviour and St James, the patron saint of Spain. But the Christians
had protectors. Many of the feudatories showed themselves strongly
averse from inflicting the extreme penalty on men and women whose
adoption of an alien religion had been partly forced by the feudatories
themselves. As for the people at large, their liberal spirit is attested
by the fact that five fathers who were in Osaka castle at the time of
its capture made their way to distant refuges without encountering any
risk of betrayal. During these events the death of Iyeyasu took place
(June 1, 1616), and pending the dedication of his mausoleum the
anti-Christian crusade was virtually suspended.
In September 1616 a new anti-Christian edict was promulgated by
Hidetada, son and successor of Iyeyasu. It pronounced sentence of exile
against all Christian priests, including even those whose presence had
been sanctioned for ministering to the Portuguese merchants: it forbade
the Japanese, under the penalty of being burned alive and of having all
their property confiscated, to have any connexion with the ministers of
religion or to give them hospitality. It was forbidden to any prince or
lord to keep Christians in his service or even on his estates, and the
edict was promulgated with more than usual solemnity, though its
enforcement was deferred until the next year on account of the obsequies
of Iyeyasu. This edict of 1616 differed from that issued by Iyeyasu in
1614, since the latter did not prescribe the death penalty for converts
refusing to apostatize. But both agreed in indicating expulsion as the
sole manner of dealing with the foreign priests. As for the shogun and
his advisers, it is reasonable to assume that they did not anticipate
much necessity for recourse to violence. They must have known that a
great majority of the converts had joined the Christian church at the
instance or by the command of their local rulers, and nothing can have
seemed less likely than that a creed thus lightly embraced would be
adhered to in defiance of torture and death. It is moreover morally
certain that had the foreign propagandists obeyed the Government's edict
and left the country, not one would have been put to death. They
suffered because they defied the laws of the land. Some fifty
missionaries happened to be in Nagasaki when Hidetada's edict was
issued. A number of these were apprehended and deported, but several of
them returned almost immediately. This happened under the jurisdiction
of Omura, who had been specially charged with the duty of sending away
the _bateren_ (_padres_). He appears to have concluded that a striking
example must be furnished, and he therefore ordered the seizure and
decapitation of two fathers, De l'Assumpcion and Machado. The result
completely falsified his calculations, and presaged the cruel struggle
now destined to begin.
The bodies, placed in different coffins, were interred in the same
grave. Guards were placed over it, but the concourse was immense. The
sick were carried to the sepulchre to be restored to health. The
Christians found new strength in this martyrdom; the pagans themselves
were full of admiration for it. Numerous conversions and numerous
returns of apostates took place everywhere.
In the midst of all this, Navarette, the vice-provincial of the
Dominicans, and Ayala, the vice-provincial of the Augustins, came out of
their retreat, and in full priestly garb started upon an open
propaganda. The two fanatics--for so even Charlevoix considers them to
have been--were secretly conveyed to the island Takashima and there
decapitated, while their coffins were weighted with big stones and sunk
in the sea. Even more directly defiant was the attitude of the next
martyred priest, an old Franciscan monk, Juan de Santa Martha. He had
for three years suffered all the horrors of a medieval Japanese prison,
when it was proposed to release him and deport him to New Spain. His
answer was that, if released, he would stay in Japan and preach there.
He laid his head on the block in August 1618. But from that time until
1622 no other foreign missionary suffered capital punishment in Japan,
though many of them arrived in the country and continued their
propagandism there. During that interval, also, there occurred another
incident eminently calculated to fix upon the Christians still deeper
suspicion of political designs. In a Portuguese ship captured by the
Dutch a letter was found instigating the Japanese converts to revolt,
and promising that, when the number of these disaffected Christians was
sufficient, men-of-war would be sent to aid them. Not the least potent
of the influences operating against the Christians was that pamphlets
were written by apostates attributing the zeal of the foreign
propagandists solely to political motives. Yet another indictment of
Spanish and Portuguese propagandists was contained in a despatch
addressed to Hidetada in 1620 by the admiral in command of the British
and Dutch fleet then cruising in Far-Eastern waters. In that document
the friars were flatly accused of treacherous practices, and the
Japanese ruler was warned against the aggressive designs of Philip of
Spain. In the face of all this evidence the Japanese ceased to hesitate,
and a time of terror ensued for the fathers and their converts. The
measures adopted towards the missionaries gradually increased in
severity. In 1617 the first two fathers put to death (De l'Assumpcion
and Machado) were beheaded, "not by the common executioner, but by one
of the first officers of the prince." Subsequently Navarette and Ayala
were decapitated by the executioner. Then, in 1618, Juan de Santa Martha
was executed like a common criminal, his body being dismembered and his
head exposed. Finally, in 1622, Zuniga and Flores were burnt alive. The
same year was marked by the "great martyrdom" at Nagasaki when 9 foreign
priests went to the stake with 19 Japanese converts. The shogun seems to
have been now labouring under vivid fear of a foreign invasion. An
emissary sent by him to Europe had returned on the eve of the "great
martyrdom" after seven years abroad, and had made a report more than
ever unfavourable to Christianity. Therefore Hidetada deemed it
necessary to refuse audience to a Philippine embassy in 1624 and to
deport all Spaniards from Japan. Further, it was decreed that no
Japanese Christian should thenceforth be suffered to go abroad for
commerce, and that though non-Christians or men who had apostatized
might travel freely, they must not visit the Philippines. Thus ended all
intercourse between Japan and Spain. It had continued for 32 years and
had engendered a widespread conviction that Christianity was an
instrument of Spanish aggression.
Iyemitsu, son of Hidetada, now ruled in Yedo, though Hidetada himself
remained the power behind the throne. The year (1623) of the former's
accession to power had been marked by the re-issue of anti-Christian
decrees, and by the martyrdom of some 500 Christians within the Tokugawa
domains, whither the tide of persecution now flowed for the first time.
Thenceforth the campaign was continuous. The men most active and most
relentless in carrying on the persecution were Mizuno and Takenaka,
governors of Nagasaki, and Matsukura, feudatory of Shimabara. By the
latter were invented the punishment of throwing converts into the
solfataras at Unzen and the torture of the _fosse_, which consisted in
suspension by the feet, head downwards, in a pit until blood oozed from
the mouth, nose and ears. Many endured this latter torture for days,
until death came to their relief, but a few--notably the Jesuit
provincial Ferreyra--apostatized. Matsukura and Takenaka were so
strongly obsessed by the Spanish menace that they contemplated the
conquest of the Philippines in order to deprive the Spaniards of a
Far-Eastern base. But timid counsels then prevailed in Yedo, where the
spirit of a Nobunaga, a Hideyoshi or an Iyeyasu no longer presided. Of
course the measures of repression grew in severity as the fortitude of
the Christians became more obdurate. It is not possible to state the
exact number of victims. Some historians say that, down to 1635, no
fewer than 280,000 were punished, but that figure is probably
exaggerated, for the most trustworthy records indicate that the converts
never aggregated more than 300,000, and many of these, if not a great
majority, having accepted the foreign faith very lightly, doubtless
discarded it readily under menace of destruction. Every opportunity was
given for apostatizing and for escaping death. Immunity could be secured
by pointing out a fellow-convert, and when it is observed that among the
seven or eight feudatories who embraced Christianity only two or three
died in that faith, we must conclude that not a few cases of recanting
occurred among the commoners. Remarkable fortitude, however, is said to
have been displayed. If the converts were intrepid their teachers showed
no less courage. Again and again the latter defied the Japanese
authorities by coming to the country or returning thither after having
been deported. Ignoring the orders of the governors of Macao and Manila
and even of the king of Spain himself, they arrived, year after year, to
be certainly apprehended and sent to the stake after brief periods of
propagandism. In 1626 they actually baptized over 3000 converts. Large
rewards were paid to anyone denouncing a propagandist, and as for the
people, they had to trample upon a picture of Christ in order to prove
that they were not Christians.
Meanwhile the feuds between the Dutch, the Spaniards and the Portuguese
never ceased. In 1636, the Dutch found on a captured Portuguese vessel a
report of the governor of Macao describing a two days' festival which
had been held there in honour of Vieyra, the vice-provincial whose
martyrdom had just taken place in Japan. This report the Dutch handed to
the Japanese authorities "in order that his majesty may see more clearly
what great honour the Portuguese pay to those he has forbidden his realm
as traitors to the state and to his crown." Probably the accusation
added little to the resentment and distrust already harboured by the
Japanese against the Portuguese. At all events the Yedo government took
no step distinctly hostile to Portuguese laymen until 1637, when an
edict was issued forbidding any foreigners to travel in the empire, lest
Portuguese with passports bearing Dutch names might enter it. This was
the beginning of the end. In the last month of 1637 a rebellion broke
out, commonly called the "Christian revolt of Shimabara," which sealed
the fate of Japan's foreign intercourse for over 200 years.
The Shimabara Revolt.
The promontory of Shimabara and the island of Amakusa enclose the gulf
of Nagasaki on the west. Among all the fiefs in Japan, Shimabara and
Amakusa had been the two most thoroughly christianized in the early
years of Jesuit propagandism. Hence in later days they were naturally
the scene of the severest persecutions. Still the people would probably
have suffered in silence had they not been taxed beyond all endurance to
supply funds for an extravagant chief who employed savage methods of
extortion. Japanese annals, however, relegate the taxation grievance to
an altogether secondary place, and attribute the revolt solely to the
instigation of five samurai who led a roving life to avoid persecution
for their adherence to Christianity. Whichever version be correct, it is
certain that the outbreak ultimately attracted all the Christians from
the surrounding regions, and was regarded by the authorities as in
effect a Christian rising. The Amakusa insurgents passed over to
Shimabara, and on the 27th of January 1638 the whole body--numbering,
according to some authorities, 20,000 fighting men with 17,000 women and
children; according to others, little more than one-half of these
figures--took possession of the dilapidated castle of Hara, which stood
on a plateau with three sides descending perpendicularly to the sea, a
hundred feet beneath, and with a swamp on its fourth front. There the
insurgents, who fought under flags with red crosses and whose battle
cries were "Jesus," "Maria" and "St Iago," successfully maintained
themselves against the repeated assaults of strong forces until the 12th
of April, when, their ammunition and their provisions alike exhausted,
they were overwhelmed and put to the sword, with the exception of 105
prisoners. During the siege the Dutch were enabled to furnish a vivid
proof of enmity to the Christianity of the Spaniards and the Portuguese.
For the guns in possession of the besiegers being too light to
accomplish anything, Koeckebacker, the factor at Hirado, was invited to
send ships carrying heavier metal. He replied with the "de Ryp" of 20
guns, which threw 426 shot into the castle in 15 days. Probably the
great bulk of the remaining Japanese Christians perished at the massacre
of Hara. Thenceforth there were few martyrs.[32]
Foreign Trade in the 17th Century.
It has been clearly shown that Nobunaga, Hideyoshi and Iyeyasu were all
in favour of foreign intercourse and trade, and that the Tokugawa chief,
even more than his predecessor Hideyoshi, made strenuous efforts to
differentiate between Christianity and commerce, so that the latter
might not be involved in the former's fate. In fact the three objects
which Iyeyasu desired most earnestly to compass were the development of
foreign commerce, the acquisition of a mercantile marine and the
exploitation of Japan's mines. He offered the Spaniards, Portuguese,
English and Dutch a site for a settlement in Yedo, and had they accepted
the offer the country might never have been closed. In his time Japan
was virtually a free-trade country. Importers had not to pay any duties.
It was expected, however, that they should make presents to the
feudatory into whose port they carried their goods, and these presents
were often very valuable. Naturally the Tokugawa chief desired to
attract such a source of wealth to his own domains. He sent more than
one envoy to Manila to urge the opening of commerce direct with the
regions about Yedo, and to ask the Spaniards for competent naval
architects. Perhaps the truest exposition of his attitude is given in a
law enacted in 1602:--
"If any foreign vessel by stress of weather is obliged to touch at any
principality or to put into any harbour of Japan, we order that,
whoever these foreigners may be, absolutely nothing whatever that
belongs to them or that they may have brought in their ship, shall be
taken from them. Likewise we rigorously prohibit the use of any
violence in the purchase or the sale of any of the commodities brought
by their ship, and if it is not convenient for the merchants of the
ship to remain in the port they have entered, they may pass to any
other port that may suit them, and therein buy and sell in full
freedom. Likewise we order in a general manner that foreigners may
freely reside in any part of Japan they choose, but we rigorously
forbid them to promulgate their faith."
It was in that mood that he granted (1605) a licence to the Dutch to
trade in Japan, his expectation doubtless being that the ships which
they promised to send every year would make their depot at Uraga or in
some other place near Yedo. But things were ordered differently. The
first Hollanders that set foot in Japan were the survivors of the
wrecked "Liefde." Thrown into prison for a time, they were approached by
emissaries from the feudatory of Hirado, who engaged some of them to
teach the art of casting guns and the science of gunnery to his vassals,
and when two of them were allowed to leave Japan, he furnished them with
the means of doing so, at the same time making promises which invested
Hirado with attractions as a port of trade, though it was then and
always remained an insignificant fishing village. The Dutch possessed
precisely the qualifications suited to the situation then existing in
Japan: they had commercial potentialities without any religious
associations. Fully appreciating that fact, the shrewd feudatory of
Hirado laid himself out to entice the Dutchmen to his fief, and he
succeeded. Shortly afterwards, an incident occurred which clearly
betrayed the strength of the Tokugawa chief's desire to exploit Japan's
mines. The governor-general of the Philippines (Don Rodrigo Vivero y
Velasco), his ship being cast away on the Japanese coast on a voyage to
Acapulco, was received by Iyeyasu, and in response to the latter's
request for fifty miners, the Spaniard formulated terms to which Iyeyasu
actually agreed: that half the produce of the mines should go to the
miners; that the other half should be divided between Iyeyasu and the
king of Spain; that the latter might send commissioners to Japan to look
after his mining interests, and that these commissioners might be
accompanied by priests who would be entitled to have public churches for
holding services. This was in 1609, when the Tokugawa chief had again
and again imposed the strictest veto on Christian propagandism. There
can be little doubt that he understood the concession made to Don
Rodrigo in the sense of Hideyoshi's mandate to the Jesuits in Nagasaki,
namely, that a sufficient number might remain to minister to the
Portuguese traders frequenting the port. Iyeyasu had confidence in
himself and in his countrymen. He knew that emergencies could be dealt
with when they arose and he sacrificed nothing to timidity. But his
courageous policy died with him and the miners did not come. Neither did
the Spaniards ever devote any successful efforts to establishing trade
with Japan. Their vessels paid fitful visits to Uraga, but the
Portuguese continued to monopolize the commerce.
Opening of Dutch and English Trade.
In 1611 a Dutch merchantman (the "Brach") reached Hirado with a cargo of
pepper, cloth, ivory, silk and lead. She carried two envoys, Spex and
Segerszoon, and in the very face of a Spanish embassy which had just
arrived from Manila expressly for the purpose of "settling the matter
regarding the Hollanders," the Dutchmen obtained a liberal patent from
Iyeyasu. Twelve years previously, the merchants of London, stimulated
generally by the success of the Dutch in trade with the East, and
specially by the fact that "these Hollanders had raised the price of
pepper against us from 3 shillings per pound to 6 shillings and 8
shillings," organized the East India Company which immediately began to
send ships eastward. Of course the news that the Dutch were about to
establish a trading station in Japan reached London speedily, and the
East India Company lost no time in ordering one of their vessels, the
"Clove," under Captain Saris, to proceed to the Far-Eastern islands. She
carried a quantity of pepper, and on the voyage she endeavoured to
procure some spices at the Moluccas. But the Dutch would not suffer any
poaching on their valuable monopoly. The "Clove" entered Hirado on the
11th of June 1613. Saris seems to have been a man self-opinionated, of
shallow judgment and suspicious. Though strongly urged by Will Adams to
make Uraga the seat of the new trade, though convinced of the excellence
of the harbour there, and though instructed as to the great advantage of
proximity to the shogun's capital, he appears to have conceived some
distrust of Adams, for he chose Hirado. From Iyeyasu Captain Saris
received a most liberal charter, which plainly displayed the mood of the
Tokugawa shogun towards foreign trade:--
1. The ship that has now come for the first time from England over the
sea to Japan may carry on trade of all kinds without hindrance. With
regard to future visits (of English ships) permission will be given in
regard to all matters.
2. With regard to the cargoes of ships, requisition will be made by
list according to the requirements of the shogunate.
3. English ships are free to visit any port in Japan. If disabled by
storms they may put into any harbour.
4. Ground in Yedo in the place which they may desire shall be given to
the English, and they may erect houses and reside and trade there.
They shall be at liberty to return to their country whenever they wish
to do so, and to dispose as they like of the houses they have erected.
5. If an Englishman dies in Japan of disease, or any other cause, his
effects shall be handed over without fail.
6. Forced sales of cargo, and violence, shall not take place.
7. If one of the English should commit an offence, he should be
sentenced by the English General according to the gravity of his
offence.
(Translated by Professor Riess.)
The terms of the 4th article show that the shogun expected the English
to make Yedo their headquarters. Had Saris done so, he would have been
free from all competition, would have had an immense market at his very
doors, would have economized the expense of numerous overland journeys
to the Tokugawa court, and would have saved the payment of many
"considerations." The result of his mistaken choice and subsequent bad
management was that, ten years later (1623), the English factory at
Hirado had to be closed, having incurred a total loss of about L2000. In
condonation of this failure it must be noted that a few months after the
death of Iyeyasu, the charter he had granted to Saris underwent serious
modification. The original document threw open to the English every port
in Japan; the revised document limited them to Hirado. But this
restriction may be indirectly traced to the blunder of not accepting a
settlement in Yedo and a port at Uraga. For the Tokugawa's foreign
policy was largely swayed by an apprehension lest the Kiushiu
feudatories, over whom the authority of Yedo had never been fully
established, might, by the presence of foreign traders, come into
possession of such a fleet and such an armament as would ultimately
enable them to wrest the administration of the empire from Tokugawa
hands. Hence the precaution of confining the English and the Dutch to
Hirado, the fief of a _daimyo_ too petty to become formidable, and to
Nagasaki which was an imperial city.[33] But evidently an English
factory in Yedo and English ships at Uraga would have strengthened the
Tokugawa ruler's hand instead of supplying engines of war to his
political foes. It must also be noted that the question of locality had
another injurious outcome. It exposed the English--and the Dutch
also--to crippling competition at the hands of a company of rich Osaka
monopolists, who, as representing an Imperial city and therefore being
pledged to the Tokugawa interests, enjoyed Yedo's favour and took full
advantage of it. These shrewd traders not only drew a ring round Hirado,
but also sent vessels on their own account to Cochin China, Siam,
Tonkin, Cambodia and other places, where they obtained many of the
staples in which the English and the Dutch dealt. Still the closure of
the English factory at Hirado was purely voluntary. From first to last
there had been no serious friction between the English and the Japanese.
The company's houses and godowns were not sold. These as well as the
charter were left in the hands of the daimyo of Hirado, who promised to
restore them should the English re-open business in Japan. The company
did think of doing so on more than one occasion, but no practical step
was taken until the year 1673, when a merchantman, aptly named the
"Return," was sent to seek permission. The Japanese, after mature
reflection, made answer that as the king of England was married to a
Portuguese princess, British subjects could not be permitted to visit
Japan. That this reply was suggested by the Dutch is very probable; that
it truly reflected the feeling of the Japanese government towards Roman
Catholics is certain.
The Last Days of the Portuguese in Japan.
The Spaniards were expelled from Japan in 1624, the Portuguese in 1638.
Two years before the latter event, the Yedo government took a signally
retrogressive step. They ordained that no Japanese vessel should go
abroad; that no Japanese subject should leave the country, and that, if
detected attempting to do so, he should be put to death, the vessel that
carried him and her crew being seized "to await our pleasure"; that any
Japanese resident abroad should be executed if he returned; that the
children and descendants of Spaniards together with those who had
adopted such children should not be allowed to remain on pain of death;
and that no ship of ocean-going dimensions should be built in Japan.
Thus not only were the very children of the Christian propagandists
driven completely from the land, but the Japanese people also were
sentenced to imprisonment within the limits of their islands, and the
country was deprived of all hope of acquiring a mercantile marine. The
descendants of the Spaniards, banished by the edict, were taken to Macao
in two Portuguese galleons. They numbered 287 and the property they
carried with them aggregated 6,697,500 florins. But if the Portuguese
derived any gratification from this sweeping out of their much-abused
rivals, the feeling was destined to be short-lived. Already they were
subjected to humiliating restrictions.
"From 1623 the galleons and their cargoes were liable to be burnt and
their crews executed if any foreign priest was found on board of them.
An official of the Japanese government was stationed in Macao for the
purpose of inspecting all intending passengers, and of preventing any
one that looked at all suspicious from proceeding to Japan. A complete
list and personal description of every one on board was drawn up by
this officer, a copy of it was handed to the captain and by him it had
to be delivered to the authorities who met him at Nagasaki before he
was allowed to anchor. If in the subsequent inspection any discrepancy
between the list and the persons actually carried by the vessel
appeared, it would prove very awkward for the captain. Then in the
inspection of the vessel letters were opened, trunks and boxes
ransacked, and all crosses, rosaries or objects of religion of any
kind had to be thrown overboard. In 1635 Portuguese were forbidden to
employ Japanese to carry their umbrellas or their shoes, and only
their chief men were allowed to bear arms, while they had to hire
fresh servants every year. It was in the following year (1636) that
the artificial islet of Deshima was constructed for their special
reception, or rather imprisonment. It lay in front of the former
Portuguese factory, with which it was connected by a bridge, and
henceforth the Portuguese were to be allowed to cross this bridge only
twice a year--at their arrival and at their departure. Furthermore,
all their cargoes had to be sold at a fixed price during their fifty
days' stay to a ring of licensed merchants from the imperial
towns."[34]
The imposition of such irksome conditions did not deter the Portuguese,
who continued to send merchandise-laden galleons to Nagasaki. But in
1638 the bolt fell. The Shimabara rebellion was directly responsible.
Probably the fact of a revolt of Christian converts, in such numbers and
fighting with such resolution, would alone have sufficed to induce the
weak government in Yedo to get rid of the Portuguese altogether. But the
Portuguese were suspected of having instigated the Shimabara
insurrection, and the Japanese authorities believed that they had proof
of the fact. Hence, in 1638, an edict was issued proclaiming that as, in
defiance of the government's order, the Portuguese had continued to
bring missionaries to Japan; as they had supplied these missionaries
with provisions and other necessaries, and as they had fomented the
Shimabara rebellion, thenceforth any Portuguese ship coming to Japan
should be burned, together with her cargo, and every one on board of her
should be executed. Ample time was allowed before enforcing this edict.
Not only were the Portuguese ships then at Nagasaki permitted to close
up their commercial transactions and leave the port, but also in the
following year when two galleons arrived from Macao, they were merely
sent away with a copy of the edict and a stern warning. But the
Portuguese could not easily become reconciled to abandon a commerce from
which they had derived splendid profits prior to the intrusion of the
Spaniards, the Dutch and the English, and from which they might now hope
further gains, since, although the Dutch continued to be formidable
rivals, the Spaniards had been excluded, the English had withdrawn, and
the Japanese, by the suicidal policy of their own rulers, were no longer
able to send ships to China. Therefore they took a step which resulted
in one of the saddest episodes of the whole story. Four aged men, the
most respected citizens of Macao, were despatched (1640) to Nagasaki as
ambassadors in a ship carrying no cargo but only rich presents. They
bore a petition declaring that for a long time no missionaries had
entered Japan from Macao, that the Portuguese had not been in any way
connected with the Shimabara revolt, and that interruption of trade
would injure Japan as much as Portugal. These envoys arrived at Nagasaki
on the 1st of July 1640, and 24 days sufficed to bring from Yedo,
whither their petition had been sent, peremptory orders for their
execution as well as executioners to carry out the orders. There was no
possibility of resistance. The Japanese had removed the ship's rudder,
sails, guns and ammunition, and had placed the envoys, their suite and
the crews under guard in Deshima. On the 2nd of August they were all
summoned to the governor's hall of audience, where, after their protest
had been heard that ambassadors should be under the protection of
international law, the sentence written in Yedo 13 days previously was
read to them. The following morning the Portuguese were offered their
lives if they would apostatize. Every one rejected the offer, and being
then led out to the martyrs' mount, the heads of the envoys and of 57 of
their companions fell. Thirteen were saved to carry the news to Macao.
These thirteen, after witnessing the burning of the galleon, were
conducted to the governor's residence who gave them this message:--
"Do not fail to inform the inhabitants of Macao that the Japanese wish
to receive from them neither gold nor silver, nor any kind of presents
or merchandise; in a word, absolutely nothing which comes from them.
You are witnesses that I have caused even the clothes of those who
were executed yesterday to be burned. Let them do the same with
respect to us if they find occasion to do so; we consent to it without
difficulty. Let them think no more of us, just as if we were no longer
in the world."
Finally the thirteen were taken to the martyrs' mount where, set up
above the heads of the victims, a tablet recounted the story of the
embassy and the reasons for the execution, and concluded with the
words:--
"So long as the sun warms the earth, let no Christian be so bold as to
come to Japan, and let all know that if King Philip himself, or even
the very God of the Christians, or the great Shaka contravene this
prohibition, they shall pay for it with their heads."
Had the ministers of the shogun in Yedo desired to make clear to future
ages that to Christianity alone was due the expulsion of Spaniards and
Portuguese from Japan and her adoption of the policy of seclusion they
could not have placed on record more conclusive testimony. Macao
received the news with rejoicing in that its "earthly ambassadors had
been made ambassadors of heaven," but it did not abandon all hope of
overcoming Japan's obduracy. When Portugal recovered her independence in
1640, the people of Macao requested Lisbon to send an ambassador to
Japan, and on the 16th of July 1647 Don Gonzalo de Siqueira arrived in
Nagasaki with two vessels. He carried a letter from King John IV.,
setting forth the severance of all connexion between Portugal and Spain,
which countries were now actually at war, and urging that commercial
relations should be re-established. The Portuguese, having refused to
give up their rudders and arms, soon found themselves menaced by a force
of fifty thousand samurai, and were glad to put out of port quietly on
the 4th of September. This was the last episode in the medieval history
of Portugal's intercourse with Japan.
The Dutch at Deshima.
When (1609) the Dutch contemplated forming a settlement in Japan,
Iyeyasu gave them a written promise that "no man should do them any
wrong and that he would maintain and defend them as his own subjects."
Moreover, the charter granted to them contained a clause providing that,
into whatever ports their ships put, they were not to be molested or
hindered in any way, but, "on the contrary, must be shown all manner of
help, favour and assistance." They might then have chosen any port in
Japan for their headquarters, but they had the misfortune to choose
Hirado. For many years they had no cause to regret the choice. Their
exclusive possession of the Spice Islands and their own enterprise and
command of capital gave them the leading place in Japan's over-sea
trade. Even when things had changed greatly for the worse and when the
English closed their books with a large loss, it is on record that the
Dutch were reaping a profit of 76% annually. Their doings at Hirado were
not of a purely commercial character. The Anglo-Dutch "fleet of defence"
made that port its basis of operations against the Spaniards and the
Portuguese. It brought its prizes into Hirado, the profits to be equally
divided between the fleet and the factories, Dutch and English, which
arrangement involved a sum of a hundred thousand pounds in 1622. But
after the death of Iyeyasu there grew up at the Tokugawa court a party
which advocated the expulsion of all foreigners on the ground that,
though some professed a different form of Christianity from that of the
Castilians and Portuguese, it was nevertheless one and the same creed.
This policy was not definitely adopted, but it made itself felt in a
discourteous reception accorded to the commandant of Fort Zelandia when
he visited Tokyo in 1627. He attempted to retaliate upon the Japanese
vessels which put into Zelandia in the following year, but the Japanese
managed to seize his person, exact reparation for loss of time and
obtain five hostages whom they carried to prison in Japan. The Japanese
government of that time was wholly intolerant of any injury done to its
subjects by foreigners. When news of the Zelandia affair reached Yedo,
orders were immediately issued for the sequestration of certain Dutch
vessels and for the suspension of the Hirado factory, which veto was not
removed for four years. Commercial arrangements, also, became less
favourable. The Dutch, instead of selling their silk--which generally
formed the principal staple of import--in the open market, were required
to send it to the Osaka gild of licensed merchants at Nagasaki, by which
means, Nagasaki and Osaka being Imperial cities, the Yedo government
derived advantage from the transaction. An attempt to evade this onerous
system provoked a very stern rebuke from Yedo, and shortly afterwards
all Japanese subjects were forbidden to act as servants to the Dutch
outside the latter's dwellings. The co-operation of the Hollanders in
bombarding the castle of Hara during the Shimabara rebellion (1638) gave
them some claim on the shogun's government, but in the same year the
Dutch received an imperious warning that the severest penalties would be
inflicted if their ships carried priests or any religious objects or
books. So profound was the dislike of everything relating to
Christianity that the Dutch nearly caused the ruin of their factory and
probably their own destruction by inscribing on some newly erected
warehouses the date according to the Christian era. The factory happened
to be then presided over by Caron, a man of extraordinary penetration.
Without a moment's hesitation he set 400 men to pull down the
warehouses, thus depriving the Japanese of all pretext for recourse to
violence. He was compelled, however, to promise that there should be no
observance of the Sabbath hereafter and that time should no longer be
reckoned by the Christian era. In a few months, further evidence of
Yedo's ill will was furnished. An edict appeared ordering the Dutch to
dispose of all their imports during the year of their arrival, without
any option of carrying them away should prices be low. They were thus
placed at the mercy of the Osaka gild. Further, they were forbidden to
slaughter cattle or carry arms, and altogether it seemed as though the
situation was to be rendered impossible for them. An envoy despatched
from Batavia to remonstrate could not obtain audience of the shogun, and
though he presented, by way of remonstrance, the charter originally
granted by Iyeyasu, the reply he received was:--
"His Majesty charges us to inform you that it is of but slight
importance to the Empire of Japan whether foreigners come or do not
come to trade. But in consideration of the charter granted to them by
Iyeyasu, he is pleased to allow the Hollanders to continue their
operations, and to leave them their commercial and other privileges,
on the condition that they evacuate Hirado and establish themselves
with their vessels in the port of Nagasaki."
The Dutch did not at first regard this as a calamity. During their
residence of 31 years at Hirado they had enjoyed full freedom, had been
on excellent terms with the feudatory and his samurai, and had prospered
in their business. But the pettiness of the place and the inconvenience
of the anchorage having always been recognized, transfer to Nagasaki
promised a splendid harbour and much larger custom. Bitter, therefore,
was their disappointment when they found that they were to be imprisoned
in Deshima, a quadrangular island whose longest face did not measure 300
yds., and that, so far from living in the town of Nagasaki, they would
not be allowed even to enter it. Siebold writes:--
"A guard at the gate prevented all communications with the city of
Nagasaki; no Dutchman without weighty reasons and without the
permission of the governor might pass the gate; no Japanese (unless
public women) might live in a Dutchman's house. As if this were not
enough, even within Deshima itself our state prisoners were keenly
watched. No Japanese might speak with them in his own language unless
in the presence of a witness (a government spy) or visit them in their
houses. The creatures of the governor had the warehouses under key and
the Dutch traders ceased to be masters of their property."
There were worse indignities to be endured. No Dutchman might be buried
in Japanese soil: the dead had to be committed to the deep. Every Dutch
ship, her rudder, guns and ammunition removed and her sails sealed, was
subjected to the strictest search. No religious service could be held.
No one was suffered to pass from one Dutch ship to another without the
governor's permit. Sometimes the officers and men were wantonly
cudgelled by petty Japanese officials. They led, in short, a life of
extreme abasement. Some relaxation of this extreme severity was
afterwards obtained, but at no time of their sojourn in Deshima, a
period of 217 years, were the Dutch relieved from irksome and
humiliating restraints. Eleven years after their removal thither, the
expediency of consulting the national honour by finally abandoning an
enterprise so derogatory was gravely discussed, but hopes of improvement
supplementing natural reluctance to surrender a monopoly which still
brought large gains, induced them to persevere. At that time this
Nagasaki over-sea trade was considerable. From 7 to 10 Dutch ships used
to enter the port annually, carrying cargo valued at some 80,000 lb. of
silver, the chief staples of import being silk and piece-goods, and the
government levying 5% by way of customs dues. But this did not represent
the whole of the charges imposed. A rent of 459 lb. of silver had to be
paid each year for the little island of Deshima and the houses standing
on it; and, further, every spring, the Hollanders were required to send
to Yedo a mission bearing for the shogun, the heir-apparent and the
court officials presents representing an aggregate value of about 550
lb. of silver. They found their account, nevertheless, in buying gold
and copper--especially the latter--for exportation, until the Japanese
authorities, becoming alarmed at the great quantity of copper thus
carried away, adopted the policy of limiting the number of vessels, as
well as their inward and outward cargoes, so that, in 1790, only one
ship might enter annually, nor could she carry away more than 350 tons
of copper. On the other hand, the formal visits of the captain of the
factory to Yedo were reduced to one every fifth year, and the value of
the presents carried by him was cut down to one half.
Loss to Japan by adopting the Policy of Exclusion.
Well-informed historians have contended that, by thus segregating
herself from contact with the West, Japan's direct losses were small.
Certainly it is true that she could not have learned much from European
nations in the 17th century. They had little to teach her in the way of
religious tolerance; in the way of international morality; in the way of
social amenities and etiquette; in the way of artistic conception and
execution; or in the way of that notable shibboleth of modern
civilization, the open door and equal opportunities. Yet when all this
is admitted, there remains the vital fact that Japan was thus shut off
from the atmosphere of competition, and that for nearly two centuries
and a half she never had an opportunity of warming her intelligence at
the fire of international rivalry or deriving inspiration from an
exchange of ideas. She stood comparatively still while the world went
on, and the interval between her and the leading peoples of the Occident
in matters of material civilization had become very wide before she
awoke to a sense of its existence. The sequel of this page of her
history has been faithfully summarized by a modern writer:--
"A more complete metamorphosis of a nation's policy could scarcely be
conceived. In 1541 we find the Japanese celebrated, or notorious,
throughout the whole of the Far East for exploits abroad; we find them
known as the 'kings of the sea'; we find them welcoming foreigners
with cordiality and opposing no obstacles to foreign commerce or even
to the propagandism of foreign creeds; we find them so quick to
recognize the benefits of foreign trade and so apt to pursue them
that, in the space of a few years, they establish commercial relations
with no less than twenty over-sea markets; we find them authorizing
the Portuguese, the Dutch and the English to trade at every port in
the empire; we find, in short, all the elements requisite for a career
of commercial enterprise, ocean-going adventure and industrial
liberality. In 1641 everything is reversed. Trade is interdicted to
all Western peoples except the Dutch, and they are confined to a
little island 200 yards in length by 80 in width; the least symptom of
predilection for any alien creed exposes a Japanese subject to be
punished with awful rigour; any attempt to leave the limits of the
realm involves decapitation; not a ship large enough to pass beyond
the shadow of the coast may be built. However unwelcome the admission,
it is apparent that for all these changes Christian propagandism was
responsible. The policy of seclusion adopted by Japan in the early
part of the 17th century and resolutely pursued until the middle of
the 19th, was anti-Christian, not anti-foreign. The fact cannot be too
clearly recognized. It is the chief lesson taught by the events
outlined above. Throughout the whole of that period of isolation,
Occidentals were not known to the Japanese by any of the terms now in
common use, as _gwaikoku-jin_, _seiyo-jin_, or _i-jin_, which embody
the simple meanings 'foreigner,' 'Westerner' or 'alien': they were
popularly called _bateren_ (_padres_). Thus completely had foreign
intercourse and Christian propagandism become identified in the eyes
of the people. And when it is remembered that foreign intercourse,
associated with Christianity, had come to be synonymous in Japanese
ears with foreign aggression, with the subversal of the mikado's
ancient dynasty, and with the loss of the independence of the 'country
of the gods,' there is no difficulty in understanding the attitude of
the nation's mind towards this question."
Dutch and Russian Influence.
_Foreign Intercourse in Modern Times._--From the middle of the 17th
century to the beginning of the 19th, Japan succeeded in rigorously
enforcing her policy of seclusion. But in the concluding days of this
epoch two influences began to disturb her self-sufficiency. One was the
gradual infiltration of light from the outer world through the narrow
window of the Dutch prison at Deshima; the other, frequent apparitions
of Russian vessels on her northern coasts. The former was a slow
process. It materialized first in the study of anatomy by a little group
of youths who had acquired accidental knowledge of the radical
difference between Dutch and Japanese conceptions as to the structure of
the human body. The work of these students reads like a page of romance.
Without any appreciable knowledge of the Dutch language, they set
themselves to decipher a Dutch medical book, obtained at enormous cost,
and from this small beginning they passed to a vague but firm conviction
that their country had fallen far behind the material and intellectual
progress of the Occident. They laboured in secret, for the study of
foreign books was then a criminal offence; yet the patriotism of one of
their number outweighed his prudence, and he boldly published a brochure
advocating the construction of a navy and predicting a descent by the
Russians on the northern borders of the empire. Before this prescient
man had lain five months in prison, his foresight was verified by
events. The Russians simulated at the outset a desire to establish
commercial relations by peaceful means. Had the Japanese been better
acquainted with the history of nations, they would have known how to
interpret the idea of a Russian quest for commercial connexions in the
Far East a hundred years ago. But they dealt with the question on its
superficial merits, and, after imposing on the tsar's envoys a wearisome
delay of several months at Nagasaki, addressed to them a peremptory
refusal together with an order to leave that port forthwith. Incensed by
such treatment, and by the subsequent imprisonment of a number of their
fellow countrymen who had landed on the island of Etorofu in the
Kuriles, the Russians resorted to armed reprisals. The Japanese
settlements in Sakhalin and Etorofu were raided and burned, other places
were menaced and several Japanese vessels were destroyed. The lesson
sank deep into the minds of the Yedo officials. They withdrew their veto
against the study of foreign books, and they arrived in part at the
reluctant conclusion that to offer armed opposition to the coming of
foreign ships was a task somewhat beyond Japan's capacity. Japan ceased,
however, to attract European attention amid the absorbing interest of
the Napoleonic era, and the shogun's government, misinterpreting this
respite, reverted to their old policy of stalwart resistance to foreign
intercourse.
American Enterprise.
Meanwhile another power was beginning to establish close contact with
Japan. The whaling industry in Russian waters off the coast of Alaska
and in the seas of China and Japan had attracted large investments of
American capital and was pursued yearly by thousands of American
citizens. In one season 86 of these whaling vessels passed within easy
sight of Japan's northern island, Yezo, so that the aspect of foreign
ships became quite familiar. From time to time American schooners were
cast away on Japan's shores. Generally the survivors were treated with
tolerable consideration and ultimately sent to Deshima for shipment to
Batavia. Japanese sailors, too, driven out of their route by hurricanes
and caught in the stream of the "Black Current," were occasionally
carried to the Aleutian Islands, to Oregon or California, and in several
instances these shipwrecked mariners were taken back to Japan with all
kindness by American vessels. On such an errand of mercy the "Morrison"
entered Yedo Bay in 1837, proceeding thence to Kagoshima, only to be
driven away by cannon shot; and on such an errand the "Manhattan" in
1845 lay for four days at Uraga while her master (Mercater Cooper)
collected books and charts. It would seem that his experience induced
the Washington government to attempt the opening of Japan. A ninety-gun
ship and a sloop were sent on the errand. They anchored off Uraga (July
1846) and Commodore Biddle made due application for trade. But he
received a positive refusal, and having been instructed by his
government to abstain from any act calculated to excite hostility or
distrust, he quietly weighed anchor and sailed away.
Great Britain reappears upon the scene.
In this same year (1846) a French ship touched at the Riukiu (Luchu)
archipelago and sought to persuade the islanders that their only
security against British aggression was to place themselves under the
protection of France. In fact Great Britain was now beginning to
interest herself in south China, and more than one warning reached Yedo
from Deshima that English war-ships might at any moment visit Japanese
waters. The Dutch have been much blamed for thus attempting to prejudice
Japan against the Occident, but if the dictates of commercial rivalry,
as it was then practised, do not constitute an ample explanation, it
should be remembered that England and Holland had recently been enemies,
and that the last British vessel,[35] seen at Nagasaki had gone there
hoping to capture the annual Dutch trading-ship from Batavia. Deshima's
warnings, however, remained unfulfilled, though they doubtless
contributed to Japan's feeling of uneasiness. Then, in 1847, the king of
Holland himself intervened. He sent to Yedo various books, together with
a map of the world and a despatch advising Japan to abandon her policy
of isolation. Within a few months (1849) of the receipt of his Dutch
majesty's recommendation, an American brig, the "Preble," under
Commander J. Glynn, anchored in Nagasaki harbour and threatened to
bombard the town unless immediate delivery were made of 18 seamen who,
having been wrecked in northern waters, were held by the Japanese
preparatory to shipment for Batavia. In 1849 another despatch reached
Yedo from the king of Holland announcing that an American fleet might be
expected in Japanese waters a year later, and that, unless Japan agreed
to enter into friendly commercial relations, war must ensue. Appended to
this despatch was an approximate draft of the treaty which would be
presented for signature, together with a copy of a memorandum addressed
by the Washington government to European nations, justifying the
contemplated expedition on the ground that it would inure to the
advantage of Japan as well as to that of the Occident.
Commodore Perry.
In 1853, Commodore Perry, with a squadron of four ships-of-war and 560
men, entered Uraga Bay. So formidable a foreign force had not been seen
in Japanese waters since the coming of the Mongol Armada. A panic ensued
among the people--the same people who, in the days of Hideyoshi or
Iyeyasu, would have gone out to encounter these ships with assured
confidence of victory. The contrast did not stop there. The shogun,
whose ancestors had administered the country's affairs with absolutely
autocratic authority, now summoned a council of the feudatories to
consider the situation; and the Imperial court in Kioto, which never
appealed for heaven's aid except in a national emergency such as had
never been witnessed since the creation of the shogunate, now directed
that at the seven principal shrines and at all the great temples special
prayers should be offered for the safety of the land and for the
destruction of the aliens. Thus the appearance of the American squadron
awoke in the cause of the country as a whole a spirit of patriotism
hitherto confined to feudal interests. The shogun does not seem to have
had any thought of invoking that spirit: his part in raising it was
involuntary and his ministers behaved with perplexed vacillation. The
infirmity of the Yedo Administration's purpose presented such a strong
contrast to the single-minded resolution of the Imperial court that the
prestige of the one was largely impaired and that of the other
correspondingly enhanced. Perry, however, was without authority to
support his proposals by any recourse to violence. The United States
government had relied solely on the moral effect of his display of
force, and his countrymen had supplied him with a large collection of
the products of peaceful progress, from sewing machines to miniature
railways. He did not unduly press for a treaty, but after lying at
anchor off Uraga during a period of ten days and after transmitting the
president's letter to the sovereign of Japan, he steamed away on the
17th of July, announcing his return in the ensuing spring. The conduct
of the Japanese subsequently to his departure showed how fully and
rapidly they had acquired the conviction that the appliances of their
old civilization were powerless to resist the resources of the new.
Orders were issued rescinding the long-enforced veto against the
construction of sea-going ships; the feudal chiefs were invited to build
and arm large vessels; the Dutch were commissioned to furnish a ship of
war and to procure from Europe all the best works on modern military
science; every one who had acquired any expert knowledge through the
medium of Deshima was taken into official favour; forts were built;
cannon were cast and troops were drilled. But from all this effort there
resulted only fresh evidence of the country's inability to defy foreign
insistence, and on the 2nd of December 1853, instructions were issued
that if the Americans returned, they were to be dealt with peacefully.
The sight of Perry's steam-propelled ships, their powerful guns and all
the specimens they carried of western wonders, had practically broken
down the barriers of Japan's isolation without any need of treaties or
conventions. Perry returned in the following February, and after an
interchange of courtesies and formalities extending over six weeks,
obtained a treaty pledging Japan to accord kind treatment to shipwrecked
sailors; to permit foreign vessels to obtain stores and provisions
within her territory, and to allow American ships to anchor in the ports
at Shimoda and Hakodate. On this second occasion Perry had 10 ships with
crews numbering two thousand, and when he landed to sign the treaty, he
was escorted by a guard of honour mustering 500 strong in 27 boats. Much
has been written about his judicious display of force and his sagacious
tact in dealing with the Japanese, but it may be doubted whether the
consequences of his exploit have not invested its methods with
extravagant lustre. Standing on the threshold of modern Japan's
wonderful career, his figure shines by the reflected light of its
surroundings.
First Treaty of Commerce.
Russia, Holland and England speedily secured for themselves treaties
similar to that concluded by Commodore Perry in 1854. But Japan's doors
still remained closed to foreign commerce, and it was reserved for
another citizen of the great republic to open them. This was Townsend
Harris (1803-1878), the first U.S. consul-general in Japan. Arriving in
August 1856, he concluded, in June of the following year, a treaty
securing to American citizens the privilege of permanent residence at
Shimoda and Hakodate, the opening of Nagasaki, the right of consular
jurisdiction and certain minor concessions. Still, however, permission
for commercial intercourse was withheld, and Harris, convinced that this
great goal could not be reached unless he made his way to Yedo and
conferred direct with the shogun's ministers, pressed persistently for
leave to do so. Ten months elapsed before he succeeded, and such a
display of reluctance on the Japanese side was very unfavourably
criticized in the years immediately subsequent. Ignorance of the
country's domestic politics inspired the critics. The Yedo
administration, already weakened by the growth of a strong public
sentiment in favour of abolishing the dual system of government--that of
the mikado in Kioto and that of the shogun in Yedo--had been still
further discredited by its own timid policy as compared with the
stalwart mien of the throne towards the question of foreign intercourse.
Openly to sanction commercial relations at such a time would have been
little short of reckless. The Perry convention and the first Harris
convention could be construed, and were purposely construed, as mere
acts of benevolence towards strangers; but a commercial treaty would not
have lent itself to any such construction, and naturally the shogun's
ministers hesitated to agree to an apparently suicidal step. Harris
carried his point, however. He was received by the shogun in Yedo in
November 1857, and on the 29th of July 1858 a treaty was signed in Yedo,
engaging that Yokohama should be opened on the 4th of July 1859 and that
commerce between the United States and Japan should thereafter be freely
carried on there. This treaty was actually concluded by the shogun's
Ministers in defiance of their failure to obtain the sanction of the
sovereign in Kioto. Foreign historians have found much to say about
Japanese duplicity in concealing the subordinate position occupied by
the Yedo administration towards the Kioto court. Such condemnation is
not consistent with fuller knowledge. The Yedo authorities had power to
solve all problems of foreign intercourse without reference to Kioto.
Iyeyasu had not seen any occasion to seek imperial assent when he
granted unrestricted liberty of trade to the representatives of the East
India Company, nor had Iyemitsu asked for Kioto's sanction when he
issued his decree for the expulsion of all foreigners. If, in the 19th
century, Yedo shrank from a responsibility which it had unhesitatingly
assumed in the 17th, the cause was to be found, not in the shogun's
simulation of autonomy, but in his desire to associate the throne with a
policy which, while recognizing it to be unavoidable, he distrusted his
own ability to make the nation accept. But his ministers had promised
Harris that the treaty should be signed, and they kept their word, at a
risk of which the United States' consul-general had no conception.
Throughout these negotiations Harris spared no pains to create in the
minds of the Japanese an intelligent conviction that the world could no
longer be kept at arm's length, and though it is extremely problematical
whether he would have succeeded had not the Japanese themselves already
arrived at that very conviction, his patient and lucid expositions
coupled with a winning personality undoubtedly produced much impression.
He was largely assisted, too, by recent events in China, where the Peiho
forts had been captured and the Chinese forced to sign a treaty at
Tientsin. Harris warned the Japanese that the British fleet might be
expected at any moment in Yedo Bay, and that the best way to avert
irksome demands at the hands of the English was to establish a
comparatively moderate precedent by yielding to America's proposals.
Effects of the Treaty.
This treaty could not be represented, as previous conventions had been,
in the light of a purely benevolent concession. It definitely provided
for the trade and residence of foreign merchants, and thus finally
terminated Japan's traditional isolation. Moreover, it had been
concluded in defiance of the Throne's refusal to sanction anything of
the kind. Much excitement resulted. The nation ranged itself into three
parties. One comprised the advocates of free intercourse and progressive
liberality; another, while insisting that only the most limited
privileges should be accorded to aliens, was of two minds as to the
advisability of offering armed resistance at once or temporizing so as
to gain time for preparation; the third advocated uncompromising
seclusion. Once again the shogun convoked a meeting of the feudal
barons, hoping to secure their co-operation. But with hardly an
exception they pronounced against yielding. Thus the shogunate saw
itself compelled to adopt a resolutely liberal policy: it issued a
decree in that sense, and thenceforth the administrative court at Yedo
and the Imperial court in Kioto stood in unequivocal opposition to each
other, the Conservatives ranging themselves on the side of the latter,
the Liberals on that of the former. It was a situation full of
perplexity to outsiders, and the foreign representatives misinterpreted
it. They imagined that the shogun's ministers sought only to evade their
treaty obligations and to render the situation intolerable for foreign
residents, whereas in truth the situation threatened to become
intolerable for the shogunate itself. Nevertheless the Yedo officials
cannot be entirely acquitted of duplicity. Under pressure of the
necessity of self-preservation they effected with Kioto a compromise
which assigned to foreign intercourse a temporary character. The
threatened political crisis was thus averted, but the enemies of the
dual system of government gained strength daily. One of their devices
was to assassinate foreigners in the hope of embroiling the shogunate
with Western powers and thus either forcing its hand or precipitating
its downfall. It is not wonderful, perhaps, that foreigners were
deceived, especially as they approached the solution of Japanese
problems with all the Occidental's habitual suspicion of everything
Oriental. Thus when the Yedo government, cognisant that serious dangers
menaced the Yokohama settlement, took precautions to guard it, the
foreign ministers convinced themselves that a deliberate piece of
chicanery was being practised at their expense; that statecraft rather
than truth had dictated the representations made to them by the Japanese
authorities; and that the alarm of the latter was simulated for the
purpose of finding a pretext to curtail the liberty enjoyed by
foreigners. Therefore a suggestion that the inmates of the legations
should show themselves as little as possible in the streets of the
capital, where at any moment a desperado might cut them down, was
treated almost as an insult. Then the Japanese authorities saw no
recourse except to attach an armed escort to the person of every
foreigner when he moved about the city. But even this precaution, which
certainly was not adopted out of mere caprice or with any sinister
design, excited fresh suspicions. The British representative, in
reporting the event to his government, said that the Japanese had taken
the opportunity to graft upon the establishment of spies, watchmen and
police-officers at the several legations, a mounted escort to accompany
the members whenever they moved about.
Attacks upon Foreigners and their Consequences.
Just at this time (1861) the Yedo statesmen, in order to reconcile the
divergent views of the two courts, negotiated a marriage between the
emperor's sister and the shogun. But in order to bring the union about,
they had to placate the Kioto Conservatives by a promise to expel
foreigners from the country within ten years. When this became known, it
strengthened the hands of the reactionaries, and furnished a new weapon
to Yedo's enemies, who interpreted the marriage as the beginning of a
plot to dethrone the mikado. Murderous attacks upon foreigners became
more frequent. Two of these assaults had momentous consequences. Three
British subjects attempted to force their way through the _cortege_ of
the Satsuma feudal chief on the highway between Yokohama and Yedo. One
of them was killed and the other two wounded. This outrage was not
inspired by the "barbarian-expelling" sentiment: to any Japanese subject
violating the rules of etiquette as these Englishmen had violated them,
the same fate would have been meted out. Nevertheless, as the Satsuma
daimyo refused to surrender his implicated vassals, and as the shogun's
arm was not long enough to reach the most powerful feudatory in Japan,
the British government sent a squadron to bombard his capital,
Kagoshima. It was not a brilliant exploit in any sense, but its results
were invaluable; for the operations of the British ships finally
convinced the Satsuma men of their impotence in the face of Western
armaments, and converted them into advocates of liberal progress. Three
months previously to this bombardment of Kagoshima another puissant
feudatory had thrown down the gauntlet. The Choshu chief, whose
batteries commanded the entrance to the inland sea at Shimonoseki,
opened fire upon ships flying the flags of the United States, of France
and of Holland. In thus acting he obeyed an edict obtained by the
extremists from the mikado without the knowledge of the shogun, which
edict fixed the 11th of May 1863 as the date for practically
inaugurating the foreigners-expulsion policy. Again the shogun's
administrative competence proved inadequate to exact reparation, and a
squadron, composed chiefly of British men-of-war, proceeding to
Shimonoseki, demolished Choshu's forts, destroyed his ships and
scattered his samurai. In the face of the Kagoshima bombardment and the
Shimonoseki expedition, no Japanese subject could retain any faith in
his country's ability to oppose Occidentals by force. Thus the year 1863
was memorable in Japan's history. It saw the "barbarian-expelling"
agitation deprived of the emperor's sanction; it saw the two principal
clans, Satsuma and Choshu, convinced of their country's impotence to
defy the Occident; it saw the nation almost fully roused to the
disintegrating and weakening effects of the feudal system; and it saw
the traditional antipathy to foreigners beginning to be exchanged for a
desire to study their civilization and to adopt its best features.
Ratification of the Treaties.
The treaty concluded between the shogun's government and the United
States in 1858 was of course followed by similar compacts with the
principal European powers. From the outset these states agreed to
co-operate for the assertion of their conventional privileges, and they
naturally took Great Britain for leader, though such a relation was
never openly announced. The treaties, however, continued during several
years to lack imperial ratification, and, as time went by, that defect
obtruded itself more and more upon the attention of their foreign
signatories. The year 1865 saw British interests entrusted to the charge
of Sir Harry Parkes, a man of keen insight, indomitable courage and
somewhat peremptory methods, learned during a long period of service in
China. It happened that the post of Japanese secretary at the British
legation in Yedo was then held by a remarkably gifted young Englishman,
who, in a comparatively brief interval, had acquired a good working
knowledge of the Japanese language, and it happened also that the
British legation in Yedo was already--as it has always been ever
since--the best equipped institution of its class in Japan. Aided by
these facilities and by the researches of Mr Satow (afterwards Sir
Ernest Satow) Parkes arrived at the conclusions that the Yedo government
was tottering to its fall; that the resumption of administrative
authority by the Kioto court would make for the interests not only of
the West but also of Japan; and that the ratification of the treaties by
the mikado would elucidate the situation for foreigners while being, at
the same time, essential to the validity of the documents. Two other
objects also presented themselves, namely, that the import duties fixed
by the conventions should be reduced from 15 to 5% _ad valorem_, and
that the ports of Hiogo and Osaka should be opened at once, instead of
at the expiration of two years as originally fixed. It was not proposed
that these concessions should be entirely gratuitous. When the
four-power flotilla destroyed the Shimonoseki batteries and sank the
vessels lying there, a fine of three million dollars (some L750,000) had
been imposed upon the daimyo of Choshu by way of ransom for his capital,
which lay at the mercy of the invaders. The daimyo of Choshu, however,
was in open rebellion against the shogun, and as the latter could not
collect the debt from the recalcitrant clansmen, while the four powers
insisted on being paid by some one, the Yedo treasury was finally
compelled to shoulder the obligation. Two out of the three millions were
still due, and Parkes conceived the idea of remitting this debt in
exchange for the ratification of the treaties, the reduction of the
customs tariff from 15 to 5% _ad valorem_ and the immediate opening of
Hiogo and Osaka. He took with him to the place of negotiation (Hiogo) a
fleet of British, French and Dutch war-ships, for, while announcing
peaceful intentions, he had accustomed himself to think that a display
of force should occupy the foreground in all negotiations with Oriental
states. This coup may be said to have sealed the fate of the shogunate.
For here again was produced in a highly aggravated form the drama which
had so greatly startled the nation eight years previously. Perry had
come with his war-ships to the portals of Yedo, and now a foreign fleet,
twice as strong as Perry's, had anchored at the vestibule of the
Imperial city itself. No rational Japanese could suppose that this
parade of force was for purely peaceful purposes, or that rejection of
the amicable bargain proposed by Great Britain's representative would be
followed by the quiet withdrawal of the menacing fleet, whose terrible
potentialities had been demonstrated at Kagoshima and Shimonoseki. The
seclusionists, whose voices had been nearly silenced, raised them in
renewed denunciation of the shogun's incompetence to guarantee the
sacred city of Kioto against such trespasses, and the emperor, brought
once more under the influence of the anti-foreign party, inflicted a
heavy disgrace on the shogun by dismissing and punishing the officials
to whom the latter had entrusted the conduct of negotiations at Hiogo.
Such procedure on the part of the throne amounted to withdrawing the
administrative commission held by the Tokugawa family since the days of
Iyeyasu. The shogun resigned. But his adversaries not being yet ready to
replace him, he was induced to resume office, with, however, fatally
damaged prestige. As for the three-power squadron, it steamed away
successful. Parkes had come prepared to write off the indemnity in
exchange for three concessions. He obtained two of the concessions
without remitting a dollar of the debt.
Final Adoption of Western Civilization.
The shogun did not long survive the humiliation thus inflicted on him.
He died in the following year (1866), and was succeeded by Keiki,
destined to be the last of the Tokugawa rulers. Nine years previously
this same Keiki had been put forward by the seclusionists as candidate
for the shogunate. Yet no sooner did he attain that distinction in 1866
than he remodelled the army on French lines, engaged English officers to
organize a navy, sent his brother to the Paris Exhibition, and altered
many of the forms and ceremonies of his court so as to bring them into
accord with Occidental fashions. The contrast between the politics he
represented when a candidate for office in 1857 and the practice he
adopted on succeeding to power in 1866 furnished an apt illustration of
the change that had come over the spirit of the time. The most bigoted
of the exclusionists were now beginning to abandon all idea of expelling
foreigners and to think mainly of acquiring the best elements of their
civilization. The Japanese are slow to reach a decision but very quick
to act upon it when reached. From 1866 onwards the new spirit rapidly
permeated the whole nation; progress became the aim of all classes, and
the country entered upon a career of intelligent assimilation which, in
forty years, won for Japan a universally accorded place in the ranks of
the great Occidental powers.
[Continued in volume XV slice III.]
FOOTNOTES:
[1] The highest rate of subscription to a daily journal is twelve
shillings per annum, and the usual charge for advertisement is from
7d. to one shilling per line of 22 ideographs (about nine words).
[2] It is first boiled in a lye obtained by lixiviating wood ashes;
it is next polished with charcoal powder; then immersed in plum
vinegar and salt; then washed with weak lye and placed in a tub of
water to remove all traces of alkali, the final step being to digest
in a boiling solution of copper sulphate, verdigris and water.
[3] This method is some 300 years old. It is by no means a modern
invention, as some writers have asserted.
[4] Obtained from the shell of the _Halictis_.
[5] In 1877 there were 120 English engineers, drivers and foremen in
the service of the railway bureau. Three years later only three
advisers remained.
[6] The largest is the mitsubishi at Nagasaki. It has a length of 722
ft. Next stands the kawasaki at Kobe, and in the third place is the
uraga.
[7] They were called _fuda-sashi_ (ticket-holders), a term derived
from the fact that rice-vouchers were usually held in a split bamboo
which was thrust into a pile of rice-bags to indicate their buyer.
[8] In 1725, when the population of Yedo was about three-quarters of
a million, the merchandise that entered the city was 861,893 bags of
rice; 795,856 casks of sake; 132,892 casks of soy (fish-sauce);
18,209,987 bundles of fire-wood; 809,790 bags of charcoal; 90,811
tubs of oil; 1,670,850 bags of salt and 3,613,500 pieces of cotton
cloth.
[9] Some derive this term from _mika_, an ancient Japanese term for
"great," and _to_, "place."
[10] The names given in italics are those more commonly used. Those
in the first column are generally of pure native derivation; those in
the second column are composed of the Chinese word _shu_, a
"province," added to the Chinese pronunciation of one of the
characters with which the native name is written. In a few cases both
names are used.
[11] The mayor of a town (_shicho_) is nominated by the minister for
home affairs from three men chosen by the town assembly.
[12] The term _hyaku-sho_, here translated "working man," means
literally "one engaged in any of the various callings" apart from
military service. In a later age a further distinction was
established between the agriculturist, the artisan, and the trader,
and the word _hyaku-sho_ then came to carry the signification of
"husbandman" only.
[13] A tent was simply a space enclosed with strips of cloth or silk,
on which was emblazoned the crest of the commander. It had no
covering.
[14] The Japanese never at any time of their history used poisoned
arrows; they despised them as depraved and inhuman weapons.
[15] The general term for commoners as distinguished from samurai.
[16] The privilege at first led to great abuses. It became a common
thing to employ some aged and indigent person, set him up as the head
of a "branch family," and give him for adopted son a youth liable to
conscription.
[17] Conscription without lot is thus the punishment for all failures
to comply with and attempts to evade the military laws.
[18] Sons of officers' widows, or of officers in reduced
circumstances, are educated at these schools either free or at
reduced charges, but are required to complete the course and to
graduate.
[19] Uniform does not vary according to regiments or divisions. There
is only one type for the whole of the infantry, one for the cavalry,
and so on (see UNIFORMS, NAVAL AND MILITARY). Officers largely obtain
their uniforms and equipment, as well as their books and technical
literature through the _Kai-ko-sha_, which is a combined officers'
club, benefit society and co-operative trading association to which
nearly all belong.
[20] The term _maru_ subsequently became applicable to merchantmen
only, war-ships being distinguished as _kan_.
[21] The reader should be warned that absolute accuracy cannot be
claimed for statistics compiled before the Meiji era.
[22] The _yen_ is a silver coin worth about 2s.: 10 _yen_ = L1.
[23] In addition to the above grant, the feudatories were allowed to
retain the reserves in their treasuries; thus many of the feudal
nobles found themselves possessed of substantial fortunes, a
considerable part of which they generally devoted to the support of
their former vassals.
[24] The Bank of Japan was established as a joint-stock company in
1882. The capital in 1909 was 30,000,000 _yen_. In it alone is vested
note-issuing power. There is no limit to its issues against gold or
silver coins and bullion, but on other securities (state bonds,
treasury bills and other negotiable bonds or commercial paper) its
issues are limited to 120 millions, any excess over that figure being
subject to a tax of 5% per annum.
[25] The amounts include the payments made in connexion with what may
be called the disestablishment of the Church. There were 29,805
endowed temples and shrines throughout the empire, and their estates
aggregated 354,481 acres, together with 1(3/4) million bushels of rice
(representing 2,500,000 _yen_). The government resumed possession of
all these lands and revenues at a total cost to the state of a little
less than 2,500,000 _yen_, paid out in pensions spread over a period
of fourteen years. The measure sounds like wholesale confiscation.
But some extenuation is found in the fact that the temples and
shrines held their lands and revenues under titles which, being
derived from the feudal chiefs, depended for their validity on the
maintenance of feudalism.
[26] This sum represents interest-bearing bonds issued in exchange
for fiat notes, with the idea of reducing the volume of the latter.
It was a tentative measure, and proved of no value.
[27] In this is included a sum of 110,000,000 _yen_ distributed in
the form of loan-bonds among the officers and men of the army and
navy by way of reward for their services during the war of 1904-5.
[28] When war broke out in 1904 the local administrative districts
took steps to reduce their outlays, so that whereas the expenditures
totalled 158,000,000 _yen_ in 1903-1904, they fell to 122,000,000 and
126,000,000 in 1904-1905 and 1905-1906 respectively. Thereafter
however, they expanded once more.
[29] This includes 22(1/4) millions of loans raised abroad.
[30] The problem was to induce the co-operation of a feudatory whose
castle served for frontier guard to the fief of a powerful chief, his
suzerain. The feudatory was a Christian. Nobunaga seized the Jesuits
in Kioto, and threatened to suppress their religion altogether unless
they persuaded the feudatory to abandon the cause of his suzerain.
[31] The mutilation was confined to the lobe of one ear. Crucifixion,
according to the Japanese method, consisted in tying to a cross and
piercing the heart with two sharp spears driven from either side.
Death was always instantaneous.
[32] See _A History of Christianity in Japan_ (1910), by Otis Cary.
[33] The Imperial cities were Yedo, Kioto, Osaka and Nagasaki. To
this last the English were subsequently admitted. They were also
invited to Kagoshima by the Shimazu chieftain, and, had not their
experience at Hirado proved so deterrent, they might have established
a factory at Kagoshima.
[34] _A History of Japan_ (Murdoch and Yamagata).
[35] H.M.S. "Phaeton," which entered that port in 1808.
Japan's Claim for Judicial Autonomy.
After the abolition of the shogunate and the resumption of
administrative functions by the Throne, one of the first acts of the
newly organized government was to invite the foreign representatives to
Kioto, where they had audience of the mikado. Subsequently a decree was
issued, announcing the emperor's resolve to establish amicable relations
with foreign countries, and "declaring that any Japanese subject
thereafter guilty of violent behaviour towards a foreigner would not
only act in opposition to the Imperial command, but would also be guilty
of impairing the dignity and good faith of the nation in the eyes of the
powers with which his majesty had pledged himself to maintain
friendship." From that time the relations between Japan and foreign
states grew yearly more amicable; the nation adopted the products of
Western civilization with notable thoroughness, and the provisions of
the treaties were carefully observed. Those treaties, however, presented
one feature which very soon became exceedingly irksome to Japan. They
exempted foreigners residing within her borders from the operation of
her criminal laws, and secured to them the privilege of being arraigned
solely before tribunals of their own nationality. That system had always
been considered necessary where the subjects of Christian states visited
or sojourned in non-Christian countries, and, for the purpose of giving
effect to it, consular courts were established. This necessitated the
confinement of foreign residents to settlements in the neighbourhood of
the consular courts, since it would have been imprudent to allow
foreigners to have free access to districts remote from the only
tribunals competent to control them. The Japanese raised no objection to
the embodiment of this system in the treaties. They recognized its
necessity and even its expediency, for if, on the one hand, it infringed
their country's sovereign rights, on the other, it prevented
complications which must have ensued had they been entrusted with
jurisdiction which they were not prepared to discharge satisfactorily.
But the consular courts were not free from defects. A few of the powers
organized competent tribunals presided over by judicial experts, but a
majority of the treaty states, not having sufficiently large interests
at stake, were content to delegate consular duties to merchants, not
only deficient in legal training, but also themselves engaged in the
very commercial transactions upon which they might at any moment be
required to adjudicate in a magisterial capacity. In any circumstances
the dual functions of consul and judge could not be discharged without
anomaly by the same official, for he was obliged to act as advocate in
the preliminary stages of complications about which, in his position as
judge, he might ultimately have to deliver an impartial verdict. In
practice, however, the system worked with tolerable smoothness, and
might have remained long in force had not the patriotism of the Japanese
rebelled bitterly against the implication that their country was unfit
to exercise one of the fundamental attributes of every sovereign state,
judicial autonomy. From the very outset they spared no effort to qualify
for the recovery of this attribute. Revision of the country's laws and
reorganization of its law courts would necessarily have been an
essential feature of the general reforms suggested by contact with the
Occident, but the question of consular jurisdiction certainly
constituted a special incentive. Expert assistance was obtained from
France and Germany; the best features of European jurisprudence were
adapted to the conditions and usages of Japan; the law courts were
remodelled, and steps were taken to educate a competent judiciary. In
criminal law the example of France was chiefly followed; in commercial
law that of Germany; and in civil law that of the Occident generally,
with due regard to the customs of the country. The jury system was not
adopted, collegiate courts being regarded as more conducive to justice,
and the order of procedure went from tribunals of first instance to
appeal courts and finally to the court of cassation. Schools of law were
quickly opened, and a well-equipped bar soon came into existence. Twelve
years after the inception of these great works, Japan made formal
application for revision of the treaties on the basis of abolishing
consular jurisdiction. She had asked for revision in 1871, sending to
Europe and America an important embassy to raise the question. But at
that time the conditions originally calling for consular jurisdiction
had not undergone any change such as would have justified its abolition,
and the Japanese government, though very anxious to recover tariff
autonomy as well as judicial, shrank from separating the two questions,
lest by prematurely solving one the solution of the other might be
unduly deferred. Thus the embassy failed, and though the problem
attracted great academical interest from the first, it did not re-enter
the field of practical politics until 1883. The negotiations were long
protracted. Never previously had an Oriental state received at the hands
of the Occident recognition such as that now demanded by Japan, and the
West naturally felt deep reluctance to try a wholly novel experiment.
The United States had set a generous example by concluding a new treaty
(1878) on the lines desired by Japan. But its operation was conditional
on a similar act of compliance by the other treaty powers. Ill-informed
European publicists ridiculed the Washington statesmen's attitude on
this occasion, claiming that what had been given with one hand was taken
back with the other. The truth is that the conditional provision was
inserted at the request of Japan herself, who appreciated her own
unpreparedness for the concession. From 1883, however, she was ready to
accept full responsibility, and she therefore asked that all foreigners
within her borders should thenceforth be subject to her laws and
judiciable by her law-courts, supplementing her application by
promising that its favourable reception should be followed by the
complete opening of the country and the removal of all restrictions
hitherto imposed on foreign trade, travel and residence in her realm.
"From the first it had been the habit of Occidental peoples to upbraid
Japan on account of the barriers opposed by her to full and free foreign
intercourse, and she was now able to claim that these barriers were no
longer maintained by her desire, but that they existed because of a
system which theoretically proclaimed her unfitness for free association
with Western nations, and practically made it impossible for her to
throw open her territories completely for the ingress of foreigners."
She had a strong case, but on the side of the European powers extreme
reluctance was manifested to try the unprecedented experiment of placing
their people under the jurisdiction of an Oriental country. Still
greater was the reluctance of those upon whom the experiment would be
tried. Foreigners residing in Japan naturally clung to consular
jurisdiction as a privilege of inestimable value. They saw, indeed, that
such a system could not be permanently imposed on a country where the
conditions justifying it had nominally disappeared. But they saw, also,
that the legal and judicial reforms effected by Japan had been crowded
into an extraordinarily brief period, and that, as tyros experimenting
with alien systems, the Japanese might be betrayed into many errors.
Recognition by the Powers.
The negotiations lasted for eleven years. They were begun in 1883 and a
solution was not reached until 1894. Finally European governments
conceded the justice of Japan's case, and it was agreed that from July
1899 Japanese tribunals should assume jurisdiction over every person, of
whatever nationality, within the confines of Japan, and the whole
country should be thrown open to foreigners, all limitations upon trade,
travel and residence being removed. Great Britain took the lead in thus
releasing Japan from the fetters of the old system. The initiative came
from her with special grace, for the system and all its irksome
consequences had been originally imposed on Japan by a combination of
powers with Great Britain in the van. As a matter of historical sequence
the United States dictated the terms of the first treaty providing for
consular jurisdiction. But from a very early period the Washington
government showed its willingness to remove all limitations of Japan's
sovereignty, whereas Europe, headed by Great Britain, whose
preponderating interests entitled her to lead, resolutely refused to
make any substantial concession. In Japanese eyes, therefore, British
conservatism seemed to be the one serious obstacle, and since the
British residents in the settlements far outnumbered all other
nationalities, and since they alone had newspaper organs to ventilate
their grievances--it was certainly fortunate for the popularity of her
people in the Far East that Great Britain saw her way finally to set a
liberal example. Nearly five years were required to bring the other
Occidental powers into line with Great Britain and America. It should be
stated, however, that neither reluctance to make the necessary
concessions nor want of sympathy with Japan caused the delay. The
explanation is, first, that each set of negotiators sought to improve
either the terms or the terminology of the treaties already concluded,
and, secondly, that the tariff arrangements for the different countries
required elaborate discussion.
Reception given to the Revised Treaties.
Until the last of the revised treaties was ratified, voices of protest
against revision continued to be vehemently raised by a large section of
the foreign community in the settlements. Some were honestly
apprehensive as to the issue of the experiment. Others were swayed by
racial prejudice. A few had fallen into an insuperable habit of
grumbling, or found their account in advocating conservatism under
pretence of championing foreign interests; and all were naturally
reluctant to forfeit the immunity from taxation hitherto enjoyed. It
seemed as though the inauguration of the new system would find the
foreign community in a mood which must greatly diminish the chances of a
happy result, for where a captious and aggrieved disposition exists,
opportunities to discover causes of complaint cannot be wanting. But at
the eleventh hour this unfavourable demeanour underwent a marked change.
So soon as it became evident that the old system was hopelessly doomed,
the sound common sense of the European and American business man
asserted itself. The foreign residents let it be seen that they intended
to bow cheerfully to the inevitable, and that no obstacles would be
willingly placed by them in the path of Japanese jurisdiction. The
Japanese, on their side, took some promising steps. An Imperial rescript
declared in unequivocal terms that it was the sovereign's policy and
desire to abolish all distinctions between natives and foreigners, and
that by fully carrying out the friendly purpose of the treaties his
people would best consult his wishes, maintain the character of the
nation, and promote its prestige. The premier and other ministers of
state issued instructions to the effect that the responsibility now
devolved on the government, and the duty on the people, of enabling
foreigners to reside confidently and contentedly in every part of the
country. Even the chief Buddhist prelates addressed to the priests and
parishioners in their dioceses injunctions pointing out that, freedom of
conscience being now guaranteed by the constitution, men professing
alien creeds must be treated as courteously as the followers of
Buddhism, and must enjoy the same rights and privileges.
Thus the great change was effected in circumstances of happy augury. Its
results were successful on the whole. Foreigners residing in Japan now
enjoy immunity of domicile, personal and religious liberty, freedom from
official interference, and security of life and property as fully as
though they were living in their own countries, and they have gradually
learned to look with greatly increased respect upon Japanese law and its
administrators.
Anglo-Japanese Alliance.
Next to the revision of the treaties and to the result of the great wars
waged by Japan since the resumption of foreign intercourse, the most
memorable incident in her modern career was the conclusion, first, of an
_entente_, and, secondly, of an offensive and defensive alliance with
Great Britain in January 1902 and September 1905, respectively. The
_entente_ set out by disavowing on the part of each of the contracting
parties any aggressive tendency in either China or Korea, the
independence of which two countries was explicitly recognized; and went
on to declare that Great Britain in China and Japan in China and Korea
might take indispensable means to safeguard their interests; while, if
such measures involved one of the signatories in war with a third power,
the other signatory would not only remain neutral but would also
endeavour to prevent other powers from joining in hostilities against
its ally, and would come to the assistance of the latter in the event of
its being faced by two or more powers. The _entente_ further recognized
that Japan possessed, in a peculiar degree, political, commercial and
industrial interests in Korea. This agreement, equally novel for each of
the contracting parties, evidently tended to the benefit of Japan more
than to that of Great Britain, inasmuch as the interests in question
were vital from the former power's point of view but merely local from
the latter's. The inequality was corrected by an offensive and defensive
alliance in 1905. For the scope of the agreement was then extended to
India and eastern Asia generally, and while the signatories pledged
themselves, on the one hand, to preserve the common interests of all
powers in China by insuring her integrity and independence as well as
the principle of equal opportunities for the commerce and industry of
all nations within her borders, they agreed, on the other, to maintain
their own territorial rights in eastern Asia and India, and to come to
each other's armed assistance in the event of those rights being
assailed by any other power or powers. These agreements have, of course,
a close relation to the events which accompanied or immediately preceded
them, but they also present a vivid and radical contrast between a
country which, less than half a century previously, had struggled
vehemently to remain secluded from the world, and a country which now
allied itself with one of the most liberal and progressive nations for
the purposes of a policy extending over the whole of eastern Asia and
India. This contrast was accentuated two years later (1907) when France
and Russia concluded _ententes_ with Japan, recognizing the independence
and integrity of the Chinese Empire, as well as the principle of equal
opportunity for all nations in that country, and engaging to support
each other for assuring peace and security there. Japan thus became a
world power in the most unequivocal sense.
War with Korea.
_Japan's Foreign Wars and Complications._--The earliest foreign war
conducted by Japan is said to have taken place at the beginning of the
3rd century, when the empress Jingo led an army to the conquest of
Korea. But as the event is supposed to have happened more than 500 years
before the first Japanese record was written, its traditional details
cannot be seriously discussed. There is, however, no room to doubt that
from time to time in early ages Japanese troops were seen in Korea,
though they made no permanent impression on the country. It was reserved
for Hideyoshi, the taiko, to make the Korean peninsula the scene of a
great over-sea campaign. Hideyoshi, the Napoleon of Japan, having
brought the whole empire under his sway as the sequel of many years of
incomparable generalship and statecraft, conceived the project of
subjugating China. By some historians his motive has been described as a
desire to find employment for the immense mob of armed men whom four
centuries of almost continuous fighting had called into existence in
Japan: he felt that domestic peace could not be permanently restored
unless these restless spirits were occupied abroad. But although that
object may have reinforced his purpose, his ambition aimed at nothing
less than the conquest of China, and he regarded Korea merely as a
stepping-stone to that aim. Had Korea consented to be put to such a use,
she need not have fought or suffered. The Koreans, however, counted
China invincible. They considered that Japan would be shattered by the
first contact with the great empire, and therefore although, in the 13th
century, they had given the use of their harbours to the Mongol invaders
of Japan, they flatly refused in the 16th to allow their territory to be
used for a Japanese invasion of China. On the 24th of May 1592 the wave
of invasion rolled against Korea's southern coast. Hideyoshi had chosen
Nagoya in the province of Hizen as the home-base of his operations.
There the sea separating Japan from the Korean peninsula narrows to a
strait divided into two channels of almost equal width by the island of
Tsushima. To reach this island from the Japanese side was an easy and
safe task, but in the 56-mile channel that separated Tsushima from the
peninsula an invading flotilla had to run the risk of attack by Korean
war-ships. At Nagoya Hideyoshi assembled an army of over 300,000 men, of
whom some 70,000 constituted the first fighting line, 87,000 the second,
and the remainder formed a reserve to be subsequently drawn on as
occasion demanded. The question of transport presented some difficulty,
but it was solved by the simple expedient of ordering every feudatory to
furnish two ships for each 100,000 _koku_ of his fief's revenue. These
were not fighting vessels but mere transports. As for the plan of
campaign, it was precisely in accord with modern principles of strategy,
and bore witness to the daring genius of Hideyoshi. The van, consisting
of three army corps and mustering in all 51,000 men, was to cross
rapidly to Fusan, on the south coast of the peninsula, and immediately
commence a movement northward towards the capital, Seoul, one corps
moving by the eastern coast-road, one by the central route, and one by
the western coast-line. Thereafter the other four corps, which formed
the first fighting line, together with the corps under the direct orders
of the commander-in-chief, Ukida Hideiye, were to cross, for the purpose
of effectually subduing the regions through which the van had passed;
and, finally, the two remaining corps of the second line were to be
transported by sea up the west coast of the peninsula, to form a
junction with the van which, by that time, should be preparing to pass
into China over the northern boundary of Korea, namely, the Yalu River.
For the landing place of these reinforcements the town of Phyong-yang
was adopted, being easily accessible by the Taidong River from the
coast. In later ages Japanese armies were destined to move twice over
these same regions, once to the invasion of China, once to the attack of
Russia, and they adopted almost the same strategical plan as that mapped
out by Hideyoshi in the year 1592. The forecast was that the Koreans
would offer their chief resistance, first, at the capital, Seoul; next
at Phyong-yang, and finally at the Yalu, as the approaches to all these
places offered positions capable of being utilized to great advantage
for defensive purposes.
Landing In Korea and Advance of the Invaders.
On the 24th of May 1592 the first army corps, under the command of
Konishi Yukinaga, crossed unmolested to the peninsula; next day the
castle of Fusan was carried by storm, which same fate befell, on the
27th, another and stronger fortress lying 3 miles inland and garrisoned
by 20,000 picked soldiers. The invaders were irresistible. From the
landing-place at Fusan to the gates of Seoul the distance is 267 miles.
Konishi's corps covered that interval in 19 days, storming two forts,
carrying two positions and fighting one pitched battle _en route_. On
the 12th of June the Korean capital was in Japanese hands, and by the
16th four army corps had assembled there, while four others had effected
a landing at Fusan. After a rest of 15 days the northward advance was
resumed, and July 15th saw Phyong-yang in Japanese possession. The
distance of 130 miles from Seoul to the Taidong had been traversed in 18
days, 10 having been occupied in forcing the passage of a river which,
if held with moderate resolution and skill, should have stopped the
Japanese altogether. At this point, however, the invasion suffered a
check owing to a cause which in modern times has received much
attention, though in Hideyoshi's days it had been little considered; the
Japanese lost the command of the sea.
Fighting at Sea.
The Japanese idea of sea-fighting in those times was to use open boats
propelled chiefly by oars. They closed as quickly as possible with the
enemy, and then fell on with the trenchant swords which they used so
skilfully. Now during the 15th century and part of the 16th the Chinese
had been so harassed by Japanese piratical raids that their inventive
genius, quickened by suffering, suggested a device for coping with these
formidable adversaries. Once allow the Japanese swordsman to come to
close quarters and he carried all before him. To keep him at a distance,
then, was the great desideratum, and the Chinese compassed this in
maritime warfare by completely covering their boats with roofs of solid
timber, so that those within were protected against missiles, while
loop-holes and ports enabled them to pour bullets and arrows on a foe.
The Koreans learned this device from the Chinese and were the first to
employ it in actual warfare. Their own history alleges that they
improved upon the Chinese model by nailing sheet iron over the roofs and
sides of the "turtle-shell" craft and studding the whole surface with
_chevaux de frise_, but Japanese annals indicate that in the great
majority of cases solid timber alone was used. It seems strange that the
Japanese should have been without any clear perception of the immense
fighting superiority possessed by such protected war-vessels over small
open boats. But certainly they were either ignorant or indifferent. The
fleet which they provided to hold the command of Korean waters did not
include one vessel of any magnitude; it consisted simply of some
hundreds of row-boats manned by 7000 men. Hideyoshi himself was perhaps
not without misgivings. Six years previously he had endeavoured to
obtain two war-galleons from the Portuguese, and had he succeeded, the
history of the Far East might have been radically different. Evidently,
however, he committed a blunder which his countrymen in modern times
have conspicuously avoided; he drew the sword without having fully
investigated his adversary's resources. Just about the time when the van
of the Japanese army was entering Seoul, the Korean admiral, Yi Sun-sin,
at the head of a fleet of 80 vessels, attacked the Japanese squadron
which lay at anchor near the entrance to Fusan harbour, set 26 of the
vessels on fire and dispersed the rest. Four other engagements ensued in
rapid succession. The last and most important took place shortly after
the Japanese troops had seized Phyong-yang. It resulted in the sinking
of over 70 Japanese vessels, transports and fighting ships combined,
which formed the main part of a flotilla carrying reinforcements by sea
to the van of the invading army. This despatch of troops and supplies by
water had been a leading feature of Hideyoshi's plan of campaign, and
the destruction of the flotilla to which the duty was entrusted may be
said to have sealed the fate of the war by isolating the army in Korea
from its home base. It is true that Konishi Yukinaga, who commanded the
first division, would have continued his northward march from
Phyong-yang without delay. He argued that China was wholly unprepared,
and that the best hope of ultimate victory lay in not giving her time to
collect her forces. But the commander-in-chief, Ukida Hideiye, refused
to endorse this plan. He took the view that since the Korean provinces
were still offering desperate resistance, supplies could not be drawn
from them, neither could the troops engaged in subjugating them be freed
for service at the front. Therefore it was essential to await the
consummation of the second phase of Hideyoshi's plan, namely, the
despatch of reinforcements and munitions by water to Phyong-yang. The
reader has seen how that second phase fared. The Japanese commander at
Phyong-yang never received any accession of strength. His force suffered
constant diminution from casualties, and the question of commissariat
became daily more difficult. It is further plain to any reader of
history--and Japanese historians themselves admit the fact--that no wise
effort was made to conciliate the Korean people. They were treated so
harshly that even the humble peasant took up arms, and thus the
peninsula, instead of serving as a basis of supplies, had to be
garrisoned perpetually by a strong army.
Chinese Intervention.
The Koreans, having suffered for their loyalty to China, naturally
looked to her for succour. Again and again appeals were made to Peking,
and at length a force of 5000 men, which had been mobilized in the
Liaotung peninsula, crossed the Yalu and moved south to Phyong-yang,
where the Japanese van had been lying idle for over two months. This was
early in October 1592. Memorable as the first encounter between Japanese
and Chinese, the incident also illustrated China's supreme confidence in
her own ineffable superiority. The whole of the Korean forces had been
driven northward throughout the entire length of the peninsula by the
Japanese armies, yet Peking considered that 5000 Chinese "braves" would
suffice to roll back this tide of invasion. Three thousand of the
Chinese were killed and the remainder fled pell-mell across the Yalu.
China now began to be seriously alarmed. She collected an army variously
estimated at from 51,000 to 200,000 men, and marching it across
Manchuria in the dead of winter, hurled it against Phyong-yang during
the first week of February 1593. The Japanese garrison did not exceed
20,000, nearly one-half of its original number having been detached to
hold a line of forts which guarded the communications with Seoul.
Moreover, the Chinese, though their swords were much inferior to the
Japanese weapon, possessed great superiority in artillery and cavalry,
as well as in the fact that their troopers wore iron mail which defied
the keenest blade. Thus, after a severe fight, the Japanese had to
evacuate Phyong-yang and fall back upon Seoul. But this one victory
alone stands to China's credit. In all subsequent encounters of any
magnitude her army suffered heavy defeats, losing on one occasion some
10,000 men, on another 4000, and on a third 39,000. But the presence of
her forces and the determined resistance offered by the Koreans
effectually saved China from invasion. Indeed, after the evacuation of
Seoul, on the 9th of May 1593, Hideyoshi abandoned all idea of carrying
the war into Chinese territory, and devoted his attention to obtaining
honourable terms of peace, the Japanese troops meanwhile holding a line
of forts along the southern coast of Korea. He died before that end had
been accomplished. Had he lived a few days longer, he would have learned
of a crushing defeat inflicted on the Chinese forces (at So-chhon,
October 30, 1598), when the Satsuma men under Shimazu Yoshihiro took
38,700 Chinese heads and sent the noses and ears to Japan, where they
now lie buried under a tumulus (_mimizuka_, ear-mound) near the temple
of Daibutsu in Kioto. Thereafter the statesmen to whom the regent on his
death-bed had entrusted the duty of terminating the struggle and
recalling the troops, intimated to the enemy that the evacuation of the
peninsula might be obtained if a Korean prince repaired to Japan as
envoy, and if some tiger-skins and _ginseng_ were sent to Kioto in token
of amity. So ended one of the greatest over-sea campaigns recorded in
history. It had lasted 6(1/2) years, had seen 200,000 Japanese troops at
one time on Korean soil, and had cost something like a quarter of a
million lives.
Contrast between Foreign Relations in Medieval and Modern Times.
From the recall of the Korea expedition in 1598 to the resumption of
intercourse with the Occident in modern times, Japan enjoyed
uninterrupted peace with foreign nations. Thereafter she had to engage
in four wars. It is a striking contrast. During the first eleven
centuries of her historical existence she was involved in only one
contest abroad; during the next half century she fought four times
beyond the sea and was confronted by many complications. Whatever
material or moral advantages her association with the West conferred on
her, it did not bring peace.
The "Maria Luz" Complication.
The first menacing foreign complication with which the Japanese
government of the Meiji era had to deal was connected with the traffic
in Chinese labour, an abuse not yet wholly eradicated. In 1872, a
Peruvian ship, the "Maria Luz," put into port at Yokohama, carrying 200
contract labourers. One of the unfortunate men succeeded in reaching the
shore and made a piteous appeal to the Japanese authorities, who at once
seized the vessel and released her freight of slaves, for they were
little better. The Japanese had not always been so particular. In the
days of early foreign intercourse, before England's attitude towards
slavery had established a new code of ethics, Portuguese ships had been
permitted to carry away from Hirado, as they did from Macao, cargoes of
men and women, doomed to a life of enforced toil if they survived the
horrors of the voyage. But modern Japan followed the tenets of modern
morality in such matters. Of course the Peruvian government protested,
and for a time relations were strained almost to the point of rupture;
but it was finally agreed that the question should be submitted to the
arbitration of the tsar, who decided in Japan's favour. Japan's attitude
in this affair elicited applause, not merely from the point of view of
humanity, but also because of the confidence she showed in Occidental
justice.
The Sakhalin Complication.
Another complication which occupied the attention of the Tokyo
government from the beginning of the Meiji era was in truth a legacy
from the days of feudalism. In those days the island of Yezo, as well as
Sakhalin on its north-west and the Kurile group on its north, could
scarcely be said to be in effective Japanese occupation. It is true that
the feudal chief of Matsumae (now Fuku-yama), the remains of whose
castle may still be seen on the coast at the southern extremity of the
island of Yezo, exercised nominal jurisdiction; but his functions did
not greatly exceed the levying of taxes on the aboriginal inhabitants of
Yezo, the Kuriles and southern Sakhalin. Thus from the beginning of the
18th century Russian fishermen began to settle in the Kuriles and
Russian ships menaced Sakhalin. There can be no doubt that the first
explorers of Sakhalin were Japanese. As early as 1620, some vassals of
the feudal chief of Matsumae visited the place and passed a winter
there. It was then supposed to be a peninsula forming part of the
Asiatic mainland, but in 1806 a daring Japanese traveller, by name
Mamiya Rinzo, made his way to Manchuria, voyaged up and down the Amur,
and, crossing to Sakhalin, discovered that a narrow strait separated it
from the mainland. There still prevails in the minds of many Occidentals
a belief that the discovery of Sakhalin's insular character was reserved
for Captain Nevelskoy, a Russian, who visited the place in 1849, but in
Japan the fact had then been known for 43 years. Muravief, the great
Russian empire-builder in East Asia, under whose orders Nevelskoy acted,
quickly appreciated the necessity of acquiring Sakhalin, which commands
the estuary of the Amur. After the conclusion of the treaty of Aigun
(1857) he visited Japan with a squadron, and required that the strait of
La Perouse, which separates Sakhalin from Yezo, should be regarded as
the frontier between Russia and Japan. This would have given the whole
of Sakhalin to Russia. Japan refused, and Muravief immediately resorted
to the policy he had already pursued with signal success in the Usuri
region: he sent emigrants to settle in Sakhalin. Twice the shogunate
attempted to frustrate this process of gradual absorption by proposing a
division of the island along the 50th parallel of north latitude, and
finally, in 1872, the Meiji government offered to purchase the Russian
portion for 2,000,000 dollars (then equivalent to about L400,000). St
Petersburg, having by that time discovered the comparative worthlessness
of the island as a wealth-earning possession, showed some signs of
acquiescence, and possibly an agreement might have been reached had not
a leading Japanese statesman--afterwards Count Kuroda--opposed the
bargain as disadvantageous to Japan. Finally St Petersburg's
perseverance won the day. In 1875 Japan agreed to recognize Russia's
title to the whole island on condition that Russia similarly recognized
Japan's title to the Kuriles. It was a singular compact. Russia
purchased a Japanese property and paid for it with a part of Japan's
belongings. These details form a curious preface to the fact that
Sakhalin was destined, 30 years later, to be the scene of a Japanese
invasion, in the sequel of which it was divided along the 50th parallel
as the shogun's administration had originally proposed.
Military Expedition to Formosa.
The first of Japan's four conflicts was an expedition to Formosa in
1874. Insignificant from a military point of view, this affair derives
vicarious interest from its effect upon the relations between China and
Japan, and upon the question of the ownership of the Riukiu islands.
These islands, which lie at a little distance south of Japan, had for
centuries been regarded as an apanage of the Satsuma fief. The language
and customs of their inhabitants showed unmistakable traces of
relationship to the Japanese, and the possibility of the islands being
included among the dominions of China had probably never occurred to any
Japanese statesman. When therefore, in 1873, the crew of a wrecked
Riukiuan junk were barbarously treated by the inhabitants of northern
Formosa, the Japanese government unhesitatingly assumed the
responsibility of seeking redress for their outrage. Formosa being a
part of the Chinese Empire, complaint was duly preferred in Peking. But
the Chinese authorities showed such resolute indifference to Japan's
representations that the latter finally took the law into her own hands,
and sent a small force to punish the Formosan murderers, who, of course,
were found quite unable to offer any serious resistance. The Chinese
government, now recognizing the fact that its territories had been
invaded, lodged a protest which, but for the intervention of the British
minister in Peking, might have involved the two empires in war. The
final terms of arrangement were that, in consideration of Japan
withdrawing her troops from Formosa, China should indemnify her to the
extent of the expenses of the expedition. In sending this expedition to
Formosa the government sought to placate the Satsuma samurai, who were
beginning to show much opposition to certain features of the
administrative reforms just inaugurated, and who claimed special
interest in the affairs of the Riukiu islands.
The Riukiu Complication.
Had Japan needed any confirmation of her belief that the Riukiu islands
belonged to her, the incidents and settlement of the Formosan
complication would have constituted conclusive evidence. Thus in 1876
she did not hesitate to extend her newly organized system of prefectural
government to Riukiu, which thenceforth became the Okinawa prefecture,
the former ruler of the islands being pensioned, according to the system
followed in the case of the feudal chiefs in Japan proper. China at once
entered an objection. She claimed that Riukiu had always been a
tributary of her empire, and she was doubtless perfectly sincere in the
contention. But China's interpretation of tribute did not seem
reducible to a working theory. So long as her own advantage could be
promoted, she regarded as a token of vassalage the presents periodically
carried to her court from neighbouring states. So soon, however, as
there arose any question of discharging a suzerain's duties, she classed
these offerings as insignificant interchanges of neighbourly courtesy.
It was true that Riukiu had followed the custom of despatching
gift-bearing envoys to China from time to time, just as Japan herself
had done, though with less regularity. But it was also true that Riukiu
had been subdued by Satsuma without China stretching out a hand to help
her; that for two centuries the islands had been included in the Satsuma
fief, and that China, in the sequel to the Formosan affair, had made a
practical acknowledgment of Japan's superior title to protect the
islanders. Each empire positively asserted its claims; but whereas Japan
put hers into practice, China confined herself to remonstrances. Things
remained in that state until 1880, when General Grant, visiting the
East, suggested the advisability of a compromise. A conference met in
Peking, and the plenipotentiaries agreed that the islands should be
divided, Japan taking the northern group, China the southern. But on the
eve of signature the Chinese plenipotentiary drew back, pleading that he
had no authority to conclude an agreement without previously referring
it to certain other dignitaries. Japan, sensible that she had been
flouted, retired from the discussion and retained the islands, China's
share in them being reduced to a grievance.
The Korean Complication.
From the 16th century, when the Korean peninsula was overrun by Japanese
troops, its rulers made a habit of sending a present-bearing embassy to
Japan to felicitate the accession of each shogun. But after the fall of
the Tokugawa shogunate, the Korean court desisted from this custom,
declared a determination to have no further relations with a country
embracing Western civilization, and refused even to receive a Japanese
embassy. This conduct caused deep umbrage in Japan. Several prominent
politicians cast their votes for war, and undoubtedly the sword would
have been drawn had not the leading statesmen felt that a struggle with
Korea, involving probably a rupture with China, must fatally check the
progress of the administrative reforms then (1873) in their infancy. Two
years later, however, the Koreans crowned their defiance by firing on
the boats of a Japanese war-vessel engaged in the operation of
coast-surveying. No choice now remained except to despatch an armed
expedition against the truculent kingdom. But Japan did not want to
fight. In this matter she showed herself an apt pupil of Occidental
methods such as had been practised against herself in former years. She
assembled an imposing force of war-ships and transports, but instead of
proceeding to extremities, she employed the squadron--which was by no
means so strong as it seemed--to intimidate Korea into signing a treaty
of amity and commerce, and opening three ports to foreign trade (1876).
That was the beginning of Korea's friendly relations with the outer
world, and Japan naturally took credit for the fact that, thus early in
her new career, she had become an instrument for extending the principle
of universal intercourse opposed so strenuously by herself in the past.
War with China.
From time immemorial China's policy towards the petty states on her
frontiers had been to utilize them as buffers for softening the shock of
foreign contact, while contriving, at the same time, that her relations
with them should involve no inconvenient responsibilities for herself.
The aggressive impulses of the outside world were to be checked by an
unproclaimed understanding that the territories of these states partook
of the inviolability of China, while the states, on their side, must
never expect their suzerain to bear the consequences of their acts. This
arrangement, depending largely on sentiment and prestige, retained its
validity in the atmosphere of Oriental seclusion, but quickly failed to
endure the test of modern Occidental practicality. Tongking, Annam, Siam
and Burma were withdrawn, one by one, from the fiction of dependence on
China and independence towards all other countries. But with regard to
Korea, China proved more tenacious. The possession of the peninsula by
a foreign power would have threatened the maritime route to the Chinese
capital and given easy access to Manchuria, the cradle of the dynasty
which ruled China. Therefore Peking statesmen endeavoured to preserve
the old-time relations with the little kingdom. But they could never
persuade themselves to modify the indirect methods sanctioned by
tradition. Instead of boldly declaring Korea a dependency of China, they
sought to keep up the romance of ultimate dependency and intermediate
sovereignty. Thus in 1876 Korea was suffered to conclude with Japan a
treaty of which the first article declared her "an independent state
enjoying the same rights as Japan," and subsequently to make with the
United States (1882), Great Britain (1883) and other powers, treaties in
which her independence was constructively admitted. China, however, did
not intend that Korea should exercise the independence thus
conventionally recognized. A Chinese resident was placed in Seoul, and a
system of steady though covert interference in Korea's affairs was
inaugurated. The chief sufferer from these anomalous conditions was
Japan. In all her dealings with Korea, in all complications that arose
out of her comparatively large trade with the peninsula, in all
questions connected with her numerous settlers there, she found herself
negotiating with a dependency of China, and with officials who took
their orders from the Chinese representative. China had long entertained
a rooted apprehension of Japanese aggression in Korea--an apprehension
not unwarranted by history--and that distrust tinged all the influence
exerted by her agents there. On many occasions Japan was made sensible
of the discrimination thus exercised against her. Little by little the
consciousness roused her indignation, and although no single instance
constituted a ground for strong international protest, the Japanese
people gradually acquired a sense of being perpetually baffled, thwarted
and humiliated by China's interference in Korean affairs. For thirty
years China had treated Japan as a contemptible deserter from the
Oriental standard, and had regarded her progressive efforts with openly
disdainful aversion; while Japan, on her side, had chafed more and more
to furnish some striking evidence of the wisdom of her preference for
Western civilization. Even more serious were the consequences of Chinese
interference from the point of view of Korean administration. The rulers
of the country lost all sense of national responsibility, and gave
unrestrained sway to selfish ambition. The functions of the judiciary
and of the executive alike came to be discharged by bribery only. Family
interests predominated over those of the state. Taxes were imposed in
proportion to the greed of local officials. No thought whatever was
taken for the welfare of the people or for the development of the
country's resources. Personal responsibility was unknown among
officials. To be a member of the Min family, to which the queen
belonged, was to possess a passport to office and an indemnity against
the consequences of abuse of power. From time to time the advocates of
progress or the victims of oppression rose in arms. They effected
nothing except to recall to the world's recollection the miserable
condition into which Korea had fallen. Chinese military aid was always
furnished readily for the suppression of these risings, and thus the Min
family learned to base its tenure of power on ability to conciliate
China and on readiness to obey Chinese dictation, while the people at
large fell into the apathetic condition of men who possess neither
security of property nor national ambition.
As a matter of state policy the Korean problem caused much anxiety to
Japan. Her own security being deeply concerned in preserving Korea from
the grasp of a Western power, she could not suffer the little kingdom to
drift into a condition of such administrative incompetence and national
debility that a strong aggressor might find at any moment a pretext for
interference. On two occasions (1882 and 1884) when China's armed
intervention was employed in the interests of the Min to suppress
movements of reform, the partisans of the victors, regarding Japan as
the fountain of progressive tendencies, destroyed her legation in Seoul
and compelled its inmates to fly from the city. Japan behaved with
forbearance at these crises, but in the consequent negotiations she
acquired conventional titles that touched the core of China's alleged
suzerainty. In 1882 her right to maintain troops in Seoul for the
protection of her legation was admitted; in 1885 she concluded with
China a convention by which each power pledged itself not to send troops
to Korea without notifying the other.
The Rupture with China.
In the spring of 1894 a serious insurrection broke out in Korea, and the
Min family appealed for China's aid. On the 6th of July 2500 Chinese
troops embarked at Tientsin and were transported to the peninsula, where
they went into camp at Ya-shan (Asan), on the south-west coast, notice
of the measure being given by the Chinese government to the Japanese
representative at Peking, according to treaty. During the interval
immediately preceding these events, Japan had been rendered acutely
sensible of China's arbitrary and unfriendly interference in Korea.
Twice the efforts of the Japanese government to obtain redress for
unlawful and ruinous commercial prohibitions had been thwarted by the
Chinese representative in Seoul; and an ultimatum addressed from Tokyo
to the Korean government had elicited from the viceroy Li in Tientsin a
thinly veiled threat of Chinese armed opposition. Still more provocative
of national indignation was China's procedure with regard to the murder
of Kim Ok-kyun, the leader of progress in Korea, who had been for some
years a refugee in Japan. Inveigled from Japan to China by a
fellow-countryman sent from Seoul to assassinate him, Kim was shot in a
Japanese hotel in Shanghai; and China, instead of punishing the
murderer, conveyed him in a war-ship of her own to Korea to be publicly
honoured. When, therefore, the Korean insurrection of 1894 induced the
Min family again to solicit China's armed intervention, the Tokyo
government concluded that, in the interests of Japan's security and of
civilization in the Orient, steps must be taken to put an end to the
misrule which offered incessant invitations to foreign aggression, and
checked Korea's capacity to maintain its own independence. Japan did not
claim for herself any rights or interests in the peninsula superior to
those possessed there by China. But there was not the remotest
probability that China, whose face had been contemptuously set against
all the progressive measures adopted by Japan during the preceding
twenty-five years, would join in forcing upon a neighbouring kingdom the
very reforms she herself despised, were her co-operation invited through
ordinary diplomatic channels only. It was necessary to contrive a
situation which would not only furnish clear proof of Japan's
resolution, but also enable her to pursue her programme independently of
Chinese endorsement, should the latter be finally unobtainable. She
therefore met China's notice of a despatch of troops with a
corresponding notice of her own, and the month of July 1894 found a
Chinese force assembled at Asan and a Japanese force occupying positions
in the neighbourhood of Seoul. China's motive for sending troops was
nominally to quell the Tonghak insurrection, but really to re-affirm her
own domination in the peninsula. Japan's motive was to secure such a
position as would enable her to insist upon the radically curative
treatment of Korea's malady. Up to this point the two empires were
strictly within their conventional rights. Each was entitled by treaty
to send troops to Korea, provided that notice was given to the other.
But China, in giving notice, described Korea as her "tributary state,"
thus thrusting into the forefront of the discussion a contention which
Japan, from conciliatory motives, would have kept out of sight. Once
formally advanced, however, the claim had to be challenged. In the
treaty of amity and commerce concluded in 1876 between Japan and Korea,
the two high contracting parties were explicitly declared to possess the
same national status. Japan could not agree that a power which for
nearly two decades she had acknowledged and treated as her equal should
be openly classed as a tributary of China. She protested, but the
Chinese statesmen took no notice of her protest. They continued to apply
the disputed appellation to Korea, and they further asserted their
assumption of sovereignty in the peninsula by seeking to set limits to
the number of troops sent by Japan, as well as to the sphere of their
employment. Japan then proposed that the two empires should unite their
efforts for the suppression of disturbances in Korea, and for the
subsequent improvement of that kingdom's administration, the latter
purpose to be pursued by the despatch of a joint commission of
investigation. But China refused everything. Ready at all times to
interfere by force of arms between the Korean people and the dominant
political faction, she declined to interfere in any way for the
promotion of reform. She even expressed supercilious surprise that
Japan, while asserting Korea's independence, should suggest the idea of
peremptorily reforming its administration. In short, for Chinese
purposes the Peking statesmen openly declared Korea a tributary state;
but for Japanese purposes they insisted that it must be held
independent. They believed that their island neighbour aimed at the
absorption of Korea into the Japanese empire. Viewed in the light of
that suspicion, China's attitude became comprehensible, but her
procedure was inconsistent, illogical and unpractical. The Tokyo cabinet
now declared its resolve not to withdraw the Japanese troops without
"some understanding that would guarantee the future peace, order, and
good government of Korea," and since China still declined to come to
such an understanding, Japan undertook the work of reform single-handed.
Outbreak of Hostilities.
The Chinese representative in Seoul threw his whole weight into the
scale against the success of these reforms. But the determining cause of
rupture was in itself a belligerent operation. China's troops had been
sent originally for the purpose of quelling the Tonghak rebellion. But
the rebellion having died of inanition before the landing of the troops,
their services were not required. Nevertheless China kept them in Korea,
her declared reason for doing so being the presence of a Japanese
military force. Throughout the subsequent negotiations the Chinese
forces lay in an entrenched camp at Asan, while the Japanese occupied
Seoul. An attempt on China's part to send reinforcements could be
construed only as an unequivocal declaration of resolve to oppose
Japan's proceedings by force of arms. Nevertheless China not only
despatched troops by sea to strengthen the camp at Asan, but also sent
an army overland across Korea's northern frontier. At this stage an act
of war occurred. Three Chinese men-of-war, convoying a transport with
1200 men encountered and fired on three Japanese cruisers. One of the
Chinese ships was taken; another was so shattered that she had to be
beached and abandoned; the third escaped in a dilapidated condition; and
the transport, refusing to surrender, was sunk. This happened on the
25th of July 1894, and an open declaration of war was made by each
empire six days later.
Remote Origin of the Conflict.
From the moment when Japan applied herself to break away from Oriental
traditions, and to remove from her limbs the fetters of Eastern
conservatism, it was inevitable that a widening gulf should gradually
grow between herself and China. The war of 1894 was really a contest
between Japanese progress and Chinese stagnation. To secure Korean
immunity from foreign--especially Russian--aggression was of capital
importance to both empires. Japan believed that such security could be
attained by introducing into Korea the civilization which had
contributed so signally to the development of her own strength and
resources. China thought that she could guarantee it without any
departure from old-fashioned methods, and by the same process of
capricious protection which had failed so signally in the cases of
Annam, Tongking, Burma and Siam. The issue really at stake was whether
Japan should be suffered to act as the Eastern propagandist of Western
progress, or whether her efforts in that cause should be held in check
by Chinese conservatism.
Events of the War.
The war itself was a succession of triumphs for Japan. Four days after
the first naval encounter she sent from Seoul a column of troops who
routed the Chinese entrenched at Asan. Many of the fugitives effected
their escape to Phyong-yang, a town on the Taidong River, offering
excellent facilities for defence, and historically interesting as the
place where a Japanese army of invasion had its first encounter with
Chinese troops in 1592. There the Chinese assembled a force of 17,000
men, and made leisurely preparations for a decisive contest. Forty days
elapsed before the Japanese columns converged upon Phyong-yang, and that
interval was utilized by the Chinese to throw up parapets, mount Krupp
guns and otherwise strengthen their position. Moreover, they were armed
with repeating rifles, whereas the Japanese had only single-loaders, and
the ground offered little cover for an attacking force. In such
circumstances, the advantages possessed by the defence ought to have
been well-nigh insuperable; yet a day's fighting sufficed to carry all
the positions, the assailants' casualties amounting to less than 700 and
the defenders losing 6000 in killed and wounded. This brilliant victory
was the prelude to an equally conspicuous success at sea. For on the
17th of September, the very day after the battle at Phyong-yang, a great
naval fight took place near the mouth of the Yalu River, which forms the
northern boundary of Korea. Fourteen Chinese war-ships and six
torpedo-boats were returning to home ports after convoying a fleet of
transports to the Yalu, when they encountered eleven Japanese men-of-war
cruising in the Yellow Sea. Hitherto the Chinese had sedulously avoided
a contest at sea. Their fleet included two armoured battleships of over
7000 tons displacement, whereas the biggest vessels on the Japanese side
were belted cruisers of only 4000 tons. In the hands of an admiral
appreciating the value of sea power, China's naval force would certainly
have been led against Japan's maritime communications, for a successful
blow struck there must have put an end to the Korean campaign. The
Chinese, however, failed to read history. They employed their
war-vessels as convoys only, and, when not using them for that purpose,
hid them in port. Everything goes to show that they would have avoided
the battle off the Yalu had choice been possible, though when forced to
fight they fought bravely. Four of their ships were sunk, and the
remainder escaped to Wei-hai-wei, the vigour of the Japanese pursuit
being greatly impaired by the presence of torpedo-boats in the
retreating squadron.
The Yalu victory opened the over-sea route to China. Japan could now
strike at Talien, Port Arthur, and Wei-hai-wei, naval stations on the
Liaotung and Shantung peninsulas, where powerful permanent
fortifications, built after plans prepared by European experts and armed
with the best modern weapons, were regarded as almost impregnable; They
fell before the assaults of the Japanese troops as easily as the
comparatively rude fortifications at Phyong-yang had fallen. The only
resistance of a stubborn character was made by the Chinese fleet at
Wei-hai-wei; but after the whole squadron of torpedo-craft had been
destroyed or captured as they attempted to escape, and after three of
the largest vessels had been sunk at their moorings by Japanese
torpedoes, and one by gun-fire, the remaining ships surrendered, and
their brave commander, Admiral Ting, committed suicide. This ended the
war. It had lasted seven and a half months, during which time Japan put
into the field five columns, aggregating about 120,000 of all arms. One
of these columns marched northward from Seoul, won the battle of
Phyong-yang, advanced to the Yalu, forced its way into Manchuria, and
moved towards Mukden by Feng-hwang, fighting several minor engagements,
and conducting the greater part of its operations amid deep snow in
midwinter. The second column diverged westwards from the Yalu, and,
marching through southern Manchuria, reached Hai-cheng, whence it
advanced to the capture of Niuchwang and Ying-tse-kow. The third landed
on the Liaotung peninsula, and, turning southwards, carried Talien and
Port Arthur by assault. The fourth moved up the Liaotung peninsula, and,
having seized Kaiping, advanced against Ying-tse-kow, where it joined
hands with the second column. The fifth crossed from Port Arthur to
Wei-hai-wei, and captured the latter. In all these operations the total
Japanese casualties were 1005 killed and 4922 wounded--figures which
sufficiently indicate the inefficiency of the Chinese fighting. The
deaths from disease totalled 16,866, and the total monetary expenditure
was L20,000,000 sterling.
Conclusion of Peace.
The Chinese government sent Li Hung-chang, viceroy of Pechili and senior
grand secretary of state, and Li Ching-fong, to discuss terms of peace
with Japan, the latter being represented by Marquis (afterwards Prince)
Ito and Count Mutsu, prime minister and minister for foreign affairs,
respectively. A treaty was signed at Shimonoseki on the 17th of April
1895, and subsequently ratified by the sovereigns of the two empires. It
declared the absolute independence of Korea; ceded to Japan the part of
Manchuria lying south of a line drawn from the mouth of the river Anping
to the mouth of the Liao, through Feng-hwang, Hai-cheng and
Ying-tse-kow, as well as the islands of Formosa and the Pescadores;
pledged China to pay an indemnity of 200,000,000 taels; provided for the
occupation of Wei-hai-wei by Japan pending payment of the indemnity;
secured some additional commercial privileges, such as the opening of
four new places to foreign trade and the right of foreigners to engage
in manufacturing enterprises in China, and provided for the conclusion
of a treaty of commerce and amity between the two empires, based on the
lines of China's treaties with Occidental powers.
Foreign Interference.
No sooner was this agreement ratified than Russia, Germany and France
presented a joint note to the Tokyo government, recommending that the
territories ceded to Japan on the mainland of China should not be
permanently occupied, as such a proceeding would be detrimental to
peace. The recommendation was couched in the usual terms of diplomatic
courtesy, but everything indicated that its signatories were prepared to
enforce their advice by an appeal to arms. Japan found herself compelled
to comply. Exhausted by the Chinese campaign, which had drained her
treasury, consumed her supplies of warlike material, and kept her
squadrons constantly at sea for eight months, she had no residue of
strength to oppose such a coalition. Her resolve was quickly taken. The
day that saw the publication of the ratified treaty saw also the issue
of an Imperial rescript in which the mikado, avowing his unalterable
devotion to the cause of peace, and recognizing that the counsel offered
by the European states was prompted by the same sentiment, "yielded to
the dictates of magnanimity, and accepted the advice of the three
Powers." The Japanese people were shocked by this incident. They could
understand the motives influencing Russia and France, for it was
evidently natural that the former should desire to exclude warlike and
progressive people like the Japanese from territories contiguous to her
borders, and it was also natural that France should remain true to her
alliance with Russia. But Germany, wholly uninterested in the ownership
of Manchuria, and by profession a warm friend of Japan, seemed to have
joined in robbing the latter of the fruits of her victory simply for the
sake of establishing some shadowy title to Russia's goodwill. It was not
known until a later period that the German emperor entertained profound
apprehensions about the "yellow peril," an irruption of Oriental hordes
into the Occident, and held it a sacred duty to prevent Japan from
gaining a position which might enable her to construct an immense
military machine out of the countless millions of China.
Chinese Crisis of 1900.
Japan's third expedition over-sea in the Meiji era had its origin in
causes which belong to the history of China (q.v.). In the second half
of 1900 an anti-foreign and anti-dynastic rebellion, breaking out in
Shantung, spread to the metropolitan province of Pechili, and resulted
in a situation of extreme peril for the foreign communities of Tientsin
and Peking. It was impossible for any European power, or for the United
States, to organize sufficiently prompt measures of relief. Thus the
eyes of the world turned to Japan, whose proximity to the scene of
disturbance rendered intervention comparatively easy for her. But Japan
hesitated. Knowing now with what suspicion and distrust the development
of her resources and the growth of her military strength were regarded
by some European peoples, and aware that she had been admitted to the
comity of Western nations on sufferance, she shrank, on the one hand,
from seeming to grasp at an opportunity for armed display, and, on the
other, from the solecism of obtrusiveness in the society of strangers.
Not until Europe and America made it quite plain that they needed and
desired her aid did she send a division (21,000) men to Pechili. Her
troops played a fine part in the subsequent expedition for the relief of
Peking, which had to be approached in midsummer under very trying
conditions. Fighting side by side with European and American soldiers,
and under the eyes of competent military critics, the Japanese acquitted
themselves in such a manner as to establish a high military reputation.
Further, after the relief of Peking they withdrew a moiety of their
forces, and that step, as well as their unequivocal co-operation with
Western powers in the subsequent negotiations, helped to show the
injustice of the suspicions with which they had been regarded.
War with Russia.
From the time (1895) when Russia, with the co-operation of Germany and
France, dictated to Japan a cardinal alteration of the Shimonoseki
treaty, Japanese statesmen seem to have concluded that their country
must one day cross swords with the great northern power. Not a few
European and American publicists shared that view. But the vast
majority, arguing that the little Eastern empire would never invite
annihilation by such an encounter, believed that sufficient forbearance
to avert serious trouble would always be forthcoming on Japan's side.
Yet when the geographical and historical situation was carefully
considered, little hope of an ultimately peaceful settlement presented
itself.
Japan along its western shore, Korea along its southern and eastern, and
Russia along the eastern coast of its maritime province, are washed by
the Sea of Japan. The communications between the sea and the Pacific
Ocean are practically two only. One is on the north-east, namely,
Tsugaru Strait; the other is on the south, namely, the channel between
the extremity of the Korean peninsula and the Japanese island of the
nine provinces. Tsugaru Strait is entirely under Japan's control. It is
between her main island and her island of Yezo, and in case of need she
can close it with mines. The channel between the southern extremity of
Korea and Japan has a width of 102 m. and would therefore be a fine open
sea-way were it free from islands. But almost mid-way in this channel
lie the twin islands of Tsushima, and the space of 56 m. that separates
them from Japan is narrowed by another island, Iki. Tsushima and Iki
belong to the Japanese empire. The former has some exceptionally good
harbours, constituting a naval base from which the channel on either
side could easily be sealed. Thus the avenues from the Pacific Ocean to
the Sea of Japan are controlled by the Japanese empire. In other words,
access to the Pacific from Korea's eastern and southern coasts and
access to the Pacific from Russia's maritime province depend upon
Japan's goodwill. So far as Korea was concerned this question mattered
little, it being her fate to depend upon the goodwill of Japan in
affairs of much greater importance. But with Russia the case was
different. Vladivostok, which until recent times was her principal port
in the Far East, lies at the southern extremity of the maritime
province; that is to say, on the north-western shore of the Japan Sea.
It was therefore necessary for Russia that freedom of passage by the
Tsushima channel should be secured, and to secure it one of two things
was essential, namely, either that she herself should possess a
fortified port on the Korean side, or that Japan should be bound neither
to acquire such a port nor to impose any restriction upon the navigation
of the strait. To put the matter briefly, Russia must either acquire a
strong foothold for herself in southern Korea, or contrive that Japan
should not acquire one. There was here a strong inducement for Russian
aggression in Korea.
Russia's eastward movement through Asia has been strikingly illustrative
of her strong craving for free access to southern seas and of the
impediments she had experienced in gratifying that wish. An irresistible
impulse had driven her oceanward. Checked again and again in her attempts
to reach the Mediterranean, she set out on a five-thousand-miles march of
conquest right across the vast Asiatic continent towards the Pacific.
Eastward of Lake Baikal she found her line of least resistance along the
Amur, and when, owing to the restless perseverance of Muravief, she
reached the mouth of that great river, the acquisition of Nikolayevsk for
a naval basis was her immediate reward. But Nikolayevsk could not
possibly satisfy her. Situated in an inhospitable region far away from
all the main routes of the world's commerce, it offered itself only as a
stepping-stone to further acquisitions. To push southward from this new
port became an immediate object to Russia. There lay an obstacle in the
way, however; the long strip of sea-coast from the mouth of the Amur to
the Korean frontier--an area then called the Usuri region because the
Usuri forms its western boundary--belonged to China, and she, having
conceded much to Russia in the matter of the Amur, showed no disposition
to make further concessions in the matter of the Usuri. In the presence
of menaces, however, she agreed that the region should be regarded as
common property pending a convenient opportunity for clear delimitation.
That opportunity came very soon. Seizing the moment (1860) when China had
been beaten to her knees by England and France, Russia secured final
cession of the Usuri region, which now became the maritime province of
Siberia. Then Russia shifted her naval base on the Pacific from
Nikolayevsk to Vladivostok. She gained ten degrees in a southerly
direction.
From the mouth of the Amur, where Nikolayevsk is situated, to the
southern shore of Korea there rests on the coast of eastern Asia an arch
of islands having at its northern point Sakhalin and at its southern
Tsushima, the keystone of the arch being the main island of Japan. This
arch embraces the Sea of Japan and is washed on its convex side by the
Pacific Ocean. Immediately after the transfer of Russia's naval base
from Nikolayevsk to Vladivostok, an attempt was made to obtain
possession of the southern point of the arch, namely, Tsushima. A
Russian man-of-war proceeded thither and quietly began to establish a
settlement, which would soon have constituted a title of ownership had
not Great Britain interfered. The Russians saw that Vladivostok,
acquired at the cost of so much toil, would be comparatively useless
unless from the sea on whose shore it was situated an avenue to the
Pacific could be opened, and they therefore tried to obtain command of
the Tsushima channel. Immediately after reaching the mouth of the Amur
the same instinct had led them to begin the colonization of Sakhalin.
The axis of this long narrow island is inclined at a very acute angle to
the Usuri region, which its northern extremity almost touches, while its
southern is separated from Yezo by the strait of La Perouse. But in
Sakhalin the Russians found Japanese subjects. In fact the island was a
part of the Japanese empire. Resorting, however, to the Usuri fiction of
joint occupation, they succeeded by 1875 in transferring the whole of
Sakhalin to Russia's dominion. Further encroachments upon Japanese
territory could not be lightly essayed, and the Russians held their
hands. They had been trebly checked: checked in trying to push southward
along the coast of the mainland; checked in trying to secure an avenue
from Vladivostok to the Pacific; and checked in their search for an
ice-free port, which definition Vladivostok did not fulfil. Enterprise
in the direction of Korea seemed to be the only hope of saving the
maritime results of the great Trans-Asian march.
Was Korea within safe range of such enterprises? Everything seemed to
answer in the affirmative. Korea had all the qualifications desired by
an aggressor. Her people were unprogressive, her resources undeveloped,
her self-defensive capacities insignificant, her government corrupt. But
she was a tributary of China, and China had begun to show some tenacity
in protecting the integrity of her buffer states. Besides, Japan was
understood to have pretensions with regard to Korea. On the whole,
therefore, the problem of carrying to full fruition the work of Muravief
and his lieutenants demanded strength greater than Russia could exercise
without some line of communications supplementing the Amur waterway and
the long ocean route. Therefore she set about the construction of a
railway across Asia.
The Amur being the boundary of Russia's east Asian territory, this
railway had to be carried along its northern bank where many
engineering and economic obstacles presented themselves. Besides, the
river, from an early stage in its course, makes a huge semicircular
sweep northward, and a railway following its bank to Vladivostok must
make the same detour. If, on the contrary, the road could be carried
over the diameter of the semicircle, it would be a straight and
therefore shorter line, technically easier and economically better. The
diameter, however, passed through Chinese territory, and an excuse for
extorting China's permission was not in sight. Russia therefore
proceeded to build each end of the road, deferring the construction of
the Amur section for the moment. She had not waited long when, in 1894,
war broke out between China and Japan, and the latter, completely
victorious, demanded as the price of peace the southern littoral of
Manchuria from the Korean boundary to the Liaotung peninsula at the
entrance to the Gulf of Pechili. This was a crisis in Russia's career.
She saw that her maritime extension could never get nearer to the
Pacific than Vladivostok were this claim of Japan's established. For the
proposed arrangement would place the littoral of Manchuria in Japan's
direct occupation and the littoral of Korea in her constructive control,
since not only had she fought to rescue Korea from Chinese suzerainty,
but also her object in demanding a slice of the Manchurian coast-line
was to protect Korea against aggression from the north; that is to say,
against aggression from Russia. Muravief's enterprise had carried his
country first to the mouth of the Amur and thence southward along the
coast to Vladivostok and to Possiet Bay at the north-eastern extremity
of Korea. But it had not given to Russia free access to the Pacific, and
now she was menaced with a perpetual barrier to that access, since the
whole remaining coast of east Asia as far as the Gulf of Pechili was
about to pass into Japan's possession or under her domination.
Then Russia took an extraordinary step. She persuaded Germany and France
to force Japan out of Manchuria. It is not to be supposed that she
frankly exposed her own aggressive designs and asked for assistance to
prosecute them. Neither is it to be supposed that France and Germany
were so curiously deficient in perspicacity as to overlook those
designs. At all events these three great powers served on Japan a notice
to quit, and Japan, exhausted by her struggle with China, had no choice
but to obey.
The notice was accompanied by an _expose_ of reasons. Its signatories
said that Japan's tenure of the Manchurian littoral would menace the
security of the Chinese capital, would render the independence of Korea
illusory, and would constitute an obstacle to the peace of the Orient.
By way of saving the situation in some slight degree Japan sought from
China a guarantee that no portion of Manchuria should thereafter be
leased or ceded to a foreign state. But France warned Japan that to
press such a demand would offend Russia, and Russia declared that, for
her part, she had no intention of trespassing in Manchuria. Japan, had
she been in a position to insist on the guarantee, would also have been
in a position to disobey the mandate of the three powers. Unable to do
either the one or the other, she quietly stepped out of Manchuria, and
proceeded to double her army and treble her navy.
As a reward for the assistance nominally rendered to China in this
matter, Russia obtained permission in Peking to divert her Trans-Asian
railway from the huge bend of the Amur to the straight line through
Manchuria. Neither Germany nor France received any immediate recompense.
Three years later, by way of indemnity for the murder of two
missionaries by a mob, Germany seized a portion of the province of
Shantung. Immediately, on the principle that two wrongs make a right,
Russia obtained a lease of the Liaotung peninsula, from which she had
driven Japan in 1895. This act she followed by extorting from China
permission to construct a branch of the Trans-Asian railway through
Manchuria from north to south.
Russia's maritime aspirations had now assumed a radically altered phase.
Instead of pushing southward from Vladivostok and Possiet Bay along the
coast of Korea, she had suddenly leaped the Korean peninsula and found
access to the Pacific in Liaotung. Nothing was wanting to establish her
as practical mistress of Manchuria except a plausible excuse for
garrisoning the place. Such an excuse was furnished by the Boxer rising
in 1900. Its conclusion saw her in military occupation of the whole
region, and she might easily have made her occupation permanent by
prolonging it until peace and order should have been fully restored. But
here she fell into an error of judgment. Imagining that the Chinese
could be persuaded or intimidated to any concession, she proposed a
convention virtually recognizing her title to Manchuria.
Japan watched all these things with profound anxiety. If there were any
reality in the dangers which Russia, Germany and France had declared to
be incidental to Japanese occupation of a part of Manchuria, the same
dangers must be doubly incidental to Russian occupation of the whole of
Manchuria--the security of the Chinese capital would be threatened, and
an obstacle would be created to the permanent peace of the East. The
independence of Korea was an object of supreme solicitude to Japan.
Historically she held towards the little state a relation closely
resembling that of suzerain, and though of her ancient conquests nothing
remained except a settlement at Fusan on the southern coast, her
national sentiment would have been deeply wounded by any foreign
aggression in the peninsula. It was to establish Korean independence
that she waged war with China in 1894; and her annexation of the
Manchurian littoral adjacent to the Korean frontier, after the war, was
designed to secure that independence, not to menace it as the triple
alliance professed to think. But if Russia came into possession of all
Manchuria, her subsequent absorption of Korea would be almost
inevitable. For the consideration set forth above as to Vladivostok's
maritime avenues would then acquire absolute cogency. Manchuria is
larger than France and the United Kingdom lumped together. The addition
of such an immense area to Russia's east Asiatic dominions, together
with its littoral on the Gulf of Pechili and the Yellow Sea, would
necessitate a corresponding expansion of her naval forces in the Far
East. With the one exception of Port Arthur, however, the Manchurian
coast does not offer any convenient naval base. It is only in the
splendid harbours of southern Korea that such bases can be found.
Moreover, there would be an even stronger motive impelling Russia
towards Korea. Neither the Usuri region nor the Manchurian littoral
possesses so much as one port qualified to satisfy her perennial longing
for free access to the ocean in a temperate zone. Without Korea, then,
Russia's east Asian expansion, though it added huge blocks of territory
to her dominions, would have been commercially incomplete and
strategically defective.
If it be asked why, apart from history and national sentiment, Japan
should object to a Russian Korea, the answer is, first, because there
would thus be planted almost within cannon-shot of her shores a power of
enormous strength and insatiable ambition; secondly, because, whatever
voice in Manchuria's destiny Russia derived from her railway, the same
voice in Korea's destiny was possessed by Japan as the sole owner of
railways in the peninsula; thirdly, that whereas Russia had an
altogether insignificant share in the foreign commerce of Korea and
scarcely ten bona-fide settlers, Japan did the greater part of the
over-sea trade and had tens of thousands of settlers; fourthly, that if
Russia's dominions stretched uninterruptedly from the Sea of Okhotsk to
the Gulf of Pechili, her ultimate absorption of north China would be as
certain as sunrise; and fifthly, that such domination and such
absorption would involve the practical closure of all that immense
region to Japanese commerce and industry as well as to the commerce and
industry of every Western nation except Russia. This last proposition
did not rest solely on the fact that to oppose artificial barriers to
free competition is Russia's sole hope of utilizing to her own benefit
any commercial opportunities brought within her reach. It rested also on
the fact that Russia had objected to foreign settlements at the marts
recently opened by treaty with China to American and Japanese subjects.
Without settlements, trade at those marts would be impossible, and thus
Russia had constructively announced that there should be no trade but
Russian, if she could prevent it.
Against such dangers Japan would have been justified in adopting any
measure of self-protection. She had foreseen them for six years, and had
been strengthening herself to avert them. But she wanted peace. She
wanted to develop her material resources and to accumulate some measure
of wealth, without which she must remain insignificant among the
nations. Two pacific devices offered, and she adopted them both. Russia,
instead of trusting time to consolidate her tenure of Manchuria, had
made the mistake of pragmatically importuning China for a conventional
title. If then Peking could be strengthened to resist this demand, some
arrangement of a distinctly terminable nature might be made. The United
States, Great Britain and Japan, joining hands for that purpose, did
succeed in so far stiffening China's backbone that her show of
resolution finally induced Russia to sign a treaty pledging herself to
withdraw her troops from Manchuria in three instalments, each step of
evacuation to be accomplished by a fixed date. That was one of the
pacific devices. The other suggested itself in connexion with the new
commercial treaties which China had promised to negotiate in the sequel
of the Boxer troubles. In these documents clauses provided for the
opening of three places in Manchuria to foreign trade. It seemed a
reasonable hope that, having secured commercial access to Manchuria by
covenant with its sovereign, China, the powers would not allow Russia
arbitrarily to restrict their privileges. It seemed also a reasonable
hope that Russia, having solemnly promised to evacuate Manchuria at
fixed dates, would fulfil her engagement.
The latter hope was signally disappointed. When the time came for
evacuation, Russia behaved as though no promise had ever been given. She
proposed wholly new conditions, which would have strengthened her grasp
of Manchuria instead of loosening it. China being powerless to offer any
practical protest, and Japan's interests ranking next in order of
importance, the Tokyo government approached Russia direct. They did not
ask for anything that could hurt her pride or injure her position.
Appreciating fully the economical status she had acquired in Manchuria
by large outlays of capital, they offered to recognize that status,
provided that Russia would extend similar recognition to Japan's status
in Korea, would promise, in common with Japan, to respect the
sovereignty and the territorial integrity of China and Korea, and would
be a party to a mutual engagement that all nations should have equal
industrial and commercial opportunities in Manchuria and the Korean
peninsula. In a word, they invited Russia to subscribe the policy
enunciated by the United States and Great Britain, the policy of the
open door and of the integrity of the Chinese and Korean empires.
Thus commenced a negotiation which lasted five and a half months. Japan
gradually reduced her demands to a minimum. Russia never made the
smallest appreciable concession. She refused to listen to Japan for one
moment about Manchuria. Eight years previously Japan had been in
military possession of Manchuria, and Russia with the assistance of
Germany and France had expelled her for reasons which concerned Japan
incomparably more than they concerned any of the three powers--the
security of the Chinese capital, the independence of Korea, the peace of
the East. Now, Russia had the splendid assurance to declare by
implication that none of these things concerned Japan at all. The utmost
she would admit was Japan's partial right to be heard about Korea. And
at the same time she herself commenced in northern Korea a series of
aggressions, partly perhaps to show her potentialities, partly by way of
counter-irritant. That was not all. Whilst she studiously deferred her
answers to Japan's proposals and protracted the negotiations to an
extent which was actually contumelious, she hastened to send eastward a
big fleet of war-ships and a new army of soldiers. It was impossible for
the dullest politician to mistake her purpose. She intended to yield
nothing, but to prepare such a parade of force that her obduracy would
command submission. The only alternatives for Japan were war or total
and permanent effacement in Asia. She chose war, and in fighting it she
fought the battle of free and equal opportunities for all without undue
encroachment upon the sovereign rights or territorial integrity of China
or Korea, against a military dictatorship, a programme of ruthless
territorial aggrandizement and a policy of selfish restrictions.
The Results of the War.
The details of the great struggle that ensued are given elsewhere (see
RUSSO-JAPANESE WAR). After the battle of Mukden the belligerents found
themselves in a position which must either prelude another stupendous
effort on both sides or be utilized for the purpose of peace
negotiations. At this point the president of the United States of
America intervened in the interests of humanity, and on the 9th of June
1905 instructed the United States' representative in Tokyo to urge that
the Japanese government should open direct negotiations with Russia, an
exactly corresponding note being simultaneously sent to the Russian
government through the United States' representative in St Petersburg.
Japan's reply was made on the 10th of June. It intimated frank
acquiescence, and Russia lost no time in taking a similar step.
Nevertheless two months elapsed before the plenipotentiaries of the
belligerents met, on the 10th of August, at Portsmouth, New Hampshire,
U.S.A. Russia sent M. (afterwards Count) de Witte and Baron Rosen;
Japan, Baron (afterwards Count) Komura, who had held the portfolio of
foreign affairs throughout the war, and Mr. (afterwards Baron) Takahira.
In entering this conference, Japanese statesmen, as was subsequently
known, saw clearly that a great part of the credit accruing to them for
their successful conduct of the war would be forfeited in the sequel of
the negotiations. For the people of Japan had accustomed themselves to
expect that Russia would assuredly recoup the expenses incurred by their
country in the contest, whereas the cabinet in Tokyo understood well
that to look for payment of indemnity by a great state whose territory
had not been invaded effectively nor its existence menaced must be
futile. Nevertheless, diplomacy required that this conviction should be
concealed, and thus Russia carried to the conference a belief that the
financial phase of the discussion would be crucial, while, at the same
time, the Japanese nation reckoned fully on an indemnity of 150 millions
sterling. Baron Komura's mandate was, however, that the only radically
essential terms were those formulated by Japan prior to the war. She
must insist on securing the ends for which she had fought, since she
believed them to be indispensable to the peace of the Far East, but she
would not demand anything more. The Japanese plenipotentiary, therefore,
judged it wise to marshal his terms in the order of their importance,
leaving his Russian colleague to imagine, as he probably would, that the
converse method had been adopted, and that everything preliminary to the
questions of finance and territory was of minor consequence. The
negotiations, commencing on the 10th of August, were not concluded until
the 5th of September, when a treaty of peace was signed. There had been
a moment when the onlooking world believed that unless Russia agreed to
ransom the island of Sakhalin by paying to Japan a sum of 120 millions
sterling, the conference would be broken off; nor did such an exchange
seem unreasonable, for were Russia expelled from the northern part of
Sakhalin, which commands the estuary of the Amur River, her position in
Siberia would have been compromised. But the statesmen who directed
Japan's affairs were not disposed to make any display of earth-hunger.
The southern half of Sakhalin had originally belonged to Japan and had
passed into Russia's possession by an arrangement which the Japanese
nation strongly resented. To recover that portion of the island seemed,
therefore, a legitimate ambition. Japan did not contemplate any larger
demand, nor did she seriously insist on an indemnity. Therefore the
negotiations were never in real danger of failure. The treaty of
Portsmouth recognized Japan's "paramount political, military and
economic interests" in Korea; provided for the simultaneous evacuation
of Manchuria by the contracting parties; transferred to Japan the lease
of the Liaotung peninsula held by Russia from China together with the
Russian railways south of Kwang-Cheng-tsze and all collateral mining or
other privileges; ceded to Japan the southern half of Sakhalin, the 50th
parallel of latitude to be the boundary between the two parts; secured
fishing rights for Japanese subjects along the coasts of the seas of
Japan, Okhotsk and Bering; laid down that the expenses incurred by the
Japanese for the maintenance of the Russian prisoners during the war
should be reimbursed by Russia, less the outlays made by the latter on
account of Japanese prisoners--by which arrangement Japan obtained a
payment of some 4 millions sterling--and provided that the contracting
parties, while withdrawing their military forces from Manchuria, might
maintain guards to protect their respective railways, the number of such
guards not to exceed 15 per kilometre of line. There were other
important restrictions: first, the contracting parties were to abstain
from taking, on the Russo-Korean frontier, any military measures which
might menace the security of Russian or Korean territory; secondly, the
two powers pledged themselves not to exploit the Manchurian railways for
strategic purposes; and thirdly, they promised not to build on Sakhalin
or its adjacent islands any fortifications or other similar military
works, or to take any military measures which might impede the free
navigation of the straits of La Perouse and the Gulf of Tartary. The
above provisions concerned the two contracting parties only. But China's
interests also were considered. Thus it was agreed to "restore entirely
and completely to her exclusive administration" all portions of
Manchuria then in the occupation, or under the control, of Japanese or
Russian troops, except the leased territory; that her consent must be
obtained for the transfer to Japan of the leases and concessions held by
the Russians in Manchuria; that the Russian government would disavow the
possession of "any territorial advantages or preferential or exclusive
concessions in impairment of Chinese sovereignty or inconsistent with
the principle of equal opportunity in Manchuria"; and that Japan and
Russia "engaged reciprocally not to obstruct any general measures common
to all countries which China might take for the development of the
commerce and industry of Manchuria." This distinction between the
special interests of the contracting parties and the interests of China
herself as well as of foreign nations generally is essential to clear
understanding of a situation which subsequently attracted much
attention. From the time of the opium war (1857) to the Boxer rising
(1900) each of the great Western powers struggled for its own hand in
China, and each sought to gain for itself exclusive concessions and
privileges with comparatively little regard for the interests of others,
and with no regard whatever for China's sovereign rights. The fruits of
this period were: permanently ceded territories (Hong-Kong and Macao);
leases temporarily establishing foreign sovereignty in various districts
(Kiaochow, Wei-hai-wei and Kwang-chow); railway and mining concessions;
and the establishment of settlements at open ports where foreign
jurisdiction was supreme. But when, in 1900, the Boxer rising forced all
the powers into a common camp, they awoke to full appreciation of a
principle which had been growing current for the past two or three
years, namely, that concerted action on the lines of maintaining China's
integrity and securing to all alike equality of opportunity and a
similarly open door, was the only feasible method of preventing the
partition of the Chinese Empire and averting a clash of rival interests
which might have disastrous results. This, of course, did not mean that
there was to be any abandonment of special privileges already acquired
or any surrender of existing concessions. The arrangement was not to be
retrospective in any sense. Vested interests were to be strictly guarded
until the lapse of the periods for which they had been granted, or until
the maturity of China's competence to be really autonomous. A curious
situation was thus created. International professions of respect for
China's sovereignty, for the integrity of her empire and for the
enforcement of the open door and equal opportunity, coexisted with
legacies from an entirely different past. Russia endorsed this new
policy, but not unnaturally declined to abate any of the advantages
previously enjoyed by her in Manchuria. Those advantages were very
substantial. They included a twenty-five years' lease--with provision
for renewal--of the Liaotung peninsula, within which area of 1220 sq. m.
Chinese troops might not penetrate, whereas Russia would not only
exercise full administrative authority, but also take military and naval
action of any kind; they included the creation of a neutral territory in
the immediate north of the former and still more extensive, which should
remain under Chinese administration, but where neither Chinese nor
Russian troops might enter, nor might China, without Russia's consent,
cede land, open trading marts or grant concessions to any third
nationality; and they included the right to build some 1600 m. of
railway (which China would have the opportunity of purchasing at cost
price in the year 1938 and would be entitled to receive gratis in 1982),
as well as the right to hold extensive zones on either side of the
railway, to administer these zones in the fullest sense, and to work all
mines lying along the lines. Under the Portsmouth treaty these
advantages were transferred to Japan by Russia, the railway, however,
being divided so that only the portion (521(1/2) m.) to the south of
Kwang-Cheng-tsze fell to Japan's share, while the portion (1077 m.) to
the north of that place remained in Russia's hands. China's consent to
the above transfers and assignments was obtained in a treaty signed at
Peking on the 22nd of December 1905. Thus Japan came to hold in
Manchuria a position somewhat contradictory. On the one hand, she
figured as the champion of the Chinese Empire's integrity and as an
exponent of the new principle of equal opportunity and the open door. On
the other, she appeared as the legatee of many privileges more or less
inconsistent with that principle. But, at the same time, nearly all the
great powers of Europe were similarly circumstanced. In their cases also
the same incongruity was observable between the newly professed policy
and the aftermath of the old practice. It was scarcely to be expected
that Japan alone should make a large sacrifice on the altar of a theory
to which no other state thought of yielding any retrospective obedience
whatever. She did, indeed, furnish a clear proof of deference to the
open-door doctrine, for instead of reserving the railway zones to her
own exclusive use, as she was fully entitled to do, she sought and
obtained from China a pledge to open to foreign trade 16 places within
those zones. For the rest, however, the inconsistency between the past
and the present, though existing throughout the whole of China, was
nowhere so conspicuous as in the three eastern provinces (Manchuria);
not because there was any real difference of degree, but because
Manchuria had been the scene of the greatest war of modern times;
because that war had been fought by Japan in the cause of the new
policy, and because the principles of the equally open door and of
China's integrity had been the main bases of the Portsmouth treaty, of
the Anglo-Japanese alliance, and of the subsequently concluded
_ententes_ with France and Russia. In short, the world's eyes were fixed
on Manchuria and diverted from China proper, so that every act of Japan
was subjected to an exceptionally rigorous scrutiny, and the nations
behaved as though they expected her to live up to a standard of almost
ideal altitude. China's mood, too, greatly complicated the situation.
She had the choice between two moderate and natural courses: either to
wait quietly until the various concessions granted by her to foreign
powers in the evil past should lapse by maturity, or to qualify herself
by earnest reforms and industrious development for their earlier
recovery. Nominally she adopted the latter course, but in reality she
fell into a mood of much impatience. Under the name of a
"rights-recovery campaign" her people began to protest vehemently
against the continuance of any conditions which impaired her
sovereignty, and as this temper coloured her attitude towards the
various questions which inevitably grew out of the situation in
Manchuria, her relations with Japan became somewhat strained in the
early part of 1909.
Japan in Korea after the War with Russia.
Having waged two wars on account of Korea, Japan emerged from the second
conflict with the conviction that the policy of maintaining the
independence of Korea must be modified, and that since the identity of
Korean and Japanese interests in the Far East and the paramount
character of Japanese interests in Korea would not permit Japan to leave
Korea to the care of any third power, she must assume the charge
herself. Europe and America also recognized that view of the situation,
and consented to withdraw their legations from Seoul, thus leaving the
control of Korean foreign affairs entirely in the hands of Japan, who
further undertook to assume military direction in the event of
aggression from without or disturbance from within. But in the matter of
internal administration she continued to limit herself to advisory
supervision. Thus, though a Japanese resident-general in Seoul, with
subordinate residents throughout the provinces, assumed the functions
hitherto discharged by foreign representatives and consuls, the Korean
government was merely asked to employ Japanese experts in the position
of counsellors, the right to accept or reject their counsels being left
to their employers. Once again, however, the futility of looking for any
real reforms under this optional system was demonstrated. Japan sent her
most renowned statesman, Prince Ito, to discharge the duties of
resident-general; but even he, in spite of profound patience and tact,
found that some less optional methods must be resorted to. Hence on the
24th of July 1907 a new agreement was signed, by which the
resident-general acquired initiative as well as consultative competence
to enact and enforce laws and ordinances, to appoint and remove Korean
officials, and to place capable Japanese subjects in the ranks of the
administration. That this constituted a heavy blow to Korea's
independence could not be gainsaid. That it was inevitable seemed to be
equally obvious. For there existed in Korea nearly all the worst abuses
of medieval systems. The administration of justice depended solely on
favour or interest. The police contributed by corruption and
incompetence to the insecurity of life and property. The troops were a
body of useless mercenaries. Offices being allotted by sale, thousands
of incapables thronged the ranks of the executive. The emperor's court
was crowded by diviners and plotters of all kinds, male and female. The
finances of the throne and those of the state were hopelessly confused.
There was nothing like an organized judiciary. A witness was in many
cases considered _particeps criminis_; torture was commonly employed to
obtain evidence, and defendants in civil cases were placed under arrest.
Imprisonment meant death or permanent disablement for a man of small
means. Flogging so severe as to cripple, if not to kill, was a common
punishment; every major offence from robbery upward was capital, and
female criminals were frequently executed by administering shockingly
painful poisons. The currency was in a state of the utmost confusion.
Extreme corruption and extortion were practised in connexion with
taxation. Finally, while nothing showed that the average Korean lacked
the elementary virtue of patriotism, there had been repeated proofs that
the safety and independence of the empire counted for little in the
estimates of political intriguers. Japan must either step out of Korea
altogether or effect drastic reforms there. She necessarily chose the
latter alternative, and the things which she accomplished between the
beginning of 1906 and the close of 1908 may be briefly described as the
elaboration of a proper system of taxation; the organization of a staff
to administer annual budgets; the re-assessment of taxable property; the
floating of public loans for productive enterprises; the reform of the
currency; the establishment of banks of various kinds, including
agricultural and commercial; the creation of associations for putting
bank-notes into circulation; the introduction of a warehousing system to
supply capital to farmers; the lighting and buoying of the coasts; the
provision of posts, telegraphs, roads and railways; the erection of
public buildings; the starting of various industrial enterprises (such
as printing, brick-making, forestry and coal-mining); the laying out of
model farms; the beginning of cotton cultivation; the building and
equipping of an industrial training school; the inauguration of sanitary
works; the opening of hospitals and medical schools; the organization of
an excellent educational system; the construction of waterworks in
several towns; the complete remodelling of the central government; the
differentiation of the court and the executive, as well as of the
administration and the judiciary; the formation of an efficient body of
police; the organization of law courts with a majority of Japanese
jurists on the bench; the enactment of a new penal code; drastic reforms
in the taxation system. In the summer of 1907 the resident-general
advised the Throne to disband the standing army as an unserviceable and
expensive force. The measure was doubtless desirable, but the docility
of the troops had been over-rated. Some of them resisted vehemently, and
many became the nucleus of an insurrection which lasted in a desultory
manner for nearly two years; cost the lives of 21,000 insurgents and
1300 Japanese; and entailed upon Japan an outlay of nearly a million
sterling. Altogether Japan was 15 millions sterling out of pocket on
Korea's account by the end of 1909. She had also lost the veteran
statesman Prince Ito, who was assassinated at Harbin by a Korean fanatic
on the 26th of October 1909. Finally an end was put to an anomalous
situation by the annexation of Korea to Japan on the 29th of August
1910. (See further KOREA.)
IX.--DOMESTIC HISTORY
_Cosmography._--Japanese annals represent the first inhabitant of earth
as a direct descendant of the gods. Two books describe the events of the
"Divine age." One, compiled in 712, is called the _Kojiki (Records of
Ancient Matters)_; the other, compiled in 720, is called the _Nihongi
(Chronicles of Japan)_. Both describe the processes of creation, but the
author of the _Chronicles_ drew largely upon Chinese traditions, whereas
the compilers of the _Records_ appear to have limited themselves to
materials which they believed to be native. The _Records_, therefore,
have always been regarded as the more trustworthy guide to pure Japanese
conceptions. They deal with the creation of Japan only, other countries
having been apparently judged unworthy of attention. At the beginning of
all things a primordial trinity is represented as existing on the "plain
of high heaven." Thereafter, during an indefinite time and by an
indefinite process, other deities come into existence, their titles
indicating a vague connexion with constructive and fertilizing forces.
They are not immortal: it is explicitly stated that they ultimately pass
away, and the idea of the cosmographers seems to be that each deity
marks a gradual approach to human methods of procreation. Meanwhile the
earth is "young and, like floating oil, drifts about after the manner of
a jelly-fish." At last there are born two deities, the creator and the
creatress, and these receive the mandate of all the heavenly beings to
"make, consolidate and give birth to the drifting land." For use in that
work a jewelled spear is given to them, and, standing upon the bridge
that connects heaven and earth, they thrust downwards with the weapon,
stir the brine below and draw up the spear, when from its point fall
drops which, accumulating, form the first dry land. Upon this land the
two deities descend, and, by ordinary processes, beget the islands of
Japan as well as numerous gods representing the forces of nature. But in
giving birth to the god of fire the creatress (Izanami) perishes, and
the creator (Izanagi) makes his way to the under-world in search of
her--an obvious parallel to the tales of Ishtar and Orpheus. With
difficulty he returns to earth, and, as he washes himself from the
pollution of Hades, there are born from the turbid water a number of
evil deities succeeded by a number of good, just as in the Babylonian
cosmogony the primordial ocean, Tiamat, brings forth simultaneously gods
and imps. Finally, as Izanagi washes his left eye the Goddess of the Sun
comes into existence; as he washes his right, the God of the Moon; and
as he washes his nose, the God of Force. To these three he assigns,
respectively, the dominion of the sun, the dominion of the moon, and the
dominion of the ocean. But the god of force (Sosanoo), like Lucifer,
rebels against this decree, creates a commotion in heaven, and after
having been the cause of the temporary seclusion of the sun goddess and
the consequent wrapping of the world in darkness, kills the goddess of
food and is permanently banished from heaven by the host of deities. He
descends to Izumo on the west of the main island of Japan, and there
saves a maiden from an eight-headed serpent. Sosanoo himself passes to
the under-world and becomes the deity of Hades, but he invests one of
his descendants with the sovereignty of Japan, and the title is
established after many curious adventures. To the sun goddess also,
whose feud with her fierce brother survives the latter's banishment from
heaven, the idea of making her grandson ruler of Japan presents itself.
She despatches three embassies to impose her will upon the descendants
of Sosanoo, and finally her grandson descends, not, however, in Izumo,
where the demi-gods of Sosanoo's race hold sway, but in Hiuga in the
southern island of Kiushiu. This grandson of Amaterasu (the goddess of
the sun) is called Ninigi, whose great-grandson figures in Japanese
history as the first human sovereign of the country, known during life
as Kamu-Yamato-Iware-Biko, and given the name of Jimmu tenno (Jimmu, son
of heaven) fourteen centuries after his death. Japanese annalists
attribute the accession of Jimmu to the year 660 B.C. Why that date was
chosen must remain a matter of conjecture. The _Records of Ancient
Matters_ has no chronology, but the more pretentious writers of the
_Chronicles of Japan_, doubtless in imitation of their Chinese models,
considered it necessary to assign a year, a month, and even a day for
each event of importance. There is abundant reason, however, to question
the accuracy of all Japanese chronology prior to the 5th century. The
first date corroborated by external evidence is 461, and Aston, who has
made a special study of the subject, concludes that the year 500 may be
taken as the time when the chronology of the _Chronicles_ begins to be
trustworthy. Many Japanese, however, are firm believers in the
_Chronicles_, and when assigning the year of the empire they invariably
take 660 B.C. for starting-point, so that 1909 of the Gregorian calendar
becomes for them 2569.
_Prehistoric Period._--Thus, if the most rigid estimate be accepted, the
space of 1160 years, from 660 B.C. to A.D. 500, may be called the
prehistoric period. During that long interval the annals include 24
sovereigns, the first 17 of whom lived for over a hundred years on the
average. It seems reasonable to conclude that the so-called assignment
of the sovereignty of Japan to Sosanoo's descendants and the
establishment of their kingdom in Izumo represent an invasion of
Mongolian immigrants coming from the direction of the Korean
peninsula--indeed one of the _Nihongi's_ versions of the event actually
indicates Korea as the point of departure--and that the subsequent
descent of Ninigi on Mount Takachiho in Hiuga indicates the advent of a
body of Malayan settlers from the south sea. Jimmu, according to the
_Chronicles_, set out from Hiuga in 667 B.C. and was not crowned at his
new palace in Yamato until 660. This campaign of seven years is
described in some detail, but no satisfactory information is given as to
the nature of the craft in which the invader and his troops voyaged, or
as to the number of men under his command. The weapons said to have been
carried were bows, spears and swords. A supernatural element is imported
into the narrative in the form of the three-legged crow of the sun,
which Amaterasu sends down to act as guide and messenger for her
descendants. Jimmu died at his palace of Kashiwa-bara in 585 B.C., his
age being 127 according to the _Chronicles_, and 137 according to the
_Records_. He was buried in a kind of tomb called _misasagi_, which
seems to have been in use in Japan for some centuries before the
Christian era--"a highly specialized form of tumulus, consisting of two
mounds, one having a circular, the other a triangular base, which merged
into each other, the whole being surrounded by a moat, or sometimes by
two concentric moats with a narrow strip of land between. In some,
perhaps in most, cases the misasagi contains a large vault of great
unhewn stones without mortar. The walls of this vault converge gradually
towards the top, which is roofed in by enormous slabs of stone weighing
many tons each. The entrance is by means of a gallery roofed with
similar stones." Several of these ancient sepulchral mounds have been
examined during recent years, and their contents have furnished
information of much antiquarian interest, though there is a complete
absence of inscriptions. The reigns of the eight sovereigns who
succeeded Jimmu were absolutely uneventful. Nothing is set down except
the genealogy of each ruler, the place of his residence and his burial,
his age and the date of his death. It was then the custom--and it
remained so until the 8th century of the Christian era--to change the
capital on the accession of each emperor; a habit which effectually
prevented the growth of any great metropolis. The reign of the 10th
emperor, Sujin, lasted from 98 to 30 B.C. During his era the land was
troubled by pestilence and the people broke out in rebellion; calamities
which were supposed to be caused by the spirit of the ancient ruler of
Izumo to avenge a want of consideration shown to his descendants by
their supplanters. Divination--by a Chinese process--and visions
revealed the source of trouble; rites of worship were performed in
honour of the ancient ruler, his descendant being entrusted with the
duty, and the pestilence ceased. We now hear for the first time of
vigorous measures to quell the aboriginal savages, doubtless the Ainu.
Four generals are sent out against them in different directions. But the
expedition is interrupted by an armed attempt on the part of the
emperor's half-brother, who, utilizing the opportunity of the troops'
absence from Yamato, marches from Yamashiro at the head of a powerful
army to win the crown for himself. In connexion with these incidents,
curious evidence is furnished of the place then assigned to woman by the
writers of the _Chronicles_. It is a girl who warns one of the emperor's
generals of the plot; it is the sovereign's aunt who interprets the
warning; and it is Ata, the wife of the rebellious prince, who leads the
left wing of his army. Four other noteworthy facts are recorded of this
reign: the taking of a census; the imposition of a tax on animals' skins
and game to be paid by men, and on textile fabrics by women; the
building of boats for coastwise transport, and the digging of dikes and
reservoirs for agricultural purposes. All these things rest solely on
the testimony of annalists writing eight centuries later than the era
they discuss and compiling their narrative mostly from tradition.
Careful investigations have been made to ascertain whether the histories
of China and Korea corroborate or contradict those of Japan. Without
entering into detailed evidence, the inference may be at once stated
that the dates given in Japanese early history are just 120 years too
remote; an error very likely to occur when using the sexagenary cycle,
which constituted the first method of reckoning time in Japan. But
although this correction suffices to reconcile some contradictory
features of Far-Eastern history, it does not constitute any explanation
of the incredible longevity assigned by the _Chronicles_ to several
Japanese sovereigns, and the conclusion is that when a consecutive
record of reigns came to be compiled in the 8th century, many lacunae
were found which had to be filled up from the imagination of the
compilers. With this parenthesis we may pass rapidly over the events of
the next two centuries (29 B.C. to A.D. 200). They are remarkable for
vigorous measures to subdue the aboriginal Ainu, who in the southern
island of Kiushiu are called Kuma-so (the names of two tribes) and
sometimes earth-spiders (i.e. cave-dwellers), while in the north-eastern
regions of the main island they are designated Yemishi. Expeditions are
led against them in both regions by Prince Yamato-dake, a hero revered
by all succeeding generations of Japanese as the type of valour and
loyalty. Dying from the effects of hardship and exposure, but declaring
with his last breath that loss of life was as nothing compared with the
sorrow of seeing his father's face no more, his spirit ascends to heaven
as a white bird, and when his son, Chuai, comes to the throne, he causes
cranes to be placed in the moat surrounding his palace in memory of his
illustrious sire.
The sovereign had partly ceased to follow the example of Jimmu, who led
his armies in person. The emperors did not, however, pass a sedentary
life. They frequently made progresses throughout their dominions, and
on these occasions a not uncommon incident was the addition of some
local beauty to the Imperial harem. This licence had a far-reaching
effect, since to provide for the sovereign's numerous offspring--the
emperor Keiko (71-130) had 80 children--no better way offered than to
make grants of land, and thus were laid the foundations of a territorial
nobility destined profoundly to influence the course of Japanese
history. Woman continues to figure conspicuously in the story. The image
of the sun goddess, enshrined in Ise (5 B.C.), is entrusted to the
keeping of a princess, as are the mirror, sword and jewel inherited from
the sun goddess; a woman (Tachibana) accompanies Prince Yamato-dake in
his campaign against the Yemishi, and sacrifices her life to quell a
tempest at sea; Saho, consort of Suinin, is the heroine of a most tragic
tale in which the conflict between filial piety and conjugal loyalty
leads to her self-destruction; and a woman is found ruling over a large
district in Kiushu when the Emperor Keiko is engaged in his campaign
against the aborigines. The reign of Suinin saw the beginning of an art
destined to assume extraordinary importance in Japan--the art of
wrestling--and the first champion, Nomi no Sukune, is honoured for
having suggested that clay figures should take the place of the human
sacrifices hitherto offered at the sepulture of Imperial personages. The
irrigation works commenced in the time of Sujin were zealously continued
under his two immediate successors, Suinin and Keiko. More than 800
ponds and channels are described as having been constructed under the
former's rule. We find evidence also that the sway of the throne had
been by this time widely extended, for in 125 a governor-general of 15
provinces is nominated, and two years later, governors (_miyakko_) are
appointed in every province and mayors (_inaki_) in every village. The
number or names of these local divisions are not given, but it is
explained that mountains and rivers were taken as boundaries of
provinces, the limits of towns and villages being marked by roads
running respectively east and west, north and south.
Invasion of Korea.
An incident is now reached which the Japanese count a landmark in their
history, though foreign critics are disposed to regard it as apocryphal.
It is the invasion of Korea by a Japanese army under the command of the
empress Jingo, in 200. The emperor Chuai, having proceeded to Kiushiu
for the purpose of conducting a campaign against the Kuma-so, is there
joined by the empress, who, at the inspiration of a deity, seeks to
divert the Imperial arms against Korea. But the emperor refuses to
believe in the existence of any such country, and heaven punishes his
incredulity with death at the hands of the Kuma-so, according to one
account; from the effects of disease, according to another. The calamity
is concealed; the Kuma-so are subdued, and the empress, having collected
a fleet and raised an army, crosses to the state of Silla (in Korea),
where, at the spectacle of her overwhelming strength, the Korean monarch
submits without fighting, and swears that until the sun rises in the
west, until rivers run towards their sources, and until pebbles ascend
to the sky and become stars, he will do homage and send tribute to
Japan. His example is followed by the kings of the two other states
constituting the Korean peninsula, and the warlike empress returns
triumphant. Many supernatural elements embellish the tale, but the
features which chiefly discredit it are that it abounds in anachronisms,
and that the event, despite its signal importance, is not mentioned in
either Chinese or Korean history. It is certain that China then
possessed in Korea territory administered by Chinese governors. She must
therefore have had cognisance of such an invasion, had it occurred.
Moreover, Korean history mentions twenty-five raids made by the Japanese
against Silla during the first five centuries of the Christian era, but
not one of them can be identified with Jingo's alleged expedition. There
can be no doubt that the early Japanese were an aggressive, enterprising
people, and that their nearest over-sea neighbour suffered much from
their activity. Nor can there be any reasonable doubt that the Jingo
tale contains a large germ of truth, and is at least an echo of the
relations that existed between Japan and Korea in the 3rd and 4th
centuries. The records of the 69 years comprising Jingo's reign are in
the main an account of intercourse, sometimes peaceful, sometimes
stormy, between the neighbouring countries. Only one other episode
occupies a prominent place: it is an attempt on the part of Jingo's
step-brothers to oppose her return to Yamato and to prevent the
accession of her son to the throne. It should be noted here that all
such names as Jimmu, Sujin, Chuai, &c., are posthumous, and were
invented in the reign of Kwammu (782-806), the fashion being taken from
China and the names themselves being purely Chinese translations of the
qualities assigned to the respective monarchs. Thus Jimmu signifies
"divine valour"; Sujin, "deity-honouring"; and Chuai, "sad middle son."
The names of these rulers during life were wholly different from their
posthumous appellations.
Earliest Notices in Chinese History.
Chinese history, which is incomparably older and more precise than
Korean, is by no means silent about Japan. Long notices occur in the
later Han and Wei records (25 to 265). The Japanese are spoken of as
dwarfs (_Wa_), and their islands, frequently called the queen country,
are said to be mountainous, with soil suitable for growing grain, hemp,
and the silkworm mulberry. The climate is so mild that vegetables can be
grown in winter and summer; there are neither oxen, horses, tigers, nor
leopards; the people understand the art of weaving; the men tattoo their
faces and bodies in patterns indicating differences of rank; male attire
consists of a single piece of cloth; females wear a gown passed over the
head, and tie their hair in a bow; soldiers are armed with spears and
shields, and also with bows, from which they discharge arrows tipped
with bone or iron; the sovereign resides in Yamato; there are stockaded
forts and houses; food is taken with the fingers but is served on bamboo
trays and wooden trenchers; foot-gear is not worn; when men of the lower
classes meet a man of rank, they leave the road and retire to the grass,
squatting or kneeling with both hands on the ground when they address
him; intoxicating liquor is much used; the people are long-lived, many
reaching the age of 100; women are more numerous than men; there is no
theft, and litigation is infrequent; the women are faithful and not
jealous; all men of high rank have four or five wives, others two or
three; wives and children of law-breakers are confiscated, and for grave
crimes the offender's family is extirpated; divination is practised by
burning bones; mourning lasts for some ten days and the rites are
performed by a "mourning-keeper"; after a funeral the whole family
perform ablutions; fishing is much practised, and the fishermen are
skilled divers; there are distinctions of rank and some are vassals to
others; each province has a market where goods are exchanged; the
country is divided into more than 100 provinces, and among its products
are white pearls, green jade and cinnabar. These annals go on to say
that between 147 and 190 civil war prevailed for several years, and
order was finally restored by a female sovereign, who is described as
having been old and unmarried; much addicted to magic arts; attended by
a thousand females; dwelling in a palace with lofty pavilions surrounded
by a stockade and guarded by soldiers; but leading such a secluded life
that few saw her face except one man who served her meals and acted as a
medium of communication. There can be little question that this queen
was the empress Jingo who, according to Japanese annals, came to the
throne in the year A.D. 200, and whose every public act had its
inception or promotion in some alleged divine interposition. In one
point, however, the Chinese historians are certainly incorrect. They
represent tattooing as universal in ancient Japan, whereas it was
confined to criminals, in whose case it played the part that branding
does elsewhere. Centuries later, in feudal days, the habit came to be
practised by men of the lower orders whose avocations involved baring
the body, but it never acquired vogue among educated people. In other
respects these ancient Chinese annals must be credited with remarkable
accuracy in their description of Japan and the Japanese. Their account
may be advantageously compared with Professor Chamberlain's analysis of
the manners and customs of the early Japanese, in the preface to his
translation of the _Kojiki_.
"The Japanese of the mythical period, as pictured in the legends
preserved by the compiler of the _Records of Ancient Matters_, were a
race who had long emerged from the savage stage and had attained to a
high level of barbaric skill. The Stone Age was forgotten by them--or
nearly so--and the evidence points to their never having passed
through a genuine Bronze Age, though the knowledge of bronze was at a
later period introduced from the neighbouring continent. They used
iron for manufacturing spears, swords and knives of various shapes,
and likewise for the more peaceful purpose of making hooks wherewith
to angle or to fasten the doors of their huts. Their other warlike and
hunting implements (besides traps and gins, which appear to have been
used equally for catching beasts and birds and for destroying human
enemies) were bows and arrows, spears and elbow-pads--the latter
seemingly of skin, while special allusion is made to the fact that the
arrows were feathered. Perhaps clubs should be added to the list. Of
the bows and arrows, swords and knives, there is perpetual mention,
but nowhere do we hear of the tools with which they were manufactured,
and there is the same remarkable silence regarding such widely spread
domestic implements as the saw and the axe. We hear, however, of the
pestle and mortar, of the fire-drill, of the wedge, of the sickle, and
of the shuttle used in weaving. Navigation seems to have been in a
very elementary state. Indeed the art of sailing was but little
practised in Japan even so late as the middle of the 10th century of
our era, subsequent to the general diffusion of Chinese civilization,
though rowing and punting are often mentioned by the early poets. To
what we should call towns or villages very little reference is made
anywhere in the _Records_ or in that part of the _Chronicles_ which
contain the account of the so-called Divine Age. But from what we
learn incidentally it would seem that the scanty population was
chiefly distributed in small hamlets and isolated dwellings along the
coast and up the course of the larger streams. Of house-building there
is frequent mention. Fences were in use. Rugs of skins and
rush-matting were occasionally brought in to sit on, and we even hear
once or twice of silk rugs being used for the same purpose by the
noble and wealthy. The habits of personal cleanliness which so
pleasantly distinguish the modern Japanese from their neighbours, in
continental Asia, though less fully developed than at present would
seem to have existed in the germ in early times, as we read more than
once of bathing in rivers, and are told of bathing women being
specially attached to the person of a certain Imperial infant.
Lustrations, too, formed part of the religious practices of the race.
Latrines are mentioned several times. They would appear to have been
situated away from the houses and to have been generally placed over a
running stream, whence doubtless the name for latrine in the archaic
dialect--_kawaya_ (river-house). A peculiar sort of dwelling-place
which the two old histories bring prominently under our notice is the
so-called parturition house--a one-roomed hut without windows, which a
woman was expected to build and retire into for the purpose Of being
delivered unseen. Castles are not distinctly spoken of until a time
which coincides, according to the received chronology, with the first
century B.C. We then first meet with the curious term rice-castle,
whose precise signification is a matter of dispute among the native
commentators, but which, on comparison with Chinese descriptions of
the early Japanese, should probably be understood to mean a kind of
palisade serving the purpose of a redoubt, behind which the warriors
could ensconce themselves. The food of the early Japanese consisted of
fish and of the flesh of the wild creatures which fell by the hunter's
arrow or were taken in the trapper's snare. Rice is the only cereal of
which there is such mention made as to place it beyond a doubt that
its cultivation dates back to time immemorial. Beans, millet and
barley are indeed named once, together with silkworms, in the account
of the Divine Age. But the passage has every aspect of an
interpolation in the legend, perhaps not dating back long before the
time of the eighth-century compiler. A few unimportant vegetables and
fruits, of most of which there is but a single mention, are found. The
intoxicating liquor called _sake_ was known in Japan during the
mythical period, and so were chopsticks for eating food with. Cooking
pots and cups and dishes--the latter both of earthenware and of leaves
of trees--are also mentioned; but of the use of fire for warming
purposes we hear nothing. Tables are named several times, but never in
connexion with food: they would seem to have been used exclusively for
the purpose of presenting offerings on, and were probably quite small
and low--in fact, rather trays than tables, according to European
ideas. In the use of clothing and the specialization of garments the
early Japanese had reached a high level. We read in the most ancient
legends of upper garments, skirts, trowsers, girdles, veils and hats,
while both sexes adorned themselves with necklaces, bracelets and head
ornaments of stones considered precious--in this respect offering a
striking contrast to their descendants in modern times, of whose
attire jewelry forms no part. The material of their clothes was hempen
cloth and paper--mulberry bark, coloured by being rubbed with madder,
and probably with woad and other tinctorial plants. All the garments,
so far as we may judge, were woven, sewing being nowhere mentioned.
From the great place which the chase occupied in daily life, we are
led to suppose that skins also were used to make garments of. There is
in the _Records_ at least one passage which favours this supposition,
and the _Chronicles_ in one place mention the straw rain-coat and
broad-brimmed hat, which still form the Japanese peasant's effectual
protection against the inclemencies of the weather. The tendrils of
creeping plants served the purposes of strings, and bound the
warrior's sword round his waist. Combs are mentioned, and it is
evident that much attention was devoted to the dressing of the hair.
The men seem to have bound up their hair in two bunches, one on each
side of the head, while the young boys tied theirs in a top-knot, the
unmarried girls let their locks hang down over their necks, and the
married women dressed theirs after a fashion which apparently combined
the two last-named methods. There is no mention in any of the old
books of cutting the hair or beard except in token of disgrace;
neither do we gather that the sexes, but for the matter of the
head-dress, were distinguished by a diversity of apparel and
ornamentation. With regard to the precious stones mentioned above as
having been used as ornaments for the head, neck and arms, we know
from the specimens which have rewarded the labours of archaeological
research in Japan that agate, crystal, glass, jade, serpentine and
steatite were the most used materials, and carved and pierced
cylindrical shapes the commonest forms. The horse--which was ridden,
but not driven--the barn-door fowl and the cormorant used for fishing,
are the only domesticated creatures mentioned in the earlier
traditions, with the doubtful exception of the silkworm. In the later
portions of the _Records_ and _Chronicles_ dogs and cattle are alluded
to, but sheep, swine and even cats were apparently not yet
introduced."
As the prehistoric era draws to its end the above analyses of Japanese
civilization have to be modified. Thus, towards the close of the 3rd
century, ship-building made great progress, and instead of the small
boats hitherto in use, a vessel 100 ft. long was constructed. Notable
above all is the fact that Japan's turbulent relations with Korea were
replaced by friendly intercourse, so that she began to receive from her
neighbour instruction in the art of writing. The date assigned by the
_Chronicles_ for this important event is A.D. 285, but it has been
proved almost conclusively that Japanese annals relating to this period
are in error to the extent of 120 years. Hence the introduction of
calligraphy must be placed in 405. Chinese history shows that between 57
and 247 Japan sent four embassies to the courts of the Han and the Wei,
and this intercourse cannot have failed to disclose the ideograph. But
the knowledge appears to have been confined to a few interpreters, and
not until the year 405 were steps taken to extend it, with the aid of a
learned Korean, Wang-in. Korea herself began to study Chinese learning
only a few years before she undertook to impart it to Japan. We now find
a numerous colony of Koreans passing to Japan and settling there; a
large number are also carried over as prisoners of war, and the Japanese
obtain seamstresses from both of their continental neighbours. One fact,
related with much precision, shows that the refinements of life were in
an advanced condition: an ice-house is described, and we read that from
374 (? 494) it became the fashion to store ice in this manner for use in
the hot months by placing it in water or _sake_. The emperor, Nintoku,
to whose time this innovation is attributed, is one of the romantic
figures of Japanese history. He commenced his career by refusing to
accept the sovereignty from his younger brother, who pressed him
earnestly to do so on the ground that the proper order of succession had
been disturbed by their father's partiality--though the rights attaching
to primogeniture did not receive imperative recognition in early Japan.
After three years of this mutual self-effacement, during which the
throne remained vacant, the younger brother committed suicide, and
Nintoku reluctantly became sovereign. He chose Naniwa (the modern Osaka)
for his capital, but he would not take the farmers from their work to
finish the building of a palace, and subsequently, inferring from the
absence of smoke over the houses of the people that the country was
impoverished, he remitted all taxes and suspended forced labour for a
term of three years, during which his palace fell into a state of ruin
and he himself fared in the coarsest manner. Digging canals, damming
rivers, constructing roads and bridges, and establishing granaries
occupied his attention when love did not distract it. But in affairs of
the heart he was most unhappy. He figures as the sole wearer of the
Japanese crown who was defied by his consort; for when he took a
concubine in despite of the empress, her jealousy was so bitter that,
refusing to be placated by any of his majesty's verses or other
overtures, she left the palace altogether; and when he sought to
introduce another beauty into the inner chamber, his own half-brother,
who carried his proposals, won the girl for himself. One other fact
deserves to be remembered in connexion with Nintoku's reign:
Ki-no-tsuno, representative of a great family which had filled the
highest administrative and military posts under several sovereigns, is
mentioned as "the first to commit to writing in detail the productions
of the soil in each locality." This was in 353 (probably 473). We shall
err little if we date the commencement of Japanese written annals from
this time, though no compilation earlier than the _Kojiki_ has survived.
_Early Historical Period._--With the emperor Richu, who came to the
throne A.D. 400, the historical period may be said to commence; for
though the chronology of the records is still questionable, the facts
are generally accepted as credible. Conspicuous loyalty towards the
sovereign was not an attribute of the Japanese Imperial family in early
times. Attempts to usurp the throne were not uncommon, though there are
very few instances of such essays on the part of a subject. Love or lust
played no insignificant part in the drama, and a common method of
placating an irate sovereign was to present a beautiful damsel for his
delectation. The veto of consanguinity did not receive very strict
respect in these matters. Children of the same father might intermarry,
but not those of the same mother; a canon which becomes explicable on
observing that as wives usually lived apart from their husbands and had
the sole custody of their offspring, two or more families often remained
to the end unconscious of the fact that they had a common sire. There
was a remarkable tendency to organize the nation into groups of persons
following the same pursuit or charged with the same functions. A group
thus composed was called _be_. The heads of the great families had
titles--as _omi_, _muraji_, _miakko_, _wake_, &c.--and affairs of state
were administered by the most renowned of these nobles, wholly subject
to the sovereign's ultimate will. The provincial districts were ruled by
scions of the Imperial family, who appear to have been, on the whole,
entirely subservient to the Throne. There were no tribunals of justice:
the ordeal of boiling water or heated metal was the sole test of guilt
or innocence, apart, of course, from confession, which was often exacted
under menace of torture. A celebrated instance of the ordeal of boiling
water is recorded in 415, when this device was employed to correct the
genealogies of families suspected of falsely claiming descent from
emperors or divine beings. The test proved efficacious, for men
conscious of forgery refused to undergo the ordeal. Deprivation of rank
was the lightest form of punishment; death the commonest, and
occasionally the whole family of an offender became serfs of the house
against which the offence had been committed or which had been
instrumental in disclosing a crime. There are, however, frequent
examples of wrong-doing expiated by the voluntary surrender of lands or
other property. We find several instances of that extreme type of
loyalty which became habitual in later ages--suicide in preference to
surviving a deceased lord. On the whole the successive sovereigns of
these early times appear to have ruled with clemency and consideration
for the people's welfare. But there were two notable exceptions--Yuriaku
(457-479) and Muretsu (499-506). The former slew men ruthlessly in fits
of passion or resentment, and the latter was the Nero of Japanese
history, a man who loved to witness the agony of his fellows and knew no
sentiment of mercy or remorse. Yet even Yuriaku did not fail to promote
industrial pursuits. Skilled artisans were obtained from Korea, and it
is related that, in 462, this monarch induced the empress and the ladies
of the palace to plant mulberry trees with their own hands in order to
encourage sericulture. Throughout the 5th and 6th centuries many
instances are recorded of the acquisition of landed estates by the
Throne, and their occasional bestowal upon princes or Imperial consorts,
such gifts being frequently accompanied by the assignment of bodies of
agriculturists who seem to have accepted the position of serfs.
Meanwhile Chinese civilization was gradually becoming known, either by
direct contact or through Korea. Several immigrations of Chinese or
Korean settlers are on record. No less than 7053 householders of Chinese
subjects came, through Korea, in 540, and one of their number received
high rank together with the post of director of the Imperial treasury.
From these facts, and from a national register showing the derivation of
all the principal families in Japan, it is clearly established that a
considerable strain of Chinese and Korean blood runs in the veins of
many Japanese subjects.
Introduction of Buddhism.
The most signal and far-reaching event of this epoch was the importation
of the Buddhist creed, which took place in 552. A Korean monarch acted
as propagandist, sending a special envoy with a bronze image of the
Buddha and with several volumes of the Sutras. Unfortunately the coming
of the foreign faith happened to synchronize with an epidemic of plague,
and conservatives at the Imperial court were easily able to attribute
this visitation to resentment on the part of the ancestral deities
against the invasion of Japan by an alien creed. Thus the spread of
Buddhism was checked; but only for a time. Thirty-five years after the
coming of the Sutras, the first temple was erected to enshrine a wooden
image of the Buddha 16 ft. high. It has often been alleged that the
question between the imported and the indigenous cults had to be decided
by the sword. The statement is misleading. That the final adoption of
Buddhism resulted from a war is true, but its adoption or rejection did
not constitute the motive of the combat. A contest for the succession to
the throne at the opening of Sujun's reign (588-592) found the partisans
of the Indian faith ranged on one side, its opponents on the other, and
in a moment of stress the leaders of the former, Soma and Prince
Umayado, vowed to erect Buddhist temples should victory rest on their
arms. From that time the future of Buddhism was assured. In 588 Korea
sent Buddhist relics, Buddhist priests, Buddhist ascetics, architects of
Buddhist temples, and casters of Buddhist images. She had already sent
men learned in divination, in medicine, and in the calendar. The
building of temples began to be fashionable in the closing years of the
6th century, as did also abdication of the world by people of both
sexes; and a census taken in 623, during the reign of the empress Suiko
(583-628), showed that there were then 46 temples, 816 priests and 569
nuns in the empire. This rapid growth of the alien faith was due mainly
to two causes: first, that the empress Suiko, being of the Soga family,
naturally favoured a creed which had found its earliest Japanese patron
in the great statesman and general, Soga no Umako; secondly, that one of
the most illustrious scholars and philosophers ever possessed by Japan,
Prince Shotoku, devoted all his energies to fostering Buddhism.
The adoption of Buddhism meant to the Japanese much more than the
acquisition of a practical religion with a code of clearly defined
morality in place of the amorphous and jejune cult of Shinto. It meant
the introduction of Chinese civilization. Priests and scholars crossed
in numbers from China, and men passed over from Japan to study the
Sutras at what was then regarded as the fountain-head of Buddhism. There
was also a constant stream of immigrants from China and Korea, and the
result may be gathered from the fact that a census taken of the Japanese
nobility in 814 indicated 382 Korean and Chinese families against only
796 of pure Japanese origin. The records show that in costume and
customs a signal advance was made towards refinement. Hair-ornaments of
gold or silver chiselled in the form of flowers; caps of sarcenet in
twelve special tints, each indicating a different grade; garments of
brocade and embroidery with figured thin silks of various colours--all
these were worn on ceremonial occasions; the art of painting was
introduced; a recorder's office was established; perfumes were largely
employed; court picnics to gather medicinal herbs were instituted,
princes and princesses attending in brilliant raiment; Chinese music and
dancing were introduced; cross bows and catapults were added to the
weapons of war; domestic architecture made signal strides in obedience
to the examples of Buddhist sacred edifices, which, from the first,
showed magnificence of dimension and decoration hitherto unconceived in
Japan; the arts of metal-casting and sculpture underwent great
improvement; Prince Shotoku compiled a code, commonly spoken of as the
first written laws of Japan, but in reality a collection of maxims
evincing a moral spirit of the highest type. In some respects, however,
there was no improvement. The succession to the throne still tended to
provoke disputes among the Imperial princes; the sword constituted the
principal weapon of punishment, and torture the chief judicial device.
Now, too, for the first time, a noble family is found seeking to usurp
the Imperial authority. The head of the Soga house, Umako, having
compassed the murder of the emperor Sujun and placed on the throne his
own niece (Suiko), swept away all opposition to the latter's successor,
Jomei, and controlled the administration of state affairs throughout two
reigns. In all this he was strongly seconded by his son, Iruka, who even
surpassed him in contumelious assumption of power and parade of dignity.
Iruka was slain in the presence of the empress Kogyoku by Prince Naka
with the assistance of the minister of the interior, Kamako, and it is
not surprising to find the empress (Kogyoku) abdicating immediately
afterwards in favour of Kamako's protege, Prince Karu, who is known in
history as Kotoku. This Kamako, planner and leader of the conspiracy
which overthrew the Soga, is remembered by posterity under the name of
Kamatari and as the founder of the most illustrious of Japan's noble
houses, the Fujiwara. At this time (645), a habit which afterwards
contributed materially to the effacement of the Throne's practical
authority was inaugurated. Prince Furubito, pressed by his brother,
Prince Karu, to assume the sceptre in accordance with his right of
primogeniture, made his refusal peremptory by abandoning the world and
taking the tonsure. This retirement to a monastery was afterwards
dictated to several sovereigns by ministers who found that an active
occupant of the throne impeded their own exercise of administrative
autocracy. Furubito's recourse to the tonsure proved, however, to be
merely a cloak for ambitious designs. Before a year had passed he
conspired to usurp the throne and was put to death with his children,
his consorts strangling themselves. Suicide to escape the disgrace of
defeat had now become a common practice. Another prominent feature of
this epoch was the prevalence of superstition. The smallest
incidents--the growing of two lotus flowers on one stem; a popular
ballad; the reputed song of a sleeping monkey; the condition of the
water in a pond; rain without clouds--all these and cognate trifles were
regarded as omens; wizards and witches deluded the common people; a
strange form of caterpillar was worshipped as the god of the everlasting
world, and the peasants impoverished themselves by making sacrifices to
it.
First Legislative Epoch.
An interesting epoch is now reached, the first legislative era of early
Japanese history. It commenced with the reign of the emperor Kotoku
(645), of whom the _Chronicles_ say that he "honoured the religion of
Buddha and despised Shinto"; that "he was of gentle disposition; loved
men of learning; made no distinction of noble and mean, and continually
dispensed beneficent edicts." The customs calling most loudly for reform
in his time were abuse of the system of forced labour; corrupt
administration of justice; spoliation of the peasant class; assumption
of spurious titles to justify oppression; indiscriminate distribution of
the families of slaves and serfs; diversion of taxes to the pockets of
collectors; formation of great estates, and a general lack of
administrative centralization. The first step of reform consisted in
ordering the governors of provinces to prepare registers showing the
numbers of freemen and serfs within their jurisdiction as well as the
area of cultivated land. It was further ordained that the advantages of
irrigation should be shared equally with the common people; that no
local governor might try and decide criminal cases while in his
province; that any one convicted of accepting bribes should be liable to
a fine of double the amount as well as to other punishment; that in the
Imperial court a box should be placed for receiving petitions and a bell
hung to be sounded in the event of delay in answering them or unfairness
in dealing with them; that all absorption of land into great estates
should cease; that barriers, outposts, guards and post-horses should be
provided; that high officials should be dowered with hereditary estates
by way of emolument, the largest of such grants being 3000 homesteads;
that men of unblemished character and proved capacity should be
appointed aldermen for adjudicating criminal matters; that there should
be chosen as clerks for governors and vice-governors of provinces men of
solid competence "skilled in writing and arithmetic"; that the land
should be parcelled out in fixed proportions to every adult unit of the
population with right of tenure for a term of six years; that forced
labour should be commuted for taxes of silk and cloth; and that for
fiscal and administrative purposes households should be organized in
groups of five, each group under an elder, and ten groups forming a
township, which, again, should be governed by an elder. Incidentally to
these reforms many of the evil customs of the time are exposed. Thus
provincial governors when they visited the capital were accustomed to
travel with great retinues who appear to have constituted a charge on
the regions through which they passed. The law now limited the number of
a chief governor's attendants to nine, and forbade him to use official
houses or to fare at public cost unless journeying on public business.
Again, men who had acquired some local distinction, though they did not
belong to noble families, took advantage of the absence of historical
records or official registers, and, representing themselves as
descendants of magnates to whom the charge of public granaries had been
entrusted, succeeded in usurping valuable privileges. The office of
provincial governor had in many cases become hereditary, and not only
were governors largely independent of Imperial control, but also, since
every free man carried arms, there had grown up about these officials a
population relying largely on the law of force. Kotoku's reforms sought
to institute a system of temporary governors, and directed that all arms
and armour should be stored in arsenals built in waste places, except in
the case of provinces adjoining lands where unsubdued aborigines
(Yemishi) dwelt. Punishments were drastic, and in the case of a man
convicted of treason, all his children were executed with him, his wives
and consorts committing suicide. From a much earlier age suicide had
been freely resorted to as the most honourable exit from pending
disgrace, but as yet the samurai's method of disembowelment was not
employed, strangulation or cutting the throat being the regular
practice. Torture was freely employed and men often died under it.
Signal abuses prevailed in regions beyond the immediate range of the
central government's observation. It has been shown that from early days
the numerous scions of the Imperial family had generally been provided
for by grants of provincial estates. Gradually the descendants of these
men, and the representatives of great families who held hereditary rank,
extended their domains unscrupulously, employing forced labour to
reclaim lands, which they let to the peasants, not hesitating to
appropriate large slices of public property, and remitting to the
central treasury only such fractions of the taxes as they found
convenient. So prevalent had the exaction of forced labour become that
country-folk, repairing to the capital to seek redress of grievances,
were often compelled to remain there for the purpose of carrying out
some work in which dignitaries of state were interested. The removal of
the capital to a new site on each change of sovereign involved a vast
quantity of unproductive toil. It is recorded that in 656, when the
empress Saimei occupied the throne, a canal was dug which required the
work of 30,000 men and a wall was built which had employed 70,000 men
before its completion. The construction of tombs for grandees was
another heavy drain on the people's labour. Some of these sepulchres
attained enormous dimensions--that of the emperor Ojin (270-310)
measures 2312 yds. round the outer moat and is some 60 ft. high; the
emperor Nintoku's (313-399) is still larger, and there is a tumulus in
Kawachi on the flank of which a good-sized village has been built.
Kotoku's laws provided that the tomb of a prince should not be so large
as to require the work of more than 1000 men for seven days, and that
the grave of a petty official must be completed by 50 men in one day.
Moreover, it was forbidden to bury with the body gold, silver, copper,
iron, jewelled shirts, jade armour or silk brocade. It appears that the
custom of suicide or sacrifice at the tomb of grandees still survived,
and that people sometimes cut off their hair or stabbed their thighs
preparatory to declaiming a threnody. All these practices were vetoed.
Abuses had grown up even in connexion with the Shinto rite of purgation.
This rite required not only the reading of rituals but also the offering
of food and fruits. For the sake of these edibles the rite was often
harshly enforced, especially in connexion with pollution from contact
with corpses; and thus it fell out that when of two brothers, returning
from a scene of forced labour, one lay down upon the road and died, the
other, dreading the cost of compulsory purgation, refused to take up the
body. Many other evil customs came into existence in connexion with this
rite, and all were dealt with in the new laws. Not the least important
of the reforms then introduced was the organization of the ministry
after the model of the Tang dynasty of China. Eight departments of state
were created, and several of them received names which are similarly
used to this day. Not only the institutions of China were borrowed but
also her official costumes. During Kotoku's reign 19 grades of head-gear
were instituted, and in the time of Tenchi (668-671) the number was
increased to 26, with corresponding robes. Throughout this era
intercourse was frequent with China, and the spread of Buddhism
continued steadily. The empress Saimei (655-661), who succeeded Kotoku,
was an earnest patron of the faith. By her command several public
expositions of the Sutras were given, and the building of temples went
on in many districts, estates being liberally granted for the
maintenance of these places of worship.
_The Fujiwara Era._--In the _Chronicles of Japan_ the year 672 is
treated as a kind of interregnum. It was in truth a year of something
like anarchy, a great part of it being occupied by a conflict of
unparalleled magnitude between Prince Otomo (called in history Emperor
Kobun) and Prince Oama, who emerged victorious and is historically
entitled Temmu (673-686). The four centuries that followed are
conveniently designated the Fujiwara era, because throughout that long
interval affairs of state were controlled by the Fujiwara family, whose
daughters were given as consorts to successive sovereigns and whose sons
filled all the high administrative posts. It has been related above that
Kamako, chief of the Shinto officials, inspired the assassination of the
Soga chief, Iruka, and thus defeated the latter's designs upon the
throne in the days of the empress Kogyoku. Kamako, better known to
subsequent generations as Kamatari, was thenceforth regarded with
unlimited favour by successive sovereigns, and just before his death in
670, the family name of Fujiwara was bestowed on him by the emperor
Tenchi. Kamatari himself deserved all the honour he received, but his
descendants abused the high trust reposed in them, reduced the sovereign
to a mere puppet, and exercised Imperial authority without openly
usurping it. Much of this was due to the adoption of Chinese
administrative systems, a process which may be said to have commenced
during the reign of Kotoku (645-654) and to have continued almost
uninterruptedly until the 11th century. Under these systems the emperor
ceased directly to exercise supreme civil or military power: he became
merely the source of authority, not its wielder, the civil functions
being delegated to a bureaucracy and the military to a soldier class.
Possibly had the custom held of transferring the capital to a new site
on each change of sovereign, and had the growth of luxurious habits been
thus checked, the comparatively simple life of early times might have
held the throne and the people in closer contact. But from the beginning
of the 8th century a strong tendency to avoid these costly migrations
developed itself. In 709 the court took up its residence at Nara,
remaining there until 784; ten years after the latter date Kioto became
the permanent metropolis. The capital at Nara--established during the
reign of the empress Gemmyo (708-715)--was built on the plan of the
Chinese metropolis. It had nine gates and nine avenues, the palace being
situated in the northern section and approached by a broad, straight
avenue, which divided the city into two perfectly equal halves, all the
other streets running parallel to this main avenue or at right angles
to it. Seven sovereigns reigned at Heijo (castle of peace), as Nara is
historically called, and, during this period of 75 years, seven of the
grandest temples ever seen in Japan were erected; a multitude of idols
were cast, among them a colossal bronze Daibutsu 53(1/2) ft. high; large
temple-bells were founded, and all the best artists and artisans of the
era devoted their services to these works. This religious mania reached
its acme in the reign of the emperor Shomu (724-748), a man equally
superstitious and addicted to display. In Temmu's time the custom had
been introduced of compelling large numbers of persons to enter the
Buddhist priesthood with the object of propitiating heaven's aid to heal
the illness of an illustrious personage. In Shomu's day every natural
calamity or abnormal phenomenon was regarded as calling for religious
services on a large scale, and the great expense involved in all these
buildings and ceremonials, supplemented by lavish outlays on court
pageants, was severely felt by the nation. The condition of the
agricultural class, who were the chief tax-payers, was further
aggravated by the operation of the emperor Kotoku's land system, which
rendered tenure so uncertain as to deter improvements. Therefore, in the
Nara epoch, the principle of private ownership of land began to be
recognized. Attention was also paid to road-making, bridge-building,
river control and house construction, a special feature of this last
being the use of tiles for roofing purposes in place of the shingles or
thatch hitherto employed. In all these steps of progress Buddhist
priests took an active part. Costumes were now governed by purely
Chinese fashions. This change had been gradually introduced from the
time of Kotoku's legislative measures--generally called the Taikwa
reforms after the name of the era (645-650) of their adoption--and was
rendered more thorough by supplementary enactments in the period 701-703
while Mommu occupied the throne. Ladies seem by this time to have
abandoned the strings of beads worn in early eras round the neck, wrists
and ankles. They used ornaments of gold, silver or jade in their hair,
but in other respects their habiliments closely resembled those of men,
and to make the difference still less conspicuous they straddled their
horses when riding. Attempts were made to facilitate travel by
establishing stores of grain along the principal highways, but as yet
there were no hostelries, and if a wayfarer did not find shelter in the
house of a friend, he had to bivouac as best he could. Such a state of
affairs in the provinces offered a marked contrast to the luxurious
indulgence which had now begun to prevail in the capital. There
festivals of various kinds, dancing, verse-composing, flower picnics,
archery, polo, football--of a very refined nature--hawking, hunting and
gambling absorbed the attention of the aristocracy. Nothing disturbed
the serenity of the epoch except a revolt of the northern Yemishi, which
was temporarily subdued by a Fujiwara general, for the Fujiwara had not
yet laid aside the martial habits of their ancestors. In 794 the
Imperial capital was transferred from Nara to Kioto by order of the
emperor Kwammu, one of the greatest of Japanese sovereigns. Education,
the organization of the civil service, riparian works, irrigation
improvements, the separation of religion from politics, the abolition of
sinecure offices, devices for encouraging and assisting agriculture, all
received attention from him. But a twenty-two years' campaign against
the northern Yemishi; the building of numerous temples; the indulgence
of such a passionate love of the chase that he organized 140 hunting
excursions during his reign of 25 years; profuse extravagance on the
part of the aristocracy in Kioto and the exactions of provincial nobles,
conspired to sink the working classes into greater depths of hardship
than ever. Farmers had to borrow money and seed-rice from local
officials or Buddhist temples, hypothecating their land as security;
thus the temples and the nobles extended their already great estates,
whilst the agricultural population gradually fell into a position of
practical serfdom.
Rise of the Fujiwara.
Meanwhile the Fujiwara family were steadily developing their influence
in Kioto. Their methods were simple but thoroughly effective. "By
progressive exercises of arbitrariness they gradually contrived that the
choice of a consort for the sovereign should be legally limited to a
daughter of their family, five branches of which were specially
designated to that honour through all ages. When a son was born to an
emperor, the Fujiwara took the child into one of their palaces, and on
his accession to the throne, the particular Fujiwara noble that happened
to be his maternal grandfather became regent of the empire. This office
of regent, created towards the close of the 9th century, was part of the
scheme; for the Fujiwara did not allow the purple to be worn by a
sovereign after he had attained his majority, or, if they suffered him
to wield the sceptre during a few years of manhood, they compelled him
to abdicate so soon as any independent aspirations began to impair his
docility; and since for the purposes of administration in these
constantly recurring minorities an office more powerful than that of
prime minister (dajo daijin) was needed, they created that of regent
(kwambaku), making it hereditary in their own family. In fact the
history of Japan from the 9th to the 19th century may be described as
the history of four families, the Fujiwara, the Taira, the Minamoto and
the Tokugawa. The Fujiwara governed through the emperor; the Taira, the
Minamoto and the Tokugawa governed in spite of the emperor. The Fujiwara
based their power on matrimonial alliances with the Throne; the Taira,
the Minamoto and the Tokugawa based theirs on the possession of armed
strength which the throne had no competence to control. There another
broad line of cleavage is seen. Throughout the Fujiwara era the centre
of political gravity remained always in the court. Throughout the era of
the Taira, the Minamoto and the Tokugawa the centre of political gravity
was transferred to a point outside the court, the headquarters of a
military feudalism." The process of transfer was of course gradual. It
commenced with the granting of large tracts of tax-free lands to
noblemen who had wrested them from the aborigines (Yemishi) or had
reclaimed them by means of serf-labour. These tracts lay for the most
part in the northern and eastern parts of the main island, at such a
distance from the Capital that the writ of the central government did
not run there; and since such lands could be rented at rates
considerably less than the tax levied on farms belonging to the state,
the peasants by degrees abandoned the latter and settled on the former,
with the result that the revenues of the Throne steadily diminished,
while those of the provincial magnates correspondingly increased.
Moreover, in the 7th century, at the time of the adoption of Chinese
models of administration and organization, the court began to rely for
military protection on the services of guards temporarily drafted from
the provincial troops, and, during the protracted struggle against the
Yemishi in the north and east in the 8th century, the fact that the
power of the sword lay with the provinces began to be noted.
The Taira and the Minamoto.
Kioto remained the source of authority. But with the growth of luxury
and effeminacy in the capital the Fujiwara became more and more averse
from the hardships of campaigning, and in the 9th and 10th centuries,
respectively, the Taira and the Minamoto[1] families came into
prominence as military leaders, the field of the Taira operations being
the south and west, that of the Minamoto the north and east. Had the
court reserved to itself and munificently exercised the privilege of
rewarding these services, it might still have retained power and wealth.
But by a niggardly and contemptuous policy on the part of Kioto not only
were the Minamoto leaders estranged but also they assumed the right of
recompensing their followers with tax-free estates, an example which the
Taira leaders quickly followed. By the early years of the 12th century
these estates had attracted the great majority of the farming class,
whereas the public land was left wild and uncultivated. In a word, the
court and the Fujiwara found themselves without revenue, while the
coffers of the Taira and the Minamoto were full: the power of the purse
and the power of the sword had passed effectually to the two military
families. Prominent features of the moral condition of the capital at
this era (12th century) were superstition, refinement and effeminacy. A
belief was widely held that calamity could not be averted or success
insured without recourse to Buddhist priests. Thus, during a reign of
only 13 years at the close of the 11th century, the emperor Shirakawa
caused 5420 religious pictures to be painted, ordered the casting of 127
statues of Buddha, each 11 ft. high, of 3150 life-sized images and of
2930 smaller idols, and constructed 21 large temples as well as 446,630
religious edifices of various kinds. Side by side with this faith in the
supernatural, sexual immorality prevailed widely, never accompanied,
however, by immodesty. Literary proficiency ranked as the be-all and
end-all of existence. "A man estimated the conjugal qualities of a young
lady by her skill in finding scholarly similes and by her perception of
the cadence of words. If a woman was so fortunate as to acquire a
reputation for learning, she possessed a certificate of universal virtue
and amiability." All the pastimes of the Nara epoch were pursued with
increased fervour and elaboration in the Heian (Kioto) era. The building
of fine dwelling-houses and the laying out of landscape gardens took
place on a considerable scale, though in these respects the ideals of
later ages were not yet reached. As to costume, the close-fitting,
business-like and comparatively simple dress of the 8th century was
exchanged for a much more elaborate style. During the Nara epoch the
many-hued hats of China had been abandoned for a sober head-gear of silk
gauze covered with black lacquer, but in the Heian era this was replaced
by an imposing structure glistening with jewels: the sleeves of the
tunic grew so long that they hung to the knees when a man's arms were
crossed, and the trowsers were made so full and baggy that they
resembled a divided skirt. From this era may be said to have commenced
the manufacture of the tasteful and gorgeous textile fabrics for which
Japan afterwards became famous. "A fop's ideal was to wear several
suits, one above the other, disposing them so that their various colours
showed in harmoniously contrasting lines at the folds on the bosom and
at the edges of the long sleeves. A successful costume created a
sensation in court circles. Its wearer became the hero of the hour, and
under the pernicious influence of such ambition men began even to powder
their faces and rouge their cheeks like women. As for the fair sex,
their costume reached the acme of unpracticality and extravagance in
this epoch. Long flowing hair was essential, and what with developing
the volume and multiplying the number of her robes, and wearing above
her trowsers a many-plied train, a grand lady of the time always seemed
to be struggling to emerge from a cataract of habiliments." It was
fortunate for Japan that circumstances favoured the growth of a military
class in this age of her career, for had the conditions existing in
Kioto during the Heian epoch spread throughout the whole country, the
penalty never escaped by a demoralized nation must have overtaken her.
But by the middle of the 12th century the pernicious influence of the
Fujiwara had paled before that of the Taira and the Minamoto, and a
question of succession to the throne marshalled the latter two families
in opposite camps, thus inaugurating an era of civil war which held the
country in the throes of almost continuous battle for 450 years, placed
it under the administration of a military feudalism, and educated a
nation of warriors. At first the Minamoto were vanquished and driven
from the capital, Kiyomori, the Taira chief, being left complete master
of the situation. He established his headquarters at Rokuharu, in Kioto,
appropriated the revenues of 30 out of the 66 provinces forming the
empire, and filled all the high offices of state with his own relatives
or connexions. But he made no radical change in the administrative
system, preferring to follow the example of the Fujiwara by keeping the
throne in the hands of minors. And he committed the blunder of sparing
the lives of two youthful sons of his defeated rival, the Minamoto
chief. They were Yoritomo and Yoshitsune; the latter the greatest
strategist Japan ever produced, with perhaps one exception; the former,
one of her three greatest statesmen, the founder of military feudalism.
By these two men the Taira were so completely overthrown that they never
raised their heads again, a sea-fight at Dan-no-ura (1155) giving them
the _coup de grace_. Their supremacy had lasted 22 years.
_The Feudal Era._--Yoritomo, acting largely under the advice of an
astute counsellor, Oye no Hiromoto, established his seat of power at
Kamakura, 300 m. from Kioto. He saw that, effectively to utilize the
strength of the military class, propinquity to the military centres in
the provinces was essential. At Kamakura he organized an administrative
body similar in mechanism to that of the metropolitan government but
studiously differentiated in the matter of nomenclature. As to the
country at large, he brought it effectually under the sway of Kamakura
by placing the provinces under the direct control of military governors,
chosen and appointed by himself. No attempt was made, however, to
interfere in any way with the polity in Kioto: it was left intact, and
the nobles about the Throne--_kuge_ (courtly houses), as they came to be
called in contradistinction to the _buke_ (military houses)--were
placated by renewal of their property titles. The Buddhist priests,
also, who had been treated most harshly during the Taira tenure of
power, found their fortunes restored under Kamakura's sway. Subsequently
Yoritomo obtained for himself the title of _sei-itai-shogun_
(barbarian-subduing generalissimo), and just as the office of regent
(kwambaku) had long been hereditary in the Fujiwara family, so the
office of shogun became thenceforth hereditary in that of the Minamoto.
These changes were radical. They signified a complete shifting of the
centre of power. During eighteen centuries from the time of Jimmu's
invasion--as Japanese historians reckon--the country had been ruled from
the south; now the north became supreme, and for a civilian
administration a purely military was substituted. But there was no
contumely towards the court in Kioto. Kamakura made a show of seeking
Imperial sanction for every one of its acts, and the whole of the
military administration was carried on in the name of the emperor by a
shogun who called himself the Imperial deputy. In this respect things
changed materially after the death of Yoritomo (1198). Kamakura then
became the scene of a drama analogous to that acted in Kioto from the
10th century.
Rule of the Hojo.
The Hojo family, to which belonged Masa, Yoritomo's consort, assumed
towards the Kamakura shogun an attitude similar to that previously
assumed by the Fujiwara family towards the emperor in Kioto. A child,
who on state occasions was carried to the council chamber in Masa's
arms, served as the nominal repository of the shogun's power, the
functions of administration being discharged in reality by the Hojo
family, whose successive heads took the name of _shikken_ (constable).
At first care was taken to have the shogun's office filled by a near
relative of Yoritomo; but after the death of that great statesman's two
sons and his nephew, the puppet shoguns were taken from the ranks of the
Fujiwara or of the Imperial princes, and were deposed so soon as they
attempted to assert themselves. What this meant becomes apparent when we
note that in the interval of 83 years between 1220 and 1308, there were
six shoguns whose ages at the time of appointment ranged from 3 to 16.
Whether, if events had not forced their hands, the Hojo constables would
have maintained towards the Throne the reverent demeanour adopted by
Yoritomo must remain a matter of conjecture. What actually happened was
that the ex-emperor, Go-Toba, made an ill-judged attempt (1221) to break
the power of Kamakura. He issued a call to arms which was responded to
by some thousands of cenobites and as many soldiers of Taira extraction.
In the brief struggle that ensued the Imperial partisans were wholly
shattered, and the direct consequences were the dethronement and exile
of the reigning emperor, the banishment of his predecessor together with
two princes of the blood, and the compulsory adoption of the tonsure by
Go-Toba; while the indirect consequence was that the succession to the
throne and the tenure of Imperial power fell under the dictation of the
Hojo as they had formerly fallen under the direction of the Fujiwara.
Yoshitoki, then head of the Hojo family, installed his brother,
Tokifusa, as military governor of Kioto, and confiscating about 3000
estates, the property of those who had espoused the Imperial cause,
distributed these lands among the adherents of his own family, thus
greatly strengthening the basis of the feudal system. "It fared with
the Hojo as it had fared with all the great families that preceded them:
their own misrule ultimately wrought their ruin. Their first eight
representatives were talented and upright administrators. They took
justice, simplicity and truth for guiding principles; they despised
luxury and pomp; they never aspired to high official rank; they were
content with two provinces for estates, and they sternly repelled the
effeminate, depraved customs of Kioto." Thus the greater part of the
13th century was, on the whole, a golden era for Japan, and the lower
orders learned to welcome feudalism. Nevertheless no century furnished
more conspicuous illustrations of the peculiarly Japanese system of
vicarious government. Children occupied the position of shogun in
Kamakura under authority emanating from children on the throne in Kioto;
and members of the Hojo family as shikken administered affairs at the
mandate of the child shoguns. Through all three stages in the dignities
of mikado, shogun and shikken, the strictly regulated principle of
heredity was maintained, according to which no Hojo shikken could ever
become shogun; no Minamoto or Fujiwara could occupy the throne. At the
beginning of the 14th century, however, several causes combined to shake
the supremacy of the Hojo. Under the sway of the ninth shikken
(Takatoki), the austere simplicity of life and earnest discharge of
executive duties which had distinguished the early chiefs of the family
were exchanged for luxury, debauchery and perfunctory government. Thus
the management of fiscal affairs fell into the hands of Takasuke, a man
of usurious instincts. It had been the wise custom of the Hojo
constables to store grain in seasons of plenty, and distribute it at low
prices in times of dearth. There occurred at this epoch a succession of
bad harvests, but instead of opening the state granaries with benevolent
liberality, Takasuke sold their contents at the highest obtainable
rates; and, by way of contrast to the prevailing indigence, the people
saw the constable in Kamakura affecting the pomp and extravagance of a
sovereign waited upon by 37 mistresses, supporting a band of 2000
dancers, and keeping a pack of 5000 fighting dogs. The throne happened
to be then occupied (1310-1338) by an emperor, Go-Daigo, who had reached
full maturity before his accession, and was correspondingly averse from
acting the puppet part assigned to the sovereigns of his time. Female
influence contributed to his impatience. One of his concubines bore a
son for whom he sought to obtain nomination as prince imperial, in
defiance of an arrangement made by the Hojo that the succession should
pass alternately to the senior and junior branches of the Imperial
family. Kamakura refused to entertain Go-Daigo's project, and
thenceforth the child's mother importuned her sovereign and lover to
overthrow the Hojo. The _entourage_ of the throne in Kioto at this time
was a counterpart of former eras. The Fujiwara, indeed, wielded nothing
of their ancient influence. They had been divided by the Hojo into five
branches, each endowed with an equal right to the office of regent, and
their strength was thus dissipated in struggling among themselves for
the possession of the prize. But what the Fujiwara had done in their
days of greatness, what the Taira had done during their brief tenure of
power, the Saionji were now doing, namely, aspiring to furnish prime
ministers and empresses from their own family solely. They had already
given consorts to five emperors in succession, and jealous rivals were
watching keenly to attack this clan which threatened to usurp the place
long held by the most illustrious family in the land. A petty incident
disturbed this state of very tender equilibrium before the plan of the
Hojo's enemies had fully matured, and the emperor presently found
himself an exile on the island of Oki. But there now appeared upon the
scene three men of great prowess: Kusunoki Masashige, Nitta Yoshisada
and Ashikaga Takauji. The first espoused from the outset the cause of
the Throne and, though commanding only a small force, held the Hojo
troops in check. The last two were both of Minamoto descent. Their
common ancestor was Minamoto Yoshiiye, whose exploits against the
northern Yemishi in the second half of the 11th century had so impressed
his countrymen that they gave him the title of Hachiman Taro
(first-born of the god of war). Both men took the field originally in
the cause of the Hojo, but at heart they desired to be avenged upon the
latter for disloyalty to the Minamoto. Nitta Yoshisada marched suddenly
against Kamakura, carried it by storm and committed the city to the
flames. Ashikaga Takauji occupied Kioto, and with the suicide of
Takatoki the Hojo fell finally from rule after 115 years of supremacy
(1219-1334). The emperor now returned from exile, and his son, Prince
Moriyoshi, having been appointed to the office of shogun at Kamakura,
the restoration of the administrative power to the Throne seemed an
accomplished fact.
The Ashikaga Shoguns.
Go-Daigo, however, was not in any sense a wise sovereign. The
extermination of the Hojo placed wide estates at his disposal, but
instead of rewarding those who had deserved well of him, he used a great
part of them to enrich his favourites, the companions of his
dissipation. Ashikaga Takauji sought just such an opportunity. The
following year (1335) saw him proclaiming himself shogun at Kamakura,
and after a complicated pageant of incidents, the emperor Go-Daigo was
obliged once more to fly from Kioto. He carried the regalia with him,
refused to submit to Takauji, and declined to recognize his usurped
title of shogun. The Ashikaga chief solved the situation by deposing
Go-Daigo and placing upon the throne another scion of the imperial
family who is known in history as Komyo (1336-1348), and who, of course,
confirmed Takauji in the office of shogun. Thus commenced the Ashikaga
line of shoguns, and thus commenced also a fifty-six-year period of
divided sovereignty, the emperor Go-Daigo and his descendants reigning
in Yoshino as the southern court (_nancho_), and the emperor Komyo and
his descendants reigning in Kioto as the northern court (_hokucho_). It
was by the efforts of the shogun Yoshimitsu, one of the greatest of the
Ashikaga potentates, that this quarrel was finally composed, but during
its progress the country had fallen into a deplorable condition. "The
constitutional powers had become completely disorganized, especially in
regions at a distance from the chief towns. The peasant was
impoverished, his spirit broken, his hope of better things completely
gone. He dreamed away his miserable existence and left the fields
untilled. Bands of robbers followed the armies through the interior of
the country, and increased the feeling of lawlessness and insecurity.
The coast population, especially that of the island of Kiushiu, had
given itself up in a great measure to piracy. Even on the shores of
Korea and China these enterprising Japanese corsairs made their
appearance." The shogun Yoshimitsu checked piracy, and there ensued
between Japan and China a renewal of cordial intercourse which, upon the
part of the shogun, developed phases plainly suggesting an admission of
Chinese suzerainty.
For a brief moment during the sway of Yoshimitsu the country had rest
from internecine war, but immediately after his death (1394) the
struggle began afresh. Many of the great territorial lords had now grown
too puissant to concern themselves about either mikado or shogun. Each
fought for his own hand, thinking only of extending his sway and his
territories. By the middle of the 16th century Kioto was in ruins, and
little vitality remained in any trade or industry except those that
ministered to the wants of the warrior. Again in the case of the
Ashikaga shoguns the political tendency to exercise power vicariously
was shown, as it had been shown in the case of the mikados in Kioto and
in the case of the Minamoto in Kamakura. What the regents had been to
the emperors and the constables to the Minamoto shoguns, that the
wardens (_kwanryo_) were to the Ashikaga shoguns. Therefore, for
possession of this office of kwanryo vehement conflicts were waged, and
at one time five rival shoguns were used as figure-heads by contending
factions. Yoshimitsu had apportioned an ample allowance for the support
of the Imperial court, but in the continuous warfare following his death
the estates charged with the duty of paying this allowance ceased to
return any revenue; the court nobles had to seek shelter and sustenance
with one or other of the feudal chiefs in the provinces, and the court
itself was reduced to such a state of indigence that when the emperor
Go-Tsuchi died (1500), his corpse lay for forty days awaiting burial,
no funds being available for purposes of sepulture.
Alone among the vicissitudes of these troublous times the strength and
influence of Buddhism grew steadily. The great monasteries were military
strongholds as well as places of worship. When the emperor Kwammu chose
Kioto for his capital, he established on the hill of Hiyei-zan, which
lay north-east of the city, a magnificent temple to ward off the evil
influences supposed to emanate from that quarter. Twenty years later,
Kobo, the most famous of all Japanese Buddhist saints, founded on
Koyasan in Yamato a monastery not less important than that of Hiyei-zan.
These and many other temples had large tax-free estates, and for the
protection of their property they found it expedient to train and arm
the cenobites as soldiers. From that to taking active part in the
political struggles of the time was but a short step, especially as the
great temples often became refuges of sovereigns and princes who, though
nominally forsaking the world, retained all their interest, and even
continued to take an active part, in its vicissitudes. It is recorded of
the emperor Shirakawa (1073-1086) that the three things which he
declared his total inability to control were the waters of the river
Kamo, the fall of the dice, and the monks of Buddha. His successors
might have confessed equal inability. Kiyomori, the puissant chief of
the Taira family, had fruitlessly essayed to defy the Buddhists;
Yoritomo, in the hour of his most signal triumph, thought it wise to
placate them. Where these representatives of centralized power found
themselves impotent, it may well be supposed that the comparatively
petty chieftains who fought each for his own hand in the 15th and 16th
centuries were incapable of accomplishing anything. In fact, the task of
centralizing the administrative power, and thus restoring peace and
order to the distracted empire, seemed, at the middle of the 16th
century, a task beyond achievement by human capacity.
Nobunaga, Hideyoshi and Iyeyasu.
But if ever events create the men to deal with them, such was the case
in the second half of that century. Three of the greatest captains and
statesmen in Japanese history appeared upon the stage simultaneously,
and moreover worked in union, an event altogether inconsistent with the
nature of the age. They were Oda Nobunaga, Hideyoshi (the _taiko_) and
Tokugawa Iyeyasu. Nobunaga belonged to the Taira family and was
originally ruler of a small fief in the province of Owari. Iyeyasu, a
sub-feudatory of Nobunaga's enemy, the powerful daimyo[2] of Mikawa and
two other provinces, was a scion of the Minamoto and therefore eligible
for the shogunate. Hideyoshi was a peasant's son, equally lacking in
patrons and in personal attractions. No chance seemed more remote than
that such men, above all Hideyoshi, could possibly rise to supreme
power. On the other hand, one outcome of the commotion with which the
country had seethed for more than four centuries was to give special
effect to the principle of natural selection. The fittest alone
surviving, the qualities that made for fitness came to take precedence
of rank or station, and those qualities were prowess in the battlefield
and wisdom in the statesman's closet. "Any plebeian that would prove
himself a first-class fighting man was willingly received into the armed
_comitatus_ which every feudal potentate was eager to attach to himself
and his flag." It was thus that Hideyoshi was originally enrolled in the
ranks of Nobunaga's retainers.
Nobunaga, succeeding to his small fief in Owari in 1542, added to it six
whole provinces within 25 years of continuous endeavour. Being finally
invited by the emperor to undertake the pacification of the country, and
appealed to by Yoshiaki, the last of the Ashikaga chiefs, to secure for
him the shogunate, he marched into Kioto at the head of a powerful army
(1568), and, having accomplished the latter purpose, was preparing to
complete the former when he fell under the sword of a traitor.
Throughout his brilliant career he had the invaluable assistance of
Hideyoshi, who would have attained immortal fame on any stage in any
era. Hideyoshi entered Nobunaga's service as a groom and ended by
administering the whole empire. When he accompanied Nobunaga to Kioto
in obedience to the invitation of the mikado, Okimachi, order and
tranquillity were quickly restored in the capital and its vicinity. But
to extend this blessing to the whole country, four powerful daimyos as
well as the militant monks had still to be dealt with. The monks had
from the outset sheltered and succoured Nobunaga's enemies, and one
great prelate, Kenryo, hierarch of the Monto sect, whose headquarters
were at Osaka, was believed to aspire to the throne itself. In 1571
Nobunaga attacked and gave to the flames the celebrated monastery of
Hiyei-zan, established nearly eight centuries previously; and in 1580 he
would have similarly served the splendid temple Hongwan-ji in Osaka, had
not the mikado sought and obtained grace for it. The task then remained
of subduing four powerful daimyos, three in the south and one in the
north-east, who continued to follow the bent of their own warlike
ambitions without paying the least attention to either sovereign or
shogun. The task was commenced by sending an army under Hideyoshi
against Mori of Choshu, whose fief lay on the northern shore of the
Shimonoseki strait. This proved to be the last enterprise planned by
Nobunaga. On a morning in June 1582 one of the corps intended to
reinforce Hideyoshi's army marched out of Kameyama under the command of
Akechi Mitsuhide, who either harboured a personal grudge against
Nobunaga or was swayed by blind ambition. Mitsuhide suddenly changed the
route of his troops, led them to Kioto, and attacked the temple Honno-ji
where Nobunaga was sojourning all unsuspicious of treachery. Rescue and
resistance being alike hopeless, the great soldier committed suicide.
Thirteen days later, Hideyoshi, having concluded peace with Mori of
Choshu, fell upon Mitsuhide's forces and shattered them, Mitsuhide
himself being killed by a peasant as he fled from the field.
Hideyoshi.
Nobunaga's removal at once made Hideyoshi the most conspicuous figure in
the empire, the only man with any claim to dispute that title being
Tokugawa Iyeyasu. These two had hitherto worked in concert. But the
question of the succession to Nobunaga's estates threw the country once
more into tumult. He left two grown-up sons and a baby grandson, whose
father, Nobunaga's first-born, had perished in the holocaust at
Honno-ji. Hideyoshi, not unmindful, it may be assumed, of the privileges
of a guardian, espoused the cause of the infant, and wrested from
Nobunaga's three other great captains a reluctant endorsement of his
choice. Nobutaka, third son of Nobunaga, at once drew the sword, which
he presently had to turn against his own person; two years later (1584),
his elder brother, Nobuo, took the field under the aegis of Tokugawa
Iyeyasu. Hideyoshi and Iyeyasu, now pitted against each other for the
first time, were found to be of equal prowess, and being too wise to
prolong a useless war, they reverted to their old alliance, subsequently
confirming it by a family union, the son of Iyeyasu being adopted by
Hideyoshi and the latter's daughter being given in marriage to Iyeyasu.
Hideyoshi had now been invested by the mikado with the post of regent,
and his position in the capital was omnipotent. He organized in Kioto a
magnificent pageant, in which the principal figures were himself,
Iyeyasu, Nobuo and twenty-seven daimyos. The emperor was present.
Hideyoshi sat on the right of the throne, and all the nobles did
obeisance to the sovereign. Prior to this event Hideyoshi had conducted
against the still defiant daimyos of Kiushiu, especially Shimazu of
Satsuma, the greatest army ever massed by any Japanese general, and had
reduced the island of the nine provinces, not by weight of armament
only, but also by a signal exercise of the wise clemency which
distinguished him from all the statesmen of his era.
The whole of Japan was now under Hideyoshi's sway except the fiefs in
the extreme north and those in the region known as the Kwanto, namely,
the eight provinces forming the eastern elbow of the main island. Seven
of these provinces were virtually under the sway of Hojo Ujimasa, fourth
representative of a family established in 1476 by a brilliant adventurer
of Ise, not related in any way to the great but then extinct house of
Kamakura Hojos. The daimyos in the north were comparatively powerless to
resist Hideyoshi, but to reach them the Kwanto had to be reduced, and
not only was its chief, Ujimasa, a formidable foe, but also the
topographical features of the district represented fortifications of
immense strength. After various unsuccessful overtures, having for their
purpose to induce Ujimasa to visit the capital and pay homage to the
emperor, Hideyoshi marched from Kioto in the spring of 1590 at the head
of 170,000 men, his colleagues Nobuo and Iyeyasu having under their
orders 80,000 more. The campaign ended as did all Hideyoshi's
enterprises, except that he treated his vanquished enemies with unusual
severity. During the three months spent investing Odawara, the northern
daimyos surrendered, and thus the autumn of 1590 saw Hideyoshi master of
Japan from end to end, and saw Tokugawa Iyeyasu established at Yedo as
recognized ruler of the eight provinces of the Kwanto. These two facts
should be bracketed together, because Japan's emergence from the deep
gloom of long-continued civil strife was due not more to the brilliant
qualities of Hideyoshi and Iyeyasu individually than to the fortunate
synchronism of their careers, so that the one was able to carry the
other's work to completion and permanence. The last eight years of
Hideyoshi's life--he died in 1598--were chiefly remarkable for his
attempt to invade China through Korea, and for his attitude towards
Christianity (see S VIII.: FOREIGN INTERCOURSE).
_The Tokugawa Era._--When Hideyoshi died he left a son, Hideyori, then
only six years of age, and the problem of this child's future had
naturally caused supreme solicitude to the peasant statesman. He finally
entrusted the care of the boy and the management of state affairs to
five regents, five ministers, and three intermediary councillors. But he
placed chief reliance upon Iyeyasu, whom he appointed president of the
board of regents. Among the latter was one, Ishida Mitsunari, who to
insatiable ambition added an extraordinary faculty for intrigue and
great personal magnetism. These qualities he utilized with such success
that the dissensions among the daimyos, which had been temporarily
composed by Hideyoshi, broke out again, and the year 1600 saw Japan
divided into two camps, one composed of Tokugawa Iyeyasu and his allies,
the other of Ishida Mitsunari and his partisans.
Iyeyasu.
The situation of Iyeyasu was eminently perilous. From his position in
the east of the country, he found himself menaced by two powerful
enemies on the north and on the south, respectively, the former barely
contained by a greatly weaker force of his friends, and the latter
moving up in seemingly overwhelming strength from Kioto. He decided to
hurl himself upon the southern army without awaiting the result of the
conflict in the north. The encounter took place at Sekigahara in the
province of Mino on the 21st of October 1600. The army of Iyeyasu had to
move to the attack in such a manner that its left flank and its left
rear were threatened by divisions of the enemy posted on commanding
eminences. But with the leaders of these divisions Iyeyasu had come to
an understanding by which they could be trusted to abide so long as
victory did not declare against him. Such incidents were naturally
common in an era when every man fought for his own hand. The southerners
suffered a crushing defeat. The survivors fled pell-mell to Osaka, where
in a colossal fortress, built by Hideyoshi, his son, Hideyori, and the
latter's mother, Yodo, were sheltered behind ramparts held by 80,000
men. Hideyori's cause had been openly put forward by Ishida Mitsunari
and his partisans, but Iyeyasu made no immediate attempt to visit the
sin upon the head of his deceased benefactor's child. On the contrary,
he sent word to the lady Yodo and her little boy that he absolved them
of all complicity. The battle of Sekigahara is commonly spoken of as
having terminated the civil war which had devastated Japan, with brief
intervals, from the latter half of the 12th century to the beginning of
the 17th. That is incorrect in view of the fact that Sekigahara was
followed by other fighting, especially by the terrible conflict at Osaka
in 1615 when Yodo and her son perished. But Sekigahara's importance
cannot be over-rated. For had Iyeyasu been finally crushed there, the
wave of internecine strife must have rolled again over the empire until
providence provided another Hideyoshi and another Iyeyasu to stem it.
Sekigahara, therefore, may be truly described as a turning-point in
Japan's career and as one of the decisive battles of the world. As for
the fact that the Tokugawa leader did not at once proceed to extremities
in the case of the boy Hideyori, though the events of the Sekigahara
campaign had made it quite plain that such a course would ultimately be
inevitable, we have to remember that only two years had elapsed since
Hideyoshi was laid in his grave. His memory was still green and the
glory of his achievements still enveloped his family. Iyeyasu foresaw
that to carry the tragedy to its bitter end at once must have forced
into Hideyori's camp many puissant daimyos whose sense of allegiance
would grow less cogent with the lapse of time. When he did lay siege to
the Osaka castle in 1615, the power of the Tokugawa was well-nigh
shattered against its ramparts; had not the onset been aided by
treachery, the stronghold would probably have proved impregnable.
But signal as were the triumphs of the Tokugawa chieftain in the field,
what distinguishes him from all his predecessors is the ability he
displayed in consolidating his conquests. The immense estates that fell
into his hands he parcelled out in such a manner that all important
strategical positions were held by daimyos whose fidelity could be
confidently trusted, and every feudatory of doubtful loyalty found his
fief within touch of a Tokugawa partisan. This arrangement, supplemented
by a system which required all the great daimyos to have mansions in the
shogun's capital. Yedo, to keep their families there always and to
reside there themselves in alternate years, proved so potent a check to
disaffection that from 1615, when the castle of Osaka fell, until 1864,
when the Choshu ronin attacked Kioto, Japan remained entirely free from
civil war.
It is possible to form a clear idea of the ethical and administrative
principles by which Iyeyasu and the early Tokugawa chiefs were guided in
elaborating the system which gave to Japan an unprecedented era of peace
and prosperity. Evidence is furnished not only by the system itself but
also by the contents of a document generally called the _Testament of
Iyeyasu_, though probably it was not fully compiled until the time of
his grandson, Iyemitsu (1623-1650). The great Tokugawa chief, though he
munificently patronized Buddhism and though he carried constantly in his
bosom a miniature Buddhist image to which he ascribed all his success in
the field and his safety in battle, took his ethical code from
Confucius. He held that the basis of all legislation and administration
should be the five relations of sovereign and subject, parent and child,
husband and wife, brother and sister, friend and friend. The family was,
in his eyes, the essential foundation of society, to be maintained at
all sacrifices. Beyond these broad outlines of moral duty it was not
deemed necessary to instruct the people. Therefore out of the hundred
chapters forming the _Testament_ only 22 contain what can be called
legal enactments, while 55 relate to administration and politics; 16 set
forth moral maxims and reflections, and the remainder record
illustrative episodes in the career of the author. No distinct line is
drawn between law and morals, between the duty of a citizen and the
virtues of a member of a family. Substantive law is entirely wanting,
just as it was wanting in the so-called constitution of Prince Shotoku.
Custom, as sanctioned by public observance, must be complied with in the
civil affairs of life. What required minute exposition was criminal law,
the relations of social classes, etiquette, rank, precedence,
administration and government.
Social distinctions in the Tokugawa Era.
Society under feudalism had been moulded into three sharply defined
groups, namely, first, the Throne and the court nobles (_kuge_);
secondly, the military class (_buke_ or _samurai_); and thirdly, the
common people (_heimin_). These lines of cleavage were emphasized as
much as possible by the Tokugawa rulers. The divine origin of the mikado
was held to separate him from contact with mundane affairs, and he was
therefore strictly secluded in the palace at Kioto, his main function
being to mediate between his heavenly ancestors and his subjects,
entrusting to the shogun and the samurai the duty of transacting all
worldly business on behalf of the state. In obedience to this principle
the mikado became a kind of sacrosanct abstraction. No one except his
consorts and his chief ministers ever saw his face. In the rare cases
when he gave audience to a privileged subject, he sat behind a curtain,
and when he went abroad, he rode in a closely shut car drawn by oxen. A
revenue of ten thousand _koku_ of rice--the equivalent of about as many
guineas--was apportioned for his support, and the right was reserved to
him of conferring empty titles upon the living and rank upon the dead.
His majesty had one wife, the empress (_kogo_), necessarily taken from
one of the five chosen families (_go-sekke_) of the Fujiwara, but he
might also have twelve consorts, and if direct issue failed, the
succession passed to one of the two princely families of Arisugawa and
Fushimi, adoption, however, being possible in the last resort. The
_kuge_ constituted the court nobility, consisting of 155 families all of
whom traced their lineage to ancient mikados; they ranked far above the
feudal chiefs, not excepting even the shogun; filled by right of
heredity nearly all the offices at the court, the emoluments attached
being, however, a mere pittance; were entirely without the great estates
which had belonged to them in ante-feudal times, and lived lives of
proud poverty, occupying themselves with the study of literature and the
practice of music and art. After the kuge and at a long distance below
them in theoretical rank came the military families, who, as a class,
were called _buke_ or _samurai_. They had hereditary revenues, and they
filled the administrative posts, these, too, being often hereditary. The
third, and by far the most numerous, section of the nation were the
commoners (_heimin_). They had no social status; were not allowed to
carry swords, and possessed no income except what they could earn with
their hands. About 55 in every 1000 units of the nation were samurai,
the latter's wives and children being included in this estimate.
Daimyos.
Under the Hojo and the Ashikaga shoguns the holders of the great estates
changed frequently according to the vicissitudes of those troublesome
times, but under the Tokugawa no change took place, and there thus grew
up a landed nobility of the most permanent character. Every one of these
estates was a feudal kingdom, large or small, with its own usages and
its own laws, based on the general principles above indicated and liable
to be judged according to those principles by the shogun's government
(_baku-fu_) in Yedo. A daimyo or feudal chief drew from the peasants on
his estate the means of subsistence for himself and his retainers. For
this purpose the produce of his estate was assessed by the shogun's
officials in _koku_ (one _koku_ = 180.39 litres, worth about L1), and
about one-half of the assessed amount went to the feudatory, the other
half to the tillers of the soil. The richest daimyo was Mayeda of Kaga,
whose fief was assessed at a little over a million _koku_, his revenue
thus being about half a million sterling. Just as an empress had to be
taken from one of five families designated to that distinction for all
time, so a successor to the shogunate, failing direct heir, had to be
selected from three families (_sanke_), namely, those of the daimyos of
Owari, Kii and Mito, whose first representatives were three sons of
Iyeyasu. Out of the total body of 255 daimyos existing in the year 1862,
141 were specially distinguished as _fudai_, or hereditary vassals of
the Tokugawa house, and to 18 of these was strictly limited the
perpetual privilege of filling all the high offices in the Yedo
administration, while to 4 of them was reserved the special honour of
supplying a regent (_go-tairo_) during the minority of the shogun.
Moreover, a _fudai_ daimyo was of necessity appointed to the command of
the fortress of Nijo in Kioto as well as of the great castles of Osaka
and Fushimi, which Iyeyasu designated the keys of the country. No
intermarriage might take place between members of the court nobility and
the feudal houses without the consent of Yedo; no daimyo might apply
direct to the emperor for an official title, or might put foot within
the imperial district of Kioto without the shogun's permit, and at all
entrances to the region known as the Kwanto there were established
guardhouses, where every one, of whatever rank, must submit to be
examined, in order to prevent the wives and children of the daimyos
from secretly leaving Yedo for their own provinces. In their journeys to
and from Yedo every second year the feudal chiefs had to travel by one
of two great highways, the Tokaido or the Nakasendo, and as they moved
with great retinues, these roads were provided with a number of inns and
tea-houses equipped in a sumptuous manner, and having an abundance of
female servants. A puissant daimyo's procession often numbered as many
as 1000 retainers, and nothing illustrates more forcibly the wide
interval that separated the soldier and the plebeian than the fact that
at the appearance of the heralds who preceded these progresses all
commoners who happened to be abroad had to kneel on the ground with
bowed and uncovered heads; all wayside houses had to close the shutters
of windows giving on the road, and none might venture to look down from
a height on the passing magnate. Any violation of these rules of
etiquette exposed the violator to instant death at the hands of the
daimyo's retinue. Moreover, the samurai and the heimin lived strictly
apart. A feudal chief had a castle which generally occupied a commanding
position. It was surrounded by from one to three broad moats, the
innermost crowned with a high wall of huge cut stones, its trace
arranged so as to give flank defence, which was further provided by
pagoda-like towers placed at the salient angles. Inside this wall stood
the houses of the high officials on the outskirts of a park surrounding
the residence of the daimyo himself, and from the scarps of the moats or
in the intervals between them rose houses for the military retainers,
barrack-like structures, provided, whenever possible, with small but
artistically arranged and carefully tended gardens. All this domain of
the military was called _yashiki_ in distinction to the _machi_
(streets) where the despised commoners had their habitat.
Samurai.
The general body of the samurai received stipends and lived frugally.
Their pay was not reckoned in money: it took the form of so many rations
of rice delivered from their chief's granaries. A few had landed
estates, usually bestowed in recognition of conspicuous merit. They were
probably the finest type of hereditary soldiers the world ever produced.
Money and all devices for earning it they profoundly despised. The right
of wearing a sword was to them the highest conceivable privilege. They
counted themselves the guardians of their fiefs' honour and of their
country's welfare. At any moment they were prepared cheerfully to
sacrifice their lives on the altar of loyalty. Their word, once given,
must never be violated. The slightest insult to their honour might not
be condoned. Stoicism was a quality which they esteemed next to courage:
all outward display of emotion must be suppressed. The sword might never
be drawn for a petty cause, but, if once drawn, must never be returned
to its scabbard until it had done its duty. Martial exercises occupied
much of their attention, but book learning also they esteemed highly.
They were profoundly courteous towards each other, profoundly
contemptuous towards the commoner, whatever his wealth. Filial piety
ranked next to loyalty in their code of ethics. Thus the Confucian
maxim, endorsed explicitly in the _Testament of Iyeyasu_, that a man
must not live under the same sky with his father's murderer or his
brother's slayer, received most literal obedience, and many instances
occurred of vendettas pursued in the face of apparently insuperable
difficulties and consummated after years of effort. By the standard of
modern morality the Japanese samurai would be counted cruel. Holding
that death was the natural sequel of defeat and the only certain way of
avoiding disgrace, he did not seek quarter himself or think of extending
it to an enemy. Yet in his treatment of the latter he loved to display
courtesy until the supreme moment when all considerations of mercy were
laid aside. It cannot be doubted that the practice of employing torture
judicially tended to educate a mood of callousness towards suffering, or
that the many idle hours of a military man's life in time of peace
encouraged a measure of dissipation. But there does not seem to be any
valid ground for concluding that either of these defects was conspicuous
in the character of the Japanese samurai. Faithlessness towards women
was the greatest fault that can be laid to his door. The samurai lady
claimed no privilege of timidity on account of her sex. She knew how to
die in the cause of honour just as readily as her husband, her father or
her brother died, and conjugal fidelity did not rank as a virtue in her
eyes, being regarded as a simple duty. But her husband held marital
faith in small esteem and ranked his wife far below his sword. It has to
be remembered that when we speak of a samurai's suicide, there is no
question of poison, the bullet, drowning or any comparatively painless
manner of exit from the world. The invariable method was to cut open the
abdomen (_hara-kiri_ or _seppuku_) and afterwards, if strength remained,
the sword was turned against the throat. To such endurance had the
samurai trained himself that he went through this cruel ordeal without
flinching in the smallest degree.
Heimin.
The heimin or commoners were divided into three classes--husbandmen,
artisans and traders. The farmer, as the nation lived by his labour, was
counted the most respectable among the bread-winners, and a cultivator
of his own estate might even carry one sword but never two, that
privilege being strictly reserved to a samurai. The artisan, too,
received much consideration, as is easily understood when we remember
that included in his ranks were artists, sword-smiths, armourers,
sculptors of sacred images or sword-furniture, ceramists and lacquerers.
Many artisans were in the permanent service of feudal chiefs from whom
they received fixed salaries. Tradesmen, however, were regarded with
disdain and stood lowest of all in the social organization. Too much
despised to be even included in that organization were the _eta_
(defiled folks) and the _hinin_ (outcasts). The exact origin of these
latter pariahs is uncertain, but the ancestors of the eta would seem to
have been prisoners of war or the enslaved families of criminals. To
such people were assigned the defiling duties of tending tombs,
disposing of the bodies of the dead, slaughtering animals or tanning
hides. The hinin were mendicants. On them devolved the task of removing
and burying the corpses of executed criminals. Living in segregated
hamlets, forbidden to marry with heimin, still less with samurai, not
allowed to eat, drink or associate with persons above their own class,
the eta remained under the ban of ostracism from generation to
generation, though many of them contrived to amass much wealth. They
were governed by their own headmen, and they had three chiefs, one
residing in each of the cities of Yedo, Osaka and Kioto. All these
members of the submerged classes were relieved from proscription and
admitted to the ranks of the commoners under the enlightened system of
Meiji. The 12th of October 1871 saw their enfranchisement, and at that
date the census showed 287,111 eta and 695,689 hinin.
Decline and Fall of the Shogunate.
Naturally, as the unbroken peace of the Tokugawa regime became habitual,
the mood of the nation underwent a change. The samurai, no longer
required to lead the frugal life of camp or barracks, began to live
beyond their incomes. "They found difficulty in meeting the pecuniary
engagements of everyday existence, so that money acquired new importance
in their eyes, and they gradually forfeited the respect which their
traditional disinterestedness had won for them in the past." At the same
time the abuses of feudalism were thrown into increased salience. A
large body of hereditary soldiers become an anomaly when fighting has
passed even out of memory. On the other hand, the agricultural and
commercial classes acquired new importance. The enormous sums disbursed
every year in Yedo, for the maintenance of the great establishments
which the feudal chiefs vied with each other in keeping there, enriched
the merchants and traders so greatly that their scale of living
underwent radical change. Buddhism was a potent influence, but its
ethical restraints were weakened by the conduct of its priests, who
themselves often yielded to the temptation of the time. The aristocracy
adhered to its refined pastimes--performances of the _No_; tea reunions;
poem composing; polo; football; equestrian archery; fencing and
gambling--but the commoner, being excluded from all this realm and, at
the same time, emerging rapidly from his old position of penury and
degradation, began to develop luxurious proclivities and to demand
corresponding amusements. Thus the theatre came into existence; the
dancing girl and the jester found lucrative employment; a popular school
of art was founded and quickly carried to perfection; the _lupanar_
assumed unprecedented dimensions; rich and costly costumes acquired wide
vogue in despite of sumptuary laws enacted from time to time; wrestling
became an important institution, and plutocracy asserted itself in the
face of caste distinctions.
Simultaneously with the change of social conditions thus taking place,
history repeated itself at the shogun's court. The substance of
administrative power passed into the hands of a minister, its shadow
alone remaining to the shogun. During only two generations were the
successors of Iyeyasu able to resist this traditional tendency. The
representative of the third--Iyetsuna (1661-1680)--succumbed to the
machinations of an ambitious minister, Sakai Takakiyo, and it may be
said that from that time the nominal repository of administrative
authority in Yedo was generally a species of magnificent recluse,
secluded from contact with the outer world and seeing and hearing only
through the eyes and ears of the ladies of his household. In this
respect the descendants of the great Tokugawa statesman found themselves
reduced to a position precisely analogous to that of the emperor in
Kioto. Sovereign and shogun were alike mere abstractions so far as the
practical work of government was concerned. With the great mass of the
feudal chiefs things fared similarly. These men who, in the days of
Nobunaga, Hideyoshi and Iyeyasu, had directed the policies of their
fiefs and led their armies in the field, were gradually transformed,
during the long peace of the Tokugawa era, into voluptuous _faineants_
or, at best, thoughtless dilettanti, willing to abandon the direction of
their affairs to seneschals and mayors, who, while on the whole their
administration was able and loyal, found their account in contriving and
perpetuating the effacement of their chiefs. Thus, in effect, the
government of the country, taken out of the hands of the shogun and the
feudatories, fell into those of their vassals. There were exceptions, of
course, but so rare as to be merely accidental.
Another important factor has to be noted. It has been shown above that
Iyeyasu bestowed upon his three sons the rich fiefs of Owari, Kii
(Kishu) and Mito, and that these three families exclusively enjoyed the
privilege of furnishing an heir to the shogun should the latter be
without direct issue. Mito ought therefore to have been a most unlikely
place for the conception and propagation of principles subversive of the
shogun's administrative autocracy. Nevertheless, in the days of the
second of the Mito chiefs at the close of the 17th century, there arose
in that province a school of thinkers who, revolting against the
ascendancy of Chinese literature and of Buddhism, devoted themselves to
compiling a history such as should recall the attention of the nation to
its own annals and revive its allegiance to Shinto. It would seem that
in patronizing the compilation of this great work the Mito chief was
swayed by the spirit of pure patriotism and studentship, and that he
discerned nothing of the goal to which the new researches must lead the
litterati of his fief. "He and they, for the sake of history and without
any thought of politics, undertook a retrospect of their country's
annals, and their frank analysis furnished conclusive proof that the
emperor was the prime source of administrative authority and that its
independent exercise by a shogun must be regarded as a usurpation. They
did not attempt to give practical effect to their discoveries; the era
was essentially academical. But this galaxy of scholars projected into
the future a light which burned with growing force in each succeeding
generation and ultimately burst into a flame which consumed feudalism
and the shogunate," fused the nation into one, and restored the
governing authority to the emperor. Of course the Mito men were not
alone in this matter: many students subsequently trod in their footsteps
and many others sought to stem the tendency; but the net result was
fatal to faith in the dual system of government. Possibly had nothing
occurred to furnish signal proof of the system's practical defects, it
might have long survived this theoretical disapproval. But the crisis
caused by the advent of foreign ships and by the forceful renewal of
foreign intercourse in the 19th century afforded convincing evidence of
the shogunate's incapacity to protect the state's supposed interests and
to enforce the traditional policy of isolation which the nation had
learned to consider essential to the empire's integrity.
Another important factor made for the fall of the shogunate. That factor
was the traditional disaffection of the two great southern fiefs,
Satsuma and Choshu. When Iyeyasu parcelled out the empire, he deemed it
the wisest policy to leave these chieftains in full possession of their
large estates. But this measure, construed as an evidence of weakness
rather than a token of liberality, neither won the allegiance of the big
feudatories nor cooled their ambition. Thus no sooner did the nation
divide into two camps over the question of renewed foreign intercourse
than men of the above clans, in concert with representatives of certain
of the old court nobles, placed themselves at the head of a movement
animated by two loudly proclaimed purposes: restoration of the
administration to the emperor, and expulsion of aliens. This latter
aspiration underwent a radical change when the bombardment of the
Satsuma capital, Kagoshima, and the destruction of the Choshu forts and
ships at Shimonoseki proved conclusively to the Satsuma and Choshu clans
that Japan in her unequipped and backward condition could not hope to
stand for a moment against the Occident in arms. But the unwelcome
discovery was accompanied by a conviction that only a thoroughly united
nation might aspire to preserve its independence, and thus the abolition
of the dual form of government became more than ever an article of
public faith. It is unnecessary to recount the successive incidents
which conspired to undermine the shogun's authority, and to destroy the
prestige of the Yedo administration. Both had been reduced to vanishing
quantities by the year 1866 when Keiki succeeded to the shogunate.
Keiki, known historically as Yoshinobu, the last of the shoguns, was a
man of matured intellect and high capacities. He had been put forward by
the anti-foreign Conservatives for the succession to the shogunate in
1857 when the complications of foreign intercourse were in their first
stage of acuteness. But, like many other intelligent Japanese, he had
learned, in the interval between 1857 and 1866, that to keep her doors
closed was an impossible task for Japan, and very quickly after taking
the reins of office he recognized that national union could never be
achieved while power was divided between Kioto and Yedo. At this
juncture there was addressed to him by Yodo, chief of the great Tosa
fief, a memorial setting forth the hopelessness of the position in which
the Yedo court now found itself, and urging that, in the interests of
good government and in order that the nation's united strength might be
available to meet the exigencies of its new career, the administration
should be restored to the emperor. Keiki received this memorial in
Kioto. He immediately summoned a council of all the feudatories and high
officials then in the Imperial city, announced to them his intention to
lay down his office, and, the next day, presented his resignation to the
sovereign. This happened on the 14th of October 1867. It must be ranked
among the signal events of the world's history, for it signified the
voluntary surrender of kingly authority wielded uninterruptedly for
nearly three centuries. That the shogun's resignation was tendered in
good faith there can be no doubt, and had it been accepted in the same
spirit, the great danger it involved might have been consummated without
bloodshed or disorder. But the clansmen of Satsuma and Choshu were
distrustful. One of the shogun's first acts after assuming office had
been to obtain from the throne an edict for imposing penalties on
Choshu, and there was a precedent for suspecting that the renunciation
of power by the shogun might merely prelude its resumption on a firmer
basis. Therefore steps were taken to induce the emperor, then a youth of
fifteen, to issue a secret rescript to Satsuma and Choshu, denouncing
the shogun as the nation's enemy and enjoining his destruction. At the
same time all officials connected with the Tokugawa or suspected of
sympathy with them were expelled from office in Kioto, and the shogun's
troops were deprived of the custody of the palace gates by methods which
verged upon the use of armed force. In the face of such provocation
Keiki's earnest efforts to restrain the indignation of his vassals and
adherents failed. They marched against Kioto and were defeated,
whereupon Keiki left his castle at Osaka and retired to Yedo, where he
subsequently made unconditional surrender to the Imperial army. There is
little more to be set down on this page of the history. The Yedo court
consented to lay aside its dignities and be stripped of its
administrative authority, but all the Tokugawa vassals and adherents did
not prove equally placable. There was resistance in the northern
provinces, where the Aizu feudatory refused to abandon the Tokugawa
cause; there was an attempt to set up a rival candidate for the throne
in the person of an Imperial prince who presided over the Uyeno
Monastery in Yedo; and there was a wild essay on the part of the admiral
of the shogun's fleet to establish a republic in the island of Yezo. But
these were mere ripples on the surface of the broad stream which set
towards the peaceful overthrow of the dual system of government and
ultimately towards the fall of feudalism itself. That this system, the
outcome of five centuries of nearly continuous warfare, was swept away
in almost as many weeks with little loss of life or destruction of
property constitutes, perhaps, the most striking incident, certainly the
most momentous, in the history of the Japanese nation.
_The Meiji Era._--It must be remembered that when reference is made to
the Japanese nation in connexion with these radical changes, only the
nobles and the samurai are indicated--in other words, a section of the
population representing about one-sixteenth of the whole. The bulk of
the people--the agricultural, the industrial and the mercantile
classes--remained outside the sphere of politics, not sharing the
anti-foreign prejudice, or taking any serious interest in the great
questions of the time. Foreigners often noted with surprise the contrast
between the fierce antipathy displayed towards them by certain samurai
on the one hand, and the genial, hospitable reception given to them by
the common people on the other. History teaches that the latter was the
natural disposition of the Japanese, the former a mood educated by
special experiences. Further, even the comparatively narrow statement
that the restoration of the administrative power to the emperor was the
work of the nobles and the samurai must be taken with limitations. A
majority of the nobles entertained no idea of any necessity for change.
They were either held fast in the vice of Tokugawa authority, or
paralyzed by the sensuous seductions of the lives provided for them by
the machinations of their retainers, who transferred the administrative
authority of the fiefs to their own hands, leaving its shadow only to
their lords. It was among the retainers that longings for a new order of
things were generated. Some of these men were sincere disciples of
progress--a small band of students and deep thinkers who, looking
through the narrow Dutch window at Deshima, had caught a glimmering
perception of the realities that lay beyond the horizon of their
country's prejudices. But the influence of such Liberals was
comparatively insignificant. Though they showed remarkable moral courage
and tenacity of purpose, the age did not furnish any strong object
lesson to enforce their propaganda of progress. The factors chiefly
making for change were, first, the ambition of the southern clans to
oust the Tokugawa, and, secondly, the samurai's loyal instinct,
reinforced by the teachings of his country's history, by the revival of
the Shinto cult, by the promptings of national enterprise, and by the
object-lessons of foreign intercourse.
Character of the Revolution.
But though essentially imperialistic in its prime purposes, the
revolution which involved the fall of the shogunate, and ultimately of
feudalism, may be called democratic with regard to the personnel of
those who planned and directed it. They were, for the most part, men
without either official rank or social standing. That is a point
essential to a clear understanding of the issue. Fifty-five individuals
may be said to have planned and carried out the overthrow of the Yedo
administration, and only five of them were territorial nobles. Eight,
belonging to the court nobility, laboured under the traditional
disadvantages of their class, poverty and political insignificance; and
the remaining forty-two, the hearts and hands of the movement, may be
described as ambitious youths, who sought to make a career for
themselves in the first place, and for their country in the second. The
average age of the whole did not exceed thirty. There was another
element for which any student of Japanese history might have been
prepared: the Satsuma samurai aimed originally not merely at
overthrowing the Tokugawa but also at obtaining the shogunate for their
own chief. Possibly it would be unjust to say that all the leaders of
the great southern clan harboured that idea. But some of them certainly
did, and not until they had consented to abandon the project did their
union with Choshu, the other great southern clan, become possible--a
union without which the revolution could scarcely have been
accomplished. This ambition of the Satsuma clansmen deserves special
mention, because it bore remarkable fruit; it may be said to have laid
the foundation of constitutional government in Japan. For, in
consequence of the distrust engendered by such aspirations, the authors
of the Restoration agreed that when the emperor assumed the reins of
power, he should solemnly pledge himself to convene a deliberative
assembly, to appoint to administrative posts men of intellect and
erudition wherever they might be found, and to decide all measures in
accordance with public opinion. This promise, referred to frequently in
later times as the Imperial oath at the Restoration, came to be
accounted the basis of representative institutions, though in reality it
was intended solely as a guarantee against the political ascendancy of
any one clan.
The Anti-feudal Idea.
At the outset the necessity of abolishing feudalism did not present
itself clearly to the leaders of the revolution. Their sole idea was the
unification of the nation. But when they came to consider closely the
practical side of the problem, they understood how far it would lead
them. Evidently that one homogeneous system of law should replace the
more or less heterogeneous systems operative in the various fiefs was
essential, and such a substitution meant that the feudatories must be
deprived of their local autonomy and, incidentally, of their control of
local finances. That was a stupendous change. Hitherto each feudal chief
had collected the revenues of his fief and had employed them at will,
subject to the sole condition of maintaining a body of troops
proportionate to his income. He had been, and was still, an autocrat
within the limits of his territory. On the other hand, the active
authors of the revolution were a small band of men mainly without
prestige or territorial influence. It was impossible that they should
dictate any measure sensibly impairing the local and fiscal autonomy of
the feudatories. No power capable of enforcing such a measure existed at
the time. All the great political changes in Japan had formerly been
preceded by wars culminating in the accession of some strong clan to
supreme authority, whereas in this case there had been a displacement
without a substitution--the Tokugawa had been overthrown and no new
administrators had been set up in their stead. It was, moreover, certain
that an attempt on the part of any one clan to constitute itself
executor of the sovereign's mandates would have stirred the other clans
to vehement resistance. In short, the leaders of the revolution found
themselves pledged to a new theory of government without any machinery
for carrying it into effect, or any means of abolishing the old
practice. An ingenious exit from this curious dilemma was devised by the
young reformers. They induced the feudal chiefs of Satsuma, Choshu, Tosa
and Hizen, the four most powerful clans in the south, publicly to
surrender their fiefs to the emperor, praying his majesty to reorganize
them and to bring them all under the same system of law. In the case of
Shimazu, chief of Satsuma, and Yodo, chief of Tosa, this act must stand
to their credit as a noble sacrifice. To them the exercise of power had
been a reality and the effort of surrendering it must have been
correspondingly costly. But the chiefs of Choshu and Hizen obeyed the
suggestions of their principal vassals with little, if any, sense of the
probable cost of obedience. The same remark applies to all the other
feudatories, with exceptions so rare as to emphasize the rule. They had
long been accustomed to abandon the management of their affairs to their
leading clansmen, and they allowed themselves to follow the same
guidance at this crisis. Out of more than 250 feudatories, only 17
hesitated to imitate the example of the four southern fiefs.
Motives of the Reformers.
An explanation of this remarkable incident has been sought by supposing
that the samurai of the various clans, when they advised a course so
inconsistent with fidelity to the interests of their feudal chiefs, were
influenced by motives of personal ambition, imagining that they
themselves might find great opportunities under the new regime. Some
hope of that kind may fairly be assumed, and was certainly realized, in
the case of the leading samurai of the four southern clans which headed
the movement. But it is plain that no such expectations can have been
generally entertained. The simplest explanation seems to be the true
one: a certain course, indicated by the action of the four southern
clans, was conceived to be in accord with the spirit of the Restoration,
and not to adopt it would have been to shrink publicly from a sacrifice
dictated by the principle of loyalty to the Throne--a principle which
had acquired supreme sanctity in the eyes of the men of that era. There
might have been some uncertainty about the initial step; but so soon as
that was taken by the southern clans their example acquired compelling
force. History shows that in political crises the Japanese samurai is
generally ready to pay deference to certain canons of almost romantic
morality. There was a fever of loyalty and of patriotism in the air of
the year 1869. Any one hesitating, for obviously selfish reasons, to
adopt a precedent such as that offered by the procedure of the great
southern clans, would have seemed to forfeit the right of calling
himself a samurai. But although the leaders of this remarkable movement
now understood that they must contrive the total abolition of feudalism
and build up a new administrative edifice on foundations of
constitutional monarchy, they appreciated the necessity of advancing
slowly towards a goal which still lay beyond the range of their
followers' vision. Thus the first steps taken after the surrender of the
fiefs were to appoint the feudatories to the position of governors in
the districts over which they had previously ruled; to confirm the
samurai in the possession of their incomes and official positions; to
put an end to the distinction between court nobles and territorial
nobles, and to organize in Kioto a cabinet consisting of the leaders of
the restoration. Each new governor received one-tenth of the income of
the fief by way of emoluments; the pay of the officials and the samurai,
as well as the administrative expenses of the district, was defrayed
from the same source, and the residue, if any, was to pass into the
treasury of the central government.
Defects of the First Measures.
The defects of this system from a monarchical point of view soon became
evident. It did not give the power of either the purse or the sword to
the sovereign. The revenues of the administrative districts continued to
be collected and disbursed by the former feudatories, who also retained
the control of the troops, the right of appointing and dismissing
officials, and almost complete local autonomy. A further radical step
had to be taken, and the leaders of reform, seeing nothing better than
to continue the method of procedure which had thus far proved so
successful, contrived, first, that several of the administrative
districts should send in petitions offering to surrender their local
autonomy and be brought under the direct rule of the central government;
secondly, that a number of samurai should apply for permission to lay
aside their swords. While the nation was digesting the principles
embodied in these petitions, the government made preparations for
further measures of reform. The ex-chief of Satsuma, who showed some
umbrage because the services of his clan in promoting the restoration
had not been more fully recognized, was induced to take high ministerial
office, as were also the ex-chiefs of Choshu and Tosa. Each of the four
great clans had now three representatives in the ministry. These clans
were further persuaded to send to Tokyo--whither the emperor had moved
his court--contingents of troops to form the nucleus of a national army.
Importance attaches to these details because the principle of clan
representation, illustrated in the organization of the cabinet of 1871,
continued to be approximately observed for many years in forming
ministries, and ultimately became a target for the attacks of party
politicians.
Adoption of Radical Measures.
On the 29th of August 1871 an Imperial decree announced the abolition of
the system of local autonomy, and the removal of the territorial nobles
from the posts of governor. The taxes of the former fiefs were to be
paid thenceforth into the central treasury; all officials were to be
appointed by the Imperial government, and the feudatories, retaining
permanently an income of one-tenth of their original revenues, were to
make Tokyo their place of residence. As for the samurai, they remained
for the moment in possession of their hereditary pensions. Radical as
these changes seem, the disturbance caused by them was not great, since
they left the incomes of the military class untouched. Some of the
incomes were for life only, but the majority were hereditary, and all
had been granted in consideration of their holders devoting themselves
to military service. Four hundred thousand men approximately were in
receipt of such emoluments, and the total amount annually taken from the
tax-payers for this purpose was about L2,000,000. Plainly the nation
would have to be relieved of this burden sooner or later. The samurai
were essentially an element of the feudal system, and that they should
survive the latter's fall would have been incongruous. On the other
hand, suddenly and wholly to deprive these men and their families--a
total of some two million persons--of the means of subsistence on which
they had hitherto relied with absolute confidence, and in return for
which they and their forefathers had rendered faithful service, would
have been an act of inhumanity. It may easily be conceived that this
problem caused extreme perplexity to the administrators of the new
Japan. They left it unsolved for the moment, trusting that time and the
loyalty of the samurai themselves would suggest some solution. As for
the feudal chiefs, who had now been deprived of all official status and
reduced to the position of private gentlemen, without even a patent of
nobility to distinguish them from ordinary individuals, they did not
find anything specially irksome or regrettable in their altered
position. No scrutiny had been made into the contents of their
treasuries. They were allowed to retain unquestioned possession of all
the accumulated funds of their former fiefs, and they also became public
creditors for annual allowances equal to one-tenth of their feudal
revenues. They had never previously been so pleasantly circumstanced. It
is true that they were entirely stripped of all administrative and
military authority; but since their possession of such authority had
been in most cases merely nominal, they only felt the change as a relief
from responsibility.
Treatment of the Samurai.
By degrees public opinion began to declare itself with regard to the
samurai. If they were to be absorbed into the bulk of the people and to
lose their fixed revenues, some capital must be placed at their disposal
to begin the world again. The samurai themselves showed a noble faculty
of resignation. They had been a privileged class, but they had purchased
their privileges with their blood and by serving as patterns of all the
qualities most prized among Japanese national characteristics. The
record of their acts and the recognition of the people entitled them to
look for munificent treatment at the hands of the government which they
had been the means of setting up. Yet none of these considerations
blinded them to the painful fact that the time had passed them by; that
no place existed for them in the new polity. Many of them voluntarily
stepped down into the company of the peasant or the tradesman, and many
others signified their willingness to join the ranks of common
bread-winners if some aid was given to equip them for such a career.
After two years' consideration the government took action. A decree
announced, in 1873, that the treasury was prepared to commute the
pensions of the samurai at the rate of six years' purchase for
hereditary pensions and four years for life pensions--one-half of the
commutation to be paid in cash, and one-half in bonds bearing interest
at the rate of 8%. It will be seen that a perpetual pension of L10 would
be exchanged for a payment of L30 in cash, together with securities
giving an income of L2, 8s.; and that a L10 life pensioner received L20
in cash and securities yielding L1, 12s. annually. It is scarcely
credible that the samurai should have accepted such an arrangement.
Something, perhaps, must be ascribed to their want of business
knowledge, but the general explanation is that they made a large
sacrifice in the interests of their country. Nothing in all their career
as soldiers became them better than their manner of abandoning it. They
were told that they might lay aside their swords, and many of them did
so, though from time immemorial they had cherished the sword as the mark
of a gentleman, the most precious possession of a warrior, and the one
outward evidence that distinguished men of their order from common
toilers after gain. They saw themselves deprived of their military
employment, were invited to surrender more than one-half of the income
it brought, and knew that they were unprepared alike by education and by
tradition to earn bread in any calling save that of arms. Yet, at the
invitation of a government which they had helped to establish, many of
them bowed their heads quietly to this sharp reverse of fortune. It was
certainly a striking instance of the fortitude and resignation which the
creed of the samurai required him to display in the presence of
adversity. As yet, however, the government's measures with regard to the
samurai were not compulsory. Men laid aside their swords and commuted
their pensions at their own option.
Saigo Takamori.
Meanwhile differences of opinion began to occur among the leaders of
progress themselves. Coalitions formed for destructive purposes are
often found unable to endure the strain of constructive efforts. Such
lack of cohesion might easily have been foreseen in the case of the
Japanese reformers. Young men without experience of public affairs, or
special education to fit them for responsible posts, found the duty
suddenly imposed on them not only of devising administrative and fiscal
systems universally applicable to a nation hitherto divided into a
congeries of semi-independent principalities, but also of shaping the
country's demeanour towards novel problems of foreign intercourse and
alien civilization. So long as the heat of their assault upon the
shogunate fused them into a homogeneous party they worked together
successfully. But when they had to build a brand-new edifice on the
ruins of a still vivid past, it was inevitable that their opinions
should vary as to the nature of the materials to be employed. In this
divergence of views many of the capital incidents of Japan's modern
history had their origin. Of the fifty-five men whose united efforts had
compassed the fall of the shogunate, five stood conspicuous above their
colleagues. They were Iwakura and Sanjo, court nobles; Saigo and Okubo,
samurai of Satsuma, and Kido, a samurai of Choshu. In the second rank
came many men of great gifts, whose youth alone disqualified them for
prominence--Ito, the constructive statesman of the Meiji era, who
inspired nearly all the important measures of the time, though he did
not openly figure as their originator; Inouye, who never lacked a
resource or swerved from the dictates of loyalty; Okuma, a politician of
subtle, versatile and vigorous intellect; Itagaki, the Rousseau of his
era; and a score of others created by the extraordinary circumstances
with which they had to deal. But the five first mentioned were the
captains, the rest only lieutenants. Among the five, four were sincere
reformers--not free, of course, from selfish motives, but truthfully
bent upon promoting the interests of their country before all other
aims. The fifth, Saigo Takamori, was a man in whom boundless ambition
lay concealed under qualities of the noblest and most enduring type. His
absolute freedom from every trace of sordidness gave currency to a
belief that his aims were of the simplest; the story of his career
satisfied the highest canons of the samurai; his massive physique,
commanding presence and sunny aspect impressed and attracted even those
who had no opportunity of admiring his life of self-sacrificing effort
or appreciating the remarkable military talent he possessed. In the
first part of his career, the elevation of his clan to supreme power
seems to have been his sole motive, but subsequently personal ambition
appears to have swayed him. To the consummation of either object the
preservation of the military class was essential. By the swords of the
samurai alone could a new _imperium in imperio_ be carved out. On the
other hand, Saigo's colleagues in the ministry saw clearly not only that
the samurai were an unwarrantable burden on the nation, but also that
their continued existence after the fall of feudalism would be a menace
to public peace as well as an anomaly. Therefore they took the steps
already described, and followed them by a conscription law, making every
adult male liable for military service without regard to his social
standing. It is easy to conceive how painfully unwelcome this
conscription law proved to the samurai. Many of them were not unwilling
to commute their pensions, since their creed had always forbidden them
to care for money. Many of them were not unwilling to abandon the habit
of carrying swords, since the adoption of foreign costume rendered such
a custom incongruous and inconvenient. But very few of them could
readily consent to step down from their cherished position as the
military class, and relinquish their traditional title to bear the whole
responsibility and enjoy the whole honour of fighting their country's
battles. They had supposed, not unreasonably, that service in the army
and navy would be reserved exclusively for them and their sons, whereas
now the commonest rustic, mechanic or tradesman would be equally
eligible.
Split among the Reformers.
While the pain of this blow was still fresh there occurred a trouble
with Korea. The little state had behaved with insulting contumely, and
when Japan's course came to be debated in Tokyo, a disruption resulted
in the ranks of the reformers. Saigo saw in a foreign war the sole
remaining chance of achieving his ambition by lawful means. The
government's conscription scheme, yet in its infancy, had not produced
even the skeleton of an army. If Korea had to be conquered, the samurai
must be employed; and their employment would mean, if not their
rehabilitation, at least their organization into a force which, under
Saigo's leadership, might dictate a new policy. Other members of the
cabinet believed that the nation would be disgraced if it tamely endured
Korea's insults. Thus several influential voices swelled the clamour for
war. But a peace party offered strenuous opposition. Its members saw the
collateral issues of the problem, and declared that the country must not
think of taking up arms during a period of radical transition. The final
discussion took place in the emperor's presence. The advocates of peace
understood the national significance of the issue and perceived that
they were debating, not merely whether there should be peace or war, but
whether the country should halt or advance on its newly adopted path of
progress. They prevailed, and four members of the cabinet, including
Saigo, resigned. This rupture was destined to have far-reaching
consequences. One of the seceders immediately raised the standard of
revolt. Among the devices employed by him to win adherents was an
attempt to fan into flame the dying embers of the anti-foreign
sentiment. The government easily crushed the insurrection. Another
seceder was Itagaki Taisuke. The third and most prominent was Saigo, who
seems to have concluded from that moment that he must abandon his aims
or achieve them by force. He retired to his native province of Satsuma,
and applied his whole resources, his great reputation and the devoted
loyalty of a number of able followers to organizing and equipping a
strong body of samurai. Matters were facilitated for him by the
conservatism of the celebrated Shimazu Saburo, former chief of Satsuma,
who, though not opposed to foreign intercourse, had been revolted by the
wholesale iconoclasm of the time, and by the indiscriminate rejection of
Japanese customs in favour of foreign. He protested vehemently against
what seemed to him a slavish abandonment of the nation's individuality,
and finding his protest fruitless, he set himself to preserve in his own
distant province, where the writ of the Yedo government had never run,
the fashions, institutions and customs which his former colleagues in
the administration were ruthlessly rejecting. Satsuma thus became a
centre of conservative influences, among which Saigo and his constantly
augmenting band of samurai found a congenial environment. During four
years this breach between the central government and the southern clan
grew constantly.
Final Abolition of Sword-wearing and Pensions.
In the meanwhile (1876) two extreme measures were adopted by the
government: a veto on the wearing of swords, and an edict ordering the
compulsory commutation of the pensions and allowances received by the
nobles and the samurai. Three years previously the discarding of swords
had been declared optional, and a scheme of voluntary commutation had
been announced. Many had bowed quietly to the spirit of these
enactments. But many still retained their swords and drew their pensions
as of old, obstructing, in the former respect, the government's projects
for the reorganization of society, and imposing, in the latter, an
intolerable burden on the resources of the treasury. The government
thought that the time had come, and that its own strength sufficed, to
substitute compulsion for persuasion. The financial measure--which was
contrived so as to affect the smallest pension-holders least
injuriously--evoked no complaint. The samurai remained faithful to the
creed which forbade them to be concerned about money. But the veto
against sword-wearing overtaxed the patience of the extreme
Conservatives. It seemed to them that all the most honoured traditions
of their country were being ruthlessly sacrificed on the altar of alien
innovations. Armed protests ensued. A few score of samurai, equipping
themselves with the hauberks and weapons of old times, fell upon the
garrison of a castle, killed or wounded some 300, and then, retiring to
an adjacent mountain, died by their own hands. Their example found
imitators in two other places, and finally the Satsuma samurai rose in
arms under Saigo.
Satsuma Insurrection.
This was an insurrection very different in dimensions and motives from
the outbreaks that had preceded it. During four years the preparations
of the Satsuma men had been unremitting. They were equipped with rifles
and cannon; they numbered some 30,000; they were all of the military
class, and in addition to high training in western tactics and in the
use of modern arms of precision, they knew how to wield that formidable
weapon, the Japanese sword, of which their opponents were for the most
part ignorant. Ostensibly their object was to restore the samurai to
their old supremacy, and to secure for them all the posts in the army,
the navy and the administration. But although they doubtless entertained
that intention, it was put forward mainly with the hope of winning the
co-operation of the military class throughout the empire. The real
purpose of the revolt was to secure the governing power for Satsuma. A
bitter struggle ensued. Beginning on the 29th of January 1877, it was
brought to a close on the 24th of September by the death, voluntary or
in battle, of all the rebel leaders. During that period the number of
men engaged on the government's side had been 66,000 and the number on
the side of the rebels 40,000, out of which total the killed and wounded
aggregated 35,000, or 33% of the whole. Had the government's troops been
finally defeated, there can be no doubt that the samurai's exclusive
title to man and direct the army and navy would have been
re-established, and Japan would have found herself permanently saddled
with a military class, heavily burdening her finances, seriously
impeding her progress towards constitutional government, and
perpetuating all the abuses incidental to a policy in which the power of
the sword rests entirely in the hands of one section of the people. The
nation scarcely appreciated the great issues that were at stake. It
found more interest in the struggle as furnishing a conclusive test of
the efficiency of the new military system compared with the old. The
army sent to quell the insurrection consisted of recruits drawn
indiscriminately from every class of the people. Viewed in the light of
history, it was an army of commoners, deficient in the fighting
instinct, and traditionally demoralized for all purposes of resistance
to the military class. The Satsuma insurgents, on the contrary,
represented the flower of the samurai, long trained for this very
struggle, and led by men whom the nation regarded as its bravest
captains. The result dispelled all doubts about the fighting quality of
the people at large.
Steps of Progress.
Concurrently with these events the government diligently endeavoured to
equip the country with all the paraphernalia of Occidental civilization.
It is easy to understand that the master-minds of the era, who had
planned and carried out the Restoration, continued to take the lead in
all paths of progress. Their intellectual superiority entitled them to
act as guides; they had enjoyed exceptional opportunities of acquiring
enlightenment by visits to Europe and America, and the Japanese people
had not yet lost the habit of looking to officialdom for every
initiative. But the spectacle thus presented to foreign onlookers was
not altogether without disquieting suggestions. The government's reforms
seemed to outstrip the nation's readiness for them, and the results wore
an air of some artificiality and confusion. Englishmen were employed to
superintend the building of railways, the erection of telegraphs, the
construction of lighthouses and the organization of a navy. To Frenchmen
was entrusted the work of recasting the laws and training the army in
strategy and tactics. Educational affairs, the organization of a postal
service, the improvement of agriculture and the work of colonization
were supervised by Americans. The teaching of medical science, the
compilation of a commercial code, the elaboration of a system of local
government, and ultimately the training of military officers were
assigned to Germans. For instruction in sculpture and painting Italians
were engaged. Was it possible that so many novelties should be
successfully assimilated, or that the nation should adapt itself to
systems planned by a motley band of aliens who knew nothing of its
character and customs? These questions did not trouble the Japanese
nearly so much as they troubled strangers. The truth is that
conservatism was not really required to make the great sacrifices
suggested by appearances. Among all the innovations of the era the only
one that a Japanese could not lay aside at will was the new fashion of
dressing the hair. He abandoned the _queue_ irrevocably. But for the
rest he lived a dual life. During hours of duty he wore a fine uniform,
shaped and decorated in foreign style. But so soon as he stepped out of
office or off parade, he reverted to his own comfortable and picturesque
costume. Handsome houses were built and furnished according to Western
models. But each had an annex where alcoves, verandas, matted floors and
paper sliding doors continued to do traditional duty. Beefsteaks, beer,
"grape-wine," knives and forks came into use on occasion. But rice-bowls
and chopsticks held their everyday place as of old. In a word, though
the Japanese adopted every convenient and serviceable attribute of
foreign civilization, such as railways, steamships, telegraphs,
post-offices, banks and machinery of all kinds; though they accepted
Occidental sciences, and, to a large extent, Occidental philosophies;
though they recognized the superiority of European jurisprudence and set
themselves to bring their laws into accord with it, they nevertheless
preserved the essentials of their own mode of life and never lost their
individuality. A remarkable spirit of liberalism and a fine eclectic
instinct were needed for the part they acted, but they did no radical
violence to their own traditions, creeds and conventions. There was
indeed a certain element of incongruity and even grotesqueness in the
nation's doings. Old people cannot fit their feet to new roads without
some clumsiness. The Japanese had grown very old in their special paths,
and their novel departure was occasionally disfigured by solecisms. The
refined taste that guided them unerringly in all the affairs of life as
they had been accustomed to live it, seemed to fail them signally when
they emerged into an alien atmosphere. They have given their proofs,
however. It is now seen that the apparently excessive rapidity of their
progress did not overtax their capacities; that they have emerged safely
from their destructive era and carried their constructive career within
reach of certain success, and that while they have still to develop some
of the traits of their new civilization, there is no prospect whatever
of its proving ultimately unsuited to them.
Development of Representative Government.
After the Satsuma rebellion, nothing disturbed the even tenor of Japan's
domestic politics except an attempt on the part of some of her people to
force the growth of parliamentary government. It is evident that the
united effort made by the fiefs to overthrow the system of dual
government and wrest the administrative power from the shogun could have
only one logical outcome: the combined exercise of the recovered power
by those who had been instrumental in recovering it. That was the
meaning of the oath taken by the emperor at the Restoration, when the
youthful sovereign was made to say that wise counsels should be widely
sought, and all things determined by public discussion. But the framers
of the oath had the samurai alone in view. Into their consideration the
common people--farmers, mechanics, tradesmen--did not enter at all, nor
had the common people themselves any idea of advancing a claim to be
considered. A voice in the administration would have been to them an
embarrassing rather than a pleasing privilege. Thus the first
deliberative assembly was composed of nobles and samurai only. A mere
debating club without any legislative authority, it was permanently
dissolved after two sessions. Possibly the problem of a parliament might
have been long postponed after that fiasco, had it not found an ardent
advocate in Itagaki Taisuke (afterwards Count Itagaki). A Tosa samurai
conspicuous as a leader of the restoration movement, Itagaki was among
the advocates of recourse to strong measures against Korea in 1873, and
his failure to carry his point, supplemented by a belief that a large
section of public opinion would have supported him had there been any
machinery for appealing to it, gave fresh impetus to his faith in
constitutional government. Resigning office on account of the Korean
question, he became the nucleus of agitation in favour of a
parliamentary system, and under his banner were enrolled not only
discontented samurai but also many of the young men who, returning from
direct observation of the working of constitutional systems in Europe or
America, and failing to obtain official posts in Japan, attributed their
failure to the oligarchical form of their country's polity. Thus in the
interval between 1873 and 1877 there were two centres of disturbance in
Japan: one in Satsuma, where Saigo figured as leader; the other in Tosa,
under Itagaki's guidance. When the Satsuma men appealed to arms in 1877,
a widespread apprehension prevailed lest the Tosa politicians should
throw in their lot with the insurgents. Such a fear had its origin in
failure to understand the object of the one side or to appreciate the
sincerity of the other. Saigo and his adherents fought to substitute a
Satsuma clique for the oligarchy already in power. Itagaki and his
followers struggled for constitutional institutions. The two could not
have anything in common. There was consequently no coalition. But the
Tosa agitators did not neglect to make capital out of the embarrassment
caused by the Satsuma rebellion. While the struggle was at its height,
they addressed to the government a memorial, charging the administration
with oppressive measures to restrain the voice of public opinion, with
usurpation of power to the exclusion of the nation at large, and with
levelling downwards instead of upwards, since the samurai had been
reduced to the rank of commoners, whereas the commoners should have been
educated up to the standard of the samurai. This memorial asked for a
representative assembly and talked of popular rights. But since the
document admitted that the people were uneducated, it is plain that
there cannot have been any serious idea of giving them a share in the
administration. In fact, the Tosa Liberals were not really contending
for popular representation in the full sense of the term. What they
wanted was the creation of some machinery for securing to the samurai at
large a voice in the management of state affairs. They chafed against
the fact that, whereas the efforts and sacrifices demanded by the
Restoration had fallen equally on the whole military class, the
official prizes under the new system were monopolized by a small coterie
of men belonging to the four principal clans. It is on record that
Itagaki would have been content originally with an assembly consisting
half of officials, half of non-official samurai, and not including any
popular element whatever.
But the government did not believe that the time had come even for a
measure such as the Tosa Liberals advocated. The statesmen in power
conceived that the nation must be educated up to constitutional
standards, and that the first step should be to provide an official
model. Accordingly, in 1874, arrangements were made for periodically
convening an assembly of prefectural governors, in order that they might
act as channels of communication between the central authorities and the
provincial population, and mutually exchange ideas as to the safest and
most effective methods of encouraging progress within the limits of
their jurisdictions. This was intended to be the embryo of
representative institutions. But the governors, being officials
appointed by the cabinet, did not bear in any sense the character of
popular nominees, nor could it even be said that they reflected the
public feeling of the districts they administered, for their habitual
and natural tendency was to try, by means of heroic object lessons, to
win the people's allegiance to the government's progressive policy,
rather than to convince the government of the danger of overstepping the
people's capacities.
These conventions of local officials had no legislative power whatever.
The foundations of a body for discharging that function were laid in
1875, when a senate (_genro-in_) was organized. It consisted of official
nominees, and its duty was to discuss and revise all laws and ordinances
prior to their promulgation. It is to be noted, however, that expediency
not less than a spirit of progress presided at the creation of the
senate. Into its ranks were drafted a number of men for whom no places
could be found in the executive, and who, without some official
employment, would have been drawn into the current of disaffection. From
that point of view the senate soon came to be regarded as a kind of
hospital for administrative invalids, but undoubtedly its discharge of
quasi-legislative functions proved suggestive, useful and instructive.
Assassination of Okubo.
The second meeting of the provincial governors had just been prorogued
when, in the spring of 1878, the great minister, Okubo Toshimitsu, was
assassinated. Okubo, uniformly ready to bear the heaviest burden of
responsibility in every political complication, had stood prominently
before the nation as Saigo's opponent. He fell under the swords of
Saigo's sympathizers. They immediately surrendered themselves to
justice, having taken previous care to circulate a statement of motives,
which showed that they ranked the government's failure to establish
representative institutions as a sin scarcely less heinous than its
alleged abuses of power. Well-informed followers of Saigo could never
have been sincere believers in representative institutions. These men
belonged to a province far removed from the scene of Saigo's desperate
struggle. But the broad fact that they had sealed with their life-blood
an appeal for a political change indicated the existence of a strong
public conviction which would derive further strength from their act.
The Japanese are essentially a brave people. Throughout the troublous
events that preceded and followed the Restoration, it is not possible to
point to one man whose obedience to duty or conviction was visibly
weakened by prospects of personal peril. Okubo's assassination did not
alarm any of his colleagues; but they understood its suggestiveness, and
hastened to give effect to a previously formed resolve.
Local Government.
Two months after Okubo's death, an edict announced that elective
assemblies should forthwith be established in various prefectures and
cities. These assemblies were to consist of members having a high
property qualification, elected by voters having one-half of that
qualification; the voting to be by signed ballot, and the session to
last for one month in the spring of each year. As to their functions,
they were to determine the method of levying and spending local taxes,
subject to approval by the minister of state for home affairs; to
scrutinize the accounts for the previous year, and, if necessary, to
present petitions to the central government. Thus the foundations of
genuine representative institutions were laid. It is true that
legislative power was not vested in the local assemblies, but in all
other important respects they discharged parliamentary duties. Their
history need not be related at any length. Sometimes they came into
violent collision with the governor of the prefecture, and unsightly
struggles resulted. The governors were disposed to advocate public works
which the people considered extravagant; and further, as years went by,
and as political organizations grew stronger, there was found in each
assembly a group of men ready to oppose the governor simply because of
his official status. But on the whole the system worked well. The local
assemblies served as training schools for the future parliament, and
their members showed devotion to public duty as well as considerable
aptitude for debate.
The Liberal Party.
This was not what Itagaki and his followers wanted. Their purpose was to
overthrow the clique of clansmen who, holding the reins of
administrative power, monopolized the prizes of officialdom. Towards the
consummation of such an aim the local assemblies helped little. Itagaki
redoubled his agitation. He organized his fellow-thinkers into an
association called _jiyuto_ (Liberals), the first political party in
Japan, to whose ranks there very soon gravitated several men who had
been in office and resented the loss of it; many that had never been in
office and desired to be; and a still greater number who sincerely
believed in the principles of political liberty, but had not yet
considered the possibility of immediately adapting such principles to
Japan's case. It was in the nature of things that an association of this
kind, professing such doctrines, should present a picturesque aspect to
the public, and that its collisions with the authorities should invite
popular sympathy. Nor were collisions infrequent. For the government,
arguing that if the nation was not ready for representative
institutions, neither was it ready for full freedom of speech or of
public meeting, legislated consistently with that theory, and entrusted
to the police large powers of control over the press and the platform.
The exercise of these powers often created situations in which the
Liberals were able to pose as victims of official tyranny, so that they
grew in popularity and the contagion of political agitation spread.
The Progressist Party.
Three years later (1881) another split occurred in the ranks of the
ruling oligarchy. Okuma Shigenobu (afterwards Count Okuma) seceded from
the administration, and was followed by a number of able men who had
owed their appointments to his patronage, or who, during his tenure of
office as minister of finance, had passed under the influence of his
powerful personality. If Itagaki be called the Rousseau of Japan, Okuma
may be regarded as the Peel. To remarkable financial ability and a
lucid, vigorous judgment he added the faculty of placing himself on the
crest of any wave which a genuine _aura popularis_ had begun to swell.
He, too, inscribed on his banner of revolt against the oligarchy the
motto "constitutional government," and it might have been expected that
his followers would join hands with those of Itagaki, since the avowed
political purpose of both was identical. They did nothing of the kind.
Okuma organized an independent party, calling themselves Progressists
(_shimpoto_), who not only stood aloof from the Liberals but even
assumed an attitude hostile to them. This fact is eloquent. It shows
that Japan's first political parties were grouped, not about principles,
but about persons. Hence an inevitable lack of cohesion among their
elements and a constant tendency to break up into caves and coteries.
These are the characteristics that render the story of political
evolution in Japan so perplexing to a foreign student. He looks for
differences of platform and finds none. Just as a true Liberal must be a
Progressist, and a true Progressist a Liberal, so, though each may cast
his profession of faith in a mould of different phrases, the ultimate
shape must be the same. The mainsprings of early political agitation in
Japan were personal grievances and a desire to wrest the administrative
power from the hands of the statesmen who had held it so long as to
overtax the patience of their rivals. He that searches for profound
moral or ethical bases will be disappointed. There were no
Conservatives. Society was permeated with the spirit of progress. In a
comparative sense the epithet "Conservative" might have been applied to
the statesmen who proposed to defer parliamentary institutions until the
people, as distinguished from the former samurai, had been in some
measure prepared for such an innovation. But since these very statesmen
were the guiding spirits of the whole Meiji revolution, it was plain
that their convictions must be radical, and that, unless they did
violence to their record, they must finally lead the country to
representative institutions, the logical sequel of their own reforms.
Okubo's assassination had been followed, in 1878, by an edict announcing
the establishment of local assemblies. Okuma's secession in 1881 was
followed by an edict announcing that a national assembly would be
convened in 1891.
Anti-Government Agitation.
The political parties, having now virtually attained their object, might
have been expected to desist from further agitation. But they had
another task to perform--that of disseminating anti-official prejudices
among the future electors. They worked diligently, and they had an
undisputed field, for no one was put forward to champion the
government's cause. The campaign was not always conducted on lawful
lines. There were plots to assassinate ministers; there was an attempt
to employ dynamite, and there was a scheme to foment an insurrection in
Korea. On the other hand, dispersals of political meetings by order of
police inspectors, and suspension or suppression of newspapers by the
unchallengeable verdict of a minister for home affairs, were common
occurrences. The breach widened steadily. It is true that Okuma rejoined
the cabinet for a time in 1887, but he retired again in circumstances
that aggravated his party's hostility to officialdom. In short, during
the ten years immediately prior to the opening of the first parliament,
an anti-government propaganda was incessantly preached from the platform
and in the press.
Meanwhile the statesmen in power resolutely pursued their path of
progressive reform. They codified the civil and penal laws, remodelling
them on Western bases; they brought a vast number of affairs within the
scope of minute regulations; they rescued the finances from confusion
and restored them to a sound condition; they recast the whole framework
of local government; they organized a great national bank, and
established a network of subordinate institutions throughout the
country; they pushed on the work of railway construction, and
successfully enlisted private enterprise in its cause; they steadily
extended the postal and telegraphic services; they economized public
expenditures so that the state's income always exceeded its outlays;
they laid the foundations of a strong mercantile marine; they instituted
a system of postal savings-banks; they undertook large schemes of
harbour improvement and road-making; they planned and put into operation
an extensive programme of riparian improvement; they made civil service
appointments depend on competitive examination; they sent numbers of
students to Europe and America to complete their studies; and by
tactful, persevering diplomacy they gradually introduced a new tone into
the empire's relations with foreign powers. Japan's affairs were never
better administered.
The Constitution of 1890.
In 1890 the Constitution was promulgated. Imposing ceremonies marked the
event. All the nation's notables were summoned to the palace to witness
the delivery of the important document by the sovereign to the prime
minister; salvos of artillery were fired; the cities were illuminated,
and the people kept holiday. Marquis (afterwards Prince) Ito directed
the framing of the Constitution. He had visited the Occident for the
purpose of investigating the development of parliamentary institutions
and studying their practical working. His name is connected with nearly
every great work of constructive statesmanship in the history of new
Japan, and perhaps the crown of his legislative career was the drafting
of the Constitution, to which the Japanese people point proudly as the
only charter of the kind voluntarily given by a sovereign to his
subjects. In other countries such concessions were always the outcome of
long struggles between ruler and ruled. In Japan the emperor freely
divested himself of a portion of his prerogatives and transferred them
to the people. That view of the case, as may be seen from the story told
above, is not untinged with romance; but in a general sense it is true.
Working of the System.
No incident in Japan's modern career seemed more hazardous than this
sudden plunge into parliamentary institutions. There had been some
preparation. Provincial assemblies had partially familiarized the people
with the methods of deliberative bodies. But provincial assemblies were
at best petty arenas--places where the making or mending of roads, and
the policing and sanitation of villages came up for discussion, and
where political parties exercised no legislative function nor found any
opportunity to attack the government or to debate problems of national
interest. Thus the convening of a diet and the sudden transfer of
financial and legislative authority from the throne and its entourage of
tried statesmen to the hands of men whose qualifications for public life
rested on the verdict of electors, themselves apparently devoid of all
light to guide their choice--this sweeping innovation seemed likely to
tax severely, if not to overtax completely, the progressive capacities
of the nation. What enhanced the interest of the situation was that the
oligarchs who held the administrative power had taken no pains to win a
following in the political field. Knowing that the opening of the diet
would be a veritable letting loose of the dogs of war, an unmuzzling of
the agitators whose mouths had hitherto been partly closed by legal
restrictions upon free speech, but who would now enjoy complete immunity
within the walls of the assembly whatever the nature of their
utterances--foreseeing all this, the statesmen of the day nevertheless
stood severely aloof from alliances of every kind, and discharged their
administrative functions with apparent indifference to the changes that
popular representation could not fail to induce. This somewhat
inexplicable display of unconcern became partially intelligible when the
constitution was promulgated, for it then appeared that the cabinet's
tenure of office was to depend solely on the emperor's will; that
ministers were to take their mandate from the Throne, not from
parliament. This fact was merely an outcome of the theory underlying
every part of the Japanese polity. Laws might be redrafted, institutions
remodelled, systems recast, but amid all changes and mutations one
steady point must be carefully preserved, the Throne. The makers of new
Japan understood that so long as the sanctity and inviolability of the
imperial prerogatives could be preserved, the nation would be held by a
strong anchor from drifting into dangerous waters. They laboured under
no misapprehension about the inevitable issue of their work in framing
the constitution. They knew very well that party cabinets are an
essential outcome of representative institutions, and that to some kind
of party cabinet Japan must come. But they regarded the Imperial mandate
as a conservative safeguard, pending the organization and education of
parties competent to form cabinets. Such parties did not yet exist, and
until they came into unequivocal existence, the Restoration statesmen,
who had so successfully managed the affairs of the nation during a
quarter of a century, resolved that the steady point furnished by the
throne must not be abandoned.
On the other hand, the agitators found here a new platform. They had
obtained a constitution and a diet, but they had not obtained an
instrument for pulling down the "clan" administrators, since these stood
secure from attack under the aegis of the sovereign's mandate. They
dared not raise their voices against the unfettered exercise of the
mikado's prerogative. The nation, loyal to the core, would not have
suffered such a protest, nor could the agitators themselves have found
heart to formulate it. But they could read their own interpretation into
the text of the Constitution, and they could demonstrate practically
that a cabinet not acknowledging responsibility to the legislature was
virtually impotent for law-making purposes.
The Diet and the Government.
These are the broad outlines of the contest that began in the first
session of the Diet and continued for several years. It is unnecessary
to speak of the special points of controversy. Just as the political
parties had been formed on the lines of persons, not principles, so the
opposition in the Diet was directed against men, not measures. The
struggle presented varying aspects at different times, but the
fundamental question at issue never changed. Obstruction was the weapon
of the political parties. They sought to render legislation and finance
impossible for any ministry that refused to take its mandate from the
majority in the lower house, and they imparted an air of respectability
and even patriotism to their destructive campaign by making
"anti-clannism" their war-cry, and industriously fostering the idea that
the struggle lay between administration guided by public opinion and
administration controlled by a clique of clansmen who separated the
throne from the nation. Had not the House of Peers stood stanchly by the
government throughout this contest, it is possible that the nation might
have suffered severely from the rashness of the political parties.
There was something melancholy in the spectacle. The Restoration
statesmen were the men who had made Modern Japan; the men who had raised
her, in the face of immense obstacles, from the position of an
insignificant Oriental state to that of a formidable unit in the comity
of nations; the men, finally, who had given to her a constitution and
representative institutions. Yet these same men were now fiercely
attacked by the arms which they had themselves nerved; were held up to
public obloquy as self-seeking usurpers, and were declared to be
impeding the people's constitutional route to administrative privileges,
when in reality they were only holding the breach until the people
should be able to march into the citadel with some show of orderly and
competent organization. That there was no corruption, no abuse of
position, is not to be pretended; but on the whole the conservatism of
the clan statesmen had only one object--to provide that the newly
constructed representative machine should not be set working until its
parts were duly adjusted and brought into proper gear. On both sides the
leaders understood the situation accurately. The heads of the parties,
while publicly clamouring for parliamentary cabinets, privately
confessed that they were not yet prepared to assume administrative
responsibilities;[3] and the so-called "clan statesmen," while refusing
before the world to accept the Diet's mandates, admitted within official
circles that the question was one of time only. The situation did not
undergo any marked change until, the country becoming engaged in war
with China (1894-95), domestic squabbles were forgotten in the presence
of foreign danger. From that time an era of coalition commenced. Both
the political parties joined hands to vote funds for the prosecution of
the campaign, and one of them, the Liberals, subsequently gave support
to a cabinet under the presidency of Marquis Ito, the purpose of the
union being to carry through the diet an extensive scheme of enlarged
armaments and public works planned in the sequel of the war. The
Progressists, however, remained implacable, continuing their opposition
to the thing called bureaucracy quite irrespective of its measures.
Fusion of the Two Parties.
The next phase (1898) was a fusion of the two parties into one large
organization which adopted the name "Constitutional Party"
(_kensei-to_). By this union the chief obstacles to parliamentary
cabinets were removed. Not only did the Constitutionalists command a
large majority in the lower house, but also they possessed a sufficiency
of men who, although lacking ministerial experience, might still advance
a reasonable title to be entrusted with portfolios. Immediately the
emperor, acting on the advice of Marquis Ito, invited Counts Okuma and
Itagaki to form a cabinet. It was essentially a trial. The party
politicians were required to demonstrate in practice the justice of the
claim they had been so long asserting in theory. They had worked in
combination for the destructive purpose of pulling down the so-called
"clan statesmen"; they had now to show whether they could work in
combination for the constructive purposes of administration. Their
heads, Counts Okuma and Itagaki, accepted the Imperial mandate, and the
nation watched the result. There was no need to wait long. In less than
six months these new links snapped under the tension of old enmities,
and the coalition split up once more into its original elements. It had
demonstrated that the sweets of power, which the "clan statesmen" had
been so vehemently accused of coveting, possessed even greater
attractions for their accusers. The issue of the experiment was such a
palpable fiasco that it effectually rehabilitated the "clan statesmen,"
and finally proved, what had indeed been long evident to every close
observer, that without the assistance of those statesmen no political
party could hold office successfully.
Enrolment of the Clan Statesmen in Political Associations.
Thenceforth it became the unique aim of Liberals and Progressists alike
to join hands permanently with the men towards whom they had once
displayed such implacable hostility. Prince Ito, the leader of the
so-called "elder statesmen," received special solicitations, for it was
plain that he would bring to any political party an overwhelming access
of strength alike in his own person and in the number of friends and
disciples certain to follow him. But Prince Ito declined to be absorbed
into any existing party, or to adopt the principle of parliamentary
cabinets. He would consent to form a new association, but it must
consist of men sufficiently disciplined to obey him implicitly, and
sufficiently docile to accept their programme from his hand. The
Liberals agreed to these terms. They dissolved their party (August 1900)
and enrolled themselves in the ranks of a new organization, which did
not even call itself a party, its designation being _rikken seiyu-kai_
(association of friends of the constitution), and which had for the
cardinal plank in its platform a declaration of ministerial
irresponsibility to the Diet. A singular page was thus added to the
story of Japanese political development; for not merely did the Liberals
enlist under the banner of the statesmen whom for twenty years they had
fought to overthrow, but they also tacitly consented to erase from their
profession of faith its essential article, parliamentary cabinets, and,
by resigning that article to the Progressists, created for the first
time an opposition with a solid and intelligible platform. Nevertheless
the seiyu-kai grew steadily in strength whereas the number of its
opponents declined correspondingly. At the general elections in May 1908
the former secured 195 seats, the four sections of the opposition
winning only 184. Thus for the first time in Japanese parliamentary
history a majority of the lower chamber found themselves marching under
the same banner. Moreover, the four sections of the opposition were
independently organized and differed nearly as much from one another as
they all differed from the seiyu-kai. Their impotence to make head
against the solid phalanx of the latter was thus conspicuous, especially
during the 1908-1909 session of the Diet. Much talk then began to be
heard about the necessity of coalition, and that this talk will
materialize eventually cannot be doubted. Reduction of armaments,
abolition of taxes specially imposed for belligerent purposes, and the
substitution of a strictly constitutional system for the existing
bureaucracy--these objects constitute a sufficiently solid platform, and
nothing is wanted except that a body of proved administrators should
join the opposition in occupying it. There were in 1909 no signs,
however, that any such defection from the ranks of officialdom would
take place. Deference is paid to public opinions inasmuch as even a
seiyu-kai ministry will not remain in office after its popularity has
begun to show signs of waning. But no deference is paid to the doctrine
of party cabinets. Prince Ito did not continue to lead the seiyu-kai for
more than three years. In July 1903 he delegated that function to
Marquis Saionji, representative of one of the very oldest families of
the court nobility and a personal friend of the emperor, as also was
Prince Ito. The Imperial stamp is thus vicariously set upon the
principle of political combinations for the better practical conduct of
parliamentary business, but that the seiyu-kai, founded by Prince Ito
and led by Marquis Saionji, should ever hold office in defiance of the
sovereign's mandate is unthinkable. Constitutional institutions in Japan
are therefore developing along lines entirely without precedent. The
storm and stress of early parliamentary days have given place to
comparative calm. During the first twelve sessions of the Diet,
extending over 8 years, there were five dissolutions of the lower house.
During the next thirteen sessions, extending over 11 years, there were
two dissolutions. During the first 8 years of the Diet's existence there
were six changes of cabinet; during the next 11 years there were five
changes. Another healthy sign was that men of affairs were beginning to
realize the importance of parliamentary representation. At first the
constituencies were contested almost entirely by professional
politicians, barristers and journalists. In 1909 there was a solid body
(the _boshin_ club) of business men commanding nearly 50 votes in the
lower house; and as the upper chamber included 45 representatives of the
highest tax-payers, the interests of commerce and industry were
intelligently debated. (F. By.)
X.--THE CLAIM OF JAPAN: BY A JAPANESE STATESMAN[4]
It has been said that it is impossible for an Occidental to understand
the Oriental, and vice versa; but, admitting that the mutual
understanding of two different races or peoples is a difficult matter,
why should Occidentals and Orientals be thus set in opposition? No
doubt, different peoples of Europe understand each other better than
they do the Asiatic; but can Asiatic peoples understand each other
better than they can Europeans or than the Europeans can understand any
of them? Do Japanese understand Persians or even Indians better than
English or French? It is true perhaps that Japanese can and do
understand the Chinese better than Europeans; but that is due not only
to centuries of mutual intercourse, but to the wonderful and peculiar
fact that they have adopted the old classical Chinese literature as
their own, somewhat in the way, but in a much greater degree, in which
the European nations have adopted the old Greek and Latin literatures.
What is here contended for is that the mutual understanding of two
peoples is not so much a matter of race, but of the knowledge of each
other's history, traditions, literature, &c.
The Japanese have, they think, suffered much from the misunderstanding
of their motives, feelings and ideas; what they want is to be understood
fully and to be known for what they really are, be it good or bad. They
desire, above all, not to be lumped as Oriental, but to be known and
judged on their own account. In the latter half of the 19th century, in
fact up to the Chinese War, it irritated Japanese travelling abroad more
than anything else to be taken for Chinese. Then, after the Chinese War,
the alarm about Japan leading Eastern Asia to make a general attack upon
Europe--the so-called Yellow Peril--seemed so ridiculous to the Japanese
that the bad effects of such wild talk were not quite appreciated by
them. The aim of the Japanese nation, ever since, at the time of the
Restoration (1868), they laid aside definitively all ideas of seclusion
and entered into the comity of nations, has been that they should rise
above the level of the Eastern peoples to an equality with the Western
and should be in the foremost rank of the brotherhood of nations; it was
not their ambition at all to be the champion of the East against the
West, but rather to beat down the barriers between themselves and the
West.
The intense pride of the Japanese in their nationality, their patriotism
and loyalty, arise from their history, for what other nation can point
to an Imperial family of one unbroken lineage reigning over the land for
twenty-five centuries? Is it not a glorious tradition for a nation, that
its emperor should be descended directly from that grandson of "the
great heaven-illuminating goddess," to whom she said, "This land
(Japan) is the region over which my descendants shall be the lords. Do
thou, my august child, proceed thither and govern it. Go! _The
prosperity of thy dynasty shall be coeval with heaven and earth._" Thus
they call their country the land of _kami_ (ancient gods of tradition).
With this spirit, in the old days when China held the hegemony of the
East, and all neighbouring peoples were regarded as its tributaries,
Japan alone, largely no doubt on account of its insular position, held
itself quite aloof; it set at defiance the power of Kublai and routed
utterly the combined Chinese and Korean fleets with vast forces sent by
him to conquer Japan, this being the only occasion that Japan was
threatened with a foreign invasion.
With this spirit, as soon as they perceived the superiority of the
Western civilization, they set to work to introduce it into their
country, just as in the 7th and 8th centuries they had adopted and
adapted the Chinese civilization. In 1868, the first year of the era of
Meiji, the emperor swore solemnly the memorable oath of five articles,
setting forth the policy that was to be and has been followed thereafter
by the government. These five articles were:--
1. Deliberative assemblies shall be established and all measures of
government shall be decided by public opinion.
2. All classes, high and low, shall unite in vigorously carrying out
the plan of government.
3. Officials, civil and military, and all common people shall as far
as possible be allowed to fulfil their just desires so that there may
not be any discontent among them.
4. _Uncivilized customs of former times shall be broken through_, and
everything shall be based upon just and equitable principles of heaven
and earth (nature).
5. _Knowledge shall be sought for throughout the world_, so that the
welfare of the empire may be promoted.
(Translation due to Prof. N. Hozumi of Tokyo Imp. Univ.)
It is interesting, as showing the continuity of the policy of the
empire, to place side by side with these articles the words of the
Imperial rescript issued in 1908, which are as follows:--
"We are convinced that with the rapid and unceasing advance of
civilization, the East and West, mutually dependent and helping each
other, are bound by common interests. It is our sincere wish to
continue to enjoy for ever its benefits in common with other powers by
entering into closer and closer relations and strengthening our
friendship with them. Now in order to be able to move onward along
with the constant progress of the world and to share in the blessings
of civilization, it is obvious that we must develop our internal
resources; our nation, but recently emerged from an exhausting war,
must put forth increased activity in every branch of administration.
It therefore behoves our people to endeavour with one mind, from the
highest to the lowest, to pursue their callings honestly and
earnestly, to be industrious and thrifty, to abide in faith and
righteousness, to be simple and warm-hearted, to put away ostentation
and vanity and strive after the useful and solid, to avoid idleness
and indulgence, and to apply themselves incessantly to strenuous and
arduous tasks...."
The ambition of the Japanese people has been, as already stated, to be
recognized as an equal by the Great Powers. With this object in view,
they have spared no efforts to introduce what they considered superior
in the Western civilization, although it may perhaps be doubted whether
in their eagerness they have always been wise. _They have always
resented any discrimination against them as an Asiatic people_, not
merely protesting against it, knowing that such would not avail much,
but making every endeavour to remove reasons or excuses for it. Formerly
there were troops stationed to guard several legations; foreign postal
service was not entirely in the hands of the Japanese government for a
long time; these and other indignities against the sovereignty of the
nation were gradually removed by proving that they were not necessary.
Then there was the question of the extra-territorial jurisdiction; an
embassy was sent to Europe and America as early as 1871 with a view to
the revision of treaties in order to do away with this _imperium in
imperio_, that being the date originally fixed for the revision; the
embassy, however, failed in its object but was not altogether fruitless,
for it was then clearly seen that it would be necessary to revise
thoroughly the system of laws and entirely to reorganize the law courts
before Occidental nations could be induced to forgo this privilege.
These measures were necessary in any case as a consequence of the
introduction of the Western methods and ideas, but they were hastened by
the fact of their being a necessary preliminary to the revision of
treaties. When the new code of laws was brought before the Diet at its
first session, and there was a great opposition against it in the House
of Peers on account of its many defects and especially of its ignoring
many established usages, the chief argument in its favour, or at least
one that had a great influence with many who were unacquainted with
technical points, was that it was necessary for the revision of treaties
and that the defects, if any, could be afterwards amended at leisure.
These preparations on the part of the government, however, took a long
time, and in the meantime the whole nation, or at least the more
intelligent part of it, was chafing impatiently under what was
considered a national indignity. The United States, by being the first
to agree to its abandonment, although this agreement was rendered
nugatory by a conditional clause, added to the stock of goodwill with
which the Japanese have always regarded the Americans on account of
their attitude towards them. When at last the consummation so long and
ardently desired was attained, great was the joy with which it was
greeted, for now it was felt that Japan was indeed on terms of equality
with Occidental nations. Great Britain, by being the first to conclude
the revised treaty--an act due to the remarkable foresight of her
statesmen in spite of the opposition of their countrymen in Japan--did
much to bring about the cordial feeling of the Japanese towards the
British, which made them welcome with such enthusiasm the Anglo-Japanese
alliance. The importance of this last as a powerful instrument for the
preservation of peace in the extreme East has been, and always will be,
appreciated at its full value by the more intelligent and thoughtful
among the Japanese; but by the mass of the people it was received with
great acclamation, owing partly to the already existing good feeling
towards the British, but also in a large measure because it was felt
that the fact that Great Britain should leave its "splendid isolation"
to enter into this alliance proclaimed in the clearest possible way that
Japan had entered on terms of full equality among the brotherhood of
nations, and that thenceforth there could be no ground for that
discrimination against them as an Asiatic nation which had been so
galling to the Japanese people.
There have been, and there still are being made, many charges against
the Japanese government and people. While admitting that some of them
may be founded on facts, it is permissible to point out that traits and
acts of a few individuals have often been generalized to be the national
characteristic or the result of a fixed policy, while in many cases such
charges are due to misunderstandings arising from want of thorough
knowledge of each other's language, customs, usages, ideas, &c. Take the
principle of "the open door," for instance; the Japanese government has
been charged in several instances with acting contrary to it. It is
natural that where (as in China) competition is very keen between men of
different nationalities, individuals should sometimes feel aggrieved and
make complaints of unfairness against the government of their
competitors; it is also natural that people at home should listen to and
believe in those charges made against the Japanese by their countrymen
in the East, while unfortunately the Japanese, being so far away and
often unaware of them, have not a ready means of vindicating themselves;
but subsequent investigations have always shown those charges to be
either groundless or due to misunderstandings, and it may be asserted
that in no case has the charge been substantiated that the Japanese
government has knowingly, deliberately, of _malice prepense_ been guilty
of breach of faith in violating the principle of "the open door" to
which it has solemnly pledged itself. That it has often been accused by
the Japanese subjects of weakness _vis-a-vis_ foreign powers to the
detriment of their interests, is perhaps a good proof of its fairness.
The Japanese have often been charged with looseness of commercial
morality. This charge is harder to answer than the last, for it cannot
be denied that there have been many instances of dishonesty on the part
of Japanese tradesmen or employees; _tu quoque_ is never a valid
argument, but there are black sheep everywhere, and there were special
reasons why foreigners should have come in contact with many such in
their dealings with the Japanese. In days before the Restoration,
merchants and tradesmen were officially classed as the lowest of four
classes, the samurai, the farmers, the artisans and the merchants;
practically, however, rich merchants serving as bankers and employers of
others were held in high esteem, even by the samurai. Yet it cannot be
denied that the position of the last three was low compared with that of
the samurai; their education was not so high, and although of course
there was the same code of morality for them all, there was no such high
standard of honour as was enjoined upon the samurai by the bushido or
"the way of samurai." Now, when foreign trade was first opened, it was
naturally not firms with long-established credit and methods that first
ventured upon the new field of business--some few that did failed owing
to their want of experience--it was rather enterprising and adventurous
spirits with little capital or credit who eagerly flocked to the newly
opened ports to try their fortune. It was not to be expected that all or
most of those should be very scrupulous in their dealings with the
foreigners; the majority of those adventurers failed, while a few of the
abler men, generally those who believed in and practised honesty as the
best policy, succeeded and came to occupy an honourable position as
business men. It is also asserted that foreigners, or at least some of
them, did not scruple to take unfair advantage of the want of experience
on the part of their Japanese customers to impose upon them methods
which they would not have followed except in the East; it may be that
such methods were necessary or were deemed so in dealing with those
adventurers, but it is a fact that it afterwards took a long time and
great effort on the part of Japanese traders to break through some
usages and customs which were established in earlier days and which they
deemed derogatory to their credit or injurious to their interests.
Infringement of patent rights and fraudulent imitation of trade-marks
have with some truth also been charged against the Japanese; about this
it is to be remarked that although the principles of morality cannot
change, their applications may be new; patents and trade-marks are
something new to the Japanese, and it takes time to teach that their
infringement should be regarded with the same moral censure as stealing.
The government has done everything to prevent such practices by enacting
and enforcing laws against them, and nowadays they are not so common. Be
that as it may, such a state of affairs as that mentioned above is now
passing away almost entirely; commerce and trade are now regarded as
highly honourable professions, merchants and business men occupy the
highest social positions, several of them having been lately raised to
the peerage, and are as honourable a set of men as can be met anywhere.
It is however to be regretted that in introducing Western business
methods, it has not been quite possible to exclude some of their evils,
such as promotion of swindling companies, tampering with members of
legislature, and so forth.
The Japanese have also been considered in some quarters to be a
bellicose nation. No sooner was the war with Russia over than they were
said to be ready and eager to fight with the United States. This is
another misrepresentation arising from want of proper knowledge of
Japanese character and feelings. Although it is true that within the
quarter of a century preceding 1909 Japan was engaged in two sanguinary
wars, not to mention the Boxer affair, in which owing to her proximity
to the scene of the disturbances she had to take a prominent part, yet
neither of these was of her own seeking; in both cases she had to fight
or else submit to become a mere cipher in the world, if indeed she could
have preserved her existence as an independent state. The Japanese, far
from being a bellicose people, deliberately cut off all intercourse with
the outside world in order to avoid international troubles, and remained
absolutely secluded from the world and at profound peace within their
own territory for two centuries and a half. Besides, the Japanese have
always regarded the Americans with a special goodwill, due no doubt to
the steady liberal attitude of the American government and people
towards Japan and Japanese, and they look upon the idea of war between
Japan and the United States as ridiculous.
Restrictions upon Japanese emigrants to the United States and to
Australia are irritating to the Japanese, because it is a discrimination
against them as belonging to the "yellow" race, whereas it has been
their ambition to raise themselves above the level of the Eastern
nations to an equality with the Western nations, although they cannot
change the colour of their skin. When a Japanese even of the highest
rank and standing has to obtain a permit from an American immigrant
officer before he can enter American territory, is it not natural that
he and his countrymen should resent this discrimination as an indignity?
But they have too much good sense to think or even dream of going to war
upon such a matter; on the contrary, the Japanese government agreed in
1908 to limit the number of emigrants in order to avoid complications.
It may be repeated that it has ever been the ambition of the Japanese
people to take rank with the Great Powers of the world, and to have a
voice in the council of nations; they demand that they shall not be
discriminated against because of the colour of their skin, but that they
shall rather be judged by their deeds. With this aim, they have made
great efforts: where charges brought against them have any foundation in
fact, they have endeavoured to make reforms; where they are false or due
to misunderstandings they have tried to live them down, trusting to time
for their vindication. They are willing to be judged by the intelligent
and impartial world: a fair field and no favour is what they claim, and
think they have a right to claim, from the world. (K.)
BIBLIOGRAPHY.--The latest edition of von Wemckstern's _Bibliography of
the Japanese Empire_ contains the names of all important books and
publications relating to Japan, which have now become very numerous. A
general reference must suffice here to Captain F. Brinkley's _Japan_
(12 vols., 1904); the works of B. H. Chamberlain, _Things Japanese_
(5th ed., 1905, &c.); W. G. Aston, _Hist. of Jap. Literature, &c._,
and Lafcadio Hearn, _Japan: an Interpretation_ (1904), &c., as the
European authors with intimate knowledge of the country who have done
most to give accurate and illuminating expression to its development.
See also _Fifty Years of New Japan_, an encyclopaedic account of the
national development in all its aspects, compiled by Count Shigenobu
Okuma (2 vols., 1907, 1908; Eng. ed. by Marcus B. Huish, 1909).
FOOTNOTES:
[1] The Taira and the Minamoto both traced their descent from
imperial princes; the Tokugawa were a branch of the Minamoto.
[2] Daimyo ("great name") was the title given to a feudal chief.
[3] Neither the Liberals nor the Progressists had a working majority
in the house of representatives, nor could the ranks of either have
furnished men qualified to fill all the administrative posts.
[4] The following expression of the Japanese point of view, by a
statesman of the writer's authority and experience, may well
supplement the general account of the progress of Japan and its
inclusion among the great civilized powers of the world.--(ED.
_E. B._)
JAPANNING, the art of coating surfaces of metal, wood, &c., with a
variety of varnishes, which are dried and hardened on in stoves or hot
chambers. These drying processes constitute the main distinguishing
features of the art. The trade owes its name to the fact that it is an
imitation of the famous lacquering of Japan (see JAPAN: _Art_), which,
however, is prepared with entirely different materials and processes,
and is in all respects much more brilliant, durable and beautiful than
any ordinary japan work. Japanning is done in clear transparent
varnishes, in black and in body colours; but black japan is the most
characteristic and common style of work. The varnish for black japan
consists essentially of pure natural asphaltum with a proportion of gum
anime dissolved in linseed oil and thinned with turpentine. In thin
layers such a japan has a rich dark brown colour; it only shows a
brilliant black in thicker coatings. For fine work, which has to be
smoothed and polished, several coats of black are applied in succession,
each being separately dried in the stove at a heat which may rise to
about 300 deg. F. Body colours consist of a basis of transparent varnish
mixed with the special mineral paints of the desired colours or with
bronze powders. The transparent varnish used by japanners is a copal
varnish which contains less drying oil and more turpentine than is
contained in ordinary painters' oil varnish. Japanning produces a
brilliant polished surface which is much more durable and less easily
affected by heat, moisture or other influences than any ordinary painted
and varnished work. It may be regarded as a process intermediate between
ordinary painting and enamelling. It is very extensively applied in the
finishing of ordinary iron-mongery goods and domestic iron-work, deed
boxes, clock dials and papier-mache articles. The process is also
applied to blocks of slate for making imitation of black and other
marbles for chimneypieces, &c., and in a modified form is employed for
preparing enamelled, japan or patent leather.
JAPHETH ([Hebrew: Yefeth]), in the Bible, the youngest son of Noah[1]
according to the Priestly Code (c. 450 B.C.); but in the earlier
tradition[2] the second son, also the "father" of one of the three
groups into which the nations of the world are divided.[3] In Gen. ix.
27, Noah pronounces the following blessing on Japheth--
"God enlarge (Heb. _yapht_) Japheth (Heb. _yepheth_),
And let him dwell in the tents of Shem;
And let Canaan be his servant."
This is probably an ancient oracle independent alike of the flood story
and the genealogical scheme in Gen. x. Shem is probably Israel; Canaan,
of course, the Canaanites; by analogy, Japheth should be some third
element of the population of Palestine--the Philistines or the
Phoenicians have been suggested. The sense of the second line is
doubtful, it may be "let God dwell" or "let Japheth dwell"; on the
latter view Japheth appears to be in friendly alliance with Shem. The
words might mean that Japheth was an intruding invader, but this is not
consonant with the tone of the oracle. Possibly Japheth is only present
in Gen. ix. 20-27 through corruption of the text, Japheth may be an
accidental repetition of yapht "may he enlarge," misread as a proper
name.
In Gen. x. Japheth is the northern and western division of the nations;
being perhaps used as a convenient title under which to group the more
remote peoples who were not thought of as standing in ethnic or
political connexion with Israel or Egypt. Thus of his descendants,
Gomer, Magog,[4] Tubal, Meshech, Ashkenaz, Riphath and Togarmah are
peoples who are located with more or less certainty in N.E. Asia Minor,
Armenia and the lands to the N.E. of the Black Sea; Javan is the
Ionians, used loosely for the seafaring peoples of the West, including
Tarshish (Tartessus in Spain), Kittim (Cyprus), Rodanim[5] (Rhodes).
There is no certain identification of Tiras and Elishah.
The similarity of the name Japheth to the Titan Iapetos of Greek
mythology is probably a mere accident. A place Japheth is mentioned in
Judith ii. 25, but it is quite unknown.
In addition to commentaries and dictionary articles, see E. Meyer,
_Die Israeliten und ihre Nachbarstamme_, pp. 219 sqq. (W. H. Be.)
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Gen. v. 32, vi. 10, vii. 13, x. 1; cf. 1 Chron. i. 4.
[2] Gen. ix. 27, x. 2, J. c. 850-750 B.C. In ix. 18 Ham is an
editorial addition.
[3] Gen. x. 1-5; cf. I Chron. i. 5-7. For the significance of the
genealogies in Gen. x. see HAM.
[4] See GOMER, GOG.
[5] So we should read with 1 Chron. i. 7 (LXX.) for Dodanim.
JAR, a vessel of simple form, made of earthenware, glass, &c., with a
spoutless mouth, and usually without handles. The word came into English
through Fr. _jarre_ or Span, _jarra_, from Arab, _jarrah_, the
earthenware vessel of Eastern countries, used to contain water, oil,
wine, &c. The simple electrical condenser known as a _Leyden Jar_ (q.v.)
was so called because of the early experiments made in the science of
electricity at Leiden. In the sense of a harsh vibrating sound, a sudden
shock or vibrating movement, hence dissension, quarrel or petty strife,
"jar" is onomatopoeic in origin; it is also seen in the name of the bird
night-jar (also known as the goat-sucker). In the expression "on the
jar" or "ajar," of a door or window partly open, the word is another
form of _chare_ or _char_, meaning turn or turning, which survives in
charwoman, one who works at a turn, a job and _chore_, a job, spell of
work.
JARGON, in its earliest use a term applied to the chirping and
twittering of birds, but since the 15th century mainly confined to any
language, spoken or written, which is either unintelligible to the user
or to the hearer. It is particularly applied by uninstructed hearers or
readers to the language full of technical terminology used by
scientific, philosophic and other writers. The word is O. Fr., and
Cotgrave defines it as "gibridge (gibberish), fustian language." It is
cognate with Span. _gerigonza_, and Ital. _gergo_, _gergone_, and
probably related to the onomatopoeic O. Fr. _jargouiller_, to chatter.
The root is probably seen in Lat. _garrire_, to chatter.
JARGOON, or Jargon (occasionally in old writings _jargounce_ and
_jacounce_), a name applied by modern mineralogists to those zircons
which are fine enough to be cut as gem-stones, but are not of the red
colour which characterizes the hyacinth or jacinth. The word is related
to Arab _zargun_ (zircon). Some of the finest jargoons are green, others
brown and yellow, whilst some are colourless. The colourless jargoon may
be obtained by heating certain coloured stones. When zircon is heated it
sometimes changes in colour, or altogether loses it, and at the same
time usually increases in density and brilliancy. The so-called Matura
diamonds, formerly sent from Matara (or Matura), in Ceylon, were
decolorized zircons. The zircon has strong refractive power, and its
lustre is almost adamantine, but it lacks the fire of the diamond. The
specific gravity of zircon is subject to considerable variation in
different varieties; thus Sir A. H. Church found the sp. gr. of a fine
leaf-green jargoon to be as low as 3.982, and that of a pure white
jargoon as high as 4.705. Jargoon and tourmaline, when cut as gems, are
sometimes mistaken for each other, but the sp. gr. is distinctive, since
that of tourmaline is only 3 to 3.2. Moreover, in tourmaline the
dichroism is strongly marked, whereas in jargoon it is remarkably
feeble. The refractive indices of jargoon are much higher than those of
tourmaline (see ZIRCON). (F. W. R.*)
JARIR IBN 'ATIYYA UL-KHATFI (d. 728), Arabian poet, was born in the
reign of the caliph 'Ali, was a member of the tribe Kulaib, a part of
the Tamim, and lived in Irak. Of his early life little is known, but he
succeeded in winning the favour of Hajjaj, the governor of Irak (see
CALIPHATE). Already famous for his verse, he became more widely known by
his feud with Farazdaq and Akhtal. Later he went to Damascus and visited
the court of Abdalmalik ('Abd ul-Malik) and that of his successor,
Walid. From neither of these did he receive a warm welcome. He was,
however, more successful with Omar II., and was the only poet received
by the pious caliph.
His verse, which, like that of his contemporaries, is largely satire
and eulogy, was published in 2 vols. (Cairo, 1896). (G. W. T.)
JARKENT, a town of Russian Central Asia, in the province of
Semiryechensk, 70 m. W.N.W. of Kulja and near to the Ili river. Pop.
(1897), 16,372.
JARNAC, a town of western France in the department of Charente, on the
right bank of the river Charente, and on the railway 23 m. W. of
Angouleme, between that city and Cognac. Pop. (1906), 4493. The town is
well built; and an avenue, planted with poplar trees, leads to a
handsome suspension bridge. The church contains an interesting ogival
crypt. There are communal colleges for both sexes. Brandy, wine and
wine-casks are made in the town. Jarnac was in 1569 the scene of a
battle in which the Catholics defeated the Protestants. A pyramid marks
the spot where Louis, Prince de Conde, one of the Protestant generals,
was slain. Jarnac gave its name to an old French family, of which the
best known member is Gui Chabot, comte de Jarnac (d. c. 1575), whose
lucky backstroke in his famous duel with Chateigneraie gave rise to the
proverbial phrase _coup de jarnac_, signifying an unexpected blow.
JARO, a town of the province of Iloilo, Panay, Philippine Islands, on
the Jaro river, 2 m. N.W. of the town of Iloilo, the capital. Pop.
(1903), 10,681. It lies on a plain in the midst of a rich agricultural
district, has several fine residences, a cathedral, a curious
three-tiered tower, a semi-weekly paper and a monthly periodical. Jaro
was founded by the Spanish in 1584. From 1903 until February 1908 it was
part of the town or municipality of Iloilo.
JAROSITE, a rare mineral species consisting of hydrous potassium and
aluminium sulphate, and belonging to the group of isomorphous
rhombohedral minerals enumerated below:--
Alunite K2 [Al(OH)2]6 (SO4)4
Jarosite K2 [Fe(OH)2]6 (SO4)4
Natrojarosite Na2 [Fe(OH)2]6 (SO4)4
Plumbojarosite Pb [Fe(OH)2]8 (SO4)4
Jarosite usually occurs as drusy incrustations of minute indistinct
crystals with a yellowish-brown colour and brilliant lustre. Hardness 3;
sp. gr. 3.15. The best specimens, consisting of crystalline crusts on
limonite, are from the Jaroso ravine in the Sierra Almagrera, province
of Almeria, Spain, from which locality the mineral receives its name. It
has been also found, often in association with iron ores, at a few other
localities. A variety occurring as concretionary or mulberry-like forms
is known as moronolite (from Gr. [Greek: moron], "mulberry," and [Greek:
lithos], "stone"); it is found at Monroe in Orange county, New York. The
recently discovered species natrojarosite and plumbojarosite occur as
yellowish-brown glistening powders consisting wholly of minute crystals,
and are from Nevada and New Mexico respectively. (L. J. S.)
JARRAH WOOD (an adaptation of the native name _Jerryhl_), the product of
a large tree (_Eucalyptus marginata_) found in south-western Australia,
where it is said to cover an area of 14,000 sq. m. The trees grow
straight in the stem to a great size, and yield squared timber up to 40
ft. length and 24 in. diameter. The wood is very hard, heavy (sp. gr.
1.010) and close-grained, with a mahogany-red colour, and sometimes
sufficient "figure" to render it suitable for cabinet-makers' use. The
timber possesses several useful characteristics; and great expectations
were at first formed as to its value for ship-building and general
constructive purposes. These expectations have not, however, been
realized, and the exclusive possession of the tree has not proved that
source of wealth to western Australia which was at one time expected.
Its greatest merit for ship-building and marine purposes is due to the
fact that it resists, better than any other timber, the attacks of the
_Teredo navalis_ and other marine borers, and on land it is equally
exempt, in tropical countries, from the ravages of white ants. When
felled with the sap at its lowest point and well seasoned, the wood
stands exposure in the air, earth or sea remarkably well, on which
account it is in request for railway sleepers, telegraph poles and piles
in the British colonies and India. The wood, however, frequently shows
longitudinal blisters, or lacunae, filled with resin, the same as may be
observed in spruce fir timber; and it is deficient in fibre, breaking
with a short fracture under comparatively moderate pressure. It has been
classed at Lloyds for ship-building purposes in line three, table A, of
the registry rules.
JARROW, a port and municipal borough in the Jarrow parliamentary
division of Durham, England, on the right bank of the Tyne, 6(1/2) m.
below Newcastle, and on a branch of the North-Eastern railway. Pop.
(1901), 34,295. The parish church of St Paul was founded in 685, and
retains portions of pre-Norman work. The central tower is Norman, and
there are good Decorated and Perpendicular details in the body of the
church. Close by are the scattered ruins of the monastery begun by the
pious Biscop in 681, and consecrated with the church by Ceolfrid in 685.
Within the walls of this monastery the Venerable Bede spent his life
from childhood; and his body was at first buried within the church,
whither, until it was removed under Edward the Confessor to Durham, it
attracted many pilgrims. The town is wholly industrial, devoted to
ship-building, chemical works, paper mills and the neighbouring
collieries. It owes its development from a mere pit village very largely
to the enterprise of Sir Charles Mark Palmer (q.v.). Jarrow Slake, a
river bay, 1 m. long by 1/2 m. broad, contains the Tyne docks of the
North-Eastern railway company. A great quantity of coal is shipped.
Jarrow was incorporated in 1875, and the corporation consists of a
mayor, 6 aldermen and 18 councillors. Area, 783 acres.
JARRY, NICOLAS, one of the best-known 17th century French calligraphers.
He was born at Paris about 1620, and was officially employed by Louis
XIV. His most famous work is the _Guirlande de Julie_ (1641). He died
some time before 1674.
JARVIS, JOHN WESLEY (1780-1840), American artist, nephew of the great
John Wesley, was born at South Shields, England, and was taken to the
United States at the age of five. He was one of the earliest American
painters to give serious attention to the study of anatomy. He lived at
first in Philadelphia, afterwards establishing himself in New York,
where he enjoyed great popularity, though his conviviality and eccentric
mode of life affected his work. He visited Baltimore, Charleston and New
Orleans, entertaining much and painting portraits of prominent people,
particularly in New Orleans, where General Andrew Jackson was one of his
sitters. He had for assistants at different times both Sully and Inman.
He affected singularity in dress and manners, and his _mots_ were the
talk of the day. But his work deteriorated, and he died in great poverty
in New York City. Examples of his painting are in the collection of the
New York Historical Society.
JASHAR, BOOK OF, in Hebrew _Sepher ha-yashar_, a Hebrew composition
mentioned as though well-known in Josh. x. 13 and 2 Sam. i. 18. From
these two passages it seems to have been a book of songs relating to
important events, but no early collection of the kind is now extant, nor
is anything known of it. Various speculations have been put forward as
to the name: (1) that it means the book of the upright, i.e. Israel or
distinguished Israelites, the root being the same as in Jeshurun; (2)
that Jashar ([Hebrew: yashar]) is a transposition of shir ([Hebrew:
shir], song); (3) that it should be pointed Yashir ([Hebrew: yashir],
sing; cf. Exod. xv. 1) and was so called after its first word. None of
these is very convincing, though support may be found for them all in
the versions. The Septuagint favours (1) by its rendering [Greek: epi
bibliou tou euthous] in Samuel (it omits the words in Joshua); the
Vulgate has _in libro justorum_ in both places; the Syriac in Samuel has
_Ashir_, which suggests a Hebrew reading _ha-shir_ (the song), and in
Joshua it translates "book of praises." The Targum on both passages has
"book of the law," an explanation which is followed by the chief Jewish
commentators, making the incidents the fulfilment of passages in the
Pentateuch. Since it contained the lament of David (2 Sam. i. 18) it
cannot have been completed till after his time. If Wellhausen's
restoration of 1 Kings viii. 12 be accepted (from Septuagint 1 Kings
viii. 53, [Greek: en biblio tes odes]) where the reference is to the
building of the Temple, the book must have been growing in the time of
Solomon. The attempt of Donaldson[1] to reconstruct it is largely
subjective and uncritical.
In later times when it became customary to compose midrashic works
under well-known names, a book of Jashar naturally made its
appearance. It need hardly be remarked that this has nothing whatever
to do with the older book. It is an anonymous elaboration in Hebrew of
the early part of the biblical narrative, probably composed in the
12th century. The fact that its legendary material is drawn from
Arabic sources, as well as from Talmud, Midrash and later Jewish
works, would seem to show that the writer lived in Spain, or,
according to others, in south Italy. The first edition appeared at
Venice in 1625, and it has been frequently printed since. It was
translated into English by (or for) M. M. Noah (New York, 1840). A
work called _The Book of ... Jasher, translated ... by Alcuin_ (1751;
2nd ed., Bristol, 1829), has nothing to do with this or with any
Hebrew original, but is a mere fabrication by the printer, Jacob Hive,
who put it forward as the book "mentioned in Holy Scripture."
BIBLIOGRAPHY.--M. Heilprin, _Historical Poetry of the Ancient Hebrews_
(New York, 1879), i. 128-131; Mercati, "Una congettura sopra il libro
del Giusto," in _Studi e Testi_ (5, Roma, 1901). On the medieval work
see Zunz, _Gottesdienstliche Vortrage der Juden_ (Frankfurt a. M.,
1892), 2nd ed., p. 162.
FOOTNOTE:
[1] _Jashar: fragmenta archetypa carminum Hebraicorum_ (Berlin,
1854). Cf. Perowne's _Remarks_ on it (Lond. 1855).
JASHPUR, a tributary state of India, in the Central Provinces, having
been transferred from Bengal in 1905. The country is divided almost
equally into high and low lands. The Uparghat plateau on the east rises
2200 ft. above sea-level, and the hills above it reach their highest
point in Ranijula (3527 ft.). The only river of importance is the Ib, in
the bed of which diamonds are found, while from time immemorial its
sands have been washed for gold. Jashpur iron, smelted by the Kols, is
highly prized. Jungles of _sal_ forests abound, harbouring elephant,
bison and other wild beasts. Jungle products include lac, silk cocoons
and beeswax, which are exported. Area 1948 sq. m.; pop. (1901), 132,114;
estimated revenue L8000.
JASMIN, JACQUES (1798-1864), Provencal poet, was born at Agen on the 6th
of March 1798, his family name being Boe. His father, who was a tailor,
had a certain facility for making doggerel verses, which he sang or
recited at fairs and such-like popular gatherings; and Jacques, who used
generally to accompany him, was thus early familiarized with the part
which he afterwards so successfully filled himself. When sixteen years
of age he found employment at a hairdresser's shop, and subsequently
started a similar business of his own on the Gravier at Agen. In 1825 he
published his first volume of _Papillotos_ ("Curl Papers"), containing
poems in French (a language he used with a certain sense of restraint),
and in the familiar Agen _patois_--the popular speech of the working
classes--in which he was to achieve all his literary triumphs. Jasmin
was the most famous forerunner in Provencal literature (q.v.) of Mistral
and the _Felibrige_. His influence in rehabilitating, for literary
purposes, his native dialect, was particularly exercised in the public
recitals of his poems to which he devoted himself. His poetic gift, and
his flexible voice and action, fitted him admirably for this double role
of troubadour and jongleur. In 1835 he recited his "Blind Girl of
Castel-Cuille" at Bordeaux, in 1836 at Toulouse; and he met with an
enthusiastic reception in both those important cities. Most of his
public recitations were given for benevolent purposes, the proceeds
being contributed by him to the restoration of the church of Vergt and
other good works. Four successive volumes of _Papillotos_ were published
during his lifetime, and contained amongst others the following
remarkable poems, quoted in order: "The Charivari," "My Recollections"
(supplemented after an interval of many years), "The Blind Girl,"
"Francounetto," "Martha the Simple," and "The Twin Brothers." With the
exception of "The Charivari," these are all touching pictures of humble
life--in most cases real episodes--carefully elaborated by the poet till
the graphic descriptions, full of light and colour, and the admirably
varied and melodious verse, seem too spontaneous and easy to have cost
an effort. Jasmin was not a prolific writer, and, in spite of his
impetuous nature, would work a long time at one poem, striving to
realize every feeling he wished to describe, and give it its most lucid
and natural expression. A verse from his spirited poem, "The Third of
May," written in honour of Henry IV., and published in the first volume
of _Papillotos_, is engraved on the base of the statue erected to that
king at Nerac. In 1852 Jasmin's works were crowned by the Academie
Francaise, and a pension was awarded him. The medal struck on the
occasion bore the inscription: _Au poete moral et populaire_. His title
of "Maistre es Jeux" is a distinction only conferred by the academy of
Toulouse on illustrious writers. Pius IX. sent him the insignia of a
knight of St Gregory the Great, and he was made chevalier of the Legion
of Honour. He spent the latter years of his life on a small estate which
he had bought near Agen and named "Papillotos," and which he describes
in _Ma Bigno_ ("My Vine"). Though invited to represent his native city,
he refused to do so, preferring the pleasures and leisure of a country
life, and wisely judging that he was no really eligible candidate for
electoral honours. He died on the 4th of October 1864. His last poem, an
answer to Renan, was placed between his folded hands in his coffin.
JASMINE, or JESSAMINE, botanically _Jasminum_, a genus of shrubs or
climbers constituting the principal part of the tribe Jasminoideae of
the natural order Oleaceae, and comprising about 150 species, of which
40 or more occur in the gardens of Britain. The plants of the genus are
mostly natives of the warmer regions of the Old World; there is one
South American species. The leaves are pinnate or ternate, or sometimes
apparently simple, consisting of one leaflet, articulated to the
petiole. The flowers, usually white or yellow, are arranged in terminal
or axillary panicles, and have a tubular 5- or 8-cleft calyx, a
cylindrical corolla-tube, with a spreading limb, two included stamens
and a two-celled ovary.
The name is derived from the Persian _yasmin_. Linnaeus obtained a
fancied etymology from [Greek: ia], violets, and [Greek: osme], smell,
but the odour of its flowers bears no resemblance to that of the violet.
The common white jasmine, _Jasminum officinale_, one of the best known
and most highly esteemed of British hardy ligneous climbers, is a native
of northern India and Persia, introduced about the middle of the 16th
century. In the centre and south of Europe it is thoroughly
acclimatized. Although it grows to the height of 12 and sometimes 20
ft., its stem is feeble and requires support; its leaves are opposite,
pinnate and dark green, the leaflets are in three pairs, with an odd
one, and are pointed, the terminal one larger and with a tapering point.
The fragrant white flowers bloom from June to October; and, as they are
found chiefly on the young shoots, the plant should only be pruned in
the autumn. Varieties with golden and silver-edged leaves and one with
double flowers are known.
[Illustration: _Jasminum grandiflorum_; flower, natural size.]
The zambak or Arabian jasmine, _J. Sambac_, is an evergreen
white-flowered climber, 6 or 8 ft. high, introduced into Britain in
the latter part of the 17th century. Two varieties introduced somewhat
later are respectively 3-leaved and double-flowered, and these, as
well as that with normal flowers, bloom throughout the greater part of
the year. On account of their exquisite fragrance the flowers are
highly esteemed in the East, and are frequently referred to by the
Persian and Arabian poets. An oil obtained by boiling the leaves is
used to anoint the head for complaints of the eye, and an oil obtained
from the roots is used medicinally to arrest the secretion of milk.
The flowers of one of the double varieties are held sacred to Vishnu,
and used as votive offerings in Hindu religious ceremonies. The
Spanish, or Catalonian jasmine, _J. grandiflorum_, a native of the
north-west Himalaya, and cultivated both in the old and new world, is
very like _J. officinale_, but differs in the size of the leaflets;
the branches are shorter and stouter, and the flowers very much
larger, and reddish underneath. By grafting it on two-year-old plants
of _J. officinale_, an erect bush about 3 ft. high is obtained,
requiring no supports. In this way it is very extensively cultivated
at Cannes and Grasse, in the south of France; the plants are set in
rows, fully exposed to the sun; they come into full bearing the second
year after grafting; the blossoms, which are very large and intensely
fragrant, are produced from July till the end of October, but those of
August and September are the most odoriferous.
The aroma is extracted by the process known as _enfleurage_, i.e.
absorption by a fatty body, such as purified lard or olive oil. Square
glass trays framed with wood about 3 in. deep are spread over with
grease about half an inch thick, in which ridges are made to
facilitate absorption, and sprinkled with freshly gathered flowers,
which are renewed every morning during the whole time the plant
remains in blossom; the trays are piled up in stacks to prevent the
evaporation of the aroma; and finally the pomade is scraped off the
glass, melted at as low a temperature as possible, and strained. When
oil is employed as the absorbent, coarse cotton cloths previously
saturated with the finest olive oil are laid on wire-gauze frames, and
repeatedly covered in the same manner with fresh flowers; they are
then squeezed under a press, yielding what is termed _huile antique au
jasmin_. Three pounds of flowers will perfume 1 lb. of grease--this is
exhausted by maceration in 1 pt. of rectified spirit to form the
"extract." An essential oil is distilled from jasmine in Tunis and
Algeria, but its high price prevents its being used to any extent. The
East Indian oil of jasmine is a compound largely contaminated with
sandalwood-oil.
The distinguishing characters of _J. odoratissimum_, a native of the
Canary Islands and Madeira, consist principally in the alternate,
obtuse, ternate and pinnate leaves, the 3-flowered terminal peduncles
and the 5-cleft yellow corolla with obtuse segments. The flowers have
the advantage of retaining when dry their natural perfume, which is
suggestive of a mixture of jasmine, jonquil and orange-blossom. In
China _J. paniculatum_ is cultivated as an erect shrub, known as
_sieu-hing-hwa_; it is valued for its flowers, which are used with
those of _J. Sambac_, in the proportion of 10 lb. of the former to 30
lb. of the latter, for scenting tea--40 lb. of the mixture being
required for 100 lb. of tea. _J. angustifolium_ is a beautiful
evergreen climber 10 to 12 ft. high, found in the Coromandel forests,
and introduced into Britain during the present century. Its leaves are
of a bright shining green; its large terminal flowers are white with a
faint tinge of red, fragrant and blooming throughout the year.
In Cochin China a decoction of the leaves and branches of _J.
nervosum_ is taken as a blood-purifier; and the bitter leaves of _J.
floribundum_ (called in Abyssinia _habbez-zelim_) mixed with kousso is
considered a powerful anthelmintic, especially for tapeworm; the
leaves and branches are added to some fermented liquors to increase
their intoxicating quality. In Catalonia and in Turkey the wood of the
jasmine is made into long, slender pipe-stems, highly prized by the
Moors and Turks. Syrup of jasmine is made by placing in a jar
alternate layers of the flowers and sugar, covering the whole with wet
cloths and standing it in a cool place; the perfume is absorbed by the
sugar, which is converted into a very palatable syrup. The important
medicinal plant known in America as the "Carolina jasmine" is not a
true jasmine (see GELSEMIUM).
Other hardy species commonly cultivated in gardens are the low or
Italian yellow-flowered jasmine, _J. humile_, an East Indian species
introduced and now found wild in the south of Europe, an erect shrub 3
or 4 ft. high, with angular branches, alternate and mostly ternate
leaves, blossoming from June to September; the common yellow jasmine,
_J. fruticans_, a native of southern Europe and the Mediterranean
region, a hardy evergreen shrub, 10 to 12 ft. high, with weak, slender
stems requiring support, and bearing yellow, odourless flowers from
spring to autumn; and _J. nudiflorum_ (China), which bears its bright
yellow flowers in winter before the leaves appear. It thrives in
almost any situation and grows rapidly.
JASON ([Greek: Iason]), in Greek legend, son of Aeson, king of Iolcus in
Thessaly. He was the leader of the Argonautic expedition (see
ARGONAUTS). After he returned from it he lived at Corinth with his wife
Medea (q.v.) for many years. At last he put away Medea, in order to
marry Glauce (or Creusa), daughter of the Corinthian king Creon. To
avenge herself, Medea presented the new bride with a robe and
head-dress, by whose magic properties the wearer was burnt to death, and
slew her children by Jason with her own hand. A later story represents
Jason as reconciled to Medea (Justin, xlii. 2). His death was said to
have been due to suicide through grief, caused by Medea's vengeance
(Diod. Sic. iv. 55); or he was crushed by the fall of the poop of the
ship "Argo," under which, on the advice of Medea, he had laid himself
down to sleep (argument of Euripides' _Medea_). The name (more correctly
Iason) means "healer," and Jason is possibly a local hero of Iolcus to
whom healing powers were attributed. The ancients regarded him as the
oldest navigator, and the patron of navigation. By the moderns he has
been variously explained as a solar deity; a god of summer; a god of
storm; a god of rain, who carries off the rain-giving cloud (the golden
fleece) to refresh the earth after a long period of drought. Some regard
the legend as a chthonian myth, Aea (Colchis) being the under-world in
the Aeolic religious system from which Jason liberates himself and his
betrothed; others, in view of certain resemblances between the story of
Jason and that of Cadmus (the ploughing of the field, the sowing of the
dragon's teeth, the fight with the Sparti, who are finally set fighting
with one another by a stone hurled into their midst), associate both
with Demeter the corn-goddess, and refer certain episodes to practices
in use at country festivals, e.g. the stone throwing, which, like the
[Greek: balletys] at the Eleusinia and the [Greek: lithobolia] at
Troezen (Pausanias ii. 30, 4 with Frazer's note) was probably intended
to secure a good harvest by driving away the evil spirits of
unfruitfulness.
See articles by C. Seeliger in Roscher's _Lexikon der Mythologie_ and
by F. Durrbach in Daremberg and Saglio's _Dictionnaire des
antiquites_; H. D. Muller, _Mythologie der griechischen Stamme_
(1861), ii. 328, who explains the name Jason as "wanderer"; W.
Mannhardt, _Mythologische Forschungen_ (1884), pp. 75, 130; O.
Crusius, _Beitrage zur griechischen Mythologie una
Religionsgeschichte_ (Leipzig, 1886).
_Later Versions of the Legend._--_Les fais et prouesses du noble et
vaillant chevalier Jason_ was composed in the middle of the 15th century
by Raoul Lefevre on the basis of Benoit's _Roman de Troie_, and
presented to Philip of Burgundy, founder of the order of the Golden
Fleece. The manners and sentiments of the 15th century are made to
harmonize with the classical legends after the fashion of the Italian
pre-Raphaelite painters, who equipped Jewish warriors with knightly
lance and armour. The story is well told; the digressions are few; and
there are many touches of domestic life and natural sympathy. The first
edition is believed to have been printed at Bruges in 1474.
Caxton translated the book under the title of _A Boke of the hoole Lyf
of Jason_, at the command of the duchess of Burgundy. A Flemish
translation appeared at Haarlem in 1495. The Benedictine Bernard de
Montfaucon (1655-1741) refers to a MS. by Guido delle Colonne,
_Historia Medeae et Jasonis_ (unpublished).
The _Histoire de la Thoison d'Or_ (Paris, 1516) by Guillaume Fillastre
(1400-1473), written about 1440-1450, is an historical compilation
dealing with the exploits of the _tres chretiennes maisons_ of France,
Burgundy and Flanders.
JASON OF CYRENE, a Hellenistic Jew, who lived about 100 B.C. and wrote a
history of the times of the Maccabees down to the victory over Nicanor
(175-161 B.C.). This work is said to have been in five books and formed
the basis of the present 2 Macc. (see ch. ii. 19-32).
JASPER, an opaque compact variety of quartz, variously coloured and
often containing argillaceous matter. The colours are usually red,
brown, yellow or green, and are due to admixture with compounds of iron,
either oxides or silicates. Although the term jasper is now restricted
to opaque quartz it is certain that the ancient _jaspis_ or [Greek:
iaspis] was a stone of considerable translucency. The jasper of
antiquity was in many cases distinctly green, for it is often compared
with the emerald and other green objects. Jasper is referred to in the
_Niebelungenlied_ as being clear and green. Probably the jasper of the
ancients included stones which would now be classed as chalcedony, and
the emerald-like jasper may have been akin to our chrysoprase. The
Hebrew word _yashefeh_ may have designated a green jasper (cf. Assyrian
_yashpu_). Professor Flinders Petrie has suggested that the _odem_, the
first stone on the High Priest's breastplate, translated "sard," was a
red jasper, whilst _tarshish_, the tenth stone, may have been a yellow
jasper (Hastings's _Dict. Bible_, 1902).
Many varieties of jasper are recognized. Riband jasper is a form in
which the colours are disposed in bands, as in the well-known
ornamental stone from Siberia, which shows a regular alternation of
dark red and green stripes. Egyptian jasper is a brown jasper,
occurring as nodules in the Lybian desert and in the Nile valley, and
characterized by a zonal arrangement of light and dark shades of
colour. Agate-jasper is a variety intermediate between true jasper and
chalcedony. Basanite, lydite, or Lydian stone, is a velvet-black
flinty jasper, used as a touchstone for testing the purity of precious
metals by their streak. Porcelain jasper is a clay indurated by
natural calcination. (F. W. R.*)
JASSY (_Iasii_), also written JASII, JASCHI and YASSY, the capital of
the department of Jassy, Rumania; situated on the left bank of the river
Bahlui, an affluent of the Jijia, about 10 m. W. of the Pruth and the
Russian frontier. Pop. (1900), 78,067. Jassy communicates by rail with
Galatz on the Danube, Kishinev in Bessarabia, and Czernowitz in
Bukowina. The surrounding country is one of uplands and woods, among
which rise the monasteries of Cetatuia, Frumoasa, and Galata with its
mineral springs, the water-cure establishment of Rapide and the great
seminary of Socola. Jassy itself stands pleasantly amid vineyards and
gardens, partly on two hills, partly in the hollow between. Its
primitive houses of timber and plaster were mostly swept away after
1860, when brick or stone came into general use, and good streets were
cut among the network of narrow, insanitary lanes. Jassy is the seat of
the metropolitan of Moldavia, and of a Roman Catholic archbishop.
Synagogues and churches abound. The two oldest churches date from the
reign of Stephen the Great (1458-1504); perhaps the finest, however, are
the 17th-century metropolitan, St Spiridion and Trei Erarchi, the last a
curious example of Byzantine art, erected in 1639 or 1640 by Basil the
Wolf, and adorned with countless gilded carvings on its outer walls and
twin towers. The St Spiridion Foundation (due to the liberality of
Prince Gregory Ghika in 1727, and available for the sick of all
countries and creeds) has an annual income of over L80,000, and
maintains hospitals and churches in several towns of Moldavia, besides
the baths at Slanic in Walachia. The main hospital in Jassy is a large
building, and possesses a maternity institution, a midwifery school, a
chemical institute, an inoculating establishment, &c. A society of
physicians and naturalists has existed in Jassy since the early part of
the 19th century, and a number of periodicals are published. Besides the
university, founded by Prince Cuza in 1864, with faculties of
literature, philosophy, law, science and medicine, there are a military
academy and schools of art, music and commerce; a museum, a fine hall
and a theatre; the state library, where the chief records of Rumanian
history are preserved; an appeal court, a chamber of commerce and
several banks. The city is the headquarters of the 4th army corps. It
has an active trade in petroleum, salt, metals, timber, cereals, fruit,
wine, spirits, preserved meat, textiles, clothing, leather, cardboard
and cigarette paper.
The inscription by which the existence of a _Jassiorum municipium_ in
the time of the Roman Empire is sought to be proved, lies open to grave
suspicion; but the city is mentioned as early as the 14th century, and
probably does derive its name from the Jassians, or Jazygians, who
accompanied the Cumanian invaders. It was often visited by the Moldavian
court. About 1564, Prince Alexander Lapusneanu, after whom one of the
chief streets is named, chose Jassy for the Moldavian capital, instead
of Suceava (now Suczawa, in Bukowina). It was already famous as a centre
of culture. Between 1561 and 1563 an excellent school and a Lutheran
church were founded by the Greek adventurer, Jacob Basilicus (see
RUMANIA: _History_). In 1643 the first printed book published in
Moldavia was issued from a press established by Basil the Wolf. He also
founded a school, the first in which the mother-tongue took the place of
Greek. Jassy was burned by the Tatars in 1513, by the Turks in 1538, and
by the Russians in 1686. By the Peace of Jassy the second Russo-Turkish
War was brought to a close in 1792. A Greek insurrection under Ypsilanti
in 1821 led to the storming of the city by the Turks in 1822. In 1844
there was a severe conflagration. For the loss caused to the city in
1861 by the removal of the seat of government to Bucharest the
constituent assembly voted L148,150, to be paid in ten annual
instalments, but no payment was ever made.
JATAKA, the technical name, in Buddhist literature, for a story of one
or other of the previous births of the Buddha. The word is also used for
the name of a collection of 547 of such stories included, by a most
fortunate conjuncture of circumstances, in the Buddhist canon. This is
the most ancient and the most complete collection of folk-lore now
extant in any literature in the world. As it was made at latest in the
3rd century B.C., it can be trusted not to give any of that modern or
European colouring which renders suspect much of the folk-lore collected
by modern travellers.
Already in the oldest documents, drawn up by the disciples soon after
the Buddha's death, he is identified with certain ancient sages of
renown. That a religious teacher should claim to be successor of the
prophets of old is not uncommon in the history of religions. But the
current belief in metempsychosis led, or enabled, the early Buddhists to
make a much wider claim. It was not very long before they gradually
identified their master with the hero of each of the popular fables and
stories of which they were so fond. The process must have been complete
by the middle of the 3rd century B.C.; for we find at that date
illustrations of the Jatakas in the bas-reliefs on the railing round the
Bharahat tope with the titles of the Jataka stories inscribed above them
in the characters of that period.[1] The hero of each story is made into
a Bodhisatta; that is, a being who is destined, after a number of
subsequent births, to become a Buddha. This rapid development of the
Bodhisatta theory is the distinguishing feature in the early history of
Buddhism, and was both cause and effect of the simultaneous growth of
the Jataka book. In adopting the folk-lore and fables already current in
India, the Buddhists did not change them very much. The stories as
preserved to us, are for the most part Indian rather than Buddhist. The
ethics they inculcate or suggest are milk for babes; very simple in
character and referring almost exclusively to matters common to all
schools of thought in India, and indeed elsewhere. Kindness, purity,
honesty, generosity, worldly wisdom, perseverance, are the usual virtues
praised; the higher ethics of the Path are scarcely mentioned. These
stories, popular with all, were especially appreciated by that school of
Buddhists that laid stress on the Bodhisatta theory--a school that
obtained its chief support, and probably had its origin, in the extreme
north-west of India and in the highlands of Asia. That school adopted,
from the early centuries of our era, the use of Sanskrit, instead of
Pali, as the means of literary expression. It is almost impossible,
therefore, that they would have carried the canonical Pali book,
voluminous as it is, into Central Asia. Shorter collections of the
original stories, written in Sanskrit, were in vogue among them. One
such collection, the Jataka-mala, by Arya Sura (6th century), is still
extant. Of the existence of another collection, though the Sanskrit
original has not yet been found, we have curious evidence. In the 6th
century a book of Sanskrit fables was translated into Pahlavi, that is,
old Persian (see Bidpai). In succeeding centuries this work was
retranslated into Arabic and Hebrew, thence into Latin and Greek and all
the modern languages of Europe. The book bears a close resemblance to
the earlier chapters of a late Sanskrit fable book called, from its
having five chapters, the _Pancha tantra_, or Pentateuch.
The introduction to the old Jataka book gives the life of the historical
Buddha. That introduction must also have reached Persia by the same
route. For in the 8th century St John of Damascus put the story into
Greek under the title of _Barlaam and Josaphat_. This story became very
popular in the West. It was translated into Latin, into seven European
languages, and even into Icelandic and the dialect of the Philippine
Islands. Its hero, that is the Buddha, was canonized as a Christian
saint; and the 27th of November was officially fixed as the date for his
adoration as such.
The book popularly known in Europe as _Aesop's Fables_ was not written
by Aesop. It was put together in the 14th century at Constantinople by
a monk named Planudes, and he drew largely for his stories upon those
in the Jataka book that had reached Europe along various channels. The
fables of Babrius and Phaedrus, written respectively in the 1st
century before, and in the 1st century after, the Christian era, also
contain Jataka stories known in India in the 4th century B.C. A great
deal has been written on this curious question of the migration of
fables. But we are still very far from being able to trace the
complete history of each story in the Jataka book, or in any one of
the later collections. For India itself the record is most incomplete.
We have the original Jataka book in text and translation. The history
of the text of the Pancha tantra, about a thousand years later, has
been fairly well traced out. But for the intervening centuries
scarcely anything has been done. There are illustrations, in the
bas-reliefs of the 3rd century B.C., of Jatakas not contained in the
Jataka book. Another collection, the _Cariya pitaka_, of about the
same date, has been edited, but not translated. Other collections both
in Pali and Sanskrit are known to be extant in MS; and a large number
of Jataka stories, not included in any formal collection, are
mentioned, or told in full, in other works.
AUTHORITIES.--V. Fausboll, _The Jataka_, Pali text (7 vols., London,
1877-1897), (Eng. trans., edited by E. B. Cowell, 6 vols., Cambridge,
1895-1907); _Cariya pitaka_, edited by R. Morris for the Pali Text
Society (London, 1882); H. Kern, _Jataka-mala_, Sanskrit text
(Cambridge, Mass., 1891), (Eng. trans. by J. S. Speyer, Oxford, 1895);
Rhys Davids, _Buddhist Birth Stories_ (with full bibliographical
tables) (London, 1880); _Buddhist India_ (chap. xi. on the Jataka
Book) (London, 1903); E. Kuhn, _Barlaam und Joasaph_ (Munich, 1893);
A. Cunningham, _The Stupa of Bharhut_ (London, 1879). (T. W. R. D.)
FOOTNOTE:
[1] A complete list of these inscriptions will be found in Rhys
Davids's _Buddhist India_, p. 209.
JATH, a native state of India, in the Deccan division of Bombay, ranking
as one of the southern Mahratta jagirs. With the small state of
Daphlapur, which is an integral part of it, it forms the Bijapur Agency,
under the collector of Bijapur district. Area, including Daphlapur, 980
sq. m. Pop. (1901), 68,665, showing a decline of 14% in the decade.
Estimated revenue L24,000; tribute L700. Agriculture and cattle-breeding
are carried on; there are no important manufactures. The chief, whose
title is deshmukh, is a Mahratta of the Daphle family. The town of JATH
is 92 m. S.E. of Satara. Pop. (1901), 5404.
JATIVA (formerly written XATIVA), or SAN FELIPE DE JATIVA, a town of
eastern Spain, in the province of Valencia, on the right bank of the
river Albaida, a tributary of the Jucar, and at the junction of the
Valencia-Murcia and Valencia-Albacete railways. Pop. (1900), 12,600.
Jativa is built on the margin of a fertile and beautiful plain, and on
the southern slopes of the Monte Bernisa, a hill with two peaks, each
surmounted by a castle. With its numerous fountains, and spacious
avenues shaded with elms or cypresses, the town has a clean and
attractive appearance. Its collegiate church, dating from 1414, but
rebuilt about a century later in the Renaissance style, was formerly a
cathedral, and is the chief among many churches and convents. The
town-hall and a church on the castle hill are partly constructed of
inscribed Roman masonry, and several houses date from the Moorish
occupation. There is a brisk local trade in grain, fruit, wine, oil and
rice.
Jativa was the Roman Saetabis, afterwards Valeria Augusta, of
Carthaginian or Iberian origin. Pliny (23-79) and Martial (c. 40-102)
mention the excellence of its linen cloth. Under the Visigoths (c.
483-711) it became an episcopal see; but early in the 8th century it was
captured by the Moors, under whom it attained great prosperity, and
received its present name. It was reconquered by James I. of Aragon
(1213-1276). During the 15th and 16th centuries, Jativa was the home of
many members of the princely house of Borgia or Borja, who migrated
hither from the town of Borja in the province of Saragossa. Alphonso
Borgia, afterwards Pope Calixtus III., and Rodrigo Borgia, afterwards
Pope Alexander VI., were natives of Jativa, born respectively in 1378
and 1431. The painter Jusepe Ribera was also born here in 1588. Owing to
its gallant defence against the troops of the Archduke Charles in the
war of the Spanish succession, Jativa received the additional name of
San Felipe from Philip V. (1700-1746).
JATS, or JUTS, a people of north-western India, who numbered altogether
more than 7 millions in 1901. They form a considerable proportion of the
population in the Punjab, Rajputana and the adjoining districts of the
United Provinces, and are also widely scattered through Sind and
Baluchistan. Some writers have identified the Juts with the ancient
Getae, and there is strong reason to believe them a degraded tribe of
Rajputs, whose Scythic origin has also been maintained. Hindu legends
point to a prehistoric occupation of the Indus valley by this people,
and at the time of the Mahommedan conquest of Sind (712) they, with a
cognate tribe called Meds, constituted the bulk of the population. They
enlisted under the banner of Mahommed bin Kasim, but at a later date
offered a vigorous resistance to the Arab invaders. In 836 they were
overthrown by Amran, who imposed on them a tribute of dogs, and used
their arms to vanquish the Meds. In 1025, however, they had gathered
audacity, not only to invade Mansura, and compel the abjuration of the
Mussulman amir, but to attack the victorious army of Mahmud, laden with
the spoil of Somnath. Chastisement duly ensued: a formidable flotilla,
collected at Multan, shattered in thousands the comparatively
defenceless Jat boats on the Indus, and annihilated their national
pretensions. It is not until the decay of the Mogul Empire that the Jats
again appear in history. One branch of them, settled south of Agra,
mainly by bold plundering raids founded two dynasties which still exist
at Bharatpur (q.v.) and Dholpur (q.v.). Another branch, settled
north-west of Delhi, who adopted the Sikh religion, ultimately made
themselves dominant throughout the Punjab (q.v.) under Ranjit Singh, and
are now represented in their original home by the Phulkian houses of
Patiala (q.v.), Jind (q.v.) and Nabha (q.v.). It is from this latter
branch that the Sikh regiments of the Indian army are recruited. The
Jats are mainly agriculturists and cattle breeders. In their settlements
on the Ganges and Jumna, extending as far east as Bareilly, they are
divided into two great clans, the Dhe and the Hele; while in the Punjab
there are said to be one hundred different sections. Their religion
varies with locality. In the Punjab they have largely embraced Sikh
tenets, while in Sind and Baluchistan they are Mahommedans. In
appearance they are not ill-favoured though extremely dark; they have
good teeth, and large beards, sometimes stained with indigo. Their
inferiority of social position, however, to some extent betrays itself
in their aspect, and tends to be perpetuated by their intellectual
apathy.
JAUBERT, PIERRE AMEDEE EMILIEN PROBE (1779-1847), French Orientalist,
was born at Aix in Provence on the 3rd of June 1779. He was one of the
most distinguished pupils of Silvestre de Sacy, whose funeral _Discours_
he pronounced in 1838. Jaubert acted as interpreter to Napoleon in Egypt
in 1798-1799, and on his return to Paris held various posts under
government. In 1802 he accompanied Sebastiani on his Eastern mission;
and in 1804 he was at Constantinople. Next year he was despatched to
Persia to arrange an alliance with the shah; but on the way he was
seized and imprisoned in a dry cistern for four months by the pasha of
Bayazid. The pasha's death freed Jaubert, who successfully accomplished
his mission, and rejoined Napoleon at Warsaw in 1807. On the eve of
Napoleon's downfall he was appointed charge d'affaires at
Constantinople. The restoration ended his diplomatic career, but in 1818
he undertook a journey with government aid to Tibet, whence he succeeded
in introducing into France 400 Kashmir goats. The rest of his life
Jaubert spent in study, in writing and in teaching. He became professor
of Persian in the college de France, and director of the ecole des
langues orientales, and in 1830 was elected member of the Academie des
Inscriptions. In 1841 he was made a peer of France and councillor of
state. He died in Paris on the 28th of January, 1847.
Besides articles in the _Journal asiatique_, he published _Voyage en
Armenie et en Perse_ (1821; the edition of 1860 has a notice of
Jaubert, by M. Sedillot) and _Elements de la grammaire turque_
(1823-1834). See notices in the _Journal asiatique_, Jan. 1847, and
the _Journal des debats_, Jan. 30, 1847.
JAUCOURT, ARNAIL FRANCOIS, MARQUIS DE (1757-1852), French politician,
was born on the 14th of November 1757 at Tournon (Seine-et-Marne) of a
Protestant family, protected by the prince de Conde, whose regiment he
entered. He adopted revolutionary ideas and became colonel of his
regiment. In the Assembly, to which he was returned in 1791 by the
department of Seine-et-Marne, he voted generally with the minority, and
his views being obviously too moderate for his colleagues he resigned in
1792 and was soon after arrested on suspicion of being a reactionary.
Mme de Stael procured his release from P. L. Manuel just before the
September massacres. He accompanied Talleyrand on his mission to
England, returning to France after the execution of Louis XVI. He lived
in retirement until the establishment of the Consulate, when he entered
the tribunate, of which he was for some time president. In 1803 he
entered the senate, and next year became attached to the household of
Joseph Bonaparte. Presently his imperialist views cooled, and at the
Restoration he became minister of state and a peer of France. At the
second Restoration he was for a brief period minister of marine, but
held no further office. He devoted himself to the support of the
Protestant interest in France. A member of the upper house throughout
the reign of Louis Philippe, he was driven into private life by the
establishment of the Second Republic, but lived to see the _Coup d'etat_
and to rally to the government of Louis Napoleon, dying in Paris on the
5th of February 1852.
JAUER, a town of Germany, in the Prussian province of Silesia, 13 m. by
rail S. of Leignitz, on the Wuthende Neisse. Pop. (1900), 13,024. St
Martin's (Roman Catholic) church dates from 1267-1290, and the
Evangelical church from 1655. A new town-hall was erected in 1895-1898.
Jauer manufactures leather, carpets, cigars, carriages and gloves, and
is specially famous for its sausages. The town was first mentioned in
1242, and was formerly the capital of a principality embracing about
1200 sq. m., now occupied by the circles of Jauer, Bunzlau, Loweberg,
Hirschberg and Schonau. From 1392 to 1741 it belonged to the kings of
Bohemia, being taken from Maria Theresa by Frederick the Great. Jauer
was formerly the prosperous seat of the Silesian linen trade, but the
troubles of the Thirty Years' War, in the course of which it was burned
down three times, permanently injured this.
See Schonaich, _Die alte Furstentumshauptstadt Jauer_ (Jauer, 1903).
JAUHARI (ABU NASR ISMA^EIL IBN HAMMAD UL-JAUHARI) (d. 1002 or 1010),
Arabian lexicographer, was born at Farab on the borders of Turkestan. He
studied language in Farab and Bagdad, and later among the Arabs of the
desert. He then settled in Damghan and afterwards at Nishapur, where he
died by a fall from the roof of a house. His great work is the _Kitab
us-Sahah fil-Lugha_, an Arabic dictionary, in which the words are
arranged alphabetically according to the last letter of the root. He
himself had only partially finished the last recension, but the work was
completed by his pupil, Abu Ishaq Ibrahim ibn Salih ul-Warraq.
An edition was begun by E. Scheidius with a Latin translation, but one
part only appeared at Harderwijk (1776). The whole has been published
at Tebriz (1854) and at Cairo (1865), and many abridgments and Persian
translations have appeared; cf. C. Brockelmann, _Geschichte der
arabischen Literatur_ (Weimar, 1898), i. 128 seq. (G. W. T.)
JAUNDICE (Fr. _jaunisse_, from _jaune_, yellow), or ICTERUS (from its
resemblance to the colour of the golden oriole, of which Pliny relates
that if a jaundiced person looks upon it he recovers but the bird dies),
a term in medicine applied to a yellow coloration of the skin and other
parts of the body, depending in most instances on some derangement
affecting the liver. This yellow colour is due to the presence in the
blood of bile or of some of the elements of that secretion. Jaundice,
however, must be regarded more as a symptom of some morbid condition
previously existing than as a disease _per se_.
Cases with jaundice may be divided into three groups.
1. _Obstructive Jaundice._--Any obstruction of the passage of bile from
the liver into the intestinal canal is sooner or later followed by the
appearance of jaundice, which in such circumstances is due to the
absorption of bile into the blood. The obstruction is due to one of the
following causes: (1) Obstruction by foreign bodies within the bile
duct, e.g. gallstones or parasites; (2) inflammation of the duodenum or
the lining membrane of the duct; (3) stricture or obliteration of the
duct; (4) a tumour growing from the duct; (5) pressure on the duct from
without, from the liver or other organ, or tumours arising from them.
Obstructions from these causes may be partial or complete, and the
degree of jaundice will vary accordingly, but it is to be noted that
extensive organic disease of the liver may exist without the evidence of
obstructive jaundice.
The effect upon the liver of impediments to the outflow of bile such as
those above indicated is in the first place an increase in its size, the
whole biliary passages and the liver cells being distended with retained
bile. This enlargement, however, speedily subsides when the obstruction
is removed, but should it persist the liver ultimately shrinks and
undergoes atrophy in its whole texture. The bile thus retained is
absorbed into the system, and shows itself by the yellow staining seen
to a greater or less extent in all the tissues and many of the fluids of
the body. The kidneys, which in such circumstances act in some measure
vicariously to the liver and excrete a portion of the retained bile,
are apt to become affected in their structure by the long continuance of
jaundice.
The symptoms of obstructive jaundice necessarily vary according to the
nature of the exciting cause, but there generally exists evidence of
some morbid condition before the yellow coloration appears. Thus, if the
obstruction be due to an impacted gallstone in the common or hepatic
duct, there will probably be the symptoms of intense suffering
characterizing hepatic colic (see COLIC). In the cases most frequently
seen--those, namely, arising from simple catarrh of the bile ducts due
to gastro-duodenal irritation spreading through the common duct--the
first sign to attract attention is the yellow appearance of the white of
the eye, which is speedily followed by a similar colour on the skin over
the body generally. The yellow tinge is most distinct where the skin is
thin, as on the forehead, breast, elbows, &c. It may be also well seen
in the roof of the mouth, but in the lips and gums the colour is not
observed till the blood is first pressed from them. The tint varies,
being in the milder cases faint, in the more severe a deep saffron
yellow, while in extreme degrees of obstruction it may be of dark brown
or greenish hue. The colour can scarcely, if at all, be observed in
artificial light.
The urine exhibits well marked and characteristic changes in jaundice
which exist even before any evidence can be detected on the skin or
elsewhere. It is always of dark brown colour resembling porter, but
after standing in the air it acquires a greenish tint. Its froth is
greenish-yellow, and it stains with this colour any white substance. It
contains not only the bile colouring matter but also the bile acids. The
former is detected by the play of colours yielded on the addition of
nitric acid, the latter by the purple colour, produced by placing a
piece of lump sugar in the urine tested, and adding thereto a few drops
of strong sulphuric acid.
The contents of the bowels also undergo changes, being characterized
chiefly by their pale clay colour, which is in proportion to the amount
of hepatic obstruction, and to their consequent want of admixture with
bile. For the same reason they contain a large amount of unabsorbed
fatty matter, and have an extremely offensive odour.
Constitutional symptoms always attend jaundice with obstruction. The
patient becomes languid, drowsy and irritable, and has generally a slow
pulse. The appetite is usually but not always diminished, a bitter taste
in the mouth is complained of, while flatulent eructations arise from
the stomach. Intolerable itching of the skin is a common accompaniment
of jaundice, and cutaneous eruptions or boils are occasionally seen.
Yellow vision appears to be present in some very rare cases. Should the
jaundice depend on advancing organic disease of the liver, such as
cancer, the tinge becomes gradually deeper, and the emaciation and
debility more marked towards the fatal termination, which in such cases
is seldom long postponed. Apart from this, however, jaundice from
obstruction may exist for many years, as in those instances where the
walls of the bile ducts are thickened from chronic catarrh, but where
they are only partially occluded. In the common cases of acute catarrhal
jaundice recovery usually takes place in two or three weeks.
The treatment of this form of jaundice bears reference to the cause
giving rise to the obstruction. In the ordinary cases of simple
catarrhal jaundice, or that following the passing of gallstones, a light
nutritious diet (milk, soups, &c., avoiding saccharine and farinaceous
substances and alcoholic stimulants), along with counter-irritation
applied over the right side and the use of laxatives and cholagogues,
will be found to be advantageous. Diaphoretics and diuretics to promote
the action of the skin and kidneys are useful in jaundice. In the more
chronic forms, besides the remedies above named, the waters of Carlsbad
are of special efficacy. In cases other than acute catarrhal, operative
interference is often called for, to remove the gallstones, tumour, &c.,
causing the obstruction.
2. _Toxaemic Jaundice_ is observed to occur as a symptom in certain
fevers, e.g. yellow fever, ague, and in pyaemia also as the effect of
certain poisons, such as phosphorus, and the venom of snake-bites.
Jaundice of this kind is almost always slight, and neither the urine nor
the discharges from the bowels exhibit changes in appearance to such a
degree as in the obstructive variety. Grave constitutional symptoms are
often present, but they are less to be ascribed to the jaundice than to
the disease with which it is associated.
3. _Hereditary Jaundice._--Under this group there are the jaundice of
new-born infants, which varies enormously in severity; the cases in
which a slight form of jaundice obtains in several members of the same
family, without other symptoms, and which may persist for years; and
lastly the group of cases with hypertrophic cirrhosis.
The name _malignant jaundice_ is sometimes applied to that very fatal
form of disease otherwise termed acute yellow atrophy of the liver
(see ATROPHY).
JAUNPUR, a city and district of British India, in the Benares division
of the United Provinces. The city is on the left bank of the river
Gumti, 34 m. N.W. from Benares by rail. Pop. (1901), 42,771. Jaunpur is
a very ancient city, the former capital of a Mahommedan kingdom which
once extended from Budaun and Etawah to Behar. It abounds in splendid
architectural monuments, most of which belong to the period when the
rulers of Jaunpur were independent of Delhi. The fort of Feroz Shah is
in great part completely ruined, but there remain a fine gateway of the
16th century, a mosque dating from 1376, and the _hammams_ or baths of
Ibrahim Shah. Among other buildings may be mentioned the Atala Masjid
(1408) and the ruined Jinjiri Masjid, mosques built by Ibrahim, the
first of which has a great cloistered court and a magnificent facade;
the Dariba mosque constructed by two of Ibrahim's governors; the Lal
Darwaza erected by the queen of Mahmud; the Jama Masjid (1438-1478) or
great mosque of Husain, with court and cloisters, standing on a raised
terrace, and in part restored in modern times; and finally the splendid
bridge over the Gumti, erected by Munim Khan, Mogul governor in
1569-1573. During the Mutiny of 1857 Jaunpur formed a centre of
disaffection. The city has now lost its importance, the only industries
surviving being the manufacture of perfumes and papier-mache articles.
The DISTRICT OF JAUNPUR has an area of 1551 sq. m. It forms part of the
wide Gangetic plain, and its surface is accordingly composed of a thick
alluvial deposit. The whole country is closely tilled, and no waste
lands break the continuous prospect of cultivated fields. It is divided
into two unequal parts by the sinuous channel of the Gumti, a tributary
of the Ganges, which flows past the city of Jaunpur. Its total course
within the district is about 90 m., and it is nowhere fordable. It is
crossed by two bridges, one at Jaunpur and the other 2 m. lower down.
The Gumti is liable to sudden inundations during the rainy season, owing
to the high banks it has piled up at its entrance into the Ganges, which
act as dams to prevent the prompt outflow of its flooded waters. These
inundations extend to its tributary the Sai. Much damage was thus
effected in 1774; but the greatest recorded flood took place in
September 1871, when 4000 houses in the city were swept away, besides
9000 more in villages along its banks. The other rivers are the Sai,
Barna, Pili and Basohi. Lakes are numerous in the north and south; the
largest has a length of 8 m. Pop. (1901), 1,202,920, showing a decrease
of 5% in the decade. Sugar-refining is the principal industry. The
district is served by the line of the Oudh & Rohilkhand railway from
Benares to Fyzabad, and by branches of this and of the Bengal &
North-Western systems.
In prehistoric times Jaunpur seems to have formed a portion of the
Ajodhya principality, and when it first makes an appearance in authentic
history it was subject to the rulers of Benares. With the rest of their
dominions it fell under the yoke of the Mussulman invaders in 1194. From
that time the district appears to have been ruled by a prince of the
Kanauj dynasty, as a tributary of the Mahommedan suzerain. In 1388 Malik
Sarwar Khwaja was sent by Mahommed Tughlak to govern the eastern
province. He fixed his residence at Jaunpur, made himself independent of
the Delhi court, and assumed the title of Sultan-us-Shark, or "eastern
emperor." For nearly a century the Sharki dynasty ruled at Jaunpur, and
proved formidable rivals to the sovereigns of Delhi. The last of the
dynasty was Sultan Husain, who passed his life in a fierce and chequered
struggle for supremacy with Bahlol Lodi, then actual emperor at Delhi.
At length, in 1478, Bahlol succeeded in defeating his rival in a series
of decisive engagements. He took the city of Jaunpur, but permitted the
conquered Husain to reside there, and to complete the building of his
great mosque, the Jama Masjid, which now forms the chief ornament of the
town. Many other architectural works in the district still bear witness
to its greatness under its independent Mussulman rulers. In 1775 the
district was made over to the British by the Treaty of Lucknow. From
that time nothing occurred which calls for notice till the Mutiny. On
the 5th of June 1857, when the news of the Benares revolt reached
Jaunpur, the sepoys mutinied. The district continued in a state of
complete anarchy till the arrival of the Gurkha force from Azamgarh in
September. In November the surrounding country was lost again, and it
was not till May 1858 that the last smouldering embers of disaffection
were stifled by the repulse of the insurgent leader at the hands of the
people themselves.
See A. Fuhrer, _The Shargi Architecture of Jaunpur_ (1889).
JAUNTING-CAR, a light two-wheeled carriage for a single horse, in its
commonest form with seats for four persons placed back to back, with the
foot-boards projecting over the wheels. It is the typical conveyance for
persons in Ireland (see CAR). The first part of the word is generally
taken to be identical with the verb "to jaunt," now only used in the
sense of to go on a short pleasure excursion, but in its earliest uses
meaning to make a horse caracole or prance, hence to jolt or bump up and
down. It would apparently be a variant of "jaunce," of the same meaning,
which is supposed to be taken from O. Fr. _jancer_. Skeat takes the
origin of jaunt and jaunce to be Scandinavian, and connects them with
the Swedish dialect word _ganta_, to romp; and he finds cognate bases in
such words as "jump," "high jinks." The word "jaunty," sprightly,
especially used of anything done with an easy nonchalant air, is a
corruption of "janty," due to confusion with "jaunt." "Janty," often
spelt in the 17th and 18th centuries "jante" or "jantee," represents the
English pronunciation of Fr. _gentil_, well-bred, neat, spruce.
JAUREGUI, JUAN (1562-1582), a Biscayan by birth, was in 1582 in the
service of a Spanish merchant, Gaspar d'Anastro, who was resident at
Antwerp. Tempted by the reward of 80,000 ducats offered by Philip II. of
Spain for the assassination of William the Silent, prince of Orange, but
being himself without courage to undertake the task, d'Anastro, with the
help of his cashier Venero, persuaded Jauregui to attempt the murder for
the sum of 2877 crowns. On Sunday the 18th of March 1582, as the prince
came out of his dining-room Jauregui offered him a petition, and William
had no sooner taken it into his hand than Jauregui fired a pistol at his
head. The ball pierced the neck below the right ear and passed out at
the left jaw-bone; but William ultimately recovered. The assassin was
killed on the spot.
JAUREGUIBERRY, JEAN BERNARD (1815-1887), French admiral, was born at
Bayonne on the 26th of August 1815. He entered the navy in 1831, was
made a lieutenant in 1845, commander in 1856, and captain in 1860. After
serving in the Crimea and in China, and being governor of Senegal, he
was promoted to rear-admiral in 1869. He served on land during the
second part of the Franco-German War of 1870-71, in the rank of
auxiliary general of division. He was present at Coulmiers, Villepion
and Loigny-Poupry, in command of a division, and in Chanzy's retreat
upon Le Mans and the battle at that place in command of a corps. He was
the most distinguished of the many naval officers who did good service
in the military operations. On the 9th of December he had been made
vice-admiral, and in 1871 he commanded the fleet at Toulon; in 1875 he
was a member of the council of admiralty; and in October 1876 he was
appointed to command the evolutionary squadron in the Mediterranean. In
February 1879 he became minister of the navy in the Waddington cabinet,
and on the 27th of May following was elected a senator for life. He was
again minister of the navy in the Freycinet cabinet in 1880. A fine
example of the fighting French seaman of his time, Jaureguiberry died at
Paris on the 21st of October 1887.
JAUREGUI Y AGUILAR, JUAN MARTINEZ DE (1583-1641), Spanish poet, was
baptized at Seville on the 24th of November 1583. In due course he
studied at Rome, returning to Spain shortly before 1610 with a double
reputation as a painter and a poet. A reference in the preface to the
_Novelas exemplares_ has been taken to mean that he painted the portrait
of Cervantes, who, in the second part of _Don Quixote_, praises the
translation of Tasso's _Aminta_ published at Rome in 1607. Jauregui's
_Rimas_ (1618), a collection of graceful lyrics, is preceded by a
controversial preface which attracted much attention on account of its
outspoken declaration against _culteranismo_. Through the influence of
Olivares, he was appointed groom of the chamber to Philip IV., and gave
an elaborate exposition of his artistic doctrines in the _Discurso
poetico contra el hablar culto y oscuro_ (1624), a skilful attack on the
new theories, which procured for its author the order of Calatrava. It
is plain, however, that the shock of controversy had shaken Jauregui's
convictions, and his poem _Orfeo_ (1624) is visibly influenced by
Gongora. Jauregui died at Madrid on the 11th of January 1641, leaving
behind him a translation of the _Pharsalia_ which was not published till
1684. This rendering reveals Jauregui as a complete convert to the new
school, and it has been argued that, exaggerating the affinities between
Lucan and Gongora--both of Cordovan descent--he deliberately translated
the thought of the earlier poet into the vocabulary of the later master.
This is possible; but it is at least as likely that Jauregui
unconsciously yielded to the current of popular taste, with no other
intention than that of conciliating the public of his own day.
JAURES, JEAN LEON (1859- ), French Socialist leader, was born at
Castres (Tarn) on the 3rd of September 1859. He was educated at the
lycee Louis-le-Grand and the ecole normale superieure, and took his
degree as associate in philosophy in 1881. After teaching philosophy for
two years at the lycee of Albi (Tarn), he lectured at the university of
Toulouse. He was elected republican deputy for the department of Tarn in
1885. In 1889, after unsuccessfully contesting Castres, he returned to
his professional duties at Toulouse, where he took an active interest in
municipal affairs, and helped to found the medical faculty of the
university. He also prepared two theses for his doctorate in philosophy,
_De primis socialismi germanici lineamentis apud Lutherum, Kant, Fichte
et Hegel_ (1891), and _De la realite du monde sensible_. In 1902 he gave
energetic support to the miners of Carmaux who went out on strike in
consequence of the dismissal of a socialist workman, Calvignac; and in
the next year he was re-elected to the chamber as deputy for Albi.
Although he was defeated at the elections of 1898 and was for four years
outside the chamber, his eloquent speeches made him a force in politics
as an intellectual champion of socialism. He edited the _Petite
Republique_, and was one of the most energetic defenders of Captain
Alfred Dreyfus. He approved of the inclusion of M. Millerand, the
socialist, in the Waldeck-Rousseau ministry, though this led to a split
with the more revolutionary section led by M. Guesde. In 1902 he was
again returned as deputy for Albi, and during the Combes administration
his influence secured the coherence of the radical-socialist coalition
known as the _bloc_. In 1904 he founded the socialist paper,
_L'Humanite_. The French socialist groups held a congress at Rouen in
March 1905, which resulted in a new consolidation; the new party, headed
by MM. Jaures and Guesde, ceased to co-operate with the radicals and
radical-socialists, and became known as the unified socialists, pledged
to advance a collectivist programme. At the general elections of 1906 M.
Jaures was again elected for the Tarn. His ability and vigour were now
generally recognized; but the strength of the socialist party, and the
practical activity of its leader, still had to reckon with the equally
practical and vigorous liberalism of M. Clemenceau. The latter was able
to appeal to his countrymen (in a notable speech in the spring of 1906)
to rally to a radical programme which had no socialist Utopia in view;
and the appearance in him of a strong and practical radical leader had
the result of considerably diminishing the effect of the socialist
propaganda. M. Jaures, in addition to his daily journalistic activity,
published _Les preuves; affaire Dreyfus_ (1900); _Action socialiste_
(1899); _Etudes socialistes_ (1902), and, with other collaborators,
_Histoire socialiste_ (1901), &c.
JAVA, one of the larger islands of that portion of the Malay Archipelago
which is distinguished as the Sunda Islands. It lies between 105 deg.
12' 40'' (St Nicholas Point) and 114 deg. 35' 38'' E. (Cape Seloko) and
between 5 deg. 52' 34'' and 8 deg. 46' 46'' S. It has a total length of
622 m. from Pepper Bay in the west to Banyuwangi in the east, and an
extreme breadth of 121 m. from Cape Bugel in Japara to the coast of
Jokjakarta, narrowing towards the middle to about 55 m. Politically and
commercially it is important as the seat of the colonial government of
the Dutch East Indies, all other parts of the Dutch territory being
distinguished as the Outer Possessions (_Buitenbezittungens_). According
to the triangulation survey (report published in 1901) the area of Java
proper is 48,504 sq. m.; of Madura, the large adjacent and associated
island, 1732; and of the smaller islands administratively included with
Java and Madura 1416, thus making a total of 50,970 sq. m. The more
important of these islands are the following: Pulau Panaitan or Princes
Island (_Prinseneiland_), 47 sq. m., lies in the Sunda Strait, off the
south-western peninsula of the main island, from which it is separated
by the Behouden Passage. The Thousand Islands are situated almost due N.
of Batavia. Of these five were inhabited in 1906 by about 1280 seafarers
from all parts and their descendants. The Karimon Java archipelago, to
the north of Semarang, numbers twenty-seven islands with an area of 16
sq. m. and a population of about 800 (having one considerable village on
the main island). Bavian[1] (Bawian), 100 m. N. of Surabaya, is a ruined
volcano with an area of 73 sq. m. and a population of about 44,000.
About a third of the men are generally absent as traders or coolies. In
Singapore and Sumatra they are known as Boyans. They are devout
Mahommedans and many of them make the pilgrimage to Mecca. The Sapudi
and Kangean archipelagoes are eastward continuations of Madura. The
former, thirteen in all, with an area of 58 sq. m. and 53,000
inhabitants, export cattle, dried fish and trepang; and many of the male
population work as day labourers in Java or as lumbermen in Sumbawa,
Flores, &c. The main island of the Kangians has an area of 19 sq. m.;
the whole group 23 sq. m. It is best known for its limestone caves and
its buffaloes. Along the south coast the islands are few and
small--Klapper or Deli, Trouwers or Tingal, Nusa Kembangan, Sempu and
Nusa Barung.
[Illustration: Map of Java.]
From Sumatra on the W., Java is separated by the Sunda Strait, which at
the narrowest is only 14 m. broad, but widens elsewhere to about 50 m.
On the E. the strait of Bali, which parts it from the island of that
name, is at the northern end not more than 1(1/2) m. across. Through the
former strong currents run for the greater part of the day throughout
the year, outwards from the Java Sea to the Indian Ocean. In the strait
of Bali the currents are perhaps even stronger and are extremely
irregular. Pilots with local knowledge are absolutely necessary for
vessels attempting either passage. In spite of the strength of the
currents the Sunda Strait is steadily being diminished in width, and the
process if continued must result in a restoration of that junction of
Sumatra and Java which according to some authorities formerly
existed.[2]
In general terms Java may be described as one of the breakwater islands
of the Indian Ocean--part of the mountainous rim (continuous more or
less completely with Sumatra) of the partially submerged plateau which
lies between the ocean on the S. and the Chinese Sea on the N., and has
the massive island of Borneo as its chief subaerial portion. While the
waves and currents of the ocean sweep away most of the products of
denudation along the south coast or throw a small percentage back in the
shape of sandy downs, the Java Sea on the north--not more than 50
fathoms deep--allows them to settle and to form sometimes with
extraordinary rapidity broad alluvial tracts.[3]
It is customary and obvious to divide Java into three divisions, the
middle part of the island narrowing into a kind of isthmus, and each
of the divisions thus indicated having certain structural
characteristics of its own. West Java, which consists of Bantam,
Krawang and the Preanger Regencies, has an area of upwards of 18,000
sq. m. In this division the highlands lie for the most part in a
compact mass to the south and the lowlands form a continuous tract to
the north. The main portion of the uplands consists of the Preanger
Mountains, with the plateaus of Bandong, Pekalongan, Tegal, Badung and
Gurut, encircled with volcanic summits. On the borders of the
Preanger, Batavia and Bantam are the Halimon Mountains (the Blue
Mountains of the older travellers), reaching their greatest altitudes
in the volcanic summits of Gedeh and Salak. To the west lie the
highlands of Bantam, which extending northward cut off the northern
lowlands from the Sunda Strait. Middle Java is the smallest of the
three divisions, having an area of not much more than 13,200 sq. m. It
comprises Tegal, Pekalongan, Banyumas, Bagelen, Kedu, Jokjakarta,
Surakarta, and thus not only takes in the whole of the isthmus but
encroaches on the broad eastern portion of the island. In the isthmus
mountains are not so closely massed in the south nor the plains so
continuous on the north. The watershed culminating in Slamet lies
almost midway between the ocean and the Java Sea, and there are
somewhat extensive lowlands in the south. In that part of middle Java
which physically belongs to eastern Java there is a remarkable series
of lowlands stretching almost right across the island from Semarang in
the north to Jokjakarta in the south. Eastern Java comprises Rembang,
Madiun, Kediri, Surabaya, Pasuruan and Besuki, and has an area of
about 17,500 sq. m. In this division lowlands and highlands are
intermingled in endless variety except along the south coast, where
the watershed-range forms a continuous breakwater from Jokjakarta to
Besuki. The volcanic eminences, instead of rising in lines or groups,
are isolated.
For its area Java is one of the most distinctly volcanic regions of
the world. Volcanic forces made it, and volcanic forces have continued
to devastate and fertilize it. According to R. D. M. Verbeek about 125
volcanic centres can be distinguished, a number which may be increased
or diminished by different methods of classification. It is usual to
arrange the volcanoes in the following groups: westernmost Java 11
(all extinct); Preanger 50 (5 active); Cheribon 2 (both extinct);
Slamet 2 (1 active); middle Java 16 (2 active); Murio 2 (both
extinct); Lavu 2 (extinct); Wilis 2 (extinct); east Java 21 (5
active). The active volcanoes of the present time are Gedeh,
Tangkuban, Prahu, Gutar, Papandayan, Galung-gung, Slamet, Sendor,
Merapi,[4] Kalut (or Klut), Bromo, Semeru, Lamongan, Raung, but the
activity of many of these is trifling, consisting of slight ejections
of steam and scoriae.
The plains differ in surface and fertility, according to their
geological formation. Built up of alluvium and diluvium, the plains of
the north coast-lands in western and middle Java are at their lowest
levels, near the mouths of rivers and the sea, in many cases marshy
and abounding in lakes and coral remains, but for the rest they are
fertile and available for culture. The plains, too, along the south
coast of middle Java--of Banyumas and Bagelen--contain many morasses
as well as sandy stretches and dunes impeding the outlet of the
rivers. They are, nevertheless, available for the cultivation more
particularly of rice, and are thickly peopled. In eastern Java, again,
the narrow coast plains are to be distinguished from the wider plains
lying between the parallel chains of limestone and between the
volcanoes. The narrow plains of the north coast are constituted of
yellow clay and tuffs containing chalk, washed down by the rivers from
the mountain chains and volcanoes. Like the western plains, they, too,
are in many cases low and marshy, and fringed with sand and dunes. The
plains, on the other hand, at some distance from the sea, or lying in
the interior of eastern Java, such as Surakarta, Madiun, Kediri,
Pasuruan, Probolinggo and Besuki, owe their formation to the volcanoes
at whose bases they lie, occupying levels as high as 1640 ft. down to
328 ft. above the sea, whence they decline to the lower plains of the
coast. Lastly, the plains of Lusi, Solo and Brantas, lying between the
parallel chains in Japara, Rembang and Surabaya, are in part the
product of rivers formerly flowing at a higher level of 30 to 60 or 70
ft., in part the product of the sea, dating from a time when the
northern part of the above-named residencies was an island, such as
Madura, the mountains of which are the continuation of the north
parallel chain, is still.
The considerable rivers of western Java all have their outlets on the
north coast, the chief among them being the Chi (Dutch Tji) Tarum and
the Chi Manuk. They are navigable for native boats and rafts, and are
used for the transport of coffee and salt. On the south coast the Chi
Tanduwi, on the east of the Preanger, is the only stream available as
a waterway, and this only for a few miles above its mouth. In middle
Java, also, the rivers discharging at the north coast--the Pamali,
Chomal, &c.--are serviceable for the purposes of irrigation and
cultivation, but are navigable only near their mouths. The rivers of
the south coast--Progo, Serayu, Bogowonto, and Upak, enriched by rills
from the volcanoes--serve abundantly to irrigate the plains of
Bagelen, Banyumas, &c. Their stony beds, shallows and rapids, and the
condition of their mouths lessen, however, their value as waterways.
More navigable are the larger rivers of eastern Java. The Solo is
navigable for large praus, or native boats, as far up as Surakarta,
and above that town for lighter boats, as is also its affluent the
Gentung. The canal constructed in 1893 at the lower part of this
river, and alterations effected at its mouth, have proved of important
service both in irrigating the plain and facilitating the river's
outlet into the sea. The Brantas is also navigable in several parts.
The smaller rivers of eastern Java are, however, much in the condition
of those of western Java. They serve less as waterways than as
reservoirs for the irrigation of the fertile plains through which they
flow.
The north coast of Java presents everywhere a low strand covered with
nipa or mangrove, morasses and fishponds, sandy stretches and low
dunes, shifting river-mouths and coast-lines, ports and roads,
demanding continual attention and regulation. The south coast is of a
different make. The dunes of Banyumas, Bagelen, and Jokjakarta, ranged
in three ridges, rising to 50 ft. high, and varying in breadth from
300 to over 1600 ft., liable, moreover, to transformation from tides
and the east monsoon, oppose everywhere, also in Preanger and Besuki,
a barrier to the discharge of the rivers and the drainage of the
coast-lands. They assist the formation of lagoons and morasses. At
intervals in the dune coast, running in the direction of the limestone
mountains, there tower up steep inaccessible masses of land, showing
neither ports nor bays, hollowed out by the sea, rising in
perpendicular walls to a height of 160 ft. above sea-level. Sometimes
two branches project at right angles from the chain on to the coast,
forming a low bay between the capes or ends of the projecting
branches, from 1000 to 1600 ft. high. Such a formation occurs
frequently along the coast of Besuki, presenting a very irregular
coast-line. Of course the north coast is of much greater commercial
importance than the south coast.
_Geology._--With the exception of a few small patches of schist,
supposed to be Cretaceous, the whole island, so far as is known, is
covered by deposits of Tertiary and Quaternary age. The ancient
"schist formation," which occurs in Sumatra, Borneo, &c., does not
rise to the surface anywhere in Java itself, but it is visible in the
island of Karimon Java off the north coast. The Cretaceous schists
have yielded fossils only at Banjarnegara, where a limestone with
Orbitolina is interstratified with them. They are succeeded
unconformably by Eocene deposits, consisting of sandstones with
coal-seams and limestones containing Nummulites, Alveolina and
Orthophragmina; and these beds are as limited in extent as the
Cretaceous schists themselves. Sedimentary deposits of Upper Tertiary
age are widely spread, covering about 38% of the surface. They consist
of breccias, marls and limestones containing numerous fossils, and are
for the most part Miocene but probably include a part of the Pliocene
also. They were laid down beneath the sea, but have since been folded
and elevated to considerable heights. Fluviatile deposits of late
Pliocene age have been found in the east of Java, and it was in these
that the remarkable anthropoid ape or ape-like man, _Pithecanthropus
erectus_ of Dubois, was discovered. The Quaternary deposits lie
horizontally upon the upturned edges of the Tertiary beds. They are
partly marine and partly fluviatile, the marine deposits reaching to a
height of some 350 ft. above the sea and thus indicating a
considerable elevation of the island in recent times.
The volcanic rocks of Java are of great importance and cover about 28%
of the island. The eruptions began in the middle of the Tertiary
period, but did not attain their maximum until Quaternary times, and
many of the volcanoes are still active. Most of the cones seem to lie
along faults parallel to the axis of the island, or on short cross
fractures. The lavas and ashes are almost everywhere andesites and
basalts, with a little obsidian. Some of the volcanoes, however, have
erupted leucite rocks. Similar rocks, together with phonolite, occur
in the island of Bavian.[5]
_Climate._--Our knowledge of the climate of Batavia, and thus of that
of the lowlands of western Java, is almost perfect; but, rainfall
excepted, our information as to the climate of Java as a whole is
extremely defective. The dominant meteorological facts are simple and
obvious: Java lies in the tropics, under an almost vertical sun, and
thus has a day of almost uniform length throughout the year.[6] It is
also within the perpetual influence of the great atmospheric movements
passing between Asia and Australia; and is affected by the
neighbourhood of vast expanses of sea and land (Borneo and Sumatra).
There are no such maxima of temperature as are recorded from the
continents. The highest known at Batavia was 96 deg. F. in 1877 and
the lowest 66 deg. in the same year. The mean annual temperature is 79
deg. The warmest months are May and October, registering 79.5 deg. and
79.46 deg. respectively; the coldest January and February with 77.63
deg. and 77.7 deg. respectively. The daily range is much greater; at
one o'clock the thermometer has a mean height of 84 deg.; after two
o'clock it declines to about 73 deg. at six o'clock; the greatest
daily amplitude is in August and the least in January and February.
Eastern Java and the inland plains of middle Java are said to be
hotter, but scientific data are few. A very slight degree of elevation
above the seaboard plains produces a remarkable difference in the
climate, not so much in its mere temperature as in its influence on
health. The dwellers in the coast towns are surprised at the
invigorating effects of a change to health resorts from 300 to 1200
ft. above sea-level; and at greater elevations it may be uncomfortably
cold at night, with chilly mists and occasional frosts. The year is
divided into two seasons by the prevailing winds: the rainy season,
that of the west monsoon, lasting from November to March, and the dry
season, that of the east monsoon, during the rest of the year; the
transition from one monsoon to another--the "canting" of the
monsoons--being marked by irregularities. On the whole, the east
monsoon blows steadily for a longer period than the west. The velocity
of the wind is much less than in Europe--not more in the annual mean
at Batavia than 3 ft. per second, against 12 to 18 ft. in Europe. The
highest velocity ever observed at Batavia was 25 ft. Wind-storms are
rare and hardly ever cyclonic. There are as a matter of course a large
number of purely local winds, some of them of a very peculiar kind,
but few of these have been scientifically dealt with. Thunder-storms
are extremely frequent; but the loss of life from lightning is
probably diminished by the fact that the palm-trees are excellent
conductors. At night the air is almost invariably still. The average
rainfall at Batavia is 72.28 in. per annum, of which 51.49 in. are
contributed by the west monsoon. The amount varies considerably from
year to year: in 1889, 1891 and 1897 there were about 47.24 in.; in
1868 and 1877 nearly 51.17, and in 1872 and 1882 no less than 94.8.
There are no long tracts of unbroken rainfall and no long periods of
continuous drought. The rainfall is heaviest in January, but it rains
only for about one-seventh of the time. Next in order come February,
March and December. August, the driest month, has from three to five
days of rain, though the amount is usually less than an inch and not
more than one and a half inches. The popular description of the rain
falling not in drops but streams was proved erroneous by J. Wiesner's
careful observations (see _Kais. Akad. d. Wiss. Math. Naturw. Cl._ Bd.
xiv., Vienna, 1895), which have been confirmed by A. Woeikof
("Regensintensitat und Regendauer in Batavia" in _Z. fur Met._, 1907).
The greatest rainfall recorded in an hour (4.5 in.) is enormously
exceeded by records even in Europe. From observations taken for the
meteorological authorities at a very considerable number of stations,
J. H. Boeseken constructed a map in 1900 (_Tijdschr. v. h. Kon. Ned.
Aardr. Gen._, 1900; reproduced in Veth, _Java_, iii. 1903). Among the
outstanding facts are the following. The south coasts of both eastern
and middle Java have a much heavier rainfall than the north. Majalenka
has an annual fall of 175 in. In western Java the maximal district
consists of a great ring of mountains from Salak and Gedeh in the west
to Galung-gung in the east, while the enclosed plateau-region of
Chanjur Bandung and Garut are not much different from the seaboard.
The whole of middle Java, with the exception of the north coast, has a
heavy rainfall. At Chilachap the annual rainfall is 151.43 in., 87.8
in. of which is brought by the south-east monsoon. The great belt
which includes the Slamet and the Dieng, and the country on the south
coast between Chilachap and Parigi, are maximal. In comparison the
whole of eastern Java, with the exception of the mountains from Wilis
eastward to Ijen, has a low record which reaches its lowest along the
north coast.[7]
_Fauna._--In respect of its fauna Java differs from Borneo, Sumatra
and the Malay Peninsula far more than these differ among themselves;
and, at the same time, it shows a close resemblance to the Malay
Peninsula, on the one hand, and to the Himalayas on the other. Of the
176 mammals of the whole Indo-Malayan region the greater number occur
in Java. Of these 41 are found on the continent of Asia, 8 are common
to Java and Borneo, and 6 are common to Java and Sumatra (see M.
Weber, _Das Indo-Malay Archipelago und die Geschichte seiner
Thierwelt_, Jena, 1902). No genus and only a few species are confined
to the island. Of the land-birds only a small proportion are peculiar.
The elephant, the tapir, the bear, and various other genera found in
the rest of the region are altogether absent. The Javanese rhinoceros
(_Rhinoceros sundaicus_; _sarak_ in Javanese, _badak_ in Sundanese),
the largest of the mammals on the island, differs from that of Sumatra
in having one horn instead of two. It ranges over the highest
mountains, and its regular paths, worn into deep channels, may be
traced up the steepest slopes and round the rims of even active
volcanoes. Two species of wild swine, _Sus vittatus_ and _Sus
verrucosus_, are exceedingly abundant, the former in the hot, the
latter in the temperate, region; and their depredations are the cause
of much loss to the natives, who, however, being Mahommedans, to whom
pork is abhorrent, do not hunt them for the sake of their flesh. Not
much less than the rhinoceros is the banteng (_Bibos banteng_ or
_sundaicus_) found in all the uninhabited districts between 2000 and
7000 ft. of elevation. The kidang or muntjak (_Cervulus muntjac_) and
the rusa or russa (_Rusa hippelaphus_ or _Russa russa_) are the
representatives of the deer kind. The former is a delicate little
creature occurring singly or in pairs both in the mountains and in the
coast districts; the latter lives in herds of fifty to a hundred in
the grassy opens, giving excellent sport to the native hunters.
Another species (_Russa kuhlii_) exists in Bavian. The kantjil
(_Tragulus javanicus_) is a small creature allied to the musk-deer but
forming a genus by itself. It lives in the high woods, for the most
part singly, seldom in pairs. It is one of the most peculiar of the
Javanese mammals. The royal tiger, the same species as that of India,
is still common enough to make a tiger-hunt a characteristic Javanese
scene. The leopard (_Felis pardus_) is frequent in the warm regions
and often ascends to considerable altitudes. Black specimens
occasionally occur, but the spots are visible on inspection; and the
fact that in the Amsterdam zoological gardens a black leopard had one
of its cubs black and the other normally spotted shows that this is
only a case of melanism. In the tree-tops the birds find a dangerous
enemy in the matjan rembak, or wild cat (_Felis minuta_), about the
size of a common cat. The dog tribe is represented by the fox-like
adjag (_Cuon_ or _Canis sutilans_) which hunts in ferocious packs; and
by a wild dog, _Canis tenggeranus_, if this is not now exterminated.
The Cheiroptera hold a prominent place in the fauna, the principal
genera being _Pteropus_, _Cynonycteris_, _Cynopterus_ and
_Macroglossus_. Remarkable especially for size is the kalong, or
flying fox, _Pteropus edulis_, a fruit-eating bat, which may be seen
hanging during the day in black clusters asleep on the trees, and in
the evening hastening in long lines to the favourite feeding grounds
in the forest. The damage these do to the young coco-nut trees, the
maize and the sugar-palms leads the natives to snare and shoot them;
and their flesh is a favourite food with Europeans, who prefer to
shoot them by night as, if shot by day, they often cling after death
to the branches. Smaller kinds of bats are most abundant, perhaps the
commonest being _Scotophilus Temminckii_. In certain places they
congregate in myriads, like sea-fowl on the cliffs, and their
excrement produces extensive guano deposits utilized by the people of
Surakarta and Madiun. The creature known to the Europeans as the
flying-cat and to the natives as the kubin is the _Galeopithecus
volans_ or _variagatus_--a sort of transition from the bats to the
lemuroids. Of these last Java has several species held in awe by the
natives for their supposed power of fascination. The apes are
represented by the wou-wou (_Hylobates leuciscus_), the lutung, and
kowi (_Semnopithecus maurus_ and _pyrrhus_), the surili
(_Semnopithecus mitratus_), and the munyuk (_Cercocebus_, or _Macacus,
cynamolgos_), the most generally distributed of all. From sunrise to
sunset the wou-wou makes its presence known, especially in the second
zone where it congregates in the trees, by its strange cry, at times
harsh and cacophonous, at times weird and pathetic. The lutung or
black ape also prefers the temperate region, though it is met with as
high as 7000 ft. above the sea and as low as 2000. The _Cercocebus_ or
grey ape keeps for the most part to the warm coast lands. Rats
(including the brown Norway rat, often called _Mus javanicus_, as if
it were a native; a great plague); mice in great variety; porcupines
(_Acanthion javanicum_); squirrels (five species) and flying squirrels
(four species) represent the rodents. A hare, _Lepus nigricollis_,
originally from Ceylon, has a very limited habitat; the Insectivora
comprise a shrew-mouse (_Rachyura indica_), two species of tupaya and
_Hylomys suillus_ peculiar to Java and Sumatra. The nearest relation
to the bears is _Arctictis binturong_. _Mydaus meliceps_ and _Helictis
orientalis_ represent the badgers. In the upper part of the mountains
occurs _Mustela Henrici_, and an otter (_Aonyx leptonyx_) in the
streams of the hot zone. The coffee rat (_Paradoxurus
hermaphroditus_), a civet cat (_Viverricida indica_), the Javanese
ichneumon (_Herpestes javanicus_), and _Priodon gracilis_ may also be
mentioned.
In 1820, 176 species of birds were known in Java; by 1900 Vorderman
and O. Finsch knew 410. Many of these are, of course, rare and occupy
a limited habitat far from the haunts of man. Others exist in myriads
and are characteristic features in the landscape. Water-fowl of many
kinds, ducks, geese, storks, pelicans, &c., give life to sea-shore and
lake, river and marsh. Snipe-shooting is a favourite sport. Common
night-birds are the owl (_Strix flammea_) and the goat-sucker
(_Caprimulgus affinis_). Three species of hornbill, the year-bird of
the older travellers (_Buceros plicatus_, _lunatus_ and _albirostris_)
live in the tall trees of the forest zone. The Javanese peacock is a
distinct species (_Pavo muticus_ or _spiciferus_), and even exceeds
the well-known Indian species in the splendour of its plumage. _Gallus
Bankiva_ is famous as the reputed parent of all barn-door fowls;
_Gallus furcatus_ is an exquisitely beautiful bird and can be trained
for cock-fighting. Of parrots two species only are known: _Palaeornis
Alexandri_ or _javanicus_ and the pretty little grass-green _Curyllis
pusilla_, peculiar to Java. As talkers and mimics they are beaten by
the _Gracula javanensis_, a favourite cage-bird with the natives. A
cuckoo, _Chrysococcyx basalis_, may be heard in the second zone. The
grass-fields are the foraging-grounds of swarms of weaver-birds
(_Plocula javanensis_ and _Ploccus baya_). They lay nearly as heavy a
toll on the rice-fields as the gelatiks (_Munia oryzivora_), which are
everywhere the rice-growers' principal foe. Hawks and falcons make
both an easy prey. The _Nictuarinas_ or honey-birds (eight species)
take the place of the humming-bird, which they rival in beauty and
diminutiveness, ranging from the lowlands to an altitude of 4000 ft.
In the upper regions the birds, like the plants, are more like those
of Europe, and some of them--notably the kanchilan (_Hyloterpe
Philomela_)--are remarkable for their song. The edible-nest swallow
(_Collocalia fuciphaga_) builds in caves in many parts of the
island.[8]
As far back as 1859 P. Bleeker credited Java with eleven hundred
species of fish; and naturalists are perpetually adding to the
number.[9] In splendour and grotesqueness of colouring many kinds, as
is well known, look rather like birds than fish. In the neighbourhood
of Batavia about three hundred and eighty species are used as food by
the natives and the Chinese, who have added to the number by the
introduction of the goldfish, which reaches a great size. The sea fish
most prized by Europeans is _Lates calcarifer_ (a perch). Of more than
one hundred species of snakes about twenty-four species (including
the cobra di capella) are poisonous and these are responsible for the
deaths of between one hundred and two hundred persons per annum.
Adders and lizards are abundant. Geckos are familiar visitants in the
houses of the natives. There are two species of crocodiles.
As in other tropical-rain forest lands the variety and abundance of
insects are amazing. At sundown the air becomes resonant for hours
with their myriad voices. The _Coleoptera_ and the _Lepidoptera_ form
the glory of all great collections for their size and magnificence. Of
butterflies proper five hundred species are known. Of the beetles one
of the largest and handsomest is _Chalcosoma atlas_. Among the spiders
(a numerously represented order) the most notable is a bird-killing
species, _Selene scomia javanensis_. In many parts the island is
plagued with ants, termites and mosquitoes. Crops of all kinds are
subject to disastrous attacks of creeping and winged foes--many still
unidentified (see especially Snellen van Hollenhoven, _Essai d'une
faune entomologique de l'Archipel Indo-neerlandais_). Of still lower
forms of life the profusion is no less perplexing. Among the worms the
_Perichaeta musica_ reaches a length of about twenty inches and
produces musical sounds. The shell of the _Tridacna gigas_ is the
largest anywhere known.
_Flora._--For the botanist Java is a natural paradise, affording him
the means of studying the effects of moisture and heat, of
air-currents and altitudes, without the interference of superincumbent
arctic conditions. The botanic gardens of Buitenzorg have long been
famous for their wealth of material, the ability with which their
treasures have been accumulated and displayed, their value in
connexion with the economic development of the island and the
extensive scientific literature published by their directors.[10]
There is a special establishment at Chibodas open to students of all
nations for the investigation on the spot of the conditions of the
primeval forest. Hardly any similar area in the world has a flora of
richer variety than Java. It is estimated that the total number of the
species of plants is about 5000; but this is probably under the mark
(De Candolle knew of 2605 phanerogamous species), and new genera and
species of an unexpected character are from time to time discovered.
The lower parts of the island are always in the height of summer. The
villages and even the smaller towns are in great measure concealed by
the abundant and abiding verdure; and their position in the landscape
is to be recognized mainly by their groves, orchards and cultivated
fields. The amount and distribution of heat and moisture at the
various seasons of the year form the dominant factors in determining
the character of the vegetation. Thus trees which are evergreen in
west Java are deciduous in the east of the island, some dropping their
leaves (e.g. _Tetrameles nudiflora_) at the very time they are in
bloom or ripening their fruit. This and other contrasts are
graphically described from personal observation by A. F. W. Schimper
in his _Pflanzen-Geographie auf physiologischer Grundlage_ (Jena,
1898). The abundance of epiphytes, orchids, pitcher-plants, mosses and
fungi is a striking result of the prevalent humidity; and many trees
and plants indeed, which in drier climates root in the soil, derive
sufficient moisture from their stronger neighbours. Of orchids J. J.
Smith records 562 species (100 genera), but the flowers of all except
about a score are inconspicuous. This last fact is the more remarkable
because, taken generally, the Javanese vegetation differs from that of
many other tropical countries by being abundantly and often gorgeously
floriferous. Many of the loftiest trees crown themselves with blossoms
and require no assistance from the climbing plants that seek, as it
were, to rival them in their display of colour. Shrubs, too, and
herbaceous plants often give brilliant effects in the savannahs, the
deserted clearings, the edges of the forest and the sides of the
highways. The _lantana_, a verbenaceous alien introduced, it is said,
from Jamaica by Lady Raffles, has made itself aggressively conspicuous
in many parts of the island, more especially in the Preanger and
middle Java, where it occupies areas of hundreds of acres.
The effect of mere altitude in the distribution of the flora was long
ago emphasized by Friedrich Junghuhn, the Humboldt of Java, who
divided the island into four vertical botanical zones--a division
which has generally been accepted by his successors, though, like all
such divisions, it is subject to many modifications and exceptions.
The forest, or hot zone, extends to a height of 2000 ft. above the
sea; the second, that of moderate heat, has its upper limit at about
4500; the third, or cool, zone reaches 7500; and the fourth, or
coldest, comprises all that lies beyond. The lowest zone has, of
course, the most extensive area; the second is only a fiftieth and the
third a five-thousandth of the first; and the fourth is an
insignificant remainder. The lowest is the region of the true tropical
forest, of rice-fields and sugar-plantations, of coco-nut palms,
cotton, sesamum, cinnamon and tobacco (though this last has a wide
altitudinal range). Many parts of the coast (especially on the north)
are fringed with mangrove (_Rhizophora mucronata_), &c., and species
of _Bruguiera_; the downs have their characteristic flora--convolvulus
and _Spinifex squarrosus_ catching the eye for very different
reasons. Farther inland along the seaboard appear the nipa dwarf palm
(_Nipa fruticans_), the _Alsbonia scholaris_ (the wood of which is
lighter than cork), Cycadacea, tree-ferns, screw pines (_Pandanus_),
&c. In west Java the gebang palm (_Corypha gebanga_) grows in clumps
and belts not far from but never quite close to the coast; and in east
Java a similar position is occupied by the lontar (_Borassus
flabelliformis_), valuable for its timber, its sago and its sugar, and
in former times for its leaves, which were used as a writing-material.
The fresh-water lakes and ponds of this region are richly covered with
Utricularia and various kinds of lotus (_Nymphaea lotus_, _N.
stellata_, _Nelumbium speciosum_, &c.) interspersed with _Pista
stratiotes_ and other floating plants. Vast prairies are covered with
the silvery alang-alang grass broken by bamboo thickets, clusters of
trees and shrubs (_Butea frondosa_, _Emblica officinalis_, &c.) and
islands of the taller erigedeh or glagah (_Saccharum spontaneum_).
Alang-alang (_Imperata arundinacea_, Cyr. var. Bentham) grows from 1
to 4 ft. in height. It springs up wherever the ground is cleared of
trees and is a perfect plague to the cultivator. It cannot hold its
own, however, with the ananas, the kratok (_Phaseolus lunatus_) or the
lantana; and, in the natural progress of events, the forest resumes
its sway except where the natives encourage the young growth of the
grass by annually setting the prairies on fire. The true forest, which
occupies a great part of this region, changes its character as we
proceed from west to east. In west Java it is a dense rain-forest in
which the struggle of existence is maintained at high pressure by a
host of lofty trees and parasitic plants in bewildering profusion. The
preponderance of certain types is remarkable. Thus of the Moraceae
there are in Java (and mostly here) seven genera with ninety-five
species, eighty-three of which are _Ficus_ (see S. H. Koorders and T.
Valeton, "Boomsoorten op Java" in _Bijdr. Mede. Dep. Landbower_
(1906). These include the so-called waringin, several kinds of figs
planted as shade-trees in the parks of the nobles and officials. The
Magnoliaceae and Anonaceae are both numerously represented. In middle
Java the variety of trees is less, a large area being occupied by
teak. In eastern Java the character of the forest is mainly determined
by the abundance of the Casuarina or Chimoro (_C. montana_ and _C.
Junghuhniana_). Another species, _C. equisetifolia_, is planted in
west Java as an ornamental tree. These trees are not crowded together
and encumbered with the heavy parasitic growths of the rain-forest;
but their tall stems are often covered with multitudes of small
vermilion fungi. Wherever the local climate has sufficient humidity,
the true rain-forest claims its own. The second of Junghuhn's zones is
the region of, more especially, tea, cinchona and coffee plantations,
of maize and the sugar palm (areng). In the forest the trees are
richly clad with ferns and enormous fungi; there is a profusion of
underwood (_Pavetta macrophylla Javanica_ and _salicifolia_; several
species of _Lasianthus_, _Boehmarias_, _Strobilanthus_, &c.), of woody
lianas and ratans, of tree ferns (especially Alsophila). Between the
bushes the ground is covered with ferns, lycopods, tradescantias,
Bignoniaceae, species of _Aeschynanthus_. Of the lianas the largest is
_Plectocomia elongata_; one specimen of which was found to have a
length of nearly 790 ft. One of the fungi, _Telephora princeps_, is
more than a yard in diameter. The trees are of different species from
those of the hot zone even when belonging to the same genus; and new
types appear mostly in limited areas. The third zone, which consists
mainly of the upper slopes of volcanic mountains, but also comprises
several plateaus (the Dieng, parts of the Tengger, the Ijen) is a
region of clouds and mists. There are a considerable number of lakes
and swamps in several parts of the region, and these have a luxuriant
environment of grasses, Cyperaceae, Characeae and similar forms. The
taller trees of the region--oaks, chestnuts, various Lauraceae, and
four or five species of _Podocarpus_--with some striking exceptions,
_Astronia spectabilis_, &c., are less floriferous than those of the
lower zones; but the shrubs (_Rhododendron javanicum_, _Ardisia
javanica_, &c.), herbs and parasites more than make up for this
defect. There is little cultivation, except in the Tengger, where the
natives grow maize, rye and tobacco, and various European vegetables
(cabbage, potatoes, &c.), with which they supply the lowland markets.
In western Java one of the most striking features of the upper parts
of this temperate region is what Schimper calls the "absolute dominion
of mosses," associated with the "elfin forest," as he quaintly calls
it, a perfect tangle of "low, thick, oblique or even horizontal
stems," almost choked to leaflessness by their grey and ghostly
burden. Much of the lower vegetation begins to have a European aspect;
violets, primulas, thalictrums, ranunculus, vacciniums, equisetums,
rhododendrons (_Rhod. retusum_). The _Primula imperialis_, found only
on the Pangerango, is a handsome species, prized by specialists. In
the fourth or alpine zone occur such distinctly European forms as
_Artemisia vulgaris_, _Plantago major_, _Solanum nigrum_, _Stellaria
media_; and altogether the alpine flora contains representatives of no
fewer than thirty-three families. A characteristic shrub is _Anaphalis
javanica_, popularly called the Javanese edelweiss, which "often
entirely excludes all other woody plants."[11] The tallest and noblest
of all the trees in the island is the rasamala or liquid-ambar
(_Altingia excelsa_), which, rising with a straight clean trunk,
sometimes 6 ft. in diameter at the base, to a height of 100 to 130
ft., spreads out into a magnificent crown of branches and foliage.
When by chance a climbing plant has joined partnership with it, the
combination of blossoms at the top is one of the finest colour effects
of the forest. The rasamala, however, occurs only in the Preanger and
in the neighbouring parts of Bantam and Buitenzorg. Of the other trees
that may be classified as timber--from 300 to 400 species--many attain
noble proportions. It is sufficient to mention _Calophyllum
inophyllum_, which forms fine woods in the south of Bantam, _Mimusops
acuminata_, _Irna glabra_, _Dalbergia latifolia_ (sun wood, English
black-wood) in middle and east Java; the rare but splendid
_Pithecolobium Junghuhnianum_; _Schima Noronhae_, _Bischofia
javanica_, _Pterospermum javanicum_ (greatly prized for
ship-building), and the upas-tree. From the economic point of view all
these hundreds of trees are of less importance than _Tectona grandis_,
the jati or teak, which, almost to the exclusion of all others,
occupies about a third of the government forest-lands. It grows best
in middle and eastern Java, preferring the comparatively dry and hot
climate of the plains and lower hills to a height of about 2000 ft.
above the sea, and thriving best in more or less calciferous soils. In
June it sheds its leaves and begins to bud again in October.
Full-grown trees reach a height of 100 to 150 ft. In 1895 teak (with a
very limited quantity of other timber) was felled to the value of
about L101,800, and in 1904 the corresponding figure was about
L119,935.
That an island which has for so long maintained a dense and growing
population in its more cultivable regions should have such extensive
tracts of primeval or quasi-primeval forest as have been above
indicated would be matter of surprise to one who did not consider the
simplicity of the life of the Javanese. They require but little fuel;
and both their dwellings and their furniture are mostly constructed of
bamboo supplemented with a palm or two. They destroy the forest mainly
to get room for their rice-fields and pasture for their cattle. In
doing this, however, they are often extremely reckless and wasteful;
and if it had not been for the unusual humidity of the climate their
annual fires would have resulted in widespread conflagrations. As it
is, many mountains are now bare which within historic times were
forested to the top; but the Dutch government has proved fully alive
to the danger of denudation. The state has control of all the woods
and forests of the island with the exception of those of the Preanger,
the "particular lands," and Madura; and it has long been engaged in
replanting with native trees and experimenting with aliens from other
parts of the world--_Eucalyptus globulus_, the juar, _Cassia florida_
from Sumatra, the surian (_Cedrela febrifuga_), &c. The greatest
success has been with cinchona.
Left to itself Java would soon clothe itself again with even a richer
natural vegetation than it had when it was first occupied by man. The
open space left by the demolition of the fortifications on Nusa
Kambangan was in twenty-eight years densely covered by thousands of
shrubs and trees of about twenty varieties, many of the latter 80 ft.
high. Resident Snijthoff succeeded about the close of the 19th century
in re-afforesting a large part of Mount Muria by the simple expedient
of protecting the territory he had to deal with from all encroachments
by natives.[12]
_Population._--The population of Java (including Madura, &c.) was
30,098,008 in 1905. In 1900 it was 28,746,688; in 1890, 23,912,564; and
in 1880, 19,794,505. The natives consist of the Javanese proper, the
Sundanese and the Madurese. All three belong to the Malay stock. Between
Javanese and Sundanese the distinction is mainly due to the influence of
the Hindus on the former and the absence of this on the latter. Between
Javanese and Madurese the distinction is rather to be ascribed to
difference of natural environment. The Sundanese have best retained the
Malay type, both in physique and fashion of life. They occupy the west
of the island. The Madurese area, besides the island of Madura and
neighbouring isles, includes the eastern part of Java itself. The
residencies of Tegal, Pekalongan, Banyumas, Bagelen, Kedu, Semarang,
Japara, Surakarta, Jokjakarta, Rembang, Madiun, Kediri and Surabaya have
an almost purely Javanese population. The Javanese are the most numerous
and civilized of the three peoples.
The colour of the skin in all three cases presents various shades of
yellowish-brown; and it is observed that, owing perhaps to the Hindu
strain, the Javanese are generally darker than the Sundanese. The eyes
are always brown or black, the hair of the head black, long, lank and
coarse. Neither breast nor limbs are provided with hair, and there is
hardly even the suggestion of a beard. In stature the Sundanese is less
than the Javanese proper, being little over 5 ft. in average height,
whereas the Javanese is nearly 5(1/2) ft.; at the same time the
Sundanese is more stoutly built. The Madurese is as tall as the
Javanese, and as stout as the Sundanese. The eye is usually set straight
in the head in the Javanese and Madurese; among the Sundanese it is
often oblique. The nose is generally flat and small, with wide nostrils,
although among the Javanese it not infrequently becomes aquiline. The
lips are thick, yet well formed; the teeth are naturally white, but
often filed and stained. The cheek-bones are well developed, more
particularly with the Madurese. In expressiveness of countenance the
Javanese and Madurese are far in advance of the Sundanese. The women are
not so well made as the men, and among the lower classes especially soon
grow absolutely ugly. In the eyes of the Javanese a golden yellow
complexion is the perfection of female beauty. To judge by their early
history, the Javanese must have been a warlike and vigorous people, but
now they are peaceable, docile, sober, simple and industrious.
One million only out of the twenty-six millions of natives are
concentrated in towns, a fact readily explained by their sources of
livelihood. The great bulk of the population is distributed over the
country in villages usually called by Europeans dessas, from the Low
Javanese word _desa_ (High Javanese _dusun_). Every dessa, however small
(and those containing from 100 to 1000 families are exceptionally
large), forms an independent community; and no sooner does it attain to
any considerable size than it sends off a score of families or so to
form a new dessa. Each lies in the midst of its own area of cultivation.
The general enceinte is formed by an impervious hedge of bamboos 40 to
70 ft. high. Within this lie the houses, each with its own enclosure,
which, even when the fields are the communal property, belongs to the
individual householder. The capital of a district is only a larger
dessa, and that of a regency has the same general type, but includes
several kampongs or villages. The bamboo houses in the strictly Javanese
districts are always built on the ground; in the Sunda lands they are
raised on piles. Some of the well-to-do, however, have stone houses. The
principal article of food is rice; a considerable quantity of fish is
eaten, but little meat. Family life is usually well ordered. The upper
class practise polygamy, but among the common people a man has generally
only one wife. The Javanese are nominally Mahommedans, as in former
times they were Buddhists and Brahmins; but in reality, not only such
exceptional groups as the Kalangs of Surakarta and Jokjakarta and the
Baduwis or nomad tribes of Bantam, but the great mass of the people must
be considered as believers rather in the primitive animism of their
ancestors, for their belief in Islam is overlaid with superstition. As
we ascend in the social scale, however, we find the name of Mahommedan
more and more applicable; and consequently in spite of the paganism of
the populace the influence of the Mahommedan "priests" (this is their
official title in Dutch) is widespread and real. Great prestige attaches
to the pilgrimage to Mecca, which was made by 5068 persons from Java in
1900. In every considerable town there is a mosque. Christian missionary
work is not very widely spread.
_Languages._--In spite of Sundanese, Madurese and the intrusive Malay,
Javanese has a right to the name. It is a rich and cultivated language
which has passed through many stages of development and, under
peculiar influences, has become a linguistic complex of an almost
unique kind. Though it is customary and convenient to distinguish New
Javanese from Kavi or Old Javanese, just as it was customary to
distinguish English from Anglo-Saxon, there is no break of historical
continuity. Kavi (Basa Kavi, i.e. the language of poetry) may be
defined as the form spoken and written before the founding of
Majapahit; and middle Javanese, still represented by the dialect of
Banyumas, north Cheribon, north Krawang and north Bantam, as the form
the language assumed under the Majapahit court influence; while New
Javanese is the language as it has developed since the fall of that
kingdom. Kavi continued to be a literary language long after it had
become archaic. It contains more Sanskrit than any other language of
the archipelago. New Javanese breaks up into two great varieties, so
different that sometimes they are regarded as two distinct languages.
The nobility use one form, Krama; the common people another, Ngoko,
the "thouing" language (cf. Fr. _tutoyant_, Ger. _dutzend_); but each
class understands the language of the other class. The aristocrat
speaks to the commonalty in the language of the commoner; the
commoner speaks to the aristocracy in the language of the aristocrat;
and, according to clearly recognized etiquette, every Javanese plays
the part of aristocrat or commoner towards those whom he addresses. To
speak Ngoko to a superior is to insult him; to speak Krama to an equal
or inferior is a mark of respect. In this way Dipa Negara showed his
contempt for the Dutch General de Kock. The ordinary Javanese thinks
in Ngoko; the children use it to each other, and so on. Between the
two forms there is a kind of compromise, the Madya, or middle form of
speech, employed by those who stand to each other on equal or friendly
footing or by those who feel little constraint of etiquette. For every
idea expressed in the language Krama has one vocable, the Ngoko
another, the two words being sometimes completely different and
sometimes differing only in the termination, the beginning or the
middle. Thus every Javanese uses, as it were, two or even three
languages delicately differentiated from each other. How this state of
affairs came about is matter of speculation. Almost certainly the
existence side by side of two peoples, speaking each its own tongue,
and occupying towards each other the position intellectually and
politically of superior and inferior, had much to do with it. But
Professor Kern thinks that some influence must also be assigned to
_pamela_ or _pantang_, word-taboo--certain words being in certain
circumstances regarded as of evil omen--a superstition still
lingering, e.g. even among the Shetland fishermen (see G. A. F. Hazeu,
_De taal pantangs_). It has sometimes been asserted that Krama
contains more Sanskrit words than Ngoko does; but the total number in
Krama does not exceed 20; and sometimes there is a Sanskrit word in
Ngoko which is not in Krama. There is a village Krama which is not
recognized by the educated classes: Krama inggil, with a vocabulary of
about 300 words, is used in addressing the deity or persons of exalted
rank. The Basa Kedaton or court language is a dialect used by all
living at court except royalties, who use Ngoko. Among themselves the
women of the court employ Krama or Madya, but they address the men in
Basa Kedaton.[13]
_Literature._--Though a considerable body of Kavi literature is still
extant, nothing like a history of it is possible. The date and
authorship of most of the works are totally unknown. The first place
may be assigned to the _Brata Yuda_ (Sansk., _Bharata Yudha_, the
conflict of the Bharatas), an epic poem dealing with the struggle
between the Pandawas and the Korawas for the throne of Ngastina
celebrated in parwas 5-10 of the _Mahabharata_. To the conception,
however, of the modern Javanese it is a purely native poem; its kings
and heroes find their place in the native history and serve as
ancestors to their noble families. (Cohen Stuart published the modern
Javanese version with a Dutch translation and notes, _Brata-Joeda_,
&c., Samarang, 1877. The Kavi text was lithographed at the Hague by S.
Lankhout.) Of greater antiquity probably is the _Ardjuna Wiwaha_ (or
marriage festival of Ardjuna), which Professor Kern thinks may be
assigned to the first half of the 11th century of the Christian era.
The name indicates its _Mahabharata_ origin. (Friederich published the
Kavi text from a Bali MS., and _Wiwaha Djarwa en Brata Joedo Kawi_,
lithographed facsimiles of two palm-leaf MSS., Batavia, 1878. Djarwa
is the name of the poetic diction of modern Javanese.) The oldest poem
of which any trace is preserved is probably the mythological _Kanda_
(i.e. tradition); the contents are to some extent known from the
modern Javanese version. In the literature of modern Javanese there
exists a great variety of so-called _babads_ or chronicles. It is
sufficient to mention the "history" of Baron Sakender, which appears
to give an account--often hardly recognizable--of the settlement of
Europeans in Java (Cohen Stuart published text and translation,
Batavia, 1851; J. Veth gives an analysis of the contents), and the
_Babad Tanah Djawi_ (the Hague, 1874, 1877), giving the history of the
island to 1647 of the Javanese era. Even more numerous are the
_wayangs_ or puppet-plays which usually take their subjects from the
Hindu legends or from those relating to the kingdoms of Majapahit and
Pajajaram (see e.g. H. C. Humme, _Abiasa, een Javaansche toneelstuk_,
the Hague, 1878). In these plays grotesque figures of gilded leather
are moved by the performer, who recites the appropriate speeches and,
as occasion demands, plays the part of chorus.
Several Javanese specimens are also known of the beast fable, which
plays so important a part in Sanskrit literature (W. Palmer van den
Broek, _Javaansche Vertellingen, bevattende de lotgevallen van een
kantjil, een reebok_, &c., the Hague, 1878). To the Hindu-Javanese
literature there naturally succeeded a Mahommedan-Javanese literature
consisting largely of translations or imitations of Arabic originals;
it comprises religious romances, moral exhortations and mystical
treatises in great variety.[14]
_Arts._--In mechanic arts the Javanese are in advance of the other
peoples of the archipelago. Of thirty different crafts practised among
them, the most important are those of the blacksmith or cutler, the
carpenter, the kris-sheath maker, the coppersmith, the goldsmith and
the potter. Their skill in the working of the metals is the more
noteworthy as they have to import the raw materials. The most esteemed
product of the blacksmith's skill is the kris; every man and boy above
the age of fourteen wears one at least as part of his ordinary dress,
and men of rank two and sometimes four. In the finishing and adornment
of the finer weapons no expense is spared; and ancient krises of good
workmanship sometimes fetch enormous prices. The Javanese gold and
silver work possesses considerable beauty, but there is nothing equal
to the filigree of Sumatra; the brass musical instruments are of
exceptional excellence. Both bricks and tiles are largely made, as
well as a coarse unglazed pottery similar to that of Hindustan; but
all the finer wares are imported from China. Cotton spinning, weaving
and dyeing are carried on for the most part as purely domestic
operations by the women. The usual mode of giving variety of colour is
by weaving in stripes with a succession of different coloured yarns,
but another mode is to cover with melted wax or damar the part of the
cloth not intended to receive the dye. This process is naturally a
slow one, and has to be repeated according to the number of colours
required. As a consequence the _battiks_, as the cloths thus treated
are called, are in request by the wealthier classes. For the most part
quiet colours are preferred. To the Javanese of the present day the
ancient buildings of the Hindu periods are the work of supernatural
power. Except when employed by his European master he seldom builds
anything more substantial than a bamboo or timber framework; but in
the details of such erections he exhibits both skill and taste. When
Europeans first came to the island they found native vessels of large
size well entitled to the name of ships; and, though ship-building
proper is now carried on only under the direction of Europeans,
boat-building is a very extensive native industry along the whole of
the north coast--the boats sometimes reaching a burden of 50 tons. The
only one of the higher arts which the Javanese have carried to any
degree of perfection is music; and in regard to the value of their
efforts in this direction Europeans differ greatly. The orchestra
(_gamelan_) consists of wind, string and percussion instruments, the
latter being in preponderancy to the other two. (Details of the
instruments will be found in Raffles' _Java_, and a description of a
performance in the _Tour du monde_, 1880.)
_Chief Towns and Places of Note._--The capital of Java and of the
Dutch East India possessions is Batavia (q.v.), pop. 115,567. At
Meester Cornelis (pop. 33,119), between 6 and 7 m. from Batavia on the
railway to Buitenzorg, the battle was fought in 1811 which placed Java
in the hands of the British. In the vicinity lies Depok, originally a
Christian settlement of freed slaves, but now with about 3000
Mahommedan inhabitants and only 500 Christians. The other chief towns,
from west to east through the island, are as follows: Serang (pop.
5600) bears the same relation to Bantam, about 6 m. distant, which New
Batavia bears to Old Batavia, its slight elevation of 100 ft. above
the sea making it fitter for European occupation. Anjer (Angerlor,
Anger) lies 96 m. from Batavia by rail on the coast at the narrowest
part of the Sunda Strait; formerly European vessels were wont to call
there for fresh provisions and water. Pandeglang (pop. 3644), 787 ft.
above sea-level, is known for its hot and cold sulphur springs. About
17 m. west of Batavia lies Tangerang (pop. 13,535), a busy place with
about 2800 or 3000 Chinese among its inhabitants. Buitenzorg (q.v.) is
the country-seat of the governor-general, and its botanic gardens are
famous. Krawang, formerly chief town of the residency of that
name--the least populous of all--has lost its importance since
Purwakerta (pop. 6862) was made the administrative centre. At Wanyasa
in the neighbourhood the first tea plantations were attempted on a
large scale.
The Preanger regencies--Bandung, Chanjur, Sukabumi, Sumedang, Garut
and Tasikmalaya--constitute the most important of all the residencies,
though owing to their lack of harbour on the south and the intractable
nature of much of their soil they have not shared in the prosperity
enjoyed by many other parts of the island. Bandung, the chief town
since 1864, lies 2300 ft. above sea-level, 109 m. south of Batavia by
rail; it is a well-built and flourishing place (pop. 28,965; Europeans
1522, Chinese 2650) with a handsome resident's house (1867), a large
mosque (1867), a school for the sons of native men of rank, the most
important quinine factory in the island, and a race-course where in
July a good opportunity is afforded of seeing both the life of
fashionable and official Java and the customs and costumes of the
common people. The district is famous for its waterfalls, one of the
most remarkable of which is where the Chi Tarum rushes through a
narrow gully to leap down from the Bandung plateau. In the
neighbourhood is the great military camp of Chimahi. Chanjur, formerly
the chief town, in spite of its loss of administrative position still
has a population of 13,599. From Sukabumi (pop. 12,112; 569
Europeans), a pleasant health resort among the hills at an altitude of
1965 ft., tourists are accustomed to visit Wijnkoopers Bay for the
sake of the picturesque shore scenery. Chichalengka became after 1870
one of the centres of the coffee industry. Sumedang has only 8013
inhabitants, having declined since the railway took away the highway
traffic: it is exceeded both by Garut (10,647) and by Tasikmalaya
(9196), but it is a beautiful place well known to sportsmen for its
proximity to the Rancha Ekek swamp, where great snipe-shooting matches
are held every year. For natural beauty few parts of Java can compare
with the plain of Tasikmalaya, itself remarkable, in a country of
trees, for its magnificent avenues. N.E. of the Preanger lies the
residency of Cheribon[15] (properly Chi Rebon, the shrimp river). The
chief town (pop. 24,564) is one of the most important places on the
north coast, though the unhealthiness of the site has caused Europeans
to settle at Tangkil, 2 m. distant. The church (1842), the regent's
residence, and the great prison are among the principal buildings;
there are also extensive salt warehouses. The native part of the town
is laid out more regularly than is usual, and the Chinese quarter
(pop. 3352) has the finest Chinese temple in Java. The palaces of the
old sultans of Cheribon are less extensive than those of Surakarta and
Jokjakarta. Though the harbour has to be kept open by constant
dredging the roadstead is good all the year round. A strange pleasure
palace of Sultan Supeh, often described by travellers, lies about 2 m.
off near Sunya Raja. Mundu, a village 4 m. south-east of Cheribon, is
remarkable as the only spot on the north coast of the island visited
by the ikan prut or belly-fish, a species about as large as a cod,
caught in thousands and salted by the local fishermen. Indramayu,
which lies on both banks of the Chi Manuk about 8 m. from the coast,
is mentioned under the name of Dermayo as a port for the rice of the
district and the coffee of the Preanger. The coffee trade is extinct
but the rice trade is more flourishing than ever, and the town has
13,400 inhabitants, of whom 2200 are Chinese. It might have a great
commercial future if money could be found for the works necessary to
overcome the disadvantage of its position--the roads being safe only
during the east monsoon and the river requiring to be deepened and
regulated. Tegal has long been one of the chief towns of Java:
commerce, native trade and industry, and fisheries are all well
represented and the sugar factories give abundant employment to the
inhabitants. The harbour has been the object of various improvements
since 1871. The whole district is densely populated (3100 to the sq.
m.) and the town proper with its 16,665 inhabitants is surrounded by
extensive kampongs (Balapulang, Lebaksiu, &c.). In Pekalongan (pop.
38,211) and Batang (21,286) the most important industry is the
production of battiks and stamped cloths; there are also iron-works
and sugar factories. The two towns are only some 5 m. apart. The
former has a large mosque, a Protestant church, an old fort and a
large number of European houses. The Chinese quarters consist of neat
stone or brick buildings. Pekalongan smoked ducks are well known.
Brebes (13,474) on the Pamali is an important trade centre. Banyumas
(5000) is the seat of a resident; it is exceeded by Purwokerto
(12,610), Purbalinggo (12,094) and Chilachap (12,000). This last
possesses the best harbour on the south coast, and but for malaria
would have been an important place. It was chosen as the seat of a
great military establishment but had to be abandoned, the fort being
blown up in 1893. Semarang (pop. 89,286, of whom 4800 are Europeans
and 12,372 Chinese) lies on the Kali Ngaran near the centre of the
north coast. Up to 1824 the old European town was surrounded by a wall
and ditch. It was almost the exact reproduction of a Dutch town
without the slightest accommodation to the exigencies of the climate,
the streets narrow and irregular. The modern town is well laid out.
Among the more noteworthy buildings of Semarang are the old Prince of
Orange fort, the resident's house, the Roman Catholic church, the
Protestant church, the mosque, the military hospital. A new impulse to
the growth of the town was given by the opening of the railway to
Surakarta and Jokjakarta in 1875. As a seaport the place is
unfortunately situated. The river has long been silted up; the
roadstead is insecure in the west monsoon. After many delays an
artificial canal, begun in 1858, became available as a substitute for
the river; but further works are necessary. A second great canal to
the east, begun in 1896, helps to prevent inundations and thus improve
the healthiness of the town. Demak, 13 m. N.E. of Semarang, though
situated in a wretched region of swamps and having only 5000
inhabitants, is famous in ancient Javanese history. The mosque,
erected by the first sultan of Demak, was rebuilt in 1845; only a
small part of the old structure has been preserved, but as a sanctuary
it attracts 6000 or 7000 pilgrims annually. To visit Demak seven times
has the same ceremonial value as the pilgrimage to Mecca. The tombs of
several of the sultans are still extant. Salatiga ("three stones,"
with allusion to three temples now destroyed) was in early times one
of the resting places of ambassadors proceeding to the court of
Mataram, and in the European history of Java its name is associated
with the peace of 1755 and the capitulation of 1811. It is the seat of
a cavalry and artillery camp. Its population, about 10,000, seems to
be declining. Ambarawa with its railway station is, on the other hand,
rapidly increasing. Its population of 14,745 includes 459 Europeans.
About a mile to the N. lies the fortress of Willem I. which Van den
Bosch meant to make the centre of the Javanese system of defensive
works; the Banyubiru military camp is in the neighbourhood. Kendal
(15,000) is a centre of the sugar industry. Kudus (31,000; 4300
Chinese) has grown to be one of the most important inland towns. Its
cloth and battik pedlars are known throughout the island and the
success of their enterprise is evident in the style of their houses. A
good trade is also carried on in cattle, kapok, copra, pottery and all
sorts of small wares. The mosque in the old town has interesting
remains of Majapahit architecture; and the tomb of Pangeran Kudus is a
noted Mahommedan sanctuary. A steam tramway leads northward towards,
but does not reach Japara, which in the 17th century was the chief
port of the kingdom of Mataram and retained its commercial importance
till the Dutch Company removed its establishment to Semarang. In 1818
Daendels transferred its resident to Pati. Ungaran, 1026 ft. above the
sea, was a place of importance as early as the 17th century, and in
modern times has become known as a sanatorium. Rembang, a well-built
coast town and the seat of a resident, has grown rapidly to have a
population of 29,538 with 210 Europeans. Very similar to each other
are Surakarta or Solo and Jokjakarta, the chief towns of the
quasi-independent states or Vorstenlanden. Surakarta (pop. 109,459;
Chinese 5159, Europeans 1913) contains the palace (Kraton, locally
called the Bata bumi) of the susuhunan (which the Dutch translated as
emperor), the dalem of Prince Mangku Negara, the residences of the
Solo nobles, a small Dutch fort (Vastenburg), a great mosque, an old
Dutch settlement, and a Protestant church. Here the susuhunan lives in
Oriental pomp and state. To visitors there are few more interesting
entertainments than those afforded by the celebration of the 31st of
August (the birthday of the queen of the Netherlands) or of the New
Year and the Puasa festivals, with their wayungs, ballet-dancers, and
so on. Jokjakarta (35 m. S.) has been a great city since Mangku Bumi
settled there in 1755. The Kraton has a circuit of 3(1/2) m., and is a
little town in itself with the palace proper, the residences of the
ladies of the court and kampongs for the hereditary smiths,
carpenters, sculptors, masons, payong-makers, musical instrument
makers, &c., &c., of his highness. The independent Prince Paku Alam
has a palace of his own. As in Surakarta there are an old Dutch town
and a fort. The Jogka market is one of the most important of all Java,
especially for jewelry. The total population is 72,235 with 1424
Europeans. To the south-east lies Pasar Gedeh, a former capital of
Mataram, with tombs of the ancient princes in the Kraton, a favourite
residence of wealthy Javanese traders. Surabaya (q.v.), on the strait
of Madura, is the largest commercial town in Java. Its population
increased from 118,000 in 1890 to 146,944 in 1900 (8906 Europeans). To
the north lies Grissee or Gresih (25,688 inhabitants) with a fairly
good harbour and of special interest in the early European history of
Java. Inland is the considerable town of Lamongan (12,485
inhabitants). Fifteen m. S. by rail lies Sidoarjo (10,207; 185
Europeans), the centre of one of the most densely populated districts
and important as a railway junction. In the neighbourhood is the
populous village of Mojosari. Pasuruan was until modern times one of
the chief commercial towns in Java, the staple being sugar. Since the
opening of the railway to Surabaya it has greatly declined, and its
warehouses and dwelling-houses are largely deserted. The population is
27,152 with 663 Europeans. Probolinggo (called by the natives Banger)
is a place of 13,240 inhabitants. The swampy tracts in the vicinity
are full of fishponds. The baths of Banyubiru (blue water) to the
south have Hindu remains much visited by devotees. Pasirian in the far
south of the residency is a considerable market town and the terminus
of a branch railway. Besuki, the easternmost of all the residencies,
contains several places of some importance; the chief town Bondowoso
(8289); Besuki, about the same size, but with no foreign trade;
Jember, a small but rapidly increasing place, and Banyuwangi (17,559).
This last was at one time the seat of the resident, now the eastern
terminus of the railway system, and is a seaport on the Bali Strait
with an important office of the telegraph company controlling
communication with Port Darwin and Singapore. It has a very mingled
population, besides Javanese and Madurese, Chinese and Arabs,
Balinese, Buginese and Europeans. The chief town of Kediri (10,489) is
the only residency town in the interior traversed by a navigable
river, and is exceeded by Tulungagung; and the residency of Madiun has
two considerable centres of population: Madiun (21,168) and Ponorogo
(16,765).
_Agriculture._--About 40% of the soil of Java is under cultivation.
Bantam and Besuki have each 16% of land under cultivation; Krawang,
21%; Preanger, 23%; Rembang, 30%; Japara, 62%; Surabaya, 65%; Kedu,
66%; Samarang, 67%. Proceeding along the south coast from its west
end, we find that in Bantam all the land cultivated on its south shore
amounts to at most but 5% of that regency; in Preanger and Banyumas,
as far as Chilachap, the land under cultivation amounts at a maximum
to 20%. East of Surakarta the percentages of land on the south coast
under cultivation decline from 30 to 20 and 10. East of the residency
of Probolinggo the percentage of land cultivated on the south coast
sinks to as low as 2. On the north coast, in Krawang and Rembang, with
their morasses and double chains of chalk, there are districts with
only 20% and 10% of the soil under cultivation. In the residencies, on
the other hand, of Batavia, Cheribon, Tegal, Samarang, Japara,
Surabaya and Pasuruan, there are districts having 80% to 90% of soil,
and even more, under cultivation.
The agricultural products of Java must be distinguished into those
raised by the natives for their own use and those raised for the
government and private proprietors. The land assigned to the natives
for their own culture and use amounts to about 9,625,000 acres. In
western Java the prevailing crop is rice, less prominently cultivated
in middle Java, while in eastern Java and Madura other articles of
food take the first rank. The Javanese tell strange legends concerning
the introduction of rice, and observe various ceremonies in connexion
with its planting, paying more regard to them than to the proper
cultivation of the cereal. The agricultural produce grown on the lands
of the government and private proprietors, comprising an area of about
3(1/2) million acres, consists of sugar, cinchona, coffee, tobacco,
tea, indigo, &c. The Javanese possess buffaloes, ordinary cattle,
horses, dogs and cats. The buffalo was probably introduced by the
Hindus. As in agricultural products, so also in cattle-rearing,
western Java is distinguished from middle and eastern Java. The
average distribution of buffaloes is 106 per 1000 inhabitants, but it
varies considerably in different districts, being greatest in western
Java. The fact that rice is the prevailing culture in the west, while
in eastern Java other plants constitute the chief produce, explains
the larger number of buffaloes found in western Java, these animals
being more in requisition in the culture of rice. The ordinary cattle
are of mixed race; the Indian zebu having been crossed with the
banting and with European cattle of miscellaneous origin. The horses,
though small, are of excellent character, and their masters, according
to their own ideas, are extremely particular in regard to purity of
race. Riding comes naturally to the Javanese; horse-races and tournays
have been in vogue among them from early times.
Coffee is an alien in Java. Specimens brought in 1696 from Cannanore
on the Malabar coast perished in an earthquake and floods in 1699; the
effective introduction of the precious shrub was due to Hendrik
Zwaardekron (see N. P. van den Berg, "Voortbrenging en verbruck van
koffie," _Tijdschrift v. Nijverh. en Landb._ 1879; and the article
"Koffie" in _Encyc. Ned. Ind._ Wiji kawih is mentioned in a Kavi
inscription of A.D. 856, and the bean-broth in David Tappen's list of
Javanese beverages, 1667-1682, may have been coffee). The first
consignment of coffee (894 lb.) to the Netherlands was made in
1711-1712, but it was not till after 1721 that the yearly exports
reached any considerable amount. The aggregate quantity sold in the
home market from 1711 to 1791 was 2,036,437 piculs, or on an average
about 143 tons per annum; and this probably represented nearly the
whole production of the island. By the beginning of the 19th century
the annual production was about 7143 tons and after the introduction
of the Van den Bosch system of forced culture a further augmentation
was effected. The forced culture system was, in 1909, however, of
little importance. Official reports show that from 1840 to 1873 the
amount ranged from 5226 tons to 7354. During the ten years 1869 to
1878 the average crop of the plantations under state control was 5226
tons, that of the private planters about 810. The government has shown
a strange reluctance to surrender the old-fashioned monopoly, but the
spirit of private enterprise has slowly gained the day. Though the
appearance of the coffee blight (_Hemileia vastatrix_) almost ruined
the industry the planters did not give in. An immune variety was
introduced from Liberia, and scientific methods of treatment have been
adopted in dealing with the plantations. In 1887, a record year, the
value of the coffee crop reached L3,083,333, and at its average it was
about L1,750,000 between 1886 and 1895. The value was only L1,166,666
in 1896. The greatest difficulties are the uncertainties both of the
crop and of its marketable value. The former is well shown in the
figures for 1903 to 1905; government 17,900, 3949 and 3511 tons, and
private planters 22,395, 15,311 and 21,395 tons. Liberia coffee is
still produced in much smaller quantity than Java coffee; the latter
on an average of these three years 21,360 tons; the former 7409.
The cultivation of sugar has been long carried on in Java, and since
the decline of the coffee plantations it has developed into the
leading industry of the island. There are experimental stations at
Pasuruan, Pekalongan and elsewhere, where attempts are made to
overcome the many diseases to which the cane is subject. Many of the
mills are equipped with high-class machinery and produce sugar of
excellent colour and grain. In 1853-1857 the average crop was 98,094
tons; in 1869-1873, 170,831, and in 1875-1880, 204,678. By 1899-1900
the average had risen to 787,673 tons; and the crops for 1904 and 1905
were respectively 1,064,935 and 1,028,357 tons. Prices fluctuate, but
the value of the harvest of 1905 was estimated at about L15,000,000.
The cultivation of indigo shows a strange vitality. Under the culture
system the natives found this the most oppressive of all the state
crops. The modern chemist at one time seemed to have killed the
industry by his synthetic substitute, but in every year between 1899
and 1904 Java exported between one million and one and a half million
pounds of the natural product. Japan and Russia were the largest
buyers. As blue is a favourite colour with the Javanese proper a large
quantity is used at home.
Tea was first introduced to Java by the Japanese scholar von Siebold
in 1826. The culture was undertaken by the state in 1829 with plants
from China, but in 1842 they handed it over to contractors, whose
attempts to increase their profits by delivering an inferior article
ultimately led to the abandonment of the contract system in 1860. In
the meantime the basis of a better state of the industry had been laid
by the Dutch tea-taster J. J. L. L. Jacobsen of the Nederlandsch
Handel Maatschappij, who introduced not only fresh stock, but expert
growers from China in 1852-1853. The tea-planters (often taking
possession of the abandoned coffee-plantations) have greatly improved
the quality of their products. Assam tea was introduced in 1878, and
this has rapidly extended its area. The exports increased from
12,110,724 lb. in 1898 to 25,772,564 in 1905. More than half the total
goes to the Netherlands; the United Kingdom ranks next, and, far
behind both, Russia.
In 1854 the government introduced the culture of cinchona with free
labour, and it had considerable success under F. Junghuhn and his
successors, though the varieties grown were of inferior quality. Later
seed of the best cinchona was obtained, and under skilful management
Java has become the chief producer of quinine in the world. Cacao is
produced in the Preanger regencies, Pekalongan, Semarang, Pasuruan,
Besuki, Kediri and Surakarta. In 1903, a record year, 1,101,835 piculs
(about 6540 tons) were produced. _Broussonetia papyrifera_ is grown
for the sake of its bark, so well known in Japan (Jap. _kodsu_) as a
paper material. The ground-nut (the widely spread _Arachis hypogaea_
from South America), locally known as kachang china or tanah, is
somewhat extensively grown. The oil is exported to Holland, where it
is sold as Delft salad oil. Tapioca has long been cultivated,
especially in the Preanger. The industry is mainly in the hands of the
Chinese, and the principal foreign purchasers are English biscuit
manufacturers. The kapok is a tree from tropical America which,
growing freely in any soil, is extensively used throughout Java along
the highways as a support for telegraph and telephone wires, and
planted as a prop in pepper and cubeb plantations. The silky fibre
contained in its long capsuloid fruits is known as cotton wool; and
among other uses it serves almost as well as cork for filling
life-belts; and the oil from its seed is employed to adulterate
ground-nut oil. The quantity of wool exported nearly trebled between
1890 and 1896, in the latter year the total sent to Holland,
Australia, Singapore, &c., amounting to 38,586 bales. The rapid
exhaustion of the natural supply of india-rubber and gutta-percha
began to attract the attention of government in the latter decades of
the 19th century. Extensive experiments have been made in the
cultivation of _Ficus elastica_ (the karet of the natives), _Castilloa
elastica_, and _Hevea brasiliensis_. The planting of gutta-percha
trees was begun about 1886, and a regular system introduced in the
Preanger in 1901. The _Palaquium oblongifolium_ plantations at Blavan,
Kemutuk and Sewang in Banyumas have also been brought under official
control. Java tobacco, amounting to about 35,200,000 lb. a year, is
cultivated almost exclusively in eastern Java. Among other products
which are of some importance as articles of export may be mentioned
nutmegs, mace, pepper, hides, arrack and copra.
_Particular Lands._--At different times down to 1830 the government
disposed of its lands in full property to individuals who, acquiring
complete control of the inhabitants as well as of the soil, continued
down to the 19th century to act as if they were independent of all
superior authority. In this way more than 1(1/2) millions of the people
were subject not to the state but to "stock companies, absentee
landlords and Chinese." According to the _Regeerings Almanak_ (1906)
these "particular lands," as they are called, were distributed as
follows: Bantam 21, Batavia 36, Meester Cornelis 163, Tangerang 80,
Buitenzorg 61, Semarang 32, Surabaya 46, Krawang and Demak 3 each,
Cheribon 2, and Pekalongan, Kendal and Pasuruan 1 each. In Meester
Cornelis no fewer than 297,912 persons were returned in 1905 as living
on these lands. Of the 168 estates there are not 20 that grow anything
but grass, rice and coconuts. In Buitenzorg (thanks probably to the
Botanic Gardens) matters are better: tea, coffee, cinchona and
india-rubber appearing amongst the objects of cultivation; and, in
general, it must be noted that these estates have often natural
difficulties to contend against far beyond their financial strength.
_Minerals._--Of all the great islands of the archipelago Java is the
poorest in metallic ores. Gold and silver are practically nonexistent.
Manganese is found in Jokjakarta and various other parts. A concession
for working the magnetic iron sands in the neighbourhood of Chilachap
was granted in 1904. Coal occurs in thin strata and small pockets in
many parts (Bantam, Rembang, Jokjakarta, &c.); and in 1905 a
concession was granted to a company to work the coal-beds at Bajah
close to the harbour of Wijnkoopers Bay, a port of call of the
Koninklijk Paketvaart Maatschappij. The discovery by De Groot in 1863
of petroleum added a most important industry to the list of the
resources of Java. The great Dort Petroleum Company, now centred at
Amsterdam, was founded in 1887. The production of this company alone
rose from 79,179 _kisten_ or cases (each 8.14 gall.) in 1891 to
1,642,780 in 1890, and to 1,967,124 in 1905. In 1904 there were no
fewer than 36 concessions for petroleum. At the same time there is a
larger importation of oil from Sumatra as well as from America and
Russia. Sulphur is regularly worked in the Gunong Slamet, G. Sindoro,
G. Sumbing, and in the crater of the Tangkuban Prahu as well as in
other places in the Preanger regencies and in Pasuruan. Brine-wells
exist in various parts. The bledegs (salt-mud wells) of Grobogan in
the Solo Valley, Semarang, are best known. They rise from Miocene
strata and yield iodine and bromine products as well as common salt.
The natives of the district are allowed to extract the salt for their
own use, but elsewhere (except in Jokjakarta) the manufacture of salt
is a government monopoly and confined to the districts of Sumenep,
Panekasan and Sampang in Madura, where from 3000 to 4000 people are
hereditarily engaged in extracting salt from sea water, delivering it
to the government at the rate of 10 fl. (nearly 17s.) per koyang (3700
lb.). The distribution of this salt (rough-grained, greyish and highly
hygroscopic) is extremely unsatisfactory. The waste was so great that
in 1901 the government paid a prize of about L835 (10,000 fl.) to Karl
Boltz von Bolzberg for an improved method of packing. Between 1888 and
1892 the annual amount delivered was 71,405 tons; in the next five
years it rose to 89,932; and between 1898 and 1902 sank again to
88,856. The evil effects of this monopoly have been investigated by J.
E. de Meyer, "Zout als middel van belasting," _De Ind. Gids._ (1905).
The scarcity of salt has led to a great importation of salted fish
from Siam (upwards of 6600 tons in 1902).
_Communications._--Roads and railways for the most part follow the
fertile plains and table-lands along the coast and between the
volcanic areas. The principal railways are the Semarang-Jokjakarta and
Batavia-Buitenzorg lines of the Netherlands-Indian railway company,
and the Surabaya-Pasuruan, Bangil-Mulang, Sidoarjo-Paron,
Kertosono-Tulung Agung, Buitenzorg-Chianjur, Surakarta-Madiun,
Pasuruan-Probolinggo, Jokjakarta-Chilachap and other lines of the
government. The earliest lines, between Batavia and Buitenzorg and
between Semarang and the capitals of the sultanates, were built about
1870 by a private company with a state guarantee. Since 1875, when Dr
van Goltstein, then a cabinet minister and afterwards Dutch minister
in London, had an act passed for the construction of state railways in
Java, their progress has become much more rapid. In addition, several
private companies have built either light railways or tramways, such
as that between Semarang and Joana, and the total length of all lines
was 2460 in 1905. There are some 3500 miles of telegraph line, and
cables connect Java with Madura, Bali and Sumatra, and Port Darwin in
Australia. Material welfare was promoted by the establishment of lines
of steamships between Java and the other islands, all belonging to a
Royal Packet Company, established in 1888 under a special statute, and
virtually possessing a monopoly on account of the government mail
contracts.
_Administration._--Each village (dessa) forms an independent
community, a group of dessas forms a district, a group of districts a
department and a group of departments a residency, of which there are
seventeen. At the head of each residency is a resident, with an
assistant resident and a controller, all Dutch officials. The
officials of the departments and districts are natives appointed by
the government; those of the dessa are also natives, elected by the
inhabitants and approved by the resident. In the two sultanates of
Surakarta and Jokjakarta the native sultans govern under the
supervision of the residents. (For the colonial administration of
Netherlands India see MALAY ARCHIPELAGO.)
_History._--The origin of the name Java is very doubtful. It is not
improbable that it was first applied either to Sumatra or to what was
known of the Indian Archipelago--the insular character of the several
parts not being at once recognized. Jawa Dwipa, or "land of millet," may
have been the original form and have given rise both to the Jaba diu of
Ptolemy and to the Je-pho-thi of Fahien, the Chinese pilgrim of the
4th-5th century. The oldest form of the name in Arabic is apparently
Zabej. The first epigraphic occurrence of Jawa is in an inscription of
1343. In Marco Polo the name is the common appellation of all the Sunda
islands. The Jawa of Ibn Batuta is Sumatra; Java is his Mul Jawa (i.e.
possibly "original Java"). Jawa is the modern Javanese name (in the
court speech Jawi), sometimes with Nusa, "island," or Tanah, "country,"
prefixed.
It is impossible to extract a rational historical narrative from the
earlier _babads_ or native chronicles, and even the later are destitute
of any satisfactory chronology. The first great era in the history is
the ascendancy of the Hindus, and that breaks up into three periods--a
period of Buddhism, a period of aggressive Sivaism, and a period of
apparent compromise. Of the various Hindu states that were established
in the island, that of Majapahit was the most widely dominant down to
the end of the 15th century; its tributaries were many, and it even
extended its sway into other parts of the archipelago. The second era of
Javanese history is the invasion of Islam in the beginning of the 15th
century; and the third is the establishment of European and more
particularly of Dutch influence and authority in the island. About 1520
the Portuguese entered into commercial relationship with the natives,
but at the close of the same century the Dutch began to establish
themselves. At the time when the Dutch East India company began to fix
its trading factories on the coast towns, the chief native state was
Mataram, which had in the 16th century succeeded to the overlordship
possessed by the house of Demak--one of the states that rose after the
fall of Majapahit. The emperors of Java, as the princes of Mataram are
called in the early accounts, had their capital at Kartasura, now an
almost deserted place, 6 m. west of Surakarta. At first and for long the
company had only forts and little fragments of territory at Jakatra
(Batavia), &c.; but in 1705 it obtained definite possession of the
Preanger by treaty with Mataram; and in 1745 its authority was extended
over the whole north-east coast, from Cheribon to Banyuwangi. In 1755
the kingdom of Mataram was divided into the two states of Surakarta and
Jokjakarta, which still retain a shadow of independence. The kingdom of
Bantam was finally subjugated in 1808. By the English occupation of the
island (1811-1818) the European ascendancy was rather strengthened than
weakened; the great Java war (1825-1830), in which Dipa Negara, the last
Javanese prince, a clever, bold and unscrupulous leader, struggled to
maintain his claim to the whole island, resulted in the complete success
of the Dutch. To subdue him and his following, however, taxed all the
resources of the Dutch Indian army for a period of five years, and cost
it the loss of 15,000 officers and soldiers, besides millions of
guilders. Nor did his great influence die with him when his adventurous
career came to a close in 1855 at Macassar. Many Javanese, who dream of
a restoration of their ancient empire, do not believe even yet that Dipa
Negara is dead. They are readily persuaded by fanatical hadjis that
their hero will suddenly appear to drive away the Dutch and claim his
rightful heritage. Several times there have been political troubles in
the native states of central Java, in which Dipa Negara's name was used,
notably in 1883, when many rebellious chieftains were exiled. Similar
attempts at revolt had been made before, mainly in 1865 and 1870, but
none so serious perhaps as that in 1849, in which a son and a brother of
Dipa Negara were implicated, aiming to deliver and reinstate him. All
such attempts proved as futile there as others in different parts of
Java, especially in Bantam, where the trouble of 1850 and 1888 had a
religious origin, and in the end they directly contributed to the
consolidation of Dutch sway. Being the principal Dutch colony in the
Malay Archipelago, Java was the first to benefit from the material
change which resulted from the introduction of the Grondwet or
Fundamental Law of 1848 in Holland. The main changes were of an
economical character, but the political developments were also
important. Since 1850 Dutch authority has steadily advanced, principally
at the expense of the semi-independent sultanates in central Java, which
had been allowed to remain after the capture and exile of Dipa Negara.
The power of the sultans of Jokjakarta and Surakarta has diminished; in
1863 Dutch authority was strengthened in the neighbouring island of
Madura, and Bantam has lost every vestige of independence. The
strengthening of the Dutch power has largely resulted from a more
statesmanlike and more generous treatment of the natives, who have been
educated to regard the _orang blanda_, or white man, as their protector
against the native rulers. Thus, in 1866, passports for natives
travelling in Java were abolished by the then governor-general, Dr Sloet
van de Beele, who also introduced many reforms, reducing the _corvee_ in
the government plantations to a minimum, and doing away with the
monopoly of fisheries. Six years later a primary education system for
the natives, and a penal code, whose liberal provisions seemed framed
for Europeans, were introduced.
_Antiquities._--Ordinary traces of early human occupation are few in
Java. The native bamboo buildings speedily perish. Stone weapons are
occasionally found. But remains of the temples and monastic buildings
of the Hindu period are numerous and splendid, and are remarkable as
representing architecture which reached a high standard without the
use of mortar, supporting columns or arches. Chandis (i.e. temples,
though the word originally meant a depository for the ashes of a
saint) are not found in western Java. They exist in two great zones:
one in middle Java, one in eastern Java, each with its own
distinguishing characteristics, both architectural and religious. The
former begins in the Dyeng plateau, in the east of Banyumas, and
extends into the east of Bagelen, Kedu and the neighbouring districts
of Semarang, northern Jokjakarta, and the western corner of Surakarta.
The latter lies mainly in Surabaya, Kediri and Pasuruan. A
considerable number of ruins also exist in Probolinggo. Farther east
they grow scarce. There is none in Madura. The remains of Macham Putih
in Banyuwangi are possibly of non-Hindu origin. In the regency of
Kendal (Semarang), to the north of Kedu, the place-names show that
temples once existed.[16] Some of them are Sivaite, some Buddhist,
some astoundingly composite. None of the Buddhist buildings shows
traces of the older Himaryana form of the creed. The greatest of all
is a perfect sculptural exposition of the Mahayana doctrine. As to the
period during which these temples were erected, authorities are not
agreed. Ijzerman assigns the central Java groups to between the 8th
and the 10th centuries. The seven-storeyed vihara (monastery)
mentioned in the famous Menang-Kabu inscription (Sumatra) as founded
by Maharaja Dhiraya Adityadharma in A.D. 656 is by some supposed to be
Boro-Budur. A copper plate of 840 refers to Dyeng (Dehyang) as one of
the sacred mountains of Java. One thing seems certain, that the
temples of the eastern zone are of much more recent origin than most,
at least, of the central zone. They are generally distinguished by the
characteristics of a decadent and more voluptuous age, and show that
the art of the time had become less Indian and more Javanese, with
traces of influences derived from the more eastern East. At the same
time it must be noted that even in Boro Budur there are non-Indian
elements in the decoration, indicating that the Hindu architect
employed native artists and to some extent left them a free hand.
In his standard work on _Indian and Eastern Architecture_ (London,
1876), James Fergusson asserted that the Javanese temples are in the
Chalukyan style. But J. W. Ijzerman in an elaborate paper in the
_Album-Kern_ contends that the learned historian of architecture was
misled by basing his opinion mainly on inaccurate drawings reproduced
by Raffles. The Javanese temples, with the solitary exception of
Chandi Bima in the Dyeng, are Dravidian and not Chalukyan. The very
temples quoted by Fergusson, when more carefully examined, disprove
his statement: a fact not without its bearing on the history of the
Hindu immigration.
The wonderful scenery of the Dyeng plateau was already, in all
probability, an object of superstitious awe to the aboriginal
inhabitants of Java; and thus it would catch the attention of the
earliest Hindu settlers. The old crater floor is full of traces of
human occupation; though, in spite of the tradition of the existence
of a considerable town, no sepulchral relics of the inhabitants have
been discovered. There still remain five groups of temples--some well
preserved, some mere heaps of stone--to prove the devotion their
builders bore to Siva, his consort Durga, and Ganesha their son. The
Arjuno group, in the middle of the plateau, consists of Chandi Arjuno
(with its chapel or priests' residence, Ch. Semar), Ch. Srikahdi, Ch.
Puntadeva and Ch. Sembadro, each a simple square chamber with a
portico reached by a flight of steps. The second group, Ch. Daravati
and Ch. Parakesit, lies to the north-east. The third, now a ruined
mound, lies to the east. The fourth, to the north-west, is a group of
seven small temples of which Ch. Sanchaki is the most important, with
a square ground plan and an octagon roof with a second circular
storey. Of the fifth group, in the south, only one temple remains--the
Chandi Bima--a small, beautiful and exceptionally interesting
building, in "the form of a pyramid, the ribs of which stand out much
more prominently than the horizontal lines of the niche-shaped
ornaments which rest each on its lotus cushion." How this happens to
be the one Chalukyan temple amid hundreds is a problem to be solved.
The plateau lies 6500 ft. above the sea, and roads and stairways,
locally known as Buddha roads, lead up from the lowlands of Bagelen
and Pekalongan. The stairway between Lake Menjur and Lake Chebong
alone consisted of 4700 steps. The width of the roadway, however, is
only some three or four feet. A remarkable subterranean tunnel still
exists, which served to drain the plateau.
Of all the Hindu temples of Java the largest and most magnificent is
Boro-Budur, which ranks among the architectural marvels of the world.
It lies in the residency of Kedu, a little to the west of the Progo, a
considerable stream flowing south to the Indian Ocean. The place is
best reached by taking the steam-tram from Magelang or Jokjakarta to
the village of Muntilam Passar, where a conveyance may be hired.
Strictly speaking, Boro-Budur is not a temple but a hill, rising about
150 ft. above the plain, encased with imposing terraces constructed of
hewn lava-blocks and crowded with sculptures. The lowest terrace now
above ground forms a square, each side 497 ft. long. About 50 ft.
higher there is another terrace of similar shape. Then follow four
other terraces of more irregular contour. The structure is crowned by
a dome or cupola 52 ft. in diameter surrounded by sixteen smaller
bell-shaped cupolas. Regarded as a whole, the main design, to quote Mr
Sewell, may be described as "an archaic Indian temple, considerably
flattened and consisting of a series of terraces, surmounted by a
quasi-stupa capped by a dagoba." It was discovered by the engineer J.
W. Ijzerman in 1885 that the basement of the structure had been
earthed up before the building was finished, and that the lowest
retaining wall was completely concealed by the embankment. The
architects had evidently found that their temple was threatened with a
destructive subsidence; and, while the sculptors were still busy with
the decoration of the lower facades, they had to abandon their work.
But the unfinished bas-reliefs were carefully protected by clay and
blocks of stone and left in position; and since 1896 they are
gradually but systematically being exhumed and photographed by the
Dutch archaeologists, who, however, have to proceed with caution,
filling up one portion of the embankment before they go on to deal
with another. The subjects treated in this lowest enceinte are of the
most varied description, forming a picture-gallery of landscapes,
scenes of outdoor and domestic life, mingled with mythological and
religious designs. Among the genre class appear men shooting birds
with blow-pipe or bow and arrow, fishermen with rod or net, a man
playing a bagpipe, and so on. It would seem as if the architect had
intended gradually to wean the devotees from the things of this world.
When once they began to ascend from stage to stage of the temple-hill
they were introduced to the realities of religion; and by the time
they reached the dagoba they had passed through a process of
instruction and were ready, with enlightened eyes, to enter and behold
the image of Buddha, symbolically left imperfect, as beyond the power
of human art to realize or portray. From basement to summit the whole
hill is a great picture bible of the Mahayana creed.
If the statues and bas-reliefs of Boro-Budur were placed side by side
they would extend for 3 m. The eye of the spectator, looking up from
the present ground-level, is caught, says Mr Sewell, by the rows of
life-size Buddhas that adorn the retaining walls of the several
terraces and the cage-like shrines on the circular platforms. All the
great figures on the east side represent Akshobhya, the Dhyani Buddha
of the East. His right hand is in the Chumisparsa mudra (pose)
touching the earth in front of the right knee--"I swear by the earth."
All the statues on the south side are Ratnasam Chavu in the varada
mudra--the right hand displayed upwards--"I give you all." On the west
side the statues represent Amitabha in the dhyana or padinasama mudra,
the right hand resting palm upwards on the left, both being on the
lap--the attitude of meditation. Those on the north represent
Amogasiddhi in the abhaya mudra, the right hand being raised and
displayed, palm outwards--"Fear not, all is well."
Other remarkable groups of Hindu temples exist near the village of
Prambanan[17] (less correctly Brambanan) in Surakarta, but not far
from the borders of Jokjakarta, with a station on the railway between
the two chief towns. The village has been named after the temples,
Prambanan signifying the place of teachers. The whole ecclesiastical
settlement was surrounded by three lines of wall, of which only the
inmost is now visible above ground. Between the second and third walls
are 157 small temples, and in the central enclosure are the ruins of
six larger temples in a double row with two smaller ones at the side.
The middle temple of the western row is the main building, full of
statues of purely Sivaite character--Siva as Guru or teacher, Siva as
Kala or Time the Destroyer, Durga, Ganesha, and so on. But, just as
many churches in Christendom are called not after the Christ but after
the Virgin, so this is known as Lara (i.e. Virgin) Janggrang from the
popular name of Durga. In the southern temple of the row is a very
fine figure of a four-armed Brahma; in the northern there was a Vishnu
with attendant figures. Of the other row the middle temple is again
the largest, with Siva, his nandi or bull, and other symbolic
sculptures. To the north lies the extraordinary cluster of temples
which, though it does not deserve its popular name of Chandi Sewu, the
thousand shrines, consists of at least 240 small buildings gathered
round a great central temple, richly adorned, though roofless and
partially ruined since the earthquake of 1867. Among the more
noteworthy figures are those of the huge and ungainly guardians of the
temple kneeling at the four main gateways of each of the principal
buildings. Colonel Yule pointed out that there are distinct traces of
a fine coat of stucco on the exterior and the interior of the
buildings, and he compared in this respect "the cave walls of Ellora,
the great idols at Bamian, and the Doric order at Selinus." Other
temples in the same neighbourhood as Chandi Sewu are Ch. Lumbung, Ch.
Kali Bening (Baneng), with a monstrous Kala head as the centre of the
design on the southern side, Ch. Kalong and Ch. Plaosan. Tradition
assigns these temples to 1266-1296.
Of the temples of the eastern zone the best known is Chandi Jago (or
Tumpang), elaborately described in the Archaeological Commission's
monograph. According to the _Pararaton_, a native chronicle (published
in the _Verhand. v. h. Bat. Gen. v. K. en W._, 1896), it belongs to
the 13th century, containing the tomb of Rangavuni or Vishnuvardhana,
who died in 1272-1273. The shrine proper occupies the third of three
platforms, the lowest of which forms a square of 45 to 46 ft. each
side. The building fronts the west, and is constructed of an andesitic
tuff of inferior quality and dark colour. Of distinctly Buddhistic
influence there is no trace. The makara (elephant-fish head) is
notably absent. The sculptures which run round the base and along the
sides of the platforms or terraces are of the most elaborate and
varied description--kings on thrones, dwarfs, elephants, supernatural
beings, diabolical and grotesque, tree-monsters, palaces, temples,
courtyards, lakes, gardens, forests--all are represented. In one place
appears a Chinese--or Burmese-looking seven-roofed pagoda; in another,
a tall temple strangely split down the centre, with a flight of steps
running up the fissure. The inscriptions are in the Devanagari
character. In the same neighbourhood are Ch. Singossari, Ch. Kidal,
&c. Another of the most beautiful of the eastern temples is Ch.
Jabung, mentioned in 1330. It is built of red brick; and its
distinctly Javanese origin is suggested by the frequency of the
snake-motif still characteristic of modern Javanese art. It may be
added that a comparison of the several buildings of the zone affords
an interesting study in the development of the pilaster as a
decorative rather than structural element.
At Panabaram, near Blitar, Kediri, is another group of stone temples
and other buildings. The chief temple is remarkable for the richness
of its sculptures, which are peculiarly delicate and spirited in their
details. The decoration of the mere robes of one of the free-standing
stairway-guardians consists of scroll-work, interspersed with birds
and animals rendered in a non-Indian style, reminiscent of Chinese or
Japanese work. It has been described as one of the most beautiful
pieces of sculpture in all the East.
Sculptures from the temples are scattered far and wide throughout
Java, and it is one of the greatest difficulties of the archaeologist
to determine the origin of many of the most interesting specimens.
This, too, is often the case with those that have found their way to
the museums of Java and Europe (Batavia, Leiden, Haarlem, Berlin,
&c.). Minor relics of the past are to be found alike in the palaces of
the nobles and the huts of the highland peasants. Zodiac cups of
copper or bronze dating from the 12th or 13th century are in daily use
among the Tenggerese. The musical instruments used by the musicians of
the native courts are often prized on account of their great
antiquity.
As many of the Chinese came from China centuries ago and have not
ceased to hold intercourse with their native country, the houses of
the wealthier men among them are often rich in ancient specimens of
Chinese art. The special exhibition organized by Henri Borel and other
enthusiasts showed how much of value in this matter might be brought
together in spite of the reluctance of the owners to commit the
sacrilege of exposing to public gaze the images of their ancestral
gods and heroes. Borel has given exquisite examples of images of
Kwan-yin (the Chinese Virgin-Goddess), of Buddhas, of the ghoulish god
of literature, of Lie-tai-Peh (the Chinese poet who has gone to live
in the planet Venus), &c., in illustration of his papers in _L'Art
flamand et hollandais_, pt. v. (1900), a translation of his monograph
published at Batavia.
AUTHORITIES.--Besides the special works quoted _passim_, see Sir
Stamford Raffles, _History of Java_ (London, 1830); F. Junghuhn,
_Java: seine Gestalt, Pflanzendecke, und innere Bauart_ (Ger. trans.
by J. K. Hasskarl, Leipzig, 1854-1857); P. J. Veth, _Java,
Geographisch, ethnologisch, historisch_ (2nd ed., Haarlem, 1896-1903),
a masterly compendium originally based largely on Junghuhn's
descriptions; L. van Deventer, _Geschiedenis der Nederlanders op Java_
(2nd ed., Haarlem, 1895); L. W. C. van den Berg, _Le Hadhramout et les
colonies arabes dans l'archipel indien_ (Batavia, 1886); E. R.
Scidmore, _Java, the Garden of the East_ (New York, 1898); J.
Chailley-Bert, _Java et ses habitants_ (Paris, 1900); C. Day, _The
Policy and Administration of the Dutch in Java_ (London, 1904); E. S.
de Klerck, _De Java-Oorlog van_ 1825-1830 (Batavia, 1905);
_Encyclopaedie v. N. Indie_, art. "Java;" _Guide a travers
l'Exposition de Paris_ (The Hague, 1900), with articles by specialists
on each department of the Dutch colonies, more particularly Java;
_Koloniale Verslagen en Regeerings-almanak van N. Indie_, being
official publications of the Dutch and Dutch East-Indian Government
(see also MALAY ARCHIPELAGO). (H. A. W.; O. J. R. H.)
FOOTNOTES:
[1] It must be observed that Bavian, &c., are mere conventional
appendices to Java.
[2] H. B. Guppy (_R. S. G. Soc. Magazine_, 1889) holds that there is
no sufficient proof of this connexion but gives interesting details
of the present movement.
[3] See G. F. Tijdeman's map of the depths of the sea in the eastern
part of the Indian archipelago in M. Weber's _Siboga Expedition_,
1903. The details of the coast forms of the island have been studied
by J. F. Snelleman and J. F. Niermeyer in a paper in the Veth
_Feestbundel_, utilizing _inter alia_ Guppy's observations.
[4] This Merapi must be carefully distinguished from Merapi the Fire
Mountain of Sumatra.
[5] R. D. M. Verbeek and R. Fennema, _Description geologique de Java
et Madoura_ (2 vols. and atlas, Amsterdam, 1896; also published in
Dutch)--a summary with map was published by Verbeek in _Peterm.
Mitt._ xliv. (1898), 24-33, pl. 3. Also K. Martin, _Die Eintheilung
der versteinerungsfuhrenden Sedimente von Java_, Samml. Geol.
Reichsmus. Leiden, ser. i., vol. vi. (1899-1902), 135-245.
[6] On the 16th of November the sun rises at 5.32 and sets at 5.57;
on the 16th of July it rises at 6.12 and sets at 5.57. The longest
day is in December and the shortest in June, while on the other hand
the sun is highest in February and October and lowest in June and
December.
[7] S. Figei. _Regenwaarnemingen in Nederlandsch Indie_ (1902).
[8] See J. C. Konigsberger, "De vogels Java en hunne oeconomische
betukenis," _Med. int. s. Lands Plantentuin_.
[9] See especially M. Weber, _Siboga Expedition_.
[10] The _Annales de Buitenzorg_, with their _Icones bogorienses_,
are universally known; the _Teysmannia_ is named after a former
director. A history of the gardens was published by Dr Treub,
_Festboek van's Lands Plantentuin_ (1891).
[11] Bertha Hoola van Nooten published _Fleurs, fruits et feuillages
de la flore et de la pomone de l'ile de Java_ in 1863, but the book
is difficult of access. Excellent views of characteristic aspects of
the vegetation will be found in Karsten and Schenck,
_Vegetationsbilder_ (1903).
[12] It is interesting to compare this with the natural
"reflorization" of Krakatoa. See Penzig, _Ann. jard. de Buitenzorg_,
vol. viii. (1902); and W. Botting in _Nature_ (1903).
[13] See Walbreken, _De Taalsvorten in het Javaansh_; and G. A.
Wilken, _Handboek voor de vergelijkende Volkenkunde van Nederlandsch
Indie_, edited by C. M. Pleyte (1893).
[14] See Van den Berg's account of the MSS. of the Batavian Society
(the Hague, 1877); and a series of papers by C. Poensen in _Meded.
van wege het Ned. Zendelinggenootschap_ (1880).
[15] Cheribon is the form employed by the Dutch: an exception to
their usual system, in which Tj- takes the place of the Ch- used in
this article.
[16] See R. Verbeek, "Liget der oudheden van Java," in _Verhand. v.
h. Bat. Gen._, xlvi., and his _Oudheidkundige kaart van Java_. R.
Sewell's "Antiquarian notes in Java," in _Journal of the Royal
Asiatic Society_ (1906), give the best conspectus available for
English readers. W. B. Worsfold, _A Visit to Java_ (London, 1893),
has a good sketch of what was then known, revised by Professor W.
Rhys Davids; but whoever wishes full information must refer to Dutch
authorities. These are numerous but difficult of access.
[17] The chief authorities on Prambanan are J. W. Ijzerman,
_Beschrijving der oudheden nabij de Grens der residenties Soerakarta
en Djogjakarta_ (Batavia, 1891, with photographs and atlas); and J.
Groneman, _Tjandi Parambanan op Midden Java_; see also _Guide a
travers l'exposition des Pays-Bas_ (The Hague, 1900), No. 174, sqq.
JAVELIN, a spear, particularly one light enough to be thrown, a dart.
The javelin was often provided with a thong to help in casting (see
SPEAR). Javelin-throwing is one of the contests in the athletic section
at the international Olympic games. Formerly the sheriff of a county or
borough had a body of men armed with javelins, and known as javelin-men,
who acted as a bodyguard for the judges when they went on assize. Their
duties are now performed by the ordinary police. The word itself is an
adaptation of Fr. _javeline_. There are several words in Celtic and
Scandinavian languages and in Old English, meaning a spear or dart, that
seem to be connected with _javel_, the base form in French; thus Welsh
_gaflach_, Irish _gabhla_, O. Norwegian _gaflok_, O. E. _gafeluc_, later
in the form _gavelock_, cf. O. Norman-Fr. _gavelot_, _javelot_, Ital.
_giavelotto_. The origin seems to be Celtic, and the word is cognate
with Ir. _gafa_, a hook, fork, gaff; the root is seen in "gable" (q.v.),
and in the German _Gabel_, fork. The change in meaning from fork, forked
end of a spear, to the spear itself is obscure.
JAW (Mid. Eng. _jawe_, _jowe_ and _geowe_, O. Eng. _cheowan_, connected
with "chaw" and "chew," and in form with "jowl"), in anatomy, the term
for the upper maxillary bone, and the mandible or lower maxillary bone
of the skull; it is sometimes loosely applied to all the lower front
parts of the skull (q.v.).
JAWALIQI, ABU MANSUR MAUHUB UL-JAWALIQI (1073-1145), Arabian grammarian,
was born at Bagdad, where he studied philology under Tibrizi and became
famous for his handwriting. In his later years he acted as imam to the
caliph Moqtafi. His chief work is the _Kitab ul-Mu'arrab_, or
"Explanation of Foreign Words used in Arabic."
The text was edited from an incomplete manuscript by E. Sachau
(Leipzig, 1867). Many of the lacunae in this have been supplied from
another manuscript by W. Spitta in the _Journal of the German Oriental
Society_, xxxiii. 208 sqq. Another work, written as a supplement to
the _Durrat ul-Ghawwas_ of Hariri (q.v.), has been published as "Le
Livre des locutions vicieuses," by H. Derenbourg in _Morgenlandische
Forschungen_ (Leipzig, 1875), pp. 107-166. (G. W. T.)
JAWHAR, a native state of India, in the Konkan division of Bombay,
situated among the lower ranges of the western Ghats. Area 310 sq. m.
Pop. (1901), 47,538. The estimated revenue is L11,000; there is no
tribute. The chief, who is a Koli by caste, traces back his descent to
1343. The leading exports are teak and rice. The principal village is
that of Jawhar (pop. 3567).
JAWOROW, a town in Galicia, Austria, 30 m. W. of Lemberg. Pop. (1900),
10,090. It has a pottery, a brewery, a distillery and some trade in
agricultural produce. Not far from it is the watering-place of Szkto
with sulphur springs. The town was a favourite residence of John
Sobieski, who there received the congratulations of the pope and the
Venetian republic on his success against the Turks at Vienna (1683). At
Jaworow Peter the Great was betrothed to Catherine I.
JAY, JOHN (1745-1829), American statesman, the descendant of a Huguenot
family, and son of Peter Jay, a successful New York merchant, was born
in New York City on the 12th of December 1745. On graduating at King's
College (now Columbia University) in 1764, Jay entered the office of
Benjamin Kissam, an eminent New York lawyer. In 1768 he was admitted to
the bar, and rapidly acquired a lucrative practice. In 1774 he married
Sarah, youngest daughter of William Livingston, and was thus brought
into close relations with one of the most influential families in New
York. Like many other able young lawyers, Jay took an active part in the
proceedings that resulted in the independence of the United States,
identifying himself with the conservative element in the Whig or patriot
party. He was sent as a delegate from New York City to the Continental
Congress at Philadelphia in September 1774, and though almost the
youngest member, was entrusted with drawing up the address to the people
of Great Britain. Of the second congress, also, which met at
Philadelphia on the 10th of May 1775, Jay was a member; and on its
behalf he prepared an address to the people of Canada and an address to
the people of Jamaica and Ireland. In April 1776, while still retaining
his seat in the Continental Congress, Jay was chosen as a member of the
third provincial congress of New York; and his consequent absence from
Philadelphia deprived him of the honour of affixing his signature to the
Declaration of Independence. As a member of the fourth provincial
congress he drafted a resolution by which the delegates of New York in
the Continental Congress were authorized to sign the Declaration of
Independence. In 1777 he was chairman of the committee of the convention
which drafted the first New York state constitution. After acting for
some time as one of the council of safety (which administered the state
government until the new constitution came into effect), he was made
chief justice of New York state, in September 1777. A clause in the
state constitution prohibited any justice of the Supreme Court from
holding any other post save that of delegate to Congress on a "special
occasion," but in November 1778 the legislature pronounced the
secession of what is now the state of Vermont from the jurisdiction of
New Hampshire and New York to be such an occasion, and sent Jay to
Congress charged with the duty of securing a settlement of the
territorial claims of his state. He took his seat in congress on the 7th
of December, and on the 10th was chosen president in succession to Henry
Laurens.
On the 27th of September 1779 Jay was appointed minister plenipotentiary
to negotiate a treaty between Spain and the United States. He was
instructed to endeavour to bring Spain into the treaty already existing
between France and the United States by a guarantee that Spain should
have the Floridas in case of a successful issue of the war against Great
Britain, reserving, however, to the United States the free navigation of
the Mississippi. He was also to solicit a subsidy in consideration of
the guarantee, and a loan of five million dollars. His task was one of
extreme difficulty. Although Spain had joined France in the war against
Great Britain, she feared to imperil her own colonial interests by
directly encouraging and aiding the former British colonies in their
revolt against their mother country, and she had refused to recognize
the United States as an independent power. Jay landed at Cadiz on the
22nd of January 1780, but was told that he could not be received in a
formally diplomatic character. In May the king's minister, Count de
Florida Bianca, intimated to him that the one obstacle to a treaty was
the question of the free navigation of the Mississippi, and for months
following this interview the policy of the court was clearly one of
delay. In February 1781 Congress instructed Jay that he might make
concessions regarding the navigation of the Mississippi, if necessary;
but further delays were interposed, the news of the surrender of
Yorktown arrived, and Jay decided that any sacrifice to obtain a treaty
was no longer advisable. His efforts to procure a loan were not much
more successful, and he was seriously embarrassed by the action of
Congress in drawing bills upon him for large sums. Although by
importuning the Spanish minister, and by pledging his personal
responsibility, Jay was able to meet some of the bills, he was at last
forced to protest others; and the credit of the United States was saved
only by a timely subsidy from France.
In 1781 Jay was commissioned to act with Franklin, John Adams, Jefferson
and Henry Laurens in negotiating a peace with Great Britain. He arrived
in Paris on the 23rd of June 1782, and jointly with Franklin had
proceeded far with the negotiations when Adams arrived late in October.
The instructions of the American negotiators were as follows:--
"You are to make the most candid and confidential communications upon
all subjects to the ministers of our generous ally, the king of
France; to undertake nothing in the negotiations for peace or truce
without their knowledge and concurrence; and ultimately to govern
yourselves by their advice and opinion, endeavouring in your whole
conduct to make them sensible how much we rely on his majesty's
influence for effectual support in every thing that may be necessary
to the present security, or future prosperity, of the United States of
America."
Jay, however, in a letter written to the president of Congress from
Spain, had expressed in strong terms his disapproval of such dependence
upon France, and, on arriving in Paris, he demanded that Great Britain
should treat with his country on an equal footing by first recognizing
its independence, although the French minister, Count de Vergennes,
contended that an acknowledgment of independence as an effect of the
treaty was as much as could reasonably be expected. Finally, owing
largely to Jay, who suspected the good faith of France, the American
negotiators decided to treat independently with Great Britain. The
provisional articles, which were so favourable to the United States as
to be a great surprise to the courts of France and Spain, were signed on
the 30th of November 1782, and were adopted with no important change as
the final treaty on the 3rd of September 1783.
On the 24th of July 1784 Jay landed in New York, where he was presented
with the freedom of the city and elected a delegate to Congress. On the
7th of May Congress had already chosen him to be secretary for foreign
affairs, and in December Jay resigned his seat in Congress and accepted
the secretaryship. He continued to act in this capacity until 1790, when
Jefferson became secretary of state under the new constitution. In the
question of this constitution Jay had taken a keen interest, and as an
advocate of its ratification he wrote over the name "Publius," five
(Nos. 2, 3, 4, 5 and 64) of the famous series of papers known
collectively as the _Federalist_ (see HAMILTON, ALEXANDER). He published
anonymously (though without succeeding in concealing the authorship) _An
Address to the People of New York_, in vindication of the constitution;
and in the state convention at Poughkeepsie he ably seconded Hamilton in
securing its ratification by New York. In making his first appointments
to federal offices President Washington asked Jay to take his choice;
Jay chose that of chief justice of the Supreme Court, and held this
position from September 1789 to June 1795. The most famous case that
came before him was that of _Chisolm_ v. _Georgia_, in which the
question was, Can a state be sued by a citizen of another state? Georgia
argued that it could not be so sued, on the ground that it was a
sovereign state, but Jay decided against Georgia, on the ground that
sovereignty in America resided with the people. This decision led to the
adoption of the eleventh amendment to the federal constitution, which
provides that no suit may be brought in the federal courts against any
state by a citizen of another state or by a citizen or subject of any
foreign state. In 1792 Jay consented to stand for the governorship of
New York State, but a partisan returning-board found the returns of
three counties technically defective, and though Jay had received an
actual majority of votes, his opponent, George Clinton, was declared
elected.
Ever since the War of Independence there had been friction between Great
Britain and the United States. To the grievances of the United States,
consisting principally of Great Britain's refusal to withdraw its troops
from the forts on the north-western frontier, as was required by the
peace treaty of 1783, her refusal to make compensation for negroes
carried away by the British army at the close of the War of Independence,
her restrictions on American commerce, and her refusal to enter into any
commercial treaty with the United States, were added, after war broke out
between France and Great Britain in 1793, the anti-neutral naval policy
according to which British naval vessels were authorized to search
American merchantmen and impress American seamen, provisions were treated
as contraband of war, and American vessels were seized for no other
reason than that they had on board goods which were the property of the
enemy or were bound for a port which though not actually blockaded was
declared to be blockaded. The anti-British feeling in the House of
Representatives became so strong that on the 7th of April 1794 a
resolution was introduced to prohibit commercial intercourse between the
United States and Great Britain until the north-western posts should be
evacuated and Great Britain's anti-neutral naval policy should be
abandoned. Thereupon Washington, fearing that war might result, appointed
Jay minister extraordinary to Great Britain to negotiate a new treaty,
and the Senate confirmed the appointment by a vote of 18 to 8, although
the non-intercourse resolution which came from the house a few days later
was defeated in the senate only by the casting vote of Vice-President
John Adams. Jay landed at Falmouth in June 1794, signed a treaty with
Lord Grenville on the 19th of November, and disembarked again at New York
on the 28th of May 1795. The treaty, known in history as Jay's Treaty,
provided that the north-western posts should be evacuated by the 1st of
June 1796, that commissioners should be appointed to settle the
north-east and the north-west boundaries, and that the British claims for
British debts as well as the American claims for compensation for illegal
seizures should be referred to commissioners. More than one-half of the
clauses in the treaty related to commerce, and although they contained
rather small concessions to the United States, they were about as much as
could reasonably have been expected in the circumstances. One clause, the
operation of which was limited to two years from the close of the
existing war, provided that American vessels not exceeding 70 tons burden
might trade with the West Indies, but should carry only American
products there and take away to American ports only West Indian products;
moreover, the United States was to export in American vessels no
molasses, sugar, coffee, cocoa or cotton to any part of the world. Jay
consented to this prohibition under the impression that the articles
named were peculiarly the products of the West Indies, not being aware
that cotton was rapidly becoming an important export from the southern
states. The operation of the other commercial clauses was limited to
twelve years. By them the United States was granted limited privileges of
trade with the British East Indies; some provisions were made for
reciprocal freedom of trade between the United States and the British
dominions in Europe; some articles were specified under the head of
"contraband of war"; it was agreed that whenever provisions were seized
as contraband they should be paid for, and that in cases of the capture
of a vessel carrying contraband goods such goods only and not the whole
cargo should be seized; it was also agreed that no vessel should be
seized merely because it was bound for a blockaded port, unless it
attempted to enter the port after receiving notice of the blockade. The
treaty was laid before the Senate on the 8th of June 1795, and, with the
exception of the clause relating to trade with the West Indies, was
ratified on the 24th by a vote of 20 to 10. As yet the public was
ignorant of its contents, and although the Senate had enjoined secrecy on
its members even after the treaty had been ratified, Senator Mason of
Virginia gave out a copy for publication only a few days later. The
Republican party, strongly sympathizing with France and strongly
disliking Great Britain, had been opposed to Jay's mission, and had
denounced Jay as a traitor and guillotined him in effigy when they heard
that he was actually negotiating. The publication of the treaty only
added to their fury. They filled newspapers with articles denouncing it,
wrote virulent pamphlets against it, and burned Jay in effigy. The
British flag was insulted. Hamilton was stoned at a public meeting in New
York while speaking in defence of the treaty, and Washington was grossly
abused for signing it. In the House of Representatives the Republicans
endeavoured to prevent the execution of the treaty by refusing the
necessary appropriations, and a vote (29th of April, 1795) on a
resolution that it ought to be carried into effect stood 49 to 49; but on
the next day the opposition was defeated by a vote of 51 to 48. Once in
operation, the treaty grew in favour. Two days before landing on his
return from the English mission, Jay had been elected governor of New
York state; notwithstanding his temporary unpopularity, he was re-elected
in April 1798. With the close of this second term of office in 1801, he
ended his public career. Although not yet fifty-seven years old, he
refused all offers of office and retiring to his estate near Bedford in
Westchester county, N.Y., spent the rest of his life in rarely
interrupted seclusion. In politics he was throughout inclined toward
Conservatism, and after the rise of parties under the federal government
he stood with Alexander Hamilton and John Adams as one of the foremost
leaders of the Federalist party, as opposed to the Republicans or
Democratic-Republicans. From 1821 until 1828 he was president of the
American Bible Society. He died on the 17th of May 1829. The purity and
integrity of his life are commemorated in a sentence by Daniel Webster:
"When the spotless ermine of the judicial robe fell on John Jay, it
touched nothing less spotless than itself."
See _The Correspondence and Public Papers of John Jay_ (4 vols., New
York, 1890-1893), edited by H. P. Johnston; William Jay, _Life of John
Jay with Selections from his Correspondence and Miscellaneous Papers_
(2 vols., New York, 1833); William Whitelocke, _Life and Times of John
Jay_ (New York, 1887); and George Pellew, _John Jay_ (Boston, 1890),
in the "American Statesmen Series."
John Jay's son, WILLIAM JAY (1789-1858), was born in New York City on
the 16th of June 1789, graduated from Yale in 1807, and soon afterwards
assumed the management of his father's large estate in Westchester
county, N.Y. He was actively interested in peace, temperance and
anti-slavery movements. He took a prominent part in 1816 in founding
the American Bible Society; was a judge of Westchester county from 1818
to 1843, when he was removed from office by the party in power in New
York, which hoped, by sacrificing an anti-slavery judge, to gain
additional strength in the southern states; joined the American
anti-slavery society in 1834, and held several important offices in this
organization. In 1840, however, when it began to advocate measures which
he deemed too radical, he withdrew his membership, but with his pen he
continued his labours on behalf of the slave, urging emancipation in the
district of Columbia and the exclusion of slavery from the Territories,
though deprecating any attempt to interfere with slavery in the states.
He was a member of the American peace society and was its president for
several years. His pamphlet, _War and Peace: the Evils of the First with
a Plan for Securing the Last_, advocating international arbitration, was
published by the English Peace Society in 1842, and is said to have
contributed to the promulgation, by the powers signing the Treaty of
Paris in 1856, of a protocol expressing the wish that nations, before
resorting to arms, should have recourse to the good offices of a
friendly power. Among William Jay's other writings, the most important
are _The Life of John Jay_ (2 vols., 1833) and a _Review of the Causes
and Consequences of the Mexican War_ (1849). He died at Bedford on the
14th of October 1858.
See Bayard Tuckerman, _William Jay and the Constitutional Movement for
the Abolition of Slavery_ (New York, 1893).
William Jay's son, JOHN JAY (1817-1894), also took an active part in the
anti-slavery movement. He was a prominent member of the free soil party,
and was one of the organizers of the Republican party in New York. He
was United States minister to Austria-Hungary in 1869-1875, and was a
member, and for a time president, of the New York civil service
commission appointed by Governor Cleveland in 1883.
JAY, WILLIAM (1769-1853), English Nonconformist divine, was born at
Tisbury in Wiltshire on the 6th of May 1769. He adopted his father's
trade of stone-mason, but gave it up in 1785 in order to enter the Rev.
Cornelius Winter's school at Marlborough. During the three years that
Jay spent there, his preaching powers were rapidly developed. Before he
was twenty-one he had preached nearly a thousand times, and in 1788 he
had for a while occupied Rowland Hill's pulpit in London. Wishing to
continue his reading he accepted the humble pastorate of Christian
Malford, near Chippenham, where he remained about two years. After one
year at Hope chapel, Clifton, he was called to the ministry of Argyle
Independent chapel in Bath; and on the 30th of January 1791 he began the
work of his life there, attracting hearers of every religious
denomination and of every rank, and winning for himself a wide
reputation as a brilliant pulpit orator, an earnest religious author,
and a friendly counsellor. Sheridan declared him to be the most manly
orator he had ever heard. A long and honourable connexion of sixty-two
years came to an end in January 1853, and he died on the 27th of
December following.
The best-known of Jay's works are his _Morning and Evening Exercises_:
_The Christian contemplated_: _The Domestic Minister's Assistant_; and
his _Discourses_. He also wrote a _Life of Rev. Cornelius Winter_, and
_Memoirs of Rev. John Clarke_. An edition of Jay's _Works_ in 12
vols., 8vo, revised by himself, was issued in 1842-1844, and again in
1856. A new edition, in 8 vols., 8vo, was published in 1876. See
_Autobiography_ (1854); S. Wilson's _Memoir of Jay_ (1854); S. Newth
in _Pulpit Memorials_ (1878).
JAY (Fr. _geai_), a well-known and very beautiful European bird, the
_Corvus glandarius_ of Linnaeus, the _Garrulus glandarius_ of modern
ornithologists. To this species are more or less closely allied numerous
birds inhabiting the Palaearctic and Indian regions, as well as the
greater part of America, but not occurring in the Antilles, in the
southern portion of the Neotropical Region, or in the Ethiopian or
Australian. All these birds are commonly called jays, and form a group
of the crows or _Corvidae_, which may fairly be considered a sub-family,
_Garrulinae_. Indeed there are, or have been, systematists who would
elevate the jays to the rank of a family _Garrulidae_--a proceeding
which seems unnecessary. Some of them have an unquestionable
resemblance to the pies, if the group now known by that name can be
satisfactorily severed from the true _Corvinae_. In structure the jays
are not readily differentiated from the pies; but in habit they are much
more arboreal, delighting in thick coverts, seldom appearing in the
open, and seeking their food on or under trees. They seem also never to
walk or run when on the ground, but always to hop. The body-feathers are
commonly loose and soft; and, gaily coloured as are most of the species,
in few of them has the plumage the metallic glossiness it generally
presents in the pies, while the proverbial beauty of the "jay's wing" is
due to the vivid tints of blue--turquoise and cobalt, heightened by bars
of jet-black, an indication of the same style of ornament being
observable in the greater number of the other forms of the group, and in
some predominating over nearly the whole surface. Of the many genera
that have been proposed by ornithologists, perhaps about nine may be
deemed sufficiently well established.
[Illustration: FIG. 1--European Jay.]
The ordinary European jay, _Garrulus glandarius_ (fig. 1), has suffered
so much persecution in the British Islands as to have become in many
districts a rare bird. In Ireland it seems now to be indigenous to the
southern half of the island only; in England generally, it is far less
numerous than formerly; and in Scotland its numbers have decreased with
still greater rapidity. There is little doubt that it would have been
exterminated but for its stock being supplied in autumn by immigration,
and for its shy and wary behaviour, especially at the breeding-season,
when it becomes almost wholly mute, and thereby often escapes detection.
No truthful man, however much he may love the bird, will gainsay the
depredations on fruit and eggs that it at times commits; but the
gardeners and gamekeepers of Britain, instead of taking a few simple
steps to guard their charge from injury, deliberately adopt methods of
wholesale destruction--methods that in the case of this species are only
too easy and too effectual--by proffering temptation to trespass which
it is not in jay-nature to resist, and accordingly the bird runs great
chance of total extirpation. Notwithstanding the war carried on against
the jay, its varied cries and active gesticulations show it to be a
sprightly bird, and at a distance that renders its beauty-spots
invisible, it is yet rendered conspicuous by its cinnamon-coloured body
and pure white tail-coverts, which contrast with the deep black and rich
chestnut that otherwise mark its plumage, and even the young at once
assume a dress closely resembling that of the adult. The nest, generally
concealed in a leafy tree or bush, is carefully built, with a lining
formed of fine roots neatly interwoven. Herein from four to seven eggs,
of a greenish-white closely freckled, so as to seem suffused with light
olive, are laid in March or April, and the young on quitting it
accompany their parents for some weeks.
Though the common jay of Europe inhabits nearly the whole of this
quarter of the globe south of 64 deg. N. lat., its territory in the east
of Russia is also occupied by _G. brandti_, a kindred form, which
replaces it on the other side of the Ural, and ranges thence across
Siberia to Japan; and again on the lower Danube and thence to
Constantinople the nearly allied _G. krynicki_ (which alone is found in
southern Russia, Caucasia and Asia Minor) shares its haunts with it.[1]
It also crosses the Mediterranean to Algeria and Morocco; but there, as
in southern Spain, it is probably but a winter immigrant. The three
forms just named have the widest range of any of the genus. Next to them
come _G. atricapillus_, reaching from Syria to Baluchistan, _G.
japonicus_, the ordinary jay of southern Japan, and _G. sinensis_, the
Chinese bird. Other forms have a much more limited area, as _G.
cervicalis_, the local and resident jay of Algeria, _G. hyrcanus_, found
on the southern shores of the Caspian Sea, and _G. taevanus_, confined
to the island of Formosa. The most aberrant of the true jays is _G.
lidthi_, a very rare species, which seems to come from some part of
Japan (_vide_ Salvadori, _Atti Accad. Torino_, vii. 474), though its
exact locality is not known.
Leaving the true jays of the genus _Garrulus_, it is expedient next to
consider those of a group named, in 1831, _Perisoreus_ by Prince C. L.
Bonaparte (_Saggio_, &c., _Anim. Vertebrati_, p. 43) and _Dysornithia_
by Swainson (_F. B.-Americana_, ii. 495).[2]
[Illustration: FIG. 2.--American Blue Jay.]
This group contains two species--one the Lanius infaustus of Linnaeus
and the Siberian jay of English writers, which ranges throughout the
pine-forests of the north of Europe and Asia, and the second the _Corvus
canadensis_ of the same author, or Canada jay, occupying a similar
station in America. The so-called Siberian jay is one of the most
entertaining birds in the world. Its versatile cries and actions, as
seen and heard by those who penetrate the solitude of the northern
forests it inhabits, can never be forgotten by one who has had
experience of them, any more than the pleasing sight of its
rust-coloured tail, which an occasional gleam of sunshine will light up
into a brilliancy quite unexpected by those who have only surveyed the
bird's otherwise gloomy appearance in the glass-case of a museum. It
seems scarcely to know fear, obtruding itself on the notice of any
traveller who invades its haunts, and, should he halt, making itself at
once a denizen of his bivouac. In confinement it speedily becomes
friendly, but suitable food for it is not easily found. Linnaeus seems
to have been under a misapprehension when he applied to it the trivial
epithet it bears; for by none of his countrymen is it deemed an unlucky
bird, but rather the reverse. In fact, no one can listen to the cheery
sound of its ordinary calls with any but a hopeful feeling. The Canada
jay, or "whisky-jack" (the corruption probably of a Cree name), seems to
be of a similar nature, but it presents a still more sombre coloration,
its nestling plumage,[3] indeed, being thoroughly corvine in appearance
and suggestive of its being a pristine form.
As though to make amends for the dull plumage of the species last
mentioned, North America offers some of the most brilliantly coloured
of the sub-family, and the common blue jay[4] of Canada and the eastern
states of the Union, _Cyanurus cristatus_ (fig. 2), is one of the most
conspicuous birds of the Transatlantic woods. The account of its habits
by Alexander Wilson is known to every student of ornithology, and
Wilson's followers have had little to do but supplement his history with
unimportant details. In this bird and its many allied forms, coloration,
though almost confined to various tints of blue, seems to reach its
climax, but want of space forbids more particular notice of them, or of
the members of the other genera _Cyanocitta_, _Cyanocorax_, _Xanthura_,
_Psilorhinus_, and more, which inhabit various parts of the Western
continent. It remains, however, to mention the genus Cissa, including
many beautiful forms belonging to the Indian region, and among them the
_C. speciosa_ and _C. sinensis_, so often represented in Oriental
drawings, though doubts may be expressed whether these birds are not
more nearly related to the pies than to the jays. (A. N.)
FOOTNOTE:
[1] Further information will possibly show that these districts are
not occupied at the same season of the year by the two forms.
[2] Recent writers have preferred the former name, though it was only
used sub-generically by its author, who assigned to it no characters,
which the inventor of the latter was careful to do, regarding it at
the same time as a genus.
[3] In this it was described and figured (_F. B. Americana_, ii. 296,
pl. 55) as a distinct species, _G. brachyrhynchus_.
[4] The birds known as blue jays in India and Africa are rollers
(q.v.).
JEALOUSY (adapted from Fr. _jalousie_, formed from _jaloux_, jealous,
Low Lat. _zelosus_, Gr. [Greek: zelos], ardour, zeal, from the root seen
in [Greek: zeein], to boil, ferment; cf. "yeast"), originally a
condition of zealous emulation, and hence, in the usual modern sense, of
resentment at being (or believing that one is or may be) supplanted or
preferred in the love or affection of another, or in the enjoyment of
some good regarded as properly one's own. Jealousy is really a form of
envy, but implies a feeling of personal claim which in envy or
covetousness is wanting. The jealousy of God, as in Exod. xx. 5, "For I,
the Lord thy God, am a jealous God," has been defined by Pusey (_Minor
Prophets_, 1860) as the attribute "whereby he does not endure the love
of his creatures to be transferred from him." "Jealous," by etymology,
is however, only another form of "zealous," and the identity is
exemplified by such expressions as "I have been very jealous for the
Lord God of Hosts" (1 Kings xix. 10). A kind of glass, thick, ribbed and
non-transparent, was formerly known as "jealous-glass," and this
application is seen in the borrowed French word _jalousie_, a blind or
shutter, made of slats of wood, which slope in such a way as to admit
air and a certain amount of light, while excluding rain and sun and
inspection from without.
JEAN D'ARRAS, a 15th-century _trouvere_, about whose personal history
nothing is known, was the collaborator with Antoine du Val and Fouquart
de Cambrai in the authorship of a collection of stories entitled
_Evangiles de quenouille_. They purport to record the narratives of a
group of ladies at their spinning, who relate the current theories on a
great variety of subjects. The work dates from the middle of the 15th
century and is of considerable value for the light it throws on medieval
manners.
There were many editions of this book in the 15th and 16th centuries,
one of which was printed by Wynkyn de Worde in English, as _The
Gospelles of Dystaves_. A modern edition (Collection Jannet) has a
preface by Anatole France.
Another _trouvere_, JEAN D'ARRAS who flourished in the second half of
the 14th century, wrote, at the request of John, duke of Berry, a long
prose romance entitled _Chronique de la princesse_. It relates with many
digressions the antecedents and life of the fairy Melusine (q.v.).
JEAN DE MEUN, or DE MEUNG (c. 1250-c. 1305), whose original name was
Jean Clopinel or Chopinel, was born at Meun-sur-Loire. Tradition asserts
that he studied at the university of Paris. At any rate he was, like his
contemporary, Rutebeuf, a defender of Guillaume de Saint-Amour and a
bitter critic of the mendicant orders. Most of his life seems to have
been spent in Paris, where he possessed, in the Rue Saint-Jacques, a
house with a tower, court and garden, which was described in 1305 as the
house of the late Jean de Meung, and was then bestowed by a certain Adam
d'Andely on the Dominicans. Jean de Meun says that in his youth he
composed songs that were sung in every public place and school in
France. In the enumeration of his own works he places first his
continuation of the _Roman de la rose_ of Guillaume de Lorris (q.v.).
The date of this second part is generally fixed between 1268 and 1285
by a reference in the poem to the death of Manfred and Conradin,
executed (1268) by order of Charles of Anjou (d. 1285) who is described
as the present king of Sicily. M. F. Guillon (_Jean Clopinel_, 1903),
however, considering the poem primarily as a political satire, places it
in the last five years of the 13th century. Jean de Meun doubtless
edited the work of his predecessor, Guillaume de Lorris, before using it
as the starting-point of his own vast poem, running to 19,000 lines. The
continuation of Jean de Meun is a satire on the monastic orders, on
celibacy, on the nobility, the papal see, the excessive pretensions of
royalty, and especially on women and marriage. Guillaume had been the
servant of love, and the exponent of the laws of "courtoisie"; Jean de
Meun added an "art of love," exposing with brutality the vices of women,
their arts of deception, and the means by which men may outwit them.
Jean de Meun embodied the mocking, sceptical spirit of the _fabliaux_.
He did not share in current superstitions, he had no respect for
established institutions, and he scorned the conventions of feudalism
and romance. His poem shows in the highest degree, in spite of the
looseness of its plan, the faculty of keen observation, of lucid
reasoning and exposition, and it entitles him to be considered the
greatest of French medieval poets. He handled the French language with
an ease and precision unknown to his predecessors, and the length of his
poem was no bar to its popularity in the 13th and 14th centuries. Part
of its vogue was no doubt due to the fact that the author, who had
mastered practically all the scientific and literary knowledge of his
contemporaries in France, had found room in his poem for a great amount
of useful information and for numerous citations from classical authors.
The book was attacked by Guillaume de Degulleville in his _Pelerinage de
la vie humaine_ (c. 1330), long a favourite work both in England and
France; by John Gerson, and by Christine de Pisan in her _Epitre au dieu
d'amour_; but it also found energetic defenders.
Jean de Meun translated in 1284 the treatise, _De re militari_, of
Vegetius into French as _Le livre de Vegece de l'art de chevalerie_[1]
(ed. Ulysse Robert, _Soc. des anciens textes fr._, 1897). He also
produced a spirited version, the first in French, of the letters of
Abelard and Heloise. A 14th-century MS. of this translation in the
Bibliotheque Nationale has annotations by Petrarch. His translation of
the _De consolatione philosophiae_ of Boetius is preceded by a letter
to Philip IV. in which he enumerates his earlier works, two of which
are lost--_De spirituelle amitie_ from the _De spirituali amicitia_ of
Aelred of Rievaulx (d. 1166), and the _Livre des merveilles
d'Hirlande_ from the _Topographia Hibernica_, or _De Mirabilibus
Hiberniae_ of Giraldus Cambrensis (Giraud de Barry). His last poems
are doubtless his _Testament_ and _Codicille_. The _Testament_ is
written in quatrains in monorime, and contains advice to the different
classes of the community.
See also Paulin Paris in _Hist. lit. de la France_, xxviii. 391-439,
and E. Langlois in _Hist. de la langue et de la lit. francaise_, ed.
L. Petit de Julleville, ii. 125-161 (1896); and editions of the _Roman
de la rose_ (q.v.).
FOOTNOTE:
[1] Jean de Meun's translation formed the basis of a rhymed version
(1290) by Jean Priorat of Besancon, _Li abreyance de l'ordre de
chevalerie_.
JEANNETTE, a borough of Westmoreland county, Pennsylvania, U.S.A., about
27 m. E. by S. of Pittsburg. Pop. (1890), 3296; (1900), 5865 (1340
foreign-born); (1910), 8077. It is served by the Pennsylvania railroad,
and is connected with Pittsburg and Uniontown by electric railway. It is
supplied with natural gas and is primarily a manufacturing centre, its
principal manufactures being glass, table-ware and rubber goods.
Jeannette was founded in 1888, and was incorporated as a borough in
1889.
JEANNIN, PIERRE (1540-1622), French statesman, was born at Autun. A
pupil of the great jurist Jacques Cujas at Bourges, he was an advocate
at Dijon in 1569 and became councillor and then president of the
_parlement_ of Burgundy. He opposed in vain the massacre of St
Bartholomew in his province. As councillor to the duke of Mayenne he
sought to reconcile him with Henry IV. After the victory of
Fontaine-Francaise (1595), Henry took Jeannin into his council and in
1602 named him intendant of finances. He took part in the principal
events of the reign, negotiated the treaty of Lyons with the duke of
Savoy (see HENRY IV.), and the defensive alliance between France and
the United Netherlands in 1608. As superintendent of finances under
Louis XIII., he tried to establish harmony between the king and the
queen-mother.
See Berger de Xivrey, _Lettres missives de Henri IV._ (in the
_Collection inedite pour l'histoire de France_), t. v. (1850);
P(ierre) S(aumaise), _Eloge sur la vie de Pierre Janin_ (Dijon, 1623);
Sainte-Beuve, _Causeries du lundi_, t. x. (May 1854).
JEBB, JOHN (1736-1786), English divine, was educated at Cambridge, where
he was elected fellow of Peterhouse in 1761, having previously been
second wrangler. He was a man of independent judgment and warmly
supported the movement of 1771 for abolishing university and clerical
subscription to the Thirty-nine Articles. In his lectures on the Greek
Testament he is said to have expressed Socinian views. In 1775 he
resigned his Suffolk church livings, and two years afterwards graduated
M.D. at St Andrews. He practised medicine in London and was elected
F.R.S. in 1779.
Another JOHN JEBB (1775-1833), bishop of Limerick, is best known as the
author of _Sacred Literature_ (London, 1820).
JEBB, SIR RICHARD CLAVERHOUSE (1841-1905), English classical scholar,
was born at Dundee on the 27th of August 1841. His father was a
well-known barrister, and his grandfather a judge. He was educated at
Charterhouse and at Trinity College, Cambridge. He won the Porson and
Craven scholarships, was senior classic in 1862, and became fellow and
tutor of his college in 1863. From 1869 to 1875 he was public orator of
the university; professor of Greek at Glasgow from 1875 to 1889, and at
Cambridge from 1889 till his death on the 9th of December 1905. In 1891
he was elected member of parliament for Cambridge University; he was
knighted in 1900. Jebb was acknowledged to be one of the most brilliant
classical scholars of his time, a humanist in the best sense, and his
powers of translation from and into the classical languages were
unrivalled. A collected volume, _Translations into Greek and Latin_,
appeared in 1873 (ed. 1909). He was the recipient of many honorary
degrees from European and American universities, and in 1905 was made a
member of the Order of Merit. He married in 1874 the widow of General A.
J. Slemmer, of the United States army, who survived him.
Jebb was the author of numerous publications, of which the following
are the most important: The _Characters_ of Theophrastus (1870), text,
introduction, English translation and commentary (re-edited by J. E.
Sandys, 1909); _The Attic Orators from Antiphon to Isaeus_ (2nd ed.,
1893), with companion volume, _Selections from the Attic Orators_ (2nd
ed., 1888); _Bentley_ (1882); _Sophocles_ (3rd ed., 1893) the seven
plays, text, English translation and notes, the promised edition of
the fragments being prevented by his death; _Bacchylides_ (1905),
text, translation, and notes; _Homer_ (3rd ed., 1888), an introduction
to the _Iliad_ and _Odyssey_; _Modern Greece_ (1901); _The Growth and
Influence of Classical Greek Poetry_ (1893). His translation of the
_Rhetoric_ of Aristotle was published posthumously under the
editorship of J. E. Sandys (1909). A selection from his _Essays and
Addresses_, and a subsequent volume, _Life and Letters of Sir Richard
Claverhouse Jebb_ (with critical introduction by A. W. Verrall) were
published by his widow in 1907; see also an appreciative notice by J.
E. Sandys, _Hist. of Classical Scholarship_, iii. (1908).
JEBEIL (anc. _Gebal-Byblus_), a town of Syria pleasantly situated on a
slight eminence near the sea, about 20 m. N. of Beirut. It is surrounded
by a wall 1(1/2) m. in circumference, with square towers at the angles,
and a castle at the south-east corner. Numerous broken granite columns
in the gardens and vineyards that surround the town, with the number of
ruined houses within the walls, testify to its former importance. The
stele of Jehawmelek, king of Gebal, found here, is one of the most
important of Phoenician monuments. The small port is almost choked up
with sand and ruins. Pop. 3000, all Moslems.
The inhabitants of the Phoenician Gebal and Greek Byblus were renowned
as stonecutters and ship-builders. Arrian (ii. 20. 1) represents Enylus,
king of Byblus, as joining Alexander with a fleet, after that monarch
had captured the city. Philo of Byblus makes it the most ancient city of
Phoenicia, founded by Cronus, i.e. the Moloch who appears from the stele
of Jehawmelek to have been with Baalit the chief deity of the city.
According to Plutarch (_Mor._ 357), the ark with the corpse of Osiris
was cast ashore at Byblus, and there found by Isis. The orgies of
Adonis in the temple of Baalit (Aphrodite Byblia) are described by
Lucian, _De Dea Syr._, cap. vi. The river Adonis is the Nahr al-Ibrahim,
which flows near the town. The crusaders, after failing before it in
1099, captured "Giblet" in 1103, but lost it again to Saladin in 1189.
Under Mahommedan rule it has gradually decayed. (D. G. H.)
JEBEL (plur. _jibal_), also written GEBEL with hard _g_ (plur. _gibal_),
an Arabic word meaning a mountain or a mountain chain. It is frequently
used in place-names. The French transliteration of the word is _djebel_.
_Jebeli_ signifies a mountaineer. The pronunciation with a hard _g_
sound is that used in the Egyptian dialect of Arabic.
JEDBURGH, a royal and police burgh and county-town of Roxburghshire,
Scotland. Pop. of police burgh (1901), 3136. It is situated on Jed
Water, a tributary of the Teviot, 56(1/4) m. S.E. of Edinburgh by the
North British railway, via Roxburgh and St Boswells (49 m. by road), and
10 m. from the border at Catcleuch Shin, a peak of the Cheviots, 1742
ft. high. Of the name Jedburgh there have been many variants, the
earliest being Gedwearde (800), Jedwarth (1251), and Geddart (1586),
while locally the word is sometimes pronounced Jethart. The town is
situated on the left bank of the Jed, the main streets running at right
angles from each side of the central market-place. Of the renowned group
of Border abbeys--Jedburgh, Melrose, Dryburgh and Kelso--that of
Jedburgh is the stateliest. In 1118, according to tradition, but more
probably as late as 1138, David, prince of Cumbria, here founded a
priory for Augustinian monks from the abbey of St Quentin at Beauvais in
France, and in 1147, after he had become king, erected it into an abbey
dedicated to the Virgin. Repeatedly damaged in Border warfare, it was
ruined in 1544-45 during the English invasion led by Sir Ralph Evers (or
Eure). The establishment was suppressed in 1559, the revenues being
temporarily annexed to the Crown. After changing owners more than once,
the lands were purchased in 1637 by the 3rd earl of Lothian. Latterly
five of the bays at the west end had been utilized as the parish church,
but in 1873-1875 the 9th marquess of Lothian built a church for the
service of the parish, and presented it to the heritors in exchange for
the ruined abbey in order to prevent the latter from being injured by
modern additions and alterations.
The abbey was built of Old Red sandstone, and belongs mostly to the
end of the 12th and the beginning of the 13th centuries. The
architecture is mixed, and the abbey is a beautiful example of the
Norman and Transition styles. The total length is 235 ft., the nave
being 133(1/2) ft. long and 59(1/2) ft. wide. The west front contains
a great Norman porch and a fine wheel window. The nave, on each side,
has nine pointed arches in the basement storey, nine round arches in
the triforium, and thirty-six pointed arches in the clerestory,
through which an arcade is carried on both sides. The tower, at the
intersection of the nave and transepts, is of unusually massive
proportions, being 30 ft. square and fully 100 ft. high; the network
baluster round the top is modern. With the exception of the north
piers and a small portion of the wall above, which are Norman, the
tower dates from the end of the 15th century. The whole of the south
transept has perished. The north transept, with early Decorated
windows, has been covered in and walled off, and is the burial-ground
of the Kerrs of Fernihirst, ancestors of the marquess of Lothian. The
earliest tombstone is dated 1524; one of the latest is the recumbent
effigy, by G. F. Watts, R.A., of the 8th marquess of Lothian
(1832-1870). All that is left of the choir, which contains some very
early Norman work, is two bays with three tiers on each side,
corresponding to the design of the nave. It is supposed that the
aisle, with Decorated window and groined roof, south of the chancel,
formed the grammar school (removed from the abbey in 1751) in which
Samuel Rutherford (1600-1661), principal of St Mary's College, St
Andrews, and James Thomson, author of The _Seasons_, were educated.
The door leading from the south aisle into a herbaceous garden,
formerly the cloister, is an exquisite copy of one which had become
greatly decayed. It was designed by Sir Rowand Anderson, under whose
superintendence restoration in the abbey was carried out.
The castle stood on high ground at the south end of the burgh, or
"town-head." Erected by David I., it was one of the strongholds ceded to
England in 1174, under the treaty of Falaise, for the ransom of William
the Lion. It was, however, so often captured by the English that it
became a menace rather than a protection, and the townsfolk demolished
it in 1409. It had occasionally been used as a royal residence, and was
the scene, in November 1285, of the revels held in celebration of the
marriage (solemnized in the abbey) of Alexander III. to Joleta, or
Yolande, daughter of the count of Dreux. The site was occupied in 1823
by the county prison, now known as the castle, a castellated structure
which gradually fell into disuse and was acquired by the corporation in
1890. A house exists in Backgate in which Mary Queen of Scots resided in
1566, and one in Castlegate which Prince Charles Edward occupied in
1745.
The public buildings include the grammar school (built in 1883 to
replace the successor of the school in the abbey), founded by William
Turnbull, bishop of Glasgow (d. 1454), the county buildings, the free
library and the public hall, which succeeded to the corn exchange
destroyed by fire in 1898, a loss that involved the museum and its
contents, including the banners captured by the Jethart weavers at
Bannockburn and Killiecrankie. The old market cross still exists, and
there are two public parks. The chief industry is the manufacture of
woollens (blankets, hosiery), but brewing, tanning and iron-founding are
carried on, and fruit (especially pears) and garden produce are in
repute. Jedburgh was made a royal burgh in the reign of David I., and
received a charter from Robert I. and another, in 1566, from Mary Queen
of Scots. Sacked and burned time after time during the Border strife, it
was inevitable that the townsmen should become keen fighters. Their cry
of "Jethart's here!" was heard wherever the fray waxed most fiercely,
and the Jethart axe of their invention--a steel axe on a 4-ft.
pole--wrought havoc in their hands.
"Jethart or Jeddart justice," according to which a man was hanged first
and tried afterwards, seems to have been a hasty generalization from a
solitary fact--the summary execution in James VI.'s reign of a gang of
rogues at the instance of Sir George Home, but has nevertheless passed
into a proverb.
Old Jeddart, 4 m. S. of the present town, the first site of the burgh,
is now marked by a few grassy mounds, and of the great Jedburgh forest,
only the venerable oaks, the "Capon Tree" and the "King of the Woods"
remain. Dunion Hill (1095 ft.), about 2 m. south-west of Jedburgh,
commands a fine view of the capital of the county.
JEEJEEBHOY (JIJIBHAI), SIR JAMSETJEE (JAMSETJI), Bart. (1783-1859),
Indian merchant and philanthropist, was born in Bombay in 1783, of poor
but respectable parents, and was left an orphan in early life. At the
age of sixteen, with a smattering of mercantile education and a bare
pittance, he commenced a series of business travels destined to lead him
to fortune and fame. After a preliminary visit to Calcutta, he undertook
a voyage to China, then fraught with so much difficulty and risk that it
was regarded as a venture betokening considerable enterprise and
courage; and he subsequently initiated a systematic trade with that
country, being himself the carrier of his merchant wares on his passages
to and fro between Bombay and Canton and Shanghai. His second return
voyage from China was made in one of the East India Company's fleet,
which, under the command of Sir Nathaniel Dance, defeated the French
squadron under Admiral Linois (Feb. 15, 1804). On his fourth return
voyage from China, the Indiaman in which he sailed was forced to
surrender to the French, by whom he was carried as a prisoner to the
Cape of Good Hope, then a neutral Dutch possession; and it was only
after much delay, and with great difficulty, that he made his way to
Calcutta in a Danish ship. Nothing daunted, he undertook yet another
voyage to China, which was more successful than any of the previous
ones. By this time he had fairly established his reputation as a
merchant possessed of the highest spirit of enterprise and considerable
wealth, and thenceforward he settled down in Bombay, where he directed
his commercial operations on a widely extended scale. By 1836 his firm
was large enough to engross the energies of his three sons and other
relatives; and he had amassed what at that period of Indian mercantile
history was regarded as fabulous wealth. An essentially self-made man,
having experienced in early life the miseries of poverty and want, in
his days of affluence Jamsetjee Jeejeebhoy developed an active instinct
of sympathy with his poorer countrymen, and commenced that career of
private and public philanthropy which is his chief title to the
admiration of mankind. His liberality was unbounded, and the absorbing
occupation of his later life was the alleviation of human distress. To
his own community he gave lavishly, but his benevolence was mainly
cosmopolitan. Hospitals, schools, homes of charity, pension funds, were
founded or endowed by him, while numerous public works in the shape of
wells, reservoirs, bridges, causeways, and the like, not only in Bombay,
but in other parts of India, were the creation of his bounty. The total
of his known benefactions amounted at the time of his death, which took
place in 1859, to over L230,000. It was not, however, the amount of his
charities so much as the period and circumstances in which they were
performed that made his benevolent career worthy of the fame he won. In
the first half of the 19th century the various communities of India were
much more isolated in their habits and their sympathies than they are
now. Jamsetjee Jeejeebhoy's unsectarian philanthropy awakened a common
understanding and created a bond between them which has proved not only
of domestic value but has had a national and political significance. His
services were recognized first in 1842 by the bestowal of a knighthood
upon him, and in 1858 by that of a baronetcy. These were the very first
distinctions of their kind conferred by Queen Victoria upon a British
subject in India.
His title devolved in 1859 on his eldest son CURSETJEE, who, by a
special Act of the Viceroy's Council in pursuance of a provision in the
letters-patent, took the name of Sir Jamsetjee Jeejeebhoy as second
baronet. At his death in 1877 his eldest son, MENEKJEE, became Sir
Jamsetjee Jeejeebhoy, the third baronet. Both had the advantage of a
good English education, and continued the career of benevolent activity
and devoted loyalty to British rule which had signalized the life-work
of the founder of the family. They both visited England to do homage to
their sovereign; and their public services were recognized by their
nomination to the order of the Star of India, as well as by appointment
to the Legislative Councils of Calcutta and Bombay.
On the death of the third baronet, the title devolved upon his brother,
COWSAJEE (1853-1908), who became Sir Jamsetjee Jeejeebhoy, fourth
baronet, and the recognized leader of the Parsee community all over the
world. He was succeeded by his son RUSTOMJEE (b. 1878), who became Sir
Jamsetjee Jeejeebhoy, fifth baronet.
Since their emigration from Persia, the Parsee community had never had a
titular chief or head, its communal funds and affairs being managed by a
public body, more or less democratic in its constitution, termed the
Parsee panchayat. The first Sir Jamsetjee, by the hold that he
established on the community, by his charities and public spirit,
gradually came to be regarded in the light of its chief; and the
recognition which he was the first in India to receive at the hands of
the British sovereign finally fixed him and his successors in the
baronetcy in the position and title of the official Parsee leader.
(M. M. Bh.)
JEFFERIES, RICHARD (1848-1887), English naturalist and author, was born
on the 6th of November 1848, at the farmhouse of Coate about 2(1/2) m.
from Swindon, on the road to Marlborough. He was sent to school, first
at Sydenham and then at Swindon, till the age of fifteen or so, but his
actual education was at the hands of his father, who gave him his love
for Nature and taught him how to observe. For the faculty of
observation, as Jefferies, Gilbert White, and H. D. Thoreau have
remarked, several gifts are necessary, including the possession of long
sight and quick sight, two things which do not always go together. To
them must be joined trained sight and the knowledge of what to expect.
The boy's father first showed him what there was to look for in the
hedge, in the field, in the trees, and in the sky. This kind of training
would in many cases be wasted: to one who can understand it, the book of
Nature will by-and-by offer pages which are blurred and illegible to the
city-bred lad, and even to the country lad the power of reading them
must be maintained by constant practice. To live amid streets or in the
working world destroys it. The observer must live alone and always in
the country; he must not worry himself about the ways of the world; he
must be always, from day to day, watching the infinite changes and
variations of Nature. Perhaps, even when the observer can actually read
this book of Nature, his power of articulate speech may prove inadequate
for the expression of what he sees. But Jefferies, as a boy, was more
than an observer of the fields; he was bookish, and read all the books
that he could borrow or buy. And presently, as is apt to be the fate of
a bookish boy who cannot enter a learned profession, he became a
journalist and obtained a post on the local paper. He developed literary
ambitions, but for a long time to come was as one beating the air. He
tried local history and novels; but his early novels, which were
published at his own risk and expense, were, deservedly, failures. In
1872, however, he published a remarkable letter in _The Times_, on "The
Wiltshire Labourer," full of original ideas and of facts new to most
readers. This was in reality the turning-point in his career. In 1873,
after more false starts, Jefferies returned to his true field of work,
the life of the country, and began to write for _Fraser's Magazine_ on
"Farming and Farmers." He had now found himself. The rest of his history
is that of continual advance, from close observation becoming daily more
and more close, to that intimate communion with Nature with which his
later pages are filled. The developments of the later period are
throughout touched with the melancholy that belongs to ill-health. For,
though in his prose poem called "The Pageant of Summer" the writer seems
absolutely revelling in the strength of manhood that belongs to that
pageant, yet, in the _Story of My Heart_, written about the same time,
we detect the mind that is continually turned to death. He died at
Goring, worn out with many ailments, on the 14th of August 1887. The
best-known books of Richard Jefferies are: _The Gamekeeper at Home_
(1878); _The Story of My Heart_ (1883); _Life of the Fields_ (1884),
containing the best paper he ever wrote, "The Pageant of Summer";
_Amaryllis at the Fair_ (1884), in which may be found the portraits of
his own people; and _The Open Air_. He stands among the scanty company
of men who address a small audience, for whom he read aloud these pages
of Nature spoken of above, which only he, and the few like unto him, can
decipher.
See Sir Walter Besant, _Eulogy of Richard Jefferies_ (1888); H. S.
Salt, _Richard Jefferies: a Study_ (1894); Edward Thomas, _Richard
Jefferies, his Life and Work_ (1909). (W. Be.)
JEFFERSON, JOSEPH (1820-1905), American actor, was born in Philadelphia
on the 20th of February 1829. He was the third actor of this name in a
family of actors and managers, and the most famous of all American
comedians. At the age of three he appeared as the boy in Kotzebue's
_Pizarro_, and throughout his youth he underwent all the hardships
connected with theatrical touring in those early days. After a
miscellaneous experience, partly as actor, partly as manager, he won his
first pronounced success in 1858 as Asa Trenchard in Tom Taylor's _Our
American Cousin_ at Laura Keene's theatre in New York. This play was the
turning-point of his career, as it was of Sothern's. The naturalness and
spontaneity of humour with which he acted the love scenes revealed a
spirit in comedy new to his contemporaries, long used to a more
artificial convention; and the touch of pathos which the part required
revealed no less to the actor an unexpected power in himself. Other
early parts were Newman Noggs in _Nicholas Nickleby_, Caleb Plummer in
_The Cricket on the Hearth_, Dr Pangloss in _The Heir at Law_, Salem
Scudder in _The Octoroon_, and Bob Acres in _The Rivals_, the last being
not so much an interpretation of the character as Sheridan sketched it
as a creation of the actor's. In 1859 Jefferson made a dramatic version
of the story of _Rip Van Winkle_ on the basis of older plays, and acted
it with success at Washington. The play was given its permanent form by
Dion Boucicault in London, where (1865) it ran 170 nights, with
Jefferson in the leading part. Jefferson continued to act with
undiminished popularity in a limited number of parts in nearly every
town in the United States, his Rip Van Winkle, Bob Acres, and Caleb
Plummer being the most popular. He was one of the first to establish the
travelling combinations which superseded the old system of local stock
companies. With the exception of minor parts, such as the First
Gravedigger in _Hamlet_, which he played in an "all star combination"
headed by Edwin Booth, Jefferson created no new character after 1865;
and the success of Rip Van Winkle was so pronounced that he has often
been called a one-part actor. If this was a fault, it was the public's,
who never wearied of his one masterpiece. Jefferson died on the 23rd of
April 1905. No man in his profession was more honoured for his
achievements or his character. He was the friend of many of the leading
men in American politics, art and literature. He was an ardent fisherman
and lover of nature, and devoted to painting. Jefferson was twice
married: to an actress, Margaret Clements Lockyer (1832-1861), in 1850,
and in 1867 to Sarah Warren, niece of William Warren the actor.
Jefferson's _Autobiography_ (New York, 1889) is written with admirable
spirit and humour, and its judgments with regard to the art of the
actor and of the playwright entitle it to a place beside Cibber's
_Apology_. See William Winter, _The Jeffersons_ (1881), and _Life of
Joseph Jefferson_ (1894); Mrs. E. P. Jefferson, _Recollections of
Joseph Jefferson_ (1909).
JEFFERSON, THOMAS (1743-1826), third president of the United States of
America, and the most conspicuous apostle of democracy in America, was
born on the 13th of April 1743, at Shadwell, Albemarle county, Virginia.
His father, Peter Jefferson (1707-1757), of early Virginian yeoman
stock, was a civil engineer and a man of remarkable energy, who became a
justice of the peace, a county surveyor and a burgess, served the Crown
in inter-colonial boundary surveys, and married into one of the most
prominent colonial families, the Randolphs. Albemarle county was then in
the frontier wilderness of the Blue Ridge, and was very different,
socially, from the lowland counties where a few broad-acred families
dominated an open-handed, somewhat luxurious and assertive aristocracy.
Unlike his Randolph connexions, Peter Jefferson was a whig and a
thorough democrat; from him, and probably, too, from the Albemarle
environment, his son came naturally by democratic inclinations.
Jefferson carried with him from the college of William and Mary at
Williamsburg, in his twentieth year, a good knowledge of Latin, Greek
and French (to which he soon added Spanish, Italian and Anglo-Saxon),
and a familiarity with the higher mathematics and natural sciences only
possessed, at his age, by men who have a rare natural taste and ability
for those studies. He remained an ardent student throughout life, able
to give and take in association with the many scholars, American and
foreign, whom he numbered among his friends and correspondents. With a
liberal Scotsman, Dr William Small, then of the faculty of William and
Mary and later a friend of Erasmus Darwin, and George Wythe (1726-1806),
a very accomplished scholar and leader of the Virginia bar, Jefferson
was an habitual member, while still in college, of a _partie carree_ at
the table of Francis Fauquier (c. 1720-1768), the accomplished
lieutenant-governor of Virginia. Jefferson was an expert violinist, a
good singer and dancer, proficient in outdoor sports, and an excellent
horseman. Thorough-bred horses always remained to him a necessary
luxury. When it is added that Fauquier was a passionate gambler, and
that the gentry who gathered every winter at Williamsburg, the seat of
government of the province, were ruinously addicted to the same
weakness, and that Jefferson had a taste for racing, it does credit to
his early strength of character that of his social opportunities he took
only the better. He never used tobacco, never played cards, never
gambled, and was never party to a personal quarrel.
Soon after leaving college he entered Wythe's law office, and in 1767,
after five years of close study, was admitted to the bar. His thorough
preparation enabled him to compete from the first with the leading
lawyers of the colony, and his success shows that the bar had no rewards
that were not fairly within his reach. As an advocate, however, he did
not shine; a weakness of voice made continued speaking impossible, and
he had neither the ability nor the temperament for oratory. To his legal
scholarship and collecting zeal Virginia owed the preservation of a
large part of her early statutes. He seems to have lacked interest in
litigiousness, which was extraordinarily developed in colonial
Virginia; and he saw and wished to reform the law's abuses. It is
probable that he turned, therefore, the more willingly to politics; at
any rate, soon after entering public life he abandoned practice (1774).
The death of his father had left him an estate of 1900 acres, the income
from which (about L400) gave him the position of an independent country
gentleman; and while engaged in the law he had added to his farms after
the ambitious Virginia fashion, until, when he married in his thirtieth
year, there were 5000 acres all paid for; and almost as much more[1]
came to him in 1773 on the death of his father-in-law. On the 1st of
January 1772, Jefferson married Martha Wayles Skelton (1749-1782), a
childless widow of twenty-three, very handsome, accomplished, and very
fond of music. Their married life was exceedingly happy, and Jefferson
never remarried after her early death. Of six children born from their
union, two daughters alone survived infancy. Jefferson was emotional and
very affectionate in his home, and his generous and devoted relations
with his children and grandchildren are among the finest features of his
character.
Jefferson began his public service as a justice of the peace and parish
vestryman; he was chosen a member of the Virginia house of burgesses in
1769 and of every succeeding assembly and convention of the colony until
he entered the Continental Congress in 1775. His forceful, facile pen
gave him great influence from the first; but though a foremost member of
several great deliberative bodies, he can fairly be said never to have
made a speech. He hated the "morbid rage of debate" because he believed
that men were never convinced by argument, but only by reflection,
through reading or unprovocative conversation; and this belief guided
him through life. Moreover it is very improbable that he could ever have
shone as a public speaker, and to this fact unfriendly critics have
attributed, at least in part, his abstention from debate. The house of
burgesses of 1769, and its successors in 1773 and 1774, were dissolved
by the governor (see VIRGINIA) for their action on the subject of
colonial grievances and inter-colonial co-operation. Jefferson was
prominent in all; was a signer of the Virginia agreement of
non-importation and economy (1769); and was elected in 1774 to the first
Virginia convention, called to consider the state of the colony and
advance inter-colonial union. Prevented by illness from attending,
Jefferson sent to the convention elaborate resolutions, which he
proposed as instructions to the Virginia delegates to the Continental
Congress that was to meet at Philadelphia in September. In the direct
language of reproach and advice, with no disingenuous loading of the
Crown's policy upon its agents, these resolutions attacked the errors of
the king, and maintained that "the relation between Great Britain and
these colonies was exactly the same as that of England and Scotland
after the accession of James and until the Union; and that our
emigration to this country gave England no more rights over us than the
emigration of the Danes and Saxons gave to the present authorities of
their mother country over England." This was cutting at the common root
of allegiance, emigration and colonization; but such radicalism was too
thorough-going for the immediate end. The resolutions were published,
however, as a pamphlet, entitled _A Summary View of the Rights of
America_, which was widely circulated. In England, after receiving such
modifications--attributed to Burke--as adapted it to the purposes of the
opposition, this pamphlet ran through many editions, and procured for
its author, as he said, "the honour of having his name inserted in a
long list of proscriptions enrolled in a bill of attainder commenced in
one of the two houses of parliament, but suppressed in embryo by the
hasty course of events." It placed Jefferson among the foremost leaders
of revolution, and procured for him the honour of drafting, later, the
Declaration of Independence, whose historical portions were, in large
part, only a revised transcript of the _Summary View_. In June 1775 he
took his seat in the Continental Congress, taking with him fresh
credentials of radicalism in the shape of Virginia's answer, which he
had drafted, to Lord North's conciliatory propositions. Jefferson soon
drafted the reply of Congress to the same propositions. Reappointed to
the next Congress, he signalized his service by the authorship of the
Declaration of Independence (q.v.). Again reappointed, he surrendered
his seat, and after refusing a proffered election to serve as a
commissioner with Benjamin Franklin and Silas Deane in France, he
entered again, in October 1776, the Virginia legislature, where he
considered his services most needed.
The local work to which Jefferson attributed such importance was a
revision of Virginia's laws. Of the measures proposed to this end he
says: "I considered four, passed or reported, as forming a system by
which every trace would be eradicated of ancient or future aristocracy,
and a foundation laid for a government truly republican"--the repeal of
the laws of entail; the abolition of primogeniture and the unequal
division of inheritances (Jefferson was himself an eldest son); the
guarantee of freedom of conscience and relief of the people from
supporting, by taxation, an established church; and a system of general
education. The first object was embodied in law in 1776, the second in
1785, the third[2] in 1786 (supplemented 1799, 1801). The last two were
parts of a body of codified laws prepared (1776-1779) by Edmund
Pendleton,[3] George Wythe, and Jefferson, and principally by Jefferson.
Not so fortunate were Jefferson's ambitious schemes of education.
District, grammar and classical schools, a free state library and a
state college, were all included in his plan. He was the first American
statesman to make education by the state a fundamental article of
democratic faith. His bill for elementary education he regarded as the
most important part of the code, but Virginia had no strong middle
class, and the planters would not assume the burden of educating the
poor. At this time Jefferson championed the natural right of
expatriation, and gradual emancipation of the slaves. His earliest
legislative effort, in the five-day session of 1769, had been marked by
an effort to secure to masters freedom to manumit their slaves without
removing them from the state. It was unsuccessful, and the more radical
measure he now favoured was even more impossible of attainment; but a
bill he introduced to prohibit the importation of slaves was passed in
1778--the only important change effected in the slave system of the
state during the War of Independence. Finally he endeavoured, though
unsuccessfully, to secure the introduction of juries into the courts of
chancery, and--a generation and more before the fruition of the labours
of Romilly and his co-workers in England--aided in securing a
humanitarian revision of the penal code,[4] which, though lost by one
vote in 1785, was sustained by public sentiment, and was adopted in
1796. Jefferson is of course not entitled to the sole credit for all
these services: Wythe, George Mason and James Madison, in particular,
were his devoted lieutenants, and--after his departure for France--the
principals in the struggle; moreover, an approving public opinion must
receive large credit. But Jefferson was throughout the chief inspirer
and foremost worker.
In 1779, at almost the gloomiest stage of the war in the southern
states, Jefferson succeeded Patrick Henry as the governor of Virginia,
being the second to hold that office after the organization of the state
government. In his second term (1780-1781) the state was overrun by
British expeditions, and Jefferson, a civilian, was blamed for the
ineffectual resistance. Though he cannot be said to have been eminently
fitted for the task that devolved upon him in such a crisis, most of the
criticism of his administration was undoubtedly grossly unjust. His
conduct being attacked, he declined renomination for the governorship,
but was unanimously returned by Albemarle as a delegate to the state
legislature; and on the day previously set for legislative inquiry on a
resolution offered by an impulsive critic, he received, by unanimous
vote of the house, a declaration of thanks and confidence. He wished
however to retire permanently from public life, a wish strengthened by
the illness and death of his wife. At this time he composed his _Notes
on Virginia_, a semi-statistical work full of humanitarian liberalism.
Congress twice offered him an appointment as one of the
plenipotentiaries to negotiate peace with England, but, though he
accepted the second offer, the business was so far advanced before he
could sail that his appointment was recalled. During the following
winter (1783) he was again in Congress, and headed the committee
appointed to consider the treaty of peace. In the succeeding session his
service was marked by a report, from which resulted the present monetary
system of the United States (the fundamental idea of its decimal basis
being due, however, to Gouverneur Morris); and by the honour of
reporting the first definitely formulated plan for the government of the
western territories,[5] that embodied in the ordinance of 1784. He was
already particularly associated with the great territory north-west of
the Ohio; for Virginia had tendered to Congress in 1781, while Jefferson
was governor, a cession of her claims to it, and now in 1784 formally
transferred the territory by act of Jefferson and his fellow delegates
in congress: a consummation for which he had laboured from the
beginning. His anti-slavery opinions grew in strength with years (though
he was somewhat inconsistent in his attitude on the Missouri question in
1820-1821). Not only justice but patriotism as well pleaded with him the
cause of the negroes,[6] for he foresaw the certainty that the race must
some day, in some way, be freed, and the dire political dangers involved
in the institution of slavery; and could any feasible plan of
emancipation have been suggested he would have regarded its cost as a
mere bagatelle.
From 1784 to 1789 Jefferson was in France, first under an appointment to
assist Benjamin Franklin and John Adams in negotiating treaties of
commerce with European states, and then as Franklin's successor
(1785-1789) as minister to France.[7] In these years he travelled widely
in western Europe. Though the commercial principles of the United States
were far too liberal for acceptance, as such, by powers holding colonies
in America, Jefferson won some specific concessions to American trade.
He was exceedingly popular as a minister. The criticism is even to-day
current with the uninformed that Jefferson took his manners,[8] morals,
"irreligion" and political philosophy from his French residence; and it
cannot be wholly ignored. It may therefore be said that there is nothing
except unsubstantiated scandal to contradict the conclusion, which
various evidence supports, that Jefferson's morals were pure. His
religious views and political beliefs will be discussed later. His
theories had a deep and broad basis in English whiggism; and though he
may well have found at least confirmation of his own ideas in French
writers--and notably in Condorcet--he did not read sympathetically the
writers commonly named, Rousseau and Montesquieu; besides, his democracy
was seasoned, and he was rather a teacher than a student of
revolutionary politics when he went to Paris. The _Notes on Virginia_
were widely read in Paris, and undoubtedly had some influence in
forwarding the dissolution of the doctrines of divine rights and passive
obedience among the cultivated classes of France. Jefferson was deeply
interested in all the events leading up to the French Revolution, and
all his ideas were coloured by his experience of the five seething years
passed in Paris. On the 3rd of June 1789 he proposed to the leaders of
the third estate a compromise between the king and the nation. In July
he received the extraordinary honour of being invited to assist in the
deliberations of the committee appointed by the national assembly to
draft a constitution. This honour his official position compelled him,
of course, to decline; for he sedulously observed official proprieties,
and in no way gave offence to the government to which he was accredited.
When Jefferson left France it was with the intention of soon returning;
but President Washington tendered him the secretaryship of state in the
new federal government, and Jefferson reluctantly accepted. His only
essential objection to the constitution--the absence of a bill of
rights--was soon met, at least partially, by amendments. Alexander
Hamilton (q.v.) was secretary of the treasury. These two men, antipodal
in temperament and political belief, clashed in irreconcilable
hostility, and in the conflict of public sentiment, first on the
financial measures of Hamilton, and then on the questions with regard to
France and Great Britain, Jefferson's sympathies being predominantly
with the former, Hamilton's with the latter, they formed about
themselves the two great parties of Democrats and Federalists. The
schools of thought for which they stood have since contended for mastery
in American politics: Hamilton's gradually strengthened by the
necessities of stronger administration, as time gave widening amplitude
and increasing weight to the specific powers--and so to Hamilton's great
doctrine of the "implied powers"--of the general government of a growing
country; Jefferson's rooted in colonial life, and buttressed by the
hopes and convictions of democracy.
The most perplexing questions treated by Jefferson as secretary of state
arose out of the policy of neutrality adopted by the United States
toward France, to whom she was bound by treaties and by a heavy debt of
gratitude. Separation from European politics--the doctrine of "America
for Americans" that was embodied later in the Monroe declaration--was a
tenet cherished by Jefferson as by other leaders (not, however,
Hamilton) and by none cherished more firmly, for by nature he was
peculiarly opposed to war, and peace was a fundamental part of his
politics. However deep, therefore, his French sympathies, he drew the
same safe line as did Washington between French politics and American
politics,[9] and handled the Genet complications to the satisfaction of
even the most partisan Federalists. He expounded, as a very high
authority has said, "with remarkable clearness and power the nature and
scope of neutral duty," and gave a "classic" statement of the doctrine
of recognition.[10]
But the French question had another side in its reaction on American
parties.[11] Jefferson did not read excesses in Paris as warnings
against democracy, but as warnings against the abuses of monarchy; nor
did he regard Bonaparte's _coup d'etat_ as revealing the weakness of
republics, but rather as revealing the danger of standing armies; he did
not look on the war of the coalitions against France as one of mere
powers, but as one between forms of government; and though the immediate
fruits of the Revolution belied his hopes, as they did those of ardent
humanitarians the world over, he saw the broad trend of history, which
vindicated his faith that a successful reformation of government in
France would insure "a general reformation through Europe, and the
resurrection to a new life of their people." Each of these statements
could be reversed as regards Hamilton. It is the key to an understanding
of the times to remember that the War of Independence had disjointed
society; and democracy--which Jefferson had proclaimed in the
Declaration of Independence, and enthroned in Virginia--after
strengthening its rights by the sword, had run to excesses, particularly
in the Shays' rebellion, that produced a conservative reaction. To this
reaction Hamilton explicitly appealed in the convention of 1787; and of
this reaction various features of the constitution, and Hamiltonian
federalism generally, were direct fruits. Moreover, independently of
special incentives to the alarmist and the man of property, the opinions
of many Americans turned again, after the war, into a current of
sympathy for England, as naturally as American commerce returned to
English ports. Jefferson, however, far from America in these years and
unexposed to reactionary influences, came back with undiminished fervour
of democracy, and the talk he heard of praise for England, and fearful
recoil before even the beginning of the revolution in France,
disheartened him, and filled him with suspicion.[12] Hating as he did
feudal class institutions and Tudor-Stuart traditions of arbitrary
rule,[13] his attitude can be imagined toward Hamilton's oft-avowed
partialities--and Jefferson assumed, his intrigues--for British
class-government with its eighteenth-century measure of corruption. In
short, Hamilton took from recent years the lesson of the evils of lax
government; whereas Jefferson clung to the other lesson, which crumbling
colonial governments had illustrated, that governments derived their
strength (and the Declaration had proclaimed that they derived their
just rights) from the will of the governed. Each built his system
accordingly: the one on the basis of order, the other on
individualism--which led Jefferson to liberty alike in religion and in
politics. The two men and the fate of the parties they led are
understandable only by regarding one as the leader of reaction, the
other as in line with the American tendencies. The educated classes
characteristically furnished Federalism with a remarkable body of
alarmist leaders; and thus it happened that Jefferson, because, with
only a few of his great contemporaries, he had a thorough trust and
confidence in the people, became the idol of American democracy.
As Hamilton was somewhat officious and very combative, and Jefferson,
although uncontentious, very suspicious and quite independent, both men
holding inflexibly to opinions, cabinet harmony became impossible when
the two secretaries had formed parties about them and their differences
were carried into the newspapers;[14] and Washington abandoned perforce
his idea "if parties did exist to reconcile them." Partly from
discontent with a position in which he did not feel that he enjoyed the
absolute confidence of the president,[15] and partly because of the
embarrassed condition of his private affairs, Jefferson repeatedly
sought to resign, and finally on the 31st of December 1793, with
Washington's reluctant consent, gave up his portfolio and retired to his
home at Monticello, near Charlottesville.
Here he remained improving his estate (having refused a foreign mission)
until elected vice-president in 1796. Jefferson was never truly happy
except in the country. He loved gardening, experimented enthusiastically
in varieties and rotations of crops and kept meteorological tables with
diligence. For eight years he tabulated with painful accuracy the
earliest and latest appearance of thirty-seven vegetables in the
Washington market. When abroad he sought out varieties of grasses,
trees, rice and olives for American experiment, and after his return
from France received yearly for twenty-three years, from his old friend
the superintendent of the _Jardin des plantes_, a box of seeds, which he
distributed to public and private gardens throughout the United States.
Jefferson seems to have been the first discoverer of an exact formula
for the construction of mould-boards of least resistance for ploughs. He
managed to make practical use of his calculus about his farms, and seems
to have been remarkably apt in the practical application of mechanical
principles.
In the presidential election of 1796 John Adams, the Federalist
candidate, received the largest number of electoral votes, and
Jefferson, the Republican candidate, the next largest number, and under
the law as it then existed the former became president and the latter
vice-president. Jefferson re-entered public life with reluctance, though
doubtless with keen enough interest and resolution. He had rightly
measured the strength of his followers, and was waiting for the
government to "drift into unison" with the republican sense of its
constituents, predicting that President Adams would be "overborne"
thereby. This prediction was speedily fulfilled. At first the reign of
terror and the X. Y. Z. disclosures strengthened the Federalists, until
these, mistaking the popular resentment against France for a reaction
against democracy--an equivalence in their own minds--passed the alien
and sedition laws. In answer to those odious measures Jefferson and
Madison prepared and procured the passage of the Kentucky and Virginia
resolutions. These resolutions later acquired extraordinary and
pernicious prominence in the historical elaboration of the
states'-rights doctrine. It is, however, unquestionably true, that as a
startling protest against measures "to silence," in Jefferson's words,
"by force and not by reason the complaints or criticisms, just or
unjust, of our citizens against the conduct of our agents," they served,
in this respect, a useful purpose; and as a counterblast against
Hamiltonian principles of centralization they were probably, at that
moment, very salutary; while even as pieces of constitutional
interpretation it is to be remembered that they did not contemplate
nullification by any single state, and, moreover, are not to be judged
by constitutional principles established later by courts and war. The
Federalist party had ruined itself, and it lost the presidential
election of 1800. The Republican candidates, Jefferson and Aaron Burr
(q.v.), receiving equal votes, it devolved upon the House of
Representatives, in accordance with the system which then obtained, to
make one of the two president, the other vice-president. Party feeling
in America has probably never been more dangerously impassioned than in
the three years preceding this election; discount as one will the
contrary obsessions of men like Fisher Ames, Hamilton and Jefferson, the
time was fateful. Unable to induce Burr to avow Federalist principles,
influential Federalists, in defiance of the constitution, contemplated
the desperate alternative of preventing an election, and appointing an
extra-constitutional (Federalist) president _pro tempore_. Better
counsels, however, prevailed; Hamilton used his influence in favour of
Jefferson as against Burr, and Jefferson became president, entering upon
his duties on the 4th of March 1801. Republicans who had affiliated with
the Federalists at the time of the X. Y. Z. disclosures returned; very
many of the Federalists themselves Jefferson placated and drew over.
"Believing," he wrote, "that (excepting the ardent monarchists) all our
citizens agreed in ancient whig principles"--or, as he elsewhere
expressed it, in "republican forms"--"I thought it advisable to define
and declare them, and let them see the ground on which we can rally."
This he did in his inaugural, which, though somewhat rhetorical, is a
splendid and famous statement of democracy.[16] His conciliatory policy
produced a mild schism in his own party, but proved eminently wise, and
the state elections of 1801 fulfilled his prophecy of 1791 that the
policy of the Federalists would leave them "all head and no body." In
1804 he was re-elected by 162 out of 176 votes.
Jefferson's administrations were distinguished by the simplicity that
marked his conduct in private life. He eschewed the pomp and ceremonies,
natural inheritances from English origins, that had been an innocent
setting to the character of his two noble predecessors. His dress was of
"plain cloth" on the day of his inauguration. Instead of driving to the
Capitol in a coach and six, he walked without a guard or servant from
his lodgings--or, as a rival tradition has it, he rode, and hitched his
horse to a neighbouring fence--attended by a crowd of citizens. Instead
of opening Congress with a speech to which a formal reply was expected,
he sent in a written message by a private hand. He discontinued the
practice of sending ministers abroad in public vessels. Between himself
and the governors of states he recognized no difference in rank. He
would not have his birthday celebrated by state balls. The weekly levee
was practically abandoned. Even such titles as "Excellency,"
"Honourable," "Mr" were distasteful to him. It was formally agreed in
cabinet meeting that "when brought together in society, all are
perfectly equal, whether foreign or domestic, titled or untitled, in or
out of office." Thus diplomatic grades were ignored in social precedence
and foreign relations were seriously compromised by dinner-table
complications. One minister who appeared in gold lace and dress sword
for his first, and regularly appointed, official call on the president,
was received--as he insisted with studied purpose--by Jefferson in
negligent undress and slippers down at the heel. All this was in part
premeditated system[17]--a part of Jefferson's purpose to republicanize
the government and public opinion, which was the distinguishing feature
of his administration; but it was also simply the nature of the man. In
the company he chose by preference, honesty and knowledge were his only
tests. He knew absolutely no social distinctions in his willingness to
perform services for the deserving. He held up to his daughter as an
especial model the family of a poor but gifted mechanic as one wherein
she would see "the best examples of rational living." "If it be
possible," he said, "to be certainly conscious of anything, I am
conscious of feeling no difference between writing to the highest and
lowest being on earth."
Jefferson's first administration was marked by a reduction of the army,
navy, diplomatic establishment and, to the uttermost, of governmental
expenses; some reduction of the civil service, accompanied by a large
shifting of offices to Republicans; and, above all, by the Louisiana
Purchase (q.v.), following which Meriwether Lewis and William Clark,
sent by Jefferson, conducted their famous exploring expedition across
the continent to the Pacific (see LEWIS, MERIWETHER). Early in his term
he carried out a policy he had urged upon the government when minister
to France and when vice-president, by dispatching naval forces to coerce
Tripoli into a decent respect for the trade of his country--the first in
Christendom to gain honourable immunity from tribute or piracy in the
Mediterranean. The Louisiana Purchase, although the greatest
"inconsistency" of his career, was also an illustration, in
corresponding degree, of his essential practicality, and one of the
greatest proofs of his statesmanship. It was the crowning achievement of
his administration. It is often said that Jefferson established the
"spoils system" by his changes in the civil service. He was the
innovator, because for the first time there was opportunity for
innovation. But mere justice requires attention to the fact that
incentive to that innovation, and excuse for it, were found in the
absolute one-party monopoly maintained by the Federalists. Moreover,
Jefferson's ideals were high; his reasons for changes were in general
excellent; he at least so far resisted the great pressure for
office--producing by his resistance dissatisfaction within his party--as
not to have lowered, apparently, the personnel of the service; and there
were no such blots on his administration as President Adams's "midnight
judges." Nevertheless, his record here was not clear of blots, showing a
few regrettable inconsistencies.[18] Among important but secondary
measures of his second administration were the extinguishment of Indian
titles, and promotion of Indian emigration to lands beyond the
Mississippi; reorganization of the militia; fortification of the
seaports; reduction of the public debt; and a simultaneous reduction of
taxes. But his second term derives most of its historical interest from
the unsuccessful efforts to convict Aaron Burr of treasonable acts in
the south-west, and from the efforts made to maintain, without war, the
rights of neutrals on the high seas. In his diplomacy with Napoleon and
Great Britain Jefferson betrayed a painful incorrigibility of optimism.
A national policy of "growling before fighting"--later practised
successfully enough by the United States--was not then possible; and one
writer has very justly said that what chiefly affects one in the whole
matter is the pathos of it--"a philosopher and a friend of peace
struggling with a despot of superhuman genius, and a Tory cabinet of
superhuman insolence and stolidity" (Trent). It is possible to regard
the embargo policy dispassionately as an interesting illustration of
Jefferson's love of peace. The idea--a very old one with Jefferson--was
not entirely original; in essence it received other attempted
applications in the Napoleonic period--and especially in the continental
blockade. Jefferson's statesmanship had the limitations of an agrarian
outlook. The extreme to which he carried his advocacy of diplomatic
isolation, his opposition to the creation of an adequate navy,[19] his
estimate of cities as "sores upon the body politic," his prejudice
against manufactures, trust in farmers, and political distrust of the
artisan class, all reflect them.
When, on the 4th of March 1809, Jefferson retired from the presidency,
he had been almost continuously in the public service for forty years.
He refused to be re-elected for a third time, though requested by the
legislatures of five states to be a candidate; and thus, with
Washington's prior example, helped to establish a precedent deemed by
him to be of great importance under a democratic government. His
influence seemed scarcely lessened in his retirement. Madison and
Monroe, his immediate successors--neighbours and devoted friends, whom
he had advised in their early education and led in their maturer
years--consulted him on all great questions, and there was no break of
principles in the twenty-four years of the "Jeffersonian system."
Jefferson was one of the greatest political managers his country has
known. He had a quick eye for character, was genuinely amiable,
uncontentious, tactful, masterful; and it may be assumed from his
success that he was wary or shrewd to a degree. It is true, moreover,
that, unless tested by a few unchanging principles, his acts were often
strikingly inconsistent; and even when so tested, not infrequently
remain so in appearance. Full explanations do not remove from some
important transactions in his political life an impression of
indirectness. But reasonable judgment must find very unjust the stigma
of duplicity put upon him by the Federalists. Measured by the records of
other men equally successful as political leaders, there seems little of
this nature to criticize severely. Jefferson had the full courage of his
convictions. Extreme as were his principles, his pertinacity in adhering
to them and his independence of expression were quite as extreme. There
were philosophic and philanthropic elements in his political faith which
will always lead some to class him as a visionary and fanatic; but
although he certainly indulged at times in dreams at which one may still
smile, he was not, properly speaking, a visionary; nor can he with
justice be stigmatized as a fanatic. He felt fervently, was not afraid
to risk all on the conclusions to which his heart and his mind led him,
declared himself with openness and energy; and he spoke and even wrote
his conclusions, how ever bold or abstract, without troubling to detail
his reasoning or clip his off-hand speculations. Certain it is that
there is much in his utterances for a less robust democracy than his own
to cavil at.[20] Soar, however, as he might, he was essentially not a
doctrinaire, but an empiricist; his mind was objective. Though he
remained, to the end, firm in his belief that there had been an active
monarchist party,[21] this obsession did not carry him out of touch with
the realities of human nature and of his time. He built with surety on
the colonial past, and had a better reasoned view of the actual future
than had any of his contemporaries.
Events soon appraised the ultra-Federalist judgment of American
democracy, so tersely expressed by Fisher Ames as "like death ... only
the dismal passport to a more dismal hereafter"; and, with it, appraised
Jefferson's word in his first inaugural for those who, "in the full tide
of successful experiment," were ready to abandon a government that had
so far kept them "free and firm, on the visionary fear that it might by
possibility lack energy to preserve itself." Time soon tested, too, his
principle that that government must prove the strongest on earth "where
every man ... would meet invasions of the public order as his own
personal concern." He summed up as follows the difference between
himself and the Hamiltonian group: "One feared most the ignorance of the
people; the other the selfishness of rulers independent of them."
Jefferson, in short, had unlimited faith in the honesty of the people; a
large faith in their common sense; believed that all is to be won by
appealing to the reason of voters; that by education their ignorance can
be eliminated; that human nature is indefinitely perfectible; that
majorities rule, therefore, not only by virtue of force (which was
Locke's ultimate justification of them), but of right.[22] His
importance as a maker of modern America can scarcely be overstated, for
the ideas he advocated have become the very foundations of American
republicanism. His administration ended the possibility, probability or
certainty--measure it as one will--of the development of Federalism in
the direction of class government; and the party he formed, inspired by
the creed he gave it, fixed the democratic future of the nation. And by
his own labours he had vindicated his faith in the experiment of
self-government.
Jefferson's last years were devoted to the establishment of the
university of Virginia at Charlottesville, near his home. He planned the
buildings, gathered its faculty--mainly from abroad--and shaped its
organization. Practically all the great ideas of aim, administration and
curriculum that dominated American universities at the end of the 19th
century were anticipated by him. He hoped that the university might be a
dominant influence in national culture, but circumstances crippled it.
His educational plans had been maturing in his mind since 1776. His
financial affairs in these last years gave him grave concern. His fine
library of over 10,000 volumes was purchased at a low price by Congress
in 1815, and a national contribution ($16,500) just before his death
enabled him to die in peace. Though not personally extravagant, his
salary, and the small income from his large estates, never sufficed to
meet his generous maintenance of his representative position; and after
his retirement from public life the numerous visitors to Monticello
consumed the remnants of his property. He died on the 4th of July 1826,
the fiftieth anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, on the same
day as John Adams. He chose for his tomb the epitaph: "Here was buried
Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of American Independence, of
the statute of Virginia for religious freedom, and father of the
university of Virginia."
Jefferson was about 6 ft. in height, large-boned, slim, erect and
sinewy. He had angular features, a very ruddy complexion, sandy hair,
and hazel-flecked, grey eyes. Age lessened the unattractiveness of his
exterior. In later years he was negligent in dress and loose in
bearing. There was grace, nevertheless, in his manners; and his frank
and earnest address, his quick sympathy (yet he seemed cold to
strangers), his vivacious, desultory, informing talk, gave him an
engaging charm. Beneath a quiet surface he was fairly aglow with
intense convictions and a very emotional temperament. Yet he seems to
have acted habitually, in great and little things, on system. His
mind, no less trenchant and subtle than Hamilton's, was the most
impressible, the most receptive, mind of his time in America. The
range of his interests is remarkable. For many years he was president
of the American philosophical society. Though it is a biographical
tradition that he lacked wit, Moliere and _Don Quixote_ seem to have
been his favourites; and though the utilitarian wholly crowds
romanticism out of his writings, he had enough of that quality in
youth to prepare to learn Gaelic in order to translate Ossian, and
sent to Macpherson for the originals! His interest in art was
evidently intellectual. He was singularly sweet-tempered, and shrank
from the impassioned political bitterness that raged about him; bore
with relative equanimity a flood of coarse and malignant abuse of his
motives, morals, religion,[23] personal honesty and decency; cherished
very few personal animosities; and better than any of his great
antagonists cleared political opposition of ill-blooded personality.
In short, his kindness of heart rose above all social, religious or
political differences, and nothing destroyed his confidence in men and
his sanguine views of life.
AUTHORITIES.--See the editions of Jefferson's _Writings_ by H. A.
Washington (9 vols., New York, 1853-1854), and--the best--by Paul
Leicester Ford (10 vols., New York, 1892-1899); letters in
Massachusetts Historical Society, _Collections_, series 7, vol. i.; S.
E. Forman, _The Letters and Writings of Thomas Jefferson, including
all his Important Utterances on Public Questions_ (1900); J. P. Foley,
_The Jefferson Cyclopaedia_ (New York, 1900); the _Memoir,
Correspondence_, &c., by T. J. Randolph (4 vols., Charlottesville,
Va., 1829); biographies by James Schouler ("Makers of America Series,"
New York, 1893); John T. Morse ("American Statesmen Series," Boston,
1883); George Tucker (2 vols., Philadelphia, 1837); James Parton
(Boston, 1874); and especially that by Henry S. Randall (3 vols., New
York, 1853), a monumental work, although marred by some special
pleading, and sharing Jefferson's implacable opinions of the
"Monocrats." See also Henry Adams, _History of the United States
1801-1817_, vols. 1-4 (New York, 1889-1890); Herbert B. Adams, _Thomas
Jefferson and the University of Virginia_ (U. S. bureau of education,
Washington, 1888); Sarah N. Randolph, _Domestic Life of Thomas
Jefferson_ (New York, 1871); and an illuminating appreciation by W. P.
Trent, in his _Southern Statesmen of the Old Regime_ (New York, 1897);
that by John Fiske, Essays, _Historical and Literary_, vol. i. (New
York, 1902), has slighter merits. (F. S. P.)
FOOTNOTES:
[1] It was embarrassed with a debt, however, of L3749, which, owing
to conditions caused by the War of Independence, he really paid three
times to his British creditors (not counting destruction on his
estates, of equal amount, ordered by Lord Cornwallis). This greatly
reduced his income for a number of years.
[2] The first law of its kind in Christendom, although not the
earliest practice of such liberty in America.
[3] George Mason and Thomas L. Lee were members of the commission,
but they were not lawyers, and did little actual work on the
revision.
[4] Capital punishment was confined to treason and murder; the former
was not to be attended by corruption of blood, drawing, or
quartering; all other felonies were made punishable by confinement
and hard labour, save a few to which was applied, against Jefferson's
desire, the principle of retaliation.
[5] This plan applied to the south-western as well as to the
north-western territory, and was notable for a provision that slavery
should not exist therein after 1800. This provision was defeated in
1784, but was adopted in 1787 for the north-western territory--a step
which is very often said to have saved the Union in the Civil War;
the south-western territory (out of which were later formed
Mississippi, Alabama, &c.) being given over to slavery. Thus the
anti-slavery clause of the ordinance of 1784 was not adopted; and it
was preceded by unofficial proposals to the same end; yet to it
belongs rightly some special honour as blazoning the way for federal
control of slavery in the territories, which later proved of such
enormous consequence. Jefferson in the first draft of the Ordinance
of 1784, suggested the names to be given to the states eventually to
be formed out of the territory concerned. For his suggestions he has
been much ridiculed. The names are as follows: Illinoia, Michigania,
Sylvania, Polypotamia, Assenisipia, Charronesus, Pelisipia, Saratoga,
Metropotamia and Washington.
[6] He owned at one time above 150 slaves. His overseers were under
contract never to bleed them; but he manumitted only a few at his
death.
[7] During this time he assisted in negotiating a treaty of amity and
commerce with Prussia (1785) and one with Morocco (1789), and
negotiated with France a "convention defining and establishing the
functions and privileges of consuls and vice-consuls" (1788).
[8] Patrick Henry humorously declaimed before a popular audience that
Jefferson, who favoured French wine and cookery, had "abjured his
native victuals."
[9] Jefferson did not sympathize with the temper of his followers who
condoned the zealous excesses of Genet, and in general with the
"misbehaviour" of the democratic clubs; but, as a student of English
liberties, he could not accept Washington's doctrine that for a
self-created permanent body to declare "this act unconstitutional,
and that act pregnant with mischiefs" was "a stretch of arrogant
presumption" which would, if unchecked, "destroy the country."
[10] John Basset Moore, _American Diplomacy_ (New York, 1905).
[11] Compare C. D. Hazen, _Contemporary American opinion of the
French Revolution_ (Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, 1897).
[12] It was at this period of his life that Jefferson gave expression
to some of the opinions for which he has been most severely
criticized and ridiculed. For the Shays' rebellion he felt little
abhorrence, and wrote: "A little rebellion now and then is a good
thing ... an observation of this truth should render honest
republican governors so mild in their punishment of rebellions as not
to discourage them too much. It is a medicine necessary for the sound
health of government" (_Writings_, Ford ed., iv. 362-363). Again,
"Can history produce an instance of rebellion so honorably
conducted?... God forbid that we should ever be twenty years without
such a rebellion.... What signify a few lives lost in a century or
two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the
blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure" (Ibid. iv.
467). Again he says: "Societies exist under three forms--(1) without
government, as among our Indians; (2) under governments wherein the
will of every one has a just influence.... (3) under governments of
force.... It is a problem not clear in my mind that the first
condition is not the best." (Ibid. iv. 362.)
[13] He turned law students from Blackstone's toryism to Coke on
Littleton; and he would not read Walter Scott, so strong was his
aversion to that writer's predilection for class and feudalism.
[14] Hamilton wrote for the papers himself; Jefferson never did. A
talented clerk in his department, however, Philip Freneau, set up an
anti-administration paper. It was alleged that Jefferson appointed
him for the purpose, and encouraged him. Undoubtedly there was
nothing in the charge. The Federalist outcry could only have been
silenced by removal of Freneau, or by disclaimers or admonitions,
which Jefferson did not think it incumbent upon himself--or, since he
thought Freneau was doing good, desirable for him--to make.
[15] Contrary to the general belief that Hamilton dominated
Washington in the cabinet, there is the president's explicit
statement that "there were as many instances" of his deciding against
as in favour of the secretary of the treasury.
[16] See also Jefferson to E. Gerry, 26th of January 1799
(_Writings_, vii. 325), and to Dupont de Nemours (x. 23). Cf.
Hamilton to J. Dayton, 1799 (_Works_, x. 329).
[17] In 1786 he suggested to James Monroe that the society of friends
he hoped to gather in Albemarle might, in sumptuary matters, "set a
good example" to a country (i.e. Virginia) that "needed" it.
[18] See C. R. Fish, _The Civil Service and the Patronage_ (Harvard
Historical Studies, New York, 1905), ch. 2.
[19] Jefferson's dislike of a navy was due to his desire for an
economical administration and for peace. Shortly after his
inauguration he expressed a desire to lay up the larger men of war in
the eastern branch of the Potomac, where they would require only "one
set of plunderers to take care of them." To Thomas Paine he wrote in
1807: "I believe that gunboats are the only _water_ defence which can
be useful to us and protect us from the ruinous folly of a navy."
(_Works_, Ford ed., ix. 137.) The gunboats desired by Jefferson were
small, cheap craft equipped with one or two guns and kept on shore
under sheds until actually needed, when they were to be launched and
manned by a sort of naval militia. A large number of these boats were
constructed and they afforded some protection to coasting vessels
against privateers, but in bad weather, or when employed against a
frigate, they were worse than useless, and Jefferson's "gunboat
system" was admittedly a failure.
[20] See e.g. his letters in 1787 on the Shays' rebellion, and his
speculations on the doctrine that one generation may not bind another
by paper documents. With the latter may be compared present-day
movements like the initiative and referendum, and not a few
discussions of national debts. Jefferson's distrust of governments
was nothing exceptional for a consistent individualist.
[21] In his last years he carefully sifted and revised his
contemporary notes evidencing, as he believed, the existence of such
a party, and they remain as his _Ana_ (chiefly Hamiltoniana). The
only just judgment of these notes is to be obtained by looking at
them, and by testing his suspicions with the letters of Hamilton,
Ames, Oliver Wolcott, Theodore Sedgwick, George Cabot and the other
Hamiltonians. Such a comparison measures also the relative judgment,
temper and charity of these writers and Jefferson. It must still
remain true, however, that Jefferson's _Ana_ present him in a far
from engaging light.
[22] "Jefferson, in 1789, wrote some such stuff about the will of
majorities, as a New Englander would lose his rank among men of sense
to avow."--Fisher Ames (Jan. 1800).
[23] He was classed as a "French infidel" and atheist. His attitude
toward religion was in fact deeply reverent and sincere, but he
insisted that religion was purely an individual matter, "evidenced,
as concerns the world by each one's daily life," and demanded
absolute freedom of private judgment. He looked on Unitarianism with
much sympathy and desired its growth. "I am a Christian," he wrote in
1823, "in the only sense in which he (Jesus) wished any one to be;
sincerely attached to his doctrines in preference to all others;
ascribing to himself every human excellence, and believing he never
claimed any other."
JEFFERSON CITY (legally and officially the City of Jefferson), the
capital of Missouri, U.S.A., and the county-seat of Cole county, on the
Missouri river, near the geographical centre of the state, about 125 m.
W. of St Louis. Pop. (1890), 6742; (1900), 9664, of whom 786 were
foreign-born and 1822 were negroes; (1910 census), 11,850. It is served
by the Missouri Pacific, the Chicago & Alton, and the Missouri, Kansas &
Texas railways. Its site is partly in the bottom-lands of the river and
partly on the steep banks at an elevation of about 600 ft. above the
sea. A steel bridge spans the river. The state capitol, an imposing
structure built on a bluff above the river, was built in 1838-1842 and
enlarged in 1887-1888; it was first occupied in 1840 by the legislature,
which previously had met (after 1837) in the county court house. Other
prominent buildings are the United States court house and post office,
the state supreme court house, the county court house, the state
penitentiary, the state armoury and the executive mansion. The
penitentiary is to a large extent self-supporting; in 1903-1904 the
earnings were $3493.80 in excess of the costs, but in 1904-1906 the
costs exceeded the earnings by $9044. Employment is furnished for the
convicts on the penitentiary premises by incorporated companies. The
state law library here is one of the best of the kind in the country,
and the city has a public library. In the city is Lincoln Institute, a
school for negroes, founded in 1866 by two regiments of negro infantry
upon their discharge from the United States army, opened in 1868, taken
over by the state in 1879, and having sub-normal, normal, college,
industrial and agricultural courses. Coal and limestone are found near
the city. In 1905 the total value of the factory product was $3,926,632,
an increase of 28.2% since 1900. The original constitution of Missouri
prescribed that the capital should be on the Missouri river within 40 m.
of the mouth of the Osage, and a commission selected in 1821 the site of
Jefferson City, on which a town was laid out in 1822, the name being
adopted in honour of Thomas Jefferson. The legislature first met here in
1826; Jefferson City became the county-seat in 1828, and in 1839 was
first chartered as a city. The constitutional conventions of 1845 and
1875, and the state convention which issued the call for the National
Liberal Republican convention at Cincinnati in 1872, met here, and so
for some of its sessions did the state convention of 1861-1863. In June
1861 Jefferson City was occupied by Union forces, and in
September-October 1864 it was threatened by Confederate troops under
General Sterling Price.
JEFFERSONVILLE, a city and the county-seat of Clark county, Indiana,
U.S.A., situated on the N. bank of the Ohio river, opposite Louisville,
Kentucky, with which it is connected by several bridges. Pop. (1890),
10,666; (1900), 10,774, of whom 1818 were of negro descent and 615 were
foreign-born; (1910 census), 10,412. It is served by the Baltimore &
Ohio South-western, the Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago & St Louis, and
the Pittsburg, Cincinnati, Chicago & St Louis railways, and by three
inter-urban electric lines. It is attractively situated on bluffs above
the river, which at this point has a descent (known as the falls of the
Ohio) of 26 ft. in 2 m. This furnishes good water power for
manufacturing purposes both at Jeffersonville and at Louisville. The
total value of the factory product in 1905 was $4,526,443, an increase
of 20% since 1900. The Indiana reformatory (formerly the Southern
Indiana penitentiary) and a large supply depot of the United States army
are at Jeffersonville. General George Rogers Clark started (June 24,
1778) on his expedition against Kaskaskia and Vincennes from Corn Island
(now completely washed away) opposite what is now Jeffersonville. In
1786 the United States government established Fort Finney (built by
Captain Walter Finney), afterwards re-named Fort Steuben, on the site of
the present city; but the fort was abandoned in 1791, and the actual
beginning of Jeffersonville was in 1802, when a part of the Clark grant
(the site of the present city) was transferred by its original owner,
Lieut. Isaac Bowman, to three trustees, under whose direction a town was
laid out. Jeffersonville was incorporated as a town in 1815, and was
chartered as a city in 1839.
JEFFREY, FRANCIS JEFFREY, LORD (1773-1850), Scottish judge and literary
critic, son of a depute-clerk in the Court of Session, was born at
Edinburgh on the 23rd of October 1773. After attending the high school
for six years, he studied at the university of Glasgow from 1787 to May
1789, and at Queen's College, Oxford, from September 1791 to June 1792.
He had begun the study of law at Edinburgh before going to Oxford, and
now resumed his studies there. He became a member of the speculative
society, where he measured himself in debate with Scott, Brougham,
Francis Horner, the marquess of Lansdowne, Lord Kinnaird and others. He
was admitted to the Scotch bar in December 1794, but, having abandoned
the Tory principles in which he had been educated, he found that his
Whig politics seriously prejudiced his legal prospects. In consequence
of his lack of success at the bar he went to London in 1798 to try his
fortune as a journalist, but without success; he also made more than one
vain attempt to obtain an office which would have secured him the
advantage of a small but fixed salary. His marriage with Catherine
Wilson in 1801 made the question of a settled income even more pressing.
A project for a new review was brought forward by Sydney Smith in
Jeffrey's flat in the presence of H. P. Brougham (afterwards Lord
Brougham), Francis Horner and others; and the scheme resulted in the
appearance on the 10th of October 1802 of the first number of the
_Edinburgh Review_. At the outset the _Review_ was not under the charge
of any special editor. The first three numbers were, however,
practically edited by Sydney Smith, and on his leaving for England the
work devolved chiefly on Jeffrey, who, by an arrangement with Constable,
the publisher, was eventually appointed editor at a fixed salary. Most
of those associated in the undertaking were Whigs; but, although the
general bias of the Review was towards social and political reforms, it
was at first so little of a party organ that for a time it numbered Sir
Walter Scott among its contributors; and no distinct emphasis was given
to its political leanings until the publication in 1808 of an article by
Jeffrey himself on the work of Don Pedro Cevallos on the _French
Usurpation of Spain_. This article expressed despair of the success of
the British arms in Spain, and Scott at once withdrew his subscription,
the _Quarterly_ being soon afterwards started in opposition. According
to Lord Cockburn the effect of the first number of the _Edinburgh
Review_ was "electrical." The English reviews were at that time
practically publishers' organs, the articles in which were written by
hackwriters instructed to praise or blame according to the publishers'
interests. Few men of any standing consented to write for them. The
_Edinburgh Review_, on the other hand, enlisted a brilliant and
independent staff of contributors, guided by the editor, not the
publisher. They received sixteen guineas a sheet (sixteen printed
pages), increased subsequently to twenty-five guineas in many cases,
instead of the two guineas which formed the ordinary London reviewer's
fee. Further, the review was not limited to literary criticism. It
constituted itself the accredited organ of moderate Whig public opinion.
The particular work which provided the starting-point of an article was
in many cases merely the occasion for the exposition, always brilliant
and incisive, of the author's views on politics, social subjects, ethics
or literature. These general principles and the novelty of the method
ensured the success of the undertaking even after the original circle of
exceptionally able men who founded it had been dispersed. It had a
circulation, great for those days, of 12,000 copies. The period of
Jeffrey's editorship extended to about twenty-six years, ceasing with
the ninety-eighth number, published in June 1829, when he resigned in
favour of Macvey Napier.
Jeffrey's own contributions, according to a list which has the sanction
of his authority, numbered two hundred, all except six being written
before his resignation of the editorship. Jeffrey wrote with great
rapidity, at odd moments of leisure and with little special preparation.
Great fluency and ease of diction, considerable warmth of imagination
and moral sentiment, and a sharp eye to discover any oddity of style or
violation of the accepted canons of good taste, made his criticisms
pungent and effective. But the essential narrowness and timidity of his
general outlook prevented him from detecting and estimating latent
forces, either in politics or in matters strictly intellectual and
moral; and this lack of understanding and sympathy accounts for his
distrust and dislike of the passion and fancy of Shelley and Keats, and
for his praise of the half-hearted and elegant romanticism of Rogers and
Campbell. (For his treatment of the lake poets see WORDSWORTH, WILLIAM.)
A criticism in the fifteenth number of the _Review_ on the morality of
Moore's poems led in 1806 to a duel between the two authors at Chalk
Farm. The proceedings were stopped by the police, and Jeffrey's pistol
was found to contain no bullet. The affair led to a warm friendship,
however, and Moore contributed to the _Review_, while Jeffrey made ample
amends in a later article on _Lalla Rookh_ (1817).
Jeffrey's wife had died in 1805, and in 1810 he became acquainted with
Charlotte, daughter of Charles Wilkes of New York, and great-niece of
John Wilkes. When she returned to America, Jeffrey followed her, and
they were married in 1813. Before returning to England they visited
several of the chief American cities, and his experience strengthened
Jeffrey in the conciliatory policy he had before advocated towards the
States. Notwithstanding the increasing success of the _Review_, Jeffrey
always continued to look to the bar as the chief field of his ambition.
As a matter of fact, his literary reputation helped his professional
advancement. His practice extended rapidly in the civil and criminal
courts, and he regularly appeared before the general assembly of the
Church of Scotland, where his work, though not financially profitable,
increased his reputation. As an advocate his sharpness and rapidity of
insight gave him a formidable advantage in the detection of the
weaknesses of a witness and the vulnerable points of his opponent's
case, while he grouped his own arguments with an admirable eye to
effect, especially excelling in eloquent closing appeals to a jury.
Jeffrey was twice, in 1820 and 1822, elected lord rector of the
university of Glasgow. In 1829 he was chosen dean of the faculty of
advocates. On the return of the Whigs to power in 1830 he became lord
advocate, and entered parliament as member for the Perth burghs. He was
unseated, and afterwards returned for Malton, a borough in the interest
of Lord Fitzwilliam. After the passing of the Scottish Reform Bill,
which he introduced in parliament, he was returned for Edinburgh in
December 1832. His parliamentary career, which, though not brilliantly
successful, had won him high general esteem, was terminated by his
elevation to the judicial bench as Lord Jeffrey in May 1834. In 1842 he
was moved to the first division of the Court of Session. On the
disruption of the Scottish Church he took the side of the seceders,
giving a judicial opinion in their favour, afterwards reversed by the
house of lords. He died at Edinburgh on the 26th of January 1850.
Some of his contributions to the _Edinburgh Review_ appeared in four
volumes in 1844 and 1845. This selection includes the essay on
"Beauty" contributed to the _Ency. Brit._ The _Life of Lord Jeffrey,
with a Selection from his Correspondence_, by Lord Cockburn, appeared
in 1852 in 2 vols. See also the _Selected Correspondence of Macvey
Napier_ (1877); the sketch of Jeffrey in Carlyle's _Reminiscences_,
vol. ii. (1881); and an essay by Lewis E. Gates in _Three Studies in
Literature_ (New York, 1899).
JEFFREYS, GEORGE JEFFREYS, 1ST BARON (1648-1689), lord chancellor of
England, son of John Jeffreys, a Welsh country gentleman, was born at
Acton Park, his father's seat in Denbighshire, in 1648. His family,
though not wealthy, was of good social standing and repute in Wales; his
mother, a daughter of Sir Thomas Ireland of Bewsey, Lancashire, was "a
very pious good woman." He was educated at Shrewsbury, St Paul's and
Westminster schools, at the last of which he was a pupil of Busby, and
at Trinity College, Cambridge; but he left the university without taking
a degree, and entered the Inner Temple as a student in May 1663. From
his childhood Jeffreys displayed exceptional talent, but on coming to
London he occupied himself more with the pleasures of conviviality than
with serious study of the law. Though he never appears to have fallen
into the licentious immorality prevalent at that period, he early became
addicted to hard drinking and boisterous company. But as the records of
his early years, and indeed of his whole life, are derived almost
exclusively from vehemently hostile sources, the numerous anecdotes of
his depravity cannot be accepted without a large measure of scepticism.
He was a handsome, witty and attractive boon-companion, and in the
taverns of the city he made friends among attorneys with practice in the
criminal courts. Thus assisted he rose so rapidly in his profession that
within three years of his call to the bar in 1668, he was elected common
serjeant of the city of London. Such advancement, however, was not to be
attained even in the reign of Charles II. solely by the aid of
disreputable friendships. Jeffreys had remarkable aptitude for the
profession of an advocate--quick intelligence, caustic humour, copious
eloquence. His powers of cross-examination were masterly; and if he was
insufficiently grounded in legal principles to become a profound lawyer,
nothing but greater application was needed in the opinion of so hostile
a critic as Lord Campbell, to have made him the rival of Nottingham and
Hale. Jeffreys could count on the influence of respectable men of
position in the city, such as Sir Robert Clayton and his own namesake
Alderman Jeffreys; and he also enjoyed the personal friendship of the
virtuous Sir Matthew Hale. In 1667 Jeffreys had married in circumstances
which, if improvident, were creditable to his generosity and sense of
honour; and his domestic life, so far as is known, was free from the
scandal common among his contemporaries. While holding the judicial
office of common serjeant, he pursued his practice at the bar. With a
view to further preferment he now sought to ingratiate himself with the
court party, to which he obtained an introduction possibly through
William Chiffinch, the notorious keeper of the king's closet. He at once
attached himself to the king's mistress, the duchess of Portsmouth; and
as early as 1672 he was employed in confidential business by the court.
His influence in the city of London, where opposition to the government
of Charles II. was now becoming pronounced, enabled Jeffreys to make
himself useful to Danby. In September 1677 he received a knighthood, and
his growing favour with the court was further marked by his appointment
as solicitor-general to James, duke of York; while the city showed its
continued confidence in him by electing him to the post of recorder in
October 1678.
In the previous month Titus Oates had made his first revelations of the
alleged popish plot, and from this time forward Jeffreys was prominently
identified, either as advocate or judge, with the memorable state trials
by which the political conflict between the Crown and the people was
waged during the remainder of the 17th century. The popish plot,
followed by the growing agitation for the exclusion of the duke of York
from the succession, widened the breach between the city and the court.
Jeffreys threw in his lot with the latter, displaying his zeal by
initiating the movement of the "abhorrers" (q.v.) against the
"petitioners" who were giving voice to the popular demand for the
summoning of parliament. He was rewarded with the coveted office of
chief justice of Chester on the 30th of April 1680; but when parliament
met in October the House of Commons passed a hostile resolution which
induced him to resign his recordership, a piece of pusillanimity that
drew from the king the remark that Jeffreys was "not parliament-proof."
Jeffreys nevertheless received from the city aldermen a substantial
token of appreciation for his past services. In 1681 he was created a
baronet. In June 1683 the first of the Rye House conspirators were
brought to trial. Jeffreys was briefed for the crown in the prosecution
of Lord William Howard; and, having been raised to the bench as lord
chief justice of the king's bench in September, he presided at the
trials of Algernon Sidney in November 1683 and of Sir Thomas Armstrong
in the following June. In the autumn of 1684 Jeffreys, who had been
active in procuring the surrender of municipal charters to the crown,
was called to the cabinet, having previously been sworn of the privy
council. In May 1685 he had the satisfaction of passing sentence on
Titus Oates for perjury in the plot trials; and about the same time
James II. rewarded his zeal with a peerage as Baron Jeffreys of Wem, an
honour never before conferred on a chief justice during his tenure of
office. Jeffreys had for some time been suffering from stone, which
aggravated the irritability of his naturally violent temper; and the
malady probably was in some degree the cause of the unmeasured fury he
displayed at the trial of Richard Baxter (q.v.) for seditious libel--if
the unofficial _ex parte_ report of the trial, which alone exists, is to
be accepted as trustworthy.
In August 1685 Jeffreys opened at Winchester the commission known in
history as the "bloody assizes," his conduct of which has branded his
name with indelible infamy. The number of persons sentenced to death at
these assizes for complicity in the duke of Monmouth's insurrection is
uncertain. The official return of those actually executed was 320; many
hundreds more were transported and sold into slavery in the West Indies.
In all probability the great majority of those condemned were in fact
concerned in the rising, but the trials were in many cases a mockery of
the administration of justice. Numbers were cajoled into pleading
guilty; the case for the prisoners seldom obtained a hearing. The
merciless severity of the chief justice did not however exceed the
wishes of James II.; for on his return to London Jeffreys received from
the king the great seal with the title of lord chancellor. For the next
two years he was a strenuous upholder of prerogative, though he was less
abjectly pliant than has sometimes been represented. There is no reason
to doubt the sincerity of his attachment to the Church of England; for
although the king's favour was capricious Jeffreys never took the easy
and certain path to secure it that lay through apostasy; and he even
withstood James on occasion, when the latter pushed his Catholic zeal to
extremes. Though it is true that he accepted the presidency of the
ecclesiastical commission, Burnet's statement that it was Jeffreys who
suggested that institution to James is probably incorrect; and he was so
far from having instigated the prosecution of the seven bishops in 1688,
as has been frequently alleged, that he disapproved of the proceedings
and rejoiced secretly at the acquittal. But while he watched with
misgiving the king's preferment of Roman Catholics, he made himself the
masterful instrument of unconstitutional prerogative in coercing the
authorities of Cambridge University, who in 1687 refused to confer
degrees on a Benedictine monk, and the fellows of Magdalen College,
Oxford, who declined to elect as their president a disreputable nominee
of the king.
Being thus conspicuously identified with the most tyrannical measures of
James II., Jeffreys found himself in a desperate plight when on the 11th
of December 1688 the king fled from the country on the approach to
London of William of Orange. The lord chancellor attempted to escape
like his master; but in spite of his disguise as a common seaman he was
recognized in a tavern at Wapping--possibly, as Roger North relates, by
an attorney whom Jeffreys had terrified on some occasion in the court of
chancery--and was arrested and conveyed to the Tower. The malady from
which he had long suffered had recently made fatal progress, and he died
in the Tower on the 18th of April 1689. He was succeeded in the peerage
by his son, John (2nd Baron Jeffreys of Wem), who died without male
issue in 1702, when the title became extinct.
It is impossible to determine precisely with what justice tradition has
made the name of "Judge Jeffreys" a byword of infamy. The Revolution,
which brought about his fall, handed over his reputation at the same
time to the mercy of his bitterest enemies. They alone have recorded his
actions and appraised his motives and character. Even the adherents of
the deposed dynasty had no interest in finding excuse for one who served
as a convenient scapegoat for the offences of his master. For at least
half a century after his death no apology for Lord Jeffreys would have
obtained a hearing; and none was attempted. With the exception therefore
of what is to be gathered from the reports of the state trials, all
knowledge of his conduct rests on testimony tainted by undisguised
hostility. Innumerable scurrilous lampoons vilifying the hated
instrument of James's tyranny, but without a pretence of historic value,
flooded the country at the Revolution; and these, while they fanned the
undiscriminating hatred of contemporaries who remembered the judge's
severities, and perpetuated that hatred in tradition, have not been
sufficiently discounted even by modern historians like Macaulay and Lord
Campbell. The name of Jeffreys has therefore been handed down as that of
a coarse, ignorant, dissolute, foul-mouthed, inhuman bully, who
prostituted the seat of justice. That there was sufficient ground for
the execration in which his memory was long held is not to be gainsaid.
But the portrait has nevertheless been blackened overmuch. An occasional
significant admission in his favour may be gleaned even from the
writings of his enemies. Thus Roger North declares that "in matters
indifferent," i.e. where politics were not concerned, Jeffreys became
the seat of justice better than any other that author had seen in his
place. Sir J. Jekyll, master of the rolls, told Speaker Onslow that
Jeffreys "had great parts and made a great chancellor in the business of
his court. In mere private matters he was thought an able and upright
judge wherever he sat." His keen sense of humour, allied with a spirit
of inveterate mockery and an exuberant command of pungent eloquence, led
him to rail and storm at prisoners and witnesses in grossly unseemly
fashion. But in this he did not greatly surpass most of his
contemporaries on the judicial bench, and it was a failing from which
even the dignified and virtuous Hale was not altogether exempt. The
intemperance of Jeffreys which shocked North, certainly did not exceed
that of Saunders; in violence he was rivalled by Scroggs; though accused
of political apostasy, he was not a shameless renegade like Williams;
and there is no evidence that in pecuniary matters he was personally
venal, or that in licentiousness he followed the example set by Charles
II. and most of his courtiers. Some of his actions that have incurred
the sternest reprobation of posterity were otherwise estimated by the
best of his contemporaries. His trial of Algernon Sidney, described by
Macaulay and Lord Campbell as one of the most heinous of his iniquities,
was warmly commended by Dr William Lloyd, who was soon afterwards to
become a popular idol as one of the illustrious seven bishops (see
letter from the bishop of St Asaph in H. B. Irving's _Life of Judge
Jeffreys_, p. 184). Nor was the habitual illegality of his procedure on
the bench so unquestionable as many writers have assumed. Sir James
Stephen inclined to the opinion that no actual abuse of law tainted the
trials of the Rye House conspirators, or that of Alice Lisle, the most
prominent victim of the "bloody assizes." The conduct of the judges in
Russell's trial was, he thinks, "moderate and fair in general"; and the
trial of Sidney "much resembled that of Russell." The same high
authority pronounces that the trial of Lord Delamere in the House of
Lords was conducted by Jeffreys "with propriety and dignity." And if
Jeffreys judged political offenders with cruel severity, he also crushed
some glaring abuses; conspicuous examples of which were the frauds of
attorneys who infested Westminster Hall, and the systematic kidnapping
practised by the municipal authorities of Bristol. Moreover, if any
value is to be attached to the evidence of physiognomy, the traditional
estimate of the character of Jeffreys obtains no confirmation from the
refinement of his features and expression as depicted in Kneller's
portrait in the National Portrait Gallery of London. But even though the
popular notion requires to be thus modified in certain respects, it
remains incontestable that Jeffreys was probably on the whole the worst
example of a period when the administration of justice in England had
sunk to the lowest degradation, and the judicial bench had become the
too willing tool of an unconstitutional and unscrupulous executive.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.--The chief contemporary authorities for the life of
Jeffreys are Bishop Burnet's _History of my own Time_ (1724), and see
especially the edition "with notes by the Earls of Dartmouth and
Hardwick Speaker Onslow and Dean Swift" (Oxford Univ. Press, 1833);
Roger North's _Life of the Right Hon. Francis North, Baron of
Guildford_ (1808) and _Autobiography_ (ed. by Augustus Jessopp, 1887);
_Ellis Correspondence, Verney Papers_ (Hist. MSS. Comm.), _Hatton
Correspondence_ (Camden Soc. pub.); the earl of Ailesbury's _Memoirs_;
Evelyn's _Diary_. The only trustworthy information as to the judicial
conduct and capacity of Jeffreys is to be found in the reports of the
_State Trials_, vols. vii.-xii.; and cf. Sir J. F. Stephen's _History
of the Criminal Law of England_ (1883). For details of the "bloody
assizes," see _Harl. MSS._, 4689; George Roberts, _The Life,
Progresses and Rebellion of James Duke of Monmouth_, vol. ii. (1844);
also many pamphlets, lampoons, &c., in the British Museum, as to which
see the article on "Sources of History for Monmouth's Rebellion and
the Bloody Assizes," by A. L. Humphreys, in _Proceedings of the
Somersetshire Archaeological and Natural Hist. Soc._ (1892). Later
accounts are by H. W. Woolrych, _Memoirs of the Life of Judge
Jeffreys_ (1827); Lord Campbell, _The Lives of the Lord Chancellors_
(1845), 1st series, vol. iii.; E. Foss, _The Judges of England_
(1864), vol. vii.; Henry Roscoe, _Lives of Eminent British Lawyers_
(1830); Lord Macaulay, _History of England_ (1848; and many subsequent
editions). Most of these works, and especially those by Macaulay and
Campbell, are uncritical in their hostility to Jeffreys, and are based
for the most part on untrustworthy authorities. The best modern work
on the subject, though unduly favourable to Jeffreys, is H. B.
Irving's _Life of Judge Jeffreys_ (1898), the appendix to which
contains a full bibliography. (R. J. M.)
JEHOIACHIN (Heb. "Yah[weh] establisheth"), in the Bible, son of
Jehoiakim and king of Judah (2 Kings xxiv. 8 sqq.; 2 Chron, xxxvi. 9
seq.). He came to the throne at the age of eighteen in the midst of the
Chaldean invasion of Judah, and is said to have reigned three months. He
was compelled to surrender to Nebuchadrezzar and was carried off to
Babylon (597 B.C.). This was the First Captivity, and from it Ezekiel
(one of the exiles) dates his prophecies. Eight thousand people of the
better class (including artisans, &c.) were removed, the Temple was
partially despoiled (see Jer. xxvii. 18-20; xxiii.v. 3 seq.),[1] and
Jehoiachin's uncle Mattaniah (son of Josiah) was appointed king.
Jehoiachin's fate is outlined in Jer. xxii. 20-30 (cf. xxvii. 20).
Nearly forty years later, Nebuchadrezzar II. died (562 B.C.) and
Evil-Merodach (Amil-Marduk) his successor released the unfortunate
captive and gave him precedence over the other subjugated kings who were
kept prisoners in Babylon. With this gleam of hope for the unhappy
Judaeans both the book of Kings and the prophecies of Jeremiah conclude
(2 Kings xxv. 27-30; Jer. lii. 31-34).
See, further, JEREMIAH (especially chaps. xxiv., xxvii. seq.), and
JEWS, S 17.
FOOTNOTE:
[1] 2 Kings xxiv. 13 seq. gives other numbers and a view of the
disaster which is more suitable for the Second Captivity. (See
ZEDEKIAH.)
JEHOIAKIM (Heb. "Yah[weh] raiseth up"), in the Bible, son of Josiah
(q.v.) and king of Judah (2 Kings xxiii. 34-xxiv. 6). On the defeat of
Josiah at Megiddo his younger brother Jehoahaz (or Shallum) was chosen
by the Judaeans, but the Egyptian conquerer Necho summoned him to his
headquarters at Riblah (south of Hamath on the Orontes) and removed him
to Egypt, appointing in his stead Eliakim, whose name ("El [God] raiseth
up") was changed to its better-known synonym, Jehoiakim. For a time
Jehoiakim remained under the protection of Necho and paid heavy tribute;
but with the rise of the new Chaldean Empire under Nebuchadrezzar II.,
and the overthrow of Egypt at the battle of Carchemish (605 B.C.) a
vital change occurred. After three years of allegiance the king
revolted. Invasions followed by Chaldeans, Syrians, Moabites and
Ammonites, perhaps the advance troops despatched by the Babylonian
king; the power of Egypt was broken and the whole land came into the
hands of Nebuchadrezzar. It was at the close of Jehoiakim's reign,
apparently just before his death, that the enemy appeared at the gates
of Jerusalem, and although he himself "slept with his fathers" his young
son was destined to see the first captivity of the land of Judah (597
B.C.). (See JEHOIACHIN.)
Which "three years" (2 Kings xxiv. 1) are intended is disputed; it is
uncertain whether Judah suffered in 605 B.C. (Berossus in Jos. _c.
Ap._ i. 19) or was left unharmed (Jos. _Ant._ x. 6. 1); perhaps
Nebuchadrezzar made his first inroad against Judah in 602 B.C. because
of its intrigue with Egypt (H. Winckler, _Keilinschrift. u. d. alte
Test._, pp. 107 seq.), and the three years of allegiance extends to
599. The chronicler's tradition (2 Chron. xxxvi. 5-8) speaks of
Jehoiakim's captivity, apparently confusing him with Jehoiachin. The
Septuagint, however, still preserves there the record of his peaceful
death, in agreement with the earlier source in 2 Kings, but against
the prophecy of Jeremiah (xxii. 18 seq., xxxvi. 30), which is accepted
by Jos. _Ant._ x. 6. 3. The different traditions can scarcely be
reconciled. Nothing certain is known of the marauding bands sent
against Jehoiakim; for Syrians (_Aram_) one would expect Edomites
(_Edom_), but see Jer. xxxv. 11; some recensions of the Septuagint
even include the "Samaritans"! (For further references to this reign
see especially JEREMIAH; see also JEWS: _History_, S 17.)
(S. A. C.)
JEHOL ("hot stream"), or CH'ENG-TE-FU, a city of China, formerly the
seat of the emperor's summer palace, near 118 deg. E. and 41 deg. N.,
about 140 m. N.E. of Peking, with which it is connected by an excellent
road. Pop. (estimate), 10,000. It is a flourishing town, and consists of
one great street, about 2 m. long, with smaller streets radiating in all
directions. The people are well-to-do and there are some fine shops. The
palace, called Pi-shu-shan-chuang, or "mountain lodge for avoiding
heat," was built in 1703 on the plan of the palace of Yuen-ming-yuen
near Peking. A substantial brick wall 6 m. in circuit encloses several
well-wooded heights and extensive gardens, rockeries, pavilions,
temples, &c. Jehol was visited by Lord Macartney on his celebrated
mission to the emperor K'ienlung in 1793; and it was to Jehol that the
emperor Hienfeng retired when the allied armies of England and France
occupied Peking in 1860. In the vicinity of Jehol are numerous Lama
monasteries and temples, the most remarkable being Potala-su, built on
the model of the palace of the grand lama of Tibet at Potala.
JEHORAM, or JORAM (Heb. "Yah[weh] is high"), the name of two Biblical
characters.
1. The son of Ahab, and king of Israel in succession to his brother
Ahaziah.[1] He maintained close relations with Judah, whose king came to
his assistance against Moab which had revolted after Ahab's death (2
Kings i. 1; iii.). The king in question is said to have been
Jehoshaphat; but, according to Lucian's recension, it was Ahaziah,
whilst i. 17 would show that it was Jehoram's namesake (see 2). The
result of the campaign appears to have been a defeat for Israel (see on
the incidents EDOM, ELISHA, MOAB). The prophetical party were throughout
hostile to Jehoram (with his reform iii. 2 contrast x. 27), and the
singular account of the war of Benhadad king of Syria against the king
of Israel (vi. 24-vii.) shows the feeling against the reigning dynasty.
But whether the incidents in which Elisha and the unnamed king of Israel
appear originally belonged to the time of Jehoram is very doubtful, and
in view of the part which Elisha took in securing the accession of Jehu,
it has been urged with much force that they belong to the dynasty of the
latter, when the high position of the prophet would be perfectly
natural.[2] The briefest account is given of Jehoram's alliance with
Ahaziah (son of 2 below) against Hazael of Syria, at Ramoth-Gilead (2
Kings viii. 25-29), and the incident--with the wounding of the Israelite
king in or about the critical year 842 B.C.--finds a noteworthy parallel
in the time of Jehoshaphat and Ahab (1 Kings xxii. 29-36) at the period
of the equally momentous events in 854 (see AHAB). See further JEHU.
2. The son of Jehoshaphat and king of Judah. He married Athaliah the
daughter of Ahab, and thus was brother-in-law of 1. above, and
contemporary with him (2 Kings i. 17). In his days Edom revolted, and
this with the mention of Libnah's revolt (2 Kings viii. 20 sqq.)
suggests some common action on the part of Philistines and Edomites. The
chronicler's account of his life (2 Chron. xxi-xxii. 1) presupposes
this, but adds many remarkable details: he began his reign by massacring
his brethren (cf. Jehu son of Jehoshaphat, and his bloodshed, 2 Kings
ix. seq.); for his wickedness he received a communication from Elijah
foretelling his death from disease (cf. Elijah and Ahaziah of Israel, 2
Kings i.); in a great invasion of Philistines and Arabian tribes he lost
all his possessions and family, and only Jehoahaz (i.e. Ahaziah) was
saved.[3] His son Ahaziah reigned only for a year (cf. his namesake of
Israel); he is condemned for his Israelite sympathies, and met his end
in the general butchery which attended the accession of Jehu (2 Kings
viii. 25 sqq.; 2 Chron. xxii. 3 seq., 7; with 2 Kings ix. 27 seq., note
the variant tradition in 2 Chron. xxii. 8 seq., and the details which
the LXX. (Lucian) appends to 2 Kings x.). (S. A. C.)
FOOTNOTES:
[1] 2 Kings i. 17 seq.; see Lucian's reading (cf. Vulg. and Pesh.).
Apart from the allusion 1 Kings xxii. 49 (see 2 Chron. xx. 35), and
the narrative in 2 Kings i. (see ELIJAH), nothing is known of this
Ahaziah. Notwithstanding his very brief reign (1 Kings xxii. 51; 2
Kings iii. 1), the compiler passes the usual hostile judgment (1
Kings xxii. 52 seq.); see KINGS (BOOKS). The chronology in 1 Kings
xxii. 51 is difficult; if Lucian's text (twenty-fourth year of
Jehoshaphat) is correct, Jehoram 1 and 2 must have come to their
respective thrones at almost the same time.
[2] In vii. 6 the hostility of Hittites and Mizraim (q.v.) points to
a period _after_ 842 B.C. (See JEWS, S 10 seq.)
[3] These details are scarcely the invention of the chronicler; see
CHRONICLES, and EXPOSITOR, Aug. 1906, p. 191.
JEHOSHAPHAT (Heb. "Yahweh judges"), in the Bible, son of Asa, and king
of Judah, in the 9th century B.C. During his period close relations
subsisted between Israel and Judah; the two royal houses were connected
by marriage (see ATHALIAH; JEHORAM, 2), and undertook joint enterprise
in war and commerce. Jehoshaphat aided Ahab in the battle against
Benhadad at Ramoth-Gilead in which Ahab was slain (1 Kings xxii.; 2
Chron. xviii.; cf. the parallel incident in 2 Kings viii. 25-29), and
trading journeys to Ophir were undertaken by his fleet in conjunction no
doubt with Ahab as well as with his son Ahaziah (2 Chron. xx. 35 sqq.; 1
Kings xxii. 47 sqq.). The chronicler's account of his war against Moab,
Ammon and Edomite tribes (2 Chron. xx.), must rest ultimately upon a
tradition which is presupposed in the earlier source (1 Kings xxii. 47),
and the disaster to the ships at Ezion-Geber at the head of the Gulf of
Akaba preceded, if it was not the introduction to, the great revolt in
the days of Jehoshaphat's son Jehoram, where, again, the details in 2
Chron. xxi. must rely in the first instance upon an old source. Apart
from what is said of Jehoshaphat's legislative measures (2 Chron. xix. 4
sqq.; cf. the meaning of his name above), an account is preserved of his
alliance with Jehoram of Israel against Moab (2 Kings iii.), on which
see JEHORAM; MOAB. The "valley of Jehoshaphat" (Joel iii. 12) has been
identified by tradition (as old as Eusebius) with the valley between
Jerusalem and the mount of Olives. (S. A. C.)
JEHOVAH (YAHWEH[1]), in the Bible, the God of Israel. "Jehovah" is a
modern mispronunciation of the Hebrew name, resulting from combining the
consonants of that name, _Jhvh_, with the vowels of the word _adonay_,
"Lord," which the Jews substituted for the proper name in reading the
scriptures. In such cases of substitution the vowels of the word which
is to be read are written in the Hebrew text with the consonants of the
word which is not to be read. The consonants of the word to be
substituted are ordinarily written in the margin; but inasmuch as Adonay
was regularly read instead of the ineffable name Jhvh, it was deemed
unnecessary to note the fact at every occurrence. When Christian
scholars began to study the Old Testament in Hebrew, if they were
ignorant of this general rule or regarded the substitution as a piece of
Jewish superstition, reading what actually stood in the text, they would
inevitably pronounce the name Jehovah. It is an unprofitable inquiry who
first made this blunder; probably many fell into it independently. The
statement still commonly repeated that it originated with Petrus
Galatinus (1518) is erroneous; Jehova occurs in manuscripts at least as
early as the 14th century.
The form Jehovah was used in the 16th century by many authors, both
Catholic and Protestant, and in the 17th was zealously defended by
Fuller, Gataker, Leusden and others, against the criticisms of such
scholars as Drusius, Cappellus and the elder Buxtorf. It appeared in the
English Bible in Tyndale's translation of the Pentateuch (1530), and is
found in all English Protestant versions of the 16th century except that
of Coverdale (1535). In the Authorized Version of 1611 it occurs in
Exod. vi. 3; Ps. lxxxiii. 18; Isa. xii. 2; xxvi. 4, beside the compound
names Jehovah-jireh, Jehovah-nissi, Jehovah-shalom; elsewhere, in
accordance with the usage of the ancient versions, Jhvh is represented
by Lord (distinguished by capitals from the title "Lord," Heb.
_adonay_). In the Revised Version of 1885 Jehovah is retained in the
places in which it stood in the A. V., and is introduced also in Exod.
vi. 2, 6, 7, 8; Ps. lxviii. 20; Isa. xlix. 14; Jer. xvi. 21; Hab. iii.
19. The American committee which cooperated in the revision desired to
employ the name Jehovah wherever Jhvh occurs in the original, and
editions embodying their preferences are printed accordingly.
Several centuries before the Christian era the name Jhvh had ceased to
be commonly used by the Jews. Some of the later writers in the Old
Testament employ the appellative Elohim, God, prevailingly or
exclusively; a collection of Psalms (Ps. xlii.-lxxxiii.) was revised by
an editor who changed the Jhvh of the authors into Elohim (see e.g. xlv.
7; xlviii. 10; l. 7; li. 14); observe also the frequency of "the Most
High," "the God of Heaven," "King of Heaven," in Daniel, and of "Heaven"
in First Maccabees. The oldest Greek versions (Septuagint), from the
third century B.C., consistently use [Greek: Kyrios], "Lord," where the
Hebrew has Jhvh, corresponding to the substitution of Adonay for Jhvh in
reading the original; in books written in Greek in this period (e.g.
Wisdom, 2 and 3 Maccabees), as in the New Testament, [Greek: Kyrios]
takes the place of the name of God. Josephus, who as a priest knew the
pronunciation of the name, declares that religion forbids him to divulge
it; Philo calls it ineffable, and says that it is lawful for those only
whose ears and tongues are purified by wisdom to hear and utter it in a
holy place (that is, for priests in the Temple); and in another passage,
commenting on Lev. xxiv. 15 seq.: "If anyone, I do not say should
blaspheme against the Lord of men and gods, but should even dare to
utter his name unseasonably, let him expect the penalty of death."[2]
Various motives may have concurred to bring about the suppression of the
name. An instinctive feeling that a proper name for God implicitly
recognizes the existence of other gods may have had some influence;
reverence and the fear lest the holy name should be profaned among the
heathen were potent reasons; but probably the most cogent motive was the
desire to prevent the abuse of the name in magic. If so, the secrecy had
the opposite effect; the name of the god of the Jews was one of the
great names in magic, heathen as well as Jewish, and miraculous efficacy
was attributed to the mere utterance of it.
In the liturgy of the Temple the name was pronounced in the priestly
benediction (Num. vi. 27) after the regular daily sacrifice (in the
synagogues a substitute--probably Adonay--was employed);[3] on the Day
of Atonement the High Priest uttered the name ten times in his prayers
and benediction. In the last generations before the fall of Jerusalem,
however, it was pronounced in a low tone so that the sounds were lost in
the chant of the priests.[4]
After the destruction of the Temple (A.D. 70) the liturgical use of the
name ceased, but the tradition was perpetuated in the schools of the
rabbis.[5] It was certainly known in Babylonia in the latter part of the
4th century,[6] and not improbably much later. Nor was the knowledge
confined to these pious circles; the name continued to be employed by
healers, exorcists and magicians, and has been preserved in many places
in magical papyri. The vehemence with which the utterance of the name is
denounced in the Mishna--"He who pronounces the Name with its own
letters has no part in the world to come!"[7]--suggests that this misuse
of the name was not uncommon among Jews.
The Samaritans, who otherwise shared the scruples of the Jews about the
utterance of the name, seem to have used it in judicial oaths to the
scandal of the rabbis.[8]
The early Christian scholars, who inquired what was the true name of the
God of the Old Testament, had therefore no great difficulty in getting
the information they sought. Clement of Alexandria (d. c. 212) says that
it was pronounced [Greek: Iaoue].[9] Epiphanius (d. 404), who was born
in Palestine and spent a considerable part of his life there, gives
[Greek: Iabe] (one cod. [Greek: Iaue]).[10] Theodoret (d. c. 457),[11]
born in Antioch, writes that the Samaritans pronounced the name [Greek:
Iabe] (in another passage, [Greek: Iabai]), the Jews [Greek: Aia].[12]
The latter is probably not Jhvh but _Ehyeh_ (Exod. iii. 14), which the
Jews counted among the names of God; there is no reason whatever to
imagine that the Samaritans pronounced the name Jhvh differently from
the Jews. This direct testimony is supplemented by that of the magical
texts, in which [Greek: Iabe zebyth] (Jahveh Sebaoth), as well as
[Greek: Iaba], occurs frequently.[13] In an Ethiopic list of magical
names of Jesus, purporting to have been taught by him to his disciples,
_Yawe_ is found.[14] Finally, there is evidence from more than one
source that the modern Samaritan priests pronounce the name _Yahweh_ or
_Yahwa_.[15]
There is no reason to impugn the soundness of this substantially
consentient testimony to the pronunciation Yahweh or Jahveh, coming as
it does through several independent channels. It is confirmed by
grammatical considerations. The name Jhvh enters into the composition of
many proper names of persons in the Old Testament, either as the initial
element, in the form Jeho- or Jo- (as in Jehoram, Joram), or as the
final element, in the form _-jahu_ or _-jah_ (as in Adonijahu,
Adonijah). These various forms are perfectly regular if the divine name
was Yahweh, and, taken altogether, they cannot be explained on any other
hypothesis. Recent scholars, accordingly, with but few exceptions, are
agreed that the ancient pronunciation of the name was Yahweh (the first
h sounded at the end of the syllable).
Genebrardus seems to have been the first to suggest the pronunciation
_Iahue_,[16] but it was not until the 19th century that it became
generally accepted.
Jahveh or Yahweh is apparently an example of a common type of Hebrew
proper names which have the form of the 3rd pers. sing, of the verb.
e.g. Jabneh (name of a city), Jabin, Jamlek, Jiptah (Jephthah), &c. Most
of these really are verbs, the suppressed or implicit subject being
_'el_, "_numen_, god," or the name of a god; cf. Jabneh and Jabne-el,
Jiptah and Jiptah-el.
The ancient explanations of the name proceed from Exod. iii. 14, 15,
where "Yahweh[17] hath sent me" in v. 15 corresponds to "Ehyeh hath sent
me" in v. 14, thus seeming to connect the name Yahweh with the Hebrew
verb _hayah_, "to become, to be." The Palestinian interpreters found in
this the promise that God would be with his people (cf. v. 12) in
future oppressions as he was in the present distress, or the assertion
of his eternity, or eternal constancy; the Alexandrian translation
[Greek: 'Ego eimi ho on ... 'Ho on apestalken me pros hymas],
understands it in the more metaphysical sense of God's absolute being.
Both interpretations, "He (who) is (always the same)," and "He (who) is
(absolutely, the truly existent)," import into the name all that they
profess to find in it; the one, the religious faith in God's unchanging
fidelity to his people, the other, a philosophical conception of
absolute being which is foreign both to the meaning of the Hebrew verb
and to the force of the tense employed. Modern scholars have sometimes
found in the name the expression of the aseity[18] of God; sometimes of
his reality, in contrast to the imaginary gods of the heathen. Another
explanation, which appears first in Jewish authors of the middle ages
and has found wide acceptance in recent times, derives the name from the
causative of the verb; He (who) causes things to be, gives them being;
or calls events into existence, brings them to pass; with many
individual modifications of interpretation--creator, life-giver,
fulfiller of promises. A serious objection to this theory in every form
is that the verb _hayah_, "to be," has no causative stem in Hebrew; to
express the ideas which these scholars find in the name Yahweh the
language employs altogether different verbs.
This assumption that Yahweh is derived from the verb "to be," as seems
to be implied in Exod. iii. 14 seq., is not, however, free from
difficulty. "To be" in the Hebrew of the Old Testament is not _hawah_,
as the derivation would require, but _hayah_; and we are thus driven to
the further assumption that _hawah_ belongs to an earlier stage of the
language, or to some older speech of the forefathers of the Israelites.
This hypothesis is not intrinsically improbable--and in Aramaic, a
language closely related to Hebrew, "to be" actually is _hawa_--but it
should be noted that in adopting it we admit that, using the name Hebrew
in the historical sense, Yahweh is not a Hebrew name. And, inasmuch as
nowhere in the Old Testament, outside of Exod. iii., is there the
slightest indication that the Israelites connected the name of their God
with the idea of "being" in any sense, it may fairly be questioned
whether, if the author of Exod. iii. 14 seq., intended to give an
etymological interpretation of the name Yahweh,[19] his etymology is any
better than many other paronomastic explanations of proper names in the
Old Testament, or than, say, the connexion of the name [Greek: Apollon]
with [Greek: apolouon], [Greek: apolyon] in Plato's _Cratylus_, or the
popular derivation from [Greek: apollymi].
A root _hawah_ is represented in Hebrew by the nouns _howah_ (Ezek.,
Isa. xlvii. 11) and _hawwah_ (Ps., Prov., Job) "disaster, calamity,
ruin."[20] The primary meaning is probably "sink down, fall," in which
sense--common in Arabic--the verb appears in Job xxxvii. 6 (of snow
falling to earth). A Catholic commentator of the 16th century,
Hieronymus ab Oleastro, seems to have been the first to connect the name
"Jehova" with _howah_ interpreting it _contritio, sive pernicies_
(destruction of the Egyptians and Canaanites); Daumer, adopting the same
etymology, took it in a more general sense: Yahweh, as well as Shaddai,
meant "Destroyer," and fitly expressed the nature of the terrible god
whom he identified with Moloch.
The derivation of Yahweh from _hawah_ is formally unimpeachable, and is
adopted by many recent scholars, who proceed, however, from the primary
sense of the root rather than from the specific meaning of the nouns.
The name is accordingly interpreted, He (who) falls (baetyl, [Greek:
baitylos], meteorite); or causes (rain or lightning) to fall (storm
god); or casts down (his foes, by his thunderbolts). It is obvious that
if the derivation be correct, the significance of the name, which in
itself denotes only "He falls" or "He fells," must be learned, if at
all, from early Israelitish conceptions of the nature of Yahweh rather
than from etymology.
A more fundamental question is whether the name Yahweh originated among
the Israelites or was adopted by them from some other people and
speech.[21] The biblical author of the history of the sacred
institutions (P) expressly declares that the name Yahweh was unknown to
the patriarchs (Exod. vi. 3), and the much older Israelite historian (E)
records the first revelation of the name to Moses (Exod. iii. 13-15),
apparently following a tradition according to which the Israelites had
not been worshippers of Yahweh before the time of Moses, or, as he
conceived it, had not worshipped the god of their fathers under that
name. The revelation of the name to Moses was made at a mountain sacred
to Yahweh (the mountain of God) far to the south of Palestine, in a
region where the forefathers of the Israelites had never roamed, and in
the territory of other tribes; and long after the settlement in Canaan
this region continued to be regarded as the abode of Yahweh (Judg. v. 4;
Deut. xxxiii. 2 sqq.; 1 Kings xix. 8 sqq. &c.). Moses is closely
connected with the tribes in the vicinity of the holy mountain;
according to one account, he married a daughter of the priest of Midian
(Exod. ii. 16 sqq.; iii. 1); to this mountain he led the Israelites
after their deliverance from Egypt; there his father-in-law met him, and
extolling Yahweh as "greater than all the gods," offered (in his
capacity as priest of the place?) sacrifices, at which the chief men of
the Israelites were his guests; there the religion of Yahweh was
revealed through Moses, and the Israelites pledged themselves to serve
God according to its prescriptions. It appears, therefore, that in the
tradition followed by the Israelite historian the tribes within whose
pasture lands the mountain of God stood were worshippers of Yahweh
before the time of Moses; and the surmise that the name Yahweh belongs
to their speech, rather than to that of Israel, has considerable
probability. One of these tribes was Midian, in whose land the mountain
of God lay. The Kenites also, with whom another tradition connects
Moses, seem to have been worshippers of Yahweh. It is probable that
Yahweh was at one time worshipped by various tribes south of Palestine,
and that several places in that wide territory (Horeb, Sinai, Kadesh,
&c.) were sacred to him; the oldest and most famous of these, the
mountain of God, seems to have lain in Arabia, east of the Red Sea. From
some of these peoples and at one of these holy places, a group of
Israelite tribes adopted the religion of Yahweh, the God who, by the
hand of Moses, had delivered them from Egypt.[22]
The tribes of this region probably belonged to some branch of the great
Arab stock, and the name Yahweh has, accordingly, been connected with
the Arabic _hawa_, "the void" (between heaven and earth), "the
atmosphere," or with the verb _hawa_, cognate with Heb. _hawah_, "sink,
glide down" (through space); _hawwa_ "blow" (wind). "He rides through
the air, He blows" (Wellhausen), would be a fit name for a god of wind
and storm. There is, however, no certain evidence that the Israelites in
historical times had any consciousness of the primitive significance of
the name.
The attempts to connect the name Yahweh with that of an Indo-European
deity (Jehovah-Jove, &c.), or to derive it from Egyptian or Chinese, may
be passed over. But one theory which has had considerable currency
requires notice, namely, that Yahweh, or Yahu, Yaho,[23] is the name of
a god worshipped throughout the whole, or a great part, of the area
occupied by the Western Semites. In its earlier form this opinion rested
chiefly on certain misinterpreted testimonies in Greek authors about a
god [Greek: Iao], and was conclusively refuted by Baudissin; recent
adherents of the theory build more largely on the occurrence in various
parts of this territory of proper names of persons and places which
they explain as compounds of Yahu or Yah.[24] The explanation is in most
cases simply an assumption of the point at issue; some of the names have
been misread; others are undoubtedly the names of Jews. There remain,
however, some cases in which it is highly probable that names of
non-Israelites are really compounded with Yahweh. The most conspicuous
of these is the king of Hamath who in the inscriptions of Sargon
(722-705 B.C.) is called Yaubi'di and Ilubi'di (compare
Jehoiakim-Eliakim). Azriyau of Jaudi, also, in inscriptions of
Tiglath-Pileser (745-728 B.C.), who was formerly supposed to be Azariah
(Uzziah) of Judah, is probably a king of the country in northern Syria
known to us from the Zenjirli inscriptions as Ja'di.
Friedrich Delitzsch brought into notice three tablets, of the age of the
first dynasty of Babylon, in which he read the names of _Ya-a'-ve-ilu_,
_Ya-ve-ilu_, and _Ya-u-um-ilu_ ("Yahweh is God"), and which he regarded
as conclusive proof that Yahweh was known in Babylonia before 2000 B.C.;
he was a god of the Semitic invaders in the second wave of migration,
who were, according to Winckler and Delitzsch, of North Semitic stock
(Canaanites, in the linguistic sense).[25] We should thus have in the
tablets evidence of the worship of Yahweh among the Western Semites at a
time long before the rise of Israel. The reading of the names is,
however, extremely uncertain, not to say improbable, and the
far-reaching inferences drawn from them carry no conviction. In a tablet
attributed to the 14th century B.C. which Sellin found in the course of
his excavations at Tell Ta'annuk (the Taanach of the O.T.) a name occurs
which may be read Ahi-Yawi (equivalent to Hebrew Ahijah);[26] if the
reading be correct, this would show that Yahweh was worshipped in
Central Palestine before the Israelite conquest. The reading is,
however, only one of several possibilities. The fact that the full form
Yahweh appears, whereas in Hebrew proper names only the shorter Yahu and
Yah occur, weighs somewhat against the interpretation, as it does
against Delitzsch's reading of his tablets.
It would not be at all surprising if, in the great movements of
populations and shifting of ascendancy which lie beyond our historical
horizon, the worship of Yahweh should have been established in regions
remote from those which it occupied in historical times; but nothing
which we now know warrants the opinion that his worship was ever general
among the Western Semites.
Many attempts have been made to trace the West Semitic Yahu back to
Babylonia. Thus Delitzsch formerly derived the name from an Akkadian
god, I or Ia; or from the Semitic nominative ending, Yau;[27] but this
deity has since disappeared from the pantheon of Assyriologists. The
combination of Yah with Ea, one of the great Babylonian gods, seems to
have a peculiar fascination for amateurs, by whom it is periodically
"discovered." Scholars are now agreed that, so far as Yahu or Yah occurs
in Babylonian texts, it is as the name of a foreign god.
Assuming that Yahweh was primitively a nature god, scholars in the 19th
century discussed the question over what sphere of nature he originally
presided. According to some he was the god of consuming fire; others saw
in him the bright sky, or the heaven; still others recognized in him a
storm god, a theory with which the derivation of the name from Heb.
_hawah_ or Arab. _hawa_ well accords. The association of Yahweh with
storm and fire is frequent in the Old Testament; the thunder is the
voice of Yahweh, the lightning his arrows, the rainbow his bow. The
revelation at Sinai is amid the awe-inspiring phenomena of tempest.
Yahweh leads Israel through the desert in a pillar of cloud and fire; he
kindles Elijah's altar by lightning, and translates the prophet in a
chariot of fire. See also Judg. v. 4 seq.; Deut. xxxiii. 1; Ps. xviii.
7-15; Hab. iii. 3-6. The cherub upon which he rides when he flies on the
wings of the wind (Ps. xviii. 10) is not improbably an ancient
mythological personification of the storm cloud, the genius of tempest
(cf. Ps. civ. 3). In Ezekiel the throne of Yahweh is borne up on
Cherubim, the noise of whose wings is like thunder. Though we may
recognize in this poetical imagery the survival of ancient and, if we
please, mythical notions, we should err if we inferred that Yahweh was
originally a departmental god, presiding specifically over
meteorological phenomena, and that this conception of him persisted
among the Israelites till very late times. Rather, as the god--or the
chief god--of a region and a people, the most sublime and impressive
phenomena, the control of the mightiest forces of nature are attributed
to him. As the God of Israel Yahweh becomes its leader and champion in
war; he is a warrior, mighty in battle; but he is not a god of war in
the specific sense.
In the inquiry concerning the nature of Yahweh the name Yahweh Sebaoth
(E.V., The LORD of Hosts) has had an important place. The hosts have by
some been interpreted of the armies of Israel (see 1 Sam. xvii. 45, and
note the association of the name in the Books of Samuel, where it first
appears, with the ark, or with war); by others, of the heavenly hosts,
the stars conceived as living beings, later, perhaps, the angels as the
court of Yahweh and the instruments of his will in nature and history
(Ps. lxxxix.); or of the forces of the world in general which do his
bidding, cf. the common Greek renderings, [Greek: Kyrios ton dynameon]
and [Greek: K. pantokrator], (Universal Ruler). It is likely that the
name was differently understood in different periods and circles; but in
the prophets the hosts are clearly superhuman powers. In many passages
the name seems to be only a more solemn substitute for the simple
Yahweh, and as such it has probably often been inserted by scribes.
Finally, Sebaoth came to be treated as a proper name (cf. Ps. lxxx. 5,
8, 20), and as such is very common in magical texts.
LITERATURE.--Reland, _Decas exercitationum philologicarum de vera
pronuntiatione nominis Jehova_, 1707; Reinke,
"Philologisch-historische Abhandlung uber den Gottesnamen Jehova," in
_Beitrage zur Erklarung des Alten Testaments_, III. (1855); Baudissin,
"Der Ursprung des Gottesnamens [Greek: Iao]," in _Studien zur
semitischen Religionsgeschichte_, I. (1876), 179-254; Driver, "Recent
Theories on the Origin and Nature of the Tetragrammaton," in _Studia
Biblica_, I. (1885), 1-20; Deissmann, "Griechische Transkriptionen des
Tetragrammaton," in _Bibelstudien_ (1895), 1-20; Blau, _Das
altjudische Zauberwesen_, 1898. See also HEBREW RELIGION.
(G. F. Mo.)
FOOTNOTES:
[1] This form, _Yahweh_, as the correct one, is generally used in the
separate articles throughout this work.
[2] See Josephus, Ant. ii. 12, 4; Philo, _Vita Mosis_, iii. 11 (ii.
S114, ed. Cohn and Wendland); ib. iii. 27 (ii. S206). The Palestinian
authorities more correctly interpreted Lev. xxiv. 15 seq., not of the
mere utterance of the name, but of the use of the name of God in
blaspheming God.
[3] _Siphre_, Num. SS 39, 43; _M. Sotah_, iii. 7; _Sotah_, 38_a_. The
tradition that the utterance of the name in the daily benedictions
ceased with the death of Simeon the Just, two centuries or more
before the Christian era, perhaps arose from a misunderstanding of
_Menahoth_, 109_b_; in any case it cannot stand against the testimony
of older and more authoritative texts.
[4] _Yoma_, 39b; _Jer. Yoma_, iii. 7; _Kiddushin_, 71_a_.
[5] R. Johanan (second half of the 3rd century), _Kiddushin_, 71a.
[6] Kiddushin, l.c. = _Pesahim_, 50a.
[7] _M. Sanhedrin_, x. 1; Abba Saul, end of 2nd century.
[8] _Jer. Sanhedrin_, x. 1; R. Mana, 4th century.
[9] _Strom._ v. 6. Variants: [Greek: Ia oue, Ia ouai]; cod. L.
[Greek: Iaou].
[10] _Panarion_, Haer. 40, 5; cf. Lagarde, _Psalter juxta Hebraeos_,
154.
[11] _Quaest._ 15 in Exod.; _Fab. haeret. compend._ v. 3, _sub fin_.
[12] [Greek: Aia] occurs also in the great magical papyrus of Paris,
1. 3020 (Wessely, _Denkschrift. Wien. Akad._, Phil. Hist. Kl., XXXVI.
p. 120), and in the Leiden Papyrus, xvii. 31.
[13] See Deissmann, _Bibelstudien_, 13 sqq.
[14] See Driver, _Studia Biblica_, I. 20.
[15] See Montgomery, _Journal of Biblical Literature_, xxv.
(1906),49-51.
[16] _Chronographia_, Paris, 1567 (ed. Paris, 1600, p. 79 seq.).
[17] This transcription will be used henceforth.
[18] _A-se-itas_, a scholastic Latin expression for the quality of
existing by oneself.
[19] The critical difficulties of these verses need not be discussed
here. See W. R. Arnold, "The Divine Name in Exodus iii. 14," _Journal
of Biblical Literature_, XXIV. (1905), 107-165.
[20] Cf. also _hawwah_, "desire," Mic. vii. 3; Prov. x. 3.
[21] See HEBREW RELIGION.
[22] The divergent Judaean tradition, according to which the
forefathers had worshipped Yahweh from time immemorial, may indicate
that Judah and the kindred clans had in fact been worshippers of
Yahweh before the time of Moses.
[23] The form _Yahu_, or _Yaho_, occurs not only in composition, but
by itself; see _Aramaic Papyri discovered at Assuan_, B 4, 6, 11; E
14; J 6. This is doubtless the original of [Greek: Iao], frequently
found in Greek authors and in magical texts as the name of the God of
the Jews.
[24] See a collection and critical estimate of this evidence by
Zimmern, _Die Keilinschriften und das Alte Testament_, 465 sqq.
[25] _Babel und Bibel_, 1902. The enormous, and for the most part
ephemeral, literature provoked by Delitzsch's lecture cannot be cited
here.
[26] _Denkschriften d. Wien. Akad._, L. iv. p. 115 seq. (1904).
[27] _Wo lag das Paradies?_ (1881), pp. 158-166.
JEHU, son of Jehoshaphat and grandson of Nimshi, in the Bible, a general
of Ahab and Jehoram, and, later, king of Israel. Ahaziah son of Jehoram
of Judah and Jehoram brother of Ahaziah of Israel had taken joint action
against the Aramaeans of Damascus who were attacking Ramoth-Gilead under
Hazael. Jehoram had returned wounded to his palace at Jezreel, whither
Ahaziah had come down to visit him. Jehu, meanwhile, remained at the
seat of war, and the prophet Elisha sent a messenger to anoint him king.
The general at once acknowledged the call, "drove furiously" to Jezreel,
and, having slain both kings, proceeded to exterminate the whole of the
royal family (2 Kings ix., x.). A similar fate befell the royal princes
of Judah (see ATHALIAH), and thus, for a time at least, the new king
must have had complete control over the two kingdoms (cf. 2 Chron. xxii.
9). Israelite historians viewed these events as a great religious
revolution inspired by Elijah and initiated by Elisha, as the overthrow
of the worship of Baal, and as a retribution for the cruel murder of
Naboth the Jezreelite (see JEZEBEL). A vivid description is given of the
destruction of the prophets of Baal at the temple in Samaria (2 Kings x.
27; contrast iii. 2). While Jehu was supported by the Rechabites in his
reforming zeal, a similar revolt against Baalism in Judah is ascribed to
the priest Jehoiada (see JOASH). In the tragedies of the period it seems
clear that Elisha's interest in both Jehu and the Syrian Hazael (2 Kings
viii. 7 sqq.) had some political significance, and in opposition to the
"Deuteronomic" the commendation in 2 Kings x. 28 sqq., Hosea's
denunciation (i. 4) indicates the judgment which was passed upon Jehu's
bloodshed in other circles.
In the course of an expedition against Hazael in 842 Shalmaneser II. of
Assyria received tribute of silver and gold from Ya-u-a son of Omri,[1]
Tyre and Sidon; another attack followed in 839. For some years after
this Assyria was unable to interfere, and war broke out between Damascus
and Israel. The Israelite story, which may perhaps be supplemented from
Judaean sources (see JOASH), records a great loss of territory on the
east of the Jordan (2 Kings x. 32 seq.). Under Jehu's successor Jehoahaz
there was continual war with Hazael and his son Benhadad, but relief was
obtained by his grandson Joash, and the land recovered complete
independence under Jeroboam.
Jehu is also the name of a prophet of the time of Baasha and
Jehoshaphat (1 Kings xvi.; 2 Chron. xix., xx.). (S. A. C.)
FOOTNOTE:
[1] I.e. either descendant of, or from the same district as, Omri
(see Hogg, _Ency. Bib._ col. 2291). The Assyrian king's sculpture,
depicting the embassy and its gifts, is the so-called "black obelisk"
now in the British Museum (Nimroud Central Gallery, No. 98; _Guide to
Bab. and Ass. Antiq._, 1900, p. 24 seq., pl. ii.).
JEKYLL, SIR JOSEPH (1663-1738), English lawyer and master of the rolls,
son of John Jekyll, was born in London, and after studying at the Middle
Temple was called to the bar in 1687. He rapidly rose to be chief
justice of Chester (1697), serjeant-at-law and king's serjeant (1700),
and a knight. In 1717 he was made master of the rolls. A Whig in
politics, he sat in parliament for various constituencies from 1697 to
the end of his life, and took an active part there in debating
constitutional questions with much learning, though, according to Lord
Hervey (_Mem._ 1, 474), with little "approbation." He was censured by
the House of Commons for accepting a brief for the defence of Lord
Halifax in a prosecution ordered by the house. He was one of the
managers of the impeachment of the Jacobite earl of Wintoun in 1715, and
of Harley (Lord Oxford) in 1717. In later years he supported Walpole. He
became very unpopular in 1736 for his introduction of the "gin act,"
taxing the retailing of spirituous liquors, and his house had to be
protected from the mob. Pope has an illusion to "Jekyll or some odd
Whig, Who never changed his principle or wig" (_Epilogue to the
Satires_). Jekyll was also responsible for the Mortmain Act of 1736,
which was not superseded till 1888. He died without issue in 1738.
His great-nephew JOSEPH JEKYLL (d. 1837) was a lawyer, politician and
wit, who excited a good deal of contemporary satire, and who wrote some
_jeux d'esprit_ which were well-known in his time. His _Letters of the
late Ignatius Sancho, an African_, was published in 1782. In 1894 his
correspondence was edited, with a memoir, by the Hon. Algernon Bourke.
JELLACHICH, JOSEF, COUNT (1801-1859), Croatian statesman, was born on
the 16th of October 1801 at Petervarad. He entered the Austrian army
(1819), fought against the Bosnians in 1845, was made ban of Croatia,
Slavonia and Dalmatia in 1848 on the petition of the Croatians, and was
simultaneously raised to the rank of lieutenant-general by the emperor.
As ban, Jellachich's policy was directed to preserving the Slav kingdoms
for the Habsburg monarchy by identifying himself with the nationalist
opposition to Magyar ascendancy, while at the same time discouraging the
extreme "Illyrism" advocated by Lodovik Gaj (1809-1872). Though his
separatist measures at first brought him into disfavour at the imperial
court, their true objective was soon recognized, and, with the triumph
of the more violent elements of the Hungarian revolution, he was hailed
as the most conspicuous champion of the unity of the empire, and was
able to bring about that union of the imperial army with the southern
Slavs by which the revolution in Vienna and Budapest was overthrown (see
AUSTRIA-HUNGARY: _History_). He began the war of independence in
September 1848 by crossing the Drave at the head of 40,000 Croats. After
the bloody battle of Buda he concluded a three days' truce with the
Hungarians to enable him to assist Prince Windischgratz to reduce
Vienna, and subsequently fought against the Magyars at Schwechat. During
the winter campaign of 1848-49 he commanded, under Windischgratz, the
Austrian right wing, capturing Magyar-Ovar and Raab, and defeating the
Magyars at Mor. After the recapture of Buda he was made
commander-in-chief of the southern army. At first he gained some
successes against Bem (q.v.), but on the 14th of July 1849 was routed by
the Hungarians at Hegyes and driven behind the Danube. He took no part
in the remainder of the war, but returned to Agram to administer
Croatia. In 1853 he was appointed commander-in-chief of the army sent
against Montenegro, and in 1855 was created a count. He died on the 20th
of May 1859. His _Gedichte_ were published at Vienna in 1851.
See the anonymous _The Croatian Revolution_ of the Year 1848 (Croat.),
Agram, 1898. (R. N. B.)
JELLINEK, ADOLF (1821-1893), Jewish preacher and scholar, was born in
Moravia. After filling clerical posts in Leipzig, he became _Prediger_
(preacher) in Vienna in 1856. He was associated with the promoters of
the New Learning within Judaism, and wrote on the history of the
Kabbala. His bibliographies (each bearing the Hebrew title _Qontres_)
were useful compilations. But his most important work lay in three other
directions. (1) _Midrashic._ Jellinek published in the six parts of his
_Beth ha-Midrasch_ (1853-1878) a large number of smaller _Midrashi_,
ancient and medieval homilies and folk-lore records, which have been of
much service in the recent revival of interest in Jewish apocalyptic
literature. A translation of these collections of Jellinek into German
was undertaken by A. Wuensche, under the general title _Aus Israels
Lehrhalle_. (2) _Psychological._ Before the study of ethnic psychology
had become a science, Jellinek devoted attention to the subject. There
is much keen analysis and original investigation in his two essays _Der
judische Stamm_ (1869) and _Der judische Stamm in nicht-judischen
Spruch-wortern_ (1881-1882). It is to Jellinek that we owe the
oft-repeated comparison of the Jewish temperament to that of women in
its quickness of perception, versatility and sensibility. (3)
_Homiletic._ Jellinek was probably the greatest synagogue orator of the
19th century. He published some 200 sermons, in most of which are
displayed unobtrusive learning, fresh application of old sayings, and a
high conception of Judaism and its claims. Jellinek was a powerful
apologist and an accomplished homilist, at once profound and ingenious.
His son, GEORGE JELLINEK, was appointed professor of international law
at Heidelberg in 1891. Another son, MAX HERMANN JELLINEK, was made
assistant professor of philology at Vienna in 1892.
A brother of Adolf, HERMANN JELLINEK (b. 1823), was executed at the age
of 26 on account of his association with the Hungarian national movement
of 1848. One of Hermann Jellinek's best-known works was _Uriel Acosta_.
Another brother, MORITZ JELLINEK (1823-1883), was an accomplished
economist, and contributed to the Academy of Sciences essays on the
price of cereals and on the statistical organization of the country. He
founded the Budapest tramway company (1864) and was also president of
the corn exchange.
See _Jewish Encyclopedia_, vii. 92-94. For a character sketch of Adolf
Jellinek see S. Singer, _Lectures and Addresses_ (1908), pp. 88-93;
Kohut, _Beruhmte israelitische Manner und Frauen_. (I. A.)
JEMAPPES, a town in the province of Hainaut, Belgium, near Mons, famous
as the scene of the battle at which Dumouriez, at the head of the French
Revolutionary Army, defeated the Austrian army (which was greatly
outnumbered) under the duke of Saxe-Teschen and Clerfayt on the 6th of
November 1792 (see FRENCH REVOLUTIONARY WARS).
JENA, a university town of Germany, in the grand duchy of Saxe-Weimar,
on the left bank of the Saale, 56 m. S.W. from Leipzig by the
Grossberigen-Saalfeld and 12 m. S.E. of Weimar by the Weimar-Gera lines
of railway. Pop. (1905), 26,355. Its situation in a broad valley
environed by limestone hills is somewhat dreary. To the north lies the
plateau, descending steeply to the valley, famous as the scene of the
battle of Jena. The town is surrounded by promenades occupying the site
of the old fortifications; it contains in addition to the medieval
market square, many old-fashioned houses and quaint narrow streets.
Besides the old university buildings, the most interesting edifices are
the 15th-century church of St Michael, with a tower 318 ft. high,
containing an altar, beneath which is a doorway leading to a vault, and
a bronze statue of Luther, originally destined for his tomb; the
university library, in which is preserved a curious figure of a dragon;
and the bridge across the Saale, as long as the church steeple is high,
the centre arch of which is surmounted by a stone carved head of a
malefactor. Across the river is the "mountain," or hill, whence a fine
view is obtained of the town and surroundings, and hard by the
Fuchs-Turm (Fox tower) celebrated for student orgies, while in the
centre of the town is the house of an astronomer, Weigel, with a deep
shaft through which the stars can be seen in the day time. Thus the
seven marvels of Jena are summed up in the Latin lines:--
_Ara, caput, draco, mons, pons, vulpecula turris,
Weigeliana domus; septem miracula Jenae._
There must also be mentioned the university church, the new university
buildings, which occupy the site of the ducal palace (Schloss) where
Goethe wrote his _Hermann und Dorothea_, the Schwarzer Bar Hotel, where
Luther spent the night after his flight from the Wartburg, and four
towers and a gateway which now alone mark the position of the ancient
walls. The town has of late years become a favourite residential resort
and has greatly extended towards the west, where there is a colony of
pleasant villas. Its chief prosperity centres, however, in the
university. In 1547 the elector John Frederick the Magnanimous of
Saxony, while a captive in the hands of the emperor Charles V.,
conceived the plan of founding a university at Jena, which was
accordingly established by his three sons. After having obtained a
charter from the emperor Ferdinand I., it was inaugurated on the 2nd of
February 1558. It was most numerously attended about the middle of the
18th century; but the most brilliant professoriate was under the duke
Charles Augustus, Goethe's patron (1787-1806), when Fichte, Hegel,
Schelling, Schlegel and Schiller were on its teaching staff. Founded as
a home for the new religious opinions of the 16th century, it has ever
been in the forefront of German universities in liberally accepting new
ideas. It distances perhaps every other German university in the extent
to which it carries out what are popularly regarded as the
characteristics of German student-life--duelling and the passion for
_Freiheit_. At the end of the 18th and the beginning of the 19th
century, the opening of new universities, co-operating with the
suspicions of the various German governments as to the democratic
opinions which obtained at Jena, militated against the university, which
has never regained its former prosperity. In 1905 it was attended by
about 1100 students, and its teaching staff (including _privatdocenten_)
numbered 112. Amongst its numerous auxiliaries may be mentioned the
library, with 200,000 volumes, the observatory, the meteorological
institute, the botanical garden, seminaries of theology, philology and
education, and well equipped clinical, anatomical and physical
institutes. There are also veterinary and agricultural colleges in
connexion with the university. The manufactures of Jena are not
considerable. The book trade has of late years revived, and there are
several printing establishments.
Jena appears to have possessed municipal rights in the 13th century. At
the beginning of the 14th century it was in the possession of the
margraves of Meissen, from whom it passed in 1423 to the elector of
Saxony. Since 1485 it has remained in the Ernestine line of the house of
Saxony. In 1662 it fell to Bernhard, youngest son of William duke of
Weimar, and became the capital of a small separate duchy. Bernhard's
line having become extinct in 1690, Jena was united with Eisenach, and
in 1741 reverted with that duchy to Weimar. In more modern times Jena
has been made famous by the defeat inflicted in the vicinity, on the
14th of October 1806, by Napoleon upon the Prussian army under the
prince of Hohenlohe (see NAPOLEONIC CAMPAIGNS).
See Schreiber and Farber, _Jena von seinem Ursprung bis zur neuesten
Zeit_ (2nd ed., 1858); Ortloff, _Jena und Umgegend_ (3rd ed., 1875);
Leonhardt, _Jena als Universitat und Stadt_ (Jena, 1902); Ritter,
_Fuhrer durch Jena und Umgebung_ (Jena, 1901); Biedermann, _Die
Universitat Jena_ (Jena, 1858); and the _Urkundenbuch der Stadt Jena_
edited by J. E. A. Martin and O. Devrient (1888-1903).
JENATSCH, GEORG (1596-1639), Swiss political leader, one of the most
striking figures in the troubled history of the Grisons in the 17th
century, was born at Samaden (capital of the Upper Engadine). He studied
at Zurich and Basel, and in 1617 became the Protestant pastor of
Scharans (near Thusis). But almost at once he plunged into active
politics, taking the side of the Venetian and Protestant party of the
Salis family, as against the Spanish and Romanist policy supported by
the rival family, that of Planta. He headed the "preachers" who in 1618
tortured to death the arch-priest Rusca, of Sondrio, and outlawed the
Plantas. As reprisals, a number of Protestants were massacred at Tirano
(1620), in the Valtellina, a very fertile valley, of considerable
strategical importance (for through it the Spaniards in Milan could
communicate by the Umbrail Pass with the Austrians in Tirol), which then
fell into the hands of the Spanish. Jenatsch took part in the murder
(1621) of Pompey Planta, the head of the rival party, but later with his
friends was compelled to fly the country, giving up his position as a
pastor, and henceforth acting solely as a soldier. He helped in the
revolt against the Austrians in the Prattigau (1622), and in the
invasion of the Valtellina by a French army (1624), but the peace made
(1626) between France and Spain left the Valtellina in the hands of the
pope, and so destroyed Jenatsch's hopes. Having killed his colonel,
Ruinelli, in a duel, Jenatsch had once more to leave his native land,
and took service with the Venetians (1629-1630). In 1631 he went to
Paris, and actively supported Richelieu's schemes for driving the
Spaniards out of the Valtellina, which led to the successful campaign of
Rohan (1635), one of whose firmest supporters was Jenatsch. But he soon
saw that the French were as unwilling as the Spaniards to restore the
Valtellina to the Grisons (which had seized it in 1512). So he became a
Romanist (1635), and negotiated secretly with the Spaniards and
Austrians. He was the leader of the conspiracy which broke out in 1637,
and resulted in the expulsion of Rohan and the French from the Grisons.
This treachery on Jenatsch's part did not, however, lead to the freeing
of the Valtellina from the Spaniards, and once more he tried to get
French support. But on the 24th of January 1639 he was assassinated at
Coire by the Plantas; later in the same year the much coveted valley was
restored by Spain to the Grisons, which held it till 1797. Jenatsch's
career is of general historical importance by reason of the long
conflict between France and Spain for the possession of the Valtellina,
which forms one of the most bloody episodes in the Thirty Years' War.
(W. A. B. C.)
See biography by E. Haffter (Davos, 1894).
JENGHIZ KHAN (1162-1227), Mongol emperor, was born in a tent on the
banks of the river Onon. His father Yesukai was absent at the time of
his birth, in a campaign against a Tatar chieftain named Temuchin. The
fortune of war favoured Yesukai, who having slain his enemy returned to
his encampment in triumph. Here he was met by the news that his wife
Yulun had given birth to a son. On examining the child he observed in
its clenched fist a clot of coagulated blood like a red stone. In the
eyes of the superstitious Mongol this circumstance referred to his
victory over the Tatar chieftain, and he therefore named the infant
Temuchin. The death of Yesukai, which placed Temuchin at the age of
thirteen on the Mongol throne, was the signal also for the dispersal of
several tribes whose allegiance the old chieftain had retained by his
iron rule. When remonstrated with by Temuchin, the rebels replied: "The
deepest wells are sometimes dry, and the hardest stone is sometimes
broken; why should we cling to thee?" But Yulun was by no means willing
to see her son's power melt away; she led those retainers who remained
faithful against the deserters, and succeeded in bringing back fully one
half to their allegiance. With this doubtful material, Temuchin
succeeded in holding his ground against the plots and open hostilities
of the neighbouring tribes, more especially of the Naimans, Keraits and
Merkits. With one or other of these he maintained an almost unceasing
warfare until 1206, when he felt strong enough to proclaim himself the
ruler of an empire. He therefore summoned the notables of his kingdom
to an assembly on the banks of the Onon, and at their unanimous request
adopted the name and title of Jenghiz Khan (Chinese, Cheng-sze, or
"perfect warrior"). At this time there remained to him but one open
enemy on the Mongolian steppes, Polo the Naiman khan. Against this chief
he now led his troops, and in one battle so completely shattered his
forces that Kushlek, the successor of Polo, who was left dead upon the
field, fled with his ally Toto, the Merkit khan, to the river Irtysh.
Jenghiz Khan now meditated an invasion of the empire of the Kin Tatars,
who had wrested northern China from the Sung dynasty. As a first step he
invaded western Hia, and, having captured several strongholds, retired
in the summer of 1208 to Lung-ting to escape the great heat of the
plains. While there news reached him that Toto and Kushlek were
preparing for war. In a pitched battle on the river Irtysh he overthrew
them completely. Toto was amongst the slain, and Kushlek fled for refuge
to the Khitan Tatars. Satisfied with his victory, Jenghiz again directed
his forces against Hia. After having defeated the Kin army under the
leadership of a son of the sovereign, he captured the Wu-liang-hai Pass
in the Great Wall, and penetrated as far as Ning-sia Fu in Kansuh. With
unceasing vigour he pushed on his troops, and even established his sway
over the province of Liaotung. Several of the Kin commanders, seeing how
persistently victory attended his banners, deserted to him, and
garrisons surrendered at his bidding. Having thus secured a firm footing
within the Great Wall, he despatched three armies in the autumn of 1213
to overrun the empire. The right wing, under his three sons, Juji,
Jagatai and Ogotai, marched towards the south; the left wing, under his
brothers Hochar, Kwang-tsin Noyen and Chow-tse-te-po-shi, advanced
eastward towards the sea; while Jenghiz and his son Tule with the centre
directed their course in a south-easterly direction. Complete success
attended all three expeditions. The right wing advanced as far as Honan,
and after having captured upwards of twenty-eight cities rejoined
headquarters by the great western road. Hochar made himself master of
the country as far as Liao-si; and Jenghiz ceased his triumphal career
only when he reached the cliffs of the Shantung promontory. But either
because he was weary of the strife, or because it was necessary to
revisit his Mongolian empire, he sent an envoy to the Kin emperor in the
spring of the following year (1214), saying, "All your possessions in
Shantung and the whole country north of the Yellow River are now mine
with the solitary exception of Yenking (the modern Peking). By the
decree of heaven you are now as weak as I am strong, but I am willing to
retire from my conquests; as a condition of my doing so, however, it
will be necessary that you distribute largess to my officers and men to
appease their fierce hostility." These terms of safety the Kin emperor
eagerly accepted, and as a peace offering he presented Jenghiz with a
daughter of the late emperor, another princess of the imperial house,
500 youths and maidens, and 3000 horses. No sooner, however, had Jenghiz
passed beyond the Great Wall than the Kin emperor, fearing to remain any
longer so near the Mongol frontier, moved his court to K'ai-feng Fu in
Honan. This transfer of capital appearing to Jenghiz to indicate a
hostile attitude, he once more marched his troops into the doomed
empire.
While Jenghiz was thus adding city to city and province to province in
China, Kushlek, the fugitive Naiman chief, was not idle. With
characteristic treachery he requested permission from his host, the
Khitan khan, to collect the fragments of his army which had been
scattered by Jenghiz at the battle on the Irtysh, and thus having
collected a considerable force he leagued himself with Mahommed, the
shah of Khwarizm, against the confiding khan. After a short but decisive
campaign the allies remained masters of the position, and the khan was
compelled to abdicate the throne in favour of the late guest.
With the power and prestige thus acquired, Kushlek prepared once again
to measure swords with the Mongol chief. On receiving the news of his
hostile preparations, Jenghiz at once took the field, and in the first
battle routed the Naiman troops and made Kushlek a prisoner. His
ill-gotten kingdom became an apanage of the Mongol Empire. Jenghiz now
held sway up to the Khwarizm frontier. Beyond this he had no immediate
desire to go, and he therefore sent envoys to Mahommed, the shah, with
presents, saying, "I send thee greeting; I know thy power and the vast
extent of thine empire; I regard thee as my most cherished son. On my
part thou must know that I have conquered China and all the Turkish
nations north of it; thou knowest that my country is a magazine of
warriors, a mine of silver, and that I have no need of other lands. I
take it that we have an equal interest in encouraging trade between our
subjects." This peaceful message was well received by the shah, and in
all probability the Mongol armies would never have appeared in Europe
but for an unfortunate occurrence. Shortly after the despatch of this
first mission Jenghiz sent a party of traders into Transoxiana who were
seized and put to death as spies by Inaljuk, the governor of Otrar. As
satisfaction for this outrage Jenghiz demanded the extradition of the
offending governor. Far from yielding to this summons, however, Mahommed
beheaded the chief of the Mongol envoys, and sent the others back
without their beards. This insult made war inevitable, and in the spring
of 1219 Jenghiz set out from Karakorum on a campaign which was destined
to be as startling in its immediate results as its ulterior effects were
far-reaching. The invading force was in the first instance divided into
two armies: one commanded by Jenghiz's second son Jagatai was directed
to march against the Kankalis, the northern defenders of the Khwarizm
empire; and the other, led by Juji, his eldest son, advanced by way of
Sighnak against Jand (Jend). Against this latter force Mahommed led an
army of 400,000 men, who were completely routed, leaving it is said
160,000 dead upon the field. With the remnant of his host Mahommed fled
to Samarkand. Meanwhile Jagatai marched down upon the Syr Daria
(Jaxartes) by the pass of Taras and invested Otrar, the offending city.
After a siege of five months the citadel was taken by assault, and
Inaljuk and his followers were put to the sword. The conquerors levelled
the walls with the ground, after having given the city over to pillage.
At the same time a third army besieged and took Khojent on the Jaxartes;
and yet a fourth, led by Jenghiz and his youngest son Tule, advanced in
the direction of Bokhara. Tashkent and Nur surrendered on their
approach, and after a short siege Bokhara fell into their hands. On
entering the town Jenghiz ascended the steps of the principal mosque,
and shouted to his followers, "The hay is cut; give your horses fodder."
No second invitation to plunder was needed; the city was sacked, and the
inhabitants either escaped beyond the walls or were compelled to submit
to infamies which were worse than death. As a final act of vengeance the
town was fired, and before the last of the Mongols left the district,
the great mosque and certain palaces were the only buildings left to
mark the spot where the "centre of science" once stood. From the ruins
of Bokhara Jenghiz advanced along the valley of the Sogd to Samarkand,
which, weakened by treachery, surrendered to him, as did also Balkh. But
in neither case did submission save either the inhabitants from
slaughter or the city from pillage. Beyond this point Jenghiz went no
farther westward, but sent Tule, at the head of 70,000 men, to ravage
Khorasan, and two flying columns under Chepe and Sabutai Bahadar to
pursue after Mahommed who had taken refuge in Nishapur. Defeated and
almost alone, Mahommed fled before his pursuers to the village of Astara
on the shore of the Caspian Sea, where he died of an attack of pleurisy,
leaving his empire to his son Jelaleddin (Jalal ud-din). Meanwhile Tule
carried his arms into the fertile province of Khorasan, and after having
captured Nessa by assault appeared before Merv. By an act of atrocious
treachery the Mongols gained possession of the city, and, after their
manner, sacked and burnt the town. From Merv Tule marched upon Nishapur,
where he met with a most determined resistance. For four days the
garrison fought desperately on the walls and in the streets, but at
length they were overpowered, and, with the exception of 400 artisans
who were sent into Mongolia, every man, woman and child was slain. Herat
escaped the fate which had overtaken Merv and Nishapur by opening its
gates to the Mongols. At this point of his victorious career Tule
received an order to join Jenghiz before Talikhan in Badakshan, where
that chieftain was preparing to renew his pursuit of Jelaleddin, after a
check he had sustained in an engagement fought before Ghazni. As soon as
sufficient reinforcements arrived Jenghiz advanced against Jelaleddin,
who had taken up a position on the banks of the Indus. Here the Turks,
though far outnumbered, defended their ground with undaunted courage,
until, beaten at all points, they fled in confusion. Jelaleddin, seeing
that all was lost, mounted a fresh horse and jumped into the river,
which flowed 20 ft. below. With admiring gaze Jenghiz watched the
desperate venture of his enemy, and even saw without regret the dripping
horseman mount the opposite bank. From the Indus Jenghiz sent in pursuit
of Jelaleddin, who fled to Delhi, but failing to capture the fugitive
the Mongols returned to Ghazni after having ravaged the provinces of
Lahore, Peshawar and Melikpur. At this moment news reached Jenghiz that
the inhabitants of Herat had deposed the governor whom Tule had
appointed over the city, and had placed one of their own choice in his
room. To punish this act of rebellion Jenghiz sent an army of 80,000 men
against the offending city, which after a siege of six months was taken
by assault. For a whole week the Mongols ceased not to kill, burn and
destroy, and 1,600,000 persons are said to have been massacred within
the walls. Having consummated this act of vengeance, Jenghiz returned to
Mongolia by way of Balkh, Bokhara and Samarkand.
Meanwhile Chepe and Sabutai marched through Azerbeijan, and in the
spring of 1222 advanced into Georgia. Here they defeated a combined
force of Lesghians, Circassians and Kipchaks, and after taking Astrakhan
followed the retreating Kipchaks to the Don. The news of the approach of
the mysterious enemy of whose name even they were ignorant was received
by the Russian princes at Kiev with dismay. At the instigation, however,
of Mitislaf, prince of Galicia, they assembled an opposing force on the
Dnieper. Here they received envoys from the Mongol camp, whom they
barbarously put to death. "You have killed our envoys," was the answer
made by the Mongols; "well, as you wish for war you shall have it. We
have done you no harm. God is impartial; He will decide our quarrel." In
the first battle, on the river Kaleza, the Russians were utterly routed,
and fled before the invaders, who, after ravaging Great Bulgaria
retired, gorged with booty, through the country of Saksin, along the
river Aktuba, on their way to Mongolia.
In China the same success had attended the Mongol arms as in western
Asia. The whole of the country north of the Yellow river, with the
exception of one or two cities, was added to the Mongol rule, and, on
the death of the Kin emperor Suan Tsung in 1223, the Kin empire
virtually ceased to be, and Jenghiz's frontiers thus became conterminous
with those of the Sung emperors who held sway over the whole of central
and southern China. After his return from Central Asia, Jenghiz once
more took the field in western China. While on this campaign the five
planets appeared in a certain conjunction, which to the superstitiously
minded Mongol chief foretold that evil was awaiting him. With this
presentiment strongly impressed upon him he turned his face homewards,
and had advanced no farther than the Si-Kiang river in Kansuh when he
was seized with an illness of which he died a short time afterwards
(1227) at his travelling palace at Ha-lao-tu, on the banks of the river
Sale in Mongolia. By the terms of his will Ogotai was appointed his
successor, but so essential was it considered to be that his death
should remain a secret until Ogotai was proclaimed that, as the funeral
procession moved northwards to the great ordu on the banks of the
Kerulen, the escort killed every one they met. The body of Jenghiz was
then carried successively to the ordus of his several wives, and was
finally laid to rest in the valley of Kilien.
Thus ended the career of one of the greatest conquerors the world has
ever seen. Born and nurtured as the chief of a petty Mongolian tribe, he
lived to see his armies victorious from the China Sea to the banks of
the Dnieper; and, though the empire which he created ultimately
dwindled away under the hands of his degenerate descendants, leaving not
a wrack behind, we have in the presence of the Turks in Europe a
consequence of his rule, since it was the advance of his armies which
drove their Osmanli ancestors from their original home in northern Asia,
and thus led to their invasion of Bithynia under Othman, and finally
their advance into Europe under Amurath I.
See Sir H. H. Howorth, _The History of the Mongols_; Sir Robert K.
Douglas, _The Life of Jenghiz Khan_. (R. K. D.)
JENKIN, HENRY CHARLES FLEEMING (1833-1885), British engineer, was born
near Dungeness on the 25th of March 1833, his father (d. 1885) being a
naval commander, and his mother (d. 1885) a novelist of some literary
repute, her best books perhaps being _Cousin Stella_ (1859) and _Who
breaks, pays_ (1861). Fleeming Jenkin was educated at first in Scotland,
but in 1846 the family went to live abroad, owing to financial straits,
and he studied at Genoa University, where he took a first-class degree
in physical science. In 1851 he began his engineering career as
apprentice in an establishment at Manchester, and subsequently he
entered Newall's submarine cable works at Birkenhead. In 1859 he began,
in concert with Sir William Thomson (afterwards Lord Kelvin), to work on
problems respecting the making and use of cables, and the importance of
his researches on the resistance of gutta-percha was at once recognized.
From this time he was in constant request in connexion with submarine
telegraphy, and he became known also as an inventor. In partnership with
Thomson, he made a large income as a consulting telegraph engineer. In
1865 he was elected F.R.S., and was appointed professor of engineering
at University College, London. In 1868 he obtained the same
professorship at Edinburgh University, and in 1873 he published a
textbook of _Magnetism and Electricity_, full of original work. He was
author of the article "Bridges" in the ninth edition of this
encyclopaedia. His influence among the Edinburgh students was
pronounced, and R. L. Stevenson's well-known _Memoir_ is a sympathetic
tribute to his ability and character. The meteoric charm of his
conversation is well described in Stevenson's essay on "Talk and
Talkers," under the name of Cockshot. Jenkin's interests were by no
means confined to engineering, but extended to the arts and literature;
his miscellaneous papers, showing his critical and unconventional views,
were issued posthumously in two volumes (1887). In 1882 Jenkin invented
an automatic method of electric transport for goods--"telpherage"--but
the completion of its details was prevented by his death on the 12th of
June 1885. A telpher line on his system was subsequently erected at
Glynde in Sussex. He was also well known as a sanitary reformer, and
during the last ten years of his life he did much useful work in
inculcating more enlightened ideas on the subject both in Edinburgh and
other places.
JENKINS, SIR LEOLINE (1623-1685), English lawyer and diplomatist, was
the son of a Welsh country gentleman. He was born in 1623 and was
educated at Jesus College, Oxford, of which he was elected a fellow at
the Restoration in 1660, having been an ardent royalist during the civil
war and commonwealth; and in 1661 he became head of the college. In the
same year he was made registrar of the consistory court of Westminster;
in 1664 deputy judge of the court of arches; about a year later judge of
the admiralty court; in 1689 judge of the prerogative court of
Canterbury. In these offices Jenkins did enduring work in elucidating
and establishing legal principles, especially in relation to
international law and admiralty jurisdiction. He was selected to draw up
the claim of Charles II. to succeed to the property of his mother,
Henrietta Maria, on her death in August 1666, and while in Paris for
this purpose he succeeded in defeating the rival claim of the duchess of
Orleans, being rewarded by a knighthood on his return. In 1673, on being
elected member for Hythe, Jenkins resigned the headship of Jesus
College. He was one of the English representatives at the congress of
Cologne in 1673, and at the more important congress of Nijmwegen in
1676-1679. He was made a privy councillor in February 1680 and became
secretary of state in April of the same year, in which office he was the
official leader of the opposition to the Exclusion Bill, though he was
by no means a pliant tool in the hands of the court. He resigned office
in 1684, and died on the 1st of September 1685. He left most of his
property to Jesus College, Oxford, including his books, which he
bequeathed to the college library, built by himself; and he left some
important manuscripts to All Souls College, where they are preserved.
Jenkins left his impress on the law of England in the Statute of Frauds,
and the Statute of Distributions, of which he was the principal author,
and of which the former profoundly affected the mercantile law of the
country, while the latter regulated the inheritance of the personal
property of intestates. He was never married.
See William Wynne, _Life of Sir Leoline Jenkins_ (2 vols., London,
1724), which contains a number of his diplomatic despatches, letters,
speeches and other papers. See also Sir William Temple, _Works_, vol.
ii. (4 vols., 1770); Anthony a Wood, _Athenae Oxonienses_ (Fasti)
edited by P. Bliss (4 vols., London, 1813-1820), and _History and
Antiquities of the University of Oxford_, edited by J. Gutch (Oxford,
1792-1796).
JENKINS, ROBERT (fl. 1731-1745), English master mariner, is known as the
protagonist of the "Jenkins's ear" incident, which, magnified in England
by the press and the opposition, became a contributory cause of the war
between England and Spain (1739). Bringing home the brig "Rebecca" from
the West Indies in 1731, Jenkins was boarded by a Spanish guarda-costa,
whose commander rifled the holds and cut off one of his ears. On
arriving in England Jenkins stated his grievance to the king, and a
report was furnished by the commander-in-chief in the West Indies
confirming his account. At first the case created no great stir, but in
1738 he repeated his story with dramatic detail before a committee of
the House of Commons, producing what purported to be the ear that had
been cut off. Afterwards it was suggested that he might have lost the
ear in the pillory.
Jenkins was subsequently given the command of a ship in the East India
Company's service, and later became supervisor of the company's
affairs at St Helena. In 1741 he was sent from England to that island
to investigate charges of corruption brought against the acting
governor, and from May 1741 until March 1742 he administered the
affairs of the island. Thereafter he resumed his naval career, and is
stated in an action with a pirate vessel to have preserved his own
vessel and three others under his care (see T. H. Brooke, _History of
the Island of St Helena_ (London, 2nd ed., 1824), and H. R. Janisch,
_Extracts from the St Helena Records_, 1885).
JENKS, JEREMIAH WHIPPLE (1856- ), American economist, was born in St
Clair, Michigan, on the 2nd of September 1856. He graduated at the
university of Michigan in 1878; taught Greek, Latin and German in Mt.
Morris College, Illinois; studied in Germany, receiving the degree of
Ph.D. from the university of Halle in 1885; taught political science and
English literature at Knox College, Galesburg, Ill., in 1886-1889; was
professor of political economy and social science at Indiana State
University in 1889-1891; and was successively professor of political,
municipal and social institutions (1891-1892), professor of political
economy and civil and social institutions (1892-1901), and after 1901
professor of political economy and politics at Cornell University. In
1899-1901 he served as an expert agent of the United States industrial
commission on investigation of trusts and industrial combinations in the
United States and Europe, and contributed to vols. i., viii. and xiii.
of this commission's report (1900 and 1901), vol. viii. being a report,
written wholly by him, on industrial combinations in Europe. In
1901-1902 he was special commissioner of the United States war
department on colonial administration, and wrote a _Report on Certain
Economic Questions in the English and Dutch Colonies in the Orient_,
published (1902) by the bureau of insular affairs; and in 1903 he was
adviser to the Mexican ministry of finance on projected currency
changes. In 1903-1904 he was a member of the United States commission on
international exchange, in especial charge of the reform of currency in
China; in 1905 he was special representative of the United States with
the imperial Chinese special mission visiting the United States. In 1907
he became a member of the United States immigration commission. Best
known as an expert on "trusts," he has written besides on elections,
ballot reform, proportional representation, on education (especially as
a training for citizenship), on legislation regarding highways, &c.
His principal published works are _Henry C. Carey als Nationalokonom_
(Halle a. S., 1885); _The Trust Problem_ (1900; revised 1903); _Great
Fortunes_ (1906); _Citizenship and the Schools_ (1906); and
_Principles of Politics_ (1909).
JENNE, a city of West Africa, formerly the capital of the Songhoi
empire, now included in the French colony of Upper Senegal and Niger.
Jenne is situated on a marigot or natural canal connecting the Niger and
its affluent the Bani or Mahel Balevel, and is within a few miles of the
latter stream. It lies 250 m. S.W. of Timbuktu in a straight line. The
city is surrounded by channels connected with the Bani but in the dry
season it ceases to be an island. On the north is the Moorish quarter;
on the north-west, the oldest part of the city, stood the citadel,
converted by the French since 1893 into a modern fort. The market-place
is midway between the fort and the commercial harbour. The old mosque,
partially destroyed in 1830, covered a large area in the south-west
portion of the city. It was built on the site of the ancient palace of
the Songhoi kings. The architecture of many of the buildings bears a
resemblance to Egyptian, the facades of the houses being adorned with
great buttresses of pylonic form. There is little trace of the influence
of Moorish or Arabian art. The buildings are mostly constructed of clay
made into flat long bricks. Massive clay walls surround the city. The
inhabitants are great traders and the principal merchants have
representatives at Timbuktu and all the chief places on the Niger. The
boats built at Jenne are famous throughout the western Sudan.
Jenne is believed to have been founded by the Songhoi in the 8th
century, and though it has passed under the dominion of many races it
has never been destroyed. Jenne seems to have been at the height of its
power from the 12th to the 16th century, when its merchandise was found
at every port along the west coast of Africa. From this circumstance it
is conjectured that Jenne (Guinea) gave its name to the whole coast (see
GUINEA). Subsequently, under the control of Moorish, Tuareg and Fula
invaders, the importance of the city greatly declined. With the advent
of the French, commerce again began to flourish.
See F. Dubois, _Tombouctou la mysterieuse_ (Paris, 1897), in which
several chapters are devoted to Jenne; also SONGHOI; TIMBUKTU; and
SENEGAL.
JENNER, EDWARD (1749-1823), English physician and discoverer of
vaccination, was born at Berkeley, Gloucestershire, on the 17th of May
1749. His father, the Rev. Stephen Jenner, rector of Rockhampton and
vicar of Berkeley, came of a family that had been long established in
that county, and was possessed of considerable landed property; he died
when Edward was only six years old, but his eldest son, the Rev. Stephen
Jenner, brought his brother up with paternal care and tenderness. Edward
received his early education at Wotton-under-Edge and Cirencester, where
he already showed a strong taste for natural history. The medical
profession having been selected for him, he began his studies under
Daniel Ludlow, a surgeon of Sodbury near Bristol; but in his
twenty-first year he proceeded to London, where he became a favourite
pupil of John Hunter, in whose house he resided for two years. During
this period he was employed by Sir Joseph Banks to arrange and prepare
the valuable zoological specimens which he had brought back from Captain
Cook's first voyage in 1771. He must have acquitted himself
satisfactorily in this task, since he was offered the post of naturalist
in the second expedition, but declined it as well as other advantageous
offers, preferring rather to practise his profession in his native
place, and near his eldest brother, to whom he was much attached. He was
the principal founder of a local medical society, to which he
contributed several papers of marked ability, in one of which he
apparently anticipated later discoveries concerning rheumatic
inflammations of the heart. He maintained a correspondence with John
Hunter, under whose direction he investigated various points in biology,
particularly the hibernation of hedgehogs and habits of the cuckoo; his
paper on the latter subject was laid by Hunter before the Royal Society,
and appeared in the _Phil. Trans._ for 1788. He also devoted
considerable attention to the varied geological character of the
district in which he lived, and constructed the first balloon seen in
those parts. He was a great favourite in general society, from his
agreeable and instructive conversation, and the many accomplishments he
possessed. Thus he was a fair musician, both as a part singer and as a
performer on the violin and flute, and a very successful writer, after
the fashion of that time, of fugitive pieces of verse. In 1788 he
married Catherine Kingscote, and in 1792 he obtained the degree of
doctor of medicine from St Andrews.
Meanwhile the discovery that is associated with his name had been slowly
maturing in his mind. When only an apprentice at Sodbury, his attention
had been directed to the relations between cow-pox and small-pox in
connexion with a popular belief which he found current in
Gloucestershire, as to the antagonism between these two diseases. During
his stay in London he appears to have mentioned the thing repeatedly to
Hunter, who, being engrossed by other important pursuits, was not so
strongly persuaded as Jenner was of its possible importance, yet spoke
of it to his friends and in his lectures. After he began practice in
Berkeley, Jenner was always accustomed to inquire what his professional
brethren thought of it; but he found that, when medical men had noticed
the popular report at all, they supposed it to be based on imperfect
induction. His first careful investigation of the subject dated from
about 1775, and five years elapsed before he had succeeded in clearing
away the most perplexing difficulties by which it was surrounded. He
first satisfied himself that two different forms of disease had been
hitherto confounded under the term cow-pox, only one of which protected
against small-pox, and that many of the cases of failure were to be thus
accounted for; and his next step was to ascertain that the true cow-pox
itself only protects when communicated at a particular stage of the
disease. At the same time he came to the conclusion that "the grease" of
horses is the same disease as cow-pox and small-pox, each being modified
by the organism in which it was developed. For many years, cow-pox being
scarce in his county, he had no opportunity of inoculating the disease,
and so putting his discovery to the test, but he did all he could in the
way of collecting information and communicating what he had ascertained.
Thus in 1788 he carried a drawing of the cow-pox, as seen on the hands
of a milkmaid, to London, and showed it to Sir E. Home and others, who
agreed that it was "an interesting and curious subject." At length, on
the 14th of May 1796, he was able to inoculate James Phipps, a boy about
eight years old, with matter from cow-pox vesicles on the hand of Sarah
Nelmes. On the 1st of the following July the boy was carefully
inoculated with variolous matter, but (as Jenner had predicted) no
small-pox followed. The discovery was now complete, but Jenner was
unable to repeat his experiment until 1798, owing to the disappearance
of cow-pox from the dairies. He then repeated his inoculations with the
utmost care, and prepared a pamphlet (_Inquiry into the Cause and
Effects of the Variolae Vaccinae_) which should announce his discovery
to the world. Before publishing it, however, he thought it well to visit
London, so as to demonstrate the truth of his assertions to his friends;
but he remained in London nearly three months, without being able to
find any person who would submit to be vaccinated. Soon after he had
returned home, however, Henry Cline, surgeon of St Thomas's Hospital,
inoculated some vaccine matter obtained from him over the diseased
hip-joint of a child, thinking the counter-irritation might be useful,
and found the patient afterwards incapable of acquiring small-pox. In
the autumn of the same year, Jenner met with the first opposition to
vaccination; and this was the more formidable because it proceeded from
J. Ingenhousz, a celebrated physician and man of science. But meanwhile
Cline's advocacy of vaccination brought it much more decidedly before
the medical profession, of whom the majority were prudent enough to
suspend their judgment until they had more ample information. But
besides these there were two noisy and troublesome factions, one of
which opposed vaccination as a useless and dangerous practice, while the
other endangered its success much more by rash and self-seeking
advocacy. At the head of the latter was George Pearson, who in November
1798 published a pamphlet speculating upon the subject, before even
seeing a case of cow-pox, and afterwards endeavoured, by lecturing on
the subject and supplying the virus, to put himself forward as the chief
agent in the cause. The matter which he distributed, which had been
derived from cows that were found to be infected in London, was found
frequently to produce, not the slight disease described by Jenner, but
more or less severe eruptions resembling small-pox. Jenner concluded at
once that this was due to an accidental contamination of the vaccine
with variolous matter, and a visit to London in the spring of 1799
convinced him that this was the case. In the course of this year the
practice of vaccination spread over England, being urged principally by
non-professional persons of position; and towards its close attempts
were made to found institutions for gratuitous vaccination and for
supplying lymph to all who might apply for it. Pearson proposed to
establish one of these in London, without Jenner's knowledge, in which
he offered him the post of honorary corresponding physician! On learning
of this scheme to supplant him, and to carry on an institution for
public vaccination on principles which he knew to be partly erroneous,
Jenner once more visited London early in 1800, when he had influence
enough to secure the abandonment of the project. He was afterwards
presented to the king, the queen and the prince of Wales, whose
encouragement materially aided the spread of vaccination in England.
Meanwhile it had made rapid progress in the United States, where it was
introduced by Benjamin Waterhouse, then professor of physic at Harvard,
and on the continent of Europe, where it was at first diffused by De
Carro of Vienna. In consequence of the war between England and France,
the discovery was later in reaching Paris; but, its importance once
realized, it spread rapidly over France, Spain and Italy.
A few of the incidents connected with its extension may be mentioned.
Perhaps the most striking is the expedition which was sent out by the
court of Spain in 1803, for the purpose of diffusing cow-pox through all
the Spanish possessions in the Old and New Worlds, and which returned in
three years, having circumnavigated the globe, and succeeded beyond its
utmost expectations. Clergymen in Geneva and Holland urged vaccination
upon their parishioners from the pulpit; in Sicily, South America and
Naples religious processions were formed for the purpose of receiving
it; the anniversary of Jenner's birthday, or of the successful
vaccination of James Phipps, was for many years celebrated as a feast in
Germany; and the empress of Russia caused the first child operated upon
to receive the name of Vaccinov, and to be educated at the public
expense. About the close of the year 1801 Jenner's friends in
Gloucestershire presented him with a small service of plate as a
testimonial of the esteem in which they held his discovery. This was
intended merely as a preliminary to the presenting of a petition to
parliament for a grant. The petition was presented in 1802, and was
referred to a committee, of which the investigations resulted in a
report in favour of the grant, and ultimately in a vote of L10,000.
Towards the end of 1802 steps were taken to form a society for the
proper spread of vaccination in London, and the Royal Jennerian Society
was finally established, Jenner returning to town to preside at the
first meeting. This institution began very prosperously, more than
twelve thousand persons having been inoculated in the first eighteen
months, and with such effect that the deaths from small-pox, which for
the latter half of the 18th century had averaged 2018 annually, fell in
1804 to 622. Unfortunately the chief resident inoculator soon set
himself up as an authority opposed to Jenner, and this led to such
dissensions as caused the society to die out in 1808.
Jenner was led, by the language of the chancellor of the exchequer when
his grant was proposed, to attempt practice in London, but after a
year's trial he returned to Berkeley. His grant was not paid until 1804,
and then, after the deduction of about L1000 for fees, it did little
more than pay the expenses attendant upon his discovery. For he was so
thoroughly known everywhere as the discoverer of vaccination that, as he
himself said, he was "the vaccine clerk of the whole world." At the
same time he continued to vaccinate gratuitously all the poor who
applied to him on certain days, so that he sometimes had as many as
three hundred persons waiting at his door. Meanwhile honours began to
shower upon him from abroad: he was elected a member of almost all the
chief scientific societies on the continent of Europe, the first being
that of Gottingen, where he was proposed by J. F. Blumenbach. But
perhaps the most flattering proof of his influence was derived from
France. On one occasion, when he was endeavouring to obtain the release
of some of the unfortunate Englishmen who had been detained in France on
the sudden termination of the Peace of Amiens, Napoleon was about to
reject the petition, when Josephine uttered the name of Jenner. The
emperor paused and exclaimed: "Ah, we can refuse nothing to that name."
Somewhat later he did the same service to Englishmen confined in Mexico
and in Austria; and during the latter part of the great war persons
before leaving England would sometimes obtain certificates signed by him
which served as passports. In his own country his merits were less
recognized. His applications on behalf of French prisoners in England
were less successful; he never shared in any of the patronage at the
disposal of the government, and was even unable to obtain a living for
his nephew George.
In 1806 Lord Henry Petty (afterwards the marquess of Lansdowne) became
chancellor of the exchequer, and was so convinced of the inadequacy of
the former parliamentary grant that he proposed an address to the Crown,
praying that the college of physicians should be directed to report upon
the success of vaccination. Their report being strongly in its favour,
the then chancellor of the exchequer (Spencer Perceval) proposed that a
sum of L10,000 without any deductions should be paid to Jenner. The
anti-vaccinationists found but one advocate in the House of Commons; and
finally the sum was raised to L20,000. Jenner, however, at the same time
had the mortification of learning that government did not intend to take
any steps towards checking small-pox inoculation, which so persistently
kept up that disease. About the same time a subscription for his benefit
was begun in India, where his discovery had been gratefully received,
but the full amount of this (L7383) only reached him in 1812.
The Royal Jennerian Society having failed, the national vaccine
establishment was founded, for the extension of vaccination, in 1808.
Jenner spent five months in London for the purpose of organizing it, but
was then obliged, by the dangerous illness of one of his sons, to return
to Berkeley. He had been appointed director of the institution; but he
had no sooner left London than Sir Lucas Pepys, president of the college
of physicians, neglected his recommendations, and formed the board out
of the officials of that college and the college of surgeons. Jenner at
once resigned his post as director, though he continued to give the
benefit of his advice whenever it was needed, and this resignation was a
bitter mortification to him. In 1810 his eldest son died, and Jenner's
grief at his loss, and his incessant labours, materially affected his
health. In 1813 the university of Oxford conferred on him the degree of
M.D. It was believed that this would lead to his election into the
college of physicians, but that learned body decided that he could not
be admitted until he had undergone an examination in classics. This
Jenner at once refused; to brush up his classics would, he said, "be
irksome beyond measure. I would not do it for a diadem. That indeed
would be a bauble; I would not do it for John Hunter's museum."
He visited London for the last time in 1814, when he was presented to
the Allied Sovereigns and to most of the principal personages who
accompanied them. In the next year his wife's death was the signal for
him to retire from public life: he never left Berkeley again, except for
a day or two, as long as he lived. He found sufficient occupation for
the remainder of his life in collecting further evidence on some points
connected with his great discovery, and in his engagements as a
physician, a naturalist and a magistrate. In 1818 a severe epidemic of
small-pox prevailed, and fresh doubts were thrown on the efficacy of
vaccination, in part apparently owing to the bad quality of the vaccine
lymph employed. This caused Jenner much annoyance, which was relieved by
an able defence of the practice, written by Sir Gilbert Blane. But this
led him, in 1821, to send a circular letter to most of the medical men
in the kingdom inquiring into the effect of other skin diseases in
modifying the progress of cow-pox. A year later he published his last
work, _On the Influence of Artificial Eruptions in Certain Diseases_;
and in 1823 he presented his last paper--"On the Migration of Birds"--to
the Royal Society. On the 24th of January 1823 he retired to rest
apparently as well as usual, and next morning rose and came down to his
library, where he was found insensible on the floor, in a state of
apoplexy, and with the right side paralysed. He never rallied, and died
on the following morning.
A public subscription was set on foot, shortly after his death, by the
medical men of his county, for the purpose of erecting some memorial in
his honour, and with much difficulty a sufficient sum was raised to
enable a statue to be placed in Gloucester Cathedral. In 1850 another
attempt was made to set up a monument to him; this appears to have
failed, but at length, in 1858, a statue of him was erected by public
subscription in London.
Jenner's life was written by the intimate friend of his later years,
Dr John Baron of Gloucester (2 vols., 1827, 1838). See also
Vaccination.
JENNER, SIR WILLIAM, BART. (1815-1898), English physician, was born at
Chatham on the 30th of January 1815, and educated at University College,
London. He became M.R.C.S. in 1837, and F.R.C.P. in 1852, and in 1844
took the London M.D. In 1847 he began at the London fever hospital
investigations into cases of "continued" fever which enabled him finally
to make the distinction between typhus and typhoid on which his
reputation as a pathologist principally rests. In 1849 he was appointed
professor of pathological anatomy at University College, and also
assistant physician to University College Hospital, where he afterwards
became physician (1854-1876) and consulting physician (1879), besides
holding similar appointments at other hospitals. He was also
successively Holme professor of clinical medicine and professor of the
principles and practice of medicine at University College. He was
president of the college of physicians (1881-1888); he was elected
F.R.S. in 1864, and received honorary degrees from Oxford, Cambridge and
Edinburgh. In 1861 he was appointed physician extraordinary, and in 1862
physician in ordinary, to Queen Victoria, and in 1863 physician in
ordinary to the prince of Wales; he attended both the prince consort and
the prince of Wales in their attacks of typhoid fever. In 1868 he was
created a baronet. As a consultant Sir William Jenner had a great
reputation, and he left a large fortune when he died, at Bishop's
Waltham, Hants, on the 11th of December 1898, having then retired from
practice for eight years owing to failing health.
JENNET, a small Spanish horse; the word is sometimes applied in English
to a mule, the offspring of a she-ass and a stallion. Jennet comes,
through Fr. _genet_, from Span, _jinete_, a light horseman who rides _a
la gineta_, explained as "with his legs tucked up." The name is taken to
be a corruption of the Arabic Zenata, a Berber tribe famed for its
cavalry. English and French transferred the word from the rider to his
horse, a meaning which the word has only acquired in Spain in modern
times.
JENOLAN CAVES, a series of remarkable caverns in Roxburgh county, New
South Wales, Australia; 113 m. W. by N. of Sydney, and 36 m. from
Tarana, which is served by railway. They are the most celebrated of
several similar groups in the limestone of the country; they have not
yielded fossils of great interest, but the stalactitic formations,
sometimes pure white, are of extraordinary beauty. The caves have been
rendered easily accessible to visitors and lighted by electricity.
JENSEN, WILHELM (1837- ), German author, was born at Heiligenhafen in
Holstein on the 15th of February 1837, the son of a local Danish
magistrate, who came of old patrician Frisian stock. After attending the
classical schools at Kiel and Lubeck, Jensen studied medicine at the
universities of Kiel, Wurzburg and Breslau. He, however, abandoned the
medical profession for that of letters, and after engaging for some
years in individual private study proceeded to Munich, where he
associated with men of letters. After a residence in Stuttgart
(1865-1869), where for a short time he conducted the _Schwabische
Volks-Zeitung_, he became editor in Flensburg of the _Norddeutsche
Zeitung_. In 1872 he again returned to Kiel, lived from 1876 to 1888 in
Freiburg im Breisgau, and since 1888 has been resident in Munich.
Jensen is perhaps the most fertile of modern German writers of
fiction, more than one hundred works having proceeded from his pen;
but only comparatively few of them have caught the public taste; such
are the novels, _Karin von Schweden_ (Berlin, 1878); _Die braune
Erica_ (Berlin, 1868); and the tale, _Die Pfeifer von Dusenbach, Eine
Geschichte aus dem Elsass_ (1884). Among others may be mentioned:
_Barthenia_ (Berlin, 1877); _Gotz und Gisela_ (Berlin, 1886);
_Heimkunft_ (Dresden, 1894); _Aus See und Sand_ (Dresden, 1897); _Luv
und Lee_ (Berlin, 1897); and the narratives, _Aus den Tagen der Hansa_
(Leipzig, 1885); _Aus stiller Zeit_ (Berlin, 1881-1885); and _Heimath_
(1901). Jensen also published some tragedies, among which _Dido_
(Berlin, 1870) and _Der Kampf fur's Reich_ (Freiburg im Br., 1884) may
be mentioned.
JENYNS, SOAME (1704-1787), English author, was born in London on the 1st
of January 1704, and was educated at St John's College, Cambridge. In
1742 he was chosen M.P. for Cambridgeshire, in which his property lay,
and he afterwards sat for the borough of Dunwich and the town of
Cambridge. From 1755 to 1780 he was one of the commissioners of the
board of trade. He died on the 18th of December 1787.
For the measure of literary repute which he enjoyed during his life
Jenyns was indebted as much to his wealth and social standing as to his
accomplishments and talents, though both were considerable. His poetical
works, the _Art of Dancing_ (1727) and _Miscellanies_ (1770), contain
many passages graceful and lively though occasionally verging on
licence. The first of his prose works was his _Free Inquiry into the
Nature and Origin of Evil_ (1756). This essay was severely criticized on
its appearance, especially by Samuel Johnson in the _Literary Magazine_.
Johnson, in a slashing review--the best paper of the kind he ever
wrote--condemned the book as a slight and shallow attempt to solve one
of the most difficult of moral problems. Jenyns, a gentle and amiable
man in the main, was extremely irritated by his failure. He put forth a
second edition of his work, prefaced by a vindication, and tried to take
vengeance on Johnson after his death by a sarcastic epitaph.[1] In 1776
Jenyns published his _View of the Internal Evidence of the Christian
Religion_. Though at one period of his life he had affected a kind of
deistic scepticism, he had now returned to orthodoxy, and there seems no
reason to doubt his sincerity, questioned at the time, in defending
Christianity on the ground of its total variance with the principles of
human reason. The work was deservedly praised in its day for its
literary merits, but is so plainly the production of an amateur in
theology that as a scientific treatise it is valueless.
A collected edition of the works of Jenyns appeared in 1790, with a
biography by Charles Nalson Cole. There are several references to him
in Boswell's _Johnson_.
FOOTNOTE:
[1] Two lines will suffice:--
Boswell and Thrale, retailers of his wit,
Will tell you how he wrote, and talk'd, and cough'd, and spit.
JEOPARDY, a term meaning risk or danger of death, loss or other injury.
The word, in Mid. Eng. _juparti_, _jeupartie_, &c., was adapted from O.
Fr. _ju_, later _jeu_, and _parti_, even game, in medieval Latin _jocus
partitus_. This term was originally used of a problem in chess or of a
stage in any other game at which the chances of success or failure are
evenly divided between the players. It was thus early transformed to any
state of uncertainty.
JEPHSON, ROBERT (1736-1803), British dramatist, was born in Ireland.
After serving for some years in the British army, he retired with the
rank of captain, and lived in England, where he was the friend of
Garrick, Reynolds, Goldsmith, Johnson, Burke, Burney and Charles
Townshend. His appointment as master of the horse to the lord-lieutenant
of Ireland took him back to Dublin. He published, in the _Mercury_
newspaper a series of articles in defence of the lord-lieutenant's
administration which were afterwards collected and issued in book form
under the title of _The Bachelor, or Speculations of Jeoffry Wagstaffe_.
A pension of L300, afterwards doubled, was granted him, and he held his
appointment under twelve succeeding viceroys. From 1775 he was engaged
in the writing of plays. Among others, his tragedy _Braganza_ was
successfully performed at Drury Lane in 1775, _Conspiracy_ in 1796, _The
Law of Lombardy_ in 1779, and _The Count of Narbonne_ at Covent Garden
in 1781. In 1794 he published an heroic poem _Roman Portraits_, and _The
Confessions of Jacques Baptiste Couteau_, a satire on the excesses of
the French Revolution. He died at Blackrock, near Dublin, on the 31st of
May 1803.
JEPHTHAH, one of the judges of Israel, in the Bible, was an illegitimate
son of Gilead, and, being expelled from his father's house by his lawful
brethren, took refuge in the Syrian land of Tob, where he gathered
around him a powerful band of homeless men like himself. The Ammonites
pressing hard on his countrymen, the elders of Gilead called for his
help, which he consented to give on condition that in the event of
victory he should be made their head (Judg. xi. 1-xii. 7). His name is
best known in history and literature in connexion with his vow, which
led to the sacrifice of his daughter on his successful return. The
reluctance shown by many writers in accepting the plain sense of the
narrative on this point proceeds to a large extent on unwarranted
assumptions as to the stage of ethical development which had been
reached in Israel in the period of the judges, or at the time when the
narrative took shape. The annual lamentation of the women for her death
suggests a mythical origin (see Adonis). Attached to the narrative is an
account of a quarrel between Jephthah and the Ephraimites. The latter
were defeated, and their retreat was cut off by the Gileadites, who had
seized the fords of the Jordan. As the fugitives attempted to cross they
were bidden to say "shibboleth" ("flood" or "ear of corn"), and those
who said "sibboleth" (the Ephraimites apparently being unused to _sh_),
were at once put to death. In this way 42,000 of the tribe were
killed.[1]
The loose connexion between this and the main narrative, as also the
lengthy speech to the children of Ammon (xi. 14-27), which really
relates to Moab, has led some writers to infer that two distinct
heroes and situations have been combined. See further the commentaries
on the Book of Judges (q.v.), and Cheyne, _Ency. Bib._, art.
"Jephthah." (S. A. C.)
FOOTNOTE:
[1] Similarly a Syrian story tells how the Druses came to slay
Ibrahim Pasha's troops, and desiring to spare the Syrians ordered the
men to say _gamal_ (camel). As the Syrians pronounce the _g_ soft,
and the Egyptians the _g_, hard, the former were easily identified.
Other examples from the East will be found in H. C. Kay, _Yaman_, p.
36, and in S. Lane-Poole, _History of Egypt in the Middle Ages_, p.
300. Also, at the Sicilian Vespers (March 13, 1282) the French were
made to betray themselves by their pronunciation of _ceci_ and
_ciceri_ (Ital. _c_ like _tch_; Fr. _c_ like _s_).
JERAHMEEL, (Heb. "May God pity"), in the Bible, a clan which with Caleb,
the Kenites and others, occupied the southern steppes of Palestine,
probably in the district around Arad, about 17 m. S. of Hebron. It was
on friendly terms with David during his residence at Ziklag (1 Sam. xxx.
29), and it was apparently in his reign that the various elements of the
south were united and were reckoned to Israel. This is expressed in the
chronicler's genealogies which make Jerahmeel and Caleb descendants of
Judah (see DAVID; JUDAH).
On the names in 1 Chron. ii. see S. A. Cook, _Ency. Bib._, col. 2363
seq. Peleth (v. 33) may be the origin of the Pelethites (2 Sam. viii.
18; xv. 18; xx. 7), and since the name occurs in the revolt of Korah
(Num. xvi. 1), it is possible that Jerahmeel, like Caleb and the
Kenites, had moved northwards from Kadesh. Samuel (q.v.) was of
Jerahmeel (1 Sam. i. 1; Septuagint), and the consecutive Jerahmeelite
names Nathan and Zabad (1 Chron. ii. 36) have been associated with the
prophet and officer (Zabud, 1 Kings iv. 5) of the times of David and
Solomon respectively. The association of Samuel and Nathan with this
clan, if correct, is a further illustration of the importance of the
south for the growth of biblical history (see KENITES and RECHABITES).
The _Chronicles of Jerahmeel_ (M. Gaster, _Oriental Translation Fund_,
1899) is a late production containing a number of apocryphal Jewish
legends of no historical value. (S. A. C.)
JERBA, an island off the coast of North Africa in the Gulf of Gabes,
forming part of the regency of Tunisia. It is separated from the
mainland by two narrow straits, and save for these channels blocks the
entrance to a large bight identified with the Lake Triton of the Romans.
The western strait, opening into the Gulf of Gabes, is a mile and a half
broad; the eastern strait is wider, but at low water it is possible to
cross to the mainland by the Tarik-el-Jemil (road of the camel). The
island is irregular in outline, its greatest length and breadth being
some 20 m., and its area 425 sq. m. It contains neither rivers nor
springs, but is supplied with water by wells and cisterns. It is flat
and well wooded with date palms and olive trees. Pop. 35,000 to 40,000,
the bulk of the inhabitants being Berbers. Though many of them have
adopted Arabic a Berber idiom is commonly spoken. An affinity exists
between the Berbers of Jerba and the Beni Mzab. About 3000 Jews live
apart in villages of their own, and some 400 Europeans, chiefly Maltese
and Greeks, are settled in the island. Jerba has a considerable
reputation for the manufacture of the woollen tissues interwoven with
silk which are known as burnous stuffs; a market for the sale of sponges
is held from November till March; and there is a considerable export
trade in olives, dates, figs and other fruits. The capital, trading
centre and usual landing-place are at Haumt-es-Suk (market quarter) on
the north side of the island (pop. 2500). Here are a medieval fort,
built by the Spaniards in 1284, and a modern fort, garrisoned by the
French. Gallala, to the south, is noted for the manufacture of a kind of
white pottery, much prized. At El Kantara (the bridge) on the eastern
strait, and formerly connected with the mainland by a causeway, are
extensive ruins of a Roman city--probably those of Meninx, once a
flourishing seaport.
Jerba is the Lotophagitis or Lotus-eaters' Island of the Greek and Roman
geographers, and is also identified with the Brachion of Scylax. The
modern name appears as early as the 4th century in Sextus Aurelius
Victor. In the middle ages the possession of Jerba was contested by the
Normans of Sicily, the Spaniards and the Turks, the Turks proving
victorious. In 1560 after the destruction of the Spanish fleet off the
coast of the island by Piali Pasha and the corsair Dragut the Spanish
garrison at Haumt-es-Suk was exterminated, and a pyramid, 10 ft. broad
at the base and 20 ft. high, was built of their skulls and other bones.
In 1848 this pyramid was pulled down at the instance of the Christian
community, and the bones were buried in the Catholic cemetery. In
general, from the Arab invasion in the 7th century Jerba shared the
fortunes of Tunisia.
See H. Barth, _Wanderungen durch die Kustenl. des Mittelmeeres_
(Berlin, 1849); and H. von Maltzan, _Reise in Tunis und Tripolis_
(Leipzig, 1870).
JERBOA, properly the name of an Arabian and North African jumping rodent
mammal, _Jaculus aegyptius_ (also known as _Jaculus_, or _Dipus_,
_jaculus_) typifying the family _Jaculidae_ (or _Dipodidae_), but in a
wider sense applied to most of the representatives of that family, which
are widely distributed over the desert and semi-desert tracts of the Old
World, although unknown in Africa south of the Sahara. In all the more
typical members of the family the three middle metatarsals of the long
hind-legs are fused into a cannon-bone; and in the true jerboas of the
genus _Jaculus_ the two lateral toes, with their supporting metatarsals,
are lost, although they are present in the alactagas (_Alactaga_), in
which, however, as in certain allied genera, only the three middle toes
are functional. As regards the true jerboas, there is a curious
resemblance in the structure of their hind-legs to that obtaining among
birds. In both groups, for instance, the lower part of the hind-leg is
formed by a long, slender cannon-bone, or metatarsus, terminating
inferiorly in triple condyles for the three long and sharply clawed
toes, the resemblance being increased by the fact that in both cases the
small bone of the leg (fibula) is fused with the large one (tibia). It
may also be noticed that in mammals and birds which hop on two legs,
such as jerboas, kangaroos, thrushes and finches, the proportionate
length of the thigh-bone or femur to the tibia and foot (metatarsus and
toes) is constant, being 2 to 5; in animals, on the other hand, such as
hares, horses and frogs, which use all four feet, the corresponding
lengths are 4 to 7. The resemblance between the jerboa's and the bird's
skeleton is owing to adaptation to a similar mode of existence. In the
young jerboa the proportion of the femur to the rest of the leg is the
same as in ordinary running animals. Further, at an early stage of
development the fibula is a complete and separate bone, while the three
metatarsals, which subsequently fuse together to form the cannon-bone,
are likewise separate. In addition to their long hind and short fore
limbs, jerboas are mostly characterized by their silky coats--of a fawn
colour to harmonize with their desert surroundings--their large eyes,
and long tails and ears. As is always the case with large-eared animals,
the tympanic bullae of the skull are of unusually large size; the size
varying in the different genera according to that of the ears. (For the
characteristics of the family and of its more important generic
representatives, see RODENTIA.)
In the Egyptian jerboa the length of the body is 8 in., and that of
the tail, which is long, cylindrical and covered with short hair
terminated by a tuft, 10 in. The five-toed front limbs are extremely
short, while the hind pair are six times as long. When about to
spring, this jerboa raises its body by means of the hinder
extremities, and supports itself at the same time upon its tail, while
the fore-feet are so closely pressed to the breast as to be scarcely
visible, which doubtless suggested the name _Dipus_, or two-footed. It
then leaps into the air and alights upon its four feet, but
instantaneously erecting itself, it makes another spring, and so on in
such rapid succession as to appear as if rather flying than running.
It is a gregarious animal, living in considerable colonies in burrows,
which it excavates with its nails and teeth in the sandy soil of Egypt
and Arabia. In these it remains during great part of the day, emerging
at night in search of the herbs on which it feeds. It is exceedingly
shy, and this, together with its extraordinary agility, renders it
difficult to capture. The Arabs, however, succeed by closing up all
the exits from the burrows with a single exception, by which the
rodents are forced to escape, and over which a net is placed for their
capture. When confined, they will gnaw through the hardest wood in
order to make their escape. The Persian jerboa (_Alactaga indica_) is
also a nocturnal burrowing animal, feeding chiefly on grain, which it
stores up in underground repositories, closing these when full, and
only drawing upon them when the supply of food above ground is
exhausted (see also JUMPING MOUSE). (R. L.*)
JERDAN, WILLIAM (1782-1869), Scottish journalist, was born on the 16th
of April 1782, at Kelso, Scotland. During the years between 1799 and
1806 he spent short periods in a country lawyer's office, a London West
India merchant's counting-house, an Edinburgh solicitor's chambers, and
held the position of surgeon's mate on board H.M. guardship "Gladiator"
in Portsmouth Harbour, under his uncle, who was surgeon. He went to
London in 1806, and became a newspaper reporter. He was in the lobby of
the House of Commons on the 11th of May 1812 when Spencer Perceval was
shot, and was the first to seize the assassin. By 1812 he had become
editor of _The Sun_, a semi-official Tory paper; he occasionally
inserted literary articles, then quite an unusual proceeding; but a
quarrel with the chief proprietor brought that engagement to a close in
1817. He passed next to the editor's chair of the _Literary Gazette_,
which he conducted with success for thirty-four years. Jerdan's position
as editor brought him into contact with many distinguished writers. An
account of his friends, among whom Canning was a special intimate, is to
be found in his _Men I have Known_ (1866). When Jerdan retired in 1850
from the editorship of the _Literary Gazette_ his pecuniary affairs were
far from satisfactory. A testimonial of over L900 was subscribed by his
friends; and in 1853 a government pension of 100 guineas was conferred
on him by Lord Aberdeen. He published his _Autobiography_ in 1852-1853,
and died on the 11th of July 1869.
JEREMIAH, in the Bible, the last pre-exilic prophet (fl. 626-586 B.C.?),
son of Hilkiah.
_Early Days of Jeremiah._--There must anciently have existed one or more
prose works on Jeremiah and his times, written partly to do honour to
the prophet, partly to propagate those views respecting Israel's past
with which the name of Jeremiah was associated. Some fragments of this
work (or these works) have come down to us; they greatly add to the
popularity of the Book of Jeremiah. Strict historical truth we must not
ask of them, but they do give us what was believed concerning Jeremiah
in the following age, and we must believe that the personality so
honoured was an extraordinary one. We have also a number of genuine
prophecies which admit us into Jeremiah's inner nature. These are our
best authorities, but they are deficient in concrete facts. By birth
Jeremiah was a countryman; he came of a priestly family whose estate lay
at Anathoth "in the land of Benjamin" (xxxii. 3; cf. i. 1). He came
forward as a prophet in the thirteenth year of Josiah (626 B.C.), still
young but irresistibly impelled. Unfortunately the account of the call
and of the object of the divine caller come to us from a later hand (ch.
i.), but we can well believe that the concrete fact which the prophetic
call illuminated was an impending blow to the state (i. 13-16; cf. ch.
iv.). What the blow exactly was is disputed,[1] but it is certain that
Jeremiah saw the gathering storm and anticipated its result, while the
statesmen were still wrapped in a false security. Five years later came
the reform movement produced by the "finding" of the "book of the law"
in the Temple in 621 B.C. (2 Kings xxii. 8), and some critics have
gathered from Jer. xi. 1-8 that Jeremiah joined the ranks of those who
publicly supported this book in Jerusalem and elsewhere. To others this
view appears in itself improbable. How can a man like Jeremiah have
advocated any such panacea? He was indeed not at first a complete
pessimist, but to be a preacher of Deuteronomy required a sanguine
temper which a prophet of the school of Isaiah could not possess.
Besides, there is a famous passage (viii. 8, see R.V.) in which Jeremiah
delivers a vehement attack upon the "scribes" (or, as we might render,
"bookmen") and their "false pen." If, as Wellhausen and Duhm suppose,
this refers to Deuteronomy (i.e. the original Deuteronomy), the
incorrectness of the theory referred to is proved. And even if we think
that the phraseology of viii. 8 applies rather to a body of writings
than to a single book, yet there is no good ground (xi. 1-8 and xxxiv.
12 being of doubtful origin) for supposing that Jeremiah would have
excepted Deuteronomy from his condemnation.
_Stages of his Development._--At first our prophet was not altogether a
pessimist. He aspired to convince the better minds that the only hope
for Israelites, as well as for Israel, lay in "returning" to the true
Yahweh, a deity who was no mere national god, and was not to be cajoled
by the punctual offering of costly sacrifices. When Jeremiah wrote iv.
1-4 he evidently considered that the judgment could even then be
averted. Afterwards he became less hopeful, and it was perhaps a closer
acquaintance with the manners of the capital that served to
disillusionize him. He began his work at Anathoth, but v. 1-5 (as Duhm
points out) seems to come from one who has just now for the first time
"run to and fro in the streets of Jerusalem," observing and observed.
And what is the result of his expedition? That he cannot find a single
just and honest man; that high and low, rich and poor, are all ignorant
of the true method of worshipping God ("the way of Yahweh," v. 4). It
would seem as if Anathoth were less corrupt than the capital, the moral
state of which so shocked Jeremiah. And yet he does not really go beyond
the great city-prophet Isaiah who calls the men of Jerusalem "a people
of Gomorrah" (i. 10). With all reverence, an historical student has to
deduct something from both these statements. It is true that commercial
prosperity had put a severe strain on the old morality, and that contact
with other peoples, as well as the course of political history, had
appeared to lower the position of the God of Israel in relation to other
gods. Still, some adherents of the old Israelitish moral and religious
standards must have survived, only they were not to be found in the
chief places of concourse, but as a rule in coteries which handed on the
traditions of Amos and Isaiah in sorrowful retirement.
_Danger of Book Religion._--Probably, too, even in the highest class
there were some who had a moral sympathy with Jeremiah; otherwise we can
hardly account for the contents of Deuteronomy, at least if the book
"found" in the Temple at all resembled the central portion of our
Deuteronomy. And the assumption seems to be confirmed by the respectful
attitude of certain "elders of the land" in xxvi. 17 sqq., and of the
"princes" in xxxvi. 19, 25, towards Jeremiah, which may, at any rate in
part, have been due to the recent reform movement. If therefore Jeremiah
aimed at Deuteronomy in the severe language of viii. 8, he went too far.
History shows that book religion has special dangers of its own.[2]
Nevertheless the same incorruptible adviser also shows that book
religion may be necessary as an educational instrument, and a compromise
between the two types of religion is without historical precedent.
_Reaction: Opposition to Jeremiah._--This, however, could not as yet be
recognized by the friends of prophecy, even though it seemed for a time
as if the claims of book religion were rebuffed by facts. The death of
the pious king Josiah at Megiddo in 608 B.C. dashed the high hopes of
the "book-men," but meant no victory for Jeremiah. Its only result for
the majority was a falling back on the earlier popular cultus of the
Baals, and on the heathen customs introduced, or reintroduced, by
Josiah's grandfather, Manasseh. Would that we possessed the section of
the prophet's biography which described his attitude immediately after
the news of the battle of Megiddo! Let us, however, be thankful for what
we have, and notably for the detailed narratives in chs. xxvi. and
xxxvi. The former is dated in the beginning of the reign of Jehoiakim,
though Wellhausen suspects that the date is a mistake, and that the real
occasion was the death of Josiah. The one clear-sighted patriot saw the
full meaning of the tragedy of Megiddo, and for "prophesying against
this city"--secured, as men thought, by the Temple (vii. 4)--he was
accused by "the priests, the prophets, and all the people" of high
treason. But the divinity which hedged a prophet saved him. The
"princes," supported by certain "elders" and by "the people" (quick to
change their leaders), succeeded in quashing the accusation and setting
the prophet free. No king, be it observed, is mentioned. The latter
narrative is still more exciting. In the fourth year of Jehoiakim (= the
first of Nebuchadrezzar, xxv. 1) Jeremiah was bidden to write down "all
the words that Yahweh had spoken to him against Jerusalem (so LXX.),
Judah and all the nations from the days of Josiah onwards" (xxxvi. 2).
So at least the authors of Jeremiah's biography tell us. They add that
in the next year Jeremiah's scribe Baruch read the prophecies of
Jeremiah first to the people assembled in the Temple, then to the
"princes," and then to the king, who decided his own future policy by
burning Baruch's roll in the brazier. We cannot, however, bind ourselves
to this tradition. Much more probably the prophecy was virtually a new
one (i.e. even if some old passages were repeated yet the setting was
new), and the burden of the prophecy was "The king of Babylon shall come
and destroy this land."[3] We cannot therefore assent to the judgment
that "we have, at least as regards [the] oldest portions [of the book]
information considerably more specific than is usual in the case of the
writings of the prophets."[4]
_Fall of the State._--Under Zedekiah the prophet was less fortunate.
Such was the tension of feeling that the "princes," who were formerly
friendly to Jeremiah, now took up an attitude of decided hostility to
him. At last they had him consigned to a miry dungeon, and it was the
king who (at the instance of the Cushite Ebed-melech) intervened for his
relief, though he remained a prisoner in other quarters till the fall of
Jerusalem (586 B.C.). Nebuchadrezzar, who is assumed to have heard of
Jeremiah's constant recommendations of submission, gave him the choice
either of going to Babylon or of remaining in the country (chs. xxxviii.
seq.). He chose the latter and resided with Gedaliah, the native
governor, at Mizpah. On the murder of Gedaliah he was carried to Mizraim
or Egypt, or perhaps to the land of Mizrim in north Arabia--against his
will (chs. xl.-xliii.). How far all this is correct we know not. The
graphic style of a narrative is no sufficient proof of its truth.
Conceivably enough the story of Jeremiah's journey to Egypt (or Mizrim)
may have been imagined to supply a background for the artificial
prophecies ascribed to Jeremiah in chs. xlvi.-li. A legend in Jerome and
Epiphanius states that he was stoned to death at Daphnae, but the
biography, though not averse from horrors, does not mention this.
_A Patriot?_--Was Jeremiah really a patriot? The question has been
variously answered. He was not a Phocion, for he never became the tool
of a foreign power. To say with Winckler[5] that he was "a decided
adherent of the Chaldean party" is to go beyond the evidence. He did
indeed counsel submission, but only because his detachment from party
gave him a clearness of vision (cf. xxxviii. 17, 18) which the
politicians lacked. How he suffered in his uphill course he has told us
himself (xv. 10-21). In after ages the oppressed people saw in his love
for Israel and his patient resignation their own realized ideal. "And
Onias said, This is the lover of the brethren, he who prayeth much for
the people and the holy city, Jeremiah the prophet of God" (2 Macc. xv.
14). And in proportion as the popular belief in Jeremiah rose, fresh
prophecies were added to the book (notably those of the new covenant and
of the restoration of the people after seventy years) to justify it.
Professor N. Schmidt has gone further into the character of this
sympathetic prophet, _Ency. Bib._ "Jeremiah," S 5.
_Jeremiah's Prophecies._--It has been said above that our best
authorities are Jeremiah's own prophecies. Which may these be? Before
answering we must again point out (see also ISAIAH) that the records
of the pre-exilic prophets came down in a fragmentary form, and that
these fragments needed much supplementing to adapt them to the use of
post-exilic readers. In Jeremiah, as in Isaiah, we must constantly ask
to what age do the phraseology, the ideas and the implied
circumstances most naturally point? According to Duhm there are many
passages in which metre (see also AMOS) may also be a factor in our
critical conclusions. Jeremiah, he thinks, always uses the same metre.
Giesebrecht, on the other hand, maintains that there are passages
which are certainly Jeremiah's, but which are not in what Duhm calls
Jeremiah's metre; Giesebrecht also, himself rather conservative,
considers Duhm remarkably free with his emendations. There has also to
be considered whether the text of the poetical passages has not often
become corrupt, not only from ordinary causes but through the
misunderstanding and misreading of north Arabian names on the part of
late scribes and editors, the danger to Judah from north Arabia being
(it is held) not less in pre-exilic times than the danger from Assyria
and Babylonia, so that references to north Arabia are only to be
expected. To bring educated readers into touch with critical workers
it is needful to acquaint them with these various points, the neglect
of any one of which may to some extent injure the results of
criticism.
It is a new stage of criticism on which we have entered, so that no
single critic can be reckoned as _the_ authority on Jeremiah. But
since the results of the higher criticism depend on the soundness and
thoroughness of the criticism called "lower," and since Duhm has the
advantage of being exceptionally free from that exaggerated respect
for the letters of the traditional text which has survived the
destruction of the old superstitious veneration for the vowel-points,
it may be best to give the student his "higher critical" results,
dated 1901. Let us premise, however, that the portions mentioned in
the 9th edition of the _Ency. Brit._ as having been "entirely or in
part denied," to Jeremiah, viz. x. 1-16; xxx.; xxxiii.; l.-li. and
lii., are still regarded in their present form as non-Jeremianic. The
question which next awaits decision is whether any part of the booklet
on foreign nations (xxv., xlvi.-li.) can safely be regarded as
Jeremianic. Giesebrecht still asserts the genuineness of xxv. 15-24
(apart from glosses), xlvii. (in the main) and xlix. 7, 8, 10, 11.
Against these views see N. Schmidt, _Ency. Bib._, col. 2384.
Let us now listen to Duhm, who analyses the book into six groups of
passages. These are (a) i.-xxv., the "words of Jeremiah." (i. 1); (b)
xxvi.-xxix., passages from Baruch's biography of Jeremiah; (c)
xxx.-xxxi., the book of the future of Israel and Judah; (d)
xxxii.-xlv., from Baruch; (e) xlvi.-li., the prophecies "concerning
the nations";[6] (f) lii., historical appendix. Upon examining these
groups we find that besides a prose letter (ch. xxix.), about sixty
poetical pieces may be Jeremiah's. A: Anathoth passages before 621,
(a) ii. 2b, 3, 14-28; ii. 29-37; iii. 1-5; iii. 12b, 13, 19, 20; iii.
21-25; iv. i, 3, 4; these form a cycle, (b) xxxi. 2-6; 15-20; 21, 22;
another cycle. (c) iv. 5-8; 11b, 12a, 13, 15-17a; 19-21; 23-26; 29-31;
visions and "auditions" of the impending invasion. B: Jerusalem
passages. (d) v. 1-6a; 6b-9; 10-17; vi. 1-5; 6b-8; 9-14; 16, 17, 20;
22-26a; 27-30; vii. 28, 29; viii. 4-7a; 8, 9, 13; 14-17; viii. 18-23;
ix. 1-8; 9 (short song); 16-18; 19-21; x. 19, 20, 22; reign of Josiah,
strong personal element. (e) xxii. 10 (Jehoahaz). xxii. 13-17;
probably too xi. 15, 16; xii. 7-12 (Jehoiakim). xxii. 18, 19, perhaps
too xxii. 6b, 7; 20-23; and the cycle xiii. 15, 16; 17; 18, 19; 20,
21a, 22-25a, 26, 27 (later, Jehoiakim). xxii. 24; xxii. 28
(Jehoiachin). (f) Later poems. xiv. 2-10; xv. 5-9; xvi. 5-7; xviii.
13-17; xxiii. 9-12; 13-15; xi. 18-20; xv. 10-12; 15-19a, and 20, 21;
xvii. 9, 10, 14, 16, 17; xviii. 18-20; xx. 7-11; xx. 14-18; xiv. 17,
18; xvii. 1-4; xxxviii. 24; assigned to the close of Zedekiah's time.
_Two Recensions of the Text._--It has often been said that we have
virtually two recensions of the text, that represented by the
Septuagint and the Massoretic text, and critics have taken different
sides, some for one and some for the other. "Recension," however, is a
bad term; it implies that the two texts which undeniably exist were
the result of revising and editing according to definite critical
principles. Such, however, is not the case. It is true that "there are
(in the LXX.) many omissions of words, sentences, verses and whole
passages, in fact, that altogether about 2700 words are wanting, or
the eighth part of the Massoretic text" (Bleek). It may also be
admitted that the scribes who produced the Hebrew basis of the
Septuagint version, conscious of the unsettled state of the text, did
not shrink from what they considered a justifiable simplification. But
we must also grant that those from whom the "written" Hebrew text
proceeds allowed themselves to fill up and to repeat without any
sufficient warrant. In each case in which there is a genuine
difference of reading between the two texts, it is for the critic to
decide; often, however, he will have to seek to go behind what both
the texts present in order to constitute a truer text than either.
Here is the great difficulty of the future. We may add to the credit
of the Septuagint that the position given to the prophecies on "the
nations" (chs. xlvi.-li. in our Bible) in the Septuagint is probably
more original than that in the Massoretic text. On this point see
especially Schmidt, _Ency. Bib._ "Jeremiah (Book)" SS 6 and 21;
Davidson, Hastings's _Dict. Bible_, ii. 573b-575; Driver,
_Introduction_ (8th ed.), pp. 269, 270.
The best German commentary is that of Cornill (1905). A skilful
translation by Driver, with notes intended for ordinary students
(1906) should also be mentioned. (T. K. C.)
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Davidson (Hast., _D.B._, ii. 570 b) mentions two views. (1) The
foe might be "a creation of his moral presentiment and assigned to
the north as the cloudy region of mystery." (2) The more usual view
is that the Scythians (see Herod, i. 76, 103-106; iv. 1 ) are meant.
Neither of these views is satisfactory. The passage v. 15-17 is too
definite for (1), and as for (2), the idea of a threatened Scythian
invasion lacks a sufficient basis. Those who hold (2) have to suppose
that original references to the Scythians were retouched under the
impression of Chaldean invasions. Hence Cheyne's theory of a north
Arabian invasion from the land of Zaphon = Zibeon (Gen. xxxvi. 2,
14), i.e. Ishmael. Cf. N. Schmidt, _Ency. Bib._, Zibeon, "Scythians,"
S 8; Cheyne, _Critica Biblica_, part i. (Isaiah and Jeremiah).
[2] Cf. Ewald, _The Prophets_, Eng. trans., iii. 63, 64.
[3] Cheyne, _Ency. Brit._ (9th ed.,), "Jeremiah," suggests after
Gratz that the roll simply contained ch. xxv., omitting the most
obvious interpolations. Against this view see N. Schmidt, _Ency.
Bib._, "Jeremiah (Book)," S 8, who, however, accepts the negative
part of Cheyne's arguments.
[4] Driver, _Introd. to the Lit. of the O.T._ (6), p. 249.
[5] In Helmolt's _Weltgeschichte_, iii. 211.
[6] li. 59-64a, however, is a specimen of imaginative "Midrashic"
history. See Giesebrecht's monograph.
JEREMY, EPISTLE OF, an apocryphal book of the Old Testament. This letter
purports to have been written by Jeremiah to the exiles who were already
in Babylon or on the way thither. The author was a Hellenistic Jew, and
not improbably a Jew of Alexandria. His work, which shows little
literary skill, was written with a serious practical purpose. He veiled
his fierce attack on the idol gods of Egypt by holding up to derision
the idolatry of Babylon. The fact that Jeremiah (xxix. 1 sqq.) was known
to have written a letter of this nature naturally suggested to a
Hellenist, possibly of the 1st century B.C. or earlier, the idea of a
second epistolary undertaking, and other passages of Jeremiah's prophecy
(x. 1-12; xxix. 4-23) may have determined also its general character and
contents.
The writer warned the exiles that they were to remain in captivity for
seven generations; that they would there see the worship paid to idols,
from all participation in which they were to hold aloof; for that idols
were nothing save the work of men's hands, without the powers of speech,
hearing or self-preservation. They could not bless their worshippers
even in the smallest concerns of life; they were indifferent to moral
qualities, and were of less value than the commonest household objects,
and finally, "with rare irony, the author compared an idol to a
scarecrow (v. 70), impotent to protect, but deluding to the imagination"
(MARSHALL).
The date of the epistle is uncertain. It is believed by some scholars
to be referred to in 2 Macc. ii. 2, which says that Jeremiah charged
the exiles "not to forget the statutes of the Lord, neither to be led
astray in their minds when they saw images of gold and silver and the
adornment thereof." But the reference is disputed by Fritzsche,
Gifford, Shurer and others. The epistle was included in the Greek
canon. There was no question of its canonicity till the time of
Jerome, who termed it a pseudepigraph.
See Fritzsche, _Handb. zu den Apok._, 1851; Gifford, in _Speaker's
Apoc._ ii. 286-303; Marshall, in Hastings' _Dict. Bible_, ii. 578-579.
(R. H. C.)
JEREZ DE LA FRONTERA (formerly XERES), a town of southern Spain, in the
province of Cadiz, near the right bank of the river Guadalete, and on
the Seville-Cadiz railway, about 7 m. from the Atlantic coast. Pop.
(1900), 63,473. Jerez is built in the midst of an undulating plain of
great fertility. Its whitewashed houses, clean, broad streets, and
squares planted with trees extend far beyond the limits formerly
enclosed by the Moorish walls, almost entirely demolished. The principal
buildings are the 15th-century church of San Miguel, the 17th-century
collegiate church with its lofty bell-tower, the 16th-century town-hall,
superseded, for official purposes, by a modern edifice, the bull-ring,
and many hospitals, charitable institutions and schools, including
academies of law, medicine and commerce. But the most characteristic
features of Jerez are the huge _bodegas_, or wine-lodges, for the
manufacture and storage of sherry, and the vineyards, covering more than
150,000 acres, which surround it on all sides. The town is an important
market for grain, fruit and livestock, but its staple trade is in wine.
Sherry is also produced in other districts, but takes its name, formerly
written in English as _sherris_ or _xeres_, from Jerez. The demand for
sherry diminished very greatly during the last quarter of the 19th
century, especially in England, which had been the chief consumer. In
1872 the sherry shipped from Cadiz to Great Britain alone was valued at
L2,500,000; in 1902 the total export hardly amounted to one-fifth of
this sum. The wine trade, however, still brings a considerable profit,
and few towns of southern Spain display greater commercial activity than
Jerez. In the earlier part of the 18th century the neighbourhood
suffered severely from yellow fever; but it was rendered comparatively
healthy when in 1869 an aqueduct was opened to supply pure water.
Strikes and revolutionary disturbances have frequently retarded business
in more recent years.
Jerez has been variously identified with the Roman Municipium Seriense;
with Asido, perhaps the original of the Moorish Sherish; and with Hasta
Regia, a name which may survive in the designation of La Mesa de Asta, a
neighbouring hill. Jerez was taken from the Moors by Ferdinand III. of
Castile (1217-1252); but it was twice recaptured before Alphonso X.
finally occupied it in 1264. Towards the close of the 14th century it
received the title _de la Frontera_, i.e. "of the frontier," common to
several towns on the Moorish border.
JEREZ DE LOS CABALLEROS, a town of south-western Spain, in the province
of Badajoz, picturesquely situated on two heights overlooking the river
Ardila, a tributary of the Guadiana, 12 m. E. of the Portuguese
frontier. Pop. (1900), 10,271. The old town is surrounded by a Moorish
wall with six gates; the newer portion is well and regularly built, and
planted with numerous orange and other fruit trees. Owing to the lack of
railway communication Jerez is of little commercial importance; its
staple trade is in agricultural produce, especially in ham and bacon
from the large herds of swine which are reared in the surrounding oak
forests. The town is said to have been founded by Alphonso IX. of Leon
in 1229; in 1232 it was extended by his son St Ferdinand, who gave it to
the knights templar. Hence the name _Jerez de los Caballeros_, "Jerez of
the knights."
JERICHO ([Hebrew: Yricho, Yricho], once [Hebrew: Yrichoa], a word of
disputed meaning, whether "fragrant" or "moon [-god] city"), an
important town in the Jordan valley some 5 m. N. of the Dead Sea. The
references to it in the Pentateuch are confined to rough geographical
indications of the latitude of the trans-Jordanic camp of the Israelites
in Moab before their crossing of the river. This was the first Canaanite
city to be attacked and reduced by the victorious Israelites. The story
of its conquest is His Sundays were spent in the catacombs in
discovering graves of the martyrs and deciphering inscriptions. Pope
Liberius baptized him in 360; three years later the news of the death of
the emperor Julian came to Rome, and Christians felt relieved from a
great dread.
When his student days were over Jerome returned to Strido, but did not
stay there long. His character was formed. He was a scholar, with a
scholar's tastes and cravings for knowledge, easily excited, bent on
scholarly discoveries. From Strido he went to Aquileia, where he formed
some friendships among the monks of the large monastery, notably with
Rufinus, with whom he was destined to quarrel bitterly over the question
of Origen's orthodoxy and worth as a commentator; for Jerome was a man
who always sacrificed a friend to an opinion, and when he changed sides
in a controversy expected his acquaintances to follow him. From Aquileia
he went to Gaul (366-370), visiting in turn the principal places in that
country, from Narbonne and Toulouse in the south to Treves on the
north-east frontier. He stayed some time at Treves studying and
observing, and it was there that he first began to think seriously upon
sacred things. From Treves he returned to Strido, and from Strido to
Aquileia. He settled down to literary work in Aquileia (370-373) and
composed there his first original tract, _De muliere septies percussa_,
in the form of a letter to his friend Innocentius. Some dispute caused
him to leave Aquileia suddenly; and with a few companions, Innocentius,
Evagrius, and Heliodorus being among them, he started for a long tour in
the East. The epistle to Rufinus (3rd in Vallarsi's enumeration) tells
us the route. They went through Thrace, visiting Athens, Bithynia,
Galatia, Pontus, Cappadocia and Cilicia, to Antioch, Jerome observing
and making notes as they went. He was interested in the theological
disputes and schisms in Galatia, in the two languages spoken in Cilicia,
&c. At Antioch the party remained some time. Innocentius died of a
fever, and Jerome was dangerously ill. This illness induced a spiritual
change, and he resolved to renounce whatever kept him back from God. His
greatest temptation was the study of the literature of pagan Rome. In a
dream Christ reproached him with caring more to be a Ciceronian than a
Christian. He disliked the uncouth style of the Scriptures. "O Lord," he
prayed, "thou knowest that whenever I have and study secular MSS. I deny
thee," and he made a resolve henceforth to devote his scholarship to the
Holy Scripture. "David was to be henceforth his Simonides, Pindar and
Alcaeus, his Flaccus, Catullus and Severus." Fortified by these resolves
he betook himself to a hermit life in the wastes of Chalcis, S.E. from
Antioch (373-379). Chalcis was the Thebaid of Syria. Great numbers of
monks, each in solitary cell, spent lonely lives, scorched by the sun,
ill-clad and scantily fed, pondering on portions of Scripture or copying
MSS. to serve as objects of meditation. Jerome at once set himself to
such scholarly work as the place afforded. He discovered and copied
MSS., and began to study Hebrew. There also he wrote the life of St Paul
of Thebes, probably an imaginary tale embodying the facts of the monkish
life around him. Just then the Meletian schism, which arose over the
relation of the orthodox to Arian bishops and to those baptized by
Arians, distressed the church at Antioch (see MELETIUS OF ANTIOCH), and
Jerome as usual eagerly joined the fray. Here as elsewhere he had but
one rule to guide him in matters of doctrine and discipline--the
practice of Rome and the West; for it is singular to see how Jerome, who
is daringly original in points of scholarly criticism, was a ruthless
partisan in all other matters; and, having discovered what was the
Western practice, he set tongue and pen to work with his usual
bitterness (_Altercatio luciferiani et orthodoxi_).
At Antioch in 379 he was ordained presbyter. From there he went to
Constantinople, where he met with the great Eastern scholar and
theologian Gregory of Nazianzus, and with his aid tried to perfect
himself in Greek. The result of his studies there was the translation of
the _Chronicon_ of Eusebius, with a continuation[1] of twenty-eight
homilies of Origen on Jeremiah and Ezekiel, and of nine homilies of
Origen on the visions of Isaiah.
In 381 Meletius died, and Pope Damasus interfered in the dispute at
Antioch, hoping to end it. Jerome was called to Rome in 382 to give help
in the matter, and was made secretary during the investigation. His work
brought him into intercourse with this great pontiff, who soon saw what
he could best do, and how his vast scholarship might be made of use to
the church. Damasus suggested to him to revise the "Old Latin"
translation of the Bible; and to this task he henceforth devoted his
great abilities. At Rome were published the Gospels (with a dedication
to Pope Damasus, an explanatory introduction, and the canons of
Eusebius), the rest of the New Testament and the version of the Psalms
from the Septuagint known as the _Psalterium romanum_, which was
followed (c. 388) by the _Psalterium gallicanum_, based on the Hexaplar
Greek text. These scholarly labours, however, did not take up his whole
time, and it was almost impossible for Jerome to be long anywhere
without getting into a dispute. He was a zealous defender of that
monastic life which was beginning to take such a large place in the
church of the 4th century, and he found enthusiastic disciples among the
Roman ladies. A number of widows and maidens met together in the house
of Marcella to study the Scriptures with him; he taught them Hebrew, and
preached the virtues of the celibate life. His arguments and
exhortations may be gathered from many of his epistles and from his
tract _Adversus Helvidium_, in which he defends the perpetual virginity
of Mary against Helvidius, who maintained that she bore children to
Joseph. His influence over these ladies alarmed their relatives and
excited the suspicions of the regular priesthood and of the populace,
but while Pope Damasus lived Jerome remained secure. Damasus died,
however, in 384, and was succeeded by Siricius, who did not show much
friendship for Jerome. He found it expedient to leave Rome, and set out
for the East in 385. His letters (especially Ep. 45) are full of
outcries against his enemies and of indignant protestations that he had
done nothing unbecoming a Christian, that he had taken no money, nor
gifts great nor small, that he had no delight in silken attire,
sparkling gems or gold ornaments, that no matron moved him unless by
penitence and fasting, &c. His route is given in the third book _In
Rufinum_; he went by Rhegium and Cyprus, where he was entertained by
Bishop Epiphanius, to Antioch. There he was joined by two wealthy Roman
ladies, Paula, a widow, and Eustochium, her daughter, one of Jerome's
Hebrew students. They came accompanied by a band of Roman maidens vowed
to live a celibate life in a nunnery in Palestine. Accompanied by these
ladies Jerome made the tour of Palestine, carefully noting with a
scholar's keenness the various places mentioned in Holy Scripture. The
results of this journey may be traced in his translation with
emendations of the book of Eusebius on the situation and names of Hebrew
places, written probably three years afterwards, when he had settled
down at Bethlehem. From Palestine Jerome and his companions went to
Egypt, remaining some time in Alexandria, and they visited the convents
of the Nitrian desert. Jerome's mind was evidently full of anxiety about
his translation of the Old Testament, for we find him in his letters
recording the conversations he had with learned men about disputed
readings and doubtful renderings; the blind Didymus of Alexandria, whom
he heard interpreting Hosea, appears to have been most useful. When they
returned to Palestine they all settled at Bethlehem, where Paula built
four monasteries, three for nuns and one for monks. She was at the head
of the nunneries until her death in 404, when Eustochium succeeded her;
Jerome presided over the fourth monastery. Here he did most of his
literary work and, throwing aside his unfinished plan of a translation
from Origen's Hexaplar text, translated the Old Testament directly from
the Hebrew, with the aid of Jewish scholars. He mentions a rabbi from
Lydda, a rabbi from Tiberias, and above all rabbi Ben Anina, who came to
him by night secretly for fear of the Jews. Jerome was not familiar
enough with Hebrew to be able to dispense with such assistance, and he
makes the synagogue responsible for the fully narrated in the first
seven chapters of Joshua. There must be some little exaggeration in the
statement that Jericho was totally destroyed; a hamlet large enough to
be enumerated among the towns of Benjamin (Josh. xviii. 21) must have
remained; but that it was small is shown by the fact that it was deemed
a suitable place for David's ambassadors to retire to after the
indignities put upon them by Hanun (2 Sam. x. 5; 1 Chron. xix. 5). Its
refortification was due to a Bethelite named Hiel, who endeavoured to
avert the curse of Joshua by offering his sons as sacrifices at certain
stages of the work (1 Kings xvi. 34). After this event it grew again
into importance and became the site of a college of prophets (2 Kings
ii. 4 sqq.) for whom Elisha "healed" its poisonous waters. The principal
spring in the neighbourhood of Jericho still bears (among the foreign
residents) the name of Elisha; the natives call it, Ain es-Sultan, or
"Sultan's spring." To Jericho the victorious Israelite marauders
magnanimously returned their Judahite captives at the bidding of the
prophet Oded (2 Chron. xxviii. 15). Here was fought the last fight
between the Babylonians and Zedekiah, wherein the kingdom of Judah came
to an end (2 Kings xxv. 5; Jer. xxxix. 5, lii. 8). In the New Testament
Jericho is connected with the well-known stories of Bar-Timaeus (Matt.
xx. 29; Mark x. 46; Luke xviii. 35) and Zacchaeus (Luke xix. 1) and with
the good Samaritan (Luke x. 30).
The extra-Biblical history of Jericho is as disastrous as are the
records preserved in the Scriptures. Bacchides, the general of the
Syrians, captured and fortified it (1. Macc. ix. 50), Aristobulus
(Jos. _Ant._ XIV. i. 2) also took it, Pompey (ib. XIV. iv. 1) encamped
here on his way to Jerusalem. Before Herod its inhabitants ran away
(ib. XIV. xv. 3) as they did before Vespasian (_Wars_, IV. viii. 2).
The reason of this lack of warlike quality was no doubt the enervating
effect of the great heat of the depression in which the city lies,
which has the same effect on the handful of degraded humanity that
still occupies the ancient site.
Few places in Palestine are more fertile. It was the city of palm
trees of the ancient record of the Israelite invasion preserved in
part in Judg. i. 16; and Josephus speaks of its fruitfulness with
enthusiasm (_Wars_ IV. 8, 3). Even now with every possible hindrance
in the way of cultivation it is an important centre of fruit-growing.
The modern er-Riha is a poor squalid village of, it is estimated,
about 300 inhabitants. It is not built exactly on the ancient site.
Indeed, the site of Jericho has shifted several times. The mound of
Tell es-Sultan, near "Elisha's Fountain," north of the modern village,
no doubt covers the Canaanite town. There are two later sites, of
Roman or Herodian date, one north, the other west, of this. It was
probably the crusaders who established the modern site. An old tower
attributed to them is to be seen in the village, and in the
surrounding mountains are many remains of early monasticism.
Aqueducts, ruined sugar-mills, and other remains of ancient industry
abound in the neighbourhood. The whole district is the private
property of the sultan of Turkey. In 1907-8 the Canaanite Jericho was
excavated under the direction of Prof. Sellin of Vienna.
See "The German Excavations at Jericho," _Pal. Explor. Fund, Quart.
Statem._ (1910), pp. 54-68.
FOOTNOTE:
[1] Cf. Schoene's critical edition (Berlin, 1866, 1875).
JERKIN, a short close-fitting jacket, made usually of leather, and
without sleeves, the typical male upper garment of the 16th and 17th
centuries. The origin of the word is unknown. The Dutch word _jurk_, a
child's frock, often taken as the source, is modern, and represents
neither the sound nor the sense of the English word. In architecture the
term "jerkin-roofed" is applied, probably with some obscure connexion
with the garment, to a particular form of gable end, the gable being cut
off half way up the roof and sloping back like a "hipped roof" to the
edge.
JEROBOAM (Heb. _yarob'am_, apparently "Am ['the clan,' here perhaps a
divine name] contends"; LXX. [Greek: ieroboam]), the name of two kings
in the Bible.
1. The first king of (north) Israel after the disruption (see SOLOMON).
According to the traditions of his early life (1 Kings xi. 26 sqq. and
LXX.), he was an Ephraimite who for his ability was placed over the
forced levy of Ephraim and Manasseh. Having subsequently incurred
Solomon's suspicions he fled to Shishak, king of Egypt, and remained
with him until Rehoboam's accession. When the latter came to be made
king at Shechem, the old religious centre (see ABIMELECH), hopes were
entertained that a more lenient policy would be introduced. But
Rehoboam refused to depart from Solomon's despotic rule, and was
tactless enough to send Adoniram, the overseer of the _corvee_. He was
stoned to death, and Rehoboam realizing the temper of the people fled to
Jerusalem and prepared for war. Jeroboam became the recognized leader of
the northern tribes.[1] Conflicts occurred (1 Kings xiv. 30), but no
details are preserved except the late story of Rehoboam's son Abijah in
2 Chron. xiii. Jeroboam's chief achievement was the fortification of
Shechem (his new capital) and of Penuel in east Jordan. To counteract
the influence of Jerusalem he established golden calves at Dan and
Bethel, an act which to later ages was as gross a piece of wickedness as
his rebellion against the legitimate dynasty of Judah. No notice has
survived of Shishak's invasion of Israel (see REHOBOAM), and after a
reign of twenty-two years Jeroboam was succeeded by Nadab, whose violent
death two years later brought the whole house of Jeroboam to an end.
The history of the separation of Judah and Israel in the 10th century
B.C. was written from a strong religious standpoint at a date
considerably later than the event itself. The visit of Ahijah to
Shiloh (xi. 29-39), to announce symbolically the rending of the
kingdom, replaces some account of a rebellion in which Jeroboam
"lifted up his hand" (v. 27) against Solomon. To such an account, not
to the incident of Ahijah and the cloak, his flight (v. 40) is the
natural sequel. The story of Ahijah's prophecy against Jeroboam (ch.
xiv.) is not in the original LXX., but another version of the same
narrative appears at xii. 24 (LXX.), in which there is no reference to
a previous promise to Jeroboam through Ahijah, but the prophet is
introduced as a new character. Further, in this version (xii. 24) the
incident of the tearing of the cloak is related of Shemaiah and placed
at the convention of Shechem. Shemaiah is the prophet who counselled
Rehoboam to refrain from war (xii. 21-24); the injunction is opposed
to xiv. 30, but appears to be intended to explain Rehoboam's failure
to overcome north Israel. (See W. R. Smith, _Old Test. in Jewish
Church_ (2nd ed.), 117 sqq.; Winckler, _Alte Test. Untersuch._ 12
sqq., and J. Skinner, _Century Bible: Kings_, pp. 443 sqq.)
2. JEROBOAM, son of Joash (2) a contemporary of Azariah king of Judah.
He was one of the greatest of the kings of Israel. He succeeded in
breaking the power of Damascus, which had long been devastating his
land, and extended his kingdom from Hamath on the Orontes to the Dead
Sea. The brief summary of his achievements preserved in 2 Kings xiv. 23
sqq. may be supplemented by the original writings of Amos and Hosea.[2]
There appears to be an allusion in Amos vi. 13 to the recovery of
Ashteroth-Karnaim and Lodebar in E. Jordan, and the conquest of Moab
(Isa. xv. seq.) is often ascribed to this reign. After a period of
prosperity, internal disturbances broke out and the northern kingdom
hastened to its fall. Jeroboam was succeeded by his son Zechariah, who
after six months was killed at Ibleam (so read in 2 Kings xv. 10; cp.
ix. 27, murder of Ahaziah) by Shallum the son of Jabesh--i.e. possibly
of Jabesh-Gilead--who a month later fell to Menahem (q.v.).
(S. A. C.)
See, further, JEWS SS 7, 9 and SS 12, 13.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] On the variant traditions in the Hebrew text and the Septuagint,
see the commentaries on Kings.
[2] See also JONAH. In 2 Kings xiv. 28, "Hamath, _which had belonged_
to Judah" (R.V.) is incorrect; Winckler (_Keilinschrift. u. Alte
Test._, 2nd ed., 262) suspects a reference to Israel's overlordship
in Judah; Burney (_Heb. Text of Kings_) reads: "how he fought with
Damascus and how he turned away the wrath of Yahweh from Israel"; see
also _Ency. Bib._ col. 2406 n. 4, and the commentaries.
JEROME, ST (HIERONYMUS, in full EUSEBIUS SOPHRONIUS HIERONYMUS) (c.
340-420), was born at Strido (modern Strigau?), a town on the border of
Dalmatia fronting Pannonia, destroyed by the Goths in A.D. 377. What is
known of Jerome has mostly been recovered from his own writings. He
appears to have been born about 340; his parents were Christians,
orthodox though living among people mostly Arians and wealthy. He was at
first educated at home, Bonosus, a life-long friend, sharing his
youthful studies, and was afterwards sent to Rome. Donatus taught him
grammar and explained the Latin poets. Victorinus taught him rhetoric.
He attended the law-courts, and listened to the Roman advocates pleading
in the Forum. He went to the schools of philosophy, and heard lectures
on Plato, Diogenes, Clitomachus and Carneades; the conjunction of names
show how philosophy had become a dead tradition. accuracy of his
version: "Let him who would challenge aught in this translation," he
says, "ask the Jews." The result of all this labour was the Latin
translation of the Scriptures which, in spite of much opposition from
the more conservative party in the church, afterwards became the Vulgate
or authorized version; but the Vulgate as we have it now is not exactly
Jerome's Vulgate, for it suffered a good deal from changes made under
the influence of the older translations; the text became very corrupt
during the middle ages, and in particular all the Apocrypha, except
Tobit and Judith, which Jerome translated from the Chaldee, were added
from the older versions. (See BIBLE: _O.T. Versions_.)
Notwithstanding the labour involved in translating the Scriptures,
Jerome found time to do a great deal of literary work, and also to
indulge in violent controversy. Earlier in life he had a great
admiration for Origen, and translated many of his works, and this lasted
after he had settled at Bethlehem, for in 389 he translated Origen's
homilies on Luke; but he came to change his opinion and wrote violently
against two admirers of the great Alexandrian scholar, John, bishop of
Jerusalem, and his own former friend Rufinus.
At Bethlehem also he found time to finish _Didymi de spiritu sancto
liber_, a translation begun at Rome at the request of Pope Damasus, to
denounce the revival of Gnostic heresies by Jovinianus and Vigilantius
(_Adv. Jovinianum lib. II._ and _Contra Vigilantium liber_), and to
repeat his admiration of the hermit life in his _Vita S. Hilarionis
eremitae_, in his _Vita Malchi monachi captivi_, in his translations of
the Rule of St Pachomius (the Benedict of Egypt), and in his _S.
Pachomii et S. Theodorici epistolae et verba mystica_. He also wrote at
Bethlehem _De viris illustribus sive de scriptoribus ecclesiasticis_, a
church history in biographies, ending with the life of the author; _De
nominibus Hebraicis_, compiled from Philo and Origen; and _De situ et
nominibus locorum Hebraicorum_.[1] At the same place, too, he wrote
_Quaestiones Hebraicae_ on Genesis,[2] and a series of commentaries on
Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, the Twelve Minor Prophets, Matthew
and the Epistles of St Paul. About 394 Jerome came to know Augustine,
for whom he held a high regard. He engaged in the Pelagian controversy
with more than even his usual bitterness (_Dialogi contra pelagianos_);
and it is said that the violence of his invective so provoked his
opponents that an armed mob attacked the monastery, and that Jerome was
forced to flee and to remain in concealment for nearly two years. He
returned to Bethlehem in 418, and after a lingering illness died on the
30th of September 420.
Jerome "is one of the few Fathers to whom the title of Saint appears to
have been given in recognition of services rendered to the Church rather
than for eminent sanctity. He is the great Christian scholar of his age,
rather than the profound theologian or the wise guide of souls." His
great work was the Vulgate, but his achievements in other fields would
have sufficed to distinguish him. His commentaries are valuable because
of his knowledge of Greek and Hebrew, his varied interests, and his
comparative freedom from allegory. To him we owe the distinction between
canonical and apocryphal writings; in the _Prologus Galeatus_ prefixed
to his version of Samuel and Kings, he says that the church reads the
Apocrypha "for the edification of the people, not for confirming the
authority of ecclesiastical doctrines." He was a pioneer in the fields
of patrology and of biblical archaeology. In controversy he was too fond
of mingling personal abuse with legitimate argument, and this weakness
mars his letters, which were held in high admiration in the early middle
ages, and are valuable for their history of the man and his times.
Luther in his _Table Talk_ condemns them as dealing only with fasting,
meats, virginity, &c. "If he only had insisted upon the works of faith
and performed them! But he teaches nothing either about faith, or love,
or hope, or the works of faith."
Editions of the complete works: Erasmus (9 vols., Basel, 1516-1520);
Mar. Victorius, bishop of Rieti (9 vols., Rome, 1565-1572); F.
Calixtus and A. Tribbechovius (12 vols., Frankfort and Leipzig,
1684-1690); J. Martianay (5 vols., incomplete Benedictine ed., Paris,
1693-1706); D. Vallarsi (11 vols., Verona, 1734-1742), the best;
Migne, _Patrol. Ser. Lat._ (xxii.-xxix.). The _De viris illust._ was
edited by Herding in 1879. A selection is given in translation by W.
H. Fremantle, "Select Library of Nicene and Post Nicene Fathers," 2nd
series, vol. vi. (New York, 1893). Biographies are prefixed to most of
the above editions. See also lives by F. Z. Collombet (Paris and
Lyons, 1844); O. Zockler (Gotha, 1865); E. L. Cutts (London, 1878); C.
Martin (London, 1888); P. Largent (Paris, 1898); F. W. Farrar, _Lives
of the Fathers_, ii. 150-297 (Edinburgh, 1889). Additional literature
is cited in Hauck-Herzog's _Realencyk. fur prot. Theol._ viii. 42.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Compare the critical edition of these two works in Lagarde's
_Onomastica sacra_ (Gotting. 1870).
[2] See Lagarde's edition appended to his _Genesis Graece_ (Leipzig,
1868).
JEROME, JEROME KLAPKA (1859- ), English author, was born on the 2nd of
May 1859. He was educated at the philological school, Marylebone,
London; and was by turns clerk, schoolmaster and actor, before he
settled down to journalism. He made his reputation as a humorist in 1889
with _Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow_ and _Three Men in a Boat_, and
from 1892 to 1897 he was co-editor of the _Idler_ with Robert Barr. At
the same time he was also the editor of _To-Day_. A one-act play of his,
_Barbara_, was produced at the Globe theatre in 1886, and was followed
by many others, among them _Sunset_ (1888), _Wood Barrow Farm_ (1891),
_The Passing of the Third Floor Back_ (1907). Among his later books are
_Letters to Clorinda_ (1898), _The Second Thoughts of an Idle Fellow_
(1898), _Three Men on the Bummel_ (1900), _Tommy and Co._ (1904), _They
and I_ (1909).
JEROME OF PRAGUE (d. 1416), an early Bohemian church-reformer and friend
of John Hus. Jerome's part in the Hussite movement was formerly much
over-rated. Very little is known of his early years. He is stated to
have belonged to a noble Bohemian family[1] and to have been a few years
younger than Hus. After beginning his studies at the university of
Prague, where he never attempted to obtain any ecclesiastical office,
Jerome proceeded to Oxford in 1398. There he became greatly impressed by
the writings of Wycliffe, of whose _Dialogus_ and _Trialogus_ he made
copies. Always inclined to a roving life, he soon proceeded to the
university of Paris and afterwards continued his studies at Cologne and
Heidelberg, returning to Prague in 1407. In 1403 he is stated to have
undertaken a journey to Jerusalem. At Paris his open advocacy of the
views of Wycliffe brought him into conflict with John Gerson, chancellor
of the university. In Prague Jerome soon attracted attention by his
advanced and outspoken opinions. He gave great offence also by
exhibiting a portrait of Wycliffe in his room. Jerome was soon on terms
of friendship with Hus, and took part in all the controversies of the
university. When in 1408 a French embassy arrived at Kutna Hora, the
residence of King Wenceslaus of Bohemia, and proposed that the papal
schism should be terminated by the refusal of the temporal authorities
further to recognize either of the rival popes, Wenceslaus summoned to
Kutna Hora the members of the university. The Bohemian _magistri_ spoke
strongly in favour of the French proposals, while the Germans maintained
their allegiance to the Roman pope, Gregory XII. The reorganization of
the university was also discussed, and as Wenceslaus for a time favoured
the Germans, Hus and Jerome, as leaders of the Bohemians, incurred the
anger of the king, who threatened them with death by fire should they
oppose his will.
In 1410 Jerome, who had incurred the hostility of the archbishop of
Prague by his speeches in favour of Wycliffe's teaching, went to Ofen,
where King Sigismund of Hungary resided, and, though a layman, preached
before the king denouncing strongly the rapacity and immorality of the
clergy. Sigismund shortly afterwards received a letter from the
archbishop of Prague containing accusations against Jerome. He was
imprisoned by order of the king, but does not appear to have been
detained long in Hungary. Appearing at Vienna, he was again brought
before the ecclesiastical authorities. He was accused of spreading
Wycliffe's doctrines, and his general conduct at Oxford, Paris, Cologne,
Prague and Ofen was censured. Jerome vowed that he would not leave
Vienna till he had cleared himself from the accusation of heresy.
Shortly afterwards he secretly left Vienna, declaring that this promise
had been forced on him. He went first to Vottau in Moravia, and then to
Prague. In 1412 the representatives of Pope Gregory XII. publicly
offered indulgences for sale at Prague, wishing to raise money for the
pope's campaign against King Ladislaus of Naples, an adherent of the
antipope of Avignon. Contrary to the wishes of the archbishop of Prague
a meeting of the members of the university took place, at which both Hus
and Jerome spoke strongly against the sale of indulgences. The fiery
eloquence of Jerome, which is noted by all contemporary writers,
obtained for him greater success even than that of Hus, particularly
among the younger students, who conducted him in triumph to his
dwelling-place. Shortly afterwards Jerome proceeded to Poland--it is
said on the invitation of King Wladislaus. His courtly manners and his
eloquence here also caused him to become very popular, but he again met
with strong opposition from the Roman Church. While travelling with the
grand-duke Lithold of Lithuania Jerome took part in the religious
services of the Greek Orthodox Church.
During his stay in northern Europe Jerome received the news that Hus had
been summoned to appear before the council of Constance. He wrote to his
friend advising him to do so and adding that he would also proceed there
to afford him assistance. Contrary to the advice of Hus he arrived at
Constance on the 4th of April 1415. Advised to fly immediately to
Bohemia, he succeeded in reaching Hirschau, only 25 m. from the Bohemian
frontier. He was here arrested and brought back in chains to Constance,
where he was examined by judges appointed by the council. His courage
failed him in prison and, to regain his freedom, he renounced the
doctrines of Wycliffe and Hus. He declared that Hus had been justly
executed and stated in a letter addressed on the 12th of August 1415 to
Lacek, lord of Kravar--the only literary document of Jerome that has
been preserved--that "the dead man (Hus) had written many false and
harmful things." Full confidence was not placed in Jerome's recantation.
He claimed to be heard at a general meeting of the council, and this was
granted to him. He now again maintained all the theories which he had
formerly advocated, and, after a trial that lasted only one day, he was
condemned to be burnt as a heretic. The sentence was immediately carried
out on the 30th of May 1416, and he met his death with fortitude. As
Poggio Bracciolini writes, "none of the Stoics with so constant and
brave a soul endured death, which he (Jerome) seemed rather to long
for." The eloquence of the Italian humanist has bestowed a not entirely
merited aureole on the memory of Jerome of Prague.
See all works dealing with Hus; and indeed all histories of Bohemia
contain detailed accounts of the career of Jerome. _The Lives of John
Wicliffe, Lord Cobham, John Huss, Jerome of Prague and Zizka_ by
William Gilpin (London, 1765) still has a certain value. (L.)
FOOTNOTE:
[1] The statement that Jerome's family name was Faulfiss, is founded
on a misunderstood passage of Aeneas Sylvius, _Historica Bohemica_.
Aeneas Sylvius names as one of the early Bohemian reformers a man
"_genere nobilis, ex domo quam Putridi Piscis vacant_." This was
erroneously believed to refer to Jerome.
JERROLD, DOUGLAS WILLIAM (1803-1857), English dramatist and man of
letters, was born in London on the 3rd of January 1803. His father,
Samuel Jerrold, actor, was at that time lessee of the little theatre of
Wilsby near Cranbrook in Kent, but in 1807 he removed to Sheerness.
There, among the bluejackets who swarmed in the port during the war with
France, Douglas grew into boyhood. He occasionally took a child's part
on the stage, but his father's profession had little attraction for the
boy. In December 1813 he joined the guardship "Namur," where he had Jane
Austen's brother as captain, and he served as a midshipman until the
peace of 1815. He saw nothing of the war save a number of wounded
soldiers from Waterloo; but till his dying day there lingered traces of
his early passion for the sea. The peace of 1815 ruined Samuel Jerrold;
there was no more prize money. On the 1st of January 1816 he removed
with his family to London, where the ex-midshipman began the world again
as a printer's apprentice, and in 1819 became a compositor in the
printing-office of the _Sunday Monitor_. Several short papers and copies
of verses by him had already appeared in the sixpenny magazines, and
one evening he dropped into the editor's box a criticism of the opera
_Der Freischutz_. Next morning he received his own copy to set up,
together with a flattering note from the editor, requesting further
contributions from the anonymous author. Thenceforward Jerrold was
engaged in journalism. In 1821 a comedy that he had composed in his
fifteenth year was brought out at Sadler's Wells theatre, under the
title _More Frightened than Hurt_. Other pieces followed, and in 1825 he
was engaged for a few pounds weekly to produce dramas and farces to the
order of Davidge of the Coburg theatre. In the autumn of 1824 the
"little Shakespeare in a camlet cloak," as he was called, married Mary
Swann; and, while he was engaged with the drama at night, he was
steadily pushing his way as a journalist. For a short while he was part
proprietor of a small Sunday newspaper. In 1829, through a quarrel with
the exacting Davidge, Jerrold left the Coburg; and his three-act
melodrama, _Black-eyed Susan; or, All in the Downs_, was brought out by
R. W. Elliston at the Surrey theatre. The success of the piece was
enormous. With its free gallant sea-flavour, it took the town by storm,
and "all London went over the water to see it." Elliston made a fortune
by the piece; T. P. Cooke, who played William, made his reputation;
Jerrold received about L60 and was engaged as dramatic author at five
pounds a week. But his fame as a dramatist was achieved. In 1830 it was
proposed that he should adapt something from the French for Drury Lane.
"No," was his reply, "I shall come into this theatre as an original
dramatist or not at all." _The Bride of Ludgate_ (December 8, 1831) was
the first of a number of his plays produced at Drury Lane. The other
patent houses threw their doors open to him also (the Adelphi had
already done so); and in 1836 Jerrold became co-manager of the Strand
theatre with W. J. Hammond, his brother-in-law. The venture was not
successful, and the partnership was dissolved. While it lasted Jerrold
wrote his only tragedy, _The Painter of Ghent_, and himself appeared in
the title-role, without any very marked success. He continued to write
sparkling comedies till 1854, the date of his last piece, _The Heart of
Gold_.
Meanwhile he had won his way to the pages of numerous
periodicals--before 1830 of the second-rate magazines only, but after
that to those of more importance. He was a contributor to the _Monthly
Magazine, Blackwood's,_ the _New Monthly_, and the _Athenaeum_. To
_Punch_, the publication which of all others is associated with his
name, he contributed from its second number in 1841 till within a few
days of his death. He founded and edited for some time, though with
indifferent success, the _Illuminated Magazine, Jerrold's Shilling
Magazine_, and _Douglas Jerrold's Weekly Newspaper;_ and under his
editorship _Lloyd's Weekly Newspaper_ rose from almost nonentity to a
circulation of 182,000. The history of his later years is little more
than a catalogue of his literary productions, interrupted now and again
by brief visits to the Continent or to the country. Douglas Jerrold died
at his house, Kilburn Priory, in London, on the 8th of June 1857.
Jerrold's figure was small and spare, and in later years bowed almost to
deformity. His features were strongly marked and expressive from the
thin humorous lips to the keen blue eyes gleaming from beneath the
shaggy eyebrows. He was brisk and active, with the careless bluffness of
a sailor. Open and sincere, he concealed neither his anger nor his
pleasure; to his simple frankness all polite duplicity was distasteful.
The cynical side of his nature he kept for his writings; in private life
his hand was always open. In politics Jerrold was a Liberal, and he gave
eager sympathy to Kossuth, Mazzini and Louis Blanc. In social politics
especially he took an eager part; he never tired of declaiming against
the horrors of war, the luxury of bishops, and the iniquity of capital
punishment.
Douglas Jerrold is now perhaps better known from his reputation as a
brilliant wit in conversation than from his writings. As a dramatist he
was very popular, though his plays have not kept the stage. He dealt
with rather humbler forms of social life than had commonly been
represented on the boards. He was one of the first and certainly one of
the most successful of those who in defence of the native English drama
endeavoured to stem the tide of translation from the French, which
threatened early in the 19th century altogether to drown original native
talent. His skill in construction and his mastery of epigram and
brilliant dialogue are well exemplified in his comedy, _Time Works
Wonders_ (Haymarket, April 26, 1845). The tales and sketches which form
the bulk of Jerrold's collected works vary much in skill and interest;
but, although there are evident traces of their having been composed
from week to week, they are always marked by keen satirical observation
and pungent wit.
Among the best known of his numerous works are: _Men of Character_
(1838), including "Job Pippin: The man who couldn't help it," and
other sketches of the same kind; _Cakes and Ale_ (2 vols., 1842), a
collection of short papers and whimsical stories; some more serious
novels--_The Story of a Feather_ (1844), _The Chronicles of
Clovernook_ (1846), _A Man made of Money_ (1849); and _St Giles and St
James_ (1851); and various series of papers reprinted from
_Punch--Punch's Letters to his Son_ (1843), _Punch's Complete
Letter-writer_ (1845), and the famous _Mrs Caudle's Curtain Lectures_
(1846).
See W. B. Jerrold, _Life and Remains of Douglas Jerrold_ (1859). A
collected edition of his writings appeared in 1851-1854, and _The
Works of Douglas Jerrold_, with a memoir by his son, W. B. Jerrold, in
1863-1864; but neither is complete. Among the numerous selections from
his tales and witticisms are two edited by his grandson, Walter
Jerrold, _Bons Mots of Charles Dickens and Douglas Jerrold_ (new ed.
1904), and _The Essays of Douglas Jerrold_ (1903), illustrated by H.
M. Brock. See also _The Wit and Opinions of Douglas Jerrold_ (1858),
edited by W. B. Jerrold.
His eldest son, WILLIAM BLANCHARD JERROLD (1826-1884), English
journalist and author, was born in London on the 23rd of December 1826,
and abandoning the artistic career for which he was educated, began
newspaper work at an early age there. He was appointed Crystal Palace
commissioner to Sweden in 1853, and wrote _A Brage-Beaker with the
Swedes_ (1854) on his return. In 1855 he was sent to the Paris
exhibition as correspondent for several London papers, and from that
time he lived much in Paris. In 1857 he succeeded his father as editor
of _Lloyd's Weekly Newspaper_, a post which he held for twenty-six
years. During the Civil War in America he strongly supported the North,
and several of his leading articles were reprinted and placarded in New
York by the federal government. He was the founder and president of the
English branch of the international literary association for the
assimilation of copyright laws. Four of his plays were successfully
produced on the London stage, the popular farce _Cool as a Cucumber_
(Lyceum 1851) being the best known. His French experiences resulted in a
number of books, most important of which is his _Life of Napoleon III_.
(1874). He was occupied in writing the biography of Gustave Dore, who
had illustrated several of his books, when he died on the 10th of March
1884.
Among his books are _A Story of Social Distinction_ (1848), _Life and
Remains of Douglas Jerrold_ (1859), _Up and Down in the World_ (1863),
_The Children of Lutetia_ (1864), _Cent per Cent_ (1871), _At Home in
Paris_ (1871), _The Best of all Good Company_ (1871-1873), and _The
Life of George Cruikshank_ (1882).
JERRY, a short form of the name Jeremiah, applied to various common
objects, and more particularly to a machine for finishing cloth. The
expression "jerry-built" is applied to houses built badly and of
inferior materials, and run up by a speculative builder. There seems to
be no foundation for the assertion that this expression was occasioned
by the work of a firm of Liverpool builders named Jerry.
JERSEY, EARLS OF. Sir Edward Villiers (c. 1656-1711), son of Sir Edward
Villiers (1620-1689), of Richmond, Surrey, was created Baron Villiers
and Viscount Villiers in 1691 and earl of Jersey in 1697. His
grandfather, Sir Edward Villiers (c. 1585-1626), master of the mint and
president of Munster, was half-brother of George Villiers, 1st duke of
Buckingham, and of Christopher Villiers, 1st earl of Anglesey; his
sister was Elizabeth Villiers, the mistress of William III., and
afterwards countess of Orkney. Villiers was knight-marshal of the royal
household in succession to his father; master of the horse to Queen
Mary; and lord chamberlain to William III. and Queen Anne. In 1696 he
represented his country at the congress of Ryswick; he was ambassador
at the Hague, and after becoming an earl was ambassador in Paris. In
1699 he was made secretary of state for the southern department, and on
three occasions he was one of the lords justices of England. In 1704 he
was dismissed from office by Anne, and after this event he was concerned
in some of the Jacobite schemes. He died on the 25th of August 1711. The
2nd earl was his son William (c. 1682-1721), an adherent of the exiled
house of Stuart, and the 3rd earl was the latter's son William (d.
1769), who succeeded his kinsman John Fitzgerald (c. 1692-1766) as 6th
Viscount Grandison. The 3rd earl's son, George Bussy, the 4th earl
(1735-1805), held several positions at the court of George III., and on
account of his courtly manners was called the "prince of Maccaronies."
The 4th earl's son, George, 5th earl of Jersey (1773-1859), one of the
most celebrated fox-hunters of his time and a successful owner of
racehorses, married Sarah Sophia (1785-1867), daughter of John Fane,
10th earl of Westmorland, and granddaughter of Robert Child, the banker.
She inherited her grandfather's great wealth, including his interest in
Child's bank, and with her husband took the name of Child-Villiers.
Since this time the connexions of the earls of Jersey with Child's bank
has been maintained. Victor Albert George Child-Villiers (b. 1845)
succeeded his father George Augustus (1808-1859), 6th earl, who had only
held the title for three weeks, as 7th earl of Jersey in 1859. This
nobleman was governor of New South Wales from 1890 to 1893.
JERSEY, the largest of the Channel Islands, belonging to Great Britain.
Its chief town, St Helier, on the south coast of the island, is in 49
deg. 12' N., 2 deg. 7' W., 105 m. S. by E. of Portland Bill on the
English coast, and 24 m. from the French coast to the east. Jersey is
the southernmost of the more important islands of the group. It is of
oblong form with a length of 10 m. from east to west and an extreme
breadth of 6(1/4) m. The area is 28,717 acres, or 45 sq. m. Pop. (1901),
52,576.
The island reaches its greatest elevation (nearly 500 ft.) in the north,
the land rising sharply from the north coast, and displaying bold and
picturesque cliffs towards the sea. The east, south and west coasts
consist of a succession of large open bays, shallow and rocky, with
marshy or sandy shores separated by rocky headlands. The principal bays
are Greve au Lancons, Greve de Lecq, St John's and Bouley Bays on the
north coast; St Catherine's and Grouville Bays on the east; St
Clement's, St Aubin's and St Brelade's Bays on the south; and St Ouen's
Bay, the wide sweep of which occupies nearly the whole of the west
coast. The sea in many places has encroached greatly on the land, and
sand drifts have been found troublesome, especially on the west coast.
The surface of the country is broken by winding valleys having a general
direction from north to south, and as they approach the south uniting so
as to form small plains. The lofty hedges which bound the small
enclosures into which Jersey is divided, the trees and shrubberies which
line the roads and cluster round the uplands and in almost every nook of
the valleys unutilized for pasturage or tillage, give the island a
luxuriant appearance, neutralizing the bare effect of the few sandy
plains and sand-covered hills. Fruits and flowers indigenous to warm
climates grow freely in the open air. The land, under careful
cultivation, is rich and productive, the soil being generally a deep
loam, especially in the valleys, but in the west shallow, light and
sandy. The subsoil is usually gravel, but in some parts an unfertile
clay. Some two-thirds of the total area is under cultivation, great
numbers of cattle being pastured, and much market gardening practised.
The potato crop is very large. The peasants take advantage of every bit
of wall and every isolated nook of ground for growing fruit trees.
Grapes are ripened under glass; oranges can be grown in sheltered
situations, but the most common fruits are apples, which are used for
cider, and pears. A manure of burnt sea-weed (vraic) is generally used.
The pasturage is very rich, and is much improved by the application of
this manure to the surface. The breed of cattle is kept pure by
stringent laws against the importation of foreign animals. The milk is
used almost exclusively to manufacture butter. The cattle are always
housed in winter, but remain out at night from May till October. There
was formerly a small black breed of horses peculiar to the island, but
horses are now chiefly imported from France or England. Pigs are kept
principally for local consumption, and only a few sheep are reared. Fish
are not so plentiful as round the shores of Guernsey, but mackerel,
turbot, cod, mullet and especially the conger eel are abundant at the
Minquiers. There is a large oyster bed between Jersey and France, but
partly on account of over-dredging the supply is not so abundant as
formerly. There is a great variety of other shell fish. The fisheries,
ship-building and boat-building employ many of the inhabitants. Kelp and
iodine are manufactured from sea-weed. The principal exports are
granite, fruit and vegetables (especially potatoes), butter and cattle;
and the chief imports coal and articles of human consumption.
Communications with England are maintained principally from Southampton
and Weymouth, and there are regular steamship services from Granville
and St Malo on the French coast. The Jersey railway runs west from St
Helier round St Aubin's Bay to St Aubin, and continues to Corbiere at
the south-western extremity of the island; and the Jersey eastern
railway follows the southern and eastern coasts to Gorey. The island is
intersected with a network of good roads.
Jersey is under a distinct and in several respects different form of
administrative government from Guernsey and the smaller islands included
in the bailiwick of Guernsey. For its peculiar constitution, system of
justice, ecclesiastical arrangements and finance, see CHANNEL ISLANDS.
There are twelve parishes, namely St Helier, Grouville, St Brelade, St
Clement, St John, St Laurence, St Martin, St Mary, St Ouen, St Peter, St
Saviour and Trinity. The population of the island nearly doubled between
1821 and 1901, but decreased from 54,518 to 52,576 between 1891 and
1901.
The history of Jersey is treated under CHANNEL ISLANDS. Among objects of
antiquarian interest, a cromlech near Mont Orgueil is the finest of
several examples. St Brelade's church, probably the oldest in the
island, dates from the 12th century; among the later churches St
Helier's, of the 14th century, may be mentioned. There are also some
very early chapels, considered to date from the 10th century or earlier;
among these may be noted the Chapelle-es-Pecheurs at St Brelade's, and
the picturesque chapel in the grounds of the manor of Rozel. The castle
of Mont Orgueil, of which there are considerable remains, is believed to
be founded upon the site of a Roman stronghold, and a "Caesar's fort"
still forms a part of it.
JERSEY CITY, a city and the county-seat of Hudson county, New Jersey,
U.S.A., on a peninsula between the Hudson and Hackensack rivers at the
N. and between New York and Newark bays at the S., opposite lower
Manhattan Island. Pop. (1890), 163,003; (1900), 206,433, of whom 58,424
were foreign-born (19,314 Irish, 17,375 German, 4642 English, 3832
Italian, 1694 Russian, 1690 Scottish, 1643 Russian Poles, 1445 Austrian)
and 3704 were negroes; (1910 census) 267,779. It is the eastern terminus
of the Pennsylvania, the Lehigh Valley, the West Shore, the Central of
New Jersey, the Baltimore & Ohio, the Northern of New Jersey (operated
by the Erie), the Erie, the New York, Susquehanna & Western, and the New
Jersey & New York (controlled by the Erie) railways, the first three
using the Pennsylvania station; and of the little-used Morris canal.
Jersey City is served by several inter-urban electric railways and by
the tunnels of the Hudson & Manhattan railroad company to Dey St. and to
33rd St. and 6th Ave., New York City, and it also has docks of several
lines of Transatlantic and coast steamers. The city occupies a land area
of 14.3 sq. m. and has a water-front of about 12 m. Bergen Hill, a
southerly extension of the Palisades, extends longitudinally through it
from north to south. At the north end this hill rises on the east side
precipitously to a height of nearly 200 ft.; on the west and south sides
the slope is gradual. On the crest of the hill is the fine Hudson County
Boulevard, about 19 m. long and 100 ft. wide, extending through the city
and county from north to south and passing through West Side Park, a
splendid county park containing lakes and a 70-acre playground. The
water-front, especially on the east side, is given up to manufacturing
and shipping establishments. In the hill section are the better
residences, most of which are wooden and detached.
The principal buildings are the city hall and the court house. There
are nine small city parks with an aggregate area of 39.1 acres. The
city has a public library containing (1907) 107,600 volumes and an
historical museum. At the corner of Bergen Ave. and Forrest St. is the
People's Palace, given in 1904 by Joseph Milbank to the First
Congregational church and containing a library and reading-room, a
gymnasium, bowling alleys, a billiard-room, a rifle-range, a
roof-garden, and an auditorium and theatre; kindergarten classes are
held and an employment bureau is maintained. Among the educational
institutions are the German American school, Hasbrouck institute, St
Aloysius academy (Roman Catholic) and St Peter's college (Roman
Catholic); and there are good public schools. Grain is shipped to and
from Jersey City in large quantities, and in general the city is an
important shipping port; being included, however, in the port of New
York, no separate statistics are available. There are large
slaughtering establishments, and factories for the refining of sugar
and for the manufacture of tobacco goods, soap and perfumery, lead
pencils, iron and steel, railway cars, chemicals, rubber goods, silk
goods, dressed lumber, and malt liquors. The value of the city's
manufactured products increased from $37,376,322 in 1890 to
$77,225,116 in 1900, or 106.6%; in 1905 the factory product alone was
valued at $75,740,934, an increase of only 3.9% over the factory
product in 1900, this small rate of increase being due very largely to
a decline in the value of the products of the sugar and molasses
refining industry. The value of the wholesale slaughtering and
meat-packing product decreased from $18,551,783 in 1880 and
$11,356,511 in 1890 to $6,243,217 in 1900--of this $5,708,763
represented wholesale slaughtering alone; in 1905 the wholesale
slaughtering product was valued at $7,568,739.
In 1908 the assessed valuation of the city was $267,039,754. The city is
governed by a board of aldermen and a mayor (elected biennially), who
appoints most of the officials, the street and water board being the
principal exception.
Jersey City when first incorporated was a small sandy peninsula (an
island at high tide) known as Paulus Hook, directly opposite the lower
end of Manhattan Island. It had been a part of the Dutch patroonship of
Pavonia granted to Michael Pauw in 1630. In 1633 the first buildings
were erected, and for more than a century the Hook was occupied by a
small agricultural and trading community. In 1764 a new post route
between New York and Philadelphia passed through what is now the city,
and direct ferry communication began with New York. Early in the War of
Independence Paulus Hook was fortified by the Americans, but soon after
the battle of Long Island they abandoned it, and on the 23rd of
September 1776 it was occupied by the British. On the morning of the
19th of August 1779 the British garrison was surprised by Major Henry
Lee ("Light Horse Harry"), who with about 500 men took 159 prisoners and
lost only 2 killed and 3 wounded, one of the most brilliant exploits
during the War of Independence. In 1804 Paulus Hook, containing 117
acres and having about 15 inhabitants, passed into the possession of
three enterprising New York lawyers, who laid it out as a town and
formed an association for its government, which was incorporated as the
"associates of the Jersey company." In 1820 the town was incorporated as
the City of Jersey, but it remained a part of the township of Bergen
until 1838, when it was reincorporated as a distinct municipality. In
1851 the township of Van Vorst, founded in 1804 between Paulus Hook and
Hoboken, was annexed. In 1870 there were two annexations: to the south,
the town of Bergen, the county-seat, which was founded in 1660; to the
north-west, Hudson City, which had been separated from the township of
North Bergen in 1852 and incorporated as a city in 1855. The town of
Greenville, to the south, was annexed in 1873.
JERUSALEM (Heb. [Hebrew: Yerushalaim] _Yerushalaim_, pronounced as a
dual), the chief city of Palestine. Letters found at Tell el-Amarna in
Egypt, written by an early ruler of Jerusalem, show that the name
existed under the form _Urusalim_, i.e. "City of Salim" or "City of
Peace," many years before the Israelites under Joshua entered Canaan.
The emperor Hadrian, when he rebuilt the city, changed the name to Aelia
Capitolina. The Arabs usually designate Jerusalem by names expressive of
holiness, such as Beit el Makdis and El Mukaddis or briefly El Kuds,
i.e. the Sanctuary.
_Natural Topography._--Jerusalem is situated in 31 deg. 47' N. and 35
deg. 15' E., in the hill country of southern Palestine, close to the
watershed, at an average altitude of 2500 ft. above the Mediterranean,
and 3800 ft. above the level of the Dead Sea. The city stands on a
rocky plateau, which projects southwards from the main line of hills.
On the east the valley of the Kidron separates this plateau from the
ridge of the Mount of Olives, which is 100 to 200 ft. higher, while
the Wadi Er Rababi bounds Jerusalem on the west and south, meeting the
Valley of Kidron near the lower pool of Siloam. Both valleys fall
rapidly as they approach the point of junction, which lies at a depth
of more than 600 ft. below the general valley of the plateau. The
latter, which covers an area of about 1000 acres, has at the present
time a fairly uniform surface and slopes gradually from the north to
the south and east. Originally, however, its formation was very
different, as it was intersected by a deep valley, called Tyropoeon by
Josephus, which, starting from a point N.W. of the Damascus gate,
followed a course first south-east and then west of south, and joined
the two main valleys of Kidron and Er Rababi at Siloam. Another
shorter valley began near the present Jaffa gate and, taking an
easterly direction, joined the Tyropoeon; while a third ravine passed
across what is now the northern part of the Haram enclosure and fell
into the valley of the Kidron. The exact form of these three interior
valleys, which had an important influence on the construction and
history of the city, is still imperfectly known, as they are to a
great extent obliterated by vast accumulations of rubbish, which has
filled them up in some places to a depth of more than 100 ft. Their
approximate form was only arrived at by excavations made during the
later years of the 19th century. The limited knowledge which we
possess of the original features of the ground within the area of the
city makes a reconstruction of the topographical history of the latter
a difficult task; and, as a natural result, many irreconcilable
theories have been suggested. The difficulty is increased by the fact
that the geographical descriptions given in the Old Testament the
Apocrypha and the writings of Josephus are very short, and, having
been written for those who were acquainted with the places, convey
insufficient information to historians of the present day, when the
sites are so greatly altered. All that can be done is to form a
continuous account in accord with the ancient histories, and with the
original formation of the ground, so far as this has been identified
by modern exploration. But the progress of exploration and excavation
may render this subject to further modification.
The geological formation of the plateau consists of thin beds of hard
silicious chalk, locally called _misse_, which overlie a thick bed of
soft white limestone, known by the name of _meleke_. Both descriptions
of rock yielded good material for building; while in the soft _meleke_
tanks, underground chambers, tombs, &c., were easily excavated. In
ancient times a brook flowed down the valley of the Kidron, and it is
possible that a stream flowed also through the Tyropoeon valley. The
only known spring existing at present within the limits of the city is
the "fountain of the Virgin," on the western side of the Kidron
valley, but there may have been others which are now concealed by the
accumulations of rubbish. Cisterns were also used for the storage of
rain water, and aqueducts, of which the remains still exist (see
AQUEDUCTS _ad init._), were constructed for the conveyance of water
from a distance. Speaking generally, it is probable that the water
supply of Jerusalem in ancient times was better than it is at present.
_History._--The early history of Jerusalem is very obscure. The Tell
el-Amarna letters show that, long before the invasion by Joshua, it was
occupied by the Egyptians, and was probably a stronghold of considerable
importance, as it formed a good strategical position in the hill country
of southern Palestine. We do not know how the Egyptians were forced to
abandon Jerusalem; but, at the time of the Israelite conquest, it was
undoubtedly in the hands of the Jebusites, the native inhabitants of the
country. The exact position of the Jebusite city is unknown; some
authorities locate it on the western hill, now known as Zion; some on
the eastern hill, afterwards occupied by the Temple and the city of
David; while others consider it was a double settlement, one part being
on the western, and the other on the eastern hill, separated from one
another by the Tyropoeon valley. The latter view appears to be the most
probable, as, according to the Biblical accounts, Jerusalem was partly
in Judah and partly in Benjamin, the line of demarcation between the two
tribes passing through the city. According to this theory, the part of
Jerusalem known as Jebus was situated on the western hill, and the
outlying fort of Zion on the eastern hill. The men of Judah and Benjamin
did not succeed in getting full possession of the place, and the
Jebusites still held it when David became king of Israel. Some years
after his accession David succeeded after some difficulty in taking
Jerusalem. He established his royal city on the eastern hill close to
the site of the Jebusite Zion, while Jebus, the town on the western side
of the Tyropoeon valley, became the civil city, of which Joab, David's
leading general, was appointed governor. David surrounded the royal city
with a wall and built a citadel, probably on the site of the Jebusite
fort of Zion, while Joab fortified the western town. North of the city
of David, the king, acting under divine guidance, chose a site for the
Temple of Jehovah, which was erected with great magnificence by Solomon.
The actual site occupied by this building has given rise to much
controversy, though all authorities are agreed that it must have stood
on some part of the area now known as the Haram. James Fergusson was of
opinion that the Temple stood near the south-western corner. As,
however, it was proved by the explorations of Sir Charles Warren in
1869-1870 that the Tyropoeon valley passed under this corner, and that
the foundations must have been of enormous depth, Fergusson's theory
must be regarded as untenable (see also SEPULCHRE, HOLY). On the whole
it is most likely that the Temple was erected by Solomon on the same
spot as is now occupied by the Dome of the Rock, commonly known as the
Mosque of Omar, and, regard being had to the levels of the ground, it is
possible that the Holy of Holies, the most sacred chamber of the Temple,
stood over the rock which is still regarded with veneration by the
Mahommedans. Solomon greatly strengthened the fortifications of
Jerusalem, and was probably the builder of the line of defence, called
by Josephus the first or old wall, which united the cities on the
eastern and western hills. The kingdom reached its highest point of
importance during the reign of Solomon, but, shortly after his death, it
was broken up by the rebellion of Jeroboam, who founded the separate
kingdom of Israel with its capital at Shechem. Two tribes only, Judah
and Benjamin, with the descendants of Levi, remained faithful to
Rehoboam, the son of Solomon. Jerusalem thus lost much of its
importance, especially after it was forced to surrender to Shishak, king
of Egypt, who carried off a great part of the riches which had been
accumulated by Solomon. The history of Jerusalem during the succeeding
three centuries consists for the most part of a succession of wars
against the kingdom of Israel, the Moabites and the Syrians. Joash, king
of Israel, captured the city from Amaziah, king of Judah, and destroyed
part of the fortifications, but these were rebuilt by Uzziah, the son of
Amaziah, who did much to restore the city to its original prosperity. In
the reign of Hezekiah, the kingdom of Judah became tributary to the
Assyrians, who attempted the capture of Jerusalem. Hezekiah improved the
defences and arranged for a good water supply, preparatory to the siege
by Sennacherib, the Assyrian general. The siege failed and the Assyrians
retired. Some years later Syria was again invaded by the Egyptians, who
reduced Judah to the position of a tributary state. In the reign of
Zedekiah, the last of the line of kings, Jerusalem was captured by
Nebuchadrezzar, king of Babylon, who pillaged the city, destroyed the
Temple, and ruined the fortifications (see JEWS, S 17). A number of the
principal inhabitants were carried captive to Babylon, and Jerusalem was
reduced to the position of an insignificant town. Nebuchadrezzar placed
in the city a garrison which appears to have been quartered on the
western hill, while the eastern hill on which were the Temple and the
city of David was left more or less desolate. We have no information
regarding Jerusalem during the period of the captivity, but fortunately
Nehemiah, who was permitted to return and rebuild the defences about 445
B.C., has given a fairly clear description of the line of the wall which
enables us to obtain a good idea of the extent of the city at this
period. The Temple had already been partially rebuilt by Zedekiah and
his companions, but on a scale far inferior to the magnificent building
of King Solomon, and Nehemiah devoted his attention to the
reconstruction of the walls. Before beginning the work, he made a
preliminary reconnaissance of the fortifications on the south of the
town from the Valley Gate, which was near the S.E. corner, to the pool
of Siloam and valley of the Kidron. He then allotted the reconstruction
of wall and gates to different parties of workmen, and his narrative
describes the portion of wall upon which each of these was employed.[1]
It is clear from his account that the lines of fortifications included
both the eastern and western hills. North of the Temple enclosure
there was a gate, known as the Sheep Gate, which must have opened into
the third valley mentioned above, and stood somewhere near what is now
the north side of the Haram enclosure, but considerably south of the
present north wall of the latter. To the west of the Sheep Gate there
were two important towers in the wall, called respectively Meah and
Hananeel. The tower Hananeel is specially worthy of notice as it stood
N.W. of the Temple and probably formed the basis of the citadel built
by Simon Maccabaeus, which again was succeeded by the fortress of
Antonia, constructed by Herod the Great, and one of the most important
positions at the time of the siege by Titus. At or near the tower
Hananeel the wall turned south along the east side of the Tyropoeon
valley, and then again westward, crossing the valley at a point
probably near the remarkable construction known as Wilson's arch. A
gate in the valley, known as the Fish Gate, opened on a road which,
leading from the north, went down the Tyropoeon valley to the southern
part of the city. Westward of this gate the wall followed the south
side of the valley which joined the Tyropoeon from the west as far as
the north-western corner of the city at the site of the present Jaffa
Gate and the so-called tower of David. In this part of the wall there
were apparently two gates facing north, i.e. the Old Gate and the Gate
of Ephraim, 400 cubits from the corner.[2] At the corner stood the
residence of the Babylonian governor, near the site upon which King
Herod afterwards built his magnificent palace. From the corner at the
governor's house, the wall went in a southerly direction and turned
south-east to the Valley Gate, remains of which were discovered by F.
J. Bliss and fully described in his _Excavations in Jerusalem in
1894-1897_. From the Valley Gate the wall took an easterly course for
a distance of 1000 cubits to the Dung Gate, near which on the east was
the Fountain Gate, not far from the lower pool of Siloam. Here was the
most southerly point of Jerusalem, and the wall turning hence to the
north followed the west side of the valley of the Kidron, enclosing
the city of David and the Temple enclosure, and finally turning west
at some point near the site of the Golden Gate joined the wall,
already described, at the Sheep Gate. Nehemiah mentions a number of
places on the eastern hill, including the tomb of David, the positions
of which cannot with our present knowledge be fixed with any
certainty.
After the restoration of the walls of Jerusalem by Nehemiah, a
considerable number of Jews returned to the city, but we know
practically nothing of its history for more than a century until, in 332
B.C., Alexander the Great conquered Syria. The gates of Jerusalem were
opened to him and he left the Jews in peaceful occupation. But his
successors did not act with similar leniency; when the city was captured
by Ptolemy I., king of Egypt, twelve years later, the fortifications
were partially demolished and apparently not again restored until the
period of the high priest Simon II., who repaired the defences and also
the Temple buildings. In 168 B.C. Antiochus Epiphanes captured
Jerusalem, destroyed the walls, and devastated the Temple, reducing the
city to a worse position than it had occupied since the time of the
captivity. He built a citadel called the Acra to dominate the town and
placed in it a strong garrison of Greeks. The position of the Acra is
doubtful, but it appears most probable that it stood on the eastern hill
between the Temple and the city of David, both of which it commanded.
Some writers place it north of the Temple on the site afterwards
occupied by the fortress of Antonia, but such a position is not in
accord with the descriptions either in Josephus or in the books of the
Maccabees, which are quite consistent with each other. Other writers
again have placed the Acra on the eastern side of the hill upon which
the church of the Holy Sepulchre now stands, but as this point was
probably quite outside the city at the time of Antiochus Epiphanes, and
is at too great a distance from the Temple, it can hardly be accepted.
But the site which has been already indicated at the N.E. corner of the
present Mosque el Aksa meets the accounts of the ancient authorities
better than any other. At this point in the Haram enclosure there is an
enormous underground cistern, known as the Great Sea, and this may
possibly have been the source of water supply for the Greek garrison.
The oppression of Antiochus led to a revolt of the Jews under the
leadership of the Maccabees, and Judas Maccabaeus succeeded in capturing
Jerusalem after severe fighting, but could not get possession of the
Acra, which caused much trouble to the Jews, who erected a wall between
it and the Temple, and another wall to cut it off from the city. The
Greeks held out for a considerable time, but had finally to surrender,
probably from want of food, to Simon Maccabaeus, who demolished the Acra
and cut down the hill upon which it stood so that it might no longer be
higher than the Temple, and that there should be no separation between
the latter and the city. Simon then constructed a new citadel, north of
the Temple, to take the place of the Acra, and established in Judaea the
Asmonean dynasty, which lasted for nearly a century, when the Roman
republic began to make its influence felt in Syria. In 65 B.C. Jerusalem
was captured by Pompey after a difficult siege. The Asmonean dynasty
lasted a few years longer, but finally came to an end when Herod the
Great, with the aid of the Romans, took possession of Jerusalem and
became the first king of the Idumaean dynasty. Herod again raised the
city to the position of an important capital, restoring the
fortifications, and rebuilding the Temple from its foundations. He also
built the great fortress of Antonia, N.W. of the Temple, on the site of
the citadel of the Asmoneans, and constructed a magnificent palace for
himself on the western hill, defended by three great towers, which he
named Mariamne, Hippicus and Phasaelus. At some period between the time
of the Maccabees and of Herod, a second or outer wall had been built
outside and north of the first wall, but it is not possible to fix an
accurate date to this line of defence, as the references to it in
Josephus are obscure. Herod adorned the town with other buildings and
constructed a theatre and gymnasium. He doubled the area of the
enclosure round the Temple, and there can be little doubt that a great
part of the walls of the Haram area date from the time of Herod, while
probably the tower of David, which still exists near the Jaffa Gate, is
on the same foundation as one of the towers adjoining his palace.
Archelaus, Herod's successor, had far less authority than Herod, and the
real power of government at Jerusalem was assumed by the Roman
procurators, in the time of one of whom, Pontius Pilate, Jesus Christ
was condemned to death and crucified outside Jerusalem. The places of
his execution and burial are not certainly known (see SEPULCHRE, HOLY).
Herod Agrippa, who succeeded to the kingdom, built a third or outer wall
on the north side of Jerusalem in order to enclose and defend the
buildings which had gradually been constructed outside the old
fortifications. The exact line of this third wall is not known with
certainty, but it probably followed approximately the same line as the
existing north wall of Jerusalem. Some writers have considered that it
extended a considerable distance farther to the north, but of this there
is no proof, and no remains have as yet been found which would support
the opinion. The wall of Herod Agrippa was planned on a grand scale, but
its execution was stopped by the Romans, so that it was not completed at
the time of the siege of Jerusalem by Titus. The writings of Josephus
give a good idea of the fortifications and buildings of Jerusalem at the
time of the siege, and his accurate personal knowledge makes his account
worthy of the most careful perusal. He explains clearly how Titus,
beginning his attack from the north, captured the third or outer wall,
then the second wall, and finally the fortress of Antonia, the Temple,
and the upper city. After the capture, Titus ordered the Temple to be
demolished and the fortifications to be levelled, with the exception of
the three great towers at Herod's palace. It is, however, uncertain how
far the order was carried out, and it is probable that the outer walls
of the Temple enclosure were left partially standing and that the
defences on the west and south of the city were not completely levelled.
When Titus and his army withdrew from Jerusalem, the 10th legion was
left as a permanent Roman garrison, and a fortified camp for their
occupation was established on the western hill. We have no account of
the size or position of this camp, but a consideration of the site, and
a comparison with other Roman camps in various parts of Europe, make it
probable that it occupied an area of about 50 acres, extending over what
is now known as the Armenian quarter of the town, and that it was
bounded on the north by the old or first wall, on the west also by the
old wall, on the south by a line of defence somewhat in the same
position as the present south wall where it passes the Zion Gate, and on
the east by an entrenchment running north and south parallel to the
existing thoroughfare known as David Street. For sixty years the Roman
garrison were left in undisturbed occupation, but in 132 the Jews rose
in revolt under the leadership of Bar-Cochebas or Barcochba, and took
possession of Jerusalem. After a severe struggle, the revolt was
suppressed by the Roman general, Julius Severus, and Jerusalem was
recaptured and again destroyed. According to some writers, this
devastation was even more complete than after the siege by Titus. About
130 the emperor Hadrian decided to rebuild Jerusalem, and make it a
Roman colony. The new city was called Aelia Capitolina. The exact size
of the city is not known, but it probably extended as far as the present
north wall of Jerusalem and included the northern part of the western
hill. A temple dedicated to Jupiter Capitolinus was erected on the site
of the Temple, and other buildings were constructed, known as the
Theatre, the Demosia, the Tetranymphon, the Dodecapylon and the Codra.
The Jews were forbidden to reside in the city, but Christians were
freely admitted. The history of Jerusalem during the period between the
foundation of the city of Aelia by the emperor Hadrian and the accession
of Constantine the Great in 306 is obscure, but no important change
appears to have been made in the size or fortifications of the city,
which continued as a Roman colony. In 326 Constantine, after his
conversion to Christianity, issued orders to the bishop Macarius to
recover the site of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, and the tomb in
which his body was laid (see SEPULCHRE, HOLY). After the holy sites had
been determined, Constantine gave orders for the construction of two
magnificent churches, the one over the tomb and the other over the place
where the cross was discovered. The present church of the Holy Sepulchre
stands on the site upon which one of the churches of Constantine was
built, but the second church, the Basilica of the Cross, has completely
disappeared. The next important epoch in building construction at
Jerusalem was about 460, when the empress Eudocia visited Palestine and
expended large sums oh the improvement of the city. The walls were
repaired by her orders, and the line of fortifications appears to have
been extended on the south so as to include the pool of Siloam. A church
was built above the pool, probably at the same time, and, after having
completely disappeared for many centuries, it was recovered by F. J.
Bliss when making his exploration of Jerusalem. The empress also erected
a large church in honour of St Stephen north of the Damascus Gate, and
is believed to have been buried therein. The site of this church was
discovered in 1874, and it has since been rebuilt. In the 6th century
the emperor Justinian erected a magnificent basilica at Jerusalem, in
honour of the Virgin Mary, and attached to it two hospitals, one for the
reception of pilgrims and one for the accommodation of the sick poor.
The description given by Procopius does not indicate clearly where this
church was situated. A theory frequently put forward is that it stood
within the Haram area near the Mosque of el Aksa, but it is more
probable that it was on Zion, near the traditional place of the
Coenaculum or last supper, where the Mahommedan building known as the
tomb of David now stands. In 614 Chosroes II., the king of Persia,
captured Jerusalem, devastated many of the buildings, and massacred a
great number of the inhabitants. The churches at the Holy Sepulchre were
much damaged, but were partially restored by the monk Modestus, who
devoted himself with great energy to the work. After a severe struggle
the Persians were defeated by the emperor Heraclius, who entered
Jerusalem in triumph in 629 bringing with him the holy cross, which had
been carried off by Chosroes. At this period the religion of Mahomet was
spreading over the east, and in 637 the caliph Omar marched on
Jerusalem, which capitulated after a siege of four months. Omar behaved
with great moderation, restraining his troops from pillage and leaving
the Christians in possession of their churches. A wooden mosque was
erected near the site of the Temple, which was replaced by the Mosque
of Aksa, built by the amir Abdalmalik (Abd el Malek), who also
constructed the Dome of the Rock, known as the Mosque of Omar, in 688.
The Mahommedans held Jerusalem until 1099, when it was captured by the
crusaders under Godfrey of Bouillon, and became the capital of the Latin
Kingdom of Jerusalem (see CRUSADES, vol. viii. p. 401) until 1187, when
Saladin reconquered it, and rebuilt the walls. Since that time, except
from 1229 to 1239, and from 1243 to 1244, the city has been held by the
Mahommedans. It was occupied by the Egyptian sultans until 1517, when
the Turks under Selim I. occupied Syria. Selim's successor, Suleiman the
Magnificent, restored the fortifications, which since that time have
been little altered.
_Modern Jerusalem._--Jerusalem is the chief town of a sanjak, governed
by a _mutessarif_, who reports directly to the Porte. It has the usual
executive and town councils, upon which the recognized religious
communities, or _millets_, have representatives; and it is garrisoned
by infantry of the V. army corps. The city is connected with its port,
Jaffa, by a carriage road, 41 m., and by a metre-gauge railway, 54 m.,
which was completed in 1892, and is worked by a French company. There
are also carriage roads to Bethlehem, Hebron and Jericho, and a road
to Nablus was in course of construction in 1909. Prior to 1858, when
the modern building period commenced, Jerusalem lay wholly within its
16th-century walls, and even as late as 1875 there were few private
residences beyond their limits. At present Jerusalem without the walls
covers a larger area than that within them. The growth has been
chiefly towards the north and north-west; but there are large suburbs
on the west, and on the south-west near the railway station on the
plain of Rephaim. The village of Siloam has also increased in size,
and the western slopes of Olivet are being covered with churches,
monasteries and houses. Amongst the most marked features of the change
that has taken place since 1875 are the growth of religious and
philanthropic establishments; the settlement of Jewish colonies from
Bokhara, Yemen and Europe; the migration of Europeans, old Moslem
families, and Jews from the city to the suburbs; the increased
vegetation, due to the numerous gardens and improved methods of
cultivation; the substitution of timber and red tiles for the vaulted
stone roofs which were so characteristic of the old city; the striking
want of beauty, grandeur, and harmony with their environment exhibited
by most of the new buildings; and the introduction of wheeled
transport, which, cutting into the soft limestone, has produced mud
and dust to an extent previously unknown. To facilitate communication
between the city and its suburbs, the Bab ez-Zahire, or Herod's Gate,
and a new gate, near the north-west angle of the walls, have been
opened; and a portion of the wall, adjoining the Jaffa Gate, has been
thrown down, to allow free access for carriages. Within the city the
principal streets have been roughly paved, and iron bars placed across
the narrow alleys to prevent the passage of camels. Without the walls
carriage roads have been made to the mount of Olives, the railway
station, and various parts of the suburbs, but they are kept in bad
repair. Little effort has been made to meet the increased sanitary
requirements of the larger population and wider inhabited area. There
is no municipal water-supply, and the main drain of the city
discharges into the lower pool of Siloam, which has become an open
cesspit. In several places the debris within the walls is saturated
with sewage, and the water of the Fountain of the Virgin, and of many
of the old cisterns, is unfit for drinking. Amongst the more important
buildings for ecclesiastical and philanthropic purposes erected to the
north of the city since 1860 are the Russian cathedral, hospice and
hospital; the French hospital of St Louis, and hospice and church of
St Augustine; the German schools, orphanages and hospitals; the new
hospital and industrial school of the London mission to the Jews; the
Abyssinian church; the church and schools of the Church missionary
society; the Anglican church, college and bishop's house; the
Dominican monastery, seminary and church of St Stephen; the Rothschild
hospital and girls' school; and the industrial school and workshops of
the Alliance Israelite. On the mount of Olives are the Russian church,
tower and hospice, near the chapel of the Ascension; the French
Paternoster church; the Carmelite nunnery; and the Russian church of
St Mary Magdalene, near Gethsemane. South of the city are the Armenian
monastery of Mount Zion and Bishop Gobat's school. On the west side
are the institution of the sisters of St Vincent; the Ratisbon school;
the Montefiore hospice; the British ophthalmic hospital of the knights
of St John; the convent and church of the Clarisses; and the Moravian
leper hospital. Within the city walls are the Latin Patriarchal church
and residence; the school of the Freres de la Doctrine Chretienne; the
schools and printing house of the Franciscans; the Coptic monastery;
the German church of the Redeemer, and hospice; the United Armenian
church of the Spasm; the convent and school of the Soeurs de Zion; the
Austrian hospice; the Turkish school and museum; the monastery and
seminary of the Freres de la Mission Algerienne, with the restored
church of St Anne, the church, schools and hospital of the London
mission to the Jews; the Armenian seminary and Patriarchal buildings;
the Rothschild hospital; and Jewish hospices and synagogues. The
climate is naturally good, but continued neglect of sanitary
precautions has made the city unhealthy. During the summer months the
heat is tempered by a fresh sea-breeze, and there is usually a sharp
fall of temperature at night; but in spring and autumn the east and
south-east winds, which blow across the heated depression of the Ghor,
are enervating and oppressive. A dry season, which lasts from May to
October, is followed by a rainy season, divided into the early winter
and latter rains. Snow falls two years out of three, but soon melts.
The mean annual temperature is 62.8 deg. F., the maximum 112 deg., and
the minimum 25 deg. The mean monthly temperature is lowest (47.2 deg.)
in February, and highest (76.3 deg.) in August. The mean annual
rainfall (1861 to 1899) is 26.06 in. The most unhealthy period is from
1st May to 31st October, when there are, from time to time, outbreaks
of typhoid, small-pox, diphtheria and other epidemics. The
unhealthiness of the city is chiefly due to want of proper drainage,
impure drinking-water, miasma from the disturbed rubbish heaps, and
contaminated dust from the uncleansed roads and streets. The only
industry is the manufacture of olive-wood and mother-of-pearl goods
for sale to pilgrims and for export. The imports (see Joppa) are
chiefly food, clothing and building material. The population in 1905
was about 60,000 (Moslems 7000, Christians 13,000, Jews 40,000).
During the pilgrimage season it is increased by about 15,000
travellers and pilgrims.
AUTHORITIES.--Pal. Exp. Fund Publications--Sir C. Warren, _Jerusalem,
Memoir_ (1884); Clermont-Ganneau, _Archaeol. Researches_ (vol. i.,
1899); Bliss, _Excavns. at Jerusalem_ (1898); Conder, _Latin Kingdom
of Jerusalem_ (1897), and _The City of Jerusalem_ (1909), an
historical survey over 4000 years; Le Strange, _Pal. under the
Moslems_ (1890); Fergusson, _Temples of the Jews_ (1878); Hayter
Lewis, _Holy Places of Jerusalem_(1888); _Churches of Constantine at
Jerusalem_ (1891); Guthe, "Ausgrabungen in Jer.," in _Zeitschrift d.
D. Pal. Vereins_ (vol. v.); Tobler, _Topographie von Jerusalem_
(Berlin, 1854); Dritte Wanderung (1859); Sepp, _Jerusalem und das
heilige Land_ (1873); Rohricht, _Regesta Regni Hierosolymitani;
Bibliotheca Geographica Palaestinae_ (1890); De Vogue, _Le Temple de
Jerusalem_ (1864); Sir C. W. Wilson, _Golgotha and the Holy Sepulchre_
(1906); publications of the Pal. Pilgrims' Text Society and of the
_Societe de l'Orient latin_; papers in _Quarterly Statements_ of the
P. E. Fund, the _Zeitschrift d. D. Pal. Vereins_, Clermont-Ganneau's
_Recueil d'archeologie orientale and Etudes d'arch. orientale_, and
the _Revue Biblique_; Baedeker's _Handbook to Palestine and Syria_
(1906); Mommert, _Die hl. Grabeskirche zu Jerusalem_ (1898); _Golgotha
und das hl. Grab zu Jerusalem_ (1900); Couret, _La Prise de Jerusm.
par les Perses, 614_. (Orleans, 1896--Plans, Ordnance Survey, revised
ed.; Ordnance Survey revised by Dr Schick in _Z.D.P.V._ xviii., 1895).
(C. W. W.; C. M. W.)
FOOTNOTES:
[1] The sites shown on the plan are tentative, and cannot be regarded
as certain; see Nehemiah ii. 12-15, iii. 1-32, xii. 37-39.
[2] See 2 Kings xiv. 13.
JERUSALEM, SYNOD OF (1672). By far the most important of the many synods
held at Jerusalem (see Wetzer and Welte, _Kirchenlexikon_, 2nd ed., vi.
1357 sqq.) is that of 1672; and its confession is the most vital
statement of faith made in the Greek Church during the past thousand
years. It refutes article by article the confession of Cyril Lucaris,
which appeared in Latin at Geneva in 1629, and in Greek, with the
addition of four "questions," in 1633. Lucaris, who died in 1638 as
patriarch of Constantinople, had corresponded with Western scholars and
had imbibed Calvinistic views. The great opposition which arose during
his lifetime continued after his death, and found classic expression in
the highly venerated confession of Petrus Mogilas, metropolitan of Kiev
(1643). Though this was intended as a barrier against Calvinistic
influences, certain Reformed writers, as well as Roman Catholics,
persisted in claiming the support of the Greek Church for sundry of
their own positions. Against the Calvinists the synod of 1672 therefore
aimed its rejection of unconditional predestination and of justification
by faith alone, also its advocacy of what are substantially the Roman
doctrines of transubstantiation and of purgatory; the Oriental hostility
to Calvinism had been fanned by the Jesuits. Against the Church of Rome,
however, there was directed the affirmation that the Holy Ghost proceeds
from the Father and not from both Father and Son; this rejection of the
_filioque_ was not unwelcome to the Turks. Curiously enough, the synod
refused to believe that the heretical confession it refuted was actually
by a former patriarch of Constantinople; yet the proofs of its
genuineness seem to most scholars overwhelming. In negotiations between
Anglican and Russian churchmen the confession of Dositheus[1] usually
comes to the front.
TEXTS.--The confession of Dositheus, or the eighteen decrees of the
Synod of Jerusalem, appeared in 1676 at Paris as _Synodus
Bethlehemitica_; a revised text in 1678 as _Synodus Jerosolymitana_;
Hardouin, _Acta conciliorum_, vol. xi.; Kimmel, _Monumenta fidei
ecclesiae orientalis_ (Jena, 1850; critical edition); P. Schaff, _The
Creeds of Christendom_, vol. ii. (text after Hardouin and Kimmel, with
Latin translation); _The Acts and Decrees of the Synod of Jerusalem
translated from the Greek, with notes_, by J. N. W. B. Robertson
(London, 1899); J. Michalcescu, _Die Bekenntnisse und die wichtigsten
Glaubenszeugnisse der griechisch-orientalischen Kirche_ (Leipzig,
1904; Kimmel's text with introductions). LITERATURE.--_The Doctrine of
the Russian Church ..._ translated by R. W. Blackmore (Aberdeen,
1845), p. xxv. sqq.; Schaff, i. S 17; Wetzer and Welte,
_Kirchenlexikon_ (2nd ed.) vi. 1359 seq.; Herzog-Hauck,
_Realencyklopadie_ (3rd ed.), viii. 703-705; Michalcescu, 123 sqq.
(See COUNCILS.) (W. W. R.*)
FOOTNOTE:
[1] Patriarch of Jerusalem (1669-1707), who presided over the synod.
JESI (anc. _Aesis_), a town and episcopal see of the Marches, Italy, in
the province of Ancona, from which it is 17 m. W. by S. by rail, 318 ft.
above sea-level. Pop. (1901), 23,285. The place took its ancient name
from the river Aesis (mod. Esino), upon the left bank of which it lies.
It still retains its picturesque medieval town walls. The Palazzo del
Comune is a fine, simple, early Renaissance building (1487-1503) by
Francesco di Giorgio Martini; the walls are of brick and the window and
door-frames of stone, with severely restrained ornamentation. The
courtyard with its loggie was built by Andrea Sansovino in 1519. The
library contains some good pictures by Lorenzo Lotto. The castle was
built by Baccio Pontelli (1488), designer of the castle at Ostia
(1483-1486). Jesi was the birthplace of the emperor Frederic II. (1194),
and also of the musical composer, Giovanni Battista Pergolesi
(1710-1736). The river Aesis formed the boundary of Italy proper from
about 250 B.C. to the time of Sulla (c. 82 B.C.); and, in Augustus'
division of Italy, that between Umbria (the 6th region) and Picenum (the
5th). The town itself was a colony, of little importance, except,
apparently, as a recruiting ground for the Roman army.
JESSE, in the Bible, the father of David (q.v.), and as such often
regarded as the first in the genealogy of Jesus Christ (cf. Isa. xi. 1,
10). Hence the phrase "tree of Jesse" is applied to a design
representing the descent of Jesus from the royal line of David, formerly
a favourite ecclesiastical ornament. From a recumbent figure of Jesse
springs a tree bearing in its branches the chief figures in the line of
descent, and terminating in the figure of Jesus, or of the Virgin and
Child. There are remains of such a tree in the church of St Mary at
Abergavenny, carved in wood, and supposed to have once stood behind the
high altar. Jesse candelabra were also made. At Laon and Amiens there
are sculptured Jesses over the central west doorways of the cathedrals.
The design was chiefly used in windows. The great east window at Wells
and the window at the west end of the nave at Chartres are fine
examples. There is a 16th-century Jesse window from Mechlin in St
George's, Hanover Square, London. The Jesse window in the choir of
Dorchester Abbey, Oxfordshire, is remarkable in that the tree forms the
central mullion, and many of the figures are represented as statuettes
on the branches of the upper tracery; other figures are in the stained
glass; the whole gives a beautiful example of the combination of glass
and carved stonework in one design.
JESSE, EDWARD (1780-1868), English writer on natural history, was born
on the 14th of January 1780, at Hutton Cranswick, Yorkshire, where his
father was vicar of the parish. He became clerk in a government office
in 1798, and for a time was secretary to Lord Dartmouth, when president
of the Board of Control. In 1812 he was appointed commissioner of
hackney coaches, and later he became deputy surveyor-general of the
royal parks and palaces. On the abolition of this office he retired on a
pension, and he died at Brighton on the 28th of March 1868.
The result of his interest in the habits and characteristics of
animals was a series of pleasant and popular books on natural history,
the principal of which are _Gleanings in Natural History_ (1832-1835);
_An Angler's Rambles_ (1836); _Anecdotes of Dogs_ (1846); and
_Lectures on Natural History_ (1863). He also edited Izaak Walton's
_Compleat Angler_, Gilbert White's _Selborne_, and L. Ritchie's
_Windsor Castle_, and wrote a number of handbooks to places of
interest, including Windsor and Hampton Court.
JESSE, JOHN HENEAGE (1815-1874), English historian, son of Edward Jesse,
was educated at Eton, and afterwards became a clerk in the secretary's
department of the admiralty. He died in London on the 7th of July 1874.
His poem on Mary Queen of Scots was published about 1831, and was
followed by a collection of poems entitled _Tales of the Dead_. He also
wrote a drama, _Richard III._, and a fragmentary poem entitled _London_.
None of these ventures achieved any success, but his numerous historical
works are written with vivacity and interest, and, in their own style,
are an important contribution to the history of England. They include
_Memoirs of the Court of England during the Reign of the Stuarts_
(1840), _Memoirs of the Court of England from the Revolution of 1688 to
the Death of George II._ (1843), _George Selwyn and his Contemporaries_
(1843, new ed. 1882), _Memoirs of the Pretenders and their Adherents_
(1845), _Memoirs of Richard the Third and his Contemporaries_ (1861),
and _Memoirs of the Life and Reign of King George the Third_ (1867). The
titles of these works are sufficiently indicative of their character.
They are sketches of the principal personages and of the social details
of various periods in the history of England rather than complete and
comprehensive historical narratives. In addition to these works Jesse
wrote _Literary and Historical Memorials of London_ (1847), _London and
its Celebrities_ (1850), and a new edition of this work as _London: its
Celebrated Characters and Remarkable Places_ (1871). His _Memoirs of
Celebrated Etonians_ appeared in 1875.
A collected edition containing most of his works in thirty volumes was
published in London in 1901.
JESSEL, SIR GEORGE (1824-1883), English judge, was born in London on the
13th of February 1824. He was the son of Zadok Aaron Jessel, a Jewish
coral merchant. George Jessel was educated at a school for Jews at Kew,
and being prevented by then existing religious disabilities from
proceeding to Oxford or Cambridge, went to University College, London.
He entered as a student at Lincoln's Inn in 1842, and a year later took
his B.A. degree at the university of London, becoming M.A. and gold
medallist in mathematics and natural philosophy in 1844. In 1846 he
became a fellow of University College, and in 1847 he was called to the
bar at Lincoln's Inn. His earnings during his first three years at the
bar were 52, 346, and 795 guineas, from which it will be seen that his
rise to a tolerably large practice was rapid. His work, however, was
mainly conveyancing, and for long his income remained almost stationary.
By degrees, however, he got more work, and was called within the bar in
1865, becoming a bencher of his Inn in the same year and practising in
the Rolls Court. Jessel entered parliament as Liberal member for Dover
in 1868, and although neither his intellect nor his oratory was of a
class likely to commend itself to his fellow-members, he attracted
Gladstone's attention by two learned speeches on the Bankruptcy Bill
which was before the house in 1869, with the result that in 1871 he was
appointed solicitor-general. His reputation at this time stood high in
the chancery courts; on the common law side he was unknown, and on the
first occasion upon which he came into the court of Queen's bench to
move on behalf of the Crown, there was very nearly a collision between
him and the bench. His forceful and direct method of bringing his
arguments home to the bench was not modified in his subsequent practice
before it. His great powers were fully recognized; his business in
addition to that on behalf of the Crown became very large, and his
income for three years before he was raised to the bench amounted to
nearly L25,000 per annum. In 1873 Jessel succeeded Lord Romilly as
master of the rolls. From 1873 to 1881 Jessel sat as a judge of first
instance in the rolls court, being also a member of the court of appeal.
In November 1874 the first Judicature Act came into effect, and in 1881
the Judicature Act of that year made the master of the rolls the
ordinary president of the first court of appeal, relieving him of his
duties as a judge of first instance. In the court of appeal Jessel
presided almost to the day of his death. For some time before 1883 he
suffered from diabetes with chronic disorder of the heart and liver, but
struggled against it; on the 16th of March 1883 he sat in court for the
last time, and on the 21st of March he died at his residence in London,
the immediate cause of death being cardiac syncope.
As a judge of first instance Jessel was a revelation to those accustomed
to the proverbial slowness of the chancery courts and of the master of
the rolls who preceded him. He disposed of the business before him with
rapidity combined with correctness of judgment, and he not only had no
arrears himself, but was frequently able to help other judges to clear
their lists. His knowledge of law and equity was wide and accurate, and
his memory for cases and command of the principles laid down in them
extraordinary. In the rolls court he never reserved a judgment, not even
in the Epping Forest case (_Commissioners of Sewers_ v. _Glasse_, L.R.
19 Eq.; _The Times_, 11th November 1874), in which the evidence and
arguments lasted twenty-two days (150 witnesses being examined in court,
while the documents went back to the days of King John), and in the
court of appeal he did so only twice, and then in deference to the
wishes of his colleagues. The second of these two occasions was the case
of _Robarts_ v. _The Corporation of London_ (49 _Law Times_ 455; _The
Times_, 10th March 1883), and those who may read Jessel's judgment
should remember that, reviewing as it does the law and custom on the
subject, and the records of the city with regard to the appointment of a
remembrancer from the 16th century, together with the facts of the case
before the court, it occupied nearly an hour to deliver, but was
nevertheless delivered without notes--this, too, on the 9th of March
1883, when the judge who uttered it was within a fortnight of his death.
Never during the 19th century was the business of any court performed so
rapidly, punctually, and satisfactorily as it was when Jessel presided.
He was master of the rolls at a momentous period of legal history. The
Judicature Acts, completing the fusion of law and equity, were passed
while he was judge of first instance, and were still new to the courts
when he died. His knowledge and power of assimilating knowledge of all
subjects, his mastery of every branch of law with which he had to
concern himself, as well as of equity, together with his willingness to
give effect to the new system, caused it to be said when he died that
the success of the Judicature Acts would have been impossible without
him. His faults as a judge lay in his disposition to be intolerant of
those who, not able to follow the rapidity of his judgment, endeavoured
to persist in argument after he had made up his mind; but though he was
peremptory with the most eminent counsel, young men had no cause to
complain of his treatment of them.
Jessel sat on the royal commission for the amendment of the Medical
Acts, taking an active part in the preparation of its report. He
actively interested himself in the management of London University, of
which he was a fellow from 1861, and of which he was elected
vice-chancellor in 1880. He was one of the commissioners of patents, and
trustee of the British Museum. He was also chairman of the committee of
judges which drafted the new rules rendered necessary by the Judicature
Acts. He was treasurer of Lincoln's Inn in 1883, and vice-president of
the council of legal education. He was also a fellow of the Royal
Society. Jessel's career marks an epoch on the bench, owing to the
active part taken by him in rendering the Judicature Acts effective, and
also because he was the last judge capable of sitting in the House of
Commons, a privilege of which he did not avail himself. He was the first
Jew who, as solicitor-general, took a share in the executive government
of his country, the first Jew who was sworn a regular member of the
privy council, and the first Jew who took a seat on the judicial bench
of Great Britain; he was also, for many years after being called to the
bar, so situated that any one might have driven him from it, because,
being a Jew, he was not qualified to be a member of the bar. In person
Jessel was a stoutish, square-built man of middle height, with dark
hair, somewhat heavy features, a fresh ruddy complexion, and a large
mouth. He married in 1856 Amelia, daughter of Joseph Moses, who survived
him together with three daughters and two sons, the elder of whom,
Charles James (b. 1860), was made a baronet shortly after the death of
his distinguished father and in recognition of his services.
See _The Times_, March 23, 1883; E. Manson, _Builders of our Law_
(1904).
JESSORE, a town and district of British India, in the Presidency
division of Bengal. The town is on the Bhairab river, with a railway
station 75 m. N.E. of Calcutta. Pop. (1901), 8054.
The DISTRICT OF JESSORE has an area of 2925 sq. m. Pop. (1901),
1,813,155, showing a decrease of 4% in the decade. The district forms
the central portion of the delta between the Hugli and the united Ganges
and Brahmaputra. It is a vast alluvial plain intersected by rivers and
watercourses, which in the southern portion spread out into large
marshes. The northern part is verdant, with extensive groves of
date-palms; villages are numerous and large; and the people are
prosperous. In the central portion the population is sparse, the only
part suitable for dwellings being the high land on the banks of rivers.
The principal rivers are the Madhumati or Haringhata (which forms the
eastern boundary of the district), with its tributaries the Nabaganga,
Chitra, and Bhairab; the Kumar, Kabadak, Katki, Harihar, Bhadra and
Atharabanka. Within the last century the rivers in the interior of
Jessore have ceased to be true deltaic rivers; and, whereas the northern
portion of the district formerly lay under water for several months
every year, it is now reached only by unusual inundations. The tide
reaches as far north as the latitude of Jessore town. Jessore is the
centre of sugar manufacture from date palms. The exports are sugar,
rice, pulse, timber, honey, shells, &c.; the imports are salt, English
goods, and cloth. The district is crossed by the Eastern Bengal railway,
but the chief means of communication are waterways.
British administration was completely established in the district in
1781, when the governor-general ordered the opening of a court at Murali
near Jessore. Before that, however, the fiscal administration had been
in the hands of the English, having been transferred to the East India
company with that of the rest of Bengal in 1765. The changes in
jurisdiction in Jessore have been very numerous. After many transfers
and rectifications, the district was in 1863 finally constituted as it
at present stands. The rajas of Jessore or Chanchra trace their origin
to Bhabeswar Rai, a soldier in the army of Khan-i-Azam, an imperial
general, who deprived Raja Pratapaditya, the popular hero of the
Sundarbans, of several fiscal divisions, and conferred them on
Bhabeswar. But Manohar Rai (1649-1705) is regarded as the principal
founder of the family. The estate when he inherited it was of moderate
size, but he acquired one _pargana_ after another, until, at his death,
the property was by far the largest in the neighbourhood.
JESTER, a provider of "jests" or amusements, a buffoon, especially a
professional fool at a royal court or in a nobleman's household (see
FOOL). The word "jest," from which "jester" is formed, is used from the
16th century for the earlier "gest," Lat. _gesta_, or _res gestae_,
things done, from _gerere_, to do, hence deeds, exploits, especially as
told in history, and so used of the metrical and prose romances and
chronicles of the middle ages. The word became applied to satirical
writings and to any long-winded empty tale, and thence to a joke or
piece of fun, the current meaning of the word.
JESUATI, a religious order founded by Giovanni Colombini of Siena in
1360. Colombini had been a prosperous merchant and a senator in his
native city, but, coming under ecstatic religious influences, abandoned
secular affairs and his wife and daughter (after making provision for
them), and with a friend of like temperament, Francesco Miani, gave
himself to a life of apostolic poverty, penitential discipline, hospital
service and public preaching. The name Jesuati was given to Colombini
and his disciples from the habit of calling loudly on the name of Jesus
at the beginning and end of their ecstatic sermons. The senate banished
Colombini from Siena for imparting foolish ideas to the young men of the
city, and he continued his mission in Arezzo and other places, only to
be honourably recalled home on the outbreak of a devastating pestilence.
He went out to meet Urban V. on his return from Avignon to Rome in 1367,
and craved his sanction for the new order and a distinctive habit.
Before this was granted Colombini had to clear the movement of a
suspicion that it was connected with the heretical sect of Fraticelli,
and he died on the 31st of July 1367, soon after the papal approval had
been given. The guidance of the new order, whose members (all lay
brothers) gave themselves entirely to works of mercy, devolved upon
Miani. Their rule of life, originally a compound of Benedictine and
Franciscan elements, was later modified on Augustinian lines, but traces
of the early penitential idea persisted, e.g. the wearing of sandals and
a daily flagellation. Paul V. in 1606 arranged for a small proportion of
clerical members, and later in the 17th century the Jesuati became so
secularized that the members were known as the Aquavitae Fathers, and
the order was dissolved by Clement IX. in 1668. The female branch of the
order, the Jesuati sisters, founded by Caterina Colombini (d. 1387) in
Siena, and thence widely dispersed, more consistently maintained the
primitive strictness of the society and survived the male branch by 200
years, existing until 1872 in small communities in Italy.
JESUITS, the name generally given to the members of the Society of
Jesus, a religious order in the Roman Catholic Church, founded in 1539.
This Society may be defined, in its original conception and well-avowed
object, as a body of highly trained religious men of various degrees,
bound by the three personal vows of poverty, chastity and obedience,
together with, in some cases, a special vow to the pope's service, with
the object of labouring for the spiritual good of themselves and their
neighbours. They are declared to be mendicants and enjoy all the
privileges of the other mendicant orders. They are governed and live by
constitutions and rules, mostly drawn up by their founder, St Ignatius
of Loyola, and approved by the popes. Their proper title is "Clerks
Regulars of the Society of Jesus," the word _Societas_ being taken as
synonymous with the original Spanish term, _Compania_; perhaps the
military term _Cohors_ might more fully have expressed the original idea
of a band of spiritual soldiers living under martial law and discipline.
The ordinary term "Jesuit" was given to the Society by its avowed
opponents; it is first found in the writings of Calvin and in the
registers of the Parlement of Paris as early as 1552.
_Constitution and Character._--The formation of the Society was a
masterpiece of genius on the part of a man (see LOYOLA) who was quick to
realize the necessity of the moment. Just before Ignatius was
experiencing the call to conversion, Luther had begun his revolt against
the Roman Church by burning the papal bull of excommunication on the
10th of December 1520. But while Luther's most formidable opponent was
thus being prepared in Spain, the actual formation of the Society was
not to take place for eighteen years. Its conception seems to have
developed very slowly in the mind of Ignatius. It introduced a new idea
into the Church. Hitherto all regulars made a point of the choral office
in choir. But as Ignatius conceived the Church to be in a state of war,
what was desirable in days of peace ceased when the life of the cloister
had to be exchanged for the discipline of the camp; so in the sketch of
the new society which he laid before Paul III., Ignatius laid down the
principle that the obligation of the breviary should be fulfilled
privately and separately and not in choir. The other orders, too, were
bound by the idea of a constitutional monarchy based on the democratic
spirit. Not so with the Society. The founder placed the general for life
in an almost uncontrolled position of authority, giving him the faculty
of dispensing individuals from the decrees of the highest legislative
body, the general congregations. Thus the principle of military
obedience was exalted to a degree higher than that existing in the older
orders, which preserved to their members certain constitutional rights.
The soldier-mind of Ignatius can be seen throughout the constitutions.
Even in the spiritual labours which the Society shares with the other
orders, its own ways of dealing with persons and things result from
the system of training which succeeds in forming men to a type that is
considered desirable. But it must not be thought that in practice the
rule of the Society and the high degree of obedience demanded result
in mere mechanism. By a system of check and counter check devised in
the constitutions the power of local superiors is modified, so that in
practice the working is smooth. Ignatius knew that while a high ideal
was necessary for every society, his followers were flesh and blood,
not machines. He made it clear from the first that the Society was
everything and the individual nothing, except so far as he might prove
a useful instrument for carrying out the Society's objects. Ignatius
said to his secretary Polanco that "in those who offered themselves
he looked less to purely natural goodness than to firmness of
character and ability for business, for he was of opinion that those
who were not fit for public business were not adapted for filling
offices in the Society." He further declared that even exceptional
qualities and endowments in a candidate were valuable in his eyes only
on the condition of their being brought into play, or held in
abeyance, strictly at the command of a superior. Hence his teaching on
obedience. His letter on this subject, addressed to the Jesuits of
Coimbra in 1553, is still one of the standard formularies of the
Society, ranking with those other products of his pen, the _Spiritual
Exercises_ and the _Constitutions_. In this letter Ignatius clothes
the general with the powers of a commander-in-chief in time of war,
giving him the absolute disposal of all members of the Society in
every place and for every purpose. He pushes the claim even further,
requiring, besides entire outward submission to command, also the
complete identification of the inferior's will with that of the
superior. He lays down that the superior is to be obeyed simply as
such and as standing in the place of God, without reference to his
personal wisdom, piety or discretion; that any obedience which falls
short of making the superior's will one's own, in inward affection as
well as in outward effect, is lax and imperfect; that going beyond the
letter of command, even in things abstractly good and praiseworthy, is
disobedience, and that the "sacrifice of the intellect" is the third
and highest grade of obedience, well pleasing to God, when the
inferior not only wills what the superior wills, but thinks what he
thinks, submitting his judgment, so far as it is possible for the will
to influence and lead the judgment. This _Letter on Obedience_ was
written for the guidance and formation of Ignatius's own followers; it
was an entirely domestic affair. But when it became known beyond the
Society the teaching met with great opposition, especially from
members of other orders whose institutes represented the normal days
of peace rather than those of war. The letter was condemned by the
Inquisitions of Spain and Portugal; and it tasked all the skill and
learning of Bellarmine as its apologist, together with the whole
influence of the Society, to avert what seemed to be a probable
condemnation at Rome.
The teaching of the _Letter_ must be understood in the living spirit
of the Society. Ignatius himself lays down the rule that an inferior
is bound to make all necessary representations to his superior so as
to guide him in imposing a precept of obedience. When a superior knows
the views of his inferior and still commands, it is because he is
aware of other sides of the question which appear of greater
importance than those that the inferior has brought forward. Ignatius
distinctly excepts the case where obedience in itself would be sinful:
"In all things _except sin_ I ought to do the will of my superior and
not my own." There may be cases where an inferior judges that what is
commanded is sinful. What is to be done? Ignatius says: "When it seems
to me that I am commanded by my superior to do a thing against which
my conscience revolts as sinful and my superior judges otherwise, it
is my duty to yield my doubts to him unless I am otherwise constrained
by evident reasons. ... If submissions do not appease my conscience I
must impart my doubts to two or three persons of discretion and abide
by their decision." From this it is clear that only in _doubtful_
cases concerning sin should an inferior try to submit his judgment to
that of his superior, who _ex officio_ is held to be not only one who
would not order what is clearly sinful, but also a competent judge who
knows and understands, better than the inferior, the nature and aspect
of the command. As the Jesuit obedience is based on the law of God, it
is clearly impossible that he should be bound to obey in what is
directly opposed to the divine service. A Jesuit lives in obedience
all his life, though the yoke is not galling nor always felt. He can
accept no dignity or office which will make him independent of the
Society; and even if ordered by the pope to accept the cardinalate or
the episcopate, he is still bound, if not to obey, yet to listen to
the advice of those whom the general deputes to counsel him in
important matters.
The Jesuits had to find their principal work in the world and in
direct and immediate contact with mankind. To seek spiritual
perfection in a retired life of contemplation and prayer did not seem
to Ignatius to be the best way of reforming the evils which had
brought about the revolt from Rome. He withdrew his followers from
this sort of retirement, except as a mere temporary preparation for
later activity; he made habitual intercourse with the world a prime
duty; and to this end he rigidly suppressed all such external
peculiarities of dress or rule as tended to put obstacles in the way
of his followers acting freely as emissaries, agents or missionaries
in the most various places and circumstances. Another change he
introduced even more completely than did the founders of the Friars.
The Jesuit has no home: the whole world is his parish. Mobility and
cosmopolitanism are of the very essence of the Society. As Ignatius
said, the ancient monastic communities were the infantry of the
Church, whose duty was to stand firmly in one place on the
battlefield; the Jesuits were to be her light horse, capable of going
anywhere at a moment's notice, but especially apt and designed for
scouting and skirmishing. To carry out this view, it was one of his
plans to send foreigners as superiors or officers to the Jesuit houses
in each country, requiring of these envoys, however, invariably to use
the language of their new place of residence and to study it both in
speaking and writing till entire mastery of it had been acquired--thus
by degrees making all the parts of his system mutually
interchangeable, and so largely increasing the number of persons
eligible to fill any given post without reference to locality. But
subsequent experience has, in practice, modified this interchange, as
far as local government goes, though the central government of the
Society is always cosmopolitan.
Next we must consider the machinery by which the Society is constituted
and governed so as to make its spirit a living energy and not a mere
abstract theory. The Society is distributed into six grades: novices,
scholastics, temporal coadjutors (lay brothers), spiritual coadjutors,
professed of the three vows, and professed of the four vows. No one can
become a postulant for admission to the Society until fourteen years
old, unless by special dispensation. The novice is classified according
as his destination is the priesthood or lay brotherhood, while a third
class of "indifferents" receives such as are reserved for further
inquiry before a decision of this kind is made. The novice has first to
undergo a strict retreat, practically in solitary confinement, during
which he receives from a director the _Spiritual Exercises_ and makes a
general confession of his whole life; after which the first novitiate of
two years' duration begins. In this period of trial the real character
of the man is discerned, his weak points are noted and his will is
tested. Prayer and the practices of asceticism, as means to an end, are
the chief occupations of the novice. He may leave or be dismissed at any
time during the two years; but at the end of the period if he is
approved and destined for the priesthood, he is advanced to the grade of
scholastic and takes the following simple vows in the presence of
certain witnesses, but not to any person:--
"Almighty Everlasting God, albeit everyway most unworthy in Thy holy
sight, yet relying on Thine infinite kindness and mercy and impelled
by the desire of serving Thee, before the Most Holy Virgin Mary and
all Thy heavenly host, I, N., vow to Thy divine Majesty Poverty,
Chastity and Perpetual Obedience to the Society of Jesus, and promise
that I will enter the same Society to live in it perpetually,
understanding all things according to the Constitutions of the
Society. I humbly pray from Thine immense goodness and clemency,
through the Blood of Jesus Christ, that Thou wilt deign to accept this
sacrifice in the odour of sweetness; and as Thou hast granted me to
desire and to offer this, so wilt Thou bestow abundant grace to fulfil
it."
The scholastic then follows the ordinary course of an undergraduate at a
university. After passing five years in arts he has, while still keeping
up his own studies, to devote five or six years more to teaching the
junior classes in various Jesuit schools or colleges. About this period
he takes his simple vows in the following terms:--
"I, _N._, promise to Almighty God, before His Virgin Mother and the
whole heavenly host, and to thee, Reverend Father General of the
Society of Jesus, holding the place of God, and to thy successors (or
to thee, Reverend Father _M._ in place of the General of the Society
of Jesus and his successors holding the place of God), Perpetual
Poverty, Chastity and Obedience; and according to it a peculiar care
in the education of boys, according to the manner expressed in the
Apostolic Letter and Constitutions of the said Society."
The lay brothers leave out the clause concerning education. The
scholastic does not begin the study of theology until he is twenty-eight
or thirty, and then passes through a four or six years' course. Only
when he is thirty-four or thirty-six can he be ordained a priest and
enter on the grade of a spiritual coadjutor. A lay brother, before he
can become a temporal coadjutor for the discharge of domestic duties,
must pass ten years before he is admitted to vows. Sometimes after
ordination the priest, in the midst of his work, is again called away to
a third year's novitiate, called the tertianship, as a preparation for
his solemn profession of the three vows. His former vows were simple and
the Society was at liberty to dismiss him for any canonical reason. The
formula of the famous Jesuit vow is as follows:--
"I, _N._, promise to Almighty God, before His Virgin Mother and the
whole heavenly host, and to all standing by; and to thee, Reverend
Father General of the Society of Jesus, holding the place of God, and
to thy successors (or to thee, Reverend Father _M._ in place of the
General of the Society of Jesus and his successors holding the place
of God), Perpetual Poverty, Chastity and Obedience; and according to
it a peculiar care in the education of boys according to the form of
life contained in the Apostolic Letters of the Society of Jesus and in
its Constitutions."
Immediately after the vows the Jesuit adds the following simple vows:
(1) that he will never act nor consent that the provisions in the
constitutions concerning poverty should be changed; (2) that he will not
directly nor indirectly procure election or promotion for himself to any
prelacy or dignity in the Society; (3) that he will not accept or
consent to his election to any dignity or prelacy outside the Society
unless forced thereunto by obedience; (4) that if he knows of others
doing these things he will denounce them to the superiors; (5) that if
elected to a bishopric he will never refuse to hear such advice as the
general may deign to send him and will follow it if he judges it is
better than his own opinion. The professed is now eligible to certain
offices in the Society, and he may remain as a professed father of the
three vows for the rest of his life. The highest class, who constitute
the real core of the Society, whence all its chief officers are taken,
are the professed of the four vows. This grade can seldom be reached
until the candidate is in his forty-fifth year, which involves a
probation of thirty-one years in the case of those who have entered on
the novitiate at the earliest legal age. The number of these select
members is small in comparison with the whole Society; the exact
proportion varies from time to time, the present tendency being to
increase the number. The vows of this grade are the same as the last
formula, with the addition of the following important clause:--
"Moreover I promise the special obedience to the Sovereign Pontiff
concerning missions, as is contained in the same Apostolic Letter and
Constitutions."
These various members of the Society are distributed in its novitiate
houses, its colleges, its professed houses and its mission residences.
The question has been hotly debated whether, in addition to these six
grades, there be not a seventh answering in some degree to the
tertiaries of the Franciscan and Dominican orders, but secretly
affiliated to the Society and acting as its emissaries in various lay
positions. This class was styled in France "Jesuits of the short robe,"
and there is some evidence in support of its actual existence under
Louis XV. The Jesuits themselves deny the existence of any such body,
and are able to adduce the negative disproof that no provision for it is
to be found in their constitutions. On the other hand there are clauses
therein which make the creation of such a class perfectly feasible if
thought expedient. An admitted instance is the case of Francisco Borgia,
who in 1548, while still duke of Gandia, was received into the Society.
What has given colour to the idea is that certain persons have made vows
of obedience to individual Jesuits; as Thomas Worthington, rector of the
Douai seminary, to Father Robert Parsons; Ann Vaux to Fr. Henry Garnet,
who told her that he was not indeed allowed to receive her vows, but
that she might make them if she wished and then receive his direction.
The archaeologist George Oliver of Exeter was, according to Foley's
_Records of the English Province_, the last of the secular priests of
England who vowed obedience to the Society before its suppression.
The general lives permanently at Rome and holds in his hands the right
to appoint, not only to the office of provincial over each of the head
districts into which the Society is mapped, but to the offices of each
house in particular. There is no standard of electoral right in the
Society except in the election of the general himself. By a minute and
frequent system of official and private reports he is informed of the
doings and progress of every member of the Society and of everything
that concerns it throughout the world. Every Jesuit has not only the
right but the duty in certain cases of communicating, directly and
privately, with his general. While the general thus controls everything,
he himself is not exempt from supervision on the part of the Society. A
consultative council is imposed upon him by the general congregation,
consisting of the assistants of the various nations, a _socius_, or
adviser, to warn him of mistakes, and a confessor. These he cannot
remove nor select; and he is bound, in certain circumstances, to listen
to their advice, although he is not obliged to follow it. Once elected
the general may not refuse the office, nor abdicate, nor accept any
dignity or office outside of the Society; on the other hand, for certain
definite reasons, he may be suspended or even deposed by the authority
of the Society, which can thus preserve itself from destruction. No such
instance has occurred, although steps were once taken in this direction
in the case of a general who had set himself against the current
feeling.
It is said that the general of the Jesuits is independent of the pope;
and his popular name, "the black pope," has gone to confirm this idea.
But it is based on an entirely wrong conception of the two offices.
The suppression of the Society by Clement XIV. in 1773 was an
object-lesson in the supremacy of the pope. The Society became very
numerous and, from time to time, received extraordinary privileges
from popes, who were warranted by the necessities of the times in
granting them. A great number of influential friends, also, gathered
round the fathers who, naturally, sought in every way to retain what
had been granted. Popes who thought it well to bring about certain
changes, or to withdraw privileges that were found to have passed
their intentions or to interfere unduly with the rights of other
bodies, often met with loyal resistances against their proposed
measures. Resistance up to a certain point is lawful and is not
disobedience, for every society has the right of self-preservation. In
cases where the popes insisted, in spite of the representations of the
Jesuits, their commands were obeyed. Many of the popes were distinctly
unfavourable to the Society, while others were as friendly, and often
what one pope did against them the next pope withdrew. Whatever was
done in times when strong divergence of opinion existed, and whatever
may have been the actions of individuals who, even in so highly
organized a body as the Society of Jesus, cannot always be
successfully controlled by their superiors, yet the ultimate result on
the part of the Society has always been obedience to the pope, who
authorized, protected and privileged them, and on whom they ultimately
depend for their very existence.
Thus constituted, with a skilful union of strictness and freedom, of
complex organization with a minimum of friction in working, the Society
was admirably devised for its purpose of introducing a new power into
the Church and the world. Its immediate services to the Church were
great. The Society did much, single-handed, to roll back the tide of
Protestant advance when half of Europe, which had not already shaken off
its allegiance to the papacy, was threatening to do so. The honours of
the reaction belong to the Jesuits, and the reactionary spirit has
become their tradition. They had the wisdom to see and to admit, in
their correspondence with their superiors, that the real cause of the
Reformation was the ignorance, neglect and vicious lives of so many
priests. They recognized, as most earnest men did, that the difficulty
was in the higher places, and that these could best be touched by
indirect methods. At a time when primary or even secondary education had
in most places become a mere effete and pedantic adherence to obsolete
methods, they were bold enough to innovate, both in system and material.
Putting fresh spirit and devotion into the work, they not merely taught
and catechized in a new, fresh and attractive manner, besides
establishing free schools of good quality, but provided new school books
for their pupils which were an enormous advance on those they found in
use; so that for nearly three centuries the Jesuits were accounted the
best schoolmasters in Europe, as they were, till their forcible
suppression in 1901, confessedly the best in France. The Jesuit teachers
conciliated the goodwill of their pupils by mingled firmness and
gentleness. Although the method of the _Ratio Studiorum_ has ceased to
be acceptable, yet it played in its time as serious a part in the
intellectual development of Europe as did the method of Frederick the
Great in modern warfare. Bacon succinctly gives his opinion of the
Jesuit teaching in these words: "As for the pedagogical part, the
shortest rule would be, Consult the schools of the Jesuits; for nothing
better has been put in practice" (_De Augmentis_, vi. 4). In instruction
they were excellent; but in education, or formation of character,
deficient. Again, when most of the continental clergy had sunk, more or
less, into the moral and intellectual slough which is pictured for us in
the writings of Erasmus and the _Epistolae obscurorum virorum_ (see
HUTTEN, ULRICH VON), the Jesuits won back respect for the clerical
calling by their personal culture and the unimpeachable purity of their
lives. These qualities they have carefully maintained; and probably no
large body of men in the world has been so free from the reproach of
discreditable members or has kept up, on the whole, an equally high
average of intelligence and conduct. As preachers, too, they delivered
the pulpit from the bondage of an effete scholasticism and reached at
once a clearness and simplicity of treatment such as the English pulpit
scarcely begins to exhibit till after the days of Tillotson; while in
literature and theology they count a far larger number of respectable
writers than any other religious society can boast. It is in the mission
field, however, that their achievements have been most remarkable.
Whether toiling among the teeming millions in Hindustan and China,
labouring amongst the Hurons and Iroquois of North America, governing
and civilizing the natives of Brazil and Paraguay in the missions and
"reductions," or ministering, at the hourly risk of his life to his
fellow-Catholics in England under Elizabeth and the Stuarts, the Jesuit
appears alike devoted, indefatigable, cheerful and worthy of hearty
admiration and respect.
Nevertheless, two startling and indisputable facts meet the student who
pursues the history of the Society. The first is the universal suspicion
and hostility it has incurred--not merely from the Protestants whose
avowed foe it has been, not yet from the enemies of all clericalism and
dogma, but from every Catholic state and nation in the world. Its chief
enemies have been those of the household of the Roman Catholic faith.
The second fact is the ultimate failure which seems to dog all its most
promising schemes and efforts. These two results are to be observed
alike in the provinces of morals and politics. The first cause of the
opposition indeed redounds to the Jesuits' credit, for it was largely
due to their success. Their pulpits rang with a studied eloquence; their
churches, sumptuous and attractive, were crowded; and in the
confessional their advice was eagerly sought in all kinds of
difficulties, for they were the fashionable professors of the art of
direction. Full of enthusiasm and zeal, devoted wholly to their Society,
they were able to bring in numbers of rich and influential persons to
their ranks; for, with a clear understanding of the power of wealth,
they became, of set purpose, the apostles of the rich and influential.
The Jesuits felt that they were the new men, the men of the time; so
with a perfect confidence in themselves they went out to set the Church
to rights. It was no wonder that success, so well worked for and so well
deserved, failed to win the approval or sympathy of those who found
themselves supplanted. Old-fashioned men, to whom the apostles' advice
to "do all to the glory of God" seemed sufficient, mistrusted those who
professed to go beyond all others and adopted as their motto the famous
_Ad majorem Dei gloriam_, "To the greater glory of God." But, besides
this, the _esprit de corps_ which is necessary for every body of men
was, it was held, carried to an excess and made the Jesuits intolerant
of any one or anything if not of "ours." The novelties too which they
introduced into the conception of the religious life, naturally, were
displeasing to the older orders, who felt like old aristocratic families
towards a newly rich or purse-proud upstart. The Society, or rather its
members, were too aggressive and self-assertive to be welcomed; and a
certain characteristic, which soon began to manifest itself in an
impatience of episcopal control, showed that the quality of "Jesuitry,"
usually associated with the Society, was singularly lacking in their
dealings with opponents. Their political attitude also alienated many.
Many of the Jesuits could not separate religion from politics. To say
this is only to assert that they were not clearer-minded than most men
of their age. But unfortunately they invariably took the wrong side and
allowed themselves to be made the tools of men who saw farther and more
clearly than they did. They had their share, direct or indirect, in the
embroiling of states, in concocting conspiracies and in kindling wars.
They were also responsible by their theoretical teachings in theological
schools, where cases were considered and treated in the abstract, for
not a few assassinations of the enemies of the cause. Weak minds heard
tyrannicide discussed and defended in the abstract; and it was no
wonder that, when opportunity served, the train that had been heedlessly
laid by speculative professors was fired by rash hands. What professors
like Suarez taught in the calm atmosphere of the lecture hall, what
writers like Mariana upheld and praised, practical men took as
justification for deeds of blood. There is no evidence that any Jesuit
took a direct part in political assassinations; however, indirectly,
they may have been morally responsible. They were playing with edged
tools and often got wounded through their own carelessness. Other
grievances were raised by their perpetual meddling in politics, e.g.
their large share in fanning the flames of political hatred against the
Huguenots under the last two Valois kings; their perpetual plotting
against England in the reign of Elizabeth; their share in the Thirty
Years' War and in the religious miseries of Bohemia; their decisive
influence in causing the revocation of the edict of Nantes and the
expulsion of the Protestants from France; the ruin of the Stuart cause
under James II., and the establishment of the Protestant succession. In
a number of cases where the evidence against them is defective, it is at
least an unfortunate coincidence that there is always direct proof of
some Jesuit having been in communication with the actual agents engaged.
They were the stormy petrels of politics. Yet the Jesuits, as a body,
should not be made responsible for the doings of men who, in their
political intrigues, were going directly against the distinct law of the
Society, which in strict terms, and under heavy penalties, forbade them
to have anything to do with such matters. The politicians were
comparatively few in number, though unfortunately they held high rank;
and their disobedience to the rule besmirched the name of the society
and destroyed the good work of the other Jesuits who were faithfully
carrying out their own proper duties.
A far graver cause for uneasiness was given by the Jesuits' activity in
the region of doctrine and morals. Here the charges against them are
precise, early, numerous and weighty. Their founder himself was
arrested, more than once, by the Inquisition and required to give
account of his belief and conduct. But St Ignatius, with all his
powerful gifts of intellect, was entirely practical and ethical in his
range, and had no turn whatever for speculation, nor desire to discuss,
much less to question, any of the received dogmas of the Church. He
gives it as a rule of orthodoxy to be ready to say that black is white
if the Church says so. He was therefore acquitted on every occasion, and
applied each time for a formally attested certificate of his orthodoxy,
knowing well that, in default of such documents, the fact of his arrest
as a suspected heretic would be more distinctly recollected by opponents
than that of his honourable dismissal from custody. His followers,
however, have not been so fortunate. On doctrinal questions indeed,
though their teaching on grace, especially in the form given to it by
Molina (q.v.), ran contrary to the accepted teaching on the subject by
the Augustinians, Dominicans and other representative schools; yet by
their pertinacity they gained for their views a recognized and
established position. A special congregation of cardinals and
theologians known as _de auxiliis_ was summoned by the pope to settle
the dispute, for the _odium theologicum_ had risen to a desperate height
between the representatives of the old and the new theology; but after
many years they failed to arrive at any satisfactory conclusion, and the
pope, instead of settling the dispute, was only able to impose mutual
silence on all opponents. Among those who held out stiffly against the
Jesuits on the subject of grace were the Jansenists, who held that they
were following the special teaching of St Augustine, known _par
excellence_ as the doctor of grace. The Jesuits and the Jansenists soon
became deadly enemies; and in the ensuing conflict both parties accused
each other of flinging scruples to the wind. (See JANSENISM.)
But the accusations against the Jesuit system of moral theology and
their action as guides of conduct have had a more serious effect on
their reputation. It is undeniable that some of their moral writers were
lax in their teaching; and conscience was strained to the snapping
point. The Society was trying to make itself all things to all men.
Propositions extracted from Jesuit moral theologians have again and
again been condemned by the pope and declared untenable. Many of these
can be found in Viva's _Condemned Propositions_. As early as 1554 the
Jesuits were censured by the Sorbonne, chiefly at the instance of
Eustache de Bellay, bishop of Paris, as being dangerous in matters of
faith. Melchor Cano, a Dominican, one of the ablest divines of the 16th
century, never ceased to lift up his testimony against them, from their
first beginnings till his own death in 1560; and, unmollified by the
bribe of the bishopric of the Canaries, which their interest procured
for him, he succeeded in banishing them from the university of
Salamanca. Carlo Borromeo, to whose original advocacy they owed much,
especially in the council of Trent, found himself attacked in his own
cathedral pulpit and interfered with in his jurisdiction. He withdrew
his protection and expelled them from his colleges and churches; and he
was followed in 1604 in this policy by his cousin and successor Cardinal
Federigo Borromeo. St Theresa learnt, in after years, to mistrust their
methods, although she was grateful to them for much assistance in the
first years of her work. The credit of the Society was seriously damaged
by the publication, at Cracow, in 1612, of the _Monita Secreta_. This
book, which is undoubtedly a forgery, professes to contain the
authoritative secret instructions drawn up by the general Acquaviva and
given by the superiors of the Society to its various officers and
members. A bold caricature of Jesuit methods, the book has been ascribed
to John Zaorowsky or to Cambilone and Schloss, all ex-Jesuits, and it is
stated to have been discovered in manuscript by Christian of Brunswick
in the Jesuit college at Prague. It consists of suggestions and methods
for extending the influence of the Jesuits in various ways, for securing
a footing in fresh places, for acquiring wealth, for creeping into
households and leading silly rich widows captive and so forth, all
marked with ambition, craft and unscrupulousness. It had a wide success
and popularity, passing through several editions, and even to this day
it is used by controversialists as unscrupulous as the original writers.
It may, perhaps, represent the actions of some individuals who allowed
their zeal to outrun their discretion, but surely no society which
exists for good and is marked by so many worthy men could systematically
have conducted its operations in such a manner. Later on a formidable
assault was made on Jesuit moral theology in the famous _Provincial
Letters_ of Blaise Pascal (q.v.), eighteen in number, issued under the
pen-name of Louis de Montalte, from January 1656 to March 1657. Their
wit, irony, eloquence and finished style have kept them alive as one of
the great French classics--a destiny more fortunate than that of the
kindred works by Antoine Arnauld, _Theologie morale des Jesuites_,
consisting of extracts from writings of members of the Society, and
_Morale pratique des Jesuites_, made up of narratives professing to set
forth the manner in which they carried out their own maxims. But, like
most controversial writers, the authors were not scrupulous in their
quotations, and by giving passages divorced from their contexts often
entirely misrepresented their opponents. The immediate reply on the part
of the Jesuits, _The Discourses of Cleander and Eudoxus_ by Pere Daniel,
could not compete with Pascal's work in brilliancy, wit or style;
moreover, it was unfortunate enough to be put upon the Index of
prohibited books in 1701. The reply on behalf of the Society to Pascal's
charges of lax morality, apart from mere general denials, is broadly as
follows:--
(1) St Ignatius himself, the founder of the Society, had a special
aversion from untruthfulness in all its forms, from quibbling,
equivocation or even studied obscurity of language, and it would be
contrary to the spirit of conformity with his example and institutions
for his followers to think and act otherwise. Hence, any who practised
equivocation were, so far, unfaithful to the Society. (2) Several of
the cases cited by Pascal are mere abstract hypotheses, many of them
now obsolete, argued simply as intellectual exercises, but having no
practical bearing whatever. (3) Even such as do belong to the sphere
of actual life are of the nature of counsel to spiritual physicians,
how to deal with exceptional maladies; and were never intended to fix
the standard of moral obligation for the general public. (4) The
theory that they were intended for this latter purpose and do
represent the normal teaching of the Society becomes more untenable in
exact proportion as this immorality is insisted on, because it is a
matter of notoriety that the Jesuits themselves have been singularly
free from personal, as distinguished from corporate, evil repute; and
no one pretends that the large number of lay-folk whom they have
educated or influenced exhibit greater moral inferiority than others.
The third of these replies is the most cogent as regards Pascal, but the
real weakness of his attack lies in that nervous dread of appeal to
first principles and their logical result which has been the besetting
snare of Gallicanism. Pascal, at his best, has mistaken the part for the
whole; he charges to the Society what, at the most, are the doings of
individuals; and from these he asserts the degeneration of the body from
its original standard; whereas the stronger the life and the more
extensive the natural development, side by side will exist marks of
degeneration; and a society like the Jesuits has no difficulty in
asserting its life independently of such excrescences or, in time, in
freeing itself from them.
A charge persistently made against the Society is that it teaches that
the end justifies the means. And the words of Busembaum, whose
_Medulla theologiae_ has gone through more than fifty editions, are
quoted in proof. True it is that Busembaum uses these words: _Cui
licitus est finis etiam licent media_. But on turning to his work (ed.
Paris 1729, p. 584, or Lib. vi. Tract vi. cap. ii., _De sacramentis_,
dubium ii.) it will be found that the author is making no universal
application of an old legal maxim; but is treating of a particular
subject (concerning certain lawful liberties in the marital relation)
beyond which his words cannot be forced. The sense in which other
Jesuit theologians--e.g. Paul Laymann (1575-1635), in his _Theologia
moralis_ (Munich, 1625), and Ludwig Wagemann (1713-1792), in his
_Synopsis theologiae moralis_ (Innsbruck, 1762)--quote the axiom is an
equally harmless piece of common sense. For instance, if it is lawful
to go on a journey by railway it is lawful to take a ticket. No one
who put forth that proposition would be thought to mean that it is
lawful to defraud the company by stealing a ticket; for the _proviso_
is always to be understood, that the means employed should, in
themselves, not be bad but good or at least indifferent. So when
Wagemann says tersely _Finis determinat probitatem actus_ he is
clearly referring to acts which in themselves are indifferent, i.e.
indeterminate. For instance: shooting is an indifferent act, neither
good nor bad in itself. The morality of any specified shooting depends
upon what is shot, and the circumstances attending that act: shooting
a man in self-defence is, as a moral act, on an entirely different
plane to shooting a man in murder. It has never been proved, and never
can be proved, although the attempt has frequently been made, that the
Jesuits ever taught the nefarious proposition ascribed to them, which
would be entirely subversive of all morality. Again, the doctrine of
probabilism is utterly misunderstood. It is based on an accurate
conception of law. Law to bind must be clear and definite; if it be
not so, its obligation ceases and liberty of action remains. No
probable opinion can stand against a clear and definite law; but when
a law is doubtful in its application, in certain circumstances, so is
the obligation of obedience: and as a doubtful law is, for practical
purposes, no law at all, so it superinduces no obligation. Hence a
probable opinion is one, founded on reason and held on serious
grounds, that the law does not apply to certain specified cases; and
that the law-giver therefore did not intend to bind. It is the
principle of equity applied to law. In moral matters a probable
opinion, that is one held on no trivial grounds but by unprejudiced
and solid thinkers, has no place where the voice of conscience is
clear, distinct and formed.
Two causes have been at work to produce the universal failure of the
great Society in all its plans and efforts. First stands its lack of
really great intellects. It has had its golden age. No society can keep
up to its highest level. Nothing can be wider of the truth than the
popular conception of the ordinary Jesuit as a being of almost
superhuman abilities and universal knowledge. The Society, numbering as
it does so many thousands, and with abundant means of devoting men to
special branches of study, has, without doubt, produced men of great
intelligence and solid learning. The average member, too, on account of
his long and systematic training, is always equal and often superior to
the average member of any other equally large body, besides being
disciplined by a far more perfect drill. But it takes great men to carry
out great plans; and of really great men, as the outside world knows and
judges, the Society has been markedly barren from almost the first.
Apart from its founder and his early companion, St Francis Xavier, there
is none who stands in the very first rank. Laynez and Acquaviva were
able administrators and politicians; the Bollandists (q.v.) were
industrious workers and have developed a critical spirit from which much
good can be expected; Francisco Suarez, Leonhard Lessius and Cardinal
Franzelin were some of the leading Jesuit theologians; Cornelius a
Lapide (1567-1637) represents their old school of scriptural studies,
while their new German writers are the most advanced of all orthodox
higher critics; the French Louis Bourdaloue (q.v.), the Italian Paolo
Segneri (1624-1694), and the Portuguese Antonio Vieyra (1608-1697)
represent their best pulpit orators; while of the many mathematicians
and astronomers produced by the Society Angelo Secchi, Ruggiero Giuseppe
Boscovich and G. B. Beccaria are conspicuous, and in modern times
Stephen Joseph Perry (1833-1889), director of the Stonyhurst College
observatory, took a high rank among men of science. Their boldest and
most original thinker, Denis Petau, so many years neglected, is now, by
inspiring Cardinal Newman's _Essay on the Development of Christian
Doctrine_, producing a permanent influence over the current of human
thought. The Jesuits have produced no Aquinas, no Anselm, no Bacon, no
Richelieu. Men whom they trained, and who broke loose from their
teaching, Pascal, Descartes, Voltaire, have powerfully affected the
philosophical and religious beliefs of great masses of mankind; but
respectable mediocrity is the brand on the long list of Jesuit names in
the catalogues of Alegambe and De Backer. This is doubtless due in great
measure to the destructive process of scooping out the will of the
Jesuit novice, to replace it with that of his superior (as a watchmaker
might fit a new movement into a case), and thereby tending, in most
cases, to annihilate those subtle qualities of individuality and
originality which are essential to genius. Men of the higher stamp will
either refuse to submit to the process and leave the Society, or run the
danger of coming forth from the mill with their finest qualities
pulverized and useless. In accordance with the spirit of its founder,
who wished to secure uniformity in the judgment of his followers even in
points left open by the Church ("Let us all think the same way, let us
all speak in the same manner if possible"), the Society has shown itself
to be impatient of those who think or write in a way different from what
is current in its ranks.
Nor is this all. The _Ratio Studiorum_, devised by Acquaviva and still
obligatory in the colleges of the Society, lays down rules which are
incompatible with all breadth and progress in the higher forms of
education. True to the anti-speculative and traditional side of the
founder's mind, it prescribes that, even where religious topics are
not in question, the teacher is not to permit any novel opinions or
discussions to be mooted; nor to cite or allow others to cite the
opinions of an author not of known repute; nor to teach or suffer to
be taught anything contrary to the prevalent opinions of acknowledged
doctors current in the schools. Obsolete and false opinions are not to
be mentioned at all, even for refutation, nor are objections to
received teaching to be dwelt on at any length. The result is that the
Jesuit emerges from his schools without any real knowledge of any
other method of thought than that which his professors have instilled
into him. The professor of Biblical Literature is always to support
and defend the Vulgate and can never prefer the marginal readings from
the Hebrew and Greek. The Septuagint, as far as it is incorrupt, is to
be held not less authentic than the Vulgate. In philosophy Aristotle
is always to be followed, and St Thomas Aquinas generally, care being
taken to speak respectfully of him even when abandoning his opinions,
though now it is customary for the Jesuit teachers to explain him in
their own sense. _De vera mente D. Thomas_ is no unfamiliar expression
in their books. It is not wonderful, under such a method of training,
fixed as it has been in minute detail for more than three hundred
years, that highly cultivated commonplaces should be the inevitable
average result; and that in proportion as Jesuit power has become
dominant in Christendom, especially in ecclesiastical circles, the
same doom of intellectual sterility and consequent loss of influence
with the higher and thoughtful classes, has separated the part from
the whole. The initial mistake in the formation of character is that
the Jesuits have aimed at educating lay boys in the same manner as
they consider advisable for their own novices, for whom obedience and
direction is the one thing necessary; whereas for lay people the right
use of liberty and initiative are to be desired.
The second cause which has blighted the efforts of the Society is the
lesson, too faithfully learnt and practised, of making its corporate
interests the first object at all times and in all places. Men were
quick to see that Jesuits did not aim at co-operation with the other
members of the Church but directly or indirectly at mastery. The most
brilliant exception to this rule is found in some of the missions of the
Society and notably in that of St Francis Xavier (q.v.). But he quitted
Europe in 1541 before the new society, especially under Laynez, had
hardened into its final mould; and he never returned. His work, so far
as can be gathered from contemporary accounts, was not done on true
Jesuit lines as they afterwards developed, though the Society has reaped
all the credit; and it is even possible that, had he succeeded the
founder as general, the institute might not have received that political
and self-seeking turn which Laynez, as second general, gave at the
critical moment.
It would almost seem that careful selection was made of the men of the
greatest piety and enthusiasm, whose unworldliness made them less apt
for diplomatic intrigues, to break new ground in the various missions
where their success would throw lustre on the Society and their
scruples need never come into play. But such men are not to be found
easily; and, as they died off, the tendency was to fill their places
with more ordinary characters, whose aim was to increase the power and
resources of the body. Hence the condescension to heathen rites in
Hindustan and China, and the attempted subjugation of the English
Catholic clergy. The first successes of the Indian mission were
entirely among the lower classes; but when in Madura, in 1606, Robert
de Nobili, a nephew of Bellarmine, to win the Brahmins, adopted their
dress and mode of life--a step sanctioned by Gregory XV. in 1623 and
by Clement XI. in 1707--the fathers who followed his example pushed
the new caste-feeling so far as absolutely to refuse the ministrations
and sacraments to the pariahs, lest the Brahmin converts should take
offence--an attempt which was reported to Rome and was vainly censured
by the breves of Innocent X. in 1645, Clement IX. in 1669, Clement
XII. in 1734 and 1739, and Benedict XIV. in 1745. The Chinese rites,
assailed with equal unsuccess by one pope after another, were not
finally put down until 1744 by a bull of Benedict XIV. For Japan,
where their side of the story is that best known, we have a remarkable
letter, printed by Lucas Wadding in the _Annales minorum_, addressed
to Paul V. by Soleto, a Franciscan missionary, who was martyred in
1624, in which he complains to the pope that the Jesuits
systematically postponed the spiritual welfare of the native
Christians to their own convenience and advantage; while as regards
the test of martyrdom, no such result had followed on their teaching,
but only on that of the other orders who had undertaken missionary
work in Japan. Yet soon many Jesuit martyrs in Japan were to shed a
new glory on the Society (see JAPAN: _Foreign Intercourse_). Again,
even in Paraguay, the most promising of all Jesuit undertakings, the
evidence shows that the fathers, though civilizing the Guarani
population just sufficiently to make them useful and docile servants,
happier no doubt than they were before or after, stopped there. While
the mission was begun on the rational principle of governing races
still in their childhood by methods adapted to that stage in their
mental development, yet for one hundred and fifty years the
"reductions" were conducted in the same manner, and when the hour of
trial came the Jesuit civilization fell like a house of cards.
These examples are sufficient to explain the final collapse of so many
promising efforts. The individual Jesuit might be, and often was, a
hero, saint and martyr, but the system which he was obliged to
administer was foredoomed to failure; and the suppression which came in
1773 was the natural result of forces and elements they had set in
antagonism without the power of controlling.
The influence of the Society since its restoration in 1814 has not been
marked with greater success than in its previous history. It was natural
after the restoration that an attempt should be made to pick up again
the threads that were dropped; but soon they came to realize the truth
of the saying of St Ignatius: "The Society shall adapt itself to the
times and not the times to the Society." The political conditions of
Europe have completely changed, and constitutionalism is unfavourable to
that personal influence which, in former times, the Jesuits were able to
bring to bear upon the heads of states. In Europe they confine
themselves mainly to educational and ecclesiastical politics, although
both Germany and France have followed the example of Portugal and
refuse, on political grounds, to allow them to be in these countries. It
would appear as though some of the Jesuits had not, even yet, learnt the
lesson that meddling with politics has always been their ruin. The main
cause of any difficulty that may exist to-day with the Society is that
the Jesuits are true to the teaching of that remarkable panegyric, the
_Imago primi saeculi Societatis_ (probably written by John Tollenarius
in 1640), by identifying the Church with their own body, and being
intolerant of all who will not share this view. Their power is still
large in certain sections of the ecclesiastical world, but in secular
affairs it is small. Moreover within the church itself there is a strong
and growing feeling that the interests of Catholicism may necessitate a
second and final suppression of the Society. Cardinal Manning, a keen
observer of times and influences, was wont to say:--"The work of 1773
was the work of God: and there is another 1773 coming." But, if this
come, it will be due not to the pressure of secular governments, as in
the 18th century, but to the action of the Church itself. The very
nations which have cast out the Society have shown no disposition to
accept its own estimate and identify it with the Church; while the
Church itself is not conscious of depending upon the Society. To the
Church the Jesuits have been what the Janissaries were to the Ottoman
Empire, at first its defenders and its champions, but in the end its
taskmasters.
_History._--The separate article on Loyola tells of his early years, his
conversion, and his first gathering of companions. It was not until
November 1537, when all hope of going to the Holy Land was given up,
that any outward steps were taken to form these companions into an
organized body. It was on the eve of their going to Rome, for the second
time, that the fathers met Ignatius at Vicenza and it was determined to
adopt a common rule and, at the suggestion of Ignatius, the name of the
Company of Jesus. Whatever may have been his private hopes and
intentions, it was not until he, Laynez and Faber (Pierre Lefevre), in
the name of their companions, were sent to lay their services at the
feet of the pope that the history of the Society really begins.
On their arrival at Rome the three Jesuits were favourably received by
Paul III., who at once appointed Faber to the chair of scripture and
Laynez to that of scholastic theology in the university of the
Sapienza. But they encountered much opposition and were even charged
with heresy; when this accusation had been disposed of, there were
still difficulties in the way of starting any new order. Despite the
approval of Cardinal Contarini and the goodwill of the pope (who is
said to have exclaimed on perusing the scheme of Ignatius, "The finger
of God is here"), there was a strong and general feeling that the
regular system had broken down and could not be wisely developed
farther. Cardinal Guidiccioni, one of the commission of three
appointed to examine the draft constitution, was known to advocate the
abolition of all existing orders, save four which were to be
remodelled and put under strict control. That very year, 1538, a
commission of cardinals, including Reginald Pole, Contarini, Sadolet,
Caraffa (afterwards Paul IV.), Fregoso and others, had reported that
the conventual orders, which they had to deal with, had drifted into
such a state that they should all be abolished. Not only so, but, when
greater strictness of rule and of enclosure seemed the most needful
reforms in communities that had become too secular in tone, the
proposal of Ignatius, to make it a first principle that the members of
his institute should mix freely in the world and be as little marked
off as possible externally from secular clerical life and usages, ran
counter to all tradition and prejudice, save that Caraffa's then
recent order of Theatines, which had some analogy with the proposed
Society, had taken some steps in the same direction.
Ignatius and his companions, however, had but little doubt of ultimate
success, and so bound themselves, on the 15th of April 1539, to obey
any superior chosen from amongst their body, and added on the 4th of
May certain other rules, the most important of which was a vow of
special allegiance to the pope for mission purposes to be taken by all
the members of the society. But Guidiccioni, on a careful study of the
papers, changed his mind; it is supposed that the cause of this change
was in large measure the strong interest in the new scheme exhibited
by John III., king of Portugal, who instructed his ambassador to press
it on the pope and to ask Ignatius to send some priests of his Society
for mission work in Portugal and its Indian possessions. Francis
Xavier and Simon Rodriguez were sent to the king in March 1540.
Obstacles being cleared away, Paul III., on the 27th of September
1540, issued his bull _Regimini militantis ecclesiae_, by which he
confirmed the new Society (the term "order" does not belong to it),
but limited the members to sixty, a restriction which was removed by
the same pope in the bull _Injunctum nobis_ of the 14th of March 1543.
In the former bull, the pope gives the text of the formula submitted
by Ignatius as the scheme of the proposed society, and in it we get
the founder's own ideas: "... This Society, instituted to this special
end, namely, to offer spiritual consolation for the advancement of
souls in life and Christian doctrine, for the propagation of the faith
by public preaching and the ministry of the word of God, spiritual
exercises and works of charity and, especially, by the instruction of
children and ignorant people in Christianity, and by the spiritual
consolation of the faithful in Christ in hearing confessions...." In
this original scheme it is clearly marked out "that this entire
Society and all its members fight for God under the faithful
obedience of the most sacred lord, the pope, and the other Roman
pontiffs his successors"; and Ignatius makes particular mention that
each member should "be bound by a special vow," beyond that formal
obligation under which all Christians are of obeying the pope, "so
that whatsoever the present and other Roman pontiffs for the time
being shall ordain, pertaining to the advancement of souls and the
propagation of the faith, to whatever provinces he shall resolve to
send us, we are straightway bound to obey, as far as in us lies,
without any tergiversation or excuse, whether he send us among the
Turks or to any other unbelievers in being, even to those parts called
India, or to any heretics or schismatics or likewise to any
believers." Obedience to the general is enjoined "in all things
pertaining to the institute of the Society ... and in him they shall
acknowledge Christ as though present, and as far as is becoming shall
venerate him"; poverty is enjoined, and this rule affects not only the
individual but the common sustentation or care of the Society, except
that in the case of colleges revenues are allowed "to be applied to
the wants and necessities of the students"; and the private recitation
of the Office is distinctly mentioned. On the other hand, the
perpetuity of the general's office during his life was no part of the
original scheme.
On the 7th of April 1541, Ignatius was unanimously chosen general. His
refusal of this post was overruled, so he entered on his office on the
13th of April; and two days after, the newly constituted Society took
its formal corporate vows in the basilica of San Paolo _fuori le mura_.
Scarcely was the Society launched when its members dispersed in various
directions to their new tasks. Alfonso Salmeron and Pasquier-Brouet, as
papal delegates, were sent on a secret mission to Ireland to encourage
the native clergy and people to resist the religious changes introduced
by Henry VIII.; Nicholas Bobadilla went to Naples; Faber, first to the
diet of Worms and then to Spain; Laynez and Claude le Jay to Germany,
while Ignatius busied himself at Rome in good works and in drawing up
the constitutions and completing the _Spiritual Exercises_. Success
crowned these first efforts; and the Society began to win golden
opinions. The first college was founded at Coimbra in 1542 by John III.
of Portugal and put under the rectorship of Rodriguez. It was designed
as a training school to feed the Indian mission of which Francis Xavier
had already taken the oversight, while a seminary at Goa was the second
institution founded outside Rome in connexion with the Society. Both
from the original scheme and from the foundation at Coimbra it is clear
that the original idea of the colleges was to provide for the education
of future Jesuits. In Spain, national pride in the founder aided the
Society's cause almost as much as royal patronage did in Portugal; and
the third house was opened in Gandia under the protection of its duke,
Francisco Borgia, a grandson of Alexander VI. In Germany, the Jesuits
were eagerly welcomed as the only persons able to meet the Lutherans on
equal terms. Only in France, among the countries which still were united
with the Roman Church, was their advance checked, owing to political
distrust of their Spanish origin, together with the hostility of the
Sorbonne and the bishop of Paris. However, after many difficulties, they
succeeded in getting a footing through the help of Guillaume du Prat,
bishop of Clermont (d. 1560), who founded a college for them in 1545 in
the town of Billom, besides making over to them his house at Paris, the
hotel de Clermont, which became the nucleus of the afterwards famous
college of Louis-le-Grand, while a formal legalization was granted to
them by the states-general at Poissy in 1561. In Rome, Paul III.'s
favour did not lessen. He bestowed on them the church of St Andrea and
conferred at the same time the valuable privilege of making and altering
their own statutes; besides the other points, in 1546, which Ignatius
had still more at heart, as touching the very essence of his institute,
namely, exemption from ecclesiastical offices and dignities and from the
task of acting as directors and confessors to convents of women. The
former of these measures effectually stopped any drain of the best
members away from the society and limited their hopes within its bounds,
by putting them more freely at the general's disposal, especially as it
was provided that the final vows could not be annulled, nor could a
professed member be dismissed, save by the joint action of the general
and the pope. The regulation as to convents seems partly due to a desire
to avoid the worry and expenditure of time involved in the discharge of
such offices and partly to a conviction that penitents living in
enclosure, as all religious persons then were, would be of no effective
use to the Society; whereas the founder, against the wishes of several
of his companions, laid much stress on the duty of accepting the post of
confessor to kings, queens and women of high rank when opportunity
presented itself. And the year 1546 is notable in the annals of the
Society as that in which it embarked on its great educational career,
especially by the annexation of free day-schools to all its colleges.
The council of Trent, in its first period, seemed to increase the
reputation of the Society; for the pope chose Laynez, Faber and
Salmeron to act as his theologians in that assembly, and in this
capacity they had no little influence in framing its decrees. When the
council reassembled under Pius IV., Laynez and Salmeron again attended
in the same capacity. It is sometimes said that the council formally
approved of the Society. This is impossible; for as the Society had
received the papal approval, that of the council would have been
impertinent as well as unnecessary. St Charles Borromeo wrote to the
presiding cardinals, on the 11th of May 1562, saying that, as France
was disaffected to the Jesuits whom the pope wished to see established
in every country, Pius IV. desired, when the council was occupying
itself about regulars, that it should make some honourable mention of
the Society in order to recommend it. This was done in the
twenty-fifth session (cap. XVI., d.r.) when the decree was passed that
at the end of the time of probation novices should either be professed
or dismissed; and the words of the council are: "By these things,
however, the Synod does not intend to make any innovation or
prohibition, so as to hinder the religious order of Clerks of the
Society of Jesus from being able to serve God and His Church, in
accordance with their pious institute approved of by the Holy
Apostolic See."
In 1548 the Society received a valuable recruit in the person of
Francisco Borgia, duke of Gandia, afterwards thrice general, while two
important events marked 1550--the foundation of the Collegio Romano and
a fresh confirmation of the Society by Julius III. The German college,
for the children of poor nobles, was founded in 1552; and in the same
year Ignatius firmly settled the discipline of the Society by putting
down, with promptness and severity, some attempts at independent action
on the part of Rodriguez at Coimbra--this being the occasion of the
famous letter on obedience; while 1553 saw the despatch of a mission to
Abyssinia with one of the fathers as patriarch, and the first rift
within the lute when the pope thought that the Spanish Jesuits were
taking part with the emperor against the Holy See. Paul IV. (whose
election alarmed the Jesuits, for they had not found him very friendly
as cardinal) was for a time managed with supreme tact by Ignatius, whom
he respected personally. In 1556, the founder died and left the Society
consisting of forty-five professed fathers and two thousand ordinary
members, distributed over twelve provinces, with more than a hundred
colleges and houses.
After the death of the first general there was an interregnum of two
years, with Laynez as vicar. During this long period he occupied
himself with completing the constitutions by incorporating certain
declarations, said to be Ignatian, which explained and sometimes
completely altered the meaning of the original text. Laynez was an
astute politician and saw the vast capabilities of the Society over a
far wider field than the founder contemplated; and he prepared to give
it the direction that it has since followed. In some senses, this
learned and consummately clever man may be looked upon as the real
founder of the Society as history knows it. Having carefully prepared
the way, he summoned the general congregation from which he emerged as
second general in 1556. As soon as Ignatius had died Paul IV.
announced his intention of instituting reforms in the Society,
especially in two points: the public recitation of the office in choir
and the limitation of the general's office to a term of three years.
Despite all the protests and negotiations of Laynez, the pope remained
obstinate; and there was nothing but to submit. On the 8th of
September 1558, two points were added to the constitutions: that the
generalship should be triennial and not perpetual, although after the
three years the general might be confirmed; and that the canonical
hours should be observed in choir after the manner of the other
orders, but with that moderation which should seem expedient to the
general. Taking advantage of this last clause, Laynez applied the new
law to two houses only, namely, Rome and Lisbon, the other houses
contenting themselves with singing vespers on feast days; and as soon
as Paul IV. died, Laynez, acting on advice, quietly ignored for the
future the orders of the late pope. He also succeeded in increasing
further the already enormous powers of the general. Laynez took a
leading part in the colloquy of Poissy in 1561 between the Catholics
and Huguenots; and obtained a legal footing from the states-general
for colleges of the Society in France. He died in 1564, leaving the
Society increased to eighteen provinces with a hundred and thirty
colleges, and was succeeded by Francisco Borgia. During the third
generalate, Pius V. confirmed all the former privileges, and in the
amplest form extended to the Society, as being a mendicant institute,
all favours that had been or might afterwards be granted to such
mendicant bodies. It was a trifling set-off that in 1567 the pope
again enjoined the fathers to keep choir and to admit only the
professed to priests' orders, especially as Gregory XIII. rescinded
both these injunctions in 1573; and indeed, as regards the hours, all
that Pius V. was able to obtain was the nominal concession that the
breviary should be recited in choir in the professed houses only, and
that not of necessity by more than two persons at a time. Everard
Mercurian, a Fleming, and a subject of Spain, succeeded Borgia in
1573, being forced on the Society by the pope, in preference to
Polanco, Ignatius's secretary and the vicar-general, who was rejected
partly as a Spaniard and still more because he was a "New Christian"
of Jewish origin and therefore objected to in Spain itself. During his
term of office there took place the troubles in Rome concerning the
English college and the subsequent Jesuit rule over that institution;
and in 1580 the first Jesuit mission, headed by the redoubtable Robert
Parsons and the saintly Edmund Campion, set out for England. This
mission, on one side, carried on an active propaganda against
Elizabeth in favour of Spain; and on the other, among the true
missionaries, was marked with devoted zeal and heroism even to the
ghastly death of traitors. Claude Acquaviva, the fifth general, held
office from 1581 to 1615, a time almost coinciding with the high tide
of the successful reaction, chiefly due to the Jesuits. He was an
able, strong-willed man, and crushed what was tantamount to a
rebellion in Spain. It was during this struggle that Mariana, the
historian and the author of the famous _De rege_ in which he defends
tyrannicide, wrote his treatise _On the Defects in the Government of
the Society_. He confessed freely that the Society had faults and that
there was a great deal of unrest among the members; and he mentioned
among the various points calling for reform the education of the
novices and students; the state of the lay brother and the possessions
of the Society; the spying system, which he declared to be carried so
far that, if the general's archives at Rome should be searched, not
one Jesuit's character would be found to escape; the monopoly of the
higher offices by a small clique; and the absence of all encouragement
and recompense for the best men of the Society.
It was chiefly during the generalship of Acquaviva that the Society
began to gain an evil reputation which eclipsed its good report. In
France the Jesuits joined, if they did not originate, the league against
Henry of Navarre. Absolution was refused by them to those who would not
join in the Guise rebellion, and Acquaviva is said to have tried to stop
them, but in vain. The assassination of Henry III. in the interests of
the league and the wounding of Henry IV. in 1594 by Chastel, a pupil of
theirs, revealed the danger that the whole Society was running by the
intrigues of a few men. The Jesuits were banished from France in 1594,
but were allowed to return by Henry IV. under conditions; as Sully has
recorded, the king declared his only motive to be the expediency of not
driving them into a corner with possible disastrous results to his life,
and because his only hope of tranquillity lay in appeasing them and
their powerful friends. In England the political schemings of Parsons
were no small factors in the odium which fell on the Society at large;
and his determination to capture the English Catholics as an apanage of
the Society, to the exclusion of all else, was an object lesson to the
rest of Europe of a restless ambition and lust of domination which were
to find many imitators. The political turn which was being given by some
to the Society, to the detriment of its real spiritual work, evoked the
fears of the wiser heads of the body; and in the fifth general
congregation held in 1593-1594 it was decreed: "Whereas in these times
of difficulty and danger it has happened through the fault of certain
individuals, through ambition and intemperate zeal, that our institute
has been ill spoken of in divers places and before divers sovereigns ...
it is severely and strictly forbidden to all members of the Society to
interfere in any manner whatever in public affairs even though they be
thereto invited; or to deviate from the institute through entreaty,
persuasion or any other motive whatever." It would have been well had
Acquaviva enforced this decree; but Parsons was allowed to keep on with
his work, and other Jesuits in France for many years after directed, to
the loss of religion, affairs of state. In 1605 took place in England
the Gunpowder Plot, in which Henry Garnet, the superior of the Society
in England, was implicated. That the Jesuits were the instigators of
the plot there is no evidence, but they were in close touch with the
conspirators, of whose designs Garnet had a general knowledge. There is
now no reasonable doubt that he and other Jesuits were legally
accessories, and that the condemnation of Garnet as a traitor was
substantially just (see GARNET, HENRY).
It was during Acquaviva's generalship that Philip II. of Spain
complained bitterly of the Society to Sixtus V., and encouraged him in
those plans of reform (even to changing the name) which were only cut
short by the pope's death in 1590, and also that the long protracted
discussions on grace, wherein the Dominicans contended against the
Jesuits, were carried on at Rome with little practical result, by the
Congregation _de auxiliis_, which sat from 1598 till 1607. The _Ratio
Studiorum_ took its shape during this time. The Jesuit influence at
Rome was supported by the Spanish ambassador; but when Henry IV. "went
to Mass," the balance inclined to the side of France, and the Spanish
monopoly became a thing of the past. Acquaviva saw the expulsion of
the Jesuits from Venice in 1606 for siding with Paul V. when he placed
the republic under interdict, but did not live to see their recall,
which took place at the intercession of Louis XIV. in 1657. He also
had to banish Parsons from Rome, by order of Clement VIII., who was
wearied with the perpetual complaints made against that intriguer.
Gregory XIV., by the bull _Ecclesiae Christi_ (July 28, 1591), again
confirmed the Society, and granted that Jesuits might, for true cause,
be expelled from the body without any form of trial or even
documentary procedure, besides denouncing excommunications against
every one, save the pope or his legates, who directly or indirectly
infringed the constitutions of the Society or attempted to bring about
any change therein.
Under Vitelleschi, the next general, the Society celebrated its first
centenary on the 25th of September 1639, the hundredth anniversary of
the verbal approbation given to the scheme by Paul III. During this
hundred years the Society had grown to thirty-six provinces, with
eight hundred houses containing some fifteen thousand members. In 1640
broke out the great Jansenist controversy, in which the Society took
the leading part on one side and finally secured the victory. In this
same year, considering themselves ill-used by Olivarez, prime minister
of Philip IV. of Spain, the Jesuits powerfully aided the revolution
which placed the duke of Braganza on the throne of Portugal; and their
services were rewarded for nearly one hundred years with the practical
control of ecclesiastical and almost of civil affairs in that kingdom.
The Society also gained ground steadily in France; for, though held in
check by Richelieu and little more favoured by Mazarin, yet from the
moment that Louis XIV. took the reins, their star was in the
ascendant, and Jesuit confessors, the most celebrated of whom were
Francois de La Chaise (q.v.) and Michel Le Tellier (1643-1719), guided
the policy of the king, not hesitating to take his side in his quarrel
with the Holy See, which nearly resulted in a schism, nor to sign the
Gallican articles. Their hostility to the Huguenots forced on the
revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685, and their war against their
Jansenist opponents did not cease till the very walls of Port Royal
were demolished in 1710, even to the very abbey church itself, and the
bodies of the dead taken with every mark of insult from their graves
and literally flung to the dogs to devour. But while thus gaining
power in one direction, the Society was losing it in another. The
Japanese mission had vanished in blood in 1651; and though many
Jesuits died with their converts bravely as martyrs for the faith, yet
it is impossible to acquit them of a large share in the causes of that
overthrow. It was also about this same period that the grave scandal
of the Chinese and Malabar rites began to attract attention in Europe,
and to make thinking men ask seriously whether the Jesuit missionaries
in those parts taught anything which could fairly be called
Christianity at all. When it was remembered, too, that they had
decided, at a council held at Lima, that it was inexpedient to impose
any act of Christian devotion except baptism, on the South American
converts, without the greatest precautions, on the ground of
intellectual difficulties, it is not wonderful that this doubt was not
satisfactorily cleared up, notably in face of the charges brought
against the Society by Bernardin de Cardonas, bishop of Paraguay, and
the saintly Juan de Palafox (q.v.), bishop of Angelopolis in Mexico.
But "the terrible power in the universal church, the great riches and
the extraordinary prestige" of the Society, which Palafox complained
had raised it "above all dignities, laws, councils and apostolic
constitutions," carried with them the seeds of rapid and inevitable
decay. A succession of devout but incapable generals, after the death
of Acquaviva, saw the gradual secularization of tone by the flocking
in of recruits of rank and wealth desirous to share in the glories and
influence of the Society, but not well adapted to increase them. The
general's supremacy received a shock when the eleventh general
congregation appointed Oliva as vicar, with the right of succession
and powers that practically superseded those of the general Goswin
Nickel, whose infirmities, it is said, did not permit him to govern
with the necessary application and vigour; and an attempt was made to
depose Tirso Gonzalez, the thirteenth general, whose views on
probabilism diverged from those favoured by the rest of the Jesuits.
Though the political weight of the Society continued to increase in
the cabinets of Europe, it was being steadily weakened internally. The
Jesuits abandoned the system of free education which had won them so
much influence and honour; by attaching themselves exclusively to the
interests of courts, they lost favour with the middle and lower
classes; and above all, their monopoly of power and patronage in
France, with the fatal use they had made of it, drew down the
bitterest hostility upon them. It was to their credit, indeed, that
the encyclopaedists attacked them as the foremost representatives of
Christianity, but they are accountable in no small degree in France,
as in England, for alienating the minds of men from the religion for
which they professed to work.
But the most fatal part of the policy of the Society was its activity,
wealth and importance as a great trading firm with branch houses
scattered over the richest countries of the world. Its founder, with a
wise instinct, had forbidden the accumulation of wealth; its own
constitutions, as revised in the 84th decree of the sixth general
congregation, had forbidden all pursuits of a commercial nature, as also
had various popes; but nevertheless the trade went on unceasingly,
necessarily with the full knowledge of the general, unless it be pleaded
that the system of obligatory espionage had completely broken down. The
first muttering of the storm which was soon to break was heard in a
breve issued in 1741 by Benedict XIV., wherein he denounced the Jesuit
offenders as "disobedient, contumacious, captious and reprobate
persons," and enacted many stringent regulations for their better
government. The first serious attack came from a country where they had
been long dominant. In 1753 Spain and Portugal exchanged certain
American provinces with each other, which involved a transfer of
sovereign rights over Paraguay; but it was also provided that the
populations should severally migrate also, that the subjects of each
crown might remain the same as before. The inhabitants of the
"reductions," whom the Jesuits had trained in the use of European arms
and discipline, naturally rose in defence of their homes, and attacked
the troops and authorities. Their previous docility and their entire
submission to the Jesuits left no possible doubt as to the source of the
rebellion, and gave the enemies of the Jesuits a handle against them
that was not forgotten. In 1757 Carvalho, marquis of Pombal, prime
minister of Joseph I. of Portugal, and an old pupil of the Jesuits at
Coimbra, dismissed the three Jesuit chaplains of the king and named
three secular priests in their stead. He next complained to Benedict
XIV. that the trading operations of the Society hampered the commercial
prosperity of the nation, and asked for remedial measures. The pope, who
knew the situation, committed a visitation of the Society to Cardinal
Saldanha, an intimate friend of Pombal, who issued a severe decree
against the Jesuits and ordered the confiscation of all their
merchandise. But at this juncture Benedict XIV., the most learned and
able pope of the period, was succeeded by a pope strongly in favour of
the Jesuits, Clement XIII. Pombal, finding no help from Rome, adopted
other means. The king was fired at and wounded on returning from a visit
to his mistress on the 3rd of September 1758. The duke of Aveiro and
other high personages were tried and executed for conspiracy; while some
of the Jesuits, who had undoubtedly been in communication with them,
were charged, on doubtful evidence, with complicity in the attempted
assassination. Pombal charged the whole Society with the possible guilt
of a few, and, unwilling to wait the dubious issue of an application to
the pope for licence to try them in the civil courts, whence they were
exempt, issued on the 1st of September 1759 a decree ordering the
immediate deportation of every Jesuit from Portugal and all its
dependencies and their suppression by the bishops in the schools and
universities. Those in Portugal were at once shipped, in great misery,
to the papal states, and were soon followed by those in the colonies. In
France, Madame de Pompadour was their enemy because they had refused her
absolution while she remained the king's mistress; but the immediate
cause of their ruin was the bankruptcy of Father Lavalette, the Jesuit
superior in Martinique, a daring speculator, who failed, after trading
for some years, for 2,400,000 francs and brought ruin upon some French
commercial houses of note. Lorenzo Ricci, then general of the Society,
repudiated the debt, alleging lack of authority on Lavalette's part to
pledge the credit of the Society, and he was sued by the creditors.
Losing his cause, he appealed to the parlement of Paris, and it, to
decide the issue raised by Ricci, required the constitutions of the
Jesuits to be produced in evidence, and affirmed the judgment of the
courts below. But the publicity given to a document scarcely known till
then raised the utmost indignation against the Society. A royal
commission, appointed by the duc de Choiseul to examine the
constitutions, convoked a private assembly of fifty-one archbishops and
bishops under the presidency of Cardinal de Luynes, all of whom except
six voted that the unlimited authority of the general was incompatible
with the laws of France, and that the appointment of a resident vicar,
subject to those laws, was the only solution of the question fair on all
sides. Ricci replied with the historical answer, _Sint ut sunt, aut non
sint_; and after some further delay, during which much interest was
exerted in their favour, the Jesuits were suppressed by an edict in
November 1764, but suffered to remain on the footing of secular priests,
a grace withdrawn in 1767, when they were expelled from the kingdom. In
the very same year, Charles III. of Spain, a monarch known for personal
devoutness, convinced, on evidence not now forthcoming, that the Jesuits
were plotting against his authority, prepared, through his minister
D'Aranda, a decree suppressing the Society in every part of his
dominions. Sealed despatches were sent to every Spanish colony, to be
opened on the same day, the 2nd of April 1767, when the measure was to
take effect in Spain itself, and the expulsion was relentlessly carried
out, nearly six thousand priests being deported from Spain alone, and
sent to the Italian coast, whence, however, they were repelled by the
orders of the pope and Ricci himself, finding a refuge at Corte in
Corsica, after some months' suffering in overcrowded vessels at sea. The
general's object may probably have been to accentuate the harshness with
which the fathers had been treated, and so to increase public sympathy,
but the actual result of his policy was blame for the cruelty with which
he enhanced their misfortunes, for the poverty of Corsica made even a
bare subsistence scarcely procurable for them there. The Bourbon courts
of Naples and Parma followed the example of France and Spain; Clement
XIII. retorted with a bull launched at the weakest adversary, and
declaring the rank and title of the duke of Parma forfeit. The Bourbon
sovereigns threatened to make war on the pope in return (France, indeed,
seizing on the county of Avignon), and a joint note demanding a
retractation, and the abolition of the Jesuits, was presented by the
French ambassador at Rome on the 10th of December 1768 in the name of
France, Spain and the two Sicilies. The pope, a man of eighty-two, died
of apoplexy, brought on by the shock, early in 1769. Cardinal Lorenzo
Ganganelli, a conventual Franciscan, was chosen to succeed him, and took
the name of Clement XIV. He endeavoured to avert the decision forced
upon him, but, as Portugal joined the Bourbon league, and Maria Theresa
with her son the emperor Joseph II. ceased to protect the Jesuits, there
remained only the petty kingdom of Sardinia in their favour, though the
fall of Choiseul in France raised the hopes of the Society for a time.
The pope began with some preliminary measures, permitting first the
renewal of lawsuits against the Society, which had been suspended by
papal authority, and which, indeed, had in no case been ever successful
at Rome. He then closed the Collegio Romano, on the plea of its
insolvency, seized the houses at Frascati and Tivoli, and broke up the
establishments in Bologna and the Legations. Finally on the 21st of July
1773 the famous breve _Dominus ac Redemptor_ appeared, suppressing the
Society of Jesus. This remarkable document opens by citing a long series
of precedents for the suppression of religious orders by the Holy See,
amongst which occurs the ill-omened instance of the Templars. It then
briefly sketches the objects and history of the Jesuits themselves. It
speaks of their defiance of their own constitution, expressly revived by
Paul V., forbidding them to meddle in politics; of the great ruin to
souls caused by their quarrels with local ordinaries and the other
religious orders, their condescension to heathen usages in the East, and
the disturbances, resulting in persecutions of the Church, which they
had stirred up even in Catholic countries, so that several popes had
been obliged to punish them. Seeing then that the Catholic sovereigns
had been forced to expel them, that many bishops and other eminent
persons demanded their extinction, and that the Society had ceased to
fulfil the intention of its institute, the pope declares it necessary
for the peace of the Church that it should be suppressed, extinguished,
abolished and abrogated for ever, with all its houses, colleges, schools
and hospitals; transfers all the authority of its general or officers to
the local ordinaries; forbids the reception of any more novices,
directing that such as were actually in probation should be dismissed,
and declaring that profession in the Society should not serve as a title
to holy orders. Priests of the Society are given the option of either
joining other orders or remaining as secular clergy, under obedience to
the ordinaries, who are empowered to grant or withhold from them
licences to hear confessions. Such of the fathers as are engaged in the
work of education are permitted to continue, on condition of abstaining
from lax and questionable doctrines apt to cause strife and trouble. The
question of missions is reserved, and the relaxations granted to the
Society in such matters as fasting, reciting the hours and reading
heretical books, are withdrawn; while the breve ends with clauses
carefully drawn to bar any legal exceptions that might be taken against
its full validity and obligation. It has been necessary to cite these
heads of the breve because the apologists of the Society allege that no
motive influenced the pope save the desire of peace at any price, and
that he did not believe in the culpability of the fathers. The
categorical charges made in the document rebut this plea. The pope
followed up this breve by appointing a congregation of cardinals to take
possession of the temporalities of the Society, and armed it with
summary powers against all who should attempt to retain or conceal any
of the property. He also threw Lorenzo Ricci, the general, into prison,
first in the English college and then in the castle of St Angelo, where
he died in 1775, under the pontificate of Pius VI., who, though not
unfavourable to the Society, and owing his own advancement to it, dared
not release him, probably because his continued imprisonment was made a
condition by the powers who enjoyed a right of veto in papal elections.
In September 1774 Clement XIV. died after much suffering, and the
question has been hotly debated ever since whether poison was the cause
of his death. But the latest researches have shown that there is no
evidence to support the theory of poison. Salicetti, the pope's
physician, denied that the body showed signs of poisoning, and Tanucci,
Neapolitan ambassador at Rome, who had a large share in procuring the
breve of suppression, entirely acquits the Jesuits, while F. Theiner, no
friend to the Society, does the like.
At the date of this suppression, the Society had 41 provinces and 22,589
members, of whom 11,295 were priests. Far from submitting to the papal
breve, the ex-Jesuits, after some ineffectual attempts at direct
resistance, withdrew into the territories of the free-thinking
sovereigns of Russia and Prussia, Frederick II. and Catherine II., who
became their active friends and protectors; and the fathers alleged as a
principle, in so far as their theology is concerned, that no papal bull
is binding in a state whose sovereign has not approved and authorized
its publication and execution. Russia formed the headquarters of the
Society, and two forged breves were speedily circulated, being dated
June 9 and June 29, 1774, approving their establishment in Russia, and
implying the repeal of the breve of suppression. But these are
contradicted by the tenor of five genuine breves issued in September
1774 to the archbishop of Gnesen, and making certain assurances to the
ex-Jesuits, on condition of their complete obedience to the injunctions
already laid on them. The Jesuits also pleaded a verbal approbation by
Pius VI., technically known as an _Oraculum vivae vocis_, but this is
invalid for purposes of law unless reduced to writing and duly
authenticated.
They elected three Poles successively as generals, taking, however, only
the title of vicars, till on the 7th of March 1801 Pius VII. granted
them liberty to reconstitute themselves in north Russia, and permitted
Kareu, then vicar, to exercise full authority as general. On the 30th of
July 1804 a similar breve restored the Jesuits in the Two Sicilies, at
the express desire of Ferdinand IV., the pope thus anticipating the
further action of 1814, when, by the constitution _Sollicitudo omnium
Ecclesiarum_, he revoked the action of Clement XIV., and formally
restored the Society to corporate legal existence, yet not only omitted
any censure of his predecessor's conduct, but all vindication of the
Jesuits from the heavy charges in the breve _Dominus ac Redemptor_. In
France, even after their expulsion in 1765, they had maintained a
precarious footing in the country under the partial disguise and names
of "Fathers of the Faith" or "Clerks of the Sacred Heart," but were
obliged by Napoleon I. to retire in 1804. They reappeared under their
true name in 1814, and obtained formal licence in 1822, but became the
objects of so much hostility that Charles X. deprived them by ordinance
of the right of instruction, and obliged all applicants for licences as
teachers to make oath that they did not belong to any community
unrecognized by the laws. They were dispersed again by the revolution of
July 1830, but soon reappeared and, though put to much inconvenience
during the latter years of Louis Philippe's reign, notably in 1845,
maintained their footing, recovered the right to teach freely after the
revolution of 1848, and gradually became the leading educational and
ecclesiastical power in France, notably under the Second Empire, till
they were once more expelled by the Ferry laws of 1880, though they
quietly returned since the execution of those measures. They were again
expelled by the Law of Associations of 1901. In Spain they came back
with Ferdinand VII., but were expelled at the constitutional rising in
1820, returning in 1823, when the duke of Angouleme's army replaced
Ferdinand on his throne; they were driven out once more by Espartero in
1835, and have had no legal position since, though their presence is
openly tolerated. In Portugal, ranging themselves on the side of Dom
Miguel, they fell with his cause, and were exiled in 1834. There are
some to this day in Lisbon under the name of "Fathers of the Faith."
Russia, which had been their warmest patron, drove them from St
Petersburg and Moscow in 1813, and from the whole empire in 1820, mainly
on the plea of attempted proselytizing in the imperial army. Holland
drove them out in 1816, and, by giving them thus a valid excuse for
aiding the Belgian revolution of 1830, secured them the strong position
they have ever since held in Belgium; but they have succeeded in
returning to Holland. They were expelled from Switzerland in 1847-1848
for the part they were charged with in exciting the war of the
Sonderbund. In south Germany, inclusive of Austria and Bavaria, their
annals since their restoration have been uneventful; but in north
Germany, owing to the footing Frederick II. had given them in Prussia,
they became very powerful, especially in the Rhine provinces, and,
gradually moulding the younger generation of clergy after the close of
the War of Liberation, succeeded in spreading Ultramontane views amongst
them, and so leading up to the difficulties with the civil government
which issued in the Falk laws, and their own expulsion by decree of the
German parliament (June 19, 1872). Since then many attempts have been
made to procure the recall of the Society to the German Empire, but
without success, although as individuals they are now allowed in the
country. In Great Britain, whither they began to straggle over during
the revolutionary troubles at the close of the 18th century, and where,
practically unaffected by the clause directed against them in the
Emancipation Act of 1829, their chief settlement has been at Stonyhurst
in Lancashire, an estate conferred on them by Thomas Weld in 1795, they
have been unmolested; but there has been little affinity to the order in
the British temperament, and the English province has consequently never
risen to numerical or intellectual importance in the Society. In Rome
itself, its progress after the restoration was at first slow, and it was
not till the reign of Leo XII. (1823-1829) that it recovered its place
as the chief educational body there. It advanced steadily under Gregory
XVI., and, though it was at first shunned by Pius IX., it secured his
entire confidence after his return from Gaeta in 1849, and obtained from
him a special breve erecting the staff of its literary journal, the
_Civilta Cattolica_, into a perpetual college under the general of the
Jesuits, for the purpose of teaching and propagating the faith in its
pages. How, with this pope's support throughout his long reign, the
gradual filling of nearly all the sees of Latin Christendom with bishops
of their own selection, and their practical capture, directly or
indirectly, of the education of the clergy in seminaries, they contrived
to stamp out the last remains of independence everywhere, and to crown
the Ultramontane triumph with the Vatican Decrees, is matter of familiar
knowledge. Leo XIII., while favouring them somewhat, never gave them his
full confidence; and by his adhesion to the Thomist philosophy and
theology, and his active work for the regeneration and progress of the
older orders, he made another suppression possible by destroying much of
their prestige. But the usual sequence has been observed under Pius X.,
who appeared to be greatly in favour of the Society and to rely upon
them for many of the measures of his pontificate.
The Society has been ruled by twenty-five generals and four vicars from
its foundation to the present day (1910). Of all the various
nationalities represented in the Society, neither France, its original
cradle, nor England, has ever given it a head, while Spain, Italy,
Holland, Belgium, Germany and Poland, were all represented. The numbers
of the Society are not accurately known, but are estimated at about
20,000, in all parts of the world; and of these the English, Irish and
American Jesuits are under 3000.
The generals of the Jesuits have been as follow:--
1. Ignatius de Loyola (Spaniard) 1541-1556
2. Diego Laynez (Spaniard) 1558-1565
3. Francisco Borgia (Spaniard) 1565-1572
4. Everard Mercurian (Belgian) 1573-1580
5. Claudio Acquaviva (Neapolitan) 1581-1615
6. Mutio Vitelleschi (Roman) 1615-1645
7. Vincenzio Caraffa (Neapolitan) 1646-1649
8. Francesco Piccolomini (Florentine) 1649-1651
9. Alessandro Gottofredi (Roman) 1652
10. Goswin Nickel (German) 1652-1664
11. Giovanni Paolo Oliva (Genoese) vicar-general and
coadjutor, 1661; general 1664-1681
12. Charles de Noyelle (Belgian) 1682-1686
13. Tirso Gonzalez (Spaniard) 1687-1705
14. Michele Angelo Tamburini (Modenese) 1706-1730
15. Franz Retz (Bohemian) 1730-1750
16. Ignazio Visconti (Milanese) 1751-1755
17. Alessandro Centurioni (Genoese) 1755-1757
18. Lorenzo Ricci (Florentine) 1758-1775
_a_. Stanislaus Czerniewicz (Pole), vicar-general 1782-1785
_b_. Gabriel Lienkiewicz (Pole), " 1785-1798
_c_. Franciscus Xavier Kareu (Pole), (general in
Russia, 7th March 1801) 1799-1802
_d_. Gabriel Gruber (German) 1802-1805
19. Thaddaeus Brzozowski (Pole) 1805-1820
20. Aloysio Fortis (Veronese) 1820-1829
21. Johannes Roothaan (Dutchman) 1829-1853
22. Peter Johannes Beckx (Belgian) 1853-1884
23. Antoine Anderledy (Swiss) 1884-1892
24. Luis Martin (Spanish) 1892-1906
25. Francis Xavier Wernz (German) 1906-
The bibliography of Jesuitism is of enormous extent, and it is
impracticable to cite more than a few of the most important works.
They are as follows: _Institutum Societatis Jesu_ (7 vols., Avignon,
1830-1838); Orlandini, _Historia Societatis Jesu_ (Antwerp, 1620);
_Imago primi saeculi Societatis Jesu_ (Antwerp, 1640); Nieremberg,
_Vida de San Ignacio de Loyola_ (9 vols., fol., Madrid, 1645-1736);
Genelli, _Life of St Ignatius of Loyola_ (London, 1872); Backer,
_Bibliotheque des ecrivains de la Compagnie de Jesus_ (7 vols., Paris,
1853-1861); Cretineau Joly, _Histoire de la Compagnie de Jesus_ (6
vols., Paris, 1844); Guettee, _Histoire des Jesuites_ (3 vols., Paris,
1858-1859); Wolff, _Allgemeine Geschichte der Jesuiten_ (4 vols.,
Zurich, 1789-1792); Gioberti, _Il Gesuita moderno_ (Lausanne, 1846);
F. Parkman, _Pioneers of France in the New World_ and _The Jesuits in
North America_ (Boston, 1868); _Lettres edifiantes et curieuses,
ecrites des missions etrangeres, avec les Annales de la propagation de
la foi_ (40 vols., Lyons, 1819-1854); Saint-Priest, _Histoire de la
chute des Jesuites au XVIII^e Siecle_ (Paris, 1844); Ranke, _Romische
Papste_ (3 vols., Berlin, 1838); E. Taunton, _History of the Jesuits
in England_ (London, 1901); Thomas Hughes, S.J., _History of the
Society of Jesus in North America_ (London and New York, 1907); R. G.
Thwaites, _Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents_ (73 vols. Cleveland,
1896-1901). (R. F. L.; E. Tn.)
JESUP, MORRIS KETCHUM (1830-1908), American banker and philanthropist,
was born at Westport, Connecticut, on the 21st of June 1830. In 1842 he
went to New York City, where after some experience in business he
established a banking house in 1852. In 1856 he organized the banking
firm of M. K. Jesup & Company, which after two reorganizations became
Cuyler, Morgan & Jesup. He became widely known as a financier, retiring
from active business in 1884. He was best known, however, as a
munificent patron of scientific research, a large contributor to the
needs of education, and a public-spirited citizen of wide interests, who
did much for the betterment of social conditions in New York. He
contributed largely to the funds for the Arctic expeditions of Commander
Robert E. Peary, becoming president of the Peary Arctic Club in 1899. To
the American museum of natural history, in New York City, he gave large
sums in his lifetime and bequeathed $1,000,000. He was president of the
New York chamber of commerce from 1899 until 1907, and was the largest
subscriber to its new building. To his native town he gave a fine public
library. He died in New York City on the 22nd of January 1908.
JESUS CHRIST. To write a summary account of the life of Christ, though
always involving a grave responsibility, was until recent years a
comparatively straightforward task; for it was assumed that all that was
needed, or could be offered, was a chronological outline based on a
harmony of the four canonical Gospels. But to-day history is not
satisfied by this simple procedure. Literary criticism has analysed the
documents, and has already established some important results; and many
questions are still in debate, the answers to which must affect our
judgment of the historical value of the existing narratives. It seems
therefore consonant alike with prudence and reverence to refrain from
attempting to combine afresh into a single picture the materials
derivable from the various documents, and to endeavour instead to
describe the main contents of the sources from which our knowledge of
the Lord Jesus Christ as an historical personage is ultimately drawn,
and to observe the picture of Him which each writer in turn has offered
to us.
The chief elements of the evidence with which we shall deal are the
following:--
1. First, because earliest in point of time, the references to the
Lord Jesus Christ in the earliest Epistles of St Paul.
2. The Gospel according to St Mark.
3. A document, no longer extant, which was partially incorporated into
the Gospels of St Matthew and St Luke.
4. Further information added by St Matthew's Gospel.
5. Further information added by St Luke's Gospel.
6. The Gospel according to St John.
With regard to traditional sayings or doings of our Lord, which were
only written down at a later period, it will suffice to say that those
which have any claim to be genuine are very scanty, and that their
genuineness has to be tested by their correspondence with the great
bulk of information which is derived from the sources already
enumerated. The fictitious literature of the second and third
centuries, known as the Apocryphal Gospels, offers no direct evidence
of any historical value at all: it is chiefly valuable for the
contrast which it presents to the grave simplicity of the canonical
Gospels, and as showing how incapable a later age was of adding
anything to the Gospel history which was not palpably absurd.
1. _Letters of St Paul._--In the order of chronology we must give the
first place to the earliest letters of St Paul. The first piece of
Christian literature which has an independent existence and to which we
can fix a date is St Paul's first Epistle to the Thessalonians.
Lightfoot dates it in 52 or 53; Harnack places it five years earlier. We
may say, then, that it was written some twenty years after the
Crucifixion. St Paul is not an historian; he is not attempting to
describe what Jesus Christ said or did. He is writing a letter to
encourage a little Christian society which he, a Jew, had founded in a
distant Greek city; and he reminds his readers of many things which he
had told them when he was with them. The evidence, to be collected from
his epistles generally must not detain us here, but we may glance for a
moment at this one letter, because it contains what appears to be the
first mention of Jesus Christ in the literature of the world. Those who
would get a true history cannot afford to neglect their earliest
documents. Now the opening sentence of this letter is as follows: "Paul
and Silvanus and Timothy to the Church of the Thessalonians in God the
Father and the Lord Jesus Christ: Grace to you, and peace." Three men
with Greek or Latin names are writing to some kind of assembly in a city
of Macedonia. The writers are Jews, to judge by their salutation of
"peace," and by their mention of "God the Father," and of the assembly
or society as being "in" Him. But what is this new name which is placed
side by side with the Divine Name--"in God the Father and the Lord Jesus
Christ"? An educated Greek, who knew something (as many at that time
did) of the Greek translation of the ancient Hebrew Scriptures, if he
had picked up this letter before he had ever heard the name of Jesus
Christ, would have been deeply interested in these opening words. He
would have known that "Jesus" was the Greek form of Joshua; that
"Christ" was the Greek rendering of Messiah, or Anointed, the title of
the great King for whom the Jews were looking; he might further have
remembered that "the Lord" is the expression which the Greek Old
Testament constantly uses instead of the ineffable name of God, which we
now call "Jehovah" (q.v.). Who, then, he might well ask is this Jesus
Christ who is lifted to this unexampled height? For it is plain that
Jesus Christ stands in some close relation to "God the Father," and that
on the ground of that relation a society has been built up, apparently
by Jews, in a Greek city far distant from Palestine. He would learn
something as he read on; for the letter makes a passing reference to the
foundation of the society, and to the expansion of its influence in
other parts of Greece; to the conversion of its members from heathenism,
and to the consequent sufferings at the hands of their heathen
neighbours. The writers speak of themselves as "apostles," or
messengers, of Christ; they refer to similar societies "in Christ
Jesus," which they call "churches of God," in Judaea, and they say that
these also suffer from the Jews there, who had "killed the Lord Jesus"
some time before. But they further speak of Jesus as "raised from the
dead," and they refer to the belief which they had led the society to
entertain, that He would come again "from heaven to deliver them from
the coming wrath." Moreover, they urge them not to grieve for certain
members of the society who have already died, saying that, "if we
believe that Jesus died and rose again," we may also be assured that
"the dead in Christ will rise" and will live for ever with Him. Thus the
letter assumes that its readers already have considerable knowledge as
to "the Lord Jesus Christ," and as to His relation to "God the Father,"
a knowledge derived from teaching given in person on a former visit. The
purpose of the letter is not to give information as to the past, but to
stimulate its readers to perseverance by giving fresh teaching as to the
future. Historically it is of great value as showing how widely within
twenty or twenty-five years of the Crucifixion a religion which
proclaimed developed theological teaching as to "the Lord Jesus Christ"
had spread in the Roman Empire. We may draw a further conclusion from
this and other letters of St Paul before we go on. St Paul's missionary
work must have created a demand. Those who had heard him and read his
letters would want to know more than he had told them of the earthly
life of the Lord Jesus. They would wish to be able to picture Him to
their minds; and especially to understand what could have led to His
being put to death by the Romans at the requisition of the Jews. St Paul
had not been one of his personal disciples in Galilee or Jerusalem; he
had no memories to relate of His miracles and teaching. Some written
account of these was an obvious need. And we may be sure that any such
narrative concerning One who was so deeply reverenced would be most
carefully scrutinized at a time when many were still living whose
memories went back to the period of Our Lord's public ministry. One such
narrative we now proceed to describe.
2. _St Mark's Gospel._--The Gospel according to St Mark was written
within fifteen years of the first letter of St Paul to the
Thessalonians--i.e. about 65. It seems designed to meet the requirements
of Christians living far away from Palestine. The author was not an
eye-witness of what he relates, but he writes with the firm security of
a man who has the best authority behind him. The characteristics of his
work confirm the early belief that St Mark wrote this Gospel for the
Christians of Rome under the guidance of St Peter. It is of the first
importance that we should endeavour to see this book as a whole; to gain
the total impression which it makes on the mind; to look at the picture
of Jesus Christ which it offers. That picture must inevitably be an
incomplete representation of Him; it will need to be supplemented by
other pictures which other writers have drawn. But it is important to
consider it by itself, as showing us what impress the Master had made on
the memory of one disciple who had been almost constantly by His side.
Beginning of Christ's Mission.
The book opens thus: "The beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ." This
"beginning" is shown to be itself rooted in the past. Hebrew prophets
had foretold that God would send a "messenger"; that a voice would be
heard saying, "Prepare the way of the Lord." And so, in fact, John came,
baptizing in the wilderness and turning the heart of the nation back to
God. But John was only a forerunner. He was himself a prophet, and his
prophecy was this, "He that is stronger than I am is coming after me."
Then, we read, "Jesus came." St Mark introduces Him quite abruptly, just
as he had introduced John; for he is writing for those who already know
the outlines of the story. "Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee." He was
baptized by John, and as He came out of the water He had a vision of the
opened heavens and the Holy Spirit, like a dove, descending upon Him;
and He heard a Voice saying, "Thou art My Son, the Beloved: in Thee I am
well pleased." He then passed away into the wilderness, where He was
tempted by Satan and fed by angels. Then He begins His work; and from
the very first we feel that He fulfils John's sign: He is strong. His
first words are words of strength; "the time is fulfilled"--that is to
say, all the past has been leading up to this great moment; "the kingdom
of God is at hand"--that is to say, all your best hopes are on the point
of being fulfilled; "repent, and believe the Gospel"--that is to say,
turn from your sins and accept the tidings which I bring you. It is but
a brief summary of what He must have said; but we feel its strength. He
does not hesitate to fix all eyes upon Himself. Then we see Him call two
brothers who are fishermen. "Come after Me," He says, "and I will make
you fishers of men." They dropped their nets and went after Him, and so
did two other brothers, their partners; for they all felt the power of
this Master of men: He was strong. He began to teach in the synagogue;
they were astonished at His teaching, for he spoke with authority. He
was interrupted by a demoniac, but He quelled the evil spirit by a word;
He was stronger than the power of evil. When the sun set the Sabbath was
at an end, and the people could carry out their sick into the street
where He was; and He came forth and healed them all. The demoniacs
showed a strange faculty of recognition, and cried that He was "the holy
one of God," and "the Christ," but He silenced them at once. The next
morning He was gone. He had sought a quiet spot for prayer. Peter, one
of those fishermen whom He had called, whose wife's mother had been
healed the day before, found Him and tried to bring Him back. "All men
are seeking Thee," he pleaded. "Let us go elsewhere" was the quiet reply
of one who could not be moved by popular enthusiasm. Once again, we
observe, He fulfils John's sign: He is strong. This is our first sight
of Jesus Christ. The next shows us that this great strength is united to
a most tender sympathy. To touch a leper was forbidden, and the offence
involved ceremonial defilement. Yet when a leper declared that Jesus
could heal him, if only He would, "He put forth His hand and touched
him." The act perfected the leper's faith, and he was healed
immediately. But he disobeyed the command to be silent about the matter,
and the result was that Jesus could not openly enter into the town, but
remained outside in the country. It is the first shadow that falls
across His path; His power finds a check in human wilfulness. Presently
He is in Capernaum again. He heals a paralysed man, but not until He has
come into touch, as we say, with him also, by reaching his deepest need
and declaring the forgiveness of his sins. This declaration disturbs the
rabbis, who regard it as a blasphemous usurpation of Divine authority.
But He claims that "the Son of Man hath authority on earth to forgive
sins." The title which He thus adopts must be considered later.
Attitude towards Religious Tradition.
We may note, as we pass on, that He has again, in the exercise of His
power and His sympathy, come into conflict with the established
religious tradition. This freedom from the trammels of convention
appears yet again when he claims as a new disciple a publican, a man
whose calling as a tax-gatherer for the Roman government made him odious
to every patriotic Jew. Publicans were classed with open sinners; and
when Jesus went to this man's house and met a company of his fellows the
rabbis were scandalized: "Why eateth your Master with publicans and
sinners?" The gentle answer of Jesus showed His sympathy even with those
who opposed Him: "The doctor," He said, "must go to the sick." And
again, when they challenged His disciples for not observing the regular
fasts, He gently reminded them that they themselves relaxed the
discipline of fasting for a bridegroom's friends. And He added, in
picturesque and pregnant sayings, that an old garment could not bear a
new patch, and that old wine-skins could not take new wine. Such
language was at once gentle and strong; without condemning the old, it
claimed liberty for the new. To what lengths would this liberty go? The
sacred badge of the Jews' religion, which marked them off from other men
all the world over, was their observance of the Sabbath. It was a
national emblem, the test of religion and patriotism. The rabbis had
fenced the Sabbath round with minute commands, lest any Jews should even
seem to work on the Sabbath day. Thus, plucking and rubbing the ears of
corn was counted a form of reaping and threshing. The hungry disciples
had so transgressed as they walked through the fields of ripe corn.
Jesus defended them by the example of David, who had eaten the
shewbread, which only priests might eat, and had given it to his hungry
men. Necessity absolves from ritual restrictions. And he went farther,
and proclaimed a principle: "The Sabbath was made for man, and not man
for the Sabbath, so that the Son of Man is lord even of the Sabbath."
For a second time, in justifying His position, He used the expression
"the Son of Man." The words might sound to Jewish ears merely as a
synonym for "man." For Himself, and possibly for some others, they
involved a reference, as appears later, to the "one like to a son of
man" in Daniel's prophecy of the coming kingdom. They emphasized His
relation to humanity as a whole, in contrast to such narrower titles as
"Son of Abraham" or "Son of David." They were fitted to express a wider
mission than that of a merely Jewish Messiah: He stood and spoke for
mankind. The controversy was renewed when a man with a withered hand
appeared in the synagogue on the Sabbath, and the rabbis watched to see
whether Jesus would heal him. For the first time, we read that Jesus was
angry. They were wilfully blind, and they would rather not see good done
than see it done in a way that contradicted their teachings and
undermined their influence. After a sharp remonstrance, He healed the
man by a mere word. And they went out to make a compact with the
followers of the worldly Herod to kill Him, and so to stave off a
religious revolution which might easily have been followed by political
trouble.
Recapitulation.
Up to this point what have we seen? On the stage of Palestine, an
outlying district of the Roman Empire, the home of the Jewish nation,
now subject but still fired with the hope of freedom and even of
universal domination under the leadership of a divinely anointed King, a
new figure has appeared. His appearance has been announced by a
reforming prophet, who has summoned the nation to return to its God, and
promised that a stronger than himself is to follow. In fulfilment of
this promise, who is it that has come? Not a rough prophet in the desert
like John, not a leader striking for political freedom, not a pretender
aiming at the petty throne of the Herods, not even a great rabbi,
building on the patriotic foundation of the Pharisees who had secured
the national life by a new devotion to the ancient law. None of these,
but, on the contrary, an unknown figure from the remote hills of
Galilee, standing on the populous shores of its lake, proclaiming as a
message from God that the highest hopes were about to be fulfilled,
fastening attention on Himself by speaking with authority and attaching
a few followers to His person, exhibiting wonderful powers of healing as
a sign that He has come to fulfil all needs, manifesting at the same
time an unparalleled sympathy, and setting quietly aside every religious
convention which limited the outflow of this sympathy; and as the result
of all this arousing the enthusiasm of astonished multitudes and evoking
the opposition and even the murderous resentment of the religious guides
of the nation. Of His teaching we have heard nothing, except in the
occasional sentences by which He justified some of His unexpected
actions. No party is formed, no programme is announced, no doctrine is
formulated; without assuming the title of Messiah, He offers Himself as
the centre of expectation, and seems to invite an unlimited confidence
in His person. This, then, in brief summary, is what we have seen: the
natural development of an historical situation, a march of events
leading rapidly to a climax; an unexampled strength and an unexampled
sympathy issuing inevitably in an unexampled liberty; and then the
forces of orthodox religion combining with the forces of worldly
indifference in order to suppress a dangerous innovator. Yet the writer
who in a few pages presents us with so remarkable a representation shows
no consciousness at all of artistic treatment. He tells a simple tale in
the plainest words: he never stops to offer a comment or to point a
moral. The wonder of it all is not in the writing, but in the subject
itself. We feel that we have here no skilful composition, but a bare
transcript of what occurred. And we feel besides that such a narrative
as this is the worthy commencement of an answer to the question with
which its readers would have come to it: What was the beginning of the
Gospel? How did the Lord Jesus speak and act? and why did He arouse such
malignant enmity amongst His own people?
We have followed St Mark's narrative up to the point at which it became
clear that conciliatory argument could have no effect upon the Jewish
religious leaders. The controversy about the Sabbath had brought their
dissatisfaction to a climax. Henceforth Jesus was to them a
revolutionary, who must, by any means, be suppressed. After this
decisive breach a new period opens. Jesus leaves Capernaum, never again,
it would seem, to appear in its synagogue. Henceforward He was to be
found, with His disciples, on the shore of the lake, where vast
multitudes gathered round Him, drawn not only from Galilee and Judaea,
but also from the farther districts north and east of these. He would
take refuge from the crowds in a boat, which carried Him from shore to
shore; and His healing activity was now at its height. Yet in the midst
of this popular enthusiasm He knew that the time had come to prepare for
a very different future, and accordingly a fresh departure was made when
He selected twelve of His disciples for a more intimate companionship,
with a view to a special mission: "He appointed twelve that they might
be with Him, and that He might send them forth to preach and to have
power to cast out the devils." The excitement and pressure of the crowds
was at this time almost overwhelming, and the relatives of Jesus
endeavoured to restrain Him; "for they said, He is mad." The scribes
from Jerusalem offered a more sinister explanation, saying that He was
possessed by the prince of the devils, and that this was why He was able
to control all the evil spirits. He answered them first in figurative
language, speaking of the certain downfall of a kingdom or a family
divided against itself, and of the strong man's house which could not be
looted unless the strong man were first bound. Then followed the
tremendous warning, that to assign His work to Satan, and so to call
good evil, was to blaspheme against the Holy Spirit--the one sin which
admitted of no forgiveness. Presently, when He was told that His mother
and brethren were calling for Him, He disclaimed their interference by
pointing to a new circle of family relationship, consisting of all those
who "do the will of God."
Christ's Teaching.
Again we find Him teaching by the lake, and the pressure of the
multitude is still so great that He sits in a boat while they line the
shore. For the first time we are allowed to hear how He taught them. He
gives them a parable from nature--the sower's three kinds of failure,
compensated by the rich produce of the good soil. At the close He utters
the pregnant saying: "He that hath ears to hear let him hear." When His
disciples afterwards asked for an explanation, He prefaced it by saying
that the inner circle only were intended to understand. The disciples
might learn that the message would often prove fruitless, but that
nevertheless an abundant harvest would result. For the light was
intended to shine, and the hidden was meant to be revealed. Another
parable compared the kingdom of God to seed which, when once planted,
must inevitably germinate; the process was secret and slow, but the
harvest was certain. Again, it was like the tiny mustard-seed which grew
out of all proportion to its original size, till the birds could shelter
in its great branches. These enigmatic speeches were all that the
multitudes got, but the disciples in private were taught their lesson of
hope. As we review this teaching it is very remarkable. The world of
common things is seen to be a lesson-book of the kingdom of God to those
who have eyes to read it. What that kingdom is to be we are not told; we
are only taught that its coming is secret, slow and certain. If nature
in its ordinary processes was thus seen to be full of significance, the
disciples were also to learn that it was under His control. As the boat
from which He had been teaching passed to the other side, the tired
Teacher slept. A sudden storm terrified the disciples, and they roused
Him in alarm. He stilled the storm with a word and rebuked their want of
faith. "Who then is this," they whispered with awe, "that even the wind
and the sea obey Him?" On the opposite hills a solitary spectator had
watched the rise and the lull of the tempest, a fierce demoniac who
dwelt among the tombs on the mountain-side. He believed himself to be
possessed by a regiment of demons. When Jesus bade them go forth, he
begged that they might be allowed to enter into a herd of swine which
was hard by. His request was granted, and the swine rushed over a steep
place into the lake. It is worth while to note that while most of the
cures which Jesus had performed appear to have belonged to this class,
this particular case is described as an exceptionally severe one, and
the visible effect of the removal of his tormentors may have greatly
helped to restore the man's shattered personality.
We must not attempt to trace in detail the whole of St Mark's story. We
have followed it long enough to see its directness and simplicity, to
observe the naturalness with which one incident succeeds another, and to
watch the gradual manifestation of a personality at once strong and
sympathetic, wielding extraordinary powers, which are placed wholly at
the service of others, and refusing to be hindered from helping men by
the ordinary restrictions of social or religious custom. And we have
seen as the consequence of all this the development of an historical
situation in which the leaders of current orthodoxy ally themselves with
the indifferentism which accepts existing political conditions in order
to put down a disturber of the peace. We must now be content with a
broader survey of the course of events.
Healing Powers.
Two notable cures were wrought on the western side of the lake--the
healing of the woman with the issue and the raising of Jairus's
daughter. In each of these cures prominence is given to the requirement
and the reward of faith--that is to say, of personal confidence in the
Healer: "Thy faith hath made thee whole." "Fear not, only believe."
After this Jesus passed away from the enthusiastic crowds by the lake to
visit His own Nazareth, and to find there a strange incredulity in
regard to one whom the villagers knew as the carpenter. Once more we
come across a mysterious limitation of His powers: "He could not do
there any miracle," save the cure of a few sick folk; and He marvelled
because of their want of faith. The moment had now come when the twelve
disciples were to be entrusted with a share of His healing power and
with the proclamation of repentance. While they are journeying two and
two in various directions St Mark takes occasion to tell us the current
conjectures as to who Jesus really was. Some thought him Elijah or one
of the ancient prophets returned to earth--a suggestion based on popular
tradition; others said He was John the Baptist risen from the dead--the
superstition of Herod who had put him to death. When the disciples
returned, Jesus took them apart for rest; but the crowds reassembled
when they found Him again near the lake, and His yearning compassion for
these shepherdless sheep led Him to give them an impressive sign that He
had indeed come to supply all human needs. Hitherto His power had gone
forth to individuals, but now He fed five thousand men from the scanty
stock of five loaves and two fishes. That night He came to His disciples
walking upon the waters, and in the period which immediately followed
there was once more a great manifestation of healing power.
Opposition of the Scribes.
We have heard nothing for some time of any opposition; but now a fresh
conflict arose with certain scribes who had come down from Jerusalem,
and who complained that the disciples neglected the ceremonial washing
of their hands before meals. Jesus replied with a stern rebuke,
addressing the questioners as hypocrites, and exposing the falsity of a
system which allowed the breach of fundamental commandments in order
that traditional regulations might be observed. He then turned from them
to the multitude, and uttered a saying which in effect annulled the
Jewish distinction between clean and unclean meats. This was a direct
attack on the whole Pharisaic position. The controversy was plainly
irreconcilable, and Jesus withdrew to the north, actually passing
outside the limits of the Holy Land. He desired to remain unknown, and
not to extend His mission to the heathen population, but the
extraordinary faith and the modest importunity of a Syrophenician woman
induced Him to heal her daughter. Then He returned by a circuitous route
to the Sea of Galilee. His return was marked by another miraculous
feeding of the multitude, and also by two healing miracles which present
unusual features. In both the patient was withdrawn from the multitude
and the cure was wrought with the accompaniment of symbolic actions.
Moreover, in one case Jesus is described as groaning before He spoke; in
the other the cure was at first incomplete; and both of the men were
strictly charged to observe silence afterwards. It cannot be a mere
coincidence that these are the last cures which St Mark records as
performed in Galilee.
Messianic Teaching.
In fact the Galilean ministry is now closed. Jesus retires northwards to
Caesarea Philippi, and appears henceforth to devote Himself entirely to
the instruction of his disciples, who needed to be prepared for the
fatal issue which could not long be delayed. He begins by asking them
the popular opinion as to His Person. The suggestions are still the
same--John the Baptist, or Elijah, or some other of the prophets. But
when He asked their own belief, Peter replied, "Thou art the Christ." He
warned them not to make this known; and He proceeded to give them the
wholly new teaching that the Son of Man must suffer and be killed,
adding that after three days He must rise again. Peter took Him aside
and urged Him not to speak so. But He turned to the other disciples and
openly rebuked Peter. And then, addressing a yet wider circle, He
demanded of those who should follow Him a self-sacrifice like His own.
He even used the metaphor of the cross which was carried by the sufferer
to the place of execution. Life, he declared, could only be saved by
voluntary death. He went on to demand an unswerving loyalty to Himself
and His teaching in the face of a threatening world; and then He
promised that some of those who were present should not die before they
had seen the coming of the kingdom of God. We have had no hint of such
teaching as this in the whole of the Galilean ministry. Jesus had stood
forth as the strong healer and helper of men; it was bewildering to hear
Him speak of dying. He had promised to fulfil men's highest
expectations, if only they would not doubt His willingness and power. He
had been enthusiastically reverenced by the common people, though
suspected and attacked by the religious leaders. He had spoken of "the
will of God" as supreme, and had set aside ceremonial traditions. He had
announced the nearness of the kingdom of God, but had described it only
in parables from nature. He had adopted the vague title of the "Son of
Man," but had refrained from proclaiming Himself as the expected
Messiah. At last the disciples had expressed their conviction that He
was the Christ, and immediately He tells them that He goes to meet
humiliation and death as the necessary steps to a resurrection and a
coming of the Son of Man in the glory of His Father. It was an amazing
announcement and He plainly added that their path like His own lay
through death to life. The dark shadows of this picture of the future
alone could impress their minds, but a week later three of them were
allowed a momentary vision of the light which should overcome the
darkness. They saw Jesus transfigured in a radiance of glory: Elijah
appeared with Moses, and they talked with Jesus. A cloud came over them,
and a Voice, like that of the Baptism, proclaimed "This is My Son, the
Beloved: hear ye Him." They were bidden to keep the vision secret till
the Son of Man should have risen from the dead. It was in itself a
foretaste of resurrection, and the puzzled disciples remembered that the
scribes declared that before the resurrection Elijah would appear. Their
minds were confused as to what resurrection was meant. Jesus told them
that Elijah had in fact come; and He also said that the Scriptures
foretold the sufferings of the Son of Man. But the situation was wholly
beyond their grasp, and the very language of St Mark at this point seems
to reflect the confusion of their minds.
The other disciples, in the meantime, had been vainly endeavouring to
cure a peculiarly violent case of demoniacal possession. Jesus Himself
cast out the demon, but not before the suffering child had been rendered
seemingly lifeless by a final assault. Then they journeyed secretly
through Galilee towards Judaea and the eastern side of the Jordan. On
the way Jesus reinforced the new lesson of self-renunciation. He offered
the little children as the type of those to whom the kingdom of God
belonged; and He disappointed a young and wealthy aspirant to His
favour, amazing His disciples by saying that the kingdom of God could
hardly be entered by the rich; he who forsook all should have all, and
more than all; the world's estimates were to be reversed--the first
should be last and the last first. They were now journeying towards
Jerusalem, and the prediction of the Passion was repeated. James and
John, who had witnessed the Transfiguration, and who were confident of
the coming glory, asked for the places nearest to their Master, and
professed their readiness to share His sufferings. When the other ten
were aggrieved Jesus declared that greatness was measured by service,
not by rank; and that the Son of Man had come not to be served but to
serve, and to give His life to ransom many other lives. As they came up
from the Jordan valley and passed through Jericho, an incident occurred
which signalized the beginning of the final period. A blind man appealed
to Jesus as "the Son of David," and was answered by the restoration of
his sight; and when, a little later, Jesus fulfilled an ancient prophecy
by mounting an ass and riding into Jerusalem, the multitudes snouted
their welcome to the returning "kingdom of David." Hitherto He had not
permitted any public recognition of His Messiahship, but now He entered
David's city in lowly but significant pomp as David's promised heir.
Entry into Jerusalem.
Two incidents illustrate the spirit of judgment with which He approached
the splendid but apostate city. On His arrival He had carefully observed
the condition of the Temple, and had retired to sleep outside the city.
On the following morning, finding no fruit on a fig-tree in full leaf,
He said, "Let no man eat fruit of thee henceforth for ever." It was a
parable of impending doom. Then, when He entered the Temple, He swept
away with a fiery zeal the merchants and merchandise which had turned
God's House into "a robbers' den." The act was at once an assertion of
commanding authority and an open condemnation of the religious rulers
who had permitted the desecration. Its immediate effect was to make new
and powerful enemies; for the chief priests, as well as their rivals the
scribes, were now inflamed against Him. At the moment they could do
nothing, but the next day they formally demanded whence He derived His
right so to act. When they refused to answer His question as to the
authority of John the Baptist, He in turn refused to tell them His own.
But He uttered a parable which more than answered them. The owner of the
vineyard, who had sent his servants and last of all his only son, would
visit their rejection and murder on the wicked husbandmen. He added a
reminder that the stone which the builders refused was, after all, the
Divine choice. They were restrained from arresting Him by fear of the
people, to whom the meaning of the parable was plain. They therefore
sent a joint deputation of Pharisees and Herodians to entrap Him with a
question as to the Roman tribute, in answering which He must either lose
His influence with the people or else lay Himself open to a charge of
treason. When they were baffled, the Sadducees, to whose party the chief
priests belonged, sought in vain to pose Him with a problem as to the
resurrection of the dead; and after that a more honest scribe confessed
the truth of His teaching as to the supremacy of love to God and man
over all the sacrificial worship of the Temple, and was told in reply
that he was not far from the kingdom of God. Jesus Himself now put a
question as to the teaching of the scribes which identified the Messiah
with "the Son of David"; and then He denounced those scribes whose pride
and extortion and hypocrisy were preparing for them a terrible doom.
Before He left the Temple, never to return, one incident gave Him pure
satisfaction. His own teaching that all must be given for God was
illustrated by the devotion of a poor widow who cast into the treasury
the two tiny coins which were all that she had. As He passed out He
foretold, in words which corresponded to the doom of the fig-tree, the
utter demolition of the imposing but profitless Temple; and presently He
opened up to four of His disciples a vision of the future, warning them
against false Christs, bidding them expect great sorrows, national and
personal, declaring that the gospel must be proclaimed to all the
nations, and that after a great tribulation the Son of Man should
appear, "coming with the clouds of heaven." The day and the hour none
knew, neither the angels nor the Son, but only the Father: it was the
duty of all to watch.
Final Scenes.
We now come to the final scenes. The passover was approaching, and plots
were being laid for His destruction. He Himself spoke mysteriously of
His burial, when a woman poured a vase of costly ointment upon His head.
To some this seemed a wasteful act; but He accepted it as a token of the
love which gave all that was in its power, and He promised that it
should never cease to illustrate His Gospel. Two of the disciples were
sent into Jerusalem to prepare the Passover meal. During the meal Jesus
declared that He should be betrayed by one of their number. Later in the
evening He gave them bread and wine, proclaiming that these were His
body and His blood--the tokens of His giving Himself to them, and of a
new covenant with God through His death. As they withdrew to the Mount
of Olives He foretold their general flight, but promised that when He
was risen He would go before them into Galilee. Peter protested
faithfulness unto death, but was told that he would deny his Master
three times that very night. Then coming to a place called Gethsemane,
He bade the disciples wait while He should pray; and taking the three
who had been with Him at the Transfiguration He told them to tarry near
Him and to watch. He went forward, and fell on the ground, praying that
"the cup might be taken away" from Him, but resigning Himself to His
Father's will. Presently Judas arrived with a band of armed men, and
greeted his Master with a kiss--the signal for His arrest. The disciples
fled in panic, after one of them had wounded the high priest's servant.
Only a nameless young man tried to follow, but he too fled when hands
were laid upon him. Before the high priest Jesus was charged, among
other accusations, with threatening to destroy the Temple; but the
matter was brought to an issue when He was plainly asked if He were "the
Christ, the Son of the Blessed One." He answered that He was, and He
predicted that they should see the fulfilment of Daniel's vision of the
Son of Man sitting on the right hand of power. Thereupon He was
condemned to death for manifest blasphemy, and a scene of cruel mockery
followed. Meanwhile Peter in the court below had been sitting with the
servants, and in his anxiety to escape recognition had thrice declared
that he did not know Jesus. Thus the night passed, and in the morning
Jesus was taken to Pilate, for the Jewish council had no power to
execute their decree of death. Pilate's question, "Art Thou the King of
the Jews?" shows the nature of the accusation which was thought likely
to tell with the Roman governor. He had already in bonds one leader of
revolution, whose hands were stained with blood--a striking contrast to
the calm and silent figure who stood before him. At this moment a crowd
came up to ask the fulfilment of his annual act of grace, the pardon of
a prisoner at the Passover. Pilate, discerning that it was the envy of
the rulers which sought to destroy an inconvenient rival, offered "the
King of the Jews" as the prisoner to be released. But the chief priests
succeeded in making the people ask for Barabbas and demand the
crucifixion of Jesus. Pilate fulfilled his pledge by giving them the man
of their choice, and Jesus, whom he had vainly hoped to release on a
satisfactory pretext, he now condemned to the shameful punishments of
scourging and crucifixion; for the cross, as Jesus had foreseen, was the
inevitable fate of a Jewish pretender to sovereignty. The Roman soldiers
mocked "the King of the Jews" with a purple robe and a crown of thorns.
As they led Him out they forced the cross, which the sufferer commonly
carried, upon the shoulders of one Simon of Cyrene, whose son's
Alexander and Rufus are here mentioned--probably as being known to St
Mark's readers; at any rate, it is interesting to note that, in writing
to the Christians at Rome, St Paul a few years earlier had sent a
greeting to "Rufus and his mother." Over the cross, which stood between
two others, was the condemnatory inscription, "The King of the Jews."
This was the Roman designation of Him whom the Jewish rulers tauntingly
addressed as "the King of Israel." The same revilers, with a deeper
truth than they knew, summed up the mystery of His life and death when
they said, "He saved others, Himself He cannot save."
A great darkness shrouded the scene for three hours, and then, in His
native Aramaic, Jesus cried in the words of the Psalm, "My God, My God,
why has Thou forsaken Me?" One other cry He uttered, and the end came,
and at that moment the veil of the Temple was rent from top to
bottom--an omen of fearful import to those who had mocked Him, even on
the cross, as the destroyer of the Temple, who in three days should
build it anew. The disciples of Jesus do not appear as spectators of the
end, but only a group of women who had ministered to His needs in
Galilee, and had followed Him up to Jerusalem. These women watched His
burial, which was performed by a Jewish councillor, to whom Pilate had
granted the body after the centurion had certified the reality of the
unexpectedly early death. The body was placed in a rock-hewn tomb, and a
great stone was rolled against the entrance. Sunset brought on the
Jewish sabbath, but the next evening the women brought spices to anoint
the body, and at sunrise on the third day they arrived at the tomb, and
saw that the stone was rolled away. They entered and found a young man
in a white robe, who said, "He is risen, He is not here," and bade them
say to His disciples and Peter, "He goeth before you into Galilee; there
ye shall see Him, as He said unto you." In terror they fled from the
tomb, "and they said nothing to any man, for they feared...."
So with a broken sentence the narrative ends. The document is imperfect,
owing probably to the accidental loss of its last leaf. In very early
times attempts were made to furnish it with a fitting close; but neither
of the supplements which we find in manuscripts can be regarded as
coming from the original writer. If we ask what must, on grounds of
literary probability, have been added before the record was closed, we
may content ourselves here with saying that some incident must certainly
have been narrated which should have realized the twice-repeated promise
that Jesus would be seen by His disciples in Galilee.
3. _Document used by St Matthew and St Luke._--We pass on now to compare
with this narrative of St Mark another very early document which no
longer exists in an independent form, but which can be partially
reconstructed from the portions of it which have been embodied in the
Gospels of St Matthew and St Luke.
When we review St Mark's narrative as a whole we are struck, first of
all, with its directness and simplicity. It moves straightforward upon a
well-defined path. It shows us the Lord Jesus entering on the mission
predicted by the Baptist without declaring Himself to be the Messiah;
attracting the multitudes in Galilee by His healing power and His
unbounded sympathy, and at the same time awakening the envy and
suspicion of the leaders of religion; training a few disciples till they
reach the conviction that He is the Christ, and then, but not till then,
admitting them into the secret of His coming sufferings, and preparing
them for a mission in which they also must sacrifice themselves; then
journeying to Jerusalem to fulfil the destiny which He foresaw,
accepting the responsibility of the Messianic title, only to be
condemned by the religious authorities as a blasphemer and handed over
to the Roman power as a pretender to the Jewish throne. That is the
story in its barest outline. It is adequate to its presumed purpose of
offering to distant Gentile converts a clear account of their Master's
earthly work, and of the causes which led to His rejection by His own
people and to His death by Roman crucifixion. The writer makes no
comment on the wonderful story which he tells. Allusions to Jewish
customs are, indeed, explained as they occur, but apart from this the
narrative appears to be a mere transcript of remembered facts. The
actors are never characterized; their actions are simply noted down;
there is no praise and no blame. To this simplicity and directness of
narrative we may in large measure attribute the fact that when two later
evangelists desired to give fuller accounts of our Lord's life they both
made this early book the basis of their work. In those days there was no
sense of unfairness in using up existing materials in order to make a
more complete treatise. Accordingly so much of St Mark's Gospel has been
taken over word for word in the Gospels of St Luke and St Matthew that,
if every copy of it had perished, we could still reconstruct large
portions of it by carefully comparing their narratives. They did not
hesitate, however, to alter St Mark's language where it seemed to them
rough or obscure, for each of them had a distinctive style of his own,
and St Luke was a literary artist of a high order. Moreover, though they
both accepted the general scheme of St Mark's narrative, each of them
was obliged to omit many incidents in order to find room for other
material which was at their disposal, by which they were able to
supplement the deficiencies of the earlier book. The most conspicuous
deficiency was in regard to our Lord's teaching, of which, as we have
seen, St Mark had given surprisingly little. Here they were happily in a
position to make a very important contribution.
For side by side with St Mark's Gospel there was current in the earliest
times another account of the doings and sayings of Jesus Christ. Our
knowledge of it to-day is entirely derived from a comparison of the two
later evangelists who embodied large portions of it, working it in and
out of the general scheme which they derived from St Mark, according as
each of them thought most appropriate. St Luke appears to have taken it
over in sections for the most part without much modification; but in St
Matthew's Gospel its incidents seldom find an independent place; the
sayings to which they gave rise are often detached from their context
and grouped with sayings of a similar character so as to form
considerable discourses, or else they are linked on to sayings which
were uttered on other occasions recorded by St Mark. It is probable that
many passages of St Luke's Gospel which have no parallel in St Matthew
were also derived from this early source; but this is not easily capable
of distinct proof; and, therefore, in order to gain a secure conception
of the document we must confine ourselves at first to those parts of it
which were borrowed by both writers. We shall, however, look to St Luke
in the main as preserving for us the more nearly its original form.
We proceed now to give an outline of the contents of this document. To
begin with, it contained a fuller account of the teaching of John the
Baptist. St Mark tells us only his message of hope; but here we read the
severer language with which he called men to repentance. We hear his
warning of "the coming wrath": his mighty Successor will baptize with
fire; the fruitless tree will be cast into the fire; the chaff will be
separated from the wheat and burned with unquenchable fire; the claim to
be children of Abraham will not avail, for God can raise up other
children to Abraham, if it be from the stones of the desert. Next, we
have a narrative of the Temptation, of which St Mark had but recorded
the bare fact. It was grounded on the Divine sonship, which we already
know was proclaimed at the Baptism. In a threefold vision Jesus is
invited to enter upon His inheritance at once; to satisfy His own needs,
to accept of earthly dominion, to presume on the Divine protection. The
passage stands almost alone as a revelation of inner conflict in a life
which outwardly was marked by unusual calm.
The Sermon on the Mount.
Not far from the beginning of the document there stood a remarkable
discourse delivered among the hills above the lake. It opens with a
startling reversal of the common estimates of happiness and misery. In
the light of the coming kingdom it proclaims the blessedness of the
poor, the hungry, the sad and the maligned; and the woefulness of the
rich, the full, the merry and the popular. It goes on to reverse the
ordinary maxims of conduct. Enemies are to be loved, helped, blessed,
prayed for. No blow is to be returned; every demand, just or unjust, is
to be granted: in short, "as ye desire that men should do to you, do in
like manner to them." Then the motive and the model of this conduct are
adduced: "Love your enemies ... and ye shall be sons of the Highest; for
He is kind to the thankless and wicked. Be merciful, as your Father is
merciful; and judge not, and ye shall not be judged." We note in passing
that this is the first introduction of our Lord's teaching of the
fatherhood of God. God is your Father, He says in effect; you will be
His sons if like Him you will refuse to make distinctions, loving
without looking for a return, sure that in the end love will not be
wholly lost. Then follow grave warnings--generous towards others, you
must be strict with yourselves; only the good can truly do good; hearers
of these words must be doers also, if they would build on the rock and
not on the sand. So, with the parable of the two builders, the discourse
reached its formal close.
It was followed by the entry of Jesus into Capernaum, where He was asked
to heal the servant of a Roman officer. This man's unusual faith, based
on his soldierly sense of discipline, surprised the Lord, who declared
that it had no equal in Israel itself. Somewhat later messengers arrived
from the imprisoned Baptist, who asked if Jesus were indeed "the coming
One" of whom he had spoken. Jesus pointed to His acts of healing the
sick, raising the dead and proclaiming good news for the poor; thereby
suggesting to those who could understand that He fulfilled the ancient
prophecy of the Messiah. He then declared the greatness of John in
exalted terms, adding, however, that the least in the kingdom of God was
John's superior. Then He complained of the unreasonableness of an age
which refused John as too austere and Himself as too lax and as being
"the friend of publicans and sinners." This narrative clearly
presupposes a series of miracles already performed, and also such a
conflict with the Pharisees as we have seen recorded by St Mark.
Presently we find an offer of discipleship met by the warning that "the
Son of Man" is a homeless wanderer; and then the stern refusal of a
request for leave to perform a father's funeral rites.
Other Sayings of Jesus.
Close upon these incidents follows a special mission of disciples,
introduced by the saying: "The harvest is great, but the labourers are
few." The disciples as they journey are to take no provisions, but to
throw themselves on the bounty of their hearers; they are to heal the
sick and to proclaim the nearness of the kingdom of God. The city that
rejects them shall have a less lenient judgment than Sodom; Tyre and
Sidon shall be better off than cities like Chorazin and Bethsaida which
have seen His miracles; Capernaum, favoured above all, shall sink to the
deepest depth. If words could be sterner than these, they are those
which follow: "He that heareth you heareth Me; and he that rejecteth you
rejecteth Me; but He that rejecteth Me rejecteth Him that sent Me." This
reference to His own personal mission is strikingly expanded in words
which He uttered on the return of the disciples. After thanking the
Father for revealing to babes what He hides from the wise, He continued
in mysterious language: "All things are delivered to Me by My Father;
and none knoweth who the Son is but the Father; and who the Father is
but the Son, and he to whom the Son chooseth to reveal Him." Happy were
the disciples in seeing and hearing what prophets and kings had looked
for in vain.
When His disciples, having watched Him at prayer, desired to be taught
how to pray, they were bidden to address God as "Father"; to ask first
for the hallowing of the Father's name, and the coming of His kingdom;
then for their daily food, for the pardon of their sins and for freedom
from temptation. It was the prayer of a family--that the sons might be
true to the Father, and the Father true to the sons; and they were
further encouraged by a parable of the family: "Ask and ye shall
receive.... Every one that asketh receiveth": for the heavenly Father
will do more, not less, than an earthly father would do for his
children. After He had cast out a dumb demon, some said that His power
was due to Beelzebub. He accordingly asked them by whom the Jews
themselves cast out demons; and He claimed that His power was a sign
that the kingdom of God was come. But He warned them that demons cast
out once might return in greater force. When they asked for a sign from
heaven, He would give them no more than the sign of Jonah, explaining
that the repentant Ninevites should condemn the present generation: so,
too, should the queen of Sheba; for that which they were now rejecting
was more than Jonah and more than Solomon. Yet further warnings were
given when a Pharisee invited Him to his table, and expressed surprise
that He did not wash His hands before the meal. The cleansing of
externals and the tithing of garden-produce, He declares, have usurped
the place of judgment and the love of God. Woe is pronounced upon the
Pharisees: they are successors to the murderers of the prophets. Then
citing from Genesis and 2 Chronicles, the first and last books in the
order of the Jewish Bible, He declared that all righteous blood from
that of Abel to that of Zachariah should be required of that generation.
After this the disciples are encouraged not to fear their murderous
opponents. The very sparrows are God's care--much more shall they be;
the hairs of their head are all counted. In the end the Son of Man will
openly own those who have owned Him before men. For earthly needs no
thought is to be taken: the birds and the flowers make no provision for
their life and beauty. God will give food and raiment to those who are
seeking His kingdom. Earthly goods should be given away in exchange for
the imperishable treasures. Suddenly will the Son of Man come: happy the
servant whom His Master finds at his appointed task. In brief parables
the kingdom of God is likened to a mustard-seed and to leaven. When
Jesus is asked if the saved shall be few, He replies that the door is a
narrow one. Then, changing His illustration, He says that many shall
seek entrance in vain; for the master of the house will refuse to
recognize them. But while they are excluded, a multitude from all
quarters of the earth shall sit down with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and
the prophets in the kingdom of God.
His eyes are now fixed on Jerusalem, where, like the prophets, He must
die. "Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how often have I desired to gather thy
children together, as a bird her brood beneath her wings, but ye
refused." "Ye shall not see Me, until ye shall say, Blessed is He that
cometh in the name of the Lord." After this we have the healing of a
dropsical man on the Sabbath, with a reply to the murmuring Pharisees;
and then a parable of the failure of invited guests and the filling of
their places from the streets. A few fragmentary passages remain, of
which it will be sufficient to cite a word or two to call them to
remembrance. There is a warning that he who forsakes not father and
mother cannot be a disciple, nor he who does not bear his cross.
Savourless salt is fit for nothing. The lost sheep is brought home with
a special joy. "Ye cannot serve God and Mammon." Scandals must arise,
but woe to him through whom they arise. The Son of Man will come with
the suddenness of lightning; the days of Noah and the days of Lot will
find a parallel in their blind gaiety and their inevitable disaster. He
who seeks to gain his life will lose it. "One shall be taken, and the
other left." "Where the carcase is, the vultures will gather." Then,
lastly, we have a parable of the servant who failed to employ the money
entrusted to him; and a promise that the disciples shall sit on twelve
thrones to judge the twelve tribes of Israel. We cannot say by our
present method of determination, how this document closed; for in the
narratives of the Passion and the Resurrection St Matthew and St Luke
only coincide in passages which they have taken from St Mark.
Comparison with St Mark.
Now that we have reconstructed in outline this early account of the Lord
Jesus, so far as it has been used by both the later evangelists, we may
attempt to compare the picture which it presents to us with that which
was offered by St Mark. But in doing so we must remember that we know it
only in fragments. There can be little doubt that much more of it is
embedded in St Luke's Gospel, and something more also in St Matthew's;
but in order to stand on firm ground we have considered thus far only
those portions which both of these writers elected to use in composing
their later narratives. To go beyond this is a work of delicate
discrimination. It can only be effected by a close examination of the
style and language of the document, which may enable us in some
instances to identify with comparative security certain passages which
are found in St Luke, but which St Matthew did not regard as suitable
for his purpose. Among these we may venture, quite tentatively, to
mention the sermon at Nazareth which opened with a passage from the Book
of Isaiah, the raising of the widow's son at Nain, and the parable of
the good Samaritan. These are found in St Luke, but not in St Matthew.
On the other hand, it is not improbable that the wonderful words which
begin, "Come unto Me all ye that labour," were drawn by St Matthew from
the same document, though they are not recorded by St Luke. But here we
have entered upon a region of less certainty, in which critical
scholarship has still much to do; and these passages are mentioned here
only as a reminder that the document must have contained more than what
St Matthew and St Luke each independently determined to borrow from it.
Looking, then, at the portions which we have indicated as having this
two-fold testimony, we see that in their fragmentary condition we cannot
trace the clear historical development which was so conspicuous a
feature of St Mark's Gospel; yet we need not conclude that in its
complete form it failed to present an orderly narrative. Next, we see
that wherever we are able to observe its method of relating an incident,
as in the case of the healing of the centurion's servant, we have the
same characteristics of brevity and simplicity which we admired in St
Mark. No comment is made by the narrator; he tells his tale in the
fewest words and passes on. Again, we note that it supplies just what we
feel we most need when we have reached the end of St Mark's story, a
fuller account of the teaching which Jesus gave to His disciples and to
the people at large. And we see that the substance of that teaching is
in complete harmony with the scattered hints that we found in St Mark.
If the fatherhood of God stands out clearly, we may remember a passage
of St Mark also which speaks of "the Heavenly Father" as forgiving those
who forgive. If prayer is encouraged, we may also remember that the same
passage of St Mark records the saying: "All things whatsoever ye pray
for and ask, believe that ye have received them and ye shall have them."
If in one mysterious passage Jesus speaks of "the Father" and "the
Son"--terms with which the Gospel of St John has made us familiar--St
Mark also in one passage uses the same impressive terms--"the Son" and
"the Father." There are, of course, many other parallels with St Mark,
and at some points the two documents seem to overlap and to relate the
same incidents in somewhat different forms. There is the same use of
parables from nature, the same incisiveness of speech and employment of
paradox, the same demand to sacrifice all to Him and for His cause, the
same importunate claim made by Him on the human soul.
The Element of Warning.
But the contrast between the two writers is even more important for our
purpose. No one can read through the passages to which we have pointed
without feeling the solemn sternness of the great Teacher, a sternness
which can indeed be traced here and there in St Mark, but which does not
give its tone to the whole of his picture. Here we see Christ standing
forth in solitary grandeur, looking with the eyes of another world on a
society which is blindly hastening to its dissolution. It may be that if
this document had come down to us in its entirety, we should have
gathered from it an exaggerated idea of the severity of our Lord's
character. Certain it is that as we read over these fragments we are
somewhat startled by the predominance of the element of warning, and by
the assertion of rules of conduct which seem almost inconsistent with a
normal condition of settled social life. The warning to the nation
sounded by the Baptist, that God could raise up a new family for
Abraham, is heard again and again in our Lord's teaching. Gentile faith
puts Israel to shame. The sons of the kingdom will be left outside,
while strangers feast with Abraham. Capernaum shall go to perdition;
Jerusalem shall be a desolate ruin. The doom of the nation is
pronounced; its fate is imminent; there is no ray of hope for the
existing constitution of religion and society. As to individuals within
the nation, the despised publicans and sinners will find God's favour
before the self-satisfied representatives of the national religion. In
such a condition of affairs it is hardly surprising to find that the
great and stern Teacher congratulates the poor and has nothing but pity
for the rich; that He has no interest at all in comfort or property. If
a man asks you for anything, give it him; if he takes it without asking,
do not seek to recover it. Nothing material is worth a thought; anxiety
is folly; your Father, who feeds His birds and clothes His flowers, will
feed and clothe you. Rise to the height of your sonship to God; love
your enemies even as God loves His; and if they kill you, God will care
for you still; fear them not, fear only Him who loves you all.
Here is a new philosophy of life, offering solid consolation amid the
ruin of a world. We have no idea who the disciple may have been who thus
seized upon the sadder elements of the teaching of Jesus; but we may
well think of him as one of those who were living in Palestine in the
dark and threatening years of internecine strife, when the Roman eagles
were gathering round their prey, and the first thunder was muttering of
the storm which was to leave Jerusalem a heap of stones. At such a
moment the warnings of our Lord would claim a large place in a record of
His teaching, and the strange comfort which He had offered would be the
only hope which it would seem possible to entertain.
The Earlier Narratives.
4. _Additions by the Gospel according to St Matthew._--We have now
examined in turn the two earliest pictures which have been preserved to
us of the life of Jesus Christ. The first portrays Him chiefly by a
record of His actions, and illustrates His strength, His sympathy, and
His freedom from conventional restraints. It shows the disturbing forces
of these characteristics, which aroused the envy and apprehension of the
leaders of religion. The first bright days of welcome and popularity are
soon clouded: the storm begins to lower. More and more the Master
devotes Himself to the little circle of His disciples, who are taught
that they, as well as He, can only triumph through defeat, succeed by
failure, and find their life in giving it away. At length, in fear of
religious innovations and pretending that He is a political usurper, the
Jews deliver Him up to die on a Roman cross. The last page of the story
is torn away, just at the point when it has been declared that He is
alive again and about to show Himself to His disciples. The second
picture has a somewhat different tone. It is mainly a record of
teaching, and the teaching is for the most part stern and paradoxical.
It might be described as revolutionary. It is good tidings to the poor:
it sets no store on property and material comfort: it pities the wealthy
and congratulates the needy. It reverses ordinary judgments and
conventional maxims of conduct. It proclaims the downfall of
institutions, and compares the present blind security to the days of
Noah and of Lot: a few only shall escape the coming overthrow. Yet even
in this sterner setting the figure portrayed is unmistakably the same.
There is the same strength, the same tender sympathy, the same freedom
from convention: there is the same promise to fulfil the highest hopes,
the same surrender of life, and the same imperious demand on the lives
of others. No thoughtful man who examines and compares these pictures
can doubt that they are genuine historical portraits of a figure wholly
different from any which had hitherto appeared on the world's stage.
They are beyond the power of human invention. They are drawn with a
simplicity which is their own guarantee. If we had these, and these
only, we should have an adequate explanation of the beginnings of
Christianity. There would still be a great gap to be filled before we
reached the earliest letters of St Paul; but yet we should know what the
Apostle meant when he wrote to "the Church of the Thessalonians in God
the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ," and reminded them how they had
"turned from idols to serve the living and true God, and to wait for His
Son from heaven, whom He raised from the dead, even Jesus who delivereth
us from the wrath to come."
If these two narratives served the first needs of Christian believers,
it is easy to see that they would presently stimulate further activity
in the same direction. For, to begin with, they were obviously
incomplete: many incidents and teachings known to the earliest disciples
found no place in them; and they contained no account of the life of
Jesus Christ before His public ministry, no record of His pedigree, His
birth or His childhood. Secondly, their form left much to be desired;
for one of them at least was rude in style, sometimes needlessly
repetitive and sometimes brief to obscurity. Moreover the very fact that
there were two challenged a new and combined work which perhaps should
supersede both.
The Gospel of St Matthew.
Accordingly, some years after the fall of Jerusalem--we cannot tell the
exact date or the author's name--the book which we call the Gospel
according to St Matthew was written to give the Palestinian Christians a
full account of Jesus Christ, which should present Him as the promised
Messiah, fulfilling the ancient Hebrew prophecies, proclaiming the
kingdom of heaven, and founding the Christian society. The writer takes
St Mark as his basis, but he incorporates into the story large portions
of the teaching which he has found in the other document. He groups his
materials with small regard to chronological order; and he fashions out
of the many scattered sayings of our Lord continuous discourses,
everywhere bringing like to like, with considerable literary art. A wide
knowledge of the Old Testament supplies him with a text to illustrate
one incident after another; and so deeply is he impressed with the
correspondence between the life of Christ and the words of ancient
prophecy, that he does not hesitate to introduce his quotations by the
formula "that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet."
His Hebrew instinct leads him to begin with a table of genealogy,
artificially constructed in groups of fourteen generations--from Abraham
to David, from David to the Captivity, and from the Captivity to the
Christ. The royal descent of the Messiah is thus declared, and from the
outset His figure is set against the background of the Old Testament. He
then proceeds to show that, though His lineage is traced through
Joseph's ancestors, He was but the adopted son of Joseph, and he tells
the story of the Virgin-birth. The coming of the Child draws Eastern
sages to his cradle and fills the court of Herod with suspicious fears.
The cruel tyrant kills the babes of Bethlehem, but the Child has been
withdrawn by a secret flight into Egypt, whence he presently returns to
the family home at Nazareth in Galilee. All this is necessarily fresh
material, for the other records had dealt only with the period of public
ministry. We have no knowledge of the source from which it was drawn.
From the historical standpoint its value must be appraised by the
estimate which is formed of the writer's general trustworthiness as a
narrator, and by the extent to which the incidents receive confirmation
from other quarters. The central fact of the Virgin-birth, as we shall
presently see, has high attestation from another early writer.
Discourses and Parables.
The next addition which St Matthew's Gospel makes to our knowledge is of
a different kind. It consists of various important sayings of our Lord,
which are combined with discourses found in the second document and are
worked up into the great utterance which we call the Sermon on the
Mount. Such grouping of materials is a feature of this Gospel, and was
possibly designed for purposes of public instruction; so that continuous
passages might be read aloud in the services of the Church, just as
passages from the Old Testament were read in the Jewish synagogues. This
motive would account not only for the arrangement of the material, but
also for certain changes in the language which seem intended to remove
difficulties, and to interpret what is ambiguous or obscure. An example
of such interpretation meets us at the outset. The startling saying,
"Blessed are ye poor," followed by the woe pronounced upon the rich,
might seem like a condemnation of the very principle of property; and
when the Christian Church had come to be organized as a society
containing rich and poor, the heart of the saying was felt to be more
truly and clearly expressed in the words, "Blessed are the poor in
spirit." This interpretative process may be traced again and again in
this Gospel, which frequently seems to reflect the definite tradition of
a settled Church.
Apart from the important parables of the tares, the pearl and the net,
the writer adds little to his sources until we come to the remarkable
passage in ch. xvi., in which Peter the Rock is declared to be the
foundation of the future Church, and is entrusted with the keys of the
kingdom of heaven. The function of "binding and loosing," here assigned
to him, is in identical terms assigned to the disciples generally in a
passage in ch. xviii. in which for the second time we meet with the word
"Church"--a word not found elsewhere in the Gospels. There is no
sufficient ground for denying that these sayings were uttered by our
Lord, but the fact that they were now first placed upon record
harmonizes with what has been said already as to the more settled
condition of the Christian society which this Gospel appears to reflect.
The parables of the two debtors, the labourers in the vineyard, the two
sons, the ten virgins, the sheep and goats, are recorded only by this
evangelist. But by way of incident he has almost nothing to add till we
come to the closing scenes. The earthquake at the moment of our Lord's
death and the subsequent appearance of departed saints are strange
traditions unattested by other writers. The same is to be said of the
soldiers placed to guard the tomb, and of the story that they had been
bribed to say that the sacred body had been stolen while they slept. On
the other hand, the appearance of the risen Christ to the women may have
been taken from the lost pages of St Mark, being the sequel to the
narrative which is broken off abruptly in this Gospel: and it is not
improbable that St Mark's Gospel was the source of the great commission
to preach and baptize with which St Matthew closes, though the wording
of it has probably been modified in accordance with a settled tradition.
The work which the writer of this Gospel thus performed received the
immediate sanction of a wide acceptance. It met a definite spiritual
need. It presented the Gospel in a suitable form for the edification of
the Church; and it confirmed its truth by constant appeals to the Old
Testament scriptures, thus manifesting its intimate relation with the
past as the outcome of a long preparation and as the fulfilment of a
Divine purpose. No Gospel is so frequently quoted by the early
post-apostolic writers: none has exercised a greater influence upon
Christianity, and consequently upon the history of the world.
Yet from the purely historical point of view its evidential value is not
the same as that of St Mark. Its facts for the most part are simply
taken over from the earlier evangelist, and the historian must obviously
prefer the primary source. Its true importance lies in its attestation
of the genuineness of the earlier portraits to which it has so little to
add, in its recognition of the relation of Christ to the whole purpose
of God as revealed in the Old Testament, and in its interpretation of
the Gospel message in its bearing on the living Church of the primitive
days.
5. _Additions by St Luke._--While the needs of Jewish believers were
amply met by St Matthew's Gospel, a like service was rendered to Gentile
converts by a very different writer. St Luke was a physician who had
accompanied St Paul on his missionary journeys. He undertook a history
of the beginnings of Christianity, two volumes of which have come down
to us, entitled the Gospel and the Acts of the Apostles. His Gospel,
like St Matthew's, is founded on St Mark, with the incorporation of
large portions of the second document of which we have spoken above. But
the way in which the two writers have used the same materials is
strikingly different. In St Matthew's Gospel the original sources are
frequently blended: the incidents of St Mark are rearranged and often
grouped afresh according to subject matter: harsh and ambiguous
sentences of both documents are toned down or interpreted. St Luke, on
the contrary, chooses between parallel stories of his two sources,
preferring neither to duplicate nor to combine: he incorporates St Mark
in continuous sections, following him alone for a time, then leaving him
entirely, and then returning to introduce a new block of his narrative.
He modifies St Mark's style very freely, but he makes less change in the
recorded words of our Lord, and he adheres more closely to the original
language of the second document.
In his first two chapters he gives an account of the birth and childhood
of St John the Baptist and of our Lord Himself, gathered perhaps
directly from the traditions of the Holy Family, and written in close
imitation of the sacred stories of the Old Testament which were familiar
to him in their Greek translation. The whole series of incidents differ
from that which we find in St Matthew's Gospel, but there is no direct
variance between them. The two narratives are in agreement as to the
central fact of the Virgin-birth. St Luke gives a table of genealogy
which is irreconcilable with the artificial table of St Matthew's
Gospel, and which traces our Lord's ancestry up to Adam, "which was the
son of God."
The opening scene of the Galilean ministry is the discourse at Nazareth,
in which our Lord claims to fulfil Isaiah's prophecy of the proclamation
of good tidings to the poor. The same prophecy is alluded to in His
reply to the Baptist's messengers which is incorporated subsequently
from the second document. The scene ends with the rejection of Christ by
His own townsfolk, as in the parallel story of St Mark which St Luke
does not give. It is probable that St Luke found this narrative in the
second document, and chose it after his manner in preference to the less
instructive story in St Mark. He similarly omits the Marcan account of
the call of the fishermen, substituting the story of the miraculous
draught. After that he follows St Mark alone, until he introduces after
the call of the twelve apostles the sermon which begins with the
beatitudes and woes. This is from the second document, which he
continues to use, and that without interruption (if we may venture to
assign to it the raising of the widow's son at Nain and the anointing by
the sinful woman in the Pharisee's house), until he returns to
incorporate another section from St Mark.
Characteristic Section of St. Luke's Gospel.
This in turn is followed by the most characteristic section of his
Gospel (ix. 51-xviii. 14), a long series of incidents wholly independent
of St Mark, and introduced as belonging to the period of the final
journey from Galilee to Jerusalem. Much of this material is demonstrably
derived from the second document; and it is quite possible that the
whole of it may come from that source. There are special reasons for
thinking so in regard to certain passages, as for example the mission of
the seventy disciples and the parable of the good Samaritan, although
they are not contained in St Matthew's Gospel.
For the closing scenes at Jerusalem St Luke makes considerable additions
to St Mark's narrative: he gives a different account of the Last Supper,
and he adds the trial before Herod and the incident of the penitent
robber. He appears to have had no information as to the appearance of
the risen Lord in Galilee, and he accordingly omits from his
reproduction of St Mark's narrative the twice-repeated promise of a
meeting with the disciples there. He supplies, however, an account of
the appearance to the two disciples at Emmaus and to the whole body of
the apostles in Jerusalem.
St Luke's use of his two main sources has preserved the characteristics
of both of them. The sternness of certain passages, which has led some
critics to imagine that he was an Ebionite, is mainly, if not entirely,
due to his faithful reproduction of the language of the second document.
The key-note of his Gospel is universality: the mission of the Christ
embraces the poor, the weak, the despised, the heretic and the sinful:
it is good tidings to all mankind. He tells of the devotion of Mary and
Martha, and of the band of women who ministered to our Lord's needs and
followed Him to Jerusalem: he tells also of His kindness to more than
one sinful woman. Zacchaeus the publican and the grateful Samaritan
leper further illustrate this characteristic. Writing as he does for
Gentile believers he omits many details which from their strongly Jewish
cast might be unintelligible or uninteresting. He also modifies the
harshness of St Mark's style, and frequently recasts his language in
reference to diseases. From an historical point of view his Gospel is of
high value. The proved accuracy of detail elsewhere, as in his narration
of events which he witnessed in company with St Paul, enhances our
general estimation of his work. A trustworthy observer and a literary
artist, the one non-Jewish evangelist has given us--to use M. Renan's
words--"the most beautiful book in the world."
6. _Additions by St John._--We come lastly to consider what addition to
our knowledge of Christ's life and work is made by the Fourth Gospel. St
Mark's narrative of our Lord's ministry and passion is so simple and
straightforward that it satisfies our historical sense. We trace a
natural development in it: we seem to see why with such power and such
sympathy He necessarily came into conflict with the religious leaders of
the people, who were jealous of the influence which He gained and were
scandalized by His refusal to be hindered in His mission of mercy by
rules and conventions to which they attached the highest importance. The
issue is fought out in Galilee, and when our Lord finally journeys to
Jerusalem He knows that He goes there to die. The story is so plain and
convincing in itself that it gives at first sight an impression of
completeness. This impression is confirmed by the Gospels of St Matthew
and St Luke, which though they add much fresh material do not disturb
the general scheme presented by St Mark. But on reflection we are led to
question the sufficiency of the account thus offered to us. Is it
probable, we ask, that our Lord should have neglected the sacred custom
in accordance with which the pious Jew visited Jerusalem several times
each year for the observance of the divinely appointed feasts? It is
true that St Mark does not break his narrative of the Galilean ministry
to record such visits: but this does not prove that such visits were not
made. Again, is it probable that He should have so far neglected
Jerusalem as to give it no opportunity of seeing Him and hearing His
message until the last week of His life? If the writers of the other two
Gospels had no means at their disposal for enlarging the narrow
framework of St Mark's narrative by recording definite visits to
Jerusalem, at least they preserve to us words from the second document
which seem to imply such visits: for how else are we to explain the
pathetic complaint, "Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how often would I have
gathered thee, as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings; but ye
would not"?
St John's Gospel meets our questionings by a wholly new series of
incidents and by an account of a ministry which is concerned mainly not
with Galileans but with Judaeans, and which centres in Jerusalem. It is
carried on to a large extent concurrently with the Galilean ministry: it
is not continuous, but is taken up from feast to feast as our Lord
visits the sacred city at the times of its greatest religious activity.
It differs in character from the Galilean ministry: for among the
simple, unsophisticated folk of Galilee Jesus presents Himself as a
healer and helper and teacher, keeping in the background as far as
possible His claim to be the Messiah; whereas in Jerusalem His authority
is challenged at His first appearance, the element of controversy is
never absent, His relation to God is from the outset the vital issue,
and consequently His Divine claim is of necessity made explicit. Time
after time His life is threatened before the feast is ended, and when
the last passover has come we can well understand, what was not made
sufficiently clear in the brief Marcan narrative, why Jerusalem proved
so fatally hostile to His Messianic claim.
The Purpose of St John's Gospel.
The Fourth Gospel thus offers us a most important supplement to the
limited sketch of our Lord's life which we find in the Synoptic Gospels.
Yet this was not the purpose which led to its composition. That purpose
is plainly stated by the author himself: "These things have been written
that ye may believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, and that
believing ye may have life in His name." His avowed aim is, not to write
history, but to produce conviction. He desires to interpret the coming
of Jesus Christ into the world, to declare whence and why He came, and
to explain how His coming, as light in the midst of darkness, brought a
crisis into the lives of all with whom He came in contact. The issue of
this crisis in His rejection by the Jews at Jerusalem is the main theme
of the book.
St John's prologue prepares us to find that he is not writing for
persons who require a succinct narrative of facts, but for those who
having such already in familiar use are asking deep questions as to our
Lord's mission. It goes back far behind human birth or lines of
ancestry. It begins, like the sacred story of creation, "In the
beginning." The Book of Genesis had told how all things were called into
existence by a Divine utterance: "God said, Let there be ... and there
was." The creative Word had been long personified by Jewish thought,
especially in connexion with the prophets to whom "the Word of the Lord"
came. "In the beginning," then, St John tells us, the Word was--was with
God--yea, was God. He was the medium of creation, the source of its
light and its life--especially of that higher life which finds its
manifestation in men. So He was in the world, and the world was made by
Him, and yet the world knew Him not. At length He came, came to the home
which had been prepared for Him, but His own people rejected Him. But
such as did receive Him found a new birth, beyond their birth of flesh
and blood: they became children of God, were born of God. In order thus
to manifest Himself He had undergone a human birth: "the Word was made
flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory"--the glory, as the
evangelist has learned to see, of the Father's only-begotten Son, who
has come into the world to reveal to men that God whom "no man hath ever
seen." In these opening words we are invited to study the life of Christ
from a new point of view, to observe His self-manifestation and its
issue. The evangelist looks back across a period of half a century, and
writes of Christ not merely as he saw Him in those far-off days, but as
he has come by long experience to think and speak of Him. The past is
now filled with a glory which could not be so fully perceived at the
time, but which, as St John tells, it was the function of the Holy
Spirit to reveal to Christ's disciples.
The first name which occurs in this Gospel is that of John the Baptist.
He is even introduced into the prologue which sketches in general terms
the manifestation of the Divine Word: "There was a man sent from God,
whose name was John: he came for witness, to witness to the Light, that
through him all might believe." This witness of John holds a position of
high importance in this Gospel. His mission is described as running on
for a while concurrently with that of our Lord, whereas in the other
Gospels we have no record of our Lord's work until John is cast into
prison. It is among the disciples of the Baptist on the banks of the
Jordan that Jesus finds His first disciples. The Baptist has pointed Him
out to them in striking language, which recalls at once the symbolic
ritual of the law and the spiritual lessons of the prophets: "Behold,
the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world."
Soon afterwards at Cana of Galilee Jesus gives His first "sign," as the
evangelist calls it, in the change of water into wine to supply the
deficiency at a marriage feast. This scene has all the happy brightness
of the early Galilean ministry which St Mark records. It stands in sharp
contrast with the subsequent appearance of Jesus in Jerusalem at the
Passover, when His first act is to drive the traders from the Temple
courts. In this He seems to be carrying the Baptist's stern mission of
purification from the desert into the heart of the sacred city, and so
fulfilling, perhaps consciously, the solemn prophecy of Malachi which
opens with the words: "Behold, I will send My Messenger, and He shall
prepare the way before Me; and the Lord whom ye seek shall suddenly come
to His Temple" (Mai. iii. 1-5). This significant action provokes a
challenge of His authority, which is answered by a mysterious saying,
not understood at the time, but interpreted afterwards as referring to
the Resurrection. After this our Lord was visited secretly by a Pharisee
named Nicodemus, whose advances were severely met by the words, "Except
a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." When Nicodemus
objected that this was to demand a physical impossibility, he was
answered that the new birth was "of water and spirit"--words which
doubtless contained a reference to the mission of the Baptist and to his
prophecy of One who should baptize with the Holy Spirit. Towards the end
of this conversation the evangelist passes imperceptibly from reporting
the words of the Lord into an interpretation or amplification of them,
and in language which recalls the prologue he unfolds the meaning of
Christ's mission and indicates the crisis of self-judgment which
necessarily accompanies the manifestation of the Light to each
individual. When he resumes his narrative the Lord has left Jerusalem,
and is found baptizing disciples, in even greater numbers than the
Baptist himself. Though Jesus did not personally perform the rite, it is
plain once again that in this early period He closely linked His own
mission with that of John the Baptist. When men hinted at a rivalry
between them, John plainly declared "He must increase, and I must
decrease": and the reply of Jesus was to leave Judaea for Galilee.
Away from the atmosphere of contention we find Him manifesting the same
broad sympathy and freedom from convention which we have noted in the
other Gospels, especially in that of St Luke. He converses with a woman,
with a woman moreover who is a Samaritan, and who is of unchaste life.
He offers her the "living water" which shall supply all her needs: she
readily accepts Him as the expected Messiah, and He receives a welcome
from the Samaritans. He passes on to Galilee, where also He is welcomed,
and where He performs His second "sign," healing the son of one of
Herod's courtiers.
The Ministry at Jerusalem.
But St John's interest does not lie in Galilee, and he soon brings our
Lord back to Jerusalem on the occasion of a feast. The Baptist's work is
now ended; and, though Jesus still appeals to the testimony of John, the
new conflict with the Jewish authorities shows that He is moving now on
His own independent and characteristic lines. In cleansing the Temple He
had given offence by what might seem an excess of rigour: now, by
healing a sick man and bidding him carry his bed on the Sabbath, He
offended by His laxity. He answered His accusers by the brief but
pregnant sentence: "My Father worketh even until now, and I work." They
at once understood that He thus claimed a unique relation to God, and
their antagonism became the more intense: "the Jews therefore sought the
more to kill Him, because He had not only broken the Sabbath, but had
also said that God was His own Father, making Himself equal to God." His
first reply is then expanded to cover the whole region of life. The Son
beholds the Father at work, and works concurrently, doing nothing of
Himself. He does the Father's will. The very principle of life is
entrusted to Him. He quickens, and He judges. As Son of Man He judges
man.
The next incident is the feeding of the five thousand, which belongs to
the Galilean ministry and is recorded by the three other evangelists. St
John's purpose in introducing it is not historical but didactic. It is
made the occasion of instruction as to the heavenly food, the flesh and
blood of Him who came down from heaven. This teaching leads to a
conflict with certain Judaeans who seem to have come from Jerusalem, and
it proves a severe test even to the faith of disciples.
The feast of tabernacles brings fresh disputes in Jerusalem, and an
attempt is made to arrest Jesus. A climax of indignation is reached when
a blind man is healed at the pool of Siloam on the sabbath day. At the
feast of the dedication a fresh effort at arrest was made, and Jesus
then withdrew beyond the Jordan. Here He learned of the sickness of
Lazarus, and presently He returned and came to Bethany to raise him from
the dead. The excitement produced by this miracle led to yet another
attack, destined this time to be successful, on the life of Jesus. The
Passover was at hand, and the last supper of our Lord with His disciples
on the evening before the Passover lamb was killed is made the occasion
of the most inspiring consolations. Our Lord interprets His relation to
the disciples by the figure of a tree and its branches--He is the whole
of which they are the parts; He promises the mission of the Holy Spirit
to continue His work in the world; and He solemnly commends to His
Father the disciples whom He is about to leave.
The account of the trial and the crucifixion differs considerably from
the accounts given in the other Gospels. St John's narratives are in
large part personal memories, and in more than one incident he himself
figures as the unnamed disciple "whom Jesus loved." In the Resurrection
scenes he also gives incidents in which he has played a part; and the
appearances of the risen Lord are not confined either to Jerusalem or to
Galilee, but occur in both localities.
If we ask what is the special contribution to history, apart from
theology, which St John's Gospel makes, the answer would seem to be
this--that beside the Galilean ministry reported by St Mark there was a
ministry to "Jews" (Judaeans) in Jerusalem, not continuous, but
occasional, taken up from time to time as the great feasts came round;
that its teaching was widely different from that which was given to
Galileans, and that the situation created was wholly unlike that which
arose out of the Galilean ministry. The Galilean ministry opens with
enthusiasm, ripening into a popularity which even endangers a
satisfactory result. Where opposition manifests itself, it is not native
opposition, but comes from religious teachers who are parts of a system
which centres in Jerusalem, and who are sometimes expressly noted as
having come from Jerusalem. The Jerusalem ministry on the contrary is
never welcomed with enthusiasm. It has to do with those who challenge it
from the first. There is no atmosphere of simplicity and teachableness
which rejoices in the manifestation of power and sympathy and liberty.
It is a witness delivered to a hostile audience, whether they will hear
or no. Ultimate issues are quickly raised: keen critics see at once the
claims which underlie deeds and words, and the claims in consequence
become explicit: the relation of the teacher to God Himself is the vital
interest. The conflict which thus arose explains what St Mark's succinct
narrative had left unexplained--the fatal hostility of Jerusalem. It may
have been a part of St John's purpose to give this explanation, and to
make other supplements or corrections where earlier narratives appeared
to him incomplete or misleading. But he says nothing to indicate this,
while on the other hand he distinctly proclaims that his purpose is to
produce and confirm conviction of the divine claims of Jesus Christ.
For bibliography see BIBLE; CHRISTIANITY; CHURCH HISTORY; and the
articles on the separate Gospels. (J. A. R.)
JET (Fr. _jais_, Ger. _Gagat_), a substance which seems to be a peculiar
kind of lignite or anthracite; often cut and polished for ornaments. The
word "jet" probably comes, through O. Fr. _jaiet_, from the classical
_gagates_, a word which was derived, according to Pliny, from Gagas, in
Lycia, where jet, or a similar substance, was originally found. Jet was
used in Britain in prehistoric times; many round barrows of the Bronze
age have yielded jet beads, buttons, rings, armlets and other ornaments.
The abundance of jet in Britain is alluded to by Caius Julius Solinus
(fl. 3rd century) and jet ornaments are found with Roman relics in
Britain. Probably the supply was obtained from the coast of Yorkshire,
especially near Whitby, where nodules of jet were formerly picked up on
the shore. Caedmon refers to this jet, and at a later date it was used
for rosary beads by the monks of Whitby Abbey.
The Whitby jet occurs in irregular masses, often of lenticular shape,
embedded in hard shales known as jet-rock. The jet-rock series belongs
to that division of the Upper Lias which is termed the zone of
_Ammonites serpentinus_. Microscopic examination of jet occasionally
reveals the structure of coniferous wood, which A. C. Seward has shown
to be araucarian. Probably masses of wood were brought down by a
river, and drifted out to sea, where becoming water-logged they sank,
and became gradually buried in a deposit of fine mud, which eventually
hardened into shale. Under pressure, perhaps assisted by heat, and
with exclusion of air, the wood suffered a peculiar kind of
decomposition, probably modified by the presence of salt water, as
suggested by Percy E. Spielmann. Scales of fish and other fossils of
the jet-rock are frequently impregnated with bituminous products,
which may replace the original tissues. Drops of liquid bitumen occur
in the cavities of some fossils, whilst inflammable gas is not
uncommon in the jet-workings, and petroleum may be detected by its
smell. Iron pyrites is often associated with the jet.
Formerly sufficient jet was found in loose pieces on the shore, set
free by the disintegration of the cliffs, or washed up from a
submarine source. When this supply became insufficient, the rock was
attacked by the jet-workers; ultimately the workings took the form of
true mines, levels being driven into the shales not only at their
outcrop in the cliffs but in some of the inland dales of the Yorkshire
moorlands, such as Eskdale. The best jet has a uniform black colour,
and is hard, compact and homogeneous in texture, breaking with a
conchoidal fracture. It must be tough enough to be readily carved or
turned on the lathe, and sufficiently compact in texture to receive a
high polish. The final polish was formerly given by means of rouge,
which produces a beautiful velvety surface, but rotten-stone and
lampblack are often employed instead. The softer kinds, not capable of
being freely worked, are known as bastard jet. A soft jet is obtained
from the estuarine series of the Lower Oolites of Yorkshire.
Much jet is imported from Spain, but it is generally less hard and
lustrous than true Whitby jet. In Spain the chief locality is
Villaviciosa, in the province of Asturias. France furnishes jet,
especially in the department of the Aude. Much jet, too, occurs in the
Lias of Wurttemberg, and works have been established for its
utilization. In the United States jet is known at many localities but
is not systematically worked. Pennsylvanian anthracite, however, has
been occasionally employed as a substitute. In like manner Scotch
cannel coal has been sometimes used at Whitby. Imitations of jet, or
substitutes for it, are furnished by vulcanite, glass, black obsidian
and black onyx, or stained chalcedony. Jet is sometimes improperly
termed black amber, because like amber, though in less degree, it
becomes electric by friction.
See P. E. Spielmann, "On the Origin of Jet," _Chemical News_ (Dec. 14,
1906); C. Fox-Strangways, "The Jurassic Rocks of Britain, Vol. I.
Yorkshire," _Mem. Geol. Surv._ (1892); J. A. Bower, "Whitby Jet and
its Manufacture," _Journ. Soc. Arts_ (1874, vol. xxii. p. 80).
JETHRO (or JETHER, Exod. iv. 18), the priest of Midian, in the Bible,
whose daughter Zipporah became the wife of Moses. He is known as Hobab
the son of Reuel the Kenite (Num. x. 29; Judg. iv. 11 ), and once as
Reuel (Exod. ii. 18); and if Zipporah is the wife of Moses referred to
in Num. xii. 1, the family could be regarded as Cushite (see Cush).
Jethro was the priest of Yahweh, and resided at the sacred mountain
where the deity commissioned Moses to deliver the Israelites from Egypt.
Subsequently Jethro came to Moses (probably at Kadesh), a great
sacrificial feast was held, and the priest instructed Moses in
legislative procedure; Exod. xviii. 27 (see EXODUS) and Num. x. 30 imply
that the scene was not Sinai. Jethro was invited to accompany the people
into the promised land, and later, we find his clan settling in the
south of Judah (Judg. i. 16); see KENITES. The traditions agree in
representing the kin of Moses as related to the mixed tribes of the
south of Palestine (see EDOM) and in ascribing to the family an
important share in the early development of the worship of Yahweh.
Cheyne suggests that the names of Hobab and of Jonadab the father of the
Rechabites (q.v.) were originally identical (_Ency. Bib._ ii. col.
2101).
JETTY. The term jetty, derived from Fr. _jetee_, and therefore
signifying something "thrown out," is applied to a variety of structures
employed in river, dock and maritime works, which are generally carried
out in pairs from river banks, or in continuation of river channels at
their outlets into deep water; or out into docks, and outside their
entrances; or for forming basins along the sea-coast for ports in
tideless seas. The forms and construction of these jetties are as varied
as their uses; for though they invariably extend out into water, and
serve either for directing a current or for accommodating vessels, they
are sometimes formed of high open timber-work, sometimes of low solid
projections, and occasionally only differ from breakwaters in their
object.
_Jetties for regulating Rivers._--Formerly jetties of timber-work were
very commonly extended out, opposite one another, from each bank of a
river, at intervals, to contract a wide channel, and by concentration
of the current to produce a deepening of the central channel; or
sometimes mounds of rubble stone, stretching down the foreshore from
each bank, served the same purpose. As, however, this system
occasioned a greater scour between the ends of the jetties than in the
intervening channels, and consequently produced an irregular depth, it
has to a great extent been superseded by longitudinal training works,
or by dipping cross dikes pointing somewhat upstream (see RIVER
ENGINEERING).
[Illustration: FIG 1.--Timber Jetty across Dock Slope.]
_Jetties at Docks._--Where docks are given sloping sides, openwork
timber jetties are generally carried across the slope, at the ends of
which vessels can lie in deep water (fig. 1); or more solid structures
are erected over the slope for supporting coal-tips. Pilework jetties
are also constructed in the water outside the entrances to docks on
each side, so as to form an enlarging trumpet-shaped channel between
the entrance, lock or tidal basin and the approach channel, in order
to guide vessels in entering or leaving the docks. Solid jetties,
moreover, lined with quay walls, are sometimes carried out into a wide
dock, at right angles to the line of quays at the side, to enlarge the
accommodation; and they also serve, when extended on a large scale
from the coast of a tideless sea under shelter of an outlying
breakwater, to form the basins in which vessels lie when discharging
and taking in cargoes in such a port as Marseilles (see DOCK).
_Jetties at Entrances to Jetty Harbours._--The approach channel to
some ports situated on sandy coasts is guided and protected across the
beach by parallel jetties, made solid up to a little above low water
of neap tides, on which open timber-work is erected, provided with a
planked platform at the top raised above the highest tides. The
channel between the jetties was originally maintained by tidal scour
from low-lying areas close to the coast, and subsequently by the
current from sluicing basins; but it is now often considerably
deepened by sand-pump dredging. It is protected to some extent by the
solid portion of the jetties from the inroad of sand from the adjacent
beach, and from the levelling action of the waves; whilst the upper
open portion serves to indicate the channel, and to guide the vessels
if necessary (see HARBOUR). The bottom part of the older jetties, in
such long-established jetty ports as Calais, Dunkirk and Ostend, was
composed of clay or rubble stone, covered on the top by fascine-work
or pitching; but the deepening of the jetty channel by dredging, and
the need which arose for its enlargement, led to the reconstruction of
the jetties at these ports. The new jetties at Dunkirk were founded in
the sandy beach, by the aid of compressed air, at a depth of 22(3/4)
ft. below low water of spring tides; and their solid masonry portion,
on a concrete foundation, was raised 5(3/5) ft. above low water of
neap tides (fig. 2).
[Illustration: FIG. 2.--Dunkirk East Jetty.]
_Jetties at Lagoon Outlets._--A small tidal rise spreading tidal water
over a large expanse of lagoon or inland back-water causes the influx
and efflux of the tide to maintain a deep channel through a narrow
outlet; but the issuing current on emerging from the outlet, being no
longer confined by a bank on each side, becomes dispersed, and owing
to the reduction of its scouring force, is no longer able at a
moderate distance from the shore effectually to resist the action of
the waves and littoral currents tending to form a continuous beach in
front of the outlet. Hence a bar is produced which diminishes the
available depth in the approach channel. By carrying out a solid jetty
over the bar, however, on each side of the outlet, the tidal currents
are concentrated in the channel across the bar, and lower it by scour.
Thus the available depth of the approach channels to Venice through
the Malamocco and Lido outlets from the Venetian lagoon have been
deepened several feet over their bars by jetties of rubble stone
surmounted by a small superstructure (fig. 3), carried out across the
foreshore into deep water on both sides of the channel. Other examples
are provided by the long jetties extended into the sea in front of the
entrance to Charleston harbour, formerly constructed of fascines,
weighted with stone and logs, but subsequently of rubble stone, and by
the two converging rubble jetties carried out from each shore of
Dublin bay for deepening the approach to Dublin harbour.
[Illustration: FIG. 3.--Lido Outlet Jetty, Venice.]
[Illustration: FIG. 4.--Mississippi South Pass Outlet Jetty.]
_Jetties at the Outlet of Tideless Rivers._--Jetties have been
constructed on each side of the outlet of some of the rivers flowing
into the Baltic, with the objects of prolonging the scour of the river
and protecting the channel from being shoaled by the littoral drift
along the shore. The most interesting application of parallel jetties
is in lowering the bar in front of one of the mouths of a deltaic
river flowing into a tideless sea, by extending the scour of the river
out to the bar by a virtual prolongation of its banks. Jetties
prolonging the Sulina branch of the Danube into the Black Sea, and the
south pass of the Mississippi into the Gulf of Mexico (fig. 4), formed
of rubble stone and concrete blocks, and fascine mattresses weighted
with stone and surmounted with large concrete blocks respectively,
have enabled the discharge of these rivers to scour away the bars
obstructing the access to them; and they have also carried the
sediment-bearing waters sufficiently far out to come under the
influence of littoral currents, which, by conveying away some of the
sediment, postpone the eventual formation of a fresh bar farther out
(see RIVER ENGINEERING).
[Illustration: FIG. 5.--River Maas Outlet, North Jetty.]
[Illustration: FIG. 6.--River Nervion Outlet, Western Jetty.]
_Jetties at the Mouth of Tidal Rivers._--Where a river is narrow near
its mouth, and its discharge is generally feeble, the sea is liable on
an exposed coast, when the tidal range is small, to block up its
outlet during severe storms. The river is thus forced to seek another
exit at a weak spot of the beach, which along a low coast may be at
some distance off; and this new outlet in its turn may be blocked up,
so that the river from time to time shifts the position of its mouth.
This inconvenient cycle of changes may be stopped by fixing the outlet
of the river at a suitable site, by carrying a jetty on each side of
this outlet across the beach, thereby concentrating its discharge in a
definite channel and protecting the mouth from being blocked up by
littoral drift. This system was long ago applied to the shifting
outlet of the river Yare to the south of Yarmouth, and has also been
successfully employed for fixing the wandering mouth of the Adur near
Shoreham, and of the Adour flowing into the Bay of Biscay below
Bayonne. When a new channel was cut across the Hook of Holland to
provide a straighter and deeper outlet channel for the river Maas,
forming the approach channel to Rotterdam, low, broad, parallel
jetties, composed of fascine mattresses weighted with stone (fig. 5),
were carried across the foreshore into the sea on either side of the
new mouth of the river, to protect the jetty channel from littoral
drift, and cause the discharge of the river to maintain it out to deep
water (see RIVER ENGINEERING). The channel, also, beyond the outlet of
the river Nervion into the Bay of Biscay has been regulated by
jetties; and by extending the south-west jetty out for nearly half a
mile with a curve concave towards the channel the outlet has not only
been protected to some extent from the easterly drift, but the bar in
front has been lowered by the scour produced by the discharge of the
river following the concave bend of the south-west jetty. As the outer
portion of this jetty was exposed to westerly storms from the Bay of
Biscay before the outer harbour was constructed, it has been given the
form and strength of a breakwater situated in shallow water (fig. 6).
(L. F. V.-H.)
JEVER, a town of Germany, in the grand-duchy of Oldenburg, 13 m. by rail
N.W. of Wilhelmshaven, and connected with the North Sea by a navigable
canal. Pop. (1901), 5486. The chief industries are weaving, spinning,
dyeing, brewing and milling; there is also a trade in horses and cattle.
The fathers (_Die Getreuen_) of the town used to send an annual birthday
present of 101 plovers' eggs to Bismarck, with a dedication in verse.
The castle of Jever was built by Prince Edo Wiemken (d. 1410), the ruler
of Jeverland, a populous district which in 1575 came under the rule of
the dukes of Oldenburg. In 1603 it passed to the house of Anhalt and was
later the property of the empress Catherine II. of Russia, a member of
this family. In 1814 it came again into the possession of Oldenburg.
See D. Hohnholz, _Aus Jevers Vorgangenheit_ (Jever, 1886); Hagena,
_Jeverland bis zum Jahr_ 1500 (Oldenburg, 1902); and F. W. Riemann,
_Geschichte des Jeverlandes_ (Jever, 1896).
JEVEROS (JEBEROS, JIBAROS, JIVAROS or GIVAROS), a tribe of South
American Indians on the upper Maranon, Peru, where they wander in the
forests. The tribe has many branches and there are frequent tribal wars,
but they have always united against a common enemy. Juan de Velasco
declares them to be faithful, noble and amiable. They are brave and
warlike, and though upon the conquest of Peru they temporarily
submitted, a general insurrection in 1599 won them back their liberty.
Curious dried human heads, supposed to have been objects of worship,
have been found among the Jeveros (see _Ethnol. Soc. Trans._ 1862, W.
Bollaert).
JEVONS, WILLIAM STANLEY (1835-1882), English economist and logician, was
born at Liverpool on the 1st of September 1835. His father, Thomas
Jevons, a man of strong scientific tastes and a writer on legal and
economic subjects, was an iron merchant. His mother was the daughter of
William Roscoe. At the age of fifteen he was sent to London to attend
University College school. He appears at this time to have already
formed the belief that important achievements as a thinker were possible
to him, and at more than one critical period in his career this belief
was the decisive factor in determining his conduct. Towards the end of
1853, after having spent two years at University College, where his
favourite subjects were chemistry and botany, he unexpectedly received
the offer of the assayership to the new mint in Australia. The idea of
leaving England was distasteful, but pecuniary considerations had, in
consequence of the failure of his father's firm in 1847, become of vital
importance, and he accepted the post. He left England for Sydney in June
1854, and remained there for five years. At the end of that period he
resigned his appointment, and in the autumn of 1859 entered again as a
student at University College, London, proceeding in due course to the
B.A. and M.A. degrees of the university of London. He now gave his
principal attention to the moral sciences, but his interest in natural
science was by no means exhausted: throughout his life he continued to
write occasional papers on scientific subjects, and his intimate
knowledge of the physical sciences greatly contributed to the success of
his chief logical work, _The Principles of Science_. Not long after
taking his M.A. degree Jevons obtained a post as tutor at Owens College,
Manchester. In 1866 he was elected professor of logic and mental and
moral philosophy and Cobden professor of political economy in Owens
college. Next year he married Harriet Ann Taylor, whose father had been
the founder and proprietor of the _Manchester Guardian_. Jevons suffered
a good deal from ill health and sleeplessness, and found the delivery of
lectures covering so wide a range of subjects very burdensome. In 1876
he was glad to exchange the Owens professorship for the professorship of
political economy in University College, London. Travelling and music
were the principal recreations of his life; but his health continued
bad, and he suffered from depression. He found his professorial duties
increasingly irksome, and feeling that the pressure of literary work
left him no spare energy, he decided in 1880 to resign the post. On the
13th of August 1882 he was drowned whilst bathing near Hastings.
Throughout his life he had pursued with devotion and industry the ideals
with which he had set out, and his journal and letters display a noble
simplicity of disposition and an unswerving honesty of purpose. He was a
prolific writer, and at the time of his death he occupied the foremost
position in England both as a logician and as an economist. Professor
Marshall has said of his work in economics that it "will probably be
found to have more constructive force than any, save that of Ricardo,
that has been done during the last hundred years." At the time of his
death he was engaged upon an economic work that promised to be at least
as important as any that he had previously undertaken. It would be
difficult to exaggerate the loss which logic and political economy
sustained through the accident by which his life was prematurely cut
short.
Jevons arrived quite early in his career at the doctrines that
constituted his most characteristic and original contributions to
economics and logic. The theory of utility, which became the keynote of
his general theory of political economy, was practically formulated in a
letter written in 1860; and the germ of his logical principles of the
substitution of similars may be found in the view which he propounded in
another letter written in 1861, that "philosophy would be found to
consist solely in pointing out the likeness of things." The theory of
utility above referred to, namely, that the degree of utility of a
commodity is some continuous mathematical function of the quantity of
the commodity available, together with the implied doctrine that
economics is essentially a mathematical science, took more definite form
in a paper on "A General Mathematical Theory of Political Economy,"
written for the British Association in 1862. This paper does not appear
to have attracted much attention either in 1862 or on its publication
four years later in the _Journal of the Statistical Society_; and it was
not till 1871, when the _Theory of Political Economy_ appeared, that
Jevons set forth his doctrines in a fully developed form. It was not
till after the publication of this work that Jevons became acquainted
with the applications of mathematics to political economy made by
earlier writers, notably Antoine Augustin Cournot and H. H. Gossen. The
theory of utility was about 1870 being independently developed on
somewhat similar lines by Carl Menger in Austria and M.E.L. Walras in
Switzerland. As regards the discovery of the connexion between value in
exchange and final (or marginal) utility, the priority belongs to
Gossen, but this in no way detracts from the great importance of the
service which Jevons rendered to English economics by his fresh
discovery of the principle, and by the way in which he ultimately forced
it into notice. In his reaction from the prevailing view he sometimes
expressed himself without due qualification: the declaration, for
instance, made at the commencement of the _Theory of Political Economy_,
that "value depends entirely upon utility," lent itself to
misinterpretation. But a certain exaggeration of emphasis may be
pardoned in a writer seeking to attract the attention of an indifferent
public. It was not, however, as a theorist dealing with the fundamental
data of economic science, but as a brilliant writer on practical
economic questions, that Jevons first received general recognition. _A
Serious Fall in the Value of Gold_ (1863) and _The Coal Question_ (1865)
placed him in the front rank as a writer on applied economics and
statistics; and he would be remembered as one of the leading economists
of the 19th century even had his _Theory of Political Economy_ never
been written. Amongst his economic works may be mentioned _Money and the
Mechanism of Exchange_ (1875), written in a popular style, and
descriptive rather than theoretical, but wonderfully fresh and original
in treatment and full of suggestiveness, a _Primer on Political Economy_
(1878), _The State in Relation to Labour_ (1882), and two works
published after his death, namely, _Methods of Social Reform_ and
_Investigations in Currency and Finance_, containing papers that had
appeared separately during his lifetime. The last-named volume contains
Jevons's interesting speculations on the connexion between commercial
crises and sun-spots. He was engaged at the time of his death upon the
preparation of a large treatise on economics and had drawn up a table of
contents and completed some chapters and parts of chapters. This
fragment was published in 1905 under the title of _The Principles of
Economics: a Fragment of a Treatise on the Industrial Mechanism of
Society, and other Papers_.
Jevons's work in logic went on _pari passu_ with his work in political
economy. In 1864 he published a small volume, entitled _Pure Logic; or,
the Logic of Quality apart from Quantity_, which was based on Boole's
system of logic, but freed from what he considered the false
mathematical dress of that system. In the years immediately following he
devoted considerable attention to the construction of a logical machine,
exhibited before the Royal Society in 1870, by means of which the
conclusion derivable from any given set of premisses could be
mechanically obtained. In 1866 what he regarded as the great and
universal principle of all reasoning dawned upon him; and in 1869 he
published a sketch of this fundamental doctrine under the title of _The
Substitution of Similars_. He expressed the principle in its simplest
form as follows: "Whatever is true of a thing is true of its like," and
he worked out in detail its various applications. In the following year
appeared the _Elementary Lessons on Logic_, which soon became the most
widely read elementary textbook on logic in the English language. In the
meantime he was engaged upon a much more important logical treatise,
which appeared in 1874 under the title of _The Principles of Science_.
In this work Jevons embodied the substance of his earlier works on pure
logic and the substitution of similars; he also enunciated and
developed the view that induction is simply an inverse employment of
deduction; he treated in a luminous manner the general theory of
probability, and the relation between probability and induction; and his
knowledge of the various natural sciences enabled him throughout to
relieve the abstract character of logical doctrine by concrete
scientific illustrations, often worked out in great detail. Jevons's
general theory of induction was a revival of the theory laid down by
Whewell and criticized by Mill; but it was put in a new form, and was
free from some of the non-essential adjuncts which rendered Whewell's
exposition open to attack. The work as a whole was one of the most
notable contributions to logical doctrine that appeared in Great Britain
in the 19th century. His _Studies in Deductive Logic_, consisting mainly
of exercises and problems for the use of students, was published in
1880. In 1877 and the following years Jevons contributed to the
_Contemporary Review_ some articles on J. S. Mill, which he had intended
to supplement by further articles, and eventually publish in a volume as
a criticism of Mill's philosophy. These articles and one other were
republished after Jevons's death, together with his earlier logical
treatises, in a volume, entitled _Pure Logic, and other Minor Works_.
The criticisms on Mill contain much that is ingenious and much that is
forcible, but on the whole they cannot be regarded as taking rank with
Jevons's other work. His strength lay in his power as an original
thinker rather than as a critic; and he will be remembered by his
constructive work as logician, economist and statistician.
See _Letters and Journal of W. Stanley Jevons_, edited by his wife
(1886). This work contains a bibliography of Jevons's writings. See
also LOGIC: _History_. (J. N. K.)
JEW, THE WANDERING, a legendary Jew (see JEWS) doomed to wander till the
second coming of Christ because he had taunted Jesus as he passed
bearing the cross, saying, "Go on quicker." Jesus is said to have
replied, "I go, but thou shalt wait till I return." The legend in this
form first appeared in a pamphlet of four leaves alleged to have been
printed at Leiden in 1602. This pamphlet relates that Paulus von Eizen
(d. 1598), bishop of Schleswig, had met at Hamburg in 1542 a Jew named
Ahasuerus (Ahasverus), who declared he was "eternal" and was the same
who had been punished in the above-mentioned manner by Jesus at the time
of the crucifixion. The pamphlet is supposed to have been written by
Chrysostomus Dudulaeus of Westphalia and printed by one Christoff
Crutzer, but as no such author or printer is known at this time--the
latter name indeed refers directly to the legend--it has been
conjectured that the whole story is a myth invented to support the
Protestant contention of a continuous witness to the truth of Holy Writ
in the person of this "eternal" Jew; he was to form, in his way, a
counterpart to the apostolic tradition of the Catholic Church.
The story met with ready acceptance and popularity. Eight editions of
the pamphlet appeared in 1602, and the fortieth edition before the end
of the following century. It was translated into Dutch and Flemish with
almost equal success. The first French edition appeared in 1609, and the
story was known in England before 1625, when a parody was produced.
Denmark and Sweden followed suit with translations, and the expression
"eternal Jew" passed as a current term into Czech. In other words, the
story in its usual form spread wherever there was a tincture of
Protestantism. In southern Europe little is heard of it in this version,
though Rudolph Botoreus, parliamentary advocate of Paris (_Comm.
histor._, 1604), writing in Paris two years after its first appearance,
speaks contemptuously of the popular belief in the Wandering Jew in
Germany, Spain and Italy.
The popularity of the pamphlet and its translations soon led to reports
of the appearance of this mysterious being in almost all parts of the
civilized world. Besides the original meeting of the bishop and
Ahasuerus in 1542 and others referred back to 1575 in Spain and 1599 at
Vienna, the Wandering Jew was stated to have appeared at Prague (1602),
at Lubeck (1603), in Bavaria (1604), at Ypres (1623), Brussels (1640),
Leipzig (1642), Paris (1644, by the "Turkish Spy"), Stamford (1658),
Astrakhan (1672), and Frankenstein (1678). In the next century the
Wandering Jew was seen at Munich (1721), Altbach (1766), Brussels
(1774), Newcastle (1790, see Brand, _Pop. Antiquities, s.v._), and on
the streets of London between 1818 and 1830 (see _Athenaeum_, 1866, ii.
561). So far as can be ascertained, the latest report of his appearance
was in the neighbourhood of Salt Lake City in 1868, when he is said to
have made himself known to a Mormon named O'Grady. It is difficult to
tell in any one of these cases how far the story is an entire fiction
and how far some ingenious impostor took advantage of the existence of
the myth.
The reiterated reports of the actual existence of a wandering being, who
retained in his memory the details of the crucifixion, show how the idea
had fixed itself in popular imagination and found its way into the
19th-century collections of German legends. The two ideas combined in
the story of the restless fugitive akin to Cain and wandering for ever
are separately represented in the current names given to this figure in
different countries. In most Teutonic languages the stress is laid on
the perpetual character of his punishment and he is known as the
"everlasting," or "eternal" Jew (Ger. "Ewige Jude"). In the lands
speaking a Romance tongue, the usual form has reference to the
wanderings (Fr. "le Juif errant"). The English form follows the Romance
analogy, possibly because derived directly from France. The actual name
given to the mysterious Jew varies in the different versions: the
original pamphlet calls him Ahasver, and this has been followed in most
of the literary versions, though it is difficult to imagine any Jew
being called by the name of the typical anti-Semitic king of the Book of
Esther. In one of his appearances at Brussels his name is given as Isaac
Laquedem, implying an imperfect knowledge of Hebrew in an attempt to
represent Isaac "from of old." Alexandre Dumas also made use of this
title. In the _Turkish Spy_ the Wandering Jew is called Paul Marrane and
is supposed to have suffered persecution at the hands of the
Inquisition, which was mainly occupied in dealing with the Marranos,
i.e. the secret Jews of the Iberian peninsula. In the few references to
the legend in Spanish writings the Wandering Jew is called Juan Espera
en Dios, which gives a more hopeful turn to the legend.
Under other names, a story very similar to that given in the pamphlet of
1602 occurs nearly 400 years earlier on English soil. According to Roger
of Wendover in his _Flores historiarum_ under the year 1228, an Armenian
archbishop, then visiting England, was asked by the monks of St Albans
about the well-known Joseph of Arimathaea, who had spoken to Jesus and
was said to be still alive. The archbishop claimed to have seen him in
Armenia under the name of Carthaphilus or Cartaphilus, who had confessed
that he had taunted Jesus in the manner above related. This Carthaphilus
had afterwards been baptized by the name of Joseph. Matthew Paris, in
repeating the passage from Roger of Wendover, reported that other
Armenians had confirmed the story on visiting St Albans in 1252, and
regarded it as a great proof of the Christian religion. A similar
account is given in the chronicles of Philippe Mouskes (d. 1243). A
variant of the same story was known to Guido Bonati, an astronomer
quoted by Dante, who calls his hero or villain Butta Deus because he
struck Jesus. Under this name he is said to have appeared at Mugello in
1413 and at Bologna in 1415 (in the garb of a Franciscan of the third
order).
The source of all these reports of an ever-living witness of the
crucifixion is probably Matthew xvi. 28: "There be some of them that
stand here which shall in no wise taste of death till they see the Son
of Man coming in his kingdom." As the kingdom had not come, it was
assumed that there must be persons living who had been present at the
crucifixion; the same reasoning is at the root of the Anglo-Israel
belief. These words are indeed quoted in the pamphlet of 1602. Again, a
legend was based on John xxi. 20 that the beloved disciple would not die
before the second coming; while another legend (current in the 16th
century) condemned Malchus, whose ear Peter cut off in the garden of
Gethsemane (John xvii. 10), to wander perpetually till the second
coming. The legend alleges that he had been so condemned for having
scoffed at Jesus. These legends and the utterance of Matt. xvi. 28
became "contaminated" by the legend of St Joseph of Arimathaea and the
Holy Grail, and took the form given in Roger of Wendover and Matthew
Paris. But there is nothing to show the spread of this story among the
people before the pamphlet of 1602, and it is difficult to see how this
Carthaphilus could have given rise to the legend of the Wandering Jew,
since he is not a Jew nor does he wander. The author of 1602 was
probably acquainted either directly or indirectly with the story as
given by Matthew Paris, since he gives almost the same account. But he
gives a new name to his hero and directly connects his fate with Matt.
xvi. 28.
Moncure D. Conway (_Ency. Brit._, 9th ed., xiii. 673) attempted to
connect the legend of the Wandering Jew with a whole series of myths
relating to never-dying heroes like King Arthur, Frederick Barbarossa,
the Seven Sleepers, and Thomas the Rhymer, not to speak of Rip Van
Winkle. He goes even farther and connects our legend with mortals
visiting earth, as the Yima in Parsism, and the "Ancient of Days" in the
Books of Daniel and Enoch, and further connects the legend with the
whole medieval tendency to regard the Jew as something uncanny and
mysterious. But all these mythological explanations are supererogatory,
since the actual legend in question can be definitely traced to the
pamphlet of 1602. The same remark applies to the identification with the
Mahommedan legend of the "eternal" Chadhir proposed by M. Lidzbarski
(_Zeit. f. Assyr._ vii. 116) and I. Friedlander (_Arch. f.
Religionswiss._ xiii. 110).
This combination of eternal punishment with restless wandering has
attracted the imagination of innumerable writers in almost all European
tongues. The Wandering Jew has been regarded as a symbolic figure
representing the wanderings and sufferings of his race. The Germans have
been especially attracted by the legend, which has been made the subject
of poems by Schubart, Schreiber, W. Muller, Lenau, Chamisso, Schlegel,
Mosen and Koehler, from which enumeration it will be seen that it was a
particularly favourite subject with the Romantic school. They were
perhaps influenced by the example of Goethe, who in his _Autobiography_
describes, at considerable length, the plan of a poem he had designed on
the Wandering Jew. More recently poems have been composed on the subject
in German by Adolf Wilbrandt, Fritz Lienhard and others; in English by
Robert Buchanan, and in Dutch by H. Heijermans. German novels also exist
on the subject, by Franz Horn, Oeklers, Laun and Schucking, tragedies by
Klinemann, Haushofer and Zedlitz. Sigismund Heller wrote three cantos on
the wanderings of Ahasuerus, while Hans Andersen made of him an "Angel
of Doubt." Robert Hamerling even identifies Nero with the Wandering Jew.
In France, E. Quinet published a prose epic on the subject in 1833, and
Eugene Sue, in his best-known work, _Le Juif errant_ (1844), introduces
the Wandering Jew in the prologues of its different sections and
associates him with the legend of Herodias. In modern times the subject
has been made still more popular by Gustave Dore's elaborate designs
(1856), containing some of his most striking and imaginative work. Thus,
probably, he suggested Grenier's poem on the subject (1857).
In England, besides the ballads in Percy's _Reliques_, William Godwin
introduced the idea of an eternal witness of the course of civilization
in his _St Leon_ (1799), and his son-in-law Shelley introduces Ahasuerus
in his _Queen Mab_. It is doubtful how far Swift derived his idea of the
immortal Struldbrugs from the notion of the Wandering Jew. George
Croly's _Salathiel_, which appeared anonymously in 1828, gave a highly
elaborate turn to the legend; this has been republished under the title
_Tarry Thou Till I Come_.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.--J. G. Th. Graesse, _Die Sage vom ewigen Juden_ (1844);
F. Helbig, _Die Sage vom ewigen Juden_ (1874); G. Paris, _Le Juif
errant_ (1881); M. D. Conway, _The Wandering Jew_ (1881); S. Morpugo,
_L' Ebreo errante in Italia_ (1891); L. Neubaur, _Die Sage vom ewigen
Juden_ (2nd ed., 1893). The recent literary handling of the subject
has been dealt with by J. Prost, _Die Sage vom ewigen Juden in der
neueren deutschen Literatur_ (1905); T. Kappstein, _Ahasver in der
Weltpoesie_ (1905). (J. Ja.)
JEWEL, JOHN (1522-1571), bishop of Salisbury, son of John Jewel of
Buden, Devonshire, was born on the 24th of May 1522, and educated under
his uncle John Bellamy, rector of Hampton, and other private tutors
until his matriculation at Merton college, Oxford, in July 1535. There
he was taught by John Parkhurst, afterwards bishop of Norwich; but on
the 19th of August 1539 he was elected scholar of Corpus Christi
college. He graduated B.A. in 1540, and M.A. in 1545, having been
elected fellow of his college in 1542. He made some mark as a teacher at
Oxford, and became after 1547 one of the chief disciples of Peter
Martyr. He graduated B.D. in 1552, and was made vicar of Sunningwell,
and public orator of the university, in which capacity he had to compose
a congratulatory epistle to Mary on her accession. In April 1554 he
acted as notary to Cranmer and Ridley at their disputation, but in the
autumn he signed a series of Catholic articles. He was, nevertheless,
suspected, fled to London, and thence to Frankfort, which he reached in
March 1555. There he sided with Coxe against Knox, but soon joined
Martyr at Strassburg, accompanied him to Zurich, and then paid a visit
to Padua.
Under Elizabeth's succession he returned to England, and made earnest
efforts to secure what would now be called a low-church settlement of
religion. Indeed, his attitude was hardly distinguishable from that of
the Elizabethan Puritans, but he gradually modified it under the stress
of office and responsibility. He was one of the disputants selected to
confute the Romanists at the conference of Westminster after Easter
1559; he was select preacher at St Paul's cross on the 15th of June; and
in the autumn was engaged as one of the royal visitors of the western
counties. His _conge d'elire_ as bishop of Salisbury had been made out
on the 27th of July, but he was not consecrated until the 21st of
January 1560. He now constituted himself the literary apologist of the
Elizabethan settlement. He had on the 26th of November 1559, in a sermon
at St Paul's Cross, challenged all comers to prove the Roman case out of
the Scriptures, or the councils or Fathers for the first six hundred
years after Christ. He repeated his challenge in 1560, and Dr Henry Cole
took it up. The chief result was Jewel's _Apologia ecclesiae
Anglicanae_, published in 1562, which in Bishop Creighton's words is
"the first methodical statement of the position of the Church of England
against the Church of Rome, and forms the groundwork of all subsequent
controversy." A more formidable antagonist than Cole now entered the
lists in the person of Thomas Harding, an Oxford contemporary whom Jewel
had deprived of his prebend in Salisbury Cathedral for recusancy. He
published an elaborate and bitter _Answer_ in 1564, to which Jewel
issued a _Reply_ in 1565. Harding followed with a _Confutation_, and
Jewel with a _Defence_, of the _Apology_ in 1566 and 1567; the
combatants ranged over the whole field of the Anglo-Roman controversy,
and Jewel's theology was officially enjoined upon the Church by
Archbishop Bancroft in the reign of James I. Latterly Jewel had been
confronted with criticism from a different quarter. The arguments that
had weaned him from his Zwinglian simplicity did not satisfy his
unpromoted brethren, and Jewel had to refuse admission to a benefice to
his friend Laurence Humphrey (q.v.), who would not wear a surplice. He
was consulted a good deal by the government on such questions as
England's attitude towards the council of Trent, and political
considerations made him more and more hostile to Puritan demands with
which he had previously sympathized. He wrote an attack on Cartwright,
which was published after his death by Whitgift. He died on the 23rd of
September 1571, and was buried in Salisbury Cathedral, where he had
built a library. Hooker, who speaks of Jewel as "the worthiest divine
that Christendom hath bred for some hundreds of years," was one of the
boys whom Jewel prepared in his house for the university; and his
_Ecclesiastical Polity_ owes much to Jewel's training.
Jewel's works were published in a folio in 1609 under the direction of
Bancroft, who ordered the _Apology_ to be placed in churches, in some
of which it may still be seen chained to the lectern; other editions
appeared at Oxford (1848, 8 vols.) and Cambridge (Parker Soc., 4
vols.). See also Gough's _Index to Parker Soc. Publ._; Strype's
_Works_ (General Index); _Acts of the Privy Council_; _Calendars of
Domestic and Spanish State Papers_; Dixon's and Frere's _Church
Histories_; and _Dictionary of National Biography_ (art. by Bishop
Creighton). (A. F. P.)
JEWELRY (O. Fr. _jouel_, Fr. _joyau_, perhaps from _joie_, joy; Lat.
_gaudium_; retranslated into Low Lat. _jocale_, a toy, from _jocus_, by
misapprehension of the origin of the word), a collective term for
jewels, or the art connected with them--jewels being personal ornaments,
usually made of gems, precious stones, &c., with a setting of precious
metal; in a restricted sense it is also common to speak of a gem-stone
itself as a jewel, when utilized in this way. Personal ornaments appear
to have been among the very first objects on which the invention and
ingenuity of man were exercised; and there is no record of any people so
rude as not to employ some kind of personal decoration. Natural objects,
such as small shells, dried berries, small perforated stones, feathers
of variegated colours, were combined by stringing or tying together to
ornament the head, neck, arms and legs, the fingers, and even the toes,
whilst the cartilages of the nose and ears were frequently perforated
for the more ready suspension of suitable ornaments.
Amongst modern Oriental nations we find almost every kind of personal
decoration, from the simple caste mark on the forehead of the Hindu to
the gorgeous examples of beaten gold and silver work of the various
cities and provinces of India. Nor are such decorations mere ornaments
without use or meaning. The hook with its corresponding perforation or
eye, the clasp, the buckle, the button, grew step by step into a special
ornament, according to the rank, means, taste and wants of the wearer,
or became an evidence of the dignity of office. Nor was the jewel deemed
to have served its purpose with the death of its owner, for it is to the
tombs of ancient peoples that we must look for evidence of the early
existence of the jeweller's art.
The jewelry of the ancient Egyptians has been preserved for us in their
tombs, sometimes in, and sometimes near the sarcophagi which contained
the embalmed bodies of the wearers. An amazing series of finds of the
intact jewels of five princesses of the XIIth Dynasty (c. 2400 B.C.) was
the result of the excavations of J. de Morgan at Dahshur in 1894-1895.
The treasure of Princess Hathor-Set contained jewels with the names of
Senwosri (Usertesen) II. and III., one of whom was probably her father.
The treasure of Princess Merit contained the names of the same two
monarchs, and also that of Amenemhe III., to whose family Princess
Nebhotp may have belonged. The two remaining princesses were Ita and
Khnumit.
[Illustration: FIG. 1.]
The art of the nameless Memphite jewellers of the XIIth Dynasty is
marked by perfect accuracy of execution, by sureness of intention, by
decorative instinct and sobriety in design, and by the serviceable
nature of the jewels for actual wear. All forms of work are
represented--including chiselling, soldering, inlaying with coloured
stones, moulding and working with twisted wires and filigree. Here
also occurs the earliest instance of granulated work, with small
grains of gold, soldered on a flat surface (fig. 1). The principal
items in this dazzling group are the following: Three gold pectorals
(fig. 2 and Plate I. figs. 35, 36) worked _a jour_ (with the
interstices left open); on the front side they are inlaid with
coloured stones, the fine _cloisons_ being the only portion of the
gold that is visible; on the back, the gold surfaces are most
delicately carved, in low relief. Two gold crowns (Plate I. figs. 32,
34), found together, are curiously contrasted in character. The one
(fig. 32) is of a formal design, of gold, inlaid (the plume, Plate I.
fig 33, was attached to it); the other (fig. 34) has a multitude of
star-like flowers, embodied in a filigree of daintily twisted wires. A
dagger with inlaid patterns on the handle shows extraordinary
perfection of finish.
[Illustration: FIG. 2.]
Nearly a thousand years later we have another remarkable collection of
Egyptian art in the jewelry taken from the coffin of Queen Aah-hotp,
discovered in 1859 by Mariette in the entrance to the valley of the
tombs of the kings and now preserved in the Cairo museum. Compared with
the Dahshur treasure the jewelry of Aah-hotp is in parts rough and
coarse, but none the less it is marked by the ingenuity and mastery of
the materials that characterize all the work of the Egyptians. Hammered
work, incised and chased work, the evidence of soldering, the
combinations of layers of gold plates, together with coloured stones,
are all present, and the handicraft is complete in every respect.
[Illustration: FIG. 3.]
[Illustration: FIG. 4.]
[Illustration: FIG. 5.]
A diadem of gold and enamel, found at the back of the head of the
mummy of the queen (fig. 3), was fixed in the back hair, showing the
cartouche in front. The box holding this cartouche has on the upper
surface the titles of the king, "the son of the sun, Aahmes, living
for ever and ever," in gold on a ground of lapis lazuli, with a
chequered ornament in blue and red pastes, and a sphinx couchant on
each side. A necklace with three pendant flies (fig. 4) is entirely of
gold, having a hook and loop to fasten it round the neck. Fig. 5 is a
gold drop, inlaid with turquoise or blue paste, in the shape of a fig.
A gold chain (fig. 6) is formed of wires closely plaited and very
flexible, the ends terminating in the heads of water fowl, and having
small rings to secure the collar behind. To the centre is suspended by
a small ring a scarabaeus of solid gold inlaid with lapis lazuli. We
have an example of a bracelet, similar to those in modern use (fig.
7), and worn by all persons of rank. It is formed of two pieces joined
by a hinge, and is decorated with figures in repousse on a ground
inlaid with lapis lazuli.
[Illustration: FIG. 6.]
[Illustration: FIG. 7.]
[Illustration: FIG. 8.]
[Illustration: FIG. 9.--From _Archaeologia_, vol. 59, p. 447, by
permission of the Society of Antiquaries of London.]
That the Assyrians used personal decorations of a very distinct
character, and no doubt made of precious materials, is proved by the
bas-reliefs from which a considerable collection of jewels could be
gathered, such as bracelets, ear-rings and necklaces. Thus, for example,
in the British Museum we have representations of Assur-nazir-pal, king
of Assyria (c. 885-860 B.C.), wearing a cross (fig. 8) very similar to
the Maltese cross of modern times. It happens, however, that the
excavations have not hitherto been fertile in actual remains of gold
work from Assyria. Chance also has so far ordained that the excavations
in Crete should not be particularly rich in ornaments of gold. A few
isolated objects have been found, such as a duck and other pendants, and
also several necklaces with beads of the Argonaut shell-fish pattern.
More striking than these is a short bronze sword. The handle has an
agate pommel, and is covered with gold plates, engraved with spirited
scenes of lions and wild goats (fig. 9, A. J. Evans in _Archaeologia_,
59, 447). In general, however, the gold jewelry of the later Minoan
periods is more brilliantly represented by the finds made on the
mainland of Greece and at Enkomi in Cyprus. Among the former the gold
ornaments found by Heinrich Schliemann in the graves of Mycenae are
pre-eminent.
[Illustration: FIG. 10.]
[Illustration: FIG. 11.]
[Illustration: FIG. 12.]
[Illustration: FIG. 13.]
The objects found ranged over most of the personal ornaments still in
use; necklaces with gold beads and pendants, butterflies (fig. 10),
cuttlefish (fig. 11), single and concentric circles, rosettes and
leafage, with perforations for attachment to clothing, crosses and
stars formed of combined crosses, with crosses in the centre forming
spikes--all elaborately ornamented in detail. The spiral forms an
incessant decoration from its facile production and repetition by
means of twisted gold wire. Grasshoppers or tree crickets in gold
repousse suspended by chains and probably used for the decoration of
the hair, and a griffin (fig. 12), having the upper part of the body
of an eagle and the lower parts of a lion, with wings decorated with
spirals, are among the more remarkable examples of perforated
ornaments for attachment to the clothing. There are also perforated
ornaments belonging to necklaces, with intaglio engravings of such
subjects as a contest of a man and lion, and a duel of two warriors,
one of whom stabs his antagonist in the throat. There are also
pinheads and brooches formed of two stags lying down (fig. 13), the
bodies and necks crossing each other, and the horns meeting
symmetrically above the heads, forming a finial. The heads of these
ornaments were of gold, with silver blades or pointed pins inserted
for use. The bodies of the two stags rest on fronds of the date-palm
growing out of the stem which receives the pin. Another remarkable
series is composed of figures of women with doves. Some have one dove
resting on the head; others have three doves, one on the head and the
others resting on arms. The arms in both instances are extended to the
elbow, the hands being placed on the breasts. These ornaments are also
perforated, and were evidently sewed on the dresses, although there is
some evidence that an example with three doves has been fastened with
a pin.
An extraordinary diadem was found upon the head of one of the bodies
discovered in the same tomb with many objects similar to those noticed
above. It is 25 in. in length, covered with shield-like or rosette
ornaments in repousse, the relief being very low but perfectly
distinct, and further ornamented by thirty-six large leaves of
repousse gold attached to it. As an example of design and perfection
of detail, another smaller diadem found in another tomb may be noted
(fig. 14). It is of gold plate, so thick as to require no "piping" at
the back to sustain it; but in general the repousse examples have a
piping of copper wire.
[Illustration: FIG. 14.]
The admirable inlaid daggers of the IVth grave at Mycenae are unique
in their kind, with their subjects of a lion hunt, of a lion chasing a
herd of antelopes, of running lions, of cats hunting wild duck, of
inlaid lilies, and of geometric patterns. The subjects are inlaid in
gold of various tints, and silver, in bronze plates which are inserted
in the flat surfaces of the dagger-blades. In part also the subjects
are rendered in relief and gilded. The whole is executed with
marvellous precision and vivid representation of motion. To a certain
limited extent these daggers are paralleled by a dagger and hatchet
found in the treasure of Queen Aah-hotp mentioned above, but in their
most characteristic features there is little resemblance. The gold
ornaments found by Schliemann at Hissarlik, the supposed site of Troy,
divide themselves, generally speaking, into two groups, one being the
"great treasure" of diadems, ear-rings, beads, bracelets, &c., which
seem the product of a local and uncultured art. The other group, which
were found in smaller "treasures," have spirals and rosettes similar
to those of Mycenae. The discovery, however, of the gold treasures of
the Artemision at Ephesus has brought out points of affinity between
the Hissarlik treasures and those of Ephesus, and has made any
reasoning difficult, in view of the uncertainties surrounding the
Hissarlik finds. The group with Mycenaean affinities (fig. 15)
includes necklaces, brooches, bracelets (g), hair-pins (a), ear-rings
(c, d, e, f), with and without pendants, beads and twisted wire drops.
The majority of these are ornamented with spirals of twisted wire, or
small rosettes, with fragments of stones in the centres. The twisted
wire ornaments were evidently portions of necklaces. A circular plaque
decorated with a rosette (h) is very similar to those found at
Mycenae, and a conventionalized eagle (k) is characteristic of much of
the detail found at that place as well as at Hissarlik. They were all
of pure gold, and the wire must have been drawn through a plate of
harder metal--probably bronze. The principal ornaments differing from
those found at Mycenae are diadems or head fillets of pure hammered
gold (b) cut into thin plates, attached to rings by double gold wires,
and fastened together at the back with thin twisted wire. To these
pendants (of which those at the two ends are nearly three times the
length of those forming the central portions) are attached small
figures, probably of idols. It has been assumed that these were worn
across the forehead by women, the long pendants falling on each side
of the face.
[Illustration: FIG. 15.]
The jewelry of the close of the Mycenaean period is best represented by
the rich finds of the cemetery of Enkomi near Salamis, in Cyprus. This
field was excavated by the British Museum in 1896, and a considerable
portion of the finds is now at Bloomsbury. It was rich in all forms of
jewelry, but especially in pins, rings and diadems with patterns in
relief. In its geometric patterns the art of Enkomi is entirely
Mycenaean, but special stress is laid on the mythical forms that were
inherited by Greek art, such as the sphinx and the gryphon.
Figs. 37-48 (Plate I.) are examples of the late Mycenaean treasures
from Enkomi.
" 37, 38 " Ear-rings.
" 39 " Diadem, to be tied on the forehead. The impressed
figure of a sphinx is repeated twelve times.
" 40, 41, 46 " Ear-rings, originally in bull's head form (fig.
40). Later, the same general form is retained,
but decorative patterns (figs. 41, 46) take
the place of the bull's head.
" 42 " Pin, probably connected by a chain with a fellow,
to be used as a cloak fastening.
" 43 " Pomegranate pendant, with fine granulated work.
" 44, 45 " Pins as No. 42. The heads are of vitreous paste.
" 46 (See above.)
" 47 " Pendant ornament, in lotus-form, of a pectoral,
inlaid with coloured pastes.
" 48 " Small slate cylinder, set in filigree.
Another find of importance was that of a collection of gold ornaments
from one of the Greek islands (said to be Aegina) which also found its
way to the British Museum. Here we find the themes of archaic Greek art,
such as a figure holding up two water-birds, in immediate connexion with
Mycenaean gold patterns.
Figs. 49-53 (Plate I.) are specimens from this treasure.
" 49 " Plate with repousse ornament for sewing on a
dress.
" 50 " Pendant. Figure with two water-birds, on a lotus
his base, and having serpents issuing from
near middle, modified from Egyptian forms.
Fig. 51 (Plate I.) Ring, with cut blue glass-pastes in the
grooves.
" 52 " Pendant ornament, repousse, and originally
inlaid with pieces of cut glass-paste.
" 53 " Pendant ornament, with dogs and apes, modified
from Egyptian forms.
For the beginnings of Greek art proper, the most striking series of
personal jewels is the great deposit of ornaments which was found in
1905 by D. G. Hogarth in the soil beneath the central basis of the
archaic temple of Artemis of Ephesus. The gold ornaments in question
(amounting in all to about 1000 pieces) were mingled with the closely
packed earth, and must necessarily, it would seem, have been in the
nature of votive offerings, made at the end of the 7th or the beginning
of the 6th century B.C. The hoard was rich in pins, brooches, beads and
stamped disks of gold. The greater part of the find is at
Constantinople, but a portion was assigned to the British Museum, which
had undertaken the excavations.
Figs. 54-58 (Plate II.) Examples of the Ephesus hoard.
" 54 " Electrum pin, with pomegranate head.
" 55 " Hawk ornament.
" 56 " Electrum pin.
" 57, 58 " Electrum ornaments for sewing on drapery.
The cemeteries of Cyprus have yielded a rich harvest of jewelry of
Graeco-Phoenician style of the 7th and following centuries B.C. Figs. 16
and 17 are typical examples of a ring and ear-ring from Cyprus.
[Illustration: FIG. 16.]
[Illustration: FIG. 17.]
Greek, Etruscan and Roman ornaments partake of very similar
characteristics. Of course there is variety in design and sometimes in
treatment, but it does not rise to any special individuality. Fretwork
is a distinguishing feature of all, together with the wave ornament, the
guilloche, and the occasional use of the human figure. The workmanship
is often of a character which modern gold-workers can only rival with
their best skill, and can never surpass.
[Illustration: FIG. 18.]
[Illustration: PLATE I.
EARLY EGYPTIAN.
LATE MYCENAEAN.
(FROM ENKOMI.)
(FROM THE GREEK ISLANDS.)]
[Illustration: PLATE II.
GREEK.
ETRUSCAN.
ROMAN.]
The Greek jewelry of the best period is of extraordinary delicacy and
beauty. Fine examples are shown in the British Museum from Melos and
elsewhere. Undoubtedly, however, the most brilliant collection of such
ornaments is that of the Hermitage, which was derived from the tombs of
Kerch and the Crimea. It contains examples of the purest Greek work,
together with objects which must have been of local origin, as is shown
by the themes which the artist has chosen for his reliefs. Fig. 18
illustrates the jewelry of the Hermitage (see also Ear-Ring).
[Illustration: FIG. 19.]
[Illustration: FIG. 20.]
[Illustration: FIG. 21.]
As further examples of Greek jewelry see the pendant oblong ornament for
containing a scroll (fig. 19).
The ear-rings (figs. 20, 21) are also characteristic.
Figs. 59-70 (Plate II.) Examples of fine Greek jewelry, in the
British Museum.
" 59-60 " Pair of ear-rings, from a grave at Cyme in
Aeolis, with filigree work and pendant
Erotes.
" 61 " Small bracelet.
" 62-63 " Small gold reel with repousse figures of Nereid
with helmet of Achilles, and Eros. From
Cameiros (Rhodes).
" 64 " Filigree ornament (ear-ring?) with Eros in
centre. From Syria.
" 65 " Medallion ornament with repousse head of
Dionysos and filigree work. (Blacas coll.)
" 66 " Stud, with filigree work.
" 67-68 " Pair of ear-rings, of gold, with filigree and
enamel, from Eretria.
" 69 " Diadem, with filigree, and enamel scales, from
Tarquinii.
" 70 " Necklace pendants.
Etruscan jewelry at its best is not easily distinguished from the Greek,
but it tends in its later forms to become florid and diffuse, without
precision of design. The granulation of surfaces practised with the
highest degree of refinement by the Etruscans was long a puzzle and a
problem to the modern jeweller, until Castellani of Rome discovered
gold-workers in the Abruzzi to whom the method had descended through
many generations. He induced some of these men to go to Naples, and so
revived the art, of which he contributed examples to the London
Exhibition of 1872 (see FILIGREE).
Figs. 71-77 (Plate II.) are well-marked examples of Etruscan work, in
the British Museum.
" 71 " Pair of sirens, repousse, forming a hook and
eye fastening. From Chiusi (?).
" 72 " Early fibula. Horse and chimaera. (Blacas
coll.)
" 74 " Medallion-shaped fibula, of fine granulated
work, with figures of sirens in relief, and
set with dark blue pastes. (Bale coll.)
" 73, 75 " Pair of late Etruscan ear-rings.
" 76, 77 " Pair of late Etruscan ear-rings, in the florid
style.
The jewels of the Roman empire are marked by a greater use of large cut
stones in combination with the gold, and by larger surfaces of plain and
undecorated metal. The adaptation of imperial gold coins to the purposes
of the jeweller is also not uncommon.
Figs. 78-82 (Plate II.) Late Roman imperial jewelry, in the British
Museum.
" 78 " Large pendant ear-ring, set with stones and
pearls. From Tunis, 4th century.
" 79 " Pierced-work pendant, set with a coin of the
emperor Philip.
" 80 " Ear-ring, roughly set with garnets.
" 81 " Bracelet, with a winged cornucopia as central
ornament, set with plasmas, and with
filigree and leaf work.
" 82 " Bracelet, roughly set with pearls and stones.
From Tunis, 4th century.
With the decay of the Roman empire, and the approach of the barbarian
tribes, a new Teutonic style was developed. An important example of this
style is the remarkable gold treasure, discovered at Petrossa in
Transylvanian Alps in 1837, and now preserved, as far as it survives, in
the museum of Bucharest. A runic inscription shows that it belonged to
the Goths. Its style is in part the classical tradition, debased and
modified; in part it is a singularly rude and vigorous form of barbaric
art. Its chief characteristics are a free use of strongly
conventionalized animal forms, such as great bird-shaped fibulae, and an
ornamentation consisting of pierced gold work, combined with a free use
of stones cut to special shapes, and inlaid either cloisonne-fashion or
in a perforated gold plate. This part of the hoard has its affinities in
objects found over a wide field from Siberia to Spain. Its rudest and
most naturalistic forms occur in the East in uncouth objects from
Siberian tombs, whose lineage however has been traced to Persepolis,
Assyria and Egypt. In its later and more refined forms the style is
known by the name, now somewhat out of favour (except as applied to a
limited number of finds), of Merovingian.
[Illustration: FIG. 22.]
[Illustration: FIG. 23.]
[Illustration: FIG. 24.]
[Illustration: FIG. 25.]
[Illustration: FIG. 26.]
[Illustration: FIG. 27.]
[Illustration: FIG. 28.]
The so-called Merovingian jewelry of the 5th century, and the
Anglo-Saxon of a later date, have as their distinctive feature thin
plates of gold, decorated with thin slabs of garnet, set in walls of
gold soldered vertically like the lines of cloisonne enamel, with the
addition of very decorative details of filigree work, beading and
twisted gold. The typical group are the contents of the tomb of King
Childeric (A.D. 481) now in the Bibliotheque Nationale at Paris. In
Figs. 22 and 23 we have examples of Anglo-Saxon fibulae, the first being
decorated with a species of cloisonne, in which garnets are inserted,
while the other is in hammered work in relief. A pendant (fig. 24) is
also set with garnets. The buckles (figs. 25, 26, 27) are remarkably
characteristic examples, and very elegant in design. A girdle ornament
in gold, set with garnets (fig. 28), is an example of Carolingian design
of a high class. Another remarkable group of barbaric jewelry, dated by
coins as of the beginning of the 7th century, was excavated at Castel
Trosino near the Picenian Ascoli, and is attributed to the Lombards. See
_Monumenti antichi_ (_Accademia dei Lincei_), xii. 145.
We turn now to the Celtic group of jewelled ornaments, which has an
equally long and independent line of descent. The characteristic Celtic
ornaments are of hammered work with details in repousse, having
fillings-in of vitreous paste, coloured enamels, amber, and in the later
examples rock crystal with a smooth rounded surface cut _en cabochon_.
The whole group is a special development within the British Isles of
the art of the mid-European Early Iron age, which in its turn had been
considerably influenced by early Mediterranean culture. In its early
stages its special marks are combinations of curves, with peculiar
central thickenings which give a quasi-naturalistic effect; a skilful
use of inlaid enamels, and the chased line. After the introduction of
Christianity, a continuous tradition combined the old system with the
interlaced winding scrolls and other new forms of decoration, and so led
up to the extreme complexity of early Irish illumination and metal work.
A remarkable group of gold ornaments of the pre-Christian time (probably
of the 1st century) was discovered about 1896, in the north-west of
Ireland, and acquired by the British Museum. It was subsequently claimed
by the Crown as treasure trove, and after litigation was transferred to
Dublin (see _Archaeologia_, lv., pl. 22).
[Illustration: FIG. 29.]
Figs. 29 and 30 are illustrations of two brooches of the latest period
in this class of work. The first is 13th century; the latter is probably
12th century, and is set with paste, amber and blue.
Rings are the chief specimens now seen of medieval jewelry from the 10th
to the 13th century. They are generally massive and simple. Through the
16th century a variety of changes arose; in the traditions and designs
of the _cinquecento_ we have plenty of evidence that the workmen used
their own designs, and the results culminated in the triumphs of Albert
Durer, Benvenuto Cellini and Hans Holbein. The goldsmiths of the Italian
republics must have produced works of surpassing excellence in
workmanship, and reaching the highest point in design as applied to
handicrafts of any kind. The use of enamels, precious stones, niello
work and engraving, in combination with skilful execution of the human
figure and animal life, produced effects which modern art in this
direction is not likely to approach, still less to rival.
[Illustration: FIG. 30.]
In fig. 31 illustrations are given of various characteristic specimens
of the Renaissance and later forms of jewelry. A crystal cross set in
enamelled gold (a) is German work of the 16th century. The pendant
reliquary (b), enamelled and jewelled, is of 16th century Italian
work, and so probably is the jewel (c) of gold set with diamonds and
rubies. The Darnley or Lennox jewel (d), now in the possession of the
king, was made about 1576-1577 for Lady Margaret Douglas, countess of
Lennox, the mother of Henry Darnley. It is a pendant golden heart set
with a heart-shaped sapphire, richly jewelled and enamelled with
emblematic figures and devices. It also has Scottish mottoes around
and within it. The ear-ring (e) of gold, enamelled, hung with small
pearls, is an example of 17th century Russian work, and another (f) is
Italian of the same period, being of gold and filigree with enamel,
also with pendant pearls. A Spanish ear-ring, of 18th century work
(g), is a combination of ribbon, cord and filigree in gold; and
another (h) is Flemish, of probably the same period; it is of gold
open work set with diamonds in projecting collets. The old
French-Normandy pendant cross and locket (l) presents a characteristic
example of peasant jewelry; it is of branched open work set with
bosses and ridged ornaments of crystal. The ear-ring (j) is French of
17th century, also of gold open work set with crystals. A small
pendant locket (k) is of rock crystal, with the cross of Santiago in
gold and translucent crimson enamel; it is 16th or 17th century
Spanish work. A pretty ear-ring of gold open scroll work (m), set with
minute diamonds and three pendant pearls, is Portuguese of 17th
century, and another ear-ring (n) of gold circular open work, set also
with minute diamonds, is Portuguese work of 18th century. These
examples fairly illustrate the general features of the most
characteristic jewelry of the dates quoted.
During the 17th and 18th centuries we see only a mechanical kind of
excellence, the results of the mere tradition of the workshop--the
lingering of the power which when wisely directed had done so much and
so well, but now simply living on traditional forms, often combined in a
most incongruous fashion. Gorgeous effects were aimed at by massing the
gold, and introducing stones elaborately cut in themselves or clustered
in groups. Thus diamonds were clustered in rosettes and bouquets;
rubies, pearls, emeralds and other coloured special stones were brought
together for little other purpose than to get them into a given space in
conjunction with a certain quantity of gold. The question was not of
design in its relation to use as personal decoration, but of the value
which could be got into a given space to produce the most striking
effect.
The traditions of Oriental design as they had come down through the
various periods quoted, were comparatively lost in the wretched results
of the _rococo_ of Louis XIV. and the inanities of what modern
revivalists of the Anglo-Dutch call "Queen Anne." In the London
exhibition of 1851, the extravagances of modern jewelry had to stand
comparison with the Oriental examples contributed from India. Since then
we have learnt more about these works, and have been compelled to
acknowledge, in spite of what is sometimes called inferiority of
workmanship, how completely the Oriental jeweller understood his work,
and with what singular simplicity of method he carried it out. The
combinations are always harmonious, the result aimed at is always
achieved; and if in attempting to work to European ideas the jeweller
failed, this was rather the fault of the forms he had to follow, than
due to any want of skill in making the most of a subject in which half
the thought and the intended use were foreign to his experience.
A collection of peasant jewelry got together by Castellani for the Paris
exhibition of 1867, and now in the Victoria and Albert Museum,
illustrates in an admirable manner the traditional jewelry and personal
ornaments of a wide range of peoples in Europe. This collection, and the
additions made to it since its acquisition by the nation, show the forms
in which these objects existed over several generations among the
peasantry of France (chiefly Normandy), Spain, Portugal, Holland,
Denmark, Germany and Switzerland, and also show how the forms popular in
one country are followed and adopted in another, almost invariably
because of their perfect adaptation to the purpose for which they were
designed.
Apart from these humbler branches of the subject, in the middle of the
19th century the production of jewelry, regarded as a personal art, and
not as a commercial and anonymous industry, was almost extinct. Its
revival must be associated with the artistic movement which marked the
close of that century, and which found emphatic expression in the Paris
international exhibition of 1900. For many years before 1895 this
industry, though prosperous from the commercial point of view, and
always remarkable from that of technical finish, remained stationary as
an art. French jewelry rested on its reputation. The traditions were
maintained of either the 17th and 18th centuries or the style affected
at the close of the second empire--light pierced work and design
borrowed from natural flowers. The last type, introduced by Massin, had
exercised, indeed, a revolutionary influence on the treatment of
jewelry. This clever artist, not less skilful as a craftsman, produced a
new _genre_ by copying the grace and lightness of living blossoms, thus
introducing a perfectly fresh element into the limited variety of
traditional style, and by the use of filigree gold work altering its
character and giving it greater elegance. Massin still held the first
rank in the exhibition of 1878; he had a marked influence on his
contemporaries, and his name will be remembered in the history of the
goldsmith's art to designate a style and a period. Throughout these
years the craft was exclusively devoted to perfection of workmanship.
The utmost finish was aimed at in the mounting and setting of gems;
jewelry was, in fact, not so much an art as a high-class industry;
individual effort and purpose were absent.
[Illustration: FIG. 31.]
Up to that time precious stones had been of such intrinsic value that
the jeweller's chief skill lay in displaying these costly stones to the
best advantage; the mounting was a secondary consideration. The settings
were seldom long preserved in their original condition, but in the case
of family jewels were renewed with each generation and each change of
fashion, a state of things which could not be favourable to any truly
artistic development of taste, since the work was doomed, sooner or
later, to destruction. However, the evil led to its own remedy. As soon
as diamonds fell in value they lost at the same time their overwhelming
prestige, and refined taste could give a preference to trinkets which
derived their value and character from artistic design. This
revolutionized the jeweller's craft, and revived the simple ornament of
gold or silver, which came forward but timidly at first, till, in the
Salon of 1895, it burst upon the world in the exhibits of Rene Lalique,
an artist who was further confirmed in his remarkable position by the
exhibition of 1900. What specially stamps the works of Lalique is their
striking originality. His work may be considered from the point of view
of design and from that of execution. As an artist he has completely
reconstructed from the foundation the scheme of design which had fed the
poverty-stricken imagination of the last generation of goldsmiths. He
had recourse to the art of the past, but to the spirit rather than the
letter, and to nature for many new elements of design--free double
curves, suave or soft; opalescent harmonies of colouring; reminiscences,
with quite a new feeling, of Egypt, Chaldea, Greece and the East, or of
the art of the Renaissance; and infinite variety of floral forms even of
the humblest. He introduces also the female nude in the form of sirens
and sphinxes. As a craftsman he has effected a radical change, breaking
through old routine, combining all the processes of the goldsmith, the
chaser, the enameller and the gem-setter, and freeing himself from the
narrow lines in which the art had been confined. He ignores the
hierarchy of gems, caring no more on occasion for a diamond than for a
flint, since, in his view, no stone, whatever its original estimation,
has any value beyond the characteristic expression he lends it as a
means to his end. Thus, while he sometimes uses diamonds, rubies,
sapphires or emeralds as a background, he will, on the other hand, give
a conspicuous position to common stones--carnelian, agate, malachite,
jasper, coral, and even materials of no intrinsic value, such as horn.
One of his favourite stones is the opal, which lends itself to his
arrangements of colour, and which has in consequence become a
fashionable stone in French jewelry.
In criticism of the art of Lalique and his school it should be observed
that the works of the school are apt to be unsuited to the wear and tear
of actual use, and inconveniently eccentric in their details. Moreover,
the preciousness of the material is an almost inevitable consideration
in the jeweller's craft, and cannot be set at naught by the artist
without violating the canons of his art.
The movement which took its rise in France spread in due course to other
countries. In England the movement conveniently described as the "arts
and crafts movement" affected the design of jewelry. A group of
designers has aimed at purging the jeweller's craft of its character of
mere gem-mounting in conventional forms (of which the more
unimaginative, representing stars, bows, flowers and the like, are
varied by such absurdities as insects, birds, animals, figures of men
and objects made up simply of stones clustered together). Their work is
often excellently and fancifully designed, but it lacks that exquisite
perfection of execution achieved by the incomparable craftsmen of
France. At the same time English sculptor-decorators--such as Alfred
Gilbert, R.A., and George J. Frampton, A.R.A.--have produced objects of
a still higher class, but it is usually the work of the goldsmith rather
than of the jeweller. Examples may be seen in the badge executed by
Gilbert for the president of the Institute of Painters in Water Colours
and in the mayoral chain for Preston. Symbolism here enters into the
design, which has not only an ornamental but a didactic purpose.
The movement was represented in other countries also. In the United
States it was led by L. C. Tiffany, in Belgium by Philippe Wolfers, who
occupies in Belgium the position which in France is held by Rene
Lalique. If his design is a little heavier, it is not less beautiful in
imagination or less masterly in execution. Graceful, ingenious,
fanciful, elegant, fantastic by turns, his objects of jewelry and
goldsmithery have a solid claim to be considered _creations d'art_. It
has also been felt in Germany, Austria, Russia and Switzerland. It must
be admitted that many of the best artists who have devoted themselves to
jewelry have been more successful in design than in securing the
lightness and strength which are required by the wearer, and which were
a characteristic in the works of the Italian craftsmen of the
Renaissance. For this reason many of their masterpieces are more
beautiful in the case than upon the person.
_Modern Jewelry._--So far we have gone over the progress and results of
the jeweller's art. We have now to speak of the production of jewelry as
a modern art industry, in which large numbers of men and women are
employed in the larger cities of Europe. Paris, Vienna, London and
Birmingham are the most important centres. An illustration of the
manufacture as carried on in London and Birmingham will be sufficient to
give an insight into the technique and artistic manipulation of this
branch of art industry; but, by way of contrast, it may be interesting
to give in the first place a description of the native working jeweller
of Hindustan.
He travels very much after the fashion of a tinker in England; his
budget contains tools, materials, fire pots, and all the requisites of
his handicraft. The gold to be used is generally supplied by the
patron or employer, and is frequently in gold coin, which the
travelling jeweller undertakes to convert into the ornaments required.
He squats down in the corner of a courtyard, or under cover of a
veranda, lights his fire, cuts up the gold pieces entrusted to him,
hammers, cuts, shapes, drills, solders with the blow-pipe, files,
scrapes and burnishes until he has produced the desired effect. If he
has stones to set or coloured enamels to introduce, he never seems to
make a mistake; his instinct for harmony of colour, like that of his
brother craftsman the weaver, is as unerring as that of the bird in
the construction of its nest. Whether the materials are common or rich
and rare, he invariably does the very best possible with them,
according to native ideas of beauty in design and combination. It is
only when he is interfered with by European dictation that he ever
vulgarizes his art or makes a mistake. The result may appear rude in
its finish, but the design and the thought are invariably right. We
thus see how a trade in the working of which the "plant" is so simple
and wants are so readily met could spread itself, as in years past it
did at Clerkenwell and at Birmingham before gigantic factories were
invented for producing everything under the sun.
It is impossible to find any date at which the systematic production of
jewelry was introduced into England. Probably the Clerkenwell trade
dates its origin from the revocation of the edict of Nantes, as the
skilled artisans in the jewelry, clock and watch, and trinket trades
appear to have been descendants of the emigrant Huguenots. The
Birmingham trade would appear to have had its origin in the skill to
which the workers in fine steel had attained towards the middle and end
of the 18th century, a branch of industry which collapsed after the
French Revolution.
Modern jewelry may be classified under three heads: (1) objects in
which gems and stones form the principal portions, and in which the
work in silver, platinum or gold is really only a means for carrying
out the design by fixing the gems or stones in the position arranged
by the designer, the metal employed being visible only as a setting;
(2) when gold work plays an important part in the development of the
design, being itself ornamented by engraving (now rarely used) or
enamelling or both, the stones and gems being arranged in
subordination to the gold work in such positions as to give a
decorative effect to the whole; (3) when gold or other metal is alone
used, the design being wrought out by hammering in repousse, casting,
engraving, chasing or by the addition of filigree work (see FILIGREE),
or when the surfaces are left absolutely plain but polished and highly
finished.
Of course the most ancient and primitive methods are those wholly
dependent upon the craft of the workman; but gradually various
ingenious processes were invented, by which greater accuracy in the
portions to be repeated in a design could be produced with certainty
and economy: hence the various methods of stamping used in the
production of hand-made jewelry, which are in themselves as much
mechanical in relation to the end in view as if the whole object were
stamped out at a blow, twisted into its proper position as regards the
detail, or the various stamped portions fitted into each other for the
mechanical completion of the work. It is therefore rather difficult to
draw an absolute line between hand-made and machine-made jewelry,
except in extreme cases of hand-made, when everything is worked, so to
speak, from the solid, or of machine-made, when the hand has only to
give the ornament a few touches of a tool, or fit the parts together
if of more than one piece.
The best and most costly hand-made jewelry produced in England,
whether as regards gold work, gems, enamelling or engraving, is made
in London, and chiefly at Clerkenwell. A design is first made with
pencil, sepia or water colour, and when needful with separate
enlargement of details, everything in short to make the drawing
thoroughly intelligible to the working jeweller. According to the
nature and purpose of the design, he cuts out, hammers, files and
brings into shape the constructive portions of the work as a basis.
Upon this, as each detail is wrought out, he solders, or (more rarely)
fixes by rivets, &c., the ornamentation necessary to the effect. The
human figure, representations of animal life, leaves, fruit, &c., are
modelled in wax, moulded and cast in gold, to be chased up and
finished. As the hammering goes on the metal becomes brittle and hard,
and then it is passed though the fire to anneal or soften it. In the
case of elaborate examples of repousse, after the general forms are
beaten up, the interior is filled with a resinous compound, pitch
mixed with fire-brick dust; and this, forming a solid but pliable body
underneath the metal, allows of the finished details being wrought out
on the front of the design, and being finally completed by chasing.
When stones are to be set, or when they form the principal portions of
the design, the gold or other metal has to be wrought by hand so as to
receive them in little cup-like orifices, these walls of gold
enclosing the stone and allowing the edges to be bent over to secure
it. Setting is never effected by cement in well-made jewelry.
Machine-made settings have in recent years been made, but these are
simply cheap imitations of the true hand-made setting. Even strips of
gold have been used, serrated at the edges to allow of being easily
bent over, for the retention of the stones, true or false.
Great skill and experience are necessary in the proper setting of
stones and gems of high value, in order to bring out the greatest
amount of brilliancy and colour, and the angle at which a diamond
(say) shall be set, in order that the light shall penetrate at the
proper point to bring out the "spark" or "flash," is a subject of
grave consideration to the setter. Stones set in a haphazard, slovenly
manner, however brilliant in themselves, will look commonplace by the
side of skilfully set gems of much less fine quality and water.
Enamelling (see ENAMEL) has of late years largely taken the place of
"paste" or false stones.
Engraving is a simple process in itself, and diversity of effect can
be produced by skilful manipulation. An interesting variety in the
effect of a single ornament may be produced by the combination of
coloured gold of various tints. This colouring is a process requiring
skill and experience in the manipulation of the materials according to
the quality of the gold and the amount of silver alloy in it. The
objects to be coloured are dipped in a boiling mixture of salt, alum
and saltpetre. Of general colouring it may be said that the object
aimed at is to enhance the appearance of the gold by removing the
particles of alloy on the surface, and thus allowing the pure gold
only to remain visible to the eye. The process has, however, gone much
out of fashion. It is apt to rot the solder, and repairs to gold work
can be better finished by electro-gilding.
The application of machinery to the economical production of certain
classes of jewelry, not necessarily imitations, but as much "real
gold" work, to use a trade phrase, as the best hand-made, has been on
the increase for many years. Nearly every kind of gold chain now made
is manufactured by machinery, and nothing like the beauty of design
or perfection of workmanship could be obtained by hand at, probably,
any cost. The question therefore in relation to chains is not the mode
of manufacture, but the quality of the metal. Eighteen carat gold is
of course preferred by those who wear chains, but this is only gold in
the proportion of 18 to 24, pure gold being represented by 24. The
gold coin of the realm is 22 carat; that is, it contains one-twelfth
of alloy to harden it to stand wear and tear. Thus 18 carat gold has
one-fourth of alloy, and so on with lower qualities down to 12, which
is in reality only gold by courtesy. It must be remembered that the
alloys are made by weight, and as gold is nearly twice as heavy as the
metal it is mixed with, it only forms a third of the bulk of a 12
carat mixture.
The application of machinery to the production of personal ornaments
in gold and silver can only be economically and successfully carried
on when there is a large demand for similar objects, that is to say,
objects of precisely the same design and decoration throughout. In
machine-made jewelry everything is stereotyped, so to speak, and the
only work required for the hand is to fit the parts together--in some
instances scarcely that. A design is made, and from it steel dies are
sunk for stamping out as rapidly as possible from a plate of rolled
metal the portion represented by each die. It is in these steel dies
that the skill of the artist die-sinker is manifested. Brooches,
ear-rings, pinheads, bracelets, lockets, pendants, &c., are struck out
by the gross. This is more especially the case in silver and in plated
work--that is, imitation jewelry--the base of which is an alloy,
afterwards gilt by electro-plating. With these ornaments imitation
stones in paste and glass, pearls, &c., are used, and it is remarkable
that of late years some of the best designs, the most simple,
appropriate and artistic, have appeared in imitation jewelry. It is
only just to those engaged in this manufacture to state distinctly
that their work is never sold wholesale for anything else than what it
is. The worker in gold only makes gold or real jewelry, and he only
makes of a quality well known to his customers. The producer of silver
work only manufactures silver ornaments, and so on throughout the
whole class of plated goods.
It is the retailer who, if he is unprincipled, takes advantage of the
ignorance of the buyer and sells for gold that which is in reality an
imitation, and which he bought as such. The imitations of old styles
of jewelry which are largely sold in curiosity shops at foreign places
of fashionable resort are said to be made in Germany, especially at
Munich.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.--For the Dahshur jewels, see J. de Morgan and others;
_Fouilles a Dahchour, Mars-Juin 1894_ (Vienna, 1895) and _Fouilles a
Dahchour en 1894-1895_ (Vienna, 1903). For the Aah-hotep jewels, see
Mariette, _Album de Musee de Boulaq_, pls. 29-31; Birch, _Facsimiles
of the Egyptian Relics discovered in the Tomb of Queen Aah-hotep_
(1863). For Cretan excavations, see A. J. Evans, in _Annual of the
British School at Athens_, Nos. 7 to 11; _Archaeologia_, vol. lix. For
excavations at Enkomi, see _Excavations in Cyprus_, by A. S. Murray
and others (1900). For _Schliemann's excavations_, see Schliemann's
works; also Schuchhardt, Schliemann's Excavations; Perrot & Chipiez,
_Histoire de l'Art_, vi. For the Greek Island treasure, see A. J.
Evans, _Journal of Hellenic Studies_, xiii. For Ephesus gold treasure,
see D. G. Hogarth, _British Museum Excavations at Ephesus_; _The
Archaic Artemisia_. For the Hermitage Collection from South Russia,
see Gille, _Antiquites du Bosphore Cimmerien_ (reissued by S.
Reinach), and the _Comptes rendus_ of the Russian Archaeological
Commission (St Petersburg). For later jewelry, Pollak,
_Goldschmiedearbeit_. For Treasure of Petrossa, A. Odobesco, _Le
Tresor de Petrossa_. For the European and west Asiatic barbaric
jewelry, see O. M. Dalton, in _Archaeologia_, lviii. 237, and the
_Treasure of the Oxus_ (British Museum, 1905). For the whole history,
G. Fontenay, _Les Bijoux anciens et modernes_ (Paris [Quantin], 1887).
For the recent movement, Leonce Benedite, "La Bijouterie et la
joaillerie, a l'exposition universelle; Rene Lalique," in the _Revue
des arts decoratifs_, 1900 (July, August). (A. H. Sm.)
JEWETT, SARAH ORNE (1840-1909), American novelist, was born in South
Berwick, Maine, on the 3rd of September 1849. She was a daughter of the
physician Theodore H. Jewett (1815-1878), by whom she was greatly
influenced, and whom she has drawn in _A Country Doctor_ (1884). She
studied at the Berwick Academy, and began her literary career in 1869,
when she contributed her first story to the _Atlantic Monthly_. Her best
work consists of short stories and sketches, such as those in _The
Country of the Pointed Firs_ (1896). The People of Maine, with their
characteristic speech, manners and traditions, she describes with
peculiar charm and realism, often recalling the work of Hawthorne. She
died at South Berwick, Maine, on the 24th of June 1909.
Among her publications are: _Deephaven_ (1877), a series of sketches;
_Old Friends and New_ (1879); _Country By-ways_ (1881); _A Country
Doctor_ (1884), a novel; _A Marsh Island_ (1885), a novel; _A White
Heron and other Stories_ (1886); _The King of Folly Island and other
People_ (1888); _Strangers and Wayfarers_ (1890); _A Native of Winby
and other Tales_ (1893); _The Queen's Twin and other Stories_ (1899),
and _The Tory Lover_ (1901), an historical novel.
JEWS (Heb. _Yehudi_, man of Judah; Gr. [Greek: Ioudaioi]; Lat.
_Judaei_), the general name for the Semitic people which inhabited
Palestine from early times, and is known in various connexions as "the
Hebrews," "the Jews," and "Israel" (see S 5 below). Their history may be
divided into three great periods: (1) That covered by the Old Testament
to the foundation of Judaism in the Persian age, (2) that of the Greek
and Roman domination to the destruction of Jerusalem, and (3) that of
the Diaspora or Dispersion to the present day.
I.--OLD TESTAMENT HISTORY
I. _The Land and the People._--For the first two periods the history of
the Jews is mainly that of Palestine. It begins among those peoples
which occupied the area lying between the Nile on the one side and the
Tigris and the Euphrates on the other. Surrounded by ancient seats of
culture in Egypt and Babylonia, by the mysterious deserts of Arabia, and
by the highlands of Asia Minor, Palestine, with Syria on the north, was
the high road of civilization, trade and warlike enterprise, and the
meeting-place of religions. Its small principalities were entirely
dominated by the great Powers, whose weakness or acquiescence alone
enabled them to rise above dependence or vassalage. The land was
traversed by old-established trade routes and possessed important
harbours on the Gulf of 'Akaba and on the Mediterranean coast, the
latter exposing it to the influence of the Levantine culture. It was
"the physical centre of those movements of history from which the world
has grown." The portion of this district abutting upon the Mediterranean
may be divided into two main parts:--Syria (from the Taurus to Hermon)
and Palestine (southward to the desert bordering upon Egypt). The latter
is about 150 m. from north to south (the proverbial "Dan to Beersheba"),
with a breadth varying from 25 to 80 m., i.e. about 6040 sq. m. This
excludes the land east of the Jordan, on which see PALESTINE.
From time to time streams of migration swept into Palestine and Syria.
Semitic tribes wandered northwards from their home in Arabia to seek
sustenance in its more fertile fields, to plunder, or to escape the
pressure of tribes in the rear. The course leads naturally into either
Palestine or Babylonia, and, following the Euphrates, northern Syria is
eventually reached. Tribes also moved down from the north: nomads, or
offshoots from the powerful states which stretch into Asia Minor. Such
frequently recurring movements introduced new blood. Tribes, chiefly of
pastoral habits, settled down among others who were so nearly of their
own type that a complete amalgamation could be effected, and this
without any marked modification of the general characteristics of the
earlier inhabitants. It is from such a fusion as this that the ancestors
of the Jews were descended, and both the history and the genius of this
people can be properly understood only by taking into account the
physical features of their land and the characteristics of the Semitic
races in general (see PALESTINE, SEMITIC LANGUAGES).
2. _Society and Religion._--The similarity uniting the peoples of the
East in respect of racial and social characteristics is accompanied by a
striking similarity of mental outlook which has survived to modern
times. Palestine, in spite of the numerous vicissitudes to which it has
been subjected, has not lost its fundamental characteristics. The
political changes involved in the Babylonian, Assyrian, Egyptian or
Persian conquests surely affected it as little as the subsequent waves
of Greek, Roman and other European invasions. Even during the temporary
Hellenization in the second great period the character of the people as
a whole was untouched by the various external influences which produced
so great an effect on the upper classes. When the foreign civilization
perished, the old culture once more came to the surface. Hence it is
possible, by a comprehensive comparative study of Eastern peoples, in
both ancient and modern times, to supplement and illustrate within
certain limits our direct knowledge of the early Jewish people, and thus
to understand more clearly those characteristics which were peculiar to
them, in relation to those which they shared with other Oriental
peoples.
Even before authentic history begins, the elements of religion and
society had already crystallized into a solid coherent structure which
was to persist without essential modification. Religion was inseparable
from ordinary life, and, like that of all peoples who are dependent on
the fruits of the earth, was a nature-worship. The tie between deities
and worshippers was regarded as physical and entailed mutual
obligations. The study of the clan-group as an organization is as
instructive here as in other fields. The members of each group lived on
terms of equality, the families forming a society of worship the rites
of which were conducted by the head. Such groups (each with its local
deity) would combine for definite purposes under the impulse of external
needs, but owing to inevitable internal jealousies and the incessant
feuds among a people averse from discipline and authority, the unions
were not necessarily lasting. The elders of these groups possessed some
influence, and tended to form an aristocracy, which took the lead in
social life, although their authority generally depended merely upon
custom. Individual leaders in times of stress acquired a recognized
supremacy, and, once a tribe outstripped the rest, the opportunities for
continued advance gave further scope to their authority. "The ...
interminable feuds of tribes, conducted on the theory of blood-revenge,
can seldom be durably healed without the intervention of a third
party who is called in as arbiter, and in this way an impartial and wise
power acquires of necessity a great and beneficent influence over all
around it" (W. R. Smith). In time, notwithstanding a certain inherent
individualism and impatience of control, veritable despotisms arose in
the Semitic world, although such organizations were invariably liable to
sudden collapse as the old forms of life broke down with changing
conditions.[1]
3. _Early History._[2]--Already in the 15th century B.C. Palestine was
inhabited by a settled people whose language, thought and religion were
not radically different several hundred years later. Small native
princes ruled as vassals of Egypt which, after expelling the Hyksos from
its borders, had entered upon a series of conquests as far as the
Euphrates. Some centuries previously, however, Babylonia had laid claim
to the western states, and the Babylonian (i.e. Assyrian) script and
language were now used, not merely in the diplomatic correspondence
between Egypt and Asia, but also for matters of private and everyday
life among the Palestinian princes themselves. To what extent specific
Babylonian influence showed itself in other directions is not completely
known. Canaan (Palestine and the south Phoenician coast land) and Amor
(Lebanon district and beyond) were under the constant supervision of
Egypt, and Egyptian officials journeyed round to collect tribute, to
attend to complaints, and to assure themselves of the allegiance of the
vassals. The Amarna tablets and those more recently found at Taannek
(bibl. Taanach), together with the contemporary archaeological evidence
(from Lachish, Gezer, Megiddo, Jericho, &c.), represent advanced
conditions of life and culture, the precise chronological limits of
which cannot be determined with certainty. This age, with its regular
maritime intercourse between the Aegean settlements, Phoenicia and the
Delta, and with lines of caravans connecting Babylonia, North Syria,
Arabia and Egypt, presents a remarkable picture of life and activity, in
the centre of which lies Palestine, with here and there Egyptian
colonies and some traces of Egyptian cults. The history of this, the
"Amarna" age, reveals a state of anarchy in Palestine for which the
weakness of Egypt and the downward pressure of north Syrian peoples
were responsible. Subdivided into a number of little local
principalities, Palestine was suffering both from internal intrigues and
from the designs of this northern power. It is now that we find the
restless Habiru, a name which is commonly identified with that of the
"Hebrews" (_'ibrim_). They offer themselves where necessary to either
party, and some at least perhaps belonged to the settled population. The
growing prominence of the new northern group of "Hittite" states
continued to occupy the energies of Egypt, and when again we have more
external light upon Palestinian history, the Hittites (q.v.) are found
strongly entrenched in the land. But by the end of the first quarter of
the 13th century B.C. Egypt had recovered its province (precise boundary
uncertain), leaving its rivals in possession of Syria. Towards the close
of the 13th century the Egyptian king Merneptah (Mineptah) records a
successful campaign in Palestine, and alludes to the defeat of Canaan,
Ascalon, Gezer, Yenuam (in Lebanon) and (the people or tribe) Israel.[3]
Bodies of aliens from the Levantine coast had previously threatened
Egypt and Syria, and at the beginning of the 12th century they formed a
coalition on land and sea which taxed all the resources of Rameses III.
In the Purasati, apparently the most influential of these peoples, may
be recognized the origin of the name "Philistine." The Hittite power
became weaker, and the invaders, in spite of defeat, appear to have
succeeded in maintaining themselves on the sea coast. External history,
however, is very fragmentary just at the age when its evidence would be
most welcome. For a time the fate of Syria and Palestine seems to have
been no longer controlled by the great powers. When the curtain rises
again we enter upon the historical traditions of the Old Testament.
4. _Biblical History._--For the rest of the first period the Old Testament
forms the main source. It contains in fact the history itself in two
forms: (a) from the creation of man to the fall of Judah (Genesis-2
Kings), which is supplemented and continued further--(b) to the foundation
of Judaism in the 5th century B.C. (Chronicles--Ezra-Nehemiah). In the
light of contemporary monuments, archaeological evidence, the progress of
scientific knowledge and the recognized methods of modern historical
criticism, the representation of the origin of mankind and of the history
of the Jews in the Old Testament can no longer be implicitly accepted.
Written by an Oriental people and clothed in an Oriental dress, the Old
Testament does not contain objective records, but subjective history
written and incorporated for specific purposes. Like many Oriental works
it is a compilation, as may be illustrated from a comparison of Chronicles
with Samuel-Kings, and the representation of the past in the light of the
present (as exemplified in Chronicles) is a frequently recurring
phenomenon. The critical examination of the nature and growth of this
compilation has removed much that had formerly caused insuperable
difficulties and had quite unnecessarily been made an integral or a
relevant part of practical religion. On the other hand, criticism has
given a deeper meaning to the Old Testament history, and has brought into
relief the central truths which really are vital; it may be said to have
replaced a divine account of man by man's account of the divine. Scholars
are now almost unanimously agreed that the internal features are best
explained by the Graf-Wellhausen hypothesis. This involves the view that
the historical traditions are mainly due to two characteristic though very
complicated recensions, one under the influence of the teaching of
Deuteronomy (Joshua to Kings, see S 20), the other, of a more priestly
character (akin to Leviticus), of somewhat later date (Genesis to Joshua,
with traces in Judges to Kings, see S 23). There are, of course, numerous
problems relating to the nature, limits and dates of the two recensions,
of the incorporated sources, and of other sources (whether early or late)
of independent origin; and here there is naturally room for much
divergence of opinion. Older material (often of composite origin) has been
used, not so much for the purpose of providing historical information, as
with the object of showing the religious significance of past history;
and the series Joshua-Kings is actually included among the "prophets" in
Jewish reckoning (see MIDRASH). In general, one may often observe that
freedom which is characteristic of early and unscientific historians. Thus
one may note the reshaping of older material to agree with later thought,
the building up of past periods from the records of other periods, and a
frequent loss of perspective. The historical traditions are to be
supplemented by the great body of prophetic, legal and poetic literature
which reveal contemporary conditions in various internal literary,
theological or sociological features. The investigation of their true
historical background and of the trustworthiness of their external setting
(e.g. titles of psalms, dates and headings of prophecies) involves a
criticism of the historical traditions themselves, and thus the two major
classes of material must be constantly examined both separately and in
their bearing on one another. In a word, the study of biblical history,
which is dependent in the first instance upon the written sources, demands
constant attention to the text (which has had an interesting history) and
to the literary features; and it requires a sympathetic acquaintance with
Oriental life and thought, both ancient and modern, an appreciation of the
necessity of employing the methods of scientific research, and (from the
theological side) a reasoned estimate of the dependence of individual
religious convictions upon the letter of the Old Testament.[4]
In view of the numerous articles in this work dealing with biblical
subjects,[5] the present sketch is limited to the outlines of the
traditional history; the religious aspect in its bearing upon biblical
theology (which is closely bound up with the traditions) is handled
separately under HEBREW RELIGION. The related literature is enormous
(see the bibliographies to the special articles); it is indexed
annually in _Orientalische Bibliographie_ (Berlin), and is usefully
summarized in the _Theologische Jahresbericht_ (Berlin). On the
development of the study of biblical history see C. A. Briggs, _Study
of Holy Scripture_ (1899), especially ch. xx. The first scientific
historical work was by H. Ewald, _Gesch. d. Volkes Israel_ (1843; 3rd
ed., 1864-1868; Eng. trans., 1869-1883), popularized by Arthur Penrhyn
Stanley in his _Hist. of the Jewish Church_ (1863-1879). The works of
J. Wellhausen (especially _Prolegomena to the Hist. of Israel_, Eng.
trans., 1885, also the brilliant article "Israel" in the 9th ed. of
the _Ency. Brit._, 1879) were epoch-making; his position was
interpreted to English readers by W. Robertson Smith (_Old Test. in
Jewish Church_, 1881, 2nd ed., 1892; _Prophets of Israel_, 1882, 2nd
ed. by T. K. Cheyne, 1902). The historical (and related) works of T.
K. Cheyne, H. Graetz, H. Guthe, F. C. Kent, A. Kittel, W. H. Kosters,
A. Kuenen, C. Piepenbring, and especially B. Stade, although varying
greatly in standpoint, are among the most valuable by recent scholars;
H. P. Smith's _Old Test. Hist._ ("International Theological Library,"
Edinburgh, 1903) is in many respects the most serviceable and complete
study; a modern and more critical "Ewald" is a desideratum. For the
works of numerous other scholars who have furthered Old Testament
research in the past it must suffice to refer to the annotated list by
J. M. P. Smith, _Books for O.T. Study_ (Chicago, 1908).
For the external history, E. Schrader, _Cuneiform Inscr. and the Old
Testament_ (Eng. trans. by O. C. Whitehouse, 1885-1888) is still
helpful; among the less technical works are J. F. McCurdy, _History,
Prophecy and the Monuments_; B. Paton, _Syria and Palestine_ (1902);
G. Maspero, _Hist. ancienne_ (6th ed., 1904); A. Jeremias, _Alte Test.
im Lichte d. Alten Orients_ (2nd ed., 1906); and especially
_Altoriental. Texte u. Bilder zum Alten Test._, ed. by H. Gressman,
with A. Ungnad and H. Ranke (1909). The most complete is that of Ed.
Meyer, _Gesch. d. Alterthums_ (2nd ed., 1907 sqq.). That of Jeremias
follows upon the lines of H. Winckler, whose works depart from the
somewhat narrow limits of purely "Israelite" histories, emphasize the
necessity of observing the characteristics of Oriental thought and
policy, and are invaluable for discriminating students. Winckler's own
views are condensed in the 3rd edition--a re-writing--of Schrader's
work (_Keilinschr. u. d. Alte Testament_, 1903), and, with an
instructive account of the history of "ancient nearer Asia," in H. F.
Helmolt's _World's History_, iii. 1-252 (1903). All modern histories
of any value are necessarily compromises between the biblical
traditions and the results of recent investigation, and those studies
which appear to depart most widely from the biblical or canonical
representation often do greater justice to the evidence as a whole
than the slighter or more conservative and apologetic
reconstructions.[6] Scientific biblical historical study,
nevertheless, is still in a relatively backward condition; and
although the labours of scholars since Ewald constitute a distinct
epoch, the trend of research points to the recognition of the fact
that the purely subjective literary material requires a more
historical treatment in the light of our increasing knowledge of
external and internal conditions in the old Oriental world. But an
inductive and deductive treatment, both, comprehensive and in due
proportion, does not as yet (1910) exist, and awaits fuller external
evidence.[7]
5. _Traditions of Origin._--The Old Testament preserves the remains of
an extensive literature, representing different standpoints, which
passed through several hands before it reached its present form.
Surrounded by ancient civilizations where writing had long been known,
and enjoying, as excavation has proved, a considerable amount of
material culture, Palestine could look back upon a lengthy and stirring
history which, however, has rarely left its mark upon our records.
Whatever ancient sources may have been accessible, whatever trustworthy
traditions were in circulation, and whatever a knowledge of the ancient
Oriental world might lead one to expect, one is naturally restricted in
the first instance to those undated records which have survived in the
form which the last editors gave to them. The critical investigation of
these records is the indispensable prelude to all serious biblical
study, and hasty or sweeping deductions from monumental or
archaeological evidence, or versions compiled promiscuously from
materials of distinct origin, are alike hazardous. A glimpse at
Palestine in the latter half of the second millennium B.C. (S 3)
prepares us for busy scenes and active intercourse, but it is not a
history of this kind which the biblical historians themselves transmit.
At an age when--on literary-critical grounds--the Old Testament writings
were assuming their present form, it was possible to divide the
immediately preceding centuries into three distinct period. (a) The
first, that of the two rival kingdoms: Israel (Ephraim or Samaria) in
the northern half of Palestine, and Judah in the south. Then (b) the
former lost its independence towards the close of the 8th century B.C.,
when a number of its inhabitants were carried away; and the latter
shared the fate of exile at the beginning of the 6th, but succeeded in
making a fresh reconstruction some fifty or sixty years later. Finally
(c), in the so-called "post-exilic" period, religion and life were
reorganized under the influence of a new spirit; relations with Samaria
were broken off, and Judaism took its definite character, perhaps about
the middle or close of the 5th century. Throughout these vicissitudes
there were important political and religious changes which render the
study of the composite sources a work of unique difficulty. In addition
to this it should be noticed that the term "Jew" (originally _Yehudi_),
in spite of its wider application, means properly "man of Judah," i.e.
of that small district which, with Jerusalem as its capital, became the
centre of Judaism. The favourite name "Israel" with all its religious
and national associations is somewhat ambiguous in an historical sketch,
since, although it is used as opposed to Judah (a), it ultimately came
to designate the true nucleus of the worshippers of the national god
Yahweh as opposed to the Samaritans, the later inhabitants of Israelite
territory (c). A more general term is "Hebrew" (see HEBREW LANGUAGE),
which, whether originally identical with the Habiru or not (S 3), is
used in contrast to foreigners, and this non-committal ethnic deserves
preference where precise distinction is unnecessary or impossible.
The traditions which prevailed among the Hebrews concerning their origin
belong to a time when Judah and Israel were regarded as a unit. Twelve
divisions or tribes, of which Judah was one, held together by a
traditional sentiment, were traced back to the sons of Jacob (otherwise
known as Israel), the son of Isaac and grandson of Abraham. Their names
vary in origin and probably also in point of age, and where they
represent fixed territorial limits, the districts so described were in
some cases certainly peopled by groups of non-Israelite ancestry. But as
tribal names they invited explanation, and of the many characteristic
traditions which were doubtless current a number have been preserved,
though not in any very early dress. Close relationship was recognized
with the Aramaeans, with Edom, Moab and Ammon. This is characteristically
expressed when Esau, the ancestor of Edom, is represented as the brother
of Jacob, or when Moab and Ammon are the children of Lot, Abraham's
nephew (see GENEALOGY: _Biblical_). Abraham, it was believed, came from
Harran (Carrhae), primarily from Babylonia, and Jacob re-enters from
Gilead in the north-east with his Aramaean wives and concubines and their
families (Benjamin excepted). It is on this occasion that Jacob's name is
changed to Israel. These traditions of migration and kinship are in
themselves entirely credible, but the detailed accounts of the ancestors
Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, as given in Genesis, are inherently doubtful as
regards both the internal conditions, which the (late) chronological
scheme ascribes to the first half of the second millennium B.C., and the
general circumstances of the life of these strangers in a foreign land.
From a variety of independent reasons one is forced to conclude that,
whatever historical elements they may contain, the stories of this remote
past represent the form which tradition had taken in a very much later
age.
Opinion is at variance regarding the patriarchal narratives as a
whole. To deny their historical character is to reject them as
trustworthy accounts of the age to which they are ascribed, and even
those scholars who claim that they are essentially historical already
go so far as to concede idealization and the possibility or
probability of later revision. The failure to apprehend historical
method has often led to the fallacious argument that the
trustworthiness of individual features justifies our accepting the
whole, or that the elimination of unhistorical elements will leave an
historical residuum. Here and frequently elsewhere in biblical history
it is necessary to allow that a genuine historical tradition may be
clothed in an unhistorical dress, but since many diverse motives are
often concentrated upon one narrative (e.g. Gen. xxxii. 22-32, xxxiv.,
xxxviii.), the work of internal historical criticism (in view of the
scantiness of the evidence) can rarely claim finality. The patriarchal
narratives themselves belong to the popular stock of tradition of
which only a portion has been preserved. Many of the elements lie
outside questions of time and place and are almost immemorial. Some
appear written for the first time in the book of Jubilees, in "the
Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs" (both perhaps 2nd century B.C.)
and in later sources; and although in Genesis the stories are now in a
post-exilic setting (a stage earlier than Jubilees), the older
portions may well belong to the 7th or 6th cent. This question,
however, will rest upon those criteria alone which are of true
chronological validity (see further GENESIS).
The story of the settlement of the national and tribal ancestors in
Palestine is interrupted by an account of the southward movement of
Jacob (or Israel) and his sons into a district under the immediate
influence of the kings of Egypt. After an interval of uncertain duration
we find in Exodus a numerous people subjected to rigorous oppression. No
longer individual sons of Jacob or Israel, united tribes were led out by
Moses and Aaron; and, after a series of incidents extending over forty
years, the "children of Israel" invaded the land in which their
ancestors had lived. The traditions embodied in the books Exodus-Joshua
are considerably later than the apparent date of the events themselves,
and amid the diverse and often conflicting data it is possible to
recognize distinct groups due to some extent to distinct historical
conditions. The story of the "exodus" is that of the religious birth of
"Israel," joined by covenant with the national god Yahweh[8] whose aid
in times of peril and need proved his supremacy. In Moses (q.v.) was
seen the founder of Israel's religion and laws; in Aaron (q.v.) the
prototype of the Israelite priesthood. Although it is difficult to
determine the true historical kernel, two features are most prominent in
the narratives which the post-exilic compiler has incorporated: the
revelation of Yahweh, and the movement into Palestine. Yahweh had
admittedly been the God of Israel's ancestors, but his name was only now
made known (Exod. iii. 13 sqq., vi. 2 seq.), and this conception of a
new era in Yahweh's relations with the people is associated with the
family of Moses and with small groups from the south of Palestine which
reappear in religious movements in later history (see KENITES). Amid a
great variety of motives the prominence of Kadesh in south Palestine is
to be recognized, but it is uncertain what clans or tribes were at
Kadesh, and it is possible that traditions, originally confined to those
with whom the new conception of Yahweh is connected, were subsequently
adopted by others who came to regard themselves as the worshippers of
the only true Yahweh. At all events, two quite distinct views seem to
underlie the opening books of the Old Testament. The one associates
itself with the ancestors of the Hebrews and has an ethnic character.
The other, part of the religious history of "Israel," is essentially
bound up with the religious genius of the people, and is partly
connected with clans from the south of Palestine whose influence appears
in later times. Other factors in the literary growth of the present
narratives are not excluded (see further S 8, and EXODUS, THE).[9]
6. _The Monarchy of Israel._--The book of Joshua continues the fortunes
of the "children of Israel" and describes a successful occupation of
Palestine by the united tribes. This stands in striking contrast to
other records of the partial successes of individual groups (Judg. i.).
The former, however, is based upon the account of victories by the
Ephraimite Joshua over confederations of petty kings to the south and
north of central Palestine, apparently the specific traditions of the
people of Ephraim describing from their standpoint the entire conquest
of Palestine.[10] The book of Judges represents a period of unrest after
the settlement of the people. External oppression and internal rivalries
rent the Israelites, and in the religious philosophy of a later
(Deuteronomic) age the period is represented as one of alternate
apostasy from and of penitent return to the Yahweh of the "exodus." Some
vague recollection of known historical events (S 3 end) might be claimed
among the traditions ascribed to the closing centuries of the second
millennium, but the view that the prelude to the monarchy was an era
when individual leaders "judged" all Israel finds no support in the
older narratives, where the heroes of the age (whose correct sequence is
uncertain) enjoy only a local fame. The best historical narratives
belong to Israel and Gilead; Judah scarcely appears, and in a relatively
old poetical account of a great fight of the united tribes against a
northern adversary lies outside the writer's horizon or interest (Judg.
v., see DEBORAH). Stories of successful warfare and of temporary leaders
(see ABIMELECH; EHUD; GIDEON; JEPHTHAH) form an introduction to the
institution of the Israelite monarchy, an epoch of supreme importance in
biblical history. The heroic figure who stands at the head is Saul
("asked"), and two accounts of his rise are recorded. (1) The
Philistines, a foreign people whose presence in Palestine has already
been noticed, had oppressed Israel (cf. SAMSON) until a brilliant
victory was gained by the prophet Samuel, some account of whose early
history is recorded. He himself held supreme sway over all Israel as the
last of the "judges" until compelled to accede to the popular demand for
a king. The young Saul was chosen by lot and gained unanimous
recognition by delivering Jabesh in Gilead from the Ammonites. (2) But
other traditions represent the people scattered and in hiding; Israel is
groaning under the Philistine yoke, and the unknown Saul is raised up by
Yahweh to save his people. This he accomplishes with the help of his son
Jonathan. The first account, although now essential to the canonical
history, clearly gives a less authentic account of the change from the
"judges" to the monarchy, while the second is fragmentary and can hardly
be fitted into the present historical thread (see SAUL). At all events
the first of a series of annalistic notices of the kings of Israel
ascribes to Saul conquests over the surrounding peoples to an extent
which implies that the district of Judah formed part of his kingdom (1
Sam. xiv. 47 seq). His might is attested also by the fine elegy (2 Sam.
i. 19 sqq.) over the death of two great Israelite heroes, Saul and
Jonathan, knit together by mutual love, inseparable in life and death,
whose unhappy end after a career of success was a national misfortune.
Disaster had come upon the north, and the plain of Jezreel saw the total
defeat of the king and the rout of his army. The court was hastily
removed across the Jordan to Mahanaim, where Saul's son Ishbaal
(Ish-bosheth), thanks to his general Abner, recovered some of the lost
prestige. In circumstances which are not detailed, the kingdom seems to
have regained its strength, and Ishbaal is credited with a reign of two
years over Israel and Gilead (2 Sam. ii. 8-10; contrast v. 11). But at
this point the scanty annals are suspended and the history of the age is
given in more popular sources. Both Israel and Judah had their own
annals, brief excerpts from which appear in the books of Samuel, Kings
and Chronicles, and they are supplemented by fuller narratives of
distinct and more popular origin. The writings are the result of a
continued literary process, and the Israelite national history has come
down to us through Judaean hands, with the result that much of it has
been coloured by late Judaean feeling. It is precisely in Saul's time
that the account of the Judaean monarchy, or perhaps of the monarchy
from the Judaean standpoint, now begins.
7. _The Monarchy of Judah._--Certain traditions of Judah and Jerusalem
appear to have looked back upon a movement from the south, traces of
which underlie the present account of the "exodus." The land was full of
"sons of Anak," giants who had terrified the scouts sent from Kadesh.
Caleb (q.v.) alone had distinguished himself by his fearlessness, and
the clan Caleb drove them out from Hebron in south Judah (Josh. xv. 14
sqq.; cf. also xi. 21 seq.). David and his followers are found in the
south of Hebron, and as they advanced northwards they encountered
wondrous heroes between Gath and Jerusalem (2 Sam. xxi. 15 sqq.; xxiii.
8 sqq.). After strenuous fighting the district was cleared, and
Jerusalem, taken by the sword, became the capital. History saw in David
the head of a lengthy line of kings, the founder of the Judaean
monarchy, the psalmist and the priest-king who inaugurated religious
institutions now recognized to be of a distinctly later character. As a
result of this backward projection of later conceptions, the recovery of
the true historical nucleus is difficult. The prominence of Jerusalem,
the centre of post-exilic Judaism, necessarily invited reflection.
Israelite tradition had ascribed the conquest of Jerusalem, Hebron and
other cities of Judah to the Ephraimite Joshua; Judaean tradition, on
the other hand, relates the capture of the sacred city from a strange
and hostile people (2 Sam. v.). The famous city, within easy reach of
the southern desert and central Palestine (to Hebron and to Samaria the
distances are about 18 and 35 miles respectively), had already entered
into Palestinian history in the "Amarna" age (S 3). Anathoth, a few
miles to the north-east, points to the cult of the goddess Anath, the
near-lying Nob has suggested the name of the Babylonian Nebo, and the
neighbouring, though unidentified, Beth-Ninib of the Amarna tablets may
indicate the worship of a Babylonian war and astral god (cf. the solar
name Beth-Shemesh). Such was the religious environment of the ancient
city which was destined to become the centre of Judaism. Judaean
tradition dated the sanctity of Jerusalem from the installation of the
ark, a sacred movable object which symbolized the presence of Yahweh. It
is associated with the half-nomad clans in the south of Palestine, or
with the wanderings of David and his own priest Abiathar; it is
ultimately placed within the newly captured city. Quite another body of
tradition associates it with the invasion of all the tribes of Israel
from beyond the Jordan (see ARK). To combine the heterogeneous
narratives and isolated statements into a consecutive account is
impossible; to ignore those which conflict with the now predominating
views would be unmethodical. When the narratives describe the life of
the young David at the court of the first king of the northern kingdom,
when the scenes cover the district which he took with the sword, and
when the brave Saul is represented in an unfavourable light, one must
allow for the popular tendency to idealize great figures, and for the
Judaean origin of the compilation. To David is ascribed the sovereignty
over a united people. But the stages in his progress are not clear.
After being the popular favourite of Israel in the little district of
Benjamin, he was driven away by the jealousy and animosity of Saul.
Gradually strengthening his position by alliance with Judaean clans, he
became king at Hebron at the time when Israel suffered defeat in the
north. His subsequent advance to the kingship over Judah and Israel at
Jerusalem is represented as due to the weak condition of Israel,
facilitated by the compliance of Abner; partly, also, to the
long-expressed wish of the Israelites that their old hero should reign
over them. Yet again, Saul had been chosen by Yahweh to free his people
from the Philistines; he had been rejected for his sins, and had
suffered continuously from this enemy; Israel at his death was left in
the unhappy state in which he had found it; it was the Judaean David,
the faithful servant of Yahweh, who was now chosen to deliver Israel,
and to the last the people gratefully remembered their debt. David
accomplished the conquests of Saul but on a grander scale; "Saul hath
slain his thousands and David his tens of thousands" is the popular
couplet comparing the relative merits of the rival dynasts. A series of
campaigns against Edom, Moab, Ammon and the Aramaean states, friendly
relations with Hiram of Tyre, and the recognition of his sovereignty by
the king of Hamath on the Orontes, combine to portray a monarchy which
was the ideal.
But in passing from the books of Samuel, with their many rich and vivid
narratives, to the books of Kings, we enter upon another phase of
literature; it is a different atmosphere, due to the character of the
material and the aims of other compilers (see S 9 beginning). David, the
conqueror, was followed by his son Solomon, famous for his wealth,
wisdom and piety, above all for the magnificent Temple which he built at
Jerusalem. Phoenician artificers were enlisted for the purpose, and with
Phoenician sailors successful trading-journeys were regularly
undertaken. Commercial intercourse with Asia Minor, Arabia, Tarshish
(probably in Spain) and Ophir (q.v.) filled his coffers, and his realm
extended from the Euphrates to the border of Egypt. Tradition depicts
him as a worthy successor to his father, and represents a state of
luxury and riches impressive to all who were familiar with the great
Oriental courts. The commercial activity of the king and the picture of
intercourse and wealth are quite in accordance with what is known of the
ancient monarchies, and could already be illustrated from the Amarna
age. Judah and Israel dwelt at ease, or held the superior position of
military officials, while the earlier inhabitants of the land were put
to forced labour. But another side of the picture shows the domestic
intrigues which darkened the last days of David. The accession of
Solomon had not been without bloodshed, and Judah, together with David's
old general Joab and his faithful priest Abiathar, were opposed to the
son of a woman who had been the wife of a Hittite warrior. The era of
the Temple of Jerusalem starts with a new regime, another captain of the
army and another priest. Nevertheless, the enmity of Judah is passed
over, and when the kingdom is divided for administrative purposes into
twelve districts, which ignore the tribal divisions, the centre of
David's early power is exempt from the duty of providing supplies (1
Kings iv.). Yet again, the approach of the divided monarchy is
foreshadowed. The employment of Judaeans and Israelites for Solomon's
palatial buildings, and the heavy taxation for the upkeep of a court
which was the wonder of the world, caused grave internal discontent.
External relations, too, were unsatisfactory. The Edomites, who had been
almost extirpated by David in the valley of Salt, south of the Dead Sea,
were now strong enough to seek revenge; and the powerful kingdom of
Damascus, whose foundation is ascribed to this period, began to threaten
Israel on the north and north-east. These troubles, we learn, had
affected all Solomon's reign, and even Hiram appears to have acquired a
portion of Galilee. In the approaching disruption writers saw the
punishment for the king's apostasy, and they condemn the sanctuaries in
Jerusalem which he erected to the gods of his heathen wives.
Nevertheless, these places of cult remained some 300 years until almost
the close of the monarchy, when their destruction is attributed to
Josiah (S 16). When at length Solomon died the opportunity was at once
seized to request from his son Rehoboam a more generous treatment. The
reply is memorable: "My little finger is thicker than my father's loins;
my father chastised you with whips, but I will chastise you with
scorpions." These words were calculated to inflame a people whom history
proves to have been haughty and high-spirited, and the great Israel
renounced its union with the small district of Judah. Jeroboam (q.v.),
once one of Solomon's officers, became king over the north, and thus the
history of the divided monarchy begins (about 930 B.C.) with the
Israelite power on both sides of the Jordan and with Judah extending
southwards from a point a few miles north of Jerusalem.
8. _Problems of the Earliest History._--Biblical history previous to
the separation of Judah and Israel holds a prominent place in current
ideas, since over two-fifths of the entire Old Testament deals with
these early ages. The historical sources for the crucial period, from
the separation to the fall of Jerusalem (586 B.C.), occupy only about
one-twelfth, and even of this about one-third is spread over some
fifteen years (see below, S 11). From the flourishing days of the
later monarchy and onwards, different writers handled the early
history of their land from different standpoints. The feeling of
national unity between north and south would require historical
treatment, the existence of rival monarchies would demand an
explanation. But the surviving material is extremely uneven; vital
events in these centuries are treated with a slightness in striking
contrast to the relatively detailed evidence for the preceding
period--evidence, however, which is far from being contemporary. Where
the material is fuller, serious discrepancies are found; and where
external evidence is fortunately available, the independent character
of the biblical history is vividly illustrated. The varied traditions
up to this stage cannot be regarded as objective history. It is
naturally impossible to treat them from any modern standpoint as
fiction; they are honest even where they are most untrustworthy. But
the recovery of successive historical nuclei does not furnish a
continuous thread, and if one is to be guided by the historical
context of events the true background to each nucleus must be sought.
The northern kingdom cherished the institution of a monarchy, and in
this, as in all great political events, the prophets took part. The
precise part these figures play is often idealized and expresses the
later views of their prominence. It was only after a bitter experience
that the kingship was no longer regarded as a divine gift, and
traditions have been revised in order to illustrate the opposition to
secular authority. In this and in many other respects the records of
the first monarchy have been elaborated and now reveal traces of
differing conceptions of the events (see DAN; DAVID; ELI; SAMUEL;
SAUL; SOLOMON). The oldest narratives are not in their original
contexts, and they contain features which render it questionable
whether a very trustworthy recollection of the period was retained.
Although the rise of the Hebrew state, at an age when the great powers
were quiescent and when such a people as the Philistines is known to
have appeared upon the scene, is entirely intelligible, it is not
improbable that legends of Saul and David, the heroic founders of the
two kingdoms, have been put in a historical setting with the help of
later historical tradition. It is at least necessary to distinguish
provisionally between a possibly historical framework and narratives
which may be of later growth--between the general outlines which only
external evidence can test and details which cannot be tested and
appear isolated without any cause or devoid of any effect.
Many attempts have been made to present a satisfactory sketch of the
early history and to do justice to (a) the patriarchal narratives,
(b) the exodus from Egypt and the Israelite invasion, and (c) the
rise of the monarchy. As regards (b), external evidence has already
suggested to scholars that there were Israelites in Palestine before
the invasion; internal historical criticism is against the view that
all the tribes entered under Joshua; and in (a) there are traces of an
actual settlement in the land, entirely distinct from the cycle of
narratives which prepare the way for (b). The various reconstructions
and compromises by modern apologetic and critical writers alike
involve without exception an extremely free treatment of the biblical
sources and the rejection of many important and circumstantial
data.[11] On the one hand, a sweeping invasion of all the tribes of
Israel moved by a common zeal may, like the conquests of Islam, have
produced permanent results. According to this view the enervating
luxury of Palestinian culture almost destroyed the lofty ideal
monotheism inculcated in the desert, and after the fall of the
northern tribes (latter part of the 8th cent.) Judah is naturally
regarded as the sole heir. But such a conquest, and all that it
signifies, conflict both with external evidence (e.g. the results of
excavation), and with any careful inspection of the narratives
themselves. On the other hand, the reconstructions which allow a
gradual settlement (perhaps of distinct groups), and an intermingling
with the earlier inhabitants, certainly find support in biblical
evidence, and they have been ingeniously built up with the help of
tribal and other data (e.g. Gen. xxxiv., xxxviii.; Judg. i. ix.). But
they imply political, sociological and religious developments which do
not do justice either to the biblical evidence as a whole or to a
comprehensive survey of contemporary conditions.[12] Thus, one of the
important questions is the relation between those who had taken part
in the exodus and the invasion and those who had not. This inquiry is
further complicated by (c), where the history of Israel and Judah, as
related in Judges and 1 Samuel, has caused endless perplexity. The
traditions of the Ephraimite Joshua and of Saul the first king of
(north) Israel virtually treat Judah as part of Israel and are related
to the underlying representations in (a). But the specific independent
Judaean standpoint treats the unification of the two divisions as the
work of David who leaves the heritage to Solomon. The varied
narratives, now due to Judaean editors, preserve distinct points of
view, and it is extremely difficult to unravel the threads and to
determine their relative position in the history. Finally, the
consciousness that the people as a religious body owed everything to
the desert clans (b) (see S 5) subsequently leaves its mark upon
(north) Israelite history (S 14), but has not the profound
significance which it has in the records of Judah and Jerusalem.
Without sufficient external and independent evidence wherewith to
interpret in the light of history the internal features of the
intricate narratives, any reconstruction would naturally be hazardous,
and all attempts must invariably be considered in the light of the
biblical evidence itself, the date of the Israelite exodus, and the
external conditions. Biblical criticism is concerned with a composite
(Judaean) history based upon other histories (partly of non-Judaean
origin), and the relation between native written sources and external
contemporary evidence (monumental and archaeological) distinctly
forbids any haphazard selection from accessible sources. The true
nature of this relation can be readily observed in other fields
(ancient Britain, Greece, Egypt, &c.), where, however, the native
documents and sources have not that complexity which characterizes the
composite biblical history. (For the period under review, as it
appears in the light of existing external evidence, see PALESTINE:
_History_.)
9. _The Rival Kingdoms._--The Palestine of the Hebrews was but part of a
great area breathing the same atmosphere, and there was little to
distinguish Judah from Israel except when they were distinct political
entities. The history of the two kingdoms is contained in Kings and the
later and relatively less trustworthy Chronicles, which deals with Judah
alone. In the former a separate history of the northern kingdom has been
combined with Judaean history by means of synchronisms in accordance
with a definite scheme. The 480 years from the foundation of the temple
of Jerusalem back to the date of the exodus (1 Kings vi. 1) corresponds
to the period forward to the return from the exile (S 20). This falls
into three equal divisions, of which the first ends with Jehoash's
temple-reforms and the second with Hezekiah's death. The kingdom of
Israel lasts exactly half the time. Of the 240 years from Jeroboam I.,
80 elapse before the Syrian wars in Ahab's reign, these cover another
80; the famous king Jeroboam II. reigns 40 years, and 40 years of
decline bring the kingdom to an end. These figures speak for themselves,
and the present chronology can be accepted only where it is
independently proved to be trustworthy (see further W. R. Smith,
_Prophets of Israel_, pp. 144-149). Next, the Judaean compiler regularly
finds in Israel's troubles the punishment for its schismatic idolatry;
nor does he spare Judah, but judges its kings by a standard which agrees
with the standpoint of Deuteronomy and is scarcely earlier than the end
of the 7th century B.C. (SS 16, 20). But the history of (north) Israel
had naturally its own independent political backgrounds and the literary
sources contain the same internal features as the annals and prophetic
narratives which are already met with in 1 Samuel. Similarly the thread
of the Judaean annals in Kings is also found in 2 Samuel, although the
supplementary narratives in Kings are not so rich or varied as the more
popular records in the preceding books. The striking differences between
Samuel and Kings are due to differences in the writing of the history;
independent Israelite records having been incorporated with those of
Judah and supplemented (with revision) from the Judaean standpoint (see
CHRONICLES; KINGS; SAMUEL).
The Judaean compiler, with his history of the two kingdoms, looks back
upon the time when each laid the foundation of its subsequent fortunes.
His small kingdom of Judah enjoyed an unbroken dynasty which survived
the most serious crises, a temple which grew in splendour and wealth
under royal patronage, and a legitimate priesthood which owed its origin
to Zadok, the successful rival of David's priest Abiathar. Israel, on
the other hand, had signed its death-warrant by the institution of
calf-cult, a cult which, however, was scarcely recognized as contrary to
the worship of Yahweh before the denunciations of Hosea. The scantiness
of political information and the distinctive arrangement of material
preclude the attempt to trace the relative position of the two rivals.
Judah had natural connexions with Edom and southern Palestine; Israel
was more closely associated with Gilead and the Aramaeans of the north.
That Israel was the stronger may be suggested by the acquiescence of
Judah in the new situation. A diversion was caused by Shishak's
invasion, but of this reappearance of Egypt after nearly three centuries
of inactivity little is preserved in biblical history. Only the Temple
records recall the spoliation of the sanctuary of Jerusalem, and
traditions of Jeroboam I. show that Shishak's prominence was well
known.[13] Although both kingdoms suffered, common misfortune did not
throw them together. On the contrary, the statement that there was
continual warfare is supplemented in Chronicles by the story of a
victory over Israel by Abijah the son of Rehoboam. Jeroboam's son Nadab
perished in a conspiracy whilst besieging the Philistine city of
Gibbethon, and Baasha of (north) Israel seized the throne. His reign is
noteworthy for the entrance of Damascus into Palestinian politics. Its
natural fertility and its commanding position at the meeting-place of
trade-routes from every quarter made it a dominant factor until its
overthrow. In the absence of its native records its relations with
Palestine are not always clear, but it may be supposed that amid varying
political changes it was able to play a double game. According to the
annals, incessant war prevailed between Baasha and Abijah's successor,
Asa. It is understood that the former was in league with Damascus, which
had once been hostile to Solomon (1 Kings xi. 24 seq.)--it is not stated
upon whom Asa could rely. However, Baasha at length seized Ramah about
five miles north of Jerusalem, and the very existence of Judah was
threatened. Asa utilized the treasure of the Temple and palace to induce
the Syrians to break off their relations with Baasha. These sent troops
to harry north Israel, and Baasha was compelled to retire. Asa, it is
evident, was too weak to achieve the remarkable victory ascribed to him
in 2 Chron. xiv. (see ASA). As for Baasha, his short-lived dynasty
resembles that of his predecessors. His son Elah had reigned only two
years (like Ishbaal and Nadab) when he was slain in the midst of a
drunken carousal by his captain Zimri. Meanwhile the Israelite army was
again besieging the Philistines at Gibbethon, and the recurrence of
these conflicts points to a critical situation in a Danite locality in
which Judah itself (although ignored by the writers), must have been
vitally concerned. The army preferred their general Omri, and marching
upon Zimri at Tirzah burnt the palace over his head. A fresh rival
immediately appeared, the otherwise unknown Tibni, son of Ginath. Israel
was divided into two camps, until, on the death of Tibni and his brother
Joram, Omri became sole king (c. 887 B.C.). The scanty details of these
important events must naturally be contrasted with the comparatively
full accounts of earlier Philistine wars and internal conflicts in
narratives which date from this or even a later age.
10. _The Dynasty of Omri._--Omri (q.v.), the founder of one of the
greatest dynasties of Israel, was contemporary with the revival of Tyre
under Ithobaal, and the relationship between the states is seen in the
marriage of Omri's son Ahab to Jezebel, the priest-king's daughter. His
most notable recorded achievement was the subjugation of Moab and the
seizure of part of its territory. The discovery of the inscription of a
later king of Moab (q.v.) has proved that the east-Jordanic tribes were
no uncivilized or barbaric folk; material wealth, a considerable
religious and political organization, and the cultivation of letters (as
exemplified in the style of the inscription) portray conditions which
allow us to form some conception of life in Israel itself. Moreover,
Judah (now under Jehoshaphat) enjoyed intimate relations with Israel
during Omri's dynasty, and the traditions of intermarriage, and of
co-operation in commerce and war, imply what was practically a united
Palestine. Alliance with Phoenicia gave the impulse to extended
intercourse; trading expeditions were undertaken from the Gulf of Akaba,
and Ahab built himself a palace decorated with ivory. The cult of the
Baal of Tyre followed Jezebel to the royal city Samaria and even found
its way into Jerusalem. This, the natural result of matrimonial and
political alliance, already met with under Solomon, receives the usual
denunciation. The conflict between Yahweh and Baal and the defeat of the
latter are the characteristic notes of the religious history of the
period, and they leave their impression upon the records, which are now
more abundant. Although little is preserved of Omri's history, the fact
that the northern kingdom long continued to be called by the Assyrians
after his name is a significant indication of his great reputation.
Assyria[14] was now making itself felt in the west for the first time
since the days of Tiglath-Pileser I. (c. 1100 B.C.), and external
sources come to our aid. Assur-nazir-pal III. had exacted tribute from
north Syria (c. 870 B.C.), and his successor Shalmaneser II., in the
course of a series of expeditions, succeeded in gaining the greater part
of that land. A defensive coalition was formed in which the kings of
Cilicia, Hamath, the Phoenician coast, Damascus and Ammon, the Arabs of
the Syrian desert, and "Ahabbu Sirlai" were concerned. In the last, we
must recognize the Israelite Ahab. His own contribution of 10,000 men
and 12,000 chariots perhaps included levies from Judah and Moab (cf. for
the number 1 Kings x. 26). In 854 the allies at least maintained
themselves at the battle of Karkar (perhaps Apamea to the north of
Hamath). In 849 and 846 other indecisive battles were fought, but the
precise constitution of the coalition is not recorded. In 842
Shalmaneser records a campaign against Hazael of Damascus; no coalition
is mentioned, although a battle was fought at Sanir (Hermon, Deut. iii.
9), and the cities of Hauran to the south of Damascus were spoiled.
Tribute was received from Tyre and Sidon; and Jehu, who was now king of
Israel, sent his gifts of gold, silver, &c., to the conqueror. The
Assyrian inscription (the so-called "Black Obelisk" now in the British
Museum), which records the submission of the petty kings, gives an
interesting representation of the humble Israelite emissaries with their
long fringed robes and strongly marked physiognomy (see COSTUME, fig.
9). Yet another expedition in 839 would seem to show that Damascus was
neither crushed nor helpless, but thenceforth for a number of years
Assyria was fully occupied elsewhere and the west was left to itself.
The value of this external evidence for the history of Israel is
enhanced by the fact that biblical tradition associates the changes in
the thrones of Israel and Damascus with the work of the prophets Elijah
and Elisha, but handles the period without a single reference to the
Assyrian Empire. Ahab, it seems, had aroused popular resentment by
encroaching upon the rights of the people to their landed possessions;
had it not been for Jezebel (q.v.) the tragedy of Naboth would not have
occurred. The worship of Baal of Tyre roused a small circle of zealots,
and again the Phoenician marriage was the cause of the evil. We read the
history from the point of view of prophets. Elijah of Gilead led the
revolt. To one who favoured simplicity of cult the new worship was a
desecration of Yahweh, and, braving the anger of the king and queen, he
foreshadowed their fate. Hostility towards the dynasty culminated a few
years later in a conspiracy which placed on the throne the general Jehu,
the son of one Jehoshaphat (or, otherwise, of Nimshi). The work which
Elijah began was completed by Elisha, who supported Jehu and the new
dynasty. A massacre ensued in which the royal families of Israel and
Judah perished. While the extirpation of the cult of Baal was furthered
in Israel by Jonadab the Rechabite, it was the "people of the land" who
undertook a similar reform in Judah. Jehu (q.v.) became king as the
champion of the purer worship of Yahweh. The descendants of the detested
Phoenician marriage were rooted out, and unless the close intercourse
between Israel and Judah had been suddenly broken, it would be supposed
that the new king at least laid claim to the south. The events form one
of the fundamental problems of biblical history.
11. _Damascus, Israel and Judah._--The appearance of Assyria in the
Mediterranean coast-lands had produced the results which inevitably
follow when a great empire comes into contact with minor states. It
awakened fresh possibilities--successful combination against a common
foe, the sinking of petty rivalries, the chance of gaining favour by a
neutrality which was scarcely benevolent. The alliances,
counter-alliances and far-reaching political combinations which spring
up at every advance of the greater powers are often perplexing in the
absence of records of the states concerned. Even the biblical traditions
alone do not always represent the same attitude, and our present sources
preserve the work of several hands. Hazael of Damascus, Jehu of Israel
and Elisha the prophet are the three men of the new age linked together
in the words of one writer as though commissioned for like ends (1 Kings
xix. 15-17). Hostility to Phoenicia (i.e. the Baal of Tyre) is as
intelligible as a tendency to look to Aramaean neighbours. Though Elisha
sent to anoint Jehu as king, he was none the less on most intimate terms
with Bar-hadad (Old. Test. Ben-hadad) of Damascus and recognized Hazael
as its future ruler. It is a natural assumption that Damascus could
still count upon Israel as an ally in 842; not until the withdrawal of
Assyria and the accession of Jehu did the situation change. "In those
days Yahweh began to cut short" (or, altering the text, "to be angry
with") "Israel." This brief notice heralds the commencement of Hazael's
attack upon Israelite territory east of the Jordan (2 Kings x. 32). The
origin of the outbreak is uncertain. It has been assumed that Israel had
withdrawn from the great coalition, that Jehu sent tribute to
Shalmaneser to obtain that monarch's recognition, and that Hazael
consequently seized the first opportunity to retaliate. Certain
traditions, it is true, indicate that Israel had been at war with the
Aramaeans from before 854 to 842, and that Hazael was attacking Gilead
at the time when Jehu revolted; but in the midst of these are other
traditions of the close and friendly relations between Israel and
Damascus! With these perplexing data the position of Judah is
inextricably involved.
The special points which have to be noticed in the records for this
brief period (1 Kings xvii.-2 Kings xi.) concern both literary and
historical criticism.[15] A number of narratives illustrate the work
of the prophets, and sometimes purely political records appear to have
been used for the purpose (see ELIJAH; ELISHA). If Elijah is the
prophet of the fall of Omri's dynasty, Elisha is no less the prophet
of Jehu and his successors; and it is extremely probable that his
lifework was confined to the dynasty which he inaugurated.[16] In the
present narratives, however, the stories in which he possesses
influence with king and court are placed before the rise of Jehu, and
some of them point to a state of hostility with Damascus before he
foresees the atrocities which Hazael will perpetrate. But Ahab's wars
with Syria can with difficulty be reconciled with the Assyrian
evidence (see AHAB), and the narratives, largely anonymous, agree in a
singular manner with what is known of the serious conflicts which, it
is said, began in Jehu's time. Moreover, the account of the joint
undertaking by Judah (under Jehoshaphat) and Israel against Syria at
Ramoth-Gilead at the time of Ahab's death, and again (under Ahaziah)
when Jehoram was wounded, shortly before the accession of Jehu, are
historical doublets, and they can hardly be harmonized either with the
known events of 854 and 842 or with the course of the intervening
years. Further, all the traditions point clearly to the very close
union of Israel and Judah at this period, a union which is apt to be
obscured by the fact that the annalistic summaries of each kingdom are
mainly independent. Thus we may contrast the favourable Judaean view
of Jehoshaphat with the condemnation passed upon Ahab and Jezebel,
whose daughter Athaliah married Jehoram, son of Jehoshaphat. It is
noteworthy, also, that an Ahaziah and a Jehoram appear as kings of
Israel, and (in the reverse order) of Judah, and somewhat similar
incidents recur in the now separate histories of the two kingdoms. The
most striking is a great revolt in south Palestine. The alliance
between Jehoshaphat and Ahab doubtless continued when the latter was
succeeded by his son Ahaziah, and some disaster befell their trading
fleet in the Gulf of Akaba (1 Kings xxii. 48 seq.; 2 Chron. xx.
35-37). Next came the revolt of Moab (2 Kings i. 1), and Ahaziah,
after the briefest of reigns, was followed by Jehoram, whose Judaean
contemporary was Jehoshaphat (ch. iii.), or perhaps rather his own
namesake (i. 17). The popular story of Jehoram's campaign against
Moab, with which Edom was probably allied (see MOAB), hints at a
disastrous ending, and the Judaean annals, in their turn, record the
revolt of Edom and the Philistine Libnah (see PHILISTINES), and allude
obscurely to a defeat of the Judaean Jehoram (2 Kings viii. 20-22).
Further details in 2 Chron. xxi.-xxii. 1 even record an invasion of
Philistines and Arabians (? Edomites), an attack upon Jerusalem, the
removal of the palace treasures and of all the royal sons with the
sole exception of Jehoahaz, i.e. Ahaziah (see JEHORAM; JEHOSHAPHAT).
Had the two kingdoms been under a single head, these features might
find an explanation, but it must be allowed that it is extremely
difficult to fit the general situation into our present history, and
to determine where the line is to be drawn between trustworthy and
untrustworthy details. Moreover, of the various accounts of the
massacre of the princes of Judah, the Judaean ascribes it not to Jehu
and the reforming party (2 Kings x. 13 seq.) but to Athaliah (q.v.).
Only the babe Jehoash was saved, and he remained hidden in the Temple
adjoining the palace itself. The queen, Athaliah, despite the weak
state of Judah after the revolt in Philistia and Edom, actually
appears to have maintained herself for six years, until the priests
slew her in a conspiracy, overthrew the cult of Baal, and crowned the
young child. It is a new source which is here suddenly introduced,
belonging apparently to a history of the Temple; it throws no light
upon the relations between Judah with its priests and Israel with its
prophets, the circumstances of the regency under the priest Jehoiada
are ignored, and the Temple reforms occupy the first place in the
compiler's interest. The Judaean annals then relate Hazael's advance
to Gath; the city was captured and Jerusalem was saved only by using
the Temple and palace treasure as a bribe. On the other hand,
Chronicles has a different story with a novel prelude. Jehoash, it is
said, turned away from Yahweh after the death of Jehoiada and gave
heed to the Judaean nobles, "wrath came upon Judah and Jerusalem for
their guilt," prophets were sent to bring them back but they turned a
deaf ear. The climax of iniquity was the murder of Jehoiada's son
Zechariah. Soon after, a small band of Syrians entered Judah,
destroyed its princes, and sent the spoil to the king of Damascus; the
disaster is regarded as a prompt retribution (2 Chron. xxiv.). The
inferiority of Chronicles as a historical source and its varied
examples of "tendency-writing" must be set against its possible access
to traditions as trustworthy as those in Kings.[17] In the present
instance the novel details cannot be lightly brushed aside. The
position of Judah at this period must be estimated (a) from the
preceding years of intimate relationship with Israel to the accession
of Jehu, and (b) from the calamity about half a century later when
Jerusalem was sacked by Israel. The Judaean narratives do not allow us
to fill the gap or to determine whether Judaean policy under the
regent Jehoiada would be friendly or hostile to Israel, or whether
Judaean nobles may have severed the earlier bond of union. If the
latter actually occurred, the hostility of the Israelite prophets is
only to be expected. But it is to be presumed that the punishment came
from Israel--the use of Syrian mercenaries not excluded--and if,
instead of using his treasure to ward off the invasion of Syria,
Jehoash bribed Damascus to break off relations with Israel, an
alternative explanation of the origin of the Aramaean wars may be
found.[18]
12. _The Aramaean Wars._--If the records leave it uncertain (a) whether
Jehu (like Tyre and Sidon) sent tribute to Shalmaneser as a sign of
submission or, while severing relations with Hazael, sought the favour
of Assyria, and (b) whether Judah only escaped Hazael's vengeance by a
timely bribe or, in freeing itself from Israel, had bribed Hazael to
create a diversion, it appears that the southern kingdom suffered little
in the disastrous wars between Damascus and Israel. There were, indeed,
internal troubles, and Jehoash perished in a conspiracy. His son Amaziah
had some difficulty in gaining the kingdom and showed unwonted leniency
in sparing the children of his father's murderers. This was a departure
from the customs of the age, and was perhaps influenced less by
generosity than by expediency. Israel, on the other hand, was almost
annihilated. The Syrians seized Gilead, crossed over into Palestine, and
occupied the land. Jehu's son Jehoahaz saw his army made "like the dust
in threshing," and the desperate condition of the country recalls the
straits in the time of Saul (1 Sam. xiii. 6, 7, 19-22), and the days
before the great overthrow of the northern power as described in Judges
v. 6-8. The impression left by the horrors of the age is clear from the
allusions to the barbarities committed by Damascus and its Ammonite
allies upon Gilead (Amos i. 3, 13), and in the account of the interview
between Elisha and Hazael (2 Kings viii. 12). Several of the situations
can be more vividly realized from the narratives of Syrian wars ascribed
to the time of Omri's dynasty, even if these did not originally refer to
the later period. Under Joash, son of Jehoahaz, the tide turned. Elisha
was apparently the champion, and posterity told of his exploits when
Samaria was visited with the sword. Thrice Joash smote the Syrians--in
accordance with the last words of the dying prophet--and Aphek in the
Sharon plain, famous in history for Israel's disasters, now witnessed
three victories. The enemy under Hazael's son Ben-hadad (properly
Bar-hadad) was driven out and Joash regained the territory which his
father had lost (2 Kings xiii. 25); it may reasonably be supposed that a
treaty was concluded (cf. 1 Kings xx. 34). But the peace does not seem
to have been popular. The story of the last scene in Elisha's life
implies in Joash an easily contented disposition which hindered him from
completing his successes. Syria had not been crushed, and the failure to
utilize the opportunity was an act of impolitic leniency for which
Israel was bound to suffer (2 Kings xiii. 19). Elisha's indignation can
be illustrated by the denunciation passed upon an anonymous king by the
prophetic party on a similar occasion (1 Kings xx. 35-43).
At this stage it is necessary to notice the fresh invasion of Syria by
Hadad (Adad)-nirari, who besieged Mari, king of Damascus, and exacted a
heavy tribute (c. 800 B.C.). A diversion of this kind may explain the
Israelite victories; the subsequent withdrawal of Assyria may have
afforded the occasion for retaliation. Those in Israel who remembered
the previous war between Assyria and Damascus would realize the
recuperative power of the latter, and would perceive the danger of the
short-sighted policy of Joash. It is interesting to find that
Hadad-nirari claims tribute from Tyre, Sidon and Beth-Omri (Israel),
also from Edom and Palastu (Philistia). There are no signs of an
extensive coalition as in the days of Shalmaneser; Ammon is probably
included under Damascus; the position of Moab--which had freed itself
from Jehoram of Israel--can hardly be calculated. But the absence of
Judah is surprising. Both Jehoash (of Judah) and his son Amaziah left
behind them a great name; and the latter was comparable only to David (2
Kings xiv. 3). He defeated Edom in the Valley of Salt, and hence it is
conceivable that Amaziah's kingdom extended over both Edom and
Philistia. A vaunting challenge to Joash (of Israel) gave rise to one of
the two fables that are preserved in the Old Testament (Judg. ix. 8
sqq.; see ABIMELECH). It was followed by a battle at Beth-shemesh; the
scene would suggest that Philistia also was involved. The result was the
route of Judah, the capture of Amaziah, the destruction of the northern
wall of Jerusalem, the sacking of the temple and palace, and the removal
of hostages to Samaria (2 Kings xiv. 12 sqq.). Only a few words are
preserved, but the details, when carefully weighed, are extremely
significant. This momentous event for the southern kingdom was scarcely
the outcome of a challenge to a trial of strength; it was rather the
sequel to a period of smouldering jealousy and hostility.
The Judaean records have obscured the history since the days of Omri's
dynasty, when Israel and Judah were as one, when they were moved by
common aims and by a single reforming zeal, and only Israel's
vengeance gives the measure of the injuries she had received. That the
Judaean compiler has not given fuller information is not surprising;
the wonder is that he should have given so much. It is one of those
epoch-making facts in the light of which the course of the history of
the preceding and following years must be estimated. It is taken,
strangely enough, from an Israelite source, but the tone of the whole
is quite dispassionate and objective. It needs little reflection to
perceive that the position of Jerusalem and Judah was now hardly one
of independence, and the conflicting chronological notices betray the
attempt to maintain intact the thread of Judaean history. So, on the
one hand, the year of the disaster sees the death of the Israelite
king, and Amaziah survives for fifteen years, while, on the other,
twenty-seven years elapse between the battle and the accession of
Uzziah, the next king of Judah.[19]
The importance of the historical questions regarding relations between
Damascus, Israel and Judah is clear. The defeat of Syria by Joash (of
Israel) was not final. The decisive victories were gained by Jeroboam
II. He saved Israel from being blotted out, and through his successes
"the children of Israel dwelt in their tents as of old" (2 Kings xiii.
5, xiv. 26 seq.). Syria must have resumed warfare with redoubled
energy, and a state of affairs is presupposed which can be pictured
with the help of narratives that deal with similar historical
situations. In particular, the overthrow of Israel as foreshadowed in
1 Kings xxii. implies an Aramaean invasion (cf. vv. 17, 25), after a
treaty (xx. 35 sqq.), although this can scarcely be justified by the
events which followed the death of Ahab, in whose time they are now
placed.
For the understanding of these great wars between Syria and Israel
(which the traditional chronology spreads over eighty years), for the
significance of the crushing defeats and inspiring victories, and for
the alternations of despair and hope, a careful study of all the
records of relations between Israel and the north is at least
instructive, and it is important to remember that, although the
present historical outlines are scanty and incomplete, some--if not
all--of the analogous descriptions in their present form are certainly
later than the second half of the 9th century B.C., the period in
which these great events fall.[20]
13. _Political Development._--Under Jeroboam II. the borders of Israel
were restored, and in this political revival the prophets again took
part.[21] The defeat of Ben-hadad by the king of Hamath and the
quiescence of Assyria may have encouraged Israelite ambitions, but until
more is known of the campaigns of Hadad-nirari and of Shalmaneser III.
(against Damascus, 773 B.C.) the situation cannot be safely gauged. Moab
was probably tributary; the position of Judah and Edom is involved with
the chronological problems. According to the Judaean annals, the "people
of Judah" set Azariah (Uzziah) upon his father's throne; and to his long
reign of fifty-two years are ascribed conquests over Philistia and Edom,
the fortification of Jerusalem and the reorganization of the army. As
the relations with Israel are not specified, the sequel to Amaziah's
defeat is a matter for conjecture; although, when at the death of
Jeroboam Israel hastened to its end amid anarchy and dissension, it is
hardly likely that the southern kingdom was unmoved. All that can be
recognized from the biblical records, however, is the period of internal
prosperity which Israel and Judah enjoyed under Jeroboam and Uzziah
(qq.v.) respectively.
It is difficult to trace the biblical history century by century as it
reaches these last years of bitter conflict and of renewed prosperity.
The northern kingdom at the height of its power included Judah, it
extended its territory east of the Jordan towards the north and the
south, and maintained close relations with Phoenicia and the Aramaean
states. It had a national history which left its impress upon the
popular imagination, and sundry fragments of tradition reveal the pride
which the patriot felt in the past. An original close connexion is felt
with the east of the Jordan and with Gilead; stories of invasion and
conquest express themselves in varied forms. In so far as internal
wealth and luxury presuppose the control of the trade-routes, periodical
alliances are implied in which Judah, willingly or unwillingly, was
included. But the Judaean records do not allow us to trace its
independent history with confidence, and our estimate can scarcely base
itself solely upon the accidental fulness or scantiness of political
details. In the subsequent disasters of Israel (S 15) we may perceive
the growing supremacy of Judah, and the Assyrian inscriptions clearly
indicate the dependence of Judaean politics upon its relations with Edom
and Arab tribes on the south-east and with Philistia on the west.
Whatever had been the effect of the movement of the Purasati some
centuries previously, the Philistines (i.e. the people of Philistia) are
now found in possession of a mature organization, and the Assyrian
evidence is of considerable value for an estimate of the stories of
conflict and covenant, of hostility and friendship, which were current
in south Palestine. The extension of the term "Judah" (cf. that of
"Israel" and "Samaria") is involved with the incorporation of
non-Judaean elements. The country for ten miles north of Jerusalem was
the exposed and highly debatable district ascribed to the young tribe of
Benjamin (the favourite "brother" of both Judah and Joseph; Gen.
xxxvii., xxxix. sqq.); the border-line between the rival kingdoms
oscillated, and consequently the political position of the smaller and
half-desert Judaean state depended upon the attitude of its neighbours.
It is possible that tradition is right in supposing that "Judah went
down from his brethren" (Gen. xxxviii. 1; cf. Judg. i. 3). Its monarchy
traced its origin to Hebron in the south, and its growth is contemporary
with a decline in Israel (S 7). It is at least probable that when Israel
was supreme an independent Judah would centre around a more southerly
site than Jerusalem. It is naturally uncertain how far the traditions of
David can be utilized; but they illustrate Judaean situations when they
depict intrigues with Israelite officials, vassalage under Philistia,
and friendly relations with Moab, or when they suggest how enmity
between Israel and Ammon could be turned to useful account. Tradition,
in fact, is concentrated upon the rise of the Judaean dynasty under
David, but there are significant periods before the rise of both Jehoash
and Uzziah upon which the historical records maintain a perplexing
silence.
The Hebrews of Israel and Judah were, political history apart, men of
the same general stamp, with the same cult and custom; for the study of
religion and social usages, therefore, they can be treated as a single
people. The institution of the monarchy was opposed to the simpler
local forms of government, and a military regime had distinct
disadvantages (cf. 1 Sam. viii. 11-18). The king stood at the head, as
the court of final appeal, and upon him and his officers depended the
people's welfare. A more intricate social organization caused internal
weakness, and Eastern history shows with what rapidity peoples who have
become strong by discipline and moderation pass from the height of their
glory into extreme corruption and disintegration.[22] This was Israel's
fate. Opposition to social abuses and enmity towards religious
innovations are regarded as the factors which led to the overthrow of
Omri's dynasty by Jehu, and when Israel seemed to be at the height of
its glory under Jeroboam II. warning voices again made themselves heard.
The two factors are inseparable, for in ancient times no sharp
dividing-line was drawn between religious and civic duties:
righteousness and equity, religious duty and national custom were one.
Elaborate legal enactments codified in Babylonia by the 20th century
B.C. find striking parallels in Hebrew, late Jewish (Talmudic), Syrian
and Mahommedan law, or in the unwritten usages of all ages; for even
where there were neither written laws nor duly instituted lawgivers,
there was no lawlessness, since custom and belief were, and still are,
almost inflexible. Various collections are preserved in the Old
Testament; they are attributed to the time of Moses the lawgiver, who
stands at the beginning of Israelite national and religious history.
But many of the laws were quite unsuitable for the circumstances of
his age, and the belief that a body of intricate and even
contradictory legislation was imposed suddenly upon a people newly
emerged from bondage in Egypt raises insurmountable objections, and
underestimates the fact that legal usage existed in the earliest
stages of society, and therefore in pre-Mosaic times. The more
important question is the date of the laws in their present form and
content. Collections of laws are found in Deuteronomy and in exilic
and post-exilic writings; groups of a relatively earlier type are
preserved in Exod. xxxiv. 14-26, xx. 23-xxiii., and (of another stamp)
in Lev. xvii.-xxvi. (now in post-exilic form). For a useful conspectus
of details, see J. E. Carpenter and G. Harford-Battersby. _The
Hexateuch_ (vol. i., appendix); C. F. Kent, _Israel's Laws and Legal
Enactments_ (1907); and in general I. Benzinger, articles
"Government," "Family" and "Law and Justice," _Ency. Bib._, and G. B.
Gray, "Law Literature," ib. (the literary growth of legislation).
Reference may also be made, for illustrative material, to W. R. Smith,
_Kinship and Marriage_, _Religion of the Semites_; to E. Day, _Social
Life of the Hebrews_; and, for some comparison of customary usage in
the Semitic field, to S. A. Cook, _Laws of Moses and Code of
Hammurabi_.
14. _Religion and the Prophets._--The elements of the thought and
religion of the Hebrews do not sever them from their neighbours; similar
features of cult are met with elsewhere under different names. Hebrew
religious institutions can be understood from the biblical evidence
studied in the light of comparative religion; and without going afield
to Babylonia, Assyria or Egypt, valuable data are furnished by the cults
of Phoenicia, Syria and Arabia, and these in turn can be illustrated
from excavation and from modern custom. Every religion has its customary
cult and ritual, its recognized times, places and persons for the
observance. Worship is simpler at the smaller shrines than at the more
famous temples; and, as the rulers are the patrons of the religion and
are brought into contact with the religious personnel, the character of
the social organization leaves its mark upon those who hold religious
and judicial functions alike. The Hebrews shared the paradoxes of
Orientals, and religious enthusiasm and ecstasy were prominent features.
Seers and prophets of all kinds ranged from those who were consulted for
daily mundane affairs to those who revealed the oracles in times of
stress, from those who haunted local holy sites to those high in royal
favour, from the quiet domestic communities to the austere mountain
recluse. Among these were to be found the most sordid opportunism and
the most heroic self-effacement, the crassest supernaturalism and--the
loftiest conceptions of practical morality. A development of ideals and
a growth of spirituality can be traced which render the biblical
writings with their series of prophecies a unique phenomenon.[23] The
prophets taught that the national existence of the people was bound up
with religious and social conditions; they were in a sense the
politicians of the age, and to regard them simply as foretellers of the
future is to limit their sphere unduly. They took a keen interest in all
the political vicissitudes of the Oriental world. Men of all standards
of integrity, they were exposed to external influences, but whether
divided among themselves in their adherence to conflicting parties, or
isolated in their fierce denunciation of contemporary abuses, they
shared alike in the worship of Yahweh whose inspiration they claimed. A
recollection of the manifold forms which religious life and thought have
taken in Christendom or in Islam, and the passions which are so easily
engendered among opposing sects, will prevent a one-sided estimate of
the religious standpoints which the writings betray; and to the
recognition that they represent lofty ideals it must be added that the
great prophets, like all great thinkers, were in advance of their age.
The prophets are thoroughly Oriental figures, and the interpretation of
their profound religious experiences requires a particular sympathy
which is not inherent in Western minds. Their writings are to be
understood in the light of their age and of the conditions which gave
birth to them. With few exceptions they are preserved in fragmentary
form, with additions and adjustments which were necessary in order to
make them applicable to later conditions. When, as often, the great
figures have been made the spokesmen of the thought of subsequent
generations, the historical criticism of the prophecies becomes one of
peculiar difficulty.[24] According to the historical traditions it is
precisely in the age of Jeroboam II. and Uzziah that the first of the
extant prophecies begin (see AMOS and HOSEA). Here it is enough to
observe that the highly advanced doctrines of the distinctive character
of Yahweh, as ascribed to the 8th century B.C., presuppose a foundation
and development. But the evidence does not allow us to trace the earlier
progress of the ideas. Yahwism presents itself under a variety of
aspects, and the history of Israel's relations to the God Yahweh (whose
name is not necessarily of Israelite origin) can hardly be disentangled
amid the complicated threads of the earlier history. The view that the
seeds of Yahwism were planted in the young Israelite nation in the days
of the "exodus" conflicts with the belief that the worship of Yahweh
began in the pre-Mosaic age. Nevertheless, it implies that religion
passed into a new stage through the influence of Moses, and to this we
find a relatively less complete analogy in the specific north Israelite
traditions of the age of Jehu. The change from the dynasty of Omri to
that of Jehu has been treated by several hands, and the writers, in
their recognition of the introduction of a new tendency, have obscured
the fact that the cult of Yahweh had flourished even under such a king
as Ahab. While the influence of the great prophets Elijah and Elisha is
clearly visible, it is instructive to find that the south, too, has its
share in the inauguration of the new era. At Horeb, the mount of God,
was located the dramatic theophany which heralded to Elijah the advent
of the sword, and Jehu's supporter in his sanguinary measures belongs to
the Rechabites, a sect which felt itself to be the true worshipping
community of Yahweh and is closely associated with the Kenites, the kin
of Moses. It was at the holy well of Kadesh, in the sacred mounts of
Sinai and Horeb, and in the field of Edom that the Yahweh of Moses was
found, and scattered traces survive of a definite belief in the entrance
into Palestine of a movement uncompromisingly devoted to the purer
worship of Yahweh. The course of the dynasty of Jehu--the reforms, the
disastrous Aramaean wars, and, at length, Yahweh's "arrow of
victory"--constituted an epoch in the Israelite history, and it is
regarded as such.[25]
The problem of the history of Yahwism depends essentially upon the
view adopted as to the date and origin of the biblical details and
their validity for the various historical and religious conditions
they presuppose. Yahwism is a religion which appears upon a soil
saturated with ideas and usages which find their parallel in
extra-biblical sources and in neighbouring lands. The problem cannot
be approached from modern preconceptions because there was much
associated with the worship of Yahweh which only gradually came to be
recognized as repugnant, and there was much in earlier ages and in
other lands which reflects an elevated and even complex religious
philosophy. In the south of the Sinaitic peninsula, remains have been
found of an elaborate half-Egyptian, half-Semitic cultus (Petrie,
_Researches in Sinai_, xiii.), and not only does Edom possess some
reputation for "wisdom," but, where this district is concerned, the
old Arabian religion (whose historical connexion with Palestine is
still imperfectly known) claims some attention. The characteristic
denunciations of corruption and lifeless ritual in the writings of the
prophets and the emphasis which is laid upon purity and simplicity of
religious life are suggestive of the influence of the nomadic spirit
rather than of an internal evolution on Palestinian soil. Desert
pastoral life does not necessarily imply any intellectual inferiority,
and its religious conceptions, though susceptible of modification, are
not artificially moulded through the influence of other civilizations.
Nomadic life is recognized by Arabian writers themselves as possessing
a relative superiority, and its characteristic purity of manner and
its reaction against corruption and luxury are not incompatible with a
warlike spirit. If nomadism may be recognized as one of the factors in
the growth of Yahwism, there is something to be said for the
hypothesis which associates it with the clans connected with the
Levites (see E. Meyer, _Israeliten_, pp. 82 sqq.; B. Luther, ib. 138).
It is, however, obvious that the influence due to immigrants could be,
and doubtless was, exerted at more than one period (see SS 18, 20;
also HEBREW RELIGION; PRIEST).
15. _The Fall of the Israelite Monarchy._--The prosperity of Israel was
its undoing. The disorders that hastened its end find an analogy in the
events of the more obscure period after the death of the earlier
Jeroboam. Only the briefest details are given. Zechariah was slain after
six months by Shallum ben Jabesh in Ibleam; but the usurper fell a month
later to Menahem (q.v.), who only after much bloodshed established his
position. Assyria again appeared upon the scene under Tiglath-pileser
IV. (745-728 B.C.).[26] His approach was the signal for the formation of
a coalition, which was overthrown in 738. Among those who paid tribute
were Rasun (the biblical Rezin) of Damascus, Menahem of Samaria, the
kings of Tyre, Byblos and Hamath and the queen of Aribi (Arabia, the
Syrian desert). Israel was once more in league with Damascus and
Phoenicia, and the biblical records must be read in the light of
political history. Judah was probably holding aloof. Its king, Uzziah,
was a leper in his latter days, and his son and regent, Jotham, claims
notice for the circumstantial reference (2 Chron. xxvii.; cf. xxvi. 8)
to his subjugation of Ammon--the natural allies of Damascus--for three
years. Scarcely had Assyria withdrawn before Menahem lost his life in a
conspiracy, and Pekah with the help of Gilead made himself king. The new
movement was evidently anti-Assyrian, and strenuous endeavours were made
to present a united front. It is suggestive to find Judah the centre of
attack.[27] Rasun and Pekah directed their blows from the north,
Philistia threatened the west flank, and the Edomites who drove out the
Judaeans from Elath (on the Gulf of 'Akaba) were no doubt only taking
their part in the concerted action. A more critical situation could
scarcely be imagined. The throne of David was then occupied by the young
Ahaz, Jotham's son. In this crisis we meet with Isaiah (q.v.), one of
the finest of Hebrew prophets. The disorganized state of Egypt and the
uncertain allegiance of the desert tribes left Judah without direct aid;
on the other hand, opposition to Assyria among the conflicting interests
of Palestine and Syria was rarely unanimous. Either in the natural
course of events--to preserve the unity of his empire--or influenced by
the rich presents of gold and silver with which Ahaz accompanied his
appeal for help, Tiglath-pileser intervened with campaigns against
Philistia (734 B.C.) and Damascus (733-732). Israel was punished by the
ravaging of the northern districts, and the king claims to have carried
away the people of "the house of Omri." Pekah was slain and one Hoshea
(q.v.) was recognized as his successor. Assyrian officers were placed in
the land and Judah thus gained its deliverance at the expense of Israel.
But the proud Israelites did not remain submissive for long; Damascus
had indeed fallen, but neither Philistia nor Edom had yet been crushed.
At this stage a new problem becomes urgent. A number of petty peoples,
of whom little definite is known, fringed Palestine from the south of
Judah and the Delta to the Syrian desert. They belong to an area which
merges itself in the west into Egypt, and Egypt in fact had a hereditary
claim upon it. Continued intercourse between Egypt, Gaza and north
Arabia is natural in view of the trade-routes which connected them, and
on several occasions joint action on the part of Edomites (with allied
tribes) and the Philistines is recorded, or may be inferred. The part
played by Egypt proper in the ensuing anti-Assyrian combinations is not
clearly known; with a number of petty dynasts fomenting discontent and
revolt, there was an absence of cohesion in that ancient empire previous
to the rise of the Ethiopian dynasty. Consequently the references to
"Egypt" (Heb. _Misrayim_, Ass. _Musri_) sometimes suggest that the
geographical term was really extended beyond the bounds of Egypt proper
towards those districts where Egyptian influence or domination was or
had been recognized (see further MIZRAIM).
When Israel began to recover its prosperity and regained confidence, its
policy halted between obedience to Assyria and reliance upon this
ambiguous "Egypt." The situation is illustrated in the writings of Hosea
(q.v.). When at length Tiglath-pileser died, in 727, the slumbering
revolt became general; Israel refused the usual tribute to its overlord,
and definitely threw in its lot with "Egypt." In due course Samaria was
besieged for three years by Shalmaneser IV. The alliance with So (Seveh,
Sibi) of "Egypt," upon whom hopes had been placed, proved futile, and
the forebodings of keen-sighted prophets were justified. Although no
evidence is at hand, it is probable that Ahaz of Judah rendered service
to Assyria by keeping the allies in check; possible, also, that the
former enemies of Jerusalem had now been induced to turn against
Samaria. The actual capture of the Israelite capital is claimed by
Sargon (722), who removed 27,290 of its inhabitants and fifty chariots.
Other peoples were introduced, officers were placed in charge, and the
usual tribute re-imposed. Another revolt was planned in 720 in which the
province of Samaria joined with Hamath and Damascus, with the Phoenician
Arpad and Simura, and with Gaza and "Egypt." Two battles, one at Karkar
in the north, another at Rapih (Raphia) on the border of Egypt, sufficed
to quell the disturbance. The desert peoples who paid tribute on this
occasion still continued restless, and in 715 Sargon removed men of
Tamud, Ibadid, Marsiman, Hayapa, "the remote Arabs of the desert," and
placed them in the land of Beth-Omri. Sargon's statement is significant
for the internal history; but unfortunately the biblical historians take
no further interest in the fortunes of the northern kingdom after the
fall of Samaria, and see in Judah the sole survivor of the Israelite
tribes (see 2 Kings xvii. 7-23). Yet the situation in this neglected
district must continue to provoke inquiry.
16. _Judah and Assyria._--Amid these changes Judah was intimately
connected with the south Palestinian peoples (see further PHILISTINES).
Ahaz had recognized the sovereignty of Assyria and visited
Tiglath-pileser at Damascus. The Temple records describe the innovations
he introduced on his return. Under his son Hezekiah there were fresh
disturbances in the southern states, and anti-Assyrian intrigues began
to take a more definite shape among the Philistine cities. Ashdod openly
revolted and found support in Moab, Edom, Judah, and the still ambiguous
"Egypt." This step may possibly be connected with the attempt of Marduk
(Merodach)-baladan in south Babylonia to form a league against Assyria
(cf. 2 Kings xx. 12); at all events Ashdod fell after a three years'
siege (711) and for a time there was peace. But with the death of Sargon
in 705 there was another great outburst; practically the whole of
Palestine and Syria was in arms, and the integrity of Sennacherib's
empire was threatened. In both Judah and Philistia the anti-Assyrian
party was not without opposition, and those who adhered or favoured
adherence to the great power were justified by the result. The
inevitable lack of cohesion among the petty states weakened the national
cause. At Sennacherib's approach, Ashdod, Ammon, Moab and Edom
submitted; Ekron, Ascalon, Lachish and Jerusalem held out strenuously.
The southern allies (with "Egypt") were defeated at Eltekeh (Josh. xix.
44). Hezekiah was besieged and compelled to submit (701). The small
kings who had remained faithful were rewarded by an extension of their
territories, and Ashdod, Ekron and Gaza were enriched at Judah's
expense. These events are related in Sennacherib's inscription; the
biblical records preserve their own traditions (see HEZEKIAH). If the
impression left upon current thought can be estimated from certain of
the utterances of the court-prophet Isaiah and the Judaean countryman
Micah (q.v.), the light which these throw upon internal conditions must
also be used to gauge the real extent of the religious changes ascribed
to Hezekiah. A brazen serpent, whose institution was attributed to
Moses, had not hitherto been considered out of place in the cult; its
destruction was perhaps the king's most notable reform.
In the long reign of his son Manasseh later writers saw the deathblow to
the Judaean kingdom. Much is related of his wickedness and enmity to the
followers of Yahweh, but few political details have come down. It is
uncertain whether Sennacherib invaded Judah again shortly before his
death, nevertheless the land was practically under the control of
Assyria. Both Esar-haddon (681-668) and Assur-bani-pal (668-c. 626)
number among their tributaries Tyre, Ammon, Moab, Edom, Ascalon, Gaza
and Manasseh himself,[28] and cuneiform dockets unearthed at Gezer
suggest the presence of Assyrian garrisons there (and no doubt also
elsewhere) to ensure allegiance. The situation was conducive to the
spread of foreign customs, and the condemnation passed upon Manasseh
thus perhaps becomes more significant. Precisely what form his worship
took is a matter of conjecture; but it is possible that the religion
must not be judged too strictly from the standpoint of the late
compiler, and that Manasseh merely assimilated the older Yahweh-worship
to new Assyrian forms.[29] Politics and religion, however, were
inseparable, and the supremacy of Assyria meant the supremacy of the
Assyrian pantheon.
If Judah was compelled to take part in the Assyrian campaigns against
Egypt, Arabia (the Syrian desert) and Tyre, this would only be in
accordance with a vassal's duty. But when tradition preserves some
recollection of an offence for which Manasseh was taken to Babylon to
explain his conduct (2 Chron. xxxiii.), also of the settling of foreign
colonists in Samaria by Esar-haddon (Ezra iv. 2), there is just a
possibility that Judah made some attempt to gain independence. According
to Assur-bani-pal all the western lands were inflamed by the revolt of
his brother Samas-sum-ukin. What part Judah took in the Transjordanic
disturbances, in which Moab fought invading Arabian tribes on behalf of
Assyria, is unknown (see MOAB). Manasseh's son Amon fell in a court
intrigue and "the people of the land," after avenging the murder, set up
in his place the infant Josiah (637). The circumstances imply a regency,
but the records are silent upon the outlook. The assumption that the
decay of Assyria awoke the national feeling of independence is perhaps
justified by those events which made the greatest impression upon the
compiler, and an account is given of Josiah's religious reforms, based
upon a source apparently identical with that which described the work of
Jehoash. In an age when the oppression and corruption of the ruling
classes had been such that those who cherished the old worship of Yahweh
dared not confide in their most intimate companions (Mic. vii. 5, 6), no
social reform was possible; but now the young Josiah, the popular
choice, was upon the throne. A roll, it is said, was found in the
Temple, its contents struck terror into the hearts of the priests and
king, and it led to a solemn covenant before Yahweh to observe the
provisions of the law-book which had been so opportunely recovered.
That the writer (2 Kings xxii. seq.) meant to describe the discovery
of Deuteronomy is evident from the events which followed; and this
identification of the roll, already made by Jerome, Chrysostom and
others, has been substantiated by modern literary criticism since De
Wette (1805). (See DEUTERONOMY; JOSIAH.) Some very interesting
parallels have been cited from Egyptian and Assyrian records where
religious texts, said to have been found in temples, or oracles from
the distant past, have come to light at the very time when "the days
were full."[30] There is, however, no real proof for the traditional
antiquity of Deuteronomy. The book forms a very distinctive landmark
in the religious history by reason of its attitude to cult and ritual
(see HEBREW RELIGION, S 7). In particular it is aimed against the
worship at the numerous minor sanctuaries and inculcates the sole
pre-eminence of the one great sanctuary--the Temple of Jerusalem. This
centralization involved the removal of the local priests and a
modification of ritual and legal observance. The fall of Samaria,
Sennacherib's devastation of Judah, and the growth of Jerusalem as the
capital, had tended to raise the position of the Temple, although
Israel itself, as also Judah, had famous sanctuaries of its own. From
the standpoint of the popular religion, the removal of the local
altars, like Hezekiah's destruction of the brazen serpent, would be an
act of desecration, an iconoclasm which can be partly appreciated from
the sentiments of 2 Kings xviii. 22, and partly also from the modern
Wahhabite reformation (of the 19th century). But the details and
success of the reforms, when viewed in the light of the testimony of
contemporary prophets, are uncertain. The book of Deuteronomy
crystallizes a doctrine; it is the codification of teaching which
presupposes a carefully prepared soil. The account of Josiah's work,
like that of Hezekiah, is written by one of the Deuteronomic school:
that is to say, the writer describes the promulgation of the teaching
under which he lives. It is part of the scheme which runs through the
book of Kings, and its apparent object is to show that the Temple
planned by David and founded by Solomon ultimately gained its true
position as the only sanctuary of Yahweh to which his worshippers
should repair. Accordingly, in handling Josiah's successors the writer
no longer refers to the high places. But if Josiah carried out the
reforms ascribed to him they were of no lasting effect. This is
conclusively shown by the writings of Jeremiah (xxv. 3-7, xxxvi. 2
seq.) and Ezekiel. Josiah himself is praised for his justice, but
faithless Judah is insincere (Jer. iii. 10), and those who claim to
possess Yahweh's law are denounced (viii. 8). If Israel could appear
to be better than Judah (iii. 11; Ezek. xvi., xxiii.), the religious
revival was a practical failure, and it was not until a century later
that the opportunity again came to put any new teaching into effect (S
20). On the other hand, the book of Deuteronomy has a characteristic
social-religious side; its humanity, philanthropy and charity are the
distinctive features of its laws, and Josiah's reputation (Jer. xxii.
15 seq.) and the circumstances in which he was chosen king may suggest
that he, like Jehoash (2 Kings xi. 17; cf. xxiii. 3), had entered into
a reciprocal covenant with a people who, as Micah's writings would
indicate, had suffered grievous oppression and misery.[31]
17. _The Fall of the Judaean Monarchy._--In Josiah's reign a new era was
beginning in the history of the world. Assyria was rapidly decaying and
Egypt had recovered from the blows of Assur-bani-pal (to which the
Hebrew prophet Nahum alludes, iii. 8-10). Psammetichus (Psamtek) I., one
of the ablest of Egyptian rulers for many centuries, threw off the
Assyrian yoke with the help of troops from Asia Minor and employed
these to guard his eastern frontiers at Defneh. He also revived the old
trading-connexions between Egypt and Phoenicia. A Chaldean prince,
Nabopolassar, set himself up in Babylonia, and Assyria was compelled to
invoke the aid of the Askuza. It was perhaps after this that an inroad
of Scythians (q.v.) occurred (c. 626 B.C.); if it did not actually touch
Judah, the advent of the people of the north appears to have caused
great alarm (Jer. iv.-vi.: Zephaniah). Bethshean in Samaria has perhaps
preserved in its later (though temporary) name Scythopolis an echo of
the invasion.[32] Later, Necho, son of Psammetichus, proposed to add to
Egypt some of the Assyrian provinces, and marched through Palestine.
Josiah at once interposed; it is uncertain whether, in spite of the
power of Egypt, he had hopes of extending his kingdom, or whether the
famous reformer was, like Manasseh, a vassal of Assyria. The book of
Kings gives the standpoint of a later Judaean writer, but Josiah's
authority over a much larger area than Judah alone is suggested by
xxiii. 19 (part of an addition), and by the references to the border at
Riblah in Ezek. vi. 14, xi. 10 seq. He was slain at Megiddo in 608, and
Egypt, as in the long-distant past, again held Palestine and Syria. The
Judaeans made Jehoahaz (or Shallum) their king, but the Pharaoh banished
him to Egypt three months later and appointed his brother Jehoiakim.
Shortly afterwards Nineveh fell, and with it the empire which had
dominated the fortunes of Palestine for over two centuries (see S 10).
Nabonidus (Nabunaid) king of Babylonia (556 B.C.) saw in the disaster
the vengeance of the gods for the sacrilege of Sennacherib; the Hebrew
prophets, for their part, exulted over Yahweh's far-reaching judgment.
The newly formed Chaldean power at once recognized in Necho a dangerous
rival and Nabopolassar sent his son Nebuchadrezzar, who overthrew the
Egyptian forces at Carchemish (605). The battle was the turning-point of
the age, and with it the succession of the new Chaldean or Babylonian
kingdom was assured. But the relations between Egypt and Judah were not
broken off. The course of events is not clear, but Jehoiakim (q.v.) at
all events was inclined to rely upon Egypt. He died just as
Nebuchadrezzar, seeing his warnings disregarded, was preparing to lay
siege to Jerusalem. His young son Jehoiachin surrendered after a three
months' reign, with his mother and the court; they were taken away to
Babylonia, together with a number of the artisan class (596).
Jehoiakim's brother, Mattaniah or Zedekiah, was set in his place under
an oath of allegiance, which he broke, preferring Hophra the new king of
Egypt. A few years later the second siege took place. It began on the
tenth day of the tenth month, January 587. The looked-for intervention
of Egypt was unavailing, although a temporary raising of the siege
inspired wild hopes. Desertion, pestilence and famine added to the usual
horrors of a siege, and at length on the ninth day of the fourth month
586, a breach was made in the walls. Zedekiah fled towards the Jordan
valley but was seized and taken to Nebuchadrezzar at Riblah (45 m. south
of Hamath). His sons were slain before his eyes, and he himself was
blinded and carried off to Babylon after a reign of eleven years. The
Babylonian Nebuzaradan was sent to take vengeance upon the rebellious
city, and on the seventh day of the fifth month 586 B.C. Jerusalem was
destroyed. The Temple, palace and city buildings were burned, the walls
broken down, the chief priest Seraiah, the second priest Zephaniah, and
other leaders were put to death, and a large body of people was again
carried away. The disaster became the great epoch-making event for
Jewish history and literature.
Throughout these stormy years the prophet Jeremiah (q.v.) had realized
that Judah's only hope lay in submission to Babylonia. Stigmatized as a
traitor, scorned and even imprisoned, he had not ceased to utter his
warnings to deaf ears, although Zedekiah himself was perhaps open to
persuasion. Now the penalty had been paid, and the Babylonians, whose
policy was less destructive than that of Assyria, contented themselves
with appointing as governor a certain Gedaliah. The new centre was
Mizpah, a commanding eminence and sanctuary, about 5 m. N.W. of
Jerusalem; and here Gedaliah issued an appeal to the people to be loyal
to Babylonia and to resume their former peaceful occupations. The land
had not been devastated, and many gladly returned from their
hiding-places in Moab, Edom and Ammon. But discontented survivors of the
royal family under Ishmael intrigued with Baalis, king of Ammon. The
plot resulted in the murder of Gedaliah and an unsuccessful attempt to
carry off various princesses and officials who had been left in the
governor's care. This new confusion and a natural fear of Babylonia's
vengeance led many to feel that their only safety lay in flight to
Egypt, and, although warned by Jeremiah that even there the sword would
find them, they fled south and took refuge in Tahpanhes (Daphnae, q.v.),
afterwards forming small settlements in other parts of Egypt. But the
thread of the history is broken, and apart from an allusion to the
favour shown to the captive Jehoiachin (with which the books of Jeremiah
and Kings conclude), there is a gap in the records, and subsequent
events are viewed from a new standpoint (S 20).
The last few years of the Judaean kingdom present several difficult
problems.
(a) That there was some fluctuation of tradition is evident in the
case of Jehoiakim, with whose quiet end (2 Kings xxiv. 6 [see also
Lucian]; 2 Chron. xxxvi. 8 [Septuagint]) contrast the fate
foreshadowed in Jer. xxii. 18 seq., xxxvi. 30 (cf. Jos. _Ant._ x. 6, 2
seq.). The tradition of his captivity (2 Chron. xxxvi. 6; Dan. i. 2)
has apparently confused him with Jehoiachin, and the latter's reign is
so brief that some overlapping is conceivable. Moreover, the prophecy
in Jer. xxxiv. 5 that Zedekiah would die in peace is not borne out by
the history, nor does Josiah's fate agree with the promise in 2 Kings
xxii. 20. There is also an evident relation between the pairs:
Jehoahaz and Jehoiakim, Jehoiachin and Zedekiah (e.g. length of
reigns), and the difficulty felt in regard to the second and third is
obvious in the attempts of the Jewish historian Josephus to provide a
compromise. The contemporary prophecies ascribed to Jeremiah and
Ezekiel require careful examination in this connexion, partly as
regards their traditional background (especially the headings and
setting), and partly for their contents, the details of which
sometimes do not admit of a literal interpretation in accordance with
our present historical material (cf. Ezek. xix. 3-9, where the two
brothers carried off to Egypt and Babylon respectively would seem to
be Jehoahaz and his nephew Jehoiachin).
(b) Some fluctuation is obvious in the number, dates and extent of the
deportations. Jer. lii. 28-30 gives a total of 4600 persons, in
contrast to 2 Kings xxiv. 14, 16 (the numbers are not inclusive), and
reckons three deportations in the 7th (? 17th), 18th and 23rd years of
Nebuchadrezzar. Only the second is specifically said to be from
Jerusalem (the remaining are of Judaeans), and the last has been
plausibly connected with the murder of Gedaliah, an interval of five
years being assumed. For this twenty-third year Josephus (_Ant._ x. 9,
7) gives an invasion of Egypt and an attack upon Ammon, Moab and
Palestine (see NEBUCHADREZZAR).
(c) That the exile lasted seventy years (? from 586 B.C. to the
completion of the second temple) is the view of the canonical history
(2 Chron. xxxvi. 21; Jer. xxv. 11, xxix. 10; Zech. i. 12; cf. Tyre,
Isa. xxiii. 15), but it is usually reckoned from the first
deportation, which was looked upon as of greater significance than the
second (Jer. xxiv. xxix.), and it may be a round number. Another
difficulty is the interpretation of the 40 years in Ezek. iv. 6 (cf.
Egypt, xxix. 11), and the 390 in _v._ 5 (Septuagint 150 or 190; 130 in
Jos. x. 9, 7 end). A period of fifty years is allowed by the
chronological scheme (1 Kings vi. 1; cf. Jos. c. _Ap._ i. 21), and the
late book of Baruch (vi. 3) even speaks of seven generations. Varying
chronological schemes may have been current and some weight must be
laid upon the remarkable vagueness of the historical information in
later writings (see DANIEL).
(d) The attitude of the neighbouring peoples constitutes another
serious problem (cf. 2 Kings xxiv. 2 and 2 Chron. xxxvi. 5, where
Lucian's recension and the Septuagint respectively add the
Samaritans!), in view of the circumstances of Gedaliah's appointment
(Jer. xl. 11, see above) as contrasted with the frequent prophecies
against Ammon, Moab and Edom which seem to be contemporary (see EDOM;
MOAB).
(e) Finally, the recurrence of similar historical situations in
Judaean history must be considered. The period under review, with its
relations between Judah and Egypt, can be illustrated by prophecies
ascribed to a similar situation in the time of Hezekiah. But the
destruction of Jerusalem is not quite unique, and somewhat later we
meet with indirect evidence for at least one similar disaster upon
which the records are silent. There are a number of apparently related
passages which, however, on internal grounds, are unsuitable to the
present period, and when they show independent signs of a later date
(in their present form), there is a very strong probability that they
refer to such subsequent disasters. The scantiness of historical
tradition makes a final solution impossible, but the study of these
years has an important bearing on the history of the later Judaean
state, which has been characteristically treated from the standpoint
of exiles who returned from Babylonia and regard themselves as the
kernel of "Israel." From this point of view, the desire to intensify
the denudation of Palestine and the fate of its remnant, and to look
to the Babylonian exiles for the future, can probably be recognized in
the writings attributed to contemporary prophets.[33]
18. _Internal Conditions and the Exile._--Many of the exiles accepted
their lot and settled down in Babylonia (cf. Jer. xxix. 4-7); Jewish
colonies, too, were being founded in Egypt. The agriculturists and
herdsmen who had been left in Palestine formed, as always, the staple
population, and it is impossible to imagine either Judah or Israel as
denuded of its inhabitants. The down-trodden peasants were left in peace
to divide the land among them, and new conditions arose as they took
over the ownerless estates. But the old continuity was not entirely
broken; there was a return to earlier conditions, and life moved more
freely in its wonted channels. The fall of the monarchy involved a
reversion to a pre-monarchical state. It had scarcely been otherwise in
Israel. The Israelites who had been carried off by the Assyrians were
also removed from the cult of the land (cf. 1 Sam. xxvi. 19; Ruth i. 15
seq.). It is possible that some had escaped by taking timely refuge
among their brethren in Judah; indeed, if national tradition availed,
there were doubtless times when Judah cast its eye upon the land with
which it had been so intimately connected. It would certainly be unwise
to draw a sharp boundary line between the two districts; kings of Judah
could be tempted to restore the kingdom of their traditional founder, or
Assyria might be complaisant towards a faithful Judaean vassal. The
character of the Assyrian domination over Israel must not be
misunderstood; the regular payment of tribute and the provision of
troops were the main requirements, and the position of the masses
underwent little change if an Assyrian governor took the place of an
unpopular native ruler. The two sections of the Hebrews who had had so
much in common were scarcely severed by a border-line only a few miles
to the north of Jerusalem. But Israel after the fall of Samaria is
artificially excluded from the Judaean horizon, and lies as a foreign
land, although Judah itself had suffered from the intrusion of
foreigners in the preceding centuries of war and turmoil, and strangers
had settled in her midst, had formed part of the royal guard, or had
even served as janissaries (S 15, end).
Samaria had experienced several changes in its original population,[34]
and an instructive story tells how the colonists, in their ignorance of
the religion of their new home, incurred the divine wrath. _Cujus regio
ejus religio_--settlement upon a new soil involved dependence upon its
god, and accordingly priests were sent to instruct the Samaritans in the
fear of Yahweh. Thenceforth they continued the worship of the Israelite
Yahweh along with their own native cults (2 Kings xvii. 24-28, 33).
Their descendants claimed participation in the privileges of the
Judaeans (cf. Jer. xli. 5), and must have identified themselves with the
old stock (Ezra iv. 2). Whatever recollection they preserved of their
origin and of the circumstances of their entry would be retold from a
new standpoint; the ethnological traditions would gain a new meaning;
the assimilation would in time become complete. In view of subsequent
events it would be difficult to find a more interesting subject of
inquiry than the internal religious and sociological conditions in
Samaria at this age.
To the prophets the religious position was lower in Judah than in
Samaria, whose iniquities were less grievous (Jer. iii. 11 seq., xxiii.
11 sqq.; Ezek. xvi. 51). The greater prevalence of heathen elements in
Jerusalem, as detailed in the reforms of Josiah or in the writings of
the prophets (cf. Ezek. viii.), would at least suggest that the
destruction of the state was not entirely a disaster. To this
catastrophe may be due the fragmentary character of old Judaean
historical traditions. Moreover, the land was purified when it became
divorced from the practices of a luxurious court and lost many of its
worst inhabitants. In Israel as in Judah the political disasters not
only meant a shifting of population, they also brought into prominence
the old popular and non-official religion, the character of which is not
to be condemned because of the attitude of lofty prophets in advance of
their age. When there were sects like the Rechabites (Jer. xxxv.), when
the Judaean fields could produce a Micah or a Zephaniah, and when Israel
no doubt had men who inherited the spirit of a Hosea, the nature of the
underlying conditions can be more justly appreciated. The writings of
the prophets were cherished, not only in the unfavourable atmosphere of
courts (see Jer. xxxvi., 21 sqq.), but also in the circles of their
followers (Isa. viii. 16). In the quiet smaller sanctuaries the old-time
beliefs were maintained, and the priests, often perhaps of the older
native stock (cf. 2 Kings xvii. 28 and above), were the recognized
guardians of the religious cults. The old stories of earlier days
encircle places which, though denounced for their corruption, were not
regarded as illegitimate, and in the form in which the dim traditions of
the past are now preserved they reveal an attempt to purify popular
belief and thought. In the domestic circles of prophetic communities the
part played by their great heads in history did not suffer in the
telling, and it is probable that some part at least of the extant
history of the Israelite kingdom passed through the hands of men whose
interest lay in the pre-eminence of their seers and their beneficent
deeds on behalf of these small communities. This interest and the
popular tone of the history may be combined with the fact that the
literature does not take us into the midst of that world of activity in
which the events unfolded themselves.
Although the records preserve complete silence upon the period now
under review, it is necessary to free oneself from the narrow outlook
of the later Judaean compilers. It is a gratuitous assumption that the
history of (north) Israel ceased with the fall of Samaria or that
Judah then took over Israelite literature and inherited the old
Israelite spirit: the question of the preservation of earlier writings
is of historical importance. It is true that the situation in Israel
or Samaria continues obscure, but a careful study of literary
productions, evidently not earlier than the 7th century B.C., reveals
a particular loftiness of conception and a tendency which finds its
parallels in Hosea and approximates the peculiar characteristics of
the Deuteronomic school of thought. But the history which the Judaean
writers have handed down is influenced by the later hostility between
Judah and Samaria. The traditional bond between the north and south
which nothing could efface (cf. Jos. _Ant._, xi. 8, 6) has been
carried back to the earliest ages; yet the present period, after the
age of rival kingdoms, Judah and Israel, and before the foundation of
Judaism, is that in which the historical background for the inclusion
of Judah among the "sons" of Israel is equally suitable (SS 5, 20,
end). The circumstances favoured a closer alliance between the people
of Palestine, and a greater prominence of the old holy places (Hebron,
Bethel, Shechem, &c.), of which the ruined Jerusalem would not be one,
and the existing condition of Judah and Israel from internal and
non-political points of view--not their condition in the
pre-monarchical ages--is the more crucial problem in biblical
history.[35]
19. _Persian Period._[36]--The course of events from the middle of the
6th century B.C. to the close of the Persian period is lamentably
obscure, although much indirect evidence indicates that this age holds
the key to the growth of written biblical history. It was an age of
literary activity which manifested itself, not in contemporary
historical records--only a few of which have survived--but rather in the
special treatment of previously existing sources. The problems are of
unusual intricacy and additional light is needed from external
evidence. It will be convenient to turn to this first. Scarcely 40 years
after the destruction of Jerusalem, a new power appeared in the east in
the person of Cyrus the Great. Babylon speedily fell (539 B.C.) and a
fresh era opened. To the petty states this meant only a change of
masters; they now became part of one of the largest empires of
antiquity. The prophets who had marked in the past the advent of
Assyrians and Chaldeans now fixed their eyes upon the advance of Cyrus,
confident that the fall of Babylon would bring the restoration of their
fortunes. Cyrus was hailed as the divinely appointed saviour, the
anointed one of Yahweh. The poetic imagery in which the prophets clothed
the doom of Babylon, like the romantic account of Herodotus (i. 191),
falls short of the simple contemporary account of Cyrus himself. He did
not fulfil the detailed predictions, and the events did not reach the
ideals of Hebrew writers; but these anticipations may have influenced
the form which the Jewish traditions subsequently took. Nevertheless, if
Cyrus was not originally a Persian and was not a worshipper of Yahweh
(Isa. xli. 25), he was at least tolerant towards subject races and their
religions, and the persistent traditions unmistakably point to the
honour in which his memory was held. Throughout the Persian supremacy
Palestine was necessarily influenced by the course of events in
Phoenicia and Egypt (with which intercourse was continual), and some
light may thus be indirectly thrown on its otherwise obscure political
history. Thus, when Cambyses, the son of Cyrus, made his great
expedition against Egypt, with the fleets of Phoenicia and Cyprus and
with the camels of the Arabians, it is highly probable that Palestine
itself was concerned. Also, the revolt which broke out in the Persian
provinces at this juncture may have extended to Palestine; although the
usurper Darius encountered his most serious opposition in the north and
north-east of his empire. An outburst of Jewish religious feeling is
dated in the second year of Darius (520), but whether Judah was making a
bold bid for independence or had received special favour for abstaining
from the above revolts, external evidence alone can decide. Towards the
close of the reign of Darius there was a fresh revolt in Egypt; it was
quelled by Xerxes (485-465), who did not imitate the religious tolerance
of his predecessors. Artaxerxes I. Longimanus (465-425), attracts
attention because the famous Jewish reformers Ezra and Nehemiah
flourished under a king of this name. Other revolts occurred in Egypt,
and for these and also for the rebellion of the Persian satrap Megabyzos
(c. 448-447), independent evidence for the position of Judah is needed,
since a catastrophe apparently befell the unfortunate state before
Nehemiah appears upon the scene. Little is known of the mild and
indolent Artaxerxes II. Mnemon (404-359). With the growing weakness of
the Persian empire Egypt reasserted its independence for a time. In the
reign of Artaxerxes III. Ochus (359-338), Egypt, Phoenicia and Cyprus
were in revolt; the rising was quelled without mercy, and the details of
the vengeance are valuable for the possible fate of Palestine itself.
The Jewish historian Josephus (_Ant._ xi. 7) records the enslavement of
the Jews, the pollution of the Temple by a certain Bagoses (see BAGOAS),
and a seven years' punishment. Other late sources narrate the
destruction of Jericho and a deportation of the Jews to Babylonia and to
Hyrcania (on the Caspian Sea). The evidence for the catastrophes under
Artaxerxes I. and III. (see ARTAXERXES), exclusively contained in
biblical and in external tradition respectively, is of particular
importance, since several biblical passages refer to disasters similar
to those of 586 but presuppose different conditions and are apparently
of later origin.[37] The murder of Artaxerxes III. by Bagoses gave a
set-back to the revival of the Persian Empire. Under Darius Codomannus
(336-330) the advancing Greek power brought matters to a head, and at
the battle of Issus in 333 Alexander settled its fate. The overthrow of
Tyre and Gaza secured the possession of the coast and the Jewish state
entered upon the Greek period. (See S 25.)
During these two centuries the Jews in Palestine had been only one of
an aggregate of subject peoples enjoying internal freedom provided in
return for a regular tribute. They lived in comparative quietude;
although Herodotus knows the Palestinian coast he does not mention the
Jews. The earlier Persian kings acknowledged the various religions of
the petty peoples; they were also patrons of their temples and would
take care to preserve an ancient right of asylum or the privileges of
long-established cults.[38] Cyrus on entering Babylon had even
restored the gods to the cities to which they belonged.[39]
Consequently much interest attaches to the evidence which illustrates
the environment of the Jews during this period. Those who had been
scattered from Palestine lived in small colonies, sometimes mingling
and intermarrying with the natives, sometimes strictly preserving
their own individuality. Some took root in the strange lands, and, as
later popular stories indicate, evidently reached high positions;
others, retaining a more vivid tradition of the land of their fathers,
cherished the ideal of a restored Jerusalem. Excavation at Nippur
(q.v.) in Babylonia has brought to light numerous contract tablets of
the 5th century B.C. with Hebrew proper names (Haggai, Hanani,
Gedaliah, &c.). Papyri from Elephantine in Upper Egypt, of the same
age, proceed from Jewish families who carry on a flourishing business,
live among Egyptians and Persians, and take their oaths in courts of
law in the name of the god "Yahu," the "God of Heaven," whose temple
dated from the last Egyptian kings. Indeed, it was claimed that
Cambyses had left the sanctuary unharmed but had destroyed the temples
of the Egyptians. In Elephantine, as in Nippur, the legal usages show
that similar elements of Babylonio-Assyrian culture prevailed, and the
evidence from two such widely separated fields is instructive for
conditions in Palestine itself.[40]
20. _The Restoration of Judah._--The biblical history for the Persian
period is contained in a new source--the books of Ezra and Nehemiah,
whose standpoint and period are that of Chronicles, with which they are
closely joined. After a brief description of the fall of Jerusalem the
"seventy years" of the exile are passed over, and we are plunged into a
history of the return (2 Chron. xxxvi.; Ezra i.). Although Palestine had
not been depopulated, and many of the exiled Jews remained in Persia,
the standpoint is that of those who returned from Babylon. Settled in
and around Jerusalem, they look upon themselves as the sole community,
the true Israel, even as it was believed that once before Israel entered
and developed independently in the land of its ancestors. They look back
from the age when half-suppressed hostility with Samaria had broken out,
and when an exclusive Judaism had been formed. The interest of the
writers is as usual in the religious history; they were indifferent to,
or perhaps rather ignorant of, the strict order of events. Their
narratives can be partially supplemented from other sources (Haggai;
Zechariah i.-viii.; Isa. xl.-lxvi.; Malachi), but a consecutive sketch
is impossible.[41]
In 561 B.C. the captive Judaean king, Jehoiachin, had received special
marks of favour from Nebuchadrezzar's son Amil-marduk. So little is
known of this act of recognition that its significance can only be
conjectured. A little later Tyre received as its king Merbaal (555-552)
who had been fetched from Babylonia. Babylonia was politically
unsettled, the representative of the Davidic dynasty had descendants; if
Babylon was assured of the allegiance of Judah further acts of clemency
may well have followed. But the later recension of Judaean history--our
sole source--entirely ignores the elevation of Jehoiachin (2 Kings xxv.
27 sqq.; Jer. lii. 31-34), and proceeds at once to the first year of
Cyrus, who proclaims as his divine mission the rebuilding of the Temple
(538). The Judaean Sheshbazzar (a corruption of some Babylonian name)
brought back the Temple vessels which Nebuchadrezzar had carried away
and prepared to undertake the work at the expense of the royal purse. An
immense body of exiles is said to have returned at this time to
Jerusalem under Zerubbabel, who was of Davidic descent, and the priest
Jeshua or Joshua, the grandson of the murdered Seraiah (Ezra i.-iii.; v.
13-vi. 5). When these refused the proffered help of the people of
Samaria, men of the same faith as themselves (iv. 2), their troubles
began, and the Samaritans retaliated by preventing the rebuilding. The
next historical notice is dated in the second year of Darius (520) when
two prophets, Haggai and Zechariah, came forward to kindle the Judaeans
to new efforts, and in spite of opposition the work went steadily
onwards, thanks to the favour of Darius, until the Temple was completed
four years later (Ezra v. 2, vi. 13 sqq.). On the other hand, from the
independent writings ascribed to these prophets, it appears that no
considerable body of exiles could have returned--it is still an event of
the future (Zech. ii. 7, vi. 15); little, if anything, had been done to
the Temple (Hag. ii. 15); and Zerubbabel is the one to take in hand and
complete the great undertaking (Zech. iv. 9). The prophets address
themselves to men living in comfortable abodes with olive-fields and
vineyards, suffering from bad seasons and agricultural depression, and
though the country is unsettled there is no reference to any active
opposition on the part of Samaritans. So far from drawing any lesson
from the brilliant event in the reign of Cyrus, the prophets imply that
Yahweh's wrath is still upon the unfortunate city and that Persia is
still the oppressor. Consequently, although small bodies of individuals
no doubt came back to Judah from time to time, and some special mark of
favour may have been shown by Cyrus, the opinion has gained ground since
the early arguments of E. Schrader (_Stud. u. Krit._, 1867, pp.
460-504), that the compiler's representation of the history is
untrustworthy. His main object is to make the new Israel, the
post-exilic community at Jerusalem, continuous, as a society, with the
old Israel.[42] Greater weight must be laid upon the independent
evidence of the prophetical writings, and the objection that Palestine
could not have produced the religious fervency of Haggai or Zechariah
without an initial impulse from Babylonia begs the question.
Unfortunately the internal conditions in the 6th century B.C. can be
only indirectly estimated (S 18), and the political position must remain
for the present quite uncertain. In Zerubbabel the people beheld once
more a ruler of the Davidic race. The new temple heralded a new future;
the mournful fasts commemorative of Jerusalem's disasters would become
feasts; Yahweh had left the Temple at the fall of Jerusalem, but had now
returned to sanctify it with his presence; the city had purged its
iniquity and was fit once more to become the central sanctuary. So
Haggai sees in Zerubbabel the representative of the ideal kingdom, the
trusted and highly favoured minister who was the signet-ring upon
Yahweh's hand (contrast Hag. ii. 24 with Jer. xxii. 23). Zechariah, in
his turn, proclaims the overthrow of all difficulties in the path of the
new king, who shall rule in glory supported by the priest (Zech. vi.).
What political aspirations were revived, what other writers were
inspired by these momentous events are questions of inference.
A work which inculcates the dependence of the state upon the purity of
its ruler is the unfinished book of Kings with its history of the
Davidic dynasty and the Temple. Its ideals culminate in Josiah (S 16,
end), and there is a strong presumption that it is intended to impress
upon the new era the lessons drawn from the past. Its treatment of the
monarchy is only part of a great and now highly complicated literary
undertaking (traceable in the books Joshua to Kings), inspired with
the thought and coloured by language characteristic of Deuteronomy
(especially the secondary portions), which forms the necessary
introduction. Whatever reforms Josiah actually accomplished, the
restoration afforded the opportunity of bringing the Deuteronomic
teaching into action; though it is more probable that Deuteronomy
itself in the main is not much earlier than the second half of the 6th
century B.C.[43] It shows a strong nationalist feeling which is not
restricted to Judah alone, but comprises a greater Israel from Kadesh
in Naphtali in the north to Hebron in the south, and even extends
beyond the Jordan. Distinctive non-Judaean features are included, as
in the Samaritan liturgical office (Deut. xxvii. 14-26), and the
evidence for the conclusion that traditions originally of (north)
Israelite interest were taken over and adapted to the later standpoint
of Judah and Jerusalem (viz. in the Deuteronomic book of Kings)
independently confirms the inferences drawn from Deuteronomy itself.
The absence of direct testimony can be partially supplied by later
events which presuppose the break-up of no inconsiderable state, and
imply relations with Samaria which had been by no means so unfriendly
as the historians represent. A common ground for Judaism and
Samaritanism is obvious, and it is in this obscure age that it is to
be sought. But the curtain is raised for too brief an interval to
allow of more than a passing glimpse at the restoration of Judaean
fortunes; not until the time of Nehemiah, about 140 years after the
fall of Jerusalem, does the historical material become less imperfect.
Upon this blank period before the foundation of Judaism (SS 21, 23)
much light is also thrown by another body of evidence. It has long
been recognized that 1 Chron. ii. and iv. represent a Judah composed
mainly of groups which had moved up from the south (Hebron) to the
vicinity of Jerusalem. It includes Caleb and Jerahmeel, Kenite or
Rechabite families, scribes, &c., and these, as "sons" of Hezron,
claim some relationship with Gilead. The names point generally to an
affinity with south Palestine and north Arabia (Edom, Midian, &c.; see
especially the lists in Gen. xxxvi.), and suggest that certain members
of a closely related collection of groups had separated from the main
body and were ultimately enrolled as Israelites. It is also recognized
by many scholars that in the present account of the exodus there are
indications of the original prominence of traditions of Kadesh, and
also of a journey northwards in which Caleb, Kenites and others took
part (S 5). On these and on other grounds besides, it has long been
felt that south Palestine, with its north Arabian connexions, is of
real importance in biblical research, and for many years efforts have
been made to determine the true significance of the evidence. The
usual tendency has been to regard it in the light of the criticism of
early Israelite history, which demands some reconstruction (S 8), and
to discern distinct tribal movements previous to the union of Judah
and Israel under David. On the other hand, the elaborate theory of T.
K. Cheyne involves the view that a history dealing with the south
actually underlies our sources and can be recovered by emendation of
the text. Against the former is the fact that although certain groups
are ultimately found in Judah (Judg. i.), the evidence for the
movement--a conquest north of Kadesh, almost at the gate of the
promised land--explicitly mentions Israel; and against the latter the
evidence again shows that this representation has been deliberately
subordinated to the entrance of Israel from beyond the Jordan.[44] In
either case the history of separate sections of people may have been
extended to Israel as a whole, but there is no evidence for any
adequate reconstruction. Yet the presence of distinct representations
of the history may be recognized, and since the Judaean compilers of
the Old Testament have incorporated non-Judaean sources (e.g. the
history of the northern monarchy), it is obvious that, apart from
indigenous Judaean tradition, the southern groups which were
ultimately enrolled in Judah would possess their own stock of oral and
written lore. Hence it is noteworthy that the late editor of Judges
has given the first place to Othniel, a Kenizzite, and therefore of
Edomite affinity, though subsequently reckoned as a Judaean (Judg i.
13, iii. 9; cf. Gen. xxxvi. 11; 1 Chron. iv. 13). Of Kenite interest
is the position of Cain, ancestor of heroes of culture and of the
worship of Yahweh (Gen. iv. 17 sqq.). One fragmentary source alludes
to a journey to the Midianite or Kenite father-in-law of Moses with
the Ark (q.v.); another knows of its movements with David and the
priest Abiathar (a name closely related to Jether or Jethro; cf. also
1 Chron. iv. 17). Distinctively Calebite are the stories of the eponym
who, fearless of the "giants" of Palestine, gained striking divine
promises (Num. xiv. 11-24); Caleb's overthrow of the Hebronite giants
finds a parallel in David's conflicts before the capture of Jerusalem,
and may be associated with the belief that these primitive giants once
filled the land (Josh. xi. 21 seq.; see S 7, and DAVID; SAMUEL, BOOKS
OF). Calebite, too, are Hebron and its patron Abraham, and both
increase in prominence in the patriarchal narratives, where, moreover,
an important body of tradition can have emanated only from outside
Israel and Judah (see GENESIS). Although Judah was always closely
connected with the south, these "southern" features (once clearly more
extensive and complete) are found in the Deuteronomic and priestly
compilations, and their presence in the historical records can hardly
be severed from the prominence of "southern" families in the vicinity
of Jerusalem, some time after the fall of Jerusalem. The background in
1 Chron. ii. presupposes the desolation after that disaster, and some
traces of these families are found in Nehemiah's time; and while the
traditions know of a separation from Edom (viz. stories of Jacob and
his "brother" Esau), elsewhere Edom is frequently denounced for
unbrotherly conduct in connexion with some disaster which befell
Jerusalem, apparently long after 586 B.C. (see S 22).[45] The true
inwardness of this movement, its extent and its history, can hardly be
recovered at present, but it is noteworthy that the evidence generally
involves the Levites, an ecclesiastical body which underwent an
extremely intricate development. To a certain extent it would seem
that even as Chronicles (q.v.) has passed through the hands of one who
was keenly interested in the Temple service, so the other historical
books have been shaped not only by the late priestly writers
(symbolized in literary criticism by P), but also by rather earlier
writers, also of priestly sympathies, but of "southern" or
half-Edomite affinity. This is independently suggested by the contents
and vicissitudes of the purely ecclesiastical traditions.[46]
Recent criticism goes to show that there is a very considerable body
of biblical material, more important for its attitude to the history
than for its historical accuracy, the true meaning of which cannot as
yet be clearly perceived. It raises many serious problems which
concentrate upon that age which is of the greatest importance for the
biblical and theological student. The perplexing relation between the
admittedly late compilations and the actual course of the early
history becomes still more intricate when one observes such a feature
as the late interest in the Israelite tribes. No doubt there is much
that is purely artificial and untrustworthy in the late (post-exilic)
representations of these divisions, but it is almost incredible that
the historical foundation for their early career is severed from the
written sources by centuries of warfare, immigration and other
disturbing factors. On the one hand, conservative scholars insist upon
the close material relation between the constituent sources; critical
scholars, on the other hand, while recognizing much that is relatively
untrustworthy, refrain from departing from the general outlines of the
canonical history more than is absolutely necessary. Hence the various
reconstructions of the earlier history, with all their inherent
weaknesses. But historical criticism is faced with the established
literary conclusions which, it should be noticed, place the
Deuteronomic and priestly compilations posterior to the great changes
at and after the fall of the northern monarchy, and, to some extent,
contemporary with the equally serious changes in Judah. There were
catastrophes detrimental to the preservation of older literary
records, and vicissitudes which, if they have not left their mark on
contemporary history--which is singularly blank--may be traced on the
representations of the past. There are external historical
circumstances and internal literary features which unite to show that
the application of the literary hypotheses of the Old Testament to the
course of Israelite history is still incomplete, and they warn us that
the intrinsic value of religious and didactic writings should not
depend upon the accuracy of their history.[47] Future research may not
be able to solve the problems which arise in the study of the period
now under discussion; it is the more necessary, therefore, that all
efforts should be tested in the light of purely external evidence (see
further S 24; and PALESTINE: _History_).
21. _Nehemiah and Ezra._--There is another remarkable gap in the
historical traditions between the time of Zerubbabel and the reign of
Artaxerxes I. In obscure circumstances the enthusiastic hopes have
melted away, the Davidic scion has disappeared, and Jerusalem has been
the victim of another disaster. The country is under Persian officials,
the nobles and priests form the local government, and the ground is
being prepared for the erection of a hierocracy. It is the work of
rebuilding and reorganization, of social and of religious reforms, which
we encounter in the last pages of biblical history, and in the records
of Ezra and Nehemiah we stand in Jerusalem in the very centre of
epoch-making events. Nehemiah, the cup-bearer of Artaxerxes at Susa,
plunged in grief at the news of the desolation of Jerusalem, obtained
permission from the king to rebuild the ruins. Provided with an escort
and with the right to obtain supplies of wood for the buildings, he
returned to the city of his fathers' sepulchres (the allusion may
suggest his royal ancestry). His zeal is represented in a twofold
aspect. Having satisfied himself of the extent of the ruins, he aroused
the people to the necessity of fortifying and repopulating the city, and
a vivid account is given in his name of the many dangers which beset the
rebuilding of the walls. Sanballat of Horon, Tobiah the Ammonite, and
Gashmu the Arabian (? Edomite) unceasingly opposed him. Tobiah and his
son Johanan were related by marriage to Judaean secular and priestly
families, and active intrigues resulted, in which nobles and prophets
took their part. It was insinuated that Nehemiah had his prophets to
proclaim that Judah had again its own king; it was even suggested that
he was intending to rebel against Persia! Nehemiah naturally gives us
only his version, and the attitude of Haggai and Zechariah to Zerubbabel
may illustrate the feeling of his partisans. But Tobiah and Johanan
themselves were worshippers of Yahweh (as their names also show), and
consequently, with prophets taking different sides and with the
Samaritan claims summarily repudiated (Neh. ii. 20; cf. Ezra iv. 3), all
the facts cannot be gathered from the narratives. Nevertheless the
undaunted Judaean pressed on unmoved by the threatening letters which
were sent around, and succeeded in completing the walls within fifty-two
days.[48]
In the next place, Nehemiah appears as governor of the small district of
Judah and Benjamin. Famine, the avarice of the rich, and the necessity
of providing tribute had brought the humbler classes to the lowest
straits. Some had mortgaged their houses, fields and vineyards to buy
corn; others had borrowed to pay the taxes, and had sold their children
to their richer brethren to repay the debt. Nehemiah was faced with old
abuses, and vehemently contrasted the harshness of the nobles with the
generosity of the exiles who would redeem their poor countrymen from
slavery. He himself had always refrained from exacting the usual
provision which other governors had claimed; indeed, he had readily
entertained over 150 officials and dependants at his table, apart from
casual refugees (Neh. v.). We hear something of a twelve-years'
governorship and of a second visit, but the evidence does not enable us
to determine the sequence (xiii. 6). Neh. v. is placed in the middle of
the building of the walls in fifty-two days; the other reforms during
the second visit are closely connected with the dedication of the walls
and with the events which immediately follow his first arrival when he
had come to rebuild the city. Nehemiah also turns his attention to
religious abuses. The sabbath, once a festival, had become more strictly
observed, and when he found the busy agriculturists and traders (some of
them from Tyre) pursuing their usual labours on that day, he pointed to
the disasters which had resulted in the past from such profanation, and
immediately took measures to put down the evil (Neh. xiii. 18; cf. Jer.
xvii. 20 sqq.; Ezek. xx. 13-24; Isa. lvi. 2, 6; lviii. 13). Moreover,
the maintenance of the Temple servants called for supervision; the
customary allowances had not been paid to the Levites who had come to
Jerusalem after the smaller shrines had been put down, and they had now
forsaken the city. His last acts were the most conspicuous of all. Some
of the Jews had married women of Ashdod, Ammon and Moab, and the
impetuous governor indignantly adjured them to desist from a practice
which was the historic cause of national sin. Even members of the
priestly families had intermarried with Tobiah and Sanballat; the former
had his own chamber in the precincts of the Temple, the daughter of the
latter was the wife of a son of Joiada the son of the high priest
Eliashib. Again Nehemiah's wrath was kindled. Tobiah was cast out, the
offending priest expelled, and a general purging followed, in which all
the foreign element was removed. With this Nehemiah brings the account
of his reforms to a conclusion, and the words "Remember me, O my God,
for good" (xiii. 31) are not meaningless. The incidents can be
supplemented from Josephus. According to this writer (_Ant._ xi. 7, 2),
a certain Manasseh, the brother of Jaddua and grandson of Joiada,
refused to divorce his wife, the daughter of Sanballat. For this he was
driven out, and, taking refuge with the Samaritans, founded a rival
temple and priesthood upon Mt Gerizim, to which repaired other priests
and Levites who had been guilty of mixed marriages. There is little
doubt that Josephus refers to the same events; but there is considerable
confusion in his history of the Persian age, and when he places the
schism and the foundation of the new Temple in the time of Alexander the
Great (after the obscure disasters of the reign of Artaxerxes III.), it
is usually supposed that he is a century too late.[49] At all events,
there is now a complete rupture with Samaria, and thus, in the
concluding chapter of the last of the historical books of the Old
Testament, Judah maintains its claim to the heritage of Israel and
rejects the right of the Samaritans to the title[50] (see S 5).
In this separation of the Judaeans from religious and social intercourse
with their neighbours, the work of Ezra (q.v.) requires notice. The
story of this scribe (now combined with the memoirs of Nehemiah)
crystallizes the new movement inaugurated after a return of exiles from
Babylonia. The age can also be illustrated from Isa. lvi.-lxvi. and
Malachi (q.v.). There was a poor and weak Jerusalem, its Temple stood in
need of renovation, its temple-service was mean, its priests unworthy of
their office. On the one side was the grinding poverty of the poor; on
the other the abuses of the governors. There were two leading religious
parties: one of oppressive formalists, exclusive, strict and
ritualistic; the other, more cosmopolitan, extended a freer welcome to
strangers, and tolerated the popular elements and the superstitious
cults which are vividly depicted (Isa. lxv. seq.). But the former gained
the day, and, realizing that the only hope of maintaining a pure worship
of Yahweh lay in a forcible isolation from foreign influence, its
adherents were prepared to take measures to ensure the religious
independence of their assembly. It is related that Ezra, the scribe and
priest, returned to Jerusalem with priests and Levites, lay exiles, and
a store of vessels for the Temple. He was commissioned to inquire into
the religious condition of the land and to disseminate the teaching of
the Law to which he had devoted himself (Ezra vii.). On his arrival the
people were gathered together, and in due course he read the "book of
the Law of Moses" dally for seven days (Neh. viii.). They entered into
an agreement to obey its teaching, undertaking in particular to avoid
marriages with foreigners (x. 28 sqq.). A special account is given of
this reform (Ezra ix. seq.) and the description of Ezra's horror at the
prevalence of intermarriage, which threatened to destroy the distinctive
character of the community, sufficiently indicates the attitude of the
stricter party. The true seed of Israel separated themselves from all
foreigners (not, however, without some opposition) and formed an
exclusively religious body or "congregation." Dreams of political
freedom gave place to hopes of religious independence, and "Israel"
became a church, the foundation of which it sought in the desert of
Sinai a thousand years before.
22. _Post-exilic History._--The biblical history for the period in the
books of Ezra and Nehemiah is exceptionally obscure, and it is
doubtful how far the traditions can be trusted before we reach the
reign of Artaxerxes (Ezra vii. sqq., Neh.). The records belonging to
this reign represent four different stages: (a) The Samaritans
reported that the Jews who had returned from the king to Jerusalem
were rebuilding the city and completing its walls, an act calculated
to endanger the integrity of the province. Artaxerxes accordingly
instructed them to stop the work until he should give the necessary
decree, and this was done by force (Ezra iv. 7-23, undated; 1 Esdras
ii. 16 sqq. mentions a building of the Temple!). (b) It was in the 7th
year (i.e. 458 B.C.) that Ezra returned with a small body of exiles to
promulgate the new laws he had brought and to set the Temple service
in order.[51] Fortified with remarkable powers, some of which far
exceed the known tolerance of Persian kings, he began wide-sweeping
marriage reforms; but the record ceases abruptly (vii.-x.). (c) In the
20th year (445 B.C.) Nehemiah returned with permission to rebuild the
walls, the citadel and the governor's house (Neh. ii. 5, 8; see S 21
above). But (d), whilst as governor he accomplishes various needed
reforms, there is much confusion in the present narratives, due partly
to the resumption of Ezra's labours after an interval of twelve years,
and partly to the closely related events of Nehemiah's activity in
which room must be found for his twelve-years' governorship and a
second visit. The internal literary and historical questions are
extremely intricate, and the necessity for some reconstruction is very
generally felt (for preliminary details, see EZRA AND NEHEMIAH). The
disaster which aroused Nehemiah's grief was scarcely the fall of
Jerusalem in 586 B.C., but a more recent one, and it has been
conjectured that it followed the work of Ezra (in _b_ above). On the
other hand, a place can hardly be found for the history of Ezra before
the appearance of Nehemiah; he moves in a settled and peaceful
community such as Nehemiah had helped to form, his reforms appear to
be more mature and schematic than those of Nehemiah; and, whilst
Josephus handles the two separately, giving Ezra the priority, many
recent scholars incline to place Nehemiah's first visit before the
arrival of Ezra.[52] That later tradition should give the pre-eminence
to the priestly reforms of Ezra is in every way natural, but it has
been found extremely difficult to combine the two in any
reconstruction of the period. Next, since there are three distinct
sources, for (a) above, and for the work of Nehemiah and of Ezra,
implicit reliance cannot be placed upon the present sequence of
narratives. Thus (a), with its allusion to a further decree, forms a
plausible prelude to the return of either Ezra (vii. 13) or Nehemiah
(i. 3, ii. 3); and if it is surprising that the Samaritans and other
opponents, who had previously waited to address Artaxerxes (Ezra iv.
14 sqq., v. 5, 17), should now interfere when Nehemiah was armed with
a royal mandate (Neh. ii. 7-9), it is very difficult not to conclude
that the royal permits, as now detailed, have been coloured by Jewish
patriotism and the history by enmity to Samaria. Finally, the
situation in the independent and undated record (a) points to a
return, a rebuilding (apparently after some previous destruction), and
some interference. This agrees substantially with the independent
records of Nehemiah, and unless we assume two disasters not widely
separated in date--viz. those presupposed in (a) and (c)--the record
in (a), may refer to that stage in the history where the other source
describes the intrigues of the Samaritans and the letters sent by
Tobiah (cf. Tabeel in Ezra iv. 7) to frighten Nehemiah (Neh. vi.
19).[53] Their insinuations that Nehemiah was seeking to be ruler and
their representations to Artaxerxes would be enough to alarm the king
(cf. Neh. vi. 5-9, 19, and Ezra iv. 15 seq., 20 seq.), and it may
possibly be gathered that Nehemiah at once departed to justify himself
(Neh. vii. 2, xiii. 4, 6). Nevertheless, since the narratives are no
longer in their original form or sequence, it is impossible to trace
the successive steps of the sequel; although if the royal favour was
endorsed (cf. the account ascribed to the time of Darius, Ezra v.
seq.), Nehemiah's position as a reformer would be more secure.
Although there was a stock of tradition for the post-exilic age (cf.
Daniel, Esther, 1 Esdras, Josephus), the historical narratives are of
the scantiest and vaguest until the time of Artaxerxes, when the
account of a return (Ezra iv. 12), which otherwise is quite ignored,
appears to have been used for the times of Darius (1 Esdras iv. seq.)
and subsequently of Cyrus (Ezra i.-iii.). Moreover, although general
opinion identifies our Artaxerxes with the first of that name, certain
features suggest that there has been some confusion with the
traditions of the time of Artaxerxes II. and III. (S 19). But the
problems are admittedly complicated, and since one is necessarily
dependent upon scanty narratives arranged and rearranged by later
hands in accordance with their own historical theories, it is
difficult to lay stress upon internal evidence which appears to be
conclusive for this or that reconstruction.[54] The main facts,
however, are clear. Jerusalem had suffered some serious catastrophe
before Nehemiah's return; a body of exiles returned, and in spite of
interference the work of rebuilding was completed; through their
influence the Judaean community underwent reorganization, and
separated itself from its so-called heathen neighbours. How many years
elapsed from beginning to end can hardly be said. Tradition
concentrated upon Ezra and his age many events and changes of
fundamental importance. The canonical history has allowed only one
great destruction of Jerusalem, and the disaster of 586 B.C. became
the type for similar disasters, but how many there were criticism can
scarcely decide.[55] Allusions to Judah's sufferings at the hands of
Edom, Moab and Ammon often imply conditions which are not applicable
to 586. A definite series knows of an invasion and occupation by Edom
(q.v. end), a people with whom Judah, as the genealogies show, had
once been intimately connected. The unfriendliness of the "brother"
people, which added so much to the bitterness of Judah, although
associated with the events of 586 (so especially 1 Esdras iv. 45),
probably belongs to a much later date.[56] The tradition that Edomites
burned the Temple and occupied part of Judah (ib. _vv._ 45, 50) is
partially confirmed by Ezek. xxxv. 5, 10, xxxvi. 5; Ps. cxxxvii. 7;
but the assumption that Darius, as in 1 Esdras, helped the Jews
against them can with difficulty be maintained. The interesting
conjecture that the second Temple suffered another disaster in the
obscure gap which follows the time of Zerubbabel has been urged, after
Isa. lxiii. 7-lxiv. 12, by Kuenen (afterwards withdrawn) and by
Sellin, and can be independently confirmed. In the records of Nehemiah
the ruins of the city are extensive (ii. 8, 17, iii.; cf. Ecclus.
xlix. 13), and the tradition that Nehemiah rebuilt this Temple (Jos.
_Ant._ xi. 5, 6; 2 Macc. i. 18) is supported (a) by the explicit
references to the rebuilding of the Temple in the reign of Artaxerxes
(1 Esdras ii. 18, not in Ezra iv. 12; but both in a context relating
to the history of the Temple), and (b) by the otherwise inaccurate
statement that the Temple was finished according to the decree of
"Cyrus, Darius and Artaxerxes king of Persia" (Ezra vi. 14).
The untrustworthy account of the return in the time of Cyrus (Ezra i.
sqq.) or Darius (1 Esdras iv. seq.; probably the older form) is
curiously indebted to material which seems to have belonged to the
history of the work of Nehemiah (cf. Ezra ii. with Neh. vii.), and the
important return in the reign of Artaxerxes (Ezra iv. 12) seems to be
connected with other references to some new settlement (Neh. xi. 20,
23, 25, especially xii. 29). The independent testimony of the names in
Neh. iii. is against any previous large return from Babylon, and
clearly illustrates the strength of the groups of "southern" origin
whose presence is only to be expected (p. 285). Moreover, the late
compiler of 1 Chronicles distinguishes a Judah composed almost wholly
of "southern" groups (1 Chron. ii. and iv.) from a subsequent stage
when the first inhabitants of Jerusalem correspond in the main to the
new population after Nehemiah had repaired the ruins (1 Chron. ix. and
Neh. xi.). Consequently, underlying the canonical form of post-exilic
history, one may perhaps recognize some fresh disaster, after the
completion of Zerubbabel's temple, when Judah suffered grievously at
the hands of its Edomite brethren (in Malachi, date uncertain,
vengeance has at last been taken); Nehemiah restored the city, and the
traditions of the exiles who returned at this period have been thrown
back and focussed upon the work of Zerubbabel. The criticism of the
history of Nehemiah, which leads to this conjecture, suggests also
that if Nehemiah repulsed the Samaritan claims (ii. 20; cf. Ezra iv.
3, where the building of the Temple is concerned) and refused a
compromise (vi. 2), it is extremely unlikely that Samaria had hitherto
been seriously hostile; see also C. C. Torrey, _Ezra Studies_, pp.
321-333.
Biblical history ends with the triumph of the Judaean community, the
true "Israel," the right to which title is found in the distant past.
The Judaean view pervades the present sources, and whilst its David
and Solomon ruled over a united land, the separation under Jeroboam is
viewed as one of calf-worshipping northern tribes from Jerusalem with
its one central temple and the legitimate priesthood of the Zadokites.
It is from this narrower standpoint of an exclusive and confined Judah
(and Benjamin) that the traditions as incorporated in the late
recensions gain fresh force, and in Israel's renunciation of the
Judaean yoke the later hostility between the two may be read between
the lines. The history in Kings was not finally settled until a very
late date, as is evident from the important variations in the
Septuagint, and it is especially in the description of the time of
Solomon and the disruption that there continued to be considerable
fluctuations.[57] The book has no finale and the sudden break may not
be accidental. It is replaced by Chronicles, which, confining itself
to Judaean history from a later standpoint (after the Persian age),
includes new characteristic traditions wherein some recollection of
more recent events may be recognized. Thus, the south Judaean or south
Palestinian element shows itself in Judaean genealogies and lists;
there are circumstantial stories of the rehabilitation of the Temple
and the reorganization of cultus; there are fuller traditions of
inroads upon Judah by southern peoples and their allies. There is also
a more definite subordination of the royal authority to the priesthood
(so too in the writings of Ezekiel, q.v.); and the stories of
punishment inflicted upon kings who dared to contend against the
priests (Jehoash, Uzziah) point to a conflict of authority, a hint of
which is already found in the reconciliation of Zerubbabel and the
priest Joshua in a passage ascribed to Zechariah (ch. vi.).
23. _Post-exilic Judaism._--With Nehemiah and Ezra we enter upon the era
in which a new impulse gave to Jewish life and thought that form which
became the characteristic orthodox Judaism. It was not a new religion
that took root; older tendencies were diverted into new paths, the
existing material was shaped to new ends. Judah was now a religious
community whose representative was the high priest of Jerusalem. Instead
of sacerdotal kings, there were royal priests, anointed with oil,
arrayed with kingly insignia, claiming the usual royal dues in addition
to the customary rights of the priests. With his priests and Levites,
and with the chiefs and nobles of the Jewish families, the high priest
directs this small state, and his death marks an epoch as truly as did
that of the monarchs in the past. This hierarchical government, which
can find no foundation in the Hebrew monarchy, is the forerunner of the
Sanhedrin (q.v.); it is an institution which, however inaugurated, set
its stamp upon the narratives which have survived. Laws were recast in
accordance with the requirements of the time, with the result that, by
the side of usages evidently of very great antiquity, details now appear
which were previously unknown or wholly unsuitable. The age, which the
scanty historical traditions themselves represent as one of supreme
importance for the history of the Jews, once seemed devoid of interest,
and it is entirely through the laborious scholarship of the 19th century
that it now begins to reveal its profound significance. The
Graf-Wellhausen hypothesis, that the hierarchical law in its complete
form in the Pentateuch stands at the close and not at the beginning of
biblical history, that this mature Judaism was the fruit of the 5th
century B.C. and not a divinely appointed institution at the exodus
(nearly ten centuries previously), has won the recognition of almost all
Old Testament scholars. It has been substantiated by numerous subsidiary
investigations in diverse departments, from different standpoints, and
under various aspects, and can be replaced only by one which shall more
adequately explain the literary and historical evidence (see further, p.
289).
The post-exilic priestly spirit represents a tendency which is absent
from the Judaean Deuteronomic book of Kings but is fully mature in the
later, and to some extent parallel, book of Chronicles (q.v.). The
"priestly" traditions of the creation and of the patriarchs mark a very
distinct advance upon the earlier narratives, and appear in a further
developed form in the still later book of Jubilees, or "Little Genesis,"
where they are used to demonstrate the pre-Mosaic antiquity of the
priestly or Levitical institutions. There is also an unmistakable
development in the laws; and the priestly legislation, though ahead of
both Ezekiel and Deuteronomy, not to mention still earlier usage, not
only continues to undergo continual internal modification, but finds a
further distinct development, in the way of definition and
interpretation, outside the Old Testament--in the Talmud (q.v.). Upon
the characteristics of the post-exilic priestly writings we need not
dwell.[58] Though one may often be repelled by their lifelessness, their
lack of spontaneity and the externalization of the ritual, it must be
recognized that they placed a strict monotheism upon a legal basis. "It
was a necessity that Judaism should incrust itself in this manner;
without those hard and ossified forms the preservation of its essential
elements would have proved impossible. At a time when all nationalities,
and at the same time all bonds of religion and national customs, were
beginning to be broken up in the seeming cosmos and real chaos of the
Graeco-Roman Empire, the Jews stood out like a rock in the midst of the
ocean. When the natural conditions of independent nationality all failed
them, they nevertheless artificially maintained it with an energy truly
marvellous, and thereby preserved for themselves, and at the same time
for the whole world, an eternal good."[59]
If one is apt to acquire too narrow a view of Jewish legalism, the whole
experience of subsequent history, through the heroic age of the
Maccabees (q.v.) and onwards, only proves that the minuteness of ritual
procedure could not cramp the heart. Besides, this was only one of the
aspects of Jewish literary activity. The work represented in Nehemiah
and Ezra, and put into action by the supporters of an exclusive Judaism,
certainly won the day, and their hands have left their impress upon the
historical traditions. But Yahwism, like Islam, had its sects and
tendencies, and the opponents to the stricter ritualism always had
followers. Whatever the predominant party might think of foreign
marriages, the tradition of the half-Moabite origin of David serves, in
the beautiful idyll of Ruth (q.v.), to suggest the debt which Judah and
Jerusalem owed to one at least of its neighbours. Again, although some
may have desired a self-contained community opposed to the heathen
neighbours of Jerusalem, the story of Jonah implicitly contends against
the attempt of Judaism to close its doors. The conflicting tendencies
were incompatible, but Judaism retained the incompatibilities within
its limits, and the two tendencies, prophetical and priestly, continue,
the former finding its further development in Christianity.[60]
The Graf-Wellhausen hypothesis (S 4) does not pretend to be complete
in all its details and it is independent of its application to the
historical criticism of the Old Testament. No alternative hypothesis
prevails, mere desultory criticism of the internal intricacies being
quite inadequate. Maintaining that the position of the Pentateuch
alone explains the books which follow, conservative writers concede
that it is composite, has had some literary history, and has suffered
some revision in the post-exilic age. Their concessions continue to
become ever more significant, and all that follows from them should be
carefully noticed by those who are impressed by their arguments. They
identify with Deuteronomy the law-roll which explains the noteworthy
reforms of Josiah (S 16); but since it is naturally admitted that
religious conditions had become quite inconsistent with Mosaism, the
conservative view implies that the "long-lost" Deuteronomy must have
differed profoundly from any known Mosaic writings to which earlier
pious kings and prophets had presumably adhered. Similarly, the "book
of the Law of Moses," brought from Babylon by Ezra (Ezra vii.; Neh.
viii.), clearly contained much of which the people were ignorant, and
conservative writers, who oppose the theory that a new Law was then
introduced, emphasize (a) the previous existence of legislation (to
prove that Ezra's book was not entirely a novelty), and (b) the gross
wickedness in Judah (as illustrated by the prophets) from the time of
Josiah to the strenuous efforts of the reformers on behalf of the most
fundamental principles of the national religion. This again simply
means that the Mosaism of Ezra or Nehemiah must have differed
essentially from the priestly teaching prior to their arrival. The
arguments of conservative writers involve concessions which, though
often overlooked by their readers, are very detrimental to the
position they endeavour to support, and the objections they bring
against the theory of the introduction of new law-books (under a
Josiah or an Ezra) apply with equal force to the promulgation of
Mosaic teaching which had been admittedly ignored or forgotten. Their
arguments have most weight, however, when they show the hazardous
character of reconstructions which rely upon the trustworthiness of
the historical narratives. What book Ezra really brought from Babylon
is uncertain; the writer, it seems, is merely narrating the
introduction of the Law ascribed to Moses, even as a predecessor has
recounted the discovery of the Book of the Law, the Deuteronomic code
subsequently included in the Pentateuch.
The importance which the biblical writers attach to the return from
Babylon in the reign of Artaxerxes forms a starting-point for several
interesting inquiries. Thus, in any estimate of the influence of
Babylonia upon the Old Testament, it is obviously necessary to ask
whether certain features (a) are of true Babylonian origin, or (b)
merely find parallels or analogies in its stores of literature;
whether the indebtedness goes back to very early times or to the age
of the Assyrian domination or to the exiles who now returned. Again,
there were priestly and other families--some originally of "southern"
origin--already settled around Jerusalem, and questions inevitably
arise concerning their relation to the new-comers and the literary
vicissitudes which gave us the Old Testament in its present form. To
this age we may ascribe the literature of the Priestly writers
(symbolized by P), which differs markedly from the other sources. Yet
it is clear from the book of Genesis alone that in the age of Priestly
writers and compilers there were other phases of thought. Popular
stories with many features of popular religion were current. They
could be, and indeed had been made more edifying; but the very
noteworthy conservatism of even the last compiler or editor, in
contrast to the re-shaping and re-writing of the material in the book
of Jubilees, indicates that the Priestly spirit was not that of the
whole community. But through the Priestly hands the Old Testament
history passed, and their standpoint colours its records. This is
especially true of the history of the exilic and post-exilic periods,
where the effort is made to preserve the continuity of Israel and the
Israelite community (Chronicles--Ezra--Nehemiah). The bitterness
aroused by the ardent and to some extent unjust zeal of the reforming
element can only be conjectured. The traditions reveal a tendency to
legitimate new circumstances. Priesthoods, whose traditions connect
them with the south, are subordinated; the ecclesiastical records are
re-shaped or re-adjusted; and a picture is presented of hierarchical
jealousies and rivalries which (it was thought) were settled once and
for all in the days of the exodus from Egypt. Many features gain in
significance as the account of the Exodus, the foundation of Israel,
is read in the light of the age when, after the advent of a new
element from Babylonia, the Pentateuch assumed its present shape; it
must suffice to mention the supremacy of the Aaronite priests and the
glorification of uncompromising hostility to foreign marriages.[61]
The most "unhistorical" tradition has some significance for the
development of thought or of history-writing, and thus its internal
features are ultimately of historical value. Only from an exhaustive
comparison of controlling data can the scattered hints be collected
and classified. There is much that is suggestive, for example, in the
relation between the "post-exilic" additions to the prophecies and
their immediately earlier form; or in the singular prominence of the
Judaean family of Perez (its elevation over Zerah, a half-Edomite
family, Gen. xxxviii.; its connexion with the Davidic dynasty, Ruth
iv.; its position as head of all the Judaean sub-divisions, 1 Chron.
ii. 5 sqq.); or in the late insertion of local tradition encircling
Jerusalem; or in the perplexing attitude of the histories towards the
district of Benjamin and its famous sanctuary of Bethel (only about 10
m. north of Jerusalem). Although these and other phenomena cannot yet
be safely placed in a historical frame, the methodical labours of past
scholars have shed much light upon the obscurities of the exilic and
post-exilic ages, and one must await the more comprehensive study of
the two or three centuries which are of the first importance for
biblical history and theology.
24. _Old Testament History and External Evidence._--Thus the Old
Testament, the history of the Jews during the first great period,
describes the relation of the Hebrews to surrounding peoples, the
superiority of Judah over the faithless (north) Israelite tribes, and
the reorganization of the Jewish community in and around Jerusalem at
the arrival of Ezra with the Book of the Law. The whole gives an
impression of unity, which is designed, and is to be expected in a
compilation. But closer examination reveals remarkable gaps and
irreconcilable historical standpoints. For all serious biblical study,
the stages in the growth of the written traditions and the historical
circumstances which they imply, must inevitably be carefully
considered, and upon the result depends, directly or indirectly,
almost every subject of Old Testament investigation. Yet it is
impossible to recover with confidence or completeness the development
of Hebrew history from the pages of the Old Testament alone. The keen
interest taken by the great prophets in the world around them is not
prominent in the national records; political history has been
subordinated, and the Palestine which modern discovery is revealing is
not conspicuous in the didactic narratives. To external evidence one
must look, therefore, for that which did not fall within the scope or
the horizon of the religious historians. They do not give us the
records of the age of the Babylonian monarch Khammurabi (perhaps
Amraphel, Gen. xiv.), of the Egyptian conquests in the XVIIIth and
following dynasties, or of the period illustrated by the Amarna
tablets (S 3). They treat with almost unique fullness a few years in
the middle of the 9th century B.C., but ignore Assyria; yet only the
Assyrian inscriptions explain the political situation (S 10 seq.), and
were it not for them the true significance of the 8th-7th centuries
could scarcely be realized (S 15 seq.). It would be erroneous to
confuse the extant sources with the historical material which might or
must have been accessible, or to assume that the antiquity of the
elements of history proves or presupposes the antiquity of the records
themselves, or even to deny the presence of some historical kernel
merely on account of unhistorical elements or the late dress in which
the events are now clothed. External research constantly justifies the
cautious attitude which has its logical basis in the internal
conflicting character of the written traditions or in their divergence
from ascertained facts; at the same time it has clearly shown that the
internal study of the Old Testament has its limits. Hence, in the
absence of more complete external evidence one is obliged to recognize
the limitations of Old Testament historical criticism, even though
this recognition means that positive reconstructions are more
precarious than negative conclusions.
The naive impression that each period of history was handled by some
more or less contemporary authority is not confirmed by a criticism
which confines itself strictly to the literary evidence. An interest
in the past is not necessarily confined to any one age, and the
critical view that the biblical history has been compiled from
relatively late standpoints finds support in the still later treatment
of the events--in Chronicles as contrasted with Samuel--Kings or in
Jubilees as contrasted with Genesis.[62] It is instructive to observe
in Egypt the form which old traditions have taken in Manetho (Maspero,
_Rec. de travaux_, xxvii., 1905, l. 22 seq.); cf. also the late story
of Rameses II. and the Hittites (J. H. Breasted, _Anc. Rec. of Egypt_,
iii. 189 seq.); while in Babylonia one may note the didactic
treatment, after the age of Cyrus, of the events of the time of
Khammurabi (A. H. Sayce, _Proc. Soc. Biblical Archaeol._, 1907, pp. 13
sqq.).
The links which unite the traditional heroes with Babylonia (e.g.
Abraham, Ezra), Mesopotamia (e.g. Jacob), Egypt (e.g. Joseph,
Jeroboam), Midian (e.g. Moses, Jethro), &c., like the intimate
relationship between Israel and surrounding lands, have a significance
in the light of recent research. Israel can no longer be isolated from
the politics, culture, folk-lore, thought and religion of western Asia
and Egypt. Biblical, or rather Palestinian, thought has been brought
into the world of ancient Oriental life, and this life, in spite of
the various forms in which it has from time to time been shaped, still
rules in the East. This has far-reaching consequences for the
traditional attitude to Israelite history and religion. Research is
seriously complicated by the growing stores of material, which
unfortunately are often utilized without attention to the principles
of the various departments of knowledge or aspects of study. The
complexity of modern knowledge and the interrelation of its different
branches are often insufficiently realized, and that by writers who
differ widely in the application of such material as they use to their
particular views of the manifold problems of the Old Testament. It has
been easy to confuse the study of the Old Testament in its relation to
modern religious needs with the technical scientific study of the much
edited remains of the literature of a small part of the ancient East.
If there was once a tendency to isolate the Old Testament and ignore
comparative research, it is now sometimes found possible to exaggerate
its general agreement with Oriental history, life and thought.
Difficulties have been found in the supernatural or marvellous stories
which would be taken as a matter of course by contemporary readers,
and efforts are often made to recover historical facts or to adapt the
records to modern theology without sufficient attention to the
historical data as a whole or to their religious environment. The
preliminary preparation for research of any value becomes yearly more
exacting.
Many traces of myth, legend and "primitive" thought survive in the Old
Testament, and on the most cautious estimate they presuppose a
vitality which is not a little astonishing. But they are now softened
and often bereft of their earlier significance, and it is this and
their divergence from common Oriental thought which make Old Testament
thought so profound and unique. The process finds its normal
development in later and non-biblical literature; but one can
recognize earlier, cruder and less distinctive stages, and, as surely
as writings reflect the mentality of an author or of his age, the
peculiar characteristics of the extant sources, viewed in the light of
a comprehensive survey of Palestinian and surrounding culture, demand
a reasonable explanation. The differences between the form of the
written history and the conditions which prevailed have impressed
themselves variously upon modern writers, and efforts have been made
to recover from the Old Testament earlier forms more in accordance
with the external evidence. It may be doubted, however, whether the
material is sufficient for such restoration or reconstruction.[63] In
the Old Testament we have the outcome of specific developments, and
the stage at which we see each element of tradition or belief is not
always isolated or final (cf. Kings and Chronicles). The early myths,
legends and traditions which can be traced differ profoundly from the
canonical history, and the gap is wider than that between the latter
and the subsequent apocalyptical and pseudepigraphical literature.
Where it is possible to make legitimate and unambiguous comparisons,
the ethical and spiritual superiority of Old Testament thought has
been convincingly demonstrated, and to the re-shaping and re-writing
of the older history and the older traditions the Old Testament owes
its permanent value. While the history of the great area between the
Nile and the Tigris irresistibly emphasizes the insignificance of
Palestine, this land's achievements for humanity grow the more
remarkable as research tells more of its environment. Although the
light thrown upon ancient conditions of life and thought has destroyed
much that sometimes seems vital for the Old Testament, it has brought
into relief a more permanent and indisputable appreciation of its
significance, and it is gradually dispelling that pseudo-scientific
literalism which would fetter the greatest of ancient Oriental
writings with an insistence upon the verity of historical facts. Not
internal criticism, but the incontestable results of objective
observation have shown once and for all that the relationship between
the biblical account of the earliest history (Gen. i.-xi.) and its
value either as an authentic record (which requires unprejudiced
examination) _or_ as a religious document (which remains untouched) is
typical. If, as seems probable, the continued methodical
investigation, which is demanded by the advance of modern knowledge,
becomes more drastic in its results, it will recognize ever more
clearly that there were certain unique influences in the history of
Palestine which cannot be explained by purely historical research. The
change from Palestinian polytheism to the pre-eminence of Yahweh and
the gradual development of ethical monotheism are _facts_ which
external evidence continues to emphasize, which biblical criticism
must investigate as completely as possible. And if the work of
criticism has brought a fuller appreciation of the value of these
facts, the debt which is owed to the Jews is enhanced when one
proceeds to realize the immense difficulties against which those who
transmitted the Old Testament had to contend in the period of Greek
domination. The growth of the Old Testament into its present form,
and its preservation despite hostile forces, are the two remarkable
phenomena which most arrest the attention of the historian; it is for
the theologian to interpret their bearing upon the history of
religious thought. (S. A. C.)
II.--GREEK DOMINATION
25. _Alexander the Great._--The second great period of the history of
the Jews begins with the conquest of Asia by Alexander the Great,
disciple of Aristotle, king of Macedon and captain-general of the
Greeks. It ends with the destruction of Jerusalem by the armies of the
Roman Empire, which was, like Alexander, at once the masterful pupil and
the docile patron of Hellenism. The destruction of Jerusalem might be
regarded as an event of merely domestic importance; for the Roman
cosmopolitan it was only the removal of the titular metropolis of a
national and an Oriental religion. But, since a derivative of that
religion has come to be a power in the world at large, this event has to
be regarded in a different light. The destruction of Jerusalem in A.D.
70 concludes the period of four centuries, during which the Jews as a
nation were in contact with the Greeks and exposed to the influence of
Hellenism, not wholly of their own will nor yet against it. Whether the
master of the provinces, in which there were Jews, be an Alexander, a
Ptolemy, a Seleucid or a Roman, the force by which he rules is the force
of Greek culture. These four centuries are the Greek period of Jewish
history.
The ancient historians, who together cover this period, are strangely
indifferent to the importance of the Jews, upon which Josephus is at
pains to insist. When Alexander invaded the interior of the Eastern
world, which had hitherto remained inviolable, he came as the champion
of Hellenism. His death prevented the achievement of his designs; but he
had broken down the barrier, he had planted the seed of the Greek's
influence in the four quarters of the Persian Empire. His successors,
the Diadochi, carried on his work, but Antiochus Epiphanes was the first
who deliberately took in hand to deal with the Jews. Daniel (viii. 8)
describes the interval between Alexander and Antiochus thus: "The
he-goat (the king of Greece) did very greatly: and when he was strong
the great horn (Alexander) was broken; and instead of it came up four
other ones--four kingdoms shall stand up out of his nation but not with
his power. And out of one of them came forth a little horn (Antiochus
Epiphanes) which waxed exceeding great towards the south (Egypt) and
towards the East (Babylon) and towards the beauteous land (the land of
Israel)." The insignificance of the Jewish community in Palestine was
their salvation. The reforms of Nehemiah were directed towards the
establishment of a religious community at Jerusalem, in which the rigour
of the law should be observed. As a part of the Persian Empire the
community was obscure and unimportant. But the race whose chief
sanctuary it guarded and maintained was the heir of great traditions and
ideals. In Egypt, moreover, in Babylon and in Persia individual Jews had
responded to the influences of their environment and won the respect of
the aliens whom they despised. The law which they cherished as their
standard and guide kept them united and conscious of their unity. And
the individuals, who acquired power or wisdom among those outside
Palestine shed a reflected glory upon the nation and its Temple.
In connexion with Alexander's march through Palestine Josephus gives a
tradition of his visit to Jerusalem. In Arrian's narrative of
Alexander's exploits, whose fame had already faded before the greater
glory of Rome, there is no mention of the visit or the city or the
Jews. Only Tyre and Gaza barred the way to Egypt. He took, presumably,
the coast-road in order to establish and retain his command of the
sea. The rest of Palestine, which is called Coele-Syria, made its
submission and furnished supplies. Seven days after the capture of
Gaza Alexander was at Pelusium. According to the tradition which
Josephus has preserved the high priest refused to transfer his
allegiance and Alexander marched against Jerusalem after the capture
of Gaza. The high priest dressed in his robes went out to meet him,
and at the sight Alexander remembered a dream, in which such a man had
appeared to him as the appointed leader of his expedition. So the
danger was averted: Alexander offered sacrifice and was shown the
prophecy of Daniel, which spoke of him. It is alleged, further, that
at this time certain Jews who could not refrain from intermarriage
with the heathen set up a temple on Mt Gerizim and became the
Samaritan schism (S 21 above). The combination is certainly artificial
and not historical. But it has a value of its own inasmuch as it
illustrates the permanent tendencies which mould the history of the
Jews. It is true that Alexander was subject to dreams and visited
shrines in order to assure himself or his followers of victory. But it
is not clear that he had such need of the Jews or such regard for the
Temple of Jerusalem that he should turn aside on his way to Egypt for
such a purpose.
However this may be, Alexander's tutor had been in Asia and had met a
Jew there, if his disciple Clearchus of Soli is to be trusted. "The
man," Aristotle says, "was by race a Jew out of Coele-Syria. His
people are descendants of the Indian philosophers. It is reported that
philosophers are called Calani among the Indians and Jews among the
Syrians. The Jews take their name from their place of abode, which is
called Judaea. The name of their city is very difficult; they call it
Hierusaleme. This man, then, having been a guest in many homes and
having come down gradually from the highlands to the sea-coast, was
Hellenic not only in speech but also in soul. And as we were staying
in Asia at the time, the man cast up at the same place and interviewed
us and other scholars, making trial of their wisdom. But inasmuch as
he had come to be at home with many cultured persons he imparted more
than he got." The date of this interview is probably determined by the
fact that Aristotle visited his friend Hermias, tyrant of Atarneus, in
347-345 B.C. There is no reason to doubt the probability or even the
accuracy of the narrative. Megasthenes also describes the Jews as the
philosophers of Syria and couples them with the Brahmins of India.
This hellenized Jew who descended from the hills to the coast is a
figure typical of the period.
26. _The Ptolemies._--After the death of Alexander Palestine fell in the
end to Ptolemy (301 B.C.) and remained an Egyptian province until 198
B.C. For a century the Jews in Palestine and in Alexandria had no
history--or none that Josephus knew. But two individuals exemplify the
different attitudes which the nation adopted towards its new environment
and its wider opportunities, Joseph the tax-farmer and Jesus the sage.
The wisdom of Jesus ben Sira (Sirach) is contained in the book
commonly called _Ecclesiasticus_ (q.v.). At a time when men were
attracted by the wisdom and science of the Greeks, he taught that all
wisdom came from Yahweh who had chosen Israel to receive it in trust.
He discouraged inquiries into the nature and purpose of things: it was
enough for him that Yahweh had created and ruled the universe. If a
man had leisure to be wise--and this is not for many--he should study
the Scriptures which had come down, and so become a scribe. For the
scribe, as for the man at the plough-tail, the Law was the rule of
life. All, however much or little preoccupied with worldly business,
must fear God, from whom come good things and evil, life, death,
poverty and riches. It was not for men to meddle with secrets which
are beyond human intelligence. Enough that the individual did his duty
in the state of life in which he was set and left behind him a good
name at his death. The race survives--"the days of Israel are
unnumbered." Every member of the congregation of Israel must labour,
as God has appointed, at some handicraft or profession to provide for
his home. It is his sacred duty and his private interest to beget
children and to train them to take his place. The scholar is apt to
pity the smith, the potter, the carpenter and the farmer: with better
reason he is apt to condemn the trader who becomes absorbed in greed
of gain and so deserts the way of righteousness and fair dealing. As a
teacher Jesus gave his own services freely. For the soldier he had no
commendation. There were physicians who understood the use of herbs,
and must be rewarded when their help was invited. But, whatever means
each head of a family adopted to get a livelihood, he must pay the
priest's dues. The centre of the life of Israel was the Temple, over
which the high priest presided and which was inhabited by Yahweh, the
God of Israel. The scribe could train the individual in morals and in
manners; but the high priest was the ruler of the nation.
As ruler of the nation the high priest paid its tribute to Egypt, its
overlord. But Josephus reports of one Onias that for avarice he
withheld it. The sequel shows how a Jew might rise to power in the
civil service of the Egyptian Empire and yet remain a hero to some of
the Jews--provided that he did not intermarry with a Gentile. For
Joseph, the son of Tobiah and nephew of Onias, went to court and
secured the taxes of Palestine, when they were put up to auction. As
tax-farmer he oppressed the non-Jewish cities and so won the
admiration of Josephus.
But while such men went out into the world and brought back wealth of
one kind or another to Palestine, other Jews were content to make their
homes in foreign parts. At Alexandria in particular Alexander provided
for a Jewish colony which soon became Hellenic enough in speech to
require a translation of the Law. It is probable that, as in Palestine
an Aramaic paraphrase of the Hebrew text was found to be necessary, so
in Alexandria the Septuagint grew up gradually, as need arose. The
legendary tradition which even Philo accepts gives it a formal nativity,
a royal patron and inspired authors. From the text which Philo uses, it
is probable that the translation had been transmitted in writing; and
his legend probably fixes the date of the commencement of the
undertaking for the reign of Ptolemy Lagus.
The apology for the necessary defects of a translation put forward by
the translator of _Ecclesiasticus_ in his Prologue shows that the work
was carried on beyond the limits of the Law. Apparently it was in
progress at the time of his coming to Egypt in the reign of Ptolemy
Euergetes I. or II. He seems to regard this body of literature as the
answer to the charge that the Jews had contributed nothing useful for
human life. Once translated into Greek, the Scriptures became a bond
of union for the Jews of the dispersion and were at least capable of
being used as an instrument for the conversion of the world to
Judaism. So far as the latter function is concerned Philo confesses
that the Law in his day shared the obscurity of the people, and seems
to imply that the proselytes adopted little more than the monotheistic
principle and the observance of the Sabbath. According to Juvenal the
sons of such proselytes were apt to go farther and to substitute the
Jewish Law for the Roman--
Romanas autem soliti contemnere leges;
Judaicum ediscunt et servant ac metuunt ius
Tradidit arcano quodcunque volumine Moyses.
27. _The Seleucids._--Toward the end of the 3rd century the Palestinian
Jews became involved in the struggle between Egypt and Syria. In
Jerusalem there were partisans of both the combatants. The more orthodox
or conservative Jews preferred the tolerant rule of the Ptolemies: the
rest, who chafed at the isolation of the nation, looked to the
Seleucids, who inherited Alexander's ideal of a united empire based on a
universal adoption of Hellenism. At this point Josephus cites the
testimony of Polybius:--"Scopas, the general of Ptolemy, advanced into
the highlands and subdued the nation of the Jews in the winter. After
the defeat of Scopas, Antiochus gained Batanaea and Samaria and Abila
and Gadara, and a little later those of the Jews who live round the
Temple called Jerusalem adhered to him." From this it appears that the
pro-Syrian faction of the Jews had been strong and active enough to
bring an Egyptian army upon them (199-198 B.C.). Josephus adds that an
Egyptian garrison was left in Jerusalem. This act of oppression
presumably strengthened the Syrian faction of the Jews and led to the
transference of the nation's allegiance. The language of Polybius
suggests that he was acquainted with other Jewish communities and with
the fame of the Temple: in his view they are not an organized state.
They were not even a pawn in the game which Antiochus proposed to play
with Rome for the possession of Greece and Asia Minor. His defeat left
the resources of his kingdom exhausted and its extent diminished; and so
the Jews became important to his successors for the sake of their wealth
and their position on the frontier. To pay his debt to Rome he was
compelled to resort to extraordinary methods of raising money; he
actually met his death (187 B.C.) in an attempt to loot the temple of
Elymais.
The pro-Syrian faction of the Palestinian Jews found their opportunity
in this emergency and informed the governor of Coele-Syria that the
treasury in Jerusalem contained untold sums of money. Heliodorus, prime
minister of Seleucus Philopator, who succeeded Antiochus, arrived at
Jerusalem in his progress through Coele-Syria and Phoenicia and declared
the treasure confiscate to the royal exchequer. According to the Jewish
legend Heliodorus was attacked when he entered the Temple by a horse
with a terrible rider and by two young men. He was scourged and only
escaped with his life at the intercession of Onias the high priest, who
had pleaded with him vainly that the treasure included the deposits of
widows and orphans and also some belonging to Hyrcanus, "a man in very
high position." Onias was accused by his enemies of having given the
information which led to this outrage and when, relying upon the support
of the provincial governor, they proceeded to attempt assassination, he
fled to Antioch and appealed to the king.
When Seleucus was assassinated by Heliodorus, Antiochus IV., his
brother, who had been chief magistrate at Athens, came back secretly
"to seize the kingdom by guile" (Dan. xi. 21 seq.). On his accession he
appointed Jesus, the brother of Onias, to the high-priesthood, and
sanctioned his proposals for the conversion of Jerusalem into a Greek
city. The high priest changed his name to Jason and made a gymnasium
near the citadel. The principle of separation was abandoned. The priests
deserted the Temple for the palaestra and the young nobles wore the
Greek cap. The Jews of Jerusalem were enrolled as citizens of Antioch.
Jason sent money for a sacrifice to Heracles at Tyre; and the only
recorded opposition to his policy came from his envoys, who pleaded that
the money might be applied to naval expenditure. Thus Jason stripped the
high-priesthood of its sacred character and did what he could to stamp
out Judaism.
Menelaus supplanted Jason, obtaining his appointment from the king by
the promise of a larger contribution. In order to secure his position,
he contrived the murder of Onias, who had taken sanctuary at Daphne.
This outrage, coupled with his appropriation of temple vessels, which he
used as bribes, raised against Menelaus the senate and the people of
Jerusalem. His brother and deputy was killed in a serious riot, and an
accusation was laid against Menelaus before Antiochus. At the inquiry he
bought his acquittal from a courtier and his accusers were executed.
Antiochus required peace in Jerusalem and probably regarded Onias as the
representative of the pro-Egyptian faction, the allies of his enemy.
During his second Egyptian campaign a rumour came that Antiochus was
dead, and Jason made a raid upon Jerusalem. Menelaus held the citadel
and Jason was unable to establish himself in the city. The people were
presumably out of sympathy with Hellenizers, whether they belonged to
the house of Onias or that of Tobiah. When Antiochus finally evacuated
Egypt in obedience to the decree of Rome, he thought that Judaea was in
revolt. Though Jason had fled, it was necessary to storm the city; the
drastic measures which Menelaus advised seem to indicate that the poorer
classes had been roused to defend the Temple from further sacrilege. A
massacre took place, and Antiochus braved the anger of Yahweh by
entering and pillaging the Temple with impunity. The author of 2
Maccabees infers from his success that the nation had forfeited all
right to divine protection for the time (2 Macc. v. 18-20).
The policy which Antiochus thus inaugurated he carried on rigorously and
systematically. His whole kingdom was to be unified; Judaism was an
eccentricity and as such doomed to extinction. The Temple of Jerusalem
was made over to Zeus Olympius: the temple of Gerizim to Zeus Xenius.
All the religious rites of Judaism were proscribed and the neighbouring
Greek cities were requested to enforce the prohibition upon their Jewish
citizens. Jerusalem was occupied by an army which took advantage of the
Sabbath and proceeded to suppress its observance. An Athenian came to be
the missionary of Hellenism and to direct its ceremonies, which were
established by force up and down the country.
28. _The Maccabees._--Jerusalem and Gerizim were purged and converted to
the state religion with some ease. Elsewhere, as there, some conformed
and some became martyrs for the faith. And the passive resistance of
those who refused to conform at length gave rise to active opposition.
"The king's officers who were enforcing the apostasy came into the city
of Modein to sacrifice, and many of Israel went over to them, but
Mattathias ... slew a Jew who came to sacrifice and the king's officer
and pulled down the altar" (1 Macc. ii. 15 sqq.). Whether led by this
Mattathias or not, certain Jews fled into the wilderness and found a
leader in Judas Maccabaeus his reputed son, the first of the five
Asmonean (Hasmonean) brethren. The warfare which followed was like that
which Saul and David waged against the Philistines. Antiochus was
occupied with his Parthian campaign and trusted that the Hellenized Jews
would maintain their ascendancy with the aid of the provincial troops.
In his last illness he wrote to express his confidence in their loyalty.
But the rebels collected adherents from the villages; and, when they
resolved to violate the sabbath to the extent of resisting attack, they
were joined by the company of the Assideans (Hasidim). Such a breach of
the sabbath was necessary if the whole Law was to survive at all in
Palestine. But the transgression is enough to explain the disfavour into
which the Maccabees seem to fall in the judgment of later Judaism, as,
in that judgment, it is enough to account for the instability of their
dynasty. Unstable as it was, their dynasty was soon established. In the
country-side of Judaea, Judaism--and no longer Hellenism--was propagated
by force. Apollonius, the commander of the Syrian garrison in Jerusalem,
and Seron the commander of the army in Syria, came in turn against Judas
and his bands and were defeated. The revolt thus became important enough
to engage the attention of the governor of Coele-Syria and Phoenicia, if
not of Lysias the regent himself. Nicanor was despatched with a large
army to put down the rebels and to pay the tribute due to Rome by
selling them as slaves. Judas was at Emmaus; "the men of the citadel"
guided a detachment of the Syrian troops to his encampment by night. The
rebels escaped in time, but not into the hills, as their enemies
surmised. At dawn they made an unexpected attack upon the main body and
routed it. Next year (165 B.C.) Lysias himself entered the Idumaean
country and laid siege to the fortress of Bethsura. Judas gathered what
men he could and joined battle. The siege was raised, more probably in
consequence of the death of Antiochus Epiphanes than because Judas had
gained any real victory. The proscription of the Jewish religion was
withdrawn and the Temple restored to them. But it was Menelaus who was
sent by the king "to encourage" (2 Macc. xi. 32) the Jews, and in the
official letters no reference is made to Judas. Such hints as these
indicate the impossibility of recovering a complete picture of the Jews
during the sovereignty of the Greeks, which the Talmudists regard as the
dark age, best left in oblivion.
Judas entered Jerusalem, the citadel of which was still occupied by a
Syrian garrison, and the Temple was re-dedicated on the 25th of Kislev
(164 B.C.). So "the Pious" achieved the object for which presumably they
took up arms. The re-establishment of Judaism, which alone of current
religions was intolerant of a rival, seems to have excited the jealousy
of their neighbours who had embraced the Greek way of life. The
hellenizers had not lost all hope of converting the nation and were
indisposed to acquiesce in the concordat. Judas and his zealots were
thus able to maintain their prominence and gradually to increase their
power. At Joppa, for example, the Jewish settlers--two hundred in
all--"were invited to go into boats provided in accordance with the
common decree of the city." They accepted the invitation and were
drowned. Judas avenged them by burning the harbour and the shipping, and
set to work to bring into Judaea all such communities of Jews who had
kept themselves separate from their heathen neighbours. In this way he
became strong enough to deal with the apostates of Judaea.
In 163 Lysias led another expedition against these disturbers of the
king's peace and defeated Judas at Bethzachariah. But while the forces
were besieging Bethzur and the fortress on Mount Zion, a pretender arose
in Antioch, and Lysias was compelled to come to terms--and now with
Judas. The Jewish refugees had turned the balance, and so Judas became
strategus of Judaea, whilst Menelaus was put to death.
In 162 Demetrius escaped from Rome and got possession of the kingdom of
Syria. Jakim, whose name outside religion was Alcimus, waited upon the
new king on behalf of the loyal Jews who had hellenized. He himself was
qualified to be the legitimate head of a united state, for he was of the
tribe of Aaron. Judas and the Asmoneans were usurpers, who owed their
title to Lysias. So Alcimus-Jakim was made high priest and Bacchides
brought an army to instal him in his office. The Assideans made their
submission at once. Judas had won for them religious freedom: but the
Temple required a descendant of Aaron for priest and he was come. But
his first act was to seize and slay sixty of them: so it was clear to
Judas at any rate, if not also to the Assideans who survived, that
political independence was necessary if the religion was to be secure.
In face of his active opposition Alcimus could not maintain himself
without the support of Bacchides and was forced to retire to Antioch.
In response to his complaints Nicanor was appointed governor of Judaea
with power to treat with Judas. It appears that the two became friends
at first, but fresh orders from Antioch made Nicanor guilty of treachery
in the eyes of Judas's partisans. Warned by the change of his friend's
manner Judas fled. Nicanor threatened to destroy the Temple if the
priests would not deliver Judas into his hands. Soon it came to his
knowledge that Judas was in Samaria, whither he followed him on a
sabbath with Jews pressed into his service. The day was known afterwards
as Nicanor's day, for he was found dead on the field (Capharsalama) by
the victorious followers of Judas (13th of Adar, March 161 B.C.). After
this victory Judas made an alliance with the people of Rome, who had no
love for Demetrius his enemy, nor any intention of putting their
professions of friendship into practice. Bacchides and Alcimus returned
meanwhile into the land of Judah; at Elasa "Judas fell and the rest
fled" (1 Macc. ix. 18). Bacchides occupied Judaea and made a chain of
forts. Jonathan, who succeeded his brother Judas, was captain of a band
of fugitive outlaws. But on the death of Alcimus Bacchides retired and
Jonathan with his followers settled down beyond the range of the Syrian
garrisons. The Hellenizers still enjoyed the royal favour and Jonathan
made no attempt to dispossess them. After an interval of two years they
tried to capture him and failed. This failure seems to have convinced
Bacchides that it would be well to recognize Jonathan and to secure a
balance of parties. In 158 Jonathan began to rule as a judge in Michmash
and he destroyed the godless out of Israel--so far, that is, as his
power extended. In 153 Alexander Balas withdrew Jonathan from his
allegiance to Demetrius by the offer of the high-priesthood. He had
already made Jerusalem his capital and fortified the Temple mount: the
Syrian garrisons had already been withdrawn with the exception of those
of the Akra and Bethzur. In 147 Jonathan repaid his benefactor by
destroying the army of the governor of Coele-Syria, who had espoused the
cause of Demetrius. The fugitives took sanctuary in the temple of Dagon
at Azotus. "But Jonathan burned the temple of Dagon and those who fled
into it." After the death of Balas he laid siege to the Akra; and "the
apostates, who hated their own nation," appealed to Demetrius. Jonathan
was summoned to Antioch, made his peace and apparently relinquished his
attempt in return for the addition of three Samaritan districts to his
territory. Later, when the people of Antioch rose against the king,
Jonathan despatched a force of 3000 men who played a notable part in the
merciless suppression of the insurrection. 1 Maccabees credits them with
100,000 victims. Trypho, the regent of Antiochus VI., put even greater
political power into the hands of Jonathan and his brother Simon, but
finally seized Jonathan on the pretext of a conference. Simon was thus
left to consolidate what had been won in Palestine for the Jews and the
family whose head he had become. The weakness of the king enabled him to
demand and to secure immunity from taxation. The Jewish aristocracy
became peers of the Seleucid kingdom. Simon was declared high priest:
Rome and Sparta rejoiced in the elevation of their friend and ally. In
the hundred and seventieth year (142 B.C.) the yoke of the heathen was
taken away from Israel and the people began to date their legal
documents "in the first year of Simon the great high priest and
commander and leader of the Jews." The popular verdict received official
and formal sanction. Simon was declared by the Jews and the priests
their governor and high priest for ever, until there should arise a
faithful prophet. The garrison of the Akra had been starved by a close
blockade into submission, and beyond the boundaries of Judaea "he took
Joppa for a haven and made himself master of Gazara and Bethsura."
29. _John Hyrcanus and the Sadducees._--But in 138 B.C. Antiochus
Sidetes entered Seleucia and required the submission of all the petty
states, which had taken advantage of the weakness of preceding kings.
From Simon he demanded an indemnity of 1000 talents for his oppression
and invasion of non-Jewish territory: Simon offered 100 talents. At
length Antiochus appeared to enforce his demand in 134. Simon was dead
(135 B.C.) and John Hyrcanus had succeeded his father. The Jewish forces
were driven back upon Jerusalem and the city was closely invested. At
the feast of tabernacles of 132 Hyrcanus requested and Antiochus granted
a week's truce. The only hope of the Jews lay in the clemency of their
victorious suzerain, and it did not fail them. Some of his advisers
urged the demolition of the nation on the ground of their exclusiveness,
but he sent a sacrifice and won thereby the name of "Pious." In
subsequent negotiations he accepted the disarmament of the besieged and
a tribute as conditions of peace, and in response to their entreaty left
Jerusalem without a garrison. When he went on his last disastrous
campaign, Hyrcanus led a Jewish contingent to join his army, partly
perhaps a troop of mercenaries (for Hyrcanus was the first of the Jewish
kings to hire mercenaries, with the treasure found in David's tomb).
After his death Hyrcanus took advantage of the general confusion to
extend Jewish territory with the countenance of Rome. He destroyed the
temple of Gerizim and compelled the Idumaeans to submit to circumcision
and embrace the laws of the Jews on pain of deportation.
In Jerusalem and in the country, in Alexandria, Egypt and Cyprus, the
Jews were prosperous (Jos. _Ant._ xiii. 284). This prosperity and the
apparent security of Judaism led to a breach between Hyrcanus and his
spiritual directors, the Pharisees. His lineage was (in the opinion of
one of them at least) of doubtful purity; and so it was his duty to lay
down the high-priesthood and be content to rule the nation. That one man
should hold both offices was indeed against the example of Moses, and
could only be admitted as a temporary concession to necessity. Hyrcanus
could not entertain the proposal that he should resign the sacred office
to which he owed much of his authority. The allegation about his mother
was false: the Pharisee who retailed it was guilty of no small offence.
A Sadducean friend advised Hyrcanus to ask the whole body of the
Pharisees to prescribe the penalty. Their leniency, which was notorious,
alienated the king or probably furnished him with a pretext for breaking
with them. The Pharisees were troublesome counsellors and doubtful
allies for an ambitious prince. They were all-powerful with the people,
but Hyrcanus with his mercenaries was independent of the people, and the
wealthy belonged to the sect of the Sadducees. The suppression of the
Pharisaic ordinances and the punishment of those who observed them led
to some disturbance. But Hyrcanus "was judged worthy of the three great
privileges, the rule of the nation, the high-priestly dignity, and
prophecy." This verdict suggests that the Sadducees, with whom he allied
himself, had learned to affect some show of Judaism in Judaea. If the
poor were ardent nationalists who would not intermingle with the Greeks,
the rich had long outgrown and now could humour such prejudices; and the
title of their party was capable of recalling at any rate the sound of
the national ideal of righteousness, i.e. _Sadaqah_.
The successor of Hyrcanus (d. 105) was Judas Aristobulus, "the friend of
the Greeks," who first assumed the title of king. According to Strabo he
was a courteous man and in many ways useful to the Jews. His great
achievement was the conquest of a part of Ituraea, which he added to
Judaea and whose inhabitants he compelled to accept Judaism.
The Sadducean nobility continued in power under his brother and
successor Alexander Jannaeus (103-78); and the breach between the king
and the mass of the people widened. But Salome Alexandra, his brother's
widow, who released him from prison on the death of her husband and
married him, was connected with the Pharisees through her brother Simon
ben Shetach. If his influence or theirs dictated her policy, there is no
evidence of any objection to the union of the secular power with the
high-priesthood. The party may have thought that Jannaeus was likely to
bring the dynasty to an end. His first action was to besiege Ptolemais.
Its citizens appealed to Ptolemy Lathyrus, who had been driven from the
throne of Egypt by his mother Cleopatra and was reigning in Cyprus.
Alexander raised the siege, made peace with Ptolemy and secretly sent to
Cleopatra for help against her son. The result of this double-dealing
was that his army was destroyed by Ptolemy, who advanced into Egypt
leaving Palestine at the mercy of Cleopatra. But Cleopatra's generals
were Jews and by their protests prevented her from annexing it. Being
thus freed from fear on the side of Ptolemy, Alexander continued his
desultory campaigns across the Jordan and on the coast without any
apparent policy and with indifferent success. Finally, when he
officiated as high priest at the feast of tabernacles he roused the fury
of the people by a derisive breach of the Pharisaic ritual. They cried
out that he was unworthy of his office, and pelted him with the citrons
which they were carrying as the Law prescribed. Alexander summoned his
mercenaries, and 6000 Jews were killed before he set out on his
disastrous campaign against an Arabian king. He returned a fugitive to
find the nation in armed rebellion. After six years of civil war he
appealed to them to state the conditions under which they would lay
aside their hostility. They replied by demanding his death and called in
the Syrians. But when the Syrians chased him into the mountains, 6000
Jews went over to him and, with their aid, he put down the rebellion.
Eight hundred Jews who had held a fortress against him were crucified;
8000 Pharisees fled to Egypt and remained there. Offering an ineffectual
resistance to the passage of the Syrian troops, Alexander was driven
back by Aretas, king of Arabia, against whom they had marched. His later
years brought him small victories over isolated cities.
On his deathbed it is said that Alexander advised his wife to reverse
this policy and rely upon the Pharisees. According to the Talmud, he
warned her "to fear neither the Pharisees nor their opponents but the
hypocrites who do the deed of Zimri and claim the reward of Phinehas:"
the warning indicates his justification of his policy in the matter of
the crucifixions. In any case the Pharisees were predominant under
Alexandra, who became queen (78-69) under her husband's will. Hyrcanus
her elder son was only high priest, as the stricter Pharisees required.
All the Pharisaic ordinances which Hyrcanus had abolished were
reaffirmed as binding. Simon ben Shatach stood beside the queen: the
exiles were restored and among them his great colleague Jehudah ben
Tabai. The great saying of each of these rabbis is concerned with the
duties of a judge; the selection does justice to the importance of the
Sanhedrin, which was filled with Pharisees. The legal reforms which they
introduced tended for the most part to mercy, but the Talmud refers to
one case which is an exception: false witnesses were condemned to suffer
the penalty due to their victim, even if he escaped. This ruling may be
interpreted as part of a campaign directed against the counsellors of
Alexander or as an instance of their general principle that intention is
equivalent to commission in the eye of the Law. The queen interposed to
prevent the execution of those who had counselled the crucifixion of the
rebels and permitted them to withdraw with her younger son Aristobulus
to the fortresses outside Jerusalem. Against their natural desire for
revenge may be set the fact that the Pharisees did much to improve the
status of women among the Jews.
On the death of Alexandra (69 B.C.) Aristobulus disputed the succession
of Hyrcanus. When their forces met at Jericho, Hyrcanus, finding that
the bulk of his following deserted to Aristobulus, fled with those who
remained to the tower Antonia and seized Aristobulus's wife and children
as hostages for his own safety. Having this advantage, he was able to
abdicate in favour of Aristobulus and to retire into private life. But
he was not able to save his friends, who were also the enemies of the
reigning king. In fear of reprisals Antipas (or Antipater), the
Idumaean, his counsellor, played on the fears of Hyrcanus and persuaded
him to buy the aid of the Nabataean Arabs with promises. Aristobulus
could not withstand the army of Aretas: he was driven back upon
Jerusalem and there besieged. The Jews deserted to the victorious
Hyrcanus: only the priests remained loyal to their accepted king; many
fled to Egypt.
30. _The Romans and the Idumaeans._--At this point the power of Rome
appeared upon the scene in the person of M. Aemilius Scaurus (stepson of
Sulla) who had been sent into Syria by Pompey (65 B.C.). Both brothers
appealed to this new tribunal and Aristobulus bought a verdict in his
favour. The siege was raised. Aretas retired from Judaea; and
Aristobulus pursued the retreating army. But, when Pompey himself
arrived at Damascus, Antipater, who pulled the strings and exploited the
claims of Hyrcanus, realized that Rome and not the Arabs, who were cowed
by the threats of Scaurus, was the ruler of the East. To Rome,
therefore, he must pay his court. Others shared this conviction: Strabo
speaks of embassies from Egypt and Judaea bearing presents--one
deposited in the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus bore the inscription of
Alexander, the king of the Jews. From Judaea there were three embassies
pleading, for Aristobulus, for Hyrcanus, and for the nation, who would
have no king at all but their God.
Pompey deferred his decision until he should have inquired into the
state of the Nabataeans, who had shown themselves to be capable of
dominating the Jews in the absence of the Roman army. In the interval
Aristobulus provoked him by his display of a certain impatience. The
people had no responsible head, of whom Rome could take cognisance: so
Pompey decided in favour of Hyrcanus and humoured the people by
recognizing him, not as king, but as high priest. Antipater remained
secure, in power if not in place. The Roman supremacy was established:
the Jews were once more one of the subject states of Syria, now a Roman
province. Their national aspirations had received a contemptuous
acknowledgment, when their Temple had been desecrated by the entry of a
foreign conqueror.
Aristobulus himself had less resolution than his partisans. When he
repented of his attempted resistance and treated with Pompey for peace,
his followers threw themselves into Jerusalem, and, when the faction of
Hyrcanus resolved to open the gates, into the Temple. There they held
out for three months, succumbing finally because in obedience to the Law
(as interpreted since the time of Antiochus Epiphanes) they would only
defend themselves from actual assault upon the sabbath day. The Romans
profited by this inaction to push on the siege-works, without provoking
resistance by actual assaults until the very end. Pompey finally took
the stronghold by choosing the day of the fast, when the Jews abstain
from all work, that is the sabbath (Strabo). Dio Cassius calls it the
day of Cronos. On this bloody sabbath the priests showed a devotion to
their worship which matched the inaction of the fighting men. Though
they saw the enemy advancing upon them sword in hand they remained at
worship untroubled and were slaughtered as they poured libation and
burned incense, for they put their own safety second to the service of
God. And there were Jews among the murderers of the 12,000 Jews who
fell.
The Jews of Palestine thus became once more a subject state, stripped of
their conquests and confined to their own borders. Aristobulus and his
children were conveyed to Rome to grace their conqueror's triumphal
procession. But his son Alexander escaped during the journey, gathered
some force, and overran Judaea. The Pharisees decided that they could
not take action on either side, since the elder son of Alexandra was
directed by the Idumaean Antipater; and the people had an affection for
such Asmonean princes as dared to challenge the Roman domination of
their ancestral kingdom. The civil war was renewed; but Aulus Gabinius,
the proconsul, soon crushed the pretender and set up an aristocracy in
Judaea with Hyrcanus as guardian of the Temple. The country was divided
into five districts with five synods; and Josephus asserts that the
people welcomed the change from the monarchy. In spite of this,
Aristobulus (56 B.C.) and Alexander (55 B.C.) found loyalists to follow
them in their successive raids. But Antipater found supplies for the
army of Gabinius, who, despite Egyptian and Parthian distractions,
restored order according to the will of Antipater. M. Crassus, who
succeeded him, plundered the Temple of its gold and the treasure (54
B.C.) which the Jews of the dispersion had contributed for its
maintenance. It is said that Eleazar, the priest who guarded the
treasure, offered Crassus the golden beam as ransom for the whole,
knowing, what no one else knew, that it was mainly composed of wood. So
Crassus departed to Parthia and died. When the Parthians, elated by
their victory over Crassus (53 B.C.) advanced upon Syria, Cassius
opposed them. Some of the Jews, presumably the partisans of Aristobulus,
were ready to co-operate with the Parthians. At any rate Antipater was
ready to aid Cassius with advice; Taricheae was taken and 30,000 Jews
were sold into slavery (51 B.C.). In spite of this vigorous coercion
Cassius came to terms with Alexander, before he returned to the
Euphrates to hold it against the Parthians.
Two years later Julius Caesar made himself master of Rome and despatched
the captive Aristobulus with two legions to win Judaea (49 B.C.). But
Pompey's partisans were beforehand with him: he was taken off by poison
and got not so much as a burial in his fatherland. At the same time his
son Alexander was beheaded at Antioch by Pompey's order as an enemy of
Rome. After the defeat and death of Pompey (48 B.C.) Antipater
transferred his allegiance to Caesar and demonstrated its value during
Caesar's Egyptian campaign. He carried with him the Arabs and the
princes of Syria, and through Hyrcanus he was able to transform the
hostility of the Egyptian Jews into active friendliness. These services,
which incidentally illustrate the solidarity and unity of the Jewish
nation and the respect of the communities of the dispersion for the
metropolis, were recognized and rewarded. Before his assassination in 44
B.C. Julius Caesar had confirmed Hyrcanus in the high-priesthood and
added the title of ethnarch. Antipater had been made a Roman citizen and
procurator of the reunited Judaea. Further, as confederates of the
senate and people of Rome, the Jews had received accession of territory,
including the port of Joppa and, with other material privileges, the
right of observing their religious customs not only in Palestine but
also in Alexandria and elsewhere. Idumaean or Philistine of Ascalon,
Antipater had displayed the capacity of his adoptive or adopted nation
for his own profit and theirs. And when Caesar died Suetonius notes that
he was mourned by foreign nations, especially by the Jews (_Caes._ 84).
In the midst of all this civil strife the Pharisees and all who were
preoccupied with religion found it almost impossible to discern what
they should do to please God. The people whom they directed were called
out to fight, at the bidding of an alien, for this and that foreigner
who seemed most powerful and most likely to succeed. In Palestine few
could command leisure for meditation; as for opportunities of effective
intervention in affairs, they had none, it would seem, once Alexander
was dead.
There is a story of a priest named Onias preserved both by Josephus
and in the Talmud, which throws some light upon the indecision of the
religious in the period just reviewed. When Aretas intervened in the
interest of Hyrcanus and defeated Aristobulus, the usurper of his
brother's inheritance, the people accepted the verdict of battle,
sided with the victor's client, and joined in the siege of Jerusalem.
The most reputable of the Jews fled to Egypt; but Onias, a righteous
man and dear to God, who had hidden himself, was discovered by the
besiegers. He had a name for power in prayer; for once in a drought he
prayed for rain and God had heard his prayer. His captors now required
of him that he should put a curse upon Aristobulus and his faction. On
compulsion he stood in their midst and said: "O God, king of the
universe, since these who stand with me are thy people and the
besieged are thy priests, I pray thee that thou hearken not to those
against these, nor accomplish what these entreat against those." So he
prayed--and the wicked Jews stoned him.
Unrighteous Jews were in the ascendant. There were only Asmonean
princes, degenerate and barely titular sons of Levi, to serve as
judges of Israel--and they were at feud and both relied upon foreign
aid. The righteous could only flee or hide, and so wait dreaming of
the mercy of God past and to come. As yet our authorities do not
permit us to follow them to Egypt with any certainty, but the _Psalms
of Solomon_ express the mind of one who survived to see Pompey the
Great brought low. Although Pompey had spared the temple treasure, he
was the embodiment of the power of Rome, which was not always so
considerately exercised. And so the psalmist exults in his death and
dishonour (Ps. ii.): he prayed that the pride of the dragon might be
humbled and God shewed him the dead body lying upon the waves--and
there was none to bury it. As one of those who fear the Lord in truth
and in patience, he looks forward to the punishment of all sinners who
oppress the righteous and profane the sanctuary. For the sins of the
rulers God had rejected his people; but the remnant could not but
inherit the promises, which belong to the chosen people. For the Lord
is faithful unto those who walk in the righteousness of his
commandments (xiv. 1): in the exercise of their freewill and with
God's help they will attain salvation. As God's servant, Pompey
destroyed their rulers and every wise councillor: soon the righteous
and sinless king of David's house shall reign over them and over all
the nations (xvii.).
31. _Herod the Great._--After the departure of Caesar, Antipater warned
the adherents of Hyrcanus against taking part in any revolutionary
attempts, and his son Herod, who, in spite of his youth, had been
appointed governor of Galilee, dealt summarily with Hezekiah, the robber
captain who was overrunning the adjacent part of Syria. The gratitude of
the Syrians brought him to the knowledge of Sextus Caesar the governor
of Syria; but his action inspired the chief men of the Jews with
apprehension. Complaint was made to Hyrcanus that Herod had violated the
law which prohibited the execution of even an evil man, unless he had
been first condemned to death by the Sanhedrin. At the same time the
mothers of the murdered men came to the Temple to demand vengeance. So
Herod was summoned to stand his trial. He came in answer to the
summons--but attended by a bodyguard and protected by the word of
Sextus. Of all the Sanhedrin only Sameas "a righteous man and therefore
superior to fear" dared to speak. Being a Pharisee he faced the facts of
Herod's power and warned the tribunal of the event, just as later he
counselled the people to receive him, saying that for their sins they
could not escape him. Herod put his own profit above the Law, acting
after his kind, and he also was God's instrument. The effect of the
speech was to goad the Sanhedrin into condemning Herod: Hyrcanus
postponed their decision and persuaded him to flee. Sextus Caesar made
him lieutenant-governor of Coele Syria, and only his father restrained
him from returning to wreak his revenge upon Hyrcanus.
It is to be remembered that, in this and all narratives of the life of
Herod, Josephus was dependent upon the history of Herod's client,
Nicolaus of Damascus, and was himself a supporter of law and order.
The action of the Sanhedrin and the presence of the women suppliants
in the Temple suggest, if they do not prove, that this Hezekiah who
harassed the Syrians was a Jewish patriot, who could not acquiesce and
wait with Sameas.
Malichus also, the murderer or reputed murderer of Antipater, appears to
have been a partisan of Hyrcanus, who had a zeal for Judaism. When
Cassius demanded a tribute of 700 talents from Palestine, Antipater set
Herod, Phasael and this Malichus, his enemy, to collect it. Herod
thought it imprudent to secure the favour of Rome by the sufferings of
others. But some cities defaulted, and they were apparently among those
assigned to Malichus. If he had been lenient for their sakes or in the
hope of damaging Antipater, he was disappointed; for Cassius sold four
cities into slavery and Hyrcanus made up the deficit. Soon after this
(43 B.C.) Malichus succeeded, it is said, in poisoning Antipater as he
dined with Hyrcanus, and was assassinated by Herod's bravoes.
After the departure of Cassius, Antipater being dead, there was
confusion in Judaea. Antigonus, the son of Aristobulus, made a raid and
was with difficulty repulsed by Herod. The prince of Tyre occupied part
of Galilee. When Antony assumed the dominion of the East after the
defeat of Cassius at Philippi, an embassy of the Jews, amongst other
embassies, approached him in Bithynia and accused the sons of Antipater
as usurpers of the power which rightly belonged to Hyrcanus. Another
approached him at Antioch. But Hyrcanus was well content to forgo the
title to political power, which he could not exercise in practice, and
Antony had been a friend of Antipater. So Herod and Phasael continued to
be virtually kings of the Jews: Antony's court required large
remittances and Palestine was not exempt.
In 40 B.C. Antony was absent in Egypt or Italy; and the Parthians swept
down upon Syria with Antigonus in their train. Hyrcanus and Phasael were
trapped: Herod fled by way of Egypt to Rome. Hyrcanus, who was
Antigonus' only rival, was mutilated and carried to Parthia. So he could
no more be high priest, and his life was spared only at the
intercession of the Parthian Jews, who had a regard for the Asmonean
prince. Thus Antigonus succeeded his uncle as "King Antigonus" in the
Greek and "Mattathiah the high priest" in the Hebrew by grace of the
Parthians.
The senate of Rome under the influence of Antony and Octavian ratified
the claims of Herod, and after some delay lent him the armed force
necessary to make them good. In the hope of healing the breach, which
his success could only aggravate, and for love, he took to wife
Mariamne, grandniece of Hyrcanus. Galilee was pacified, Jerusalem taken
and Antigonus beheaded by the Romans. From this point to the end of the
period the Jews were dependents of Rome, free to attend to their own
affairs, so long as they paid taxes to the subordinate rulers, Herodian
or Roman, whom they detested equally. If some from time to time dared to
hope for political independence their futility was demonstrated. One by
one the descendants of the Asmoneans were removed. The national hope was
relegated to an indefinite future and to another sphere. At any rate the
Jews were free to worship their God and to study his law: their religion
was recognized by the state and indeed established.
This development of Judaism was eminently to the mind of the rulers; and
Herod did much to encourage it. More and more it became identified with
the synagogue, in which the Law was expounded: more and more it became a
matter for the individual and his private life. This was so even in
Palestine--the land which the Jews hoped to possess--and in Jerusalem
itself, the holy city, in which the Temple stood. Herod had put down
Jewish rebels and Herod appointed the high priests. In his appointments
he was careful to avoid or to suppress any person who, being popular,
might legitimize a rebellion by heading it. The Pharisees, who regarded
his rule as an inevitable penalty for the sins of the people, he
encouraged. Pollio the Pharisee and Sameas his disciple were in special
honour with him, Josephus says, when he re-entered Jerusalem and put to
death the leaders of the faction of Antigonus. How well their teaching
served his purpose is shown by the sayings of two rabbis who, if not
identical with these Pharisees, belong to their period and their party.
Shemaiah said, "Love work and hate lordship and make not thyself known
to the government." Abtalion said, "Ye wise, be guarded in your words:
perchance ye may incur the debt of exile." Precepts such as these could
hardly fall to effect some modification of the reckless zeal of the
Galileans in the pupils of the synagogue. Many if not all of the
professed rabbis had travelled outside Palestine: some were even members
of the dispersion, like Hillel the Babylonian, who with Shammai forms
the second of the pairs. Through them the experience of the dispersion
was brought to bear upon the Palestinian Jews. Herod's nominees were not
the men to extend the prestige of the high-priesthood at the expense of
these rabbis: even in Jerusalem the synagogue became of more importance
than the Temple. Hillel also inculcated the duty of making converts to
Judaism. He said, "Be of the disciples of Aaron, loving peace, and
pursuing peace, loving mankind and bringing them nigh to the Law." But
even he reckoned the books of Daniel and Esther as canonical, and these
were dangerous food for men who did not realize the full power of Rome.
So long as Herod lived there was no insurrection. Formally he was an
orthodox Jew and set his face against intermarriage with the
uncircumcised. He was also ready and able to protect the Jews of the
dispersion. But that ability was largely due to his whole-hearted
Hellenism, which was shown by the Greek cities which he founded in
Palestine and the buildings he erected in Jerusalem. In its material
embodiments Greek civilization became as much a part of Jewish life in
Palestine as it was in Alexandria or Antioch; and herein the rabbis
could not follow him.
When all the Jewish people swore to be loyal to Caesar and the king's
policy, the Pharisees--above 6000--refused to swear. The king imposed a
fine upon them, and the wife of Pheroras--Herod's brother--paid it on
their behalf. In return for her kindness, being entrusted with
foreknowledge by the visitation of God, they prophesied that God had
decreed an end of rule for Herod and his line and that the sovereignty
devolved upon her and Pheroras and their children.
From the sequel it appears that the prophecy was uttered by one Pharisee
only, and that it was in no way endorsed by the party. When it came to
the ears of the king he slew the most responsible of the Pharisees and
every member of his household who accepted what the Pharisee said. An
explanation of this unwarrantable generalization may be found in the
fact that the incident is derived from a source which was unfavourable
to the Pharisees: they are described as a Jewish section of men who
pretend to set great store by the exactitude of the ancestral tradition
and the laws in which the deity delights--as dominant over
women-folk--and as sudden and quick in quarrel.
Towards the end of Herod's life two rabbis attempted to uphold by
physical force the cardinal dogma of Judaism, which prohibited the use
of images. Their action is intelligible enough. Herod was stricken with
an incurable disease. He had sinned against the Law; and at last God had
punished him. At last the law-abiding Jews might and must assert the
majesty of the outraged Law. The most conspicuous of the many symbols
and signs of his transgression was the golden eagle which he had placed
over the great gate of the Temple; its destruction was the obvious means
to adopt for the quickening and assertion of Jewish principles.
By their labours in the education of the youth of the nation, these
rabbis, Judas and Matthias, had endeared themselves to the populace and
had gained influence over their disciples. A report that Herod was dead
co-operated with their exhortations to send the iconoclasts to their
appointed work. And so they went to earn the rewards of their practical
piety from the Law. If they died, death was inevitable, the rabbis said,
and no better death would they ever find. Moreover, their children and
kindred would benefit by the good name and fame belonging to those who
died for the Law. Such is the account which Josephus gives in the
_Antiquities_; in the _Jewish War_ he represents the rabbis and their
disciples as looking forward to greater happiness for themselves after
such a death. But Herod was not dead yet, and the instigators and the
agents of this sacrilege were burned alive.
32. _The Settlement of Augustus._--On the death of Herod in 4 B.C.
Archelaus kept open house for mourners as the Jewish custom, which
reduced many Jews to beggary, prescribed. The people petitioned for the
punishment of those who were responsible for the execution of Matthias
and his associates and for the removal of the high priest. Archelaus
temporized; the loyalty of the people no longer constituted a valid
title to the throne; his succession must first be sanctioned by
Augustus. Before he departed to Rome on this errand, which was itself an
insult to the nation, there were riots in Jerusalem at the Passover
which he needed all his soldiery to put down. When he presented himself
before the emperor--apart from rival claimants of his own family--there
was an embassy from the Jewish people who prayed to be rid of a monarchy
and rulers such as Herod. As part of the Roman province of Syria and
under its governors they would prove that they were not really
disaffected and rebellious. During the absence of Archelaus, who
would--the Jews feared--prove his legitimacy by emulating his father's
ferocity, and to whom their ambassadors preferred Antipas, the Jews of
Palestine gave the lie to their protestations of loyalty and
peaceableness. At the Passover the pilgrims attacked the Roman troops.
After hard fighting the procurator, whose cruelty provoked the attack,
captured the Temple and robbed the treasury. On this the insurgents were
joined by some of Herod's army and besieged the Romans in Herod's
palace. Elsewhere the occasion tempted many to play at being
king--Judas, son of Hezekiah, in Galilee; Simon, one of the king's
slaves, in Peraea. Most notable of all perhaps was the shepherd
Athronges, who assumed the pomp of royalty and employed his four
brothers as captains and satraps in the war which he waged upon Romans
and king's men alike--not even Jews escaped him unless they brought him
contributions. Order was restored by Varus the governor of Syria in a
campaign which Josephus describes as the most important war between that
of Pompey and that of Vespasian.
At length Augustus summoned the representatives of the nation and
Nicholaus of Damascus, who spoke for Archelaus, to plead before him in
the temple of Apollo. Augustus apportioned Herod's dominions among his
sons in accordance with the provisions of his latest will. Archelaus
received the lion's share: for ten years he was ethnarch of Idumaea,
Judaea and Samaria, with a yearly revenue of 600 talents. Antipas became
tetrarch of Galilee and Peraea, with a revenue of 200 talents. Philip,
who had been left in charge of Palestine pending the decision and had
won the respect of Varus, became tetrarch of Batanaea, Trachonitis and
Auranitis, with 100 talents. His subjects included only a sprinkling of
Jews. Up to his death (A.D. 34) he did nothing to forfeit the favour of
Rome. His coins bore the heads of Augustus and Tiberius, and his
government was worthy of the best Roman traditions--he succeeded where
proconsuls had failed. His capital was Caesarea Philippi, where Pan had
been worshipped from ancient times, and where Augustus had a temple
built by Herod the Great.
33. _Archelaus._--Augustus had counselled Archelaus to deal gently with
his subjects. But there was an outstanding feud between him and them;
and his first act as ethnarch was to remove the high priest on the
ground of his sympathy with the rebels. In violation of the Law he
married a brother's widow, who had already borne children, and in
general he showed himself so fierce and tyrannical that the Jews joined
with the Samaritans to accuse him before the emperor. Archelaus was
summoned to Rome and banished to Gaul; his territory was entrusted to a
series of procurators (A.D. 6-41), among whom was an apostate Jew, but
none with any pretension even to a semi-legitimate authority. Each
procurator represented not David but Caesar. The Sanhedrin had its
police and powers to safeguard the Jewish religion; but the procurator
had the appointment of the high priests, and no capital sentence could
be executed without his sanction.
34. _The Procurators._--So the Jews of Judaea obtained the settlement
for which they had pleaded at the death of Herod; and some of them began
to regret it at once. The first procurator Coponius was accompanied by
P. Sulpicius Quirinius, legate of Syria, who came to organize the new
Roman province. As a necessary preliminary a census (A.D. 6-7) was taken
after the Roman method, which did not conform to the Jewish Law. The
people were affronted, but for the most part acquiesced, under the
influence of Joazar the high priest. But Judas the Galilean, with a
Pharisee named Sadduc (Sadduk), endeavoured to incite them to rebellion
in the name of religion. The result of this alliance between a
revolutionary and a Pharisee was the formation of the party of Zealots,
whose influence--according to Josephus--brought about the great revolt
and so led to the destruction of Jerusalem in 70. So far as this
influence extended, the Jewish community was threatened with the danger
of suicide, and the distinction drawn by Josephus between the Pharisees
and the Zealots is a valid one. Not all Pharisees were prepared to take
such action, in order that Israel might "tread on the neck of the eagle"
(as is said in _The Assumption of Moses_). So long as the Law was not
deliberately outraged and so long as the worship was established, most
of the religious leaders of the Jews were content to wait.
It seems that the Zealots made more headway in Galilee than in
Judaea--so much so that the terms Galilean and Zealot are practically
interchangeable. In Galilee the Jews predominated over the heathen and
their ruler Herod Antipas had some sort of claim upon their allegiance.
His marriage with the daughter of the Arabian king Aretas (which was at
any rate in accordance with the general policy of Augustus) seems to
have preserved his territory from the incursions of her people, so long
as he remained faithful to her. He conciliated his subjects by his
deference to the observances of Judaism, and--the case is probably
typical of his policy--he joined in protesting, when Pilate set up a
votive shield in the palace of Herod within the sacred city. He seems
to have served Tiberius as an official scrutineer of the imperial
officials and he commemorated his devotion by the foundation of the city
of Tiberias. But he repudiated the daughter of Aretas in order to marry
Herodias and so set the Arabians against him. Disaster overtook his
forces (A.D. 36) and Tiberius, his patron, died before the Roman power
was brought in full strength to his aid. Caligula was not predisposed to
favour the favourites of Tiberius; and Antipas, having petitioned him
for the title of king at the instigation of Herodias, was banished from
his tetrarchy and (apparently) was put to death in 39.
Antipas is chiefly known to history in connexion with John the Baptist,
who reproached him publicly for his marriage with Herodias. According to
the earliest authority, he seems to have imprisoned John to save him
from the vengeance of Herodias. But--whatever his motive--Antipas
certainly consented to John's death. If the Fourth Gospel is to be
trusted, John had already recognized and acclaimed Jesus of Nazareth as
the Messiah for whom the Jews were looking. By common consent of
Christendom, John was the forerunner of the founder of the Christian
Church. It was, therefore, during the reign of Antipas, and partly if
not wholly within his territory, that the Gospel was first preached by
the rabbi or prophet whom Christendom came to regard as the one true
Christ, the Messiah of the Jews. Josephus' history of the Jews contains
accounts of John the Baptist and Jesus, the authenticity of which has
been called in question for plausible but not entirely convincing
reasons. However this may be, the Jews who believed Jesus to be the
Christ play no great part in the history of the Jews before 70, as we
know it. Many religious teachers and many revolutionaries were crucified
within this period; and the early Christians were outwardly
distinguished from other Jews only by their scrupulous observance of
religious duties.
The crucifixion of Jesus was sanctioned by Pontius Pilate, who was
procurator of Judaea A.D. 26-36. Of the Jews under his predecessors
little enough is known. Speaking generally, they seem to have avoided
giving offence to their subjects. But Pilate so conducted affairs as to
attract the attention not only of Josephus but also of Philo, who
represents for us the Jewish community of Alexandria. Pilate inaugurated
his term of office by ordering his troops to enter Jerusalem at night
and to take their standards with them. There were standards and
standards in the Roman armies: those which bore the image of the
emperor, and therefore constituted a breach of the Jewish Law, had
hitherto been kept aloof from the holy city. On learning of this, the
Jews repaired to Caesarea and besought Pilate to remove these offensive
images. Pilate refused; and, when they persisted in their petition for
six days, he surrounded them with soldiers and threatened them with
instant death. They protested that they would rather die than dare to
transgress the wisdom of the laws; and Pilate yielded. But he proceeded
to expend the temple treasure upon an aqueduct for Jerusalem; and some
of the Jews regarded the devotion of sacred money to the service of man
as a desecration. Pilate came up to Jerusalem and dispersed the
petitioners by means of disguised soldiers armed with clubs. So the
revolt was put down, but the excessive zeal of the soldiers and Pilate's
obstinate adherence to his policy widened the breach between Rome and
the stricter Jews. But the death of Sejanus in 31 set Tiberius free from
prejudice against the Jews; and, when Pilate put up the votive shields
in Herod's palace at Jerusalem, the four sons of Herod came forward in
defence of Jewish principles and he was ordered to remove them. In 35 he
dispersed a number of Samaritans, who had assembled near Mt Gerizim at
the bidding of an impostor, in order to see the temple vessels buried
there by Moses. Complaint was made to Vitellius, then legate of Syria,
and Pilate was sent to Rome to answer for his shedding of innocent
blood. At the passover of 36 Vitellius came to Jerusalem and pacified
the Jews by two concessions: he remitted the taxes on fruit sold in the
city, and he restored to their custody the high priest's vestments,
which Herod Archelaus and the Romans had kept in the tower Antonia. The
vestments had been stored there since the time of the first high priest
named Hyrcanus, and Herod had taken them over along with the tower,
thinking that his possession of them would deter the Jews from rebellion
against his rule. At the same time Vitellius vindicated the Roman
supremacy by degrading Caiaphas from the high-priesthood, and appointing
a son of Annas in his place. The motive for this change does not appear,
and we are equally ignorant of the cause which prompted his transference
of the priesthood from his nominee to another son of Annas in 37. But it
is quite clear that Vitellius was concerned to reconcile the Jews to the
authority of Rome. When he marched against Aretas, his army with their
standards did not enter Judaea at all; but he himself went up to
Jerusalem for the feast and, on receipt of the news that Tiberius was
dead, administered to the Jews the oath of allegiance to Caligula.
35. _Caligula and Agrippa I._--The accession of Caligula (A.D. 37-41)
was hailed by his subjects generally as the beginning of the Golden Age.
The Jews in particular had a friend at court. Agrippa, the grandson of
Herod the Great, was an avowed partisan of the new emperor and had paid
penalty for a premature avowal of his preference. But Caligula's favour,
though lavished upon Agrippa, was not available for pious Jews. His
foible was omnipotence, and he aped the gods of Greece in turn. In the
provinces and even in Italy his subjects were ready to acknowledge his
divinity--with the sole exception of the Jews. So we learn something of
the Palestinian Jews and more of the Jewish community in Alexandria. The
great world (as we know it) took small note of Judaism even when Jews
converted its women to their faith; but now the Jews as a nation refused
to bow before the present god of the civilized world. The new
Catholicism was promulgated by authority and accepted with deference.
Only the Jews protested: they had a notion of the deity which Caligula
at all events did not fulfil.
The people of Alexandria seized the opportunity for an attack upon the
Jews. Images of Caligula were set up in the synagogues, an edict
deprived the Jews of their rights as citizens, and finally the governor
authorized the mob to sack the Jewish quarter, as if it had been a
conquered city (38). Jewesses were forced to eat pork and the elders
were scourged in the theatre. But Agrippa had influence with the emperor
and secured the degradation of the governor. The people and the Jews
remained in a state of civil war, until each side sent an embassy (40)
to wait upon the emperor. The Jewish embassy was headed by Philo, who
has described its fortunes in a tract dealing with the divine punishment
of the persecutors. Their opponents also had secured a friend at court
and seem to have prevented any effective measure of redress. While the
matter was still pending, news arrived that the emperor had commanded
Publius Petronius, the governor of Syria, to set up his statue in the
temple of Jerusalem. On the intervention of Agrippa the order was
countermanded, and the assassination of the emperor (41) effectually
stopped the desecration.
36. _Claudius and the Procurators._--Claudius, the new emperor, restored
the civic rights of the Alexandrian Jews and made Agrippa I. king over
all the territories of Herod the Great. So there was once more a king of
Judaea, and a king who observed the tradition of the Pharisees and
protected the Jewish religion. There is a tradition in the Talmud which
illustrates his popularity. As he was reading the Law at the feast of
tabernacles he burst into tears at the words "Thou mayest not set a
stranger over thee which is not thy brother"; and the people cried out,
"Fear not, Agrippa; thou art our brother." The fact that he began to
build a wall round Jerusalem may be taken as further proof of his
patriotism. But the fact that he summoned five vassal-kings of the
empire to a conference at Tiberias suggests rather a policy of
self-aggrandisement. Both projects were prohibited by the emperor on the
intervention of the legate. In 44 he died. The Christian records treat
his death as an act of divine vengeance upon the persecutor of the
Christian Church. The Jews prayed for his recovery and lamented him. The
Gentile soldiers exulted in the downfall of his dynasty, which they
signalized after their own fashion. Claudius intended that Agrippa's
young son should succeed to the kingdom; but he was overruled by his
advisers, and Judaea was taken over once more by Roman procurators. The
success of Agrippa's brief reign had revived the hopes of the Jewish
nationalists, and concessions only retarded the inevitable insurrection.
Cuspius Fadus, the first of these procurators, purged the land of
bandits. He also attempted to regain for the Romans the custody of the
high priest's vestments; but the Jews appealed to the emperor against
the revival of this advertisement of their servitude. The emperor
granted the petition, which indeed the procurator had permitted them to
make, and further transferred the nomination of the high priest and the
supervision of the temple from the procurator to Agrippa's brother,
Herod of Chalcis. But these concessions did not satisfy the hopes of the
people. During the government of Fadus, Theudas, who claimed to be a
prophet and whom Josephus describes as a wizard, persuaded a large
number to take up their possessions and follow him to the Jordan, saying
that he would cleave the river asunder with a word of command and so
provide them with an easy crossing. A squadron of cavalry despatched by
Fadus took them alive, cut off the head of Theudas and brought it to
Jerusalem.
Under the second procurator Tiberius Alexander, an apostate Jew of
Alexandria, nephew of Philo, the Jews suffered from a great famine and
were relieved by the queen of Adiabene, a proselyte to Judaism, who
purchased corn from Egypt. The famine was perhaps interpreted by the
Zealots as a punishment for their acquiescence in the rule of an
apostate. At any rate Alexander crucified two sons of Simon the
Galilean, who had headed a revolt in the time of the census. They had
presumably followed the example of their father.
Under Ventidius Cumanus (48-52) the mutual hatred of Jews and Romans,
Samaritans and Jews, found vent in insults and bloodshed. At the
passover, on the fourth day of the feast, a soldier mounting guard at
the porches of the Temple provoked an uproar, which ended in a massacre,
by indecent exposure of his person. Some of the rebels intercepted a
slave of the emperor on the high-road near the city and robbed him of
his possessions. Troops were sent to pacify the country, and in one
village a soldier found a copy of Moses' laws and tore it up in public
with jeers and blasphemies. At this the Jews flocked to Caesarea, and
were only restrained from a second outbreak by the execution of the
soldier. Finally, the Samaritans attacked certain Galileans who were (as
the custom was) travelling through Samaria to Jerusalem for the
passover. Cumanus was bribed and refused to avenge the death of the Jews
who were killed. So the Galileans with some of the lower classes of "the
Jews" allied themselves with a "robber" and burned some of the Samaritan
villages. Cumanus armed the Samaritans, and, with them and his own
troops, defeated these Jewish marauders. The leading men of Jerusalem
prevailed upon the rebels who survived the defeat to disperse. But the
quarrel was referred first to the legate of Syria and then to the
emperor. The emperor was still disposed to conciliate the Jews; and, at
the instance of Agrippa, son of Agrippa I., Cumanus was banished.
37. _Felix and the Revolutionaries._--Under Antonius Felix (52-60) the
revolutionary movement grew and spread. The country, Josephus says, was
full of "robbers" and "wizards." The high priest was murdered in the
Temple by pilgrims who carried daggers under their cloaks. Wizards and
impostors persuaded the multitude to follow them into the desert, and an
Egyptian, claiming to be a prophet, led his followers to the Mount of
Olives to see the walls of Jerusalem fall at his command. Such
deceivers, according to Josephus, did no less than the murderers to
destroy the happiness of the city. Their hands were cleaner but their
thoughts were more impious, for they pretended to divine inspiration.
Felix the procurator--a king, as Tacitus says, in power and in mind a
slave--tried in vain to put down the revolutionaries. The "chief-robber"
Eleazar, who had plundered the country for twenty years, was caught and
sent to Rome; countless robbers of less note were crucified. But this
severity cemented the alliance of religious fanatics with the
physical-force party and induced the ordinary citizens to join them, in
spite of the punishments which they received when captured. Agrippa II.
received a kingdom--first Chalcis, and then the tetrarchies of Philip
and Lysanias--but, though he had the oversight of the Temple and the
nomination of the high priest, and enjoyed a reputation for knowledge of
Jewish customs and questions, he was unable to check the growing power
of the Zealots. His sister Drusilla had broken the Law by her marriage
with Felix; and his own notorious relations with his sister Berenice,
and his coins which bore the images of the emperors, were an open
affront to the conscience of Judaism. When Felix was recalled by Nero in
60 the nation was divided against itself, the Gentiles within its gates
were watching for their opportunity, and the chief priests robbed the
lower priests with a high hand.
In Caesarea there had been for some time trouble between the Jewish and
the Syrian inhabitants. The Jews claimed that the city was theirs,
because King Herod had founded it. The Syrians admitted the fact, but
insisted that it was a city for Greeks, as its temples and statues
proved. Their rivalry led to street-fighting: the Jews had the advantage
in respect of wealth and bodily strength, but the Greek party had the
assistance of the soldiers who were stationed there. On one occasion
Felix sent troops against the victorious Jews; but neither this nor the
scourge and the prison, to which the leaders of both factions had been
consigned, deterred them. The quarrel was therefore referred to the
emperor Nero, who finally gave his decision in favour of the Syrians or
Greeks. The result of this decision was that the synagogue at Caesarea
was insulted on a Sabbath and the Jews left the city taking their books
of the Law with them. So--Josephus says--the war began in the twelfth
year of the reign of Nero (A.D. 66).
38. _Festus, Albinus and Florus._--Meanwhile the procurators who
succeeded Felix--Porcius Festus (60-62), Albinus (62-64) and Gessius
Florus (64-66)--had in their several ways brought the bulk of the nation
into line with the more violent of the Jews of Caesarea. Festus found
Judaea infested with robbers and the Sicarii, who mingled with the
crowds at the feasts and stabbed their enemies with the daggers
(_sicae_) from which their name was derived. He also, had to deal with a
wizard, who deceived many by promising them salvation and release from
evils, if they would follow him into the desert. His attempts to crush
all such disturbers of the peace were cut short by his death in his
second year of office.
In the interval which elapsed before the arrival of Albinus, Ananus son
of Annas was made high priest by Agrippa. With the apparent intention of
restoring order in Jerusalem, he assembled the Sanhedrin, and being, as
a Sadducee, cruel in the matter of penalties, secured the condemnation
of certain lawbreakers to death by stoning. For this he was deposed by
Agrippa. Albinus fostered and turned to his profit the struggles of
priests with priests and of Zealots with their enemies. The general
release of prisoners, with which he celebrated his impending recall, is
typical of his policy. Meanwhile Agrippa gave the Levites the right to
wear the linen robe of the priests and sanctioned the use of the temple
treasure to provide work--the paving of the city with white stones--for
the workmen who had finished the Temple (64) and now stood idle. But
everything pointed to the destruction of the city, which one Jesus had
prophesied at the feast of tabernacles in 62. The Zealots' zeal for the
Law and the Temple was flouted by their pro-Roman king.
By comparison with Florus, Albinus was, in the opinion of Josephus, a
benefactor. When the news of the troubles at Caesarea reached Jerusalem,
it became known also that Florus had seized seventeen talents of the
temple treasure (66). At this the patience of the Jews was exhausted.
The sacrilege, as they considered it, may have been an attempt to
recover arrears of tribute; but they were convinced that Florus was
providing for himself and not for Caesar. The revolutionaries went about
among the excited people with baskets, begging coppers for their
destitute and miserable governor. Stung by this insult, he neglected the
fire of war which had been lighted at Caesarea, and hastened to
Jerusalem. His soldiers sacked the upper city and killed 630
persons--men, women and children. Berenice, who was fulfilling a
Nazarite vow, interposed in vain. Florus actually dared to scourge and
crucify Jews who belonged to the Roman order of knights. For the moment
the Jews were cowed, and next day they went submissively to greet the
troops coming from Caesarea. Their greetings were unanswered, and they
cried out against Florus. On this the soldiers drew their swords and
drove the people into the city; but, once inside the city, the people
stood at bay and succeeded in establishing themselves upon the
temple-hill. Florus withdrew with all his troops, except one cohort, to
Caesarea. The Jews laid complaint against him, and he complained against
the Jews before the governor of Syria, Cestius Gallus, who sent an
officer to inquire into the matter. Agrippa, who had hurried from
Alexandria, entered Jerusalem with the governor's emissary. So long as
he counselled submission to the overwhelming power of Rome the people
complied, but when he spoke of obedience to Florus he was compelled to
fly. The rulers, who desired peace, and upon whom Florus had laid the
duty of restoring peace, asked him for troops; but the civil war ended
in their complete discomfiture. The rebels abode by their decision to
stop the daily sacrifice for the emperor; Agrippa's troops capitulated
and marched out unhurt; and the Romans, who surrendered on the same
condition and laid down their arms, were massacred. As if to emphasize
the spirit and purpose of the rebellion, one and only one of the Roman
soldiers was spared, because he promised to become a Jew even to the
extent of circumcision.
39. _Josephus and the Zealots._--Simultaneously with this massacre the
citizens of Caesarea slaughtered the Jews who still remained there; and
throughout Syria Jews effected--and suffered--reprisals. At length the
governor of Syria approached the centre of the disturbance in Jerusalem,
but retreated after burning down a suburb. In the course of his retreat
he was attacked by the Jews and fled to Antioch, leaving them his
engines of war. Some prominent Jews fled from Jerusalem--as from a
sinking ship--to join him and carried the news to the emperor. The rest
of the pro-Roman party were forced or persuaded to join the rebels and
prepared for war on a grander scale. Generals were selected by the
Sanhedrin from the aristocracy, who had tried to keep the peace and
still hoped to make terms with Rome. Ananus the high priest, their
leader, remained in command at Jerusalem; Galilee, where the first
attack was to be expected, was entrusted to Josephus, the historian of
the war. The revolutionary leaders, who had already taken the field,
were superseded.
Josephus set himself to make an army of the inhabitants of Galilee, many
of whom had no wish to fight, and to strengthen the strongholds. His
organization of local government and his efforts to maintain law and
order brought him into collision with the Zealots and especially with
John of Giscala, one of their leaders. The people, whom he had tried to
conciliate, were roused against him; John sent assassins and finally
procured an order from Jerusalem for his recall. In spite of all this
Josephus held his ground and by force or craft put down those who
resisted his authority.
In the spring of 67 Vespasian, who had been appointed by Nero to crush
the rebellion, advanced from his winter quarters at Antioch. The
inhabitants of Sepphoris--whom Josephus had judged to be so eager for
the war that he left them to build their wall for themselves--received a
Roman garrison at their own request. Joined by Titus, Vespasian advanced
into Galilee with three legions and the auxiliary troops supplied by
Agrippa and other petty kings. Before his advance the army of Josephus
fled. Josephus with a few stalwarts took refuge in Tiberias, and sent a
letter to Jerusalem asking that he should be relieved of his command or
supplied with an adequate force to continue the war. Hearing that
Vespasian was preparing to besiege Jotapata, a strong fortress in the
hills, which was held by other fugitives, Josephus entered it just
before the road approaching it was made passable for the Roman horse and
foot. A deserter announced his arrival to Vespasian, who rejoiced
(Josephus says) that the cleverest of his enemies had thus voluntarily
imprisoned himself. After some six weeks' siege the place was stormed,
and its exhausted garrison were killed or enslaved. Josephus, whose
pretences had postponed the final assault, hid in a cave with forty men.
His companions refused to permit him to surrender and were resolved to
die. At his suggestion they cast lots, and the first man was killed by
the second and so on, until all were dead except Josephus and (perhaps)
one other. So Josephus saved them from the sin of suicide and gave
himself up to the Romans. He had prophesied that the place would be
taken--as it was--on the forty-seventh day, and now he prophesied that
both Vespasian and his son Titus would reign over all mankind. The
prophecy saved his life, though many desired his death, and the rumour
of it produced general mourning in Jerusalem. By the end of the year
(67) Galilee was in the hands of Vespasian, and John of Giscala had
fled. Agrippa celebrated the conquest at Caesarea Philippi with
festivities which lasted twenty days.
In accordance with ancient custom Jerusalem welcomed the fugitive
Zealots. The result was civil war and famine. Ananus incited the people
against these robbers, who arrested, imprisoned and murdered prominent
friends of Rome, and arrogated to themselves the right of selecting the
high priest by lot. The Zealots took refuge in the Temple and summoned
the Idumaeans to their aid. Under cover of a storm, they opened the
city-gates to their allies and proceeded to murder Ananus the high
priest, and, against the verdict of a formal tribunal, Zacharias the son
of Baruch in the midst of the Temple. The Idumaeans left, but John of
Giscala remained master of Jerusalem.
40. _The Fall of Jerusalem._--Vespasian left the rivals to consume one
another and occupied his army with the subjugation of the country. When
he had isolated the capital and was preparing to besiege it, the news of
Nero's death reached him at Caesarea. For a year (June 68-June 69) he
held his hand and watched events, until the robber-bands of Simon
Bar-Giora (son of the proselyte) required his attention. But, before
Vespasian took action to stop his raids, Simon had been invited to
Jerusalem in the hope that he would act as a counterpoise to the tyrant
John. And so, when Vespasian was proclaimed emperor in fulfilment of
Josephus' prophecy, and deputed the command to Titus, there were three
rivals at war in Jerusalem--Eleazar, Simon and John. The temple
sacrifices were still offered and worshippers were admitted; but John's
catapults were busy, and priest and worshippers at the altar were
killed, because Eleazar's party occupied the inner courts of the Temple.
A few days before the passover of 70 Titus advanced upon Jerusalem, but
the civil war went on. When Eleazar opened the temple-gates to admit
those who wished to worship God, John of Giscala introduced some of his
own men, fully armed under their garments, and so got possession of the
Temple. Titus pressed the attack, and the two factions joined hands at
last to repel it. In spite of their desperate sallies, Jerusalem was
surrounded by a wall, and its people, whose numbers were increased by
those who had come up for the passover, were hemmed in to starve. The
famine affected all alike--the populace, who desired peace, and the
Zealots, who were determined to fight to the end. At last John of
Giscala portioned out the sacred wine and oil, saying that they who
fought for the Temple might fearlessly use its stores for their
sustenance. Steadily the Romans forced their way through wall after
wall, until the Jews were driven back to the Temple and the daily
sacrifices came to an end on the 17th of July for lack of men. Once more
Josephus appealed in vain to John and his followers to cease from
desecrating and endangering the Temple. The siege proceeded and the
temple-gates were burned. According to Josephus, Titus decided to spare
the Temple, but--whether this was so or not--on the 10th of August it
was fired by a soldier after a sortie of the Jews had been repelled. The
legions set up their standards in the temple-court and hailed Titus as
imperator.
Some of the Zealots escaped with John and Simon to the upper city and
held it for another month. But Titus had already earned the triumph
which he celebrated at Rome in 71. The Jews, wherever they might be,
continued to pay the temple-tax; but now it was devoted to Jupiter
Capitolinus. The Romans had taken their holy place, and the Law was all
that was left to them.
41. _From_ A.D. 70 _to_ A.D. 135.--The destruction of the Temple
carried with it the destruction of the priesthood and all its power.
The priests existed to offer sacrifices, and by the Law no sacrifice
could be offered except at the Temple of Jerusalem. Thenceforward the
remnant of the Jews who survived the fiery ordeal formed a church
rather than a nation or a state, and the Pharisees exercised an
unchallenged supremacy. With the Temple and its Sadducean high priests
perished the Sanhedrin in which the Sadducees had competed with the
Pharisees for predominance. The Sicarii or Zealots who had appealed to
the arm of flesh were exterminated. Only the teachers of the Law
survived to direct the nation and to teach those who remained loyal
Jews, how they should render to Caesar what belonged to Caesar, and to
God what belonged to God. Here and there hot-headed Zealots rose up to
repeat the errors and the disasters of their predecessors. But their
fate only served to deepen the impression already stamped upon the
general mind of the nation. The Temple was gone, but they had the Law.
Already the Jews of the Dispersion had learned to supplement the
Temple by the synagogue, and even the Jews of Jerusalem had not been
free to spend their lives in the worship of the Temple. There were
still, as always, rites which were independent of the place and of the
priest; there had been a time when the Temple did not exist. So
Judaism survived once more the destruction of its central sanctuary.
When Jerusalem was taken, the Sicarii still continued to hold three
strongholds: one--Masada--for three years. But the commander of Masada
realized at length that there was no hope of escaping captivity except
by death, and urged his comrades to anticipate their fate. Each man
slew his wife and children; ten men were selected by lot to slay the
rest; one man slew the nine executioners, fired the palace and fell
upon his sword. When the place was stormed the garrison consisted of
two old women and five children who had concealed themselves in caves.
So Vespasian obtained possession of Palestine--the country which Nero
had given him--and for a time it was purged of revolutionaries. Early
Christian writers assert that he proceeded to search out and to
execute all descendants of David who might conceivably come forward as
claimants of the vacant throne.
In Egypt and in Cyrene fugitive Zealots endeavoured to continue their
rebellion against the emperor, but there also with disastrous results.
The doors of the Temple in Egypt were closed, and its sacrifices which
had been offered for 243 years were prohibited. Soon afterwards this
temple also was destroyed. Apart from these local outbreaks, the Jews
throughout the empire remained loyal citizens and were not molested.
The general hope of the nation was not necessarily bound up with the
house of David, and its realization was not incompatible with the yoke
of Rome. They still looked for a true prophet, and meanwhile they had
their rabbis.
Under Johanan ben Zaccai (q.v.) the Pharisees established themselves
at Jamnia. A new Sanhedrin was formed there under the presidency of a
ruler, who received yearly dues from all Jewish communities. The
scribes through the synagogues preserved the national spirit and
directed it towards the religious life which was prescribed by
Scripture. The traditions of the elders were tested and gradually
harmonized in their essentials. The canon of Scripture was decided in
accordance with the touchstone of the Pentateuch. Israel had retired
to their tents to study their Bible.
Under Vespasian and Titus the Jews enjoyed freedom of conscience and
equal political rights with non-Jewish subjects of Rome. But Domitian,
according to pagan historians, bore hardly on them. The temple-tax was
strictly exacted; Jews who lived the Jewish life without openly
confessing their religion and Jews who concealed their nationality
were brought before the magistrates. Proselytes to Judaism were
condemned either to death or to forfeiture of their property. Indeed
it would seem that Domitian instituted a persecution of the Jews, to
which Nerva his successor put an end. Towards the end of Trajan's
reign (114-117) the Jews of Egypt and Cyrene rose against their Greek
neighbours and set up a king. The rebellion spread to Cyprus; and when
Trajan advanced from Mesopotamia into Parthia the Jews of Mesopotamia
revolted. The massacres they perpetrated were avenged in kind and all
the insurrections were quelled when Hadrian succeeded Trajan.
In 132 the Jews of Palestine rebelled again. Hadrian had forbidden
circumcision as illegal mutilation: he had also replaced Jerusalem by
a city of his own, Aelia Capitolina, and the temple of Yahweh by a
temple of Jupiter. Apart from these bitter provocations--the
prohibition of the sign of the covenant and the desecration of the
sacred place--the Jews had a leader who was recognized as Messiah by
the rabbi Aqiba. Though the majority of the rabbis looked for no such
deliverer and refused to admit his claims, Barcochebas (q.v.) drew the
people after him to struggle for their national independence. For
three years and a half he held his own and issued coins in the name of
Simon, which commemorate the liberation of Jerusalem. Some attempt was
apparently made to rebuild the Temple; and the Jews of the Dispersion,
who had perhaps been won over by Aqiba, supported the rebellion.
Indeed even Gentiles helped them, so that the whole world (Dio Cassius
says) was stirred. Hadrian sent his best generals against the rebels,
and at length they were driven from Jerusalem to Bethar (135). The
Jews were forbidden to enter the new city of Jerusalem on pain of
death.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.--The most comprehensive of modern books dealing with the
period is Emil Schurer, _Geschichte des Judischen Volkes im Zeitalter
Jesu Christi_ (3 vols., Leipzig, 1901 foll.). Exception has been taken
to a certain lack of sympathy with the Jews, especially the rabbis,
which has been detected in the author. But at least the book remains
an indispensable storehouse of references to ancient and modern
authorities. An earlier edition was translated into English under the
title _History of the Jewish People_ (Edinburgh, 1890, 1891). Of
shorter histories, D. A. Schlatter's _Geschichte Israel's von
Alexander dem Grossen bis Hadrian_ (2nd ed., 1906) is perhaps the
least dependent upon Schurer and attempts more than others to
interpret the fragmentary evidence available. Dr R. H. Charles has
done much by his editions to restore to their proper prominence in
connexion with Jewish history the _Testaments of the Twelve
Patriarchs_, _The Book of Jubilees_, _Enoch_, &c. But Schurer gives a
complete bibliography to which it must suffice to refer. For the
Sanhedrin see SYNEDRIUM. (J. H. A. H.)
III.--FROM THE DISPERSION TO MODERN TIMES
42. _The Later Empire._--With the failure in 135 of the attempt led by
Barcochebas to free Judaea from Roman domination a new era begins in the
history of the Jews. The direct consequence of the failure was the
annihilation of political nationality. Large numbers fell in the actual
fighting. Dio Cassius puts the total at the incredible figure of
580,000, besides the incalculable number who succumbed to famine,
disease and fire (Dio-Xiphilin lxix. 11-15). Jerusalem was rebuilt by
Hadrian, orders to this effect being given during the emperor's first
journey through Syria in 130, the date of his foundations at Gaza,
Tiberias and Petra (Reinach, _Textes relatifs au Judaisme_, p. 198). The
new city was named Aelia Capitolina, and on the site of the temple of
Jehovah there arose another temple dedicated to Jupiter. To Eusebius the
erection of a temple of Venus over the sepulchre of Christ was an act of
mockery against the Christian religion. Rome had been roused to unwonted
fury, and the truculence of the rebels was matched by the cruelty of
their masters. The holy city was barred against the Jews; they were
excluded, under pain of death, from approaching within view of the
walls. Hadrian's policy in this respect was matched later on by the
edict of the caliph Omar (c. 638), who, like his Roman prototype,
prevented the Jews from settling in the capital of their ancient
country. The death of Hadrian and the accession of Antoninus Pius (138),
however, gave the dispersed people of Palestine a breathing-space. Roman
law was by no means intolerant to the Jews. Under the constitution of
Caracalla (198-217) all inhabitants of the Roman empire enjoyed the
civil rights of the _Cives Romani_ (Scherer, _Die Rechtsverhaltnisse der
Juden_, p. 10).
Moreover, a spiritual revival mitigated the crushing effects of material
ruin. The synagogue had become a firmly established institution, and the
personal and social life of the masses had come under the control of
communal law. The dialectic of the school proved stronger to preserve
than the edge of the sword to destroy. Pharisaic Judaism, put to the
severest test to which a religious system has ever been subject, showed
itself able to control and idealize life in all its phases. Whatever
question may be possible as to the force or character of Pharisaism in
the time of Christ, there can be no doubt that it became both
all-pervading and ennobling among the successors of Aqiba (q.v.),
himself one of the martyrs to Hadrian's severity. Little more than half
a century after the overthrow of the Jewish nationality, the Mishnah was
practically completed, and by this code of rabbinic law--and law is here
a term which includes the social, moral and religious as well as the
ritual and legal phases of human activity--the Jewish people were
organized into a community, living more or less autonomously under the
Sanhedrin or Synedrium (q.v.) and its officials.
Judah the prince, the patriarch or _nasi_ who edited the Mishnah, died
early in the 3rd century. With him the importance of the Palestinian
patriarchate attained its zenith. Gamaliel II. of Jamnia (Jabne Yebneh)
had been raised to this dignity a century before, and, as members of the
house of Hillel and thus descendants of David, the patriarchs enjoyed
almost royal authority. Their functions were political rather than
religious, though their influence was by no means purely secular. They
were often on terms of intimate friendship with the emperors, who
scarcely interfered with their jurisdiction. As late as Theodosius I.
(379-395) the internal affairs of the Jews were formally committed to
the patriarchs, and Honorius (404) authorized the collection of the
patriarch's tax (_aurum coronarium_), by which a revenue was raised from
the Jews of the diaspora. Under Theodosius II. (408-450) the
patriarchate was finally abolished after a regime of three centuries and
a half (Graetz, _History of the Jews_, Eng. trans. vol. ii. ch. xxii.),
though ironically enough the last holder of the office had been for a
time elevated by the emperor to the rank of prefect. The real
turning-point had been reached earlier, when Christianity became the
state religion under Constantine I. in 312.
Religion under the Christian emperors became a significant source of
discrimination in legal status, and non-conformity might reach so far
as to produce complete loss of rights. The laws concerning the Jews
had a repressive and preventive object: the repression of Judaism and
the prevention of inroads of Jewish influences into the state
religion. The Jews were thrust into a position of isolation, and the
Code of Theodosius and other authorities characterize the Jews as a
lower order of depraved beings (_inferiores_ and _perversi_), their
community as a godless, dangerous sect (_secta nefaria, feralis_),
their religion a superstition, their assemblies for religious worship
a blasphemy (_sacrilegi coetus_) and a contagion (Scherer, _op. cit._
pp. 11-12). Yet Judaism under Roman Christian law was a lawful
religion (_religio licita_), Valentinian I. (364-375) forbade the
quartering of soldiers in the synagogues, Theodosius I. prohibited
interference with the synagogue worship ("Judaeorum sectam nulla lege
prohibitam satis constat"), and in 412 a special edict of protection
was issued. But the admission of Christians into the Jewish fold was
punished by confiscation of goods (357), the erection of new
synagogues was arrested by Theodosius II. (439) under penalty of a
heavy fine, Jews were forbidden to hold Christian slaves under pain of
death (423). A similar penalty attached to intermarriage between Jews
and Christians, and an attempt was made to nullify all Jewish
marriages which were not celebrated in accordance with Roman law. But
Justinian (527-565) was the first to interfere directly in the
religious institutions of the Jewish people. In 553 he interdicted the
use of the Talmud (which had then not long been completed), and the
Byzantine emperors of the 8th and 9th centuries passed even more
intolerant regulations. As regards civil law, Jews were at first
allowed to settle disputes between Jew and Jew before their own
courts, but Justinian denied to them and to heretics the right to
appear as witnesses in the public courts against orthodox Christians.
To Constantine V. (911-959) goes back the Jewish form of oath which in
its later development required the Jew to gird himself with thorns;
stand in water; and, holding the scroll of the Torah in his hand,
invoke upon his person the leprosy of Naaman, the curse of Eli and the
fate of Korah's sons should he perjure himself. This was the original
of all the medieval forms of oath _more judaico_, which still
prevailed in many European lands till the 19th century, and are even
now maintained by some of the Rumanian courts. Jews were by the law of
Honorius excluded from the army, from public offices and dignities
(418), from acting as advocates (425); only the curial offices were
open to them. Justinian gave the finishing touch by proclaiming in 537
the Jews absolutely ineligible for any honour whatsoever ("honore
fruantur nullo").
43. _Judaism in Babylonia._--The Jews themselves were during this period
engaged in building up a system of isolation on their own side, but they
treated Roman law with greater hospitality than it meted out to them.
The Talmud shows the influence of that law in many points, and may
justly be compared to it as a monument of codification based on great
principles. The Palestinian Talmud was completed in the 4th century, but
the better known and more influential version was compiled in Babylonia
about 500. The land which, a millennium before, had been a prison for
the Jewish exiles was now their asylum of refuge. For a long time it
formed their second fatherland. Here, far more than on Palestinian soil,
was built the enduring edifice of rabbinism. The population of the
southern part of Mesopotamia--the strip of land enclosed between the
Tigris and the Euphrates--was, according to Graetz, mainly Jewish; while
the district extending for about 70 m. on the east of the Euphrates,
from Nehardea in the north to Sura in the south, became a new Palestine
with Nehardea for its Jerusalem. The Babylonian Jews were practically
independent, and the exilarch (_resh-galutha_) or prince of the
captivity was an official who ruled the community as a vassal of the
Persian throne. The exilarch claimed, like the Palestinian patriarch,
descent from the royal house of David, and exercised most of the
functions of government. Babylonia had risen into supreme importance
for Jewish life at about the time when the Mishnah was completed. The
great rabbinic academies at Sura and Nehardea, the former of which
retained something of its dominant role till the 11th century, had been
founded, Sura by Abba Arika (q.v.) (c. 219), but Nehardea, the more
ancient seat of the two, famous in the 3rd century for its association
with Abba Arika's renowned contemporary Samuel, lost its Jewish
importance in the age of Mahomet.
To Samuel of Nehardea (q.v.) belongs the honour of formulating the
principle which made it possible for Jews to live under alien laws.
Jeremiah had admonished his exiled brothers: "Seek ye the peace of the
city whither I have caused you to be carried away captives, and pray
unto the Lord for it: for in the peace thereof shall ye have peace"
(Jer. xxix. 7). It was now necessary to go farther, and the rabbis
proclaimed a principle which was as influential with the synagogue as
"Give unto Caesar that which is Caesar's" became with the Church. "The
law of the government is law" (_Baba Qama_ 113 b.), said Samuel, and
ever since it has been a religious duty for the Jews to obey and
accommodate themselves as far as possible to the laws of the country in
which they are settled or reside. In 259 Odenathus, the Palmyrene
adventurer whose memory has been eclipsed by that of his wife Zenobia,
laid Nehardea waste for the time being, and in its neighbourhood arose
the academy of Pumbedita (Pombeditha) which became a new focus for the
intellectual life of Israel in Babylonia. These academies were organized
on both scholastic and popular lines; their constitution was democratic.
An outstanding feature was the _Kallah_ assemblage twice a year (in Elul
at the close of the summer, and in Adar at the end of the winter), when
there were gathered together vast numbers of outside students of the
most heterogeneous character as regards both age and attainments.
Questions received from various quarters were discussed and the final
decision of the _Kallah_ was signed by the _Resh-Kallah_ or president of
the general assembly, who was only second in rank to the _Resh-Metibta_,
or president of the scholastic sessions. Thus the Babylonian academies
combined the functions of specialist law-schools, universities and
popular parliaments. They were a unique product of rabbinism; and the
authors of the system were also the compilers of its literary
expression, the Talmud.
44. _Judaism in Islam._--Another force now appears on the scene. The new
religion inaugurated by Mahomet differed in its theory from the Roman
Catholic Church. The Church, it is true, in council after council,
passed decisions unfriendly to the Jews. From the synod at Elvira in the
4th century this process began, and it was continued in the West-Gothic
Church legislation, in the Lateran councils (especially the fourth in
1215), and in the council of Trent (1563). The anti-social tendency of
these councils expressed itself in the infliction of the badge, in the
compulsory domicile of Jews within ghettos, and in the erection of
formidable barriers against all intercourse between church and
synagogue. The protective instinct was responsible for much of this
interference with the natural impulse of men of various creeds towards
mutual esteem and forbearance. The church, it was conceived, needed
defence against the synagogue at all hazards, and the fear that the
latter would influence and dominate the former was never absent from the
minds of medieval ecclesiastics. But though this defensive zeal led to
active persecution, still in theory Judaism was a tolerated religion
wherever the Church had sway, and many papal bulls of a friendly
character were issued throughout the middle ages (Scherer, p. 32 seq.).
Islam, on the other hand, had no theoretic place in its scheme for
tolerated religions; its principle was fundamentally intolerant. Where
the mosque was erected, there was no room for church or synagogue. The
caliph Omar initiated in the 7th century a code which required
Christians and Jews to wear peculiar dress, denied them the right to
hold state offices or to possess land, inflicted a poll-tax on them, and
while forbidding them to enter mosques, refused them the permission to
build new places of worship for themselves. Again and again these
ordinances were repeated in subsequent ages, and intolerance for
infidels is still a distinct feature of Mahommedan law. But Islam has
often shown itself milder in fact than in theory, for its laws were made
to be broken. The medieval Jews on the whole lived, under the crescent,
a fuller and freer life than was possible to them under the cross.
Mahommedan Babylonia (Persia) was the home of the gaonate (see GAON),
the central authority of religious Judaism, whose power transcended that
of the secular exilarchate, for it influenced the synagogue far and
wide, while the exilarchate was local. The gaonate enjoyed a practical
tolerance remarkable when contrasted with the letter of Islamic law. And
as the Bagdad caliphate tended to become more and more supreme in Islam,
so the gaonate too shared in this increased influence. Not even the
Qaraite schism was able to break the power of the geonim. But the
dispersion of the Jews was proceeding in directions which carried masses
from the Asiatic inland to the Mediterranean coasts and to Europe.
45. _In Medieval Europe: Spain._--This dispersion of the Jews had begun
in the Hellenistic period, but it was after the Barcochebas war that it
assumed great dimensions in Europe. There were Jews in the Byzantine
empire, in Rome, in France and Spain at very early periods, but it is
with the Arab conquest of Spain that the Jews of Europe began to rival
in culture and importance their brethren of the Persian gaonate. Before
this date the Jews had been learning the role they afterwards filled,
that of the chief promoters of international commerce. Already under
Charlemagne this development is noticeable; in his generous treatment of
the Jews this Christian emperor stood in marked contrast to his
contemporary the caliph Harun al-Rashid, who persecuted Jews and
Christians with equal vigour. But by the 10th century Judaism had
received from Islam something more than persecution. It caught the
contagion of poetry, philosophy and science.[64] The schismatic Qaraites
initiated or rather necessitated a new Hebrew philology, which later on
produced Qimhi, the gaon Saadiah founded a Jewish philosophy, the
statesman Hasdai introduced a new Jewish culture--and all this under
Mahommedan rule. It is in Spain that above all the new spirit manifested
itself. The distinctive feature of the Spanish-Jewish culture was its
comprehensiveness. Literature and affairs, science and statecraft,
poetry and medicine, these various expressions of human nature and
activity were so harmoniously balanced that they might be found in the
possession of one and the same individual. The Jews of Spain attained to
high places in the service of the state from the time of the Moorish
conquest in 711. From Hasdai ibn Shaprut in the 10th century and Samuel
the nagid in the 11th the line of Jewish scholar-statesmen continued
till we reach Isaac Abrabanel in 1492, the date of the expulsion of the
Jews from Spain. This last-named event synchronized with the discovery
of America; Columbus being accompanied by at least one Jewish navigator.
While the Spanish period of Jewish history was thus brilliant from the
point of view of public service, it was equally notable on the literary
side. Hebrew religious poetry was revived for synagogue hymnology, and,
partly in imitation of Arabian models, a secular Hebrew poetry was
developed in metre and rhyme. The new Hebrew _Piyut_ found its first
important exponent in Kalir, who was not a Spaniard. But it is to Spain
that we must look for the best of the medieval poets of the synagogue,
greatest among them being Ibn Gabirol and Halevi. So, too, the greatest
Jew of the middle ages, Maimonides, was a Spaniard. In him culminates
the Jewish expression of the Spanish-Moorish culture; his writings had
an influence on European scholasticism and contributed significant
elements to the philosophy of Spinoza. But the reconquest of Andalusia
by the Christians associated towards the end of the 15th century with
the establishment of the Inquisition, introduced a spirit of intolerance
which led to the expulsion of the Jews and Moors. The consequences of
this blow were momentous; it may be said to inaugurate the ghetto
period. In Spain Jewish life had participated in the general life, but
the expulsion--while it dispersed the Spanish Jews in Poland, Turkey,
Italy and France, and thus in the end contributed to the Jewish
emancipation at the French Revolution--for the time drove the Jews
within their own confines and barred them from the outside world.[65]
46. _In France, Germany, England, Italy._--In the meantime Jewish life
had been elsewhere subjected to other influences which produced a result
at once narrower and deeper. Under Charlemagne, the Jews, who had begun
to settle in Gaul in the time of Caesar, were more than tolerated. They
were allowed to hold land and were encouraged to become--what their
ubiquity qualified them to be--the merchant princes of Europe. The reign
of Louis the Pious (814-840) was, as Graetz puts it, "a golden era for
the Jews of his kingdom, such as they had never enjoyed, and were
destined never again to enjoy in Europe"--prior, that is, to the age of
Mendelssohn. In Germany at the same period the feudal system debarred
the Jews from holding land, and though there was as yet no material
persecution they suffered moral injury by being driven exclusively into
finance and trade. Nor was there any widening of the general horizon
such as was witnessed in Spain. The Jewries of France and Germany were
thus thrown upon their own cultural resources. They rose to the
occasion. In Mainz there settled in the 10th century Gershom, the "light
of the exile," who, about 1000, published his ordinance forbidding
polygamy in Jewish law as it had long been forbidden in Jewish practice.
This ordinance may be regarded as the beginning of the Synodal
government of Judaism, which was a marked feature of medieval life in
the synagogues of northern and central Europe from the 12th century.
Soon after Gershom's death, Rashi (1040-1106) founded at Troyes a new
school of learning. If Maimonides represented Judaism on its rational
side, Rashi was the expression of its traditions.
French Judaism was thus in a sense more human if less humane than the
Spanish variety; the latter produced thinkers, statesmen, poets and
scientists; the former, men with whom the Talmud was a passion, men of
robuster because of more naive and concentrated piety. In Spain and North
Africa persecution created that strange and significant phenomenon
Maranism or crypto-Judaism, a public acceptance of Islam or Christianity
combined with a private fidelity to the rites of Judaism. But in England,
France and Germany persecution altogether failed to shake the courage of
the Jews, and martyrdom was borne in preference to ostensible apostasy.
The crusades subjected the Jews to this ordeal. The evil was wrought, not
by the regular armies of the cross who were inspired by noble ideals, but
by the undisciplined mobs which, for the sake of plunder, associated
themselves with the genuine enthusiasts. In 1096 massacres of Jews
occurred in many cities of the Rhineland. During the second crusade
(1145-1147) Bernard of Clairvaux heroically protested against similar
inhumanities. The third crusade, famous for the participation of Richard
I., was the occasion for bloody riots in England, especially in York,
where 150 Jews immolated themselves to escape baptism. Economically and
socially the crusades had disastrous effects upon the Jews (see J.
Jacobs, _Jewish Encyclopedia_, iv. 379). Socially they suffered by the
outburst of religious animosity. One of the worst forms taken by this
ill-will was the oft-revived myth of ritual murder (q.v.), and later on
when the Black Death devastated Europe (1348-1349) the Jews were the
victims of an odious charge of well-poisoning. Economically the results
were also injurious. "Before the crusades the Jews had practically a
monopoly of trade in Eastern products, but the closer connexion between
Europe and the East brought about by the crusades raised up a class of
merchant traders among the Christians, and from this time onwards
restrictions on the sale of goods by Jews became frequent" (_op. cit._).
After the second crusade the German Jews fell into the class of _servi
camerae_, which at first only implied that they enjoyed the immunity of
imperial servants, but afterwards made of them slaves and pariahs. At the
personal whim of rulers, whether royal or of lower rank, the Jews were
expelled from states and principalities and were reduced to a condition
of precarious uncertainty as to what the morrow might bring forth. Pope
Innocent III. gave strong impetus to the repression of the Jews,
especially by ordaining the wearing of a badge. Popular animosity was
kindled by the enforced participation of the Jews in public disputations.
In 1306 Philip IV. expelled the Jews from France, nine years later Louis
X. recalled them for a period of twelve years. Such vicissitudes were the
ordinary lot of the Jews for several centuries, and it was their own
inner life--the pure life of the home, the idealism of the synagogue, and
the belief in ultimate Messianic redemption--that saved them from utter
demoralization and despair. Curiously enough in Italy--and particularly
in Rome--the external conditions were better. The popes themselves,
within their own immediate jurisdiction, were often far more tolerant
than their bulls issued for foreign communities, and Torquemada was less
an expression than a distortion of the papal policy. In the early 14th
century, the age of Dante, the new spirit of the Renaissance made Italian
rulers the patrons of art and literature, and the Jews to some extent
shared in this gracious change. Robert of Aragon--vicar-general of the
papal states--in particular encouraged the Jews and supported them in
their literary and scientific ambitions. Small coteries of Jewish minor
poets and philosophers were formed, and men like Kalonymos and
Immanuel--Dante's friend--shared the versatility and culture of Italy.
But in Germany there was no echo of this brighter note. Persecution was
elevated into a system, a poll-tax was exacted, and the rabble was
allowed (notably in 1336-1337) to give full vent to its fury. Following
on this came the Black Death with its terrible consequences in Germany;
even in Poland, where the Jews had previously enjoyed considerable
rights, extensive massacres took place.
In effect the Jews became outlaws, but their presence being often
financially necessary, certain officials were permitted to "hold Jews,"
who were liable to all forms of arbitrary treatment, on the side of
their "owners." The Jews had been among the first to appreciate the
commercial advantages of permitting the loan of money on interest, but
it was the policy of the Church that drove the Jews into money-lending
as a characteristic trade. Restrictions on their occupations were
everywhere common, and as the Church forbade Christians to engage in
usury, this was the only trade open to the Jews. The excessive demands
made upon the Jews forbade a fair rate of interest. "The Jews were
unwilling sponges by means of which a large part of the subjects' wealth
found its way into the royal exchequer" (Abrahams, _Jewish Life in the
Middle Ages_, ch. xii.). Hence, though this procedure made the Jews
intensely obnoxious to the peoples, they became all the more necessary
to the rulers. A favourite form of tolerance was to grant a permit to
the Jews to remain in the state for a limited term of years; their
continuance beyond the specified time was illegal and they were
therefore subject to sudden banishment. Thus a second expulsion of the
Jews of France occurred in 1394. Early in the 15th century John
Hus--under the inspiration of Wycliffe--initiated at Prague the revolt
against the Roman Catholic Church. The Jews suffered in the persecution
that followed, and in 1420 all the Austrian Jews were thrown into
prison. Martin V. published a favourable bull, but it was ineffectual.
The darkest days were nigh. Pope Eugenius (1442) issued a fiercely
intolerant missive; the Franciscan John of Capistrano moved the masses
to activity by his eloquent denunciations; even Casimir IV. revoked the
privileges of the Jews in Poland, when the Turkish capture of
Constantinople (1453) offered a new asylum for the hunted Jews of
Europe. But in Europe itself the catastrophe was not arrested. The
Inquisition in Spain led to the expulsion of the Jews (1492), and this
event involved not only the latter but the whole of the Jewish people.
"The Jews everywhere felt as if the temple had again been destroyed"
(Graetz). Nevertheless, the result was not all evil. If fugitives are
for the next half-century to be met with in all parts of Europe, yet,
especially in the Levant, there grew up thriving Jewish communities
often founded by Spanish refugees. Such incidents as the rise of Joseph
Nasi (q.v.) to high position under the Turkish government as duke of
Naxos mark the coming change. The reformation as such had no favourable
influence on Jewish fortunes in Christian Europe, though the
championship of the cause of toleration by Reuchlin had considerable
value. But the age of the ghetto (q.v.) had set in too firmly for
immediate amelioration to be possible. It is to Holland and to the 17th
century that we must turn for the first real steps towards Jewish
emancipation.
47. _Period of Emancipation._--The ghetto, which had prevailed more or
less rigorously for a long period, was not formally prescribed by the
papacy until the beginning of the 16th century. The same century was not
ended before the prospect of liberty dawned on the Jews. Holland from
the moment that it joined the union of Utrecht (1579) deliberately set
its face against religious persecution (_Jewish Encyclopedia_, i. 537).
Maranos, fleeing to the Netherlands, were welcomed; the immigrants were
wealthy, enterprising and cultured. Many Jews, who had been compelled to
conceal their faith, now came into the open. By the middle of the 17th
century the Jews of Holland had become of such importance that Charles
II. of England (then in exile) entered into negotiations with the
Amsterdam Jews (1656). In that same year the Amsterdam community was
faced by a serious problem in connexion with Spinoza. They brought
themselves into notoriety by excommunicating the philosopher--an act of
weak self-defence on the part of men who had themselves but recently
been admitted to the country, and were timorous of the suspicion that
they shared Spinoza's then execrated views. It is more than a mere
coincidence that this step was taken during the absence in England of
one of the ablest and most notable of the Amsterdam rabbis. At the time,
Menasseh ben Israel (q.v.) was in London, on a mission to Cromwell. The
Jews had been expelled from England by Edward I., after a sojourn in the
country of rather more than two centuries, during which they had been
the licensed and oppressed money-lenders of the realm, and had--through
the special exchequer of the Jews--been used by the sovereign as a means
of extorting a revenue from his subjects. In the 17th century a
considerable number of Jews had made a home in the English colonies,
where from the first they enjoyed practically equal rights with the
Christian settlers. Cromwell, upon the inconclusive termination of the
conference summoned in 1655 at Whitehall to consider the Jewish
question, tacitly assented to the return of the Jews to this country,
and at the restoration his action was confirmed. The English Jews
"gradually substituted for the personal protection of the crown, the
sympathy and confidence of the nation" (L. Wolf, _Menasseh ben Israel's
Mission to Cromwell_, p. lxxv.). The city of London was the first to be
converted to the new attitude. "The wealth they brought into the
country, and their fruitful commercial activity, especially in the
colonial trade, soon revealed them as an indispensable element of the
prosperity of the city. As early as 1668, Sir Josiah Child, the
millionaire governor of the East India company, pleaded for their
naturalization on the score of their commercial utility. For the same
reason the city found itself compelled at first to connive at their
illegal representation on 'Change, and then to violate its own rules by
permitting them to act as brokers without previously taking up the
freedom. At this period they controlled more of the foreign and colonial
trade than all the other alien merchants in London put together. The
momentum of their commercial enterprise and stalwart patriotism proved
irresistible. From the exchange to the city council chamber, thence to
the aldermanic court, and eventually to the mayoralty itself, were
inevitable stages of an emancipation to which their large interests in
the city and their high character entitled them. Finally the city of
London--not only as the converted champion of religious liberty but as
the convinced apologist of the Jews--sent Baron Lionel de Rothschild to
knock at the door of the unconverted House of Commons as parliamentary
representative of the first city in the world" (Wolf, loc. cit.).
The pioneers of this emancipation in Holland and England were Sephardic
(or Spanish) Jews--descendants of the Spanish exiles. In the meantime
the Ashkenazic (or German) Jews had been working out their own
salvation. The chief effects of the change were not felt till the 18th
century. In England emancipation was of democratic origin and concerned
itself with practical questions. On the Continent, the movement was more
aristocratic and theoretical; it was part of the intellectual
renaissance which found its most striking expression in the principles
of the French Revolution. Throughout Europe the 18th century was less an
era of stagnation than of transition. The condition of the European Jews
seems, on a superficial examination, abject enough. But, excluded though
they were from most trades and occupations, confined to special quarters
of the city, disabled from sharing most of the amenities of life, the
Jews nevertheless were gradually making their escape from the ghetto and
from the moral degeneration which it had caused. Some ghettos (as in
Moravia) were actually not founded till the 18th century, but the
careful observer can perceive clearly that at that period the ghetto was
a doomed institution. In the "dark ages" Jews enjoyed neither rights nor
privileges; in the 18th century they were still without rights but they
had privileges. A grotesque feature of the time in Germany and Austria
was the class of court Jews, such as the Oppenheims, the personal
favourites of rulers and mostly their victims when their usefulness had
ended. These men often rendered great services to their fellow-Jews, and
one of the results was the growth in Jewish society of an aristocracy of
wealth, where previously there had been an aristocracy of learning. Even
more important was another privileged class--that of the _Schutz-Jude_
(protected Jew). Where there were no rights, privileges had to be
bought. While the court Jews were the favourites of kings, the protected
Jews were the proteges of town councils. Corruption is the frequent
concomitant of privilege, and thus the town councils often connived for
a price at the presence in their midst of Jews whose admission was
illegal. Many Jews found it possible to evade laws of domicile by
residing in one place and trading in another. Nor could they be
effectually excluded from the fairs, the great markets of the 18th
century. The Sephardic Jews in all these respects occupied a superior
position, and they merited the partiality shown to them. Their personal
dignity and the vast range of their colonial enterprises were in
striking contrast to the retail traffic of the Ashkenazim and their
degenerate bearing and speech. Peddling had been forced on the latter by
the action of the gilds which were still powerful in the 18th century on
the Continent. Another cause may be sought in the Cossack assaults on
the Jews at an earlier period. Crowds of wanderers were to be met on
every road; Germany, Holland and Italy were full of Jews who, pack on
shoulder, were seeking a precarious livelihood at a time when peddling
was neither lucrative nor safe.
But underneath all this were signs of a great change. The 18th century
has a goodly tale of Jewish artists in metal-work, makers of pottery,
and (wherever the gilds permitted it) artisans and wholesale
manufacturers of many important commodities. The last attempts at
exclusion were irritating enough; but they differed from the earlier
persecution. Such strange enactments as the _Familianten-Gesetz_, which
prohibited more than one member of a family from marrying, broke up
families by forcing the men to emigrate. In 1781 Dohm pointed to the
fact that a Jewish father could seldom hope to enjoy the happiness of
living with his children. In that very year, however, Joseph II.
initiated in Austria a new era for the Jews. This Austrian reformation
was so typical of other changes elsewhere, and so expressive of the
previous disabilities of the Jews, that, even in this rapid summary,
space must be spared for some of the details supplied by Graetz. "By
this new departure (19th of October 1781) the Jews were permitted to
learn handicrafts, arts and sciences, and with certain restrictions to
devote themselves to agriculture. The doors of the universities and
academies, hitherto closed to them, were thrown open.... An ordinance of
November 2 enjoined that the Jews were everywhere considered fellow-men,
and all excesses against them were to be avoided. The Leibzoll
(body-tax) was also abolished, in addition to the special law-taxes, the
passport duty, the night-duty and all similar imposts which had stamped
the Jews as outcast, for they were now (Dec. 19) to have equal rights
with the Christian inhabitants." The Jews were not, indeed, granted
complete citizenship, and their residence and public worship in Vienna
and other Austrian cities were circumscribed and even penalized. "But
Joseph II. annulled a number of vexatious, restrictive regulations, such
as the compulsory wearing of beards, the prohibition against going out
in the forenoon on Sundays or holidays, or frequenting public pleasure
resorts. The emperor even permitted Jewish wholesale merchants, notables
and their sons, to wear swords (January 2, 1782), and especially
insisted that Christians should behave in a friendly manner towards
Jews."
48. _The Mendelssohn Movement._--This notable beginning to the removal
of "the ignominy of a thousand years" was causally connected with the
career of Moses Mendelssohn (1729-1786; q.v.). He found on both sides an
unreadiness for approximation: the Jews had sunk into apathy and
degeneration, the Christians were still moved by hereditary antipathy.
The failure of the hopes entertained of Sabbatai Zebi (q.v.) had plunged
the Jewries of the world into despair. This Smyrnan pretender not only
proclaimed himself Messiah (c. 1650) but he was accepted in that role by
vast numbers of his brethren. At the moment when Spinoza was publishing
a system which is still a dominating note of modern philosophy, this
other son of Israel was capturing the very heart of Jewry. His miracles
were reported and eagerly believed everywhere; "from Poland, Hamburg and
Amsterdam treasures poured into his court; in the Levant young men and
maidens prophesied before him; the Persian Jews refused to till the
fields. 'We shall pay no more taxes,' they said, 'our Messiah is come.'"
The expectation that he would lead Israel in triumph to the Holy Land
was doomed to end in disappointment. Sabbatai lacked one quality without
which enthusiasm is ineffective; he failed to believe in himself. At the
critical moment he embraced Islam to escape death, and though he was
still believed in by many--it was not Sabbatai himself but a phantom
resemblance that had assumed the turban!--his meteoric career did but
colour the sky of the Jews with deeper blackness. Despite all this, one
must not fall into the easy error of exaggerating the degeneration into
which the Jewries of the world fell from the middle of the 17th till the
middle of the 18th century. For Judaism had organized itself; the
_Shulhan aruch_ of Joseph Qaro (q.v.), printed in 1564 within a decade
of its completion, though not accepted without demur, was nevertheless
widely admitted as the code of Jewish life. If in more recent times
progress in Judaism has implied more or less of revolt against the
rigors and fetters of Qaro's code, yet for 250 years it was a powerful
safeguard against demoralization and stagnation. No community living in
full accordance with that code could fail to reach a high moral and
intellectual level.
It is truer to say that on the whole the Jews began at this period to
abandon as hopeless the attempt to find a place for themselves in the
general life of their country. Perhaps they even ceased to desire it.
Their children were taught without any regard to outside conditions,
they spoke and wrote a jargon, and their whole training, both by what it
included and by what it excluded, tended to produce isolation from their
neighbours. Moses Mendelssohn, both by his career and by his propaganda,
for ever put an end to these conditions; he more than any other man.
Born in the ghetto of Dessau, he was not of the ghetto. At the age of
fourteen he found his way to Berlin, where Frederick the Great, inspired
by the spirit of Voltaire, held the maxim that "to oppress the Jews
never brought prosperity to any government." Mendelssohn became a warm
friend of Lessing, the hero of whose drama _Nathan the Wise_ was drawn
from the Dessau Jew. Mendelssohn's _Phaedo_, on the immortality of the
soul, brought the author into immediate fame, and the simple home of the
"Jewish Plato" was sought by many of the leaders of Gentile society in
Berlin. Mendelssohn's translation of the Pentateuch into German with a
new commentary by himself and others introduced the Jews to more modern
ways of thinking. Two results emanated from Mendelssohn's work. A new
school of scientific study of Judaism emerged, to be dignified by the
names of Leopold Zunz (q.v.), H. Graetz (q.v.) and many others. On the
other hand Mendelssohn by his pragmatic conception of religion
(specially in his _Jerusalem_) weakened the belief of certain minds in
the absolute truth of Judaism, and thus his own grandchildren (including
the famous musician Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy) as well as later Heine,
Borne, Gans and Neander, embraced Christianity. Within Judaism itself
two parties were formed, the Liberals and the Conservatives, and as time
went on these tendencies definitely organized themselves. Holdheim
(q.v.) and Geiger (q.v.) led the reform movement in Germany and at the
present day the effects of the movement are widely felt in America on
the Liberal side and on the opposite side in the work of the
neo-orthodox school founded by S. R. Hirsch (q.v.). Modern seminaries
were established first in Breslau by Zacharias Frankel (q.v.) and later
in other cities. Brilliant results accrued from all this participation
in the general life of Germany. Jews, engaged in all the professions and
pursuits of the age, came to the front in many branches of public life,
claiming such names as Riesser (d. 1863) and Lasker in politics,
Auerbach in literature, Rubinstein and Joachim in music, Traube in
medicine, and Lazarus in psychology. Especially famous have been the
Jewish linguists, pre-eminent among them Theodor Benfey (1809-1881), the
pioneer of modern comparative philology; and the Greek scholar and
critic Jakob Bernays (1824-1881).
49. _Effect of the French Revolution._--In close relation to the German
progress in Mendelssohn's age, events had been progressing in France,
where the Revolution did much to improve the Jewish condition, thanks
largely to the influence of Mirabeau. In 1807 Napoleon convoked a Jewish
assembly in Paris. Though the decisions of this body had no binding
force on the Jews generally, yet in some important particulars its
decrees represent principles widely adopted by the Jewish community.
They proclaim the acceptance of the spirit of Mendelssohn's
reconciliation of the Jews to modern life. They assert the citizenship
and patriotism of Jews, their determination to accommodate themselves to
the present as far as they could while retaining loyalty to the past.
They declare their readiness to adapt the law of the synagogue to the
law of the land, as for instance in the question of marriage and
divorce. No Jew, they decided, may perform the ceremony of marriage
unless civil formalities have been fulfilled; and divorce is allowed to
the Jews only if and so far as it is confirmatory of a legal divorce
pronounced by the civil law of the land. The French assembly did not
succeed in obtaining formal assent to these decisions (except from
Frankfort and Holland), but they gained the practical adhesion of the
majority of Western and American Jews. Napoleon, after the report of the
assembly, established the consistorial system which remained in force,
with its central consistory in the capital, until the recent separation
of church and state. Many French Jews acquired fame, among them the
ministers Cremieux (1796-1879), Fould, Gondchaux and Raynal; the
archaeologists and philologians Oppert, Halevy, Munk, the Derenbourgs,
Darmesteters and Reinachs; the musicians Halevy, Waldteufel and
Meyerbeer; the authors and dramatists Catulle Mendes and A. d'Ennery,
and many others, among them several distinguished occupants of civil and
military offices.
50. _Modern Italy._--Similar developments occurred in other countries,
though it becomes impossible to treat the history of the Jews, from this
time onwards, in general outline. We must direct our attention to the
most important countries in such detail as space permits. And first as
to Italy, where the Jews in a special degree have identified themselves
with the national life. The revolutions of 1848, which greatly affected
the position of the Jews in several parts of Europe, brought
considerable gain to the Jews of Italy. During the war against Austria
in the year named, Isaac Pesaro Marogonato was finance minister in
Venice. Previously to this date the Jews were still confined to the
ghetto, but in 1859, in the Italy united under Victor Emanuel II., the
Jews obtained complete rights, a privilege which was extended also to
Rome itself in 1870. The Italian Jews devoted themselves with ardour to
the service of the state. Isaac Artom was Cavour's secretary, L' Olper a
counsellor of Mazzini. "The names of the Jewish soldiers who died in the
cause of Italian liberty were placed along with those of their Christian
fellow soldiers on the monuments erected in their honour" (_Jewish
Encyclopedia_, vii. 10). More recently men like Wollemberg, Ottolenghi
and Luzzatti rose to high positions as ministers of state. Most noted of
recent Jewish scholars in Italy was S. D. Luzzatto (q.v.).
51. _Austria._--From Italy we may turn to the country which so much
influenced Italian politics, Austria, which had founded the system of
"Court Jews" in 1518, had expelled the Jews from Vienna as late as 1670,
when the synagogue of that city was converted into a church. But
economic laws are often too strong for civil vagaries or sectarian
fanaticism, and as the commerce of Austria suffered by the absence of
the Jews, it was impossible to exclude the latter from the fairs in the
provinces or from the markets of the capital. As has been pointed out
above, certain protected Jews were permitted to reside in places where
the expulsion of the Jews had been decreed. But Maria Theresa
(1740-1780) was distinguished for her enmity to the Jews, and in 1744
made a futile attempt to secure their expulsion from Bohemia. "In 1760
she issued an order that all unbearded Jews should wear a yellow badge
on their left arm" (_Jewish Encyclopedia_, ii. 330). The most petty
limitations of Jewish commercial activity continued; thus at about this
period the community of Prague, in a petition, "complain that they are
not permitted to buy victuals in the market before a certain hour,
vegetables not before 9 and cattle not before 11 o'clock; to buy fish is
sometimes altogether prohibited; Jewish druggists are not permitted to
buy victuals at the same time with Christians" (_op. cit._). So, too,
with taxation. It was exorbitant and vexatious. To pay for rendering
inoperative the banishment edict of 1744, the Jews were taxed 3,000,000
florins annually for ten years. In the same year it was decreed that the
Jews should pay "a special tax of 40,000 florins for the right to import
their citrons for the feast of booths." Nevertheless, Joseph II.
(1780-1790) inaugurated a new era for the Jews of his empire. Soon after
his accession he abolished the distinctive Jewish dress, abrogated the
poll-tax, admitted the Jews to military service and their children to
the public schools, and in general opened the era of emancipation by the
_Toleranzpatent_ of 1782. This enlightened policy was not continued by
the successors of Joseph II. Under Francis II. (1792-1835) economic and
social restrictions were numerous. Agriculture was again barred; indeed
the Vienna congress of 1815 practically restored the old discriminations
against the Jews. As time went on, a more progressive policy intervened,
the special form of Jewish oath was abolished in 1846, and in 1848, as a
result of the revolutionary movement in which Jews played an active
part, legislation took a more liberal turn. Francis Joseph I. ascended
the throne in that year, and though the constitution of 1849 recognized
the principle of religious liberty, an era of reaction supervened,
especially when "the concordat of 1855 delivered Austria altogether into
the hands of the clericals." But the day of medieval intolerance had
passed, and in 1867 the new constitution "abolished all disabilities on
the ground of religious differences," though anti-Semitic manipulation
of the law by administrative authority has led to many instances of
intolerance. Many Jews have been members of the Reichsrath, some have
risen to the rank of general in the army, and Austrian Jews have
contributed their quota to learning, the arts and literature. Low,
Jellinek, Kaufmann, as scholars in the Jewish field; as poets and
novelists, Kompert, Franzos, L. A. Frankl; the pianist Moscheles, the
dramatist Mosenthal, and the actor Sonnenthal, the mathematician Spitzer
and the chess-player Steinitz are some of the most prominent names. The
law of 1890 makes it "compulsory for every Jew to be a member of the
congregation of the district in which he resides, and so gives to every
congregation the right to tax the individual members" (_op. cit._). A
similar obligation prevails in parts of Germany. A Jew can avoid the
communal tax only by formally declaring himself as outside the Jewish
community. The Jews of Hungary shared with their brethren in Austria the
same alternations of expulsion and recall. By the law "De Judaeis"
passed by the Diet in 1791 the Jews were accorded protection, but half a
century passed before their tolerated condition was regularized. The
"toleration-tax" was abolished in 1846. During the revolutionary
outbreak of 1848, the Jews suffered severely in Hungary, but as many as
20,000 Jews are said to have joined the army. Kossuth succeeded in
granting them temporary emancipation, but the suppression of the War of
Independence led to an era of royal autocracy which, while it advanced
Jewish culture by enforcing the establishment of modern schools,
retarded the obtaining of civic and political rights. As in Austria, so
in Hungary, these rights were granted by the constitution of 1867. But
one step remained. The Hungarian Jews did not consider themselves fully
emancipated until the Synagogue was "duly recognized as one of the
legally acknowledged religions of the country." This recognition was
granted by the law of 1895-1896. In the words of Buchler (_Jewish
Encyclopedia_, vi. 503): "Since their emancipation the Jews have taken
an active part in the political, industrial, scientific and artistic
life of Hungary. In all these fields they have achieved prominence. They
have also founded great religious institutions. Their progress has not
been arrested even by anti-Semitism, which first developed in 1883 at
the time of the Tisza-Eslar accusation of ritual murder."
52. _Other European Countries._--According to M. Caimi the present
Jewish communities of Greece are divisible into five groups: (1) Arta
(Epirus); (2) Chalcis (Euboea); (3) Athens (Attica); (4) Volo, Larissa
and Trikala (Thessaly); and (5) Corfu and Zante (Ionian Islands). The
Greek constitution admits no religious disabilities, but anti-Semitic
riots in Corfu and Zante in 1891 caused much distress and emigration. In
Spain there has been of late a more liberal attitude towards the Jews,
and there is a small congregation (without a public synagogue) in
Madrid. In 1858 the edict of expulsion was repealed. Portugal, on the
other hand, having abolished the Inquisition in 1821, has since 1826
allowed Jews freedom of religion, and there are synagogues in Lisbon and
Faro. In Holland the Jews were admitted to political liberty in 1796. At
present more than half of the Dutch Jews are concentrated in Amsterdam,
being largely engaged in the diamond and tobacco trades. Among famous
names of recent times foremost stands that of the artist Josef Israels.
In 1675 was consecrated in Amsterdam the synagogue which is still the
most noted Jewish edifice in Europe. Belgium granted full freedom to the
Jews in 1815, and the community has since 1808 been organized on the
state consistorial system, which till recently also prevailed in France.
It was not till 1874 that full religious equality was granted to the
Jews of Switzerland. But there has been considerable interference
(ostensibly on humanitarian grounds) with the Jewish method of
slaughtering animals for food (_Shehitah_) and the method was prohibited
by a referendum in 1893. In the same year a similar enactment was passed
in Saxony, and the subject is a favourite one with anti-Semites, who
have enlisted on their side some scientific authorities, though the bulk
of expert opinion is in favor of _Shehitah_ (see Dembo, _Das
Schlachten_, 1894). In Sweden the Jews have all the rights which are
open to non-Lutherans; they cannot become members of the council of
state. In Norway there is a small Jewish settlement (especially in
Christiania) who are engaged in industrial pursuits and enjoy complete
liberty. Denmark has for long been distinguished for its liberal policy
towards the Jews. Since 1814 the latter have been eligible as
magistrates, and in 1849 full equality was formally ratified. Many
Copenhagen Jews achieved distinction as manufacturers, merchants and
bankers, and among famous Jewish men of letters may be specially named
Georg Brandes.
The story of the Jews in Russia and Rumania remains a black spot on the
European record. In Russia the Jews are more numerous and more harshly
treated than in any other part of the world. In the remotest past Jews
were settled in much of the territory now included in Russia, but they
are still treated as aliens. They are restricted to the pale of
settlement which was first established in 1791. The pale now includes
fifteen governments, and under the May laws of 1892 the congestion of
the Jewish population, the denial of free movement, and the exclusion
from the general rights of citizens were rendered more oppressive than
ever before. The right to leave the pale is indeed granted to merchants
of the first gild, to those possessed of certain educational diplomas,
to veteran soldiers and to certain classes of skilled artisans. But
these concessions are unfavourably interpreted and much extortion
results. Despite a huge emigration of Jews from Russia, the congestion
within the pale is the cause of terrible destitution and misery. Fierce
massacres occurred in Nizhniy-Novgorod in 1882, and in Kishinev in 1903.
Many other pogroms have occurred, and the condition of the Jews has been
reduced to one of abject poverty and despair. Much was hoped from the
duma, but this body has proved bitterly opposed to the Jewish claim for
liberty. Yet in spite of these disabilities there are amongst the
Russian Jews many enterprising contractors, skilful doctors, and
successful lawyers and scientists. In Rumania, despite the Berlin
Treaty, the Jews are treated as aliens, and but a small number have been
naturalized. They are excluded from most of the professions and are
hampered in every direction.
53. _Oriental Countries._--In the Orient the condition of the Jews has
been much improved by the activity of Western organizations, of which
something is said in a later paragraph. Modern schools have been set up
in many places, and Palestine has been the scene of a notable
educational and agricultural revival, while technical schools--such as
the agricultural college near Jaffa and the schools of the alliance and
the more recent Bezalel in Jerusalem--have been established. Turkey has
always on the whole tolerated the Jews, and much is hoped from the new
regime. In Morocco the Jews, who until late in the 19th century were
often persecuted, are still confined to a _mellah_ (separate quarter),
but at the coast-towns there are prosperous Jewish communities mostly
engaged in commerce. In other parts of the same continent, in Egypt and
in South Africa, many Jews have settled, participating in all industrial
and financial pursuits. Recently a mission has been sent to the Falashas
of Abyssinia, and much interest has been felt in such outlying branches
of the Jewish people as the Black Jews of Cochin and the Bene Israel
community of Bombay. In Persia Jews are often the victims of popular
outbursts as well as of official extortion, but there are fairly
prosperous communities at Bushire, Isfahan, Teheran and Kashan (in
Shiraz they are in low estate). The recent advent of constitutional
government may improve the condition of the Jews.
54. _The United Kingdom._--The general course of Jewish history in
England has been indicated above. The Jews came to England at least as
early as the Norman Conquest; they were expelled from Bury St Edmunds in
1190, after the massacres at the coronation of Richard I.; they were
required to wear badges in 1218. At the end of the 12th century was
established the "exchequer of the Jews," which chiefly dealt with suits
concerning money-lending, and arranged a "continual flow of money from
the Jews to the royal treasury," and a so-called "parliament of the
Jews" was summoned in 1241; in 1275 was enacted the statute _de
Judaismo_ which, among other things, permitted the Jews to hold land.
But this concession was illusory, and as the statute prevented Jews from
engaging in finance--the only occupation which had been open to them--it
was a prelude to their expulsion in 1290. There were few Jews in England
from that date till the Commonwealth, but Jews settled in the American
colonies earlier in the 17th century, and rendered considerable services
in the advancement of English commerce. The Whitehall conference of 1655
marks a change in the status of the Jews in England itself, for though
no definite results emerged it was clearly defined by the judges that
there was no legal obstacle to the return of the Jews. Charles II. in
1664 continued Cromwell's tolerant policy. No serious attempt towards
the emancipation of the Jews was made till the Naturalization Act of
1753, which was, however, immediately repealed. Jews no longer attached
to the Synagogue, such as the Herschels and Disraelis, attained to fame.
In 1830 the first Jewish emancipation bill was brought in by Robert
Grant, but it was not till the legislation of 1858-1860 that Jews
obtained full parliamentary rights. In other directions progress was
more rapid. The office of sheriff was thrown open to Jews in 1835 (Moses
Montefiore, sheriff of London was knighted in 1837); Sir I. L. Goldsmid
was made a baronet in 1841, Baron Lionel de Rothschild was elected to
Parliament in 1847 (though he was unable to take his seat), Alderman
(Sir David) Salomons became lord mayor of London in 1855 and Francis
Goldsmid was made a Q.C. in 1858. In 1873 Sir George Jessel was made a
judge, and Lord Rothschild took his seat in the House of Lords as the
first Jewish peer in 1886. A fair proportion of Jews have been elected
to the House of Commons, and Mr Herbert Samuel rose to cabinet rank in
1909. Sir Matthew Nathan has been governor of Hong-Kong and Natal, and
among Jewish statesmen in the colonies Sir Julius Vogel and V. L.
Solomon have been prime ministers (HYAMSON: _A History of the Jews in
England_, p. 342). It is unnecessary to remark that in the British
colonies the Jews everywhere enjoy full citizenship. In fact, the
colonies emancipated the Jews earlier than did the mother country. Jews
were settled in Canada from the time of Wolfe, and a congregation was
founded at Montreal in 1768, and since 1832 Jews have been entitled to
sit in the Canadian parliament. There are some thriving Jewish
agricultural colonies in the same dominion. In Australia the Jews from
the first were welcomed on perfectly equal terms. The oldest
congregation is that of Sydney (1817); the Melbourne community dates
from 1844. Reverting to incidents in England itself, in 1870 the
abolition of university tests removed all restrictions on Jews at Oxford
and Cambridge, and both universities have since elected Jews to
professorships and other posts of honour. The communal organization of
English Jewry is somewhat inchoate. In 1841 an independent reform
congregation was founded, and the Spanish and Portuguese Jews have
always maintained their separate existence with a Haham as the
ecclesiastical head. In 1870 was founded the United Synagogue, which is
a metropolitan organization, and the same remark applies to the more
recent Federation of Synagogues. The chief rabbi, who is the
ecclesiastical head of the United Synagogue, has also a certain amount
of authority over the provincial and colonial Jewries, but this is
nominal rather than real. The provincial Jewries, however, participate
in the election of the chief rabbi. At the end of 1909 was held the
first conference of Jewish ministers in London, and from this is
expected some more systematic organization of scattered communities.
Anglo-Jewry is rich, however, in charitable, educational and literary
institutions; chief among these respectively may be named the Jewish
board of guardians (1859), the Jews' college (1855), and the Jewish
historical society (1893). Besides the distinctions already noted,
English Jews have risen to note in theology (C. G. Montefiore), in
literature (Israel Zangwill and Alfred Sutro), in art (S. Hart, R.A.,
and S. J. Solomon, R.A.) in music (Julius Benedict and Frederick Hymen
Cowen). More than 1000 English and colonial Jews participated as active
combatants in the South African War. The immigration of Jews from Russia
was mainly responsible for the ineffective yet oppressive Aliens Act of
1905. (Full accounts of Anglo-Jewish institutions are given in the
_Jewish Year-Book_ published annually since 1895.)
55. _The American Continent._--Closely parallel with the progress of the
Jews in England has been their steady advancement in America. Jews made
their way to America early in the 16th century, settling in Brazil prior
to the Dutch occupation. Under Dutch rule they enjoyed full civil
rights. In Mexico and Peru they fell under the ban of the Inquisition.
In Surinam the Jews were treated as British subjects; in Barbadoes,
Jamaica and New York they are found as early as the first half of the
17th century. During the War of Independence the Jews of America took a
prominent part on both sides, for under the British rule many had risen
to wealth and high social position. After the Declaration of
Independence, Jews are found all over America, where they have long
enjoyed complete emancipation, and have enormously increased in numbers,
owing particularly to immigration from Russia. The American Jews bore
their share in the Civil War (7038 Jews were in the two armies), and
have always identified themselves closely with national movements such
as the emancipation of Cuba. They have attained to high rank in all
branches of the public service, and have shown most splendid instances
of far-sighted and generous philanthropy. Within the Synagogue the
reform movement began in 1825, and soon won many successes, the central
conference of American rabbis and Union College (1875) at Cincinnati
being the instruments of this progress. At the present time orthodox
Judaism is also again acquiring its due position and the Jewish
theological seminary of America was founded for this purpose. In 1908 an
organization, inclusive of various religious sections, was founded under
the description "the Jewish community of New York." There have been four
Jewish members of the United States senate, and about 30 of the national
House of Representatives. Besides filling many diplomatic offices, a Jew
(O. S. Straus) has been a member of the cabinet. Many Jews have filled
professorial chairs at the universities, others have been judges, and in
art, literature (there is a notable Jewish publication society),
industry and commerce have rendered considerable services to national
culture and prosperity. American universities have owed much to Jewish
generosity, a foremost benefactor of these (as of many other American
institutions) being Jacob Schiff. Such institutions as the Gratz and
Dropsie colleges are further indications of the splendid activity of
American Jews in the educational field. The Jews of America have also
taken a foremost place in the succour of their oppressed brethren in
Russia and other parts of the world. (Full accounts of American Jewish
institutions are given in the _American Jewish Year-Book_, published
annually since 1899.)
56. _Anti-Semitism._--It is saddening to be compelled to close this
record with the statement that the progress of the European Jews
received a serious check by the rise of modern anti-Semitism in the last
quarter of the 19th century. While in Russia this took the form of
actual massacre, in Germany and Austria it assumed the shape of social
and civic ostracism. In Germany Jews are still rarely admitted to the
rank of officers in the army, university posts are very difficult of
access, Judaism and its doctrines are denounced in medieval language,
and a tone of hostility prevails in many public utterances. In Austria,
as in Germany, anti-Semitism is a factor in the parliamentary elections.
The legend of ritual murder (q.v.) has been revived, and every obstacle
is placed in the way of the free intercourse of Jews with their
Christian fellow-citizens. In France Edouard Adolphe Drumont led the way
to a similar animosity, and the popular fury was fanned by the Dreyfus
case. It is generally felt, however, that this recrudescence of
anti-Semitism is a passing phase in the history of culture (see
ANTI-SEMITISM).
57. _The Zionist Movement._--The Zionist movement (see ZIONISM), founded
in 1895 by Theodor Herzl (q.v.) was in a sense the outcome of
anti-Semitism. Its object was the foundation of a Jewish state in
Palestine, but though it aroused much interest it failed to attract the
majority of the emancipated Jews, and the movement has of late been
transforming itself into a mere effort at colonization. Most Jews not
only confidently believe that their own future lies in progressive
development _within_ the various nationalities of the world, but they
also hope that a similar consummation is in store for the as yet
unemancipated branches of Israel. Hence the Jews are in no sense
internationally organized. The influence of the happier communities has
been exercised on behalf of those in a worse position by individuals
such as Sir Moses Montefiore (q.v.) rather than by societies or leagues.
From time to time incidents arise which appeal to the Jewish sympathies
everywhere and joint action ensues. Such incidents were the Damascus
charge of ritual murder (1840), the forcible baptism of the Italian
child Mortara (1858), and the Russian pogroms at various dates. But all
attempts at an international union of Jews, even in view of such
emergencies as these, have failed. Each country has its own local
organization for dealing with Jewish questions. In France the Alliance
Israelite (founded in 1860), in England the Anglo-Jewish Association
(founded in 1871), in Germany the Hilfsverein der deutschen Juden, and
in Austria the Israelitische Allianz zu Wien (founded 1872), in America
the American Jewish Committee (founded 1906), and similar organizations
in other countries deal only incidentally with political affairs. They
are concerned mainly with the education of Jews in the Orient, and the
establishment of colonies and technical institutions. Baron Hirsch
(q.v.) founded the Jewish colonial association, which has undertaken
vast colonizing and educational enterprises, especially in Argentina,
and more recently the Jewish territorial organization has been started
to found a home for the oppressed Jews of Russia. All these institutions
are performing a great regenerative work, and the tribulations and
disappointments of the last decades of the 19th century were not all
loss. The gain consisted in the rousing of the Jewish consciousness to
more virile efforts towards a double end, to succour the persecuted and
ennoble the ideals of the emancipated.
58. _Statistics._--Owing to the absence of a religious census in
several important countries, the Jewish population of the world can
only be given by inferential estimate. The following approximate
figures are taken from the _American Jewish Year-Book_ for 1909-1910
and are based on similar estimates in the English _Jewish Year-Book_,
the _Jewish Encyclopedia_, Nossig's _Judische Statistik_ and the
_Reports_ of the Alliance Israelite Universelle. According to these
estimates the total Jewish population of the world in the year named
was approximately 11,500,000. Of this total there were in the British
Empire about 380,000 Jews (British Isles 240,000, London accounts for
150,000 of these; Canada and British Columbia 60,000; India 18,000;
South Africa 40,000). The largest Jewish populations were those of
Russia (5,215,000), Austria-Hungary (2,084,000), United States of
America (1,777,000), Germany (607,000, of whom 409,000 were in
Prussia), Turkey (463,000, of whom some 78,000 resided in Palestine),
Rumania (250,000), Morocco (109,000) and Holland (106,000). Others of
the more important totals are: France 95,000 (besides Algeria 63,000
and Tunis 62,000); Italy 52,000; Persia 49,000; Egypt 39,000; Bulgaria
36,000; Argentine Republic 30,000; Tripoli 19,000; Turkestan and
Afghanistan 14,000; Switzerland and Belgium each 12,000; Mexico 9000;
Greece 8000; Servia 6000; Sweden and Cuba each 4000; Denmark 3500;
Brazil and Abyssinia (Falashas) each 3000; Spain and Portugal 2500;
China and Japan 2000. There are also Jews in Curacoa, Surinam,
Luxemburg, Norway, Peru, Crete and Venezuela; but in none of these
does the Jewish population much exceed 1000.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.--H. GRAETZ, _Geschichte der Juden_ (11 vols., 1853-1875;
several subsequent editions of separate volumes; Eng. trans. 5 vols.,
1891-1892); the works of L. Zunz; _Jewish Encyclopedia passim_;
publications of Jewish societies, such as _Etudes Juives_, Jewish
historical societies of England and America, German historical
commission, Julius Barasch society (Rumania), Societas Litteraria
Hungarico-Judaica, the Viennese communal publications, and many others
to which may be added the 20 vols. of the _Jewish Quarterly Review_;
Scherer, _Rechtsverhaltnisse der Juden_ (1901); M. Gudemann
_Geschichte des Erziehungswesens und der Cultur der Juden_ (1880,
&c.); A. Leroy-Beaulieu, _Israel among the Nations_ (1895); I.
Abrahams, _Jewish Life in the Middle Ages_ (1896); G. F. Abbott,
_Israel in Europe_ (1905); G. Caro, _Wirtschaftsgeschichte der Juden_
(1908); M. Philippson, _Neueste Geschichte des judischen Volkes_
(1907, &c.); Nossig, _Judische Statistik_ (1903); and such special
works as H. Gross, _Gallia Judaica_ (1897), &c. (I. A.)
FOOTNOTES:
[1] On the homogeneity of the population, see further, W. R. Smith,
_Religion of the Semites_ (2nd ed., chaps, i.-iii.); T. Noldeke,
_Sketches from Eastern History_, pp. 1-20 (on "Some Characteristics
of the Semitic Race"); and especially E. Meyer, _Gesch. d. Altertums_
(2nd ed., i. SS 330, sqq.). For the relation between the geographical
characteristics and the political history, see G. A. Smith,
_Historical Geography of the Holy Land_.
[2] For fuller information on this section see PALESTINE: _History_,
and the related portions of BABYLONIA AND ASSYRIA, EGYPT, HITTITES,
SYRIA.
[3] Or _land_ Israel, W. Spiegelberg, _Orient. Lit. Zeit._ xi.
(1908), cols. 403-405.
[4] It is useful to compare the critical study of the Koran (q.v.),
where, however, the investigation of its various "revelations" is
simpler than that of the biblical "prophecies" on account of the
greater wealth of independent historical tradition. See also G. B.
Gray, _Contemporary Review_ (July 1907); A. A. Bevan, _Cambridge
Biblical Essays_ (ed. Swete, 1909), pp. 1-19.
[5] See primarily BIBLE: _Old Testament_; the articles on the
contents and literary structure of the several books; the various
biographical, topographical and ethnical articles, and the separate
treatment of the more important subjects (e.g. LEVITES, PROPHET,
SACRIFICE).
[6] On the bearing of external evidence upon the internal biblical
records, see especially S. R. Driver's essay in Hogarth's _Authority
and Archaeology_; cf. also A. A. Bevan, _Critical Review_ (1897, p.
406 sqq., 1898, pp. 131 sqq.); G. B. Gray, _Expositor_, May 1898; W.
G. Jordan, _Bib. Crit. and Modern Thought_ (1909), pp. 42 sqq.
[7] For the sections which follow the present writer may be permitted
to refer to his introductory contributions in the _Expositor_ (June,
1906; "The Criticism of the O.T."); the _Jewish Quarterly Review_
(July 1905-January 1907 = _Critical Notes on O.T. History_,
especially sections vii.-ix.); July and October 1907, April 1908;
_Amer. Journ. Theol._ (July 1909, "Simeon and Levi: the Problem of
the Old Testament"); and Swete's _Cambridge Bib. Essays_, pp. 54-89
("The Present Stage of O.T. Research").
[8] On the name see JEHOVAH, TETRAGRAMMATON.
[9] The story of Joseph has distinctive internal features of its own,
and appears to be from an independent cycle, which has been used to
form a connecting link between the Settlement and the Exodus; see
also Ed. Meyer, _Die Israeliten u. ihre Nachbarstamme_ (1906), pp.
228, 433; B. Luther, ibid. pp. 108 seq., 142 sqq. Neither of the
poems in Deut. xxxii. seq. alludes to an escape from Egypt; Israel is
merely a desert tribe inspired to settle in Palestine. Apparently
even the older accounts of the exodus are not of very great
antiquity; according to Jeremiah ii. 2, 7 (cf. Hos. ii. 15) some
traditions of the wilderness must have represented Israel in a very
favourable light; for the "canonical" view, see Ezekiel xvi., xx.,
xxiii.
[10] The capture of central Palestine itself is not recorded;
according to its own traditions the district had been seized by Jacob
(Gen. xlviii. 22; cf. the late form of the tradition in Jubilees
xxxiv.). This conception of a conquering hero is entirely distinct
from the narratives of the descent of Jacob into Egypt, &c. (see
Meyer and Luther, _op. cit._ pp. 110, 227 seq., 415, 433).
[11] This is especially true of the various ingenious attempts to
combine the invasion of the Israelites with the movements of the
Habiru in the Amarna period (S 3).
[12] Cf. Winckler, _Keil. u. das Alte Test._ p. 212 seq.; also his
"Der alte Orient und die Geschichtsforschung" in _Mitteilungen der
Vorderasiat. Gesellschaft_ (Berlin, 1906) and
_Religionsgeschichtlicher u. gesch. Orient_ (Leipzig, 1906); A.
Jeremias, _Alte Test._ (p. 464 seq.); B. Baentsch, _Altorient. u.
Israel. Monotheismus_ (pp. 53, 79, 105, &c.); also _Theolog. Lit.
Blatt_ (1907) No. 19. On the reconstructions of the tribal history,
see especially T. K. Cheyne, _Ency. Bib._ art. "Tribes." The most
suggestive study of the pre-monarchical narratives is that of E.
Meyer and B. Luther (above; see the former's criticisms on the
reconstructions, pp. 50, 251 sqq., 422, n. 1 and _passim_).
[13] 2 Chron. xii. 8, which is independent of the chronicler's
artificial treatment of his material, apparently points to some
tradition of Egyptian suzerainty.
[14] See for chronology, BABYLONIA AND ASSYRIA, SS v. and viii.
[15] See _Jew. Quart. Rev._ (1908), pp. 597-630. The independent
Israelite traditions which here become more numerous have points of
contact with those of Saul in 1 Samuel, and the relation is highly
suggestive for the study of their growth, as also for the perspective
of the various writers.
[16] See W. R. Smith (after Kuenen), _Ency. Bib._, col. 2670; also W.
E. Addis, ib., 1276, the commentaries of Benzinger (p. 130) and
Kittel (pp. 153 seq.) on Kings; J. S. Strachan, Hastings's _Dict.
Bible_, i. 694; G. A. Smith, _Hist. Geog. of Holy Land_, p. 582;
Konig and Hirsch, _Jew. Ency._ v. 137 seq. ("legend ... as
indifferent to accuracy in dates as it is to definiteness of places
and names"); W. R. Harper, _Amos and Hosea_, p. xli. seq. ("the lack
of chronological order ... the result is to create a wrong impression
of Elisha's career"). The bearing of this displacement upon the
literary and historical criticism of the narratives has never been
worked out.
[17] Careful examination shows that no a priori distinction can be
drawn between "trustworthy" books of Kings and "untrustworthy books"
of Chronicles. Although the latter have special late and unreliable
features, they agree with the former in presenting the same general
trend of past history. The "canonical" history in Kings is further
embellished in Chronicles, but the gulf between them is not so
profound as that between the former and the underlying and
half-suppressed historical traditions which can still be recognized.
(See also PALESTINE: _History_.)
[18] For the former (2 Kings xii. 17 seq.) cf. Hezekiah and
Sennacherib (xviii. 13-15), and for the latter, cf. Asa and Baasha (1
Kings xv. 18-20; above).
[19] It is possible that Hadad-nirari's inscription refers to
conditions in the latter part of his reign (812-783 B.C.), when Judah
apparently was no longer independent and when Jeroboam II. was king
of Israel. The accession of the latter has been placed between 785
and 782. It is now known, also, that Ben-hadad and a small coalition
were defeated by the king of Hamath; but the bearing of this upon
Israelite history is uncertain.
[20] Cf. generally, 1 Sam. iv., xxxi.; 2 Sam. ii. 8; 1 Kings xx.,
xxii.; 2 Kings vi. 8-vii. 20; also Judges v. (see DEBORAH).
[21] Special mention is made of Jonah, a prophet of Zebulun in
(north) Israel (2 Kings xiv. 25). Nothing is known of him, unless the
very late prophetical writing with the account of his visit to
Nineveh rests upon some old tradition, which, however, can scarcely
be recovered (see JONAH).
[22] This is philosophically handled by the Arabian historian Ibn
Khaldun, whose Prolegomena is well worthy of attention; see De Slane,
_Not. et extraits_, vols. xix.-xxi., with Von Kremer's criticisms in
the _Sitz. d. Kais. Akad._ of Vienna (vol. xciii., 1879); cf. also R.
Flint, _History of the Philosophy of History_, i. 157 sqq.
[23] Cf. J. G. Frazer, _Adonis, Attis, Osiris_ (1907), p. 67:
"Prophecy of the Hebrew type has not been limited to Israel; it is
indeed a phenomenon of almost world-wide occurrence; in many lands
and in many ages the wild, whirling words of frenzied men and women
have been accepted as the utterances of an in-dwelling deity. What
does distinguish Hebrew prophecy from all others is that the genius
of a few members of the profession wrested this vulgar but powerful
instrument from baser uses, and by wielding it in the interest of a
high morality rendered a service of incalculable value to humanity.
That is indeed the glory of Israel...."
[24] The use which was made in Apocalyptic literature of the
traditions of Moses, Isaiah and others finds its analogy within the
Old Testament itself; cf. the relation between the present late
prophecies of Jonah and the unknown prophet of the time of Jeroboam
II. (see S 13, note 5). To condemn re-shaping or adaptation of this
nature from a modern Western standpoint is to misunderstand entirely
the Oriental mind and Oriental usage.
[25] The condemnation passed upon the impetuous and fiery zeal of the
adherents of the new movement (cf. Hos. i. 4), like the remarkable
vicissitudes in the traditions of Moses, Aaron and the Levites
(qq.v.), represents changing situations of real significance, whose
true place in the history can with difficulty be recovered.
[26] Formerly thought to be the third of the name.
[27] Perhaps Judah had come to an understanding with Tiglath-pileser
(H. M. Haydn, _Journ. Bib. Lit._, xxviii. 1909, pp. 182-199); see
UZZIAH.
[28] The fact that these lists are of the kings of the "land Hatti"
would suggest that the term "Hittite" had been extended to Palestine.
[29] So K. Budde, _Rel. of Israel to Exile_, pp. 165-167. For an
attempt to recover the character of the cults, see W. Erbt, _Hebraer_
(Leipzig, 1906), pp. 150 sqq.
[30] See G. Maspero, _Gesch. d. morgenland. Volker_ (1877), p. 446;
E. Naville, _Proc. Soc. Bibl. Archaeol._ (1907), pp. 232 sqq., and T.
K. Cheyne, _Decline and Fall of Judah_ (1908), p. 13, with
references. [The genuineness of such discoveries is naturally a
matter for historical criticism to decide. Thus the discovery of
Numa's laws in Rome (Livy xl. 29), upon which undue weight has
sometimes been laid (see Klostermann, _Der Pentateuch_ (1906), pp.
155 sqq., was not accepted as genuine by the senate (who had the laws
destroyed), and probably not by Pliny himself. Only the later
antiquaries clung to the belief in their
trustworthiness.--(_Communicated._)]
[31] Both kings came to the throne after a conspiracy aimed at
existing abuses, and other parallels can be found (see KINGS).
[32] But see N. Schmidt, _Ency. Bib._, "Scythians," S 1.
[33] So also one can now compare the estimate taken of the Jews in
Egypt in Jer. xliv. with the actual religious conditions which are
known to have prevailed later at Elephantine, where a small Jewish
colony worshipped Yahu (Yahweh) at their own temple (see E. Sachau,
"Drei aram. Papyrusurkunde," in the _Abhandlungen_ of the Prussian
Academy, Berlin, 1907).
[34] Sargon had removed Babylonians into the land of Hatti (Syria and
Palestine), and in 715 B.C. among the colonists were tribes
apparently of desert origin (Tamud, Hayapa, &c.); other settlements
are ascribed to Esar-haddon and perhaps Assur-bani-pal (Ezra iv. 2,
10). See for the evidence, A. E. Cowley, _Ency. Bib._, col. 4257; J.
A. Montgomery, _The Samaritans_, pp. 46-57 (Philadelphia, 1907).
[35] The growing recognition that the land was not depopulated after
586 is of fundamental significance for the criticism of "exilic" and
"post-exilic" history. G. A. Smith thus sums up a discussion of the
extent of the deportations: "... A large majority of the Jewish
people remained on the land. This conclusion may startle us with our
generally received notions of the whole nation as exiled. But there
are facts which support it" (_Jerusalem_, ii. 268).
[36] On the place of Palestine in Persian history see PERSIA:
_History, ancient_, especially S 5 ii.; also ARTAXERXES; CAMBYSES;
CYRUS; DARIUS, &c.
[37] The evidence for Artaxerxes III., accepted by Ewald and others
(see W. R. Smith, _Old Testament in Jewish Church_, p. 438 seq.; W.
Judeich, _Kleinasiat. Stud._, p. 170; T. K. Cheyne, _Ency. Bib._,
col. 2202; F. C. Kent, _Hist._ [1899], pp. 230 sqq.) has however been
questioned by Willrich, _Judaica_, 35-39 (see Cheyne, _Ency. Bib._,
col. 3941). The account of Josephus (above) raises several
difficulties, especially the identity of Bagoses. It has been
supposed that he has placed the record too late, and that this
Bagoses is the Judaean governor who flourished about 408 B.C. (See p.
286, n. 3.)
[38] Thus a decree of Darius I. takes the part of his subjects
against the excessive zeal of the official Gadatas, and grants
freedom of taxation and exemption from forced labour to those
connected with a temple of Apollo in Asia Minor (_Bulletin de
correspondance hellenique_, xiii. 529; E. Meyer, _Entstehung des
Judenthums_, p. 19 seq.; cf. id. _Forschungen_, ii. 497).
[39] In addition to this, the Egyptian story of the priest Uza-hor at
the court of Cambyses and Darius reflects a policy of religious
tolerance which illustrates the biblical account of Ezra and Nehemiah
(Brugsch, _Gesch. Aeg._ pp. 784 sqq.; see Cheyne, _Jew. Relig. Life
after the Exile_, pp. 40-43).
[40] From Tema in north Arabia, also, there is monumental evidence of
the 5th century B.C. for Babylonian and Assyrian influence upon the
language, cult and art. For Nippur, see _Bab. Exped. of Univ. of
Pennsylvania_, series A., vol. ix. (1898), by H. V. Hilprecht; for
Elephantine, the Mond papyri, A. H. Sayce and A. E. Cowley, _Aramaic
Papyri Discovered at Assuan_ (1906), and those cited above (p. 282,
n. 1). For the Jewish colonies in general, see H. Guthe, _Ency.
Bib._, art. "Dispersion" (with references); also below, S 25 sqq.
[41] See EZRA AND NEHEMIAH with bibliographical references, also T.
K. Cheyne, _Introd. to Isaiah_ (1895); _Jew. Religious Life after the
Exile_ (1898); E. Sellin, _Stud. z. Entstehungsgesch. d. jud.
Gemeinde_ (1901); R. H. Kennett in Swete's _Cambridge Biblical
Essays_ (pp. 92 sqq.); G. Jahn, _Die Bucher Esra u. Nehemja_ (1909);
and C. C. Torrey, _Ezra Studies_ (1910).
[42] There is an obvious effort to preserve the continuity of
tradition (a) in Ezra ii. which gives a list of families who returned
from exile each to its own city, and (b) in the return of the holy
vessels in the time of Cyrus (contrast 1 Esdras iv. 43 seq.), a view
which, in spite of Dan. i. 2, v. 2 seq., conflicts with 2 Kings xxiv.
13 and xxv. 13 (see, however, v. 14). That attempts have been made to
adjust contradictory representations is suggested by the prophecy
ascribed to Jeremiah (xxvii. 16 sqq.) where the restoration of the
holy vessels finds no place in the shorter text of the Septuagint
(see W. R. Smith, _Old Test. and Jew. Church_, pp. 104 sqq.).
[43] The view that Deuteronomy is later than the 7th century has been
suggested by M. Vernes, _Nouvelle hypothese sur la comp. et l'origine
du Deut._ (1887); Havet, _Christian. et ses origines_ (1878); Horst,
in _Rev. de l'hist. des relig._, 1888; and more recently by E. Day,
_Journ. Bib. Lit._ (1902), pp. 202 sqq.; and R. H. Kennett, _Journ.
Theol. Stud._ (1906), pp. 486 sqq. The strongest counter-arguments
(see W. E. Addis, _Doc. of Hexat._ ii. 2-9) rely upon the historical
trustworthiness of 2 Kings xxii. seq. Weighty reasons are brought
also by conservative writers against the theory that Deuteronomy
dates from or about the age of Josiah, and their objections to the
"discovery" of a new law-roll apply equally to the "re-discovery" and
promulgation of an old and authentic code.
[44] See, for Cheyne's view, his _Decline and Fall of Judah.
Introduction_ (1908). The former tendency has many supporters; see,
among recent writers, N. Schmidt, _Hibbert Journal_ (1908), pp. 322
sqq.; C. F. Burney, _Journ. Theol. Stud._ (1908), pp. 321 sqq.; O. A.
Toffteen, _The Historic Exodus_ (1909), pp. 120 sqq.; especially
Meyer and Luther, _Die Israeliten_, pp. 442-440, &c. For the early
recognition of the evidence in question, see J. Wellhausen, _De
gentibus et familiis Judaeis_ (Gottingen, 1870); _Prolegomena_ (Eng.
trans.), pp. 216 sqq., 342 sqq., and 441-443 (from art. "Israel," S
2, _Ency. Brit._ 9th ed.); also A. Kuenen, _Relig. of Israel_ (i. 135
seq., 176-182); W. R. Smith, _Prophets of Israel_, pp. 28 seq., 379.
[45] For the prominence of the "southern" element in Judah see E.
Meyer, _Entstehung d. Judenthums_ (1896), pp. 119, 147, 167, 177, 183
n. 1; _Israeliten_, pp. 352 n. 5, 402, 429 seq.
[46] See S 23 end, and LEVITES. When Edom is renowned for wisdom and
a small Judaean family boasts of sages whose names have south
Palestinian affinity (1 Chron. ii. 6), and when such names as Korah,
Heman, Ethan and Obed-edom, are associated with psalmody, there is no
inherent improbability in the conjecture that the "southern" families
settled around Jerusalem may have left their mark in other parts of
the Old Testament. It is another question whether such literature can
be identified (for Cheyne's views, see _Ency. Bib._ "Prophetic
Literature," "Psalms," and his recent studies).
[47] One may recall, in this connexion, Caxton's very interesting
prologue to Malory's _Morte d'Arthur_ and his remarks on the
permanent value of the "histories" of this British hero. [Cf. also
Horace, _Ep._ 1. ii. and R. Browning, "Development."]
[48] It is noteworthy that Josephus, who has his own representation
of the post-exilic age, allows two years and four months for the work
(_Ant._ xi. 5, 8).
[49] The papyri from Elephantine (p. 282, n. 1, above) mention as
contemporaries the Jerusalem priest Johanan (cf. the son of Joiada
and father of Jaddua, Neh. xii. 22), Bagohi (Bagoas), governor of
Judah, and Delaiah and Shelemiah sons of Sanballat (408-407 B.C.)
They ignore any strained relations between Samaria and Judah, and
Delaiah and Bagohi unite in granting permission to the Jewish colony
to rebuild their place of worship. If this fixes the date of
Sanballat and Nehemiah in the time of the first Artaxerxes, the
probability of confusion in the later written sources is enhanced by
the recurrence of identical names of kings, priests, &c., in the
history.
[50] The Samaritans, for their part, claimed the traditions of their
land and called themselves the posterity of Joseph, Ephraim and
Manasseh. But they were ready to deny their kinship with the Jews
when the latter were in adversity, and could have replied to the
tradition that they were foreigners with a _tu quoque_ (Josephus,
_Ant._ ix. 14, 3; xi. 8, 6; xii. 5, 5) (see SAMARITANS).
[51] The statement that the king desired to avoid the divine wrath
may possibly have some deeper meaning (e.g. some recent revolt, Ezra
vii. 23).
[52] It must suffice to refer to the opinions of Bertholet, Buhl,
Cheyne, Guthe, Van Hoonacker, Jahn, Kennett, Kent, Kosters, Marquart,
Torrey, and Wildeboer.
[53] C. F. Kent, _Israel's Hist. and Biog. Narratives_ (1905), p. 358
seq. The objections against this very probable view undervalue Ezra
iv. 7-23 and overlook the serious intricacies in the book of
Nehemiah.
[54] There are three inquiries: (a) the critical value of 1 Esdras,
(b) the character of the different representations of post-exilic
internal and external history, and (c) the recovery of the historical
facts. To start with the last before considering (a) and (b) would be
futile.
[55] For example, to the sufferings under Artaxerxes III. (S 19) have
been ascribed such passages as Isa. lxiii. 7-lxiv. 12; Ps. xliv.,
lxxiv., lxxix., lxxx., lxxxiii. (see also LAMENTATIONS). In their
present form they are not of the beginning of the 6th century and, if
the evidence for Artaxerxes III. proves too doubtful, they may belong
to the history preceding Nehemiah's return, provided the internal
features do not stand in the way (e.g. prior or posterior to the
formation of the exclusive Judaean community, &c.). Since the book of
Baruch (named after Jeremiah's scribe) is now recognized to be
considerably later (probably after the destruction of Jerusalem A.D.
70), it will be seen that the recurrence of similar causes leads to a
similarity in the contemporary literary productions (with a reshaping
of earlier tradition), the precise date of which depends upon
delicate points of detail and not upon the apparently obvious
historical elements.
[56] See H. Winckler, _Keil. u. Alte Test._, 295, and Kennett,
_Journ. Theol. Stud._ (1906), p. 487; _Camb. Bib. Essays_, p. 117.
The Chaldeans alone destroyed Jerusalem (2 Kings xxv.); Edom was
friendly or at least neutral (Jer. xxvii. 3, xl. 11 seq.). The
proposal to read "Edomites" for "Syrians" in the list of bands which
troubled Jehoiakim (2 Kings xxiv. 2) is not supported by the
contemporary reference, Jer. xxxv. 11.
[57] It is at least a coincidence that the prophet who took the part
of Tobiah and Sanballat against Nehemiah (vi. 10 seq.) bears the same
name as the one who advised Rehoboam to acquiesce in the disruption
(1 Kings xii. 21-24), or announced the divine selection of Jeroboam
(ib. v. 24, Septuagint only).
[58] See HEBREW RELIGION, S 8 seq., and the relevant portions of the
histories of Israel.
[59] J. Wellhausen, art. "Israel," _Ency. Brit._ 9th ed., vol. xiii.
p. 419; or his _Prolegomena_, pp. 497 seq.
[60] An instructive account of Judaism in the early post-exilic age
on critical lines (from the Jewish standpoint) is given by C. G.
Montefiore, _Hibbert Lectures_ (1892), pp. 355 sqq.; cf. also the
sketch by I. Abrahams, _Judaism_ (1907).
[61] Cf. the story of Phinehas, Num. xxv. 6 sqq.; on Gen. xxxiv., see
SIMEON. Apropos of hostility towards Samaria, it is singular that the
term of reproach, "Cutheans," applied to the Samaritans is derived
from Cutha, the famous seat of the god Nergal, only some 25 m. N.E.
of Babylon itself (see above, p. 286, n. 4).
[62] The various tendencies which can be observed in the later
pseudepigraphical and apocalyptical writings are of considerable
value in any consideration of the development of thought illustrated
in the Old Testament itself.
[63] Reference may be made to H. Winckler, _Gesch. Israels_, ii.
(1900); W. Erbt, _Die Hebraer_ (1906); and T. K. Cheyne, _Traditions
and Beliefs of Ancient Israel_ (1907).
[64] On the writers mentioned below see articles s.v.
[65] For the importance of the Portuguese Jews, see PORTUGAL:
_History_.
JEWSBURY, GERALDINE ENDSOR (1812-1880), English writer, daughter of
Thomas Jewsbury, a Manchester merchant, was born in 1812 at Measham,
Derbyshire. Her first novel, _Zoe: the History of Two Lives_, was
published in 1845, and was followed by _The Half Sisters_ (1848),
_Marian Withers_ (1851), _Constance Herbert_ (1855), _The Sorrows of
Gentility_ (1856), _Right or Wrong_ (1859). In 1850 she was invited by
Charles Dickens to write for _Household Words_; for many years she was a
frequent contributor to the _Athenaeum_ and other journals and
magazines. It is, however, mainly on account of her friendship with
Thomas Carlyle and his wife that her name is remembered. Carlyle
described her, after their first meeting in 1841, as "one of the most
interesting young women I have seen for years; clear delicate sense and
courage looking out of her small sylph-like figure." From this time till
Mrs Carlyle's death in 1866, Geraldine Jewsbury was the most intimate of
her friends. The selections from Geraldine Jewsbury's letters to Jane
Welsh Carlyle (1892, ed. Mrs Alexander Ireland) prove how confidential
were the relations between the two women for a quarter of a century. In
1854 Miss Jewsbury removed from Manchester to London to be near her
friend. To her Carlyle turned for sympathy when his wife died; and at
his request she wrote down some "biographical anecdotes" of Mrs
Carlyle's childhood and early married life. Carlyle's comment was that
"few or none of these narratives are correct in details, but there is a
certain mythical truth in all or most of them;" and he added, "the
Geraldine accounts of her (Mrs Carlyle's) childhood are substantially
correct." He accepted them as the groundwork for his own essay on "Jane
Welsh Carlyle," with which they were therefore incorporated by Froude
when editing Carlyle's _Reminiscences_. Miss Jewsbury was consulted by
Froude when he was preparing Carlyle's biography, and her recollection
of her friend's confidences confirmed the suspicion that Carlyle had on
one occasion used physical violence towards his wife. Miss Jewsbury
further informed Froude that the secret of the domestic troubles of the
Carlyles lay in the fact that Carlyle had been "one of those persons who
ought never to have married," and that Mrs Carlyle had at one time
contemplated having her marriage legally annulled (see _My Relations
with Carlyle_, by James Anthony Froude, 1903). The endeavour has been
made to discredit Miss Jewsbury in relation to this matter, but there
seems to be no sufficient ground for doubting that she accurately
repeated what she had learnt from Mrs Carlyle's own lips. Miss Jewsbury
died in London on the 23rd of September 1880.
JEW'S EARS, the popular name of a fungus, known botanically as _Hirneola
auricula-judae_, so called from its shape, which somewhat resembles a
human ear. It is very thin, flexible, flesh-coloured to dark brown, and
one to three inches broad. It is common on branches of elder, which it
often kills, and is also found on elm, willow, oak and other trees. It
was formerly prescribed as a remedy for dropsy.
JEW'S HARP, or JEW'S TRUMP (Fr. _guimbarde_, O. Fr. _trompe_, _gronde_;
Ger. _Mundharmonica_, _Maultrommel_, _Brummeisen_; Ital.
_scaccia-pensieri_ or _spassa-pensiero_), a small musical instrument of
percussion, known for centuries all over Europe. "Jew's trump" is the
older name, and "trump" is still used in parts of Great Britain.
Attempts have been made to derive "Jew's" from "jaws" or Fr. _jeu_, but,
though there is no apparent reason for associating the instrument with
the Jews, it is certain that "Jew's" is the original form (see the _New
English Dictionary_ and C. B. Mount in _Notes and Queries_ (Oct. 23,
1897, p. 322). The instrument consists of a slender tongue of steel
riveted at one end to the base of a pear-shaped steel loop; the other
end of the tongue, left free and passing out between the two branches of
the frame, terminates in a sharp bend at right angles, to enable the
player to depress it by an elastic blow and thus set it vibrating while
firmly pressing the branches of the frame against his teeth. The
vibrations of the steel tongue produce a compound sound composed of a
fundamental and its harmonics. By using the cavity of the mouth as a
resonator, each harmonic in succession can be isolated and reinforced,
giving the instrument the compass shown. The lower harmonics of the
series cannot be obtained, owing to the limited capacity of the
resonating cavity. The black notes on the stave show the scale which may
be produced by using two harps, one tuned a fourth above the other. The
player on the Jew's harp, in order to isolate the harmonics, frames his
mouth as though intending to pronounce the various vowels. At the
beginning of the 19th century, when much energy and ingenuity were being
expended in all countries upon the invention of new musical instruments,
the _Maultrommel_, re-christened _Mundharmonica_ (the most rational of
all its names), attracted attention in Germany. Heinrich Scheibler
devised an ingenious holder with a handle, to contain five Jew's harps,
all tuned to different notes; by holding one in each hand, a large
compass, with duplicate notes, became available; he called this complex
Jew's harp _Aura_[1] and with it played themes with variations, marches,
Scotch reels, &c. Other virtuosi, such as Eulenstein, a native of
Wurtemberg, achieved the same result by placing the variously tuned
Jew's harps upon the table in front of him, taking them up and setting
them down as required. Eulenstein created a sensation in London in 1827
by playing on no fewer than sixteen Jew's harps. In 1828 Sir Charles
Wheatstone published an essay on the technique of the instrument in the
_Quarterly Journal of Science_. (K. S.)
[Illustration]
FOOTNOTE:
[1] See _Allg. musik. Ztg._ (Leipzig, 1816), p. 506, and Beilage 5,
where the construction of the instruments is described and
illustrated and the system of notation shown in various pieces of
music.
JEZEBEL (Heb. _i-zebel_, perhaps an artificial form to suggest
"un-exalted," a divine name or its equivalent would naturally be
expected instead of the first syllable), wife of Ahab, king of Israel (1
Kings xvi. 31), and mother of Athaliah, in the Bible. Her father
Eth-baal (Ithobal, Jos., _contra Ap._ i. 18) was king of Tyre and priest
of the goddess Astarte. He had usurped the throne and was the first
important Phoenician king after Hiram (see PHOENICIA). Jezebel, a true
daughter of a priest of Astarte, showed herself hostile to the worship
of Yahweh, and to his prophets, whom she relentlessly pursued (1 Kings
xviii. 4-13; see ELIJAH). She is represented as a woman of virile
character, and became notorious for the part she took in the matter of
Naboth's vineyard. When the Jezreelite[1] sheikh refused to sell the
family inheritance to the king, Jezebel treacherously caused him to be
arrested on a charge of treason, and with the help of false witnesses he
was found guilty and condemned to death. For this the prophet Elijah
pronounced a solemn curse upon Ahab and Jezebel, which was fulfilled
when Jehu, who was anointed king at Elisha's instigation, killed the son
Jehoram, massacred all the family, and had Jezebel destroyed (1 Kings
xxi.; 2 Kings ix. 11-28). What is told of her comes from sources written
under the influence of strong religious bias; among the exaggerations
must be reckoned 1 Kings xviii. 13, which is inconsistent with xix. 18
and xxii. 6. A literal interpretation of the reference to Jezebel's
idolatry (2 Kings ix. 22) has made her name a byword for a false
prophetess in Rev. ii. 20. Her name is often used in modern English as a
synonym for an abandoned woman or one who paints her face. (S. A. C.)
FOOTNOTE:
[1] According to another tradition Naboth lived at Samaria (xxi. 1
[LXX.], 18 seq.; cf. xxii. 38). A similar confusion regarding the
king's home appears in 2 Kings x. 11 compared with vv. 1, 17.
JEZREEL (Heb. "God sows"), the capital of the Israelite monarchy under
Ahab, and the scene of stirring Biblical events (1 Sam. xxix. 1; 1 Kings
xxi.; 2 Kings ix. 21-37). The name was also applied to the great plain
(Esdraelon) dominated by the city ("valley of Jezreel," Josh. xvii. 16,
&c.). The site has never been lost, and the present village _Zercin_
retains the name radically unchanged. In Greek (e.g. Judith) the name
appears under the form [Greek: Esdraela]; it is _Stradela_ in the
_Bordeaux Pilgrim_, and to the Crusaders the place was known as _Parvum
Gerinum_. The modern stone village stands on a bare rocky knoll, 500 ft.
above the broad northern valley, at the north extremity of a long ledge,
terminating in steep cliffs, forming part of the chain of Mt Gilboa. The
buildings are modern, but some scanty remains of rock-hewn wine presses
and a few scattered sarcophagi mark the antiquity of the site. The view
over the plains is fine and extensive. It is vain now to look for Ahab's
palace or Naboth's vineyard. The fountain mentioned in 1 Sam. xxix. 1 is
perhaps the fine spring _'Ain el Meiyyita_, north of the village, a
shallow pool of good water full of small fish, rising between black
basalt boulders: or more probably the copious _'Ain Jalud_.
A second city named Jezreel lay in the hill country of Judah, somewhere
near Hebron (Josh. xv. 56). This was the native place of David's wife
Abinoam (1 Sam. xxv. 43).
See, for an excellent description of the scenery and history of the
Israelite Jezreel, G. A. Smith, _Hist. Geog._ xix.
JHABUA, a native state of Central India, in the Bhopawar agency. Area,
with the dependency of Rutanmal, 1336 sq. m. Pop. (1901), 80,889. More
than half the inhabitants belong to the aboriginal Bhils. Estimated
revenue, L7000; tribute, L1000. Manganese and opium are exported. The
chief, whose title is raja, is a Rajput of the Rathor clan, descended
from a branch of the Jodhpur family. Raja Udai Singh was invested in
1898 with the powers of administration.
The town of JHABUA (pop. 3354) stands on the bank of a lake, and is
surrounded by a mud wall. A dispensary and a guesthouse were constructed
to commemorate Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee in 1897.
JHALAWAR, a native state of India, in the Rajputana agency, pop. (1901),
90,175; estimated revenue, L26,000; tribute, L2000. Area, 810 sq. m. The
ruling family of Jhalawar belongs to the Jhala clan of Rajputs, and
their ancestors were petty chiefs of Halwad in the district of Jhalawar,
in Kathiawar. About 1709 one of the younger sons of the head of the clan
left his country with his son to try his fortunes at Delhi. At Kotah he
left his son Madhu Singh, who soon became a favourite with the maharaja,
and received from him an important post, which became hereditary. On the
death of one of the Kotah rajas (1771), the country was left to the
charge of Zalim Singh, a descendant of Madhu Singh. From that time Zalim
Singh was the real ruler of Kotah. He brought it to a wonderful state of
prosperity, and under his administration, which lasted over forty-five
years, the Kotah territory was respected by all parties. In 1838 it was
resolved, with the consent of the chief of Kotah, to dismember the
state, and to create the new principality of Jhalawar as a separate
provision for the descendants of Zalim Singh. The districts then severed
from Kotah were considered to represent one-third (L120,000) of the
income of Kotah; by treaty they acknowledged the supremacy of the
British, and agreed to pay an annual tribute of L8000. Madan Singh
received the title of maharaja rana, and was placed on the same footing
as the other chiefs in Rajputana. He died in 1845. An adopted son of his
successor took the name of Zalim Singh in 1875 on becoming chief of
Jhalawar. He was a minor and was not invested with governing powers till
1884. Owing to his maladministration, his relations with the British
government became strained, and he was finally deposed in 1896, "on
account of persistent misgovernment and proved unfitness for the powers
of a ruling chief." He went to live at Benares, on a pension of L2000;
and the administration was placed in the hands of the British resident.
After much consideration, the government resolved in 1897 to break up
the state, restoring the greater part to Kotah, but forming the two
districts of Shahabad and the Chaumahla into a new state, which came
into existence in 1899, and of which Kunwar Bhawani Singh, a descendant
of the original Zalim Singh, was appointed chief.
The chief town is PATAN, or JHALRAPATAN (pop. 7955), founded close to an
old site by Zalim Singh in 1796, by the side of an artificial lake. It
is the centre of trade, the chief exports of the state being opium,
oil-seeds and cotton. The palace is at the cantonment or chhaoni, 4 m.
north. The ancient site near the town was occupied by the city of
Chandrawati, said to have been destroyed in the time of Aurangzeb. The
finest feature of its remains is the temple of Sitaleswar Mahadeva (c.
600).
JHANG, a town and district of British India, in the Multan division of
the Punjab. The town, which forms one municipality with the newer and
now more important quarter of Maghiana, is about 3 m. from the right
bank of the river Chenab. Founded by Mal Khan, a Sial chieftain, in
1462, it long formed the capital of a Mahommedan state. Pop. (1901),
24,382. Maghiana has manufactures of leather, soap and metal ware.
The DISTRICT OF JHANG extends along both sides of the Chenab, including
its confluences with the Jhelum and the Ravi. Area, 3726 sq. m. Pop.
(1901), 378,695, showing an apparent decrease of 13% in the decade, due
to the creation of the district of Lyallpur in 1904. But actually the
population increased by 132% on the old area, owing to the opening of
the Chenab canal and the colonization of the tract irrigated by it.
Within Jhang many thousands of acres of government waste have been
allotted to colonists, who are reported to be flourishing. A branch of
the North-Western railway enters the district in this quarter, extending
throughout its entire length. The Southern Jech Doab railway serves the
south. The principal industries are the ginning, pressing and weaving of
cotton.
Jhang contains the ruins of Shorkot, identified with one of the towns
taken by Alexander. In modern times the history of Jhang centres in the
famous clan of Sials, who exercised an extensive sway over a large tract
between Shahpur and Multan, with little dependence on the imperial court
at Delhi, until they finally fell before the all-absorbing power of
Ranjit Singh. The Sials of Jhang are Mahommedans of Rajput descent,
whose ancestor, Rai Shankar of Daranagar, emigrated early in the 13th
century from the Gangetic Doab. In the beginning of the 19th century
Maharaja Ranjit Singh invaded Jhang, and captured the Sial chieftain's
territory. The latter recovered a small portion afterwards, which he was
allowed to retain on payment of a yearly tribute. In 1847, after the
establishment of the British agency at Lahore, the district came under
the charge of the British government; and in 1848 Ismail Khan, the Sial
leader, rendered important services against the rebel chiefs, for which
he received a pension. During the Mutiny of 1857 the Sial leader again
proved his loyalty by serving in person on the British side. His pension
was afterwards increased, and he obtained the title of khan bahadur,
with a small _jagir_ for life.
JHANSI, a city and district of British India, in the Allahabad division
oL the United Provinces. The city is the centre of the Indian Midland
railway system, whence four lines diverge to Agra, Cawnpore, Allahabad
and Bhopal. Pop. (1901), 55,724. A stone fort crowns a neighbouring
rock. Formerly the capital of a Mahratta principality, which lapsed to
the British in 1853, it was during the Mutiny the scene of disaffection
and massacre. It was then made over to Gwalior, but has been taken back
in exchange for other territory. Even when the city was within Gwalior,
the civil headquarters and the cantonment were at Jhansi Naoabad, under
its walls. Jhansi is the principal centre for the agricultural trade of
the district, but its manufactures are small.
The DISTRICT OF JHANSI was enlarged in 1891 by the incorporation of the
former district of Lalitpur, which extends farther into the hill
country, almost entirely surrounded by native states. Combined area,
3628 sq.m. Pop. (1901), 616,759 showing a decrease of 10% in the decade,
due to the results of famine. The main line and branches of the Indian
Midland railway serve the district, which forms a portion of the hill
country of Bundelkhand, sloping down from the outliers of the Vindhyan
range on the south to the tributaries of the Jumna on the north. The
extreme south is composed of parallel rows of long and narrow-ridged
hills. Through the intervening valleys the rivers flow down impetuously
over ledges of granite or quartz. North of the hilly region, the rocky
granite chains gradually lose themselves in clusters of smaller hills.
The northern portion consists of the level plain of Bundelkhand,
distinguished for its deep black soil, known as _mar_, and admirably
adapted for the cultivation of cotton. The district is intersected or
bounded by three principal rivers--the Pahuj, Betwa and Dhasan. The
district is much cut up, and portions of it are insulated by the
surrounding native states. The principal crops are millets, cotton,
oil-seeds, pulses, wheat, gram and barley. The destructive _kans_ grass
has proved as great a pest here as elsewhere in Bundelkhand. Jhansi is
especially exposed to blights, droughts, floods, hailstorms, epidemics,
and their natural consequence--famine.
Nothing is known with certainty as to the history of this district
before the period of Chandel rule, about the 11th century of our era. To
this epoch must be referred the artificial reservoirs and architectural
remains of the hilly region. The Chandels were succeeded by their
servants the Khangars, who built the fort of Karar, lying just outside
the British border. About the 14th century the Bundelas poured down upon
the plains, and gradually spread themselves over the whole region which
now bears their name. The Mahommedan governors were constantly making
irruptions into the Bundela country; and in 1732 Chhatar Sal, the
Bundela chieftain, called in the aid of the Mahrattas. They came to his
assistance with their accustomed promptitude, and were rewarded on the
raja's death in 1734, by the bequest of one-third of his dominions.
Their general founded the city of Jhansi, and peopled it with
inhabitants from Orchha state. In 1806 British protection was promised
to the Mahratta chief, and in 1817 the peshwa ceded to the East India
Company all his rights over Bundelkhand. In 1853 the raja died
childless, and his territories lapsed to the British. The Jhansi state
and the Jalaun and Chanderi districts were then formed into a
superintendency. The widow of the raja considered herself aggrieved
because she was not allowed to adopt an heir, and because the slaughter
of cattle was permitted in the Jhansi territory. Reports were spread
which excited the religious prejudices of the Hindus. The events of 1857
accordingly found Jhansi ripe for mutiny. In June a few men of the 12th
native infantry seized the fort containing the treasure and magazine,
and massacred the European officers of the garrison. Everywhere the
usual anarchic quarrels rose among the rebels, and the country was
plundered mercilessly. The rani put herself at the head of the rebels,
and died bravely in battle. It was not till November 1858, after a
series of sharp contests with various guerilla leaders, that the work of
reorganization was fairly set on foot.
JHELUM, or JEHLAM (_Hydaspes_ of the Greeks), a river of northern India.
It is the most westerly of the "five rivers" of the Punjab. It rises in
the north-east of the Kashmir state, flows through the city of Srinagar
and the Wular lake, issues through the Pir Panjal range by the narrow
pass of Baramula, and enters British territory in the Jhelum district.
Thence it flows through the plains of the Punjab, forming the boundary
between the Jech Doab and the Sind Sagar Doab, and finally joins the
Chenab at Timmu after a course of 450 miles. The Jhelum colony, in the
Shahpur district of the Punjab, formed on the example of the Chenab
colony in 1901, is designed to contain a total irrigable area of
1,130,000 acres. The Jhelum canal is a smaller work than the Chenab
canal, but its silt is noted for its fertilizing qualities. Both
projects have brought great prosperity to the cultivators.
JHELUM, or JEHLAM, a town and district of British India, in the
Rawalpindi division of the Punjab. The town is situated on the right
bank of the river Jhelum, here crossed by a bridge of the North-Western
railway, 103 m. N. of Lahore. Pop. (1901), 14,951. It is a modern town
with river and railway trade (principally in timber from Kashmir),
boat-building and cantonments for a cavalry and four infantry regiments.
The DISTRICT OF JEHLUM stretches from the river Jhelum almost to the
Indus. Area, 2813 sq. m. Pop. (1901), 501,424, showing a decrease of 2%
in the decade. Salt is quarried at the Mayo mine in the Salt Range.
There are two coal-mines, the only ones worked in the province, from
which the North-Western railway obtains part of its supply of coal. The
chief centre of the salt trade is Pind Dadan Khan (pop. 13,770). The
district is crossed by the main line of the North-Western railway, and
also traversed along the south by a branch line. The river Jhelum is
navigable throughout the district, which forms the south-eastern portion
of a rugged Himalayan spur, extending between the Indus and Jhelum to
the borders of the Sind Sagar Doab. Its scenery is very picturesque,
although not of so wild a character as the mountain region of Rawalpindi
to the north, and is lighted up in places by smiling patches of
cultivated valley. The backbone of the district is formed by the Salt
Range, a treble line of parallel hills running in three long forks from
east to west throughout its whole breadth. The range rises in bold
precipices, broken by gorges, clothed with brushwood and traversed by
streams which are at first pure, but soon become impregnated with the
saline matter over which they pass. Between the line of hills lies a
picturesque table-land, in which the beautiful little lake of Kallar
Kahar nestles amongst the minor ridges. North of the Salt Range, the
country extends upwards in an elevated plateau, diversified by countless
ravines and fissures, until it loses itself in tangled masses of
Rawalpindi mountains. In this rugged tract cultivation is rare and
difficult, the soil being choked with saline matter. At the foot of the
Salt Range, however, a small strip of level soil lies along the banks of
the Jhelum, and is thickly dotted with prosperous villages. The drainage
of the district is determined by a low central watershed running north
and south at right angles to the Salt Range. The waters of the western
portion find their way into the Sohan, and finally into the Indus; those
of the opposite slope collect themselves into small torrents, and empty
themselves into the Jhelum.
The history of the district dates back to the semi-mythical period of
the _Mahabharata_. Hindu tradition represents the Salt Range as the
refuge of the five Pandava brethren during the period of their exile,
and every salient point in its scenery is connected with some legend of
the national heroes. Modern research has fixed the site of the conflict
between Alexander and Porus as within Jhelum district, although the
exact point at which Alexander effected the passage of the Jhelum (or
Hydaspes) is disputed. After this event, we have little information with
regard to the condition of the district until the Mahommedan conquest
brought back literature and history to Upper India. The Janjuahs and
Jats, who now hold the Salt Range and its northern plateau respectively,
appear to have been the earliest inhabitants. The Ghakkars seem to
represent an early wave of conquest from the east, and they still
inhabit the whole eastern slope of the district; while the Awans, who
now cluster in the western plain, are apparently later invaders from the
opposite quarter. The Ghakkars were the dominant race at the period of
the first Mahommedan incursions, and long continued to retain their
independence. During the flourishing period of the Mogul dynasty, the
Ghakkar chieftains were prosperous and loyal vassals of the house of
Baber; but after the collapse of the Delhi Empire Jhelum fell, like its
neighbours, under the sway of the Sikhs. In 1765 Gujar Singh defeated
the last independent Ghakkar prince, and reduced the wild mountaineers
to subjection. His son succeeded to his dominions, until 1810, when he
fell before the irresistible power of Ranjit Singh. In 1849 the district
passed, with the rest of the Sikh territories, into the hands of the
British.
JHERING, RUDOLF VON (1818-1892), German jurist, was born on the 22nd of
August 1818 at Aurich in East Friesland, where his father practised as a
lawyer. Young Jhering entered the university of Heidelberg in 1836 and,
after the fashion of German students, visited successively Gottingen and
Berlin. G. F. Puchta, the author of _Geschichte des Rechts bei dem
romischen Volke_, alone of all his teachers appears to have gained his
admiration and influenced the bent of his mind. After graduating _doctor
juris_, Jhering established himself in 1844 at Berlin as _privatdocent_
for Roman law, and delivered public lectures on the _Geist des romischen
Rechts_, the theme which may be said to have constituted his life's
work. In 1845 he became an ordinary professor at Basel, in 1846 at
Rostock, in 1849 at Kiel, and in 1851 at Giessen. Upon all these seats
of learning he left his mark; beyond any other of his contemporaries he
animated the dry bones of Roman law. The German juristic world was still
under the dominating influence of the Savigny cult, and the older school
looked askance at the daring of the young professor, who essayed to
adapt the old to new exigencies and to build up a system of natural
jurisprudence. This is the keynote of his famous work, _Geist des
romischen Rechts auf den verschiedenen Stufen seiner Entwickelung_
(1852-1865), which for originality of conception and lucidity of
scientific reasoning placed its author in the forefront of modern Roman
jurists. It is no exaggeration to say that in the second half of the
19th century the reputation of Jhering was as high as that of Savigny in
the first. Their methods were almost diametrically opposed. Savigny and
his school represented the conservative, historical tendency. In Jhering
the philosophical conception of jurisprudence, as a science to be
utilized for the further advancement of the moral and social interests
of mankind, was predominant. In 1868 Jhering accepted the chair of Roman
Law at Vienna, where his lecture-room was crowded, not only with regular
students but with men of all professions and even of the highest ranks
in the official world. He became one of the lions of society, the
Austrian emperor conferring upon him in 1872 a title of hereditary
nobility. But to a mind constituted like his, the social functions of
the Austrian metropolis became wearisome, and he gladly exchanged its
brilliant circles for the repose of Gottingen, where he became professor
in 1872. In this year he had read at Vienna before an admiring audience
a lecture, published under the title of _Der Kampf um's Recht_ (1872;
Eng. trans., _Battle for Right_, 1884). Its success was extraordinary.
Within two years it attained twelve editions, and it has been translated
into twenty-six languages. This was followed a few years later by _Der
Zweck im Recht_ (2 vols., 1877-1883). In these two works is clearly seen
Jhering's individuality. The _Kampf um's Recht_ shows the firmness of
his character, the strength of his sense of justice, and his juristic
method and logic: "to assert his rights is the duty that every
responsible person owes to himself." In the _Zweck im Recht_ is
perceived the bent of the author's intellect. But perhaps the happiest
combination of all his distinctive characteristics is to be found in his
_Jurisprudenz des taglichen Lebens_ (1870; Eng. trans., 1904). A great
feature of his lectures was his so-called _Praktika_, problems in Roman
law, and a collection of these with hints for solution was published as
early as 1847 under the title _Civilrechtsfalle ohne Entscheidungen_. In
Gottingen he continued to work until his death on the 17th of September
1892. A short time previously he had been the centre of a devoted crowd
of friends and former pupils, assembled at Wilhelmshohe near Cassel to
celebrate the jubilee of his doctorate. Almost all countries were
worthily represented, and this pilgrimage affords an excellent
illustration of the extraordinary fascination and enduring influence
that Jhering commanded. In appearance he was of middle stature, his face
clean-shaven and of classical mould, lit up with vivacity and beaming
with good nature. He was perhaps seen at his best when dispensing
hospitality in his own house. With him died the best beloved and the
most talented of Roman-law professors of modern times. It was said of
him by Professor Adolf Merkel in a memorial address, _R. v. Jhering_
(1893), that he belonged to the happy class of persons to whom Goethe's
lines are applicable: "Was ich in der Jugend gewunscht, das habe ich im
Alter die Fulle," and this may justly be said of him, though he did not
live to complete his _Geist des romischen Rechts_ and his
_Rechtsgeschichte_. For this work the span of a single life would have
been insufficient, but what he has left to the world is a monument of
vigorous intellectual power and stamps Jhering as an original thinker
and unrivalled exponent (in his peculiar interpretation) of the spirit
of Roman law.
Among others of his works, all of them characteristic of the author
and sparkling with wit, may be mentioned the following: _Beitrage zur
Lehre von Besitz_, first published in the _Jahrbucher fur die Dogmatik
des heutigen romischen und deutschen Privat-rechts_, and then
separately; _Der Besitzwille_, and an article entitled "Besitz" in the
_Handworterbuch der Staatswissenschaften_ (1891), which aroused at the
time much controversy, particularly on account of the opposition
manifested to Savigny's conception of the subject. See also _Scherz
und Ernst in der Jurisprudenz_ (1885); _Das Schuldmoment im romischen
Privat-recht_ (1867); _Das Trinkgeld_ (1882); and among the papers he
left behind him his _Vorgeschichte der Indoeuropaer_, a fragment, has
been published by v. Ehrenberg (1894). See for an account of his life
also M. de Jonge, _Rudolf v. Jhering_ (1888); and A. Merkel, _Rudolf
von Jhering_ (1893). (P. A. A.)
JIBITOS, a tribe of South American Indians, first met with by the
Franciscans in 1676 in the forest near the Huallaga river, in the
Peruvian province of Loreto. After their conversion they settled in
villages on the western bank of the river.
JIBUTI (DJIBOUTI), the chief port and capital of French Somaliland, in
11 deg. 35' N., 43 deg. 10' E. Jibuti is situated at the entrance to and
on the southern shore of the Gulf of Tajura about 150 m. S.W. of Aden.
The town is built on a horseshoe-shaped peninsula partly consisting of
mud flats, which are spanned by causeways. The chief buildings are the
governor's palace, customs-house, post office, and the terminal station
of the railway to Abyssinia. The houses in the European quarter are
built of stone, are flat-roofed and provided with verandas. There is a
good water supply, drawn from a reservoir about 2(1/2) m. distant. The
harbour is land-locked and capacious. Ocean steamers are able to enter
it at all states of wind and tide. Adjoining the mainland is the native
town, consisting mostly of roughly made wooden houses with well thatched
roofs. In it is held a large market, chiefly for the disposal of live
stock, camels, cattle, &c. The port is a regular calling-place and also
a coaling station for the steamers of the Messageries Maritimes, and
there is a local service to Aden. Trade is confined to coaling passing
ships and to importing goods for and exporting goods from southern
Abyssinia via Harrar, there being no local industries. (For statistics
see SOMALILAND, FRENCH.) The inhabitants are of many races--Somali,
Danakil, Gallas, Armenians, Jews, Arabs, Indians, besides Greeks,
Italians, French and other Europeans. The population, which in 1900 when
the railway was building was about 15,000, had fallen in 1907 to some
5000 or 6000, including 300 Europeans.
Jibuti was founded by the French in 1888 in consequence of its
superiority to Obok both in respect to harbour accommodation and in
nearness to Harrar. It has been the seat of the governor of the colony
since May 1896. Order is maintained by a purely native police force. The
port is not fortified.
JICARILLA, a tribe of North American Indians of Athapascan stock. Their
former range was in New Mexico, about the headwaters of the Rio Grande
and the Pecos, and they are now settled in a reservation on the northern
border of New Mexico. Originally a scourge of the district, they are now
subdued, but remain uncivilized. They number some 800 and are steadily
decreasing. The name is said to be from the Spanish _jicara_, a basket
tray, in reference to their excellent basket-work.
JIDDA (also written JEDDAH, DJIDDAH, DJEDDEH), a town in Arabia on the
Red Sea coast in 21 deg. 28' N. and 39 deg. 10' E. It is of importance
mainly as the principal landing place of pilgrims to Mecca, from which
it is about 46 m. distant. It is situated in a low sandy plain backed by
a range of hills 10 m. to the east, with higher mountains behind. The
town extends along the beach for about a mile, and is enclosed by a wall
with towers at intervals, the seaward angles being commanded by two
forts, in the northern of which are the prison and other public
buildings. There are three gates, the Medina gate on the north, the
Mecca gate on the east, and the Yemen gate (rarely opened) on the south;
there are also three small posterns on the west side, the centre one
leading to the quay. In front of the Mecca gate is a rambling suburb
with shops, coffee houses, and an open market place; before the Medina
gate are the Turkish barracks, and beyond them the holy place of Jidda,
the tomb of "our mother Eve," surrounded by the principal cemetery.
The tomb is a walled enclosure said to represent the dimensions of the
body, about 200 paces long and 15 ft. broad. At the head is a small
erection where gifts are deposited, and rather more than half-way down
a whitewashed dome encloses a small dark chapel within which is the
black stone known as _El Surrah_, the navel. The grave of Eve is
mentioned by Edrisi, but except the black stone nothing bears any
aspect of antiquity (see Burton's _Pilgrimage_, vol. ii.).
The sea face is the best part of the town; the houses there are lofty
and well built of the rough coral that crops out all along the shore.
The streets are narrow and winding. There are two mosques of
considerable size and a number of smaller ones. The outer suburbs are
merely collections of brushwood huts. The bazaars are well supplied with
food-stuffs imported by sea, and fruit and vegetables from Taif and Wadi
Fatima. The water supply is limited and brackish; there are, however,
two sweet wells and a spring 7(1/2) m. from the town, and most of the
houses have cisterns for storing rain-water. The climate is hot and
damp, but fever is not so prevalent as at Mecca. The harbour though
inconvenient of access is well protected by coral reefs; there are,
however, no wharves or other dock facilities and cargo is landed in
small Arab boats, _sambuks_.
The governor is a Turkish kaimakam under the vali of Hejaz, and there is
a large Turkish garrison; the sharif of Mecca, however, through his
agent at Jidda exercises an authority practically superior to that of
the sultan's officials. Consulates are maintained by Great Britain,
France, Austria, Russia, Holland, Belgium and Persia. The permanent
population is estimated at 20,000, of which less than half are Arabs,
and of these a large number are foreigners from Yemen and Hadramut, the
remainder are negroes and Somali with a few Indian and Greek traders.
Jidda is said to have been founded by Persian merchants in the caliphate
of Othman, but its great commercial prosperity dates from the beginning
of the 15th century when it became the centre of trade between Egypt and
India. Down to the time of Burckhardt (1815) the Suez ships went no
farther than Jidda, where they were met by Indian vessels. The
introduction of steamers deprived Jidda of its place as an emporium, not
only for Indian goods but for the products of the Red Sea, which
formerly were collected here, but are now largely exported direct by
steamer from Hodeda, Suakin, Jibuti and Aden. At the same time it gave a
great impulse to the pilgrim traffic which is now regarded as the annual
harvest of Jidda. The average number of pilgrims arriving by sea exceeds
50,000, and in 1903-1904 the total came to 74,600. The changed status of
the port is shown in its trade returns, for while its exports decreased
from L250,000 in 1880 to L25,000 in 1904, its imports in the latter year
amounted to over L1,400,000. The adverse balance of trade is paid by a
very large export of specie, collected from the pilgrims during their
stay in the country.
JIG, a brisk lively dance, the quick and irregular steps of which have
varied at different times and in the various countries in which it has
been danced (see DANCE). The music of the "jig," or such as is written
in its rhythm, is in various times and has been used frequently to
finish a suite, e.g. by Bach and Handel. The word has usually been
derived from or connected with Fr. _gigue_, Ital. _giga_, Ger. _Geige_,
a fiddle. The French and Italian words are now chiefly used of the dance
or dance rhythm, and in this sense have been taken by etymologists as
adapted from the English "jig," which may have been originally an
onomatopoeic word. The idea of jumping, jerking movement has given rise
to many applications of "jig" and its derivative "jigger" to mechanical
and other devices, such as the machine used for separating the heavier
metal-bearing portions from the lighter parts in ore-dressing, or a
tackle consisting of a double and single block and fall, &c. The word
"jigger," a corruption of the West Indian _chigoe_, is also used as the
name of a species of flea, the _Sarcopsylla penetrans_, which burrows
and lays its eggs in the human foot, generally under the toe nails, and
causes great swelling and irritation (see FLEA).
JIHAD (also written JEHAD, JAHAD, DJEHAD), an Arabic word of which the
literal meaning is an effort or a contest. It is used to designate the
religious duty inculcated in the Koran on the followers of Mahomet to
wage war upon those who do not accept the doctrines of Islam. This duty
is laid down in five suras--all of these suras belonging to the period
after Mahomet had established his power. Conquered peoples who will
neither embrace Islam nor pay a poll-tax (_jizya_) are to be put to the
sword. (See further MOHAMMEDAN INSTITUTIONS.) By Mahommedan commentators
the commands in the Koran are not interpreted as a general injunction on
all Moslems constantly to make war on the infidels. It is generally
supposed that the order for a general war can only be given by the
caliph (an office now claimed by the sultans of Turkey). Mahommedans who
do not acknowledge the spiritual authority of the Ottoman sultan, such
as the Persians and Moors, look to their own rulers for the proclamation
of a jihad; there has been in fact no universal warfare by Moslems on
unbelievers since the early days of Mahommedanism. Jihads are generally
proclaimed by all persons who claim to be mahdis, e.g. Mahommed Ahmad
(the Sudanese mahdi) proclaimed a jihad in 1882. In the belief of
Moslems every one of their number slain in a jihad is taken straight to
paradise.
JIMENES (or XIMENES) DE CISNEROS, FRANCISCO (1436-1517), Spanish
cardinal and statesman, was born in 1436 at Torrelaguna in Castile, of
good but poor family. He studied at Alcala de Henares and afterwards at
Salamanca; and in 1459, having entered holy orders, he went to Rome.
Returning to Spain in 1465, he brought with him an "expective" letter
from the pope, in virtue of which he took possession of the
archpriestship of Uzeda in the diocese of Toledo in 1473. Carillo,
archbishop of Toledo, opposed him, and on his obstinate refusal to give
way threw him into prison. For six years Jimenes held out, and at length
in 1480 Carillo restored him to his benefice. This Jimenes exchanged
almost at once for a chaplaincy at Siguenza, under Cardinal Mendoza,
bishop of Siguenza, who shortly appointed him vicar-general of his
diocese. In that position Jimenes won golden opinions from ecclesiastic
and layman; and he seemed to be on the sure road to distinction among
the secular clergy, when he abruptly resolved to become a monk. Throwing
up all his benefices, and changing his baptismal name Gonzales for that
of Francisco, he entered the Franciscan monastery of San Juan de los
Reyes, recently founded by Ferdinand and Isabella at Toledo. Not content
with the ordinary severities of the noviciate, he added voluntary
austerities. He slept on the bare ground, wore a hair-shirt, doubled his
fasts, and scourged himself with much fervour; indeed throughout his
whole life, even when at the acme of his greatness, his private life was
most rigorously ascetic. The report of his sanctity brought crowds to
confess to him; but from them he retired to the lonely monastery of Our
Lady of Castanar; and he even built with his own hands a rude hut in the
neighbouring woods, in which he lived at times as an anchorite. He was
afterwards guardian of a monastery at Salzeda. Meanwhile Mendoza (now
archbishop of Toledo) had not forgotten him; and in 1492 he recommended
him to Isabella as her confessor. The queen sent for Jimenes, was
pleased with him, and to his great reluctance forced the office upon
him. The post was politically important, for Isabella submitted to the
judgment of her father-confessor not only her private affairs but also
matters of state. Jimenes's severe sanctity soon won him considerable
influence over Isabella; and thus it was that he first emerged into
political life. In 1494 the queen's confessor was appointed provincial
of the order of St Francis, and at once set about reducing the laxity of
the conventual to the strictness of the observantine Franciscans.
Intense opposition was continued even after Jimenes became archbishop of
Toledo. The general of the order himself came from Rome to interfere
with the archbishop's measures of reform, but the stern inflexibility of
Jimenes, backed by the influence of the queen, subdued every obstacle.
Cardinal Mendoza had died in 1495, and Isabella had secretly procured a
papal bull nominating her confessor to his diocese of Toledo, the
richest and most powerful in Spain, second perhaps to no other dignity
of the Roman Church save the papacy. Long and sincerely Jimenes strove
to evade the honour; but his _nolo episcopari_ was after six months
overcome by a second bull ordering him to accept consecration. With the
primacy of Spain was associated the lofty dignity of high chancellor of
Castile; but Jimenes still maintained his lowly life; and, although a
message from Rome required him to live in a style befitting his rank,
the outward pomp only concealed his private asceticism. In 1499 Jimenes
accompanied the court to Granada, and there eagerly joined the mild and
pious Archbishop Talavera in his efforts to convert the Moors. Talavera
had begun with gentle measures, but Jimenes preferred to proceed by
haranguing the _fakihs_, or doctors of religion, and loading them with
gifts. Outwardly the latter method was successful; in two months the
converts were so numerous that they had to be baptized by aspersion. The
indignation of the unconverted Moors swelled into open revolt. Jimenes
was besieged in his house, and the utmost difficulty was found in
quieting the city. Baptism or exile was offered to the Moors as a
punishment for rebellion. The majority accepted baptism; and Isabella,
who had been momentarily annoyed at her archbishop's imprudence, was
satisfied that he had done good service to Christianity.
On the 24th of November 1504 Isabella died. Ferdinand at once resigned
the title of king of Castile in favour of his daughter Joan and her
husband the archduke Philip, assuming instead that of regent. Philip
was keenly jealous of Ferdinand's pretensions to the regency; and it
required all the tact of Jimenes to bring about a friendly interview
between the princes. Ferdinand finally retired from Castile; and, though
Jimenes remained, his political weight was less than before. The sudden
death of Philip in September 1506 quite overset the already tottering
intellect of his wife; his son and heir Charles was still a child; and
Ferdinand was at Naples. The nobles of Castile, mutually jealous, agreed
to entrust affairs to the archbishop of Toledo, who, moved more by
patriotic regard for his country's welfare than by special friendship
for Ferdinand, strove to establish the final influence of that king in
Castile. Ferdinand did not return till August 1507; and he brought a
cardinal's hat for Jimenes. Shortly afterwards the new cardinal of Spain
was appointed grand inquisitor-general for Castile and Leon.
The next great event in the cardinal's life was the expedition against
the Moorish city of Oran in the north of Africa, in which his religious
zeal was supported by the prospect of the political and material gain
that would accrue to Spain from the possession of such a station. A
preliminary expedition, equipped, like that which followed, at the
expense of Jimenes, captured the port of Mers-el-Kebir in 1505; and in
1509 a strong force, accompanied by the cardinal in person, set sail for
Africa, and in one day the wealthy city was taken by storm. Though the
army remained to make fresh conquests, Jimenes returned to Spain, and
occupied himself with the administration of his diocese, and in
endeavouring to recover from the regent the expenses of his Oran
expedition. On the 28th of January 1516 Ferdinand died, leaving Jimenes
as regent of Castile for Charles (afterwards Charles V.), then a youth
of sixteen in the Netherlands. Though Jimenes at once took firm hold of
the reins of government, and ruled in a determined and even autocratic
manner, the haughty and turbulent Castilian nobility and the jealous
intriguing Flemish councillors of Charles combined to render his
position peculiarly difficult; while the evils consequent upon the
unlimited demands of Charles for money threw much undeserved odium upon
the regent. In violation of the laws, Jimenes acceded to Charles's
desire to be proclaimed king; he secured the person of Charles's younger
brother Ferdinand; he fixed the seat of the cortes at Madrid; and he
established a standing army by drilling the citizens of the great towns.
Immediately on Ferdinand's death, Adrian, dean of Louvain, afterwards
pope, produced a commission from Charles appointing him regent. Jimenes
admitted him to a nominal equality, but took care that neither he nor
the subsequent commissioners of Charles ever had any real share of
power. In September 1517 Charles landed in the province of Asturias, and
Jimenes hastened to meet him. On the way, however, he fell ill, not
without a suspicion of poison. While thus feeble, he received a letter
from Charles coldly thanking him for his services, and giving him leave
to retire to his diocese. A few hours after this virtual dismissal,
which some, however, say the cardinal never saw, Francisco Jimenes died
at Roa, on the 8th of November 1517.
Jimenes was a bold and determined statesman. Sternly and inflexibly,
with a confidence that became at times overbearing, he carried through
what he had decided to be right, with as little regard for the
convenience of others as for his own. In the midst of a corrupt clergy
his morals were irreproachable. He was liberal to all, and founded and
maintained very many benevolent institutions in his diocese. His whole
time was devoted either to the state or to religion; his only recreation
was in theological or scholastic discussion. Perhaps one of the most
noteworthy points about the cardinal is the advanced period of life at
which he entered upon the stage where he was to play such leading parts.
Whether his abrupt change from the secular to the regular clergy was the
fervid outcome of religious enthusiasm or the far-seeing move of a wily
schemer has been disputed; but the constant austerity of his life, his
unvarying superiority to small personal aims, are arguments for the
former alternative that are not to be met by merely pointing to the
actual honours and power he at last attained.
In 1500 was founded, and in 1508 was opened, the university of Alcala
de Henares, which, fostered by Cardinal Jimenes, at whose sole expense
it was raised, attained a great pitch of outward magnificence and
internal worth. At one time 7000 students met within its walls. In
1836 the university was removed to Madrid, and the costly buildings
were left vacant. In the hopes of supplanting the romances generally
found in the hands of the young, Jimenes caused to be published
religious treatises by himself and others. He revived also the
Mozarabic liturgy, and endowed a chapel at Toledo, in which it was to
be used. But his most famous literary service was the printing at
Alcala (in Latin _Complutum_) of the Complutensian Polyglott, the
first edition of the Christian Scriptures in the original text. In
this work, on which he is said to have expended half a million of
ducats, the cardinal was aided by the celebrated Stunica (D. Lopez de
Zuniga), the Greek scholar Nunez de Guzman (Pincianus), the Hebraist
Vergara, and the humanist Nebrija, by a Cretan Greek Demetrius Ducas,
and by three Jewish converts, of whom Zamora edited the Targum to the
Pentateuch. The other Targums are not included. In the Old Testament
Jerome's version stands between the Greek and Hebrew. The synagogue
and the Eastern church, as the preface expresses it, are set like the
thieves on this side and on that, with Jesus (that is, the Roman
Church) in the midst. The text occupies five volumes, and a sixth
contains a Hebrew lexicon, &c. The work commenced in 1502. The New
Testament was finished in January 1514, and the whole in April 1517.
It was dedicated to Leo X., and was reprinted in 1572 by the Antwerp
firm of Plantin, after revision by Benito Arias Montano at the expense
of Philip II. The second edition is known as the _Biblia Regia_ or
_Filipina_.
The work by Alvaro Gomez de Castro, _De Rebus Gestis Francisci
Ximenii_ (folio, 1659, Alcala), is the quarry whence have come the
materials for biographies of Jimenes--in Spanish by Robles (1604) and
Quintanilla (1633); in French by Baudier (1635), Marsollier (1684),
Flechier (1694) and Richard (1704); in German by Hefele (1844,
translated into English by Canon Dalton, 1860) and Havemann (1848);
and in English by Barrett (1813). See also Prescott's _Ferdinand and
Isabella_; _Revue des Deux Mondes_ (May 1841) and _Mem. de l'Acad.
d'hist. de Madrid_, vol. iv.
JIND, a native state of India, within the Punjab. It ranks as one of the
Cis-Sutlej states, which came under British influence in 1809. The
territory consists of three isolated tracts, amid British districts.
Total area, 1332 sq. m. Pop. (1901), 282,003, showing a decrease of 1%
in the decade. Estimated gross revenue L109,000; there is no tribute.
Grain and cotton are exported, and there are manufactures of gold and
silver ornaments, leather and wooden wares and cloth. The chief, whose
title is raja, is a Sikh of the Sidhu Jat clan and of the Phulkian
family. The principality was founded in 1763, and the chief was
recognized by the Mogul emperor in 1768. The dynasty has always been
famous for its loyalty to the British, especially during the Mutiny,
which has been rewarded with accessions of territory. In 1857 the raja
of Jind was actually the first man, European or native, who took the
field against the mutineers; and his contingent collected supplies in
advance for the British troops marching upon Delhi, besides rendering
excellent service during the siege. Raja Ranbir Singh succeeded as a
minor in 1887, and was granted full powers in 1899. During the Tirah
expedition of 1897-98 the Jind imperial service infantry specially
distinguished themselves. The town of Jind, the former capital, has a
station on the Southern Punjab railway, 80 m. N.W. of Delhi. Pop.
(1901), 8047. The present capital and residence of the raja since 1827
is Sangrur; pop. (1901), 11,852.
JINGO, a legendary empress of Japan, wife of Chuai, the 14th mikado
(191-200). On her husband's death she assumed the government, and fitted
out an army for the invasion of Korea (see JAPAN, S 9). She returned to
Japan completely victorious after three years' absence. Subsequently her
son Ojen Tenno, afterwards 15th mikado, was born, and later was
canonized as Hachiman, god of war. The empress Jingo ruled over Japan
till 270. She is still worshipped.
As regards the English oath, usually "By Jingo," or "By the living
Jingo," the derivation is doubtful. The identification with the name of
Gingulph or Gengulphus, a Burgundian saint who was martyred on the 11th
of May 760, was a joke on the part of R. H. Barham, author of the
_Ingoldsby Legends_. Some explain the word as a corruption of Jainko,
the Basque name for God. It has also been derived from the Persia _jang_
(war), St Jingo being the equivalent of the Latin god of war, Mars; and
is even explained as a corruption of "Jesus, Son of God," Je-n-go. In
support of the Basque derivation it is alleged that the oath was first
common in Wales, to aid in the conquest of which Edward I. imported a
number of Basque mercenaries. The phrase does not, however, appear in
literature before the 17th century, first as conjurer's jargon. Motteux,
in his "Rabelais," is the first to use "by jingo," translating _par
dieu_. The political use of the word as indicating an aggressive
patriotism (Jingoes and Jingoism) originated in 1877 during the weeks of
national excitement preluding the despatch of the British Mediterranean
squadron to Gallipoli, thus frustrating Russian designs on
Constantinople. While the public were on the tiptoe of expectation as to
what policy the government would pursue, a bellicose music-hall song
with the refrain "We don't want to fight, but by Jingo if we do," &c.,
was produced in London by a singer known as "the great MacDermott," and
instantly became very popular. Thus the war-party came to be called
Jingoes, and Jingoism has ever since been the term applied to those who
advocate a national policy of arrogance and pugnacity.
For a discussion of the etymology of Jingo see _Notes and Queries_,
(August 25, 1894), 8th series, p. 149.
JINN (DJINN), the name of a class of spirits (_genii_) in Arabian
mythology. They are the offspring of fire, but in their form and the
propagation of their kind they resemble human beings. They are ruled by
a race of kings named "Suleyman," one of whom is considered to have
built the pyramids. Their central home is the mountain Kaf, and they
manifest themselves to men under both animal and mortal form and become
invisible at will. There are good and evil jinn, and these in each case
reach the extremes of beauty and ugliness.
JIRECEK, JOSEF (1825-1888), Czech scholar, was born at Vysoke Myto in
Bohemia on the 9th of October 1825. He entered the Prague bureau of
education in 1850, and became minister of the department in the
Hohenwart cabinet in 1871. His efforts to secure equal educational
privileges for the Slav nationalities in the Austrian dominions brought
him into disfavour with the German element. He became a member of the
Bohemian Landtag in 1878, and of the Austrian Reichsrat in 1879. His
merits as a scholar were recognized in 1875 by his election as president
of the royal Bohemian academy of sciences. He died in Prague on the 25th
of November 1888.
With Hermenegild Jirecek he defended in 1862 the genuineness of the
Koniginhof MS. discovered by Wenceslaus Hanka. He published in the
Czech language an anthology of Czech literature (3 vols., 1858-1861),
a biographical dictionary of Czech writers (2 vols., 1875-1876), a
Czech hymnology, editions of Blahoslaw's Czech grammar and of some
Czech classics, and of the works of his father-in-law Pavel Josef
Safarik (1795-1861).
His brother HERMENEGILD JIRECEK, Ritter von Samakow (1827- ), Bohemian
jurisconsult, who was born at Vysoke Myto on the 13th of April 1827, was
also an official in the education department.
Among his important works on Slavonic law were _Codex juris bohemici_
(11 parts, 1867-1892), and a _Collection of Slav Folk-Law_ (Czech,
1880), _Slav Law in Bohemia and Moravia down to the 14th Century_
(Czech, 3 vols. 1863-1873).
JIRECEK, KONSTANTIN JOSEF (1854- ), son of Josef, taught history at
Prague. He entered the Bulgarian service in 1879, and in 1881 became
minister of education at Sofia. In 1884 he became professor of universal
history in Czech at Prague, and in 1893 professor of Slavonic
antiquities at Vienna.
The bulk of Konstantin's writings deal with the history of the
southern Slavs and their literature. They include a _History of the
Bulgars_ (Czech and German, 1876), _The Principality of Bulgaria_
(1891), _Travels in Bulgaria_ (Czech, 1888), &c.
JIZAKH, a town of Russian Central Asia, in the province of Samarkand, on
the Transcaspian railway, 71 m. N.E. of the city of Samarkand. Pop.
(1897), 16,041. As a fortified post of Bokhara it was captured by the
Russians in 1866.
JOAB (Heb. "Yah[weh] is a father"), in the Bible, the son of Zeruiah,
David's sister (1 Chron. ii. 16). His brothers were Asahel and Abishai.
All three were renowned warriors and played a prominent part in David's
history. Abishai on one occasion saved the king's life from a Philistine
giant (2 Sam. xxi. 17), and Joab as warrior and statesman was directly
responsible for much of David's success. Joab won his spurs, according
to one account, by capturing Jerusalem (1 Chron. xi. 4-9); with Abishai
and Ittai of Gath he led a small army against the Israelites who had
rebelled under Absalom (2 Sam. xviii. 2); and he superintended the
campaign against Ammon and Edom (2 Sam. xi. 1, xii. 26; 1 Kings xi. 15).
He showed his sturdy character by urging the king after the death of
Absalom to place his duty to his people before his grief for the loss of
his favourite son (2 Sam. xix. 1-8), and by protesting against David's
proposal to number the people, an innovation which may have been
regarded as an infringement of their liberties (2 Sam. xxiv.; 1 Chron.
xxi. 6).
The hostility of the "sons of Zeruiah" towards the tribe of Benjamin
is characteristically contrasted with David's own generosity towards
Saul's fallen house. Abishai proposed to kill Saul when David
surprised him asleep (1 Sam. xxvi. 8), and was anxious to slay Shimei
when he cursed the king (2 Sam. xvi. 9). But David was resigned to the
will of Yahweh and refused to entertain the suggestions. After Asahel
met his death at the hands of Abner, Joab expostulated with David for
not taking revenge upon the guilty one, and indeed the king might be
considered bound in honour to take up his nephew's cause. But when
Joab himself killed Abner, David's imprecation against him and his
brother Abishai showed that he dissociated himself from the act of
vengeance, although it brought him nearer to the throne of all Israel
(2 Sam. iii.). Fear of a possible rival may have influenced Joab, and
this at all events led him to slay Amasa of Judah (2 Sam. xx. 4-13).
The two deeds are similar, and the impression left by them is
expressed in David's last charges to Solomon (1 Kings ii.). But here
Joab had taken the side of Adonijah against Solomon, and was put to
death by Benaiah at Solomon's command, and it is possible that the
charges are the fruit of a later tradition to remove all possible
blame from Solomon (q.v.). It is singular that Joab is not blamed for
killing Absalom, but it would indeed be strange if the man who helped
to reconcile father and son (2 Sam. xiv.) should have perpetrated so
cruel an act in direct opposition to the king's wishes (xviii. 5,
10-16). A certain animus against Joab's family thus seems to underlie
some of the popular narratives of the life of David (q.v.).
(S. A. C.)
JOACHIM OF FLORIS (c. 1145-1202), so named from the monastery of San
Giovanni in Fiore, of which he was abbot, Italian mystic theologian, was
born at Celico, near Cosenza, in Calabria. He was of noble birth and was
brought up at the court of Duke Roger of Apulia. At an early age he went
to visit the holy places. After seeing his comrades decimated by the
plague at Constantinople he resolved to change his mode of life, and, on
his return to Italy, after a rigorous pilgrimage and a period of ascetic
retreat, became a monk in the Cistercian abbey of Casamari. In August
1177 we know that he was abbot of the monastery of Corazzo, near
Martirano. In 1183 he went to the court of Pope Lucius III. at Veroli,
and in 1185 visited Urban III. at Verona. There is extant a letter of
Pope Clement III., dated the 8th of June 1188, in which Clement alludes
to two of Joachim's works, the _Concordia_ and the _Expositio in
Apocalypsin_, and urges him to continue them. Joachim, however, was
unable to continue his abbatial functions in the midst of his labours in
prophetic exegesis, and, moreover, his asceticism accommodated itself
but ill with the somewhat lax discipline of Corazzo. He accordingly
retired into the solitudes of Pietralata, and subsequently founded with
some companions under a rule of his own creation the abbey of San
Giovanni in Fiore, on Monte Nero, in the _massif_ of La Sila. The pope
and the emperor befriended this foundation; Frederick II. and his wife
Constance made important donations to it, and promoted the spread of
offshoots of the parent house; while Innocent III., on the 21st of
January 1204, approved the "ordo Florensis" and the "institutio" which
its founder had bestowed upon it. Joachim died in 1202, probably on the
20th of March.
Of the many prophetic and polemical works that were attributed to
Joachim in the 13th and following centuries, only those enumerated in
his will can be regarded as absolutely authentic. These are the
_Concordia novi et veteris Testamenti_ (first printed at Venice in
1519), the _Expositio in Apocalypsin_ (Venice, 1527), the _Psalterium
decem chordarum_ (Venice, 1527), together with some "libelli" against
the Jews or the adversaries of the Christian faith. It is very
probable that these "libelli" are the writings entitled _Concordia
Evangeliorum_, _Contra Judaeos_, _De articulis fidei_, _Confessio
fidei_ and _De unitate Trinitatis_. The last is perhaps the work which
was condemned by the Lateran council in 1215 as containing an
erroneous criticism of the Trinitarian theory of Peter Lombard. This
council, though condemning the book, refrained from condemning the
author, and approved the order of Floris. Nevertheless, the monks
continued to be subjected to insults as followers of a heretic, until
they obtained from Honorius III. in 1220 a bull formally recognizing
Joachim as orthodox and forbidding anyone to injure his disciples.
It is impossible to enumerate here all the works attributed to
Joachim. Some served their avowed object with great success, being
powerful instruments in the anti-papal polemic and sustaining the
revolted Franciscans in their hope of an approaching triumph. Among
the most widely circulated were the commentaries on Jeremiah, Isaiah
and Ezekiel, the _Vaticinia pontificum_ and the _De oneribus
ecclesiae_. Of his authentic works the doctrinal essential is very
simple. Joachim divides the history of humanity, past, present and
future, into three periods, which, in his _Expositio in Apocalypsin_
(bk. i. ch. 5), he defines as the age of the Law, or of the Father;
the age of the Gospel, or of the Son; and the age of the Spirit, which
will bring the ages to an end. Before each of these ages there is a
period of incubation, or initiation: the first age begins with
Abraham, but the period of initiation with the first man Adam. The
initiation period of the third age begins with St Benedict, while the
actual age of the Spirit is not to begin until 1260, the
Church--_mulier amicta sole_ (Rev. xii. 1)--remaining hidden in the
wilderness 1260 days. We cannot here enter into the infinite details
of the other subdivisions imagined by Joachim, or into his system of
perpetual concordances between the New and the Old Testaments, which,
according to him, furnish the prefiguration of the third age. Far more
interesting as explaining the diffusion and the religious and social
importance of his doctrine is his conception of the second and third
ages. The first age was the age of the Letter, the second was
intermediary between the Letter and the Spirit, and the third was to
be the age of the Spirit. The age of the Son is the period of study
and wisdom, the period of striving towards mystic knowledge. In the
age of the Father all that was necessary was obedience; in the age of
the Son reading is enjoined; but the age of the Spirit was to be
devoted to prayer and song. The third is the age of the _plena
spiritus libertas_, the age of contemplation, the monastic age _par
excellence_, the age of a monachism wholly directed towards ecstasy,
more Oriental than Benedictine. Joachim does not conceal his
sympathies with the ideal of Basilian monachism. In his opinion--which
is, in form at least, perfectly orthodox--the church of Peter will be,
not abolished, but purified; actually, the hierarchy effaces itself in
the third age before the order of the monks, the _viri spirituales_.
The entire world will become a vast monastery in that day, which will
be the resting-season, the sabbath of humanity. In various passages in
Joachim's writings the clerical hierarchy is represented by Rachel and
the contemplative order by her son Joseph, and Rachel is destined to
efface herself before her son. Similarly, the teaching of Christ and
the Apostles on the sacraments is considered, implicitly and
explicitly, as transitory, as representing that passage from the
_significantia_ to the _significata_ which Joachim signalizes at every
stage of his demonstration. Joachim was not disturbed during his
lifetime. In 1200 he submitted all his writings to the judgment of the
Holy See, and unreservedly affirmed his orthodoxy; the Lateran
council, which condemned his criticism of Peter Lombard, made no
allusion to his eschatological temerities; and the bull of 1220 was a
formal certificate of his orthodoxy.
The Joachimite ideas soon spread into Italy and France, and especially
after a division had been produced in the Franciscan order. The
rigorists, who soon became known as "Spirituals," represented St
Francis as the initiator of Joachim's third age. Certain convents
became centres of Joachimism. Around the hermit of Hyeres, Hugh of
Digne, was formed a group of Franciscans who expected from the advent
of the third age the triumph of their ascetic ideas. The Joachimites
even obtained a majority in the general chapter of 1247, and elected
John of Parma, one of their number, general of the order. Pope
Alexander IV., however, compelled John of Parma to renounce his
dignity, and the Joachimite opposition became more and more vehement.
Pseudo-Joachimite treatises sprang up on every hand, and, finally, in
1254, there appeared in Paris the _Liber introductorius ad Evangelium
aeternum_, the work of a Spiritual Franciscan, Gherardo da Borgo San
Donnino. This book was published with, and as an introduction to, the
three principal works of Joachim, in which the Spirituals had made
some interpolations.[1] Gherardo, however, did not say, as has been
supposed, that Joachim's books were the new gospel, but merely that
the Calabrian abbot had supplied the key to Holy Writ, and that with
the help of that _intelligentia mystica_ it would be possible to
extract from the Old and New Testaments the eternal meaning, the
gospel according to the Spirit, a gospel which would never be written;
as for this eternal sense, it had been entrusted to an order set
apart, to the Franciscan order announced by Joachim, and in this order
the ideal of the third age was realized. These affirmations provoked
very keen protests in the ecclesiastical world. The secular masters of
the university of Paris denounced the work to Pope Innocent IV., and
the bishop of Paris sent it to the pope. It was Innocent's successor,
Alexander IV., who appointed a commission to examine it; and as a
result of this commission, which sat at Anagni, the destruction of the
_Liber introductorius_ was ordered by a papal breve dated the 23rd of
October 1255. In 1260 a council held at Arles condemned Joachim's
writings and his supporters, who were very numerous in that region.
The Joachimite ideas were equally persistent among the Spirituals, and
acquired new strength with the publication of the commentary on the
Apocalypse. This book, probably published after the death of its
author and probably interpolated by his disciples, contains, besides
Joachimite principles, an affirmation even clearer than that of
Gherardo da Borgo of the elect character of the Franciscan order, as
well as extremely violent attacks on the papacy. The Joachimite
literature is extremely vast. From the 14th century to the middle of
the 16th, Ubertin of Casale (in his _Arbor Vitae crucifixae_),
Bartholomew of Pisa (author of the _Liber Conformitatum_), the
Calabrian hermit Telesphorus, John of La Rochetaillade, Seraphin of
Fermo, Johannes Annius of Viterbo, Coelius Pannonius, and a host of
other writers, repeated or complicated _ad infinitum_ the exegesis of
Abbot Joachim. A treatise entitled _De ultima aetate ecclesiae_, which
appeared in 1356, has been attributed to Wycliffe, but is undoubtedly
from the pen of an anonymous Joachimite Franciscan. The heterodox
movements in Italy in the 13th and 14th centuries, such as those of
the Segarellists, Dolcinists, and Fraticelli of every description,
were penetrated with Joachimism; while such independent spirits as
Roger Bacon, Arnaldus de Villa Nova and Bernard Delicieux often
comforted themselves with the thought of the era of justice and peace
promised by Joachim. Dante held Joachim in great reverence, and has
placed him in Paradise (_Par._, xii. 140-141).
See _Acta Sanctorum, Boll._ (May), vii. 94-112; W. Preger in _Abhandl.
der kgl. Akad. der Wissenschaften_, hist, sect., vol. xii., pt. 3
(Munich, 1874); idem, _Gesch. d. deutschen Mystik im Mittelalter_,
vol. i. (Leipzig, 1874); E. Renan, "Joachim de Flore et l'Evangile
eternel" in _Nouvelles etudes d'histoire religieuse_ (Paris, 1884); F.
Tocco, _L'Eresia nel medio evo_ (Florence, 1884); H. Denifle, "Das
Evangelium aeternum und die Commission zu Anagni" in _Archiv fur
Literatur- und Kirchengesch. des Mittelalters_, vol. i.; Paul
Fournier, "Joachim de Flore, ses doctrines, son influence" in _Revue
des questions historiques_, t. i. (1900); H. C. Lea, _History of the
Inquisition of the Middle Ages_, vol. iii. ch. i. (London, 1888); F.
Ehrle's article "Joachim" in Wetzer and Welte's _Kirchenlexikon_. On
Joachimism see E. Gebhardt, "Recherches nouvelles sur l'histoire du
Joachimisme" in _Revue historique_, vol. xxxi. (1886); H. Haupt, "Zur
Gesch. des Joachimismus" in _Briegers Zeitschrift fur Kirchengesch._,
vol. vii. (1885). (P. A.)
FOOTNOTE:
[1] Preger is the only writer who has maintained that the three books
in their primitive form date from 1254.
JOACHIM I. (1484-1535), surnamed Nestor, elector of Brandenburg, elder
son of John Cicero, elector of Brandenburg, was born on the 21st of
February 1484. He received an excellent education, became elector of
Brandenburg on his father's death in January 1499, and soon afterwards
married Elizabeth, daughter of John, king of Denmark. He took some part
in the political complications of the Scandinavian kingdoms, but the
early years of his reign were mainly spent in the administration of his
electorate, where by stern and cruel measures he succeeded in restoring
some degree of order (see BRANDENBURG). He also improved the
administration of justice, aided the development of commerce, and was a
friend to the towns. On the approach of the imperial election of 1519,
Joachim's vote was eagerly solicited by the partisans of Francis I.,
king of France, and by those of Charles, afterwards the emperor Charles
V. Having treated with, and received lavish promises from, both parties,
he appears to have hoped for the dignity for himself; but when the
election came he turned to the winning side and voted for Charles. In
spite of this step, however, the relations between the emperor and the
elector were not friendly, and during the next few years Joachim was
frequently in communication with the enemies of Charles. Joachim is best
known as a pugnacious adherent of Catholic orthodoxy. He was one of the
princes who urged upon the emperor the necessity of enforcing the Edict
of Worms, and at several diets was prominent among the enemies of the
Reformers. He was among those who met at Dessau in July 1525, and was a
member of the league established at Halle in November 1533. But his wife
adopted the reformed faith, and in 1528 fled for safety to Saxony; and
he had the mortification of seeing these doctrines also favoured by
other members of his family. Joachim, who was a patron of learning,
established the university of Frankfort-on-the-Oder in 1506. He died at
Stendal on the 11th of July 1535.
See T. von Buttlar, _Der Kampf Joachims I. von Brandenburg gegen den
Adel_ (1889); J. G. Droysen, _Geschichte der Preussischen Politik
(1855-1886)._
JOACHIM II. (1505-1571), surnamed Hector, elector of Brandenburg, the
elder son of Joachim I., elector of Brandenburg, was born on the 13th of
January 1505. Having passed some time at the court of the emperor
Maximilian I., he married in 1524 a daughter of George, duke of Saxony.
In 1532 he led a contingent of the imperial army on a campaign against
the Turks; and soon afterwards, having lost his first wife, married
Hedwig, daughter of Sigismund I., king of Poland. He became elector of
Brandenburg on his father's death in July 1535, and undertook the
government of the old and middle marks, while the new mark passed to his
brother John. Joachim took a prominent part in imperial politics as an
advocate of peace, though with a due regard for the interests of the
house of Habsburg. He attempted to make peace between the Protestants
and the emperor Charles V. at Frankfort in 1539, and subsequently at
other places; but in 1542 he led the German forces on an unsuccessful
campaign against the Turks. When the war broke out between Charles and
the league of Schmalkalden in 1546 the elector at first remained
neutral; but he afterwards sent some troops to serve under the emperor.
With Maurice, elector of Saxony, he persuaded Philip, landgrave of
Hesse, to surrender to Charles after the imperial victory at Muhlberg in
April 1547, and pledged his word that the landgrave would be pardoned.
But, although he felt aggrieved when the emperor declined to be bound by
this promise, he refused to join Maurice in his attack on Charles. He
supported the _Interim_, which was issued from Augsburg in May 1548, and
took part in the negotiations that resulted in the treaty of Passau
(1552), and the religious peace of Augsburg (1555). In domestic politics
he sought to consolidate and strengthen the power of his house by
treaties with neighbouring princes, and succeeded in secularizing the
bishoprics of Brandenburg, Havelberg and Lebus. Although brought up as a
strict adherent of the older religion, he showed signs of wavering soon
after his accession, and in 1539 allowed free entrance to the reformed
teaching in the electorate. He took the communion himself in both kinds,
and established a new ecclesiastical organization in Brandenburg, but
retained much of the ceremonial of the Church of Rome. His position was
not unlike that of Henry VIII. in England, and may be partly explained
by a desire to replenish his impoverished exchequer with the wealth of
the Church (see BRANDENBURG). After the peace of Augsburg the elector
mainly confined his attention to Brandenburg, where he showed a keener
desire to further the principles of the Reformation. By his luxurious
habits and his lavish expenditure on public buildings he piled up a
great accumulation of debt, which was partly discharged by the estates
of the land in return for important concessions. He cast covetous eyes
upon the archbishopric of Magdeburg and the bishopric of Halberstadt,
both of which he secured for his son Frederick in 1551. When Frederick
died in the following year, the elector's son Sigismund obtained the two
sees; and on Sigismund's death in 1566 Magdeburg was secured by his
nephew, Joachim Frederick, afterwards elector of Brandenburg. Joachim,
who was a prince of generous and cultured tastes, died at Kopenick on
the 3rd of January 1571, and was succeeded by his son, John George. In
1880 a statue was erected to his memory at Spandau.
See Steinmuller, _Einfuhrung der Reformation in die Kurmark
Brandenburg durch Joachim II._ (1903); S. Isaacsohn, "Die Finanzen
Joachims II." in the _Zeitschrift fur Preussische Geschichte und
Landeskunde_ (1864-1883); J. G. Droysen, _Geschichte der Preussischen
Politik_ (1855-1886).
JOACHIM, JOSEPH (1831-1907), German violinist and composer, was born at
Kittsee, near Pressburg, on the 28th of June 1831, the son of Jewish
parents. His family moved to Budapest when he was two years old, and he
studied there under Serwaczynski, who brought him out at a concert when
he was only eight years old. Afterwards he learnt from the elder
Hellmesberger and Joseph Bohm in Vienna, the latter instructing him in
the management of the bow. In 1843 he went to Leipzig to enter the newly
founded conservatorium. Mendelssohn, after testing his musical powers,
pronounced that the regular training of a music school was not needed,
but recommended that he should receive a thorough general education in
music from Ferdinand David and Moritz Hauptmann. In 1844 he visited
England, and made his first appearance at Drury Lane Theatre, where his
playing of Ernst's fantasia on _Otello_ made a great sensation; he also
played Beethoven's concerto at a Philharmonic concert conducted by
Mendelssohn. In 1847-1849 and 1852 he revisited England, and after the
foundation of the popular concerts in 1859, up to 1899, he played there
regularly in the latter part of the season. On Liszt's invitation he
accepted the post of _Konzertmeister_ at Weimar, and was there from 1850
to 1853. This brought Joachim into close contact with the advanced
school of German musicians, headed by Liszt; and he was strongly tempted
to give his allegiance to what was beginning to be called the "music of
the future"; but his artistic convictions forced him to separate himself
from the movement, and the tact and good taste he displayed in the
difficult moment of explaining his position to Liszt afford one of the
finest illustrations of his character.
His acceptance of a similar post at Hanover brought him into a different
atmosphere, and his playing at the Dusseldorf festival of 1853 procured
him the intimate friendship of Robert Schumann. His introduction of the
young Brahms to Schumann is a famous incident of this time. Schumann and
Brahms collaborated with Albert Dietrich in a joint sonata for violin
and piano, as a welcome on his arrival in Dusseldorf. At Hanover he was
_koniglicher Konzertdirektor_ from 1853 to 1868, when he made Berlin his
home. He married in 1863 the mezzo soprano singer, Amalie Weiss, who
died in 1899. In 1869 Joachim was appointed head of the newly founded
_konigliche Hochschule fur Musik_ in Berlin. The famous "Joachim
quartet" was started in the _Sing-Akademie_ in the following year. Of
his later life, continually occupied with public performances, there is
little to say except that he remained, even in a period which saw the
rise of numerous violinists of the finest technique, the acknowledged
master of all. He died on the 15th of August 1907.
Besides the consummate manual skill which helped to make him famous in
his youth, Joachim was gifted with the power of interpreting the
greatest music in absolute perfection: while Bach, Mozart, Beethoven and
Brahms were masters, whose works he played with a degree of insight that
has never been approached, he was no less supreme in the music of
Mendelssohn and Schumann; in short, the whole of the classical repertory
has become identified with his playing. No survey of Joachim's artistic
career would be complete which omitted mention of his absolute freedom
from tricks or mannerism, his dignified bearing, and his unselfish
character. His devotion to the highest ideals, combined with a certain
austerity and massivity of style, brought against him an accusation of
coldness from admirers of a more effusive temperament. But the answer to
this is given by the depth and variety of expression which his mastery
of the resources of his instrument put at his command. His biographer
(1898), Andreas Moser, expressed his essential characteristic in the
words, "He plays the violin, not for its own sake, but in the service of
an ideal."
As a composer Joachim did but little in his later years, and the works
of his earlier life never attained the public success which, in the
opinion of many, they deserve (see MUSIC). They undoubtedly have a
certain austerity of character which does not appeal to every hearer,
but they are full of beauty of a grave and dignified kind; and in such
things as his "Hungarian concerto" for his own instrument the utmost
degree of difficulty is combined with great charm of melodic treatment.
The "romance" in B flat for violin and the variations for violin and
orchestra are among his finest things, and the noble overture in memory
of Kleist, as well as the scena for mezzo soprano from Schiller's
_Demetrius_, show a wonderful degree of skill in orchestration as well
as originality of thought. Joachim's place in musical history as a
composer can only be properly appreciated in the light of his intimate
relations with Brahms, with whom he studiously refrained from putting
himself into independent rivalry, and to whose work as a composer he
gave the co-operation of one who might himself have ranked as a master.
There are admirable portraits of Joachim by G. F. Watts (1866) and by
J. S. Sargent (1904), the latter presented to him on the 16th of May
1904, at the celebration of the sixtieth anniversary of his first
appearance in England.
JOAN, a mythical female pope, who is usually placed between Leo IV.
(847-855) and Benedict III. (855-858). One account has it that she was
born in England, another in Germany of English parents. After an
education at Cologne, she fell in love with a Benedictine monk and fled
with him to Athens disguised as a man. On his death she went to Rome
under the alias of Joannes Anglicus (John of England), and entered the
priesthood, eventually receiving a cardinal's hat. She was elected pope
under the title of John VIII., and died in childbirth during a papal
procession.
A French Dominican, Steven of Bourbon (d. c. 1261) gives the legend in
his _Seven Gifts of the Holy Spirit_. He is believed to have derived
it from an earlier writer. More than a hundred authors between the
13th and 17th centuries gave circulation to the myth. Its explosion
was first seriously undertaken by David Blondel, a French Calvinist,
in his _Eclaircissement de la question si une femme a ete assise au
siege papal de Rome_ (1647); and _De Joanna Papissa_ (1657). The
refutation was completed by Johann Dollinger in his _Papstfabeln des
Mittelalters_ (1863; Eng. trans. 1872).
JOAN OF ARC, more properly JEANNETON DARC, afterwards known in France as
JEANNE D'ARC[1] (1411-1431), the "Maid of Orleans," was born between
1410 and 1412, the daughter of Jacques Darc, peasant proprietor, of
Domremy, a small village in the Vosges, partly in Champagne and partly
in Lorraine, and of his wife Isabeau, of the village of Vouthon, who
from having made a pilgrimage to Rome had received the usual surname of
Romee. Although her parents were in easy circumstances, Joan never
learned to read or write, and received her sole religious instruction
from her mother, who taught her to recite the Pater Noster, Ave Maria,
and Credo. She sometimes guarded her father's flocks, but at her trial
in 1431 she strongly resented being referred to as a shepherd girl. In
all household work she was specially proficient, her skill in the use of
the needle not being excelled (she said) by that of any matron even of
Rouen. In her childhood she was noted for her abounding physical energy;
but her vivacity, so far from being tainted by any coarse or unfeminine
trait, was the direct outcome of an abnormally sensitive nervous
temperament. Towards her parents her conduct was uniformly exemplary,
and the charm of her unselfish kindness made her a favourite in the
village. As she grew to womanhood she became inclined to silence, and
spent much of her time in solitude and prayer. She repelled all attempts
of the young men of her acquaintance to win her favour; and while active
in the performance of her duties, and apparently finding her life quite
congenial, inwardly she was engrossed with thoughts reaching far beyond
the circle of her daily concerns.
At this time, through the alliance and support of Philip of Burgundy,
the English had extended their conquest over the whole of France north
of the Loire in addition to their possession of Guienne; and while the
infant Henry VI. of England had in 1422 been proclaimed king of France
at his father's grave at St Denis, Charles the dauphin (still uncrowned)
was forced to watch the slow dismemberment of his kingdom. Isabella, the
dauphin's mother, had favoured Henry V. of England, the husband of her
daughter Catherine; and under Charles VI. a visionary named Marie
d'Avignon declared that France was being ruined by a woman and would be
restored by an armed virgin from the marches of Lorraine. To what extent
this idea worked in Joan's mind is doubtful. In Geoffrey of Monmouth's
tract, _De prophetiis Merlini_, there is a reference to an ancient
prophecy of the enchanter Merlin concerning a virgin _ex nemore canuto_,
and it appears that this _nemus canutum_ had been identified in
folk-lore with the oak wood of Domremy. Joan's knowledge of the prophecy
does not, however, appear till 1429; and already before that, from 1424,
according to her account at her trial, she had become imbued with a
sense of having a mission to free France from the English. She heard the
voices of St Michael, St Catherine and St Margaret urging her on. In May
1428 she tried to obtain from Robert de Baudricourt, governor of
Vaucouleurs, an introduction to the dauphin, saying that God would send
him aid, but she was rebuffed. When, however, in September the English
(under the earl of Salisbury) invested Orleans, the key to the south of
France, she renewed her efforts with Baudricourt, her mission being to
relieve Orleans and crown the dauphin at Reims. By persistent
importunity, the effect of which was increased by the simplicity of her
demeanour and her calm assurance of success, she at last prevailed on
the governor to grant her request; and in February 1429, accompanied by
six men-at-arms, she set out on her perilous journey to the court of the
dauphin at Chinon. At first Charles refused to see her, but popular
feeling in her favour induced his advisers to persuade him after three
days to grant her an interview. She is said to have persuaded him of the
divine character of her commission by discovering him though disguised
in the crowd of his courtiers, and by reassuring him regarding his
secret doubts as to his legitimacy. And Charles was impressed by her
knowledge of a secret prayer, which (he told Dunois) could only be known
to God and himself. Accordingly, after a commission of doctors had
reported that they had found in her nothing of evil or contrary to the
Catholic faith, and a council of matrons had reported on her chastity,
she was permitted to set forth with an army of 4000 or 5000 men designed
for the relief of Orleans. At the head of the army she rode clothed in a
coat of mail, armed with an ancient sword, said to be that with which
Charles Martel had vanquished the Saracens, the hiding-place of which,
under the altar of the parish church of the village of Ste Catherine de
Fierbois, the "voices" had revealed to her; she carried a white standard
of her own design embroidered with lilies, and having on the one side
the image of God seated on the clouds and holding the world in His hand,
and on the other a representation of the Annunciation. Joan succeeded in
entering Orleans on the 29th of April 1429, and through the vigorous and
unremitting sallies of the French the English gradually became so
discouraged that on the 8th of May they raised the siege. It is admitted
that her extraordinary pluck and sense of leadership were responsible
for this result. In a single week (June 12 to 19), by the capture of
Jargeau and Beaugency, followed by the great victory of Patay, where
Talbot was taken prisoner, the English were driven beyond the Loire.
With some difficulty the dauphin was then persuaded to set out towards
Reims, which he entered with an army of 12,000 men on the 16th of July,
Troyes having yielded on the way. On the following day, holding the
sacred banner, Joan stood beside Charles at his coronation in the
cathedral.
The king then entered into negotiations with a view to detaching
Burgundy from the English cause. Joan, at his importunity, remained with
the army, but the king played her false when she attempted the capture
of Paris; and after a failure on the 8th of September, when Joan was
wounded,[2] his troops were disbanded. Joan went into Normandy to assist
the duke of Alencon, but in December returned to the court, and on the
29th she and her family were ennobled with the surname of du Lis.
Unconsoled by such honours, she rode away from the court in March, to
assist in the defence of Compiegne against the duke of Burgundy; and on
the 24th of May she led an unsuccessful sortie against the besiegers,
when she was surrounded and taken prisoner. Charles, partly perhaps on
account of his natural indolence, partly on account of the intrigues at
the court, made no effort to effect her ransom, and never showed any
sign of interest in her fate. By means of negotiations instigated and
prosecuted with great perseverance by the university of Paris and the
Inquisition, and through the persistent scheming of Pierre Cauchon, the
bishop of Beauvais--a Burgundian partisan, who, chased from his own see,
hoped to obtain the archbishopric of Rouen--she was sold in November by
John of Luxemburg and Burgundy to the English, who on the 3rd of January
1431, at the instance of the university of Paris, delivered her over to
the Inquisition for trial. After a public examination, begun on the 9th
of January and lasting six days, and another conducted in the prison,
she was, on the 20th of March, publicly accused as a heretic and witch,
and, being in the end found guilty, she made her submission at the
scaffold on the 24th of May, and received pardon. She was still,
however, the prisoner of the English, and, having been induced by those
who had her in charge to resume her male clothes, she was on this
account judged to have relapsed, was sentenced to death, and burned at
the stake on the streets of Rouen on the 30th of May 1431. In 1436 an
impostor appeared, professing to be Joan of Arc escaped from the flames,
who succeeded in inducing many people to believe in her statement, but
afterwards confessed her imposture. The sentence passed on Joan of Arc
was revoked by the pope on the 7th of July 1456, and since then it has
been the custom of Catholic writers to uphold the reality of her divine
inspiration.
During the latter part of the 19th century a popular cult of the Maid of
Orleans sprang up in France, being greatly stimulated by the clerical
party, which desired to advertise, in the person of this national
heroine, the intimate union between patriotism and the Catholic faith,
and for this purpose ardently desired her enrolment among the Saints. On
the 27th of January 1894 solemn approval was given by Pope Leo XIII.,
and in February 1903 a formal proposal was entered for her canonization.
The Feast of the Epiphany (Jan. 6), 1904 was made the occasion for a
public declaration by Pope Pius X. that she was entitled to the
designation Venerable. On the 13th of December 1908 the decree of
beatification was published in the Consistory Hall of the Vatican.
As an historical figure, it is impossible to dogmatize concerning the
personality of Joan of Arc. The modern clerical view has to some extent
provoked what appears, in Anatole France's learned account, ably
presented as it is, to be a retaliation, in regarding her as a clerical
tool in her own day. But her character was in any case exceptional. She
undoubtedly nerved the French at a critical time, and inspired an army
of laggards and pillagers with a fanatical enthusiasm, comparable with
that of Cromwell's Puritans. Moreover, as regards her genuine military
qualities we have the testimony of Dunois and d'Alencon; and Captain
Marin, in his _Jeanne d'Arc, tacticien et strategiste_ (1891), takes a
high view of her achievements. The nobility of her purpose and the
genuineness of her belief in her mission, combined with her purity of
character and simple patriotism, stand clear. As to her "supranormal"
faculties, a matter concerning which belief largely depends on the point
of view, it is to be remarked that Quicherat, a freethinker wholly
devoid of clerical influences, admits them (_Apercus nouveaux_, 1850),
saying that the evidence is as good as for any facts in her history. See
also A. Lang on "the voices" in _Proc. Soc. Psychical Research_, vol.
xi.
AUTHORITIES.--For bibliography see _Le Livre d'or de Jeanne d'Arc_
(1894), and A. Molinier, _Sources de l'histoire de France_ (1904).
Until the 19th century the history of Joan of Arc was almost entirely
neglected; Voltaire's scurrilous satire _La Pucelle_, while indicative
of the attitude of his time, may be compared with the very fair
praises in the _Encyclopedie_. The first attempt at a study of the
sources was that of L'Averdy in 1790, published in the third volume of
_Memoires_ of the Academy of Inscriptions, which served as the base
for all lives until J. Quicherat's great work, _Le Proces de Jeanne
d'Arc_ (1841-1849), a collection of the texts so full and so vivid
that they reveal the character and life of the heroine with great
distinctness. Michelet's sketch of her work in his _Histoire de
France_, one of the best sections of the history, is hardly more vivid
than these sources, upon which all the later biographies (notably that
of H. A. Wallon, 1860) are based. See also A. Marty, _L'Histoire de
Jeanne d'Arc d'apres des documents originaux_, with introduction by M.
Sepet (1907); P. H. Dunand, _Jeanne d'Arc et l'eglise_ (1908); and
especially Andrew Lang, _The Maid of France_ (1908). The _Vie de
Jeanne d'Arc_, by Anatole France (2 vols., 1908), is brilliant and
erudite, but in some respects open to charges of inaccuracy and
prejudice in its handling of the sources (see the criticism by Andrew
Lang in _The Times_, Lit. Suppl., May 28, 1908). The attempt to
establish the reality of the "revelations" and consequently to obtain
the canonization of Joan of Arc led the Catholic party in France to
publish lives (such as Sepet's, 1869) in support of their claims.
Excellent works worth special mention are: Simeon Luce, _Jeanne d'Arc
a Domremy_; L. Jarry, _L'Armee anglaise au siege d'Orleans_ (1892);
J. J. Bourasse, _Miracles de Madame Sainte Katherine de Fierbois_
(1858, trans. by A. Lang); Boucher de Molandon and A. de Beaucorps,
_L'Armee anglaise vaincue par Jeanne d'Arc_ (1892); R. P. Agroles,
S.J., _La Vraie Jeanne d'Arc_. For the "false Pucelle" see A. Lang's
article in his _Valet's Tragedy_ (1903). Of the numerous dramas and
poems of which Joan of Arc has been the subject, mention can only be
made of _Die Jungfrau von Orleans_ of Schiller, and of the _Joan of
Arc_ of Southey. A drama in verse by Jules Barbier was set to music by
C. Gounod (1873). (J. T. S.*; H. Ch.)
FOOTNOTES:
[1] In the act of ennoblement the name is spelt Day, due probably to
the peculiar pronunciation. It has been disputed whether the name was
written originally d'Arc or Darc. It is beyond doubt that the father
of Joan was not of noble origin, but Bouteiller suggests that at that
period the apostrophe did not indicate nobility. Her mother, it may
be noted, is called "de Vouthon."
[2] The Porte St Honore where Joan was wounded stood where the
Comedie Francaise now stands.
JOANES (or JUANES), VICENTE (1506-1579), head of the Valencian school of
painters, and often called "the Spanish Raphael," was born at Fuente de
la Higuera in the province of Valencia in 1506. He is said to have
studied his art for some time in Rome, with which school his affinities
are closest, but the greater part of his professional life was spent in
the city of Valencia, where most of the extant examples of his work are
now to be found. All relate to religious subjects, and are characterized
by dignity of conception, accuracy of drawing, truth and beauty of
colour, and minuteness of finish. He died at Bocairente (near Jativa)
while engaged upon an altarpiece in the church there, on the 21st of
December 1579.
JOANNA (1479-1555), called the Mad (_la Loca_), queen of Castile and
mother of the emperor Charles V., was the second daughter of Ferdinand
and Isabella, king and queen of Spain, and was born at Toledo on the 6th
of November 1479. Her youngest sister was Catherine of Aragon, the first
wife of Henry VIII. In 1496 at Lille she was married to the archduke
Philip the Handsome, son of the German King Maximilian I., and at Ghent,
in February 1500, she gave birth to the future emperor. The death of her
only brother John, of her eldest sister Isabella, queen of Portugal, and
then of the latter's infant son Miguel, made Joanna heiress of the
Spanish kingdoms, and in 1502 the cortes of Castile and of Aragon
recognized her and her husband as their future sovereigns. Soon after
this Joanna's reason began to give way. She mourned in an extravagant
fashion for her absent husband, whom at length she joined in Flanders;
in this country her passionate jealousy, although justified by Philip's
conduct, led to deplorable scenes. In November 1504 her mother's death
left Joanna queen of Castile, but as she was obviously incapable of
ruling, the duties of government were undertaken by her father, and then
for a short time by her husband. The queen was with Philip when he was
wrecked on the English coast and became the guest of Henry VII. at
Windsor; soon after this event, in September 1506, he died and Joanna's
mind became completely deranged, it being almost impossible to get her
away from the dead body of her husband. The remaining years of her
miserable existence were spent at Tordesillas, where she died on the
11th of April 1555. In spite of her afflictions the queen was sought in
marriage by Henry VII. just before his death. Nominally Joanna remained
queen of Castile until her death, her name being joined with that of
Charles in all public documents, but of necessity she took no part in
the business of state. In addition to Charles she had a son Ferdinand,
afterwards the emperor Ferdinand I., and four daughters, among them
being Maria (1505-1558), wife of Louis II., king of Hungary, afterwards
governor-general of the Netherlands.
See R. Villa, _La Reina dona Juana la Loca_ (Madrid, 1892); Rosler,
_Johanna die Wahnsinnige_ (Vienna, 1890); W. H. Prescott, _Hist. of
Ferdinand and Isabella_ (1854); and H. Tighe, _A Queen of Unrest_
(1907).
JOANNA I. (c. 1327-1382), queen of Naples, was the daughter of Charles
duke of Calabria (d. 1328), and became sovereign of Naples in succession
to her grandfather King Robert in 1343. Her first husband was Andrew,
son of Charles Robert, king of Hungary, who like the queen herself was a
member of the house of Anjou. In 1345 Andrew was assassinated at Aversa,
possibly with his wife's connivance, and at once Joanna married Louis,
son of Philip prince of Taranto. King Louis of Hungary then came to
Naples to avenge his brother's death, and the queen took refuge in
Provence--which came under her rule at the same time as
Naples--purchasing pardon from Pope Clement VI. by selling to him the
town of Avignon, then part of her dominions. Having returned to Naples
in 1352 after the departure of Louis, Joanna lost her second husband in
1362, and married James, king of Majorca (d. 1375), and later Otto of
Brunswick, prince of Taranto. The queen had no sons, and as both her
daughters were dead she made Louis I. duke of Anjou, brother of Charles
V. of France, her heir. This proceeding so angered Charles, duke of
Durazzo, who regarded himself as the future king of Naples, that he
seized the city. Joanna was captured and was put to death at Aversa on
the 22nd of May 1382. The queen was a woman of intellectual tastes, and
was acquainted with some of the poets and scholars of her time,
including Petrarch and Boccaccio.
See Crivelli, _Della prima e della seconda Giovanna, regine di Napoli_
(1832); G. Battaglia, _Giovanna I., regina di Napoli_ (1835); W. St C.
Baddeley, _Queen Joanna I. of Naples_ (1893); Scarpetta, _Giovanna I.
di Napoli_ (1903); and Francesca M. Steele, _The Beautiful Queen
Joanna I. of Naples_ (1910).
JOANNA II. (1371-1435), queen of Naples, was descended from Charles II.
of Anjou through his son John of Durazzo. She had been married to
William, son of Leopold III. of Austria, and at the death of her brother
King Ladislaus in 1414 she succeeded to the Neapolitan crown. Her life
had always been very dissolute, and although now a widow of forty-five,
she chose as her lover Pandolfo Alopo, a youth of twenty-six, whom she
made seneschal of the kingdom. He and the constable Muzio Attendolo
Sforza completely dominated her, and the turbulent barons wished to
provide her with a husband who would be strong enough to break her
favourites yet not make himself king. The choice fell on James of
Bourbon, a relative of the king of France, and the marriage took place
in 1415. But James at once declared himself king, had Alopo killed and
Sforza imprisoned, and kept his wife in a state of semi-confinement;
this led to a counter-agitation on the part of the barons, who forced
James to liberate Sforza, renounce his kingship, and eventually to quit
the country. The queen now sent Sforza to re-establish her authority in
Rome, whence the Neapolitans had been expelled after the death of
Ladislaus; Sforza entered the city and obliged the _condottiere_ Braccio
da Montone, who was defending it in the pope's name, to depart (1416).
But when Oddo Colonna was elected pope as Martin V., he allied himself
with Joanna, who promised to give up Rome, while Sforza returned to
Naples. The latter found, however, that he had lost all influence with
the queen, who was completely dominated by her new lover Giovanni
(Sergianni) Caracciolo. Hoping to re-establish his position and crush
Caracciolo, Sforza favoured the pretensions of Louis III. of Anjou, who
wished to obtain the succession of Naples at Joanna's death, a course
which met with the approval of the pope. Joanna refused to adopt Louis
owing to the influence of Caracciolo, who hated Sforza; she appealed for
help instead to Alphonso of Aragon, promising to make him her heir. War
broke out between Joanna and the Aragonese on one side and Louis and
Sforza, supported by the pope, on the other. After much fighting by land
and sea, Alphonso entered Naples, and in 1422 peace was made. But
dissensions broke out between the Aragonese and Catalans and the
Neapolitans, and Alphonso had Caracciolo arrested; whereupon Joanna,
fearing for her own safety, invoked the aid of Sforza, who with
difficulty carried her off to Aversa. There she was joined by Louis whom
she adopted as her successor instead of the ungrateful Alphonso. Sforza
was accidentally drowned, but when Alphonso returned to Spain, leaving
only a small force in Naples, the Angevins with the help of a Genoese
fleet recaptured the city. For a few years there was peace in the
kingdom, but in 1432 Caracciolo, having quarrelled with the queen, was
seized and murdered by his enemies. Internal disorders broke out, and
Gian Antonio Orsini, prince of Taranto, led a revolt against Joanna in
Apulia; Louis of Anjou died while conducting a campaign against the
rebels (1434), and Joanna herself died on the 11th of February 1435,
after having appointed his son Rene her successor. Weak, foolish and
dissolute, she made her reign one long scandal, which reduced the
kingdom to the lowest depths of degradation. Her perpetual intrigues and
her political incapacity made Naples a prey to anarchy and foreign
invasions, destroying all sense of patriotism and loyalty both in the
barons and the people.
AUTHORITIES.--A. von Platen, _Storia del reame di Napoli dal 1414 al
1423_ (1864). C. Cipolla, _Storia, della signoria Italiana_ (1881),
where the original authorities are quoted. (See also NAPLES; SFORZA.)
JOASH, or JEHOASH (Heb. "Yahweh is strong, _or_ hath given"), the name
of two kings of Palestine in the Bible.
1. Son of Ahaziah (see JEHORAM, 2) and king of Judah. He obtained the
throne by means of a revolt in which Athaliah (q.v.) perished, and his
accession was marked by a solemn covenant, and by the overthrow of the
temple of Baal and of its priest Mattan(-Baal). In this the priest
Jehoiada (who must have continued to act as regent) took the leading
part. The account of Joash's reign is not from a contemporary source (2
Kings xi. 4-xii. 16), and 2 Chronicles adds several new details,
including a tradition of a conflict between the king and priests after
the death of Jehoiada (xxii. 11; xxiv. 3, 15 sqq.).[1] At an unstated
period, the Aramaeans under Hazael captured Gath, and Jerusalem only
escaped by buying off the enemy (2 Kings xii. 17 sqq.). This may perhaps
be associated with the Aramaean attacks upon Israel (2 below), but the
tradition recorded in 2 Chron. xxiv. 23 seq. differs widely and cannot
be wholly rejected. The king perished in a conspiracy, the origin of
which is not clear; it may have been for his attack upon the priests, it
was scarcely for the course he took to save Jerusalem. He was succeeded
by his son Amaziah, whose moderation in avenging his father's death
receives special mention. After defeating the Edomites, Amaziah turned
his attention to Israel.
2. Son of Jehoahaz and king of Israel. Like his grandfather Jehu, he
enjoyed the favour of the prophet Elisha, who promised him a triple
defeat of the Aramaeans at Aphek (2 Kings xiii. 14 sqq. 22-25). The
cities which had been taken from his father by Hazael the father of
Ben-hadad were recovered (cf. 1 Kings xx. 34, time of Ahab) and the
relief gained by Israel from the previous blows of Syria prepared the
way for its speedy extension of power. When challenged by Amaziah of
Judah, Joash uttered the famous fable of the thistle and cedar (for
another example see Judg. ix. 8-15; see also ABIMELECH), and a battle
was fought at Beth-shemesh, in which Israel was completely successful.
An obscure statement in 2 Chron. xxv. 13 would show that this was not
the only conflict; at all events, Amaziah was captured, the
fortifications of Jerusalem were partially destroyed, the treasures of
the Temple and palace were looted, and hostages were carried away to
Samaria. According to one statement, Amaziah survived the disaster
fifteen years, and lost his life in a conspiracy; but there is a gap in
the history of Judah which the narratives do not enable us to fill (1
Kings xv. 1; see xiv. 17, 23). See further UZZIAH; JEROBOAM (2); and
JEWS. (S. A. C.)
FOOTNOTE:
[1] That the murder of Zechariah the son of Jehoiada (2 Chron.
_l.c._) is referred to in Matt. xxiii. 35, Luke xi. 51 is commonly
held; but see Cheyne, _Ency. Bib._ col. 5373.
JOB. The book of Job (Heb. [Hebrew: Iyyob] _'Iyyob_, Gr. [Greek: Iob]),
in the Bible, the most splendid creation of Hebrew poetry, is so called
from the name of the man whose history and afflictions and sayings form
the theme of it.
_Contents._--As it now lies before us it consists of five parts. 1.
The prologue, in prose, chr. i.-ii., describes in rapid and dramatic
steps the history of this man, his prosperity and greatness
corresponding to his godliness; then how his life is drawn in under
the operation of the sifting providence of God, through the suspicion
suggested by the Satan, the minister of this aspect of God's
providence, that his godliness is selfish and only the natural return
for unexampled prosperity, and the insinuation that if stripped of his
prosperity he will curse God to His face. These suspicions bring down
two severe calamities on Job, one depriving him of children and
possessions alike, and the other throwing the man himself under a
painful malady. In spite of these afflictions Job retains his
integrity and ascribes no wrong to God. Then is described the advent
of Job's three friends--Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and
Zophar the Naamathite--who, having heard of Job's calamities, come to
condole with him. 2. The body of the book, in poetry, ch. iii.-xxxi.,
contains a series of speeches in which the problem of Job's
afflictions and the relation of external evil to the righteousness of
God and the conduct of men are brilliantly discussed. This part, after
Job's passionate outburst in ch. iii., is divided into three cycles,
each containing six speeches, one by each of the friends, and three by
Job, one in reply to each of theirs (ch. iv.-xiv.; xv.-xxi.;
xxii.-xxxi.), although in the last cycle the third speaker Zophar
fails to answer (unless his answer is to be found in ch. xxvii.). Job,
having driven his opponents from the field, carries his reply through
a series of discourses in which he dwells in pathetic words upon his
early prosperity, contrasting with it his present humiliation, and
ends with a solemn repudiation of all the offences that might be
suggested against him, and a challenge to God to appear and put His
hand to the charge which He had against him and for which He afflicted
him. 3. Elihu, the representative of a younger generation, who has
been a silent observer of the debate, intervenes to express his
dissatisfaction with the manner in which both Job and his friends
conducted the cause, and offers what is in some respects a new
solution of the question (xxxii.-xxxvii.). 4. In answer to Job's
repeated demands that God would appear and solve the riddle of his
life, the Lord answers Job out of the whirlwind. The divine speaker
does not condescend to refer to Job's individual problem, but in a
series of ironical interrogations asks him, as he thinks himself
capable of fathoming all things, to expound the mysteries of the
origin and subsistence of the world, the phenomena of the atmosphere,
the instincts of the creatures that inhabit the desert, and, as he
judges God's conduct of the world amiss, invites him to seize the
reins, gird himself with the thunder and quell the rebellious forces
of evil in the universe (xxxviii.-xlii. 6). Job is humbled and
abashed, lays his hand upon his mouth, and repents his hasty words in
dust and ashes. No solution of his problem is vouchsafed; but God
Himself effects that which neither the man's own thoughts of God nor
the representations of the friends could accomplish: he had heard of
him with the hearing of the ear without effect, but now his eye sees
Him. This is the profoundest religious deep in the book. 5. The
epilogue, in prose, xlii. 7-17, describes Job's restoration to a
prosperity double that of his former estate, his family felicity and
long life.
_Design._--With the exception of the episode of Elihu, the connexion of
which with the original form of the poem may be doubtful, all five parts
of the book are essential elements of the work as it came from the hand
of the first author, although some parts of the second and fourth
divisions may have been expanded by later writers. The idea of the
composition is to be derived not from any single element of the book,
but from the teaching and movement of the whole piece. Job is
unquestionably the hero of the work, and in his ideas and his history
combined we may assume that we find the author himself speaking and
teaching. The discussion between Job and his friends of the problem of
suffering occupies two-thirds of the book, or, if the space occupied by
Elihu be not considered, nearly three-fourths, and in the direction
which the author causes this discussion to take we may see revealed the
main didactic purpose of the book. When the three friends, the
representatives of former theories of providence, are reduced to
silence, we may be certain that it was the author's purpose to discredit
the ideas which they represent. Job himself offers no positive
contribution to the doctrine of evil; his position is negative, merely
antagonistic to that of the friends. But this negative position
victoriously maintained by him has the effect of clearing the ground,
and the author himself supplies in the prologue the positive truth, when
he communicates the real explanation of his hero's calamities, and
teaches that they were a trial of his righteousness. It was therefore
the author's main purpose in his work to widen men's views of the
providence of God and set before them a new view of suffering. This
purpose, however, was in all probability subordinate to some wider
practical design. No Hebrew writer is merely a poet or a thinker. He is
always a teacher. He has men before him in their relations to God,[1]
and usually not men in their individual relations, but members of the
family of Israel, the people of God. It is consequently scarcely to be
doubted that the book has a national scope. The author considered his
new truth regarding the meaning of affliction as of national interest,
and as the truth then needful for the heart of his people. But the
teaching of the book is only half its contents. It contains also a
history--deep and inexplicable affliction, a great moral struggle, and a
victory. The author meant his new truth to inspire new conduct, new
faith, and new hopes. In Job's sufferings, undeserved and inexplicable
to him, yet capable of an explanation most consistent with the goodness
and faithfulness of God, and casting honour upon his faithful servants;
in his despair bordering on unbelief, at last overcome; and in the happy
issue of his afflictions--in all this Israel may see itself, and from
the sight take courage, and forecast its own history. Job, however, is
not to be considered Israel, the righteous servant of the Lord, under a
feigned name; he is no mere parable (though such a view is found as
early as the Talmud); he and his history have both elements of reality
in them. It is these elements of reality common to him with Israel in
affliction, common even to him with humanity as a whole, confined within
the straitened limits set by its own ignorance, wounded to death by the
mysterious sorrows of life, tortured by the uncertainty whether its cry
finds an entrance into God's ear, alarmed and paralysed by the
irreconcilable discrepancies which it seems to discover between its
necessary thoughts of Him and its experience of Him in His providence,
and faint with longing that it might come into His place, and behold
him, not girt with His majesty, but in human form, as one looketh upon
his fellow--it is these elements of truth that make the history of Job
instructive to Israel in the times of affliction when it was set before
them, and to men of all races in all ages. It would probably be a
mistake, however, to imagine that the author consciously stepped outside
the limits of his nation and assumed a human position antagonistic to
it. The chords he touches vibrate through all humanity--but this is
because Israel is the religious kernel of humanity, and because from
Israel's heart the deepest religious music of mankind is heard, whether
of pathos or of joy.
Two threads requiring to be followed, therefore, run through the
book--one the discussion of the problem of evil between Job and his
friends, and the other the varying attitude of Job's mind towards God,
the first being subordinate to the second. Both Job and his friends
advance to the discussion of his sufferings and of the problem of
evil, ignorant of the true cause of his calamities--Job strong in his
sense of innocence, and the friends armed with their theory of the
righteousness of God, who giveth to every man according to his works.
With fine psychological instinct the poet lets Job altogether lose his
self-control first when his three friends came to visit him. His
bereavements and his malady he bore with a steady courage, and his
wife's direct instigations to godlessness he repelled with severity
and resignation. But when his equals and the old associates of his
happiness came to see him, and when he read in their looks and in
their seven days' silence the depth of his own misery, his
self-command deserted him, and he broke out into a cry of despair,
cursing his day and crying for death (iii.). Job had somewhat
misinterpreted the demeanour of his friends. It was not all pity that
it expressed. Along with their pity they had also brought their
theology, and they trusted to heal Job's malady with this. Till a few
days before, Job would have agreed with them on the sovereign virtues
of this remedy. But he had learned through a higher teaching, the
events of God's providence, that it was no longer a specific in his
case. His violent impatience, however, under his afflictions and his
covert attacks upon the divine rectitude only served to confirm the
view of his sufferings which their theory of evil had already
suggested to his friends. And thus commences the high debate which
continues through twenty-nine chapters.
The three friends of Job came to the consideration of his history with
the principle that calamity is the result of evil-doing, as prosperity
is the reward of righteousness. Suffering is not an accident or a
spontaneous growth of the soil; man is born unto trouble as the sparks
fly upwards; there is in human life a tendency to do evil which draws
down upon men the chastisement of God (v. 6). The principle is thus
enunciated by Eliphaz, from whom the other speakers take their cue:
where there is suffering there has been sin in the sufferer. Not
suffering in itself, but the effect of it on the sufferer is what
gives insight into his true character. Suffering is not always
punitive; it is sometimes disciplinary, designed to wean the good man
from his sin. If he sees in his suffering the monition of God and
turns from his evil, his future shall be rich in peace and happiness,
and his latter estate more prosperous than his first. If he murmurs or
resists, he can only perish under the multiplying chastisements which
his impenitence will provoke. Now this principle is far from being a
peculiar crotchet of the friends; its truth is undeniable, though they
erred in supposing that it would cover the wide providence of God. The
principle is the fundamental idea of moral government, the expression
of the natural conscience, a principle common more or less to all
peoples, though perhaps more prominent in the Semitic mind, because
all religious ideas are more prominent and simple there--not suggested
to Israel first by the law, but found and adopted by the law, though
it may be sharpened by it. It is the fundamental principle of prophecy
no less than of the law, and, if possible, of the wisdom of philosophy
of the Hebrews more than of either. Speculation among the Hebrews had
a simpler task before it than it had in the West or in the farther
East. The Greek philosopher began his operations upon the sum of
things; he threw the universe into his crucible at once. His object
was to effect some analysis of it, so that he could call one element
cause and another effect. Or, to vary the figure, his endeavour was to
pursue the streams of tendency which he could observe till he reached
at last the central spring which sent them all forth. God, a single
cause and explanation, was the object of his search. But to the Hebrew
of the later time this was already found. The analysis resulting in
the distinction of God and the world had been effected for him so long
ago that the history and circumstances of the process had been
forgotten, and only the unchallengeable result remained. His
philosophy was not a quest of God whom he did not know, but a
recognition on all hands of God whom he knew. The great primary idea
to his mind was that of God, a Being wholly just, doing all. And the
world was little more than the phenomena that revealed the mind and
the presence and the operations of God. Consequently the nature of God
as known to him and the course of events formed a perfect equation.
The idea of what God was in Himself was in complete harmony with His
manifestation of Himself in providence, in the events of individual
human lives, and in the history of nations. The philosophy of the wise
did not go behind the origin of sin, or referred it to the freedom of
man; but, sin existing, and God being in immediate personal contact
with the world, every event was a direct expression of His moral will
and energy; calamity fell on wickedness, and success attended
right-doing. This view of the moral harmony between the nature of God
and the events of providence in the fortunes of men and nations is the
view of the Hebrew wisdom in its oldest form, during what might be
called the period of principles, to which belong Prov. x. seq.; and
this is the position maintained by Job's three friends. And the
significance of the book of Job in the history of Hebrew thought
arises in that it marks the point when such a view was definitely
overcome, closing the long period when this principle was merely
subjected to questionings, and makes a new positive addition to the
doctrine of evil.
Job agreed that afflictions came directly from the hand of God, and
also that God afflicted those whom He held guilty of sins. But his
conscience denied the imputation of guilt, whether insinuated by his
friends or implied in God's chastisement of him. Hence he was driven
to conclude that God was unjust. The position of Job appeared to his
friends nothing else but impiety; while theirs was to him mere
falsehood and the special pleading of sycophants on behalf of God
because He was the stronger. Within these two iron walls the debate
moves, making little progress, but with much brilliancy, if not of
argument, of illustration. A certain advance indeed is perceptible. In
the first series of speeches (iv.-xiv.), the key-note of which is
struck by Eliphaz, the oldest and most considerate of the three, the
position is that affliction is caused by sin, and is chastisement
designed for the sinner's good; and the moral is that Job should
recognize it and use it for the purpose for which it was sent. In the
second (xv.-xxi.) the terrible fate of the sinner is emphasized, and
those brilliant pictures of a restored future, thrown in by all the
speakers in the first series, are absent. Job's demeanour under the
consolations offered him afforded little hope of his repentance. In
the third series (xxii. seq.) the friends cast off all disguise, and
openly charge Job with a course of evil life. That their armoury was
now exhausted is shown by the brevity of the second speaker, and the
failure of the third (at least in the present text) to answer in any
form. In reply Job disdains for a time to touch what he well knew lay
under all their exhortations; he laments with touching pathos the
defection of his friends, who were like the winter torrents looked for
in vain by the perishing caravan in the summer heat; he meets with
bitter scorn their constant cry that God will not cast off the
righteous man, by asking: How can one be righteous with God? what can
human weakness, however innocent, do against infinite might and
subtlety? they are righteous whom an omnipotent and perverse will
thinks fit to consider so; he falls into a hopeless wail over the
universal misery of man, who has a weary campaign of life appointed
him; then, rising up in the strength of his conscience, he upbraids
the Almighty with His misuse of His power and His indiscriminate
tyranny--righteous and innocent He destroys alike--and challenges Him
to lay aside His majesty and meet His creature as a man, and then he
would not fear Him. Even in the second series Job can hardly bring
himself to face the personal issue raised by the friends. His
relations to God absorb him almost wholly--his pitiable isolation, the
indignities showered on his once honoured head, the loathsome
spectacle of his body; abandoned by all, he turns for pity from God to
men and from men to God. Only in the third series of debates does he
put out his hand and grasp firmly the theory of his friends, and their
"defences of mud" fall to dust in his hands. Instead of that roseate
moral order on which they are never weary of insisting, he finds only
disorder and moral confusion. When he thinks of it, trembling takes
hold of him. It is not the righteous but the wicked that live, grow
old, yea, wax mighty in strength, that send forth their children like
a flock and establish them in their sight. Before the logic of facts
the theory of the friends goes down; and with this negative result,
which the author skilfully reaches through the debate, has to be
combined his own positive doctrine of the uses of adversity advanced
in the prologue.
To a modern reader it appears strange that both parties were so
entangled in the meshes of their preconceptions regarding God as to be
unable to break through the broader views. The friends, while
maintaining that injustice on the part of God is inconceivable, might
have given due weight to the persistent testimony of Job's conscience
as that behind which it is impossible to go, and found refuge in the
reflection that there might be something inexplicable in the ways of
God, and that affliction might have some other meaning than to punish
the sinner or even to wean him from his sin. And Job, while
maintaining his innocence from overt sins, might have confessed that
there was such sinfulness in every human life as was sufficient to
account for the severest chastisement from heaven, or at least he
might have stopped short of charging God foolishly. Such a position
would certainly be taken up by an afflicted saint now, and such an
explanation of his sufferings would suggest itself to the sufferer,
even though it might be in truth a false explanation. Perhaps here,
where an artistic fault might seem to be committed, the art of the
writer, or his truth to nature, and the extraordinary freedom with
which he moves among his materials, as well as the power and
individuality of his dramatic creations, are most remarkable. The role
which the author reserved for himself was to teach the truth on the
question in dispute, and he accomplishes this by allowing his
performers to push their false principles to their proper extreme.
There is nothing about which men are usually so sure as the character
of God. They are ever ready to take Him in their own hand, to
interpret His providence in their own sense, to say what things are
consistent or not with His character and word, and beat down the
opposing consciences of other men by His so-called authority, which is
nothing but their own. The friends of Job were religious Orientals,
men to whom God was a being in immediate contact with the world and
life, to whom the idea of second causes was unknown, on whom science
had not yet begun to dawn, nor the conception of a divine scheme
pursuing a distant end by complicated means, in which the individual's
interest may suffer for the larger good. The broad sympathies of the
author and his sense of the truth lying in the theory of the friends
are seen in the scope which he allows them, in the richness of the
thought and the splendid luxuriance of the imagery--drawn from the
immemorial moral consent of mankind, the testimony of the living
conscience, and the observation of life--with which he makes them
clothe their views. He remembered the elements of truth in the theory
from which he was departing, that it was a national heritage, which he
himself perhaps had been constrained not without a struggle to
abandon; and, while showing its insufficiency, he sets it forth in its
most brilliant form.
The extravagance of Job's assertions was occasioned greatly by the
extreme position of his friends, which left no room for his conscious
innocence along with the rectitude of God. Again, the poet's purpose,
as the prologue shows, was to teach that afflictions may fall on a man
out of all connexion with any offence of his own, and merely as the
trial of his righteousness; and hence he allows Job, as by a true
instinct of the nature of his sufferings, to repudiate all connexion
between them and sin in himself. And further, the terrible conflict
into which the suspicions of the Satan brought Job could not be
exhibited without pushing him to the verge of ungodliness. These are
all elements of the poet's art; but art and nature are one. In ancient
Hebrew life the sense of sin was less deep than it is now. In the
desert, too, men speak boldly of God. Nothing is more false than to
judge the poet's creation from our later point of view, and construct
a theory of the book according to a more developed sense of sin and a
deeper reverence for God than belonged to antiquity. In complete
contradiction to the testimony of the book itself, some critics, as
Hengstenberg and Budde, have assumed that Job's spiritual pride was
the cause of his afflictions, that this was the root of bitterness in
him which must be killed down ere he could become a true saint. The
fundamental position of the book is that Job was already a true saint;
this is testified by God Himself, is the radical idea of the author in
the prologue, and the very hypothesis of the drama. We might be ready
to think that Job's afflictions did not befall him out of all
connexion with his own condition of mind, and we might be disposed to
find a vindication of God's ways in this. There is no evidence that
such an idea was shared by the author of the book. It is remarkable
that the attitude which we imagine it would have been so easy for Job
to assume, namely, while holding fast his integrity, to fall back upon
the inexplicableness of providence, of which there are such imposing
descriptions in his speeches, is just the attitude which is taken up
in ch. xxviii. It is far from certain, however, that this chapter is
an integral part of the original book.
The other line running through the book, the varying attitude of Job's
mind towards God, exhibits dramatic action and tragic interest of the
highest kind, though the movement is internal. That the exhibition of
this struggle in Job's mind was a main point in the author's purpose
is seen from the fact that at the end of each of his great trials he
notes that Job sinned not, nor ascribed wrong to God (i. 22; ii. 10),
and from the effect which the divine voice from the whirlwind is made
to produce upon him (xl. 3). In the first cycle of debate (iv.-xiv.)
Job's mind reaches the deepest limit of estrangement. There he not
merely charges God with injustice, but, unable to reconcile His former
goodness with His present enmity, he regards the latter as the true
expression of God's attitude towards His creatures, and the former,
comprising all his infinite creative skill in weaving the delicate
organism of human nature and the rich endowments of His providence,
only as the means of exercising His mad and immoral cruelty in the
time to come. When the Semitic skin of Job is scratched, we find a
modern pessimist beneath. Others in later days have brought the keen
sensibility of the human frame and the torture which it endures
together, and asked with Job to whom at last all this has to be
referred. Towards the end of the cycle a star of heavenly light seems
to rise on the horizon; the thought seizes the sufferer's mind that
man might have another life, that God's anger pursuing him to the
grave might be sated, and that He might call him out of it to Himself
again (xiv. 13). This idea of a resurrection, unfamiliar to Job at
first, is one which he is allowed to reach out of the necessities of
the moral complications around him, but from the author's manner of
using the idea we may judge that it was familiar to himself. In the
second cycle the thought of a future reconciliation with God is more
firmly grasped. That satisfaction or at least composure which, when we
observe calamities that we cannot morally account for, we reach by
considering that providence is a great scheme moving according to
general laws, and that it does not always truly reflect the relation
of God to the individual, Job reached in the only way possible to a
Semitic mind. He drew a distinction between an outer God whom events
obey, pursuing him in His anger, and an inner God whose heart was with
him, who was aware of his innocence; and he appeals from God to God,
and beseeches God to pledge Himself that he shall receive justice from
God (xvi. 19; xvii. 3). And so high at last does this consciousness
that God is at one with him rise that he avows his assurance that He
will yet appear to do him justice before men, and that he shall see
Him with his own eyes, no more estranged but on his side, and for this
moment he faints with longing (xix. 25 seq.).[2]
After this expression of faith Job's mind remains calm, though he ends
by firmly charging God with perverting his right, and demanding to
know the cause of his afflictions (xxvii. 2 seq.; xxxi. 35, where
render: "Oh, that I had the indictment which mine adversary has
written!"). In answer to this demand the Divine voice answers Job out
of the tempest: "Who is this that darkeneth counsel by words without
knowledge?" The word "counsel" intimates to Job that God does not act
without a design, large and beyond the comprehension of man; and to
impress this is the purpose of the Divine speeches. The speaker does
not enter into Job's particular cause; there is not a word tending to
unravel his riddle; his mind is drawn away to the wisdom and majesty
of God Himself. His own words and those of his friends are but
re-echoed, but it is God Himself who now utters them. Job is in
immediate nearness to the majesty of heaven, wise, unfathomable,
ironical over the littleness of man, and he is abased; God Himself
effects what neither the man's own thoughts of God nor the
representations of his friends could accomplish, though by the same
means. The religious insight of the writer sounds here the profoundest
deeps of truth.
_Integrity._--Doubts whether particular portions of the present book
belonged to the original form of it have been raised by many. M. L. De
Wette expressed himself as follows: "It appears to us that the present
book of Job has not all flowed from one pen. As many books of the Old
Testament have been several times written over, so has this also" (Ersch
and Gruber, _Ency._, sect. ii. vol. viii.). The judgment formed by De
Wette has been adhered to more or less by most of those who have studied
the book. Questions regarding the unity of such books as this are
difficult to settle; there is not unanimity among scholars regarding the
idea of the book, and consequently they differ as to what parts are in
harmony or conflict with unity; and it is dangerous to apply modern
ideas of literary composition and artistic unity to the works of
antiquity and of the East. The problem raised in the book of Job has
certainly received frequent treatment in the Old Testament; and there is
no likelihood that all efforts in this direction have been preserved to
us. It is probable that the book of Job was but a great effort amidst or
after many smaller. It is scarcely to be supposed that one with such
poetic and literary power as the author of chap. iii-xxxi.,
xxxviii.-xli. would embody the work of any other writer in his own. If
there be elements in the book which must be pronounced foreign, they
have been inserted in the work of the author by a later hand. It is not
unlikely that our present book may, in addition to the great work of the
original author, contain some fragments of the thoughts of other
religious minds upon the same question, and that these, instead of being
loosely appended, have been fitted into the mechanism of the first work.
Some of these fragments may have originated at first quite independently
of our book, while others may be expansions and insertions that never
existed separately. At the same time it is scarcely safe to throw out
any portion of the book merely because it seems to us out of harmony
with the unity of the main part of the poem, or unless several distinct
lines of consideration conspire to point it out as an extraneous
element.
The arguments against the originality of the prologue--as, that it is
written in prose, that the name Yahweh appears in it, that sacrifice
is referred to, and that there are inconsistencies between it and the
body of the book--are of little weight. There must have been some
introduction to the poem explaining the circumstances of Job,
otherwise the poetical dispute would have been unintelligible, for it
is improbable that the story of Job was so familiar that a poem in
which he and his friends figured as they do here would have been
understood. And there is no trace of any other prologue or
introduction having ever existed. The prologue, too, is an essential
element of the work, containing the author's positive contribution to
the doctrine of suffering, for which the discussion in the poem
prepares the way. The intermixture of prose and poetry is common in
Oriental works containing similar discussions; the reference to
sacrifice is to primitive not to Mosaic sacrifice; and the author,
while using the name Yahweh freely himself, puts the patriarchal
Divine names into the mouth of Job and his friends because he regards
them as belonging to the patriarchal age and to a country outside of
Israel. That the observance of this rule had a certain awkwardness for
the writer appears perhaps from his allowing the name Yahweh to slip
in once or twice (xii. 9, cf. xxviii. 28) in familiar phrases in the
body of the poem. The discrepancies, such as Job's references to his
children as still alive (xix. 17, the interpretation is doubtful), and
to his servants, are trivial, and even if real imply nothing in a book
admittedly poetical and not historical. The objections to the epilogue
are equally unimportant--as that the Satan is not mentioned in it, and
that Job's restoration is in conflict with the main idea of the
poem--that earthly felicity does not follow righteousness. The
epilogue confirms the teaching of the poem when it gives the divine
sanction to Job's doctrine regarding God in opposition to that of the
friends (xlii. 7). And it is certainly not the intention of the poem
to teach that earthly felicity does not follow righteousness; its
purpose is to correct the exclusiveness with which the friends of Job
maintained that principle. The Satan is introduced in the prologue,
exercising his function as minister of God in heaven; but it is to
misinterpret wholly the doctrine of evil in the Old Testament to
assign to the Satan any such personal importance or independence of
power as that he should be called before the curtain to receive the
hisses that accompany his own discomfiture. The Satan, though he here
appears with the beginnings of a malevolent will of his own, is but
the instrument of the sifting providence of God. His work was to try;
that done he disappears, his personality being too slight to have any
place in the result.
Much graver are the suspicions that attach to the speeches of Elihu.
Most of those who have studied the book carefully hold that this part
does not belong to the original cast, but has been introduced at a
considerably later time. The piece is one of the most interesting
parts of the book; both the person and the thoughts of Elihu are
marked by a strong individuality. This individuality has indeed been
very diversely estimated. The ancients for the most part passed a very
severe judgment on Elihu: he is a buffoon, a boastful youth whose
shallow intermeddling is only to be explained by the fewness of his
years, the incarnation of folly, or even the Satan himself gone
a-mumming. Some moderns on the other hand have regarded him as the
incarnation of the voice of God or even of God himself. The main
objections to the connexion of the episode of Elihu with the original
book are: that the prologue and epilogue know nothing of him; that on
the cause of Job's afflictions he occupies virtually the same position
as the friends; that his speeches destroy the dramatic effect of the
divine manifestation by introducing a lengthened break between Job's
challenge and the answer of God; that the language and style of the
piece are marked by an excessive mannerism, too great to have been
created by the author of the rest of the poem; that the allusions to
the rest of the book are so minute as to betray a reader rather than a
hearer; and that the views regarding sin, and especially the scandal
given to the author by the irreverence of Job, indicate a religious
advance which marks a later age. The position taken by Elihu is almost
that of a critic of the book. Regarding the origin of afflictions he
is at one with the friends, although he dwells more on the general
sinfulness of man than on actual sins, and his reprobation of Job's
position is even greater than theirs. His anger was kindled against
Job because he made himself righteous before God, and against his
friends because they found no answer to Job. His whole object is to
refute Job's charge of injustice against God. What is novel in Elihu,
therefore, is not his position but his arguments. These do not lack
cogency, but betray a kind of thought different from that of the
friends. Injustice in God, he argues, can only arise from selfishness
in Him; but the very existence of creation implies unselfish love on
God's part, for if He thought only of Himself, He would cease actively
to uphold creation, and it would fall into death. Again, without
justice mere earthly rule is impossible; how then is injustice
conceivable in Him who rules over all? It is probable that the
original author found his three interlocutors a sufficient medium for
expression, and that this new speaker is the creation of another. To a
devout and thoughtful reader of the original book, belonging perhaps
to a more reverential age, it appeared that the language and bearing
of Job had scarcely been sufficiently reprobated by the original
speakers, and that the religious reason, apart from any theophany,
could suggest arguments sufficient to condemn such demeanour on the
part of any man. (For an able though hardly convincing argument for
the originality of the discourses of Elihu see Budde's _Commentary_.)
It is more difficult to come to a decision in regard to some other
portions of the book, particularly ch. xxvii. 7-xxviii. In the latter
part of ch. xxvii. Job seems to go over to the camp of his opponents,
and expresses sentiments in complete contradiction to his former
views. Hence some have thought the passage to be the missing speech of
Zophar. Others, as Hitzig, believe that Job is parodying the ideas of
the friends; while others, like Ewald, consider that he is recanting
his former excesses, and making such a modification as to express
correctly his views on evil. None of these opinions is quite
satisfactory, though the last probably expresses the view with which
the passage was introduced, whether it be original or not. The meaning
of ch. xxviii. can only be that "Wisdom," that is, a theoretical
comprehension of providence, is unattainable by man, whose only wisdom
is the fear of the Lord or practical piety. But to bring Job to the
feeling of this truth was just the purpose of the theophany and the
divine speeches; and, if Job had reached it already through his own
reflection, the theophany becomes an irrelevancy. It is difficult,
therefore, to find a place for these two chapters in the original
work. The hymn on Wisdom is a most exquisite poem, which probably
originated separately, and was brought into our book with a purpose
similar to that which suggested the speeches of Elihu. Objections have
also been raised to the descriptions of leviathan and behemoth (ch.
xl. 15-xli.). Regarding these it may be enough to say that in meaning
these passages are in perfect harmony with other parts of the Divine
words, although there is a breadth and detail in the style unlike the
sharp, short, ironical touches otherwise characteristic of this part
of the poem. (Other longer passages, the originality of which has been
called into question, are: xvii. 8 seq.; xxi. 16-18; xxii. 17 seq.;
xxiii. 8 seq.; xxiv. 9, 18-24; xxvi. 5-14. On these see the
commentaries.)
_Date._--The age of such a book as Job, dealing only with principles
and having no direct references to historical events can be fixed only
approximately. Any conclusion can be reached only by an induction
founded on matters which do not afford perfect certainty, such as the
comparative development of certain moral ideas in different ages, the
pressing claims of certain problems for solution at particular epochs
of the history of Israel, and points of contact with other writings of
which the age may with some certainty be determined. The Jewish
tradition that the book is Mosaic, and the idea that it is a production
of the desert, written in another tongue and translated into Hebrew,
want even a shadow of probability. The book is a genuine outcome of the
religious life and thought of Israel, the product of a religious
knowledge and experience that were possible among no other people. That
the author lays the scene of the poem outside his own nation and in the
patriarchal age is a proceeding common to him with other dramatic
writers, who find freer play for their principles in a region removed
from the present, where they are not hampered by the obtrusive forms of
actual life, but are free to mould occurrences into the moral form that
their ideas require.
It is the opinion of some scholars, e.g. Delitzsch, that the book
belongs to the age of Solomon. It cannot be earlier than this age, for
Job (vii. 17) travesties the ideas of Ps. viii. in a manner which shows
that this hymn was well known. To infer the date from a comparison of
literary coincidences and allusions is however a very delicate
operation. For, first, owing to the unity of thought and language which
pervades the Old Testament, in which, regarded merely as a national
literature, it differs from all other national literatures, we are apt
to be deceived, and to take mere similarities for literary allusions and
quotations; and, secondly, even when we are sure that there is
dependence, it is often uncommonly difficult to decide which is the
original source. The reference to Job in Ezek. xiv. 14 is not to our
book, but to the man (a legendary figure) who was afterwards made the
hero of it. The affinities on the other hand between Job and Isa.
xl.-lv. are very close. The date, however, of this part of Isaiah is
uncertain, though it cannot have received its final form, if it be
composite, long before the return. Between Job iii. and Jer. xx. 14 seq.
there is, again, certainly literary connexion. But the judgment of
different minds differs on the question which passage is dependent on
the other. The language of Jeremiah, however, has a natural pathos and
genuineness of feeling in it, somewhat in contrast with the elaborate
poetical finish of Job's words, which might suggest the originality of
the former.
The tendency among recent scholars is to put the book of Job not earlier
than the 5th century B.C. There are good reasons for putting it in the
4th century. It stands at the beginning of the era of Jewish
philosophical inquiry--its affinities are with Proverbs, Ecclesiasticus,
Ecclesiastes, and the Wisdom of Solomon, a body of writings that belongs
to the latest period of pre-Christian Jewish literary development (see
WISDOM LITERATURE). Its points of connexion with Isa. xl.-lv. relate
only to the problem of the suffering of the righteous, and that it is
later than the Isaiah passage appears from the fact that this latter is
national and ritual in scope, while Job is universal and ethical.
The book of Job is not literal history, though it reposes on historical
tradition. To this tradition belong probably the name of Job and his
country, and the names of his three friends, and perhaps also many other
details impossible to specify particularly. The view that the book is
entirely a literary creation with no basis in historical tradition is as
old as the Talmud (_Baba Bathra_, xv. 1), in which a rabbi is cited who
says: Job was not, and was not created, but is an allegory. This view is
supported by Hengstenberg and others. But pure poetical creations on so
extensive a scale are not probable in the East and at so early an age.
_Author._--The author of the book is wholly unknown. The religious life
of Israel was at certain periods very intense, and at those times the
spiritual energy of the nation expressed itself almost impersonally,
through men who forgot themselves and were speedily forgotten in name by
others. Hitzig conjectures that the author was a native of the north on
account of the free criticism of providence which he allows himself.
Others, on account of some affinities with the prophet Amos, infer that
he belonged to the south of Judah, and this is supposed to account for
his intimate acquaintance with the desert. Ewald considers that he
belonged to the exile in Egypt, on account of his minute acquaintance
with that country. But all these conjectures localize an author whose
knowledge was not confined to any locality, who was a true child of the
East and familiar with life and nature in every country there, who was
at the same time a true Israelite and felt that the earth was the Lord's
and the fullness thereof, and whose sympathies and thought took in all
God's works.
LITERATURE.--Commentaries by Ewald (1854); Renan (1859); Delitzsch
(1864); Zockler in Lange's _Bibelwerk_ (1872); F. C. Cook in
_Speaker's Comm._ (1880); A. B. Davidson in _Cambridge Bible_ (1884);
Dillmann (1891); K. Budde (1896); Duhm (1897). See also Hoekstra, "Job
de Knecht van Jehovah" in _Theol. Tijdschr._ (1871), and, in reply, A.
Kuenen, "Job en de leidende Knecht van Jahveh," ibid. (1873); C. H. H.
Wright in _Bib. Essays_ (1886); G. G. Bradley, _Lects. on Job_ (2nd
ed., 1888); Cheyne, _Job and Solomon_ (1887); Dawson, _Wisd. Lit._
(1893); D. B. Macdonald, "The Original Form of the Legend of Job" in
_Journ. Bib. Lit._ (1895); E. Hatch, _Essays in Bib. Gk._ (1889); A.
Dillmann, in _Trans. of Roy. Pruss. Acad._ (1890).
(A. B. D., C. H. T.*)
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Exceptions must be made in the cases of Esther and the Song of
Songs, which do not mention God, and the original writer in
Ecclesiastes who is a philosopher.
[2] This remarkable passage reads thus: "_But I know that my redeemer
liveth, and afterwards he shall arise upon the dust, and after my
skin, even this body, is destroyed, without my flesh shall I see God;
whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not as a
stranger; my reins within me are consumed_ with longing." The
redeemer who liveth and shall arise or stand upon the earth is God
whom he shall see with his own eyes, on his side. The course of
exegesis was greatly influenced by the translation of Jerome, who,
departing from the Itala, rendered: "In novissimo die de terra
surrecturus sum ... et rursum circumdabor pelle mea et in carne mea
videbo deum meum." The only point now in question is whether: (a) Job
looks for this manifestation of God to him while he is still alive,
or (b) after death, and therefore in the sense of a spiritual vision
and union with God in another life; that is, whether the words
"destroyed" and "without my flesh" are to be taken relatively only,
of the extremest effects of his disease upon him, or literally, of
the separation of the body in death. A third view which assumes that
the words rendered "without my flesh," which run literally, "out of
my flesh," mean _looking_ out from my flesh, that is, clothed with a
new body, and finds the idea of resurrection repeated, perhaps
imports more into the language than it will fairly bear. In favour of
(b) may be adduced the persistent refusal of Job throughout to
entertain the idea of a restoration in this life: the word
"afterwards"; and perhaps the analogy of other passages where the
same situation appears, as Ps. xlix. and lxxiii., although the actual
denouement of the tragedy supports (a). The difference between the
two senses is not important, when the Old Testament view of
immortality is considered. To the Hebrew the life beyond was not what
it is to us, a freedom from sin and sorrow and admission to an
immediate divine fellowship not attainable here. To him the life
beyond was at best a prolongation of the life here; all he desired
was that his fellowship with God here should not be interrupted in
death, and that Sheol, the place into which deceased persons
descended and where they remained, cut off from all life with God,
might be overleapt. On this account the theory of Ewald, which throws
the centre of gravity of the book into this passage in ch. xix.,
considering its purpose to be to teach that the riddles of this life
shall be solved and its inequalities corrected in a future life,
appears one-sided. The point of the passage does not lie in any
distinction which it draws between this life and a future life; it
lies in the assurance which Job expresses that God, who even now
knows his innocence, will vindicate it in the future, and that,
though estranged now, He will at last take him to His heart.
JOBST, or JODOCUS (c. 1350-1411), margrave of Moravia, was a son of John
Henry of Luxemburg, margrave of Moravia, and grandson of John, the blind
king of Bohemia. He became margrave of Moravia on his father's death in
1375, and his clever and unscrupulous character enabled him to amass a
considerable amount of wealth, while his ambition led him into constant
quarrels with his brother Procop, his cousins, the German king
Wenceslaus and Sigismund, margrave of Brandenburg, and others. By taking
advantage of their difficulties he won considerable power, and the
record of his life is one of warfare and treachery, followed by broken
promises and transitory reconciliations. In 1385 and 1388 he purchased
Brandenburg from Sigismund, and the duchy of Luxemburg from Wenceslaus;
and in 1397 he also became possessed of upper and lower Lusatia. For
some time he had entertained hopes of the German throne and had
negotiated with Wenceslaus and others to this end. When, however, King
Rupert died in 1410 he maintained at first that there was no vacancy, as
Wenceslaus, who had been deposed in 1400, was still king; but changing
his attitude, he was chosen German king at Frankfort on the 1st of
October 1410 in opposition to Sigismund, who had been elected a few days
previously. Jobst however was never crowned, and his death on the 17th
of January 1411 prevented hostilities between the rival kings.
See F. M. Pelzel, _Lebensgeschichte des romischen und bohmischen
Konigs Wenceslaus_ (1788-1790); J. Heidemann, _Die Mark Brandenburg
unter Jobst von Mahren_ (1881); J. Aschbach, _Geschichte Kaiser
Sigmunds_ (1838-1845); F. Palacky, _Geschichte von Bohmen_, iii.
(1864-1874); and T. Lindner, _Geschichte des Deutschen Reiches vom
Ende des 14 Jahrhunderts bis zur Reformation_, i. (1875-1880).
JOB'S TEARS, in botany, the popular name for _Coix Lachryma-Jobi_, a
species of grass, of the tribe _maydeae_, which also includes the maize
(see GRASSES). The seeds, or properly fruits, are contained singly in a
stony involucre or bract, which does not open until the enclosed seed
germinates. The young involucre surrounds the female flower and the
stalk supporting the spike of male flowers, and when ripe has the
appearance of bluish-white porcelain. Being shaped somewhat like a large
drop of fluid, the form has suggested the name. The fruits are esculent,
but the involucres are the part chiefly used, for making necklaces and
other ornaments. The plant is a native of India, but is now widely
spread throughout the tropical zone. It grows in marshy places; and is
cultivated in China, the fruit having a supposed value as a diuretic and
anti-phthisic. It was cultivated by John Gerard, author of the famous
_Herball_, at the end of the 16th century as a tender annual.
JOCASTA, or IOCASTA ([Greek: Iokaste]; in Homer, [Greek: Epikaste]), in
Greek legend, wife of Laius, mother (afterwards wife) of Oedipus (q.v.),
daughter of Menoeceus, sister (or daughter) of Creon. According to Homer
(_Od._ xi. 271) and Sophocles (_Oed. Tyr._ 1241), on learning that
Oedipus was her son she immediately hanged herself; but in Euripides
(_Phoenissae_, 1455) she stabs herself over the bodies of her sons
Eteocles and Polynices, who had slain each other in single combat before
the walls of Thebes.
JOCKEY, a professional rider of race-horses, now the current usage (see
HORSE-RACING). The word is by origin a diminutive of "Jock," the
Northern or Scots colloquial equivalent of the name "John" (cf. JACK). A
familiar instance of the use of the word as a name is in "Jockey of
Norfolk" in Shakespeare's _Richard III._ v. 3, 304. In the 16th and 17th
centuries the word was applied to horse-dealers, postilions, itinerant
minstrels and vagabonds, and thus frequently bore the meaning of a
cunning trickster, a "sharp," whence "to jockey," to outwit, or "do" a
person out of something. The current usage is found in John Evelyn's
_Diary_, 1670, when it was clearly well known. George Borrow's attempt
to derive the word from the gipsy _chukni_, a heavy whip used by
horse-dealing gipsies, has no foundation.
JODELLE, ETIENNE, seigneur de Limodin (1532-1573), French dramatist and
poet, was born in Paris of a noble family. He attached himself to the
poetic circle of the Pleiade (see DAURAT) and proceeded to apply the
principles of the reformers to dramatic composition. Jodelle aimed at
creating a classical drama that should be in every respect different
from the moralities and _soties_ that then occupied the French stage.
His first play, _Cleopatre captive_, was represented before the court at
Reims in 1552. Jodelle himself took the title role, and the cast
included his friends Remy Belleau and Jean de la Peruse. In honour of
the play's success the friends organized a little fete at Arcueil when a
goat garlanded with flowers was led in procession and presented to the
author--a ceremony exaggerated by the enemies of the Ronsardists into a
renewal of the pagan rites of the worship of Bacchus. Jodelle wrote two
other plays. _Eugene_, a comedy satirizing the superior clergy, had less
success than it deserved. Its preface poured scorn on Jodelle's
predecessors in comedy, but in reality his own methods are not so very
different from theirs. _Didon se sacrifiant_, a tragedy which follows
Virgil's narrative, appears never to have been represented. Jodelle died
in poverty in July 1573. His works were collected the year after his
death by Charles de la Mothe. They include a quantity of miscellaneous
verse dating chiefly from Jodelle's youth. The intrinsic value of his
tragedies is small. _Cleopatre_ is lyric rather than dramatic.
Throughout the five acts of the piece nothing actually happens. The
death of Antony is announced by his ghost in the first act; the story of
Cleopatra's suicide is related, but not represented, in the fifth. Each
act is terminated by a chorus which moralizes on such subjects as the
inconstancy of fortune and the judgments of heaven on human pride. But
the play was the starting-point of French classical tragedy, and was
soon followed by the _Medee_ (1553) of Jean de la Peruse and the _Aman_
(1561) of Andre de Rivaudeau. Jodelle was a rapid worker, but idle and
fond of dissipation. His friend Ronsard said that his published poems
gave no adequate idea of his powers.
Jodelle's works are collected (1868) in the _Pleiade francaise_ of
Charles Marty-Laveaux. The prefatory notice gives full information of
the sources of Jodelle's biography, and La Mothe's criticism is
reprinted in its entirety.
JODHPUR, or MARWAR, a native state of India, in the Rajputana agency.
Area, 34,963 sq. m. Pop. (1901), 1,935,565, showing a decrease of 23% in
the decade, due to the results of famine. Estimated revenue, L373,600;
tribute, L14,000. The general aspect of the country is that of a sandy
plain, divided into two unequal parts by the river Luni, and dotted with
picturesque conical hills, attaining in places an elevation of 3000 ft.
The river Luni is the principal feature in the physical aspects of
Jodhpur. One of its head-streams rises in the sacred lake of Pushkar in
Ajmere, and the main river flows through Jodhpur in a south-westerly
direction till it is finally lost in the marshy ground at the head of
the Runn of Cutch. It is fed by numerous tributaries and occasionally
overflows its banks, fine crops of wheat and barley being grown on the
saturated soil. Its water is, as a rule, saline or brackish, but
comparatively sweet water is obtained from wells sunk at a distance of
20 or 30 yds. from the river bank. The famous salt-lake of Sambhar is
situated on the borders of Jodhpur and Jaipur, and two smaller lakes of
the same description lie within the limits of the state, from which
large quantities of salt are extracted. Marble is mined in the north of
the state and along the south-east border.
The population consists of Rathor Rajputs (who form the ruling class),
Brahmans, Charans, Bhats, Mahajans or traders, and Jats. The Charans, a
sacred race, hold large religious grants of land, and enjoy peculiar
immunities as traders in local produce. The Bhats are by profession
genealogists, but also engage in trade. Marwari traders are an
enterprising class to be found throughout the length and breadth of
India.
The principal crops are millets and pulses, but wheat and barley are
largely produced in the fertile tract watered by the Luni river. The
manufactures comprise leather boxes and brass utensils; and turbans and
scarfs and a description of embroidered silk knotted thread are
specialities of the country.
The Maharaja belongs to the Rathor clan of Rajputs. The family
chronicles relate that after the downfall of the Rathor dynasty of
Kanauj in 1194, Sivaji, the grandson of Jai Chand, the last king of
Kanauj, entered Marwar on a pilgrimage to Dwarka, and on halting at the
town of Pali he and his followers settled there to protect the Brahman
community from the constant raids of marauding bands. The Rathor chief
thus laid the foundation of the state, but it was not till the time of
Rao Chanda, the tenth in succession from Sivaji, that Marwar was
actually conquered. His grandson Jodha founded the city of Jodhpur,
which he made his capital. In 1561 the country was invaded by Akbar, and
the chief was forced to submit, and to send his son as a mark of homage
to take service under the Mogul emperor. When this son Udai Singh
succeeded to the chiefship, he gave his sister Jodhbai in marriage to
Akbar, and was rewarded by the restoration of most of his former
possessions. Udai Singh's son, Gaj Singh, held high service under Akbar,
and conducted successful expeditions in Gujarat and the Deccan. The
bigoted and intolerant Aurangzeb invaded Marwar in 1679, plundered
Jodhpur, sacked all the large towns, and commanded the conversion of the
Rathors to Mahommedanism. This cemented all the Rajput clans into a bond
of union, and a triple alliance was formed by the three states of
Jodhpur, Udaipur and Jaipur, to throw off the Mahommedan yoke. One of
the conditions of this alliance was that the chiefs of Jodhpur and
Jaipur should regain the privilege of marriage with the Udaipur family,
which they had forfeited by contracting alliances with the Mogul
emperors, on the understanding that the offspring of Udaipur princesses
should succeed to the state in preference to all other children. The
quarrels arising from this stipulation lasted through many generations,
and led to the invitation of Mahratta help from the rival aspirants to
power, and finally to the subjection of all the Rajput states to the
Mahrattas. Jodhpur was conquered by Sindhia, who levied a tribute of
L60,000, and took from it the fort and town of Ajmere. Internecine
disputes and succession wars disturbed the peace of the early years of
the century, until in January 1818 Jodhpur was taken under British
protection. In 1839 the misgovernment of the raja led to an insurrection
which compelled the interference of the British. In 1843, the chief
having died without a son, and without having adopted an heir, the
nobles and state officials were left to select a successor from the
nearest of kin. Their choice fell upon Raja Takht Sinh, chief of
Ahmednagar. This chief, who did good service during the Mutiny, died in
1873. Maharaja Jaswant Singh, who died in 1896, was a very enlightened
ruler. His brother, Sir Pertab Singh (q.v.), conducted the
administration until his nephew, Sardar Singh, came of age in 1898. The
imperial service cavalry formed part of the reserve brigade during the
Tirah campaign.
The state maintains a railway running to Bikanir, and there is also a
branch railway into Sind. Gold, silver and copper money is coined. The
state emblems are a _jhar_ or sprig of seven branches and a _khanda_ or
sword. Jodhpur practically escaped the plague, but it suffered more
severely than any other part of Rajputana from the famine of 1899-1900.
In February 1900 more than 110,000 persons were in receipt of famine
relief.
The city of JODHPUR is 64 m. by rail N.W. of Marwar junction, on the
Rajputana railway. Pop. (1901), 60,437. It was built by Rao Jodha in
1459, and from that time has been the seat of government. It is
surrounded by a strong wall nearly 6 m. in extent, with seventy gates.
The fort, which stands on an isolated rock, contains the maharaja's
palace, a large and handsome building, completely covering the crest of
the hill on which it stands, and overlooking the city, which lies
several hundred feet below. The city contains palaces of the maharaja,
and town residences of the _thakurs_ or nobles, besides numerous fine
temples and tanks. Building stone is plentiful and close at hand, and
the architecture is solid and handsome. Three miles north of Jodhpur are
the ruins of Mandor, the site of the ancient capital of the Parihar
princes of Marwar, before its conquest by the Rathors. Mills for
grinding flour and crushing grain have been constructed for the imperial
service troops. The Jaswant college is affiliated to the B.A. standard
of the Allahabad university. To the Hewson hospital a wing for eye
diseases was added in 1898, and the Jaswant hospital for women is under
an English lady doctor.
JOEL. The second book among the minor prophets in the Bible is entitled
_The word of Yahweh that came to Joel the son of Pethuel_, or, as the
Septuagint, Latin, Syriac and other versions read, _Bethuel_. Nothing is
recorded as to the date or occasion of the prophecy. Most Hebrew
prophecies contain pointed references to the foreign politics and social
relations of the nation at the time. In the book of Joel there are only
scanty allusions to Phoenicians, Philistines, Egypt and Edom, couched in
terms applicable to very different ages, while the prophet's own people
are exhorted to repentance without specific reference to any of those
national sins of which other prophets speak. The occasion of the
prophecy, described with great force of rhetoric, is no known historical
event, but a plague of locusts, perhaps repeated in successive seasons;
and even here there are features in the description which have led many
expositors to seek an allegorical interpretation. The most remarkable
part of the book is the eschatological picture with which it closes; and
the way in which the plague of locusts appears to be taken as
foreshadowing the final judgment--the great day or assize of Yahweh, in
which Israel's enemies are destroyed--is so unique as greatly to
complicate the exegetical problem. It is not therefore surprising that
the most various views are still held as to the date and meaning of the
book. Allegorists and literalists still contend over the first and still
more over the second chapter, and, while the largest number of recent
interpreters accept Credner's view that the prophecy was written in the
reign of Joash of Judah (835-796 B.C.?), a powerful school of critics
(including A. B. Davidson) follow the view suggested by Vatke (_Bib.
Theol._ p. 462 seq.), and reckon Joel among the post-exile prophets.
Other scholars give yet other dates: see the particulars in the
elaborate work of Merx. The followers of Credner are literalists; the
opposite school of moderns includes some literalists (as Duhm), while
others (like Hilgenfeld, and in a modified sense Merx) adopt the old
allegorical interpretation which treats the locusts as a figure for the
enemies of Jerusalem.
There are cogent reasons for placing Joel either earlier or later than
the great series of prophets extending from the time when Amos first
proclaimed the approach of the Assyrian down to the Babylonian exile.
In Joel the enemies of Israel are the nations collectively, and among
those specified by name neither Assyria nor Chaldaea finds a place.
This circumstance might, if it stood alone, be explained by placing
Joel with Zephaniah in the brief interval between the decline of the
empire of Nineveh and the advance of the Babylonians. But it is
further obvious that Joel has no part in the internal struggle between
spiritual Yahweh-worship and idolatry which occupied all the prophets
from Amos to the captivity. He presupposes a nation of
Yahweh-worshippers, whose religion has its centre in the temple and
priesthood of Zion, which is indeed conscious of sin, and needs
forgiveness and an outpouring of the Spirit, but is not visibly
divided, as the kingdom of Judah was between the adherents of
spiritual prophecy and a party whose national worship of Yahweh
involved for them no fundamental separation from the surrounding
nations. The book, therefore, must have been written before the
ethico-spiritual and the popular conceptions of Yahweh came into
conscious antagonism, or else after the fall of the state and the
restoration of the community of Jerusalem to religious rather than
political existence had decided the contest in favour of the
prophets, and of the Law in which their teaching was ultimately
crystallized.
The considerations which have given currency to an early date for Joel
are of various kinds. The absence of all mention of one great
oppressing world-power seems most natural before the westward march of
Assyria involved Israel in the general politics of Asia. The purity of
the style is also urged, and a comparison of Amos i. 2, Joel iii. 16
(Heb. iv. 16), and Amos ix. 13, Joel iii. 18 (iv. 18), has been taken
as proving that Amos knew our book. The last argument might be
inverted with much greater probability, and numerous points of contact
between Joel and other parts of the Old Testament (e.g. Joel ii. 2,
Exod. x. 14; Joel ii. 3, Ezek. xxxvi. 35; Joel iii. 10, Mic. iv. 3)
make it not incredible that the purity of his style--which is rather
elegant than original and strongly marked--is in large measure the
fruit of literary culture. The absence of allusion to a hostile or
oppressing empire may be fairly taken in connexion with the fact that
the prophecy gives no indication of political life at Jerusalem. When
the whole people is mustered in ch. i., the elders or sheikhs of the
municipality and the priests of the temple are the most prominent
figures. The king is not mentioned--which on Credner's view is
explained by assuming that the plague fell in the minority of Joash,
when the priest Jehoiada held the reins of power--and the princes,
councillors and warriors necessary to an independent state, and so
often referred to by the prophets before the exile, are altogether
lacking. The nation has only a municipal organization with a priestly
aristocracy, precisely the state of things that prevailed under the
Persian empire. That the Persians do not appear as enemies of Yahweh
and his people is perfectly natural. They were hard masters but not
invaders, and under them the enemies of the Jews were their
neighbours, just as appears in Joel.[1] Those, however, who place our
prophet in the minority of King Joash draw a special argument from the
mention of Phoenicians, Philistines and Edomites (iii. 4 seq., 19),
pointing to the revolt of Edom under Joram (2 Kings viii. 20) and the
incursion of the Philistines in the same reign (2 Chron. xxi. 16,
xxii. 1). These were recent events in the time of Joash, and in like
manner the Phoenician slave trade in Jewish children is carried back
to an early date by the reference in Amos i. 9. This argument is
rather specious than sound. Edom's hostility to Judah was incessant,
but the feud reached its full intensity only after the time of
Deuteronomy (xxiii. 7), when the Edomites joined the Chaldaeans, drew
profit from the overthrow of the Jews, whose land they partly
occupied, and exercised barbarous cruelty towards the fugitives of
Jerusalem (Obad. _passim_; Mal. i. 2 seq.; Isa. lxiii.). The offence
of shedding innocent blood charged on them by Joel is natural after
these events, but hardly so in connexion with the revolt against
Joram.
As regards the Philistines, it is impossible to lay much weight on the
statement of Chronicles, unsupported as it is by the older history,
and in Joel the Philistines plainly stand in one category with the
Phoenicians, as slave dealers, not as armed foes. Gaza in fact was a
slave emporium as early as the time of Amos (i. 6), and continued so
till Roman times.
Thus, if any inference as to date can be drawn from ch. iii., it must
rest on special features of the trade in slaves, which was always an
important part of the commerce of the Levant. In the time of Amos the
slaves collected by Philistines and Tyrians were sold _en masse_ to
Edom, and presumably went to Egypt or Arabia. Joel complains that they
were sold to the Grecians (Javan, Ionians).[2] It is probable that
some Hebrew and Syrian slaves were exported to the Mediterranean
coasts from a very early date, and Isa. xi. 11 already speaks of
Israelites captive in these districts as well as in Egypt, Ethiopia
and the East. But the traffic in this direction hardly became
extensive till a later date. In Deut. xxviii. 68, Egypt is still the
chief goal of the maritime slave trade, and in Ezek. xxvii. 13 Javan
exports slaves to Tyre, not conversely. Thus the allusion to Javan in
Joel better suits a later date, when Syrian slaves were in special
request in Greece.[3] And the name of Javan is not found in any part
of the Old Testament certainly older than Ezekiel. In Joel it seems to
stand as a general representative of the distant countries reached by
the Mediterranean (in contrast with the southern Arabians, _Sabaeans_,
ch. iii. 8), the farthest nation reached by the fleets of the Red Sea.
This is precisely the geographical standpoint of the post-exile author
of Gen. x. 4, where (assuming that Elishah = Carthage and Tarshish =
Tartessus) Javan includes Carthage and Tartessus.
Finally, the allusion to Egypt in Joel iii. 19 must on Credner's
theory be explained of the invasion of Shishak a century before
Joash. From this time down to the last period of the Hebrew monarchy
Egypt was not the enemy of Judah.
If the arguments chiefly relied on for an early date are so precarious
or can even be turned against their inventors, there are others of an
unambiguous kind which make for a date in the Persian period. It
appears from ch. iii. 1, 2, that Joel wrote after the exile. The
phrase "to bring again the captivity" would not alone suffice to prove
this, for it is used in a wide sense, and perhaps means rather to
"reverse the calamity,"[4] but the dispersion of Israel among the
nations, and the allotment of the Holy Land to new occupants, cannot
fairly be referred to any calamity less than that of the captivity.
With this the whole standpoint of the prophecy agrees. To Joel Judah
and the people of Yahweh are synonyms; northern Israel has
disappeared. Now it is true that those who take their view of the
history from Chronicles, where the kingdom of Ephraim is always
treated as a sect outside the true religion, can reconcile this fact
with an early date. But in ancient times it was not so; and under
Joash, the contemporary of Elisha, such a limitation of the people of
Yahweh is wholly inconceivable. The earliest prophetic books have a
quite different standpoint; otherwise indeed the books of northern
prophets and historians could never have been admitted into the Jewish
canon. Again, the significant fact that there is no mention of a king
and princes, but only of sheikhs and priests, has a force not to be
invalidated by the ingenious reference of the book to the time of
Joash's minority and the supposed regency of Jehoiada.[5] And the
assumption that there was a period before the prophetic conflicts of
the 8th century B.C. when spiritual prophecy had unchallenged sway,
when there was no gross idolatry or superstition, when the priests of
Jerusalem, acting in accord with prophets like Joel, held the same
place as heads of a pure worship which they occupied after the exile
(cf. Ewald, _Propheten_, i. 89), is not consistent with history. It
rests on the old theory of the antiquity of the Levitical legislation,
so that in fact all who place that legislation later than Ezekiel are
agreed that the book of Joel is also late. In this connexion one point
deserves special notice. The religious significance of the plague of
drought and locusts is expressed in ch. i. 9 in the observation that
the daily meat and drink offering are cut off, and the token of new
blessing is the restoration of this service, ch. ii. 14. In other
words, the daily offering is the continual symbol of gracious
intercourse between Yahweh and his people and the main office of
religion. This conception, which finds its parallel in Dan. viii. 11,
xi. 31, xii. 11, is quite in accordance with the later law. But under
the monarchy the daily oblation was the king's private offering, and
not till Ezra's reformation did it become the affair of the community
and the central act of national worship (Neh. x. 33 seq.).[6] That
Joel wrote not only after the exile but after the work of Ezra and
Nehemiah may be viewed as confirmed by the allusions to the walls of
Jerusalem in ch. ii. 7, 9. Such is the historical basis which we seem
to be able to lay for the study of the exegetical problems of the
book.
The style of Joel is clear (which hardly favours an early date), and his
language presents peculiarities which are evidences of a late origin.
But the structure of the book, the symbolism and the connexion of the
prophet's thoughts have given rise to much controversy. It seems safest
to start from the fact that the prophecy is divided into two well-marked
sections by ch. ii. 18, 19a. According to the Massoretic vocalization,
which is in harmony with the most ancient exegetical tradition as
contained in the LXX, these words are historical: "Then the Lord was
jealous,... and answered and said unto his people, Behold," &c. Such is
the natural meaning of the words as pointed.
Thus the book falls into two parts. In the first the prophet speaks in
his own name, addressing himself to the people in a lively description
of a present calamity caused by a terrible plague of locusts which
threatens the entire destruction of the country, and appears to be the
vehicle of a final consuming judgment (the day of Yahweh). There is no
hope save in repentance and prayer; and in ch. ii. 12 the prophet,
speaking now for the first time in Yahweh's name, calls the people to a
solemn fast at the sanctuary, and invites the intercession of the
priests. The calamity is described in the strongest colours of Hebrew
hyperbole, and it seems arbitrary to seek too literal an interpretation
of details, e.g. to lay weight on the four names of locusts, or to take
ch. i. 20 of a conflagration produced by drought, when it appears from
ii. 3 that the ravages of the locusts themselves are compared to those
of fire. But when due allowance is made for Eastern rhetoric, there is
no occasion to seek in this section anything else than literal locusts.
Nay, the allegorical interpretation, which takes the locusts to be
hostile invaders, breaks through the laws of all reasonable writing; for
the poetical hyperbole which compares the invading swarms to an army
(ii. 4 seq.) would be inconceivably lame if a literal army was already
concealed under the figure of the locusts. Nor could the prophet so far
forget himself in his allegory as to speak of a victorious host as
entering the conquered city like a thief (ii. 9). The second part of the
book is Yahweh's answer to the people's prayer. The answer begins with a
promise of deliverance from famine, and of fruitful seasons compensating
for the ravages of the locusts. In the new prosperity of the land the
union of Yahweh and his people shall be sealed anew, and so the Lord
will proceed to pour down further and higher blessings. The aspiration
of Moses (Num. xi. 29) and the hope of earlier prophets (Isa. xxxii. 15,
lix. 21; Jer. xxxi. 33) shall be fully realized in the outpouring of the
Spirit on all the Jews and even upon their servants (Isa. lxi. 5 with
lvi. 6, 7); and then the great day of judgment, which had seemed to
overshadow Jerusalem in the now averted plague, shall draw near with
awful tokens of blood and fire and darkness. But the terrors of that day
are not for the Jews but for their enemies. The worshippers of Yahweh on
Zion shall be delivered (cf. Obad. v. 17, whose words Joel expressly
quotes in ch. ii. 32), and it is their heathen enemies, assembled before
Jerusalem to war against Yahweh, who shall be mowed down in the valley
of Jehoshaphat ("Yahweh judgeth") by no human arm, but by heavenly
warriors. Thus definitively freed from the profane foot of the stranger
(Isa. lii. 1), Jerusalem shall abide a holy city for ever. The fertility
of the land shall be such as was long ago predicted in Amos ix. 13, and
streams issuing from the Temple, as Ezekiel had described in his picture
of the restored Jerusalem (Ezek. xlvii.), shall fertilize the barren
Wadi of Acacias. Egypt and Edom, on the other hand, shall be desolate,
because they have shed the blood of Yahweh's innocents. Compare the
similar predictions against Edom, Isa. xxxiv. 9 seq. (Mal. i. 3), and
against Egypt, Isa. xix. 5 seq., Ezek. xxix. Joel's eschatological
picture appears indeed to be largely a combination of elements from
older unfulfilled prophecies. Its central feature, the assembling of the
nations to judgment, is already found in Zeph. iii. 8, and in Ezekiel's
prophecy concerning Gog and Magog, where the wonders of fire and blood
named in Joel ii. 30 are also mentioned (Ezek. xxxviii. 22). The other
physical features of the great day, the darkening of the lights of
heaven, are a standing figure of the prophets from Amos v. 6, viii. 9,
downwards. It is characteristic of the prophetic eschatology that images
suggested by one prophet are adopted by his successors, and gradually
become part of the permanent scenery of the last times; and it is a
proof of the late date of Joel that almost his whole picture is made up
of such features. In this respect there is a close parallelism,
extending to minor details, between Joel and the last chapters of
Zechariah.
That Joel's delineation of the final deliverance and glory attaches
itself directly to the deliverance of the nation from a present calamity
is quite in the manner of the so-called prophetic perspective. But the
fact that the calamity which bulks so largely is natural and not
political is characteristic of the post-exile period. Other prophets of
the same age speak much of dearth and failure of crops, which in
Palestine then as now were aggravated by bad government, and were far
more serious to a small and isolated community than they could ever have
been to the old kingdom. It was indeed by no means impossible that
Jerusalem might have been altogether undone by the famine caused by the
locusts; and so the conception of these visitants as the destroying
army, executing Yahweh's final judgment, is really much more natural
than appears to us at first sight, and does not need to be explained
away by allegory. The chief argument relied upon by those who still find
allegory at least in ch. ii. is the expression _hassephoni_, "the
northerner"[7] [if this rendering is correct], in ii. 20. In view of the
other points of affinity between Joel and Ezekiel, this word inevitably
suggests Gog and Magog, and it is difficult to see how a swarm of
locusts could receive such a name, or if they came from the north could
perish, as the verse puts it, in the desert between the Mediterranean
and the Dead Sea. The verse remains a _crux interpretum_, and no
exegesis hitherto given can be deemed thoroughly satisfactory; but the
interpretation of the whole book must not be made to hinge on a single
word in a verse which might be altogether removed without affecting the
general course of the prophet's argument.
The whole verse is perhaps the addition of an allegorizing glossator.
The prediction in _v._ 19, that the seasons shall henceforth be
fruitful, is given after Yahweh has shown his zeal and pity for Israel,
not of course by mere words, but by acts, as appears in verses 20, 21,
where the verbs are properly perfects recording that Yahweh hath already
done great things, and that vegetation has already revived. In other
words, the mercy already experienced in the removal of the plague is
taken as a pledge of future grace not to stop short till all God's old
promises are fulfilled. In this context v. 20 is out of place. Observe
also that in v. 25 the locusts are spoken of in the plain language of
chap. i.
See the separate commentaries on Joel by Credner (1831), Wunsche
(1872), Merx (1879). The last-named gives an elaborate history of
interpretation from the Septuagint down to Calvin, and appends the
Ethiopic text edited by Dillmann. Nowack and Marti should also be
consulted (see their respective series of commentaries); also G. A.
Smith, in _The Book of the Twelve Prophets_, vol. i. (1896), and S. R.
Driver, _Joel and Amos_ (1897). On the language of Joel, see
Holzinger, _Z. A. T. W._ (1889), pp. 89-131. Of older commentaries the
most valuable is Pocock's (Oxford, 1691). Bochart's _Hierozoicon_ may
also be consulted. (W. R. S.; T. K. C.)
FOOTNOTES:
[1] In the A.V. of ii. 17 it appears that subjection to a foreign
power is not a present fact but a thing feared. But the parallelism
and v. 19 justify the rendering in margin of R.V. "use a byword
against them."
[2] The hypothesis of an Arabian Javan, applied to Joel iii. 6 by
Credner, Hitzig, and others, may be viewed as exploded (see Stade,
"Das Volk Javan," 1880, reprinted in his _Akad. Reden u.
Abhandlungen_, 1899, pp. 123-142). The question, however, has to be
re-examined; later interpreters, e.g. the LXX translators, may have
misunderstood. The text of the passages has to be critically treated
anew. See Cheyne, _Traditions and Beliefs of Ancient Israel_ (on Gen.
x. 2).
[3] Compare Movers, _Phonizisches Alterthum_, iii. i. 70 seq.
[4] See Ewald on Jer. xlviii. 47, Kuenen, _Theol. Tijdschrift_
(1873), p. 519; Schwally, _Z. A. T. W._, viii. 200, and Briggs on Ps.
xiv. 7.
[5] Stade not unreasonably questions whether 2 Kings xii. 1-3 implies
the paramount political influence of Jehoiada.
[6] See Wellhausen, _Geschichte Israels_, p. 78 seq.; _Prolegomena
zur Gesch. Israels_ (1883), p. 82 seq.
[7] It has been suggested that _Saphon_, which is often rather
troublesome if rendered "the north," may be a weakened form of
_sib'on_, a current popular corruption of _shimo'n_ = Ishmael. In
Ezek. xxxviii. 15 it is distinctly said that Gog is to come from the
recesses of Saphon. "Meshech" and "Tubal" are no hindrance to this
view, if the names of the so-called "sons of Japheth" are critically
examined. For they, too, as well as Saphon, can be plausibly shown to
represent regions of North Arabia. See Cheyne, _Traditions and
Beliefs of Anc. Israel_, on Gen. x. 2-4.
JOEL, MANUEL (1826-1890), Jewish philosopher and preacher. After
teaching for several years at the Breslau rabbinical seminary, founded
by Z. Frankel, he became the successor of Abraham Geiger in the
rabbinate of Breslau. He made important contributions to the history of
the school of Aqiba (q.v.) as well as to the history of Jewish
philosophy, his essays on Ibn Gabirol and Maimonides being of permanent
worth. But his most influential work was connected with the relations
between Jewish philosophy and the medieval scholasticism. He showed how
Albertus Magnus derived some of his ideas from Maimonides and how
Spinoza was indebted to the same writer, as well as to Hasdai Crescas.
These essays were collected in two volumes of _Beitrage zur Geschichte
der Philosophie_ (1876), while another two volumes of _Blicke in die
Religionsgeschichte_ (1880-1883) threw much light on the development of
religious thought in the early centuries of the Christian era. Equally
renowned were Joel's pulpit addresses. Though he was no orator, his
appeal to the reason was effective, and in their published form his
three volumes of _Predigten_ (issued posthumously) have found many
readers. (I. A.)
JOFFRIN, JULES FRANCOIS ALEXANDRE (1846-1890), French politician, was
born at Troyes on the 16th of March 1846. He served in the Franco-German
War, was involved in the Commune, and spent eleven years in England as a
political exile. He attached himself to the "possibilist" group of the
socialist party, the section opposed to the root-and-branch measures of
Jules Guesde. He became a member of the municipal council of Paris in
1882, and vice-president in 1888-1889. Violently attacked by the
Boulangist organs, _L'Intransigeant_ and _La France_, he won a suit
against them for libel, and in 1889 he contested the 18th arrondissement
of Paris with General Boulanger, who obtained a majority of over 2000
votes, but was declared ineligible. Joffrin was only admitted to the
Chamber after a heated discussion, and continued to be attacked by the
nationalists. He died in Paris on the 17th of September 1890.
JOGUES, ISAAC (1607-1646), French missionary in North America, was born
at Orleans on the 10th of January 1607. He entered the Society of Jesus
at Rouen in 1624, and in 1636 was ordained and sent, by his own wish, to
the Huron mission. In 1639 he went among the Tobacco Nation, and in 1641
journeyed to Sault Sainte Marie, where he preached to the Algonquins.
Returning from an expedition to Three Rivers he was captured by Mohawks,
who tortured him and kept him as a slave until the summer of 1643, when,
aided by some Dutchmen, he escaped to the manor of Rensselaerwyck and
thence to New Amsterdam. After a brief visit to France, where he was
treated with high honour, he returned to the Mohawk country in May 1646
and ratified a treaty between that tribe and the Canadian government.
Working among them as the founder of the Mission of the Martyrs, he
incurred their enmity, was tortured as a sorcerer, and finally killed at
Ossernenon, near Auriesville, N.Y.
See Parkman, _The Jesuits in North America_ (1898).
JOHANAN BEN ZACCAI, Palestinian rabbi, contemporary of the Apostles. He
was a disciple of Hillel (q.v.), and after the destruction of the Temple
of Jerusalem by Titus was the main instrument in the preservation of the
Jewish religion. During the last decades of the Temple Johanan was a
member of the Sanhedrin and a skilled controversialist against the
Sadducees. He is also reported to have been head of a great school in
the capital. In the war with Rome he belonged to the peace party, and
finding that the Zealots were resolved on carrying their revolt to its
inevitable sequel, Johanan had himself conveyed out of Jerusalem in a
coffin. In the Roman camp the rabbi was courteously received, and
Vespasian (whose future elevation to the imperial dignity Johanan, like
Josephus, is said to have foretold) agreed to grant him any boon he
desired. Johanan obtained permission to found a college at Jamnia
(Jabneh), which became the centre of Jewish culture. It practically
exercised the judicial functions of the Sanhedrin (see JEWS, S 40 ad
fin.). That chief literary expression of Pharisaism, the Mishnah, was
the outcome of the work begun at Jamnia. Johanan solaced his disciples
on the fall of the Temple by the double thought that charity could
replace sacrifice, and that a life devoted to the religious law could
form a fitting continuation of the old theocratic state. "Johanan felt
the fall of his people more deeply than anyone else, but--and in this
lies his historical importance--he did more than any one else to prepare
the way for Israel to rise again" (Bacher).
See Graetz, _History of the Jews_ (Eng. trans.), vol. ii. ch. xiii.;
Weiss, _Dor dor ve-doreshav_, ii. 36; Bacher, _Die Agada der
Tannaiten_, vol. i. ch. iii. (I. A.)
JOHANNESBURG, a city of the Transvaal and the centre of the Rand
gold-mining industry. It is the most populous city and the commercial
capital of South Africa. It is built on the southern slopes of the
Witwatersrand in 26 deg. 11' S. 28 deg. 2' E., at an elevation of 5764
ft. above the sea. The distances by rail from Johannesburg to the
following seaports are: Lourenco Marques, 364 m.; Durban, 483 m.; East
London, 659 m.; Port Elizabeth, 714 m.; Cape Town, 957 m. Pretoria is,
by rail, 46 m. N. by E.
The town lies immediately north of the central part of the main gold
reef. The streets run in straight lines east and west or north and
south. The chief open spaces are Market Square in the west and
Government Square in the south of the town. Park railway station lies
north of the business quarter, and farther north are the Wanderers'
athletic sports ground and Joubert's Park. The chief business streets,
such as Commissioner Street, Market Street, President Street and
Pritchard Street, run east and west. In these thoroughfares and in
several of the streets which intersect them are the offices of the
mining companies, the banks, clubs, newspaper offices, hotels and shops,
the majority being handsome stone or brick buildings, while the survival
of some wooden shanties and corrugated iron buildings recalls the early
character of the town.
_Chief Buildings, &c._--In the centre of Market Square are the market
buildings, and at its east end the post and telegraph offices, a
handsome block of buildings with a facade 200 ft. long and a tower 106
ft. high. The square itself, a quarter of a mile long, is the largest in
South Africa. The offices of the Witwatersrand chamber of mines face the
market buildings. The stock exchange is in Marshall Square. The
telephone exchange is in the centre of the city, in Von Brandis Square.
The law courts are in the centre of Government Square. The Transvaal
university college is in Plein Square, a little south of Park station.
In the vicinity is St Mary's (Anglican) parish hall (1905-1907), the
first portion of a large building planned to take the place of "Old" St
Mary's Church, the "mother" church of the Rand, built in 1887. The chief
Jewish synagogue is in the same neighbourhood. In Kerk Street, on the
outskirts of central Johannesburg, is the Roman Catholic Church of the
Immaculate Conception, the headquarters of the vicar apostolic of the
Transvaal. North of Joubert's Park is the general hospital, and beyond,
near the crest of the hills, commanding the town and the road to
Pretoria, is a fort built by the Boer government and now used as a gaol.
On the hills, some 3 m. E.N.E. of the town, is the observatory, built in
1903. Johannesburg has several theatres and buildings adapted for public
meetings. There is a race-course 2 m. south of the town under the
control of the Johannesburg Turf Club.
_The Suburbs._--North, east and west of the city proper are suburbs,
laid out on the same rectangular plan. The most fashionable are to the
east and north--Jeppestown, Belgravia, Doornfontein, the Berea,
Hillbrow, Parktown, Yeoville and Bellevue. Braamfontein (with a large
cemetery) lies north-west and Fordsburg due west of the city. At
Fordsburg are the gas and electric light and power works, and north of
Doornfontein there is a large reservoir. There are also on the Rand, and
dependent on the gold-mining, three towns possessing separate
municipalities--Germiston and Boksburg (q.v.), respectively 9 m. and 15
m. E. of Johannesburg, and Krugersdorp (q.v.), 21 m. W.
_The Mines and other Industries._--South, east and west of the city are
the gold mines, indicated by tall chimneys, battery houses and the
compounds of the labourers. The bare veld is dotted with these unsightly
buildings for a distance of over fifty miles. The mines are worked on
the most scientific lines. Characteristic of the Rand is the fine white
dust arising from the crushing of the ore, and, close to the batteries,
the incessant din caused by the stamps employed in that operation. The
compounds in general, especially those originally made for Chinese
labourers, are well built, comfortable, and fulfil every hygienic
requirement. Besides the buildings, the compounds include wide stretches
of veld. To enter and remain in the district, Kaffirs require a monthly
pass for which the employer pays 2s. (For details of gold-mining, see
GOLD.) A railway traverses the Rand, going westward past Krugersdorp to
Klerksdorp and thence to Kimberley, and eastward past Springs to Delagoa
Bay. From Springs, 25 m. E. of Johannesburg, is obtained much of the
coal used in the Rand mines.
The mines within the municipal area produce nearly half the total gold
output of the Transvaal. The other industries of Johannesburg include
brewing; printing and bookbinding, timber sawing, flour milling, iron
and brass founding, brick making and the manufacture of tobacco.
_Health, Education and Social Conditions._--The elevation of
Johannesburg makes it, despite its nearness to the tropics, a healthy
place for European habitation. Built on open undulating ground, the town
is, however, subject to frequent dust storms and to considerable
variations in the temperature. The nights in winter are frosty and snow
falls occasionally. The average day temperature in winter is 53 deg. F.,
in summer 75 deg.; the average annual rainfall is 28 in. The death-rate
among white inhabitants averages about 17 per thousand. The principal
causes of death, both among the white and coloured inhabitants, are
diseases of the lungs--including miners' phthisis and
pneumonia--diarrhoea, dysentery and enteric. The death-rate among young
children is very high.
Education is provided in primary and secondary schools maintained by the
state. In the primary schools education is free but not compulsory. The
Transvaal university college, founded in 1904 as the technical institute
(the change of title being made in 1906), provides full courses in
science, mining, engineering and law. In 1906 Alfred Beit (q.v.)
bequeathed L200,000 towards the cost of erecting and equipping
university buildings.
In its social life Johannesburg differs widely from Cape Town and
Durban. The white population is not only far larger but more
cosmopolitan, less stationary and more dependent on a single industry;
it has few links with the past, and both city and citizens bear the
marks of youth. The cost of living is much higher than in London or New
York. House rent, provisions, clothing, are all very dear, and more than
counter-balance the lowness of rates. The customary unit of expenditure
is the threepenny-bit or "tickey."
_Sanitary and other Services._--There is an ample supply of water to the
town and mines, under a water board representing all the Rand
municipalities and the mining companies. A water-borne sewerage system
began to be introduced in 1906. The general illuminant is electricity,
and both electrical and gas services are owned by the municipality. The
tramway service, opened in 1891, was taken over by the municipality in
1904. Up to 1906 the trams were horse-drawn; in that year electric cars
began running. Rickshaws are also a favourite means of conveyance. The
police force is controlled by the government.
_Area, Government and Rateable Value._--The city proper covers about 6
sq. m. The municipal boundary extends in every direction some 5 m. from
Market Square, encloses about 82 sq. m. and includes several of the
largest mines. The local government is carried on by an elected
municipal council, the franchise being restricted to white British
subjects (men and women) who rent or own property of a certain value. In
1908 the rateable value of the municipality was L36,466,644, the rate
2(1/4)d. in the L, and the town debt L5,500,000.
_Population._--In 1887 the population was about 3000. By the beginning
of 1890 it had increased to over 25,000. A census taken in July 1896
showed a population within a radius of 3 m. from Market Square of
102,078, of whom 50,907 were whites. At the census of April 1904 the
inhabitants of the city proper numbered 99,022, the population within
the municipal area being 155,642, of whom 83,363 were whites. Of the
white inhabitants, 35% were of British origin, 51,629 were males, and
31,734 females. Of persons aged sixteen or over, the number of males was
almost double the number of females. The coloured population included
about 7000 British Indians--chiefly small traders. A municipal census
taken in August 1908 gave the following result: whites 95,162; natives
and coloured 78,781; Asiatics 6780--total 180,687.
_History._--Johannesburg owes its existence to the discovery of gold in
the Witwatersrand reefs. The town, named after Johannes Rissik, then
surveyor-general of the Transvaal, was founded in September 1886, the
first buildings being erected on the part of the reef where are now the
Ferreira and Wemmer mines. These buildings were found to cover valuable
ore, and in December following the Boer government marked out the site
of the city proper, and possession of the plots was given to purchasers
on the 1st of January 1887. The exploitation of the mines led to a rapid
development of the town during the next three years. The year 1890 was
one of great depression following the exhaustion of the surface ore, but
the provision of better machinery and cheaper coal led to a revival in
1891. By 1892 the leading mines had proved their dividend-earning
capacity, and in 1895 there was a great "boom" in the shares of the
mining companies. The linking of the town to the seaports by railways
during 1892-1895 gave considerable impetus to the gold-mining industry.
Material prosperity was accompanied, however, by political, educational
and other disadvantages, and the desire of the Johannesburgers--most of
whom were foreigners or "Uitlanders"--to remedy the grievances under
which they suffered led, in January 1896, to an abortive rising against
the Boer government (see TRANSVAAL: _History_). One result of this
movement was a slight advance in municipal self-government. Since 1887
the management of the town had been entrusted to a nominated sanitary
board, under the chairmanship of the mining commissioner appointed by
the South African Republic. In 1890 elected members had been admitted to
this board, but at the end of 1897 an elective _stadsraad_ (town
council) was constituted, though its functions were strictly limited.
There was a great development in the mining industry during 1897-1898
and 1899, the value of the gold extracted in 1898 exceeding L15,000,000,
but the political situation grew worse, and in September 1899, owing to
the imminence of war between the Transvaal and Great Britain, the
majority of the Uitlanders fled from the city. Between October 1899,
when war broke out, and the 31st of May 1900, when the city was taken by
the British, the Boer government worked certain mines for their own
benefit. After a period of military administration and of government by
a nominated town council, an ordinance was passed in June 1903 providing
for elective municipal councils, and in December following the first
election to the new council took place. In 1905 the town was divided
into wards. In that year the number of municipal voters was 23,338. In
1909 the proportional representation system was adopted in the election
of town councillors.
During 1901-1903, while the war was still in progress or but recently
concluded, the gold output was comparatively slight. The difficulty in
obtaining sufficient labour for the mines led to a successful agitation
for the importation of coolies from China (see TRANSVAAL: _History_).
During 1904-1906 over 50,000 coolies were brought to the mines, a
greatly increased output being the result, the value of the gold
extracted in 1905 exceeding L20,000,000. Notwithstanding the increased
production of gold, Johannesburg during 1905-1907 passed through a
period of severe commercial depression, the result in part of the
unsettled political situation. In June 1907 the repatriation of the
Chinese coolies began; it was completed in February 1910.
An excellent compilation, entitled _Johannesburg Statistics_, dealing
with almost every phase of the city's life, is issued monthly (since
January 1905) by the town council. See also the _Post Office
Directory, Transvaal_ (Johannesburg, annually), which contains
specially prepared maps, and the annual reports of the Johannesburg
chamber of commerce. For the political history of Johannesburg, see
the bibliography under TRANSVAAL.
JOHANNISBERG, a village of Germany, in the Prussian province of
Hesse-Nassau, in the Rheingau, on the right bank of the Rhine, 6 m. S.
of Rudesheim by railway. The place is mainly celebrated for the
beautiful Schloss which crowns a hill overlooking the Rhine valley, and
is surrounded by vineyards yielding the famous Johannisberger wine. The
Schloss, built in 1757-1759 by the abbots of Fulda on the site of a
Benedictine monastery founded in 1090, was bestowed, in 1807, by
Napoleon upon Marshal Kellermann. In 1814 it was given by Francis,
emperor of Austria, to Prince Metternich, in whose family it still
remains.
JOHN (Heb. [Hebrew: Yohanan]), _Yohanan_, "Yahweh has been gracious,"
Gr. [Greek: Ioannes], Lat. _Joannes_, Ital. _Giovanni_, Span. _Juan_,
Port. _Joao_, Fr. _Jean_, Ger. _Johannes_, _Johann_ [abbr. _Hans_],
Gael. _Ian_, Pol. and Czech _Jan_, Hung. _Janos_), a masculine proper
name common in all Christian countries, its popularity being due to its
having been borne by the "Beloved Disciple" of Christ, St John the
Evangelist, and by the forerunner of Christ, St John the Baptist. It has
been the name of twenty-two popes--the style of Popes John XXII. and
XXIII. being due to an error in the number assumed by John XXI.
(q.v.)--and of many sovereigns, princes, &c. The order followed in the
biographical notices below is as follows: (1) the Apostle, (2) the
Baptist, (3) popes, (4) Roman emperors, (5) kings; John of England
first, the rest in the alphabetical order of their countries, (6) other
sovereign princes, (7) non-sovereign princes, (8) saints, (9)
theologians, chroniclers, &c. These princes who are known by a name in
addition to John (John Albert, &c.) will be found after the article
JOHN, GOSPEL OF.
JOHN, THE APOSTLE, in the Bible, was the son of Zebedee, a Galilean
fisherman, and Salome. It is probable that he was born at Bethsaida,
where along with his brother James he followed his father's occupation.
The family appears to have been in easy circumstances; at least we find
that Zebedee employed hired servants, and that Salome was among those
women who contributed to the maintenance of Jesus (Mark i. 20, xv. 40,
41, xvi. 1). John's "call" to follow our Lord occurred simultaneously
with that addressed to his brother, and shortly after that addressed to
the brothers Andrew and Simon Peter (Mark i. 19, 20). John speedily took
his place among the twelve apostles, sharing with James the title of
Boanerges ("sons of thunder," perhaps strictly "sons of anger," i.e. men
readily angered), and became a member of that inner circle to which, in
addition to his brother, Peter alone belonged (Mark v. 37, ix. 2, xiv.
33). John appears throughout the synoptic record as a zealous, fiery
Jew-Christian. It is he who indignantly complains to Jesus, "We saw one
casting out devils in Thy name, and he followeth not us," and tells Him,
"We forbade him" for that reason (Mark ix. 38); and who with his
brother, when a Samaritan village will not receive Jesus, asks Him,
"Wilt thou that we command fire to come down from heaven and consume
them?" (Luke ix. 54). The book of Acts confirms this tradition. After
the departure of Jesus, John appears as present in Jerusalem with Peter
and the other apostles (i. 13); is next to Peter the most prominent
among those who bear testimony to the fact of the resurrection (iii.
12-26, iv. 13, 19-22); and is sent with Peter to Samaria, to confirm the
newly converted Christians there (viii. 14, 25). St Paul tells us
similarly that when, on his second visit to Jerusalem, "James," the
Lord's brother, "and Cephas and John, who were considered pillars,
perceived the grace that was given unto me, they gave to me and Barnabas
the right hand of fellowship, that we should go unto the heathen, and
they unto the circumcision" (Gal. ii. 9). John thus belonged in 46-47 to
the Jewish-Christian school; but we do not know whether to the stricter
group of James or to the milder group of Peter (ibid. ii. 11-14).
The subsequent history of the apostle is obscure. Polycrates, bishop of
Ephesus (in Euseb., _H. E._ iii. 31; v. 24), attests in 196 that John
"who lay on the bosom of the Lord rests at Ephesus"; but previously in
this very sentence he has declared that "Philip one of the twelve
apostles rests in Hierapolis," although Eusebius (doubtless rightly)
identifies this Philip not with the apostle but with the
deacon-evangelist of Acts xxi. 8. Polycrates also declares that John was
a priest wearing the [Greek: petalon] (gold plate) that distinguished
the high-priestly mitre. Irenaeus in various passages of his works,
181-191, holds a similar tradition. He says that John lived up to the
time of Trajan and published his gospel in Ephesus, and identifies the
apostle with John the disciple of the Lord, who wrote the Apocalypse
under Domitian, whom Irenaeus's teacher Polycarp had known personally
and of whom Polycarp had much to tell. These traditions are accepted and
enlarged by later authors, Tertullian adding that John was banished to
Patmos after he had miraculously survived the punishment of immersion in
burning oil. As it is evident that legend was busy with John as early as
the time of Polycrates, the real worth of these traditions requires to
be tested by examination of their ultimate source. This inquiry has been
pressed upon scholars since the apostolic authorship of the Apocalypse
or of the Fourth Gospel, or of both these works, has been disputed. (See
JOHN, GOSPEL OF, and REVELATION, BOOK OF.) The question has not been
strictly one between advanced and conservative criticism, for the
Tubingen school recognized the Apocalypse as apostolic, and found in it
a confirmation of John's residence in Ephesus. On the other hand,
Lutzelberger (1840), Th. Keim (_Jesus v. Naz._, vol. i., 1867), J. H.
Scholten (1872), H. J. Holtzmann (esp. in _Einl. in d. N. T._, 3rd ed.,
1902), and other recent writers, wholly reject the tradition. It has had
able defenders in Steitz (_Stud. u. Krit._, 1868), Hilgenfeld (_Einl._,
1875) and Lightfoot (_Essays on Supernatural Religion_, collected 1889).
W. Sanday (_Criticism of Fourth Gospel_, 1905) makes passing admissions
eloquent as to the strength of the negative position; whilst amongst
Roman Catholic scholars, A. Loisy (_Le 4me. Ev._, 1903) stands with
Holtzmann, and Th. Calmes (_Ev. selon S. Jean_, 1904, 1906) and L.
Duchesne (_Hist. anc. de l'Egl._, 1906) exhibit, with papal
approbation, the inconclusiveness of the conservative arguments.
The opponents of the tradition lay weight on the absence of positive
evidence before the latter part of the 2nd century, especially in Papias
and in the epistles of Ignatius and of Irenaeus's authority, Polycarp.
They find it necessary to assume that Irenaeus mistook Polycarp; but
this is not a difficult task, since already Eusebius (c. 310-313) is
compelled to point out that Papias testifies to two Johns, the Apostle
and a presbyter, and that Irenaeus is mistaken in identifying those two
Johns, and in holding that Papias had seen John the Apostle (_H. E._
iii. 39, 5, 2). Irenaeus tells us, doubtless correctly, that Papias was
"the companion of Polycarp": this fact alone would suffice, given his
two mistakes concerning Papias, to make Irenaeus decide that Polycarp
had seen John the Apostle. The chronicler George the Monk (Hamartolus)
in the 9th century, and an epitome dating from the 7th or 8th century
but probably based on the _Chronicle_ of Philip of Side (c. 430),
declare, on the authority of the second book of Papias, that John the
Zebedean was killed by Jews (presumably in 60-70). Adolf Harnack,
_Chron. d. altchr. Litt._ (1897), pp. 656-680), rejects the assertion;
but the number of scholars who accept it as correct is distinctly on the
increase. (F. v. H.)
JOHN THE BAPTIST, in the Bible, the "forerunner" of Jesus Christ in the
Gospel story. By his preaching and teaching he evidently made a great
impression upon his contemporaries (cf. Josephus, _Ant._ xviii., S 5).
According to the birth-narrative embodied in Luke i. and ii., he was
born in "a city of Judah" in "the hill country" (possibly Hebron[1]) of
priestly parentage. His father Zacharias was a priest "of the course of
Abijah," and his mother Elizabeth, who was also of priestly descent, was
related to Mary, the mother of Jesus, whose senior John was by six
months. This narrative of the Baptist's birth seems to embody some very
primitive features, Hebraic and Palestinian in character, and possibly
at one time independent of the Christian tradition. In the apocryphal
gospels John is sometimes made the subject of special miraculous
experiences (e.g. in the _Protevangelium Jacobi_, ch. xxii., where
Elizabeth fleeing from Herod's assassins cried: "Mount of God, receive a
mother with her child," and suddenly the mountain was divided and
received her).
In his 30th year (15th year of the emperor Tiberius, ? A.D. 25-26) John
began his public life in the "wilderness of Judaea," the wild district
that lies between the Kedron and the Dead Sea, and particularly in the
neighbourhood of the Jordan, where multitudes were attracted by his
eloquence. The central theme of his preaching was, according to the
Synoptic Gospels, the nearness of the coming of the Messianic kingdom,
and the consequent urgency for preparation by repentance. John was
evidently convinced that he himself had received the divine commission
to bring to a close and complete the prophetic period, by inaugurating
the Messianic age. He identified himself with the "voice" of Isa. xl. 3.
Noteworthy features of his preaching were its original and prophetic
character, and its high ethical tone, as shown e.g. in its
anti-Pharisaic denunciation of trust in mere racial privilege (Matt.
iii. 9). Herein also lay, probably, the true import of the baptism which
he administered to those who accepted his message and confessed their
sins. It was an act symbolizing moral purification (cf. Ezek. xxxvi. 25;
Zech. xiii. 1) by way of preparation for the coming "kingdom of heaven,"
and implied that the Jew so baptized no longer rested in his privileged
position as a child of Abraham. John's appearance, costume and habits of
life, together with the tone of his preaching, all suggest the prophetic
character. He was popularly regarded as a prophet, more especially as a
second Elijah. His preaching awoke a great popular response,
particularly among the masses of the people, "the people of the land."
He had disciples who fasted (Mark ii. 18, &c.), who visited him
regularly in prison (Matt. xi. 2, xiv. 12), and to whom he taught
special forms of prayer (Luke v. 33, xi. 1). Some of these afterwards
became followers of Christ (John i. 37). John's activity indeed had
far-reaching effects. It profoundly influenced the Messianic movement
depicted in the Gospels. The preaching of Jesus shows traces of this,
and the Fourth Gospel (as well as the Synoptists) displays a marked
interest in connecting the Johannine movement with the beginnings of
Christianity. The fact that after the lapse of a quarter of a century
there were Christians in Ephesus who accepted John's baptism (Acts
xviii. 25, xix. 3) is highly significant. This influence also persisted
in later times. Christ's estimate of John (Matt. xi. 7 seq.) was a very
high one. He also pointedly alludes to John's work and the people's
relation to it, in many sayings and parables (sometimes in a tone of
irony). The duration of John's ministry cannot be determined with
certainty: it terminated in his imprisonment in the fortress of
Machaerus, to which he had been committed by Herod Antipas, whose
incestuous marriage with Herodias, the Baptist had sternly rebuked. His
execution cannot with safety be placed later than A.D. 28.
In the church calendar this event is commemorated on the 29th of August.
According to tradition he was buried at Samaria (Theodoret, _H. E._ iii.
3). (G. H. Bo.)
FOOTNOTE:
[1] There is no reason to suppose that Jutta is intended by the
[Greek: polis Iouda] of Luke i. 39: the tradition which makes 'Ain
Karim, near Jerusalem, the birthplace of the Baptist only dates from
the crusading period.
JOHN I., pope from 523 to 526, was a Tuscan by birth, and was
consecrated pope on the death of Hormisdas. In 525 he was sent by
Theodoric at the head of an embassy to Constantinople to obtain from the
emperor Justin toleration for the Arians; but he succeeded so
imperfectly in his mission that Theodoric on his return, suspecting that
he had acted only half-heartedly, threw him into prison, where he
shortly afterwards died, Felix IV. succeeding him. He was enrolled among
the martyrs, his day being May 27.
JOHN II., pope from 533 to 535, also named Mercurius, was elevated to
the papal chair on the death of Boniface II. During his pontificate a
decree against simony was engraven on marble and placed before the altar
of St Peter's. At the instance of the emperor Justinian he adopted the
proposition _unus de Trinitate passus est in carne_ as a test of the
orthodoxy of certain Scythian monks accused of Nestorian tendencies. He
was succeeded by Agapetus I.
JOHN III., pope from 561 to 574, successor to Pelagius, was descended
from a noble Roman family. He is said to have been successful in
preventing an invasion of Italy by the recall of the deposed exarch
Narses, but the Lombards still continued their incursions, and,
especially during the pontificate of his successor Benedict I.,
inflicted great miseries on the province.
JOHN IV., pope from 640 to 642, was a Dalmatian by birth, and succeeded
Severinus after the papal chair had been vacant four months. While he
adhered to the repudiation of the Monothelitic doctrine by Severinus, he
endeavoured to explain away the connexion of Honorius I. with the
heresy. His successor was Theodorus I.
JOHN V., pope from 685 to 686, was a Syrian by birth, and on account of
his knowledge of Greek had in 680 been named papal legate to the sixth
ecumenical council at Constantinople. He was the successor of Benedict
II., and after a pontificate of little more than a year, passed chiefly
in bed, was followed by Conon.
JOHN VI., pope from 701 to 705, was a native of Greece, and succeeded to
the papal chair two months after the death of Sergius I. He assisted the
exarch Theophylact, who had been sent into Italy by the emperor
Justinian II., and prevented him from using violence against the Romans.
Partly by persuasion and partly by means of a bribe, John succeeded in
inducing Gisulf, duke of Benevento, to withdraw from the territories of
the empire.
JOHN VII., pope from 705 to 707, successor of John VI., was also of
Greek nationality. He seems to have acceded to the request of the
emperor Justinian II. that he should give his sanction to the decrees of
the Quinisext or Trullan council of 692. There are several monuments of
John in the church of St Maria Antiqua at the foot of the Palatine hill;
others were formerly in the chapel of the Virgin, built by him in the
basilica of St Peter. He was succeeded by Sisinnius.
JOHN VIII., pope from 872 to 882, successor of Adrian II., was a Roman
by birth. His chief aim during his pontificate was to defend the Roman
state and the authority of the Holy See at Rome from the Saracens, and
from the nascent feudalism which was represented outside by the dukes of
Spoleto and the marquises of Tuscany and within by a party of Roman
nobles. Events, however, were so fatally opposed to his designs that no
sooner did one of his schemes begin to realize itself in fact than it
was shattered by an unlooked-for chance. To obtain an influential
alliance against his enemies, he agreed in 875, after death had deprived
him of his natural protector, the emperor Louis II., to bestow the
imperial crown on Charles the Bald; but that monarch was too much
occupied in France to grant him much effectual aid, and about the time
of the death of Charles he found it necessary to come to terms with the
Saracens, who were only prevented from entering Rome by the promise of
an annual tribute. Carloman, the opponent of Charles's son Louis, soon
after invaded northern Italy, and, securing the support of the bishops
and counts, demanded from the pope the imperial crown. John attempted to
temporize, but Lambert, duke of Spoleto, a partisan of Carloman, whom
sickness had recalled to Germany, entered Rome in 878 with an
overwhelming force, and for thirty days virtually held John a prisoner
in St Peter's. Lambert was, however, unsuccessful in winning any
concession from the pope, who after his withdrawal carried out a
previous purpose of going to France. There he presided at the council of
Troyes, which promulgated a ban of excommunication against the
supporters of Carloman--amongst others Adalbert of Tuscany, Lambert of
Spoleto, and Formosus, bishop of Porto, who was afterwards elevated to
the papal chair. In 879 John returned to Italy accompanied by Boso, duke
of Provence, whom he adopted as his son, and made an unsuccessful
attempt to get recognized as king of Italy. In the same year he was
compelled to give a promise of his sanction to the claims of Charles the
Fat, who received from him the imperial crown in 881. Before this, in
order to secure the aid of the Greek emperor against the Saracens, he
had agreed to sanction the restoration of Photius to the see of
Constantinople, and had withdrawn his consent on finding that he reaped
from the concession no substantial benefit. Charles the Fat, partly from
unwillingness, partly from natural inability, gave him also no effectual
aid, and the last years of John VIII. were spent chiefly in hurling vain
anathemas against his various political enemies. According to the
annalist of Fulda, he was murdered by members of his household. His
successor was Marinus.
JOHN IX., pope from 898 to 900, not only confirmed the judgment of his
predecessor Theodore II. in granting Christian burial to Formosus, but
at a council held at Ravenna decreed that the records of the synod which
had condemned him should be burned. Finding, however, that it was
advisable to cement the ties between the empire and the papacy, John
gave unhesitating support to Lambert in preference to Arnulf, and also
induced the council to determine that henceforth the consecration of the
popes should take place only in the presence of the imperial legates.
The sudden death of Lambert shattered the hopes which this alliance
seemed to promise. John was succeeded by Benedict IV.
JOHN X., pope from 914 to 928, was deacon at Bologna when he attracted
the attention of Theodora, the wife of Theophylact, the most powerful
noble in Rome, through whose influence he was elevated first to the see
of Bologna and then to the archbishopric of Ravenna. In direct
opposition to a decree of council, he was also at the instigation of
Theodora promoted to the papal chair as the successor of Lando. Like
John IX. he endeavoured to secure himself against his temporal enemies
through a close alliance with Theophylact and Alberic, marquis of
Camerino, then governor of the duchy of Spoleto. In December 915 he
granted the imperial crown to Berengar, and with the assistance of the
forces of all the princes of the Italian peninsula he took the field in
person against the Saracens, over whom he gained a great victory on the
banks of the Garigliano. The defeat and death of Berengar through the
combination of the Italian princes, again frustrated the hopes of a
united Italy, and after witnessing several years of anarchy and
confusion John perished through the intrigues of Marozia, daughter of
Theodora. His successor was Leo VI.
JOHN XI., pope from 931 to 935, was the son of Marozia and the reputed
son of Sergius III. Through the influence of his mother he was chosen to
succeed Stephen VII. at the early age of twenty-one. He was the mere
exponent of the purposes of his mother, until her son Alberic succeeded
in 933 in overthrowing their authority. The pope was kept a virtual
prisoner in the Lateran, where he is said to have died in 935, in which
year Leo VII. was consecrated his successor.
JOHN XII., pope from 955 to 964, was the son of Alberic, whom he
succeeded as patrician of Rome in 954, being then only sixteen years of
age. His original name was Octavian, but when he assumed the papal tiara
as successor to Agapetus II., he adopted the apostolic name of John, the
first example, it is said, of the custom of altering the surname in
connexion with elevation to the papal chair. As a temporal ruler John
was devoid of the vigour and firmness of his father, and his union of
the papal office--which through his scandalous private life he made a
byword of reproach--with his civil dignities proved a source of weakness
rather than of strength. In order to protect himself against the
intrigues in Rome and the power of Berengar II. of Italy, he called to
his aid Otto the Great of Germany, to whom he granted the imperial crown
in 962. Even before Otto left Rome the pope had, however, repented of
his recognition of a power which threatened altogether to overshadow his
authority, and had begun to conspire against the new emperor. His
intrigues were discovered by Otto, who, after he had defeated and taken
prisoner Berengar, returned to Rome and summoned a council which deposed
John, who was in hiding in the mountains of Campania, and elected Leo
VIII. in his stead. An attempt at an insurrection was made by the
inhabitants of Rome even before Otto left the city, and on his departure
John returned at the head of a formidable company of friends and
retainers, and caused Leo to seek safety in immediate flight. Otto
determined to make an effort in support of Leo, but before he reached
the city John had died, in what manner is uncertain, and Benedict V. had
mounted the papal chair.
JOHN XIII., pope from 965 to 972, was descended from a noble Roman
family, and at the time of his election as successor to Leo VIII. was
bishop of Narni. He had been somewhat inconsistent in his relations with
his predecessor Leo, but his election was confirmed by the emperor Otto,
and his submissive attitude towards the imperial power was so
distasteful to the Romans that they expelled him from the city. On
account of the threatening procedure of Otto, they permitted him shortly
afterwards to return, upon which, with the sanction of Otto, he took
savage vengeance on those who had formerly opposed him. Shortly after
holding a council along with the emperor at Ravenna in 967, he gave the
imperial crown to Otto II. at Rome in assurance of his succession to his
father; and in 972 he also crowned Theophano as empress immediately
before her marriage. On his death in the same year he was followed by
Benedict VI.
JOHN XIV., pope from 983 to 984, successor to Benedict VII., was born at
Pavia, and before his elevation to the papal chair was imperial
chancellor of Otto II. Otto died shortly after his election, when
Boniface VII., on the strength of the popular feeling against the new
pope, returned from Constantinople and placed John in prison, where he
died either by starvation or poison.
JOHN XV., pope from 985 to 996, generally recognized as the successor of
Boniface VII., the pope John who was said to have ruled for four months
after John XIV., being now omitted by the best authorities. John XV. was
the son of Leo, a Roman presbyter. At the time he mounted the papal
chair Crescentius was patrician of Rome, but, although his influence was
on this account very much hampered, the presence of the empress
Theophano in Rome from 989 to 991 restrained also the ambition of
Crescentius. On her departure the pope, whose venality and nepotism had
made him very unpopular with the citizens, died of fever before the
arrival of Otto III., who elevated his own kinsman Bruno to the papal
dignity under the name of Gregory V.
JOHN XVI.,, pope or antipope from 997 to 998, was a Calabrian Greek by
birth, and a favourite of the empress Theophano, from whom he had
received the bishopric of Placentia. His original name was Philagathus.
In 995 he was sent by Otto III. on an embassy to Constantinople to
negotiate a marriage with a Greek princess. On his way back he either
accidentally or at the special request of Crescentius visited Rome. A
little before this Gregory V., at the end of 996, had been compelled to
flee from the city; and the wily and ambitious Greek had now no scruple
in accepting the papal tiara from the hands of Crescentius. The arrival
of Otto at Rome in the spring of 998 put a sudden end to the treacherous
compact. John sought safety in flight, but was discovered in his place
of hiding and brought back to Rome, where after enduring cruel and
ignominious tortures he was immured in a dungeon.
JOHN XVII., whose original name was Sicco, succeeded Silvester II. as
pope in June 1003, but died less than five months afterwards.
JOHN XVIII., pope from 1003 to 1009, was, during his whole pontificate,
the mere creature of the patrician John Crescentius, and ultimately he
abdicated and retired to a monastery, where he died shortly afterwards.
His successor was Sergius IV.
JOHN XIX., pope from 1024 to 1033, succeeded his brother Benedict VIII.,
both being members of the powerful house of Tusculum. He merely took
orders to enable him to ascend the papal chair, having previously been a
consul and senator. He displayed his freedom from ecclesiastical
prejudices, if also his utter ignorance of ecclesiastical history, by
agreeing, on the payment of a large bribe, to grant to the patriarch of
Constantinople the title of an ecumenical bishop, but the general
indignation which the proposal excited throughout the church compelled
him almost immediately to withdraw from his agreement. On the death of
the emperor Henry II. in 1024 he gave his support to Conrad II., who
along with his consort was crowned with great pomp at St Peter's in
Easter of 1027. John died in 1033, in the full possession of his
dignities. A successor was found for him in his nephew Benedict IX., a
boy of only twelve years of age. (L. D.*)
JOHN XXI. (Pedro Giuliano-Rebulo), pope from the 8th of September 1276
to the 20th of May 1277 (should be named John XX., but there is an error
in the reckoning through the insertion of an antipope), a native of
Portugal, educated for the church, became archdeacon and then archbishop
of Braga, and so ingratiated himself with Gregory X. at the council of
Lyons (1274) that he was taken to Rome as cardinal-bishop of Frascati,
and succeeded Gregory after an interregnum of twenty days. As pope he
excommunicated Alphonso III. of Portugal for interfering with episcopal
elections and sent legates to the Great Khan. He was devoted to secular
science, and his small affection for the monks awakened the distrust of
a large portion of the clergy. His life was brought to a premature close
through the fall of the roof in the palace he had built at Viterbo. His
successor was Nicholas III.
JOHN XXI. has been identified since the 14th century, most probably
correctly, with Petrus Hispanus, a celebrated Portuguese physician and
philosopher, author of several medical works--notably the curious _Liber
de oculo_, trans. into German and well edited by A. M. Berger (Munich,
1899), and of a popular textbook in logic, the _Summulae logicales_.
John XXI. is constantly referred to as a magician by ignorant
chroniclers.
See _Les Registres de Gregoire X. et Jean XXI._, published by J.
Guiraud and E. Cadier in _Bibliotheque des ecoles francaises d'Athenes
et de Rome_ (Paris, 1898); A. Potthast, _Regesta pontif. Roman._, vol.
2 (Berlin, 1875); F. Gregorovius, _Rome in the Middle Ages_, vol. v.,
trans. by Mrs G. W. Hamilton (London, 1900-1902); R. Stapper, _Papst
Johann XXI._ (Munster, 1898); J. T. Kohler, _Vollstandige Nachricht
von Papst Johann XXI._ (Gottingen, 1760). (C. H. Ha.)
JOHN XXII., pope from 1316 to 1334, was born at Cahors, France, in 1249.
His original name was Jacques Duese, and he came either of a family of
petty nobility or else of well-to-do middle-class parents, and was not,
as has been popularly supposed, the son of a shoemaker. He began his
education with the Dominicans at Cahors, subsequently studied law at
Montpellier, and law and medicine in Paris, and finally taught at Cahors
and Toulouse. At Toulouse he became intimate with the bishop Louis, son
of Charles II., king of Naples. In 1300 he was elevated to the episcopal
see of Frejus by Pope Boniface VIII. at the instance of the king of
Naples, and in 1308 was made chancellor of Naples by Charles, retaining
this office under Charles's successor, Robert of Anjou. In 1310 Pope
Clement V. summoned Jacques to Avignon and instructed him to advise upon
the affair of the Templars and also upon the question of condemning the
memory of Boniface VIII. Jacques decided on the legality of suppressing
the order of the Templars, holding that the pope would be serving the
best interests of the church by pronouncing its suppression; but he
rejected the condemnation of Boniface as a sacrilegious affront to the
church and a monstrous abuse of the lay power. On the 23rd of December
1312 Clement appointed him cardinal-bishop of Porto, and it was while
cardinal of Porto that he was elected pope, on the 7th of August 1316.
Clement had died in April 1314, but the cardinals assembled at
Carpentras were unable to agree as to his successor. As the two-thirds
majority requisite for an election could not be obtained, the cardinals
separated, and it was not until the 28th of June 1316 that they
reassembled in the cloister of the Dominicans at Lyons, and then only in
deference to the pressure exerted upon them by Philip V. of France.
After deliberating for more than a month they elected Robert of Anjou's
candidate, Jacques Duese, who was crowned on the 5th of September, and
on the 2nd of October arrived at Avignon, where he remained for the rest
of his life.
More jurist than theologian, John defended the rights of the papacy with
rigorous zeal and as rigorous logic. For the restoration of the papacy
to its old independence, which had been so gravely compromised under his
immediate predecessors, and for the execution of the vast enterprises
which the papacy deemed useful for its prestige and for Christendom,
considerable sums were required; and to raise the necessary money John
burdened Christian Europe with new taxes and a complicated fiscal
system, which was fraught with serious consequences. For his personal
use, however, he retained but a very small fraction of the sums thus
acquired, and at his death his private fortune amounted to scarce a
million florins. The essentially practical character of his
administration has led many historians to tax him with avarice, but
later research on the fiscal system of the papacy of the period,
particularly the joint work of Samaran and Mollat, enables us very
sensibly to modify the severe judgment passed on John by Gregorovius and
others.
John's pontificate was continually disturbed by his conflict with Louis
of Bavaria and by the theological revolt of the Spiritual Franciscans.
In October 1314 Louis of Bavaria and Frederick of Austria had each been
elected German king by the divided electors. Louis was gradually
recognized by the whole of Germany, especially after his victory at
Muhldorf (1322), and gained numerous adherents in Italy, where he
supported the Visconti, who had been condemned as heretics by the pope.
John affected to ignore the successes of Louis, and on the 8th of
October 1323 forbade his recognition as king of the Romans. After
demanding a respite, Louis abruptly appealed at Nuremberg from the
future sentence of the pope to a general council (December 8, 1323). The
conflict then assumed a grave doctrinal character. The doctrine of the
rights of the lay monarchy sustained by Occam and John of Paris, by
Marsilius of Padua, John of Jandun and Leopold of Bamberg, was affirmed
by the jurists and theologians, penetrated into the parlements and the
universities, and was combated by the upholders of papal absolutism,
such as Alvaro Pelayo and Alonzo Trionfo. Excommunicated on the 21st of
March 1324, Louis retorted by appealing for a second time to a general
council, which was held on the 22nd of May 1324, and accused John of
being an enemy to the peace and the law, stigmatizing him as a heretic
on the ground that he opposed the principle of evangelical poverty as
professed by the strict Franciscans. From this moment Louis appeared in
the character of the natural ally and even the protector of the
Spirituals against the persecution of the pope. On the 11th of July 1324
the pope laid under an interdict the places where Louis or his adherents
resided, but this bull had no effect in Germany. Equally futile was
John's declaration (April 3, 1327) that Louis had forfeited his crown
and abetted heresy by granting protection to Marsilius of Padua. Having
reconciled himself with Frederick of Austria, Louis penetrated into
Italy and seized Rome on the 7th of January 1328, with the help of the
Roman Ghibellines led by Sciarra Colonna. After installing himself in
the Vatican, Louis got himself crowned by the deputies of the Roman
people; instituted proceedings for the deposition of John, whom the
Roman people, displeased by the spectacle of the papacy abandoning Rome,
declared to have forfeited the pontificate (April 18, 1328); and finally
caused a Minorite friar, Pietro Rainalucci da Corvara, to be elected
pope under the name of Nicholas V. John preached a platonic crusade
against Louis, who burned the pope's effigy at Pisa and in Amelia. Soon,
however, Louis felt his power waning, and quitted Rome and Italy (1329).
Incapable of independent action, the antipope was abandoned by the
Romans and handed over to John, who forced him to make a solemn
submission with a halter round his neck (August 15, 1330). Nicholas was
condemned to perpetual imprisonment, and died in obscurity at Avignon;
while the Roman people submitted to King Robert, who governed the church
through his vicars. In 1317, in execution of a bull of Clement V., the
royal vicariate in Italy had been conferred by John on Robert of Anjou,
and this appointment was renewed in 1322 and 1324, with threats of
excommunication against any one who should seize the vicariate of Italy
without the authorization of the pope. One of John's last acts was his
decision to separate Italy from the Empire, but this bull was of no
avail and fell into oblivion. After his death, however, the interdict
was not removed from Germany, and the resistance of Louis and his
theologians continued.
A violent manifestation of this resistance took place in connexion with
the accusation of heresy brought against the pope. On the third Sunday
in Advent 1329, and afterwards in public consistory, John had preached
that the souls of those who have died in a state of grace go into
Abraham's bosom, _sub altari Dei_, and do not enjoy the beatific vision
(_visio facie ad faciem_) of the Lord until after the Last Judgment and
the Resurrection; and he had even instructed a Minorite friar, Gauthier
of Dijon, to collect the passages in the Fathers which were in favour of
this doctrine. On the 27th of December 1331 a Dominican, Thomas of
England, preached against this doctrine at Avignon itself and was thrown
into prison. When news of this affair had reached Paris, the pope sent
the general of the Minorites, Gerard Odonis, accompanied by a Dominican,
to sustain his doctrine in that city, but King Philip VI., perhaps at
the instigation of the refugee Spirituals in Paris, referred the
question to the faculty of theology, which, on the 2nd of January 1333,
declared that the souls of the blessed were elevated to the beatific
vision immediately after death; the faculty, nevertheless, were of
opinion that the pope should have propounded his erroneous doctrine only
"_recitando_," and not "_determinando, asserendo, seu etiam opinando_."
The king notified this decision to the pope, who assembled his
consistory in November 1333, and gave a haughty reply. The theologians
in Louis's following who were opposed to papal absolutism already spoke
of "the new heretic, Jacques de Cahors," and reiterated with increasing
insistency their demands for the convocation of a general council to try
the pope. John appears to have retracted shortly before his death, which
occurred on the 4th of December 1334.[1]
John had kindled very keen animosity, not only among the upholders of
the independence of the lay power, but also among the upholders of
absolute religious poverty, the exalted Franciscans. Clement V., at the
council of Vienne, had attempted to bring back the Spirituals to the
common rule by concessions; John, on the other hand, in the bull
_Quorundam exigit_ (April 13, 1317), adopted an uncompromising and
absolute attitude, and by the bull _Gloriosam ecclesiam_ (January 23,
1318) condemned the protests which had been raised against the bull
_Quorundam_ by a group of seventy-four Spirituals and conveyed to
Avignon by the monk Bernard Delicieux. Shortly afterwards four
Spirituals were burned at Marseilles. These were immediately hailed as
martyrs, and in the eyes of the exalted Franciscans at Naples and in
Sicily and the south of France the pope was regarded as antichrist. In
the bull _Sancta Romana et universa ecclesia_ (December 28, 1318) John
definitively excommunicated them and condemned their principal book, the
_Postil_ (commentary) on the Apocalypse (February 8, 1326). The bull
_Quia nonnunquam_ (March 26, 1322) defined the derogations from the rule
punished by the pope, and the bull _Cum inter nonnullos_ (November 12,
1323) condemned the proposition which had been admitted at the general
chapter of the Franciscans held at Perugia in 1322, according to which
Christ and the Apostles were represented as possessing no property,
either personal or common. The minister general, Michael of Cesena,
though opposed to the exaggerations of the Spirituals, joined with them
in protesting against the condemnation of the fundamental principle of
evangelical poverty, and the agitation gradually gained ground. The
pope, by the bull _Quia quorundam_ (November 10, 1324), cited Michael to
appear at Avignon at the same time as Occam and Bonagratia. All three
fled to the court of Louis of Bavaria (May 26, 1328), while the majority
of the Franciscans made submission and elected a general entirely
devoted to the pope. But the resistance, aided by Louis and merged as it
now was in the cause sustained by Marsilius of Padua and John of Jandun,
became daily bolder. Treatises on poverty appeared on every side; the
party of Occam clamoured with increasing imperiousness for the
condemnation of John by a general council; and the Spirituals,
confounded in the persecution with the Beghards and with Fraticelli of
every description, maintained themselves in the south of France in spite
of the reign of terror instituted in that region by the Inquisition.
See M. Souchon, _Die Papstwahlen von Bonifaz VIII. bis Urban VI._
(Brunswick, 1888); Abbe Albe, _Autour de Jean XXII._ (Rome, 1904); K.
Muller, _Der Kampf Ludwigs des Bayern mit der Curie_ (Tubingen, 1879
seq.); W. Preger, "Memoires sur la lutte entre Jean XXII. et Louis de
Baviere" in _Abhandl. der bayr. Akad._, hist. sec., xv., xvi., xvii.;
S. Riezler, _Die litterar. Widersacher der Papste zur Zeit Ludwigs des
Baiers_ (Leipzig, 1874); F. Ehrle, "Die Spiritualen" in _Archiv fur
Litteratur-und Kirchengeschichte des Mittelalters_ (vols. i. and ii.);
C. Samaran and G. Mollat, _La Fiscalite pontificale en France au xiv^e
siecle_ (Paris, 1905); A. Coulon and G. Mollat, _Lettres secretes et
curiales de Jean XXII. se rapportant a la France_ (Paris, 1899, seq.).
(P. A.)
FOOTNOTE:
[1] On the 29th of January 1336 Pope Benedict XII. pronounced a long
judgment on this point of doctrine, a judgment which he declared had
been included by John in a bull which death had prevented him from
sealing.
JOHN XXIII. (Baldassare Cossa), pope, or rather antipope from 1410 to
1415, was born of a good Neapolitan family, and began by leading the
life of a corsair before entering the service of the Church under the
pontificate of Boniface IX. His abilities, which were mainly of an
administrative and military order, were soon rewarded by the cardinal's
hat and the legation of Bologna. On the 29th of June 1408 he and seven
of his colleagues broke away from Gregory XII., and together with six
cardinals of the obedience of Avignon, who had in like manner separated
from Benedict XIII., they agreed to aim at the assembling of a general
council, setting aside the two rival pontiffs, an expedient which they
considered would put an end to the great schism of the Western Church,
but which resulted in the election of yet a third pope. This act was
none the less decisive for Baldassare Cossa's future. Alexander V., the
first pope elected at Pisa, was not perhaps, as has been maintained,
merely a man of straw put forward by the ambitious cardinal of Bologna;
but he reigned only ten months, and on his death, which happened rather
suddenly on the 4th of May 1410, Baldassare Cossa succeeded him.
Whether the latter had bought his electors by money and promises, or
owed his success to his dominant position in Bologna, and to the support
of Florence and of Louis II. of Anjou, he seems to have received the
unanimous vote of all the seventeen cardinals gathered together at
Bologna (May 17). He took the name of John XXIII., and France, England,
and part of Italy and Germany recognized him as head of the Catholic
church.
The struggle in which he and Louis II. of Anjou engaged with Ladislaus
of Durazzo, king of Sicily, and Gregory XII.'s chief protector in Italy,
at first went in John's favour. After the brilliant victory of
Roccasecca (May 19, 1411) he had the satisfaction of dragging the
standards of Pope Gregory and King Ladislaus through the streets of
Rome. But the dispersion of Louis of Anjou's troops and his
carelessness, together with the lack of success which attended the
preaching of a crusade in Germany, France and England, finally decided
John XXIII. to abandon the French claimant to the throne of Sicily; he
recognized Ladislaus, his former enemy, as king of Naples, and Ladislaus
did not fail to salute John XXIII. as pope, abandoning Gregory XII.
(June 15, 1412). This was a fatal step: John XXIII. was trusting in a
dishonest and insatiable prince; he would have acted more wisely in
remaining the ally of the weak but loyal Louis of Anjou. However, it
seemed desirable that the reforms announced by the council of Pisa,
which the popes set up by this synod seemed in no hurry to carry into
effect, should be further discussed in the new council which it had been
agreed should be summoned about the spring of 1412. But John was anxious
that this council should be held in Rome, a city where he alone was
master; the few prelates and ambassadors who very slowly gathered there
held only a small number of sessions, in which John again condemned the
writings of Wycliffe. John was attacked by the representatives of the
various nations and reprimanded even for his private conduct, but
endeavoured to extricate himself from this uncomfortable position by
gratifying their desires, if not by reforming abuses. It is, however,
only fair to add that he took various half-measures and gave many
promises which, if they had been put into execution, would have
confirmed or completed the reforms inaugurated at Pisa. But on the 3rd
of March 1413 John adjourned the council of Rome till December, without
even fixing the place where the next session should be held. It was held
at Constance in Germany, and John could only have resigned himself to
accepting such an uncertain meeting-place because he was forced by
distress, isolation and fear to turn towards the head of the empire.
Less than a year after the treaty concluded with Ladislaus of Durazzo,
the latter forced his way into Rome (June 8, 1413), which he sacked,
expelling John, to whom even the Florentines did not dare to throw open
their gates for fear of the king of Sicily. Sigismund, king of the
Romans, not only extorted, it is said, a sum of 50,000 florins from the
pontiff in his extremity, but insisted upon his summoning the council at
Constance (December 9). It was in vain that, on the death of Ladislaus,
which took place unexpectedly (August 6, 1414), John was inspired with
the idea of breaking his compact with Sigismund and returning to Rome,
at the same time appealing to Louis of Anjou. It was too late. The
cardinals forced him towards Germany by the most direct road, without
allowing him to go by way of Avignon as he had projected, in order to
make plans with the princes of France.
On the 5th of November 1414 John opened the council of Constance, where,
on Christmas Day, he received the homage of the head of the empire, but
where his lack of prestige, the defection of his allies, the fury of his
adversaries, and the general sense of the necessity for union soon
showed only too clearly how small was the chance of his retaining the
tiara. He had to take a solemn oath to abdicate if his two rivals would
do the same, and this concession, which was not very sincere, gained him
for the last time the honour of seeing Sigismund prostrate at his feet
(March 2, 1415). But on the night of the 20th-21st of March, having
donned the garments of a layman, with a cross-bow slung at his side, he
succeeded in making his escape from Constance, accompanied only by a
single servant, and took refuge first in the castle of Schaffhausen,
then in that of Laufenburg, then at Freiburg-im-Breisgau, and finally at
Brisach, whence he hoped to reach Alsace, and doubtless ultimately
Avignon, under the protection of an escort sent by the duke of Burgundy.
The news of the pope's escape was received at Constance with an
extraordinary outburst of rage, and led to the subversive decrees of the
4th and 5th sessions, which proclaimed the superiority of the council
over the pope. Duke Frederick of Austria had hitherto sheltered John's
flight; but, laid under the ban of the empire, attacked by powerful
armies, and feeling that he was courting ruin, he preferred to give up
the pontiff who had trusted to him. John was brought back to Freiburg
(April 27), and there in vain attempted to appease the wrath which he
had aroused by more or less vague promises of resignation. His trial,
however, was already beginning. The three cardinals whom he charged with
his defence hastily declined this compromising task. Seventy-four
charges were drawn up, only twenty of which were set aside after the
witnesses had been heard. The accusation of having poisoned Alexander V.
and his doctor at Bologna was not maintained. But enough deeds of
immorality, tyranny, ambition and simony were found proved to justify
the severest judgment. He was suspended from his functions as pope on
the 14th of May 1415, and deposed on the following 29th of May.
However irregular this sentence may have been from the canonical point
of view (for the accusers do not seem to have actually proved the crime
of heresy, which was necessary, according to most scholars of the
period, to justify the deposition of a sovereign pontiff), the condemned
pope was not long in confirming it. Baldassare Cossa, now as humble and
resigned as he had before been energetic and tenacious, on his
transference to the castle of Rudolfzell admitted the wrong which he had
done by his flight, refused to bring forward anything in his defence,
acquiesced entirely in the judgment of the council which he declared to
be infallible, and finally, as an extreme precaution, ratified _motu
proprio_ the sentence of deposition, declaring that he freely and
willingly renounced any rights which he might still have in the papacy.
This fact has subsequently been often quoted against those who have
appealed to the events of 1415 to maintain that a council can depose a
pope who is _scandalizator ecclesiae_.
Cossa kept his word never to appeal against the sentence which stripped
him of the pontificate. He was held prisoner for three years in Germany,
but in the end bought his liberty from the count palatine. He used this
liberty only to go to Florence, in 1419, and throw himself on the mercy
of the legitimate pope. Martin V. appointed him cardinal-bishop of
Tusculum, a dignity which Cossa only enjoyed for a few months. He died
on the 22nd of December 1419, and all visitors to the Baptistery at
Florence may admire, under its high baldacchino, the sombre figure
sculptured by Donatello of the dethroned pontiff, who had at least the
merit of bowing his head under his chastisement, and of contributing by
his passive resignation to the extinction of the series of popes which
sprang from the council of Pisa. (N. V.)
JOHN I. (925-976), surnamed Tzimisces, East Roman emperor, was born of a
distinguished Cappadocian family. After helping his uncle Nicephorus
Phocas (q.v.) to obtain the throne and to restore the empire's eastern
provinces he was deprived of his command by an intrigue, upon which he
retaliated by conspiring with Nicephorus' wife Theophania to assassinate
him. Elected ruler in his stead, John proceeded to justify his
usurpation by the energy with which he repelled the foreign invaders of
the empire. In a series of campaigns against the newly established
Russian power (970-973) he drove the enemy out of Thrace, crossed Mt
Haemus and besieged the fortress of Dorystolon on the Danube. In several
hard-fought battles he broke the strength of the Russians so completely
that they left him master of eastern Bulgaria. He further secured his
northern frontier by transplanting to Thrace some colonies of Paulicians
whom he suspected of sympathising with their Saracen neighbours in the
east. In 974 he turned against the Abassid empire and easily recovered
the inland parts of Syria and the middle reaches of the Euphrates. He
died suddenly in 976 on his return from his second campaign against the
Saracens. John's surname was apparently derived from the Armenian
_tshemshkik_ (red boot).
See E. Gibbon, _The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire_, vol. vi.
(ed. Bury, 1896); G. Finlay, _History of Greece_, ii. 334-360 (ed.
1877); G. Schlumberger, _L'Epopee Byzantine_, i. 1-326 (1896).
JOHN II. (1088-1143), surnamed Comnenus and also Kalojoannes (John the
Good), East Roman emperor, was the eldest son of the East Roman emperor
Alexius, whom he succeeded in 1118. On account of his mild and just
reign he has been called the Byzantine Marcus Aurelius. By the personal
purity of his character he effected a notable improvement in the manners
of his age, but he displayed little vigour in internal administration or
in extirpating the long-standing corruptions of the government. Nor did
his various successes against the Hungarians, Servians and Seljuk Turks,
whom he pressed hard in Asia Minor and proposed to expel from Jerusalem,
add much to the stability of his empire. He was accidentally killed
during a wild-boar hunt on Mt Taurus, on the 8th of April 1143.
See E. Gibbon, _The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire_, v. 228 seq.
(ed. Bury, 1896).
JOHN III. (1193-1254), surnamed Vatatzes and also Ducas, East Roman
emperor, earned for himself such distinction as a soldier that in 1222
he was chosen to succeed his father-in-law Theodore I. Lascaris. He
reorganized the remnant of the East Roman empire, and by his
administrative skill made it the strongest and richest principality in
the Levant. Having secured his eastern frontier by an agreement with the
Turks, he set himself to recover the European possessions of his
predecessors. While his fleet harassed the Latins in the Aegean Sea and
extended his realm to Rhodes, his army, reinforced by Frankish
mercenaries, defeated the Latin emperor's forces in the open field.
Though unsuccessful in a siege of Constantinople, which he undertook in
concert with the Bulgarians (1235), he obtained supremacy over the
despotats of Thessalonica and Epirus. The ultimate recovery of
Constantinople by the Rhomaic emperors is chiefly due to his exertions.
See E. Gibbon, _The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire_, vi. 431-462
(ed. Bury, 1896); G. Finlay, _History of Greece_, iii. 196-320 (ed.
1877); A. Meliarakes, [Greek: Historia tou Basileiou tes Nikaias kai
tou Despotatou tes Epeirou], pp. 155-421 (1898).
JOHN IV. (c. 1250-c. 1300), surnamed Lascaris, East Roman emperor, son
of Theodore II. His father dying in 1258, Michael Palaeologus conspired
shortly after to make himself regent, and in 1261 dethroned and blinded
the boy monarch, and imprisoned him in a remote castle, where he died a
long time after.
See E. Gibbon, _The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire_, vi. 459-466
(ed. Bury, 1896); A. Meliarakes, [Greek: Historia tou Basileiou tes
Nikaias] (Athens, 1898), pp. 491-528.
JOHN V. or VI. (1332-1391), surnamed Palaeologus, East Roman emperor,
was the son of Andronicus III., whom he succeeded in 1341. At first he
shared his sovereignty with his father's friend John Cantacuzene, and
after a quarrel with the latter was practically superseded by him for a
number of years (1347-1355). His reign was marked by the gradual
dissolution of the imperial power through the rebellion of his son
Andronicus and by the encroachments of the Ottomans, to whom in 1381
John acknowledged himself tributary, after a vain attempt to secure the
help of the popes by submitting to the supremacy of the Roman Church.
See E. Gibbon, _The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire_, vi. 495
seq., vii. 38 seq. (ed. Bury, 1896); E. Pears, _The Destruction of the
Greek Empire_, pp. 70-96 (1903).
JOHN VI. or V. (c. 1292-1383), surnamed Cantacuzene, East Roman emperor,
was born at Constantinople. Connected with the house of Palaeologus on
his mother's side, on the accession of Andronicus III. (1328) he was
entrusted with the supreme administration of affairs. On the death of
the emperor in 1341, Cantacuzene was left regent, and guardian of his
son John Palaeologus, who was but nine years of age. Being suspected by
the empress and opposed by a powerful party at court, he rebelled, and
got himself crowned emperor at Didymoteichos in Thrace, while John
Palaeologus and his supporters maintained themselves at Constantinople.
The civil war which ensued lasted six years, during which the rival
parties called in the aid of the Servians and Turks, and engaged
mercenaries of every description. It was only by the aid of the Turks,
with whom he made a disgraceful bargain, that Cantacuzene brought the
war to a termination favourable to himself. In 1347 he entered
Constantinople in triumph, and forced his opponents to an arrangement by
which he became joint emperor with John Palaeologus and sole
administrator during the minority of his colleague. During this period,
the empire, already broken up and reduced to the narrowest limits, was
assailed on every side. There were wars with the Genoese, who had a
colony at Galata and had money transactions with the court; and with the
Servians, who were at that time establishing an extensive empire on the
north-western frontiers; and there was a hazardous alliance with the
Turks, who made their first permanent settlement in Europe, at
Callipolis in Thrace, towards the end of the reign (1354). Cantacuzene
was far too ready to invoke the aid of foreigners in his European
quarrels; and as he had no money to pay them, this gave them a ready
pretext for seizing upon a European town. The financial burdens imposed
by him had long been displeasing to his subjects, and a strong party had
always favoured John Palaeologus. Hence, when the latter entered
Constantinople at the end of 1354, his success was easy. Cantacuzene
retired to a monastery (where he assumed the name of Joasaph
Christodulus) and occupied himself in literary labours. He died in the
Peloponnese and was buried by his sons at Mysithra in Laconia. His
_History_ in four books deals with the years 1320-1356. Really an
apologia for his own actions, it needs to be read with caution;
fortunately it can be supplemented and corrected by the work of a
contemporary, Nicephorus Gregoras. It possesses the merit of being well
arranged and homogeneous, the incidents being grouped round the chief
actor in the person of the author, but the information is defective on
matters with which he is not directly concerned.
Cantacuzene was also the author of a commentary on the first five
books of Aristotle's _Ethics_, and of several controversial
theological treatises, one of which (_Against Mohammedanism_) is
printed in Migne (_Patrologia Graeca_, cliv.). _History_, ed. pr. by
J. Pontanus (1603); in Bonn, _Corpus scriptorum hist. Byz._, by J.
Schopen (1828-1832) and Migne, cliii., cliv. See also Val Parisot,
_Cantacuzene, homme d'etat et historien_ (1845); E. Gibbon, _Decline
and Fall_, ch. lxiii.; and C. Krumbacher, _Geschichte der
byzantinischen Litteratur_ (1897).
JOHN VI. or VII. (1390-1448), surnamed Palaeologus, East Roman emperor,
son of Manuel II., succeeded to the throne in 1425. To secure protection
against the Turks he visited the pope and consented to the union of the
Greek and Roman churches, which was ratified at Florence in 1439. The
union failed of its purpose, but by his prudent conduct towards the
Ottomans he succeeded in holding possession of Constantinople, and in
1432 withstood a siege by Sultan Murad I.
See TURKEY: _History_; and also E. Gibbon, _The Decline and Fall of
the Roman Empire_, vi. 97-107 (ed. Bury, 1896); E. Pears, _The
Destruction of the Greek Empire_, pp. 115-130 (1903).
JOHN (1167-1216), king of England, the youngest son of Henry II. by
Eleanor of Aquitaine, was born at Oxford on the 24th of December 1167.
He was given at an early age the nickname of Lackland because, unlike
his elder brothers, he received no apanage in the continental provinces.
But his future was a subject of anxious thought to Henry II. When only
five years old John was betrothed (1173) to the heiress of Maurienne and
Savoy, a principality which, as dominating the chief routes from France
and Burgundy to Italy, enjoyed a consequence out of all proportion to
its area. Later, when this plan had fallen through, he was endowed with
castles, revenues and lands on both sides of the channel; the vacant
earldom of Cornwall was reserved for him (1175); he was betrothed to
Isabella the heiress of the earldom of Gloucester (1176); and he was
granted the lordship of Ireland with the homage of the Anglo-Irish
baronage (1177). Henry II. even provoked a civil war by attempting to
transfer the duchy of Aquitaine from the hands of Richard Coeur de Lion
to those of John (1183). In spite of the incapacity which he displayed
in this war, John was sent a little later to govern Ireland (1185); but
he returned in a few months covered with disgrace, having alienated the
loyal chiefs by his childish insolence and entirely failed to defend the
settlers from the hostile septs. Remaining henceforth at his father's
side he was treated with the utmost indulgence. But he joined with his
brother Richard and the French king Philip Augustus in the great
conspiracy of 1189, and the discovery of his treason broke the heart of
the old king (see HENRY II.).
Richard on his accession confirmed John's existing possessions; married
him to Isabella of Gloucester; and gave him, besides other grants, the
entire revenues of six English shires; but excluded him from any share
in the regency which was appointed to govern England during the third
crusade; and only allowed him to live in the kingdom because urged to
this concession by their mother. Soon after the king's departure for the
Holy Land it became known that he had designated his nephew, the young
Arthur of Brittany, as his successor. John at once began to intrigue
against the regents with the aim of securing England for himself. He
picked a quarrel with the unpopular chancellor William Longchamp (q.v.),
and succeeded, by the help of the barons and the Londoners, in expelling
this minister, whose chief fault was that of fidelity to the absent
Richard. Not being permitted to succeed Longchamp as the head of the
administration, John next turned to Philip Augustus for help. A bargain
was struck; and when Richard was captured by Leopold, duke of Austria
(December 1192), the allies endeavoured to prevent his release, and
planned a partition of his dominions. They were, however, unable to win
either English or Norman support and their schemes collapsed with
Richard's return (March 1194). He magnanimously pardoned his brother,
and they lived on not unfriendly terms for the next five years. On his
deathbed Richard, reversing his former arrangements, caused his barons
to swear fealty to John (1199), although the hereditary claim of Arthur
was by the law of primogeniture undoubtedly superior.
England and Normandy, after some hesitation, recognized John's title;
the attempt of Anjou and Brittany to assert the rights of Arthur ended
disastrously by the capture of the young prince at Mirebeau in Poitou
(1202). But there was no part of his dominions in which John inspired
personal devotion. Originally accepted as a political necessity, he soon
came to be detested by the people as a tyrant and despised by the nobles
for his cowardice and sloth. He inherited great difficulties--the feud
with France, the dissensions of the continental provinces, the growing
indifference of England to foreign conquests, the discontent of all his
subjects with a strict executive and severe taxation. But he cannot be
acquitted of personal responsibility for his misfortunes. Astute in
small matters, he had no breadth of view or foresight; his policy was
continually warped by his passions or caprices; he flaunted vices of the
most sordid kind with a cynical indifference to public opinion, and
shocked an age which was far from tender-hearted by his ferocity to
vanquished enemies. He treated his most respectable supporters with base
ingratitude, reserved his favour for unscrupulous adventurers, and gave
a free rein to the licence of his mercenaries. While possessing
considerable gifts of mind and a latent fund of energy, he seldom acted
or reflected until the favourable moment had passed. Each of his great
humiliations followed as the natural result of crimes or blunders. By
his divorce from Isabella of Gloucester he offended the English baronage
(1200); by his marriage with Isabella of Angouleme, the betrothed of
Hugh of Lusignan, he gave an opportunity to the discontented Poitevins
for invoking French assistance and to Philip Augustus for pronouncing
against him a sentence of forfeiture. The murder of Arthur (1203) ruined
his cause in Normandy and Anjou; the story that the court of the peers
of France condemned him for the murder is a fable, but no legal process
was needed to convince men of his guilt. In the later quarrel with
Innocent III. (1207-1213; see LANGTON, STEPHEN) he prejudiced his case
by proposing a worthless favourite for the primacy and by plundering
those of the clergy who bowed to the pope's sentences. Threatened with
the desertion of his barons he drove all whom he suspected to
desperation by his terrible severity towards the Braose family (1210);
and by his continued misgovernment irrevocably estranged the lower
classes. When submission to Rome had somewhat improved his position he
squandered his last resources in a new and unsuccessful war with France
(1214), and enraged the feudal classes by new claims for military
service and scutages. The barons were consequently able to exact, in
Magna Carta (June 1215), much more than the redress of legitimate
grievances; and the people allowed the crown to be placed under the
control of an oligarchical committee. When once the sovereign power had
been thus divided, the natural consequence was civil war and the
intervention of the French king, who had long watched for some such
opportunity. John's struggle against the barons and Prince Louis (1216),
afterwards King Louis VIII., was the most creditable episode of his
career. But the calamitous situation of England at the moment of his
death, on the 19th of October 1216, was in the main his work; and while
he lived a national reaction in favour of the dynasty was out of the
question.
John's second wife, Isabella of Angouleme (d. 1246), who married her
former lover, Hugh of Lusignan, after the English king's death, bore the
king two sons, Henry III. and Richard, earl of Cornwall; and three
daughters, Joan (1210-1238), wife of Alexander II., king of Scotland,
Isabella (d. 1241), wife of the emperor Frederick II., and Eleanor (d.
1274), wife of William Marshal, earl of Pembroke, and then of Simon de
Montfort, earl of Leicester. John had also two illegitimate sons,
Richard and Oliver, and a daughter, Joan or Joanna, who married Llewelyn
I. ab Iorwerth, prince of North Wales, and who died in 1236 or 1237.
AUTHORITIES.--The chief chronicles for the reign are Gervase of
Canterbury's _Gesta regum_, Ralf of Coggeshall's _Chronicon_, Walter
of Coventry's _Memoriale_, Roger of Wendover's _Flores historiarum_,
the Annals of Burton, Dunstaple and Margan--all these in the Rolls
Series. The French chronicle of the so-called "Anonyme de Bethune"
(Bouquet, _Recueil des historiens des Gaules et de la France_, vol.
xxiv.), the _Histoire des ducs de Normandie et des rois d'Angleterre_
(ed. F. Michel, Paris, 1840) and the metrical biography of William the
Marshal (_Histoire de Guillaume le Marechal_, ed. Paul Meyer, 3 vols.,
Paris, 1891, &c.) throw valuable light on certain episodes. H. S.
Sweetman's _Calendar of Documents relating to Ireland_, vol. i. (Rolls
Series); W. H. Bliss's _Calendar of Entries in the Papal Registers_,
vol. i. (Rolls Series); Potthast's _Regesta pontificum_, vol. i.
(Berlin, 1874); Sir T. D. Hardy's _Rotuli litterarum clausarum_ (Rec.
Commission, 1835) and _Rotuli litterarum patentium_ (Rec. Commission,
1835) and L. Delisle's _Catalogue des actes de Philippe Auguste_
(Paris, 1856) are the most important guides to the documents. Of
modern works W. Stubbs's _Constitutional history_, vol. i. (Oxford,
1897); the same writer's preface to _Walter of Coventry_, vol. ii.
(Rolls Series); Miss K. Norgate's _John Lackland_ (London, 1902); C.
Petit-Dutaillis' _Etude sur la vie et le regne de Louis VIII._ (Paris,
1894) and W. S. McKechnie's _Magna Carta_ (Glasgow, 1905) are among
the most useful. (H. W. C. D.)
JOHN I. (1350-1395), king of Aragon, was the son of Peter IV. and his
third wife Eleanor of Sicily. He was born on the 27th of December 1350,
and died by a fall from his horse, like his namesake, cousin and
contemporary of Castile. He was a man of insignificant character, with a
taste for artificial verse.
JOHN II. (1397-1479), king of Aragon, son of Ferdinand I. and of his
wife Eleanor of Albuquerque, born on the 29th of June 1397, was one of
the most stirring and most unscrupulous kings of the 15th century. In
his youth he was one of the _infantes_ (princes) of Aragon who took part
in the dissensions of Castile during the minority and reign of John II.
Till middle life he was also lieutenant-general in Aragon for his
brother and predecessor Alphonso V., whose reign was mainly spent in
Italy. In his old age he was engaged in incessant conflicts with his
Aragonese and Catalan subjects, with Louis XI. of France, and in
preparing the way for the marriage of his son Ferdinand with Isabella of
Castile, which brought about the union of the crowns. His troubles with
his subjects were closely connected with the tragic dissensions in his
own family. John was first married to Blanche of Navarre, of the house
of Evreux. By right of Blanche he became king of Navarre, and on her
death in 1441 he was left in possession of the kingdom for his life. But
a son Charles, called, as heir of Navarre, prince of Viana, had been
born of the marriage. John from the first regarded his son with
jealousy, which after his second marriage with Joan Henriquez, and under
her influence, grew into absolute hatred. He endeavoured to deprive his
son of his constitutional right to act as lieutenant-general of Aragon
during his father's absence. The cause of the son was taken up by the
Aragonese, and the king's attempt to join his second wife in the
lieutenant-generalship was set aside. There followed a long conflict,
with alternations of success and defeat, which was not terminated till
the death of the prince of Viana, perhaps by poison given him by his
stepmother, in 1461. The Catalans, who had adopted the cause of Charles
and who had grievances of their own, called in a succession of foreign
pretenders. In conflict with these the last years of King John were
spent. He was forced to pawn Rousillon, his possession on the north-east
of the Pyrenees, to Louis XI., who refused to part with it. In his old
age he was blinded by cataract, but recovered his eyesight by the
operation of couching. The Catalan revolt was pacified in 1472, but John
had war, in which he was generally unfortunate, with his neighbour the
French king till his death on the 20th of January 1479. He was succeeded
by Ferdinand, his son by his second marriage, who was already associated
with his wife Isabella as joint sovereign of Castile.
For the history, see Rivadeneyra, "Cronicas de los reyes de Castilla,"
_Biblioteca de antares espanoles_, vols. lxvi, lxviii (Madrid, 1845,
&c.); G. Zurita, _Anales de Aragon_ (Saragossa, 1610). The reign of
John II. of Aragon is largely dealt with in W. H. Prescott's _History
of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella_ (1854).
JOHN (1296-1346), king of Bohemia, was a son of the emperor Henry VII.
by his wife Margaret, daughter of John I., duke of Brabant, and was a
member of the family of Luxemburg. Born on the 10th of August 1296, he
became count of Luxemburg in 1309, and about the same time was offered
the crown of Bohemia, which, after the death of Wenceslas III., the last
king of the Premyslides dynasty in 1306, had passed to Henry, duke of
Carinthia, under whose weak rule the country was in a very disturbed
condition. The emperor accepted this offer on behalf of his son, who
married Elizabeth (d. 1330), a sister of Wenceslas, and after Henry's
departure for Italy, John was crowned king of Bohemia at Prague in
February 1311. Henry of Carinthia was driven from the land, where a
certain measure of order was restored, and Moravia was again united with
Bohemia. As imperial vicar John represented his father at the diet of
Nuremberg in January 1313, and was leading an army to his assistance in
Italy when he heard of the emperor's death, which took place in August
1313. John was now a candidate for the imperial throne; but, on account
of his youth, his claim was not regarded seriously, and he was persuaded
to give his support to Louis, duke of Upper Bavaria, afterwards the
emperor Louis the Bavarian. At Esslingen and elsewhere he aided Louis in
his struggle with Frederick the Fair, duke of Austria, who also claimed
the Empire; but his time was mainly passed in quelling disturbances in
Bohemia, where his German followers were greatly disliked and where he
himself soon became unpopular, especially among the nobles; or in
Luxemburg, the borders of which county he was constantly and
successfully striving to extend. Restless, adventurous and warlike, John
had soon tired of governing his kingdom, and even discussed exchanging
it with the emperor Louis for the Palatinate; and while Bohemia was
again relapsing into a state of anarchy, her king was winning fame as a
warrior in almost every part of Europe. He fought against the citizens
of Metz and against his kinsman, John III., duke of Brabant; he led the
knights of the Teutonic Order against the heathen in Lithuania and
Pomerania and promised Pope John XXII. to head a crusade; and claiming
to be king of Poland he attacked the Poles and brought Silesia under his
rule. He obtained Tirol by marrying his son, John Henry, to Margaret
Maultasch, the heiress of the county, assisted the emperor to defeat and
capture Frederick the Fair at the battle of Muhldorf in 1322, and was
alternately at peace and at war with the dukes of Austria and with his
former foe, Henry of Carinthia. He was a frequent and welcome visitor to
France, in which country he had a personal and hereditary interest; and
on several occasions his prowess was serviceable to his brother-in-law
King Charles IV., and to Charles's successor Philip VI., whose son John,
afterwards King John II., married a daughter of the Bohemian king. Soon
after the battle of Muhldorf, the relations between John and the emperor
became somewhat strained, partly owing to the king's growing friendship
with the Papacy and with France, and partly owing to territorial
disputes. An agreement, however, was concluded, and John undertook his
invasion of Italy, which was perhaps the most dazzling of his exploits.
Invited by the citizens of Brescia, he crossed the Alps with a meagre
following in 1331, quickly received the homage of many of the cities of
northern Italy, and soon found himself the ruler of a great part of the
peninsula. But his soldiers were few and his enemies were many, and a
second invasion of Italy in 1333 was followed by the dissipation of his
dreams of making himself king of Lombardy and Tuscany, and even of
supplanting Louis on the imperial throne. The fresh trouble between king
and emperor, caused by this enterprise, was intensified by a quarrel
over the lands left by Henry of Carinthia, and still later by the
interference of Louis in Tirol; and with bewildering rapidity John was
allying himself with the kings of Hungary and Poland, fighting against
the emperor and his Austrian allies, defending Bohemia, governing
Luxemburg, visiting France and negotiating with the pope. About 1340 the
king was overtaken by blindness, but he continued to lead an active
life, successfully resisting the attacks of Louis and his allies, and
campaigning in Lithuania. In 1346 he made a decisive move against the
emperor. Acting in union with Pope Clement VI. he secured the formal
deposition of Louis and the election of his own son Charles, margrave of
Moravia, as German king, or king of the Romans, in July 1346. Then
journeying to help Philip of France against the English, he fought at
the battle of Crecy, where his heroic death on the 26th of August 1346
was a fitting conclusion to his adventurous life.
John was a chivalrous and romantic personage, who enjoyed a great
reputation for valour both before and after his death; but as a ruler he
was careless and extravagant, interested only in his kingdom when
seeking relief from his constant pecuniary embarrassments. After the
death of his first wife, who bore him two sons, Charles, afterwards the
emperor Charles IV., and John Henry (d. 1375), and who had been
separated from her husband for some years, the king married Beatrice (d.
1383), daughter of Louis I., duke of Bourbon, by whom he had a son,
Wenceslas (d. 1383). According to Camden the crest or badge of three
ostrich feathers, with the motto _Ich dien_, borne by the prince of
Wales was originally that of John of Bohemia and was first assumed by
Edward the Black Prince after the battle of Crecy. There is no proof,
however, that this badge was ever worn by John--it certainly was not his
crest--and its origin must be sought elsewhere.
See J. Schotter, _Johann, Graf von Luxemburg and Konig von Bohmen_
(Luxemburg, 1865); F. von Weech, _Kaiser Ludwig der Bayer und Konig
Johann von Bohmen_ (Munich, 1860), and U. Chevalier, _Repertoire des
sources historiques_, tome v. (Paris, 1905).
JOHN I. (1358-1390), king of Castile, was the son of Henry II., and of
his wife Joan, daughter of John Manuel of Villena, head of a younger
branch of the royal house of Castile. In the beginning of his reign he
had to contend with the hostility of John of Gaunt, who claimed the
crown by right of his wife Constance, daughter of Peter the Cruel. The
king of Castile finally bought off the claim of his English competitor
by arranging a marriage between his son Henry and Catherine, daughter of
John of Gaunt, in 1387. Before this date he had been engaged in
hostilities with Portugal which was in alliance with John of Gaunt. His
first quarrel with Portugal was settled by his marriage, in 1382, with
Beatrix, daughter of the Portuguese king Ferdinand. On the death of his
father-in-law in 1383, John endeavoured to enforce the claims of his
wife, Ferdinand's only child, to the crown of Portugal. He was resisted
by the national sentiment of the people, and was utterly defeated at
the battle of Aljubarrota, on the 14th of August 1385. King John was
killed at Alcala on the 9th of October 1390 by the fall of his horse,
while he was riding in a _fantasia_ with some of the light horsemen
known as the _farfanes_, who were mounted and equipped in the Arab
style.
JOHN II. (1405-1454), king of Castile, was born on the 6th of March
1405, the son of Henry III. of Castile and of his wife Catherine,
daughter of John of Gaunt. He succeeded his father on the 25th of
December 1406 at the age of a year and ten months. It was one of the
many misfortunes of Castile that the long reign of John II.--forty-nine
years--should have been granted to one of the most incapable of her
kings. John was amiable, weak and dependent on those about him. He had
no taste except for ornament, and no serious interest except in
amusements, verse-making, hunting and tournaments. He was entirely under
the influence of his favourite, Alvaro de Luna, till his second wife,
Isabella of Portugal, obtained control of his feeble will. At her
instigation he threw over his faithful and able favourite, a meanness
which is said to have caused him well-deserved remorse. He died on the
20th of July 1454 at Valladolid. By his second marriage he was the
father of Isabella "the Catholic."
JOHN I. (b. and d. 1316), king of France, son of Louis X. and Clemence,
daughter of Charles Martel, who claimed to be king of Hungary, was born,
after his father's death, on the 15th of November 1316, and only lived
seven days. His uncle, afterwards Philip V. has been accused of having
caused his death, or of having substituted a dead child in his place;
but nothing was ever proved. An impostor calling himself John I.,
appeared in Provence, in the reign of John II., but he was captured and
died in prison.
JOHN II. (1319-1364), surnamed the Good, king of France, son of Philip
VI. and Jeanne of Burgundy, succeeded his father in 1350. At the age of
13 he married Bona of Luxemburg, daughter of John, king of Bohemia. His
early exploits against the English were failures and revealed in the
young prince both avarice and stubborn persistence in projects obviously
ill-advised. It was especially the latter quality which brought about
his ruin. His first act upon becoming king was to order the execution of
the constable, Raoul de Brienne. The reasons for this are unknown, but
from the secrecy with which it was carried out and the readiness with
which the honour was transferred to the king's close friend Charles of
La Cesda, it has been attributed to the influence and ambition of the
latter. John surrounded himself with evil counsellors, Simon de Buci,
Robert de Lorris, Nicolas Braque, men of low origin who robbed the
treasury and oppressed the people, while the king gave himself up to
tournaments and festivities. In imitation of the English order of the
Garter, he established the knightly order of the Star, and celebrated
its festivals with great display. Raids of the Black Prince in Languedoc
led to the states-general of 1355, which readily voted money, but
sanctioned the right of resistance against all kinds of pillage--a
distinct commentary on the incompetence of the king. In September 1356
John gathered the flower of his chivalry and attacked the Black Prince
at Poitiers. The utter defeat of the French was made the more
humiliating by the capture of their king, who had bravely led the third
line of battle. Taken to England to await ransom, John was at first
installed in the Savoy Palace, then at Windsor, Hertford, Somerton, and
at last in the Tower. He was granted royal state with his captive
companions, made a guest at tournaments, and supplied with luxuries
imported by him from France. The treaty of Bretigny (1360), which fixed
his ransom at 3,000,000 crowns, enabled him to return to France, but
although he married his daughter Isabella to Gian Galeazzo Visconti of
Milan, for a gift of 600,000 golden crowns, imposed a heavy feudal "aid"
on merchandise, and various other taxes, John was unable to pay more
than 400,000 crowns to Edward III. His son Louis of Anjou, who had been
left as hostage, escaped from Calais in the summer of 1363, and John,
far in arrears in the payments of the ransom, surrendered himself again
"to maintain his royal honour which his son had sullied." He landed in
England in January 1364 and was received with great honour, lodged again
in the Savoy, and was a frequent guest of Edward at Westminster. He
died on the 8th of April, and the body was sent back to France with
royal honours.
See Froissart's _Chronicles_; Duc d'Aumale, _Notes et documents
relatifs a Jean, roi de France, et a sa captivite_ (1856); A. Coville,
in Lavisse's _Histoire de France_, vol. iv., and authorities cited
there.
JOHN (ZAPOLYA) (1487-1540), king of Hungary, was the son of the palatine
Stephen Zapolya and the princess Hedwig of Teschen, and was born at the
castle of Szepesvar. He began his public career at the famous Rakos diet
of 1505, when, on his motion, the assembly decided that after the death
of the reigning king, Wladislaus II., no foreign prince should be
elected king of Hungary. Henceforth he became the national candidate for
the throne, which his family had long coveted. As far back as 1491 his
mother had proposed to the sick king that his daughter Anne should be
committed to her care in order, subsequently, to be married to her son;
but Wladislaus frustrated this project by contracting a matrimonial
alliance with the Habsburgs. In 1510 Zapolya sued in person for the hand
of the Princess Anne in vain, and his appointment to the voivody of
Transylvania (1511) was with the evident intention of removing him far
from court. In 1513, after a successful raid in Turkish territory, he
hastened to Buda at the head of 1000 horsemen and renewed his suit,
which was again rejected. In 1514 he stamped out the dangerous peasant
rising under Dozsa (q.v.) and the infernal torments by means of which
the rebel leader was slowly done to death were the invention of Zapolya.
With the gentry, whose hideous oppression had moved the peasantry to
revolt, he was now more than ever popular, and, on the death of
Wladislaus II., the second diet of Rakos (1516) appointed him the
governor of the infant king Louis II. He now aimed at the dignity of
palatine also, but the council of state and the court party combined
against him and appointed Istvan Bathory instead (1519). The strife of
factions now burnt more fiercely than ever at the very time when the
pressure of the Turk demanded the combination of all the national forces
against a common danger. It was entirely due to the dilatoriness and
dissensions of Zapolya and Bathory that the great fortress of Belgrade
was captured in 1521, a loss which really sealed the fate of Hungary. In
1522 the diet would have appointed both Zapolya and Bathory
captains-general of the realm, but the court set Zapolya aside and chose
Bathory only. At the diets of Hatvan and Rakos in 1522, Zapolya placed
himself at the head of a confederation to depose the palatine and the
other great officers of state, but the attempt failed. In the following
year, however, the revolutionary Hatvan diet drove out all the members
of the council of state and made Istvan Verboczy, the great jurist, and
a friend of Zapolya, palatine. In the midst of this hopeless anarchy,
Suleiman I., the Magnificent, invaded Hungary with a countless army, and
the young king perished on the field of Mohacs in a vain attempt to stay
his progress, the contradictory orders of Louis II. preventing Zapolya
from arriving in time to turn the fortunes of the day. The court party
accused him of deliberate treachery on this occasion; but the charge
must be pronounced groundless. His younger brother George was killed at
Mohacs, where he was second commander-in-chief. Zapolya was elected king
of Hungary at the subsequent diet of Tokaj (Oct. 14), the election was
confirmed by the diet of Szekesfehervar (10th of November), and he was
crowned on the following day with the holy crown.
A struggle with the rival candidate, the German king Ferdinand I., at
once ensued (see HUNGARY: _History_) and it was only with the aid of the
Turks that king John was able to exhaust his opponent and compel him to
come to terms. Finally, in 1538, by the compact of Nagyvarad, Ferdinand
recognized John as king of Hungary, but secured the right of succession
on his death. Nevertheless John broke the compact by bequeathing the
kingdom to his infant son John Sigismund under Turkish protection. John
was the last national king of Hungary. His merit, as a statesman, lies
in his stout vindication of the national independence, though without
the assistance of his great minister Gyorgy Utiesenovich, better known
as "Frater George" (Cardinal Martinuzzi (q.v.)), this would have been
impossible. Indirectly he contributed to the subsequent conquest of
Hungary by admitting the Turk as a friend.
See Vilmos Fraknoi, _Ungarn vor der Schlacht bei Mohacs_ (Budapest,
1886); L. Kupelwieser, _Die Kampfe Ungarns mit den Osmanen bis zur
Schlacht bei Mohacs_ (Vienna, 1895); Ignacz Acsady, _History of the
Hungarian Realm_, vol. i. (Hung.) (Budapest, 1902-1904).
JOHN OF BRIENNE (c. 1148-1237), king of Jerusalem and Latin emperor of
Constantinople, was a man of sixty years of age before he began to play
any considerable part in history. Destined originally for the Church, he
had preferred to become a knight, and in forty years of tournaments and
fights he had won himself a considerable reputation, when in 1208 envoys
came from the Holy Land to ask Philip Augustus, king of France, to
select one of his barons as husband to the heiress, and ruler of the
kingdom, of Jerusalem. Philip selected John of Brienne, and promised to
support him in his new dignity. In 1210 John married the heiress Mary
(daughter of Isabella and Conrad of Montferrat), assuming the title of
king in right of his wife. In 1211, after some desultory operations, he
concluded a six years' truce with Malik-el-Adil; in 1212 he lost his
wife, who left him a daughter, Isabella; soon afterwards he married an
Armenian princess. In the fifth crusade (1218-1221) he was a prominent
figure. The legate Pelagius, however, claimed the command; and insisting
on the advance from Damietta, in spite of the warnings of King John, he
refused to accept the favourable terms of the sultan, as the king
advised, until it was too late. After the failure of the crusade, King
John came to the West to obtain help for his kingdom. In 1223 he met
Honorius III. and the emperor Frederick II. at Ferentino, where, in
order that he might be connected more closely with the Holy Land,
Frederick was betrothed to John's daughter Isabella, now heiress of the
kingdom. After the meeting at Ferentino, John went to France and
England, finding little consolation; and thence he travelled to
Compostella, where he married a new wife, Berengaria of Castile. After a
visit to Germany he returned to Rome (1225). Here he received a demand
from Frederick II. (who had now married Isabella) that he should abandon
his title and dignity of king, which--so Frederick claimed--had passed
to himself along with the heiress of the kingdom. John was now a
septuagenarian "king in exile," but he was still vigorous enough to
revenge himself on Frederick, by commanding the papal troops which
attacked southern Italy during the emperor's absence on the sixth
crusade (1228-1229). In 1229 John, now eighty years of age, was invited
by the barons of the Latin empire of Constantinople to become emperor,
on condition that Baldwin of Courtenay should marry his second daughter
and succeed him. For nine years he ruled in Constantinople, and in 1235,
with a few troops, he repelled a great siege of the city by Vataces of
Nicaea and Azen of Bulgaria. After this last feat of arms, which has
perhaps been exaggerated by the Latin chroniclers, who compare him to
Hector and the Maccabees, John died in the habit of a Franciscan friar.
An aged paladin, somewhat uxorious and always penniless, he was a
typical knight errant, whose wanderings led him all over Europe, and
planted him successively on the thrones of Jerusalem and Constantinople.
The story of John's career must be sought partly in histories of the
kingdom of Jerusalem and of the Latin Empire of the East, partly in
monographs. Among these, of which R. Rohricht gives a list
(_Geschichte des Konigreichs Jerusalem_, p. 699, n. 3), see especially
that of E. de Montcarmet, _Un chevalier du temps passe_ (Limoges, 1876
and 1881).
JOHN III. (SOBIESKI) (1624-1696), king of Poland, was the eldest son of
James Sobieski, castellan of Cracow, and Theofila Danillowiczowna,
grand-daughter of the great Hetman Zolkiewski. After being educated at
Cracow, he made the grand tour with his brother Mark and returned to
Poland in 1648. He served against Chmielnicki and the Cossacks and was
present at the battles of Beresteczko (1651) and Batoka (1652), but was
one of the first to desert his unhappy country when invaded by the
Swedes in 1654, and actually assisted them to conquer the Prussian
provinces in 1655. He returned to his lawful allegiance in the
following year and assisted Czarniecki in his difficult task of
expelling Charles X. of Sweden from the central Polish provinces. For
his subsequent services to King John Casimir, especially in the Ukraine
against the Tatars and Cossacks, he received the grand baton of the
crown, or commandership-in-chief (1668). He had already (1665) succeeded
Czarniecki as acting commander-in-chief. Sobieski had well earned these
distinctions by his extraordinary military capacity, but he was now to
exhibit a less pleasing side of his character. He was in fact a typical
representative of the unscrupulous self-seeking Polish magnates of the
17th century who were always ready to sacrifice everything, their
country included, to their own private ambition. At the election diet of
1669 he accepted large bribes from Louis XIV. to support one of the
French candidates; after the election of Michael Wisniowiecki (June 19,
1669) he openly conspired, again in the French interest, against his
lawful sovereign, and that too at the very time when the Turk was
ravaging the southern frontier of the republic. Michael was the feeblest
monarch the Poles could have placed upon the throne, and Sobieski
deliberately attempted to make government of any kind impossible. He
formed a league with the primate Prazmowski and other traitors to
dethrone the king; when (1670) the plot was discovered and participation
in it repudiated by Louis XIV., the traitors sought the help of the
elector of Brandenburg against their own justly indignant countrymen.
Two years later the same traitors again conspired against the king, at
the very time when the Turks had defeated Sobieski's unsupported
lieutenant, Luzecki, at Czertwertyworska and captured the fortress of
Kamieniec (Kamenetz-Podolskiy), the key of south-eastern Poland, while
Lemberg was only saved by the valour of Elias Lancki. The unhappy king
did the only thing possible in the circumstances. He summoned the
_tuszenia pospolite_, or national armed assembly; but it failed to
assemble in time, whereupon Michael was constrained to sign the
disgraceful peace of Buczacz (Oct. 17, 1672) whereby Poland ceded to the
Porte the whole of the Ukraine with Podolia and Kamieniec. Aroused to
duty by a series of disasters for which he himself was primarily
responsible, Sobieski now hastened to the frontier, and won four
victories in ten days. But he could not recover Kamieniec, and when the
_tuszenia pospolite_ met at Golenba and ordered an inquiry into the
conduct of Sobieski and his accomplices he frustrated all their efforts
by summoning a counter confederation to meet at Szczebrzeszyn. Powerless
to oppose a rebel who was at the same time commander-in-chief, both the
king and the diet had to give way, and a compromise was come to whereby
the peace of Buczacz was repudiated and Sobieski was given a chance of
rehabilitating himself, which he did by his brilliant victory over an
immense Turkish host at Khotin (Nov. 10, 1673). The same day King
Michael died and Sobieski, determined to secure the throne for himself,
hastened to the capital, though Tatar bands were swarming over the
frontier and the whole situation was acutely perilous. Appearing at the
elective diet of 1674 at the head of 6000 veterans he overawed every
other competitor, and despite the persistent opposition of the
Lithuanians was elected king on the 21st of May. By this time, however,
the state of things in the Ukraine was so alarming that the new king had
to hasten to the front. Assisted by French diplomacy at the Porte (Louis
XIV. desiring to employ Poland against Austria), and his own skilful
negotiations with the Tatar khan, John III. now tried to follow the
example of Wladislaus IV. by leaving the guardianship of the Ukraine
entirely in the hands of the Cossacks, while he assembled as many
regulars and militiamen as possible at Lemberg, whence he might hasten
with adequate forces to defend whichever of the provinces of the
Republic might be in most danger. But the appeal of the king was like
the voice of one crying in the wilderness, and not one gentleman in a
hundred hastened to the assistance of the fatherland. Even at the end of
August Sobieski had but 3000 men at his disposal to oppose to 60,000
Turks. Only his superb strategy and the heroic devotion of his
lieutenants--notably the converted Jew, Jan Samuel Chrzanowski, who held
the Ottoman army at bay for eleven days behind the walls of
Trembowla--enabled the king to remove "the pagan yoke from our
shoulders"; and he returned to be crowned at Cracow on the 14th of
February 1676. In October 1676, in his entrenched camp at Zaravno, he
with 13,000 men withstood 80,000 Turks for three weeks, and recovered by
special treaty two-thirds of the Ukraine, but without Kamieniec (treaty
of Zaravno, Oct. 16, 1676).
Having now secured peace abroad Sobieski was desirous of strengthening
Poland at home by establishing absolute monarchy; but Louis XIV. looked
coldly on the project, and from this time forth the old familiar
relations between the republic and the French monarchy were strained to
breaking point, though the final rupture did not come till 1682 on the
arrival of the Austrian minister, Zerowski, at Warsaw. After resisting
every attempt of the French court to draw him into the anti-Habsburg
league, Sobieski signed the famous treaty of alliance with the emperor
Leopold against the Turks (March 31, 1683), which was the prelude to the
most glorious episode of his life, the relief of Vienna and the
liberation of Hungary from the Ottoman yoke. The epoch-making victory of
the 12th of September 1683 was ultimately decided by the charge of the
Polish cavalry led by Sobieski in person. Unfortunately Poland profited
little or nothing by this great triumph, and now that she had broken the
back of the enemy she was left to fight the common enemy in the Ukraine
with whatever assistance she could obtain from the unwilling and unready
Muscovites. The last twelve years of the reign of John III. were a
period of unmitigated humiliation and disaster. He now reaped to the
full the harvest of treason and rebellion which he himself had sown so
abundantly during the first forty years of his life. A treasonable
senate secretly plotting his dethronement, a mutinous diet rejecting the
most necessary reforms for fear of "absolutism," ungrateful allies who
profited exclusively by his victories--these were his inseparable
companions during the remainder of his life. Nay, at last his evil
destiny pursued him to the battlefield and his own home. His last
campaign (in 1690) was an utter failure, and the last years of his life
were embittered by the violence and the intrigues of his dotingly
beloved wife, Marya Kazimiera d'Arquien, by whom he had three sons,
James, Alexander and Constantine. He died on the 17th of June 1696, a
disillusioned and broken-hearted old man.
See Tadeusz Korzon, _Fortunes and Misfortunes of John Sobieski_ (Pol.)
(Cracow, 1898); E. H. R. Tatham, _John Sobieski_ (Oxford, 1881);
Kazimierz Waliszewski, _Archives of French Foreign Affairs_,
1674-1696, v. (Cracow, 1881); Ludwik Piotr Leliwa, _John Sobieski and
His Times_ (Pol.) (Cracow, 1882-1885); Kazimierz Waliszewski,
_Marysienka Queen of Poland_ (London, 1898); Georg Rieder, _Johann
Sobieski_ in Wien (Vienna, 1882). (R. N. B.)
JOHN I. (1357-1433), king of Portugal, the natural son of Pedro I. (_el
Justicieiro_), was born at Lisbon on the 22nd of April 1357, and in 1364
was created grand-master of Aviz. On the death of his lawful brother
Ferdinand I., without male issue, in October 1383, strenuous efforts
were made to secure the succession for Beatrice, the only child of
Ferdinand I., who as heiress-apparent had been married to John I. of
Castile (Spain), but the popular voice declared against an arrangement
by which Portugal would virtually have become a Spanish province, and
John was after violent tumults proclaimed protector and regent in the
following December. In April 1385 he was unanimously chosen king by the
estates of the realm at Coimbra. The king of Castile invaded Portugal,
but his army was compelled by pestilence to withdraw, and subsequently
by the decisive battle of Aljubarrota (Aug. 14, 1385) the stability of
John's throne was permanently secured. Hostilities continued
intermittently until John of Castile died, without leaving issue by
Beatrice, in 1390. Meanwhile the king of Portugal went on consolidating
the power of the crown at home and the influence of the nation abroad.
In 1415 Ceuta was taken from the Moors by his sons who had been born to
him by his wife Philippa, daughter of John, duke of Lancaster; specially
distinguished in the siege was Prince Henry (q.v.) afterwards generally
known as "the Navigator." John I., sometimes surnamed "the Great," and
sometimes "father of his country," died on the 11th of August 1433, in
the forty-eighth year of a reign which had been characterized by great
prudence, ability and success; he was succeeded by his son Edward or
Duarte, so named out of compliment to Edward III. of England.
See J. P. Oliveira Martins, _Os filhos de D. Joao I._ and _A vida de
Nun' Alvares_ (Lisbon, 2nd ed. 1894).
JOHN II. (1455-1495), the Perfect, king of Portugal, succeeded his
father, Alphonso V., in August 1481. His first business was to curtail
the overgrown power of his aristocracy; noteworthy incidents in the
contest were the execution (1483) of the duke of Braganza for
correspondence with Castile, and the murder, by the king's own hand, of
the youthful duke of Viseu for conspiracy. This reign was signalized by
Bartholomeu Diaz's discovery of the Cape of Good Hope in 1488. Maritime
rivalry led to disputes between Portugal and Castile until their claims
were adjusted by the famous treaty of Tordesillas (June 7, 1494). John
II. died, without leaving male issue, in October 1495, and was succeeded
by his brother-in-law Emmanuel (Manoel) I.
See J. P. Oliveira Martins, _O principe perfeito_ (Lisbon, 1895).
JOHN III. (1502-1557), king of Portugal, was born at Lisbon, on the 6th
of June 1502, and ascended the throne as successor of his father
Emmanuel I. in December 1521. In 1524 he married Catherine, sister to
the Emperor Charles V., who shortly afterwards married the infanta
Isabella, John's sister. Succeeding to the crown at a time when Portugal
was at the height of its political power, and Lisbon in a position of
commercial importance previously unknown, John III., unfortunately for
his dominions, became subservient to the clerical party among his
subjects, with disastrous consequences to the commercial and social
prosperity of his kingdom. He died of apoplexy on the 6th of June 1557,
and was succeeded by his grandson Sebastian, then a child of only three
years.
JOHN IV. (1603-1656), the Fortunate, king of Portugal, was born at
Villaviciosa in March 1603, succeeded to the dukedom of Braganza in
1630, and married Luisa de Guzman, eldest daughter of the duke of Medina
Sidonia, in 1633. By the unanimous voice of the people he was raised to
the throne of Portugal (of which he was held to be the legitimate heir)
at the revolution effected in December 1640 against the Spanish king,
Philip IV. His accession led to a protracted war with Spain, which only
ended with the recognition of Portuguese independence in a subsequent
reign (1668). He died on the 6th of November 1656, and was succeeded by
his son Alphonso VI.
JOHN V. (1689-1750), king of Portugal, was born at Lisbon on the 22nd of
October 1689, and succeeded his father Pedro II. in December 1706, being
proclaimed on the 1st of January 1707. One of his first acts was to
intimate his adherence to the Grand Alliance, which his father had
joined in 1703. Accordingly his general Das Minas, along with Lord
Galway, advanced into Castile, but sustained the defeat of Almanza
(April 14). In October 1708 he married Maria Anna, daughter of Leopold
I., thus strengthening the alliance with Austria; the series of
unsuccessful campaigns which ensued ultimately terminated in a
favourable peace with France in 1713 and with Spain in 1715. The rest of
his long reign was characterized by royal subservience to the clergy,
the kingdom being administered by ecclesiastical persons and for
ecclesiastical objects to an extent that gave him the best of rights to
the title "Most Faithful King," bestowed upon him and his successors by
a bull of Pope Benedict XIV. in 1748. John V. died on the 31st of July
1750, and was succeeded by his son Joseph.
JOHN VI. (1769-1826), king of Portugal, was born at Lisbon on the 13th
of May 1769, and received the title of prince of Brazil in 1788. In 1792
he assumed the reins of government in name of his mother Queen Mary I.,
who had become insane. He had been brought up in an ecclesiastical
atmosphere, and, being naturally of a somewhat weak and helpless
character, was but ill adapted for the responsibilities he was thus
called on to undertake. In 1799 he assumed the title of regent, which he
retained until his mother's death in 1816. (For the political history of
his regency, see PORTUGAL.) In 1816 he was recognized as king of
Portugal but he continued to reside in Brazil; the consequent spread of
dissatisfaction resulted in the peaceful revolution of 1820, and the
proclamation of a constitutional government, to which he swore fidelity
on his return to Portugal in 1822. In the same year, and again in 1823,
he had to suppress a rebellion led by his son Dom Miguel, whom he
ultimately was compelled to banish in 1824. He died at Lisbon on the
26th of March 1826, and was succeeded by Pedro IV.
JOHN (1801-1873), king of Saxony, son of Prince Maximilian of Saxony and
his wife Caroline of Parma (d. 1804), was born at Dresden on the 12th of
December 1801. As a boy he took a keen interest in literature and art
(also in history, law, and political science), and studied with the
greatest ardour classical and German literature (Herder, Schiller,
Goethe). He soon began to compose poetry himself, and drew great
inspiration from a journey in Italy (1821-1822), the pleasure of which
was however darkened by the death of his brother Clemens. In Pavia the
prince met with Biagioli's edition of Dante, and this gave rise to his
lifelong and fruitful studies of Dante. The first part of his German
translation of Dante was published in 1828, and in 1833 appeared the
complete work, with a valuable commentary, which met with a great
success. Several new editions appeared under his constant supervision,
and he collected a complete library of works on Dante.
On his return from Italy he was betrothed to Princess Amalia of Bavaria,
daughter of King Maximilian Joseph. He thus became the brother-in-law of
Frederick William IV., king of Prussia, with whom he had a deep and
lasting friendship. His wife Amalia died on the 8th of November 1877,
having borne him nine children, two of whom, Albert and George, later
became kings of Saxony.
On his return to Dresden, John was called in 1822 to the privy board of
finance (_Geheimes Finanzkollegium_) and in 1825 became its
vice-president. Under the leadership of the president, Freiherr von
Manteuffel, he acquired a thorough knowledge of administration and of
political economy, and laid the foundations of that conservatism which
he retained throughout life. These new activities did not, however,
interrupt his literary and artistic studies. He came into still closer
relations with politics and government after his entry into the privy
council in 1830. During the revolution in Saxony he helped in the
pacification of the country, became commandant of the new national
guard, the political tendencies of which he tried to check, and took an
exceptionally active part in the organization of the constitution of the
4th of September 1831 and especially in the deliberations of the upper
chamber, where he worked with unflagging energy and great ability.
Following the example of his father, he taught his children in person,
and had a great influence on their education. On the 12th of August
1845, during a stay at Leipzig, the prince was the object of hostile
public demonstrations, the people holding him to be the head of an
alleged ultramontane party at court, and the revolution of 1848
compelled him to interrupt his activities in the upper chamber.
Immediately after the suppression of the revolution he resumed his place
and took part chiefly in the discussion of legal questions. He was also
interested in the amalgamation of the German historical and
archaeological societies. On the death of his brother Frederick Augustus
II., John became, on the 9th of August 1854, king of Saxony. As king he
soon won great popularity owing to his simplicity, graciousness and
increasingly evident knowledge of affairs. In his policy as regards the
German confederation he was entirely on the side of Austria. Though not
opposed to a reform of the federal constitution, he held that its
maintenance under the presidency of Austria was essential. This view he
supported at the assembly of princes at Frankfort in August and
September 1863. He was unable to uphold his views against Prussia, and
in the war of 1866 fought on the side of Austria. It was with difficulty
that, on the conclusion of peace, Austrian diplomacy succeeded in
enabling the king to retain his crown. After 1866 King John gradually
became reconciled to the new state of affairs. He entered the North
German confederation, and in the war of 1870-71 with France his troops
fought with conspicuous courage. He died at Dresden on the 29th of
October 1873.
See J. Petzholdt, "Zur Litteratur des Konigs Johann," _Neuer Anzeiger
fur Bibliographie_ (1858, 1859, 1871, 1873, 1874); "Aphorismen uber
unsern Konig J.," _Bote von Geising_ (1866-1869); _Das Buchlein vom
Konig Johann_ (Leipzig, 1867); H. v. Treitschke, _Preussische
Jahrbucher_ 23 (1869); A. Reumont, "Elogio di Giovanni, Re di
Sassonia," _Dagli Atti della Accademia della Crusca_ (Florence, 1874);
J. P. von Winterstein, _Johann, Konig von Sachsen_ (Dresden, 1878),
and in _Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie_ (1881); H. Ermisch, _Die
Wettiner und die Landesgeschichte_ (Leipzig, 1902); O. Kaemmel,
_Sachsische Geschichte_ (Leipzig, 1899, Sammlung Goschen). (J. Hn.)
JOHN I. (d. 1294), duke of Brabant and Lorraine, surnamed the
Victorious, one of the most gifted and chivalrous princes of his time,
was the second son of Duke Henry III. and Aleidis of Burgundy. In 1267
his elder brother Henry, being infirm of mind and body, was deposed in
his favour. In 1271 John married Margaret, daughter of Louis IX. of
France, and on her death in childbirth he took as his second wife (1273)
Margaret of Flanders, daughter of Guy de Dampierre. His sister Marie was
espoused in 1275 to Philip III. (the Bold) of France, and during the
reign of Philip and his son Philip IV. there were close relations of
friendship and alliance between Brabant and France. In 1285 John
accompanied Philip III. in his expedition against Peter III., king of
Aragon, but the duchy of Limburg was the scene of his chief activity and
greatest successes. After the death of Waleran IV. in 1279 the
succession to this duchy was disputed. His heiress, Ermengarde, had
married Reinald I. count of Gelderland. She died childless, but her
husband continued to rule in Limburg, although his rights were disputed
by Count Adolph of Berg, nephew to Waleran IV. (see Limburg). Not being
strong enough to eject his rival, Adolph sold his rights to John of
Brabant, and hostilities broke out in 1283. Harassed by desultory
warfare and endless negotiations, and seeing no prospect of holding his
own against the powerful duke of Brabant, Reinald made over his rights
to Henry III. count of Luxemburg, who was a descendant of Waleran III.
of Limburg. Henry III. was sustained by the archbishop of Cologne and
other allies, as well as by Reinald of Gelderland. The duke of Brabant
at once invaded the Rhineland and laid siege to the castle of Woeringen
near Bonn. Here he was attacked by the forces of the confederacy on the
5th of June 1288. After a bloody struggle John of Brabant, though at the
head of far inferior numbers, was completely victorious. Limburg was
henceforth attached to the duchy of Brabant. John consolidated his
conquest by giving his daughter in marriage to Henry of Luxemburg
(1291). John the Victorious was a perfect model of a feudal prince in
the days of chivalry, brave, adventurous, excelling in every form of
active exercise, fond of display, generous in temper. He delighted in
tournaments, and was always eager personally to take part in jousts. On
the 3rd of May 1294, on the occasion of some marriage festivities at
Bar, he was wounded in the arm in an encounter by Pierre de Bausner, and
died from the effects of the hurt.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.--H. Barlandus, _Rerum gestarum a Brabantiae ducibus
historia usque in annum 1526_ (Louvain, 1566); G. C. van der Berghe,
_Jean le Victorieux, duc de Brabant_ (1259-1294), (Louvain, 1857); K.
F. Stallaert, _Gesch. v. Jan I. van Braband en zijne tijdvak_
(Brussels, 1861); A. Wauters, _Le Duc Jean I^er et le Brabant sous le
regne de ce prince_ (Brussels, 1859).
JOHN, or HANS (1513-1571), margrave of Brandenburg-Custrin, was the
younger son of Joachim I., elector of Brandenburg, and was born at
Tangermunde on the 3rd of August 1513. In spite of the _dispositio
Achillea_ which decreed the indivisibility of the electorate, John
inherited the new mark of Brandenburg on his father's death in July
1535. He had been brought up as a strict Catholic, but soon wavered in
his allegiance, and in 1538 ranged himself definitely on the side of the
Reformers. About the same time he joined the league of Schmalkalden; but
before the war broke out between the league and the emperor Charles V.
the promises of the emperor had won him over to the imperial side. After
the conclusion of the war, the relations between John and Charles became
somewhat strained. The margrave opposed the _Interim_, issued from
Augsburg in May 1548; and he was the leader of the princes who formed a
league for the defence of the Lutheran doctrines in February 1550. The
alliance of these princes, however, with Henry II., king of France, does
not appear to have commended itself to him and after some differences of
opinion with Maurice, elector of Saxony, he returned to the emperor's
side. His remaining years were mainly spent in the new mark, which he
ruled carefully and economically. He added to its extent by the purchase
of Beeskow and Storkow, and fortified the towns of Custrin and Peitz. He
died at Custrin on the 13th of January 1571. His wife Catherine was a
daughter of Henry II., duke of Brunswick, and as he left no sons the new
mark passed on his death to his nephew John George, elector of
Brandenburg.
See Berg, _Beitrage zur Geschichte des Markgrafen Johann von Kustrin_
(Landsberg, 1903).
JOHN (1371-1419), called the Fearless (_Sans Peur_), duke of Burgundy,
son of Philip the Bold, duke of Burgundy, and Margaret of Flanders, was
born at Dijon on the 28th of May 1371. On the death of his maternal
grandfather in 1384 he received the title of count of Nevers, which he
bore until his father's death. Though originally destined to be the
husband of Catherine, sister of Charles VI. of France, he married in
1385 Margaret, daughter of Duke Albert of Bavaria, an alliance which
consolidated his position in the Netherlands. In the spring of 1396 he
took arms for Hungary against the Turks and on the 28th of September was
taken prisoner by the Sultan Bayezid I. at the bloody battle of
Nicopolis, where he earned his surname of "the Fearless." He did not
recover his liberty until 1397, and then only by paying an enormous
ransom. He succeeded his father in 1404, and immediately found himself
in conflict with Louis of Orleans, the young brother of Charles VI. The
history of the following years is filled with the struggles between
these two princes and with their attempts to seize the authority in the
name of the demented king. John endeavoured to strengthen his position
by marrying his daughter Margaret to the dauphin Louis, and by
betrothing his son Philip to a daughter of Charles VI. Like his father,
he looked for support to the popular party, to the tradesmen,
particularly the powerful gild of the butchers, and also to the
university of Paris. In 1405 he opposed in the royal council a scheme of
taxation proposed by the duke of Orleans, which was nevertheless
adopted. Louis retaliated by refusing to sanction the duke of Burgundy's
projected expedition against Calais, whereupon John quitted the court in
chagrin on the pretext of taking up his mother's heritage. He was,
however, called back to the council to find that the duke of Orleans and
the queen had carried off the dauphin. John succeeded in bringing back
the dauphin to Paris, and open war seemed imminent between the two
princes. But an arrangement was effected in October 1405, and in 1406
John was made by royal decree guardian of the dauphin and the king's
children.
The struggle, however, soon revived with increased force. Hostilities
had been resumed with England; the duke of Orleans had squandered the
money raised for John's expedition against Calais; and the two rivals
broke out into open threats. On the 20th of November 1407 their uncle,
the duke of Berry, brought about a solemn reconciliation, but three days
later Louis was assassinated by John's orders in the Rue Barbette,
Paris. John at first sought to conceal his share in the murder, but
ultimately decided to confess to his uncles, and abruptly left Paris.
His vassals, however, showed themselves determined to support him in his
struggle against the avengers of the duke of Orleans. The court decided
to negotiate, and called upon the duke to return. John entered Paris in
triumph, and instructed the Franciscan theologian Jean Petit (d. 1411)
to pronounce an apology for the murder. But he was soon called back to
his estates by a rising of the people of Liege against his
brother-in-law, the bishop of that town. The queen and the Orleans party
took every advantage of his absence and had Petit's discourse solemnly
refuted. John's victory over the Liegeois at Hasbain on the 23rd of
September 1408, enabled him to return to Paris, where he was reinstated
in his ancient privileges. By the peace of Chartres (March 9, 1409) the
king absolved him from the crime, and Valentina Visconti, the widow of
the murdered duke, and her children pledged themselves to a
reconciliation; while an edict of the 27th of December 1409 gave John
the guardianship of the dauphin. Nevertheless, a new league was formed
against the duke of Burgundy in the following year, principally at the
instance of Bernard, count of Armagnac, from whom the party opposed to
the Burgundians took its name. The peace of Bicetre (Nov. 2, 1410)
prevented the outbreak of hostilities, inasmuch as the parties were
enjoined by its terms to return to their estates; but in 1411, in
consequence of ravages committed by the Armagnacs in the environs of
Paris, the duke of Burgundy was called back to Paris. He relied more
than ever on the support of the popular party, which then obtained the
reforming _Ordonnance Cabochienne_ (so called from Simon Caboche, a
prominent member of the gild of the butchers). But the bloodthirsty
excesses of the populace brought a change. John was forced to withdraw
to Burgundy (August 1413), and the university of Paris and John Gerson
once more censured Petit's propositions, which, but for the lavish
bribes of money and wines offered by John to the prelates, would have
been solemnly condemned at the council of Constance. John's attitude was
undecided; he negotiated with the court and also with the English, who
had just renewed hostilities with France. Although he talked of helping
his sovereign, his troops took no part in the battle of Agincourt
(1415), where, however, two of his brothers, Anthony, duke of Brabant,
and Philip, count of Nevers, fell fighting for France.
In 1417 John made an attack on Paris, which failed through his loitering
at Lagny;[1] but on the 30th of May 1418 a traitor, one Perrinet
Leclerc, opened the gates of Paris to the Burgundian captain, Villiers
de l'Isle Adam. The dauphin, afterwards King Charles VI., fled from the
town, and John betook himself to the king, who promised to forget the
past. John, however, did nothing to prevent the surrender of Rouen,
which had been besieged by the English, and on which the fate of the
kingdom seemed to depend; and the town was taken in 1419. The dauphin
then decided on a reconciliation, and on the 11th of July the two
princes swore peace on the bridge of Pouilly, near Melun. On the ground
that peace was not sufficiently assured by the Pouilly meeting, a fresh
interview was proposed by the dauphin and took place on the 10th of
September 1419 on the bridge of Montereau, when the duke of Burgundy was
felled with an axe by Tanneguy du Chastel, one of the dauphin's
companions, and done to death by the other members of the dauphin's
escort. His body was first buried at Montereau and afterwards removed to
the Chartreuse of Dijon and placed in a magnificent tomb sculptured by
Juan de la Huerta; the tomb was afterwards transferred to the museum in
the _hotel de ville_.
By his wife, Margaret of Bavaria, he had one son, Philip the Good, who
succeeded him; and seven daughters--Margaret, who married in 1404 Louis,
son of Charles VI., and in 1423 Arthur, earl of Richmond and afterwards
duke of Brittany; Mary, wife of Adolph of Cleves; Catherine, promised in
1410 to a son of Louis of Anjou; Isabella, wife of Olivier de Chatillon,
count of Penthievre; Joanna, who died young; Anne, who married John,
duke of Bedford, in 1423; and Agnes, who married Charles I., duke of
Bourbon, in 1425.
See A. G. P. Baron de Barante, _Histoire des ducs de Bourgogne_,
(Brussels, 1835-1836); B. Zeller, _Louis de France et Jean sans Peur_
(Paris, 1886); and E. Petit, _Itineraire de Philippe le Hardi et de
Jean sans Peur_ (Paris, 1888). (R. Po.)
FOOTNOTE:
[1] This incident earned for him among the Parisians the contemptuous
nickname of "John of Lagny, who does not hurry."
JOHN (1468-1532), called the Steadfast, elector of Saxony, fourth son of
the elector Ernest, was born on the 30th of June 1468. In 1486, when his
eldest brother became elector as Frederick III., John received a part of
the paternal inheritance and afterwards assisted his kinsman, the German
king Maximilian I., in several campaigns. He was an early adherent of
Luther, and, becoming elector of Saxony by his brother's death in May
1525, was soon prominent among the Reformers. Having assisted to
suppress the rising led by Thomas Munzer in 1525, he helped Philip,
landgrave of Hesse, to found the league of Gotha, formed in 1526 for the
protection of the Reformers. He was active at the diet of Spires in
1526, and the "recess" of this diet gave him an opportunity to reform
the church in Saxony, where a plan for divine service was drawn up by
Luther. The assertions of Otto von Pack that a league had been formed
against the elector and his friends induced John to ally himself again
with Philip of Hesse in March 1528, but he restrained Philip from making
an immediate attack upon their opponents. He signed the protest against
the "recess" of the diet of Spires in 1529, being thus one of the
original Protestants, and was actively hostile to Charles V. at the diet
of Augsburg in 1530. Having signed the confession of Augsburg, he was
alone among the electors in objecting to the election of Ferdinand,
afterwards the emperor Ferdinand I., as king of the Romans. He was among
the first members of the league of Schmalkalden, assented to the
religious peace of Nuremberg in 1532, and died at Schweidnitz on the
16th of August 1532. John was twice married and left two sons and two
daughters. His elder son, John Frederick, succeeded him as elector, and
his younger son was John Ernest (d. 1553). He rendered great services to
the Protestant cause in its infancy, but as a Lutheran resolutely
refused to come to any understanding with other opponents of the older
faith.
See J. Becker, _Kurfurst Johann von Sachsen und seine Beziehungen zu
Luther_ (Leipzig, 1890); J. Janssen, _History of the German People_
(English translation), vol. v. (London, 1903); L. von Ranke, _Deutsche
Geschichte im Zeitalter der Reformation_ (Leipzig, 1882).
JOHN, DON (1545-1578), of Austria, was the natural son of the emperor
Charles V. by Barbara Blomberg, the daughter of an opulent citizen of
Regensburg. He was born in that free imperial city on the 24th of
February 1545, the anniversary of his father's birth and coronation and
of the battle of Pavia, and was at first confided under the name of
Geronimo to foster parents of humble birth, living at a village near
Madrid; but in 1554 he was transferred to the charge of Madalena da
Ulloa, the wife of Don Luis de Quijada, and was brought up in ignorance
of his parentage at Quijada's castle of Villagarcia not far from
Valladolid. Charles V. in a codicil of his will recognized Geronimo as
his son, and recommended him to the care of his successor. In September
1559 Philip II. of Spain publicly recognized the boy as a member of the
royal family, and he was known at court as Don Juan de Austria. For
three years he was educated at Alcala, and had as school companions his
nephews, the infante Don Carlos and Alexander Farnese, prince of Parma.
With Don Carlos his relations were especially friendly. It had been
Philip's intention that Don John should become a monk, but he showed a
strong inclination for a soldier's career and the king yielded. In 1568
Don John was appointed to the command of a squadron of 33 galleys, and
his first operations were against the Algerian pirates. His next
services were (1560-70) against the rebel Moriscos in Granada. In 1571 a
nobler field of action was opened to him. The conquest of Cyprus by the
Turks had led the Christian powers of the Mediterranean to fear for the
safety of the Adriatic. A league between Spain and Venice was effected
by the efforts of Pope Pius V. to resist the Turkish advance to the
west, and Don John was named admiral in chief of the combined fleets. At
the head of 208 galleys, 6 galleasses and a number of smaller craft, Don
John encountered the Turkish fleet at Lepanto on the 7th of October
1571, and gained a complete victory. Only forty Turkish vessels effected
their escape, and it was computed that 35,000 of their men were slain or
captured while 15,000 Christian galley slaves were released.
Unfortunately, through divisions and jealousies between the allies, the
fruits of one of the most decisive naval victories in history were to a
great extent lost.
This great triumph aroused Don John's ambition and filled his
imagination with schemes of personal aggrandizement. He thought of
erecting first a principality in Albania and the Morea, and then a
kingdom in Tunis. But the conclusion by Venice of a separate peace with
the sultan put an end to the league, and though Don John captured Tunis
in 1573, it was again speedily lost. The schemes of Don John found no
support in Philip II., who refused to entertain them, and even withheld
from his half-brother the title of infante of Spain. At last, however,
he was appointed (1576) governor-general of the Netherlands, in
succession to Luis de Requesens. The administration of the latter had
not been successful, the revolt headed by the prince of Orange had
spread, and at the time of Don John's nomination the Pacification of
Ghent appeared to have united the whole of the seventeen provinces of
the Netherlands in determined opposition to Spanish rule and the policy
of Philip II. The magic of Don John's name, and the great qualities of
which he had given proof, were to recover what had been lost. He was,
however, now brought into contact with an adversary of a very different
calibre from himself. This was William of Orange, whose influence was
now supreme throughout the Netherlands. The Pacification of Ghent, which
was really a treaty between Holland and Zeeland and the other provinces
for the defence of their common interests against Spanish oppression,
had been followed by an agreement between the southern provinces, known
as the Union of Brussels, which, though maintaining the Catholic
religion and the king's authority, aimed at the expulsion of the Spanish
soldiery and officials from the Netherlands. Confronted by the refusal
of the states general to accept him as governor unless he assented to
the conditions of the Pacification of Ghent, swore to maintain the
rights and privileges of the provinces, and to employ only Netherlanders
in his service, Don John, after some months of fruitless negotiations,
saw himself compelled to give way. At Huey on the 12th of February 1577
he signed a treaty, known as the "Perpetual Edict," in which he complied
with these terms. On the 1st of May he made his entry into Brussels, but
he found himself governor-general only in name, and the prince of Orange
master of the situation. In July he suddenly betook himself to Namur and
withdrew his concessions. William of Orange forthwith took up his
residence at Brussels, and gave his support to the archduke Matthias,
afterwards emperor, whom the states-general accepted as their sovereign.
Meanwhile Philip had sent large reinforcements to Don John under the
leadership of his cousin Alexander Farnese. At the head of a powerful
force Don John now suddenly attacked the patriot army at Gemblours,
where, chiefly by the skill and daring of Farnese, a complete victory
was gained on the 31st of January 1578. He could not, however, follow up
his success for lack of funds, and was compelled to remain inactive all
the summer, chafing with impatience at the cold indifference with which
his appeals for the sinews of war were treated by Philip. His health
gave way, he was attacked with fever, and on the 1st of October 1578, at
the early age of 33, Don John died, heartbroken at the failure of all
his soaring ambitions, and at the repeated proofs that he had received
of the king his brother's jealousy and neglect.
See Sir W. Stirling Maxwell, _Don John of Austria 1547-1575_ (1883)
and the bibliography under PHILIP II. OF SPAIN.
JOHN, DON (1629-1679), of Austria, the younger, recognized as the
natural son of Philip IV., king of Spain, his mother, Maria Calderon, or
Calderona, being an actress. Scandal accused her of a prodigality of
favours which must have rendered the paternity of Don John very dubious.
He was, however, recognized by the king, received a princely education
at Ocana, and was amply endowed with commanderies in the military
orders, and other forms of income. Don John was sent in 1647 to
Naples--then in the throes of the popular rising first led by
Masaniello--with a squadron and a military force, to support the
viceroy. The restoration of royal authority was due rather to the
exhaustion of the insurgents and the follies of their French leader, the
duke of Guise, than to the forces of Don John. He was next sent as
viceroy to Sicily, whence he was recalled in 1651 to complete the
pacification of Catalonia, which had been in revolt since 1640. The
excesses of the French, whom the Catalans had called in, had produced a
reaction, and Don John had not much more to do than to preside over the
final siege of Barcelona and the convention which terminated the revolt
in October 1652. On both occasions he had played the peacemaker, and
this sympathetic part, combined with his own pleasant manners and
handsome person with bright eyes and abundant raven-black hair--a
complete contrast to the fair complexions of the Habsburgs--made him a
popular favourite. In 1656 he was sent to command in Flanders, in
combination with the prince of Conde, then in revolt against his own
sovereign. At the storming of the French camp at Valenciennes in 1656,
Don John displayed brilliant personal courage at the head of a cavalry
charge. When, however, he took a part in the leadership of the army at
the Dunes in the battle fought against Turenne and the British forces
sent over by Cromwell in 1658, he was completely beaten, in spite of the
efforts of Conde, whose advice he neglected, and of the hard fighting of
English Royalist exiles. During 1661 and 1662 he commanded against the
Portuguese in Estremadura. The Spanish troops were ill-appointed,
irregularly paid and untrustworthy, but they were superior in numbers
and some successes were gained. If Don John had not suffered from the
indolence which Clarendon, who knew him, considered his chief defect,
the Portuguese would have been hard pressed. The greater part of the
south of Portugal was overrun, but in 1663 the Portuguese were
reinforced by a body of English troops, and were put under the command
of the Huguenot Schomberg. By him Don John was completely beaten at
Estremos. Even now he might not have lost the confidence of his father,
if Queen Mariana, mother of the sickly infante Carlos, the only
surviving legitimate son of the king, had not regarded the bastard with
distrust and dislike. Don John was removed from command and sent to his
commandery at Consuegra. After the death of Philip IV. in 1665 Don John
became the recognized leader of the opposition to the government of
Philip's widow, the queen regent. She and her favourite, the German
Jesuit Nithard, seized and put to death one of his most trusted
servants, Don Jose Malladas. Don John, in return, put himself at the
head of a rising of Aragon and Catalonia, which led to the expulsion of
Nithard on the 25th of February 1669. Don John was, however, forced to
content himself with the viceroyalty of Aragon. In 1677, the queen
mother having aroused universal opposition by her shameless favour for
Fernando de Valenzuela, Don John was able to drive her from court, and
establish himself as prime minister. Great hopes were entertained of his
administration, but it proved disappointing and short. Don John died on
the 17th of September 1679.
The career of Don John can be followed in J. C. Dunlop's _Memoirs of
Spain_ 1621-1700 (Edin. 1834).
JOHN OF BEVERLEY, ST (d. 721), English bishop, is said to have been born
of noble parents at Harpham, in the east riding of Yorkshire. He
received his education at Canterbury under Archbishop Theodore, the
statement that he was educated at Oxford being of course untrue. He was
for a time a member of the Whitby community, under St Hilda, and in 687
he was consecrated bishop of Hexham and in 705 was promoted to the
bishopric of York. He resigned the latter see in 718, and retired to a
monastery which he had founded at Beverley, where he died on the 7th of
May 721. He was canonized in 1037, and his feast is celebrated annually
in the Roman Church on the 7th of May. Many miracles of healing are
ascribed to John, whose pupils were numerous and devoted to him. He was
celebrated for his scholarship as well as for his virtues.
The following works are ascribed to John by J. Bale: _Pro Luca
exponendo_ (an exposition of Luke); _Homiliae in Evangelia_;
_Epistolae ad Herebaldum_, _Audenam, et Bertinum_; and _Epistolae ad
Hyldam abbatissam_. See life by Folcard, based on Bede, in _Acta SS.
Bolland_.; and J. Raine's _Fasti eboracenses_ (1863).
JOHN OF THE CROSS, ST (1542-1591), Spanish mystic, was born at Ontiveros
(Old Castile) on the 24th of June 1542. He became a professed Carmelite
in 1564, and was ordained priest at Salamanca in 1567. He met with much
opposition in his efforts to introduce the reforms proposed by St
Theresa, and was more than once imprisoned. His real name was Juan de
Yepez y Alvarez; in religion he was known as Juan de San Matias till
1568, when he adopted the name of Juan de la Cruz. Broken by
persecution, he was sent to the monastery of Ubeda, where he died in
1591; his _Obras espirituales_ were published posthumously in 1618. He
was beatified in 1674 and canonized on the 27th of December 1726. The
lofty symbolism of his prose is frequently obscure, but his lyrical
verses are distinguished for their rapturous ecstasy and beauty of
expression.
Some of his poems have been translated with great success by Arthur
Symons in _Images of Good and Evil_; the most convenient edition of
his works, which have been frequently reprinted, is that contained in
vol. xvi. of the _Biblioteca de autores espanoles_.
JOHN OF ASIA (or OF EPHESUS), a leader of the Monophysite
Syriac-speaking Church in the 6th century, and one of the earliest and
most important of Syriac historians. Born at Amid (Diarbekr) about 505,
he was there ordained as a deacon in 529, but in 534 we find him in
Palestine, and in 535 he passed to Constantinople. The cause of his
leaving Amid was probably either the great pestilence which broke out
there in 534 or the furious persecution directed against the
Monophysites by Ephraim (patriarch of Antioch 529-544) and Abraham
(bishop of Amid c. 520-541). In Constantinople he seems to have early
won the notice of Justinian, one of the main objects of whose policy was
the consolidation of Eastern Christianity as a bulwark against the
heathen power of Persia. John is said by Barhebraeus (_Chron. eccl._ i.
195) to have succeeded Anthimus as Monophysite bishop of Constantinople,
but this is probably a mistake.[1] Anyhow he enjoyed the emperor's
favour until the death of the latter in 565 and (as he himself tells us)
was entrusted with the administration of the entire revenues of the
Monophysite Church. He was also sent, with the rank of bishop, on a
mission for the conversion of such heathen as remained in Asia Minor,
and informs us that the number of those whom he baptized amounted to
70,000. He also built a large monastery at Tralles on the hills skirting
the valley of the Meander, and more than 90 other monasteries. Of the
mission to the Nubians which he promoted, though he did not himself
visit their country, an interesting account is given in the 4th book of
the 3rd part of his _History_.[2] In 546 the emperor entrusted him with
the task of rooting out the secret practice of idolatry in
Constantinople and its neighbourhood. But his fortunes changed soon
after the accession of Justin II. About 571 Paul of Asia, the orthodox
or Chalcedonian patriarch, began (with the sanction of the emperor) a
rigorous persecution of the Monophysite Church leaders, and John was
among those who suffered most. He gives us a detailed account of his
sufferings in prison, his loss of civil rights, &c., in the third part
of his _History_. The latest events recorded are of the date 585, and
the author cannot have lived much longer; but of the circumstances of
his death nothing is known.
John's main work was his _Ecclesiastical History_, which covered more
than six centuries, from the time of Julius Caesar to 585. It was
composed in three parts, each containing six books. The first part
seems to have wholly perished. The second, which extended from
Theodosius II. to the 6th or 7th year of Justin II., was (as F. Nau
has recently proved)[3] reproduced in full or almost in full, in
John's own words, in the third part of the _Chronicle_ which was till
lately attributed to the patriarch Dionysius Telmaharensis, but is
really the work of an unknown compiler. Of this second division of
John's _History_, in which he had probably incorporated the so-called
_Chronicle_ of Joshua the Stylite, considerable portions are found in
the British Museum MSS. Add. 14647 and 14650, and these have been
published in the second volume of Land's _Anecdota Syriaca_. But the
whole is more completely presented in the Vatican MS. (clxii.), which
contains the third part of the _Chronicle_ of pseudo-Dionysius. The
third part of John's history, which is a detailed account of the
ecclesiastical events which happened in 571-585, as well as of some
earlier occurrences, survives in a fairly complete state in Add.
14640, a British Museum MS. of the 7th century. It forms a
contemporary record of great value to the historian. Its somewhat
disordered state, the want of chronological arrangement, and the
occasional repetition of accounts of the same events are due, as the
author himself informs us (ii. 50), to the work being almost entirely
composed during the times of persecution. The same cause may account
for the somewhat slovenly Syriac style. The writer claims to have
treated his subject impartially, and though written from the narrow
point of view of one to whom Monophysite "orthodoxy" was
all-important, it is evidently a faithful reproduction of events as
they occurred. This third part was edited by Cureton (Oxford, 1853),
and was translated into English by R. Payne-Smith (Oxford, 1860) and
into German by J. M. Schonfelder (Munich, 1862).
John's other known work was a series of _Biographies of Eastern
Saints_, compiled about 569. These have been edited by Land in
_Anecdota Syriaca_, ii. 1-288, and translated into Latin by Douwen and
Land (Amsterdam, 1889). An interesting estimate of John as an
ecclesiastic and author was given by the Abbe Duchesne in a memoir
read before the five French Academies on the 25th of October 1892.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] See Land, _Joannes Bischof von Ephesos_, pp. 57 seq.
[2] Cf. Land's Appendix (_op. cit._ 172-193).
[3] See _Bulletin critique_, 15th June and 25th Aug. 1896, and 25th
Jan. 1897; _Journal asiatique_, 9th series, vol. viii. (1896) pp. 346
sqq. and vol. ix. (1897) p. 529; also _Revue de l'Orient chretien,
Suppl. trimestriel_ (1897), pp. 41-54, 455-493; and compare Noldeke
in _Vienna Oriental Journal_ (1896), pp. 160 sqq. The facts are
briefly stated in Duval's _Litterature syriaque_, p. 192. A full
analysis of this second part of John's history has been given by M.
Nau.
JOHN OF DAMASCUS (JOHANNES DAMASCENUS) (d. before 754), an eminent
theologian of the Eastern Church, derives his surname from Damascus,
where he was born about the close of the 7th century. His Arabic name
was Mansur (the victor), and he received the epithet Chrysorrhoas
(gold-pouring) on account of his eloquence. The principal account of his
life is contained in a narrative of the 10th century, much of which is
obviously legendary. His father Sergius was a Christian, but
notwithstanding held a high office under the Saracen caliph, in which he
was succeeded by his son. John is said to have owed his education in
philosophy, mathematics and theology to an Italian monk named Cosmas,
whom Sergius had redeemed from a band of captive slaves. About the year
730 he wrote several treatises in defence of image-worship, which the
emperor, Leo the Isaurian, was making strenuous efforts to suppress.
Various pieces of evidence go to show that it was shortly after this
date that he resolved to forsake the world, divided his fortune among
his friends and the poor, and betook himself to the monastery of St
Sabas, near Jerusalem, where he spent the rest of his life. After the
customary probation he was ordained priest by the patriarch of
Jerusalem. In his last years he travelled through Syria contending
against the iconoclasts, and in the same cause he visited Constantinople
at the imminent risk of his life during the reign of Constantine
Copronymus. With him the "mysteries," the entire ritual, are an integral
part of the Orthodox system, and all dogma culminates in image-worship.
The date of his death is uncertain; it is probably about 752. John
Damascenus is a saint both in the Greek and in the Latin Churches, his
festival being observed in the former on the 29th of November and on the
4th of December, and in the latter on the 6th of May.
The works of Damascenus give him a foremost place among the
theologians of the early Eastern Church, and, according to Dorner, he
"remains in later times the highest authority in the theological
literature of the Greeks." This is not because he is an original
thinker but because he compiled into systematic form the scattered
teaching of his theological predecessors. Several treatises attributed
to him are probably spurious, but his undoubted works are numerous and
embrace a wide range. The most important contains three parts under
the general title [Greek: Pege gnoseos] ("The Fountain of Knowledge").
The first part, entitled [Greek: Kephalaia philosophika], is an
exposition and application of theology of Aristotle's Dialectic. The
second, entitled [Greek: Peri aireseon] ("Of Heresies"), is a
reproduction of the earlier work of Epiphanius, with a continuation
giving an account of the heresies that arose after the time of that
writer. The third part, entitled [Greek: Hekdosis akribes tes
orthodoxou pisteos] ("An Accurate Exposition of the Orthodox Faith"),
is much the most important, containing as it does a complete system of
theology founded on the teaching of the fathers and church councils,
from the 4th to the 7th century. It thus embodies the finished result
of the theological thought of the early Greek Church. Through a Latin
translation made by Burgundio of Pisa in the 12th century, it was well
known to Peter Lombard and Aquinas, and in this way it influenced the
scholastic theology of the West. Another well-known work is the _Sacra
parallela_, a collection of biblical passages followed by
illustrations drawn from other scriptural sources and from the
fathers. There is much merit in his hymns and "canons"; one of the
latter is very familiar as the hymn "The Day of Resurrection, Earth
tell it out abroad." John of Damascus has sometimes been called the
"Father of Scholasticism," and the "Lombard of the Greeks," but these
epithets are appropriate only in a limited sense.
The Christological position of John may be summed up in the following
description:[1] "He tries to secure the unity of the two natures by
relegating to the divine Logos the formative and controlling agency.
It is not a human individual that the Logos assumes, nor is it
humanity, or human nature in general. It is rather a potential human
individual, a nature not yet developed into a person or hypostasis.
The hypostasis through which this takes place is the personal Logos
through whose union with this potential man, in the womb of Mary, the
potential man acquires a concrete reality, an individual existence. He
has, therefore, no hypostasis of himself but only in and through the
Logos. It is denied that he is _non-hypostatic_ ([Greek:
anypostatos]); it is affirmed that he is _en-hypostatic_ ([Greek:
enypostatos]). Two natures may form a unity, as the body and soul in
man. So man, both soul and body, is brought into unity with the Logos;
there being then one hypostasis for both natures." There is an
interchange of the divine and human attributes, a communication of the
former which deifies the receptive and passive human nature. In Christ
the human will has become the organ of the divine will. Thus while
John is an adherent of Chalcedon and a dyothelite, the drift of his
teaching is in the monophysite direction. "The Chalcedonian
_Definition_ is victorious, but Apollinaris is not overcome"; what
John gives with the one hand he takes away with the other. On the
question of the Atonement he regards the death of Christ as a
sacrifice offered to God and not a ransom paid to the devil.
LITERATURE.--The _Life_ of John of Damascus was written by John,
patriarch of Jerusalem in the 10th century (Migne, _Patrol. Graec._,
xciv. 429-489). The works were edited by Le Quien (2 vols., fol.,
Paris, 1712) and form vols. 94 to 96 in Migne's Greek series. A
monograph by J. Langen was published in 1879. A. Harnack's _History of
Dogma_ is very full (see especially vols. iii. and iv.; on the
image-worship controversy, iv. 322 seq.), and so are the similar works
of F. Loofs-Seeberg and A. Dorner. See also O. Bardenhewer's
_Patrologie_, and other literature cited in F. Kattenbusch's excellent
article in Hauck-Herzog, _Realencyklopadie_, vol. ix.
FOOTNOTE:
[1] G. P. Fisher, _Hist. of Chr. Doctrine_, 159 seq. More fully in R.
L. Ottley, _The Doctrine of the Incarnation_, ii. 138-146.
JOHN OF HEXHAM (c. 1160-1209), English chronicler, is known to us merely
as the author of a work called the _Historia XXV. annorum_, which
continues the _Historia regum_ of Simeon of Durham and contains an
account of English events 1130-1153. From the title, as given in the
only manuscript, we learn John's name and the fact that he was prior of
Hexham. It must have been between 1160 and 1209 that he held this
position; but the date at which he lived and wrote cannot be more
accurately determined. Up to the year 1139 he follows closely the
history written by his predecessor, Prior Richard; thenceforward he is
an independent though not a very valuable authority. He is best informed
as to the events of the north country; his want of care, when he
ventures farther afield, may be illustrated by the fact that he places
in 1145 King Stephen's siege of Oxford, which really occurred in 1142.
Even for northern affairs his chronology is faulty; from 1140 onwards
his dates are uniformly one year too late. Prior Richard is not the only
author to whom John is indebted; he incorporates in the annal of 1138
two other narratives of the battle of the Standard, one in verse by the
monk Serlo, another in prose by Abbot Ailred of Rievaux; and also a
poem, by a Glasgow clerk, on the death of Sumerled of the Isles.
The one manuscript of John's chronicle is a 13th century copy; MS. C.
C. C. Cambridge, cxxxix. 8. The best edition is that of T. Arnold in
_Symeonis monachi opera_, vol. ii. (Rolls Series, 1885). There is an
English translation in J. Stevenson's _Church Historians of England_,
vol. iv. (London, 1856). (H. W. C. D.)
JOHN OF IRELAND (JOHANNIS DE IRLANDIA), (_fl._ 1480), Scottish writer,
perhaps of Lowland origin, was resident for thirty years in Paris and
later a professor of theology. He was confessor to James IV. and also to
Louis XI. of France, and was rector of Yarrow (de Foresta) when he
completed, at Edinburgh, the work on which rests his sole claim as a
vernacular writer. This book, preserved in MS. in the Advocates'
Library, Edinburgh (MS. 18, 2, 8), and labelled "Johannis de Irlandia
opera theologica," is a treatise in Scots on the wisdom and discipline
necessary to a prince, especially intended for the use of the young
James IV. The book is the earliest extant example of original Scots
prose. It was still in MS. in 1910, but an edition was promised by the
Scottish Text Society. In this book John refers to two other vernacular
writings, one "of the commandementis and uthir thingis pretenand to the
salvacioune of man," the other, "of the tabill of confessioune." No
traces of these have been discovered. The author's name appears on the
registers of the university of Paris and on the rolls of the Scottish
parliaments, and he is referred to by the Scottish historians, Leslie
and Dempster.
See the notices in John Lyden's Introduction to his edition of the
_Complaynt of Scotlande_ (1801), pp. 85 seq.; _The Scottish
Antiquary_, xiii. 111-115 and xv. 1-14. Annotated extracts are given
in Gregory Smith's _Specimens of Middle Scots_ (1902).
JOHN OF RAVENNA. Two distinct persons of this name, formerly confused
and identified with a third (anonymous) Ravennese in Petrarch's letters,
lived at the end of the 14th and the beginning of the 15th century.
1. A young Ravennese born about 1347, who in 1364 went to live with
Petrarch as secretary. In 1367 he set out to see the world and make a
name for himself, returned in a state of destitution, but, growing
restless again, left his employer for good in 1368. He is not mentioned
again in Petrarch's correspondence, unless a letter "to a certain
wanderer" (_vago cuidam_), congratulating him on his arrival at Rome in
1373, is addressed to him.
2. Son of Conversanus (Conversinus, Convertinus). He is first heard of
(Nov. 17, 1368) as appointed to the professorship of rhetoric at
Florence, where he had for some time held the post of notary at the
courts of justice. This differentiates him from (1). He entered (c.
1370) the service of the ducal house of Padua, the Carraras, in which he
continued at least until 1404, although the whole of that period was not
spent in Padua. From 1375 to 1379 he was a schoolmaster at Belluno, and
was dismissed as too good for his post and not adapted for teaching
boys. On the 22nd of March 1382, he was appointed professor of rhetoric
at Padua. During the struggle between the Carraras and Viscontis, he
spent five years at Udine (1387-1392). From 1395-1404 he was chancellor
of Francis of Carrara, and is heard of for the last time in 1406 as
living at Venice. His history of the Carraras, a tasteless production in
barbarous Latin, says little for his literary capacity; but as a teacher
he enjoyed a great reputation, amongst his pupils being Vittorino da
Feltre and Guarino of Verona.
3. Malpaghini (De Malpaghinis), the most important. Born about 1356, he
was a pupil of Petrarch from a very early age to 1374. On the 19th of
September 1397 he was appointed professor of rhetoric and eloquence at
Florence. On the 9th of June 1412, on the re-opening of the studio,
which had been shut from 1405 to 1411 owing to the plague, his
appointment was renewed for five years, before the expiration of which
period he died (May 1417). Although Malpaghini left nothing behind him,
he did much to encourage the study of Latin; among his pupils was Poggio
Bracciolini.
The local documents and other authorities on the subject will be found
in E. T. Klette, _Beitrage zur Geschichte und Litteratur der
italienischen Gelehrtenrenaissance_, vol. i. (1888); see also G.
Voigt, _Die Wiederbelebung des klassischen Altertums_, who, however,
identifies (1) and (2).
JOHN OF SALISBURY (c. 1115-1180), English author, diplomatist and
bishop, was born at Salisbury between the years 1115 and 1120. Beyond
the fact that he was of Saxon, not of Norman race, and applies to
himself the cognomen of _Parvus_, "short," or "small," few details are
known regarding his early life; but from his own statements it is
gathered that he crossed to France about 1136, and began regular studies
in Paris under Abelard, who had there for a brief period re-opened his
famous school on Mont St Genevieve. After Abelard's retirement, John
carried on his studies under Alberich of Reims and Robert of Melun. From
1138 to 1140 he studied grammar and the classics under William of
Conches and Richard l'Eveque, the disciples of Bernard of Chartres,
though it is still a matter of controversy whether it was in Chartres or
not (cf. A. Clerval, _Les Ecoles de Chartres au moyen age_, 1895).
Bernard's teaching was distinguished partly by its pronounced Platonic
tendency, partly by the stress laid upon literary study of the greater
Latin writers; and the influence of the latter feature is noticeable in
all John of Salisbury's works. About 1140 he was at Paris studying
theology under Gilbert de la Porree, then under Robert Pullus and Simon
of Poissy. In 1148 he resided at Moutiers la Celle in the diocese of
Troyes, with his friend Peter of Celle. He was present at the council of
Reims, presided over by Pope Eugenius III., and was probably presented
by Bernard of Clairvaux to Theobald, archbishop of Canterbury, at whose
court he settled, probably about 1150. Appointed secretary to Theobald,
he was frequently sent on missions to the papal see. During this time he
composed his greatest works, published almost certainly in 1159, the
_Policraticus, sive de nugis curialium et de vestigiis philosophorum_
and the _Metalogicus_, writings invaluable as storehouses of information
regarding the matter and form of scholastic education, and remarkable
for their cultivated style and humanist tendency. After the death of
Theobald in 1161, John continued as secretary to Thomas Becket, and took
an active part in the long disputes between that primate and his
sovereign, Henry II. His letters throw light on the constitutional
struggle then agitating the English world. With Becket he withdrew to
France during the king's displeasure; he returned with him in 1170, and
was present at his assassination. In the following years, during which
he continued in an influential situation in Canterbury, but at what
precise date is unknown, he drew up the _Life of Thomas Becket_. In 1176
he was made bishop of Chartres, where he passed the remainder of his
life. In 1179 he took an active part in the council of the Lateran. He
died at or near Chartres on the 25th of October 1180.
John's writings enable us to understand with much completeness the
literary and scientific position of the 12th century. His views imply
a cultivated intelligence well versed in practical affairs, opposing
to the extremes of both nominalism and realism a practical common
sense. His doctrine is a kind of utilitarianism, with a strong leaning
on the speculative side to the modified literary scepticism of Cicero,
for whom he had unbounded admiration. He was a humanist before the
Renaissance, surpassing all other representatives of the school of
Chartres in his knowledge of the Latin classics, as in the purity of
his style, which was evidently moulded on that of Cicero. Of Greek
writers he appears to have known nothing at first hand, and very
little in translations. The _Timaeus_ of Plato in the Latin version of
Chalcidius was known to him as to his contemporaries and predecessors,
and probably he had access to translations of the _Phaedo_ and _Meno_.
Of Aristotle he possessed the whole of the _Organon_ in Latin; he is,
indeed, the first of the medieval writers of note to whom the whole
was known. Of other Aristotelian writings he appears to have known
nothing.
The collected editions of the works are by J. A. Giles (5 vols.,
Oxford, 1848), and by Migne, in the _Patrologiae cursus_, vol. 199:
neither accurate. The _Policraticus_ was edited with notes and
introductions by C. C. I. Webb, _Ioannis Saresberiensis episcopi
Carnotensis Policratici_ (Oxford, 1909), 2 vols. The most complete
study of John of Salisbury is the monograph by C. Schaarschmidt,
_Johannes Sarisberiensis nach Leben und Studien, Schriften und
Philosophie_, 1862, which is a model of accurate and complete
workmanship. See also the article in the _Dict. Nat. Biog._
JOHN (1290-c. 1320), surnamed the Parricide, and called also John of
Swabia, was a son of Rudolph II. count of Habsburg and Agnes daughter of
Ottakar II. king of Bohemia, and consequently a grandson of the German
king Rudolph I. Having passed his early days at the Bohemian court, when
he came of age he demanded a portion of the family estates from his
uncle, the German king Albert I. His wishes were not gratified, and with
three companions he formed a plan to murder the king. On the 1st of May
1308 Albert in crossing the river Reuss at Windisch became separated
from his attendants, and was at once attacked and killed by the four
conspirators. John escaped the vengeance of Albert's sons, and was
afterwards found in a monastery at Pisa, where in 1313 he is said to
have been visited by the emperor Henry VII., who had placed him under
the ban. From this time he vanishes from history. The character of John
is used by Schiller in his play _Wilhelm Tell_.
JOHN, THE EPISTLES OF. The so-called epistles of John, in the Bible, are
not epistles in the strict sense of the term, for the first is a homily,
and encyclical or pastoral (as has been recognized since the days of
Bretschneider and Michaelis), while the other two are brief notes or
letters. Nor are they John's, if John means the son of Zebedee. The
latter conclusion depends upon the particular hypothesis adopted with
regard to the general Johannine problem, yet even when it is held that
John the apostle (q.v.) survived to old age in Ephesus, the second and
third epistles may be fairly ascribed (with Erasmus, Grotius, Credner,
Bretschneider, Reuss, &c.) to John the presbyter[1], as several circles
in the early church held ("Opinio a plerisque tradita," Jerome: _De vir.
ill._ 18). An apostle indeed might call himself a presbyter (cf. 1 Pet.
v. 1). But these notes imply no apostolic claim on the part of the
author, and, although their author is anonymous, the likelihood is that
their composition by the great Asiatic presbyter John led afterwards to
their incorporation in the "instrumentum" of John the apostle's
writings, when the prestige of the latter had obscured the former. All
hypotheses as to their pseudonymity or composition by different hands
may be dismissed. They would never have floated down the stream of
tradition except on the support of some primitive authority. If this was
not connected with John the apostle the only feasible alternative is to
think of John the presbyter, for Papias refers to the latter in
precisely this fashion (Euseb. _H. E._ iii. 39, 15; [Greek: kai touto ho
p. elege]).
The period of all three lies somewhere within the last decade of the 1st
century and the first decade of the 2nd. No evidence is available to
determine in what precise order they were written, but it will be
convenient to take the two smaller notes before the larger. The
so-called Second Epistle of John is one of the excommunicating notes
occasionally despatched by early Christian leaders to a community (cf. 2
Cor. v. 9). The presbyter or elder warns a Christian community,
figuratively addressed as "the elect lady" (cf. 13 with 1 Pet. i. 1; v,
13; also the plural of 6, 8, 10 and 13), against some itinerant (cf.
_Didache_ xi. 1-2) teachers who were promulgating advanced Docetic views
(7) upon the person of Christ. The note is merely designed to serve (12)
until the writer arrives in person. He sends greetings to his
correspondents from some community in which he is residing at present
(13), and with which they had evidently some connexion.
The note was familiar to Irenaeus[2] who twice (i. 16, 3, iii. 16, 8)
cites 10-11, once quoting it from the first epistle by mistake, but no
tradition has preserved the name of the community in question, and all
opinions on the matter are guess-work. The reference to "all who know
the truth" (ver. 1) is, of course, to be taken relatively (cf. Rev. ii.
23); it does not necessarily imply a centre like Antioch or Rome
(Chapman). Whiston thought of Philadelphia, and probably it must have
been one of the Asiatic churches.
The so-called Third Epistle of John belongs to the [Greek: epistolai
systatikai] (2 Cor. iii. 1) of the early church, like Rom. xvi. It is a
private note addressed by the presbyter to a certain Gaius, a member of
the same community or house-church (9) as that to which 2 John is
written. A local errorist, Diotrephes (9-10) had repudiated the
authority of the writer and his party, threatening even to excommunicate
Gaius and others from the church (cf. Abbott's _Diatessarica_, S 2258).
With this opponent the writer promises (10) to deal sharply in person
before very long. Meantime (14) he despatches the present note, in
hearty appreciation of his correspondent's attitude and character.
The allusion in 9 ([Greek: egrapsa]) refers in all likelihood to the
"second" epistle (so Ewald, Wolf, Salmon, &c.). In order to avoid the
suggestion that it implied a lost epistle, [Greek: an] was inserted at
an early stage in the textual history of the note. If [Greek: ekklesias]
could be read in 12, Demetrius would be a presbyter; in any case, he is
not to be identified with Demas (Chapman), nor is there any reason to
suppose (with Harnack)[3] that the note of 9 was written to, and
suppressed by, him. What the presbyter is afraid of is not so much that
his note would not be read (Ewald, Harnack), as that it would not be
acted upon.
These notes, written originally on small sheets of papyrus, reveal the
anonymous presbyter travelling (so Clem. Alex. _Quis dives salv._ xlii.)
in his circuit or diocese of churches, and writing occasional pastoral
letters, in which he speaks not only in his own name but in that of a
coterie of like-minded Christians.[4] It is otherwise with the brochure
or manifesto known as the "first epistle." This was written neither at
the request of its readers nor to meet any definite local emergency, but
on the initiative of its author (i. 4) who was evidently concerned about
the effect produced upon the Church in general by certain contemporary
phases of semi-gnostic teaching. The polemic is directed against a
dualism which developed theoretically into docetic views of Christ's
person (ii. 22, iv. 2, &c.), and practically into libertinism (ii. 4,
&c.).[5] It is natural to think, primarily, of the churches in Asia
Minor as the circle addressed, but all indications of date or place are
absent, except those which may be inferred from its inner connexion with
the Fourth Gospel.
The plan of the brochure is unstudied and unpremeditated, resembling a
series of variations upon one or two favourite themes rather than a
carefully constructed melody. Fellowship ([Greek: koinonia]) with God
and man is its dominant note. After defining the essence of Christian
[Greek: koinonia] (i. 1-3),[6] the writer passes on to its conditions
(i. 5-ii. 17), under the antithesis of light and darkness. These
conditions are twofold: (a) a sense of sin, which leads Christians to a
sense of forgiveness[7] through Jesus Christ, (b) and obedience to the
supreme law of brotherly love (cf. Ignat. _Ad Smyrn._ 6). If these
conditions are unfulfilled, moral darkness is the issue, a darkness
which spells ruin to the soul. This prompts the writer to explain the
dangers of [Greek: koinonia] (ii. 18-29), under the antithesis of truth
and falsehood, the immediate peril being a novel heretical view of the
person of Christ. The characteristics of the fellowship are then
developed (iii. 1-12), as sinlessness and brotherly love, under the
antithesis of children of God (cf. ii. 29, "born of Him") and children
of the devil. This brotherly love bulks so largely in the writer's mind
that he proceeds to enlarge upon its main elements of confidence towards
God (iii. 13-24), moral discernment (iv. 1-6), and assurance of union
with God (iv. 7-21), all these being bound up with a true faith in Jesus
as the Christ (v. 1-12).[8] A brief epilogue gives what is for the most
part a summary (v. 13-21) of the leading ideas of the homily.[9]
Disjointed as the cause of the argument may seem, a close scrutiny of
the context often reveals a subtle connexion between paragraphs which at
first sight appear unlinked. Thus the idea of the [Greek: kosmos]
passing away (ii. 17) suggests the following sentences upon the nearness
of the [Greek: parousia] (ii. 18 seq.), whose signs are carefully noted
in order to reassure believers, and whose moral demands are underlined
(ii. 28, iii. 3). Within this paragraph[10] even the abrupt mention of
the [Greek: chrysma] has its genetical place (ii. 20). The heretical
[Greek: antichristoi], it is implied, have no [Greek: chrisma] from God;
Christians have (note the emphasis on [Greek: hymeis]), owing to their
union with the true [Greek: Christos]. Again, the genetic relation of
iii. 4 seq. to what precedes becomes evident when we consider that the
norm of Christian purity (iii. 3) is the keeping of the divine
commandments, or conduct resembling Christ's on earth (iii. 3-ii. 4-6),
so that the Gnostic[11] breach of this law not only puts a man out of
touch with Christ (iii. 6 seq.), but defeats the very end of Christ's
work, i.e. the abolition of sin (iii. 8). Thus iii. 7-10 resumes and
completes the idea of ii. 29; the Gnostic is shown to be out of touch
with the righteous God, partly because he will not share the brotherly
love which is the expression of the righteousness, and partly because
his claims to sinlessness render God's righteous forgiveness (i. 9)
superfluous. Similarly the mention of the Spirit (iii. 24) opens
naturally into a discussion of the decisive test for the false claims of
the heretics or gnostic _illuminati_ to spiritual powers and gifts (iv.
1 seq.); and, as this test of the genuine Spirit of God is the
confession of Jesus Christ as really human and incarnate, the writer, on
returning (in iv. 17 seq.) to his cardinal idea of brotherly love,
expresses it in view of the incarnate Son (iv. 9), whose mission
furnishes the proof of God's love as well as the example and the energy
of man's (iv. 10 seq.). The same conception of the real humanity of
Jesus Christ as essential to faith's being and well-being is worked out
in the following paragraph (v. 1-12), while the allusion to eternal life
(v. 11-12) leads to the closing recapitulation (v. 13-21) of the
homily's leading ideas under this special category.
The curious idea, mentioned by Augustine (_Quaest. evang._ ii. 39), that
the writing was addressed _ad Parthos_, has been literally taken by
several Latin fathers and later writers (e.g. Grotius, Paulus, Hammond),
but this title probably was a corruption of _ad sparsos_ (Wetstein,
Wegschneider) or of [Greek: pros parthenous] (Whiston: the Christians
addressed as virgin, i.e. free from heresy), if not of [Greek:
parthenos], as applied in early tradition to John the apostle. The
circle for which the homily was meant was probably, in the first
instance, that of the Fourth Gospel, but it is impossible to determine
whether the epistle preceded or followed the larger treatise. The
division of opinion on this point (cf. J. Moffat, _Historical New
Testament_, 1901, p. 534) is serious, but the evidence for either
position is purely subjective. There are sufficient peculiarities of
style and conception[12] to justify provisionally some hesitation on the
matter of the authorship. The epistle may have been written by a
different author, or, from a more popular standpoint, by the author of
the gospel, possibly (as some critics hold) by the author of John xxi.
But _res lubrica, opinio incerta_.
It is unsafe to lay much stress upon the apparent reminiscence of iv.
2-3 (or of 2 John 7) in Polycarp, _ad Phil._ 7 reading [Greek:
eleluthota] instead of [Greek: eleluthenai]), though, if a literary
filiation is assumed, the probability is that Polycarp is quoting from
the epistle, not vice versa (as Volkmar contends, in his _Ursprung d.
unseren Evglien_ 47 seq.). But Papias is said by Eusebius (_H. E._ iii.
39) to have used [Greek: e 'Ioannou protera] (= [Greek: e 'Ioannou
prote], v. 8?), i.e. the anonymous tract, which, by the time of
Eusebius, had come to be known as 1 John, and we have no reason to
suspect or reject this statement, particularly as Justin Martyr, another
Asiatic writer, furnishes clear echoes of the epistle (_Dial._ 123). The
tract must have been in circulation throughout Asia Minor at any rate
before the end of the first quarter of the 2nd century.[13] The
_terminus a quo_ is approximately the period of the Fourth Gospel's
composition, but there is no valid evidence to indicate the priority of
either, even upon the hypothesis that both came from the same pen. The
aim of each is too special to warrant the conclusion that the epistle
was intended to accompany or to introduce the gospel.
LITERATURE.--The most adequate modern editions of the three epistles
are by Westcott (3rd ed., 1892), H. J. Holtzmann (_Hand-Commentar zum
N. T._, 3rd ed., 1908), B. Weiss (in Meyer, 6th ed., 1900), Baljon
(1904) and J. E. Belser (Freiburg im Breisgau, 1906). Briefer English
notes are furnished by W. Alexander (_Speaker's Commentary_, 1881), W.
H. Bennett (_Century Bible_, 1901) and H. P. Forbes (_Internat.
Handbooks to New Testament_, vol. iv. 1907), while Plummer has a
concise edition of the Greek text (in _The Cambridge Greek Testament_,
1886). Huther's edition (in Meyer, 1880) has been translated into
English (Edinburgh, 1882), like Rothe's (1878) invaluable commentary
on the first epistle (cf. _Expository Times_, vols. iii. v.). Otto
Baumgarten's popular edition in _Die Schriften des N. T._ (1907) is,
like that of Forbes, written from practically the same standpoint as
Holtzmann's. The earlier commentaries of Alford (2nd ed., 1862), C.
A. Wolf (2nd ed., 1885), Ewald (_Die Joh. Briefe ubersetzt und
erklaert_, Gottingen, 1861-1862), and Lucke (3rd ed., revised by
Bertheau, 1856) still repay the reader, and among previous editions
those of W. Whiston (_Comm. on St John's Three Catholic Epistles_,
1719) and de Wette (1837, &c.) contain material of real exegetical
interest. Special editions of the first epistle have been published by
John Cotton (London, 1655), Neander (1851; Eng. trans. New York,
1853), E. Haupt (1869; Eng. trans. 1879), Lias (1887) and C. Watson
(1891, expository) among others. Special studies by F. H. Kern (_De
epistolae Joh. consilio_, Tubingen, 1830), Erdmann (_Primae Joh.
epistolae argumentum, nexus et consilium_, Berlin, 1855), C. E.
Luthardt (_De primae Joannis epistolae compositione_, 1860), J.
Stockmeyer (_Die Structur des ersten Joh. Briefes_, Basel, 1873) and,
most elaborately, by H. J. Holtzmann (_Jahrb. fur protest. Theologie_,
1881, pp. 690 seq.; 1882, pp. 128 seq., 316 seq., 460 seq.). To the
monographs already noted in the course of this article may be added
the essays by Wiesinger (_Studien und Kritiken_, 1899, pp. 575 seq.)
and Wohlenberg ("Glossen zum ersten Johannisbrief," _Neue Kirchliche
Zeitschrift_, 1902, pp. 233 seq., 632 seq.). On 2 John there are
special commentaries and studies by Ritmeier (_De electa domina_,
1706), C. A. Kriegele (_De_ [Greek: kuria] _Johannis_, 1758), Carpzov
(_Theolog. exegetica_, pp. 105-208), H. G. B. Muller (_Comment. in
secundam epistolam Joannis_, 1783), C. Klug (_De authentia_, &c.,
1823), J. Rendel Harris (_Expositor_, 6th series, 1901, pp. 194 seq.),
W. M. Ramsay (ibid., pp. 354 seq.) and Gibbins (ibid., 1902, pp.
228-236), while, in addition to Hermann's _Comment, in Joan. ep. III._
(1778), P. L. Gachon (_Authenticite de la deuxieme et troisieme
epitres de Jean_, 1851), Poggel (_Der zweite und dritte Briefe d.
Apostel Johannis_, 1896), and Chapman (_Journal of Theological
Studies_, 1904, "The Historical Setting of the Second and the Third
Epistles of St John"), have discussed both of the minor epistles
together. General studies of all three are furnished by H. J.
Holtzmann in Schenkel's _Bibel-Lexicon_, iii. 342-352, Sabatier
(_Encyclop. des sciences religieuses_, vii. 177 seq.), S. Cox (_The
Private Letters of St Paul and St John_, 1867), Farrar (_Early Days of
Christianity_, chs. xxxi., xxxiv. seq.), Gloag (_Introduction to
Catholic Epistles_, 1887, pp. 256-350), S. D. F. Salmond in Hasting's
_Dict. Bible_ (vol. ii), G. H. Gilbert (_The First Interpreters of
Jesus_, 1901, pp. 301-332), and V. Bartlet (_The Apostolic Age_, 1900,
pp. 418 seq.; from a more advanced critical position by Cone (_The
Gospel and its Earliest Interpretations_, 1893, pp. 320-327), P. W.
Schmiedel (_Ency. Bib._, 2556-2562, also in a pamphlet, _Evangelium,
Briefe, und Offenbarung des Johannes_, 1906; Eng. trans. 1908), J.
Reville (_Le Quatrieme Evangile_, 1901, pp. 49 seq.) and Pfleiderer
(_Das Urchristentum_, 2nd ed., 1902, pp. 390 seq.). The problem of the
epistles is discussed incidentally by many writers on the Fourth
Gospel, as well as by writers on New Testament introduction like Zahn,
Jacquier, Barth and Belser, on the Conservative side, and Hilgenfeld,
Julicher and von Soden on the Liberal. On the older Syriac version of
2 and 3 John, see Gwynn's article in _Hermathena_ (1890), pp. 281 seq.
On the general reception of the three epistles in the early Church,
Zahn's paragraphs (in his _Geschichte d. N. T. Kanons_, i. 209 seq.,
374 seq., 905 seq.; ii. 48 seq., 88 seq.) are the most adequate.
(J. Mt.)
FOOTNOTES:
[1] So Selwyn, _Christian Prophets_ (pp. 133-145), Harnack, Heinrici
(_Das Urchristenthum_, 1902, pp. 129 seq.), and von Soden (_History
of Early Christian Literature_, pp. 445-446), after Renan (_L'Eglise
chretienne_, pp. 78 seq.). Von Dobschutz (_Christian Life in the
Primitive Church_, pp. 218 seq.) and R. Knopf (_Das nachapost.
Zeitalter_, 1905, pp. 32 seq., &c.) are among the most recent critics
who ascribe all three epistles to the presbyter.
[2] On the early allusions to these brief notes, cf. Gregory: _The
Canon and Text of the New Testament_ (1907), pp. 131, 190 seq.,
Westcott's _Canon of the New Testament_, pp. 218 seq., 355, 357, 366,
&c., and Leipoldt's _Geschichte d. neut. Kanons_ (1907), i. pp. 66
seq., 78 seq., 99 seq., 151 seq., 192 seq., 232 seq.
[3] In his ingenious study (_Texte und Untersuchungen_, xv. 3), whose
main contention is adopted by von Dobschutz and Knopf. On this view
(for criticism see Belser in the _Tubing. Quartalschrift_, 1897, pp.
150 seq., Kruger in _Zeitschrift fur die wiss. Theologie_, 1898, pp.
307-311, and Hilgenfeld: ibid. 316-320), Diotrephes was voicing a
successful protest of the local monarchical bishops against the older
itinerant authorities (cf. Schmiedel, _Ency. Bib._, 3146-3147). As
Wilamowitz-Moellendorf (_Hermes_, 1898, pp. 529 seq.) points out,
there is a close connexion between ver. 11 and ver. 10. The same
writer argues that, as the substitution of [Greek: agapetos] for
[Greek: philtatos] (ver. 1) "ist Schonrednerei und nicht vom besten
Geschmacke," the writer adds [Greek: on ego agapo en aletheia].
[4] This is the force of the [Greek: emeis] in 3 John 9-10 (cf. 1
John iv. 6, 14) "The truth" (3 John 3-5) seems to mean a life
answering to the apostolic standard thus enforced and exemplified.
[5] Several of these traits were reproduced in the teaching of
Cerinthus, others may have been directly Jewish or Jewish Christian.
The opposition to the Messianic role of Jesus had varied adherents.
The denial of the Virgin-birth, which also formed part of the system
of Cerinthus, was met by anticipation in the stories of Matthew and
Luke, which pushed back the reception of the spirit from the baptism
to the birth, but the Johannine school evidently preferred to answer
this heresy by developing the theory of the Logos, with its implicate
of pre-existence.
[6] On the vexed question whether the language of this paragraph is
purely spiritual or includes a realistic reference, cf. G. E. Findlay
(_Expositor_, 1893, pp. 97 seq.), and Dr E. A. Abbott's recent study
in _Diatessarica_, SS 1615-1620. The writer is controverting the
Docetic heresy, and at the same time keeping up the line of
communications with the apostolic base.
[7] The universal range (ii. 2) ascribed to the redeeming work of
Christ is directed against Gnostic dualism and the Ebionitic
narrowing of salvation to Israel; only [Greek: emeis] here denotes
Christians in general, not Jewish Christians. On the answer to the
Gnostic pride of perfectionism (i. 8), cf. Epict. iv. 12, 19. The
emphasis on "you all" (ii. 20) hints at the Gnostic aristocratic
system of degrees among believers, which naturally tended to break up
brotherly love (cf. 1 Cor. viii. 1 seq.). The Gnostics also held that
a spiritual seed (cf. iii. 9) was implanted in man, as the germ of
his higher development into the divine life; for the Valentinian idea
cf. Iren. _Adv. Haer._ i. 64, and Tertull. _De anima_, 11 [haeretici]
"nescio quod spiritale semen infulciunt animae". Cf. the general
discussions by Haring in _Theologische Abhandlungen C. von Weizsacker
gewidmet_ (1892), pp. 188 seq., and Zahn in _Wanderungen durch
Schrift u. Geschichte_ (1892), pp. 3-74.
[8] Cf. Denney, _The Death of Christ_ (1902), pp. 269-281. The
polemical reference to Cerinthus is specially clear at this point.
The death of Jesus was not that of a phantom, nor was his ministry
from the baptism to the crucifixion that of a heavenly aeon which
suffered nothing: such is the writer's contention. "In every case the
historical is asserted, but care is taken that it shall not be
materialized: a primacy is given to the spiritual.... Except through
the historical, there is no Christianity at all, but neither is there
any Christianity till the historical has been spiritually
comprehended." The well-known interpolation of the three heavenly
witnesses (v. 7) has now been proved by Karl Kunstle (_Das Comma
Johanneum_, 1905) to have originally come from the pen of the 4th
century Spaniard, Priscillian, who himself denied all distinctions of
person in the Godhead.
[9] On the "sin to death" (v. 16) cf. Jubilees xxi. 22, xxvi. 34 with
Karl's _Johann. Studien_ (1898), i. 97 seq. and M. Goguel's _La
Notion johannique de l'esprit_ (1902), pp. 147-153, for the general
theology of the epistle. The conceptions of light and life are best
handled by Grill in his _Untersuchungen uber die Entstehung des
vierten Evgliums_ (1902), pp. 301 seq., 312 seq.
[10] In Preuschen's _Zeitschrift fur die neutest. Wissenschaft_
(1907), pp. 1-8, von Dobschutz tries to show that the present text of
ii. 28-iii. 12 indicates a revision or rearrangement of an earlier
text. Cludius (_Uransichten des Christentums_, Altona, 1808) had
already conjectured that a Gnostic editor must have worked over a
Jewish Christian document.
[11] Dr Alois Wurm's attempt (_Die Irrlehrer im ersten
Johannesbriefe_, 1903) to read the references to errorists solely in
the light of Jewish Christianity ignores or underrates several of the
data. He is supported on the whole by Clemen, in Preuschen's
_Zeitschrift_ (1905), pp. 271-281. There is certainly an anti-Jewish
touch, e.g. in the claim of iii. 1 (note the emphatic [Greek:
hemin]), when one recollects the saying of Aqiba (Aboth iii. 12) and
Philo's remark, [Greek: kai gar ei mepo ikanoi theou paides
nomizesthai gegonamen, alla toi tes aeidous eikonos autou, logou tou
hierot atou theou gar eikon logos ho presbytatos] (_De conf. ling._
28). But the antithesis of John and Cerinthus, unlike that of Paul
and Cerinthus (Epiph. _Haer._ xxviii.), is too well based in the
tradition of the early Church to be dismissed as a later dogmatic
reflection, and the internal evidence of this manifesto corroborates
it clearly.
[12] "The style is not flowing and articulated; the sentences come
like minute-guns, as they would drop from a natural Hebrew. The
writer moves, indeed, amidst that order of religious ideas which
meets us in the Fourth Gospel, and which was that of the Greek world
wherein he found himself. He moves amongst these new ideas, however,
not with the practised felicity of the evangelist, but with something
of helplessness, although the depth and serene beauty of his spirit
give to all he says an infinite impressiveness and charm" (M. Arnold;
_God and the Bible_, ch. vi.).
[13] By the end of the 2nd century it appears to have been fairly
well-known, to judge from Origen, Irenaeus (iii. 16, 8), and Clement
of Alexandria (_Stran._ ii. 15, 66). In the Muratorian canon, which
mentions two epistles of John, it seems to be reckoned (cf. Kuhn,
_Das Murat. Fragment_, pp. 58 f.) as an appendix or sequel to the
Fourth Gospel. The apparent traces of its use in Ignatius (cf.
_Smyrn._ vi. 2 = 1 John iii. 17; _Smyrn._ vii = 1 John iii. 14, and
_Eph._ xviii. = 1 John v. 6) seem too insecure, of themselves, to
warrant any hypothesis of filiation.
JOHN, GOSPEL OF ST, the fourth and latest of the Gospels, in the Bible,
and, next to that of St Mark, the shortest. The present article will
first describe its general structure and more obvious contents; compare
it with the Synoptic Gospels; and draw out its leading characteristics
and final object. It will then apply the tests thus gained to the
narratives special to this Gospel; and point out the book's special
difficulties and limits, and its abiding appeal and greatness. And it
will finally consider the questions of its origin and authorship.
_Analysis of Contents._--The book's chief break is at xiii. 1, the
solemn introduction to the feet-washing: all up to here reports Jesus'
signs and apologetic or polemical discourses to the outer world; hence
onwards it pictures the manifestation of His glory to the inner circle
of His disciples. These two parts contain three sections each.
1. (i.) Introduces the whole work (i. 1-ii. 11). (a) The prologue, i.
1-18. The Logos existed before creation and time; was with the very
God and was God; and all things were made through Him. For in this
Logos is Life, and this Life is a Light which, though shining in
darkness, cannot be suppressed by it. This true Light became flesh and
tabernacled amongst us; and we beheld His glory, as of an
Only-Begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth. John the
Baptist testified concerning Him, the Logos-Light and Logos-Life
incarnate; but this Logos alone, who is in the bosom of the Father,
hath declared the very God. (b) The four days' work (i. 19-51). On the
first three days John declares that he is not the Christ, proclaims
Jesus to be the Christ, and sends his own disciples away to Jesus. On
the fourth day, Jesus Himself calls Philip and Nathanael. (c) The
seventh day's first manifestation of the Incarnate Light's glory (ii.
1-11 ); Jesus at Cana turns water into wine.
(ii.) Records the manifestations of the Light's and Life's glory and
power to friend and foe (ii. 22-vi. 71). (d) Solemn inauguration of
the Messianic ministry (ii. 12-iii. 21): cleansing of the Temple and
prophecy of His resurrection; discourse to Nicodemus on baptismal
regeneration. (e) Three scenes in Judea, Samaria, Galilee respectively
(iii. 32-iv. 54): the Baptist's second testimony; Jesus' discourse
with the woman at the well concerning the spiritual, universal
character of the new religion; and cure of the ruler's son, the reward
of faith in the simple word of Jesus. (f) Manifestation of Jesus as
the vivifying Life-Logos and its contradiction in Judea, v.: the
paralytic's cure. (g) Manifestation of Jesus as the heaven-descended
living Bread and its contradiction in Galilee, vi.: multiplication of
the loaves; walking on the waters; and His discourse on the holy
Eucharist.
(iii.) Acute conflict between the New Light and the old darkness
(vii.-xii). (h) Self-manifestation of the Logos-Light in the Temple
(vii. 1-x. 39). Journey to the feast of tabernacles; invitation to the
soul athirst to come to Him (the fountain of Life) and drink, and
proclamation of Himself as the Light of the world; cure of the man
born blind; allegory of the good shepherd. The allegory continued at
the feast of the dedication. They strive to stone or to take Him. (i)
The Logos-Life brings Lazarus to life; effects of the act (x. 40-xii.
50). Jesus withdraws beyond Jordan, and then comes to Bethany, His
friend Lazarus being buried three days; proclaims Himself the
Resurrection and the Life; and calls Lazarus back to life. Some who
saw it report the act to the Pharisees; the Sanhedrim meets, Caiaphas
declares that one man must die for the people, and henceforward they
ceaselessly plan His death. Jesus withdraws to the Judaean desert, but
soon returns, six days before Passover, to Bethany; Mary anoints Him,
a crowd comes to see Him and Lazarus, and the hierarchs then plan the
killing of Lazarus also. Next morning He rides into Jerusalem on an
ass's colt. Certain Greeks desire to see Him: He declares the hour of
His glorification to have come: "Now My soul is troubled.... Father,
save Me from this hour. But for this have I come unto this hour:
Father, glorify Thy Name." A voice answers, "I have glorified it and
will glorify it again": some think that an angel spoke; but Jesus
explains that this voice was not for His sake but for theirs. When
lifted up from earth, He will draw all men to Himself; they are to
believe in Him, the Light. The writer's concluding reflection: the
small success of Jesus' activity among the Jews. Once again He cries:
"I am come a Light into the world, that whoso believeth in Me should
not abide in darkness."
2. The Logos-Christ's manifestation of His life and love to His
disciples, during the last supper, the passion, the risen life
(xiii.-xx.).
(iv.) The Last Supper (xiii.-xvii.) (j) Solemn washing of the
disciples' feet; the beloved disciple; designates the traitor; Judas
goes forth, it is night (xiii. 1-30). (k) Last discourses, first
series (xiii. 31-xiv. 31): the new commandment, the other helper;
"Arise, let us go hence." Second series (xv. 1-xvi. 33): allegory of
the true vine; "Greater love than this hath no man, that he lay down
his life for his friend"; the world's hatred; the spirit of truth
shall lead them into all truth; "I came forth from the Father and am
come into the world, again I leave the world and go to the Father";
"Be of good cheer, I have overcome the world." (l) The high-priestly
prayer (xvii). "Father, glorify Thy Son ... with the glory which I had
with Thee before the world was ... that to as many as Thou hast given
Him, He should give eternal life." "I pray for them, I pray not for
the world. I pray also for them that shall believe in Me through their
word, that they may be all one, as Thou Father art in Me, and I in
Thee."
(v.) The Passion (xviii.-xix.). (m) In the garden: the Roman soldiers
come to apprehend Him, fall back upon the ground at His declaration "I
am He." Peter and Malchus. (n) Before Annas at night and Caiaphas at
dawn; Peter's denials (xviii. 12-27). (o) Before Pilate (xviii.
28-40). Jesus declares, "My kingdom is not of this world. I have come
into the world that I may bear witness to the truth: everyone that is
of the truth, heareth My voice"; Pilate asks sceptically "What is
truth?" and the crowd prefers Barabbas. (p) The true king presented to
the people as a mock-king; His rejection by the Jews and abandonment
to them (xix. 1-16). (q) Jesus carries His cross to Golgotha, and is
crucified there between two others; the cross's title and Pilate's
refusal to alter it (xix. 17-22). (r) The soldiers cast lots upon His
garments and seamless tunic; His mother with two faithful women and
the beloved disciple at the cross's foot; His commendation of His
mother and the disciple to each other; His last two sayings in
deliberate accomplishment of scripture "I thirst," "It is
accomplished." He gives up the spirit; His bones remain unbroken; and
from His spear-lanced side blood and water issue (xix. 23-37). (s) The
two nobles, Joseph of Arimathaea and Nicodemus, bind the dead body in
a winding sheet with one hundred pounds of precious spices, and place
it in a new monument in a near garden, since the sabbath is at hand.
(vi.) The risen Jesus, Lord and God (xx.). (t) At early dawn on the
first day of the week, Mary Magdalen, finding the stone rolled away
from the monument, runs to tell Peter and the beloved disciple that
the Lord's body has been removed. Peter and the other disciple run to
the grave; the latter, arriving first, enters only after Peter has
gone in and noted the empty grave-clothes--enters and believes. After
their departure, Mary sees two angels where His body had lain and
turning away beholds Jesus standing, yet recognizes Him only when He
addresses her. He bids her "Do not touch Me, for I have not yet
ascended"; but to tell His brethren "I ascend to My Father and to your
Father, to My God and to your God." And she does so. (u) Second
apparition (xx. 19-23). Later on the same day, the doors being shut,
Jesus appears amongst His disciples, shows them His (pierced) hands
and side, and solemnly commissions and endows them for the apostolate
by the words, "As the Father hath sent Me, so I send you," and by
breathing upon them saying "Receive the Holy Spirit: whose sins ye
remit, they are remitted to them; whose sins ye retain, they are
retained." (v) Third apparition and culminating saying; conclusion of
entire book (xx. 24-31). Thomas, who had been absent, doubts the
resurrection; Jesus comes and submits to the doubter's tests. Thomas
exclaims, "My Lord and my God"; but Jesus declares "Blessed are they
that have not seen and yet have believed." "Now Jesus," concludes the
writer, "did many other signs, ... but these are written, that ye may
believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing
ye may have life in His name."
The above analysis is rough, since even distantly placed sections,
indeed the two parts themselves, are interrelated by delicate complex
references on and back. And it omits the account of the adulteress
(vii. 53-viii. 11): (a valuable report of an actual occurrence which
probably belonged to some primitive document otherwise incorporated by
the Synoptists), because it is quite un-Johannine in vocabulary, style
and character, intercepts the Gospel's thread wherever placed, and is
absent from its best MSS. It also omits xxi. This chapter's first two
stages contain an important early historical document of Synoptic
type: Jesus' apparition to seven disciples by the Lake of Galilee and
the miraculous draught of fishes; and Peter's threefold confession and
Jesus' threefold commission to him. And its third stage, Jesus'
prophecies to Peter and to the beloved disciple concerning their
future, and the declaration "This is the disciple who testifies to
these things and who has written them, and we know that his testimony
is true," is doubtless written by the redactor of the previous two
stages. This writer imitates, but is different from, the great author
of the first twenty chapters.
_Comparison with the Synoptists._--The following are the most obvious
differences between the original book and the Synoptists. John has a
metaphysical prologue; Matthew and Luke have historical prologues; and
Mark is without any prologue. The earthly scene is here Judea, indeed
Jerusalem, with but five breaks (vi. 1-vii. 10) is the only long one;
whilst over two-thirds of each Synoptist deal with Galilee or Samaria.
The ministry here lasts about three and a half years (it begins some
months before the first Passover, ii. 13; the feast of v. 1 is
probably a second; the third occurs vi. 4; and on the fourth, xi. 55,
He dies): whilst the Synoptists have but the one Passover of His
death, after barely a year of ministry. Here Jesus' teaching contains
no parables and but three allegories, the Synoptists present it as
parabolic through and through. Here not one exorcism occurs; in the
Synoptists the exorcisms are as prominent as the cures and the
preaching, John has, besides the passion, seven accounts in common
with the Synoptists: the Baptist and Jesus, (i. 19-34); cleansing of
the Temple (ii. 13-16); cure of the centurion's (ruler's) servant
(son) (iv. 46-54); multiplication of the loaves (vi. 1-13); walking
upon the water (vi. 16-21); anointing at Bethany, (xii. 1-8); entry
into Jerusalem (xii. 12-16): all unique occurrences. In the first,
John describes how the Baptist, on Jesus' approach, cries "Behold the
Lamb of God, which taketh away the sins of the world"; and how he says
"I saw the spirit descending upon Him, and I bore witness that this is
the Son of God." But the Synoptists, especially Mark, give the slow
steps in even the apostles' realization of Jesus' Messianic character;
only at Caesarea Philippi Simon alone, for the first time, clearly
discerns it, Jesus declaring that His Father has revealed it to Him,
and yet Simon is still scandalized at the thought of a suffering
Messiah (Mark viii. 28-34). Only some two weeks before the end is He
proclaimed Messiah at Jericho (x. 46-48); then in Jerusalem, five days
before dying for this upon the cross (xi. 1-10, xv. 37). As to the
Baptist, in all three Synoptists, he baptizes Jesus, and in Mark i.
10, 11 it is Jesus who sees the Spirit descending upon Himself on His
emerging from beneath the water, and it is to Himself that God's voice
is addressed; in John, Jesus' baptism is ignored, only the Spirit
remains hovering above Him, as a sign for the Baptist's instruction.
And in Matt. xi. 2-6, the Baptist, several months after the Jordan
scene, sends from his prison to ascertain if Jesus is indeed the
Messiah; in John, the Baptist remains at large so as again (iii.
22-36) to proclaim Jesus' heavenly provenance. The cleansing of the
Temple occurs in the Synoptists four days before His death, and
instantly determines the hierarchs to seek His destruction (Mark xi.
15-18); John puts it three years back, as an appropriate frontispiece
to His complete claims and work.
The passion-narratives reveal the following main differences. John
omits, at the last supper, its central point, the great historic act
of the holy eucharist, carefully given by the Synoptists and St Paul,
having provided a highly doctrinal equivalent in the discourse on the
living bread, here spoken by Jesus in Capernaum over a year before the
passion (vi. 4), the day after the multiplication of the loaves. This
transference is doubtless connected with the change in the relations
between the time of the Passover meal and that of His death: in the
Synoptists, the Thursday evening's supper is a true Passover meal, the
lamb had been slain that afternoon and Jesus dies some twenty-four
hours later; in John, the supper is not a Passover-meal, the Passover
is celebrated on Friday, and Jesus, proclaimed here from the first,
the Lamb of God, dies whilst the paschal lambs, His prototypes, are
being slain. The scene in the garden is without the agony of
Gethsemane; a faint echo of this historic anguish appears in the scene
with the Greeks four days earlier, and even that peaceful appeal to,
and answer of, the Father occurs only for His followers' sakes. In the
garden Jesus here Himself goes forth to meet His captors, and these
fall back upon the ground, on His revealing Himself as Jesus of
Nazareth. The long scenes with Pilate culminate in the great sayings
concerning His kingdom not being of this world and the object of this
His coming being to bear witness to the truth, thus explaining how,
though affirming kingship (Mark xv. 2) He could be innocent. In John
He does not declare Himself Messiah before the Jewish Sanhedrin (Mark
xiv. 61) but declares Himself supermundane regal witness to the truth
before the Roman governor. The scene on Calvary differs as follows: In
the Synoptists the soldiers divide His garments among them, casting
lots (Mark xv. 24); in John they make four parts of them and cast lots
concerning His seamless tunic, thus fulfilling the text, "They divided
My garments among them and upon My vesture they cast lots": the
parallelism of Hebrew poetry, which twice describes one fact, being
taken as witnessing to two, and the tunic doubtless symbolizing the
unity of the Church, as in Philo the high priest's seamless robe
symbolizes the indivisible unity of the universe, expressive of the
Logos (_De ebrietate_, xxi.). In the Synoptists, of His followers only
women--the careful, seemingly exhaustive lists do not include His
mother--remain, looking on "from afar" (Mark xv. 40); in John, His
mother stands with the two other Marys and the beloved disciple
beneath the cross, and "from that hour the disciple took her unto his
own (house)," while in the older literature His mother does not appear
in Jerusalem till just before Pentecost, and with "His brethren" (Acts
i. 14). And John alone tells how the bones of the dead body remained
unbroken, fulfilling the ordinance as to the paschal lamb (Exod. xii.
46) and how blood and water flow from His spear-pierced side: thus the
Lamb "taketh away the sins of the world" by shedding His blood which
"cleanseth us from every sin"; and "He cometh by water and blood,"
historically at His baptism and crucifixion, and mystically to each
faithful soul in baptism and the eucharist. The story of the risen
Christ (xx.) shows dependence on and contrast to the Synoptic
accounts. Its two halves have each a negative and a positive scene.
The empty grave (1-10) and the apparition to the Magdalen (11-18)
together correspond to the message brought by the women (Matt. xxviii.
1-10); and the apparition to the ten joyously believing apostles
(19-23) and then to the sadly doubting Thomas (24-29) together
correspond to Luke xxiv. 36-43, where the eleven apostles jointly
receive one visit from the risen One, and both doubt and believe,
mourn and rejoice.
The Johannine discourses reveal differences from the Synoptists so
profound as to be admitted by all. Here Jesus, the Baptist and the
writer speak so much alike that it is sometimes impossible to say
where each speaker begins and ends: e.g. in iii. 27-30, 31-36. The
speeches dwell upon Jesus' person and work, as we shall find, with a
didactic directness, philosophical terminology and denunciatory
exclusiveness unmatched in the Synoptist sayings. "This is eternal
life, that they may know Thee the only true God and Jesus Christ whom
Thou hast sent" (xvii. 3), is part of the high-priestly prayer; yet
Pere Calmes, with the papal censor's approbation, says, "It seems to
us impossible not to admit that we have here dogmatic developments
explicable rather by the evangelist's habits of mind than by the
actual words of Jesus." "I have told you of earthly things and you
believe not; how shall ye believe if I tell you of heavenly things?"
(iii. 12), and "Ye are from beneath, I am from above" (viii. 23), give
us a Plato-(Philo-) like upper, "true" world, and a lower, delusive
world. "Ye shall die in your sins" (viii. 21); "ye are from your
father the devil" (viii. 44); "I am the door of the sheep, all they
that came before Me are thieves and robbers," (x. 7, 8); "they have no
excuse for their sin" (xv. 22)--contrast strongly with the yearning
over Jerusalem: "The blood of Abel the just" and "the blood of
Zacharias son of Barachias" (Matt. xxiii. 35-37; and "Father, forgive
them; for they know not what they do" Luke xxiii. 34). And whilst the
Synoptist speeches and actions stand in loose and natural relation to
each other, the Johannine deeds so closely illustrate the sayings that
each set everywhere supplements the other: the history itself here
tends to become one long allegory. So with the woman at the well and
"the living water"; the multiplication of the loaves and "the living
Bread"; "I am the Light of the world" and the blind man's cure; "I am
the Resurrection and the Life" and the raising of Lazarus; indeed even
with the Temple-cleansing and the prophecy as to His resurrection,
Nicodemus's night visit and "men loved the darkness rather than the
light," the cure of the inoperative paralytic and "My Father and I
work hitherto," the walking phantom-like upon the waters (John vi.
15-21; Mark vi. 49), and the declaration concerning the eucharist,
"the spirit it is that quickeneth" (John vi. 63). Only some sixteen
Synoptic sayings reappear here; but we are given some great new
sayings full of the Synoptic spirit.
_Characteristics and Object._--The book's character results from the
continuous operation of four great tendencies. There is everywhere a
readiness to handle traditional, largely historical, materials with a
sovereign freedom, controlled and limited by doctrinal convictions and
devotional experiences alone. There is everywhere the mystic's deep love
for double, even treble meanings: e.g. the "again" in iii. 2, means,
literally, "from the beginning," to be physically born again; morally,
to become as a little child; mystically, "from heaven, God," to be
spiritually renewed. "Judgment" ([Greek: krisis]), in the popular sense,
condemnation, a future act; in the mystical sense, discrimination, a
present fact. There is everywhere the influence of certain central
ideas, partly identical with, but largely developments of, those less
reflectively operative in the Synoptists. Thus six great terms are
characteristic of, or even special to, this Gospel. "The Only-Begotten"
is most nearly reached by St Paul's term "His own Son." The "Word," or
"Logos," is a term derived from Heracleitus of Ephesus and the Stoics,
through the Alexandrian Jew Philo, but conceived here throughout as
definitely personal. "The Light of the World" the Jesus-Logos here
proclaims Himself to be; in the Synoptists He only declares His
disciples to be such. "The Paraclete," as in Philo, is a "helper,"
"intercessor"; but in Philo he is the intelligible universe, whilst here
He is a self-conscious Spirit. "Truth," "the truth," "to know," have
here a prominence and significance far beyond their Synoptic or even
their Pauline use. And above all stand the uses of "Life," "Eternal
Life." The living ever-working Father (vi. 57; v. 17) has a Logos in
whom is Life (i. 4), an ever-working Son (v. 17), who declares Himself
"the living Bread," "the Resurrection and the Life," "the Way, the Truth
and the Life" (vi. 51; xi. 25; xiv. 16): so that Father and Son quicken
whom they will (v. 21); the Father's commandment is life everlasting,
and Jesus' words are spirit and life (xii. 50; vi. 63, 68). The term,
already Synoptic, takes over here most of the connotations of the
"Kingdom of God," the standing Synoptic expression, which appears here
only in iii. 3-5; xviii. 36. Note that the term "the Logos" is peculiar
to the Apocalypse (xix. 13), and the prologue here; but that, as Light
and Life, the Logos-conception is present throughout the book. And thus
there is everywhere a striving to contemplate history _sub specie
aeternitatis_ and to englobe the successiveness of man in the
simultaneity of God.
_Narratives Peculiar to John._--Of his seven great symbolical,
doctrinally interpreted "signs," John shares three, the cure of the
ruler's son, the multiplication of the loaves, the walking on the
waters, with the Synoptists: yet here the first is transformed almost
beyond recognition; and the two others only typify and prepare the
eucharistic discourse. Of the four purely Johannine signs, two--the
cures of the paralytic (v. 1-16), and of the man born blind (ix.
1-34)--are, admittedly, profoundly symbolical. In the first case, the
man's physical and spiritual lethargy are closely interconnected and
strongly contrasted with the ever-active God and His Logos. In the
second case there is also the closest parallel between physical
blindness cured, and spiritual darkness dispelled, by the Logos-Light as
described in the accompanying discourse. Both narratives are doubtless
based upon actual occurrences--the cures narrated in Mark ii., iii.,
viii., x. and scenes witnessed by the writer in later times; yet here
they do but picture our Lord's spiritual work in the human soul achieved
throughout Christian history. We cannot well claim more than these three
kinds of reality for the first and the last signs, the miracle at Cana
and the resurrection of Lazarus.
For the marriage-feast sign yields throughout an allegorical meaning.
Water stands in this Gospel for what is still but symbol; thus the
water-pots serve here the external Jewish ablutions--old bottles which
the "new wine" of the Gospel is to burst (Mark ii. 22). Wine is the
blood of the new covenant, and He will drink the fruit of the vine new
in the Kingdom of God (Mark xiv. 23-25); the vineyard where He Himself
is the true Vine (Mark xii. 1; John xv. 1). And "the kingdom of heaven
is like to a marriage-feast" (Matt. xxii. 2); Jesus is the Bridegroom
(Mark ii. 19); "the marriage of the Lamb has come" (Rev. xix. 7). "They
have no wine": the hopelessness of the old conditions is announced here
by the true Israel, the Messiah's spiritual mother, the same "woman" who
in Rev. xii. 2, 5 "brought forth a man-child who was to rule all
nations." Cardinal Newman admits that the latter woman "represents the
church, this is the real or direct sense"; yet as her man-child is
certainly the Messiah, this church must be the faithful Jewish church.
Thus also the "woman" at the wedding and beneath the cross stands
primarily for the faithful Old Testament community, corresponding to the
beloved disciple, the typical New Testament follower of her Son, the
Messiah: in each case the devotional accommodation to His earthly mother
is equally ancient and legitimate. He answers her "My hour is not yet
come," i.e. in the symbolic story, the moment for working the miracle;
in the symbolized reality, the hour of His death, condition for the
spirit's advent; and "what is there between Me and thee?" i.e. "My
motives spring no more from the old religion," words devoid of
difficulty, if spoken thus by the Eternal Logos to the passing Jewish
church. The transformation is soon afterwards accomplished, but in
symbol only; the "hour" of the full sense is still over three years off.
Already Philo says "the Logos is the master of the spiritual
drinking-feast," and "let Melchisedeck"--the Logos--"in lieu of water
offer wine to souls and inebriate them" (_De somn._ ii. 37; _Legg. all._
iii. 26). But in John this symbolism figures a great historic fact, the
joyous freshness of Jesus' ministerial beginnings, as indicated in the
sayings of the Bridegroom and of the new wine, a freshness typical of
Jesus' ceaseless renovation of souls.
The raising of Lazarus, in appearance a massive, definitely localized
historical fact, requires a similar interpretation, unless we would, in
favour of the direct historicity of a story peculiar to a profoundly
allegorical treatise, ruin the historical trustworthiness of the largely
historical Synoptists in precisely their most complete and verisimilar
part. For especially in Mark, the passing through Jericho, the entry
into Jerusalem, the Temple-cleansing and its immediate effect upon the
hierarchs, their next day's interrogatory, "By what authority doest thou
these things?" i.e. the cleansing (x. 46-xi. 33), are all closely
interdependent and lead at once to His discussions with His Jerusalem
opponents (xii. xiii.), and to the anointing, last supper, and passion
(xiv. xv). John's last and greatest symbolic sign replaces those
historic motives, since here it is the raising of Lazarus which
determines the hierarchs to kill Jesus (xi. 46-52), and occasions the
crowds which accompany and meet Him on His entry (xii. 9-19). The
intrinsic improbabilities of the narrative, if taken as direct history,
are also great: Jesus' deliberate delay of two days to secure His
friend's dying, and His rejoicing at the death, since thus He can
revivify His friend and bring His disciples to believe in Himself as the
Life; His deliberate weeping over the death which He has thus let
happen, yet His anger at the similar tears of Lazarus's other friends;
and His praying, as He tells the Father in the prayer itself, simply to
edify the bystanders: all point to a doctrinal allegory. Indeed the
climax of the whole account is already reached in Jesus' great saying:
"I am the Resurrection and the Life; he that believeth in Me ... shall
not die for ever," and in Martha's answer: "I believe that Thou art the
Christ, the Son of God, who hast come into the world" (xi. 26, 27); the
sign which follows is but the pictorial representation of this abiding
truth. The materials for the allegory will have been certain Old
Testament narratives, but especially the Synoptic accounts of Jesus'
raisings of Jairus's daughter and of the widow's son (Mark v.; Luke
vii.). Mary and Martha are admittedly identical with the sisters in Luke
x. 38-42; and already some Greek fathers connect the Lazarus of this
allegory with the Lazarus of the parable (Luke xvi. 19-31). In the
parable Lazarus returns not to earth, since Abraham foresees that the
rich man's brethren would disbelieve even if one rose from the dead; in
the corresponding allegory, Lazarus does actually return to life, and
the Jews believe so little as to determine upon killing the very Life
Himself.
_Special Difficulties and Special Greatness._--The difficulties,
limitations and temporary means special to the book are closely
connected with its ready appeal and abiding power; let us take both sets
of things together, in three couples of interrelated price and gift.
The book's method and form are pervadingly allegorical; its instinct and
aim are profoundly mystical. Now from Philo to Origen we have a long
Hellenistic, Jewish and Christian application of that all-embracing
allegorism, where one thing stands for another and where no factual
details resist resolution into a symbol of religious ideas and forces.
Thus Philo had, in his life of Moses, allegorized the Pentateuchal
narratives so as to represent him as mediator, saviour, intercessor of
his people, the one great organ of revelation, and the soul's guide from
the false lower world into the upper true one. The Fourth Gospel is the
noblest instance of this kind of literature, of which the truth depends
not on the factual accuracy of the symbolizing appearances but on the
truth of the ideas and experiences thus symbolized. And Origen is still
full of spontaneous sympathy with its pervading allegorism. But this
method has lost its attraction; the Synoptists, with their rarer and
slighter pragmatic rearrangements and their greater closeness to our
Lord's actual words, deeds, experiences, environment, now come home to
us as indefinitely richer in content and stimulative appeal. Yet
mysticism persists, as the intuitive and emotional apprehension of the
most specifically religious of all truths, viz. the already full,
operative existence of eternal beauty, truth and goodness, of infinite
Personality and Spirit independently of our action, and not, as in
ethics, the simple possibility and obligation for ourselves to produce
such-like things. And of this elemental mode of apprehension and
root-truth, the Johannine Gospel is the greatest literary document and
incentive extant: its ultimate aim and deepest content retain all their
potency.
The book contains an intellectualist, static, determinist, abstractive
trend. In Luke x. 25-28, eternal life depends upon loving God and man;
here it consists in knowing the one true God and Christ whom He has
sent. In the Synoptists, Jesus "grows in favour with God and man,"
passes through true human experiences and trials, prays alone on the
mountain-side, and dies with a cry of desolation; here the Logos'
watchword is "I am," He has deliberately to stir up emotion in Himself,
never prays for Himself, and in the garden and on the cross shows but
power and self-possession. Here we find "ye cannot hear, cannot believe,
because ye are not from God, not of My sheep" (viii. 47, x. 26); "the
world cannot receive the spirit of truth" (xiv. 17). Yet the ethical
current appears here also strongly: "he who doeth the truth, cometh to
the light" (iii. 21), "if you love Me, keep My commandments" (xiv. 15).
Libertarianism is here: "the light came, but men loved the darkness
better than the light," "ye will not come to Me" (iii. 19, v. 40); hence
the appeal "abide in Me"--the branch can cease to be in Him the Vine
(xv. 4, 2). Indeed even those first currents stand here for the deepest
religious truths, the prevenience of God and man's affinity to Him. "Not
we loved God (first), but He (first) loved us"; "let us love Him,
because He first loved us" (1 John iv. 10, 19); "no man can come to Me,
unless the Father draw him" (vi. 44), a drawing which effects a hunger
and thirst for Christ and God (iv. 14, vi. 35). Thus man's spirit, ever
largely but potential, can respond actively to the historic Jesus,
because already touched and made hungry by the all-actual Spirit-God who
made that soul akin unto Himself.
The book has an outer protective shell of acutely polemical and
exclusive moods and insistences, whilst certain splendid Synoptic
breadths and reconciliations are nowhere reached; but this is primarily
because it is fighting, more consciously than they, for that inalienable
ideal of all deepest religion, unity, even external and corporate,
amongst all believers. The "Pneumatic" Gospel comes thus specially to
emphasize certain central historical facts; and, the most explicitly
institutional and sacramental of the four, to proclaim the most
universalistic and developmental of all Biblical sayings. Here indeed
Jesus will not pray for the world (xvii. 9); "ye shall die in your
sins," He insists to His opponents (viii. 44, 24); it is the Jews
generally who appear throughout as such; nowhere is there a word as to
forgiving our enemies; and the commandment of love is designated by
Jesus as His, as new, and as binding the disciples to "love one another"
within the community to which He gives His "example" (xv. 12, xiii. 34,
15). In the Synoptists, the disciples' intolerance is rebuked (Mark ix.
38-41); Jesus' opposition is everywhere restricted to the Pharisees and
the worldly Sadducees; He ever longs for the conversion of Jerusalem;
the great double commandment of love is proclaimed as already formulated
in the Mosaic law (Mark xii. 28-34); the neighbour to be thus loved and
served is simply any and every suffering fellow-man; and the pattern for
such perfect love is found in a schismatical Samaritan (Luke x. 25-37).
Yet the deepest strain here is more serenely universalist even than St
Paul, for here Jesus says: "God so loved the world, that He gave His
only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should ... have
everlasting life" (iii. 16). True, the great prologue passage (i. 9)
probably reads "He was the true Light coming into the world, that
enlighteneth every man," so that the writer would everywhere concentrate
his mind upon the grace attendant upon explicit knowledge of the
incarnate, historic Christ. Yet Christian orthodoxy, which itself has,
all but uniformly, understood this passage of the spiritual radiation
throughout the world of the Word before His incarnation, has been aided
towards such breadth as to the past by the Johannine outlook into the
future. For, in contrast to the earliest Synoptic tradition, where the
full Christian truth and its first form remain undistinguished, and
where its earthly future appears restricted to that generation, in John
the Eternal Life conception largely absorbs the attention away from all
successiveness; Jesus' earthly life does not limit the religion's
assimilation of further truth and experience: "I have many things to
tell you, but you cannot bear them now," "the Father will give you
another Helper, the spirit of truth, who will abide with you for ever"
(xvi. 12, xiv. 15). This universalism is not simply spiritual; the
external element, presupposed in the Synoptists as that of the Jewish
church within which Jesus' earthly life was spent, is here that of the
now separate Christian community: He has other sheep not of this
fold--them also He must bring, there will be one fold, one shepherd; and
His seamless tunic, and Peter's net which, holding every kind of fish,
is not rent, are symbols of this visible unity. Ministerial gradations
exist in this church; Jesus begins the feet-washing with Peter, who
alone speaks and is spoken to; the beloved disciple outruns Peter to
Jesus' monument, yet waits to go in till Peter has done so first; and in
the appendix the treble pastoral commission is to Peter alone: a Petrine
pre-eminence which but echoes the Synoptists. And sacramentalism informs
the great discourses concerning rebirth by water and the spirit, and
feeding on the Living Bread, Jesus' flesh and blood, and the narrative
of the issue of blood and water from the dead Jesus' side. Indeed so
severe a stress is laid upon the explicitly Christian life and its
specific means, that orthodoxy itself interprets the rebirth by water
and spirit, and the eating the flesh and drinking the blood to which
entrance into the Kingdom and possession of interior life are here
exclusively attached, as often represented by a simple sincere desire
and will for spiritual purification and a keen hunger and thirst for
God's aid, together with such cultual acts as such souls can know or
find, even without any knowledge of the Christian rites. Thus there is
many "a pedagogue to Christ," and the Christian visible means and
expressions are the culmination and measure of what, in various degrees
and forms, accompanies every sincerely striving soul throughout all
human history.
_Origin and Authorship._--The question as to the book's origin has lost
its poignancy through the ever-increasing recognition of the book's
intrinsic character. Thus the recent defenders of the apostolic
authorship, the Unitarian James Drummond (1903), the Anglican William
Sanday (1905), the Roman Catholic Theodore Calmes (1904), can tell us,
the first, that "the evangelist did not aim at an illustrative picture
of what was most characteristic of Jesus"; the second, that "the author
sank into his own consciousness and at last brought to light what he
found there"; the third, that "the Gospel contains an entire theological
system," "history is seen through the intervening dogmatic development,"
"the Samaritan woman is ... a personification," "the behaviour of the
Greeks is entirely natural in such a book." We thus get at
cross-purposes with this powerful, profound work. Only some such
position as Abbe Loisy's critical summing up (1903) brings out its
specific greatness. "What the author was, his book, in spite of himself,
tells us to some extent: a Christian of Judeo-Alexandrine formation; a
believer without, apparently, any personal reminiscence of what had
actually been the life, preaching and death of Jesus; a theologian far
removed from every historical preoccupation, though he retains certain
principal facts of tradition without which Christianity would evaporate
into pure ideas; and a seer who has lived the Gospel which he
propounds." "To find his book beautiful and true, we need but take it as
it is and understand it." "The church, which has never discussed the
literary problem of this Gospel, in nowise erred as to its worth."
Several traditional positions have indeed been approximately maintained
or reconquered against the critics. As to the Gospel's date, critics
have returned from 160-170 (Baur), 150 (Zeller), 130 (Keim), to 110-115
(Renan) and 80-110 (Harnack): since Irenaeus says its author lived into
the times of Trajan (90-117), a date somewhere about 105 would satisfy
tradition. As to the place, the critics accept proconsular Asia with
practical unanimity, thus endorsing Irenaeus's declaration that the
Gospel was published in Ephesus. As to the author's antecedents, critics
have ceased to hold that he could not have been a Jew-Christian (so
Bretschneider, 1820), and admit (so Schmiedel, (1901) that he must have
been by birth a Jew of the Dispersion, or the son of Christian parents
who had been such Jews. And as to the vivid accuracy of many of his
topographical and social details, the predominant critical verdict now
is that he betrays an eye-witness's knowledge of the country between
Sichem and Jordan and as to Jerusalem; he will have visited these
places, say in 90, or may have lived in Jerusalem shortly before its
fall. But the reasons against the author being John the Zebedean or any
other eyewitness of Jesus' earthly life have accumulated to a practical
demonstration.
As to the external evidence for the book's early date, we must remember
that the Epistle to the Hebrews and the Book of Revelation, though
admittedly earlier, are of the same school, and, with the great Pauline
Epistles, show many preformations of Johannine phrases and ideas. Other
slighter prolusions will have circulated in that Philonian centre
Ephesus, before the great Gospel englobed and superseded them. Hence the
precariousness of the proofs derived from more or less close parallels
to Johannine passages in the apostolic fathers. Justin Martyr (163-167)
certainly uses the Gospel; but his conception of Jesus' life is so
strictly Synoptic that he can hardly have accepted it as from an
apostolic eyewitness. Papias of Hierapolis, in his _Exposition of the
Lord's Sayings_ (145-160) appears nowhere to have mentioned it, and
clearly distinguishes between "what Andrew, Peter, ... John or Matthew
or any other of the Lord's disciples spoke," and "what Aristion and the
presbyter John, the Lord's disciples, say." Thus Papias, as Eusebius
about 314 insists, knew two Johns, and the apostle was to him a far-away
figure; indeed early medieval chroniclers recount that Papias "in the
second book of the Lord's sayings" asserted that both the sons of
Zebedee were "slain by Jews," so that the apostle John would have died
before 70. Irenaeus's testimony is the earliest and admittedly the
strongest we possess for the Zebedean authorship; yet, as Calmes admits,
"it cannot be considered decisive." In his work against the Heresies and
in his letter to Florinus, about 185-191, he tells how he had himself
known Bishop Polycarp of Smyrna, and how Polycarp "used to recount his
familiar intercourse with John and the others who had seen the Lord";
and explicitly identifies this John with the Zebedean and the
evangelist. But Irenaeus was at most fifteen when thus frequenting
Polycarp; writes thirty-five to fifty years later in Lyons, admitting
that he noted down nothing at the time; and, since his mistaken
description of Papias as "a hearer of John" the Zebedean was certainly
reached by mistaking the presbyter for the apostle, his additional words
"and a companion of Polycarp" point to this same mistaken identification
having also operated in his mind with regard to Polycarp. In any case,
the very real and important presbyter is completely unknown to
Irenaeus, and his conclusion as to the book's authorship resulted
apparently from a comparison of its contents with Polycarp's teaching.
If the presbyter wrote Revelation and was Polycarp's master, such a
mistake could easily arise. Certainly Polycrates, bishop of Ephesus,
made a precisely similar mistake when about 190 he described the Philip
"who rests in Hierapolis" as "one of the twelve apostles," since
Eusebius rightly identifies this Philip with the deacon of Acts xxi. A
positive testimony for the critical conclusion is derived from the
existence of a group of Asia Minor Christians who about 165 rejected the
Gospel as not by John but by Cerinthus. The attribution is doubtless
mistaken. But could Christians sufficiently numerous to deserve a long
discussion by St Epiphanius in 374-377, who upheld the Synoptists,
stoutly opposed the Gnostics and Montanists, and had escaped every
special designation till the bishop nicknamed them the "Alogoi"
(irrational rejectors of the Logos-Gospel), dare, in such a time and
country, to hold such views, had the apostolic origin been
incontestable? Surely not. The Alexandrian Clement, Tertullian, Origen,
Eusebius, Jerome and Augustine only tell of the Zebedean what is
traceable to stories told by Papias of others, to passages of Revelation
and the Gospel, or to the assured fact of the long-lived Asian
presbyter.
As to the internal evidence, if the Gospel typifies various imperfect or
sinful attitudes in Nicodemus, the Samaritan woman and Thomas; if even
the mother appears to symbolize faithful Israel: then, profoundly
spiritual and forward-looking as it is, a type of the perfect disciple,
not all unlike Clement's perfect "Gnostic," could hardly be omitted by
it; and the precise details of this figure may well be only ideally,
mystically true. The original work nowhere identifies this disciple with
any particular historic figure. "He who saw" the lance-thrust "hath
borne witness, and his witness is true," is asserted (xix. 35) of the
disciple. Yet "to see" is said also of intuitive faith, "whoso hath seen
Me, hath seen the Father" (xiv. 9); and "true" appears also in "the true
Light," "the true Bread from heaven," as characterizing the realities of
the upper, alone fully true world, and equals "heavenly" (iii. 12); thus
a "true witness" testifies to some heavenly reality, and appeals to the
reader's "pneumatic," i.e. allegorical, understanding.
Only in the appendix do we find any deliberate identification with a
particular historic person: "this is the disciple who witnessed to and
who wrote these things" (24) refers doubtless to the whole previous work
and to "the disciple whom Jesus loved," identified here with an unnamed
historic personage whose recent death had created a shock, evidently
because he was the last of that apostolic generation which had so keenly
expected the second coming (18-23). This man was so great that the
writer strives to win his authority for this Gospel; and yet this man
was not John the Zebedean, else why, now he is dead and gone, not
proclaim the fact? If the dead man was John the presbyter--if this John
had in youth just seen Jesus and the Zebedean, and in extreme old age
had still seen and approved the Gospel--to attribute this Gospel to him,
as is done here, would not violate the literary ethics of those times.
Thus the heathen philosopher Iamblichus (d. c. 330) declares: "this was
admirable" amongst the Neo-Pythagoreans "that they ascribed everything
to Pythagoras; but few of them acknowledge their own works as their own"
(_de Pythag. vita_, 198). And as to Christians, Tertullian about 210
tells how the presbyter who, in proconsular Asia, had "composed the
_Acts of Paul and Thecla_" was convicted and deposed, for how could it
be credible that Paul should confer upon women the power to "teach and
baptize" as these _Acts_ averred? The attribution as such, then, was not
condemned.
The facts of the problem would all appear covered by the hypothesis that
John the presbyter, the eleven being all dead, wrote the book of
Revelation (its more ancient Christian portions) say in 69, and died at
Ephesus say in 100; that the author of the Gospel wrote the first draft,
here, say in 97; that this book, expanded by him, first circulated
within a select Ephesian Christian circle; and that the Ephesian church
officials added to it the appendix and published it in 110-120. But
however different or more complicated may have been the actual origins,
three points remain certain. The real situation that confronts us is not
an unbroken tradition of apostolic eye-witnesses, incapable of
re-statement with any hope of ecclesiastical acceptance, except by
another apostolic eye-witness. On one side indeed there was the record,
underlying the Synoptists, of at least two eye-witnesses, and the
necessity of its preservation and transmission; but on the other side a
profound double change had come over the Christian outlook and
requirements. St Paul's heroic labours (30-64) had gradually gained full
recognition and separate organization for the universalist strain in our
Lord's teaching; and he who had never seen the earthly Jesus, but only
the heavenly Christ, could even declare that Christ "though from the
Jewish fathers according to the flesh" had died, "so that henceforth,
even if we have known Christ according to the flesh, now we no further
know Him thus," "the Lord is the Spirit," and "where the Spirit of the
Lord is, there is liberty." And the Jewish church, within which
Christianity had first lived and moved, ceased to have a visible centre.
Thus a super-spatial and super-temporal interpretation of that first
markedly Jewish setting and apprehension of the Christian truth became
as necessary as the attachment to the original contingencies. The Fourth
Gospel, inexplicable without St Paul and the fall of Jerusalem, is fully
understandable with them. The attribution of the book to an eye-witness
nowhere resolves, it everywhere increases, the real difficulties; and by
insisting upon having history in the same degree and way in John as in
the Synoptists, we cease to get it sufficiently anywhere at all. And the
Fourth Gospel's true greatness lies well within the range of this its
special character. In character it is profoundly "pneumatic"; Paul's
super-earthly Spirit-Christ here breathes and speaks, and invites a
corresponding spiritual comprehension. And its greatness appears in its
inexhaustibly deep teachings concerning Christ's sheep and fold; the
Father's drawing of souls to Christ; the dependence of knowledge as to
Christ's doctrine upon the doing of God's will; the fulfilling of the
commandment of love, as the test of true discipleship; eternal life,
begun even here and now; and God a Spirit, to be served in spirit and in
truth.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.--See also the independent discussion, under REVELATION,
BOOK OF, of the authorship of that work. Among the immense literature
of the subject, the following books will be found especially
instructive by the classically trained reader: Origen's commentary,
finished (only to John xiii. 33) in 235-237 (best ed. by Preuschen,
1903). St Augustine's _Tractatus in Joannis Ev. et Ep._, about 416.
The Spanish Jesuit Juan Maldonatus' Latin commentary, published 1596
(critical reprint, edited by Raich, 1874), a pathfinder on many
obscure points, is still a model for tenacious penetration of
Johannine ideas. Bretschneider's short _Probabilia de Evangelii ...
Joannis Apostoli indole et origine_ (1820), the first systematic
assault on the traditional attribution, remains unrefuted in its main
contention. The best summing up and ripest fruit of the critical
labour since then are Professor H. J. Holtzmann's _Handkommentar_ (2nd
ed., 1893) and the respective sections in his _Einleitung in d. N. T._
(3rd ed., 1892) and his _Lehrbuch der N. T. Theologie_ (1897), vol. 2.
Professor C. E. Luthardt's _St John, Author of the Fourth Gospel_
(Eng. trans., with admirable bibliography by C. R. Gregory, 1875),
still remains the best conservative statement. Among the few
critically satisfactory French books, Abbe Loisy's _Le Quatrieme
evangile_ (1903) stands pre-eminent for delicate psychological
analysis and continuous sense of the book's closely knit unity; whilst
Pere Th. Calmes' _Evangile selon S. Jean_ (1904) indicates how
numerous are the admissions as to the book's character and the
evidences for its authorship, made by intelligent Roman Catholic
apologists with Rome's explicit approbation. In England a considerably
less docile conservatism has been predominant. Bp Lightfoot's _Essays
on ... Supernatural Religion_ (1874-1877; collected 1889) are often
masterly conservative interpretations of the external evidence; but
they leave this evidence still inconclusive, and the formidable
contrary internal evidence remains practically untouched. Much the
same applies to Bp Westcott's _Gospel according to St John_ (1882),
devotionally so attractive, and in textual criticism excellent. Dr
James Drummond's _Inquiry into the Character and Authorship of the
Fourth Gospel_ (1903) does not, by its valuable survey of the external
evidence, succeed in giving credibility to the eyewitness origin of
such a book as this is admitted to be. Professor W. Sanday's slighter
_Criticism of the Fourth Gospel_ (1905) is in a similar position.
Professor P. W. Schmiedel's article "John s. of Zebedee" in the _Ency.
Bib._ (1901) is the work of a German of the advanced left. Dr E. A.
Abbott's laborious _From Letter to Spirit_ (1903), _Joannine
Vocabulary_ (1904) and _Grammar_ (1906) overflow with statistical
details and ever acute, often fanciful, conjecture. Professor F. C.
Burkitt's _The Gospel History_ (1906) vigorously sketches the book's
dominant characteristics and true function. E. F. Scott's _The Fourth
Gospel_ (1906) gives a lucid, critical and religiously tempered
account of the Gospel's ideas, aims, affinities, difficulties and
abiding significance. (F. v. H.)
JOHN ALBERT (1459-1501), king of Poland, third son of Casimir IV. king
of Poland and Elizabeth of Austria. As crown prince he distinguished
himself by his brilliant victory over the Tatars at Kopersztyn in 1487.
He succeeded his father in 1492. The loss of revenue consequent upon the
secession of Lithuania placed John Albert at the mercy of the Polish
Sejmiki or local diets, where the _szlachta_, or country gentry, made
their subsidies dependent upon the king's subservience. Primarily a
warrior with a strong taste for heroic adventure, John Albert desired to
pose as the champion of Christendom against the Turks. Circumstances
seemed, moreover, to favour him. In his brother Wladislaus, who as king
of Hungary and Bohemia possessed a dominant influence in Central Europe,
he found a counterpoise to the machinations of the emperor Maximilian,
who in 1492 had concluded an alliance against him with Ivan III. of
Muscovy, while, as suzerain of Moldavia, John Albert was favourably
situated for attacking the Turks. At the conference of Leutschau in 1494
the details of the expedition were arranged between the kings of Poland
and Hungary and the elector Frederick of Brandenburg, with the
co-operation of Stephen, hospodar of Moldavia, who had appealed to John
Albert for assistance. In the course of 1496 John Albert with great
difficulty collected an army of 80,000 men in Poland, but the crusade
was deflected from its proper course by the sudden invasion of Galicia
by the hospodar, who apparently--for the whole subject is still very
obscure--had been misled by reports from Hungary that John Albert was
bent upon placing his younger brother Sigismund on the throne of
Moldavia. Be that as it may, the Poles entered Moldavia not as friends,
but as foes, and, after the abortive siege of Suczawa, were compelled to
retreat through the Bukowina to Sniatyn, harassed all the way by the
forces of the hospodar. The insubordination of the _szlachta_ seems to
have been one cause of this disgraceful collapse, for John Albert
confiscated hundreds of their estates after his return; in spite of
which, to the end of his life he retained his extraordinary popularity.
When the new grand master of the Teutonic order, Frederic of Saxony,
refused to render homage to the Polish crown, John Albert compelled him
to do so. His intention of still further humiliating the Teutonic order
was frustrated by his sudden death in 1501. A valiant soldier and a man
of much enlightenment, John Albert was a poor politician, recklessly
sacrificing the future to the present.
See V. Czerny, _The Reigns of John Albert and Alexander Jagiello_
(Pol.) (Cracow, 1882).
JOHN ANGELUS (d. 1244), emperor of Thessalonica. In 1232 he received the
throne from his father Theodore, who, after a period of exile, had
re-established his authority, but owing to his loss of eyesight resolved
to make John the nominal sovereign. His reign is chiefly marked by the
aggressions of the rival emperor of Nicaea, John Vatatzes, who laid
siege to Thessalonica in 1243 and only withdrew upon John Angelus
consenting to exchange the title "emperor" for the subordinate one of
"despot."
See G. Finlay, _History of Greece_, vol. iii. (1877).
JOHN FREDERICK I. (1503-1554), called the Magnanimous, elector of
Saxony, was the elder son of the elector, John the Steadfast, and
belonged to the Ernestine branch of the Wettin family. Born at Torgau on
the 30th of June 1503 and educated as a Lutheran, he took some part in
imperial politics and in the business of the league of Schmalkalden
before he became elector by his father's death in August 1532. His lands
comprised the western part of Saxony, and included Thuringia, but in
1542 Coburg was surrendered to form an apanage for his brother, John
Ernest (d. 1553). John Frederick, who was an ardent Lutheran and had a
high regard for Luther, continued the religious policy of his father. In
1534 he assisted to make peace between the German king Ferdinand I. and
Ulrich, duke of Wurttemberg, but his general attitude was one of
vacillation between the emperor and his own impetuous colleague in the
league of Schmalkalden, Philip, landgrave of Hesse. He was often at
variance with Philip, whose bigamy he disliked, and his belief in the
pacific intentions of Charles V. and his loyalty to the Empire prevented
him from pursuing any definite policy for the defence of Protestantism.
In 1541 his kinsman Maurice became duke of Saxony, and cast covetous
eyes upon the electoral dignity. A cause of quarrel soon arose. In 1541
John Frederick forced Nicholas Amsdorf into the see of Naumburg in spite
of the chapter, who had elected a Roman Catholic, Julius von Pflug; and
about the same time he seized Wurzen, the property of the bishop of
Meissen, whose see was under the joint protection of electoral and ducal
Saxony. Maurice took up arms, and war was only averted by the efforts of
Philip of Hesse and Luther. In 1542 the elector assisted to drive Henry,
duke of Brunswick-Wolfenbuttel, from his duchy, but in spite of this his
relations with Charles V. at the diet of Spires in 1544 were very
amicable. This was, however, only a lull in the storm, and the emperor
soon began to make preparations for attacking the league of
Schmalkalden, and especially John Frederick and Philip of Hesse. The
support, or at least the neutrality, of Maurice was won by the hope of
the electoral dignity, and in July 1546 war broke out between Charles
and the league. In September John Frederick was placed under the
imperial ban, and in November Maurice invaded the electorate. Hastening
from southern Germany the elector drove Maurice from the land, took his
ally, Albert Alcibiades, prince of Bayreuth, prisoner at Rochlitz, and
overran ducal Saxony. His progress, however, was checked by the advance
of Charles V. Notwithstanding his valour he was wounded and taken
prisoner at Muhlberg on the 24th of April 1547, and was condemned to
death in order to induce Wittenberg to surrender. The sentence was not
carried out, but by the capitulation of Wittenberg (May 1547) he
renounced the electoral dignity and a part of his lands in favour of
Maurice, steadfastly refusing however to make any concessions on
religious matters, and remained in captivity until May 1552, when he
returned to the Thuringian lands which his sons had been allowed to
retain, his return being hailed with wild enthusiasm. During his
imprisonment he had refused to accept the _Interim_, issued from
Augsburg in May 1548, and had urged his sons to make no peace with
Maurice. After his release the emperor had restored his dignities to
him, and his assumption of the electoral arms and title prevented any
arrangement with Maurice. However, after the death of this prince in
July 1553, a treaty was made at Naumburg in February 1554 with his
successor Augustus. John Frederick consented to the transfer of the
electoral dignity, but retained for himself the title of "born elector,"
and received some lands and a sum of money. He was thus the last
Ernestine elector of Saxony. He died at Weimar on the 3rd of March 1554,
having had three sons by his wife, Sibylla (d. 1554), daughter of John
III., duke of Cleves, whom he had married in 1527, and was succeeded by
his eldest son, John Frederick. The elector was a great hunter and a
hard drinker, whose brave and dignified bearing in a time of misfortune
won for him his surname of Magnanimous, and drew eulogies from Roger
Ascham and Melanchthon. He founded the university of Jena and was a
benefactor to that of Leipzig.
See Mentz, _Johann Friedrich der Grossmutige_ (Jena, 1903); Rogge,
_Johann Friedrich der Grossmutige_ (Halle, 1902) and L. von Ranke,
_Deutsche Geschichte im Zeitalter der Reformation_ (Leipzig, 1882).
JOHN FREDERICK (1529-1595), called _der Mittlere_, duke of Saxony, was
the eldest son of John Frederick, who had been deprived of the Saxon
electorate by the emperor Charles V. in 1547. Born at Torgau on the 8th
of January 1529, he received a good education, and when his father was
imprisoned in 1547 undertook the government of the remnant of electoral
Saxony which the emperor allowed the Ernestine branch of the Wettin
family to keep. Released in 1552 John Frederick the elder died two years
later, and his three sons ruled Ernestine Saxony together until 1557,
when John Frederick was made sole ruler. This arrangement lasted until
1565, when John Frederick shared his lands with his surviving brother,
John William (1530-1573), retaining for himself Gotha and Weimar. The
duke was a strong, even a fanatical, Lutheran, but his religious views
were gradually subordinated to the one idea of regaining the electoral
dignity then held by Augustus I. To attain this end he lent a willing
ear to the schemes of Wilhelm von Grumbach, who came to his court about
1557 and offered to regain the electoral dignity and even to acquire the
Empire for his patron. In spite of repeated warnings from the emperor
Ferdinand I., John Frederick continued to protect Grumbach, and in 1566
his obstinacy caused him to be placed under the imperial ban. Its
execution was entrusted to Augustus who, aided by the duke's brother,
John William, marched against Gotha with a strong force. In consequence
of a mutiny the town surrendered in April 1567, and John Frederick was
delivered to the emperor Maximilian II. He was imprisoned in Vienna, his
lands were given to his brother, and he remained in captivity until his
death at Steyer on the 6th of May 1595. These years were mainly occupied
with studying theology and in correspondence. John Frederick married
firstly Agnes (d. 1555) daughter of Philip, landgrave of Hesse, and
widow of Maurice, elector of Saxony, and secondly Elizabeth (d. 1594)
daughter of Frederick III., elector palatine of the Rhine, by whom he
left two sons, John Casimir (1564-1633) and John Ernest (1566-1638).
Elizabeth shared her husband's imprisonment for twenty-two years.
See A. Beck, _Johann Friedrich der Mittlere, Herzog zu Sachsen_
(Vienna, 1858); and F. Ortloff, _Geschichte der Grumbachischen Handel_
(Jena, 1868-1870).
JOHN GEORGE I. (1585-1656), elector of Saxony, second son of the elector
Christian I., was born on the 5th of March 1585, succeeding to the
electorate in June 1611 on the death of his elder brother, Christian II.
The geographical position of electoral Saxony hardly less than her high
standing among the German Protestants gave her ruler much importance
during the Thirty Years' War. At the beginning of his reign, however,
the new elector took up a somewhat detached position. His personal
allegiance to Lutheranism was sound, but he liked neither the growing
strength of Brandenburg nor the increasing prestige of the Palatinate;
the adherence of the other branches of the Saxon ruling house to
Protestantism seemed to him to suggest that the head of electoral Saxony
should throw his weight into the other scale, and he was prepared to
favour the advances of the Habsburgs and the Roman Catholic party. Thus
he was easily induced to vote for the election of Ferdinand, archduke of
Styria, as emperor in August 1619, an action which nullified the
anticipated opposition of the Protestant electors. The new emperor
secured the help of John George for the impending campaign in Bohemia by
promising that he should be undisturbed in his possession of certain
ecclesiastical lands. Carrying out his share of the bargain by occupying
Silesia and Lusatia, where he displayed much clemency, the Saxon elector
had thus some part in driving Frederick V., elector palatine of the
Rhine, from Bohemia and in crushing Protestantism in that country, the
crown of which he himself had previously refused. Gradually, however, he
was made uneasy by the obvious trend of the imperial policy towards the
annihilation of Protestantism, and by a dread lest the ecclesiastical
lands should be taken from him; and the issue of the edict of
restitution in March 1629 put the coping-stone to his fears. Still,
although clamouring vainly for the exemption of the electorate from the
area covered by the edict, John George took no decided measures to break
his alliance with the emperor. He did, indeed, in February 1631 call a
meeting of Protestant princes at Leipzig, but in spite of the appeals of
the preacher Matthias Hoe von Hohenegg (1580-1645) he contented himself
with a formal protest. Meanwhile Gustavus Adolphus had landed in
Germany, and the elector had refused to allow him to cross the Elbe at
Wittenberg, thus hindering his attempt to relieve Magdeburg. But John
George's reluctance to join the Protestants disappeared when the
imperial troops under Tilly began to ravage Saxony, and in September
1631 he concluded an alliance with the Swedish king. The Saxon troops
were present at the battle of Breitenfeld, but were routed by the
imperialists, the elector himself seeking safety in flight. Nevertheless
he soon took the offensive. Marching into Bohemia the Saxons occupied
Prague, but John George soon began to negotiate for peace and
consequently his soldiers offered little resistance to Wallenstein, who
drove them back into Saxony. However, for the present the efforts of
Gustavus Adolphus prevented the elector from deserting him, but the
position was changed by the death of the king at Lutzen in 1632, and the
refusal of Saxony to join the Protestant league under Swedish
leadership. Still letting his troops fight in a desultory fashion
against the imperialists, John George again negotiated for peace, and in
May 1635 he concluded the important treaty of Prague with Ferdinand II.
His reward was Lusatia and certain other additions of territory; the
retention by his son Augustus of the archbishopric of Magdeburg; and
some concessions with regard to the edict of restitution. Almost at once
he declared war upon the Swedes, but in October 1636 he was beaten at
Wittstock; and Saxony, ravaged impartially by both sides, was soon in a
deplorable condition. At length in September 1645 the elector was
compelled to agree to a truce with the Swedes, who, however, retained
Leipzig; and as far as Saxony was concerned this ended the Thirty Years'
War. After the peace of Westphalia, which with regard to Saxony did
little more than confirm the treaty of Prague, John George died on the
8th of October 1656. Although not without political acumen, he was not a
great ruler; his character appears to have been harsh and unlovely, and
he was addicted to drink. He was twice married, and in addition to his
successor John George II. he left three sons, Augustus (1614-1680),
Christian (d. 1691) and Maurice (d. 1681) who were all endowed with
lands in Saxony, and who founded cadet branches of the Saxon house.
JOHN GEORGE II. (1613-1680), elector of Saxony, was born on the 31st of
May 1613. In 1657, just after his accession, he made an arrangement with
his three brothers with the object of preventing disputes over their
separate territories, and in 1664 he entered into friendly relations
with Louis XIV. He received money from the French king, but the
existence of a strong anti-French party in Saxony induced him
occasionally to respond to the overtures of the emperor Leopold I. The
elector's primary interests were not in politics, but in music and art.
He adorned Dresden, which under him became the musical centre of
Germany; welcoming foreign musicians and others he gathered around him a
large and splendid court, and his capital was the constant scene of
musical and other festivals. His enormous expenditure compelled him in
1661 to grant greater control over monetary matters to the estates, a
step which laid the foundation of the later system of finance in Saxony.
John George died at Freiberg on the 22nd of August 1680.
JOHN GEORGE III. (1647-1691), elector of Saxony, the only son of John
George II., was born on the 20th of June 1647. He forsook the
vacillating foreign policy of his father and in June 1683 joined an
alliance against France. Having raised the first standing army in the
electorate he helped to drive the Turks from Vienna in September 1680,
leading his men with great gallantry; but disgusted with the attitude of
the emperor Leopold I. after the victory, he returned at once to Saxony.
However, he sent aid to Leopold in 1685. When Louis XIV.'s armies
invaded Germany in September 1688 John George was one of the first to
take up arms against the French, and after sharing in the capture of
Mainz he was appointed commander-in-chief of the imperial forces. He had
not, however, met with any notable success when he died at Tubingen on
the 12th of September 1691. Like his father, he was very fond of music,
but he appears to have been less extravagant than John George II. His
wife was Anna Sophia, daughter of Frederick III. king of Denmark, and
both his sons, John George and Frederick Augustus, became electors of
Saxony, the latter also becoming king of Poland as Augustus II.
JOHN GEORGE IV. (1668-1694), elector of Saxony, was born on the 18th of
October 1668. At the beginning of his reign his chief adviser was Hans
Adam von Schoning (1641-1696), who counselled a union between Saxony and
Brandenburg and a more independent attitude towards the emperor. In
accordance with this advice certain proposals were put before Leopold I.
to which he refused to agree; and consequently the Saxon troops withdrew
from the imperial army, a proceeding which led the chagrined emperor to
seize and imprison Schoning in July 1692. Although John George was
unable to procure his minister's release, Leopold managed to allay the
elector's anger, and early in 1693 the Saxon soldiers rejoined the
imperialists. This elector is chiefly celebrated for his passion for
Magdalene Sibylle von Neidschutz (d. 1694), created in 1693 countess of
Rochlitz, whom on his accession he publicly established as his mistress.
John George left no legitimate issue when he died on the 27th of April
1694.
JOHN[1] MAURICE OF NASSAU (1604-1679), surnamed the Brazilian, was the
son of John the Younger, count of Nassau-Siegen-Dillenburg, and the
grandson of John, the elder brother of William the Silent and the chief
author of the Union of Utrecht. He distinguished himself in the
campaigns of his cousin, the stadtholder Frederick Henry of Orange, and
was by him recommended to the directors of the Dutch West India company
in 1636 to be governor-general of the new dominion in Brazil recently
conquered by the company. He landed at the Recife, the port of
Pernambuco, and the chief stronghold of the Dutch, in January 1637. By a
series of successful expeditions he gradually extended the Dutch
possessions from Sergipe on the south to S. Luis de Maranham in the
north. He likewise conquered the Portuguese possessions of St George del
Mina and St Thomas on the west coast of Africa. With the assistance of
the famous architect, Pieter Post of Haarlem, he transformed the Recife
by building a new town adorned with splendid public edifices and
gardens, which was called after his name Mauritstad. By his
statesmanlike policy he brought the colony into a most flourishing
condition and succeeded even in reconciling the Portuguese settlers to
submit quietly to Dutch rule. His large schemes and lavish expenditure
alarmed however the parsimonious directors of the West India company,
but John Maurice refused to retain his post unless he was given a free
hand, and he returned to Europe in July 1644. He was shortly afterwards
appointed by Frederick Henry to the command of the cavalry in the States
army, and he took part in the campaigns of 1645 and 1646. When the war
was ended by the peace of Munster in January 1648, he accepted from the
elector of Brandenburg the post of governor of Cleves, Mark and
Ravensberg, and later also of Minden. His success in the Rhineland was
as great as it had been in Brazil, and he proved himself a most able and
wise ruler. At the end of 1652 he was appointed head of the order of St
John and made a prince of the Empire. In 1664 he came back to Holland;
when the war broke out with England supported by an invasion from the
bishop of Munster, he was appointed commander-in-chief of the Dutch
forces on land. Though hampered in his command by the restrictions of
the states-general, he repelled the invasion, and the bishop, Christoph
von Galen, was forced to conclude peace. His campaigning was not yet at
an end, for in 1673 he was appointed by the stadtholder William III. to
command the forces in Friesland and Groningen, and to defend the eastern
frontier of the Provinces. In 1675 his health compelled him to give up
active military service, and he spent his last years in his beloved
Cleves, where he died on the 20th of December 1679. The house which he
built at the Hague, named after him the Maurits-huis, now contains the
splendid collections of pictures so well known to all admirers of Dutch
art.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.--Caspar Barlaeus, _Rerum per octennium in Brasilia et
alibi nuper gestarum historia, sub praefectura illustrissimi comitis
J. Mauritii Nassoviae_ (Amsterdam, 1647); L. Driessen, _Leben des
Fursten Johann Moritz von Nassau_ (Berlin, 1849); D. Veegens, _Leven
van Jaan Maurits_, Graaf van Nassau-Siegen (Haarlem, 1840).
FOOTNOTE:
[1] This name is usually written Joan, the form used by the man
himself in his signature--see the facsimile in Netscher's _Les
Hollandais en Bresil_.
JOHN O' GROAT'S HOUSE, a spot on the north coast of Caithness, Scotland,
14 m. N. of Wick and 1(3/4) m. W. of Duncansby Head. It is the mythical site
of an octagonal house said to have been erected early in the 16th
century by one John Groot, a Dutchman who had migrated to the north of
Scotland by permission of James IV. According to the legend, other
members of the Groot family followed John, and acquired lands around
Duncansby. When there were eight Groot families, disputes began to arise
as to precedence at annual feasts. These squabbles John Groot is said to
have settled by building an octagonal house which had eight entrances
and eight tables, so that the head of each family could enter by his own
door and sit at the head of his own table. Being but a few miles south
of Dunnet Head, John o' Groat's is a colloquial term for the most
northerly point of Scotland. The site of the traditional building is
marked by an outline traced in turf. Descendants of the Groot family,
now Groat, still live in the neighbourhood. The cowry-shell, _Cypraea
europaea_, is locally known as "John o' Groat's bucky."
JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY, an American educational institution at
Baltimore, Maryland, U.S.A. Its trustees, chosen by Johns Hopkins
(1794-1873), a successful Baltimore merchant, were incorporated on the
24th of August 1867 under a general act "for the promotion of education
in the state of Maryland." But nothing was actually done until after the
death of Johns Hopkins (Dec. 24, 1873), when his fortune of $7,000,000
was equally divided between the projected university and a hospital,
also to bear his name, and intended to be an auxiliary to the medical
school of the university. The trustees of the university consulted with
many prominent educationists, notably Charles W. Eliot of Harvard,
Andrew D. White of Cornell, and James B. Angell of the university of
Michigan; on the 30th of December 1874 they elected Daniel Coit Gilman
(q.v.) president. The university was formally opened on the 3rd of
October 1876, when an address was delivered by T. H. Huxley. The first
year was largely given up to consultation among the newly chosen
professors, among whom were--in Greek, B. L. Gildersleeve; in
mathematics, J. J. Sylvester; in chemistry, Ira Remsen; in biology,
Henry Newell Martin (1848-1896); in zoology, William Keith Brooks
(1848-1908); and in physics, Henry Augustus Rowland (1848-1901).
Prominent among later teachers were Arthur Cayley in mathematics, the
Semitic scholar Paul Haupt (b. 1858), Granville Stanley Hall in
psychology, Maurice Bloomfield in Sanskrit and comparative philology,
James Rendel Harris in Biblical philology, James Wilson Bright in
English philology, Herbert B. Adams in history, and Richard T. Ely (b.
1854) in economics. The university at once became a pioneer in the
United States in teaching by means of seminary courses and laboratories,
and it has been eminently successful in encouraging research, in
scientific production, and in preparing its students to become
instructors in other colleges and universities. It includes a college in
which each of five parallel courses leads to the degree of Bachelor of
Arts, but its reputation has been established chiefly by its other two
departments, the graduate school and the medical school. The graduate
school offers courses in philosophy and psychology, physics, chemistry
and biology, historical and economic science, language and literature,
and confers the degree of Doctor of Philosophy after at least three
years' residence. From its foundation the university had novel features
and a liberal administration. Twenty annual fellowships of $500 each
were opened to the graduates of any college. Petrography and laboratory
psychology were among the new sciences fostered by the new university.
Such eminent outsiders were secured for brief residence and lecture
courses as J. R. Lowell, F. J. Child, Simon Newcomb, H. E. von Holst, F.
A. Walker, William James, Sidney Lanier, James Bryce, E. A. Freeman, W.
W. Goodwin, and Alfred Russel Wallace. President Gilman gave up his
presidential duties on the 1st of September 1901, Ira Remsen[1]
succeeding him in the office. The medical department, inaugurated in
1893, is closely affiliated with the excellently equipped Johns Hopkins
Hospital (opened in 1889), and is actually a graduate school, as it
admits only students holding the bachelor's degree or its equivalent.
The degree of Doctor of Medicine is conferred after four years of
successful study, and advanced courses are offered. The department's
greatest teachers have been William Osler (b. 1849) and William Henry
Welch (b. 1850).
The buildings of the university were in 1901 an unpretentious group on
crowded ground near the business centre of the city. In 1902 a new site
was secured, containing about 125 acres amid pleasant surroundings in
the northern suburbs, and new buildings were designed in accordance with
a plan formed with a view to secure harmony and symmetry. In 1907 the
library contained more than 133,000 bound volumes. Among the numerous
publications issued by the university press are: _American Journal of
Mathematics_, _Studies in Historical and Political Science_, _Reprint of
Economic Tracts, American Journal of Philology_, _Contributions to
Assyriology and Semitic Philology_, _Modern Language Notes_, _American
Chemical Journal_, _American Journal of Insanity_, _Terrestrial
Magnetism and Atmospheric Electricity_, _Reports of the Maryland
Geological Survey_, and _Reports of the Maryland Weather Service_. The
institution is maintained chiefly with the proceeds of the endowment
fund. It also receives aid from the state, and charges tuition fees. Its
government is entrusted to a board of trustees, while the direction of
affairs of a strictly academic nature is delegated to an academic
council and to department boards. In 1907-1908 the regular faculty
numbered 175, and there was an enrolment of 683 students, of whom 518
were in post-graduate courses.
On the history of the university see Daniel C. Gilman, _The Launching of
a University_ (New York, 1906), and the annual reports of the president.
FOOTNOTE:
[1] Ira Remsen was born in New York City on the 10th of February
1846, graduated at the college of the City of New York in 1865,
studied at the New York college of physicians and surgeons and at the
university of Gottingen, was professor of chemistry at Williams
College in 1872-1876, and in 1876 became professor cf chemistry at
Johns Hopkins University. He published many textbooks of chemistry,
organic and inorganic, which were republished in England and were
translated abroad. In 1879 he founded the _American Chemical
Journal_.
JOHNSON, ANDREW (1808-1875), seventeenth president of the United States,
was born at Raleigh, North Carolina, on the 29th of December 1808. His
parents were poor, and his father died when Andrew was four years old.
At the age of ten he was apprenticed to a tailor, his spare hours being
spent in acquiring the rudiments of an education. He learned to read
from a book which contained selected orations of great British and
American statesmen. The young tailor went to Laurens Court House, South
Carolina, in 1824, to work at his trade, but returned to Raleigh in 1826
and soon afterward removed to Greeneville in the eastern part of
Tennessee. He married during the same year Eliza McCardle (1810-1876),
much his superior by birth and education, who taught him the common
school branches of learning and was of great assistance in his later
career. In East Tennessee most of the people were small farmers, while
West Tennessee was a land of great slave plantations. Johnson began in
politics to oppose the aristocratic element and became the spokesman and
champion of the poorer and labouring classes. In 1828 he was elected an
alderman of Greeneville and in 1830-1834 was mayor. In 1834, in the
Tennessee constitutional convention he endeavoured to limit the
influence of the slaveholders by basing representation in the state
legislature on the white population alone. In 1835-1837 and 1839-1841
Johnson was a Democratic member of the state House of Representatives,
and in 1841-1843 of the state Senate; in both houses he uniformly upheld
the cause of the "common people," and, in addition, opposed legislation
for "internal improvements." He soon was recognized as the political
champion of East Tennessee. Though his favourite leaders became Whigs,
Johnson remained a Democrat, and in 1840 canvassed the state for Van
Buren for president.
In 1843 he was elected to the national House of Representatives and
there remained for ten years until his district was gerrymandered by the
Whigs and he lost his seat. But he at once offered himself as a
candidate for governor and was elected and re-elected, and was then sent
to the United States Senate, serving from 1857 to 1862. As governor
(1853-1857) he proved to be able and non-partisan. He championed popular
education and recommended the homestead policy to the national
government, and from his sympathy with the working classes and his
oft-avowed pride in his former calling he became known as the "mechanic
governor." In Congress he proved to be a tireless advocate of the claims
of the poorer whites and an opponent of the aristocracy. He favoured the
annexation of Texas, supported the Polk administration on the issues of
the Mexican War and the Oregon boundary controversy, and though voting
for the admission of free California demanded national protection for
slavery. He also advocated the homestead law and low tariffs, opposed
the policy of "internal improvements," and was a zealous worker for
budget economies. Though opposed to a monopoly of political power in the
South by the great slaveholders, he deprecated anti-slavery agitation
(even favouring denial of the right of petition on that subject) as
threatening abolition or the dissolution of the Union, and went with his
sectional leaders so far as to demand freedom of choice for the
Territories, and protection for slavery where it existed--this even so
late as 1860. He supported in 1860 the ultra-Democratic ticket of
Breckinridge and Lane, but he did not identify the election of Lincoln
with the ruin of the South, though he thought the North should give
renewed guarantees to slavery. But he followed Jackson rather than
Calhoun, and above everything else set his love of the Union, though
believing the South to be grievously wronged. He was the only Southern
member of Congress who opposed secession and refused to "go with his
state" when it withdrew from the Union in 1861. In the judgment of a
leading opponent (O. P. Morton) "perhaps no man in Congress exerted the
same influence on the public sentiment of the North at the beginning of
the war" as Johnson. During the war he suffered much for his loyalty to
the Union. In March 1862 Lincoln made him military governor of the part
of Tennessee captured from the Confederates, and after two years of
autocratic rule (with much danger to himself) he succeeded in organizing
a Union government for the state. In 1864, to secure the votes of the
war Democrats and to please the border states that had remained in the
Union, Johnson was nominated for vice-president on the ticket with
Lincoln.
A month after the inauguration the murder of Lincoln left him president,
with the great problem to solve of reconstruction of the Union. All his
past career and utterances seemed to indicate that he would favour the
harshest measures toward ex-Confederates, hence his acceptability to the
most radical republicans. But, whether because he drew a distinction
between the treason of individuals and of states, or was influenced by
Seward, or simply, once in responsible position, separated Republican
party politics from the question of constitutional interpretation, at
least he speedily showed that he would be influenced by no acrimony, and
adopted the lenient reconstruction policy of Lincoln. In this he had for
some time the cordial support of his cabinet. During the summer of 1865
he set up provisional civil governments in all the seceded states except
Texas, and within a few months all those states were reorganized and
applying for readmission to the Union. The radical congress (Republican
by a large majority) sharply opposed this plan of restoration, as they
had opposed Lincoln's plan: first, because the members of Congress from
the Southern States (when readmitted) would almost certainly vote with
the Democrats; secondly, because relatively few of the Confederates were
punished; and thirdly, because the newly organized Southern States did
not give political rights to the negroes. The question of the status of
the negro proved the crux of the issue. Johnson was opposed to general
or immediate negro suffrage. A bitter contest began in Feb. 1866,
between the president and the Congress, which refused to admit
representatives from the South and during 1866 passed over his veto a
number of important measures, such as the Freedmen's Bureau Act and the
Civil Rights Act, and submitted to the States the Fourteenth Amendment
to the Constitution. Johnson took a prominent and undignified part in
the congressional campaign of 1866, in which his policies were voted
down by the North. In 1867 Congress threw aside his work of restoration
and proceeded with its own plan, the main features of which were the
disfranchisement of ex-Confederates and the enfranchisement of negroes.
On the 2nd of March 1867 Congress passed over the president's veto the
Tenure of Office Act, prohibiting the president from dismissing from
office without the consent of the Senate any officer appointed by and
with the advice and consent of that body, and in addition a section was
inserted in the army appropriation bill of this session designed to
subordinate the president to the Senate and the general-in-chief of the
army in military matters. The president was thus deprived of practically
all power. Stanton and other members of his cabinet and General Grant
became hostile to him, the president attempted to remove Stanton without
regard to the Tenure of Office Act, and, finally, to get rid of the
president, Congress in 1868(February-May) made an attempt to impeach and
remove him, his disregard of the Tenure of Office Act being the
principal charge against him. The charges[1] were in part quite trivial,
and the evidence was ridiculously inadequate for the graver charges. A
two-thirds majority was necessary for conviction; and the votes being 35
to 19 (7 Republicans and 12 Democrats voting in his favour on the
crucial clauses) he was acquitted. The misguided animus of the
impeachment as a piece of partisan politics was soon very generally
admitted; and the importance of its failure, in securing the continued
power and independence of the presidential element in the constitutional
system, can hardly be over-estimated. The rest of his term as president
was comparatively quiet and uneventful. In 1869 he retired into private
life in Tennessee, and after several unsuccessful efforts was elected to
the United States Senate, free of party trammels, in 1875, but died at
Carter's Station, Tenn., on the 31st of July 1875. The only speech he
made was a skilful and temperate arraignment of President Grant's policy
towards the South.
President Johnson's leading political principles were a reverence of
Andrew Jackson, unlimited confidence in the people, and an intense
veneration for the constitution. Throughout his life he remained in some
respects a "backwoodsman." He lacked the finish of systematic education.
But his whole career sufficiently proves him to have been a man of
extraordinary qualities. He did not rise above untoward circumstances by
favour, nor--until after his election as senator--by fortunate and
fortuitous connexion with great events, but by strength of native
talents, persistent purpose, and an iron will. He had strong, rugged
powers, was a close reasoner and a forcible speaker. Unfortunately his
extemporaneous speeches were commonplace, in very bad taste, fervently
intemperate and denunciatory; and though this was probably due largely
to temperament and habits of stump-speaking formed in early life, it was
attributed by his enemies to drink. Resorting to stimulants after
illness, his marked excess in this respect on the occasion of his
inauguration as vice-president undoubtedly did him harm with the public.
Faults of personality were his great handicap. Though approachable and
not without kindliness of manner, he seemed hard and inflexible; and
while president, physical pain and domestic anxieties, added to the
struggles of public life, combined to accentuate a naturally somewhat
severe temperament. A lifelong Southern Democrat, he was forced to lead
(nominally at least) a party of Northern Republicans, with whom he had
no bond of sympathy save a common opposition to secession; and his
ardent, aggressive convictions and character, above all his complete
lack of tact, unfitted him to deal successfully with the passionate
partisanship of Congress. The absolute integrity and unflinching courage
that marked his career were always ungrudgingly admitted by his greatest
enemies.
See L. Foster, _The Life and Speeches of Andrew Johnson_ (1866); D. M.
De Witt, _The Impeachment and Trial of Andrew Johnson_ (1903); C. E.
Chadsey, _The Struggle between President Johnson and Congress over
Reconstruction_ (1896); and W. A. Dunning, _Essays on the Civil War
and Reconstruction_ (1898). Also see W. A. Dunning's paper "More Light
on Andrew Johnson" (in the _American Historical Review_, April 1906),
in which apparently conclusive evidence is presented to prove that
Johnson's first inaugural, a notable state paper, was written by the
historian George Bancroft.
FOOTNOTE:
[1] The charges centred in the president's removal of Secretary
Stanton, his _ad interim_ appointment of Lorenzo Thomas, his campaign
speeches in 1866, and the relation of these three things to the
Tenure of Office Act. Of the eleven charges of impeachment the first
was that Stanton's removal was contrary to the Tenure of Office Act;
the second, that the appointment of Thomas was a violation of the
same law; the third, that the appointment violated the Constitution;
the fourth, that Johnson conspired with Thomas "to hinder and prevent
Edwin M. Stanton ... from holding ... office of secretary for the
department of war"; the fifth, that Johnson had conspired with Thomas
to "prevent and hinder the execution" of the Tenure of Office Act;
the sixth, that he had conspired with Thomas "to seize, take and
possess the property of the United States in the department of war,"
in violation of the Tenure of Office Act; the seventh, that this
action was "a high misdemeanour"; the eighth, that the appointment of
Thomas was "with intent unlawfully to control the disbursements of
the moneys appropriated for the military service and for the
department of war"; the ninth, that he had instructed Major-General
Emory, in command of the department of Washington, that an act of
1867 appropriating money for the army was unconstitutional; the
tenth, that his speeches in 1866 constituted "a high misdemeanour in
office"; and the eleventh, the "omnibus" article, that he had
committed high misdemeanours in saying that the 39th Congress was not
an authorized Congress, that its legislation was not binding upon
him, and that it was incapable of proposing amendments. The actual
trial began on the 30th of March (from the 5th of March it was
adjourned to the 23rd, and on the 24th of March to the 30th). On the
16th of May, after sessions in which the Senate repeatedly reversed
the rulings of the chief justice as to the admission of evidence, in
which the president's counsel showed that their case was excellently
prepared and the prosecuting counsel appealed in general to political
passions rather than to judicial impartiality, the eleventh article
was voted on and impeachment failed by a single vote (35 to 19; 7
republicans and 12 democrats voting "Not guilty") of the necessary
two-thirds. After ten days' interval, during which B. F. Butler of
the prosecuting counsel attempted to prove that corruption had been
practised on some of those voting "Not guilty," on the 26th of May a
vote was taken on the second and third articles with the same result
as on the eleventh article. There was no vote on the other articles.
JOHNSON, BENJAMIN (c. 1665-1742), English actor, was first a scene
painter, then acted in the provinces, and appeared in London in 1695 at
Drury Lane after Betterton's defection. He was the original Captain
Driver in _Oronooko_ (1696), Captain Fireball in Farquhar's _Sir Harry
Wildair_ (1701), Sable in Steele's _Funeral_ (1702), &c.; as the First
Gravedigger in _Hamlet_ and in several characters in the plays of Ben
Jonson he was particularly good. He succeeded, also, to Thomas Doggett's
roles.
JOHNSON, EASTMAN (1824-1906), American artist, was born at Lovell,
Maine, on the 29th of July 1824. He studied at Dusseldorf, Paris, Rome
and The Hague, the last city being his home for four years. In 1860 he
was elected to the National Academy of Design, New York. A distinguished
portrait and genre painter, he made distinctively American themes his
own, depicting the negro, fisherfolk and farm life with unusual
interest. Such pictures as "Old Kentucky Home" (1867), "Husking Bee"
(1876), "Cranberry Harvest, Nantucket" (1880), and his portrait group
"The Funding Bill" (1881) achieved a national reputation. Among his
sitters were many prominent men, including Daniel Webster; Presidents
Hayes, Arthur, Cleveland and Harrison; William M. Evarts, Charles J.
Folger; Emerson, Longfellow, Hawthorne, James McCosh, Noah Porter and
Sir Edward Archbald. He died in New York City on the 5th of April 1906.
JOHNSON, REVERDY (1796-1876), American political leader and jurist, was
born at Annapolis, Maryland, on the 21st of May 1796. His father, John
Johnson (1770-1824), was a distinguished lawyer, who served in both
houses of the Maryland General Assembly, as attorney-general of the
state (1806-1811), as a judge of the court of appeals (1811-1821), and
as a chancellor of his state (1821-1824). Reverdy graduated from St
John's college in 1812. He then studied law in his father's office, was
admitted to the bar in 1815 and began to practise in Upper Marlborough,
Prince George's county. In 1817 he removed to Baltimore, where he became
the professional associate of Luther Martin, William Pinkney and Roger
B. Taney; with Thomas Harris he reported the decisions of the court of
appeals in _Harris and Johnson's Reports_ (1820-1827); and in 1818 he
was appointed chief commissioner of insolvent debtors. From 1821 to 1825
he was a state senator; from 1825 to 1845 he devoted himself to his
practice; from 1845 to 1849, as a Whig, he was a member of the United
States Senate; and from March 1849 to July 1850 he was attorney-general
of the United States. In 1856 he became identified with the conservative
wing of the Democratic party, and four years later supported Stephen A.
Douglas for the presidency. In 1861 he was a delegate from Maryland to
the peace convention at Washington; in 1861-1862 he was a member of the
Maryland House of Delegates. After the capture of New Orleans he was
commissioned by Lincoln to revise the decisions of the military
commandant, General B. F. Butler, in regard to foreign governments, and
reversed all those decisions to the entire satisfaction of the
administration. In 1863 he again took his seat in the United States
Senate. In 1868 he was appointed minister to Great Britain and soon
after his arrival in England negotiated the Johnson-Clarendon treaty for
the settlement of disputes arising out of the Civil War; this, however,
the Senate refused to ratify, and he returned home on the accession of
General U. S. Grant to the presidency. Again resuming his practice he
was engaged by the government in the prosecution of Ku-Klux cases. He
died on the 10th of February 1876 at Annapolis. He repudiated the
doctrine of secession, and pleaded for compromise and conciliation.
Opposed to the Reconstruction measures, he voted for them on the ground
that it was better to accept than reject them, since they were probably
the best that could be obtained. As a lawyer he was engaged during his
later years in most of the especially important cases in the Supreme
Court of the United States and in the courts of Maryland.
JOHNSON, RICHARD (1573-1659?), English romance writer, was baptized in
London on the 24th of May 1573. His most famous romance is The _Famous
Historie of the Seaven Champions of Christendom_ (1596?). The success of
this book was so great that the author added a second and a third part
in 1608 and 1616. His other stories include: _The Nine Worthies of
London_ (1592); _The Pleasant Walks of Moorefields_ (1607); _The
Pleasant Conceites of Old Hobson_ (1607), the hero being a well-known
haberdasher in the Poultry; _The Most Pleasant History of Tom a
Lincolne_ (1607); _A Remembrance of ... Robert Earle of Salisbury_
(1612); _Looke on Me, London_ (1613); _The History of Tom Thumbe_
(1621). _The Crown Garland of Golden Roses ... set forth in Many
Pleasant new Songs and Sonnets_ (1612) was reprinted for the Percy
Society (1842 and 1845).
JOHNSON, RICHARD MENTOR (1781-1850), ninth vice-president of the
United States, was born at Bryant's Station, Kentucky, on the 17th of
October 1781. He was admitted to the bar in 1800, and became prominent
as a lawyer and Democratic politician, serving in the Federal House of
Representatives and in the Senate for many years. From 1837 to 1841 he
was vice-president of the United States, to which position he was
elected over Francis Granger, by the Senate, none of the four candidates
for the vice-presidency having received a majority of the electoral
votes. The opposition to Johnson within the party greatly increased
during his term, and the Democratic national convention of 1840 adopted
the unprecedented course of refusing to nominate anyone for the
vice-presidency. In the ensuing election Johnson received most of the
Democratic electoral votes, but was defeated by the Whig candidate, John
Tyler. He died in Frankfort, Kentucky, on the 19th of November 1850.
JOHNSON, SAMUEL (1709-1784), English writer and lexicographer, was the
son of Michael Johnson (1656-1731), bookseller and magistrate of
Lichfield, who married in 1706 Sarah Ford (1669-1759). Michael's
abilities and attainments seem to have been considerable. He was so well
acquainted with the contents of the volumes which he exposed for sale
that the country rectors of Staffordshire and Worcestershire thought him
an oracle on points of learning. Between him and the clergy, indeed,
there was a strong religious and political sympathy. He was a zealous
churchman, and, though he had qualified himself for municipal office by
taking the oaths to the sovereigns in possession, was to the last a
Jacobite in heart. The social position of Samuel's paternal grandfather,
William Johnson, remains obscure; his mother was the daughter of
Cornelius Ford, "a little Warwickshire Gent."
At a house (now the Johnson Museum) in the Market Square, Lichfield,
Samuel Johnson was born on the 18th of September 1709 and baptized on
the same day at St Mary's, Lichfield. In the child the physical,
intellectual and moral peculiarities which afterwards distinguished the
man were plainly discernible: great muscular strength accompanied by
much awkwardness and many infirmities; great quickness of parts, with a
morbid propensity to sloth and procrastination; a kind and generous
heart, with a gloomy and irritable temper. He had inherited from his
ancestors a scrofulous taint, and his parents were weak enough to
believe that the royal touch would cure him. In his third year he was
taken up to London, inspected by the court surgeon, prayed over by the
court chaplains and stroked and presented with a piece of gold by Queen
Anne. Her hand was applied in vain. The boy's features, which were
originally noble and not irregular, were distorted by his malady. His
cheeks were deeply scarred. He lost for a time the sight of one eye; and
he saw but very imperfectly with the other. But the force of his mind
overcame every impediment. Indolent as he was, he acquired knowledge
with such ease and rapidity that at every school (such as those at
Lichfield and Stourbridge) to which he was sent he was soon the best
scholar. From sixteen to eighteen he resided at home, and was left to
his own devices. He learned much at this time, though his studies were
without guidance and without plan. He ransacked his father's shelves,
dipped into a multitude of books, read what was interesting, and passed
over what was dull. An ordinary lad would have acquired little or no
useful knowledge in such a way; but much that was dull to ordinary lads
was interesting to Samuel. He read little Greek; for his proficiency in
that language was not such that he could take much pleasure in the
masters of Attic poetry and eloquence. But he had left school a good
Latinist, and he soon acquired an extensive knowledge of Latin
literature. He was peculiarly attracted by the works of the great
restorers of learning. Once, while searching for some apples, he found a
huge folio volume of Petrarch's works. The name excited his curiosity,
and he eagerly devoured hundreds of pages. Indeed, the diction and
versification of his own Latin compositions show that he had paid at
least as much attention to modern copies from the antique as to the
original models.
While he was thus irregularly educating himself, his family was sinking
into hopeless poverty. Old Michael Johnson was much better qualified to
pore over books, and to talk about them, than to trade in them. His
business declined; his debts increased; it was with difficulty that the
daily expenses of his household were defrayed. It was out of his power
to support his son at either university; but a wealthy neighbour offered
assistance; and, in reliance on promises which proved to be of very
little value, Samuel was entered at Pembroke College, Oxford. When the
young scholar presented himself to the rulers of that society, they were
amazed not more by his ungainly figure and eccentric manners than by the
quantity of extensive and curious information which he had picked up
during many months of desultory but not unprofitable study. On the first
day of his residence he surprised his teachers by quoting Macrobius; and
one of the most learned among them declared that he had never known a
freshman of equal attainments.
At Oxford Johnson resided barely over two years, possibly less. He was
poor, even to raggedness; and his appearance excited a mirth and a pity
which were equally intolerable to his haughty spirit. He was driven from
the quadrangle of Christ Church by the sneering looks which the members
of that aristocratical society cast at the holes in his shoes. Some
charitable person placed a new pair at his door; but he spurned them
away in a fury. Distress made him, not servile, but reckless and
ungovernable. No opulent gentleman commoner, panting for one-and-twenty,
could have treated the academical authorities with more gross
disrespect. The needy scholar was generally to be seen under the gate of
Pembroke, a gate now adorned with his effigy, haranguing a circle of
lads, over whom, in spite of his tattered gown and dirty linen, his wit
and audacity gave him an undisputed ascendancy. In every mutiny against
the discipline of the college he was the ringleader. Much was pardoned,
however, to a youth so highly distinguished by abilities and
acquirements. He had early made himself known by turning Pope's
"Messiah" into Latin verse. The style and rhythm, indeed, were not
exactly Virgilian; but the translation found many admirers, and was read
with pleasure by Pope himself.
The time drew near at which Johnson would, in the ordinary course of
things, have become a Bachelor of Arts; but he was at the end of his
resources. Those promises of support on which he had relied had not been
kept. His family could do nothing for him. His debts to Oxford tradesmen
were small indeed, yet larger than he could pay. In the autumn of 1731
he was under the necessity of quitting the university without a degree.
In the following winter his father died. The old man left but a
pittance; and of that pittance almost the whole was appropriated to the
support of his widow. The property to which Samuel succeeded amounted to
no more than twenty pounds.
His life, during the thirty years which followed, was one hard struggle
with poverty. The misery of that struggle needed no aggravation, but was
aggravated by the sufferings of an unsound body and an unsound mind.
Before the young man left the university, his hereditary malady had
broken forth in a singularly cruel form. He had become an incurable
hypochondriac. He said long after that he had been mad all his life, or
at least not perfectly sane; and, in truth, eccentricities less strange
than his have often been thought ground sufficient for absolving felons
and for setting aside wills. His grimaces, his gestures, his mutterings,
sometimes diverted and sometimes terrified people who did not know him.
At a dinner table he would, in a fit of absence, stoop down and twitch
off a lady's shoe. He would amaze a drawing-room by suddenly ejaculating
a clause of the Lord's Prayer. He would conceive an unintelligible
aversion to a particular alley, and perform a great circuit rather than
see the hateful place. He would set his heart on touching every post in
the streets through which he walked. If by any chance he missed a post,
he would go back a hundred yards and repair the omission. Under the
influence of his disease, his senses became morbidly torpid, and his
imagination morbidly active. At one time he would stand poring on the
town clock without being able to tell the hour. At another he would
distinctly hear his mother, who was many miles off, calling him by his
name. But this was not the worst. A deep melancholy took possession of
him, and gave a dark tinge to all his views of human nature and of human
destiny. Such wretchedness as he endured has driven many men to shoot
themselves or drown themselves. But he was under no temptation to commit
suicide. He was sick of life; but he was afraid of death; and he
shuddered at every sight or sound which reminded him of the inevitable
hour. In religion he found but little comfort during his long and
frequent fits of dejection; for his religion partook of his own
character. The light from heaven shone on him indeed, but not in a
direct line, or with its own pure splendour. The rays had to struggle
through a disturbing medium; they reached him refracted, dulled and
discoloured by the thick gloom which had settled on his soul, and,
though they might be sufficiently clear to guide him, were too dim to
cheer him.
With such infirmities of body and of mind, he was left, at
two-and-twenty, to fight his way through the world. He remained during
about five years in the midland counties. At Lichfield, his birthplace
and his early home, he had inherited some friends and acquired others.
He was kindly noticed by Henry Hervey, a gay officer of noble family,
who happened to be quartered there. Gilbert Walmesley, registrar of the
ecclesiastical court of the diocese, a man of distinguished parts,
learning and knowledge of the world, did himself honour by patronizing
the young adventurer, whose repulsive person, unpolished manners and
squalid garb moved many of the petty aristocracy of the neighbourhood to
laughter or disgust. At Lichfield, however, Johnson could find no way of
earning a livelihood. He became usher of a grammar school in
Leicestershire; he resided as a humble companion in the house of a
country gentleman; but a life of dependence was insupportable to his
haughty spirit. He repaired to Birmingham, and there earned a few
guineas by literary drudgery. In that town he printed a translation,
little noticed at the time, and long forgotten, of a Latin book about
Abyssinia. He then put forth proposals for publishing by subscription
the poems of Politian, with notes containing a history of modern Latin
verse; but subscriptions did not come in, and the volume never appeared.
While leading this vagrant and miserable life, Johnson fell in love. The
object of his passion was Mrs Elizabeth Porter (1688-1752), widow of
Harry Porter (d. 1734), whose daughter Lucy was born only six years
after Johnson himself. To ordinary spectators the lady appeared to be a
short, fat, coarse woman, painted half an inch thick, dressed in gaudy
colours, and fond of exhibiting provincial airs and graces which were
not exactly those of the Queensberrys and Lepels. To Johnson, however,
whose passions were strong, whose eyesight was too weak to distinguish
rouge from natural bloom, and who had seldom or never been in the same
room with a woman of real fashion, his Tetty, as he called her, was the
most beautiful, graceful and accomplished of her sex. That his
admiration was unfeigned cannot be doubted; she had, however, a jointure
of L600 and perhaps a little more; she came of a good family, and her
son Jervis (d. 1763) commanded H.M.S. "Hercules." The marriage, in spite
of occasional wranglings, proved happier than might have been expected.
The lover continued to be under the illusions of the wedding-day (July
9, 1735) till the lady died in her sixty-fourth year. On her monument at
Bromley he placed an inscription extolling the charms of her person and
of her manners; and when, long after her decease, he had occasion to
mention her, he exclaimed with a tenderness half ludicrous, half
pathetic, "Pretty creature!"
His marriage made it necessary for him to exert himself more strenuously
than he had hitherto done. He took a house at Edial near Lichfield and
advertised for pupils. But eighteen months passed away, and only three
pupils came to his academy. The "faces" that Johnson habitually made
(probably nervous contortions due to his disorder) may well have alarmed
parents. Good scholar though he was, these twitchings had lost him
usherships in 1735 and 1736. David Garrick, who was one of the pupils,
used, many years later, to throw the best company of London into
convulsions of laughter by mimicking the master and his lady.
At length Johnson, in the twenty-eighth year of his age, determined to
seek his fortune in London as a literary adventurer. He set out with a
few guineas, three acts of his tragedy of _Irene_ in manuscript, and two
or three letters of introduction from his friend Walmesley. Never since
literature became a calling in England had it been a less gainful
calling than at the time when Johnson took up his residence in London.
In the preceding generation a writer of eminent merit was sure to be
munificently rewarded by the Government. The least that he could expect
was a pension or a sinecure place; and, if he showed any aptitude for
politics, he might hope to be a member of parliament, a lord of the
treasury, an ambassador, a secretary of state. But literature had ceased
to flourish under the patronage of the great, and had not yet begun to
flourish under the patronage of the public. One man of letters, indeed,
Pope, had acquired by his pen what was then considered as a handsome
fortune, and lived on a footing of equality with nobles and ministers of
state. But this was a solitary exception. Even an author whose
reputation was established, and whose works were popular--such an author
as Thomson, whose _Seasons_ was in every library, such an author as
Fielding, whose _Pasquin_ had had a greater run than any drama since
_The Beggar's Opera_--was sometimes glad to obtain, by pawning his best
coat, the means of dining on tripe at a cookshop underground, where he
could wipe his hands, after his greasy meal, on the back of a
Newfoundland dog. It is easy, therefore, to imagine what humiliations
and privations must have awaited the novice who had still to earn a
name. One of the publishers to whom Johnson applied for employment
measured with a scornful eye that athletic though uncouth frame, and
exclaimed, "You had better get a porter's knot and carry trunks." Nor
was the advice bad, for a porter was likely to be as plentifully fed,
and as comfortably lodged, as a poet.
Some time appears to have elapsed before Johnson was able to form any
literary connexion from which he could expect more than bread for the
day which was passing over him. He never forgot the generosity with
which Hervey, who was now residing in London, relieved his wants during
this time of trial. "Harry Hervey," said Johnson many years later, "was
a vicious man; but he was very kind to me. If you call a dog Hervey, I
shall love him." At Hervey's table Johnson sometimes enjoyed feasts
which were made more agreeable by contrast. But in general he dined, and
thought that he dined well, on sixpennyworth of meat and a pennyworth of
bread at an alehouse near Drury Lane.
The effect of the privations and sufferings which he endured at this
time was discernible to the last in his temper and his deportment. His
manners had never been courtly. They now became almost savage. Being
frequently under the necessity of wearing shabby coats and dirty shirts,
he became a confirmed sloven. Being often very hungry when he sat down
to his meals, he contracted a habit of eating with ravenous greediness.
Even to the end of his life, and even at the tables of the great, the
sight of food affected him as it affects wild beasts and birds of prey.
His taste in cookery, formed in subterranean ordinaries and _a la mode_
beef shops, was far from delicate. Whenever he was so fortunate as to
have near him a hare that had been kept too long, or a meat pie made
with rancid butter, he gorged himself with such violence that his veins
swelled and the moisture broke out on his forehead. The affronts which
his poverty emboldened stupid and low-minded men to offer to him would
have broken a mean spirit into sycophancy, but made him rude even to
ferocity. Unhappily the insolence which, while it was defensive, was
pardonable, and in some sense respectable, accompanied him into
societies where he was treated with courtesy and kindness. He was
repeatedly provoked into striking those who had taken liberties with
him. All the sufferers, however, were wise enough to abstain from
talking about their beatings, except Osborne, the most rapacious and
brutal of booksellers, who proclaimed everywhere that he had been
knocked down by the huge fellow whom he had hired to puff the Harleian
Library.
About a year after Johnson had begun to reside in London he was
fortunate enough to obtain regular employment from Edward Cave (q.v.) on
the _Gentleman's Magazine_. That periodical, just entering on the ninth
year of its long existence, was the only one in the kingdom which then
had what would now be called a large circulation. Johnson was engaged to
write the speeches in the "Reports of the Debates of the Senate of
Lilliput" (see REPORTING), under which thin disguise the proceedings of
parliament were published. He was generally furnished with notes, meagre
indeed and inaccurate, of what had been said; but sometimes he had to
find arguments and eloquence both for the ministry and for the
opposition. He was himself a Tory, not from rational conviction--for his
serious opinion was that one form of government was just as good or as
bad as another--but from mere passion, such as inflamed the Capulets
against the Montagues, or the Blues of the Roman circus against the
Greens. In his infancy he had heard so much talk about the villainies of
the Whigs, and the dangers of the Church, that he had become a furious
partisan when he could scarcely speak. Before he was three he had
insisted on being taken to hear Sacheverel preach at Lichfield
Cathedral, and had listened to the sermon with as much respect and
probably with as much intelligence, as any Staffordshire squire in the
congregation. The work which had been begun in the nursery had been
completed by the university. Oxford, when Johnson resided there, was the
most Jacobitical place in England; and Pembroke was one of the most
Jacobitical colleges in Oxford. The prejudices which he brought up to
London were scarcely less absurd than those of his own Tom Tempest.
Charles II. and James II. were two of the best kings that ever reigned.
Laud was a prodigy of parts and learning over whose tomb Art and Genius
still continued to weep. Hampden deserved no more honourable name than
that of the "zealot of rebellion." Even the ship-money Johnson would not
pronounce to have been an unconstitutional impost. Under a government
which allowed to the people an unprecedented liberty of speech and
action, he fancied that he was a slave. He hated Dissenters and
stock-jobbers, the excise and the army, septennial parliaments, and
Continental connexions. He long had an aversion to the Scots, an
aversion of which he could not remember the commencement, but which, he
owned, had probably originated in his abhorrence of the conduct of the
nation during the Great Rebellion. It is easy to guess in what manner
debates on great party questions were likely to be reported by a man
whose judgment was so much disordered by party spirit. A show of
fairness was indeed necessary to the prosperity of the _Magazine_. But
Johnson long afterwards owned that, though he had saved appearances, he
had taken care that the Whig dogs should not have the best of it; and,
in fact, every passage which has lived, every passage which bears the
marks of his higher faculties, is put into the mouth of some member of
the opposition.
A few weeks after Johnson had entered on these obscure labours, he
published a work which at once placed him high among the writers of his
age. It is probable that what he had suffered during his first year in
London had often reminded him of some parts of the satire in which
Juvenal had described the misery and degradation of a needy man of
letters, lodged among the pigeons' nests in the tottering garrets which
overhung the streets of Rome. Pope's admirable imitations of Horace's
_Satires and Epistles_ had recently appeared, were in every hand, and
were by many readers thought superior to the originals. What Pope had
done for Horace, Johnson aspired to do for Juvenal.
Johnson's _London_ appeared without his name in May 1738. He received
only ten guineas for this stately and vigorous poem; but the sale was
rapid and the success complete. A second edition was required within a
week. Those small critics who are always desirous to lower established
reputations ran about proclaiming that the anonymous satirist was
superior to Pope in Pope's own peculiar department of literature. It
ought to be remembered, to the honour of Pope, that he joined heartily
in the applause with which the appearance of a rival genius was
welcomed. He made inquiries about the author of _London_. Such a man, he
said, could not long be concealed. The name was soon discovered; and
Pope, with great kindness, exerted himself to obtain an academical
degree and the mastership of a grammar school for the poor young poet.
The attempt failed, and Johnson remained a bookseller's hack.
It does not appear that these two men, the most eminent writer of the
generation which was going out, and the most eminent writer of the
generation which was coming in, ever saw each other. They lived in very
different circles, one surrounded by dukes and earls, the other by
starving pamphleteers and index-makers. Among Johnson's associates at
this time may be mentioned Boyse, who, when his shirts were pledged,
scrawled Latin verses sitting up in bed with his arms through two holes
in his blanket, who composed very respectable sacred poetry when he was
sober, and who was at last run over by a hackney coach when he was
drunk; Hoole, surnamed the metaphysical tailor, who, instead of
attending to his measures, used to trace geometrical diagrams on the
board where he sat cross-legged; and the penitent impostor, George
Psalmanazar, who, after poring all day, in a humble lodging, on the
folios of Jewish rabbis and Christian fathers, indulged himself at night
with literary and theological conversation at an alehouse in the City.
But the most remarkable of the persons with whom at this time Johnson
consorted was Richard Savage, an earl's son, a shoemaker's apprentice,
who had seen life in all its forms, who had feasted among blue ribands
in St James's Square, and had lain with fifty pounds weight of irons on
his legs in the condemned ward of Newgate. This man had, after many
vicissitudes of fortune, sunk at last into abject and hopeless poverty.
His pen had failed him. His patrons had been taken away by death, or
estranged by the riotous profusion with which he squandered their
bounty, and the ungrateful insolence with which he rejected their
advice. He now lived by begging. He dined on venison and champagne
whenever he had been so fortunate as to borrow a guinea. If his questing
had been unsuccessful, he appeased the rage of hunger with some scraps
of broken meat, and lay down to rest under the piazza of Covent Garden
in warm weather, and, in cold weather, as near as he could get to the
furnace of a glass house. Yet in his misery he was still an agreeable
companion. He had an inexhaustible store of anecdotes about that gay and
brilliant world from which he was now an outcast. He had observed the
great men of both parties in hours of careless relaxation, had seen the
leaders of opposition without the mask of patriotism, and had heard the
prime minister roar with laughter and tell stories not over-decent.
During some months Savage lived in the closest familiarity with Johnson;
and then the friends parted, not without tears. Johnson remained in
London to drudge for Cave. Savage went to the west of England, lived
there as he had lived everywhere, and in 1743 died, penniless and
heartbroken, in Bristol Gaol.
Soon after his death, while the public curiosity was strongly excited
about his extraordinary character and his not less extraordinary
adventures, a life of him appeared widely different from the catchpenny
lives of eminent men which were then a staple article of manufacture in
Grub Street. The style was indeed deficient in ease and variety; and the
writer was evidently too partial to the Latin element of our language.
But the little work, with all its faults, was a masterpiece. No finer
specimen of literary biography existed in any language, living or dead;
and a discerning critic might have confidently predicted that the author
was destined to be the founder of a new school of English eloquence.
The _Life of Savage_ was anonymous; but it was well known in literary
circles that Johnson was the writer. During the three years which
followed, he produced no important work; but he was not, and indeed
could not be, idle. The fame of his abilities and learning continued to
grow. Warburton pronounced him a man of parts and genius; and the praise
of Warburton was then no light thing. Such was Johnson's reputation
that, in 1747, several eminent booksellers combined to employ him in the
arduous work of preparing a _Dictionary of the English Language_, in two
folio volumes. The sum which they agreed to pay him was only fifteen
hundred guineas; and out of this sum he had to pay several poor men of
letters who assisted him in the humbler parts of his task.
The prospectus of the _Dictionary_ he addressed to the earl of
Chesterfield. Chesterfield had long been celebrated for the politeness
of his manners, the brilliancy of his wit, and the delicacy of his
taste. He was acknowledged to be the finest speaker in the House of
Lords. He had recently governed Ireland, at a momentous conjuncture,
with eminent firmness, wisdom and humanity; and he had since become
secretary of state. He received Johnson's homage with the most winning
affability, and requited it with a few guineas, bestowed doubtless in a
very graceful manner, but was by no means desirous to see all his
carpets blackened with the London mud, and his soups and wines thrown to
right and left over the gowns of fine ladies and the waistcoats of fine
gentlemen, by an absent, awkward scholar, who gave strange starts and
uttered strange growls, who dressed like a scarecrow and ate like a
cormorant. During some time Johnson continued to call on his patron,
but, after being repeatedly told by the porter that his lordship was not
at home, took the hint, and ceased to present himself at the
inhospitable door.
Johnson had flattered himself that he should have completed his
_Dictionary_ by the end of 1750; but it was not till 1755 that he at
length gave his huge volumes to the world. During the seven years which
he passed in the drudgery of penning definitions and marking quotations
for transcription, he sought for relaxation in literary labour of a more
agreeable kind. In January 1749 he published _The Vanity of Human
Wishes_, an excellent imitation of the tenth satire of Juvenal, for
which he received fifteen guineas.
A few days after the publication of this poem, his tragedy of _Irene_,
begun many years before, was brought on the stage by his old pupil,
David Garrick, now manager of Drury Lane Theatre. The relation between
him and his old preceptor was of a very singular kind. They repelled
each other strongly, and yet attracted each other strongly. Nature had
made them of very different clay; and circumstances had fully brought
out the natural peculiarities of both. Sudden prosperity had turned
Garrick's head. Continued adversity had soured Johnson's temper. Johnson
saw with more envy than became so great a man the villa, the plate, the
china, the Brussels carpet, which the little mimic had got by repeating,
with grimaces and gesticulations, what wiser men had written; and the
exquisitely sensitive vanity of Garrick was galled by the thought that,
while all the rest of the world was applauding him, he could obtain from
one morose cynic, whose opinion it was impossible to despise, scarcely
any compliment not acidulated with scorn. Yet the two Lichfield men had
so many early recollections in common, and sympathized with each other
on so many points on which they sympathized with nobody else in the vast
population of the capital, that, though the master was often provoked by
the monkey-like impertinence of the pupil, and the pupil by the bearish
rudeness of the master, they remained friends till they were parted by
death. Garrick now brought _Irene_ out, with alterations sufficient to
displease the author, yet not sufficient to make the piece pleasing to
the audience. After nine representations the play was withdrawn. The
poet however cleared by his benefit nights, and by the sale of the
copyright of his tragedy, about three hundred pounds, then a great sum
in his estimation.
About a year after the representation of _Irene_, he began to publish a
series of short essays on morals, manners and literature. This species
of composition had been brought into fashion by the success of the
_Tatler_, and by the still more brilliant success of the _Spectator_. A
crowd of small writers had vainly attempted to rival Addison. The _Lay
Monastery_, the _Censor_, the _Freethinker_, the _Plain Dealer_, the
_Champion_, and other works of the same kind had had their short day. At
length Johnson undertook the adventure in which so many aspirants had
failed. In the thirty-sixth year after the appearance of the last number
of the _Spectator_ appeared the first number of the _Rambler_. From
March 1750 to March 1752 this paper continued to come out every Tuesday
and Saturday.
From the first the _Rambler_ was enthusiastically admired by a few
eminent men. Richardson, when only five numbers had appeared, pronounced
it equal if not superior to the _Spectator_. Young and Hartley expressed
their approbation not less warmly. In consequence probably of the good
offices of Bubb Dodington, who was then the confidential adviser of
Prince Frederick, two of his royal highness's gentlemen carried a
gracious message to the printing office, and ordered seven copies for
Leicester House. But Johnson had had enough of the patronage of the
great to last him all his life, and was not disposed to haunt any other
door as he had haunted the door of Chesterfield.
By the public the _Rambler_ was at first very coldly received. Though
the price of a number was only twopence, the sale did not amount to five
hundred. The profits were therefore very small. But as soon as the
flying leaves were collected and reprinted they became popular. The
author lived to see thirteen thousand copies spread over England alone.
Separate editions were published for the Scotch and Irish markets. A
large party pronounced the style perfect, so absolutely perfect that in
some essays it would be impossible for the writer himself to alter a
single word for the better. Another party, not less numerous, vehemently
accused him of having corrupted the purity of the English tongue. The
best critics admitted that his diction was too monotonous, too obviously
artificial, and now and then turgid even to absurdity. But they did
justice to the acuteness of his observations on morals and manners, to
the constant precision and frequent brilliancy of his language, to the
weighty and magnificent eloquence of many serious passages, and to the
solemn yet pleasing humour of some of the lighter papers.
The last _Rambler_ was written in a sad and gloomy hour. Mrs Johnson had
been given over by the physicians. Three days later she died. She left
her husband almost broken-hearted. Many people had been surprised to see
a man of his genius and learning stooping to every drudgery, and denying
himself almost every comfort, for the purpose of supplying a silly,
affected old woman with superfluities, which she accepted with but
little gratitude. But all his affection had been concentrated on her. He
had neither brother nor sister, neither son nor daughter. Her opinion of
his writings was more important to him than the voice of the pit of
Drury Lane Theatre, or the judgment of the _Monthly Review_. The chief
support which had sustained him through the most arduous labour of his
life was the hope that she would enjoy the fame and the profit which he
anticipated from his _Dictionary_. She was gone; and in that vast
labyrinth of streets, peopled by eight hundred thousand human beings, he
was alone. Yet it was necessary for him to set himself, as he expressed
it, doggedly to work. After three more laborious years, the _Dictionary_
was at length complete.
It had been generally supposed that this great work would be dedicated
to the eloquent and accomplished nobleman to whom the prospectus had
been addressed. Lord Chesterfield well knew the value of such a
compliment; and therefore, when the day of publication drew near, he
exerted himself to soothe, by a show of zealous and at the same time of
delicate and judicious kindness, the pride which he had so cruelly
wounded. Since the _Rambler_ had ceased to appear, the town had been
entertained by a journal called the _World_, to which many men of high
rank and fashion contributed. In two successive numbers of the _World_,
the _Dictionary_ was, to use the modern phrase, puffed with wonderful
skill. The writings of Johnson were warmly praised. It was proposed that
he should be invested with the authority of a dictator, nay, of a pope,
over our language, and that his decisions about the meaning and the
spelling of words should be received as final. His two folios, it was
said, would of course be bought by everybody who could afford to buy
them. It was soon known that these papers were written by Chesterfield.
But the just resentment of Johnson was not to be so appeased. In a
letter written with singular energy and dignity of thought and language,
he repelled the tardy advances of his patron. The _Dictionary_ came
forth without a dedication. In the Preface the author truly declared
that he owed nothing to the great, and described the difficulties with
which he had been left to struggle so forcibly and pathetically that the
ablest and most malevolent of all the enemies of his fame, Horne Tooke,
never could read that passage without tears.
Johnson's _Dictionary_ was hailed with an enthusiasm such as no similar
work has ever excited. It was indeed the first dictionary which could be
read with pleasure. The definitions show so much acuteness of thought
and command of language, and the passages quoted from poets, divines and
philosophers are so skilfully selected, that a leisure hour may always
be very agreeably spent in turning over the pages. The faults of the
book resolve themselves, for the most part, into one great fault.
Johnson was a wretched etymologist. He knew little or nothing of any
Teutonic language except English, which indeed, as he wrote it, was
scarcely a Teutonic language; and thus he was absolutely at the mercy of
Junius and Skinner.
The _Dictionary_, though it raised Johnson's fame, added nothing to his
pecuniary means. The fifteen hundred guineas which the booksellers had
agreed to pay him had been advanced and spent before the last sheets
issued from the press. It is painful to relate that twice in the course
of the year which followed the publication of this great work he was
arrested and carried to sponging-houses, and that he was twice indebted
for his liberty to his excellent friend Richardson. It was still
necessary for the man who had been formerly saluted by the highest
authority as dictator of the English language to supply his wants by
constant toil. He abridged his _Dictionary_. He proposed to bring out an
edition of Shakespeare by subscription, and many subscribers sent in
their names and laid down their money; but he soon found the task so
little to his taste that he turned to more attractive employments. He
contributed many papers to a new monthly journal, which was called the
_Literary Magazine_. Few of these papers have much interest; but among
them was one of the best things that he ever wrote, a masterpiece both
of reasoning and of satirical pleasantry, the review of Jenyns' _Inquiry
into the Nature and Origin of Evil_.
In the spring of 1758 Johnson put forth the first of a series of essays,
entitled the _Idler_. During two years these essays continued to appear
weekly. They were eagerly read, widely circulated, and indeed impudently
pirated, while they were still in the original form, and had a large
sale when collected into volumes. The _Idler_ may be described as a
second part of the _Rambler_, somewhat livelier and somewhat weaker than
the first part.
While Johnson was busied with his _Idlers_, his mother, who had
accomplished her ninetieth year, died at Lichfield. It was long since he
had seen her, but he had not failed to contribute largely out of his
small means to her comfort. In order to defray the charges of her
funeral, and to pay some debts which she had left, he wrote a little
book in a single week, and sent off the sheets to the press without
reading them over. A hundred pounds were paid him for the copyright, and
the purchasers had great cause to be pleased with their bargain, for the
book was _Rasselas_, and it had a great success.
The plan of _Rasselas_ might, however, have seemed to invite severe
criticism. Johnson has frequently blamed Shakespeare for neglecting the
proprieties of time and place, and for ascribing to one age or nation
the manners and opinions of another. Yet Shakespeare has not sinned in
this way more grievously than Johnson. Rasselas and Imlac, Nekayah and
Pekuah, are evidently meant to be Abyssinians of the 18th century; for
the Europe which Imlac describes is the Europe of the 18th century, and
the inmates of the Happy Valley talk familiarly of that law of
gravitation which Newton discovered and which was not fully received
even at Cambridge till the 18th century. Johnson, not content with
turning filthy savages, ignorant of their letters, and gorged with raw
steaks cut from living cows, into philosophers as eloquent and
enlightened as himself or his friend Burke, and into ladies as highly
accomplished as Mrs Lennox or Mrs Sheridan, transferred the whole
domestic system of England to Egypt. Into a land of harems, a land of
polygamy, a land where women are married without ever being seen, he
introduced the flirtations and jealousies of our ball-rooms. In a land
where there is boundless liberty of divorce, wedlock is described as the
indissoluble compact. "A youth and maiden meeting by chance, or brought
together by artifice, exchange glances, reciprocate civilities, go home,
and dream of each other. Such," says Rasselas, "is the common process of
marriage." A writer who was guilty of such improprieties had little
right to blame the poet who made Hector quote Aristotle, and represented
Julio Romano as flourishing in the days of the Oracle of Delphi.
By such exertions as have been described Johnson supported himself till
the year 1762. In that year a great change in his circumstances took
place. He had from a child been an enemy of the reigning dynasty. His
Jacobite prejudices had been exhibited with little disguise both in his
works and in his conversation. Even in his massy and elaborate
_Dictionary_ he had, with a strange want of taste and judgment, inserted
bitter and contumelious reflexions on the Whig party. The excise, which
was a favourite resource of Whig financiers, he had designated as a
hateful tax. He had railed against the commissioners of excise in
language so coarse that they had seriously thought of prosecuting him.
He had with difficulty been prevented from holding up the lord privy
seal by name as an example of the meaning of the word "renegade." A
pension he had defined as pay given to a state hireling to betray his
country; a pensioner as a slave of state hired by a stipend to obey a
master. It seemed unlikely that the author of these definitions would
himself be pensioned. But that was a time of wonders. George III. had
ascended the throne, and had, in the course of a few months, disgusted
many of the old friends, and conciliated many of the old enemies of his
house. The city was becoming mutinous; Oxford was becoming loyal.
Cavendishes and Bentincks were murmuring; Somersets and Wyndhams were
hastening to kiss hands. The head of the treasury was now Lord Bute, who
was a Tory, and could have no objection to Johnson's Toryism. Bute
wished to be thought a patron of men of letters; and Johnson was one of
the most eminent and one of the most needy men of letters in Europe. A
pension of three hundred a year was graciously offered, and with very
little hesitation accepted.
This event produced a change in Johnson's whole way of life. For the
first time since his boyhood he no longer felt the daily goad urging him
to the daily toil. He was at liberty, after thirty years of anxiety and
drudgery, to indulge his constitutional indolence, to lie in bed till
two in the afternoon, and to sit up talking till four in the morning,
without fearing either the printer's devil or the sheriff's officer.
One laborious task indeed he had bound himself to perform. He had
received large subscriptions for his promised edition of Shakespeare; he
had lived on those subscriptions during some years; and he could not
without disgrace omit to perform his part of the contract. His friends
repeatedly exhorted him to make an effort, and he repeatedly resolved to
do so. But, notwithstanding their exhortations and his resolutions,
month followed month, year followed year, and nothing was done. He
prayed fervently against his idleness; he determined, as often as he
received the sacrament, that he would no longer doze away and trifle
away his time; but the spell under which he lay resisted prayer and
sacrament. Happily for his honour, the charm which held him captive was
at length broken by no gentle or friendly hand. He had been weak enough
to pay serious attention to a story about a ghost which haunted a house
in Cock Lane, and had actually gone himself, with some of his friends,
at one in the morning, to St John's Church, Clerkenwell, in the hope of
receiving a communication from the perturbed spirit. But the spirit,
though adjured with all solemnity, remained obstinately silent; and it
soon appeared that a naughty girl of eleven had been amusing herself by
making fools of so many philosophers. Churchill, who, confident in his
powers, drunk with popularity, and burning with party spirit, was
looking for some man of established fame and Tory politics to insult,
celebrated the Cock Lane ghost in three cantos, nicknamed Johnson
Pomposo, asked where the book was which had been so long promised and so
liberally paid for, and directly accused the great moralist of cheating.
This terrible word proved effectual, and in October 1765 appeared, after
a delay of nine years, the new edition of Shakespeare.
This publication saved Johnson's character for honesty, but added
nothing to the fame of his abilities and learning. The Preface, though
it contains some good passages, is not in his best manner. The most
valuable notes are those in which he had an opportunity of showing how
attentively he had during many years observed human life and human
nature. The best specimen is the note on the character of Polonius.
Nothing so good is to be found even in Wilhelm Meister's admirable
examination of _Hamlet_. But here praise must end. It would be difficult
to name a more slovenly, a more worthless edition of any great
classic.[1] Johnson had, in his prospectus, told the world that he was
peculiarly fitted for the task which he had undertaken, because he had,
as a lexicographer, been under the necessity of taking a wider view of
the English language than any of his predecessors. But, unfortunately,
he had altogether neglected that very part of our literature with which
it is especially desirable that an editor of Shakespeare should be
conversant. In the two folio volumes of the _English Dictionary_ there
is not a single passage quoted from any dramatist of the Elizabethan age
except Shakespeare and Ben Jonson. Even from Ben the quotations are few.
Johnson might easily in a few months have made himself well acquainted
with every old play that was extant. But it never seems to have occurred
to him that this was a necessary preparation for the work which he had
undertaken. He would doubtless have admitted that it would be the height
of absurdity in a man who was not familiar with the works of Aeschylus
and Euripides to publish an edition of Sophocles. Yet he ventured to
publish an edition of Shakespeare, without having ever in his life, as
far as can be discovered, read a single scene of Massinger, Ford,
Dekker, Webster, Marlow, Beaumont or Fletcher. His detractors were noisy
and scurrilous. He had, however, acquitted himself of a debt which had
long lain heavy on his conscience and he sank back into the repose from
which the sting of satire had roused him. He long continued to live upon
the fame which he had already won. He was honoured by the university of
Oxford with a doctor's degree, by the Royal Academy with a
professorship, and by the king with an interview, in which his majesty
most graciously expressed a hope that so excellent a writer would not
cease to write. In the interval between 1765 and 1775 Johnson published
only two or three political tracts.
But, though his pen was now idle, his tongue was active. The influence
exercised by his conversation, directly upon those with whom he lived,
and indirectly on the whole literary world, was altogether without a
parallel. His colloquial talents were indeed of the highest order. He
had strong sense, quick discernment, wit, humour, immense knowledge of
literature and of life, and an infinite store of curious anecdotes. As
respected style, he spoke far better than he wrote. Every sentence which
dropped from his lips was as correct in structure as the most nicely
balanced period of the _Rambler_. But in his talk there were no pompous
triads, and little more than a fair proportion of words in -_osity_ and
-_ation_. All was simplicity, ease and vigour. He uttered his short,
weighty, and pointed sentences with a power of voice, and a justness and
energy of emphasis, of which the effect was rather increased than
diminished by the rollings of his huge form, and by the asthmatic
gaspings and puffings in which the peals of his eloquence generally
ended. Nor did the laziness which made him unwilling to sit down to his
desk prevent him from giving instruction or entertainment orally. To
discuss questions of taste, of learning, of casuistry, in language so
exact and so forcible that it might have been printed without the
alteration of a word, was to him no exertion, but a pleasure. He loved,
as he said, to fold his legs and have his talk out. He was ready to
bestow the overflowings of his full mind on anybody who would start a
subject: on a fellow-passenger in a stage coach, or on the person who
sat at the same table with him in an eating-house. But his conversation
was nowhere so brilliant and striking as when he was surrounded by a few
friends, whose abilities and knowledge enabled them, as he once
expressed it, to send him back every ball that he threw. Some of these,
in 1764, formed themselves into a club, which gradually became a
formidable power in the commonwealth of letters. The verdicts pronounced
by this conclave on new books were speedily known over all London, and
were sufficient to sell off a whole edition in a day, or to condemn the
sheets to the service of the trunkmaker and the pastrycook. Goldsmith
was the representative of poetry and light literature, Reynolds of the
arts, Burke of political eloquence and political philosophy. There, too,
were Gibbon the greatest historian and Sir William Jones the greatest
linguist of the age. Garrick brought to the meetings his inexhaustible
pleasantry, his incomparable mimicry, and his consummate knowledge of
stage effect. Among the most constant attendants were two high-born and
high-bred gentlemen, closely bound together by friendship, but of widely
different characters and habits--Bennet Langton, distinguished by his
skill in Greek literature, by the orthodoxy of his opinions, and by the
sanctity of his life, and Topham Beauclerk, renowned for his amours, his
knowledge of the gay world, his fastidious taste and his sarcastic wit.
Among the members of this celebrated body was one to whom it has owed
the greater part of its celebrity, yet who was regarded with little
respect by his brethren, and had not without difficulty obtained a seat
among them. This was James Boswell (q.v.), a young Scots lawyer, heir to
an honourable name and a fair estate. That he was a coxcomb and a bore,
weak, vain, pushing, curious, garrulous, was obvious to all who were
acquainted with him.
To a man of Johnson's strong understanding and irritable temper, the
silly egotism and adulation of Boswell must have been as teasing as the
constant buzz of a fly. Johnson hated to be questioned; and Boswell was
eternally catechizing him on all kinds of subjects, and sometimes
propounded such questions as, "What would you do, sir, if you were
locked up in a tower with a baby?" Johnson was a water-drinker and
Boswell was a wine-bibber, and indeed little better than an habitual
sot. It was impossible that there should be perfect harmony between two
such companions. Indeed, the great man was sometimes provoked into fits
of passion, in which he said things which the small man, during a few
hours, seriously resented. Every quarrel, however, was soon made up.
During twenty years the disciple continued to worship the master; the
master continued to scold the disciple, to sneer at him, and to love
him. The two friends ordinarily resided at a great distance from each
other. Boswell practised in the Parliament House of Edinburgh, and could
pay only occasional visits to London. During those visits his chief
business was to watch Johnson, to discover all Johnson's habits, to turn
the conversation to subjects about which Johnson was likely to say
something remarkable, and to fill quarto notebooks with minutes of what
Johnson had said. In this way were gathered the materials out of which
was afterwards constructed the most interesting biographical work in the
world.
Soon after the club began to exist, Johnson formed a connexion less
important indeed to his fame, but much more important to his happiness,
than his connexion with Boswell. Henry Thrale, one of the most opulent
brewers in the kingdom, a man of sound and cultivated understanding,
rigid principles, and liberal spirit, was married to one of those
clever, kind-hearted, engaging, vain, pert young women who are
perpetually doing or saying what is not exactly right, but who, do or
say what they may, are always agreeable. In 1765 the Thrales became
acquainted with Johnson, and the acquaintance ripened fast into
friendship. They were astonished and delighted by the brilliancy of his
conversation. They were flattered by finding that a man so widely
celebrated preferred their house to any other in London. Johnson soon
had an apartment at the brewery in Southwark, and a still more pleasant
apartment at the villa of his friends on Streatham Common. A large part
of every year he passed in those abodes, which must have seemed
magnificent and luxurious indeed, when compared with the dens in which
he had generally been lodged. But his chief pleasures were derived from
what the astronomer of his Abyssinian tale called "the endearing
elegance of female friendship." Mrs Thrale rallied him, soothed him,
coaxed him, and if she sometimes provoked him by her flippancy, made
ample amends by listening to his reproofs with angelic sweetness of
temper. When he was diseased in body and in mind, she was the most
tender of nurses. No comfort that wealth could purchase, no contrivance
that womanly ingenuity, set to work by womanly compassion, could devise,
was wanting to his sick room. It would seem that a full half of
Johnson's life during about sixteen years was passed under the roof of
the Thrales. He accompanied the family sometimes to Bath, and sometimes
to Brighton, once to Wales and once to Paris. But he had at the same
time a house in one of the narrow and gloomy courts on the north of
Fleet Street. In the garrets was his library, a large and miscellaneous
collection of books, falling to pieces and begrimed with dust. On a
lower floor he sometimes, but very rarely, regaled a friend with a plain
dinner--a veal pie, or a leg of lamb and spinach, and a rice pudding.
Nor was the dwelling uninhabited during his long absences. It was the
home of the most extraordinary assemblage of inmates that ever was
brought together. At the head of the establishment Johnson had placed an
old lady named Williams, whose chief recommendations were her blindness
and her poverty. But, in spite of her murmurs and reproaches, he gave an
asylum to another lady who was as poor as herself, Mrs Desmoulins, whose
family he had known many years before in Staffordshire. Room was found
for the daughter of Mrs Desmoulins, and for another destitute damsel,
who was generally addressed as Miss Carmichael, but whom her generous
host called Polly. An old quack doctor named Levett, who had a wide
practice, but among the very poorest class, poured out Johnson's tea in
the morning and completed this strange menagerie. All these poor
creatures were at constant war with each other, and with Johnson's negro
servant Frank. Sometimes, indeed, they transferred their hostilities
from the servant to the master, complained that a better table was not
kept for them, and railed or maundered till their benefactor was glad to
make his escape to Streatham or to the Mitre Tavern. And yet he, who was
generally the haughtiest and most irritable of mankind, who was but too
prompt to resent anything which looked like a slight on the part of a
purse-proud bookseller, or of a noble and powerful patron, bore
patiently from mendicants, who, but for his bounty, must have gone to
the workhouse, insults more provoking than those for which he had
knocked down Osborne and bidden defiance to Chesterfield. Year after
year Mrs Williams and Mrs Desmoulins, Polly and Levett, continued to
torment him and to live upon him.
The course of life which has been described was interrupted in Johnson's
sixty-fourth year by an important event. He had early read an account of
the Hebrides, and had been much interested by learning that there was so
near him a land peopled by a race which was still as rude and simple as
in the Middle Ages. A wish to become intimately acquainted with a state
of society so utterly unlike all that he had ever seen frequently
crossed his mind. But it is not probable that his curiosity would have
overcome his habitual sluggishness, and his love of the smoke, the mud,
and the cries of London, had not Boswell importuned him to attempt the
adventure, and offered to be his squire. At length, in August 1773,
Johnson crossed the Highland line, and plunged courageously into what
was then considered, by most Englishmen, as a dreary and perilous
wilderness. After wandering about two months through the Celtic region,
sometimes in rude boats which did not protect him from the rain, and
sometimes on small shaggy ponies which could hardly bear his weight, he
returned to his old haunts with a mind full of new images and new
theories. During the following year he employed himself in recording his
adventures. About the beginning of 1775 his _Journey to the Hebrides_
was published, and was, during some weeks, the chief subject of
conversation in all circles in which any attention was paid to
literature. His prejudice against the Scots had at length become little
more than matter of jest; and whatever remained of the old feeling had
been effectually removed by the kind and respectful hospitality with
which he had been received in every part of Scotland. It was, of course,
not to be expected that an Oxonian Tory should praise the Presbyterian
polity and ritual, or that an eye accustomed to the hedgerows and parks
of England should not be struck by the bareness of Berwickshire and East
Lothian. But even in censure Johnson's tone is not unfriendly. The most
enlightened Scotsmen, with Lord Mansfield at their head, were well
pleased. But some foolish and ignorant Scotsmen were moved to anger by a
little unpalatable truth which was mingled with much eulogy, and
assailed him whom they chose to consider as the enemy of their country
with libels much more dishonourable to their country than anything that
he had ever said or written. They published paragraphs in the
newspapers, articles in the magazines, sixpenny pamphlets, five-shilling
books. One scribbler abused Johnson for being blear-eyed, another for
being a pensioner; a third informed the world that one of the doctor's
uncles had been convicted of felony in Scotland, and had found that
there was in that country one tree capable of supporting the weight of
an Englishman. Macpherson, whose _Fingal_ had been treated in the
_Journey_ as an impudent forgery, threatened to take vengeance with a
cane. The only effect of this threat was that Johnson reiterated the
charge of forgery in the most contemptuous terms, and walked about,
during some time, with a cudgel.
Of other assailants Johnson took no notice whatever. He had early
resolved never to be drawn into controversy; and he adhered to his
resolution with a steadfastness which is the more extraordinary because
he was, both intellectually and morally, of the stuff of which
controversialists are made. In conversation he was a singularly eager,
acute and pertinacious disputant. When at a loss for good reasons, he
had recourse to sophistry; and when heated by altercation, he made
unsparing use of sarcasm and invective. But when he took his pen in his
hand, his whole character seemed to be changed. A hundred bad writers
misrepresented him and reviled him; but not one of the hundred could
boast of having been thought by him worthy of a refutation, or even of a
retort. One Scotsman, bent on vindicating the fame of Scots learning,
defied him to the combat in a detestable Latin hexameter:--
"Maxime, si tu vis, cupio contendere tecum."
But Johnson took no notice of the challenge. He always maintained that
fame was a shuttlecock which could be kept up only by being beaten back
as well as beaten forward, and which would soon fall if there were only
one battledore. No saying was oftener in his mouth than that fine
apophthegm of Bentley, that no man was ever written down but by himself.
Unhappily, a few months after the appearance of the _Journey to the
Hebrides_, Johnson did what none of his envious assailants could have
done, and to a certain extent succeeded in writing himself down. The
disputes between England and her American colonies had reached a point
at which no amicable adjustment was possible. War was evidently
impending; and the ministers seem to have thought that the eloquence of
Johnson might with advantage be employed to inflame the nation against
the opposition at home, and against the rebels beyond the Atlantic. He
had already written two or three tracts in defence of the foreign and
domestic policy of the government; and those tracts, though hardly
worthy of him, were much superior to the crowd of pamphlets which lay on
the counters of Almon and Stockdale. But his _Taxation no Tyranny_ was a
pitiable failure. Even Boswell was forced to own that in this
unfortunate piece he could detect no trace of his master's powers. The
general opinion was that the strong faculties which had produced the
_Dictionary_ and the _Rambler_ were beginning to feel the effect of time
and of disease, and that the old man would best consult his credit by
writing no more. But this was a great mistake. Johnson had failed, not
because his mind was less vigorous than when he wrote _Rasselas_ in the
evenings of a week, but because he had foolishly chosen, or suffered
others to choose for him, a subject such as he would at no time have
been competent to treat. He was in no sense a statesman. He never
willingly read or thought or talked about affairs of state. He loved
biography, literary history, the history of manners; but political
history was positively distasteful to him. The question at issue between
the colonies and the mother country was a question about which he had
really nothing to say. Happily, Johnson soon had an opportunity of
proving most signally that his failure was not to be ascribed to
intellectual decay.
On Easter Eve 1777 some persons, deputed by a meeting which consisted of
forty of the first booksellers in London, called upon him. Though he had
some scruples about doing business at that season, he received his
visitors with much civility. They came to inform him that a new edition
of the English poets, from Cowley downwards, was in contemplation, and
to ask him to furnish short biographical prefaces. He readily undertook
the task for which he was pre-eminently qualified. His knowledge of the
literary history of England since the Restoration was unrivalled. That
knowledge he had derived partly from books, and partly from sources
which had long been closed: from old Grub Street traditions; from the
talk of forgotten poetasters and pamphleteers, who had long been lying
in parish vaults; from the recollections of such men as Gilbert
Walmesley, who had conversed with the wits of Button, Cibber, who had
mutilated the plays of two generations of dramatists, Orrery, who had
been admitted to the society of Swift and Savage, who had rendered
services of no very honourable kind to Pope. The biographer therefore
sat down to his task with a mind full of matter. He had at first
intended to give only a paragraph to every minor poet, and only four or
five pages to the greatest name. But the flood of anecdote and criticism
overflowed the narrow channel. The work, which was originally meant to
consist only of a few sheets, swelled into ten volumes--small volumes,
it is true, and not closely printed. The first four appeared in 1779,
the remaining six in 1781.
The _Lives of the Poets_ are, on the whole, the best of Johnson's works.
The narratives are as entertaining as any novel. The remarks on life and
on human nature are eminently shrewd and profound. The criticisms are
often excellent, and, even when grossly and provokingly unjust, well
deserve to be studied. _Savage's Life_ Johnson reprinted nearly as it
had appeared in 1744. Whoever, after reading that life, will turn to the
other lives will be struck by the difference of style. Since Johnson had
been at ease in his circumstances he had written little and had talked
much. When therefore he, after the lapse of years, resumed his pen, the
mannerism which he had contracted while he was in the constant habit of
elaborate composition was less perceptible than formerly, and his
diction frequently had a colloquial ease which it had formerly wanted.
The improvement may be discerned by a skilful critic in the _Journey to
the Hebrides_, and in the _Lives of the Poets_ is so obvious that it
cannot escape the notice of the most careless reader. Among the _Lives_
the best are perhaps those of Cowley, Dryden and Pope. The very worst
is, beyond all doubt, that of Gray; the most controverted that of
Milton.
This great work at once became popular. There was, indeed, much just and
much unjust censure; but even those who were loudest in blame were
attracted by the book in spite of themselves. Malone computed the gains
of the publishers at five or six thousand pounds. But the writer was
very poorly remunerated. Intending at first to write very short
prefaces, he had stipulated for only two hundred guineas. The
booksellers, when they saw how far his performance had surpassed his
promise, added only another hundred. Indeed Johnson, though he did not
despise or affect to despise money, and though his strong sense and long
experience ought to have qualified him to protect his own interests,
seems to have been singularly unskilful and unlucky in his literary
bargains. He was generally reputed the first English writer of his time.
Yet several writers of his time sold their copyrights for sums such as
he never ventured to ask. To give a single instance, Robertson received
L4500 for the _History of Charles V._
Johnson was now in his seventy-second year. The infirmities of age were
coming fast upon him. That inevitable event of which he never thought
without horror was brought near to him; and his whole life was darkened
by the shadow of death. The strange dependants to whom he had given
shelter, and to whom, in spite of their faults, he was strongly attached
by habit, dropped off one by one; and, in the silence of his home, he
regretted even the noise of their scolding matches. The kind and
generous Thrale was no more; and it was soon plain that the old
Streatham intimacy could not be maintained upon the same footing. Mrs
Thrale herself confessed that without her husband's assistance she did
not feel able to entertain Johnson as a constant inmate of her house.
Free from the yoke of the brewer, she fell in love with a music master,
high in his profession, from Brescia, named Gabriel Piozzi, in whom
nobody but herself could discover anything to admire. The secret of this
attachment was soon discovered by Fanny Burney, but Johnson at most only
suspected it.
In September 1782 the place at Streatham was from motives of economy let
to Lord Shelburne, and Mrs Thrale took a house at Brighton, whither
Johnson accompanied her; they remained for six weeks on the old familiar
footing. In March 1783 Boswell was glad to discover Johnson well looked
after and staying with Mrs Thrale in Argyll Street, but in a bad state
of health. Impatience of Johnson's criticisms and infirmities had been
steadily growing with Mrs Thrale since 1774. She now went to Bath with
her daughters, partly to escape his supervision. Johnson was very ill in
his lodgings during the summer, but he still corresponded affectionately
with his "mistress" and received many favours from her. He retained the
full use of his senses during the paralytic attack, and in July he was
sufficiently recovered to renew his old club life and to meditate
further journeys. In June 1784 he went with Boswell to Oxford for the
last time. In September he was in Lichfield. On his return his health
was rather worse; but he would submit to no dietary regime. His asthma
tormented him day and night, and dropsical symptoms made their
appearance. His wrath was excited in no measured terms against the
re-marriage of his old friend Mrs Thrale, the news of which he heard
this summer. The whole dispute seems, to-day, entirely uncalled-for, but
the marriage aroused some of Johnson's strongest prejudices. He wrote
inconsiderately on the subject, but we must remember that he was at the
time afflicted in body and mentally haunted by dread of impending
change. Throughout all his troubles he had clung vehemently to life. The
feeling described in that fine but gloomy paper which closes the series
of his _Idlers_ seemed to grow stronger in him as his last hour drew
near. He fancied that he should be able to draw his breath more easily
in a southern climate, and would probably have set out for Rome and
Naples but for his fear of the expense of the journey. That expense,
indeed, he had the means of defraying; for he had laid up about two
thousand pounds, the fruit of labours which had made the fortune of
several publishers. But he was unwilling to break in upon this hoard,
and he seems to have wished even to keep its existence a secret. Some of
his friends hoped that the Government might be induced to increase his
pension to six hundred pounds a year, but this hope was disappointed,
and he resolved to stand one English winter more.
That winter was his last. His legs grew weaker; his breath grew shorter;
the fatal water gathered fast, in spite of incisions which he,
courageous against pain but timid against death, urged his surgeons to
make deeper and deeper. Though the tender care which had mitigated his
sufferings during months of sickness at Streatham was withdrawn, and
though Boswell was absent, he was not left desolate. The ablest
physicians and surgeons attended him, and refused to accept fees from
him. Burke parted from him with deep emotion. Windham sat much in the
sick-room. Frances Burney, whom the old man had cherished with fatherly
kindness, stood weeping at the door; while Langton, whose piety
eminently qualified him to be an adviser and comforter at such a time,
received the last pressure of his friend's hand within. When at length
the moment, dreaded through so many years, came close, the dark cloud
passed away from Johnson's mind. Windham's servant, who sat up with him
during his last night, declared that "no man could appear more
collected, more devout or less terrified at the thoughts of the
approaching minute." At hour intervals, often of much pain, he was moved
in bed and addressed himself vehemently to prayer. In the morning he was
still able to give his blessing, but in the afternoon he became drowsy,
and at a quarter past seven in the evening on the 13th of December 1784,
in his seventy-sixth year, he passed away. He was laid, a week later, in
Westminster Abbey, among the eminent men of whom he had been the
historian--Cowley and Denham, Dryden and Congreve, Gay, Prior and
Addison. (M.)
BIBLIOGRAPHY.--The splendid example of his style which Macaulay
contributed in the article on Johnson to the 8th edition of this
encyclopaedia has become classic, and has therefore been retained
above with a few trifling modifications in those places in which his
invincible love of the picturesque has drawn him demonstrably aside
from the dull line of veracity. Macaulay, it must be noted,
exaggerated persistently the poverty of Johnson's pedigree, the
squalor of his early married life, the grotesqueness of his entourage
in Fleet Street, the decline and fall from complete virtue of Mrs
Thrale, the novelty and success of the _Dictionary_, the complete
failure of the Shakespeare and the political tracts. Yet this
contribution is far more mellow than the article contributed on
Johnson twenty-five years before to the _Edinburgh Review_ in
correction of Croker. Matthew Arnold, who edited six selected _Lives_
of the poets, regarded it as one of Macaulay's happiest and ripest
efforts. It was written out of friendship for Adam Black, and "payment
was not so much as mentioned." The big reviews, especially the
quarterlies, have always been the natural home of Johnsonian study.
Sir Walter Scott, Croker, Hayward, Macaulay, Thomas Carlyle (whose
famous Fraser article was reprinted in 1853) and Whitwell Elwin have
done as much as anybody perhaps to sustain the zest for Johnsonian
studies. Macaulay's prediction that the interest in the man would
supersede that in his "Works" seemed and seems likely enough to
justify itself; but his theory that the man alone mattered and that a
portrait painted by the hand of an inspired idiot was a true measure
of the man has not worn better than the common run of literary
propositions. Johnson's prose is not extensively read. But the same is
true of nearly all the great prose masters of the 18th century. As in
the case of all great men, Johnson has suffered a good deal at the
hands of his imitators and admirers. His prose, though not nearly so
uniformly monotonous or polysyllabic as the parodists would have us
believe, was at one time greatly overpraised. From the "Life of
Savage" to the "Life of Pope" it developed a great deal, and in the
main improved. To the last he sacrificed expression rather too much to
style, and he was perhaps over conscious of the balanced epithet. But
he contributed both dignity and dialectical force to the prose
movement of his period.
The best edition of his works is still the Oxford edition of 1825 in 9
vols. At the present day, however, his periodical writings are
neglected, and all that can be said to excite interest are, first the
_Lives of the Poets_ (best edition by Birkbeck Hill and H. S. Scott, 3
vols., 1905), and then the _Letters_, the _Prayers_ and _Meditations_,
and the _Poems_, to which may doubtfully be added the once idolized
_Rasselas_. The _Poems_ and _Rasselas_ have been reprinted times
without number. The others have been re-edited with scrupulous care
for the Oxford University Press by the pious diligence of that most
enthusiastic of all Johnsonians, Dr Birkbeck Hill. But the tendency at
the present day is undoubtedly to prize Johnson's personality and
sayings more than any of his works. These are preserved to us in a
body of biographical writing, the efficiency of which is unequalled in
the whole range of literature. The chief constituents are Johnson's
own _Letters_ and _Account of his Life from his Birth to his Eleventh
Year_ (1805), a fragment saved from papers burned in 1784 and not seen
by Boswell; the life by his old but not very sympathetic friend and
club-fellow, Sir John Hawkins (1787); Mrs Thrale-Piozzi's _Anecdotes_
(1785) and _Letters_; the _Diary_ and _Letters_ of Fanny Burney
(D'Arblay) (1841); the shorter Lives of Arthur Murphy, T. Tyers, &c.;
far above all, of course, the unique Life by James Boswell, first
published in 1791, and subsequently encrusted with vast masses of
Johnsoniana in the successive editions of Malone, Croker, Napier,
Fitzgerald, Mowbray Morris (Globe), Birrell, Ingpen (copiously
illustrated) and Dr Birkbeck Hill (the most exhaustive).
The sayings and Johnsoniana have been reprinted in very many and
various forms. Valuable work has been done in Johnsonian genealogy and
topography by Aleyn Lyell Reade in his _Johnsonian Gleanings_, &c.,
and in the _Memorials of Old Staffordshire_ (ed. W. Beresford). The
most excellent short Lives are those by F. Grant (Eng. Writers) and
Sir Leslie Stephen (Eng. Men of Letters). Professor W. Raleigh's essay
(Stephen Lecture), Lord Rosebery's estimate (1909), and Sir Leslie
Stephen's article in the _Dictionary of National Biography_, with
bibliography and list of portraits, should be consulted. Johnson's
"Club" ("The Club") still exists, and has contained ever since his
time a large proportion of the public celebrities of its day. A
"Johnson Club," which has included many Johnson scholars and has
published papers, was founded in 1885. Lichfield has taken an active
part in the commemoration of Johnson since 1887, when Johnson's
birthplace was secured as a municipal museum, and Lichfield was the
chief scene of the Bicentenary Celebrations of September 1909 (fully
described in A. M. Broadley's _Dr Johnson and Mrs Thrale_, 1909),
containing, together with new materials and portraits, an essay
dealing with Macaulay's treatment of the Johnson-Thrale episodes by T.
Seccombe). Statues both of Johnson and Boswell are in the market-place
at Lichfield. A statue was erected in St Paul's in 1825, and there are
commemorative tablets in Lichfield Cathedral, St Nicholas (Brighton),
Uttoxeter, St Clement Danes (London), Gwaynynog and elsewhere.
(T. Se.)
FOOTNOTE:
[1] This famous dictum of Macaulay, though endorsed by Lord Rosebery,
has been energetically rebutted by Professor W. Raleigh and others,
who recognize both sagacity and scholarship in Johnson's Preface and
Notes. Johnson's wide grasp of the discourse and knowledge of human
nature enable him in a hundred entangled passages to go straight to
the dramatist's meaning.--(T. Se.)
JOHNSON, SIR THOMAS (1664-1729), English merchant, was born in Liverpool
in November 1664. He succeeded his father in 1689 as bailiff and in 1695
as mayor. From 1701 to 1723 he represented Liverpool in parliament, and
he was knighted by Queen Anne in 1708. He effected the separation of
Liverpool from the parish of Walton-on-the-Hill; from the Crown he
obtained the grant to the corporation of the site of the old castle
where he planned the town market; while the construction of the first
floating dock (1708) and the building of St Peter's and St George's
churches were due in great measure to his efforts. He was interested in
the tobacco trade; in 1715 he conveyed 130 Jacobite prisoners to the
American plantations. In 1723, having lost in speculation the fortune
which he had inherited from his father, he went himself to Virginia as
collector of customs on the Rappahannock river. He died in Jamaica in
1729. A Liverpool street is named Sir Thomas Buildings after him.
JOHNSON, THOMAS, English 18th-century wood-carver and furniture
designer. Of excellent repute as a craftsman and an artist in wood, his
original conceptions and his adaptations of other men's ideas were
remarkable for their extreme flamboyance, and for the merciless manner
in which he overloaded them with thin and meretricious ornament. Perhaps
his most inept design is that for a table in which a duck or goose is
displacing water that falls upon a mandarin, seated, with his head on
one side, upon the rail below. No local school of Italian rococo ever
produced more extravagant absurdities. His clocks bore scythes and
hour-glasses and flashing sunbeams, together with whirls and
convolutions and floriated adornments without end. On the other hand, he
occasionally produced a mirror frame or a mantelpiece which was simple
and dignified. The art of artistic plagiarism has never been so well
understood or so dexterously practised as by the 18th-century designers
of English furniture, and Johnson appears to have so far exceeded his
contemporaries that he must be called a barefaced thief. The three
leading "motives" of the time--Chinese, Gothic and Louis Quatorze--were
mixed up in his work in the most amazing manner; and he was exceedingly
fond of introducing human figures, animals, birds and fishes in highly
incongruous places. He appears to have defended his enormities on the
ground that "all men vary in opinion, and a fault in the eye of one may
be a beauty in that of another; 'tis a duty incumbent on an author to
endeavour at pleasing every taste." Johnson, who was in business at the
"Golden Boy" in Grafton Street, Westminster, published a folio volume of
_Designs for Picture Frames, Candelabra, Ceilings, &c._ (1758); and _One
Hundred and Fifty New Designs_ (1761).
JOHNSON, SIR WILLIAM (1715-1774), British soldier and American pioneer,
was born in Smithtown, County Meath, Ireland, in 1715, the son of
Christopher Johnson, a country gentleman. As a boy he was educated for a
commercial career, but in 1738 he removed to America for the purpose of
managing a tract of land in the Mohawk Valley, New York, belonging to
his uncle, Admiral Sir Peter Warren (1703-1752). He established himself
on the south bank of the Mohawk river, about 25 m. W. of Schenectady.
Before 1743 he removed to the north side of the river. The new
settlement prospered from the start, and a valuable trade was built up
with the Indians, over whom Johnson exercised an immense influence. The
Mohawks adopted him and elected him a sachem. In 1744 he was appointed
by Governor George Clinton (d. 1761) superintendent of the affairs of
the Six Nations (Iroquois). In 1746 he was made commissary of the
province for Indian affairs, and was influential in enlisting and
equipping the Six Nations for participation in the warfare with French
Canada, two years later (1748) being placed in command of a line of
outposts on the New York frontier. The peace of Aix-la-Chapelle put a
stop to offensive operations, which he had begun. In May 1750 by royal
appointment he became a member for life of the governor's council, and
in the same year he resigned the post of superintendent of Indian
affairs. In 1754 he was one of the New York delegates to the
inter-colonial convention at Albany, N.Y. In 1755 General Edward
Braddock, the commander of the British forces in America, commissioned
him major-general, in which capacity he directed the expedition against
Crown Point, and in September defeated the French and Indians under
Baron Ludwig A. Dieskau (1701-1767) at the battle of Lake George, where
he himself was wounded. For this success he received the thanks of
parliament, and was created a baronet (November 1755). From July 1756
until his death he was "sole superintendent of the Six Nations and other
Northern Indians." He took part in General James Abercrombie's
disastrous campaign against Ticonderoga (1758), and in 1759 he was
second in command in General John Prideaux's expedition against Fort
Niagara, succeeding to the chief command on that officer's death, and
capturing the fort. In 1760 he was with General Jeffrey Amherst
(1717-1797) at the capture of Montreal. As a reward for his services the
king granted him a tract of 100,000 acres of land north of the Mohawk
river. It was due to his influence that the Iroquois refused to join
Pontiac in his conspiracy, and he was instrumental in arranging the
treaty of Fort Stanwix in 1768. After the war Sir William retired to his
estates, where, on the site of the present Johnstown, he built his
residence, Johnson Hall, and lived in all the style of an English baron.
He devoted himself to colonizing his extensive lands, and is said to
have been the first to introduce sheep and blood horses into the
province. He died at Johnstown, N.Y., on the 11th of July 1774. In 1739
Johnson had married Catherine Wisenberg, by whom he had three children.
After her death he had various mistresses, including a niece of the
Indian chief Hendrick, and Molly Brant, a sister of the famous chief
Joseph Brant.
His son, SIR JOHN JOHNSON (1742-1830), who was knighted in 1765 and
succeeded to the baronetcy on his father's death, took part in the
French and Indian War and in the border warfare during the War of
Independence, organizing a loyalist regiment known as the "Queen's Royal
Greens," which he led at the battle of Oriskany and in the raids (1778
and 1780) on Cherry Valley and in the Mohawk Valley. He was also one of
the officers of the force defeated by General John Sullivan in the
engagement at Newtown (Elmira), N.Y., on the 29th of August 1779. He was
made brigadier-general of provincial troops in 1782. His estates had
been confiscated, and after the war he lived in Canada, where he held
from 1791 until his death the office of superintendent-general of Indian
affairs for British North America. He received L45,000 from the British
government for his losses.
Sir William's nephew, GUY JOHNSON (1740-1788), succeeded his uncle as
superintendent of Indian affairs in 1774, and served in the French and
Indian War and, on the British side, in the War of Independence.
See W. L. Stone, _Life of Sir William Johnson_ (2 vols., 1865); W. E.
Griffis, _Sir William Johnson and the Six Nations_ (1891) in "Makers
of America" series; Augustus C. Buell, _Sir William Johnson_ (1903) in
"Historic Lives Series"; and J. Watts De Peyster, "The Life of Sir
John Johnson, Bart.," in _The Orderly Book of Sir John Johnson during
the Oriskany Campaign_, 1776-1777, annotated by William L. Stone
(1882).
JOHNSTON, ALBERT SIDNEY (1803-1862), American Confederate general in the
Civil War, was born at Washington, Mason county, Kentucky, on the 3rd of
February 1803. He graduated from West Point in 1826, and served for
eight years in the U.S. infantry as a company officer, adjutant, and
staff officer. In 1834 he resigned his commission, emigrated in 1836 to
Texas, then a republic, and joined its army as a private. His rise was
very rapid, and before long he was serving as commander-in-chief in
preference to General Felix Huston, with whom he fought a duel. From
1838 to 1840 he was Texan secretary for war, and in 1839 he led a
successful expedition against the Cherokee Indians. From 1840 to the
outbreak of the Mexican War he lived in retirement on his farm, but in
1846 he led a regiment of Texan volunteers in the field, and at
Monterey, as a staff officer, he had three horses shot under him. In
1849 he returned to the United States army as major and paymaster, and
in 1855 became colonel of the 2nd U.S. Cavalry (afterwards 5th), in
which his lieut.-colonel was Robert E. Lee, and his majors were Hardee
and Thomas. In 1857 he commanded the expedition sent against the
Mormons, and performed his difficult and dangerous mission so
successfully that the objects of the expedition were attained without
bloodshed. He was rewarded with the brevet of brigadier-general. At the
outbreak of the Civil War in 1861 Johnston, then in command of the
Pacific department, resigned his commission and made his way to
Richmond, where Pres. Jefferson Davis, whom he had known at West Point,
at once made him a full general in the Confederate army and assigned him
to command the department of Kentucky. Here he had to guard a long and
weak line from the Mississippi to the Alleghany Mountains, which was
dangerously advanced on account of the political necessity of covering
friendly country. The first serious advance of the Federals forced him
back at once, and he was freely criticized and denounced for what, in
ignorance of the facts, the Southern press and people regarded as a weak
and irresolute defence. Johnston himself, who had entered upon the Civil
War with the reputation of being the foremost soldier on either side,
bore with fortitude the reproaches of his countrymen, and Davis loyally
supported his old friend. Johnston then marched to join Beauregard at
Corinth, Miss., and with the united forces took the offensive against
Grant's army at Pittsburg Landing. The battle of Shiloh (q.v.) took
place on the 6th and 7th of April, 1862. The Federals were completely
surprised, and Johnston was in the full tide of success when he fell
mortally wounded. He died a few minutes afterwards. President Davis
said, in his message to the Confederate Congress, "Without doing
injustice to the living, it may safely be said that our loss is
irreparable," and the subsequent history of the war in the west went far
to prove the truth of his eulogy.
His son, WILLIAM PRESTON JOHNSTON (1831-1899), who served on the staff
of General Johnston and subsequently on that of President Davis, was a
distinguished professor and president of Tulane University. His chief
work is the _Life of General Albert Sidney Johnston_ (1878), a most
valuable and exhaustive biography.
JOHNSTON, ALEXANDER (1849-1889), American historian, was born in
Brooklyn, New York, on the 29th of April 1849. He studied at the
Polytechnic institute of Brooklyn, graduated at Rutgers College in 1870,
and was admitted to the bar in 1875 in New Brunswick, New Jersey, where
he taught in the Rutgers College grammar school from 1876 to 1879. He
was principal of the Latin school of Norwalk, Connecticut, in 1879-1883,
and was professor of jurisprudence and political economy in the College
of New Jersey (Princeton University) from 1884 until his death in
Princeton, N.J., on the 21st of July 1889. He wrote _A History of
American Politics_ (1881); _The Genesis of a New England
State--Connecticut_ (1883), in "Johns Hopkins University Studies"; _A
History of the United States for Schools_ (1886); _Connecticut_ (1887)
in the "American Commonwealths Series"; the article on the history of
the United States for the 9th edition of the _Encyclopaedia Britannica_,
reprinted as _The United Stales: Its History and Constitution_ (1887); a
chapter on the history of American political parties in the seventh
volume of Winsor's _Narrative and Critical History of America_, and many
articles on the history of American politics in Lalor's _Cyclopaedia of
Political Science, Political Economy, and Political History of the
United States_ (1881-1884). These last articles, which like his other
writings represent much original research and are excellent examples of
Johnston's rare talent for terse narrative and keen analysis and
interpretation of facts, were republished in two volumes entitled
_American Political History 1763-1876_ (1905-1906), edited by Professor
J. A. Woodburn.
JOHNSTON, ALEXANDER KEITH (1804-1871), Scottish geographer, was born at
Kirkhill near Edinburgh on the 28th of December 1804. After an education
at the high school and the university of Edinburgh he was apprenticed to
an engraver; and in 1826 joined his brother (afterwards Sir William
Johnston, lord provost of Edinburgh) in a printing and engraving
business, the well-known cartographical firm of W. and A. K. Johnston.
His interest in geography had early developed, and his first important
work was the _National Atlas_ of general geography, which gained for him
in 1843 the appointment of Geographer-Royal for Scotland. Johnston was
the first to bring the study of physical geography into competent notice
in England. His attention had been called to the subject by Humboldt;
and after years of labour he published his magnificent _Physical Atlas_
in 1848, followed by a second and enlarged edition in 1856. This, by
means of maps with descriptive letterpress, illustrates the geology,
hydrography, meteorology, botany, zoology, and ethnology of the globe.
The rest of Johnston's life was devoted to geography, his later years to
its educational aspects especially. His services were recognized by the
leading scientific societies of Europe and America. He died at Ben
Rhydding, Yorkshire, on the 9th of July 1871. Johnston published a
_Dictionary of Geography_ in 1850, with many later editions; _The Royal
Atlas of Modern Geography_, begun in 1855; an atlas of military
geography to accompany Alison's _History of Europe_ in 1848 seq.; and a
variety of other atlases and maps for educational or scientific
purposes. His son of the same name (1844-1879) was also the author of
various geographical works and papers; in 1873-1875 he was geographer to
a commission for the survey of Paraguay; and he died in Africa while
leading the Royal Geographical Society's expedition to Lake Nyasa.
JOHNSTON, ARTHUR (1587-1641), Scottish physician and writer of Latin
verse, was the son of an Aberdeenshire laird Johnston of Johnston and
Caskieben, and on his mother's side a grandson of the seventh Lord
Forbes. It is probable that he began his university studies at one, or
both, of the colleges at Aberdeen, but in 1608 he proceeded to Italy and
graduated M.D. at Padua in 1610. Thereafter he resided at Sedan, in the
company of the exiled Andrew Melville (q.v.), and in 1619 was in
practice in Paris. He appears to have returned to England about the time
of James I.'s death and to have been in Aberdeen about 1628. He met Laud
in Edinburgh at the time of Charles I.'s Scottish coronation (1633) and
was encouraged by him in his literary efforts, partly, it is said, for
the undoing of Buchanan's reputation as a Latin poet. He was appointed
rector of King's College, Aberdeen, in June 1637. Four years later he
died at Oxford, on his way to London, whither Laud had invited him.
Johnston left more than ten works, all in Latin. On two of these,
published in the same year, his reputation entirely rests: (a) his
version of the Psalms (_Psalmorum Davidis paraphrasis poetica et
canticorum evangelicorum_, Aberdeen, 1637), and (b) his anthology of
contemporary Latin verse by Scottish poets (_Deliciae poetarum
scotorum hujus aevi illustrium_, Amsterdam, 1637). He had published in
1633 a volume entitled _Cantici Salomonis paraphrasis poetica_, which,
dedicated to Charles I., had brought him to the notice of Laud. The
full version of the Psalms was the result of Laud's encouragement. The
book was for some time a strong rival of Buchanan's work, though its
good Latinity was not superior to that of the latter. The _Deliciae_,
in two small thick volumes of 699 and 575 pages, was a patriotic
effort in imitation of the various volumes (under a similar title)
which had been popular on the Continent during the second decade of
the century. The volumes are dedicated by Johnston to John Scot of
Scotstarvet, at whose expense the collected works were published after
Johnston's death, at Middelburg (1642). Selections from his own poems
occupy pages 439-647 of the first volume, divided into three sections,
_Parerga_, _Epigrammata_ and _Musae Aulicae_. He published a volume of
epigrams at Aberdeen in 1632. In these pieces he shows himself at his
best. His sacred poems, which had appeared in the _Opera_ (1642), were
reprinted by Lauder in his _Poetarum Scotorum musae sacrae_ (1739).
The earliest lives are by Lauder (_u.s._) and Benson (in _Psalmi
Davidici_, 1741). Ruddiman's _Vindication of Mr George Buchanan's
Paraphrase_ (1745) began a pamphlet controversy regarding the merits
of the rival poets.
JOHNSTON, SIR HENRY HAMILTON (1858- ), British administrator and
explorer, was born on the 12th of June 1858 at Kennington, London, and
educated at Stockwell grammar school and King's College, London. He was
a student for four years in the painting schools of the Royal Academy.
At the age of eighteen he began a series of travels in Europe and North
Africa, chiefly as a student of painting, architecture and languages. In
1879-1880 he visited the then little known interior of Tunisia. He had
also a strong bent towards zoology and comparative anatomy, and carried
on work of this description at the Royal College of Surgeons, of whose
Hunterian Collection he afterwards became one of the trustees. In 1882
he joined the earl of Mayo in an expedition to the southern part of
Angola, a district then much traversed by Transvaal Boers. In 1883
Johnston visited H. M. Stanley on the Congo, and was enabled by that
explorer to visit the river above Stanley Pool at a time when it was
scarcely known to other Europeans than Stanley and De Brazza. These
journeys attracted the attention of the Royal Geographical Society and
the British Association, and the last-named in concert with the Royal
Society conferred on Johnston the leadership of the scientific
expedition to Mount Kilimanjaro which started from Zanzibar in April
1884. Johnston's work in this region was also under the direction of Sir
John Kirk, British consul at Zanzibar. While in the Kilimanjaro district
Johnston concluded treaties with the chiefs of Moshi and Taveta
(Taveita). These treaties or concessions were transferred to the
merchants who founded the British East Africa Company, and in the final
agreement with Germany Taveta fell to Great Britain. In October 1885
Johnston was appointed British vice-consul in Cameroon and in the Niger
delta, and he became in 1887 acting consul for that region. A British
protectorate over the Niger delta had been notified in June 1885, and
between the date of his appointment and 1888, together with the consul
E. H. Hewett, Johnston laid the foundations of the British
administration in that part of the delta not reserved for the Royal
Niger Company. His action in removing the turbulent chief Ja-ja (an
ex-slave who had risen to considerable power in the palm-oil trade)
occasioned considerable criticism but was approved by the Foreign
Office. It led to the complete pacification of a region long disturbed
by trade disputes. During these three years of residence in the Gulf of
Guinea Johnston ascended the Cameroon Mountain, and made large
collections of the flora and fauna of Cameroon for the British Museum.
In the spring of 1889 he was sent to Lisbon to negotiate an arrangement
for the delimitation of the British and Portuguese spheres of influence
in South-East Africa, but the scheme drawn up, though very like the
later arrangement of those regions, was not given effect to at the time.
On his return from Lisbon he was despatched to Mozambique as consul for
Portuguese East Africa, and was further charged with a mission to Lake
Nyasa to pacify that region, then in a disturbed state owing to the
attacks of slave-trading Arabs on the stations of the African Lakes
Trading Company--an unofficial war, in which Captain (afterwards Colonel
Sir Frederick) Lugard and Mr (afterwards Sir Alfred) Sharpe
distinguished themselves. Owing to the unexpected arrival on the scene
of Major Serpa Pinto, Johnston was compelled to declare a British
protectorate over the Nyasa region, being assisted in this work by John
Buchanan (vice-consul), Sir Alfred Sharpe, Alfred Swann and others. A
truce was arranged with the Arabs on Lake Nyasa, and within twelve
months the British flag, by agreement with the natives, had been hoisted
over a very large region which extended north of Lake Tanganyika to the
vicinity of Uganda, to Katanga in the Congo Free State, the Shire
Highlands and the central Zambezi. Johnston's scheme, in fact, was that
known as the "Cape-to-Cairo," a phrase which he had brought into use in
an article in _The Times_ in August 1888. According to his arrangement
there would have been an all-British route from Alexandria to Cape Town.
But by the Anglo-German agreement of the 1st of July 1890 the British
sphere north of Tanganyika was abandoned to Germany, and the
Cape-to-Cairo route broken by a wedge of German territory. Johnston
returned to British Central Africa as commissioner and consul-general in
1891, and retained that post till 1896, in which year he was made a
K.C.B. His health having suffered much from African fever, he was
transferred to Tunis as consul-general (1897). In the autumn of 1899 Sir
Harry Johnston was despatched to Uganda as special commissioner to
reorganize the administration of that protectorate after the suppression
of the mutiny of the Sudanese soldiers and the long war with Unyoro. His
two years' work in Uganda and a portion of what is now British East
Africa were rewarded at the close of 1901 by a G.C.M.G. In the spring of
the following year he retired from the consular service. After 1904 he
interested himself greatly in the affairs of the Liberian republic, and
negotiated various arrangements with that negro state by which order was
brought into its finances, the frontier with France was delimited, and
the development of the interior by means of roads was commenced. In 1903
he was defeated as Liberal candidate for parliament at a by-election at
Rochester. He met with no better success at West Marylebone at the
general election of 1906.
For his services to zoology he was awarded the gold medal of the
Zoological Society in 1902, and in the same year was made an honorary
doctor of science at Cambridge. He received the gold medal of the Royal
Geographical and the Royal Scottish Geographical societies, and other
medals for his artistic work from South Kensington and the Society of
Arts. His pictures, chiefly dealing with African subjects, were
frequently exhibited at the Royal Academy. He was the author of numerous
books on Africa, including _British Central Africa_ (1897); _The
Colonization of Africa_ (1899); _The Uganda Protectorate_ (1902);
_Liberia_ (1906); _George Grenfell and the Congo_ (1908). During his
travels in the north-eastern part of the Congo Free State in 1900 he was
instrumental in discovering and naming the okapi, a mammal nearly allied
to the giraffe. His name has been connected with many other discoveries
in the African fauna and flora.
JOHNSTON, JOSEPH EGGLESTON (1807-1891), American Confederate general in
the Civil War, was born near Farmville, Prince Edward county, Virginia,
on the 3rd of February 1807. His father, Peter Johnston (1763-1841), a
Virginian of Scottish descent, served in the War of Independence, and
afterwards became a distinguished jurist; his mother was a niece of
Patrick Henry. He graduated at West Point, in the same class with Robert
E. Lee, and was made brevet second lieutenant, 4th Artillery, in 1829.
He served in the Black Hawk and Seminole wars, and left the army in 1837
to become a civil engineer, but a year afterwards he was reappointed to
the army as first lieutenant, Topographical Engineers, and breveted
captain for his conduct in the Seminole war. During the Mexican war he
was twice severely wounded in a reconnaissance at Cerro Gordo, 1847, was
engaged in the siege of Vera Cruz, the battles of Contreras, Churubusco,
and Molino del Rey, the storming of Chapultepec, and the assault on the
city of Mexico, and received three brevets for gallant and meritorious
service. From 1853 to 1855 he was employed on Western river
improvements, and in 1855 he became lieut.-colonel of the 1st U.S.
Cavalry. In 1860 he was made quartermaster-general, with the rank of
brigadier-general. In April 1861 he resigned from the United States army
and entered the Confederate service. He was commissioned major-general
of volunteers in the Army of Virginia, and assisted in organizing the
volunteers. He was later appointed a general officer of the Confederacy,
and assigned to the command of the Army of the Shenandoah, being opposed
by the Federal army under Patterson. When McDowell advanced upon the
Confederate forces under Beauregard at Manassas, Johnston moved from the
Shenandoah Valley with great rapidity to Beauregard's assistance. As
senior officer he took command on the field, and at Bull Run (Manassas)
(q.v.) won the first important Confederate victory. In August 1861 he
was made one of the five full generals of the Confederacy, remaining in
command of the main army in Virginia. He commanded in the battle of Fair
Oaks (May 31, 1862), and was so severely wounded as to be incapacitated
for several months. In March 1863, still troubled by his wound, he was
assigned to the command of the south-west, and in May was ordered to
take immediate command of all the Confederate forces in Mississippi,
then threatened by Grant's movement on Vicksburg. When Pemberton's army
was besieged in Vicksburg by Grant, Johnston used every effort to
relieve it, but his force was inadequate. Later in 1863, when the battle
of Chattanooga brought the Federals to the borders of Georgia, Johnston
was assigned to command the Army of Tennessee at Dalton, and in the
early days of May 1864 the combined armies of the North under Sherman
advanced against his lines. For the main outlines of the famous campaign
between Sherman and Johnston see AMERICAN CIVIL WAR (S 29). From the 9th
of May to the 17th of July there were skirmishes, actions and combats
almost daily. The great numerical superiority of the Federals enabled
Sherman to press back the Confederates without a pitched battle, but the
severity of the skirmishing may be judged from the casualties of the two
armies (Sherman's about 26,000 men, Johnston's over 10,000), and the
obstinate steadiness of Johnston by the fact that his opponent hardly
progressed more than one mile a day. But a Fabian policy is never
acceptable to an eager people, and when Johnston had been driven back to
Atlanta he was superseded by Hood with orders to fight a battle. The
wisdom of Johnston's plan was soon abundantly clear, and the Confederate
cause was already lost when Lee reinstated him on the 23rd of February
1865. With a handful of men he opposed Sherman's march through the
Carolinas, and at Bentonville, N.C., fought and almost won a most
gallant and skilful battle against heavy odds. But the Union troops
steadily advanced, growing in strength as they went, and a few days
after Lee's surrender at Appomattox Johnston advised President Davis
that it was in his opinion wrong and useless to continue the conflict,
and he was authorized to make terms with Sherman. The terms entered into
between these generals, on the 18th of April, having been rejected by
the United States government, another agreement was signed on the 26th
of April, the new terms being similar to those of the surrender of Lee.
After the close of the war Johnston engaged in civil pursuits. In 1874
he published a _Narrative of Military Operations during the Civil War_.
In 1877 he was elected to represent the Richmond district of Virginia in
Congress. In 1887 he was appointed by President Cleveland U.S.
commissioner of railroads. Johnston was married in early life to Louisa
(d. 1886), daughter of Louis M'Lane. He died at Washington, D.C., on the
21st of March 1891, leaving no children.
It was not the good fortune of Johnston to acquire the prestige which so
much assisted Lee and Jackson, nor indeed did he possess the power of
enforcing his will on others in the same degree, but his methods were
exact, his strategy calm and balanced, and, if he showed himself less
daring than his comrades, he was unsurpassed in steadiness. The duel of
Sherman and Johnston is almost as personal a contest between two great
captains as were the campaigns of Turenne and Montecucculi. To
Montecucculi, indeed, both in his military character and in the
incidents of his career, Joseph Johnston bears a striking resemblance.
See Hughes, _General Johnston_, in "Great Commanders Series" (1893).
JOHNSTONE, a police burgh of Renfrewshire, Scotland, on the Black Cart,
11 m. W. of Glasgow by the Glasgow & South-Western railway. Pop. (1901),
10,503. The leading industries include flax-spinning, cotton
manufactures (with the introduction of which in 1781 the prosperity of
the town began), paper-making, shoe-lace making, iron and brass
foundries and engineering works. There are also coal mines and oil works
in the vicinity. Elderslie, 1 m. E., is the reputed birthplace of Sir
William Wallace, but it is doubtful if "Wallace's Yew," though of great
age, and "Wallace's Oak," a fine old tree that perished in a storm in
1856, and the small castellated building (traditionally his house) which
preceded the present mansion in the west end of the village, existed in
his day.
JOHNSTOWN, a city and the county-seat of Fulton county, New York,
U.S.A., on Cayadutta Creek, about 4 m. N. of the Mohawk river and about
48 m. N.W. of Albany. Pop. (1890), 7768; (1900), 10,130 (1653
foreign-born); (1905, state census), 9765; (1910) 10,447. It is served
by the Fonda, Johnstown & Gloversville railroad, and by an electric line
to Schenectady. The city has a Federal building, a Y.M.C.A. building, a
city hall, and a Carnegie library (1902). The most interesting building
is Johnson Hall, a fine old baronial mansion, built by Sir William
Johnson in 1762 and his home until his death; his grave is just outside
the present St John's episcopal church. Originally the hall was flanked
by two stone forts, one of which is still standing. In 1907 the hall was
bought by the state and was placed in the custody of the Johnstown
Historical Society, which maintains a museum here. In the hall Johnson
established in 1766 a Masonic lodge, one of the oldest in the United
States. Other buildings of historical interest are the Drumm House and
the Fulton county court house, built by Sir William Johnson in 1763 and
1772 respectively, and the gaol (1772), at first used for all New York
west of Schenectady county, and during the War of Independence as a
civil and a military prison. The court house is said to be the oldest in
the United States. Three miles south of the city is the Butler House,
built in 1742 by Colonel John Butler (d. 1794), a prominent Tory leader
during the War of Independence. A free school, said to have been the
first in New York state, was established at Johnstown by Sir William
Johnson in 1764. The city is (after Gloversville, 3 m. distant) the
principal glove-making centre in the United States, the product being
valued at $2,581,274 in 1905 and being 14.6% of the total value of this
industry in the United States. The manufacture of gloves in commercial
quantities was introduced into the United States and Johnstown in 1809
by Talmadge Edwards, who was buried there in the colonial cemetery. The
value of the total factory product in 1905 was $4,543,272 (a decrease of
11.3% since 1900). Johnstown was settled about 1760 by a colony of Scots
brought to America by Sir William Johnson, within whose extensive grant
it was situated, and in whose honour, in 1771, it was named. A number of
important conferences between the colonial authorities and the Iroquois
Indians were held here, and on the 28th of October 1781, during the War
of Independence, Colonel Marinus Willett (1740-1830) defeated here a
force of British and Indians, whose leader, Walter Butler, a son of
Colonel John Butler, and, with him, a participant in the Wyoming
massacres, was mortally wounded near West Canada creek during the
pursuit. Johnstown was incorporated as a village in 1808, and was
chartered as a city in 1895.
JOHNSTOWN, a city of Cambria county, Pennsylvania, U.S.A., at the
confluence of the Conemaugh river and Stony creek, about 75 m. E. by S.
of Pittsburg. Pop. (1890), 21,805; (1900), 35,936, of whom 7318 were
foreign-born, 2017 being Hungarians, 1663 Germans, and 923 Austrians;
(1910 census) 55,482. It is served by the Pennsylvania and the Baltimore
& Ohio railways. The city lies about 1170 ft. above the sea, on level
ground extending for some distance along the river, and nearly enclosed
by high and precipitous hills. Among the public buildings and
institutions are the Cambria free library (containing about 14,000
volumes in 1908), the city hall, a fine high school, and the Conemaugh
Valley memorial hospital. Roxbury Park, about 3 m. from the city, is
reached by electric lines. Coal, iron ore, fire clay and limestone
abound in the vicinity, and the city has large plants for the
manufacture of iron and steel. The total value of the factory product in
1905 was $28,891,806, an increase of 35.2% since 1900. A settlement was
established here in 1791 by Joseph Jahns, in whose honour it was named,
and the place was soon laid out as a town, but it was not incorporated
as a city until 1889, the year of the disastrous Johnstown flood. In
1852 a dam (700 ft. long and 100 ft. high), intended to provide a
storage reservoir for the Pennsylvania canal, had been built across the
South Fork, a branch of the Conemaugh river, 12 m. above the city, but
the Pennsylvania canal was subsequently abandoned, and in 1888 the dam
was bought and repaired by the South Fork hunting and fishing club, and
Conemaugh lake was formed. On the 31st of May 1889, during a heavy
rainfall, the dam gave way and a mass of water 20 ft. or more in height
at its head swept over Johnstown at a speed of about 20 m. an hour,
almost completely destroying the city. The Pennsylvania railroad bridge
withstood the strain, and against it the flood piled up a mass of
wreckage many feet in height and several acres in area. On or in this
confused mass many of the inhabitants were saved from drowning, only to
be burned alive when it caught fire. Seven other towns and villages in
the valley were also swept away, and the total loss of lives was 2000 or
more. A relief fund of nearly $3,000,000 was raised, and the city was
quickly rebuilt.
JOHOR (Johore is the local official, but incorrect spelling), an
independent Malayan state at the southern end of the peninsula,
stretching from 2 deg. 40' S. to Cape Romania (Ramunya), the most
southerly point on the mainland of Asia, and including all the small
islands adjacent to the coast which lie to the south of parallel 2 deg.
40' S. It is bounded N. by the protected native state of Pahang, N.W. by
the Negri Sembilan and the territory of Malacca, S. by the strait which
divides Singapore island from the mainland, E. by the China Sea, and W.
by the Straits of Malacca. The province of Muar was placed under the
administration of Johor by the British government as a temporary measure
in 1877, and was still a portion of the sultan's dominions in 1910. The
coast-line measures about 250 m. The greatest length from N.W. to S.E.
is 165 m., the greatest breadth from E. to W. 100 m. The area is
estimated at about 9000 sq. m. The principal rivers are the Muar, the
most important waterway in the south of the peninsula; the Johor, up
which river the old capital of the state was situated; the Endau, which
marks the boundary with Pahang; and the Batu Pahat and Sedeli, of
comparative unimportance. Johor is less mountainous than any other state
in the peninsula. The highest peak is Gunong Ledang, called Mt Ophir by
Europeans, which measures some 4000 ft. in height. Like the rest of the
peninsula, Johor is covered from end to end by one vast spread of
forest, only broken here and there by clearings and settlements of
insignificant area. The capital is Johor Bharu (pop. about 20,000),
situated at the nearest point on the mainland to the island of
Singapore. The fine palace built by the sultan Abubakar is the principal
feature of the town. It is a kind of Oriental Monte Carlo, and is much
resorted to from Singapore. The capital of the province of Muar is
Bandar Maharani, named after the wife of the sultan before he had
assumed his final title. The climate of Johor is healthy and equable for
a country situated so near to the equator; it is cooler than that of
Singapore. The shade temperature varies from 98.5 deg. F. to 68.2 deg.
F. The rainfall averages 97.28 in. per annum. No exact figures can be
obtained as to the population of Johor, but the best estimates place it
at about 200,000, of whom 150,000 are Chinese, 35,000 Malays, 15,000
Javanese. We are thus presented with the curious spectacle of a country
under Malay rule in which the Chinese outnumber the people of the land
by more than four to one. It is not possible to obtain any exact data on
the subject of the revenue and expenditure of the state. The revenue,
however, is probably about 750,000 dollars, and the expenditure under
public service is comparatively small. The revenue is chiefly derived
from the revenue farms for opium, spirits, gambling, &c., and from duty
on pepper and gambier exported by the Chinese. The cultivation of these
products forms the principal industry. Areca-nuts and copra are also
exported in some quantities, more especially from Muar. There is little
mineral wealth of proved value.
_History._--It is claimed that the Mahommedan empire of Johor was
founded by the sultan of Malacca after his expulsion from his kingdom by
the Portuguese in 1511. It is certain that Johor took an active part,
only second to that of Achin, in the protracted war between the
Portuguese and the Dutch for the possession of Malacca. Later we find
Johor ruled by an officer of the sultan of Riouw (Riau), bearing the
title of Tumenggong, and owing feudal allegiance to his master in common
with the Bendahara of Pahang. In 1812, however, this officer seems to
have thrown off the control of Riouw, and to have assumed the title of
sultan, for one of his descendants, Sultan Husain, ceded the island of
Singapore to the East India Company in 1819. In 1855 the then sultan,
Ali, was deposed, and his principal chief, the Tumenggong, was given the
supreme rule by the British. His son Tumenggong Abubakar proved to be a
man of exceptional intelligence. He made numerous visits to Europe, took
considerable interest in the government and development of his country,
and was given by Queen Victoria the title of maharaja in 1879. On one of
his visits to England he was made the defendant in a suit for breach of
promise of marriage, but the plaintiff was non-suited, since it was
decided that no action lay against a foreign sovereign in the English
law courts. In 1885 he entered into a new agreement with the British
government, and was allowed to assume the title of sultan of the state
and territory of Johor. He was succeeded in 1895 by his son Sultan
Ibrahim. The government of Johor has been comparatively so free from
abuses under its native rulers that it has never been found necessary to
place it under the residential system in force in the other native
states of the peninsula which are under British control, and on several
occasions Abubakar used his influence with good effect on the side of
law and order. The close proximity of Johor to Singapore has constantly
subjected the rulers of the former state to the influence of European
public opinion. None the less, the Malay is by nature but ill fitted for
the drudgery which is necessary if proper attention is to be paid to the
dull details whereby government is rendered good and efficient.
Abubakar's principal adviser, the Dato 'Mentri, was a worthy servant of
his able master. Subsequently, however, the reins of government came
chiefly into the hands of a set of young men who lacked either
experience or the serious devotion to dull duties which is the
distinguishing mark of the English civil service. Muar, in imitation of
the British system, is ruled by a raja of the house of Johor, who bears
the title of resident. (H. Cl.)
JOIGNY, a town of central France, capital of an arrondissement in the
department of Yonne, 18 m. N.N.W. of Auxerre by the
Paris-Lyon-Mediterranee railway. Pop. (1906), 4888. It is situated on
the flank of the hill known as the Cote St Jacques on the right bank of
the Yonne. Its streets are steep and narrow, and old houses with carved
wooden facades are numerous. The church of St Jean (16th century), which
once stood within the _enceinte_ of the old castle, contains a
representation (15th century) of the Holy Sepulchre in white marble.
Other interesting buildings are the church of St Andre (12th, 16th and
17th centuries), of which the best feature is the Renaissance portal
with its fine bas-reliefs; and the church of St Thibault (16th century),
in which the stone crown suspended from the choir vaulting is chiefly
noticeable. The Porte du Bois, a gateway with two massive flanking
towers, is a relic of the 10th century castle; there is also a castle of
the 16th and 17th centuries, in part demolished. The hotel de ville
(18th century) shelters the library; the law-court contains the
sepulchral chapel of the Ferrands (16th century). The town is the seat
of a sub-prefect and has tribunals of first instance and of commerce,
and a communal college for boys. It is industrially unimportant, but the
wine of the Cote St Jacques is much esteemed.
Joigny (_Joviniacum_) was probably of Roman origin. In the 10th century
it became the seat of a countship dependent on that of Champagne, which
after passing through several hands came in the 18th century into the
possession of the family of Villeroi. A fragment of a ladder preserved
in the church of St Andre commemorates the successful resistance offered
by the town to the English in 1429.
JOINDER, in English law, a term used in several connexions.
_Joinder of causes of action_ is the uniting in the same action several
causes of action. Save in actions for the recovery of land and in
actions by a trustee in bankruptcy a plaintiff may without leave join in
one action, not several actions, but several "causes of action." Claims
by or against husband and wife may be joined with claims by or against
either of them separately. Claims by or against an executor or
administrator as such may be joined with claims by or against him
personally, provided such claims are alleged to arise with reference to
the estate of which the plaintiff or defendant sues or is sued as
executor or administrator. Claims by plaintiffs jointly may be joined
with claims by them or any of them separately against the same
defendant.
_Joinder in pleading_ is the joining by the parties on the point of
matter issuing out of the allegations and pleas of the plaintiff and the
defendant in a cause and the putting the cause upon trial.
_Joinder of parties._--Where parties may jointly, severally or in the
alternative bring separate actions in respect of or arising out of the
same transaction or series of transactions they may, by Order XVI. of
the rules of the supreme court, be joined in one action as plaintiffs.
JOINERY, one of the useful arts which contribute to the comfort and
convenience of man. As the arts of joinery and carpentry are often
followed by the same individual, it appears natural to conclude that the
same principles are common to both, but a closer examination leads to a
different conclusion. The art of carpentry is directed almost wholly to
the support of weight or pressure, and therefore its principles must be
sought in the mechanical sciences. In a building it includes all the
rough timber work necessary for support, division or connexion, and its
proper object is to give firmness and stability. The art of joinery has
for its object the addition in a building of all the fixed woodwork
necessary for convenience or ornament. The joiner's works are in many
cases of a complicated nature, and often require to be executed in an
expensive material, therefore joinery requires much skill in that part
of geometrical science which treats of the projection and description of
lines, surfaces and solids, as well as an intimate knowledge of the
structure and nature of wood. A man may be a good carpenter without
being a joiner at all, but he cannot be a joiner without being
competent, at least, to supervise all the operations required in
carpentry. The rough labour of the carpenter renders him in some degree
unfit to produce that accurate and neat workmanship which is expected
from a modern joiner, but it is no less true that the habit of neatness
and the great precision of the joiner make him a much slower workman
than the man practised in works of carpentry. In carpentry framing owes
its strength mainly to the form and position of its parts, but in
joinery the strength of a frame depends to a larger extent upon the
strength of the joinings. The importance of fitting the joints together
as accurately as possible is therefore obvious. It is very desirable
that a joiner shall be a quick workman, but it is still more so that he
shall be a good one, and that he should join his materials with firmness
and accuracy. It is also of the greatest importance that the work when
thus put together shall be constructed of such sound and dry materials,
and on such principles, that the whole shall bear the various changes of
temperature and of moisture and dryness, so that the least possible
shrinkage or swelling shall take place; but provision must be made so
that, if swelling or shrinking does occur, no damage shall be done to
the work.
In early times every part was rude, and jointed in the most artless
manner. The first dawnings of the art of modern joinery appear in the
thrones, stalls, pulpits and screens of early Gothic cathedrals and
churches, but even in these it is indebted to the carver for everything
that is worthy of regard. With the revival of classic art, however,
great changes took place in every sort of construction. Forms began to
be introduced in architecture which could not be executed at a moderate
expense without the aid of new principles, and these principles were
discovered and published by practical joiners. These authors, with their
scanty geometrical knowledge, had but confused notions of these
principles, and accordingly their descriptions are often obscure, and
sometimes erroneous. The framed wainscot of small panels gave way to the
large bolection moulded panelling. Doors which were formerly heavily
framed and hung on massive posts or in jambs of cut stone, were now
framed in light panels and hung in moulded dressings of wood. The
scarcity of oak timber, and the expense of working it, subsequently led
to the importation of fir timber from northern Europe, and this
gradually superseded all other material save for special work.
_Tools and Materials._--The joiner operates with saws, planes, chisels,
gouges, hatchet, adze, gimlets and other boring instruments (aided and
directed by chalked lines), gauges, squares, hammers, wallets, floor
cramps and a great many other tools. His operations consist principally
of sawing and planing in all their varieties, and of setting out and
making joints of all kinds. There is likewise a great range of other
operations--such as paring, gluing up, wedging, pinning, fixing, fitting
and hanging--and many which depend on nailing and screwing, such as
laying floors, boarding ceilings, wainscoting walls, bracketing,
cradling, firring, and the like. In addition to the wood on which the
joiner works, he requires also glue, white lead, nails, brads, screws
and hinges, and accessorily he applies bolts, locks, bars and other
fastenings, together with pulleys, lines, weights, holdfasts, wall
hooks, &c. The joiner's work for a house is for the most part prepared
at the shop, where there should be convenience for doing everything in
the best and readiest manner, so that little remains when the carcase is
ready and the floors laid but to fit, fix and hang. The sashes, frames,
doors, shutters, linings and soffits are all framed and put together,
i.e. wedged up and cleaned off at the shop; the flooring is planed and
prepared with rebated or grooved edges ready for laying, and the moulded
work--the picture and dado rails, architraves, skirtings and
panelling--is all got out at the shop. On a new building the joiner fits
up a temporary workshop with benches, sawing stools and a stove for his
glue pot. Here he adjusts the work for fitting up and makes any small
portions that may still be required.
The preparation of joinery entirely by hand is now the exception--a fact
due to the ever-increasing use of machines, which have remarkably
shortened the time required to execute the ordinary operations. Various
machines rapidly and perfectly execute planing and surfacing, mortising
and moulding, leaving the craftsman merely to fit and glue up. Large
quantities of machine-made flooring, window-frames and doors are now
imported into England from Canada and the continent of Europe. The
timber is grown near the place of manufacture, and this, coupled with
the fact that labour at a low rate of wages is easily obtainable on the
Continent, enables the cost of production to be kept very low.
The structure and properties of wood should be thoroughly understood by
every joiner. The man who has made the nature of timber his study has
always a decided advantage over those who have neglected this. Timber
shrinks considerably in the width, but not appreciably in the length.
Owing to this shrinkage certain joints and details, hereinafter
described and illustrated, are in common use for the purpose of
counteracting the bad effect this movement would otherwise have upon all
joinery work.
The kinds of wood commonly employed in joinery are the different
species of North European and North American pine, oak, teak and
mahogany (see TIMBER). The greater part of English joiners' work is
executed in the northern pine exported from the Baltic countries.
Hence the joiner obtains the planks, deals, battens and strips from
which he shapes his work. The timber reaches the workman from the
sawmills in a size convenient for the use he intends, considerable
time and labour being saved in this way.
A log of timber sawn to a square section is termed a _balk_. In
section it may range from 1 to 1(1/2) ft. square. _Planks_ are formed
by sawing the balk into sections from 11 to 18 in. wide and 3 to 6 in.
thick, and the term _deal_ is applied to sawn stuff 9 in. wide and 2
to 4(1/2) in. thick. _Battens_ are boards running not more than 3 in.
thick and 4 to 7 in. wide. A _strip_ is not thicker than 1(1/2) in.,
the width being about 4 in.
[Illustration: FIG. 1.]
_Joints.--Side joints_ (fig. 1) are used for joining boards together
edge to edge, and are widely employed in flooring. In the _square_
joint the edges of the boards are carefully shot, the two edges to be
joined brought together with glue applied hot, and the boards tightly
clamped and left to dry, when the surface is cleaned off with the
smoothing plane. A joint in general use for joining up boards for
fascias, panels, linings, window-boards, and other work of a like
nature is formed in a similar manner to the above, but with a
cross-grained tongue inserted, thereby greatly strengthening the work
at an otherwise naturally weak point. This is termed a _cross-tongued
and glued_ joint. The _dowelled_ joint is a square glued joint
strengthened with hard wood or iron dowels inserted in the edge of
each board to a depth of about 3/4 in. and placed about 18 in. apart.
The _matched_ joint is shown in two forms, beaded and jointed. Matched
boarding is frequently used as a less expensive substitute for
panelled framing. Although of course in appearance it cannot compare
with the latter, it has a somewhat ornamental appearance, and the
moulded joints allow shrinkage to take place without detriment to the
appearance of the work. The _rebated_ joint is used in the meeting
styles of casements and folding doors, and it is useful in excluding
draughts and preventing observation through the joint.
[Illustration: FIG. 2.]
Of the _angle joints_ (fig. 2) in common use by the joiner the
following are the most important. The _mitre_ is shown in the drawing,
and is so well known as to need little description. Although simple,
it needs a practised and accurate hand for its proper execution. The
common mitre is essentially weak unless reinforced with blocks glued
into the angle at the back of it, and is therefore often strengthened
with a feather of wood or iron. Other variations of the mitre are the
_mitre and butt_, used where the pieces connected are of unequal
thickness; the _mitre and rebate_, with a square section which
facilitates nailing or screwing; the _mitre rebate and feather_,
similar to the latter, with a feather giving additional strength to
the joint; and the _mitre groove and tongue_, having a tongue worked
on the material itself in place of the feather of the last-named
joint. The last two methods are used in the best work, and, carefully
worked and glued, with the assistance of angle blocks glued at the
back, obviate the necessity of face screws or nails. The _keyed mitre_
consists of a simple mitre joint, which after being glued up has a
number of pairs of saw cuts made across the angle, into which are
fitted and glued thin triangular slips of hard wood, or as an
alternative, pieces of brass or other metal. Other forms of angle
joints are based on the rebate with a bead worked on in such a
position as to hide any bad effects caused by the joint opening by
shrinkage. They may be secured either by nailing or screwing, or by
glued angle blocks.
The _dovetail_ is a most important joint; its most usual forms are
illustrated in fig. 3. The _mitre dovetail_ is used in the best work.
It will be seen that the dovetail is a tenon, shaped as a wedge, and
it is this distinguishing feature which gives it great strength
irrespective of glue or screws. It is invaluable in framing together
joiners' fittings; its use in drawers especially provides a good
example of its purpose and structure.
[Illustration: FIG. 3.--Dovetails.]
_Warping in Wide Boards._--It is necessary to prevent the tendency to
warp, twist and split, which boards of great width, or several boards
glued together edge to edge, naturally possess. On the other hand,
swelling and shrinking due to changes in the humidity of the
atmosphere must not be checked, or the result will be disastrous. To
effect this end various simple devices are available. The direction of
the annular rings in alternate boards may be reversed, and when the
boards have been carefully jointed with tongues or dowels and glued
up, a hard-wood tapering key, dovetail in section, may be let into a
wide dovetail at the back (fig. 4). It must be accurately fitted and
driven tightly home, but, of course, not glued. Battens of hard wood
may be used for the same purpose, fixed either with hard-wood buttons
or by means of brass slots and screws, the slots allowing for any
slight movement that may take place. With boards of a substantial
thickness light iron rods may be used, holes being bored through the
thickness of the boards and rods passed through; the edges are then
glued up. This method is very effective and neat in appearance, and is
specially suitable when a smooth surface is desired on both sides of
the work.
[Illustration: FIG. 4.--Prevention of Warping.]
_Mouldings_ are used in joinery to relieve plain surfaces by the
contrasts of light and shade formed by their members, and to ornament
or accentuate those particular portions which the designer may wish to
bring into prominence. Great skill and discrimination are required in
designing and applying mouldings, but that matter falls to the
qualified designer and is perhaps outside the province of the
practical workman, whose work is to carry out in an accurate and
finished manner the ideas of the draughtsman. The character of a
moulding is greatly affected by the nature and appearance of the wood
in which it is worked. A section suitable for a hard regularly grained
wood, such as mahogany, would probably look insignificant if worked in
a softer wood with pronounced markings. Mouldings worked on woods of
the former type may consist of small and delicate members; woods of
the latter class require bold treatment.
[Illustration: FIG. 5.--Mouldings.]
The mouldings of joinery, as well as of all other moulded work used in
connexion with a building, are usually worked in accordance with
full-sized detail drawings prepared by the architect, and are designed
by him to conform with the style and class of building. There are,
however, a number of moulded forms in common use which have particular
names; sections are shown of many of these in fig. 5. Most of them
occur in the classic architecture of both Greeks and Romans. A
striking distinction, however, existed in the mouldings of these two
peoples; the curves of the Greek mouldings were either derived from
conic sections or drawn in freehand, while in typical Roman work the
curved components were segments of a circle. Numerous examples of the
use of these forms occur in ordinary joinery work, and may be
recognized on reference to the illustrations, which will be easily
understood without further description.
Mouldings may be either stuck or planted on. A _stuck_ moulding is
worked directly on to the framing it is used to ornament; a _planted_
moulding is separately worked and fixed in position with nails or
screws. Beads and other small mouldings should always be stuck; larger
ones are usually planted on. In the case of mouldings planted on
panelled work, the nails should be driven through the moulding into
the style or rail of the framing, and on no account into the panel. By
adopting the former method the panel is free to shrink--as it
undoubtedly will do--without altering the good appearance of the work,
but should the moulding be fixed to the panel it will, when the latter
shrinks, be pulled out of place, leaving an unsightly gap between it
and the framing.
_Flooring._--When the bricklayer, mason and carpenter have prepared
the carcase of a building for the joiner, one of the first operations
is that of laying the floor boards. They should have been stacked
under cover on the site for some considerable time, in order to be
thoroughly well seasoned when the time to use them arrives. The work
of laying should take place in warm dry weather. The joints of
flooring laid in winter time or during wet weather are sure to open in
the following summer, however tightly they may be cramped up during
the process of laying. An additional expense will then be incurred by
the necessity of filling in the opened joints with wood slips glued
and driven into place. Boards of narrow width are better and more
expensive than wide ones. They may be of various woods, the kinds
generally preferred, on account of their low comparative cost and ease
of working, being yellow deal and white deal. White deal or spruce is
an inferior wood, but is frequently used with good results for the
floors of less important apartments. A better floor is obtained with
yellow deal, which, when of good quality and well seasoned, is lasting
and wears well. For floors where a fine appearance is desired, or
which will be subjected to heavy wear, some harder and tougher
material, such as pitch pine, oak, ash, maple or teak, should be laid.
These woods are capable of taking a fine polish and, finished in this
way, form a beautiful as well as a durable floor.
Many of the side joints illustrated in fig. 1 are applied to flooring
boards, which, however, are not usually glued up. The heart side of
the board should be placed downwards so that in drying the tendency
will be for the edges to press more tightly to the joists instead of
curling upwards. The square joint should be used only on ground
floors; if it is used for the upper rooms, dust and water will drop
through the crevices and damage the ceiling beneath. Dowelled joints
are open to the same objection. One of the best and most economical
methods is the _ploughed and tongued_ joint. The tongue may be of hard
wood or iron, preferably the latter, which is stronger and occupies
very narrow grooves. The tongue should be placed as near the bottom of
the board as is practicable, leaving as much wearing material as
possible. Two varieties of secret joints are shown in fig. 1.--the
_splayed, rebated, grooved and tongued_, and the _rebated, grooved and
tongued_. Owing to the waste of material in forming these joints and
the extra labour involved in laying the boards, they are costly and
are only used when it is required that no heads of nails or screws
should appear on the surface. The heading joints of flooring are often
specified to be splayed or bevelled, but it is far better to rebate
them.
_Wood block floors_ are much used, and are exceedingly solid. The
blocks are laid directly on a smoothed concrete bed or floor in a
damp-proof mastic having bitumen as its base; this fulfils the double
purpose of preventing the wood from rotting, and securing the blocks
in their places. To check any inclination to warp and rise, however,
the edges of the blocks in the better class of floors are connected by
dowels of wood or metal, or by a tongued joint. The blocks may be from
1 to 3 in. thick, and are usually 9 or 12 in. long by 3 in. wide.
_Parquet_ floors are made of hard woods of various kinds, laid in
patterns on a deal sub-floor, and may be of any thickness from 1/4 to
1(1/4) in. Great care should be taken in laying the sub-floor,
especially for the thinner parquet. The boards should be in narrow
widths of well-seasoned stuff and well nailed, for any movement in the
sub-floor due to warping or shrinking may have disastrous results on
the parquet which is laid upon it. _Plated parquet_ consists of
selected hard woods firmly fixed on a framed deal backing. It is made
in sections for easy transport, and these are fitted together in the
apartment for which they are intended. When secured to the joists
these form a perfect floor.
[Illustration: FIG. 6.--Built-up Skirting tongued to floor.]
_Skirtings._--In joinery, the skirting is a board fixed around the
base of internal walls to form an ornamental base for the wall (see
fig. 7). It also covers the joint between the flooring and the wall,
and protects the base of the wall from injury. Skirtings may be placed
in two classes--those formed from a plain board with its upper edge
either left square or moulded, and those formed of two or more
separate members and termed a _built-up_ skirting (fig. 6). Small
angle fillets or mouldings are often used as skirtings. The skirting
should be worked so as to allow it to be fixed with the heart side of
the wood outwards; any tendency to warp will then only serve to press
the top edge more closely to the wall. In good work a groove should be
formed in the floor and the skirting tongued into it so that an open
joint is avoided should shrinkage occur. The skirting should be nailed
only near the top to wood grounds fixed to wood plugs in the joints of
the brickwork. These grounds are about 3/4 to 1 in. thick, i.e. the
same thickness as the plaster, and are generally splayed or grooved on
the edge to form a key for the plaster. A rough coat of plaster should
always be laid on the wall behind the skirting in order to prevent the
space becoming a harbourage for vermin.
[Illustration: FIG. 7.]
_Dados._--A dado, like a skirting, is useful both in a decorative and
a protective sense. It is filled in to ornament and protect that
portion of the wall between the _chair_ or _dado rail_ and the
skirting. It may be of horizontal boards battened at the back and with
cross tongued and glued joints, presenting a perfectly smooth surface,
or of matched boarding fixed vertically, or of panelled framing. The
last method is of course the most ornate and admits of great variety
of design. The work is fixed to rough framed wood grounds which are
nailed to plugs driven into the joints of the brickwork. Fig. 7 shows
an example of a panelled dado with capping moulding and skirting. A
_picture rail_ also is shown; it is a small moulding with the top edge
grooved to take the metal hooks from which pictures are hung.
Walls are sometimes entirely sheathed with panelling, and very fine
effects are obtained in this way. The fixing is effected to rough
grounds in a manner similar to that adopted in the case of dados. In
England the architects of the Tudor period made great use of oak
framing, panelled and richly carved, as a wall covering and
decoration, and many beautiful examples may be seen in the remaining
buildings of that period.
_Windows._--The parts of a window sash are distinguished by the same
terms as are applied to similar portions of ordinary framing, being
formed of rails and styles, with sash bars rebated for glazing. The
upright sides are _styles_; the horizontal ones, which are tenoned
into the styles, are _rails_ (fig. 7).
Sashes hung by one of their vertical edges are called _casements_
(fig. 8). They are really a kind of glazed door and sometimes indeed
are used as such, as for example _French casements_ (fig. 9). They may
be made to open either outwards or inwards. It is very difficult with
the latter to form perfectly water-tight joints; with those opening
outwards the trouble does not exist to so great an extent. This form
of window, though almost superseded in England by the case frame with
hung sashes, is in almost universal use on the Continent. _Yorkshire
sliding sashes_ move in a horizontal direction upon grooved runners
with the meeting styles vertical. They are little used, and are apt to
admit draughts and wet unless efficient checks are worked upon the
sashes and frames.
[Illustration: FIG. 8.--Casement window fitted with shutters.]
Lights in a position difficult of access are often hung on _centre
pivots_. An example of this method is shown in fig. 8; metal pivots
are fixed to the frame and the sockets in which these pivots work are
screwed to the sash. Movement is effected by means of a cord fixed so
that a slight pull opens or closes the window to the desired extent,
and the cord is then held by being tied to, or twisted round, a small
metal button or clip, or a geared fanlight opener may be used. For the
side sashes of lantern lights and for stables and factories this form
of window is in general use.
[Illustration: FIG. 9.--Details of French Casement to open inwards.]
In the British Isles and in America the most usual form of window is
the _cased frame with double hung sliding sashes_. This style has many
advantages. It is efficient in excluding wet and draughts, ventilation
may be easily regulated and the sashes can be lowered and raised with
ease without interference with any blinds, curtains or other fittings,
that may be applied to the windows. In the ordinary window of this
style, however, difficulty is experienced in cleaning the external
glass without assuming a dangerous position on the sill, but there are
many excellent inventions now on the market which obviate this
difficulty by allowing--usually on the removal of a small
thumb-screw--the reversal of the sash on a pivot or hinge. For a small
extra cost these arrangements may be provided; they will be greatly
appreciated by those who clean the windows. The cased frames are in
the form of boxes to enclose the iron or lead weights which balance
the sashes (fig. 7), and consist of a pulley style--which takes the
wear of the sashes and is often of hard wood on this account--an
inside lining, and an outside lining; these three members are
continued to form the head of the frame. The sashes are connected with
the weights by flax lines working over metal pulleys fixed in the
pulley styles. For heavy sashes with plate glass, chains are sometimes
used instead of lines. Access to the weights for the purpose of
fitting new cords is obtained by removing the pocket piece. A thin
back lining is provided to the sides only and is not required in the
head. The sill is of oak weathered to throw off the water. A parting
bead separates the sashes, and the inside bead keeps them in position.
A parting slip hung from the head inside the cased frame separates the
balancing weights and ensures their smooth working. The inside lining
is usually grooved to take the elbow and soffit linings, and the
window board is fitted into a groove formed in the sill. The example
shown in fig. 7 has an extra deep bottom rail and bead; this enables
the lower sash to be raised so as to permit of ventilation between the
meeting rails without causing a draught at the bottom of the sash.
This is a considerable improvement upon the ordinary form, and the
cost of constructing the sashes in this manner is scarcely greater.
_Bay windows_ with cased frames and double hung sashes often require
the exercise of considerable ingenuity in their construction in order
that the mullions shall be so small as not to intercept more light
than necessary; at the same time the sashes must work easily and the
whole framing be stable and strong. The sills should be mitred and
tongued at the angles and secured by a hand-rail bolt. Frequently it
is not desired to hang all the sashes of a bay window, the side lights
being fixed. To enable smaller angle mullions to be obtained, the
cords of the front windows may be taken by means of pulleys over the
heads of the side lights and attached to counter-balance weights
working in casings at the junction of the window with the wall. This
enables solid angle mullions to be employed. If all the lights are
required to be hung the difficulty may be surmounted by hanging two
sashes to one weight. Lead weights take up less space than iron, and
are used for heavy sashes.
In framing and fixing _skylights_ and _lantern lights_ also great care
is necessary to ensure the result being capable of resisting rough
weather and standing firm in high winds. Glue should not be used in
any of the joints, as it would attract moisture from the atmosphere
and set up decay. Provision must be made for the escape of the water
which condenses on and runs down the under side of the glass, by means
of a lead-lined channelled moulding, provided with zinc or copper pipe
outlets. The skylight stands on a curb raised at least 6 in. to allow
of the exclusion of rain by proper flashing. The sashes of the lantern
usually take the form of fixed or hung casements fitted to solid
mullions and angle posts which are framed into and support a solid
head. The glazed framing of the roof is made up of moulded sash bars
framed to hips and ridges of stronger section, these rest on the head,
projecting well beyond it in order to throw off the water.
_Shutters_ for domestic windows have practically fallen into disuse,
but a reference to the different forms they may take is perhaps
necessary. They may be divided into two classes--those fixed to the
outside of the window and those fixed inside. They may be battened,
panelled or formed with louvres, the latter form admitting air and a
little light. External shutters are generally hung by means of hinges
to the frame of the window: when the window is set in a reveal these
hinges are necessarily of special shape, being of large projection to
enable the shutters to fold back against the face of the wall.
Internally fixed shutters may be hinged or may slide either vertically
or horizontally. Hinged folding boxed shutters are shown in the
illustration of a casement window (fig. 8), where the method of
working is clearly indicated; they are usually held in position by
means of a hinged iron bar secured with a special catch. Lifting
shutters are usually fitted in a casing formed in the window back, and
the window board is hinged to lift up, to allow the shutters to be
raised by means of rings fixed in their upper edges. The shutters are
balanced by weights enclosed with casings in the manner described for
double hung sashes. The panels are of course filled in with wood and
not glazed. The shutters are fixed by means of a thumb-screw through
the meeting rails, the lower sash being supported on the window board
which is closed down when the sashes have been lifted out. Shutters
sliding horizontally are also used in some cases, but they are not so
convenient as the forms described above.
_Shop-fronts._--The forming of shop-fronts may almost be considered a
separate branch of joiner's work. The design and construction are
attended by many minor difficulties, and, the requirements greatly
varying with almost every trade, careful study and close attention to
detail are necessary. In the erection of shop-fronts, in order to
allow the maximum width of glass with the minimum amount of
obstruction, many special sections of sash bars and stanchions are
used, the former often being reinforced by cast iron or steel of
suitable form. For these reasons the construction of shop-fronts and
fittings has been specialized by makers having a knowledge of the
requirements of different trades and with facilities for making the
special wood and metal fittings and casings necessary. Fig. 10 shows
an example of a simple shop-front in Spanish mahogany with rolling
shutters and spring roller blind; it indicates the typical
construction of a front, and reference to it will inform the reader on
many points which need no further description. The London Building
Act. 1894 requires the following regulations to be complied with in
shop-fronts:--(1) In streets of a width not greater than 30 ft. a
shop-front may project 5 in. beyond the external wall of the building
to which it belongs, and the cornice may project 13 in. (2) In streets
of a width greater than 30 ft., the projections of the shop-front may
be 10 in. and of the cornice 18 in. beyond the building line. No
woodwork of any shop-front shall be fixed higher than 25 ft. above the
level of the public pavement. No woodwork shall be fixed nearer than 4
in. to the centre of the party wall. The pier of brick or stone must
project at least an inch in front of the woodwork. These by-laws will
be made clear on reference to fig. 10, which is of a shop-front
designed to face on to a road more than 30 ft. wide.
_Rolling shutters_ for shop-fronts are made by a number of firms, and
are usually the subject of a separate estimate, being fixed by the
makers themselves. The shutter consists of a number of narrow strips
of wood, connected with each other by steel bands hinged at every
joint, or it may be formed in iron or steel. This construction allows
it to be coiled upon a cylinder containing a strong spring and usually
fixed on strong brackets behind the fascia. The shutter is guided into
position by the edges working in metal grooves a little under an inch
wide. When the width of the opening to be closed renders it necessary
to divide the shutters into more than one portion, grooved movable
pilasters are used, and when the shutters have to be lowered these are
fixed in position with bolts, the shutter working on the grooved edges
of the pilasters. _Spring roller canvas blinds_ work on a similar
principle. The wrought-iron blind arms are capable, when the blind is
extended, of being pushed up by means of a sliding arrangement, and
fixed with a pin at a level high enough to allow foot passengers to
pass along the pavement under them.
[Illustration: FIG. 10.--Shop-front.]
_Doors._--External doors are usually hung to solid frames placed in
the reveals of the brick or stone wall. The frames are rebated for the
door and ornamented by mouldings either stuck or planted on. The
_jambs_ or _posts_ are tenoned, wedged and glued to the head, and the
feet secured to the sill by stub tenons or dowels of iron. Solid
window frames are of similar construction and are used chiefly for
casements and sashes hung on centres as already described. Internal
doors are hung to jamb linings (fig. 7). They are usually about 1(1/2)
in. thick and rebated for the door. When the width of jamb allows it,
panelling may be introduced as in the example shown. The linings are
nailed or screwed to rough framed grounds 1 in. in thickness plugged
or nailed to the wall or partition. _Architraves_ are the borders or
finishing mouldings fixed around a window or door opening, and screwed
or nailed to wood grounds. They are variously moulded according to the
fancy of the designer. The ordinary form of architrave is shown in the
illustration of a cased window frame (fig. 8), and a variation appears
in the combined architrave and over door frieze and capping fitted
around the six-panelled door (fig. 7). The latter would need to be
worked and framed in the shop and fixed entire. Polished hard wood
architraves may be secretly fixed, i.e. without the heads of nails or
screws showing on the face, by putting screws into the grounds with
their heads slightly projecting, and hanging the moulding on them by
means of keyhole slots formed in the back.
Doors may be made in a variety of ways. The simplest form, the _common
ledged_ door, consists of vertical boards with plain or matched joints
nailed to horizontal battens which correspond to the rails in framed
doors. For openings over 2 ft. 3 in. wide, the doors should be
furnished with braces. _Ledged and braced_ doors are similar, but
have, in addition to the ledges at the back, oblique braces which
prevent any tendency of the door to drop. The upper end of the brace
is birdsmouthed into the under side of the rail near the lock edge of
the door and crosses the door in an oblique direction to be
birdsmouthed into the upper edge of the rail below, near the hanging
edge of the door. This is done between each pair of rails. _Framed
ledged and braced_ doors are a further development of this form of
door. The framing consists of lock and hanging styles, top, middle and
bottom rails, with oblique braces between the rails. These members are
tenoned together and the door sheathed with boarding. The top rail and
styles are the full thickness of the door, the braces and middle and
bottom rails being less by the thickness of the sheathing boards,
which are tongued into the top rail and styles and carried down over
the other members to the bottom of the door. The three forms of door
described above are used mainly for temporary purposes, and stables,
farm buildings and outhouses of all descriptions. They are usually
hung by wrought-iron cross garnet or strap hinges fixed with screws or
through bolts and nuts.
[Illustration: FIG. 11.--Forms of Panelling.]
The doors in dwelling-houses and other buildings of a like character
are commonly _framed and panelled_ in one of the many ways possible.
The framing consists of styles, rails and muntins or mountings, and
these members are grooved to receive and hold the panels, which are
inserted previously to the door being glued and wedged up. The common
forms are doors in four or six rectangular panels, and although they
may be made with any form and number of panels, the principles of
construction remain the same. The example shown in fig. 7 is of a
six-panel door, with bolection moulded raised panels on one side, and
moulded and flat panels on the other (fig. 11).
A clear idea of the method of jointing the various members may be
obtained from fig. 12. The tongues of raised panels should be of
parallel thickness, the bevels being stopped at the moulding. The
projecting ends or _horns_ of the styles are cut off after the door
has been glued and wedged, as they prevent the ends of the styles
being damaged by the wedging process.
[Illustration: FIG. 12.--Joints.]
Where there is a great deal of traffic in both directions _swing
doors_, either single or double, are used. To open them it is
necessary simply to push, the inconvenience of turning a handle and
shutting the door after passing through being avoided, as a spring
causes the door to return to its original position without noise. They
are usually glazed and should be of substantial construction. The door
is hinged at the top on a steel pivot; the bottom part fits into a
metal shoe connected with the spring, which is placed in a box fixed
below the floor.
For large entrances, notably for hotels and banks, a form of door
working on the _turnstile_ principle is frequently adopted. It is
formed of four leaves fixed in the shape of a cross and working on top
and bottom central ball-bearing steel pivots, in a circular framing
which forms a kind of vestibule. The leaves of the door are fitted
with slips of india-rubber at their edges which, fitting close to the
circular framing, prevent draughts.
When an elegant appearance is desired, and it is at the same time
necessary to keep the cost of production as low as possible, doors of
pine or other soft wood are sometimes covered with a _veneer_ or thin
layer of hard wood, such as oak, mahogany or teak, giving the
appearance of a solid door of the better material. Made in the
ordinary way, however, the shrinkage or warping of the soft wood is
very liable to cause the veneer to buckle and peel off. Veneered doors
made on an improved method obviating this difficulty have been placed
on the market by a Canadian company. The core is made up of strips of
pine with the grain reversed, dried at a temperature of 200 deg. F.,
and glued up under pressure. Both the core and the hard wood veneer
are grooved over their surfaces, and a special damp-resisting glue is
applied; the two portions are then welded together under hydraulic
pressure. By reason of their construction these doors possess the
advantages of freedom from shrinking, warping and splitting, defects
which are all too common in the ordinary veneered and solid hard wood
doors.
The best glue for internal woodwork is that made in Scotland. Ordinary
animal glue should not be used in work exposed to the weather as it
absorbs damp and thus hastens decay; in its place a compound termed
_beaumontique_, composed of white lead, linseed oil and litharge,
should be employed.
_Church Work._--Joinery work in connexion with the fitting up of
church interiors must be regarded as a separate branch of the joiner's
art. Pitchpine is often used, but the best work is executed in English
oak; and when the screens, stalls and seating are well designed and
made in this material, a distinction and dignity of effect are added
to the interior of the church which cannot be obtained in any other
medium. The work is often of the richest character, and frequently
enriched with elaborate carving (fig. 13). Many beautiful specimens of
early work are to be seen in the English Gothic cathedrals and
churches; good work of a later date will be found in many churches and
public buildings erected in more recent years. Fine examples of Old
English joinery exist at Hampton Court Palace, the Temple Church in
London, the Chapel of Henry VII. in Westminster Abbey, and Haddon
Hall. Specimens of modern work are to be seen in Beverley Minster in
Yorkshire, the Church of St Etheldreda in Ely Place, London, and the
Wycliffe Hall Chapel at Oxford. Other examples both ancient and modern
abound in the country.
_Carving_ is a trade apart from ordinary joinery, and requires a
special ability and some artistic feeling for its successful
execution. But even in this work machinery has found a place, and
carved ornaments of all descriptions are rapidly wrought with its aid.
Small carved mouldings especially are evolved in this manner, and,
being incomparably cheaper than those worked by manual labour, are
used freely where a rich effect is desired. Elaborately carved panels
also are made by machines and a result almost equal to work done
entirely by hand is obtained if, after machinery has done all in its
power, the hand worker with his chisels and gouges puts the finishing
touches to the work.
_Ironmongery._--In regard to the finishing of a building, no detail
calls for greater consideration than the selection and accurate fixing
of suitable ironmongery, which includes the hinges, bolts, locks, door
and window fittings, and the many varieties of metal finishings
required for the completion of a building. The task of the selection
belongs to the employer or the architect; the fixing is performed by
the joiner.
[Illustration: FIG. 13.]
Of _hinges_, the variety termed _butts_ are in general use for hanging
doors, and are so called from being fitted to the butt edge of the
door. They should be of wrought iron, cast-iron butts being liable to
snap should they sustain a shock. _Lifting butts_ are made with a
removable pin to enable the door to be removed and replaced without
unscrewing. _Rising butts_ have oblique joints which cause the door to
rise and clear a thick carpet and yet make a close joint with the
floor when shut. Hinges of brass or gun-metal are used in special
circumstances. Common forms of hinges used on ledged doors are the
_cross garnet_ and the _strap_. There are many varieties of _spring
hinges_ designed to bring the door automatically to a desired
position. With such hinges a rubber stop should be fixed on the floor
or other convenient place to prevent undue strain through the door
being forced back.
Among _locks and fastenings_ the ordinary _barrel_ or _tower_ bolt
needs no description. The _flush barrel_ is a bolt let in flush with
the face of a door. The _espagnolette_ is a development of the tower
bolt and extends the whole height of the door; a handle at a
convenient height, when turned, shooting bolts at the top and bottom
simultaneously. Their chief use is for French casements. The _padlock_
is used to secure doors by means of a staple and eye. The _stock_ lock
is a large rim lock with hard wood casing and is used for stables,
church doors, &c.; it is in the form of a dead lock opened only by a
key, and is often used in conjunction with a Norfolk latch. The _metal
cased_ rim lock is a cheap form for domestic and general use. The use
of a rim lock obviates the necessity of forming a mortice in the
thickness of the door which is required when a mortice lock is used.
_Finger plates_ add greatly to the good appearance of a door, and
protect the painted work. _Sash fasteners_ are fixed at the meeting
rails of double hung sashes to prevent the window being opened from
the outside and serve also to clip the two sashes tightly together.
They should be of a pattern to resist the attack of a knife inserted
between the rails. _Sash lifts_ and _pulls_ of brass or bronze are
fitted to large sashes. Ornamental _casement stays_ and fasteners in
many different metals are made in numerous designs and styles.
_Fanlight openers_ for single lights, or geared for a number of
sashes, may be designed to suit positions difficult of access.
The following are the principal books of reference on this subject: J.
Gwilt, _Encyclopaedia of Architecture_; Sutcliffe, _Modern House
Construction_; Rivington, _Notes on Building Construction_ (3 vols.);
H. Adams, _Building Construction_; C. F. Mitchell, _Building
Construction_; Robinson, _Carpentry and Joinery_; J. P. Allen,
_Practical Building Construction_; J. Newlands, _Carpenter and
Joiner's Assistant_; Bury, _Ecclesiastical Woodwork_; T. Tredgold and
Young, _Joinery_; Peter Nicholson, _Carpenter and Joiner's Assistant_.
(J. Bt.)
JOINT (through Fr. from Lat. _junctum_, _jungere_, to join), that which
joins two parts together or the place where two parts are joined. (See
JOINERY; JOINTS.) In law, the word is used adjectivally as a term
applied to obligations, estates, &c., implying that the rights in
question relate to the aggregate of the parties joined. Obligations to
which several are parties may be _several_, i.e. enforceable against
each independently of the others, or _joint_, i.e. enforceable only
against all of them taken together, or _joint and several_, i.e.
enforceable against each or all at the option of the claimant (see
GUARANTEE). So an interest or estate given to two or more persons for
their joint lives continues only so long as all the lives are in
existence. _Joint-tenants_ are co-owners who take together at the same
time, by the same title, and without any difference in the quality or
extent of their respective interests; and when one of the joint-tenants
dies his share, instead of going to his own heirs, lapses to his
co-tenants by survivorship. This estate is therefore to be carefully
distinguished from _tenancy in common_, when the co-tenants have each a
separate interest which on death passes to the heirs and not to the
surviving tenants. When several take an estate together any words or
facts implying severance will prevent the tenancy from being construed
as joint.
JOINTS, in anatomy. The study of joints, or articulations, is known as
Arthrology (Gr. [Greek: arthron]), and naturally begins with the
definition of a joint. Anatomically the term is used for any connexion
between two or more adjacent parts of the skeleton, whether they be bone
or cartilage. Joints may be immovable, like those of the skull, or
movable, like the knee.
[Illustration: FIG. 1.--Vertical section through a synchondrosis. b, b,
the two bones; Sc, the interposed cartilage; l, the fibrous membrane
which plays the part of a ligament.]
[Illustration: FIG. 2.--Vertical section through a cranial suture, b, b,
the two bones; s, opposite the suture; l, the fibrous membrane, or
periosteum, passing between the two bones, which plays the part of a
ligament, and which is continuous with the interposed fibrous membrane.]
Immovable joints, or _synarthroses_, are usually adaptations to growth
rather than mobility, and are always between bones. When growth ceases
the bones often unite, and the joint is then obliterated by a process
known as _synostosis_, though whether the union of the bones is the
cause or the effect of the stoppage of growth is obscure. Immovable
joints never have a cavity between the two bones; there is simply a
layer of the substance in which the bone has been laid down, and this
remains unaltered. If the bone is being deposited in cartilage a layer
of cartilage intervenes, and the joint is called _synchondrosis_ (fig.
1), but if in membrane a thin layer of fibrous tissue persists, and
the joint is then known as a _suture_ (fig. 2). Good examples of
synchondroses are the epiphysial lines which separate the epiphyses
from the shafts of developing long bones, or the occipito-sphenoid
synchondrosis in the base of the skull. Examples of sutures are
plentiful in the vault of the skull, and are given special names, such
as sutura dentata, s. serrata, s. squamosa, according to the plan of
their outline. There are two kinds of fibrous synarthroses, which
differ from sutures in that they do not synostose. One of these is a
_schindylesis_, in which a thin plate of one bone is received into a
slot in another, as in the joint between the sphenoid and vomer. The
other is a peg and socket joint, or _gomphosis_, found where the fangs
of the teeth fit into the alveoli or tooth sockets in the jaws.
[Illustration: FIG. 3.--Vertical section through an amphiarthrodial
joint. b, b, the two bones; c, c, the plate of cartilage on the
articular surface of each bone; Fc, the intermediate fibro-cartilage;
l, l, the external ligaments.]
Movable joints, or _diarthroses_, are divided into those in which
there is much and little movement. When there is little movement the
term half-joint or _amphiarthrosis_ is used. The simplest kind of
amphiarthrosis is that in which two bones are connected by bundles of
fibrous tissue which pass at right angles from the one to the other;
such a joint only differs from a suture in the fact that the
intervening fibrous tissue is more plentiful and is organized into
definite bundles, to which the name of _interosseous ligaments_ is
given, and also that it does not synostose when growth stops. A joint
of this kind is called a _syndesmosis_, though probably the
distinction is a very arbitrary one, and depends upon the amount of
movement which is brought about by the muscles on the two bones. As an
instance of this the inferior tibio-fibular joint of mammals may be
cited. In man this is an excellent example of a syndesmosis, and there
is only a slight play between the two bones. In the mouse there is no
movement, and the two bones form a synchondrosis between them which
speedily becomes a synostosis, while in many Marsupials there is free
mobility between the tibia and fibula, and a definite synovial cavity
is established. The other variety of amphiarthrosis or half-joint is
the _symphysis_, which differs from the syndesmosis in having both
bony surfaces lined with cartilage and between the two cartilages a
layer of fibro-cartilage, the centre of which often softens and forms
a small synovial cavity. Examples of this are the symphysis pubis, the
mesosternal joint, and the joints between the bodies of the vertebrae
(fig. 3).
The _true diarthroses_ are joints in which there is either fairly free
or very free movement. The opposing surfaces of the bones are lined
with articular cartilage, which is the unossified remnant of the
cartilaginous model in which they are formed and is called the
_cartilage of encrustment_ (fig. 4, c). Between the two cartilages is
the _joint cavity_, while surrounding the joint is the _capsule_ (fig.
4, l), which is formed chiefly by the superficial layers of the
original periosteum or perichondrium, but it may be strengthened
externally by surrounding fibrous structures, such as the tendons of
muscles, which become modified and acquire fresh attachments for the
purpose. It may be said generally that the greater the intermittent
strain on any part of the capsule the more it responds by increasing
in thickness. Lining the interior of the capsule, and all other parts
of the joint cavity except where the articular cartilage is present,
is the _synovial membrane_ (fig. 4, dotted line); this is a layer of
endothelial cells which secrete the synovial fluid to lubricate the
interior of the joint by means of a small percentage of mucin, albumin
and fatty matter which it contains.
[Illustration: FIG. 4.--Vertical section through a diarthrodial joint.
b, b, the two bones; c, c, the plate of cartilage on the articular
surface of each bone; l, l, the investing ligament, the dotted line
within which represents the synovial membrane. The letter s is placed
in the cavity of the joint.]
[Illustration: FIG. 5.--Vertical section through a diarthrodial joint,
in which the cavity is subdivided into two by an interposed
fibro-cartilage or meniscus, Fc. The other letters as in fig. 4.]
A _compound diarthrodial joint_ is one in which the joint cavity is
divided partly or wholly into two by a _meniscus_ or _interarticular
fibro-cartilage_ (fig. 5, Fc).
The shape of the joint cavity varies greatly, and the different
divisions of movable joints depend upon it. It is often assumed that
the structure of a joint determines its movement, but there is
something to be said for the view that the movements to which a joint
is subject determine its shape. As an example of this it has been
found that the mobility of the metacarpo-phalangeal joint of the thumb
in a large number of working men is less than it is in a large number
of women who use needles and thread, or in a large number of medical
students who use pens and scalpels, and that the slightly movable
thumb has quite a differently shaped articular surface from the freely
movable one (see _J. Anat. and Phys._ xxix. 446). R. Fick, too, has
demonstrated that the concavity or convexity of the joint surface
depends on the position of the chief muscles which move the joint, and
has enunciated the law that when the chief muscle or muscles are
attached close to the articular end of the skeletal element that end
becomes concave, while, when they are attached far off or are not
attached at all, as in the case of the phalanges, the articular end is
convex. His mechanical explanation is ingenious and to the present
writer convincing (see _Handbuch der Gelenke_, by R. Fick, Jena,
1904). Bernays, however, pointed out that the articular ends were
moulded before the muscular tissue was differentiated (_Morph. Jahrb._
iv. 403), but to this Fick replies by pointing out that muscular
movements begin before the muscle fibres are formed, and may be seen
in the chick as early as the second day of incubation.
The freely movable joints (true diarthrosis) are classified as
follows:--
(1) _Gliding joints_ (_Arthrodia_), in which the articular surfaces
are flat, as in the carpal and tarsal bones.
(2) _Hinge joints_ (_Ginglymus_), such as the elbow and
interphalangeal joints.
(3) _Condyloid joints_ (_Condylarthrosis_), allowing flexion and
extension as well as lateral movement, but no rotation. The
metacarpo-phalangeal and wrist joints are examples of this.
(4) _Saddle-shaped joints_ (_Articulus sellaris_), allowing the same
movements as the last with greater strength. The carpo-metacarpal
joint of the thumb is an example.
(5) _Ball and socket joints_ (_Enarthrosis_), allowing free movement
in any direction, as in the shoulder and hip.
(6) _Pivot-joint_ (_Trochoides_), allowing only rotation round a
longitudinal axis, as in the radio-ulnar joints.
_Embryology._
Joints are developed in the mesenchyme, or that part of the mesoderm
which is not concerned in the formation of the serous cavities. The
synarthroses may be looked upon merely as a delay in development,
because, as the embryonic tissue of the mesenchyme passes from a fibrous
to a bony state, the fibrous tissue may remain along a certain line and
so form a suture, or, when chondrification has preceded ossification,
the cartilage may remain at a certain place and so form a synchondrosis.
The diarthroses represent an arrest of development at an earlier stage,
for a part of the original embryonic tissue remains as a plate of round
cells, while the neighbouring two rods chondrify and ossify. This plate
may become converted into fibro-cartilage, in which case an
amphiarthrodial joint results, or it may become absorbed in the centre
to form a joint cavity, or, if this absorption occurs in two places, two
joint cavities with an intervening meniscus may result. Although,
ontogenetically, there is little doubt that menisci arise in the way
just mentioned, the teaching of comparative anatomy suggests that,
phylogenetically, they originate as an ingrowth from the capsule pushing
the synovial membrane in front of them. The subject will be returned to
when the comparative anatomy of the individual joints is reviewed. In
the human foetus the joint cavities are all formed by the tenth week of
intra-uterine life.
ANATOMY
_Joints of the Axial Skeleton._
The bodies of the vertebrae except those of the sacrum and coccyx are
separated, and at the same time connected, by the _intervertebral
disks_. These are formed of alternating concentric rings of fibrous
tissue and fibro-cartilage, with an elastic mass in the centre known as
the _nucleus pulposus_. The bodies are also bound together by _anterior_
and _posterior common ligaments_. The odontoid process of the axis fits
into a pivot joint formed by the anterior arch of the atlas in front and
the _transverse ligament_ behind; it is attached to the basioccipital
bone by two strong _lateral check ligaments_, and, in the mid line, by a
feebler _middle check ligament_ which is regarded morphologically as
containing the remains of the notochord. This _atlanto-axial joint_ is
the one which allows the head to be shaken from side to side. Nodding
the head occurs at the _occipito-atlantal joint_, which consists of the
two occipital condyles received into the cup-shaped articular facets on
the atlas and surrounded by capsular ligaments. The neural arches of the
vertebrae articulate one with another by the _articular facets_, each of
which has a capsular ligament. In addition to these the laminae are
connected by the very elastic _ligamenta subflava_. The spinous
processes are joined by _interspinous ligaments_, and their tips by a
_supraspinous ligament_, which in the neck is continued from the spine
of the seventh cervical vertebra to the external occipital crest and
protuberance as the _ligamentum nuchae_, a thin, fibrous, median septum
between the muscles of the back of the neck.
The combined effect of all these joints and ligaments is to allow the
spinal column to be bent in any direction or to be rotated, though only
a small amount of movement occurs between any two vertebrae.
The heads of the ribs articulate with the bodies of two contiguous
thoracic vertebrae and the disk between. The ligaments which connect
them are called _costo-central_, and are two in number. The anterior of
these is the _stellate ligament_, which has three bands radiating from
the head of the rib to the two vertebrae and the intervening disk. The
other one is the _interarticular ligament_, which connects the ridge,
dividing the two articular cavities on the head of the rib, to the disk;
it is absent in the first and three lowest ribs.
The _costo-transverse ligaments_ bind the ribs to the transverse
processes of the thoracic vertebrae. The _superior costo-transverse
ligament_ binds the neck of the rib to the transverse process of the
vertebra above; the _middle_ or _interosseous_ connects the back of the
neck to the front of its own transverse process; while the _posterior_
runs from the tip of the transverse process to the outer part of the
tubercle of the rib. The inner and lower part of each tubercle forms a
diarthrodial joint with the upper and fore part of its own transverse
process, except in the eleventh and twelfth ribs. At the junction of the
ribs with their cartilages no diarthrodial joint is formed; the
periosteum simply becomes perichondrium and binds the two structures
together. Where the cartilages, however, join the sternum, or where they
join one another, diarthrodial joints with synovial cavities are
established. In the case of the second rib this is double, and in that
of the first usually wanting. The _mesosternal joint_, between the pre-
and mesosternum, has already been given as an example of a symphysis.
_Comparative Anatomy._--For the convexity or concavity of the
vertebral centra in different classes of vertebrates, see SKELETON:
_axial_. The intervertebral disks first appear in the Crocodilia, the
highest existing order of reptilia. In many Mammals the middle
fasciculus of the stellate ligament is continued right across the
ventral surface of the disk into the ligament of the opposite side,
and is probably serially homologous with the ventral arch of the
atlas. A similar ligament joins the heads of the ribs dorsal to the
disk. To these bands the names of anterior (ventral) and posterior
(dorsal) _conjugal ligaments_ have been given, and they may be
demonstrated in a seven months' human foetus (see B. Sutton,
_Ligaments_, London, 1902). The _ligamentum nuchae_ is a strong
elastic band in the Ungulata which supports the weight of the head. In
the Carnivora it only reaches as far forward as the spine of the axis.
The JAW JOINT, or _temporo-mandibular articulation_, occurs between the
sigmoid cavity of the temporal bone and the condyle of the jaw. Between
the two there is an interarticular fibro-cartilage or meniscus, and the
joint is surrounded by a capsule of which the outer part is the
thickest. On first opening the mouth, the joint acts as a hinge, but
very soon the condyle begins to glide forward on to the eminentia
articularis (see SKULL) and takes the meniscus with it. This gliding
movement between the meniscus and temporal bone may be separately
brought about by protruding the lower teeth in front of the upper, or,
on one side only, by moving the jaw across to the opposite side.
_Comparative Anatomy._--The joint between the temporal and mandibular
bones is only found in Mammals; in the lower vertebrates the jaw opens
between the quadrate and articular bones. In the Carnivora it is a
perfect hinge; in many Rodents only the antero-posterior gliding
movement is present; while in the Ruminants the lateralizing movement
is the chief one. Sometimes, as in the Ornithorhynchus, the meniscus
is absent.
_Joints of the Upper Extremity._
The _sterno-clavicular articulation_, between the presternum and
clavicle, is a gliding joint, and allows slight upward and downward and
forward and backward movements. The two bony surfaces are separated by a
meniscus, the vertical movements taking place outside and the
antero-posterior inside this. There is a well-marked capsule, of which
the anterior part is strongest. The two clavicles are joined across the
top of the presternum by an _interclavicular ligament_.
The _acromio-clavicular articulation_ is also a gliding joint, but
allows a swinging or pendulum movement of the scapula on the clavicle.
The upper part of the capsule is strongest, and from it hangs down a
partial meniscus into the cavity.
_Comparative Anatomy._--Bland Sutton regards the interclavicular
ligament as a vestige of the interclavicle of Reptiles and Monotremes.
The menisci are only found in the Primates, but it must be borne in
mind that many Mammals have no clavicle, or a very rudimentary one. By
some the meniscus of the sterno-clavicular joint is regarded as the
homologue of the lateral part of the interclavicle, but the fact that
it only occurs in the Primates where movements in different planes are
fairly free is suggestive of a physiological rather than a
morphological origin for it.
The SHOULDER JOINT is a good example of the ball and socket or
enarthrodial variety. Its most striking characteristic is mobility at
the expense of strength. The small size of the glenoid cavity in
comparison with the head of the humerus, and the great laxity of the
capsule, favour this, although the glenoid cavity is slightly deepened
by a fibrous lip, called the _glenoid ligament_, round its margin. The
presence of the coracoid and acromial processes of the scapula, with the
_coraco-acromial ligament_ between them, serves as an overhanging
protection to the joint, while the biceps tendon runs over the head of
the humerus, inside the capsule, though surrounded by a sheath of
synovial membrane. Were it not for these two extra safeguards the
shoulder would be even more liable to dislocation than it is. The upper
part of the capsule, which is attached to the base of the coracoid
process, is thickened, and known as the _coracohumeral ligament_, while
inside the front of the capsule are three folds of synovial membrane,
called _gleno-humeral folds_.
_Comparative Anatomy._--In the lower Vertebrates the shoulder is
adapted to support rather than prehension and is not so freely movable
as in the Primates. The tendon of the biceps has evidently sunk
through the capsule into the joint, and even when it is intra-capsular
there is usually a double fold connecting its sheath of synovial
membrane with that lining the capsule. In Man this has been broken
through, but remains of it persist in the _superior gleno-humeral
fold_. The _middle gleno-humeral fold_ is the vestige of a strong
ligament which steadies and limits the range of movement of the joint
in many lower Mammals.
The ELBOW JOINT is an excellent example of the ginglymus or hinge,
though its transverse axis of movement is not quite at right angles to
the central axis of the limb, but is lower internally than externally.
This tends to bring the forearm towards the body when the elbow is bent.
The elbow is a great contrast to the shoulder, as the trochlea and
capitellum of the humerus are closely adapted to the sigmoid cavity of
the ulna and head of the radius (see SKELETON: _appendicular_);
consequently movement in one plane only is allowed, and the joint is a
strong one. The capsule is divided into anterior, posterior, and two
lateral ligaments, though these are all really continuous. The joint
cavity communicates freely with that of the superior radio-ulnar
articulation.
The _radio-ulnar joints_ are three: the upper one is an example of a
pivot joint, and in it the disk-shaped head of the radius rotates in a
circle formed by the lesser sigmoid cavity of the ulna internally and
the _orbicular ligament_ in the other three quarters.
The _middle radio-ulnar articulation_ is simply an interosseous
membrane, the fibres of which run downward and inward from the radius to
the ulna.
The _inferior radio-ulnar joint_ is formed by the disk-shaped lower end
of the ulna fitting into the slightly concave sigmoid cavity of the
radius. Below, the cavity of this joint is shut off from that of the
wrist by a _triangular fibro-cartilage_. The movements allowed at these
three articulations are called pronation and supination of the radius.
The head of that bone twists, in the orbicular ligament, round its
central vertical axis for about half a circle. Below, however, the whole
lower end of the radius circles round the lower end of the ulna, the
centre of rotation being close to the styloid process of the ulna. The
radius, therefore, in its pronation, describes half a cone, the base of
which is below, and the hand follows the radius.
_Comparative Anatomy._--In pronograde Mammals the forearm is usually
permanently pronated, and the head of the radius, instead of being
circular and at the side of the upper end of the ulna, is transversely
oval and in front of that bone, occupying the same place that the
coronoid process of the ulna does in Man. This type of elbow, which is
adapted simply to support and progression, is best seen in the
Ungulata; in them both lateral ligaments are attached to the head of
the radius, and there is no orbicular ligament, since the shape of the
head of the radius does not allow of any supination. The olecranon
process of the ulna forms merely a posterior guide or guard to the
joint, but transmits no weight. No better example of the maximum
changes which the uses of support and prehension bring about can be
found than in contrasting the elbow of the Sheep or other Ungulate
with that of Man. Towards one or other of these types the elbows of
all Mammals tend. It may be roughly stated that, when pronation and
supination to the extent of a quarter of a circle are possible, an
orbicular ligament appears.
The WRIST JOINT, or _radio-carpal articulation_, lies between the radius
and triangular fibro-cartilage above, and the scaphoid, semilunar, and
cuneiform bones below. It is a condyloid joint allowing flexion and
extension round one axis, and slight lateral movement (abduction and
adduction) round the other. There is a well-marked capsule, divided into
anterior, posterior, and lateral ligaments. The joint cavity is shut off
from the inferior radio-ulnar joint above, and the intercarpal joints
below.
The _intercarpal joints_ are gliding articulations, the various bones
being connected by palmar, dorsal, and a few interosseous ligaments, but
only those connecting the first row of bones are complete, and so
isolate one joint cavity from another. That part of the intercarpal
joints which lies between the first and second rows of carpal bones is
called the _transverse carpal joint_, and at this a good deal of the
movement which seems to take place at the wrist really occurs.
The _carpo-metacarpal articulations_ are, with the exception of that of
the thumb, gliding joints, and continuous with the great intercarpal
joint cavity. The carpo-metacarpal joint of the thumb is the best
example of a saddle-shaped joint in Man. It allows forward and backward
and lateral movement, and is very strong.
The _metacarpo-phalangeal joints_ are condyloid joints like the wrist,
and are remarkable for the great thickness of the palmar ligaments of
their capsules. In the four inner fingers these _glenoid ligaments_, as
they are called, are joined together by the _transverse metacarpal
ligament_.
The _interphalangeal articulations_ are simple hinges surrounded by a
capsule, of which the dorsal part is very thin.
_Comparative Anatomy._--The wrist joint of the lower Mammals allows
less lateral movement than does that of Man, while the lower end of
the ulna is better developed and is received into a cup-shaped socket
formed by the cuneiform and pisiform bones. At the same time, unless
there is pretty free pronation and supination, the triangular
fibro-cartilage is only represented by an interosseous ligament, which
may be continuous above with the interosseous membrane between the
radius and ulna, and suggests the possibility that the fibro-cartilage
is largely a derivative of this membrane. In most Mammals the wrist is
divided into two lateral parts, as it is in the human foetus, but free
pronation and supination seem to cause the disappearance of the
septum.
_Joints of the Lower Extremity._
The _sacro-innominate articulation_ consists of the _sacro-iliac joint_
and the _sacro-sciatic ligaments_. The former is one of the
amphiarthroses or half-joints by which the sacrum is bound to the ilium.
The mechanism of the human sacrum is that of a suspension bridge slung
between the two pillars or ilia by the very strong _posterior
sacro-iliac_ ligaments which represent the chains. The axis of the joint
passes through the second sacral vertebra, but the sacrum is so nearly
horizontal that the weight of the body, which is transmitted to the
first sacral vertebra, tends to tilt that part down. This tendency is
corrected by the great and small _sacro-sciatic ligaments_, which
fasten the lower part of the sacrum to the tuberosity and spine of the
ischium respectively, so that, although the sacrum is a suspension
bridge when looked at from behind, it is a lever of the first kind when
seen from the side or in sagittal section.
The _pubic symphysis_ is the union between the two pubic bones. It has
all the characteristics of a symphysis, already described, and may have
a small median cavity.
[Illustration: (From David Hepburn, Cunningham's _Text-book of
Anatomy_.)
FIG. 6.--Dissection of the Hip Joint from the front.]
The HIP JOINT, like the shoulder, is a ball and socket, but does not
allow such free movement; this is due to the fact that the socket or
acetabulum is deeper than the glenoid cavity and that the capsule is not
so lax. At the same time the loss of mobility is made up for by
increased strength. The capsule has three thickened bands, of which the
most important is the _ilio-femoral_ or _Y-shaped ligament of Bigelow_.
The stalk of the Y is attached to the anterior inferior spine of the
ilium, while the two limbs are fastened to the upper and lower parts of
the spiral line of the femur. The ligament is so strong that it hardly
ever ruptures in a dislocation of the hip. As a plumb-line, dropped from
the centre of gravity of the body, passes behind the centre of the hip
joint, this ligament, lying as it does in front of the joint, takes the
strain in Man's erect position. The other two thickened parts of the
capsule are known as _pubo-femoral_ and _ischio-femoral_, from their
attachments. Inside the capsule, and deepening the margin of the
acetabulum, is a fibrous rim known as the _cotyloid ligament_, which
grips the spherical head of the femur and is continued across the
cotyloid notch as the _transverse ligament_. The floor of the acetabulum
has a horseshoe-shaped surface of articular cartilage, concave downward,
and, occupying the "frog" of the horse's hoof, is a mass of fat called
the _Haversian pad_. Attached to the inner margin of the horseshoe, and
to the transverse ligament where that is deficient, is a reflexion of
synovial membrane which forms a covering for the pad and is continued as
a tube to the depression on the head of the femur called the _fossa
capitis_. This reflexion carries blood-vessels and nerves to the femur,
and also contains fibrous tissue from outside the joint. It is known as
the _ligamentum teres_.
_Comparative Anatomy._--Bland Sutton regards the _ilio-femoral
ligament_ as an altered muscle, the scansorius, though against this is
the fact that, in those cases in which a scansorius is present in Man,
the ligament is as strong as usual, and indeed, if it were not there
in these cases, the erect position would be difficult to maintain. He
also looks upon the _ligamentum teres_ as the divorced tendon of the
pectineus muscle. The subject requires much more investigation, but
there is every reason to believe that it is a tendon which has sunk
into the joint, though whether that of the pectineus is doubtful,
since the intra-capsular tendon comes from the ischium in Reptiles. In
many Mammals, and among them the Orang, there is no ligamentum teres.
In others, such as the Armadillo, the structure has not sunk right
into the joint, but is connected with the pubo-femoral part of the
capsule.
The KNEE JOINT is a hinge formed by the condyles and trochlea of the
femur, the patella, and the head of the tibia. The capsule is formed in
front by the ligamentum patellae, and on each side special bands form
the lateral ligaments. On the outer side there are two of these: the
anterior or _long external lateral ligament_ is a round cord running
from the external condyle to the head of the fibula, while the posterior
is slighter and passes from the same place to the styloid process of the
fibula. The _internal lateral ligament_ is a flat band which runs from
the inner condyle of the femur to the internal surface of the tibia some
two inches below the level of the knee joint. The posterior part of the
capsule is strengthened by an oblique bundle of fibres running upward
and outward from the semimembranosus tendon, and called the _posterior
ligament of Winslow_.
The intra-articular structures are numerous and interesting. Passing
from the head of the tibia, in front and behind the spine, are the
_anterior_ and _posterior crucial ligaments_; the former is attached to
the outer side of the intercondylar notch above, and the latter to the
inner side. These two ligaments cross like an X. The _semilunar
fibro-cartilages_--external and internal--are partial menisci, each of
which has an anterior and a posterior cornu by which they are attached
to the head of the tibia in front and behind the spine. They are also
attached round the margin of the tibial head by a _coronary ligament_,
but the external one is more movable than the internal, and this perhaps
accounts for its coronary ligament being less often ruptured and the
cartilage displaced than the inner one is. In addition to these the
external cartilage has a fibrous band, called the _ligament of
Wrisberg_, which runs up to the femur just behind the posterior crucial
ligament. The external cartilage is broader, and forms more of a circle
than the internal. The synovial cavity of the knee runs up, deep to the
extensor muscles of the thigh, for about two inches above the top of the
patella, forming the _bursa suprapatellaris_. At the lower part of the
patella it covers a pad of fat, which lies between the ligamentum
patellae and the front of the head of the tibia, and is carried up as a
narrow tube to the lower margin of the trochlear surface of the femur.
This prolongation is known as the _ligamentum mucosum_, and from the
sides of its base spring two lateral folds called the _ligamenta
alaria_. The tendon of the popliteus muscle is an intra-capsular
structure, and is therefore covered with a synovial sheath. There are a
large number of bursae near the knee joint, one of which, common to the
inner head of the gastrocnemius and the semimembranosus, often
communicates with the joint. The hinge movement of the knee is
accompanied by a small amount of external rotation at the end of
extension, and a compensatory internal rotation during flexion. This
slight twist is enough to tighten up almost all the ligaments so that
they may take a share in resisting over-extension, because, in the erect
position, a vertical line from the centre of gravity of the body passes
in front of the knee.
_Comparative Anatomy._--In some Mammals, e.g. Bradypus and
Ornithorhynchus, the knee is divided into three parts, two
condylo-tibial and one trochleo-patellar, by synovial folds which in
Man are represented by the ligamentum mucosum. In a typical Mammal the
external _semilunar cartilage_ is attached by its posterior horn to
the internal condyle of the femur only, and this explains the
_ligament of Wrisberg_ already mentioned. In the Monkeys and
anthropoid Apes this cartilage is circular. The _semilunar cartilages_
first appear in the Amphibia, and, according to B. Sutton, are derived
from muscles which are drawn into the joint. When only one kind of
movement (hinge) is allowed, as in the fruit bat, the cartilages are
not found. In most Mammals the superior tibio-fibular joint
communicates with the knee.
The _tibio-fibular articulations_ resemble the radio-ulnar in position
but are much less movable. The superior in Man is usually cut off i
from the knee and is a gliding joint; the middle is the interosseous
membrane, while the lower has been already used as an example of a
syndesmosis or fibrous half joint.
The ANKLE JOINT is a hinge, the astragalus being received into a lateral
arch formed by the lower ends of the tibia and fibula. Backward
dislocation is prevented by the articular surface of the astragalus
being broader in front than behind. The anterior and posterior parts of
the capsule are feeble, but the lateral ligaments are very strong, the
external consisting of three separate fasciculi which bind the fibula to
the astragalus and calcaneum. To avoid confusion it is best to speak of
the movements of the ankle as dorsal and plantar flexion.
[Illustration: (From D. Hepburn, _Cunningham's Text-book of Anatomy_.)
FIG. 7.--Dissection of the Knee-joint from the front: Patella thrown
down.]
The _tarsal joints_ resemble the carpal in being gliding articulations.
There are two between the astragalus and calcaneum, and at these
inversion and eversion of the foot largely occur. The inner arch of the
foot is maintained by a very important ligament called the
_calcaneo-navicular_ or _spring ligament_; it connects the sustentaculum
tali of the calcaneum with the navicular, and upon it the head of the
astragalus rests. When it becomes stretched, flat-foot results. The
tarsal bones are connected by dorsal, plantar and interosseous
ligaments. The _long_ and _short calcaneocuboid_ are plantar ligaments
of special importance, and maintain the outer arch of the foot.
The _tarso-metatarsal_, _metatarso-phalangeal_ and _interphalangeal
joints_ closely resemble those of the hand, except that the
tarso-metatarsal joint of the great toe is not saddle-shaped.
_Comparative Anatomy._--The anterior fasciculus of the external
lateral ligament of the ankle is only found in Man, and is probably an
adaptation to the erect position. In animals with a long foot, such as
the Ungulates and the Kangaroo, the lateral ligaments of the ankle are
in the form of an X, to give greater protection against lateral
movement. In certain marsupials a fibro-cartilage is developed between
the external malleolus and the astragalus, and its origin from the
deeper fibres of the external lateral ligament of the ankle can be
traced. These animals have a rotatory movement of the fibula on its
long axis, in addition to the hinge movement of the ankle.
For further details of joints see R. Fick, _Handbuch der Gelenke_
(Jena, 1904); H. Morris, _Anatomy of the Joints_ (London, 1879);
Quain's, Gray's and Cunningham's _Text-books of Anatomy_; J. Bland
Sutton, _Ligaments, their Nature and Morphology_ (London, 1902); F. G.
Parsons, "Hunterian Lectures on the Joints of Mammals," _Journ. Anat.
& Phys._, xxxiv. 41 and 301. (F. G. P.)
DISEASES AND INJURIES OF JOINTS
The affection of the joints of the human body by specific diseases is
dealt with under various headings (RHEUMATISM, &c.); in the present
article the more direct forms of ailment are discussed. In most
joint-diseases the trouble starts either in the synovial lining or in
the bone--rarely in the articular cartilage or ligaments. As a rule, the
disease begins after an injury. There are three principal types of
injury: (1) sprain or strain, in which the ligamentous and tendinous
structures are stretched or lacerated; (2) contusion, in which the
opposing bones are driven forcibly together; (3) dislocation, in which
the articular surfaces are separated from one another.
A _sprain_ or _strain_ of a joint means that as the result of violence
the ligaments holding the bones together have been suddenly stretched
or even torn. On the inner aspect the ligaments are lined by a
synovial membrane, so when the ligaments are stretched the synovial
membrane is necessarily damaged. Small blood-vessels are also torn,
and bleeding occurs into the joint, which may become full and
distended. If, however, bleeding does not take place, the swelling is
not immediate, but synovitis having been set up, serous effusion comes
on sooner or later. There is often a good deal of heat of the
surrounding skin and of pain accompanying the synovitis. In the case
of a healthy individual the effects of a sprain may quickly pass off,
but in a rheumatic or gouty person chronic synovitis may obstinately
remain. In a person with a tuberculous history, or of tuberculous
descent, a sprain is apt to be the beginning of serious disease of the
joint, and it should, therefore, be treated with continuous rest and
prolonged supervision. In a person of health and vigour, a sprained
joint should be at once bandaged. This may be the only treatment
needed. It gives support and comfort, and the even pressure around the
joint checks effusion into it. Wide pieces of adhesive strapping,
layer on layer, form a still more useful support, and with the joint
so treated the person may be able at once to use the limb. If
strapping is not employed, the bandage may be taken off from time to
time in order that the limb and the joint may be massaged. If the
sprain is followed by much synovitis a plaster of Paris or leather
splint may be applied, complete rest being secured for the limb. Later
on, blistering or even "firing" may be found advisable.
_Synovitis._--When a joint has been injured, inflammation occurs in
the damaged tissue; that is inevitable. But sometimes the attack of
inflammation is so slight and transitory as to be scarcely noticeable.
This is specially likely to occur if the joint-tissues were in a state
of perfect nutrition at the time of the hurt. But if the individual or
the joint were at that time in a state of imperfect nutrition, the
effects are likely to be more serious. As a rule, it is the synovial
membrane lining the fibrous capsule of the joint which first and
chiefly suffers; the condition is termed _synovitis_. Synovitis may,
however, be due to other causes than mechanical injury, as when the
interior of the joint is attacked by the micro-organisms of pyaemia
(blood-poisoning), typhoid fever, pneumonia, rheumatism, gonorrhoea or
syphilis. Under judicious treatment the synovitis generally clears up,
but it may linger on and cause the formation of adhesions which may
temporarily stiffen the joint; or it may, especially in tuberculous,
septic or pyaemic infections, involve the cartilages, ligaments and
bones in such serious changes as to destroy the joint, and possibly
call for resection or amputation.
The symptoms of synovitis include stiffness and tenderness in the
joint. The patient notices that movements cause pain. Effusion of
fluid takes place, and there is marked fullness in the neighbourhood.
If the inflammation is advancing, the skin over the joint may be
flushed, and if the hand is placed on the skin it feels hot.
Especially is this the case if the joint is near the surface, as at
the knee, wrist or ankle.
The treatment of an inflamed joint demands rest. This may be
conveniently obtained by the use of a light wooden splint, padding and
bandages. Slight compression of the joint by a bandage is useful in
promoting absorption of the fluid. If the inflamed joint is in the
lower extremity, the patient had best remain in bed, or on the sofa;
if in the upper extremity, he should wear his arm in a sling. The
muscles acting on the joint must be kept in complete control. If the
inflammation is extremely acute a few leeches, followed by a
fomentation, will give relief; or an icebag or an evaporating lotion
may, by causing constriction of the blood-vessels, lessen the
congestion of the part and the associated pain. As the inflammation is
passing off, massage of the limb and of the joint will prove useful.
If the inflammation is long continued, the limb must still be kept at
rest. By this time it may be found that some other material for the
retentive apparatus is more convenient and comfortable, as, for
instance, undressed leather which has been moulded on wet and allowed
to dry and harden; poro-plastic felt, which has been softened by heat
and applied limp, or house-flannel which has been dipped in a creamy
mixture of plaster-of-Paris and water, and secured by a bandage.
_Chronic Disease of a Joint_ may be the tailing off of an acute
affection, and under the influence of alternate douchings of hot and
cold water, of counter-irritation by blistering or "firing," and of
massage, it may eventually clear up, especially if the general health
of the individual is looked after. But if chronic disease lingers in
the joint of a child or young person, the probability of its being
under the influence of tuberculous infection must be considered. In
such a case prolonged and absolute rest is the one thing necessary. If
the disease be in the hip, knee, ankle or foot, the patient may be
fitted with an appropriate Thomas's splint and allowed to walk about,
for it is highly important to have these patients out in the fresh
air. If the disease be in the shoulder, elbow, wrist or hand, a
leather or poro-plastic splint should be moulded on, and the arm worn
in a sling. There must be no hurry; convalescence will needs be slow.
And if the child can be sent to a bracing sea-side place it will be
much in his favour.
As the disease clears up, the surface heat, the pains and the
tenderness having disappeared, and the joint having so diminished in
size as to be scarcely larger than its fellow--though the wasting of
the muscles of the limb may cause it still to appear considerably
enlarged--the splint may be gradually left off. This remission may be
for an hour or two every other day; then every other night; then every
other day, and so on, the freedom being gained little by little, and
the surgeon watching the case carefully. On the slightest indication
of return of trouble, the former restrictive measures must be again
resorted to. Massage and gentle exercises may be given day by day, but
there must be no thought of "breaking down the stiffness." Many a
joint has in such circumstances been wrecked by the manipulations of a
"bone-setter."
_Permanent Stiffness._--During the treatment of a case of chronic
disease of a joint, the question naturally arises as to whether the
joint will be left permanently stiff. People have the idea that if an
inflamed joint is kept long on a splint, it may eventually be found
permanently stiff. And this is quite correct. But it should be clearly
understood that it is not the _rest_ of the inflamed joint which
causes the stiffness. The matter should be put thus: in tuberculous
and other forms of chronic disease stiffness may ensue in spite of
long-continued rest. It is the destructive disease, not the enforced
rest which causes it; for inflammation of a joint rest is absolutely
necessary.
The _Causes of permanent Stiffness_ are the destructive changes
wrought by the inflammation. In one case it may be that the synovial
membrane is so far destroyed by the tuberculous or septic invasion
that its future usefulness is lost, and the joint ever afterwards
creaks at its work and easily becomes tired and painful. Thus the
joint is crippled but not destroyed. In another case the ligaments and
the cartilages are implicated as well as the synovial membrane, and
when the disease clears up, the bones are more or less locked, only a
small range of motion being left, which forcible flexion and other
methods of vigorous treatment are unable materially to improve. In
another set of cases the inflammatory germs quickly destroy the soft
tissues of the joint, and then invade the bones, and, the disease
having at last come to an end, the softened ends of the bones solidly
join together like the broken fragments in simple fracture. As a
result, osseous solidification of the joint (_synostosis_) ensues
without, of course, the possibility of any movement. And, inasmuch as
the surgeon cannot tell in any case whether the disease may not
advance in this direction, he is careful to place the limb in that
position in which it will be most useful if the bony union should
occur. Thus, the leg is kept straight, and the elbow bent.
In the course of a tuberculous or other chronic disease of a joint,
the germs of septic disease may find access to the inflamed area,
through a wound or ulceration into the joint, or by the germs being
carried thither by the blood-stream. A _joint-abscess_ results, which
has to be treated by incision and fomentations. If chronic suppuration
continues, it may become necessary to scrape out or to excise the
joint, or even to amputate the limb. And if tuberculous disease of the
joint is steadily progressing in spite of treatment, vigorous measures
may be needed to prevent the fluid from quietly ulcerating its way out
and thus inviting the entrance of septic germs. The fluid may need to
be drawn off by aspiration, and direct treatment of the diseased
synovial membrane may be undertaken by injections of chloride of zinc
or some other reagent. Or the joint may need scraping out with a sharp
spoon with the view of getting rid of the tuberculous material. Later,
excision may be deemed necessary, or in extreme cases, amputation. But
before these measures are considered, A. C. G. Bier's method of
treatment by passive congestion, and the treatment by serum
injection, will probably have been tried. If a joint is left
permanently stiff in an awkward and useless position, the limb may be
greatly improved by excision of the joint. Thus, if the knee is left
bent and the joint is excised a useful, straight limb may be obtained,
somewhat shortened, and, of course, permanently stiff. If after
disease of the hip-joint the thigh remains fixed in a faulty position,
it may be brought down straight by dividing the bone near the upper
end. A stiff shoulder or elbow may be converted into a useful, movable
joint by excision of the articular ends of the bones.
A _stiff joint_ may remain as the result of long continued
inflammation; the unused muscles are wasted and the joint in
consequence looks large. Careful measurement, however, may show that
it is not materially larger than its fellow. And though all tenderness
may have passed away, and though the neighbouring skin is no longer
hot, still the joint remains stiff and useless. No progress being made
under the influence of massage, or of gentle exercises, the surgeon
may advise that the lingering adhesion be broken down under an
anaesthetic, after which the function of the joint may quickly return.
There are the cases over which the "bone-setter" secures his greatest
triumphs. A qualified practitioner may have been for months
judiciously treating an inflamed joint by rest, and then feels a
hesitation with regard to suddenly flexing the stiffened limb. The
"bone-setter," however, has no such qualms, and when the case passes
out of the hands of the perhaps over-careful surgeon, the unqualified
practitioner (because he, from a scientific point of view, knows
nothing) fears nothing, and, breaking down inflammatory adhesions,
sets the joint free. And his manipulations prove triumphantly
successful. But, knowing nothing and fearing nothing, he is apt to do
grievous harm in carrying out his rough treatment in other cases.
Malignant disease at the end of a bone (sarcoma), tuberculosis of a
joint, and a joint stiffened by old inflammation are to him the same
thing. "A small bone is out of place," or, "The bone is out of its
socket; it has never been put in," and a breaking down of everything
that resists his force is the result of the case being taken to him.
For the "bone-setter" has only one line of treatment. Of the
improvement which he often effects as if by magic the public are told
much. Of the cases over which the doctor has been too long devoting
skill and care, and which are set free by the "bone-setter," everybody
hears--and sometimes to the discomfiture of the medical man. But of
the cases in which irreparable damage follows his vigorous
manipulation nothing is said--of his rough usage of a tuberculous hip,
or of a sarcomatous shoulder-joint, and of the inevitable disaster and
disappointment, those most concerned are least inclined to talk! A
practical surgeon with common-sense has nothing to learn from the
"bone-setter."
_Rheumatoid Arthritis_, or chronic _Osteo-arthritis_, is generally
found in persons beyond middle age; but it is not rare in young
people, though with them it need not be the progressive disease which
it too often is in their elders. It is an obscure affection of the
cartilage covering the joint surfaces of the bones, and it eventually
involves the bones and the ligaments. A favourite joint for it is the
knee or hip, and when one large joint is thus affected the other
joints may escape. But when the hands or feet are implicated pretty
nearly all the small joints are apt to suffer. Whether the joint is
large or small, the cartilages wear away and new bone is developed
about the ends of the bones, so that the joint is large and
mis-shapen, the fingers being knotted and the hands deformed. When the
spine is affected it becomes bowed and stiff. This is the disease
which has crippled the old people in the workhouses and almshouses,
and with them it is steadily progressive. Its early signs are
stiffness and creaking or cracking in the joints, with discomfort and
pain after exercise, and with a little effusion into the capsule of
the joint. As regards _treatment_, medicines are of no great value.
Wet, cold and damp being bad for the patient, he should be, if
possible, got into a dry, bright, sunny place, and he should dress
warmly. Perhaps there is no better place for him in the winter than
Assuan. Cairo is not so suitable as it used to be before the dam was
made, when its climate was drier. For the spring and summer certain
British and Continental watering-places serve well. But if this luxury
cannot be afforded, the patient must make himself as happy as he can
with such hot douchings and massage as he can obtain, keeping himself
warm, and his joints covered by flannel bandages and rubbed with
stimulating liniments. In people advanced or advancing in years, the
disease, as a rule, gets slowly worse, sometimes very slowly, but
sometimes rapidly, especially when its makes its appearance in the
hip, shoulder or knee as the result of an injury. In young people,
however, its course may be cut short by attention being given to the
principles stated above.
_Charcot's Disease_ resembles osteo-arthritis in that it causes
destruction of a joint and greatly deforms it. The deformity, however,
comes on rapidly and without pain or tenderness. It is usually
associated with the symptoms of locomotor ataxy, and depends upon
disease of the nerves which preside over the nutrition of the joints.
It is incurable.
_A Loose Cartilage, or a Displaced Cartilage in the Knee Joint_ is apt
to become caught in the hinge between the thigh bone and the leg bone,
and by causing a sudden stretching of the ligaments of the joint to
give rise to intense pain. When this happens the individual is apt to
be thrown down as he walks, for it comes on with great suddenness. And
thus he feels himself to be in a condition of perpetual insecurity.
After the joint has thus gone wrong, bleeding and serous effusion take
place into it, and it becomes greatly swollen. And if the cartilage
still remains in the grip of the bones he is unable to straighten or
bend his knee. But the surgeon by suddenly flexing and twisting the
leg may manage to unhitch the cartilage and restore comfort and
usefulness to the limb. As a rule, the slipping of a cartilage first
occurs as the result of a serious fall or of a sudden and violent
action--often it happens when the man is "dodging" at football, the
foot being firmly fixed on the ground and the body being violently
twisted at the knee. After the slipping has occurred many times, the
amount of swelling, distress and lameness may diminish with each
subsequent slipping, and the individual may become somewhat reconciled
to his condition. As regards _treatment_, a tightly fitting steel
cage-like splint, which, gripping the thigh and leg, limits the
movements of the knee to flexion and extension, may prove useful. But
for a muscular, athletic individual the wearing of this apparatus may
prove vexatious and disappointing. The only alternative is to open the
joint and remove the loose cartilage. The cartilage may be found on
operation to be split, torn or crumpled, and lying right across
between the joint-surfaces of the bones, from which nothing but an
operation could possibly have removed it. The operation is almost sure
to give complete and permanent relief to the condition, the individual
being able to resume his old exercises and amusements without fear of
the knee playing him false. It is, however, one that should not be
undertaken without due consideration and circumspection, and the
details of the operation should be carried out with the utmost care
and cleanliness.
An accidental _wound of a joint_, as from the blade of a knife, or a
spike, entering the knee is a very serious affair, because of the risk
of septic germs entering the synovial cavity either at the time of the
injury or later. If the joint becomes thus infected there is great
swelling of the part, with redness of the skin, and with the escape of
blood-stained or purulent synovia. Absorption takes place of the
poisonous substances produced by the action of the germs, and, as a
result, great constitutional disturbance arises. Blood-poisoning may
thus threaten life, and in many cases life is saved only by
amputation. The best treatment is freely to open the joint, to wash it
out with a strong antiseptic fluid, and to make arrangement for
thorough drainage, the limb being fixed on a splint. Help may also be
obtained by increasing the patient's power of resistance to the effect
of the poisoning by injections of a serum prepared by cultivation of
the septic germs in question. If the limb is saved, there is a great
chance of the knee being permanently stiff.
_Dislocation._--The ease with which the joint-end of a bone is
dislocated varies with its form and structure, and with the position
in which it happens to be placed when the violence is applied. The
relative frequency of fracture of the bone and dislocation of the
joint depends on the strength of the bones above and below the joint
relatively to the strength of the joint itself. The strength of the
various joints in the body is dependent upon either ligament or
muscle, or upon the shape of the bones. In the hip, for instance, all
three sources of strength are present; therefore, considering the
great leverage of the long thigh bone, the hip is rarely dislocated.
The shoulder, in order to allow of extensive movement, has no osseus
or ligamentous strength; it is, therefore, frequently dislocated. The
wrist and ankle are rarely dislocated; as the result of violence at
the wrist the radius gives way, at the ankle the fibula, these bones
being relatively weaker than the respective joints. The wrist owes its
strength to ligaments, the elbow and the ankle to the shape of the
bones. The symptoms of a dislocation are distortion and limited
movement, with absence of the grating sensation felt in fracture when
the broken ends of the bone are rubbed together. The treatment
consists in reducing the dislocation, and the sooner this replacement
is effected the better--the longer the delay the more difficult it
becomes to put things right. After a variable period, depending on the
nature of the joint and the age of the person, it may be impossible to
replace the bones. The result will be a more or less useless joint.
The administration of an anaesthetic, by relaxing the muscles, greatly
assists the operation of reduction. The length of time that a joint
has to be kept quiet after it has been restored to its normal shape
depends on its form, but, as a rule, early movement is advisable. But
when by the formation of the bones a joint is weak, as at the outer
end of the collar-bone, and at the elbow-end of the radius, prolonged
rest for the joint is necessary or dislocation may recur.
_Congenital Dislocation at the Hip._--Possibly as a result of faulty
position of the subject during intra-uterine life, the head of the
thigh-bone leaves, or fails throughout to occupy, its normal situation
on the haunch-bone. The defect, which is a very serious one, is
probably not discovered until the child begins to walk, when its
peculiar rolling gait attracts attention. The want of fixation at the
joint permits of the surgeon thrusting up the thigh-bone, or drawing
it down in a painless, characteristic manner.
The first thing to be done is to find out by means of the X-rays
whether a socket exists into which, under an anaesthetic, the surgeon
may fortunately be enabled to lodge the end of the thigh-bone. If this
offers no prospect of success, there are three courses open: First,
to try under an anaesthetic to manipulate the limb until the head of
the thigh-bone rests as nearly as possible in its normal position, and
then to endeavour to fix it there by splints, weights and bandaging
until a new joint is formed; second, to cut down upon the site of the
joint, to scoop out a new socket in the haunch-bone, and thrust the
end of the thigh-bone into it, keeping it fixed there as just
described; and third, to allow the child to run about as it pleases,
merely raising the sole of the foot of the short leg by a thick boot,
so as to keep the lower part of the trunk fairly level, lest secondary
curvature of the spine ensue. The first and second methods demand many
months of careful treatment in bed. The ultimate result of the second
is so often disappointing that the surgeon now rarely advises its
adoption. But, if under an anaesthetic, as the result of skilful
manipulation the head of the thigh-bone can be made to enter a more or
less rudimentary socket, the case is worth all the time, care and
attention bestowed upon it. Sometimes the results of prolonged
treatment are so good that the child eventually is able to walk with
scarce a limp. But a vigorous attempt at placing the head of the bone
in its proper position should be made in every case. (E. O.*)
JOINTS, in engineering, may be classed either (a) according to their
material, as in stone or brick, wood or metal; or (b) according to their
object, to prevent leakage of air, steam or water, or to transmit force,
which may be thrust, pull or shear; or (c) according as they are
stationary or moving ("working" in technical language). Many joints,
like those of ship-plates and boiler-plates, have simultaneously to
fulfil both objects mentioned under (b).
All stone joints of any consequence are stationary. It being
uneconomical to dress the surfaces of the stones resting on each other
smoothly and so as to be accurately flat, a layer of mortar or other
cementing material is laid between them. This hardens and serves to
transmit the pressure from stone to stone without its being concentrated
at the "high places." If the ingredients of the cement are chosen so
that when hard the cement has about the same coefficient of
compressibility as the stone or brick, the pressure will be nearly
uniformly distributed. The cement also adheres to the surfaces of the
stone or brick, and allows a certain amount of tension to be borne by
the joint. It likewise prevents the stones from slipping one on the
other, i.e. it gives the joint very considerable shearing strength. The
composition of the cement is chosen according as it has to "set" in air
or water. The joints are made impervious to air or water by "pointing"
their outer edges with a superior quality of cement.
Wood joints are also nearly all stationary. They are made partially
fluid-tight by "grooving and tenoning," and by "caulking" with oakum or
similar material. If the wood is saturated with water, it swells, the
edges of the joints press closer together, and the joints become tighter
the greater the water-pressure is which tends to produce leakage.
Relatively to its weaker general strength, wood is a better material
than iron so far as regards the transmission of a thrust past a joint.
So soon as a heavy pressure comes on the joint all the small
irregularities of the surfaces in contact are crushed up, and there
results an approximately uniform distribution of the pressure over the
whole area (i.e. if there be no bending forces), so that no part of the
material is unduly stressed. To attain this result the abutting surfaces
should be well fitted together, and the bolts binding the pieces
together should be arranged so as to ensure that they will not interfere
with the timber surfaces coming into this close contact. Owing to its
weak shearing strength on sections parallel to the fibre, timber is
peculiarly unfitted for tension joints. If the pieces exerting the pull
are simply bolted together with wooden or iron bolts, the joint cannot
be trusted to transmit any considerable force with safety. The stresses
become intensely localized in the immediate neighborhood of the bolts. A
tolerably strong timber tension-joint can, however, be made by making
the two pieces abut, and connecting them by means of iron plates
covering the joint and bolted to the sides of the timbers by bolts
passing through the wood. These plates should have their surfaces which
lie against the wood ribbed in a direction transverse to the pull. The
bolts should fit their holes slackly, and should be well tightened up so
as to make the ribs sink into the surface of the timber. There will then
be very little localized shearing stress brought upon the interior
portions of the wood.
Iron and the other commonly used metals possess in variously high
degrees the qualities desirable in substances out of which joints are to
be made. The joint ends of metal pieces can easily be fashioned to any
advantageous form and size without waste of material. Also these metals
offer peculiar facilities for the cutting of their surfaces at a
comparatively small cost so smoothly and evenly as to ensure the close
contact over their whole areas of surfaces placed against each other.
This is of the highest importance, especially in joints designed to
transmit force. Wrought iron and mild steel are above all other metals
suitable for tension joints where there is not continuous rapid motion.
Where such motion occurs, a layer, or, as it is technically termed, a
"bush," of brass is inserted underneath the iron. The joint then
possesses the high strength of a wrought-iron one and at the same time
the good frictional qualities of a brass surface. Leakage past moving
metal joints can be prevented by cutting the surfaces very accurately to
fit each other. Steam-engine slide-valves and their seats, and piston
"packing-rings" and the cylinders they work to and fro in, may be cited
as examples. A subsidiary compressible "packing" is in other situations
employed, an instance of which may be seen in the "stuffing boxes" which
prevent the escape of steam from steam-engine cylinders through the
piston-rod hole in the cylinder cover. Fixed metal joints are made fluid
tight--(a) by caulking a riveted joint, i.e. by hammering in the edge of
the metal with a square-edged chisel (the tighter the joint requires to
be against leakage the closer must be the spacing of the rivets--compare
the rivet-spacing in bridge, ship and boiler-plate joints); (b) by the
insertion between the surfaces of a layer of one or other of various
kinds of cement, the layer being thick or thin according to
circumstances; (c) by the insertion of a layer of soft solid substance
called "packing" or "insertion."
Apart from cemented and glued joints, most joints are formed by cutting
one or more holes in the ends of the pieces to be joined, and inserting
in these holes a corresponding number of pins. The word "pin" is
technically restricted to mean a cylindrical pin in a movable joint. The
word "bolt" is used when the cylindrical pin is screwed up tight with a
nut so as to be immovable. When the pin is not screwed, but is fastened
by being beaten down on either end, it is called a "rivet." The pin is
sometimes rectangular in section, and tapered or parallel lengthwise.
"Gibs" and "cottars" are examples of the latter. It is very rarely the
case that fixed joints have their pins subject to simple compression in
the direction of their length, though they are frequently subject to
simple tension in that direction. A good example is the joint between a
steam cylinder and its cover, where the bolts have to resist the whole
thrust of the steam, and at the same time to keep the joint steam-tight.
JOINTS, in geology. All rocks are traversed more or less completely by
vertical or highly inclined divisional planes termed _joints_. Soft
rocks, indeed, such as loose sand and uncompacted clay, do not show
these planes; but even a soft loam after standing for some time,
consolidated by its own weight, will usually be found to have acquired
them. Joints vary in sharpness of definition, in the regularity of their
perpendicular or horizontal course, in their lateral persistence, in
number and in the directions of their intersections. As a rule, they are
most sharply defined in proportion to the fineness of grain of the rock.
They are often quite invisible, being merely planes of potential
weakness, until revealed by the slow disintegrating effects of the
weather, which induces fracture along their planes in preference to
other directions in the rock; it is along the same planes that a rock
breaks most readily under the blow of a hammer. In coarse-textured
rocks, on the other hand, joints are apt to show themselves as irregular
rents along which the rock has been shattered, so that they present an
uneven sinuous course, branching off in different directions. In many
rocks they descend vertically at not very unequal distances, so that the
spaces between them are marked off into so many wall-like masses. But
this symmetry often gives place to a more or less tortuous course with
lateral joints in various apparently random directions, more especially
where in stratified rocks the beds have diverse lithological characters.
A single joint may be traced sometimes for many yards or even for
several miles, more particularly when the rock is fine-grained and
fairly rigid, as in limestone. Where the texture is coarse and unequal,
the joints, though abundant, run into each other in such a way that no
one in particular can be identified for so great a distance. The number
of joints in a mass of rock varies within wide limits. Among rocks which
have undergone little disturbance the joints may be separated from each
other by intervals of several yards. In other cases where the
terrestrial movement appears to have been considerable, the rocks are so
jointed as to have acquired therefrom a fissile character that has
almost obliterated their tendency to split along the lines of bedding.
_The Cause of Jointing in Rocks._--The continual state of movement in
the crust of the earth is the primary cause of the majority of joints.
It is to the outermost layers of the lithosphere that joints are
confined; in what van Hise has described as the "zone of fracture,"
which he estimates may extend to a depth of 12,000 metres in the case
of rigid rocks. Below the zone of fracture, joints cannot be formed,
for there the rocks tend to flow rather than break. The rocky crust,
as it slowly accommodates itself to the shrinking interior of the
earth, is subjected unceasingly to stresses which induce jointing by
tension, compression and torsion. Thus joints are produced during the
slow cyclical movements of elevation and depression as well as by the
more vigorous movements of earthquakes. Tension-joints are the most
widely spread; they are naturally most numerous over areas of
upheaval. Compression-joints are generally associated with the more
intense movements which have involved shearing, minor-faulting and
slaty cleavage. A minor cause of tension-jointing is shrinkage, due
either to cooling or to desiccation. The most striking type of
jointing is that produced by the cooling of igneous rocks, whereby a
regularly columnar structure is developed, often called basaltic
structure, such as is found at the Giant's Causeway. This structure is
described in connexion with modern volcanic rocks, but it is met with
in igneous rocks of all ages. It is as well displayed among the
felsites of the Lower Old Red Sandstone, and the basalts of
Carboniferous Limestone age as among the Tertiary lavas of Auvergne
and Vivarais. This type of jointing may cause the rock to split up
into roughly hexagonal prisms no thicker than a lead pencil; on the
other hand, in many dolerites and diorites the prisms are much
coarser, having a diameter of 3 ft. or more, and they are more
irregular in form; they may be so long as to extend up the face of a
cliff for 300 or 400 ft. A columnar jointing has often been
superinduced upon stratified rocks by contact with intrusive igneous
masses. Sandstones, shales and coal may be observed in this condition.
The columns diverge perpendicularly from the surface of the injected
altering substance, so that when the latter is vertical, the columns
are horizontal; or when it undulates the columns follow its
curvatures. Beautiful examples of this character occur among the
coal-seams of Ayrshire. Occasionally a prismatic form of jointing may
be observed in unaltered strata; in this case it is usually among
those which have been chemically formed, as in gypsum, where, as
noticed by Jukes in the Paris Basin, some beds are divided from top to
bottom by vertical hexagonal prisms. Desiccation, as shown by the
cracks formed in mud when it dries, has probably been instrumental in
causing jointing in a limited number of cases among stratified rocks.
_Movement along Joint Planes._--In some conglomerates the joints may
be seen traversing the enclosed pebbles as well as the surrounding
matrix; large blocks of hard quartz are cut through by them as sharply
as if they had been sliced by a lapidary's machine. A similar
phenomenon may be observed in flints as they lie embedded in the
chalk, and the same joints may be traced continuously through many
yards of rock. Such facts show that the agency to which the jointing
of rocks was due must have operated with considerable force. Further
indication of movement is supplied by the rubbed and striated surfaces
of some joints. These surfaces, termed _slickensides_, have evidently
been ground against each other.
_Influence of Joints on Water-flow and Scenery._--Joints form natural
paths for the passage downward and upward of subterranean water and
have an important bearing upon water supply. Water obtained directly
from highly jointed rock is more liable to become contaminated by
surface impurities than that from a more compact rock through which it
has had to soak its way; for this reason many limestones are objected
to as sources of potable water. On exposed surfaces joints have great
influence in determining the rate and type of weathering. They furnish
an effective lodgment for surface water, which, frozen by lowering of
temperature, expands into ice and wedges off blocks of the rock; and
the more numerous the joints the more rapidly does the action proceed.
As they serve, in conjunction with bedding, to divide stratified rocks
into large quadrangular blocks, their effect on cliffs and other
exposed places is seen in the splintered and dislocated aspect so
familiar in mountain scenery. Not infrequently, by directing the
initial activity of weathering agents, joints have been responsible
for the course taken by large streams as well as for the type of
scenery on their banks. In limestones, which succumb readily to the
solvent action of water, the joints are liable to be gradually
enlarged along the course of the underground waterflow until caves are
formed of great size and intricacy.
_Infilled Joints._--Joints which have been so enlarged by solution are
sometimes filled again completely or partially by minerals brought
thither in solution by the water traversing the rock; calcite, barytes
and ores of lead and copper may be so deposited. In this way many
valuable mineral veins have been formed. Widened joints may also be
filled in by detritus from the surface, or, in deep-seated portions of
the crust, by heated igneous rock, forced from below along the planes
of least resistance. Occasionally even sedimentary rocks may be forced
up joints from below, as in the case of the so-called "sandstone
dykes."
[Illustration: Joints in Limestone Quarry near Mallow, co. Cork. (G.
V. Du Noyer.)]
_Practical Utility of Joints._--An important feature in the joints of
stratified rocks is the direction in which they intersect each other.
As the result of observations we learn that they possess two dominant
trends, one coincident in a general way with the direction in which
the strata are inclined to the horizon, the other running transversely
approximately at right angles. The former set is known as
_dip-joints_, because they run with the _dip_ or inclination of the
rocks, the latter is termed _strike-joints_, inasmuch as they conform
to the general _strike_ or mean outcrop. It is owing to the existence
of this double series of joints that ordinary quarrying operations can
be carried on. Large quadrangular blocks can be wedged off that would
be shattered if exposed to the risk of blasting. A quarry is usually
worked on the dip of the rock, hence strike-joints form clean-cut
faces in front of the workmen as they advance. These are known as
_backs_, and the dip-joints which traverse them as _cutters_. The way
in which this double set of joints occurs in a quarry may be seen in
the figure, where the parallel lines which traverse the shaded and
unshaded faces mark the successive strata. The broad white spaces
running along the length of the quarry behind the seated figure are
strike-joints or backs, traversed by some highly inclined lines which
mark the position of the dip-joints or cutters. The shaded ends
looking towards the spectator are cutters from which the rock has been
quarried away on one side. In crystalline (igneous) rocks, bedding is
absent and very often there is no horizontal jointing to take its
place; the joint planes break up the mass more irregularly than in
stratified rocks. Granite, for example, is usually traversed by two
sets of chief or _master-joints_ cutting each other somewhat
obliquely. Their effect is to divide the rock into long quadrangular,
rhomboidal, or even polygonal columns. But a third set may often be
noticed cutting across the columns, though less continuous and
dominant than the others. When these transverse joints are few in
number, columns many feet in length can be quarried out entire. Such
monoliths have been from early times employed in the construction of
obelisks and pillars. (J. A. H.)
JOINTURE, in law, a provision for a wife after the death of her husband.
As defined by Sir E. Coke, it is "a competent livelihood of freehold for
the wife, of lands or tenements, to take effect presently in possession
or profit after the death of her husband, for the life of the wife at
least, if she herself be not the cause of determination or forfeiture of
it" (Co. Litt. 36b). A jointure is of two kinds, legal and equitable. A
legal jointure was first authorized by the Statute of Uses. Before this
statute a husband had no legal seisin in such lands as were vested in
another to his "use," but merely an equitable estate. Consequently it
was usual to make settlements on marriage, the most general form being
the settlement by deed of an estate to the use of the husband and wife
for their lives in joint tenancy (or "jointure"), so that the whole
would go to the survivor. Although, strictly speaking, a jointure is a
joint estate limited to both husband and wife, in common acceptation the
word extends also to a sole estate limited to the wife only. The
requisites of a legal jointure are: (1) the jointure must take effect
immediately after the husband's death; (2) it must be for the wife's
life or for a greater estate, or be determinable by her own act; (3) it
must be made before marriage--if after, it is voidable at the wife's
election, on the death of the husband; (4) it must be expressed to be in
satisfaction of dower and not of part of it. In equity, any provision
made for a wife before marriage and accepted by her (not being an
infant) in lieu of dower was a bar to such. If the provision was made
after marriage, the wife was not barred by such provision, though
expressly stated to be in lieu of dower; she was put to her election
between jointure and dower (see DOWER).
JOINVILLE, the name of a French noble family of Champagne, which traced
its descent from Etienne de Vaux, who lived at the beginning of the 11th
century. Geoffroi III. (d. 1184), sire de Joinville, who accompanied
Henry the Liberal, count of Champagne, to the Holy Land in 1147,
received from him the office of seneschal, and this office became
hereditary in the house of Joinville. In 1203 Geoffroi V., sire de
Joinville, died while on a crusade, leaving no children. He was
succeeded by his brother Simon, who married Beatrice of Burgundy,
daughter of the count of Auxonne, and had as his son Jean (q.v.), the
historian and friend of St Louis. Henri (d. 1374), sire de Joinville,
the grandson of Jean, became count of Vaudemont, through his mother,
Marguerite de Vaudemont. His daughter, Marguerite de Joinville, married
in 1393 Ferry of Lorraine (d. 1415), to whom she brought the lands of
Joinville. In 1552, Joinville was made into a principality for the house
of Lorraine. Mlle de Montpensier, the heiress of Mlle de Guise,
bequeathed the principality of Joinville to Philip, duke of Orleans
(1693). The castle, which overhung the Marne, was sold in 1791 to be
demolished. The title of prince de Joinville (q.v.) was given later to
the third son of King Louis Philippe. Two branches of the house of
Joinville have settled in other countries: one in England, descended
from Geoffroi de Joinville, sire de Vaucouleurs, and brother of the
historian, who served under Henry III. and Edward I.; the other,
descended from Geoffroi de Joinville, sire de Briquenay, and son of
Jean, settled in the kingdom of Naples.
See J. Simonnet, _Essai sur l'histoire et la genealogie des seigneurs
de Joinville_ (1875); H. F. Delaborde, _Jean de Joinville et les
seigneurs de Joinville_ (1894). (M. P.*)
JOINVILLE, FRANCOIS FERDINAND PHILIPPE LOUIS MARIE, PRINCE DE
(1818-1900), third son of Louis Phllippe, duc d'Orleans, afterwards king
of the French, was born at Neuilly on the 14th of August 1818. He was
educated for the navy, and became lieutenant in 1836. His first
conspicuous service was at the bombardment of San Juan de Ulloa, in
November 1838, when he headed a landing party and took the Mexican
general Arista prisoner with his own hand at Vera Cruz. He was promoted
captain, and in 1840 was entrusted with the charge of bringing the
remains of Napoleon from St Helena to France. In 1844 he conducted naval
operations on the coast of Morocco, bombarding Tangier and occupying
Mogador, and was recompensed with the grade of vice-admiral. In the
following year he published in the _Revue des deux mondes_ an article on
the deficiencies of the French navy which attracted considerable
attention, and by his hostility to the Guizot ministry, as well as by an
affectation of ill-will towards Great Britain, he gained considerable
popularity. The revolution of 1848 nevertheless swept him away with the
other Orleans princes. He hastened to quit Algeria, where he was then
serving, and took refuge at Claremont, in Surrey, with the rest of his
family. In 1861, upon the breaking out of the American Civil War, he
proceeded to Washington, and placed the services of his son and two of
his nephews at the disposal of the United States government. Otherwise,
he was little heard of until the overthrow of the Empire in 1870, when
he re-entered France, only to be promptly expelled by the government of
national defence. Returning incognito, he joined the army of General
d'Aurelle de Paladines, under the assumed name of Colonel Lutherod,
fought bravely before Orleans, and afterwards, divulging his identity,
formally sought permission to serve. Gambretta, however, arrested him
and sent him back to England. In the National Assembly, elected in
February 1871, the prince was returned by two departments and elected to
sit for the Haute Marne, but, by an arrangement with Thiers, did not
take his seat until the latter had been chosen president of the
provincial republic. His deafness prevented him from making any figure
in the assembly, and he resigned his seat in 1876. In 1886 the
provisions of the law against pretenders to the throne deprived him of
his rank as vice-admiral, but he continued to live in France, and died
in Paris on the 16th of June 1900. He had married in 1843 the princess
Francisca, sister of Pedro II., emperor of Brazil, and had a son, the
duc de Penthievre (born in 1845), also brought up to the navy, and a
daughter Francoise (1844- ) who married the duc de Chartres in 1863.
The prince de Joinville was the author of several essays and pamphlets
on naval affairs and other matters of public interest, which were
originally published for the most part either unsigned or
pseudonymously, and subsequently republished under his own name after
the fall of the Empire. They include _Essais sur la marine francaise_
(1853); _Etudes sur la marine_ (1859 and 1870); _La Guerre d'Amerique,
campagne du Potomac_ (1862 and 1872); _Encore un mot sur Sadowa_
(Brussels, 1868); and _Vieux souvenirs_ (1894).
JOINVILLE, JEAN, SIRE DE (1224-1319), was the second great writer of
history in Old French, and in a manner occupies the interval between
Villehardouin and Froissart. Numerous minor chroniclers fill up the
gaps, but no one of them has the idiosyncrasy which distinguishes these
three writers, who illustrate the three periods of the middle
ages--adolescence, complete manhood, and decadence. Joinville was the
head of a noble family of the province of Champagne (see JOINVILLE,
above). The provincial court of the counts of Champagne had long been a
distinguished one, and the action of Thibaut the poet, together with the
proximity of the district to Paris, made the province less rebellious
than most of the great feudal divisions of France to the royal
authority. Joinville's first appearance at the king's court was in 1241,
on the occasion of the knighting of Louis IX.'s younger brother
Alphonse. Seven years afterwards he took the cross, thereby giving St
Louis a valuable follower, and supplying himself with the occasion of an
eternal memory. The crusade, in which he distinguished himself equally
by wisdom and prowess, taught his practical spirit several lessons. He
returned with the king in 1254. But, though his reverence for the
personal character of his prince seems to have known no bounds, he had
probably gauged the strategic faculties of the saintly king, and he
certainly had imbibed the spirit of the dictum that a man's first duties
are those to his own house. He was in the intervals of residence on his
own fief a constant attendant on the court, but he declined to accompany
the king on his last and fatal expedition. In 1282 he was one of the
witnesses whose testimony was formally given at St Denis in the matter
of the canonization of Louis, and in 1298 he was present at the
exhumation of the saint's body. It was not till even later that he began
his literary work, the occasion being a request from Jeanne of Navarre,
the wife of Philippe le Bel and the mother of Louis le Hutin. The great
interval between his experiences and the period of the composition of
his history is important for the due comprehension of the latter. Some
years passed before the task was completed, on its own showing, in
October 1309. Jeanne was by this time dead, and Joinville presented his
book to her son Louis the Quarreller. This original manuscript is now
lost, whereby hangs a tale. Great as was his age, Joinville had not
ceased to be actively loyal, and in 1315 he complied with the royal
summons to bear arms against the Flemings. He was at Joinville again in
1317, and on the 11th of July 1319 he died at the age of ninety-five,
leaving his possessions and his position as seneschal of Champagne to
his second son Anselm. He was buried in the neighbouring church of St
Laurent, where during the Revolution his bones underwent profanation.
Besides his _Histoire de Saint Louis_ and his _Credo_ or "Confession of
Faith" written much earlier, a considerable number, relatively speaking,
of letters and business documents concerning the fief of Joinville and
so forth are extant. These have an importance which we shall consider
further on; but Joinville owes his place in general estimation only to
his history of his crusading experiences and of the subsequent fate of
St Louis.
Of the famous French history books of the middle ages Joinville's bears
the most vivid impress of the personal characteristics of its composer.
It does not, like Villehardouin, give us a picture of the temper and
habits of a whole order or cast of men during a heroic period of human
history; it falls far short of Froissart in vivid portraying of the
picturesque and external aspects of social life; but it is a more
personal book than either. The age and circumstances of the writer must
not be forgotten in reading it. He is a very old man telling of
circumstances which occurred in his youth. He evidently thinks that the
times have not changed for the better--what with the frequency with
which the devil is invoked in modern France, and the sinful expenditure
common in the matter of embroidered silk coats. But this laudation of
times past concentrates itself almost wholly on the person of the
sainted king whom, while with feudal independence he had declined to
swear fealty to him, "because I was not his man," he evidently regarded
with an unlimited reverence. His age, too, while garrulous to a degree,
seems to have been free from the slightest taint of boasting. No one
perhaps ever took less trouble to make himself out a hero than
Joinville. He is constantly admitting that on such and such an occasion
he was terribly afraid; he confesses without the least shame that, when
one of his followers suggested defiance of the Saracens and voluntary
death, he (Joinville) paid not the least attention to him; nor does he
attempt to gloss in any way his refusal to accompany St Louis on his
unlucky second crusade, or his invincible conviction that it was better
to be in mortal sin than to have the leprosy, or his decided preference
for wine as little watered as might be, or any other weakness. Yet he
was a sincerely religious man, as the curious _Credo_, written at Acre
and forming a kind of anticipatory appendix to the history, sufficiently
shows. He presents himself as an altogether human person, brave enough
in the field, and, at least when young, capable of extravagant devotion
to an ideal, provided the ideal was fashionable, but having at bottom a
sufficient respect for his own skin and a full consciousness of the side
on which his bread is buttered. Nor can he be said to be in all respects
an intelligent traveller. There were in him what may be called
glimmerings of deliberate literature, but they were hardly more than
glimmerings. His famous description of Greek fire has a most provoking
mixture of circumstantial detail with absence of verifying particulars.
It is as matter-of-fact and comparative as Dante, without a touch of
Dante's genius. "The fashion of Greek fire was such that it came to us
as great as a tun of verjuice, and the fiery tail of it was as big as a
mighty lance; it made such noise in the coming that it seemed like the
thunder from heaven, and looked like a dragon flying through the air; so
great a light did it throw that throughout the host men saw as though it
were day for the light it threw." Certainly the excellent seneschal has
not stinted himself of comparisons here, yet they can hardly be said to
be luminous. That the thing made a great flame, a great noise, and
struck terror into the beholder is about the sum of it all. Every now
and then indeed a striking circumstance, strikingly told, occurs in
Joinville, such as the famous incident of the woman who carried in one
hand a chafing dish of fire, in the other a phial of water, that she
might burn heaven and quench hell, lest in future any man should serve
God merely for hope of the one or fear of the other. But in these cases
the author only repeats what he has heard from others. On his own
account he is much more interested in small personal details than in
greater things. How the Saracens, when they took him prisoner, he being
half dead with a complication of diseases, kindly left him "un mien
couverture d'ecarlate" which his mother had given him, and which he put
over him, having made a hole therein and bound it round him with a cord;
how when he came to Acre in a pitiable condition an old servant of his
house presented himself, and "brought me clean white hoods and combed my
hair most comfortably", how he bought a hundred tuns of wine and served
it--the best first, according to high authority--well-watered to his
private soldiers, somewhat less watered to the squires, and to the
knights neat, but with a suggestive phial of the weaker liquid to mix
"si comme ils vouloient"--these are the details in which he seems to
take greatest pleasure, and for readers six hundred years after date
perhaps they are not the least interesting details.
It would, however, be a mistake to imagine that Joinville's book is
exclusively or even mainly a chronicle of small beer. If he is not a
Villehardouin or a Carlyle, his battlepieces are vivid and truthful, and
he has occasional passages of no small episodic importance, such as that
dealing with the Old Man of the Mountain. But, above all, the central
figure of his book redeems it from the possibility of the charge of
being commonplace or ignoble. To St Louis Joinville is a nobler Boswell;
and hero-worshipper, hero, and heroic ideal all have something of the
sublime about them. The very pettiness of the details in which the good
seneschal indulges as to his own weakness only serves to enhance the
sublime unworldliness of the king. Joinville is a better warrior than
Louis, but, while the former frankly prays for his own safety, the
latter only thinks of his army's when they have escaped from the hands
of the aliens. One of the king's knights boasts that ten thousand pieces
have been "forcontes" (counted short) to the Saracens; and it is with
the utmost trouble that Joinville and the rest can persuade the king
that this is a joke, and that the Saracens are much more likely to have
got the advantage. He warns Joinville against wine-bibbing, against bad
language, against all manner of foibles small and great; and the pupil
acknowledges that this physician at any rate had healed himself in these
respects. It is true that he is severe towards infidels; and his
approval of the knight who, finding a Jew likely to get the better of a
theological argument, resorted to the baculine variety of logic, does
not meet the views of the 20th century. But Louis was not of the 20th
century but of the 13th, and after his kind he certainly deserved
Joinville's admiration. Side by side with his indignation at the idea of
cheating his Saracen enemies may be mentioned his answer to those who
after Taillebourg complained that he had let off Henry III. too easily.
"He is my man now, and he was not before," said the king, a most
unpractical person certainly, and in some ways a sore saint for France.
But it is easy to understand the half-despairing adoration with which a
shrewd and somewhat prosaic person like Joinville must have regarded
this flower of chivalry born out of due time. He has had his reward, for
assuredly the portrait of St Louis, from the early collection of
anecdotes to the last hearsay sketch of the woeful end at Tunis, with
the famous _enseignement_ which is still the best summary of the
theoretical duties of a Christian king in medieval times, is such as to
take away all charge of vulgarity or mere _commerage_ from Joinville, a
charge to which otherwise he might perhaps have been exposed.
The arrangement of the book is, considering its circumstances and the
date of its composition, sufficiently methodical. According to its own
account it is divided into three parts--the first dealing generally with
the character and conduct of the hero; the second with his acts and
deeds in Egypt, Palestine, &c., as Joinville knew them; the third with
his subsequent life and death. Of these the last is very brief, the
first not long; the middle constitutes the bulk of the work. The
contents of the first part are, as might be expected, miscellaneous
enough, and consist chiefly of stories chosen to show the valour of
Louis, his piety, his justice, his personal temperance, and so forth.
The second part enters upon the history of the crusade itself, and tells
how Joinville pledged all his land save so much as would bring in a
thousand livres a year, and started with a brave retinue of nine knights
(two of whom besides himself wore bannerets), and shared a ship with the
sire d'Aspremont, leaving Joinville without raising his eyes, "pour ce
que le cuer ne me attendrisist du biau chastel que je lessoie et de mes
deux enfans"; how they could not get out of sight of a high mountainous
island (Lampedusa or Pantellaria) till they had made a procession round
the masts in honour of the Virgin; how they reached first Cyprus and
then Egypt; how they took Damietta, and then entangled themselves in the
Delta. Bad generalship, which is sufficiently obvious, unwholesome
food--it was Lent, and they ate the Nile fish which had been feasting on
the carcases of the slain--and Greek fire did the rest, and personal
valour was of little avail, not merely against superior numbers and
better generals, but against dysentery and a certain "mal de l'ost"
which attacked the mouth and the legs, a curious human version of a
well-known bestial malady. After ransom Acre was the chief scene of
Louis's stay in the East, and here Joinville lived in some state, and
saw not a few interesting things, hearing besides much gossip as to the
inferior affairs of Asia from ambassadors, merchants and others. At last
they journeyed back again to France, not without considerable
experiences of the perils of the deep, which Joinville tells with a good
deal of spirit. The remainder of the book is very brief. Some anecdotes
of the king's "justice," his favourite and distinguishing attribute
during the sixteen years which intervened between the two crusades, are
given; then comes the story of Joinville's own refusal to join the
second expedition, a refusal which bluntly alleged the harm done by the
king's men who stayed at home to the vassals of those who went abroad as
the reason of Joinville's resolution to remain behind. The death of the
king at Tunis, his _enseignement_ to his son, and the story of his
canonization complete the work.
The book in which this interesting story is told has had a literary
history which less affects its matter than the vicissitudes to which
Froissart has been subjected, but which is hardly less curious in its
way. There is no reason for supposing that Joinville indulged in
various editions, such as those which have given Kervyn de Lettenhove
and Simeon Luce so much trouble, and which make so vast a difference
between the first and the last redaction of the chronicler of the
Hundred Years' War. Indeed the great age of the seneschal of
Champagne, and his intimate first-hand acquaintance with his subject,
made such variations extremely improbable. But, whereas there is no
great difficulty (though much labour) in ascertaining the original and
all subsequent texts of Froissart, the original text of Joinville was
until recently unknown, and even now may be said to be in the state of
a conjectural restoration. It has been said that the book was
presented to Louis le Hutin. Now we have a catalogue of Louis le
Hutin's library, and, strange to say, Joinville does not figure in it.
His book seems to have undergone very much the same fate as that which
befell the originals of the first two volumes of the _Paston Letters_
which Sir John Fenn presented to George the Third. Several royal
library catalogues of the 14th century are known, but in none of these
does the _Histoire de St Louis_ appear. It does appear in that of
Charles V. (1411), but apparently no copy even of this survives. As
everybody knows, however, books could be and were multiplied by the
process of copying tolerably freely, and a copy at first or second
hand which belonged to the fiddler king Rene of Provence in the 15th
century was used for the first printed edition in 1547. Other editions
were printed from other versions, all evidently posterior to the
original. But in 1741 the well-known medievalist La Curne de St Palaye
found at Lucca a manuscript of the 16th century, evidently
representing an older text than any yet printed. Three years later a
14th-century copy was found at Brussels, and this is the standard
manuscript authority for the text of Joinville. Those who prefer to
rest on MS. authority will probably hold to this text, which appears
in the well-known collection of Michaud and Poujoulat as well as that
of Buchon, and in a careful and useful separate edition by Francisque
Michel. The modern science of critical editing, however, which applies
to medieval texts the principles long recognized in editing the
classics, has discovered in the 16th-century manuscript, and still
more in the original miscellaneous works of Joinville, the letters,
deeds, &c., already alluded to, the materials for what we have already
called a conjectural restoration, which is not without its interest,
though perhaps it is possible for that interest to be exaggerated.
For merely general readers Buchon's or Michaud's editions of Joinville
will amply suffice. Both include translations into modern French,
which, however, are hardly necessary, for the language is very easy.
Natalis de Wailly's editions of 1868 and particularly 1874 are
critical editions, embodying the modern research connected with the
text, the value of which is considerable, but contestable. They are
accompanied by ample annotations and appendices, with illustrations of
great merit and value. Much valuable information appeared for the
first time in the edition of F. Michel (1859). To these may be added
A. F. Didot's _Etudes sur Joinville_ (1870) and H. F. Delaborde's
_Jean de Joinville_ (1894). A good sketch of the whole subject will be
found in Aubertin's _Histoire de la langue et de la litterature
francaises au moyen age_, ii. 196-211; see also Gaston Paris, _Litt.
francaise au moyen age_ (1893), and A. Debidour, _Les Chroniqueurs_
(1888). There are English translations by T. Johnes (1807), J. Hutton
(1868), Ethel Wedgwood (1906), and (more literally) Sir F. T. Marzials
("Everyman's Library," 1908). (G. Sa.)
JOIST, in building, one of a row or tier of beams set edgewise from one
wall or partition to another and carrying the flooring boards on the
upper edge and the laths of the ceiling on the lower. In double flooring
there are three series of joists, _binding_, _bridging_, and _ceiling_
joists. The binding joists are the real support of the floor, running
from wall to wall, and carrying the bridging joists above and the
ceiling joists below (see CARPENTRY), The Mid. Eng. form of the word
was _giste_ or _gyste_, and was adapted from O. Fr. _giste_, modern
_gite_, a beam supporting the platform of a gun. By origin the word
meant that on which anything lies or rests (_gesir_, to lie; Lat.
_jacere_).
The English word "gist," in such phrases as "the gist of the matter,"
the main or central point in an argument, is a doublet of joist.
According to Skeat, the origin of this meaning is an O. Fr. proverbial
expression, _Je scay bien ou gist le lievre_, I know well where the hare
lies, i.e. I know the real point of the matter.
JOKAI, MAURUS (1825-1904), Hungarian novelist, was born at Rev-Komarom
on the 19th of February 1825. His father, Joseph, was a member of the
Asva branch of the ancient Jokay family; his mother was a scion of the
noble Pulays. The lad was timid and delicate, and therefore educated at
home till his tenth year, when he was sent to Pressburg, subsequently
completing his education at the Calvinist college at Papa, where he
first met Petofi, Alexander Kozma, and several other brilliant young men
who subsequently became famous. His family had meant him to follow the
law, his father's profession, and accordingly the youth, always
singularly assiduous, plodded conscientiously through the usual
curriculum at Kecskemet and Pest, and as a full-blown advocate actually
succeeded in winning his first case. But the drudgery of a lawyer's
office was uncongenial to the ardently poetical youth, and, encouraged
by the encomiums pronounced by the Hungarian Academy upon his first
play, _Zsido fiu_ ("The Jew Boy"), he flitted, when barely twenty, to
Pest in 1845 with a MS. romance in his pocket; he was introduced by
Petofi to the literary notabilities of the Hungarian capital, and the
same year his first notable romance _Hetkoznapok_ ("Working Days"),
appeared, first in the columns of the _Pesti Dievatlap_, and
subsequently, in 1846, in book form. _Hetkoznapok_, despite its manifest
crudities and extravagances, was instantly recognized by all the leading
critics as a work of original genius, and in the following year Jokai
was appointed the editor of _Eletkepek_, the leading Hungarian literary
journal, and gathered round him all the rising talent of the country. On
the outbreak of the revolution of 1848 the young editor enthusiastically
adopted the national cause, and served it with both pen and sword. Now,
as ever, he was a moderate Liberal, setting his face steadily against
all excesses; but, carried away by the Hungarian triumphs of April and
May 1849, he supported Kossuth's fatal blunder of deposing the Hapsburg
dynasty, and though, after the war was over, his life was saved by an
ingenious stratagem of his wife, the great tragic actress, Roza Benke
Laborfalvi, whom he had married on the 29th of August 1848, he lived for
the next fourteen years the life of a political suspect. Yet this was
perhaps the most glorious period of his existence, for during it he
devoted himself to the rehabilitation of the proscribed and humiliated
Magyar language, composing in it no fewer than thirty great romances,
besides innumerable volumes of tales, essays, criticisms and facetiae.
This was the period of such masterpieces as _Erdely Arany Kord_ ("The
Golden Age of Transylvania"), with its sequel _Torokvilag
Magyarorszagon_ ("The Turks in Hungary"), _Egy Magyar Nabob_ ("A
Hungarian Nabob"), _Karpathy Zoltan, Janicsarok vegnapjai_ ("The Last
Days of the Janissaries"), _Szomoru napok_ ("Sad Days"). On the
re-establishment of the Hungarian constitution by the Composition of
1867, Jokai took an active part in politics. As a constant supporter of
the Tisza administration, not only in parliament, where he sat
continuously for more than twenty years, but also as the editor of the
government organ, _Hon_, founded by him in 1863, he became a power in
the state, and, though he never took office himself, frequently
extricated the government from difficult places. In 1897 the emperor
appointed him a member of the upper house. As a suave, practical and
witty debater he was particularly successful. Yet it was to literature
that he continued to devote most of his time, and his productiveness
after 1870 was stupendous, amounting to some hundreds of volumes.
Stranger still, none of this work is slipshod, and the best of it
deserves to endure. Amongst the finest of his later works may be
mentioned the unique and incomparable _Az arany ember_ ("A Man of
Gold")--translated into English under the title of _Timar's Two
Worlds_--and _A tengerzemu holgy_ ("Eyes like the Sea"), the latter of
which won the Academy's prize in 1890. He died at Budapest on the 5th of
May 1904; his wife having predeceased him in 1886. Jokai was an
arch-romantic, with a perfervid Oriental imagination, and humour of the
purest, rarest description. If one can imagine a combination, in almost
equal parts, of Walter Scott, William Beckford, Dumas _pere_, and
Charles Dickens, together with the native originality of an ardent
Magyar, one may perhaps form a fair idea of the great Hungarian
romancer's indisputable genius.
See Nevy Laszlo, _Jokai Mor_; Hegedusis Sandor, _Jokai Morrol_; H. W.
Temperley, "Maurus Jokai and the Historical Novel," _Contemporary
Review_ (July 1904).
JOKJAKARTA, or JOKJOKARTA (more correctly JOKYAKARTA; Du.
_Djokjakarta_), a residency of the island of Java, Dutch East Indies,
bounded N. by Kedu and Surakarta, E. by Surakarta, S. by the Indian
Ocean, W. by Bagelen. Pop. (1897), 858,392. The country is mountainous
with the exception of a wedge-like strip in the middle between the
rivers Progo and Upak. In the north-west are the southern slopes of the
volcano Merapi, and in the east the Kidul hills and the plateau of Sewu.
The last-named is an arid and scantily populated chalk range, with
numerous small summits, whence it is also known as the Thousand Hills.
The remainder of the residency is well-watered and fertile, important
irrigation works having been carried out. Sugar, rice and indigo are
cultivated; salt-making is practised on the coast. The minerals include
coal-beds in the Kidul hills and near Nangulan, marble and gold in the
neighbourhood of Kalasan. The natives are poor, owing chiefly to
maladministration, the use of opium and the usury practised by
foreigners (Chinese, Arabs, &c.). The principality is divided between
the sultan (vassal of the Dutch government) and the so-called
independent prince Paku Alam; Ngawen and Imogiri are enclaves of
Surakarta. There are good roads, and railways connect the chief town
with Batavia, Samarang, Surakarta, &c. The town of Jokjakarta (see JAVA)
the seat of the resident, the sultan and the Paku Alam princes; its most
remarkable section is the _kraton_ or citadel of the sultan. Imogiri,
S.W. of the capital, the burial-place of the princes of Surakarta and
Jokjakarta, is guarded by priests and officials. Sentolo, Nangulan,
Brosot, Kalasan, Tempel, Wonosari are considerable villages. There are
numerous remains of Hindu temples, particularly in the neighbourhood of
Kalasan near the border of Surakarta and Prambanan, which is just across
it. Remarkable sacred grottoes are found on the coast, namely, the
so-called Nyabi Kidul and Rongkob, and at Selarong, south-east of
Jokjakarta.
JOLIET, a city and the county-seat of Will county, Illinois, U.S.A., in
the township of Joliet, in the N.E. part of the state, on the Des
Plaines river, 40 m. S.W. of Chicago. Pop. (1890), 23,264; (1900),
29,353, of whom 8536 were foreign-born, 1889 being German, 1579
Austrian, 1206 Irish and 951 Swedish; (1910 census) 34,670. In addition
there is a large population in the immediate suburbs: that of the
township including the city was 27,438 in 1890, and 50,640 in 1910.
Joliet is served by the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe, the Chicago &
Alton, the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific, the Michigan Central, the
Illinois, Iowa & Minnesota, and the Elgin, Joliet & Eastern railways, by
interurban electric lines, and is on the Illinois & Michigan canal and
the Chicago Sanitary (ship) canal. The city is situated in a narrow
valley, on both sides of the river. It is the seat of the northern
Illinois penitentiary, and has a public library (in front of which is a
statue, by S. Asbjornsen, of Louis Joliet), the township high school,
two hospitals, two Catholic academies and a club-house, erected by the
Illinois Steel Company for the use of its employees. There are two
municipal parks, West Park and Highland Park; Dellwood Park is an
amusement resort, owned by the Chicago & Joliet Electric Railway
Company. In the vicinity are large deposits of calcareous building
stone, cement and fireclay, and there are coal mines 20 m. distant.
Mineral resources and water-power have facilitated the development of
manufactures. The factory product in 1905 was valued at $33,788,700
(20.3% more than in 1900), a large part of which was represented by
iron and steel goods. There are large industrial establishments just
outside the city limits. The first settlement on the site of Joliet
(1833) was called Juliet, in honour of the daughter of James B.
Campbell, one of the settlers. The present name was adopted in 1845, in
memory of Louis Joliet (1645-1700), the French Canadian explorer of the
Mississippi, and in 1852 a city charter was secured.
JOLLY (from O. Fr. _jolif_; Fr. _joli_, the French word is obscure in
origin; it may be from late Lat. _gaudivus_, from _gaudere_, to rejoice,
the change of _d_ to _l_ being paralleled by _cigada_ and _cigale_, or
from O. Norse _jol_, Eng. "yule," the northern festival of midwinter),
and adjective meaning gay, cheerful, jovial, high-spirited. The
colloquial use of the term as an intensive adverb, meaning extremely,
very, was in early usage quite literary; thus John Trapp (1601-1669),
_Commentaries on the New Testament, Matthew_ (1647), writes, "All was
jolly quiet at Ephesus before St Paul came hither." In the royal navy
"jolly" used as a substantive, is the slang name for a marine. To
"jolly" is a slang synonym for "chaff." The word "jolly-boat," the name
of a ship's small broad boat, usually clinker-built, is of doubtful
etymology. It occurs in English in the 18th century, and is usually
connected with Dan. or Swed. _jolle_, Dutch _jol_, a small ship's boat;
these words are properly represented in English by "yawl" originally a
ship's small boat, now chiefly used of a rig of sailing vessels, with a
cutter-rigged foremast and a small mizzen stepped far aft, with a
spanker sail (see RIGGING). A connexion has been suggested with a word
of much earlier appearance in English, _jolywat_, or _gellywatte_. This
occurs at the end of the 15th century and is used of a smaller type of
ship's boat. This is supposed to be a corruption of the French _galiote_
or Dutch _galjoot_, galliot (see GALLEY). The galliot was, however, a
large vessel.
JOLY DE LOTBINIERE, SIR HENRI GUSTAVE (1829-1908), Canadian politician,
was born at Epernay in France on the 5th of December 1829. His father,
Gaspard Pierre Gustave Joly, the owner of famous vineyards at Epernay,
was of Huguenot descent, and married Julie Christine, grand-daughter of
Eustache Gaspard Michel Chartier de Lotbiniere, marquis de Lotbiniere
(one of Montcalm's engineers at Quebec); he thus became seigneur de
Lotbiniere. Henri Gustave adopted the name of de Lotbiniere in 1888,
under a statute of the province of Quebec. He was educated in Paris, and
called to the bar of lower Canada in 1858. On the 6th of May 1856 he
married Margaretta Josepha (d. 1904), daughter of Hammond Gowen, of
Quebec. At the general election of 1861 he was elected to the house of
assembly of the province of Canada as Liberal member for the county of
Lotbiniere, and from 1867 to 1874 he represented the same county in the
House of Commons, Ottawa, and in the legislative assembly, Quebec. Joly
was opposed to confederation and supported Dorion in the stand which he
took on this question. In 1878 he was called by Luc Letellier de St
Just, lieutenant-governor of Quebec, to form an administration, which
was defeated in 1879, and until 1883 he was leader of the opposition.
During his brief administration he adopted a policy of retrenchment, and
endeavoured to abolish the legislative council. In 1885, as a protest
against the attitude of his party towards Louis Riel, who was tried and
executed for high treason, he retired from public life. Early in the
year 1895 he was induced again to take an active part in the campaign of
his party, and at the general election of 1896 he was returned as member
for the county of Portneuf. He had already in 1895 been created K.C.M.G.
On the formation of Sir Wilfrid Laurier's administration he accepted the
office of controller of inland revenue, and a year later he became a
privy councillor, as minister of inland revenue. From 1900 to 1906 he
was lieutenant-governor of the province of British Columbia. He twice
declined a seat in the senate, but rendered eminent service to Canada by
promoting the interest of agriculture, horticulture and of forestry. He
died on the 17th of November 1908. (A. G. D.)
JOMINI, ANTOINE HENRI, BARON (1779-1869), general in the French and
afterwards in the Russian service, and one of the most celebrated
writers on the art of war, was born on the 6th of March 1779 at Payerne
in the canton of Vaud, Switzerland, where his father was syndic. His
youthful preference for a military life was disappointed by the
dissolution of the Swiss regiments of France at the Revolution. For some
time he was a clerk in a Paris banking-house, until the outbreak of the
Swiss revolution. At the age of nineteen he was appointed to a post on
the Swiss headquarters staff, and when scarcely twenty-one to the
command of a battalion. At the peace of Luneville in 1801 he returned to
business life in Paris, but devoted himself chiefly to preparing the
celebrated _Traite des grandes operations militaires_, which was
published in 1804-1805. Introduced to Marshal Ney, he served in the
campaign of Austerlitz as a volunteer aide-de-camp on Ney's personal
staff. In December 1805 Napoleon, being much impressed by a chapter in
Jomini's treatise, made him a colonel in the French service. Ney
thereupon made him his principal aide-de-camp. In 1806 Jomini published
his views as to the conduct of the impending war with Prussia, and this,
along with his knowledge of Frederick the Great's campaigns, which he
had described in the _Traite_, led Napoleon to attach him to his own
headquarters. He was present with Napoleon at the battle of Jena, and at
Eylau won the cross of the Legion of Honour. After the peace of Tilsit
he was made chief of the staff to Ney, and created a baron. In the
Spanish campaign of 1808 his advice was often of the highest value to
the marshal, but Jomini quarrelled with his chief, and was left almost
at the mercy of his numerous enemies, especially Berthier, the emperor's
chief of staff. Overtures had been made to him, as early as 1807, to
enter the Russian service, but Napoleon, hearing of his intention to
leave the French army, compelled him to remain in the service with the
rank of general of brigade. For some years thereafter Jomini held both a
French and a Russian commission, with the consent of both sovereigns.
But when war between France and Russia broke out, he was in a difficult
position, which he ended by taking a command on the line of
communication. He was thus engaged when the retreat from Moscow and the
uprising of Prussia transferred the seat of war to central Germany. He
promptly rejoined Ney, took part in the battle of Lutzen and, as chief
of the staff of Ney's group of corps, rendered distinguished services
before and at the battle of Bautzen, and was recommended for the rank of
general of division. Berthier, however, not only erased Jomini's name
from the list, but put him under arrest and censured him in army orders
for failing to supply certain returns that had been called for. How far
Jomini was held responsible for certain misunderstandings which
prevented the attainment of all the results hoped for from Ney's attack
(see BAUTZEN) there is no means of knowing. But the pretext for censure
was trivial and baseless, and during the armistice Jomini did as he had
intended to do in 1809-10, and went into the Russian service. As things
then were, this was tantamount to deserting to the enemy, and so it was
regarded by Napoleon and by the French army, and by not a few of his new
comrades. It must be observed, in Jomini's defence, that he had for
years held a dormant commission in the Russian army, that he had
declined to take part in the invasion of Russia in 1812, and that he was
a Swiss and not a Frenchman. His patriotism was indeed unquestioned, and
he withdrew from the Allied Army in 1814 when he found that he could not
prevent the violation of Swiss neutrality. Apart from love of his own
country, the desire to study, to teach and to practise the art of war
was his ruling motive. At the critical moment of the battle of Eylau he
exclaimed, "If I were the Russian commander for two hours!" On joining
the allies he received the rank of lieutenant-general and the
appointment of aide-de-camp from the tsar, and rendered important
assistance during the German campaign, though the charge that he
betrayed the numbers, positions and intentions of the French to the
enemy was later acknowledged by Napoleon to be without foundation. He
declined as a Swiss patriot and as a French officer to take part in the
passage of the Rhine at Basel and the subsequent invasion of France.
In 1815 he was with the emperor Alexander in Paris, and attempted in
vain to save the life of his old commander Ney. This almost cost him
his position in the Russian service, but he succeeded in making head
against his enemies, and took part in the congress of Vienna. Resuming,
after a period of several years of retirement and literary work, his
post in the Russian army, he was about 1823 made a full general, and
thenceforward until his retirement in 1829 he was principally employed
in the military education of the tsarevich Nicholas (afterwards emperor)
and in the organization of the Russian staff college, which was opened
in 1832 and still bears its original name of the Nicholas academy. In
1828 he was employed in the field in the Russo-Turkish War, and at the
siege of Varna he was given the grand cordon of the Alexander order.
This was his last active service. In 1829 he settled at Brussels where
he chiefly lived for the next thirty years. In 1853, after trying
without success to bring about a political understanding between France
and Russia, Jomini was called to St Petersburg to act as a military
adviser to the tsar during the Crimean War. He returned to Brussels on
the conclusion of peace in 1856 and some years afterwards settled at
Passy near Paris. He was busily employed up to the end of his life in
writing treatises, pamphlets and open letters on subjects of military
art and history, and in 1859 he was asked by Napoleon III. to furnish a
plan of campaign in the Italian War. One of his last essays dealt with
the war of 1866 and the influence of the breech-loading rifle, and he
died at Passy on the 24th of March 1869 only a year before the
Franco-German War. Thus one of the earliest of the great military
theorists lived to speculate on the tactics of the present day.
Amongst his numerous works the principal, besides the _Traite_, are:
_Histoire critique et militaire des campagnes de la Revolution_ (1806;
new ed. 1819-1824); _Vie politique et militaire de Napoleon racontee
par lui-meme_ (1827) and, perhaps the best known of all his
publications, the theoretical _Precis de l'art de la guerre_ (1836).
See Ferdinand Lecomte, _Le General Jomini, sa vie et ses ecrits_
(1861; new ed. 1888); C. A. Saint-Beuve, _Le General Jomini_ (1869);
A. Pascal, _Observations historiques sur la vie, &c., du general
Jomini_ (1842).
JOMMELLI, NICCOLA (1714-1774), Italian composer, was born at Aversa near
Naples on the 10th of September 1714. He received his musical education
at two of the famous music schools of that capital, being a pupil of the
Conservatorio de' poveri di Gesu Cristo under Feo, and also of the
Conservatorio della pieta dei Turchini under Prota, Mancini and Leo. His
first opera, _L'Errore amoroso_, was successfully produced at Naples
(under a pseudonym) when Jommelli was only twenty-three. Three years
afterwards he went to Rome to bring out two new operas, and thence to
Bologna, where he profited by the advice of Padre Martini, the greatest
contrapuntist of his age. In the meantime Jommelli's fame began to
spread beyond the limits of his country, and in 1748 he went for the
first time to Vienna, where one of his finest operas, _Didone_, was
produced. Three years later he returned to Italy, and in 1753 he
obtained the post of chapel-master to the duke of Wurttemberg at
Stuttgart, which city he made his home for a number of years. In the
same year he had ten commissions to write operas for princely courts. In
Stuttgart he permitted no operas but his own to be produced, and he
modified his style in accordance with German taste, so much that, when
after an absence of fifteen years he returned to Naples, his countrymen
hissed two of his operas off the stage. He retired in consequence to his
native village, and only occasionally emerged from his solitude to take
part in the musical life of the capital. His death took place on the
25th of August 1774, his last composition being the celebrated
_Miserere_, a setting for two female voices of Saverio Mattei's Italian
paraphrase of Psalm li. Jommelli is the most representative composer of
the generation following Leo and Durante. He approaches very closely to
Mozart in his style, and is important as one of the composers who, by
welding together German and Italian characteristics, helped to form the
musical language of the great composers of the classical period of
Vienna.
JONAH, in the Bible, a prophet born at Gath-hepher in Zebulun, perhaps
under Jeroboam (2) (781-741 B.C.?), who foretold the deliverance of
Israel from the Aramaeans (2 Kings xiv. 25). This prophet may also be
the hero of the much later book of Jonah, but how different a man is
he! It is, however, the later Jonah who chiefly interests us. New
problems have arisen out of the book which relates to him, but here we
can only attempt to consider what, in a certain sense, may be called the
surface meaning of the text.
This, then is what we appear to be told. The prophet Jonah is summoned
to go to Nineveh, a great and wicked city (cf. 4 Esdras ii. 8, 9), and
prophesy against it. Jonah, however, is afraid (iv. 2) that the
Ninevites may repent, so, instead of going to Nineveh, he proceeds to
Joppa, and takes his passage in a ship bound for Tarshish. But soon a
storm arises, and, supplication to the gods failing, the sailors cast
lots to discover the guilty man who has brought this great trouble. The
lot falls on Jonah, who has been roughly awakened by the captain, and
when questioned frankly owns that he is a Hebrew and a worshipper of the
divine creator Yahweh, from whom he has sought to flee (as if He were
only the god of Canaan). Jonah advises the sailors to throw him into the
sea. This, after praying to Yahweh, they actually do; at once the sea
becomes calm and they sacrifice to Yahweh. Meantime God has "appointed a
great fish" which swallows up Jonah. Three days and three nights he is
in the fish's belly, till, at a word from Yahweh, it vomits Jonah on to
the dry ground. Again Jonah receives the divine call. This time he
obeys. After delivering his message to Nineveh he makes himself a booth
outside the walls and waits in vain for the destruction of the city
(probably iv. 5 is misplaced and should stand after iii. 4). Thereupon
Jonah beseeches Yahweh to take away his worthless life. As an answer
Yahweh "appoints" a small quickly-growing tree with large leaves (the
castor-oil plant) to come up over the angry prophet and shelter him from
the sun. But the next day the beneficent tree perishes by God's
"appointment" from a worm-bite. Once more God "appoints" something; it
is the east wind, which, together with the fierce heat, brings Jonah
again to desperation. The close is fine, and reminds us of Job. God
himself gives short-sighted man a lesson. Jonah has pitied the tree, and
should not God have pity on so great a city?
Two results of criticism are widely accepted. One relates to the psalm
in ch. ii., which has been transferred from some other place; it is in
fact an anticipatory thanksgiving for the deliverance of Israel, mostly
composed of phrases from other psalms. The other is that the narrative
before us is not historical but an imaginative story (such as was called
a Midrash) based upon Biblical data and tending to edification. It is,
however, a story of high type. The narrator considered that Israel had
to be a prophet to the "nations" at large, that Israel had, like Jonah,
neglected its duty and for its punishment was "swallowed up" in foreign
lands. God had watched over His people and prepared its choicer members
to fulfil His purpose. This company of faithful but not always
sufficiently charitable men represented their people, so that it might
be said that Israel itself (the second Isaiah's "Servant of Yahweh"--see
ISAIAH) had taken up its duty, but in an ungenial spirit which grieved
the All-merciful One. The book, which is post-exilic, may therefore be
grouped with another Midrash, the Book of Ruth, which also appears to
represent a current of thought opposed to the exclusive spirit of Jewish
legalism.
Some critics, however, think that the key of symbolism needs to be
supplemented by that of mythology. The "great fish" especially has a
very mythological appearance. The Babylonian dragon myth (see COSMOGONY)
is often alluded to in the Old Testament, e.g. in Jer. li. 44, which, as
the present writer long since pointed out, may supply the missing link
between Jonah i. 17 and the original myth. For the "great fish" is
ultimately Tiamat, the dragon of chaos, represented historically by
Nebuchadrezzar, by whom for a time God permitted or "appointed" Israel
to be swallowed up.
For further details see T. K. Cheyne, _Ency. Bib._, "Jonah"; and his
article "Jonah, a Study in Jewish Folklore and Religion," _Theological
Review_ (1877), pp. 211-219. Konig, Hastings's _Dict. Bible_, "Jonah,"
is full but not lucid; C. H. H. Wright, _Biblical Studies_ (1886)
argues ably for the symbolic theory. Against Cheyne, see Marti's work
on the _Minor Prophets_ (1894); the "great fish" and the "three days
and three nights" remain unexplained by this writer. On these points
see Zimmern, _K.A.T._ (3), pp. 366, 389, 508. The difficulties of the
mission of a Hebrew prophet to Asshur are diminished by Cheyne's later
theory, _Critica Biblica_ (1904), pp. 150-152. (T. K. C.)
JONAH, RABBI (ABULWALID MERWAN IBN JANAH, also R. MARINUS) (c. 990-c.
1050), the greatest Hebrew grammarian and lexicographer of the middle
ages. He was born before the year 990, in Cordova, studied in Lucena,
left his native city in 1012, and, after somewhat protracted wanderings,
settled in Saragossa, where he died before 1050. He was a physician, and
Ibn Abi Usaibia, in his treatise on Arabian doctors, mentions him as the
author of a medical work. But Rabbi Jonah saw the true vocation of his
life in the scientific investigation of the Hebrew language and in a
rational biblical exegesis based upon sound linguistic knowledge. It is
true, he wrote no actual commentary on the Bible, but his philological
works exercised the greatest influence on Judaic exegesis. His first
work--composed, like all the rest, in Arabic--bears the title
_Almustalha_, and forms, as is indicated by the word, a criticism and at
the same time a supplement to the two works of Yehuda 'Hayyuj on the
verbs with weak-sounding and double-sounding roots. These two tractates,
with which 'Hayyuj had laid the foundations of scientific Hebrew
grammar, were recognized by Abulwalid as the basis of his own
grammatical investigations, and Abraham Ibn Daud, when enumerating the
great Spanish Jews in his history, sums up the significance of R. Jonah
in the words: "He completed what 'Hayyuj had begun." The principal work
of R. Jonah is the _Kitab al Tankih_ ("Book of Exact Investigation"),
which consists of two parts, regarded as two distinct books--the _Kitab
al-Luma_ ("Book of Many-coloured Flower-beds") and the _Kitab al-usul_
("Book of Roots"). The former (ed. J. Derenbourg, Paris, 1886) contains
the grammar, the latter (ed. Ad. Neubauer, Oxford, 1875) the lexicon of
the Hebrew language. Both works are also published in the Hebrew
translation of Yehuda Ibn Tibbon (_Sefer Ha-Rikmah_, ed. B. Goldberg,
Frankfurt am Main, 1855; _Sefer Ha-Schoraschim_, ed. W. Bacher, Berlin,
1897). The other writings of Rabbi Jonah, so far as extant, have
appeared in an edition of the Arabic original accompanied by a French
translation (_Opuscules et traites d'Abou'l Walid_, ed. Joseph and
Hartwig Derenbourg, Paris 1880). A few fragments and numerous quotations
in his principal book form our only knowledge of the _Kitab al-Tashwir_
("Book of Refutation") a controversial work in four parts, in which
Rabbi Jonah successfully repelled the attacks of the opponents of his
first treatise. At the head of this opposition stood the famous Samuel
Ibn Nagdela (S. Ha-Nagid) a disciple of 'Hayyuj. The grammatical work of
Rabbi Jonah extended, moreover, to the domain of rhetoric and biblical
hermeneutics, and his lexicon contains many exegetical excursuses. This
lexicon is of especial importance by reason of its ample contribution to
the comparative philology of the Semitic languages--Hebrew and Arabic,
in particular. Abulwalid's works mark the culminating point of Hebrew
scholarship during the middle ages, and he attained a level which was
not surpassed till the modern development of philological science in the
19th century.
See S. Munk, _Notice sur Abou'l Walid_ (Paris, 1851); W. Bacher,
_Leben und Werke des Abulwalid und die Quellen seiner
Schrifterklarung_ (Leipzig, 1885); id., _Aus der Schrifterklarung des
Abulwalid_ (Leipzig, 1889); id., _Die hebr.-arabische
Sprachvergleichung des Abulwalid_ (Vienna, 1884); id., _Die
hebraisch-neuhebraische und hebr.-aramaische Sprachvergleichung des
Abulwalid_ (Vienna, 1885). (W. Ba.)
JONAS, JUSTUS (1493-1555), German Protestant reformer, was born at
Nordhausen in Thuringia, on the 5th of June 1493. His real name was
Jodokus (Jobst) Koch, which he changed according to the common custom of
German scholars in the 16th century, when at the university of Erfurt.
He entered that university in 1506, studied law and the humanities, and
became Master of Arts in 1510. In 1511 he went to Wittenberg, where he
took his bachelor's degree in law. He returned to Erfurt in 1514 or
1515, was ordained priest, and in 1518 was promoted doctor in both
faculties and appointed to a well-endowed canonry in the church of St
Severus, to which a professorship of law was attached. His great
admiration for Erasmus first led him to Greek and biblical studies, and
his election in May 1519 as rector of the university was regarded as a
triumph for the partisans of the New Learning. It was not, however,
until after the Leipzig disputation with Eck that Luther won his
allegiance. He accompanied Luther to Worms in 1521, and there was
appointed by the elector of Saxony professor of canon law at Wittenberg.
During Luther's stay in the Wartburg Jonas was one of the most active of
the Wittenberg reformers. Giving himself up to preaching and polemics,
he aided the Reformation by his gift as a translator, turning Luther's
and Melanchthon's works into German or Latin as the case might be, thus
becoming a sort of double of both. He was busied in conferences and
visitations during the next twenty years, and in diplomatic work with
the princes. In 1541 he began a successful preaching crusade in Halle;
he became superintendent of its churches in 1542. In 1546 he was present
at Luther's deathbed at Eisleben, and preached the funeral sermon; but
in the same year was banished from the duchy by Maurice, duke (later
elector) of Saxony. From that time until his death, Jonas was unable to
secure a satisfactory living. He wandered from place to place preaching,
and finally went to Eisfeld (1553), where he died. He had been married
three times.
See _Briefswechsel des Justus Jonas, gesammelt und bearbeitet von G.
Kawerau_ (2 vols., Halle, 1884-1885); Kawerau's article in
Herzog-Hauck, _Realencyklopadie_, ed. 3, with bibliography.
JONATHAN (Heb. "Yah [weh] gives"). Of the many Jewish bearers of this
name, three are well known: (1) the grandson of Moses, who was priest at
Dan (Judg. xviii. 30). The reading Manasseh (see R.V. mg.; obtained by
inserting _n_ above the consonantal text in the Hebrew) is apparently
intended to suggest that he was the son of that idolatrous king. (2) The
eldest son of Saul, who, together with his father, freed Israel from the
crushing oppression of the Philistines (1 Sam. xiii. seq.). Both are
lauded in an elegy quoted from the Book of Jashar (2 Sam. i.) for their
warm mutual love, their heroism, and their labours on behalf of the
people. Jonathan's name is most familiar for the firm friendship which
subsisted between him and David (1 Sam. xviii. 1-4; xix. 1-7; xx., xxii.
8; xxiii. 16-18), and when he fell at the battle of Gilboa and left
behind him a young child (1 Sam. xxxi.; 2 Sam. iv. 4), David took charge
of the youth and gave him a place at his court (2 Sam. ix.). See further
DAVID, SAUL. (3) The Maccabee (see JEWS; MACCABEES).
JONCIERES, VICTORIN (1839-1903), French composer, was born in Paris on
the 12th of April 1839. He first devoted his attention to painting, but
afterwards took up the serious study of music. He entered the Paris
Conservatoire, but did not remain there long, because he had espoused
too warmly the cause of Wagner against his professor. He composed the
following operas: _Sardanapale_ (1867), _Le Dernier jour de Pompei_
(1869), _Dimitri_ (1876), _La Reine Berthe_ (1878), _Le Chevalier Jean_
(1885), _Lancelot_ (1900). He also wrote incidental music to _Hamlet_, a
symphony, and other works. Joncieres' admiration for Wagner asserted
itself rather in a musical than a dramatic sense. The influence of the
German master's earlier style can be traced in his operas. Joncieres,
however, adhered to the recognized forms of the French opera and did not
model his works according to the later developments of the Wagnerian
"music drama." He may indeed be said to have been at least as much
influenced by Gounod as by Wagner. From 1871 he was musical critic for
_La Liberte_. He died on the 26th of October 1903.
JONES, ALFRED GILPIN (1824-1906), Canadian politician, was born at
Weymouth, Nova Scotia, in September 1824, the son of Guy C. Jones of
Yarmouth, and grandson of a United Empire Loyalist. In 1865 he opposed
the federation of the British American provinces, and, in his anger at
the refusal of the British government to repeal such portions of the
British North America Act as referred to Nova Scotia, made a speech
which won for him the name of Haul-down-the-flag Jones. He was for many
years a member of the Federal Parliament, and for a few months in 1878
was minister of militia under the Liberal government. Largely owing to
his influence the Liberal party refused in 1878 to abandon its Free
Trade policy, an obstinacy which led to its defeat in that year. In 1900
he was appointed lieutenant-governor of his native province, and held
this position till his death on the 15th of March 1906.
JONES, SIR ALFRED LEWIS (1845-1909), British shipowner, was born in
Carmarthenshire, in 1845. At the age of twelve he was apprenticed to the
managers of the African Steamship Company at Liverpool, making several
voyages to the west coast of Africa. By the time he was twenty-six he
had risen to be manager of the business. Not finding sufficient scope in
this post, he borrowed money to purchase two or three small sailing
vessels, and started in the shipping business on his own account. The
venture succeeded, and he made additions to his fleet, but after a few
years' successful trading, realizing that sailing ships were about to be
superseded by steamers, he sold his vessels. About this time (1891)
Messrs. Elder, Dempster & Co., who purchased the business of the old
African Steamship Company, offered him a managerial post. This offer he
accepted, subject to Messrs. Elder, Dempster selling him a number of
their shares, and he thus acquired an interest in the business, and
subsequently, by further share purchases, its control. See further
STEAMSHIP LINES. In 1901 he was knighted. Sir Alfred Jones took a keen
interest in imperial affairs, and was instrumental in founding the
Liverpool school of tropical medicine. He acquired considerable
territorial interests in West Africa, and financial interests in many of
the companies engaged in opening up and developing that part of the
world. He also took the leading part in opening up a new line of
communication with the West Indies, and stimulating the Jamaica fruit
trade and tourist traffic. He died on the 13th of December 1909, leaving
large charitable bequests.
JONES, EBENEZER (1820-1860), British poet, was born in Islington,
London, on the 20th of January 1820. His father, who was of Welsh
extraction, was a strict Calvinist, and Ebenezer was educated at a dull,
middle-class school. The death of his father obliged him to become a
clerk in the office of a tea merchant. Shelley and Carlyle were his
spiritual masters, and he spent all his spare time in reading and
writing; but he developed an exaggerated style of thought and
expression, due partly to a defective education. The unkind reception of
his _Studies of Sensation and Event_ (1843) seemed to be the last drop
in his bitter cup of life. Baffled and disheartened, he destroyed his
manuscripts. He earned his living as an accountant and by literary hack
work, and it was not until he was rapidly dying of consumption that he
wrote his three remarkable poems, "Winter Hymn to the Snow," "When the
World is Burning" and "To Death." The fame that these and some of the
pieces in the early volume brought to their author came too late. He
died on the 14th of September 1860.
It was not till 1870 that Dante Gabriel Rossetti praised his work in
_Notes and Queries_. Rossetti's example was followed by W. B. Scott,
Theodore Watts-Dunton, who contributed some papers on the subject to
the _Athenaeum_ (September and October 1878), and R. H. Sheppard, who
edited _Studies of Sensation and Event_ in 1879.
JONES, ERNEST CHARLES (1819-1869), English Chartist, was born at Berlin
on the 25th of January 1819, and educated in Germany. His father, an
officer in the British army, was then equerry to the duke of
Cumberland--afterwards king of Hanover. In 1838 Jones came to England,
and in 1841 published anonymously _The Wood Spirit_, a romantic novel.
This was followed by some songs and poems. In 1844 he was called to the
bar at the Middle Temple. In 1845 he joined the Chartist agitation,
quickly becoming its most prominent figure, and vigorously carrying on
the party's campaign on the platform and in the press. His speeches, in
which he openly advocated physical force, led to his prosecution, and he
was sentenced in 1848 to two years' imprisonment for sedition. While in
prison he wrote, it is said in his own blood on leaves torn from a
prayer-book, _The Revolt of Hindostan_, an epic poem. On his release he
again became the leader of what remained of the Chartist party and
editor of its organ. But he was almost its only public speaker; he was
out of sympathy with the other leading Chartists, and soon joined the
advanced Radical party. Thenceforward he devoted himself to law and
literature, writing novels, tales and political songs. He made several
unsuccessful attempts to enter parliament, and was about to contest
Manchester, with the certainty of being returned, when he died there on
the 26th of January 1869. He is believed to have sacrificed a
considerable fortune rather than abandon his Chartist principles. His
wife was Jane Atherley; and his son, Llewellyn Atherley-Jones, K.C. (b.
1851), became a well-known barrister and Liberal member of parliament.
JONES, HENRY (1831-1899), English author, well known as a writer on
whist under his _nom de guerre_ "Cavendish," was born in London on the
2nd of November 1831, being the eldest son of Henry D. Jones, a medical
practitioner. He adopted his father's profession, established himself in
1852 and continued for sixteen years in practice in London. The father
was a keen devotee of whist, and under his eye the son became early in
life a good player. He was a member of several whist clubs, among them
the "Cavendish," and in 1862 appeared his _Principles of Whist, stated
and explained by_ "_Cavendish_," which was destined to become the
leading authority as to the practice of the game. This work was followed
by treatises on the laws of piquet and ecarte. "Cavendish" also wrote on
billiards, lawn tennis and croquet, and contributed articles on whist
and other games to the ninth edition of the _Encyclopaedia Britannica_.
"'Cavendish' was not a law-maker, but he codified and commented upon the
laws which had been made during many generations of card-playing." One
of the most noteworthy points in his character was the manner in which
he kept himself abreast of improvements in his favourite game. He died
on the 10th of February 1899.
JONES, HENRY ARTHUR (1851- ), English dramatist, was born at
Grandborough, Buckinghamshire, on the 28th of September 1851 the son of
Silvanus Jones, a farmer. He began to earn his living early, his spare
time being given to literary pursuits. He was twenty-seven before his
first piece, _Only Round the Corner_, was produced at the Exeter
Theatre, but within four years of his debut as a dramatist he scored a
great success by _The Silver King_ (November 1882), written with Henry
Herman, a melodrama produced by Wilson Barrett at the Princess's
Theatre. Its financial success enabled the author to write a play "to
please himself." _Saints and Sinners_ (1884), which ran for two hundred
nights, placed on the stage a picture of middle-class life and religion
in a country town, and the introduction of the religious element raised
considerable outcry. The author defended himself in an article published
in the _Nineteenth Century_ (January 1885), taking for his
starting-point a quotation from the preface to Moliere's _Tartuffe_. His
next serious piece was _The Middleman_ (1889), followed by _Judah_
(1890), both powerful plays, which established his reputation. Later
plays were _The Dancing Girl_ (1891), _The Crusaders_ (1891), _The
Bauble Shop_ (1893), _The Tempter_ (1893), _The Masqueraders_ (1894),
_The Case of Rebellious Susan_ (1894), _The Triumph of the Philistines_
(1895), _Michael and his Lost Angel_ (1896), _The Rogue's Comedy_
(1896), _The Physician_ (1897), _The Liars_ (1897), _Carnac Sahib_
(1899), _The Manoeuvres of Jane_ (1899), _The Lackeys' Carnival_ (1900),
_Mrs Dane's Defence_ (1900), _The Princess's Nose_ (1902), _Chance the
Idol_ (1902), _Whitewashing Julia_ (1903), _Joseph Entangled_ (1904),
_The Chevalier_ (1904), &c. A uniform edition of his plays began to be
issued in 1891; and his own views of dramatic art have been expressed
from time to time in lectures and essays, collected in 1895 as _The
Renascence of the English Drama_.
JONES, INIGO (1573-1651), English architect, sometimes called the
"English Palladio," the son of a cloth-worker, was born in London on the
15th of July 1573. It is stated that he was apprenticed to a joiner, but
at any rate his talent for drawing attracted the attention of Thomas
Howard, earl of Arundel (some say William, 3rd earl of Pembroke),
through whose help he went to study landscape-painting in Italy. His
preference soon transferred itself to architecture, and, following
chiefly the style of Palladio, he acquired at Venice such a reputation
that in 1604 he was invited by Christian IV. to Denmark, where he is
said to have designed the two great royal palaces of Rosenborg and
Frederiksborg. In the following year he accompanied Anne of Denmark to
the court of James I. of England, where, besides being appointed
architect to the queen and Prince Henry, he was employed in supplying
the designs and decorations of the court masques. After a second visit
to Italy in 1612, Jones was appointed surveyor-general of royal
buildings by James I., and was engaged to prepare designs for a new
palace at Whitehall. In 1620 he was employed by the king to investigate
the origin of Stonehenge, when he came to the absurd conclusion that it
had been a Roman temple. Shortly afterwards he was appointed one of the
commissioners for the repair of St Paul's, but the work was not begun
till 1633. Under Charles I. he enjoyed the same offices as under his
predecessor, and in the capacity of designer of the masques he came into
collision with Ben Jonson, who frequently made him the butt of his
satire. After the Civil War Jones was forced to pay heavy fines as a
courtier and malignant. He died in poverty on the 5th of July 1651.
A list of the principal buildings designed by Jones is given in
Dallaway's edition of Walpole's _Anecdotes of Painting_, and for an
estimate of him as an architect see Fergusson's _History of Modern
Architecture_. _The Architecture of Palladio_, in 4 books, by Inigo
Jones, appeared in 1715; _The Most Notable Antiquity of Great Britain,
called Stonehenge, restored by Inigo Jones_, in 1655 (ed. with memoir,
1725); the _Designs of Inigo Jones_, by W. Kent, in 1727; and _The
Designs of Inigo Jones_, by J. Ware, in 1757. See also G. H. Birch,
_London Churches of the XVIIth and XVIIIth Centuries_ (1896); W. J.
Loftie, _Inigo Jones and Wren, or the Rise and Decline of Modern
Architecture in England_ (1893).
JONES, JOHN (c. 1800-1882), English art collector, was born about 1800
in or near London. He was apprenticed to a tailor, and about 1825 opened
a shop of his own in the west-end of London. In 1850 he was able to
retire from active management with a large fortune. When quite a young
man he had begun to collect articles of _vertu_. The rooms over his shop
in which he at first lived were soon crowded, and even the bedrooms of
his new house in Piccadilly were filled with art treasures. His
collection was valued at approximately L250,000. Jones died in London on
the 7th of January 1882, leaving his pictures, furniture and objects of
art to the South Kensington Museum.
A _Catalogue of the Jones Bequest_ was published by the Museum in
1882, and a _Handbook_, with memoir, in 1883.
JONES, JOHN PAUL (1747-1792), American naval officer, was born on the
6th of July 1747, on the estate of Arbigland, in the parish of Kirkbean
and the stewartry of Kirkcudbright, Scotland. His father, John Paul, was
gardener to Robert Craik, a member of parliament; and his mother, Jean
Macduff, was the daughter of a Highlander. Young John Paul, at the age
of twelve, became shipmaster's apprentice to a merchant of Whitehaven,
named Younger. At seventeen he shipped as second mate and in the next
year as first mate in one of his master's vessels; on being released
from his indentures, he acquired an interest in a ship, and as first
mate made two voyages between Jamaica and the Guinea coast, trading in
slaves. Becoming dissatisfied with this kind of employment, he sold his
share in the ship and embarked for England. During the voyage both the
captain and the mate died of fever, and John Paul took command and
brought the ship safely to port. The owners gave him and the crew 10% of
the cargo; after 1768, as captain of one of their merchantmen, John Paul
made several voyages to America; but for unknown reasons he suddenly
gave up his command to live in America in poverty and obscurity until
1775. During this period he assumed the name of Jones, apparently out of
regard for Willie Jones, a wealthy planter and prominent political
leader of North Carolina, who had befriended John Paul in his days of
poverty.
When war broke out between England and her American colonies, John Paul
Jones was commissioned as a first lieutenant by the Continental
Congress, on the 22nd of December 1775. In 1776 he participated in the
unsuccessful attack on the island of New Providence, and as commander
first of the "Providence" and then of the "Alfred" he cruised between
Bermuda and Nova Scotia, inflicting much damage on British shipping and
fisheries. On the 10th of October 1776 he was promoted captain. On the
1st of November 1777 he sailed in the sloop-of-war "Ranger" for France
with despatches for the American commissioners, announcing the surrender
of Burgoyne and asking that Jones should be supplied with a swift
frigate for harassing the coasts of England. Failing to secure a
frigate, Jones sailed from Brest in the "Ranger" on the 10th of April
1778. A few days later he surprised the garrisons of the two forts
commanding the harbour of Whitehaven, a port with which he was familiar
from boyhood, spiked the guns and made an unsuccessful attempt to fire
the shipping. Four days thereafter he encountered the British
sloop-of-war "Drake," a vessel slightly superior to his in fighting
capacity, and after an hour's engagement the British ship struck her
colours and was taken to Brest. By this exploit Jones became a great
hero in the eyes of the French, just beginning a war with Great Britain.
With the rank of commodore he was now put at the head of a squadron of
five ships. His flagship, the "Duras," a re-fitted East Indiaman, was
re-named by him the "Bonhomme Richard," as a compliment to Benjamin
Franklin, whose _Poor Richard's Almanac_ was then popular in France. On
the 14th of August the five ships sailed from L'Orient, accompanied by
two French privateers. Several of the French commanders under Jones
proved insubordinate, and the privateers and three of the men-of-war
soon deserted him. With the others, however, he continued to take
prizes, and even planned to attack the port of Leith, but was prevented
by unfavourable winds. On the evening of the 23rd of September the three
men-of-war sighted two British men-of-war, the "Serapis" and the
"Countess of Scarbrough," off Flamborough Head. The "Alliance,"
commanded by Captain Landais, made off, leaving the "Bonhomme Richard"
and the "Pallas" to engage the Englishmen. Jones engaged the greatly
superior "Serapis," and after a desperate battle of three and a half
hours compelled the English ship to surrender. The "Countess of
Scarbrough" had meanwhile struck to the more formidable "Pallas." Jones
transferred his men and supplies to the "Serapis," and the next day the
"Bonhomme Richard" sank.
During the following year Jones spent much of his time in Paris. Louis
XVI. gave him a gold-hilted sword and the royal order of military merit,
and made him chevalier of France. Early in 1781 Jones returned to
America to secure a new command. Congress offered him the command of the
"America," a frigate then building, but the vessel was shortly
afterwards given to France. In November 1783 he was sent to Paris as
agent for the prizes captured in European waters under his own command,
and although he gave much attention to social affairs and engaged in
several private business enterprises, he was very successful in
collecting the prize money. Early in 1787 he returned to America and
received a gold medal from Congress in recognition of his services.
In 1788 Jones entered the service of the empress Catherine of Russia,
avowing his intention, however, "to preserve the condition of an
American citizen and officer." As a rear-admiral he took part in the
naval campaign in the Liman (an arm of the Black Sea, into which flow
the Bug and Dnieper rivers) against the Turks, but the jealous intrigues
of Russian officers caused him to be recalled to St Petersburg for the
pretended purpose of being transferred to a command in the North Sea.
Here he was compelled to remain in idleness, while rival officers
plotted against him and even maliciously assailed his private character.
In August 1789 he left St Petersburg a bitterly disappointed man. In May
1790 he arrived in Paris, where he remained in retirement during the
rest of his life, although he made several efforts to re-enter the
Russian service.
Undue exertion and exposure had wasted his strength before he reached
the prime of life, and after an illness, in which he was attended by the
queen's physician, he died on the 18th of July 1792. His body was
interred in the St Louis cemetery for foreign Protestants, the funeral
expenses being paid from the private purse of Pierrot Francois
Simmoneau, the king's commissary. In the confusion during the following
years the burial place of Paul Jones was forgotten; but in June 1899
General Horace Porter, American ambassador to France, began a systematic
search for the body, and after excavations on the site of the old
Protestant cemetery, now covered with houses, a leaden coffin was
discovered, which contained the body in a remarkable state of
preservation. In July 1905 a fleet of American war-ships carried the
body to Annapolis, where it now rests in one of the buildings of the
naval academy.
Jones was a seaman of great bravery and technical ability, but
over-jealous of his reputation and inclined to be querulous and
boastful. The charges by the English that he was a pirate were
particularly galling to him. Although of unprepossessing appearance, 5
ft. 7 in. in height and slightly round-shouldered, he was noted for his
pleasant manners and was welcomed into the most brilliant courts of
Europe.
Romance has played with the memory of Paul Jones to such an extent
that few accounts of his life are correct. Of the early biographies
the best are Sherburne's (London, 1825), chiefly a collection of
Jones's correspondence; the _Janette-Taylor Collection_ (New York,
1830), containing numerous extracts from his letters and journals; and
the life by A. S. MacKenzie (2 vols., New York, 1846). In recent years
a number of new biographies have appeared, including A. C. Buell's (2
vols., 1900), the trustworthiness of which has been discredited, and
Hutchins Hapgood's in the Riverside Biographical Series (1901). The
life by Cyrus Townsend Brady in the "Great Commanders Series" (1900)
is perhaps the best.
JONES, MICHAEL (d. 1649), British soldier. His father was bishop of
Killaloe in Ireland. At the outbreak of the English Civil War he was
studying law, but he soon took service in the army of the king in
Ireland. He was present with Ormonde's army in many of the expeditions
and combats of the devastating Irish War, but upon the conclusion of the
"Irish Cessation" (see ORMONDE, JAMES BUTLER, DUKE OF) he resolved to
leave the king's service for that of the parliament, in which he soon
distinguished himself by his activity and skill. In the Welsh War, and
especially at the last great victory at Rowton Heath, Jones's cavalry
was always far superior to that of the Royalists, and in reward for his
services he was made governor of Chester when that city fell into the
hands of the parliament. Soon afterwards Jones was sent again to the
Irish War, in the capacity of commander-in-chief. He began his work by
reorganizing the army in the neighbourhood of Dublin, and for some time
he carried on a desultory war of posts, necessarily more concerned for
his supplies than for a victory. But at Dungan Hill he obtained a
complete success over the army of General Preston, and though the war
was by no means ended, Jones was able to hold a large tract of country
for the parliament. But on the execution of Charles I., the war entered
upon a new phase, and garrison after garrison fell to Ormonde's
Royalists. Soon Jones was shut up in Dublin, and then followed a siege
which was regarded both in England and Ireland with the most intense
interest. On the 2nd of August 1649 the Dublin garrison relieved itself
by the brilliant action of Rathmines, in which the royal army was
practically destroyed. A fortnight later Cromwell landed with heavy
reinforcements from England. Jones, his lieutenant-general, took the
field; but on the 19th of December 1649 he died, worn out by the
fatigues of the campaign.
JONES, OWEN (1741-1814), Welsh antiquary, was born on the 3rd of
September 1741 at Llanvihangel Glyn y Myvyr in Denbighshire. In 1760 he
entered the service of a London firm of furriers, to whose business he
ultimately succeeded. He had from boyhood studied Welsh literature, and
later devoted time and money to its collection. Assisted by Edward
William of Glamorgan (Iolo Morganwg) and Dr. Owen Pughe, he published,
at a cost of more than L1000, the well-known _Myvyrian Archaiology of
Wales_ (1801-1807), a collection of pieces dating from the 6th to the
14th century. The manuscripts which he had brought together are
deposited in the British Museum; the material not utilized in the
_Myvyrian Archaiology_ amounts to 100 volumes, containing 16,000 pages
of verse and 15,300 pages of prose. Jones was the founder of the
Gwyneddigion Society (1772) in London for the encouragement of Welsh
studies and literature; and he began in 1805 a miscellany--the
_Greal_--of which only one volume appeared. An edition of the poems of
_Davydd ab Gwilym_ was also issued at his expense. He died on the 26th
of December 1814 at his business premises in Upper Thames Street,
London.
JONES, OWEN (1809-1874), British architect and art decorator, son of
Owen Jones, a Welsh antiquary, was born in London. After an
apprenticeship of six years in an architect's office, he travelled for
four years in Italy, Greece, Turkey, Egypt and Spain, making a special
study of the Alhambra. On his return to England in 1836 he busied
himself in his professional work. His forte was interior decoration, for
which his formula was: "Form without colour is like a body without a
soul." He was one of the superintendents of works for the Exhibition of
1851 and was responsible for the general decoration of the Crystal
Palace at Sydenham. Along with Digby Wyatt, Jones collected the casts of
works of art with which the palace was filled. He died in London on the
19th of April 1874.
Owen Jones was described in the _Builder_ for 1874 as "the most potent
apostle of colour that architectural England has had in these days."
His range of activity is to be traced in his works: _Plans, Elevations
and Details of the Alhambra_ (1835-1845), in which he was assisted by
MM. Goury and Gayangos; _Designs for Mosaic and Tesselated Pavements_
(1842); _Polychromatic Ornament of Italy_ (1845); _An Attempt to
Define the Principles which regulate the Employment of Colour in
Decorative Arts_ (1852); _Handbook to the Alhambra Court_ (1854);
_Grammar of Ornament_ (1856), a very important work; _One Thousand and
One Initial Letters_ (1864); _Seven Hundred and Two Monograms_ (1864);
and _Examples of Chinese Ornament_ (1867).
JONES, RICHARD (1790-1855), English economist, was born at Tunbridge
Wells. The son of a solicitor, he was intended for the legal profession,
and was educated at Caius College, Cambridge. Owing to ill-health, he
abandoned the idea of the law and took orders soon after leaving
Cambridge. For several years he held curacies in Sussex and Kent. In
1833 he was appointed professor of political economy at King's College,
London, resigning this post in 1835 to succeed T. R. Malthus in the
chair of political economy and history at the East India College at
Haileybury. He took an active part in the commutation of tithes in 1836
and showed great ability as a tithe commissioner, an office which he
filled till 1851. He was for some time, also, a charity commissioner. He
died at Haileybury, shortly after he had resigned his professorship, on
the 26th of January 1855. In 1831 Jones published his _Essay on the
Distribution of Wealth and on the Sources of Taxation_, his most
important work. In it he showed himself a thorough-going critic of the
Ricardian system.
Jones's method is inductive; his conclusions are founded on a wide
observation of contemporary facts, aided by the study of history. The
world he professed to study was not an imaginary world, inhabited by
abstract "economic men," but the real world with the different forms
which the ownership and cultivation of land, and, in general, the
conditions of production and distribution, assume at different times
and places. His recognition of such different systems of life in
communities occupying different stages in the progress of civilization
led to his proposal of what he called a "political economy of
nations." This was a protest against the practice of taking the
exceptional state of facts which exists, and is indeed only partially
realized, in a small corner of our planet as representing the uniform
type of human societies, and ignoring the effects of the early history
and special development of each community as influencing its economic
phenomena. Jones is remarkable for his freedom from exaggeration and
one-sided statement; thus, whilst holding Malthus in, perhaps, undue
esteem, he declines to accept the proposition that an increase of the
means of subsistence is necessarily followed by an increase of
population; and he maintains what is undoubtedly true, that with the
growth of population, in all well-governed and prosperous states, the
command over food, instead of diminishing, increases.
A collected edition of Jones's works, with a preface by W. Whewell,
was published in 1859.
JONES, THOMAS RUPERT (1819- ), English geologist and palaeontologist,
was born in London on the 1st of October 1819. While at a private school
at Ilminster, his attention was attracted to geology by the fossils that
are so abundant in the Lias quarries. In 1835 he was apprenticed to a
surgeon at Taunton, and he completed his apprenticeship in 1842 at
Newbury in Berkshire. He was then engaged in practice mainly in London,
till in 1849 he was appointed assistant secretary to the Geological
Society of London. In 1862 he was made professor of geology at the Royal
Military College, Sandhurst. Having devoted his especial attention to
fossil microzoa, he now became the highest authority in England on the
Foraminifera and Entomostraca. He edited the 2nd edition of Mantell's
_Medals of Creation_ (1854), the 3rd edition of Mantell's _Geological
Excursions round the Isle of Wight_ (1854), and the 7th edition of
Mantell's _Wonders of Geology_ (1857); he also edited the 2nd edition of
Dixon's _Geology of Sussex_ (1878). He was elected F.R.S. in 1872 and
was awarded the Lyell medal by the Geological Society in 1890. For many
years he was specially interested in the geology of South Africa.
His publications include _A Monograph of the Entomostraca of the
Cretaceous Formation of England_ (Palaeontograph. Soc., 1849); _A
Monograph of the Tertiary Entomostraca of England_ (ibid. 1857); _A
Monograph of the Fossil Estheriae_ (ibid. 1862); _A Monograph of the
Foraminifera of the Crag_ (ibid. 1866, &c., with H. B. Brady); and
numerous articles in the _Annals and Magazine of Natural History_, the
_Geological Magazine_, the _Proceedings of the Geologists'
Association_, and other journals.
JONES, WILLIAM (1726-1800), English divine, was born at Lowick, in
Northamptonshire on the 30th of July 1726. He was descended from an old
Welsh family and one of his progenitors was Colonel John Jones,
brother-in-law of Cromwell. He was educated at Charterhouse School, and
at University College, Oxford. There a kindred taste for music, as well
as a similarity in regard to other points of character, led to his close
intimacy with George Horne (q.v.), afterwards bishop of Norwich, whom he
induced to study Hutchinsonian doctrines. After obtaining his bachelor's
degree in 1749, Jones held various preferments. In 1777 he obtained the
perpetual curacy of Nayland, Suffolk, and on Horne's appointment to
Norwich became his chaplain, afterwards writing his life. His vicarage
became the centre of a High Church coterie, and Jones himself was a link
between the non-jurors and the Oxford movement. He could write
intelligibly on abstruse topics. He died on the 6th of January 1800.
In 1756 Jones published his tractate _On the Catholic Doctrine of the
Trinity_, a statement of the doctrine from the Hutchinsonian point of
view, with a succinct and able summary of biblical proofs. This was
followed in 1762 by an _Essay on the First Principles of Natural
Philosophy_, in which he maintained the theories of Hutchinson in
opposition to those of Sir Isaac Newton, and in 1781 he dealt with the
same subject in _Physiological Disquisitions_. Jones was also the
originator of the _British Critic_ (May 1793). His collected works,
with a life by William Stevens, appeared in 1801, in 12 vols., and
were condensed into 6 vols. in 1810. A life of Jones, forming pt. 5 of
the _Biography of English Divines_, was published in 1849.
JONES, SIR WILLIAM (1746-1794), British Orientalist and jurist, was born
in London on the 28th of September 1746. He distinguished himself at
Harrow, and during his last three years there applied himself to the
study of Oriental languages, teaching himself the rudiments of Arabic,
and reading Hebrew with tolerable ease. In his vacations he improved his
acquaintance with French and Italian. In 1764 Jones entered University
College, Oxford, where he continued to study Oriental literature, and
perfected himself in Persian and Arabic by the aid of a Syrian Mirza,
whom he had discovered and brought from London. He added to his
knowledge of Hebrew and made considerable progress in Italian, Spanish
and Portuguese. He began the study of Chinese, and made himself master
of the radical characters of that language. During five years he partly
supported himself by acting as tutor to Lord Althorpe, afterwards the
second Earl Spencer, and in 1766 he obtained a fellowship. Though but
twenty-two years of age, he was already becoming famous as an
Orientalist, and when Christian VII. of Denmark visited England in 1768,
bringing with him a life of Nadir Shah in Persian, Jones was requested
to translate the MS. into French. The translation appeared in 1770, with
an introduction containing a description of Asia and a short history of
Persia. This was followed in the same year by a _Traite sur la poesie
orientale_, and by a French metrical translation of the odes of Hafiz.
In 1771 he published a _Dissertation sur la litterature orientale_,
defending Oxford scholars against the criticisms made by Anquetil Du
Perron in the introduction to his translation of the _Zend-Avesta_. In
the same year appeared his _Grammar of the Persian Language_. In 1772
Jones published a volume of _Poems, Chiefly Translations from Asiatick
Languages, together with Two Essays on the Poetry of Eastern Nations and
on the Arts commonly called Imitative_, and in 1774 a treatise entitled
_Poeseos Asiaticae commentatorium libri sex_, which definitely confirmed
his authority as an Oriental scholar.
Finding that some more financially profitable occupation was necessary,
Jones devoted himself with his customary energy to the study of the law,
and was called to the bar at the Middle Temple in 1774. He studied not
merely the technicalities, but the philosophy, of law, and within two
years had acquired so considerable a reputation that he was in 1776
appointed commissioner in bankruptcy. Besides writing an _Essay on the
Law of Bailments_, which enjoyed a high reputation both in England and
America, Jones translated, in 1778, the speeches of Isaeus on the
Athenian right of inheritance. In 1780 he was a parliamentary candidate
for the university of Oxford, but withdrew from the contest before the
day of election, as he found he had no chance of success owing to his
Liberal opinions, especially on the questions of the American War and of
the slave trade.
In 1783 was published his translation of the seven ancient Arabic poems
called _Moallakat_. In the same year he was appointed judge of the
supreme court of judicature at Calcutta, then "Fort William," and was
knighted. Shortly after his arrival in India he founded, in January
1784, the Bengal Asiatic Society, of which he remained president till
his death. Convinced as he was of the great importance of consulting the
Hindu legal authorities in the original, he at once began the study of
Sanskrit, and undertook, in 1788, the colossal task of compiling a
digest of Hindu and Mahommedan law. This he did not live to complete,
but he published the admirable beginnings of it in his _Institutes of
Hindu Law, or the Ordinances of Manu_ (1794); his _Mohammedan Law of
Succession to Property of Intestates_; and his _Mohammedan Law of
Inheritance_ (1792). In 1789 Jones had completed his translation of
Kalidasa's most famous drama, _Sakuntala_. He also translated the
collection of fables entitled the _Hitopadesa_, the _Gitagovinda_, and
considerable portions of the Vedas, besides editing the text of
Kalidasa's poem _Ritusamhara_. He was a large contributor also to his
society's volumes of _Asiatic Researches_.
His unremitting literary labours, together with his heavy judicial work,
told on his health after a ten years' residence in Bengal; and he died
at Calcutta on the 27th of April 1794. An extraordinary linguist,
knowing thirteen languages well, and having a moderate acquaintance with
twenty-eight others, his range of knowledge was enormous. As a pioneer
in Sanskrit learning and as founder of the Asiatic Society he rendered
the language and literature of the ancient Hindus accessible to European
scholars, and thus became the indirect cause of later achievements in
the field of Sanskrit and comparative philology. A monument to his
memory was erected by the East India Company in St Paul's, London, and a
statue in Calcutta.
See the _Memoir_ (1804) by Lord Teignmouth, published in the collected
edition of Sir W. Jones's works.
JONKOPING, a town of Sweden, capital of the district (_lan_) of
Jonkoping, 230 m. S.W. of Stockholm by rail. Pop. (1900), 23,143. It
occupies a beautiful but somewhat unhealthy position between the
southern end of Lake Vetter and two small lakes, Roksjo and Munksjo. Two
quarters of the town, Svenska Mad and Tyska Mad, recall the time when
the site was a marsh (_mad_), and buildings were constructed on piles.
The residential suburbs among the hills, especially Dunkehallar, are
attractive and healthier than the town. The church of St Kristine (c.
1650), the court-houses, town-hall, government buildings, and high
school, are noteworthy. The town is one of the leading industrial
centres in Sweden. The match manufacture, for which it is principally
famous, was founded by Johan Edvard Lundstrom in 1844. The well-known
brand of _sakerhets-tandstickor_ (safety-matches) was introduced later.
There are also textile manufactures, paper-factories (on Munksjo), and
mechanical works. There is a large fire-arms factory at Huskvarna, 5 m.
E. Water-power is supplied here by a fine series of falls. The hill
Taberg, 8 m. S., is a mass of magnetic iron ore, rising 410 ft. above
the surrounding country, 2950 ft. long and 1475 ft. broad, but the
percentage of iron is low as compared with the rich ores of other parts,
and the deposit is little worked. Jonkoping is the seat of one of the
three courts of appeal in Sweden.
Jonkoping received the earliest extant Swedish charter in 1284 from
Magnus I. The castle is mentioned in 1263, when Waldemar Birgersson
married the Danish princess Sophia. Jonkoping was afterwards the scene
of many events of moment in Scandinavian history--of parliaments in
1357, 1439, and 1599; of the meeting of the Danish and Swedish
plenipotentiaries in 1448; and of the death of Sten Sture, the elder, in
1503. In 1612 Gustavus Adolphus caused the inhabitants to destroy their
town lest it should fall into the hands of the Danes; but it was rebuilt
soon after, and in 1620 received special privileges from the king. At
this period a textile industry was started here, the first of any
importance in Sweden. It was from the Dutch and German workmen,
introduced at this time, that the quarter Tyska Mad received its name.
On the 10th of December 1809 the plenipotentiaries of Sweden and Denmark
concluded peace in the town.
JONSON, BEN[1] (1573-1637), English dramatist, was born, probably in
Westminster, in the beginning of the year 1573 (or possibly, if he
reckoned by the unadopted modern calendar, 1572; see Castelain, p. 4,
note 1). By the poet's account his grandfather had been a gentleman who
"came from" Carlisle, and originally, the grandson thought, from
Annandale. His arms, "three spindles or rhombi," are the family device
of the Johnstones of Annandale, a fact which confirms his assertion of
Border descent. Ben Jonson further related that he was born a month
after the death of his father, who, after suffering in estate and person
under Queen Mary, had in the end "turned minister." Two years after the
birth of her son the widow married again; she may be supposed to have
loved him in a passionate way peculiar to herself, since on one occasion
we find her revealing an almost ferocious determination to save his
honour at the cost of both his life and her own. Jonson's stepfather was
a master bricklayer, living in Hartshorn Lane, near Charing Cross, who
provided his stepson with the foundations of a good education. After
attending a private school in St Martin's Lane, the boy was sent to
Westminster School at the expense, it is said, of William Camden.
Jonson's gratitude for an education to which in truth he owed an almost
inestimable debt concentrated itself upon the "most reverend head" of
his benefactor, then second and afterwards head master of the famous
school, and the firm friend of his pupil in later life.
After reaching the highest form at Westminster, Jonson is stated, but on
unsatisfactory evidence, to have proceeded to Cambridge--according to
Fuller, to St John's College. (For reasons in support of the tradition
that he was a member of St John's College, see J. B. Mullinger, the
_Eagle_, No. xxv.) He says, however, himself that he studied at neither
university, but was put to a trade immediately on leaving school. He
soon had enough of the trade, which was no doubt his father's
bricklaying, for Henslowe in writing to Edward Alleyne of his affair
with Gabriel Spenser calls him "bergemen [_sic_] Jonson, bricklayer."
Either before or after his marriage--more probably before, as Sir
Francis Vere's three English regiments were not removed from the Low
Countries till 1592--he spent some time in that country soldiering, much
to his own subsequent satisfaction when the days of self-conscious
retrospect arrived, but to no further purpose beyond that of seeing
something of the world.
Ben Jonson married not later than 1592. The registers of St Martin's
Church state that his eldest daughter Maria died in November 1593 when
she was, Jonson tells us (epigram 22), only six months old. His eldest
son Benjamin died of the plague ten years later (epigram 45). (A
younger Benjamin died in 1635.) His wife Jonson characterized to
Drummond as "a shrew, but honest"; and for a period (undated) of five
years he preferred to live without her, enjoying the hospitality of Lord
Aubigny (afterwards duke of Lennox). Long burnings of oil among his
books, and long spells of recreation at the tavern, such as Jonson
loved, are not the most favoured accompaniments of family life. But
Jonson was no stranger to the tenderest of affections: two at least of
the several children whom his wife bore to him he commemorated in
touching little tributes of verse; nor in speaking of his lost eldest
daughter did he forget "her mother's tears." By the middle of 1597 we
come across further documentary evidence of him at home in London in the
shape of an entry in Philip Henslowe's diary (July 28) of 3s. 6d.
"received of Bengemenes Johnsones share." He was therefore by this
time--when Shakespeare, his senior by nearly nine years, was already in
prosperous circumstances and good esteem--at least a regular member of
the acting profession, with a fixed engagement in the lord admiral's
company, then performing under Henslowe's management at the Rose.
Perhaps he had previously acted at the Curtain (a former house of the
lord admiral's men), and "taken mad Jeronimo's part" on a play-wagon in
the highway. This latter appearance, if it ever took place, would, as
was pointed out by Gifford, probably have been in Thomas Kyd's _Spanish
Tragedy_, since in _The First Part of Jeronimo_ Jonson would have had,
most inappropriately, to dwell on the "smallness" of his "bulk." He was
at a subsequent date (1601) employed by Henslowe to write up _The
Spanish Tragedy_, and this fact may have given rise to Wood's story of
his performance as a stroller (see, however, Fleay, _The English Drama_,
ii. 29, 30). Jonson's additions, which were not the first changes made
in the play, are usually supposed to be those printed with _The Spanish
Tragedy_ in the edition of 1602; Charles Lamb's doubts on the subject,
which were shared by Coleridge, seem an instance of that subjective kind
of criticism which it is unsafe to follow when the external evidence to
the contrary is so strong.
According to Aubrey, whose statement must be taken for what it is worth,
"Jonson was never a good actor, but an excellent instructor." His
physique was certainly not well adapted to the histrionic conditions of
his--perhaps of any--day; but, in any case, it was not long before he
found his place in the organism of his company. In 1597, as we know from
Henslowe, Jonson undertook to write a play for the lord admiral's men;
and in the following year he was mentioned by Meres in his _Palladis
Tamia_ as one of "the best for tragedy," without any reference to a
connexion on his part with the other branch of the drama. Whether this
was a criticism based on material evidence or an unconscious slip, Ben
Jonson in the same year 1598 produced one of the most famous of English
comedies, _Every Man in his Humour_, which was first acted--probably in
the earlier part of September--by the lord chamberlain's company at the
Curtain. Shakespeare was one of the actors in Jonson's comedy, and it is
in the character of Old Knowell in this very play that, according to a
bold but ingenious guess, he is represented in the half-length portrait
of him in the folio of 1623, beneath which were printed Jonson's lines
concerning the picture. _Every Man in his Humour_ was published in 1601;
the critical prologue first appears in the folio of 1616, and there are
other divergences (see Castelain, appendix A). After the Restoration the
play was revived in 1751 by Garrick (who acted Kitely) with alterations,
and long continued to be known on the stage. It was followed in the same
year by _The Case is Altered_, acted by the children of the queen's
revels, which contains a satirical attack upon the pageant poet, Anthony
Munday. This comedy, which was not included in the folio editions, is
one of intrigue rather than of character; it contains obvious
reminiscences of Shylock and his daughter. The earlier of these two
comedies was indisputably successful.
Before the year 1598 was out, however, Jonson found himself in prison
and in danger of the gallows. In a duel, fought on the 22nd of September
in Hogsden Fields, he had killed an actor of Henslowe's company named
Gabriel Spenser. The quarrel with Henslowe consequent on this event may
account for the production of _Every Man in his Humour_ by the rival
company. In prison Jonson was visited by a Roman Catholic priest, and
the result (certainly strange, if Jonson's parentage is considered) was
his conversion to the Church of Rome, to which he adhered for twelve
years. Jonson was afterwards a diligent student of divinity; but, though
his mind was religious, it is not probable that its natural bias much
inclined it to dwell upon creeds and their controversies. He pleaded
guilty to the charge brought against him, as the rolls of Middlesex
sessions show; but, after a short imprisonment, he was released by
benefit of clergy, forfeiting his "goods and chattels," and being
branded on his left thumb. The affair does not seem to have affected his
reputation; in 1599 he is found back again at work for Henslowe,
receiving together with Dekker, Chettle and "another gentleman,"
earnest-money for a tragedy (undiscovered) called _Robert II., King of
Scots_. In the same year he brought out through the lord chamberlain's
company (possibly already at the Globe, then newly built or building)
the elaborate comedy of _Every Man out of his Humour_ (quarto 1600; fol.
1616)--a play subsequently presented before Queen Elizabeth. The
sunshine of court favour, rarely diffused during her reign in rays
otherwise than figuratively golden, was not to bring any material
comfort to the most learned of her dramatists, before there was laid
upon her the inevitable hand of which his courtly epilogue had besought
death to forget the use. Indeed, of his _Cynthia's Revels_, performed by
the chapel children in 1600 and printed with the first title of _The
Fountain of Self-Love_ in 1601, though it was no doubt primarily
designed as a compliment to the queen, the most marked result had been
to offend two playwrights of note--Dekker, with whom he had formerly
worked in company, and who had a healthy if rough grip of his own; and
Marston, who was perhaps less dangerous by his strength than by his
versatility. According to Jonson, his quarrel with Marston had begun by
the latter attacking his morals, and in the course of it they came to
blows, and might have come to worse. In _Cynthia's Revels_, Dekker is
generally held to be satirized as Hedon, and Marston as Anaides (Fleay,
however, thinks Anaides is Dekker, and Hedon Daniel), while the
character of Crites most assuredly has some features of Jonson himself.
Learning the intention of the two writers whom he had satirized, or at
all events of Dekker, to wreak literary vengeance upon him, he
anticipated them in _The Poetaster_ (1601), again played by the children
of the queen's chapel at the Blackfriars and printed in 1602; Marston
and Dekker are here ridiculed respectively as the aristocratic Crispinus
and the vulgar Demetrius. The play was completed fifteen weeks after its
plot was first conceived. It is not certain to what the proceedings
against author and play before the lord chief justice, referred to in
the dedication of the edition of 1616, had reference, or when they were
instituted. Fleay's supposition that the "purge," said in the _Returne
from Parnassus_ (Pt. II. act iv. sc. iii.) to have been administered by
Shakespeare to Jonson in return for Horace's "pill to the poets" in this
piece, consisted of _Troilus and Cressida_ is supremely ingenious, but
cannot be examined here. As for Dekker, he retaliated on _The Poetaster_
by the _Satiromastix, or The Untrussing of the Humorous Poet_ (1602).
Some more last words were indeed attempted on Jonson's part, but in the
_Apologetic Dialogue_ added to _The Poetaster_ in the edition of 1616,
though excluded from that of 1602, he says he intends to turn his
attention to tragedy. This intention he apparently carried out
immediately, for in 1602 he received L10 from Henslowe for a play,
entitled _Richard Crookbacke_, now lost--unfortunately so, for purposes
of comparison in particular, even if it was only, as Fleay conjectures,
"an alteration of Marlowe's play." According to a statement by Overbury,
early in 1603, "Ben Johnson, the poet, now lives upon one Townesend,"
supposed to have been the poet and masque-writer Aurelian Townshend, at
one time steward to the 1st earl of Salisbury, "and scornes the world."
To his other early patron, Lord Aubigny, Jonson dedicated the first of
his two extant tragedies, _Sejanus_, produced by the king's servants at
the Globe late in 1603, Shakespeare once more taking a part in the
performance. Either on its performance or on its appearing in print in
1605, Jonson was called before the privy council by the Earl of
Northampton. But it is open to question whether this was the occasion on
which, according to Jonson's statement to Drummond, Northampton "accused
him both of popery and treason" (see Castelain, Appendix C). Though, for
one reason or another, unsuccessful at first, the endurance of its
reputation is attested by its performance, in a German version by an
Englishman, John Michael Girish, at the court of the grandson of James
I. at Heidelberg.
When the reign of James I. opened in England and an adulatory loyalty
seemed intent on showing that it had not exhausted itself at the feet of
Gloriana, Jonson's well-stored brain and ready pen had their share in
devising and executing ingenious variations on the theme "Welcome--since
we cannot do without thee!" With extraordinary promptitude his genius,
which, far from being "ponderous" in its operations, was singularly
swift and flexible in adapting itself to the demands made upon it, met
the new taste for masques and entertainments--new of course in degree
rather than in kind--introduced with the new reign and fostered by both
the king and his consort. The pageant which on the 7th of May 1603 bade
the king welcome to a capital dissolved in joy was partly of Jonson's,
partly of Dekker's, devising; and he was able to deepen and diversify
the impression by the composition of masques presented to James I. when
entertained at houses of the nobility. _The Satyr_ (1603) was produced
on one of these occasions, Queen Anne's sojourn at Althorpe, the seat of
Sir Robert Spencer, afterwards Lord Althorpe, who seems to have
previously bestowed some patronage upon him. _The Penates_ followed on
May-day 1604 at the house of Sir William Cornwallis at Highgate, and the
queen herself with her ladies played his _Masque of Blackness_ at
Whitehall in 1605. He was soon occasionally employed by the court
itself--already in 1606 in conjunction with Inigo Jones, as responsible
for the "painting and carpentry"--and thus speedily showed himself
master in a species of composition for which, more than any other
English poet before Milton, he secured an enduring place in the national
poetic literature. Personally, no doubt, he derived considerable
material benefit from the new fashion--more especially if his statement
to Drummond was anything like correct, that out of his plays (which may
be presumed to mean his original plays) he had never gained a couple of
hundred pounds.
Good humour seems to have come back with good fortune. Joint employment
in _The King's Entertainment_ (1604) had reconciled him with Dekker; and
with Marston also, who in 1604 dedicated to him his _Malcontent_, he was
again on pleasant terms. When, therefore, in 1604 Marston and Chapman
(who, Jonson told Drummond, was loved of him, and whom he had probably
honoured as "Virgil" in _The Poetaster_, and who has, though on doubtful
grounds, been supposed to have collaborated in the original _Sejanus_)
produced the excellent comedy of _Eastward Ho_, it appears to have
contained some contributions by Jonson. At all events, when the authors
were arrested on account of one or more passages in the play which were
deemed insulting to the Scots, he "voluntarily imprisoned himself" with
them. They were soon released, and a banquet at his expense, attended by
Camden and Selden, terminated the incident. If Jonson is to be believed,
there had been a report that the prisoners were to have their ears and
noses cut, and, with reference apparently to this peril, "at the midst
of the feast his old mother drank to him, and showed him a paper which
she had intended (if the sentence had taken execution) to have mixed in
the prison among his drink, which was full of lusty strong poison; and
that she was no churl, she told him, she minded first to have drunk of
it herself." Strange to say, in 1605 Jonson and Chapman, though the
former, as he averred, had so "attempered" his style as to have "given
no cause to any good man of grief," were again in prison on account of
"a play"; but they appear to have been once more speedily set free, in
consequence of a very manly and dignified letter addressed by Jonson to
the Earl of Salisbury. As to the relations between Chapman and Jonson,
illustrated by newly discovered letters, see Bertram Dobell in the
_Athenaeum_ No. 3831 (March 30, 1901), and the comments of Castelain.
He thinks that the play in question, in which both Chapman and Jonson
took part, was _Sir Gyles Goosecappe_, and that the last imprisonment of
the two poets was shortly after the discovery of the Gunpowder Plot. In
the mysterious history of the Gunpowder Plot Jonson certainly had some
obscure part. On the 7th of November, very soon after the discovery of
the conspiracy, the council appears to have sent for him and to have
asked him, as a loyal Roman Catholic, to use his good offices in
inducing the priests to do something required by the council--one hardly
likes to conjecture it to have been some tampering with the secrets of
confession. In any case, the negotiations fell through, because the
priests declined to come forth out of their hiding-places to be
negotiated with--greatly to the wrath of Ben Jonson, who declares in a
letter to Lord Salisbury that "they are all so enweaved in it that it
will make 500 gentlemen less of the religion within this week, if they
carry their understanding about them." Jonson himself, however, did not
declare his separation from the Church of Rome for five years longer,
however much it might have been to his advantage to do so.
His powers as a dramatist were at their height during the earlier half
of the reign of James I.; and by the year 1616 he had produced nearly
all the plays which are worthy of his genius. They include the tragedy
of _Catiline_ (acted and printed 1611), which achieved only a doubtful
success, and the comedies of _Volpone, or the Fox_ (acted 1605 and
printed in 1607 with a dedication "from my house in the Blackfriars"),
_Epicoene, or the Silent Woman_ (1609; entered in the Stationers'
Register 1610), the _Alchemist_ (1610; printed in 1610), _Bartholomew
Fair_ and _The Devil is an Ass_ (acted respectively in 1614 and 1616).
During the same period he produced several masques, usually in connexion
with Inigo Jones, with whom, however, he seems to have quarrelled
already in this reign, though it is very doubtful whether the architect
is really intended to be ridiculed in _Bartholomew Fair_ under the
character of Lanthorn Leatherhead. Littlewit, according to Fleay, is
Daniel. Among the most attractive of his masques may be mentioned the
_Masque of Blackness_ (1606), the Masque of Beauty (1608), and the
_Masque of Queens_ (1609), described by Swinburne as "the most splendid
of all masques" and as "one of the typically splendid monuments or
trophies of English literature." In 1616 a modest pension of 100 marks a
year was conferred upon him; and possibly this sign of royal favour may
have encouraged him to the publication of the first volume of the folio
collected edition of his works (1616), though there are indications that
he had contemplated its production, an exceptional task for a playwright
of his times to take in hand, as early as 1612.
He had other patrons more bountiful than the Crown, and for a brief
space of time (in 1613) had travelled to France as governor (without
apparently much moral authority) to the eldest son of Sir Walter
Raleigh, then a state prisoner in the Tower, for whose society Jonson
may have gained a liking at the Mermaid Tavern in Cheapside, but for
whose personal character he, like so many of his contemporaries, seems
to have had but small esteem. By the year 1616 Jonson seems to have made
up his mind to cease writing for the stage, where neither his success
nor his profits had equalled his merits and expectations. He continued
to produce masques and entertainments when called upon; but he was
attracted by many other literary pursuits, and had already accomplished
enough to furnish plentiful materials for retrospective discourse over
pipe or cup. He was already entitled to lord it at the Mermaid, where
his quick antagonist in earlier wit-combats (if Fuller's famous
description be authentic) no longer appeared even on a visit from his
comfortable retreat at Stratford. That on the other hand Ben carried his
wicked town habits into Warwickshire, and there, together with Drayton,
made Shakespeare drink so hard with them as to bring upon himself the
fatal fever which ended his days, is a scandal with which we may fairly
refuse to load Jonson's memory. That he had a share in the preparing for
the press of the first folio of Shakespeare, or in the composition of
its preface, is of course a mere conjecture.
It was in the year 1618 that, like Dr Samuel Johnson a century and a
half afterwards, Ben resolved to have a real holiday for once, and about
midsummer started for his ancestral country, Scotland. He had (very
heroically for a man of his habits) determined to make the journey on
foot; and he was speedily followed by John Taylor, the water-poet, who
still further handicapped himself by the condition that he would
accomplish the pilgrimage without a penny in his pocket. Jonson, who put
money in his good friend's purse when he came up with him at Leith,
spent more than a year and a half in the hospitable Lowlands, being
solemnly elected a burgess of Edinburgh, and on another occasion
entertained at a public banquet there. But the best-remembered
hospitality which he enjoyed was that of the learned Scottish poet,
William Drummond of Hawthornden, to which we owe the so-called
_Conversations_. In these famous jottings, the work of no extenuating
hand, Jonson lives for us to this day, delivering his censures, terse as
they are, in an expansive mood whether of praise or of blame; nor is he
at all generously described in the postscript added by his fatigued and
at times irritated host as "a great lover and praiser of himself, a
contemner and scorner of others." A poetical account of this journey,
"with all the adventures," was burnt with Jonson's library.
After his return to England Jonson appears to have resumed his former
course of life. Among his noble patrons and patronesses were the
countess of Rutland (Sidney's daughter) and her cousin Lady Wroth; and
in 1619 his visits to the country seats of the nobility were varied by a
sojourn at Oxford with Richard Corbet, the poet, at Christ Church, on
which occasion he took up the master's degree granted to him by the
university; whether he actually proceeded to the same degree granted to
him at Cambridge seems unknown. He confessed about this time that he was
or seemed growing "restive," i.e. lazy, though it was not long before he
returned to the occasional composition of masques. The extremely
spirited _Gipsies Metamorphosed_ (1621) was thrice presented before the
king, who was so pleased with it as to grant to the poet the reversion
of the office of master of the revels, besides proposing to confer upon
him the honour of knighthood. This honour Jonson (hardly in deference to
the memory of Sir Petronel Flash) declined; but there was no reason why
he should not gratefully accept the increase of his pension in the same
year (1621) to L200--a temporary increase only, inasmuch as it still
stood at 100 marks when afterwards augmented by Charles I.
The close of King James I.'s reign found the foremost of its poets in
anything but a prosperous condition. It would be unjust to hold the Sun,
the Dog, the Triple Tun, or the Old Devil with its Apollo club-room,
where Ben's supremacy must by this time have become established,
responsible for this result; taverns were the clubs of that day, and a
man of letters is not considered lost in our own because he haunts a
smoking-room in Pall Mall. Disease had weakened the poet's strength, and
the burning of his library, as his _Execration upon Vulcan_ sufficiently
shows, must have been no mere transitory trouble to a poor poet and
scholar. Moreover he cannot but have felt, from the time of the
accession of Charles I. early in 1625 onwards, that the royal patronage
would no longer be due in part to anything like intellectual sympathy.
He thus thought it best to recur to the surer way of writing for the
stage, and in 1625 produced, with no faint heart, but with a very clear
anticipation of the comments which would be made upon the reappearance
of the "huge, overgrown play-maker," _The Staple of News_, a comedy
excellent in some respects, but little calculated to become popular. It
was not printed till 1631. Jonson, whose habit of body was not more
conducive than were his ways of life to a healthy old age, had a
paralytic stroke in 1626, and a second in 1628. In the latter year, on
the death of Middleton, the appointment of city chronologer, with a
salary of 100 nobles a year, was bestowed upon him. He appears to have
considered the duties of this office as purely ornamental; but in 1631
his salary was suspended until he should have presented some fruits of
his labours in his place, or--as he more succinctly phrased
it--"yesterday the barbarous court of aldermen have withdrawn their
chandlerly pension for verjuice and mustard, L33, 6s. 8d." After being
in 1628 arrested by mistake on the utterly false charge of having
written certain verses in approval of the assassination of Buckingham,
he was soon allowed to return to Westminster, where it would appear from
a letter of his "son and contiguous neighbour," James Howell, he was
living in 1629, and about this time narrowly escaped another
conflagration. In the same year (1629) he once more essayed the stage
with the comedy of _The New Inn_, which was actually, and on its own
merits not unjustly, damned on the first performance. It was printed in
1631, "as it was never acted but most negligently played"; and Jonson
defended himself against his critics in his spirited _Ode to Himself_.
The epilogue to _The New Inn_ having dwelt not without dignity upon the
neglect which the poet had experienced at the hands of "king and queen,"
King Charles immediately sent the unlucky author a gift of L100, and in
response to a further appeal increased his standing salary to the same
sum, with the addition of an annual tierce of canary--the
poet-laureate's customary royal gift, though this designation of an
office, of which Jonson discharged some of what became the ordinary
functions, is not mentioned in the warrant dated the 26th of March 1630.
In 1634, by the king's desire, Jonson's salary as chronologer to the
city was again paid. To his later years belong the comedies, _The
Magnetic Lady_ (1632) and _The Tale of a Tub_ (1633), both printed in
1640, and some masques, none of which met with great success. The
patronage of liberal-minded men, such as the earl, afterwards duke, of
Newcastle--by whom he must have been commissioned to write his last two
masques _Love's Welcome at Welbeck_ (1633) and _Love's Welcome at
Bolsover_ (1634)--and Viscount Falkland, was not wanting, and his was
hardly an instance in which the fickleness of time and taste could have
allowed a literary veteran to end his career in neglect. He was the
acknowledged chief of the English world of letters, both at the festive
meetings where he ruled the roast among the younger authors whose pride
it was to be "sealed of the tribe of Ben," and by the avowal of grave
writers, old or young, not one of whom would have ventured to dispute
his titular pre-eminence. Nor was he to the last unconscious of the
claims upon him which his position brought with it. When, nearly two
years after he had lost his surviving son, death came upon the sick old
man on the 6th of August 1637, he left behind him an unfinished work of
great beauty, the pastoral drama of _The Sad Shepherd_ (printed in
1641). For forty years, he said in the prologue, he had feasted the
public; at first he could scarce hit its taste, but patience had at last
enabled it to identify itself with the working of his pen.
We are so accustomed to think of Ben Jonson presiding, attentive to his
own applause, over a circle of younger followers and admirers that we
are apt to forget the hard struggle which he had passed through before
gaining the crown now universally acknowledged to be his. Howell
records, in the year before Ben's death, that a solemn supper at the
poet's own house, where the host had almost spoiled the relish of the
feast by vilifying others and magnifying himself, "T. Ca." (Thomas
Carew) buzzed in the writer's ear "that, though Ben had barrelled up a
great deal of knowledge, yet it seemed he had not read the _Ethics_,
which, among other precepts of morality, forbid self-commendation."
Self-reliance is but too frequently coupled with self-consciousness, and
for good and for evil self-confidence was no doubt the most prominent
feature in the character of Ben Jonson. Hence the combativeness which
involved him in so many quarrels in his earlier days, and which jarred
so harshly upon the less militant and in some respects more pedantic
nature of Drummond. But his quarrels do not appear to have entered
deeply into his soul, or indeed usually to have lasted long.[2] He was
too exuberant in his vituperations to be bitter, and too outspoken to be
malicious. He loved of all things to be called "honest," and there is
every reason to suppose that he deserved the epithet. The old
superstition that Jonson was filled with malignant envy of the greatest
of his fellow-dramatists, and lost no opportunity of giving expression
to it, hardly needs notice. Those who consider that Shakespeare was
beyond criticism may find blasphemy in the saying of Jonson that
Shakespeare "wanted art." Occasional jesting allusions to particular
plays of Shakespeare may be found in Jonson, among which should hardly
be included the sneer at "mouldy" Pericles in his _Ode to Himself_. But
these amount to nothing collectively, and to very little individually;
and against them have to be set, not only the many pleasant traditions
concerning the long intimacy between the pair, but also the lines,
prefixed to the first Shakespeare folio, as noble as they are judicious,
dedicated by the survivor to "the star of poets," and the adaptation,
clearly sympathetic notwithstanding all its buts, _de Shakespeare
nostrat_. in the _Discoveries_. But if Gifford had rendered no other
service to Jonson's fame he must be allowed to have once for all
vindicated it from the cruellest aspersion which has ever been cast upon
it. That in general Ben Jonson was a man of strong likes and dislikes,
and was wont to manifest the latter as vehemently as the former, it
would be idle to deny. He was at least impartial in his censures,
dealing them out freely to Puritan poets like Wither and (supposing him
not to have exaggerated his free-spokenness) to princes of his church
like Cardinal du Perron. And, if sensitive to attack, he seems to have
been impervious to flattery--to judge from the candour with which he
condemned the foibles even of so enthusiastic an admirer as Beaumont.
The personage that he disliked the most, and openly abused in the
roundest terms, was unfortunately one with many heads and a tongue to
hiss in each--no other than that "general public" which it was the
fundamental mistake of his life to fancy he could "rail into
approbation" before he had effectively secured its goodwill. And upon
the whole it may be said that the admiration of the few, rather than the
favour of the many, has kept green the fame of the most independent
among all the masters of an art which, in more senses than one, must
please to live.
Jonson's learning and industry, which were alike exceptional, by no
means exhausted themselves in furnishing and elaborating the materials
of his dramatic works. His enemies sneered at him as a translator--a
title which the preceding generation was inclined to esteem the most
honourable in literature. But his classical scholarship shows itself in
other directions besides his translations from the Latin poets (the _Ars
poetica_ in particular), in addition to which he appears to have written
a version of Barclay's _Argenis_; it was likewise the basis of his
_English Grammar_, of which nothing but the rough draft remains (the MS.
itself having perished in the fire in his library), and in connexion
with the subject of which he appears to have pursued other linguistic
studies (Howell in 1629 was trying to procure him a Welsh grammar). And
its effects are very visible in some of the most pleasing of his
non-dramatic poems, which often display that combination of polish and
simplicity hardly to be reached--or even to be appreciated--without some
measure of classical training.
Exclusively of the few lyrics in Jonson's dramas (which, with the
exception of the stately choruses in _Catiline_, charm, and perhaps may
surprise, by their lightness of touch), his non-dramatic works are
comprised in the following collections. The book of _Epigrams_
(published in the first folio of 1616) contained, in the poet's own
words, the "ripest of his studies." His notion of an epigram was the
ancient, not the restricted modern one--still less that of the critic
(R. C., the author of _The Times' Whistle_) in whose language, according
to Jonson, "witty" was "obscene." On the whole, these epigrams excel
more in encomiastic than in satiric touches, while the pathos of one or
two epitaphs in the collection is of the truest kind. In the lyrics and
epistles contained in the _Forest_ (also in the first folio), Jonson
shows greater variety in the poetic styles adopted by him; but the
subject of love, which Dryden considered conspicuous by its absence in
the author's dramas, is similarly eschewed here. The _Underwoods_ (not
published collectively till the second and surreptitious folio) are a
miscellaneous series, comprising, together with a few religious and a
few amatory poems, a large number of epigrams, epitaphs, elegies and
"odes," including both the tributes to Shakespeare and several to royal
and other patrons and friends, besides the _Execration upon Vulcan_, and
the characteristic ode addressed by the poet to himself. To these pieces
in verse should be added the _Discoveries--Timber, or Discoveries made
upon Men and Matters_, avowedly a commonplace book of aphorisms noted by
the poet in his dally readings--thoughts adopted and adapted in more
tranquil and perhaps more sober moods than those which gave rise to the
outpourings of the _Conversations at Hawthornden_. As to the critical
value of these _Conversations_ it is far from being only negative; he
knew how to admire as well as how to disdain. For these thoughts, though
abounding with biographical as well as general interest, Jonson was
almost entirely indebted to ancient writers, or (as has been shown by
Professor Spingarn and by Percy Simpson) indebted to the humanists of
the Renaissance (see _Modern Language Review_, ii. 3, April 1907).
The extant dramatic works of Ben Jonson fall into three or, if his
fragmentary pastoral drama be considered to stand by itself, into four
distinct divisions. The tragedies are only two in number--_Sejanus his
Fall and Catiline his Conspiracy_.[3] Of these the earlier, as is worth
noting, was produced at Shakespeare's theatre, in all probability before
the first of Shakespeare's Roman dramas, and still contains a
considerable admixture of rhyme in the dialogue. Though perhaps less
carefully elaborated in diction than its successor, _Sejanus_ is at
least equally impressive as a highly wrought dramatic treatment of a
complex historic theme. The character of Tiberius adds an element of
curious psychological interest on which speculation has never quite
exhausted itself and which, in Jonson's day at least, was wanting to the
figures of _Catiline_ and his associates. But in both plays the action
is powerfully conducted, and the care bestowed by the dramatist upon the
great variety of characters introduced cannot, as in some of his
comedies, be said to distract the interest of the reader. Both these
tragedies are noble works, though the relative popularity of the subject
(for conspiracies are in the long run more interesting than camarillas)
has perhaps secured the preference to Catiline. Yet this play and its
predecessor were alike too manifestly intended by their author to court
the goodwill of what he calls the "extraordinary" reader. It is
difficult to imagine that (with the aid of judicious shortenings) either
could altogether miss its effect on the stage; but, while Shakespeare
causes us to forget, Jonson seems to wish us to remember, his
authorities. The half is often greater than the whole; and Jonson, like
all dramatists and, it might be added, all novelists in similar cases,
has had to pay the penalty incurred by too obvious a desire to underline
the learning of the author.
Perversity--or would-be originality--alone could declare Jonson's
tragedy preferable to his comedy. Even if the revolution which he
created in the comic branch of the drama had been mistaken in its
principles or unsatisfactory in its results, it would be clear that the
strength of his dramatic genius lay in the power of depicting a great
variety of characters, and that in comedy alone he succeeded in finding
a wide field for the exercise of this power. There may have been no very
original or very profound discovery in the idea which he illustrated in
_Every Man in his Humour_, and, as it were, technically elaborated in
_Every Man out of his Humour_--that in many men one quality is
observable which so possesses them as to draw the whole of their
individualities one way, and that this phenomenon "may be truly said to
be a humour." The idea of the master quality or tendency was, as has
been well observed, a very considerable one for dramatist or novelist.
Nor did Jonson (happily) attempt to work out this idea with any
excessive scientific consistency as a comic dramatist. But, by refusing
to apply the term "humour" (q.v.) to a mere peculiarity or affectation
of manners, and restricting its use to actual or implied differences or
distinctions of character, he broadened the whole basis of English
comedy after his fashion, as Moliere at a later date, keeping in closer
touch with the common experience of human life, with a lighter hand
broadened the basis of French and of modern Western comedy at large. It
does not of course follow that Jonson's disciples, the Bromes and the
Cartwrights, always adequately reproduced the master's conception of
"humorous" comedy. Jonson's wide and various reading helped him to
diversify the application of his theory, while perhaps at times it led
him into too remote illustrations of it. Still, Captain Bobadil and
Captain Tucca, Macilente and Fungoso, Volpone and Mosca, and a goodly
number of other characters impress themselves permanently upon the
memory of those whose attention they have as a matter of course
commanded. It is a very futile criticism to condemn Jonson's characters
as a mere series of types of general ideas; on the other hand, it is a
very sound criticism to object, with Barry Cornwall, to the "multitude
of characters who throw no light upon the story, and lend no interest to
it, occupying space that had better have been bestowed upon the
principal agents of the plot."
In the construction of plots, as in most other respects, Jonson's at
once conscientious and vigorous mind led him in the direction of
originality; he depended to a far less degree than the greater part of
his contemporaries (Shakespeare with the rest) upon borrowed plots. But
either his inventive character was occasionally at fault in this
respect, or his devotion to his characters often diverted his attention
from a brisk conduct of his plot. Barry Cornwall has directed attention
to the essential likeness in the plot of two of Jonson's best comedies,
_Volpone_ and _The Alchemist_; and another critic, W. Bodham Donne, has
dwelt on the difficulty which, in _The Poetaster_ and elsewhere, Ben
Jonson seems to experience in sustaining the promise of his actions.
_The Poetaster_ is, however, a play _sui generis_, in which the real
business can hardly be said to begin till the last act.
Dryden, when criticizing Ben Jonson's comedies, thought fit, while
allowing the old master humour and incontestable "pleasantness," to deny
him wit and those ornaments thereof which Quintilian reckons up under
the terms _urbana_, _salsa_, _faceta_ and so forth. Such wit as Dryden
has in view is the mere outward fashion or style of the day, the
euphuism or "sheerwit" or _chic_ which is the creed of Fastidious Brisks
and of their astute purveyors at any given moment. In this Ben Jonson
was no doubt defective; but it would be an error to suppose him, as a
comic dramatist, to have maintained towards the world around him the
attitude of a philosopher, careless of mere transient externalisms. It
is said that the scene of his _Every Man in his Humour_ was originally
laid near Florence; and his _Volpone_, which is perhaps the darkest
social picture ever drawn by him, plays at Venice. Neither locality was
ill-chosen, but the real atmosphere of his comedies is that of the
native surroundings amidst which they were produced; and Ben Jonson's
times live for us in his men and women, his country gulls and town
gulls, his alchemists and exorcists, his "skeldring" captains and
whining Puritans, and the whole ragamuffin rout of his _Bartholomew
Fair_, the comedy _par excellence_ of Elizabethan low life. After he had
described the pastimes, fashionable and unfashionable, of his age, its
feeble superstitions and its flaunting naughtinesses, its vapouring
affectations and its lying effronteries, with an odour as of "divine
tabacco" pervading the whole, little might seem to be left to describe
for his "sons" and successors. Enough, however, remained; only that his
followers speedily again threw manners and "humours" into an
undistinguishable medley.
The gift which both in his art and in his life Jonson lacked was that of
exercising the influence or creating the effects which he wished to
exercise or create without the appearance of consciousness. Concealment
never crept over his efforts, and he scorned insinuation. Instead of
this, influenced no doubt by the example of the free relations between
author and public permitted by Attic comedy, he resorted again and
again, from _Every Man out of his Humour_ to _The Magnetic Lady_, to
inductions and commentatory intermezzos and appendices, which, though
occasionally effective by the excellence of their execution, are to be
regretted as introducing into his dramas an exotic and often vexatious
element. A man of letters to the very core, he never quite understood
that there is and ought to be a wide difference of methods between the
world of letters and the world of the theatre.
The richness and versatility of Jonson's genius will never be fully
appreciated by those who fail to acquaint themselves with what is
preserved to us of his "masques" and cognate entertainments. He was
conscious enough of his success in this direction--"next himself," he
said, "only Fletcher and Chapman could write a masque." He introduced,
or at least established, the ingenious innovation of the anti-masque,
which Schlegel has described, as a species of "parody added by the poet
to his device, and usually prefixed to the serious entry," and which
accordingly supplies a grotesque antidote to the often extravagantly
imaginative main conception. Jonson's learning, creative power and
humorous ingenuity--combined, it should not be forgotten, with a genuine
lyrical gift--all found abundant opportunities for displaying themselves
in these productions. Though a growth of foreign origin, the masque was
by him thoroughly domesticated in the high places of English literature.
He lived long enough to see the species produce its poetic masterpiece
in Comus.
_The Sad Shepherd_, of which Jonson left behind him three acts and a
prologue, is distinguished among English pastoral dramas by its
freshness of tone; it breathes something of the spirit of the greenwood,
and is not unnatural even in its supernatural element. While this piece,
with its charming love-scenes between Robin Hood and Maid Marion,
remains a fragment, another pastoral by Jonson, the _May Lord_ (which F.
G. Fleay and J. A. Symonds sought to identify with _The Sad Shepherd_;
see, however, W. W. Greg in introduction to the Louvain reprint), has
been lost, and a third, of which Loch Lomond was intended to be the
scene, probably remained unwritten.
Though Ben Jonson never altogether recognized the truth of the maxim
that the dramatic art has properly speaking no didactic purpose, his
long and laborious life was not wasted upon a barren endeavour. In
tragedy he added two works of uncommon merit to our dramatic literature.
In comedy his aim was higher, his effort more sustained, and his success
more solid than were those of any of his fellows. In the subsidiary and
hybrid species of the masque, he helped to open a new and attractive
though undoubtedly devious path in the field of dramatic literature. His
intellectual endowments surpassed those of most of the great English
dramatists in richness and breadth; and in energy of application he
probably left them all behind. Inferior to more than one of his
fellow-dramatists in the power of imaginative sympathy, he was first
among the Elizabethans in the power of observation; and there is point
in Barrett Wendell's paradox, that as a dramatist he was not really a
poet but a painter. Yet it is less by these gifts, or even by his
unexcelled capacity for hard work, than by the true ring of manliness
that he will always remain distinguished among his peers.
Jonson was buried on the north side of the nave in Westminster Abbey,
and the inscription, "O Rare Ben Jonson," was cut in the slab over his
grave. In the beginning of the 18th century a portrait bust was put up
to his memory in the Poets' Corner by Harley, earl of Oxford. Of
Honthorst's portrait of Jonson at Knole Park there is a copy in the
National Portrait Gallery; another was engraved by W. Marshall for the
1640 edition of his Poems.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.--The date of the first folio volume of Jonson's _Works_
(of which title his novel but characteristic use in applying it to
plays was at the time much ridiculed) has already been mentioned as
1616; the second, professedly published in 1640, is described by
Gifford as "a wretched continuation of the first, printed from MSS.
surreptitiously obtained during his life, or ignorantly hurried
through the press after his death, and bearing a variety of dates from
1631 to 1641 inclusive." The works were reprinted in a single folio
volume in 1692, in which _The New Inn_ and _The Case is Altered_ were
included for the first time, and again in 6 vols. 8vo in 1715. Peter
Whalley's edition in 7 vols., with a life, appeared in 1756, but was
superseded in 1816 by William Gifford's, in 9 vols. (of which the
first includes a biographical memoir, and the famous essay on the
"Proofs of Ben Jonson's Malignity, from the Commentators on
Shakespeare"). A new edition of Gifford's was published in 9 vols. in
1875 by Colonel F. Cunningham, as well as a cheap reprint in 3 vols.
in 1870. Both contain the _Conversations_ with Drummond, which were
first printed in full by David Laing in the _Shakespeare Society's
Publications_ (1842) and the _Jonsonus Virbius_, a collection
(unparalleled in number and variety of authors) of poetical tributes,
published about six months after Jonson's death by his friends and
admirers. There is also a single-volume edition, with a very readable
memoir, by Barry Cornwall (1838). An edition of Ben Jonson's works
from the original texts was recently undertaken by C. H. Herford and
Percy Simpson. A selection from his plays, edited for the "Mermaid"
series in 1893-1895 by B. Nicholson, with an introduction by C. H.
Herford, was reissued in 1904. W. W. Bang in his _Materialien zur
Kunde des alten englischen Dramas_ has reprinted from the folio of
1616 those of Ben Jonson's plays which are contained in it (Louvain,
1905-1906). _Every Man in his Humour_ and _Every Man out of his
Humour_ have been edited for the same series (16 and 17, 1905 and
1907) by W. W. Bang and W. W. Greg. _Every Man in his Humour_ has also
been edited, with a brief biographical as well as special
introduction, to which the present sketch owes some details, by H. B.
Wheatley (1877). Some valuable editions of plays by Ben Jonson have
been recently published by American scholars in the _Yale Studies in
English_, edited by A. S. Cook--_The Poetaster_, ed. H. S. Mallory
(1905); _The Alchemist_, ed. C. M. Hathaway (1903); _The Devil is an
Ass_, ed. W. S. Johnson (1905); _The Staple of News_, ed. De Winter
(1905); _The New Inn_, ed. by G. Bremner (1908); _The Sad Shepherd_
(with Waldron's continuation) has been edited by W. W. Greg for Bang's
_Materialien zur Kunde des alten englischen Dramas_ (Louvain, 1905).
The criticisms of Ben Jonson are too numerous for cataloguing here;
among those by eminent Englishmen should be specially mentioned John
Dryden's, particularly those in his _Essay on Dramatic Poesy_
(1667-1668; revised 1684), and in the preface to _An Evening's Love,
or the Mock Astrologer_ (1668), and A. C. Swinburne's _Study of Ben
Jonson_ (1889), in which, however, the significance of the
_Discoveries_ is misapprehended. See also F. G. Fleay, _Biographical
Chronicle of the English Drama_ (1891), i. 311-387, ii. 1-18; C. H.
Herford, "Ben Jonson" (art. in _Dict. Nat. Biog._, vol. xxx., 1802);
A. W. Ward, _History of English Dramatic Literature_, 2nd ed. (1899),
ii. 296-407; and for a list of early impressions, W. W. Greg, _List of
English Plays written before 1643 and printed before 1700_
(Bibliographical Society, 1900), pp. 55-58 and supplement 11-15. An
important French work on Ben Jonson, both biographical and critical,
and containing, besides many translations of scenes and passages, some
valuable appendices, to more than one of which reference has been made
above, is Maurice Castelain's _Ben Jonson, l'homme et l'oeuvre_
(1907). Among treatises or essays on particular aspects of his
literary work may be mentioned Emil Koeppel's _Quellenstudien zu den
Dramen Ben Jonson's_, &c. (1895); the same writer's "Ben Jonson's
Wirkung auf zeitgenossische Dramatiker," &c., in _Anglicistische
Forschungen_, 20 (1906); F. E. Schelling's _Ben Jonson and the
Classical School_ (1898); and as to his masques, A. Soergel, _Die
englischen Maskenspiele_ (1882) and J. Schmidt, "Uber Ben Jonson's
Maskenspiele," in Herrig's _Archiv_, &c., xxvii. 51-91. See also H.
Reinsch, "Ben Jonson's Poetik und seine Beziehungen zu Horaz," in
_Munchener Beitrage_, 16 (1899). (A. W. W.)
FOOTNOTES:
[1] His Christian name of Benjamin was usually abbreviated by himself
and his contemporaries; and thus, in accordance with his famous
epitaph, it will always continue to be abbreviated.
[2] With Inigo Jones, however, in quarrelling with whom, as Howell
reminds Jonson, the poet was virtually quarrelling with his bread and
butter, he seems to have found it impossible to live permanently at
peace; his satirical _Expostulation_ against the architect was
published as late as 1635. Chapman's satire against his old
associate, perhaps due to this quarrel, was left unfinished and
unpublished.
[3] Of _The Fall of Mortimer_ Jonson left only a few lines behind
him; but, as he also left the argument of the play, factious
ingenuity contrived to furbish up the relic into a libel against
Queen Caroline and Sir Robert Walpole in 1731, and to revive the
contrivance by way of an insult to the princess dowager of Wales and
Lord Bute in 1762.
JOPLIN, a city of Jasper county, Missouri, U.S.A., on Joplin creek,
about 140 m. S. of Kansas City. Pop. (1890), 9943; (1900), 26,023, of
whom 893 were foreign-born and 773 were negroes; (1910 census) 32,073.
It is served by the Missouri Pacific, the St Louis & San Francisco, the
Missouri, Kansas & Texas, and the Kansas City Southern railways, and by
interurban electric lines. The city has a fine court-house, a United
States government building, a Carnegie library and a large auditorium.
Joplin is the trade centre of a rich agricultural and fruit-growing
district, but its growth has been chiefly due to its situation in one of
the most productive zinc and lead regions in the country, for which it
is the commercial centre. In 1906 the value of zinc-ore shipments from
this Missouri-Kansas (or Joplin) district was $12,074,105, and of
shipments of lead ore, $3,048,558. The value of Joplin's factory product
in 1905 was $3,006,203, an increase of 29.3% since 1900. Natural gas,
piped from the Kansas fields, is used for light and power, and
electricity for commercial lighting and power is derived from plants on
Spring River, near Vark, Kansas, and on Shoal creek. The municipality
owns its electric-lighting plant; the water-works are under private
ownership. The first settlement in the neighbourhood was made in 1838.
In 1871 Joplin was laid out and incorporated as a town; in 1872 it and a
rival town on the other side of Joplin creek were united under the name
Union City; in 1873 Union City was chartered as a city under the name
Joplin; and in 1888 Joplin was chartered as a city of the third class.
The city derives its name from the creek, which was named in honour of
the Rev. Harris G. Joplin (c. 1810-1847), a native of Tennessee.
JOPPA, less correctly JAFFA (Arab. _Yafa_), a seaport on the coast of
Palestine. It is of great antiquity, being mentioned in the tribute
lists of Tethmosis (Thothmes) III.; but as it never was in the territory
of the pre-exilic Israelites it was to them a place of no importance.
Its ascription to the tribe of Dan (Josh. xix. 46) is purely
theoretical. According to the authors of Chronicles (2 Chron. ii. 16),
Ezra (iii. 7) and Jonah (i. 3) it was a seaport for importation of the
Lebanon timber floated down the coasts or for ships plying even to
distant Tarshish. About 148 B.C. it was captured from the Syrians by
Jonathan Maccabaeus (1 Macc. x. 75) and later it was retaken and
garrisoned by Simon his brother (xii. 33, xiii. 11). It was restored to
the Syrians by Pompey (Jos., _Ant._ xiv. 4, 4) but again given back to
the Jews (ib. xiv. 10, 6) with an exemption from tax. St Peter for a
while lodged at Joppa, where he restored the benevolent widow Tabitha to
life, and had the vision which taught him the universality of the plan
of Christianity.
According to Strabo (xvi. ii.), who makes the strange mistake of saying
that Jerusalem is visible from Joppa, the place was a resort of pirates.
It was destroyed by Vespasian in the Jewish War (68). Tradition connects
the story of Andromeda and the sea-monster with the sea-coast of Joppa,
and in early times her chains were shown as well as the skeleton of the
monster itself (Jos. _Wars_, iii. 9, 3). The site seems to have been
shown even to some medieval pilgrims, and curious traces of it have been
detected in modern Moslem legends.
In the 5th and 11th centuries we hear from time to time of bishops of
Joppa, under the metropolitan of Jerusalem. In 1126 the district was
captured by the knights of St John, but lost to Saladin in 1187. Richard
Coeur de Lion retook it in 1191, but it was finally retaken by Malek el
'Adil in 1196. It languished for a time; in the 16th century it was an
almost uninhabited ruin; but towards the end of the 17th century it
began anew to develop as a seaport. In 1799 it was stormed by Napoleon;
the fortifications were repaired and strengthened by the British.
The modern town of Joppa derives its importance, first, as a seaport for
Jerusalem and the whole of southern Palestine, and secondly as a centre
of the fruit-growing industry. During the latter part of the 19th
century it greatly increased in size. The old city walls have been
entirely removed. Its population is about 35,000 (Moslems 23,000,
Christians 5000, Jews 7000; with the Christians are included the
"Templars," a semi-religious, semi-agricultural German colony of about
320 souls). The town, which rises over a rounded hillock on the coast,
about 100 ft. high, has a very picturesque appearance from the sea. The
harbour (so-called) is one of the worst existing, being simply a natural
breakwater formed by a ledge of reefs, safe enough for small Oriental
craft, but very dangerous for large vessels, which can only make use of
the seaport in calm weather; these never come nearer than about a mile
from the shore. A railway and a bad carriage-road connect Joppa with
Jerusalem. The water of the town is derived from wells, many of which
have a brackish taste. The export trade of the town consists of soap of
olive oil, sesame, barley, water melons, wine and especially oranges
(commonly known as Jaffa oranges), grown in the famous and
ever-increasing gardens that lie north and east of the town. The chief
imports are timber, cotton and other textile goods, tiles, iron, rice,
coffee, sugar and petroleum. The value of the exports in 1900 was
estimated at L264,950, the imports L382,405. Over 10,000 pilgrims,
chiefly Russians, and some three or four thousand tourists land annually
at Joppa. The town is the seat of a kaimakam or lieutenant-governor,
subordinate to the governor of Jerusalem, and contains vice-consulates
of Great Britain, France, Germany, America and other powers. There are
Latin, Greek, Armenian and Coptic monasteries; and hospitals and schools
under British, French and German auspices. (R. A. S. M.)
JORDAENS, JACOB (1593-1678), Flemish painter, was born and died at
Antwerp. He studied, like Rubens, under Adam van Noort, and his marriage
with his master's daughter in 1616, the year after his admission to the
gild of painters, prevented him from visiting Rome. He was forced to
content himself with studying such examples of the Italian masters as he
found at home; but a far more potent influence was exerted upon his
style by Rubens, who employed him sometimes to reproduce small sketches
in large. Jordaens is second to Rubens alone in their special department
of the Flemish school. In both there is the same warmth of colour, truth
to nature, mastery of chiaroscuro and energy of expression; but Jordaens
is wanting in dignity of conception, and is inferior in choice of forms,
in the character of his heads, and in correctness of drawing. Not seldom
he sins against good taste, and in some of his humorous pieces the
coarseness is only atoned for by the animation. Of these last he seems
in some cases to have painted several replicas. He employed his pencil
also in biblical, mythological, historical and allegorical subjects, and
is well-known as a portrait painter. He also etched some plates.
See the elaborate work on the painter, by Max Rooses (1908).
JORDAN, CAMILLE (1771-1821), French politician, was born in Lyons on the
11th of January 1771 of a well-to-do mercantile family. He was educated
in Lyons, and from an early age was imbued with royalist principles. He
actively supported by voice, pen and musket his native town in its
resistance to the Convention; and when Lyons fell, in October 1793,
Jordan fled. From Switzerland he passed in six months to England, where
he formed acquaintances with other French exiles and with prominent
British statesmen, and imbibed a lasting admiration for the English
Constitution. In 1796 he returned to France, and next year he was sent
by Lyons as a deputy to the Council of Five Hundred. There his eloquence
won him consideration. He earnestly supported what he felt to be true
freedom, especially in matters of religious worship, though the
energetic appeal on behalf of church bells in his _Rapport sur la
liberte des cultes_ procured him the sobriquet of Jordan-Cloche.
Proscribed at the _coup d'etat_ of the 18th Fructidor (4th of September
1797) he escaped to Basel. Thence he went to Germany, where he met
Goethe. Back again in France by 1800, he boldly published in 1802 his
_Vrai sens du vote national pour le consulat a vie_, in which he exposed
the ambitious schemes of Bonaparte. He was unmolested, however, and
during the First Empire lived in literary retirement at Lyons with his
wife and family, producing for the Lyons academy occasional papers on
the _Influence reciproque de l'eloquence sur la Revolution et de la
Revolution sur l'eloquence_; _Etudes sur Klopstock_, &c. At the
restoration in 1814 he again emerged into public life. By Louis XVIII.
he was ennobled and named a councillor of state; and from 1816 he sat in
the chamber of deputies as representative of Ain. At first he supported
the ministry, but when they began to show signs of reaction he separated
from them, and gradually came to be at the head of the constitutional
opposition. His speeches in the chamber were always eloquent and
powerful. Though warned by failing health to resign, Camille Jordan
remained at his post till his death at Paris, on the 19th of May 1821.
To his pen we owe _Lettre a M. Lamourette_ (1791); _Histoire de la
conversion d'une dame Parisienne_ (1792); _La Loi et la religion
vengees_ (1792); _Adresse a ses commettants sur la revolution du 4
Septembre 1797_ (1797); _Sur les troubles de Lyon_ (1818); _La Session
de 1817_ (1818). His _Discours_ were collected in 1818. The "Fragments
choisis," and translations from the German, were published in
_L'Abeille francaise_. Besides the various histories of the time, see
further details vol. x. of the _Revue encyclopedique_; a paper on
Jordan and Madame de Stael, by C. A. Sainte-Beuve, in the _Revue des
deux mondes_ for March 1868 and R. Boubee, "Camille Jordan a Weimar,"
in the _Correspondant_ (1901), ccv. 718-738 and 948-970.
JORDAN, DOROTHEA (1762-1816), Irish actress, was born near Waterford,
Ireland, in 1762. Her mother, Grace Phillips, at one time known as Mrs
Frances, was a Dublin actress. Her father, whose name was Bland, was
according to one account an army captain, but more probably a stage
hand. Dorothy Jordan made her first appearance on the stage in 1777 in
Dublin as Phoebe in _As You Like It_. After acting elsewhere in Ireland
she appeared in 1782 at Leeds, and subsequently at other Yorkshire
towns, in a variety of parts, including Lady Teazle. It was at this time
that she began calling herself Mrs Jordan. In 1785 she made her first
London appearance at Drury Lane as Peggy in _A Country Girl_. Before the
end of her first season she had become an established public favourite,
her acting in comedy being declared second only to that of Kitty Clive.
Her engagement at Drury Lane lasted till 1809, and she played a large
variety of parts. But gradually it came to be recognized that her
special talent lay in comedy, her Lady Teazle, Rosalind and Imogen being
specially liked, and such "breeches" parts as William in _Rosina_.
During the rebuilding of Drury Lane she played at the Haymarket; she
transferred her services in 1811 to Covent Garden. Here, in 1814, she
made her last appearance on the London stage, and the following year, at
Margate, retired altogether. Mrs Jordan's private life was one of the
scandals of the period. She had a daughter by her first manager, in
Ireland, and four children by Sir Richard Ford, whose name she bore for
some years. In 1790 she became the mistress of the duke of Clarence
(afterwards William IV.), and bore him ten children, who were ennobled
under the name of Fitz Clarence, the eldest being created earl of
Munster. In 1811 they separated by mutual consent, Mrs Jordan being
granted a liberal allowance. In 1815 she went abroad. According to one
story she was in danger of imprisonment for debt. If so, the debt must
have been incurred on behalf of others--probably her relations, who
appear to have been continually borrowing from her--for her own personal
debts were very much more than covered by her savings. She is generally
understood to have died at St Cloud, near Paris, on the 3rd of July
1816, but the story that under an assumed name she lived for seven years
after that date in England finds some credence.
See James Boaden, _Life of Mrs Jordan_ (1831); _The Great
Illegitimates_ (1830); John Genest, _Account of the Stage_; Tate
Wilkinson, _The Wandering Patentee; Memoirs and Amorous Adventures by
Sea and Land of King William IV._ (1830); _The Georgian Era_ (1838).
JORDAN, THOMAS (1612?-1685), English poet and pamphleteer, was born in
London and started life as an actor at the Red Bull theatre in
Clerkenwell. He published in 1637 his first volume of poems, entitled
_Poeticall Varieties_, and in the same year appeared _A Pill to Purge
Melancholy_. In 1639 he recited one of his poems before King Charles I.,
and from this time forward Jordan's output in verse and prose was
continuous and prolific. He freely borrowed from other authors, and
frequently re-issued his own writings under new names. During the
troubles between the king and the parliament he wrote a number of
Royalist pamphlets, the first of which, _A Medicine for the Times, or an
Antidote against Faction_, appeared in 1641. Dedications, occasional
verses, prologues and epilogues to plays poured from his pen. Many
volumes of his poems bear no date, and they were probably written during
the Commonwealth. At the Restoration he eulogized Monk, produced a
masque at the entertainment of the general in the city of London and
wrote pamphlets in his support. He then for some years devoted his chief
attention to writing plays, in at least one of which, _Money is an Ass_,
he himself played a part when it was produced in 1668. In 1671 he was
appointed laureate to the city of London; from this date till his death
in 1685 he annually composed a panegyric on the lord mayor, and arranged
the pageantry of the lord mayor's shows, which he celebrated in verse
under such titles as _London Triumphant, or the City in Jollity and
Splendour_ (1672), or _London in Luster, Projecting many Bright Beams of
Triumph_ (1679). Many volumes of these curious productions are preserved
in the British Museum.
In addition to his numerous printed works, of which perhaps _A Royal
Arbour of Loyall Poesie_ (1664) and _A Nursery of Novelties in Variety
of Poetry_ are most deserving of mention, several volumes of his poems
exist in manuscript. W. C. Hazlitt and other 19th-century critics
found more merit in Jordan's writings than was allowed by his
contemporaries, who for the most part scornfully referred to his
voluminous productions as commonplace and dull.
See Gerard Langbaine, _Account of the English Dramatic Poets_ (1691);
David Erskine Baker, _Biographia Dramatica_ (4 vols., 1812); W. C.
Hazlitt, _Handbook to the Popular, Poetical and Dramatic Literature of
Great Britain_ (1867); F. W. Fairholt, _Lord Mayors Pageants_ (Percy
Society, 1843), containing a memoir of Thomas Jordan; John Gough
Nichols, _London Pageants_ (1831).
JORDAN, WILHELM (1819-1904), German poet and novelist, was born at
Insterburg in East Prussia on the 8th of February 1819. He studied,
first theology and then philosophy and natural science, at the
universities of Konigsberg and Berlin. He settled in Leipzig as a
journalist; but the democratic views expressed in some essays and the
volumes of poems _Glocke und Kanone_ (1481) and _Irdische Phantasien_
(1842) led to his expulsion from Saxony in 1846. He next engaged in
literary and tutorial work in Bremen, and on the outbreak of the
revolution, in February 1848, was sent to Paris, as correspondent of the
_Bremer Zeitung_. He almost immediately, however, returned to Germany
and, throwing himself into the political fray in Berlin, was elected
member for Freienwalde, in the first German parliament at
Frankfort-on-Main. For a short while he sided with the Left, but soon
joined the party of von Gagern. On a vote having been passed for the
establishment of a German navy, he was appointed secretary of the
committee to deal with the whole question, and was subsequently made
ministerial councillor (_Ministerialrat_) in the naval department of the
government. The naval project was abandoned, Jordan was pensioned and
afterwards resided at Frankfort-on-Main until his death on the 25th of
June 1904, devoting himself to literary work, acting as his own
publisher, and producing numerous poems, novels, dramas and
translations.
Among his best known works are: _Demiurgos_ (3 vols., 1852-1854), a
"Mysterium," in which he attempted to deal with the problems of human
existence, but the work found little favour; _Nibelunge_, an epic poem
in alliterative verse, in two parts, (1) _Sigfnedsage_ (1867-1868;
13th ed. 1889) and (2) _Hildebrants Heimkehr_ (1874; 10th ed.
1892)--in the first part he is regarded as having been remarkably
successful; a tragedy, _Die Wittwe des Agis_ (1858); the comedies,
_Die Liebesleugner_ (1855) and _Durchs Ohr_ (1870; 6th ed. 1885); and
the novels _Die Sebalds_ (1885) and _Zwei Wiegen_ (1887). Jordan also
published numerous translations, notably _Homers Odyssee_ (1876; 2nd
ed. 1889) and _Homers Ilias_ (1881; 2nd ed. 1894); _Die Edda_ (1889).
He was also distinguished as a reciter, and on a visit to the United
States in 1871 read extracts from his works before large audiences.
JORDAN (the down-comer; Arab. _esh-Sheri'a_, the watering-place), the
only river of Palestine and one of the most remarkable in the world. It
flows from north to south in a deep trough-like valley, the Aulon of the
Greeks and Ghor of the Arabs, which is usually believed to follow the
line of a fault or fracture of the earth's crust. Most geologists hold
that the valley is part of an old sea-bed, traces of which remain in
numerous shingle-banks and beach-levels. This, they say, once extended
to the Red Sea and even over N.E. Africa. Shrinkage caused the pelagic
limestone bottom to be upheaved in two ridges, between which occurred a
long fracture, which can now be traced from Coelesyria down the Wadi
Araba to the Gulf of Akaba. The Jordan valley in its lower part keeps
about the old level of the sea-bottom and is therefore a remnant of the
Miocene world. This theory, however, is not universally accepted, some
authorities preferring to assume a succession of more strictly local
elevations and depressions, connected with the recent volcanic activity
of the Jaulan and Lija districts on the east bank, which brought the
contours finally to their actual form. In any case the number of
distinct sea-beaches seems to imply a succession of convulsive changes,
more recent than the great Miocene upheaval, which are responsible for
the shrinkage of the water into the three isolated pans now found. For
more than two-thirds of its course the Jordan lies below the level of
the sea. It has never been navigable, no important town has ever been
built on its banks, and it runs into an inland sea which has no port and
is destitute of aquatic life. Throughout history it has exerted a
separatist influence, roughly dividing the settled from the nomadic
populations; and the crossing of Jordan, one way or the other, was
always an event in the history of Israel. In Hebrew times its valley was
regarded as a "wilderness" and, except in the Roman era, seems always to
have been as sparsely inhabited as now. From its sources to the Dead Sea
it rushes down a continuous inclined plane, broken here and there by
rapids and small falls; between the Sea of Galilee and the Dead Sea its
sinuosity is so great that in a direct distance of 65 m. it traverses at
least 200 m. The mean fall is about 9 ft. in the mile. The Jordan has
two great sources, one in Tell el-Kadi (Dan) whence springs the Nahr
Leddan, a stream 12 ft. broad at its birth; the other at Banias (anc.
Paneas, Caesarea-Philippi), some 4 m. N., where the Nahr Banias issues
from a cave, about 30 ft. broad. But two longer streams with less water
contest their claim, the Nahr Barrighit from Coelesyria, which rises
near the springs of the Litany, and the Nahr Hasbany from Hermon. The
four streams unite below the fortress of Banias, which once held the
gate of the valley, and flow into a marshy tract now called Huleh
(Semechonitis, and perhaps Merom of Joshua). There the Jordan begins to
fall below sea-level, rushing down 680 ft. in 9 m. to a delta, which
opens into the Sea of Galilee. Thereafter it follows a valley which is
usually not above 4 m. broad, but opens out twice into the small plains
of Bethshan and Jericho. The river actually flows in a depression, the
Zor, from a quarter to 2 m. wide, which it has hollowed out for itself
in the bed of the Ghor. During the rainy season (January and February),
when the Jordan overflows its banks, the Zor is flooded, but when the
water falls it produces rich crops. The floor of the Ghor falls gently
to the Zor, and is intersected by deep channels, which have been cut by
the small streams and winter torrents that traverse it on their way to
the Jordan. As far south as Kurn Surtabeh most of the valley is fertile,
and even between that point and the Dead Sea there are several
well-watered oases. In summer the heat in the Ghor is intense, 110 deg.
F. in the shade, but in winter the temperature falls to 40 deg., and
sometimes to 32 deg. at night. During the seasons of rain and melting
snow the river is very full, and liable to freshets. After twelve hours'
rain it has been known to rise from 4 to 5 ft., and to fall as rapidly.
In 1257 the Jordan was dammed up for several hours by a landslip,
probably due to heavy rain. On leaving the Sea of Galilee the water is
quite clear, but it soon assumes a tawny colour from the soft marl which
it washes away from its banks and deposits in the Dead Sea. On the whole
it is an unpleasant foul stream running between poisonous banks, and as
such it seems to have been regarded by the Jews and other Syrians. The
Hebrew poets did not sing its praises, and others compared it
unfavourably with the clear rivers of Damascus. The clay of the valley
was used for brickmaking, and Solomon established brass foundries there.
From crusading times to this day it has grown sugar-cane. In Roman times
it had extensive palm-groves and some small towns (e.g. Livias or Julias
opposite Jericho) and villages. The Jordan is crossed by two stone
bridges--one north of Lake Huleh, the other between that lake and the
Sea of Galilee--and by a wooden bridge on the road from Jerusalem to
Gilead and Moab. During the Roman period, and almost to the end of the
Arab supremacy, there were bridges on all the great lines of
communication between eastern and western Palestine, and ferries at
other places. The depth of water varies greatly with the season. When
not in flood the river is often fordable, and between the Sea of Galilee
and the Dead Sea there are then more than fifty fords--some of them of
historic interest. The only difficulty is occasioned by the erratic
zigzag current. The natural products of the Jordan valley--a tropical
oasis sunk in the temperate zone, and overhung by Alpine Hermon--are
unique. Papyrus grows in Lake Huleh, and rice and cereals thrive on its
shores, whilst below the Sea of Galilee the vegetation is almost
tropical. The flora and fauna present a large infusion of Ethiopian
types; and the fish, with which the river is abundantly stocked, have a
great affinity with those of the rivers and lakes of east Africa. Ere
the Jordan enters the Dead Sea, its valley has become very barren and
forbidding. It reaches the lake at a minus level of 1290 ft., the
depression continuing downwards to twice that depth in the bed of the
Dead Sea. It receives two affluents, with perennial waters, on the left,
the Yarmuk (Hieromax) which flows in from the volcanic Jaulan a little
south of the Sea of Galilee, and the Zerka (Jabbok) which comes from the
Belka district to a point more than half-way down the lower course. On
the right the Jalud descends from the plain of Esdraelon to near Beisan,
and the Far'a from near Nablus. Various salt springs rise in the lower
valley. The rest of the tributaries are wadis, dry except after rains.
Such human life as may be found in the valley now is mainly migratory.
The Samaritan villagers use it in winter as pasture-ground, and, with
the Circassians and Arabs of the east bank, cultivate plots here and
there. They retire on the approach of summer. Jericho is the only
considerable settlement in the lower valley, and it lies some distance
west of the stream on the lower slopes of the Judaean heights.
See W. F. Lynch, _Narrative of the U.S. Expedition_, &c. (1849); H. B.
Tristram, _Land of Israel_ (1865); J. Macgregor, _Rob Roy on the
Jordan_ (1870); A. Neubauer, _La Geographie du Talmud_ (1868); E.
Robinson, _Physical Geography of the Holy Land_ (1865); E. Hull,
_Mount Seir_, &c. (1885), and _Memoir on the Geology of Arabia
Petraea_, &c. (1886); G. A. Smith, _Hist. Geography of the Holy Land_
(1894); W. Libbey and F. E. Hoskins, _The Jordan Valley_, &c. (1905).
See also PALESTINE. (C. W. W.; D. G. H.)
JORDANES,[1] the historian of the Gothic nation, flourished about the
middle of the 6th century. All that we certainly know about his life is
contained in three sentences of his history of the Goths (cap. 50), from
which, among other particulars as to the history of his family, we learn
that his grandfather Paria was notary to Candac, the chief of a
confederation of Alans and other tribes settled during the latter half
of the 5th century on the south of the Danube in the provinces which are
now Bulgaria and the Dobrudscha. Jordanes himself was the notary of
Candac's nephew, the Gothic chief Gunthigis, until he took the vows of a
monk. This, according to the manner of speaking of that day, is the
meaning of his words _ante conversionem meam_, though it is quite
possible that he may at the same time have renounced the Arian creed of
his forefathers, which it is clear that he no longer held when he wrote
his Gothic history. The _Getica_ of Jordanes shows Gothic sympathies;
but these are probably due to an imitation of the tone of Cassiodorus,
from whom he draws practically all his material. He was not himself a
Goth, belonging to a confederation of Germanic tribes, embracing Alans
and Scyrians, which had come under the influence of the Ostrogoths
settled on the lower Danube; and his own sympathies are those of a
member of this confederation. He is accordingly friendly to the Goths,
even apart from the influence of Cassiodorus; but he is also
prepossessed in favour of the eastern emperors in whose territories this
confederation lived and whose subject he himself was. This makes him an
impartial authority on the last days of the Ostrogoths. At the same
time, living in Moesia, he is restricted in his outlook to Danubian
affairs. He has little to say of the inner history and policy of the
kingdom of Theodoric: his interests lie, as Mommsen says, within a
triangle of which the three points are Sirmium, Larissa and
Constantinople. Finally, connected as he was with the Alans, he shows
himself friendly to them, whenever they enter into his narrative.
We pass from the extremely shadowy personality of Jordanes to the more
interesting question of his works.
1. The _Romana_, or, as he himself calls it, _De summa temporum vel
origine actibusque gentis Romanorum_, was composed in 551. It was begun
before, but published after, the _Getica_. It is a sketch of the history
of the world from the creation, based on Jerome, the epitome of Florus,
Orosius and the ecclesiastical history of Socrates. There is a curious
reference to Iamblichus, apparently the neo-platonist philosopher, whose
name Jordanes, being, as he says himself, _agrammatus_, inserts by way
of a flourish. The work is only of any value for the century 450-550,
when Jordanes is dealing with recent history. It is merely a hasty
compilation intended to stand side by side with the _Getica_.[2]
2. The other work of Jordanes commonly called _De rebus Geticis_ or
_Getica_, was styled by himself _De origine actibusque Getarum_, and
was also written in 551. He informs us that while he was engaged upon
the _Romana_ a friend named Castalius invited him to compress into one
small treatise the twelve books--now lost--of the senator Cassiodorus,
on _The Origin and Actions of the Goths_. Jordanes professes to have had
the work of Cassiodorus in his hands for but three days, and to
reproduce the sense not the words; but his book, short as it is,
evidently contains long verbatim extracts from the earlier author, and
it may be suspected that the story of the _triduana lectio_ and the
apology _quamvis verba non recolo_, possibly even the friendly
invitation of Castalius, are mere blinds to cover his own entire want of
originality. This suspicion is strengthened by the fact (discovered by
von Sybel) that even the very preface to his book is taken almost word
for word from Rufinus's translation of Origen's commentary on the
epistle to the Romans. There is no doubt, even on Jordanes' own
statements, that his work is based upon that of Cassiodorus, and that
any historical worth which it possesses is due to that fact. Cassiodorus
was one of the very few men who, Roman by birth and sympathies, could
yet appreciate the greatness of the barbarians by whom the empire was
overthrown. The chief adviser of Theodoric, the East Gothic king in
Italy, he accepted with ardour that monarch's great scheme, if indeed,
he did not himself originally suggest it, of welding Roman and Goth
together into one harmonious state which should preserve the social
refinement and the intellectual culture of the Latin-speaking races
without losing the hardy virtues of their Teutonic conquerors. To this
aim everything in the political life of Cassiodorus was subservient, and
this aim he evidently kept before him in his Gothic history. But in
writing that history Cassiodorus was himself indebted to the work of a
certain Ablabius. It was Ablabius, apparently, who had first used the
Gothic sagas (_prisca carmina_); it was he who had constructed the stem
of the Amals. Whether he was a Greek, a Roman or a Goth we do not know;
nor can we say when he wrote, though his work may be dated conjecturally
in the early part of the reign of Theodoric the Great. We can only say
that he wrote on the origin and history of the Goths, using both Gothic
saga and Greek sources; and that if Jordanes used Cassiodorus,
Cassiodorus used, if to a less extent, the work of Ablabius.
Cassiodorus began his work, at the request of Theodoric, and therefore
before 526: it was finished by 533. At the root of the work lies a
theory, whencesoever derived, which identified the Goths with the
Scythians, whose country Darius Hystaspes invaded, and with the Getae of
Dacia, whom Trajan conquered. This double identification enabled
Cassiodorus to bring the favoured race into line with the peoples of
classical antiquity, to interweave with their history stories about
Hercules and the Amazons, to make them invade Egypt, to claim for them a
share in the wisdom of the semi-mythical Scythian philosopher Zamolxis.
He was thus able with some show of plausibility to represent the Goths
as "wiser than all the other barbarians and almost like the Greeks"
(Jord., _De reb. Get._, cap. v.), and to send a son of the Gothic king
Telephus to fight at the siege of Troy, with the ancestors of the
Romans. All this we can now perceive to have no relation to history, but
at the time it may have made the subjugation of the Roman less bitter to
feel that he was not after all bowing down before a race of barbarian
upstarts, but that his Amal sovereign was as firmly rooted in classical
antiquity as any Julius or Claudius who ever wore the purple. In the
eighteen years which elapsed between 533 and the composition of the
_Getica_ of Jordanes, great events, most disastrous for the
Romano-Gothic monarchy of Theodoric, had taken place. It was no longer
possible to write as if the whole civilization of the Western world
would sit down contentedly under the shadow of East Gothic dominion and
Amal sovereignty. And, moreover, the instincts of Jordanes, as a subject
of the Eastern Empire, predisposed him to flatter the sacred majesty of
Justinian, by whose victorious arms the overthrow of the barbarian
kingdom in Italy had been effected. Hence we perceive two currents of
tendency in the _Getica_. On the one hand, as a transcriber of the
philo-Goth Cassiodorus, he magnifies the race of Alaric and Theodoric,
and claims for them their full share, perhaps more than their full
share, of glory in the past. On the other hand he speaks of the great
anti-Teuton emperor Justinian, and of his reversal of the German
conquests of the 5th century, in language which would certainly have
grated on the ears of Totila and his heroes. When Ravenna is taken, and
Vitigis carried into captivity, Jordanes almost exults in the fact that
"the nobility of the Amals and the illustrious offspring of so many
mighty men have surrendered to a yet more illustrious prince and a yet
mightier general, whose fame shall not grow dim through all the
centuries." (_Getica_, lx. S 315).
This laudation, both of the Goths and of their Byzantine conquerors, may
perhaps help us to understand the motive with which the _Getica_ was
written. In the year 551 Germanus, nephew of Justinian, accompanied by
his bride, Matasuntha, grand-daughter of Theodoric, set forth to
reconquer Italy for the empire. His early death prevented any schemes
for a revived Romano-Gothic kingdom which may have been based on his
personality. His widow, however, bore a posthumous child, also named
Germanus, of whom Jordanes speaks (cap. 60) as "blending the blood of
the Anicii and the Amals, and furnishing a hope under the divine
blessing of one day uniting their glories." This younger Germanus did
nothing in after life to realize these anticipations; but the somewhat
pointed way in which his name and his mother's name are mentioned by
Jordanes lends some probability to the view that he hoped for the
child's succession to the Eastern Empire, and the final reconciliation
of the Goths and Romans in the person of a Gotho-Roman emperor.
The _De rebus Geticis_ falls naturally into four parts. The first
(chs. i.-xiii.) commences with a geographical description of the three
quarters of the world, and in more detail of Britain and Scanzia
(Sweden), from which the Goths under their king Berig migrated to the
southern coast of the Baltic. Their migration across what has since
been called Lithuania to the shores of the Euxine, and their
differentiation into Visigoths and Ostrogoths, are next described.
Chs. v.-xiii. contain an account of the intrusive Geto-Scythian
element before alluded to.
The second section (chs. xiv.-xxiv.) returns to the true history of
the Gothic nation, sets forth the genealogy of the Amal kings, and
describes the inroads of the Goths into the Roman Empire in the 3rd
century, with the foundation and the overthrow of the great but
somewhat shadowy kingdom of Hermanric.
The third section (chs. xxv.-xlvii.) traces the history of the West
Goths from the Hunnish invasion to the downfall of the Gothic kingdom
in Gaul under Alaric II. (376-507). The best part of this section, and
indeed of the whole book, is the seven chapters devoted to Attila's
invasion of Gaul and the battle of the Mauriac plains. Here we have in
all probability a verbatim extract from Cassiodorus, who (possibly
resting on Ablabius) interwove with his narrative large portions of
the Gothic sagas. The celebrated expression _certaminis gaudia_
assuredly came at first neither from the suave minister Cassiodorus
nor from the small-souled notary Jordanes, but is the translation of
some thought which first found utterance through the lips of a Gothic
minstrel.
The fourth section (chs. xlviii.-lx.) traces the history of the East
Goths from the same Hunnish invasion to the first overthrow of the
Gothic monarchy in Italy (376-539). In this fourth section are
inserted, somewhat out of their proper place, some valuable details as
to the _Gothi Minores_, "an immense people dwelling in the region of
Nicopolis, with their high priest and primate Vulfilas, who is said
also to have taught them letters." The book closes with the allusion
to Germanus and the panegyric on Justinian as the conqueror of the
Goths referred to above.
Jordanes refers in the _Getica_ to a number of authors besides
Cassiodorus; but he owes his knowledge of them to Cassiodorus. It is
perhaps only when he is using Orosius that we can hold Jordanes to
have borrowed directly. Otherwise, as Mommsen says, the _Getica is a
mera epitome, laxata ea et perversa, historiae Gothicae
Cassiodorianae_.
As to the style and literary character of Jordanes, every author who
has used him speaks in terms of severe censure. When he is left to
himself and not merely transcribing, he is sometimes scarcely
grammatical. There are awkward gaps in his narrative and statements
inconsistent with each other. He quotes, as if he were familiarly
acquainted with their writings, a number of Greek and Roman writers,
of whom it is almost certain that he had not read more than one or
two. At the same time he does not quote the chronicler Marcellinus,
from whom he has copied verbatim the history of the deposition of
Augustulus. All these faults make him a peculiarly unsatisfactory
authority where we cannot check his statements by those of other
authors. It may, however, be pleaded in extenuation that he is
professedly a transcriber, and, if his story be correct, a
transcriber in peculiarly unfavourable circumstances. He has also
himself suffered much from the inaccuracy of copyists. But nothing has
really been more unfortunate for the reputation of Jordanes as a
writer than the extreme preciousness of the information which he has
preserved to us. The Teutonic tribes whose dim origins he records have
in the course of centuries attained to world-wide dominion. The battle
in the Mauriac plains of which he is really the sole historian, is now
seen to have had important bearings on the destinies of the world. And
thus the hasty pamphlet of a half-educated Gothic monk has been forced
into prominence, almost into rivalry with the finished productions of
the great writers of classical antiquity. No wonder that it stands the
comparison badly; but with all its faults the _Getica_ of Jordanes
will probably ever retain its place side by side with the _De moribus
Germanorum_ of Tacitus as a chief source of information respecting the
history, institutions and modes of thought of our Teutonic
forefathers.
EDITIONS.--The classical edition is that of Mommsen (in _Mon. Germ.
hist. auct. antiq._, v., ii.), which supersedes the older editions,
such as that in the first volume of Muratori's _Scriptt. rer. Ital._
The best MS. is the Heidelberg MS., written in Germany, probably in
the 8th century; but this perished in the fire at Mommsen's house. The
next of the MSS. in value are the Vaticanus Palatinus of the 10th
century, and the Valenciennes MS. of the 9th.
AUTHORITIES.--Von Sybel's essay, _De fontibus Jordanis_ (1838);
Schirren's _De ratione quae inter Jordanem et Cassiodorum intercedat
Commentatio_ (Dorpat, 1858); Kopke's _Die Anfange des Konigthums
beiden Gothen_ (Berlin, 1859); Dahn's _Die Konige der Germanen_, vol.
ii. (Munich, 1861); Ebert's _Geschichte der Christlich-Lateinischen
Literatur_ (Leipsic, 1874); Wattenbach's _Deutschlands
Geschichtsquellen im Mittelalter_ (Berlin, 1877); and the introduction
of Mommsen to his edition. (T. H.; E. Br.)
FOOTNOTES:
[1] The evidence of MSS. is overwhelming against the form Jornandes.
The MSS. exhibit Jordanis or Jordannis; but these are only
Vulgar-Latin spellings of Jordanes.
[2] The terms of the dedication of this book to a certain Vigilius
make it impossible that the pope (538-555) of that name is meant.
JORDANUS (JORDAN CATALANI) (fl. 1321-1330), French Dominican missionary
and explorer in Asia, was perhaps born at Severac in Aveyron, north-east
of Toulouse. In 1302 he may have accompanied the famous Thomas of
Tolentino, via Negropont, to the East; but it is only in 1321 that we
definitely discover him in western India, in the company of the same
Thomas and certain other Franciscan missionaries on their way to China.
Ill-luck detained them at Tana in Salsette island, near Bombay; and here
Jordanus' companions ("the four martyrs of Tana") fell victims to Moslem
fanaticism (April 7, 1321). Jordanus, escaping, worked some time at
Baruch in Gujarat, near the Nerbudda estuary, and at Suali (?) near
Surat; to his fellow-Dominicans in north Persia he wrote two
letters--the first from Gogo in Gujarat (October 12, 1321), the second
from Tana (January 24, 1323/4)--describing the progress of this new
mission. From these letters we learn that Roman attention had already
been directed, not only to the Bombay region, but also to the extreme
south of the Indian peninsula, especially to "Columbum," Quilon, or
Kulam in Travancore; Jordanus' words may imply that he had already
started a mission there before October 1321. From Catholic traders he
had learnt that Ethiopia (i.e. Abyssinia and Nubia) was accessible to
Western Europeans; at this very time, as we know from other sources, the
earliest Latin missionaries penetrated thither. Finally, the _Epistles_
of Jordanus, like the contemporary _Secreta_ of Marino Sanuto
(1306-1321), urge the pope to establish a Christian fleet upon the
Indian seas. Jordanus, between 1324 and 1328 (if not earlier), probably
visited Kulam and selected it as the best centre for his future work; it
would also appear that he revisited Europe about 1328, passing through
Persia, and perhaps touching at the great Crimean port of Soldaia or
Sudak. He was appointed a bishop in 1328 and nominated by Pope John
XXII. to the see of Columbum in 1330. Together with the new bishop of
Samarkand, Thomas of Mancasola, Jordanus was commissioned to take the
pall to John de Cora, archbishop of Sultaniyah in Persia, within whose
province Kulam was reckoned; he was also commended to the Christians of
south India, both east and west of Cape Comorin, by Pope John. Either
before going out to Malabar as bishop, or during a later visit to the
west, Jordanus probably wrote his _Mirabilia_, which from internal
evidence can only be fixed within the period 1329-1338; in this work he
furnished the best account of Indian regions, products, climate,
manners, customs, fauna and flora given by any European in the Middle
Ages--superior even to Marco Polo's. In his triple division of the
Indies, India Major comprises the shorelands from Malabar to Cochin
China; while India Minor stretches from Sind (or perhaps from
Baluchistan) to Malabar; and India Tertia (evidently dominated by
African conceptions in his mind) includes a vast undefined coast-region
west of Baluchistan, reaching into the neighbourhood of, but not
including, Ethiopia and Prester John's domain. Jordanus' _Mirabilia_
contains the earliest clear African identification of Prester John, and
what is perhaps the first notice of the Black Sea under that name; it
refers to the author's residence in India Major and especially at Kulam,
as well as to his travels in Armenia, north-west Persia, the Lake Van
region, and Chaldaea; and it supplies excellent descriptions of Parsee
doctrines and burial customs, of Hindu ox-worship, idol-ritual, and
suttee, and of Indian fruits, birds, animals and insects. After the 8th
of April 1330 we have no more knowledge of Bishop Jordanus.
Of Jordanus' _Epistles_ there is only one MS., viz. Paris, National
Library, 5006 Lat., fol. 182, r. and v.; of the _Mirabilia_ also one
MS. only, viz. London, British Museum, _Additional MSS._, 19,513,
fols. 3, r.-12 r. The text of the _Epistles_ is in Quetif and Echard,
_Scriptores ordinis praedicatorum_, i. 549-550 (Epistle I.); and in
Wadding, _Annales minorum_, vi. 359-361 (Epistle II.); the text of the
_Mirabilia_ in the Paris Geog. Soc.'s _Recueil de voyages_, iv. 1-68
(1839). The Papal letters referring to Jordanus are in Raynaldus,
_Annales ecclesiastici_, 1330, SS lv. and lvii. (April 8; Feb. 14).
See also Sir H. Yule's _Jordanus_, a version of the _Mirabilia_ with a
commentary (Hakluyt Soc., 1863) and the same editor's _Cathay_, giving
a version of the _Epistles_, with a commentary, &c. (Hak. Soc., 1866)
pp. 184-185, 192-196, 225-230; F. Kunstmann, "Die Mission in Meliapor
und Tana" and "Die Mission in Columbo" in the _Historisch-politische
Blatter_ of Phillips and Gorres, xxxvii. 25-38, 135-152 (Munich,
1856), &c.; C. R. Beazley, _Dawn of Modern Geography_, iii. 215-235.
(C. R. B.)
JORIS, DAVID, the common name of JAN JORISZ or JORISZOON (c. 1501-1556),
Anabaptist heresiarch who called himself later JAN VAN BRUGGE; was born
in 1501 or 1502, probably in Flanders, at Ghent or Bruges. His father,
Georgius Joris de Koman, otherwise Joris van Amersfoordt, probably a
native of Bruges, was a shopkeeper and amateur actor at Delft; from the
circumstance that he played the part of King David, his son received the
name of David, but probably not in baptism. His mother was Marytje,
daughter of Jan de Gorter, of a good family in Delft. As a child he was
clever and delicate. He seems then or later to have acquired some
tincture of learning. His first known occupation was that of a
glass-painter; in 1522 he painted windows for the church at Enkhuizen,
North Holland (the birthplace of Paul Potter). In pursuit of his art he
travelled, and is said to have reached England; ill-health drove him
homewards in 1524, in which year he married Dirckgen Willems at Delft.
In the same year the Lutheran reformation took hold of him, and he began
to issue appeals in prose and verse against the Mass and against the
pope as antichrist. On Ascension Day 1528 he committed an outrage on the
sacrament carried in procession; he was placed in the pillory, had his
tongue bored, and was banished from Delft for three years. He turned to
the Anabaptists, was rebaptized in 1533, and for some years led a
wandering life. He came into relations with John a Lasco, and with Menno
Simons. Much influenced by Melchior Hofman, he had no sympathy with the
fanatic violence of the Munster faction. At the Buckholdt conference in
August 1536 he played a mediating part. His mother, in 1537, suffered
martyrdom as an Anabaptist. Soon after he took up a role of his own,
having visions and a gift of prophecy. He adapted in his own interest
the theory (constantly recurrent among mystics and innovators, from the
time of Abbot Joachim to the present day) of three dispensations, the
old, with its revelation of the Father, the newer with its revelation of
the Son, and the final or era of the Spirit. Of this newest revelation
Christus David was the mouthpiece, supervening on Christus Jesus. From
the 1st of April 1544, bringing with him some of his followers, he took
up his abode in Basel, which was to be the New Jerusalem. Here he styled
himself Jan van Brugge. His identity was unknown to the authorities of
Basel, who had no suspicion of his heresies. By his writings he
maintained his hold on his numerous followers in Holland and Friesland.
These monotonous writings, all in Dutch, flowed in a continual stream
from 1524 (though none is extant before 1529) and amounted to over 200
in number. His _magnum opus_ was _'T Wonder Boeck_ (_n.d._ 1542, divided
into two parts; 1551, handsomely reprinted, divided into four parts;
both editions anonymous). Its chief claim to recognition is its use, in
the latter part, of the phrase _Restitutio Christi_, which apparently
suggested to Servetus his title _Christianismi Restitutio_ (1553). In
the 1st edition is a figure of the "new man," signed with the author's
monogram, and probably drawn as a likeness of himself; it fairly
corresponds with the alleged portrait, engraved in 1607, reproduced in
the appendix to A. Ross's _Pansebeia_ (1655), and idealized by P.
Burckhardt in 1900. Another work, _Verklaringe der Scheppenissen_ (1553)
treats mystically the book of Genesis, a favourite theme with Boehme,
Swedenborg and others. His remaining writings exhibit all that easy
dribble of triumphant muddiness which disciples take as depth. His wife
died on the 22nd of August, and his own death followed on the 25th of
August 1556. He was buried, with all religious honours, in the church of
St Leonard, Basel. Three years later, Nicolas Blesdijk, who had married
his eldest daughter Jannecke (Susanna), but had lost confidence in
Jorisz some time before his death, denounced the dead man to the
authorities of Basel. An investigation was begun in March 1559, and as
the result of a conviction for heresy the exhumed body of Jorisz was
burned, together with his portrait, on the 13th of May 1559. Blesdijk's
_Historia_ (not printed till 1642) accuses Jorisz of having _plures
uxores_. Of this there is no confirmation. Theoretically Jorisz regarded
polygamy as lawful; there is no proof that his theory affected his own
practice.
The first attempt at a true account of Jorisz was by Gottfried Arnold,
in his anonymous _Historia_ (1713), pursued with much fuller material
in his _Kirchen und Ketzer Historie_ (best ed. 1740-1742). See also F.
Nippold, in _Zeitschrift fur die historische Theologie_ (1863, 1864,
1868); A. van der Linde, in _Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie_ (1881);
P. Burckhardt, _Basler Biographien_ (1900); Hegler, in Hauck's
_Realencyklopadie_ (1901), and the bibliography by A. van der Linde,
1867, supplemented by E. Weller, 1869. (A. Go.*)
JORTIN, JOHN (1698-1770), English theologian, the son of a Protestant
refugee from Brittany, was born in London on the 23rd of October 1698.
He went to Charterhouse School, and in 1715 became a pensioner of Jesus
College, Cambridge, where his reputation as a Greek scholar led to his
being selected to translate certain passages from Eustathius for the
notes to Pope's _Homer_. In 1722 he published a small volume of Latin
verse entitled _Lusus poetici_. Having taken orders in 1724, he was in
1726 presented by his college to the vicarage of Swavesey in
Cambridgeshire, which he resigned in 1730 to become preacher at a
chapel-of-ease in New Street, London. In 1731, along with some friends,
he began a publication entitled _Miscellaneous Observations on Authors
Ancient and Modern_, which appeared at intervals during two years. He
was Boyle lecturer in 1749. Shortly after becoming chaplain to the
bishop of London in 1762 he was appointed to a prebendal stall of St
Paul's and to the vicarage of Kensington, and in 1764 he was made
archdeacon of London. He died at Kensington on the 5th of September
1770.
The principal works of Jortin are: _Discussions Concerning the Truth
of the Christian Religion_ (1746); _Remarks on Ecclesiastical History_
(3 vols. 1751-2-4); _Life of Erasmus_ (2 vols. 1750, 1760) founded on
the Life by Jean Le Clerc; and _Tracts Philological Critical and
Miscellaneous_ (1790). A collection of his _Various Works_ appeared in
1805-1810. All his writings display wide learning and acuteness. He
writes on theological subjects with the detachment of a thoughtful
layman, and is witty without being flippant. See John Disney's _Life
of Jortin_ (1792).
JOSEPH, in the Old Testament, the son of the patriarch Jacob by Rachel;
the name of a tribe of Israel. Two explanations of the name are given by
the Biblical narrator (Gen. xxx. 23 [E], 24 [J]); a third, "He (God)
increases," seems preferable. Unlike the other "sons" of Jacob, Joseph
is usually reckoned as two tribes (viz. his "sons" Ephraim and
Manasseh), and closely associated with it is the small tribe of Benjamin
(q.v.), which lay immediately to the south. These three constituted the
"sons" of Rachel (the ewe), and with the "sons" of Leah (the antelope?)
are thus on a higher level than the "sons" of Jacob's concubines. The
"house of Joseph" and its offshoots occupied the centre of Palestine
from the plain of Esdraelon to the mountain country of Benjamin, with
dependencies in Bashan and northern Gilead (see MANASSEH). Practically
it comprised the northern kingdom, and the name is used in this sense in
2 Sam. xix. 20; Amos v. 6; vi. 6 (note the prominence of Joseph in the
blessings of Jacob and Moses, Gen. xlix., Deut. xxxiii.). Originally,
however, "Joseph" was more restricted, possibly to the immediate
neighbourhood of Shechem, its later extension being parallel to the
development of the name Jacob. The dramatic story of the tribal ancestor
is recounted in Gen. xxxvii.-l. (see GENESIS). Joseph, the younger and
envied son, is seized by his brothers at Dothan north of Shechem, and is
sold to a party of Ishmaelites or Midianites, who carry him down to
Egypt. After various vicissitudes he gains the favour of the king of
Egypt by the interpretation of a dream, and obtains a high place in the
kingdom.[1] Forced by a famine his brothers come to buy food, and in the
incidents that follow Joseph shows his preference for his young brother
Benjamin (cf. the tribal data above). His father Jacob is invited to
come to Goshen, where a settlement is provided for the family and their
flocks. This is followed many years later by the exodus, the conquest of
Palestine, and the burial of Joseph's body in the grave at Shechem which
his father had bought.
The history of Joseph in Egypt displays some familiarity with the
circumstances and usages of that country; see Driver (Hastings's
_D.B._) and Cheyne (_Ency. Bib._, col. 2589 seq.); although Abrech
(xli. 43), possibly the Egyptian _ib rk_ (Crum, in Hastings's _D.B._,
i. 665), has been otherwise connected with the Assyrian _abarakku_ (a
high officer). An interesting parallel to the story of Joseph in Gen.
xxxix. is found in the Egyptian tale of _The Two Brothers_ (Petrie,
_Eg. Tales_, 2nd series, p. 36 seq., 1895), which dates from about
1500 B.C., but the differences are not inconsiderable compared with
the points of resemblance, and the tale has features which are almost
universal (Frazer, _Golden Bough_, 2nd ed., vol. iii. 351 seq.). On
the theory that the historical elements of Joseph's history refer to
an official (Yanhamu) of the time of Amenophis III. and IV., see
Cheyne, op. cit., and _Hibbert Journal_, October 1903. That the
present form of the narrative has been influenced by current
mythological lore is not improbable; on this question see (with
caution) Winckler, _Gesch. Israels_, ii. 67-77 (1900); A. Jeremias,
_Alte Test._, pp. 383 sqq. (1906). It may be added that the Egyptian
names in the story of Joseph are characteristic of the XXII. and
subsequent dynasties. See, also Meyer and Luther, _Die Israeliten_
(1906), Index, _s.v._ (S. A. C.)
FOOTNOTE:
[1] Joseph's marriage with the daughter of the priest of On might
show that the tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh were believed to be
half-Egyptian by descent, but it is notoriously difficult to
determine how much is of ethnological value and how much belongs to
romance (viz. that of the individual Joseph).
JOSEPH, in the New Testament, the husband of Mary, the mother of Jesus.
He is represented as a descendant of the house of David, and his
genealogy appears in two divergent forms in Matt. i. 1-17 and Luke iii.
23-38. The latter is probably much more complete and accurate in
details. The former, obviously artificial in structure (notice 3 X 14
generations), traces the Davidic descent through kings, and is governed
by an apologetic purpose. Of Joseph's personal history practically
nothing is recorded in the Bible. The facts concerning him common to the
two birth-narratives (Matt. i.-ii.; Luke i.-ii.) are: (a) that he was a
descendant of David, (b) that Mary was already betrothed to him when she
was found with child of the Holy Ghost, and (c) that he lived at
Nazareth after the birth of Christ; but these facts are handled
differently in each case. It is noticeable that, in Matthew, Joseph is
prominent (e.g. he receives an annunciation from an angel), while in
Luke's narrative he is completely subordinated. Bp Gore (_The
Incarnation_, Bampton lecture for 1891, p. 78) points out that Matthew
narrates everything from Joseph's side, Luke from Mary's, and infers
that the narrative of the former may ultimately be based on Joseph's
account, that of the latter on Mary's. The narratives seem to have been
current (in a poetical form) among the early Jewish-Christian community
of Palestine. At Nazareth Joseph followed the trade of a carpenter
(Matt. xiii. 55). It is probable that he had died before the public
ministry of Christ; for no mention is made of him in passages relating
to this period where the mother and brethren of Jesus are introduced;
and from John xix. 26 it is clear that he was not alive at the time of
the Crucifixion.
Joseph was the father of several children (Matt. xiii. 55), but
according to ecclesiastical tradition by a former marriage. The reading
of Matt. i. 16, in the Sinaitic Palimpsest (_Joseph ... begat Jesus, who
is called the Christ_) also makes him the natural father of Jesus, and
this was the view of certain early heretical sects, but it seems never
to have been held in orthodox Christian circles. According to various
apocryphal gospels (conveniently collected in B. H. Cowper's _The
Apocryphal Gospels_, 1881), when married to Mary he was a widower
already 80 years of age, and the father of four sons and two daughters;
his first wife's name was Salome and she was a connexion of the family
of John the Baptist.
In the Roman Catholic Church the 19th of March has since 1642 been a
feast in Joseph's honour. Two other festivals in his honour have also
been established (the Patronage of St Joseph, 3rd Sunday after Easter,
and the Betrothal of Mary and Joseph, 23rd of January). In December 1870
St Joseph was proclaimed Patron of the whole Church. (G. H. Bo.)
JOSEPH OF ARIMATHAEA,[1] in the New Testament, a wealthy Jew who had
been converted by Jesus Christ. He is mentioned by the Four Evangelists,
who are in substantial agreement concerning him: after the Crucifixion
he went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus, subsequently prepared
it for burial and laid it in a tomb. There are, however, minor
differences in the accounts, which have given rise to controversy.
Matthew (xxvii. 60) says that the tomb was Joseph's own; Mark (xv. 43
seq.), Luke (xxiii. 50 seq.) say nothing of this, while John (xix. 41)
simply says that the body was laid in a sepulchre "nigh at hand." Both
Mark and Luke say that Joseph was a "councillor" ([Greek: euschemon
bouleutes], Mark xv. 43), and the Gospel of Peter describes him as a
"friend of Pilate and of the Lord." This last statement is probably a
late invention, and there is considerable difficulty as to "councillor."
That Joseph was a member of the Sanhedrin is improbable. Luke indeed,
regarding him as such, says that he "had not consented to their counsel
and deed," but Mark (xiv. 64) says that _all_ the Sanhedrin "condemned
him to be worthy of death." Perhaps the phrase "noble councillor" is
intended to imply merely a man of wealth and position. Again Matthew
says that Joseph was a disciple, while Mark implies that he was not yet
among the definite adherents of Christ, and John describes him as an
adherent "secretly for fear of the Jews." Most likely he was a disciple,
but belonged only to the wider circle of adherents. The account given in
the Fourth Gospel suggests that the writer, faced with these various
difficulties, assumed a double tradition: (1) that Joseph of Arimathaea,
a wealthy disciple, buried the body of Christ; (2) that the person in
question was Joseph of Arimathaea a "councillor," and solved the problem
by substituting Nicodemus as the councillor; hence he describes both
Joseph and Nicodemus (xix. 39) as co-operating in the burial. Some
critics (e.g. Strauss, _New Life of Jesus_, ch. 96) have thrown doubt
upon the story, regarding some of the details as invented to suit the
prophecy in Isa. liii. 9, "they made his grave with the wicked, and with
the rich in his death" (for various translations, see Hastings's _Dict.
Bible_, ii. 778). But in the absence of any reference to this prophecy
in the Gospels, this view is unconvincing, though the correspondence is
remarkable.
The striking character of this single appearance of Joseph of Arimathaea
led to the rise of numerous legends. Thus William of Malmesbury says
that he was sent to Britain by St Philip, and, having received a small
island in Somersetshire, there constructed "with twisted twigs" the
first Christian church in Britain--afterwards to become the Abbey of
Glastonbury. The legend says that his staff, planted in the ground,
became a thorn flowering twice a year (see GLASTONBURY). This
tradition--which is given only as such by Malmesbury himself--is not
confirmed, and there is no mention of it in either Gildas or Bede.
Joseph also plays a large part in the various versions of the Legend of
the Holy Grail (see GRAIL, THE HOLY).
FOOTNOTE:
[1] Generally identified with Ramathaim-Zophim, the city of Elkanah
in the hilly district of Ephraim (1 Sam. i. 1), near Diospolis
(Lydda). See Euseb., _Onomasticon_, 225. 12.
JOSEPH I. (1678-1711), Roman emperor, was the elder son of the emperor
Leopold I. and his third wife, Eleanora, countess palatine, daughter of
Philip William of Neuburg. Born in Vienna on the 26th of July 1678, he
was educated strictly by Prince Dietrich Otto von Salm, and became a
good linguist. In 1687 he received the crown of Hungary, and he was
elected king of the Romans in 1690. In 1699 he married Wilhelmina
Amalia, daughter of Duke Frederick of Brunswick-Luneburg, by whom he had
two daughters. In 1702, on the outbreak of the War of the Spanish
Succession, he saw his only military service. He joined the imperial
general Louis of Baden in the siege of Landau. It is said that when he
was advised not to go into a place of danger he replied that those who
were afraid might retire. He succeeded his father as emperor in 1705,
and it was his good fortune to govern the Austrian dominions, and to be
head of the Empire during the years in which his trusted general Prince
Eugene, either acting alone in Italy or with the duke of Marlborough in
Germany and Flanders, was beating the armies of Louis XIV. During the
whole of his reign Hungary was disturbed by the conflict with Francis
Rackoczy II., who eventually took refuge in France. The emperor did not
himself take the field against the rebels, but he is entitled to a large
share of the credit for the restoration of his authority. He reversed
many of the pedantically authoritative measures of his father, thus
placating all opponents who could be pacified, and he fought stoutly for
what he believed to be his rights. Joseph showed himself very
independent towards the pope, and hostile to the Jesuits, by whom his
father had been much influenced. He had the tastes for art and music
which were almost hereditary in his family, and was an active hunter. He
began the attempts to settle the question of the Austrian inheritance by
a pragmatic sanction, which were continued by his brother Charles VI.
Joseph died in Vienna on the 17th of April 1711, of small-pox.
See F. Krones von Marchland, _Grundriss der Oesterreichischen
Geschichte_ (1882); F. Wagner, _Historia Josephi Caesaris_ (1746); J.
C. Herchenhahn, _Geschichte der Regierung Kaiser Josephs I._
(1786-1789); C. van Noorden, _Europaische Geschichte im 18.
Jahrhundert_ (1870-1882).
JOSEPH II. (1741-1790), Roman emperor, eldest son of the empress Maria
Theresa and her husband Francis I., was born on the 13th of March 1741,
in the first stress of the War of the Austrian Succession. Maria Theresa
gave orders that he was only to be taught as if he were amusing himself;
the result was that he acquired a habit of crude and superficial study.
His real education was given him by the writings of Voltaire and the
encyclopaedists, and by the example of Frederick the Great. His useful
training was conferred by government officials, who were directed to
instruct him in the mechanical details of the administration of the
numerous states composing the Austrian dominions and the Empire. In 1761
he was made a member of the newly constituted council of state
(_Staatsrath_) and began to draw up minutes, to which he gave the name
of "reveries," for his mother to read. These papers contain the germs of
his later policy, and of all the disasters which finally overtook him.
He was a friend to religious toleration, anxious to reduce the power of
the church, to relieve the peasantry of feudal burdens, and to remove
restrictions on trade and on knowledge. So far he did not differ from
Frederick, Catherine of Russia or his own brother and successor Leopold
II., all enlightened rulers of the 18th-century stamp. Where Joseph
differed from great contemporary rulers, and where he was very close
akin to the Jacobins, was in the fanatical intensity of his belief in
the power of the state when directed by reason, of his right to speak
for the state uncontrolled by laws, and of the reasonableness of his own
reasons. Also he had inherited from his mother all the belief of the
house of Austria in its "august" quality, and its claim to acquire
whatever it found desirable for its power or its profit. He was unable
to understand that his philosophical plans for the moulding of mankind
could meet with pardonable opposition. The overweening character of the
man was obvious to Frederick, who, after their first interview in 1769,
described him as ambitious, and as capable of setting the world on fire.
The French minister Vergennes, who met Joseph when he was travelling
incognito in 1777, judged him to be "ambitious and despotic."
Until the death of his mother in 1780 Joseph was never quite free to
follow his own instincts. After the death of his father in 1765 he
became emperor and was made co-regent by his mother in the Austrian
dominions. As emperor he had no real power, and his mother was resolved
that neither husband nor son should ever deprive her of sovereign
control in her hereditary dominions. Joseph, by threatening to resign
his place as co-regent, could induce his mother to abate her dislike to
religious toleration. He could, and he did, place a great strain on her
patience and temper, as in the case of the first partition of Poland and
the Bavarian War of 1778, but in the last resort the empress spoke the
final word. During these wars Joseph travelled much. He met Frederick
the Great privately at Neisse in 1769, and again at Mahrisch-Neustadt in
1770. On the second occasion he was accompanied by Prince Kaunitz, whose
conversation with Frederick may be said to mark the starting-point of
the first partition of Poland. To this and to every other measure which
promised to extend the dominions of his house Joseph gave hearty
approval. Thus he was eager to enforce its claim on Bavaria upon the
death of the elector Maximilian Joseph in 1777. In April of that year he
paid a visit to his sister the queen of France (see MARIE ANTOINETTE),
travelling under the name of Count Falkenstein. He was well received,
and much flattered by the encyclopaedists, but his observations led him
to predict the approaching downfall of the French monarchy, and he was
not impressed favourably by the army or navy. In 1778 he commanded the
troops collected to oppose Frederick, who supported the rival claimant
to Bavaria. Real fighting was averted by the unwillingness of Frederick
to embark on a new war and by Maria Theresa's determination to maintain
peace. In April 1780 he paid a visit to Catherine of Russia, against the
wish of his mother.
The death of Maria Theresa on the 27th of November 1780 left Joseph
free. He immediately directed his government on a new course, full speed
ahead. He proceeded to attempt to realize his ideal of a wise despotism
acting on a definite system for the good of all. The measures of
emancipation of the peasantry which his mother had begun were carried on
by him with feverish activity. The spread of education, the
secularization of church lands, the reduction of the religious orders
and the clergy in general to complete submission to the lay state, the
promotion of unity by the compulsory use of the German language,
everything which from the point of view of 18th-century philosophy
appeared "reasonable" was undertaken at once. He strove for
administrative unity with characteristic haste to reach results without
preparation. His anti-clerical innovations induced Pope Pius VI. to pay
him a visit in July 1782. Joseph received the pope politely, and showed
himself a good Catholic, but refused to be influenced. So many
interferences with old customs began to produce unrest in all parts of
his dominions. Meanwhile he threw himself into a succession of foreign
policies all aimed at aggrandisement, and all equally calculated to
offend his neighbours--all taken up with zeal, and dropped in
discouragement. He endeavoured to get rid of the Barrier Treaty, which
debarred his Flemish subjects from the navigation of the Scheldt; when
he was opposed by France he turned to other schemes of alliance with
Russia for the partition of Turkey and Venice. They also had to be given
up in the face of the opposition of neighbours, and in particular of
France. Then he resumed his attempts to obtain Bavaria--this time by
exchanging it for Belgium--and only provoked the formation of the
_Furstenbund_ organized by the king of Prussia. Finally he joined Russia
in an attempt to pillage Turkey. It began on his part by an unsuccessful
and discreditable attempt to surprise Belgrade in time of peace, and was
followed by the ill-managed campaign of 1788. He accompanied his army,
but showed no capacity for war. In November he returned to Vienna with
ruined health, and during 1789 was a dying man. The concentration of his
troops in the east gave the malcontents of Belgium an opportunity to
revolt. In Hungary the nobles were all but in open rebellion, and in his
other states there were peasant risings, and a revival of particularist
sentiments. Joseph was left entirely alone. His minister Kaunitz refused
to visit his sick-room, and did not see him for two years. His brother
Leopold remained at Florence. At last Joseph, worn out and
broken-hearted, recognized that his servants could not, or would not,
carry out his plans. On the 30th of January 1790 he formally withdrew
all his reforms, and he died on the 20th of February.
Joseph II. was twice married, first to Isabella, daughter of Philip,
duke of Parma, to whom he was attached. After her death on the 27th of
November 1763, a political marriage was arranged with Josepha (d. 1767),
daughter of Charles Albert, elector of Bavaria (the emperor Charles
VII.). It proved extremely unhappy. Joseph left no children, and was
succeeded by his brother Leopold II.
Many volumes of the emperor's correspondence have been published.
Among them are _Maria Theresia und Joseph II. Ihre Korrespondenz samt
Briefen Josephs an seinen Bruder Leopold_ (1867-1868); _Joseph II. und
Leopold von Toskana. Ihr Briefwechsel 1781-1790_ (1872); _Joseph II.
und Katharina von Russland. Ihr Briefwechsel_ (1869); and _Maria
Antoinette, Joseph II. und Leopold II. Ihr Briefwechsel_ (1866); all
edited by A. Ritter von Arneth. Other collections are: _Joseph II.,
Leopold II. und Kaunitz. Ihr Briefwechsel_, edited by A. Beer (1873);
_Correspondances intimes de l'empereur Joseph II. avec son ami, le
comte de Cobenzl et son premier ministre, le prince de Kaunitz_,
edited by S. Brunner (1871); _Joseph II. und Graf Ludwig Cobenzl. Ihr
Briefwechsel_, edited by A. Beer and J. von Fiedler (1901); and the
_Geheime Korrespondenz Josephs II. mit seinem Minister in den
Oesterreichischen Niederlanden, Ferdinand Graf Trauttmannsdorff
1787-1789_, edited by H. Schlitter (1902). Among the lives of Joseph
may be mentioned: A. J. Gross-Hoffinger, _Geschichte Josephs II._
(1847); C. Paganel, _Histoire de Joseph II._ (1843; German translation
by F. Kohler, 1844); H. Meynert, _Kaiser Joseph II._ (1862); A. Beer,
_Joseph II._ (1882); A. Jager, _Kaiser Joseph II. und Leopold II._
(1867); A. Fournier, _Joseph II._ (1885); and J. Wendrinski, _Kaiser
Joseph II._ (1880). There is a useful small volume on the emperor by
J. Franck Bright (1897). Other books which may be consulted are: G.
Wolf, _Das Unterrichtswesen in Oesterreich unter Joseph II._ (1880),
and _Oesterreich und Preussen 1780-1790_ (1880), A. Wolf and H. von
Zwiedeneck-Sudenhorst, _Oesterreich unter Maria Theresia, Joseph II.
und Leopold II._ (1882-1884); H. Schlitter, _Die Regierung Josephs II.
in den Oesterreichischen Niederlanden_ (1900); and _Pius VI. und
Joseph II. 1782-1784_ (1894); O. Lorenz, _Joseph II. und die Belgische
Revolution_ (1862); and L. Delplace, _Joseph II. et la revolution
brabanconne_ (1890).
JOSEPH, FATHER (FRANCOIS LECLERC DU TREMBLAY) (1577-1638), French
Capuchin monk, the confidant of Richelieu, was the eldest son of Jean
Leclerc du Tremblay, president of the chamber of requests of the
parlement of Paris, and of Marie Motier de Lafayette. As a boy he
received a careful classical training, and in 1595 made an extended
journey through Italy, returning to take up the career of arms. He
served at the siege of Amiens in 1597, and then accompanied a special
embassy to London. In 1599 Baron de Mafflier, by which name he was known
at court, renounced the world and entered the Capuchin monastery of
Orleans. He embraced the religious life with great ardour, and became a
notable preacher and reformer. In 1606 he aided Antoinette d'Orleans, a
nun of Fontevrault, to found the reformed order of the Filles du
Calvaire, and wrote a manual of devotion for the nuns. His proselytizing
zeal led him to send missionaries throughout the Huguenot centres--he
had become provincial of Touraine in 1613. He entered politics at the
conferences of Loudun, when, as the confidant of the queen and the papal
envoy, he opposed the Gallican claims advanced by the parlement, which
the princes were upholding, and succeeded in convincing them of the
schismatic tendency of Gallicanism. In 1612 he began those personal
relations with Richelieu which have indissolubly joined in history and
legend the cardinal and the "Eminence grise," relations which research
has not altogether made clear. In 1627 the monk assisted at the siege of
La Rochelle. A purely religious reason also made him Richelieu's ally
against the Habsburgs. He had a dream of arousing Europe to another
crusade against the Turks, and believed that the house of Austria was
the obstacle to that universal European peace which would make this
possible. As Richelieu's agent, therefore, this modern Peter the Hermit
manoeuvred at the diet of Regensburg (1630) to thwart the aggression of
the emperor, and then advised the intervention of Gustavus Adolphus,
reconciling himself to the use of Protestant armies by the theory that
one poison would counteract another. Thus the monk became a war
minister, and, though maintaining a personal austerity of life, gave
himself up to diplomacy and politics. He died in 1638, just as the
cardinalate was to be conferred upon him. The story that Richelieu
visited him when on his deathbed and roused the dying man by the words,
"Courage, Father Joseph, we have won Breisach," is apocryphal.
See Fagniez, _Le Pere Joseph et Richelieu_ (1894), a work based
largely on original and unpublished sources. Father Joseph, according
to this biography, would seem not to have lectured Richelieu in the
fashion of the legends, whatever his moral influence may have been in
strengthening Richelieu's hands.
JOSEPHINE (MARIE ROSE JOSEPHINE TASCHER DE LA PAGERIE) (1763-1814),
empress of the French, was born in the island of Martinique on the 23rd
of June 1763, being the eldest of three daughters of Joseph Tascher de
la Pagerie, lieutenant of artillery. Her beauty and grace, though of a
languid Creole style, won the affections of the young officer the
vicomte de Beauharnais, and, after some family complications, she was
married to him. Their married life was not wholly happy, the frivolity
of Josephine occasioning her husband anxiety and jealousy. Two children,
Eugene and Hortense, were the fruit of the union. During Josephine's
second residence in Martinique, whither she proceeded to tend her
mother, occurred the first troubles with the slaves, which resulted from
the precipitate action of the constituent assembly in emancipating them.
She returned to her husband, who at that time entered into political
life at Paris. Her beauty and vivacity won her many admirers in the
salons of the capital. As the Revolution ran its course her husband, as
an ex-noble, incurred the suspicion and hostility of the Jacobins; and
his ill-success at the head of a French army on the Rhine led to his
arrest and execution. Thereafter Josephine was in a position of much
perplexity and some hardship, but the friendship of Barras and of Madame
Tallien, to both of whom she was then much attached, brought her into
notice, and she was one of the queens of Parisian society in the year
1795, when Napoleon Bonaparte's services to the French convention in
scattering the malcontents of the capital (13 Vendemiaire, or October 5,
1795) brought him to the front. There is a story that she became known
to Napoleon through a visit paid to him by her son Eugene in order to
beg his help in procuring the restoration of his father's sword, but it
rests on slender foundations. In any case, it is certain that Bonaparte,
however he came to know her, was speedily captivated by her charms. She,
on her side, felt very little affection for the thin, impecunious and
irrepressible suitor; but by degrees she came to acquiesce in the
thought of marriage, her hesitations, it is said, being removed by the
influence of Barras and by the nomination of Bonaparte to the command of
the army of Italy. The civil marriage took place on the 9th of March
1796, two days before the bridegroom set out for his command. He failed
to induce her to go with him to Nice and Italy.
Bonaparte's letters to Josephine during the campaign reveal the ardour
of his love, while she rarely answered them. As he came to realize her
shallowness and frivolity his passion cooled; but at the time when he
resided at Montebello (near Milan) in 1797 he still showed great regard
for her. During his absence in Egypt in 1798-1799, her relations to an
officer, M. Charles, were most compromising; and Bonaparte on his return
thought of divorcing her. Her tears and the entreaties of Eugene and
Hortense availed to bring about a reconciliation; and during the period
of the consulate (1799-1804) their relations were on the whole happy,
though Napoleon's conduct now gave his consort grave cause for concern.
His brothers and sisters more than once begged him to divorce Josephine,
and it is known that, from the time when he became first consul for
life (August 1802) with large powers over the choice of a successor, he
kept open the alternative of a divorce. Josephine's anxieties increased
on the proclamation of the Empire (May 18, 1804); and on the 1st of
December 1804, the eve of the coronation at Notre Dame, she gained her
wish that she should be married anew to Napoleon with religious rites.
Despite her care, the emperor procured the omission of one formality,
the presence of the parish priest; but at the coronation scene Josephine
appeared radiant with triumph over her envious relatives. The august
marriages contracted by her children Eugene and Hortense seemed to
establish her position; but her ceaseless extravagance and, above all,
the impossibility that she should bear a son strained the relations
between Napoleon and Josephine. She complained of his infidelities and
growing callousness. The end came in sight after the campaign of 1809,
when Napoleon caused the announcement to be made to her that reasons of
state compelled him to divorce her. Despite all her pleadings he held to
his resolve. The most was made of the slight technical irregularity at
the marriage ceremony of the 1st of December 1804; and the marriage was
declared null and void.
At her private retreat, La Malmaison, near Paris, which she had
beautified with curios and rare plants and flowers, Josephine closed her
life in dignified retirement. Napoleon more than once came to consult
her upon matters in which he valued her tact and good sense. Her health
declined early in 1814, and after his first abdication (April 11, 1814)
it was clear that her end was not far off. The emperor Alexander of
Russia and Frederick William III. of Prussia, then in Paris, requested
an interview with her. She died on the 24th of May 1814. Her friends,
Mme de Remusat and others, pointed out that Napoleon's good fortune
deserted him after the divorce; and it is certain that the Austrian
marriage clogged him in several ways. Josephine's influence was used on
behalf of peace and moderation both in internal and in foreign affairs.
Thus she begged Napoleon not to execute the duc d'Enghien and not to
embroil himself in Spanish affairs in 1808.
See M. A. Le Normand, _Memoires historiques et secrets de Josephine_
(2 vols., 1820); _Lettres de Napoleon a Josephine_ (1833); J. A.
Aubenas, _Hist. de l'imperatrice Josephine_ (2 vols., 1858-1859); J.
Turquan, _L'Imperatrice Josephine_ (2 vols., 1895-1896); F. Masson,
_Josephine_ (3 vols., 1899-1902); _Napoleon's Letters to Josephine_
(1796-1812), translated and edited by H. F. Hall (1903). Also the
_Memoirs of_ Mme. de Remusat and of Bausset, and P. W. Sergeant, _The
Empress Josephine_ (1908). (J. Hl. R.)
JOSEPHUS, FLAVIUS (c. 37-c. 95?), Jewish historian and military
commander, was born in the first year of Caligula (37-38). His father
belonged to one of the noblest priestly families, and through his mother
he claimed descent from the Asmonaean high priest Jonathan. A precocious
student of the Law, he made trial of the three sects of
Judaism--Pharisees, Sadducees and Essenes--before he reached the age of
nineteen. Then, having spent three years in the desert with the hermit
Banus, who was presumably an Essene, he became a Pharisee. In 64 he went
to Rome to intercede on behalf of some priests, his friends, whom the
procurator Felix had sent to render account to Caesar for some
insignificant offence. Making friends with Alityrus, a Jewish actor, who
was a favourite of Nero, Josephus obtained an introduction to the
empress Poppaea and effected his purpose by her help. His visit to Rome
enabled him to speak from personal experience of the power of the
Empire, when he expostulated with the revolutionary Jews on his return
to Palestine. But they refused to listen; and he, with all the Jews who
did not fly the country, was dragged into the great rebellion of 66. In
company with two other priests, Josephus was sent to Galilee under
orders (he says) to persuade the ill-affected to lay down their arms and
return to the Roman allegiance, which the Jewish aristocracy had not yet
renounced. Having sent his two companions back to Jerusalem, he
organized the forces at his disposal, and made arrangements for the
government of his province. His obvious desire to preserve law and order
excited the hostility of John of Giscala, who endeavoured vainly to
remove him as a traitor to the national cause by inciting the Galileans
to kill him and by persuading the Sanhedrin at Jerusalem to recall him.
In the spring of 67 the Jewish troops, whom Josephus had drilled so
sedulously, fled before the Roman forces of Vespasian and Titus. He sent
to Jerusalem for reinforcements, but none came. With the stragglers who
remained, he held a stronghold against the Romans by dint of his native
cunning, and finally, when the place was taken, persuaded forty men, who
shared his hiding-place, to kill one another in turn rather than commit
suicide. They agreed to cast lots, on the understanding that the second
should kill the first and so on. Josephus providentially drew the last
lot and prevailed upon his destined victim to live. Their companions
were all dead in accordance with the compact; but Josephus at any rate
survived and surrendered. Being led before Vespasian, he was inspired to
prophesy that Vespasian would become emperor. In consequence of the
prophecy his life was spared, but he was kept close prisoner for two
years. When his prophecy was fulfilled he was liberated, assumed the
name of Flavius, the family name of Vespasian, and accompanied his
patron to Alexandria. There he took another wife, as the Jewess allotted
him by Vespasian after the fall of Caesarea had forsaken him, and
returned to attend Titus and to act as intermediary between him and the
Jews who still held Jerusalem. His efforts in this capacity failed; but
when the city was stormed (70) Titus granted him whatever boon he might
ask. So he secured the lives of some free men who had been taken and (by
the gift of Titus) certain sacred books. After this he repaired to Rome
and received one of the pensions, which Vespasian (according to
Suetonius) was the first to bestow upon Latin and Greek writers. He was
also made a Roman citizen and received an estate in Judaea.
Thenceforward he devoted himself to literary work under the patronage of
Vespasian, Titus and Domitian. As he mentions the death of Agrippa II.
it is probable that he lived into the 2nd century; but the date of
Agrippa's death has been challenged and, if his patron Epaphroditus may
be identified with Nero's freedman, it is possible that Josephus may
have been involved in his fall and perished under Domitian in 95.
WORKS.--1. _The Jewish War_ ([Greek: Peri tou Ioudaikou polemou]), the
oldest of Josephus' extant writings, was written towards the end of
Vespasian's reign (69-79). The Aramaic original has not been
preserved; but the Greek version was prepared by Josephus himself in
conjunction with competent Greek scholars. Its purpose in all
probability was, in the first instance, to exhibit to the Babylonian
Jews the overwhelming power of Rome and so to deter them from
repeating the futile revolt of the Jews of Palestine. Of its seven
books, the first two survey the history of the Jews from the capture
of Jerusalem by Antiochus Epiphanes to the outbreak of war in 67, and
here Josephus relies upon some such general history as that of
Nicolaus of Damascus. The rest deals with the events of the war
(67-73) which fell more or less within his own knowledge. Vespasian,
Titus and Agrippa II. testified (he tells us) to his accuracy.
Representatives of the Zealots would probably have protested against
his pro-Roman prejudices.
2. _The Jewish Antiquities_ ([Greek: Ioudaike Archaiologia]) covers in
twenty books the history of the Jews from the creation of the world to
the outbreak of the war with Rome. It was finished in the thirteenth
year of Domitian (93). Its purpose was to glorify the Jewish nation in
the eyes of the Roman world. In the part covered by the books of the
Bible Josephus follows them, and that mainly, if not entirely as they
are translated into Greek by the Seventy (the Septuagint version).
Being a Pharisee, he sometimes introduces traditions of the Elders,
which are either inferences from, or embroideries of, the biblical
narrative. Sometimes, also, he gives proof of some knowledge of Hebrew
and supplements his scriptural authorities, which include 1 Esdras,
from general Greek histories. For the later period he uses the Greek
Esther, with its additions, 1 Maccabees, Polybius, Strabo and Nicolaus
of Damascus. But towards the end he confesses that he has grown weary
of his task, and his history becomes meagre. The work contains
accounts of John the Baptist and Jesus, which may account for the fact
that Josephus' writings were rescued from oblivion by the Christians.
But the description of Jesus as "a wise man, if indeed one should call
him a man," can hardly be genuine, and the assertion "this was the
Christ" is equally doubtful, unless it be assumed that the Greek word
_Christos_ had become technical in the sense of false-Christ or
false-prophet among non-Christian Jews.
3. Josephus wrote a narrative of his own _Life_ in order to defend
himself against the accusation brought by his enemy Justus of Tiberias
to the effect that he had really been the cause of the Jewish
rebellion. In his defence Josephus departs from the facts as narrated
in the _Jewish War_ and represents himself as a partisan of Rome and,
therefore, as a traitor to his own people from the beginning.
4. The two books _Against Apion_ are a defence or apology directed
against current misrepresentations of the Jews. Earlier titles are
_Concerning the Antiquity of the Jews_ or _Against the Greeks_. Apion
was the leader of the Alexandrine embassy which opposed Philo and his
companions when they appeared in behalf of the Alexandrine Jews before
Caligula. The defence which Josephus puts forward has a permanent
value and shows him at his best.
The Greek text of Josephus' works has been edited with full collection
of different readings by B. Niese (Berlin, 1887-1895). The Teubner
text by Naber is based on this. The translation into English of W.
Whiston has been (superficially) revised by A. R. Shilleto
(1889-1890). Schurer (_History of the Jewish People_) gives a full
bibliography. (J. H. A. H.)
JOSHEKAN, a small province of Persia covering about 1000 sq. m. Pop.
about 5000. It has a yearly revenue of about L1200, and is held in fief
by the family of Bahram Mirza, Muizz ed Dowleh (d. 1882). Its chief town
and the residence of the governor used to be Joshekan-Kali, a large
village with fine gardens, formerly famous for its carpets (_kali_), but
now the chief place is Maimeh, a little city with a population of 2500,
situated at an elevation of 6670 ft., about 63 m. from Isfahan in a
north-westerly direction and 13 m. south-west of Joshekan-Kali.
JOSHUA, BOOK OF, the sixth book of the Old Testament, and the first of
the group known as the "Former Prophets." It takes its name from
Joshua[1] the son of Nun, an Ephraimite who, on the death of Moses,
assumed the leadership to which he had previously been designated by his
chief (Deut. xxxi. 14 seq., 23), and proceeded to the conquest of the
land of Canaan. The book differs from the Pentateuch or Torah in the
absence of legal matter, and in its intimate connexion with the
narrative in the books which follow. It is, however, the proper sequel
to the origins of the people as related in Genesis, to the exodus of the
Israelite tribes from Egypt, and their journeyings in the wilderness. On
these and also on literary grounds it is often convenient to class the
first six books of the Bible as a unit under the term "Hexateuch." For
an exhaustive detailed study has revealed many signs of diversity of
authorship which combine to show that the book is due to the
incorporation of older material in two main redactions; one deeply
imbued with the language and thought of Deuteronomy itself (D), the
other of the post-exilic priestly circle (P) which gave the Pentateuch
its present form. That the older sources (which often prove to be
composite) are actually identical with the Yahwist or Judaean (J) and
the Elohist or Ephraimite (E) narratives (on which see GENESIS) is not
improbable, though, especially as regards the former, still very
uncertain. In general the literary problems are exceedingly intricate,
and no attempt can be made here to deal with them as fully as they
deserve.
_The Invasion._--The book falls naturally into two main parts, of which
the first, the crossing of the Jordan and the conquest of Palestine
(i.-xii.) is mainly due to Deuteronomic compilers. It opens with the
preparations for the crossing of the Jordan and the capture of the
powerful city Jericho. Ai, near Bethel, is taken after a temporary
repulse, and Joshua proceeds to erect an altar upon Mt Ebal (north of
Shechem). For the fullness with which the events are recorded the
writers were probably indebted to local stories.
The Israelites are at Abel-Shittim (already reached in Num. xxv. 1).
Moses is dead, and Joshua enters upon his task with the help of the
Transjordanic tribes who have already received their territory (i).
The narrative is of the later prophetic stamp (D; cf. Deut. iii.
18-22, xi. 24, where Moses is the speaker; xxxi. 1-8), but may be
based upon an earlier and shorter record (E; vv. 1 seq., 10, 11a). Of
the mission of the spies to Jericho, two versions were current
(duplicates ii. 3, 12, 18; v. 15 seq. breaks the connexion between vv.
13 and 18, but is resumed in vv. 22-24); D's addition is to be
recognized in ii. 9b-11. The incident occupies at least four days, but
the main narrative reckons three days between i. 11 and iii. 2. Next
follow the passage of the Jordan (commemorated by the erection of
twelve stones), the encampment at Gilgal, and the observance of the
rite of circumcision and of the passover (iii.-v.). The complicated
narrative in iii.-iv. is of composite origin (contrast iii. 17 with
iv. 10 seq., 19; iv. 3, 8 with vv. 9, 20; and cf. iii. 12 with the
superfluous iv. 2, &c.). As in ii., D has amplified (iii. 4b, 7, 10b,
iv. 9-10a, 12, 14; more prominently in iv. 21-v. 1, v. 4-8), and
subsequently P (or a hand akin to P) has worked over the whole (iii.
4, note the number and the prohibition, cf. Num. i. 51; iii. 8, 15
seq.; iv. 13, 19; v. 10-12). Circumcision, already familiar from Exod.
iv. 26, Deut. x. 16, is here regarded as a new rite (v. 2, 9,
supplemented by vv. 1, 4-8), but the conflicting views have been
harmonized by the words "the second time" (v. 2). Gilgal is thus named
from the "rolling away" of the "reproach of Egypt" (v. 9), but iv. 20
suggests a different origin, viz. the sacred stone-circle (cf. Judges
iii. 19, R.V. marg.). An older account of the divine commission to
Joshua appears in the archaic passage v. 13-15 (cf. Moses in Exod.
iii.). Fusion of sources is obvious in the story of the fall of
Jericho (contrast vi. 5 and v. 10, vv. 21 and 24, vv. 22 and 25);
according to one (E?) the people march seven times round the city on
one day, the ark and the priests occupying a prominent position (vi.
4-6, 7b-9, 12 seq., 16a, 20 [part], 22-24); but in the other they
march every day for seven days. Both here and in the preceding
chapters the Septuagint has several variations and omissions, due
either to an (unsuccessful) attempt to simplify the present
difficulties, or to the use of another recension. The curse pronounced
by Joshua upon the destroyed city of Jericho (vi. 26) should be
associated with an incident in the reign of Ahab which is acquainted
with the story (1 Kings xvi. 34); the city, however, reappears in
Joshua xviii. 21; 2 Sam. x. 5. Achan's sacrilege, the cause of the
repulse at Ai and of the naming of the valley of Achor (vii.), is
introduced by vi. 18 seq., 24b, and, as its spirit shows, is of
relatively later date. It contains some probable traces of D (in vii.
5, 7, 11 seq., 15, 25) and P (in vv. 1, 18, 24 seq.). The capture of
Ai has marks of the same dual origin as the preceding chapters (cf.
viii. 3a with 10, and contrast viii. 3-9 with v. 12; vv. 5-7 with 18,
26; v. 19 with 28). The general resemblance between chs. vii.-viii.
and the war with Benjamin (Judges xx.) should be noticed.
_Conquests in Palestine._--The erection of the altar, not at the scene
of battle (cf. 1 Sam. xiv. 35) but on Mt Ebal (viii. 30-35, D),
presupposes the conquest of central Palestine and the removal of the ark
from Gilgal. These, however, are not narrated, and, unless some account
of them has been replaced by the present passage, this portion of the
conquest was ignored. Possibly the passage is not in its original
position: in the Septuagint it appears after ix. 2, while Josephus
(_Ant._ v. 1, 19) and the Samaritan book of Joshua read it before ch.
xiii.; Dillmann, however, would place it after xi. 23. The capture of
Jericho and Ai is followed by the successful stratagem of the Gibeonites
to make peace with Israel (ix.). This involves them in a war with the
southern Canaanites; Joshua intervenes and obtains a crowning victory
(x.). The camp is still at Gilgal. A similar conquest of the northern
Canaanites follows (xi.), and the first part of the book concludes with
a summary of the results of the Israelite invasion (xii.).
No satisfactory explanation of viii. 30-35 has been found, yet ix. 1
seq. seems to show that it was the prelude to the Canaanite wars. In
contrast to the absence of any reference to the occupation of central
Palestine, the conquest of the south was current in several divergent
traditions. Two records are blended in ix.; one narrates the covenant
with the Gibeonites, the other that with the Hivites (properly
Hivvites); and in the latter Joshua has no place (vv. 4 seq., 6b, 7,
11-14, &c.). The former has additions by D (vv. 9b, 10, 24 seq.) and
by P (v. 15 last clause, 17-21); the latter, in accordance with the
legislation of its day (posterior to Ezek. xliv. 6 sqq.), does not
allow the Gibeonites to minister to the temple or altar, but merely to
the "congregation," a characteristic post-exilic term (contrast vv. 21
and 23; and on 27 see Sept. and commentaries). The story of the
covenant conflicts with the notice that Gibeon was still an
independent Canaanite city in David's time (2 Sam. xxi. 2). The defeat
of the southern coalition is based, as the doublets show, upon two
sources; the war arises from two causes (vengeance upon the
Gibeonites, and the attempt to overthrow Israel), and concludes with a
twofold victory: in x. 16-24 the kings are pursued to Makkedah and
slain, in v. 11 they are smitten by a great hailstorm in their flight
to Azekah (cf. 1 Sam. vii. 10, xiv. 15, in the same district).
Redactional links have been added, apparently by D, to whom is
possibly due the stanza quoted from the book of Jashar (v. 12 seq.), a
poetical address to the sun and moon, of the nature of a prayer or
spell for their aid (cf. Judges v. 20, and see Ecclus. xlvi. 4). The
literal interpretation of this picturesque quotation has been
influenced by the prosaic comments at the end of v. 13 and beginning
of v. 14. Verse 15, which closes the account, anticipates v. 43; the
Septuagint omits both. The generalizing narrative (x. 28-43), which is
due to D in its present form, is partly based upon old matter (e.g.
the capture of Makkedah), but is inconsistent with what precedes (v.
37, see v. 23 sqq.) and follows (capture of Debir, v. 38 seq., see xv.
15; Judges i. 11). The description of the conquest of the northern
Canaanites is very similar to that of the south. The main part is from
an older source (xi. 1, 4-9; see DEBORAH), the amplifications (v. 2
seq.) are due to D, as also are the summary (vv. 10-23, cf. style of
x. 28-43), and the enumeration of the total results of the invasion
(xii.), which includes names not previously mentioned.
_Division of the Land._--The result of the events narrated in the first
part of the book is to ascribe the entire subjugation of Canaan to
Joshua, whose centre was at Gilgal (x. 15, 43). He is now "old and
advanced in years," and although much outlying land remained to be
possessed, he is instructed to divide the conquered districts among the
western tribes (xiii. 1 sqq.). This is detailed at length in the second
part of the book. With the completion of the division his mission is
accomplished. The main body of this part (xiii. 15-xiv. 5; xv.-xvii.;
xviii. 11-xxi. 42; xxii. 7-34) is in its present form almost entirely
due to P.
In regard to details, xiii. 2-6 (now D) expresses the view that the
conquest was incomplete, and numbers districts chiefly in the
south-west and in the Lebanon. Two sources deal with the inheritance
of the east Jordan tribes in terms which are--(a) general (xiii. 8-12,
D), and (b) precise (vv. 15-32, P). The latter stands between the
duplicate passages xiii. 14 and 32 seq. (see the Sept.). With the
interest taken in these tribes, cf. for (a) i. 12-18; Deut. iii.
12-22, and the sequel in Joshua xxii. 1-6; and for (b) xxii. 9 seq.;
Num. xxxii. P's account of the division opens with an introductory
notice of the manner in which Eleazar the priest and Joshua (note the
order) prepare to complete the work which Moses had begun (xiv. 1-5).
It opens with Judah, its borders (xv. 1-12) and cities (vv. 20-62),
and continues with the two Joseph tribes, Ephraim (xvi. 4-9, contrast
details in vv. 1-3) and Manasseh (xvii. 1-10, cf. Num. xxvi. 30-32,
xxvii. 1-11; P). There is now a break in the narrative (xviii. 2-10,
source uncertain); seven tribes have not yet received an inheritance,
and Joshua (alone) encourages them to send three men from each tribe
to walk through the land--excluding the territory of Judah and
Joseph--and to bring a description of it to him, after which he
divides it among them by lot. P[2] now resumes with an account of the
borders and cities of Benjamin (xviii. 11-28), Simeon, Zebulun,
Issachar, Asher, Naphtali and Dan (xix.; on v. 47, see below); and,
after the subscription (xix. 51), concludes with the institution of
the cities of refuge (xx., cf. Num. xxxv.), and of the Levitical
cities (xxi., contrast the earlier brief notice, xiii. 14, 33).
Chapter xx., belonging to the Predaction, has certain points of
contact with Deut. xix. which, it is very important to observe, are
wanting in the Septuagint; and xxi. 43-45 closes D's account of the
division, and in the Septuagint contains matter most of which is now
given by P in xix. 49 seq. Two narratives describe the dismissal of
the trans-Jordanic tribes after their co-operation in the conquest,
viz. xxii. 1-6 (D), and xxii. 9 seq. (P); cf. above, on xiii. 8 seq.
P, with the description of the erection of the altar (v. 34, Gilead?;
cf. Gen. xxxi. 47 seq.), is apparently a late re-writing of some now
obscure incident to emphasize the unity of worship. P's account of the
distribution of land among the _nine and a half_ tribes by Eleazar and
Joshua (from xiv. 1-5 to xix. 51) appears to have been on the lines
laid down in Num. xxxiv. (P). The scene, according to xviii. 1, is
Shiloh, and this verse, which does not belong to the context, should
apparently precede P's narrative in xiv. 1. But of the occupation of
_Shiloh_, the famous Ephraimite sanctuary and the seat of the ark, we
have no information. The older source, however, presupposes that Judah
and the two Joseph tribes have acquired their territory; the remaining
seven are blamed for their indifference (xviii. 2-10, see above), and
receive their lot conjointly at the camp at Shiloh. But if the
location is an attempt to harmonize with xviii. 1, _Gilgal_ should
probably be restored. The section xviii. 2-10 is followed by xxi. 43
seq. (above), and may have been preceded originally by xiii. 1, 7
(where read: inheritance for the _seven_ tribes); in its present form
it appears to be due to D. Another account of the exploits of Judah
and Joseph can be traced here and there; e.g. in xiv. 6-15 (where
Caleb receives Hebron as his inheritance and the "land had rest from
war"), and xvii. 14-18 (where Joseph receives an additional lot); but
where these traditions have not been worked into later narratives,
they exist only in fragmentary form and are chiefly recognizable by
their standpoint. They are characterized by the view that the conquest
was only a partial one, and one which was neither the work of a single
man nor at his instigation, but due entirely to individual or tribal
achievements. This view can be traced in xiii. 13, xv. 63 (cf. the
parallel Judges i. 21 in contrast to v. 8), xvi. 10 (Judges i. 29),
xvii. 11-13 (Judges i. 27 seq.), and in the references to separate
tribal or family exploits: xv. 13-19, xix. 47 (cf. Judges i. 34 seq.,
xviii.).
Two closing addresses are ascribed to Joshua, one an exhortation similar
to the homilies in secondary portions of Deuteronomy (xxiii.; cf. Moses
in Deut. xxviii. seq., and Samuel's last address in 1 Sam. xii.), which
virtually excludes the other (xxiv.), where Joshua assembles the tribes
at Shechem (Shiloh, in the Septuagint) and passes under review the
history of Israel from the days of heathenism (before Abraham was
brought into Canaan) down through the oppression in Egypt, the exodus,
the conquest in East Jordan and the occupation of Canaan. A few
otherwise unknown details are to be found (xxiv. 2, 11 seq. 14). The
address (which is extremely important for its representation of the
religious conditions) is made the occasion for a solemn covenant whereby
the people agree to cleave to Yahweh alone. This is commemorated by the
erection of a stone under the oak by the sanctuary of Yahweh (for the
tree with its sacred pillar, see Gen. xxxv. 4; Judges ix. 6). The people
are then dismissed, and the book closes in ordinary narrative style with
the death of Joshua and his burial in his inheritance at Timnath-serah
in Mt Ephraim (cf. xix. 49 seq.); the burial of Joseph in Shechem; and
the death and burial of Eleazar the son of Aaron in the "hill of
Phinehas."
Chapter xxiv. presupposes the complete subjection of the Canaanites
and is of a late prophetic stamp. Some signs of amplification (e.g.
vv. 11b, 13, 31) suggest that it was inserted by a Deuteronomic hand,
evidently distinct from the author of xxiii. But elsewhere there are
traces of secondary Deuteronomic expansion and of internal
incongruities in Deuteronomic narratives; contrast xiv. 6-15 with
Joshua's extermination of the "Anakim" in xi. 21 seq.; the use of this
name with the "Philistines" of xiii. 2 (see PHILISTINES), or the
conquests in xi. 16-22 with the names in x. 36-43. All these passages
are now due to D; but not only is Deuteronomy itself composite, a
twofold redaction can be traced in Judges, Samuel and Kings, thus
involving the deeper literary problems of Joshua with the historical
books generally.[3] Both Joshua xxiii. and xxiv. are closely connected
with the very complicated introduction to the era of the "judges" in
Judges ii. 6 sqq., and ii. 6-9 actually resume Joshua xxiv. 28 sqq.,
while the Septuagint appends to the close of Joshua the beginning of
the story of Ehud (Judges iii. 12 seq.). Both Judges i.-ii. 5 and
chap. xvii.-xxi. are of post-Deuteronomic insertion, and they
represent conditions analogous to the older notices imbedded in the
later work of P (Judges i. 21, xix. 10-12, cf. Joshua xv. 63; see
JUDGES _ad fin._). Moreover, P in its turn shows elsewhere definite
indications of different periods and standpoints, and the fluid state
of the book at a late age is shown by the presence of Deuteronomic
elements in Joshua xx., not found in the Septuagint, and by the
numerous and often striking readings which the latter recension
presents.
_Value of the Book._--The value of the book of Joshua is primarily
religious; its fervency, its conviction of the destiny of Israel and its
inculcation of the unity and greatness of the God of Israel give
expression to the philosophy of Israelite historians. As an historical
record its value must depend upon a careful criticism of its contents in
the light of biblical history and external information. Its description
of the conquest of Canaan comes from an age when the event was a shadow
of the past. It is an ideal view of the manner in which a divinely
appointed leader guided a united people into the promised land of their
ancestors, and, after a few brief wars of extermination (x.-xii.), died
leaving the people in quiet possession of their new inheritance (xi. 23;
xxi. 44 seq.; xxiii. 1).[4] On the other hand, the earlier inhabitants
were not finally subjugated until Solomon's reign (1 Kings ix. 20);
Jerusalem was taken by David from the Jebusites (2 Sam. v.); and several
sites in its neighbourhood, together with important fortresses like
Gezer, Megiddo and Taanach, were not held by Israel at the first. There
are traces of other conflicting traditions representing independent
tribal efforts which were not successful, and the Israelites are even
said to live in the midst of Canaanites, intermarrying with them and
adopting their cult (Judges i.-iii. 6). From a careful consideration of
all the evidence, both internal and external, biblical scholars are now
almost unanimous that the more finished picture of the Israelite
invasion and settlement cannot be accepted as a historical record for
the age. It accords with this that the elaborate tribal-lists and
boundaries prove to be of greater value for the geography than for the
history of Palestine, and the attempts to use them as evidence for the
early history of Israel have involved numerous additional difficulties
and confusion.[5]
The book of Joshua has ascribed to one man conquests which are not
confirmed by subsequent history. The capture of Bethel, implied rather
than described in Joshua viii., is elsewhere the work of the Joseph
tribes (Judges i. 22 sqq., cf. features in the conquest of Jericho,
Joshua vi. 25). Joshua's victory in north Palestine has its parallel in
Judges iv. at another period (see DEBORAH), and Adoni-zedek of Jerusalem
(Joshua x.) can scarcely be severed from the Adoni-bezek taken by the
tribes of Judah and Simeon (Judges i. 5-7). The prominence of Joshua as
military and religious leader, and especially his connexion with Shechem
and Shiloh, have suggested that he was a hero of the Joseph tribes of
central Palestine (viz. Ephraim and Manasseh). Moreover, the traditions
in Joshua viii. 30-ix. 2, and Deut. xxvii. 1-8 seem to place the arrival
at Mt Ebal immediately after the crossing of the Jordan. This implies
that Israel (like Jacob in Gen. xxxii.) crossed by the Jabbok, and in
fact the Wadi Fari'a provides an easy road to Shechem, to the south-east
of which lies Juleijil; and while this is the Gilgal of Deut. xi. 30,
the battles at Jericho and Ai (Joshua ii. seq.) occur naturally after
the encampment at the southern Gilgal (near Jericho). The alternative
view (see especially Stade, _Gesch. Isr._ 1. 133 sqq.) connects itself
partly with the ancestor of all the tribes (Jacob, i.e. Israel), and
partly with the eponym of the Joseph tribes whose early days were spent
around Shechem, the removal of whose bones from Egypt must have found a
prominent place in the traditions of the tribes concerned (Gen. l. 25;
Exod. xiii. 19; Joshua xxiv. 32). According to one view (Stade,
Wellhausen, Guthe, &c.) only the Joseph tribes were in Egypt, and
separate tribal movements (see JUDAH) have been incorporated in the
growth of the tradition; the probability that the specific traditions of
the Joseph tribes have been excised or subordinated finds support in the
manner in which the Judaean P has abridged and confused the tribal lists
of Ephraim and Manasseh.
The serious character of the problems of early Israelite history can be
perceived from the renewed endeavours to present an adequate outline of
the course of events; for a criticism of the most prominent hypotheses
see Cheyne, _Ency. Bib._ art. "Tribes" (col. 5209 seq.); a new theory
has been more recently advanced by E. Meyer (_Die Israeliten u. ihre
Nachbarstamme_, 1906). But Joshua as a tribal hero does not belong to
the earliest phase in the surviving traditions. He has no place in the
oldest surviving narratives of the exodus (Wellhausen, Steuernagel); and
only later sources add him to Caleb (Num. xiv. 30; the reference in
Deut. i. 38 is part of an insertion), or regard him as the leader of all
the tribes (Deut. iii. 21, 28). As an attendant of Moses at the tent of
meeting he appears in quite secondary passages (Exod. xxxiii. 7-11; Num.
xi. 28). His defeat of the Amalekites is in a narrative (Exod. xvii.
8-16) which belongs more naturally to the wilderness of Shur, and it
associates him with traditions of a movement direct into south Palestine
which finds its counterpart when the clan Caleb (q.v.) is artificially
treated as possessing its seats with Joshua's permission. But points of
resemblance between Joshua the invader and Saul the founder of the
(north) Israelite monarchy gain in weight when the traditions of both
recognize the inclusion or possession of Judah, and thus stand upon
quite another plane as compared with those of David the founder of the
Judaean dynasty. Instead of rejecting the older stories of Joshua's
conquests it may be preferable to infer that there were radical
divergences in the historical views of the past. Consequently, the
parallels between Joshua and Jacob (see Steuernagel's _Commentary_, p.
150) are more significant when the occupation of central Palestine,
already implied in the book of Joshua, is viewed in the light of Gen.
xlviii. 22, where Jacob as conqueror (cf. the very late form of the
tradition in Jubilees xxxiv.) agrees with features in the patriarchal
narratives which, in implying a settlement in Palestine, are entirely
distinct from those which belong to the descent into Egypt (see
especially, Meyer, op. cit. pp. 227 seq., 414 seq., 433; Luther, ib. 108
seq.). The elaborate account of the exodus gives the prevailing views
which supersede other traditions of the origin both of the Israelites
and of the worship of Yahweh (Gen. iv. 26). Several motives have
influenced its growth,[6] and the kernel--the revelation of Yahweh to
Moses--has been developed until all the tribes of Israel are included
and their history as a people now begins. The old traditions of conquest
in central Palestine have similarly been extended, and have been adapted
to the now familiar view of Israelite origins. It is this subordination
of earlier tradition to other and more predominating representations
which probably explains the intricacy of a book whose present text may
not have been finally fixed until, as Dillmann held, as late as about
200 B.C.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.--See the commentaries of Dillmann, Steuernagel Holzinger
(German), or the concise edition by H. W. Robinson in the _Century
Bible_; also articles on "Joshua" by G. A. Smith, Hastings's _D. B._,
and G. F. Moore, _Ency. Bib._; Kittel in _Hist. of the Hebrews_, i.
262 sqq.; W. H. Bennett, in Haupt's _Sacred Books of the Old
Testament_; Carpenter and Harford-Battersby, _Comp. of Hexateuch_, ch.
xvii; S. R. Driver, _Lit. of the O. T._ (8th ed., 1909). These give
further bibliographical information, for which see also the articles
on the books of the Pentateuch. (S. A. C.)
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Heb. _Jehoshua_; later _Jeshua_; Gr. [Greek: Iesous], whence
"Jesus" in the A.V. of Heb. iv. 8; another form of the name is Hoshea
(Num. xiii. 8, 16). The name may mean "Yah(weh) is wealth, _or_ is
(our) war-cry, _or_ saves." The only extra-biblical notice of Joshua
is the inscription of more than doubtful genuineness given by
Procopius (_Vand._ ii. 20), and mentioned also by Moses of Chorene
(_Hist. Arm._ i. 18). It is said to have stood at Tingis in
Mauretania, and to have borne that those who erected it had fled
before [Greek: Iesous ho lestes]. For the medieval Samaritan Book of
Joshua, see T. Juynboll, _Chronicum Samaritanum_ (1846); J. A.
Montgomery, _The Samaritans_ (1907), pp. 301 sqq.
[2] Traces of composite material may be recognized--(a) where, in
place of boundaries, P has given lists of cities which appear to be
taken from other sources (cf. the instructions in xviii. 9), and (b)
in the double headings (see Addis, _The Hexateuch_, i. 230, note 1,
and the commentaries).
[3] The close relation between what may be called the Deuteronomic
history (Joshua-Kings) and its introduction (the legal book of
Deuteronomy) independently show the difficulty of supporting the
traditional date ascribed to the latter.
[4] G. F. Moore (_Ency. Bib._, col. 2608, note 2) draws attention to
the instructive parallel furnished by the Greek legends of the Dorian
invasion of the Peloponnesus (the "return" of the Heracleidae, the
partition of the land by lot, &c.).
[5] The historical problems are noticed in all biblical histories,
and in the commentaries on Joshua and Judges. Against the ordinary
critical view, see J. Orr, _Problem of the O.T._ (1905) pp. 240 seq.
This writer (on whom see A. S. Peake, _The Interpreter_, 1908, pp.
252 seq.) takes the book as a whole, allowance being made for "the
generalizing tendency peculiar to all summaries." His argument that
"the circumstantiality, local knowledge and evidently full
recollection of the narratives (in Joshua) give confidence in the
truth of their statements" is one which historical criticism in no
field would regard as conclusive, and his contention that a redactor
would hardly incorporate conflicting traditions in his narrative "if
he believed they contradicted it" begs the question and ignores
Oriental literature.
[6] E.g. the vicissitudes of Levitical families, other migrations
into Palestine, &c. The story of Joseph has probably been used as a
link (see Luther, _op. cit._ pp. 142 seq.).
JOSHUA THE STYLITE, the reputed author of a chronicle which narrates the
history of the war between the Greeks and Persians in 502-506, and which
is one of the earliest and best historical documents preserved to us in
Syriac. The work owes its preservation to having been incorporated in
the third part of the history of pseudo-Dionysius of Tell-Mahre, and may
probably have had a place in the second part of the _Ecclesiastical
History_ of John of Asia, from whom (as Nau has shown) pseudo-Dionysius
copied all or most of the matter contained in his third part. The
chronicle in question is anonymous, and Nau has shown that the note of a
copyist, which was thought to assign it to the monk Joshua of Zuknin
near Amid, more probably refers to the compiler of the whole work in
which it was incorporated. Anyhow the author was an eye-witness of many
of the events which he describes, and must have been living at Edessa
during the years when it suffered so severely from the Persian War. His
view of events is everywhere characterized by his belief in overruling
Providence; and as he eulogizes Flavian II., the Chalcedonian patriarch
of Antioch, in warmer terms than those in which he praises his great
Monophysite contemporaries, Jacob of Serugh and Philoxenus of Mabbog, he
was probably an orthodox Catholic.
The chronicle was first made known by Assemani's abridged Latin
version (_B. O._ i. 260-283) and was edited in 1876 by the abbe Martin
and (with an English translation) by W. Wright in 1882. After an
elaborate dedication to a friend--the "priest and abbot" Sergius--a
brief recapitulation of events from the death of Julian in 363 and a
fuller account of the reigns of the Persian kings Peroz (457-484) and
Balash (484-488), the writer enters upon his main theme--the history
of the disturbed relations between the Persian and Greek Empires from
the beginning of the reign of Kawad I. (489-531), which culminated in
the great war of 502-506. From October 494 to the conclusion of peace
near the end of 506, the author gives an annalistic account, with
careful specification of dates, of the main events in Mesopotamia, the
theatre of conflict--such as the siege and capture of Amid by the
Persians (502-503), their unsuccessful siege of Edessa (503), and the
abortive attempt of the Greeks to recover Amid (504-505). The work was
probably written a few years after the conclusion of the war. The
style is graphic and straightforward, and the author was evidently a
man of good education and of a simple, honest mind. (N. M.)
JOSIAH (Heb. _yo' shiyyahu_, perhaps "Yah[weh] supports"), in the Bible,
the grandson of Manasseh, and king of Judah. He came to the throne at
the age of eight, after the murder of his predecessor Amon. The
circumstances of his minority are not recorded, nor is anything related
of the Scythian inroads which occurred in the latter half of the 7th
century B.C., although some passages in the books of Jeremiah and
Zephaniah are supposed to refer to the events. The storm which shook the
external states was favourable to the peace of Judah; the Assyrian power
was practically broken, and that of the Chaldeans had scarcely developed
into an aggressive form. Samaria thus lay within the grasp of Josiah,
who may have entertained hopes of forming an independent power of his
own. Otherwise, it is not clear why we find him opposing himself to the
Egyptian king Necho, since the assumption that he fought as an Assyrian
vassal scarcely agrees with the profound reforming policy ascribed to
him. At all events, at the battle of Megiddo[1] he lost both his kingdom
and his life (608 B.C.), and for a few years Judah was in the hands of
Egypt (2 Kings xxiii. 29 seq.). The chronicler gives a rather different
account of the battle, and his allusion to the dirge uttered by Jeremiah
over his death (2 Chron. xxxv. 20-25; 1 Esd. i. 32) represents the
tradition which makes this prophet the author of the book of
Lamentations.
The reign of Josiah is important for the biblical account of the great
religious reforms which began in his eighteenth year, when he manifested
interest in the repair of the Temple at Jerusalem. In the course of this
work the high priest Hilkiah discovered a "law-book" which gave rise to
the liveliest concern. The reasons for believing that this roll was
substantially identical with the book of Deuteronomy were already
appreciated by Jerome, Chrysostom, Theodoret and others,[2] and a
careful examination shows that the character of the reformation which
followed agrees in all its essential features with the prescriptions and
exhortations of that book. (See DEUTERONOMY.) But the detailed records
in 2 Kings xxii. seq. are evidently written under the influence of the
reforms themselves, and are not contemporary (see KINGS, BOOK OF). They
are further expanded, to agree with still later ideals, in 2 Chron.
xxxiv. seq. The original roll was short enough to be read at least twice
in a day (xxii. 8, 10), and hence only some portions of Deuteronomy (or
of an allied production) may be intended. Although the character of the
reforms throws remarkable light upon the condition of religion in Judah
in the time of Josiah, it is to be observed that the writings of the
contemporary prophets (Jeremiah, Ezekiel) make it very questionable
whether the narratives are thoroughly trustworthy for the history of the
king's measures. (See further JEWS, S 16.) (S. A. C.)
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Or "Magdolos" (Herod, ii. 159), i.e. some "Migdal" (tower) of
Judaea, not the Migdol of Exod. xiv. 2; Jer. xliv. 1.
[2] See _Zeit. f. Alttest. Wissenschaft_ (1902), pp. 170 seq., 312
seq.; _Journ Bib. Lit._ (1903), p. 50.
JOSIKA, MIKLOS [NICHOLAS], BARON (1794-1865), Hungarian novelist, was
born on the 28th of April 1794 at Torda in Transylvania, of aristocratic
and wealthy parents. After finishing the usual course of legal studies
at Kolozsvar (Klausenburg), he in 1811 entered the army, joining a
cavalry regiment, with which he subsequently took part in the Italian
campaign. On the battlefield of Mincio (February 8, 1814) he was
promoted to the grade of lieutenant. He served in the campaign against
Napoleon, and was present at the entry of the Allied Troops into Paris
(March 31, 1814). In 1818 Josika resigned his commission, returned to
Hungary, and married his first wife Elizabeth Kallai. The union proving
an unhappy one, Josika parted from his wife, settled on his estate at
Szurdok in Transylvania, and devoted himself to agricultural and
literary pursuits. Drawn into the sphere of politics, he took part in
the memorable Transylvanian diet of 1834. About this time Josika first
began to attract attention as a writer of fiction. In 1836 his _Abafi_
laid the foundation of his literary reputation. This novel gives a vivid
picture of Transylvania in the time of Sigismund Batori. Josika was soon
afterwards elected member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences and of
the Kisfaludy Society; of the latter he became, in 1841, director, and
in 1842 vice-president. In 1847 he appeared at the Transylvanian diet as
second deputy for the county of Szolnok, and zealously supported the
movement for the union of Transylvania with Hungary proper. In the same
year he was converted to Protestantism, was formally divorced from his
wife, and married Baroness Julia Podmaniczky, herself a writer of
considerable merit, with whom he lived happily until his death. So great
was Josika's literary activity that by the time of the revolution (1848)
he had already produced about sixty volumes of romances and novels,
besides numerous contributions to periodicals. Both as magnate of the
upper house of the Hungarian diet and by his writings Josika aided the
revolutionary movement, with which he was soon personally identified,
being chosen one of the members of the committee of national defence.
Consequently, after the capitulation at Vilagos (Aug. 13, 1849) he found
it necessary to flee the country, and settled first at Dresden and then,
in 1850, at Brussels, where he resumed his literary pursuits
anonymously. In 1864 he removed to Dresden, in which city he died on the
27th of February 1865. The romances of Josika, written somewhat after
the style of Sir Walter Scott, are chiefly of an historical and
social-political character, his materials being drawn almost entirely
from the annals of his own country. Among his more important works may
be specially mentioned, besides _Abafi_--_The Poet Zrinyi_ (1843); _The
Last of the Batoris_ (1837); _The Bohemians in Hungary_ (1839); _Esther_
(1853); _Francis Rakoczy II._ (1861); and _A Vegvariak_, a tale of the
time of the Transylvanian prince Bethlen Gabor, 1864. Many of Josika's
novels have been translated into German.
See K. Moenich and S. Vutkovich, _Magyar Irok Nevtara_ (1876); M.
Jokai, "Josika Miklos Emlekezete," _A Kisfaludy-Tarsasag Evlapjai, Uj
folyam_, vol. iii. (1869); G. W. Steinacker, _Ungarische Lyriker_
(1874). Cf. also Josika's autobiography--_Emlekirat_, vol. iv. (1865).
JOSIPPON, the name usually given to a popular chronicle of Jewish
history from Adam to the age of Titus, attributed to an author Josippon
or Joseph ben Gorion.[1] The name, though at one time identified with
that of the historian Josephus, is perhaps a corruption of Hegesippus,
from whom (according to Trieber) the author derived much of his
material. The chronicle was probably compiled in Hebrew early in the
10th century, by a Jewish native of south Italy. The first edition was
printed in Mantua in 1476. _Josippon_ subsequently appeared in many
forms, one of the most popular being in Yiddish (Judaeo-German), with
quaint illustrations. Though the chronicle is more legendary than
historical, it is not unlikely that some good and even ancient sources
were used by the first compiler, the _Josippon_ known to us having
passed through the hands of many interpolators. The book enjoyed much
vogue in England. Peter Morvyn in 1558 translated an abbreviated version
into English, and edition after edition was called for. Lucien Wolf has
shown that the English translations of the Bible aroused so much
interest in the Jews that there was a widespread desire to know more
about them. This led to the circulation of many editions of _Josippon_,
which thus formed a link in the chain of events which culminated in the
readmission of the Jews to England by Cromwell. (I. A.)
FOOTNOTE:
[1] A prefect of Jerusalem of this name is mentioned by Josephus,
_Bell. Jud._ ii. 20.
JOSS, in the pidgin-English of the Chinese seaports, the name given to
idols and deities. It is used adjectivally in regard to many things
connected with religious rites, such as "joss-house," a temple;
"joss-stick," a stick which when burned gives forth a fragrant odour and
is used as incense; "joss-paper," paper cut to resemble money (and
sometimes with prayers written upon it) burned in funeral and other
ceremonies. "Joss" is not a Chinese word, and is probably a corruption
of Port. _deos_, god, applied by Portuguese navigators in the 16th
century to the idols worshipped in the East Indies. The Dutch form is
_joosge_ (diminutive of _joos_), whence the Javanese _dejos_, and the
English _yos_, later _joss_. The word seems to have been carried to
China by English seamen from Batavia.
JOST, ISAAK MARKUS (1793-1860), Jewish historical writer, was born on
the 22nd of February 1793 at Bernburg, and studied at the universities
of Gottingen and Berlin. In Berlin he began to teach, and in 1835
received the appointment of upper master in the Jewish commercial school
(called the Philanthropin) at Frankfort-on-the-Main. Here he remained
until his death, on the 22nd of November 1860. The work by which he is
chiefly known is _Geschichte der Israeliten seit der Zeit der
Maccabaer_, in 9 vols. (1820-1829), which was afterwards supplemented by
_Neuere Geschichte der Israeliten von 1815-1845_ (1846-1847), and
_Geschichte des Judenthums und seiner Sekten_ (1857-1859). He also
published an abridgment under the title _Allgemeine Geschichte des
israelitischen Volkes_ (1831-1832), and an edition of the Mishna with a
German translation and notes (6 vols., 1832-1834). The _Israelitische
Annalen_ were edited by him from 1839 to 1841, and he contributed
extensively to periodicals.
See Zirndorf, _Isaak Markus Jost und seine Freunde_ (Cincinnati,
1886).
JOTUNHEIM, or JOTUN FJELDE, a mountainous region of southern Norway,
lying between Gudbrandsdal on the east and Jostedalsbrae and the head of
the Sogne fjord on the west. Within an area of about 950 sq. m. it
contains the highest mountain in the Scandinavian Peninsula--Galdhopiggen
(8399 ft.)--and several others but little inferior. Such are Glittertind
or Glitretind (8380), and Memurutind (7966), which face Galdhopiggen
across the northward-sloping Visdal; Knutshulstind (7812) and several
other peaks exceeding 7000 ft., to the south, between lakes Gjende and
Bygdin, and Skagastolstind (7723) in the west of the region, above the
Utladal, the chief summit of the magnificent Horunger. The upper parts of
the main valleys are of characteristic form, not ending in lofty
mountain-walls but comparatively low and level, and bearing lakes. The
name Jotunheim (giants' home) is a modern memorial of the
mountain-dwelling giants of Norse fable; the alternative name Jotun
Fjelde was the first bestowed on the region, when it was explored in 1820
by the geologist Balthasar Matthias Keilhau (1797-1858). In modern times
the region has attracted mountaineers and many visitors accustomed to
rough lodging and difficult travelling.
JOUBERT, BARTHELEMY CATHERINE (1769-1799), French general, the son of an
advocate, was born at Pont de Vaux (Ain) on the 14th of April 1769. In
1784 he ran away from school to enlist in the artillery, but was brought
back and sent to study law at Lyons and Dijon. In 1791 he joined the
volunteers of the Ain, and was elected by his comrades successively
corporal and sergeant. In January 1792 he became sub-lieutenant, and in
November lieutenant, having in the meantime made his first campaign with
the army of Italy. In 1793 he distinguished himself by the brilliant
defence of a redoubt at the Col di Tenda, with only thirty men against a
battalion of the enemy. Wounded and made prisoner in this affair,
Joubert was released on parole by the Austrian commander-in-chief,
Devins, soon afterwards. In 1794 he was again actively engaged, and in
1795 he rendered such conspicuous service as to be made general of
brigade. In the campaign of 1796 the young general commanded a brigade
under Augereau, and soon attracted the special attention of Bonaparte,
who caused him to be made a general of division in December, and
repeatedly selected him for the command of important detachments. Thus
he was in charge of the retaining force at the battle of Rivoli, and in
the campaign of 1799 (invasion of Austria) he commanded the detached
left wing of Bonaparte's army in Tirol, and fought his way through the
mountains to rejoin his chief in Styria. He subsequently held various
commands in Holland, on the Rhine and in Italy, where up to January 1799
he commanded in chief. Resigning the post in consequence of a dispute
with the civil authorities, Joubert returned to France and married
(June) Mlle de Montholon. But he was almost immediately summoned to the
field again. He took over the command in Italy from Moreau about the
middle of July, but he persuaded his predecessor to remain at the front
and was largely guided by his advice. The odds against the French troops
in the disastrous campaign of 1799 (see FRENCH REVOLUTIONARY WARS) were
too heavy. Joubert and Moreau were quickly compelled to give battle by
their great antagonist Suvorov. The battle of Novi was disastrous to the
French arms, not merely because it was a defeat, but above all because
Joubert himself was amongst the first to fall (Aug. 15, 1799). Joubert
died before it could be shown whether his genius was of the first rank,
but he was at any rate marked out as a future great captain by the
greatest captain of all ages, and his countrymen intuitively associated
him with Hoche and Marceau as a great leader whose early death
disappointed their highest hopes. After the battle his remains were
brought to Toulon and buried in Fort La Malgue, and the revolutionary
government paid tribute to his memory by a ceremony of public mourning
(Sept. 16). A monument to Joubert at Bourg was razed by order of Louis
XVIII., but another memorial was afterwards erected at Pont de Vaux.
See Guilbert, _Notice sur la vie de B. C. Joubert_; Chevrier, _Le
General Joubert d'apres sa correspondance_ (2nd ed. 1884).
JOUBERT, JOSEPH (1754-1824), French moralist, was born at Montignac
(Correze) on the 6th of May 1754. After completing his studies at
Toulouse he spent some years there as a teacher. His delicate health
proved unequal to the task, and after two years spent at home in study
Joubert went to Paris at the beginning of 1778. He allied himself with
the chiefs of the philosophic party, especially with Diderot, of whom he
was in some sort a disciple, but his closest friendship was with the
abbe de Fontanes. In 1790 he was recalled to his native place to act as
_juge de paix_, and carried out the duties of his office with great
fidelity. He had made the acquaintance of Mme de Beaumont in a
Burgundian cottage where she had taken refuge from the Terror, and it
was under her inspiration that Joubert's genius was at its best. The
atmosphere of serenity and affection with which she surrounded him
seemed necessary to the development of what Sainte-Beuve calls his
"esprit aile, ami du ciel et des hauteurs." Her death in 1803 was a
great blow to him, and his literary activity, never great, declined from
that time. In 1809, at the solicitation of Joseph de Bonald, he was made
an inspector-general of education, and his professional duties
practically absorbed his interests during the rest of his life. He died
on the 3rd of May 1824. His manuscripts were entrusted by his widow to
Chateaubriand, who published a selection of _Pensees_ from them in 1838
for private circulation. A more complete edition was published by
Joubert's nephew, Paul de Raynal, under the title _Pensees, essais,
maximes et correspondance_ (2 vols. 1842). A selection of letters
addressed to Joubert was published in 1883. Joubert constantly strove
after perfection, and the small quantity of his work was partly due to
his desire to find adequate and luminous expression for his
discriminating criticism of literature and morals.
If Joubert's readers in England are not numerous, he is well known at
second hand through the sympathetic essay devoted to him in Matthew
Arnold's _Essays in Criticism_ (1st series). See Sainte-Beuve,
_Causeries du lundi_, vol. i.; _Portraits litteraires_, vol. ii.; and
a notice by Paul de Raynal, prefixed to the edition of 1842.
JOUBERT, PETRUS JACOBUS (1834-1900), commandant-general of the South
African Republic from 1880 to 1900, was born at Cango, in the district
of Oudtshoorn, Cape Colony, on the 20th of January 1834, a descendant of
a French Huguenot who fled to South Africa soon after the revocation of
the Edict of Nantes by Louis XIV. Left an orphan at an early age,
Joubert migrated to the Transvaal, where he settled in the Wakkerstroom
district near Laing's Nek and the north-east angle of Natal. There he
not only farmed with great success, but turned his attention to the
study of the law. The esteem in which his shrewdness in both farming and
legal affairs was held led to his election to the Volksraad as member
for Wakkerstroom early in the sixties, Marthinus Pretorius being then in
his second term of office as president. In 1870 Joubert was again
elected, and the use to which he put his slender stock of legal
knowledge secured him the appointment of attorney-general of the
republic, while in 1875 he acted as president during the absence of T.
F. Burgers in Europe. During the first British annexation of the
Transvaal, Joubert earned for himself the reputation of a consistent
irreconcilable by refusing to hold office under the government, as Paul
Kruger and other prominent Boers were doing. Instead of accepting the
lucrative post offered him, he took a leading part in creating and
directing the agitation which led to the war of 1880-1881, eventually
becoming, as commandant-general of the Boer forces, a member of the
triumvirate that administered the provisional Boer government set up in
December 1880 at Heidelberg. He was in command of the Boer forces at
Laing's Nek, Ingogo, and Majuba Hill, subsequently conducting the
earlier peace negotiations that led to the conclusion of the Pretoria
Convention. In 1883 he was a candidate for the presidency of the
Transvaal, but received only 1171 votes as against 3431 cast for Kruger.
In 1893 he again opposed Kruger in the contest for the presidency,
standing as the representative of the comparatively progressive section
of the Boers, who wished in some measure to redress the grievances of
the Uitlander population which had grown up on the Rand. The poll
(though there is good reason for believing that the voting lists had
been manipulated by Kruger's agents) was declared to have resulted in
7911 votes being cast for Kruger and 7246 for Joubert. After a protest
Joubert acquiesced in Kruger's continued presidency. He stood again in
1898, but the Jameson raid had occurred meantime and the voting was
12,858 for Kruger and 2001 for Joubert. Joubert's position had then
become much weakened by accusations of treachery and of sympathy with
the Uitlander agitation. He took little part in the negotiations that
culminated in the ultimatum sent to Great Britain by Kruger in 1899, and
though he immediately assumed nominal command of the operations on the
outbreak of hostilities, he gave up to others the chief share in the
direction of the war, through his inability or neglect to impose upon
them his own will. His cautious nature, which had in early life gained
him the sobriquet of "Slim Piet," joined to a lack of determination and
assertiveness that characterized his whole career, led him to act mainly
on the defensive; and the strategically offensive movements of the Boer
forces, such as Elandslaagte and Willow Grange, appear to have been
neither planned nor executed by him. As the war went on, physical
weakness led to Joubert's virtual retirement, and, though two days
earlier he was still reported as being in supreme command, he died at
Pretoria from peritonitis on the 28th of March 1900. Sir George White,
the defender of Ladysmith, summed up Joubert's character when he called
him "a soldier and a gentleman, and a brave and honourable opponent."
JOUFFROY, JEAN (c. 1412-1473), French prelate and diplomatist, was born
at Luxeuil (Haute-Saone). After entering the Benedictine order and
teaching at the university of Paris from 1435 to 1438, he became almoner
to Philip the Good, duke of Burgundy, who entrusted him with diplomatic
missions in France, Italy, Portugal and Castile. Jouffroy was appointed
abbot of Luxeuil (1451?) bishop of Arras (1453), and papal legate
(1459). At the French court his diplomatic duties brought him to the
notice of the dauphin (afterwards Louis XI.). Jouffroy entered Louis's
service, and obtained a cardinal's hat (1461), the bishopric of Albi
(1462), and the abbacy of St Denis (1464). On several occasions he was
sent to Rome to negotiate the abolition of the Pragmatic Sanction and to
defend the interests of the Angevins at Naples. Attached by King Louis
to the sieur de Beaujeu in the expedition against John V., count of
Armagnac, Jouffroy was accused of taking the town of Lectoure by
treachery, and of being a party to the murder of the count of Armagnac
(1473). He died at Reuilly the same year.
See C. Fierrille, _Le Cardinal Jean Jouffroy et son temps_ (1412-1473)
(Coutances, Paris, 1874).
JOUFFROY, THEODORE SIMON (1706-1842), French philosopher, was born at
Pontets, near Mouthe, department of Doubs. In his tenth year, his
father, a tax-gatherer, sent him to an uncle at Pontarlier, under whom
he commenced his classical studies. At Dijon his compositions attracted
the attention of an inspector, who had him placed (1814) in the normal
school, Paris. He there came under the influence of Victor Cousin, and
in 1817 he was appointed assistant professor of philosophy at the normal
and Bourbon schools. Three years later, being thrown upon his own
resources, he began a course of lectures in his own house, and formed
literary connexions with _Le Courrier francais_, _Le Globe_,
_L'Encyclopedie moderne_, and _La Revue europeenne_. The variety of his
pursuits at this time carried him over the whole field of ancient and
modern literature. But he was chiefly attracted to the philosophical
system represented by Reid and Stewart. The application of "common
sense" to the problem of substance supplied a more satisfactory analytic
for him than the scepticism of Hume which reached him through a study of
Kant. He thus threw in his lot with the Scottish philosophy, and his
first dissertations are, in their leading position, adaptations from
Reid's _Inquiry_. In 1826 he wrote a preface to a translation of the
_Moral Philosophy_ of Stewart, demonstrating the possibility of a
scientific statement of the laws of consciousness; in 1828 he began a
translation of the works of Reid, and in his preface estimated the
influence of Scottish criticism upon philosophy, giving a biographical
account of the movement from Hutcheson onwards. Next year he was
returned to parlement by the _arrondissement_ of Pontarlier; but the
work of legislation was ill-suited to him. Yet he attended to his duties
conscientiously, and ultimately broke his health in their discharge. In
1833 he was appointed professor of Greek and Roman philosophy at the
college of France and a member of the Academy of Sciences; he then
published the _Melanges philosophiques_ (4th ed. 1866; Eng. trans. G.
Ripley, Boston, 1835 and 1838), a collection of fugitive papers in
criticism and philosophy and history. In them is foreshadowed all that
he afterwards worked out in metaphysics, psychology, ethics and
aesthetics. He had already demonstrated in his prefaces the possibility
of a psychology apart from physiology, of the science of the phenomena
of consciousness distinct from the perceptions of sense. He now
classified the mental faculties, premising that they must not be
confounded with capacities or properties of mind. They were, according
to his analysis, personal will, primitive instincts, voluntary movement,
natural and artificial signs, sensibility and the faculties of
intellect; on this analytic he founded his scheme of the universe. In
1835 he published a _Cours de droit naturel_ (4th ed. 1866), which, for
precision of statement and logical coherence, is the most important of
his works. From the conception of a universal order in the universe he
reasons to a Supreme Being, who has created it and who has conferred
upon every man in harmony with it the aim of his existence, leading to
his highest good. Good, he says, is the fulfilment of man's destiny,
evil the thwarting of it. Every man being organized in a particular way
has, of necessity, an aim, the fulfilment of which is good; and he has
faculties for accomplishing it, directed by reason. The aim is good,
however, only when reason guides it for the benefit of the majority, but
that is not absolute good. When reason rises to the conception of
universal order, when actions are submitted, by the exercise of a
sympathy working necessarily and intuitively to the idea of the
universal order, the good has been reached, the true good, good in
itself, absolute good. But he does not follow his idea into the details
of human duty, though he passes in review fatalism, mysticism,
pantheism, scepticism, egotism, sentimentalism and rationalism. In 1835
Jouffroy's health failed and he went to Italy, where he continued to
translate the Scottish philosophers. On his return he became librarian
to the university, and took the chair of recent philosophy at the
faculty of letters. He died in Paris on the 4th of February 1842. After
his death were published _Nouveaux melanges philosophiques_ (3rd ed.
1872) and _Cours d'esthetique_ (3rd ed. 1875). The former contributed
nothing new to the system except a more emphatic statement of the
distinction between psychology and physiology. The latter formulated his
theory of beauty.
Jouffroy's claim to distinction rests upon his ability as an expositor
of other men's ideas. He founded no system; he contributed nothing of
importance to philosophical science; he initiated nothing which has
survived him. But his enthusiasm for mental science, and his command
over the language of popular exposition, made him a great international
medium for the transfusion of ideas. He stood between Scotland and
France and Germany and France; and, though his expositions are vitiated
by loose reading of the philosophers he interpreted, he did serviceable,
even memorable work.
See L. Levy Bruhl, _History of Modern Philos. in France_ (1899), pp.
349-357; C. J. Tissot, _Th. Jouffroy: sa vie et ses ecrits_ (1876); J.
P. Damiron, _Essai sur l'histoire de la philos. en France au xix^e
siecle_ (1846).
JOUGS, JUGGS, or JOGGS (O. Fr. _joug_, from Lat. _jugum_, a yoke), an
instrument of punishment formerly in use in Scotland, Holland and
possibly other countries. It was an iron collar fastened by a short
chain to a wall, often of the parish church, or to a tree. The collar
was placed round the offender's neck and fastened by a padlock. The
jougs was practically a pillory. It was used for ecclesiastical as well
as civil offences. Examples may still be seen in Scotland.
JOULE, JAMES PRESCOTT (1818-1889), English physicist, was born on the
24th of December 1818, at Salford, near Manchester. Although he received
some instruction from John Dalton in chemistry, most of his scientific
knowledge was self-taught, and this was especially the case with regard
to electricity and electro-magnetism, the subjects in which his earliest
researches were carried out. From the first he appreciated the
importance of accurate measurement, and all through his life the
attainment of exact quantitative data was one of his chief
considerations. At the age of nineteen he invented an electro-magnetic
engine, and in the course of examining its performance dissatisfaction
with vague and arbitrary methods of specifying electrical quantities
caused him to adopt a convenient and scientific unit, which he took to
be the amount of electricity required to decompose nine grains of water
in one hour. In 1840 he was thus enabled to give a quantitative
statement of the law according to which heat is produced in a conductor
by the passage of an electric current, and in succeeding years he
published a series of valuable researches on the agency of electricity
in transformations of energy. One of these contained the first
intimation of the achievement with which his name is most widely
associated, for it was in a paper read before the British Association at
Cork in 1843, and entitled "The Calorific Effects of Magneto-electricity
and the Mechanical Value of Heat," that he expressed the conviction that
whenever mechanical force is expended an exact equivalent of heat is
always obtained. By rotating a small electro-magnet in water, between
the poles of another magnet, and then measuring the heat developed in
the water and other parts of the machine, the current induced in the
coils, and the energy required to maintain rotation, he calculated that
the quantity of heat capable of warming one pound of water one degree F.
was equivalent to the mechanical force which could raise 838 lb. through
the distance of one foot. At the same time he brought forward another
determination based on the heating effects observable when water is
forced through capillary tubes; the number obtained in this way was 770.
A third method, depending on the observation of the heat evolved by the
mechanical compression of air, was employed a year or two later, and
yielded the number 798; and a fourth--the well-known frictional one of
stirring water with a sort of paddle-wheel--yielded the result 890 (see
_Brit. Assoc. Report_, 1845), though 781.5 was obtained by subsequent
repetitions of the experiment. In 1849 he presented to the Royal
Society a memoir which, together with a history of the subject,
contained details of a long series of determinations, the result of
which was 772. A good many years later he was entrusted by the committee
of the British Association on standards of electric resistance with the
task of deducing the mechanical equivalent of heat from the thermal
effects of electric currents. This inquiry yielded (in 1867) the result
783, and this Joule himself was inclined to regard as more accurate than
his old determination by the frictional method; the latter, however, was
repeated with every precaution, and again indicated 772.55 foot-pounds
as the quantity of work that must be expended at sea-level in the
latitude of Greenwich in order to raise the temperature of one pound of
water, weighed _in vacuo_, from 60 deg. to 61 deg. F. Ultimately the
discrepancy was traced to an error which, not by Joule's fault, vitiated
the determination by the electrical method, for it was found that the
standard ohm, as actually defined by the British Association committee
and as used by him, was slightly smaller than was intended; when the
necessary corrections were made the results of the two methods were
almost precisely congruent, and thus the figure 772.55 was vindicated.
In addition, numerous other researches stand to Joule's credit--the work
done in compressing gases and the thermal changes they undergo when
forced under pressure through small apertures (with Lord Kelvin), the
change of volume on solution, the change of temperature produced by the
longitudinal extension and compression of solids, &c. It was during the
experiments involved by the first of these inquiries that Joule was
incidentally led to appreciate the value of surface condensation in
increasing the efficiency of the steam engine. A new form of condenser
was tested on the small engine employed, and the results it yielded
formed the starting-point of a series of investigations which were aided
by a special grant from the Royal Society, and were described in an
elaborate memoir presented to it on the 13th of December 1860. His
results, according to Kelvin, led directly and speedily to the present
practical method of surface-condensation, one of the most important
improvements of the steam engine, especially for marine use, since the
days of James Watt. Joule died at Sale on the 11th of October 1889.
His scientific papers were collected and published by the Physical
Society of London: the first volume, which appeared in 1884, contained
the researches for which he was alone responsible, and the second,
dated 1887, those which he carried out in association with other
workers.
JOURDAN, JEAN BAPTISTE, COUNT (1762-1833), marshal of France, was born
at Limoges on the 29th of April 1762, and in his boyhood was apprenticed
to a silk merchant of Lyons. In 1776 he enlisted in a French regiment to
serve in the American War of Independence, and after being invalided in
1784 he married and set up in business at Limoges. At the outbreak of
the revolutionary wars he volunteered, and as a subaltern took part in
the first campaigns in the north of France. His rise was even more rapid
than that of Hoche and Marceau. By 1793 he had become a general of
division, and was selected by Carnot to succeed Houchard as
commander-in-chief of the Army of the North; and on the 15th-16th of
October 1793 he won the brilliant and important victory of Wattignies
(see FRENCH REVOLUTIONARY WARS). Soon afterwards he became a "suspect,"
the moderation of his political opinions and his misgivings as to the
future conduct of the war being equally distasteful to the truculent and
enthusiastic Committee of Public Safety. Warned in time by his friend
Carnot and by Barere, he avoided arrest and resumed his business as a
silk-mercer in Limoges. He was soon reinstated, and early in 1794 was
appointed commander-in-chief of the Army of Sambre-et-Meuse. After
repeated attempts to force the passage of the Sambre had failed and
several severe general actions had been fought without result, Jourdan
and his army were discouraged, but Carnot and the civil commissioners
urged the general, even with threats, to a last effort, and this time he
was successful not only in crossing the Sambre but in winning a
brilliant victory at Fleurus (June 26, 1794), the consequence of which
was the extension of the French sphere of influence to the Rhine, on
which river he waged an indecisive campaign in 1795.
In 1796 his army formed the left wing of the advance into Bavaria. The
whole of the French forces were ordered to advance on Vienna, Jourdan on
the extreme left and Moreau in the centre by the Danube valley,
Bonaparte on the right by Italy and Styria. The campaign began
brilliantly, the Austrians under the Archduke Charles being driven back
by Moreau and Jourdan almost to the Austrian frontier. But the archduke,
slipping away from Moreau, threw his whole weight on Jourdan, who was
defeated at Amberg and Wurzburg, and forced over the Rhine after a
severe rearguard action, which cost the life of Marceau. Moreau had to
fall back in turn, and, apart from Bonaparte's marvellous campaign in
Italy, the operations of the year were disastrous. The chief cause of
failure was the vicious plan of campaign imposed upon the generals by
their government. Jourdan was nevertheless made the scapegoat of the
government's mistakes and was not employed for two years. In those years
he became prominent as a politician and above all as the framer of the
famous conscription law of 1798. When the war was renewed in 1799
Jourdan was placed at the head of the army on the Rhine, but again
underwent defeat at the hands of the archduke Charles at Stockach (March
25), and, disappointed and broken in health, handed over the command to
Massena. He at once resumed his political duties, and was a prominent
opponent of the _coup d'etat_ of 18 Brumaire, after which he was
expelled from the Council of the Five Hundred. Soon, however, he became
formally reconciled to the new regime, and accepted from Napoleon fresh
military and civil employment. In 1800 he became inspector-general of
cavalry and infantry and representative of French interests in the
Cisalpine Republic, and in 1804 he was made a marshal of France. He
remained in the new kingdom of Italy until 1806, when Joseph Bonaparte,
whom his brother made king of Naples in that year, selected Jourdan as
his military adviser. He followed Joseph into Spain in the same capacity
in 1808. But Joseph's throne had to be maintained by the French army,
and throughout the Peninsular War the other marshals, who depended
directly upon Napoleon, paid little heed either to Joseph or to Jourdan.
After the battle of Vitoria he held no important command up to the fall
of the Empire. Jourdan gave in his adhesion to the restoration
government of 1814, and though he rejoined Napoleon in the Hundred Days
and commanded a minor army, he submitted to the Bourbons again after
Waterloo. He refused, however, to be a member of the court which tried
Marshal Ney. He was made a count, a peer of France (1819), and governor
of Grenoble (1816). In politics he was a prominent opponent of the
royalist reactionaries and supported the revolution of 1830. After this
event he held the portfolio of foreign affairs for a few days, and then
became governor of the Invalides, where his last years were spent.
Marshal Jourdan died on the 23rd of November 1833, and was buried in the
Invalides.
He wrote _Operations de l'armee du Danube_ (1799); _Memoires pour
servir a l'histoire sur la campagne de 1796_ (1819); and unpublished
personal memoirs.
JOURNAL (through Fr. from late Lat. _diurnalis_, daily), a daily record
of events or business. A private journal is usually an elaborated diary.
When applied to a newspaper or other periodical the word is strictly
used of one published each day; but any publication issued at stated
intervals, such as a magazine or the record of the transactions of a
learned society, is commonly called a journal. The word "journalist" for
one whose business is writing for the public press (see NEWSPAPERS)
seems to be as old as the end of the 17th century.
"Journal" is particularly applied to the record, day by day, of the
business and proceedings of a public body. The journals of the British
houses of parliament contain an official record of the business
transacted day by day in either house. The record does not take note of
speeches, though some of the earlier volumes contain references to them.
The journals are a lengthened account written from the "votes and
proceedings" (in the House of Lords called "minutes of the
proceedings"), made day by day by the assistant clerks, and printed on
the responsibility of the clerk to the house, after submission to the
"subcommittee on the journals." In the Commons the journal is passed by
the Speaker before publication. The journals of the House of Commons
begin in the first year of the reign of Edward VI. (1547), and are
complete, except for a short interval under Elizabeth. Those of the
House of Lords date from the first year of Henry VIII. (1509). Before
that date the proceedings in parliament were entered in the rolls of
parliament, which extend from 1278 to 1503. The journals of the Lords
are "records" in the judicial sense, those of the Commons are not (see
Erskine May, _Parliamentary Practice_, 1906, pp. 201-202).
The term "journal" is used, in business, for a book in which an account
of transactions is kept previous to a transfer to the ledger (see
BOOK-KEEPING), and also as an equivalent to a ship's log, as a record of
the daily run, observations, weather changes, &c. In mining, a journal
is a record describing the various strata passed through in sinking a
shaft. A particular use of the word is that, in machinery, for the parts
of a shaft which are in contact with the bearings; the origin of this
meaning, which is firmly established, has not been explained.
JOURNEY (through O. Fr. _jornee_ or _journee_, mod. Fr. _journee_, from
med. Lat. _diurnata_, Lat. _diurnus_, of or belonging to _dies_, day),
properly that which occupies a day in its performance, and so a day's
work, particularly a day's travel, and the distance covered by such,
usually reckoned in the middle ages as twenty miles. The word is now
used of travel covering a certain amount of distance or lasting a
certain amount of time, frequently defined by qualifying words.
"Journey" is usually applied to travel by land, as opposed to "voyage,"
travel by sea. The early use of "journey" for a day's work, or the
amount produced by a day's work, is still found in glassmaking, and also
at the British Mint, where a "journey" is taken as equivalent to the
coinage of 15 lb. of standard gold, 701 sovereigns, and of 60 lb. of
silver. The term "journeyman" also preserves the original significance
of the word. It distinguishes a qualified workman or mechanic from an
"apprentice" on the one hand and a "master" on the other, and is applied
to one who is employed by another person to work at his trade or
occupation at a day's wage.
JOUVENET, JEAN (1647-1717), French painter, born at Rouen, came of a
family of artists, one of whom had taught Poussin. He early showed
remarkable aptitude for his profession, and, on arriving in Paris,
attracted the attention of Le Brun, by whom he was employed at
Versailles, and under whose auspices, in 1675, he became a member of the
Academie Royale, of which he was elected professor in 1681, and one of
the four perpetual rectors in 1707. The great mass of works that he
executed, chiefly in Paris, many of which, including his celebrated
Miraculous Draught of Fishes (engraved by Audran; also Landon,
_Annales_, i. 42), are now in the Louvre, show his fertility in
invention and execution, and also that he possessed in a high degree
that general dignity of arrangement and style which distinguished the
school of Le Brun. Jouvenet died on the 5th of April 1717, having been
forced by paralysis during the last four years of his life to work with
his left hand.
See _Mem. ined. acad. roy. de p. et de sc._, 1854, and D'Argenville,
_Vies des peintres_.
JOUY, VICTOR JOSEPH ETIENNE DE (1764-1846), French dramatist, was born
at Jouy, near Versailles, on the 12th of September 1764. At the age of
eighteen he received a commission in the army, and sailed for South
America in the company of the governor of Guiana. He returned almost
immediately to France to complete his studies, and re-entered the
service two years later. He was sent to India, where he met with many
romantic adventures which were afterwards turned to literary account. On
the outbreak of the Revolution he returned to France and served with
distinction in the early campaigns, attaining the rank of
adjutant-general. He drew suspicion on himself, however, by refusing to
honour the toast of Marat, and had to fly for his life. At the fall of
the Terror he resumed his commission but again fell under suspicion,
being accused of treasonable correspondence with the English envoy,
James Harris, 1st earl of Malmesbury who had been sent to France to
negotiate terms of peace. He was acquitted of this charge, but, weary of
repeated attacks, resigned his position on the pretext of his numerous
wounds. Jouy now turned his attention to literature, and produced in
1807 with immense success his opera _La vestale_ (music by Spontini).
The piece ran for a hundred nights, and was characterized by the
Institute of France as the best lyric drama of the day. Other operas
followed, but none obtained so great a success. He published in the
_Gazette de France_ a series of satirical sketches of Parisian life,
collected under the title of _L'Ermite de la Chaussee d'Antin, ou
observations sur les moeurs et les usages francais au commencement du
xix^e siecle_ (1812-1814, 5 vols.), which was warmly received. In 1821
his tragedy of _Sylla_ gained a triumph due in part to the genius of
Talma, who had studied the title-role from Napoleon. Under the
Restoration Jouy consistently fought for the cause of freedom, and if
his work was overrated by his contemporaries, they were probably
influenced by their respect for the author himself. He died in rooms set
apart for his use in the palace of St Germain-en-Laye on the 4th of
September 1846.
Out of the long list of his operas, tragedies and miscellaneous
writings may be mentioned, _Fernand Cortez_ (1809), opera, in
collaboration with J. E. Esmenard, music by Spontini; _Tippo Saib_,
tragedy (1813); _Belisaire_, tragedy (1818); _Les Hermites en prison_
(1823), written in collaboration with Antoine Jay, like himself a
political prisoner; _Guillaume Tell_ (1829), with Hippolyte Bis, for
the music of Rossini. Jouy was also one of the founders of the
_Biographie nouvelle des contemporains_.
JOVELLANOS (or JOVE LLANOS), GASPAR MELCHOR DE (1744-1811), Spanish
statesman and author, was born at Gijon in Asturias, Spain, on the 5th
of January 1744. Selecting law as his profession, he studied at Oviedo,
Avila, and Alcala, and in 1767 became criminal judge at Seville. His
integrity and ability were rewarded in 1778 by a judgeship in Madrid,
and in 1780 by appointment to the council of military orders. In the
capital Jovellanos took a good place in the literary and scientific
societies; for the society of friends of the country he wrote in 1787
his most valuable work, _Informe sobre un proyecto de ley agraria_.
Involved in the disgrace of his friend, Francois Cabarrus, Jovellanos
spent the years 1790 to 1797 in a sort of banishment at Gijon, engaged
in literary work and in founding the Asturian institution for
agricultural, industrial, social and educational reform throughout his
native province. This institution continued his darling project up to
the latest hours of his life. Summoned again to public life in 1797,
Jovellanos refused the post of ambassador to Russia, but accepted that
of minister of grace and justice, under "the prince of the peace," whose
attention had been directed to him by Cabarrus, then a favourite of
Godoy. Displeased with Godoy's policy and conduct Jovellanos combined
with his colleague Saavedra to procure his dismissal. Godoy returned to
power in 1798; Jovellanos was again sent to Gijon, but in 1801 was
thrown into prison in Majorca. The revolution of 1808, and the advance
of the French into Spain, set him once more at liberty. Joseph
Bonaparte, on mounting the Spanish throne, made Jovellanos the most
brilliant offers; but the latter, sternly refusing them all, joined the
patriotic party, became a member of the central junta, and contributed
to reorganize the cortes. This accomplished, the junta at once fell
under suspicion, and Jovellanos was involved in its fall. To expose the
conduct of the cortes, and to defend the junta and himself were the last
labours of his pen. In 1811 he was enthusiastically welcomed to Gijon;
but the approach of the French drove him forth again. The vessel in
which he sailed was compelled by stress of weather to put in at Vega in
Asturias, and there he died on the 27th of November 1811.
The poetical works of Jovellanos comprise a tragedy _El pelayo_, the
comedy _El delincuente honrado_, satires, and miscellaneous pieces,
including a translation of the first book of _Paradise Lost_. His
prose works, especially those on political and legislative economy,
constitute his real title to literary fame. In them depth of thought
and clear-sighted sagacity are couched in a certain Ciceronian
elegance and classical purity of style. Besides the _Ley agraria_ he
wrote _Elogios_; various political and other essays; and _Memorias
politicas_ (1801), suppressed in Spain, and translated into French,
1825. An edition of his complete works was published at Madrid
(1831-1832) in 7 vols., and another at Barcelona (1839).
See _Noticias historicas de Don G. M. de Jovellanos_ (1812), and
_Memorias para la vida del Senor ... Jovellanos_, by J. A. C. Bermudez
(1814).
JOVELLAR Y SOLER, JOAQUIN (1819-1892), captain-general of Spain, was
born at Palma de Mallorca, on the 28th of December 1819. At the close of
his studies at the military academy he was appointed sub-lieutenant,
went to Cuba as captain in 1842, returned to the War Office in 1851, was
promoted major in 1853, and went to Morocco as private secretary to
Marshal O'Donnell, who made him colonel in 1860 after Jovellar had been
wounded at the battle of Wad el Ras. In 1863 Jovellar became a
brigadier-general, in 1864 under-secretary for war; he was severely
wounded in fighting the insurgents in the streets of Madrid, and rose to
the rank of general of division in 1866. Jovellar adhered to the
revolution, and King Amadeus made him a lieutenant-general in 1872. He
absented himself from Spain when the federal republic was proclaimed,
and returned in the autumn of 1873, when Castelar sent him to Cuba as
governor-general. In 1874 Jovellar came back to the Peninsula, and was
in command of the Army of the Centre against the Carlists when Marshal
Campos went to Sagunto to proclaim Alfonso XII. General Jovellar became
war minister in the first cabinet of the restoration under Canovas, who
sent him to Cuba again as governor-general, where he remained until the
18th of June 1878, when the ten years' insurrection closed with the
peace of Zaujon. Alfonso XII. made him a captain-general, president of
the council, life-senator, and governor-general of the Philippines.
Jovellar died in Madrid on the 17th of April 1892.
JOVIAN (FLAVIUS JOVIANUS) (c. 332-364), Roman emperor from June 363 to
February 364, was born at Singidunum in Moesia about 332. As captain of
the imperial bodyguard he accompanied Julian in his Persian expedition;
and on the day after that emperor's death, when the aged Sallust,
prefect of the East, declined the purple, the choice of the army fell
upon Jovian. His election caused considerable surprise, and it is
suggested by Ammianus Marcellinus that he was wrongly identified with
another Jovian, chief notary, whose name also had been put forward, or
that, during the acclamations, the soldiers mistook the name Jovianus
for Julianus, and imagined that the latter had recovered from his
illness. Jovian at once continued the retreat begun by Julian, and,
continually harassed by the Persians, succeeded in reaching the banks of
the Tigris, where a humiliating treaty was concluded with the Persian
king, Shapur II. (q.v.). Five provinces which had been conquered by
Galerius in 298 were surrendered, together with Nisibis and other
cities. The Romans also gave up all their interests in the kingdom of
Armenia, and abandoned its Christian prince Arsaces to the Persians.
During his return to Constantinople Jovian was found dead in his bed at
Dadastana, halfway between Ancyra and Nicaea. A surfeit of mushrooms or
the fumes of a charcoal fire have been assigned as the cause of death.
Under Jovian, Christianity was established as the state religion, and
the Labarum of Constantine again became the standard of the army. The
statement that he issued an edict of toleration, to the effect that,
while the exercise of magical rites would be severely punished, his
subjects should enjoy full liberty of conscience, rests on insufficient
evidence. Jovian entertained a great regard for Athanasius, whom he
reinstated on the archiepiscopal throne, desiring him to draw up a
statement of the Catholic faith. In Syriac literature Jovian became the
hero of a Christian romance (G. Hoffmann, _Julianus der Abtrunnige_,
1880).
See Ammianus Marcellinus, xxv. 5-10; J. P. de la Bleterie, _Histoire
de Jovien_ (1740); Gibbon, _Decline and Fall_, chs. xxiv., xxv.; J.
Wordsworth in Smith and Wace's _Dictionary of Christian Biography_; H.
Schiller, _Geschichte der romischen Kaiserzeit_, vol. ii. (1887); A.
de Broglie, _L'Eglise et l'empire romain au iv^e siecle_ (4th ed.
1882). For the relations of Rome and Persia see PERSIA: _Ancient
History_.
JOVINIANUS, or JOVIANUS, a Roman monk of heterodox views, who flourished
during the latter half of the 4th century. All our knowledge of him is
derived from a passionately hostile polemic of Jerome (_Adv. Jovinianum,
Libri II._), written at Bethlehem in 393, and without any personal
acquaintance with the man assailed. According to this authority Jovinian
in 388 was living at Rome the celibate life of an ascetic monk,
possessed a good acquaintance with the Bible, and was the author of
several minor works, but, undergoing an heretical change of view,
afterwards became a self-indulgent Epicurean and unrefined sensualist.
The views which excited this denunciation were mainly these: (1)
Jovinian held that in point of merit, so far as their domestic state was
concerned, virgins, widows and married persons who had been baptized
into Christ were on a precisely equal footing; (2) those who with full
faith have been regenerated in baptism cannot be overthrown (or,
according to another reading, tempted) of the devil; (3) to abstain from
meats is not more praiseworthy than thankfully to enjoy them; (4) all
who have preserved their baptismal grace shall receive the same reward
in the kingdom of heaven.[1] Jovinian thus indicates a natural and
vigorous reaction against the exaggerated asceticism of the 4th century,
a protest shared by Helvidius and Vigilantius. He was condemned by a
Roman synod under Bishop Siricius in 390, and afterwards excommunicated
by another at Milan under the presidency of Ambrose. The year of his
death is unknown, but he is referred to as no longer alive in Jerome's
_Contra Vigilantium_ (406).
FOOTNOTE:
[1] See, more fully, Harnack, _Hist. of Dogma_, v. 57.
JOVIUS, PAULUS, or PAOLO GIOVIO (1483-1552), Italian historian and
biographer, was born of an ancient and noble family at Como on the 19th
of April 1483. His father died when he was a child, and Giovio owed his
education to his brother Benedetto. After studying the humanities, he
applied himself to medicine and philosophy at his brother's request. He
was Pomponazzi's pupil at Padua; and afterwards he took a medical degree
in the university of Pavia. He exercised the medical profession in Rome,
but the attraction of literature proved irresistible for Giovio, and he
was bent upon becoming the historian of his age. He presented a portion
of his history to Leo X., who read the MS., and pronounced it superior
in elegance to anything since Livy. Thus encouraged, Giovio took up his
residence in Rome, and attached himself to Cardinal Giulio de' Medici,
the pope's nephew. The next pope, Adrian VI., gave him a canonry in
Como, on the condition, it is said, that Giovio should mention him with
honour in his history. This patronage from a pontiff who was averse from
the current tone of Italian humanism proves that Giovio at this period
passed for a man of sound learning and sober manners. After Adrian's
death, Giulio de' Medici became pope as Clement VII. and assigned him
chambers in the Vatican, with maintenance for servants befitting a
courtier of rank. In addition to other benefices, he finally, in 1528,
bestowed on him the bishopric of Nocera. Giovio had now become in a
special sense dependent on the Medici. He was employed by that family on
several missions--as when he accompanied Ippolito to Bologna on the
occasion of Charles V.'s coronation, and Caterina to Marseilles before
her marriage to the duke of Orleans. During the siege of Rome in 1527 he
attended Clement in his flight from the Vatican. While crossing the
bridge which connected the palace with the castle of S. Angelo, Giovio
threw his mantle over the pope's shoulders in order to disguise his
master.
In the sack he suffered a serious pecuniary and literary loss, if we
may credit his own statement. The story runs that he deposited the MS.
of his history, together with some silver, in a box at S. Maria Sopra
Minerva for safety. This box was discovered by two Spaniards, one of
whom secured the silver, while the other, named Herrera, knowing who
Giovio was, preferred to hold the MSS. for ransom. Herrera was so
careless, however, as to throw away the sheets he found in paper,
reserving only that portion of the work which was transcribed on
parchment. This he subsequently sold to Giovo in exchange for a
benifice at Cordova, which Clement VII. conceded to the Spaniard. Six
books of the history were lost in this transaction. Giovo contented
himself with indicating their substance in a summary. Perhaps he was
not unwilling that his work should resemble that of Livy, even in its
imperfection. But doubt rests upon the whole of this story. Apostolo
Zeno affirms that in the middle of the last century three of the
missing books turned up among family papers in the possession of Count
Giov. Batt. Giovio, who wrote a panegyric on his ancestor. It is
therefore not improbable that Giovio possessed his history intact, but
preferred to withhold from publication those portions which might have
involved him in difficulties with living persons of importance. The
omissions were afterwards made good by Curtio Marinello in the Italian
edition, published at Venice in 1581. But whether Marinello was the
author of these additions is not known.
After Clement's death Giovio found himself out of favour with the next
pope, Paul III. The failure of his career is usually ascribed to the
irregularity of the life he led in the literary society of Rome. We may
also remember that Paul had special causes for animosity against the
Medici, whose servant Giovio had been. Despairing of a cardinal's hat,
Giovio retired to his villa on the lake of Como, where he spent the
wealth he had acquired from donations and benefices in adorning his
villa with curiosities, antiquities and pictures, including a very
important collection of portraits of famous soldiers and men of letters,
now almost entirely dispersed. He died upon a visit to Florence in 1552.
Giovio's principal work was the _History of His Own Times_, from the
invasion of Charles VIII. to the year 1547. It was divided into two
parts, containing altogether forty-five books. Of these, books v.-xi.
of part i. were said by him to have been lost in the sack of Rome,
while books xix.-xxiv. of part ii., which should have embraced the
period from the death of Leo to the sack, were never written. Giovio
supplied the want of the latter six books by his lives of Leo, Adrian,
Alphonso I. of Ferrara, and several other personages of importance.
But he alleged that the history of that period was too painful to be
written in full. His first published work, printed in 1524 at Rome,
was a treatise _De piscibus romanis_. After his retirement to Como he
produced a valuable series of biographies, entitled _Elogia virorum
illustrium_. They commemorate men distinguished for letters and arms,
selected from all periods, and are said to have been written in
illustration of portraits collected by him for the museum of his villa
at Como. Besides these books, we may mention a biographical history of
the Visconti, lords of Milan; an essay on mottoes and badges; a
dissertation on the state of Turkey; a large collection of familiar
epistles; together with descriptions of Britain, Muscovy, the Lake of
Como and Giovio's own villa. The titles of these miscellanies will be
found in the bibliographical note appended to this article.
Giovio preferred Latin in the composition of his more important works.
Though contemporary with Machiavelli, Guicciardini and Varchi, he
adhered to humanistic usages, and cared more for the Latinity than for
the matter of his histories. His style is fluent and sonorous rather
than pointed or grave. Partly owing to the rhetorical defects inherent
in this choice of Latin, when Italian had gained the day, but more to
his own untrustworthy and shallow character, Giovio takes a lower rank
as historian than the bulk and prestige of his writings would seem to
warrant. He professed himself a flatterer and a lampooner, writing
fulsome eulogies on the princes who paid him well, while he ignored or
criticized those who proved less generous. The old story that he said he
kept a golden and an iron pen, to use according as people paid him,
condenses the truth in epigram. His private morals were of a dubious
character, and as a writer he had the faults of the elder humanists, in
combination with that literary cynicism which reached its height in
Aretino; and therefore his histories and biographical essays are not to
be used as authorities, without corroboration. Yet Giovio's works, taken
in their entirety and with proper reservation, have real value. To the
student of Italy they yield a lively picture of the manners and the
feeling of the times in which he lived, and in which he played no
obscure part. They abound in vivid sketches, telling anecdotes, fugitive
comments, which unite a certain charm of autobiographical romance with
the worldly wisdom of an experienced courtier. A flavour of personality
makes them not unpleasant reading. While we learn to despise and
mistrust the man in Giovio, we appreciate the author. It would not be
too far-fetched to describe him as a sort of 16th-century Horace
Walpole.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.--The sources of Giovio's biography are: his own works;
Tiraboschi's _History of Italian Literature_; Litta's _Genealogy of
Illustrious Italian Families_; and Giov. Batt. Giovio's _Uomini
illustri della diocesi Comasca_, Modena (1784). Cicogna, in his _Delle
inscrizioni Veneziane raccolta_ (Venice, 1830), gives a list of
Giovio's works, from which the following notices are extracted: 1.
Works in Latin: (1) _Pauli Jovii historiarum sui temporis, ab anno
1494 ad an. 1547_ (Florence 1550-1552), the same translated into
Italian by L. Domenichi, and first published at Florence (1551),
afterwards at Venice; (2) _Leonis X., Hadriani VI., Pompeii Columnae
Card., vitae_ (Florence, 1548), translated by Domenichi (Florence,
1549); (3) _Vitae XII. vicecomitum Mediolani principum_ (Paris, 1549),
translated by Domenichi (Venice, 1549); (4) _Vita Sfortiae clariss.
ducis_ (Rome, 1549), translated by Domenichi (Florence, 1549); (5)
_Vita Fr. Ferd. Davali_ (Florence, 1549), translated by Domenichi
(ibid. 1551); (6) _Vita magni Consalvi_ (ibid. 1549), translated by
Domenichi (ibid. 1550); (7) _Alfonsi Atestensi_, &c. (ibid. 1550),
Italian translation by Giov. Batt. Gelli (Florence, 1553); (8) _Elogia
virorum bellica virtute illustrium_ (ibid. 1551), translated by
Domenichi (ibid. 1554); (9) _Elogia clarorum virorum_, &c. (Venice,
1546) (these are biographies of men of letters), translated by
Hippolito Orio of Ferrara (Florence, 1552); (10) _Libellus de
legatione Basilii Magni principis Moscoviae_ (Rome, 1525); (11)
_Descriptio Larii Lacus_ (Venice, 1559); (12) _Descriptio Britanniae_,
&c. (Venice, 1548); (13) _De piscibus romanis_ (Rome, 1524); (14)
_Descriptiones quotquot extant regionum atque locorum_ (Basel, 1571).
2. Works in Italian: (1) _Dialogo delle imprese militari et amorose_
(Rome, 1555); (2) _Commentari delle cose dei Turchi_ (Venice, 1541);
(3) _Lettere volgari_ (Venice, 1560). Some minor works and numerous
reprints of those cited have been omitted from this list; and it
should also be mentioned that some of the lives with additional
matter, are included in the _Vitae illustrium virorum_ (Basel, 1576).
(J. A. S.)
The best and most complete edition of Giovio's works is that of Basel
(1678). For his life see Giuseppe Sanesi, "Alcuni osservazioni e
notizie intorno a tre storici minori del cinquecento--Giovio; Nerli,
Segni" (in _Archivio Storico Italiano_, 5th series, vol. xxiii.); Eug.
Muntz, _Sul museo di ritratti composto da Paolo Giovio_ (ibid., vol.
xix.).
JOWETT, BENJAMIN (1817-1893), English scholar and theologian, master of
Balliol College, Oxford, was born in Camberwell on the 15th of April
1817. His father was one of a Yorkshire family who, for three
generations, had been supporters of the Evangelical movement in the
Church of England. His mother was a Langhorne, in some way related to
the poet and translator of Plutarch. At twelve the boy was placed on the
foundation of St Paul's School (then in St Paul's Churchyard), and in
his nineteenth year he obtained an open scholarship at Balliol. In 1838
he gained a fellowship, and graduated with first-class honours in 1839.
Brought up amongst pious Evangelicals, he came to Oxford at the height
of the Tractarian movement, and through the friendship of W. G. Ward was
drawn for a time in the direction of High Anglicanism; but a stronger
and more lasting influence was that of the Arnold school, represented by
A. P. Stanley. Jowett was thus led to concentrate his attention on
theology, and in the summers of 1845 and 1846, spent in Germany with
Stanley, he became an eager student of German criticism and speculation.
Amongst the writings of that period he was most impressed by those of F.
C. Baur. But he never ceased to exercise an independent judgment, and
his work on St Paul, which appeared in 1855, was the result of much
original reflection and inquiry. He was appointed to the Greek
professorship in the autumn of that year. He had been a tutor of Balliol
and a clergyman since 1842, and had devoted himself to the work of
tuition with unexampled zeal. His pupils became his friends for life. He
discerned their capabilities, studied their characters, and sought to
remedy their defects by frank and searching criticism. Like another
Socrates, he taught them to know themselves, repressing vanity,
encouraging the despondent, and attaching all alike by his unobtrusive
sympathy. This work gradually made a strong impression, and those who
cared for Oxford began to speak of him as "the great tutor." As early as
1839 Stanley had joined with Tait, the future archbishop, in advocating
certain university reforms. From 1846 onwards Jowett threw himself into
this movement, which in 1848 became general amongst the younger and more
thoughtful fellows, until it took effect in the commission of 1850 and
the act of 1854. Another educational reform, the opening of the Indian
civil service to competition, took place at the same time, and Jowett
was one of the commission. He had two brothers who served and died in
India, and he never ceased to take a deep and practical interest in
Indian affairs. A great disappointment, his repulse for the mastership
of Balliol, also in 1854, appears to have roused him into the completion
of his book on _The Epistles of St Paul_. This work, described by one of
his friends as "a miracle of boldness," is full of originality and
suggestiveness, but its publication awakened against him a storm of
theological prejudice, which followed him more or less through life.
Instead of yielding to this, he joined with Henry Bristowe Wilson and
Rowland Williams, who had been similarly attacked, in the production of
the volume known as _Essays and Reviews_. This appeared in 1860 and gave
rise to a strange outbreak of fanaticism. Jowett's loyalty to those who
were prosecuted on this account was no less characteristic than his
persistent silence while the augmentation of his salary as Greek
professor was withheld. This petty persecution was continued until 1865,
when E. A. Freeman and Charles Elton discovered by historical research
that a breach of the conditions of the professorship had occurred, and
Christ Church raised the endowment from L40 a year to L500. Meanwhile
Jowett's influence at Oxford had steadily increased. It culminated in
1864, when the country clergy, provoked by the final acquittal of the
essayists, had voted in convocation against the endowment of the Greek
chair. Jowett's pupils, who were now drawn from the university at large,
supported him with the enthusiasm which young men feel for the victim of
injustice. In the midst of other labours Jowett had been quietly
exerting his influence so as to conciliate all shades of liberal
opinion, and bring them to bear upon the abolition of the theological
test, which was still required for the M.A. and other degrees, and for
university and college offices. He spoke at an important meeting upon
this question in London on the 10th of June 1864, which laid the ground
for the University Tests Act of 1871. In connexion with the Greek
professorship Jowett had undertaken a work on Plato which grew into a
complete translation of the _Dialogues_, with introductory essays. At
this he laboured in vacation time for at least ten years. But his
interest in theology had not abated, and his thoughts found an outlet in
occasional preaching. The university pulpit, indeed, was closed to him,
but several congregations in London delighted in his sermons, and from
1866 until the year of his death he preached annually in Westminster
Abbey, where Stanley had become dean in 1863. Three volumes of selected
sermons have been published since his death. The years 1865-1870 were
occupied with assiduous labour. Amongst his pupils at Balliol were men
destined to high positions in the state, whose parents had thus shown
their confidence in the supposed heretic, and gratitude on this account
was added to other motives for his unsparing efforts in tuition. In
1870, by an arrangement which he attributed to his friend Robert Lowe,
afterwards Lord Sherbrooke (at that time a member of Gladstone's
ministry), Scott was promoted to the deanery of Rochester and Jowett was
elected to the vacant mastership by the fellows of Balliol. From the
vantage-ground of this long-coveted position the _Plato_ was published
in 1871. It had a great and well-deserved success. While scholars
criticized particular renderings (and there were many small errors to be
removed in subsequent editions), it was generally agreed that he had
succeeded in making Plato an English classic.
If ever there was a beneficent despotism, it was Jowett's rule as
master. Since 1866 his authority in Balliol had been really paramount,
and various reforms in college had been due to his initiative. The
opposing minority were now powerless, and the younger fellows who had
been his pupils were more inclined to follow him than others would have
been. There was no obstacle to the continued exercise of his firm and
reasonable will. He still knew the undergraduates individually, and
watched their progress with a vigilant eye. His influence in the
university was less assured. The pulpit of St Mary's was no longer
closed to him, but the success of Balliol in the schools gave rise to
jealousy in other colleges, and old prejudices did not suddenly give
way; while a new movement in favour of "the endowment of research" ran
counter to his immediate purposes. Meanwhile, the tutorships in other
colleges, and some of the headships also, were being filled with Balliol
men, and Jowett's former pupils were prominent in both houses of
parliament and at the bar. He continued the practice, which he had
commenced in 1848, of taking with him a small party of undergraduates in
vacation time, and working with them in one of his favourite haunts, at
Askrigg in Wensleydale, or Tummel Bridge, or later at West Malvern. The
new hall (1876), the organ there, entirely his gift (1885), and the
cricket ground (1889), remain as external monuments of the master's
activity. Neither business nor the many claims of friendship interrupted
literary work. The six or seven weeks of the long vacation, during which
he had pupils with him, were mainly employed in writing. The translation
of Aristotle's _Politics_, the revision of Plato, and, above all, the
translation of Thucydides many times revised, occupied several years.
The edition of the _Republic_, undertaken in 1856, remained unfinished,
but was continued with the help of Professor Lewis Campbell. Other
literary schemes of larger scope and deeper interest were long in
contemplation, but were not destined to take effect--an _Essay on the
Religions of the World, a Commentary on the Gospels_, a _Life of
Christ_, a volume on _Moral Ideas_. Such plans were frustrated, not only
by his practical avocations, but by his determination to finish what he
had begun, and the fastidious self-criticism which it took so long to
satisfy. The book on Morals might, however, have been written but for
the heavy burden of the vice-chancellorship, which he was induced to
accept in 1882, by the hope, only partially fulfilled, of securing many
improvements for the university. The vice-chancellor was _ex officio_ a
delegate of the press, where he hoped to effect much; and a plan for
draining the Thames Valley, which he had now the power of initiating,
was one on which his mind had dwelt for many years. The exhausting
labours of the vice-chancellorship were followed by an illness (1887);
and after this he relinquished the hope of producing any great original
writing. His literary industry was thenceforth confined to his
commentary on the _Republic_ of Plato, and some essays on Aristotle
which were to have formed a companion volume to the translation of the
_Politics_. The essays which should have accompanied the translation of
Thucydides were never written. Jowett, who never married, died on the
1st of October 1893. The funeral was one of the most impressive ever
seen in Oxford. The pall-bearers were seven heads of colleges and the
provost of Eton, all old pupils.
Theologian, tutor, university reformer, a great master of a college,
Jowett's best claim to the remembrance of succeeding generations was his
greatness as a moral teacher. Many of the most prominent Englishmen of
the day were his pupils and owed much of what they were to his precept
and example, his penetrative sympathy, his insistent criticism, and his
unwearying friendship. Seldom have ideal aims been so steadily pursued
with so clear a recognition of practical limitations. Jowett's
theological work was transitional, and yet has an element of permanence.
As has been said of another thinker, he was "one of those deeply
religious men who, when crude theological notions are being revised and
called in question seek to put new life into theology by wider and more
humane ideas." In earlier life he had been a zealous student of Kant and
Hegel, and to the end he never ceased to cultivate the philosophic
spirit; but he had little confidence in metaphysical systems, and sought
rather to translate philosophy into the wisdom of life. As a classical
scholar, his scorn of littlenesses sometimes led him into the neglect of
_minutiae_, but he had the higher merit of interpreting ideas. His place
in literature rests really on the essays in his Plato. When their merits
are fully recognized, it will be found that his worth, as a teacher of
his countrymen, extends far beyond his own generation.
See _The Life and Letters of Benjamin Jowett_, by E. A. Abbott and
Lewis Campbell (1897); _Benjamin Jowett_, by Lionel Tollemache (1895).
(L. C.)
JOYEUSE, a small town in the department of Ardeche, France, situated on
the Baume, a tributary of the Ardeche, is historically important as
having been the seat of a noble French family which derived its name
from it. The lordship of Joyeuse came, in the 13th century, into the
possession of the house of Chateauneuf-Randon, and was made into a
viscountship in 1432. Guillaume, viscount of Joyeuse, was bishop of
Alet, but afterwards left the church, and became a marshal of France; he
died in 1592. His eldest son Anne de Joyeuse (1561-1587), was one of the
favourites of Henry III. of France, who created him duke and peer
(1581), admiral of France (1582), and governor of Normandy (1586), and
married him to Marguerite de Lorraine-Vaudemont, younger sister of the
queen. He gained several successes against the Huguenots, but was
recalled by court intrigues at an inopportune moment, and when he
marched a second time against Henry of Navarre he was defeated and
killed at Coutras. Guillaume had three other sons: Francois de Joyeuse
(d. 1615), cardinal and archbishop of Narbonne, Toulouse and Rouen, who
brought about the reconciliation of Henry IV. with the pope; Henri,
count of Bouchage, and later duke of Joyeuse, who first entered the
army, then became a Capuchin under the name of Pere Ange, left the
church and became a marshal of France, and finally re-entered the
church, dying in 1608; Antoine Scipion, grand prior of Toulouse in the
order of the knights of Malta, who was one of the leaders in the League,
and died in the retreat of Villemur (1592). Henriette Catherine de
Joyeuse, daughter of Henri, married in 1611 Charles of Lorraine, duke of
Guise, to whom she brought the duchy of Joyeuse. On the death of her
great-grandson, Francois Joseph de Lorraine, duke of Guise, in 1675,
without issue, the duchy of Joyeuse was declared extinct, but it was
revived in 1714, in favour of Louis de Melun, prince of Epinoy.
(M. P.*)
JOYEUSE ENTREE, a famous charter of liberty granted to Brabant by Duke
John III. in 1354. John summoned the representatives of the cities of
the duchy to Louvain to announce to them the marriage of his daughter
and heiress Jeanne of Brabant to Wenceslaus duke of Luxemburg, and he
offered them liberal concessions in order to secure their assent to the
change of dynasty. John III. died in 1355, and Wenceslaus and Jeanne on
the occasion of their state entry into Brussels solemnly swore to
observe all the provisions of the charter, which had been drawn up. From
the occasion on which it was first proclaimed this charter has since
been known in history as _La Joyeuse Entree_. By this document the dukes
of Brabant undertook to maintain the integrity of the duchy, and not to
wage war, make treaties, or impose taxes without the consent of their
subjects, as represented by the municipalities. All members of the
duke's council were to be native-born Brabanters. This charter became
the model for other provinces and the bulwark of the liberties of the
Netherlands. Its provisions were modified from time to time, but
remained practically unchanged from the reign of Charles V. onwards. The
ill-advised attempt of the emperor Joseph II. in his reforming zeal to
abrogate the _Joyeuse Entree_ caused a revolt in Brabant, before which
he had to yield.
See E. Poullet, _La Joyeuse entree, ou constitution Brabanconne_
(1862).
JUAN FERNANDEZ ISLANDS, a small group in the South Pacific Ocean,
between 33 deg. and 34 deg. S., 80 deg. W., belonging to Chile and
included in the province of Valparaiso. The main island is called
_Mas-a-Tierra_ (Span. "more to land") to distinguish it from a smaller
island, _Mas-a-Fuera_ ("more to sea"), 100 m. farther west. Off the S.W.
of Mas-a-Tierra lies the islet of Santa Clara. The aspect of
Mas-a-Tierra is beautiful; only 13 m. in length by 4 in width, it
consists of a series of precipitous rocks rudely piled into irregular
blocks and pinnacles, and strongly contrasting with a rich vegetation.
The highest of these, 3225 ft., is called, from its massive form, El
Yunque (the anvil). The rocks are volcanic. Cumberland Bay on the north
side is the only fair anchorage, and even there, from the great depth of
water, there is some risk. A wide valley collecting streams from several
of the ravines on the north side of the island opens into Cumberland
Bay, and is partially enclosed and cultivated. The inhabitants number
only some twenty.
The flora and fauna of Juan Fernandez are in most respects Chilean.
There are few trees on the island, for most of the valuable indigenous
trees have been practically exterminated, such as the sandalwood,
which the earlier navigators found one of the most valuable products
of the island. Ferns are prominent among the flora, about one-third of
which consists of endemic species. There are no indigenous land
mammals. Pigs and goats, however, with cattle, horses, asses and dogs,
have been introduced, have multiplied, and in considerable numbers run
wild. Sea-elephants and fur-seals were formerly plentiful. Of birds,
a tyrant and a humming-bird (_Eustephanus fernandensis_) are peculiar
to the group, while another humming bird (_E. galerites_), a thrush,
and some birds of prey also occur in Chile. _E. fernandensis_ has the
peculiarity that the male is of a bright cinnamon colour, while the
female is green. Both sexes are green in _E. galerites_.
Juan Fernandez was discovered by a Spanish pilot of that name in 1563.
Fernandez obtained from the Spanish government a grant of the islands,
where he resided for some time, stocking them with goats and pigs. He
soon, however, appears to have abandoned his possessions, which were
afterwards for many years only visited occasionally by fishermen from
the coasts of Chile and Peru. In 1616 Jacob le Maire and Willem Cornelis
Schouten called at Juan Fernandez for water and fresh provisions. Pigs
and goats were then abundant on the islands. In February 1700 Dampier
called at Juan Fernandez and while there Captain Straddling of the
"Cinque Porte" galley quarrelled with his men, forty-two of whom
deserted but were afterwards taken on board by Dampier; five seamen,
however, remained on shore. Other parties had previously colonized the
islands but none had remained permanently. In October 1704 the "Cinque
Porte" returned and found two of these men, the others having been
apparently captured by the French. On this occasion Straddling
quarrelled with Alexander Selkirk (q.v.), who, at his own request,
became the island's most famous colonist, for his adventures are
commonly believed to have inspired Daniel Defoe's _Robinson Crusoe_.
Among later visits, that of Commodore Anson, in the "Centurion" (June
1741) led, on his return home, to a proposal to form an English
settlement on Juan Fernandez; but the Spaniards, hearing that the matter
had been mooted in England, gave orders to occupy the island, and it was
garrisoned accordingly in 1750. Philip Carteret first observed this
settlement in May 1767, and on account of the hostility of the Spaniards
preferred to put in at Masa-Fuera. After the establishment of the
independence of Chile at the beginning of the 19th century, Juan
Fernandez passed into the possession of that country. On more than one
occasion before 1840 Mas-a-Tierra was used as a state prison by the
Chilean government.
JUANGS (Patuas, literally "leaf-wearers"), a jungle tribe of Orissa,
India. They are found in only two of the tributary states, Dhenkanal and
Keonjhar, most of them in the latter. They are estimated to amount in
all to about 10,000. Their language belongs to the Munda family. They
have no traditions which connect them with any other race, and they
repudiate all connexion with the Hos or the Santals, declaring
themselves the aborigines. They say the headquarters of the tribe is the
Gonasika. In manners they are among the most primitive people of the
world, representing the Stone age in our own day. They do not till the
land, but live on the game they kill or on snakes and vermin. Their huts
measure about 6 ft. by 8 ft., with very low doorways. The interior is
divided into two compartments. In the first of these the father and all
the females of a family huddle together; the second is used as a
store-room. The boys have a separate hut at the entrance to the village,
which serves as a guest-house and general assembly place where the
musical instruments of the village are kept. Physically they are small
and weak-looking, of a reddish-brown colour, with flat faces, broad
noses with wide nostrils, large mouths and thick lips, the hair coarse
and frizzly. The women until recently wore nothing but girdles of
leaves, the men, a diminutive bandage of cloth. The Juangs declare that
the river goddess, emerging for the first time from the Gonasika rock,
surprised a party of naked Juangs dancing, and ordered them to wear
leaves, with the threat that they should die if they ever gave up the
custom. The Juangs' weapons are the bow and arrow and a primitive sling
made entirely of cord. Their religion is a vague belief in forest
spirits. They offer fowls to the sun when in trouble and to the earth
for a bountiful harvest. Polygamy is rare. They burn their dead and
throw the ashes into any running stream. The most sacred oaths a Juang
can take are those on an ant-hill or a tiger-skin.
See E. W. Dalton, _Descriptive Ethnology of Bengal_ (1872).
JUAN MANUEL, DON (1282-1349), infante of Castile, son of the infante Don
Manuel and Beatrix of Savoy, and grandson of St Ferdinand, was born at
Escalona on the 5th of May 1282. His father died in 1284, and the young
prince was educated at the court of his cousin, Sancho IV., with whom
his precocious ability made him a favourite. In 1294 he was appointed
_adelantado_ of Murcia and in his fourteenth year served against the
Moors at Granada. In 1304 he was entrusted by the queen-mother, Dona
Maria de Molina, to conduct political negotiations with James II. of
Aragon on behalf of her son, Ferdinand IV., then under age. His
diplomacy was successful and his marriage to James II.'s daughter,
Constantina, added to his prestige. On the death of Ferdinand IV. and of
the regents who governed in the name of Alphonso XI., Don Juan Manuel
acted as guardian of the king who was proclaimed of age in 1325. His
ambitious design of continuing to exercise the royal power was defeated
by Alphonso XI., who married the ex-regent's daughter Constanza, and
removed his father-in-law from the scene by nominating him _adelantado
mayor de la frontera_. Alphonso XI.'s repudiation of Constanza, whom he
imprisoned at Toro, drove Don Juan Manuel into opposition, and a long
period of civil war followed. On the death of his wife Constantina in
1327, Don Juan Manuel strengthened his position by marrying Dona Blanca
de la Cerda; he secured the support of Juan Nunez, _alferez_ of Castile,
by arranging a marriage between him and Maria, daughter of Don Juan el
Tuerto; he won over Portugal by promising the hand of his daughter, the
ex-queen Constanza, to the infante of that kingdom, and he entered into
alliance with Mahomet III. of Granada. This formidable coalition
compelled Alphonso XI. to sue for terms, which he accepted in 1328
without any serious intention of complying with them; but he was
compelled to release Dona Constanza. War speedily broke out anew, and
lasted till 1331 when Alphonso XI. invited Juan Manuel and Juan Nunez to
a banquet at Villahumbrales with the intention, it was believed, of
assassinating them; the plot failed, and Don Juan Manuel joined forces
with Peter IV. of Aragon. He was besieged by Alphonso XI. at
Garci-Nunez, whence he escaped on the 30th of July 1336, fled into
exile, and kept the rebellion alive till 1338, when he made his peace
with the king. He proved his loyalty by serving in further expeditions
against the Moors of Granada and Africa, and died a tranquil death in
the first half of 1349.
Distinguished as an astute politician, Don Juan Manuel is an author of
the highest eminence, and, considering the circumstances of his stormy
life, his voluminousness is remarkable. The _Libro de los sabios_, a
treatise called _Engenos de Guerra_ and the _Libro de cantares_, a
collection of verses, were composed between 1320 and 1327; but they have
disappeared together with the _Libro de la caballeria_ (written during
the winter of 1326), and the _Reglas como se debe trovar_, a metrical
treatise assigned to 1328-1334. Of his surviving writings, Juan Manuel's
_Cronica abreviada_ was compiled between 1319 and 1325, while the _Libro
de la caza_ must have been written between 1320 and 1329; and during
this period of nine years the _Cronica de Espana_, the _Cronica
complida_, and the _Tratado sobre las armas_ were produced. The _Libro
del caballero et del escudero_ was finished before the end of 1326; the
first book of the _Libro de los estados_ was finished on the 22nd of May
1330, while the second was begun five days later; the first book of _El
Conde Lucanor_ was written in 1328, the second in 1330, and the fourth
is dated 12th of June 1335. We are unable to assign to any precise date
the devout _Tractado_ on the Virgin, dedicated to the prior of the
monastery at Penafiel, to which Don Juan Manuel bequeathed his
manuscripts; but it seems probable that the _Libro de los frailes
predicadores_ is slightly later than the _Libro de los estados_; that
the _Libro de los castigos_ (left unfinished, and therefore known by the
alternative title of _Libro infinido_) was written not later than 1333,
and that the treatise _De las maneras de amor_ was composed between 1334
and 1337.
The historical summaries, pious dissertations and miscellaneous writings
are of secondary interest. The _Libro del caballero et del escudero_ is
on another plane; it is no doubt suggested by Lull's _Libre del orde de
cavalleria_, but the points of resemblance have been exaggerated; the
morbid mysticism of Lull is rejected, and the carefully finished style
justifies the special pride which the author took in this performance.
The influence of Lull's Blanquerna is likewise visible in the _Libro de
los estados_; but there are marked divergences of substance which go to
prove Don Juan Manuel's acquaintance with some version (not yet
identified) of the Barlaam and Josaphat legend. Nothing is more striking
than the curious and varied erudition of the turbulent prince who weaves
his personal experiences with historical or legendary incidents, with
reminiscences of Aesop and Phaedrus, with the _Disciplina clericalis_,
with _Kalilah and Dimnah_, with countless Oriental traditions, and with
all the material of anecdotic literature which he embodies in the _Libro
de patronio_, best known by the title of _El Conde Lucanor_ (the name
Lucanor being taken from the prose _Tristan_). This work (also entitled
the _Libro de enxemplos_) was first printed by Gonzalo Argote de Molina
at Seville in 1575, and it revealed Don Juan Manuel as a master in the
art of prose composition, and as the predecessor of Boccaccio in the
province of romantic narrative. The _Cento novelle antiche_ are earlier
in date, but these anonymous tales, derived from popular stories
diffused throughout the world, lack the personal character which Don
Juan lends to all he touches. They are simple, unadorned variants of
folk-lore items; _El Conde Lucanor_ is essentially the production of a
conscious artist, deliberative and selective in his methods. Don Juan
Manuel has not Boccaccio's festive fancy nor his constructive skill; he
is too persistently didactic and concerned to point a moral; but he
excels in knowledge of human nature, in the faculty of ironical
presentation, in tolerant wisdom and in luminous conciseness. He
naturalizes the Eastern apologue in Spain, and by the laconic
picturesqueness of his expression imports a new quality into Spanish
prose which attains its full development in the hands of Juan de Valdes
and Cervantes. Some of his themes are utilized for dramatic purposes by
Lope de Vega in _La Pobreza estimada_, by Ruiz de Alarcon in _La Prueba
de las promesas_, by Calderon in _La Vida es sueno_, and by Canizares in
_Don Juan de Espina en Milan_: there is an evident, though remote,
relation between the tale of the _mancebo que caso con una mujer muy
fuerte y muy brava_ and _The Taming of the Shrew_; and a more direct
connexion exists between some of Don Juan Manuel's _enxemplos_ and some
of Anderson's fairy tales.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.--_Obras_, edited by P. de Gayangos in the _Biblioteca de
autores Espanoles_, vol. li.; _El Conde Lucanor_ (Leipzig, 1900),
edited by H. Knust and A. Hirschfeld; _Libro de la caza_ (Halle,
1880), edited by G. Baist; _El Libro del caballero et del escudero_,
edited by S. Grafenberg in _Romanische Forschungen_, vol. vi.; _La
cronica complida_, edited by G. Baist in _Romanische Forschungen_,
vol. vi.; G. Baist, _Alter und Textueberlieferung der Schriften Don
Juan Manuels_ (Halle, 1880); F. Hanssen, _Notas a la versificacion de
D. Juan Manuel_ (Santiago de Chile, 1902). The _Conde Lucanor_ has
been translated by J. Eichendorff into German (1840), by A. Puibusque
into French (1854) and by J. York into English (1868). (J. F. K.)
JUAREZ, BENITO PABLO (1806-1872), president of Mexico, was born near
Ixtlan, in the state of Oajaca, Mexico, on the 21st of March 1806, of
full Indian blood. Early left in poverty by the death of his father, he
received from a charitable friar a good general education, and
afterwards the means of studying law. Beginning to practise in 1834,
Juarez speedily rose to professional distinction, and in the stormy
political life of his time took a prominent part as an exponent of
liberal views. In 1832 he sat in the state legislature; in 1846 he was
one of a legislative triumvirate for his native state and a deputy to
the republican congress, and from 1847 to 1852 he was governor of
Oajaca. Banished in 1853 by Santa Anna, he returned to Mexico in 1855,
and joined Alvarez, who, after Santa Anna's defeat, made him minister of
justice. Under Comonfort, who then succeeded Alvarez, Juarez was
governor of Oajaca (1855-57), and in 1857 chief justice and secretary of
the interior; and, when Comonfort was unconstitutionally replaced by
Zuloaga in 1858, the chief justice, in virtue of his office, claimed to
be legal president of the republic. It was not, however, till the
beginning of 1861 that he succeeded in finally defeating the
unconstitutional party and in being duly elected president by congress.
His decree of July 1861, suspending for two years all payments on public
debts of every kind, led to the landing in Mexico of English, Spanish
and French troops. The first two powers were soon induced to withdraw
their forces; but the French remained, declared war in 1862, placed
Maximilian upon the throne as emperor, and drove Juarez and his
adherents to the northern limits of the republic. Juarez maintained an
obstinate resistance, which resulted in final success. In 1867
Maximilian was taken at Queretaro, and shot; and in August Juarez was
once more elected president. His term of office was far from tranquil;
discontented generals stirred up ceaseless revolts and insurrections;
and, though he was re-elected in 1871, his popularity seemed to be on
the wane. He died of apoplexy in the city of Mexico on the 18th of July
1872. He was a statesman of integrity, ability and determination, whose
good qualities are too apt to be overlooked in consequence of his
connexion with the unhappy fate of Maximilian.
JUBA, the name of two kings of Numidia.
JUBA I. (1st century B.C.), son and successor of Hiempsal, king of
Numidia. During the civil wars at Rome he sided with Pompey, partly from
gratitude because he had reinstated his father on his throne (Appian,
_B.C._, i. 80), and partly from enmity to Caesar, who had insulted him
at Rome by pulling his beard (Suet., _Caesar_, 71). Further, C.
Scribonius Curio, Caesar's general in Africa, had openly proposed, 50
B.C., when tribune of the plebs, that Numidia should be sold to
colonists, and the king reduced to a private station. In 49 Juba
inflicted on the Caesarean army a crushing defeat, in which Curio was
slain (Vell. Pat. ii. 54; Caesar, _B.C._ ii. 40). Juba's attention was
distracted by a counter invasion of his territories by Bocchus the
younger and Sittius; but, finding that his lieutenant Sabura was able to
defend his interests, he rejoined the Pompeians with a large force, and
shared the defeat at Thapsus. Fleeing from the field with the Roman
general M. Petreius, he wandered about as a fugitive. At length, in
despair, Juba killed Petreius, and sought the aid of a slave in
despatching himself (46). Juba was a thorough savage; brave,
treacherous, insolent and cruel. (See NUMIDIA.)
JUBA II., son of the above. On the death of his father in 46 B.C. he was
carried to Rome to grace Caesar's triumph. He seems to have received a
good education under the care of Augustus who, in 29, after Mark
Antony's death, gave him the hand of Cleopatra Selene, daughter of
Antony and Cleopatra, and placed him on his father's throne. In 25,
however, he transferred him from Numidia to Mauretania, to which was
added a part of Gaetulia (see NUMIDIA). Juba seems to have reigned in
considerable prosperity, though in A.D. 6 the Gaetulians rose in a
revolt of sufficient importance to afford the surname Gaetulicus to
Cornelius Lentulus Cossus, the Roman general who helped to suppress it.
The date of Juba's death is by no means certain; it has been put between
A.D. 19 and 24 (Strabo, xvii. 828; Dio Cassius, li. 15; liii. 26;
Plutarch, _Ant._ 87; _Caesar_, 55). Juba, according to Pliny, who
constantly refers to him, is mainly memorable for his writings. He has
been called the African Varro.
He wrote many historical and geographical works, of which some seem to
have been voluminous and of considerable value on account of the
sources to which their author had access: (1) [Greek: Rhomaike
historia]; (2) [Greek: Assyriaka]; (3) [Greek: Libyka]; (4) _De Arabia
sive De expeditione arabica_; (5) _Physiologa_; (6) _De Euphorbia
herba_; (7) [Greek: Peri opou]; (8) [Greek: Peri graphikes] ([Greek:
Peri zographon]); (9) [Greek: Theatrike historia]; (10) [Greek:
Homoiotetes]; (11) [Greek: Peri phthoras lexeos]; (12) [Greek:
Epigramma].
Fragments and life in Muller, _Frag. Hist. Graec._, vol. iii.; see
also Sevin, _Mem. de l'Acad. des Inscriptions_, vol. iv.; Hullemann,
_De vita et scriptis Jubae_ (1846). For the denarii of Juba II. found
in 1908 at El Ksar on the coast of Morocco see Dieudonne in _Revue
Numism_. (1908), pp. 350 seq. They are interesting mainly as throwing
light on the chronology of the reign.
JUBA, or JUB, a river of East Africa, exceeding 1000 m. in length,
rising on the S.E. border of the Abyssinian highlands and flowing S.
across the Galla and Somali countries to the sea. It is formed by the
junction of three streams, all having their source in the mountain range
N.E. of Lake Rudolf which is the water-parting between the Nile basin
and the rivers flowing to the Indian Ocean.
Of the three headstreams, the Web, the Ganale and the Daua, the Ganale
(or Ganana) is the central river and the true upper course of the
Juba. It has two chief branches, the Black and the Great Ganale. The
last-named, the most remote source of the river, rises in 7 deg. 30'
N., 38 deg. E. at an altitude of about 7500 ft., the crest of the
mountains reaching another 2500 ft. In its upper course it flows over
a rocky bed with a swift current and many rapids. The banks are
clothed with dense jungle and the hills beyond with thorn-bush. Lower
down the river has formed a narrow valley, 1500 to 2000 ft. below the
general level of the country. Leaving the higher mountains in about 5
deg. 15' N., 40 deg. E., the Ganale enters a large slightly undulating
grass plain which extends south of the valley of the Daua and occupies
all the country eastward to the junction of the two rivers. In this
plain the Ganale makes a semicircular sweep northward before resuming
its general S.-E. course. East of 42 deg. E. in 4 deg. 12' N. it is
joined by the Web on the left or eastern bank, and about 10 m. lower
down the Daua enters on the right bank.
The Web rises in the mountain chain a little S. and E. of the sources
of the Ganale, and some 40 m. from its source passes, first, through a
canon 500 ft. deep, and then through a series of remarkable
underground caves hollowed out of a quartz mountain and, with their
arches and white columns, presenting the appearance of a pillared
temple. The Daua (or Dawa) is formed by the mountain torrents which
have their rise S. and W. of the Ganale and is of similar character to
that river. It has few feeders and none of any size. The descent to
the open country is somewhat abrupt. In its middle course the Daua has
cut a deep narrow valley through the plain; lower down it bends N.E.
to its junction with the Ganale. The river is not deep and can be
forded in many places; the banks are fringed with thick bush and
dom-palms. At the junction of the Ganale and the Web the river is
swift-flowing and 85 yards across; just below the Daua confluence it
is 200 yds. wide, the altitude here--300 m. in a direct line from the
source of the Ganale--being only 590 ft.
Below the Daua the river, now known as the Juba, receives no tributary
of importance. It first flows in a valley bounded, especially towards
the west, by the escarpments of a high plateau, and containing the
towns of Lugh (in 3 deg. 50' N., the centre of active trade), Bardera,
387 m. above the mouth, and Saranli--the last two on opposite sides of
the stream, in 2 deg. 20' N., a crossing-place for caravans. Beyond 1
deg. 45' N. the country becomes more level and the course of the river
very tortuous. On the west a series of small lakes and backwaters
receives water from the Juba during the rains. Just south of the
equator channels from the long, branching Lake Deshekwama or Hardinge,
fed by the Lakdera river, enter from the west, and in 0 deg. 15' S.
the Juba enters the sea across a dangerous bar, which has only one
fathom of water at high tide.
From its mouth to 20 m. above Bardera, where at 2 deg. 35' N. rapids
occur, the Juba is navigable by shallow-draught steamers, having a
general depth of from 4 to 12 ft., though shallower in places. Just
above its mouth it is a fine stream 250 yds. wide, with a current of
2(1/2) knots. Below the mountainous region of the headstreams the Juba
and its tributaries flow through a country generally arid away from the
banks of the streams. The soil is sandy, covered either with thorn-scrub
or rank grass, which in the rainy season affords herbage for the herds
of cattle, sheep and camels owned by the Boran Gallas and the Somali who
inhabit the district. But by the banks of the lower river the character
of the country changes. In this district, known as Gosha, are
considerable tracts of forest, and the level of flood water is higher
than much of the surrounding land. This low-lying fertile belt stretches
along the river for about 300 m., but is not more than a mile or two
wide. In the river valley maize, rice, cotton and other crops are
cultivated. From Gobwen, a trading settlement about 3 m. above the mouth
of the Juba, a road runs S.W. to the seaport of Kismayu, 10 m. distant.
The lower Juba was ascended in 1865 in a steamer by Baron Karl von der
Decken, who was murdered by Somali at Bardera, but the river system
remained otherwise almost unknown until after 1890. In 1891 a survey of
its lower course was executed by Captain F. G. Dundas of the British
navy, while in 1892-1893 its headstreams were explored by the Italian
officers, Captains Vittorio, Bottego and Grixoni, the former of whom
disproved the supposed connexion of the Omo (see RUDOLF, LAKE) with the
Juba system. It has since been further explored by Prince Eugenio
Ruspoli, by Bottego's second expedition (1895), by Donaldson Smith, A.
E. Butter, Captain P. Maud of the British army, and others. The river,
from its mouth to the confluence of the Daua and Ganale, forms the
frontier between the British East Africa protectorate and Italian
Somaliland; and from that point to about 4 deg. 20' N. the Daua is the
boundary between British and Abyssinian territory.
JUBBULPORE, or JABALPUR, a city, district, and division of British India
in the Central Provinces. The city is 616 m. N.E. of Bombay by rail, and
220 m. S.W. of Allahabad. Pop. (1901), 90,316. The numerous gorges in
the neighbouring rocks have been taken advantage of to surround the city
with a series of lakes, which, shaded by fine trees and bordered by
fantastic crags, add much beauty to the suburbs. The city itself is
modern, and is laid out in wide and regular streets. A streamlet
separates the civil station and cantonment from the native quarter; but,
though the climate is mild, a swampy hollow beneath renders the site
unhealthy for Europeans. Formerly the capital of the Saugor and Nerbudda
territories, Jubbulpore is now the headquarters of a brigade in the 5th
division of the southern army. It is also one of the most important
railway centres in India, being the junction of the Great Indian
Peninsula and the East Indian systems. It has a steam cotton-mill. The
government college educates for the science course of the Allahabad
University, and also contains law and engineering classes; there are
three aided high schools, a law class, an engineering class and normal
schools for male and female teachers. A native association, established
in 1869, supports an orphanage, with help from government. A zenana
mission manages 13 schools for girls. Waterworks were constructed in
1882.
The DISTRICT OF JUBBULPORE lies on the watershed between the Nerbudda
and the Son, but mostly within the valley of the former river, which
here runs through the famous gorge known as the Marble rocks, and falls
30 ft. over a rocky ledge (the _Dhuan dhar_, or "misty shoot"). Area,
3912 sq. m. It consists of a long narrow plain running north-east and
south-west, and shut in on all sides by highlands. This plain, which
forms an offshoot from the great valley of the Nerbudda, is covered in
its western and southern portions by a rich alluvial deposit of black
cotton-soil. At Jubbulpore city the soil is sandy, and water plentiful
near the surface. The north and east belong to the Ganges and Jumna
basins, the south and west to the Nerbudda basin. In 1901 the population
was 680,585, showing a decrease of 9% since 1891, due to the results of
famine. The principal crops are wheat, rice, pulse and oil-seeds. A good
deal of iron-smelting with charcoal is carried on in the forests,
manganese ore is found, and limestone is extensively quarried. The
district is traversed by the main railway from Bombay to Calcutta, and
by new branches of two other lines which meet at Katni junction.
Jubbulpore suffered severely in the famine of 1896-1897, the distress
being aggravated by immigration from the adjoining native states.
Fortunately the famine of 1900 was less severely felt.
The early history of Jubbulpore is unknown; but inscriptions record
the existence during the 11th and 12th centuries of a local line of
princes of that Haihai race which is closely connected with the
history of Gondwana. In the 16th century the Gond raja of Garha Mandla
extended his power over fifty-two districts, including the present
Jubbulpore. During the minority of his grandson, Asaf Khan, the
viceroy of Kara Manikpur, conquered the Garha principality and held it
at first as an independent chief. Eventually he submitted to the
emperor Akbar. The Delhi power, however, enjoyed little more than a
nominal supremacy; and the princes of Garha Mandla maintained a
practical independence until their subjugation by the Mahratta
governors of Saugor in 1781. In 1798 the peshwa granted the Nerbudda
valley to the Bhonsla princes of Nagpur, who continued to hold the
district until the British occupied it in 1818.
The DIVISION OF JUBBULPORE lies mainly among the Vindhyan and Satpura
hill systems. It comprises the five following districts: Jubbulpore,
Saugor, Damoh, Seoni and Mandla. Area, 18,950 sq. m.; pop. (1901),
2,081,499.
JUBE, the French architectural term (taken from the imperative of Lat.
_jubere_, to order) for the chancel or choir screen, which in England is
known as the rood-screen (see ROOD). Above the screen was a gallery or
loft, from which the words "Jube Domine benedicere" were spoken by the
deacon before the reading of the Gospel, and hence probably the name.
One of the finest _jubes_ in France is that of the church of the
Madeleine at Troyes, in rich flamboyant Gothic. A later example, of the
Renaissance period, c. 1600, is in the church of St Etienne du Mont,
Paris. In the Low Countries there are many fine examples in marble, of
which one of the most perfect from Bois-le-Duc is now in the Victoria
and Albert Museum.
JUBILEE (or JUBILE), YEAR OF, in the Bible, the name applied in the
Holiness section of the Priestly Code of the Hexateuch (Lev. xxv.) to
the observance of every 50th year, determined by the lapse of seven
seven-year periods as a year of perfect rest, when there was to be no
sowing, nor even gathering of the natural products of the field and the
vine. At the beginning of the jubilee-year the liberation of all
Israelitish slaves and the restoration of ancestral possessions was to
be proclaimed. As regards the meaning of the name "jubilee" (Heb.
_yobel_) modern scholars are agreed that it signifies "ram" or "ram's
horn." "Year of jubilee" would then mean the year that is inaugurated by
the blowing of the ram's horn (Lev. xxv. 9).
According to Lev. xxv. 8-12, at the completion of seven sabbaths of
years (i.e. 7 X 7 = 49 years) the trumpet of the jubilee is to be
sounded "throughout the land" on the 10th day of the seventh month
(Tisri 10), the great Day of Atonement. The 50th year thus announced is
to be "hallowed," i.e. liberty[1] is to be proclaimed everywhere to
everyone, and the people are to return "every man unto his possession
and unto his family." As in the sabbatical year, there is to be no
sowing, nor reaping that which grows of itself, nor gathering of grapes.
As regards _real property_ (Lev. xxv. 13-34) the law is that if any
Hebrew under pressure of necessity shall alienate his property he is to
get for it a sum of money reckoned according to the number of harvests
to be reaped between the date of alienation and the first jubilee-year:
should he or any relation desire to redeem the property before the
jubilee this can always be done be repaying the value of the harvests
between the redemption and the jubilee.
This legal enactment, though it is not found (nor anything like it) in
the earlier collections of laws, is evidently based on (or modified
from) an ancient custom which conferred on a near kinsman the right of
pre-emption as well as of buying back (cf. Jer. xxxii. 6 sqq.). The
tendency to impose checks upon the alienation of landed property was
exceptionally strong in Israel. The fundamental principle is that the
land is a sacred possession belonging to Yahweh. As such it is not to be
alienated from Yahweh's people, to whom it was originally assigned. In
Ezekiel's restoration programme "crown lands presented by the 'prince'
to any of his officials revert to the crown in the year of liberty (?
jubilee year)"; only to his sons may any portion of his inheritance be
alienated in perpetuity (Ezek. xlvi. 16-18; cf. Code of Hammurabi, S 38
seq.).
The same rule applies to dwelling-houses of unwalled villages; the case
is different, however, as regards dwelling-houses in walled cities.
These may be redeemed within a year after transfer, but if not redeemed
within that period they continue permanently in possession of the
purchaser, and this may well be an echo of ancient practice. An
exception to this last rule is made for the houses of the Levites in the
Levitical cities.
As regards _property in slaves_ (Lev. xxv. 35-55) the Hebrew whom
necessity has compelled to sell himself into the service of his brother
Hebrew is to be treated as a hired servant and sojourner, and to be
released absolutely at the jubilee; non-Hebrew bondmen, on the other
hand, are to be bondmen for ever. But the Hebrew who has sold himself to
a stranger or sojourner is entitled to freedom at the year of jubilee,
and further is at any time redeemable by any of his kindred--the
redemption price being regulated by the number of years to run between
the redemption and the jubilee, according to the ordinary wage of hired
servants. Such were the enactments of the Priestly Code--which, of
course, represents the latest legislation of the Pentateuch
(post-exilic). These enactments, in order to be understood rightly, must
be viewed in relation to the earlier similar provisions in connexion
with the sabbatical (seventh) year. "The foundations of Lev. xxv. are
laid in the ancient provisions of the Book of the Covenant (Exod. xxi. 2
seq.; xxiii. 10 seq.) and in Deuteronomy (xv.). The Book of the Covenant
enjoined that the land should lie fallow and Hebrew slaves be liberated
in the seventh year; Deuteronomy required in addition the remission of
debts" (Benzinger). Deuteronomy, it will be noticed, in accordance with
its humanitarian tendency, not only liberates the slave but remits the
debt. It is evident that these enactments proved impracticable in real
life (cf. Jer. xxxiv. 8 seq.), and so it became necessary in the later
legislation of P, represented in the present form of Lev. xxv., to
relegate them to the 50th year, the year of jubilee. The latter,
however, was a purely theoretic development of the Sabbath idea, which
could never have been reduced to practice (its actual observance would
have necessitated that for two consecutive years--the 49th and
50th--absolutely nothing could be reaped, while in the 51st only summer
fruits could be obtained, sowing being prohibited in the 50th year).
That in practice the enactments for the jubilee-year were disregarded is
evidenced by the fact that, according to the unanimous testimony of the
Talmudists and Rabbins, although the jubilee-years were "reckoned" they
were not observed.
The conjecture of Kuenen, supported by Wellhausen, that originally Lev.
xxv. 8 seq. had reference to the seventh year is a highly probable one.
This may be the case also with Ezek. xlvi. 16-18 (cf. Jer. xxxiv. 14). A
later Rabbinical device for evading the provisions of the law was the
_prosbul_ (ascribed to Hillel)--i.e. a condition made in the presence of
the judge securing to the creditor the right of demanding repayment at
any time, irrespective of the year of remission. Further enactments
regarding the jubilee are found in Lev. xxvii. 17-25 and Num. xxxvi. 4.
(W. R. S.; G. H. Bo.)
FOOTNOTE:
[1] Heb. _deror_. The same word (_duraru_) is used in the Code of
Hammurabi in the similar enactment that wife, son or daughter sold
into slavery for debt are to be restored to _liberty_ in the fourth
year (S 117).
JUBILEES, BOOK OF, an apocryphal work of the Old Testament. The Book of
Jubilees is the most advanced pre-Christian representative of the
Midrashic tendency, which had already been at work in the Old Testament
Chronicles. As the chronicler had rewritten the history of Israel and
Judah from the standpoint of the Priests' Code, so our author re-edited
from the Pharisaic standpoint of his time the history of the world from
the creation to the publication of the Law on Sinai. His work
constitutes the oldest commentary in the world on Genesis and part of
Exodus, an enlarged Targum on these books, in which difficulties in the
biblical narration are solved, gaps supplied, dogmatically offensive
elements removed and the genuine spirit of later Judaism infused into
the primitive history of the world.
_Titles of the Book._--The book is variously entitled. First, it is
known as [Greek: ta Iobelaia, hoi Iobelaioi], Heb. [Hebrew: haiuvalim].
This name is admirably adapted to our book, as it divides into jubilee
periods of forty-nine years each the history of the world from the
creation to the legislation on Sinai. Secondly, it is frequently
designated "The Little Genesis," [Greek: he lepte Genesis] or [Greek: he
Mikrogenesis], Heb. [Hebrew: bereshit zutta]. This title may have arisen
from its dealing more fully with details and minutiae than the biblical
work. For the other names by which it is referred to, such as _The
Apocalypse of Moses_, _The Testament of Moses_, _The Book of Adam's
Daughters_ and the _Life of Adam_, the reader may consult Charles's _The
Book of Jubilees_, pp. xvii.-xx.
_Object._--The object of our author was the defence and exposition of
Judaism from the Pharisaic standpoint of the 2nd century B.C. against
the disintegrating effects of Hellenism. In his elaborate defence of
Judaism our author glorifies circumcision and the sabbath, the bulwarks
of Judaism, as heavenly ordinances, the sphere of which was so far
extended as to embrace Israel on earth. The Law, as a whole, was to our
author the realization in time of what was in a sense timeless and
eternal. Though revealed in time it was superior to time. Before it had
been made known in sundry portions to the fathers, it had been kept in
heaven by the angels, and to its observance there was no limit in time
or in eternity. Our author next defends Judaism by his glorification of
Israel. Whereas the various nations of the Gentiles were subject to
angels, Israel was subject to God alone. Israel was God's son, and not
only did the nation stand in this relation to God, but also its
individual members. Israel received circumcision as a sign that they
were the Lord's, and this privilege of circumcision they enjoyed in
common with the two highest orders of angels. Hence Israel was to unite
with God and these two orders in the observance of the sabbath. Finally
the destinies of the world were bound up with Israel. The world was
renewed in the creation of the true man Jacob, and its final renewal was
to synchronize with the setting-up of God's sanctuary in Zion and the
establishment of the Messianic kingdom. In this kingdom the Gentiles had
neither part nor lot.
_Versions: Greek, Syriac, Ethiopic and Latin._--Numerous fragments of
the Greek Version have come down to us in Justin Martyr, Origen,
Diodorus of Antioch, Isidore of Alexandria, Epiphanius, John of
Malala, Syncellus and others. This version was the parent of the
Ethiopic and Latin. The Ethiopic Version is most accurate and
trustworthy, and indeed, as a rule, slavishly literal. It has
naturally suffered from the corruptions incident to transmission
through MSS. Thus dittographies are frequent and lacunae of occasional
occurrence, but the version is singularly free from the glosses and
corrections of unscrupulous scribes. The Latin Version, of which about
one-fourth has been preserved, is where it exists of almost equal
value with the Ethiopic. It has, however, suffered more at the hands
of correctors. Notwithstanding, it attests a long array of passages in
which it preserves the true text over against corruptions or omissions
in the Ethiopic Version. Finally, as regards the Syriac Version, the
evidence for its existence is not conclusive. It is based on the fact
that a British Museum MS. contains a Syriac fragment entitled "Names
of the wives of the Patriarchs according to the Hebrew Book of
Jubilees."
_The Ethiopic and Latin Versions: Translations from the Greek._--The
Ethiopic Version is translated from the Greek, for Greek words such as
[Greek: drys, balanos, lips], &c., are transliterated in the Greek.
Secondly, many passages must be retranslated into Greek before we can
discover the source of the various corruptions. And finally, proper
names are transliterated as they appear in Greek and not in Hebrew.
That the Latin is also a translation from the Greek is no less
obvious. Thus in xxxix. 12 _timoris_ = [Greek: deilias], corrupt for
[Greek: douleias]; in xxxviii. 13 _honorem_ = [Greek: timen], but
[Greek: timen] should here have been rendered by _tributum_, as the
Ethiopic and the context require; in xxxii. 26, _celavit_ = [Greek:
ekrypse], corrupt for [Greek: egrapse] (so Ethiopic).
_The Greek a Translation from the Hebrew._--The early date of our
book--the 2nd century B.C.--and its place of composition speak for a
Semitic original, and the evidence bearing on this subject is
conclusive. But the question at once arises, was the original Aramaic
or Hebrew? Certain proper names in the Latin Version ending in -_in_
seem to bespeak an Aramaic original, as Cettin, Filistin, &c. But
since in all these cases the Ethiopic transliterations end in -_m_ and
not in -_n_, it is not improbable that the Aramaism in the Latin
Version is due to the translator, who, it has been concluded on other
grounds, was a Palestinian Jew.[1] The grounds, on the other hand, for
a Hebrew original are weighty and numerous. (1) A work which claims to
be from the hand of Moses would naturally be in Hebrew, for Hebrew
according to our author was the sacred and national language. (2) The
revival of the national spirit of a nation is universally, so far as
we know, accompanied by a revival of the national language. (3) The
text must be retranslated into Hebrew in order to explain
unintelligible expressions and restore the true text. One instance
will sufficiently illustrate this statement. In xliii. 11 a certain
Ethiopic expression = [Greek: en emoi], which is a mistranslation of
[Hebrew: bi]; for [Hebrew: bi] in this context, as we know from the
parallel passage in Gen. xliv. 18, which our text reproduces almost
verbally, = [Greek: deomai]. We might observe here that our text
attests the presence of dittographies already existing in the Hebrew
text. (4) Hebraisms survive in the Ethiopic and Latin Versions. In the
former nuha in iv. 4, is a corrupt transliteration of [Hebrew: na]. In
the Latin eligere in te in xxii. 10 is a reproduction of [Hebrew:
behar be] and _in qua ... in ipsa_ in xix. 8 = [Hebrew: ba ... asher].
This idiom could, of course, be explained on the hypothesis of an
Aramaic original. (5) Many paronomasiae discover themselves on
retranslation into Hebrew.
_Textual Affinities._--A minute study of the text shows that it
attests an independent form of the Hebrew text of the Pentateuch. Thus
it agrees at times with the Samaritan, or Septuagint, or Syriac, or
Vulgate, or even with Onkelos against all the rest. To be more exact,
our book represents some form of the Hebrew text of the Pentateuch
midway between the forms presupposed by the Septuagint and the Syriac;
for it agrees more frequently with the Septuagint, or with
combinations into which the Septuagint enters, than with any other
single authority, or with any combination excluding the Septuagint.
Next to the Septuagint it agrees most often with the Syriac or with
combinations into which the Syriac enters. On the other hand, its
independence of the Septuagint is shown in a large number of passages,
where it has the support of the Samaritan and Massoretic, or of these
with various combinations of the Syriac Vulgate and Onkelos. From
these and other considerations we may conclude that the textual
evidence points to the composition of our book at some period between
250 B.C. and A.D. 100, and at a time nearer the earlier date than the
later.
_Date._--The book was written between 135 B.C. and the year of
Hyrcanus's breach with the Pharisees. This conclusion is drawn from the
following facts:--(1) The book was written during the pontificate of the
Maccabean family, and not earlier than 135 B.C. For in xxxii. 1 Levi is
called a "priest of the Most High God." Now the only high priests who
bore this title were the Maccabean, who appear to have assumed it as
reviving the order of Melchizedek when they displaced the Zadokite order
of Aaron. Jewish tradition ascribes the assumption of this title to John
Hyrcanus. It was retained by his successors down to Hyrcanus II. (2) It
was written before 96 B.C. or some years earlier in the reign of John
Hyrcanus; for since our author is of the strictest sect a Pharisee and
at the same time an upholder of the Maccabean pontificate, Jubilees
cannot have been written after 96 when the Pharisees and Alexander
Jannaeus came to open strife. Nay more, it cannot have been written
after the open breach between Hyrcanus and the Pharisees, when the
former joined the Sadducean party.
The above conclusions are confirmed by a large mass of other evidence
postulating the same date. We may, however, observe that our book points
to the period already past--of stress and persecution that preceded the
recovery of national independence under the Maccabees, and presupposes
as its historical background the most flourishing period of the
Maccabean hegemony.
_Author._--Our author was a Pharisee of the straitest sect. He
maintained the everlasting validity of the law, he held the strictest
views on circumcision, the sabbath, and the duty of shunning all
intercourse with the Gentiles; he believed in angels and in a blessed
immortality. In the next place he was an upholder of the Maccabean
pontificate. He glorifies Levi's successors as high-priests and civil
rulers, and applies to them the title assumed by the Maccabean princes,
though he does not, like the author of the Testaments of the Twelve
Patriarchs, expect the Messiah to come forth from among them. He may
have been a priest.
_The Views of the Author on the Messianic Kingdom and the Future
Life._--According to our author the Messianic kingdom was to be brought
about gradually by the progressive spiritual development of man and a
corresponding transformation of nature. Its members were to reach the
limit of 1000 years in happiness and peace. During its continuance the
powers of evil were to be restrained, and the last judgment was
apparently to take place at its close. As regards the doctrine of a
future life, our author adopts a position novel for a Palestinian
writer. He abandons the hope of a resurrection of the body. The souls of
the righteous are to enjoy a blessed immortality after death. This is
the earliest attested instance of this expectation in the last two
centuries B.C.
LITERATURE.--_Ethiopic Text and Translations_: This text was first
edited by Dillmann from two MSS. in 1859, and in 1895 by R. H. Charles
from four (_The Ethiopic Version of the Hebrew Book of Jubilees ...
with the Hebrew, Syriac, Greek and Latin fragments_). In the latter
edition, the Greek and Latin fragments are printed together with the
Ethiopic. The book was translated into German by Dillmann from one MS.
in Ewald's _Jahrbucher_, vols. ii. and iii. (1850, 1851), and by
Littmann (in Kautzsch's _Apok. und Pseud._ ii. 39-119) from Charles's
Ethiopic text; into English by Schodde (_Bibl. Sacr._ 1885) from
Dillmann's text, and by Charles (_Jewish Quarterly Review_, vols. v.,
vi., vii. (1893-1895) from the text afterwards published in 1895, and
finally in his commentary, _The Book of Jubilees_ (1902). _Critical
Inquiries_: Dillmann, "Das Buch der Jubilaen" (Ewald's _Jahrbucher d.
bibl. Wissensch._ (1851), iii. 72-96); "Pseudepig. des Alten
Testaments," Herzog's _Realencyk._[2] xii. 364-365; "Beitrage aus dem
Buche der Jubilaen zur Kritik des Pentateuch Textes"
(_Sitzungsberichte der Kgl. Preussischen Akad._, 1883); Beer, _Das
Buch der Jubilaen_ (1856); Ronsch, _Das Buch der Jubilaen_ (1874);
Singer, _Das Buch der Jubilaen_ (1898); Bohn, "Die Bedeutung des
Buches der Jubilaen" (_Theol. Stud. und Kritiken_ (1900), pp.
167-184). A full bibliography will be found in Schurer or in R. H.
Charles's commentary, _The Book of Jubilees or the Little Genesis_
(1902), which deals exhaustively with all the questions treated in
this article. (R. H. C.)
FOOTNOTE:
[1] In the Ethiopic Version in xxi. 12 it should be observed that in
the list of the twelve trees suitable for burning on the altar
several are transliterated Aramaic names of trees. But in a late
Hebrew work (2nd century B.C.) the popular names of such objects
would naturally be used. In certain cases the Hebrew may have been
forgotten, or, where the tree was of late introduction, been
non-existent.
JUBILEE YEAR, an institution in the Roman Catholic Church, observed
every twenty-fifth year, from Christmas to Christmas. During its
continuance plenary indulgence is obtainable by all the faithful, on
condition of their penitently confessing their sins and visiting certain
churches a stated number of times, or doing an equivalent amount of
meritorious work. The institution dates from the time of Boniface VIII.,
whose bull _Antiquorum habet fidem_ is dated the 22nd of February 1300.
The circumstances in which it was promulgated are related by a
contemporary authority, Jacobus Cajetanus, according to whose account
("Relatio de centesimo s. jubilaeo anno" in the _Bibliotheca Patrum_) a
rumour spread through Rome at the close of 1299 that every one visiting
St Peter's on the 1st of January 1300 would receive full absolution. The
result was an enormous influx of pilgrims to Rome, which stirred the
pope's attention. Nothing was found in the archives, but an old peasant
107 years of age avowed that his father had been similarly benefited a
century previously. The bull was then issued, and the pilgrims became
even more numerous, to the profit of both clergy and citizens.
Originally the churches of St Peter and St Paul in Rome were the only
jubilee churches, but the privilege was afterwards extended to the
Lateran Church and that of Sta Maria Maggiore, and it is now shared also
for the year immediately following that of the Roman jubilee by a number
of specified provincial churches. At the request of the Roman people,
which was supported by St Bridget of Sweden and by Petrarch, Clement VI.
in 1343 appointed, by the bull _Unigenitus Dei filius_, that the jubilee
should recur every fifty years instead of every hundred years as had
been originally contemplated in the constitution of Boniface; Urban VI.,
who was badly in need of money, by the bull _Salvator noster_ in 1389
reduced the interval still further to thirty-three years (the supposed
duration of the earthly life of Christ); and Paul II. by the bull
_Ineffabilis_ (April 19, 1470) finally fixed it at twenty-five years.
Paul II. also permitted foreigners to substitute for the pilgrimage to
Rome a visit to some specified church in their own country and a
contribution towards the expenses of the Holy Wars. According to the
special ritual prepared by Alexander VI. in 1500, the pope on the
Christmas Eve with which the jubilee begins goes in solemn procession to
a particular walled-up door ("Porta aurea") of St Peter's and knocks
three times, using at the same time the words of Ps. cxviii. 19
(_Aperite mihi portas justitiae_). The doors are then opened and
sprinkled with holy water, and the pope passes through. A similar
ceremony is conducted by cardinals at the other jubilee churches of the
city. At the close of the jubilee, the special doorway is again built up
with appropriate solemnities.
The last ordinary jubilee was observed in 1900. "Extraordinary"
jubilees are sometimes appointed on special occasions, e.g. the
accession of a new pope, or that proclaimed by Pope Leo XIII. for the
12th of March 1881, "in order to obtain from the mercy of Almighty God
help and succour in the weighty necessities of the Church, and comfort
and strength in the battle against her numerous and mighty foes."
These are not so much jubilees in the ordinary sense as special grants
of plenary indulgences for particular purposes (_Indulgentiae
plenariae in forma jubilaei_).
JUCAR, a river of eastern Spain. It rises in the north of the province
of Cuenca, at the foot of the Cerro de San Felipe (5906 ft.), and flows
south past Cuenca to the borders of Albacete; here it bends towards the
east, and maintains this direction for the greater part of its remaining
course. On the right it is connected with the city of Albacete by the
Maria Cristina canal. After entering Valencia, it receives on the left
its chief tributary the Cabriel, which also rises near the Cerro de San
Felipe, in the Montes Universales. Near Alcira the Jucar turns
south-eastward, and then sharply north, curving again to the south-east
before it enters the Mediterranean Sea at Cullera, after a total course
of 314 m. Its estuary forms the harbour of Cullera, and its lower waters
are freely utilized for purposes of irrigation.
JUD, LEO (1482-1542), known to his contemporaries as Meister Leu, Swiss
reformer, was born in Alsace and educated at Basel, where after a
course in medicine he turned to the study of theology. This change was
due to the influence of Zwingli whose colleague at Zurich Jud became
after serving for four years (1518-1522) as pastor of Einsiedeln. His
chief activity was as a translator; he was the leading spirit in the
translation of the Zurich Bible and also made a Latin version of the Old
Testament. He died at Zurich on the 19th of June 1542.
See _Life_ by C. Pestalozzi (1860); art. in Herzog-Hauck's
_Realencyklopadie_, vol. ix. (1901).
JUDAEA, the name given to the southern part of Palestine as occupied by
the Jewish community in post-exilic days under Persian, Greek and Roman
overlordship. In Luke and Acts the term is sometimes used loosely to
denote the whole of western Palestine. The limits of Judaea were never
very precisely defined and--especially on the northern frontier--varied
from time to time. After the death of Herod, Archelaus became ethnarch
of Samaria, Idumea and Judaea, and when he was deposed Judaea was merged
in Syria, being governed by a procurator whose headquarters were in
Caesarea.
For a description of the natural features of the country see
PALESTINE; for its history see JEWS and JUDAH. Cf. T. Mommsen, _The
Provinces of the Roman Empire_, ch. xi.
JUDAH, a district of ancient Palestine, to the south of the kingdom of
Israel, between the Dead Sea and the Philistine plain. It falls
physically into three parts: the hill-country from Hebron northwards
through Jerusalem; the lowland (Heb. _Shephelah_) on the west; and the
steppes or "dry land" (Heb. _Negeb_) on the south. The district is one
of striking contrasts, with a lofty and stony table-land in the centre
(which reaches a height of 3300 ft. just north of Hebron), with a
strategically important valley dividing the central mountains from the
lowland, and with the most desolate of tracts to the east (by the Dead
Sea) and south. Some parts, especially around Hebron, are extremely
fertile, but the land as a whole has the characteristics of the southern
wilderness--the so-called "desert" is not a sterile Sahara--and was more
fitted for pastoral occupations; see further G. A. Smith, _Hist. Geog.
Holy Land_, chs. x.-xv. Life in ancient Judah is frequently depicted in
the Bible, but much of the Judaean history is obscure. In the days of
the old Hebrew monarchy there were periods of conflict and rivalry
between Judah and Israel--even times when the latter incorporated, or at
least claimed supremacy over, the former. Later, from the 5th century
B.C. there was a breach between the Jews (the name is derived from
Judah) and the Samaritans (q.v.). The intervening years after the fall
of Samaria (722 B.C.), and after the destruction of Jerusalem (586
B.C.), were probably marked by closer intercourse, similar to the period
of union in the popular traditions relating to the pre-monarchical age.
The course of Judaean history was conditioned, also, by the proximity of
the Philistines in the west, Moab in the east, and by Edom and other
southern peoples extending from North Arabia to the delta of the Nile.
Judah's stormy history, continued under Greek and Roman domination,
reached its climax in the birth of Christianity, and ended with the fall
of Jerusalem in A.D. 70 (see JEWS, PALESTINE).
In conformity with ancient methods of genealogy (q.v.), Judah is
traced back to a son of Jacob or Israel by Leah and along with other
"tribes" (Dan, Levi, Simeon, &c.) is included under the collective
term Israel. Thus it shares the general traditions of the Israelites,
although Judah appears as an individual in the story of his "brother"
Joseph (on ch. xxxvii. seq., see GENESIS). Its boundaries in Joshua
xv. are manifestly artificial or imaginary; they include the
Philistines and number places which are elsewhere ascribed to Simeon
or Dan. The origin of the name (_Yehudah_) is quite uncertain; the
interpretation "praised" is suggested in Gen. xxix. 35 (cf; xlix. 8
seq.), but some connexion with allied names, as Yehud (Yahudiya, E. of
Jaffa), or Ehud (a Benjamite clan) seems more probable. That Judah,
whatever its original connotation, underwent development through the
incorporation of other clans appears from 1 Chron. ii., iv., where it
is found to contain a large element of non-Israelite population whose
names find analogies or parallels in Simeonite, Edomite and other
southern lists.[1] Indeed, underlying the account of the Israelite
exodus (q.v.) there are traces of a separate movement of certain
clans--apart from the Israelite invasion of Palestine--who are
ultimately found in the south of Judah; and the traditions in
Chronicles themselves allow the view that the incorporation of these
elements began under David, when Judah first occupies a prominent
position in biblical history (cf. Cheyne, _Ency. Bib._, col. 2618
seq., and see CALEB, JERAHMEEL, KENITES). But such movements were not
necessarily limited to one single period, and the evidence connecting
(a) the non-Israelite clans of Judah with Levites, and (b) both with
the south, is found in narratives referring to several different ages
and might point to an unceasing relationship with the south. On the
other hand, clans, which in the traditions of David's time were in the
south of Judah, about five hundred years later (in the exile) are
found near Jerusalem (e.g. Caleb), so that either these survived the
strenuous vicissitudes of half a millennium or all perspective of
their early history has been lost. In Gen. xxxviii. a curious
narrative points to the separation of Judah "from his brethren" and
his marriage with Shua the Canaanite; two sons Er and Onan perish and
the third Shelah survives. From Judah and Er's widow Tamar are derived
Perez and Zerah, and these with Shelah appear in post-exilic times as
the three representative families of Judah (Neh. xi. 4-6; 1 Chron. ix.
4-6). This story, amid a number of other motives, appears to reflect
the growth of the tribe of Judah and its fluctuations, but that the
reference is to any very early period is unlikely, partly because the
interest of the story is in post-exilic families, and partly because
the scenes (Adullam, Chezib and Timnah) overlap with David's own
fights between Hebron and Jerusalem (2 Sam. xxi. xxiii.; see DAVID,
_ad fin._).[2] Even David's conquest of Jerusalem (2 Sam. v.)
conflicts both with the statement of its capture by Judah many years
previously (Judges i. 8), and with the traditions of the Israelite
heroes Joshua and Saul. Consequently, the few surviving data are too
uncertain for any decisive conclusions regarding the origin of the
tribe of Judah. Judah as a kingdom may have taken its name from a
limited district, in which case its growth finds a parallel in the
extension of the name Samaria from the city to the province. The
location of Yehud and Ehud in the light of 1 Kings iv. 8-19 (perhaps
the subdivisions of the Israelite kingdom, see SOLOMON), would
necessitate the assumption of a violent separation from the north;
this, however, is quite conceivable (see JEWS, SS 11-13). On the
bearing of South Judah upon the historical criticism of the Old
Testament, see especially N. Schmidt, _Hibbert Journal_ (1908), pp.
322-342, "The Jerahmeel Theory and the Historic Importance of the
Negeb, with some account of personal exploration of the country"; also
JEWS, S 20. (S. A. C.)
FOOTNOTES:
[1] See especially Wellhausen, _De gentibus et familiis Judaeorum_
(Gottingen, 1869), the articles on the relative proper names in the
_Ency. Bib._, and E. Meyer, _Die Israeliten u. ihre Nachbarstamme_,
pp. 299-471 (much valuable matter).
[2] For the principle of the Levirate illustrated in Gen. xxxviii.,
see RUTH. Lagarde (_Orientalia_, ii.) ingeniously conjectured that
the chapter typified the suppression of Phoenician (viz. Tamar, the
date-palm) and the old Canaanite elements (Zerah = _indigena_) by the
younger Israelite invaders (Perez = "branch"). For other discussions,
apart from commentaries on Genesis, see B. Luther in Meyer, _op.
cit._, pp. 200 sqq.
JUDAS ISCARIOT ([Greek: Ioudas Iskariotes] or [Greek: Iskarioth]), in
the Bible, the son of Simon Iscariot (John vi. 71, xiii. 26), and one of
the twelve apostles. He is always enumerated last with the special
mention of the fact that he was the betrayer of Jesus. If the generally
accepted explanation of his surname ("man of Kerioth"; see Josh. xv. 25)
be correct, he was the only original member of the apostolic band who
was not a Galilean. The circumstances which led to his admission into
the apostolic circle are not stated; while the motives by which he was
actuated in enabling the Jewish authorities to arrest Jesus without
tumult have been variously analysed by scholars. According to some (as
De Quincey in his famous _Essay_) the sole object of Judas was to place
Jesus in a position in which He should be compelled to make what had
seemed to His followers the too tardy display of His Messianic power:
according to others (and this view seems more in harmony with the Gospel
narratives) Judas was an avaricious and dishonest man, who had already
abused the confidence placed in him (John xii. 6), and who was now
concerned only with furthering his own ends.
As regards the effects of his subsequent remorse and the use to which
his ill-gotten gains were put, the strikingly apparent discrepancies
between the narratives of Matt. xxvii. 3, 10 and Acts i. 18, 19 have
attracted the attention of biblical scholars, ever since Papias, in his
fourth book, of which a fragment has been preserved, discussed the
subject. The simplest explanation is that they represent different
traditions, the Gospel narrative being composed with more special
reference to prophetic fulfilments, and being probably nearer the truth
than the short explanatory note inserted by the author of the Acts (see
Bernard, _Expositor_, June 1904, p. 422 seq.). In ecclesiastical legend
and in sacred art Judas Iscariot is generally treated as the very
incarnation of treachery, ingratitude and impiety. The Middle Ages,
after their fashion, supplied the lacunae in what they deemed his too
meagre biography. According to the common form of their story, he
belonged to the tribe of Reuben.[1] Before he was born his mother
Cyborea had a dream that he was destined to murder his father, commit
incest with his mother, and sell his God. The attempts made by her and
her husband to avert this curse simply led to its accomplishment. At his
birth Judas was enclosed in a chest and flung into the sea; picked up on
a foreign shore, he was educated at the court until a murder committed
in a moment of passion compelled his flight. Coming to Judaea, he
entered the service of Pontius Pilate as page, and during this period
committed the first two of the crimes which had been expressly foretold.
Learning the secret of his birth, he, full of remorse, sought the
prophet who, he had heard, had power on earth to forgive sins. He was
accepted as a disciple and promoted to a position of trust, where
avarice, the only vice in which he had hitherto been unpractised,
gradually took possession of his soul, and led to the complete
fulfilment of his evil destiny. This Judas legend, as given by Jacobus
de Voragine, obtained no small popularity; and it is to be found in
various shapes in every important literature of Europe.
For the history of its genesis and its diffusion the reader may
consult D'Ancona, _La leggenda di Vergogna e la leggenda di Giuda_
(1869), and papers by W. Creizenach in Paul and Braune's _Beitr. zur
Gesch. der deutschen Sprache und Litteratur_, vol. ii. (1875), and
Victor Diederich in _Russiche Revue_ (1880). Cholevius, in his
_Geschichte der deutschen Poesie nach ihren antiken Elementen_ (1854),
pointed out the connexion of the legend with the Oedipus story.
According to Daub (_Judas Ischariot, oder Betrachtungen uber das Bose
im Verhaltniss zum Guten_, 1816, 1818) Judas was "an incarnation of
the devil," to whom "mercy and blessedness are alike impossible."
The popular hatred of Judas has found strange symbolical expression in
various parts of Christendom. In Corfu, for instance, the people at a
given signal on Easter Eve throw vast quantities of crockery from
their windows and roofs into the streets, and thus execute an
imaginary stoning of Judas (see Kirkwall, _Ionian Islands_, ii. 47).
At one time (according to Mustoxidi, _Delle cose corciresi_) the
tradition prevailed that the traitor's house and country villa existed
in the island, and that his descendants were to be found among the
local Jews.
Details in regard to some Judas legends and superstitions are given in
_Notes and Queries_, 2nd series, v., vi. and vii.; 3rd series, vii.;
4th series, i.; 5th series, vi. See also a paper by Professor Rendel
Harris entitled "Did Judas really commit suicide?" in the _American
Journal of Philology_ (July 1900). Matthew Arnold's poem "St Brandan"
gives fine expression to the old story that, on account of an act of
charity done to a leper at Joppa, Judas was allowed an hour's respite
from hell once a year. (G. Mi.)
FOOTNOTE:
[1] Other forms make him a Danite, and consider the passage in
Genesis (xlix. 17) a prophecy of the traitor.
JUDAS-TREE, the _Cercis siliquastrum_ of botanists, belonging to the
section _Caesalpineae_ of the natural order Leguminosae. It is a native
of the south of France, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Greece and Asia Minor,
and forms a handsome low tree with a flat spreading head. In Spring it
is covered with a profusion of purplish-pink flowers, which appear
before the leaves. The flowers have an agreeable acid taste, and are
eaten mixed with salad or made into fritters. The tree was frequently
figured by the older herbalists. One woodcut by Castor Durante has the
figure of Judas Iscariot suspended from one of the branches,
illustrating the popular tradition regarding this tree. A second
species, _C. canadensis_, is common in North America from Canada to
Alabama and eastern Texas, and differs from the European species in its
smaller size and pointed leaves. The flowers are also used in salads and
for making pickles, while the branches are used to dye wool a nankeen
colour.
JUDD, SYLVESTER (1813-1853) American Unitarian clergyman and author, was
born in Westhampton, Massachusetts, on the 23rd of July 1813. He bore
the same name as his father and grandfather; the former (1789-1860) made
an especial study of local history of the towns of the Connecticut
valley, and wrote a _History of Hadley_ (1863). The son lived in
Northampton after his tenth year, was converted in a revival there in
1826, graduated from Yale in 1836, and taught in 1836 at Templeton,
Mass., where he first met Unitarians and soon found the solution of his
theological difficulties in their views. He entered the Harvard divinity
school, from which he graduated in 1840. In the same year he was
ordained pastor of the Unitarian church of Augusta, Maine, where he died
on the 26th of January 1853. His widest reputation was as the author of
_Margaret, a Tale of the Real and the Ideal, including Sketches of a
place not before described, called Mons Christi_ (1845; revised 1851),
written to exhibit the errors of Calvinistic and all trinitarian
theology, and the evils of war, intemperance, capital punishment, the
prison system of the time, and the national treatment of the Indians.
This story, published anonymously, attracted much attention by its true
descriptions of New England life and scenery as well as by its author's
earnest purpose. _Richard Edney and the Governor's Family_ (1850) is in
much the same vein as _Margaret_. A poem entitled _Philo, an Evangeliad_
(1850) is a versified defence of Unitarianism. He published, besides,
_The Church, in a Series of Discourses_ (1854). As a preacher and pastor
he urged the desirability of infant baptism. He lectured frequently on
international peace and opposed slavery.
See Arethusa Hall, _Life and Character of the Rev. Sylvester Judd_
(Boston, 1857) published anonymously.
JUDE, THE GENERAL EPISTLE OF, a book of the New Testament. As with the
epistle of James, the problems of the writing centre upon the
superscription, which addresses in Pauline phraseology (1 Thess. i. 4; 2
Thess. ii. 13; Rom. i. 7; 1 Cor. 1. 2) the Christian world in general in
the name of "Jude, the brother of James" (Matt. xiii. 55; Mark vi. 3).
The historical situation depicted must then fall within the lifetime of
this Judas, whose two grandchildren Zoker and James (Hegesippus _ap._
Phil. Sidetes) by their testimony before the authorities brought to an
end the (Palestinian) persecution of Domitian (Hegesippus _ap._ Eus. _H.
E._ iii. 20, 7). These two grandsons of Judas thereafter "lived until
the time of Trajan," ruling the churches "because they had (thus) been
witnesses (martyrs) and were also relatives of the Lord." But in that
case we must either reject the testimony of the same Hegesippus that up
to their death, and that of Symeon son of Clopas, successor in the
Jerusalem see of James the Lord's brother, "who suffered martyrdom at
the age of one hundred and twenty years while Trajan was emperor and
Atticus governor," "the church (universal) had remained a pure and
uncorrupted virgin" free from "the folly of heretical teachers"; or else
we must reject the superscription, which presents the grandfather in
vehement conflict with the very heresies in question. For the testimony
of Hegesippus is explicit that at the time of the arrest of Zoker and
James they were all who survived of the kindred of the Lord. True, there
is confusion in the narrative of Hegesippus, and even a probability that
the martyrdom of Symeon dated under Trajan really took place in the
persecution of Domitian, before the arrest of the grandsons of Jude, for
apart from the alleged age of Symeon (the traditional Jewish limit of
human life, Gen. vi. 3, Deut. xxxiv. 7), the cause of his apprehension
"on the ground that he was _a descendant of David_ and a Christian"
(Hegesippus _ap._ Eus. _H. E._ iii. 32, 3) is inconsistent with both the
previous statements regarding the "martyrdom" of Zoker and James, that
they were cited as the only surviving Christian Davididae, and that the
persecution on this ground collapsed through the manifest absurdity of
the accusation. But even if we date the rise of heresies in the reign of
Domitian instead of Trajan,[1] the attributing of this epistle against
corrupting heresy to "Jude the brother of James" will still be
incompatible with the statements of Hegesippus, our only informant
regarding his later history.
The Greek of Jude is also such as to exclude the idea of authorship in
Palestine by an unschooled Galilean, at an early date in church history.
As F. H. Chase has pointed out: (1) the terms [Greek: kletoi, soteria,
pistis], have attained their later technical sense; (2) "the writer is
steeped in the language of the LXX.," employing its phraseology
independently of other N.T. writers, and not that of the canonical books
alone, but of the broader non-Palestinian canon; (3) "he has at his
command a large stock of stately, sonorous, sometimes poetical words,"
proving him a "man of some culture, and, as it would seem, not without
acquaintance with Greek writers."
If the superscription be not from the hand of the actual brother of
Jesus, the question may well be asked why some apostolic name was not
chosen which might convey greater authority? The answer is to be found
in the direction toward which the principal defenders of orthodoxy in
100-150 turned for "the deposit of the faith" (Jude 3) in its purity.
The Pastoral Epistles point to "the pattern of sound words, even the
sayings of our Lord Jesus Christ." (1 Tim. vi. 3, &c.), as the arsenal
of orthodoxy against the same foe (with 1 Tim. vi. 3-10; cf. Jude 4, 11,
16, 18 seq.). Ignatius's motto is to "be inseparable from Jesus Christ
and from your bishop" (_ad Trall._ vii.), Polycarp's, to "turn unto the
word delivered unto us from the beginning" (cf. Jude 3; 1 John ii. 7,
iii. 23, iv. 21), "the oracles of the Lord," which the false teachers
"pervert to their own lusts." Papias, his [Greek: hetairos] (Irenaeus),
turns in fact from "the vain talk of the many," and from the "alien
commandments" to such as were "delivered by the Lord to the faith,"
offering to the Christian world his _Interpretation of the Lord's
Oracles_ based upon personal inquiry from those who "came his way," who
could testify as to apostolic tradition. Hegesippus, after a journey to
all the principal seats of Christian tradition, testifies that all are
holding to the true doctrine as transmitted at the original seat, where
it was witnessed first by the apostles and afterwards by the kindred of
the Lord and "witnesses" of the first generation. All these writers in
one form or other revert to the historic tradition against the licence
of innovators. Hegesippus indicates plainly the seat of its authority.
For the period before the adoption of a written standard the resort was
not so much to "apostles" as to "disciples" and "witnesses." The appeal
was to "those who from the beginning had been eyewitnesses and ministers
of the word" (Luke i. 2); and these were to be found primarily (until
the complete destruction of that church during the revolt of Barcochebas
and its suppression by Hadrian) in the mother community in Jerusalem
(cf. Acts xv. 2). Its life is the measure of the period of oral
tradition, whose requiem is sung by Papias. Hegesippus (_ap._ Eus. _H.
E._ iii. 32, 7 seq.) looks back to it as the safe guardian of the
deposit "of the faith" against all the depredations of heresy which
"when the sacred college of apostles had suffered death in various
forms, and the generation of those that had been deemed worthy to hear
the inspired wisdom with their own ears had passed away ... attempted
thenceforth with a bold face, to proclaim, in opposition to the
preaching of the truth, 'the knowledge which is falsely so-called
([Greek: pseudonymos gnosis]).'" For an appeal like that of our epistle
to the authority of the past against the moral laxity and antinomian
teaching of degenerate Pauline churches in the Greek world, the natural
resort after Paul himself (Pastoral Epp.) would be the "kindred of the
Lord" who were the "leaders and witnesses in every church" in Palestine.
Doubtless the framer of Jude 1 would have preferred the aegis of "James
the Lord's brother," if this, like that of Paul, had not been already
appropriated. Failing this, the next most imposing was "Judas, the
brother of James."
The superscription in the case of Jude, unlike that of James, takes hold
of the substance of the book. Verse 3 and the farewell (v. 24 seq.) show
that Jude was composed from the start as an "epistle." If this
appearance be not fallacious, the obvious relation between the two
superscriptions will be best explained by the supposition that the
author of Jude gave currency to the existing homily (James) before
composing under the pseudonym of Jude. On the interconnexion of the two
see Sieffert, _s.v._ "Judasbrief" in Hauck, _Realencykl._ vol. ix.
Judas is conceived as cherishing the intention of discussing for the
benefit of the Christian world (for no mere local church is addressed)
the subject of "our common salvation" (the much desiderated
authoritative definition of the orthodox faith), but diverted from this
purpose by the growth of heresy.
Few writings of this compass afford more copious evidence of date in
their literary affinities. The references to Enoch (principally ver. 14
seq. = _Eth. En._ i. 9, but cf. F. H. Chase, _s.v._ "Jude" in Hastings's
_Dict. Bible_) and the _Assumption of Moses_ (v. 9) have more a
geographical than a chronological bearing, the stricter canon of
Palestine excluding these apocryphal books of 90 B.C. to A.D. 40; but
the Pauline writings are freely employed, especially 1 Cor. x. 1-13,
Rom. xvi. 25 seq., and probably Eph. and Col. Moreover, the author
explicitly refers to the apostolic age as already past, and to the
fulfilment of the Pauline prediction (1 Tim. iv. 1 sqq.) of the advent
of heresy (v. 17 seq.). The Pauline doctrine of "grace" has been
perverted to lasciviousness, as by the heretics whom Polycarp opposes
(_Ep. Polyc._ vii.), and this doctrine is taught for "hire" (vv. 11, 12,
16; cf. 1 Tim. vi. 5). The unworthy "shepherds" (v. 12; cf. Ezek. xxxiv.
8; John x. 12 seq.) live at the expense of their flocks, polluting the
"love-feasts," corrupting the true disciples. According to Clement of
Alexandria this was written prophetically to apply to the Carpocratians,
an antinomian Gnostic sect of _c._ 150; but hyper-Paulinists had given
occasion to similar complaints already in Rev. ii. 14, 20 (95). Thus
Paulinism and its perversion alike are in the past. As regards the
undeniable contact of _Didache_ ii. 7 with Jude 22 seq. (cf. _Didache_,
iv. 1, Jude 8) priority cannot be determined; and the use of 1 John iii.
12 in Jude 11 is doubtful.
On the other hand, practically the whole of Jude is taken up into 2
Pet., the author merely avoiding, so far as he discovers them, the
quotations from apocryphal writings, and prefixing and affixing sections
of his own to refute the heretical eschatology. On the priority of Jude
see especially against Spitta _Zur Gesch. u. Litt. d. Urchristenthums_,
ii. 409-411, F. H. Chase, _loc. cit._ p. 803. (On 2 Pet. see PETER
EPISTLES OF.) Unfortunately, the date of 2 Pet. cannot be determined as
earlier than late in the second century, so that we are thrown back upon
internal evidence for the inferior limit.
The treatment of the heresy as the anti-Christ who precedes "the last
hour" (v. 18), reminds us of 1 John ii. 18, but it is indicative of
conditions somewhat less advanced that the heretics have not yet "gone
out from" the church. The treatment of the apostolic age as past, and
the deposit of the faith as a _regula fidei_ (cf. Ign. _ad Trall._ ix.),
the presence of antinomian Gnosticism, denying the doctrine of lordship
and "glories" (v. 8), with "discriminations" between "psychic" and
"pneumatic" (v. 19), strongly oppose a date earlier than 100.
Sieffert, on account of the superscription, would date as early as
70-80, but acknowledges the hyper-Pauline affinity of the heresy, its
propagation as a doctrine, and close relation to the Nicolaitan of Rev.
ii. 14. To these phenomena he gives accordingly a correspondingly early
date. The nature of the heresy, opposed, however, and the resort to the
authority of Jude "the brother of James" against it, favour rather the
period of Polycarp and Papias (117-150).
The history of the reception of the epistle into church canons is
similar to that of James, beginning with a quotation of it as the work
of Jude by Clement of Alexandria (_Paed._ iii. 8), a reference by
Tertullian (_De cult. fem._ i. 3), and a more or less hesitant
endorsement by Origen ("if one might adduce the epistle of Jude," _In
Matt._ tom. xvii. 30) and by the _Muratorianum_ (_c._ 200), which
excepts Jude and 2 and 3 John from its condemnation of apocryphal
literature, placing it on a par with the Wisdom of Solomon "which was
written by friends of his in his honour." The use of apocryphal
literature in Jude itself may account for much of the critical
disposition toward it of many subsequent writers. Eusebius classed it
among the "disputed" books, declaring that as with James "not many of
the ancients have mentioned it" (_H. E._ ii. 23, 25).
The _Introd. to the New Test._ by Holtzmann, Julicher, Weiss, Zahn,
Davidson, Salmon, Bacon and the standard _Commentaries_ of Meyer and
Holtzmann, the _International_ (Bigg) and other series, contain
discussions of authorship and date. The articles s.v. in Hastings's
_Dict. Bible_ (Chase) and the _Ency. Bib._ (Cone) are full and
scholarly. In addition the _Histories of the Apostolic Age_, by
Hausrath, Weizsacker, McGiffert, Bartlet, Ropes and others, and the
kindred works of Baur, Schwegler and Pfleiderer should be consulted.
Moffat's _Historical New Testament_, 2nd ed., p. 589, contains a
convenient summary of the evidence with copious bibliography. One of
the most thorough of conservative treatments is the _Commentary on
Jude and Second Peter_ by J. B. Mayor (1907). (B. W. B.)
FOOTNOTE:
[1] On this point (date of the outbreak of heresy) there is some
inconsistency in the reported fragments of Hegesippus. In that quoted
below from Eus. _H. E._ iii. 32. 7 seq., it is expressly dated after
the martyrdom of Symeon and death of the grandsons of Jude under
Trajan. In iii. 19 the "ancient tradition" attributing the
denunciation of these to "some of the heretics" is perhaps not from
Hegesippus; but in iv. 22 the beginning of heresy is traced to a
certain Thebuthis, a candidate for the bishopric after the death of
James, as rival to Symeon. The same figure of the church as a pure
virgin is also used as in iii. 32. But as it is only the envious
feeling of Thebuthis which is traced to this early date, Hegesippus
doubtless means to place the outbreak later.
JUDGE (Lat. _judex_, Fr. _juge_), in the widest legal sense an officer
appointed by the sovereign power in a state to administer the law; in
English practice, however, justices of the peace and magistrates are not
usually regarded as "judges" in the titular sense. The duties of the
judge, whether in a civil or a criminal matter, are to hear the
statements on both sides in open court, to arrive at a conclusion as to
the truth of the facts submitted to him or, when a jury is engaged, to
direct the jury to find such a conclusion, to apply to the facts so
found the appropriate rules of law, and to certify by his judgment the
relief to which the parties are entitled or the obligations or penalties
which they have incurred. With the judgment the office of the judge is
at an end, but the judgment sets in motion the executive forces of the
state, whose duty it is to carry it into execution.
Such is the type of a judicial officer recognized by mature systems of
law, but it is not to be accepted as the universal type, and the
following qualifying circumstances should be noticed: (1) in primitive
systems of law the judicial is not separated from the legislative and
other governing functions; (2) although the judge is assumed to take the
law from the legislative authority, yet, as the existing law never at
any time contains provision for all cases, the judge may be obliged to
invent or create principles applicable to the case--this is called by
Bentham and the English jurists judge-made and judiciary law; (3) the
separation of the function of judge and jury, and the exclusive charge
of questions of law given to the judge, are more particularly
characteristic of the English judicial system. During a considerable
period in the history of Roman law an entirely different distribution of
parts was observed. The adjudication of a case was divided between the
_magistratus_ and the _judex_, neither of whom corresponds to the
English judge. The former was a public officer charged with the
execution of the law; the latter was an arbitrator whom the magistrates
commissioned to hear and report upon a particular case.
The following are points more specially characteristic of the English
system and its kindred judicial systems: (1) Judges are absolutely
protected from action for anything that they may do in the discharge of
their judicial duties. This is true in the fullest sense of judges of
the supreme courts. "It is a principle of English law that no action
will lie against a judge of one of the superior courts for a judicial
act, though it be alleged to have been done maliciously and corruptly."
Other judicial officers are also protected, though not to the same
extent, against actions. (2) The highest class of judges are irremovable
except by what is in effect a special act of parliament, viz. a
resolution passed by both houses and assented to by the sovereign. The
inferior judges and magistrates are removable for misconduct by the lord
chancellor. (3) The judiciary in England is not a separate profession.
The judges are chosen from the class of advocates, and almost entirely
according to their eminence at the bar. (4) Judges are in England
appointed for the most part by the crown. In a few cases municipal
corporations may appoint their own judicial officer.
See also LORD HIGH CHANCELLOR; LORD CHIEF JUSTICE; MASTER OF THE
ROLLS, &c., &c., and the accounts of judicial systems under country
headings.
JUDGE-ADVOCATE-GENERAL, an officer appointed in England to assist the
Crown with advice in matters relating to military law, and more
particularly as to courts-martial. In the army the administration of
justice as pertaining to discipline is carried out in accordance with
the provisions of military law, and it is the function of the
judge-advocate-general to ensure that these disciplinary powers are
exercised in strict conformity with that law. Down to 1793 the
judge-advocate-general acted as secretary and legal adviser to the board
of general officers, but on the reconstitution of the office of
commander-in-chief in that year he ceased to perform secretarial duties,
but remained chief legal adviser. He retained his seat in parliament and
in 1806 he was made a member of the government and a privy councillor.
The office ceased to be political in 1892, on the recommendation of the
select committee of 1888 on army estimates, and was conferred on Sir F.
Jeune (afterwards Lord St Helier). There was no salary attached to the
office when held by Lord St Helier, and the duties were for the most
part performed by deputy. On his death in 1905, Thomas Milvain, K.C.,
was appointed, and the terms and conditions of the post were rearranged
as follows: (1) A salary of L2000 a year; (2) the holder to devote his
whole time to the duties of the post; (3) the retention of the post
until the age of seventy, subject to continued efficiency--but with
claim to gratuity or pension on retirement. The holder was to be
subordinate to the secretary of state for war, without direct access to
the sovereign. The appointment is conferred by letters-patent, which
define the exact functions attaching to the office, which practically
are the reviewing of the proceedings of all field-general, general and
district courts-martial held in the United Kingdom, and advising the
sovereign as to the confirmation of the finding and sentence. The deputy
judge-advocate is a salaried official in the department of the
judge-advocate-general and acts under his letters-patent. A separate
judge-advocate-general's department is maintained in India, where at one
time deputy judge-advocates were attached to every important command.
All general courts-martial held in the United Kingdom are sent to the
judge-advocate-general, to be by him submitted to the sovereign for
confirmation; and all district courts-martial, after having been
confirmed and promulgated, are sent to his office for examination and
custody. The judge-advocate-general and his deputy, being judges in the
last resort of the validity of the proceedings of courts-martial, take
no part in their conduct; but the deputy judge-advocates frame and
revise charges and attend at courts-martial, swear the court, advise
both sides on law, look after the interests of the prisoner and record
the proceedings. In the English navy there is an official whose
functions are somewhat similar to those of the judge-advocate-general.
He is called counsel and judge-advocate of the fleet.
In the United States there is also a judge-advocate-general's
department. In addition to being a bureau of military justice, and
keeping the records of courts-martial, courts of inquiry and military
commissions, it has the custody of all papers relating to the title of
lands under the control of the war department. The officers of the
department, in addition to acting as prosecutors in all military trials,
sometimes represent the government when cases affecting the army come up
in civil courts.
See further MILITARY LAW, and consult C. M. Clode, _Administration of
Justice under Military and Martial Law_ (1872); _Military Forces of
the Crown_ (2 vols., 1869).
JUDGES, THE BOOK OF, in the Bible. This book of the Old Testament,
which, as we now read it, constitutes a sequel to the book of Joshua,
covering the period of history between the death of this conqueror and
the birth of Samuel, is so called because it contains the history of the
Israelites before the establishment of the monarchy, when the government
was in the hands of certain leaders who appear to have formed a
continuous succession, although the office was not hereditary. The only
other biblical source ascribed to this period is Ruth, whose present
position as an appendix to Judges is not original (see BIBLE and RUTH).
_Structure._--It is now generally agreed that the present adjustment of
the older historical books of the Old Testament to form a continuous
record of events from the creation to the Babylonian exile is due to an
editor, or rather to successive redactors, who pieced together and
reduced to a certain unity older memoirs of very different dates; and
closer examination shows that the continuity of many parts of the
narrative is more apparent than real. This is very clearly the case in
the book of Judges. It consists of three main portions: (1) an
introduction, presenting one view of the occupation of Palestine by the
Israelites (i. 1-ii. 5); (2) the history of the several judges (ii.
6-xvi.); and (3) an appendix containing two narratives of the period.
1. The first section relates events which are said to have taken place
after the death of Joshua, but in reality it covers the same ground with
the book of Joshua, giving a brief account of the occupation of Canaan,
which in some particulars repeats the statements of the previous book,
while in others it is quite independent (see JOSHUA). It is impossible
to regard the warlike expeditions described in this section as
supplementary campaigns undertaken after Joshua's death; they are
plainly represented as the first efforts of the Israelites to gain a
firm footing in the land (at Hebron, Debir, Bethel), in the very cities
which Joshua is related to have subdued (Josh. x. 39).[1] Here then we
have an account of the settlement of Israel west of the Jordan which is
parallel to the book of Joshua, but makes no mention of Joshua himself,
and places the tribe of Judah in the front. The author of the chapter
cannot have had Joshua or his history in his eye at all, and the words
"and it came to pass after the death of Joshua" in Judg. i. 1 are from
the hand of the last editor, who desired to make the whole book of
Judges, including ch. i., read continuously with that which now precedes
it in the canon of the earlier prophets.[2]
2. The second and main section (ii. 6-xvi.) stands on quite another
footing. According to Josh. xxiv. 31 the people "served Yahweh" during
the lifetime of the great conqueror and his contemporaries. In Judg. ii.
7 this statement is repeated, and the writer proceeds to explain that
subsequent generations fell away from the faith, and served the gods of
the nations among which they dwelt (ii. 6-iii. 6). The worship of other
gods is represented, not as something which went on side by side with
Yahweh-worship (cf. x. 6), but as a revolt against Yahweh, periodically
repeated and regularly chastised by foreign invasion. The history,
therefore, falls into recurring cycles, each of which begins with
religious corruption, followed by chastisement, which continues until
Yahweh, in answer to the groans of his oppressed people, raises up a
"judge" to deliver Israel, and recall them to the true faith. On the
death of the "judge," if not sooner, the corruption spreads anew and the
same vicissitudes follow. This religious explanation of the course of
the history, formally expounded at the outset and repeated in more or
less detail from chapter to chapter (especially vi. 1-10, x. 6-18),
determines the form of the whole narrative. It is in general agreement
with the spirit as also with the language of Deuteronomy, and on this
account this section may be conveniently called "the Deuteronomic Book
of Judges." But the main religious ideas are not so late and are rather
akin to those of Josh. xxiv; in particular the worship of the high
places is not condemned, nor is it excused as in 1 Kings iii. 2. The
sources of the narrative are obviously older than the theological
exposition of its lessons, and herein lies the value and interest of
Judges. The importance of such documents for the scientific historian
lies not so much in the events they record as in the unconscious witness
they bear to the state of society in which the narrator or poet lived.
From this point of view the parts of the book are by no means all of
equal value; critical analysis shows that often parallel or distinct
narratives have been fused together, and that, whilst the older stories
gave more prominence to ordinary human motives and combinations, the
later are coloured by religious reflection and show the characteristic
tendency of the Old Testament to re-tell the fortunes of Israel in a
form that lays ever-increasing weight on the work of Yahweh for his
people. That the pre-Deuteronomic sources are to be identified with the
Judaean (J, or Yahwist) and Ephraimite (E, or Elohist) strands of the
Hexateuch is, however, not certain.
To the unity of religious pragmatism in the main stock of the book of
Judges corresponds a unity of chronological scheme. The "judges," in
spite of the fact that most of them had clearly no more than a local
influence, are all represented as successive rulers in Israel, and the
history is dated by the years of each judgeship and those of the
intervening periods of oppression. But it is impossible to reconcile the
numbers with the statement elsewhere that the fourth year of Solomon was
the 480th from the exodus (1 Kings vi. 1). See BIBLE: _Chronology_.
The general introduction (ii. 6-iii. 6) is a blend of Deuteronomic and
other sources. The intimate relation between it and the separate
narratives (Josh. xxiv. 1-27, a late [Ephraimite] record inserted by a
second Deuteronomic hand, and xxiii., D) appears both from their
contents and from the fact that Judg. ii. 6-10 is almost identical
with the narrative appended to Joshua's address (Joshua xxiv. 28-31).
Judg. i.-ii. 5, however, is not touched by D, and hence was probably
inserted in its present position at a later date. According to the
highly intricate introduction the Hebrews were oppressed: (a) to
familiarize them with warfare--it is assumed that they had
intermarried with the Canaanites and worshipped their gods (iii. 2,
6); (b) to test their loyalty to Yahweh (ii. 22; iii. 1); or (c) to
punish them for their marriage with the heathen and their apostasy (D
in ii. 12; cf. Josh. xxiii., and ibid. v. 12).
To this succeeds a noteworthy example of the Deuteronomic treatment of
tradition in the achievement of Othniel (q.v.) the only Judaean
"judge." The bareness of detail, not to speak of the improbability of
the situation, renders its genuineness doubtful, and the passage is
one of the indications of a secondary Deuteronomic redaction. The
case, however, is exceptional; the stories of the other great "judges"
were not rewritten or to any great extent revised by the Deuteronomic
redactor, and his hand appears chiefly in the framework.[3] Thus, in
the story of Ehud and the defeat of Moab only iii. 12-15, 29-30 are
Deuteronomic. But the rest is not homogeneous, vv. 19 and 20 appear to
be variants, and the mention of Israel (v. 27b) is characteristic of
the tendency to treat local troubles as national oppressions, whereas
other records represent little national unity at this period (i., v.).
See further EHUD.
According to the Septuagint addition to Josh. xxiv. 33, Moab was the
first of Israel's oppressors. The brief notice of Shamgar, who
delivered Israel from the Philistines (iii. 31), is one of the later
insertions, and in some MSS. of the LXX. it stands after xvi. 31. The
story of the defeat of Sisera appears in two distinct forms, an
earlier, in poetical form (v.), and a later, in prose (iv.). D's
framework is to be recognized in iv. 1-4, 23 seq., v. 1 (probably), 31
(last clause); see further DEBORAH. The Midianite oppression
(vi.-viii.) is contained in the usual frame (vi. 1-6; viii. 27 seq.),
but is not homogeneous, since viii. 4, the pursuit of the kings,
cannot be the sequel of viii. 3 (where they have been slain), and
viii. 33-35 ignores ix. The structure of vi. 1-viii. 3 is particularly
intricate: vi. 25-32 does not continue vi. 11-24 (there are two
accounts of Gideon's introduction and divergent representations of
Yahweh-worship); vi. 34 forms the sequel of the latter, and vi. 36-40
(with "God") is strange after the description of the miracle in vv. 21
seq. (with "Yahweh"). Further, there are difficulties in vi. 34, vii.
23 seq., viii. 1, when compared with vii. 2-8, and in vii. 16-22 two
stratagems are combined. There are two sequels: vii. 23 seq. and viii.
4; with the former contrast vi. 35; with viii. 1-3 cf. xii. 1-6, and
see below. Chapter viii. 22 seq. comes unexpectedly, and the refusal
of the offer of the kingship reflects later ideas (cf. 1 Sam. viii. 7;
x. 19; xii. 12, 17). The conclusion, however, shows that Jerubbaal had
only a local reputation. Finally, the condemnation of the ephod as
part of the worship of Yahweh (viii. 27) agrees with the thought in
vi. 25-32 as against that in vi. 11-24. (See EPHOD; GIDEON.) Chapter
ix. (see ABIMELECH) appears to have been wanting in the Deuteronomic
book of Judges, but inserted later perhaps by means of the
introduction, viii. 30-32 (post-exilic). It has two accounts of the
attack upon Shechem (lx. 26-41 and 42-49).
After a brief notice of two "minor judges" (see below), follows the
story of Jephthah. It concludes with the usual Deuteronomic formula
(xii. 7), but is prefaced by a detailed introduction to the oppression
of Israel (x. 6 sqq.). By the inclusion of the Philistines among the
oppressors, and of Judah, Benjamin and Ephraim among the oppressed (x.
7, 9), it appears to have in view not merely the story of Samson, a
hero of local interest, but the early chapters in 1 Samuel. This
introduction is of composite origin (as also ii. 6-21; Josh.
xxiii.-xxiv. 25), but a satisfactory analysis seems impossible. As it
stands, it has literary connexions with the late narrative in 1 Sam.
(vii. seq., xii.), and appears to form the preface to that period of
history which ended with Samuel's great victory and the institution of
the monarchy. But this belongs to a later scheme (see SAMUEL), and the
introduction in its earlier form must have been the prelude to earlier
narratives.[4] The story of Jephthah's fight with Ammon is linked to
the preceding introduction by x. 17 seq.; for the framework see x. 6
(above), xii. 7. Chapter xi. 12-28 (cf. Num. xx. seq.) is applicable
only to Moab, vv. 29 and 32 are variants, and Jephthah's home is
placed variously in Tob. (xi. 3) and Mizpeh (v. 34). In xi. 1-10 the
outlaw stipulates that he shall be chief of Gilead if successful, but
in vv. 12-28 a ruler speaks on behalf of Israel. Both Moab and Ammon
had good reason to be hostile to Gilead (Num. xxi.), but the scene of
the victory points rather to the former (v. 33, possibly conflate).
There is a general resemblance between the victories of Gideon and
Jephthah, which is emphasized by the close relation between viii. 1-3
and xii. 1-6, the explanation of which in its present context is
difficult. See further JEPHTHAH.
The old stories of Samson the Danite have been scarcely touched by the
redaction (xiii. 1; xv. 20; xvi. 31b, where he is a "judge"); only
xiii. appears to be rather later (v. 5 represents him as a forerunner
of Samuel and Saul), and gives a rather different impression of the
hero of the folk-tales. The cycle illustrates some interesting customs
and is in every way valuable as a specimen of popular narrative. See
SAMSON.
Grouped among these narratives are the five so-called "minor judges"
(x. 1-5; xii. 8-15). By the addition of Shamgar (iii. 31) the number
is made to agree with the six more important names. They are not
represented as having any immediate religious importance; they really
lie outside of the chronological scheme, and their history is plainly
not related from such lively and detailed reminiscence as gives charm
to the longer episodes of the book. The notices are drawn up in set
phraseology, and some of the names, in harmony with a characteristic
feature of early Hebrew history, are those of personified families of
communities rather than of families.[5]
3. The third and last section of the book embraces chapters xvii.-xxi.,
and consists of two narratives independent of one another and of the
main stock of the book, with which they are not brought into any
chronological connexion. They appear to owe their position to the latest
redactor (akin to the latest stratum in the Hexateuch) who has heavily
worked over xix-xxi., and put the book into its present form by the
addition of i.-ii. 5, ix. and possibly of v.[6]
The first narrative, that of Micah and the Danites, is of the highest
interest both as a record of the state of religion and for the picture
it gives of the way in which one clan passed from the condition of an
invading band into settled possession of land and city. Its interest
(xvii. seq.) lies in the foundation of the Ephraimite sanctuary by
Micah as also in that of Dan. There are some repetitions in the
account, but there is not enough evidence to restore two complete
stories. The history of the Levite and the Benjamites is of quite
another character, and presupposes a degree of unity of feeling and
action among the tribes of Israel which it is not easy to reconcile
with the rest of the book. In its present form this episode appears to
be not very ancient; it resembles Ruth in giving a good deal of
curious archaeological detail (the feast at Shiloh) in a form which
suggests that the usages referred to were already obsolete when the
narrative was composed. It appears to consist of an old story which
has been heavily revised to form an edifying piece of exposition. The
older parts are preserved in xix.: the account of the Levite of Mt
Ephraim whose concubine from Bethlehem in Judah was outraged, not by
the non-Israelite Jebusites of Jerusalem, but by the Benjamites of
Gibeah; there are traces of another source in vv. 6-8, 10, 13, 15. The
older portions of xx. seq. include: the vengeance taken by Israel
(e.g. xx. 3-8, 14, 19, 29, 36-41, 47), and the reconstruction of the
tribe by intermarriage with the women of Shiloh (xxi. 1, 15, 17-19,
21-23). The post-exilic expansions (found chiefly in xx., xxi. 2-14,
16, 24 seq.) describe the punishment of Benjamin by the religious
assembly and the massacre of Jabesh-Gilead for its refusal to join
Israel, four hundred virgins of the Gileadites being saved for
Benjamin. How much old tradition underlies these stories is
questionable. It is very doubtful whether Hosea's allusion to the
depravity of Gibeah (ix. 9; x. 9) is to be referred hither, but it is
noteworthy that whilst Gibeah and Jabesh-Gilead, which appear here in
a bad light, are known to be associated with Saul, the sufferer is a
Levite of Bethlehem, the traditional home of David. The account of the
great fight in xx. is reminiscent of Joshua's battle at Ai (Josh.
vii.-viii.).
_Historical Value_.--The book of Judges consists of a number of
narratives collected by Deuteronomic editors; to the same circles are
due accounts of the invasions of Palestine and settlement in Joshua, and
of the foundation of the monarchy in 1 Samuel. The connexion has been
broken by the later insertion of matter (not necessarily of late date
itself), and the whole was finally formed into a distinct book by a
post-exilic hand. The dates of the older stories preserved in ii. 6-xvi.
6 are quite unknown. If they are trustworthy for the period to which
they are relegated (approximately 14th-12th cent. B.C.) they are
presumably of very great antiquity, but if they belong to the sources J
and E of the Hexateuch (at least some four or five centuries later)
their value is seriously weakened. On the other hand, the belief that
the monarchy had been preceded by national "judges" may have led to the
formation of the collection. It is evident that there was more than one
period in Israelite history in which one or other of these stories of
local heroes would be equally suitable. They reflect tribal rivalry and
jealousy (cf. Isa. ix. 21, and the successors of Jeroboam 2), attacks by
nomads and wars with Ammon and Moab; conflicts between newly settled
Israelites and indigenous Canaanites have been suspected in the story of
Abimelech, and it is not impossible that the post-Deuteronomic writer
who inserted ch. ix. so understood the record. A striking exception to
the lack of unity among the tribes is afforded by the account of the
defeat of Sisera, and here the old poem represents a combined effort to
throw off the yoke of a foreign oppressor, while the later prose version
approximates the standpoint of Josh. xi. 1-15, with its defeat of the
Canaanites. The general standpoint of the stories (esp. Judg. v.) is
that of central Palestine; the exceptions are Othniel and Samson--the
latter interrupting the introduction in x., and its sequel, the former
now entirely due to the Deuteronomic editor. Of the narratives which
precede and follow, ch. i. represents central Palestine separated by
Canaanite cities from tribes to the south and north; it is the situation
recognized in Judg. xix. 10-12, as well as in passages imbedded in the
latest portions of the book of Joshua, though it is in contradiction to
the older traditions of Joshua himself. Chapters xvii. seq. (like the
preceding story of Samson) deal with Danites, but the migration can
hardly be earlier than David's time; and xix.-xxi., by describing the
extermination of Benjamin, form a link between the presence of the tribe
in the late narratives of the exodus and its new prominence in the
traditions of Saul (q.v.). As an historical source, therefore, the value
of Judges will depend largely upon the question whether the Deuteronomic
editor (about 600 B.C. at the earliest) would have access to trustworthy
documents relating to a period some six or seven centuries previously.
See further JEWS, SS 6, 8; and SAMUEL, BOOKS OF.
LITERATURE.--Biblical scholars are in agreement regarding the
preliminary literary questions of the book, but there is divergence of
opinion on points of detail, and on the precise growth of the book
(e.g. the twofold Deuteronomic redaction). See further W. R. Smith,
_Ency. Brit._ 9th ed. (upon which the present article is based); G. F.
Moore, _International Critical Comm._ (1895); _Ency. Bib._, art.
"Judges"; K. Budde, _Kurzer Handcommentar_ (1897); Lagrange, _Livres
des juges_ (1903); G. W. Thatcher (_Century Bible_); also S. R.
Driver, _Lit. of Old Testament_ (1909); Moore, in the _Sacred Books of
Old Testament_ (1898); C. F. Kent, _The Student's Old Testament_, vol.
i. (1904). (S. A. C.)
FOOTNOTES:
[1] This is confirmed by the circumstance that in Judg. ii. 1 the
"angel of Yahweh," who, according to Exod. xiv. 24, xxiii. 20, xxxii.
34, xxxiii. 2, 7 seq., must be viewed as having his local
manifestation at the headquarters of the host of Israel, is still
found at Gilgal and not at Shiloh.
[2] The chapter was written after Israel had become strong enough to
make the Canaanite cities tributary (v. 28), that is, after the
establishment of the monarchy (see 1 Kings ix. 20-21).
[3] Hence, it is to be inferred that the reviser had older _written_
records before him. Had these been in the oral stage he would
scarcely incorporate traditions which did not agree with his views;
at all events they would hardly have been written down by him in the
form in which they have survived. The narratives of the monarchy
which are preserved only in Chronicles, on the other hand, illustrate
the manner in which tradition was reshaped and rewritten under the
influence of a later religious standpoint.
[4] It may be conjectured that the introduction originally formed the
prelude to the rise of Saul: the intervening narratives, though not
necessarily of late origin themselves, having been subsequently
inserted. See S. A. Cook, _Crit. Notes O. T. Hist._, p. 127 seq.
[5] Tola and Puah (x. 1) are clans of Issachar (Gen. xlvi. 13), for
Jair (v. 3), see Num. xxxii. 41, and for Elon (xii. 11), see Gen.
xlvi. 14. See GENEALOGY: _Biblical_.
[6] To the same post-exilic hand may also be ascribed the
introduction of the "minor judges" (so several critics), and smaller
additions here and there (ch. i. 1 opening words, vv. 4, 8 seq.
[contrast 21] 18; viii. 30-32: xi. 2, &c.).
JUDGMENT, in law, a term used to describe (1) the adjudication by a
court of justice upon a controversy submitted to it _inter partes_
(_post litem contestatam_) and determining the rights of the parties and
the relief to be awarded by the court as between them; (2) the formal
document issuing from the court in which that adjudication is
expressed; (3) the opinions of the judges expressed in a review of the
facts and law applicable to the controversy leading up to the
adjudication expressed in the formal document. When the judgment has
been passed and entered and recorded it binds the parties: the
controversy comes to an end (_transit in rem judicatam_), and the person
in whose favour the judgment is entered is entitled to enforce it by the
appropriate method of "execution." There has been much controversy among
lawyers as to the meaning of the expressions "final" and "interlocutory"
as applied to judgments, and as to the distinction between a "judgment,"
a "decree," and an "order." These disputes arise upon the wording of
statutes or rules of court and with reference to the appropriate times
or modes of appeal or of execution.
The judgments of one country are not as a rule directly enforceable in
another country. In Europe, by treaty or arrangement, foreign judgments
are in certain cases and on compliance with certain formalities made
executory in various states. A similar provision is made as between
England, Scotland and Ireland, for the registry and execution in each
country of certain classes of judgments given in the others. But as
regards the rest of the king's dominions and foreign states, a "foreign"
judgment is in England recognized only as constituting a cause of action
which may be sued upon in England. If given by a court of competent
jurisdiction it is treated as creating a legal obligation to pay the sum
adjudged to be due. Summary judgment may be entered in an English action
based on a foreign judgment unless the defendant can show that the
foreign court had not jurisdiction over the parties or the subject
matter of the action, or that there was fraud on the part of the foreign
court or the successful party, or that the foreign proceedings were
contrary to natural justice, e.g. concluded without due notice to the
parties affected. English courts will not enforce foreign judgments as
to foreign criminal or penal or revenue laws.
JUDGMENT DEBTOR, in English law, a person against whom a judgment
ordering him to pay a sum of money has been obtained and remains
unsatisfied. Such a person may be examined as to whether any and what
debts are owing to him, and if the judgment debt is of the necessary
amount he may be made bankrupt if he fails to comply with a bankruptcy
notice served on him by the judgment creditors, or he may be committed
to prison or have a receiving order made against him in a judgment
summons under the Debtors Act 1869.
JUDGMENT SUMMONS, in English law, a summons issued under the Debtors Act
1869, on the application of a creditor who has obtained a judgment for
the payment of a sum of money by instalments or otherwise, where the
order for payment has not been complied with. The judgment summons cites
the defendant to appear personally in court, and be examined on oath as
to the means he has, or has had, since the date of the order or judgment
made against him, to pay the same, and to show cause why he should not
be committed to prison for his default. An order of commitment obtained
in a judgment summons remains in force for a year only, and the extreme
term of imprisonment is six weeks, dating from the time of lodging in
prison. When a debtor has once been imprisoned, although for a period of
less than six weeks, no second order of commitment can be made against
him in respect of the same debt. But if the judgment be for payment by
instalments a power of committal arises on default of payment for each
instalment. If an order of commitment has never been executed, or
becomes inoperative through lapse of time, a fresh commitment may be
made. Imprisonment does not operate as a satisfaction or extinguishment
of a debt, or deprive a person of a right of execution against the land
or goods of the person imprisoned in the same manner as if there had
been no imprisonment.
JUDICATURE ACTS, an important series of English statutes having for
their object the simplification of the system of judicature in its
higher branches. They are the Supreme Court of Judicature Act 1873 (36 &
37 Vict. c. 66) and the Supreme Court of Judicature Act 1875 (38 & 39
Vict. c. 77), with various amending acts, the twelfth of these being in
1899. By the act of 1873 the court of chancery, the court of queen's
(king's) bench, the court of common pleas, the court of exchequer, the
high court of admiralty, the court of probate and the court of divorce
and matrimonial causes were consolidated into one Supreme[1] Court of
Judicature (sec. 3), divided into two permanent divisions, called "the
high court," with (speaking broadly) original jurisdiction, and "the
court of appeal" (sec. 4). The objects of the act were threefold--first,
to reduce the historically independent courts of common law and equity
into one supreme court; secondly, to establish for all divisions of the
court a uniform system of pleading and procedure; and thirdly, to
provide for the enforcement of the same rule of law in those cases where
chancery and common law recognized different rules. It can be seen at
once how bold and revolutionary was this new enactment. By one section
the august king's bench, the common pleas, in which serjeants only had
formerly the right of audience, and the exchequer, which had its origin
in the reign of Henry I., and all their jurisdiction, criminal, legal
and equitable, were vested in the new court. It must be understood,
however, that law and equity were not fused in the sense in which that
phrase has generally been employed. The chancery division still remains
distinct from the common law division, having a certain range of legal
questions under its exclusive control, and possessing to a certain
extent a peculiar machinery of its own for carrying its decrees into
execution. But all actions may now be brought in the high court of
justice, and, subject to such special assignments of business as that
alluded to, may be tried in any division thereof.
There were originally three common law divisions of the High Court
corresponding with the three former courts of common law. But after the
death of Lord Chief Baron Kelly on the 17th of September 1880, and of
Lord Chief Justice Cockburn on the 20th of November 1880, the common
pleas and exchequer divisions were (by order in council, 10th December
1880) consolidated with the king's bench division into one division
under the presidency of the lord chief justice of England, to whom, by
the 25th section of the Judicature Act 1881, all the statutory
jurisdiction of the chief baron and the chief justice of the common
pleas was transferred. The high court, therefore, now consists of the
chancery division, the common law division, under the name of the king's
bench division; and the probate, divorce and admiralty division. To the
king's bench division is also attached, by order of the lord chancellor
(Jan. 1, 1884), the business of the London court of bankruptcy.
For a more detailed account of the composition of the various courts,
see CHANCERY; KING'S BENCH; and PROBATE, DIVORCE AND ADMIRALTY COURT.
The keystone of the structure created by the Judicature Acts was a
strong court of appeal. The House of Lords remained the last court of
appeal, as before the acts, but its judicial functions were virtually
transferred to an appeal committee, consisting of the lord chancellor
and other peers who have held high judicial office, and certain lords of
appeal in ordinary created by the act of 1873 (see APPEAL).
The practice and procedure of the Supreme Court are regulated by rules
made by a committee of judges, to which have been added the president
of the incorporated law society and a practising barrister and one
other person nominated by the lord chancellor. The rules now in force
are those of 1883, with some subsequent amendments. With the
appendices they fill a moderate-sized volume. Complaints are made that
they go into too much detail, and place a burden on the time and
temper of the busy practitioner which he can ill afford to bear. It is
possible that the authors of the rules attempted too much, and it
might have been better to provide a simpler and more elastic code of
procedure. Rules have sometimes been made to meet individual cases of
hardship, and rules of procedure have been piled up from time to time,
sometimes embodying a new experiment, and not always consistent with
former rules.
The most important matter dealt with by the rules is the mode of
pleading. The authors of the Judicature Act had before them two
systems of pleading, both of which were open to criticism. The common
law pleadings (it was said) did not state the facts on which the
pleader relied, but only the legal aspect of the facts or the
inferences from them, while the chancery pleadings were lengthy,
tedious and to a large extent irrelevant and useless. There was some
exaggeration in both statements. In pursuing the fusion of law and
equity which was the dominant legal idea of law reformers of that
period, the framers of the first set of rules devised a system which
they thought would meet the defects of both systems, and be
appropriate for both the common-law and the chancery divisions. In a
normal case, the plaintiff delivered his statement of claim, in which
he was to set forth concisely the facts on which he relied, and the
relief which he asked. The defendant then delivered his statement of
defence, in which he was to say whether he admitted or denied the
plaintiff's facts (every averment not traversed being taken to be
admitted), and any additional facts and legal defences on which he
relied. The plaintiff might then reply, and the defendant rejoin, and
so on until the pleaders had exhausted themselves. This system of
pleading was not a bad one if accompanied by the right of either party
to demur to his opponent's pleading, i.e. to say, "admitting all your
averments of fact to be true, you still have no cause of action," or
"defence" (as the case may be). It may be, however, that the authors
of the new system were too intent on uniformity when they abolished
the common-law pleading, which, shorn of its abuses (as it had been by
the Common Law Procedure Acts), was an admirable instrument for
defining the issue between the parties though unsuited for the more
complicated cases which are tried in chancery, and it might possibly
have been better to try the new system in the first instance in the
chancery division only. It should be added that the rules contain
provisions for actions being tried without pleadings if the defendant
does not require a statement of claim, and for the plaintiff in an
action of debt obtaining immediate judgment unless the defendant gets
leave to defend. In the chancery division there are of course no
pleadings in those matters which by the rules can be disposed of by
summons in chambers instead of by ordinary suit as formerly.
The judges seem to have been dissatisfied with the effect of their
former rules, for in 1883 they issued a fresh set of consolidated
rules, which, with subsequent amendments, are those now in force. By
these rules a further attempt was made to prune the exuberance of
pleading. Concise forms of statement of claim and defence were given
in the appendix for adoption by the pleader. It is true that these
forms do not display a high standard of excellence in draftsmanship,
and it was said that many of them were undoubtedly demurrable, but
that was not of much importance. Demurrers were abolished, and instead
thereof it was provided that any point of law raised by the pleadings
should be disposed of at or after the trial, provided that by consent
or order of the court the same might be set down and disposed of
before the trial (Order xxv. rules 1, 2). This, in the opinion of Lord
Davey in 1902 (_Ency. Brit._, 10th ed., xxx. 146), was a disastrous
change. The right of either party to challenge his opponent _in
limine_, either where the question between them was purely one of law,
or where even the view of the facts taken and alleged by his opponent
did not constitute a cause of action or defence, was a most valuable
one, and tended to the curtailment of both the delay and the expense
of litigation. Any possibility of abuse by frivolous or technical
demurrers (as undoubtedly was formerly the case) had been met by
powers of amendment and the infliction of costs. Many of the most
important questions of law had been decided on demurrer both in common
law and chancery. Lord Davey considered that demurrer was a useful and
satisfactory mode of trying questions in chancery (on bill and
demurrer), and it was frequently adopted in preference to a special
case, which requires the statement of facts to be agreed to by both
parties and was consequently more difficult and expensive. It is
obvious that a rule which makes the normal time for decision of
questions at law the trial or subsequently, and a preliminary decision
the exception, and such exception dependent on the consent of both
parties or an order of the court, is a poor substitute for a demurrer
as of right, and it has proved so in practice. The editors of the
_Yearly Practice_ for 1901 (Muir Mackenzie, Lushington and Fox) said
(p. 272): "Points of law raised by the pleadings are usually disposed
of at the trial or on further consideration after the trial of the
issues of fact," that is to say, after the delay, worry and expense of
a trial of disputed questions of fact which after all may turn out to
be unnecessary. The abolition of demurrers has also (it is believed)
had a prejudicial effect on the standard of legal accuracy and
knowledge required in practitioners. Formerly the pleader had the fear
of a demurrer before him. Nowadays he need not stop to think whether
his cause of action or defence will hold water or not, and anything
which is not obviously frivolous or vexatious will do by way of
pleading for the purpose of the trial and for getting the opposite
party into the box.
Another change was made by the rules of 1883, which was regarded by
some common law lawyers as revolutionary. Formerly every issue of fact
in a common law action, including the amount of damage, had to be
decided by the verdict of a jury. "The effect of the rules of 1883,"
said Lord Lindley, who was a member of the rule committee, "was to
make trial without a jury the normal mode of trial, except where trial
with a jury is ordered under rules 6 or 7a, or may be had without an
order under rule 2" (_Timson_ v. _Wilson_, 38 Ch. D. 72, at p. 76).
The effect of the rules may be thus summarized: (1) In the chancery
division no trial by jury unless ordered by the judge. (2) Generally
the judge may order trial without a jury of any cause or issue, which
before the Judicature Act might have been so tried without consent of
parties, or which involves prolonged investigation of documents or
accounts, or scientific or local investigation. (3) Either party has a
right to a jury in actions of slander, libel, false imprisonment,
malicious prosecution, seduction or breach of promise of marriage,
upon notice without order; (4) or in any other action, by order. (5)
Subject as above, actions are to be tried without a jury unless the
judge, of his own motion, otherwise orders.
Further steps have been taken with a view to simplification of
procedure. By Order xxx. rule 1 (as amended in 1897), a summons,
called a summons for directions, has to be taken out by a plaintiff
immediately after the appearance of the defendant, and upon such
summons an order is to be made respecting pleadings, and a number of
interlocutory proceedings. To make such an order at that early stage
would seem to demand a prescience and intelligent anticipation of
future events which can hardly be expected of a master, or even a
judge in chambers, except in simple cases, involving a single issue of
law or fact which the parties are agreed in presenting to the court.
The effect of the rule is that the plaintiff cannot deliver his
statement of claim, or take any step in the action without the leave
of the judge. In chancery cases the order usually made is that the
plaintiff deliver his statement of claim, and the rest of the summons
stand over, and the practical effect is merely to add a few pounds to
the costs. It may be doubted whether, as applied to the majority of
actions, the rule does not proceed on wrong lines, and whether it
would not be better to leave the parties, who know the exigencies of
their case better even than a judge in chambers, to proceed in their
own way, subject to stringent provisions for immediate payment of the
costs occasioned by unnecessary, vexatious, or dilatory proceedings.
The order does not apply to admiralty cases or to proceedings under
the order next mentioned.
The Supreme Court of Judicature Act (Ireland) 1877 follows the same
lines as the English acts. The pre-existing courts were consolidated
into a supreme court of judicature, consisting of a high court of
justice and a court of appeal. The judicature acts did not affect
Scottish judicature, but the Appellate Jurisdiction Act included the
court of session among the courts from which an appeal lies to the
House of Lords.
FOOTNOTE:
[1] The comte de Franqueville in his interesting work, _Le Systeme
judiciaire de la Grande Bretagne_, criticizes the use of the word
"supreme" as a designation of this court, inasmuch as its judgments
are subject to appeal to the House of Lords, but in the act of 1873
the appeal to the House of Lords was abolished. He is also severe on
the illogical use of the words "division" and "court" in many
different senses (i. 180-181).
JUDITH, THE BOOK OF, one of the apocryphal books of the Old Testament.
It takes its name from the heroine Judith ([Greek: Ioudith, Ioudeth],
i.e. [Hebrew: yehudit], Jewess), to whom the last nine of its sixteen
chapters relate. In the Septuagint and Vulgate it immediately precedes
Esther, and along with Tobit comes after Nehemiah; in the English
Apocrypha it is placed between Tobit and the apocryphal additions to
Esther.
_Argument._--In the twelfth year of his reign Nebuchadrezzar, who is
described as king of Assyria, having his capital in Nineveh, makes war
against Arphaxad, king of Media, and overcomes him in his seventeenth
year. He then despatches his chief general Holofernes to take vengeance
on the nations of the west who had withheld their assistance. This
expedition has already succeeded in its main objects when Holofernes
proceeds to attack Judaea. The children of Israel, who are described as
having newly returned from captivity, are apprehensive of a desecration
of their sanctuary, and resolve on resistance to the uttermost. The
inhabitants of Bethulia (Betylua) and Betomestham in particular (neither
place can be identified), directed by Joachim the high priest, guard the
mountain passes near Dothaim, and place themselves under God's
protection. Holofernes now inquires of the chiefs who are with him about
the Israelites, and is answered by Achior the leader of the Ammonites,
who enters upon a long historical narrative showing the Israelites to be
invincible except when they have offended God. For this Achior is
punished by being handed over to the Israelites, who lead him to the
governor of Bethulia. Next day the siege begins, and after forty days
the famished inhabitants urge the governor Ozias to surrender, which he
consents to do unless relieved in five days. Judith, a beautiful and
pious widow of the tribe of Simeon, now appears on the scene with a plan
of deliverance. Wearing her rich attire, and accompanied by her maid,
who carries a bag of provisions, she goes over to the hostile camp,
where she is at once conducted to the general, whose suspicions are
disarmed by the tales she invents. After four days Holofernes, smitten
with her charms, at the close of a sumptuous entertainment invites her
to remain within his tent over night. No sooner is he overcome with
sleep than Judith, seizing his sword, strikes off his head and gives it
to her maid; both now leave the camp (as they had previously been
accustomed to do, ostensibly for prayer) and return to Bethulia, where
the trophy is displayed amid great rejoicings and thanksgivings. Achior
now publicly professes Judaism, and at the instance of Judith the
Israelites make a sudden victorious onslaught on the enemy. Judith now
sings a song of praise, and all go up to Jerusalem to worship with
sacrifice and rejoicing. The book concludes with a brief notice of the
closing years of the heroine.
_Versions._--Judith was written originally in Hebrew. This is shown
not only by the numerous Hebraisms, but also by mistranslations of the
Greek translation, as in ii. 2, iii. 9, and other passages (see
Fritzsche and Ball _in loc._), despite the statement of Origen (_Ep.
ad Afric._ 13) that the book was not received by the Jews among their
apocryphal writings. In his preface to Judith, Jerome says that he
based his Latin version on the Chaldee, which the Jews reckoned among
their Hagiographa. Ball (_Speaker's Apocrypha_, i. 243) holds that the
Chaldee text used by Jerome was a free translation or adaptation of
the Hebrew. The book exists in two forms: the shorter, which is
preserved only in Hebrew (see under _Hebrew Midrashim_ below), is,
according to Scholz, Lipsius, Ball and Gaster, the older; the longer
form is that contained in the versions.
_Greek Version._--This is found in three recensions: (1) in A B,
[Hebrew: a]; (2) in codices 19, 108 (Lucian's text); (3) in codex 58,
the source of the old Latin and Syriac.
_Syriac and Latin Versions._--Two Syriac versions were made from the
Greek--the first, that of the Peshito; and the second, that of Paul of
Tella, the so-called Hexaplaric. The Old Latin was derived from the
Greek, as we have remarked above, and Jerome's from the Old Latin,
under the control of a Chaldee version.
_Later Hebrew Midrashim._--These are printed in Jellinek's _Bet
ha-Midrasch_, i. 130-131; ii. 12-22; and by Gaster in _Proceedings of
the Society of Biblical Archaeology_ (1894), pp. 156-163.
_Date._--The book in its fuller form was most probably written in the
2nd century B.C. The writer places his romance two centuries earlier, in
the time of Ochus, as we may reasonably infer from the attack made by
Holofernes and Bagoas on Judaea; for Artaxerxes Ochus made an expedition
against Phoenicia and Egypt in 350 B.C., in which his chief generals
were Holofernes and Bagoas.
RECENT LITERATURE.--Ball, _Speaker's Apocrypha_ (1888), an excellent
piece of work; Scholz, _Das Buch Judith_ (1896); Lohr, _Apok. und
Pseud._ (1900), ii. 147-164; Porter in Hastings's _Dict. Bible_, ii.
822-824; Gaster, _Ency. Bib._, ii. 2642-2646. See Ball, pp. 260-261,
and Schurer _in loc._, for a full bibliography. (R. H. C.)
JUDSON, ADONIRAM (1788-1850), American missionary, was born at Malden,
Massachusetts, on the 9th of August 1788, the son of a Congregational
minister. He graduated at Brown University in 1807, was successively a
school teacher and an actor, completed a course at the Andover
Theological Seminary in September 1810, and was at once licensed to
preach as a Congregational clergyman. In the summer of 1810 he with
several of his fellows students at Andover had petitioned the general
association of ministers to be sent to Asiatic missionary fields. This
application resulted in the establishment of the American board of
commissioners for foreign missions, which sent Judson to England to
secure, if possible, the co-operation of the London Missionary Society.
His ship fell into the hands of a French privateer and he was for some
time a prisoner in France, but finally proceeded to London, where his
proposal was considered without anything being decided. He then returned
to America, where he found the board ready to act independently. His
appointment to Burma followed, and in 1812, accompanied by his wife, Ann
Hasseltine Judson (1789-1826), he went to Calcutta. On the voyage both
became advocates of baptism by immersion, and being thus cut off from
Congregationalism, they began independent work. In 1814 they began to
receive support from the American Baptist missionary union, which had
been founded with the primary object of keeping them in the field. After
a few months at Madras, they settled at Rangoon. There Judson mastered
Burmese, into which he translated part of the Gospels with his wife's
help. In 1824 he removed to Ava, where during the war between the East
India Company and Burma he was imprisoned for almost two years. After
peace had been brought about (largely, it is said, through his
exertions) Mrs Judson died. In 1827 Judson removed his headquarters to
Maulmain, where school buildings and a church were erected, and where in
1834 he married Sarah Hall Boardman (1803-1845). In 1833 he completed
his translation of the Bible; in succeeding years he compiled a Burmese
grammar, a Burmese dictionary, and a Pali dictionary. In 1845 his wife's
failing health decided Judson to return to America, but she died during
the voyage, and was buried at St Helena. In the United States Judson
married Emily Chubbuck (1817-1854), well-known as a poet and novelist
under the name of "Fanny Forrester," who was one of the earliest
advocates in America of the higher education of women. She returned with
him in 1846 to Burma, where the rest of his life was devoted largely to
the rewriting of his Burmese dictionary. He died at sea on the 12th of
April 1850, while on his way to Martinique, in search of health. Judson
was perhaps the greatest, as he was practically the first, of the many
missionaries sent from the United States into foreign fields; his
fervour, his devotion to duty, and his fortitude in the face of danger
mark him as the prototype of the American missionary.
The Judson Memorial, an institutional church, was erected on
Washington Square South, New York City, largely through the exertions
of his son, Rev. Edward Judson (b. 1844), who became its pastor and
director, and who prepared a life of Dr Judson (1883; new ed. 1898).
Another biography is by Francis Wayland (2 vols., 1854). See also
Robert T. Middleditch's _Life of Adoniram Judson, Burmah's Great
Missionary_ (New York, 1859). For the three Mrs. Judsons, see Knowles,
_Life of Ann Hasseltine Judson_ (1829); Emily C. Judson, _Life of
Sarah Hall Boardman Judson_ (1849); Asahel C. Kendrick, _Life and
Letters of Emily Chubbuck Judson_ (1861).
JUEL, JENS (1631-1700), Danish statesman, born on the 15th of July 1631,
began his diplomatic career in the suite of Count Christian Rantzau,
whom he accompanied to Vienna and Regensburg in 1652. In August 1657
Juel was accredited to the court of Poland, and though he failed to
prevent King John Casimir from negotiating separately with Sweden he was
made a privy councillor on his return home. But it was the
reconciliation of Juel's uncle Hannibal Sehested with King Frederick
III. which secured Juel's future. As Sehested's representative, he
concluded the peace of Copenhagen with Charles X., and after the Danish
revolution of 1660 was appointed Danish minister at Stockholm, where he
remained for eight years. Subsequently the chancellor Griffenfeldt, who
had become warmly attached to him, sent him in 1672, and again in 1674,
as ambassador extraordinary to Sweden, ostensibly to bring about a
closer union between the two northern kingdoms, but really to give time
to consolidate Griffenfeldt's far-reaching system of alliances. Juel
completely sympathized with Griffenfeldt's Scandinavian policy, which
aimed at weakening Sweden sufficiently to re-establish something like an
equilibrium between the two states. Like Griffenfeldt, Juel also feared,
above all things, a Swedo-Danish war. After the unlucky Seaman War of
1675-79, Juel was one of the Danish plenipotentiaries who negotiated the
peace of Lund. Even then he was for an alliance with Sweden "till we can
do better." This policy he consistently followed, and was largely
instrumental in bringing about the marriage of Charles XI. with
Christian V.'s daughter Ulrica Leonora. But for the death of the
like-minded Swedish statesman Johan Gyllenstjerna in June 1680, Juel's
"Scandinavian" policy might have succeeded, to the infinite advantage of
both kingdoms. He represented Denmark at the coronation of Charles XII.
(December 1697), when he concluded a new treaty of alliance with Sweden.
He died in 1700.
Juel, a man of very few words and a sworn enemy of phrase-making, was
perhaps the shrewdest and most cynical diplomatist of his day. His motto
was: "We should wish for what we can get." Throughout life he regarded
the political situation of Denmark with absolute pessimism. She was, he
often said, the cat's-paw of the Great Powers. While Griffenfeldt would
have obviated this danger by an elastic political system, adaptable to
all circumstances, Juel preferred seizing whatever he could get in
favourable conjunctures. In domestic affairs Juel was an adherent of
the mercantile system, and laboured vigorously for the industrial
development of Denmark and Norway. For an aristocrat of the old school
he was liberally inclined, but only favoured petty reforms, especially
in agriculture, while he regarded emancipation of the serfs as quite
impracticable. Juel made no secret of his preference for absolutism, and
was one of the few patricians who accepted the title of baron. He saw
some military service during the Scanian War, distinguishing himself at
the siege of Venersborg, and by his swift decision at the critical
moment materially contributing to his brother Niels's naval victory in
the Bay of Kjoge. To his great honour he remained faithful to
Griffenfeldt after his fall, enabled his daughter to marry handsomely,
and did his utmost, though in vain, to obtain the ex-chancellor's
release from his dungeon.
See Carl Frederik Bricka, _Dansk biografisk lex._, art. "Juel" (1887,
&c.); Adolf Ditlev Jorgensen, _P. Schumacher Griffenfeldt_
(1893-1894). (R. N. B.)
JUEL, NIELS (1629-1697), Danish admiral, brother of the preceding, was
born on the 8th of May 1629, at Christiania. He served his naval
apprenticeship under Van Tromp and De Ruyter, taking part in all the
chief engagements of the war of 1652-54 between England and Holland.
During a long indisposition at Amsterdam in 1655-1656 he acquired a
thorough knowledge of ship-building, and returned to Denmark in 1656 a
thoroughly equipped seaman. He served with distinction during the
Swedo-Danish wars of 1658-60 and took a prominent part in the defence of
Copenhagen against Charles X. During fifteen years of peace, Juel, as
admiral of the fleet, laboured assiduously to develop and improve the
Danish navy, though he bitterly resented the setting over his head in
1663 of Cort Adelaar on his return from the Turkish wars. In 1661 Juel
married Margrethe Ulfeldt. On the outbreak of the Scanian War he served
at first under Adelaar, but on the death of the latter in November 1675
he was appointed to the supreme command. He then won a European
reputation, and raised Danish sea-power to unprecedented eminence, by
the system of naval tactics, afterwards perfected by Nelson, which
consists in cutting off a part of the enemy's force and concentrating
the whole attack on it. He first employed this manoeuvre at the battle
of Jasmund off Rugen (May 25, 1676) when he broke through the enemy's
line in close column and cut off five of their ships, which, however,
nightfall prevented him from pursuing. Juel's operations were
considerably hampered at this period by the overbearing conduct of his
Dutch auxiliary, Philip Almonde, who falsely accused the Danish admiral
of cowardice. A few days after the battle of Jasmund, Cornelius Van
Tromp the younger, with 17 fresh Danish and Dutch ships of the line,
superseded Juel in the supreme command. Juel took a leading part in Van
Tromp's great victory off Oland (June 1, 1676), which enabled the Danes
to invade Scania unopposed. On the 1st of June 1677 Juel defeated the
Swedish admiral Sjoblad off Moen; on the 30th of June 1677 he won his
greatest victory, in the Bay of Kjoge, where, with 25 ships of the line
and 1267 guns, he routed the Swedish admiral Evert Horn with 36 ships of
the line and 1800 guns. For this great triumph, the just reward of
superior seamanship and strategy--at an early stage of the engagement
Juel's experienced eye told him that the wind in the course of the day
would shift from S.W. to W. and he took extraordinary risks
accordingly--he was made lieutenant admiral general and a privy
councillor. This victory, besides permanently crippling the Swedish
navy, gave the Danes a self-confidence which enabled them to keep their
Dutch allies in their proper place. In the following year Van Tromp,
whose high-handedness had become unbearable, was discharged by Christian
V., who gave the supreme command to Juel. In the spring of 1678 Juel put
to sea with 84 ships carrying 2400 cannon, but as the Swedes were no
longer strong enough to encounter such a formidable armament on the open
sea, his operations were limited to blockading the Swedish ports and
transporting troops to Rugen. After the peace of Lund Juel showed
himself an administrator and reformer of the first order, and under his
energetic supervision the Danish navy ultimately reached imposing
dimensions, especially after Juel became chief of the admiralty in
1683. Personally Juel was the noblest and most amiable of men, equally
beloved and respected by his sailors, simple, straightforward and
unpretentious in all his ways. During his latter years he was popularly
known in Copenhagen as "the good old knight." He died on the 8th of
April 1697.
See Garde, _Niels Juel_ (1842), and _Den dansk. norske Somagts
Historie, 1535-1700_ (1861). (R. N. B.)
JUG, a vessel for holding liquid, usually with one handle and a lip,
made of earthenware, glass or metal. The origin of the word in this
sense is uncertain, but it is probably identical with a shortened form
of the feminine name Joan or Joanna; cf. the similar use of Jack and
Jill or Gill for a drinking-vessel or a liquor measure. It has also been
used as a common expression for a homely woman, a servant-girl, a
sweetheart, sometimes in a sense of disparagement. In slang, "jug" or
"stone-jug" is used to denote a prison; this may possibly be an
adaptation of Fr. _joug_, yoke, Lat. _jugum_. The word "jug" is probably
onomatopoeic when used to represent a particular note of the
nightingale's song, or applied locally to various small birds, as the
hedge-jug, &c.
The British Museum contains a remarkable bronze jug which was found at
Kumasi during the Ashanti Expedition of 1896. It dates from the reign of
Richard II., and is decorated in relief with the arms of England and the
badge of the king. It has a lid, spout and handle, which ends in a
quatrefoil. An inscription, on three raised bands round the body of the
vessel, modernized runs:--"He that will not spare when he may shall not
spend when he would. Deem the best in every doubt till the truth be
tried out." The _British Museum Guide to the Medieval Room_ contains an
illustration of this vessel.
A particular form of jug is the "ewer," the precursor of the ordinary
bedroom jug (an adaptation of O. Fr. _ewaire_, med. Lat. _aquaria_,
water-pitcher, from _aqua_, water). The ewer was a jug with a wide
spout, and was principally used at table for pouring water over the
hands after eating, a matter of some necessity before the introduction
of forks. Early ewers are sometimes mounted on three feet, and bear
inscriptions such as _Venez laver_. A basin of similar material and
design accompanied the ewer. In the 13th and 14th centuries a special
type of metal ewer takes the form of animals, men on horseback, &c.;
these are generally known as _aquamaniles_, from med. Lat. _aqua manile_
or _aqua manale_ (_aqua_, water, and _manare_, to trickle, pour, drip).
The British Museum contains several examples.
In the 18th and early 19th centuries were made the drinking-vessels of
pottery known as "Toby jugs," properly Toby Fillpots or Philpots. These
take the form of a stout old man, sometimes seated, with a
three-cornered hat, the corners of which act as spouts. Similar
drinking-vessels were also made representing characters popular at the
time, such as "Nelson jugs," &c.
JUGE, BOFFILLE DE (d. 1502), French-Italian adventurer and statesman,
belonged to the family of del Giudice, which came from Amalfi, and
followed the fortunes of the Angevin dynasty. When John of Anjou, duke
of Calabria, was conquered in Italy (1461) and fled to Provence,
Boffille followed him. He was given by Duke John and his father, King
Rene, the charge of upholding by force of arms their claims on
Catalonia. Louis XI., who had joined his troops to those of the princes
of Anjou, attached Boffille to his own person, made him his chamberlain
and conferred on him the vice-royalty of Roussillon and Cerdagne (1471),
together with certain important lordships, among others the countship of
Castres, confiscated from James of Armagnac, duke of Nemours (1476), and
the temporalities of the bishopric of Castres, confiscated from John of
Armagnac. He also entrusted him with diplomatic negotiations with
Flanders and England. In 1480 Boffille married Marie d'Albret, sister of
Alain the Great, thus confirming the feudal position which the king had
given him in the south. He was appointed as one of the judges in the
trial of Rene of Alencon, and showed such zeal in the discharge of his
functions that Louis XI. rewarded him by fresh gifts. However, the
bishop of Castres recovered his diocese (1483), and the heirs of the
duke of Nemours took legal proceedings for the recovery of the
countship of Castres. Boffille, with the object of escaping from his
enemies, applied for the command of the armies of the republic of
Venice. His application was refused, and he further lost the
vice-royalty of Roussillon (1491). His daughter Louise married against
his will a gentleman of no rank, and this led to terrible family
dissensions. In order to disinherit his own family, Boffille de Juge
gave up the countship of Castres to his brother-in-law, Alain d'Albret
(1494). He died in 1502.
See P. M. Perret, _Boffille de Juge, comte de Castres, et la
republique de Venise_ (1891); F. Pasquier, _Inventaire des documents
concernant Boffille de Juge_ (1905). (M. P.*)
JUGGERNAUT, a corruption of Sans. JAGANNATHA, "Lord of the World," the
name under which the Hindu god Vishnu is worshipped at Puri in Orissa.
The legend runs that the sacred blue-stone image of Jagannatha was
worshipped in the solitude of the jungle by an outcast, a Savara
mountaineer, called Basu. The king of Malwa, Indradyumna, had despatched
Brahmans to all quarters of the peninsula, and at last discovered Basu.
Thereafter the image was taken to Puri, and a temple, begun in 1174, was
completed fourteen years later at a cost of upwards of half a million
sterling. The site had been associated for centuries before and after
the Christian era with Buddhism, and the famous Car festival is probably
based on the Tooth festival of the Buddhists, of which the Chinese
pilgrim Fa-Hien gives an account. The present temple is a pyramidal
building, 192 ft. high, crowned with the mystic wheel and flag of
Vishnu. Its inner enclosure, nearly 400 ft. by 300 ft., contains a
number of small temples and shrines. The main temple has four main
rooms--the hall of offerings, the dancing hall, the audience chamber,
and the shrine itself--the two latter being each 80 ft. square. The
three principal images are those of Vishnu, his brother and his sister,
grotesque wooden figures roughly hewn. Elaborate services are daily
celebrated all the year round, the images are dressed and redressed, and
four meals a day are served to them. The attendants on the god are
divided into 36 orders and 97 classes. Special servants are assigned the
tasks of putting the god to bed, of dressing and bathing him. The annual
rent-roll of the temple was put at L68,000 by Sir W. W. Hunter; but the
pilgrims' offerings, which form the bulk of the income, are quite
unknown and have been said to reach as much as L100,000 in one year.
Ranjit Singh bequeathed the Koh-i-nor to Jagannath. There are four chief
festivals, of which the famous Car festival is the most important.
The terrible stories of pilgrims crushed to death in the god's honour
have made the phrase "Car of Juggernaut" synonymous with the merciless
sacrifice of human lives, but these have been shown to be baseless
calumnies. The worship of Vishnu is innocent of all bloody rites, and
a drop of blood even accidentally spilt in the god's presence is held
to pollute the officiating priests, the people, and the consecrated
food. The Car festival takes place in June or July, and the feature of
its celebration is the drawing of the god from the temple to his
"country-house," a distance of less than a mile. The car is 45 ft. in
height and 35 ft. square, and is supported on 16 wheels of 7 ft. in
diameter. Vishnu's brother and sister have separate cars, slightly
smaller. To these cars ropes are attached, and thousands of eager
pilgrims vie with each other to have the honour of dragging the god.
Though the distance is so short the journey lasts several days, owing
to the deep sand in which the wheels sink. During the festival serious
accidents have often happened. Sir W. W. Hunter in the _Gazetteer of
India_ writes: "In a closely packed, eager throng of a hundred
thousand men and women under the blazing tropical sun, deaths must
occasionally occur. There have doubtless been instances of pilgrims
throwing themselves under the wheels in a frenzy of religious
excitement, but such instances have always been rare, and are now
unknown. The few suicides that did occur were, for the most part,
cases of diseased and miserable objects who took this means to put
themselves out of pain. The official returns now place this beyond
doubt. Nothing could be more opposed to the spirit of Vishnu-worship
than self-immolation. Accidental death within the temple renders the
whole place unclean. According to Chaitanya, the apostle of Jagannath,
the destruction of the least of God's creatures is a sin against the
Creator."
See also Sir W. W. Hunter's _Orissa_ (1872); and _District Gazetteer
of Puri_ (1908).
JUGGLER (Lat. _joculator_, jester), in the modern sense a performer of
sleight-of-hand tricks and dexterous feats of skill in tossing balls,
plates, knives, &c. The term is practically synonymous with conjurer
(see CONJURING). The _joculatores_ were the mimes of the middle ages
(see DRAMA); the French use of the word _jongleurs_ (an erroneous form
of _jougleur_) included the singers known as _trouveres_; and the
humbler English minstrels of the same type gradually passed into the
strolling jugglers, from whose exhibitions the term came to cover
loosely any acrobatic, pantomimic and sleight-of-hand performances. In
ancient Rome various names were given to what we call jugglers, e.g.
_ventilatores_ (knife-throwers), and _pilarii_ (ball-players).
JUGURTHA (Gr. [Greek: Iogorthas]), king of Numidia, an illegitimate son
of Mastanabal, and grandson of Massinissa. After his father's death he
was brought up by his uncle Micipsa together with his cousins Adherbal
and Hiempsal. Jugurtha grew up strong, handsome and intelligent, a
skilful rider, and an adept in warlike exercises. He inherited much of
Massinissa's political ability. Micipsa, naturally afraid of him, sent
him to Spain (134 B.C.) in command of a Numidian force, to serve under
P. Cornelius Scipio Africanus Minor. He became a favourite with Scipio
and the Roman nobles, some of whom put into his head the idea of making
himself sole king of Numidia, with the help of Roman money.
In 118 B.C. Micipsa died. By his will, Jugurtha was associated with
Adherbal and Hiempsal in the government of Numidia. Scipio had written
to Micipsa a strong letter of recommendation in favour of Jugurtha; and
to Scipio, accordingly, Micipsa entrusted the execution of his will.
None the less, his testamentary arrangements utterly failed. The princes
soon quarrelled, and Jugurtha claimed the entire kingdom. Hiempsal he
contrived to have assassinated; Adherbal he quickly drove out of
Numidia. He then sent envoys to Rome to defend his usurpation on the
ground that he was the injured party. The senate decided that Numidia
was to be divided, and gave the western, the richer and more populous
half, to Jugurtha, while the sands and deserts of the eastern half were
left to Adherbal. Jugurtha's envoys appear to have found several of the
Roman nobles and senators accessible to bribery. Having secured the best
of the bargain, Jugurtha at once began to provoke Adherbal to a war of
self-defence. He completely defeated him near the modern Philippeville,
and Adherbal sought safety in the fortress of Cirta (Constantine). Here
he was besieged by Jugurtha, who, notwithstanding the interposition of a
Roman embassy, forced the place to capitulate, and treacherously
massacred all the inhabitants, among them his cousin Adherbal and a
number of Italian merchants resident in the town. There was great wrath
at Rome and throughout Italy; and the senate, a majority of which still
clung to Jugurtha, were persuaded in the same year (111) to declare war.
An army was despatched to Africa under the consul L. Calpurnius Bestia,
several of the Numidian towns voluntarily surrendered, and Bocchus, the
king of Mauretania, and Jugurtha's father-in-law, offered the Romans his
alliance. Jugurtha was alarmed, but having at his command the
accumulated treasures of Massinissa, he was successful in arranging with
the Roman general a peace which left him in possession of the whole of
Numidia. When the facts were known at Rome, the tribune Memmius insisted
that Jugurtha should appear in person and be questioned as to the
negotiations. Jugurtha appeared under a safe conduct, but he had
partisans, such as the tribune C. Baebius, who took care that his mouth
should be closed. Soon afterwards he caused his cousin Massiva, then
resident at Rome and a claimant to the throne of Numidia, to be
assassinated. The treaty was thereupon set aside, and Jugurtha was
ordered to quit Rome. On this occasion he uttered the well-known words,
"A city for sale, and doomed to perish as soon as it finds a purchaser!"
(Livy, _Epit._ 64). The war was renewed, and the consul Spurius Albinus
entrusted with the command. The Roman army in Africa was thoroughly
demoralized. An unsuccessful attempt was made on a fortified town,
Suthul, in which the royal treasures were deposited. The army was
surprised by the enemy in a night attack, and the camp was taken and
plundered. Every Roman was driven out of Numidia, and a disgraceful
peace was concluded (109).
By this time the feeling at Rome and in Italy against the corruption and
incapacity of the nobles had become so strong that a number of senators
were prosecuted and Bestia and Albinus sentenced to exile. The war was
now entrusted to Quintus Metellus, an able soldier and stern
disciplinarian, and from the year 109 to its close in 106 the contest
was carried on with credit to the Roman arms. Jugurtha was defeated on
the river Muthul, after an obstinate and skilful resistance. Once again,
however, he succeeded in surprising the Roman camp and forcing Metellus
into winter quarters. There were fresh negotiations, but Metellus
insisted on the surrender of the king's person, and this Jugurtha
refused. Numidia on the whole seemed disposed to assert its
independence, and Rome had before her the prospect of a troublesome
guerrilla war. Negotiations, reflecting little credit on the Romans,
were set on foot with Bocchus (q.v.) who for a time played fast and
loose with both parties. In 106, Marius was called on by the vote of the
Roman people to supersede Metellus, but it was through the perfidy of
Bocchus and the diplomacy of L. Cornelius Sulla, Marius's quaestor, that
the war was ended. Jugurtha fell into an ambush, and was conveyed a
prisoner to Rome. Two years afterwards, in 104, he figured with his two
sons in Marius's triumph, and in the subterranean prison beneath the
Capitol--"the bath of ice," as he called it--he was either strangled or
starved to death.
Though doubtless for a time regarded by his countrymen as their
deliverer from the yoke of Rome, Jugurtha mainly owes his historical
importance to the full and minute account of him which we have from the
hand of Sallust, himself afterwards governor of Numidia.
See A. H. J. Greenidge, _Hist. of Rome_ (1904); T. Mommsen, _Hist. of
Rome_, book iv. ch. v.; the chief ancient authorities (besides
Sallust) are Livy, _Epit._, lxii.-lxvii.; Plutarch, _Marius and
Sulla_; Velleius Paterculus, ii.; Diod. Sic., _Excerpta_, xxxiv.;
Florus, iii. 1. See also MARIUS, SULLA, NUMIDIA.
JUJU, a West African word held by some authorities to be a corruption of
Mandingo _gru-gru_, a charm. It is more generally believed to have been
adapted by the Mandingos directly from Fr. _joujou_, a toy or plaything.
The word, as used by Europeans on the Guinea coast, was originally
applied to the objects which it was supposed the negroes worshipped, and
was transferred from the objects themselves to the spirits or gods who
dwelt in them, and finally to the whole religious beliefs of the West
Africans. It is currently used in each of these senses, and more loosely
to indicate all the manners and customs of the negroes of the Guinea
coast, particularly the power of interdiction exercised in the name of
spirits (see FETISHISM and TABOO).
JUJUBE. Under this name the fruits of at least two species of _Zizyphus_
are usually described, namely, _Z. vulgaris_ and _Z. Jujuba_.[1] The
genus is a member of the natural order Anacardiaceae. The species are
small trees or shrubs, armed with sharp, straight, or hooked spines,
having alternate leaves, and fruits which are in most of the species
edible, and have an agreeable acid taste; this is especially the case
with those of the two species mentioned above.
_Z. vulgaris_ is a tree about 20 feet high, extensively cultivated in
many parts of Southern Europe, also in Western Asia, China and Japan. In
India it extends from the Punjab to the north-western frontier,
ascending in the Punjab Himalaya to a height of 6500 feet, and is found
both in the wild and cultivated state. The plant is grown almost
exclusively for the sake of its fruit, which both in size and shape
resembles a moderate-sized plum; at first the fruits are green, but as
they ripen they become of a reddish-brown colour on the outside and
yellow within. They ripen in September, when they are gathered and
preserved by storing in a dry place; after a time the pulp becomes much
softer and sweeter than when fresh. Jujube fruits when carefully dried
will keep for a long time, and retain their refreshing acid flavour, on
account of which they are much valued in the countries of the
Mediterranean region as a winter dessert fruit; and, besides, they are
nutritive and demulcent. At one time a decoction was prepared from them
and recommended in pectoral complaints. A kind of thick paste, known as
jujube paste, was also made of a composition of gum arabic and sugar
dissolved in a decoction of jujube fruit evaporated to the proper
consistency.
_Z. Jujuba_ is a tree averaging from 30 to 50 ft. high, found both wild
and cultivated in China, the Malay Archipelago, Ceylon, India, tropical
Africa and Australia. Many varieties are cultivated by the Chinese, who
distinguish them by the shape and size of their fruits, which are not
only much valued as dessert fruit in China, but are also occasionally
exported to England.
As seen in commerce jujube fruits are about the size of a small filbert,
having a reddish-brown, shining, somewhat wrinkled exterior, and a
yellow or gingerbread coloured pulp enclosing a hard elongated stone.
The fruits of _Zizyphus_ do not enter into the composition of the
lozenges now known as jujubes which are usually made of gum-arabic,
gelatin, &c., and variously flavoured.
FOOTNOTE:
[1] The med. Lat. _jujuba_ is a much altered form of the Gr. [Greek:
zizuphon]
JU-JUTSU or JIU-JITSU (a Chino-Japanese term, meaning muscle-science),
the Japanese method of offence and defence without weapons in personal
encounter, upon which is founded the system of physical culture
universal in Japan. Some historians assert that it was founded by a
Japanese physician who learned its rudiments while studying in China,
but most writers maintain that ju-jutsu was in common use in Japan
centuries earlier, and that it was known in the 7th century B.C.
Originally it was an art practised solely by the nobility, and
particularly by the samurai who, possessing the right, denied to
commoners, of carrying swords, were thus enabled to show their
superiority over common people even when without weapons. It was a
secret art, jealously guarded from those not privileged to use it, until
the feudal system was abandoned in Japan, and now ju-jutsu is taught in
the schools, as well as in public and private gymnasia. In the army,
navy and police it receives particular attention. About the beginning of
the 20th century, masters of the art began to attract attention in
Europe and America, and schools were established in Great Britain and
the United States, as well as on the continent of Europe.
Ju-jutsu may be briefly defined as "an application of anatomical
knowledge to the purpose of offence and defence. It differs from
wrestling in that it does not depend upon muscular strength. It differs
from the other forms of attack in that it uses no weapon. Its feat
consists in clutching or striking such part of an enemy's body as will
make him numb and incapable of resistance. Its object is not to kill,
but to incapacitate one for action for the time being" (Inazo Nitobe,
_Bushido: the Soul of Japan_).
Many writers translate the term ju-jutsu "to conquer by yielding" (Jap.
_ju_, pliant), and this phrase well expresses a salient characteristic
of the art, since the weight and strength of the opponent are employed
to his own undoing. When, for example, a big man rushes at a smaller
opponent, the smaller man, instead of seeking to oppose strength to
strength, falls backwards or sidewise, pulling his heavy adversary after
him and taking advantage of his loss of balance to gain some lock or
hold known to the science. This element of yielding in order to conquer
is thus referred to in Lafcadio Hearn's _Out of the East_: "In jiu-jitsu
there is a sort of counter for every twist, wrench, pull, push or bend:
only the jiu-jitsu expert does not oppose such movements. No; he yields
to them. But he does much more than that. He aids them with a wicked
sleight that causes the assailant to put out his own shoulder, to
fracture his own arm, or, in a desperate case, even to break his own
neck or back."
The knowledge of anatomy mentioned by Nitobe is acquired in order that
the combatant may know the weak parts of his adversary's body and attack
them. Several of these sensitive places, for instance the partially
exposed nerve in the elbow popularly known as the "funny-bone" and the
complex of nerves over the stomach called the solar plexus, are familiar
to the European, but the ju-jutsu expert is acquainted with many others
which, when compressed, struck, or pinched, cause temporary paralysis of
a more or less complete nature. Such places are the arm-pit, the ankle
and wrist bones, the tendon running downward from the ear, the "Adam's
apple," and the nerves of the upper arm. In serious fighting almost any
hold or attack is resorted to, and a broken or badly sprained limb is
the least that can befall the victim; but in the practice of the art as
a means of physical culture the knowledge of the different grips is
assumed on both sides, as well as the danger of resisting too long. For
this reason the combatant, when he feels himself on the point of being
disabled, is instructed to signal his acknowledgment of defeat by
striking the floor with hand or foot. The bout then ends and both
combatants rise and begin afresh. It will be seen that a victory in
ju-jutsu does not mean that the opponent shall be placed in some
particular position, as in wrestling, but in any position in which his
judgment or knowledge tells him that, unless he yields, he will suffer a
disabling injury. This difference existed between the wrestling and the
_pancratium_ of the Olympic games. In the _pancratium_ the fight went on
until one combatant acknowledged defeat, but, although many a man
allowed himself to be beaten into insensibility rather than suffer this
humiliation, it was nevertheless held to be a disgrace to kill an
opponent.
A modern bout at ju-jutsu usually begins by the combatants taking hold
with both hands upon the collars of each other's jackets or kimonos,
after which, upon the word to start being given, the manoeuvring for an
advantageous grip begins by pushes, pulls, jerks, falls, grips or other
movements. Once the wrist, ankle, neck, arm or leg of an assailant is
firmly grasped so that added force will dislocate it, there is nothing
for the seized man to do, in case he is still on his feet, but go to the
floor, often being thrown clean over his opponent's head. A fall of this
kind does not necessarily mean defeat, for the struggle proceeds upon
the floor, where indeed most of the combat takes place, and the ju-jutsu
expert receives a long training in the art of falling without injury.
Blows are delivered, not with the fist, but with the open hand, the
exterior edge of which is hardened by exercises.
The physical training necessary to produce expertness is the most
valuable feature of ju-jutsu. The system includes a light and nourishing
diet, plenty of sleep, deep-breathing exercises, an abundance of fresh
air and general moderation in habits, in addition to the actual
gymnastic exercises for the purpose of muscle-building and the
cultivation of agility of eye and mind as well as of body. It is
practised by both sexes in Japan.
Many attempts have been made in England and America to match ju-jutsu
experts against wrestlers, mostly of the "catch-as-catch can" school,
but these trials have, almost without exception, proved unsatisfactory,
since many of the most efficacious tricks of ju-jutsu, such as the
strangle holds and twists of wrists and ankles, are accounted foul in
wrestling. Nevertheless the Japanese athletes, even when obliged to
forgo these, have usually proved more than a match for European
wrestlers of their own weight.
See H. Irving Hancock's _Japanese Physical Training_ (1904); _Physical
Training for Women by Japanese Methods_ (1904); _The Complete Kano
Jiu-jitsu_ (_Jiudo_) (1905); M. Ohashi, _Japanese Physical Culture_
(1904); K. Saito, _Jiu-jitsu Tricks_ (1905).
JUJUY, a northern province of the Argentine Republic, bounded N. and
N.W. by Bolivia, N.E., E., S. and S.W. by Salta, and W. by the Los Andes
territory. Pop. (1895), 49,713; (1905, estimate), 55,450, including many
mestizos. Area, 18,977 sq. m., the greater part being mountainous. The
province is traversed from N. to S. by three distinct ranges belonging
to the great central Andean plateau: the Sierra de Santa Catalina, the
Sierra de Humahuaca, and the Sierras de Zenta and Santa Victoria. In the
S.E. angle of the province are the low, isolated ranges of Alumbre and
Santa Barbara. Between the more eastern of these ranges are valleys of
surpassing fertility, watered by the Rio Grande de Jujuy, a large
tributary of the Bermejo. The western part, however, is a high plateau
(parts of which are 11,500 ft. above sea-level), whose general
characteristics are those of the _puna_ regions farther west. The
surface of this high plateau is broken, semi-arid and desolate, having a
very scanty population and no important industry beyond the breeding of
a few goats and the fur-bearing chinchilla. There are two large saline
lagoons: Toro, or Pozuelos, in the N., and Casabindo, or Guayatayoc, in
the S. The climate is cool, dry and healthy, with violent tempests in
the summer season. (For a vivid description of this interesting region,
see F. O'Driscoll, "A Journey to the North of the Argentine Republic,"
_Geogr. Jour._ xxiv. 1904.) The agricultural productions of Jujuy
include sugar cane, wheat, Indian corn, alfalfa and grapes. The breeding
of cattle and mules for the Bolivian and Chilean markets is an old
industry. Coffee has been grown in the department of Ledesma, but only
to a limited extent. There are also valuable forest areas and
undeveloped mineral deposits. Large borax deposits are worked in the
northern part of the province, the output in 1901 having been 8000 tons.
The province is traversed from S. to N. by the Central Northern railway,
a national government line, which has been extended to the Bolivian
frontier. It passes through the capital and up the picturesque Humahuaca
valley, and promises, under capable management, to be an important
international line, affording an outlet for southern Bolivia. The
climate of the lower agricultural districts is tropical, and irrigation
is employed in some places in the long dry season.
The capital, Jujuy (estimated pop. 1905, 5000), is situated on the Rio
Grande at the lower end of the Humahuaca valley, 942 m. from Buenos
Aires by rail. It was founded in 1593 and is 4035 ft. above sea-level.
It has a mild, temperate climate and picturesque natural surroundings,
and is situated on the old route between Bolivia and Tucuman, but its
growth has been slow.
JUKES, JOSEPH BEETE (1811-1869), English geologist, was born at Summer
Hill, near Birmingham, on the 10th of October 1811. He took his degree
at Cambridge in 1836. He began the study of geology under Sedgwick, and
in 1839 was appointed geological surveyor of Newfoundland. He returned
to England at the end of 1840, and in 1842 sailed as naturalist on board
H.M.S. "Fly," despatched to survey Torres Strait, New Guinea, and the
east coast of Australia. Jukes landed in England again in June 1846, and
in August received an appointment on the geological survey of Great
Britain. The district to which he was first sent was North Wales. In
1847 he commenced the survey of the South Staffordshire coal-field and
continued this work during successive years after the close of
field-work in Wales. The results were published in his _Geology of the
South Staffordshire Coal-field_ (1853; 2nd ed. 1859), a work remarkable
for its accuracy and philosophic treatment. In 1850 he accepted the post
of local director of the geological survey of Ireland. The exhausting
nature of this work slowly but surely wore out even his robust
constitution and on the 29th of July 1869 he died. For many years he
lectured as professor of geology, first at the Royal Dublin Society's
Museum of Irish Industry, and afterwards at the Royal College of Science
in Dublin. He was an admirable teacher, and his _Student's Manual_ was
the favoured textbook of British students for many years. During his
residence in Ireland he wrote an article "On the Mode of Formation of
some of the River-valleys in the South of Ireland" (_Quarterly Journ.
Geol. Soc._ 1862), and in this now classic essay he first clearly
sketched the origin and development of rivers. In later years he devoted
much attention to the relations between the Devonian system and the
Carboniferous rocks and Old Red Sandstone.
Jukes wrote many papers that were printed in the London and Dublin
geological journals and other periodicals. He edited, and in great
measure wrote, forty-two memoirs explanatory of the maps of the south,
east and west of Ireland, and prepared a geological map of Ireland on
a scale of 8 m. to an inch. He was also the author of _Excursions in
and about Newfoundland_ (2 vols., 1842); _Narrative of the Surveying
Voyage of H. M. S. "Fly"_ (2 vols., 1847); _A Sketch of the Physical
Structure of Australia_ (1850); _Popular Physical Geology_ (1853);
_Student's Manual of Geology_ (1857; 2nd ed. 1862; a later edition was
revised by A. Geikie, 1872); the article "Geology" in the _Ency.
Brit._ 8th ed. (1858) and _School Manual of Geology_ (1863). See
_Letters, &c., of J. Beete Jukes, edited, with Connecting Memorial
Notes, by his Sister_ (C. A. Browne) (1871), to which is added a
chronological list of Jukes's writings.
JULIAN (FLAVIUS CLAUDIUS JULIANUS) (331-363), commonly called JULIAN THE
APOSTATE, Roman emperor, was born in Constantinople in 331,[1] the son
of Julius Constantius and his wife Basilina, and nephew of Constantine
the Great. He was thus a member of the dynasty under whose auspices
Christianity became the established religion of Rome. The name Flavius
he inherited from his paternal grandfather Constantius Chlorus; Julianus
came from his maternal grandfather; Claudius had been assumed by
Constantine's family in order to assert a connexion with Claudius
Gothicus.
Julian lost his mother not many months after he was born. He was only
six when his imperial uncle died; and one of his earliest memories must
have been the fearful massacre of his father and kinsfolk, in the
interest and more or less at the instigation of the sons of Constantine.
Only Julian and his elder half-brother Gallus were spared, Gallus being
too ill and Julian too young to excite the fear or justify the cruelty
of the murderers. Gallus was banished, but Julian was allowed to remain
in Constantinople, where he was carefully educated under the supervision
of the family eunuch Mardonius, and of Eusebius, bishop of Nicomedia.
About 344 Gallus was recalled, and the two brothers were removed to
Macellum, a remote and lonely castle in Cappadocia. Julian was trained
to the profession of the Christian religion; but he became early
attracted to the old faith, or rather to the idealized amalgam of
paganism and philosophy which was current among his teachers, the
rhetoricians. Cut off from all sympathy with the reigning belief by the
terrible fate of his family, and with no prospect of a public career, he
turned with all the eagerness of an enthusiastic temperament to the
literary and philosophic studies of the time. The old Hellenic world had
an irresistible attraction for him. Love for its culture was in Julian's
mind intimately associated with loyalty to its religion.
In the meantime the course of events had left as sole autocrat of the
Roman Empire his cousin Constantius, who, feeling himself unequal to the
enormous task, called Julian's brother Gallus to a share of power, and
in March 351 appointed him Caesar. At the same time Julian was permitted
to return to Constantinople, where he studied grammar under Nicocles and
rhetoric under the Christian sophist Hecebolius. After a short stay in
the capital Julian was ordered to remove to Nicomedia, where he made the
acquaintance of some of the most eminent rhetoricians of the time, and
became confirmed in his secret devotion to the pagan faith. He promised
not to attend the lectures of Libanius, but bought and read them. But
his definite conversion to paganism was attributed to the neo-platonist
Maximus of Ephesus, who may have visited him at Nicomedia. The downfall
of Gallus (354), who had been appointed governor of the East, again
exposed Julian to the greatest danger. By his rash and headstrong
conduct Gallus had incurred the enmity of Constantius and the eunuchs,
his confidential ministers, and was put to death. Julian fell under a
like suspicion, and narrowly escaped the same fate. For some months he
was confined at Milan (_Mediolanum_) till at the intercession of the
empress Eusebia, who always felt kindly towards him, permission was
given him to retire to a small property in Bithynia. While he was on his
way, Constantius recalled him, but allowed--or rather ordered--him to
take up his residence at Athens. The few months he spent there
(July-October 355) were probably the happiest of his life.
The emperor Constantius and Julian were now the sole surviving male
members of the family of Constantine; and, as the emperor again felt
himself oppressed by the cares of government, there was no alternative
but to call Julian to his assistance. At the instance of the empress he
was summoned to Milan, where Constantius bestowed upon him the hand of
his sister Helena, together with the title of Caesar and the government
of Gaul.
A task of extreme difficulty awaited him beyond the Alps. During recent
troubles the Alamanni and other German tribes had crossed the Rhine;
they had burned many flourishing cities, and extended their ravages far
into the interior of Gaul. The internal government of the province had
also fallen into great confusion. In spite of his inexperience, Julian
quickly brought affairs into order. He completely overthrew the Alamanni
in the great battle of Strassburg (August 357). The Frankish tribes
which had settled on the western bank of the lower Rhine were reduced to
submission. In Gaul he rebuilt the cities which had been laid waste,
re-established the administration on a just and secure footing, and as
far as possible lightened the taxes, which weighed so heavily on the
poor provincials. Paris was the usual residence of Julian during his
government of Gaul, and his name has become inseparably associated with
the early history of the city.
Julian's reputation was now established. He was general of a victorious
army enthusiastically attached to him and governor of a province which
he had saved from ruin; but he had also become an object of fear and
jealousy at the imperial court. Constantius accordingly resolved to
weaken his power. A threatened invasion of the Persians was made an
excuse for withdrawing some of the best legions from the Gallic army.
Julian recognized the covert purpose of this, yet proceeded to fulfil
the commands of the emperor. A sudden movement of the legions themselves
decided otherwise. At Paris, on the night of the parting banquet, they
forced their way into Julian's tent, and, proclaiming him emperor,
offered him the alternative either of accepting the lofty title or of an
instant death. Julian accepted the empire, and sent an embassy with a
deferential message to Constantius. The message being contemptuously
disregarded, both sides prepared for a decisive struggle. After a march
of unexampled rapidity through the Black Forest and down the Danube,
Julian reached Sirmium, and was on the way to Constantinople, when he
received news of the death of Constantius, who had set out from Syria to
meet him, at Mopsucrene in Cilicia (Nov. 3, 361). Without further
trouble Julian found himself everywhere acknowledged the sole ruler of
the Roman Empire; it is even asserted that Constantius himself on his
death-bed had designated him his successor. Julian entered
Constantinople on the 11th of December 361.
Julian had already made a public avowal of paganism, of which he had
been a secret adherent from the age of twenty. It was no ordinary
profession, but the expression of a strong and even enthusiastic
conviction; the restoration of the pagan worship was to be the great aim
and controlling principle of his government. His reign was too short to
show what precise form the pagan revival might ultimately have taken,
how far his feelings might have become embittered by his conflict with
the Christian faith, whether persecution, violence and civil war might
not have taken the place of the moral suasion which was the method he
originally affected. He issued an edict of universal toleration; but in
many respects he used his imperial influence unfairly to advance the
work of restoration. In order to deprive the Christians of the
advantages of culture, and discredit them as an ignorant sect, he
forbade them to teach rhetoric. The symbols of paganism and of the
imperial dignity were so artfully interwoven on the standards of the
legions that they could not pay the usual homage to the emperor without
seeming to offer worship to the gods; and, when the soldiers came
forward to receive the customary donative, they were required to throw a
handful of incense on the altar. Without directly excluding Christians
from the high offices of state, he held that the worshippers of the gods
ought to have the preference. In short, though there was no direct
persecution, he exerted much more than a moral pressure to restore the
power and prestige of the old faith.
Having spent the winter of 361-362 at Constantinople, Julian proceeded
to Antioch to prepare for his great expedition against Persia. His stay
there was a curious episode in his life. It is doubtful whether his
pagan convictions or his ascetic life, after the fashion of an antique
philosopher, gave most offence to the so-called Christians of the
dissolute city. They soon grew heartily tired of each other, and Julian
took up his winter quarters at Tarsus, from which in early spring he
marched against Persia. At the head of a powerful and well-appointed
army he advanced through Mesopotamia and Assyria as far as Ctesiphon,
near which he crossed the Tigris, in face of a Persian army which he
defeated. Misled by the treacherous advice of a Persian nobleman, he
desisted from the siege, and set out to seek the main army of the enemy
under Shapur II. (q.v.). After a long, useless march he was forced to
retreat, and found himself enveloped by the whole Persian army, in a
waterless and desolate country, at the hottest season of the year. The
Romans repulsed the enemy in many an obstinate battle, but on the 26th
of June 363 Julian, who was ever in the front, was mortally wounded. The
same night he died in his tent. In the most authentic historian of his
reign, Ammianus Marcellinus, we find a noble speech, which he is said to
have addressed to his afflicted officers. Soon after his death the
rumour spread that the fatal wound had been inflicted by a Christian in
the Roman army. The well-known statement, first found in Theodoret (fl.
5th century), that Julian threw his blood towards heaven, exclaiming,
"Thou hast conquered, O Galilean!" is probably a development of the
account of his death in the poems of Ephraem Syrus.
From Julian's unique position as the last champion of a dying
polytheism, his character has always excited interest. Authors such as
Gregory of Nazianzus have heaped the fiercest anathemas upon him; but a
just and sympathetic criticism finds many noble qualities in his
character. In childhood and youth he had learned to regard Christianity
as a persecuting force. The only sympathetic friends he met were among
the pagan rhetoricians and philosophers; and he found a suitable outlet
for his restless and inquiring mind only in the studies of ancient
Greece. In this way he was attracted to the old paganism; but it was a
paganism idealized by the philosophy of the time.
In other respects Julian was no unworthy successor of the Antonines.
Though brought up in a studious and pedantic solitude, he was no sooner
called to the government of Gaul than he displayed all the energy, the
hardihood and the practical sagacity of an old Roman. In temperance,
self-control and zeal for the public good, as he understood it, he was
unsurpassed. To these Roman qualities he added the culture, literary
instincts and speculative curiosity of a Greek. One of the most
remarkable features of his public life was the perfect ease and mastery
with which he associated the cares of war and statesmanship with the
assiduous cultivation of literature and philosophy. Yet even his
devotion to culture was not free from pedantry and dilettantism. His
contemporaries observed in him a want of naturalness. He had not the
moral health or the composed and reticent manhood of a Roman, or the
spontaneity of a Greek. He was never at rest; in the rapid torrent of
his conversation he was apt to run himself out of breath; his manner was
jerky and spasmodic. He showed quite a deferential regard for the
sophists and rhetoricians of the time, and advanced them to high offices
of state; there was real cause for fear that he would introduce the
government of pedants in the Roman empire. Last of all, his love for the
old philosophy was sadly disfigured by his devotion to the old
superstitions. He was greatly given to divination; he was noted for the
number of his sacrificial victims. Wits applied to him the joke that had
been passed on Marcus Aurelius: "The white cattle to Marcus Caesar,
greeting. If you conquer, there is an end of us."
BIBLIOGRAPHY.--The works of Julian, of which there are complete
editions by E. Spanheim (Leipzig, 1696) and F. C. Hertlein (Teubner
series, 1875-1876), consist of the following: (1) _Letters_, of which
more than eighty have been preserved under his name, although the
genuineness of several has been disputed. For his views on religious
toleration and his attitude towards Christians and Jews the most
important are 25-27, 51, 52, and the fragment in Hertlein, i. 371. The
letter of Gallus to Julian, warning him against reverting to
heathenism, is probably a Christian forgery. Six new letters were
discovered in 1884 by A. Papadopulos Kerameus in a monastery on the
island of Chalcis near Constantinople (see _Rheinisches Museum_,
xlii., 1887). Separate edition of the letters by L. H. Heyler (1828);
see also J. Bidez and F. Cumont, "Recherches sur la tradition MS. des
lettres de l'empereur Julian" in _Memoires couronnes ... publies par
l'Acad. royale de Belgique_, lvii. (1898) and F. Cumont, _Sur
l'authenticite de quelques lettres de Julien_ (1889). (2) _Orations_,
eight in number--two panegyrics on Constantius, one on the empress
Eusebia, two theosophical declamations on King Helios and the Mother
of the Gods, two essays on true and false cynicism, and a consolatory
address to himself on the departure of his friend Salustius to the
East. (3) _Caesares or Symposium_, a satirical composition after the
manner of Seneca's _Apocolocyntosis_, in which the deified Caesars
appear in succession at a banquet given in Olympus, to be censured for
their vices and crimes by old Silenus. (4) _Misopogon_ (the
beard-hater), written at Antioch, a satire on the licentiousness of
its inhabitants; while at the same time his own person and manner of
life are treated in a whimsical spirit. It also contains a charming
description of Lutetia (Paris). It owes its name to the ridicule
heaped upon his beard by the Antiocheans, who were in the habit of
shaving. (5) Five epigrams, two of which (_Anth. Pal._, ix. 365, 368)
are of some interest. (6) [Greek: Kara Christianon] (_Adversus
Christianos_) in three books, an attack on Christianity written during
the Persian campaign, is lost. Theodosius II. ordered all copies of it
to be destroyed, and our knowledge of its contents is derived almost
entirely from the _Contra Julianum_ of Cyril, bishop of Alexandria,
written sixty years later (see _Juliani librorum contra Christianos
quae supersunt_, ed. C. J. Neumann 1880). _English Translations_:
Select works by J. Duncombe (1784) containing all except the first
seven orations (viii. and the fable from vii. are included): the
theosophical addresses to King Helios and the Mother of the Gods by
Thomas Taylor (1793) and C. W. King in Bohn's _Classical Library_
(1888); the public letters, by E. J. Chinnock (1901).
AUTHORITIES.--1. _Ancient_: (a) Pagan writers. Of these the most
trustworthy and impartial is the historian Ammianus Marcellinus (xv.
8-xxv.), a contemporary and in part an eye-witness of the events he
describes (other historians are Zosimus and Eutropius); the sophist
Libanius, who in speaking of his imperial friend shows himself
creditably free from exaggeration and servility; Eunapius (in his
lives of Maximus, Oribasius, the physician and friend of Julian, and
Prohaeresius) and Claudius Mamertinus, the panegyrist, are less
trustworthy. (b) Christian writers. Gregory of Nazianzus, the author
of two violent invectives against Julian; Rufinus; Socrates; Sozomen;
Theodoret; Philostorgius; the poems of Ephraem Syrus written in 363;
Zonaras; Cedrenus; and later Byzantine chronographers. The impression
which Julian produced on the Christians of the East is reflected in
two Syriac romances published by J. G. E. Hoffmann, _Julianos der
Abtrunnige_ (1880; see also Th. Noldeke in _Zeitschrift der deutschen
morgenlandischen Gesellschaft_ [1874], xxviii. 263).
2. _Modern._ For works before 1878 see R. Engelmann, _Scriptores
Graeci_ (8th ed., by E. Preuss, 1880). Of later works the most
important are G. H. Rendall, _The Emperor Julian, Paganism and
Christianity_ (1879); Alice Gardner, _Julian, Philosopher and Emperor_
(1895); G. Negri, _Julian the Apostate_ (Eng. trans., 1905); E.
Muller, _Kaiser Flavius Claudius Julianus_ (1901); P. Allard, _Julien
l'apostat_ (1900-1903); G. Mau, _Die Religionsphilosophie Kaiser
Julians in seinen Reden auf Konig Helios und die Gottermutter_ (1907);
J. E. Sandys, _Hist. of Classical Scholarship_ (1906), p. 356; W.
Christ, _Geschichte der griechischen Litteratur_ (1898), S 603; J.
Geffcken, "Kaiser Julianus und die Streitschriften seiner Gegner," in
_Neue Jahrb. f. das klassische Altertum_ (1908), pp. 161-195. The
sketch by Gibbon (_Decline and Fall_, chs. xix., xxii.-xxiv.) and the
articles by J. Wordsworth in Smith's _Dictionary of Christian
Biography_ and A. Harnack in Herzog-Hauck's _Realencyklopadie fur
protestantische Theologie_ ix. (1901) are valuable, the last
especially for the bibliography. (T. K.; J. H. F.)
FOOTNOTE:
[1] For the date of Julian's birth see Gibbon's _Decline and Fall_
(ed. Bury), ii. 247, note 11. The choice seems to lie between May 331
and May 332. If the former be adopted, Julian must have died in the
thirty-third, not the thirty-second, year of his age (as stated in
Ammianus Marcellinus, xxv. 3, 23).
JULICH (Fr. _Juliers_), a town of Germany, in the Prussian Rhine
province, on the right bank of the Roer, 16 m. N.E. of Aix-la-Chapelle.
Pop. (1900), 5459. It contains an Evangelical and two Roman Catholic
churches, a gymnasium, a school for non-commissioned officers, which
occupies the former ducal palace, and a museum of local antiquities. Its
manufactures include sugar, leather and paper. Julich (formerly also
Gulch, Guliche) the capital of the former duchy of that name, is the
Juliacum of the _Antonini Itinerarium_; some have attributed its origin
to Julius Caesar. It became a fortress in the 17th century, and was
captured by the archduke Leopold in 1609, by the Dutch under Maurice of
Orange in 1610, and by the Spaniards in 1622. In 1794 it was taken by
the French, who held it until the peace of Paris in 1814. Till 1860,
when its works were demolished, Julich ranked as a fortress of the
second class.
JULICH, or JULIERS, DUCHY OF. In the 9th century a certain Matfried was
count of Julich (pagus Juliacensis), and towards the end of the 11th
century one Gerhard held this dignity. This Gerhard founded a family of
hereditary counts, who held Julich as immediate vassals of the emperor,
and in 1356 the county was raised to the rank of a duchy. The older and
reigning branch of the family died in 1423, when Julich passed to
Adolph, duke of Berg (d. 1437), who belonged to a younger branch, and
who had obtained Berg by virtue of the marriage of one of his
ancestors. Nearly a century later Mary (d. 1543) the heiress of these
two duchies, married John, the heir of the duchy of Cleves, and in 1521
the three duchies, Julich, Berg and Cleves, together with the counties
of Ravensberg and La Marck, were united under John's sway. John died in
1539 and was succeeded by his son William who reigned until 1592.
At the beginning of the 17th century the duchies became very prominent
in European politics. The reigning duke, John William, was childless and
insane, and several princes were only waiting for his demise in order to
seize his lands. The most prominent of these princes were two Protestant
princes, Philip Louis, count palatine of Neuburg, who was married to the
duke's sister Anna, and John Sigismund, elector of Brandenburg, whose
wife was the daughter of another sister. Two other sisters were married
to princes of minor importance. Moreover, by virtue of an imperial
promise made in 1485 and renewed in 1495, the elector of Saxony claimed
the duchies of Julich and Berg, while the proximity of the coveted lands
to the Netherlands made their fate a matter of great moment to the
Dutch. When it is remembered that at this time there was a great deal of
tension between the Roman Catholics and the Protestants, who were fairly
evenly matched in the duchies, and that the rivalry between France and
the Empire was very keen, it will be seen that the situation lacked no
element of discord. In March 1609 Duke John William died. Having assured
themselves of the support of Henry IV. of France and of the Evangelical
Union, Brandenburg and Neuburg at once occupied the duchies. To counter
this stroke and to support the Saxon claim, the emperor Rudolph II.
ordered some imperialist and Spanish troops to seize the disputed lands,
and it was probably only the murder of Henry IV. in May 1610 and the
death of the head of the Evangelical Union, the elector palatine,
Frederick IV., in the following September, which prevented, or rather
delayed, a great European war. About this time the emperor adjudged the
duchies to Saxony, while the Dutch captured the fortress of Julich; but
for all practical purposes victory remained with the "possessing
princes," as Brandenburg and Neuburg were called, who continued to
occupy and to administer the lands. These two princes had made a compact
at Dortmund in 1609 to act together in defence of their rights, but
proposals for a marriage alliance between the two houses broke down and
differences soon arose between them. The next important step was the
timely conversion of the count palatine's heir, Wolfgang William of
Neuburg, to Roman Catholicism, and his marriage with a daughter of the
powerful Roman Catholic prince, Duke Maximilian of Bavaria. The rupture
between the possessing princes was now complete. Each invited foreign
aid. Dutch troops marched to assist the elector of Brandenburg and
Spanish ones came to aid the count palatine, but through the
intervention of England and France peace was made and the treaty of
Xanten was signed in November 1614. By this arrangement Brandenburg
obtained Julich and Berg, the rest of the lands falling to the count
palatine. In 1666 the great elector, Frederick William of Brandenburg,
made with William, count palatine of Neuburg, a treaty of mutual
succession to the duchies, providing that in case the male line of
either house became extinct the other should inherit its lands.
The succession to the duchy of Julich was again a matter of interest in
the earlier part of the 18th century. The family of the counts palatine
of Neuburg was threatened with extinction and the emperor Charles VI.
promised the succession to Julich to the Prussian king, Frederick
William I., in return for a guarantee of the pragmatic sanction. A
little later, however, he promised the same duchy to the count palatine
of Sulzbach, a kinsman of the count palatine of Neuburg. Then Frederick
the Great, having secured Silesia, abandoned his claim to Julich, which
thus passed to Sulzbach when, in 1742, the family of Neuburg became
extinct. From Sulzbach the duchy came to the electors palatine of the
Rhine, and, when this family died out in 1799, to the elector of
Bavaria, the head of the other branch of the house of Wittelsbach. In
1801 Julich was seized by France, and by the settlement of 1815 it came
into the hands of Prussia. Its area was just over 1600 sq. m. and its
population about 400,000.
See Kuhl, _Geschichte der Stadt Julich_; M. Ritter, _Sachsen und der
Julicher Erbfolgestreit_ (1873), and _Der Julicher Erbfolgekrieg, 1610
und 1611_ (1877); A. Muller, _Der Julich-Klevesche Erbfolgestreit im
Jahre 1614_ (1900) and H. H. Koch, _Die Reformation im Herzogtum
Julich_ (1883-1888).
JULIEN, STANISLAS (1797?-1873), French orientalist, was born at Orleans,
probably on the 13th of April 1797. Stanislas Julien, a mechanic of
Orleans, had two sons, Noel, born on the 13th of April 1797, and
Stanislas, born on the 20th of September 1799. It appears that the
younger son died in America, and that Noel then adopted his brother's
name. He studied classics at the college de France, and in 1821 was
appointed assistant professor of Greek. In the same year he published an
edition of the [Greek: Helenes harpage] of Coluthus, with versions in
French, Latin, English, German, Italian and Spanish. He attended the
lectures of Abel Remusat on Chinese, and his progress was as rapid as it
had been in other languages. From the first, as if by intuition, he
mastered the genius of the language; and in 1824 he published a Latin
translation of a part of the works of Mencius (Mang-tse), one of the
nine classical books of the Chinese. Soon afterwards he translated the
modern Greek odes of Kalvos under the title of _La Lyre patriotique de
la Grece_. But such works were not profitable in a commercial sense,
and, being without any patrimony, Julien was glad to accept the
assistance of Sir William Drummond and others, until in 1827 he was
appointed sublibrarian to the French institute. In 1832 he succeeded
Remusat as professor of Chinese at the college de France. In 1833 he was
elected a member of the Academie des Inscriptions in the place of the
orientalist, Antoine Jean Saint-Martin. For some years his studies had
been directed towards the dramatic and lighter literature of the
Chinese, and in rapid succession he now brought out translations of the
_Hoei-lan-ki_ (_L'Histoire du cercle de craie_), a drama in which occurs
a scene curiously analogous to the judgment of Solomon; the _Pih shay
tsing ki_; and the _Tchao-chi kou eul_, upon which Voltaire had founded
his _Orphelin de la Chine_ (1755). With the versatility which belonged
to his genius, he next turned, apparently without difficulty, to the
very different style common to Taoist writings, and translated in 1835
_Le Livre des recompenses et des peines_ of Lao-tsze. About this time
the cultivation of silkworms was beginning to attract attention in
France, and by order of the minister of agriculture Julien compiled, in
1837, a _Resume des principaux traites chinois sur la culture des
muriers, et l'education des vers-a-soie_, which was speedily translated
into English, German, Italian and Russian.
Nothing was more characteristic of his method of studying Chinese than
his habit of collecting every peculiarity of idiom and expression which
he met with in his reading; and, in order that others might reap the
benefit of his experiences, he published in 1841 _Discussions
grammaticales sur certaines regles de position qui, en chinois, jouent
le meme role que les inflexions dans les autres langues_, which he
followed in 1842 by _Exercices pratiques d'analyse, de syntaxe, et de
lexigraphie chinoise_. Meanwhile in 1839, he had been appointed joint
keeper of the Bibliotheque royale, with the especial superintendence of
the Chinese books, and shortly afterwards he was made administrator of
the college de France.
The facility with which he had learned Chinese, and the success which
his proficiency commanded, naturally inclined less gifted scholars to
resent the impatience with which he regarded their mistakes, and at
different times bitter controversies arose between Julien and his fellow
sinologues on the one subject which they had in common. In 1842 appeared
from his busy pen a translation of the _Tao te King_, the celebrated
work in which Lao-tsze attempted to explain his idea of the relation
existing between the universe and something which he called _Tao_, and
on which the religion of Taoism is based. From Taoism to Buddhism was a
natural transition, and about this time Julien turned his attention to
the Buddhist literature of China, and more especially to the travels of
Buddhist pilgrims to India. In order that he might better understand the
references to Indian institutions, and the transcriptions in Chinese of
Sanskrit words and proper names, he began the study of Sanskrit, and in
1853 brought out his _Voyages du pelerin Hiouen-tsang_, which is
regarded by some critics as his most valuable work. Six years later he
published _Les Avadanas, contes et apologues Indiens inconnus jusqu'a ce
jour, suivis de poesies et de nouvelles chinoises_. For the benefit of
future students he disclosed his system of deciphering Sanskrit words
occurring in Chinese books in his _Methode pour dechiffrer et transcrire
les noms sanscrits qui se rencontrent dans les livres chinois_ (1861).
This work, which contains much of interest and importance, falls short
of the value which its author was accustomed to attach to it. It had
escaped his observation that, since the translations of Sanskrit works
into Chinese were undertaken in different parts of the empire, the same
Sanskrit words were of necessity differently represented in Chinese
characters in accordance with the dialectical variations. No hard and
fast rule can therefore possibly be laid down for the decipherment of
Chinese transcriptions of Sanskrit words, and the effect of this
impossibility was felt though not recognized by Julien, who in order to
make good his rule was occasionally obliged to suppose that wrong
characters had by mistake been introduced into the texts. His Indian
studies led to a controversy with Joseph Toussaint Reinaud, which was
certainly not free from the gall of bitterness. Among the many subjects
to which he turned his attention were the native industries of China,
and his work on the _Histoire et fabrication de la porcelaine chinoise_
is likely to remain a standard work on the subject. In another volume he
also published an account of the _Industries anciennes et modernes de
l'empire chinois_ (1869), translated from native authorities. In the
intervals of more serious undertakings he translated the _San tseu King_
(_Le Livre des trois mots_); _Thsien tseu wen_ (_Le Livre de mille
mots_); _Les Deux cousines_; _Nouvelles chinoises_; the _Ping chan ling
yen_ (_Les Deux jeunes filles lettrees_); and the _Dialoghi Cinesi_,
_Ji-tch'ang k' eou-t' eou-koa_. His last work of importance was _Syntaxe
nouvelle de la langue chinoise_ (1869), in which he gave the result of
his study of the language, and collected a vast array of facts and of
idiomatic expressions. A more scientific arrangement and treatment of
his subject would have added much to the value of this work, which,
however, contains a mine of material which amply repays exploration. One
great secret by which Julien acquired his grasp of Chinese, was, as we
have said, his methodical collection of phrases and idiomatic
expressions. Whenever in the course of his reading he met with a new
phrase or expression, he entered it on a card which took its place in
regular order in a long series of boxes. At his death, which took place
on the 14th of February 1873, he left, it is said, 250,000 of such
cards, about the fate of which, however, little seems to be known. In
politics Julien was imperialist, and in 1863 he was made a commander of
the legion of honour in recognition of the services he had rendered to
literature during the second empire.
See notice and bibliography by Wallon, _Mem. de l'Acad. des Inscr._
(1884), xxxi. 409-458. (R. K. D.)
JULIUS, the name of three popes.
JULIUS I., pope from 337 to 352, was chosen as successor of Marcus after
the Roman see had been vacant four months. He is chiefly known by the
part which he took in the Arian controversy. After the Eusebians had, at
a synod held in Antioch, renewed their deposition of Athanasius they
resolved to send delegates to Constans, emperor of the West, and also to
Julius, setting forth the grounds on which they had proceeded. The
latter, after expressing an opinion favourable to Athanasius, adroitly
invited both parties to lay the case before a synod to be presided over
by himself. This proposal, however, the Eastern bishops declined to
accept. On his second banishment from Alexandria, Athanasius came to
Rome, and was recognized as a regular bishop by the synod held in 340.
It was through the influence of Julius that, at a later date, the
council of Sardica in Illyria was held, which was attended only by
seventy-six Eastern bishops, who speedily withdrew to Philippopolis and
deposed Julius, along with Athanasius and others. The Western bishops
who remained confirmed the previous decisions of the Roman synod; and by
its 3rd, 4th and 5th decrees relating to the rights of revision, the
council of Sardica endeavoured to settle the procedure of ecclesiastical
appeals. Julius on his death in April 352 was succeeded by Liberius.
(L. D.*)
JULIUS II. (Giuliano della Rovere), pope from the 1st of November 1503
to the 21st of February 1513, was born at Savona in 1443. He was at
first intended for a commercial career, but later was sent by his uncle,
subsequently Sixtus IV., to be educated among the Franciscans, although
he does not appear to have joined that order. He was loaded with favours
during his uncle's pontificate, being made bishop of Carpentras, bishop
of Bologna, bishop of Vercelli, archbishop of Avignon, cardinal-priest
of S. Pietro in Vincoli and of Sti Dodici Apostoli, and cardinal-bishop
of Sabina, of Frascati, and finally of Ostia and Velletri. In 1480 he
was made legate to France, mainly to settle the question of the
Burgundian inheritance, and acquitted himself with such ability during
his two years' stay that he acquired an influence in the college of
cardinals which became paramount during the pontificate of Innocent
VIII. A rivalry, however, growing up between him and Roderigo Borgia, he
took refuge at Ostia after the latter's election as Alexander VI., and
in 1494 went to France, where he incited Charles VIII. to undertake the
conquest of Naples. He accompanied the young king on his campaign, and
sought to convoke a council to inquire into the conduct of the pope with
a view to his deposition, but was defeated in this through Alexander's
machinations. During the remainder of that pontificate Della Rovere
remained in France, nominally in support of the pope, for whom he
negotiated the treaty of 1498 with Louis XII., but in reality bitterly
hostile to him. On the death of Alexander (1503) he returned to Italy
and supported the election of Pius III., who was then suffering from an
incurable malady, of which he died shortly afterwards. Della Rovere then
won the support of Cesare Borgia and was unanimously elected pope.
Julius II. from the beginning repudiated the system of nepotism which
had flourished under Sixtus IV., Innocent VIII. and Alexander VI., and
set himself with courage and determination to restore, consolidate and
extend the temporal possessions of the Church. By dexterous diplomacy he
first succeeded (1504) in rendering it impossible for Cesare Borgia to
remain in Italy. He then pacified Rome and the surrounding country by
reconciling the powerful houses of Orsini and Colonna and by winning the
other nobles to his own cause. In 1504 he arbitrated on the differences
between France and Germany, and concluded an alliance with them in order
to oust the Venetians from Faenza, Rimini and other towns which they
occupied. The alliance at first resulted only in compelling the
surrender of a few unimportant fortresses in the Romagna; but Julius
freed Perugia and Bologna in the brilliant campaign of 1506. In 1508 he
concluded against Venice the famous league of Cambray with the emperor
Maximilian, Louis XII. of France and Ferdinand of Aragon, and in the
following year placed the city of Venice under an interdict. By the
single battle of Agnadello the Italian dominion of Venice was
practically lost; but as the allies were not satisfied with merely
effecting his purposes, the pope entered into a combination with the
Venetians against those who immediately before had been engaged in his
behalf. He absolved the Venetians in the beginning of 1510, and shortly
afterwards placed the ban on France. At a synod convened by Louis XII.
at Tours in September, the French bishops announced their withdrawal
from the papal obedience and resolved, with Maximilian's co-operation,
to seek the deposition of Julius. In November 1511 a council actually
met at Pisa for this object, but its efforts were fruitless. Julius
forthwith formed the Holy league with Ferdinand of Aragon and with
Venice against France, in which both Henry VIII. and the emperor
ultimately joined. The French were driven out of Italy in 1512 and papal
authority was once more securely established in the states immediately
around Rome. Julius had already issued, on the 18th of July 1511, the
summons for a general council to deal with France, with the reform of
the Church, and with a war against the Turks. This council, which is
known as the Fifth Lateran, assembled on the 3rd of May 1512, condemned
the celebrated pragmatic sanction of the French church, and was still
in session when Julius died. In the midst of his combats, Julius never
neglected his ecclesiastical duties. His bull of the 14th of January
1505 against simony in papal elections was re-enacted by the Lateran
council (February 16, 1513). He condemned duelling by bull of the 24th
of February 1509. He effected some reforms in the monastic orders; urged
the conversion of the sectaries in Bohemia; and sent missionaries to
America, India, Abyssinia and the Congo. His government of the Papal
States was excellent. Julius is deserving of particular honour for his
patronage of art and literature. He did much to improve and beautify
Rome; he laid the foundation-stone of St Peter's (April 18, 1506); he
founded the Vatican museum; and he was a friend and patron of Bramante,
Raphael and Michelangelo. While moderate in personal expenditure, Julius
resorted to objectionable means of replenishing the papal treasury,
which had been exhausted by Alexander VI., and of providing funds for
his numerous enterprises; simony and traffic in indulgences were
increasingly prevalent. Julius was undoubtedly in energy and genius one
of the greatest popes since Innocent III., and it is a misfortune of the
Church that his temporal policy eclipsed his spiritual office. Though
not despising the Machiavellian arts of statecraft so universally
practised in his day, he was nevertheless by nature plain-spoken and
sincere, and in his last years grew violent and crabbed. He died of a
fever on the 21st of February 1513, and was succeeded by Leo X.
See L. Pastor, _History of the Popes_, vol. vi., trans. by F. I.
Antrobus (1898); M. Creighton, _History of the Papacy_, vol. v.
(1901); F. Gregorovius, _Rome in the Middle Ages_, vol. viii., trans.
by Mrs G. W. Hamilton (1900-1902); Hefele-Hergenrother,
_Conciliengeschichte_, vol. viii., 2nd ed.; J. Klaczko, _Rome et la
renaissance ... Jules II._ (1898), trans. into English by J. Dennie
(New York, 1903); M. Brosch, _Papst Julius II. u. die Grundung des
Kirchenstaates_ (1878); A. J. Dumesnil, _Histoire de Jules II._
(1873); J. J. I. von Dollinger, _Beitrage zur polit., kirchl., u.
Cultur-Geschichte der sechs letzten Jahrhunderte_, vol. iii. (1882);
A. Schulte, _Die Fugger in Rom 1495-1523, mit Studien zur Gesch. des
kirchlichen Finanzwesens jener Zeit_ (1904). (C. H. Ha.)
JULIUS III. (Giovanni Maria del Monte), pope from 1550 to 1555, was born
on the 10th of September 1487. He was created cardinal by Paul III. in
1536, filled several important legations, and was elected pope on the
7th of February 1550, despite the opposition of Charles V., whose enmity
he had incurred as president of the council of Trent. Love of ease and
desire for peace moved him, however, to adopt a conciliatory attitude,
and to yield to the emperor's desire for the reassembling of the council
(September 1551), suspended since 1549. But deeming Charles's further
demands inconvenient, he soon found occasion in the renewal of
hostilities to suspend the council once more (April 1552). As an
adherent of the emperor he suffered in consequence of imperial reverses,
and was forced to confirm Parma to Ottavio Farnese, the ally of France
(1552). Weary of politics, and obeying a natural inclination to
pleasure, Julius then virtually abdicated the management of affairs, and
gave himself up to enjoyment, amusing himself with the adornment of his
villa, near the Porta del Popolo, and often so far forgetting the
proprieties of his office as to participate in entertainments of a
questionable character. His nepotism was of a less ambitious order than
that of Paul III.; but he provided for his family out of the offices and
revenues of the Church, and advanced unworthy favourites to the
cardinalate. What progress reform made during his pontificate was due to
its acquired momentum, rather than to the zeal of the pope. Yet under
Julius steps were taken to abolish plurality of benefices and to restore
monastic discipline; the Collegium Germanicum, for the conversion of
Germans, was established in Rome, 1552; and England was absolved by the
cardinal-legate Pole, and received again into the Roman communion
(1554). Julius died on the 23rd of March 1555, and was succeeded by
Marcellus II.
See Panvinio, continuator of Platina, _De Vitis Pontiff. Rom._;
Ciaconius, _Vitae et res gestae summorum Pontiff. Rom._ (Rome,
1601-1602) (both contemporaries of Julius III.); Ranke, _Popes_ (Eng.
trans., Austin), i. 276 seq.; v. Reumont, _Gesch. der Stadt Rom._,
iii. 2, 503 seq.; Brosch, _Gesch. des Kirchenstaates_ (1880), i. 189
seq.; and extended bibliography in Herzog-Hauck, _Realencyklopadie_,
s.v. "Julius III." (T. F. C.)
JULLIEN, LOUIS ANTOINE (1812-1860), musical conductor, was born at
Sisteron, Basses Alpes, France, on the 23rd of April 1812, and studied
at the Paris conservatoire. His fondness for the lightest forms of music
cost him his position in the school, and after conducting the band of
the Jardin Turc he was compelled to leave Paris to escape his creditors,
and came to London, where he formed a good orchestra and established
promenade concerts. Subsequently he travelled to Scotland, Ireland and
America with his orchestra. For many years he was a familiar figure in
the world of popular music in England, and his portly form with its
gorgeous waistcoats occurs very often in the early volumes of _Punch_.
He brought out an opera, _Pietro il Grande_, at Covent Garden (1852) on
a scale of magnificence that ruined him, for the piece was a complete
failure. He was in America until 1854, when he returned to London for a
short time; ultimately he went back to Paris, where, in 1859, he was
arrested for debt and put into prison. He lost his reason soon
afterwards, and died on the 14th of March 1860.
JULLUNDUR, or JALANDHAR, a city of British India, giving its name to a
district and a division in the Punjab. The city is 260 m. by rail N.W.
of Delhi. Pop. (1901), 67,735. It is the headquarters of a brigade in
the 3rd division of the northern army. There are an American
Presbyterian mission, a government normal school, and high schools
supported by Hindu bodies.
The DISTRICT OF JULLUNDUR occupies the lower part of the tract known as
the Jullundur Doab, between the rivers Sutlej and Beas, except that it
is separated from the Beas by the state of Kapurthala. Area, 1431 sq. m.
Pop. (1901), 917,587, showing an increase of 1% in the decade; the
average density is 641 persons per square mile, being the highest in the
province. Cotton-weaving and sugar manufacture are the principal
industries for export trade, and silk goods and wheat are also exported.
The district is crossed by the main line of the North-Western railway
from Phillaur towards Amritsar.
The Jullundur Doab in early times formed the Hindu kingdom of Katoch,
ruled by a family of Rajputs whose descendants still exist in the petty
princes of the Kangra hills. Under Mahommedan rule the Doab was
generally attached to the province of Lahore, in which it is included as
a _circar_ or governorship in the great revenue survey of Akbar. Its
governors seem to have held an autonomous position, subject to the
payment of a fixed tribute into the imperial treasury. The Sikh revival
extended to Jullundur at an early period, and a number of petty
chieftains made themselves independent throughout the Doab. In 1766 the
town of Jullundur fell into the hands of the Sikh confederacy of
Faiz-ulla-puria, then presided over by Khushal Singh. His son and
successor built a masonry fort in the town, while several other leaders
similarly fortified themselves in the suburbs. Meanwhile, Ranjit Singh
was consolidating his power in the south, and in 1811 he annexed the
Faiz-ulla-puria dominions. Thenceforth Jullundur became the capital of
the Lahore possessions in the Doab until the British annexation at the
close of the first Sikh war (1846).
The DIVISION OF JULLUNDUR comprises the five districts of Kangra,
Hoshiarpur, Jullundur, Ludhiana and Ferozepore, all lying along the
river Sutlej. Area, 19,410 sq. m. Pop. (1901), 4,306,662.
See _Jullundur District Gazetteer_ (Lahore, 1908).
JULY, the seventh month in the Christian calendar, consisting of
thirty-one days. It was originally the fifth month of the year, and as
such was called by the Romans _Quintilis_. The later name of Julius was
given in honour of Julius Caesar (who was born in the month); it came
into use in the year of his death. The Anglo-Saxons called July
_Hegmonath_, "hay-month," or _Maed-monath_, "mead-month," the meadows
being then in bloom. Another name was _aftera lietha_, "the latter mild
month," in contradistinction to June, which was named "the former mild
month." Chief dates of the month: 3rd July, Dog Days begin; 15th July,
St Swithin; 25th July, St James.
JUMALA, the supreme god of the ancient Finns and Lapps. Among some
tribes he is called Num or Jilibeambaertje, as protector of the flocks.
Jumala indicates rather godhead than a divine being. In the runes Ukko,
the grandfather, the sender of the thunder, takes the place of Jumala.
JUMIEGES, a village of north-western France, in the department of
Seine-Inferieure, 17 m. W. of Rouen by road, on a peninsula formed by a
bend of the Seine. Pop. (1906), 244. Jumieges is famous for the imposing
ruins of its abbey, one of the great establishments of the Benedictine
order. The principal remains are those of the abbey-church, built from
1040 to 1067; these comprise the facade with two towers, the walls of
the nave, a wall and sustaining arch of the great central tower and
debris of the choir (restored in the 13th century). Among the minor
relics, preserved in a small museum in a building of the 14th century,
are the stone which once covered the grave of Agnes Sorel, and two
recumbent figures of the 13th century, commonly known as the _Enerves_,
and representing, according to one legend, two sons of Clovis II., who,
as a punishment for revolt against their father, had the tendons of
their arms and legs cut, and were set adrift in a boat on the Seine.
Another tradition states that the statues represent Thassilo, duke of
Bavaria, and Theodo his son, relegated to Jumieges by Charlemagne. The
church of St Pierre, which adjoins the south side of the abbey-church,
was built in the 14th century as a continuation of a previous church of
the time of Charlemagne, of which a fragment still survives. Among the
other ruins, those of the chapter-house (13th century) and refectory
(12th and 15th centuries) also survive.
The abbey of Jumieges was founded about the middle of the 7th century by
St Philibert, whose name is still to be read on gold and silver coins
obtained from the site. The abbey was destroyed by the Normans, but was
rebuilt in 928 by William Longsword, duke of Normandy, and continued to
exist till 1790. Charles VII. often resided there with Agnes Sorel, who
had a manor at Mesnil-sous-Jumieges in the neighbourhood, and died in
the monastery in 1450.
JUMILLA, a town of eastern Spain, in the province of Murcia, 40 m. N. by
W. of Murcia by road, on the right bank of the Arroyo del Jua, a
left-bank tributary of the Segura. Pop. (1900), 16,446. Jumilla occupies
part of a narrow valley, enclosed by mountains. An ancient citadel,
several churches, a Franciscan convent, and a hospital are the principal
buildings. The church of Santiago is noteworthy for its fine paintings
and frescoes, some of which have been attributed, though on doubtful
authority, to Peter Paul Rubens and other illustrious artists. The local
trade is chiefly in coarse cloth, esparto fabrics, wine and farm
produce.
JUMNA, or JAMUNA, a river of northern India. Rising in the Himalayas in
Tehri state, about 5 m. N. of the Jamnotri hot springs, in 31 deg. 3' N.
and 78 deg. 30' E., the stream first flows S. for 7 m., then S.W. for 32
m., and afterwards due S. for 26 m., receiving several small tributaries
in its course. It afterwards turns sharply to the W. for 14 m., when it
is joined by the large river Tons from the north. The Jumna here emerges
from the Himalayas into the valley of the Dun, and flows in a S.W.
direction for 22 m., dividing the Kiarda Dun on the W. from the Dehra
Dun on the E. It then, at the 95th mile of its course, forces its way
through the Siwalik hills, and debouches upon the plains of India at
Fyzabad in Saharanpur district. By this time a large river, it gives
off, near Fyzabad, the eastern and western Jumna canals. From Fyzabad
the river flows for 65 m. in a S.S.W. direction, receiving the Maskarra
stream from the east. Near Bidhauli, in Muzaffarnagar district, it turns
due S. for 80 m. to Delhi city, thence S.E. for 27 m. to near Dankaur,
receiving the waters of the Hindan river on the east. From Dankaur it
resumes its southerly course for 100 m. to Mahaban near Muttra, where it
turns E. for nearly 200 m., passing the towns of Agra, Ferozabad and
Etawah, receiving on its left bank the Karwan-nadi, and on its right the
Banganga (Utanghan). From Etawah it flows 140 m. S.E. to Hamirpur, being
joined by the Sengar on its north bank, and on the south by the great
river Chambal from the west, and by the Sind. From Hamirpur, the Jumna
flows nearly due E., until it enters Allahabad district and passes
Allahabad city, below which it falls into the Ganges in 25 deg. 25' N.
and 81 deg. 55' E. In this last part of its course it receives the
waters of the Betwa and the Ken. Where the Jumna and the Ganges unite is
the _prayag_, or place of pilgrimage, where devout Hindus resort in
thousands to wash and be sanctified.
The Jumna, after issuing from the hills, has a longer course through the
United Provinces than the Ganges, but is not so large nor so important a
river; and above Agra in the hot season it dwindles to a small stream.
This is no doubt partly caused by the eastern and western Jumna canals,
of which the former, constructed in 1823-1830, irrigates 300,000 acres
in the districts of Saharanpur, Muzaffarnagar and Meerut, in the United
Provinces; while the latter, consisting of the reopened channels of two
canals dating from about 1350 and 1628 respectively, extends through the
districts of Umballa, Karnal, Hissar, Rohtak and Delhi, and the native
states of Patiala and Jind in the Punjab, irrigating 600,000 acres. The
headworks of the two canals are situated near the point where the river
issues from the Siwaliks.
The traffic on the Jumna is not very considerable; in its upper portion
timber, and in the lower stone, grain and cotton are the chief articles
of commerce, carried in the clumsy barges which navigate its stream. Its
waters are clear and blue, while those of the Ganges are yellow and
muddy; the difference between the streams can be discerned for some
distance below the point at which they unite. Its banks are high and
rugged, often attaining the proportions of cliffs, and the ravines which
run into it are deeper and larger than those of the Ganges. It traverses
the extreme edge of the alluvial plain of Hindustan, and in the latter
part of its course it almost touches the Bundelkhand offshoots of the
Vindhya range of mountains. Its passage is therefore more tortuous, and
the scenery along its banks more varied and pleasing, than is the case
with the Ganges.
The Jumna at its source near Jamnotri is 10,849 ft. above the sea-level;
at Kotnur, 16 m. lower, it is only 5036 ft.; so that, between these two
places, it falls at the rate of 314 ft. in a mile. At its junction with
the Tons it is 1686 ft. above the sea; at its junction with the Asan,
1470 ft.; and at the point where it issues from the Siwalik hills into
the plains, 1276 ft. The catchment area of the river is 118,000 sq. m.;
its flood discharge at Allahabad is estimated at 1,333,000 cub. ft. per
second. The Jumna is crossed by railway bridges at Delhi, Muttra, Agra
and Allahabad, while bridges of boats are stationed at many places.
JUMPING,[1] a branch of athletics which has been cultivated from the
earliest times (see ATHLETIC SPORTS). Leaping competitions formed a part
of the _pentathlon_, or quintuple games, of the Olympian festivals, and
Greek chronicles record that the athlete Phayllus jumped a distance of
55 Olympian, or more than 30 English, feet. Such a leap could not have
been made without weights carried in the hands and thrown backwards at
the moment of springing. These were in fact employed by Greek jumpers
and were called _halteres_. They were masses of stone or metal, nearly
semicircular, according to Pausanias, and the fingers grasped them like
the handles of a shield. Halteres were also used for general exercise,
like modern dumb-bells. The Olympian jumping took place to the music of
lutes.
Jumping has always been popular with British athletes, and tradition has
handed down the record of certain leaps that border on the incredible.
Two forms of jumping are included in modern athletic contests, the
running long jump and the running high jump; but the same jumps, made
from a standing position, are also common forms of competition, as well
as the hop step and jump, two hops and jump, two jumps, three jumps,
five jumps and ten jumps, either with a run or from a standing position.
These events are again divided into two categories by the use of
weights, which are not allowed in championship contests.
In the running long jump anything over 18 ft. was once considered good,
while Peter O'Connor's world's record (1901) is 24 ft. 11(3/4) in. The
jump is made, after a short fast run on a cinder path, from a joist sunk
into the ground flush with the path, the jumper landing in a pit filled
with loose earth, its level a few inches below that of the path. The
joist, called the "take-off," is painted white, and all jumps are
measured from its edge to the nearest mark made by any part of the
jumper's person in landing.
In the standing long jump, well spiked shoes should be worn, for it is
in reality nothing but a push against the ground, and a perfect purchase
is of the greatest importance. Weights held in the hands of course
greatly aid the jumper. Without weights J. Darby (professional) jumped
12 ft. 1(1/2) in. and R. C. Ewry (American amateur) 11 ft. 4(7/8) in.
With weights J. Darby covered 14 ft. 9 in. at Liverpool in 1890, while
the amateur record is 12 ft. 9(1/2) in., made by J. Chandler and G. L.
Hellwig (U.S.A.). The standing two, three, five and ten jumps are merely
repetitions of the single jump, care being taken to land with the proper
balance to begin the next leap. The record for two jumps without weights
is 22 ft. 2(1/2) in., made by H. M. Johnson (U.S.A.); for three jumps
without weights, R. C. Ewry, 35 ft. 7(1/4) in.; with weights J. Darby,
41 ft. 7 in.
The hop step and jump is popular in Ireland and often included in the
programmes of minor meetings, and so is the two hops and a jump. The
record for the first, made by W. McManus, is 49 ft. 2(1/2) in. with a
run and without weights; for the latter, also with a run and without
weights, 49 ft. 1/2 in., made by J. B. Conolly.
In the running high jump also the standard has improved. In 1864 a jump
of 5 ft. 6 in. was considered excellent. The Scotch professional Donald
Dinnie, on hearing that M. J. Brooks of Oxford had jumped 6 ft. 2(1/2)
in. in 1876, wrote to the newspapers to show that upon _a priori_
grounds such an achievement was impossible. Since then many jumpers who
can clear over 6 ft. have appeared. In 1895 M. F. Sweeney of New York
accomplished a jump of 6 ft. 5(5/8) in. Ireland has produced many
first-class high jumpers, nearly all tall men, P. Leahy winning the
British amateur record in Dublin in 1898 with a jump of 6 ft. 4(3/4) in.
The American A. Bird Page, however, although only 5 ft. 6(3/4) in. in
height, jumped 6 ft. 4 in. High jumping is done over a light staff or
lath resting upon pins fixed in two uprights upon which a scale is
marked. The "take-off," or ground immediately in front of the uprights
from which the spring is made, is usually grass in Great Britain and
cinders in America. Some jumpers run straight at the bar and clear it
with body facing forward, the knees being drawn up almost to the chin as
the body clears the bar; others run and spring sideways, the feet being
thrown upwards and over the bar first, to act as a kind of lever in
getting the body over. There should be a shallow pit of loose earth or a
mattress to break the fall.
The standing high jump is rarely seen in regular athletic meetings. The
jumper stands sideways to the bar with his arms extended upwards. He
then swings his arms down slowly, bending his knees at the same time,
and, giving his arms a violent upward swing, springs from the ground. As
the body rises the arms are brought down, one leg is thrown over the
bar, and the other pulled, almost jerked, after it. The record for the
standing high jump without weights is 6 ft., by J. Darby in 1892.
By the use of a spring-board many extraordinary jumps have been made,
but this kind of leaping is done only by circus gymnasts and is not
recognized by athletic authorities.
For pole-jumping see POLE-VAULTING.
See _Encyclopaedia of Sport_; M. W. Ford, "Running High Jump,"
_Outing_, vol. xviii.; "Running Broad Jump," _Outing_, vol. xix.;
"Standing Jumping," _Outing_, vol. xix.; "Miscellaneous Jumping,"
_Outing_, vol. xx. Also _Sporting and Athletic Register_ (annual).
FOOTNOTE:
[1] The verb "to jump" only dates from the beginning of the 16th
century. The _New English Dictionary_ takes it to be of onomatopoeic
origin and does not consider a connexion with Dan. _gumpe_, Icel.
_goppa_, &c., possible. The earlier English word is "leap" (O.E.
_hleapan_, to run, jump, cf. Ger. _laufen_).
JUMPING-HARE, the English equivalent of springhaas, the Boer name of a
large leaping south and east African rodent mammal, _Pedetes caffer_,
typifying a family by itself, the _Pedetidae_. Originally classed with
the jerboas, to which it has no affinity, this remarkable rodent
approximates in the structure of its skull to the porcupine-group, near
which it is placed by some naturalists, although others consider that
its true position is with the African scaly-tailed flying squirrels
(_Anomaluridae_). The colour of the creature is bright rufous fawn; the
eyes are large; and the bristles round the muzzle very long, the former
having a fringe of long hairs. The front limbs are short, and the hind
ones very long; and although the fore-feet have five toes, those of the
hind-feet are reduced to four. The bones of the lower part of the hind
leg (tibia and fibula) are united for a great part of their length.
There are four pairs of cheek-teeth in each jaw, which do not develop
roots. The jumping-hare is found in open or mountainous districts, and
has habits very like a jerboa. It is nocturnal, and dwells in composite
burrows excavated and tenanted by several families. When feeding it
progresses on all four legs, but if frightened takes gigantic leaps on
the hind-pair alone; the length of such leaps frequently reaches twenty
feet, or even more. The young are generally three or four in number, and
are born in the summer. A second smaller species has been named. (See
RODENTIA.)
JUMPING-MOUSE, the name of a North American mouse-like rodent, _Zapus
hudsonius_, belonging to the family _Jaculidae_ (_Dipodidae_), and the
other members of the same genus. Although mouse-like in general
appearance, these rodents are distinguished by their elongated hind
limbs, and, typically, by the presence of four pairs of cheek-teeth in
each jaw. There are five toes to all the feet, but the first in the
fore-feet is rudimentary, and furnished with a flat nail. The cheeks are
provided with pouches. Jumping-mice were long supposed to be confined to
North America, but a species is now known from N.W. China. It is
noteworthy that whereas E. Coues in 1877 recognized but a single
representative of this genus, ranging over a large area in North
America, A. Preble distinguishes no fewer than twenty North American
species and sub-species, in addition to the one from Szechuen. Among
these, it may be noted that _Z. insignis_ differs from the typical _Z.
hudsonius_ by the loss of the premolar, and has accordingly been
referred to a sub-genus apart. Moreover, the Szechuen jumping-mouse
differs from the typical _Zapus_ by the closer enamel-folds of the
molars, the shorter ears, and the white tail-tip, and is therefore made
the type of another sub-genus. In America these rodents inhabit forest,
pasture, cultivated fields or swamps, but are nowhere numerous. When
disturbed, they start off with enormous bounds of eight or ten feet in
length, which soon diminish to three or four; and in leaping the feet
scarcely seem to touch the ground. The nest is placed in clefts of
rocks, among timber or in hollow trees, and there are generally three
litters in a season. (See RODENTIA.)
JUMPING-SHREW, a popular name for any of the terrestrial insectivora of
the African family _Macroscelididae_, of which there are a number of
species ranging over the African continent, representing the tree-shrews
of Asia. They are small long-snouted gerbil-like animals, mainly
nocturnal, feeding on insects, and characterized by the great length of
the metatarsal bones, which have been modified in accordance with their
leaping mode of progression. In some (constituting the genus
_Rhyncocyon_) the muzzle is so much prolonged as to resemble a
proboscis, whence the name elephant-shrews is sometimes applied to the
members of the family.
JUNAGARH, or JUNAGADH, a native state of India, within the Gujarat
division of Bombay, extending inland from the southern coast of the
peninsula of Kathiawar. Area, 3284 sq. m.; pop. (1901), 395,428, showing
a decrease of 19% in the decade, owing to famine; estimated gross
revenue, L174,000; tribute to the British government and the gaekwar of
Baroda, L4200; a considerable sum is also received as tribute from minor
states in Kathiawar. The state is traversed by a railway from Rajkot, to
the seaport of Verawal. It includes the sacred mountain of Girnar and
the ruined temple of Somnath, and also the forest of Gir, the only place
in India where the lion survives. Junagarh ranks as a first-class state
among the many chiefships of Kathiawar, and its ruler first entered into
engagements with the British in 1807. Nawab Sir Rasul Khanji, K.C.S.I.,
was born in 1858 and succeeded his brother in 1892.
The modern town of JUNAGARH (34,251), 60 m. by rail S. of Rajkot, is
handsomely built and laid out. In November 1897 the foundation-stones of
a hospital, library and museum were laid, and an arts college has
recently been opened.
JUNCACEAE (rush family), in botany, a natural order of flowering plants
belonging to the series Liliiflorae of the class Monocotyledons,
containing about two hundred species in seven genera, widely distributed
in temperate and cold regions. It is well represented in Britain by the
two genera which comprise nearly the whole order--_Juncus_, rush, and
_Luzula_, woodrush. They are generally perennial herbs with a creeping
underground stem and erect, unbranched, aerial stems, bearing slender
leaves which are grass-like or cylindrical or reduced to membranous
sheaths. The small inconspicuous flowers are generally more or less
crowded in terminal or lateral clusters, the form of the inflorescence
varying widely according to the manner of branching and the length of
the pedicels. The flowers are hermaphrodite and regular, with the same
number and arrangement of parts as in the order Liliaceae, from which
they differ in the inconspicuous membranous character of the perianth,
the absence of honey or smell, and the brushlike stigmas with long
papillae-adaptations to wind-pollination as contrasted with the methods
of pollination by insect agency, which characterize the Liliaceae.
Juncaceae are, in fact, a less elaborated group of the same series as
Liliaceae, but adapted to a simpler and more uniform environment than
that larger and much more highly developed family.
[Illustration: _Juncus effusus_, common rush.
1. Plant.
2. Inflorescence.
3. End of branch of inflorescence, slightly enlarged.
4. Flower, enlarged.
5. Fruit, enlarged.
6. Seed.
7. Seed, much enlarged.]
JUNCTION CITY, a city and the county-seat of Geary county, Kansas,
U.S.A., between Smoky Hill and Republican rivers, about 3 m. above their
confluence to form the Kansas, and 72 m. by rail W. of Topeka. Pop.
(1900), 4695, of whom 545 were foreign-born and 292 were negroes;
(1905), 5494; (1910), 5598. Junction City is served by the Union Pacific
and the Missouri, Kansas & Texas railways. It is the commercial centre
of a region in whose fertile valleys great quantities of wheat, Indian
corn, oats and hay are grown and live stock is raised, and whose uplands
contain extensive beds of limestone, which is quarried for building
purposes. Excellent water-power is available and is partly utilized by
flour mills. The municipality owns and operates the water-works. At the
confluence of Smoky Hill and Republican rivers and connected with the
city by an electric railway is Fort Riley, a U.S. military post, which
was established in 1853 as Camp Centre but was renamed in the same year
in honour of General Bennett Riley (1787-1853); in 1887 the mounted
service school of the U.S. army was established here. Northward from the
post is a rugged country over which extends a military reservation of
about 19,000 acres. Adjoining the reservation and about 5 m. N.E. of
Junction City is the site of the short-lived settlement of Pawnee, where
from the 2nd to the 6th of July 1855 the first Kansas legislature met,
in a building the ruins of which still remain; the establishment of
Pawnee (in December 1854) was a speculative pro-slavery enterprise
conducted by the commandant of Fort Riley, other army officers and
certain territorial officials, and when a government survey showed that
the site lay within the Fort Riley reservation, the settlers were
ordered (August 1855) to leave, and the commandant of Fort Riley was
dismissed from the army; one of the charges brought against Governor A.
H. Reeder was that he had favoured the enterprise. Junction City was
founded in 1857 and was chartered as a city in 1859.
JUNE, the sixth month in the Christian calendar, consisting of thirty
days. Ovid (_Fasti_, vi. 25) makes Juno assert that the name was
expressly given in her honour. Elsewhere (_Fasti_, vi. 87) he gives the
derivation _a junioribus_, as May had been derived from _majores_, which
may be explained as in allusion either to the two months being dedicated
respectively to youth and age in general, or to the seniors and juniors
of the government of Rome, the senate and the _comitia curiata_ in
particular. Others connect the term with the gentile name Junius, or
with the consulate of Junius Brutus. Probably, however, it originally
denoted the month in which crops grow to ripeness. In the old Latin
calendar June was the fourth month, and in the so-called year of Romulus
it is said to have had thirty days; but at the time of the Julian reform
of the calendar its days were only twenty-nine. To these Caesar added
the thirtieth. The Anglo-Saxons called June "the dry month," "midsummer
month," and, in contradistinction to July, "the earlier mild month." The
summer solstice occurs in June. Principal festival days in this month:
11th June, St Barnabas; 24th June, Midsummer Day (Nativity of St John
the Baptist); 29th June, St Peter.
JUNEAU, formerly HARRISBURG, a mining and trading town picturesquely
situated at the mouth of Gold Creek on the continental shore of
Gastineau channel, south-east Alaska, and the capital of Alaska. Pop.
(1900), 1864 (450 Indians); (1910), 1644. It has a United States
custom-house and court-house. The city has fishing, manufacturing and
trading interests, but its prosperity is chiefly due to the gold mines
in the adjacent Silver Bow basin, the source of Gold Creek, and the site
of the great Perseverance mine, and to those on the Treadwell lode on
Douglas Island, 2 m. from Juneau. Placer gold was found at the mouth of
the creek in 1879, and the city was settled in 1880 by two prospectors
named Joseph Juneau and Richard Harris. The district was called Juneau
and the camp Harrisburg by the first settlers; exploring naval officers
named the camp Rockwell, in honour of Commander Charles Henry Rockwell,
U.S.N. (b. 1840). A town meeting then adopted the name of Juneau. The
town was incorporated in 1900. In October 1906 the seat of government of
Alaska was removed from Sitka to Juneau.
JUNG, JOHANN HEINRICH (1740-1817), best known by his assumed name of
HEINRICH STILLING, German author, was born in the vlllage of Grund near
Hilchenbach in Westphalia on the 12th of September 1740. His father,
Wilhelm Jung, schoolmaster and tailor, was the son of Eberhard Jung,
charcoal-burner, and his mother was Dortchen Moritz, daughter of a poor
clergyman. Jung became, by his father's desire, schoolmaster and tailor,
but found both pursuits equally wearisome. After various teaching
appointments he went in 1768 with "half a French dollar" to study
medicine at the university of Strassburg. There he met Goethe, who
introduced him to Herder. The acquaintance with Goethe ripened into
friendship; and it was by his influence that Jung's first and best work,
_Heinrich Stillings Jugend_ was written. In 1772 he settled at Elberfeld
as physician and oculist, and soon became celebrated for operations in
cases of cataract. Surgery, however, was not much more to his taste than
tailoring or teaching; and in 1778 he was glad to accept the appointment
of lecturer on "agriculture, technology, commerce and the veterinary
art" in the newly established Kameralschule at Kaiserslautern, a post
which he continued to hold when the school was absorbed in the
university of Heidelberg. In 1787 he was appointed professor of
economical, financial and statistical science in the university of
Marburg. In 1803 he resigned his professorship and returned to
Heidelberg, where he remained until 1806, when he received a pension
from the grand-duke Charles Frederick of Baden, and removed to
Karlsruhe, where he remained until his death on the 2nd of April 1817.
He was married three times, and left a numerous family. Of his works his
autobiography _Heinrich Stillings Leben_, from which he came to be known
as Stilling, is the only one now of any interest, and is the chief
authority for his life. His early novels reflect the piety of his early
surroundings.
A complete edition of his numerous works, in 14 vols. 8vo, was
published at Stuttgart in 1835-1838. There are English translations by
Sam. Jackson of the Leben (1835) and of the _Theorie der Geisterkunde_
(London, 1834, and New York, 1851); and of _Theobald, or the Fanatic_,
a religious romance, by the Rev. Sam. Schaeffer (1846). See
biographies by F. W. Bodemann (1868), J. v. Ewald (1817), Peterson
(1890).
JUNG BAHADUR, SIR, MAHARAJAH (1816-1877), prime minister of Nepal, was a
grand-nephew of Bhim sena Thapa (Bhim sen Thappa), the famous military
minister of Nepal, who from 1804 to 1839 was _de facto_ ruler of the
state under the rani Tripuri and her successor. Bhimsena's supremacy was
threatened by the Kala Pandry, and many of his relations, including Jung
Bahadur, went into exile in 1838, thus escaping the cruel fate which
overtook Bhimsena in the following year. The Pandry leaders, who then
reverted to power, were in turn assassinated in 1843, and Matabar Singh,
uncle of Jung Bahadur, was created prime minister. He appointed his
nephew general and chief judge, but shortly afterwards he was himself
put to death. Fateh Jung thereon formed a ministry, of which Jung
Bahadur was made military member. In the following year, 1846, a quarrel
was fomented, in which Fateh Jung and thirty-two other chiefs were
assassinated, and the rani appointed Jung Bahadur sole minister. The
rani quickly changed her mind, and planned the death of her new
minister, who at once appealed to the maharaja. But the plot failed. The
raja and the rani wisely sought safety in India, and Jung Bahadur firmly
established his own position by the removal of all dangerous rivals. He
succeeded so well that in January 1850 he was able to leave for a visit
to England, from which he did not return to Nepal until the 6th of
February 1851. On his return, and frequently on subsequent dates, he
frustrated conspiracies for his assassination. The reform of the penal
code, and a desultory war with Tibet, occupied his attention until news
of the Indian Mutiny reached Nepal. Jung Bahadur resisted all overtures
from the rebels, and sent a column to Gorakpur in July 1857. In December
he furnished a force of 8000 Gurkhas, which reached Lucknow on the 11th
of March 1858, and took part in the siege. The moral support of the
Nepalese was more valuable even than the military services rendered by
them. Jung Bahadur was made a G.C.B., and a tract of country annexed in
1815 was restored to Nepal. Various frontier disputes were settled, and
in 1875 Sir Jung Bahadur was on his way to England when he had a fall
from his horse in Bombay and returned home. He received a visit from the
Prince of Wales in 1876. On the 25th of February 1877 he died, having
reached the age of sixty-one. Three of his widows immolated themselves
on his funeral pyre. (W. L.-W.)
JUNG-BUNZLAU (Czech, _Mlada Boleslav_), a town of Bohemia, 44 m. N.N.E.
of Prague by rail. Pop. (1900), 13,479, mostly Czech. The town contains
several old buildings of historical interest, notably the castle, built
towards the end of the 10th century, and now used as barracks. There are
several old churches. In that of St Maria the celebrated bishop of the
Bohemian brethren, Johann August, was buried in 1595; but his tomb was
destroyed in 1621. The church of St Bonaventura with the convent,
originally belonging to the friars minor and later to the Bohemian
brethren, is now a Piaristic college. The church of St Wenceslaus, once
a convent of the brotherhood, is now used for military stores.
Jung-Bunzlau was built in 995, under Boleslaus II., as the seat of a
_gaugraf_ or royal count. Early in the 13th century it was given the
privileges of a town and pledged to the lords of Michalovic. In the
Hussite wars Jung-Bunzlau adhered to the Taborites and became later the
metropolis of the Bohemian Brethren. In 1595 Bohuslav of Lobkovic sold
his rights as over-lord to the town, which was made a royal city by
Rudolf II. During the Thirty Years' War it was twice burned, in 1631 by
the imperialists, and in 1640 by the Swedes.
JUNGFRAU, a well-known Swiss mountain (13,669 ft.), admirably seen from
Interlaken. It rises on the frontier between the cantons of Bern and of
the Valais, and is reckoned among the peaks of the Bernese Oberland, two
of which (the Finsteraarhorn, 14,026 ft., and the Aletschhorn, 13,721
ft.) surpass it in height. It was first ascended in 1811 by the brothers
Meyer, and again in 1812 by Gottlieb Meyer (son of J. R. Meyer), in both
cases by the eastern or Valais side, the foot of which (the final ascent
being made by the 1811-1812 route) was reached in 1828 over the
Monchjoch by six peasants from Grindelwald. In 1841 Principal J. D.
Forbes, with Agassiz, Desor and Du Chatelier, made the fourth ascent by
the 1812 route. It was not till 1865 that Sir George Young and the Rev.
H. B. George succeeded in making the first ascent from the west or
Interlaken side. This is a far more difficult route than that from the
east, the latter being now frequently taken in the course of the summer.
(W. A. B. C.)
JUNGLE (Sans. _jangala_), an Anglo-Indian term for a forest, a thicket,
a tangled wilderness. The Hindustani word means strictly waste,
uncultivated ground; then such ground covered with trees or long grass;
and thence again the Anglo-Indian application is to forest or other wild
growth, rather than to the fact that it is not cultivated.
JUNIN, an interior department of central Peru, bounded N. by Huanuco, E.
by Loreto and Cuzco, S. by Huancavelica, and W. by Lima and Ancachs.
Pop. (1906 estimate), 305,700. It lies wholly within the Andean zone and
has an area of 23,353 sq. m. It is rich in minerals, including silver,
copper, mercury, bismuth, molybdenum, lead and coal. The Huallaga and
Mantaro rivers have their sources in this department, the latter in Lake
Junin, or Chanchaycocha, 13,230 ft. above sea-level. The capital of
Junin is Cerro de Pasco, and its two principal towns are Jauja and Tarma
(pop., 1906, about 12,000 and 5000 respectively).
JUNIPER. The junipers, of which there are twenty-five or more species,
are evergreen bushy shrubs or low columnar trees, with a more or less
aromatic odour, inhabiting the whole of the cold and temperate northern
hemisphere, but attaining their maximum development in the Mediterranean
region, the North Atlantic islands, and the eastern United States. The
leaves are usually articulated at the base, spreading, sharp-pointed and
needle-like in form, destitute of oil-glands, and arranged in
alternating whorls of three; but in some the leaves are minute and
scale-like, closely adhering to the branches, the apex only being free,
and furnished with an oil-gland on the back. Sometimes the same plant
produces both kinds of leaves on different branches, or the young plants
produce acicular leaves, while those of the older plants are squamiform.
The male and female flowers are usually produced on separate plants. The
male flowers are developed at the ends of short lateral branches, are
rounded or oblong in form, and consist of several antheriferous scales
in two or three rows, each scale bearing three or six almost spherical
pollen-sacs on its under side. The female flower is a small bud-like
cone situated at the apex of a small branch, and consists of two or
three whorls of two or three scales. The scales of the upper or middle
series each bear one or two erect ovules. The mature cone is fleshy,
with the succulent scales fused together and forming the fruit-like
structure known to the older botanists as the _galbulus_, or berry of
the juniper. The berries are red or purple in colour, varying in size
from that of a pea to a nut. They thus differ considerably from the
cones of other members of the order Coniferae, of _Gymnosperms_ (q.v.),
to which the junipers belong. The seeds are usually three in number,
sometimes fewer (1), rarely more (8), and have the surface near the
middle or base marked with large glands containing oil. The genus occurs
in a fossil state, four species having been described from rocks of
Tertiary age.
The genus is divided into three sections, _Sabina_, _Oxycedrus_ and
_Caryocedrus_. _Juniperus Sabina_ is the savin, abundant on the
mountains of central Europe, an irregularly spreading much-branched
shrub with scale-like glandular leaves, and emitting a disagreeable
odour when bruised. The plant is poisonous, acting as a powerful local
and general stimulant, diaphoretic, emmenagogue and anthelmintic; it was
formerly employed both internally and externally. The oil of savin is
now occasionally used criminally as an abortifacient. _J. bermudiana_, a
tree about 40 or 50 ft. in height, yields a fragrant red wood, which was
used for the manufacture of "cedar" pencils. The tree is now very scarce
in Bermuda, and the "red cedar," _J. virginiana_, of North America is
employed instead for pencils and cigar-boxes. The red cedar is abundant
in some parts of the United States and in Virginia is a tree 50 ft. in
height. It is very widely distributed from the Great Lakes to Florida
and round the Gulf of Mexico, and extends as far west as the Rocky
Mountains and beyond to Vancouver Island. The wood is applied to many
uses in the United States. The fine red fragrant heart-wood takes a high
polish, and is much used in cabinet-work and inlaying, but the small
size of the planks prevents its more extended use. The galls produced at
the ends of the branches have been used in medicine, and the wood yields
cedar-camphor and oil of cedar-wood. _J. thurifera_ is the incense
juniper of Spain and Portugal, and _J. phoenicea_ (_J. lycia_) from the
Mediterranean district is stated by Loudon to be burned as incense.
_J. communis_, the common juniper (see fig.), and several other species,
belong to the section _Oxycedrus_. The common juniper is a very widely
distributed plant, occurring in the whole of northern Europe, central
and northern Asia to Kamchatka, and east and west North America. It
grows at considerable elevations in southern Europe, in the Alps,
Apennines, Pyrenees and Sierra Nevada (4000 to 8000 ft.). It also grows
in Asia Minor, Persia, and at great elevations on the Himalayas. In
Great Britain it is usually a shrub with spreading branches, less
frequently a low tree. In former times the juniper seems to have been a
very well-known plant, the name occurring almost unaltered in many
languages. The Lat. _juniperus_, probably formed from _juni_--crude form
of _juvenis_, fresh, young, and _parere_, to produce, is represented by
Fr. _genievre_, Sp. _enebro_, Ital. _ginepito_, &c. The dialectical
names, chiefly in European languages, were collected by Prince L. L.
Bonaparte, and published in the _Academy_ (July 17, 1880, No. 428, p.
45). The common juniper is official in the British pharmacopoeia and in
that of the United States, yielding the oil of juniper, a powerful
diuretic, distilled from the unripe fruits. This oil is closely allied
in composition to oil of turpentine and is given in doses of a half to
three minims. The _Spiritus juniperi_ of the British pharmacopoeia is
given in doses up to one drachm. Much safer and more powerful diuretics
are now in use. The wood is very aromatic and is used for ornamental
purposes. In Lapland the bark is made into ropes. The fruits are used
for flavouring gin (a name derived from _juniper_, through Fr.
_genievre_); and in some parts of France a kind of beer called
_genevrette_ was made from them by the peasants. _J. Oxycedrus_, from
the Mediterranean district and Madeira, yields cedar-oil which is
official in most of the European pharmacopoeias, but not in that of
Britain. This oil is largely used by microscopists in what is known as
the "oil-immersion lens."
The third section, _Caryocedrus_, consists of a single species, _J.
drupacea_ of Asia Minor. The fruits are large and edible: they are known
in the East by the name _habhel_.
[Illustration: (From Bentley and Trimen's _Medicinal Plants_, by
permission of J. & A. Churchill.)
Juniper (_Juniperus communis_).
1. Vertical section of fruit.
2. Male catkin.]
JUNIUS, the pseudonym of a writer who contributed a series of letters to
the London _Public Advertiser_, from the 21st of January 1769 to the
21st of January 1772. The signature had been already used by him in a
letter of the 21st of November 1768, which he did not include in his
collection of the _Letters of Junius_ published in 1772. The name was
chosen in all probability because he had already signed "Lucius" and
"Brutus," and wished to exhaust the name of Lucius Junius Brutus the
Roman patriot. Whoever the writer was, he wrote under other pseudonyms
before, during and after the period between January 1769 and January
1772. He acknowledged that he had written as "Philo-Junius," and there
is evidence that he was identical with "Veteran," "Nemesis" and other
anonymous correspondents of the _Public Advertiser_. There is a marked
distinction between the "letters of Junius" and his so-called
miscellaneous letters. The second deal with a variety of subjects, some
of a purely personal character, as for instance the alleged injustice of
Viscount Barrington the secretary at war to the officials of his
department. But the "letters of Junius" had a definite object--to
discredit the ministry of the duke of Grafton. This administration had
been formed in October 1768, when the earl of Chatham was compelled by
ill health to retire from office, and was a reconstruction of his
cabinet of July 1766. Junius fought for the return to power of Chatham,
who had recovered and was not on good terms with his successors. He
communicated with Chatham, with George Grenville, with Wilkes, all
enemies of the duke of Grafton, and also with Henry Sampson Woodfall,
printer and part owner of the _Public Advertiser_. This private
correspondence has been preserved. It is written in the disguised hand
used by Junius.
The letters are of interest on three grounds--their political
significance, their style, and the mystery which long surrounded their
authorship. As political writings they possess no intrinsic value.
Junius was wholly destitute of insight, and of the power to disentangle,
define and advocate principles. The matter of his letters is always
invective. He began by a general attack on the ministry for their
personal immorality or meanness. An ill-judged defence of one of the
body--the marquess of Granby, commander-in-chief--volunteered by Sir
William Draper, gave him an easy victory over a vulnerable opponent. He
then went on to pour acrimonious abuse on Grafton, on the duke of
Bedford, on King George III. himself in the letter of the 19th of
December 1769, and ended with a most malignant and ignorant assault on
Lord Chief Justice Mansfield. Several of his accusations were shown to
be unfounded. The practical effect of the letters was insignificant.
They were noticed and talked about. They provoked anger and retorts. But
the letter to the king aroused indignation, and though Grafton's
administration fell in January 1770, it was succeeded by the long-lived
cabinet of Lord North. Junius confessed himself beaten, in his private
letter to Woodfall of the 19th of January 1773. He had materially
contributed to his own defeat by his brutal violence. He sinned indeed
in a large company. The employment of personal abuse had been habitual
in English political controversy for generations, and in the 18th
century there was a strong taste for satire. Latin literature, which was
not only studied but imitated, supplied the inspiration and the models,
in the satires of Juvenal, and the speeches of Cicero against Verres and
Catiline.
If, however, Junius was doing what others did, he did it better than
anybody else--a fact which sufficiently explains his rapid popularity.
His superiority lay in his style. Here also he was by no means original,
and he was unequal. There are passages in his writings which can be best
described in the words which Burke applied to another writer: "A mere
mixture of vinegar and water, at once vapid and sour." But at his best
Junius attains to a high degree of artificial elegance and vigour. He
shows the influence of Bolingbroke, of Swift, and above all of Tacitus,
who appears to have been his favourite author. The imitation is never
slavish. Junius adapts, and does not only repeat. The white heat of his
malignity animates the whole. No single sentence will show the quality
of a style which produces its effect by persistence and repetition, but
such a typical passage as follows displays at once the method and the
spirit. It is taken from Letter XLIX. to the duke of Grafton, June 22,
1771:--
"The profound respect I bear to the gracious prince who governs this
country with no less honour to himself than satisfaction to his
subjects, and who restores you to your rank under his standard, will
save you from a multitude of reproaches. The attention I should have
paid to your failings is involuntarily attracted to the hand which
rewards them; and though I am not so partial to the royal judgment as
to affirm that the favour of a king can remove mountains of infamy, it
serves to lessen at least, for undoubtedly it divides, the burden.
While I remember how much is due to his sacred character, I cannot,
with any decent appearance of propriety, call you the meanest and the
basest fellow in the kingdom. I protest, my Lord, I do not think you
so. You will have a dangerous rival in that kind of fame to which you
have hitherto so happily directed your ambition, as long as there is
one man living who thinks you worthy of his confidence, and fit to be
trusted with any share in his government.... With any other prince,
the shameful desertion of him in the midst of that distress, which you
alone had created, in the very crisis of danger, when he fancied he
saw the throne already surrounded by men of virtue and abilities,
would have outweighed the memory of your former services. But his
majesty is full of justice, and understands the doctrine of
compensations; he remembers with gratitude how soon you had
accommodated your morals to the necessities of his service, how
cheerfully you had abandoned the engagements of private friendship,
and renounced the most solemn professions to the public. The
sacrifice of Lord Chatham was not lost on him. Even the cowardice and
perfidy of deserting him may have done you no disservice in his
esteem. The instance was painful, but the principle might please."
What is artificial and stilted in this style did not offend the would-be
classic taste of the 18th century, and does not now conceal the fact
that the laboriously arranged words, and artfully counterbalanced
clauses, convey a venomous hate and scorn.
The pre-established harmony between Junius and his readers accounts for
the rapidity of his success, and for the importance attributed to him by
Burke and Johnson, far better writers than himself. Before 1772 there
appeared at least twelve unauthorized republications of his letters,
made by speculative printers. In that year he revised the collection
named "_Junius: Stat nominis umbra_," with a dedication to the English
people and a preface. Other independent editions followed in quick
succession. In 1801 one was published with annotations by Robert Heron.
In 1806 another appeared with notes by John Almon. The first new edition
of real importance was issued by the Woodfall family in 1812. It
contained the correspondence of Junius with H. S. Woodfall, a selection
of the miscellaneous letters attributed to Junius, facsimiles of his
handwriting, and notes by Dr Mason Good. Curiosity as to the mystery of
the authorship began to replace political and literary interest in the
writings. Junius himself had been early aware of the advantage he
secured by concealment. "The mystery of Junius increases his importance"
is his confession in a letter to Wilkes dated the 18th of September
1771. The calculation was a sound one. For two generations after the
appearance of the letter of the 21st of January 1769, speculations as to
the authorship of Junius were rife, and discussion had hardly ceased in
1910. Joseph Parkes, author with Herman Merivale of the _Memoirs of Sir
Philip Francis_ (1867), gives a list of more than forty persons who had
been supposed to be Junius. They are: Edmund Burke, Lord George
Sackville, Lord Chatham, Colonel Barre, Hugh Macaulay Boyd, Dr Butler,
John Wilkes, Lord Chesterfield, Henry Flood, William Burke, Gibbon, W.
E. Hamilton, Charles Lloyd, Charles Lee (general in the American War of
Independence), John Roberts, George Grenville, James Grenville, Lord
Temple, Duke of Portland, William Greatrakes, Richard Glover, Sir
William Jones, James Hollis, Laughlin Maclean, Philip Rosenhagen, Horne
Tooke, John Kent, Henry Grattan, Daniel Wray, Horace Walpole, Alexander
Wedderburn (Lord Loughborough), Dunning (Lord Ashburton), Lieut.-General
Sir R. Rich, Dr Philip Francis, a "junto" or committee of writers who
used a common name, De Lolme, Mrs Catherine Macaulay (1733-91), Sir
Philip Francis, Lord Littleton, Wolfram Cornwall and Gov. Thomas
Pownall. In the great majority of cases the attribution is based on
nothing more than a vague guess. Edmund Burke denied that he could have
written the letters of Junius if he would, or would have written them if
he could. Grattan pointed out that he was young when they appeared. More
plausible claims, such as those made for Lord Temple and Lord George
Sackville, could not stand the test of examination. Indeed after 1816
the question was not so much "Who wrote Junius?" as "Was Junius Sir
Philip Francis, or some undiscoverable man?" In that year John Taylor
was led by a careful study of Woodfall's edition of 1812 to publish _The
identity of Junius with a distinguished living character established_,
in which he claimed the letters for Sir Philip Francis. He had at first
been inclined to attribute them to Sir Philip's father, Dr Francis, the
author of translations of Horace and Demosthenes. Taylor applied to Sir
Philip, who did not die till 1818, for leave to publish, and received
from him answers which to an unwary person might appear to constitute
denials of the authorship, but were in fact evasions.
The reasons for believing that Sir Philip Francis (q.v.) was Junius are
very strong. His evasions were only to be expected. Several of the men
he attacked lived nearly as long as himself, the sons of others were
conspicuous in society, and King George III. survived him. Sir Philip,
who had held office, who had been decorated, and who in his later years
was ambitious to obtain the governor-generalship of India, dared not
confess that he was Junius. The similarity of his handwriting to the
disguised hand used by the writer of the letters is very close. If Sir
Philip Francis did, as his family maintain, address a copy of verses to
a Miss Giles in the handwriting of Junius (and the evidence that he did
is weighty) there can be no further question as to the identity of the
two. The similarity of Junius and Francis in regard to their opinions,
their likes and dislikes, their knowledge and their known movements,
amount, apart from the handwriting, almost to proof. It is certain that
many felons have been condemned on circumstantial evidence less
complete. The opposition to his claim is based on such assertions as
that his known handwriting was inferior to the feigned hand of Junius,
and that no man can make a disguised hand better than his own. But the
first assertion is unfounded, and the second is a mere expression of
opinion. It is also said that Francis must have been guilty of baseness
if he wrote Junius, but if that explains why he did not avow the
authorship it can be shown to constitute a moral impossibility only by
an examination of his life.
AUTHORITIES.--The best edition of the _Letters of Junius_, properly so
called, with the _Miscellaneous Letters_, is that of J. Ward (1854).
The most valuable contributions to the controversy as to the
authorship are: _The Handwriting of Junius investigated by Charles
Chabot, expert, with preface and collateral evidence by the Hon. E.
Twisleton_ (1871); _Memoirs of Sir Philip Francis, K.C.B._, by Parkes
and Merivale (1867); _Junius Revealed by his Surviving Grandson_, by
H. R. Francis (1894); _The Francis Letters_, edited by Beata Francis
and Eliza Keary, with a note on the Junius controversy by C. F. Keary
(1901); and "Francis, Sir Philip," by Sir Leslie Stephen, in _Dict. of
Nat. Biog._ The case for those who decline to accept the claim of Sir
Philip Francis is stated by C. W. Dilke, _Papers of a Critic_ (1875),
and Abraham Hayward, _More about Junius, Franciscan Theory Unsound_
(1868). (D. H.)
JUNIUS, FRANZ (in French, Francois du Jon), the name of two Huguenot
scholars.
(1) FRANZ JUNIUS (1545-1602) was born at Bourges in France on the 1st of
May 1545. He had studied law for two years under Hugo Donellus
(1527-1591) when he was given a place in the retinue of the French
ambassador to Constantinople, but before he reached Lyons the ambassador
had departed. Junius found ample consolation in the opportunities for
study at the gymnasium at Lyons. A religious tumult warned him back to
Bourges, where he was cured of certain rationalistic principles that he
had imbibed at Lyons, and he determined to enter the reformed church. He
went in 1562 to study at Geneva, where he was reduced to the direst
poverty by the failure of remittances from home, owing to civil war in
France. He would accept only the barest sustenance from a humble friend
who had himself been a protege of Junius's family at Bourges, and his
health was permanently injured. The long-expected remittance from home
was closely followed by the news of the brutal murder of his father by a
Catholic fanatic at Issoudun; and Junius resolved to remain at Geneva,
where his reputation enabled him to live by teaching. In 1565, however,
he was appointed minister of the Walloon church at Antwerp. His foreign
birth excluded him from the privileges of the native reformed pastors,
and exposed him to persecution. Several times he barely escaped arrest,
and finally, after spending six months in preaching at Limburg, he was
forced to retire to Heidelberg in 1567. There he was welcomed by the
elector Frederick II., and temporarily settled in charge of the Walloon
church at Schonau; but in 1568 his patron sent him as chaplain with
Prince William of Orange in his unfortunate expedition to the
Netherlands. Junius escaped as soon as he could from that post, and
returning to his church remained there till 1573. From 1573 till 1578 he
was at Heidelberg, assisting Emmanuel Tremellius (1510-1580), whose
daughter he married, in his Latin version of the Old Testament
(Frankfort, 1579); in 1581 he was appointed to the chair of divinity at
Heidelberg. Thence he was taken to France by the duke of Bouillon, and
after an interview with Henry IV. was sent again to Germany on a
mission. As he was returning to France he was named professor of
theology at Leiden, where he died on the 13th of October 1602.
He was a voluminous writer on theological subjects, and translated and
composed many exegetical works. He is best known from his own edition
of the Latin Old Testament, slightly altered from the former joint
edition, and with a version of the New Testament added (Geneva, 1590;
Hanover, 1624). The _Opera Theologica Francisci Junii Biturigis_ were
published at Geneva (2 vols., 1613), to which is prefixed his
autobiography, written about 1592 (new ed., edited by Abraham Kuypers,
1882 seq.). The autobiography had been published at Leiden (1595), and
is reprinted in the _Miscellanea Groningana_, vol. i., along with a
list of the author's other writings.
(2) FRANZ JUNIUS (1589-1677), son of the above, was born at Heidelberg,
and brought up at Leiden. His attention was diverted from military to
theological studies by the peace of 1609 between Spain and the
Netherlands. In 1617 he became pastor at Hillegondsberg, but in 1620
went to England, where he became librarian to Thomas Howard, earl of
Arundel, and tutor to his son. He remained in England thirty years,
devoting himself to the study of Anglo-Saxon, and afterwards of the
cognate old Teutonic languages. His work, intrinsically valuable, is
important as having aroused interest in a frequently neglected subject.
In 1651 he returned to Holland; and for two years lived in Friesland in
order to study the old dialect. In 1675 he returned to England, and
during the next year resided in Oxford; in 1677 he went to live at
Windsor with his nephew, Isaac Vossius, in whose house he died on the
19th of November 1677. He was buried at Windsor in St George's Chapel.
He was pre-eminently a student. He published _De pictura veterum_
(1637) (in English by the author, 1638; enlarged and improved edition,
edited by J. G. Graevius, who prefixed a life of Junius, with a
catalogue of architects, painters, &c., and their works, Rotterdam,
1694); _Observationes in Willerami Abbatis francicam paraphrasin
cantici canticorum_ (Amsterdam, 1655); _Annotationes in harmoniam
latino-francicam quatuor evangelistarum, latine a Tatiano confectam_
(Amsterdam, 1655); _Caedmonis monachi paraphrasis poetica geneseos_
(Amsterdam, 1655) (see criticism under CAEDMON); _Quatuor D.N.I.C.
evangeliorum versiones perantiquae duae, gothica scilicet et
anglo-saxonica_ (Dort, 2 vols., 1665) (the Gothic version in this book
Junius transcribed from the Silver Codex of Ulfilas; the Anglo-Saxon
version is from an edition by Thomas Marshall, whose notes to both
versions are given, and a Gothic glossary by Junius); _Etymologicum
anglicanum_, edited by Edward Lye, and preceded by a life of Junius
and George Hickes's Anglo-Saxon grammar (Oxford, 1743) (its results
require careful verification in the light of modern research). His
rich collection of ancient MSS., edited and annotated by him, Junius
bequeathed to the university of Oxford. Graevius gives a list of them;
the most important are a version of the _Ormulum_, the version of
Caedmon, and 9 volumes containing _Glossarium v. linguarum
septentrionalium_.
JUNK. (1) (Through Port. _junco_, adapted from Javanese _djong_, or
Malayan _adjong_, ship), the name of the native sailing vessel, common
to the far eastern seas, and especially used by the Chinese and
Javanese. It is a flat-bottomed, high-sterned vessel with square bows
and masts carrying lug-sails, often made of matting. (2) A nautical term
for small pieces of disused rope or cable, cut up to make fenders,
oakum, &c., hence applied colloquially by sailors to the salt beef and
pork used on board ship. The word is of doubtful origin, but may be
connected with "junk" (Lat. _juncus_), a reed, or rush. This word is now
obsolete except as applied to a form of surgical appliance, used as a
support in cases of fracture where immediate setting is impossible, and
consisting of a shaped pillow or cushion stuffed with straw or
horsehair, formerly with rushes or reeds.
JUNKER, WILHELM (1840-1892), German explorer of Africa, was born at
Moscow on the 6th of April 1840. He studied medicine at Dorpat,
Gottingen, Berlin and Prague, but did not practise for long. After a
series of short journeys to Iceland, Tunis and Lower Egypt, he remained
almost continuously in eastern Equatorial Africa from 1875 to 1886,
making first Khartum and afterwards Lado the base of his expeditions,
Junker was a leisurely traveller and a careful observer; his main object
was to study the peoples with whom he came into contact, and to collect
specimens of plants and animals, and the result of his investigations in
these particulars is given in his _Reisen in Afrika_ (3 vols., Vienna,
1889-1891), a work of high merit. An English translation by A. H. Keane
was published in 1890-1892. Perhaps the greatest service he rendered to
geographical science was his investigation of the Nile-Congo watershed,
when he successfully combated Georg Schweinfurth's hydrographical
theories and established the identity of the Welle and Ubangi. The
Mahdist rising prevented his return to Europe through the Sudan, as he
had planned to do, in 1884, and an expedition, fitted out in 1885 by his
brother in St Petersburg, failed to reach him. Junker then determined to
go south. Leaving Wadelai on the 2nd of January 1886 he travelled by way
of Uganda and Tabora and reached Zanzibar in December 1886. In 1887 he
received the gold medal of the Royal Geographical Society. As an
explorer Junker is entitled to high rank, his ethnographical
observations in the Niam-Niam (Azandeh) country being especially
valuable. He died at St Petersburg on the 13th of February 1892.
See the biographical notice by E. G. Ravenstein in _Proceedings of the
Royal Geographical Society_ (1892), pp. 185-187.
JUNKET, a dish of milk curdled by rennet, served with clotted cream and
flavoured with nutmeg, which is particularly associated in England with
Devonshire and Cornwall. The word is of somewhat obscure history. It
appears to come through O. Fr. _jonquette_, a rush-basket, from Lat.
_juncus_, rush. In Norman dialect this word is used of a cream cheese.
The commonly accepted origin is that it refers to the rush-basket on
which such cream cheeses or curds were served. _Juncade_ appears in
Rabelais, and is explained by Cotgrave as "spoon-meat, rose-water and
sugar." Nicholas Udall (in his translation of Erasmus's _Apophthegms_,
1542) speaks of "marchepaines or wafers with other like junkerie." The
word "junket" is also used for a festivity or picnic.
JUNO, the chief Roman and Latin goddess, and the special object of
worship by women at all the critical moments of life. The etymology of
the name is not certain, but it is usually taken as a shortened form of
_Jovino_, answering to _Jovis_, from a root _div_, shining. Under Greek
influence Juno was early identified with the Greek Hera, with whose cult
and characteristics she has much in common; thus the Juno with whom we
are familiar in Latin literature is not the true Roman deity. In the
_Aeneid_, for example, her policy is antagonistic to the plans of
Jupiter for the conquest of Latium and the future greatness of Rome;
though in the fourth _Eclogue_, as Lucina, she appears in her proper
role as assisting at childbirth. It was under Greek influence again that
she became the wife of Jupiter, the mother of Mars; the true Roman had
no such personal interest in his deities as to invent family relations
for them.
That Juno was especially a deity of women, and represents in a sense the
female principle of life, is seen in the fact that as every man had his
_genius_, so every woman had her Juno; and the goddess herself may have
been a development of this conception. The various forms of her cult all
show her in close connexion with women. As Juno Lucina she was invoked
in childbirth, and on the 1st of March, the old Roman New Year's day,
the matrons met and made offerings at her temple in a grove on the
Esquiline; hence the day was known as the _Matronalia_. As _Caprotina_
she was especially worshipped by female slaves on the 7th of July
(_Nonae Caprotinae_); as _Sospita_ she was invoked all over Latium as
the saviour of women in their perils, and later as the saviour of the
state; and under a number of other titles, _Cinxia_, _Unxia_, _Pronuba_,
&c., we find her taking a leading part in the ritual of marriage. Her
real or supposed connexion with the moon is explained by the alleged
influence of the moon on the lives of women; thus she became the deity
of the Kalends, or day of the new moon, when the _regina sacrorum_
offered a lamb to her in the _regia_, and her husband the _rex_ made
known to the people the day on which the Nones would fall. Thus she is
brought into close relation with Janus, who also was worshipped on the
Kalends by the _rex sacrorum_, and it may be that in the oldest Roman
religion these two were more closely connected than Juno and Jupiter.
But in historical times she was associated with Jupiter in the great
temple on the Capitoline hill as Juno _Regina_, the queen of all Junones
or queen of heaven, as Jupiter there was _Optimus Maximus_ (see
JUPITER), and under the same title she was enticed from Veii after its
capture in 392 B.C., and settled in a temple on the Aventine. Thus
exalted above all other female deities, she was prepared for that
identification with Hera which was alluded to above. That she was in
some sense a deity of light seems certain; as Lucina, e.g., she
introduced new-born infants "in luminis oras."
See Roscher's article "Juno" in his Lexicon of Mythology, and his
earlier treatise on Juno and Hera; Wissowa, _Religion und Kultus der
Romer_, 113 foll.; also a fresh discussion by Walter Otto in
_Philologus_ for 1905 (p. 161 foll.). (W. W. F.*)
JUNOT, ANDOCHE, DUKE OF ABRABANTES (1771-1813), French general, was born
at Bussy-le-Grand (Cote d'Or), on the 23rd of October 1771. He went to
school at Chatillon, and was known among his comrades as a blustering
but lovable creature, with a pugnacious disposition. He was studying law
in Paris at the outbreak of the Revolution and joined a volunteer
battalion. He distinguished himself by his valour in the first year of
the Revolutionary wars, and came under the special notice of Napoleon
Bonaparte during the siege of Toulon, while serving as his secretary. It
is related that as he was taking down a despatch, a shell burst hard by
and covered the paper with sand, whereupon he exclaimed, "Bien! nous
n'avions pas de sable pour secher l'encre! en voici!" He remained the
faithful companion of his chief during the latter's temporary disgrace,
and went with him to Italy as aide-de-camp. He distinguished himself so
much at the battle of Millesimo that he was selected to carry back the
captured colours to Paris; returning to Italy he went through the
campaign with honour, but was badly wounded in the head at Lonato. Many
rash incidents in his career may be traced to this wound, from which he
never completely recovered. During the expedition to Egypt he became a
general of brigade. His devotion to Bonaparte involved him in a duel
with General Lanusse, in which he was again wounded. He had to be left
in Egypt to recover, and in crossing to France was captured by English
cruisers. On his return to France he was made commandant of Paris, and
afterwards promoted general of division. It was at this time that he
married Laure Permon (see JUNOT, LAURE). He next served at Arras in
command of the grenadiers of the army destined for the invasion of
England, and made some alterations in the equipment of the troops which
received the praise of the emperor. It was, however, a bitter
mortification that he was not appointed a marshal of France when he
received the grand cross of the legion of honour. He was made
colonel-general of hussars instead and sent as ambassador to Lisbon, his
entry into which city resembled a royal progress. But he was so restless
and dissatisfied in the Portuguese capital that he set out, without
leave, for the army of Napoleon, with which he took part in the battle
of Austerlitz, behaving with his usual courage and zeal. But he soon
gave fresh offence. Although his early devotion was never forgotten by
the emperor, his uncertain temper and want of self-control made it
dangerous to employ him at court or headquarters, and he was sent to
Parma to put down an insurrection and to be out of the way. In 1806 he
was recalled and became governor of Paris. His extravagance and
prodigality shocked the government, and some rumours of an intrigue with
a lady of the imperial family--it is said Pauline Bonaparte--made it
desirable again to send him away. He was therefore appointed to lead an
invading force into Portugal. For the first time Junot had a great task
to perform, and only his own resources to fall back upon for its
achievement. Early in November 1807 he set out from Salamanca, crossed
the mountains of Beira, rallied his wearied forces at Abrantes, and,
with 1500 men, dashed upon Lisbon, in order, if possible, to seize the
Portuguese fleet, which had, however, just sailed away with the regent
and court to Brazil. The whole movement only took a month; it was
undoubtedly bold and well-conducted, and Junot was made duke of Abrantes
and invested with the governorship of Portugal. But administration was
his weak point. He was not a civil governor, but a _sabreur_, brave,
truculent, and also dissipated and rapacious, though in the last respect
he was far from being the worst offender amongst the French generals in
Spain. His hold on Portugal was never supported by a really adequate
force, and his own conduct, which resembled that of an eastern monarch,
did nothing to consolidate his conquest. After Wellesley encountered him
at Vimiera (see Peninsular War) he was obliged to conclude the so-called
convention of Cintra, and to withdraw from Portugal with all his forces.
Napoleon was furious, but, as he said, was spared the necessity of
sending his old friend before a court martial by the fact that the
English put their own generals on their trial. Junot was sent back to
Spain, where, in 1810-1811, acting under Massena, he was once more
seriously wounded. His last campaign was made in Russia, and he received
more than a just share of discredit for it. Napoleon next appointed him
to govern Illyria. But Junot's mind had become deranged under the weight
of his misfortunes, and on the 29th of July 1813, at Montbard, he threw
himself from a window in a fit of insanity.
JUNOT, LAURE, DUCHESS OF ABRANTES (1783-1834), wife of the preceding,
was born at Montpellier. She was the daughter of Mme. Permon, to whom
during her widowhood the young Bonaparte made an offer of marriage--such
at least is the version presented by the daughter in her celebrated
_Memoirs_. The Permon family, after various vicissitudes, settled at
Paris, and Bonaparte certainly frequented their house a good deal after
the downfall of the Jacobin party in Thermidor 1794. Mlle. Permon was
married to Junot early in the consulate, and at once entered eagerly
into all the gaieties of Paris, and became noted for her beauty, her
caustic wit, and her extravagance. The first consul nicknamed her
_petite peste_, but treated her and Junot with the utmost generosity, a
fact which did not restrain her sarcasms and slanders in her portrayal
of him in her _Memoirs_. During Junot's diplomatic mission to Lisbon,
his wife displayed her prodigality so that on his return to Paris in
1806 he was burdened with debts, which his own intrigues did not lessen.
She joined him again at Lisbon after he had entered that city as
conqueror at the close of 1807; but even the presents and spoils won at
Lisbon did not satisfy her demands; she accompanied Junot through part
of the Peninsular War. On her return to France she displeased the
emperor by her vivacious remarks and by receiving guests whom he
disliked. The mental malady of Junot thereafter threatened her with
ruin; this perhaps explains why she took some part in the intrigues for
bringing back the Bourbons in 1814. She did not side with Napoleon
during the Hundred Days. After 1815 she spent most of her time at Rome
amidst artistic society, which she enlivened with her sprightly
converse. She also compiled her spirited but somewhat spiteful
_Memoirs_, which were published at Paris in 1831-1834 in 18 volumes.
Many editions have since appeared.
Of her other books the most noteworthy are _Histoires contemporaines_
(2 vols., 1835); _Scenes de la vie espagnole_ (2 vols., 1836);
_Histoire des salons de Paris_ (6 vols., 1837-1838); _Souvenirs d'une
ambassade et d'un sejour en Espagne et en Portugal, de 1808 a 1811_ (2
vols., 1837). (J. Hl. R.)
JUNTA (from _juntar_, to join), a Spanish word meaning (1) any meeting
for a common purpose; (2) a committee; (3) an administrative council or
board. The original meaning is now rather lost in the two derivative
significations. The Spaniards have even begun to make use of the
barbarism _metin_, corrupted from the English "meeting." The word
_junta_ has always been and still is used in the other senses. Some of
the boards by which the Spanish administration was conducted under the
Habsburg and the earlier Bourbon kings were styled _juntas_. The
superior governing body of the Inquisition was the _junta suprema_. The
provincial committees formed to organize resistance to Napoleon's
invasion in 1808 were so called, and so was the general committee chosen
from among them to represent the nation. In the War of Independence
(1808-1814), and in all subsequent civil wars or revolutionary
disturbances in Spain or Spanish America, the local executive bodies,
elected, or in some cases self-chosen, to appoint officers, raise money
and soldiers, look after the wounded, and discharge the functions of an
administration, have been known as juntas.
The form "Junto," a corruption due to other Spanish words ending in
-_o_, came into use in English in the 17th century, often in a
disparaging sense, of a party united for a political purpose, a faction
or cabal; it was particularly applied to the advisers of Charles I., to
the Rump under Cromwell, and to the leading members of the great Whig
houses who controlled the government in the reigns of William III. and
Anne.
JUPITER, the chief deity of the Roman state. The great and constantly
growing influence exerted from a very early period on Rome by the
superior civilization of Greece not only caused a modification of the
Roman god on the analogy of Zeus, the supreme deity of the Greeks, but
led the Latin writers to identify the one with the other, and to
attribute to Jupiter myths and family relations which were purely Greek
and never belonged to the real Roman religion. The Jupiter of actual
worship was a Roman god; the Jupiter of Latin literature was more than
half Greek. This identification was facilitated by the community of
character which really belonged to Jupiter and Zeus as the Roman and
Greek developments of a common original conception of the god of the
light and the heaven.
That this was the original idea of Jupiter, not only in Rome, but among
all Italian peoples, admits of no doubt. The earliest form of his name
was _Diovis pater_, or _Diespiter_, and his special priest was the
flamen dialis; all these words point to a root _div_, shining, and the
connexion with _dies_, day, is obvious (cf. JUNO). One of his most
ancient epithets is _Lucetius_, the light-bringer; and later literature
has preserved the same idea in such phrases as _sub Jove_, under the
open sky. All days of the full moon (_idus_) were sacred to him; all
emanations from the sky were due to him and in the oldest form of
religious thought were probably believed to be manifestations of the god
himself. As Jupiter _Elicius_ he was propitiated, with a peculiar
ritual, to send rain in time of drought; as Jupiter _Fulgur_ he had an
altar in the Campus Martius, and all places struck by lightning were
made his property and guarded from the profane by a circular wall. The
vintage, which needs especially the light and heat of the sun, was under
his particular care, and in the festivals connected with it (_Vinalia
urbana_) and _Meditrinalia_, he was the deity invoked, and his flamen
the priest employed. Throughout Italy we find him worshipped on the
summits of hills, where nothing intervened between earth and heaven, and
where all the phenomena of the sky could be conveniently observed. Thus
on the Alban hill south of Rome was an ancient seat of his worship as
Jupiter _Latiaris_, which was the centre of the league of thirty Latin
cities of which Rome was originally an ordinary member. At Rome itself
it is on the Capitoline hill that we find his oldest temple, described
by Livy (i. 10); here we have a tradition of his sacred tree, the oak,
common to the worship both of Zeus and Jupiter, and here too was kept
the _lapis silex_, perhaps a celt, believed to have been a thunderbolt,
which was used symbolically by the fetiales when officially declaring
war and making treaties on behalf of the Roman state. Hence the curious
form of oath, _Jovem lapident jurare_, used both in public and private
life at Rome.
In this oldest Jupiter of the Latins and Romans, the god of the light
and the heaven, and the god invoked in taking the most solemn oaths, we
may undoubtedly see not only the great protecting deity of the race, but
one, and perhaps the only one, whose worship embodies a distinct moral
conception. He is specially concerned with oaths, treaties and leagues,
and it was in the presence of his priest that the most ancient and
sacred form of marriage, _confarreatio_, took place. The lesser deities,
Dius Fidius and Fides, were probably originally identical with him, and
only gained a separate existence in course of time by a process familiar
to students of ancient religion. This connexion with the conscience,
with the sense of obligation and right dealing, was never quite lost
throughout Roman history. In Virgil's great poem, though Jupiter is in
many ways as much Greek as Roman, he is still the great protecting deity
who keeps the hero in the path of duty (_pietas_) towards gods, state
and family.
But this aspect of Jupiter gained a new force and meaning at the close
of the monarchy with the building of the famous temple on the Capitol,
of which the foundations are still to be seen. It was dedicated to
Jupiter _Optimus Maximus_, i.e. the best and greatest of all the
Jupiters, and with him were associated Juno and Minerva, in a fashion
which clearly indicates a Graeco-Etruscan origin; for the combination of
three deities in one temple was foreign to the ancient Roman religion,
while it is found both in Greece and Etruria. This temple was built on a
scale of magnificence quite unknown to primitive Rome, and was beyond
doubt the work of Etruscan architects employed, we may presume, by the
Tarquinii. Its three _cellae_ contained the statues of the three
deities, with Jupiter in the middle holding his thunderbolt.
Henceforward it was the centre of the religious life of the state, and
symbolized its unity and strength. Its dedication festival fell on the
13th of September, on which day the consuls originally succeeded to
office; accompanied by the senate and other magistrates and priests, and
in fulfilment of a vow made by their predecessors, they offered to the
great god a white heifer, his favourite sacrifice, and after rendering
thanks for the preservation of the state during the past year, made the
same vow as that by which they themselves had been bound. Then followed
the _epulum Jovis_ or feast of Jupiter, in which the three deities seem
to have been visibly present in the form of their statues, Jupiter
having a couch and each goddess a _sella_, and shared the meal with
senate and magistrates. In later times this day became the central point
of the great Roman games (_ludi Romani_), originally games vowed in
honour of the god if he brought a war to a successful issue. When a
victorious army returned home, it was to this temple that the triumphal
procession passed, and the triumph of which we hear so often in Roman
history may be taken as a religious ceremonial in honour of Jupiter. The
general was dressed and painted to resemble the statue of Jupiter
himself, and was drawn on a gilded chariot by four white horses through
the Porta Triumphalis to the Capitol, where he offered a solemn
sacrifice to the god, and laid on his knees the victor's laurels (see
TRIUMPH).
Throughout the period of the Republic the great god of the Capitol in
his temple looking down on the Forum continued to overshadow all other
worships as the one in which the whole state was concerned, in all its
length and breadth, rather than any one gens or family. Under Augustus
and the new monarchy it is sometimes said that the Capitoline worship
suffered to some extent an eclipse (J. B. Carter, _The Religion of
Numa_, p. 160 seq.); and it is true that as it was the policy of
Augustus to identify the state with the interests of his own family, he
did what was feasible to direct the attention of the people to the
worships in which he and his family were specially concerned; thus his
temple of Apollo on the Palatine, and that of Mars Ultor in the Forum
Augusti, took over a few of the prerogatives of the cult on the Capitol.
But Augustus was far too shrewd to attempt to oust Jupiter Optimus
Maximus from his paramount position; and he became the protecting deity
of the reigning emperor as representing the state, as he had been the
protecting deity of the free republic. His worship spread over the whole
empire; it is probable that every city had its temple to the three
deities of the Roman Capitol, and the fact that the Romans chose the
name of Jupiter in almost every case, by which to indicate the chief
deity of the subject peoples, proves that they continued to regard him,
so long as his worship existed at all, as the god whom they themselves
looked upon as greatest.
See ZEUS, ROMAN RELIGION. Excellent accounts of Jupiter may be found
in Roscher's _Mythological Lexicon_, and in Wissowa's _Religion und
Kultus der Romer_ (p. 100 seq.). (W. M. Ra.; W. W. F.*)
JUPITER, in astronomy, the largest planet of the solar system; his size
is so great that it exceeds the collective mass of all the others in the
proportion of 5 to 2. He travels in his orbit at a mean distance from
the sun exceeding that of the earth 5.2 times, or 483,000,000 miles. The
eccentricity of this orbit is considerable, amounting to 0.048, so that
his maximum and minimum distances are 504,000,000 and 462,000,000 miles
respectively. When in opposition and at his mean distance, he is
situated 390,000,000 miles from the earth. His orbit is inclined about
1 deg. 18' 40" to the ecliptic. His sidereal revolution is completed in
4332.585 days or 11 years 314.9 days, and his synodical period, or the
mean interval separating his returns to opposition, amounts to 398.87
days. His real polar and equatorial diameters measure 84,570 and 90,190
miles respectively, so that the mean is 87,380 miles. His apparent
diameter (equatorial) as seen from the earth varies from about 32",
when in conjunction with the sun, to 50" in opposition to that
luminary. The oblateness, or compression, of his globe amounts to about
1/16; his volume exceeds that of the earth 1390 times, while his mass is
about 300 times greater. These values are believed to be as accurate as
the best modern determinations allow, but there are some differences
amongst various observers and absolute exactness cannot be obtained.
The discovery of telescopic construction early in the 17th century and
the practical use of the telescope by Galileo and others greatly
enriched our knowledge of Jupiter and his system. Four of the satellites
were detected in 1610, but the dark bands or belts on the globe of the
planet do not appear to have been noticed until twenty years later.
Though Galileo first sighted the satellites and perseveringly studied
the Jovian orb, he failed to distinguish the belts, and we have to
conclude either that these features were unusually faint at the period
of his observations, or that his telescopes were insufficiently powerful
to render them visible. The belts were first recognized by Nicolas
Zucchi and Daniel Bartoli on the 17th of May 1630. They were seen also
by Francesco Fontana in the same and immediately succeeding years, and
by other observers of about the same period, including Zuppi, Giovanni
Battista Riccioli and Francesco Maria Grimaldi. Improvements in
telescopes were quickly introduced, and between 1655 and 1666 C.
Huygens, R. Hooke and J. D. Cassini made more effective observations.
Hooke discovered a large dark spot in the planet's southern hemisphere
on the 19th of May 1664, and from this object Cassini determined the
rotation period, in 1665 and later years, as 9 hours 56 minutes.
The belts, spots and irregular markings on Jupiter have now been
assiduously studied during nearly three centuries. These markings are
extremely variable in their tones, tints and relative velocities, and
there is little reason to doubt that they are atmospheric formations
floating above the surface of the planet in a series of different
currents. Certain of the markings appear to be fairly durable, though
their rates of motion exhibit considerable anomalies and prove that they
must be quite detached from the actual sphere of Jupiter. At various
times determinations of the rotation period were made as follows:--
_Date._ _Observer._ _Period._ _Place of Spot._
1672 J. D. Cassini 9 h. 55 m. 50 s. Lat. 16 deg. S.
1692 " 9 h. 50 m. Equator.
1708 J. P. Maraldi 9 h. 55 m. 48 s. S. tropical zone
1773 J. Sylvabelle 9 h. 56 m. " "
1788 J. H. Schroter 9 h. 55 m. 33.6 s. Lat. 12 deg. N.
1788 " 9 h. 55 m. 17.6 s. Lat. 20 deg. S.
1835 J. H. Madler 9 h. 55 m. 26.5 s. Lat. 5 deg. N.
1835 G. B. Airy 9 h. 55 m. 21.3 s. N. tropical zone.
A great number of Jovian features have been traced in more recent years
and their rotation periods ascertained. According to the researches of
Stanley Williams the rates of motion for different latitudes of the
planet are approximately as under:--
_Latitude._ _Rotation Period._
+85 deg. to +28 deg. 9 h. 55 m. 37.5 s.
+28 deg. to +24 deg. 9 h. 54(1/2) m. to 9 h. 56(1/2) m.
+24 deg. to +20 deg. 9 h. 48 m. to 9 h. 49(1/2) m.
+20 deg. to +10 deg. 9 h. 55 m. 33.9 s.
+10 deg. to -12 deg. 9 h. 50 m. 20 s.
-12 deg. to -18 deg. 9 h. 55 m. 40 s.
-18 deg. to -37 deg. 9 h. 55 m. 18.1 s.
-37 deg. to -55 deg. 9 h. 55 m. 5 s.
W. F. Denning gives the following relative periods for the years 1898 to
1905:--
_Latitude._ _Rotation Period._
N.N. temperate 9 h. 55 m. 41.5 s.
N. temperate 9 h. 55 m. 53.8 s.
N. tropical 9 h. 55 m. 30 s.
Equatorial 9 h. 50 m. 27 s.
S. temperate 9 h. 55 m. 19.5 s.
S.S. temperate 9 h. 55 m. 7 s.
[Illustration: FIG. 1.--Inverted disk of Jupiter, showing the different
currents and their rates of rotation.]
The above are the mean periods derived from a large number of markings.
The bay or hollow in the great southern equatorial belt north of the red
spot has perhaps been observed for a longer period than any other
feature on Jupiter except the red spot itself. H. Schwabe saw the hollow
in the belt on the 5th of September 1831 and on many subsequent dates.
The rotation period of this object during the seventy years to the 5th
of September 1901 was 9 h. 55 m. 36 s. from 61,813 rotations. Since 1901
the mean period has been 9 h. 55 m. 40 s., but it has fluctuated between
9 h. 55 m. 38 s. and 9 h. 55 m. 42 s. The motion of the various features
is not therefore dependent upon their latitude, though at the equator
the rate seems swifter as a rule than in other zones. But exceptions
occur, for in 1880 some spots appeared in about 23 deg. N. which rotated
in 9 h. 48 m. though in the region immediately N. of this the spot
motion is ordinarily the slowest of all and averages 9 h. 55 m. 53.8 s.
(from twenty determinations). These differences of speed remind us of
the sun-spots and their proper motions. The solar envelope, however,
appears to show a pretty regular retardation towards the poles, for
according to Gustav Sporer's formula, while the equatorial period is 25
d. 2 h. 15 m. the latitudes 46 deg. N. and S. give a period of 28 d. 15
h. 0 m.
The Jovian currents flow in a due east and west direction as though
mainly influenced by the swift rotatory movement of the globe, and
exhibit little sign of deviation either to N. or S. These currents do
not blend and pass gradually into each other, but seem to be definitely
bounded and controlled by separate, phenomena well capable of preserving
their individuality. Occasionally, it is true, there have been slanting
belts on Jupiter (a prominent example occurred in the spring of 1861),
as though the materials were evolved with some force in a polar
direction, but these oblique formations have usually spread out in
longitude and ultimately formed bands parallel with the equator. The
longitudinal currents do not individually present us with an equable
rate of motion. In fact they display some curious irregularities, the
spots carried along in them apparently oscillating to and fro without
any reference to fixed periods or cyclical variations. Thus the
equatorial current in 1880 moved at the rate of 9 h. 50 m. 6 s. whereas
in 1905 it was 9 h. 50 m. 33 s. The red spot in the S. tropical zone
gave 9 h. 55 m. 34 s. in 1879-1880, whereas during 1900-1908 it has
varied a little on either side of 9 h. 55 m. 40.6 s. Clearly therefore
no fixed period of rotation can be applied for any spot since it is
subject to drifts E. or W. and these drifts sometimes come into
operation suddenly, and may be either temporary or durable. Between 1878
and 1900 the red spot in the planet's S. hemisphere showed a continuous
retardation of speed.
It must be remembered that in speaking of the rotation of these
markings, we are simply alluding to the irregularities in the vaporous
envelope of Jupiter. The rotation of the planet itself is another matter
and its value is not yet exactly known, though it is probably little
different from that of the markings, and especially from those of the
most durable character, which indicate a period of about 9 h. 56 m. We
never discern the actual landscape of Jupiter or any of the individual
forms really diversifying it.
Possibly the red spot which became so striking an object in 1878, and
which still remains faintly visible on the planet, is the same feature
as that discovered by R. Hooke in 1664 and watched by Cassini in
following years. It was situated in approximately the same latitude of
the planet and appears to have been hidden temporarily during several
periods up to 1713. But the lack of fairly continuous observations of
this particular marking makes its identity with the present spot
extremely doubtful. The latter was seen by W. R. Dawes in 1857, by Sir
W. Huggins in 1858, by J. Baxendell in 1859, by Lord Rosse and R.
Copeland in 1873, by H. C. Russell in 1876-1877, and in later years it
has formed an object of general observation. In fact it may safely be
said that no planetary marking has ever aroused such widespread interest
and attracted such frequent observation as the great red spot on
Jupiter.
The slight inclination of the equator of this planet to the plane of his
orbit suggests that he experiences few seasonal changes. From the
conditions we are, in fact, led to expect a prevailing calm in his
atmosphere, the more so from the circumstance that the amount of the
sun's heat poured upon each square mile of it is (on the average) less
than the 27th part of that received by each square mile of the earth's
surface. Moreover, the seasons of Jupiter have nearly twelve times the
duration of ours, so that it would be naturally expected that changes in
his atmosphere produced by solar action take place with extreme
slowness. But this is very far from being the case. Telescopes reveal
the indications of rapid changes and extensive disturbances in the
aspect and material forming the belts. New spots covering large areas
frequently appear and as frequently decay and vanish, implying an
agitated condition of the Jovian atmosphere, and leading us to admit the
operation of causes much more active than the heating influence of the
sun.
[Illustration: FIG. 2.--Jupiter, 1903, July 10, 2.50 a.m.]
[Illustration: FIG. 3.--Jupiter, 1906, April 15, 5.50 p.m.]
When we institute a comparison between Jupiter and the earth on the
basis that the atmosphere of the former planet bears the same relation
to his mass as the atmosphere of the earth bears to her mass, we find
that a state of things must prevail on Jupiter very dissimilar to that
affecting our own globe. The density of the Jovian atmosphere we should
expect to be fully six times as great as the density of our air at
sea-level, while it would be comparatively shallow. But the telescopic
aspect of Jupiter apparently negatives the latter supposition. The belts
and spots grow faint as they approach the limb, and disappear as they
near the edge of the disk, thus indicating a dense and deep atmosphere.
R. A. Proctor considered that the observed features suggested inherent
heat, and adopted this conclusion as best explaining the surface
phenomena of the planet. He regarded Jupiter as belonging, on account of
his immense size, to a different class of bodies from the earth, and was
led to believe that there existed greater analogy between Jupiter and
the sun than between Jupiter and the earth. Thus the density of the sun,
like that of Jupiter, is small compared with the earth's; in fact, the
mean density of the sun is almost identical with that of Jupiter, and
the belts of the latter planet may be much more aptly compared with the
spot zones of the sun than with the trade zones of the earth.
In support of the theory of inherent heat on Jupiter it has been said
that his albedo (or light reflected from his surface) is much greater
than the amount would be were his surface similar to that of the moon,
Mercury or Mars, and the reasoning has been applied to the large outer
planets, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune, as well as to Jupiter. The average
reflecting capacity of the moon and five outer planets would seem to be
(on the assumption that they possess no inherent light) as follows:--
Moon 0.1736 Jupiter 0.6238 Uranus 0.6400
Mars 0.2672 Saturn 0.4981 Neptune 0.4848
These values were considered to support the view that the four larger
and more distant orbs shine partly by inherent lustre, and the more so
as spectroscopic analysis indicates that they are each involved in a
deep vapour-laden atmosphere. But certain observations furnish a
contradiction to Proctor's views. The absolute extinction of the
satellites, even in the most powerful telescopes, while in the shadow of
Jupiter, shows that they cannot receive sufficient light from their
primary to render them visible, and the darkness of the shadows of the
satellites when projected on the planet's disk proves that the latter
cannot be self-luminous except in an insensible degree. It is also to be
remarked that, were it only moderately self-luminous, the colour of the
light which it sends to us would be red, such light being at first
emitted from a heated body when its temperature is raised. Possibly,
however, the great red spot, when the colouring was intense in 1878 and
several following years, may have represented an opening in the Jovian
atmosphere, and the ruddy belts may be extensive rifts in the same
envelope. If Jupiter's actual globe emitted a good deal of heat and
light we should probably distinguish little of it, owing to the
obscuring vapours floating above the surface. Venus reflects relatively
more light than Jupiter, and there is little doubt that the albedo of a
planet is dependent upon atmospheric characteristics, and is in no case
a direct indication of inherent light and heat.
The colouring of the belts appears to be due to seasonal variations, for
Stanley Williams has shown that their changes have a cycle of twelve
years, and correspond as nearly as possible with a sidereal revolution
of Jupiter. The variations are of such character that the two great
equatorial belts are alternately affected; when the S. equatorial belt
displays maximum redness the N. equatorial is at a minimum and vice
versa.
The most plausible hypothesis with regard to the red spot is that it is
of the nature of an island floating upon a liquid surface, though its
great duration does not favour this idea. But it is an open question
whether the belts of Jupiter indicate a liquid or gaseous condition of
the visible surface. The difficulty in the way of the liquid hypothesis
is the great difference in the times of rotation between the equatorial
portions of the planet and the spots in temperate latitudes. The latter
usually rotate in periods between 9 h. 55 m. and 9 h. 56 m., while the
equatorial markings make a revolution in about five minutes less, 9 h.
50 m. to 9 h. 51 m. The difference amounts to 7.5 deg. in a terrestrial
day and proves that an equatorial spot will circulate right round the
enormous sphere of Jupiter (circumference 283,000 m.) in 48 days. The
motion is equivalent to about 6000 m. per day and 250 m. per hour.
(W. F. D.)
_Satellites of Jupiter._
Jupiter is attended by eight known satellites, resolvable as regards
their visibility into two widely different classes. Four satellites were
discovered by Galileo and were the only ones known until 1892. In
September of that year E. E. Barnard, at the Lick Observatory,
discovered a fifth extremely faint satellite, performing a revolution in
somewhat less than twelve hours. In 1904 two yet fainter satellites, far
outside the other five, were photographically discovered by C. D.
Perrine at the Lick Observatory. The eighth satellite was discovered by
P. J. Melotte of Greenwich on the 28th of February 1908. It is of the
17th magnitude and appears to be very distant from Jupiter; a
re-observation on the 16th of January 1909 proved it to be retrograde,
and to have a very eccentric orbit. These bodies are usually numbered in
the order of their discovery, the nearest to the sun being V. In
apparent brightness each of the four Galilean satellites may be roughly
classed as of the sixth magnitude; they would therefore be visible to a
keen eye if the brilliancy of the planet did not obscure them. Some
observers profess to have seen one or more of these bodies with the
naked eye notwithstanding this drawback, but the evidence can scarcely
be regarded as conclusive. It does not however seem unlikely that the
third, which is the brightest, might be visible when in conjunction with
one of the others.
Under good conditions and sufficient telescopic power the satellites are
visible as disks, and not mere points of light. Measures of the apparent
diameter of objects so faint are, however, difficult and uncertain. The
results for the Galilean satellites range between 0".9 and 1".5,
corresponding to diameters of between 3000 and 5000 kilometres. The
smallest is therefore about the size of our moon. Satellite I. has been
found to exhibit marked variations in its brightness and aspect, but the
law governing them has not been satisfactorily worked out. It seems
probable that one hemisphere of this satellite is brighter than the
other, or that there is a large dark region upon it. A revolution on its
axis corresponding with that of the orbital revolution around the planet
has also been suspected, but is not yet established. Variations of light
somewhat similar, but less in amount, have been noticed in the second
and third satellites.
The most interesting and easily observed phenomena of these bodies are
their eclipses and their transits across the disk of Jupiter. The four
inner satellites pass through the shadow of Jupiter at every superior
conjunction, and across his disk at every inferior conjunction. The
outer Galilean satellite does the same when the conjunctions are not too
near the line of nodes of the satellites' orbit. When most distant from
the nodes, the satellites pass above or below the shadow and below or
above the disk. These phenomena for the four Galilean satellites are
predicted in the nautical almanacs.
When one of the four Galilean satellites is in transit across the disk
of Jupiter it can generally be seen projected on the face of the planet.
It is commonly brighter than Jupiter when it first enters upon the limb
but sometimes darker near the centre of the disk. This is owing to the
fact that the planet is much darker at the limb. During these transits
the shadow of the satellites can also be seen projected on the planet as
a dark point.
The theories of the motion of these bodies form one of the more
interesting problems of celestial mechanics. Owing to the great
ellipticity of Jupiter, growing out of his rapid rotation, the
influence of this ellipticity upon the motions of the five inner
satellites is much greater than that of the sun, or of the satellites
on each other. The inclination of the orbits to the equator of Jupiter
is quite small and almost constant, and the motion of each node is
nearly uniform around the plane of the planet's equator.
The most marked feature of these bodies is a relation between the mean
longitudes of Satellites I., II. and III. The mean longitude of I.
plus twice that of III. minus three times that of II. is constantly
near to 180 deg. It follows that the same relations subsist among the
mean motions. The cause of this was pointed out by Laplace. If we put
L1 L2 and L3 for the mean longitudes, and define an angle U as
follows:--
U = L1 - 3 L2 + 2 L3.
it was shown mathematically by Laplace that if the longitudes and mean
motions were such that the angle U differed a little from 180 deg.,
there was a minute residual force arising from the mutual actions of
the several bodies tending to bring this angle towards the value 180
deg. Consequently, if the mean motions were such that this angle
increased only with great slowness, it would after a certain period
tend back toward the value 180 deg., and then beyond it, exactly as a
pendulum drawn out of the perpendicular oscillates towards and beyond
it. Thus an oscillation would be engendered in virtue of which the
angle would oscillate very slowly on each side of the central value.
Computation of the mean longitude from observations has indicated that
the angle does differ from 180 deg., but it is not certain whether
this deviation is greater than the possible result of the errors of
observation. However this may be, the existence of the libration, and
its period if it does exist, are still unknown.
The following are the principal elements of the orbits of the five
inner satellites, arranged in the order of distance from Jupiter. The
mean longitudes are for 1891, 20th of October, G.M.T., and are
referred to the equinox of the epoch, 1891, 2nd of October:--
+--------------------+-----------+--------------+--------------+--------------+-------------+
| Satellite | V. | I. | II. | III. | IV. |
+--------------------+-----------+--------------+--------------+--------------+-------------+
| Mean Long. | 264 deg.29| 313 deg.7193 | 39 deg.1187 | 171 deg.2448 | 62 deg.2000 |
| Synodic Period |11 h. 58 m.|1 d. 18 h. .48| 3d. 13h. .30| 7d. 3h. .99 |16d. 18m. .09|
| Mean Distance |106,400 m. | 260,000 m. | 414,000 m. | 661,000 m. | 1,162,000 m.|
| Mass / Mass of Jup.| (?) | .00002831 | .00002324 | .00008125 | .00002149 |
| Stellar Mag. | 13 | 6.0 | 6.1 | 5.6 | 6.6 |
+--------------------+-----------+--------------+--------------+--------------+-------------+
The following numbers relating to the planet itself have been supplied
mostly by Professor Hermann Struve.
Filar Mic. Heliom.
Equatorial diameter of Jupiter (Dist. 5.2028) 38".50 37".50
Polar diameter of Jupiter 36".02 35".23
Ellipticity 1 / 15.5 1 / 16.5
Theoretical ellipticity from motion of
900" in the pericentreof Sat. V 1 / 15.3
Centrifugal force / gravity at equator 0.0900
Mass of Jupiter / Mass of Sun, now used in tables 1 / 1047.34
Inclination of planet's equator to ecliptic 2 deg. 9'.07 + 0.006t
" " " " orbit 3 deg. 4'.80
Long. of Node of equator on ecliptic 336 deg. 21'.47 + 0'.762t
" " " " orbit 135 deg.25'.81 + 0.729t
The longitudes are referred to the mean terrestrial equinox, and t is
the time in years from 1900.0.
For the elements of Jupiter's orbit, see SOLAR SYSTEM; and for
physical constants, see PLANET. (S. N.)
JUR (DIUR), the Dinka name for a tribe of negroes of the upper Nile
valley, whose real name is Luoh, or Lwo. They appear to be immigrants,
and tradition places their home in the south; they now occupy a district
of the Bahr-el-Ghazal between the Bongo and Dinka tribes. Of a reddish
black colour, fairer than the Dinka, they are well proportioned, with
the hair short. Tattooing is not common, but when found is similar to
that of the Dinka; they pierce the ears and nose, and in addition to the
ornaments found among the Dinka (q.v.) wear a series of iron rings on
the forearm covering it from wrist to elbow. They are mainly
agricultural, but hunt and fish to a considerable extent; they are also
skilful smiths, smelting their own iron, of which they supply quantities
to the Dinka. They are a prosperous tribe and in consequence spinsters
are unknown among them. Their chief currency is spears and hoe-blades,
and cowrie shells are used in the purchase of wives. Their chief weapons
are spears and bows.
See G. Schweinfurth, _The Heart of Africa: Travels 1868-1871_, trans.
G. E. E. Frewer (2nd ed., 1874); W. Junker, _Travels in Africa_ (Eng.
ed., 1890-1892).
JURA, a department of France, on the eastern frontier, formed from the
southern portion of the old province of Franche-Comte. It is bounded N
by the department of Haute-Saone, N.E. by Doubs, E. by Switzerland, S.
by Ain, and W. by Saone-et-Loire and Cote d'Or. Pop. (1906), 257,725.
Area, 1951 sq. m. Jura comprises four distinct zones with a general
direction from north to south. In the S.E. lie high eastern chains of
the central Jura, containing the Cret Pela (4915 ft.), the highest point
in the department. More to the west there is a chain of forest-clad
plateaus bordered on the E. by the river Ain. Westward of these runs a
range of hills, the slopes of which are covered with vineyards. The
north-west region of the department is occupied by a plain which
includes the fertile Finage, the northern portion of the Bresse, and is
traversed by the Doubs and its left affluent the Loue, between which
lies the fine forest of Chaux, 76 sq. m. in area. Jura falls almost
wholly within the basin of the Rhone. Besides those mentioned, the chief
rivers are the Valouze and the Bienne, which water the south of the
department. There are several lakes, the largest of which is that of
Chalin, about 12 m. E. of Lons-le-Saunier. The climate is, on the whole,
cold; the temperature is subject to sudden and violent changes, and
among the mountains winter sometimes lingers for eight months. The
rainfall is much above the average of France.
Jura is an agricultural department: wheat, oats, maize and barley are
the chief cereals, the culture of potatoes and rape being also of
importance. Vines are grown mainly in the cantons of Arbois, Poligny,
Salins and Voiteur. Woodlands occupy about a fifth of the area: the oak,
hornbeam and beech, and, in the mountains, the spruce and fir, are the
principal varieties. Natural pasture is abundant on the mountains.
Forests, gorges, torrents and cascades are characteristic features of
the scenery. Its minerals include iron and salt and there are
stone-quarries. Peat is also worked. Lons-le-Saunier and Salins have
mineral springs. Industries include the manufacture of Gruyere,
Septmoncel and other cheeses (made in co-operative cheese factories or
_fruitieres_), metal founding and forging, saw-milling, flour-milling,
the cutting of precious stones (at Septmoncel and elsewhere), the
manufacture of nails, tools and other iron goods, paper, leather,
brier-pipes, toys and fancy wooden-ware and basket-work. The making of
clocks, watches, spectacles and measures, which are largely exported,
employs much labour in and around Morez. Imports consist of grain,
cattle, wine, leaf-copper, horn, ivory, fancy-wood; exports of
manufactured articles, wine, cheese, stone, timber and salt. The
department is served chiefly by the Paris-Lyon-Mediterranee railway, the
main line from Paris to Neuchatel traversing its northern region. The
canal from the Rhone to the Rhine, which utilizes the channel of the
Doubs over portions of its course, traverses it for 25 m.
Lons-le-Saunier is the chief town of Jura, which embraces four
arrondissements named after the towns of Lons-le-Saunier, Dole, Poligny
and St Claude, with 32 cantons and 584 communes. The department forms
the diocese of St Claude and part of the ecclesiastical province of
Besancon; it comes within the region of the VIIth army corps and the
educational circumscription (academie) of Besancon, where is its court
of appeal. Lons-le-Saunier, Dole, Arbois, Poligny, St Claude and Salins,
the more noteworthy towns, receive separate notices. At
Baume-les-Messieurs, 8 m. N.E. of Lons-le-Saunier, there is an ancient
abbey with a fine church of the 12th century.
JURA ("deer island"), an island of the inner Hebrides, the fourth
largest of the group, on the west coast of Argyllshire, Scotland. Pop.
(1901), 560. On the N. it is separated from the island of Scarba by the
whirlpool of Corrievreckan, caused by the rush of the tides, often
running over 13 m. an hour, and sometimes accelerated by gales, on the
E. from the mainland by the sound of Jura, and on the S. and S.W. from
Islay by the sound of Islay. At Kinuachdrach there is a ferry to Aird in
Lorne, in Argyllshire, and at Faolin there is a ferry to Port Askaig in
Islay. Its area is about 160 sq. m., the greatest length is about 27 m.,
and the breadth varies from 2 m. to 8 m. The surface is mountainous and
the island is the most rugged of the Hebrides. A chain of hills
culminating in the Paps of Jura--Beinn-an-Oir (2571 ft.) and Beinn
Chaolais (2407 ft.)--runs the whole length of the island, interrupted
only by Tarbert loch, an arm of the sea, which forms an indentation
nearly 6 m. deep and almost cuts the island in two. Jura derived its
name from the red deer which once abounded on it. Cattle and sheep are
raised; oats, barley and potatoes are cultivated along the eastern
shore, and there is some fishing. Granite is quarried and silicious
sand, employed in glass-making is found. The parish of Jura comprises
the islands of Balnahua, Fladda, Garvelloch, Jura, Lunga, Scarba and
Skervuile.
JURA, a range which may be roughly described as the block of mountains
rising between the Rhine and the Rhone, and forming the frontier between
France and Switzerland. The gorges by which these two rivers force their
way to the plains cut off the Jura from the Swabian and Franconian
ranges to the north and those of Dauphine to the south. But in very
early days, before these gorges had been carved out, there were no
openings in the Jura at all, and even now its three chief rivers--the
Doubs, the Loue and the Ain--flow down the western slope, which is both
much longer and but half as steep as the eastern. Some geographers
extend the name Jura to the Swabian and Franconian ranges between the
Danube and the Neckar and the Main; but, though these are similar in
point of composition and direction to the range to the south, it is most
convenient to limit the name to the mountain ridges lying between France
and Switzerland, and this narrower sense will be adopted here.
The Jura has been aptly described as a huge plateau about 156 m. long
and 38 m. broad, hewn into an oblong shape, and raised by internal
forces to an average height of from 1950 to 2600 ft. above the
surrounding plains. The shock by which it was raised and the vibration
caused by the elevation of the great chain of the Alps, produced many
transverse gorges or "cluses," while on the plateaus between these
subaerial agencies have exercised their ordinary influence.
Geologically the Jura Mountains belong to the Alpine system; and the
same forces which crumpled and tore the strata of the one produced the
folds and faults in the other. Both chains owe their origin to the mass
of crystalline and unyielding rock which forms the central plateau of
France, the Vosges and the Black Forest, and which, between the Vosges
and the central plateau, lies at no great depth beneath the surface.
Against this mass the more yielding strata which lay to the south and
west were crushed and folded, and the Alps and the Jura were carved from
the ridges which were raised. But the folding decreases in intensity
towards the north; the folding in the Alps is much more violent than the
folding in the Jura, and in the Jura itself the folding is most marked
along its southern flanks.
The Jura is composed chiefly of Jurassic rocks--it is from this chain
that the Jurassic system derives its name--but Triassic, Cretaceous and
Tertiary beds take part in its formation. It may be divided into three
zones which run parallel to the length of the chain and differ from one
another in their structure. The innermost zone, which rises directly
from the plain of Switzerland, is the _folded Jura_ (_Jura plisse,
Kettenjura_), formed of narrow parallel undulations which diminish in
intensity towards the French border. This is followed by the _Jura
plateau_ (_Jura tabulaire_, _Tafeljura_), in which the beds are
approximately horizontal but are broken up into blocks by fractures or
faults. Finally, along its western face there is a zone of numerous
dislocations, and the range descends abruptly to the plain of the Saone.
This is the _Region du vignoble_ and is well shown at Arbois.
Owing to the convergence of the faults which bound it, the plateau zone
decreases in width towards the south, while towards the north it forms a
large proportion of the chain. The folded zone is more constant. Along
its inner margin the folds are frequently overthrown, leaning towards
France, but elsewhere they are simple anticlinals and synclinals,
parallel to the length of the chain, and as a rule there is a remarkable
freedom from dislocations of any importance, except towards Neuchatel
and Bienne.
The countless blocks of gneiss, granite and other crystalline formations
which are found in such numbers on the slopes of the Jura, and go by the
name of "erratic blocks" (of which the best known instance--the Pierre a
Bot--is 40 ft. in diameter, and rests on the side of a hill 800 ft.
above the Lake of Neuchatel), have been transported thither from the
Alps by ancient glaciers, which have left their mark on the Jura range
itself in the shape of striations and moraines.
The general direction of the chain is from north-east to south-west, but
a careful study reveals the fact that there were in reality two main
lines of upheaval, viz. north to south and east to west, the former best
seen in the southern part of the range and the latter in the northern;
and it was by the union of these two forces that the lines north-east to
south-west (seen in the greater part of the chain), and north-west to
south-east (seen in the Villebois range at the south-west extremity of
the chain), were produced. This is best realized if we take Besancon as
a centre; to the north the ridges run east and west, to the south, north
and south, while to the east the direction is north-east to south-west.
Before considering the topography of the interior of the Jura, it may
be convenient to take a brief survey of its outer slopes.
1. The _northern face_ dominates on one side the famous "Trouee" (or
Trench) of Belfort, one of the great geographical centres of Europe,
whence routes run north down the Rhine to the North Sea, south-east to
the Danube basin and Black Sea, and south-west into France, and so to
the Mediterranean basin. It is now so strongly fortified that it
becomes a question of great strategical importance to prevent its
being turned by means of the great central plateau of the Jura, which,
as we shall see, is a network of roads and railways. On the other side
it overhangs the "Trouee" of the Black Forest towns on the Rhine
(Rheinfelden, Sackingen, Laufenburg and Waldshut), through which the
central plain of Switzerland is easily gained. On this north slope two
openings offer routes into the interior of the chain--the valley of
the Doubs belonging to France, and the valley of the Birse belonging
to Switzerland. Belfort is the military, Mulhausen the industrial, and
Basel the commercial centre of this slope.
2. The _eastern and western faces_ offer many striking parallels. The
plains through which flow the Aar and the Saone have each been the bed
of an ancient lake, traces of which remain in the lakes of Neuchatel,
Bienne and Morat. The west face runs mainly north and south like its
great river, and for a similar reason the east face runs north-east to
south-west. Again, both slopes are pierced by many transverse gorges
or "cluses" (due to fracture and not to erosion), by which access is
gained to the great central plateau of Pontarlier, though these are
seen more plainly on the east face than on the west; thus the gorges
at the exit from which Lons-le-Saunier, Poligny, Arbois and Salins are
built balance those of the Suze, of the Val de Ruz, of the Val de
Travers, and of the Val d'Orbe, though on the east face there is but
one city which commands all these important routes--Neuchatel. This
town is thus marked out by nature as a great military and industrial
centre, just as is Besancon on the west, which has besides to defend
the route from Belfort down the Doubs. These easy means of
communicating with the Free County of Burgundy or Franche-Comte
account for the fact that the dialect of Neuchatel is Burgundian, and
that it was held generally by Burgundian nobles, though most of the
country near it was in the hands of the house of Savoy until gradually
annexed by Bern. The Chasseron (5286 ft.) is the central point of the
eastern face, commanding the two great railways which join Neuchatel
and Pontarlier. This ridge is in a certain sense parallel to the
valley of the Loue on the west face, which flows into the Doubs a
little to the south of Dole, the only important town of the central
portion of the Saone basin. The Chasseron is wholly Swiss, as are the
lower summits of the Chasseral (5279 ft.), the Mont Suchet (5220 ft.),
the Aiguille de Baulmes (5128 ft.), the Dent de Vaulion (4879 ft.),
the Weissenstein (4223 ft.), and the Chaumont (3845 ft.), the two
last-named points being probably the best-known points in the Jura, as
they are accessible by carriage road from Soleure and Neuchatel
respectively. South of the Orbe valley the east face becomes a rocky
wall which is crowned by all the highest summits (the first and second
Swiss, the rest French) of the chain--the Mont Tendre (5512 ft.), the
Dole (5505 ft.), the Reculet (5643 ft.), the Cret de la Neige (5653
ft.) and the Grand Credo (5328 ft.), the uniformity of level being as
striking as on the west edge of the Jura, though there the absolute
height is far less. The position of the Dole is similar to that of the
Chasseron, as along the sides of it run the great roads of the Col de
St Cergues (3973 ft.) and the Col de la Faucille (4341 ft.), the
latter leading through the Vallee des Dappes, which was divided in
1862 between France and Switzerland, after many negotiations. The
height of these roads shows that they are passages across the chain,
rather than through natural depressions.
3. The _southern face_ is supported by two great pillars--on the east
by the Grand Credo and on the west by the ridge of Revermont (2529
ft.) above Bourg en Bresse; between these a huge bastion (the district
of _Bugey_) stretches away to the south, forcing the Rhone to make a
long detour. On the two sides of this bastion the plains in which
Amberieu and Culoz stand balance one another, and are the meeting
points of the routes which cut through the bastion by means of deep
gorges. On the eastern side this great wedge is steep and rugged,
ending in the Grand Colombier (5033 ft.) above Culoz, and it sinks on
the western side to the valley of the Ain, the district of Bresse, and
the plateau of Dombes. The junction of the Ain and the Surand at Pont
d'Ain on the west balances that of the Valserine and the Rhone at
Bellegarde on the east.
The Jura thus dominates on the north one of the great highways of
Europe, on the east and west divides the valleys of the Saone and the
Aar, and stretches out to the south so as nearly to join hands with
the great mass of the Dauphine Alps. It therefore commands the routes
from France into Germany, Switzerland and Italy, and hence its
enormous historical importance.
Let us now examine the topography of the interior of the range. This
naturally falls into three divisions, each traversed by one of the
three great rivers of the Jura--the Doubs, the Loue and the Ain.
1. In the _northern division_ it is the east and west line which
prevails--the Lomont, the Mont Terrible, the defile of the Doubs from
St Ursanne to St Hippolyte, and the "Trouee" of the Black Forest
towns. It thus bars access to the central plateau from the north, and
this natural wall does away with the necessity of artificial
fortifications. This division falls again into two distinct portions.
(a) The first is the _part east of the deep gorge of the Doubs_ after
it turns south at St Hippolyte; it is thus quite cut off on this side,
and is naturally Swiss territory. It includes the basin of the river
Birse, and the great plateau between the Doubs and the Aar, on which,
at an average height of 2600 ft., are situated a number of towns, one
of the most striking features of the Jura. These include Le Locle
(q.v.) and La Chaux de Fonds (q.v.), and are mainly occupied with
watch-making, an industry which does not require bulky machinery, and
is therefore well fitted for a mountain district.
(b) _The part west of the "cluse" of the Doubs_: of this, the district
east of the river Dessoubre, isolated in the interior of the range
(unlike the Le Locle plateau), is called the Haute Montagne, and is
given up to cheese-making, curing of hams, saw-mills, &c. But little
watch-making is carried on there, Besancon being the chief French
centre of this industry, and being connected with Geneva by a chain of
places similarly occupied, which fringe the west plateau of the Jura.
The part west of the Dessoubre, or the Moyenne Montagne, a huge
plateau north of the Loue, is more especially devoted to agriculture,
while along its north edge metal-working and manufacture of hardware
are carried on, particularly at Besancon and Audincourt.
2. The _central division_ is remarkable for being without the deep
gorges which are found so frequently in other parts of the range. It
consists of the basin of which Pontarlier is the centre, through
notches in the rim of which routes converge from every direction; this
is the great characteristic of the middle region of the Jura. Hence
its immense strategical and commercial importance. On the north-east
roads run to Morteau and Le Locle, on the north-west to Besancon, on
the west to Salins, on the south-west to Dole and Lons-le-Saunier, on
the east to the Swiss plain. The Pontarlier plateau is nearly
horizontal, the slight indentations in it being due to erosion, e.g.
by the river Drugeon. The keys to this important plateau are to the
east the Fort de Joux, under the walls of which meet the two lines of
railway from Neuchatel, and to the west Salins, the meeting place of
the routes from the Col de la Faucille, from Besancon, and from the
French plain.
The Ain rises on the south edge of this plateau, and on a lower shelf
or step, which it waters, are situated two points of great military
importance--Nozeroy and Champagnole. The latter is specially
important, since the road leading thence to Geneva traverses one after
another, not far from their head, the chief valleys which run down
into the South Jura, and thus commands the southern routes as well as
those by St Cergues and the Col de la Faucille from the Geneva region,
and a branch route along the Orbe river from Jougne. The fort of Les
Rousses, near the foot of the Dole, serves as an advanced post to
Champagnole, just as the Fort de Joux does to Pontarlier.
The above sketch will serve to show the character of the central Jura
as the meeting place of routes from all sides, and the importance to
France of its being strongly fortified, lest an enemy approaching from
the north-east should try to turn the fortresses of the "Trouee de
Belfort." It is in the western part of the central Jura that the north
and south lines first appear strongly marked. There are said to be in
this district no less than fifteen ridges running parallel to each
other, and it is these which force the Loue to the north, and thereby
occasion its very eccentric course. The cultivation of wormwood
wherewith to make the tonic "absinthe" has its headquarters at
Pontarlier.
3. The _southern division_ is by far the most complicated and
entangled part of the Jura. The lofty ridge which bounds it to the
east forces all its drainage to the west, and the result is a number
of valleys of erosion (of which that of the Ain is the chief
instance), quite distinct from the natural "cluses" or fissures of
those of the Doubs and of the Loue. Another point of interest is the
number of roads which intersect it, despite its extreme irregularity.
This is due to the great "cluses" of Nantua and Virieu, which traverse
it from east to west. The north and south line is very clearly seen in
the eastern part of this division; the north-east and south-west is
entirely wanting, but in the Villebois range south of Amberieu we have
the principal example of the north-west to south-east line. The
plateaus west of the Ain are cut through by the valleys of the Valouse
and of the Surand, and like all the lowest terraces on the west slope
do not possess any considerable towns. The Ain receives three
tributaries from the east:--
(a) The Bienne, which flows from the fort of Les Rousses by St Claude,
the industrial centre of the south Jura, famous for the manufacture of
wooden toys, owing to the large quantity of boxwood in the
neighbourhood. Septmoncel is busied with cutting of gems, and Morez
with watch and spectacle making. Cut off to the east by the great
chain, the industrial prosperity of this valley is of recent origin.
(b) The Oignin, which flows from south to north. It receives the
drainage of the lake of Nantua, a town noted for combs and silk
weaving, and which communicates by the "cluse" of the Lac de Silan
with the Valserine valley, and so with the Rhone at Bellegarde, and
again with the various routes which meet under the walls of the fort
of Les Rousses, while by the Val Romey and the Seran Culoz is easily
gained.
(c) The Albarine, connected with Culoz by the "cluse" of Virieu, and
by the Furan flowing south with Belley, the capital of the district of
Bugey (the old name for the South Jura).
The "cluses" of Nantua and Virieu are now both traversed by important
railways; and it is even truer than of old that the keys of the south
Jura are Lyons and Geneva. But of course the strategic importance of
these gorges is less than appears at first sight, because they can be
turned by following the Rhone in its great bend to the south.
The range is mentioned by Caesar (_Bell. Gall._ i. 2-3, 6 (1), and 8
(1)), Strabo (iv. 3, 4, and 6, 11), Pliny (iii. 31; iv. 105; xvi. 197)
and Ptolemy (ii. ix. 5), its name being a word which appears under many
forms (e.g. Joux, Jorat, Jorasse, Juriens), and is a synonym for a wood
or forest. The German name is Leberberg, _Leber_ being a provincial word
for a hill.
Politically the Jura is French (departments of the Doubs, Jura and Ain)
and Swiss (parts of the cantons of Geneva, Vaud, Neuchatel, Bern,
Soleure and Basel); but at its north extremity it takes in a small bit
of Alsace (Pfirt or Ferrette). In the middle ages the southern, western
and northern sides were parcelled out into a number of districts, all of
which were gradually absorbed by the French crown, viz., Gex, Val Romey,
Bresse and Bugey (exchanged in 1601 by Savoy for the marquisate of
Saluzzo), Franche-Comte, or the Free County of Burgundy, an imperial
fief till annexed in 1674, the county of Montbeliard (Mompelgard)
acquired in 1793, and the county of Ferrette (French 1648-1871). The
northern part of the eastern side was held till 1792 (part till 1797) by
the bishop of Basel as a fief of the empire, and then belonged to France
till 1814, but was given to Bern in 1815 (as a recompense for its loss
of Vaud), and now forms the Bernese Jura, a French-speaking district.
The centre of the eastern slope formed the principality of Neuchatel
(q.v.) and the county of Valangin, which were generally held by
Burgundian nobles, came by succession to the kings of Prussia in 1707,
and were formed into a Swiss canton in 1815, though they did not become
free from formal Prussian claims until 1857. The southern part of the
eastern slope originally belonged to the house of Savoy, but was
conquered bit by bit by Bern, which was forced in 1815 to accept its
subject district Vaud as a colleague and equal in the Swiss
Confederation. It was Charles the Bold's defeats at Grandson and Morat
which led to the annexation by the confederates of these portions of
Savoyard territory.
AUTHORITIES.--E. F. Berlioux, _Le Jura_ (Paris, 1880); F. Machacek,
_Der Schweizer Jura_ (Gotha, 1905); A. Magnin, _Les lacs du Jura_
(Paris, 1895); J. Zimmerli, "Die Sprachgrenze im Jura" (vol. i. of his
_Die Deutsch-franzosische Sprachgrenze in der Schweiz_ (Basel, 1891).
For the French slope see Joanne's large _Itineraire_ to the Jura, and
the smaller volumes relating to the departments of the Ain, Doubs and
Jura, in his _Geographies departementales_. For the Swiss slope see 3
vols. in the series of the _Guides Monod_ (Geneva); A. Monnier, _La
Chaux de Fonds et le Haut-Jura Neuchatelois_; J. Monod, _Le Jura
Bernois_; and E. J. P. de la Harpe, _Le Jura Vaudois_.
(W. A. B. C.)
JURASSIC, in geology, the middle period of the Mesozoic era, that is to
say, succeeding the Triassic and preceding the Cretaceous periods. The
name Jurassic (French _jurassique_; German _Juraformation_ or _Jura_)
was first employed by A. Brongniart and A. von Humboldt for the rocks of
this age in the western Jura mountains of Switzerland, where they are
well developed. It was in England, however, that they were first studied
by William Smith, in whose hands they were made to lay the foundations
of stratigraphical geology. The names adopted by him for the
subdivisions he traced across the country have passed into universal
use, and though some of them are uncouth English provincial names, they
are as familiar to the geologists of France, Switzerland and Germany as
to those of England. During the following three decades Smith's work was
elaborated by W. D. Conybeare and W. Phillips. The Jurassic rocks of
fossils of the European continent were described by d'Orbigny,
1840-1846; by L. von Buch, 1839; by F. A. Quenstedt, 1843-1888; by A.
Oppel, 1856-1858; and since then by many other workers: E. Benecke, E.
Hebert, W. Waagen, and others. The study of Jurassic rocks has continued
to attract the attention of geologists, partly because the bedding is so
well defined and regular--the strata are little disturbed anywhere
outside the Swiss Jura and the Alps--and partly because the fossils are
numerous and usually well-preserved. The result has been that no other
system of rocks has been so carefully examined throughout its entire
thickness; many "zones" have been established by means of the
fossils--principally by ammonites--and these zones are not restricted to
limited districts, but many of them hold good over wide areas. Oppel
distinguished no fewer than thirty-three zonal horizons, and since then
many more sub-zonal divisions have been noted locally.
The existence of _faunal regions_ in Jurassic times was first pointed
out by J. Marcou; later M. Neumayr greatly extended observations in this
direction. According to Neumayr, three distinct geographical regions of
deposit can be made out among the Jurassic rocks of Europe: (1) The
Mediterranean province, embracing the Pyrenees, Alps and Carpathians,
with all the tracts lying to the south. One of the biological characters
of this area was the great abundance of ammonites belonging to the
groups of _Heterophylli_ (_Phylloceras_) and _Fimbriati_ (_Lytoceras_).
(2) The central European province, comprising the tracts lying to the
north of the Alpine ridge, and marked by the comparative rarity of the
ammonites just mentioned, which are replaced by others of the groups
_Inflati_ (_Aspidoceras_) and _Oppelia_, and by abundant reefs and
masses of coral. (3) The boreal or Russian province, comprising the
middle and north of Russia, Spitzbergen and Greenland. The life in this
area was much less varied than in the others, showing that in Jurassic
times there was a perceptible diminution of temperature towards the
north. The ammonites of the more southern tracts here disappear,
together with the corals.
[Illustration: Map of the probable distribution of Land & Sea in the
Jurassic Period.]
The cause of these faunal regions Neumayr attributed to climatic
belts--such as exist to-day--and in part, at least, he was probably
correct. It should be borne in mind, however, that although Neumayr was
able to trace a broad, warm belt, some 60 deg. in width, right round the
earth, with a narrower mild belt to the north and an arctic or boreal
belt beyond, and certain indications of a repetition of the climatic
zones on the southern side of the thermal equator, more recent
discoveries of fossils seem to show that other influences must have been
at work in determining their distribution; in short, the identity of the
Neumayrian climatic boundaries becomes increasingly obscured by the
advance of our knowledge.
The Jurassic period was marked by a great extension of the sea, which
commenced after the close of the Trias and reached its maximum during
the Callovian and Oxfordian stages; consequently, the Middle Jurassic
rocks are much more widely spread than the Lias. In Europe and elsewhere
Triassic beds pass gradually up into the Jurassic, so that there is
difficulty sometimes in agreement as to the best line for the base of
the latter; similarly at the top of the system there is a passage from
the Jurassic to the Cretaceous rocks (Alps).
Towards the close of the period elevation began in certain regions;
thus, in America, the Sierras, Cascade Mountains, Klamath Mountains, and
Humboldt Range probably began to emerge. In England the estuarine
Portlandian resulted partly from elevation, but in the Alps marine
conditions steadily persisted (in the Tithonian stage). There appears to
have been very little crustal disturbance or volcanic activity; tuffs
are known in Argentina and California; volcanic rocks of this age occur
also in Skye and Mull.
The rocks of the Jurassic system present great petrological diversity.
In England the name "Oolites" was given to the middle and higher members
of the system on account of the prevalence of oolitic structure in the
limestones and ironstones; the same character is a common feature in the
rocks of northern Europe and elsewhere, but it must not be overlooked
that clays and sandstones together bulk more largely in the aggregate
than the oolites. The thickness of Jurassic rocks in England is 4000 to
5000 ft., and in Germany 2000 to 3000 ft. Most of the rocks represent
the deposits of shallow seas, but estuarine conditions and land deposits
occur as in the Purbeck beds of Dorset and the coals of Yorkshire. Coal
is a very important feature among Jurassic rocks, particularly in the
Liassic division; it is found in Hungary, where there are twenty-five
workable beds; in Persia, Turkestan, Caucasus, south Siberia, China,
Japan, Further India, New Zealand and in many of the Pacific Islands.
Being shallow water formations, petrological changes come in rapidly as
many of the beds are traced out; sandstones pass laterally into clays,
and the latter into limestones, and so on, but a reliable guide to the
classification and correlation is found in the fossil contents of the
rocks. In the accompanying table a list is given of some of the zonal
fossils which regularly occur in the order indicated; other forms are
known that are equally useful. It will be noticed that while there is
general agreement as to the order in which the zonal forms occur, the
line of division between one formation and another is liable to vary
according to factors in the personal equation of the authors.
The Jurassic formations stretch across England in a varying band from
the mouth of the Tees to the coast of Dorsetshire. They consist of
harder sandstones and limestones interstratified with softer clays and
shales. Hence they give rise to a characteristic type of scenery--the
more durable beds standing out as long ridges, sometimes even with low
cliffs, while the clays underlie the level spaces between.
Jurassic rocks cover a vast area in Central Europe. They rise from
under the Cretaceous formations in the north-east of France, whence
they range southwards down the valleys of the Saone and Rhone to the
Mediterranean. They appear as a broken border round the old
crystalline nucleus of Auvergne. Eastwards they range through the Jura
Mountains up to the high grounds of Bohemia. They appear in the outer
chains of the Alps on both sides, and on the south they rise along the
centre of the Apennines, and here and there over the Spanish
Peninsula. Covered by more recent formations they underlie the great
plain of northern Germany, whence they range eastwards and occupy
large tracts in central and eastern Russia.
Lower Jurassic rocks are absent from much of northern Russia, the
stages represented being the Callovian, Oxfordian and Volgian (of
Professor S. Nikitin); the fauna differs considerably from that of
western Europe, and the marine equivalents of the Purbeck beds are
found in this region. In south Russia, the Crimea and Caucasus, Lias
and Lower Jurassic rocks are present. In the Alps, the Lower Jurassic
rocks are intimately associated with the underlying Triassic
formations, and resemble them in consisting largely of reddish
limestones and marbles; the ammonites in this region differ in certain
respects from those of western and central Europe. The Oxfordian,
Callovian, Corallian and Astartian stages are also present. The Upper
Jurassic is mainly represented by a uniform series of limestones, with
a peculiar and characteristic fauna, to which Oppel gave the name
"Tithonian." This includes most of the horizons from Kimeridgian to
Cretaceous; it is developed on the southern flanks of the Alps,
Carpathians, Apennines, as well as in south France and other parts of
the Mediterranean basin. A characteristic formation on this horizon is
the "Diphya limestone," so-called from the fossil _Terebratula diphya_
(_Pygope janitor_) seen in the well-known escarpments (_Hochgebirge
Kalk_). Above the Diphya limestone comes the Stramberg limestone
(Stramberg in Moravia), with "Aptychus" beds and coral reefs. The
rocks of the Mediterranean basin are on the whole more calcareous than
those of corresponding age in north-west Europe; thus the Lias is
represented by 1500 ft. of white crystalline limestone in Calabria and
a similar rock occurs in Sicily, Bosnia, Epirus, Corfu; in Spain the
Liassic strata are frequently dolomitic; in the Apennines they are
variegated limestones and marls. The Higher Jurassic beds of Portugal
show traces of the proximity of land in the abundant plant remains
that are found in them. In Scania the Lias succeeds the Rhaetic beds
in a regular manner, and Jurassic rocks have been traced northward
well within the polar circle; they are known in the Lofoten Isles,
Spitzbergen, east Greenland, King Charles's Island, Cape Stewart in
Scoresby Sound, Grinnell Land, Prince Patrick Land, Bathurst and
Exmouth Island; in many cases the fossils denote a climate
considerably milder than now obtains in these latitudes.
In the American continent Jurassic rocks are not well developed.
Marine Lower and Middle Jurassic beds occur on the Pacific coast
(California and Oregon), and in Wyoming, the Dakotas, Colorado, east
Mexico and Texas. Above the marine beds in the interior are brackish
and fresh-water deposits, the Morrison and Como beds (Atlantosaurus
and Baptanodon beds of Marsh). Later Jurassic rocks are found in
northern British Columbia and perhaps in Alaska, Wyoming, Utah,
Montana, Colorado, the Dakotas, &c. In California some of the
gold-bearing, metamorphic slates are of this age. Marine Jurassic
rocks have not been clearly identified on the Atlantic side of
America. The Patuxent and Arundel formations (non-marine) are
doubtfully referred to this period. Lower and Middle Jurassic
formations occur in Argentina and Bolivia. Jurassic rocks have been
recognized in Asia, including India, Afghanistan, Persia, Kurdistan,
Asia Minor, the Caspian region, Japan and Borneo. The best marine
development is in Cutch, where the following groups are distinguished
from above downwards: the Umia series = Portlandian and Tithonian of
south Europe, passing upwards into the Neocomian; the Katrol series =
Oxfordian (part) and Kimeridgian; the Chari series = Callovian and
part of the Oxfordian; the Patcham series = Bathonian. In the western
half of the Salt Range and the Himalayas, Spiti shales are the
equivalents of the European Callovian and Kimeridgian. The upper part
of the Gondwana series is not improbably Jurassic. On the African
continent, Liassic strata are found in Algeria, and Bathonian
formations occur in Abyssinia, Somaliland, Cape Colony and western
Madagascar. In Australia the Permo-Carboniferous formations are
succeeded in Queensland and Western Australia by what may be termed
the Jura-Trias, which include the coal-bearing "Ipswich" and "Burrum"
formations of Queensland. In New Zealand there is a thick series of
marine beds with terrestrial plants, the Mataura series in the upper
part of Hutton's Hokanui system. Sir J. Hector included also the
Putakaka series (as Middle Jurassic) and the Flag series with the
Catlin's River and Bastion series below. Jurassic rocks have been
recorded from New Guinea and New Caledonia.
JURASSIC SYSTEM
+---------------------+----------------+---+---------+------+---------------------------+----------------------------------------+
| | | O | Sub- | | | |
| | | p | stages | Von | A. de Lapparent, | |
| Stages[1] | Ammonite Zones | p | of | Buch | _Traite_, 5th ed. | Alpine |
| | | e | Quen- | | | |
| | | l | stedt | | | |
+---+---+-------------+----------------+---+---------+------+------------+----------+---+----------------------------------------+
| | U | | Perisphinctes | | | | Purbeckien | | | \ |
| | p | Purbeckian | transitorius | | | U | or | | | | |
| | p | | | | | p | Aquilonien | | | | |
| | e +-------------+ | | | p +------------+ Port- | | | |
| | r | | Perisphinctes | | | e | | landien | N | | |
| | | Portlandian | giganteus | | [zeta] | r | Bononien | | e | | _Diphya_-Kalke |
| | O | | Olcostephanus | | | | | | o | | |
| | o | | gigas | | | o | | | j | | Ammonitico |
| | l +-------------+ | | | r +------------+----------+ u | | rosso of \ _Acanthicus_ |
| | i | | Reineckia | |[epsilon]| | Virgulien | | r | > Tithonien, | Beds |
| | t | Kimeridgian | eudoxus | | [delta] | W | | Kimerid- | a | | southern | |
| | e | | Oppelia | | [gamma] | h +------------+ gien | s | | Alps | |
| | s | | tenuilobata | M | | i | Pteroceran | | s | | | |
| +---+-------------+ | a | | t +------------+----------+ i | | | |
| | M | Corallian | Peltoceras | l | [beta] | e | Astartien | Sequa- | q | | | |
| | i | | bimammatum | m | | | Rauracien | nien | u | | | |
| | d +-------------+ | | | J +------------+----------+ e | | | |
| | d | | Peltoceras | | | u | Argovien | | | | | |
| | l | Oxfordian | transversarium| | [alpha] | r +------------+ Oxfor- | | / | Aptychen- |
| O | e | | Aspidoceras | | | a | Neuvizien | dien | | > Kalke and |
| O | | | perarmatum | | | | | | | | Radiolariengesteine |
| L | O +-------------+ | | +------+------------+----------+ | | |
| I | o | | Peltoceras | | | | | | | | |
| T | l | | athleta | | [zeta] | | Upper | | | | |
| E | i | Callovian | Cosmoceras | | | | Divesien | Callovien| | | |
| S | t | | Jason | | | M | Lower | | | | |
| | e | | Macrocephalites| | | i | Divesien | | | | |
| | s | | macrocephalus | | | d | | | | | |
| +---+-------------+ +---+ | d +------------+----------+ | | Posidonien Beds|
| | | | Oppelia | |[epsilon]| l | | | | (S. Alps) |
| | L | Bathonian | aspidoides | | | e | Bathonien | | | Klauss Beds |
| | o | | Parkinsonia | | | | | | | (N. Alps) |
| | w | | ferruginea | | | o | | | / |
| | e +-------------+ | | | r +------------+ | |
| | r | | Parkinsonia | | | | | M | |
| | | | Parkinsoni | D | | B | | e | |
| | O | | Coeloceras | o | | r | | s | _Sauzei_-Kalke |
| | o | Bajocian | Humphresianus | g | | o | | o | |
| | l | (Inferior | Sphaeroceras | g | | w | Bajocien | j | |
| | i | Oolite) | Sauzei | e | | n | | u | |
| | t | | Sonninia | r | [delta] | | | r | |
| | e | | Sowerbyi | | [gamma] | J | | a | |
| | s | | Harpoceras | | [beta] | u | | s | |
| | | | Murchisonae | | | r | | s | Oolite of San |
+---+---+-------------+----------------+ | | a +------------+ | i | Vigilio |
| | | Harpoceras | | [alpha] | | | | q | |
| | (_passage beds_)| (Lioceras) | | | | | | u | |
| | | opalinum | | | | | | e | |
+---+-----------------+----------------+---+---------+------+ | | | |
| | | Lytoceras | | [zeta] | | | | | |
| | Upper Lias | jurense | | | | | | | |
| | | Posidonia | |[epsilon]| | Toarcien | | | |
| | | Bronni | | | | | | | |
| +-----------------+ | | | +------------+ | | \ |
| | | Amaltheus | | [beta] | | | | | \ | |
| | | spinatus | | | | | | | | | |
| | | Amaltheus | | | L | | | | | | |
| | | margaritatus | | | o | | | | | | |
| | Middle Lias | Dactylioceras | | | w | Charmou- | | | | | |
| | | Davoei | | | e | thien | | | | Adne- | \ |
| | | Phylloceras | | [gamma] | r | | | | > ter | | |
| | | ibex | L | | | | | E | | Kalke| | |
| | | Aegoceras | i | | o | | | o | | | | \ |
| | | Jamesoni | a | | r | | | j | | | Brachio- | Algau | |
| L +-----------------+ | s | | +------------+ | u | | > pod or > Beds | |
| I | | Arietites | | [beta] | B | | S | r | \ | | Hierlatz| | |
| A | | raricostatus | | | l | | y | a | | / | facies | | |
| S | | Oxynoticeras | | | a | | s | s | | | | | Flec- |
| | | oxynotum | | | c | | t | s | | | / > ken- |
| | | Arietites | | | k | | e | i | | | | mergel|
| | Lower Lias | obtusus | | | | | m | q | | | | |
| | | Arietites | | | J | | e | u | | | | |
| | | Bucklandi | | | u | | | e | | Gres- | | |
| | | Schlotheimia | | | r | | L | | > tener | | |
| | | angulata | | | a | Sine- | i | | | Beds | | |
| | | Psiloceras | | [alpha] | | mourien | a | | | (Coal) | / |
| | | planorbis | | | | Hettangien | s | | | | |
| +-----------------+----------------+---+---------+ | (part) | s | | | / |
| | | | | | | Hettangien | i | | | |
| | | | | | | (part) | q | | | |
| | | | | | | Rhetien | u | | | |
| | | | | | | |Infra- e | | | |
| | | | | | | |Lias | | / |
+---+-----------------+----------------+---+---------+------+------------+----------+---+----------------------------------------+
_Life in the Jurassic Period._--The expansion of the sea during this
period, with the formation of broad sheets of shallow and probably
warmish water, appears to have been favourable to many forms of marine
life. Under these conditions several groups of organisms developed
rapidly along new directions, so that the Jurassic period as a whole
came to have a fauna differing clearly and distinctly from the
preceding Palaeozoic or succeeding Tertiary faunas. In the seas, all
the main groups were represented as they are to-day. Corals were
abundant, and in later portions of the period covered large areas in
Europe; the modern type of coral became dominant; besides
reef-building forms such as _Thamnastrea_, _Isastrea_, _Thecosmilia_,
there were numerous single forms like _Montivaltia_. Crinoids existed
in great numbers in some of the shallow seas; compared with Palaeozoic
forms there is a marked reduction in the size of the calyx with a
great extension in the number of arms and pinnules; _Pentacrinus_,
_Eugeniacrinus_, _Apiocrinus_ are all well known; Antedon was a
stalkless genus. Echinoids (urchins) were gradually developing the
so-called "irregular" type, _Echinobrissus_, _Holectypus_,
_Collyrites_, _Clypeus_, but the "regular" forms prevailed, _Cidaris_,
_Hemicidaris_, _Acrosalenia_. Sponges were important rock-builders in
Upper Jurassic times (_Spongiten Kalk_); they include lithistids such
as _Cnemediastrum_, _Hyalotragus_, _Peronidella_; hexactinellids,
_Tremadictyon_, _Craticularia_; and horny sponges have been found in
the Lias and Middle Jurassic.
Polyzoa are found abundantly in some of the beds, _Stomatopora_,
_Berenicia_, &c. Brachiopods were represented principally by
terebratulids (_Terebratula_, _Waldheimia_, _Megerlea_), and by
rhynchonellids; _Thecae_, _Lingula_ and _Crania_ were also present.
The Palaeozoic spirifirids and athyrids still lingered into the Lias.
More important than the brachiopods were the pelecypods; _Ostrea_,
_Exogyra_, _Gryphaea_ were very abundant (Gryphite limestone, Gryphite
grit); the genus _Trigonia_, now restricted to Australian waters, was
present in great variety; _Aucella_, _Lima_, _Pecten_, _Pseudomonotis_
_Gervillia_, _Astarte_, _Diceras_, _Isocardia_, _Pleuromya_ may be
mentioned out of many others. Amongst the gasteropods the
_Pleurotomariidae_ and _Turbinidae_ reached their maximum development;
the Palaeozoic _Conularia_ lived to see the beginning of this period
(_Pleurotomaria_, _Nerinea_, _Pteroceras_, _Cerithium_, _Turritella_).
Cephalopods flourished everywhere; first in importance were the
ammonites; the Triassic genera _Phylloceras_ and _Lytoceras_ were
still found in the Jurassic waters, but all the other numerous genera
were new, and their shells are found with every variation of size and
ornamentation. Some are characteristic of the older Jurassic rocks,
_Arietites_, _Aegoceras_, _Amaltheus_, _Harpoceras_, _Oxynoticeras_,
_Stepheoceras_, and the two genera mentioned above; in the middle
stages are found _Cosmoceras_, _Perisphinctes_, _Cardioceras_,
_Kepplerites Aspidoceras_; in the upper stages _Olcostephanus_,
_Perisphinctes_, _Reineckia_, _Oppelia_. So regularly do certain forms
characterize definite horizons in the rocks that some thirty zones
have been distinguished in Europe, and many of them can be traced even
as far as India. Another cephalopod group, the belemnites, that had
been dimly outlined in the preceding Trias, now advanced rapidly in
numbers and in variety of form, and they, like the ammonites, have
proved of great value as zone-indicators. The Sepioids or cuttlefish
made their first appearance in this period (_Beloteuthis_,
_Geoteuthis_,) and their ink-bags can still be traced in examples from
the Lias and lithographic limestone. Nautiloids existed but they were
somewhat rare.
A great change had come over the crustaceans; in place of the
Palaeozoic trilobites we find long-tailed lobster-like forms,
_Penaeus_, _Eryon_, _Magila_, and the broad crab-like type first
appeared in _Prosopon_. Isopods were represented by _Archaeoniscus_
and others. Insects have left fairly abundant remains in the Lias of
England, Schambelen (Switzerland) and Dobbertin (Mecklenburg), and
also in the English Purbeck. Neuropterous forms predominate, but
hemiptera occur from the Lias upwards; the earliest known flies
(Diptera) and ants (Hymenoptera) appeared; orthoptera, cockroaches,
crickets, beetles, &c., are found in the Lias, Stonesfield slate and
Purbeck beds.
Fishes were approaching the modern forms during this period,
heterocercal ganoids becoming scarce (the _Coelacanthidae_ reached
their maximum development), while the homocercal forms were abundant
(_Gyrodus_, _Microdon_, _Lepidosteus_, _Lepidotus_, _Dapedius_). The
Chimaeridae, sea-cats, made their appearance (_Squaloraja_). The
ancestors of the modern sturgeons, garpikes and selachians, _Hybodus_,
_Acrodus_ were numerous. Bony-fish were represented by the small
_Leptolepis_.
So important a place was occupied by reptiles during this period that
it has been well described as the "age of reptiles." In the seas the
fish-shaped Ichthyosaurs and long-necked Plesiosaurs dwelt in great
numbers and reached their maximum development; the latter ranged in
size from 6 to 40 ft. in length. The Pterosaurs, with bat-like wings
and pneumatic bones and keeled breast-bone, flew over the land;
_Pterodactyl_ with short tail and _Rhamphorhyncus_ with long tail are
the best known. Curiously modified crocodilians appeared late in the
period (_Mystriosaurus_, _Geosaurus_, _Steneosaurus_, _Teleosaurus_).
But even more striking than any of the above were the Dinosaurs; these
ranged in size from a creature no larger than a rabbit up to the
gigantic _Atlantosaurus_, 100 ft. long, in the Jurassic of Wyoming.
Both herbivorous and carnivorous forms were present; _Brontosaurus_,
_Megalosaurus_, _Stegosaurus_, _Cetiosaurus_, _Diplodocus_,
_Ceratosaurus_ and _Campsognathus_ are a few of the genera. By
comparison with the Dinosaurs the mammals took a very subordinate
position in Jurassic times; only a few jaws have been found, belonging
to quite small creatures; they appear to have been marsupials and were
probably insectivorous (_Plagiaulax Bolodon_, _Triconodon_,
_Phascolotherium_, _Stylacodon_). Of great interest are the remains of
the earliest known bird (_Archaeopteryx_) from the Solenhofen slates
of Bavaria. Although this was a great advance beyond the Pterodactyls
in avian characters, yet many reptilian features were retained.
Comparatively little change took place in the vegetation in the time
that elapsed between the close of the Triassic and the middle of the
Jurassic periods. Cycads, _Zamites_, _Podozamites_, &c., appeared to
reach their maximum; Equisetums were still found growing to a great
size and Ginkgos occupied a prominent place; ferns were common; so too
were pines, yews, cypresses and other conifers, which while they
outwardly resembled their modern representatives, were quite distinct
in species. No flowering plants had yet appeared, although a primitive
form of angiosperm has been reported from the Upper Jurassic of
Portugal.
The economic products of the Jurassic system are of considerable
importance; the valuable coals have already been noticed; the
well-known iron ores of the Cleveland district in Yorkshire and those
of the Northampton sands occur respectively in the Lias and Inferior
Oolites. Oil shales are found in Germany, and several of the Jurassic
formations in England contain some petroleum. Building stones of great
value are obtained from the Great Oolite, the Portlandian and the
Inferior Oolite; large quantities of hydraulic cement and lime have
been made from the Lias. The celebrated lithographic stone of
Solenhofen in Bavaria belongs to the upper portion of this system.
See D'Orbigny, _Paleontologie francaise_, _Terrain Jurassique_ (1840,
1846); L. von Buch, "Uber den Jura in Deutschland" (_Abhand. d. Berlin
Akad._, 1839); F. A. Quenstedt, _Flotzgebirge Wurttembergs_ (1843) and
other papers, also _Der Jura_ (1883-1888); A. Oppel, _Die
Juraformation Englands, Frankreichs und s.w. Deutschlands_
(1856-1858). For a good general account of the formations with many
references to original papers, see A. de Lapparent, _Traite de
geologie_, vol. ii. 5th ed. (1906). The standard work for Great
Britain is the series of _Memoirs of the Geological Survey_ entitled
_The Jurassic Rocks of Britain_, i and ii. "Yorkshire" (1892); iii.
"The Lias of England and Wales" (1893); iv. "The Lower Oolite Rocks of
England (Yorkshire excepted)" (1894); v. "The Middle and Upper Oolitic
Rocks of England (Yorkshire excepted)" (1895). The map is after that
of M. Neumayr, "Die geographische Verbreitung der Juraformation,"
_Denkschr. d. k. Akad. d. Wiss., Wien, Math. u. Naturwiss._, cl. L.,
_Abth._ i, _Karte_ 1. (1885). (J. A. H.)
FOOTNOTE:
[1] _Purbeckian_ from the "Isle" of Purbeck. _Aquilonien_ from Aquilo
(Nord). _Bononien_ from Bononia (Boulogne). _Virgulien_ from _Exogyra
virgula_. _Pteroceran_ from _Pteroceras oceani_. _Astartien_ from
_Astarte supracorollina_. _Rauracien_ from Rauracia (Jura).
_Argovien_ from Argovie (Switzerland). _Neuvizien_ from Neuvizy
(Ardennes). _Divesien_ from Dives (Calvados). _Bathonien_ from Bath
(England). _Bajocien_ from Bayeux (Calvados). _Toarcien_ from
Toarcium (Tours). _Charmouthien_ from Charmouth (England).
_Sinemourien_ from Sinemurum, Semur (Cote d'Or). _Hettangien_ from
Hettange (Lorraine).
JURAT (through Fr. from med. Lat. _juratus_, one sworn, Lat. _jurare_,
to swear), a name given to the sworn holders of certain offices. Under
the _ancien regime_ in France, in several towns, of the south-west, such
as Rochelle and Bordeaux, the _jurats_ were members of the municipal
body. The title was also borne by officials, corresponding to aldermen,
in the Cinque Ports, but is now chiefly used as a title of office in the
Channel Islands. There are two bodies, consisting each of twelve jurats,
for Jersey and the bailiwick of Guernsey respectively. They are elected
for life, in Jersey by the ratepayers, in Guernsey by the elective
states. They form, with the bailiff as presiding judge, the royal court
of justice, and are a constituent part of the legislative bodies. In
English law, the word jurat (_juratum_) is applied to that part of an
affidavit which contains the names of the parties swearing the affidavit
and the person before whom it was sworn, the date, place and other
necessary particulars.
JURIEN DE LA GRAVIERE, JEAN BAPTISTE EDMOND (1812-1892), French admiral,
son of Admiral Jurien, who served through the Revolutionary and
Napoleonic wars and was a peer of France under Louis Philippe, was born
on the 19th of November 1812. He entered the navy in 1828, was made a
commander in 1841, and captain in 1850. During the Russian War he
commanded a ship in the Black Sea. He was promoted to be rear-admiral on
the 1st of December 1855, and appointed to the command of a squadron in
the Adriatic in 1859, when he absolutely sealed the Austrian ports with
a close blockade. In October 1861 he was appointed to command the
squadron in the Gulf of Mexico, and two months later the expedition
against Mexico. On the 15th of January 1862 he was promoted to be
vice-admiral. During the Franco-German War of 1870 he had command of the
French Mediterranean fleet, and in 1871 he was appointed "director of
charts." As having commanded in chief before the enemy, the age-limit
was waived in his favour, and he was continued on the active list.
Jurien died on the 4th of March 1892. He was a voluminous author of
works on naval history and biography, most of which first appeared in
the _Revue des deux mondes_. Among the most noteworthy of these are
_Guerres maritimes sous la republique et l'empire_, which was translated
by Lord Dunsany under the title of _Sketches of the Last Naval War_
(1848); _Souvenirs d'un amiral_ (1860), that is, of his father, Admiral
Jurien; _La Marine d'autrefois_ (1865), largely autobiographical; and
_La Marine d'aujourd'hui_ (1872). In 1866 he was elected a member of the
Academy.
JURIEU, PIERRE (1637-1713), French Protestant divine, was born at Mer,
in Orleanais, where his father was a Protestant pastor. He studied at
Saumur and Sedan under his grandfather, Pierre Dumoulin, and under
Leblanc de Beaulieu. After completing his studies in Holland and
England, Jurieu received Anglican ordination; returning to France he was
ordained again and succeeded his father as pastor of the church at Mer.
Soon after this he published his first work, _Examen de livre de la
reunion du Christianisme_ (1671). In 1674 his _Traite de la devotion_
led to his appointment as professor of theology and Hebrew at Sedan,
where he soon became also pastor. A year later he published his
_Apologie pour la morale des Reformes_. He obtained a high reputation,
but his work was impaired by his controversial temper, which frequently
developed into an irritated fanaticism, though he was always entirely
sincere. He was called by his adversaries "the Goliath of the
Protestants." On the suppression of the academy of Sedan in 1681, Jurieu
received an invitation to a church at Rouen, but, afraid to remain in
France on account of his forthcoming work, _La Politique du clerge de
France_, he went to Holland and was pastor of the Walloon church of
Rotterdam till his death on the 11th of January 1713. He was also
professor at the ecole illustre. Jurieu did much to help those who
suffered by the revocation of the Edict of Nantes (1685). He himself
turned for consolation to the Apocalypse, and succeeded in persuading
himself (_Accomplissement des propheties_, 1686) that the overthrow of
Antichrist (i.e. the papal church) would take place in 1689. H. M. Baird
says that "this persuasion, however fanciful the grounds on which it was
based, exercised no small influence in forwarding the success of the
designs of William of Orange in the invasion of England." Jurieu
defended the doctrines of Protestantism with great ability against the
attacks of Antoine Arnauld, Pierre Nicole and Bossuet, but was equally
ready to enter into dispute with his fellow Protestant divines (with
Louis Du Moulin and Claude Payon, for instance) when their opinions
differed from his own even on minor matters. The bitterness and
persistency of his attacks on his colleague Pierre Bayle led to the
latter being deprived of his chair in 1693.
One of Jurieu's chief works is _Lettres pastorales adressees aux
fideles de France_ (3 vols., Rotterdam, 1686-1687; Eng. trans., 1689),
which, notwithstanding the vigilance of the police, found its way into
France and produced a deep impression on the Protestant population.
His last important work was the _Histoire critique des dogmes et des
cultes_ (1704; Eng. trans., 1715). He wrote a great number of
controversial works.
See the article in Herzog-Hauck, _Realencyklopadie_; also H. M. Baird,
_The Huguenots and the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes_ (1895).
JURIS, a tribe of South American Indians, formerly occupying the country
between the rivers Ica (lower Putumayo) and Japura, north-western
Brazil. In ancient days they were the most powerful tribe of the
district, but in 1820 their numbers did not exceed 2000. Owing to
inter-marrying, the Juris are believed to have been extinct for half a
century. They were closely related to the Passes, and were like them a
fair-skinned, finely built people with quite European features.
JURISDICTION, in general, the exercise of lawful authority, especially
by a court or a judge; and so the extent or limits within which such
authority is exercisable. Thus each court has its appropriate
jurisdiction; in the High Court of Justice in England administration
actions are brought in the chancery division, salvage actions in the
admiralty, &c. The jurisdiction of a particular court is often limited
by statute, as that of a county court, which is local and is also
limited in amount. In international law jurisdiction has a wider
meaning, namely, the rights exercisable by a state within the bounds of
a given space. This is frequently referred to as the territorial theory
of jurisdiction. (See INTERNATIONAL LAW; INTERNATIONAL LAW, PRIVATE.)
JURISPRUDENCE (Lat. _jurisprudentia_, knowledge of law, from _jus_,
right, and _prudentia_, from _providere_, to foresee), the general term
for "the formal science of positive law" (T. E. Holland); see LAW. The
essential principles involved are discussed below and in JURISPRUDENCE,
COMPARATIVE; the details of particular laws or sorts of law (CONTRACT,
&c.) and of individual national systems of law (ENGLISH LAW, &c.) being
dealt with in separate articles.
The human race may be conceived as parcelled out into a number of
distinct groups or societies, differing greatly in size and
circumstances, in physical and moral characteristics of all kinds. But
they all resemble each other in that they reveal on examination certain
rules of conduct in accordance with which the relations of the members
_inter se_ are governed. Each society has its own system of laws, and
all the systems, so far as they are known, constitute the appropriate
subject matter of jurisprudence. The jurist may deal with it in the
following ways. He may first of all examine the leading conceptions
common to all the systems, or in other words define the leading terms
common to them all. Such are the terms _law_ itself, _right_, _duty_,
_property_, _crime_, and so forth, which, or their equivalents, may,
notwithstanding delicate differences of connotation, be regarded as
common terms in all systems. That kind of inquiry is known in England as
analytical jurisprudence. It regards the conceptions with which it deals
as fixed or stationary, and aims at expressing them distinctly and
exhibiting their logical relations with each other. What is really meant
by a right and by a duty, and what is the true connexion between a right
and a duty, are types of the questions proper to this inquiry. Shifting
our point of view, but still regarding systems of law in the mass, we
may consider them, not as stationary, but as changeable and changing, we
may ask what general features are exhibited by the record of the change.
This, somewhat crudely put, may serve to indicate the field of
historical or comparative jurisprudence. In its ideal condition it would
require an accurate record of the history of all legal systems as its
material. But whether the material be abundant or scanty the method is
the same. It seeks the explanation of institutions and legal principles
in the facts of history. Its aim is to show how a given rule came to be
what it is. The legislative source--the emanation of the rule from a
sovereign authority--is of no importance here; what is important is the
moral source--the connexion of the rule with the ideas prevalent during
contemporary periods. This method, it is evident, involves not only a
comparison of successive stages in the history of the same system, but a
comparison of different systems, of the Roman with the English, of the
Hindu with the Irish, and so on. The historical method as applied to law
may be regarded as a special example of the method of comparison. The
comparative method is really employed in all generalizations about law;
for, although the analysis of legal terms might be conducted with
exclusive reference to one system, the advantage of testing the result
by reference to other systems is obvious. But, besides the use of
comparison for purposes of analysis and in tracing the phenomena of the
growth of laws, it is evident that for the purposes of practical
legislation the comparison of different systems may yield important
results. Laws are contrivances for bringing about certain definite ends,
the larger of which are identical in all systems. The comparison of
these contrivances not only serves to bring their real object, often
obscured as it is in details, into clearer view, but enables legislators
to see where the contrivances are deficient, and how they may be
improved.
The "science of law," as the expression is generally used, means the
examination of laws in general in one or other of the ways just
indicated. It means an investigation of laws which exist or have existed
in some given society in fact--in other words, positive laws; and it
means an examination not limited to the exposition of particular
systems. Analytical jurisprudence is in England associated chiefly with
the name of John Austin (q.v.), whose _Province of Jurisprudence
Determined_ systematized and completed the work begun in England by
Hobbes, and continued at a later date and from a different point of view
by Bentham.
Austin's first position is to distinguish between laws properly so
called and laws improperly so called. In any of the older writers on
law, we find the various senses in which the word is used grouped
together as variations of one common meaning. Thus Blackstone advances
to his proper subject, municipal laws, through (1) the laws of inanimate
matter, (2) the laws of animal nutrition, digestion, &c., (3) the laws
of nature, which are rules imposed by God on men and discoverable by
reason alone, and (4) the revealed or divine law which is part of the
law of nature directly expounded by God. All of these are connected by
this common element that they are "rules of action dictated by some
superior being." And some such generalization as this is to be found at
the basis of most treatises on jurisprudence which have not been
composed under the influence of the analytical school. Austin disposes
of it by the distinction that some of those laws are commands, while
others are not commands. The so-called laws of nature are not commands;
they are uniformities which resemble commands only in so far as they may
be supposed to have been ordered by some intelligent being. But they are
not commands in the only proper sense of that word--they are not
addressed to reasonable beings, who may or may not will obedience to
them. Laws of nature are not addressed to anybody, and there is no
possible question of obedience or disobedience to them. Austin
accordingly pronounces them laws improperly so called, and confines his
attention to laws properly so called, which are commands addressed by a
human superior to a human inferior.
This distinction seems so simple and obvious that the energy and even
bitterness with which Austin insists upon it now seem superfluous. But
the indiscriminate identification of everything to which common speech
gives the name of a law was, and still is, a fruitful source of
confusion. Blackstone's statement that when God "put matter into motion
He established certain laws of motion, to which all movable matter must
conform," and that in those creatures that have neither the power to
think nor to will such laws must be invariably obeyed, so long as the
creature itself subsists, for its existence depends on that obedience,
imputes to the law of gravitation in respect of both its origin and its
execution the qualities of an act of parliament. On the other hand the
qualities of the law of gravitation are imputed to certain legal
principles which, under the name of the law of nature, are asserted to
be binding all over the globe, so that "no human laws are of any
validity if contrary to this." Austin never fails to stigmatize the use
of "natural laws" in the sense of scientific facts as improper, or as
metaphorical.
Having eliminated metaphorical or figurative laws, we restrict ourselves
to those laws which are commands. This word is the key to the analysis
of law, and accordingly a large portion of Austin's work is occupied
with the determination of its meaning. A _command_ is an order issued by
a superior to an inferior. It is a signification of desire distinguished
by this peculiarity that "the party to whom it is directed is liable to
evil from the other, in case he comply not with the desire." "If you are
able and willing to harm me in case I comply not with your wish, the
expression of your wish amounts to a command." Being liable to evil in
case I comply not with the wish which you signify, I am _bound_ or
obliged by it, or I lie under a _duty_ to obey it. The evil is called a
_sanction_, and the command or duty is said to be _sanctioned_ by the
chance of incurring the evil. The three terms _command_, _duty_ and
_sanction_ are thus inseparably connected. As Austin expresses it in the
language of formal logic, "each of the three terms signifies the same
notion, but each _denotes_ a different part of that notion and
_connotes_ the residue."
All commands, however, are not laws. That term is reserved for those
commands which oblige generally to the performance of acts of a class. A
command to your servant to rise at such an hour on such a morning is a
particular command, but not a law or rule; a command to rise always at
that hour is a law or rule. Of this distinction it is sufficient to say
in the meantime that it involves, when we come to deal with positive
laws, the rejection of particular enactments to which by inveterate
usage the term law would certainly be applied. On the other hand it is
not, according to Austin, necessary that a true law should bind persons
as a class. Obligations imposed on the grantee of an office specially
created by parliament would imply a law; a general order to go into
mourning addressed to the whole nation for a particular occasion would
not be a law.
So far we have arrived at a definition of laws properly so called.
Austin holds superiority and inferiority to be necessarily implied in
command, and such statements as that "laws emanate from superiors" to be
the merest tautology and trifling. Elsewhere he sums up the
characteristics of true laws as ascertained by the analysis thus: (1)
laws, being commands, emanate from a determinate source; (2) every
sanction is an evil annexed to a command; and (3) every duty implies a
command, and chiefly means obnoxiousness to the evils annexed to
commands.
Of true laws, those only are the subject of jurisprudence which are laws
strictly so called, or positive laws. Austin accordingly proceeds to
distinguish positive from other true laws, which are either laws set by
God to men or laws set by men to men, not, however, as political
superiors nor in pursuance of a legal right. The discussion of the first
of these true but not positive laws leads Austin to his celebrated
discussion of the utilitarian theory. The laws set by God are either
revealed or unrevealed, i.e. either expressed in direct command, or made
known to men in one or other of the ways denoted by such phrases as the
"light of nature," "natural reason," "dictates of nature," and so forth.
Austin maintains that the principle of general utility, based ultimately
on the assumed benevolence of God, is the true index to such of His
commands as He has not chosen to reveal. Austin's exposition of the
meaning of the principle is a most valuable contribution to moral
science, though he rests its claims ultimately on a basis which many of
its supporters would disavow. And the whole discussion is now generally
condemned as lying outside the proper scope of the treatise, although
the reason for so condemning it is not always correctly stated. It is
found in such assumptions of fact as that there is a God, that He has
issued commands to men in what Austin calls the "truths of revelation,"
that He designs the happiness of all His creatures, that there is a
predominance of good in the order of the world--which do not now command
universal assent. It is impossible to place these propositions on the
same scientific footing as the assumptions of fact with reference to
human society on which jurisprudence rests. If the "divine laws" were
facts like acts of parliament, it is conceived that the discussion of
their characteristics would not be out of place in a scheme of
jurisprudence.
The second set of laws properly so called, which are not positive laws,
consists of three classes: (1) those which are set by men living in a
state of nature; (2) those which are set by sovereigns but not as
political superiors, e.g. when one sovereign commands another to act
according to a principle of international law; and (3) those set by
subjects but not in pursuance of legal rights. This group, to which
Austin gives the name of positive morality, helps to explain his
conception of positive law. Men are living in a state of nature, or a
state of anarchy, when they are not living in a state of government or
as members of a political society. "Political society" thus becomes the
central fact of the theory, and some of the objections that have been
urged against it arise from its being applied to conditions of life in
which Austin would not have admitted the existence of a political
society. Again, the third set in the group is intimately connected with
positive laws on the one hand and rules of positive morality which are
not even laws properly so called on the other. Thus laws set by subjects
in consequence of a legal right are clothed with legal sanctions, and
are laws positive. A law set by guardian to ward, in pursuance of a
right which the guardian is bound to exercise, is a positive law pure
and simple; a law set by master to slave, in pursuance of a legal right,
which he is not bound to exercise, is, in Austin's phraseology, to be
regarded both as a positive moral rule and as a positive law.[1] On the
other hand the rules set by a club or society, and enforced upon its
members by exclusion from the society, but not in pursuance of any legal
right, are laws, but not positive laws. They are imperative and proceed
from a determinate source, but they have no legal or political
sanction. Closely connected with this positive morality, consisting of
true but not positive laws, is the positive morality whose rules are not
laws properly so called at all, though they are generally denominated
laws. Such are the laws of honour, the laws of fashion, and, most
important of all, international law.
Nowhere does Austin's phraseology come more bluntly into conflict with
common usage than in pronouncing the law of nations (which in substance
is a compact body of well-defined rules resembling nothing so much as
the ordinary rules of law) to be not laws at all, even in the wider
sense of the term. That the rules of a private club should be law
properly so called, while the whole mass of international jurisprudence
is mere opinion, shocks our sense of the proprieties of expression. Yet
no man was more careful than Austin to observe these properties. He
recognizes fully the futility of definitions which involve a painful
struggle with the current of ordinary speech. But in the present
instance the apparent paralogism cannot be avoided if we accept the
limitation of laws properly so called to commands proceeding from a
determinate source. And that limitation is so generally present in our
conception of law that to ignore it would be a worse anomaly than this.
No one finds fault with the statement that the so-called code of honour
or the dictates of fashion are not, properly speaking, laws. We repel
the same statement applied to the law of nature, because it resembles in
so many of its most striking features--in the certainty of a large
portion of it, in its terminology, in its substantial principles--the
most universal elements of actual systems of law, and because, moreover,
the assumption that brought it into existence was nothing else than
this, that it consisted of those abiding portions of legal systems which
prevail everywhere by their own authority. But, though "positive
morality" may not be the best phrase to describe such a code of rules,
the distinction insisted on by Austin is unimpeachable.
The elimination of those laws properly and improperly so called which
are not positive laws brings us to the definition of positive law, which
is the keystone of the system. Every positive law is "set by a sovereign
person, or sovereign body of persons, to a member or members of the
independent political society wherein that person or body is sovereign
or superior." Though possibly sprung directly from another source, it is
a positive law, by the institution of that present sovereign in the
character of a political superior. The question is not as to the
historical origin of the principle, but as to its present authority.
"The legislator is he, not by whose authority the law was first made,
but by whose authority it continues to be law." This definition involves
the analysis of the connected expressions _sovereignty_, _subjection_
and _independent political society_, and of _determinate body_--which
last analysis Austin performs in connexion with that of commands. These
are all excellent examples of the logical method of which he was so
great a master. The broad results alone need be noticed here. In order
that a given society may form a society political and independent, the
_generality or bulk_ of its members must be in a _habit_ of obedience to
a certain and common superior; whilst that certain person or body of
persons must not be _habitually_ obedient to a certain person or body.
All the italicized words point to circumstances in which it might be
difficult to say whether a given society is political and independent or
not. Several of these Austin has discussed--e.g. the state of things in
which a political society yields obedience which may or may not be
called habitual to some external power, and the state of things in which
a political society is divided between contending claimants for
sovereign power, and it is uncertain which shall prevail, and over how
much of the society. So long as that uncertainty remains we have a state
of _anarchy_. Further, an independent society to be political must not
fall below a number which can only be called considerable. Neither then
in a state of anarchy, nor in inconsiderable communities, nor among men
living in a state of nature, have we the proper phenomena of a political
society. The last limitation goes some way to meet the most serious
criticism to which Austin's system has been exposed, and it ought to be
stated in his own words. He supposes a society which may be styled
independent, which is considerable in numbers, and which is in a savage
or extremely barbarous condition. In such a society, "the bulk of its
members is not in the habit of obedience to one and the same superior.
For the purpose of attacking an external enemy, or for the purpose of
repelling an attack, the bulk of its members who are capable of bearing
arms submits to one leader or one body of leaders. But as soon as that
emergency passes the transient submission ceases, and the society
reverts to the state which may be deemed its ordinary state. The bulk of
each of the families which compose the given society renders habitual
obedience to its own peculiar chief, but those domestic societies are
themselves independent societies, or are not united and compacted into
one political society by habitual and general obedience to one common
superior, and there is no law (simply or strictly so styled) which can
be called the law of that society. The so-called laws which are common
to the bulk of the community are purely and properly customary
laws--that is to say, laws which are set or imposed by the general
opinion of the community, but are not enforced by legal or political
sanctions." Such, he says, are the savage societies of hunters and
fishers in North America, and such were the Germans as described by
Tacitus. He takes no account of societies in an intermediate stage
between this and the condition which constitutes political society.
We need not follow the analysis in detail. Much ingenuity is displayed
in grouping the various kinds of government, in detecting the sovereign
authority under the disguises which it wears in the complicated state
system of the United States or under the fictions of English law, in
elucidating the precise meaning of abstract political terms.
Incidentally the source of many celebrated fallacies in political
thought is laid bare. That the question who is sovereign in a given
state is a question of fact and not of law or morals or religion, that
the sovereign is incapable of legal limitation, that law is such by the
sovereign's command, that no real or assumed compact can limit his
action--are positions which Austin has been accused of enforcing with
needless iteration. He cleared them, however, from the air of paradox
with which they had been previously encumbered, and his influence was in
no direction more widely felt than in making them the commonplaces of
educated opinion in this generation.
Passing from these, we may now consider what has been said against the
theory, which may be summed up in the following terms. Laws, no matter
in what form they be expressed, are in the last resort reducible to
commands set by the person or body of persons who are in fact sovereigns
in any independent political society. The sovereign is the person or
persons whose commands are habitually obeyed by the great bulk of the
community; and by an independent society we mean that such sovereign
head is not himself habitually obedient to any other determinate body of
persons. The society must be sufficiently numerous to be considerable
before we can speak of it as a political society. From command, with its
inseparable incident of sanction, come the duties and rights in terms of
which laws are for the most part expressed. Duty means that the person
of whom it is predicated is liable to the sanction in case he fails to
obey the command. Right means that the person of whom it is predicated
may set the sanction in operation in case the command be disobeyed.
We may here interpolate a doubt whether the condition of independence
on the part of the head of a community is essential to the legal
analysis. It seems to us that we have all the elements of a true law
present when we point to a community habitually obedient to the
authority of a person or determinate body of persons, no matter what
the relations of that superior may be to any external or superior
power. Provided that in fact the commands of the lawgiver are those
beyond which the community never looks, it seems immaterial to inquire
whether this lawgiver in turn takes his orders from somebody else or
is habitually obedient to such orders when given. One may imagine a
community governed by a dependent legislatorial body or person, while
the supreme sovereign whose representative and nominee such body or
person may be never directly addresses the community at all. We do not
see that in such a case anything is gained in clearness by
representing the law of the community as set by the suzerain, rather
than the dependent legislator. Nor is the ascertainment of the
ultimate seat of power necessary to define political societies. That
we get when we suppose a community to be in the habit of obedience to
a single person or to a determinate combination of persons.
The use of the word "command" is not unlikely to lead to a
misconception of Austin's meaning. When we say that a law is a command
of the sovereign, we are apt to think of the sovereign as enunciating
the rule in question for the first time. Many laws are not traceable
to the sovereign at all in this sense. Some are based upon immemorial
practices, some can be traced to the influence of private citizens,
whether practising lawyers or writers on law, and in most countries a
vast body of law owes its existence as such to the fact that it has
been observed as law in some other society. The great bulk of modern
law owes its existence and its shape ultimately to the labours of the
Roman lawyers of the empire. Austin's definition has nothing to do
with this, the historical origin of laws. Most books dealing with law
in the abstract generalize the modes in which laws may be originated
under the name of the "sources" of law, and one of these is
legislation, or the direct command of the sovereign body. The
connexion of laws with each other as principles is properly the
subject matter of historical jurisprudence, the ideal perfection of
which would be the establishment of the general laws governing the
evolution of law in the technical sense. Austin's definition looks,
not to the authorship of the law as a principle, not to its inventor
or originator, but to the person or persons who in the last resort
cause it to be obeyed. If a given rule is enforced by the sovereign it
is a law.
It may be convenient to notice here what is usually said about the
sources of law, as the expression sometimes proves a stumbling-block
to the appreciation of Austin's system. In the _corpus juris_ of any
given country only a portion of the laws is traceable to the direct
expression of his commands by the sovereign. Legislation is one, but
only one, of the sources of law. Other portions of the law may be
traceable to other sources, which may vary in effect in different
systems. The list given in the _Institutes_ of Justinian of the ways
in which law may be made--_lex_, _plebiscitum_, _principis placita_,
_edicta magistratuum_, and so on--is a list of sources. Among the
sources of law other than legislation which are most commonly
exemplified are the laws made by judges in the course of judicial
decisions, and law originating as custom. The source of the law in the
one case is the judicial decision, in the other the custom. In
consequence of the decisions and in consequence of the custom the rule
has prevailed. English law is largely made up of principles derived in
each of those ways, while it is deficient in principles derived from
the writings of independent teachers, such as have in other systems
exercised a powerful influence on the development of law. The
_responsa prudentum_, the opinions of learned men, published as such,
did undoubtedly originate an immense portion of Roman law. No such
influence has affected English law to any appreciable extent--a result
owing to the activity of the courts of the legislature. This
difference has profoundly affected the form of English law as compared
with that of systems which have been developed by the play of free
discussion. These are the most definite of the influences to which the
beginning of laws may be traced. The law once established, no matter
how, is nevertheless law in the sense of Austin's definition. It is
enforced by the sovereign authority. It was originated by something
very different. But when we speak of it as a command we think only of
the way in which it is to-day presented to the subject. The newest
order of an act of parliament is not more positively presented to the
people as a command to be obeyed than are the elementary rules of the
common law for which no legislative origin can be traced. It is not
even necessary to resort to the figure of speech by which alone,
according to Sir Henry Maine (_Early History of Institutions_, p.
314), the common law can be regarded as the commands of the
government. "The common law," he says, "consists of their commands
because they can repeal or alter or restate it at pleasure." "They
command because, being by the assumption possessed of uncontrollable
force, they could innovate without limit at any moment." On the
contrary, it may be said that they command because they do as a matter
of fact enforce the rules laid down in the common law. It is not
because they could innovate if they pleased in the common law that
they are said to command it, but because it is known that they will
enforce it as it stands.
The criticism of Austin's analysis resolved itself into two different
sets of objections. One relates to the theory of sovereignty which
underlies it; the other to its alleged failure to include rules which in
common parlance are laws, and which it is felt ought to be included in
any satisfactory definition of law. As the latter is to some extent
anticipated and admitted by Austin himself, we may deal with it first.
Frederic Harrison (_Fortnightly Review_, vols. xxx., xxxi.) was at great
pains to collect a number of laws or rules of law which do not square
with the Austinian definition of law as a command creating rights and
duties. Take the rule that "every will must be in writing." It is a very
circuitous way of looking at things, according to Harrison, to say that
such a rule creates a specific right in any determinate person of a
definite description. So, again, the rule that "a legacy to the witness
of a will is void." Such a rule is not "designed to give any one any
rights, but simply to protect the public against wills made under undue
influence." Again, the technical rule in Shelley's case that a gift to A
for life, followed by a gift to the heirs of A, is a gift to A in fee
simple, is pronounced to be inconsistent with the definition. It is an
idle waste of ingenuity to force any of these rules into a form in which
they might be said to create rights.
This would be a perfectly correct description of any attempt to take any
of these rules separately and analyse it into a complete command
creating specific rights and duties. But there is no occasion for doing
anything of the kind. It is not contended that every grammatically
complete sentence in a textbook or a statute is _per se_ a command
creating rights and duties. A law, like any other command, must be
expressed in words, and will require the use of the usual aids to
expression. The gist of it may be expressed in a sentence which,
standing by itself, is not intelligible; other sentences locally
separate from the principal one may contain the exceptions and the
modifications and the interpretations to which that is subject. In no
one of these taken by itself, but in the substance of them all taken
together, is the true law, in Austin's sense, to be found. Thus the rule
that every will must be in writing is a mere fragment--only the limb of
a law. It belongs to the rule which fixes the rights of devisees or
legatees under a will. That rule in whatever form it may be expressed
is, without any straining of language, a command of the legislator. That
"every person named by a testator in his last will and testament shall
be entitled to the property thereby given him" is surely a command
creating rights and duties. After testament add "expressed in writing";
it is still a command. Add further, "provided he be not one of the
witnesses to the will," and the command, with its product of rights and
duties, is still there. Each of the additions limits the operation of
the command stated imperatively in the first sentence. So with the rule
in Shelley's case. It is resolvable into the rule that every person to
whom an estate is given by a conveyance expressed in such and such a way
shall take such and such rights. To take another example from later
legislation. An English statute passed in 1881 enacts nothing more than
this, that an act of a previous session shall be construed as if "that"
meant "this." It would be futile indeed to force this into conformity
with Austin's definition by treating it as a command addressed to the
judges, and as indirectly creating rights to have such a construction
respected. As it happens, the section of the previous act referred to
(the Burials Act 1880) was an undeniable command addressed to the
clergy, and imposed upon them a specific duty. The true command--the
law--is to be found in the two sections taken together.
All this confusion arises from the fact that laws are not habitually
expressed in imperative terms. Even in a mature system like that of
England the great bulk of legal rules is hidden under forms which
disguise their imperative quality. They appear as principles, maxims,
propositions of fact, generalizations, points of pleading and procedure,
and so forth. Even in the statutes the imperative form is not uniformly
observed. It might be said that the more mature a legal system is the
less do its individual rules take the form of commands. The greater
portion of Roman law is expressed in terms which would not misbecome
scientific or speculative treatises. The institutional works abound in
propositions which have no legal significance at all, but which are not
distinguished from the true law in which they are embedded by any
difference in the forms of expression. Assertions about matters of
history, dubious speculations in philology, and reflections on human
conduct are mixed up in the same narrative with genuine rules of law.
Words of description are used, not words of command, and rules of law
assimilate themselves in form to the extraneous matter with which they
are mixed up.
It has been said that Austin himself admitted to some extent the force
of these objections. He includes among laws which are not imperative
"declaratory laws, or laws explaining the import of existing positive
law, and laws abrogating or repealing existing positive law." He thus
associates them with rules of positive morality and with laws which are
only metaphorically so called. This collocation is unfortunate and out
of keeping with Austin's method. Declaratory and repealing laws are as
completely unlike positive morality and metaphorical laws as are the
laws which he describes as properly so called. And if we avoid the error
of treating each separate proposition enunciated by the lawgiver as _a_
law, the cases in question need give us no trouble. Read the declaratory
and the repealing statutes along with the principal laws which they
affect, and the result is perfectly consistent with the proposition that
all law is to be resolved into a species of command. In the one case we
have in the principal taken together with the interpretative statute a
law, and whether it differs or not from the law as it existed before the
interpretative statute was passed makes no difference to the true
character of the latter. It contributes along with the former to the
expression of a command which is a true law. In the same way repealing
statutes are to be taken together with the laws which they repeal--the
result being that there is no law, no command, at all. It is wholly
unnecessary to class them as laws which are not truly imperative, or as
exceptions to the rule that laws are a species of commands. The
combination of the two sentences in which the lawgiver has expressed
himself, yields the result of silence--absence of law--which is in no
way incompatible with the assertion that a law, when it exists, is a
kind of command. Austin's theory does not logically require us to treat
every act of parliament as being a complete law in itself, and therefore
to set aside a certain number of acts of parliament as being exceptions
to the great generalization which is the basis of the whole system.
Rules of procedure again have been alleged to constitute another
exception. They cannot, it is said, be regarded as commands involving
punishment if they be disobeyed. Nor is anything gained by considering
them as commands addressed to the judge and other ministers of the law.
There may be no doubt in the law of procedure a great deal that is
resolvable into law in this sense, but the great bulk of it is to be
regarded like the rules of interpretation as entering into the
substantive commands which are laws. They are descriptions of the
sanction and its mode of working. The bare prohibition of murder without
any penalty to enforce it would not be a law. To prohibit it under
penalty of death implies a reference to the whole machinery of criminal
justice by which the penalty is enforced. Taken by themselves the rules
of procedure are not, any more than canons of interpretation, complete
laws in Austin's sense of the term. But they form part of the complete
expression of true laws. They imply a command, and they describe the
sanction and the mode in which it operates.
A more formidable criticism of Austin's position is that which attacks
the definition of sovereignty. There are countries, it is said, where
the sovereign authority cannot by any stretch of language be said to
command the laws, and yet where law manifestly exists. The ablest and
the most moderate statement of this view is given by Sir Henry Maine in
_Early History of Institutions_, p. 380:--
"It is from no special love of Indian examples that I take one from
India, but because it happens to be the most modern precedent in
point. My instance is the Indian province called the Punjaub, the
country of the Five Rivers, in the state in which it was for about a
quarter of a century before its annexation to the British Indian
Empire. After passing through every conceivable phase of anarchy and
dormant anarchy, it fell under the tolerably consolidated dominion of
a half-military half-religious oligarchy known as the Sikhs. The Sikhs
themselves were afterwards reduced to subjection by a single chieftain
belonging to their order, Runjeet Singh. At first sight there could be
no more perfect embodiment than Runjeet Singh of sovereignty as
conceived by Austin. He was absolutely despotic. Except occasionally
on his wild frontier he kept the most perfect order. He could have
commanded anything; the smallest disobedience to his commands would
have been followed by death or mutilation; and this was perfectly well
known to the enormous majority of his subjects. Yet I doubt whether
once in all his life he issued a command which Austin would call a
law. He took as his revenue a prodigious share of the produce of the
soil. He harried villages which recalcitrated at his exactions, and
he executed great numbers of men. He levied great armies; he had all
material of power, and he exercised it in various ways. But he never
made a law. The rules which regulated the lives of his subjects were
derived from their immemorial usages, and those rules were
administered by domestic tribunals in families or village
communities--that is, in groups no larger or little larger than those
to which the application of Austin's principles cannot be effected on
his own admission without absurdity."
So far as the mere size of the community is concerned, there is no
difficulty in applying the Austinian theory. In postulating a
considerably numerous community Austin was thinking evidently of small
isolated groups which could not without provoking a sense of the
ridiculous be termed nations. Two or three families, let us suppose,
occupying a small island, totally disconnected with any great power,
would not claim to be and would not be treated as an independent
political community. But it does not follow that Austin would have
regarded the village communities spoken of by Maine in the same light.
Here we have a great community, consisting of a vast number of small
communities, each independent of the other, and disconnected with all
the others, so far as the administration of anything like law is
concerned. Suppose in each case that the headman or council takes his
orders from Runjeet Singh, and enforces them, each in his own sphere,
relying as the last resort on the force at the disposal of the suzerain.
The mere size of the separate communities would make no sort of
difference to Austin's theory. He would probably regard the empire of
Runjeet Singh as divided into small districts--an assumption which
inverts no doubt the true historical order, the smaller group being
generally more ancient than the larger. But provided that the other
conditions prevail, the mere fact that the law is administered by local
tribunals for minute areas should make no difference to the theory. The
case described by Maine is that of the undoubted possession of supreme
power by a sovereign, coupled with the total absence of any attempt on
his part to _originate_ a law. That no doubt is, as we are told by the
same authority, "the type of all Oriental communities in their native
state during their rare intervals of peace and order." The empire was in
the main in each case a tax-gathering empire. The unalterable law of the
Medes and Persians was not a law at all but an occasional command. So
again Maine puts his position clearly in the following sentences: "The
Athenian assembly made true laws for residents on Attic territory, but
the dominion of Athens over her subject cities and islands was clearly a
tax-taking as distinguished from a legislating empire." Maine, it will
be observed, does not say that the sovereign assembly did not command
the laws in the subject islands--only that it did not legislate.
In the same category may be placed without much substantial difference
all the societies that have ever existed on the face of the earth
previous to the point at which _legislation_ becomes active. Maine is
undoubtedly right in connecting the theories of Bentham and Austin with
the overwhelming activity of legislatures in modern times. And formal
legislation, as he elsewhere shows, comes late in the history of most
legal systems. Law is generated in other ways, which seem irreconcilable
with anything like legislation. Not only the tax-gathering emperors of
the East, indifferent to the condition of their subjects, but even
actively benevolent governments have up to a certain point left the law
to grow by other means than formal enactments. What is _ex facie_ more
opposed to the idea of a sovereign's commands than the conception of
schools of law? Does it not "sting us with a sense of the ridiculous" to
hear principles which are the outcome of long debates between Proculians
and Sabinians described as commands of the emperor? How is sectarianism
in law possible if the sovereign's command is really all that is meant
by a law? No mental attitude is more common than that which regards law
as a natural product--discoverable by a diligent investigator, much in
the same way as the facts of science or the principles of mathematics.
The introductory portions of Justinian's _Institutes_ are certainly
written from this point of view, which may also be described without
much unfairness as the point of view of German jurisprudence. And yet
the English jurist who accepts Austin's postulate as true for the
English system of our own day would have no difficulty in applying it to
German or Roman law generated under the influence of such ideas as
these.
Again, referring to the instance of Runjeet Singh, Sir H. Maine says no
doubt rightly that "he never did or could have dreamed of changing the
civil rules under which his subjects lived. Probably he was as strong a
believer in the independent obligatory force of such rules as the elders
themselves who applied them." That too might be said with truth of
states to which the application of Austin's system would be far from
difficult. The sovereign body or person enforcing the rules by all the
ordinary methods of justice might conceivably believe that the rules
which he enforced had an obligatory authority of their own, just as most
lawyers at one time, and possibly some lawyers now, believe in the
natural obligatoriness, independently of courts or parliaments, of
portions of the law of England. But nevertheless, whatever ideas the
sovereign or his delegates might entertain as to "the independent
obligatory force" of the rules which they enforce, the fact that they do
enforce them distinguishes them from all other rules. Austin seizes upon
this peculiarity and fixes it as the determining characteristic of
positive law. When the rule is enforced by a sovereign authority as he
defines it, it is his command, even if he should never so regard it
himself, or should suppose himself to be unable to alter it in a single
particular.
It may be instructive to add to these examples of dubious cases one
taken from what is called ecclesiastical law. In so far as this has
not been adopted and enforced by the state, it would, on Austin's
theory, be, not positive law, but either positive morality or possibly
a portion of the Divine law. No jurist would deny that there is an
essential difference between so much of ecclesiastical law as is
adopted by the state and all the rest of it, and that for scientific
purposes this distinction ought to be recognized. How near this kind
of law approaches to the positive or political law may be seen from
the sanctions on which it depended. "The theory of penitential
discipline was this: that the church was an organized body with an
outward and visible form of government; that all who were outside her
boundaries were outside the means of divine grace; that she had a
command laid upon her, and authority given to her, to gather men into
her fellowship by the ceremony of baptism, but, as some of those who
were admitted proved unworthy of their calling, she also had the right
by the power of the keys to deprive them temporarily or absolutely of
the privilege of communion with her, and on their amendment to restore
them once more to church membership. On this power of exclusion and
restoration was founded the system of ecclesiastical discipline. It
was a purely spiritual jurisdiction. It obtained its hold over the
minds of men from the belief, universal in the Catholic church of the
early ages, that he who was expelled from her pale was expelled also
from the way of salvation, and that the sentence which was pronounced
by God's church on earth was ratified by Him in heaven." (Smith's
_Dictionary of Christian Antiquities_, art. "Penitence," p. 1587.)
These laws are not the laws of the jurists, though they resemble them
closely in many points--indeed in all points except that of the
sanction by which they are enforced. It is a spiritual not a political
sanction. The force which lies behind them is not that of the
sovereign or the state. When physical force is used to compel
obedience to the laws of the church they become positive laws. But so
long as the belief in future punishments or the fear of the purely
spiritual punishments of the church is sufficient to procure obedience
to them, they are to be regarded as commands, not by the state, but by
the church. That difference Austin makes essential. In rejecting
spiritual laws from the field of positive law his example would be
followed by jurists who would nevertheless include other laws, not
ecclesiastical in purpose, but enforced by very similar methods.
Austin's theory in the end comes to this, that true laws are in all
cases obeyed in consequence of the application of regulated physical
force by some portion of the community. That is a fair paraphrase of the
position that laws are the commands of the sovereign, and is perhaps
less objectionable inasmuch as it does not imply or suggest anything
about the forms in which laws are enunciated. All rules, customs,
practices and laws--or by whatever name these uniformities of human
conduct may be called--have either this kind of force at their back or
they have not. Is it worth while to make this difference the basis of a
scientific system or not? Apparently it is. If it were a question of
distinguishing between the law of the law courts and the laws of
fashion no one would hesitate. Why should laws or rules having no
support from any political authority be termed laws positive merely
because there are no other rules in the society having such support?
The question may perhaps be summed up as follows. Austin's definitions
are in strict accordance with the facts of government in civilized
states; and, as it is put by Maine, certain assumptions or postulates
having been made, the great majority of Austin's positions follow as of
course or by ordinary logical process. But at the other extreme end of
the scale of civilization are societies to which Austin himself refuses
to apply his system, and where, it would be conceded on all sides, there
is neither political community nor sovereign nor law--none of the facts
which jurisprudence assumes to exist. There is an intermediate stage of
society in which, while the rules of conduct might and generally would
be spoken of as laws, it is difficult to trace the connexion between
them and the sovereign authority whose existence is necessary to
Austin's system. Are such societies to be thrown out of account in
analytical jurisprudence, or is Austin's system to be regarded as only a
partial explanation of the field of true law, and his definitions good
only for the laws of a portion of the world? The true answer to this
question appears to be that when the rules in any given case are
habitually enforced by physical penalties, administered by a determinate
person or portion of the community, they should be regarded as positive
laws and the appropriate subject matter of jurisprudence. Rules which
are not so enforced, but are enforced in any other way, whether by what
is called public opinion, or spiritual apprehensions, or natural
instinct, are rightly excluded from that subject matter. In all stages
of society, savage or civilized, a large body of rules of conduct,
habitually obeyed, are nevertheless not enforced by any state sanction
of any kind. Austin's method assimilates such rules in primitive
society, where they subserve the same purpose as positive laws in an
advanced society, not to the positive laws which they resemble in
purpose but to the moral or other rules which they resemble in
operation. If we refuse to accept this position we must abandon the
attempt to frame a general definition of law and its dependent terms, or
we must content ourselves with saying that law is one thing in one state
of society and another thing in another. On the ground of clearness and
convenience Austin's method is, we believe, substantially right, but
none the less should the student of jurisprudence be on his guard
against such assumptions as that legislation is a universal phenomenon,
or that the relation of sovereign and subject is discernible in all
states of human society. And a careful examination of Maine's criticism
will show that it is devoted not so much to a rectification of Austin's
position as to correction of the misconceptions into which some of his
disciples may have fallen. It is a misconception of the analysis to
suppose that it involves a difference in juridical character between
custom not yet recognized by any judicial decision and custom after such
recognition. There is no such difference except in the case of what is
properly called "judicial legislation"--wherein an absolutely new rule
is added for the first time to the law. The recognition of a custom or
law is not necessarily the beginning of the custom or law. Where a
custom possesses the marks by which its legality is determined according
to well understood principles, the courts pronounce it to have been law
at the time of the happening of the facts as to which their jurisdiction
is invoked. The fact that no previous instance of its recognition by a
court of justice can be produced is not material. A lawyer before any
such decision was given would nevertheless pronounce the custom to be
law--with more or less hesitation according as the marks of a legal
custom were obvious or not. The character of the custom is not changed
when it is for the first time enforced by a court of justice, and hence
the language used by Maine must be understood in a very limited sense.
"Until customs are enforced by courts of justice"--so he puts the
position of Austin--they are merely "positive morality," rules enforced
by opinion; but as soon as courts of justice enforce them they become
commands of the sovereign, conveyed through the judges who are his
delegates or deputies. This proposition, on Austin's theory, would only
be true of customs as to which these marks were absent. It is of course
true that when a rule enforced only by opinion becomes for the first
time enforceable by a court of justice--which is the same thing as the
first time of its being actually enforced--its juridical character is
changed. It was positive morality; it is now law. So it is when that
which was before the opinion of the judge only becomes by his decision a
rule enforceable by courts of justice. It was not even positive morality
but the opinion of an individual; it is now law.
The most difficult of the common terms of law to define is _right_; and,
as right rather than duty is the basis of classification, it is a point
of some importance. Assuming the truth of the analysis above discussed,
we may go on to say that in the notion of law is involved an obligation
on the part of some one, or on the part of every one, to do or forbear
from doing. That obligation is duty; what is right? Dropping the
negative of forbearance, and taking duty to mean an obligation to do
something, with the alternative of punishment in default, we find that
duties are of two kinds. The thing to be done may have exclusive
reference to a determinate person or class of persons, on whose motion
or complaint the sovereign power will execute the punishment or sanction
on delinquents; or it may have no such reference, the thing being
commanded, and the punishment following on disobedience, without
reference to the wish or complaint of individuals. The last are absolute
duties, and the omission to do, or forbear from doing, the thing
specified in the command is in general what is meant by a crime. The
others are relative duties, each of them implying and relating to a
right in some one else. A person has a right who may in this way set in
operation the sanction provided by the state. In common thought and
speech, however, right appears as something a good deal more positive
and definite than this--as a power or faculty residing in individuals,
and suggesting not so much the relative obligation as the advantage or
enjoyment secured thereby to the person having the right. J. S. Mill, in
a valuable criticism of Austin, suggests that the definition should be
so modified as to introduce the element of "advantage to the person
exercising the right." But it is exceedingly difficult to frame a
positive definition of right which shall not introduce some term at
least as ambiguous as the word to be defined. T. E. Holland defines
right in general as a man's "capacity of influencing the acts of another
by means, not of his own strength, but of the opinion or the force of
society." Direct influence exercised by virtue of one's own strength,
physical or otherwise, over another's acts, is "might" as distinguished
from right. When the indirect influence is the opinion of society, we
have a "moral right." When it is the force exercised by the sovereign,
we have a legal right. It would be more easy, no doubt, to pick holes in
this definition than to frame a better one.[2]
The distinction between rights available against determinate persons and
rights available against all the world, _jura in personam_ and _jura in
rem_, is of fundamental importance. The phrases are borrowed from the
classical jurists, who used them originally to distinguish actions
according as they were brought to enforce a personal obligation or to
vindicate rights of property. The owner of property has a right to the
exclusive enjoyment thereof, which avails against all and sundry, but
not against one person more than another. The parties to a contract have
rights available against each other, and against no other persons. The
_jus in rem_ is the badge of property; the _jus in personam_ is a mere
personal claim.
That distinction in rights which appears in the division of law into the
law of persons and the law of things is thus stated by Austin. There are
certain rights and duties, with certain capacities and incapacities, by
which persons are determined to various classes. The rights, duties,
&c., are the condition or status of the person; and one person may be
invested with many status or conditions. The law of persons consists of
the rights, duties, &c., constituting conditions or status; the rest of
the law is the law of things. The separation is a mere matter of
convenience, but of convenience so great that the distinction is
universal. Thus any given right may be exercised by persons belonging to
innumerable classes. The person who has the right may be under
twenty-one years of age, may have been born in a foreign state, may have
been convicted of crime, may be a native of a particular county, or a
member of a particular profession or trade, &c.; and it might very well
happen, with reference to any given right, that, while persons in
general, under the circumstances of the case, would enjoy it in the same
way, a person belonging to any one of these classes would not. If
belonging to any one of those classes makes a difference not to one
right merely but to many, the class may conveniently be abstracted, and
the variations in rights and duties dependent thereon may be separately
treated under the law of persons. The personality recognized in the law
of persons is such as modifies indefinitely the legal relations into
which the individual clothed with the personality may enter.
T. E. Holland disapproves of the prominence given by Austin to this
distinction, instead of that between public and private law. This,
according to Holland, is based on the public or private character of the
persons with whom the right is connected, public persons being the state
or its delegates. Austin, holding that the state cannot be said to have
legal rights or duties, recognizes no such distinction. The term "public
law" he confines strictly to that portion of the law which is concerned
with political conditions, and which ought not to be opposed to the rest
of the law, but "ought to be inserted in the law of persons as one of
the limbs or members of that supplemental department."
Lastly, following Austin, the main division of the law of things is into
(1) primary rights with primary relative duties, (2) sanctioning rights
with sanctioning duties (relative or absolute). The former exist, as it
has been put, for their own sake, the latter for the sake of the former.
Rights and duties arise from facts and events; and facts or events which
are violations of rights and duties are _delicts_ or _injuries_. Rights
and duties which arise from delicts are remedial or sanctioning, their
object being to prevent the violation of rights which do not arise from
delicts.
There is much to be said for Frederic Harrison's view (first expressed
in the _Fortnightly Review_, vol. xxxi.), that the rearrangement of
English law on the basis of a scientific classification, whether
Austin's or any other, would not result in advantages at all
compensating for its difficulties. If anything like a real code were to
be attempted, the scientific classification would be the best; but in
the absence of that, and indeed in the absence of any habit on the part
of English lawyers of studying the system as a whole, the arrangement of
facts does not very much matter. It is essential, however, to the
abstract study of the principles of law. Scientific arrangement might
also be observed with advantage in treatises affecting to give a view of
the whole law, especially those which are meant for educational rather
than professional uses. As an example of the practical application of a
scientific system of classification to a complete body of law, we may
point to W. A. Hunter's elaborate _Exposition of Roman Law_ (1876).
It is impossible to present the conclusions of historical jurisprudence
in anything like the same shape as those which we have been discussing.
Under the heading JURISPRUDENCE, COMPARATIVE, an account will be found
of the method and results of what is practically a new science. The
inquiry is in that stage which is indicated in one way by describing it
as a philosophy. It resembles, and is indeed only part of, the study
which is described as the philosophy of history. Its chief interest has
been in the light which it has thrown upon rules of law and legal
institutions which had been and are generally contemplated as positive
facts merely, without reference to their history, or have been
associated historically with principles and institutions not really
connected with them.
The historical treatment of law displaces some very remarkable
misconceptions. Peculiarities and anomalies abound in every legal
system; and, as soon as laws become the special study of a professional
class, some mode of explaining or reconciling them will be resorted to.
One of the prehistorical ways of philosophizing about law was to account
for what wanted explanation by some theory about the origin of technical
words. This implied some previous study of words and their history, and
is an instance of the deep-seated and persistent tendency of the human
mind to identify names with the things they represent. The _Institutes_
of Justinian abound in explanations, founded on a supposed derivation of
some leading term. _Testamentum_, we are told, _ex eo appellatur quod
testatio mentis est_. A testament was no doubt, in effect, a declaration
of intention on the part of the testator when this was written. But the
-_mentum_ is a mere termination, and has nothing to do with _mens_ at
all. The history of testaments, which, it may be noted incidentally, has
been developed with conspicuous success, gives a totally different
meaning to the institution from that which was expressed by this
fanciful derivation. So the perplexing subject of _possessio_ was
supposed in some way to be explained by the derivation from _pono_ and
_sedeo_--_quasi sedibus positio_. _Posthumi_ was supposed to be a
compound of _post_ and _humus_. These examples belong to the class of
rationalizing derivations with which students of philosophy are
familiar. Their characteristic is that they are suggested by some
prominent feature of the thing as it then appeared to observers--which
feature thereupon becomes identified with the essence of the thing at
all times and places.
Another prehistorical mode of explaining law may be described as
metaphysical. It conceives of a rule or principle of law as existing by
virtue of some more general rule or principle in the nature of things.
Thus, in the English law of inheritance, until the passing of the
Inheritance Act 1833, an estate belonging to a deceased intestate would
pass to his uncle or aunt, to the exclusion of his father or other
lineal ancestor. This anomaly from an early time excited the curiosity
of lawyers, and the explanation accepted in the time of Bracton was that
it was an example of the general law of nature: "Descendit itaque jus
quasi ponderosum quid cadens deorsum recta linea vel transversali, et
nunquam reascendit ea via qua descendit." It has been suggested that the
"rule really results from the associations involved in the word
descent." It seems more likely, however, that these associations
explained rather than that they suggested the rule--that the omission of
the lineal ancestor existed in custom before it was discovered to be in
harmony with the law of nature. It would imply more influence than the
reasoning of lawyers is likely to have exercised over the development of
law at that time to believe that a purely artificial inference of this
kind should have established so very remarkable a rule. However that may
be, the explanation is typical of a way of looking at law which was
common enough before the dawn of the historical method. Minds capable of
reasoning in this way were, if possible, farther removed from the
conceptions implied in the reasoning of the analytical jurists than they
were from the historical method itself. In this connexion it may be
noticed that the great work of Blackstone marks an era in the
development of legal ideas in England. It was not merely the first, as
it still remains the only, adequate attempt to expound the leading
principles of the whole body of law, but it was distinctly inspired by a
rationalizing method. Blackstone tried not merely to express but to
illustrate legal rules, and he had a keen sense of the value of
historical illustrations. He worked of course with the materials at his
command. His manner and his work are obnoxious alike to the modern
jurist and to the modern historian. He is accused by the one of
perverting history, and by the other of confusing the law. But his
scheme is a great advance on anything that had been attempted before;
and, if his work has been prolific in popular fallacies, at all events
it enriched English literature by a conspectus of the law, in which the
logical connexion of its principles _inter se_, and its relations to
historical facts, were distinctly if erroneously recognized.
While the historical method has superseded the verbal and metaphysical
explanation of legal principles, it had apparently, in some cases, come
into conflict with the conclusions of the analytical school. The
difference between the two systems comes out most conspicuously in
relation to customs. There is an unavoidable break in the analytical
method between societies in which rules are backed by regulated physical
force and those in which no such force exists. At what point in its
development a given society passes into the condition of "an independent
political society" it may not be easy to determine, for the evidence is
obscure and conflicting. To the historical jurist there is no such
breach. The rule which in one stage of society is a law, in another
merely a rule of "positive morality," is the same thing to him
throughout. By the Irish Land Act 1881 the Ulster custom of tenant-right
and other analogous customs were legalized. For the purposes of
analytical jurisprudence there is no need to go beyond the act of
parliament. The laws known as the Ulster custom are laws solely in
virtue of the sovereign government. Between the law as it now is and the
custom as it existed before the act there is all the difference in the
world. To the historical jurist no such separation is possible. His
account of the law would not only be incomplete without embracing the
precedent custom, but the act which made the custom law is only one of
the facts, and by no means the most significant or important, in the
history of its development. An exactly parallel case is the legalization
in England of that customary tenant-right known as copyhold. It is to
the historical jurist exactly the same thing as the legalization of the
Ulster tenant right. In the one case a practice was made law by formal
legislation, and in the other without formal legislation. And there can
be very little doubt that in an earlier stage of society, when formal
legislation had not become the rule, the custom would have been
legalized relatively much sooner than it actually was.
Customs then are the same thing as laws to the historical jurist, and
his business is to trace the influences under which they have grown up,
flourished and decayed, their dependence on the intellectual and moral
conditions of society at different times, and their reaction upon them.
The recognized science--and such it may now be considered to be--with
which historical, or more properly comparative, jurisprudence has most
analogy is the science of language. Laws and customs are to the one what
words are to the other, and each separate municipal system has its
analogue in a language. Legal systems are related together like
languages and dialects, and the investigation in both cases brings us
back at last to the meagre and obscure records of savage custom and
speech. A great master of the science of language (Max Muller) has
indeed distinguished it from jurisprudence, as belonging to a totally
different class of sciences. "It is perfectly true," he says, "that if
language be the work of man in the same sense in which a statue, or a
temple, or a poem, or a law are properly called the works of man, the
science of language would have to be classed as an historical science.
We should have a history of language as we have a history of art, of
poetry and of jurisprudence; but we could not claim for it a place side
by side with the various branches of natural history." Whatever be the
proper position of either philology or jurisprudence in relation to the
natural sciences, it would not be difficult to show that laws and
customs on the whole are equally independent of the efforts of
individual human wills--which appears to be what is meant by language
not being the work of man. The most complete acceptance of Austin's
theory that law everywhere and always is the command of the sovereign
does not involve any withdrawal of laws from the domain of natural
science, does not in the least interfere with the scientific study of
their affinities and relationships. Max Muller elsewhere illustrates his
conception of the different relations of words and laws to the
individual will by the story of the emperor Tiberius, who was reproved
for a grammatical mistake by Marcellus, whereupon Capito, another
grammarian, observed that, if what the emperor said was not good Latin,
it would soon be so. "Capito," said Marcellus, "is a liar; for, Caesar,
thou canst give the Roman citizenship to men, but not to words." The
mere impulse of a single mind, even that of a Roman emperor, however,
probably counts for little more in law than it does in language. Even in
language one powerful intellect or one influential academy may, by its
own decree, give a bent to modes of speech which they would not
otherwise have taken. But whether law or language be conventional or
natural is really an obsolete question, and the difference between
historical and natural sciences in the last result is one of names.
The application of the historical method to law has not resulted in
anything like the discoveries which have made comparative philology a
science. There is no Grimm's law for jurisprudence; but something has
been done in that direction by the discovery of the analogous processes
and principles which underlie legal systems having no external
resemblance to each other. But the historical method has been applied
with special success to a single system--the Roman law. The Roman law
presents itself to the historical student in two different aspects. It
is, regarded as the law of the Roman Republic and Empire, a system whose
history can be traced throughout a great part of its duration with
certainty, and in parts with great detail. It is, moreover, a body of
rationalized legal principles which may be considered apart from the
state system in which they were developed, and which have, in fact,
entered into the jurisprudence of the whole of modern Europe on the
strength of their own abstract authority--so much so that the continued
existence of the civil law, after the fall of the Empire, is entitled to
be considered one of the first discoveries of the historical method.
Alike, therefore, in its original history, as the law of the Roman
state, and as the source from which the fundamental principles of modern
laws have been taken, the Roman law presented the most obvious and
attractive subject of historical study. An immense impulse was given to
the history of Roman law by the discovery of the _Institutes_ of Gaius
in 1816. A complete view of Roman law, as it existed three centuries and
a half before Justinian, was then obtained, and as the later
_Institutes_ were, in point of form, a recension of those of Gaius, the
comparison of the two stages in legal history was at once easy and
fruitful. Moreover, Gaius dealt with antiquities of the law which had
become obsolete in the time of Justinian, and were passed over by him
without notice.
Nowhere did Roman law in its modern aspect give a stronger impulse to
the study of legal history than in Germany. The historical school of
German jurists led the reaction of national sentiment against the
proposals for a general code made by Thibaut. They were accused by their
opponents of setting up the law of past times as intrinsically entitled
to be observed, and they were no doubt strongly inspired by reverence
for customs and traditions. Through the examination of their own
customary laws, and through the elimination and separate study of the
Roman element therein, they were led to form general views of the
history of legal principles. In the hands of Savigny, the greatest
master of the school, the historical theory was developed into a
universal philosophy of law, covering the ground which we should assign
separately to jurisprudence, analytical and historical, and to theories
of legislation. There is not in Savigny's system the faintest approach
to the Austinian analysis. The range of it is not the analysis of law as
a command, but that of a _Rechtsverhaltniss_ or legal relation. Far from
regarding law as the creation of the will of individuals, he maintains
it to be the natural outcome of the consciousness of the people, like
their social habits or their language. And he assimilates changes in law
to changes in language. "As in the life of individual men no moment of
complete stillness is experienced, but a constant organic development,
such also is the case in the life of nations, and in every individual
element in which this collective life consists; so we find in language a
constant formation and development, and in the same way in law." German
jurisprudence is darkened by metaphysical thought, and weakened, as we
believe, by defective analysis of positive law. But its conception of
laws is exceedingly favourable to the growth of a historical philosophy,
the results of which have a value of their own, apart altogether from
the character of the first principles. Such, for instance, is Savigny's
famous examination of the law of possession.
There is only one other system of law which is worthy of being placed by
the side of Roman law, and that is the law of England. No other European
system can be compared with that which is the origin and substratum of
them all; but England, as it happens, is isolated in jurisprudence. She
has solved her legal problems for herself. Whatever element of Roman law
may exist in the English system has come in, whether by conscious
adaptation or otherwise, _ab extra_; it is not of the essence of the
system, nor does it form a large portion of the system. And, while
English law is thus historically independent of Roman law, it is in all
respects worthy of being associated with it on its own merits. Its
originality, or, if the phrase be preferred, its peculiarity, is not
more remarkable than the intellectual qualities which have gone to its
formation--the ingenuity, the rigid logic, the reasonableness, of the
generations of lawyers and judges who have built it up. This may seem
extravagant praise for a legal system, the faults of which are and
always have been matter of daily complaint, but it would be endorsed by
all unprejudiced students. What men complain of is the practical
hardship and inconvenience of some rule or process of law. They know,
for example, that the law of real property is exceedingly complicated,
and that, among other things, it makes the conveyance of land expensive.
But the technical law of real property, which rests to this day on ideas
that have been buried for centuries, has nevertheless the qualities we
have named. So too with the law of procedure as it existed under the
"science" of special pleading. The greatest practical law reformer, and
the severest critic of existing systems that has ever appeared in any
age or country, Jeremy Bentham, has admitted this: "Confused,
indeterminate, inadequate, ill-adapted, and inconsistent as to a vast
extent the provision or no provision would be found to be that has been
made by it for the various cases that have happened to present
themselves for decision, yet in the character of a repository of such
cases it affords, for the manufactory of real law, a stock of materials
which is beyond all price. Traverse the whole continent of Europe,
ransack all the libraries belonging to all the jurisprudential systems
of the several political states, add the contents together, you would
not be able to compose a collection of cases equal in variety, in
amplitude, in clearness of statement--in a word, all points taken
together, in constructiveness--to that which may be seen to be afforded
by the collection of English reports of adjudged cases" (Bentham's
_Works_, iv. 460). On the other hand, the fortunes of English
jurisprudence are not unworthy of comparison even with the catholic
position of Roman law. In the United States of America, in India, and in
the vast Colonial Empire, the common law of England constitutes most of
the legal system in actual use, or is gradually being superimposed upon
it. It would hardly be too much to say that English law of indigenous
growth, and Roman law, between them govern the legal relations of the
whole civilized world. Nor has the influence of the former on the
intellectual habits and the ideas of men been much if at all inferior.
Those who set any store by the analytical jurisprudence of the school of
Austin will be glad to acknowledge that it is pure outcome of English
law. Sir Henry Maine associated its rise with the activity of modern
legislatures, which is of course a characteristic of the societies in
which English laws prevail. And it would not be difficult to show that
the germs of Austin's principles are to be found in legal writers who
never dreamed of analysing a law. It is certainly remarkable, at all
events, that the acceptance of Austin's system is as yet confined
strictly to the domain of English law. Maine found no trace of its being
even known to the jurists of the Continent, and it would appear that it
has been equally without influence in Scotland, which, like the
continent of Europe, is essentially Roman in the fundamental elements of
its jurisprudence.
The substance of the above article is repeated from Professor E.
Robertson's (Lord Lochee's) article "Law," in the 9th ed. of this
work.
Among numerous English textbooks, those specially worth mention are:
T. E. Holland, _The Elements of Jurisprudence_ (1880; 10th ed., 1906);
J. Austin, _Lectures on Jurisprudence_ (4th ed., 1873); W. Jethro
Brown, _The Austinian Theory of Law_ (1906); Sir F. Pollock, _A First
Book on Jurisprudence_ (1896; 2nd ed., 1904).
FOOTNOTES:
[1] This appears to be an unnecessary complication. The sovereign has
authorized the master to set the law, although not compelling him to
do so, and enforces the law when set. There seems no good reason why
the law should be called a rule of positive morality at all.
[2] In English speech another ambiguity is happily wanting which in
many languages besets the phrase expressing "a right." The Latin
"jus," the German "Recht," the Italian "diritto," and the French
"droit" express, not only a right, but also law in the abstract. To
indicate the distinction between "law" and "a right" the Germans are
therefore obliged to resort to such phrases as "objectives" and
"subjectives Recht," meaning by the former law in the abstract, and
by the latter a concrete right. And Blackstone, paraphrasing the
distinction drawn by Roman law between the "jus quod ad res" and the
"jus quod ad personas attinet," devotes the first two volumes of his
_Commentaries_ to the "Rights of Persons and the Rights of Things."
See Holland's _Elements of Jurisprudence_, 10th ed., 78 seq.
JURISPRUDENCE, COMPARATIVE. The object of this article is to give a
general survey of the study of the evolution of law. It is not concerned
with analytical jurisprudence as a theory of legal thought, or an
encyclopaedic introduction to legal teaching. Jurisprudence in such a
philosophic or pedagogical sense has certainly to reckon with the methods
and results of a comparative study of law, but its aims are distinct from
those of the latter: it deals with more general problems. On the other
hand, the comparative study of law may itself be treated in two different
ways: it may be directed to a comparison of existing systems of
legislation and law, with a view to tracing analogies and contrasts in
the treatment of practical problems and taking note of expedients and of
possible solutions. Or else it may aim at discovering the principles
regulating the development of legal systems, with a view to explain the
origin of institutions and to study the conditions of their life. In the
first sense, comparative jurisprudence resolves itself into a study of
home and foreign law (cf. Hofmann in the _Zeitschrift fur das private und
offentliche Recht der Gegenwart_, 1878). In the second sense, comparative
jurisprudence is one of the aspects of so-called sociology, being the
study of social evolution in the special domain of law. From this point
of view it is, in substance, immaterial whether the legal phenomena
subjected to investigation are ancient or modern, are drawn from
civilized or from primitive communities. The fact that they are being
observed and explained as features of social evolution characterizes the
inquiry and forms the distinctive attribute separating these studies from
kindred subjects. It is only natural, however, that early periods and
primitive conditions have attracted investigators in this field more than
recent developments. The interest of students seems to have stood in
inverse ratio to the chronological vicinity of the facts under
consideration--the farther from the observer, the more suggestive and
worthy of attention the facts were found to be. This peculiarity is
easily explained if we take into account the tendency of all evolutionary
investigations to obtain a view of origins in order to follow up the
threads of development from their initial starting-point. Besides, it has
been urged over and over again that the simpler phenomena of ancient and
primitive society afford more convenient material for generalizations as
to legal evolution than the extremely complex legal institutions of
civilized nations. But there is no determined line of division between
ancient and modern comparative jurisprudence in so far as both are aiming
at the study of legal development. The law of Islam or, for that matter,
the German civil code, may be taken up as a subject of study quite as
much as the code of Hammurabi or the marriage customs of Australian
tribes.
The fact that the comparative study of legal evolution is chiefly
represented by investigations of early institutions is therefore a
characteristic, but not a necessary feature in the treatment of the
subject. But it is essential to this treatment that it should be
_historical_ and _comparative_. Historical, because it is only as
history, i.e. a sequence of stages and events, that development can be
thought of. Comparative, because it is not the casual notices about one
or the other chain of historical facts that can supply the basis for any
scientific induction. Comparisons of kindred processes have to be made
in order to arrive at any conception of their general meaning and
scientific regularity. As linguistic science differs from philology in
so far as it treats of the general evolution of language and not of
particular languages, even so comparative jurisprudence differs from the
history of law as a study of general legal evolution distinct from the
development of one or the other national branch of legal enactment.
Needless to say that there are intermediate shades between these groups,
but it is not to these shades we have to attend, but to the main
distinctions and divisions.
1. The idea that the legal enactments and customs of different
countries should be compared for the purpose of deducing general
principles from them is as old as political science itself. It was
realized with especial vividness in epochs when a considerable material
of observations was gathered from different sources and in various
forms. The wealth of varieties and the recurrence of certain leading
views in them led to comparison and to generalizations based on
comparison. Aristotle, who lived at the close of a period marked by the
growth of free Greek cities, summarized, as it were, their political
experience in his _Constitutions_ and _Politics_; students of these know
that the Greek philosopher had to deal with not only public law and
political institutions, but also to some extent private, criminal law,
equity, the relations between law and morals, &c.
Another great attempt at comparative observation was made at the close
of the pre-revolutionary period of modern Europe. Montesquieu took stock
of the analogies and contrasts of law in the commonwealths of his time
and tried to show to what extent particular enactments and rules were
dependent on certain general currents in the life of societies--on forms
of government, on moral conditions corresponding to these, and
ultimately on the geographical facts with which various nationalities
and states have to reckon in their development.
These were, however, only slight beginnings, general forecasts of a
coming line of thought, and Montesquieu's remarks on laws and legal
customs read now almost as if they were meant to serve as materials for
social Utopias, although they were by no means conceived in this sense.
At this distance of time we cannot help perceiving how fragmentary,
incomplete and uncritical his notions of the facts of legal history
were, and how strongly his thought was biased by didactic
considerations, by the wish to teach his contemporaries what politics
and law should be.
It was reserved for the 19th century to come forward with connected and
far-reaching investigations in this field as in many others. We are not
deceived by proximity and self-consciousness when we affirm that
comparative jurisprudence, as understood in these introductory remarks,
dates from the 19th century and especially from its second half.
There were many reasons for such a new departure: two of these reasons
have been especially manifest and decisive. The 19th century was an
eminently historical and an eminently scientific age. In the domain of
history it may be said that it opened an entirely new vista. While,
speaking roughly, before that time history was conceived as a narrative
of memorable events, more or less skilful, more or less sensational, but
appealing primarily to the literary sense of the reader, it became in
the course of the 19th century an encyclopaedia of reasoned knowledge, a
means of understanding social life by observing its phenomena in the
past. The immense growth of historical scholarship in that sense, and
the transformation of its aims, can hardly be denied.
Apart from the personal efforts of eminent writers, a great and general
movement has to be taken into account in order to explain this
remarkable stage of human thought. The historic bent of mind of
19th-century thinkers was to a great extent the result of heightened
political and cultural self-consciousness. It was the reflection in the
world of letters of the tremendous upheaval in the states of Europe and
America which took place from the close of the 18th century onwards. As
one of the greatest leaders of the movement, Niebuhr, pointed out, the
fact of being a witness of such struggles and catastrophes as the
American Revolution, the French Revolution, the Napoleonic Empire and
the national reaction against it, taught every one to think
historically, to appreciate the importance of historical factors, to
measure the force not only of logical argument and moral impulse, but
also of instinctive habits and traditional customs. It is not a matter
of chance that the _historical school_ of jurisprudence, Savigny's
doctrine of the organic growth of law, was formed and matured while
Europe collected its forces after the most violent revolutionary crisis
it had ever experienced, and in most intimate connexion with the
romantic movement, a movement animated by enthusiastic belief in the
historical, traditional life of social groups as opposed to the
intellectual conceptions of individualistic radicalism.
On the other hand, the 19th century was a scientific age and especially
an age of biological science. Former periods--the 16th and 17th
centuries especially--had bequeathed to it high standards of scientific
investigation, an ever-increasing weight of authority in the direction
of an exact study of natural phenomena and a conception of the world as
ruled by laws and not by capricious interference. But these scientific
views had been chiefly applied in the domain of mathematics, astronomy
and physics; although great discoveries had already been made in
physiology and other branches of biology, yet the achievements of
19th-century students in this respect far surpassed those of the
preceding period. And the doctrine of transformation which came to
occupy the central place in scientific thought was eminently fitted to
co-ordinate and suggest investigations of social facts. As F. York
Powell put it, Darwin is the greatest historian of modern times, and
certainly an historian not in the sense of a reader of annals, but in
that of a guide in the understanding of organic evolution. Though much
is expressed in the one name of Darwin, it is perhaps even more
momentous as a symbol of the tendency of a great age than as a mark of
personal work. To this tendency we are indebted for the rise of
anthropology and of sociology, of the scientific study of man and of the
scientific study of society. Of course it ought not to be disregarded
that the application of scientific principles and methods to human and
social facts was made possible by the growth of knowledge in regard to
savage and half-civilized nations called forth by the increased activity
of European and American business men, administrators and explorers.
Ethnography and ethnology have brought some order into the wealth of
materials accumulated by generations of workers in this direction, and
it is with their help that the far-reaching generalizations of modern
inquirers as to man and society have been achieved.
2. It is not difficult to see that the comparative study of legal
evolution finds its definite place in a scientific scheme elaborated
from such points of view. Let us see how, as a matter of fact, the study
in question arose and what its progress has been. The immediate
incitement for the formation of comparative jurisprudence was given by
the great discoveries of comparative philology. When the labours of
Franz Bopp, August Schleicher, Max Muller, W. D. Whitney and others
revealed the profound connexion between the different branches of the
Indo-European race in regard to their languages, and showed that the
development of these languages proceeded on lines which might be studied
in a strictly scientific manner, on the basis of comparative observation
and with the object of tracing the uniformities of the process, it was
natural that students of religion, of folk-lore and of legal
institutions took up the same method and tried to win similar results
(Sir H. Maine, Rede lecture in _Village Communities_, 3rd ed.).
It is interesting to note that one of the leading scholars of the
Germanistic revival in the beginning of the 19th century, Jacob Grimm, a
compeer of Savigny in his own line, took up with fervent zeal and
remarkable results not only the scientific study of the German language,
but also that of Germanic mythology and popular law. His
_Rechtsalterthumer_ are still unrivalled as a collection of data as to
the legal lore of Teutonic tribes. Their basis is undoubtedly a narrow
one: they treat of the varieties of legal custom among the continental
Germans, the Scandinavians and the Germanic tribes of Great Britain, but
the method of treatment is already a comparative one. Grimm takes up the
different subjects--property, contract, procedure, succession, crime,
&c.--and examines them in the light of national, provincial and local
customs, sometimes noticing expressly affinities with Roman and Greek
law (e.g. the subject of imprisonment for debt, _Rechtsalterthumer_, 4th
ed., vol. ii., p. 165).
A broader basis was taken up by a linguist who tried to trace the
primitive institutions and customs of the early Aryans before their
separation into divers branches. Adolphe Pictet (_Les Origines
indo-europeennes_, i. 1859; ii. 1863) had to touch constantly on
questions of family law, marriage, property, public authority, in his
attempt to reconstruct the common civilization of the Aryan race, and he
did so on the strength of a comparative study of terms used in the
different Indo-European languages. He showed, for instance, how the idea
of protection was the predominant element in the position of the father
in the Aryan household. The names _pitar_, _pater_, [Greek: pater],
_father_, which recur in most branches of the Aryan race, go back to a
root _pa_-, pointing to guardianship or protection. Thus we are led to
consider the _patria potestas_, so stringently formulated in Roman law,
as an expression of a common Aryan notion, which was already in
existence before the Aryan tribes parted company and went their
different ways. Descriptions of Aryan early culture have been given
several times since in connexion with linguistic observations. An
example is W. E. Hearn's _Aryan Household_ (1879). Fustel de Coulanges'
famous volume on the ancient city and Rudolf von Jhering's studies of
primitive Indo-European institutions (_Vorgeschichte der Indoeuropaer_)
start from similar observations, although the first of these scholars is
chiefly interested in tracing the influence of religion on the material
arrangements of life, while the latter draws largely on principles of
public and private law, studied more especially in Roman antiquity.
3. The chief work in that direction has been achieved in one sense by a
German scholar, B. W. Leist. His Graeco-Roman legal history, his _Jus
Gentium of Primitive Aryans_, and his _Jus Civile of Primitive Aryans_,
form the most complete and learned attempt not only to reconstitute the
fundamental rules of common Aryan law before the separation of tongues
and nations, but also to trace the influence of this original stock of
juridical ideas in the later development of different branches of the
Aryan race. These three books present three stages of comparison, marked
by a successive widening of the horizon. He began his legal history by
putting together the data as to Roman and Greek legal origins; in the
_Alt-arisches Jus Gentium_ the material of Hindu law is not only drawn
into the range of observation, but becomes its very centre; in the
_Alt-arisches Jus Civile_ the legal customs of the Zend branch, of
Celts, Germans and Slavs, are taken into account, although the most
important part of the inquiry is still directed to the combination of
Hindu, Greek and Roman law. In this way Leist builds up his theories by
the comparative method, but he restricts its use consciously and
consistently to a definite range. He does not want to plunge into
haphazard analogies, but seeks common ground before all things in order
to be able to watch for the appearance of ramifications and to explain
them. According to his view comparison is of use only between "coherent"
lines of facts. Common origin, not similarity of features, appears to
him as the fundamental basis for fruitful comparison. It may be said
that Leist's work is characterized by the attempt to draw up a
continuous history of a supposed archaic common law of the Aryan race
rather than to put different solutions of kindred legal problems by the
side of each other. For him Aryan tribal organization with its
double-sided relationship--cognatic and agnatic--through men and through
women--is one, and although he does not draw its picture as Fustel de
Coulanges does by the help of traits taken indiscriminately from Hindu,
Roman and Greek material, although he notices divisions, degrees and
variations, at bottom he writes the history of one set of principles
exemplified and modulated, as it were, in the six or seven main
varieties of the race. Even so the nine rules of conduct prescribed by
Hindu sacral law are, according to his view, the directing rules of
Roman, Greek, Germanic, Celtic, Slavonic legal custom--the duties in
regard to gods, parents and fatherland, guests, personal purity, the
prohibitions against homicide, adultery and theft--are variations of one
and the same religious, moral and legal system, and their original unity
is reflected and proved by the unity of legal terminology itself.
The same leading idea is embodied in the books of Otto
Schrader--_Urgeschichte und Sprachvergleichung_ (1st ed., 1883; 2nd ed.,
1890) and _Reallexikon der indogermanischen Altertumskunde_ (1901). In
this case we have to do not with a jurist but with a linguist and a
student of cultural history. His training made him especially fit to
trace the national affinities in the data of language, and the sense of
the intimate connexion between the growth of institutions on one side,
of words and linguistic forms on the other, underlies all his
investigations. But Schrader testifies also to another powerful
influence--to that of Victor Hehn, the author of a remarkable book on
early civilization, _Kulturpflanzen und Hausthiere in ihrem Ubergang aus
Asien in Europa_ (1st ed., 1870; 7th ed., 1902), dealing with the
migrations of tribes and their modes of acquiring material civilization.
Although the linguistic and archaeological sides naturally predominate
in Schrader's works, he has constantly to consider legal subjects, and
he strives conscientiously to obtain a clear and common-sense view of
the early legal notions of the Aryans. Speaking of the "ordeals," the
"waging of God's law," for example, he traces the customs of
purification by fire, water, iron, &c., to the practice of oaths (Sans.
_am_; Gr. [Greek: omnymi]; O. Ital. _omr_ = first group; O. Ger.
_aiths_, Ir. _oeth_ = second group; O. Norse _rota_, Arm. _erdnum_ = I
swear = third group). The central idea of the ordeal is thus shown to be
the imprecation--"Let him be cursed whose assertion is false."
The comparative study of the Aryan group assumed another aspect in the
works of Sir Henry Maine. He did not rely on linguistic affinities, but
made great use of another element of investigation which plays hardly
any part in the books of the writers mentioned hitherto. His best
personal preparation for the task was that he had not only taught law in
England, but had come into contact with living legal customs in India.
For him the comparison between the legal lore of Rome and that of India
did not depend on linguistic roots or on the philological study of the
laws of Manu, but was the result of recognizing again and again, in
actual modern custom, the views, rules and institutions of which he had
read in Gaius or in the fragments of the Twelve Tables. The sense of
historical analogy and evolution which had shown itself already in the
lectures on _Ancient Law_, which, after all, were mainly a presentment
of Roman legal history mapped out by a man of the world, averse from
pedantic disquisitions. But what appears as the expression of Maine's
personal aptitude and intelligent reading in _Ancient Law_ gets to be
the interpretation of popular legal principles by modern as well as by
ancient instances of their application in _Village Communities_, _The
Early History of Institutions_, _Early Law and Custom_. The evolution of
property in land out of archaic collectivism, ancient forms of contract
and compulsion, rudimentary forms of feudalism and the like, were
treated in a new light in consequence of systematic comparisons with the
conditions not only of India but of southern Slavonic nations, medieval
celts and Teutons. This breadth of view seemed startling when the
lectures appeared, and the original treatment of the subject was hailed
on all sides as a most welcome new departure in the study of legal
customs and institutions. And yet Maine set very definite boundaries to
his comparative surveys. He renounced the chronological limitation
confining such inquiries to the domain of antiquaries, but he upheld the
ethnographical limitation confining them to laws of the same race. In
his case it was the Aryan race, and in his _Law and Custom_ he opposed
in a determined manner the attempts of more daring students to extend to
the Aryans generalizations drawn from the life of savage tribes
unconnected with the Aryans by blood.
Thus, notwithstanding all diversities in the treatment of particular
problems, one leading methodical principle runs through the works of all
the above-mentioned exponents of comparative study. It was to proceed on
the basis of common origin and on the assumption of a certain common
stock of language, religion, material culture, and law to start with.
What Pictet, Leist, Schrader, and Maine were doing for the Aryans, F.
Hommel, Robertson Smith and others did in a lesser degree for the
Semitic race.
4. The literary group which started from the discoveries of comparative
philology and history was met on the way by what may be called the
ethnological school of inquirers. The original impetus was given, in
this case, by jurists and historians who took up the study in the field
of ancient history, but treated it from the beginning in such a way as
to break up the subdivisions of historic races and to direct the inquiry
to a state of culture best illustrated by savage customs. The first
impulse may be said to have come from J. J. Bachofen (_Mutterrecht_,
1861; _Antiquarische Briefe_, 1880; _Die Sage von Tanaquil_). All the
representatives of Aryan antiquities are at one in laying stress on the
patriarchal and agnatic system of the kindreds in the different Aryan
nations; even Leist, although dwelling on the importance of cognatic
ties, looks to agnatic relationship for the explanation of military
organization and political authority. And undoubtedly, if we argue from
the predominant facts and from the linguistic evidence of parallel
terms, we are led to assume that already before their separation the
Aryans lived in a patriarchal state of society. Now, Bachofen discovered
in the very tradition of classical antiquity traces of a fundamentally
different state of things, the central conception of which was not
patriarchal power, but maternity, relationship being traced through
mothers, the wife presenting the constant and directing element of the
household, while the husband (and perhaps several husbands) joined her
from time to time in more or less inconstant unions. Such a state of
society is definitely described by Herodotus in the case of the Lycians,
it is clearly noticeable even in later historical times in Sparta; the
passage from this matriarchal conception to the recognition of the
claims of the father is reflected in poetical fiction in the famous
Orestes myth, based on the struggle between the moral incitement which
prompted the son to avenge his father and the absolute reverence for the
mother required by ancient law. Although chiefly drawing his materials
from classical literature, Bachofen included in his _Antiquarian
Letters_ an interesting study of the marriage custom and systems of
relationship of the Malabar Coast in India; they attracted his attention
by the contrasts between different layers of legal tradition--the
Brahmans living in patriarchal order, while the class next to them, the
Nayirs (Nairs), follow rules of matriarchy.
Similar ideas were put forward in a more comprehensive form by J. F.
McLennan. His early volume (_Studies in Ancient History_, 1876) contains
several essays published some time before that date. He starts from the
wide occurrence of marriage by capture in primitive societies, and
groups the tribes of which we have definite knowledge into endogamous
and exogamous societies according as they take their wives from among
the kindred or outside it. Marriage by capture and by purchase are signs
of exogamy, connected with the custom in many tribes of killing female
offspring. The development of marriage by capture and purchase is a
powerful agent in bringing about patriarchal rule, agnatic relationship,
and the formation of clans or _gentes_, but the more primitive forms of
relationship appear as variations of systems based on mother-right.
These views are supported by ethnological observations and used as a
clue to the history of relationship and family law in ancient Greece. In
further contributions published after McLennan's death these researches
are supplemented and developed in many ways. The peculiarities of
exogamous societies, for instance, are traced back to the even more
primitive practice of Totemism, the grouping of men according to their
conceptions of animal worship and to their symbols. McLennan's line of
inquiry was taken up in a very effective manner not only by
anthropologists like E. B. Tylor or A. Lang, but also in a more special
manner by students of primitive family law. One of the most brilliant
monographs in this direction is Robertson Smith's study of _Kinship and
Marriage in Arabia_.
But perhaps the most decisive influence was exercised on the development
of the ethnological study of law by the discoveries of an American,
Lewis H. Morgan. In his epoch-making works on _Systems of Consanguinity_
(1869) and on _Ancient Society_ (1877) he drew attention to the
remarkable fact that in the case of a number of tribes--the Red Indians
of America, the Australian black tribes, some of the polar races, and
several Asiatic tribes, mostly of Turanian race--degrees of relationship
are reckoned and distinguished by names, not as ties between
individuals, but as ties between entire groups, classes or generations.
Instead of a mother and a father a man speaks of fathers and mothers;
all the individuals of a certain group are deemed husbands or wives of
corresponding individuals of another group; sisters and brothers have to
be sought in entire generations, and not among the descendants of a
definite and common parent, and so forth. There are variations and types
in these forms of organization, and intermediate links may be traced
between unions of consanguine people--brothers and sisters of the same
blood--on the one hand, and the monogamic marriage prevailing nowadays,
on the other; but the central and most striking fact seems to be that in
early civilizations, in conditions which we should attribute to savage
and barbarian life, marriage appears as a tie, not between single pairs,
but between classes, all the men of a class being regarded as potential
or actual husbands of the women of a corresponding class. Facts of this
kind produce very peculiar and elaborate systems of relationship, which
have been copiously illustrated by Morgan in his tables. In his _Ancient
Society_ he attempted to reduce all the known forms and facts of
marriage and kinship arrangements to a comprehensive view of evolution
leading up to the Aryan, Semitic and Uralian family, as exhibiting the
most modern type of relationship.
These observations, in conjunction with Bachofen's and McLennan's
teaching on mother-right, brought about a complete change of perspective
in the comparative study of man and society. The rights of ethnologists
to have their say in regard to legal, political and social development
was forcibly illustrated from both ends, as it were. On the one hand,
classical antiquity itself proved to be a rather thin layer of human
civilization hardly sufficient to conceal the long periods of barbarism
and primitive evolution which had gone to its making. On the other hand,
unexpected combinations in regard to family, property, social order,
were discovered in every corner of the inhabited world, and our trite
notions as to the character of laws and institutions were reduced to the
rank of variations on themes which recur over and over again, but may be
and have been treated in very different ways.
There is no need to speak of the use made of ethnological material in
the wider range of anthropological and sociological studies--the works
of Tylor, Lubbock, Lippert, Spencer are in everybody's hands--but
attention must be called to the further influence of the ethnological
point of view in comparative jurisprudence. An interesting example of
the passage from one line of investigation to another, from the
historical to the anthropological line, if the expression may be used
for the sake of brevity, is presented in the works of one of the
founders of the _Zeitschrift fur vgl. Rechtswissenschaft_--Franz
Bernhoft. He appears in his earlier books as an exponent of the
comparative study of Greek and Roman antiquities, more or less in the
style of Leist. Like the latter he was gradually incited to draw India
into the range of his observations, but unlike Leist, he ended by fully
recognizing the importance of ethnological evidence, and although he did
not do much original research in that direction himself, the influence
of Bachofen and of the ethnologists made itself felt in Bernhoft's
treatment of classical antiquity itself: in his _State and Law in Rome
at the Time of the Kings_ he starts from the view that patricians and
plebeians represent two ethnological layers of society--a patriarchal
Aryan and a matriarchal pre-Aryan one.
But, of course, the utmost use was made of ethnological evidence by
writers who cut themselves entirely free from the special study of
classical or European antiquities. The enthusiasm of the explorers of
new territory led them naturally to disregard the peculiar claims of
European development in the history of higher civilization. They wanted
material for a study of the _genus homo_ in all its varieties, and they
had no time to look after the minute questions of philological and
antiquarian research which had so long constituted the daily bread of
inquirers into the history of laws. The most characteristic
representative of the new methods of extensive comparison was
undoubtedly A. H. Post (1839-1895)--the author of many works, in which
he ranges over the whole domain of mankind--Hovas, Zulus, Maoris,
Tunguses, alternating in a kaleidoscopic fashion with Hindus, Teutons,
Jews, Egyptians. The order of his compositions is systematic, not
chronological or even ethnographical in the sense of grouping kindred
races together. He takes up the different subdivisions of law and traces
them through all the various tribes which present any data in regard to
them. His method is not only not bound by history, it is opposed to it.
He writes:--
"The method of comparative ethnology is different from the historical
method, inasmuch as it collects the given material from an entirely
distinct point of view. Historical investigation tries to get at the
causes of the facts of rational life by observing the development of
these facts from such as preceded them within the range of separate
kindreds, tribes and peoples. The investigation of comparative
ethnology inquires after the causes of facts in national life by
collecting identical or similar ethnological data wherever they may be
found in the world, and by drawing inferences from these materials to
identical or similar causes. This method is therefore _quite
unhistorical_. It severs things that have been hitherto regarded as
closely joined and arranges these shreds into new combinations"
(_Grundriss_, i. 14).
This is not a mere paradox, but the necessary outcome of the situation
in respect of the material used. What is being sought is not common
origin or a common stock of ideas, but recourse to similar expedients in
similar situations, and it is one of the most striking results of
ethnology that it can show how peoples entirely cut off from each other
and even placed in very different planes of development can resort to
analogous solutions in analogous emergencies. Is not the custom of the
so-called _Couvade_--the pretended confinement of the husband when a
child is born to his wife--a most quaint and seemingly recondite
ceremony? Yet we find it practised in the same way by Basques,
Californian Indians, and some Siberian tribes. They have surely not
borrowed from each other, nor have they kept the ceremony as a remnant
of the time when they formed one race: in each case, evidently the
passage from a matriarchal state to a patriarchal has suggested it, and
a very appropriate method it seems to establish the fact of fatherhood
in a solemn and graphic though artificial manner. Again, an inscription
from the Cretan town of Gortyn, published in the American _Journal of
Archaeology_ (2nd series, vol. i., 1897) by Halbherr, tells us that the
weapons of a warrior, the wool of a woman, the plough of a peasant,
could not be taken from them as pledges. We find a similar idea in the
prohibition to take from a knight his weapons, from a villein his
plough, in payment of fines, which obtained in medieval England and was
actually inserted in Magna Carta. Here also the similarity extends to
details, and is certainly not derived from direct borrowing or common
origin but from analogies of situations translating themselves into
analogies of legal thought. It may be said in a sense that for the
ethnological school the less relationship there is between the compared
groups the more instructive the comparison turns out to be.
The collection of ethnological parallels for the use of sociology and
comparative jurisprudence has proceeded in a most fruitful manner. By
the side of special monographs about single tribes or geographical
groups of tribes, such as _Kamilaroi and Kurnai_, by L. Fison & A. W.
Howitt (1880), and _The Native Tribes of Australia_, by Baldwin Spencer
& F. G. Gillen (1899), the whole range of ethnological jurisprudence was
gone through by Wilken in regard to the inhabitants of the Dutch
possessions in Asia, by M. M. Kovalevsky in regard to Caucasians, &c. As
a rule the special monographs turned out to be more successful than the
general surveys, but the interest of the special monographs themselves
depended partly on the fact that people's eyes had been opened to the
recurrence of certain widespread phenomena and types of development.
5. Ethnologists of Post's school have not had it entirely their own way,
however. Not only did their natural opponents, the philologists,
historians and jurists, reproach them with lack of critical
discrimination, with a tendency to disregard fundamental distinctions,
to wipe out characteristic features, to throw the most disparate
elements into the same pot. In their own ranks a number of conscientious
and scientifically trained investigators protested against the
haphazard manner in which the most intricate problems were treated, and
sought to evolve more definite methodical rules. P. and F. Sarrasin in
their description of the Ceylon Veddahs showed a most primitive race
scattered in small clusters, monogamous and patriarchal in their
marriage customs and systems of relationship. E. A. Westermarck
challenged the sweeping generalizations indulged in by many ethnologists
about primitive promiscuity in sexual relations and the necessary
passage of all human tribes through the stages of matriarchy and group
marriage.
A very interesting departure was attempted by Dargun in his studies on
the origin and development of property and his treatise on mother-right
and marriage by capture. His lead was followed by R. Hildebrand in the
monograph on law and custom. The principal idea of these inquirers may
be stated as follows. We must utilize ethnological as well as historical
materials from the whole world, but it is no use doing this
indiscriminately. Fruitful comparisons may be instituted mainly in the
case of tribes on the same level in their general culture and especially
their economic pursuits. Hunting tribes must be primarily compared with
other hunters, fishers with fishers, pastoral nations with pastoral
nations, agriculturists with agriculturists; nations in transitional
stages from one type of culture to the other have to be grouped and
examined by themselves. The result would be to establish certain
parallel lines in the development of institutions and customs. From this
point of view both Dargun and Hildebrand attacked the prevailing theory
of primitive communism and insisted on the atomistic individualism of
the rudimentary civilization of hunting tribes. Collectivism in the
treatment of ownership, common field husbandry, practices of joint
holdings, co-aration, common stores, &c., make their appearance
according to Dargun in consequence of the drawing together of scattered
groups and smaller independent settlements. An evolution of the same
kind leading from loose unions around mothers through marriage by
capture to patriarchal kindreds was traced in the history of
relationship. Grosse (_Die Formen der Familie und der Wirtschaft_, 1896)
followed in a similar strain. Another line of criticism was opened up
from the side of exact sociological study. Its best exponent is
Steinmetz, who represents with Wilken the Dutch group of investigators
of social phenomena. He takes up a standpoint which severs him entirely
from the linguistic and historic school. In a discourse on the _Meaning
of Sociology_ (p. 10) he expresses himself in the following words: "One
who judges of the social state of the Hindus by the book of Manu takes
the ideal notions of one portion of the people for the actual conditions
of all its parts." In regard to jurisprudence he distinguishes carefully
between art and science. "Jurisprudence in the wider sense is an art,
the art of framing rules for social intercourse in so far as these rules
can be put into execution by the state and its organs, as well as the
art of interpreting and applying these rules. In another sense it is
pure science, the investigation of all consciously formulated and
actually practised rules, and of their conditions and foundations, in
fact of the entire social life of existing and bygone nations, without a
knowledge and understanding of which a knowledge and understanding of
law as its outcome is, of course, impossible." In this sense
jurisprudence is a part of ethnology and of the comparative history of
culture. But in order to grapple with such a tremendous task comparative
jurisprudence has not only to call to help the study of scattered
ethnological facts. This is not sufficient to widen the frame of
observation and to realize the relative character of the principles with
which practical lawyers operate, without ever putting in question their
general acceptance or logical derivations. Ethnological studies
themselves have to look for guidance to psychology, especially to the
psychology of emotional life and of character. Although these branches
of psychological science have been much less investigated than the study
of intellectual processes, they still afford material help to the
ethnologist and the comparative jurist; and Steinmetz himself made a
remarkable attempt to utilize a psychological analysis of the feelings
of revenge in his _Origins of Punishment_.
6. The necessity of employing more stringent standards of criticisms and
more exact methods is now recognized, and it is characteristic that the
foremost contemporary representative of comparative jurisprudence,
Joseph Kohler of Berlin, principal editor of the _Zeitschrift fur vgl.
Rechtswissenschaft_, often gives expression to this view. Beginning with
studies of procedure and private law in the provinces of Germany where
the French law of the Code Napoleon was still applied, he has thrown his
whole energy into monographic surveys and investigations in all the
departments of historical and ethnological jurisprudence. The code of
Khammurabi and the Babylonian contracts, the ancient Hindu codes and
juridical commentaries on them, the legal customs of the different
tribes and provinces of India, the collection and sifting of the legal
customs of aborigines in the German colonies in Africa, the materials
supplied by investigators of Australian and American tribes, the history
of legal customs of the Mahommedans, and numberless other points of
ethnological research, have been treated by him in articles in his
_Zeitschrift_ and in other publications. Comprehensive attempts have
also been made by him at a synthetic treatment of certain sides of the
law--like the law of debt in his _Shakespeare vor dem Forum der
Jurisprudenz_ (1883) or his _Primitive History of Marriage_. Undoubtedly
we have not to deal in this case with mere accumulation of material or
with remarks on casual analogies. And yet the importance of these works
consists mainly in their extensive range of observation. The critical
side is still on the second plane, although not conspicuously absent as
in the case of Post and some of his followers. We may sympathize
cordially with Kohler's exhortation to work for a universal history of
law without yet perceiving clearly what the stages of this universal
history are going to be. We may acknowledge the enormous importance of
Morgan's and Bachofen's discoveries without feeling bound to recognize
that all tribes and nations of the earth have gone substantially through
the same forms of development in respect of marriage custom, and without
admitting that the evidence for a universal spread of group-marriage has
been produced. Altogether the reproach seems not entirely unfounded that
investigations of this kind are carried on too much under the sway of a
preconceived notion that some highly peculiar arrangement entirely
different from what we are practising nowadays--say sexual promiscuity
or communism in the treatment of property--must be made out as a
universal clue to earlier stages of development. Kohler's occasional
remarks on matters of method (e.g. _Zeitschift fur vgl.
Rechtswissenschaft_, xii. 193 seq.) seem hardly adequate to dispel this
impression. But in his own work and in that of some of his compeers and
followers, J. E. Hitzig, Hellwig, Max Huber, R. Dareste, more exact
forms and means of inquiry are gradually put into practice, and the
results testify to a distinct heightening of the scientific standard in
this group of studies on comparative jurisprudence. Especially
conspicuous in this respect are three tendencies: (a) the growing
disinclination to accept superficial analysis between phenomena
belonging to widely different spheres of culture as necessarily produced
by identical causes (e.g. Darinsky's review of Kovalevsky's assumptions
as to group marriage among the Caucasian tribes, _Z. fur vgl. Rw._, xiv.
151 seq.); (b) the selection of definite historical or ethnological
territories for monographic inquiries, in the course of which
arrangements observed elsewhere are treated as suggestive material for
supplying gaps and starting possible explanations: Kohler's own
contributions have been mainly of this kind; (c) the treatment of
selected subjects by an intensive legal analysis, bringing out the
principles underlying one or the other rule, its possible
differentiation, the means of its application in practice, &c.:
Hellwig's monograph on the right of sanctuary in savage communities
(_Das Asylrecht der Naturvolker_) may be named in illustration of this
analytical tendency. Altogether, there can be no doubt that the stage
has been reached by comparative jurisprudence when, after a hasty, one
might almost say a voracious consumption of materials, investigators
begin to strive towards careful sifting of evidence and a conscious
examination of methods and critical rules which have to be followed in
order to make the investigations undertaken in this line worthy of
their scientific aims. Until the latter has been done many students,
whose trend of thought would seem to lead them naturally into this
domain, may be repelled by the uncritical indistinctness with which mere
analogies are treated as elusive proofs by some of the representatives
of the comparative school. F. W. Maitland, for instance, was always kept
back by such considerations.
7. It is desirable, in conclusion, to review the entire domain of
comparative jurisprudence, and to formulate the chief principles of
method which have to be taken into consideration in the course of this
study. It is evident, to begin with, that a scientific comparison of
facts must be directed towards two aims--towards establishing and
explaining similarity, and towards enumerating and explaining
differences. As a matter of fact the same material may be studied from
both points of view, though logically these are two distinct processes.
(a) Now at this initial stage we have already to meet a difficulty and
to guard against a misconception: we have namely to reckon with the
_plurality of causes_, and are therefore debarred from assuming that
wherever similar phenomena are forthcoming they are always produced by
identical causes. Death may be produced by various agents--by sickness,
by poison, by a blow. The habit of wearing mourning upon the death of a
relation is a widespread habit, and yet it is not always to be ascribed
to real or supposed grief and the wish to express it in one's outward
get-up. Savage people are known to go into mourning in order to conceal
themselves from the terrible spirit of the dead which would recognize
them in their everyday costume (Jhering, _Der Zweck im Recht_, 2nd ed.,
1884-1886). This is certainly a momentous difficulty at the start, but
it can be greatly reduced and guarded against in actual investigation.
In the example taken we are led to suppose different origin because we
are informed as to the motives of the external ceremony, and thus we are
taught to look not only to bare facts, but to the psychological
environment in which they appear. And it is evident that the greater the
complexity of observed phenomena, the more they are made up of different
elements welded into one sum, the less probability there is that we have
to do with consequences derived from different causes. The recurrence of
group-marriage in Australia and among the Red Indians of North America
can in no way be explained by the working of entirely different
agencies. And it may be added that in most cases of an analysis of
social institutions the limits of human probability and reasonable
assumption do not coincide with mathematical possibility in any sense.
When we register our facts and causes in algebraic forms, marking the
first with _a_, _b_, _c_, and the latter with _x_, _y_, _z_, we are apt
to demand a degree of precision which is hardly ever to be met with in
dealing with social facts and causes. Let us rest content with
reasonable inferences and probable explanations.
(b) The easiest way of explaining a given similarity is by attributing
it to a direct _loan_. The process of reception, of the borrowing of one
people from the other, plays a most notable part in the history of
institutions and ideas. The Japanese have in our days engrafted many
European institutions on their perfectly distinct civilization; the
Germans have used for centuries what was termed euphemistically the
Roman law of the present time (_heutiges romisches Recht_); the Romans
absorbed an enormous amount of Greek and Oriental law in their famous
jurisprudence. A check upon explanation by direct loan will, of course,
lie in the fact that two societies are entirely disconnected, so that it
comes to be very improbable that one drew its laws from the other.
Although migrations of words, legends, beliefs, charms, have been shown
by Theodor Benfey and his school to range over much wider areas than
might be supposed on the face of it, still, in the case of law, in so
far as it has to regulate material conditions, the limits have perhaps
to be drawn rather narrowly. In any case we shall not look to India in
order to explain the burning of widows among the negroes of Africa; the
_suttee_ may be the example of this custom which happens to be most
familiar to us, but it is certainly not the only root of it on the
surface of the earth.
It is much more difficult to make out the share of direct borrowing in
the case of peoples who might conceivably have influenced one another. A
hard and fast rule cannot be laid down in such cases, and everything
depends on the weighing of evidence and sometimes on almost instinctive
estimates. The use of a wager for the benefit of the tribunal in the
early procedure of the Romans and Greeks, the _sacramentum_ and the
[Greek: prutaneia], with a similar growth of the sum laid down by the
parties in proportion to the interests at stake, has been explained by a
direct borrowing by the Romans from the Greeks at the time of the Twelve
Tables legislation (Hofmann, _Beitrage zur Geschichte des griechischen
und romischen Rechts_). No direct proof is available for this
hypothesis, and the question in dispute might have lain for ever between
this explanation and that based on the analogous development in the two
closely related branches of law. The further study of the legal
antiquities of other branches of the Aryan race leads one to suppose,
however, that we have actually to do with the latter and not with the
former eventuality. Why should the popular custom of the _Vzdani_ in
Bohemia (Kapras, "Das Pfandrecht in altbohmischen Landrecht," _Z. fur
vgl. R.-wissenschaft_, xvii. 424 seq.), regulating the wager of
litigation in the case of two parties submitting their dispute to the
decision of a public tribunal, turn out to be so similar to the Greek
and the Roman process? And the Teutonic Wedde would further countenance
the view that we have to do in this case with analogous expediency or,
possibly, common origin, not loans. But while dwelling on considerations
which may disprove the assumption of direct loans, we must not omit to
mention circumstances that may render such an assumption the best
available explanation for certain points of similarity. We mean
especially the recurrence of special secondary traits not deducible from
the nature of the relations compared. Terminological parallels are
especially convincing in such cases. An example of most careful
linguistic investigation attended by important results is presented by
W. Thomsen's treatment of the affinities between the languages and
cultures of the peoples of northern and eastern Europe. Taking the
indications in regard to the influence of Germanic tribes on Finns and
Lapps, we find, for instance, that the Finnish race has stood for some
1500 or 2000 years under "the influence of several Germanic
languages--partly of a more ancient form of Gothic than that represented
by Ulfilas, partly of a northern (Scandinavian) tongue and even possibly
of a common Gothic-northern one." The importance of these linguistic
investigations for our subject becomes apparent when we find that a
series of most important legal and political terms has been imported
from Teutonic into Finnish. For example, the Finnish _Kuningas_, "king,"
comes from a Germanic root illustrated by O. Norse _konung_, O. H. Ger.
_chuning_, A.-S. _cyning_, Goth. _thiudans_. The Finnish _valta_,
"power," "authority," is of Germanic origin, as shown by O. N. _vald_,
Goth. _valdan_. The Finnish _kihla_, a compact secured by solemn
promise, is akin with O. N. _gisl_, A.-S. _gisel_, O. H. Ger. _gisal_,
"hostage." The explanation for Finnish _vuokra_, "interest," "usury," is
to be found in Gothic _vokrs_, O. N. _okr_, Ger. _Wucher_, &c. (W.
Thomsen, _Uber den Einfluss der germanischen Sprachen auf die
Finnisch-lappischen_, trans. E. Sievers, 1870, p. 166 seq.; cf. W.
Thomsen, _The Relations between Ancient Russia and Scandinavia and the
Origin of the Russian State_, p. 127 seq.; Miklosich, "Die Fremdworter
in den slavischen Sprachen," _Denkschriften der Wiener Akademie_, Ph.
hist. Klasse, XV.).
(c) The next group of analogies is formed by cases which may be reduced
to _common origin_. In addition to what has already been said on the
subject in connexion with the literature of the historical school, we
must point out that in the case of kindred peoples this form of
derivation has, of course, to be primarily considered. This is
especially the case when we have to deal with the original stock of
cultural notions of a race, and when analogies in the framing and
working of institutions and legal rules are supported by linguistic
affinities. The testimony of the Aryan languages in regard to terms
denoting family organization and relationship can in no way be
disregarded, whatever our view may be about the most primitive stages
of development in this respect. The fact that the common stock of Aryan
languages and of Aryan legal customs points to a patriarchal
organization of the family may be regarded as established, and it is
certainly an important fact drawn from a very ancient stage of human
history, although there are indications that still more primitive
formations may be discovered.
Inferences in the direction of common origin become more doubtful when
we argue, not that certain facts proceed from a common stock of notions
embodied in the early culture of a race before it was broken up into
several branches, but that they have to be accounted for as instances of
a similar treatment of legal problems by different peoples of the same
ethnic family. The only thing that can be said in such a case is that,
methodically, the customs of kindred nations have the first claim to
comparison. It is evident that in dealing with blood feud, composition
for homicide, and the like, among the Germans or Slavs, the evidence of
other Aryan tribes has to be primarily studied. But it is by no means
useless for the investigator of these problems to inform himself about
the aspect of such customs in the life of nations of other descent, and
especially of savage tribes. The motives underlying legal rules in this
respect are to a large extent suggested by feelings and considerations
which are not in any way peculiarly Aryan, and may be fully illustrated
from other sources, as has been done e.g. in Steinmetz's _Origins of
Punishment_.
(d) This leads to the consideration of what maybe called _disconnected
analogies_. They are instructive in so far as they go back, not to any
continuous development, but to the fundamental, psychological and
logical unity of human nature. In similar circumstances human beings are
likely to solve the same problems in the same way. Take a rather late
and special case. In the Anglo-Saxon laws of Ine, a king who lived in
the 7th century, it is enacted that no landowner should be allowed to
claim personal labour service from his tenants unless he provides them
not merely with land, but with their homesteads. Now an exactly similar
rule is found in the statement of rural by-laws to be enforced on great
domains in Africa, which had been taken over by the imperial fiscus--the
Lex Manciana (cf. Schulten, _Lex manciana_). There is absolutely no
reason for assuming a direct transference of the rule from one place to
the other: it reflects considerations of natural equity which in both
cases were directed against similar encroachments of powerful landowners
on a dependent peasant population. In both instances government
interfered to draw the line between the payment of rent and the
performance of labour, and fastened on the same feature to fix the
limit, namely, on the difference between peasants living in their own
homes and those who had been settled by the landowner on his farms. Of
such analogies, the study of savage life presents a great number, e.g.
the widely spread practices of purification by ordeal (H. C. Lea,
_Superstition and Force_).
(e) Organizing thought always seeks to substitute order for chaotic
variety. Observations as to disconnected analogies lead to attempts to
systematize them from some comprehensive point of view. These attempts
may take the shape of a theory of _consecutive stages_ of development.
Similar facts appear over and over again in ethnological and antiquarian
evidence, because all peoples and tribes, no matter what their race and
geographical position, go through the same series of social
arrangements. This is the fundamental idea which directed the researches
of Maine, McLennan, Morgan, Post, Kohler, although each of these
scholars formulated his sequence of stages in a peculiar way. McLennan,
for instance, puts the idea referred to in the following words:--
"In short, it is suggested to us, that the history of human society is
that of a development following very slowly one general law, and that
the variety of forms of life--of domestic and civil institution--is
ascribable mainly to the unequal development of the different sections
of mankind.... The first thing to be done is to inform ourselves of
the facts relating to the least developed races. To begin with them is
to begin with history at the farthest-back point of time to which,
except by argument and inference, we can reach. Their condition, as
it may to-day be observed, is truly the most ancient condition of man"
(_Studies in Ancient History_, 2nd series, 9, 15).
On this basis we might draw up tables of consecutive stages, of which
the simplest may be taken from Post:--
"Four types of organization: the tribal, the territorial, the
seignorial, and the social. The first has as its basis marriage and
relationship by blood; the second, neighbouring occupation of a
district; the third, patronage relations between lord and dependants;
the fourth, social intercourse and contractual relations between
individual personalities" (Post, _Grundriss_, i. 14).
This may be supplemented from Friedrichs in regard to initial stages of
family organization. He reckons four stages of this kind: promiscuity,
loose relations, matriarchal family, patriarchal family, modern,
bilateral family (_Z. f. vgl. R. wissenschaft_). This mode of grouping
similar phenomena as a sequence of stages leads to a conception of
universal history of a peculiar kind. And as such it has been realized
and advocated by Kohler (see e.g. his article in Helmolt's _World's
History_, Eng. trans. i.). Prompted by this conception several
representatives of comparative jurisprudence have found no difficulty to
insert such a peculiar institution as group-marriage into the general
and obligatory course of legal evolution. It is to be noticed, however,
that Kohler himself has entered a distinct protest against McLennan's
and Post's view that the more rudimentary a people's culture is, the
more archaic it is, and the earlier it has to be placed in the natural
sequence of evolution. This would create difficulties in the case of
tribes of exceedingly low culture, like the Ceylon Veddahs, who live in
monogamous and patriarchal groups. According to Kohler's view, neither
the mere fact of a low standard of culture, nor the fact that a certain
legal custom precedes another in some cases in point of time, settles
the natural sequence of development. The process of development must be
studied in cases when it is sufficiently clear, gaps in other cases have
to be supplied accordingly, and the working together of distinct
institutions, especially in cases when there is no ethnic connexion has
to be especially noticed. These are counsels of perfection, but Kohler's
own example shows sufficiently that it is not easy to follow them to the
letter. One thing is, however, clearly indicated by these and similar
criticisms; it is, at the least, premature to sketch anything like a
course of universal development for legal history. We have grave doubts
whether the time will ever come for laying down any single course of
that kind. The attempts made hitherto have generally led to overstating
the value of certain parts of the evidence and to squeezing special
traits into a supposed general course of evolution.
(f) Another group of thinkers is therefore content to systematize and
explain the material from the point of view, not of universal history,
but of _correspondence to economic stages and types_. This is, as we
have seen, the leading idea in Dargun's or Hildebrand's investigations.
It is needless to go into the question of the right or wrong of
particular suggestions made by these writers. The place assigned to
individualism and collectivism may be adequate or not; how far can be
settled only by special inquiries. But the general trend of study
initiated in this direction is certainly a promising one, if only one
consideration of method is well kept in view. Investigators ought to be
very chary of laying down certain combinations as the necessary outcome
of certain economic situations. Such combinations or consequences
certainly exist; pastoral husbandry, the life of scattered hunting
groups, the conditions of agriculturists under feudal rule, certainly
contain elements which will recur in divers ethnical surroundings. But
we must not forget a feature which is constantly before our eyes in real
life: namely, that different minds and characters will draw different
and perhaps opposite conclusions in exactly similar outward conditions.
This may happen in identical or similar geographical environment; let us
only think of ancient Greeks and Turks on the Balkan peninsula, or of
ancient Greeks and modern Greeks for that matter. But even the same
_historical medium_ leaves, as a rule, scope for treatment of legal
problems on divers lines. Take systems of succession. They exercise the
most potent influence on the structure and life of society. Undivided
succession, whether in the form of primogeniture or in that of junior
right, sacrifices equity and natural affection to the economic
efficiency of estates. Equal-partition rules, like _gavelkind_ or
_parage_, lead in an exactly opposite direction. And yet both sets of
rules coexisted among the agriculturists of feudal England; communities
placed in nearly identical historical positions followed one or the
other of these rules. The same may be said of types of dwelling and
forms of settlement. In other words, it is not enough to start from a
given economic condition as if it were bound to regulate with fatalistic
precision all the incidents of legal custom and social intercourse. We
have to start from actual facts as complex results of many causes, and
to try to reduce as much as we can of this material to the action of
economic forces in a particular stage or type of development.
(g) The psychological diversities of mankind in dealing with the same or
similar problems of food and property, of procreation and marriage, of
common defence and relationship, of intercourse and contrast, &c., open
another possibility for the grouping of facts and the explanation of
their evolution. It may be difficult or impossible to trace the reasons
and causes of synthetic combinations in the history of society. That is,
we can hardly go beyond noting that certain disconnected features of
social life appear together and react on each other. But it is easier
and more promising to approach the mass of our material from the
_analytical_ side, taking hold of certain principles, or rules, or
institutions, and tracing them to their natural consequences either
through a direct systematization of recorded facts or, when these fail,
through logical inferences. Some of the most brilliant and useful work
in the historical study of law has been effected on these lines.
Mommsen's theory of Roman magistracy, Jhering's theory of the struggle
for right, Kohler's view of the evolution of contract, &c., have been
evolved by such a process of legal analysis; and, even when such
generalizations have to be curtailed or complicated later on, they serve
their turn as a powerful means of organizing evidence and suggesting
reasonable explanations. The attribute of "reasonableness" has to be
reckoned with largely in such cases. Analytical explanations are
attractive to students because they substitute logical clearness for
irrational accumulation of traits and facts. They do so to a large
extent through appeals to the logic and to the reason common to us and
to the people we are studying. This deductive element has to be closely
watched and tested from the side of a concrete study of the evidence,
but it seems destined to play a very prominent part in the comparative
history of law, because legal analysis and construction have at all
times striven to embody logic and equity in the domain of actual
interests and forces. And, as we have seen in our survey of the
literature of the subject, recent comparative studies tend to make the
share of juridical analysis in given relative surroundings larger and
larger. What is so difficult of attainment to single workers--a
harmonious appreciation of the combined influences of common origin,
reception of foreign custom, recurring psychological combinations, the
driving forces of economic culture and of the dialectical process of
legal thought, will be achieved, it may be hoped, by the enthusiastic
and brotherly exertions of all the workers in the field.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.--Of the principal works of reference may be mentioned:
_Zeitschrift fur vergleichende Rechtswissenschaft_, edited by
Bernhoft, Cohn and Kohler (1878- ); _Nouvelle revue historique de
droit francais et etranger_, edited by Dareste, Esmein, Appert,
Fournier, Tardiff and Prou (1877- ); A. Pictet, _Les Origines
indo-europeennes_ (i. 1859, ii. 1863); Fustel de Coulanges, _La Cite
antique_ (1890); W. E. Hearn, _The Aryan Household_ (1879); R. v.
Jhering, _Vorgeschichte der Indoeuropaer_ (1894); B. W. Leist,
_Graekoitalische Rechtsgeschichte_ (1884), _Alt-arisches Jus Gentium_
(1889), _Alt-arisches Jus Civile_ (1892-1896); Hruza, _Geschichte des
griechischen und romischen Familienrechtes_ (1893); O. Schrader,
_Urgeschichte und Sprachvergleichung_ (1890), _Reallexikon des
indo-germanischen Altertumskunde_ (1901); B. Delbruck, _Die
indo-germanischen Verwandtschaftsnamen_ (1889), _Das Mutterrecht bei
den Indogermanen_; Sir H. S. Maine, _Ancient Law_, with notes by Sir
F. Pollock (1906), _Village Communities_ (1871), _Early History of
Institutions_ (1875), _Early Law and Custom_ (1883); M. H. d'Arbois de
Jubainville, _Etudes de droit celtique_ (1895), _La Famille celtique_
(1905); J. J. Bachofen, _Das Mutterrecht_ (1861), _Antiquarische
Briefe_ (1880); J. F. McLennan, _Studies in Ancient History_ (1876),
_Patriarchal Theory_ (1885), _Studies in Ancient History_ (2nd series,
1896); Giraud Teulon, _Origines de la famille et du mariage_ (1884);
L. H. Morgan, "Systems of Consanguinity" in the publications of the
Smithsonian Institution, vol. xvii. (1869); _Ancient Society_ (1877);
E. B. Tylor, _Primitive Culture_ (1871); Lord Avebury (Sir J.
Lubbock), _Origin of Civilization_ (1870); J. Lippert,
_Kulturgeschichte der Menschheit_ (1887); W. Robertson Smith, _Kinship
and Marriage in Arabia_ (1885); F. Bernhoft, _Staat und Recht der
romischen Konigszeit im Verhaltniss zu verwandten Rechten_ (1882); A.
H. Post, _Aufgaben einer allgemeinen Rechtswissenschaft_ (1891), _Die
Anfange des Staatsund Rechtslebens_ (1878), _Bausteine einer
allgemeinen Rechtsgeschichte auf vergleichend-ethnologischer Basis_
(1881), _Einleitung in das Studium der ethnologischen Jurisprudenz_
(1886), _Grundlagen des Rechts und Grundzuge seiner
Entwickelungsgeschichte_ (1882), _Studien zur Entwicklungsgeschichte
des Familienrechts_ (1889), _Afrikanische Jurisprudenz_ (1887),
_Grundriss der ethnologischen Jurisprudenz_ (1894); Wilken, _Das
Matriarchat im alten Arabien_ (1884); M. M. Kovalevsky, _Coutume
contemporaine et loi ancienne_ (1893), _Gesetz und Gewohnheit im
Kaukasus_ (1890), _Tableau du developpement de la famille et de la
propriete_ (1889); Dargun, "Mutterrecht und Raubehe," in Otto Gierke's
_Untersuchungen zur deutschen Staats- und Rechtsgeschichte_ (1883); R.
Hildebrand, _Das Problem einer allgemeinen Entwicklungsgeschichte des
Rechts und der Sitte_ (1894), _Recht und Sitte auf den verschiedenen
wirtschaftlichen Kulturstufen_ (1896); E. Grosse, _Die Formen der
Familie und der Wirtschaft_ (1896); E. A. Westermarck, _History of
Human Marriage_ (1894), _The Origin and Development of the Moral
Ideas_ (1906); C. N. Starcke, _Die primitive Familie_ (1888); G.
Tarde, _Les Transformations du droit_ (2nd ed., 1894); Steinmetz,
_Ethnologische Studien zur ersten Entwicklung der Strafe_ (1894); J.
Kohler, _Das Recht als Kulturerscheinung: Einleitung in die
vergleichende Rechtswissenschaft_ (1885), _Shakespeare vor dem Forum
der Jurisprudenz_ (1884), "Das chinesische Strafrecht," _Beitrag zur
Universalgeschichte des Strafrechts_ (1886), _Rechtsvergleichende
Studien uber islamitisches Recht, Recht der Berbern, chinesisches
Recht und Recht auf Ceylon_ (1889), _Altindisches Prozessrecht_
(1892), _Zur Urgeschichte der Ehe_ (1897), _Kulturrechte des Alten
Amerikas, das Recht der Azteken_ (1892), _Das Negerrecht_ (1895);
Kohler and Peisker, _Aus dem babylonischen Rechtsleben_ (1890),
_Hammurubi's Gesetz_ (1904); A. Lang, _The Secret of the Totem_
(1905); P. J. H. Grierson, _The Silent Trade_ (1903); J. G. Frazer,
_Lectures on the Early History of the Kingship_ (1905); R. Dareste,
_Etudes d'histoire de droit_ (1889), _Nouvelles etudes d'histoire de
droit_ (1896); Lambert, _La Fonction du droit civil compare_ (1903);
Fritz Hommel, _Semitische Alterthumskunde_ (Eng. trans., _The Ancient
Hebrew Tradition as illustrated by the Monuments_, 1897); H. C. Lea,
_Superstition and Force_ (1866); A. Hellwig, _Das Asylrecht der
Naturvolker_ (Berliner juristische Beitrage, 1893); F. Seebohm,
_Tribal Custom in Anglo-Saxon Law_ (1902). (P. Vi.)
JURJANI, the name of two Arabic scholars.
1. ABU BAKR 'ABDU-L-QAHIR IBN 'ABDUR-RAHMAN UL-JURJANI (d. 1078,)
Arabian grammarian, belonged to the Persian school and wrote a famous
grammar, the _Kitab ul-'Awamil ul-Mi'a or Kitab Mi'at 'Amil_, which was
edited by Erpenius (Leiden, 1617), by Baillie (Calcutta, 1803), and by
A. Lockett (Calcutta, 1814). Ten Arabic commentaries on this work exist
in MS., also two Turkish. It has been versified five times and
translated into Persian. Another of his grammatical works on which
several commentaries have been written is the _Kitab Jumal fin-Nahw_.
For other works see C. Brockelmann's _Gesch. der Arabischen
Litteratur_ (1898), i. 288.
2. 'ALI IBN MAHOMMED UL-JURJANI (1339-1414), Arabian encyclopaedic
writer, was born near Astarabad and became professor in Shiraz. When
this city was plundered by Timur (1387) he removed to Samarkand, but
returned to Shiraz in 1405, and remained there until his death. Of his
thirty-one extant works, many being commentaries on other works, one of
the best known is the _Ta'rifat_ (_Definitions_), which was edited by G.
Flugel (Leipzig, 1845), published also in Constantinople (1837), Cairo
(1866, &c.), and St Petersburg (1897). (G. W. T.)
JURY, in English law, a body of laymen summoned and sworn (_jurati_) to
ascertain, under the guidance of a judge, the truth as to questions of
fact raised in legal proceedings whether civil or criminal. The
development of the system of trial by jury has been regarded as one of
the greatest achievements of English jurisprudence; it has even been
said that the ultimate aim of the English constitution is "to get twelve
good men into a box."[1] In modern times the English system of trial by
jury has been adopted in many countries in which jury trial was not
native or had been strangled or imperfectly developed under local
conditions.
The origin of the system in England has been much investigated by
lawyers and historians. The result of these investigations is a fairly
general agreement that the germ of jury trial is to be found in the
Frankish inquest (_recognitio_ or _inquisitio_) transplanted into
England by the Norman kings. The essence of this inquest was the
summoning of a body of neighbours by a public officer to give answer
upon oath (_recognoscere veritatem_) on some question of fact or law
(_jus_), or of mixed fact and law. At the outset the object of the
inquiry was usually to obtain information for the king, e.g. to
ascertain facts needed for assessing taxation. Indeed Domesday Book
appears to be made up by recording the answers of inquests.
The origin of juries is very fully discussed in W. Forsyth's _History of
Trial by Jury_ (1852), and the various theories advanced are more
concisely stated in W. Stubbs's _Constitutional History_ (vol. i.) and
in E. A. Freeman's _Norman Conquest_ (vol. v.). Until the modern
examination of historical documents proved the contrary, the jury
system, like all other institutions, was popularly regarded as the work
of a single legislator, and in England it has been usually assigned to
Alfred the Great. This supposition is without historical foundation, nor
is it correct to regard the jury as "copied from this or that kindred
institution to be found in this or that German or Scandinavian land," or
brought over ready made by Hengist or by William.[2] "Many writers of
authority," says Stubbs, "have maintained that the entire jury system is
indigenous in England, some deriving it from Celtic tradition based on
the principles of Roman law, and adopted by the Anglo-Saxons and Normans
from the people they had conquered. Others have regarded it as a product
of that legal genius of the Anglo-Saxons of which Alfred is the mythical
impersonation, or as derived by that nation from the customs of
primitive Germany or from their intercourse with the Danes. Nor even
when it is admitted that the system of 'recognition' was introduced from
Normandy have legal writers agreed as to the source from which the
Normans themselves derived it. One scholar maintains that it was brought
by the Norsemen from Scandinavia; another that it was derived from the
processes of the canon law; another that it was developed on Gallic soil
from Roman principles; another that it came from Asia through the
crusades," or was borrowed by the Angles and Saxons from their Slavonic
neighbours in northern Europe. The true answer is that forms of trial
resembling the jury system in various particulars are to be found in the
primitive institutions of all nations. That which comes nearest in time
and character to trial by jury is the system of recognition by sworn
inquest, introduced into England by the Normans. "That inquest," says
Stubbs, "is directly derived from the Frank capitularies, into which it
may have been adopted from the fiscal regulations of the Theodosian
code, and thus own some distant relationship with the Roman
jurisprudence." However that may be, the system of "recognition"
consisted in questions of fact, relating to fiscal or judicial business,
being submitted by the officers of the crown to sworn witnesses in the
local courts. Freeman points out that the Norman rulers of England were
obliged, more than native rulers would have been, to rely on this system
for accurate information. They needed to have a clear and truthful
account of disputed points set before them, and such an account was
sought for in the oaths of the recognitors.[3] The Norman conquest,
therefore, fostered the growth of those native germs common to England
with other countries out of which the institution of juries grew.
Recognition, as introduced by the Normans, is only, in this point of
view, another form of the same principle which shows itself in the
compurgators, in the _frith-borh_ (frank-pledge), in every detail of the
action of the popular courts before the conquest. Admitting with Stubbs
that the Norman recognition was the instrument which the lawyers in
England ultimately shaped into trial by jury, Freeman maintains none the
less that the latter is distinctively English. Forsyth comes to
substantially the same conclusion. Noting the jury germs of the
Anglo-Saxon period, he shows how out of those elements, which continued
in full force under the Anglo-Normans, was produced at last the
institution of the jury. "As yet it was only implied in the requirement
that disputed questions should be determined by the voice of sworn
witnesses taken from the neighbourhood, and deposing to the truth of
what they had seen or heard." The conclusions of Sir F. Pollock and F.W.
Maitland, expressed in their _History of English Law_, and based on a
closer study, are to the same effect.
This inquest then was a royal institution and not a survival from
Anglo-Saxon law or popular custom, under which compurgation and the
ordeal were the accepted modes of trying issues of fact.
The inquest by recognition, formerly an inquest of office, i.e. to
ascertain facts in the interests of the crown or the exchequer, was
gradually allowed between subjects as a mode of settling disputes of
fact. This extension began with the assize of novel disseisin, whereby
the king protected by royal writ and inquest of neighbours every seisin
of a freehold. This was followed by the grand assize, applicable to
questions affecting freehold or status. A defendant in such an action
was enabled by an enactment of Henry II. to decline trial by combat and
choose trial by assize, which was conducted as follows. The sheriff
summoned four knights of the neighbourhood, who being sworn chose the
twelve lawful knights most cognisant of the facts, to determine on their
oaths which had the better right to the land. If they all knew the facts
and were agreed as to their verdict, well and good; if some or all were
ignorant, the fact was certified in court, and new knights were named,
until twelve were found to be agreed. The same course was followed when
the twelve were not unanimous. New knights were added until the twelve
were agreed. This was called afforcing the assize. At this time the
knowledge on which the jurors acted was their own personal knowledge,
acquired independently of the trial. "So entirely," says Forsyth, "did
they proceed upon their own previously formed view of the facts in
dispute that they seem to have considered themselves at liberty to pay
no attention to evidence offered in court, however clearly it might
disprove the case which they were prepared to support." The use of
recognition is prescribed by the constitutions of Clarendon (1166) for
cases of dispute as to lay or clerical tenure. See Forsyth, p. 131;
Stubbs, i. 617.
This procedure by the assize was confined to real actions, and while it
preceded, it is not identical with the modern jury trial in civil cases,
which was gradually introduced by consent of the parties and on pressure
from the judges. Jury trial proper differs from the grand and petty
assizes in that the assizes were summoned at the same time as the
defendant to answer a question formulated in the writ; whereas in the
ordinary jury trial no order for a jury could be made till the parties
by their pleadings had come to an issue of fact and had put themselves
on the country, _posuerunt se super patriam_ (Pollock and Maitland, i.
119-128; ii. 601, 615, 621).
_The Grand Jury._--In Anglo-Saxon times there was an institution
analogous to the grand jury in criminal cases, viz. the twelve senior
thegns, who, according to an ordinance of Aethelred II., were sworn in
the county court that they would accuse no innocent man and acquit no
guilty one. The twelve thegns were a jury of presentment or accusation,
like the grand jury of later times, and the absolute guilt or innocence
of those accused by them had to be determined by subsequent
proceedings--by compurgation or ordeal. Whether this is the actual
origin of the grand jury or not, the assizes of Clarendon (1166) and
Northampton (1176) establish the criminal jury on a definite basis.
In the laws of Edward the Confessor and the earlier Anglo-Saxon kings
are found many traces of a public duty to bring offenders to justice,
by hue and cry, or by action of the _frith-borh_, township, tithing or
hundred. By the assize of Clarendon it is directed that inquiry be made
in each county and in each hundred by twelve lawful (_legaliores_) men
of the hundred, and by four lawful men from each of the four vills
nearest to the scene of the alleged crime, on oath to tell the truth if
in the hundred or vill there is any man accused (_rettatus aut
publicatus_) as a robber or murderer or thief, or receiver of such. The
assize of Northampton added forgery of coin or charters (_falsonaria_)
and arson. The inquiry is to be held by the justices in eyre, and by the
sheriffs in their county courts. On a finding on the oath aforesaid, the
accused was to be taken and to go to the ordeal. By the articles of
visitation of 1194, four knights are to be chosen from the county who by
their oath shall choose two lawful knights of each hundred or wapentake,
or, if knights be wanting, free and legal men, so that the twelve may
answer for all matters within the hundred, including, says Stubbs, "all
the pleas of the crown, the trial of malefactors and their receivers, as
well as a vast amount of civil business." The process thus described is
now regarded as an employment of the Frankish inquest for the collection
of _fama publica_. It was alternative to the rights of a private accuser
by appeal, and the inquest were not exactly either accusers or
witnesses, but gave voice to public repute as to the criminality of the
persons whom they presented. From this form of inquest has developed the
grand jury of presentment or accusation, and the coroner's inquest,
which works partly as a grand jury as to homicide cases, and partly as
an inquest of office as to treasure trove, &c.
The number of the grand jury is fixed by usage at not less than twelve
nor more than twenty-three jurors. Unanimity is not required, but twelve
must concur in the presentment or indictment.[4] This jury retains so
much of its ancient character that it may present of its own knowledge
or information, and is not tied down by rules of evidence. After a
general charge by the judge as to the bills of indictment on the file of
the court, the grand jury considers the bills in private and hears upon
oath in the grand jury chamber some or all the witnesses called in
support of an indictment whose names are endorsed upon the bill. It does
not as a rule hear counsel or solicitors for the prosecution, nor does
it see or hear the accused or his witnesses, and it is not concerned
with the nature of the defence, its functions being to ascertain whether
there is a prima facie case against the accused justifying his trial. If
it thinks that there is such a case, the indictment is returned into
court as a true bill; if it thinks that there is not, the bill is
ignored and returned into court torn up or marked "no bill," or
"_ignoramus_." Inasmuch as no man can be put on trial for treason or
felony, and few are tried for misdemeanour, without the intervention of
the grand jury, the latter has a kind of veto with respect to criminal
prosecutions. The grand jurors are described in the indictment as "the
jurors for our lord the king." As such prosecutions in respect of
indictable offences are now in almost all cases begun by a full
preliminary inquiry before justices, and inasmuch as cases rarely come
before a grand jury until after committal of the accused for trial, the
present utility of the grand jury depends very much on the character of
the justices' courts. As a review of the discretion of stipendiary
magistrates in committing cases for trial, the intervention of the grand
jury is in most cases superfluous; and even when the committing justices
are not lawyers, it is now a common opinion that their views as to the
existence of a case to be submitted to a jury for trial should not be
over-ridden by a lay tribunal sitting in private, and in this opinion
many grand jurors concur. But the abolition of the grand jury would
involve great changes in criminal procedure for which parliament seems
to have no appetite. Forsyth thinks that the grand jury will often
baffle "the attempts of malevolence" by ignoring a malicious and
unfounded prosecution; but it may also defeat the ends of justice by
shielding a criminal with whom it has strong political or social
sympathies. The qualification of the grand jurymen is that they should
be freeholders of the county--to what amount appears to be
uncertain--and they are summoned by the sheriff, or failing him by the
coroner.
The _coroner's jury_ must by statute (1887) consist of not more than
twenty-three nor less than twelve jurors. It is summoned by the coroner
to hold an inquest _super visum corporis_ in cases of sudden or violent
death, and of death in prisons or lunatic asylums, and to deal with
treasure trove. The qualification of the coroner's jurors does not
depend on the Juries Acts 1825 and 1870, and in practice they are drawn
from householders in the immediate vicinity of the place where the
inquest is held. Unanimity is not required of a coroner's jury; but
twelve must concur in the verdict. If it charges anyone with murder or
manslaughter, it is duly recorded and transmitted to a court of assize,
and has the same effect as an indictment by a grand jury, i.e. it is
accusatory only and is not conclusive, and is traversable, and the issue
of guilt or innocence is tried by a petty jury.
_The Petty Jury._--The ordeal by water or fire was used as the final
test of guilt or innocence until its abolition by decree of the Lateran
council (1219). On its abolition it became necessary to devise a new
mode of determining guilt as distinguished from ill fame as charged by
the grand jury. So early as 1221 accused persons had begun to put
themselves on the country, or to pay to have a verdict for "good or
ill"; and the trial seems to have been by calling for the opinions of
the twelve men and the four townships, who may have been regarded as a
second body of witnesses who could traverse the opinion of the hundred
jury. (See Pollock and Maitland, ii. 646.) The reference to _judicium
parium_ in Magna Carta is usually taken to refer to the jury, but it is
clear that what is now known as the petty jury was not then developed in
its present form. "The history of that institution is still in
manuscript," says Maitland.
It is not at all clear that at the outset the trial by the country (_in
pais_; _in patria_) was before another and different jury. The earliest
instances look as if the twelve men and the four vills were the _patria_
and had to agree. But by the time of Edward I. the accused seems to have
been allowed to call in a second jury. A person accused by the inquest
of the hundred was allowed to have the truth of the charge tried by
another and different jury.[5] "There is," says Forsyth, "no possibility
of assigning a date to this alteration." "In the time of Bracton (middle
of the 13th century) the usual mode of determining innocence or guilt
was by combat or appeal. But in most cases the appellant had the option
of either fighting with his adversary or putting himself on his country
for trial"--the exceptions being murder by secret poisoning, and certain
circumstances presumed by the law to be conclusive of guilt.[6] But the
separation must have been complete by 1352, in which year it was enacted
"that no indictor shall be put in inquests upon deliverance of the
indictees of felonies or trespass if he be challenged for that same
cause by the indictee."
The jurors, whatever their origin, differed from the Saxon doomsmen and
the jurats of the Channel Islands in that they adjudged nothing; and
from compurgators or oath-helpers in that they were not witnesses
called by a litigant to support his case (Pollock and Maitland, i. 118).
Once established, the jury of trial whether of actions or indictments
developed on the same lines. But at the outset this jury differed in one
material respect from the modern trial jury. The ancient trial jury
certify to the truth from their knowledge of the facts, however
acquired. In other words, they resemble witnesses or collectors of local
evidence or gossip rather than jurors. The complete withdrawal of the
witness character from the jury is connected by Forsyth with the ancient
rules of law as to proof of written instruments, and a peculiar mode of
trial _per sectam_. When a deed is attested by witnesses, you have a
difference between the testimony of the witness, who deposes to the
execution of the deed, and the verdict of the jury as to the fact of
execution. It has been contended with much plausibility that in such
cases the attesting witnesses formed part of the jury. Forsyth doubts
that conclusion, although he admits that, as the jurors themselves were
originally mere witnesses, there was no distinction in principle between
them and the attesting witnesses, and that the attesting witnesses might
be associated with the jury in the discharge of the function of giving a
verdict. However that may be, in the reign of Edward III., although the
witnesses are spoken of "as joined to the assize," they are
distinguished from the jurors. The trial _per sectam_ was used as an
alternative to the assize or jury, and resembled in principle the system
of compurgation. The claimant proved his case by vouching a certain
number of witnesses (_secta_), who had seen the transaction in question,
and the defendant rebutted the presumption thus created by vouching a
larger number of witnesses on his own side. In cases in which this was
allowed, the jury did not interpose at all, but in course of time the
practice arose of the witnesses of the _secta_ telling their story to
the jury. In these two instances we have the jury as judges of the facts
sharply contrasted with the witnesses who testify to the facts; and,
with the increasing use of juries and the development of rules of
evidence, this was gradually established as the true principle of the
system. In the reign of Henry IV. we find the judges declaring that the
jury after they have been sworn should not see or take with them any
other evidence than that which has been offered in open court. But the
personal knowledge of the jurors was not as yet regarded as outside the
evidence on which they might found a verdict, and the stress laid upon
the selection of jurymen from the neighbourhood of the cause of the
action shows that this element was counted on, and, in fact, deemed
essential to a just consideration of the case. Other examples of the
same theory of the duties of the jury may be found in the language used
by legal writers. Thus it has been said that the jury may return a
verdict although no evidence at all be offered, and again, that the
evidence given in court is not binding on the jury, because they are
assumed from their local connexion to be sufficiently informed of the
facts to give a verdict without or in opposition to the oral evidence. A
recorder of London, _temp._ Edward VI., says that, "if the witnesses at
a trial do not agree with the jurors, the verdict of the twelve shall be
taken and the witnesses shall be rejected." Forsyth suggests as a reason
for the continuance of this theory that it allowed the jury an escape
from the _attaint_, by which penalties might be imposed on them for
delivering a false verdict in a civil case. They could suggest that the
verdict was according to the fact, though not according to the evidence.
In England the trial jury (also called petty jury or traverse jury)
consists of twelve jurors, except in the county court, where the number
is eight. In civil but not in criminal cases the trial may by consent be
by fewer than twelve jurors, and the verdict may by consent be that of
the majority. The rule requiring a unanimous verdict has been variously
explained. Forsyth regards the rule as intimately connected with the
original character of the jury as a body of witnesses, and with the
conception common in primitive society that safety is to be found in the
number of witnesses, rather than the character of their testimony. The
old notion seems to have been that to justify an accusation, or to find
a fact, twelve sworn men must be agreed. The afforcing of the jury,
already described, marks an intermediate stage in the development. Where
the juries were not unanimous new jurors were added until twelve were
found to be of the same opinion. From the unanimous twelve selected out
of a large number to the unanimous twelve constituting the whole jury
was a natural step, which, however, was not taken without hesitation. In
some old cases the verdict of eleven jurors out of twelve was accepted,
but it was decided in the reign of Edward III. that the verdict must be
the unanimous opinion of the whole jury. Diversity of opinion was taken
to imply perversity of judgment, and the law sanctioned the application
of the harshest methods to produce unanimity. The jurors while
considering their verdict were not allowed a fire nor any refreshment,
and it is said in some of the old books that, if they failed to agree,
they could be put in a cart and drawn after the justices to the border
of the county, and then upset into a ditch. These rude modes of
enforcing unanimity has been softened in later practice, but in criminal
cases the rule of unanimity is still absolutely fixed.
In civil cases and in trials for misdemeanour, the jurors are allowed to
separate during adjournments and to return to their homes; in trials for
treason, treason-felony and murder, the jurors, once sworn, must not
separate until discharged. But by an act of 1897 jurors on trials for
other felonies may be allowed by the court to separate in the same way
as on trials for misdemeanour.
These rules do not apply to a jury which has retired to consider its
verdict. During the period of retirement it is under the keeping of an
officer of the court.
At common law aliens were entitled to be tried by a jury _de medietate
linguae_--half Englishmen, half foreigners, not necessarily compatriots
of the accused. This privilege was abolished by the Naturalization Act
1870; but by the Juries Act 1870 aliens who have been domiciled in
England or Wales for ten years or upwards, if in other respects duly
qualified, are liable to jury service as if they were natural-born
subjects (s. 8).
A jury of matrons is occasionally summoned, viz. on a writ _de ventre
inspiciendo_, or where a female condemned to death pleads pregnancy in
stay of execution.
The jurors are selected from the inhabitants of the county, borough or
other area for which the court to which they are summoned is
commissioned to act. In criminal cases, owing to the rules as to venue
and that crime is to be tried in the neighbourhood where it is
committed, the mode of selection involves a certain amount of
independent local knowledge on the part of the jurors. Where local
prejudice has been aroused for or against the accused, which is likely
to affect the chance of a fair trial, the proceedings may be removed to
another jurisdiction, and there are a good many offences in which by
legislation the accused may be tried where he is caught, irrespective of
the place where he is alleged to have broken the law. As regards civil
cases, a distinction was at an early date drawn between local actions
which must be tried in the district in which they originated, and
transitory actions which could be tried in any county. These
distinctions are now of no importance, as the place of trial of a civil
action is decided as a matter of procedure and convenience, and regard
is not necessarily paid to the place at which a wrong was done or a
contract broken.
The qualifications for, and exemptions from, service as a petty juror
are in the main contained in the Juries Acts 1825 and 1870, though a
number of further exemptions are added by scattered enactments. The
exemptions include members of the legislature and judges, ministers of
various denominations, and practising barristers and solicitors,
registered medical practitioners and dentists, and officers and soldiers
of the regular army. Persons over sixty are exempt but not disqualified.
Lists of the jurors are prepared by the overseers in rural parishes and
by the town clerks in boroughs, and are submitted to justices for
revision. When jurors are required for a civil or criminal trial they
are summoned by the sheriff or, if he cannot act, by the coroner.
_Special and Common Juries._--For the purpose of civil trials in the
superior courts there are two lists of jurors, special and common. The
practice of selecting special jurors to try important civil cases
appears to have sprung up, without legislative enactment, in the
procedure of the courts. Forsyth says that the first statutory
recognition of it is so late as 3 Geo. II. c. 25, and that in the oldest
book of practice in existence (Powell's _Attourney's Academy_, 1623)
there is no allusion to two classes of jurymen. The acts, however, which
regulate the practice allude to it as well established. The Juries Act
1870 (33 & 34 Vict. c. 77) defines the class of persons entitled and
liable to serve on special juries thus: Every man whose name shall be on
the jurors' book for any county, &c., and who shall be legally entitled
to be called an esquire, or shall be a person of higher degree, or a
banker or merchant, or who shall occupy a house of a certain rateable
value (e.g. L100 in a town of 20,000 inhabitants, L50 elsewhere), or a
farm of L300 or other premises at L100. A special juryman receives a fee
of a guinea for each cause. Either party may obtain an order for a
special jury, but must pay the additional expenses created thereby
unless the judge certifies that it was a proper case to be so tried. For
the common jury any man is qualified and liable to serve who has L10 by
the year in land or tenements of freehold, copyhold or customary tenure;
or L20 on lands or tenement held by lease for twenty-one years or
longer, or who being a householder is rated at L30 in the counties of
London and Middlesex, or L20 in any other county. A special jury cannot
be ordered in cases of treason or felony, and may be ordered in cases of
misdemeanour only when the trial is in the king's bench division of the
High Court, or the civil side at assizes.
_Challenge._--It has always been permissible for the parties to
challenge the jurors summoned to consider indictments or to try cases.
Both in civil and criminal cases a challenge "for cause" is allowed; in
criminal cases a peremptory challenge is also allowed. Challenge "for
cause" may be either to the _array_, i.e. to the whole number of jurors
returned, or to the _polls_, i.e. to the jurors individually. A
challenge to the array is either a _principal_ challenge (on the ground
that the sheriff is a party to the cause, or related to one of the
parties), or a challenge for _favour_ (on the ground of circumstances
implying "at least a probability of bias or favour in the sheriff"). A
challenge to the polls is an exception to one or more jurymen on either
of the following grounds: (1) _propter honoris respectum_, as when a
lord of parliament is summoned; (2) _propter defectum_, for want of
qualification; (3) _propter affectum_, on suspicion of bias or
partiality; and (4) _propter delictum_, when the juror has been
convicted of an infamous offence. The challenge _propter affectum_ is,
like the challenge to the array, either principal challenge or "to the
favour." In England as a general rule the juror may be interrogated to
show want of qualification; but in other cases the person making the
challenge must prove it without questioning the juror, and the courts do
not allow the protracted examination on the _voir dire_ which precedes
every _cause celebre_ in the United States. On indictments for treason
the accused has a right peremptorily to challenge thirty-five of the
jurors on the panel; in cases of felony the number is limited to twenty,
and in cases of misdemeanour there is no right of peremptory challenge.
The Crown has not now the right of peremptory challenge and may
challenge only for cause certain (Juries Act 1825, s. 29). In the case
of felony, on the first call of the list jurors objected to by the Crown
are asked to stand by, and the cause of challenge need not be assigned
by the Crown until the whole list has been perused or gone through, or
unless there remain no longer twelve jurors left to try the case,
exclusive of those challenged. This arrangement practically amounts to
giving the Crown the benefit of a peremptory challenge.
_Function of Jury._--The jurors were originally the mouthpiece of local
opinion on the questions submitted to them, or witnesses to fact as to
such questions. They have now become the judges of fact upon the
evidence laid before them. Their province is strictly limited to
questions of fact, and within that province they are still further
restricted to matters proved by evidence in the course of the trial and
in theory must not act upon their own personal knowledge and observation
except so far as it proceeds from what is called a "view" of the
subject matter of the litigation. Indeed it is now well established that
if a juror is acquainted with facts material to the case, he should
inform the court so that he may be dismissed from the jury and called as
a witness; and Lord Ellenborough ruled that a judge would misdirect the
jury if he told them that they might reject the evidence and go by their
own knowledge. The old _decantatum_ assigns to judge and jury their own
independent functions: _Ad quaestionem legis respondent judices: ad
quaestionem facti juratores_ (Plowden, 114). But the independence of the
jurors as to matters of fact was from an early time not absolute. In
certain civil cases a litigant dissatisfied by the verdict could adopt
the procedure by attaint, and if the attaint jury of twenty-four found
that the first jury had given a false verdict, they were fined and
suffered the villainous judgment. Attaints fell into disuse on the
introduction about 1665 of the practice of granting new trials when the
jury found against the weight of the evidence, or upon a wrong direction
as to the law of the case.
In criminal cases the courts attempted to control the verdicts by fining
the jurors for returning a verdict _contra plenam et manifestam
evidentiam_. But this practice was declared illegal in Bushell's case
(1670); and so far as criminal cases are concerned the independence of
the jury as sole judges of fact is almost absolute. If they acquit,
their action cannot be reviewed nor punished, except on proof of wilful
and corrupt consent to "embracery" (Juries Act 1825, s. 61). If they
convict no new trial can be ordered except in the rare instances of
misdemeanours tried as civil cases in the High Court. In trials for
various forms of libel during the 18th century, the judges restricted
the powers of juries by ruling that their function was limited to
finding whether the libel had in fact been published, and that it was
for the court to decide whether the words published constituted an
offence.[7] By Fox's Libel Act 1792 the jurors in such cases were
expressly empowered to bring in a general verdict of libel or no libel,
i.e. to deal with the whole question of the meaning and extent of the
incriminated publication. In other words, they were given the same
independence in cases of libel as in other criminal cases. This
independence has in times of public excitement operated as a kind of
local option against the existing law and as an aid to procuring its
amendment. Juries in Ireland in agrarian cases often acquit in the teeth
of the evidence. In England the independence of the jury in criminal
trials is to some extent menaced by the provisions of the Criminal
Appeal Act 1907.
While the jury is in legal theory absolute as to matters of fact, it is
in practice largely controlled by the judges. Not only does the judge at
the trial decide as to the relevancy of the evidence tendered to the
issues to be proved, and as to the admissibility of questions put to a
witness, but he also advises the jury as to the logical bearing of the
evidence admitted upon the matters to be found by the jury. The rules as
to admissibility of evidence, largely based upon scholastic logic,
sometimes difficult to apply, and almost unknown in continental
jurisprudence, coupled with the right of an English judge to sum up the
evidence (denied to French judges) and to express his own opinion as to
its value (denied to American judges), fetter to some extent the
independence or limit the chances of error of the jury.
"The whole theory of the jurisdiction of the courts to interfere with
the verdict of the constitutional tribunal is that the court is
satisfied that the jury have not acted reasonably upon the evidence but
have been misled by prejudice or passion" (_Watt_ v. _Watt_ (1905), App.
Cas. 118, per Lord Halsbury). In civil cases the verdict may be
challenged on the ground that it is against the evidence or against the
weight of the evidence, or unsupported by any evidence. It is said to be
against the evidence when the jury have completely misapprehended the
facts proved and have drawn an inference so wrong as to be in substance
perverse. The dissatisfaction of the trial judge with the verdict is a
potent but not conclusive element in determining as to the perversity of
a verdict, because of his special opportunity of appreciating the
evidence and the demeanour of the witnesses. But his opinion is less
regarded now that new trials are granted by the court of appeal than
under the old system when the new trial was sought in the court of which
he was a member.
The appellate court will not upset a verdict when there is substantial
and conflicting evidence before the jury. In such cases it is for the
jury to say which side is to be believed, and the court will not
interfere with the verdict. To upset a verdict on the ground that there
is no evidence to go to the jury implies that the judge at the trial
ought to have withdrawn the case from the jury. Under modern procedure,
in order to avoid the risk of a new trial, it is not uncommon to take
the verdict of a jury on the hypothesis that there was evidence for
their consideration, and to leave the unsuccessful party to apply for
judgment notwithstanding the verdict. The question whether there was any
evidence proper to be submitted to the jury arises oftenest in cases
involving an imputation of negligence--e.g. in an action of damages
against a railway company for injuries sustained in a collision. Juries
are somewhat ready to infer negligence, and the court has to say
whether, on the facts proved, there was any evidence of negligence by
the defendant. This is by no means the same thing as saying whether, in
the opinion of the court, there was negligence. The court may be of
opinion that on the facts there was none, yet the facts themselves may
be of such a nature as to be evidence of negligence to go before a jury.
When the facts proved are such that a reasonable man might have come to
the conclusion that there was negligence, then, although the court would
not have come to the same conclusion, it must admit that there is
evidence to go before the jury. This statement indicates existing
practice but scarcely determines what relation between the facts proved
and the conclusion to be established is necessary to make the facts
evidence from which a jury may infer the conclusion. The true
explanation is to be found in the principle of relevancy. Any fact which
is relevant to the issue constitutes evidence to go before the jury, and
any fact, roughly speaking, is relevant between which and the fact to be
proved there may be a connexion as cause and effect (see EVIDENCE). As
regards damages the court has always had wide powers, as damages are
often a question of law. But when the amount of the damages awarded by a
jury is challenged as excessive or inadequate, the appellate court, if
it considers the amount unreasonably large or unreasonably small, must
order a new trial unless both parties consent to a reduction or increase
of the damages to a figure fixed by the court; see _Watt_ v. _Watt_
(1905), App. Cas. 115.
_Value of Jury System._--The value of the jury in past history as a
bulwark against aggression by the Crown or executive cannot be
over-rated, but the working of the institution has not escaped
criticism. Its use protracts civil trials. The jurors are usually
unwilling and are insufficiently remunerated; and jury trials in civil
cases often drag out much longer and at greater expense than trials by a
judge alone, and the proceedings are occasionally rendered ineffective
by the failure of the jurors to agree.
There is much force in the arguments of Bentham and others against the
need of unanimity--the application of pressure to force conviction on
the minds of jurors, the indifference to veracity which the concurrence
of unconvinced minds must produce in the public mind, the probability
that jurors will disagree and trials be rendered abortive, and the
absence of any reasonable security in the unanimous verdict that would
not exist in the verdict of a majority. All this is undeniably true, but
disagreements are happily not frequent, and whatever may happen in the
jury room no compulsion is now used by the court to induce agreement.
But, apart from any incidental defects, it may be doubted whether, as an
instrument for the investigation of truth, the jury system deserves all
the encomiums which have been passed upon it. In criminal cases,
especially of the graver kind, it is perhaps the best tribunal that
could be devised. There the element of moral doubt enters largely into
the consideration of the case, and that can best be measured by a
popular tribunal. Opinion in England has hitherto been against
subjecting a man to serious punishment as a result of conviction before
a judge sitting without a jury, and the judges themselves would be the
first to deprecate so great a responsibility, and the Criminal Appeal
Act 1907, which constituted the court of criminal appeal, recognized the
responsibility by requiring a quorum of three judges in order to
constitute a court. The same act, by permitting an appeal to persons
convicted on indictment both on questions of fact and of law, removed to
a great extent any possibility of error by a jury. But in civil causes,
where the issue must be determined one way or the other on the balance
of probabilities, a single judge would probably be a better tribunal
than the present combination of judge and jury. Even if it be assumed
that he would on the whole come to the same conclusion as a jury
deliberating under his directions, he would come to it more quickly.
Time would be saved in taking evidence, summing up would be unnecessary,
and the addresses of counsel would inevitably be shortened and
concentrated on the real points at issue. Modern legislation and
practice in England have very much reduced the use of the jury both in
civil and criminal cases.
In the county courts trial by jury is the exception and not the rule. In
the court of chancery and the admiralty court it was never used. Under
the Judicature Acts many cases which in the courts of common law would
have been tried with a jury are now tried before a judge alone, or
(rarely) with assessors, or before an official referee. Indeed cynics
say that a jury is insisted on chiefly in cases when a jury, from
prejudice or other causes, is likely to be more favourable than a judge
alone.
In criminal cases, by reason of the enormous number of offences
punishable on summary conviction and of the provisions made for trying
certain indictable offences summarily if the offender is young or elects
for summary trial, juries are less called on in proportion to the number
of offences committed than was the practice in former years.
_Scotland._--According to the _Regiam Majestatem_, which is identical
with the treatise of Glanvill on the law of England (but whether the
original or only a copy of that work is disputed), trial by jury
existed in Scotland for civil and criminal cases from as early a date
as in England, and there is reason to believe that at all events the
system became established at a very early date. Its history was very
different from that of the English jury system. There was no grand
jury under Scots law, but it was introduced in 1708 for the purpose of
high treason (7 Anne c. 21). For the trial of criminal cases the petty
jury is represented by the criminal "assize." This jury has always
consisted of fifteen persons and the jurors are chosen by ballot by
the clerk of the court from the list containing the names of the
special and common jurors, five from the special, ten from the common.
Prosecutor and accused each have five peremptory challenges, of which
two only may be directed against the special jurors; but there is no
limit to challenges for cause. The jury is not secluded during the
trial except in capital cases or on special order of the court made
_proprio motu_ or on the application of prosecutor or accused. The
verdict need not be unanimous, nor is enclosure a necessary
preliminary to a majority verdict. It is returned viva voce by the
chancellor or foreman, and entered on the record by the clerk of the
court, and the entry read to the jury. Besides the verdicts of
"guilty" and "not guilty," a Scots jury may return a verdict of "not
proven," which has legally the same effect as not guilty in releasing
the accused from further proceedings on the particular charge, but
inflicts on him the stigma of moral guilt.
Jury trial in civil cases was at one time in general if not prevailing
use, but was gradually superseded for most purposes on the institution
of the Court of Session (1 Mackay, _Ct. Sess. Pr._ 33). In this, as in
many other matters, Scots law and procedure tend to follow continental
rather than insular models. The civil jury was reintroduced in 1815
(55 Geo. III. c. 42), mainly on account of the difficulties
experienced by the House of Lords in dealing with questions of fact
raised on Scottish appeals. At the outset a special court was
instituted in the nature of a judicial commission to ascertain by
means of a jury facts deemed relevant to the issues in a cause and
sent for such determination at the discretion of the court in which
the cause was pending. The process was analogous to the sending of an
issue out of chancery for trial in a superior court of common law, or
in a court of assize. In 1830 the jury court ceased to exist as a
separate tribunal and was merged in the Court of Session. By
legislation of 1819 and 1823 certain classes of cases were indicated
as appropriate to be tried by a jury; but in 1850 the cases so to be
tried were limited to actions for defamation and nuisance, or properly
and in substance actions for damages, and under an act of 1866 even in
these cases the jury may be dispensed with by consent of parties.
The civil jury consists as in England of twelve jurors chosen by
ballot from the names on the list of those summoned. There is a right
of peremptory challenge limited to four, and also a right to challenge
for cause. Unanimity was at first but is not now required. The jury if
unanimous may return a verdict immediately on the close of the case.
If they are not unanimous they are enclosed and may at any time not
less than three hours after being enclosed return a verdict by a bare
majority. If after six hours they do not agree by the requisite
majority, i.e. are equally divided, they must be discharged. It was
stated by Commissioner Adam, under whom the Scots civil jury was
originated, that in twenty years he knew of only one case in which the
jury disagreed. Jury trial in civil cases in Scotland has not
flourished or given general satisfaction, and is resorted to only in a
small proportion of cases. This is partly due to its being
transplanted from England.
_Ireland._--The jury laws of Ireland do not differ in substance from
those of England. The qualifications of jurors are regulated by
O'Hagan's Acts 1871 and 1872, and the Juries Acts 1878 and 1894. In
criminal cases much freer use is made than in England of the rights of
the accused to challenge, and of the Crown to order jurors to stand
by, and what is called "jury-packing" seems to be the object of both
sides when some political or agrarian issue is involved in the trial.
Until the passing of the Irish Local Government Act 1898, the grand
jury, besides its functions as a jury of accusation, had large duties
with respect to local government which are now transferred to the
county councils and other elective bodies.
_British Empire._--In most parts of the British Empire the jury system
is in force as part of the original law of the colonists or under the
colonial charters of justice or by local legislation. The grand jury
is not in use in India; was introduced but later abolished in the Cape
Colony; and in Australia has been for most purposes superseded by the
public prosecutor. The ordinary trial jury for criminal cases is
twelve, but in India may be nine, seven, five or three, according to
certain provisions of the Criminal Procedure Code 1898. In countries
where the British Crown has foreign jurisdiction the jury for criminal
trials has in some cases been fixed at a less number than twelve and
the right of the Crown to fix the number is established; see _ex p.
Carew_, 1897, A.C. 719. In civil cases the number of the jury is
reduced in some colonies, e.g. to seven in Tasmania and Trinidad.
_European Countries._--In France there is no civil jury. In criminal
cases the place of the grand jury is taken by the _chambre des mises
en accusation_, and the more serious crimes are tried before a jury of
twelve which finds its verdict by a majority, the exact number of
which may not be disclosed. In Belgium, Spain, Italy and Germany,
certain classes of crime are tried with the aid of a jury.
_United States._--The English jury system was part of the law of the
American colonies before the declaration of independence; and grand
jury, coroner's jury and petty jury continue in full use in the United
States. Under the Federal Constitution (Article iii.) there is a right
to trial by jury in all criminal cases (except on impeachment) and in
all civil actions at common law in which the subject matter exceeds
$20 in value (amendments vi. and vii.). The trial jury must be of
twelve and its verdict must be unanimous; see Cooley, _Constitutional
Limitations_ (6th ed.), 389. The respective provinces of judge and
jury have been much discussed and there has been a disposition to
declare the jury supreme as to law as well as fact. The whole subject
is fully treated by reference to English and American authorities, and
the conflicting views are stated in _Sparf_ v. _United States_, 1895,
156 U.S. 61. The view of the majority of the court in that case was
that it is the duty of the jury in a criminal case to receive the law
from the court and to apply it as laid down by the court, subject to
the condition that in giving a general verdict the jury may
incidentally determine both law and fact as compounded in the issues
submitted to them in the particular case. The power to give a general
verdict renders the duty one of imperfect obligation and enables the
jury to take its own view of the terms and merits of the law involved.
The extent to which the jury system is in force in the states of the
union depends on the constitution and legislation of each state. In
some the use of juries in civil and even in criminal cases is reduced
or made subject to the election of the accused. In others unanimous
verdicts are not required, while the constitutions of others require
the unanimous verdict of the common law dozen. (W. F. C.)
FOOTNOTES:
[1] I.e. the jury-box, or enclosed space in which the jurors sit in
court.
[2] Freeman, _Norman Conquest_, v. 451.
[3] This fact would account for the remarkable development of the
system on English ground, as contrasted with its decay and extinction
in France.
[4] Blackstone puts the principle as being that no man shall be
convicted except by the unanimous voice of twenty-four of his equals
or neighbours--twelve on the grand, and twelve on the petty jury.
[5] The distinction between the functions of the grand jury, which
presents or accuses criminals, and the petty jury, which tries them,
has suggested the theory that the system of compurgation is the
origin of the jury system--the first jury representing the
compurgators of the accuser, the second the compurgators of the
accused.
[6] Forsyth, 206. The number of the jury (twelve) is responsible for
some unfounded theories of the origin of the system. This use of
twelve is not confined to England, nor in England or elsewhere to
judicial institutions. "Its general prevalence," says Hallam (_Middle
Ages_, ch. viii.), "shows that in searching for the origin of trial
by jury we cannot rely for a moment upon any analogy which the mere
number affords." In a _Guide to English Juries_ (1682), by a person
of quality (attributed to Lord Somers), the following passage occurs:
"In analogy of late the jury is reduced to the number of twelve, like
as the prophets were twelve to foretell the truth; the apostles
twelve to preach the truth; the discoverers twelve, sent into Canaan
to seek and report the truth; and the stones twelve that the heavenly
Hierusalem is built on." Lord Coke indulged in similar speculations.
[7] See _R._ v. _Dean of St. Asaph_ (1789), 3 T.R. 418.
JUS PRIMAE NOCTIS, or DROIT DU SEIGNEUR, a custom alleged to have
existed in medieval Europe, giving the overlord a right to the virginity
of his vassals' daughters on their wedding night. For the existence of
the custom in a legalized form there is no trustworthy evidence. That
some such abuse of power may have been occasionally exercised by brutal
nobles in the lawless days of the early middle ages is only too likely,
but the _jus_, it seems, is a myth, invented no earlier than the 16th or
17th century. There appears to have been an entirely religious custom
established by the council of Carthage in 398, whereby the Church
required from the faithful continence on the wedding-night, and this may
have been, and there is evidence that it was, known as _Droit du
Seigneur_, or "God's right." Later the clerical admonition was extended
to the first three days of marriage. This religious abstention, added to
the undoubted fact that the feudal lord extorted fines on the marriages
of his vassals and their children, doubtless gave rise to the belief
that the _jus_ was once an established custom.
The whole subject has been exhaustively treated by Louis Veuillot in
_Le Droit du seigneur au moyen age_ (1854).
JUS RELICTAE, in Scots law, the widow's right in the movable property of
her deceased husband. The deceased must have been domiciled in Scotland,
but the right accrues from movable property, wherever situated. The
widow's provision amounts to one-third where there are children
surviving, and to one-half where there are no surviving children. The
widow's right vests by survivance, and is independent of the husband's
testamentary provisions; it may however be renounced by contract, or be
discharged by satisfaction. It is subject to alienation of the husband's
movable estate during his lifetime or by its conversion into heritage.
See also WILL.
JUSSERAND, JEAN ADRIEN ANTOINE JULES (1855- ), French author and
diplomatist, was born at Lyons on the 18th of February 1855. Entering
the diplomatic service in 1876, he became in 1878 consul in London.
After an interval spent in Tunis he returned to London in 1887 as a
member of the French Embassy. In 1890 he became French minister at
Copenhagen, and in 1902 was transferred to Washington. A close student
of English literature, he produced some very lucid and vivacious
monographs on comparatively little-known subjects: _Le Theatre en
Angleterre depuis la conquete jusqu' aux predecesseurs immediats de
Shakespeare_ (1878); _Le Roman au temps de Shakespeare_ (1887; Eng.
trans. by Miss E. Lee, 1890); _Les Anglais au moyen age: la vie nomade
et les routes d'Angleterre au XIV^e siecle_ (1884; Eng. trans., _English
Wayfaring Life in the Middle Ages_, by L. T. Smith, 1889); and _L'Epopee
de Langland_ (1893; Eng. trans., _Piers Plowman_, by M. C. R., 1894).
His _Histoire litteraire du peuple anglais_, the first volume of which
was published in 1895, was completed in three volumes in 1909. In
English he wrote _A French Ambassador at the Court of Charles II._
(1892), from the unpublished papers of the count de Cominges.
JUSSIEU, DE, the name of a French family which came into prominent
notice towards the close of the 16th century, and for a century and a
half was distinguished for the botanists it produced. The following are
its more eminent members:--
1. ANTOINE DE JUSSIEU (1686-1758), born at Lyons on the 6th of July
1686, was the son of Christophe de Jussieu (or Dejussieu), an apothecary
of some repute, who published a _Nouveau traite de la theriaque_ (1708).
Antoine studied at the university of Montpellier, and travelled with his
brother Bernard through Spain, Portugal and southern France. He went to
Paris in 1708, J. P. de Tournefort, whom he succeeded at the Jardin des
Plantes, dying in that year. His own original publications are not of
marked importance, but he edited an edition of Tournefort's
_Institutiones rei herbariae_ (3 vols., 1719), and also a posthumous
work of Jacques Barrelier, _Plantae per Galliam, Hispaniam, et Italiam
observatae_, &c. (1714). He practised medicine, chiefly devoting himself
to the very poor. He died at Paris on the 22nd of April 1758.
2. BERNARD DE JUSSIEU (1699-1777), a younger brother of the above, was
born at Lyons on the 17th of August 1699. He took a medical degree at
Montpellier and began practice in 1720, but finding the work uncongenial
he gladly accepted his brother's invitation to Paris in 1722, when he
succeeded Sebastien Vaillant as sub-demonstrator of plants in the Jardin
du Roi. In 1725 he brought out a new edition of Tournefort's _Histoire
des plantes qui naissent aux environs de Paris_, 2 vols., which was
afterwards translated into English by John Martyn, the original work
being incomplete. In the same year he was admitted into the academie des
sciences, and communicated several papers to that body. Long before
Abraham Trembley (1700-1784) published his _Histoire des polypes d'eau
douce_, Jussieu maintained the doctrine that these organisms were
animals, and not the flowers of marine plants, then the current notion;
and to confirm his views he made three journeys to the coast of
Normandy. Singularly modest and retiring, he published very little, but
in 1759 he arranged the plants in the royal garden of the Trianon at
Versailles, according to his own scheme of classification. This
arrangement is printed in his nephew's _Genera_, pp. lxiii.-lxx., and
formed the basis of that work. He cared little for the credit of
enunciating new discoveries, so long as the facts were made public. On
the death of his brother Antoine, he could not be induced to succeed him
in his office, but prevailed upon L. G. Lemonnier to assume the higher
position. He died at Paris on the 6th of November 1777.
3. JOSEPH DE JUSSIEU (1704-1779), brother of Antoine and Bernard, was
born at Lyons on the 3rd of September 1704. Educated like the rest of
the family for the medical profession, he accompanied C. M. de la
Condamine to Peru, in the expedition for measuring an arc of meridian,
and remained in South America for thirty-six years, returning to France
in 1771. Amongst the seeds he sent to his brother Bernard were those of
_Heliotropium peruvianum_, Linn., then first introduced into Europe. He
died at Paris on the 11th of April 1779.
4. ANTOINE LAURENT DE JUSSIEU (1748-1836), nephew of the three
preceding, was born at Lyons on the 12th of April 1748. Called to Paris
by his uncle Bernard, and carefully trained by him for the pursuits of
medicine and botany, he largely profited by the opportunities afforded
him. Gifted with a tenacious memory, and the power of quickly grasping
the salient points of subjects under observation, he steadily worked at
the improvement of that system of plant arrangement which had been
sketched out by his uncle. In 1789 was issued his _Genera plantarum
secundum ordines naturales disposita, juxta methodum in horto regio
Parisiensi exaratam, anno_ MDCCLXXIV. This volume formed the basis of
modern classification; more than this, it is certain that Cuvier derived
much help in his zoological classification from its perusal. Hardly had
the last sheet passed through the press, when the French Revolution
broke out, and the author was installed in charge of the hospitals of
Paris. The museum d'histoire naturelle was organized on its present
footing mainly by him in 1793, and he selected for its library
everything relating to natural history from the vast materials obtained
from the convents then broken up. He continued as professor of botany
there from 1770 to 1826, when his son Adrien succeeded him. Besides the
_Genera_, he produced nearly sixty memoirs on botanical topics. He died
at Paris on the 17th of September 1836.
5. ADRIEN LAURENT HENRI DE JUSSIEU (1797-1853), son of Antoine Laurent,
was born at Paris on the 23rd of December 1797. He displayed the
qualities of his family in his thesis for the degree of M.D., _De
Euphorbiacearum generibus medicisque earundem viribus tentamen_, Paris,
1824. He was also the author of valuable contributions to botanical
literature on the _Rutaceae_, _Meliaceae_ and _Malpighiaceae_
respectively, of "Taxonomie" in the _Dictionnaire universelle d'histoire
naturelle_, and of an introductory work styled simply _Botanique_, which
reached nine editions, and was translated into the principal languages
of Europe. He also edited his father's _Introductio in historiam
plantarum_, issued at Paris, without imprint or date, it being a
fragment of the intended second edition of the _Genera_, which Antoine
Laurent did not live to complete. He died at Paris on the 29th of June
1853, leaving two daughters, but no son, so that with him closed the
brilliant botanical dynasty.
6. LAURENT PIERRE DE JUSSIEU (1792-1866), miscellaneous writer, nephew
of Antoine Laurent, was born at Villeurbanne on the 7th of February
1792. His _Simon de Nantua, ou le marchand forain_ (1818), reached
fifteen editions, and was translated into seven languages. He also wrote
_Simples notions de physique et d'histoire naturelle_ (1857), and a few
geological papers. He died at Passy on the 23rd of February 1866.
JUSTICE (Lat. _justitia_), a term used both in the abstract, for the
quality of being or doing what is just, i.e. right in law and equity,
and in the concrete for an officer deputed by the sovereign to
administer justice, and do right by way of judgment. It has long been
the official title of the judges of two of the English superior courts
of common law, and it is now extended to all the judges in the supreme
court of judicature--a judge in the High Court of Justice being styled
Mr Justice, and in the court of appeal Lord Justice. The president of
the king's bench division of the High Court is styled Lord Chief Justice
(q.v.). The word is also applied, and perhaps more usually, to certain
subordinate magistrates who administer justice in minor matters, and who
are usually called _justices of the peace_ (q.v.).
JUSTICE OF THE PEACE, an inferior magistrate appointed in England by
special commission under the great seal to keep the peace within the
jurisdiction for which he is appointed. The title is commonly
abbreviated to J.P. and is used after the name. "The whole Christian
world," said Coke, "hath not the like office as justice of the peace if
duly executed." Lord Cowper, on the other hand, described them as "men
sometimes illiterate and frequently bigoted and prejudiced." The truth
is that the justices of the peace perform without any other reward than
the consequence they acquire from their office a large amount of work
indispensable to the administration of the law, and (though usually not
professional lawyers, and therefore apt to be ill-informed in some of
their decisions) for the most part they discharge their duties with
becoming good sense and impartiality. For centuries they have
necessarily been chosen mainly from the landed class of country
gentlemen, usually Conservative in politics; and in recent years the
attempt has been made by the Liberal party to reduce the balance by
appointing others than those belonging to the landed gentry, such as
tradesmen, Nonconformist ministers, and working-men. But it has been
recognized that the appointment of justices according to their political
views is undesirable, and in 1909 a royal commission was appointed to
consider and report whether any and what steps should be taken to
facilitate the selection of the most suitable persons to be justices of
the peace irrespective of creed and political opinion. In great centres
of population, when the judicial business of justices is heavy, it has
been found necessary to appoint paid justices or stipendiary
magistrates[1] to do the work, and an extension of the system to the
country districts has been often advocated.
The commission of the peace assigns to justices the duty of keeping and
causing to be kept all ordinances and statutes for the good of the peace
and for preservation of the same, and for the quiet rule and government
of the people, and further assigns "to you and every two or more of you
(of whom any one of the aforesaid A, B, C, D, &c., we will, shall be
one) to inquire the truth more fully by the oath of good and lawful men
of the county of all and all manner of felonies, poisonings,
enchantments, sorceries, arts, magic, trespasses, forestallings,
regratings, engrossings, and extortions whatever." This part of the
commission is the authority for the jurisdiction of the justices in
_sessions_. Justices named specially in the parenthetical clause are
said to be on the quorum. Justices for counties are appointed by the
Crown on the advice of the lord chancellor, and usually with the
recommendation of the lord lieutenant of the county. Justices for
boroughs having municipal corporations and separate commissions of the
peace are appointed by the crown, the lord chancellor either adopting
the recommendation of the town council or acting independently. Justices
cannot act as such until they have taken the oath of allegiance and the
judicial oath. A justice for a borough while acting as such must reside
in or within seven miles of the borough or occupy a house, warehouse or
other property in the borough, but he need not be a burgess. The mayor
of a borough is _ex officio_ a justice during his year of office and the
succeeding year. He takes precedence over all borough justices, but not
over justices acting in and for the county in which the borough or any
part thereof is situated, unless when acting in relation to the business
of the borough. The chairman of a county council is _ex officio_ a
justice of the peace for the county, and the chairman of an urban or
rural district council for the county in which the district is situated.
Justices cannot act beyond the limits of the jurisdiction for which they
are appointed, and the warrant of a justice cannot be executed out of
his jurisdiction unless it be backed, that is, endorsed by a justice of
the jurisdiction in which it is to be carried into execution. A justice
improperly refusing to act on his office, or acting partially and
corruptly, may be proceeded against by a criminal information, and a
justice refusing to act may be compelled to do so by the High Court of
Justice. An action will lie against a justice for any act done by him in
excess of his jurisdiction, and for any act within his jurisdiction
which has been done wrongfully and with malice, and without reasonable
or probable cause. But no action can be brought against a justice for a
wrongful conviction until it has been quashed. By the Justices'
Qualification Act 1744, every justice for a county was required to have
an estate of freehold, copyhold, or customary tenure in fee, for life or
a given term, of the yearly value of L100. By an act of 1875 the
occupation of a house rated at L100 was made a qualification. No such
qualifications were ever required for a borough justice, and it was not
until 1906 that county justices were put on the same footing in this
respect. The Justices of the Peace Act 1906 did away with all
qualification by estate. It also removed the necessity for residence
within the county, permitting the same residential qualification as for
borough justices, "within seven miles thereof." The same act removed the
disqualification of solicitors to be county justices and assimilated to
the existing power to remove other justices from the commission of the
peace the power to exclude _ex officio_ justices.
The justices for every petty sessional division of a county or for a
borough having a separate commission of the peace must appoint a fit
person to be their salaried clerk. He must be either a barrister of not
less than fourteen years' standing, or a solicitor of the supreme court,
or have served for not less than seven years as a clerk to a police or
stipendiary magistrate or to a metropolitan police court. An alderman or
councillor of a borough must not be appointed as clerk, nor can a clerk
of the peace for the borough or for the county in which the borough is
situated be appointed. A borough clerk is not allowed to prosecute. The
salary of a justice's clerk comes, in London, out of the police fund; in
counties out of the county fund; in county boroughs out of the borough
fund, and in other boroughs out of the county fund.
The vast and multifarious duties of the justices cover some portion of
every important head of the criminal law, and extend to a considerable
number of matters relating to the civil law.
In the United States these officers are sometimes appointed by the
executive, sometimes elected. In some states, justices of the peace have
jurisdiction in civil cases given to them by local regulations.
FOOTNOTE:
[1] Where a borough council desire the appointment of a stipendiary
magistrate they may present a petition for the same to the secretary
of state and it is thereupon lawful for the king to appoint to that
office a barrister of seven years' standing. He is by virtue of his
office a justice for the borough, and receives a yearly salary,
payable in four equal quarterly instalments. On a vacancy,
application must again be made as for a first appointment. There may
be more than one stipendiary magistrate for a borough.
JUSTICIAR (med. Lat. _justiciarius_ or _justitiarius_, a judge), in
English history, the title of the chief minister of the Norman and
earlier Angevin kings. The history of the title in this connotation is
somewhat obscure. _Justiciarius_ meant simply "judge," and was
originally applied, as Stubbs points out (_Const. Hist._ i. 389, note),
to any officer of the king's court, to the chief justice, or in a very
general way to all and sundry who possessed courts of their own or were
qualified to act as _judices_ in the shire-courts, even the style
_capitalis justiciarius_ being used of judges of the royal court other
than the chief. It was not till the reign of Henry II. that the title
_summus_ or _capitalis justiciarius_, or _justiciarius totius Angliae_
was exclusively applied to the king's chief minister. The office,
however, existed before the style of its holder was fixed; and, whatever
their contemporary title (e.g. _Custos Angliae_), later writers refer to
them as _justiciarii_, with or without the prefix _summus_ or
_capitalis_ (ibid. p. 346). Thus Ranulf Flambard, the minister of
William II., who was probably the first to exercise the powers of a
justiciar, is called _justiciarius_ by Ordericus Vitalis.
The origin of the justiciarship is thus given by Stubbs (ibid. p. 276).
The sheriff "was the king's representative in all matters judicial,
military and financial in the shire. From him, or from the courts of
which he was the presiding officer, appeal lay to the king alone; but
the king was often absent from England and did not understand the
language of his subjects. In his absence the administration was
entrusted to a justiciar, a regent or lieutenant of the kingdom; and the
convenience being once ascertained of having a minister who could in the
whole kingdom represent the king, as the sheriff did in the shire, the
justiciar became a permanent functionary."
The fact that the kings were often absent from England, and that the
justiciarship was held by great nobles or churchmen, made this office of
an importance which at times threatened to overshadow that of the Crown.
It was this latter circumstance which ultimately led to its abolition.
Hubert de Burgh (q.v.) was the last of the great justiciars; after his
fall (1231) the justiciarship was not again committed to a great baron,
and the chancellor soon took the position formerly occupied by the
justiciar as second to the king in dignity, as well as in power and
influence. Finally, under Edward I. and his successor, in place of the
justiciar--who had presided over all causes _vice regis_--separate heads
were established in the three branches into which the _curia regis_ as a
judicial body had been divided: justices of common pleas, justices of
the king's bench and barons of the exchequer.
Outside England the title justiciar was given under Henry II. to the
seneschal of Normandy. In Scotland the title of justiciar was borne,
under the earlier kings, by two high officials, one having his
jurisdiction to the north, the other to the south of the Forth. They
were the king's lieutenants for judicial and administrative purposes and
were established in the 12th century, either by Alexander I. or by his
successor David I. In the 12th century a _magister justitiarius_ also
appears in the Norman kingdom of Sicily, title and office being probably
borrowed from England; he presided over the royal court (_Magna curia_)
and was, with his assistants, empowered to decide, _inter alia_, all
cases reserved to the Crown (see Du Cange, _s.v. Magister
Justitiarius_).
See W. Stubbs, _Const. Hist. of England_; Du Cange, _Glossarium_
(Niort, 1885) s.v. "Justitiarius."
JUSTICIARY, HIGH COURT OF, in Scotland, the supreme criminal court,
consisting of five of the lords of session together with the lord
justice-general and the lord justice-clerk as president and
vice-president respectively. The constitution of the court is settled by
the Act 1672 c. 16. The lords of justiciary hold circuits regularly
twice a year according to the ancient practice, which, however, had been
allowed to fall into disuse until revived in 1748. For circuit purposes
Scotland is divided into northern, southern and western districts (see
CIRCUIT). Two judges generally go on a circuit, and in Glasgow they are
by special statute authorized to sit in separate courts. By the Criminal
Procedure (Scotland) Act 1887 all the senators of the college of justice
are lords commissioners of justiciary. The high court, sitting in
Edinburgh, has, in addition to its general jurisdiction, an exclusive
jurisdiction for districts not within the jurisdiction of the
circuits--the three Lothians, and Orkney and Shetland. The high court
also takes up points of difficulty arising before the special courts,
like the court for crown cases reserved in England. The court of
justiciary has authority to try all crimes, unless when its jurisdiction
has been excluded by special enactment of the legislature. It is also
stated to have an inherent jurisdiction to punish all criminal acts,
even if they have never before been treated as crimes. Its judgments are
believed to be not subject to any appeal or review, but it may be
doubted whether an appeal on a point of law would not lie to the house
of lords. The following crimes must be prosecuted in the court of
justiciary: treason, murder, robbery, rape, fire-raising, deforcement of
messengers, breach of duty by magistrates, and all offences for which a
statutory punishment higher than imprisonment is imposed.
JUSTIFICATION, in law, the showing by a defendant in a suit of
sufficient reason why he did what he was called upon to answer, For
example, in an action for assault and battery, the defendant may prove
in justification that the prosecutor assaulted or beat him first, and
that he acted merely in self-defence. The word is employed particularly
in actions for defamation, and has in this connexion a somewhat special
meaning. When a libel consists of a specific charge a plea of
justification is a plea that the words are true in substance and in fact
(see LIBEL AND SLANDER).
JUSTIN I. (450-527), East Roman emperor (518-527), was born in 450 as a
peasant in Asia, but enlisting under Leo I. he rose to be commander of
the imperial guards of Anastasius. On the latter's death in 518 Justin
used for his own election to the throne money that he had received for
the support of another candidate. Being ignorant even of the rudiments
of letters, Justin entrusted the administration of state to his wise and
faithful quaestor Proclus and to his nephew Justinian, though his own
experience dictated several improvements in military affairs. An
orthodox churchman himself, he effected in 519 a reconciliation of the
Eastern and Western Churches, after a schism of thirty-five years (see
HORMISDAS). In 522 he entered upon a desultory war with Persia, in which
he co-operated with the Arabs. In 522 also Justin ceded to Theodoric,
the Gothic king of Italy, the right of naming the consuls. On the 1st of
April 527 Justin, enfeebled by an incurable wound, yielded to the
request of the senate and assumed Justinian at his colleague; on the 1st
of August he died. Justin bestowed much care on the repairing of public
buildings throughout his empire, and contributed large sums to repair
the damage caused by a destructive earthquake at Antioch.
See E. Gibbon, _Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire_ (ed. Bury,
1896), iv. 206-209.
JUSTIN II. (d. 578), East Roman emperor (565-578), was the nephew and
successor of Justinian I. He availed himself of his influence as master
of the palace, and as husband of Sophia, the niece of the late empress
Theodora, to secure a peaceful election. The first few days of his
reign--when he paid his uncle's debts, administered justice in person,
and proclaimed universal religious toleration--gave bright promise, but
in the face of the lawless aristocracy and defiant governors of
provinces he effected few subsequent reforms. The most important event
of his reign was the invasion of Italy by the Lombards (q.v.), who,
entering in 568, under Alboin, in a few years made themselves masters of
nearly the entire country. Justin's attention was distracted from Italy
towards the N. and E. frontiers. After refusing to pay the Avars
tribute, he fought several unsuccessful campaigns against them. In 572
his overtures to the Turks led to a war with Persia. After two
disastrous campaigns, in which his enemies overran Syria, Justin bought
a precarious peace by payment of a yearly tribute. The temporary fits of
insanity into which he fell warned him to name a colleague. Passing over
his own relatives, he raised, on the advice of Sophia, the general
Tiberius (q.v.) to be Caesar in December 574 and withdrew for his
remaining years into retirement.
See E. Gibbon, _Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire_ (ed. Bury,
1896), v. 2-17; G. Finlay, _History of Greece_ (ed. 1877), i. 291-297;
J. Bury, _The Later Roman Empire_ (1889), ii. 67-79. (M. O. B. C.)
JUSTIN (JUNIANUS JUSTINUS), Roman historian, probably lived during the
age of the Antonines. Of his personal history nothing is known. He is
the author of _Historiarum Philippicarum libri XLIV._, a work described
by himself in his preface as a collection of the most important and
interesting passages from the voluminous _Historiae philippicae et
totius mundi origines et terrae situs_, written in the time of Augustus
by Pompeius Trogus (q.v.). The work of Trogus is lost; but the _prologi_
or arguments of the text are preserved by Pliny and other writers.
Although the main theme of Trogus was the rise and history of the
Macedonian monarchy, Justin yet permitted himself considerable freedom
of digression, and thus produced a capricious anthology instead of a
regular epitome of the work. As it stands, however, the history contains
much valuable information. The style, though far from perfect, is clear
and occasionally elegant. The book was much used in the middle ages,
when the author was sometimes confounded with Justin Martyr.
Ed. princeps (1470); J. G. Graevius (1668); J. F. Gronovius (1719); C.
H. Frotscher (1827-1830); J. Jeep (1859); F. Ruhl (1886, with
prologues); see also J. F. Fischer, _De elocutione Justini_ (1868); F.
Ruhl, _Die Verbreitung des J. im Mittelalter_ (1871); O. Eichert,
_Worterbuch zu_ J. (1881); Kohler and Ruhl in _Neue Jahrbucher fur
Philologie_, xci., ci., cxxxiii. There are translations in the chief
European languages; in English by A. Goldyng (1564); R. Codrington
(1682); Brown-Dykes (1712); G. Turnbull (1746); J. Clarke (1790); J.
S. Watson (1853).
JUSTINIAN I. (483-565). Flavius Anicius Justinianus, surnamed the Great,
the most famous of all the emperors of the Eastern Roman Empire, was by
birth a barbarian, native of a place called Tauresium in the district of
Dardania, a region of Illyricum,[1] and was born, most probably, on the
11th of May 483. His family has been variously conjectured, on the
strength of the proper names which its members are stated to have borne,
to have been Teutonic or Slavonic. The latter seems the more probable
view. His own name was originally Uprauda.[2] Justinianus was a Roman
name which he took from his uncle Justin I., who adopted him, and to
whom his advancement in life was due. Of his early life we know nothing
except that he went to Constantinople while still a young man, and
received there an excellent education. Doubtless he knew Latin before
Greek; it is alleged that he always spoke Greek with a barbarian accent.
When Justin ascended the throne in 518, Justinian became at once a
person of the first consequence, guiding, especially in church matters,
the policy of his aged, childless and ignorant uncle, receiving high
rank and office at his hands, and soon coming to be regarded as his
destined successor. On Justin's death in 527, having been a few months
earlier associated with him as co-emperor, Justinian succeeded without
opposition to the throne. About 523 he had married the famous Theodora
(q.v.), who, as empress regnant, was closely associated in all his
actions till her death in 547.
Justinian's reign was filled with great events, both at home and abroad,
both in peace and in war. They may be classed under four heads: (1) his
legal reforms; (2) his administration of the empire; (3) his
ecclesiastical policy; and (4) his wars and foreign policy generally.
1. It is as a legislator and codifier of the law that Justinian's name
is most familiar to the modern world; and it is therefore this
department of his action that requires to be most fully dealt with here.
He found the law of the Roman empire in a state of great confusion. It
consisted of two masses, which were usually distinguished as old law
(_jus vetus_) and new law (_jus novum_). The first of these comprised:
(i.) all such of the statutes (_leges_) passed under the republic and
early empire as had not become obsolete; (ii.) the decrees of the senate
(_senatus consulta_) passed at the end of the republic and during the
first two centuries of the empire; (iii.) the writings of the jurists of
the later republic and of the empire, and more particularly of those
jurists to whom the right of declaring the law with authority (_jus
respondendi_) had been committed by the emperors. As these jurists had
in their commentaries upon the _leges_, _senatus consulta_ and edicts of
the magistrates practically incorporated all that was of importance in
those documents, the books of the jurists may substantially be taken as
including (i.) and (ii.). These writings were of course very numerous,
and formed a vast mass of literature. Many of them had become
exceedingly scarce--many had been altogether lost. Some were of doubtful
authenticity. They were so costly that no person of moderate means could
hope to possess any large number; even the public libraries had nothing
approaching to a complete collection. Moreover, as they proceeded from a
large number of independent authors, who wrote expressing their own
opinions, they contained many discrepancies and contradictions, the
dicta of one writer being controverted by another, while yet both
writers might enjoy the same formal authority. A remedy had been
attempted to be applied to this evil by a law of the emperors
Theodosius II. and Valentinian III., which gave special weight to the
writings of five eminent jurists (Papinian, Paulus, Ulpian, Modestinus,
Gaius); but it was very far from removing it. As regards the _jus
vetus_, therefore, the judges and practitioners of Justinian's time had
two terrible difficulties to contend with--first, the bulk of the law,
which made it impossible for any one to be sure that he possessed
anything like the whole of the authorities bearing on the point in
question, so that he was always liable to find his opponent quoting
against him some authority for which he could not be prepared; and,
secondly, the uncertainty of the law, there being a great many important
points on which differing opinions of equal legal validity might be
cited, so that the practising counsel could not advise, nor the judge
decide, with any confidence that he was right, or that a superior court
would uphold his view.
The new law (_jus novum_), which consisted of the ordinances of the
emperors promulgated during the middle and later empires (_edicta_,
_rescripta_, _mandata_, _decreta_, usually called by the general name of
_constitutiones_), was in a condition not much better. These ordinances
or constitutions were extremely numerous. No complete collection of them
existed, for although two collections (_Codex gregorianus_ and _Codex
hermogenianus_) had been made by two jurists in the 4th century, and a
large supplementary collection published by the emperor Theodosius II.
in 438 (_Codex theodosianus_), these collections did not include all the
constitutions; there were others which it was necessary to obtain
separately, but many whereof it must have been impossible for a private
person to procure. In this branch too of the law there existed some,
though a less formidable, uncertainty; for there were constitutions
which practically, if not formally, repealed or superseded others
without expressly mentioning them, so that a man who relied on one
constitution might find that it had been varied or abrogated by another
he had never heard of or on whose sense he had not put such a
construction. It was therefore clearly necessary with regard to both the
older and the newer law to take some steps to collect into one or more
bodies or masses so much of the law as was to be regarded as binding,
reducing it within a reasonable compass, and purging away the
contradictions or inconsistencies which it contained. The evil had been
long felt, and reforms apparently often proposed, but nothing (except by
the compilation of the _Codex theodosianus_) had been done till
Justinian's time. Immediately after his accession, in 528, he appointed
a commission to deal with the imperial constitutions (_jus novum_), this
being the easier part of the problem. The commissioners, ten in number,
were directed to go through all the constitutions of which copies
existed, to select such as were of practical value, to cut these down by
retrenching all unnecessary matter, and gather them, arranged in order
of date, into one volume, getting rid of any contradictions by omitting
one or other of the conflicting passages.[3] These statute law
commissioners, as one may call them, set to work forthwith, and
completed their task in fourteen months, distributing the constitutions
which they placed in the new collection into ten books, in general
conformity with the order of the Perpetual Edict as settled by Salvius
Julianus and enacted by Hadrian. By this means the bulk of the statute
law was immensely reduced, its obscurities and internal discrepancies in
great measure removed, its provisions adapted, by the abrogation of what
was obsolete, to the circumstances of Justinian's own time. This _Codex
constitutionum_ was formally promulgated and enacted as one great
consolidating statute in 529, all imperial ordinances not included in it
being repealed at one stroke.
The success of this first experiment encouraged the emperor to attempt
the more difficult enterprise of simplifying and digesting the older law
contained in the treatises of the jurists. Before entering on this,
however, he wisely took the preliminary step of settling the more
important of the legal questions as to which the older jurists had been
divided in opinion, and which had therefore remained sources of
difficulty, a difficulty aggravated by the general decline, during the
last two centuries, of the level of forensic and judicial learning. This
was accomplished by a series of constitutions known as the "Fifty
Decisions" (_Quinquaginta decisiones_), along with which there were
published other ordinances amending the law in a variety of points, in
which old and now inconvenient rules had been suffered to subsist. Then
in December 530 a new commission was appointed, consisting of sixteen
eminent lawyers, of whom the president, the famous Tribonian (who had
already served on the previous commission), was an exalted official
(_quaestor_), four were professors of law, and the remaining eleven
practising advocates. The instructions given to them by the emperor were
as follows:--they were to procure and peruse all the writings of all the
authorized jurists (those who had enjoyed the _jus respondendi_); were
to extract from these writings whatever was of most permanent and
substantial value, with power to change the expressions of the author
wherever conciseness or clearness would be thereby promoted, or wherever
such a change was needed in order to adapt his language to the condition
of the law as it stood in Justinian's time; were to avoid repetitions
and contradictions by giving only one statement of the law upon each
point; were to insert nothing at variance with any provision contained
in the _Codex constitutionum_; and were to distribute the results of
their labours into fifty books, subdividing each book into titles, and
following generally the order of the Perpetual Edict.[4]
These directions were carried out with a speed which is surprising when
we remember not only that the work was interrupted by the terrible
insurrection which broke out in Constantinople in January 532, and which
led to the temporary retirement from office of Tribonian, but also that
the mass of literature which had to be read through consisted of no less
than two thousand treatises, comprising three millions of sentences. The
commissioners, who had for greater despatch divided themselves into
several committees, presented their selection of extracts to the emperor
in 533, and he published it as an imperial statute on December 16th of
that year, with two prefatory constitutions (those known as _Omnem
reipublicae_ and _Dedit nobis_). It is the Latin volume which we now
call the _Digest_ (_Digesta_) or _Pandects_ ([Greek: Pandektai]) and
which is by far the most precious monument of the legal genius of the
Romans, and indeed, whether one regards the intrinsic merits of its
substance or the prodigious influence it has exerted and still exerts,
the most remarkable law-book that the world has seen. The extracts
comprised in it are 9123 in number, taken from thirty-nine authors, and
are of greatly varying length, mostly only a few lines long. About
one-third (in quantity) come from Ulpian, a very copious writer; Paulus
stands next. To each extract there is prefixed the name of the author,
and of the treatise whence it is taken.[5] The worst thing about the
_Digest_ is its highly unscientific arrangement. The order of the
Perpetual Edict, which appears to have been taken as a sort of model for
the general scheme of books and titles, was doubtless convenient to the
Roman lawyers from their familiarity with it, but was in itself rather
accidental and historical than logical. The disposition of the extracts
inside each title was still less rational; it has been shown by a modern
jurist to have been the result of the way in which the committees of the
commissioners worked through the books they had to peruse.[6] In
enacting the _Digest_ as a law book, Justinian repealed all the other
law contained in the treatises of the jurists (that _jus vetus_ which
has been already mentioned), and directed that those treatises should
never be cited in future even by way of illustration; and he of course
at the same time abrogated all the older statutes, from the Twelve
Tables downwards, which had formed a part of the _jus vetus_. This was a
necessary incident of his scheme of reform. But he went too far, and
indeed attempted what was impossible, when he forbade all commentaries
upon the _Digest_. He was obliged to allow a Greek translation to be
made of it, but directed this translation to be exactly literal.
These two great enterprises had substantially despatched Justinian's
work; however, he, or rather Tribonian, who seems to have acted both as
his adviser and as his chief executive officer in all legal affairs,
conceived that a third book was needed, viz. an elementary manual for
beginners which should present an outline of the law in a clear and
simple form. The little work of Gaius, most of which we now possess
under the title of _Commentarii institutionum_, had served this purpose
for nearly four centuries; but much of it had, owing to changes in the
law, become inapplicable, so that a new manual seemed to be required.
Justinian accordingly directed Tribonian, with two coadjutors,
Theophilus, professor of law in the university of Constantinople, and
Dorotheus, professor in the great law school at Beyrout, to prepare an
elementary textbook on the lines of Gaius. This they did while the
_Digest_ was in progress, and produced the useful little treatise which
has ever since been the book with which students commonly begin their
studies of Roman law, the _Institutes of Justinian_. It was published as
a statute with full legal validity shortly before the _Digest_. Such
merits as it possesses--simplicity of arrangement, clearness and
conciseness of expression--belong less to Tribonian than to Gaius, who
was closely followed wherever the alterations in the law had not made
him obsolete. However, the spirit of that great legal classic seems to
have in a measure dwelt with and inspired the inferior men who were
recasting his work; the _Institutes_ is better both in Latinity and in
substance than we should have expected from the condition of Latin
letters at that epoch, better than the other laws which emanate from
Justinian.
In the four years and a half which elapsed between the publication of
the _Codex_ and that of the _Digest_, many important changes had been
made in the law, notably by the publication of the "Fifty Decisions,"
which settled many questions that had exercised the legal mind and given
occasion to intricate statutory provisions. It was therefore natural
that the idea should present itself of revising the _Codex_, so as to
introduce these changes into it, for by so doing, not only would it be
simplified, but the one volume would again be made to contain the whole
statute law, whereas now it was necessary to read along with it the
ordinances issued since its publication. Accordingly another commission
was appointed, consisting of Tribonian with four other coadjutors, full
power being given them not only to incorporate the new constitutions
with the _Codex_ and make in it the requisite changes, but also to
revise the _Codex_ generally, cutting down or filling in wherever they
thought it necessary to do so. This work was completed in a few months;
and in November 534 the revised _Codex_ (_Codex repetitae
praelectionis_) was promulgated with the force of law, prefaced by a
constitution (_Cordi nobis_) which sets forth its history, and declares
it to be alone authoritative, the former _Codex_ being abrogated. It is
this revised _Codex_ which has come down to the modern world, all copies
of the earlier edition having disappeared.
The constitutions contained in it number 4652, the earliest dating
from Hadrian, the latest being of course Justinian's own. A few thus
belong to the period to which the greater part of the _Digest_
belongs, i.e. the so-called classical period of Roman law down to the
time of Alexander Severus (244); but the great majority are later, and
belong to one or other of the four great eras of imperial legislation,
the eras of Diocletian, of Constantine, of Theodosius II., and of
Justinian himself. Although this _Codex_ is said to have the same
general order as that of the _Digest_, viz. the order of the Perpetual
Edict, there are considerable differences of arrangement between the
two. It is divided into twelve books. Its contents, although of course
of the utmost practical importance to the lawyers of that time, and of
much value still, historical as well as legal, are far less
interesting and scientifically admirable than the extracts preserved
in the _Digest_. The difference is even greater than that between the
English reports of cases decided since the days of Lord Holt and the
English acts of parliament for the same two centuries.
The emperor's scheme was now complete. All the Roman law had been
gathered into two volumes of not excessive size, and a satisfactory
manual for beginners added. But Justinian and Tribonian had grown so
fond of legislating that they found it hard to leave off. Moreover,
the very simplifications that had been so far effected brought into
view with more clearness such anomalies or pieces of injustice as
still continued to deform the law. Thus no sooner had the work been
rounded off than fresh excrescences began to be created by the
publication of new laws. Between 534 and 565 Justinian issued a great
number of ordinances, dealing with all sorts of subjects and seriously
altering the law on many points--the majority appearing before the
death of Tribonian, which happened in 545. These ordinances are
called, by way of distinction, new constitutions, _Novellae
constitutiones post codicem_ ([Greek: nearai diataxeis]), _Novels_.
Although the emperor had stated in publishing the Codex that all
further statutes (if any) would be officially collected, this promise
does not seem to have been redeemed. The three collections of the
_Novels_ which we possess are apparently private collections, nor do
we even know how many such constitutions were promulgated. One of the
three contains 168 (together with 13 Edicts), but some of these are by
the emperors Justin II. and Tiberius II. Another, the so-called
_Epitome of Julian_, contains 125 Novels in Latin; and the third, the
_Liber authenticarum_ or _vulgata versio_, has 134, also in Latin.
This last was the collection first known and chiefly used in the West
during the middle ages; and of its 134 only 97 have been written on by
the _glossatores_ or medieval commentators; these therefore alone have
been received as binding in those countries which recognize and obey
the Roman law,--according to the maxim _Quicquid non agnoscit glossa,
nec agnoscit curia_. And, whereas Justinian's constitutions contained
in the _Codex_ were all issued in Latin, the rest of the book being in
that tongue, these _Novels_ were nearly all published in Greek, Latin
translations being of course made for the use of the western
provinces. They are very bulky, and with the exception of a few,
particularly the 116th and 118th, which introduce the most sweeping
and laudable reforms into the law of intestate succession, are much
more interesting, as supplying materials for the history of the time,
social, economical and ecclesiastical, than in respect of any purely
legal merits. They may be found printed in any edition of the _Corpus
juris civilis_.
This _Corpus juris_, which bears and immortalizes Justinian's name,
consists of the four books described above: (1) The authorized
collection of imperial ordinances (_Codex constitutionum_); (2) the
authorized collection of extracts from the great jurists (_Digesta_ or
_Pandectae_); (3) the elementary handbook (_Institutiones_); (4) the
unauthorized collection of constitutions subsequent to the _Codex_
(_Novellae_).
From what has been already stated, the reader will perceive that
Justinian did not, according to a strict use of terms, codify the Roman
law. By a codification we understand the reduction of the whole
pre-existing body of law to a new form, the re-stating it in a series of
propositions, scientifically ordered, which may or may not contain some
new substance, but are at any rate new in form. If he had, so to speak,
thrown into one furnace all the law contained in the treatises of the
jurists and in the imperial ordinances, fused them down, the gold of the
one and the silver of the other, and run them out into new moulds, this
would have been codification. What he did do was something quite
different. It was not codification but consolidation, not remoulding but
abridging. He made extracts from the existing law, preserving the old
words, and merely cutting out repetitions, removing contradictions,
retrenching superfluities, so as immensely to reduce the bulk of the
whole. And he made not one set of such extracts but two, one for the
jurist law, the other for the statute law. He gave to posterity not one
code but two digests or collections of extracts, which are new only to
this extent that they are arranged in a new order, having been
previously altogether unconnected with one another, and that here and
there their words have been modified in order to bring one extract into
harmony with some other. Except for this, the matter is old in
expression as well as in substance.
Thus regarded, even without remarking that the _Novels_, never having
been officially collected, much less incorporated with the _Codex_, mar
the symmetry of the structure, Justinian's work may appear to entitle
him and Tribonian to much less credit than they have usually received
for it. But let it be observed, first, that to reduce the huge and
confused mass of pre-existing law into the compass of these two
collections was an immense practical benefit to the empire; secondly,
that, whereas the work which he undertook was accomplished in seven
years, the infinitely more difficult task of codification might probably
have been left unfinished at Tribonian's death, or even at Justinian's
own, and been abandoned by his successor; thirdly, that in the extracts
preserved in the _Digest_ we have the opinions of the greatest legal
luminaries given in their own admirably lucid, philosophical and concise
language, while in the extracts of which the _Codex_ is composed we
find valuable historical evidence bearing on the administration and
social condition of the later Pagan and earlier Christian empire;
fourthly, that Justinian's age, that is to say, the intellect of the men
whose services he commanded, was quite unequal to so vast an undertaking
as the fusing upon scientific principles into one new organic whole of
the entire law of the empire. With sufficient time and labour the work
might no doubt have been done; but what we possess of Justinian's own
legislation, and still more what we know of the general condition of
literary and legal capacity in his time, makes it certain that it would
not have been well done, and that the result would have been not more
valuable to the Romans of that age, and much less valuable to the modern
world, than are the results, preserved in the _Digest_ and the _Codex_,
of what he and Tribonian actually did.
To the merits of the work as actually performed some reference has
already been made. The chief defect of the _Digest_ is in point of
scientific arrangement, a matter about which the Roman lawyers, perhaps
one may say the ancients generally, cared very little. There are some
repetitions and some inconsistencies, but not more than may fairly be
allowed for in a compilation of such magnitude executed so rapidly.
Tribonian has been blamed for the insertions the compilers made in the
sentences of the old jurists (the so-called _Emblemata Triboniani_); but
it was a part of Justinian's plan that such insertions should be made,
so as to adapt those sentences to the law as settled in the emperor's
time. On Justinian's own laws, contained in the _Codex_ and in his
_Novels_, a somewhat less favourable judgment must be pronounced. They,
and especially the latter, are diffuse and often lax in expression,
needlessly prolix, and pompously rhetorical. The policy of many,
particularly of those which deal with ecclesiastical matters, may also
be condemned; yet some gratitude is due to the legislator who put the
law of intestate succession on that plain and rational footing whereon
it has ever since continued to stand. It is somewhat remarkable that,
although Justinian is so much more familiar to us by his legislation
than by anything else, this sphere of his imperial labour is hardly
referred to by any of the contemporary historians, and then only with
censure. Procopius complains that he and Tribonian were always repealing
old laws and enacting new ones, and accuses them of venal motives for
doing so.
The _Corpus Juris_ of Justinian continued to be, with naturally a few
additions in the ordinances of succeeding emperors, the chief law-book
of the Roman world till the time of the Macedonian dynasty when,
towards the end of the 9th century, a new system was prepared and
issued by those sovereigns, which we know as the _Basilica_. It is of
course written in Greek, and consists of parts of the substance of the
_Codex_ and the _Digest_, thrown together and often altered in
expression, together with some matter from the _Novels_ and imperial
ordinances posterior to Justinian. In the western provinces, which had
been wholly severed from the empire before the publication of the
_Basilica_, the law as settled by Justinian held its ground; but
copies of the _Corpus Juris_ were extremely rare, nor did the study of
it revive until the end of the 11th century.
The best edition of the _Digest_ is that of Mommsen (Berlin
1868-1870), and of the _Codex_ that of Kruger (Berlin 1875-1877).
2. In his financial administration of the empire, Justinian is
represented to us as being at once rapacious and extravagant. His
unwearied activity and inordinate vanity led him to undertake a great
many costly public works, many of them, such as the erection of palaces
and churches, unremunerative. The money needed for these, for his wars,
and for buying off the barbarians who threatened the frontiers, had to
be obtained by increasing the burdens of the people. They suffered, not
only from the regular taxes, which were seldom remitted even after bad
seasons, but also from monopolies; and Procopius goes so far as to
allege that the emperor made a practice of further recruiting his
treasury by confiscating on slight or fictitious pretexts the property
of persons who had displeased Theodora or himself. Fiscal severities
were no doubt one cause of the insurrections which now and then broke
out, and in the gravest of which, (532) thirty thousand persons are said
to have perished in the capital. It is not always easy to discover,
putting together the trustworthy evidence of Justinian's own laws and
the angry complaints of Procopius, what was the nature and
justification of the changes made in the civil administration. But the
general conclusion seems to be that these changes were always in the
direction of further centralization, increasing the power of the chief
ministers and their offices, bringing all more directly under the
control of the Crown, and in some cases limiting the powers and
appropriating the funds of local municipalities. Financial necessities
compelled retrenchment, so that a certain number of offices were
suppressed altogether, much to the disgust of the office-holding class,
which was numerous and wealthy, and had almost come to look on the civil
service as its hereditary possession. The most remarkable instance of
this policy was the discontinuance of the consulship. This great office
had remained a dignity centuries after it had ceased to be a power; but
it was a very costly dignity, the holder being expected to spend large
sums in public displays. As these sums were provided by the state,
Justinian saved something considerable by stopping the payment. He named
no consul after Basilius, who was the name-giving consul of 541.
In a bureaucratic despotism the greatest merit of a sovereign is to
choose capable and honest ministers. Justinian's selections were usually
capable, but not so often honest; probably it was hard to find
thoroughly upright officials; possibly they would not have been most
serviceable in carrying out the imperial will, and especially in
replenishing the imperial treasury. Even the great Tribonian labours
under the reproach of corruption, while the fact that Justinian
maintained John of Cappadocia in power long after his greed, his
unscrupulousness, and the excesses of his private life had excited the
anger of the whole empire, reflects little credit on his own principles
of government and sense of duty to his subjects. The department of
administration in which he seems to have felt most personal interest was
that of public works. He spent immense sums on buildings of all sorts,
on quays and harbours, on fortifications, repairing the walls of cities
and erecting castles in Thrace to check the inroads of the barbarians,
on aqueducts, on monasteries, above all, upon churches. Of these works
only two remain perfect, St Sophia in Constantinople, now a mosque, and
one of the architectural wonders of the world, and the church of SS
Sergius and Bacchus, now commonly called Little St Sophia, which stands
about half a mile from the great church, and is in its way a very
delicate and beautiful piece of work. The church of S. Vitale at
Ravenna, though built in Justinian's reign, and containing mosaic
pictures of him and Theodora, does not appear to have owed anything to
his mind or purse.
3. Justinian's ecclesiastical policy was so complex and varying that it
is impossible within the limits of this article to do more than indicate
its bare outlines. For many years before the accession of his uncle
Justin, the Eastern world had been vexed by the struggles of the
Monophysite party, who recognized only one nature in Christ, against the
view which then and ever since has maintained itself as orthodox, that
the divine and human natures coexisted in Him. The latter doctrine had
triumphed at the council of Chalcedon, and was held by the whole Western
Church, but Egypt, great part of Syria and Asia Minor, and a
considerable minority even in Constantinople clung to Monophysitism. The
emperors Zeno and Anastasius had been strongly suspected of it, and the
Roman bishops had refused to communicate with the patriarchs of
Constantinople since 484, when they had condemned Acacius for accepting
the formula of conciliation issued by Zeno. One of Justinian's first
public acts was to put an end to this schism by inducing Justin to make
the then patriarch renounce this formula and declare his full adhesion
to the creed of Chalcedon. When he himself came to the throne he
endeavoured to persuade the Monophysites to come in by summoning some of
their leaders to a conference. This failing, he ejected suspected
prelates, and occasionally persecuted them, though with far less
severity than that applied to the heretics of a deeper dye, such as
Montanists or even Arians. Not long afterwards, his attention having
been called to the spread of Origenistic opinions in Syria, he issued an
edict condemning fourteen propositions drawn from the writings of the
great Alexandrian, and caused a synod to be held under the presidency
of Mennas (whom he had named patriarch of Constantinople), which renewed
the condemnation of the impugned doctrines and anathematized Origen
himself. Still later, he was induced by the machinations of some of the
prelates who haunted his court, and by the influence of Theodora,
herself much interested in theological questions, and more than
suspected of Monophysitism, to raise a needless, mischievous, and
protracted controversy. The Monophysites sometimes alleged that they
could not accept the decrees of the council of Chalcedon because that
council had not condemned, but (as they argued) virtually approved,
three writers tainted with Nestorian principles, Theodore of Mopsuestia,
Theodoret, and Ibas, bishop of Edessa. It was represented to the
emperor, who was still pursued by the desire to bring back the
schismatics, that a great step would have been taken towards
reconciliation if a condemnation of these teachers, or rather of such of
their books as were complained of, could be brought about, since then
the Chalcedonian party would be purged from any appearance of sympathy
with the errors of Nestorius. Not stopping to reflect that in the angry
and suspicious state of men's minds he was sure to lose as much in one
direction as he would gain in the other, Justinian entered into the
idea, and put forth an edict exposing and denouncing the errors
contained in the writings of Theodore generally, in the treatise of
Theodoret against Cyril of Alexandria, and in a letter of Bishop Ibas (a
letter whose authenticity was doubted, but which passed under his name)
to the Persian bishop Maris. This edict was circulated through the
Christian world to be subscribed by the bishops. The four Eastern
patriarchs, and the great majority of the Eastern prelates generally,
subscribed, though reluctantly, for it was felt that a dangerous
precedent was being set when dead authors were anathematized, and that
this new movement could hardly fail to weaken the authority of the
council of Chalcedon. Among the Western bishops, who were less disposed
both to Monophysitism and to subservience, and especially by those of
Africa, the edict was earnestly resisted. When it was found that Pope
Vigilius did not forthwith comply, he was summoned to Constantinople.
Even there he resisted, not so much, it would seem, from any scruples of
his own, for he was not a high-minded man, as because he knew that he
dared not return to Italy if he gave way. Long disputes and negotiations
followed, the end of which was that Justinian summoned a general council
of the church, that which we reckon the Fifth, which condemned the
impugned writings, and anathematized several other heretical authors.
Its decrees were received in the East but long contested in the Western
Church, where a schism arose that lasted for seventy years. This is the
controversy known as that of the Three Chapters (_Tria capitula_,
[Greek: tria kephalaia]), apparently from the three propositions or
condemnations contained in Justinian's original edict, one relating to
Theodore's writings and person, the second to the incriminated treatise
of Theodoret (whose person was not attacked), the third to the letter
(if genuine) of Ibas (see Hefele, _Conciliengeschichte_, ii. 777).
At the very end of his long career of theological discussion, Justinian
himself lapsed into heresy, by accepting the doctrine that the earthly
body of Christ was incorruptible, insensible to the weaknesses of the
flesh, a doctrine which had been advanced by Julian, bishop of
Halicarnassus, and went by the name of Aphthartodocetism. According to
his usual practice, he issued an edict enforcing this view, and
requiring all patriarchs, metropolitans, and bishops to subscribe to it.
Some, who not unnaturally held that it was rank Monophysitism, refused
at once, and were deprived of their sees, among them Eutychius the
eminent patriarch of Constantinople. Others submitted or temporized; but
before there had been time enough for the matter to be carried through,
the emperor died, having tarnished if not utterly forfeited by this last
error the reputation won by a life devoted to the service of Orthodoxy.
As no preceding sovereign had been so much interested in church affairs,
so none seems to have shown so much activity as a persecutor both of
pagans and of heretics. He renewed with additional stringency the laws
against both these classes. The former embraced a large part of the
rural population in certain secluded districts, such as parts of Asia
Minor and Peloponnesus; and we are told that the efforts directed
against them resulted in the forcible baptism of 70,000 persons in Asia
Minor alone. Paganism, however, survived; we find it in Laconia in the
end of the 9th century, and in northern Syria it has lasted till our own
times. There were also a good many crypto-pagans among the educated
population of the capital. Procopius, for instance, if he was not
actually a Pagan, was certainly very little of a Christian. Inquiries
made in the third year of Justinian's reign drove nearly all of these
persons into an outward conformity, and their offspring seem to have
become ordinary Christians. At Athens, the philosophers who taught in
the schools hallowed by memories of Plato still openly professed what
passed for Paganism, though it was really a body of moral doctrine,
strongly tinged with mysticism, in which there was far more of
Christianity and of the speculative metaphysics of the East than of the
old Olympian religion. Justinian, partly from religious motives, partly
because he discountenanced all rivals to the imperial university of
Constantinople, closed these Athenian schools (529). The professors
sought refuge at the court of Chosroes, king of Persia, but were soon so
much disgusted by the ideas and practices of the fire-worshippers that
they returned to the empire, Chosroes having magnanimously obtained from
Justinian a promise that they should be suffered to pass the rest of
their days unmolested. Heresy proved more obstinate. The severities
directed against the Montanists of Phrygia led to a furious war, in
which most of the sectaries perished, while the doctrine was not
extinguished. Harsh laws provoked the Samaritans to a revolt, from whose
effects Palestine had not recovered when conquered by the Arabs in the
following century. The Nestorians and the Eutychian Monophysites were
not threatened with such severe civil penalties, although their worship
was interdicted, and their bishops were sometimes banished; but this
vexatious treatment was quite enough to keep them disaffected, and the
rapidity of the Mahommedan conquests may be partly traced to that
alienation of the bulk of the Egyptian and a large part of the Syrian
population which dates from Justinian's persecutions.
4. Justinian was engaged in three great foreign wars, two of them of his
own seeking, the third a legacy which nearly every emperor had come into
for three centuries, the secular strife of Rome and Persia. The Sassanid
kings of Persia ruled a dominion which extended from the confines of
Syria to those of India, and from the straits of Oman to the Caucasus.
The martial character of their population made them formidable enemies
to the Romans, whose troops were at this epoch mainly barbarians, the
settled and civilized subjects of the empire being as a rule averse from
war. When Justinian came to the throne, his troops were maintaining an
unequal struggle on the Euphrates against the armies of Kavadh I.
(q.v.). After some campaigns, in which the skill of Belisarius obtained
considerable successes, a peace was concluded in 533 with Chosroes I.
(q.v.). This lasted till 539, when Chosroes declared war, alleging that
Justinian had been secretly intriguing against him with the Hephthalite
Huns, and doubtless moved by alarm and envy at the victories which the
Romans had been gaining in Italy. The emperor was too much occupied in
the West to be able adequately to defend his eastern frontier. Chosroes
advanced into Syria with little resistance, and in 540 captured Antioch,
then the greatest city in Asia, carrying off its inhabitants into
captivity. The war continued with varying fortunes for four years more
in this quarter; while in the meantime an even fiercer struggle had
begun in the mountainous region inhabited by the Lazi at the
south-eastern corner of the Black Sea (see COLCHIS). When after
two-and-twenty years of fighting no substantial advantage had been
gained by either party, Chosroes agreed in 562 to a peace which left
Lazica to the Romans, but under the dishonourable condition of their
paying 30,000 pieces of gold annually to the Persian king. Thus no
result of permanent importance flowed from these Persian wars, except
that they greatly weakened the Roman Empire, increased Justinian's
financial embarrassments, and prevented him from prosecuting with
sufficient vigour his enterprises in the West. (See further PERSIA:
_Ancient History_, "The Sassanid Dynasty.")
These enterprises had begun in 533 with an attack on the Vandals, who
were then reigning in Africa. Belisarius, despatched from Constantinople
with a large fleet and army, landed without opposition, and destroyed
the barbarian power in two engagements. North Africa from beyond the
straits of Gibraltar to the Syrtes became again a Roman province,
although the Moorish tribes of the interior maintained a species of
independence; and part of southern Spain was also recovered for the
empire. The ease with which so important a conquest had been effected
encouraged Justinian to attack the Ostrogoths of Italy, whose kingdom,
though vast in extent, for it included part of south-eastern Gaul,
Raetia, Dalmatia and part of Pannonia, as well as Italy, Sicily,
Sardinia and Corsica, had been grievously weakened by the death first of
the great Theodoric, and some years later of his grandson Athalaric, so
that the Gothic nation was practically without a head. Justinian began
the war in 535, taking as his pretext the murder of Queen Amalasuntha,
daughter of Theodoric, who had placed herself under his protection, and
alleging that the Ostrogothic kingdom had always owned a species of
allegiance to the emperor at Constantinople. There was some foundation
for this claim, although of course it could not have been made effective
against Theodoric, who was more powerful than his supposed suzerain.
Belisarius, who had been made commander of the Italian expedition,
overran Sicily, reduced southern Italy, and in 536 occupied Rome. Here
he was attacked in the following year by Vitiges, who had been chosen
king by the Goths, with a greatly superior force. After a siege of over
a year, the energy, skill, and courage of Belisarius, and the sickness
which was preying on the Gothic troops, obliged Vitiges to retire.
Belisarius pursued his diminished army northwards, shut him up in
Ravenna, and ultimately received the surrender of that impregnable city.
Vitiges was sent prisoner to Constantinople, where Justinian treated
him, as he had previously treated the captive Vandal king, with
clemency. The imperial administration was established through Italy, but
its rapacity soon began to excite discontent, and the kernel of the
Gothic nation had not submitted. After two short and unfortunate reigns,
the crown had been bestowed on Totila or Baduila, a warrior of
distinguished abilities, who by degrees drove the imperial generals and
governors out of Italy. Belisarius was sent against him, but with forces
too small for the gravity of the situation. He moved from place to place
during several years, but saw city after city captured by or open its
gates to Totila, till only Ravenna, Otranto and Ancona remained.
Justinian was occupied by the ecclesiastical controversy of the Three
Chapters, and had not the money to fit out a proper army and fleet;
indeed, it may be doubted whether he would ever have roused himself to
the necessary exertions but for the presence at Constantinople of a knot
of Roman exiles, who kept urging him to reconquer Italy, representing
that with their help and the sympathy of the people it would not be a
difficult enterprise. The emperor at last complied, and in 552 a
powerful army was despatched under Narses, an Armenian eunuch now
advanced in life, but reputed the most skilful general of the age, as
Belisarius was the hottest soldier. He marched along the coast of the
Gulf of Venice, and encountered the army of Totila at Taginae not far
from Cesena. Totila was slain, and the Gothic cause irretrievably lost.
The valiant remains of the nation made another stand under Teias on the
Lactarian Hill in Campania; after that they disappear from history.
Italy was recovered for the empire, but it was an Italy terribly
impoverished and depopulated, whose possession carried little strength
with it. Justinian's policy both in the Vandalic and in the Gothic War
stands condemned by the result. The resources of the state, which might
better have been spent in defending the northern frontier against Slavs
and Huns and the eastern frontier against Persians, were consumed in the
conquest of two countries which had suffered too much to be of any
substantial value, and which, separated by language as well as by
intervening seas, could not be permanently retained. However, Justinian
must have been almost preternaturally wise to have foreseen this: his
conduct was in the circumstances only what might have been expected from
an ambitious prince who perceived an opportunity of recovering
territories that had formerly belonged to the empire, and over which its
rights were conceived to be only suspended.
Besides these three great foreign wars, Justinian's reign was troubled
by a constant succession of border inroads, especially on the northern
frontier, where the various Slavonic and Hunnish tribes who were
established along the lower Danube and on the north coast of the Black
Sea made frequent marauding expeditions into Thrace and Macedonia,
sometimes penetrating as far as the walls of Constantinople in one
direction and the Isthmus of Corinth in another. Immense damage was
inflicted by these marauders on the subjects of the empire, who seem to
have been mostly too peaceable to defend themselves, and whom the
emperor could not spare troops enough to protect. Fields were laid
waste, villages burnt, large numbers of people carried into captivity;
and on one occasion the capital was itself in danger.
5. It only remains to say something regarding Justinian's personal
character and capacities, with regard to which a great diversity of
opinion has existed among historians. The civilians, looking on him as a
patriarch of their science, have as a rule extolled his wisdom and
virtues; while ecclesiastics of the Roman Church, from Cardinal Baronius
downwards, have been offended by his arbitrary conduct towards the
popes, and by his last lapse into heresy, and have therefore been
disposed to accept the stories which ascribe to him perfidy, cruelty,
rapacity and extravagance. The difficulty of arriving at a fair
conclusion is increased by the fact that Procopius, who is our chief
authority for the events of his reign, speaks with a very different
voice in his secret memoirs (the _Anecdota_) from that which he has used
in his published history, and that some of the accusations contained in
the former work are so rancorous and improbable that a certain measure
of discredit attaches to everything which it contains. The truth seems
to be that Justinian was not a great ruler in the higher sense of the
word, that is to say, a man of large views, deep insight, a capacity for
forming just such plans as the circumstances needed, and carrying them
out by a skilful adaptation of means to ends. But he was a man of
considerable abilities, wonderful activity of mind, and admirable
industry. He was interested in many things, and threw himself with
ardour into whatever he took up; he contrived schemes quickly, and
pushed them on with an energy which usually made them succeed when no
long time was needed, for, if a project was delayed, there was a risk of
his tiring of it and dropping it. Although vain and full of
self-confidence, he was easily led by those who knew how to get at him,
and particularly by his wife. She exercised over him that influence
which a stronger character always exercises over a weaker, whatever
their respective positions; and unfortunately it was seldom a good
influence, for Theodora (q.v.) seems to have been a woman who, with all
her brilliant gifts of intelligence and manner, had no principles and no
pity. Justinian was rather quick than strong or profound; his policy
does not strike one as the result of deliberate and well-considered
views, but dictated by the hopes and fancies of the moment. His activity
was in so far a misfortune as it led him to attempt too many things at
once, and engage in undertakings so costly that oppression became
necessary to provide the funds for them. Even his devotion to work,
which excites our admiration, in the centre of a luxurious court, was to
a great extent unprofitable, for it was mainly given to theological
controversies which neither he nor any one else could settle. Still,
after making all deductions, it is plain that the man who accomplished
so much, and kept the whole world so occupied, as Justinian did during
the thirty-eight years of his reign, must have possessed no common
abilities. He was affable and easy of approach to all his subjects, with
a pleasant address; nor does he seem to have been, like his wife, either
cruel or revengeful. We hear several times of his sparing those who had
conspired against him. But he was not scrupulous in the means he
employed, and he was willing to maintain in power detestable ministers
if only they served him efficiently and filled his coffers. His chief
passion, after that for his own fame and glory, seems to have been for
theology and religion; it was in this field that his literary powers
exerted themselves (for he wrote controversial treatises and hymns), and
his taste also, for among his numerous buildings the churches are those
on which he spent most thought and money. Considering that his legal
reforms are those by which his name is mainly known to posterity, it is
curious that we should have hardly any information as to his legal
knowledge, or the share which he took in those reforms. In person he was
somewhat above the middle height, well-shaped, with plenty of fresh
colour in his cheeks, and an extraordinary power of doing without food
and sleep. He spent most of the night in reading or writing, and would
sometimes go for a day with no food but a few green herbs. Two mosaic
figures of him exist at Ravenna, one in the apse of the church of S.
Vitale, the other in the church of S. Apollinare in Urbe; but of course
one cannot be sure how far in such a material the portrait fairly
represents the original. He had no children by his marriage with
Theodora, and did not marry after her decease. On his death, which took
place on the 14th of November 565, the crown passed to his nephew Justin
II.
AUTHORITIES.--For the life of Justinian the chief authorities are
Procopius (_Historiae, De aedificiis, Anecdota_) and (from 552 A.D.)
the _History_ of Agathias; the Chronicle of Johannes Malalas is also
of value. Occasional reference must be made to the writings of
Jordanes and Marcellinus, and even to the late compilations of
Cedrenus and Zonaras. The _Vita Justiniani_ of Ludewig or Ludwig
(Halle, 1731), a work of patient research, is frequently referred to
by Gibbon in his important chapters relating to the reign of
Justinian, in the _Decline and Fall_ (see Bury's edition, 1900). There
is a _Vie de Justinien_ by Isambert (2 vols., Paris, 1856). See also
Hutton's _Church of the Sixth Century_ (1897); J. B. Bury's _Later
Roman Empire_ (1889); Hodgkin's _Italy and her Invaders_ (1880).
(J. Br.)
FOOTNOTES:
[1] It is commonly identified with the modern Kustendil, but Uskub
(the ancient Skupi) has also been suggested. See Tozer, _Highlands of
European Turkey_, ii. 370.
[2] The name Uprauda is said to be derived from the word _prauda_,
which in Old Slavic means _jus_, _justitia_, the prefix being simply
a breathing frequently attached to Slavonic names.
[3] See, for an account of the instructions given to the commission,
the constitution _Haec quae_, prefixed to the revised _Codex_ in the
_Corpus juris civilis_.
[4] See the constitution _Deo auctore_ (_Cod._ i. 17, 1).
[5] In the middle ages people used to cite passages by the initial
words; and the Germans do so still, giving, however, the number of
the paragraph in the extract (if there are more paragraphs than one),
and appending the number of the book and title. We in Britain and
America usually cite by the numbers of the book, the title and the
paragraph, without referring to the initial words.
[6] See Bluhme, "Die Ordnung der Fragmente in den Pandektentiteln,"
in Savigny's _Zeitschr. f. gesch. Rechtswissenschaft_, vol. iv.
JUSTINIAN II., RHINOTMETUS (669-711), East Roman emperor 685-695 and
704-711, succeeded his father Constantine IV., at the age of sixteen.
His reign was unhappy both at home and abroad. After a successful
invasion he made a truce with the Arabs, which admitted them to the
joint possession of Armenia, Iberia and Cyprus, while by removing 12,000
Christian Maronites from their native Lebanon, he gave the Arabs a
command over Asia Minor of which they took advantage in 692 by
conquering all Armenia. In 688 Justinian decisively defeated the
Bulgarians. Meanwhile the bitter dissensions caused in the Church by the
emperor, his bloody persecution of the Manichaeans, and the rapacity
with which, through his creatures Stephanus and Theodatus, he extorted
the means of gratifying his sumptuous tastes and his mania for erecting
costly buildings, drove his subjects into rebellion. In 695 they rose
under Leontius, and, after cutting off the emperor's nose (whence his
surname), banished him to Cherson in the Crimea. Leontius, after a reign
of three years, was in turn dethroned and imprisoned by Tiberius
Absimarus, who next assumed the purple. Justinian meanwhile had escaped
from Cherson and married Theodora, sister of Busirus, khan of the
Khazars. Compelled, however, by the intrigues of Tiberius, to quit his
new home, he fled to Terbelis, king of the Bulgarians. With an army of
15,000 horsemen Justinian suddenly pounced upon Constantinople, slew his
rivals Leontius and Tiberius, with thousands of their partisans, and
once more ascended the throne in 704. His second reign was marked by an
unsuccessful war against Terbelis, by Arab victories in Asia Minor, by
devastating expeditions sent against his own cities of Ravenna and
Cherson, where he inflicted horrible punishment upon the disaffected
nobles and refugees, and by the same cruel rapacity towards his
subjects. Conspiracies again broke out: Bardanes, surnamed Philippicus,
assumed the purple, and Justinian, the last of the house of Heraclius,
was assassinated in Asia Minor, December 711.
See E. Gibbon, _Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire_ (ed. Bury,
1896), v. 179-183; J. B. Bury, _The Later Roman Empire_ (1889), ii.
320-330, 358-367.
JUSTIN MARTYR, one of the earliest and ablest Christian apologists, was
born about 100 at Flavia Neapolis (anc. _Sichem_), now Nablus, in
Palestinian Syria (Samaria). His parents, according to his own account,
were Pagans (_Dial. c. Tryph._ 28). He describes the course of his
religious development in the introduction to the dialogue with the Jew
Trypho, in which he relates how chance intercourse with an aged stranger
brought him to know the truth. Though this narrative is a mixture of
truth and fiction, it may be said with certainty that a thorough study
of the philosophy of Peripatetics and Pythagoreans, Stoics and
Platonists, brought home to Justin the conviction that true knowledge
was not to be found in them. On the other hand, he came to look upon the
Old Testament prophets as approved by their antiquity, sanctity, mystery
and prophecies to be interpreters of the truth. To this, as he tells us
in another place (_Apol._ ii. 12), must be added the deep impression
produced upon him by the life and death of Christ. His conversion
apparently took place at Ephesus; there, at any rate, he places his
decisive interview with the old man, and there he had those discussions
with Jews and converts to Judaism, the results of which he in later
years set down in his _Dialogue_. After his conversion he retained his
philosopher's cloak (Euseb., _Hist. Eccl._ iv. 11. 8), the distinctive
badge of the wandering professional teacher of philosophy, and went
about from place to place discussing the truths of Christianity in the
hope of bringing educated Pagans, as he himself had been brought,
through philosophy to Christ. In Rome he made a fairly long stay, giving
lectures in a class-room of his own, though not without opposition from
his fellow-teachers. Among his opponents was the Cynic Crescentius
(_Apol._ ii. 13). Eusebius (_Hist. Eccl._ iv. 16. 7-8) concludes
somewhat hastily, from the statement of Justin and his disciple Tatian
(_Orat. ad Graec._ 19), that the accusation of Justin before the
authorities, which led to his death, was due to Crescentius. But we
know, from the undoubtedly genuine _Acta SS Justini et sociorum_, that
Justin suffered the death of a martyr under the prefect Rusticus between
163 and 167.
To form an opinion of Justin as a Christian and theologian, we must turn
to his _Apology_ and to the _Dialogue_ with the Jew Trypho, for the
authenticity of all other extant works attributed to him is disputed
with good reason. The _Apology_--it is more correct to speak of one
_Apology_ than of two, for the second is only a continuation of the
first, and dependent upon it--was written in Rome about 150. In the
first part Justin defends his fellow-believers against the charge of
atheism and hostility to the state. He then draws a positive
demonstration of the truth of his religion from the effects of the new
faith, and especially from the excellence of its moral teaching, and
concludes with a comparison of Christian and Pagan doctrines, in which
the latter are set down with naive confidence as the work of demons. As
the main support of his proof of the truth of Christianity appears his
detailed demonstration that the prophecies of the old dispensation,
which are older than the Pagan poets and philosophers, have found their
fulfilment in Christianity. A third part shows, from the practices of
their religious worship, that the Christians had in truth dedicated
themselves to God. The whole closes with an appeal to the princes, with
a reference to the edict issued by Hadrian in favour of the Christians.
In the so-called _Second Apology_, Justin takes occasion from the trial
of a Christian recently held in Rome to argue that the innocence of the
Christians was proved by the very persecutions.
Even as a Christian Justin always remained a philosopher. By his
conscious recognition of the Greek philosophy as a preparation for the
truths of the Christian religion, he appears as the first and most
distinguished in the long list of those who have endeavoured to
reconcile Christian with non-Christian culture. Christianity consists
for him in the doctrines, guaranteed by the manifestation of the Logos
in the person of Christ, of God, righteousness and immortality, truths
which have been to a certain extent foreshadowed in the monotheistic
religious philosophies. In this process the conviction of the
reconciliation of the sinner with God, of the salvation of the world and
the individual through Christ, fell into the background before the
vindication of supernatural truths intellectually conceived. Thus Justin
may give the impression of having rationalized Christianity, and of not
having given it its full value as a religion of salvation. It must not,
however, be forgotten that Justin is here speaking as the apologist of
Christianity to an educated Pagan public, on whose philosophical view of
life he had to base his arguments, and from whom he could not expect an
intimate comprehension of the religious position of Christians. That he
himself had a thorough comprehension of it he showed in the _Dialogue_
with the Jew Trypho. Here, where he had to deal with the Judaism that
believed in a Messiah, he was far better able to do justice to
Christianity as a revelation; and so we find that the arguments of this
work are much more completely in harmony with primitive Christian
theology than those of the _Apology_. He also displays in this work a
considerable knowledge of the Rabbinical writings and a skilful
polemical method which was surpassed by none of the later anti-Jewish
writers.
Justin is a most valuable authority for the life of the Christian Church
in the middle of the 2nd century. While we have elsewhere no connected
account of this, Justin's _Apology_ contains a few paragraphs (61 seq.),
which give a vivid description of the public worship of the Church and
its method of celebrating the sacraments (Baptism and the Eucharist).
And from this it is clear that though, as a theologian, Justin wished to
go his own way, as a believing Christian he was ready to make his
standpoint that of the Church and its baptismal confession of faith. His
works are also of great value for the history of the New Testament
writings. He knows of no canon of the New Testament, i.e. no fixed and
inclusive collection of the apostolic writings. His sources for the
teachings of Jesus are the "Memoirs of the Apostles," by which are
probably to be understood the Synoptic Gospels (without the Gospel
according to St John), which, according to his account, were read along
with the prophetic writings at the public services. From his writings we
derive the impression of an amiable personality, who is honestly at
pains to arrive at an understanding with his opponents. As a theologian,
he is of wide sympathies; as a writer, he is often diffuse and somewhat
dull. There are not many traces of any particular literary influence of
his writings upon the Christian Church, and this need not surprise us.
The Church as a whole took but little interest in apologetics and
polemics, nay, had at times even an instinctive feeling that in these
controversies that which she held holy might easily suffer loss. Thus
Justin's writings were not much read, and at the present time both the
_Apology_ and the _Dialogue_ are preserved in but a single MS. (cod.
Paris, 450, A.D. 1364).
BIBLIOGRAPHY.--The editions of Robert Etienne (Stephanus) (1551); H.
Sylburg (1593); F. Morel (1615); Prudentius Maranuis (1742) are
superseded by J. C. T. Otto, _Justini philosophi et martyris opera
quae feruntur omnia_ (3rd ed. 5 vols., Jena, 1876-1881). This edition
contains besides the _Apologies_ (vol. i.) and the _Dialogue_ (vol.
ii.) the following writings: _Speech to the Greeks_ (_Oratio_);
_Address to the Greeks_ (_Cohortatio_): _On the Monarchy of God_;
_Epistle to Diognetus_; _Fragments on the Resurrection and other
Fragments_; _Exposition of the True Faith_; _Epistle to Zenas and
Serenus_; _Refutation of certain Doctrines of Aristotle_; _Questions
and Answers to the Orthodox_; _Questions of Christians to Pagans_;
_Questions of Pagans to Christians_. None of these writings, not even
the _Cohortatio_, which former critics ascribed to Justin, can be
attributed to him. The authenticity of the _Dialogue_ has occasionally
been disputed, but without reason. For a handy edition of the
_Apology_ see G. Kruger, _Die Apologien Justins des Martyrers_ (3rd
ed. Tubingen, 1904). There is a good German translation with a
comprehensive commentary by H. Veil (1894). For English translations
consult the "Oxford Library of the Fathers" and the "Ante-Nicene
Library." Full information about Justin's history and views may be had
from the following monographs: C. Semisch, _Justin der Martyrer_ (2
vols., 1840-1842); J. Donaldson, _A Critical History of Christian
Literature and Doctrine_, vol. 2 (1866); C. E. Freppel, _St Justin_
(3rd ed., 1886); Moritz von Engelhardt, _Das Christentum Justins des
Martyrers_ (1878); T. M. Wehofer, _Die Apologie Justins des
Philosophen und Martyrers in litterarhistorischer Beziehung zum ersten
Male untersucht_ (1897); Alfred Leonhard Feder, _Justins des Martyrers
Lehre von Jesus Christus_ (1906). On the critical questions raised by
the spurious writings consult W. Gaul, _Die Abfassungsverhaltnisse der
pseudo-justinischen Cohortatio ad Graecos_ (1902); Adolf Harnack,
_Diodor von Tarsus. Vier pseudo-justinische Schriften als Eigentum
Diodors nachgewiesen_ (1901). (G. K.)
JUTE, a vegetable fibre now occupying a position in the manufacturing
scale inferior only to cotton and flax. The term jute appears to have
been first used in 1746, when the captain of the "Wake" noted in his log
that he had sent on shore "60 bales of gunney with all the jute rope"
(_New Eng. Dict. s.v._). In 1795 W. Roxburgh sent to the directors of
the East India Company a bale of the fibre which he described as "the
jute of the natives." Importations of the substance had been made at
earlier times under the name of _pat_, an East Indian native term by
which the fibre continued to be spoken of in England till the early
years of the 19th century, when it was supplanted by the name it now
bears. This modern name appears to be derived from _jhot_ or _jhout_
(Sansk. _jhat_), the vernacular name by which the substance is known in
the Cuttack district, where the East India Company had extensive
roperies when Roxburgh first used the term.
[Illustration: FIG. 1.--Capsules of Jute Plants. a, _Corchorus
capsularis_; b, C. _olitorius_.]
The fibre is obtained from two species of _Corchorus_ (nat. ord.
_Tiliaceae_), _C. capsularis_ and _C. olitorius_, the products of both
being so essentially alike that neither in commerce nor agriculture is
any distinction made between them. These and various other species of
_Corchorus_ are natives of Bengal, where they have been cultivated from
very remote times for economic purposes, although there is reason to
believe that the cultivation did not originate in the northern parts of
India. The two species cultivated for jute fibre are in all respects
very similar to each other, except in their fructification and the
relatively greater size attained by _C. capsularis_. They are annual
plants from 5 to 10 ft. high, with a cylindrical stalk as thick as a
man's finger, and hardly branching except near the top. The light-green
leaves are from 4 to 5 in. long by 1(1/2) in. broad above the base, and
taper upward into a fine point; the edges are serrated; the two lower
teeth are drawn out into bristle-like points. The small whitish-yellow
flowers are produced in clusters of two or three opposite the leaves.
The capsules or seed-pods in the case of _C. capsularis_ are globular,
rough and wrinkled, while in _C. olitorius_ they are slender, quill-like
cylinders (about 2 in. long), a very marked distinction, as may be noted
from fig. 1, in which a and b show the capsules of _C. capsularis_ and
_C. olitorius_ respectively. Fig. 2 represents a flowering top of _C.
olitorius_.
Both species are cultivated in India, not only on account of their
fibre, but also for the sake of their leaves, which are there
extensively used as a pot-herb. The use of _C. olitorius_ for the latter
purpose dates from very ancient times, if it may be identified, as some
suppose, with the mallows ([Hebrew: maluah]) mentioned in Job xxx. 4;
hence the name Jew's mallow. It is certain that the Greeks used this
plant as a pot-herb; and by many other nations around the shores of the
Mediterranean this use of it was, and is still, common. Throughout
Bengal the name by which the plants when used as edible vegetables are
recognized is _nalita_; when on the other hand they are spoken of as
fibre-producers it is generally under the name _pat_. The cultivation of
_C. capsularis_ is most prevalent in central and eastern Bengal, while
in the neighbourhood of Calcutta, where, however, the area under
cultivation is limited, _C. olitorius_ is principally grown. The fibre
known as China jute or Tien-tsin jute is the product of another plant,
_Abutilon Avicennae_, a member of the Mallow family.
_Cultivation and Cropping._--Attempts have been made to grow the jute
plant in America, Egypt, Africa and other places, but up to the present
the fibre has proved much inferior to that obtained from plants grown in
India. Here the cultivation of the plant extends from the Hugli through
eastern and northern Bengal. The successful cultivation of the plant
demands a hot, moist climate, with a fair amount of rain. Too much rain
at the beginning of the season is detrimental to the growth, while a
very dry season is disastrous. The climate of eastern and northern
Bengal appears to be ideal for the growth of the plant.
The quality of the fibre and the produce per acre depend in a measure on
the preparation of the soil. The ground should be ploughed about four
times and all weeds removed. The seed is then sown broadcast as in the
case of flax. It is only within quite recent years that any attention
has been paid to the selection of the seed. The following extract from
_Capital_ (Jan. 17, 1907) indicates the new interest taken in it.
"Jute seed experiments are being continued and the report for 1906 has
been issued. The object of these experiments is, of course, to obtain
a better class of jute seed by growing plants, especially for no other
purpose than to obtain their seed. The agricultural department has
about 300 maunds (25,000 lb.) of selected seed for distribution this
year. The selling price is to be _Rs._ 10 per maund. The agricultural
department of the government of Bengal are now fully alive to the
importance of fostering the jute industry by showing conclusively that
attention to scientific agriculture will make two maunds of jute grow
where only one maund grew before. Let them go on (as they will) till
all the ryots are thoroughly indoctrinated into the new system."
The time of sowing extends from the middle of March to the middle of
June, while the reaping, which depends upon the time of sowing and upon
the weather, is performed from the end of June to the middle of October.
The crop is said to be ready for gathering when the flowers appear; if
gathered before, the fibre is weak, while if left until the seed is
ripe, the fibre is stronger, but is coarser and lacks the characteristic
lustre.
The fibre is separated from the stalks by a process of retting similar
to that for flax and hemp. In certain districts of Bengal it is the
practice to stack the crop for a few days previous to retting in order
to allow the leaves to dry and to drop off the stalks. It is stated that
the colour of the fibre is darkened if the leaves are allowed to remain
on during the process of retting. It is also thought that the drying of
the plants before retting facilitates the separation of the fibre. Any
simple operation which improves the colour of the fibre or shortens the
operation of retting is worthy of consideration. The benefits to be
derived from the above process, however, cannot be great, for the
bundles are usually taken direct to the pools and streams. The period
necessary for the completion of the retting process varies according to
the temperature and to the properties of the water, and may occupy from
two days to a month. After the first few days of immersion the stalks
are examined daily to test the progress of the retting. When the fibres
are easily separated from the stalk, the operation is complete and the
bundles should be withdrawn. The following description of the retting of
jute is taken from Royle's _Fibrous Plants of India_:--
"The proper point being attained, the native operator, standing up to
his middle in water, takes as many of the sticks in his hands as he
can grasp, and removing a small portion of the bark from the ends next
the roots, and grasping them together, he strips off the whole with a
little management from end to end, without breaking either stem or
fibre. Having prepared a certain quantity into this half state, he
next proceeds to wash off: this is done by taking a large handful;
swinging it round his head he dashes it repeatedly against the surface
of the water, drawing it through towards him, so as to wash off the
impurities; then, with a dexterous throw he fans it out on the surface
of the water and carefully picks off all remaining black spots. It is
now wrung out so as to remove as much water as possible, and then hung
up on lines prepared on the spot, to dry in the sun."
The separated fibre is then made up into bundles ready for sending to
one of the jute presses. The jute is carefully sorted into different
qualities, and then each lot is subjected to an enormous hydraulic
pressure from which it emerges in the shape of the well-known bales,
each weighing 400 lb.
The crop naturally depends upon the quality of the soil, and upon the
attention which the fibre has received in its various stages; the yield
per acre varies in different districts. Three bales per acre, or 1200
lb. is termed a 100% crop, but the usual quantity obtained is about 2.6
bales per acre. Sometimes the crop is stated in lakhs of 100,000 bales
each. The crop in 1906 reached nearly 9,000,000 bales, and in 1907
nearly 10,000,000 was reached. The following particulars were issued on
the 19th of September 1906 by Messrs. W. F. Souter & Co., Dundee:--
+---------+-----------+---------------+-------------+----------------------+---------------------+--------------+-----------+
| | |Estimated yield| Estimated | Shipment to Europe. | Shipment to America.| Supplies to | Out-turn |
| Year. | Actual | (100% | total +-----------+----------+---------+-----------+ Indian mills |total crop.|
| | acreage. | equal 3 bales | crop. | Jute. | Cuttings.| Jute. | Cuttings. | and local | Bales. |
| | | per acre). | Bales. | Bales. | Bales. | Bales. | Bales. | consumption. | |
+---------+-----------+---------------+-------------+-----------+----------+---------+-----------+--------------+-----------+
|1901--1st| 2,216,500 | 94% = | 6,250,000 | | | | | | |
| Final | 2,249,000 | 96% = | 6,500,000 | 3,528,691 | 54,427 | 295,921 | 426,331 | 3,100,000 = | 7,405,370 |
|1902--1st| 2,200,000 | 80% = | 5,280.000 | | | | | | |
| Final | 2,200,000 | 80% = | 5,280,000 | 2,773,621 | 39,019 | 230,415 | 207,999 | 2,600,000 = | 5,851,054 |
|1903--1st| 2,100,000 | 85% = | 5,400,000 | | | | | | |
| Final | 2,250,000 | 93(3/4)% = | 6,500,000 | 3,161,791 | 59,562 | 329,048 | 236,959 | 3,650,000 = | 7,437,360 |
|1904--1st| 2,700,000 | 87(1/2)% = | 7,100,000 | | | | | | |
| Final | 2,850,000 | 85% = | 7,400,000 | 2,939,940 | 44,002 | 253,882 | 290,854 | 3,475,782 = | 7,004,460 |
|1905--1st| 3,163,500 | 87% = | 8,250,000 | | | | | | |
| Final | 3,145,000 | 87% = | 8,200,000 \| | | | | \ | |
| | | Outlying | 200,000 /| 3,483,315 | 63,118 | 347,974 | 245,044 | 4,018,523 / =| 8,233,358 |
| | | | Madras | 75,384 | | | | | |
|1906--1st| 3,271,400\| 87% = | 8,713,000 | | | | | | |
|Outlying | 67,000/| Madras | 100,000 | | | | | | |
| Final | 3,336,400 | | 8,736,220 | | | | | | |
| (Outlying Districts and Madras, say 250,000 | | | | | | |
| bales additional) | | | | | | |
+---------------------------------------------------+-----------+----------+---------+-----------+--------------+-----------+
Estimated consumption of jute 1906-1907.
In Europe Bales per annum.
Scotland 1,250,000
England 20,000
Ireland 25,000
France 475,000
Belgium 120,000
Germany 750,000
Austria and Bohemia 262,000
Norway and Sweden 62,500
Russia 180,000
Holland 25,000
Spain 90,000
Italy 160,000
------- 3,419,500 bales
In America 600,000
------- 600,000 "
In India--
Mills 3,900,000
Local 500,000
--------- 4,400,000 "
---------------
8,419,500 bales
Statistics of consumption of jute, rejections and cuttings.
+----------------------------+-----------+-----------+-----------+
| Consumption. | 1894. | 1904. | 1906. |
| | Bales. | Bales. | Bales. |
+----------------------------+-----------+-----------+-----------+
| United Kingdom | 1,200,000 | 1,200,000 | 1,295,000 |
| Continent | 1,100,000 | 1,800,000 | 2,124,500 |
| America | 500,000 | 500,000 | 600,000 |
| Indian mills | 1,500,000 | 2,900,000 | 3,900,000 |
| Local Indian consumption | 500,000 | 500,000 | 500,000 |
| +-----------+-----------+-----------+
| Total jute crop consumption| 4,800,000 | 6,900,000 | 8,419,500 |
+----------------------------+-----------+-----------+-----------+
A number of experiments in jute cultivation were made during 1906, and
the report showed that very encouraging results were obtained from land
manured with cow-dung. If more scientific attention be given to the
cultivation it is quite possible that what is now considered as 100%
yield may be exceeded.
_Characteristics._--The characters by which qualities of jute are judged
are colour, lustre, softness, strength, length, firmness, uniformity and
absence of roots. The best qualities are of a clear whitish-yellow
colour, with a fine silky lustre, soft and smooth to the touch, and
fine, long and uniform in fibre. When the fibre is intended for goods in
the natural colour it is essential that it should be of a light shade
and uniform, but if intended for yarns which are to be dyed a dark
shade, the colour is not so important. The cultivated plant yields a
fibre with a length of from 6 to 10 ft., but in exceptional cases it has
been known to reach 14 or 15 ft. in length. The fibre is decidedly
inferior to flax and hemp in strength and tenacity; and, owing to a
peculiarity in its microscopic structure, by which the walls of the
separate cells composing the fibre vary much in thickness at different
points, the single strands of fibre are of unequal strength. Recently
prepared fibre is always stronger, more lustrous, softer and whiter than
such as has been stored for some time--age and exposure rendering it
brown in colour and harsh and brittle in quality. Jute, indeed, is much
more woody in texture than either flax or hemp, a circumstance which may
be easily demonstrated by its behaviour under appropriate reagents; and
to that fact is due the change in colour and character it undergoes on
exposure to the air. The fibre bleaches with facility, up to a certain
point, sufficient to enable it to take brilliant and delicate shades of
dye colour, but it is with great difficulty brought to a pure white by
bleaching. A very striking and remarkable fact, which has much practical
interest, is its highly hygroscopic nature. While in a dry position and
atmosphere it may not possess more than 6% of moisture, under damp
conditions it will absorb as much as 23%.
Sir G. Watt, in his _Dictionary of the Economic Products of India_,
mentions the following eleven varieties of jute fibre: Serajganji,
Narainganji, Desi, Deora, Uttariya, Deswal, Bakrabadi, Bhatial,
Karimginji, Mirganji and Jungipuri. There are several other varieties
of minor importance. The first four form the four classes into which
the commercial fibre is divided, and they are commonly known as
Serajgunge, Naraingunge, Daisee and Dowrah. Serajgunge is a soft
fibre, but it is superior in colour, which ranges from white to grey.
Naraingunge is a strong fibre, possesses good spinning qualities, and
is very suitable for good warp yarns. Its colour, which is not so high
as Serajgunge, begins with a cream shade and approaches red at the
roots. All the better class yarns are spun from these two kinds.
Daisee is similar to Serajgunge in softness, is of good quality and of
great length; its drawback is the low colour, and hence it is not so
suitable for using in natural colour. It is, however, a valuable fibre
for carpet yarns, especially for dark yarns. Dowrah is a strong, harsh
and low quality fibre, and is used principally for heavy wefts. Each
class is subdivided according to the quality and colour of the
material, and each class receives a distinctive mark called a baler's
mark. Thus, the finest fibres may be divided as follows:--
Superfine first marks.
Extra fine first marks 1st, 2nd and 3rd numbers.
Superior first marks " " "
Standard " " " " "
Good " " " " "
Ordinary " " " " "
Good second " " " "
Ordinary " " " " "
The lower qualities are, naturally, divided into fewer varieties.
[Illustration: FIG. 2.--_Corchorus olitorius_.]
Each baler has his own marks, the fibres of which are guaranteed equal
in equality to some standard mark. It would be impossible to give a
list of the different marks, for there are hundreds, and new marks are
constantly being added. A list of all the principal marks is issued in
book form by the Calcutta Jute Baler's association.
The relative prices of the different classes depend upon the crop,
upon the demand and upon the quality of the fibre; in 1905 the prices
of Daisee jute and First Marks were practically the same, although the
former is always considered inferior to the latter. It does not follow
that a large crop of jute will result in low prices, for the year
1906-1907 was not only a record one for crops, but also for prices. R.
F. C. grade has been as high as L40 per ton, while its lowest recorded
price is L12. Similarly the price for First Marks reached L29, 15s. in
1906 as compared with L9, 5s. per ton in 1897. The following table
shows a few well-known grades with the average prices during December
for the years 1903, 1904, 1905 and 1906.
+-------------------+----------+----------+----------+----------+
| Class. |Dec. 1903.|Dec. 1904.|Dec. 1905.|Dec. 1906.|
+-------------------+----------+----------+----------+----------+
| | L s. d. | L s. d. | L s. d. | L s. d. |
| First marks | 12 15 0 | 16 0 0 | 19 15 0 | 27 15 0 |
| Blacks S C C | 11 2 6 | 14 5 0 | 17 15 0 | 20 15 0 |
| Red S C C | 12 0 0 | 14 17 6 | 18 15 0 | 23 15 0 |
| Native rejections | 8 2 6 | -- | 14 10 0 | 15 17 6 |
| S 4 group | -- | -- | 25 10 0 | 38 0 0 |
| R F block D group | -- | -- | -- | 36 0 0 |
| R F circle D group| 14 10 0 | 16 15 0 | 21 10 0 | -- |
| R F D group | 11 15 0 | 14 2 6 | 17 12 6 | 22 0 0 |
| N B green D | 14 5 0 | -- | 21 0 0 | 32 0 0 |
| Heart T 4 | 14 12 6 | 17 10 0 | 22 10 0 | 34 0 0 |
| Heart T 5 | 14 12 6 | 17 10 0 | 21 0 0 | 31 0 0 |
| Daisee 2 | 12 17 6 | -- | 18 15 0 | 25 10 0 |
| Daisee assortment | 12 10 0 | 14 17 6 | 18 5 0 | -- |
| Mixed cuttings | 4 5 0 | -- | 10 0 0 | 10 0 0 |
+-------------------+----------+----------+----------+----------+
_Jute Manufacture._--Long before jute came to occupy a prominent place
amongst the textile fibres of Europe, it formed the raw material of a
large and important industry throughout the regions of Eastern Bengal.
The Hindu population made the material up into cordage, paper and cloth,
the chief use of the latter being in the manufacture of gunny bags.
Indeed, up to 1830-1840 there was little or no competition with hand
labour for this class of material. The process of weaving gunnies for
bags and other coarse articles by these hand-loom weavers has been
described as follows:--
"Seven sticks or chattee weaving-posts, called _tana para_ or warp,
are fixed upon the ground, occupying the length equal to the measure
of the piece to be woven, and a sufficient number of twine or thread
is wound on them as warp called _tana_. The warp is taken up and
removed to the weaving machine. Two pieces of wood are placed at two
ends, which are tied to the _ohari_ and _okher_ or roller; they are
made fast to the _khoti_. The _belut_ or treadle is put into the warp;
next to that is the _sarsul_; a thin piece of wood is laid upon the
warp, called _chupari_ or regulator. There is no sley used in this,
nor is a shuttle necessary; in the room of the latter a stick covered
with thread called _singa_ is thrown into the warp as woof, which is
beaten in by a piece of plank called _beyno_, and as the cloth is
woven it is wound up to the roller. Next to this is a piece of wood
called _khetone_, which is used for smoothing and regulating the woof;
a stick is fastened to the warp to keep the woof straight."
Gunny cloth is woven of numerous qualities, according to the purpose to
which it is devoted. Some kinds are made close and dense in texture, for
carrying such seed as poppy or rape and sugar; others less close are
used for rice, pulses, and seeds of like size, and coarser and opener
kinds again are woven for the outer cover of packages and for the sails
of country boats. There is a thin close-woven cloth made and used as
garments among the females of the aboriginal tribes near the foot of the
Himalayas, and in various localities a cloth of pure jute or of jute
mixed with cotton is used as a sheet to sleep on, as well as for wearing
purposes. To indicate the variety of uses to which jute is applied, the
following quotation may be cited from the official report of Hem Chunder
Kerr as applying to Midnapur.
"The articles manufactured from jute are principally (1) gunny bags;
(2) string, rope and cord; (3) _kampa_, a net-like bag for carrying
wood or hay on bullocks; (4) _chat_, a strip of stuff for tying bales
of cotton or cloth; (5) _dola_, a swing on which infants are rocked to
sleep; (6) _shika_, a kind of hanging shelf for little earthen pots,
&c.; (7) _dulina_, a floor-cloth; (8) _beera_, a small circular stand
for wooden plates used particularly in _poojahs_; (9) painter's brush
and brush for white-washing; (10) _ghunsi_, a waist-band worn next to
the skin; (11) _gochh-dari_, a hair-band worn by women; (12) _mukbar_,
a net bag used as muzzle for cattle; (13) _parchula_, false hair worn
by players; (14) _rakhi-bandhan_, a slender arm-band worn at the
Rakhi-poornima festival; and (15) _dhup_, small incense sticks burned
at _poojahs_."
The fibre began to receive attention in Great Britain towards the close
of the 18th century, and early in the 19th century it was spun into yarn
and woven into cloth in the town of Abingdon. It is claimed that this
was the first British town to manufacture the material. For years small
quantities of jute were imported into Great Britain and other European
countries and into America, but it was not until the year 1832 that the
fibre may be said to have made any great impression in Great Britain.
The first really practical experiments with the fibre were made in this
year in Chapelshade Works, Dundee, and these experiments proved to be
the foundation of an enormous industry. It is interesting to note that
the site of Chapelshade Works was in 1907 cleared for the erection of a
large new technical college.
In common with practically all new industries progress was slow for a
time, but once the value of the fibre and the cloth produced from it had
become known the development was more rapid. The pioneers of the work
were confronted with many difficulties; most people condemned the fibre
and the cloth, many warps were discarded as unfit for weaving, and any
attempt to mix the fibre with flax, tow or hemp was considered a form of
deception. The real cause of most of these objections was the fact that
suitable machinery and methods of treatment had not been developed for
preparing yarns from this useful fibre. Warden in his _Linen Trade_
says:--
"For years after its introduction the principal spinners refused to
have anything to do with jute, and cloth made of it long retained a
tainted reputation. Indeed, it was not until Mr. Rowan got the Dutch
government, about 1838, to substitute jute yarns for those made from
flax in the manufacture of the coffee bagging for their East Indian
possessions, that the jute trade in Dundee got a proper start. That
fortunate circumstance gave an impulse to the spinning of the fibre
which it never lost, and since that period its progress has been truly
astonishing."
The demand for this class of bagging, which is made from fine hessian
yarns, is still great. These fine Rio hessian yarns form an important
branch of the Dundee trade, and in some weeks during 1906 as many as
1000 bales were despatched to Brazil, besides numerous quantities to
other parts of the world.
For many years Great Britain was the only European country engaged in
the manufacture of jute, the great seat being Dundee. Gradually,
however, the trade began to extend, and now almost every European
country is partly engaged in the trade.
The success of the mechanical method of spinning and weaving of jute in
Dundee and district led to the introduction of textile machinery into
and around Calcutta. The first mill to be run there by power was started
in 1854, while by 1872 three others had been established. In the next
ten years no fewer than sixteen new mills were erected and equipped with
modern machinery from Great Britain, while in 1907 there were
thirty-nine mills engaged in the industry. The expansion of the Indian
power trade may be gathered from the following particulars of the number
of looms and spindles from 1892 to 1906. In one or two cases the number
of spindles is obtained approximately by reckoning twenty spindles per
loom, which is about the average for the Indian mills.
+-------------+------------+--------------+
| Year. | Looms. | Spindles. |
+-------------+------------+--------------+
| 1892-3 | 8,479 | 177,732 |
| 1893-4 | 9,082 | 189,144 |
| 1894-5 | 9,504 | 197,673 |
| 1895-6 | 10,071 | 212,595 |
| 1896-7 | 12,276 | 254,610 |
| 1897-8 | 12,737 | 271,363 |
| 1898-9 | 13,323 | 277,398 |
| 1899-1900 | 14,021 | 293,218 |
| 1900-01 | 15,242 | 315,264 |
| 1901-02 | 16,059 | 329,300 |
| 1902-03 | 17,091 | 350,120 |
| 1904* | 19,901 | 398,020** |
| 1905* | 21,318 | 426,360** |
| 1906* | 26,799 | 520,980** |
+-------------+------------+--------------+
* End of calendar year, the remainder being taken to the 31st of
March, the end of financial year.
** Approximate number of spindles.
The Calcutta looms are engaged for the most part with a few varieties of
the commoner classes of jute fabrics, but the success in this direction
has been really remarkable. Dundee, on the other hand, turns out not
only the commoner classes of fabrics, but a very large variety of other
fabrics. Amongst these may be mentioned the following: Hessian, bagging,
tarpaulin, sacking, scrims, Brussels carpets, Wilton carpets, imitation
Brussels, and several other types of carpets, rugs and matting, in
addition to a large variety of fabrics of which jute forms a part.
Calcutta has certainly taken a large part of the trade which Dundee held
in its former days, but the continually increasing demands for jute
fabrics for new purposes have enabled Dundee to enter new markets and so
to take part in the prosperity of the trade.
The development of the trade with countries outside India from 1828 to
1906 may be seen by the following figures of exports:--
Average per year from 1828 to 1832-33 11,800 cwt.
" " " 1833-34 " 1837-38 67,483 "
" " " 1838-39 " 1842-43 117,047 "
" " " 1843-44 " 1847-48 234,055 "
" " " 1848-49 " 1852-53 439,850 "
" " " 1853-54 " 1857-58 710,826 "
" " " 1858-59 " 1862-63 969,724 "
" " " 1863-64 " 1867-68 2,628,110 "
" " " 1868-69 " 1872-73 4,858,162 "
" " " 1873-74 " 1877-78 5,362,267 "
" " " 1878-79 " 1882-83 7,274,000 "
" " " 1883-84 " 1887-88 8,223,859 "
" " " 1888-89 " 1892-93 10,372,991 "
" " " 1893-94 " 1897-98 12,084,292 "
" " " 1898-99 " 1902-03 11,959,189 "
" " " 1903-04 " 1905-06 13,693,090 "
The subjoined table shows the extent of the trade from an agricultural,
as well as from a manufacturing, point of view. The difference between
the production and the exports represents the native consumption, for
very little jute is sent overland. The figures are taken to the 31st of
March, the end of the Indian financial year.
+--------+-------------+-------------+--------------+
| Year. | Acres under | Production | Exports by |
| | cultivation.| in cwt. | sea in cwt. |
+--------+-------------+-------------+--------------+
| 1893 | 2,181,334 | 20,419,000 | 10,537,512 |
| 1894 | 2,230,570 | 17,863,000 | 8,690,133 |
| 1895 | 2,275,335 | 21,944,400 | 12,976,791 |
| 1896 | 2,248,593 | 19,825,000 | 12,266,781 |
| 1897 | 2,215,105 | 20,418,000 | 11,464,356 |
| 1898 | 2,159,908 | 24,425,000 | 15,023,325 |
| 1899 | 1,690,739 | 19,050,000 | 9,864,545 |
| 1900 | 2,070,668 | 19,329,000 | 9,725,245 |
| 1901 | 2,102,236 | 23,307,000 | 12,414,552 |
| 1902 | 2,278,205 | 26,564,000 | 14,755,115 |
| 1903 | 2,142,700 | 23,489,000 | 13,036,486 |
| 1904 | 2,275,050 | 25,861,000 | 13,721,447 |
| 1905 | 2,899,700 | 26,429,000 | 12,875,312 |
| 1906 | 3,181,600 | 29,945,000 | 14,581,307 |
+--------+-------------+-------------+--------------+
_Manufacture._--In their general features the spinning and weaving of
jute fabrics do not differ essentially as to machinery and processes
from those employed in the manufacture of hemp and heavy flax goods.
Owing, however, to the woody and brittle nature of the fibre, it has to
undergo a preliminary treatment peculiar to itself. The pioneers of the
jute industry, who did not understand this necessity, or rather who did
not know how the woody and brittle character of the fibre could be
remedied, were greatly perplexed by the difficulties they had to
encounter, the fibre spinning badly into a hard, rough and hairy yarn
owing to the splitting and breaking of the fibre. This peculiarity of
jute, coupled also with the fact that the machinery on which it was
first spun, although quite suitable for the stronger and more elastic
fibres for which it was designed, required certain modifications to suit
it to the weaker jute, was the cause of many annoyances and failures in
the early days of the trade.
The first process in the manufacture of jute is termed batching. Batch
setting is the first part of this operation; it consists of selecting
the different kinds or qualities of jute for any predetermined kind of
yarn. The number of bales for a batch seldom exceeds twelve, indeed it
is generally about six, and of these there may be three, four or even
more varieties or marks. The "streaks"[1] or "heads" of jute as they
come from the bale are in a hard condition in consequence of having
been subjected to a high hydraulic pressure during baling; it is
therefore necessary to soften them before any further process is
entered. The streaks are sometimes partly softened or crushed by means
of a steam hammer during the process of opening the bale, then taken
to the "strikers-up" where the different varieties are selected and
hung on pins, and then taken to the jute softening machine. The more
general practice, however, is to employ what is termed a "bale
opener," or "jute crusher." The essential parts of one type of bale
opener are three specially shaped rollers, the peripheries of which
contain a number of small knobs. Two of these rollers are supported in
the same horizontal plane of the framework, while the third or top
roller is kept in close contact by means of weights and springs acting
on each end of the arbor. Another type of machine termed the three
pair roller jute opener is illustrated in fig. 3. The layers from the
different bales are laid upon the feed cloth which carries them up to
the rollers, between which the layers are crushed and partly
separated. The proximity of the weighted roller or rollers to the
fixed ones depends upon the thickness of material passing through the
machine. The fibre is delivered by what is called the delivery cloth,
and the batcher usually selects small streaks of about 1(1/2) lb. to 2
lb. weight each and passes them on to the attendant or feeder of the
softening machine. These small streaks are now laid as regularly as
possible upon the feed-cloth of the softening machine, a general view
of which is shown in fig. 4. The fibre passes between a series of
fluted rollers, each pair of which is kept in contact by spiral
springs as shown in the figure. The standard number of pairs is
sixty-three, but different lengths obtain. There is also a difference
in the structure of the flutes, some being straight, and others
spiral, and each pair may or may not contain the same number of
flutes. The springs allow the top rollers of each pair to rise as the
material passes through the machine. Advantage is taken of this slight
upward and downward movement of the top rollers to automatically
regulate the flow of water and oil upon the material. The apparatus
for this function is placed immediately over the 11th and 12th rollers
of the softening machine and an idea of its construction may be
gathered from fig. 5. In many cases the water and oil are applied by
less automatic, but equally effective, means. The main object is to
see that the liquids are distributed evenly while the fibre is passing
through, and to stop the supply when the machine stops or when no
fibre is passing. The uniform moistening of the fibre in this machine
facilitates the subsequent operations, indeed the introduction of this
preliminary process (originally by hand) constituted the first
important step in the practical solution of the difficulties of jute
spinning. The relative quantities of oil and water depend upon the
quality of the batch. Sometimes both whale and mineral oils are used,
but in most cases the whale oil is omitted. About 1 to 1(1/4) gallons
of oil is the usual amount given per bale of 400 lb. of jute, while
the quantity of water per bale varies from 3 to 7 gallons. The
delivery attendants remove the streaks, give them a twist to
facilitate future handling, and place them on what are termed jute
barrows. The streaks are now handed over to the cutters who cut off
the roots, and finally the material is allowed to remain for twelve to
twenty-four hours to allow the mixture of oil and water to thoroughly
spread over the fibre.
[Illustration: FIG. 3.--Jute Opener. (The three machines shown in this
article are made by Urquhart, Lindsay & Co., Ltd., Dundee.)]
[Illustration: FIG. 4.--Jute Softening Machine.]
When the moisture has spread sufficiently, the material is taken to
the "breaker card," the first machine in the preparing department. A
certain weight of jute, termed a "dollop," is laid upon the feed cloth
for each revolution of the latter. The fibre, which should be arranged
on the sheet as evenly as possible, is carried up by the feed cloth
and passes between the feed roller and the shell on to the large
cylinder. This cylinder, which has a high surface speed, carries part
of the fibre towards the workers and strippers; the surface speed of
the workers being much slower than that of the cylinder. The pins in
the two rollers oppose each other, those of the workers being
"back-set," and this arrangement, combined with the relative angle of
the pins, and the difference in the surface speeds of the two rollers,
results in part of the fibre being broken and carried round by the
worker towards the stripper. This, as its name implies, strips the
fibre off the worker, and carries it round to the cylinder. The pins
of the stripper and cylinder point in the same direction, but since
the surface speed of the cylinder is much greater than the surface
speed of the stripper, it follows that the fibre is combed between the
two, and that part is carried forward by the cylinder to be reworked.
The strippers and workers are in pairs, of which there may be two or
more. After passing the last pair of workers and strippers the fibre
is carried forward towards the doffing roller, the pins of which are
back-set, and the fibre is removed from the cylinder by the doffer,
from which it passes between the drawing and pressing rollers into the
conductor, and finally between the delivery and pressing rollers into
the sliver can. It may be mentioned that more or less breaking takes
place between each pair of rollers, the pins of which are opposed, and
that combing and drawing out obtains between those rollers with pins
pointing in the same direction. The ratio of the surface speeds of the
drawing roller and the feed roller is termed the draft:--
surface speed of drawing roller
------------------------------- = draft.
surface speed of feed roller
In this machine the draft is usually about thirteen.
[Illustration: FIG. 5.--Improved Batching Gear.]
The sliver from the can of the breaker card may be wound into balls,
or it may be taken direct to the finisher card. In the latter method
from eight to fifteen cans are placed behind the feed rollers, and all
the slivers from these cans are united before they emerge from the
machine. The main difference between a breaker card and a finisher
card is that the latter is fitted with finer pins, that it contains
two doffing rollers, and that it usually possesses a greater number of
pairs of workers and strippers--a full circular finisher card having
four sets.
After the fibre has been thoroughly carded by the above machines, the
cans containing the sliver from the finisher card are taken to the
first drawing frame. A very common method is to let four slivers run
into one sliver at the first drawing, then two slivers from the first
drawing are run into one sliver at the second drawing frame. There are
several types of drawing frames, e.g. push-bar or slide, rotary,
spiral, ring, open-link or chain, the spiral being generally used for
the second drawing. All, however, perform the same function, viz.,
combing out the fibres and thus laying them parallel, and in addition
drawing out the sliver. The designation of the machine indicates the
particular method in which the gill pins are moved. These pins are
much finer than those of the breaker and finisher cards, consequently
the fibres are more thoroughly separated. The draft in the first
drawing varies from three to five, while that in the second drawing is
usually five to seven. It is easy to see that a certain amount of
draft, or drawing out of the sliver, is necessary, otherwise the
various doublings would cause the sliver to emerge thicker and thicker
from each machine. The doublings play a very important part in the
appearance of the ultimate rove and yarn, for the chief reason for
doubling threads or slivers is to minimize irregularities of thickness
and of colour in the material. In an ordinary case, the total
doublings in jute from the breaker card to the end of the second
drawing is ninety-six: 12 X 4 X 2 = 96; and if the slivers were made
thinner and more of them used the ultimate result would naturally be
improved.
The final preparing process is that of roving. In this operation there
is no doubling of the slivers, but each sliver passes separately
through the machine, from the can to the spindle, is drawn out to
about eight times its length, and receives a small amount of twist to
strengthen it, in order that it may be successfully wound upon the
roving bobbin by the flyer. The chief piece of mechanism in the roving
frame is the gearing known as the "differential motion." It works in
conjunction with the disk and scroll, the cones, or the expanding
pulley, to impart an intermittingly variable speed to the bobbin (each
layer of the bobbin has its own particular speed which is constant for
the full traverse, but each change of direction of the builder is
accompanied by a quick change of speed to the bobbin). It is essential
that the bobbin should have such a motion, because the delivery of the
sliver and the speed of the flyer are constant for a given size of
rove, whereas the layers of rove on the bobbin increase in length as
the bobbin fills. In the jute roving frame the bobbin is termed the
"follower," because its revolutions per minute are fewer than those of
the flyer. Each layer of rove increases the diameter of the material
on the bobbin shank; hence, at the beginning of each layer, the speed
of the bobbin must be increased, and kept at this increased speed for
the whole traverse from top to bottom or vice versa.
Let R = the revolutions per second of the flyer;
r = the revolutions per second of the bobbin;
d = the diameter of bobbin shaft plus the material;
L = the length of sliver delivered per second;
then (R - r) d.[pi] = L.
In the above expression R, [pi] and L are constant, therefore as d
increases the term (R - r) must decrease; this can happen only when r
is increased, that is, when the bobbin revolves quicker. It is easy to
see from the above expression that if the bobbin were the "leader" its
speed would have to decrease as it filled.
The builder, which receives its motion from the disk and scroll, from
the cones, or from the expanding pulley, has also an intermittingly
variable speed. It begins at a maximum speed when the bobbin is empty,
is constant for each layer, but decreases as the bobbin fills.
The rove yarn is now ready for the spinning frame, where a further
draft of about eight is given. The principles of jute spinning are
similar to those of dry spinning for flax. For very heavy jute yarns
the spinning frame is not used--the desired amount of twist being
given at the roving frame.
The count of jute yarn is based upon the weight in pounds of 14,400
yds., such length receiving the name of "spyndle." The finest yarns
weigh 2(3/4) lb. to 3 lb. per spyndle, but the commonest kinds are 7
lb., 8 lb., 9 lb. and 10 lb. per spyndle. The sizes rise in pounds up
to about 20 lb., then by 2 lb. up to about 50 lb. per spyndle, with
much larger jumps above this weight. It is not uncommon to find 200
lb. to 300 lb. rove yarn, while the weight occasionally reaches 450
lb. per spyndle. The different sizes of yarn are extensively used in a
large variety of fabrics, sometimes alone, sometimes in conjunction
with other fibres, e.g. with worsted in the various kinds of carpets,
with cotton in tapestries and household cloths, with line and tow
yarns for the same fabrics and for paddings, &c., and with wool for
horse clothing. The yarns are capable of being dyed brilliant colours,
but, unfortunately, the colours are not very fast to light. The fibre
can also be prepared to imitate human hair with remarkable closeness,
and advantage of this is largely taken in making stage wigs.
For detailed information regarding jute, the cloths made from it and
the machinery used, see the following works: Watts's _Dictionary of
the Economic Products of India_; Royle's _Fibrous Plants of India_;
Sharp's _Flax, Tow and Jute Spinning_; Leggatt's _Jute Spinning_;
Woodhouse and Milne's _Jute and Linen Weaving_; and Woodhouse and
Milne's _Textile Design: Pure and Applied_. (T. Wo.)
FOOTNOTE:
[1] Also in the forms "streek," "strick" or "strike," as in Chaucer,
_Cant. Tales_, Prologue 676, where the Pardoner's hair is compared
with a "strike of flax." The term is also used of a handful of hemp
or other fibre, and is one of the many technical applications of
"strike" or "streak," which etymologically are cognate words.
JUTERBOG, or GUTERBOG, a town of Germany in the Prussian province of
Brandenburg, on the Nuthe, 39 m. S.W. of Berlin, at the junction of the
main lines of railway from Berlin to Dresden and Leipzig. Pop. (1900),
7407. The town is surrounded by a medieval wall, with three gateways,
and contains two Protestant churches, of which that of St Nicholas (14th
century) is remarkable for its three fine aisles. There are also a Roman
Catholic church, an old town-hall and a modern school. Juterbog carries
on weaving and spinning both of flax and wool, and trades in the produce
of those manufactures and in cattle. Vines are cultivated in the
neighbourhood. Juterbog belonged in the later middle ages to the
archbishopric of Magdeburg, passing to electoral Saxony in 1648, and to
Prussia in 1815. It was here that a treaty over the succession to the
duchy of Julich was made in March 1611 between Saxony and Brandenburg,
and here in November 1644 the Swedes defeated the Imperialists. Two
miles S.W. of the town is the battlefield of Dennewitz where the
Prussians defeated the French on the 6th of September 1813.
JUTES, the third of the Teutonic nations which invaded Britain in the
5th century, called by Bede _Iutae_ or _Iuti_ (see BRITAIN,
ANGLO-SAXON). They settled in Kent and the Isle of Wight together with
the adjacent parts of Hampshire. In the latter case the national name is
said to have survived until Bede's own time, in the New Forest indeed
apparently very much later. In Kent, however, it seems to have soon
passed out of use, though there is good reason for believing that the
inhabitants of that kingdom were of a different nationality from their
neighbours (see KENT, KINGDOM OF). With regard to the origin of the
Jutes, Bede only says that Angulus (Angel) lay between the territories
of the Saxons and the Iutae--a statement which points to their identity
with the Iuti or Jyder of later times, i.e. the inhabitants of Jutland.
Some recent writers have preferred to identify the Jutes with a tribe
called Eucii mentioned in a letter from Theodberht to Justinian (_Mon.
Germ. Hist., Epist. iii._, p. 132 seq.) and settled apparently in the
neighbourhood of the Franks. But these people may themselves have come
from Jutland.
See Bede, _Hist. Eccles_, i. 15, iv. 16. (H. M. C.)
JUTIGALPA, or JUTICALPA, the capital of the department of Jutigalpa in
eastern Honduras, on one of the main roads from the Bay of Fonseca to
the Atlantic coast, and on a small left-hand tributary of the river
Patuca. Pop. (1905), about 18,000. Jutigalpa is the second city of
Honduras, being surpassed only by Tegucigalpa. It is the administrative
centre of a mountainous region rich in minerals, though mining is
rendered difficult by the lack of communications and the unsettled
condition of the country. The majority of the inhabitants are Indians or
half-castes, engaged in the cultivation of coffee, bananas, tobacco,
sugar or cotton.
JUTLAND (Danish _Jylland_), though embracing several islands as well as
a peninsula, may be said to belong to the continental portion of the
kingdom of Denmark. The peninsula (Chersonese or Cimbric peninsula of
ancient geography) extends northward, from a line between Lubeck and the
mouth of the Elbe, for 270 m. to the promontory of the Skaw (Skagen),
thus preventing a natural communication directly east and west between
the Baltic and North Seas. The northern portion only is Danish, and
bears the name Jutland. The southern is German, belonging to
Schleswig-Holstein. The peninsula is almost at its narrowest (36 m.) at
the frontier, but Jutland has an extreme breadth of 110 m. and the
extent from the south-western point (near Ribe) to the Skaw is 180 m.
Jutland embraces nine _amter_ (counties), namely, Hjorring, Thisted,
Aalborg, Ringkjobing, Viborg, Randers, Aarhus, Vejle and Ribe. The main
watershed of the peninsula lies towards the east coast; therefore such
elevated ground as exists is found on the east, while the western slope
is gentle and consists of a low sandy plain of slight undulation. The
North Sea coast (western) and Skagerrack coast (north-western) consist
mainly of a sweeping line of dunes with wide lagoons behind them. In the
south the northernmost of the North Frisian Islands (Fano) is Danish.
Towards the north a narrow mouth gives entry to the Limfjord, or
Liimfjord, which, wide and ramifying among islands to the west, narrows
to the east and pierces through to the Cattegat, thus isolating the
counties of Hjorring and Thisted (known together as Vendsyssel). It is,
however, bridged at Aalborg, and its depth rarely exceeds 12 ft. The
seaward banks of the lagoons are frequently broken in storms, and the
narrow channels through them are constantly shifting. The east coast is
slightly bolder than the west, and indented with true estuaries and
bays. From the south-east the chain of islands forming insular Denmark
extends towards Sweden, the strait between Jutland and Funen having the
name of the Little Belt. The low and dangerous coasts, off which the
seas are generally very shallow, are efficiently served by a series of
lifeboat stations. The western coast region is well compared with the
Landes of Gascony. The interior is low. The Varde, Omme, Skjerne, Stor
and Karup, sluggish and tortuous streams draining into the western
lagoons, rise in and flow through marshes, while the eastern Limfjord is
flanked by the swamps known as Vildmose. The only considerable river is
the Gudenaa, flowing from S.W. into the Randersfjord (Cattegat), and
rising among the picturesque lakes of the county of Aarhus, where the
principal elevated ground in the peninsula is found in the Himmelbjerg
and adjacent hills (exceeding 500 ft.). The German portion of the
peninsula is generally similar to that of western Jutland, the main
difference lying in the occurrence of islands (the North Frisian) off
the west coast in place of sand-bars and lagoons. Erratic blocks are of
frequent occurrence in south Jutland. (For geology, and the general
consideration of Jutland in connexion with the whole kingdom, see
DENMARK.)
Although in ancient times well wooded, the greater portion of the
interior of Jutland consisted for centuries of barren drift-sand, which
grew nothing but heather; but since 1866, chiefly through the
instrumentality of the patriotic Heath association, assisted by annual
contributions from the state, a very large proportion of this region has
been more or less reclaimed for cultivation. The means adopted are: (i.)
the plantation of trees; (ii.) the making of irrigation canals and
irrigating meadows; (iii.) exploring for, extracting and transporting
loam, a process aided by the construction of short light railways; and
(iv.), since 1889, the experimental cultivation of fenny districts. The
activity of the association takes the form partly of giving gratuitous
advice, partly of experimental attempts, and partly of model works for
imitation. The state also makes annual grants directly to owners who are
willing to place their plantations under state supervision, for the sale
of plants at half price to the poorer peasantry, for making protective
or sheltering plantations, and for free transport of marl or loam. The
species of timber almost exclusively planted are the red fir (_Picea
excelsa_) and the mountain pine (_Pinus montana_). This admirable work
quickly caused the population to increase at a more rapid rate in the
districts where it was practised than in any other part of the Danish
kingdom. The counties of Viborg, Ringkjobing and Ribe cover the
principal heath district.
Jutland is well served by railways. Two lines cross the frontier from
Germany on the east and west respectively and run northward near the
coasts. The eastern touches the ports of Kolding, Fredericia, Vejle,
Horsens, Aarhus, Randers, Aalborg on Limfjord, Frederikshavn and Skagen.
On the west the only port of first importance is Esbjerg. The line runs
past Skjerne, Ringkjobing, Vemb and Holstebro to Thisted. Both throw off
many branches and are connected by lines east and west between Kolding
and Esbjerg, Skanderborg and Skjerne, Langaa and Struer on Limfjord via
Viborg. Of purely inland towns only Viborg in the midland and Hjorring
in the extreme north are of importance.
JUTURNA (older form Diuturna, the lasting), an old Latin divinity, a
personification of the never-failing springs. Her original home was on
the river Numicius near Lavinium, where there was a spring called after
her, supposed to possess healing qualities (whence the old Roman
derivation from _juvare_, to help). Her worship was early transferred to
Rome, localized by the Lacus Juturnae near the temple of Vesta, at which
Castor and Pollux, after announcing the victory of lake Regillus, were
said to have washed the sweat from their horses. At the end of the First
Punic War Lutatius Catulus erected a temple in her honour on the Campus
Martius, subsequently restored by Augustus. Juturna was associated with
two festivals: the Juturnalia on the 11th of January, probably a
dedication festival of a temple built by Augustus, and celebrated by the
college of the _fontani_, workmen employed in the construction and
maintenance of aqueducts and fountains; and the Volcanalia on the 23rd
of August, at which sacrifice was offered to Volcanus, the Nymphs and
Juturna, as protectors against outbreaks of fire. In Virgil, Juturna
appears as the sister of Turnus (probably owing to the partial
similarity of the names), on whom Jupiter, to console her for the loss
of her chastity, bestowed immortality and the control of all the lakes
and rivers of Latium. For the statement that she was the wife of Janus
and mother of Fontus (or Fons), the god of fountains, Arnobius (_Adv.
gentes_ iii. 29) is alone responsible.
See Virgil, _Aeneid_, xii. 139 and Servius _ad loc._; Ovid, _Fasti_,
ii. 583-616; Valerius Maximus, i. 8. 1; L. Deubner, "Juturna und die
Ausgrabungen auf dem romischen Forum," in _Neue Jahrb. f. das
klassische Altertum_ (1902), p. 370.
JUVENAL (DECIMUS JUNIUS JUVENALIS) (c. 60-140), Roman poet and satirist,
was born at Aquinum. Brief accounts of his life, varying considerably in
details, are prefixed to different MSS. of the works. But their common
original cannot be traced to any competent authority, and some of their
statements are intrinsically improbable. According to the version which
appears to be the earliest:--
"Juvenal was the son or ward of a wealthy freedman; he practised
declamation till middle age, not as a professional teacher, but as an
amateur, and made his first essay in satire by writing the lines on
Paris, the actor and favourite of Domitian, now found in the seventh
satire (lines 90 seq.). Encouraged by their success, he devoted
himself diligently to this kind of composition, but refrained for a
long time from either publicly reciting or publishing his verses. When
at last he did come before the public, his recitations were attended
by great crowds and received with the utmost favour. But the lines
originally written on Paris, having been inserted in one of his new
satires, excited the jealous anger of an actor of the time, who was a
favourite of the emperor, and procured the poet's banishment under the
form of a military appointment to the extremity of Egypt. Being then
eighty years of age, he died shortly afterwards of grief and
vexation."
Some of these statements are so much in consonance with the indirect
evidence afforded by the satires that they may be a series of
conjectures based upon them. The rare passages in which the poet speaks
of his own position, as in satires xi. and xiii., indicate that he was
in comfortable but moderate circumstances. We should infer also that he
was not dependent on any professional occupation, and that he was
separated in social station, and probably too by tastes and manners,
from the higher class to which Tacitus and Pliny belonged, as he was by
character from the new men who rose to wealth by servility under the
empire. Juvenal is no organ of the pride and dignity, still less of the
urbanity, of the cultivated representatives of the great families of the
republic. He is the champion of the more sober virtues and ideas, and
perhaps the organ of the rancours and detraction, of an educated but
depressed and embittered middle class. He lets us know that he has no
leanings to philosophy (xiii. 121) and pours contempt on the serious
epic writing of the day (i. 162). The statement that he was a trained
and practised declaimer is confirmed both by his own words (i. 16) and
by the rhetorical mould in which his thoughts and illustrations are
cast. The allusions which fix the dates when his satires first appeared,
and the large experience of life which they imply, agree with the
statement that he did not come before the world as a professed satirist
till after middle age.
The statement that he continued to write satires long before he gave
them to the world accords well with the nature of their contents and the
elaborate character of their composition, and might almost be inferred
from the emphatic but yet guarded statement of Quintilian in his short
summary of Roman literature. After speaking of the merits of Lucilius,
Horace and Persius as satirists, he adds, "There are, too, in our own
day, distinguished writers of satire whose names will be heard of
hereafter" (_Inst. Or._ x. 1, 94). There is no Roman writer of satire
who could be mentioned along with those others by so judicious a critic,
except Juvenal. The motive which a writer of satire must have had for
secrecy under Domitian is sufficiently obvious; and the necessity of
concealment and self-suppression thus imposed upon the writer may have
permanently affected his whole manner of composition.
So far the original of these lives follows a not improbable tradition.
But when we come to the story of the poet's exile the case is otherwise.
The undoubted reference to Juvenal in Sidonius Apollinaris as the victim
of the rage of an actor only proves that the original story from which
all the varying versions of the lives are derived was generally believed
before the middle of the 5th century of our era. If Juvenal was banished
at the age of eighty, the author of his banishment could not have been
the "enraged actor" in reference to whom the original lines were
written, as Paris was put to death in 83, and Juvenal was certainly
writing satires long after 100. The satire in which the lines now appear
was probably first published soon after the accession of Hadrian, when
Juvenal was not an octogenarian but in the maturity of his powers. The
cause of the poet's banishment at that advanced age could not therefore
have been either the original composition or the first publication of
the lines.
An expression in xv. 45 is quoted as a proof that Juvenal had visited
Egypt. He may have done so as an exile or in a military command; but it
seems hardly consistent with the importance which the emperors attached
to the security of Egypt, or with the concern which they took in the
interests of the army, that these conditions were combined at an age so
unfit for military employment. If any conjecture is warrantable on so
obscure a subject, it is more likely that this temporary disgrace should
have been inflicted on the poet by Domitian. Among the many victims of
Juvenal's satire it is only against him and against one of the vilest
instruments of his court, the Egyptian Crispinus, that the poet seems to
be animated by personal hatred. A sense of wrong suffered at their hands
may perhaps have mingled with the detestation which he felt towards them
on public grounds. But if he was banished under Domitian, it must have
been either before or after 93, at which time, as we learn from an
epigram of Martial, Juvenal was in Rome.
More ancient evidence is supplied by an inscription found at Aquinum,
recording, so far as it has been deciphered, the dedication of an altar
to Ceres by a Iunius Iuvenalis, tribune of the first cohort of
Dalmatians, _duumvir quinquennalis_, and _flamen Divi Vespasiani_, a
provincial magistrate whose functions corresponded to those of the
censor at Rome. This Juvenalis may have been the poet, but he may
equally well have been a relation. The evidence of the satires does not
point to a prolonged absence from the metropolis. They are the product
of immediate and intimate familiarity with the life of the great city.
An epigram of Martial, written at the time when Juvenal was most
vigorously employed in their composition, speaks of him as settled in
Rome. He himself hints (iii. 318) that he maintained his connexion with
Aquinum, and that he had some special interest in the worship of the
"Helvinian Ceres." Nor is the tribute to the national religion implied
by the dedication of the altar to Ceres inconsistent with the beliefs
and feelings expressed in the satires. While the fables of mythology are
often treated contemptuously or humorously by him, other passages in the
satires clearly imply a conformity to, and even a respect for, the
observances of the national religion. The evidence as to the military
post filled by Juvenal is curious, when taken in connexion with the
confused tradition of his exile in a position of military importance.
But it cannot be said that the satires bear traces of military
experience; the life described in them is rather such as would present
itself to the eyes of a civilian.
The only other contemporary evidence which affords a glimpse of
Juvenal's actual life is contained in three epigrams of Martial. Two of
these (vii. 24 and 91) were written in the time of Domitian, the third
(xii. 18) early in the reign of Trajan, after Martial had retired to his
native Bilbilis. The first attests the strong regard which Martial felt
for him; but the subject of the epigram seems to hint that Juvenal was
not an easy person to get on with. In the second, addressed to Juvenal
himself, the epithet _facundus_ is applied to him, equally applicable to
his "eloquence" as satirist or rhetorician. In the last Martial imagines
his friend wandering about discontentedly through the crowded streets of
Rome, and undergoing all the discomforts incident to attendance on the
levees of the great. Two lines in the poem suggest that the satirist,
who inveighed with just severity against the worst corruptions of Roman
morals, was not too rigid a censor of the morals of his friend. Indeed,
his intimacy with Martial is a ground for not attributing to him
exceptional strictness of life.
The additional information as to the poet's life and circumstances
derivable from the satires themselves is not important. He had enjoyed
the training which all educated men received in his day (i. 15); he
speaks of his farm in the territory of Tibur (xi. 65), which furnished a
young kid and mountain asparagus for a homely dinner to which he invites
a friend during the festival of the Megalesia. From the satire in which
this invitation is contained we are able to form an idea of the style in
which he habitually lived, and to think of him as enjoying a hale and
vigorous age (203), and also as a kindly master of a household (159
seq.). The negative evidence afforded in the account of his
establishment suggests the inference that, like Lucilius and Horace,
Juvenal had no personal experience of either the cares or the softening
influence of family life. A comparison of this poem with the invitation
of Horace to Torquatus (_Ep._ i. 5) brings out strongly the differences
not in urbanity only but in kindly feeling between the two satirists.
Gaston Boissier has drawn from the indications afforded of the career
and character of the persons to whom the satires are addressed most
unfavourable conclusions as to the social circumstances and associations
of Juvenal. If we believe that these were all real people, with whom
Juvenal lived in intimacy, we should conclude that he was most
unfortunate in his associates, and that his own relations to them were
marked rather by outspoken frankness than civility. But they seem to be
more "nominis umbrae" than real men; they serve the purpose of enabling
the satirist to aim his blows at one particular object instead of
declaiming at large. They have none of the individuality and traits of
personal character discernible in the persons addressed by Horace in his
_Satires_ and _Epistles_. It is noticeable that, while Juvenal writes of
the poets and men of letters of a somewhat earlier time as if they were
still living, he makes no reference to his friend Martial or the younger
Pliny and Tacitus, who wrote their works during the years of his own
literary activity. It is equally noticeable that Juvenal's name does not
appear in Pliny's letters.
The times at which the satires were given to the world do not in all
cases coincide with those at which they were written and to which they
immediately refer. Thus the manners and personages of the age of
Domitian often supply the material of satiric representation, and are
spoken of as if they belonged to the actual life of the present,[1]
while allusions even in the earliest show that, as a finished literary
composition, it belongs to the age of Trajan. The most probable
explanation of these discrepancies is that in their present form the
satires are the work of the last thirty years of the poet's life, while
the first nine at least may have preserved with little change passages
written during his earlier manhood. The combination of the impressions,
and, perhaps of the actual compositions, of different periods also
explains a certain want of unity and continuity found in some of them.
There is no reason to doubt that the sixteen satires which we possess
were given to the world in the order in which we find them, and that
they were divided, as they are referred to in the ancient grammarians,
into five books. Book I., embracing the first five satires, was written
in the freshest vigour of the author's powers, and is animated with the
strongest hatred of Domitian. The publication of this book belongs to
the early years of Trajan. The mention of the exile of Marius (49) shows
that it was not published before 100. In the second satire, the lines 29
seq.,
"Qualis erat nuper tragico pollutus adulter
Concubitu,"
show that the memory of one of the foulest scandals of the reign of
Domitian was still fresh in the minds of men. The third satire, imitated
by Samuel Johnson in his _London_, presents such a picture as Rome may
have offered to the satirist at any time in the 1st century of our era;
but it was under the worst emperors, Nero and Domitian, that the arts of
flatterers and foreign adventurers were most successful, and that such
scenes of violence as that described at 277 seq. were most likely to
occur;[2] while the mention of Veiento (185) as still enjoying influence
is a distinct reference to the court of Domitian. The fourth, which
alone has any political significance, and reflects on the emperor as a
frivolous trifler rather than as a monster of lust and cruelty, is the
reproduction of a real or imaginary scene from the reign of Domitian,
and is animated by the profoundest scorn and loathing both of the tyrant
himself and of the worst instruments of his tyranny. The fifth is a
social picture of the degradation to which poor guests were exposed at
the banquets of the rich, but many of the epigrams of Martial and the
more sober evidence of one of Pliny's letters show that the picture
painted by Juvenal, though perhaps exaggerated in colouring, was drawn
from a state of society prevalent during and immediately subsequent to
the times of Domitian.[3] Book II. consists of the most elaborate of the
satires, by many critics regarded as the poet's masterpiece, the famous
sixth satire, directed against the whole female sex, which shares with
Domitian and his creatures the most cherished place in the poet's
antipathies. It shows certainly no diminution of vigour either in its
representation or its invective. The time at which this satire was
composed cannot be fixed with certainty, but some allusions render it
highly probable that it was given to the world in the later years of
Trajan, and before the accession of Hadrian. The date of the publication
of Book III., containing the seventh, eighth and ninth satires, seems to
be fixed by its opening line to the first years after the accession of
Hadrian. In the eighth satire another reference is made (120) to the
misgovernment of Marius in Africa as a recent event, and at line 51
there may be an allusion to the Eastern wars that occupied the last
years of Trajan's reign. The ninth has no allusion to determine its
date, but it is written with the same outspoken freedom as the second
and the sixth, and belongs to the period when the poet's power was most
vigorous, and his exposure of vice most uncompromising. In Book IV.,
comprising the famous tenth, the eleventh and the twelfth satires, the
author appears more as a moralist than as a pure satirist. In the tenth,
the theme of the "vanity of human wishes" is illustrated by great
historic instances, rather than by pictures of the men and manners of
the age; and, though the declamatory vigour and power of expression in
it are occasionally as great as in the earlier satires, and although
touches of Juvenal's saturnine humour, and especially of his misogyny,
appear in all the satires of this book, yet their general tone shows
that the white heat of his indignation is abated; and the lines of the
eleventh, already referred to (201 seq.),
"Spectent juvenes quos clamor et audax
Sponsio, quos cultae decet assedisse puellae:
Nostra bibat vernum contrada cuticula solem,"
leave no doubt that he was well advanced in years when they were
written.
Two important dates are found in Book V., comprising satires xiii.-xvi.
At xiii. 16 Juvenal speaks of his friend Calvinus as now past sixty
years of age, having been born in the consulship of Fonteius. Now L.
Fonteius Capito was consul in 67. Again at xv. 27 an event is said to
have happened in Egypt "nuper consule Iunco." There was a L. Aemilius
Iuncus consul _suffectus_ in 127. The fifth book must therefore have
been published some time after this date. More than the fourth, this
book bears the marks of age, both in the milder tone of the sentiments
expressed, and in the feebler power of composition exhibited. The last
satire is now imperfect, and the authenticity both of this and of the
fifteenth has been questioned, though on insufficient grounds.
Thus the satires were published at different intervals, and for the most
part composed between 100 and 130, but the most powerful in feeling and
vivid in conception among them deal with the experience and impressions
of the reign of Domitian, occasionally recall the memories or traditions
of the times of Nero and Claudius, and reproduce at least one startling
page from the annals of Tiberius.[4] The same overmastering feeling
which constrained Tacitus (_Agric._ 2, 3), when the time of long
endurance and silence was over, to recall the "memory of the former
oppression," acted upon Juvenal. There is no evidence that these two
great writers, who lived and wrote at the same time, who were animated
by the same hatred of the tyrant under whom the best years of their
manhood were spent, and who both felt most deeply the degradation of
their times, were even known to one another. Tacitus belonged to the
highest official and senatorial class, Juvenal apparently to the middle
class and to that of the struggling men of letters; and this difference
in position had much influence in determining the different bent of
their genius, and in forming one to be a great national historian, the
other to be a great social satirist. If the view of the satirist is
owing to this circumstance more limited in some directions, and his
taste and temper less conformable to the best ancient standards of
propriety, he is also saved by it from prejudices to which the
traditions of his class exposed the historian. But both writers are
thoroughly national in sentiment, thoroughly masculine in tone. No
ancient authors express so strong a hatred of evil. The peculiar
greatness and value of both Juvenal and Tacitus is that they did not
shut their eyes to the evil through which they had lived, but deeply
resented it--the one with a vehement and burning passion, like the
"saeva indignatio" of Swift, the other with perhaps even deeper but more
restrained emotions of mingled scorn and sorrow, like the scorn and
sorrow of Milton when "fallen on evil days and evil tongues." In one
respect there is a difference. For Tacitus the prospect is not wholly
cheerless, the detested tyranny was at an end, and its effects might
disappear with a more beneficent rule. But the gloom of Juvenal's
pessimism is unlighted by hope.
A. C. Swinburne has suggested that the secret of Juvenal's concentrated
power consisted in this, that he knew what he hated, and that what he
did hate was despotism and democracy. But it would be hardly true to say
that the animating motive of his satire was political. It is true that
he finds the most typical examples of lust, cruelty, levity and weakness
in the emperors and their wives--in Domitian, Otho, Nero, Claudius and
Messalina. It is true also that he shares in the traditional idolatry of
Brutus, that he strikes at Augustus in his mention of the "three
disciples of Sulla," and that he has no word of recognition for what
even Tacitus acknowledges as the beneficent rule of Trajan. So too his
scorn for the Roman populace of his time, who cared only for their dole
of bread and the public games, is unqualified. But it is only in
connexion with its indirect effects that he seems to think of despotism;
and he has no thought of democracy at all. It is not for the loss of
liberty and of the senatorian rule that he chafes, but for the loss of
the old national manliness and self-respect. This feeling explains his
detestation of foreign manners and superstitions, his loathing not only
of inhuman crimes and cruelties but even of the lesser derelictions from
self-respect, his scorn of luxury and of art as ministering to luxury,
his mockery of the poetry and of the stale and dilettante culture of his
time, and perhaps, too, his indifference to the schools of philosophy
and his readiness to identify all the professors of stoicism with the
reserved and close-cropped puritans, who concealed the worst vices under
an outward appearance of austerity. The great fault of his character, as
it appears in his writings, is that he too exclusively indulged this
mood. It is much more difficult to find what he loved and admired than
what he hated. But it is characteristic of his strong nature that, where
he does betray any sign of human sympathy or tenderness, it is for those
who by their weakness and position are dependent on others for their
protection--as for "the peasant boy with the little dog, his
playfellow,"[5] or for "the home-sick lad from the Sabine highlands, who
sighs for his mother whom he has not seen for a long time, and for the
little hut and the familiar kids."[6]
If Juvenal is to be ranked as a great moralist, it is not for his
greatness and consistency as a thinker on moral questions. In the
rhetorical exaggeration of the famous tenth satire, for instance, the
highest energies of patriotism--the gallant and desperate defence of
great causes, by sword or speech--are quoted as mere examples of
disappointed ambition; and, in the indiscriminate condemnation of the
arts by which men sought to gain a livelihood, he leaves no room for the
legitimate pursuits of industry. His services to morals do not consist
in any positive contributions to the notions of active duty, but in the
strength with which he has realized and expressed the restraining
influence of the old Roman and Italian ideal of character, and also of
that religious conscience which was becoming a new power in the world.
Though he disclaims any debt to philosophy (xiii. 121), yet he really
owes more to the "Stoica dogmata," then prevalent, than he is aware of.
But his highest and rarest literary quality is his power of painting
characters, scenes, incidents and actions, whether from past history or
from contemporary life. In this power, which is also the great power of
Tacitus, he has few equals and perhaps no superior among ancient
writers. The difference between Tacitus and Juvenal in power of
representation is that the prose historian is more of an imaginative
poet, the satirist more of a realist and a grotesque humorist. Juvenal
can paint great historical pictures in all their detail--as in the
famous representation of the fall of Sejanus; he can describe a
character elaborately or hit it off with a single stroke. The picture
drawn may be a caricature, or a misrepresentation of the fact--as that
of the father of Demosthenes, "blear-eyed with the soot of the glowing
mass," &c.--but it is, with rare exceptions, realistically conceived,
and it is brought before us with the vivid touches of a Defoe or a
Swift, or of the great pictorial satirist of the 18th century, Hogarth.
Yet even in this, his most characteristic talent, his proneness to
exaggeration, the attraction which coarse and repulsive images have for
his mind, and the tendency to sacrifice general effect to minuteness of
detail not infrequently mar his best effects.
The difficulty is often felt of distinguishing between a powerful
rhetorician and a genuine poet, and it is felt particularly in the case
of Juvenal. He himself knew and has well described (vii. 53 seq.) the
conditions under which a great poet could flourish; and he felt that his
own age was incapable of producing one. He has little sense of beauty
either in human life or nature. Whenever such sense is evoked it is only
as a momentary relief to his prevailing sense of the hideousness of
contemporary life, or in protest against what he regarded as the
enervating influences of art. Even his references to the great poets of
the past indicate rather a _blase_ sense of indifference and weariness
than a fresh enjoyment of them. Yet his power of touching the springs of
tragic awe and horror is a genuine poetical gift, of the same kind as
that which is displayed by some of the early English dramatists. But he
is, on the whole, more essentially a great rhetorician than a great
poet. His training, the practical bent of his understanding, his strong
but morose character, the circumstances of his time, and the materials
available for his art, all fitted him to rebuke his own age and all
after-times in the tones of a powerful preacher, rather than charm them
with the art of an accomplished poet. The composition of his various
satires shows no negligence, but rather excess of elaboration; but it
produces the impression of mechanical contrivance rather than of organic
growth. His movement is sustained and powerful, but there is no rise and
fall in it. The verse is most carefully constructed, and is also most
effective, but it is so with the rhetorical effectiveness of Lucan, not
with the musical charm of Virgil. The diction is full, even to excess,
of meaning, point and emphasis. Few writers have added so much to the
currency of quotation. But his style altogether wants the charm of ease
and simplicity. It wearies by the constant strain after effect, its
mock-heroics and allusive periphrasis, and excites distrust by its want
of moderation.
On the whole no one of the ten or twelve really great writers of ancient
Rome leaves on the mind so mixed an impression, both as a writer and as
a man, as Juvenal. He has little, if anything at all, of the high
imaginative mood--the mood of reverence and noble admiration--which made
Ennius, Lucretius and Virgil the truest poetical representatives of the
genius of Rome. He has nothing of the wide humanity of Cicero, of the
urbanity of Horace, of the ease and grace of Catullus. Yet he represents
another mood of ancient Rome, the mood natural to her before she was
humanized by the lessons of Greek art and thought. If we could imagine
the elder Cato living under Domitian, cut off from all share in public
life, and finding no outlet for his combative energy except in
literature, we should perhaps understand the motives of Juvenal's satire
and the place which is his due as a representative of the genius of his
country. As a man he shows many of the strong qualities of the old Roman
plebeian--the aggressive boldness, the intolerance of superiority and
privilege, which animated the tribunes in their opposition to the
senatorian rule. Even where we least like him we find nothing small or
mean to alienate our respect from him. Though he loses no opportunity of
being coarse, he is not licentious; though he is often truculent, he
cannot be called malignant. It is, indeed, impossible to say what
motives of personal chagrin, of love of detraction, of the mere literary
passion for effective writing, may have contributed to the indignation
which inspired his verse. But the prevailing impression we carry away
after reading him is that in all his early satires he was animated by a
sincere and manly detestation of the tyranny and cruelty, the debauchery
and luxury, the levity and effeminacy, the crimes and frauds, which we
know from other sources were then rife in Rome, and that a more serene
wisdom and a happier frame of mind were attained by him when old age had
somewhat allayed the fierce rage which vexed his manhood.
AUTHORITIES.--The remarkable statements in a "life" found in a late
Italian MS. (Barberini, viii. 18), "Iunius Iuvenalis Aquinas Iunio
Iuvenale patre matre vero Septumuleia ex Aquinati municipio Claudio
Nerone et L. Antistio consulibus (55) natus est, sororem habuit
Septumuleiam quae Fuscino (_Sat._ xiv. 1) nupsit," though not
necessarily false, cannot be accepted without confirmation.
The earliest evidence for the banishment of Juvenal is that of
Sidonius Apollinaris (c. 480), _Carm._ ix. 269, "Non qui tempore
Caesaris secundi | Aeterno coluit Tomos reatu | Nec qui consimili
deinde casu | Ad vulgi tenuem strepentis auram | Irati fuit histrionis
exul," lines which by the exact parallel drawn between Ovid's fate and
Juvenal's imply the belief that Juvenal died in exile. The banishment
is also mentioned by J. Malalas, a Greek historian subsequent to
Justinian, who gives the place as Pentapolis in Africa, _Chron._ x.
262, Dindorf. The inscription (on a stone now lost) is as follows, the
words and letters in brackets being the conjectural restorations of
scholars:--"[Cere] ri sacrum | [D. Iu] nius Iuvenalis | trib. coh. [I]
Delmatarum | II vir quinq. flamen | divi Vespasiani | vovit
dedicav[it] que | sua pec.," _Corp. inscr. lat._ X. 5382, xiii. 201
sqq. The best of the known manuscripts of Juvenal (P) is at
Montpellier (125); but there are several others which cannot be
neglected. Amongst these may be specially mentioned the Bodleian MS.
(Canon. Lat. 41), which contains a portion of Satire vi., the
existence of which was unknown until E. O. Winstedt published it in
the _Classical Review_ (1899), pp. 201 seq. Another fragment in the
Bibliotheque Nationale was described by C. E. Stuart in the _Classical
Quarterly_ (Jan. 1909). Numerous scholia and glossaries attest the
interest taken in Juvenal in post-classical times and the middle ages.
There are two classes of scholia--the older or "Pithoeana," first
published by P. Pithoeus, and the "Cornutus scholia" of less value,
specimens of which have been published by various scholars. The
earliest edition which need now be mentioned is that of P. Pithoeus,
1585, in which P was first used for the text. Amongst later ones we
may mention the commentaries of Ruperti (1819) and C. F. Heinrich
(1839, with the old scholia), O. Jahn (1851, critical with the old
scholia), A. Weidner (1889), L. Friedlander (1895, with a full verbal
index). The most useful English commentaries are those of J. E. B.
Mayor (a voluminous and learned commentary on thirteen of the
_Satires_, ii., vi. and ix. being omitted), J. D. Lewis (1882, with a
prose translation) and J. D. Duff (1898, expurgated, and ii. and ix.
being omitted). There are recent critical texts: conservative and
chiefly based on P, by F. Buecheler (1893, with selections from the
scholia) and S. G. Owen (in the Oxford Series of Texts); on the other
side, by A. E. Housman (1905) and by the same, but with fewer
innovations, in the new _Corpus poetarum latinorum_, fasc. v. The two
last-named editors alone give the newly discovered lines of Satire vi.
There are no recent translations of Juvenal into English verse. Dryden
translated i., iii., vi., x. and xvi., the others being committed to
inferior hands. Other versions are Gifford's (1802), of some merit,
and C. Badham's (1814). Johnson's imitations of Satires iii. and x.
are well known. For the numerous articles and contributions to the
criticism and elucidation of the _Satires_, reference should be made
to Teuffel's _Geschichte der romischen Litteratur_ (Eng. trans. by
Warre), S 331, and Schanz, ditto (1901, ii. S 2, S 420a).
(W. Y. S.; J. P. P.)
FOOTNOTES:
[1] This is especially noticeable in the seventh satire, but it
applies also to the mention of Crispinus, Latinus, the class of
_delatores_, &c., in the first, to the notice of Veiento in the
third, of Rubellius Blandus in the eighth, of Gallicus in the
thirteenth, &c.
[2] Cf. Tacitus, _Annals_, xiii. 25.
[3] Pliny's remarks on the vulgarity as well as the ostentation of
his host imply that he regarded such behaviour as exceptional, at
least in the circle in which he himself lived (_Ep._ ii. 6).
[4] x. 56-107.
[5]
... "Meliusne hic rusticus infans
Cum matre et casulis et conlusore catello," &c.--ix. 60.
[6] xi. 152, 153.
JUVENCUS, GAIUS VETTIUS AQUILINUS, Christian poet, flourished during the
reign of Constantine the Great. Nothing is known of him except that he
was a Spanish presbyter of distinguished family. About 330 he published
his _Libri evangeliorum IV._, each book containing about 800 hexameters.
The division into books is possibly a reminiscence of the number of the
Gospels. The work itself, written with the idea of ousting the
absurdities of Pagan mythology and replacing them by the truths of
Christianity, may be called the first Christian epic. In the _Praefatio_
the author expresses the hope that the sacredness of his subject may
procure him safety at the final conflagration of the world and admission
into heaven. The whole is, in the main, a poetical version of the Gospel
of Matthew, the other evangelists only being used for supplementary
details. It is founded upon a pre-vulgate Latin translation, although
there is evidence that Juvencus also consulted the Greek. In spite of
metrical irregularities, the language and style are simple and show good
taste, being free from the artificiality of other Christian poets and
prose writers, and the author has made excellent use of Virgil (his
chief model) and other classical writers. Juvencus set the fashion of
verse translations of the Bible, and the large number of MSS. of his
poem mentioned in lists and still extant are sufficient evidence of its
great popularity. According to Jerome, he was also the author of some
poems on the sacraments, but no trace of these has survived. The Latin
_Heptateuch_, a hexameter version of the first seven books of the Old
Testament, has been attributed to Juvencus amongst others; but it is now
generally supposed to be the work of a certain Cyprianus, a Gaul who
lived in the 6th century, possibly a bishop of Toulon, author of the
_Life of Caesarius_, bishop of Arelate (Arles).
See M. Manitius, _Geschichte der christlich-lateinischen Poesie_
(1891); A. Ebert, _Allgemeine Geschichte der Literatur des
Mittelalters_, vol. i. (1889); editions of Juvencus by C. Marold
(1886); J. Humer in _Corpus scriptorum ecclesiasticorum latinorum_,
vol. xxiv. (Vienna, 1891); J. T. Hatfield, _A Study of Juvencus_
(1890), dealing with syntax, metre and language; editions of the
_Heptateuch_ by J. E. B. Mayor (1889; reviewed by W. Sanday in
_Classical Review_, October 1889, and by J. T. Hatfield in _American
Journal of Philology_, vol. xi., 1890), and R. Peiper, vol. xxiii. of
the Vienna series above.
JUVENILE OFFENDERS. In modern social science the question of the proper
penal treatment of juvenile (i.e. non-adult) offenders has been
increasingly discussed; and the reformatory principle, first applied in
the case of children, has even been extended to reclaimable adult
offenders (juveniles in crime, if not in age) in a way which brings them
sufficiently within the same category to be noticed in this article. In
the old days the main idea in England was to use the same penal methods
for all criminals, young and old; when the child broke the law he was
sent to prison like his elders. It was only in comparatively recent
times that it was realized that child criminals were too often the
victims to circumstances beyond their own control. They were cursed with
inherited taint; they were brought up among evil surroundings; they
suffered from the culpable neglect of vicious parents, and still more
from bad example and pernicious promptings. They were rather potential
than actual criminals, calling for rescue and regeneration rather than
vindictive reprisals. Under the old system a painstaking English gaol
chaplain calculated that 58% of all criminals had made their first lapse
at fifteen. Boys and girls laughed at imprisonment. Striplings of
thirteen and fourteen had been committed ten, twelve, sixteen or
seventeen times. Religion and moral improvement were little regarded in
prisons, industrial and technical training were impossible. The chief
lesson learnt was an intimate and contemptuous acquaintance with the
demoralizing interior of a gaol. There were at one time in London 200
"flash houses" frequented by 6000 boys trained and proficient in
thieving and depredation.
The substantial movement for reform dates from the protests of Charles
Dickens, who roused public opinion to such an extent that the first
Reformatory School Act was passed in 1854. Sporadic efforts to meet the
evil had indeed been made earlier. In 1756 the Marine Society
established a school for the reception and reform of younger criminals;
in 1788 the City of London formed a similar institution, which grew much
later into the farm school at Redhlll. In 1838 an act of parliament
created an establishment at Parkhurst for the detention and correction
of juvenile offenders, to whom pardon was given conditional on their
entrance into some charitable institution. Parkhurst was technically a
prison, and the system combined industrial training with religious and
educational instruction. These earlier efforts had, however, been quite
insufficient to meet the evils, for in the years immediately preceding
1854 crime was being so constantly reinforced in its beginnings, under
the existing penal system, that it threatened to swamp the country.
Unofficial, but more or less accurate, figures showed that between
11,000 and 12,000 juveniles passed annually through the prisons of
England and Wales, a third of the whole number being contributed by
London alone. In 1854 the total reached 14,000. The ages of offenders
ranged from less than twelve to seventeen; 60% of the whole were between
fourteen and seventeen; 46% had been committed more than once; 18% four
times and more.
The Reformatory School Act 1854, which was thrashed out at conferences
held in Birmingham in 1851 and 1853, substituted the school for the
gaol, and all judicial benches were empowered to send delinquents to
schools when they had been guilty of acts punishable by short
imprisonment, the limit of which was at first fourteen and became
afterwards ten days. A serious flaw in this act long survived; this was
the provision that a short period of imprisonment in gaol must precede
reception into the reformatory; it was upheld by well-meaning but
mistaken people as essential for deterrence. But more enlightened
opinion condemned the rule as inflicting an indelible prison taint and
breeding contamination, even with ample and effective safeguards. Wiser
legislation has followed, and an act of 1899 abolished preliminary
imprisonment.
Existing reformatories, or "senior home office schools" as they are
officially styled, in England numbered 44 in 1907. They receive all
juvenile offenders, up to the age of sixteen, who have been convicted of
an offence punishable with penal servitude or imprisonment. The number
of these during the years between 1894 and 1906 constantly varied, but
the figure of the earliest date, 6604, was never exceeded, and in some
years it was considerably less, while in 1906 it was no more than 5586,
though the general population had increased by several millions in the
period. These figures, in comparison with those of 1854, must be deemed
highly satisfactory, even when we take into account that the latter went
up to the age of seventeen. Older offenders, between sixteen and
twenty-one, come within the category of juvenile adults and are dealt
with differently (see _Borstal Scheme_ below).
Other schools must be classed with the reformatory, although they have
no connexion with prisons and deal with youths who are only potential
criminals. The first in importance are the industrial schools. When the
newly devised reformatories were doing excellent service it was realized
that many of the rising generation might some day lapse into evil ways
but were still on the right side and might with proper precautions be
kept there. They wanted preventive, not punitive treatment, and for them
industrial schools were instituted. The germ of these establishments
existed in the Ragged Schools, "intended to educate destitute children
and save them from vagrancy and crime." They had been invented by John
Pounds (1766-1839), a Portsmouth shoemaker, who, early in the 19th
century, was moved with sympathy for these little outcasts and devoted
himself to this good work. The ragged school movement found powerful
support in active philanthropists when public attention was aroused to
the prevalence of juvenile delinquency. The first Industrial School Act
was passed in 1856 and applied only to Scotland. Next year its
provisions were extended to England, and their growth was rapid. There
were 45 schools in the beginning; in 1878 the number had more than been
doubled; in 1907 there were 102 in England and Wales and 31 in Scotland.
The provisions of the Education Acts 1871 and 1876 led to a large
increase in the number of children committed for breaches of the law and
to the establishment of two kinds of subsidiary industrial schools,
short detention of truant schools and day industrial schools in which
children do not reside but receive their meals, their elementary
education and a certain amount of industrial training. The total
admissions to truant schools in 1907 were 1368 boys, and the numbers
actually in the schools on the last day of that year were 1125 with 2568
on licence. The average length of detention was fourteen weeks and three
days on first admission, seventeen weeks and five days on first
re-admission, and twenty-three weeks six days on second re-admission.
The total number of admissions into truant schools from 1878 to the end
of 1907 was 44,315, of whom just half had been licensed and not
returned, 11,239 had been licensed and once re-admitted, 8900 had been
re-admitted twice or oftener.
The day industrial schools owed their origin to another reason than the
enforcement of the Education Acts. It was found that some special
treatment was required for large masses of youths in large cities, who
were in such a neglected or degraded condition that there was little
hope of their growing into healthy men and women or becoming good
citizens. They were left unclean, were ill-fed and insufficiently
clothed, and were not usefully taught. The total number who attended
these day schools in 1907 was 1951 boys and 1232 girls.
The disciplinary system of the English schools is planned upon the
establishment or institution system, as opposed to that of the "family"
or "boarding out" systems adopted in some countries, and some
controversy has been aroused as to the comparative value of the methods.
The British practice has always favoured the well-governed school, with
the proviso that it is kept small so that the head may know all of his
charges. But a compromise has been effected in large establishments by
dividing the boys into "houses," each containing a small manageable
total as a family under an official father or head. Under this system
the idea of the home is maintained, while uniformity of treatment and
discipline is secured by grouping several houses together under one
general authority. The plan of "boarding out" is not generally approved
of in England; the value of the domestic training is questionable and of
uncertain quality, depending entirely upon the character and fitness of
the foster-parents secured. Education must be less systematic in the
private home, industrial training is less easily carried out, and there
can be none of that _esprit de corps_ that stimulates effort in physical
training as applied to athletics and the playing of games. No very
definite decision has been arrived at as to the comparative merits of
institution life and boarding out. Among the Latin races--France, Italy,
Portugal and Spain--the former is as a rule preferred; also in Belgium;
in Germany, Holland and the United States placing out in private
families is very much the rule; in Austria-Hungary and Russia both
methods are in use.
The total admissions to English reformatory schools from their
creation to the 31st of December 1907 amounted to 76,455, or 64,031
boys and 12,424 girls. The total discharges for the same period were
70,890, or 59,081 boys and 11,809 girls. The results may be tested by
the figures for those discharged in 1904, 1905 and 1906:--
_Boys._--3573 were placed out, of whom 66 had died, leaving 3507; of
these it was found that 2735 (or about 78%) were in regular
employment; 158 (or about 4%) were in casual employment; 439 (or about
13%) had been convicted; and 175 (or about 5%) were unknown.
_Girls._--480, of whom 11 had died, leaving 469; of these it was found
that 384 (or about 82%) were in regular employment; 28 (or about 6%)
were in casual employment; 17 (or about 4%) had been convicted, and 40
(or about 8%) were unknown.
For industrial schools, including truant and day schools, the total
admissions, up to the 31st of December 1907, were 153,893, or 120,955
boys and 32,938 girls. The total discharges to the same date
(excluding transfers) were 136,961, or 108,398 boys and 28,563 girls.
The results as tested by those discharged in 1904, 1905 and 1906 were
as follow:--
_Boys._--8909 were placed out, of whom 118 had since died, leaving
8791 to be reported on; of these it was found that 7547 (or about 86%)
were in regular employment; 415 (or about 4.7%) were in casual
employment; 419 (or about 4.7%) convicted or re-committed; and 410 (or
about 4.6%) unknown.
_Girls._--2505 placed out, of whom 50 had died, leaving 2455; of these
2180 (or about 89%) were in regular employment; 112 (or about 4%) were
in casual employment; 21 (or about 1%) convicted or re-committed; and
142 (or about 6%) unknown.
These results are of course wholly independent of those achieved by
the juvenile-adult prison reformatory at Borstal instituted in October
1902. The record of the first year's work of this excellent system
showed that 50% of cases placed out had done well, thanks to the
system and philanthropic labours of the Borstal Association.
An interesting point in regard to the reclamation of these criminally
inclined juveniles is the nature of the employments to which they have
been recommended, and in which, as shown, they have done so well. In
1904, 1905 and 1906, the total number of boys discharged and placed
was 12,482. By far the largest number of these, nearly a sixth, joined
the army, 679 of them entering the bands; 292 joined the navy; 961 the
mercantile marine; 1567 went to farm service; 414 worked in factories
or mills as skilled hands; but others joined as labourers, a general
class the total of which was 1096. Other jobs found included miners
(629), carters (352), iron or steel workers (214), mechanics (301),
shoemakers (181), tailors (161), shop assistants (228), carpenters
(178), bakers (131), messengers and porters, including 112 errand boys
(315). The balance found employment in smaller numbers at other
trades. The fate of 585 was unknown, 858 had been re-convicted, and
the balance were in unrecorded or casual employment.
The outlets found by the girls from these various schools naturally
follow lines appropriate to their sex and the instruction received.
Out of a total of 2985 discharged in the three years mentioned, 1235
became general servants, 268 housemaids, 203 laundry-maids, 52 cooks,
98 nursemaids, 65 dressmakers, 221 were engaged in factories and
mills, and the balance was made up by marriage, death or casual
employment.
In Ireland the reformatory and industrial school system conforms to
that of Great Britain. There were in 1905 six reformatory and 70
industrial schools in Ireland, mostly under Roman Catholic management.
A short account of the reformatory methods of dealing with juvenile
offenders in certain other countries will fitly find a place here.
_Austria-Hungary._--The law leaves children of less than ten years of
age to domestic discipline, as also children above that age if not
exactly criminal, although the latter may be sent to correctional
schools. There they are detained for varying periods, but never after
twenty years of age, and they may be sent out on licence to situations
or employment found for them. These schools also receive children
between ten and fourteen guilty of crimes which are, however, by law
deemed "contraventions" only; also the destitute between the same ages
and the incorrigible whose parents cannot manage them.
In Hungary the penal code prescribes that children of less than twelve
cannot be charged with offences; those between twelve and sixteen may be
deemed to have acted without discretion, and thus escape sentence, but
are sent to a correctional school where they may be detained till they
are twenty years of age. An excellent system prevails in Hungary by
which the supervision of those liberated is entrusted to a "protector,"
a philanthropic person in the district who visits and reports upon the
conduct of the boys, much like the "probation officer" in the United
States.
_Belgium._--The law of November 1891 places the whole mass of
juveniles--those who are likely to give trouble and those who have
already done so--at the disposal of the state. The system is very
elastic, realizing the infinite variety of childish natures. The purely
paternal regime would be wasted upon the really vicious; a severe
discipline would press too heavily on the well-disposed. Accordingly,
all juveniles, male and female, are divided into six principal classes
with a corresponding treatment, it being strictly ruled that there is no
intermingling of the classes; the very youngest, rescued early, are
never to be associated with the older, who may be already vicious and
degraded and who could not fail to exercise a pernicious influence. One
of the great merits of the Belgian system is that the regulations may be
relaxed, and children of whose amendment good hopes are entertained may
be released provisionally, either to the care of parents and guardians
or to employers, artisans or agriculturists who will teach them a trade.
_Denmark._--There were 61 establishments of all classes for juveniles in
Denmark in 1906, holding some 2000 inmates. In 1874, by the will of
Countess Danner, a large female refuge was founded at Castle Jagerspris,
which holds some 360 girls. Another of the same class is the Royal
Vodrofsvei Bonnehjem at Copenhagen, founded in the same year by Mlle
Schneider. The regime preferred in Denmark is that of the family or the
very small school. The Jagerspris system is to divide the whole number
of 360 into small parties of 20 each under a nurse or official mother.
Employment in Danish schools is mainly agricultural, field labour and
gardening, with a certain amount of industrial training; and on
discharge the inmates go to farms or to apprenticeship, while a few
emigrate.
_France._--There are five methods of disposing of juvenile offenders in
France:--
1. The preliminary or preventative prison (_maisons d'arret_ and _de
justice_) for those arrested and accused.
2. The ordinary prison for all sentenced to less than six months,
whose time of detention is too short to admit of their transfer to a
provincial colony. It also receives children whom parents have found
unmanageable.
3. The public or private penitentiary colony for the irresponsible
children, acquitted as "without discretion," as well as for the guilty
sentenced to more than six months' and less than two years' detention.
4. The correctional colony, where the system is more severe, receiving
all sentenced for more than two years and all who have misconducted
themselves in the milder establishments.
5. Various penitentiary houses for young females, whatever their
particular sentence.
Foremost among French penal reformers stands the name of F. A. Demetz
(1796-1873), the founder of the famous colony of Mettray. M. Demetz was
a judge who, aghast at the evils inflicted upon children whom he was
compelled by law to imprison, left the bench and undertook to find some
other outlet for them. At that time the French law, while it acquitted
minors shown to have acted without discretion, still consigned them for
safe keeping and inevitable contamination to the common gaols. M. Demetz
conceived the idea of an agricultural colony, and in 1840 organized a
small "_societe paternelle_," as it was called, of which he became
vice-president. Another philanthropist, the Vicomte de Bretignieres de
Courteilles, a landed proprietor in Touraine, associated himself in the
enterprise and endowed the institution with land at Mettray near Tours.
The earliest labours at Mettray were in the development of the
institution, but as this approached completion they were applied to
farmwork, agricultural employment being the chief feature of the place.
The motto and device of Mettray was "the moralization of youth by the
cultivation of the soil"; a healthy life in the open air was to replace
the enervating and demoralizing influences of the confined prisons; and
this was effected in the usual farming operations, to which were added
gardening, vine-dressing, the raising of stock and the breeding of
silkworms. The labour was not light; on the contrary, the directors of
the colony sought by constant employment to send their charges to bed
tired, ready to sleep soundly and not romp and chatter in their
dormitories. The excellence of its aims, and the manifestly good results
that were growing out of the system, soon made Mettray a model for
imitation in France and beyond it. Many establishments were planned upon
it, started by the state or private enterprise; penitentiary colonies
were created for boys in connexion with some of the great central
prisons. The colony of Val de Yevre has a good record. It was started by
a private philanthropist, Charles J. M. Lucas, (1803-1889) but after
five-and-twenty years was handed over to the state. Other cognate
establishments are those of Petit Quevilly near Rouen, Petit Bourg near
Paris, St Hiliar and Eysses. There are several female colonies,
especially that of Darnetal at Rouen.
It is for the magistrate or _juge d'instruction_ to select the class of
establishment to which the juvenile delinquents brought before him shall
be committed. The very young, those of twelve years of age and under,
are placed out in the country with families, unless they can be again
entrusted to their parents or committed to _maisons paternels_,
containing very limited numbers, twenty or thirty, in charge of a large
staff. After twelve, and from that age to fourteen or fifteen, the
"ungrateful age" as the French call it, boys are sent to a reformatory
or "preservative school," where they will be under stronger discipline.
For the third class, from fifteen to sixteen or eighteen, stricter
measures are necessary, so as to dispose of them in specially selected
penal colonies, as has already been done at Eysses, where the discipline
is severe, while embodying technical and industrial instruction.
_Germany._--In most parts of the German Empire juvenile delinquents and
neglected youths are treated in the same establishments. No child of
less than twelve years of age can be proceeded against in a court of
law, although in some German states destitute or abandoned children have
been taken at the ages of six, five and even three years. Youths between
twelve and eighteen may be convicted, but their offences are passed over
if they are proved to have acted without discretion. There are many
kinds of correctional institutions and a number of schools not of a
correctional character. These last are generally very small, the largest
taking barely a hundred, but are very numerous. Many private persons
have devoted themselves to the work. Count A. von der Recke-Volmerstein
(1791-1878) about 1821 founded a refuge for neglected children in
Dusselthal, between Dusseldorf and Elberstadt. Pastor T. F. Fliedner
(1800-1864) built up a fine establishment at Kaiserswerth from 1833, in
which was an infant school, a penitentiary and an orphan asylum. Another
famous name is that of W. von Turk (1774-1846), who studied under
Pestalozzi in Switzerland.
A school which has largely influenced public opinion in Great Britain,
as in Germany, is the Rauhe Haus, near Hamburg, founded by Dr Wickern in
1833. This began with a single cottage but had grown in twenty years to
a hamlet of twenty houses, with from twelve to sixteen inmates in each.
The establishment is a Lutheran one; both boys and girls are admitted,
in separate houses, and a marked feature of the place is the number of
"brothers," young men of good character qualifying for rescue work as
superintendents of homes, prison officers and schoolmasters. They take
part in the work and are in constant touch with the boys whom they
closely supervise, being bound to "keep them in sight day and night, eat
with them, sleep in their dormitories, direct their labour, accompany
them to chapel, join in their recreations and sports." These "brothers"
are honourably known throughout the world and have performed a large
work in distant lands as missionaries, prison officers and
schoolmasters. The Rauhe Haus receives three classes of juveniles:
first, the boys, mostly street arabs; second, girls of the same
category; third, children taken as boarders from private families, who
confess their inability to manage them. The instruction given is in
trades, in farming operations, gardening and fruit-raising. The pupils
are largely assisted on release, through the good offices of the
citizens of Hamburg.
_Holland._--In the Low Countries, refuges, called "Godshuis," were
founded as early as the 14th century, intended for the care and shelter
of neglected youth and indigent old age. In the 17th century people came
from all parts of Europe to learn from the Dutch how orphans and
unfortunate children could best be cared for. The Godshuis of Amsterdam
was a vast establishment, into which as many as 4000 juveniles were
sometimes crowded, with such disastrous effects that its name was
changed to that of "pesthuis," and the government in the beginning of
the present century ordered it to be emptied and closed. Other
reformatory institutions in Holland are the Netherlands Mettray, the
reform school of Zetten, near the Arnheim railway station, for
Protestant girls; and that of Alkmaar for boys; the reformatory school
of St Vincent de Paul at Amsterdam for both sexes; the Amsterdam
reformatory for young vagabonds, male and female; the reform school of
Smallepod at Amsterdam. The Netherlands Mettray, which is about five
hours' journey from Amsterdam on a farm called Rissjelt, near Zutphen,
is planned on the model of the French Mettray and was founded about 1855
by M. Suringar, a veteran Dutch philanthropist, long vice-president of
the directors of prisons in Amsterdam.
_Italy._--In Italy there is no distinction between the treatment of the
offending and the neglected or deserted in youth. There are seventeen or
more correctional establishments, eight of which are state institutions
and the rest founded by private benevolence or by charitable
associations or local communities. None of these is exclusively
agricultural; ten are industrial, seven industrial and agricultural
combined. In Italy the age of responsibility is nine, below which no
child can be charged with an offence. The Italian schools are mostly
planned on a large scale. That of Marchiondi Spagliardi accommodates
550, divided among three houses under one supreme head. The Turazza
institution at Treviso holds 380, and there are eight others with from
200 to 300 inmates. The regime is very various; the larger number of
schools are on the congregate system, with daily labour in association
and isolation by night. The "family" method is also practised with small
groups, divisions or companies, into which the children are formed
according to age or conduct.
_Sweden._--All children below the age of sixteen may be sent to a
correctional establishment or boarded out in respectable families:--
1. If they have committed acts punishable by law which indicate moral
perversity and it is deemed advisable to correct them.
2. If they are neglected, ill-used, or if their moral deterioration is
feared from the vicious life and character of parents or friends.
3. If their conduct at school or at home is such that a more severe
correctional treatment is necessary for their rescue.
Under this law the state is also to provide special schools to take all
above ten who have shown peculiar depravity; all who have reached
eighteen and who are not yet thought fit for freedom; all who have
relapsed after provisional release. Sweden is rich in institutions
devoted to the care of destitute and deserted children, all due to the
efforts of the charitable. The largest correctional establishment is
that founded at Hall, near the town of Sodertelge on the shores of the
Baltic. This admirable agricultural colony, modelled on that of Mettray,
owes its existence to the "Oscar-Josephine society," founded by Queen
Josephine, widow of Oscar I.
_United States._--In the words of a report made in 1878 by F. B.
Sanborn, secretary of the American Social Science Society, "America can
justly plume herself upon the work accomplished by her juvenile
reformatories since their inauguration down to the present time." The
first in point of date and still the most considerable of the
reformatories in the United States is that founded in 1825, thanks to
the unwearied efforts of the great American publicist and philanthropist
Edward Livingston, which now has its home on Randall's Island in New
York City. In the following year a reformatory of the same class was
founded in Boston, and another in the year after in Philadelphia. All
were intended to receive criminal youth. There are state reformatories
now in almost all the states of the Union, and those for juvenile adults
in New York and Massachusetts have attracted world-wide attention,
aiming so high and with such an elaboration of means that they deserve
particular description.
The great state reformatory establishment of Elmira, New York, called
into existence in 1889 with the avowed aim of compassing the reformation
of the criminal by new processes, partakes of the system involved in the
treatment of juvenile offenders. It was based upon the principle that
crime ought to be attacked in its beginnings by other than ordinary
punitive and prison methods. Under this view, the right of society to
defend itself by punishment was denied, and it was held that a youthful
offender was more sinned against than sinning. It was urged that his
crime, due largely to inherited defects, mental or physical and vicious
surroundings, was not his own fault, and he had a paramount claim to be
treated differently by the state when in custody. The state was not
justified in using powers of repression to imprison him in the usual
mechanical hard and fast fashion and then return him to society, no
better, possibly worse, than before; it was bound to regenerate him, to
change his nature, improve his physique, and give him a new mental
equipment, so that when again at large he might be fitted to take his
place amongst honest citizens, to earn his living by reputable means and
escape all temptation to drift back into crime. This is the plausible
explanation given for the state reformatory movement, which led to the
creation on such costly and extensive lines of Elmira, and of Concord in
Massachusetts, a cognate establishment. There is very little penal about
the treatment, which is that of a boarding school; the education,
thorough and carried far, includes languages, music, science and
industrial art; diet is plentiful, even luxurious; amusements and varied
recreation are permitted; well stocked libraries are provided with
entertaining books; a prison newspaper is issued (edited by an inmate).
Physical development is sedulously cultivated both by gymnastics and
military exercises, and the whole course is well adapted to change
entirely the character of the individual subjected to it. The trouble
taken in the hope of transforming erring youth into useful members of
society goes still further. The original sentence has been indefinite,
and release on parole will be granted to inmates who pass through the
various courses with credit and are supposed to have satisfied the
authorities of their desire to amend. The limit of detention need not
exceed twelve months, after which parole is possible, although the
average period passed before it is granted is twenty-two months. The
hope of permanent amendment is further sought by the fact that a
situation, generally with good wages and congenial work, provided by the
authorities, awaits every inmate at the time of his discharge. The
inmates, selected from a very large class, are first offenders, but
guilty generally of criminal offences, which include manslaughter,
burglary, forgery, fraud, robbery and receiving. The exact measure of
reformation achieved can never be exactly known, from the absence of
authentic statistics and the difficulty of following up the surveillance
of individuals when released on parole. Reports issued by the manager of
Elmira claim that 81% of those paroled have done well, but these results
are not definitely authenticated. They are based upon the ascertained
good conduct during the term of surveillance, six or twelve months only,
during which time these subjects have not yet spent the gratuities
earned and have probably still kept the situations found for them on
discharge. No doubt the material treated at Elmira and Concord is of a
kind to encourage hope of reformation, as they are first offenders and
presumably not of the criminal classes. Although the processes are open
to criticism, the discipline enforced in these state reformatories does
not err in excessive leniency. They are not "hotels," as has been
sometimes said in ridicule, where prisoners go to enjoy themselves, have
a good time, study Plato and conic sections, and pass out to an assured
future. There is plenty of hard work, mental and physical, and the
"inmates" rather envy their fellows in state prisons. A point to which
great attention is paid is that physical degeneracy lies at the bottom
of the criminal character, and great attention is paid to the
development of nervous energy and strengthening by every means the
normal and healthful functions of the body. A leading feature in the
treatment is the frequency and perfection with which bathing is carried
out. A series of Turkish baths forms a part of the course of
instruction; the baths being fitted elaborately with all the adjuncts of
shower bath, cold douche, ending with gymnastic exercises.
A remarkable and unique institution is the state reformatory for women
at Sherborn, Massachusetts, for women with sentences of more than a
year, who in the opinion of the court are fit subjects for reformatory
treatment. The majority of the inmates were convicted of drunkenness, an
offence which the law of Massachusetts visits with severity--a sentence
of two years being very common. This at once differentiates the class of
women from that in ordinary penal establishments. At the same time we
find that other women guilty of serious crime are sent by the courts to
this prison with a view to their reform. Thus of 352 inmates, while no
fewer than 200 were convicted of drunkenness, there were also 63 cases
of offences against chastity and 30 of larceny. The average age was
thirty-one and the average duration of sentence just over a year. In
appearance and in character it more resembles a hospital or home for
inebriates than a state convict prison. A system of grades or divisions
is relied upon as a stimulus to reform. The difference in grades is
denoted by small and scarcely perceptible variations of the little
details of everyday life, such as are supposed in a peculiar degree to
affect the appreciation of women, e.g. in the lowest division the women
have their meals off old and chipped china; in the next the china is
less chipped; in the highest there is no chipped china; in the next
prettily set out with tumblers, cruet-stands and a pepper pot to each
prisoner. The superintendent relies greatly also on the moralizing
influence of animals and birds. Well-behaved convicts are allowed to
tend sheep, calves, pigs, chickens, canaries and parrots. This privilege
is highly esteemed and productive, it is said, of the most softening
influences.
The "George Junior Republic" (q.v.) is a remarkable institution
established in 1895 at Freeville, near the centre of New York State, by
Mr. William Reuben George. The original features of the institution are
that the motto "Nothing without labour" is rigidly enforced, and that
self-government is carried to a point that, with mere children, would
appear whimsical were it not a proved success. The place is, as the name
implies, a miniature "republic" with laws, legislature, courts and
administration of its own, all made and carried on by the "citizens"
themselves. The tone and spirit of the place appeared to be excellent
and there is much evidence that in many cases strong and independent
character is developed in children whose antecedents have been almost
hopeless.
_Borstal Scheme in England._--The American system of state reformatories
as above described has been sharply criticized, but the principle that
underlies it is recognized as, in a measure, sound, and it has been
adopted by the English authorities. Some time back the experiment of
establishing a penal reformatory for offenders above the age hitherto
committed to reformatory schools was resolved upon. This led to the
foundation of the Borstal scheme, which was first formally started in
October 1902. The arguments which had led to it may be briefly stated
here. It had been conclusively shown that quite half the whole number of
professional criminals had been first convicted when under twenty-one
years of age, when still at a malleable period of development, when in
short the criminal habit had not yet been definitely formed. Moreover
these adolescents escaped special reformatory treatment, for sixteen is
in Great Britain the age of criminal majority, after which no youthful
offenders can be committed to the state reformatory schools. But there
was always a formidable contingent of juvenile adults between sixteen and
twenty-one, sent to penal servitude, and their numbers although
diminishing rose to an average total of 15,000. It was accordingly
decided to create a penal establishment under state control, which should
be a half-way house between the prison and the reformatory school. A
selection was made of juvenile adults, sentenced to not less than six
months and sent to Borstal in 1902 to be treated under rules approved by
the home secretary. They were to be divided on arrival into three
separate classes, penal, ordinary and special, with promotion by industry
and good conduct from the lowest to the highest, in which they enjoyed
distinctive privileges. The general system, educational and disciplinary,
was intelligent and governed by common sense. Instruction, both manual
and educational, was well suited to the recipients; the first embraced
field work, market gardening, and a knowledge of useful handicrafts; the
second was elementary but sound, aided by well-chosen libraries and
brightened by the privilege of evening association to play harmless but
interesting games. Physical development was also guaranteed by gymnastics
and regular exercises. The results were distinctly encouraging. They
arrived at Borstal "rough, untrained cubs," but rapidly improved in
demeanour and inward character, gaining self-reliance and self-respect,
and left the prison on the high road to regeneration. It was wisely
remembered that to secure lasting amendment it is not enough to chasten
the erring subject, to train his hands, to strengthen his moral sense
while still in durance; it is essential to assist him on discharge by
helping him to find work, and encourage him by timely advice to keep him
in the straight path. Too much praise cannot be accorded to the agencies
and associations which labour strenuously and unceasingly to this
excellent end. Especial good work has been done by the Borstal
association, founded under the patronage of the best known and most
distinguished persons in English public life--archbishops, judges,
cabinet ministers and privy councillors--which receives the juvenile
adults on their release and helps them to employment. Their labours,
backed by generous voluntary contributions, have produced very gratifying
results. Although the offenders originally selected to undergo the
Borstal treatment were those committed for a period of six months, it was
recognized that this limit was experimental, and that thoroughly
satisfactory results could only be obtained with sentences of at least a
year's duration, so as to give the reforming agencies ample time to
operate. In the second year's working of the system it was formally
applied to young convicts sentenced to penal servitude between the ages
of sixteen and twenty-one. In the next year it was adopted for all
offenders between the ages of sixteen and twenty-one committed to prison,
as far as the length of sentence would permit. The commissioners of
prisons, in their _Report_ for the year 1908 (Cd. 4300) thus expressed
themselves on the working of the experiment:--
"Experience soon began to point to the probable success of this
general application of the principle, in spite of the fact that the
prevailing shortness of sentences operated against full benefit being
derived from reformatory effort. The success was most marked in those
localities where magistrates, or other benevolent persons, personally
co-operated in making the scheme a success. Local Borstal committees
were established at all prisons, and it was arranged that those
members of the local committees should become _ex officio_ honorary
members of the Central Borstal Association, which it was intended
should become, what it now is, the parent society directing the
general aid on discharge of this category of young prisoners."
In spite of the general adoption of the Borstal system, there was a
large class of young criminals who were outside its effects, those who
were sentenced to terms of ten days and under for trifling offences.
These juvenile adults, once having had the fear of prison taken away by
actual experience, were found to come back again and again. To remedy
this state of affairs, a bill was introduced in 1907 to give effect to
the principle of a long period of detention for all those showing a
tendency to embark on a criminal career. The bill was, however, dropped,
but a somewhat similar bill was introduced the next year and became law
under the title of The Prevention of Crime Act 1908. This measure
introduces a new departure in the treatment of professional crime by
initiating a system of detention for habitual criminals (see
RECIDIVISM). The act attempts the reformation of young offenders by
giving the court power to pass sentence of detention in a Borstal
institution for a term of not less than one year nor more than three on
those between the ages of sixteen and twenty-one who by reason of
criminal habits or tendencies or association with persons of bad
character require such instruction and discipline as appear most
conducive to their reformation. The power of detention applies also to
reformatory school offences, while such persons as are already
undergoing penal servitude or imprisonment may be transferred to a
Borstal institution if detention would conduce to their advantage. The
establishment of other Borstal institutions is authorized by the act,
while a very useful provision is the power to release on licence if
there is a reasonable probability that the offender will abstain from
crime and lead a useful and industrious life. The licence is issued on
condition that he is placed under the supervision or authority of some
society or person willing to take charge of him. Supervision is
introduced after the expiration of the term of sentence, and power is
given to transfer to prison incorrigibles or those exercising a bad
influence on the other inmates of a Borstal institution. The act marks a
noteworthy advance in the endeavour to arrest the growing habit of
crime. (A. G.; T. A. I.)
JUVENTAS (Latin for "youth": later _Juventus_), in Roman mythology, the
tutelar goddess of young men. She was worshipped at Rome from very early
times. In the front court of the temple of Minerva on the Capitol there
was a chapel of Juventas, in which a coin had to be deposited by each
youth on his assumption of the _toga virilis_, and sacrifices were
offered on behalf of the rising manhood of the state. In connexion with
this chapel it is related that, when the temple was in course of
erection, Terminus, the god of boundaries, and Juventas refused to quit
the sites they had already appropriated as sacred to themselves, which
accordingly became part of the new sanctuary. This was interpreted as a
sign of the immovable boundaries and eternal youth of the Roman state.
It should be observed that in the oldest accounts there is no mention of
Juventas, whose name (with that of Mars) was added in support of the
augural prediction. After the Second Punic War Greek elements were
introduced into her cult. In 218 B.C., by order of the Sibylline books,
a _lectisternium_ was prepared for Juventas and a public thanksgiving to
Hercules, an association which shows the influence of the Greek Hebe,
the wife of Heracles. In 207 Marcus Livius Salinator, after the defeat
of Hasdrubal at the battle of Sena, vowed another temple to Juventas in
the Circus Maximus, which was dedicated in 191 by C. (or M.) Licinius
Lucullus; it was destroyed by fire in 16 B.C. and rebuilt by Augustus.
In imperial times, Juventas personified, not the youth of the Roman
state, but of the future emperor.
See Dion. Halic., iii. 69, iv. 15; Livy v. 54, xxi. 62, xxxvi. 36.
JUXON, WILLIAM (1582-1663), English prelate, was the son of Robert Juxon
and was born probably at Chichester, being educated at Merchant Taylors'
School, London, and at St John's College, Oxford, where he was elected
to a scholarship in 1598. He studied law at Oxford, but afterwards he
took holy orders, and in 1609 became vicar of St Giles, Oxford, a living
which he retained until he became rector of Somerton, Oxfordshire, in
1615. In December 1621 he succeeded his friend, William Laud, as
president of St John's College, and in 1626 and 1627 he was
vice-chancellor of the university. Juxon soon obtained other important
positions, including that of chaplain-in-ordinary to Charles I. In 1627
he was made dean of Worcester and in 1632 he was nominated to the
bishopric of Hereford, an event which led him to resign the presidency
of St John's in January 1633. However, he never took up his episcopal
duties at Hereford, as in October 1633 he was consecrated bishop of
London in succession to Laud. He appears to have been an excellent
bishop, and in March 1636 Charles I. entrusted him with important
secular duties by making him lord high treasurer of England; thus for
the next five years he was dealing with the many financial and other
difficulties which beset the king and his advisers. He resigned the
treasurership in May 1641. During the Civil War the bishop, against whom
no charges were brought in parliament, lived undisturbed at Fulham
Palace, and his advice was often sought by the king, who had a very high
opinion of him, and who at his execution selected him to be with him on
the scaffold and to administer to him the last consolations of religion.
Juxon was deprived of his bishopric in 1649 and retired to Little
Compton in Gloucestershire, where he had bought an estate, and here he
became famous as the owner of a pack of hounds. At the restoration of
Charles II. he became archbishop of Canterbury and in his official
capacity he took part in the coronation of this king, but his health
soon began to fail and he died at Lambeth on the 4th of June 1663. By
his will the archbishop was a benefactor to St John's College, where he
was buried; he also aided the work of restoring St Paul's Cathedral and
rebuilt the great hall at Lambeth Palace.
See W. H. Marah, _Memoirs of Archbishop Juxon and his Times_ (1869);
the best authority for the archbishop's life is the article by W. H.
Hutton in the _Dict. Nat. Biog._ (1892).
K The eleventh letter in the Phoenician alphabet and in its descendant
Greek, the tenth in Latin owing to the omission of Teth (see I), and
once more the eleventh in the alphabets of Western Europe owing to the
insertion of J. In its long history the shape of K has changed very
little. It is on the inscription of the Moabite Stone (early 9th cent.
B.C.) in the form (written from right to left) of [symbol] and [symbol].
Similar forms are also found in early Aramaic, but another form [symbol]
or [symbol], which is found in the Phoenician of Cyprus in the 9th or
10th century B.C. has had more effect upon the later development of the
Semitic forms. The length of the two back strokes and the manner in
which they join the upright are the only variations in Greek. In various
places the back strokes, treated as an angle <, become more rounded (,
so that the letter appears as K, a form which in Latin probably affected
the development of C (q.v.). In Crete it is elaborated into [symbol] and
[symbol]. In Latin K, which is found in the earliest inscriptions, was
soon replaced by C, and survived only in the abbreviations for
_Kalendae_ and the proper name _Kaeso_. The original name Kaph became in
Greek _Kappa_. The sound of K throughout has been that of the unvoiced
guttural, varying to some extent in its pronunciation according to the
nature of the vowel sound which followed it. In Anglo-Saxon C replaced K
through Latin influence, writing being almost entirely in the hands of
ecclesiastics. As the sound-changes have been discussed under C it is
necessary here only to refer to the palatalization of K followed earlier
by a final _e_ as in _watch_ (Middle English _wacche_, Anglo-Saxon
_waecce_) by the side of _wake_ (M.E. _waken_, A.-S. _wacan_); batch,
bake, &c. Sometimes an older form of the substantive survives, as in the
Elizabethan and Northern _make_ = _mate_ alongside _match_. (P. Gi.)
K2, or MT GODWIN-AUSTEN, the second highest mountain in the world,
ranking after Mt Everest. It is a peak of the Karakoram extension of the
Muztagh range dividing Kashmir from Chinese Turkestan. The height of K2
as at present determined by triangulation is 28,250 ft., but it is
possible that an ultimate revision of the values of refraction at high
altitudes may have the effect of lowering the height of K2, while it
would elevate those of Everest and Kinchinjunga. The latter mountain
would then rank second, and K2 third, in the scale of altitude, Everest
always maintaining its ascendancy. K2 was ascended for the first time by
the duke of the Abruzzi in June 1909, being the highest elevation on the
earth's surface ever reached by man.
KA'BA, KAABA, or KAABEH, the sacred shrine of Mahommedanism, containing
the "black stone," in the middle of the great mosque at Mecca (q.v.).
KABARDIA, a territory of S. Russia, now part of the province of Terek.
It is divided into Great and Little Kabardia by the upper river Terek,
and covers 3780 sq. m. on the northern slopes of the Caucasus range
(from Mount Elbruz to Pasis-mta, or Edena), including the Black
Mountains (Kara-dagh) and the high plains on their northern slope.
Before the Russian conquest it extended as far as the Sea of Azov. Its
population is now about 70,000. One-fourth of the territory is owned by
the aristocracy and the remainder is divided among the _auls_ or
villages. A great portion is under permanent pasture, part under
forests, and some under perpetual snow. Excellent breeds of horses are
reared, and the peasants own many cattle. The land is well cultivated in
the lower parts, the chief crops being millet, maize, wheat and oats.
Bee-keeping is extensively practised, and Kabardian honey is in repute.
Wood-cutting and the manufacture of wooden wares, the making of _burkas_
(felt and fur cloaks), and saddlery are very general. Nalchik is the
chief town.
The Kabardians are a branch of the Adyghe (Circassians). The policy of
Russia was always to be friendly with the Kabardian aristocracy, who
were possessed of feudal rights over the Ossetes, the Ingushes, the
Abkhasians and the mountain Tatars, and had command of the roads leading
into Transcaucasia. Ivan the Terrible took Kabardia under his protection
in the 16th century. Later, Russian influence was counterbalanced by
that of the Crimean khans, but the Kabardian nobles nevertheless
supported Peter the Great during his Caucasian campaign in 1722-23. In
1739 Kabardia was recognized as being under the double protectorate of
Russia and Turkey, but thirty-five years later it was definitively
annexed to Russia, and risings of the population in 1804 and 1822 were
cruelly suppressed. Kabardia is considered as a school of good manners
in Caucasia; the Kabardian dress sets the fashion to all the
mountaineers. Kabardians constitute the best detachment of the personal
Imperial Guards at St Petersburg.
A short grammar of the Kabardian language and a Russian-Kabardian
dictionary, by Lopatinsky, were published in _Sbornik Materialov dla
Opisaniya Kavkaza_ (vol. xii., Tiflis, 1891). Fragments of the poem
"Sosyruko," some Persian tales, and the tenets of the Mussulman
religion were printed in Kabardian in 1864, by Kazi Atazhukin and
Shardanov. The common law of the Kabardians has been studied by Maxim
Kovalevsky and Vsevolod Miller.
KABBA, a province of the British protectorate of Northern Nigeria,
situated chiefly on the right bank of the Niger, between 7 deg. 5' and 8
deg. 45' N. and 5 deg. 30' and 7 deg. E. It has an area of 7800 sq. m.
and an estimated population of about 70,000. The province consists of
relatively healthy uplands interspersed with fertile valleys. It formed
part at one time of the Nupe emirate, and under Fula rule the armies of
Bida regularly raided for slaves and laid waste the country. Amongst the
native inhabitants the Igbira are very industrious, and crops of
tobacco, indigo, all the African grains, and a good quantity of cotton
are already grown. The sylvan products are valuable and include palm
oil, kolas, shea and rubber. Lokoja, a town which up to 1902 was the
principal British station in the protectorate, is situated in this
province. The site of Lokoja, with a surrounding tract of country at the
junction of the Benue and the Niger, was ceded to the British government
in 1841 by the _attah_ of Idah, whose dominions at that time extended to
the right bank of the river. The first British settlement was a failure.
In 1854 MacGregor Laird, who had taken an active part in promoting the
exploration of the river, sent thither Dr W. B. Baikie, who was
successful in dealing with the natives and in 1857 became the first
British consul in the interior. The town of Lokoja was founded by him in
1860. In 1868 the consulate was abolished and the settlement was left
wholly to commercial interests. In 1879 Sir George Goldie formed the
Royal Niger Company, which bought out its foreign rivals and acquired a
charter from the British government. In 1886 the company made Lokoja its
military centre, and on the transfer of the company's territories to the
Crown it remained for a time the capital of Northern Nigeria. In 1902
the political capital of the protectorate was shifted to Zungeru in the
province of Zaria, but Lokoja remains the commercial centre. The
distance of Lokoja from the sea at the Niger mouth is about 250 m.
In the absence of any central native authority the province is entirely
dependent for administration upon British initiative. It has been
divided into four administrative divisions. British and native courts of
justice have been established. A British station has been established at
Kabba town, which is an admirable site some 50 m. W. by N. of Lokoja,
about 1300 ft. above the sea, and a good road has been made from Kabba
to Lokoja. Roads have been opened through the province. (See NIGERIA.)
KABBABISH ("goatherds": James Bruce derives the name from _Hebsh_,
sheep), a tribe of African nomads of Semitic origin. It is perhaps the
largest "Arab" tribe in the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, and its many clans are
scattered over the country extending S.W. from the province of Dongola
to the confines of Darfur. The Kabbabish speak Arabic, but their
pronunciation differs much from that of the true Arabs. The Kabbabish
have a tradition that they came from Tunisia and are of Mogrebin or
western descent; but while the chiefs look like Arabs, the tribesmen
resemble the Beja family. They themselves declare that one of their
clans, Kawahla, is not of Kabbabish blood, but was affiliated to them
long ago. Kawahla is a name of Arab formation, and J. L. Burckhardt
spoke of the clan as a distinct one living about Abu Haraz and on the
Atbara. The Kabbabish probably received Arab rulers, as did the Ababda.
They are chiefly employed in cattle, camel and sheep breeding, and
before the Sudan wars of 1883-99 they had a monopoly of all transport
from the Nile, north of Abu Gussi, to Kordofan. They also cultivate the
lowlands which border the Nile, where they have permanent villages. They
are of fine physique, dark with black wiry hair, carefully arranged in
tightly rolled curls which cling to the head, with regular features and
rather thick aquiline noses. Some of the tribes wear large hats like
those of the Kabyles of Algeria and Tunisia.
See James Bruce, _Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile_ (1790);
A. H. Keane, _Ethnology of Egyptian Sudan_ (1884); _Anglo-Egyptian
Sudan_ (edited by Count Gleichen, 1905).
KABBALAH (late Hebrew _kabbalah_, _qabbalah_), the technical name for
the system of Jewish theosophy which played an important part in the
Christian Church in the middle ages. The term primarily denotes
"reception" and then "doctrines received by tradition." In the older
Jewish literature the name is applied to the whole body of received
religious doctrine with the exception of the Pentateuch, thus including
the Prophets and Hagiographa as well as the oral traditions ultimately
embodied in the Mishnah.[1] It is only since the 11th or 12th century
that Kabbalah has become the exclusive appellation for the renowned
system of theosophy which claims to have been transmitted
uninterruptedly by the mouths of the patriarchs and prophets ever since
the creation of the first man.
Doctrine of the Sephiroth.
The cardinal doctrines of the Kabbalah embrace the nature of the Deity,
the Divine emanations or _Sephiroth_, the cosmogony, the creation of
angels and man, their destiny, and the import of the revealed law.
According to this esoteric doctrine, God, who is boundless, and above
everything, even above being and thinking, is called _En Soph_ ([Greek:
apeiros]); He is the space of the universe containing [Greek: to pan],
but the universe is not his space. In this boundlessness He could not be
comprehended by the intellect or described in words, and as such the En
Soph was in a certain sense _Ayin_, non-existent (_Zohar_, iii. 283).[2]
To make his existence known and comprehensible, the En Soph had to
become active and creative. As creation involves intention, desire,
thought and work, and as these are properties which imply limit and
belong to a finite being, and moreover as the imperfect and
circumscribed nature of this creation precludes the idea of its being
the direct work of the infinite and perfect, the En Soph had to become
creative, through the medium of ten Sephiroth or intelligences, which
emanated from him like rays proceeding from a luminary.
Now the wish to become manifest and known, and hence the idea of
creation, is co-eternal with the inscrutable Deity, and the first
manifestation of this primordial will is called the first _Sephirah_ or
emanation. This first Sephirah, this spiritual substance which existed
in the En Soph from all eternity, contained nine other intelligences or
_Sephiroth_. These again emanated one from the other, the second from
the first, the third from the second, and so on up to ten.
The ten Sephiroth, which form among themselves and with the En Soph a
strict unity, and which simply represent different aspects of one and
the same being, are respectively denominated (1) the Crown, (2)
Wisdom, (3) Intelligence, (4) Love, (5) Justice, (6) Beauty, (7)
Firmness, (8) Splendour, (9) Foundation, and (10) Kingdom. Their
evolution was as follows: "When the Holy Aged, the concealed of all
concealed, assumed a form, he produced everything in the form of male
and female, as things could not continue in any other form. Hence
Wisdom, the second Sephirah, and the beginning of development, when it
proceeded from the Holy Aged (another name of the first Sephirah)
emanated in male and female, for Wisdom expanded, and Intelligence,
the third Sephirah, proceeded from it, and thus were obtained male and
female, viz. Wisdom the father and Intelligence the mother, from whose
union the other pairs of Sephiroth successively emanated" (_Zohar_,
iii. 290). These two opposite potencies, viz. the masculine Wisdom or
Sephirah No. 2 and the feminine Intelligence or Sephirah No. 3 are
joined together by the first potency, the Crown or Sephirah No. 1;
they yield the first triad of the Sephiric decade, and constitute the
divine head of the archetypal man.
From the junction of Sephiroth Nos. 2 and 3 emanated the masculine
potency Love or Mercy (4) and the feminine potency Justice (5), and
from the junction of the latter two emanated again the uniting potency
Beauty (6). Beauty, the sixth Sephirah, constitutes the chest in the
archetypal man, and unites Love (4) and Justice (5), which constitute
the divine arms, thus yielding the second triad of the Sephiric
decade. From this second conjunction emanated again the masculine
potency Firmness (7) and the feminine potency Splendour (8), which
constitute the divine legs of the archetypal man; and these sent forth
Foundation (9), which is the genital organ and medium of union between
them, thus yielding the third triad in the Sephiric decade. Kingdom
(10), which emanated from the ninth Sephirah, encircles all the other
nine, inasmuch as it is the Shechinah, the divine halo, which
encompasses the whole by its all-glorious presence.
In their totality and unity the ten Sephiroth are not only denominated
the World of Sephiroth, or the World of Emanations, but, owing to the
above representation, are called the primordial or archetypal man (=
[Greek: protogonos]) and the heavenly man. It is this form which, as we
are assured, the prophet Ezekiel saw in the mysterious chariot (Ezek. i.
1-28), and of which the earthly man is a faint copy.
As the three triads respectively represent intellectual, moral and
physical qualities, the first is called the Intellectual, the second the
Moral or Sensuous, and the third the Material World. According to this
theory of the archetypal man the three Sephiroth on the right-hand side
are masculine and represent the principle of rigour, the three on the
left are feminine and represent the principle of mercy, and the four
central or uniting Sephiroth represent the principle of mildness. Hence
the right is called "the Pillar of Judgment," the left "the Pillar of
Mercy," and the centre "the Middle Pillar." The middle Sephiroth are
synecdochically used to represent the worlds or triads of which they are
the uniting potencies. Hence the Crown, the first Sephirah, which unites
Wisdom and Intelligence to constitute the first triad, is by itself
denominated the Intellectual World. So Beauty is by itself described as
the Sensuous World, and in this capacity is called the Sacred King or
simply the King, whilst Kingdom, the tenth Sephirah, which unites all
the nine Sephiroth, is used to denote the Material World, and as such is
denominated the Queen or the Matron. Thus a trinity of units, viz. the
Crown, Beauty and Kingdom, is obtained within the trinity of triads. But
further, each Sephirah is as it were a trinity in itself. It (1) has its
own absolute character, (2) receives from above, and (3) communicates to
what is below. "Just as the Sacred Aged is represented by the number
three, so are all the other lights (Sephiroth) of a threefold nature"
(_Zohar_, iii. 288). In this all-important doctrine of the Sephiroth,
the Kabbalah insists upon the fact that these potencies are not
creations of the En Soph, which would be a diminution of strength; that
they form among themselves and with the En Soph a strict unity, and
simply represent different aspects of the same being, just as the
different rays which proceed from the light, and which appear different
things to the eye, are only different manifestations of one and the same
light; that for this reason they all alike partake of the perfections of
the En Soph; and that as emanations from the Infinite, the Sephiroth are
infinite and perfect like the En Soph, and yet constitute the first
finite things. They are infinite and perfect when the En Soph imparts
his fullness to them, and finite and imperfect when that fullness is
withdrawn from them.
The Universe.
The conjunction of the Sephiroth, or, according to the language of the
Kabbalah, the union of the crowned King and Queen, produced the universe
in their own image. Worlds came into existence before the En Soph
manifested himself in the human form of emanations, but they could not
continue, and necessarily perished because the conditions of development
which obtained with the sexual opposites of the Sephiroth did not exist.
These worlds which perished are compared to sparks which fly out from a
red-hot iron beaten by a hammer, and which are extinguished according to
the distance they are removed from the burning mass. Creation is not
_ex nihilo_; it is simply a further expansion or evolution of the
Sephiroth.[3] The world reveals and makes visible the Boundless and the
concealed of the concealed. And, though it exhibits the Deity in less
splendour than its Sephiric parents exhibit the En Soph, because it is
farther removed from the primordial source of light than the Sephiroth,
still, as it is God manifested, all the multifarious forms in the world
point out the unity which they represent. Hence nothing in the whole
universe can be annihilated. Everything, spirit as well as body, must
return to the source whence it emanated (_Zohar_, ii. 218). The universe
consists of four different worlds, each of which forms a separate
Sephiric system of a decade of emanations.
They were evolved in the following order. (1) The World Of Emanations,
also called the Image and the Heavenly or Archetypal Man, is, as we
have seen, a direct emanation from the En Soph. Hence it is most
intimately allied to the Deity, and is perfect and immutable. From the
conjunction of the King and Queen (i.e. these ten Sephiroth) is
produced (2) the World of Creation, or the Briatic world, also called
"the Throne." Its ten Sephiroth, being farther removed from the En
Soph, are of a more limited and circumscribed potency, though the
substances they comprise are of the purest nature and without any
admixture of matter. The angel Metatron inhabits this world. He alone
constitutes the world of pure spirit, and is the garment of Shaddai,
i.e. the visible manifestation of the Deity. His name is numerically
equivalent to that of the Lord (_Zohar_, iii. 231). He governs the
visible world, preserves the harmony and guides the revolutions of all
the spheres, and is the captain of all the myriads of angelic beings.
This Briatic world again gave rise to (3) the World of Formation, or
Yetziratic World. Its ten Sephiroth, being still farther removed from
the Primordial Source, are of a less refined substance. Still they are
yet without matter. It is the abode of the angels, who are wrapped in
luminous garments, and who assume a sensuous form when they appear to
men. The myriads of the angelic hosts who people this world are
divided into ten ranks, answering to the ten Sephiroth, and each one
of these numerous angels is set over a different part of the universe,
and derives his name from the heavenly body or element which he guards
(_Zohar_, i. 42). From this world finally emanated (4) the World of
Action, also called the World of Matter. Its ten Sephiroth are made up
of the grosser elements of the former three worlds; they consist of
material substance limited by space and perceptible to the senses in a
multiplicity of forms. This world is subject to constant changes and
corruption, and is the dwelling of the evil spirits. These, the
grossest and most deficient of all forms, are also divided into ten
degrees, each lower than the other. The first two are nothing more
than the absence of all visible form and organization; the third
degree is the abode of darkness; whilst the remaining seven are "the
seven infernal halls," occupied by the demons, who are the incarnation
of all human vices. These seven hells are subdivided into innumerable
compartments corresponding to every species of sin, where the demons
torture the poor deluded human beings who have suffered themselves to
be led astray whilst on earth. The prince of this region of darkness
is Samael, the evil spirit, the serpent who seduced Eve. His wife is
the Harlot or the Woman of Whoredom. The two are treated as one
person, and are called "the Beast" (_Zohar_, ii. 255-259, with i. 35).
Doctrine of Man.
The whole universe, however, was incomplete, and did not receive its
finishing stroke till man was formed, who is the acme of the creation
and the microcosm. "The heavenly Adam (i.e. the ten Sephiroth) who
emanated from the highest primordial obscurity (i.e. the En Soph)
created the earthly Adam" (_Zohar_, ii. 70). "Man is both the import and
the highest degree of creation, for which reason he was formed on the
sixth day. As soon as man was created everything was complete, including
the upper and nether worlds, for everything is comprised in man. He
unites in himself all forms" (_Zohar_, iii. 48). Each member of his body
corresponds to a part of the visible universe. "Just as we see in the
firmament above, covering all things, different signs which are formed
of the stars and the planets, and which contain secret things and
profound mysteries studied by those who are wise and expert in these
things; so there are in the skin, which is the cover of the body of the
son of man, and which is like the sky that covers all things above,
signs and features which are the stars and planets of the skin,
indicating secret things and profound mysteries whereby the wise are
attracted who understand the reading of the mysteries in the human
face" (_Zohar_, ii. 76). The human form is shaped after the four letters
which constitute the Jewish Tetragrammaton (q.v.; see also JEHOVAH). The
head is in the shape of [Hebrew: iod], the arms and the shoulders are
like [Hebrew: hei], the breast like [Hebrew: vav], and the two legs with
the back again resemble [Hebrew: hei] (_Zohar_, ii. 72). The souls of
the whole human race pre-exist in the World of Emanations, and are all
destined to inhabit human bodies. Like the Sephiroth from which it
emanates, every soul has ten potencies, consisting of a trinity of
triads. (1) The Spirit (_neshamah_), which is the highest degree of
being, corresponds to and is operated upon by the Crown, which is the
highest triad in the Sephiroth, and is called the Intellectual World;
(2) the Soul (_ruah_), which is the seat of the moral qualities,
corresponds to and is operated upon by Beauty, which is the second triad
in the Sephiroth, and is called the Moral World; and (3) the Cruder Soul
(_nephesh_), which is immediately connected with the body, and is the
cause of its lower instincts and the animal life, corresponds to and is
operated upon by Foundation, the third triad in the Sephiroth, called
the Material World. Each soul prior to its entering into this world
consists of male and female united into one being. When it descends on
this earth the two parts are separated and animate two different bodies.
"At the time of marriage the Holy One, blessed be he, who knows all
souls and spirits, unites them again as they were before; and they again
constitute one body and one soul, forming as it were the right and the
left of the individual.... This union, however, is influenced by the
deeds of the man and by the ways in which he walks. If the man is pure
and his conduct is pleasing in the sight of God, he is united with that
female part of the soul which was his component part prior to his birth"
(_Zohar_, i. 91). The soul's destiny upon earth is to develop those
perfections the germs of which are eternally implanted in it, and it
ultimately must return to the infinite source from which it emanated.
Hence, if, after assuming a body and sojourning upon earth, it becomes
polluted by sin and fails to acquire the experience for which it
descends from heaven, it must three times reinhabit a body, till it is
able to ascend in a purified state through repeated trials. If, after
its third residence in a human body, it is still too weak to withstand
the contamination of sin, it is united with another soul, in order that
by their combined efforts it may resist the pollution which by itself it
was unable to conquer. When the whole pleroma of pre-existent souls in
the world of the Sephiroth shall have descended and occupied human
bodies and have passed their period of probation and have returned
purified to the bosom of the infinite Source, then the soul of Messiah
will descend from the region of souls; then the great Jubilee will
commence. There shall be no more sin, no more temptation, no more
suffering. Universal restoration will take place. Satan himself, "the
venomous Beast," will be restored to his angelic nature. Life will be an
everlasting feast, a Sabbath without end. All souls will be united with
the Highest Soul, and will supplement each other in the Holy of Holies
of the Seven Halls (_Zohar_, i. 45, 168; ii. 97).
Antiquity and Influence of Kabbalah.
According to the Kabbalah all these esoteric doctrines are contained in
the Hebrew Scriptures. The uninitiated cannot perceive them; but they
are plainly revealed to the spiritually minded, who discern the profound
import of this theosophy beneath the surface of the letters and words of
Holy Writ. "If the law simply consists of ordinary expressions and
narratives, such as the words of Esau, Hagar, Laban, the ass of Balaam
or Balaam himself, why should it be called the law of truth, the perfect
law, the true witness of God? Each word contains a sublime source, each
narrative points not only to the single instance in question, but also
to generals" (_Zohar_, iii. 149, cf. 152).
To obtain these heavenly mysteries, which alone make the Torah
superior to profane codes, definite hermeneutical rules are employed,
of which the following are the most important. (1) The words of
several verses in the Hebrew Scriptures which are regarded as
containing a recondite sense are placed over each other, and the
letters are formed into new words by reading them vertically. (2) The
words of the text are ranged in squares in such a manner as to be read
either vertically or boustrophedon. (3) The words are joined together
and redivided. (4) The initials and final letters of several words are
formed into separate words. (5) Every letter of a word is reduced to
its numerical value, and the word is explained by another of the same
quantity. (6) Every letter of a word is taken to be the initial or
abbreviation of a word. (7) The twenty-two letters of the alphabet are
divided into two halves; one half is placed above the other; and the
two letters which thus become associated are interchanged. By this
permutation, _Aleph_, the first letter of the alphabet, becomes
_Lamed_, the twelfth letter; _Beth_ becomes _Mem_, and so on. This
cipher alphabet is called _Albam_, from the first interchangeable
pairs. (8) The commutation of the twenty-two letters is effected by
the last letter of the alphabet taking the place of the first, the
last but one the place of the second, and so forth. This cipher is
called _Atbash_. These hermeneutical canons are much older than the
Kabbalah. They obtained in the synagogue from time immemorial, and
were used by the Christian fathers in the interpretation of
Scripture.[4] Thus Canon V., according to which a word is reduced to
its numerical value and interpreted by another word of the same value,
is recognized in the New Testament (cf. Rev. xiii. 18). Canon VI. is
adopted by Irenaeus, who tells us that, according to the learned among
the Hebrews, the name Jesus contains two letters and a half, and
signifies that Lord who contains heaven and earth [[Hebrew: ieshu] =
[Hebrew: ieova shamaim vaaretz]] (_Against Heresies_, ii. xxiv., i.
205, ed. Clark). The cipher _Atbash_ (Canon VIII.) is used in Jeremiah
xxv. 26, li. 41, where Sheshach is written for Babel. In Jer. li. 1,
[Hebrew: lev kamai], _Leb-Kamai_ ("the heart of them that rise up
against me"), is written for [Hebrew: kasdim], _Chaldea_, by the same
rule.
Exegesis of this sort is not the characteristic of any single circle,
people or century; unscientific methods of biblical interpretation have
prevailed from Philo's treatment of the Pentateuch to modern apologetic
interpretations of Genesis, ch. i.[5] The Kabbalah itself is but an
extreme and remarkable development of certain forms of thought which had
never been absent from Judaism; it is bound up with earlier tendencies
to mysticism, with man's inherent striving to enter into communion with
the Deity. To seek its sources would be futile. The Pythagorean theory
of numbers, Neoplatonic ideas of emanation, the Logos, the personified
Wisdom, Gnosticism--these and many other features combine to show the
antiquity of tendencies which, clad in other shapes, are already found
in the old pre-Christian Oriental religions.[6] In its more mature form
the Kabbalah belongs to the period when medieval Christian mysticism was
beginning to manifest itself (viz. in Eckhart, towards end of 13th
century); it is an age which also produced the rationalism of Maimonides
(q.v.). Although some of its foremost exponents were famous Talmudists,
it was a protest against excessive intellectualism and Aristotelian
scholasticism. It laid stress, not on external authority, as did the
Jewish law, but on individual experience and inward meditation. "The
mystics accorded the first place to prayer, which was considered as a
mystical progress towards God, demanding a state of ecstasy."[7] As a
result, some of the finest specimens of Jewish devotional literature and
some of the best types of Jewish individual character have been
Kabbalist.[8] On the other hand, the Kabbalah has been condemned, and
nowhere more strongly than among the Jews themselves. Jewish orthodoxy
found itself attacked by the more revolutionary aspects of mysticism and
its tendencies to alter established customs. While the medieval
scholasticism denied the possibility of knowing anything unattainable by
reason, the spirit of the Kabbalah held that the Deity could be
realized, and it sought to bridge the gulf. Thus it encouraged an
unrestrained emotionalism, rank superstition, an unhealthy asceticism,
and the employment of artificial means to induce the ecstatic state.
That this brought moral laxity was a stronger reason for condemning the
Kabbalah, and the evil effects of nervous degeneration find a more
recent illustration in the mysticism of the Chasidim (_Hasidim_,
"saints"), a Jewish sect in eastern Europe which started from a movement
in the 18th century against the exaggerated casuistry of contemporary
rabbis, and combined much that was spiritual and beautiful with extreme
emotionalism and degradation.[9] The appearance of the Kabbalah and of
other forms of mysticism in Judaism may seem contrary to ordinary and
narrow conceptions of orthodox Jewish legalism. Its interest lies, not
in its doctrines, which have often been absurdly over-estimated
(particularly among Christians), but in its contribution to the study of
human thought. It supplied a want which has always been felt by certain
types, and it became a movement which had mischievous effects upon
ill-balanced minds. As usual, the excessive self-introspection was not
checked by a rational criticism; the individual was guided by his own
reason, the limitations of which he did not realize; and in becoming a
law unto himself he ignored the accumulated experiences of civilized
humanity.[10]
A feature of greater interest is the extraordinary part which this
theosophy played in the Christian Church, especially at the time of the
Renaissance. We have already seen that the Sephiric decade or the
archetypal man, like Christ, is considered to be of a double nature,
both infinite and finite, perfect and imperfect. More distinct, however,
is the doctrine of the Trinity. In Deut. vi. 43, where Yahweh occurs
first, then Elohenu, and then again Yahweh, we are told "The voice
though one, consists of three elements, fire (i.e. warmth), air (i.e.
breath), and water (i.e. humidity), yet all three are one in the mystery
of the voice and can only be one. Thus also Yahweh, Elohenu, Yahweh,
constitute one--three forms which are one" (_Zohar_, ii. 43; compare
iii. 65). Discussing the thrice holy in Isaiah vi. 3, one codex of the
_Zohar_ had the following remark: "The first holy denotes the Holy
Father, the second the Holy Son, and the third the Holy Ghost" (cf.
Galatinus, _De arcanis cathol._ lib. ii. c. 3, p. 31; Wolf, _Bibliotheca
hebraica_, i. 1136). Still more distinct is the doctrine of the
atonement. "The Messiah invokes all the sufferings, pain, and
afflictions of Israel to come upon Him. Now if He did not remove them
thus and take them upon Himself, no man could endure the sufferings of
Israel, due as their punishment for transgressing the law; as it is
written (Isa. liii. 4), Surely He hath borne our griefs and carried our
sorrows" (_Zohar_, ii. 12). These and similar statements favouring the
doctrines of the New Testament made many Kabbalists of the highest
position in the synagogue embrace the Christian faith and write
elaborate books to win their Jewish brethren over to Christ. As early as
1450 a company of Jewish converts in Spain, at the head of which were
Paul de Heredia, Vidal de Saragossa de Aragon, and Davila, published
compilations of Kabbalistic treatises to prove from them the doctrines
of Christianity. They were followed by Paul Rici, professor at Pavia,
and physician to the emperor Maximilian I. Among the best-known
non-Jewish exponents of the Kabbalah were the Italian count Pico di
Mirandola (1463-1494), the renowned Johann Reuchlin (1455-1522),
Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa of Nettesheim (1487-1535), Theophrastus
Paracelsus (1493-1541), and, later, the Englishman Robert Fludd
(1574-1637). Prominent among the "nine hundred theses" which Mirandola
had placarded in Rome, and which he undertook to defend in the presence
of all European scholars, whom he invited to the Eternal City, promising
to defray their travelling expenses, was the following: "No science
yields greater proof of the divinity of Christ than magic and the
Kabbalah." Mirandola so convinced Pope Sixtus of the paramount
importance of the Kabbalah as an auxiliary to Christianity that his
holiness exerted himself to have Kabbalistic writings translated into
Latin for the use of divinity students. With equal zeal did Reuchlin act
as the apostle of the Kabbalah. His treatises exercised an almost magic
influence upon the greatest thinkers of the time. Pope Leo X. and the
early Reformers were alike captivated by the charms of the Kabbalah as
propounded by Reuchlin, and not only divines, but statesmen and
warriors, began to study the Oriental languages in order to be able to
fathom the mysteries of Jewish theosophy. The _Zohar_, that farrago of
absurdity and spiritual devotion, was the weapon with which these
Christians defended Jewish literature against hostile ecclesiastic
bodies (Abrahams, _Jew. Lit._ p. 106). Thus the Kabbalah linked the old
scholasticism with the new and independent inquiries in learning and
philosophy after the Renaissance, and although it had evolved a
remarkably bizarre conception of the universe, it partly anticipated, in
its own way, the scientific study of natural philosophy.[11] Jewish
theosophy, then, with its good and evil tendencies, and with its varied
results, may thus claim to have played no unimportant part in the
history of European scholarship and thought.
The main sources to be noticed are:--
Main Sources.
1. The _Sepher Yesirah_, or "book of creation," not the old Hilkoth Y.
("rules of creation"), which belongs to the Talmudic period (on which
see Kohler, _Jew. Ency._ xii. 602 seq.), but a later treatise, a
combination of medieval natural philosophy and mysticism. It has been
variously ascribed to the patriarch Abraham and to the illustrious
rabbi 'Aqiba; its essential elements, however, maybe of the 3rd or 4th
century A.D., and it is apparently earlier than the 9th (see L.
Ginzberg, _op. cit._ 603 sqq.). It has "had a greater influence on the
development of the Jewish mind than almost any other book after the
completion of the Talmud" (ibid.).
2. The _Bahir_ ("brilliant," Job. xxxvii. 21), though ascribed to
Nehunyah b. Haqqanah (1st century A.D.), is first quoted by
Nahmanides, and is now attributed to his teacher Ezra or Azriel
(1160-1238). It shows the influence of the _Sepher Yesirah_, is marked
by the teaching of a celestial Trinity, is a rough outline of what the
_Zohar_ was destined to be, and gave the first opening to a thorough
study of metaphysics among the Jews. (See further 1. Broyde, _Jew.
Ency._ ii. 442 seq.).
3. The _Zohar_ ("shining," Dan. xii. 3) is a commentary on the
Pentateuch, according to its division into fifty-two hebdomadal
lessons. It begins with the exposition of Gen. i. 4 ("let there be
light") and includes eleven dissertations: (1) "Additions and
Supplements"; (2) "The Mansions and Abodes," describing the structure
of paradise and hell; (3) "The Mysteries of the Pentateuch,"
describing the evolution of the Sephiroth, &c.; (4) "The Hidden
Interpretation," deducing esoteric doctrine from the narratives in the
Pentateuch; (5) "The Faithful Shepherd," recording discussions between
Moses the faithful shepherd, the prophet Elijah and R. Simon b. Yohai,
the reputed compiler of the _Zohar_; (6) "The Secret of Secrets," a
treatise on physiognomy and psychology; (7) "The Aged," i.e. the
prophet Elijah, discoursing with R. Simon on the doctrine of
transmigration as evolved from Exod. xxi. 1-xxiv. 18; (8) "The Book of
Secrets," discourses on cosmogony and demonology; (9) "The Great
Assembly," discourses of R. Simon to his numerous assembly of
disciples on the form of the Deity and on pneumatology; (10) "The
Young Man," discourses by young men of superhuman origin on the
mysteries of ablutions; and (11) "The Small Assembly," containing the
discourses on the Sephiroth which R. Simon delivered to the small
congregation of six surviving disciples. The _Zohar_ pretends to be a
compilation made by Simon b. Yohai (the second century A.D.) of
doctrines which God communicated to Adam in Paradise, and which have
been received uninterruptedly from the mouths of the patriarchs and
prophets. It was discovered, so the story went, in a cavern in Galilee
where it had been hidden for a thousand years. Amongst the many facts,
however, established by modern criticism which prove the _Zohar_ to be
a compilation of the 13th century, are the following: (1) the _Zohar_
itself praises most fulsomely R. Simon, its reputed author, and exalts
him above Moses; (2) it mystically explains the Hebrew vowel points,
which did not obtain till 570; (3) the compiler borrows two verses
from the celebrated hymn called "The Royal Diadem," written by Ibn
Gabirol, who was born about 1021; (4) it mentions the capture of
Jerusalem by the crusaders and the re-taking of the Holy City by the
Saracens; (5) it speaks of the comet which appeared at Rome, 15th July
1264, under the pontificate of Urban IV.; (6) by a slip the _Zohar_
assigns a reason why its contents were not revealed before 5060-5066
A.M., i.e. 1300-1306 A.D., (7) the doctrine of the En Soph and the
Sephiroth was not known before the 13th century; and (8) the very
existence of the _Zohar_ itself was not known prior to the 13th
century. Hence it is now believed that Moses de Leon (d. 1305), who
first circulated and sold the _Zohar_ as the production of R. Simon,
was himself the author or compiler. That eminent scholars both in the
synagogue and in the church should have been induced to believe in its
antiquity is owing to the fact that the _Zohar_ embodies many older
opinions and doctrines, and the undoubted antiquity of some of them
has served as a lever in the minds of these scholars to raise the late
speculations about the En Soph, the Sephiroth, &c., to the same age.
LITERATURE.--The study of the whole subject being wrapped up with
Gnosticism and Oriental theosophy, the related literature is immense.
Among the more important works may be mentioned, Baron von Rosenroth's
_Kabbala Denudata_ (Sulzbach, 1677-1678; Frankfort, 1684); A. Franck,
_La Kabbale_ (Paris, 2nd ed., 1889; German by Jellinek, Leipzig,
1844); C. D. Ginsburg, _The Kabbalah, its Doctrines, Development and
Literature_ (London, 1865); I. Meyer, _Qabbalah_ (Philadelphia, 1888);
Rubin, _Kabbala und Agada_ (Vienna, 1895), _Heidentum und Kabbalah_
(1893); Karppe, _Et. sur les origines du Zohar_ (Paris, 1891); A. E.
Waite, _Doctrine and Literature of the Kabbalah_ (London, 1902);
Flugel, _Philosophy, Kabbala, &c._ (Baltimore, 1902); D. Neumark,
_Gesch. d. Jud. Philosophie d. Mittelalters_ (Berlin, 1907); also S.
A. Binion, in C. D. Warner's _World's Best Literature_, 8425 sqq. See
further the very full articles in the _Jewish Ency._ by K. Kohler and
L. Ginzberg ("Cabbala"), I. Broyde ("Bahir," "Zohar"), with the
references. (C. D. G.; S. A. C.)
FOOTNOTES:
[1] C. Taylor, _Sayings of the Jewish Fathers_ (1897), pp. 106 sqq.,
175 seq.; W. Bacher, _Jew. Quart. Rev._ xx. 572 sqq. (1908).
[2] On the _Zohar_, "the Bible of the Kabbalists," see below.
[3] The view of a mediate creation, in the place of immediate
creation out of nothing, and that the mediate beings were emanations,
was much influenced by Solomon ibn Gabirol (1021-1070).
[4] See F. Weber, _Judische Theologie_ (1897), pp. 118 sqq.
[5] See C. A. Briggs, _Study of Holy Scripture_ (1899), pp. 427 sqq.,
570.
[6] Even the "over-Soul" of the mystic Isaac Luria (1534-1572) is a
conception known in the 3rd century A.D. (Rabbi Resh Lakish). For the
early stages of Kabbalistic theories, see K. Kohler, _Jew. Ency._
iii. 457 seq., and L. Ginzberg, ibid. 459 seq.; and for examples of
the relationship between old Oriental (especially Babylonian) and
Jewish Kabbalistic teaching (early and late), see especially A.
Jeremias, _Babylonisches in N. Test._ (Leipzig, 1905); E. Bischoff,
_Bab. Astrales im Weltbilde des Thalmud u. Midrasch_ (1907).
[7] L. Ginzberg, _Jew. Ency._ iii. 465.
[8] See, especially, on the mystics of Safed in Upper Galilee, S.
Schechter, _Studies_ (1908), pp. 202-285.
[9] See the instructive article by S. Schechter, _Studies in Judaism_
(London, 1896), pp. 1-55.
[10] See the discriminating estimates by S. A. Hirsch, _Jew. Quart.
Rev._ xx. 50-73; I. Abrahams, _Jew. Lit._ (1906), ch. xvii.:
_Judaism_ (1907), ch. vi.
[11] See, e.g., G. Margoliouth, "The Doctrine of Ether in the
Kabbalah," _Jew. Quart. Rev._ xx. 828 sqq. On the influence of the
Kabbalah on the Reformation, see Stockl, _Gesch. d. Philosophie des
Mittelalters_, ii. 232-251.
KABINDA, a Portuguese possession on the west coast of Africa north of
the mouth of the Congo. Westwards it borders the Atlantic, N. and N.E.
French Congo, S. and S.E. Belgian Congo. It has a coast-line of 93 m.,
extends inland, at its greatest breadth, 70 m., and has an area of about
3000 sq. m. In its physical features, flora, fauna and inhabitants, it
resembles the coast region of French Congo (q.v.). The only considerable
river is the Chiloango, which in part forms the boundary between
Portuguese and Belgian territory, and in its lower course divides
Kabinda into two fairly even portions. The mouth of the river is in 5
deg. 12' S., 12 deg. 5' E. The chief town, named Kabinda, is a seaport
on the right bank of the small river Bele, in 5 deg. 33' S., 12 deg. 10'
E.; pop. about 10,000. From the beauty of its situation, and the
fertility of the adjacent country, it has been called the paradise of
the coast. The harbour is sheltered and commodious, with anchorage in
four fathoms. Kabinda was formerly a noted slave mart. Farther north are
the ports of Landana and Massabi. Between Kabinda and Landana is Molembo
at the head of a small bay of the same name. There is a considerable
trade in palm oil, ground nuts and other jungle produce, largely in the
hands of British and German firms.
The possession of the enclave of Kabinda by Portugal is a result of the
efforts made by that nation during the last quarter of the 19th century
to obtain sovereignty over both banks of the lower Congo. Whilst
Portugal succeeded in obtaining the southern bank of the river to the
limit of navigability from the sea, the northern bank became part of the
Congo Free State (see AFRICA, S 5). Portuguese claims to the north of
the river were, however, to some extent met by the recognition of her
right to Kabinda. The southernmost part of Kabinda is 25 m. (following
the coast-line) north of the mouth of the Congo. This district as far
north as the Chiloango river (and including the adjacent territory of
Belgian Congo) is sometimes spoken of as Kacongo. The name Loango (q.v.)
was also applied to this region as well as to the coast-lands
immediately to the north. Administratively Kabinda forms a division of
the Congo district of the province of Angola (q.v.). The inhabitants are
Bantu negroes who are called Kabindas. They are an intelligent,
energetic and enterprising people, daring sailors and active traders.
KABIR, the most notable of the Vaishnava reformers of religion in
northern India, who flourished during the first half of the 15th
century. He is counted as one of the twelve disciples of Ramanand, the
great preacher in the north (about A.D. 1400) of the doctrine of
_bhakti_ addressed to Rama, which originated with Ramanuja (12th
century) in southern India. He himself also mentions among his spiritual
forerunners Jaideo and Namdeo (or Nama) the earliest Marathi poet (both
about 1250). Legend relates that Kabir was the son of a Brahman widow,
by whom he was exposed, and was found on a lotus in Lahar Talao, a pond
near Benares, by a Musalman weaver named 'Ali (or Nuri), who with his
wife Nima adopted him and brought him up in their craft as a Musalman.
He lived most of his life at Benares, and afterwards removed to Maghar
(or Magahar), in the present district of Basti, where he is said to have
died in 1449. There appears to be no reason to doubt that he was
originally a Musalman and a weaver; his own name and that of his son
Kamal are Mahommedan, not Hindu. His adhesion to the doctrine of
Ramanand is not a solitary instance of the religious syncretism which
prevailed at this time in northern India. The religion of the earlier
Sikh _Gurus_, which was largely based upon his teaching, also aimed at
the fusion of Hinduism and Islam; and the example of Malik Muhammad,[1]
the author of the Padmawat, who lived a century later than Kabir, shows
that the relations between the two creeds were in some cases extremely
intimate. It is related that at Kabir's death the Hindus and Musalmans
each claimed him as an adherent of their faith, and that when his
funeral issued forth from his house at Maghar the contention was only
assuaged by the appearance of Kabir himself, who bade them look under
the cloth which covered the corpse, and immediately vanished. On raising
the cloth they found nothing but a heap of flowers. This was divided
between the rival faiths, half being buried by the Musalmans and the
other half burned by the Hindus.[2]
Kabir's fame as a preacher of _bhakti_, or enthusiastic devotion to a
personal God, whom he preferred to call by the Hindu names of Rama and
Hari, is greater than that of any other of the Vaishnava spiritual
leaders. His fervent conviction of the truth and power of his doctrine,
and the homely and searching expression given to it in his utterances,
in the tongue of the people and not in a learned language remote from
their understanding, won for him multitudes of adherents; and his sect,
the _Kabirpanthis_, is still one of the most numerous in northern India,
its numbers exceeding a million. Its headquarters are the _Kabir Chaura_
at Benares, where are preserved the works attributed to Kabir (called
the _Granth_), the greater part of which, however, were written by his
immediate disciples and their followers in his name.
Those works which seem to have the best claim to be considered his own
compositions are the _Sakhis_, or stanzas, some 5000 in number, which
have a very wide currency even among those who do not formally belong
to the sect, and the _Shabdawali_, consisting of a thousand "words"
(_shabd_), or short doctrinal expositions. Perhaps some of the
_Rekhtas_, or odes (100 in number), and of the _Ramainis_--brief
mystical poems in very obscure language--may also be from his hand. Of
these different forms specimens will be found translated in Professor
H. H. Wilson's _Sketch of the Religious Sects of the Hindus_, i.
79-90. Besides the followers who call themselves by Kabir's name,
there may be reckoned to him many other religious sects which bear
that of some intermediate _guru_ or master, but substantially concur
with Kabir in doctrine and practice. Such, for instance, are the
_Nanakshahis_ in the United Provinces, the Central Provinces, and
Bombay, and the _Dadu-panthis_, numerous in Rajputana (Wilson, _loc.
cit._ pp. 103 sqq.); the Sikhs, numbering two and a half millions in
the Panjab, are also his spiritual descendants, and their _Granth_ or
Scripture is largely stocked with texts drawn from his works.
Kabir taught the life of _bhakti_ (faith, or personal love and
devotion), the object of which is a _personal_ God, and not a
philosophical abstraction or an impersonal quality-less, all-pervading
spiritual substance (as in the Vedanta of Sankaracharya). His utterances
do not, like those of Tulsi Das, dwell upon the incidents of the human
life of Rama, whom he takes as his type of the Supreme; nevertheless, it
is the essence of his creed that God became incarnate to bring salvation
to His children, mankind, and that the human mind of this incarnation
still subsists in the Divine Person. He proclaims the unity of the
Godhead, the vanity of idols, the powerlessness of _brahmans_ or
_mullas_ to guide or help, and the divine origin of the human soul,
_divinae particula aurae_. All evil in the world is ascribed to _Maya_,
illusion or falsehood, and truth in thought, word and deed is enjoined
as the chief duty of man: "No act of devotion can equal truth; no crime
is so heinous as falsehood; in the heart where truth abides there is My
abode."[3] The distinctions of creeds are declared to be of no
importance in the presence of God: "The city of _Hara_[4] is to the
east, that of '_Ali_[5] is to the west; but explore your own heart, for
there are both _Rama_ and _Karim_;"[6] "Behold but One in all things: it
is the second that leads you astray. Every man and woman that has ever
been born is of the same nature as yourself. _He_, whose is the world,
and whose are the children of '_Ali_ and _Rama_, He is my _Guru_, He is
my _Pir_." He proclaims the universal brotherhood of man, and the duty
of kindness to all living creatures. Life is the gift of God, and must
not be violated; the shedding of blood, whether of man or animals, is a
heinous crime. The followers of Kabir do not observe celibacy, and live
quiet unostentatious lives; Wilson (p. 97) compares them to Quakers for
their hatred of violence and unobtrusive piety.
The resemblance of many of Kabir's utterances to those of Christ, and
especially to the ideas set forth in St John's gospel, is very striking;
still more so is the existence in the ritual of the sect of a
sacramental meal, involving the eating of a consecrated wafer and the
drinking of water administered by the _Mahant_ or spiritual superior,
which bears a remarkable likeness to the Eucharist. Yet, though the
deities of Hinduism and the prophet of Islam are frequently mentioned in
his sayings, the name of Jesus has nowhere been found in them. It is
conjectured that the doctrine of Ramanand, which came from southern
India, has been influenced by the Christian settlements in that region,
which go back to very early times. It is also possible that Sufiism, the
pietistic (as distinguished from the theosophic) form of which seems to
owe much to eastern Christianity, has contributed some echo of the
Gospel to Kabir's teaching. A third (but scarcely probable) hypothesis
is that the sect has borrowed both maxims and ritual, long after Kabir's
own time, from the teaching of the Roman Catholic missionaries, who were
established at Agra from the reign of Akbar (1556-1605) onwards.
No critical edition of the writings current under the name of Kabir
has yet been published, though collections of his sayings (chiefly the
_Sakhis_) are constantly appearing from Indian presses. The reader is
referred, for a summary account of his life and doctrine, to H. H.
Wilson's _Sketch of the Religious Sects of the Hindus_ (Works, i. 68
sqq.). Dr E. Trumpp's edition of the _Adi Granth_ (Introduction, pp.
xcvii. sqq.) may also be consulted. Recent publications dealing with
the subject are the Rev. G. H. Westcott's _Kabir and the Kabir Panth_
(Cawnpore, 1908), and Mr. M. A. Macauliffe's _The Sikh Religion_
(Oxford, 1909), vi. 122-316. (C. J. L.)
FOOTNOTES:
[1] See article HINDOSTANI LITERATURE.
[2] An exactly similar tale is told of Nanak, the first _Guru_ of the
Sikhs, who died in 1538.
[3] This and the following passages in quotation marks are from
Professor Wilson's translation of 100 _Sakhis_, pp. 83-90.
[4] Benares; Hara, a name of Siva.
[5] I.e. Mecca.
[6] "The Bountiful," one of the Koranic names of God (Allah).
KABUL, the capital of Afghanistan, standing at an elevation of 6900 ft.
above the sea in 34 deg. 32' N. and 69 deg. 14' E. Estimated pop. (1901),
140,000. Lying at the foot of the bare and rocky mountains forming the
western boundary of the Kabul valley, just below the gorge made by the
Kabul River, the city extends a mile and a half east to west and one
mile north to south. Hemmed in by the mountains, there is no way of
extending it, except in a northerly direction towards the Sherpur
cantonment. As the key of northern India, Kabul has been a city of vast
importance for countless ages. It commands all the passes which here
debouch from the north through the Hindu Kush, and from the west through
Kandahar; and through it passed successive invasions of India by
Alexander the Great, Mahmud of Ghazni, Jenghiz Khan, Baber, Nadir Shah
and Ahmad Shah. Indeed from the time of Baber to that of Nadir Shah
(1526-1738) Kabul was part of the empire of Delhi. It is now some 160 m.
from the British frontier post of Jamrud near Peshawar.
Kabul was formerly walled; the old wall had seven gates, of which two
alone remain, the Lahori and the Sirdar. The city itself is a huddle of
narrow and dirty streets, with the Bala Hissar or fort forming the
south-east angle, and rising about 150 ft. above the plain. The Amir's
palace is situated outside the town about midway between it and the
Sherpur cantonment which lies about a mile to the north-east. Formerly
the greatest ornament of the city was the arcaded and roofed bazaar
called _Chihar Chata_, ascribed to Ali Mardan Khan, a noble of the 17th
century, who has left behind him many monuments of his munificent public
spirit both in Kabul and in Hindustan. Its four arms had an aggregate
length of about 600 ft., with a breadth of 30. The display of goods was
remarkable, and in the evening it was illuminated. This edifice was
destroyed by Sir G. Pollock on evacuating Kabul in 1842 as a record of
the treachery of the city.
The tomb of the Sultan Baber stands on a slope about a mile to the west
of the city in a charming spot. The grave is marked by two erect slabs
of white marble. Near him lie several of his wives and children; the
garden was formerly enclosed by a marble wall; a clear stream waters the
flower-beds. From the hill that rises behind the tomb there is a noble
prospect of his beloved city, and of the all-fruitful plain stretching
to the north of it.
After the accession of Abdur Rahman in 1880 the city underwent great
changes. The Bala Hissar was destroyed and has never since been entirely
rebuilt, and a fortified cantonment at Sherpur (one side of which was
represented by the historic Bemaru ridge) had taken the place of the old
earthworks of the British occupation of 1842 which were constructed on
nearly the same site. The city streets were as narrow and evil-smelling,
the surrounding gardens as picturesque and attractive, and the wealth of
fruit was as great, as they had been fifty years previously. The amir,
however, effected many improvements. Kabul is now connected by
well-planned and metalled roads with Afghan Turkestan on the west, with
the Oxus and Bokhara on the north, and with India on the east. The road
to India was first made by British and is now maintained by Afghan
engineers. The road southwards to Ghazni and Kandahar was always
naturally excellent and has probably needed little engineering, but the
general principle of road-making in support of a military advance has
always been consistently maintained, and the expeditions of Kabul troops
to Kafiristan have been supported by a very well graded and
substantially constructed road up the Kunar valley from Jalalabad to
Asmar, and onwards to the Bashgol valley of Kafiristan. The city ways
have been improved until it has become possible for wheeled vehicles to
pass, and the various roads connecting the suburbs and the city are
efficiently maintained. A purely local railway has also been introduced,
to assist in transporting building material. The buildings erected by
Abdur Rahman were pretentious, but unmarked by any originality in design
and hardly worthy representation of the beauty and dignity of Mahommedan
architecture. They included a new palace and a durbar hall, a bridge
across the river and embankment, a pavilion and garden laid out around
the site of Baber's tomb overlooking the Chardeh valley; and many other
buildings of public utility connected with stud arrangements, the
manufacture of small arms and ammunition, and the requirements of what
may be termed a wholesale shop under European direction, besides
hospitals, dispensaries, bazaars, &c. The new palace is within an
entrenchment just outside the city. It is enclosed in a fine garden,
well planted with trees, where the harem serai (or ladies' apartments)
occupies a considerable space. The public portion of the buildings
comprise an ornamental and lofty pavilion with entrances on each side,
and a high-domed octagonal room in the centre, beautifully fitted and
appointed, where public receptions take place. The durbar hall, which is
a separate building, is 60 yards long by 20 broad, with a painted roof
supported by two rows of pillars. But the arrangement of terraced
gardens and the lightly constructed pavilion which graces the western
slopes of the hills overlooking Chardeh are the most attractive of these
innovations. Here, on a summer's day, with the scent of roses pervading
the heated air, the cool refreshment of the passing breezes and of
splashing fountains may be enjoyed by the officials of the Kabul court,
whilst they look across the beauty of the thickly planted plains of
Chardeh to the rugged outlines of Paghman and the snows of the Hindu
Kush. The artistic taste of the landscape gardening is excellent, and
the mountain scenery is not unworthy of Kashmir. It is pleasant to
record that the graveyard of those officers who fell in the Kabul
campaign of 1879-1880, which lies at the northern end of the Bemaru
ridge, is not uncared for.
Kabul is believed to be the _Ortospanum_ or _Ortospana_ of the
geographies of Alexander's march, a name conjectured to be a
corruption of _Urddhasthana_, "high place." This is the meaning of the
name Bala Hissar. But the actual name is perhaps also found as that of
a people in this position (Ptolemy's _Kabolitae_), if not in the name
of a city apparently identical with Ortospana, _Carura_, in some
copies read_ Cabura_. It was invaded by the Arabs as early as the
thirty-fifth year of the Hegira, but it was long before the
Mahommedans effected any lasting settlement. In the early Mahommedan
histories and geographies we find (according to a favourite Arabic
love of jingle) _Kabul_ and _Zabul_ constantly associated. Zabul
appears to have been the country about Ghazni. Kabul first became a
capital when Baber made himself master of it in 1504, and here he
reigned for fifteen years before his invasion of Hindustan. In modern
times it became a capital again, under Timur Shah (see AFGHANISTAN),
and so has continued both to the end of the Durani dynasty, and under
the Barakzais, who now reign. It was occupied by Sir John Keane in
1839, General Pollock in 1842, and again by Sir Frederick, afterwards
Lord Roberts, in 1879.
Kabul is also the name of the province including the city so called.
It may be considered to embrace the whole of the plains called Koh
Daman and Beghram, &c., to the Hindu Kush northward, with the Kohistan
or hill country adjoining. Eastward it extends to the border of
Jalalabad at Jagdalak; southward it includes the Logar district, and
extends to the border of Ghazni; north-westward it includes the
Paghman hills, and the valley of the upper Kabul river, and so to the
Koh-i-Baba. Roughly it embraces a territory of about 100 m. square,
chiefly mountainous. Wheat and barley are the staple products of the
arable tracts. Artificial grasses are also much cultivated, and fruits
largely, especially in the Koh Daman. A considerable part of the
population spends the summer in tents. The villages are not enclosed
by fortifications, but contain small private castles or fortalices.
See C. Yate, _Northern Afghanistan_ (1888); J. A. Gray, _At the Court
of the Amir_ (1895); Sir T. H. H. Holdich, _The Indian Borderland_
(1901). (T. H. H.*)
KABUL RIVER, a river of Afghanistan, 300 m. in length. The Kabul
(ancient _Kophes_), which is the most important (although not the
largest) river in Afghanistan, rises at the foot of the Unai pass
leading over the Sanglakh range, an offshoot of the Hindu Kush towards
Bamian and Afghan Turkestan. Its basin forms the province of Kabul,
which includes all northern Afghanistan between the Hindu Kush and the
Safed Koh ranges. From its source to the city of Kabul the course of the
river is only 45 m., and this part of it is often exhausted in summer
for purposes of irrigation. Half a mile east of Kabul it is joined by
the Logar, a much larger river, which rises beyond Ghazni among the
slopes of the Gul Koh (14,200 ft.), and drains the rich and picturesque
valleys of Logar and Wardak. Below the confluence the Kabul becomes a
rapid stream with a great volume of water and gradually absorbs the
whole drainage of the Hindu Kush. About 40 m. below Kabul the Panjshir
river joins it; 15 m. farther the Tagao; 20 m. from the Tagao junction
the united streams of Alingar and Alishang (rivers of Kafiristan); and
20 m. below that, at Balabagh, the Surkhab from the Safed Koh. Two or
three miles below Jalalabad it is joined by the Kunar, the river of
Chitral. Thenceforward it passes by deep gorges through the Mohmand
hills, curving northward until it emerges into the Peshawar plain at
Michni. Soon afterwards it receives the Swat river from the north and
the Bara river from the south, and after a further course of 40 m. falls
into the Indus at Attock. From Jalalabad downwards the river is
navigable by boats or rafts of inflated skins, and is considerably used
for purposes of commerce.
KABYLES, or KABAIL, a confederation of tribes in Algeria, Tunisia, and a
few oases of the Sahara, who form a branch of the great Berber race.
Their name is the Arabic _gabilat_ (pl.: _gabail_), and was at first
indiscriminately applied by the Arabs to all Berber peoples. The part of
Algeria which they inhabit is usually regarded as consisting of two
divisions--Great Kabylia and Lesser Kabylia, the former being also known
as the Kabylia of the Jurjura (also called Adrar Budfel, "Mountain of
Snow"). Physically many Kabyles do not present much contrast to the
Arabs of Algeria. Both Kabyle and Arab are white at birth, but rapidly
grow brown through exposure to air and sunshine. Both have in general
brown eyes and wavy hair of coarse quality, varying from dark brown to
jet black. In stature there is perhaps a little difference in favour of
the Kabyle, and he appears also to be of heavier build and more
muscular. Both are clearly long-headed. Some, however, of the purer type
of Kabyles in Kabylia proper have fair skins, ruddy complexions and blue
or grey eyes. In fact there are two distinct types of Kabyles: those
which by much admixture have approximated to Arab and negroid types, and
those which preserve Libyan features. Active, energetic and
enterprising, the Kabyle is to be found far from home--as a soldier in
the French army, as a workman in the towns, as a field labourer, or as a
pedlar or trader earning the means of purchasing his bit of ground in
his native village. The Kabyles are Mahommedans of the Sunnite branch
and the Malikite rite, looking to Morocco as the nearer centre of their
religion. Some of the Kabyles retain their vernacular speech, while
others have more or less completely adopted Arabic. The best known of
the Kabyle dialects is the Zouave[1] or Igaouaouen, those speaking it
having been settled on the northern side of the Jurjura at least from
the time of Ibn Khaldun; it is the principal basis of Hanoteau's _Essai
de grammaire kabyle_ (Paris, 1858). Unlike their southern brethren, the
Kabyles have no alphabet, and their literature is still in the stage of
oral transmission, for the most part by professional reciters.
Hanoteau's _Poesies populaires de la Kabylie du Jurjura_ (Paris, 1867)
gives the text and translation of a considerable number of historical
pieces, proverbial couplets and quatrains, dancing songs, &c.
Consult General L. L. C. Faidherbe and Dr Paul Topinard, _Instructions
sur l'anthropologie de l'Algerie_ (Paris, 1874); Melchior Joseph
Eugene Daumas, _Le Sahara algerien_ (Paris, 1845) and _Moeurs et
coutumes de l'Algerie_ (1857); De Slane's translation of Ibn Khaldun's
_Hist. des Berberes_ (Algiers, 1852); Aucapitaine, _Les Kabyles et la
colonie de l'Algerie_ (Paris, 1864) and _Les Beni M'zab_ (1868);
L.J.A.C. Hanoteau and A. Letourneux, _La Kabylie et les coutumes
kabyles_ (Paris, 1893); Charmetant, in _Jahrbucher der Verbreitung des
Glaubens_ (1874); Masqueray, _Formation des cites ... de l'Algerie_
(1886); Dugas, _La Kabylie et le peuple kabyle_ (Paris, 1878); Recoux,
_La Demographie de l'Algerie_ (Paris, 1880); J. Liorel, _Races
berberes: les Kabyles_ (Paris, 1893); MacIver and Wilkin, _Libyan
Notes_ (1901).
FOOTNOTE:
[1] From the enlistment of Kabyles speaking the Zouave dialect the
Zouave regiments of the French army came to be so called.
KACH GANDAVA, or KACHHI (Kach, Kej, Kiz), a low-lying flat region in
Baluchistan separating the Bugti hills from those of Kalat. It is
driven, like a wedge, into the frontier mountain system and extends for
150 m. from Jacobabad to Sibi, with nearly as great a breadth at its
base on the Sind frontier. Area, 5310 sq. m.; pop. (1901), 82,909. The
Mula pass, which connects it with the Kalat highlands, was once (when
the ancient city of Kandabel was the capital of Gandava) a much trodden
trade highway, and is still a practicable route though no longer a
popular one. The soil is fertile wherever it can be irrigated by the
floods brought down from the surrounding hills; but much of the central
portion is sandy waste. It is traversed by the North-Western railway.
The climate is unhealthy in summer, when pestilential hot winds are
sometimes destructive to life. The annual rainfall averages only 3 in.
Kachhi, though subject to the khan of Kalat, is administered under the
tribal system. There are no schools, dispensaries or gaols.
See _Baluchistan District Gazetteer_, vol. vi. (Bombay, 1907).
KACHIN HILLS, a mountainous tract in Upper Burma, inhabited by the
Kachin or Chingpaw, who are known on the Assam frontier as Singphos.
Owing to the great number of tribes, sub-tribes and clans of the
Kachins, the part of the Kachin hills which has been taken under
administration in the Myitkyina and Bhamo districts was divided into 40
Kachin hill tracts (recently reduced to five). Beyond these tracts there
are many Kachins in Katha, Mong Mit and the northern Shan States. The
country within the Kachin hill tracts is roughly estimated at 19,177 sq.
m., and consists of a series of ranges, for the most part running north
and south, and intersected by valleys, all leading towards the
Irrawaddy, which drains the country. There were 64,405 Kachins
enumerated at the census of 1901. Philological investigations show that
it is probable that the progenitors of the Kachins or Chingpaw were the
Indo-Chinese race who, before the beginnings of history, but after the
Mon-Annam wave had covered Indo-China, forsook their home in western
China to pour over the region where Tibet, Assam, Burma and China
converge, and that the Chingpaw are the residue left round the
headquarters of the Irrawaddy and the Chindwin after those branches,
destined to become the Tibetans, the Nagas, the Burmans and the Kuki
Chins, had gone westwards and southwards. In the middle of the 19th
century the southern limit of the Kachins was 200 m. farther north than
it is now. Since then the race has been drifting steadily southward and
eastward, a vast aggregate of small independent clans united by no
common government, but all obeying a common impulse to move outwards
from their original seats along the line of least resistance. Now the
Kachins are on both sides of the border of Upper Burma, and are a force
to be reckoned with by frontier administrators. According to the Kachin
Hill Tribes Regulation of 1895, administrative responsibility is
accepted by the British government on the left bank of the Irrawaddy for
the country south of the Nmaikha, and on the right bank for the country
south of a line drawn from the confluence of the Malikha and Nmaikha
through the northern limit of the Laban district and including the jade
mines. The tribes north of this line were told that if they abstained
from raiding to the south of it they would not be interfered with. South
of that line peace was to be enforced and a small tribute exacted, with
a minimum of interference in their private affairs. On the British side
of the border the chief objects have been the disarmament of the tribes
and the construction of frontier and internal roads. A light tribute is
exacted.
The Kachins have been the object of many police operations and two
regular expeditions: (1) Expedition of 1892-93. Bhamo was occupied by
the British on the 28th of December 1885, and almost immediately
trouble began. Constant punitive measures were carried on by the
military police; but in December 1892 a police column proceeding to
establish a post at Sima was heavily attacked, and simultaneously the
town of Myitkyina was raided by Kachins. A force of 1200 troops was
sent to put down the rising. The enemy received their final blow at
Palap, but not before three officers were killed, three wounded, and
102 sepoys and followers killed and wounded. (2) Expedition of
1895-96. The continued misconduct of the Sana Kachins from beyond the
administrative border rendered punitive measures necessary. They had
remained unpunished since the attack on Myitkyina in December 1892.
Two columns were sent up, one of 250 rifles from Myitkyina, the other
of 200 rifles from Mogaung, marching in December 1895. The resistance
was insignificant, and the operations were completely successful. A
strong force of military police is stationed at Myitkyina, with
several outposts in the Kachin hills, and the country is never wholly
free from crimes of violence committed by the Kachins.
KADUR, a district of Mysore state, in southern India, with an area of
2813 sq. m. Pop. (1901), 362,752, showing an increase of 9% in the
decade. The larger portion of the district consists of the Malnad or
hill country, which contains some of the wildest mountain scenery in
southern India. The western frontier is formed by the chain of the
Ghats, of which the highest peaks are the Kudremukh (6215 ft.) and the
Meniti Gudda (5451 ft.). The centre is occupied by the horse-shoe range
of the Baba Budans, containing the loftiest mountain in Mysore,
Mulaingiri (6317 ft.). The Maidan or plain country lying beneath the
amphitheatre formed by the Baba Budan hills is a most fertile region,
well watered, and with the famous "black cotton soil." The principal
rivers are the Tunga and Bhadra, which rise near each other in the
Ghats, and unite to form the Tungabhadra, a tributary of the Kistna. The
eastern region is watered by the Vedavati. At the point where this river
leaves the Baba Budan hills it is embanked to form two extensive tanks
which irrigate the lower valley. From all the rivers water is drawn off
into irrigation channels by means of anicuts or weirs. The chief natural
wealth of Kadur is in its forests, which contain inexhaustible supplies
of the finest timber, especially teak, and also furnish shelter for the
coffee plantations. Iron is found and smelted at the foot of the hills,
and corundum exists in certain localities. Wild beasts and game are
numerous, and fish are abundant.
The largest town is Tarikere (pop. 10,164); the headquarters are at
Chikmagalur (9515): The staple crop is rice, chiefly grown on the hill
slopes, where the natural rainfall is sufficient, or in the river
valley, where the fields can be irrigated. Coffee cultivation is said to
have been introduced by a Mahommedan saint, Baba Budan, more than two
centuries ago; but it first attracted European capital in 1840. The
district is served by the Southern Mahratta railway.
KAEMPFER, ENGELBRECHT (1651-1716), German traveller and physician, was
born on the 16th of November 1651 at Lemgo in Lippe-Detmold, Westphalia,
where his father was a pastor. He studied at Hameln, Luneburg, Hamburg,
Lubeck and Danzig, and after graduating Ph.D. at Cracow, spent four
years at Konigsberg in Prussia, studying medicine and natural science.
In 1681 he visited Upsala in Sweden, where he was offered inducements to
settle; but his desire for foreign travel led him to become secretary to
the embassy which Charles XI. sent through Russia to Persia in 1683. He
reached Persia by way of Moscow, Kazan and Astrakhan, landing at Nizabad
in Daghestan after a voyage in the Caspian; from Shemakha in Shirvan he
made an expedition to the Baku peninsula, being perhaps the first modern
scientist to visit these fields of "eternal fire." In 1684 he arrived in
Isfahan, then the Persian capital. When after a stay of more than a year
the Swedish embassy prepared to return, Kaempfer joined the fleet of the
Dutch East India Company in the Persian Gulf as chief surgeon, and in
spite of fever caught at Bander Abbasi he found opportunity to see
something of Arabia and of many of the western coast-lands of India. In
September 1689 he reached Batavia; spent the following winter in
studying Javanese natural history; and in May 1690 set out for Japan as
physician to the embassy sent yearly to that country by the Dutch. The
ship in which he sailed touched at Siam, whose capital he visited; and
in September 1690 he arrived at Nagasaki, the only Japanese port then
open to foreigners. Kaempfer stayed two years in Japan, during which he
twice visited Tokyo. His adroitness, insinuating manners and medical
skill overcame the habitual jealousy and reticence of the natives, and
enabled him to elicit much valuable information. In November 1692 he
left Japan for Java and Europe, and in October 1693 he landed at
Amsterdam. Receiving the degree of M.D. at Leiden, he settled down in
his native city, becoming also physician to the count of Lippe. He died
at Lemgo on the 2nd of November 1716.
The only work Kaempfer lived to publish was _Amoenitatum exoticarum
politico-physico-medicarum fasciculi_ V. (Lemgo, 1712), a selection
from his papers giving results of his invaluable observations in
Georgia, Persia and Japan. At his death the unpublished manuscripts
were purchased by Sir Hans Sloane, and conveyed to England. Among them
was a _History of Japan_, translated from the manuscript into English
by J. G. Scheuchzer and published at London, in 2 vols., in 1727. The
original German has never been published, the extant German version
being taken from the English. Besides Japanese history, this book
contains a description of the political, social and physical state of
the country in the 17th century. For upwards of a hundred years it
remained the chief source of information for the general reader, and
is still not wholly obsolete. A life of the author is prefixed to the
_History_.
KAFFA, a country of N.E. Africa, part of the Abyssinian empire. Kaffa
proper (formerly known also as Gomara) has an area of little more than
5000 sq. m., but the name is used in a general sense to include the
neighbouring territories of Gimirra, Jimma, Ennarea, &c. In this larger
acceptation Kaffa extends roughly from 6 deg. to 9 deg. N. and from 35
deg. to 37(1/2) deg. E. It forms the S.W. part of the great Abyssinian
plateau and consists of broken table-land deeply scored by mountain
torrents and densely wooded. The general elevation is about 8000 ft.,
while several peaks are over 10,000 ft. From the western slopes of the
plateau descend headstreams of the Sobat. The principal river however is
the Omo, the chief feeder of Lake Rudolf. Kaffa proper is believed to be
the native home of the coffee plant (whence the name), which grows in
profusion on the mountain sides. The principal town was Bonga, 7(1/2)
deg. N., 36 deg. 12' E., a great trading centre, but the Abyssinian
headquarters are at Anderacha, about 12 m. S.S.W. of Bonga. Jiren, the
capital of Jimma, 60 m. N.E. of Bonga, is a still more important town,
its weekly market being attended by some 20,000 persons.
A great variety of races inhabit these countries of southern Ethiopia.
The Kaficho (people of Kaffa proper) are said to be of the same stock as
the northern Abyssinians and to have been separated from the rest of the
country by the Mahommedan invasion of the 16th century. Thus Jimma,
immediately north of Kaffa proper, is peopled by Mahommedan Gallas. The
Kaficho, though much mixed with Galla blood, retained their Christianity
and a knowledge of Geez, the ecclesiastical tongue of Abyssinia. The
ordinary language of the Kaficho has no outward resemblance to modern
Abyssinian. Their speech was, however, stated by Dr C. T. Beke (c. 1850)
to be cognate with the Gonga tongue, spoken in a portion of Damot, on
the northern side of the Abai. Kaffa, after having been ruled by
independent sovereigns, who were also suzerains of the neighbouring
states, was about 1895 conquered by the Abyssinians. The first European
explorer of Kaffa was Antoine de'Abbadie, who visited it in 1843. Not
until the early years of the 20th century was the country accurately
mapped.
KAFFIR BREAD, in botany, the popular name for a species of
_Encephalartos_ (_E. caffra_), one of the cycads, a native of South
Africa, so called from the farinaceous food-stuff which is found at the
apex of the stem (Gr. [Greek: en], in, [Greek: kephale], head, and
[Greek: artos], bread). It is a tree reaching nearly 20 ft. in height,
with very stiff, spreading pinnate leaves 3 to 4 ft. long and recurving
at the tip. The species of _Encephalartos_, which are natives of
tropical and South Africa, form handsome greenhouse and conservatory
plants; some species are effectively used in subtropical gardening in
the summer months.
KAFFIRS (Arabic _Kafir_, an unbeliever), a name given by the Arabs to
the native races of the east coast of Africa. The term was current along
the east coast at the arrival of the Portuguese, and passed from them to
the Dutch and English, and to the natives themselves under the form of
_Kafula_. There are no general or collective national names for these
peoples, and the various tribal divisions are mostly designated by
historical or legendary chiefs, founders of dynasties or hereditary
chieftaincies. The term has no real ethnological value, for the Kaffirs
have no national unity. To-day it is used to describe that large family
of Bantu negroes inhabiting the greater part of the Cape, the whole of
Natal and Zululand, and the Portuguese dominions on the east coast south
of the Zambezi. The name is also loosely applied to any negro inhabitant
of South Africa. For example, the Bechuana of the Transvaal and Orange
Free State are usually called Kaffirs.
The Kaffirs are divisible into two great branches: the Ama-Zulu with the
Ama-Swazi and Ama-Tonga and the Kaffirs proper, represented by the
Ama-Xosa, the Tembu (q.v.) and the Pondo (q.v.). Hence the compound term
Zulu-Kaffir applied in a collective sense to all the Kaffir peoples.
Intermediate between these two branches were several broken tribes now
collectively known as Ama-Fengu, i.e. "wanderers" or "needy" people,
from _fenguza_, to seek service[1] (see FINGO).
The ramifications of the Kaffirs proper cannot be understood without
reference to the national genealogies, most of the tribal names, as
already stated, being those of real or reputed founders of dynasties.
Thus the term Ama-Xosa means simply the "people of Xosa," a somewhat
mythical chief supposed to have flourished about the year 1530. Ninth
in descent from his son Toguh was Palo, who died about 1780, leaving
two sons, Gcaleka and Rarabe (pronounced Kha-Kha-be), from whom came
the Ama-Gcaleka, Ama-Dhlambe (T'slambies) and the Ama-Ngquika (Gaika
or Sandili's people). The Pondo do not descend from Xosa, but probably
from an elder brother, while the Tembu, though apparently representing
a younger branch, are regarded by all the Kaffir tribes as the royal
race. Hence the Gcaleka chief, who is the head of all the Ama-Xosa
tribes, always takes his first or "great wife" from the Tembu royal
family, and her issue alone have any claim to the succession. The
subjoined genealogical tree will place Kaffir relations in a clearer
light:--
Zuide (1500?), reputed founder of the nation.
|
+--------------------+--------+---------------+
| | |
Tembu. Xosa (1530?). Mpondo.
| | |
Ama-Tembu Toguh. +---------+-----+
(Tambookies), | |
Tembuland Palo (ob. 1780?), Ama-Mponda, Ama-Mpondumisi
and Emigrant 10th in descent between river |
Tembuland. from Xosa. Umtata and Abelungu
| Natal. (dispersed?)
|
+--------------------+-------------+
| |
Gcaleka. Rarabe
| (Khakhabe).
Klanta. |
| +--------------+----------------+
Hinza. | | |
| Omlao. Mbalu. Ndhlambe
| | --- |
Kreli. Ngqika. Ama-Mbalus. Ama-Ndhlambes
----- | Ama-Gwali. or T'slambies,
Ama-Gcaleka Macomo Ama-Ntinde. between the
(Galeka), | Ama-Gqunukwebi. Keiskamma and
between the Tyali. Ama-Velelo. Great Kei
Bashee and | Ama-Baxa. rivers.
Umtata rivers. Sandili. Imi-Dange.
----- Imi-Dushane.
Ama-Ngqika
(Gaika),
Amatola highlands.
\___________________________________________/
|
Ama-Khakhabe.
\______________________________________________________________/
|
Ama-Xosa.
It will be seen that, as representing the elder branch, the Gcaleka
stand apart from the rest of Xosa's descendants, whom they group
collectively as Ama-Rarabe (Ama-Khakhabe), and whose genealogies,
except in the case of the Gaikas and T'slambies, are very confused.
The Ama-Xosa country lies mainly between the Keiskama and Umtata
rivers.
The Zulu call themselves Abantu ba-Kwa-Zulu, i.e. "people of Zulu's
land," or briefly Bakwa-Zulu, from a legendary chief Zulu, founder of
the royal dynasty. They were originally an obscure tribe occupying the
basin of the Umfolosi river, but rose suddenly to power under
Chaka,[2] who had been brought up among the neighbouring and powerful
Umtetwas, and who succeeded the chiefs of that tribe and of his own in
the beginning of the 19th century. But the true mother tribe seems to
have been the extinct Ama-Ntombela, whence the Ama-Tefulu, the
U'ndwande, U'mlelas, U'mtetwas and many others, all absorbed or
claiming to be true Zulus. But they are only so by political
subjection, and the gradual adoption of the Zulu dress, usages and
speech. Hence in most cases the term Zulu implies political rather
than blood relationship. This remark applies also to the followers of
Mosilikatze (properly Umsilikazi), who, after a fierce struggle with
the Bechuana, founded about 1820 a second Zulu state about the head
waters of the Orange river. In 1837 most of them were driven
northwards by the Boers and are now known as Matabele.
The origin of the Zulu-Kaffir race has given rise to much controversy.
It is obvious that they are not the aborigines of their present domain,
whence in comparatively recent times--since the beginning of the 16th
century--they have displaced the Hottentots and Bushmen of fundamentally
distinct stock. They themselves are conscious of their foreign origin.
Yet they are closely allied in speech (see BANTU LANGUAGES) and physique
to the surrounding Basuto, Bechuana and other members of the great South
African Negroid family. Hence their appearance in the south-east corner
of the continent is sufficiently explained by the gradual onward
movement of the populations pressing southward on the Hottentot and
Bushman domain. The specific differences in speech and appearance by
which they are distinguished from the other branches of the family must
in the same way be explained by the altered conditions of their new
habitat. Hence it is that the farther they have penetrated southwards
the farther have they become differentiated from the pure Negro type.
Thus the light and clear brown complexion prevalent amongst the
southern Tembu becomes gradually darker as we proceed northwards,
passing at last to the blue-black and sepia of the Ama-Swazi and Tekeza.
Even many of the mixed Fingo tribes are of a polished ebony colour, like
that of the Jolofs and other Senegambian negroes. The Kaffir hair is
uniformly of a woolly texture. The head is dolichocephalic, but it is
also high or long vertically,[3] and it is in this feature of
hypsistenocephaly (height and length combined) that the Kaffir presents
the most striking contrast with the pure Negro. But, the nose being
generally rather broad[4] and the lips thick, the Kaffir face, though
somewhat oval, is never regular in the European sense, the deviations
being normally in the direction of the Negro, with which race the
peculiar odour of the skin again connects the Kaffirs. In stature they
rank next to the Patagonians, Polynesians and West Africans, averaging
from 5 ft. 9 in. to 5 ft. 11 in., and even 6 ft.[5] They are slim,
well-proportioned and muscular. Owing to the hard life they lead, the
women are generally inferior in appearance to the men, except amongst
the Zulu, and especially the Tembu. Hence in the matrimonial market,
while the Ama-Xosa girl realizes no more than ten or twelve head of
cattle, the Tembu belle fetches as many as forty, and if especially fine
even eighty.
The more warlike tribes were usually arrayed in leopard or ox skins,
of late years generally replaced by European blankets, with feather
head-dresses, coral and metal ornaments, bead armlets and necklaces.
The Makua and a few others practise tattooing, and the Ama-Xosa are
fond of painting or smearing their bodies with red ochre. Their arms
consist chiefly of ox-hide shields 4 to 6 ft. long, the kerrie or
club, and the assegai, of which there are two kinds, one long, with
9-in. narrow blade, for throwing, the other short, with broad blade 12
to 18 in. long, for stabbing. The dwellings are simple conical huts
grouped in kraals or villages. Although cattle form their chief
wealth, and hunting and stock-breeding their main pursuits, many have
turned to husbandry. The Zulu raise regular crops of "mealies"
(maize), and the Pondo cultivate a species of millet, tobacco, water
melons, yams and other vegetables. Milk (never taken fresh), millet
and maize form the staples of food, and meat is seldom eaten except in
time of war.
A young Kaffir attains man's estate socially, not at puberty, but upon
his marriage. Polygyny is the rule and each wife is regarded as adding
dignity to the household. Marriage is by purchase, the price being
paid in cattle. Upon the husband's death family life is continued
under the headship of the eldest son of the house, the widows by
virtue of levirate becoming the property of the uncle or nearest
males, not sons. A son inherits and honourably liquidates, if he can,
his father's debts.
Mentally the Kaffirs are superior to the Negro. In their social and
political relations they display great tact and intelligence; they are
remarkably brave, warlike and hospitable, and were honest and truthful
until through contact with the whites they became suspicious,
revengeful and thievish, besides acquiring most European vices. Of
religion as ordinarily understood they have very little, and have
certainly never developed any mythologies or dogmatic systems. It is
more than doubtful whether they had originally formed any notion of a
Supreme Being. Some conception, however, of a future state is implied
by a strongly developed worship of ancestry, and by a belief in
spirits and ghosts to whom sacrifices are made. There are no idols or
priests, but belief in witchcraft formerly gave the "witch-doctor" or
medicine-man overwhelming power.[6] Circumcision and polygyny are
universal; the former is sometimes attributed to Mahommedan
influences, but has really prevailed almost everywhere in East Africa
from the remotest time.
Dearer than anything else to the Kaffir are his cattle; and many
ceremonial observances in connexion with them were once the rule.
Formerly ox-racing was a common sport, the oxen running, riderless,
over a ten-mile course. The owner of a champion racing ox was a
popular hero, and these racers were valued at hundreds of head of
cattle. Cattle are the currency of the Kaffirs in their wild state.
Ten to twenty head are the price of a wife. When a girl marries, her
father (if well off) presents her with a cow from his herd. This
animal is called _ubulungu_ or "doer of good" and is regarded as
sacred. It must never be killed nor may its descendants, as long as it
lives. A hair of its tail is tied round the neck of each child
immediately after birth. In large kraals there is the "dancing-ox,"
usually of red colour. Its horns are trained to peculiar shapes by
early mutilations. It figures in many ceremonies when it is paid a
kind of knee-worship.
The Kaffirs have three, not four, seasons: "Green Heads," "Kindness"
and "Cutting"; the first and last referring to the crops, the second
to the "warm weather." Women and children only eat after the men are
satisfied. A light beer made from sorghum is the national drink.
Of the few industries the chief are copper and iron smelting,
practised by the Tembu, Zulu and Swazi, who manufacture weapons,
spoons and agricultural implements both for their own use and for
trade. The Swazi display some taste in wood-carving, and others
prepare a peculiar water-tight vessel of grass. Characteristic of this
race is their neglect of the art of navigation. Not the smallest boats
are ever made for crossing the rivers, much less for venturing on the
sea, except by the Makazana of Delagoa Bay and by the Zambezi people,
who have canoes and flat-bottomed boats made of planks.
The Kaffir race had a distinct and apparently very old political
system, which may be described as a patriarchal monarchy limited by a
powerful aristocracy. Under British rule the tribal independence of
the Kaffirs has disappeared. Varying degrees of autonomy have been
granted, but the supreme powers of the chiefs have gone, the Swazi
being in 1904 the last to be brought to order. In the Transkeian
Territories tribal organization exists, but it is modified by special
legislation and the natives are under the control of special
magistrates. To a considerable extent in Natal and throughout Zululand
the Kaffirs are placed in reserves, where tribal organization is kept
up under European supervision. In Basutoland the tribal organization
is very strong, and the power of chiefs is upheld by the imperial
government, which exercises general supervision.
See Gustav Fritsch, _Die Eingeborenen Sudafrikas_, with atlas, 30
plates and 120 typical heads (Breslau, 1872); W. H. I. Bleek,
_Comparative Grammar of the South African Languages_ (London and Cape
Town, pt. i., 1862; pt. ii., 1869); Theo. Hahn, _Grundzuge einer
Grammatik des Herero_ (Berlin, 1857); Dr Colenso, _Grammar of the
Zulu-Kafir Language_ (1855); Girard de Rialle, _Les Peuples de
l'Afrique et de l'Amerique_ (Paris, 1880); G. W. Stow, _The Native
Races of South Africa_ (London, 1905); G. McC. Theal, _History and
Ethnography of South Africa, 1505 to 1795_ (3 vols., London,
1907-1910) and _History of South Africa since 1795_ (5 vols., London,
1908), specially valuable for the political history of the Kaffirs;
Caesar C. Henkel, _The Native or Transkeian Territories_ (Hamburg,
1903); _The Natives of South Africa_ (1901), and its sequel, _The
South African Natives_ (1908); Dudley Kidd, _The Essential Kafir_
(1904) and _Kafir Socialism_. The last four books deal with the many
social and economic questions raised by the contact of the Kaffir
races with Europeans.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] The Ama-Fengu are regarded both by the Zulu and Ama-Xosa as
slaves or out-castes, without any right to the privileges of
true-born Kaffirs. Any tribes which become broken and mixed would
probably be regarded as Ama-Fengu by the other Kaffirs. Hence the
multiplicity of clans, such as the Ama-Bele, Aba-Sembotweni Ama-Zizi,
Ama-Kuze, Aba-Sekunene, Ama-Ntokaze, Ama-Tetyeni Aba-Shwawa, &c., all
of whom are collectively grouped as Ama-Fengu.
[2] Seventh in descent from Zulu, through Kumede, Makeba, Punga,
Ndaba, Yama and Tezengakona or Senzangakona (Bleek, _Zulu Legends_).
[3] P. Topinard, _Anthropology_ (1878), p. 274.
[4] This feature varies considerably, "in the T'slambie tribes being
broader and more of the Negro shape than in the Gaika or Gcaleka,
while among the Ama-Tembu and Ama-Mpondo it assumes more of the
European character. In many of them the perfect Grecian and Roman
noses are discernible" (Fleming's _Kaffraria_, p. 92).
[5] Gustav Fritsch gives the mean of the Ama-Xosa as 1.718 metres,
less than that of the Guinea Negro (1.724), but more than the English
(1.708) and Scotch (1.710).
[6] Since the early years of the 19th century Protestant and Roman
Catholic missions have gained hundreds of thousands of converts among
the Kaffirs. Purely native Christian churches have also been
organized.
KAFFRARIA, the descriptive name given to the S.E. part of the Cape
province, South Africa. Kaffraria, i.e. the land of the Kaffirs (q.v.),
is no longer an official designation. It used to comprise the districts
now known as King William's Town and East London, which formed British
Kaffraria, annexed to Cape Colony in 1865, and the territory beyond the
Kei River south of the Drakensberg Mountains as far as the Natal
frontier, known as Kaffraria proper. As a geographical term it is still
used to indicate the Transkeian territories of the Cape provinces
comprising the four administrative divisions of Transkei, Pondoland,
Tembuland and Griqualand East, incorporated into Cape Colony at various
periods between 1879 and 1894. They have a total area of 18,310 sq. m.,
and a population (1904) of 834,644, of whom 16,777 were whites.
Excluding Pondoland--not counted previously to 1904--the population had
increased from 487,364 in 1891 to 631,887 in 1904.
_Physical Features._--The physical characteristics of Kaffraria bear a
general resemblance to those of the Cape province proper. The country
rises from sea-level in a series of terraces to the rugged range of
the Drakensberg. Between that range and the coast-lands are many
subsidiary ranges with fertile valleys through which a large number of
rivers make their way to the Indian Ocean. These rivers have very
rapid falls in comparison to their length and when less than 40 m.
from the coast are still 2000 ft. above sea-level. The chief,
beginning at the south, are the Kei, the Bashee, the Umtata, the St
John's or Umzimvubu, and the Umtamvuna, which separates Kaffraria from
Natal. The St John's River rises in the Drakensberg near the
Basuto-Natal frontier. The river valley has a length of 140 m., the
river with its many twists being double that length. It receives
numerous tributaries, one, the Tsitza, possessing a magnificent
waterfall, the river leaping over an almost vertical precipice of 375
ft. The St John's reaches the sea between precipitous cliffs some 1200
ft. high and covered with verdure. The mouth is obstructed by a sand
bar over which there is 14 ft. of water. None of the rivers of
Kaffraria except the St John's is navigable.
Kaffraria is one of the most fertile regions in South Africa. The
mountain gorges abound in fine trees, thick forest and bush cover the
river banks, grass grows luxuriantly in the lower regions, and the
lowlands and valleys are favourable to almost any kind of fruit, field
and garden cultivation. The coast districts are very hot in summer,
the temperature from October to April on an average varying from 70
deg. to 90 deg. F., while in winter the day temperature is seldom
below 50 deg., though the nights are very cold. But the variation in
altitude places climates of all grades within easy reach, from the
burning coast to the often snow-clad mountain. Thunderstorms are
frequent in summer; the winters are generally dry. On the whole the
climate is extremely healthy. At St John's are sulphur springs.
A considerable area is devoted to the raising of wheat and other
cereals, especially in the northern district (Griqualand East), where
in the higher valleys are many farms owned by Europeans. Large
quantities of stock are raised. Most of the land is held by the
natives under tribal tenure, and the ease with which their wants are
supplied is detrimental to the full cultivation of the land. Kaffraria
is, however, one of the chief recruiting grounds for labour throughout
South Africa. Most of the white inhabitants are engaged in trade.
_Towns and Communication._--The chief town is Kokstad (q.v.), pop.
(1904), 2903, the capital of Griqualand East. Umtata (2100 ft. above
the sea, pop. 2342) on the river of the same name, capital of
Tembuland, is the residence of an assistant chief magistrate,
headquarters of a division of the Cape Mounted Rifles, and seat of the
Anglican bishopric of Kaffraria. The principal buildings are the
cathedral, a Gothic structure, built 1901-1906, and the town-hall, a
fine building in Renaissance style, erected 1907-1908. Port St John is
the chief town in Pondoland, and the only harbour of the country.
Butterworth is the chief town in Transkei. Cala (pop. about 1000), in
the N.W. part of Tembuland, is the educational centre of Kaffraria. A
railway, 107 m. long, the first link in the direct Cape-Natal line,
runs from Indwe, 65 m. from Sterkstroom Junction on the main line from
East London to the Transvaal, to Maclear, an agricultural centre in
Griqualand East. Another railway parallel but south of that described
also traverses Kaffraria. Starting from Amabele, a station on the main
line from East London to the north, it goes via Butterworth (132 m.
from East London) to Umtata (234 m.).
_Administration and Justice._--The Cape administrative and judicial
system is in force, save as modified by special enactments of the Cape
parliament. A "Native Territories Penal Code" which came into
operation on the 1st of January 1887 governs the relations of the
natives, who are under the jurisdiction of a chief magistrate
(resident at Cape Town) with subordinate magistrates in the
Territories. In civil affairs the tribal organization and native laws
are maintained. No chief, however, exercises criminal jurisdiction.
Since 1898 certain provisions of the Glen Grey Act have been applied
to Kaffraria (see GLEN GREY). The revenue is included in the ordinary
budget of the Cape province. The expenditure on Kaffraria considerably
exceeds the revenue derived from it. The franchise laws are the same
as in the Cape proper. Though the Kaffirs outnumber the whites by
fifty to one, white men form the bulk of the electorate, which in 1904
numbered 4778.
_Religion._--Numbers of Protestant missionary societies have churches
and educational establishments in Kaffraria, but, except in Fingoland,
the bulk of the Kaffirs are heathen. The Griquas profess Christianity
and have their own churches and ministers. The Anglican diocese of St
John's, Kaffraria, was founded in 1873.
_Annexation to the Cape._--The story of the conflicts between the Kaffir
tribes and the Cape colonists is told under CAPE COLONY. As early as
1819 Kaffirland, or Kaffraria, was held not to extend west beyond the
Keiskamma River. The region east of that river as far as the Kei River
became in 1847 the Crown colony of British Kaffraria, and was annexed to
Cape Colony in 1865. The Transkeian territories remained in nominal
independence until 1875, when the Tembu sought British protection. An
inter-tribal war in 1877 between Fingo and Gcaleka resulted in the
territory of the Gcaleka chief Kreli being occupied by the British. It
was not, however, till 1879 that Fingoland and the Idutywa Reserve,
together with the district then commonly called Noman's-land, were
proclaimed an integral part of the Cape. About this time most of the
rest of Kaffraria came under British control, but it was 1885 before
Gcalekaland, the coast region of Transkei, and the various districts
comprising Tembuland--Bomvanaland on the coast, Tembuland Proper and
Emigrant Tembuland--were annexed to the colony. By the annexation, the
frontier of the colony was carried to the Umtata River, so that by 1885
only Pondoland, fronting on the Indian Ocean, separated the Cape from
Natal. In Pondoland, Port St John, proclaimed British territory in 1881,
was, along with the lower reaches of the St John's River, incorporated
with Cape Colony in 1884; in 1886 the Xesibe country (Mount Ayliff) was
annexed to the Cape and added to Griqualand East; and in the following
year Rhode Valley was included within the boundary line. The rest of
Pondoland, chiefly in virtue of a British protectorate established over
all the coast region in 1885, was already more or less under British
control, and in 1894 it was annexed to the Cape in its entirety. Thus
the whole of Kaffraria was incorporated in Cape Colony, with the
exception of some 1550 sq. m., then part of Noman's-land, annexed by
Natal in 1866 and named Alfred county. To the wise administration of
Major Sir Henry G. Elliot, who served in Kaffraria in various official
capacities from 1877 to 1903, the country owes much of its prosperity.
Particulars concerning each of the four divisions of Kaffraria follow.
_Griqualand East_ (area, 7594 sq. m.), so called to distinguish it
from Griqualand West, a district north of the Orange River, lies
between Basutoland (N.W.), Natal (N.E.), Tembuland (S.W.) and
Pondoland (S.E.). It occupies the southern slopes of the Drakensberg
or the fertile valleys at their feet. It includes most of the region
formerly called Noman's-land, and afterwards named Adam Kok's Land
from the Griqua chief who occupied it in 1862 with the consent of the
British authorities, and governed the country till his death in 1876,
establishing a _volksraad_ on the Dutch model. The Griquas are still
ruled by an officially appointed headman. The majority of the
inhabitants are Basutos and Kaffirs (Pondomisi, Ama-Baka and other
tribes). The Griquas number about 6000. Since its annexation to Cape
Colony Griqualand East has made fairly rapid progress. The population
rose from 121,000 in 1881 to 222,685 in 1904, of whom 5901 were
whites. Stock-breeding on the uplands, tillage on the lower slopes of
the Drakensberg, are the chief industries. On these slopes and uplands
the climate is delightful and well suited to Europeans. There is
considerable trade with Basutoland in grain and stock, and through
Kokstad with Port St John and Port Shepstone, Natal. Much of the best
agricultural land is owned by Europeans.
_Tembuland_ (area, 4122 sq. m.), which lies S.W. of Griqualand East
and comprises the districts of Tembuland Proper, Emigrant Tembuland
and Bomvanaland, takes its name from, the Tembu nation, called
sometimes Tambookies, one of the most powerful of the Kaffir groups.
In the national genealogies the Tembu hold an honourable position,
being traditionally descended from Tembu, elder brother of Xosa, from
whom most of the other Kaffirs claim descent. The inhabitants
increased from about 160,000 in 1881 to 231,472 in 1904, of whom 8056
were whites. The chief town is Umtata.
_Transkei_ (area, 2552 sq. m.) comprises the districts of Fingoland,
the Idutywa Reserve and Gcalekaland, this last being named from the
Gcaleka nation, who claim to be the senior branch of the Xosa family,
the principal royal line of the Kaffir tribes. They still form the
chief element of the population, which rose from 136,000 in 1881 to
177,730 in 1904 (1707 whites). Here are some prosperous missionary
stations, where the natives are taught agriculture, mechanical
industries and a knowledge of letters. The heroic deeds of Hinza,
Kreli and other chiefs famous in the wars are still remembered; but
witchcraft, rain-making and other pagan practices seem to have died
out. Even more advanced in all social respects are the Fingo, who give
their name to the district of Fingoland, and also form the bulk of the
population in the Idutywa Reserve. They wear European clothes, support
their schools by voluntary contributions, edit newspapers, translate
English poetry, set their national songs to correct music, and the
majority profess Christianity. The industrial institution of
Blythswood, about 20 m. N.W. of Butterworth, is a branch of Lovedale
(q.v.), and is largely supported by the Fingo.
_Pondoland_ (area, 4040 sq. m.; pop. (1904), 202,757 (including 1113
whites), an estimated increase of 36,000 since 1891) is bounded E. by
the sea, N. by Natal, W. by Griqualand East, by S. and Tembuland. In
Pondoland the primitive organization of the natives has been little
altered and the influence of the chiefs is very great. Land is held
almost wholly in tribal tenure, though a number of whites possess
farms acquired before the annexation of the country. The Pondo have
shown some appreciation of the benefits of education.
See G. McCall Theal's _History of South Africa_ and other works cited
under CAPE COLONY; also _The Native or Transkeian Territories_, by C.
C. Henkel (Hamburg, 1903), a useful handbook by an ex-official in the
Transkeian Territories.
KAFIRISTAN, a province of Afghanistan. Very little of this country was
known with accuracy and nothing at first hand until General Sir W.
(then Colonel) Lockhart headed a mission to examine the passes of the
Hindu Kush range in 1885-1886. He penetrated into the upper part of the
Bashgal valley, but after a few days he found himself compelled to
return to Chitral. Previously Major Tanner, R.A., had sought to enter
Kafiristan from Jalalabad, but sudden severe illness cut short his
enterprise. M'Nair, the famous explorer of the Indian Survey department,
believed that he had actually visited this little-known land during an
adventurous journey which he made from India and through Chitral in
disguise; but the internal evidence of his reports shows that he mistook
the Kalash district of Chitral, with its debased and idolatrous
population, for the true Kafiristan of his hopes. In 1889 Mr G. S.
Robertson (afterwards Sir George Robertson, K.C.S.I.) was sent on a
mission to Kafiristan. He only remained a few days, but a year later he
revisited the country, staying amongst the Kafirs for nearly a year.
Although his movements were hampered, his presence in the country being
regarded with suspicion, he was able to study the people, and, in spite
of intertribal jealousy, to meet members of many of the tribes. The
facts observed and the information collected by him during his sojourn
in eastern Kafiristan, and during short expeditions to the inner
valleys, are the most trustworthy foundations of our knowledge of this
interesting country.
Kafiristan, which literally means "the land of the infidel," is the name
given to a tract of country enclosed between Chitral and Afghan
territory. It was formerly peopled by pagan mountaineers, who maintained
a wild independence until 1895, when they were finally subdued by Abdur
Rahman, the amir of Kabul, who also compelled them to accept the
religion of Islam. The territory thus ill named is included between 34
deg. 30' and 36 deg. N., and from about 70 deg. to 71 deg. 30' E. As the
western and northern boundaries are imperfectly known, its size cannot
be estimated with any certainty. Its greatest extent is from east to
west at 35 deg. 10' N.; its greatest breadth is probably about 71 deg.
E. The total area approximates to 5000 sq. m. Along the N. the boundary
is the province of Badakshan, on the N.E. the Lutkho valley of Chitral.
Chitral and lower Chitral enclose it to the E., and the Kunar valley on
the S.E. Afghanistan proper supplies the S. limit. The ranges above the
Nijrao and Pansher valleys of Afghanistan wall it in upon the W. The
northern frontier is split by the narrow Minjan valley of Badakshan,
which seems to rise in the very heart of Kafiristan.
Speaking generally, the country consists of an irregular series of
main valleys, for the most part deep, narrow and tortuous, into which
a varying number of still deeper, narrower and more twisted valleys,
ravines and glens pour their torrent water. The mountain ranges of
Metamorphic rock, which separate the main drainage valleys, are all of
considerable altitude, rugged and difficult, with the outline of a
choppy sea petrified. During the winter months, when the snow lies
deep, Kafiristan becomes a number of isolated communities, with few if
any means of intercommunication. In the whole land there is probably
nothing in the shape of a plain. Much of the silent, gigantic country
warms the heart as well as captivates the eye with its grandeur and
varied beauty; much of it is the bare skeleton of the world wasted by
countless centuries of storms and frost, and profoundly melancholy in
its sempiternal ruin. Every variety of mountain scenery can be found:
silent peaks and hard, naked ridges, snowfields and glaciers; mighty
pine forests, wooded slopes and grazing grounds; or wild vine and
pomegranate thickets bordering sparkling streams. At low elevations
the hill-sides are covered with the wild olive and evergreen oaks.
Many kinds of fruit trees--walnuts, mulberries, apricots and
apples--grow near the villages or by the wayside, as well as splendid
horse-chestnuts and other shade trees. Higher in elevation, and from
4000 to 8000 ft., are the dense pine and cedar forests. Above this
altitude the slopes become dreary, the juniper, cedar and wild rhubarb
gradually giving place to scanty willow patches, tamarisk and stunted
birches. Over 13,000 ft. there are merely mosses and rough grass.
Familiar wildflowers blossom at different heights. The rivers teem
with fish. Immense numbers of red-legged partridges live in the lower
valleys, as well as pigeons and doves. Gorgeously plumaged pheasants
are plentiful. Of wild animals the chief are the _markhor_ (a goat)
and the _oorial_ (a sheep). In the winter the former are recklessly
slaughtered by hunters, being either brought to bay by trained hounds,
or trapped in pits, or caught floundering in the snow-drifts; but in
the summer immense herds move on the higher slopes. The _ibex_ is very
rare. Bears and leopards are fairly common, as well as the smaller
hill creatures.
Passes and Roads.
All the northern passes leading into Badakshan or into the Minjan
valley of Badakshan seem to be over 15,000 ft. in altitude. Of these
the chief are the Mandal, the Kamah (these two alone have been
explored by a European traveller), the Kti, the Kulam and the Ramgal
passes. Those to the east, the Chitral passes, are somewhat lower,
ranging from 12,000 to 14,000 ft., e.g. the Zidig, the Shui, the
Shawal and the Parpit, while the Patkun, which crosses one of the
dwindled spurs near the Kunar river, is only 8400 ft. high. Between
neighbouring valleys the very numerous communicating footways must
rarely be lower than 10,000, while they sometimes exceed 14,000 ft.
The western passes are unknown. All these toilsome paths are so
faintly indicated, even when free from snow, that to adventure them
without a local guide is usually unsafe. Yet the light-framed cattle
of these jagged mountains can be forced over many of the worst passes.
Ordinarily the herding tracks, near the crest of the ridges and high
above the white torrents, are scarcely discoverable to untutored eyes.
They wind and waver, rise, drop and twist about the irregular
semi-precipitous slopes with baffling eccentricity and abruptness.
Nevertheless the cattle nose their way along blunderingly, but without
hurt. Of no less importance in the open months, and the sole trade
routes during winter, are the lower paths by the river. An unguided
traveller is continually at fault upon these main lines of intercourse
and traffic.
Rivers.
All the rivers find their tumultuous way into the Kabul, either
directly, as the Alingar at Laghman, or after commingling with the
Kunar at Arundu and at Chigar-Serai. The Bashgal, draining the eastern
portion of the country, empties itself into the Kunar at Arundu. It
draws its highest waters from three main sources at the head of the
Bashgal valley. It glides gently through a lake close to this origin,
and then through a smaller tarn. The first affluent of importance is
the Skorigal, which joins it above the village of Pshui. Next comes
the noisier Manangal water, from the Shawal pass, which enters the
main stream at Lutdeh or Bragamatal, the chief settlement of the
Bashgal branch of the Katir tribe. By-and-by the main stream becomes,
at the hamlet of Sunra, a raging, shrieking torrent in a dark narrow
valley, its run obstructed by giant boulders and great tree-trunks.
Racing past Bagalgrom, the chief village of the Madugal Kafirs, the
river clamours round the great spur which, 1800 ft. higher up, gives
space for the terraces and houses of Kamdesh, the headquarters of the
Kam people. The next important affluent is the river which drains the
Pittigal valley, its passes and branches. Also on the left bank, and
still lower down, is the joining-place of the Gourdesh valley waters.
Finally it ends in the Kunar just above Arundu and Birkot. The middle
part of Kafiristan, including the valleys occupied by the Presun, Kti,
Ashkun and Wai tribes, is drained by a river variously called the
Pech, the Kamah, and the Presun or Viron River. It has been only
partially explored. Fed by the fountains and snows of the upper Presun
valley, it is joined at the village of Shtevgrom by the torrent from
the Kamah pass. Thence it moves quietly past meadowland, formerly set
apart as holy ground, watering on its way all the Presun villages.
Below the last of them, with an abrupt bend, it hurries into the
unexplored and rockbound Tsaru country, where it absorbs on the right
hand the Kti and the Ashkun and on the left the Wai rivers, finally
losing itself in the Kunar, close to Chigar-Serai. Concerning the
Alingar or Kao, which carries the drainage of western Kafiristan into
the Kabul at Laghman, there are no trustworthy details. It is formed
from the waters of all the valleys inhabited by the Ramgal Kafirs, and
by that small branch of the Katirs known as the Kalam tribe.
Climate.
The climate varies with the altitude, but in the summer-time it is hot
at all elevations. In the higher valleys the winter is rigorous. Snow
falls heavily everywhere over 4000 ft. above the sea-level. During the
winter of 1890-1891 at Kamdesh (elevation 6100 ft.) the thermometer
never fell below 17 deg. F. In many of the valleys the absence of wind
is remarkable. Consequently a great deal of cold can be borne without
discomfort. The Kunar valley, which is wet and windy in winter, but
where snow, if it falls, melts quickly, gives a much greater sensation
of cold than the still Kafiristan valleys of much lower actual
temperature. A deficiency of rain necessitates the employment of a
somewhat elaborate system of irrigation, which in its turn is
dependent upon the snowfall.
The Kafirs.
The present inhabitants are probably mainly descended from the broken
tribes of eastern Afghanistan, who, refusing to accept Islam (in the
10th century), were driven away by the fervid swordsmen of Mahomet.
Descending upon the feeble inhabitants of the trackless slopes and
perilous valleys of modern Kafiristan, themselves, most likely, refugees
of an earlier date, they subjugated and enslaved them and partially
amalgamated with them. These ancient peoples seem to be represented by
the Presun tribe, by the slaves and by fragments of lost peoples, now
known as the Jazhis and the Aroms. The old division of the tribes into
the Siah-Posh, or the black-robed Kafirs, and the Safed-Posh, or the
white-robed, was neither scientific nor convenient, for while the
Siah-Posh have much in common in dress, language, customs and
appearance, the Safed-Posh divisions were not more dissimilar from the
Siah-Posh than they were from one another. Perhaps the best division at
present possible is into (1) Siah-Posh, (2) Waigulis, and (3)
Presungalis or Viron folk.
The Siah-Posh.
The black-robed Kafirs consist of one very large, widely spread tribe,
the Katirs, and four much smaller communities, the Kam, the Madugalis,
the Kashtan or Kashtoz, and the Gourdesh. Numerically, it is probable
that the Katirs are more important than all the remaining tribes put
together. They inhabit several valleys, each community being
independent of the others, but all acknowledging the same origin and a
general relationship. The Katirs fall readily into the following
groups: (a) Those of the Bashgal valley, also called Kamoz and
Lutdehchis, who occupy eleven villages between Badawan and Sunra, the
border hamlet of the Madugal country, namely, Ptsigrom, Pshui or
Pshowar, Apsai, Shidgal, Bragamatal (Lutdeh), Bajindra, Badamuk,
Oulagal, Chabu, Baprok and Purstam; (b) the Kti or Katwar Kafirs, who
live in two settlements in the Kti valley; (c) the Kulam people, who
have four villages in the valley of the same name; (d) the Ramgalis,
or Gabariks, who are the most numerous, and possess the western part
on the Afghan border. Of the remaining tribes of the Siah-Posh, the
chief is the Kam or Kamtoz, who inhabit the Bashgal valley, from the
Madugal boundary to the Kunar valley, and its lateral branches in
seven chief settlements, namely, Urmir, Kambrom or Kamdesh, Mergrom,
Kamu, Sarat, Pittigal and Bazgal. The next Siah-Posh tribe in
importance is the Muman or Madugal Kafirs, who have three villages in
the short tract between the Katirs and the Kam in the Bashgal valley.
The last Siah-Posh tribe is the Kashtan or Kashtoz, who in 1891 were
all located in one greatly overcrowded village, their outlying
settlement having been plundered by the Afghan tribes of the Kunar
valley. One colony of Siah-Posh Kafirs lives in the Gourdesh valley;
but they differ from all the other tribes, and are believed to be
descended, in great part, from the ancient people called the Aroms.
The Waigulis.
Our exact knowledge of the Waigulis is scanty. They seem to be related
in language and origin with a people fierce, shy and isolated, called
the Ashkun, who are quite unknown. The Wai speak a tongue altogether
different from that spoken by the Siah-Posh and by the Presungalis.
The names of their ten chief villages are Runchi, Nishi, Jamma, Amzhi,
Chimion, Kegili, Akun or Akum, Mildesh, Bargal and Prainta. Of these
Amzhi and Nishi are the best known.
The Presungalis.
The Presungalis, also called Viron, live in a high valley. In all
respects they differ from other Kafirs, in none more than in their
unwarlike disposition. Simple, timid, stolid-featured and rather
clumsy, they are remarkable for their industry and powers of
endurance. They probably represent some of the earliest immigrants.
Six large well-built villages are occupied by them--Shtevgrom,
Pontzgrom, Diogrom, Kstigigrom, Satsumgrom and Paskigrom.
The Slaves.
The slaves are fairly numerous. Their origin is probably partly from
the very ancient inhabitants and partly from war prisoners. Coarse in
feature and dark in tint, they cannot be distinguished from the lowest
class of freemen, while their dress is indistinctive. They are of two
classes--household slaves, who are treated not unkindly; and artisan
slaves, who are the skilled handicraftsmen--carvers, blacksmiths,
bootmakers and so forth; many of the musicians are also slaves. They
live in a particular portion of a village, and were considered to a
certain extent unclean, and might not approach closely to certain
sacred spots. All slaves seem to wear the Siah-Posh dress, even when
they own as masters the feeble Presungal folk.
Women.
Little respect is shown to women, except in particular cases to a few
of advanced years. Usually they are mistresses and slaves, saleable
chattels and field-workers. Degraded, immoral, overworked and
carelessly fed, they are also, as a rule, unpleasant to the sight.
Little girls are sometimes quite beautiful, but rough usage and
exposure to all weathers soon make their complexions coarse and dark.
They are invariably dirty and uncombed. In comparison with the men
they are somewhat short. Physically they are capable of enormous
labour, and are very enduring. All the field-work falls to them, as
well as all kinds of inferior occupations, such as load-carrying. They
have no rights as against their husbands or, failing them, their male
relations. They cannot inherit or possess property.
Language.
There are certainly three tongues spoken, besides many dialects, that
used by the Siah-Posh being of course the most common; and although it
has many dialects, the employers of one seem to understand all the
others. It is a Prakritic language. Of the remaining two, the Wai and
the Presun have no similarity; they are also unlike the Siah-Posh.
Kafirs themselves maintain that very young children from any valley
can acquire the Wai speech, but that only those born in the Presungal
can ever converse in that language, even roughly. To European ears it
is disconcertingly difficult, and it is perhaps impossible to learn.
Religion.
Before their conquest by Abdur Rahman all the Kafirs were idolaters of
a rather low type. There were lingering traces of ancestor-worship,
and perhaps of fire-worship also. The gods were numerous; tribal,
family, household deities had to be propitiated, and mischievous
spirits and fairies haunted forests, rivers, vales and great stones.
Imra was the Creator, and all the other supernatural powers were
subordinate to him. Of the inferior gods, Moni seemed to be the most
ancient; but Gish, the war-god, was by far the most popular. It was
his worship, doubtless, which kept the Kafirs so long independent. In
life as a hero, and after death as a god, he symbolized hatred to the
religion of Mahomet. Every village revered his shrine; some possessed
two. Imra, Gish and Moni were honoured with separate little temples,
as was usually Dizani goddess; but three or four of the others would
share one between them, each looking out of a small separate square
window. The worshipped object was either a large fragment of stone or
an image of wood conventionally carved, with round white stones for
eyes. Different animals were sacrificed at different shrines: cows to
Imra, male goats and bulls to Gish, sheep to the god of wealth; but
goats were generally acceptable, and were also slain ceremonially to
discover a complaisant god, to solemnize a vow, to end a quarrel, to
ratify brotherhood. The ministers of religion were a hereditary
priest, a well-born chanter of praise, and a buffoon of low station,
who was supposed to become inspired at each sacrifice, and to have the
power of seeing fairies and other spirits whenever they were near,
also of understanding their wishes. The blood of the offering,
together with flour, wine and butter, was cast on the shrine after the
animal and the other gifts had been sanctified with water sprinkled by
the officiating priests, while he cried "Such, such!" ("Be pure!").
Dense clouds of smoke from burning juniper-cedar, which crackled and
gave forth pungent incense, added to the spectacle, which was
dignified by the bearing of the officials and solemnized by the devout
responses of the congregation. There was no human sacrifice except
when a prisoner of war, after a solemn service at a shrine, was taken
away and stabbed before the wooden tomb of some unavenged headman.
Kafirs believed in a kind of Hell where wicked people burned; but the
Hereafter was an underground region entered by a guarded aperture, and
inhabited by the shapes which men see in dreams. Suicide was as
unknown as fear of dying. Melancholy afflicted only the sick and the
bereaved. Religious traditions, miracles and anecdotes were puerile,
and pointed no social lesson or any religious law. Music, dancing and
songs of praise were acceptable to the gods, and every village
(_grom_) had its dancing platform and dancing house (_grom ma_),
furnished with a simple altar. No prayers were offered, only
invocations, exhortative or remonstrant.
Tribal Organization.
The great majority of the tribes were made up of clans. A person's
importance was derived chiefly from the wealth of his family and the
number of male adults which it contained. The power of a family, as
shown by the number and quality of its fighting men as well as by the
strength of its followers, was the index of that family's influence.
Weak clans and detached families, or poor but free households, carried
their independence modestly. The lowest clan above the slaves sought
service with their wealthier tribesmen as henchmen and armed
shepherds. By intricate ceremonial, associated with complicated
duties, social and religious, which extended over two years,
punctuated at intervals by prodigious compulsory banquets, rich men
could become elders or _jast_. Still further outlay and ostentation
enabled the few who could sustain the cost to rank still higher as
chief or _Mir_. Theoretically, all the important and outside affairs
of the tribe were managed by the _jast_ in council; actually they were
controlled by two or three of the most respected of that class. Very
serious questions which inflamed the minds of the people would be
debated in informal parliaments of the whole tribe. Kafirs have a
remarkable fondness for discussing in conclave. Orators, consequently,
are influential. The internal business of a tribe was managed by an
elected magistrate with twelve assistants. It was their duty to see
that the customs of the people were respected; that the proper seasons
for gathering fruit were rigidly observed. They regulated the
irrigation of the fields, moderating the incessant quarrels which
originated in the competition for the water; and they kept the
channels in good repair. Their chief, helped by contributions in kind
from all householders, entertained tribal guests. He also saw that the
weekly Kafir Sabbath, from the sowing to the carrying of the crops,
was carefully observed, the fires kept burning, and the dancers
collected and encouraged. Opposition to these annual magistrates or
infraction of tribal laws was punished by fines, which were the
perquisites and the payment of those officials. Serious offences
against the whole people were judged by the community itself; the
sentences ranged as high as expulsion from the settlement, accompanied
with the burning of the culprit's house and the spoliation of his
goods. In such cases, the family and the clan refusing to intervene,
the offender at once became cowed into submission.
Houses and Villages.
Habitations are generally strong, and built largely of wood. They are
frequently two or more storeys high, often with an open gallery at the
top. Wealthy owners were fond of elaborate carving in simple designs
and devices. A room is square, with a smoke-hole when possible; small
windows, with shutters and bolts, and heavy doors fastened by a
sliding wooden pin, are common. The nature of the ground, its
defensible character, the necessity of not encroaching upon the scanty
arable land, and such considerations, determine the design of the
villages. Specimens of many varieties may be discovered. There is the
shockingly overcrowded oblong kind, fort-shaped, three storeys high,
and on a river's bank, which is pierced by an underground way leading
to the water. Here all rooms look on to the large central courtyard;
outwards are few or no windows. There is also the tiny hamlet of a few
piled-up hovels perched on the flattish top of some huge rock,
inaccessible when the ladder connecting it with the neighbouring
hill-side or leading to the ground is withdrawn. Some villages on
mounds are defended at the base by a circular wall strengthened with
an entanglement of branches. Others cling to the knife-edged back of
some difficult spur. Many are hidden away up side ravines. A few
boldly rely upon the numbers of their fighting men, and are
unprotected save by watch-towers. While frequently very picturesque at
a distance, all are dirty and grimed with smoke; bones and horns of
slaughtered animals litter the ground. The ground floor of a house is
usually a winter stable for cows and the latrine, as well as the
manure store for the household; the middle part contains the family
treasures; on the top is the living-place. In cold valleys, such as
the Presungal, the houses are often clustered upon a hillock, and
penetrate into the soil to the depth of two or more apartments.
Notched poles are the universal ladders and stairways.
Characteristics.
In height Kafirs average about 5 ft. 6 in. They are lean; always in
hard condition; active jumpers, untiring walkers, expert mountaineers;
exceptionally they are tall and heavy. With chests fairly deep, and
muscular, springy legs, there is some lightness and want of power
about the shoulder muscles, the arms and the hand-grasp. In complexion
they are purely Eastern. Some tribes, notably the Wai, are fairer than
others, but the average colour is that of the natives of the Punjab.
Albinos, or red-haired people, number less than (1/2)% of the
population. As a rule, the features are well-shaped, especially the
nose. The glance is wild and bold, with the wide-lidded, restless gaze
of the hawk; or the exact converse--a shifty, furtive peer under
lowered brows. This look is rather common amongst the wealthier
families and the most famous tribesmen. The shape of a man's head not
uncommonly indicates his social rank. Several have the brows of
thinkers and men of affairs. The degraded forms are the bird-of-prey
type--low, hairy foreheads, hooked noses with receding chin, or the
thickened, coarse features of the darker slave class. Intellectually
they are of good average power. Their moral characteristics are
passionate covetousness, and jealousy so intense that it smothers
prudence. Before finally destroying, it constantly endangered their
wildly cherished independence. Revenge, especially on neighbouring
Kafirs, is obtained at any price. Kafirs are subtle, crafty, quick in
danger and resolute, as might be expected of people who have been
plunderers and assassins for centuries, whose lives were the forfeit
of a fault in unflinchingness or of a moment's vacillation. Stealthy
daring, born of wary and healthy nerves and the training of
generations, almost transformed into an instinct, is the national
characteristic. Ghastly shadows, they flitted in the precincts of
hostile villages far distant from their own valleys, living upon the
poorest food carried in a fetid goatskin bag; ever ready to stab in
the darkness or to wriggle through apertures, to slay as they slept
men, women and babies. Then, with clothing for prize, and human ears
as a trophy, they sped, watchful as hares, for their far-away hills,
avenger Pathans racing furiously in their track. Kafirs, most faithful
to one another, never abandoned a comrade. If he were killed, they
sought to carry away his head for funeral observances. As traders,
though cunning enough, they are no match for the Afghan. They were
more successful as brigands and blackmailers than as skilled thieves.
In night robbery and in pilfering they showed little ingenuity. Truth
was considered innately dangerous; but a Kafir is far more trustworthy
than his Mahommedan neighbours. Although hospitality is generally
viewed as a hopeful investment, it can be calculated on, and is
unstinted. Kafirs are capable of strong friendship. They are not
cruel, being kind to children and to animals, and protective to the
weak and the old. Family ties and the claim of blood even triumph over
jealousy and covetousness.
Dress, Weapons, Utensils, &c.
The national attire of the men is a badly-cured goatskin, confined at
the waist by a leather belt studded with nails, supporting the
I-hilted dagger, strong but clumsy, of slave manufacture, sheathed in
wood covered with iron or brass, and often prettily ornamented. Women
are dressed in a long, very dark tunic of wool, ample below the
shoulders, and edged with red. This is fastened at the bosom by an
iron pin, a thorn, or a fibula; it is gathered round the body by a
woven band, an inch wide, knotted in front to dangle down in tassels.
On this girdle is carried a fantastically handled knife in a leather
covering. The woman's tunic is sometimes worn by men. As worn by women
its shape is something between a long frock-coat and an Inverness
cape. Its hue and the blackness of the hairy goatskin give the name of
Siah-Posh, "black-robed," to the majority of the clans. The other
tribes wear such articles of cotton attire as they can obtain by
barter, by theft, or by killing beyond the border, for only woollen
cloth is made in the country. Of late years long robes from Chitral
and Badakshan have been imported by the wealthy, as well as the
material for loose cotton trousers and wide shirts. Clothing, always
hard to obtain, is precious property. Formerly little girls, the
children of slaves, or else poor relations, used to be sold in
exchange for clothes and ammunition. Mahommedans eagerly bought the
children, which enabled them in one transaction to acquire a female
slave and to convert an infidel. Men go bareheaded, which wrinkles
them prematurely, or they wear Chitral caps. Certain priests, and
others of like degree, wind a strip of cotton cloth round their brows.
Siah-Posh women wear curious horned caps or a small square white
head-dress upon informal occasions. Females of other tribes bind their
heads with turbans ornamented with shells and other finery. Excellent
snow gaiters are made of goat's hair for both sexes, and of woollen
material for women. Boots, strongly sewn, of soft red leather cannot
be used in the snow or when it is wet, because they are imperfectly
tanned. For the ceremonial dances all manner of gay-coloured articles
of attire, made of cheap silk, cotton velvet, and sham cloth-of-gold,
are displayed, and false jewelry and tawdry ornaments; but they are
not manufactured in the country, but brought from Peshawar by pedlars.
Woollen blankets and goat's-hair mats cover the bedsteads--four-legged
wooden frames laced across with string or leather thongs. Low square
stools, 18 in. broad, made upon the same principle as the bedsteads,
are peculiar to the Kafirs and their half-breed neighbours of the
border. Iron tripod tables, singularly Greek in design, are fashioned
in Waigul. A warrior's weapons are a matchlock (rarely a flintlock), a
bow and arrows, a spear and the dagger which he never puts aside day
or night. The axes, often carried, are light and weak, and chiefly
indicate rank. Clubs, carefully ornamented by carving, are of little
use in a quarrel; their purpose is that of a walking-stick. As they
are somewhat long, these walking-clubs have been often supposed to be
leaping-poles. Swords are rarely seen, and shields, carried purely for
ostentation, seldom. Soft stone is quarried to make large utensils,
and great grim chests of wood become grain boxes or coffins
indifferently. Prettily carved bowls with handles, or with dummy
spouts, hold milk, butter, water or small quantities of flour. Wine,
grain, everything else, is stored or carried in goatskin bags. Musical
instruments are represented by reed flageolets, small drums, primitive
fiddles, and a kind of harp.
Peculiar Customs.
Isolated and at the outskirts of every village is a house used by
women when menstruating and for lying-in. Children are named as soon
as born. The infant is given to the mother to suckle, while a wise
woman rapidly recites the family ancestral names; the name pronounced
at the instant the baby begins to feed is that by which it is
thereafter known. Everybody has a double name, the father's being
prefixed to that given at birth. Very often the two are the same.
There is a special day for the first head-shaving. No hair is allowed
on a male's scalp, except from a 4-in. circle at the back of the head,
whence long locks hang down straight. Puberty is attained
ceremoniously by boys. Girls simply change a fillet for a cotton cap
when nature proclaims womanhood. Marriage is merely the purchase of a
wife through intermediaries, accompanied by feasting. Divorce is often
merely a sale or the sending away of a wife to slave for her parents
in shame. Sexual morality is low. Public opinion applauds gallantry,
and looks upon adultery as hospitality, provided it is not discovered
by the husband. If found out, _in flagrante delicto_, there is a
fiscal fine in cows. There is much collusion to get this penalty paid
in poor households. Funeral rites are most elaborate, according to the
rank and warrior fame of the deceased, if a male, and to the wealth
and standing of the family, if a woman. Children are simply carried to
the cemetery in a blanket, followed by a string of women lamenting. A
really great man is mourned over for days with orations, dancing,
wine-drinking and food distribution. Gun-firing gives notice of the
procession. After two or three days the corpse is placed in the coffin
at a secluded spot, and the observances are continued with a straw
figure lashed upon a bed, to be danced about, lamented over, and
harangued as before. During regular intervals for business and
refreshment old women wail genealogies. A year later, with somewhat
similar ritual, a wooden statue is inaugurated preliminary to erection
on the roadside or in the village Valhalla. The dead are not buried,
but deposited in great boxes collected in an assigned place. Finery is
placed with the body, as well as vessels holding water and food.
Several corpses may be heaped in one receptacle, which is, rarely,
ornamented with flags; its lid is kept from warping by heavy stones.
The wooden statues or effigies are at times sacrificed to when there
is sickness, and at one of the many annual festivals food is set
before them. Among the Presungal there are none of these images.
Blood-feuds within a tribe do not exist. The slayer of his fellow,
even by accident, has to pay a heavy compensation or else become an
outcast. Several hamlets and at least one village are peopled by
families who had thus been driven forth from the community. The stigma
attaches itself to children and their marriage connexions. Its outward
symbol is an inability to look in the face any of the dead person's
family. This avoidance is ceremonial. In private and after dark all
may be good friends after a decorous interval. The compensation is
seldom paid, although payment carries with it much enhancement of
family dignity. All the laws to punish theft, assault, adultery and
other injury are based on a system of compensation whenever possible,
and of enlisting the whole of the community in all acts of punishment.
Kafirs have true conceptions of justice. There is no death penalty; a
fighting male is too valuable a property of the whole tribe to be so
wasted. War begins honourably with proper notice, as a rule, but the
murder of an unsuspecting traveller may be the first intimation.
Bullets or arrow-heads sent to a tribe or village is the correct
announcement of hostilities. The slaying of a tribesman need not in
all cases cause a war. Sometimes it may be avoided by the sinning
tribe handing over a male to be killed by the injured relations.
Ambush, early morning attacks by large numbers, and stealthy killing
parties of two or three are the favourite tactics. Peace is made by
the sacrifice of cows handed over by the weaker tribe to be offered up
to a special god of the stronger. When both sides have shown equal
force and address, the same number of animals are exchanged.
Field-work falls exclusively to the women. It is poor. The ploughs are
light and very shallow. A woman, who only looks as if she were yoked
with the ox, keeps the beast in the furrows, while a second holds the
handle. All the operations of agriculture are done primitively.
Grazing and dairy-farming are the real trade of the Kafirs, the
surplus produce being exchanged on the frontier or sold for Kabul
rupees. Herders watch their charges fully armed against marauders.
_History._--The history of Kafiristan has always been of the floating
legendary sort. At the present day there are men living in Chitral and
on other parts of the Kafiristan frontier who are prepared to testify as
eye-witnesses to marvels observed, and also heard, by them, not only in
the more remote valleys but even in the Afghan borderland itself. It is
not surprising therefore that the earlier records are to a great extent
fairy tales of a more or less imaginative kind and chiefly of value to
those interested in folk-lore. Sir Henry Yule, a scientific soldier, a
profound geographer and a careful student, as the result of his
researches thought that the present Kafiristan was part of that pagan
country stretching between Kashmir and Kabul which medieval Asiatics
referred to vaguely as _Bilaur_, a name to be found in Marco Polo as
_Bolor_. The first distinct mention of the Kafirs as a separate people
appears in the history of Timur. On his march to the invasion of India
the people at Andarab appealed to Timur for help against the Kator and
the Siah-Posh Kafirs. He responded and entered the country of those
tribes through the upper part of the Panjhir valley. It was in deep
winter weather and Timur had to be let down the snows by _glissade_ in a
basket guided by ropes. A detachment of 10,000 horse which he speaks of
as having been sent against the Siah-Posh to his left, presumably
therefore to the north, met with disaster; but he himself claims to have
been victorious. Nevertheless he seems quickly to have evacuated the
impracticable mountain land, quitting the country at Khawak. He caused
an inscription to be carved in the defiles of Kator to commemorate his
invasion and to explain its route. Inside the Kafir country on the Najil
or Alishang River there is a fort still called Timur's Castle, and in
the Kalam fort there is said to be a stone engraved to record that as
the farthest point of his advance. In the _Memoirs_ of Baber there is
mention of the Kafirs raiding into Panjhir and of their taste for
drinking, every man having a leathern wine-bottle slung round his neck.
The _Ain-i-Akbari_ makes occasional mention of the Kafirs, probably on
the authority of the famous _Memoirs_; it also contains a passage which
may possibly have originated the widespread story that the Kafirs were
descendants of the Greeks. Yule however believed that this passage did
not refer to the Kafirs at all, but to the claims to descent from
Alexander of the rulers in Swat before the time of the Yusufzai. Many of
the princelings of the little Hindu-Kush states at the present day pride
themselves on a similar origin, maintaining the founders of their race
to be Alexander, "the two-horned," and a princess sent down miraculously
from heaven to wed him.
Benedict Goes, travelling from Peshawar to Kabul in 1603, heard of a
place called _Capperstam_, where no Mahommedan might enter on pain of
death. Hindu traders were allowed to visit the country, but not the
temples. Benedict Goes tasted the Kafir wine, and from all that he heard
suspected that the Kafirs might be Christians. Nothing more is heard of
the Kafirs until 1788, when Rennell's _Memoir of a Map of Hindostan_
was published. Twenty-six years later Elphinstone's _Caubal_ was
published. During the British occupation of Kabul in 1839-1840 a
deputation of Kafirs journeyed there to invite a visit to their country
from the Christians whom they assumed to be their kindred. But the
Afghans grew furiously jealous, and the deputation was sent coldly away.
After Sir George Robertson's sojourn in the country and the visit of
several Kafirs to India with him in 1892 an increasing intimacy
continued, especially with the people of the eastern valleys, until
1895, when by the terms of an agreement entered into between the
government of India and the ruler of Afghanistan the whole of the Kafir
territory came nominally under the sway of Kabul. The amir Abdur Rahman
at once set about enforcing his authority, and the curtain, partially
lifted, fell again heavily and in darkness. Nothing but rumours reached
the outside world, rumours of successful invasions, of the wholesale
deportation of boys to Kabul for instruction in the religion of Islam,
of rebellions, of terrible repressions. Finally even rumour ceased. A
powerful Asiatic ruler has the means of ensuring a silence which is
absolute, and nothing is ever known from Kabul except what the amir
wishes to be known. Probably larger numbers of the growing boys and
young men of Kafiristan are fanatical Mahommedans, fanatical with the
zeal of the recent convert, while the older people and the majority of
the population cherish their ancient customs in secret and their
degraded religion in fear and trembling--waiting dumbly for a sign.
See Sir G. S. Robertson, _Kafirs of the Hindu-Kush_ (London, 1896).
(G. S. R.)
KAGERA, a river of east equatorial Africa, the most remote headstream of
the Nile. The sources of its principal upper branch, the Nyavarongo,
rise in the hill country immediately east of Lake Kivu. After a course
of over 400 m. the Kagera enters Victoria Nyanza on its western shore in
0 deg. 58' S. It is navigable by steamers for 70 m. from its mouth, being
obstructed by rapids above that point. The river was first heard of by
J. H. Speke in 1858, and was first seen (by white men) by the same
traveller (Jan. 16, 1862) on his journey to discover the Nile source.
Speke was well aware that the Kagera was the chief river emptying into
the Victoria Nyanza and in that sense _the_ headstream of the Nile. By
him the stream was called "Kitangule," _kagera_ being given as
equivalent to "river." The exploration of the Kagera has been largely
the work of German travellers.
See NILE; also Speke's _Discovery of the Source of the Nile_
(Edinburgh, 1863); R. Kandt's _Caput Nili_ (Berlin, 1904); and map by
P. Sprigade and M. Moisel in _Grosser deutscher Kolonialatlas_, No. 16
(Berlin, 1906).
KAHLUR, or BILASPUR, a native state of India, within the Punjab. It is
one of the hill states that came under British protection after the
first Sikh war in 1846. The Gurkhas had overrun the country in the early
part of the 19th century, and expelled the raja, who was, however,
reinstated by the British in 1815. The state occupies part of the basin
of the Sutlej amid the lower slopes of the Himalaya. Area, 448 sq. m.
Pop. (1901), 90,873; estimated gross revenue, L10,000; tribute, L530.
The chief, whose title is raja, is a Chandel Rajput. The town of
Bilaspur is situated on the left bank of the Sutlej, 1465 ft. above
sea-level; pop. (1901), 3192.
KAHN, GUSTAVE (1859- ), French poet, was born at Metz on the 21st of
December 1859. He was educated in Paris at the Ecole des Chartes and the
Ecole des langues orientales, and began to contribute to obscure
Parisian reviews. After four years spent in Africa he returned to Paris
in 1885, and founded in 1886 a weekly review, _La Vogue_, in which many
of his early poems appeared. In the autumn of the same year he founded,
with Jean Moreas and Paul Adam, a short-lived periodical, _Le
Symboliste_, in which they preached the nebulous poetic doctrine of
Stephane Mallarme; and in 1888 he became one of the editors of the
_Revue independante_. He contributed poetry and criticism to the French
and Belgian reviews favourable to the extreme symbolists, and, with
Catulle Mendes, he founded at the Odeon, the Theatre Antoine and the
Theatre Sarah Bernhardt, matinees for the production of the plays of the
younger poets. He claimed to be the earliest writer of the _vers libre_,
and explained his methods and the history of the movement in a preface
to his _Premiers poemes_ (1897). Later books are _Le Livre d'images_
(1897); _Les Fleurs de la passion_ (1900); some novels; and a valuable
contribution to the history of modern French verse in _Symbolistes et
decadents_ (1902).
KAHNIS, KARL FRIEDRICH AUGUST (1814-1888), German Lutheran theologian,
was born at Greiz on the 22nd of December 1814. He studied at Halle, and
in 1850 was appointed professor ordinarius at Leipzig. Ten years later
he was made canon of Meissen. He retired in 1886, and died on the 20th
of June 1888 at Leipzig. Kahnis was at first a neo-Lutheran, blessed by
E. W. Hengstenberg and his pietistic friends. He then attached himself
to the Old Lutheran party, interpreting Lutheranism in a broad and
liberal spirit and showing some appreciation of rationalism. His
_Lutherische Dogmatik, historisch-genetisch dargestellt_ (3 vols.,
1861-1868; 2nd ed. in 2 vols., 1874-1875), by making concessions to
modern criticism, by spiritualizing and adapting the old dogmas, by
attacking the idea of an infallible canon of Scripture and the
conventional theory of inspiration, by laying stress on the human side
of Scripture and insisting on the progressive character of revelation,
brought him into conflict with his former friends. A. W. Diekhoff, Franz
Delitzsch (_Fur und wider Kahnis_, 1863) and Hengstenberg (_Evangelische
Kirchenzeitung_, 1862) protested loudly against the heresy, and Kahnis
replied to Hengstenberg in a vigorous pamphlet, _Zeugniss fur die
Grundwahrheiten des Protestantismus gegen Dr Hengstenberg_ (1862).
Other works by Kahnis are _Lehre vom Abendmahl_ (1851), _Der innere
Gang des deutschen Protestantismus seit Mitte des vorigen
Jahrhunderts_ (1854; 3rd ed. in 2 vols., 1874; Eng. trans., 1856);
_Christentum und Luthertum_ (1871); _Geschichte der deutschen
Reformation_, vol. i. (1872); _Der Gang der Kirche in Lebensbildern_
(1881, &c.); and _Uber das Verhaltnis der alten Philosophie zum
Christentum_ (1884).
K'AI-FENG FU, the capital of the province of Honan, China. It is
situated in 34 deg. 52' N., 114 deg. 33' E., on a branch line of the
Peking-Hankow railway, and forms also the district city of Siang-fu. A
city on the present site was first built by Duke Chwang (774-700 B.C.)
to mark off (_k'ai_) the boundary of his fief (_feng_); hence its name.
It has, however, passed under several _aliases_ in Chinese history.
During the Chow, Suy and T'ang dynasties (557-907) it was known as
P'ien-chow. During the Wu-tai, or five dynasties (907-960), it was the
Tung-king, or eastern capital. Under the Sung and Kin dynasties
(960-1260) it was called P'ien-king. By the Yuan or Mongol dynasty
(1260-1368) its name was again changed to P'ien-liang, and on the return
of the Chinese to power with the establishment of the Ming dynasty
(1368-1644), its original name was restored. The city is situated at the
point where the last spur of the Kuen-lun mountain system merges in the
eastern plain, and a few miles south of the Hwang-ho. Its position,
therefore, lays it Open to the destructive influences of this river. In
1642 it was totally destroyed by a flood caused by the dikes bursting,
and on several prior and subsequent occasions it has suffered injury
from the same cause. The city is large and imposing, with broad streets
and handsome buildings, the most notable of which are a twelve-storeyed
pagoda 600 ft. high, and a watch tower from which, at a height of 200
ft., the inhabitants are able to observe the approach of the yellow
waters of the river in times of flood. The city wall forms a substantial
protection and is pierced by five gates. The whole neighbourhood, which
is the site of one of the earliest settlements of the Chinese in China,
is full of historical associations, and it was in this city that the
Jews who entered China in A.D. 1163 first established a colony. For many
centuries these people held themselves aloof from the natives, and
practised the rites of their religion in a temple built and supported by
themselves. At last, however, they fell upon evil times, and in 1851,
out of the seventy families which constituted the original colony, only
seven remained. For fifty years no rabbi had ministered to the wants of
this remnant. In 1853 the city was attacked by the T'ai-p'ing rebels,
and, though at the first assault its defenders successfully resisted the
enemy, it was subsequently taken. The captors looted and partially
destroyed the town. It has now little commerce, but contains several
schools on Western lines--including a government college opened in 1902,
and a military school near the railway station. A mint was established
in 1905, and there is a district branch of the imperial post. The
population--largely Mahommedan--was estimated (1908) at 200,000. Jews
numbered about 400.
KAILAS, a mountain in Tibet. It is the highest peak of the range of
mountains lying to the north of Lake Manasorawar, with an altitude of
over 22,000 ft. It is famous in Sanskrit literature as Siva's paradise,
and is a favourite place of pilgrimage with Hindus, who regard it as the
most sacred spot on earth. A track encircles the base of the mountain,
and it takes the pilgrim three weeks to complete the round, prostrating
himself all the way.
KAIN, the name of a sub-province and of a town of Khorasan, Persia. The
sub-province extends about 300 m. N. to S., from Khaf to Seistan, and
about 150 m. W. to E., from the hills of Tun to the Afghan frontier,
comprising the whole of south-western Khorasan. It is very hilly, but
contains many wide plains and fertile villages at a mean elevation of
4000 ft. It has a population of about 150,000, rears great numbers of
camels and produces much grain, saffron, wool, silk and opium. The chief
manufactures are felts and other woollen fabrics, principally carpets,
which have a world-wide reputation. The best Kaini carpets are made at
Darakhsh, a village in the Zirkuh district and 50 m. N.E. of Birjend. It
is divided into eleven administrative divisions:--Shahabad (with the
capital Birjend), Naharjan, Alghur, Tabas sunni Khaneh, Zirkuh Shakhan,
Kain, Nimbuluk, Nehbandan, Khusf, Arab Khaneh or Momenabad.
The town of Kain, the capital of the sub-province until 1740, when it
was supplanted by Birjend, is situated 65 m. N. of Birjend on the
eastern side of a broad valley, stretching from N. to S., at the base of
the mountain Abuzar, in 33 deg. 42' N. and 59 deg. 8' E., and at an
elevation of 4500 ft. Its population is barely 5000. It is surrounded by
a mud wall and bastions, and near it, on a hill rising 500 ft. above the
plain, are the ruins of an ancient castle which, together with the old
town, was destroyed either by Shah Rukh (1404-1447), a son, or by
Baysunkur (d. 1433), a grandson of Timur (Tamerlane), who afterwards
built a new town. After a time the Uzbegs took possession and held the
town until Shah Abbas I. (1587-1629) expelled them. In the 18th century
it fell under the sway of the Afghans and remained a dependency of Herat
until 1851. A large number of windmills are at work outside the town.
The great mosque, now in a ruinous state, was built A.H. 796 (A.D. 1394)
by Karen b. Jamshid and repaired by Yusof Dowlatyar.
KAIRA, or KHEDA, a town and district of British India, in the northern
division of Bombay. The town is 20 m. S.W. of Ahmedabad and 7 m. from
Mehmadabad railway station. Pop. (1901), 10,392. Its antiquity is proved
by the evidence of copperplate grants to have been known as early as the
5th century. Early in the 18th century it passed to the Babi family,
with whom it remained till 1763, when it was taken by the Mahrattas; it
was finally handed over to the British in 1803. It was a large military
station till 1830, when the cantonment was removed to Deesa.
The DISTRICT OF KAIRA has an area of 1595 sq. m.; pop. (1901), 716,332,
showing a decrease of 18% in the decade, due to the results of famine.
Except a small corner of hilly ground near its northern boundary and in
the south-east and south, where the land along the Mahi is furrowed into
deep ravines, the district forms one unbroken plain, sloping gently
towards the south-west. The north and north-east portions are dotted
with patches of rich rice-land, broken by untilled tracts of low
brushwood. The centre of the district is very fertile and highly
cultivated; the luxuriant fields are surrounded by high hedges, and the
whole country is clothed with clusters of shapely trees. To the west
this belt of rich vegetation passes into a bare though well-cultivated
tract of rice-land, growing more barren and open till it reaches the
maritime belt, whitened by a salt-like crust, along the Gulf of Cambay.
The chief rivers are the Mahi on the south-east and south, and the
Sabarmati on the western boundary. The Mahi, owing to its deeply cut bed
and sandbanks, is impracticable for either navigation or irrigation; but
the waters of the Sabarmati are largely utilized for the latter purpose.
A smaller stream, the Khari, also waters a considerable area by means of
canals and sluices. The principal crops are cotton, millets, rice and
pulse; the industries are calico-printing, dyeing, and the manufacture
of soap and glass. The chief centre of trade is Nadiad, on the railway,
with a cotton-mill. A special article of export is _ghi_, or clarified
butter. The Bombay & Baroda railway runs through the district. The
famine of 1899-1900 was felt more severely here than in any other part
of the province, the loss of cattle being specially heavy.
KAIRAWAN (KEROUAN), the "sacred" city of Tunisia, 36 m. S. by W. by rail
from Susa, and about 80 m. due S. from the capital. Kairawan is built in
an open plain a little west of a stream which flows south to the
Sidi-el-Hani lake. Of the luxuriant gardens and olive groves mentioned
in the early Arabic accounts of the place hardly a remnant is left.
Kairawan, in shape an irregular oblong, is surrounded by a crenellated
brick wall with towers and bastions and five gates. The city, however,
spreads beyond the walls, chiefly to the south and west. Some of the
finest treasures of Saracenic art in Tunisia are in Kairawan; but the
city suffered greatly from the vulgarization which followed the Turkish
conquest, and also from the blundering attempts of the French to restore
buildings falling into ruin. The streets have been paved and planted
with trees, but the town retains much of its Oriental aspect. The houses
are built round a central courtyard, and present nothing but bare walls
to the street. The chief buildings are the mosques, which are open to
Christians, Kairawan being the only town in Tunisia where this privilege
is granted.
In the northern quarter stands the great mosque founded by Sidi Okba ibn
Nafi, and containing his shrine and the tombs of many rulers of Tunisia.
To the outside it presents a heavy buttressed wall, with little of
either grandeur or grace. It consists of three parts: a cloistered
court, from which rises the massive and stately minaret, the maksura or
mosque proper, and the vestibule. The maksura is a rectangular domed
chamber divided by 296 marble and porphyry columns into 17 aisles, each
aisle having 8 arches. The central aisle is wider than the others, the
columns being arranged by threes. All the columns are Roman or
Byzantine, and are the spoil of many ancient cities. Access to the
central aisle is gained through a door of sculptured wood known as the
Beautiful Gate. It has an inscription with the record of its
construction. The walls are of painted plaster-work; the mimbar or
pulpit is of carved wood, each panel bearing a different design. The
court is surrounded by a double arcade with coupled columns. In all the
mosque contains 439 columns, including two of alabaster given by one of
the Byzantine emperors. To the Mahommedan mind the crowning distinction
of the building is that through divine inspiration the founder was
enabled to set it absolutely true to Mecca. The mosque of Sidi Okba is
the prototype of many other notable mosques (see MOSQUE). Of greater
external beauty than that of Sidi Okba is the mosque of the Three Gates.
Cufic inscriptions on the facade record its erection in the 9th and its
restoration in the 15th century A.D. Internally the mosque is a single
chamber supported by sixteen Roman columns. One of the finest specimens
of Moorish architecture in Kairawan is the _zawia_ of Sidi
Abid-el-Ghariani (d. c. A.D. 1400), one of the Almoravides, in whose
family is the hereditary governorship of the city. The entrance, a door
in a false arcade of black and white marble, leads into a court whose
arches support an upper colonnade. The town contains many other notable
buildings, but none of such importance as the mosque of the Companion
(i.e. of the Prophet), outside the walls to the N.W. This mosque is
specially sacred as possessing what are said to be three hairs of the
Prophet's beard, buried with the saint, who was one of the companions
of Mahomet. (This legend gave rise to the report that the tomb contained
the remains of Mahomet's barber.) The mosque consists of several courts
and chambers, and contains some beautiful stained glass. The court which
forms the entrance to the shrine of the saint is richly adorned with
tiles and plaster-work, and is surrounded by an arcade of white marble
columns, supporting a painted wooden roof. The minaret is faced with
tiles and is surmounted by a gilded crescent. The 19th-century mosque of
Sidi Amar Abada, also outside the wall, is in the form of a cross and is
crowned with seven cupolas. In the suburbs are huge cisterns, attributed
to the 9th century, which still supply the city with water. The cemetery
covers a large area and has thousands of Cufic and Arabic inscriptions.
Formerly famous for its carpets and its oil of roses, Kairawan is now
known in northern Africa rather for copper vessels, articles in morocco
leather, potash and saltpetre. The town has a population of about
20,000, including a few hundred Europeans.
Arab historians relate the foundation of Kairawan by Okba with
miraculous circumstances (Tabari ii. 63; Yaqut iv. 213). The date is
variously given (see Weil, _Gesch. d. Chalifen_, i. 283 seq.);
according to Tabari it must have been before 670. The legend says that
Okba determined to found a city which should be a rallying-point for
the followers of Mahomet in Africa. He led his companions into the
desert, and having exhorted the serpents and wild beasts, in the name
of the Prophet, to retire, he struck his spear into the ground
exclaiming "Here is your Kairawan" (resting-place), so naming the
city.[1] In the 8th century Kairawan was the capital of the province
of Ifrikia governed by amirs appointed by the caliphs. Later it became
the capital of the Aghlabite princes, thereafter following the
fortunes of the successive rulers of the country (see TUNISIA:
_History_). After Mecca and Medina Kairawan is the most sacred city in
the eyes of the Mahommedans of Africa, and constant pilgrimages are
made to its shrines. Until the time of the French occupation no
Christian was allowed to pass through the gates without a special
permit from the bey, whilst Jews were altogether forbidden to approach
the holy city. Contrary to expectation no opposition was offered by
the citizens to the occupation of the place by the French troops in
1881. On that occasion the native troops hastened to the mosques to
perform their devotions; they were followed by European soldiers, and
the mosques having thus been "violated" have remained open ever since
to non-Mahommedans.
See Murray's _Handbook to Algeria and Tunis_, by Sir R. L. Playfair
(1895); A. M. Broadley, _The Last Punic War: Tunis Past and Present_
(1882) and H. Saladin, _Tunis el Kairouan_ (1908).
FOOTNOTE:
[1] Though Okba founded his city in a desert place, excavations
undertaken in 1908 revealed the existence of Roman ruins, including a
temple of Saturn, in the neighbourhood.
KAISERSLAUTERN, a town in the Bavarian palatinate, on the Waldlauter, in
the hilly district of Westrich, 41 m. by rail W. of Mannheim. Pop.
(1905), 52,306. Among its educational institutions are a gymnasium, a
Protestant normal school, a commercial school and an industrial museum.
The house of correction occupies the site of Frederick Barbarossa's
castle, which was demolished by the French in 1713. Kaiserslautern is
one of the most important industrial towns in the palatinate. Its
industries include cotton and wool spinning and weaving, iron-founding,
and the manufacture of beer, tobacco, gloves, boots, furniture, &c.
There is some trade in fruit and in timber.
Kaiserslautern takes its name from the emperor (Kaiser) Frederick I.,
who built a castle here about 1152, although it appears to have been a
royal residence in Carolingian times. It became an imperial city, a
dignity which it retained until 1357, when it passed to the palatinate.
In 1621 it was taken by the Spanish, in 1631 by the Swedish, in 1635 by
the imperial and in 1713 by the French troops. During 1793 and 1794 it
was the scene of fighting; and in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870 it was
the base of operations of the second German army, under Prince Frederick
Charles. It was one of the early stations of the Reformation, and in
1849 was the centre of the revolutionary spirit in the palatinate.
See Lehmann, _Urkundliche Geschichte von Kaiserslautern_
(Kaiserslautern, 1853), and E. Jost, _Geschichte der Stadt
Kaiserslautern_ (Kaiserslautern, 1886).
KAISERSWERTH, a town in the Prussian Rhine province, on the right bank
of the Rhine, 6 m. below Dusseldorf. Pop. (1905), 2462. It possesses a
Protestant and a large old Romanesque Roman Catholic church of the 12th
or 13th century, with a valuable shrine, said to contain the bones of St
Suitbert, and has several benevolent institutions, of which the chief is
the _Diakonissen Anstalt_, or training-school for Protestant sisters of
charity. This institution, founded by Pastor Theodor Fliedner
(1800-1864) in 1836, has more than 100 branches, some being in Asia and
America; the head establishment at Kaiserswerth includes an orphanage, a
lunatic asylum and a Magdalen institution. The Roman Catholic hospital
occupies the former Franciscan convent. The population is engaged in
silk-weaving and other small industries.
In 710 Pippin of Heristal presented the site of the town to Bishop
Suitbert, who built the Benedictine monastery round which the town
gradually formed. Until 1214 Kaiserswerth lay on an island, but in
that year Count Adolph V. of Berg, who was besieging it, dammed up
effectually one arm of the Rhine. About the beginning of the 14th
century Kaiserswerth, then an imperial city, came to the archbishopric
of Cologne, and afterwards to the duchy of Juliers, whence, after some
vicissitudes, it finally passed into the possession of the princes of
the palatinate, whose rights, long disputed by the elector of Cologne,
were legally settled in 1772. In 1702 the fortress was captured by the
Austrians and Prussians, and the Kaiserpfalz, whence the young emperor
Henry IV. was abducted by Archbishop Anno of Cologne in 1062, was
blown up.
See J. Disselhoff, _Das Diaconissenmutterhaus zu Kaiserswerth_ (new
ed., 1903; Eng. trans., 1883).
KAITHAL, or KYTHAL, an ancient town of British India in Karnal district,
Punjab. Pop. (1901), 14,408. It is said to have been founded by the
mythical hero Yudisthira, and is connected by tradition with the
monkey-god Hanuman. In 1767 it fell into the hands of the Sikh
chieftain, Bhai Desu Singh, whose descendants, the bhais of Kaithal,
ranked among the most powerful Cis-Sutlej chiefs. Their territories
lapsed to the British in 1843. There remain the fort of the bhais, and
several Mahommedan tombs of the 13th century and later. There is some
trade in grain, sal-ammoniac, live stock and blankets; and cotton,
saltpetre, lac ornaments and toys are manufactured.
KAKAPO, the Maori name, signifying "night parrot," and frequently
adopted by English writers, of a bird, commonly called by the British in
New Zealand the "ground-parrot" or "owl-parrot." The existence of this
singular form was first made known in 1843 by Ernst Dieffenbach
(_Travels in N. Zealand_, ii. 194), from some of its tail-feathers
obtained by him, and he suggested that it was one of the _Cuculidae_,
possibly belonging to the genus _Centropus_, but he added that it was
becoming scarce, and that no example had been seen for many years. G. R.
Gray, noticing it in June 1845 (_Zool. Voy. "Erebus" and "Terror,"_ pt.
ix. p. 9), was able to say little more of it, but very soon afterwards a
skin was received at the British Museum, of which, in the following
September, he published a figure (_Gen. Birds_, pt. xvii.), naming it
_Strigops[1] habroptilus_, and rightly placing it among the parrots, but
he did not describe it technically for another eighteen months (_Proc.
Zool. Society_, 1847, p. 61). Many specimens have now been received in
Europe, so that it is represented in most museums, and several examples
have reached England alive.
In habits the kakapo is almost wholly nocturnal,[2] hiding in holes
(which in some instances it seems to make for itself) under the roots of
trees or rocks during the day time, and only issuing forth about sunset
to seek its food, which is solely vegetable in kind, and consists of the
twigs, leaves, seeds and fruits of trees, grass and fern roots--some
observers say mosses also. It sometimes climbs trees, but generally
remains on the ground, only using its comparatively short wings to
balance itself in running or to break its fall when it drops from a
tree--though not always then--being apparently incapable of real flight.
It thus becomes an easy prey to the marauding creatures--cats, rats and
so forth--which European colonists have, by accident or design, let
loose in New Zealand. Sir G. Grey says it had been, within the memory of
old people, abundant in every part of that country, but (writing in
1854) was then found only in the unsettled districts.
The kakapo is about the size of a raven, of a green or brownish-green
colour, thickly freckled and irregularly barred with dark brown, and
dashed here and there with longitudinal stripes of light yellow.
Examples are subject to much variation in colour and shade, and in some
the lower parts are deeply tinged with yellow. Externally the most
striking feature of the bird is its head, armed with a powerful beak
that it well knows how to use, and its face clothed with hairs and
elongated feathers that sufficiently resemble the physiognomy of an owl
to justify the generic name bestowed upon it. Of its internal structure
little has been described, and that not always correctly. Its furcula
has been said (_Proc. Zool. Society_, 1874, p. 594) to be "lost,"
whereas the clavicles, which in most birds unite to form that bone, are
present, though they do not meet, while in like manner the bird has been
declared (_op. cit._, 1867, p. 624, note) to furnish among the
_Carinatae_ "the only apparent exception to the presence of a keel" to
the sternum. The keel, however, is undoubtedly there, as remarked by
Blanchard (_Ann. Nat. Sc., Zoologie_, 4th series, vol. xi. p. 83) and A.
Milne Edwards (_Ois. Foss. de la France_, ii. 516), and, though much
reduced in size, is nearly as much developed as in the Dodo and the
Ocydrome. The aborted condition of this process can hardly be regarded
but in connexion with the incapacity of the bird for flight, and may
very likely be the result of disuse. There can be scarcely any doubt as
to the propriety of considering this genus the type of a separate family
of _Psittaci_; but whether it stands alone or some other forms
(_Pezoporus_ or _Geopsittacus_, for example, which in coloration and
habits present some curious analogies) should be placed with it, must
await future determination. In captivity the kakapo is said to show much
intelligence, as well as an affectionate and playful disposition.
Unfortunately it does not seem to share the longevity characteristic of
most parrots, and none that has been held in confinement appears to have
long survived, while many succumb speedily.
For further details see Gould's _Birds of Australia_ (ii. 247), and
_Handbook_ (ii. 539); Dr Finsch's _Die Papageien_ (i. 241), and Sir
Walter Buller's _Birds of New Zealand_ especially. (A. N.)
FOOTNOTES:
[1] This generic term was subsequently altered by Van der Hoeven,
rather pedantically, to _Stringops_, a spelling now generally
adopted.
[2] It has, however, been occasionally observed abroad by day; and,
in captivity, one example at least is said to have been as active by
day as by night.
KAKAR, a Pathan tribe on the Zhob valley frontier of Baluchistan. The
Kakars inhabit the back of the Suliman mountains between Quetta and the
Gomal river; they are a very ancient race, and it is probable that they
were in possession of these slopes long before the advent of Afghan or
Arab. They are divided into many distinct tribes who have no connexion
beyond the common name of Kakar. Not only is there no chief of the
Kakars, or general _jirgah_ (or council) of the whole tribe, but in most
cases there are no recognized heads of the different clans. In 1901 they
numbered 105,444. During the second Afghan War the Kakars caused some
annoyance on the British line of communications; and the Kakars
inhabiting the Zhob valley were punished by the Zhob valley expedition
of 1884.
KALA-AZAR, or Dum-Dum fever, a tropical disease, characterized by
remittent fever, anaemia and enlargement of the spleen (splenomegaly)
and often of the liver. It is due to a protozoon parasite (see PARASITIC
DISEASES), discovered in 1900 by Leishman in the spleen, and is of a
malarial type. The treatment is similar to that for malaria. In Assam
good results have been obtained by segregation.
KALABAGH, a town of British India in the Mianwali district of the
Punjab. Pop. (1901), 5824. It is picturesquely situated at the foot of
the Salt range, on the right bank of the Indus, opposite the railway
station of Mari. The houses nestle against the side of a precipitous
hill of solid rock-salt, piled in successive tiers, the roof of each
tier forming the street which passes in front of the row immediately
above, and a cliff, also of pure rock-salt, towers above the town. The
supply of salt, which is worked from open quarries, is practically
inexhaustible. Alum also occurs in the neighbouring hills, and forms a
considerable item of local trade. Iron implements are manufactured.
KALACH, also known as DONSKAYA, a village of S.E. Russia, in the
territory of the Don Cossacks, and a river port on the Don, 31 m. N.E.
of Nizhne-Chirskaya, in 43 deg. 30' E. and 48 deg. 43' N. Its permanent
population, only about 1200, increases greatly in summer. It is the
terminus of the railway (45 m.) which connects the Don with Tsaritsyn on
the Volga, and all the goods (especially fish, petroleum, cereals and
timber) brought from the Caspian Sea up the Volga and destined for
middle Russia, or for export through the Sea of Azov, are unloaded at
Tsaritsyn and sent over to Kalach on the Don.
KALAHANDI (formerly KAROND), a feudatory state of India, which was
transferred from the Central Provinces to the Orissa division of Bengal
in 1905. A range of the Eastern Ghats runs from N.E. to S.W. through the
state, with open undulating country to the north. Area 3745 sq. m.; pop.
(1901), 350,529; estimated revenue, L8000; tribute, L800. The
inhabitants mostly belong to the aboriginal race of Khonds. A murderous
outbreak against Hindu settlers called for armed intervention in 1882.
The chief, Raghu Kishor Deo, was murdered by a servant in 1897, and
during the minority of his son, Brij Mohan Deo, the state was placed in
charge of a British political agent. The capital is Bhawani Patna.
KALAHARI DESERT, a region of South Africa, lying mainly between 20 deg.
and 28 deg. S. and 19 deg. and 24 deg. E., and covering fully 120,000
sq. m. The greater part of this territory forms the western portion of
the (British) Bechuanaland protectorate, but it extends south into that
part of Bechuanaland annexed to the Cape and west into German South-West
Africa. The Orange river marks its southern limit; westward it reaches
to the foot of the Nama and Damara hills, eastward to the cultivable
parts of Bechuanaland, northward and north-westward to the valley of the
Okavango and the bed of Lake Ngami. The Kalahari, part of the immense
inner table-land of South Africa, has an average elevation of over 3000
ft. with a general slope from east to west and a dip northward to Ngami.
Described by Robert Moffat as "the southern Sahara," the Kalahari
resembles the great desert of North Africa in being generally arid and
in being scored by the beds of dried-up rivers. It presents however many
points of difference from the Sahara. The surface soil is mainly red
sand, but in places limestone overlies shale and conglomerates. The
ground is undulating and its appearance is comparable with that of the
ocean at times of heavy swell. The crests of the waves are represented
by sand dunes, rising from 30 to 100 ft.; the troughs between the dunes
vary greatly in breadth. On the eastern border long tongues of sand
project into the veld, while the veld in places penetrates far into the
desert. There are also, and especially along the river beds, extensive
mud flats. After heavy rain these become pans or lakes, and water is
then also found in mud-bottomed pools along the beds of the rivers. The
water in the pans is often brackish, and in some cases thickly encrusted
with salt. Pans also occur in crater-like depressions where rock rises
above the desert sands. A tough, sun-bleached grass, growing knee-high
in tufts at intervals of about 15 in., covers the dunes and gives the
general colour of the landscape. Considerable parts of the Kalahari,
chiefly in the west and north, are however covered with dense scrub and
there are occasional patches of forest. Next to the lack of water the
chief characteristics of the desert are the tuberous and herbaceous
plants and the large numbers of big game found in it. Of the plants the
most remarkable is the water-melon, of which both the bitter and sweet
variety are found, and which supplies both man and beast with water. The
game includes the lion, leopard, hippopotamus, rhinoceros, buffalo,
zebra, quagga, many kinds of antelope (among them the kudu and gnu),
baboon and ostrich. The elephant, giraffe and eland are also found. The
hunting of these three last-named animals is prohibited, and for all
game there is a close time from the beginning of September to the end of
February.
The climate is hot, dry and healthy, save in the neighbourhood of the
large marshes in the north, where malarial fever is prevalent. In this
region the drainage is N.E. to the great Makarikari marsh and the
Botletle, the river connecting the marsh with the Ngami system. In the
south the drainage is towards the Orange. The Molopo and the Kuruman,
which in their upper course in eastern Bechuanaland are perennial
streams, lose their water by evaporation and percolation on their way
westward through the Kalahari. The Molopo, a very imposing river on the
map, is dry in its lower stretches. The annual rainfall does not exceed
10 in. It occurs in the summer months, September to March, and chiefly
in thunderstorms. The country is suffering from progressive desiccation,
but there is good evidence of an abundant supply of water not far
beneath the surface. In the water-melon season a few white farmers
living on the edge of the desert send their herds thither to graze. Such
few spots as have been under cultivation by artificial irrigation yield
excellent returns to the farmer; but the chief commercial products of
the desert are the skins of animals.
The Kalahari is the home of wandering Bushmen (q.v.), who live
entirely by the chase, killing their prey with poisoned arrows, of
Ba-Kalahari, and along the western border of Hottentots, who are both
hunters and cattle-rearers. The Ba-Kalahari (men of the Kalahari), who
constitute the majority of the inhabitants, appear to belong to the
Batau tribe of the Bechuanas, now no longer having separate tribal
existence, and traditionally reported to be the oldest of the Bechuana
tribes. Their features are markedly negroid, though their skin is less
black than that of many negro peoples. They have thin legs and arms.
The Ba-Kalahari are said to have possessed enormous herds of large
horned cattle until deprived of them and driven into the desert by a
fresh migration of more powerful Bechuana tribes. Unlike the Bushmen,
and in spite of desert life, the Ba-Kalahari have a true passion for
agriculture and cattle-breeding. They carefully cultivate their
gardens, though in many cases all they can grow is a scanty supply of
melons and pumpkins, and they rear small herds of goats. They are also
clever hunters, and from the neighbouring Bechuana chiefs obtain
spears, knives, tobacco and dogs in exchange for the skins of the
animals they kill. In disposition they are peaceful to timidity, grave
and almost morose. Livingstone states that he never saw Ba-Kalahari
children at play. An ingenious method is employed to obtain water
where there is no open well or running stream. To one end of a reed
about 2 ft. long a bunch of grass is tied, and this end of the reed is
inserted in a hole dug at a spot where water is known to exist
underground, the wet sand being rammed down firmly round it. An
ostrich egg-shell, the usual water vessel, is placed on the ground
alongside the reed. The water-drawer, generally a woman, then sucks up
the water through the reed, dexterously squirting it into the adjacent
egg-shell. To aid her aim she places between her lips a straw, the
other end of which is inserted in the shell. The shells, when filled,
are buried, the object of the Ba-Kalahari being to preserve their
supplies from any sudden raid by Bushmen or other foe. Early
travellers stated that no amount of bullying or hunting in a
Ba-Kalahari village would result in a find of water; but that on
friendly relations being established the natives would bring a supply,
however arid the district. The British government has since sunk wells
in one or two districts. Though the Ba-Kalahari have no religion in
the strict sense of the word, they show traces of totemism, and as
Batau, i.e. "men of the lion," revere rather than fear that beast.
The Kalahari was first crossed to Lake Ngami by David Livingstone,
accompanied by William C. Oswell, in 1849. In 1878-1879 a party of
Boers, with about three hundred wagons, trekked from the Transvaal
across the Kalahari to Ngami and thence to the hinterland of Angola.
Many of the party, men, women and children, perished of thirst during
the journey. Survivors stated that in all some 250 people and 9000
cattle died.
See BECHUANALAND. _Die Kalahari_, by Dr Siegfried Passarge (Berlin,
1904), is a valuable treatise on the geology, topography, hydrography,
climate and flora of the desert, with maps and bibliography. The
author spent two years (1896-1898) in the Kalahari. See also
_Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa_, &c., by David
Livingstone (London, 1857).
KALAMATA (officially [Greek: Kalamai], from an ancient town near the
site), chief town of the modern Greek nomarchy of Messenia in the Morea,
situated on the left bank of the Nedon, about 1 m. from the sea. Pop.
(1907), 13,123. There is a suburb on the right bank of the stream. On a
hill behind the town are the ruins of a medieval castle, but no ancient
Greek remains have been discovered, although some travellers have
identified the site with that of the classical Pharae or Pherae. It is
the seat of a court of justice and of an archbishop. During the middle
ages it was for a time a fief of the Villehardouins. In 1685 Kalamata
was captured by the Venetians; in 1770, and again in 1821, it was the
revolutionary headquarters in the Morea. In 1825 it was sacked by
Ibrahim Pasha. Kalamata is situated in a very fruitful district, of
which it is the emporium. The harbour, though recently improved, offers
little shelter to shipping. Vessels load and discharge by means of
lighters, the outer harbour having a depth at entrance of 24 ft. and
inside of 14 ft. The inner harbour has a depth of 15 ft. and is
sheltered by a breakwater 1640 ft. in length; in the winter months the
fishing craft take shelter in the haven of Armyro. The silk industry,
formerly important, still employs about 300 women and girls in four
spinning establishments. Olive oil and silk are the chief exports.
KALAMAZOO, a city and the county-seat of Kalamazoo county, Michigan,
U.S.A., on the W. bank of the Kalamazoo River, about 49 m. S. of Grand
Rapids and 144 m. W. of Detroit. Pop. (1900) 24,404, of whom 4710 were
foreign-born; (1910 census) 39,437. It is served by the Michigan
Central, the Lake Shore & Michigan Southern, the Grand Rapids & Indiana,
the Kalamazoo, Lake Shore & Chicago, and the Chicago, Kalamazoo &
Saginaw railways, and by interurban electric lines. The city has a
public library, and is the seat of Kalamazoo college (Baptist), which
grew out of the Kalamazoo literary institute (1833) and was chartered
under its present name in 1855; the Michigan female seminary
(Presbyterian), established in 1866; the Western State normal school
(1904); Nazareth Academy (1897), for girls; Barbour Hall (1899), a
school for boys; two private schools for the feeble-minded; and the
Michigan asylum for the insane, opened in 1859. The surrounding country
is famous for its celery, and the city is an important manufacturing
centre, ranking third among the cities of the state in the value of its
factory products in 1904. The value of the factory product in 1904 was
$13,141,767, an increase of 82.9% since 1900. The waterworks and
electric-lighting plant are owned and operated by the municipality.
Kalamazoo was settled in 1829, was known as Bronson (in honour of Titus
Bronson, an early settler) until 1836, was incorporated as the village
of Kalamazoo in 1838, and in 1884 became a city under a charter granted
in the preceding year.
KALAPUYA, or CALLAPOOYA, a tribe and stock of North-American Indians,
whose former range was the valley of the Willamette River, Oregon. They
now number little more than a hundred, on a reservation on Grande Ronde
reservation, Oregon.
KALAT, the capital of Baluchistan, situated in 29 deg. 2' N. and 66 deg.
35' E., about 6780 ft. above sea-level, 88 m. from Quetta. The town
gives its name also to a native state with an area, including Makran and
Kharan, of 71,593 m. and a population (1901) of 470,336. The word Kalat
is derived from _kala_--a fortress; and Kalat is the most picturesque
fortress in the Baluch highlands. It crowns a low hill, round the base
of which clusters the closely built mass of flat-roofed mud houses which
form the insignificant town. A _miri_ or citadel, having an imposing
appearance, dominates the town, and contains within its walls the palace
of the khan. It was in an upper room of this residence that Mehrab Khan,
ruler of Baluchistan, was killed during the storming of the town and
citadel by the British troops at the close of the first Afghan War in
1839. In 1901 it had a population of only 2000. The valleys immediately
surrounding the fortress are well cultivated and thickly inhabited, in
spite of their elevation and the extremes of temperature to which they
are exposed. Recent surveys of Baluchistan have determined the position
of Hozdar or Khozdar (27 deg. 48' N., 66 deg. 38' E.) to be about 50 m.
S. of Kalat. Khozdar was the former capital of Baluchistan, and is as
directly connected with the southern branches of the Mulla Pass as Kalat
is with the northern, the Mulla being the ancient trade route to Gandava
(Kandabe) and Sind. In spite of the rugged and barren nature of the
mountain districts of the Kalat highlands, the main routes through them
(concentrating on Khozdar rather than on Kalat) are comparatively easy.
The old "Pathan vat," the trade highway between Kalat and Karachi by the
Hab valley, passes through Khozdar. From Khozdar another route strikes a
little west of south to Wad, and then passes easily into Las Bela. This
is the "Kohan vat." A third route runs to Nal, and leads to the head of
the Kolwa valley (meeting with no great physical obstruction), and then
strikes into the open high road to Persia. Some of the valleys about
Kalat (Mastang, for instance) are wide and fertile, full of thriving
villages and strikingly picturesque; and in spite of the great
preponderance of mountain wilderness (a wilderness which is, however, in
many parts well adapted for the pasturage of sheep) existing in the
Sarawan lowlands almost equally with the Jalawan highlands, it is not
difficult to understand the importance which the province of Kalat,
anciently called Turan (or Tubaran), maintained in the eyes of medieval
Arab geographers (see BALUCHISTAN). New light has been thrown on the
history of Kalat by the translation of an unpublished manuscript
obtained at Tatta by Mr Tate, of the Indian Survey Department, who has
added thereto notes from the Tufhat-ul-Kiram, for the use of which he
was indebted to Khan Sahib Rasul Baksh, mukhtiardar of Tatta. According
to these authorities, the family of the khans of Kalat is of Arabic
origin, and not, as is usually stated, of Brahuic extraction. They
belong to the Ahmadzai branch of the Mirwari clan, which originally
emigrated from Oman to the Kolwa valley of Mekran. The khan of Kalat,
Mir Mahmud Khan, who succeeded his father in 1893, is the leading
chieftain in the Baluch Confederacy. The revenue of the khan is
estimated at nearly L60,000, including subsidies from the British
government; and an accrued surplus of L240,000 has been invested in
Indian securities.
See G. P. Tate, _Kalat_ (Calcutta, 1896); _Baluchistan District
Gazetteer_, vol. vi. (Bombay, 1907). (T. H. H.*)
KALAT-I-GHILZAI, a fort in Afghanistan. It is situated on an isolated
rocky eminence 5543 ft. above sea-level and 200 ft. above the plain, on
the right bank of the river Tarnak, on the road between Kabul and
Kandahar, 87 m. from Kandahar and 229 m. from Kabul. It is celebrated
for its gallant defence by Captain Craigie and a sepoy garrison against
the Afghans in the first Afghan War of 1842. In memory of this feat of
arms, the 12th Pioneers still bear the name of "The Kalat-i-Ghilzai
Regiment," and carry a special colour with the motto "Invicta."
KALB, JOHANN ("BARON DE KALB") (1721-1780), German soldier in the
American War of Independence, was born in Huttendorf, near Bayreuth, on
the 29th of June 1721. He was of peasant parentage, and left home when
he was sixteen to become a butler; in 1743 he was a lieutenant in a
German regiment in the French service, calling himself at this time Jean
de Kalb. He served with the French in the War of the Austrian
Succession, becoming captain in 1747 and major in 1756; in the Seven
Years' War he was in the corps of the comte de Broglie, rendering great
assistance to the French after Rossbach (November 1757) and showing
great bravery at Bergen (April 1759); and in 1763 he resigned his
commission. As secret agent, appointed by Choiseul, he visited America
in 1768-1769 to inquire into the feeling of the colonists toward Great
Britain. From his retirement at Milon la Chapelle, Kalb went to Metz for
garrison duty under de Broglie in 1775. Soon afterwards he received
permission to volunteer in the army of the American colonies, in which
the rank of major-general was promised to him by Silas Deane. After many
delays he sailed with eleven other officers on the ship fitted out by
Lafayette and arrived at Philadelphia in July 1777. His commission from
Deane was disallowed, but the Continental Congress granted him the rank
of major-general (dating from the 15th of September 1777), and in
October he joined the army, where his growing admiration for Washington
soon led him to view with disfavour de Broglie's scheme for putting a
European officer in chief command. Early in 1778, as second in command
to Lafayette for the proposed expedition against Canada, he accompanied
Lafayette to Albany; but no adequate preparations had been made, and the
expedition was abandoned. In April 1780, he was sent from Morristown,
New Jersey, with his division of Maryland men, his Delaware regiment and
the 1st artillery, to relieve Charleston, but on arriving at Petersburg,
Virginia, he learned that Charleston had already fallen. In his camp at
Buffalo Ford and Deep River, General Horatio Gates joined him on the
25th of July; and next day Gates led the army by the short and desolate
road directly towards Camden. On the 11th-13th of August, when Kalb
advised an immediate attack on Rawdon, Gates hesitated and then marched
to a position on the Salisbury-Charlotte road which he had previously
refused to take. On the 14th Cornwallis had occupied Camden, and a
battle took place there on the 16th when, the other American troops
having broken and fled, Kalb, unhorsed and fighting fiercely at the head
of his right wing, was wounded eleven times. He was taken prisoner and
died on the 19th of August 1780 in Camden. Here in 1825 Lafayette laid
the corner-stone of a monument to him. In 1887 a statue of him by
Ephraim Keyser was dedicated in Annapolis, Maryland.
See Friedrich Kapp, _Leben des amerikanischen Generals Johann Kalb_
(Stuttgart, 1862; English version, privately printed, New York, 1870),
which is summarized in George W. Greene's _The German Element in the
War of American Independence_ (New York, 1876).
KALCKREUTH (or KALKREUTH), FRIEDRICH ADOLF, COUNT VON (1737-1818),
Prussian soldier, entered the regiment of Gardes du Corps in 1752, and
in 1758 was adjutant or aide de camp to Frederick the Great's brother,
Prince Henry, with whom he served throughout the later stages of the
Seven Years' War. He won special distinction at the battle of Freiberg
(Sept. 29, 1762), for which Frederick promoted him major. Personal
differences with Prince Henry severed their connexion in 1766, and for
many years Kalckreuth lived in comparative retirement. But he made the
campaign of the War of the Bavarian Succession as a colonel, and on the
accession of Frederick William II. was restored to favour. He greatly
distinguished himself as a major-general in the invasion of Holland in
1787, and by 1792 had become count and lieutenant-general. Under
Brunswick he took a conspicuous part in the campaign of Valmy in 1792,
the siege and capture of Mainz in 1793, and the battle of Kaiserslautern
in 1794. In the campaigns against Napoleon in 1806 he played a marked
part for good or evil, both at Auerstadt and in the miserable retreat of
the beaten Prussians. In 1807 he defended Danzig for 78 days against the
French under Marshal Lefebvre, with far greater skill and energy than he
had shown in the previous year. He was promoted field marshal soon
afterwards, and conducted many of the negotiations at Tilsit. He died as
governor of Berlin in 1818.
The _Dictees du Feldmarechal Kalckreuth_ were published by his son
(Paris, 1844).
KALCKREUTH, LEOPOLD, COUNT VON (1855- ), German painter, a direct
descendant of the famous field-marshal (see above), was born at
Dusseldorf, received his first training at Weimar from his father, the
landscape painter Count Stanislaus von Kalckreuth (1820-1894), and
subsequently studied at the academies of Weimar and Munich. Although he
painted some portraits remarkable for their power of expression, he
devoted himself principally to depicting with relentless realism the
monotonous life of the fishing folk on the sea-coast, and of the
peasants in the fields. His palette is joyless, and almost melancholy,
and in his technique he is strongly influenced by the impressionists. He
was one of the founders of the secessionist movement. From 1885 to 1890
Count von Kalckreuth was professor at the Weimar art school. In 1890 he
resigned his professorship and retired to his estate of Hockricht in
Silesia, where he occupied himself in painting subjects drawn from the
life of the country-folk. In 1895 he became a professor at the art
school at Karlsruhe. The Munich Pinakothek has his "Rainbow" and the
Dresden Gallery his "Old Age." Among his chief works are the "Funeral at
Dachau," "Homewards," "Wedding Procession in the Carpathian Mountains,"
"The Gleaners," "Old Age," "Before the Fish Auction," "Summer," and
"Going to School."
See A. Ph. W. v. Kalckreuth, _Gesch. der Herren, Freiherren und Grafen
von Kalckreuth_ (Potsdam, 1904).
KALEIDOSCOPE (from Gr. [Greek: kalos], beautiful, [Greek: eidos], form,
and [Greek: skopein], to view). The article REFLECTION explains the
symmetrical arrangement of images formed by two mirrors inclined at an
angle which is a sub-multiple of four right angles. This is the
principle of the kaleidoscope, an optical toy which received its present
form at the hands of Sir David Brewster about the year 1815, and which
at once became exceedingly popular owing to the beauty and variety of
the images and the sudden and unexpected changes from one graceful form
to another. A hundred years earlier R. Bradley had employed a similar
arrangement which seems to have passed into oblivion (_New Improvements
of Planting and Gardening_, 1710). The instrument has been extensively
used by designers. In its simplest form it consists of a tube about
twelve inches long containing two glass plates, extending along its
whole length and inclined at an angle of 60 deg. The eye-end of the tube
is closed by a metal plate having a small hole at its centre near the
intersection of the glass plates. The other end is closed by a plate of
muffed glass at the distance of distinct vision, and parallel to this is
fixed a plate of clear glass. In the intervening space (the
_object-box_) are contained a number of fragments of brilliantly
coloured glass, and as the tube is turned round its axis these fragments
alter their positions and give rise to the various patterns. A third
reflecting plate is sometimes employed, the cross-section of the three
forming an equilateral triangle. Sir David Brewster modified his
apparatus by moving the object-box and closing the end of the tube by a
lens of short focus which forms images of distant objects at the
distance of distinct vision. These images take the place of the coloured
fragments of glass, and they are symmetrically multiplied by the
mirrors. In the _polyangular kaleidoscope_ the angle between the mirrors
can be altered at pleasure. Such instruments are occasionally found in
old collections of philosophical apparatus and they have been used in
order to explain to students the formation of multiple images.
(C. J. J.)
KALERGIS, DIMITRI (DEMETRIOS) (1803-1867), Greek statesman, was a Cretan
by birth, studied medicine at Paris and on the outbreak of the War of
Greek Independence went to the Morea and joined the insurgents. He
fought under Karaiskakis, was taken prisoner by the Turks before Athens
and mulcted of an ear; later he acted as aide de camp to the French
philhellene Colonel Fabvier and to Count Capo d'Istria, president of
Greece. In 1832 he was promoted lieutenant-colonel. In 1843, as
commander of a cavalry division, he was the prime mover in the
insurrection which forced King Otto to dismiss his Bavarian ministers.
He was appointed military commandant of Athens and aide de camp to the
king, but after the fall of the Mavrocordato ministry in 1845 was forced
to go into exile, and spent several years in London, where he became an
intimate of Prince Louis Napoleon. In 1848 he made an abortive descent
on the Greek coast, in the hope of revolutionizing the kingdom. He was
captured, but soon released and, after a stay in the island of Zante,
went to Paris (1853). At the instance of the Western Powers he was
recalled on the outbreak of the Crimean War and appointed minister of
war in the reconstituted Mavrocordato cabinet (1854). He was, however,
disliked by King Otto and his consort, and in October 1855 was forced to
resign. In 1861 he was appointed minister plenipotentiary in Paris, in
which capacity he took an important part in the negotiations which
followed the fall of the Bavarian dynasty and led to the accession of
Prince George of Denmark to the Greek throne.
KALEWALA, or KALEVALA, the name of the Finnish national epos. It takes
its name from the three sons of Kalewa (or Finland), viz. the ancient
Wainamoinen, the inventor of the sacred harp Kantele; the cunning
art-smith, Ilmarinen; and the gallant Lemminkainen, who is a sort of
Arctic Don Juan. The adventures of these three heroes are wound about a
plot for securing in marriage the hand of the daughter of Louhi, a hero
from Pohjola, a land of the cold north. Ilmarinen is set to construct a
magic mill, the Sanpo, which grinds out meal, salt and gold, and as this
has fallen into the hands of the folk of Pohjola, it is needful to
recover it. The poem actually opens, however, with a very poetical
theory of the origin of the world. The virgin daughter of the
atmosphere, Luonnotar, wanders for seven hundred years in space, until
she bethinks her to invoke Ukko, the northern Zeus, who sends his eagle
to her; this bird makes its nest on the knees of Luonnotar and lays in
it seven eggs. Oat of the substance of these eggs the visible world is
made. But it is empty and sterile until Wainamoinen descends upon it
and woos the exquisite Aino. She disappears into space, and it is to
recover from his loss and to find another bride that Wainamoinen makes
his series of epical adventures in the dismal country of Pohjola.
Various episodes of great strangeness and beauty accompany the lengthy
recital of the struggle to acquire the magical Sanpo, which gives
prosperity to whoever possesses it. In the midst of a battle the Sanpo
is broken and falls into the sea, but one fragment floats on the waves,
and, being stranded on the shores of Finland, secures eternal felicity
for that country. At the very close of the poem a virgin, Mariatta,
brings forth a king who drives Wainamoinen out of the country, and this
is understood to refer to the ultimate conquest of Paganism by
Christianity.
The _Kalewala_ was probably composed at various times and by various
bards, but always in sympathy with the latent traditions of the Finnish
race, and with a mixture of symbolism and realism exactly accordant with
the instincts of that race. While in the other antique epics of the
world bloodshed takes a predominant place, the _Kalewala_ is
characteristically gentle, lyrical and even domestic, dwelling at great
length on situations of moral beauty and romantic pathos. It is entirely
concerned with the folk-lore and the traditions of the primeval Finnish
race. The poem is written in eight-syllabled trochaic verse, and an idea
of its style may be obtained from Longfellow's _Hiawatha_, which is a
pretty true imitation of the Finnish epic.
Until the 19th century the _Kalewala_ existed only in fragments in the
memories and on the lips of the peasants. A collection of a few of
these scattered songs was published in 1822 by Dr Zacharius Topelius,
but it was not until 1835 that anything like a complete and
systematically arranged collection was given to the world by Dr Elias
Lonnrot. For years Dr Lonnrot wandered from place to place in the most
remote districts, living with the peasantry, and taking down from
their lips all that they knew of their popular songs. Some of the most
valuable were discovered in the governments of Archangel and Olonetz.
After unwearied diligence Lonnrot was successful in collecting 12,000
lines. These he arranged as methodically as he could into thirty-two
runes or cantos, which he published exactly as he heard them sung or
chanted. Continuing his researches, Dr Lonnrot published in 1849 a new
edition of 22,793 verses in fifty runes. A still more complete text
was published by A. V. Forsman in 1887. The importance of this
indigenous epic was at once recognized in Europe, and translations
were made into Swedish, German and French. Several translations into
English exist, the fullest being that by J. M. Crawford in 1888. The
best foreign editions are those of Castren in Swedish (1844), Leouzon
le Duc in French (1845 and 1868), Schiefner in German (1852).
(E. G.)
KALGAN (CHANG-CHIA K'OW), a city of China, in the province of Chih-li,
with a population estimated at from 70,000 to 100,000. It lies in the
line of the Great Wall, 122 m. by rail N.W. of Peking, commanding an
important pass between China and Mongolia. Its position is stated as in
40 deg. 50' N. and 114 deg. 54' E., and its height above the sea as 2810
ft. The valley amid the mountains in which it is situated is under
excellent cultivation, and thickly studded with villages. Kalgan
consists of a walled town or fortress and suburbs 3 m. long. The streets
are wide, and excellent shops are abundant; but the ordinary houses have
an unusual appearance, from the fact that they are mostly roofed with
earth and become covered with green-sward. Large quantities of soda are
manufactured; and the town is the seat of a very extensive transit
trade. In October 1909 it was connected by railway with Peking. In early
autumn long lines of camels come in from all quarters for the conveyance
of the tea-chests from Kalgan to Kiakhta; and each caravan usually makes
three journeys in the winter. Some Russian merchants have permanent
residences and warehouses just outside the gate. On the way to Peking
the road passes over a beautiful bridge of seven arches, ornamented with
marble figures of animals. The name Kalgan is Mongolian, and means a
barrier or "gate-beam."
KALGOORLIE, a mining town of Western Australia, 24 m. by rail E.N.E. of
Coolgardie. Pop. (1901), 6652. It is a thriving town with an electric
tramway service, and is the junction of four lines of railway. The
gold-field, discovered in 1893, is very rich, supporting about 15,000
miners. The town is supplied with water, like Coolgardie, from a source
near Perth 360 m. distant.
KALI (black), or _Kali Ma_ (the Black Mother), in Hindu mythology, the
goddess of destruction and death, the wife of Siva. According to one
theory, Calcutta owes its name to her, being originally Kalighat,
"Kali's landing-place." Siva's consort has many names (e.g. Durga,
Bhawani, Parvati, &c.). Her idol is black, with four arms, and red palms
to the hands. Her eyes are red, and her face and breasts are besmeared
with blood. Her hair is matted, and she has projecting fang-like teeth,
between which protrudes a tongue dripping with blood. She wears a
necklace of skulls, her earrings are dead bodies, and she is girded with
serpents. She stands on the body of Siva, to account for which attitude
there is an elaborate legend. She is more worshipped in Gondwana and the
forest tracts to the east and south of it than in any other part of
India. Formerly human sacrifice was the essential of her ritual. The
victim, always a male, was taken to her temple after sunset and
imprisoned there. When morning came he was dead: the priests told the
people that Kali had sucked his blood in the night. At Dantewara in
Bastar there is a famous shrine of Kali under the name of Danteswari.
Here many a human head has been presented on her altar. About 1830 it is
said that upwards of twenty-five full-grown men were immolated at once
by the raja. Cutting their flesh and burning portions of their body were
among the acts of devotion of her worshippers. Kali is goddess of
small-pox and cholera. The Thugs murdered their victims in her honour,
and to her the sacred pickaxe, wherewith their graves were dug, was
consecrated.
The _Hook-swinging Festival_ (_Churruk_ or _Churuck Puja_), one of the
most notable celebrations in honour of the goddess Kali, has now been
prohibited in British territory. Those who had vowed themselves to
self-torture submitted to be swung in the air supported only by hooks
passed through the muscles over the blade-bones. These hooks were hung
from a long crossbeam, which see-sawed upon a huge upright pole. Hoisted
into the air by men pulling down the other end of the see-saw beam, the
victim was then whirled round in a circle. The torture usually lasted
fifteen or twenty minutes.
See A. A. Macdonell, _Vedic Mythology_ (Strassburg, 1897).
KALIDASA, the most illustrious name among the writers of the second
epoch of Sanskrit literature, which, as contrasted with the age of the
Vedic hymns, may be characterized as the period of artificial poetry.
Owing to the absence of the historical sense in the Hindu race, it is
impossible to fix with chronological exactness the lifetime of either
Kalidasa or any other Sanskrit author. Native tradition places him in
the 1st century B.C.; but the evidence on which this belief rests is
worthless. The works of the poet contain no allusions by which their
date can be directly determined; yet the extremely corrupt form of the
Prakrit or popular dialects spoken by the women and the subordinate
characters in his plays, as compared with the Prakrit in inscriptions of
ascertained age, led such authorities as Weber and Lassen to agree in
fixing on the 3rd century A.D. as the approximate period to which the
writings of Kalidasa should be referred.
He was one of the "nine gems" at the court of King Vikramaditya or
Vikrama, at Ujjain, and the tendency is now to regard the latter as
having flourished about A.D. 375; others, however, place him as late as
the 6th century. The richness of his creative fancy, his delicacy of
sentiment, and his keen appreciation of the beauties of nature, combined
with remarkable powers of description, place Kalidasa in the first rank
of Oriental poets. The effect, however, of his productions as a whole is
greatly marred by extreme artificiality of diction, which, though to a
less extent than in other Hindu poets, not unfrequently takes the form
of puerile conceits and plays on words. In this respect his writings
contrast very unfavourably with the more genuine poetry of the Vedas.
Though a true poet, he is wanting in that artistic sense of proportion
so characteristic of the Greek mind, which exactly adjusts the parts to
the whole, and combines form and matter into an inseparable poetic
unity. Kalidasa's fame rests chiefly on his dramas, but he is also
distinguished as an epic and a lyric poet.
He wrote three plays, the plots of which all bear a general
resemblance, inasmuch as they consist of love intrigues, which, after
numerous and seemingly insurmountable impediments of a similar nature,
are ultimately brought to a successful conclusion.
Of these, _Sakuntala_ is that which has always justly enjoyed the
greatest fame and popularity. The unqualified praise bestowed upon it
by Goethe sufficiently guarantees its poetic merit. There are two
recensions of the text in India, the Bengali and the Devanagari, the
latter being generally considered older and purer. _Sakuntala_ was
first translated into English by Sir William Jones (Calcutta, 1789),
who used the Bengali recension. It was soon after translated into
German by G. Forster (1791; new ed. Leipzig, 1879). An edition of the
Sanskrit original, with French translation, was published by A. L.
Chezy at Paris in 1830. This formed the basis of a translation by B.
Hirzel (Zurich, 1830); later trans. by L. Fritze (Chemnitz, 1876).
Other editions of the Bengali recension were published by Prema
Chandra (Calcutta, 1860) for the use of European students and by R.
Pischel (2nd ed., Kiel, 1886). The Devanagari recension was first
edited by O. Bohtlingk (Bonn, 1842), with a German translation. On
this were based the successive German translations of E. Meier
(Tubingen, 1851) and E. Lobedanz (8th ed., Leipzig, 1892). The same
recension has been edited by Dr C. Burkhard with a Sanskrit-Latin
vocabulary and short Prakrit grammar (Breslau, 1872), and by Professor
Monier Williams (Oxford, 2nd ed. 1876), who also translated the drama
(5th ed., 1887). There is another translation by P. N. Patankar
(Poona, 1888- ). There are also a South Indian and a Cashmir
recension.
The _Vikramorvasi_, or _Urvasi won by Valour_, abounds with fine
lyrical passages, and is of all Indian dramas second only to
_Sakuntala_ in poetic beauty. It was edited by R. Lenz (Berlin, 1833)
and translated into German by C. G. A. Hofer (Berlin, 1837), by B.
Hirzel (1838), by E. Lobedanz (Leipzig, 1861) and F. Bollensen
(Petersburg, 1845). There is also an English edition by Monier
Williams, a metrical and prose version by Professor H. H. Wilson, and
a literal prose translation by Professor E. B. Cowell (1851). The
latest editions are by S. P. Pandit (Bombay, 1879) and K. B. Paranjpe
(ibid. 1898).
The third play, entitled _Malavikagnimitra_, has considerable poetical
and dramatic merit, but is confessedly inferior to the other two. It
possesses the advantage, however, that its hero Agnimitra and its
heroine Malavika are more ordinary and human characters than those of
the other plays. It is edited by O. F. Tullberg (Bonn, 1840), by
Shankar P. Pandit, with English notes (1869), and S. S. Ayyar (Poona,
1896); translated into German by A. Weber (1856), and into English by
C. H. Tawney (2nd ed., Calcutta, 1898).
Two epic poems are also attributed to Kalidasa. The longer of these is
entitled _Raghuvamsa_, the subject of which is the same as that of the
_Ramayana_, viz. the history of Rama, but beginning with a long
account of his ancestors, the ancient rulers of Ayodhya (ed. by A. F.
Stenzler, London, 1832; and with Eng. trans. and notes by Gopal
Raghunath Nandargikar, Poona, 1897; verse trans. by P. de Lacy
Johnstone, 1902). The other epic is the _Kumarasambhava_, the theme of
which is the birth of Kumara, otherwise called Karttikeya or Skanda,
god of war (ed. by Stenzler, London, 1838; K. M. Banerjea, 3rd ed.
Calcutta, 1872; Parvanikara and Parab, Bombay, 1893; and M. R. Kale
and S. R. Dharadhara, ibid. 1907; Eng. trans. by R. T. Griffith,
1879). Though containing many fine passages, it is tame as a whole.
His lyrical poems are the _Meghaduta_ and the _Ritusamhara_. The
_Meghaduta_, or the Cloud-Messenger, describes the complaint of an
exiled lover, and the message he sends to his wife by a cloud. It is
full of deep feeling, and abounds with fine descriptions of the
beauties of nature. It was edited with free English translation by H.
H. Wilson (Calcutta, 1813), and by J. Gildemeister (Bonn, 1841); a
German adaptation by M. Muller appeared at Konigsberg (1847), and one
by C. Schutz at Bielefeld (1859). It was edited by F. Johnson, with
vocabulary and Wilson's metrical translation (London, 1867); later
editions by K. P. Parab (Bombay, 1891) and K. B. Pathak (Poona, 1894).
The _Ritusamhara_, or Collection of the Seasons, is a short poem, of
less importance, on the six seasons of the year. There is an edition
by P. von Bohlen, with prose Latin and metrical German translation
(Leipzig, 1840); Eng. trans. by C. S. Sitaram Ayyar (Bombay, 1897).
Another poem, entitled the _Nalodaya_, or Rise of Nala, edited by F.
Benary (Berlin, 1830), W. Yates (Calcutta, 1844) and Vidyasagara
(Calcutta, 1873), is a treatment of the story of Nala and Damayanti,
but describes especially the restoration of Nala to prosperity and
power. It has been ascribed to the celebrated Kalidasa, but was
probably written by another poet of the same name. It is full of most
absurd verbal conceits and metrical extravagances.
So many poems, partly of a very different stamp, are attributed to
Kalidasa that it is scarcely possible to avoid the necessity of
assuming the existence of more authors than one of that name. It is by
no means improbable that there were three poets thus named; indeed
modern native astronomers are so convinced of the existence of a triad
of authors of this name that they apply the term Kalidasa to designate
the number three.
On Kalidasa generally, see A. A. Macdonell's _History of Sanskrit
Literature_ (1900), and on his date G. Huth, _Die Zeit des K._
(Berlin, 1890). (A. A. M.)
KALIMPONG, a village of British India, in the Darjeeling district of
Bengal, 4000 ft. above sea-level; pop. (1901), 1069. It is a frontier
market for the purchase of wool and mules from Tibet, and an important
agricultural fair is held in November. In 1900 Kalimpong was chosen by
the Church of Scotland as the site of cottage homes, known as St
Andrew's Colonial Homes, for the education and training of poor European
and Eurasian children.
KALINGA, or CALINGA, one of the nine kingdoms of southern India in
ancient times. Its exact limits varied, but included the eastern Madras
coast from Pulicat to Chicacole, running inland from the Bay of Bengal
to the Eastern Ghats. The name at one time had a wider and vaguer
meaning, comprehending Orissa, and possibly extending to the Ganges
valley. The Kalinga of Pliny certainly included Orissa, but latterly it
seems to have been confined to the Telugu-speaking country; and in the
time of Hsuan Tsang (630 A.D.) it was distinguished on the south and
west from Andhra, and on the north from Odra or Orissa. Taranatha, the
Tibetan historian, speaks of Kalinga as one division of the country of
Telinga. Hsuan Tsang speaks of Kalinga ("Kie-ling-kia") having its
capital at what has been identified with the site either of Rajahmundry
or Coringa. Both these towns, as well as Singapur, Calingapatam and
Chicacole, share the honour of having been the chief cities of Kalinga
at different periods; but inscriptions recently deciphered seem to prove
that the capital of the Ganga dynasty of Kalinga was at Mukhalingam in
the Ganjam district.
KALINJAR, a town and hill fort of British India in the Banda district of
the United Provinces. Pop. (1901), 3015. The fort stands on an isolated
rock, the termination of the Vindhya range, at an elevation of 1203 ft.,
overlooking the plains of Bundelkhand. Kalinjar is the most
characteristic specimen of the hill-fortresses, originally hill-shrines,
of central India. Its antiquity is proved by its mention in the
_Mahabharata_. It was besieged by Mahmud of Ghazni in 1023, and here the
Afghan emperor Sher Shah met his death in 1545, and Kalinjar played a
prominent part in history down to the time of the Mutiny in 1857, when
it was held by a small British garrison. Both the fort and the town,
which stands at the foot of the hill, are of interest to the antiquary
on account of their remains of temples, sculptures, inscriptions and
caves.
KALIR [QALIR], ELEAZER, Hebrew liturgical poet, whose hymns (_piyyutim_)
are found in profusion in the festival prayers of the German synagogal
rite. The age in which he lived is unknown. Some (basing the view on
Saadiah's _Sefer ha-galuy_) place him as early as the 6th century,
others regard him as belonging to the 10th century. Kalir's style is
powerful but involved; he may be described as a Hebrew Browning.
Some beautiful renderings of Kalir's poems may be found in the volumes
of Davis & Adler's edition of the German Festival Prayers entitled
_Service of the Synagogue_.
KALISCH, ISIDOR (1816-1886), Jewish divine, was born at Krotoschin in
Prussia on the 15th of November 1816, and was educated at Berlin,
Breslau and Prague. In 1848 he came to London, but passed on in 1849 to
America, where he ministered as rabbi in Cleveland, Cincinnati,
Milwaukee, Detroit and Newark, New Jersey. At Newark from 1875 he gave
himself entirely to literary work, and exercised a strong influence as
leader of the radical and reforming Jewish party.
Among his works are _Wegweisen fur rationelle Forschungen in den
biblischen Schriften_ (1853); and translations of _Nathan der Weise_
(1869); _Sepher Jezirah_ (1877); and Munz's _History of Philosophy
among the Jews_ (1881). He also wrote a good deal of German and Hebrew
verse.
KALISCH, MARCUS (or MAURICE) (1828-1885), Jewish scholar, was born in
Pomerania in 1828, and died in England 1885. He was one of the pioneers
of the critical study of the Old Testament in England. At one time he
was secretary to the Chief Rabbi; in 1853 he became tutor in the
Rothschild family and enjoyed leisure to produce his commentaries and
other works. The first instalment of his commentary on the Pentateuch
was _Exodus_ (1855); this was followed by _Genesis_ (1858) and
_Leviticus_ in two parts (1867-1872). Kalisch wrote before the
publication of Wellhausen's works, and anticipated him in some important
points. Besides these works, Kalisch published in 1877-1878 two volumes
of Bible studies (on _Balaam_ and _Jonah_). He was also author of a once
popular Hebrew grammar in two volumes (1862-1863). In 1880 he published
_Path and Goal_, a brilliant discussion of human destiny. His
commentaries are of permanent value, not only because of the author's
originality, but also because of his erudition. No other works in
English contain such full citations of earlier literature. (I. A.)
KALISPEL, or PEND D'OREILLE, a tribe of North-American Indians of
Salishan stock. They formerly ranged the country around Pend d'Oreille
Lake, Washington. They number some 600, and are settled on a reservation
in Montana.
KALISZ, a government of Russian Poland, having Prussia on the W., and
the governments of Warsaw and Piotrkow on the E. Its area is 4390 sq. m.
Its surface is a lowland, sloping towards the west, and is drained by
the Prosna and the Warta and their tributaries, and also by the Bzura.
It was formerly covered with countless small lakes and thick forests;
the latter are now mostly destroyed, but many lakes and marshes exist
still. Pop. (1897), 844,358 of whom 427,978 were women, and 113,609
lived in towns; estimated pop. (1906), 983,200. They are chiefly Poles.
Roman Catholics number 83%; Jews and Protestants each amount to 7%.
Agriculture is carried to perfection on a number of estates, as also
livestock breeding. The crops principally raised are rye, wheat, oats,
barley and potatoes. Various domestic trades, including the weaving of
linen and wool, are carried on in the villages. There are some
factories, producing chiefly cloth and cottons. The government is
divided into eight districts, the chief towns of which, with their
populations in 1897, are: Kalisz (21,680), Kolo (9400), Konin (8530),
Leczyca (8863), Slupec (3758), Sieradz (7019), Turek (8141) and Wielun
(7442).
KALISZ, the chief town of the above government, situated in 51 deg. 46'
N. and 18 deg. E., 147 m. by rail W.S.W. of Warsaw, on the banks of the
Prosna, which there forms the boundary of Prussia. Pop. (1871), 18,088;
(1897), 21,680, of whom 37% were Jews. It is one of the oldest and
finest cities of Poland, is the seat of a Roman Catholic bishop, and
possesses a castle, a teachers' institute and a large public park. The
industrial establishments comprise a brewery, and factories for ribbons,
cloth and sugar, and tanneries.
Kalisz is identified with the _Calisia_ of Ptolemy, and its antiquity
is indicated by the abundance of coins and other objects of ancient
art which have been discovered on the site, as well as by the numerous
burial mounds existing in the vicinity. It was the scene of the
decisive victory of Augustus the Strong of Poland over the Swedes on
the 29th of October 1706, of several minor conflicts in 1813, and of
the friendly meeting of the Russian and Prussian troops in 1835, in
memory of which an iron obelisk was erected in the town by Nicholas I.
in 1841. The treaty of 1813 between Russia and Prussia was signed
here.
KALK, a town in the Prussian Rhine province, on the right bank of the
Rhine, 2 m. E. of Cologne. Pop. (1905), 25,478. Kalk is an important
junction of railway lines connecting Cologne with places on the right
bank of the river. It has various iron and chemical industries,
brickworks and breweries, and an electric tramway joins it with Cologne.
KALKAS, or KHALKAS, a Mongoloid people mainly concentrated in the
northern steppes of Mongolia near their kinsmen, the Buriats. According
to Sir H. Howorth they derive their name from the river Kalka, which
runs into the Buir lake. Of all Mongolians they physically differ most
from the true Mongol type (see MONGOLS). Their colour is a brown rather
than a yellow, and their eyes are open and not oblique. They have,
however, the broad flat face, high cheekbones and lank black hair of
their race. They number some 250,000, and their territory is divided
into the four khanates of Tushetu (Tushiyetu), Tsetien (Setzen),
Sai'noi'm (Sain Noyan) and Jesaktu (Jassaktu).
KALKBRENNER, FRIEDRICH WILHELM (1784-1849), German pianist and composer,
son of Christian Kalkbrenner (1755-1806), a Jewish musician of Cassel,
was educated at the Paris Conservatoire, and soon began to play in
public. From 1814 to 1823 he was well known as a brilliant performer and
a successful teacher in London, and then settled in Paris, dying at
Enghien, near there, in 1849. He became a member of the Paris
piano-manufacturing firm of Pleyel & Co., and made a fortune by his
business and his art combined. His numerous compositions are less
remembered now than his instruction-book, with "studies," which have had
considerable vogue among pianists.
KALLAY, BENJAMIN VON (1839-1903), Austro-Hungarian statesman, was born
at Budapest on the 22nd of December 1839. His family derived their name
from their estates at Nagy Kallo, in Szabolcs, and claimed descent from
the Balogh Semjen tribe, which colonized the counties of Borsod,
Szabolcs, and Szatmar, at the close of the 9th century, when the Magyars
conquered Hungary. They played a prominent part in Hungarian history as
early as the reign of Koloman (1095-1114); and from King Matthias
Corvinus (1458-1490) they received their estates at Mezo Tur, near
Kecskemet, granted to Michael Kallay for his heroic defence of Jajce in
Bosnia, and still held by his descendants. The father of Benjamin von
Kallay, a superior official of the Hungarian Government, died in 1845,
and his widow, who survived until 1903, devoted herself to the education
of her son. At an early age Kallay manifested a deep interest in
politics, and especially in the Eastern Question. He travelled in
Russia, European Turkey and Asia Minor, gaining a thorough knowledge of
Greek, Turkish and several Slavonic languages. He became as proficient
in Servian as in his native tongue. In 1867 he entered the Hungarian
Diet as Conservative deputy for Muhlbach (Szasy-Szebes); in 1869 he was
appointed consul-general at Belgrade; and in 1872 he visited Bosnia for
the first time. His views on Balkan questions strongly influenced Count
Andrassy, the Austro-Hungarian minister for foreign affairs. Leaving
Belgrade in 1875, he resumed his seat in the Diet, and shortly
afterwards founded the journal _Kelet Nepe_, or _Eastern Folk_, in which
he defended the vigorous policy of Andrassy. After the Russo-Turkish War
of 1878 he went to Philippopolis as Austro-Hungarian envoy extraordinary
on the International Eastern Rumelian Commission. In 1879 he became
second, and soon afterwards first, departmental chief at the foreign
office in Vienna. On the 4th of June 1882 he was appointed Imperial
minister of finance and administrator of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and the
distinction with which he filled this office, for a period of 21 years,
is his chief title of fame (see BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA). Kallay was an
honorary member of the Budapest and Vienna academies of science, and
attained some eminence as a writer. He translated J. S. Mill's _Liberty_
into Hungarian, adding an introductory critique; while his version of
_Galatea_, a play by the Greek dramatist S. N. Basiliades (1843-1874),
proved successful on the Hungarian stage. His monographs on Servian
history (_Geschichte der Serben_) and on the Oriental ambition of Russia
(_Die Orientpolitik Russlands_) were translated into German by J. H.
Schwicker, and published at Leipzig in 1878. But, in his own opinion,
his masterpiece was an academic oration on the political and
geographical position of Hungary as a link between East and West. In
1873 Kallay married the countess Vilma Bethlen, who bore him two
daughters and a son. His popularity in Bosnia was partly due to the tact
and personal charm of his wife. He died on the 13th of July 1903.
KALMAR (CALMAR), a seaport of Sweden on the Baltic coast, chief town of
the district (_lan_) of Kalmar, 250 m. S.S.W. of Stockholm by rail. Pop.
(1900), 12,715. It lies opposite the island of Oland, mainly on two
small islands, but partly on the mainland, where there is a pleasant
park. The streets are regular, and most of the houses are of wood. The
principal public edifices, however, are constructed of limestone from
Oland, including the cathedral, built by Nicodemus Tessin and his son
Nicodemus in the second half of the 17th century. Kalmar, a town of
great antiquity, was formerly strongly fortified, and there remains the
island-fortress of Kalmarnahus, dating partly from the 12th century, but
mainly from the 16th and 17th. It contains the beautiful chamber of King
Eric XIV. (d. 1577), an historical museum, and in the courtyard a fine
ornate well-cover. This stronghold stood several sieges in the 14th,
15th and 16th centuries, and the town gives name to the treaty (Kalmar
Union) by which Sweden, Norway and Denmark were united into one kingdom
in 1397. Kalmar has an artificial harbour admitting vessels drawing 19
ft. There are a school of navigation, and tobacco and match factories,
the produce of which, together with timber and oats, is exported.
Ship-building is carried on.
KALMUCK, or KALMYK STEPPE, a territory or reservation belonging to the
Kalmuck or Kalmyk Tatars, in the Russian government of Astrakhan,
bounded by the Volga on the N.E., the Manych on the S.W., the Caspian
Sea on the E., and the territory of the Don Cossacks on the N.W. Its
area is 36,900 sq. m., to which has to be added a second reservation of
3045 sq. m. on the left bank of the lower Volga. According to I. V.
Mushketov, the Kalmuck Steppe must be divided into two parts, western
and eastern. The former, occupied by the Ergeni hills, is deeply
trenched by ravines and rises 300 and occasionally 630 ft. above the
sea. It is built up of Tertiary deposits, belonging to the Sarmatian
division of the Miocene period and covered with loess and black earth,
and its escarpments represent the old shore-line of the Caspian. No
Caspian deposits are found on or within the Ergeni hills. These hills
exhibit the usual black earth flora, and they have a settled population.
The eastern part of the steppe is a plain, lying for the most part 30 to
40 ft. below the level of the sea, and sloping gently towards the Volga.
Post-Pliocene "Aral-Caspian deposits," containing the usual fossils
(_Hydrobia_, _Neritina_, eight species of _Cardium_, two of _Dreissena_,
three of _Adacna_ and _Lithoglyphus caspius_), attain thicknesses
varying from 105 ft. to 7 or 10 ft., and disappear in places. Lacustrine
and fluviatile deposits occur intermingled with the above. Large areas
of moving sands exist near Enotayevsk, where high dunes or _barkhans_
have been formed. A narrow tract of land along the coast of the Caspian,
known as the "hillocks of Baer," is covered with hillocks elongated from
west to east, perpendicularly to the coast-line, the spaces between them
being filled with water or overgrown with thickets of reed, _Salix_,
_Ulmus campestris_, almond trees, &c. An archipelago of little islands
is thus formed close to the shore by these mounds, which are backed on
the N. and N.W. by strings of salt lakes, partly desiccated. Small
streams originate in the Ergenis, but are lost as soon as they reach the
lowlands, where water can only be obtained from wells. The scanty
vegetation is a mixture of the flora of south-east Russia and that of
the deserts of central Asia. The steppe has an estimated population of
130,000 persons, living in over 27,700 _kibitkas_, or felt tents. There
are over 60 Buddhist monasteries. Part of the Kalmucks are settled
(chiefly in the hilly parts), the remainder being nomads. They breed
horses, cattle and sheep, but suffer heavy losses from murrain. Some
attempts at agriculture and tree-planting are being made. The breeding
of livestock, fishing, and some domestic trades, chiefly carried on by
the women, are the principal sources of maintenance.
See I. V. Mushketov, _Geol. Researches in the Kalmyk Steppe in
1884-1885_ (St Petersburg, 1894, in Russian); Kostenkov's works
(1868-1870); and other works quoted in Semenov's _Geogr. Dict._ and
_Russ. Encycl. Dict._ (P. A. K.; J. T. Be.)
KALNOKY, GUSTAV SIEGMUND, COUNT (1832-1898), Austro-Hungarian statesman,
was born at Lettowitz, in Moravia, on the 29th of December 1832, of an
old Transylvanian family which had held countly rank in Hungary from the
17th century. After spending some years in a hussar regiment, in 1854 he
entered the diplomatic service without giving up his connexion with the
army, in which he reached the rank of general in 1879. He was for the
ten years 1860 to 1870 secretary of embassy at London, and then, after
serving at Rome and Copenhagen, was in 1880 appointed ambassador at St
Petersburg. His success in Russia procured for him, on the death of
Baron v. Haymerle in 1881, the appointment of minister of foreign
affairs for Austria-Hungary, a post which he held for fourteen years.
Essentially a diplomatist, he took little or no part in the vexed
internal affairs of the Dual Monarchy, and he came little before the
public except at the annual statement on foreign affairs before the
Delegations. His management of the affairs of his department was,
however, very successful; he confirmed and maintained the alliance with
Germany, which had been formed by his predecessors, and co-operated with
Bismarck in the arrangements by which Italy joined the alliance.
Kalnoky's special influence was seen in the improvement of Austrian
relations with Russia, following on the meeting of the three emperors in
September 1884 at Skiernevice, at which he was present. His Russophile
policy caused some adverse criticism in Hungary. His friendliness for
Russia did not, however, prevent him from strengthening the position of
Austria as against Russia in the Balkan Peninsula by the establishment
of a closer political and commercial understanding with Servia and
Rumania. In 1885 he interfered after the battle of Slivnitza to arrest
the advance of the Bulgarians on Belgrade, but he lost influence in
Servia after the abdication of King Milan. Though he kept aloof from the
Clerical party, Kalnoky was a strong Catholic; and his sympathy for the
difficulties of the Church caused adverse comment in Italy, when, in
1891, he stated in a speech before the Delegations that the question of
the position of the pope was still unsettled. He subsequently explained
that by this he did not refer to the Roman question, which was
permanently settled, but to the possibility of the pope leaving Rome.
The jealousy felt in Hungary against the Ultramontanes led to his fall.
In 1895 a case of clerical interference in the internal affairs of
Hungary by the nuncio Agliardi aroused a strong protest in the Hungarian
parliament, and consequent differences between Banffy, the Hungarian
minister, and the minister for foreign affairs led to Kalnoky's
resignation. He died on the 13th of February 1898 at Prodlitz in
Moravia.
KALOCSA, a town of Hungary, in the county of Pest-Pilis-Solt-Kis-Kun, 88
m. S. of Budapest by rail. Pop. (1900), 11,372. It is situated in a
marshy but highly productive district, near the left bank of the Danube,
and was once of far greater importance than at present. Kalocsa is the
see of one of the four Roman Catholic archbishops in Hungary. Amongst
its buildings are a fine cathedral, the archiepiscopal palace, an
astronomical observatory, a seminary for priests, and colleges for
training of male and female teachers. The inhabitants of Kalocsa and its
wide-spreading communal lands are chiefly employed in the cultivation of
the vine, fruit, flax, hemp and cereals, in the capture of water-fowl
and in fishing. Kalocsa is one of the oldest towns in Hungary. The
present archbishopric, founded about 1135, is a development of a
bishopric said to have been founded in the year 1000 by King Stephen the
Saint. It suffered much during the 16th century from the hordes of
Ottomans who then ravaged the country. A large part of the town was
destroyed by a fire in 1875.
KALPI, or CALPEE, a town of British India, in the Jalaun district of the
United Provinces, on the right bank of the Jumna, 45 m. S.W. of
Cawnpore. Pop. (1901), 10,139. It was founded, according to tradition,
by Vasudeva, at the end of the 4th century A.D. In 1196 it fell to
Kutab-ud-din, the viceroy of Mahommed Ghori, and during the subsequent
Mahommedan period it played a large part in the annals of this part of
India. About the middle of the 18th century it passed into the hands of
the Mahrattas. It was captured by the British in 1803, and since 1806
has remained in British possession. In May 1858 Sir Hugh Rose (Lord
Strathnairn) defeated here a force of about 10,000 rebels under the rani
of Jhansi. Kalpi had a mint for copper coinage in the reign of Akbar;
and the East India Company made it one of their principal stations for
providing the "commercial investment." The old town, which is beside the
river, has ruins of a fort, and several temples of interest, while in
the neighbourhood are many ancient tombs. There is a lofty modern tower
ornamented with representations of the battles of the _Ramayana_. The
new town lies away from the river to the south-east. Kalpi is still a
centre of local trade (principally in grain, _ghi_ and cotton), with a
station on the Indian Midland railway from Jhansi to Cawnpore, which
here crosses the Jumna. There are manufactures of sugar and paper.
KALUGA, a government of middle Russia, surrounded by those of Moscow,
Smolensk, Orel and Tula, with an area of 11,942 sq. m. Its surface is an
undulating plain, reaching 800 to 900 ft. in its highest parts, which
lie in the S.W., and deeply trenched by watercourses, especially in the
N.E. The Oka, a main tributary of the Volga, and its confluents (the
Zhizdra and Ugra) drain all but a strip of country in the west, which is
traversed by the Bolva, an affluent of the Dnieper. The government is
built up mainly of carboniferous deposits (coal-bearing), with patches
of the soft Jurassic clays and limestones which formerly covered them.
Cretaceous deposits occur in the S.W., and Devonian limestones and
shales crop out in the S.E. The government is covered with a thick layer
of boulder clay in the north, with vast ridges and fields of boulders
brought during the Glacial Period from Finland and the government of
Olonets; large areas in the middle are strewn with flint boulders and
patches of loess are seen farther south. The mean annual temperature is
41 deg. F. Iron ores are the chief mineral wealth, nearly 40,000 persons
being engaged in mining. Beds of coal occur in several places, and some
of them are worked. Fireclay, china-clay, chalk, grindstone, pure quartz
sand, phosphorite and copper are also extracted. Forests cover 20% of
the surface, and occur chiefly in the south. The soil is not very
suitable for agriculture, and owing to a rather dense population,
considerable numbers of the inhabitants find occupation in industry, or
as carriers and carpenters for one-half of the year at the Black Sea
ports.
The population (1,025,705 in 1860) was 1,176,353 in 1897, nearly all
Great Russians. There were 116 women to 100 men, and out of the total
population 94,853 lived in towns. The estimated population in 1906 was
1,287,300. Of the total area over 4,000,000 acres are owned by the
peasant communities, nearly 3,000,000 acres by private owners and some
250,000 by the Crown. The principal crops are rye, oats, barley,
buckwheat, and potatoes. Hemp is grown for local use and export. Bees
are kept. The chief non-agricultural industries are distilleries,
iron-works, factories for cloth, cottons, paper, matches, leather and
china, flour-mills and oil works. Large quantities of wooden wares are
fabricated in the villages of the south. A considerable trade is carried
on in hemp, hempseed and hempseed oil, corn and hides; and iron,
machinery, leather, glass, chemicals and linen are exported. The
government is divided into 11 districts, the chief towns of which, with
their populations in 1897, are: Kaluga (49,728), Borovsk (8407), Kozelsk
(5908), Likhvin (1776), Maloyaroslavets (2500), Medyn (4392), Meshchovsk
(3667), Mosalsk (2652), Peremyshl (3956), Tarusa (1989) and Zhizdra
(5996). (P. A. K.; J. T. Be.)
KALUGA, the chief town of the above government, situated on the left
bank of the Oka, 117 m. S.W. of Moscow by rail, in 54 deg. 31' N. and 36
deg. 6' E. Pop. (1870), 36,880; (1897) 49,728. It is the see of a Greek
Orthodox bishop. The public buildings include the cathedral of the
Trinity (rebuilt in the 19th century in place of an older edifice dating
from 1687), two monastic establishments, an ecclesiastical seminary, and
a lunatic asylum. The principal articles of industrial production are
leather, oil, bast mats, wax candles, starch and Kaluga cakes. The first
historical mention of Kaluga occurs in 1389; its incorporation with the
principality of Moscow took place in 1518. In 1607 it was held by the
second false Demetrius and vainly besieged for four months by the forces
of Shuisky, who had ascended the Russian throne as Basil IV. on the
death of the first false Demetrius. In 1619 Kaluga fell into the hands
of the hetman or chief of the Zaporozhian Cossacks. Later two-thirds of
its inhabitants were carried off by a plague; and in 1622 the whole
place was laid waste by a conflagration. It recovered, however, in spite
of several other conflagrations (especially in 1742 and 1754). On
several occasions Kaluga was the residence of political prisoners; among
others Shamyl, the Lesghian chief, spent his exile there (1859-1870).
KALYAN, a town of British India, in the Thana district of Bombay,
situated 33 m. N.E. of Bombay city, where the two main lines of the
Great Indian Peninsula railway diverge. Pop. (1901), 10,749. There is a
considerable industry of rice-husking. Kalyan is known to have been the
capital of a kingdom and a centre of sea-borne commerce in the early
centuries of the Christian era. The oldest remains now existing are of
Mahommedan times.
KAMA, or KAMADEVA, in Hindu mythology, the god of love. He is variously
stated to have been the child of Brahma or Dharma (virtue). In the _Rig
Veda_, Kama (desire) is described as the first movement that arose in
the One after it had come into life through the power of fervour or
abstraction. In the Atharva-Veda Kama does not mean sexual desire, but
rather the yearning after the good of all created things. Later Kama is
simply the Hindu Cupid. While attempting to lure Siva to sin, he was
destroyed by a fiery glance of the goddess' third eye. Thus in Hindu
poetry Kama is known as Ananga, the "bodiless god." Kama's wife Rati
(voluptuousness) mourned him so greatly that Siva relented, and he was
reborn as the child of Krishna and Rukmini. The babe was called
Pradyumna (Cupid). He is represented armed with a bow of sugar-cane; it
is strung with bees, and its five arrows are tipped with flowers which
overcome the five senses. A fish adorns his flag, and he rides a parrot
or sparrow, emblematic of lubricity.
KAMALA, a red powder formerly used in medicine as an anthelmintic and
employed in India as a yellow dye. It is obtained from _Mallotus
philippinensis_, Mull., a small euphorbiaceous tree from 20 to 45 ft. in
height, distributed from southern Arabia in the west to north Australia
and the Philippines in the east. In India kamala has several ancient
Sanskrit names, one of which, kapila, signifies dusky or tawny red.
Under the name of wars, kanbil, or qinbil, kamala appears to have been
known to the Arabian physicians as a remedy for tapeworm and skin
diseases as early as the 10th century, and indeed is mentioned by Paulus
Aegineta still earlier. The drug was formerly in the British
Pharmacopoeia, but is inferior to many other anthelmintics and is not
now employed.
KAMCHATKA, a peninsula of N.-E. Siberia, stretching from the land of the
Chukchis S.S.W. for 750 m., with a width of from 80 to 300 m. (51 deg.
to 62 deg. N., and 156 deg. to 163 deg. E.), between the Sea of Okhotsk
and Bering Sea. It forms part of the Russian Maritime Province. Area,
104,260 sq. m.
The isthmus which connects the peninsula with the mainland is a flat
_tundra_, sloping gently both ways. The mountain chain, which Ditmar
calls central, seems to be interrupted under 57 deg. N. by a deep
indentation corresponding to the valley of the Tighil. There too the
hydrographical network, as well as the south-west to north-east strike
of the clay-slates and metamorphic schists on Ditmar's map, seem to
indicate the existence of two chains running south-west to north-east,
parallel to the volcanic chain of S.E. Kamchatka. Glaciers were not
known till the year 1899, when they were discovered on the Byelaya and
Ushkinskaya (15,400 ft.) mountains. Thick Tertiary deposits, probably
Miocene, overlie the middle portions of the west coast. The southern
parts of the central range are composed of granites, syenites,
porphyries and crystalline slates, while in the north of Ichinskaya
volcano, which is the highest summit of the peninsula (16,920 ft.), the
mountains consist chiefly of Tertiary sandstones and old volcanic rocks.
Coal-bearing clays containing fresh-water molluscs and dicotyledonous
plants, as also conglomerates, alternate with the sandstones in these
Tertiary deposits. Amber is found in them. Very extensive layers of
melaphyre and andesite, as also of conglomerates and volcanic tuffs,
cover the middle portions of the peninsula. The south-eastern portion is
occupied by a chain of volcanoes, running along the indented coast, from
Cape Lopatka to Cape Kronotskiy (54 deg. 25' N.), and separated from the
rest of the peninsula by the valleys of the Bystraya (an affluent of the
Bolstraya, on the west coast) and Kamchatka rivers. Another chain of
volcanoes runs from Ichinskaya (which burst into activity several times
in the 18th and 19th centuries) to Shiveluch, seemingly parallel to the
above but farther north. The two chains contain twelve active and
twenty-six extinct volcanoes, from 7000 to more than 15,000 ft. high.
The highest volcanoes are grouped under 56 deg. N., and the highest of
them, Kluchevskaya (16,990 ft.), is in a state of almost incessant
activity (notable outbreaks in 1729, 1737, 1841, 1853-1854, and
1896-1897), a flow of its lava having reached to Kamchatka river in
1853. The active Shiveluch (9900 ft.) is the last volcano of this chain.
Several lakes and probably Avacha Bay are old craters. Copper, mercury,
and iron ores, as also pure copper, ochre and sulphur, are found in the
peninsula. The principal river is the Kamchatka (325 m. long), which
flows first north-eastwards in a fertile longitudinal valley, and then,
bending suddenly to the east, pierces the above-mentioned volcanic
chain. The other rivers are the Tighil (135 m.) and the Bolstraya (120
m.), both flowing into the Sea of Okhotsk; and the Avacha, flowing into
the Pacific.
The floating ice which accumulates in the northern parts of the Sea of
Okhotsk and the cold current which flows along the east coast of the
peninsula render its summers chilly, but the winter is relatively warm,
and temperatures below -40 deg. F. are experienced only in the highlands
of the interior and on the Okhotsk littoral. The average temperatures at
Petropavlovsk (53 deg. N.) are: year 37 deg. F., January 17 deg., July
58 deg.; while in the valley of the Kamchatka the average temperature of
the winter is 16 deg., and of the summer as high as 58 deg. and 64 deg.
Rain and snow are copious, and dense fogs enshroud the coast in summer;
consequently the mountains are well clothed with timber and the meadows
with grass, except in the _tundras_ of the north. The natives eat
extensively the bulbs of the Martagon lily, and weave cloth out of the
fibres of the Kamchatka nettle. _Delphinopterus leucus_, the sea-lion
(_Otaria Stelleri_), and walrus abound off the coasts. The sea-otter
(_Enhydris marina_) has been destroyed.
The population (5846 in 1870) was 7270 in 1900. The southern part of the
peninsula is occupied by Kamchadales, who exhibit many attributes of the
Mongolian race, but are more similar to the aborigines of N.E. Asia and
N.W. America. Fishing (quantities of salmon enter the rivers) and
hunting are their chief occupations. Dog-sledges are principally used as
means of communication. The efforts of the government to introduce
cattle-breeding have failed. The Kamchadale language cannot be assigned
to any known group; its vocabulary is extremely poor. The purity of the
tongue is best preserved by the people of the Penzhinsk district on the
W. coast. North of 57 deg. N. the peninsula is peopled with Koryaks,
settled and nomad, and Lamuts (Tunguses), who came from the W. coast of
the Sea of Okhotsk. The principal Russian settlements are:
Petropavlovsk, on the E. coast, on Avacha Bay, with an excellent
roadstead; Verkhne-Kamchatsk and Nizhne-Kamchatsk in the valley of the
Kamchatka river; Bolsheryetsk, on the Bolshaya; and Tighil, on the W.
coast.
The Russians made their first settlements in Kamchatka in the end of the
17th century; in 1696 Atlasov founded Verkhne-Kamchatsk, and in 1704
Robelev founded Bolsheryetsk. In 1720 a survey of the peninsula was
undertaken; in 1725-1730 it was visited by Bering's expedition; and in
1733-1745 it was the scene of the labours of the Krasheninnikov and
Steller expedition.
See G. A. Erman, _Reise um die Erde_ iii., (Berlin, 1848); C. von
Ditmar, _Reisen und Aufenthalt in Kamchatka in den Jahren 1851-1855_
(1890-1900); G. Kennan, _Tent Life in Siberia_ (1870), and paper in
_Jour. of American Geog. Soc._ (1876); K. Diener, in _Petermann's
Mitteilungen_ (1891, vol. xxxvii.); V. A. Obruchev, in _Izvestia_ of
the East Siberian Geographical Society (xxiii. 4, 5; 1892); F. H. H.
Guillemard, _Cruise of the "Marchesa"_ (2nd ed., London, 1889); and G.
E. H. Barrett-Hamilton in _Scott. Geog. Mag._ (May, 1899), with
bibliography. (P. A. K.; J. T. Be.)
KAME (a form of Scandinavian _comb_, hill), in physical geography, a
short ridge or bunched mound of gravel or sand, "tumultuously
stratified," occurring in connexion with glacial deposits, having been
formed at the mouths of tunnels under the ice. When the ice-sheet melts,
these features, formerly concealed by the glacier, are revealed. They
are common in the glaciated portions of the lower Scottish valleys. By
some authorities the term "kame," or specifically "serpentine kame," is
taken as synonymous with "esker," which however is preferably to be
applied to the long mound deposited within the ice-tunnel, not to the
bunched mound at its mouth.
KAMENETS PODOLSKIY, or PODOLIAN KAMENETS (Polish Kamieniec), a town of
S.W. Russia, chief town of the government of Podolia. It stands in 48
deg. 40' N. and 26 deg. 30' E., on a high, rocky bluff of the river
Smotrich, a left-hand tributary of the Dniester, and near the Austrian
frontier. Pop. (1863), 20,699; (1900) 39,113, of whom 50% were Jews and
30% Poles. Round the town lies a cluster of suburban villages, Polish
Folwark, Russian Folwark, Zinkovtsui, Karvasarui, &c.; and on the
opposite side of the river, accessible by a wooden bridge, stands the
castle which long frowned defiance across the Dniester to Khotin in
Bessarabia. Kamenets is the see of a Roman Catholic and a Greek Orthodox
bishop. The Roman Catholic cathedral of St Peter and St Paul, built in
1361, is distinguished by a minaret, recalling the time when it was used
as a mosque by the Turks (1672-1699). The Greek cathedral of John the
Baptist dates from the 16th century, but up to 1798 belonged to the
Basilian monastery. Other buildings are the Orthodox Greek monastery of
the Trinity, and the Catholic Armenian church (founded in 1398),
possessing a 14th-century missal and an image of the Virgin Mary that
saw the Mongol invasion of 1239-1242. The town contains Orthodox Greek
and Roman Catholic seminaries, Jewish colleges, and an archaeological
museum for church antiquities, founded in 1890. Kamenets was laid waste
by the Mongol leader Batu in 1240. In 1434 it was made the chief town of
the province of Podolia. In the 15th and 16th centuries it suffered
frequently from the invasions of Tatars, Moldavians and Turks; and in
1672 the hetman of the Cossacks, Doroshenko, assisted by Sultan Mahommed
IV. of Turkey, made himself master of the place. Restored to Poland by
the peace of Karlowitz (1699), it passed with Podolia to Russia in 1795.
Here the Turks were defeated by the Poles in 1633, and here twenty years
later peace was concluded between the same antagonists. The
fortifications were demolished in 1813.
KAMENZ, a town in the kingdom of Saxony, on the Black Elster, 21 m. N.E.
of Dresden, on a branch line of railway from Bischofswerda. Pop. (1900),
9726. It has four Evangelical churches, among them a Wendish one, and a
handsome new town-hall with a library. The hospital is dedicated to the
memory of Lessing, who was born here. A colossal bust of the poet was
placed opposite the Wendish church in 1863, and a monument was raised to
him on a neighbouring hill in 1864. The industries of Kamenz include
wool-spinning, and the manufacture of cloth, glass, crockery and
stoneware. Built about 1200, Kamenz, was known by the name Dreikretcham
until the 16th century. In 1318 it passed to the mark of Brandenburg; in
1319 to Bohemia; and in 1635, after suffering much in the Hussite and
Thirty Years' wars, it came into the possession of Saxony. In 1706 and
1842 it was almost entirely consumed by fire.
KAMENZ is also the name of a village in Prussia, not far from Breslau;
pop. 900. This is famous on account of its Cistercian monastery, founded
in 1094. Of the house, which was closed in 1810, only a few buildings
remain.
KAMES, HENRY HOME, LORD (1696-1782), Scottish lawyer and philosopher,
son of George Home of Kames, in Berwickshire, where he was born in 1696.
After receiving a somewhat imperfect education from a private tutor, he
was in 1712 indentured to a writer to the signet in Edinburgh, but an
accidental introduction to Sir Hew Dalrymple, then president of the
court of session, determined him to aspire to the position of advocate.
He accordingly set himself to studying various branches of literature,
specially metaphysics and moral philosophy. He was called to the bar in
January 1724, and, as he lacked those brilliant qualities which
sometimes command immediate success, he employed his leisure in the
compilation of _Remarkable Decisions in the Court of Session from 1716
to 1728_ (1728). This work having attracted attention, his power of
ingenious reasoning and mastery of law gradually gained him a leading
position at the bar. In 1752 he was appointed a judge in the court of
session under the title of Lord Kames, and in 1763 he was made one of
the lords of justiciary. In 1741 he married Agatha Drummond, through
whom in 1761 he succeeded to the estate of Blair Drummond, Perthshire.
He continued to discharge his judicial duties till within a few days of
his death at Edinburgh on the 27th of December 1782.
Lord Kames took a special interest in agricultural and commercial
affairs. In 1755 he was appointed a member of the board of trustees
for encouragement of the fisheries, arts and manufactures of Scotland,
and about the same time he was named one of the commissioners for the
management of the forfeited estates annexed to the Crown. On the
subject of agriculture he wrote _The Gentleman Farmer_ (1776). In 1765
he published a small pamphlet _On the Flax Husbandry of Scotland_;
and, besides availing himself of his extensive acquaintance with the
proprietors of Scotland to recommend the introduction of manufactures,
he took a prominent part in furthering the project of the Forth and
Clyde Canal. He was also one of the founders of the Physical and
Literary Society, afterwards the Royal Society of Edinburgh. It is,
however, as a writer on philosophy that Lord Kames is best known. In
1751 he published his _Essays on the Principles of Morality and
Natural Religion_ (Ger. trans., Leipzig, 1772), in which he
endeavoured to maintain the doctrine of innate ideas, but conceded to
man an apparent but only apparent freedom of the will. His statement
of the latter doctrine so aroused the alarm of certain clergymen of
the Church of Scotland that he found it necessary to withdraw what was
regarded as a serious error, and to attribute man's delusive sense of
freedom, not to an innate conviction implanted by God, but to the
influence of the passions. His other philosophical works are _An
Introduction to the Art of Thinking_ (1761), _Elements of Criticism_
(1762), _Sketches of the History of Man_ (1774).
See _Life of Lord Kames_, by A. F. Tytler, Lord Woodhouselee (2 vols.,
1807).
KAMMIN, or CAMMIN, a town in the Prussian province of Pomerania, 2(1/2)
m. from the Baltic, on the Kamminsche Bodden, a lake connected with the
sea by the Dievenow. Pop. (1905), 5923. Among its four Evangelical
churches, the cathedral and the church of St Mary are noteworthy.
Iron-founding and brewing are carried on in the town, which has also
some fishing and shipping. There is steamer communication with Stettin,
about 40 m. S.S.W. Kammin is of Wendish origin, and obtained municipal
privileges in 1274. From about 1200 till 1628 it was the seat of a
bishopric, which at the latter date became a secular principality, being
in 1648 incorporated with Brandenburg.
See Kuchen, _Geschichte der Stadt Kammin_ (Kammin, 1885).
KAMPEN, a town in the province of Overysel, Holland, on the left bank of
the Ysel, 3(1/2) m. above its mouth, and a terminal railway station 8 m.
N.W. of Zwolle. It has regular steamboat communication with Zwolle,
Deventer, Amsterdam, and Enkhuizen. Pop. (1900), 19,664. Kampen is
surrounded by beautiful gardens and promenades in the place of the old
city walls, and has a fine river front. The four turreted gateways
furnish excellent examples of 16th and 17th century architecture. Of the
churches the Bovenkerk ("upper church"), or church of St Nicholas, ranks
with the cathedral of Utrecht and the Janskerk at 's Hertogenbosch as
one of the three great medieval churches in Holland. It was begun in
1369, and has double aisles, ambulatory and radiating chapels, and
contains some finely carved woodwork. The Roman Catholic Buitenkerk
("outer church") is also a fine building of the 14th century, with good
modern panelling. There are many other, though slighter, remains of the
ancient churches and monasteries of Kampen; but the most remarkable
building is the old town-hall, which is unsurpassed in Holland. It dates
from the 14th century, but was partly restored after a fire in 1543. The
exterior is adorned with niched statues and beautiful iron trellis work
round the windows. The old council-chamber is wainscoted in black oak,
and contains a remarkable sculptured chimney-piece (1545) and fine wood
carving. The town-hall contains the municipal library, collections of
tapestry, portraits and antiquities, and valuable archives relating to
the town and province. Kampen is the seat of a Christian Reformed
theological school, a gymnasium, a higher burgher school, a municipal
school of design, and a large orphanage. There are few or no local
taxes, the municipal chest being filled by the revenues derived from the
fertile delta-land, the Kampeneiland, which is always being built up at
the mouth of the Ysel. There is a considerable, trade in dairy produce;
and there are shipyards, rope-walks, a tool factory, cigar factories,
paper mills, &c.
KAMPTEE, or KAMTHI, a town of British India, in the Nagpur district of
the Central Provinces, just below the confluence of the Kanhan with the
rivers Pench and Kolar; 10 m. N.E. of Nagpur by rail. Pop. (1901),
38,888, showing a continuous decrease since 1881. Kamptee was founded in
1821, as a military cantonment in the neighbourhood of the native
capital of Nagpur, and became an important centre of trade. Since the
opening of the railway, trade has largely been diverted to Nagpur, and
the garrison has recently been reduced. The town is well laid out with
wide roads, gardens and tanks.
KAMRUP, a district of British India, in the Brahmaputra valley division
of Eastern Bengal and Assam. The headquarters are at Gauhati. Area, 3858
sq. m.; pop. (1901), 589,187, showing a decrease of 7% in the decade. In
the immediate neighbourhood of the Brahmaputra the land is low, and
exposed to annual inundation. In this marshy tract reeds and canes
flourish luxuriantly, and the only cultivation is that of rice. At a
comparatively short distance from the river banks the ground begins to
rise in undulating knolls towards the mountains of Bhutan on the north,
and towards the Khasi hills on the south. The hills south of the
Brahmaputra in some parts reach the height of 800 ft. The Brahmaputra,
which divides the district into two nearly equal portions, is navigable
by river steamers throughout the year, and receives several tributaries
navigable by large native boats in the rainy season. The chief of these
are the Manas, Chaul Khoya and Barnadi on the north, and the Kulsi and
Dibru on the south bank. There is a government forest preserve in the
district and also a plantation where seedlings of teak, _sal_, _sissu_,
_sum_, and _nahor_ are reared, and experiments are being made with the
caoutchouc tree. The population is entirely rural, the only town with
upwards of 5000 inhabitants being Gauhati (11,661). The temples of Hajo
and Kamakhya attract many pilgrims from all quarters. The staple crop of
the district is rice, of which there are three crops. The indigenous
manufactures are confined to the weaving of silk and cotton cloths for
home use, and to the making of brass cups and plates. The cultivation
and manufacture of tea by European capital is not very prosperous. The
chief exports are rice, oil-seeds, timber and cotton; the imports are
fine rice, salt, piece goods, sugar, betel-nuts, coco-nuts and hardware.
A section of the Assam-Bengal railway starts from Gauhati, and a branch
of the Eastern Bengal railway has recently been opened to the opposite
bank of the river. A metalled road runs due south from Gauhati to
Shillong.
KAMYSHIN, a town of Russia, in the government of Saratov, 145 m. by
river S.S.W. of the city of Saratov, on the right bank of the Volga.
Pop. (1861), 8644; (1897), 15,934. Being the terminus of the railway to
Tambov, Moscow and the Baltic ports, it is an important port for the
export of cereals and salt from the Volga, and it imports timber and
wooden wares. It is famous for its water-melons. Peter the Great built
here a fort, which was known at first as Dmitrievsk, but acquired its
present name in 1780.
KANAKA, a Polynesian word meaning "man," used by Polynesians to describe
themselves. Its ethnical value, never great, has been entirely destroyed
by its indiscriminate use by the French to describe all South Sea
islanders, whether black or brown. The corrupt French form _canaque_ has
been used by some English writers. The term came into prominence in
1884-1885 in connexion with the scandals arising over the kidnapping of
South Sea islanders for enforced labour on the sugar plantations of
north Queensland.
KANARA, or CANARA, the name of two adjoining districts of British India:
North Kanara in the presidency of Bombay, South Kanara in that of
Madras. Both are on the western coast.
NORTH KANARA DISTRICT forms part of the southern division of Bombay. The
administrative headquarters are at Karwar, which is also the chief
seaport. Area, 3945 sq. m.; pop. (1901), 454,490, showing an increase
of 2% in the decade. The trade of the interior, which used to pass down
to the seaports, has been largely diverted by the opening of the
Southern Mahratta railway. Along the coast rice is the chief crop, and
coco-nut palms are also important. In the upland there are valuable
gardens of areca palms, cardamoms and pepper. Rice and timber are
exported, and sandalwood-carving and salt manufacture are carried on.
The main feature in the physical geography of the district is the range
of the Western Ghats, which, running from north to south, divides it
into two parts, a lowland or coast strip (Payanghat), and an upland
plateau (Balaghat). The coast-line is only broken by the Karwar headland
in the north, and by the estuaries of four rivers and the mouths of many
smaller streams, through which the salt water finds an entrance into
numerous lagoons winding several miles inland. The breadth of the
lowlands varies from 5 to 15 miles. From this narrow belt rise a few
smooth, flat-topped hills, from 200 to 300 ft. high; and at places it is
crossed by lofty, rugged, densely wooded spurs, which, starting from the
main range, maintain almost to the coast a height of not less than 1000
ft. Among these hills lie well-tilled valleys of garden and rice land.
The plateau of the Balaghat is irregular, varying from 1500 to 2000 ft.
in height. In some parts the country rises into well-wooded knolls, in
others it is studded by small, isolated, steep hills. Except on the
banks of streams and in the more open glades, the whole is one broad
waste of woodland and forest. The open spaces are dotted with hamlets or
parcelled out into rice clearings. Of the rivers flowing eastward from
the watershed of the Sahyadri hills the only one of importance is the
Wardha or Varada, a tributary of the Tungabhadra. Of those that flow
westwards, the four principal ones, proceeding from north to south, are
the Kali, Gungawali, Tadri and Sharavati. The last of these forms the
famous Gersoppa Falls. Extensive forests clothe the hills, and are
conserved under the rules of the forest department.
SOUTH KANARA DISTRICT has its headquarters at Mangalore. Area, 4021 sq.
m. Pop. (1901), 1,134,713, showing an increase of 7% in the decade. The
district is intersected by rivers, none of which exceeds 100 miles in
length. They all take their rise in the Western Ghats, and many are
navigable during the fair weather for from 15 to 25 miles from the
coast. The chief of these streams are the Netravati, Gurpur and
Chendragiri. Numerous groves of coco-nut palms extend along the coast,
and green rice-fields are seen in every valley. The Western Ghats,
rising to a height of 3000 to 6000 ft., fringe the eastern boundary.
Forest land of great extent and value exists, but most of it is private
property. Jungle products (besides timber) consist of bamboo, cardamoms,
wild arrowroot, gall-nuts, gamboge, catechu, fibrous bark, cinnamon,
gums, resin, dyes, honey and beeswax. The forests formerly abounded in
game, which, however, is rapidly decreasing under incessant shooting.
The staple crop is rice. The chief articles of import are piece goods,
cotton yarn, oils and salt. Tiles are manufactured in several places out
of a fine potter's clay. The Azhikal-Mangalore line of the Madras
railway serves the district.
See _South Canara District Manual_ (2 vols., Madras, 1894-1895).
KANARESE, a language of the Dravidian family, spoken by about ten
millions of people in southern India, chiefly in Mysore, Hyderabad, and
the adjoining districts of Madras and Bombay. It has an ancient
literature, written in an alphabet closely resembling that employed for
Telugu. Since the 12th century the Kanarese-speaking people have largely
adopted the Lingayat form of faith, which may be described as an
anti-Brahmanical sect of Siva worshippers (see HINDUISM). Most of them
are agriculturists, but they also engage actively in trade.
KANARIS (or CANARIS), CONSTANTINE (1790-1877), Greek patriot, belonged
to the class of coasting sailors who produced if not the most honest, at
least the bravest, and the most successful of the combatants in the
cause of Greek independence. He belonged by birth to the little island
of Psara, to the north-west of Chio. He first became prominent as the
effective leader of the signal vengeance taken by the Greeks for the
massacre at Chio in April 1822 by the Turkish Capitan Pasha. The
commander of the force of fifty small vessels and eight fireships sent
to assail the Turkish fleet was the navarch Miaoulis, but it was Kanaris
who executed the attack with the fireships on the flagship of the
Capitan Pasha on the night of the 18th of June 1822. The Turks were
celebrating the feast of Bahram at the end of the Ramadan fast. Kanaris
had two small brigs fitted as fireships, and thirty-six men. He was
allowed to come close to the Turkish flagship, and succeeded in
attaching his fireships to her, setting them on fire, and escaping with
his party. The fire reached the powder and the flagship blew up, sending
the Capitan Pasha and 2000 Turks into the air. Kanaris was undoubtedly
aided by the almost incredible sloth and folly of his opponents, but he
chose his time well, and the service of the fireships was always
considered peculiarly dangerous. That Kanaris could carry out the
venture with a volunteer party not belonging to a regularly disciplined
service, not only proved him to be a clever partisan fighter, but showed
that he was a leader of men. He repeated the feat at Tenedos in November
of 1822, and was then considered to have disposed of nearly 4000 Turks
in the two ventures. When his native island, Psara, was occupied by the
Turks he continued to serve under the command of Miaoulis. He was no
less distinguished in other attacks with fireships at Samos and Mytilene
in 1824, which finally established an utter panic in the Turkish navy.
His efforts to destroy the ships of Mehemet Ali at Alexandria in 1825
were defeated by contrary winds. When the Greeks tried to organize a
regular navy he was appointed captain of the frigate "Hellas" in 1826.
In politics he was a follower of Capo d'Istria. He helped to upset the
government of King Otho and to establish his successor, was prime
minister in 1864-1865, came back from retirement to preside over the
ministry formed during the crisis of the Russo-Turkish war, and died in
office on the 15th of September 1877. Kanaris is described as of small
stature, simple in appearance, somewhat shy and melancholy. He is justly
remembered as the most blameless of the popular heroes of the War of
Independence. He was almost the only one among them whom Dundonald, with
whom he served in a successful attack on an Egyptian war-ship near
Alexandria, exempts from the sweeping charges of cowardice he brings
against the Greeks. (D. H.)
KANAUJ, an ancient city of British India, in Farukhabad district, United
Provinces, near the left bank of the Ganges. Pop. (1901), 18,552. Kanauj
in early times formed the capital of a great Hindu kingdom. Its
prosperity dates from a prehistoric period, and seems to have culminated
about the 6th century under Harsha. In 1019 it fell before Mahmud of
Ghazni, and again in 1194 before Mahommed Ghori. The existing ruins
extend over the lands of five villages, occupying a semicircle fully 4
m. in diameter. No Hindu buildings remain intact; but the great mosque,
constructed by Ibrahim Shah of Jaunpur in 1406 out of Hindu temples, is
still called by Hindus "Sita's Kitchen." Kanauj, which is traditionally
said to be derived from _Kanyakubja_ (= the crooked maiden), has given
its name to an important division of Brahmans in northern India.
Hinduism in Lower Bengal also dates its origin from a Brahman migration
southwards from this city, about 800 or 900. Kanauj is now noted for the
distilling of scents.
KANDAHAR, the largest city in Afghanistan, situated in 31 deg. 37' N.
lat. and 65 deg. 43' E. long., 3400 ft. above the sea. It is 370 m.
distant from Herat on the N.W., by Girishk and Farah--Girishk being 75
m., and Farah 225 m. from Kandahar. From Kabul, on the N.E., it is
distant 315 m., by Kalat-i-Ghilzai and Ghazni--Kalat-i-Ghilzai being 85
m., and Ghazni 225 m. from Kandahar. To the Peshin valley the distance
is about 110 m., and from Peshin to India the three principal routes
measure approximately as follows: by the Zhob valley to Dera Ismail
Khan, 300 m.; by the Bori valley to Dera Ghazi Khan, 275 m.; by Quetta
and the Bolan to Dadar, 125 m.; and by Chappar and Nari to Sibi, 120 m.
The Indian railway system extends to New Chaman, within some 80 m. of
Kandahar. Immediately round the city is a plain, highly cultivated and
well populated to the south and west; but on the north-west barren, and
bounded by a double line of hills, rising to about 1000 ft. above its
general level, and breaking its dull monotony with irregular lines of
scarped precipices, crowned with fantastic pinnacles and peaks. To the
north-west these hills form the watershed between the valleys of the
Arghandab and the Tarnak, until they are lost in the mountain masses of
the Hazarajat--a wild region inhabited by tribes of Tatar origin, which
effectually shuts off Kandahar from communication with the north. On the
south-west they lose themselves in the sandy desert of Registan, which
wraps itself round the plain of Kandahar, and forms another impassable
barrier. But there is a break in these hills--a gate, as it were, to the
great high road between Herat and India; and it is this gate which the
fortress of Kandahar so effectually guards, and to which it owes its
strategic importance. Other routes there are, open to trade, between
Herat and northern India, either following the banks of the Hari Rud,
or, more circuitously, through the valley of the Helmund to Kabul; or
the line of hills between the Arghandab and the Tarnak may be crossed
close to Kalat-i-Ghilzai; but of the two former it may be said that they
are not ways open to the passage of Afghan armies owing to the
hereditary hostility existing between the Aeimak and Hazara tribes and
the Afghans generally, while the latter is not beyond striking distance
from Kandahar. The one great high road from Herat and the Persian
frontier to India is that which passes by Farah and crosses the Helmund
at Girishk. Between Kandahar and India the road is comparatively open,
and would be available for railway communication but for the jealous
exclusiveness of the Afghans.
To the north-west, and parallel to the long ridges of the Tarnak
watershed, stretches the great road to Kabul, traversed by Nott in 1842,
and by Stewart and subsequently by Roberts in 1880. Between this and the
direct route to Peshin is a road which leads through Maruf to the Kundar
river and the Guleri pass into the plains of Hindustan at Dera Ismail
Khan. This is the most direct route to northern India, but it involves
the passage of some rough country, across the great watershed between
the basins of the Helmund and the Indus. But the best known road from
Kandahar to India is that which stretches across the series of open
stony plains interspersed with rocky hills of irregular formation
leading to the foot of the Kwaja Amran (Khojak) range, on the far side
of which from Kandahar lies the valley of Peshin. The passage of the
Kwaja Amran involves a rise and fall of some 2300 ft., but the range has
been tunnelled and a railway now connects the frontier post of New
Chaman with Quetta. Two lines of railway now connect Quetta with Sind,
the one known as the Harnai loop, the other as the Bolan or Mashkaf
line. They meet at Sibi (see BALUCHISTAN). Several roads to India have
been developed through Baluchistan, but they are all dominated from
Kandahar. Thus Kandahar becomes a sort of focus of all the direct routes
converging from the wide-stretching western frontier of India towards
Herat and Persia, and the fortress of Kandahar gives protection on the
one hand to trade between Hindustan and Herat, and on the other it lends
to Kabul security from invasion by way of Herat.
Kandahar is approximately a square-built city, surrounded by a wall of
about 3(3/4) m. circuit, and from 25 to 30 ft. high, with an average
breadth of 15 ft. Outside the wall is a ditch 10 ft. deep. The city and
its defences are entirely mud-built. There are four main streets
crossing each other nearly at right angles, the central "chouk" being
covered with a dome. These streets are wide and bordered with trees, and
are flanked by shops with open fronts and verandas. There are no
buildings of any great pretension in Kandahar, a few of the more wealthy
Hindus occupying the best houses. The tomb of Ahmad Shah is the only
attempt at monumental architecture. This, with its rather handsome
cupola, and the twelve minor tombs of Ahmad Shah's children grouped
around, contains a few good specimens of fretwork and of inlaid
inscriptions. The four streets of the city divide it into convenient
quarters for the accommodation of its mixed population of Duranis,
Ghilzais, Parsiwans and Kakars, numbering in all some 30,000 souls. Of
these the greater proportion are the Parsiwans (chiefly Kizilbashes).
It is reckoned that there are 1600 shops and 182 mosques in the city.
The mullahs of these mosques are generally men of considerable power.
The walls of the city are pierced by the four principal gates of
"Kabul," "Shikarpur," "Herat" and the "Idgah," opposite the four main
streets, with two minor gates, called the Top Khana and the Bardurani
respectively, in the western half of the city. The Idgah gate passes
through the citadel, which is a square-built enclosure with sides of
about 260 yds. in length. The flank defences of the main wall are
insufficient; indeed there is no pretence at scientific structure about
any part of the defences; but the site of the city is well chosen for
defence, and the water supply (drawn by canals from the Arghandab or
derived from wells) is good.
About 4 m. west of the present city, stretched along the slopes of a
rocky ridge, and extending into the plains at its foot, are the ruins
of the old city of Kandahar sacked and plundered by Nadir Shah in
1738. From the top of the ridge a small citadel overlooks the
half-buried ruins. On the north-east face of the hill forty steps, cut
out of solid limestone, lead upward to a small, dome-roofed recess,
which contains some interesting Persian inscriptions cut in relief on
the rock, recording particulars of the history of Kandahar, and
defining the vast extent of the kingdom of the emperor Baber. Popular
belief ascribes the foundation of the old city to Alexander the Great.
Although Kandahar has long ceased to be the seat of government, it is
nevertheless by far the most important trade centre in Afghanistan,
and the revenues of the Kandahar province assist largely in supporting
the chief power at Kabul. There are no manufactures or industries of
any importance peculiar to Kandahar, but the long lines of bazaars
display goods from England, Russia, Hindustan, Persia and Turkestan,
embracing a trade area as large probably as that of any city in Asia.
The customs and town dues together amount to a sum equal to the land
revenue of the Kandahar province, which is of considerable extent,
stretching to Pul-i-Sangin, 10 m. south of Kalat-i-Ghilzai on the
Kabul side, to the Helmund on the west, and to the Hazara country on
the north. Although Farah has been governed from Kandahar since 1863,
its revenues are not reckoned as a part of those of the province. The
land revenue proper is assessed in grain, the salaries of government
officials, pay of soldiers, &c., being disbursed by "barats" or orders
for grain at rates fixed by government, usually about 20% above the
city market prices. The greater part of the English goods sold at
Herat are imported by Karachi and Kandahar--a fact which testifies to
the great insecurity of trade between Meshed and Herat. Some of the
items included as town dues are curious. For instance, the tariff on
animals exposed for sale includes a charge of 5% ad valorem on slave
girls, besides a charge of 1 rupee per head. The kidney fat of all
sheep and the skins of all goats slaughtered in the public yard are
perquisites of government, the former being used for the manufacture
of soap, which, with snuff, is a government monopoly. The imports
consist chiefly of English goods, indigo, cloth, boots, leather,
sugar, salt, iron and copper, from Hindustan, and of shawls, carpets,
"barak" (native woollen cloth), postins (coats made of skins), shoes,
silks, opium and carpets from Meshed, Herat and Turkestan. The exports
are wool, cotton, madder, cummin seed, asafoetida, fruit, silk and
horses. The system of coinage is also curious: 105 English rupees are
melted down, and the alloy extracted, leaving 100 rupees' worth of
silver; 295 more English rupees are then melted, and the molten metal
mixed with the 100 rupees silver; and out of this 808 Kandahari rupees
are coined. As the Kandahari rupee is worth about 8 annas (half an
English rupee) the government thus realizes a profit of 1%.
Government accounts are kept in "Kham" rupees, the "Kham" being worth
about five-sixths of a Kandahari rupee; in other words, it about
equals the franc, or the Persian "kran."
Immediately to the south and west of Kandahar is a stretch of
well-irrigated and highly cultivated country, but the valley of the
Arghandab is the most fertile in the district, and, from the luxuriant
abundance of its orchards and vineyards, offers the most striking
scenes of landscape beauty. The pomegranate fields form a striking
feature in the valley--the pomegranates of Kandahar, with its "sirdar"
melons and grapes, being unequalled in quality by any in the East. The
vines are grown on artificial banks, probably for want of the
necessary wood to trellis them--the grapes being largely exported in a
semi-dried state. Fruit, indeed, besides being largely exported, forms
the chief staple of the food supply of the inhabitants throughout
Afghanistan. The art of irrigation is so well understood that the
water supply is at times exhausted, no river water being allowed to
run to waste. The plains about Kandahar are chiefly watered by canals
drawn from the Arghandab near Baba-wali, and conducted through the
same gap in the hills which admits the Herat road. The amount of
irrigation and the number of water channels form a considerable
impediment to the movements of troops, not only immediately about
Kandahar, but in all districts where the main rivers and streams are
bordered by green bands of cultivation. Irrigation by "karez" is also
largely resorted to. The karez is a system of underground channelling
which usually taps a sub-surface water supply at the foot of some of
the many rugged and apparently waterless hills which cover the face of
the country. The water is not brought to the surface, but is carried
over long distances by an underground channel or drain, which is
constructed by sinking shafts at intervals along the required course
and connecting the shafts by tunnelling. The general agricultural
products of the country are wheat, barley, pulse, fruit, madder,
asafoetida, lucerne, clover and tobacco.
Of the mineral resources of the Kandahar district not much is known,
but an abandoned gold mine exists about 2 m. north of the town. Some
general idea of the resources of the Kandahar district may be gathered
from the fact that it supplied the British troops with everything
except luxuries during the entire period of occupation in 1879-81; and
that, in spite of the great strain thrown on those resources by the
presence of the two armies of Ayub Khan and of General Roberts, and
after the total failure of the autumn crops and only a partial harvest
the previous spring, the army was fed without great difficulty until
the final evacuation, at one-third of the prices paid in Quetta for
supplies drawn from India.
_History._--Kandahar has a stormy history. Sultan Mahmud of Ghazni
took it in the 11th century from the Afghans who then held it. In the
beginning of the 13th century it was taken by Jenghiz Khan, and in the
14th by Timur. In 1507 it was captured by the emperor Baber, but
shortly afterwards it fell again into Afghan hands, to be retaken by
Baber in 1521. Baber's son, Humayun, agreed to cede Kandahar to
Persia, but failed to keep his word, and the Persians besieged the
place unsuccessfully. Thus it remained in the possession of the Moguls
till 1625, when it was taken by Shah Abbas. Aurangzeb tried to take it
in 1649 with 5000 men, but failed. Another attempt in 1652 was equally
unsuccessful. It remained in Persian possession till 1709, when it was
taken by the Afghans, but was retaken after a two years' siege by
Nadir Shah. Nadir Shah was assassinated in 1749, and immediately on
hearing the news of his death Ahmad Shah (Abdali) seized Nadir Shah's
treasure at Kandahar, and proclaimed himself king, with the consent,
not only of the Afghans, but, strange to say, of the Hazaras and
Baluchis as well. He at once changed the site of the city to its
present position, and thus founded the Afghan kingdom, with modern
Kandahar as its capital. Ahmad Shah died in 1773, and was succeeded by
his son Timur, who died in 1793, and left the throne to his son Zaman
Shah. This prince was deposed by his half-brother Mahmud, who was in
his turn deposed by Shah Shuja, the full brother of Zaman Shah. After
a short reign Shah Shuja was compelled to abdicate from his inability
to repress the rising power of Fateh Khan, a Barakzai chief, and he
took refuge first with Ranjit Singh, who then ruled the Punjab, and
finally secured the protection of British power. Afghanistan was now
practically dismembered. Mahmud was reinstated by Fateh Khan, whom he
appointed his vizier, and whose nephews, Dost Mahommed Khan and Kohn
dil Khan, he placed respectively in the governments of Kabul and
Kandahar. Fateh Khan was barbarously murdered by Kamran (Mahmud's son)
near Ghazni in 1818; and in retaliation Mahmud himself was driven from
power, and the Barakzai clan secured the sovereignty of Afghanistan.
While Dost Mahommed held Kabul, Kandahar became temporarily a sort of
independent chiefship under two or three of his brothers. In 1839 the
cause of Shah Shuja was actively supported by the British. Kandahar
was occupied, and Shah Shuja reinstated on the throne of his
ancestors. Dost Mahommed was defeated near Kabul, and after surrender
to the British force, was deported into Hindustan. The British army of
occupation in southern Afghanistan continued to occupy Kandahar from
1839 till the autumn of 1842, when General Nott marched on Kabul to
meet Pollock's advance from Jalalabad. The cantonments near the city,
built by Nott's division, were repaired and again occupied by the
British army in 1879, when Shere Ali was driven from power by the
invasion of Afghanistan, nor were they finally evacuated till the
spring of 1881. Trade statistics of late years show a gradual increase
of exports to India from Kandahar and the countries adjacent thereto,
but a curious falling-off in imports. The short-sighted policy of the
amir Abdur Rahman in discouraging imports doubtless affected the
balance, nor did his affectation of ignoring the railway between New
Chaman and Kila Abdulla (on the Peshin side of the Khojak) conduce to
the improvement of trade. (T. H. H.*)
KANDI, a town of British India, in Murshidabad district, Bengal. Pop.
(1901), 12,037. It is the residence of the rajas of Paikpara, a wealthy
and devout Hindu family. The founder of this family was Ganga Govind
Singh, the banyan or agent of Warren Hastings, who was born at Kandi,
and retired hither in his old age with an immense fortune. His name has
acquired celebrity for the most magnificent _sraddha_, or funeral
obsequies, ever performed in Bengal, celebrated in honour of his mother,
at a cost, it is said, of L200,000.
KANDY, a town near the centre of Ceylon, 75 m. from Colombo by rail,
formerly the capital of a kingdom of the same name, situated towards
the heart of the island, 1718 ft. above the sea. It lies round the
margin of an artificial lake constructed by the last king of Kandy in
1806, and is beautifully surrounded by hills. The most striking objects
are the temples (of which twelve are Buddhist and four Brahman), the
tombs of the Kandian kings, and the various buildings of the royal
residence, partly allowed to fall into disrepair, partly utilized by the
government. Of the temples the Dalada Malagawa is worthy of particular
mention; it claims, as the name indicates, to be in possession of a
Buddha tooth.
Kandy was occupied by the Portuguese in the 16th century and by the
Dutch in 1763; but in both instances the native kings succeeded in
shaking off the foreign yoke. The British got possession of the place in
1803, but the garrison afterwards capitulated and were massacred, and it
was not till 1814-15 that the king was defeated and dethroned. The
British authority was formally established by the convention of March 2,
1815. In 1848, owing to an attempt at rebellion, the town was for a time
under martial law. It has been greatly improved of recent years. Sir
William Gregory when governor did much to restore the ancient Kandy
decorations, while the Victoria Jubilee Commemoration Building,
including "Ferguson Memorial Hall," and two fine hotels, add to the
improvements. The Royal Botanic Gardens are situated at Peradeniya, 3 m.
distant. Kandy is a uniquely beautiful, highland, tropical town, full of
interesting historical and Buddhistic associations. A water supply and
electric lighting have been introduced. Roman Catholic missions are
active in the work of education, for which a large block of buildings
has been erected. Church of England, Wesleyan and Baptist missions are
also at work. The population of the town in 1900 was 26,386; of the
district, 377,591. Average annual rainfall, 81(1/2) in.; average
temperature, 75.3. There is a branch railway from Kandy, north to
Matale, 17 m.
KANE, ELISHA KENT (1820-1857), American scientist and explorer, was born
in Philadelphia on the 20th of February 1820, the son of the jurist John
Kintzing Kane (1795-1858), a friend and supporter of Andrew Jackson,
attorney-general of Pennsylvania in 1845-1846, U.S. judge of the Eastern
District of Pennsylvania after 1846, and president of the American
Philosophical Society in 1856-1858. Young Kane entered the university of
Virginia and obtained the degree of M.D. in 1842, and in the following
year entered the U.S. navy as surgeon. He had already acquired a
considerable reputation in physiological research. The ship to which he
was appointed was ordered to China, and he found opportunities during
the voyage for indulging his passion for exploration, making a journey
from Rio de Janeiro to the base of the Andes, and another from Bombay
through India to Ceylon. On the arrival of the ship at its destination
he provided a substitute for his post and crossed over to the island of
Luzon, which he explored. In 1844 he left China, and, returning by
India, Persia, Syria, Egypt, Greece, Austria, Germany and Switzerland,
reached America in 1846. In that year he was ordered to the west coast
of Africa, where he visited Dahomey, and contracted fever, which told
severely on his constitution. On his return in 1847, he exchanged the
naval for the military service, and was sent to join the U.S. army in
Mexico, where he had some extraordinary adventures, and where he was
again stricken with fever.
On the fitting out of the first Grinnell expedition, in 1850, to search
for Sir John Franklin, Kane was appointed surgeon and naturalist under
Lieut. de Haven, who commanded the ships "Advance" and "Rescue." The
expedition, after an absence of sixteen months, during nine of which the
ships were ice-bound, returned without having found any trace of the
missing vessels. Kane was in feeble health, but worked on at his
narrative of the expedition, which was published in 1854, under the
title of _The U.S. Grinnell Expedition in Search of Sir John Franklin_.
He was determined not to give up the search for Franklin, and in spite
of ill-health travelled through the States lecturing to obtain funds,
and gave up his pay for twenty months. At length Henry Grinnell fitted
out an expedition, in the little brig "Advance," of which Kane was given
the command. She sailed in June 1853, and passing up Smith Sound at the
head of Baffin Bay advanced into the enclosed sea which now bears the
name of Kane Basin, thus establishing the Polar route of many future
Arctic expeditions. Here, off the coast of Greenland, the expedition
passed two winters, accomplishing much useful geographical, as well as
scientific, work, including the attainment of what was to remain for
sixteen years the highest northern latitude, 80 deg. 35' N. (June 1854).
From this point a large area of open water was seen which was believed
to be an "open Polar Sea," a chimera which played an important and
delusive role in subsequent explorations. After enduring the greatest
hardships it was resolved to abandon the ship, Upernivik being reached
on the 5th of August 1855, whence a relief expedition brought the
explorers home. Medals were authorized by Congress, and in the following
year Dr Kane received the founder's medal of the Royal Geographical
Society, and, two years later, a gold medal from the Paris Geographical
Society. He published _The Second Grinnell Expedition_ in 1856. Dr Kane
died at Havana on the 16th of February 1857, at the age of thirty-seven.
Between his first and second arctic voyages he made the acquaintance of
the Fox family, the spiritualists. With one of the daughters, Margaret,
he carried on a long correspondence, which was afterwards published by
the lady, who declared that they were privately married.
See _Biography of E. K. Kane_, by William Elder (1858); _Life of E. K.
Kane and other American Explorers_, by S. M. Smucker (1858); _The
Love-Life of Dr Kane, containing the Correspondence and a History of
the Engagement and Secret Marriage between E. K. Kane and Margaret
Fox_ (New York, 1866); "Discoveries of Dr Kane," in _Jour. of the Roy.
Geog. Soc._, vol. xxviii. (reprinted in _R. G. S. Arctic Papers_ of
1875).
KANE, a borough of McKean county, Pennsylvania, U.S.A., about 90 m.
E.S.E. of Erie. Pop. (1890), 2944; (1900), 5296, (971 foreign-born);
(1910) 6626. It is served by the Pennsylvania, the Baltimore & Ohio, the
Kane & Elk, and the Big Level & Kinzua railways. It is situated about
2015 ft. above the sea in a region producing natural gas, oil, lumber
and silica, and has some reputation as a summer resort. The borough has
manufactories of window glass, plate glass and bottles, and repair shops
of the Pennsylvania railroad. Kane was settled in 1859, and was
incorporated as a borough in 1887. It was named in honour of its founder
Gen. Thomas L. Kane (1822-1883), brother of Elisha Kent Kane.
KANGAROO, the universally accepted, though not apparently the native,
designation of the more typical representatives of the marsupial family
_Macropodidae_ (see MARSUPIALIA). Although intimately connected with the
cuscuses and phalangers by means of the musk-kangaroo, the kangaroos and
wallabies, together with the rat-kangaroos, are easily distinguishable
from other diprotodont marsupials by their general conformation, and by
peculiarities in the structure of their limbs, teeth and other organs.
They vary in size from that of a sheep to a small rabbit. The head,
especially in the larger species, is small, compared with the rest of
the body, and tapers forward to the muzzle. The shoulders and fore-limbs
are feebly developed, and the hind-limbs of disproportionate strength
and magnitude, which give the animals a peculiarly awkward appearance
when moving about on all-fours, as they occasionally do when feeding.
Rapid progression is, however, performed only by the powerful
hind-limbs, the animals covering the ground by a series of immense
bounds, during which the fore part of the body is inclined forwards, and
balanced by the long, strong and tapering tail, which is carried
horizontally backwards. When not moving, they often assume a perfectly
upright position, the tail aiding the two hind-legs to form a tripod,
and the front-limbs dangling by the side of the chest. This position
gives full scope for the senses of sight, hearing and smell to warn of
the approach of enemies. The fore-paws have five digits, each armed with
a strong, curved claw. The hind-foot is extremely long, narrow and
(except in the musk-kangaroo) without the first toe. It consists mainly
of one very large and strong toe, corresponding to the fourth of the
human foot, ending in a strong curved and pointed claw (fig. 2). Close
to the outer side of this lies a smaller fifth digit, and to the inner
side two excessively slender toes (the second and third), bound together
almost to the extremity in a common integument. The two little claws of
these toes, projecting together from the skin, may be of use in
scratching and cleaning the fur of the animal, but the toes must have
quite lost all connexion with the functions of support or progression.
This type of foot-structure is termed syndactylous.
[Illustration: FIG. 1.--The Great Grey Kangaroo (_Macropus giganteus_).]
[Illustration: FIG. 2.--Skeleton of right hind-foot of Kangaroo.]
The dental formula, when completely developed, is _incisors_ 3/1,
_canines_ 1/0, _premolars_ 3/3, _molars_ 3/3 on each side, giving a
total of 34 teeth. The three incisors of the upper jaw are arranged in a
continuous arched series, and have crowns with broad cutting edges; the
first or middle incisor is often larger than the others. Corresponding
to these in the lower jaw is but one tooth on each side, which is of
great size, directed horizontally forwards, narrow, lanceolate and
pointed with sharp edges. Owing to the slight union of the two halves of
the lower jaw in front in many species the two lower incisors work
together like the blades of a pair of scissors. The canines are absent
or rudimentary in the lower, and often deciduous at an early age in the
upper jaw. The first two premolars are compressed, with cutting
longitudinal edges, the anterior one is deciduous, being lost about the
time the second one replaces the milk-molar, so that three premolars are
never found in place and use in the same individual. The last premolar
and the molars have quadrate crowns, provided with two strong transverse
ridges, or with four obtuse cusps. In _Macropus giganteus_ and its
immediate allies, the premolars and sometimes the first molar are shed,
so that in old examples only the two posterior molars and the incisors
are found in place. The milk-dentition, as in other marsupials, is
confined to a single tooth on each side of each jaw, the other molars
and incisors being never changed. The dentition of the kangaroos,
functionally considered, thus consists of sharp-edged incisors, most
developed near the median line of the mouth, for the purpose of cropping
herbage, and ridged or tuberculated molars for crushing.
The number of vertebrae is--in the cervical region 7, dorsal 13, lumbar
6, sacral 2, caudal varying according to the length of the tail, but
generally from 21 to 25. In the fore-limb the clavicle and the radius
and ulna are well developed, allowing of considerable freedom of motion
of the fore-paw. The pelvis has large epipubic or "marsupial" bones. The
femur is short, and the tibia and fibula of great length, as is the
foot, the whole of which is applied to the ground when the animal is at
rest in the upright position.
The stomach is large and very complex, its walls being puckered by
longitudinal muscular bands into a number of folds. The alimentary canal
is long, and the caecum well developed. The young (which, as in other
marsupials, leave the uterus in an extremely small and imperfect
condition) are placed in the pouch as soon as they are born; and to this
they resort temporarily for shelter for some time after they are able to
run, jump and feed upon the herbage which forms the nourishment of the
parent. During the early period of their sojourn in the pouch, the
blind, naked, helpless young creatures (which in the great kangaroo
scarcely exceed an inch in length) are attached by their mouths to the
nipple of the mother, and are fed by milk injected into their stomach by
the contraction of the muscle covering the mammary gland. In this stage
of existence the elongated upper part of the larynx projects into the
posterior nares, and so maintains a free communication between the lungs
and the external surface, independently of the mouth and gullet, thus
averting danger of suffocation while the milk is passing down the
gullet.
[Illustration: FIG. 3.--Skull and teeth of Bennett's Wallaby (_Macropus
ruficollis bennettii_): i^1, i^2, i^3, first, second and third upper
incisors; pm, second premolar (the first having been already shed); m^1,
m^2, m^3, m^4, last premolar and three molars. The last, not fully
developed, is nearly concealed by the ascending part of the lower jaw.]
Kangaroos are vegetable-feeders, browsing on grass and various kinds of
herbage, but the smaller species also eat roots. They are naturally
timid and inoffensive, but the larger kinds when hard pressed will turn
and defend themselves, sometimes killing a dog by grasping it in their
fore-paws, and inflicting terrible wounds with the sharp claws of their
powerful hind-legs, supporting themselves meanwhile upon the tail. The
majority are inhabitants of Australia and Tasmania, forming one of the
most prominent and characteristic features of the fauna of these lands,
and performing the part of the deer and antelopes of other parts of the
world. They were important sources of food-supply to the natives, and
are hunted by the colonists, both for sport and on account of the damage
they do in consuming grass required for cattle and sheep. A few species
are found in New Guinea, and the adjacent islands, which belong, in the
zoological sense, to the Australian province, beyond the bounds of which
none occurs.
The more typical representatives of the group constitute the
sub-family _Macropodinae_, in which the cutting-edges of the upper
incisors are nearly level, or the first pair but slightly longer than
the others (fig. 3). The canines are rudimentary and often wanting.
The molars are usually not longer (from before backwards) than the
anterior premolars, and less compressed than in the next section. The
crowns of the molars have two prominent transverse ridges. The
fore-limbs are small with subequal toes, armed with strong, moderately
long, curved claws. Hind-limbs very long and strongly made. Head
small, with more or less elongated muzzle. Ears generally rather long
and ovate.
The typical genus _Macropus_, in which the muzzle is generally naked,
the ears large, the fur on the nape of the neck usually directed
backwards, the claw of the fourth hind-toe very large, and the tail
stout and tapering, includes a large number of species. Among these,
the great grey kangaroo (_M. giganteus_, fig. 1) deserves special
mention on account of having been discovered during Captain Cook's
first voyage in 1770. The great red kangaroo (_M. rufus_) is about the
same size, while other large species are _M. antilopinus_ and _M.
robustus_. The larger wallabies, or brush-kangaroos, such as the
red-necked wallaby (_M. ruficollis_) constitute a group of
smaller-sized species; while the smaller wallabies, such as the
filander (q.v.) (_M. muelleri_) and _M. thetidis_, constitute yet
another section. The genus ranges from the eastern Austro-Malay
islands to New Guinea.
Nearly allied are the rock-wallabies of Australia and Tasmania,
constituting the genus _Petrogale_, chiefly distinguished by the
thinner tail being more densely haired and terminating in a tuff.
Well-known species are _P. penicillata_, _P. xanthopus_ and _P.
lateralis_. The few species of nail-tailed wallabies, _Onychogale_,
which are confined to the Australian mainland, take their name from
the presence of a horny spur at the end of the tail, and are further
distinguished by the hairy muzzle. _O. unguifer_, _O. fraenatus_ and
_O. lunatus_ represent the group. The hare-wallabies, such as
_Lagorchestes leporoides_, _L. hirsutus_ and _L. consepicillatus_,
constitute a genus with the same distribution as the last, and
likewise with a hairy muzzle, but with a rather short, evenly furred
tail, devoid of a spur. They are great leapers and swift runners,
mostly frequenting open stony plains.
[Illustration: FIG. 4.--Skull and teeth of Lesueuir's Rat-Kangaroo
(_Bettongia lesueuiri_). c, upper canine. Other letters as in fig. 3.
The anterior premolar has been shed.]
More distinct is the Papuan genus _Dorcopsis_, as typified by _D.
muelleri_, although it is to some extent connected with _Macropus_ by
_D. macleyi_. The muzzle is naked, the fur on the nape of the neck
directed more or less completely forward, and the hind-limbs are less
disproportionately elongated. Perhaps, however, the most distinctive
feature of the genus is the great fore-and-aft length of the
penultimate premolar in both jaws. Other species are _D.
rufolateralis_ and _D. aurantiacus_. In the tree-kangaroos, which
include the Papuan _Dendrolagus inustus_, _D. ursinus_, _D. dorianus_,
_D. benetianus_ and _D. maximus_, and the North Queensland _D.
lumholtzi_, the reduction in the length of the hind-limbs is carried
to a still further degree, so that the proportions of the fore and
hind limbs are almost normal. The genus agrees with _Dorcopsis_ in the
direction of the hair on the neck, but the muzzle is only partially
hairy, and the elongation of the penultimate premolar is less. These
kangaroos are largely arboreal in their habits, but they descend to
the ground to feed. Lastly, we have the banded wallaby, _Lagostrophus
fasciatus_, of Western Australia, a small species characterized by its
naked muzzle, the presence of long bristles on the hind-feet which
conceal the claws, and also of dark transverse bands on the lower part
of the back. The skull has a remarkably narrow and pointed muzzle and
much inflated auditory bullae; while the two halves of the lower jaw
are firmly welded together at their junction, thus effectually
preventing the scissor-like action of the lower incisors distinctive
of _Macropus_ and its immediate allies. As regards the teeth, canines
are wanting, and the penultimate upper premolar is short, from before
backwards, with a distinct ledge on the inner side.
In the rat-kangaroos, or kangaroo-rats, as they are called in
Australia, constituting the sub-family _Potoroinae_, the first upper
incisor is narrow, curved, and much exceeds the others in length; the
upper canines are persistent, flattened, blunt and slightly curved,
and the first two premolars of both jaws have large, simple,
compressed crowns, with a nearly straight or slightly concave free
cutting-edge, and both outer and inner surfaces usually marked by a
series of parallel, vertical grooves and ridges. Molars with quadrate
crowns and a blunt conical cusp at each corner, the last notably
smaller than the rest, sometimes rudimentary or absent. Forefeet
narrow; the three middle toes considerably exceeding the first and
fifth in length and their claws long, compressed and but slightly
curved. Hind-feet as in _Macropus_. Tail long, and sometimes partially
prehensile when it is used for carrying bundles of grass with which
these animals build their nests. The group is confined to Australia
and Tasmania, and all the species are relatively small.
In the members of the typical genus _Potorous_ (formerly known as
_Hypsiprymnus_) the head is long and slender, with the auditory bullae
somewhat swollen; while the ridges on the first two premolars are few
and perpendicular, and there are large vacuities on the palate. The
tarsus is short and the muzzle naked. The genus includes _P.
tridactylus_, _P. gilberti_ and _P. platyops_. In _Bettongia_, on the
other hand, the head is shorter and wider, with smaller and more
rounded ears, and more swollen auditory bullae. The ridges on the
first two premolars are also more numerous and somewhat oblique (fig.
4); the tarsus is long and the tail is prehensile. The species include
_B. lesueuiri_, _B. gaimardi_ and _B. cuniculus_. The South Australian
_Caloprymnus campestris_ represents a genus near akin to the last, but
with the edge of the hairy border of the bare muzzle less emarginate
in the middle line, still more swollen auditory bullae, very large and
posterially expanded nasals and longer vacuities on the palate. The
list is completed by _Aepyprymnus rufescens_, which differs from all
the others by the hairy muzzle, and the absence of inflation in the
auditory bullae and of vacuities in the palate.
Perhaps, however, the most interesting member of the whole group is
the tiny musk-kangaroo (_Hypsiprymnodon moschatus_) of north-east
Australia, which alone represents the sub-family
_Hypsiprymnodontinae_, characterized by the presence of an opposable
first toe on the hind-foot and the outward inclination of the
penultimate upper premolar, as well by the small and feeble claws. In
all these features the musk-kangaroo connects the _Macropodidae_ with
the _Phalangeridae_. The other teeth are like those of the
rat-kangaroos. (W. H. F.; R. L.*)
KANGAROO-RAT, a name applied in different parts of the world to two
widely different groups of mammals. In Australia it is used to denote
the small kangaroo-like marsupials technically known as _Potoroinae_,
which zoologists prefer to call rat-kangaroos (see MARSUPIALIA and
KANGAROO). In North America it is employed for certain small jumping
rat-like rodents nearly allied to the pocket-gophers and belonging to
the family _Geomyidae_. Kangaroo-rats in this latter series are
represented by three North American genera, of which _Dipodomys
phillipsi_, _Cricetodipus agilis_ and _Microdipodops megacephalus_ may
respectively be taken as examples. Resembling pocket-gophers in the
possession of cheek-pouches, kangaroo-rats, together with pocket-mice,
are distinguished by their elongated hind-limbs and tails, large eyes,
well-developed ears and general jerboa-like appearance and habits. The
upper incisor teeth are also relatively narrower, and there are
important differences in the skull. The cheek-teeth are rootless in
kangaroo-rats, but they develop roots in the pocket-mice. The former
inhabit open, sandy districts, where they burrow beneath rocks or
stones, and hop about like jerboas; their food consisting of grasses and
other plants.
KANGAVAR, a small district of Persia, situated between Hamadan and
Kermanshah, and, being held in fief by the family of a deceased court
official, forming a separate government. The district is very fertile
and contains 30 villages. Its revenues amount to about L500 per annum,
and its chief place is the large village of Kangavar, which has a
population of about 2500 and is 47 m. from Hamadan on the high road to
Kermanshah.
KANGRA, a town and district of British India, in the Jullundur division
of the Punjab. The town, sometimes called Nagarkot, is situated 2409 ft.
above the sea. Pop. (1901), 4746. The Katoch rajas had a stronghold
here, with a fort and rich temples. Mahmud of Ghazni took the fort in
1009 and from one of the temples carried off a vast treasure. In 1360
Kangra was again plundered, by Feroz Shah. The temple of Devi Bajreshri
was one of the oldest and wealthiest in northern India. It was
destroyed, together with the fort and the town, by an earthquake on the
4th of April 1905, when 1339 lives were lost in this place alone, and
about 20,000 elsewhere. In 1855 the headquarters of the district were
removed to the sanitarium of Dharmsala.
The district of Kangra extends from the Jullundur Doab far into the
southern ranges of the Himalaya. Besides some Rajput states, annexed
after the Sikh wars, it includes Lahul, Spiti and Kulu, which are
essentially Tibetan. The Beas is the only important river. Area, 9978
sq. m., of which Kangra proper has only 2725. Pop. (1901), 768,124;
average density 77 persons per sq. m., but with only one person per sq.
m. in Spiti. Tea cultivation was introduced into Kangra about 1850. The
Palampur fair, established by government with a view to fostering
commerce with central Asia, attracts a small concourse of Yarkandi
merchants. The Lahulis carry on an enterprising trade with Ladakh and
countries beyond the frontier, by means of pack sheep and goats. Rice,
tea, potatoes, opium, spices, wool and honey are the chief exports.
See _Kangra District Gazetteer_ (Lahore, 1906).
KANISHKA, king of Kabul, Kashmir, and north-western India in the 2nd
century A.D., was a Tatar of the Kushan tribe, one of the five into
which the Yue-chi Tatars were divided. His dominions extended as far
down into India as Madura, and probably as far to the north-west as
Bokhara. Private inscriptions found in the Punjab and Sind, in the
Yusufzai district and at Madura, and referred by European scholars to
his reign, are dated in the years five to twenty-eight of an unknown
era. It is the references by Chinese historians to the Yue-chi tribes
before their incursion into India, together with conclusions drawn from
the history of art and literature in his reign, that render the date
given the most probable. Kanishka's predecessors on the throne were
Pagans; but shortly after his accession he professed himself, probably
from political reasons, a Buddhist. He spent vast sums in the
construction of Buddhist monuments; and under his auspices the fourth
Buddhist council, the council of Jalandhara (Jullunder) was convened
under the presidency of Vasumitra. At this council three treatises,
commentaries on the Canon, one on each of the three baskets into which
it is divided, were composed. King Kanishka had these treatises, when
completed and revised by Asvaghosha, written out on copper plates, and
enclosed the latter in stone boxes, which he placed in a memorial mound.
For some centuries afterwards these works survived in India; but they
exist now only in Chinese translations or adaptations. We are not told
in what language they were written. It was probably Sanskrit (not Pali,
the language of the Canon)--just as in Europe we have works of
exegetical commentary composed, in Latin, on the basis of the Testament
and Septuagint in Greek. This change of the language used as a medium of
literary intercourse was partly the cause, partly the effect, of a
complete revulsion in the intellectual life of India. The reign of
Kanishka was certainly the turning-point in this remarkable change. It
has been suggested with great plausibility, that the wide extent of his
domains facilitated the incursion into India of Western modes of
thought; and thus led in the first place to the corruption and gradual
decline of Buddhism, and secondly to the gradual rise of Hinduism. Only
the publication of the books written at the time will enable us to say
whether this hypothesis--for at present it is nothing more--is really a
sufficient explanation of the very important results of his reign. In
any case it was a migration of nomad hordes in Central Asia that led, in
Europe, to the downfall of the Roman civilization; and then, through the
conversion of the invaders, to medieval conditions of life and thought.
It was the very same migration of nomad hordes that led, in India, to
the downfall of the Buddhist civilization; and subsequently, after the
conversion of the Saka and Tatar invaders, to medieval Hinduism. As
India was nearer to the starting-point of the migration, its results
were felt there somewhat sooner.
AUTHORITIES.--Vincent A. Smith, _The Early History of India_ (Oxford,
1908); "The Kushan Period of Indian History," in _J.R.A.S._ (1903); M.
Boyer, "L'Epoque de Kaniska," in _Journal Asiatique_ (1900); T.
Watters, _On Yuan Chwang_ (London, 1904, 1905); J. Takakusu, "The
Sarvastivadin Abhidharma Books," in _Jour. of the Pali Text Soc._
(1905), esp. pp. 118-130; Rhys Davids, _Buddhist India_ (London,
1903), ch. xvi., "Kanishka." (T. W. R. D.)
KANKAKEE, a city and the county-seat of Kankakee county, Illinois,
U.S.A., in the N.E. part of the state, on the Kankakee river, 56 m S. of
Chicago. Pop. (1900), 13,595, of whom 3346 were foreign-born; (1910
census), 13,986. Kankakee is served by the Cleveland, Cincinnati,
Chicago & St Louis, the Illinois Central, and the Chicago, Indiana &
Southern (controlled by the New York Central) railways. It is the seat
of the Eastern Hospital for the Insane (1879) a state institution; St
Joseph's Seminary (Roman Catholic) and a Conservatory of Music. At
Bourbonnais Grove, 3 m. N. of Kankakee is St Viateur's College (founded
1868), a well-known Roman Catholic divinity school, and Notre Dame
Academy, another Catholic institution. The city has a public library and
four large parks; in Court House Square there is a monument erected by
popular subscription in honour of the soldiers from Kankakee county who
died in the Civil War. There are rock quarries here, and the city
manufactures sewing machines, musical instruments, especially pianos,
foundry and machine shop products, agricultural implements and
furniture. The total value of the factory product in 1905 was
$2,089,143, an increase of 222% since 1900. Kankakee is also a shipping
point for agricultural products. It was first settled in 1832; was
platted as the town of Bourbonnais in 1853, when Kankakee county was
first organized; was chartered as the city of Kankakee in 1855, and was
re-chartered in 1892.
KANKER, a feudatory state of India, within the Central Provinces; area,
1429 sq. m.; pop. (1901), 103,536; estimated revenue, L10,000. It is a
hilly tract, containing the headwaters of the Mahanadi. The extensive
forests have recently been made profitable by the opening of a branch
railway. The residence of the raja, who is of an old Rajput family
though ruling over Gonds, is at Kanker (pop. 3906).
KANO, one of the most important provinces of the British protectorate of
Northern Nigeria. It includes the ancient emirates of Kano, Katsena,
Daura and Kazaure, and covers an area of about 31,000 sq. m. The
sub-province of Katagum was incorporated with Kano in 1905, and is
included within this area. The population of the double province is
estimated at about 2,250,000.
Kano was one of the original seven Hausa states. Written annals carry
the record of its kings back to about A.D. 900. Legendary history goes
back much further. It was conquered by the Songhoi (Songhay) in the
early part of the 16th century, and more than once appears to have made
at least partial submission to Bornu. Mahommedanism was introduced at a
period which, according to the system adopted for the dating of the
annals, must be placed either in the 12th or the 14th century. The Hausa
system of government and taxation was adopted by the Fula when in the
early part of the 19th century that Mahommedan people overran the Hausa
states. It has been erroneously stated that the Fula imposed
Mahommedanism on the Hausa states. The fact that they adopted the
existing system of government and taxation, which are based upon Koranic
law, would in itself be sufficient proof that this was not the case. But
the annals of Kano distinctly record the introduction and describe the
development of Mahommedanism at an early period of local history.
The capital is the city of Kano, situated in 12 deg. N. and 8 deg. 20'
E., 220 m. S.S.E. of Sokoto and 500 N.E. of Lagos. It is built on an
open plain, and is encompassed by a wall 11 m. in perimeter and pierced
by thirteen gates. The wall is from 30 to 50 ft. high and about 40 ft.
thick at the base. Round the wall is a deep double ditch, a dwarf wall
running along its centre. The gates are simply cow-hide, but are set in
massive entrance towers. Only about a third of the area (7(1/4) sq. m.)
enclosed by the walls is inhabited nor was the whole space ever occupied
by buildings, the intention of the founders of the city being to wall in
ground sufficient to grow food for the inhabitants during a siege. The
arable land within the city is mainly on the west and north; only to the
south-east do the houses come right to the walls. Within the walls are
two steep hills, one, Dala, about 120 ft. high being the most ancient
quarter of the town. Dala lies north-west. To its east is a great pond,
the Jakara, 1(1/2) m. long, and by its north-east shore is the market of
the Arab merchants. Here also was the slave market. The palace of the
emir, in front of which is a large open space, is in the Fula quarter in
the south-east of the city. The palace consists of a number of buildings
covering 33 acres and surrounded by a wall 20 to 30 ft. high. The
architecture of the city is not without merit. The houses are built of
clay with (generally) flat roofs impervious to fire. Traces of Moorish
influence are evident and the horse-shoe arch is common. The audience
hall of the emir's palace--25 ft. sq. and 18 ft. high--is decorated with
designs in black, white, green and yellow, the yellow designs (formed of
micaceous sand) glistening like gold. The dome-shaped roof is supported
by twenty arches.
The city is divided into fourteen quarters, each presided over by a
headman, and inhabited by separate sections of the community. It is
probably the greatest commercial city in the central Sudan. Other towns,
like Zaria, may do as much trade, but Kano is pre-eminent as a
manufacturing centre. The chief industry is the weaving of cloth from
native grown cotton. Leather goods of all kinds are also manufactured,
and from Kano come most of the "morocco leather" goods on the European
markets. Dyeing is another large trade, as is the preparation of indigo.
Of traders there are four distinct classes. They are: (1) Arabs from
Tripoli, who export ostrich feathers, skins and ivory, and bring in
burnouses, scents, sweets, tea, sugar, &c.; (2) Salaga merchants who
import kola nuts from the hinterland of the Guinea Coast, taking in
exchange cloth and live stock and leather and other goods; (3) the
Asbenawa traders, who come from the oases of Asben or Air with camels
laden with salt and "potash" (i.e. sodium carbonates), and with herds of
cattle and sheep, receiving in return cotton and hardware and kolas; (4)
the Hausa merchants. This last class trades with the other three and
despatches caravans to Illorin and other places, where the Kano goods,
the "potash" and other merchandise are exchanged for kolas and European
goods. The "potash" finds a ready sale among the Yorubas, being largely
used for cooking purposes. In Kano itself is a great market for
livestock: camels, horses, oxen, asses and goats being on sale.
Besides Hausa, who represent the indigenous population, there are large
colonies of Kanuri (from Bornu) and Nupians in Kano. The Fula form the
aristocratic class. The population is said to amount to 100,000. About a
mile and a half east of Kano is Nassarawa, formerly the emir's suburban
residence, but since 1902 the British Residency and barracks.
The city of Kano appears on the map of the Arab geographer, Idrisi,
A.D. 1145, and the hill of Dala is mentioned in the earliest records
as the original site of Kano. Barth, however, concluded that the
present town does not date earlier than the second half of the 16th
century, and that before the rise of the Fula power (c. 1800) scarcely
any great Arab merchant ever visited Kano. The present town may be the
successor of an older town occupying a position of similar
pre-eminence. Kano submitted to the Fula without much resistance, and
under them in the first half of the 19th century flourished greatly.
It was visited by Hugh Clapperton, an English officer, in 1824, and in
it Barth lived some time in 1851 and again in 1854. Barth's
descriptions of the wealth and importance of the city attracted great
attention in Europe, and Kano was subsequently visited by several
travellers, missionaries, and students of Hausa, but none was
permitted to live permanently in the city. In the closing years of the
century, Kano became the centre of resistance to British influence,
and the emir, Alieu, was the most inveterate of Fula slave raiders. In
February 1903 the city was captured by a British force under Colonel
T. L. N. Morland, and a new emir, Abbas, a brother of Alieu,
installed.
After the occupation by the British in 1903 the province was organized
for administration on the same system as that adopted throughout
northern Nigeria. The emir on his installation takes an oath of
allegiance to the British Crown, and accepts the position of a chief
of the first class under British rule. A resident is placed at his
court, and assistant residents have their headquarters in the
administrative districts of the province. British courts of justice
are established side by side with the native courts throughout the
province. Taxation is assessed under British supervision and paid into
the native treasury. A fixed portion is paid by the emir to the
British government. The emir is not allowed to maintain a standing
army, and the city of Kano is the headquarters of the British
garrison. The conditions of appointment of the emirs are fully laid
down in the terms accepted at Sokoto on the close of the Sokoto-Kano
campaign of 1903. Since the introduction of British rule there has
been no serious trouble in the province. The emir Abbas worked loyally
with the British and proved himself a ruler of remarkable ability and
intelligence. He was indefatigable in dispensing justice, and himself
presided over a native court in which he disposed of from fifty to a
hundred cases a month. He also took an active interest in the reform
and reorganization of the system of taxation, and in the opening of
the country to trade. He further showed himself helpful in arranging
difficulties which at times arose in connexion with the lesser chiefs
of his province.
The province of Kano is generally fertile. For a radius of 30 m. round
the capital the country is closely cultivated and densely populated,
with some 40 walled towns and with villages and hamlets hardly half a
mile apart. Kano district proper contains 170 walled towns and about
450 villages. There are many streams, but water is chiefly obtained
from wells 15 to 40 ft. deep. The principal crops are African grains,
wheat, onions, cotton, tobacco, indigo, with sugar-cane, cassava, &c.
The population is chiefly agricultural, but also commercial and
industrial. The chief industries are weaving, leather-making, dyeing
and working in iron and pottery. Cattle are abundant. (See NIGERIA:
_History_; and SOKOTO.)
Consult the _Travels_ of Heinrich Barth (new ed., London, 1890);
_Hausaland_, by C. H. Robinson (London, 1896); Northern Nigeria, by
Sir F. D. Lugard, in vol. xxii. _Geographical Journal_ (London, 1904);
_A Tropical Dependency_, by Lady Lugard (London, 1905); the Colonial
Office _Reports_ on Northern Nigeria from 1902 onward, and other works
cited under NIGERIA. (F. L. L.)
KANSAS (known as the "Sunflower State"), the central commonwealth of the
United States of America, lying between 37 deg. and 40 deg. N. lat. and
between 94 deg. 38' and 102 deg. 1' 34" W. long. (i.e. 25 deg. W. long,
from Washington). It is bounded on the N. by Nebraska, on the E. by
Missouri, on the S. by Oklahoma, and on the W. by Colorado. The state is
nearly rectangular in shape, with a breadth of about 210 m. from N. to
S. and a length of about 410 m. from E. to W. It contains an area of
82,158 sq. m. (including 384 sq. m. of water surface).
_Physiography._--Three physiographic regions may be distinguished within
the state--the first, a small portion of the Ozark uplift in the extreme
south-east corner; the second, the Prairie Plains, covering
approximately the east third of the state; the third, the Great Plains,
covering the remaining area. Between the latter two there is only the
most gradual transition. The entire state is indeed practically an
undulating plain, gently sloping from west to east at an average of
about 7 ft. per mile. There is also an inclination in the eastern half
from north to south, as indicated by the course of the rivers, most of
which flow south-easterly (the Kansas, with its general easterly course,
is the principal exception), the north-west corner being the highest
portion of the state. The lowest point in the state in its south-east
part, in Montgomery county, is 725 ft. above sea level. The average
elevation of the east boundary is about 850 ft., while contour lines of
3500-3900 ft. run near the west border. Somewhat more than half the
total area is below 2000 ft. The gently rolling prairie surface is
diversified by an endless succession of broad plains, isolated hills and
ridges, and moderate valleys. In places there are terraced uplands, and
in others the undulating plain is cut by erosion into low escarpments.
The bluffs on the Missouri are in places 200 ft. high, and the valley of
the Cimarron, in the south-west, has deep cuts, almost gorges. The west
central portion has considerable irregularities of contour, and the
north-west is distinctively hilly. In the south-west, below the Arkansas
river, is an area of sandhills, and the Ozark Plateau region, as above
stated, extends into the south-east corner, though not there much
elevated. The great central valley is traversed by the Kansas (or Kaw)
river, which, inclusive of the Smoky Hill Branch, extends the entire
length of the state, with lateral valleys on the north. Another broad
valley is formed in the south half of the state by the Arkansas river,
with lateral valleys on the north and south. The south-east portion
contains the important Neosho and smaller valleys. In the extreme
south-west is the valley of the Cimarron, and along the south boundary
is a network of the south tributaries of the Arkansas. Numerous small
affluents of the Missouri enrich and diversify the north-east quarter.
The streams of Kansas are usually fed by perennial springs, and, as a
rule, the east and middle portions of the state are well watered. Most
of the streams maintain a good flow of water in the driest seasons, and
in case of heavy rains many of them "underflow" the adjacent bottom
lands, saturating the permeable substratum of the country with the
surplus water, which in time drains out and feeds the subsiding streams.
This feature is particularly true of the Saline, Solomon and Smoky Hill
rivers. The west part is more elevated and water is less abundant.
[Illustration: Map of Kansas.]
_Climate._--The climate of Kansas is exceptionally salubrious.
Extremes of heat and cold occur, but as a rule the winters are dry and
mild, while the summer heats are tempered by the perpetual prairie
breezes, and the summer nights are usually cool and refreshing. The
average annual temperature of the state for seventeen years preceding
1903 was 54.3 deg. F., the warmest mean being 56.0 deg., the coldest
52.6 deg. The extreme variation of yearly means throughout the east,
west and middle sections during the same period was very slight, 51.6
deg. to 56.6 deg., and the greatest variation for any one section was
3.7 deg. The absolute extremes were 116 deg. and -34 deg. The dryness
of the air tempers exceedingly to the senses the cold of winter and
the heat of summer. The temperature over the state is much more
uniform than is the precipitation, which diminishes somewhat regularly
westward. In the above period of seventeen years the yearly means in
the west section varied from 11.93 to 29.21 in. (av. 19.21), in the
middle from 18.58 to 34.30 (av. 26.68), in the east from 26.00 to
45.71 (av. 34.78); the mean for the state ranging from 20.12 to 35.50
(av. 27.12).[1] The precipitation in the west is not sufficient for
confident agriculture in any series of years, since agriculture is
practically dependent upon the mean fall; a fact that has been and is
of profound importance in the history of the state. The line of 20 in.
fall (about the limit of certain agriculture) approximately bisects
the state in dry years. The precipitation is very largely in the
growing season--at Dodge the fall between April and October is 78% of
that for the year. Freshets and droughts at times work havoc. The
former made notable 1844 and 1858; and the latter 1860, 1874 and 1894.
Tornadoes are also a not infrequent infliction, least common in the
west. The years 1871, 1879, 1881 and 1892 were made memorable by
particularly severe storms. There are 150 to 175 "growing days" for
crops between the frosts of spring and autumn, and eight in ten days
are bright with sunshine--half of them without a cloud. Winds are
prevailingly from the south (in the winter often from the north-west).
_Fauna and Flora._--The fauna and flora of the state are those which
are characteristic of the plain region generally of which Kansas is a
part. The state lies partly in the humid, or Carolinian, and partly in
the arid, or Upper Sonoran, area of the Upper Austral life-zone; 100
deg. W. long. is approximately the dividing line between these areas.
The bison and elk have disappeared. A very great variety of birds is
found within the state, either as residents or as visitants from the
adjoining avifaunal regions--mountain, plain, northern and southern.
In 1886 Colonel N. S. Goss compiled a list of 335 species, of which
175 were known to breed in the state. The wild turkey, once abundant,
was near extermination in 1886, and prairie chickens (pinnated grouse)
have also greatly diminished in number. The jack-rabbit is
characteristic of the prairie. Locusts ("grasshoppers" in local usage)
have worked incalculable damage, notably in 1854, 1866, and above all
in 1874-1875. In the last two cases their ravages extended over a
great portion of the state.
Kansas has no forests. Along the streams there is commonly a fringe of
timber, which in the east is fairly heavy. There is an increasing
scarcity westward. With the advancing settlement of the state thin
wind-break rows become a feature of the prairies. The lessened ravages
of prairie fires have facilitated artificial afforesting, and many
cities, in particular, are abundantly and beautifully shaded. Oaks,
elms, hickory, honey-locusts, white ash, sycamore and willows, the
rapid growing but miserable box-elder and cottonwood, are the most
common trees. Black walnut was common in the river valleys in
Territorial days. The planting of tree reserves by the United States
government in the arid counties of this state promises great success.
A National Forest of 302,387 acres in Finney, Kearney, Hamilton and
Grant counties was set aside in May 1908. Buffalo and bunch, and other
short native prairie grasses, very nutritious ranging food but
unavailable as hay, once covered the plains and pastured immense herds
of buffalo and other animals, but with increasing settlement they have
given way generally to exotic bladed species, valuable alike for
pasture and for hay, except in the western regions. The hardy and
ubiquitous sunflower has been chosen as the state flower or floral
emblem. Cactus and yucca occur in the west.
The soil of the upland prairies is generally a deep rich clay loam of
a dark colour. The bottom lands near the streams are a black sandy
loam; and the intermediate lands, or "second bottoms," show a rich and
deep black loam, containing very little sand. These soils are all
easily cultivated, free from stones, and exceedingly productive. There
are exceptional spots on the upland prairies composed of stiff clay,
not as easily cultivated, but very productive when properly managed
and enriched. The south-west section is distinctively sandy.
_Agriculture._--The United States Census of 1900 shows that of the
farming area of the state in 1900 (41,662,970 acres, 79.6% of the
total area), 60.1% was "improved." The value of all farm property was
$864,100,286--of which land and improvements (including buildings),
livestock and implements and machinery represented respectively 74.5,
22.1 and 3.4%. Almost nine-tenths of all farms derived their principal
income from livestock or hay and grain, these two sources being about
equally important. Of the total value of farm products in 1899
($209,895,542), crops represented 53.7, animal products 45.9 and
forest products only 0.4%. In 1899 the wheat crop was 38,778,450
bushels, being less than that of Minnesota, North Dakota, Ohio or
South Dakota. According to the _Year Book_ of the United States
Department of Agriculture, the crop in 1906 was 81,830,611 bushels,
almost one-ninth of the crop of the entire country for that year, and
much more than the crop of any other state. In 1909 it was 87,203,000
bushels (less than the crops of either Minnesota or North Dakota).
Winter wheat constitutes almost the entire output. The hard varieties
rank in the flour market with the finest Minnesota wheat. The wheat
belt crosses the state from north to south in its central third.
Greater even than wheat in absolute output, though not relatively to
the output of other states, is Indian corn. In 1906 the crop was
195,075,000 bushels, and in 1909 it was 154,225,000. The crop is very
variable, according to seasons and prospective markets; ranging e.g.
in the decade 1892-1901 from 42.6 (1901) to 225.1 (1899) million
bushels. The Indian corn belt is mainly in the eastern third of the
state. In the five years 1896-1900 the combined value of the crops of
Indian corn and wheat exceeded the value of the same crops in any
other state of the Union (Illinois being a close second). In the
western third irrigation has been tried, in the earlier years
unsuccessfully; in all Kansas, in 1899, there were 23,620 acres
irrigated, of which 8939 were in Finney and 7071 in Kearney county. In
this western third the rainfall is insufficient for Indian corn; but
Kafir corn, an exceptional drought-resisting cereal, has made
extraordinary progress in this region, and indeed generally over the
state, since 1893, its acreage increasing 416.1% in the decade
1895-1904. With the saccharine variety of sorghum, which increased
greatly in the same period, this grain is replacing Indian corn. Oats
are the third great cereal crop, the yield being 24,780,000 bushels in
1906 and 27,185,000 in 1909. Alfalfa showed an increased acreage in
1895-1904 of 310.8%; it is valuable in the west for the same qualities
as the Kafir corn. The hay crop in 1909 was 2,652,000 tons. Alfalfa,
the Japanese soy bean and the wheat fields--which furnish the finest
of pasture in the early spring and ordinarily well into the winter
season--are the props of a prosperous dairy industry. In the early
'eighties the organization of creameries and cheese factories began in
the county-seats; they depended upon gathered cream. About 1889
separators and the whole-milk system were introduced, and about the
same time began the service of refrigerator cars on the railways; the
hand separator became common about 1901. Western Kansas is the dairy
country. Its great ranges, whose insufficient rainfall makes
impossible the certain, and therefore the profitable, cultivation of
cereals, or other settled agriculture, lend themselves with profit to
stock and dairy farming. Dairy products increased 60.6% in value from
1895 to 1904, amounting in the latter year to $16,420,095. This value
was almost equalled by that of eggs and poultry ($14,050,727), which
increased 79.7% in the same decade. The livestock interest is
stimulated by the enormous demand for beef-cattle at Kansas City.
Sugar-beet culture was tried in the years following 1890 with
indifferent success until the introduction of bounties in 1901. It has
extended along the Arkansas valley from the Colorado beet district and
into the north-western counties. There is a large beet-sugar factory
at Garden City, Finney county. Experiments have been made
unsuccessfully in sugar cane (1885) and silk culture (1885 seq.). The
bright climate and pure atmosphere are admirably adapted to the growth
of the apple, pear, peach, plum, grape and cherry. The smaller fruits
also, with scarce an exception, flourish finely. The fruit product of
Kansas ($2,431,773 in 1899) is not, however, as yet particularly
notable when compared with that of various other states.
According to the estimates of the state department of agriculture, of
the total value of all agricultural products in the twenty years
1885-1904 ($3,078,999,855), Indian corn and wheat together represented
more than two-fifths (821.3 and 518.1 million dollars respectively),
and livestock products nearly one-third (1024.9 millions). The
aggregate value of all agricultural products in 1903-1904 was
$754,954,208.
_Minerals._--In the east portion of the state are immense beds of
bituminous coal, often at shallow depths or cropping out on the
surface. In 1907 more than 95% of the coal came from Crawford,
Cherokee, Leavenworth and Osage counties, and about 91.5% from the
first two. The total value of the production of coal in 1905
(6,423,979 tons) was $9,350,542, and in 1908 (6,245,508 tons)
$9,292,222. In the central portion, which belongs to the Triassic
formation, magnesian limestone, ferruginous sandstone and gypsum are
representative rocks. Gypsum (in beautiful crystalline form) is found
in an almost continuous bed across the state running north-east and
south-west with three principal areas, the northern in Marshall
county, the central in Dickinson and Saline counties, and the southern
(the heaviest, being 3 to 40 ft. thick) in Barber and Comanche
counties. The product in 1908 was valued at $281,339. Magnesian
limestone, or dolomite, is especially plentiful along the Blue,
Republican and Neosho rivers and their tributaries. This beautiful
stone, resembling white, grey and cream-coloured marble, is
exceedingly useful for building purposes. It crops out in the bluffs
in endless quantities, and is easily worked. The stone resources of
the state are largely, but by no means exclusively, confined to the
central part. There are marbles in Osage and other counties, shell
marble in Montgomery county, white limestone in Chase county, a
valuable bandera flagstone and hydraulic cement rock near Fort Scott,
&c. The limestones produced in 1908 were valued at $403,176 and the
sandstones at $67,950. In the central region salt is produced in
immense quantities, within a great north to south belt about
Hutchinson. The beds, which are exploited by the brine method at
Hutchinson, at Ellsworth (Ellsworth county), at Anthony (Harper
county) and at Sterling (Rice county), lie from 400 to 1200 ft.
underground, and are in places as much as 350 ft. thick and 99% pure.
At Kanopolis in Ellsworth county, at Lyons in Rice county and at
Kingman, Kingman county, the salt is mined and sold as rock-salt. In
the south-west salt is found in beds and dry incrustations, varying in
thickness from a few inches to 2 ft. The total product from 1880-1899
was valued at $5,538,855; the product of 1908 (when Kansas ranked
fourth among the states producing salt) was valued at $882,984. The
development has been mainly since 1887 at Hutchinson and since about
1890 in the rock-salt mines. In the west portion of the state, which
belongs to the Cretaceous formation, chalks and a species of native
quicklime are very prominent in the river bluffs. The white and
cream-coloured chalks are much used for building purposes, but the
blue is usually too soft for exposure to the weather. The quicklime as
quarried from the bluffs slakes perfectly, and with sand makes a
fairly good mortar, without calcination or other previous preparation.
The lignite found near the Colorado line makes a valuable domestic
fuel.
Natural gas, oil, zinc and lead have been discovered in south-east
Kansas and have given that section an extraordinary growth and
prosperity. Indications of gas were found about the time of the Civil
War, but only in the early 'seventies were they recognized as
unmistakable, and they were not successfully developed until the
'eighties. Iola, in Allen county, is the centre of the field, and the
gas yields heat, light, and a cheap fuel for smelters, cement-works
and other manufacturing plants throughout a large region. The pools
lie from 400 to 950 ft. below the surface; some wells have been
drilled 1500 ft. deep. The value of the natural gas produced in the
state was $15,873 in 1889, $2,261,836 in 1905 and $7,691,587 in 1908,
when there were 1917 producing wells, and Kansas ranked fourth of the
states of the United States in the value of the natural gas product,
being surpassed by Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Ohio. Petroleum was
discovered about 1865 in Miami and Bourbon counties, and about 1892 at
Neodesha, Wilson county. There was only slight commercial exploitation
before 1900. The production increased from 74,714 barrels in that year
to 4,250,779 in 1904; in 1908 it was 1,801,781 barrels. Chanute has
been the most active centre of production. The field was prospected
here in the 'nineties, but developed only after 1900. In 1877 an
immense deposit of lead was discovered on land now within the limits
of Galena. Rich zinc blendes were at first thrown away among the
by-products of the lead mines. After the discovery of their true
nature there was a slow development, and at the end of the century a
notable boom in the fields. From 1876 to 1897 the total value of the
output of the Galena field was between $25,000,000 and $26,000,000;
but at present Kansas is far more important as a smelter than as a
miner of zinc and lead, and in 1906 58% of all spelter produced in the
United States came from smelters in Kansas. In 1908 the mines' output
was 2293 tons of lead valued at $192,612 and 8628 tons of zinc valued
at $811,032. Pottery, fire, ochre and brick clays are abundant, the
first two mainly in the eastern part of the state. Coffeyville has
large vitrified brick interests. In 1908 the total value of all the
mineral products (incompletely reported) of Kansas was $26,162,213.
_Industry and Trade._--Manufactures are not characteristic of the
state. The rank of the state in manufactures in 1900 was sixteenth and
in farm products seventh in the Union. The value of the manufactured
product in 1900, according to the Twelfth United States Census, was
$172,129,398, an increase of 56.2% over the output of 1890; of this
total value, the part representing establishments under the "factory
system" was $154,008,544,[2] and in 1905 the value of the factory
product was $198,244,992, an increase of 28.7%. Kansas City, Topeka,
Wichita, Leavenworth and Atchison were the only cities which had
manufactures whose gross product was valued in 1905 at more than
$3,000,000 each; their joint product was valued at $126,515,804, and
that of Kansas City alone was $96,473,050, almost half the output of
the state. The most important manufacturing industry, both in 1900 and
in 1905, was slaughtering and meat-packing--for which Kansas City is
the second centre of the country--with a product for the state valued
at $77,411,883 in 1900, and $96,375,639 in 1905; in both these years
the value of the product of Kansas was exceeded only by that of
Illinois. The flour and grist mill industry ranked next, with a
product valued at $21,328,747 in 1900 and nearly twice that amount,
$42,034,019, in 1905. In 1900 a quarter of the wheat crop was handled
by the mills of the state. Lesser manufacturing interests are railway
shop construction (value in 1905, $11,521,144); zinc smelting and
refining (value in 1905, $10,999,468); the manufacture of cheese,
butter and condensed milk (value in 1905, $3,946,349); and of foundry
and machine shop products (value in 1905, $3,756,825).
_Communications._--Kansas is excellently provided with railways, with
an aggregate length in January 1909 of 8914.77 m. (in 1870, 1880, 1890
respectively, 1,501, 3,244 and 8,710 m.). The most important systems
are the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe, the Missouri Pacific, the
Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific, the Union Pacific, the Missouri,
Kansas & Texas, the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy, and the St Louis &
San Francisco systems. The first train entered Kansas on the Union
Pacific in 1860. During the following decade the lines of the Missouri
Pacific, the Missouri, Kansas & Texas and the Santa Fe were well under
construction. These roads give excellent connexions with Chicago, the
Gulf and the Pacific. Kansas has an eastern river front of 150 m. on
the Missouri, which is navigable for steamboats of good size. The
internal rivers of the state are not utilized for commercial purposes.
_Population._--In population Kansas ranked in 1900 and 1910 (1,690,949)
twenty-second in the Union. The decennial increases of population from
1860 to 1900 were 239.9, 173.4, 43.3 and 3.0%, the population in 1900
being 1,470,495, or 18 to the sq. m.[3] Of this number 22.5% lived in
cities of 2500 or more inhabitants. Nine cities numbered more than
10,000 inhabitants: Kansas City (51,418), Topeka--the state capital
(33,608), Wichita (24,671), Leavenworth (20,735), Atchison (15,722),
Lawrence--the seat of the state university (10,862), Fort Scott
(10,322), Galena (10,155) and Pittsburg (10,112). The life of all of
these save the last two goes back to Territorial days; but the
importance of Fort Scott, like that of Galena and Pittsburg, is due to
the development of the mineral counties in the south-east. Other cities
of above 5000 inhabitants were Hutchinson (9379), Emporia (8223),
Parsons (7682), Ottawa (6934), Newton (6208), Arkansas City (6140),
Salina (6074), Argentine (5878) and Iola (5791). The number of negroes
(3.5%) is somewhat large for a northern and western state. This is
largely owing to an exodus of coloured people from the South in
1878-1880, at a time when their condition was an unusually hard one: an
exodus turned mainly toward Kansas. The population is very largely
American-born (91.4% in 1900; 47.1% being natives of Kansas). Germans,
British, Scandinavians and Russians constitute the bulk of the
foreign-born. The west third of the state is comparatively scantily
populated, owing to its aridity. In the 'seventies, after a succession
of wet seasons, and again in the 'eighties, settlement was pushed far
westward, beyond the limits of safe agriculture, but hundreds of
settlers--and indeed many entire communities--were literally starved out
by the recurrence of droughts. Irrigation has made a surer future for
limited areas, however, and the introduction of drought-resisting crops
and the substitution of dairy and livestock interests in the place of
agriculture have brightened the outlook in the western counties, whose
population increased rapidly after 1900. The early 'eighties were made
notable by a tremendous "boom" in real estate, rural and urban,
throughout the commonwealth. As regards the distribution of religious
sects, in 1906 there were 458,190 communicants of all denominations, and
of this number 121,208 were Methodists (108,097 being Methodist
Episcopalians of the Northern Church), 93,195 were Roman Catholics,
46,299 were Baptists (34,975 being members of the Northern Baptist
Convention and 10,011 of the National (Colored) Baptist Convention),
40,765 were Presbyterians (33,465 being members of the Northern Church)
and 40,356 were Disciples of Christ. The German-Russian Mennonites,
whose immigration became notable about 1874, furnished at first many
examples of communal economy, but these were later abandoned. In 1906
the total number of Mennonites was 7445, of whom 3581 were members of
the General Conference of Mennonites of North America, 1825 belonged to
the Schellenberger Bruder-gemeinde, and the others were distributed
among seven other sects.
_Government._--The constitution is that adopted at Wyandotte on the 29th
of July 1859 and ratified by the people on the 4th of October 1859; it
came into operation on the 29th of January 1861, and was amended in
1861, 1864, 1867, 1873, 1875, 1876, 1880, 1888, 1900, 1902, 1904 and
1906. An amendment may be proposed by either branch of the legislature,
and, if approved by two-thirds of the members elected to each house as
well as by a majority of the electors voting on it at a general
election, it is adopted. A constitutional convention to revise or amend
the constitution may be called in the same manner. Universal manhood
suffrage is the rule, but women may vote in school and municipal
elections, Kansas being the first state to grant women municipal
suffrage as well as the right to hold municipal offices (1887). General
elections to state, county and township offices are biennial, in
even-numbered years, and take place on the first Tuesday after the first
Monday in November. The state executive officers are a governor,
lieutenant-governor, secretary of state, auditor, treasurer,
attorney-general and superintendent of public instruction, all elected
for a term of two years. The governor appoints, with the approval of the
Senate, a board of public works and some other administrative boards,
and he may veto any bill from the legislature, which cannot thereafter
become a law unless again approved by two-thirds of the members elected
to each house.
The legislature, consisting of a Senate and a House of Representatives,
meets in regular session at Topeka, the capital, on the second Tuesday
of January in odd-numbered years. The membership of the senate is
limited to 40, and that of the house of representatives to 125. Senators
are elected for four years and representatives for two years. In regular
sessions not exceeding fifty days and in special sessions not exceeding
thirty days the members of both houses are paid three dollars a day
besides an allowance for travelling expenses, but they receive no
compensation for the extra time of longer sessions. In 1908 a direct
primary law was passed applicable to all nominations except for
presidential electors, school district officers and officers in cities
of less than 5000 inhabitants; like public elections the primaries are
made a public charge; nomination is by petition signed by a certain
percentage (for state office, at least 1%; for district office, at least
2%; for sub-district or county office, at least 3%) of the party vote;
the direct nominating system applies to the candidates for the United
States Senate, the nominee chosen by the direct primaries of each party
being the nominee of the party.
The judicial power is vested in one supreme court, thirty-eight
district courts, one probate court for each county, and two or more
justices of the peace for each township. All justices are elected:
those of the supreme court, seven in number, for six years, two or
three every two years; those of the district courts for four years;
and those of the probate courts and the justices of the peace for two
years. The more important affairs of each county are managed by a
board of commissioners, who are elected by districts for four years,
but each county elects also a clerk, a treasurer, a probate judge, a
register of deeds, a sheriff, a coroner, an attorney, a clerk of the
district court, and a surveyor, and the district court for the county
appoints a county auditor. The township officers, all elected for two
years, are a trustee, a clerk, a treasurer, two or more justices of
the peace, two constables and one road overseer for each road
district. Cities are governed under a general law, but by this law
they are divided into three classes according to size, and the
government is different for each class. Those having a population of
more than 15,000 constitute the first class, those having a population
of more than 2000 but not more than 15,000 constitute the second
class, and those having a population not exceeding 2000 constitute the
third class. Municipal elections are far removed from those of the
state, being held in odd-numbered years in April. In cities of the
first class the state law requires the election of a mayor, city
clerk, city treasurer, police judge and councilmen; in those of the
second class it requires the election of a mayor, police judge, city
treasurer, councilmen, board of education, justices of the peace and
constables; and in those of the third class it requires the election
of a mayor, police judge and councilmen. Several other offices
provided for in each class are filled by the appointment of the mayor.
The principal grounds for a divorce in Kansas are adultery, extreme
cruelty, habitual drunkenness, abandonment for one year, gross neglect
of duty, and imprisonment in the penitentiary as a felon subsequent to
marriage, but the applicant for a divorce must have resided in the
state the entire year preceding the presentment of the petition. A
married woman has the same rights to her property after marriage as
before marriage, except that she is not permitted to bequeath away
from her husband more than one-half of it without his written consent,
and no will made by the husband can affect the right of the wife, if
she survive him, to one-half of the property of which he died seized.
Whenever a husband dies intestate, leaving a farm or a house and lot
in a town or city which was the residence of the family at his death,
his widow, widow and children, or children alone if there be no widow,
may hold the same as a homestead to the extent of 160 acres if it be a
farm, or one acre if it be a town or city lot. A homestead of this
size is exempt from levy for the debts of the intestate except in case
of an incumbrance given by consent of both husband and wife, or of
obligations for purchase money, or of liens for making improvements,
and the homestead of a family cannot be alienated without the joint
consent of husband and wife. The homestead status ceases, however,
whenever the widow marries again or when all the children arrive at
the age of majority. An eight-hour labour law was passed in 1891 and
was upheld by the state supreme court. In 1909 a law was passed for
state regulation of fire insurance rates (except in the case of
farmers' mutuals insuring farm property only) and forbidding local
discrimination of rates within the state. In the same year a law was
passed requiring that any corporation acting as a common carrier in
the state must receive the permission of the state board of railway
commissioners for the issue of stocks, bonds or other evidences of
indebtedness.
The manufacture and sale of intoxicating liquors except for medical,
scientific and mechanical purposes were prohibited by a constitutional
amendment adopted in 1880. The Murray liquor law of 1881, providing
for the enforcement of the amendment, was declared constitutional by
the state supreme court in 1883. At many sessions of the legislature
its enemies vainly attempted its repeal. It was more seriously
threatened in 1890 by the "Original Package Decision," of the United
States Supreme Court, the decision, namely, that the state law could
not apply to liquor introduced into Kansas from another state and sold
from the original package, such inter-state commerce being within the
exclusive jurisdiction of Congress. That body thereupon gave Kansas
the power needed, and its action was upheld by the Federal Supreme
Court. The enforcement of the law has varied, however, enormously
according to the locality. In 1906-1907 a fresh crusade to enforce the
law was begun by the attorney-general, who brought ouster suits
against the mayors of Wichita, Junction City, Pittsburg and
Leavenworth for not enforcing the law and for replacing it with the
"fine" system, which was merely an irregular licence. In 1907 the
attorney-general's office turned its attention to outside brewing
companies doing business in the state and secured injunctions against
such breweries doing business in the state and the appointment of
receivers of their property. The provision of the law permitting the
sale of whisky for medicinal, scientific or mechanical purposes was
repealed by a law of 1909 prohibiting the sale, manufacture or barter
of spirituous, malt, vinous or any other intoxicating liquors within
the state. The severity of this law was ascribed to efforts of the
liquor interests to render it objectionable.
The constitution forbids the contraction of a state debt exceeding
$1,000,000. The actual debt on the 30th of June 1908 was $605,000,
which was a permanent school fund. Taxation is on the general-property
system. The entire system has been--as in other states where it
prevails--extremely irregular and arbitrary as regards local
assessments, and very imperfect; and the figures of total valuation
(in 1880 $160,570,761, in 1890 $347,717,218, in 1906 $408,329,749, and
in 1908, when it was supposed to be the actual valuation of all
taxable property, $2,453,691,859), though significant of taxation
methods, are not significant of the general condition or progress of
the state.
_Education._--Of higher educational institutions, the state supports
the university of Kansas at Lawrence (1866), an agricultural college
at Manhattan (1863; aided by the United States government); a normal
school at Emporia (1865), a western branch of the same at Hays (1902);
a manual training normal school (1903) at Pittsburg, western
university (Quindaro) for negroes and the Topeka industrial and
educational institute (1896, reorganized on the plan of Tuskegee
institute in 1900) also for negroes. The university of Kansas was
organized in 1864 and opened in 1866. Its engineering department was
established in 1870, its normal department in 1876 (abolished 1885),
its department of music in 1877, its department of law in 1878, and
the department of pharmacy in 1885; in 1891 the preparatory department
was abolished and the university was reorganized with "schools" in
place of the former "departments." In 1899 a school of medicine was
established, in connexion with which the Eleanor Taylor Bell memorial
hospital was erected in 1905. In 1907-1908 the university had a
faculty of 211, an enrolment of 2063 (1361 men and 702 women); the
university library contained 60,000 volumes and 37,000 pamphlets. An
efficient compulsory education law was passed in 1903. Kansas ranks
very high among the states in its small percentage of illiteracy
(inability to write)--in 1900 only 2.9% of persons at least ten years
of age; the figures for native whites, foreign whites and negroes
being respectively 1.3, 8.5, 22.3. In addition to the state schools,
various flourishing private or denominational institutions are
maintained. The largest of these are the Kansas Wesleyan University
(Methodist Episcopal, 1886) at Salina and Baker University (Methodist
Episcopal, 1858) at Baldwin. Among the many smaller colleges are
Washburn College (Congregational, 1869) at Topeka, the South-west
Kansas College (Methodist Episcopal, opened 1886) at Winfield, the
College of Emporia (Presbyterian, 1883) at Emporia, Bethany College
(Lutheran, 1881) at Lindsborg, Fairmount College (non-sectarian, 1895)
at Wichita, St Mary's College (Roman Catholic, 1869) at St Mary's, and
Ottawa University (Baptist, 1865) at Ottawa. At Topeka is the College
of the Sisters of Bethany (Protestant Episcopal, 1861) for women.
There are also various small professional schools and private normal
schools. An industrial school for Indian children is maintained by the
United States near Lawrence (Haskell Institute, 1884). Among the state
charitable and reformatory institutions are state hospitals for the
insane at Topeka and Osawatomie and a hospital for epileptics at
Parsons; industrial reform schools for girls at Beloit, for boys at
Topeka, and for criminals under twenty-five at Hutchinson; a
penitentiary at Lansing; a soldiers' orphans' home at Atchison and a
soldiers' home at Dodge City; and schools for feeble-minded youth at
Winfield, for the deaf at Olathe, and for the blind at Kansas City.
These institutions are under the supervision of a state board of
control. The state contributes also to many institutions on a private
basis. Most of the counties maintain poor farms and administer outdoor
relief, and some care for insane patients at the cost of the state.
_History._--The territory now included in Kansas was first visited by
Europeans in 1541, when Francisco de Coronado led his Spaniards from New
Mexico across the buffalo plains in search of the wealth of "Quivira," a
region located by Bandelier and other authorities in Kansas north-east
of the Great Bend of the Arkansas. Thereafter, save for a brief French
occupation, 1719-1725, and possibly slight explorations equally
inconsequential, Kansas remained in undisturbed possession of the
Indians until in 1803 it passed to the United States (all save the part
west of 100 deg. long. and south of the Arkansas river) as part of the
Louisiana Purchase. The explorations for the United States of Z. M. Pike
(1807) and S. H. Long (1819) tended to confirm old ideas of sandy wastes
west of the Mississippi. But with the establishment of prairie commerce
to Santa Fe (New Mexico), the waves of emigration to the Mormon land and
to California, the growth of traffic to Salt Lake, and the explorations
for a transcontinental railway, Kansas became well known, and was taken
out of that mythical "Great American Desert," in which, thanks
especially to Pike and to Washington Irving, it had been supposed to
lie. The trade with Santa Fe began about 1804, although regular caravans
were begun only about 1825. This trade is one of the most picturesque
chapters in border history, and picturesque in retrospect, too, is the
army of emigrants crossing the continent in "prairie schooners" to
California or Utah, of whom almost all went through Kansas.
But this movement of hunters, trappers, traders, Mormons, miners and
homeseekers left nothing to show of settlement in Kansas, for which,
therefore, the succession of Territorial governments organized for the
northern portion of the Louisiana Purchase had no real significance.
Before 1854 Kansas was an Indian land, although on its Indian
reservations (created in its east part for eastern tribes removed
thither after 1830) some few whites resided: missionaries, blacksmiths,
agents, farmers supposed to teach the Indians agriculture, and land
"squatters,"--possibly 800 in all. Fort Leavenworth was established in
1827, Fort Scott in 1842, Fort Riley in 1853. There were Methodist
(1829), Baptist, Quaker, Catholic and Presbyterian missions active by
1837. Importunities to Congress to institute a Territorial government
began in 1852. This was realized by the Kansas-Nebraska Bill of 1854.
By that Act Kansas (which from 1854 to 1861 included a large part of
Colorado) became, for almost a decade, the storm centre of national
political passion, and her history of prime significance in the
unfolding prologue of the Civil War. Despite the Missouri Compromise,
which had prohibited slavery in the Louisiana Purchase N. of 36 deg. 30'
N. lat. (except in Missouri), slaves were living at the missions and
elsewhere, among Indians and whites, in 1854. The "popular sovereignty"
principle of the Kansas-Nebraska Bill involved a sectional struggle for
the new Territory. Time showed that the winning of Kansas was a question
of the lightest-footed immigrant. Slaveholders were not footloose; they
had all to lose if they should carry their blacks into Kansas and should
nevertheless fail to make it a slave-state. Thus the South had to
establish slavery by other than actual slaveholders, unless Missouri
should act for her to establish it. But Missouri did not move her
slaves; while her vicinity encouraged border partisans to seek such
establishment even without residence--by intimidation, election frauds
and outrage. This determined at once the nature of the Kansas struggle
and its outcome; and after the South had played and lost in Kansas, "the
war for the Union caught up and nationalized the verdict of the
Territorial broil."
In the summer of 1854 Missouri "squatters" began to post claims to
border lands and warn away intending anti-slavery settlers. The
immigration of these from the North was fostered in every way, notably
through the New England Emigrant Aid Company (see LAWRENCE, A. A.),
whose example was widely imitated. Little organized effort was made in
the South to settle the Territory; Lawrence (Wakarusa) and Topeka,
free-state centres, and Leavenworth, Lecompton and Atchison, pro-slavery
towns, were among those settled in 1854.
At the first election (Nov. 1854), held for a delegate to Congress, some
1700 armed Missourians invaded Kansas and stuffed the ballot boxes; and
this intimidation and fraud was practised on a much larger scale in the
election of a Territorial legislature in March 1855. The resultant
legislature (at Pawnee, later at Shawnee Mission) adopted the laws of
Missouri almost _en bloc_, made it a felony to utter a word against
slavery, made extreme pro-slavery views a qualification for office,
declared death the penalty for aiding a slave to escape, and in general
repudiated liberty for its opponents. The radical free-state men
thereupon began the importation of rifles. All criticism of this is
inconsequent; "fighting gear" was notoriously the only effective asset
of Missourians in Kansas, every Southern band in Kansas was militarily
organized and armed, and the free-state men armed only under necessity.
Furthermore, a free-state "government" was set up, the "bogus"
legislature at Shawnee being "repudiated." Perfecting their organization
in a series of popular conventions, they adopted (Dec. 1855) the Topeka
Constitution--which declared the exclusion of negroes from
Kansas--elected state officials, and sent a contestant delegate to
Congress. The Topeka "government" was simply a craftily impressive
organization, a standing protest. It met now and then, and directed
sentiment, being twice dispersed by United States troops; but it passed
no laws, and did nothing that conflicted with the Territorial government
countenanced by Congress. On the other hand, the laws of the "bogus"
legislature were generally ignored by the free-state partisans, except
in cases (e.g. the service of a writ) where that was impossible without
apparent actual rebellion against the authority of the legislature, and
therefore of Congress.
Meanwhile the "border war" began. During the (almost bloodless)
"Wakarusa War" Lawrence was threatened by an armed force from Missouri,
but was saved by the intervention of Governor Shannon. Up to this time
the initiative and the bulk of outrages lay assuredly heavily on the
pro-slavery side; hereafter they became increasingly common and more
evenly divided. In May 1856 another Missouri force entered Lawrence
without resistance, destroyed its printing offices, wrecked buildings
and pillaged generally. This was the day before the assault on Charles
Sumner (q.v.) in the Senate of the United States. These two outrages
fired Northern passion and determination. In Kansas they were a stimulus
to the most radical elements. Immediately after the sack of Lawrence,
John Brown and a small band murdered and mutilated five pro-slavery men,
on Pottawatomie Creek; a horrible deed, showing a new spirit on the
free-state side, and of ghastly consequence--for it contributed
powerfully to widen further the licence of highway robbery, pillage and
arson, the ruin of homes, the driving off of settlers, marauding
expeditions, attacks on towns, outrages in short of every kind, that
made the following months a welter of lawlessness and crime, until
Governor Geary--by putting himself above all partisanship, repudiating
Missouri, and using Federal troops--put an end to them late in 1856.
(In the isolated south-eastern counties they continued through
1856-1858, mainly to the advantage of the "jay-hawkers" of free-state
Kansas and to the terror of Missouri.)
The struggle now passed into another phase, in which questions of state
predominate. But something may be remarked in passing of the leaders in
the period of turbulence. John Brown wished to deal a blow against
slavery, but did nothing to aid any conservative political organization
to that end. James H. Lane was another radical, and always favoured
force. He was a political adventurer, an enthusiastic, energetic,
ambitious, ill-balanced man, shrewd and magnetic. He assuredly did much
for the free-state cause; meek politics were not alone sufficient in
those years in Kansas. The leader of the conservative free-soilers was
Charles Robinson (1818-1894). He was born in Massachusetts, studied
medicine at the Berkshire Medical School, and had had political
experience in California, whither he had gone in 1849, and where in
1850-1852 he was a member of the legislature and a successful
anti-slavery leader. In 1854 he had come to Kansas as an agent of the
Emigrant Aid Company. He was the author of the Topeka government idea,
or at least was its moving spirit, serving throughout as the "governor"
under it; though averse to force, he would use it if necessary, and was
first in command in the "Wakarusa War." His partisans say that he saved
Kansas, and regard Lane as a fomenter of trouble who accomplished
nothing. Andrew H. Reeder (1807-1864), who showed himself a pro-slavery
sympathizer as first Territorial governor, was removed from office for
favouring the free-state party; he became a leader in the free-state
cause. Every governor who followed him was forced by the logic of events
and truth tacitly to acknowledge that right lay with the free-state
party. Reeder and Shannon fled the Territory in fear of assassination by
the pro-slavery party, with which at first they had had most sympathy.
Among the pro-slavery leaders David Rice Atchison (1807-1886), United
States Senator in 1843-1855, accompanied both expeditions against
Lawrence; but he urged moderation, as always, at the end of what was a
legitimate result of his radical agitation.
In June 1857 delegates were elected to a constitutional convention. The
election Act did not provide for any popular vote upon the constitution
they should form, and was passed over Governor John W. Geary's veto. A
census, miserably deficient (largely owing to free-state abstention and
obstruction), was the basis of apportionment of delegates. The
free-state party demanded a popular vote on the constitution. On the
justice of this Governor Robert J. Walker and President Buchanan were at
first unequivocally agreed, and the governor promised fairplay.
Nevertheless only pro-slavery men voted, and the convention was thus
pro-slavery. The document it framed is known as the Lecompton
Constitution. Before the convention met, the free-state party,
abandoning its policy of political inaction, captured the Territorial
legislature. On the constitutional convention rested, then, all hope of
saving Kansas for slavery; and that would be impossible if they should
submit their handiwork to the people. The convention declared slave
property to be "before and higher than any constitutional sanction" and
forbade amendments affecting it; but it provided for a popular vote on
the alternatives, the "constitution with slavery" or the "constitution
with no slavery." If the latter should be adopted, slavery should cease
"except" that the right to property in slaves in the Territory should
not be interfered with. The free-state men regarded this as including
the right to property in offspring of slaves, and therefore as pure
fraud. Governor Walker stood firmly against this iniquitous scheme; he
saw that slavery was, otherwise, doomed, but he thought Kansas could be
saved to the Democratic party though lost to slavery. But President
Buchanan, under Southern influence, repudiated his former assurances.
There is reason to believe that the whole scheme was originated at
Washington, and though Buchanan was not privy to it before the event,
yet he adopted it. He abandoned Walker, who left Kansas; and he
dismissed Acting-Governor Frederick P. Stanton for convoking the (now
free-state) legislature. This body promptly ordered a vote on the third
alternative, "Against the Constitution."
The free-state men ignored the alternatives set by the Lecompton
Convention; but they participated nevertheless in the provisional
election for officers under the Lecompton government, capturing all
offices, and then, the same day, voted overwhelmingly against the
constitution (Jan. 4, 1858).
Nevertheless, Buchanan, against the urgent counsel of Governor Denver,
urged on Congress (Feb. 2) the admission of Kansas under the Lecompton
Constitution. He was opposed by Senator Stephen A. Douglas, the leader
of the Northern Democracy. The Senate upheld the President; the House of
Representatives voted down his policy; and finally both houses accepted
the English Bill, by which Kansas was virtually offered some millions of
acres of public lands if she should accept the Lecompton
Constitution.[4] On the 21st of August 1858, by a vote of 11,300 to
1788, Kansas resisted this temptation. The plan of the Administration
thus effectually miscarried, and its final result was a profound split
in the Democratic party.
The free-state men framed an excellent anti-slavery constitution at
Leavenworth in March-April 1858, but the origins of the convention were
illegal and their work was still-born. On the 29th of July 1859 still
another constitution was therefore framed at Wyandotte, and on the 4th
of October it was ratified by the people. Meanwhile the Topeka
"government" disappeared, and also, with its single purpose equally
served, the free-state party, most of it (once largely Democratic)
passing into the Republican party, now first organized in the Territory.
On the 29th of January 1861 Kansas was admitted to the Union under the
Wyandotte Constitution. The United States Census of 1860 gave her a
population of 107,204 inhabitants. The struggle in Kansas, the first
physical national struggle over slavery, was of paramount importance in
the breaking up of the Whig party, the firm establishment of an
uncompromisingly anti-slavery party, the sectionalization of the
Democracy, and the general preparation of the country for the Civil War.
Drought and famine came in 1860, and then upon the impoverished state
came the strain of the Civil War. Nevertheless Kansas furnished
proportionally a very large quota of men to the Union armies. Military
operations within her own borders were largely confined to a guerrilla
warfare, carrying on the bitter neighbourhood strife between Kansas and
Missouri. The Confederate officers began by repressing predatory
plundering from Missouri; but after James H. Lane, with an undisciplined
brigade, had crossed the border, sacking, burning and killing in his
progress, Missouri "bushrangers" retaliated in kind. Freebooters trained
in Territorial licence had a free hand on both sides. Kansas bands were
long the more successful. But William C. Quantrell, after sacking
various small Kansas towns along the Missouri river (1862-63), in August
1863 took Lawrence (q.v.) and put it mercilessly to fire and sword--the
most ghastly episode in border history. In the autumn of 1864 the
Confederate general, Sterling Price, aiming to enter Kansas from
Missouri but defeated by General Pleasanton's cavalry, retreated
southward, zig-zagging on both sides of the Missouri-Kansas line. This
ended for Kansas the border raids and the war. Lane was probably the
first United States officer to enlist negroes as soldiers. Many of them
(and Indians too) fought bravely for the state. Indian raids and wars
troubled the state from 1864 to 1878. The tribes domiciled in Kansas
were rapidly moved to Indian Territory after 1868.
After the Civil War the Republicans held uninterrupted supremacy in
national elections, and almost as complete control in the state
government, until 1892. From about 1870 onward, however, elements of
reform and of discontent were embodied in a succession of radical
parties of protest. Prohibition arose thus, was accepted by the
Republicans, and passed into the constitution. Woman suffrage became a
vital political issue. Much legislation has been passed to control the
railways. General control of the media of commerce, economic
co-operation, tax reform, banking reforms, legislation against
monopolies, disposal of state lands, legislation in aid of the farmer
and labourer, have been issues of one party or another. The movement of
the Patrons of Industry (1874), growing into the Grange, Farmers'
Alliance, and finally into the People's (Populist) party (see FARMERS'
MOVEMENT), was perhaps of greatest importance. In conjunction with the
Democrats the Populists controlled the State government in 1892-1894 and
1896-1898. These two parties decidedly outnumbered the Republicans at
the polls from 1890-1898, but they could win only by fusion. In
1892-1893, when the Populists elected the governor and the Senate, and
the Republicans (as the courts eventually determined) the House of
Representatives, political passion was so high as to threaten armed
conflicts in the capital. The Australian ballot was introduced in 1893.
In the decade following 1880, struggles in the western counties for the
location of county seats (the bitterest local political fights known in
western states) repeatedly led to bloodshed and the interference of
state militia.
TERRITORIAL GOVERNORS[5]
Andrew H. Reeder July 7, 1854-Aug. 16, '55
Wilson Shannon Sept. 7, 1855-Aug. 18, '56
John W. Geary Sept. 9, 1856-Mar. 12, '57
Robert J. Walker May 27, 1857-Nov. 16, '57
James W. Denver May 12, 1858-Oct. 10, '58
Samuel Medary Dec. 18, 1858-Dec. 17, '60
_Acting Governors_[6]
Aggregate
Daniel Woodson 5 times (164 days) Apr. 17, 1855-Apr. 16, '57
Frederick P. Stanton 2 " ( 78 " ) Apr. 16, 1857-Dec. 21, '57
James W. Denver 1 " ( 23 " ) Dec. 21, 1857-May 12, '58
Hugh S. Walsh 4(5?) " (177 " ) July 3, 1858-June 16, '60
George M. Beebe 2 " (131 " ) Sept. 11, 1860-Feb. 9, '61
STATE GOVERNORS
Charles Robinson Republican 1861-1863
Thomas Carney " 1863-1865
Samuel J. Crawford " 1865-1869
N. Green (to fill vacancy) " 1869 (3 months)
James M. Harvey " 1869-1873
Thomas A. Osborn " 1873-1877
George T. Anthony " 1877-1879
John P. St John " 1879-1883
George W. Glick Democrat 1883-1885
John A. Martin Republican 1885-1889
Lyman U. Humphrey " 1889-1893
Lorenzo D. Lewelling Populist 1893-1895
Edmund N. Morrill Republican 1895-1897
John W. Leedy Democrat-Populist 1897-1899
W. E. Stanley Republican 1899-1903
Willis J. Bailey " 1903-1905
Edward W. Hoch " 1905-1909
Walter R. Stubbs " 1909-
AUTHORITIES.--Consult for physiographic descriptions general works on
the United States, exploration, surveys, &c., also paper by George I.
Adams in American Geographical Society, _Bulletin_ 34 (1902), pp.
89-104. On climate see U.S. Department of Agriculture, _Kansas Climate
and Crop Service_ (monthly, since 1887). On soil and agriculture, see
_Biennial Reports_ (Topeka, 1877 seq.) of the State Board of
Agriculture; _Experiment Station Bulletin_ of the Kansas Agricultural
College (Manhattan); and statistics in the United States _Statistical
Abstract_ (annual, Washington), and Federal Census reports. On
manufactures see Federal Census reports; Kansas Bureau of Labor and
Industry, _Annual Report_ (1885 seq.); Kansas Inspector of Coal Mines,
_Annual Report_ (1887 seq.). On administration consult the _State of
Kansas Blue Book_ (Topeka, periodical), and reports of the various
state officers (Treasurer, annual, then biennial since 1877-1878;
Board of Trustees of State Charities and Corrections, biennial,
1877-1878 seq.; State Board of Health, founded 1885, annual, then
biennial reports since 1901-1902; Bureau of Labor Statistics, founded
1885, annual reports; Irrigation Commission, organized 1895, annual
reports, &c.). On taxation see _Report and Bill of the State Tax
Commission, created_ 1901 (Topeka, 1901). On the history of the state,
see A. T. Andreas, _History of Kansas_ (Chicago, 1883; compiled mainly
by J. C. Hebbard); D. W. Wilder's _Annals of Kansas_ (Topeka, 1875 and
later), indispensable for reference; L. W. Spring's _Kansas_ (Boston,
1885, in the American Commonwealth Series); Charles Robinson, _The
Kansas Conflict_ (New York, 1892); Eli Thayer, _The Kansas Crusade_
(New York, 1889); the _Proceedings of the Kansas State Historical
Society_ (Topeka, 1891 seq.), full of the most valuable material; W.
E. Connelley, _Kansas Territorial Governors_ (Topeka, 1900); W. E.
Miller, _The Peopling of Kansas_ (Columbus, O., 1906), a doctoral
dissertation of Columbia University; and for the controversy touching
John Brown, G. W. Brown's _The Truth at Last, Reminiscences of Old
John Brown_ (Rockford, Ill., 1880), and W. E. Connelley, _An Appeal to
the Record ... Refuting ... Things Written for ... Charles Robinson
and G. W. Brown_ (Topeka, 1903). W. C. Webb's _Republican Election
Methods in Kansas, General Election of 1892, and Legislative
Investigations_ (Topeka, 1893) may also be mentioned.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] For the thirty years 1877-1906 the mean rainfall for ten-year
periods was: at Dodge, 22.8 in., 18.4 in. and 22.7 in.; and at
Lawrence, 35.1 in., 39.2 in. and 36.7 in. for the first, second and
third periods respectively.
[2] All subsequent figures in this paragraph for manufactures in 1900
are given for establishments under the "factory system" only, so as
to be comparable with statistics for 1905, which do not include minor
establishments.
[3] According to the state census Kansas had in 1905 a total
population of 1,544,968; nearly 28% lived in cities of 2500 or more
inhabitants; 13 cities had more than 10,000 inhabitants: Kansas City
(67,614). Topeka (37,641), Wichita (31,110), Leavenworth (20,934),
Atchison (18,159), Pittsburg (15,012), Coffeyville (13,196), Fort
Scott (12,248), Parsons (11,720), Lawrence (11,708), Hutchinson
(11,215), Independence (11,206), and Iola (10,287). Other cities of
above 5000 inhabitants each were: Chanute (9704), Emporia (8974),
Winfield (7845), Salina (7829), Ottawa (7727), Arkansas City (7634),
Newton (6601), Galena (6449), Argentine (6053), Junction City (5264)
and Cherryvale (5089).
[4] The English Bill was not a bribe to the degree that it has
usually been considered to be, inasmuch as it "reduced the grant of
land demanded by the Lecompton Ordinance from 23,500,000 acres to
3,500,000 acres, and offered only the normal cession to new states."
But this grant of 3,500,000 acres was conditioned on the acceptance
of the Lecompton Constitution, and Congress made no promise of any
grant if that Constitution were not adopted. The bill was introduced
by William Hayden English (1822-1896), a Democratic representative in
Congress in 1853-1861 (see Frank H. Hodder, "Some Aspects of the
English Bill for the Admission of Kansas," in _Annual Report of the
American Historical Association_ for the Year 1906, i. 201-210).
[5] Terms of actual service in Kansas, not period of commissions. The
appointment was for four years. Reeder was removed, all the others
resigned.
[6] Secretaries of the Territory who served as governors in the
interims of gubernatorial terms or when the governor was absent from
the Territory. In the case of H. S. Walsh several dates cannot be
fixed with exactness.
KANSAS CITY, a city and the county-seat of Wyandotte county, Kansas,
U.S.A., on the W. bank of the Missouri River, at the mouth of the
Kansas, altitude about 800 ft. It is separated from its greater
neighbour, Kansas City, Missouri, only by the state line, and is the
largest city in the state. Pop. (1890), 38,315; (1900), 51,418, of whom
6,377 were foreign-born and 6509 were negroes; (1910 census) 82,331. It
is served by the Union Pacific, the Missouri Pacific, the Chicago, Rock
Island & Pacific, and the Chicago Great Western railways, and by
electric lines connecting with Leavenworth and with Kansas City,
Missouri. There are several bridges across the Kansas river. The city
covers the low, level bottom-land at the junction of the two rivers, and
spreads over the surrounding highlands to the W., the principal
residential district. Its plan is regular. The first effective steps
toward a city park and boulevard system were taken in 1907, when a board
of park commissioners, consisting of three members, was appointed by the
mayor. The city has been divided into the South Park District and the
North Park District, and at the close of 1908 there were 10 m. of
boulevards and parks aggregating 160 acres. A massive steel and concrete
toll viaduct, about 1(3/4) m. in length, extends from the bluffs of
Kansas City, Kan., across the Kansas valley to the bluffs of Kansas
City, Mo., and is used by pedestrians, vehicles and street cars. There
is a fine public library building given by Andrew Carnegie. The
charities of the city are co-ordinated through the associated charities.
Among charitable state-aided institutions are the St Margaret's hospital
(Roman Catholic), Bethany hospital (Methodist), a children's home
(1893), and, for negroes, the Douglass hospital training school for
nurses (1898)--the last the largest private charity of the state. The
medical department of the Kansas state university, the other departments
of which are in Lawrence, is in Kansas City; and among the other
educational institutions of the city are the Western university and
industrial school (a co-educational school for negroes), the Kansas City
Baptist theological seminary (1902), and the Kansas City university
(Methodist Protestant, 1896), which had 454 students in 1908-1909 and
comprises Mather college (for liberal arts), Wilson high school
(preparatory), a school of elocution and oratory (in Kansas City, Mo.),
a Normal School, Kansas City Hahnemann Medical College (in Kansas City,
Mo.), and a school of theology. The city is the seat of the Kansas
(State) school for the blind. Kansas City is one of the largest cities
in the country without a drinking saloon. Industrially the city is
important for its stockyards and its meat-packing interests. With the
exception of Chicago, it is the largest livestock market in the United
States. The product-value of the city's factories in 1905 was
$96,473,050; 93.5% consisting of the product of the wholesale
slaughtering and meat-packing houses. Especially in the South-west
markets Kansas City has an advantage over Chicago, St Louis, and other
large packing centres (except St Joseph), not only in freights, but in
its situation among the "corn and beef" states; it shares also the
extraordinary railway facilities of Kansas City, Missouri. There are
various important manufactures, such as soap and candles, subsidiary to
the packing industry; and the city has large flour mills, railway and
machine shops, and foundries. A large cotton-mill, producing coarse
fabrics, was opened in 1907. Natural gas derived from the Kansas fields
became available for lighting and heating, and crude oil for fuel, in
1906.
Kansas City was founded in 1886 by the consolidation of "old" Kansas
City, Armourdale and Wyandotte (in which Armstrong and Riverview were
then included). Of these municipalities Wyandotte, the oldest, was
originally settled by the Wyandotte Indians in 1843; it was platted and
settled by whites in 1857; and was incorporated as a town in 1858, and
as a city in 1859. At Wyandotte were made the first moves for the
Territorial organization of Kansas and Nebraska. During the Kansas
struggle Wyandotte was a pro-slavery town, while Quindaro (1856), a few
miles up the Missouri, was a free-state settlement and Wyandotte's
commercial rival until after the Civil War. The convention that framed
the constitution, the Wyandotte Constitution, under which Kansas was
admitted to the Union, met here in July 1859. "Old" Kansas City was
surveyed in 1869 and was incorporated as a city in 1872. Armourdale was
laid out in 1880 and incorporated in 1882. The packing interest was
first established in 1867; the first large packing plant was that of
Armour & Co., which was removed to what is now Kansas City in 1871.
Kansas City adopted government by commission in 1909.
KANSAS CITY, a city and port of entry of Jackson county, Missouri,
U.S.A., the second in size and importance in the state, situated at the
confluence of the Missouri and Kansas rivers, adjoining Kansas City,
Kansas, and 235 m. W. by N. of St Louis. Pop. (1890), 132,716; (1900),
163,752, of whom 18,410 were foreign born (German, 4816; Irish, 3507;
Swedish, 1869; English, 1863; English-Canadian, 1369; Italian, 1034),
and 17,567 were negroes; (1910 census) 248,381. Kansas City, the gateway
to the South-west, is one of the leading railway centres of the United
States. It is served by the Union Pacific, the Missouri Pacific, the
'Frisco System, the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy, the Atchison, Topeka &
Santa Fe, the Chicago Great Western, the Chicago, Milwaukee & St Paul,
the Chicago & Alton, the Wabash, the Kansas City Southern, the Chicago,
Rock Island & Pacific, the Missouri, Kansas & Texas, the Leavenworth,
Kansas & Western, the Kansas City, Mexico & Orient, the St Louis, Kansas
City & Colorado, the Quincy, Omaha & Kansas City, and the St Joseph &
Grand Island railways, and by steamboat lines to numerous river ports.
The present retail, office, and wholesale sections were once high bluffs
and deep ravines, but through and across these well graded streets were
constructed. South and west of this highland, along the Kansas river, is
a low, level tract occupied chiefly by railway yards, stock yards,
wholesale houses and manufacturing establishments; north and east of the
highland is a flat section, the Missouri River bottoms, occupied largely
by manufactories, railway yards, grain elevators and homes of employes.
Much high and dry "made" land has been reclaimed from the river
flood-plain. Two great railway bridges across the Missouri, many smaller
bridges across the Kansas, and a great inter-state toll viaduct
extending from bluff to bluff across the valley of the latter river, lie
within the metropolitan area of the two cities. The streets of the
Missouri city are generally wide and excellently paved. The city-hall
(1890-1893), the courthouse (1888-1892), and the Federal Building
(1892-1900) are the most imposing of the public buildings. A convention
hall, 314 ft. long and 198 ft. wide, with a seating capacity of about
15,000, is covered by a steel-frame roof without a column for its
support; the exterior of the walls is cut stone and brick. The building
was erected within three months, to replace one destroyed by fire, for
the National Democratic Convention which met here on the 4th of July
1900. The Public Library with walls of white limestone and Texas
granite, contained (1908) 95,000 volumes. The Congregational, the
Calvary Baptist, the Second Presbyterian, the Independence Avenue
Christian, the Independence Avenue Methodist, and the Second Christian
Science churches are the finest church buildings. The board of trade
building, the building of the _Star_ newspaper, and several large office
buildings (including the Scarritt, Long, and New York Life Insurance
buildings) are worthy of mention.
Kansas City has over 2000 acres in public parks; but Swope Park,
containing 1354 acres, lies south of the city limits. The others are
distributed with a design to give each section a recreation ground
within easy walking distance, and all (including Swope) are connected by
parkways, boulevards and street-car lines. The Paseo Parkway, 250 ft.
wide, extends from N. to S. through the centre of the city for a
distance of 2(1/2) m., and adjoining it near its middle is the Parade,
or principal playground. The city has eight cemeteries, the largest of
which are Union, Elmwood, Mt Washington, St Mary's and Forest Hill. The
charitable institutions and professional schools included in 1908 about
thirty hospitals, several children's homes and homes for the aged, an
industrial home, the Kansas City school of law, the University medical
college, and the Scarritt training school. The city has an excellent
public school system. A Methodist Episcopal institutional church,
admirably equipped, was opened in 1906. The city has a juvenile court,
and maintains a free employment bureau.
Kansas City is primarily a commercial centre, and its trade in
livestock, grain and agricultural implements is especially large. The
annual pure-bred livestock show is of national importance. The city's
factory product increased from $23,588,653 in 1900 to $35,573,049 in
1905, or 50.8%. Natural gas and crude petroleum from Kansas fields
became of industrial importance about 1906. Natural gas is used to light
the residence streets and to heat many of the residences.
Kansas City is one of the few cities in the United States empowered to
frame its own charter. The first was adopted in 1875 and the second in
1889. In 1905 a new charter, drawn on the lines of the model "municipal
program" advocated by the National Municipal League, was submitted to
popular vote, but was defeated by the influence of the saloons and other
special interests. The charter of 1908 is a revision of this proposed
charter of 1905 with the objectionable features eliminated; it was
adopted by a large majority vote. Under the provisions of the charter of
1908 the people elect a mayor, city treasurer, city comptroller, and
judges of the municipal court, each for a term of two years. The
legislative body is the common council composed of two houses, each
having as many members as there are wards in the city--14 in 1908. The
members of the lower house are elected, one by each ward, in the spring
of each even numbered year. The upper house members are elected by the
city at large and serve four years. A board of public works, board of
park commissioners, board of fire and water commissioners, a board of
civil service, a city counsellor, a city auditor, a city assessor, a
purchasing agent, and subordinate officers, are appointed by the mayor,
without confirmation by the common council. A non-partisan board
composed of citizens who must not be physicians has general control of
the city's hospitals and health department. A new hospital at a cost of
half a million dollars was completed in 1908. The charter provides for a
referendum vote on franchises, which may be ordered by the council or by
petition of the people, the signatures of 20% of the registered voters
being sufficient to force such election. Public work may be prevented by
remonstrance of interested property owners except in certain instances,
when the city, by vote of the people, may overrule all remonstrances. A
civic league attempts to give a non-partisan estimate of all municipal
candidates. The juvenile court, the arts and tenement commissions, the
municipal employment bureau, and a park board are provided for by the
charter. All the members of the city board of election commissioners and
a majority of the police board are appointed by the governor of the
state; and the police control the grant of liquor licences. The city is
supplied with water drawn from the Missouri river above the mouth of the
Kansas or Kaw (which is used as a sewer by Kansas City, Kan.); the main
pumping station and settling basins being at Quindaro, several miles up
the river in Kansas; whence the water is carried beneath the Kansas,
through a tunnel, to a high-pressure distributing station in the west
bottoms. The waterworks (direct pressure system) were acquired by the
city in 1895. All other public services are in private hands. The
street-railway service is based on a universal 5-cent transfer
throughout the metropolitan area. Some of the first overhead electric
trolleys used in the United States were used here in 1885.
The first permanent settlement within the present limits of Kansas City,
which took its name from Kansas river,[1] was established by French fur
traders about 1821. Westport, a little inland town--platted 1833, a city
1857, merged in Kansas City in 1899--now a fashionable residence
district of Kansas City--was a rival of Independence in the Santa Fe
trade which she gained almost _in toto_ in 1844 when the great Missouri
flood (the greatest the river has known) destroyed the river landing
utilized by Independence. Meanwhile, what is now Kansas City, and was
then Westport Landing, being on the river where a swift current wore a
rocky shore, steadily increased in importance and overshadowed Westport.
But in 1838 lots were surveyed and the name changed to the Town of
Kansas. It was officially organized in part in 1847, formally
incorporated as a town in 1850, chartered under its present name in
1853, re-chartered in 1875, in 1889 and in 1908. Before 1850 it was
practically the exclusive eastern terminus on the river for the Santa Fe
trade,[2] and a great outfitting point for Californian emigrants. The
history of this border trade is full of picturesque colour. During the
Civil War both Independence and Westport were the scene of battles;
Kansas City escaped, but her trade went to Leavenworth, where it had the
protection of an army post and a quiet frontier. After the war the
railways came, taking away the traffic to Santa Fe, and other cities
farther up the Missouri river took over the trade to its upper valley.
In 1866 Kansas City was entered by the first railway from St Louis; 1867
saw the beginning of the packing industry; in 1869 a railway bridge
across the Missouri assured it predominance over Leavenworth and St
Joseph; and since that time--save for a depression shortly after 1890,
following a real-estate boom--the material progress of the city has been
remarkable; the population increased from 4418 in 1860 to 32,260 in
1870, 55,785 in 1880, and 132,716 in 1890.
See T. S. Case (ed.), _History of Kansas City, Missouri_ (Syracuse,
1888); William Griffith, _History of Kansas City_ (Kansas City, 1900);
for industrial history, the _Greater Kansas City Yearbook_ (1907
seq.); for all features of municipal interest, the _Kansas City
Annual_ (Kansas City, 1907 seq.), prepared for the Business Men's
League.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] "Kansas"--in archaic variants of spelling and pronunciation,
"Kansaw," and still called, locally and colloquially, the "Kaw."
[2] Before Kansas City, first Old Franklin (opposite Boonville), then
Ft. Osage, Liberty, Sibley, Lexington, Independence and Westport had
successively been abandoned as terminals, as the transfer-point from
boat to prairie caravan was moved steadily up the Missouri. Whisky,
groceries, prints and notions were staples sent to Santa Fe; wool,
buffalo robes and dried buffalo meat, Mexican silver coin, gold and
silver dust and ore came in return. In 1860 the trade employed 3000
wagons and 7000 men, and amounted to millions of dollars in value.
KANSK, a town of eastern Siberia, in the government of Yeniseisk, 151 m.
by rail E. of Krasnoyarsk, on the Kan River, a tributary of the Yenisei,
and on the Siberian highway. Pop. (1897), 7504. It is the chief town of
a district in which gold is found, but lies on low ground subject to
inundation by the river.
KAN-SUH, a north-western province of China, bounded N. by Mongolia, E.
by Shen-si, S. by Szech'uen, W. by Tibet and N.W. by Turkestan. The
boundary on the N. remains undefined, but the province may be said to
occupy the territory lying between 32 deg. 30'40 deg. N., and 108 deg.
and 98 deg. 20' E., and to contain about 260,000 sq. m. The population
is estimated at 9,800,000. Western Kan-suh is mountainous, and largely a
wilderness of sand and snow, but east of the Hwang-ho the country is
cultivated. The principal river is the Hwang-ho, and in the mountains to
the south of Lan-chow Fu rises the Wei-ho, which traverses Shen-si and
flows into the Hwang-ho at Tung-kwan. The chief products of Kan-suh are
cloth, horse hides, a kind of curd like butter which is known by the
Mongols under the name of _wuta_, musk, plums, onions, dates, sweet
melons and medicines. (See CHINA.)
KANT, IMMANUEL (1724-1804), German philosopher, was born at Konigsberg
on the 22nd of April 1724. His grandfather was an emigrant from
Scotland, and the name Cant is not uncommon in the north of Scotland,
whence the family is said to have come. His father was a saddler in
Konigsberg, then a stronghold of Pietism, to the strong influence of
which Kant was subjected in his early years. In his tenth year he was
entered at the Collegium Fredericianum with the definite view of
studying theology. His inclination at this time was towards classics,
and he was recognized, with his school-fellow, David Ruhnken, as among
the most promising classical scholars of the college. His taste for the
greater Latin authors, particularly Lucretius, was never lost, and he
acquired at school an unusual facility in Latin composition. With Greek
authors he does not appear to have been equally familiar. During his
university course, which began in 1740, Kant was principally attracted
towards mathematics and physics. The lectures on classics do not seem to
have satisfied him, and, though he attended courses on theology, and
even preached on one or two occasions, he appears finally to have given
up the intention of entering the Church. The last years of his
university studies were much disturbed by poverty. His father died in
1746, and for nine years he was compelled to earn his own living as a
private tutor. Although he disliked the life and was not specially
qualified for it--as he used to say regarding the excellent precepts of
his _Padagogik_, he was never able to apply them--yet he added to his
other accomplishments a grace and polish which he displayed ever
afterwards to a degree somewhat unusual in a philosopher by profession.
In 1755 Kant became tutor in the family of Count Kayserling. By the
kindness of a friend named Richter, he was enabled to resume his
university career, and in the autumn of that year he graduated as doctor
and qualified as privatdocent. For fifteen years he continued to labour
in this position, his fame as writer and lecturer steadily increasing.
Though twice he failed to obtain a professorship at Konigsberg, he
steadily refused appointments elsewhere. The only academic preferment
received by him during the lengthy probation was the post of
under-librarian (1766). His lectures, at first mainly upon physics,
gradually expanded until nearly all descriptions of philosophy were
included under them.
In 1770 he obtained the chair of logic and metaphysics at Konigsberg,
and delivered as his inaugural address the dissertation _De mundi
sensibilis et intelligibilis forma et principiis_. Eleven years later
appeared the _Kritik of Pure Reason_, the work towards which he had been
steadily advancing, and of which all his later writings are
developments. In 1783 he published the _Prolegomena_, intended as an
introduction to the _Kritik_, which had been found to stand in need of
some explanatory comment. A second edition of the _Kritik_, with some
modifications, appeared in 1787, after which it remained unaltered.
In spite of its frequent obscurity, its novel terminology, and its
declared opposition to prevailing systems, the Kantian philosophy made
rapid progress in Germany. In the course of ten or twelve years from the
publication of the _Kritik of Pure Reason_, it was expounded in all the
leading universities, and it even penetrated into the schools of the
Church of Rome. Such men as J. Schulz in Konigsberg, J. G. Kiesewetter
in Berlin, Jakob in Halle, Born and A. L. Heydenreich in Leipzig, K. L.
Reinhold and E. Schmid in Jena, Buhle in Gottingen, Tennemann in
Marburg, and Snell in Giessen, with many others, made it the basis of
their philosophical teaching, while theologians like Tieftrunk,
Staudlin, and Ammon eagerly applied it to Christian doctrine and
morality. Young men flocked to Konigsberg as to a shrine of philosophy.
The Prussian Government even undertook the expense of their support.
Kant was hailed by some as a second Messiah. He was consulted as an
oracle on all questions of casuistry--as, for example, on the lawfulness
of inoculation for the small-pox. This universal homage for a long time
left Kant unaffected; it was only in his later years that he spoke of
his system as the limit of philosophy, and resented all further
progress. He still pursued his quiet round of lecturing and authorship,
and contributed from time to time papers to the literary journals. Of
these, among the most remarkable was his review of Herder's _Philosophy
of History_, which greatly exasperated that author, and led to a violent
act of retaliation some years after in his _Metakritik of Pure Reason_.
Schiller at this period in vain sought to engage Kant upon his _Horen_.
He remained true to the _Berlin Journal_, in which most of his
criticisms appeared.
In 1792 Kant, in the full height of his reputation, was involved in a
collision with the Government on the question of his religious
doctrines. Naturally his philosophy had excited the declared opposition
of all adherents of historical Christianity, since its plain tendency
was towards a moral rationalism, and it could not be reconciled to the
literal doctrines of the Lutheran Church. It would have been much better
to permit his exposition of the philosophy of religion to enjoy the same
literary rights as his earlier works, since Kant could not be
interdicted without first silencing a multitude of theologians who were
at least equally separated from positive Christianity. The Government,
however, judged otherwise; and after the first part of his book, _On
Religion within the Limits of Reason alone_, had appeared in the _Berlin
Journal_, the publication of the remainder, which treats in a more
rationalizing style of the peculiarities of Christianity, was forbidden.
Kant, thus shut out from Berlin, availed himself of his local privilege,
and, with the sanction of the theological faculty of his own university,
published the full work in Konigsberg. The Government, probably
influenced as much by hatred and fear of the French Revolution, of which
Kant was supposed to be a partisan, as by love of orthodoxy, resented
the act; and a secret cabinet order was received by him intimating the
displeasure of the king, Frederick William II., and exacting a pledge
not to lecture or write at all on religious subjects in future. With
this mandate Kant, after a struggle, complied, and kept his engagement
till 1797, when the death of the king, according to his construction of
his promise, set him free. This incident, however, produced a very
unfavourable effect on his spirits. He withdrew in 1794 from society;
next year he gave up all his classes but one public lecture on logic or
metaphysics; and in 1797, before the removal of the interdict on his
theological teaching, he ceased altogether his public labours, after an
academic course of forty-two years. He previously, in the same year,
finished his treatises on the _Metaphysics of Ethics_, which, with his
_Anthropology_, completed in 1798, were the last considerable works that
he revised with his own hand. His _Lectures on Logic_, on _Physical
Geography_, on _Paedagogics_, were edited during his lifetime by his
friends and pupils. By way of asserting his right to resume theological
disquisition, he also issued in 1798 his _Strife of the Faculties_, in
which all the strongest points of his work on religion were urged
afresh, and the correspondence that had passed between himself and his
censors was given to the world.
From the date of his retirement from the chair Kant declined in
strength, and gave tokens of intellectual decay. His memory began to
fail, and a large work at which he wrought night and day, on the
connexion between physics and metaphysics, was found to be only a
repetition of his already published doctrines. After 1802, finding
himself attacked with a weakness in the limbs attended with frequent
fits of falling, he mitigated the Spartan severity of his life, and
consented to receive medical advice. A constant restlessness oppressed
him; his sight gave way; his conversation became an extraordinary
mixture of metaphors; and it was only at intervals that gleams of his
former power broke out, especially when some old chord of association
was struck in natural science or physical geography. A few days before
his decease, with a great effort he thanked his medical attendant for
his visits in the words, "I have not yet lost my feeling for humanity."
On the 12th of February 1804 he died, having almost completed his
eightieth year. His stature was small, and his appearance feeble. He was
little more than five feet high; his breast was almost concave, and,
like Schleiermacher, he was deformed in the right shoulder. His senses
were quick and delicate; and, though of weak constitution, he escaped
by strict regimen all serious illness.
His life was arranged with mechanical regularity; and, as he never
married, he kept the habits of his studious youth to old age. His
man-servant, who awoke him summer and winter at five o'clock, testified
that he had not once failed in thirty years to respond to the call.
After rising he studied for two hours, then lectured other two, and
spent the rest of the forenoon, till one, at his desk. He then dined at
a restaurant, which he frequently changed, to avoid the influx of
strangers, who crowded to see and hear him. This was his only regular
meal; and he often prolonged the conversation till late in the
afternoon. He then walked out for at least an hour in all weathers, and
spent the evening in lighter reading, except an hour or two devoted to
the preparation of his next day's lectures, after which he retired
between nine and ten to rest. In his earlier years he often spent his
evenings in general society, where his knowledge and conversational
talents made him the life of every party. He was especially intimate
with the families of two English merchants of the name of Green and
Motherby, where he found many opportunities of meeting ship-captains,
and other travelled persons, and thus gratifying his passion for
physical geography. This social circle included also the celebrated J.
G. Hamann, the friend of Herder and Jacobi, who was thus a mediator
between Kant and these philosophical adversaries.
Kant's reading was of the most extensive and miscellaneous kind. He
cared comparatively little for the history of speculation, but his
acquaintance with books of science, general history, travels and belles
lettres was boundless. He was well versed in English literature, chiefly
of the age of Queen Anne, and had read English philosophy from Locke to
Hume, and the Scottish school. He was at home in Voltaire and Rousseau,
but had little or no acquaintance with the French sensational
philosophy. He was familiar with all German literature up to the date of
his _Kritik_, but ceased to follow it in its great development by Goethe
and Schiller. It was his habit to obtain books in sheets from his
publishers Kanter and Nicolovius; and he read over for many years all
the new works in their catalogue, in order to keep abreast of universal
knowledge. He was fond of newspapers and works on politics; and this was
the only kind of reading that could interrupt his studies in philosophy.
As a lecturer, Kant avoided altogether that rigid style in which his
books were written. He sat behind a low desk, with a few jottings on
slips of paper, or textbooks marked on the margin, before him, and
delivered an extemporaneous address, opening up the subject by partial
glimpses, and with many anecdotes or familiar illustrations, till a
complete idea of it was presented. His voice was extremely weak, but
sometimes rose into eloquence, and always commanded perfect silence.
Though kind to his students, he refused to remit their fees, as this, he
thought, would discourage independence. It was another principle that
his chief exertions should be bestowed on the intermediate class of
talent, as the geniuses would help themselves, and the dunces were
beyond remedy.
Simple, honourable, truthful, kind-hearted and high-minded as Kant was
in all moral respects, he was somewhat deficient in the region of
sentiment. He had little enthusiasm for the beauties of nature, and
indeed never sailed out into the Baltic, or travelled more than 40 miles
from Konigsberg. Music he disregarded, and all poetry that was more than
sententious prose. His ethics have been reproached with some justice as
setting up too low an ideal for the female sex. Though faithful in a
high degree to the duties of friendship, he could not bear to visit his
friends in sickness, and after their death he repressed all allusion to
their memory. His engrossing intellectual labours no doubt tended
somewhat to harden his character; and in his zeal for rectitude of
purpose he forgot the part which affection and sentiment must ever play
in the human constitution.
On the 12th of February 1904, the hundredth anniversary of Kant's death,
a Kantian society (_Kantgesellschaft_) was formed at Halle under the
leadership of Professor H. Vaihinger to promote Kantian studies. In 1909
it had an annual membership of 191; it supports the periodical
_Kantstudien_ (founded 1896; see BIBLIOGRAPHY, _ad init._).
THE WRITINGS OF KANT
No other thinker of modern times has been throughout his work so
penetrated with the fundamental conceptions of physical science; no
other has been able to hold with such firmness the balance between
empirical and speculative ideas. Beyond all question much of the
influence which the critical philosophy has exercised and continues to
exercise must be ascribed to this characteristic feature in the
training of its great author.
The early writings of Kant are almost without exception on questions
of physical science. It was only by degrees that philosophical
problems began to engage his attention, and that the main portion of
his literary activity was turned towards them. The following are the
most important of the works which bear directly on physical science.
1. _Gedanken von der wahren Schatzung der lebendigen Krafte_ (1747);
an essay dealing with the famous dispute between the Cartesians and
Leibnitzians regarding the expression for the _amount of a force_.
According to the Cartesians, this quantity was directly proportional
to velocity; according to their opponents, it varied with the square
of the velocity. The dispute has now lost its interest, for physicists
have learned to distinguish accurately the two quantities which are
vaguely included under the expression _amount of force_, and
consequently have been able to show in what each party was correct and
in what it was in error. Kant's essay, with some fallacious
explanations and divisions, criticizes acutely the arguments of the
Leibnitzians, and concludes with an attempt to show that both modes of
expression are correct when correctly limited and interpreted.
2. _Whether the Earth in its Revolution has experienced some Change
since the Earliest Times_ (1754; ed. and trans., W. Hastie, 1900,
_Kant's Cosmogony_; cf. Lord Kelvin in _The Age of the Earth_, 1897,
p. 7). In this brief essay Kant throws out a notion which has since
been carried out, in ignorance of Kant's priority, by Delaunay (1865)
and Adams. He points out that the action of the moon in raising the
waters of the earth must have a secondary effect in the slight
retardation of the earth's motion, and refers to a similar cause the
fact that the moon turns always the same face to the earth.
3. _Allgemeine Naturgeschichte und Theorie des Himmels_, published
anonymously in 1755 (4th ed. 1808; republished H. Ebert, 1890). In
this remarkable work Kant, proceeding from the Newtonian conception of
the solar system, extends his consideration to the entire sidereal
system, points out how the whole may be mechanically regarded, and
throws out the important speculation which has since received the
title of the nebular hypothesis. In some details, such e.g. as the
regarding of the motion of the entire solar system as portion of the
general cosmical mechanism, he had predecessors, among others Thomas
Wright of Durham, but the work as a whole contains a wonderfully acute
anticipation of much that was afterwards carried out by Herschel and
Laplace. The hypothesis of the original nebular condition of the
system, with the consequent explanation of the great phenomena of
planetary formations and movements of the satellites and rings, is
unquestionably to be assigned to Kant. (On this question see
discussion in W. Hastie's _Kant's Cosmogony_, as above.)
4. _Meditalionum quarundam de igne succincta delineatio_ (1755): an
inaugural dissertation, containing little beyond the notion that
bodies operate on one another through the medium of a uniformly
diffused, elastic and subtle matter (ether) which is the underlying
substance of heat and light. Both heat and light are regarded as
vibrations of this diffused ether.
5. _On the Causes of Earthquakes_ (1755); _Description of the
Earthquake of 1755_ (1756); _Consideration of some Recently
Experienced Earthquakes_ (1756).
6. _Explanatory Remarks on the Theory of the Winds_ (1756). In this
brief tract, Kant, apparently in entire ignorance of the explanation
given in 1735 by Hadley, points out how the varying velocity of
rotation of the successive zones of the earth's surface furnishes a
key to the phenomena of periodic winds. His theory is in almost entire
agreement with that now received. See the parallel statements from
Kant's tract and Dove's essay on the influence of the rotation of the
earth on the flow of its atmosphere (1835), given in Zollner's work,
_Ueber die Natur der Cometen_, pp. 477-482.
7. _On the Different Races of Men_ (1775); _Determination of the
Notion of a Human Race_ (1785); _Conjectural Beginning of Human
History_ (1786): three tracts containing some points of interest as
regards the empirical grounds for Kant's doctrine of teleology.
Reference will be made to them in the notice of the _Kritik of
Judgment_.
8. _On the Volcanoes in the Moon_ (1785); _On the Influence of the
Moon on the Weather_ (1794). The second of these contains a remarkable
discussion of the relation between the centre of the moon's figure and
its centre of gravity. From the difference between these Kant is led
to conjecture that the climatic conditions of the side of the moon
turned from us must be altogether unlike those of the face presented
to us. His views have been restated by Hansen.
9. _Lectures on Physical Geography_ (1822): published from notes of
Kant's lectures, with the approval of the author.
Consideration of these works is sufficient to show that Kant's mastery
of the science of his time was complete and thorough, and that his
philosophy is to be dealt with as having throughout a reference to
general scientific conceptions. For more detailed treatment of his
importance in science, reference may be made to Zollner's essay on
"Kant and his Merits on Natural Science" contained in the work on the
_Nature of Comets_ (pp. 426-484); to Dietrich, _Kant and Newton_;
Schultze, _Kant and Darwin_; Reuschle's careful analysis of the
scientific works in the _Deutsche Vierteljahrs-Schrift_ (1868); W.
Hastie's introduction to _Kant's Cosmogony_ (1900), which summarizes
criticism to that date; and articles in _Kant-Studien_ (1896 foll.).
The notice of the philosophical writings of Kant need not be more than
bibliographical, as in the account of his philosophy it will be
necessary to consider at some length the successive stages in the
development of his thought. Arranged chronologically these works are
as follows:--
1755. _Principiorum primorum cognitionis metaphysicae novae
dilucidatio._
1756. _Metaphysicae cum geometria junctae usus in philosophia
naturali, cujus specimen I. continet monadologiam physicam._
1762. _Die falsche Spitzfindigkeit der vier syllogistischen Figuren_,
"The False Subtlety of the Four Syllogistic Figures" (trans. T. K.
Abbott, _Kant's Introduction to Logic and his Essay on the Mistaken
Subtilty of the Figures_, 1885).
1763. _Versuch den Begriff der negativen Grossen in die Weltweisheit
einzufuhren_, "Attempt to introduce the Notion of Negative Quantities
into Philosophy."
1763. _Der einzig mogliche Beweisgrund zu einer Demonstration des
Daseins Gottes_, "The only possible Foundation for a Demonstration of
the Existence of God."
1764. _Beobachtungen uber das Gefuhl des Schonen und Erhabenen_ (Riga,
1771; Konigsberg, 1776).
1764. _Untersuchung uber die Deutlichkeit der Grundsatze der
naturlichen Theologie und Moral_, "Essay on the Evidence (Clearness)
of the Fundamental Propositions of Natural Theology and Ethics."
1766. _Traume eines Geistersehers, erlautert durch Traume der
Metaphysik_, "Dreams of a Ghost-seer (or Clairvoyant), explained by
the Dreams of Metaphysic" (Eng. trans. E. F. Goerwitz, with introd. by
F. Sewall, 1900).
1768. _Von dem ersten Grunde des Unterschiedes der Gegenden im Raum_,
"Foundation for the Distinction of Positions in Space."
The above may all be regarded as belonging to the precritical period
of Kant's development. The following introduce the notions and
principles characteristic of the critical philosophy.
1770. _De mundi sensibilis et intelligibilis forma et principiis._
1781. _Kritik der reinen Vernunft_, "Kritik of Pure Reason" (revised
ed. 1787; ed. Vaihinger, 1881 foll. and B. Erdmann, 1900; Eng. trans.,
F. Max Muller, 1896, 2nd ed. 1907, and J. M. D. Meiklejohn, 1854).
1783. _Prolegomena zu einer jeden kunftigen Metaphysik die als
Wissenschaft wird auftreten konnen_, "Prolegomena to all Future
Metaphysic which may present itself as Science" (ed. B. Erdmann, 1878;
Eng. trans. J. P. Mahaffy and J. H. Bernard, 2nd ed. 1889; Belfort
Bax, 1883 and Paul Carus, 1902; and cf. M. Apel, _Kommentar zu Kants
Prolegomena_, 1908).
1784. _Idee zu einer allgemeinen Geschichte im weltburgerlicher
Absicht_, "Notion of a Universal History in a Cosmopolitan Sense."
With this may be coupled the review of Herder in 1785.
1785. _Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten_, "Foundations of the
Metaphysic of Ethics" (see T. K. Abbott, _Fundamental Principles of
the Metaphysic of Ethics_, 3rd ed. 1907).
1786. _Metaphysische Anfangsgrunde der Naturwissenschaft_,
"Metaphysical Elements of Natural Science" (ed. A. Hofler, 1900;
trans. Belfort Bax, _Prolegomena and Metaphysical Foundations_, 1883).
1788. _Ueber den Gebrauch teleologischer Prinzipien in der
Philosophie_, "On the Employment of Teleological Principles in
Philosophy."
1788. _Kritik der praktischen Vernunft_, "Kritik of Practical Reason"
(trans. T. K. Abbott, ed. 1898).
1790. _Kritik der Urtheilskraft_, "Kritik of Judgment" (trans. with
notes J. H. Bernard, 1892).
1790. _Ueber eine Entdeckung, nach der alle neue Kritik der reinen
Vernunft durch eine altere entbehrlich gemacht werden soll_, "On a
Discovery by which all the recent Critique of Pure Reason is
superseded by a more ancient" (i.e. by Leibnitz's philosophy).
1791. _Ueber die wirklichen Fortschritte der Metaphysik seit Leibnitz
und Wolff_, "On the Real Advances of Metaphysics since Leibnitz and
Wolff"; and _Ueber das Misslingen aller philosophischen Versuche in
der Theodicee_.
1793. _Die Religion innerhalb der Grenzen der blossen Vernunft_,
"Religion within the Bounds of Reason only" (Eng. trans. J. W. Semple,
1838).
1794. _Ueber Philosophie uberhaupt_, "On Philosophy generally," and
_Das Ende aller Dinge_.
1795. _Zum ewigen Frieden_ (Eng. trans., M. Campbell Smith, 1903).
1797. _Metaphysische Anfangsgrunde der Rechtslehre_ (trans. W.
Hastie), and _Metaphysische Anfangsgrunde der Tugendlehre_.
1798. _Der Streit der Facultaten_, "Contest of the Faculties."
1798. _Anthropologie in pragmatischer Hinsicht_.
_The Kantian Philosophy._[1]
Historians are accustomed to divide the general current of speculation
into epochs or periods marked by the dominance of some single
philosophic conception with its systematic evolution. Perhaps in no
case is the character of an epoch more clearly apparent than in that
of the critical philosophy. The great work of Kant absolutely closed
the lines of speculation along which the philosophical literature of
the 18th century had proceeded, and substituted for them a new and
more comprehensive method of regarding the essential problems of
thought, a method which has prescribed the course of philosophic
speculation in the present age. The critical system has thus a twofold
aspect. It takes up into itself what had characterized the previous
efforts of modern thought, shows the imperfect nature of the
fundamental notions therein employed, and offers a new solution of the
problems to which these notions had been applied. It opens up a new
series of questions upon which subsequent philosophic reflection has
been directed, and gives to them the form, under which it is possible
that they should be fruitfully regarded. A work of this kind is
essentially epoch-making.
In any complete account of the Kantian system it is therefore
necessary that there should be constant reference, on the one hand, to
the peculiar character of the preceding 18th-century philosophy, and,
on the other hand, to the problems left for renewed treatment to more
modern thought. Fortunately the development of the Kantian system
itself furnishes such treatment as is necessary of the former
reference. For the critical philosophy was a work of slow growth. In
the early writings of Kant we are able to trace with great
definiteness the successive stages through which he passed from the
notions of the preceding philosophy to the new and comprehensive
method which gives its special character to the critical work.
Scarcely any great mind, it has been said with justice, ever matured
so slowly. In the early essays we find the principles of the current
philosophies, those of Leibnitz and English empiricism, applied in
various directions to those problems which serve as tests of their
truth and completeness; we note the appearance of the difficulties or
contradictions which manifest the one-sidedness or imperfection of the
principle applied; and we can trace the gradual growth of the new
conceptions which were destined, in the completed system, to take the
place of the earlier method. To understand the Kantian work it is
indispensable to trace the history of its growth in the mind of its
author.
Of the two preceding stages of modern philosophy, only the second,
that of Locke and Leibnitz, seems to have influenced practically the
course of Kant's speculation. With the Cartesian movement as a whole
he shows little acquaintance and no sympathy, and his own philosophic
conception is never brought into relation with the systematic
treatment of metaphysical problems characteristic of the Cartesian
method. The fundamental question for philosophic reflection presented
itself to him in the form which it had assumed in the hands of Locke
and his successors in England, of Leibnitz and the Leibnitzian school
in Germany. The transition from the Cartesian movement to this second
stage of modern thought had doubtless been natural and indeed
necessary. Nevertheless the full bearings of the philosophic question
were somewhat obscured by the comparatively limited fashion in which
it was then regarded. The tendency towards what may be technically
called subjectivism, a tendency which differentiates the modern from
the ancient method of speculation, is expressed in Locke and Leibnitz
in a definite and peculiar fashion. However widely the two systems
differ in details, they are at one in a certain fundamental conception
which dominates the whole course of their philosophic construction.
They are throughout individualist, i.e. they accept as given fact the
existence of the concrete, thinking subject, and endeavour to show how
this subject, as an individual conscious being, is related to the
wider universe of which he forms part. In dealing with such a problem,
there are evidently two lines along which investigation may proceed.
It may be asked how the individual mind comes to know himself and the
system of things with which he is connected, how the varied contents
of his experience are to be accounted for, and what certainty attaches
to his subjective consciousness of things. Regarded from the
individualist point of view, this line of inquiry becomes purely
psychological, and the answer may be presented, as it was presented by
Locke, in the fashion of a natural history of the growth of conscious
experience in the mind of the subject. Or, it may be further asked,
how is the individual really connected with the system of things
apparently disclosed to him in conscious experience? what is the
precise significance of the existence which he ascribes both to
himself and to the objects of experience? what is the nature of the
relation between himself as one part of the system, and the system as
a whole? This second inquiry is specifically metaphysical in bearing,
and the kind of answer furnished to it by Leibnitz on the one hand, by
Berkeley on the other, is in fact prescribed or determined beforehand
by the fundamental conception of the individualist method with which
both begin their investigations. So soon as we make clear to ourselves
the essential nature of this method, we are able to discern the
specific difficulties or perplexities arising in the attempt to carry
it out systematically, and thus to note with precision the special
problems presented to Kant at the outset of his philosophic
reflections.
Consider, first, the application of the method on its psychological
side, as it appears in Locke. Starting with the assumption of
conscious experience as the content or filling-in of the individual
mind, Locke proceeds to explain its genesis and nature by reference to
the real universe of things and its mechanical operation upon the
mind. The result of the interaction of mind, i.e. the individual mind,
and the system of things, is conscious experience, consisting of
ideas, which may be variously compounded, divided, compared, or dealt
with by the subjective faculties or powers with which the entity,
Mind, is supposed to be endowed. Matter of fact and matter of
knowledge are thus at a stroke dissevered. The very notion of relation
between mind and things leads at once to the counter notion of the
absolute restriction of mind to its own subjective nature. That Locke
was unable to reconcile these opposed notions is not surprising; that
the difficulties and obscurities of the Essay arise from the
impossibility of reconciling them is evident on the slightest
consideration of the main positions of that work. Of these
difficulties the philosophies of Berkeley and Hume are systematic
treatments. In Berkeley we find the resolute determination to accept
only the one notion, that of mind as restricted to its own conscious
experience, and to attempt by this means to explain the nature of the
external reality to which obscure reference is made. Any success in
the attempt is due only to the fact that Berkeley introduces alongside
of his individualist notion a totally new conception, that of mind
itself as not in the same way one of the matters of conscious
experience, but as capable of reflection upon the whole of experience
and of reference to the supreme mind as the ground of all reality. It
is only in Hume that we have definitely and completely the evolution
of the individualist notion as groundwork of a theory of knowledge;
and it is in his writings, therefore, that we may expect to find the
fundamental difficulty of that notion clearly apparent. It is not a
little remarkable that we should find in Hume, not only the sceptical
dissolution of all fixity of cognition, which is the inevitable result
of the individualist method, but also the clearest consciousness of
the very root of the difficulty. The systematic application of the
doctrine that conscious experience consists only of isolated objects
of knowledge, impressions or ideas, leads Hume to distinguish between
truths reached by analysis and truths which involve real connexion of
the objects of knowledge. The first he is willing to accept without
further inquiry, though it is an error to suppose, as Kant seems to
have supposed, that he regarded mathematical propositions as coming
under this head (see HUME); with respect to the second, he finds
himself, and confesses that he finds himself, hopelessly at fault. No
real connexions between isolated objects of experience are perceived
by us. No single matter of fact necessarily implies the existence of
any other. In short, if the difficulty be put in its ultimate form, no
existence thought as a distinct individual can transcend itself, or
imply relation to any other existence. If the parts of conscious
experience are regarded as so many distinct things, there is no
possibility of connecting them other than contingently, if at all. If
the individual mind be really thought as individual, it is impossible
to explain how it should have knowledge or consciousness at all. "In
short," says Hume, "there are two principles which I cannot render
consistent, nor is it in my power to renounce either of them, viz.
_that all our distinct perceptions are distinct existences, and that
the mind never perceives any real connexion among distinct
existences_. Did our perceptions either inhere in something simple or
individual, or did the mind perceive some real connexion among them,
there would be no difficulty in the case" (App. to _Treatise of Human
Nature_).
Thus, on the one hand, the individualist conception, when carried out
to its full extent, leads to the total negation of all real cognition.
If the real system of things, to which conscious experience has
reference, be regarded as standing in casual relation to this
experience there is no conceivable ground for the extension to reality
of the notions which somehow are involved in thought. The same result
is apparent, on the other hand, when we consider the theory of
knowledge implied in the Leibnitzian individualism. The metaphysical
conception of the monads, each of which is the universe _in nuce_,
presents insuperable difficulties when the connexion or
interdependence of the monads is in question, and these difficulties
obtrude themselves when the attempt is made to work out a consistent
doctrine of cognition. For the whole mass of cognisable fact, the
_mundus intelligibilis_, is contained _impliciter_ in each monad, and
the several modes of apprehension can only be regarded as so many
stages in the developing consciousness of the monad. Sense and
understanding, real connexion of facts and analysis of notions, are
not, therefore, distinct in kind, but differ only in degree. The same
fundamental axioms, the logical principles of identity and sufficient
reason, are applicable in explanation of all given propositions. It is
true that Leibnitz himself did not work out any complete doctrine of
knowledge, but in the hands of his successors the theory took definite
shape in the principle that the whole work of cognition is in essence
analytical. The process of analysis might be complete or incomplete.
For finite intelligences there was an inevitable incompleteness so far
as knowledge of matters of fact was concerned. In respect to them,
the final result was found in a series of irreducible notions or
categories, the _prima possibilia_, the analysis and elucidation of
which was specifically the business of philosophy or metaphysics.
It will be observed that, in the Leibnitzian as in the empirical
individualism, the fundamental notion is still that of the abstract
separation of the thinking subject from the materials of conscious
experience. From this separation arise all the difficulties in the
effort to develop the notion systematically, and in tracing the
history of Kant's philosophical progress we are able to discern the
gradual perception on his part that here was to be found the ultimate
cause of the perplexities which became apparent in considering the
subordinate doctrines of the system. The successive essays which have
already been enumerated as composing Kant's precritical work are not
to be regarded as so many imperfect sketches of the doctrines of the
_Kritik_, nor are we to look in them for anticipations of the critical
view. They are essentially tentative, and exhibit with unusual
clearness the manner in which the difficulties of a received theory
force on a wider and more comprehensive view. There can be no doubt
that some of the special features of the _Kritik_ are to be found in
these precritical essays, e.g. the doctrine of the _Aesthetik_ is
certainly foreshadowed in the _Dissertation_ of 1770; the _Kritik_,
however, is no patchwork, and what appears in the _Dissertation_ takes
an altogether new form when it is wrought into the more comprehensive
conception of the later treatise.
The particular problem which gave the occasion to the first of the
precritical writings is, in an imperfect or particular fashion, the
fundamental question to which the _Kritik_ is an answer. What is the
nature of the distinction between knowledge gained by analysis of
notions and knowledge of matters of fact? Kant seems never to have
been satisfied with the Wolffian identification of logical axioms and
of the principle of sufficient reason. The tract on the _False
Subtlety of the Four Syllogistic Figures_, in which the view of
thought or reason as analytic is clearly expressed, closes with the
significant division of judgments into those which rest upon the
logical axioms of identity and contradiction and those for which no
logical ground can be shown. Such immediate or indemonstrable
judgments, it is said, abound in our experience. They are, in fact, as
Kant presently perceived, the foundations for all judgments regarding
real existence. It was impossible that the question regarding their
nature and legitimacy and their distinction from analytic judgments
should not present itself to him. The three tracts belonging to the
years 1763-1764 bring forward in the sharpest fashion the essential
opposition between the two classes of judgments. In the _Essay on
Negative Quantities_, the fundamental thought is the total distinction
in kind between logical opposition (the contradictoriness of notions,
which Kant always viewed as formed, definite products of thought) and
real opposition. For the one adequate explanation is found in the
logical axiom of analytical thinking; for the other no such
explanation is to be had. Logical ground and real ground are totally
distinct. "I can understand perfectly well," says Kant, "how a
consequence follows from its reason according to the law of identity,
since it is discoverable by mere analysis of the notion contained in
it.... But how something follows from another thing and not according
to the law of identity, this I should gladly have made clear to me....
How shall I comprehend that, since something is, something else should
be?" Real things, in short, are distinct existences, and, as distinct,
not necessarily or logically connected in thought. "I have," he
proceeds, "reflected on the nature of our knowledge in relation to our
judgment of reason and consequent, and I intend to expound fully the
result of my reflections. It follows from them that the relation of a
real ground to that which is thereby posited or denied cannot be
expressed by a judgment but only by means of a notion, which by
analysis may certainly be reduced to yet simpler notions of real
grounds, but yet in such a way that the final resort of all our
cognition in this regard must be found in simple and irreducible
notions of real grounds, the relation of which to their consequents
cannot be made clear."
The striking similarity between Kant's expressions in this _Essay_ and
the remarks with which Hume introduces his analysis of the notion of
cause has led to the supposition that at this period of his
philosophical career Kant was definitely under the influence of the
earlier empirical thinker. Consideration of the whole passage is quite
sufficient to show the groundlessness of this supposition. The
difficulty with which Kant is presented was one arising inevitably
from reflection upon the Leibnitzian theory of knowledge, and the
solution does not in any way go beyond that theory. It is a solution,
in fact, which must have been impossible had the purport of Hume's
empirical doctrine been present to Kant's mind. He is here at the
point at which he remained for many years, accepting without any
criticism certain fundamental notions as required for real cognition.
His ideal of metaphysic is still that of complete analysis of given
notions. No glimmering of the further question, Whence come these
notions and with what right do we apply them in cognition? is yet
apparent. Any direct influence from Hume must be referred to a later
period in his career.
The prize essay _On the Principles of Natural Theology and Morals_
brings forward the same fundamental opposition--though in a special
form. Here, for the first time, appears definitely the distinction
between synthesis and analysis, and in the distinction is found the
reason for the superior certainty and clearness of mathematics as
opposed to philosophy. Mathematics, Kant thinks, proceeds
synthetically, for in it the notions are constructed. Metaphysics, on
the other hand, is analytical in method; in it the notions are given,
and by analysis they are cleared up. It is to be observed that the
description of mathematics as synthetic is not an anticipation of the
critical doctrine on the same subject. Kant does not, in this place,
raise the question as to the reason for assuming that the arbitrary
syntheses of mathematical construction have any reference to reality.
The deeper significance of synthesis has not yet become apparent.
In the _Only Possible Ground of Proof for the Existence of God_, the
argument, though largely Leibnitzian, advances one step farther
towards the ultimate inquiry. For there Kant states as precisely as in
the critique of speculative theology his fundamental doctrine that
real existence is not a predicate to be added in thought to the
conception of a possible subject. So far as subjective thought is
concerned, possibility, not real existence, is contained in any
judgment.
The year 1765 was marked by the publication of Leibnitz's posthumous
_Nouveaux Essais_, in which his theory of knowledge is more fully
stated than in any of his previous tracts. In all probability Kant
gave some attention to this work, though no special reference to it
occurs in his writings, and it may have assisted to give additional
precision to his doctrine. In the curious essay, _Dreams of a
Clairvoyant_, published 1766, he emphasizes his previously reached
conclusion that connexions of real fact are mediated in our thought by
ultimate notions, but adds that the significance and warrant for such
notions can be furnished only by experience. He is inclined,
therefore, to regard as the function of metaphysics the complete
statement of these ultimate, indemonstrable notions, and therefore the
determination of the limits to knowledge by their means. Even at this
point, where he approximates more closely to Hume than to any other
thinker, the difficulty raised by Hume does not seem to occur to him.
He still appears to think that experience does warrant the employment
of such notions, and when there is taken into account his
correspondence with Lambert during the next few years, one would be
inclined to say that the _Architektonik_ of the latter represents most
completely Kant's idea of philosophy.
On another side Kant had been shaking himself free from the principles
of the Leibnitzian philosophy. According to Leibnitz, space, the order
of coexisting things, resulted from the relations of monads to one
another. But Kant began to see that such a conception did not accord
with the manner in which we determine directions or positions in
space. In the curious little essay, _On the Ground of distinguishing
Particular Divisions in Space_, he pointed out that the idea of space
as a whole is not deducible from the experience of particular spaces,
or particular relations of objects in space, that we only cognize
relations in space by reference to space as a whole, and finally that
definite positions involve reference to space as a given whole.
The whole development of Kant's thought up to this point is
intelligible when regarded from the Leibnitzian point of view, with
which he started. There appears no reason to conclude that Hume at
this time exercised any direct influence. One may go still further,
and add that even in the _Dissertation_ of 1770, generally regarded as
more than foreshadowing the _Kritik_, the really critical question is
not involved. A brief notice of the contents of this tract will
suffice to show how far removed Kant yet was from the methods and
principles of the critical or transcendental philosophy. Sense and
understanding, according to the _Dissertation_, are the two sources of
knowledge. The objects of the one are things of sense or _phenomena_;
the objects of the other are _noumena_. These are absolutely distinct,
and are not to be regarded as differing only in degree. In _phenomena_
we distinguish _matter_, which is given by sense, and _form_, which is
the law of the order of sensations. Such form is twofold--the order of
space and time. Sensations formed by space and time compose the world
of appearance, and this when treated by the understanding, according
to logical rules, is _experience_. But the logical use of the
understanding is not its only use. Much more important is the _real_
use, by which are produced the pure notions whereby we think things as
they are. These pure notions are the laws of the operation of the
intellect; they are _leges intellectus_.
Apart, then, from the expanded treatment of space and time as
subjective forms, we find in the _Dissertation_ little more than the
very precise and definite formulation of the slowly growing opposition
to the Leibnitzian doctrines. That the pure intellectual notions
should be defended as springing from the nature of intellect is not
out of harmony with the statement of the _Traume eines Geistersehers_,
for there the pure notions were allowed to exist, but were not held to
have validity for actual things except on grounds of experience. Here
they are supposed to exist, dissevered from experience, and are
allowed validity as determinations of things in themselves.
The stage which Kant had now reached in his philosophical development
was one of great significance. The doctrine of knowledge expressed in
the _Dissertation_ was the final form which the Wolffian rationalism
could assume for him, and, though many of the elements of the _Kritik_
are contained therein, it was not really in advance of the Wolffian
theory. The doctrine of space and time as forms of sense-perception,
the reference of both space and time and the pure intellectual notions
to the laws of the activity of mind itself, the distinction between
sense and understanding as one of kind, not of degree, with the
correlative distinction between phenomena and noumena,--all of these
reappear, though changed and modified, in the _Kritik_. But, despite
this resemblance, it seems clear that, so far as the _Dissertation_ is
concerned, the way had only been prepared for the true critical
inquiry, and that the real import of Hume's sceptical problem had not
yet dawned upon Kant. From the manner, however, in which the doctrine
of knowledge had been stated in the _Dissertation_, the further
inquiry had been rendered inevitable. It had become quite impossible
for Kant to remain longer satisfied with the ambiguous position
assigned to a fundamental element of his doctrine of knowledge, the
so-called pure intellectual notions. Those notions, according to the
_Dissertation_, had no function save in relation to
things-in-themselves, i.e. to objects which are not directly or
immediately brought into relation to our faculty of cognition. They
did not serve as the connecting links of formed experience; on the
contrary, they were supposed to be absolutely dissevered from all
experience which was possible for intelligence like ours. In his
previous essays, Kant, while likewise maintaining that such pure,
irreducible notions existed, had asserted in general terms that they
applied to experience, and that their applicability or justification
rested on experience itself, but had not raised the question as to the
ground of such justification. Now, from another side, the supreme
difficulty was presented--how could such notions have application to
any objects whatsoever? For some time the correlative difficulty, how
_objects_ of sense-perception were possible, does not seem to have
suggested itself to Kant. In the _Dissertation_ sense-perception had
been taken as receptivity of representations of objects, and
experience as the product of the treatment of such representations by
the logical or analytical processes of understanding. Some traces of
this confused fashion of regarding sense-perceptions are left even in
the _Kritik_, specially perhaps in the _Aesthetik_, and they give rise
to much of the ambiguity which unfortunately attaches to the more
developed theory of cognition. So soon, however, as the critical
question was put, On what rests the reference of representations in us
to the object or thing? in other words, How do we come to have
knowledge of objects at all? it became apparent that the problem was
one of perfect generality, and applied, not only to cognition through
the pure notions, but to sense-perceptions likewise. It is in the
statement of this general problem that we find the new and
characteristic feature of Kant's work.
There is thus no reason to doubt the substantial accuracy of Kant's
reference to the particular occasion or cause of the critical inquiry.
Up to the stage indicated by the _Dissertation_ he had been
attempting, in various ways, to unite two radically divergent modes of
explaining cognition--that which would account for the content of
experience by reference to affection from things without us, and that
which viewed the intellect itself as somehow furnished with the means
of pure, rational cognition. He now discovered that Hume's sceptical
analysis of the notion of cause was really the treatment of one
typical or crucial instance of the much more general problem. If
experience, says Hume, consists solely of states of mind somehow given
to us, each of which exists as an effect, and therefore as distinct
from others, with what right do we make the common assumption that
parts of experience are necessarily connected? The only possible
answer, drawn from the premises laid down, must be that there is no
warrant for such an assumption. Necessity for thought, as Kant had
been willing to admit and as Hume also held, involves or implies
something more than is given in experience--for that which is given is
contingent--and rests upon an a priori or pure notion. But a priori
notions, did they exist, could have no claim to regulate experience.
Hume, therefore, for his part, rejected entirely the notion of cause
as being fictitious and delusive, and professed to account for the
habit of regarding experience as necessarily connected by reference to
arbitrarily formed custom of thinking. Experience, as given,
contingent material, had a certain uniformity, and recurring
uniformities generated in us the habit of regarding things as
necessarily connected. That such a resort to experience for
explanation could lead to no valid conclusion has been already noted
as evident to Hume himself.
The dogmatic or individualist conception of experience had thus proved
itself inadequate to the solution of Hume's difficulty regarding the
notion of cause,--a difficulty which Kant, erroneously, had thought to
be the only case contemplated by his predecessor. The perception of
its inadequacy in this respect, and the consequent generalization of
Hume's problem, are the essential features of the new critical method.
For Kant was now prepared to formulate his general inquiry in a
definite fashion. His long-continued reflection on the Wolffian
doctrine of knowledge had made clear to him that synthetic connexion,
the essence of real cognition, was not contained in the products of
thinking as a formal activity of mind operating on material otherwise
supplied. On the other hand, Hume's analysis enabled him to see that
synthetic connexion was not contained in experience regarded as given
material. Thus neither the formal nor the material aspect of conscious
experience, when regarded from the individualist point of view,
supplied any foundation for real knowledge, whether a priori or
empirical. An absolutely new conception of experience was necessary,
if the fact of cognition was to be explained at all, and the various
modes in which Kant expresses the business of his critical philosophy
were merely different fashions of stating the one ultimate problem,
differing according to the particular aspect of knowledge which he
happened to have in view. To inquire how synthetic a priori judgments
are possible, or how far cognition extends, or what worth attaches to
metaphysical propositions, is simply to ask, in a specific form, what
elements are necessarily involved in experience of which the subject
is conscious. How is it possible for the individual thinking subject
to connect together the parts of his experience in the mode we call
cognition?
The problem of the critical philosophy is, therefore, the complete
analysis of experience from the point of view of the conditions under
which such experience is possible for the conscious subject. The
central ideas are thus self-consciousness, as the supreme condition
under which experience is subjectively possible, and the manifold
details of experience as a varied and complex whole. The solution of
the problem demanded the utmost care in keeping the due balance
between these ideas; and it can hardly be said that Kant was perfectly
successful. He is frequently untrue to the more comprehensive
conception which dominates his work as a whole. The influence of his
previous philosophical training, nay, even the unconscious influence
of terminology, frequently induces in his statements a certain laxity
and want of clearness. He selects definitely for his starting point
neither the idea of self-consciousness nor the details of experience,
but in his actual procedure passes from one to the other, rarely, if
ever, taking into full consideration the weighty question of their
relation to one another. Above all, he is continuously under the
influence of the individualist notion which he had done so much to
explode. The conception of conscious experience, which is the net
result of the _Kritik_, is indefinitely profounder and richer than
that which had ruled the 18th century philosophizing, but for Kant
such experience still appears as somehow the arbitrary product of the
relation between the individual conscious subject and the realm of
real facts. When he is actually analysing the conditions of knowledge,
the influence of the individualist conception is not prominent; the
conditions are stated as quite general, as conditions of knowledge.
But so soon as the deeper, metaphysical problems present themselves,
the shadow of the old doctrine reappears. Knowledge is regarded as a
mechanical product, part furnished by the subject, part given to the
subject, and is thus viewed as mechanically divisible into a priori
and a posteriori, into pure and empirical, necessary and contingent.
The individual as an agent, conscious of universal moral law, is yet
regarded as in a measure opposed to experience, and the Kantian
ethical code remains purely formal. The ultimate relation between
intelligence and natural fact, expressed in the notion of end, is
thought as problematic or contingent. The difficulties or obscurities
of the Kantian system, of which the above are merely the more
prominent, may all be traced to the one source, the false or at least
inadequate idea of the individual. The more thorough explanation of
the relation between experience as critically conceived and the
individual subject was the problem left by Kant for his successors.
In any detailed exposition of the critical system it would be
requisite in the first place to state with some fullness the precise
nature of the problems immediately before Kant, and in the second
place to follow with some closeness the successive stages of the
system as presented in the three main works, the _Kritik of Pure
Reason_, the _Kritik of Practical Reason_ and the _Kritik of
Judgment_, with the more important of the minor works, the _Metaphysic
of Nature_ and the _Metaphysic of Ethics_. It would be necessary,
also, in any such expanded treatment, to bring out clearly the Kantian
classification of the philosophical sciences, and to indicate the
relation between the critical or transcendental investigation of the
several faculties and the more developed sciences to which that
investigation serves as introduction. As any detailed statement of the
critical system, however compressed, would be beyond the limits of the
present article, it is proposed here to select only the more salient
doctrines, and to point out in connexion with them what advance had
been effected by Kant, and what remained for subsequent efforts at
complete solution of the problems raised by him. Much that is of
interest and value must necessarily be omitted in any sketch of so
elaborate a system, and for all points of special interpretation
reference must needs be made to the many elaborate dissertations on or
about the Kantian philosophy.
The doctrine from which Kant starts in his critical or transcendental
investigation of knowledge is that to which the slow development of
his thought had led him. The essence of cognition or knowledge was a
synthetic act, an act of combining in thought the detached elements of
experience. Now synthesis was explicable neither by reference to pure
thought, the logical or elaborative faculty, which in Kant's view
remained analytic in function, nor by reference to the effects of
external real things upon our faculties of cognition. For, on the one
hand, analysis or logical treatment applied only to objects of
knowledge as already given in synthetic forms, and, on the other hand,
real things could yield only isolated effects and not the combination
of these effects in the forms of cognitive experience. If experience
is to be matter of knowledge for the conscious subject, it must be
regarded as the conjoint product of given material and synthetic
combination. Form and matter may indeed be regarded separably and
dealt with in isolation for purposes of critical inquiry, but in
experience they are necessarily and inseparably united. The problem of
the _Kritik_ thus becomes for Kant the complete statement of the
elements necessarily involved in synthesis, and of the subjective
processes by which these elements are realized in our individual
consciousness. He is not asking, with Locke, whence the details of
experience arise; he is not attempting a natural history of the growth
of experience in the individual mind; but he is endeavouring to state
exhaustively what conditions are necessarily involved in any fact of
knowledge, i.e. in any synthetic combination of parts of experience by
the conscious subject.
So far as the elements necessarily involved in conscious experience
are concerned, these may be enumerated briefly thus:--given data of
sense, inner or outer; the forms of perception, i.e. space and time;
the forms of thought, i.e. the categories; the ultimate condition of
knowledge, the identity of the pure ego or self. The ego or self is
the central unity in reference to which alone is any part of
experience cognizable. But the consciousness of self is the foundation
of knowledge only when related to given material. The ego has not in
itself the element of difference, and the essence of knowledge is the
consciousness of unity in difference. For knowledge, therefore, it is
necessary that difference should be _given_ to the ego. The modes
under which it is possible for such given difference to become portion
of the conscious experience of the ego, the modes under which the
isolated data can be synthetically combined so as to form a cognizable
whole, make up the form of cognition, and upon this form rests the
possibility of any a priori or rational knowledge.
The notion of the ego as a purely logical unity, containing in itself
no element of difference, and having only analytical identity, is
fundamental in the critical system, and lies at the root of all its
difficulties and perplexities. To say that the ego as an individual
does not _produce_ the world of experience is by no means the same as
to say that the ego is pure unity without element of difference. In
the one case we are treating the ego as one of the objects of
experience and denying of it productive efficacy; in the second case
we are dealing with the unity of the ego as a condition of knowledge,
of any experience whatsoever. In this second sense, it is wholly wrong
to assert that the ego is pure identity, pure unity. The unity and
identity of the ego, so regarded, are taken in abstraction, i.e. as
dissevered from the more complex whole of which they are necessary
elements. When the ego is taken as a condition of knowledge, its unity
is not more important than the difference necessarily correlated with
it. That the ego as a thing should not produce difference is quite
beside the mark. The consequences of the abstract separation which
Kant so draws between the ego and the world of experience are apparent
throughout his whole system. Assuming at the outset an opposition
between the two, self and matter of knowledge, he is driven by the
exigencies of the problem of reconciliation to insert term after term
as means of bringing them together, but never succeeds in attaining a
junction which is more than mechanical. To the end, the ego remains,
partly the pure logical ego, partly the concrete individual spirit,
and no explanation is afforded of the relation between them. It is for
this reason that the system of forms of perception and categories
appears so contingent and haphazard. No attempt is made to show how or
why the difference supplied for the pure logical ego should present
itself necessarily under these forms. They are regarded rather as
portions of the subjective mechanism of the individual consciousness.
The mind or self appears as though it were endowed with a complex
machinery by which alone it could act upon the material supplied to
it. Such a crude conception is far, indeed, from doing justice to
Kant's view, but it undoubtedly represents the underlying assumption
of many of his cardinal doctrines. The philosophy of Fichte is
historically interesting as that in which the deficiencies of Kant's
fundamental position were first discerned and the attempt made to
remedy them.
Unfortunately for the consistency of the _Kritik_, Kant does not
attempt to work out systematically the elements involved in knowledge
before considering the subjective processes by which knowledge is
realized in consciousness. He mixes up the two inquiries, and in the
general division of his work depends rather upon the results of
previous psychology than upon the lines prescribed by his own new
conception of experience. He treats the elements of cognition
separately in connexion with the several subjective processes involved
in knowledge, viz. sense and understanding. Great ambiguity is the
natural result of this procedure. For it was not possible for Kant to
avoid the misleading connotation of the terms employed by him. In
strictness, sense, understanding, imagination and reason ought to have
had their functions defined in close relation to the elements of
knowledge with which they are severally connected, and as these
elements have no existence as separate facts, but only as factors in
the complex organic whole, it might have been possible to avoid the
error of supposing that each subjective process furnished a distinct,
separately cognizable portion of a mechanical whole. But the use of
separate terms, such as sense and understanding, almost unavoidably
led to phraseology only interpretable as signifying that each
furnished a specific kind of knowledge, and all Kant's previous
training contributed to strengthen this erroneous view. Especially
noteworthy is this in the case of the categories. Kant insists upon
treating these as _Begriffe_, notions, and assigns to them certain
characteristics of notions. But it is readily seen, and in the _Logik_
Kant shows himself fully aware of the fact, that these pure connective
links of experience, general aspects of objects of intelligible
experience, do not resemble concepts formed by the so-called logical
or elaborative processes from representations of completed objects.
Nothing but harm can follow from any attempt to identify two products
which differ so entirely. So, again, the _Aesthetik_ is rendered
extremely obscure and difficult by the prevalence of the view, already
noted as obtaining in the _Dissertation_, that sense is a faculty
receiving representations of objects. Kant was anxious to avoid the
error of Leibnitz, who had taken sense and understanding to differ in
degree only, not in kind; but in avoiding the one error he fell into
another of no less importance.
The consideration of the several elements which in combination make up
the fact of cognition, or perception, as it may be called, contains
little or nothing bearing on the origin and nature of the given data
of sense, inner or outer. The manifold of sense, which plays so
important a part in the critical theory of knowledge, is left in an
obscure and perplexed position. So much is clear, however, that
according to Kant sense is not to be regarded as receptive of
representations of objects. The data of sense are mere _stimuli_, not
partial or confused representations. The sense-manifold is not to be
conceived as having, _per se_, any of the qualities of objects as
actually cognized; its parts are not cognizable _per se_, nor can it
with propriety be said to be received successively or simultaneously.
When we apply predicates to the sense-manifold regarded in isolation,
we make that which is only a factor in the experience of objects into
a separate, independent object, and use our predicates transcendently.
Kant is not always in his language faithful to his view of the
sense-manifold, but the theory as a whole, together with his own
express definitions, is unmistakable. On the origin of the data of
sense, Kant's remarks are few and little satisfactory. He very
commonly employs the term _affection_ of the faculty of sense as
expressing the mode of origin, but offers no further explanation of a
term which has significance only when interpreted after a somewhat
mechanical fashion. Unquestionably certain of his remarks indicate the
view that the origin is to be sought in things-in-themselves, but
against hasty misinterpretations of such remarks there are certain
cautions to be borne in mind. The relation between phenomena and
noumena in the Kantian system does not in the least resemble that
which plays so important a part in modern psychology--between the
subjective results of sense affection and the character of the
objective conditions of such affection. Kant has pointedly declared
that it would be a gross absurdity to suppose that in his view
separate, distinct things-in-themselves existed corresponding to the
several objects of perception. And, finally, it is not at all
difficult to understand why Kant should say that the affection of
sense originated in the action of things-in-themselves, when we
consider what was the thing-in-itself to which he was referring. The
thing-in-itself to which the empirical order and relations of
sense-experience are referred is the divine order, which is not matter
of knowledge, but involved in our practical or moral beliefs. Critics
who limit their view to the _Kritik of Pure Reason_, and there, in all
probability, to the first or constructive portion of the work, must
necessarily fail to interpret the doctrines of the Kantian system,
which do not become clear or definite till the system has been
developed. Reason was, for Kant, an organic whole; the speculative and
moral aspects are never severed; and the solution of problems which
appear at first sight to belong solely to the region of speculative
thought may be found ultimately to depend upon certain characteristics
of our nature as practical.
Data of sense-affection do not contain in themselves synthetic
combination. The first conditions of such combination are found by
Kant in the universal forms under which alone sense-phenomena manifest
themselves in experience. These universal forms of perception, space
and time, are necessary, a priori, and in characteristic features
resembling intuitions, not notions. They occupy, therefore, a peculiar
position, and one section of the _Kritik_, the _Aesthetik_, is
entirely devoted to the consideration of them. It is important to
observe that it is only through the a priori character of these
perceptive forms that rational science of nature is at all possible.
Kant is here able to resume, with fresh insight, his previous
discussions regarding the synthetic character of mathematical
propositions. In his early essays he had rightly drawn the distinction
between mathematical demonstration and philosophic proof, referring
the certainty of the first to the fact that the constructions were
synthetic in character and entirely determined by the action of
constructive imagination. It had not then occurred to him to ask, With
what right do we assume that the conclusions arrived at from arbitrary
constructions in mathematical matter have applicability to objects of
experience? Might not mathematics be a purely imaginary science? To
this question he is now enabled to return an answer. Space and time,
the two essential conditions of sense-perception, are not data given
by things, but universal forms of intellect into which all data of
sense must be received. Hence, whatever is true of space and time
regarded by imagination as objects, i.e. quantitative constructions,
must be true of the objects making up our sense-experience. The same
forms and the same constructive activity of imagination are involved
in mathematical synthesis and in the constitution of objects of
sense-experience. The foundation for pure or rational mathematics,
there being included under this the pure science of movement, is thus
laid in the critical doctrine of space and time.
The _Aesthetik_ isolates sense-perception, and considers its forms as
though it were an independent, complete faculty. A certain confusion,
arising from this, is noticeable in the _Analytik_ when the necessity
for justifying the position of the categories is under discussion, but
the real difficulty in which Kant was involved by his doctrine of
space and time has its roots even deeper than the erroneous isolation
of sensibility. He has not in any way "deduced" space and time, but,
proceeding from the ordinary current view of sense-experience, has
found these remaining as residuum after analysis. The relation in
which they stand to the categories or pure notions is ambiguous; and,
when Kant has to consider the fashion in which category and data of
sense are to be brought together, he merely places side by side as a
priori elements the pure connective notions and the pure forms of
perception, and finds it, apparently, only a matter of contingent
convenience that they should harmonize with one another and so render
cognition possible. To this point also Fichte was the first to call
attention.
Affection of sense, even when received into the pure forms of
perception, is not matter of knowledge. For cognition there is
requisite synthetic combination, and the intellectual function through
which such combination takes place. The forms of intellectual function
Kant proceeds to enumerate with the aid of the commonly received
logical doctrines. For this reference to logic he has been severely
blamed, but the precise nature of the debt due to the commonly
accepted logical classification is very generally misconceived.
Synthetic combination, Kant points out, is formally expressed in a
judgment, which is the act of uniting representations. At the
foundation of the judgments which express the types of synthetic
combination, through which knowledge is possible, lie the pure general
notions, the abstract aspect of the conditions under which objects are
cognizable in experience. General logic has also to deal with the
union of representations, though its unity is analytic merely, not
synthetic. But the same intellectual function which serves to give
unity in the analytic judgments of formal logic serves to give unity
to the synthetic combinations of real perception. It appeared evident,
then, to Kant that in the forms of judgment, as they are stated in the
common logic, there must be found the analogues of the types of
judgment which are involved in transcendental logic, or in the theory
of real cognition. His view of the ordinary logic was wide and
comprehensive, though in his restriction of the science to pure form
one can trace the influence of his earlier training, and it is no
small part of the value of the critical philosophy that it has revived
the study of logic and prepared the way for a more thorough
consideration of logical doctrines. The position assigned to logic by
Kant is not, in all probability, one which can be defended; indeed, it
is hard to see how Kant himself, in consistency with the critical
doctrine of knowledge, could have retained many of the older logical
theorems, but the precision with which the position was stated, and
the sharpness with which logic was marked off from cognate philosophic
disciplines, prepared the way for the more thoughtful treatment of the
whole question.
Formal logic thus yields to Kant the list of the general notions, pure
intellectual predicates, or categories, through which alone experience
is possible for a conscious subject. It has already been noted how
serious was the error involved in the description of these as notions,
without further attempt to clear up their precise significance. Kant,
indeed, was mainly influenced by his strong opposition to the
Leibnitzian rationalism, and therefore assigns the categories to
understanding, the logical faculty, without consideration of the
question,--which might have been suggested by the previous statements
of the _Dissertation_,--what relation these categories held to the
empirical notions formed by comparison, abstraction and generalization
when directed upon representations of objects. But when the categories
are described as notions, i.e. formed products of thought, there rises
of necessity the problem which had presented itself to Kant at every
stage of his precritical thinking,--with what right can we assume that
these notions apply to objects of experience? The answer which he
proceeds to give altogether explodes the definition of the categories
as formed products of thought, and enables us to see more clearly the
nature of the new conception of experience which lies in the
background of all the critical work.
The unity of the ego, which has been already noted as an element
entering into the synthesis of cognition, is a unity of a quite
distinct and peculiar kind. That the ego to which different parts of
experience are presented must be the same ego, if there is to be
cognition at all, is analytically evident; but the peculiarity is that
the ego must be conscious of its own unity and identity, and this
unity of self-consciousness is only possible in relation to difference
not contained in the ego but given to it. The unity of apperception,
then, as Kant calls it, is only possible in relation to synthetic
unity of experience itself, and the forms of this synthetic unity, the
categories, are, therefore, on the one hand, necessary as forms in
which self-consciousness is realized, and, on the other hand,
restricted in their application and validity to the data of given
sense, or the particular element of experience. Thus experience
presents itself as the organic combination of the particular of sense
with the individual unity of the ego through the universal forms of
the categories. Reference of representations to the unity of the
object, synthetic unity of apperception, and subsumption of data of
sense under the categories, are thus three sides or aspects of the one
fundamental fact.
In this deduction of the categories, as Kant calls it, there appears
for the first time an endeavour to connect together into one organic
whole the several elements entering into experience. It is evident,
however, that much was wanting before this essential task could be
regarded as complete. Kant has certainly brought together
self-consciousness, the system of the categories and data of sense. He
has shown that the conditions of self-consciousness are the conditions
of possible experience. But he has not shown, nor did he attempt to
show, how it was that the conditions of self-consciousness are the
very categories arrived at by consideration of the system of logical
judgments. He does endeavour to show, but with small success, how the
junction of category and data of sense is brought about, for according
to his scheme these stood, to a certain extent at least, apart from
and independent of one another. The failure to effect an organic
combination of the several elements was the natural consequence of the
false start which had been made.
The mode in which Kant endeavours to show how the several portions of
cognition are subjectively realized brings into the clearest light the
inconsistencies and imperfections of his doctrine. Sense had been
assumed as furnishing the particular of knowledge, understanding as
furnishing the universal; and it had been expressly declared that the
particular was cognizable only in and through the universal. Still,
each was conceived as somehow in itself complete and finished. Sense
and understanding had distinct functions, and there was wanting some
common term, some intermediary which should bring them into
conjunction. Data of sense as purely particular could have nothing in
common with the categories as purely universal. But data of sense had
at least one universal aspect,--their aspect as the particular of the
general forms, space and time. Categories were in themselves abstract
and valueless, serviceable only when restricted to possible objects of
experience. There was thus a common ground on which category and
intuition were united in one, and an intermediate process whereby the
universal of the category might be so far individualized as to
comprehend the particular of sense. This intermediate process--which
is really the junction of understanding and sense--Kant calls
productive imagination, and it is only through productive imagination
that knowledge or experience is actually realized in our subjective
consciousness. The specific forms of productive imagination are called
_schemata_, and upon the nature of the schema Kant gives much that has
proved of extreme value for subsequent thought.
Productive imagination is thus the concrete element of knowledge, and
its general modes are the abstract expression of the a priori laws of
all possible experience. The categories are restricted in their
applicability to the schema, i.e. to the pure forms of conjunction of
the manifold in time, and in the modes of combination of schemata and
categories we have the foundation for the rational sciences of
mathematics and physics. Perception or real cognition is thus
conceived as a complex fact, involving data of sense and pure
perceptive forms, determined by the category and realized through
productive imagination in the schema. The system of principles which
may be deduced from the consideration of the mode in which
understanding and sense are united by productive imagination is the
positive result of the critical theory of knowledge, and some of its
features are remarkable enough to deserve attention. According to his
usual plan, Kant arranges these principles in conformity with the
table of the categories, dividing the four classes, however, into two
main groups, the mathematical and the dynamical. The mathematical
principles are the abstract expression of the necessary mode in which
data of sense are determined by the category in the form of intuitions
or representations of objects; the dynamical are the abstract
expression of the modes in which the existence of objects of intuition
is determined. The mathematical principles are constitutive, i.e.
express determinations of the objects themselves; the dynamical are
regulative, i.e. express the conditions under which objects can form
parts of real experience. Under the mathematical principles come the
general rules which furnish the ground for the application of
quantitative reasoning to real facts of experience. For as data of
sense are only possible objects when received in the forms of space
and time, and as space and time are only cognized when determined in
definite fashion by the understanding through the schema of number
(quantity) or degree (quality), all intuitions are extensive
quantities and contain a real element, that of sense, which has
degree. Under the dynamical principles, the general modes in which the
existence of objects are determined, fall the analogies of experience,
or general rules according to which the existence of objects in
relation to one another can be determined, and the postulates of
experience, the general rules according to which the existence of
objects for us or our own subjective existence can be determined. The
analogies of experience rest upon the order of perceptions in time,
i.e. their permanence, succession or coexistence, and the principles
are respectively those of substance, causality and reciprocity. It is
to be observed that Kant in the expression of these analogies reaches
the final solution of the difficulty which had so long pressed upon
him, the difficulty as to the relation of the pure connective notions
to experience. These notions are not directly applicable to
experience, nor do we find in experience anything corresponding to the
pure intellectual notions of substance, cause and reciprocity. But
experience is for us the combination of data of sense in the forms of
productive imagination, forms determined by the pure intellectual
notions, and accordingly experience is possible for us only as in
modes corresponding to the notions. The permanent in time is substance
in any possible experience, and no experience is possible save through
the determination of all changes as in relation to a permanent in
time. Determined sequence is the causal relation in any possible
experience, and no experience is possible save through the
determination of perceived changes as in relation to a determined
order in time. So with coexistence and reciprocity.
The postulates of experience are general expressions of the
significance of existence in the experience of a conscious subject.
The element of reality in such experience must always be given by
intuition, and, so far as determination of existence is assumed,
external intuition is a necessary condition of inner intuition. The
existence of external things is as certain as the existence of the
concrete subject, and the subject cannot cognise himself as existing
save in relation to the world of facts of external perception. Inner
and outer reality are strictly correlative elements in the experience
of the conscious subject.
Throughout the positive portion of his theory of cognition, Kant has
been beset by the doctrine that the categories, as finished, complete
notions, have an import or significance transcending the bounds of
possible experience. Morever, the manner in which space and time had
been treated made it possible for him to regard these as contingent
forms, necessary for intelligences like ours, but not to be viewed as
absolutely necessary. The real meaning of these peculiarities is
hardly ever expressed by him, though it is clear that the solution of
the matter is to be found in the inadequacy of the positive theory to
meet the demands of reason for completed explanation. But the
conclusion to which he was led was one of the greatest importance for
the after development of his system. Cognition is necessarily limited.
The categories are restricted in their application to elements of
possible experience to that which is presented in intuition, and all
intuition is for the ego contingent. But to assert that cognition is
limited and its matter contingent is to form the idea of an
intelligence for whom cognition would not be limited and for whom the
data of intuition would not be given, contingent facts, but
necessarily produced along with the pure categories. This idea of an
intuitive understanding is the definite expression for the complete
explanation which reason demands, and it involves the conception of a
realm of objects for such an understanding, a realm of objects which,
in opposition to the _phenomena_ of our relative and limited
experience, may be called _noumena_ or things-in-themselves. The
_noumenon_, therefore, is in one way the object of a non-sensuous
intuition, but more correctly is the expression of the limited and
partial character of our knowledge. The idea of a noumenon is thus a
limiting notion.
Assuredly, the difficult section of the _Kritik_, on the ground of the
distinction between phenomena and noumena, would not have led to so
much misconception as it has done, had Kant then brought forward what
lies at the root of the distinction, his doctrine of reason and its
functions. Understanding, as has been seen, is the faculty of
cognition strictly so called; and within its realm, that of space,
time and matter, positive knowledge is attainable. But the ultimate
conception of understanding, that of the world of objects,
quantitatively determined, and standing in relation of mutual
reciprocity to one another, is not a final ground of explanation. We
are still able and necessitated to reflect upon the whole world of
phenomena as thus cognized, and driven to inquire after its
significance. In our reflection we necessarily treat the objects, not
as phenomena, as matters of positive, scientific knowledge, but as
things-in-themselves, as noumena. The distinction between phenomena
and noumena is, therefore, nothing but the expression of the
distinction between understanding and reason, a distinction which,
according to Kant, is merely subjective.
The specific function of reason is the effort after completed
explanation of the experience presented in cognition. But in such
effort there are no notions to be employed other than the categories,
and these, as has already been seen, have validity only in reference
to objects of possible experience. We may expect, then, to find the
transcendent employment of the categories leading into various
difficulties and inconsistencies. The criticism of reason in its
specific aspect throws fresh light on the limits to human knowledge
and the significance of experience.
Experience has presented itself as the complex result of relation
between the ego or subject and the world of phenomena. Reason may
therefore attempt a completed explanation either of the ego or of the
world of phenomena or of the total relation between them. The three
inquiries correspond to the subjects of the three ancient metaphysical
sciences, rational psychology, rational cosmology, rational theology.
It is readily seen, in regard to the first of them, that all attempts
to determine the nature of the ego as a simple, perdurable, immaterial
substance rest upon a confusion between the ego as pure logical unity
and the ego as object of intuition, and involve a transcendent use of
the categories of experience. It profits not to apply such categories
to the soul, for no intuition corresponding to them is or can be
given. The idea of the soul must be regarded as transcendent. So too
when we endeavour, with the help of the categories of quantity,
quality, relation and modality, to determine the nature and relation
of parts of the world, we find that reason is landed in a peculiar
difficulty. Any solution that can be given is too narrow for the
demands of reason and too wide for the restrictions of understanding.
The transcendent employment of the categories leads to antinomy, or
equally balanced statements of apparently contradictory results. Due
attention to the relation between understanding and reason enables us
to solve the antinomies and to discover their precise origin and
significance. Finally, the endeavour to find in the conception of God,
as the supreme reality, the explanation of experience, is seen to lead
to no valid conclusion. There is not any intuition given whereby we
might show the reality of our idea of a Supreme Being. So far as
knowledge is concerned, God remains a transcendental ideal.
The criticism of the transcendental ideas, which is also the
examination of the claims of metaphysic to rank as a science, yields a
definite and intelligible result. These ideas, the expression of the
various modes in which unity of reason may be sought, have no objects
corresponding to them in the sphere of cognition. They have not,
therefore, like the categories, any _constitutive_ value, and all
attempts at metaphysical construction with the notions or categories
of science must be resigned as of necessity hopeless. But the ideas
are not, on that account, destitute of all value. They are supremely
significant, as indicating the very essence of the function of reason.
The limits of scientific cognition become intelligible, only when the
sphere of understanding is subjected to critical reflexion and
compared with the possible sphere of reason, that is, the sphere of
rationally complete cognition. The ideas, therefore, in relation to
knowledge strictly so called, have _regulative_ value, for they
furnish the general precepts for extension and completion of
knowledge, and, at the same time, since they spring from reason
itself, they have a real value in relation to reason as the very
inmost nature of intelligence. Self-consciousness cannot be regarded
as merely a mechanically determined result. Free reflection upon the
whole system of knowledge is sufficient to indicate that the sphere of
intuition, with its rational principles, does not exhaust conscious
experience. There still remains, over and above the realm of nature,
the realm of free, self-conscious spirit; and, within this sphere, it
may be anticipated that the ideas will acquire a significance richer
and deeper than the merely regulative import which they possess in
reference to cognition.
Where, then, are we to look for this realm of free self-consciousness?
Not in the sphere of cognition, where objects are mechanically
determined, but in that of will or of reason as practical. That reason
is practical or prescribes ends for itself is sufficiently manifest
from the mere fact of the existence of the conception of morality or
duty, a conception which can have no corresponding object within the
sphere of intuition, and which is theoretically, or in accordance with
the categories of understanding, incognizable. The presence of this
conception is the datum upon which may be founded a special
investigation of the conditions of reason as practical, a _Kritik_ of
pure practical reason, and the analysis of it yields the statement of
the formal prescripts of morality.
The realization of duty is impossible for any being which is not
thought as free, i.e. capable of self-determination. Freedom, it is
true, is theoretically not an object of cognition, but its
impossibility is not thereby demonstrated. The theoretical proof
rather serves as useful aid towards the more exact determination of
the nature and province of self-determination, and of its relation to
the whole concrete nature of humanity. For in man self-determination
and mechanical determination by empirical motives coexist, and only in
so far as he belongs and is conscious of belonging both to the sphere
of sense and to the sphere of reason does moral obligation become
possible for him. The supreme end prescribed by reason in its
practical aspect, namely, the complete subordination of the empirical
side of nature to the prescripts of morality, demands, as conditions
of its possible realization, the permanence of ethical progress in the
moral agent, the certainty of freedom in self-determination, and the
necessary harmonizing of the spheres of sense and reason through the
intelligent author or ground of both. These conditions, the postulates
of practical reason, are the concrete expressions of the three
transcendental ideas, and in them we have the full significance of the
ideas for reason. Immortality of the soul, positive freedom of will,
and the existence of an intelligent ground of things are speculative
ideas practically warranted, though theoretically neither demonstrable
nor comprehensible.
Thus reason as self-determining supplies notions of freedom; reason as
determined supplies categories of understanding. Union between the two
spheres, which seem at first sight disparate, is found in the
necessary postulate that reason shall be realized, for its realization
is only possible in the sphere of sense. But such a union, when
regarded _in abstracto_, rests upon, or involves, a notion of quite a
new order, that of the adaptation of nature to reason, or, as it may
be expressed, that of end in nature. Understanding and reason thus
coalesce in the faculty of _judgment_, which mediates between, or
brings together, the universal and particular elements in conscious
experience. Judgment is here merely _reflective_; that is to say, the
particular element is given, so determined as to be possible material
of knowledge, while the universal, not necessary for cognition, is
supplied by reason itself. The empirical details of nature, which are
not determined by the categories of understanding, are judged as being
arranged or ordered by intelligence, for in no other fashion could
nature, in its particular, contingent aspect, be thought as forming a
complete, consistent, intelligible whole.
The investigation of the conditions under which adaptation of nature
to intelligence is conceivable and possible makes up the subject of
the third great _Kritik_, the _Kritik of Judgment_, a work presenting
unusual difficulties to the interpreter of the Kantian system. The
general principle of the adaptation of nature to our faculties of
cognition has two specific applications, with the second of which it
is more closely connected than with the first. In the first place, the
adaptation may be merely _subjective_, when the empirical condition
for the exercise of judgment is furnished by the feeling of pleasure
or pain; such adaptation is aesthetic. In the second place, the
adaptation may be objective or logical, when empirical facts are given
of such a kind that their possibility can be conceived only through
the notion of the end realized in them; such adaptation is
teleological, and the empirical facts in question are organisms.
Aesthetics, or the scientific consideration of the judgments resting
on the feelings of pleasure and pain arising from the harmony or want
of harmony between the particular of experience and the laws of
understanding, is the special subject of the _Kritik of Judgment_, but
the doctrine of teleology there unfolded is the more important for the
complete view of the critical system. For the analysis of the
teleological judgment and of the consequences flowing from it leads to
the final statement of the nature of experience as conceived by Kant.
The phenomena of organic production furnish data for a special kind of
judgment, which, however, involves or rests upon a quite general
principle, that of the contingency of the particular element in nature
and its subjectively necessary adaptation to our faculty of cognition.
The notion of contingency arises, according to Kant, from the fact
that understanding and sense are distinct, that understanding does not
determine the particular of sense, and, consequently, that the
principle of the adaptation of the particular to our understanding is
merely supplied by reason on account of the peculiarity or limited
character of understanding. End in nature, therefore, is a subjective
or problematic conception, implying the limits of understanding, and
consequently resting upon the idea of an understanding constituted
unlike ours--of an intuitive understanding in which particular and
universal should be given together. The idea of such an understanding
is, for cognition, transcendent, for no corresponding fact of
intuition is furnished, but it is realized with practical certainty in
relation to reason as practical. For we are, from practical grounds,
compelled with at least practical necessity to ascribe a certain aim
or end to this supreme understanding. The moral law, or reason as
practical, prescribes the realization of the highest good, and such
realization implies a higher order than that of nature. We must,
therefore, regard the supreme cause as a moral cause, and nature as so
ordered that realization of the moral end is in it possible. The final
conception of the Kantian philosophy is, therefore, that of ethical
teleology. As Kant expresses it in a remarkable passage of the
_Kritik_, "The systematic unity of ends in this world of
intelligences, which, although as mere nature it is to be called only
the world of sense, can yet as a system of freedom be called an
intelligible, i.e. moral world (_regnum gratiae_), leads inevitably to
the teleological unity of all things which constitute this great whole
according to universal natural laws, just as the unity of the former
is according to universal and necessary moral laws, and unites the
practical with the speculative reason. The world must be represented
as having originated from an idea, if it is to harmonize with that use
of reason without which we should hold ourselves unworthy of
reason--viz. the moral use, which rests entirely on the idea of the
supreme good. Hence all natural research tends towards the form of a
system of ends, and in its highest development would be a
physico-theology. But this, since it arises from the moral order as a
unity grounded in the very essence of freedom and not accidentally
instituted by external commands, establishes the teleology of nature
on grounds which a priori must be inseparably connected with the inner
possibility of things. The teleology of nature is thus made to rest on
a transcendental theology, which takes the ideal of supreme
ontological perfection as a principle of systematic unity, a principle
which connects all things according to universal and necessary natural
laws, since they all have their origin in the absolute necessity of a
single primal being" (p. 538).
BIBLIOGRAPHY.--Editions and works of reference are exceedingly
numerous. Since 1896 an indispensable guide is the periodical review
_Kantstudien_ (Hamburg and Berlin, thrice yearly), edited by Hans
Vaihinger and Bruno Bauch, which contains admirable original articles
and notices of all important books on Kant and Kantianism. It has
reproduced a number of striking portraits of Kant. For books up to
1887 see Erich Adickes in _Philosophical Review_ (Boston, 1892 foll.);
for 1890-1894 R. Reicke's _Kant Bibliographie_ (1895). See also in
general the latest edition of Ueberweg's _Grundriss der Geschichte der
Philosophie_.
EDITIONS.--Complete editions of Kant's works are as follows: (1) G.
Hartenstein (Leipzig, 1838-1839, 10 vols.); (2) K. Rosenkranz and F.
W. Schubert (Leipzig, 1838-1840, 12 vols., the 12th containing a
history of the Kantian school); (3) G. Hartenstein, "in chronological
order" (Leipzig, 1867-1869, 8 vols.); (4) Kirchmann (in the
"Philosophische Bibliothek," Berlin, 1868-1873, 8 vols, and
supplement); (5) under the auspices of the Koniglich Preussische
Akademie der Wissenschaften, a new collected edition was begun in 1900
(vol. ii., 1906) in charge of a number of editors. It was planned in
four sections: Works, Letters, MSS. Remains and _Vorlesungen_. There
are also useful editions of the three _Kritiks_ by Kehrbach, and
critical editions of the _Prolegomena_ and _Kritik der reinen
Vernunft_ by B. Erdmann (see also his _Beitrage zur Geschichte und
Revision des Textes von Kants Kritik der reinen Vernunft_ (1900). A
useful selection (in English) is that of John Watson, _The Philosophy
of Kant_ (Glasgow, 1888).
TRANSLATIONS.--There are translations in all the principal languages.
The chief English translators are J. P. Mahaffy, W. Hastie, T. K.
Abbott, J. H. Bernard and Belfort Bax. Their versions have been
mentioned in the section on "Works" above.
BIOGRAPHICAL.--Schubert in the 11th vol. of Rosenkranz's edition;
Borowski, _Darstellung des Lebens und Charakters Kants_ (Konigsberg,
1804); Wasianski, _Kant in seinen letzten Lebensjahren_ (Konigsberg,
1804); Stuckenberg, _The Life of Immanuel Kant_ (1882); Rudolf Reicke,
_Kants Briefwechsel_ (1900). See also several of the critical works
below. On Kant's portraits see D. Minden, _Ueber Portraits und
Abbildungen Imm. Kants_ (1868) and cf. frontispieces of _Kantstudien_
(as above).
CRITICAL (in alphabetical order of authors).--R. Adamson, _Philosophy
of Kant_ (1879; Germ. trans., 1880); Felix Adler, _A Critique of
Kant's Ethics_ (1908); S. Aicher, _Kants Begriff der Erkenntnis
verglichen mit dem des Aristoteles_ (1907); M. Apel, _Immanuel Kant:
Ein Bild seines Lebens und Denkens_ (1904); Arnoldt, _Kritische
Exkurse im Gebiete der Kantforschung_ (1894); C. Bache, "_Kants
Prinzip der Autonomie im Verhaltnis zur Idee des Reichs der Zwecke_"
(_Kantstudien_, 1909); B. Bauch, _Luther und Kant_ (1904); Paul Boehm,
_Die vorkritischen Schriften Kants_ (1906); E. Caird, _Critical
Philosophy of Kant_ (2 vols., 1889); Chalybaus, _Historische
Entwickelung der spekulativen Philosophie von Kant bis Hegel_ (5th
ed., 1860); H. S. Chamberlain, _Immanuel Kant_ (1909); Cousin, _Lecons
sur la philosophie de Kant_ (4th ed., 1864); B. Erdmann, _Immanuel
Kant, Kants Kritizismus in der 1 und 2 Auflage der "Kritik der reinen
Vernunft_" (1877); O. Ewald, _Kants kritischer Idealismus als
Grundlage von Erkenntnistheorie und Ethik_ (1908) and _Kants
Methodologie in ihren Grundzugen_ (1906); Kuno Fischer, _Immanuel
Kant_ (4th ed., 1898-1899), _Die beiden Kantischen Schulen in Jena_
(1862), and _Commentary on Kant's Kritik of Pure Reason_ (1878); F.
Forster, _Der Entwicklungsgang der Kantischen Ethik bis zur Kritik der
reinen Vernunft_ (1893); A. Fouillee, _Le Moralisme de Kant et
l'amoralisme contemporaine_ (1905); C. R. E. von Hartmann, _Kants
Erkenntnistheorie und Metaphysik in den vier Perioden ihrer
Entwickelung_ (1894); A. Hegler, _Die Psychologie in Kants Ethik_
(1891); G. D. Hicks, _Die Begriffe Phanomenon und Noumenon in ihrem
Verhaltniss zu einander bei Kant_ (1897); G. Jacoby, _Herders und
Kants Aesthetik_ (1907); W. Kabitz, _Studien zur
Entwickelungsgeschichte der Fichteschen Wissenschaftslehre aus der
Kantischen Philosophie_ (1902); M. Kelly, _Kant's Philosophy as
rectified by Schopenhauer_ (1909); W. Koppelmann, _I. Kant und die
Grundlagen der christlichen Religion_ (1890); M. Kronenberg, _Kant:
Sein Leben und seine Lehre_ (1897; 3rd ed., 1905); E. Kuhnemann,
_Kants und Schillers Begrundung der Aesthetik_ (1895) and _Die
Kantischen Studien Schillers und die Komposition des Wallenstein_
(1889); H. Levy, _Kants Lehre vom Schematismus der reinen
Verstandesbegriffe_ (1901); Arthur O. Lovejoy, _Kant and the English
Platonists_ (1908); J. P. Mahaffy, _Kant's Critical Philosophy for
English Readers_ (1872-1874); W. Mengel, _Kants Begrundung der
Religion_ (1900); A. Messer, _Kants Ethik_ (1904); H. Meyer-Benfey,
_Herder und Kant_ (1904); Morris, _Kant's Critique of Pure Reason_
(Chicago, 1882); C. Oesterreich, _Kant und die Metaphysik_ (1906); F.
Paulsen, _Kant: Sein Leben und seine Lehre_ (1898; 4th ed., 1904; Eng.
1902); Harold H. Prichard, _Kant's Theory of Knowledge_ (1909); A.
Seth Pringle-Pattison, _The Development from Kant to Hegel_ (1882);
and, on Kant's philosophy of religion, in _The Philosophic Radicals_
(1907); F. Rademaker, _Kants Lehren vom innern Sinn in der Kritik der
reinen Vernunft_ (1908); R. Reininger, _Kants Lehre vom inneren Sinn
und seine Theorie der Erfahrung_ (1900); C. B. Renouvier, _Critique de
la doctrine de Kant_ (1906); H. Romundt, _Kants philosophische
Religionslehre eine Frucht der gesammten Vernunftkritik_ (1902); T.
Ruyssen, _Kant_ (1900); E. Saenger, _Kants Lehre vom Glauben_ (1903);
O. Schapp, _Kants Lehre vom Genie und die Entstehung der "Kritik der
Urteilskraft"_ (1901); Carl Schmidt, _Beitrage zur Entwickelung der
Kant'schen Ethik_ (1900); A. Schweitzer, _Die Religionsphilosophie
Kants_ (1899); H. Sidgwick, _Lectures on the Philosophy of Kant_
(1905); J. H. Stirling, _Text Book to Kant_ (1881); G. Simmel, _Kant
und Goethe_ (1906); L. Staehlin, _Kant, Lotze und Ritschl_ (1889); O.
Thon, _Die Grundprinzipien der Kantischen Moralphilosophie_ (1895); T.
Valentiner, _Kant und die platonische Philosophie_ (1904); C.
Vorlander, _Kant, Schiller, Goethe_ (1907); G. C. Uphues, _Kant und
sein Vorganger_ (1906); W. Wallace, _Kant_ (1905); M. Wartenberg,
_Kants Theorie der Kausalitat_ (1899); John Watson, _Philosophy of
Kant Explained_ (1908), _Kant and his English Critics_ (1881); A.
Weir, _A Student's Introduction to Critical Philosophy_ (1906); G. A.
Wyneken, _Hegel's Kritik Kants_ (1898); W. Windelband, _Kuno Fischer
und sein Kant_ (1897).
On Kant's theory of education, see E. F. Buchner, _The Educational
Theory of Immanuel Kant_ (trans., ed., intro., 1904); trans. of _Ueber
Padagogik_ by Annette Churton (1899); J. Geluk, _Kant_ (1883).
(R. Ad.; X.)
FOOTNOTE:
[1] See further IDEALISM; METAPHYSICS; LOGIC, &c., where Kant's
relation to subsequent thought is discussed.
KANURI, or BERIBERI, an African tribe of mixed origin, the dominant race
of Bornu. They are large-boned and coarse-featured, but contain
nevertheless a distinct strain of Fula blood. Beriberi (or Berberi) is
the name given them by the Hausa (see BORNU).
KAOLIN, a pure white clay, know also as china-clay, since it is an
essential ingredient in the manufacture of china, or porcelain. The word
kaolin, formerly written by some authors caulin, is said to be a
corruption of the Chinese _Kau-ling_, meaning "High Ridge," the name of
a hill east of King-te-chen, whence the earliest samples of the clay
sent to Europe were obtained by the Pere d'Entrecolles, a French Jesuit
missionary in China in the early part of the 18th century. His
specimens, examined in Paris by R. A. Reaumur, showed that true
porcelain, the composition of which had not previously been known in
Europe, contained two essential ingredients, which came to be
known--though it now appears incorrectly--as kaolin and petuntse,
corresponding respectively to our china-clay and china-stone. The kaolin
confers plasticity on the paste and secures retention of form for the
ware when exposed to the heat of the kiln, whilst the petuntse gives the
translucency so characteristic of porcelain. Some of the earliest
discoveries of kaolin in Europe were at Aue, near Schneeberg in Saxony,
and at St Yrieix, near Limoges in France. In England it was discovered
in Cornwall about the year 1750 by William Cookworthy, of Plymouth; and
in 1768 he took out his patent for making porcelain from moorstone or
growan (china-stone) and growan clay (kaolin), the latter imparting
"whiteness and infusibility" to the china. These raw materials were
found first at Tregonning Hill, near Breage, and afterwards at St
Stephen's in Brannel, near St Austell; and their discovery led to the
manufacture of hard paste, or true porcelain, at Plymouth and
subsequently at Bristol.
Kaolin is a hydrous aluminium silicate, having the formula H4Al2Si2O9,
or Al2Si2O7.2H2O, but in common clay this silicate is largely mixed with
impurities. Certain clays contain pearly white hexagonal scales, usually
microscopic, referable to the monoclinic system, and having the chemical
composition of kaolin. This crystalline substance was termed kaolinite
by S. W. Johnson and J. M. Blake in 1867, and it is now regarded as the
basis of pure clay. The kaolinite of Amlwch in Anglesey has been studied
by Allan Dick. The origin of kaolin may be traced to the alteration of
certain aluminous silicates like feldspar, scapolite, beryl and topaz;
but all large deposits of china-clay are due to the decomposition of
feldspar, generally in granite, but sometimes in gneiss, pitchstone, &c.
The turbidity of many feldspars is the result of partial
"kaolinization," or alteration to kaolin. The china-clay rocks of
Cornwall and Devon are granites in which the orthoclase has become
kaolinized. These rocks are sometimes known as carclazite, a name
proposed by J. H. Collins from a typical locality, the Carclaze mine,
near St Austell. It has often been supposed that the alteration of the
granite has been effected mainly by meteoric agencies, the carbonic acid
having decomposed the alkaline silicate of the feldspar, whilst the
aluminous silicate assumes a hydrated condition and forms kaolin. In
many cases, however, it seems likely that the change has been effected
by subterranean agencies, probably by heated vapours carrying fluorine
and boron, since minerals containing these elements, like tourmaline,
often occur in association with the china-clay. According to F. H.
Butler the kaolinization of the west of England granite may have been
effected by a solution of carbonic acid at a high temperature, acting
from below.
The china-stone, or petuntse, is a granitic rock which still retains
much of the unaltered feldspar, on which its fusibility depends. In
order to prepare kaolin for the market, the china-clay rock is broken
up, and the clay washed out by means of water. The liquid containing
the clay in mechanical suspension is run into channels called "drags"
where the coarser impurities subside, and whence it passes to another
set of channels known as "micas," where the finer materials settle down.
Thus purified, the clay-water is led into a series of pits or tanks, in
which the finely divided clay is slowly deposited; and, after acquiring
sufficient consistency, it is transferred to the drying-house, or "dry,"
heated by flues, where the moisture is expelled, and the kaolin obtained
as a soft white earthy substance. The clay has extensive application in
the arts, being used not only in ceramic manufacture but in
paper-making, bleaching and various chemical industries.
Under the species "kaolinite" may be included several minerals which
have received distinctive names, such as the Saxon mineral called from
its pearly lustre nacrite, a name originally given by A. Brongniart to a
nacreous mica; pholerite found chiefly in cracks of ironstone and named
by J. Guillemin from the Greek [Greek: pholis], a scale; and lithomarge,
the old German _Steinmark_, a compact clay-like body of white, yellow or
red colour. Dr C. Hintze has pointed out that the word pholerite should
properly be written pholidite ([Greek: pholis, pholidos]). Closely
related to kaolinite is the mineral called halloysite, a name given to
it by P. Berthier after his uncle Omalius d'Halloy, the Belgian
geologist. (F. W. R.*)
KAPUNDA, a municipal town of Light county, South Australia, 48 m. by
rail N.N.E. of Adelaide. Pop. (1901), 1805. It is the centre of a large
wheat-growing district. The celebrated copper mines discovered in 1843
were closed in 1879. There are quarries near the town, in which is found
fine marble of every colour from dark blue to white. This marble was
largely used in the Houses of Parliament at Adelaide.
KAPURTHALA, a native state of India, within the Punjab. Area, 652 sq.
m.; pop. (1901), 314,341, showing an increase of 5% in the decade;
estimated gross revenue, L178,000; tribute, L8700. The Kapurthala family
is descended from Jassa Singh, a contemporary of Nadir Shah and Ahmad
Shah, who by his intelligence and bravery made himself the leading Sikh
of his day. At one time it held possessions on both sides of the Sutlej,
and also in the Bari Doab. The cis-Sutlej estates and scattered tracts
in the Bari Doab were forfeited owing to the hostility of the chief in
the first Sikh war; but the latter were afterwards restored in
recognition of the loyalty of Raja Randhir Singh during the mutiny of
1857, when he led a contingent to Oudh which did good service. He also
received a grant of land in Oudh, 700 sq. m. in extent, yielding a gross
rental of L89,000. In Oudh, however, he exercises no sovereign powers,
occupying only the status of a large landholder, with the title of
Raja-i-Rajagan. Raja Sir Jagatjit Singh, K.C.S.I., was born in 1872,
succeeded his father in 1877, and attained his majority in 1890. During
the Tirah expedition of 1897-98 the Kapurthala imperial service infantry
took a prominent part. The territory is crossed by the railway from
Jullundur to Amritsar. The state has a large export trade in wheat,
sugar, tobacco and cotton. The hand-painted cloths and metal-work of
Phagwara are well known. The town of Kapurthala is 11 miles from
Jullundur; pop. (1901), 18,519.
KARACHI, or KURRACHEE, a seaport and district of British India, in the
Sind province of Bombay. The city is situated at the extreme western end
of the Indus delta, 500 m. by sea from Bombay and 820 m. by rail from
Lahore, being the maritime terminus of the North-Western railway, and
the main gateway for the trade of the Punjab and part of central Asia.
It is also the capital of the province of Sind. Pop. (1881), 73,500;
(1891), 105,199; (1901), 115,407. Before 1725 no town appears to have
existed here; but about that time some little trade began to centre upon
the convenient harbour, and the silting up of Shahbandar, the ancient
port of Sind, shortly afterwards drove much of its former trade and
population to the rising village. Under the Kalhora princes, the khan of
Kalat obtained a grant of the town, but in 1795 it was captured by the
Talpur Mirs, who built the fort at Manora, at the entrance to the
harbour. They also made considerable efforts to increase the trade of
the port and at the time of the British acquisition of the province the
town and suburbs contained a population of 14,000. This was in 1843,
from which time the importance of the place practically dates.
The harbour of Karachi has an extreme length and breadth of about 5 m.
It is protected by the promontory of Manora Head; and the entrance is
partially closed by rocks and by the peninsula (formerly an island) of
Kiamari. On Manora Head, which is fortified, are the buildings of the
port establishment, a cantonment, &c. Kiamari is the landing-place for
passengers and goods, and has three piers and railway connexions. The
harbour improvements were begun in 1854 with the building of the Napier
Mole or causeway connecting Kiamari with the mainland. The entrance has
a minimum depth of 25 ft.; and a large number of improvements and
extensions have been carried out by the harbour board, which was created
in 1880, and transformed in 1886 into the port trust.
The great extension of the canal colonies in the Punjab, entirely
devoted to the cultivation of wheat, has immensely increased the export
trade of Karachi. It now ranks as the third port of India, being
surpassed only by Calcutta and Bombay. The principal articles of export,
besides wheat, are oil-seeds, cotton, wool, hides and bones. The annual
value of exports, including specie, amounts to about nine millions
sterling. There are iron works and manufactures of cotton cloth, silk
scarves and carpets. The fisheries and oyster beds are important.
Among the principal public buildings are government house, the Frere
municipal hall, and the Napier barracks. The military cantonments,
stretching north-east of the city, form the headquarters of a brigade in
the 4th division of the southern army. An excellent water supply is
provided by an underground aqueduct 18 m. in length. The chief
educational institutions are the Dayaram Jethmal Arts College, with a
law class; five high schools, of which two are for Europeans and one for
Mahommedans; a convent school for girls; and an engineering class. The
average rainfall for the year is about 5 in. The rainy months are July
and August, but one or two heavy showers usually fall about Christmas.
The end of May, beginning of June, and first fortnight in October are
hot. November, December, January, February and March are delightfully
cool and dry; the remaining months are damp with a constant cool sea
breeze.
The DISTRICT OF KARACHI has an area of 11,970 sq. m. Pop. (1901),
607,439, showing an increase of 6% in the decade. It consists of an
immense tract of land stretching from the mouth of the Indus to the
Baluch boundary. It differs in general appearance from the rest of Sind,
having a rugged, mountainous region along its western border. The
country gradually slopes away to the south-east, till in the extreme
south the Indus delta presents a broad expanse of low, flat and
unpicturesque alluvium. Besides the Indus and its mouths, the only river
in the district is the Hab, forming the boundary between Sind and
Baluchistan. The Manchhar lake in Sehwan sub-division forms the only
considerable sheet of water in Sind. The hot springs at Pir Mangho are 6
m. N. of Karachi town. The principal crops are rice, millets, oil-seeds
and wheat. In addition to Karachi, there are seaports at Sirgonda and
Keti Bandar, which conduct a considerable coasting trade. Tatta was the
old capital of Sind. Kotri is an important railway station on the Indus.
The main line of the North-Western railway runs through the district.
From Kotri downwards the line has been doubled to Karachi, and at Kotri
a bridge has been constructed across the Indus opposite Hyderabad, to
connect with the Rajputana railway system.
See A. F. Baillie, _Kurrachee: Past, Present and Future_ (1890).
KARAGEORGE (in Servian, _Karadyordye_) (c. 1766-1817), the leader of the
Servians during their first revolution against the Turks (1804-13), and
founder of the Servian dynasty Karageorgevich. His Christian name was
George (Dyordye), but being not only of dark complexion but of gloomy,
taciturn and easily excitable temper, he was nicknamed by the Servians
"Tsrni Dyordye" and by the Turks "Karageorge," both meaning "Black
George," the Turkish name becoming soon the generally adopted one. He
was born in 1766 (according to some in 1768), the son of an extremely
poor Servian peasant, Petroniye Petrovich. When quite a young man, he
entered the service of a renowned Turkish brigand, Fazli-Bey by name,
and accompanied his master on his adventurous expeditions. When twenty
he married and started a small farm. But having killed a Turk, he left
Servia for Syrmia, in Croatia-Slavonia, where the monks of the monastery
Krushedol engaged him as one of their forest guards. He remained in the
service of the monks nearly two years, then enlisted into an Austrian
regiment, and as sergeant took part in the Austrian war against Turkey
(1788-91). He deserted his regiment, returned to Servia, and settled in
the village of Topola, living sometimes as a peaceful farmer and
sometimes again as the leader of a small band of "hayduks"--men who
attacked, robbed and in most cases killed the travelling Turks in
revenge for the oppression of their country.
The circumstances in which the Servians rose against the janissaries of
the pashalik of Belgrade are related in the article on SERVIA. The
leaders of the insurgents' bands and other men of influence met about
the middle of February 1804 at the village of Orashatz, and there
elected Karageorge as the supreme leader (Vrhovni Vozd) of the nation.
Under his command the Servians speedily cleared their country not only
of the janissaries disloyal to the Sultan, but of all other Turks, who
withdrew from the open country to the fortified places. Karageorge and
his armed Servians demanded from the Sultan the privileges of
self-government. The Porte, confronted by the chances of a war with
Russia, decided in the autumn of 1806 to grant to the Servians a fairly
large measure of autonomy. Unfortunately Karageorge was comparatively
poor in political gifts and diplomatic tact. While the _hattisherif_
granting the rights demanded by the Servians was on the way to Servia,
Karageorge attacked the Turks in Belgrade and Shabats, captured the
towns first and then also the citadels, and allowed the Turkish
population of Belgrade to be massacred. At the same time the Russian
headquarters in Bucharest informed Karageorge that Russia was at war
with Turkey and that the Tsar counted on the co-operation of the
Servians. Karageorge and his Servians then definitely rejected all the
concessions which the Porte had granted them, and joined Russia, hoping
thereby to secure the complete independence of Servia. The co-operation
of the Servians with the Russians was of no great importance, and
probably disappointing to both parties. But as the principal theatre of
war was far away from Servia on the lower Danube, Karageorge was able to
give more attention to the internal organization of Servia. The national
assembly proclaimed Karageorge the hereditary chief and _gospodar_ of
the Servians (Dec. 26, 1808), he on his part promising under oath to
govern the country "through and by the national council" (senate).
Karageorge's hasty and uncompromising temper and imperious habits, as
well as his want of political tact, soon made him many enemies amongst
the more prominent Servians (voyvodes and senators). His difficulties
were considerably increased by the intrigues of the Russian political
agent to Servia, Rodophinikin. A crisis came during the summer months of
the year 1813. The treaty of peace, concluded by the Russians somewhat
hurriedly in Bucharest in 1812, did not secure efficiently the safety of
the Servians. The Turks demanded from Karageorge, as a preliminary
condition for peace, that the Servians should lay down their arms, and
Karageorge refused to comply. Thereupon the entire Turkish army which
fought against the Russians on the Danube, being disengaged, invaded
Servia. After a few inefficient attempts to stem the invasion,
Karageorge gave up the struggle, and with most of the voyvodes and
chiefs of the nation left the country, and crossed to Hungary as a
refugee (Sept. 20, 1813). From Hungary he went to Russia and settled in
Khotin (Bessarabia), enjoying a pension from the Tsar's government. But
in the summer of 1817 he suddenly and secretly left Russia and
reappeared quite alone in Servia in the neighbourhood of Semendria
(Smederevo) on the Danube. The motives and the object of his return are
not clear. Some believe that he was sent by the Hetaerists to raise up
Servia to a new war with Turkey and thereby facilitate the rising of the
Greek people. It is generally assumed, however, that, having heard that
Servia, under the guidance of Milosh Obrenovich, had obtained a certain
measure of self-government, he desired to put himself again at the head
of the nation. This impression seems to have been that of Milosh
himself, who at once reported to the Pasha of Belgrade the arrival of
Karageorge. The pasha demanded that Karageorge, alive or dead, should be
delivered to him immediately, and made Milosh personally responsible for
the execution of that order. Karageorge's removal could not
unfortunately be separated from the personal interest of Milosh; already
acknowledged as chief of the nation, Milosh did not like to be displaced
by his old chief, who in a critical moment had left the country.
Karageorge was killed (July 27, O.S., 1817) while he was asleep, and his
head was sent to the pasha for transmission to Constantinople. It is
impossible to exonerate Milosh Obrenovich from responsibility for the
murder, which became the starting-point for a series of tragedies in the
modern history of Servia.
Karageorge was one of the most remarkable Servians of the 19th century.
No other man could have led the bands of undisciplined and badly-armed
Servian peasants to such decisive victories against the Turks. Although
he never assumed the title of prince, he practically was the first chief
and master (_gospodar_) of the people of Servia. He succeeded, however,
not because he was liked but because he was feared. His gloomy silence,
his easily aroused anger, his habit of punishing without hesitation the
slightest transgressions by death, spread terror among the people. He is
believed to have killed his own father in a fit of anger when the old
man refused to follow him in his flight to Hungary at the beginning of
his career. In another fit of rage at the report that his brother
Marinko had assaulted a girl, he ordered his men to seize his brother
and to hang him there and then in his presence, and he forbade his
mother to go into mourning for him. Even by his admirers he is admitted
to have killed by his own hand no fewer than 125 men who provoked his
anger. But in battles he is acknowledged to have been always admirable,
displaying marvellous energy and valour, and giving proofs of a real
military genius. The Servians consider him one of their greatest men. In
grateful remembrance of his services to the national cause they elected
his younger son, Alexander, in 1842, to be the reigning prince of
Servia, and again in 1903 they chose his grandson, Peter Karageorgevich
(son of Alexander) to be the king of Servia.
See SERVIA; also Ranke, _Die serbische Revolution_; Stoyan Novakovich,
_Vaskzhs srpske drzhave_ (Belgrade, 1904); M. G. Milityevich,
_Karadyordye_ (Belgrade, 1904). (C. Mi.)
KARA-HISSAR ("Black Castle"). (1) AFIUM KARA-HISSAR (q.v.). (2) ICHJE,
or ISCHA KARA-HISSAR (anc. _Docimium_), a small village about 14 m. N.E.
of No. 1. Docimium was a Macedonian colony established on an older site.
It was a self-governing municipality, striking its own coins, and stood
on the Apamea-Synnada-Pessinus road, by which the celebrated marble
called Synnadic, Docimian and Phrygian was conveyed to the coast. The
quarries are 2(1/2) m. from the village, and the marble was carried
thence direct to Synnada (Chifut Kassaba). Some of the marble has the
rich purple veins in which poets saw the blood of Atys.
See W. M. Ramsay, _Hist. Geog. of Asia Minor_ (London, 1890); Murray,
_Hbk. to Asia Minor_ (1893).
KARA-HISSAR SHARKI [i.e. "eastern Kara-Hissar"], also called Shabin
Kara-Hissar from the alum mines in its vicinity, the chief town of a
sanjak of the same name in the Sivas vilayet of Asia Minor. Pop. about
12,000, two-thirds Mussulman. It is the Roman _Colonia_, which gradually
superseded Pompey's foundation, _Nicopolis_, whose ruins lie at Purkh,
about 12 m. W. (hence Kara-Hissar is called Nikopoli by the Armenians).
In later Byzantine times it was an important frontier station, and did
not pass into Ottoman hands till twelve years after the capture of
Constantinople. The town, altitude 4860 ft., is built round the foot of
a lofty rock, upon which stand the ruins of the Byzantine castle,
_Maurocastron_, the Kara Hissar Daula of early Moslem chroniclers. It is
connected with its port, Kerasund, and with Sivas, Erzingan and Erzerum,
by carriage roads.
KARAISKAKIS, GEORGES (1782-1827), leader in the War of Greek
Independence, was born at Agrapha in 1782. During the earlier stages of
the war he served in the Morea, and had a somewhat discreditable share
in the intrigues which divided the Greek leaders. But he showed a sense
of the necessity for providing the country with a government, and was a
steady supporter of Capo d'Istria. His most honourable services were
performed in the middle and later stages of the war. He helped to raise
the first siege of Missolonghi in 1823, and did his best to save the
town in the second siege in 1826. In that year he commanded the patriot
forces in Rumelia, and though he failed to co-operate effectually with
other chiefs, or with the foreign sympathizers fighting for the Greeks,
he gained some successes against the Turks which were very welcome amid
the disasters of the time. He took a share in the unsuccessful attempts
to raise the siege of Athens in 1827, and made an effort to prevent the
disastrous massacre of the Turkish garrison of fort S Spiridion. He was
shot in action on the 4th of May 1827. Finlay speaks of him as a capable
partisan leader who had great influence over his men, and describes him
as of "middle size, thin, dark-complexioned, with a bright expressive
animal eye which indicated gipsy blood."
See G. Finlay, _History of the Greek Revolution_ (London, 1861).
KARAJICH, VUK STEFANOVICH (1787-1864), the father of modern Servian
literature, was born on the 6th of November 1787 in the Servian village
of Trshich, on the border between Bosnia and Servia. Having learnt to
read and write in the old monastery Tronosha (near his native village),
he was engaged as writer and reader of letters to the commander of the
insurgents of his district at the beginning of the first Servian rising
against the Turks in 1804. Mostly in the position of a scribe to
different voyvodes, sometimes as school-teacher, he served his country
during the first revolution (1804-1813), at the collapse of which he
left Servia, but instead of following Karageorge and other voyvodes to
Russia he went to Vienna. There he was introduced to the great Slavonic
scholar Yerney Kopitar, who, having heard him recite some Servian
national ballads, encouraged him to collect the poems and popular songs,
write a grammar of the Servian language, and, if possible, a dictionary.
This programme of literary work was adhered to by Karajich, who all his
life acknowledged gratefully what he owed to his learned teacher.
In the second half of the 18th and in the beginning of the 19th century
all Servian literary efforts were written in a language which was not
the Servian vernacular, but an artificial language, of which the
foundation was the Old Slavonic in use in the churches, but somewhat
Russianized, and mixed with Servian words forced into Russian forms.
That language, called by its writers "the Slavonic-Servian," was neither
Slavonic nor Servian. It was written in Old Cyrillic letters, many of
which had no meaning in the Servian language, while there were several
sounds in that language which had no corresponding signs or letters in
the Old Slavonic alphabet. The Servian philosopher Dositey Obradovich
(who at the end of the 18th century spent some time in London teaching
Greek) was the first Servian author to proclaim the principle that the
books for the Servian people ought to be written in the language of the
people. But the great majority of his contemporaries were of opinion
that the language of Servian literature ought to be evolved out of the
dead Old Slavonic of the church books. The church naturally decidedly
supported this view. Karajich was the great reformer who changed all
this. Encouraged by Kopitar, he published in 1814 (2nd ed., 1815) in
Vienna his first book, _Mala Prostonarodna Slaveno-Serbska Pyesmaritsa_
("A small collection of Slavonic-Servian songs of the common people"),
containing a hundred lyric songs, sung by the peasant women of Servia,
and six poems about heroes, or as the Servians call them _Yunachke
pesme_, which are generally recited by the blind bards or by peasants.
From that time Karajich's literary activity moved on two parallel lines:
to give scientific justification and foundation to the adoption of the
vernacular Servian as the literary language; and, by collecting and
publishing national songs, folk-lore, proverbs, &c., to show the
richness of the Servian people's poetical and intellectual gifts, and
the wealth and beauty of the Servian language. By his reform of the
Servian alphabet and orthography, his Servian grammar and his Servian
dictionary, he established the fact that the Servian language contains
thirty distinct sounds, for six of which the Old Slavonic alphabet had
no special letters. He introduced new letters for those special sounds,
at the same time throwing out of the Old Slavonic alphabet eighteen
letters for which the Servian language had no use. This reform was
strenuously opposed by the church and many conservative authors, who
went so far as to induce the Servian government to prohibit the printing
of books in new letters, a prohibition removed in 1859. Karajich's
alphabet facilitated his reform of orthography, his principle being:
_write as you speak, and read as it is written_! Hardly any other
language in the civilized world has such a simple, logical, scientific
spelling system and orthography as the Servian has in Karajich's system.
His first grammatical essay was published in Vienna in 1814, _Pismenitsa
Serbskoga yezika po govoru prostoga naroda_ ("The grammar of the Servian
language as spoken by the common people"). An improved edition appeared
in Vienna in 1818, together with his great work _Srpski Ryechnik_
(Lexicon Serbico-Germanico-Latinum). This dictionary--containing 26,270
words--was full of important contributions to folk-lore, as Karajich
never missed an opportunity to add to the meaning of the word the
description of the national customs or popular beliefs connected with
it. A new edition of his dictionary, containing 46,270 words, was
published at Vienna in 1852. Meanwhile he gave himself earnestly to the
work of collecting the "creations of the mind of the Servian common
people." He travelled through Servian countries (Servia, Bosnia,
Herzegovina, Montenegro, Dalmatia, Syrmia, Croatia), and the result was
shown in a largely augmented edition of his _Srpske Narodne Pyesme_, of
which the first three volumes appeared at Leipzig in 1823 and 1824, the
fourth volume appearing at Vienna in 1833. _Popular Stories and Enigmas_
was published in 1821, and _Servian National Proverbs_ in 1836. From
1826 to 1834 he was the editor of an annual, called _Danitsa_ (The
Morning Star), which he filled with important contributions concerning
the ethnography and modern history of the Servian people. In 1828 he
published a historical monograph, _Milosh Obrenovich, Prince of Servia_;
in 1837, in German, _Montenegro and Montenegrins_; in 1867, _The Servian
Governing Council of State_. He supplied Leopold Ranke with the
materials for his _History of the Servian Revolution_. He also
translated the New Testament into Servian, for the British and Foreign
Bible Society (Vienna, 1847). Karajich died in Vienna on the 6th of
February 1864; and his remains were transferred to Belgrade in 1897 with
great solemnity and at the expense of the government of Servia.
(C. Mi.)
KARA-KALPAKS ("Black Caps"), a Mongolo-Tatar people, originally dominant
along the east coast of the Aral Sea, where they still number some
thousands. They thus form geographically the transition between the
northern Kirghiz and the southern Turkomans. Once a powerful nation,
they are scattered for the most part in Astrakhan, Perm, Orenburg, in
the Caucasian province of Kuban, and in Tobolsk, Siberia, numbering in
all about 50,000. These emigrants have crossed much with the alien
populations among whom they have settled; but the pure type on the Aral
Sea are a tall powerful people, with broad flat faces, large eyes, short
noses and heavy chins. Their women are the most beautiful in Turkestan.
The name of "Black Caps" is given them in allusion to their high
sheepskin hats. They are a peaceful agricultural folk, who have suffered
much from their fierce nomad neighbours.
KARAKORUM (Turkish, "black stone debris"), the name of two cities in
Mongolia. One of these, according to G. Potanin, was the capital of the
Uighur kingdom in the 8th century, and the other was in the 13th century
a capital of the steppe monarchy of Mongolia. The same name seems also
to have been applied to the Khangai range at the headwaters of the
Orkhon. (1) The Uighur KARAKORUM, also named Mubalik ("bad town"), was
situated on the left bank of the Orkhon, in the Talal-khain-dala steppe,
to the south-east of Ughei-nor. It was deserted after the fall of the
Uighur kingdom, and in the 10th century Abaki, the founder of the Khitan
kingdom, planted on its ruins a stone bearing a description of his
victories. (2) The Mongolian KARAKORUM was founded at the birth of the
Mongolian monarchy established by Jenghiz Khan. A palace for the khan
was built in it by Chinese architects in 1234, and its walls were
erected in 1235. Plano Carpini visited it in 1246, Rubruquis in 1253,
and Marco Polo in 1275. Later, the fourth Mongolian king, Kublai, left
Karakorum, in order to reside at Kai-pin-fu, near Peking. When the khan
Arik-bog declared himself and Karakorum independent of Kublai-Khan, the
latter besieged Karakorum, took it by famine, and probably laid it waste
so thoroughly that the town was afterwards forgotten.
The exact sites of the two Mongolian capitals were only established in
1889-1891. Sir H. Yule (_The Book of Marco Polo_, 1871) was the first to
distinguish two cities of this name. The Russian traveller Paderin in
1871 visited the Uighur capital (see TURKS), named now by the Mongols
Kara Balghasun ("black city") or Khara-kherem ("black wall"), of which
only the wall and a tower are in existence, while the streets and ruins
outside the wall are seen at a distance of 1(3/4) m. Paderin's belief
that this was the old Mongol capital has been shown to be incorrect. As
to the Mongolian Karakorum, it is identified by several authorities with
a site on which towards the close of the 16th century the Buddhist
monastery of Erdeni Tsu was built. This monastery lies about 25 m. south
by east of the Uighur capital. North and north-east of the monastery are
ruins of ancient buildings. Professor D. Pozdneev, who visited Erdeni
Tsu for a second time in 1892, stated that the earthen wall surrounding
the monastery might well be part of the wall of the old city. The proper
position of the two Karakorums was determined by the expedition of N.
Yadrintsev in 1889, and the two expeditions of the Helsingfors
Ugro-Finnish society (1890) and the Russian academy of science, under Dr
W. Radlov (1891), which were sent out to study Yadrintsev's discovery.
See _Works (Trudy) of the Orkhon Expedition_ (St Petersburg, 1892);
Yule's _Marco Polo_, edition revised by Henri Cordier (of Paris), vol.
i. ch. xlvi. (London, 1903). Cordier confines the use of Karakorum to
the Mongol capital; Pozdneev, _Mongolia and the Mongols_, vol. i. (St
Petersburg, 1896); C. W. Campbell, "Journeys in Mongolia," _Geog.
Journ._ vol. xx. (1903), with map. Campbell's report was printed as a
parliamentary paper (_China No. 1, 1904_).
KARA-KUL, the name of two lakes ("Great" and "Little ") of Russian
Turkestan, in the province of Ferghana, and on the Pamir plateau. Great
Kara-kul, 12 m. long and 10 m. wide (formerly much larger), is under 39
deg. N., to the south of the Trans-Alai range, and lies at an altitude
of 13,200 ft.; it is surrounded by high mountains, and is reached from
the north over the Kyzyl-art pass (14,015 ft.). A peninsula projecting
from the south shore and an island off the north shore divide it into
two basins, a smaller eastern one which is shallow, 42 to 63 ft., and a
larger western one, which has depths of 726 to 756 ft. It has no
drainage outlet. Little Kara-kul lies in the north-east Pamir, or
Sarikol, north-west of the Mustagh-ata peak (25,850 ft.), at an altitude
of 12,700 ft. It varies in depth from 79 ft. in the south to 50 to 70
ft. in the middle, and 1000 ft. or more in the north. It is a moraine
lake; and a stream of the same name flows through it, but is named Ghez
in its farther course towards Kashgar in East Turkestan.
KARA-KUM ("Black Sands"), a flat desert in Russian Central Asia. It
extends to nearly 110,000 sq. m., and is bounded on the N.W. by the
Ust-urt plateau, between the Sea of Aral and the Caspian Sea, on the
N.E. by the Amu-darya, on the S. by the Turkoman oases, and on the W. it
nearly reaches the Caspian Sea. Only part of this surface is covered
with sand. There are broad expanses (_takyrs_) of clay soil upon which
water accumulates in the spring; in the summer these are muddy, but
later quite dry, and merely a few Solanaceae and bushes grow on them.
There is also _shor_, similar to the above but encrusted with salt and
gypsum, and relieved only by Solanaceae along their borders. The
remainder is occupied with sand, which, according to V. Mainov, assumes
five different forms. (1) _Barkhans_, chiefly in the east, which are
mounds of loose sand, 15 to 35 ft. high, hoof-shaped, having their
gently sloping convex sides turned towards the prevailing winds, and a
concave side, 30 deg. to 40 deg. steep, on the opposite slope. They are
disposed in groups or chains, and the winds drive them at an average
rate of 20 ft. annually towards the south and south-east. Some grass
(_Stipa pennata_) and bushes of _saksaul_ (_Haloxylon ammodendron_) and
other steppe bushes (e.g. _Calligonium_, _Halimodendron_ and
_Atraphaxis_) grow on them. (2) Mounds of sand, of about the same size,
but irregular in shape and of a slightly firmer consistence, mostly
bearing the same bushes, and also _Artemisia_ and _Tamarix_; they are
chiefly met with in the east and south. (3) A sandy desert, slightly
undulating, and covered in spring with grass and flowers (e.g. tulips,
_Rheum_, various Umbelliferae), which are soon burned by the sun; they
cover very large spaces in the south-east. (4) Sands disposed in waves
from 50 to 70 ft., and occasionally up to 100 ft. high, at a distance of
from 200 to 400 ft. from each other; they cover the central portion, and
their vegetation is practically the same as in the preceding division.
(5) Dunes on the shores of the Caspian, composed of moving sands, 35 to
80 ft. high and devoid of vegetation.
A typical feature of the Kara-kum is the number of "old river beds,"
which may have been either channels of tributaries of the Amu and other
rivers or depressions which contained elongated salt lakes. Water is
only found in wells, 10 to 20 m. apart--sometimes as much as 100
m.--which are dug in the takyrs and give saline water, occasionally
unfit to drink, and in pools of rain-water retained in the lower parts
of the takyrs. The population of the Kara-kum, consisting of nomad
Kirghiz and Turkomans, is very small. The region in the north of the
province of Syr-darya, between Lake Aral and Lake Chalkarteniz, is also
called Kara-kum. (P. A. K.; J. T. Be.)
KARAMAN (anc. _Laranda_, a name still used by the Christian
inhabitants), a town in the Konia vilayet of Asia Minor, situated in the
plain north of Mount Taurus. Pop. 8000. It has few industries and little
trade, but the medieval walls, well preserved castle and mosques are
interesting, and the old Seljuk _medresse_, or college, is a beautiful
building. Karaman is connected with Konia by railway, having a station
on the first section of the Bagdad railway. Little is known of its
ancient history except that it was destroyed by Perdiccas about 322
B.C., and afterwards became a seat of Isaurian pirates. It was occupied
by Frederick Barbarossa in 1190; in 1466 it was captured by Mahommed
II., and in 1486 by Bayezid II.
KARAMANIA, formerly an independent inland province in the south of Asia
Minor, named after Karaman, the son of an Armenian convert to Islam, who
married a daughter of Ala ed-Din Kaikobad, the Seljuk sultan of Rum, and
was granted Laranda in fief, and made governor of Selefke, 1223-1245.
The name Karaman is, however, Turkoman and that of a powerful tribe,
settled apparently near Laranda. The Armenian convert must have been
adopted into this. On the collapse of the Seljuk empire, Karaman's
grandson, Mahmud, 1279-1319, founded a state, which included Pamphylia,
Lycaonia and large parts of Cilicia, Cappadocia and Phrygia. Its
capital, Laranda, superseded Konia. This state was frequently at war
with the kings of Lesser Armenia, the Lusignan princes of Cyprus and the
knights of Rhodes. It was also engaged in a long struggle for supremacy
with the Osmanli Turks, which only ended in 1472, when it was definitely
annexed by Mahommed II. The Osmanlis divided Karamania into Kharij
north, and Ichili south, of the Taurus, and restored Konia to its
metropolitan position. The name Karamania is now often given by
geographers to Ichili only; but so far as it has had any exact
significance in modern times, it has stood for the whole province of
Konia. Before the present provincial division was made (1864), Karamania
was the eyalet of which Konia was the capital, and it did not extend to
the sea, the whole littoral from Adalia eastward being under the pasha
of Adana. Nevertheless, in Levantine popular usage at the present day,
"Karamania" signifies the coast from Adalia to Messina. (D. G. H.)
KARAMNASA, a river of northern India, tributary to the Ganges on its
right bank, forming the boundary between Bengal and the United
Provinces. The name means "destroyer of religious merit," which is
explained by more than one legend. To this day all high-caste Hindus
have to be carried over without being defiled by the touch of its
waters.
KARA MUSTAFA (d. 1683), Turkish vizier, surnamed "Merzifunli," was a son
of Uruj Bey, a notable Sipahi of Merzifun (Marsovan), and brother-in-law
to Ahmed Kuprili, whom he succeeded as grand vizier in 1676, after
having for some years held the office of Kaimmakam or _locum tenens_.
His greed and ostentation were equalled by his incapacity, and he
behaved with characteristic insolence to the foreign ambassadors, from
whom he extorted large bribes. After conducting a campaign in Poland
which terminated unfortunately, he gave a ready response to the appeal
for aid made by the Hungarians under Imre Thokoly (q.v.) when they rose
against Austria, his hope being to form out of the Habsburg dominions a
Mussulman empire of the West, of which he should be the sultan. The plan
was foiled in part by his own lack of military skill, but chiefly
through the heroic resistance of Vienna and its timely relief by John
Sobieski, king of Poland. Kara Mustafa paid for his defeat with his
life; he was beheaded at Belgrade in 1683 and his head was brought to
the sultan on a silver dish.
Another KARA MUSTAFA PASHA (d. 1643), who figures in Turkish history,
was by birth a Hungarian, who was enrolled in the Janissaries, rose to
be Kapudan Pasha under Murad IV., and after the capture of Bagdad was
made grand vizier. He was severe, but just and impartial, and strove to
effect necessary reforms by reducing the numbers of the Janissaries,
improving the coinage, and checking the state expenditure. But the
discontent of the Janissaries led to his dismissal and death in 1643.
KARAMZIN, NIKOLAI MIKHAILOVICH (1765-1826), Russian historian, critic,
novelist and poet, was born at the village of Mikhailovka, in the
government of Orenburg, and not at Simbirsk as many of his English and
German biographers incorrectly state, on the 1st of December (old style)
1765. His father was an officer in the Russian army, of Tatar
extraction. He was sent to Moscow to study under Professor Schaden,
whence he afterwards removed to St Petersburg, where he made the
acquaintance of Dmitriev, a Russian poet of some merit, and occupied
himself with translating essays by foreign writers into his native
language. After residing some time at St Petersburg, he went to
Simbirsk, where he lived in retirement till induced to revisit Moscow.
There, finding himself in the midst of the society of learned men, he
again betook himself to literary work. In 1789 he resolved to travel,
and visited Germany, France, Switzerland and England. On his return he
published his _Letters of a Russian Traveller_, which met with great
success. These letters were first printed in the _Moscow Journal_, which
he edited, but were afterwards collected and issued in six volumes
(1797-1801). In the same periodical Karamzin also published translations
of some of the tales of Marmontel, and some original stories, among
which may be mentioned _Poor Liza_ and _Natalia the Boyar's Daughter_.
In 1794 and 1795 Karamzin abandoned his literary journal, and published
a miscellany in two volumes, entitled _Aglaia_, in which appeared, among
other things, "The Island of Bornholm" and "Ilia Mourometz," a story
based upon the adventures of the well-known hero of many a Russian
legend. In 1797-1799 he issued another miscellany or poetical almanac,
_The Aonides_, in conjunction with Derzhavin and Dmitriev. In 1798 he
compiled _The Pantheon_, a collection of pieces from the works of the
most celebrated authors ancient and modern, translated into Russian.
Many of his lighter productions were subsequently printed by him in a
volume entitled _My Trifles_. In 1802 and 1803 Karamzin edited the
journal the _European Messenger_. It was not until after the publication
of this work that he realized where his strength lay, and commenced his
_History of the Russian Empire_. In order to accomplish the task, he
secluded himself for two years; and, on the cause of his retirement
becoming known to the emperor Alexander, Karamzin was invited to Tver,
where he read to the emperor the first eight volumes of his history. In
1816 he removed to St Petersburg, where he spent the happiest days of
his life, enjoying the favour of Alexander, and submitting to him the
sheets of his great work, which the emperor read over with him in the
gardens of the palace of Tzarskoe Selo. He did not, however, live to
carry his work further than the eleventh volume, terminating it at the
accession of Michael Romanov in 1613. He died on the 22nd of May (old
style) 1826, in the Taurida palace. A monument was erected to his memory
at Simbirsk in 1845.
As an historian Karamzin has deservedly a very high reputation. Till
the appearance of his work little had been done in this direction in
Russia. The preceding attempt of Tatistchev was merely a rough sketch,
inelegant in style, and without the true spirit of criticism. Karamzin
was most industrious in accumulating materials, and the notes to his
volumes are mines of curious information. The style of his history is
elegant and flowing, modelled rather upon the easy sentences of the
French prose writers than the long periodical paragraphs of the old
Slavonic school. Perhaps Karamzin may justly be censured for the false
gloss and romantic air thrown over the early Russian annals,
concealing the coarseness and cruelty of the native manners; in this
respect he reminds us of Sir Walter Scott, whose writings were at this
time creating a great sensation throughout Europe, and probably had
their influence upon him. Karamzin appears openly as the panegyrist of
the autocracy; indeed, his work has been styled the "Epic of
Despotism." He does not hesitate to avow his admiration of Ivan the
Terrible, and considers him and his grandfather Ivan III. as the
builders up of Russian greatness, a glory which in his earlier
writings, perhaps at that time more under the influence of Western
ideas, he had assigned to Peter the Great. In the battle-pieces (e.g.
the description of the field of Koulikovo, the taking of Kazan, &c.)
we find considerable powers of description; and the characters of many
of the chief personages in the Russian annals are drawn in firm and
bold lines. As a critic Karamzin was of great service to his country;
in fact he may be regarded as the founder of the review and essay (in
the Western style) among the Russians.
KARA SEA, a portion of the Arctic Ocean demarcated, and except on the
north-west completely enclosed, by Novaya Zemlya, Vaygach Island and the
Siberian coast. It is approached from the west by three
straits--Matochkin, between the two islands of Novaya Zemlya, and Kara
and Yugor to the north and south of Vaygach Island respectively. On the
south-east Kara Bay penetrates deeply into the mainland, and to the west
of this the short Kara river enters the sea. The sea is all shallow, the
deepest parts lying off Vaygach Island and the northern part of Novaya
Zemlya. It had long the reputation of being almost constantly ice-bound,
but after the Norwegian captain Johannesen had demonstrated its
accessibility in 1869, and Nordenskiold had crossed it to the mouth of
the Yenisei in 1875, it was considered by many to offer a possible trade
route between European Russia and the north of Siberia. But the open
season is in any case very short, and the western straits are sometimes
ice-bound during the entire year.
KARASU-BAZAR, a town of Russia, in the Crimea and government of Taurida,
in 45 deg. 3' N. and 34 deg. 26' E., 25 m. E.N.E. of Simferopol. Pop.
(1897), 12,961, consisting of Tatars, Armenians, Greeks, Qaraite Jews,
and about 200 so-called Krymchaki, i.e. Jews who have adopted the Tatar
language and dress, and who live chiefly by making morocco leather
goods, knives, embroidery and so forth. The site is low, but the town is
surrounded by hills, which afford protection from the north wind. The
dirty streets full of petty traders, the gloomy bazaar with its
multitude of tiny shops, the market squares, the blind alleys, the
little gates in the dead courtyard walls, all give the place the stamp
of a Tatar or Turkish town. Placed on the high road between Simferopol
and Kerch, and in the midst of a country rich in corn land, vineyards
and gardens, Karasu-Bazar used to be a chief seat of commercial activity
in the Crimea; but it is gradually declining in importance, though still
a considerable centre for the export of fruit.
The caves of Akkaya close by give evidence of early occupation of the
spot. When in 1736 Khan Feta Ghirai was driven by the Russians from
Bakhchi-sarai he settled at Karasu-Bazar, but next year the town was
captured, plundered and burned by the Russians.
KARATEGHIN, a country of Central Asia, subject to Bokhara, and
consisting of a highland district bounded on the N. by Samarkand and
Ferghana (Khokand), on the E. by Ferghana, on the S. by Darvaz, and on
the W. by Hissar and other Bokharian provinces. The plateau is traversed
by the Surkhab or Vakhsh, a right-hand tributary of the Amu-darya
(Oxus). On the N. border run the Hissar and Zarafshan mountains, and on
the S. border the Peter I. (Periokhtan) range (24,900 ft.). The area is
8000 sq. m. and the population about 60,000--five-sixths Tajiks, the
rest Kara-kirghiz. With the neighbouring lands Karateghin has no
communication except during summer, that is, from May to September. The
winter climate is extremely severe; snow begins to fall in October and
it is May before it disappears. During the warmer months, however, the
mountain sides are richly clothed with the foliage of maple, mountain
ash, apple, pear and walnut trees; the orchards furnish, not only apples
and pears, but peaches, cherries, mulberries and apricots; and the
farmers grow sufficient corn to export. Both cattle and horses are of a
small and hardy breed. Rough woollen cloth and mohair are woven by the
natives, who also make excellent firearms and other weapons. Gold is
found in various places and there are salt-pits in the mountains. The
chief town, Harm or Garm, is a place of some 2000 inhabitants, situated
on a hill on the right bank of the Surkhab.
The native princes, who claimed to be descended from Alexander the
Great, were till 1868 practically independent, though their allegiance
was claimed in an ineffective way by Khokand, but eventually Bokhara
took advantage of their intestine feuds to secure their real submission
in 1877.
KARAULI, or KEROWLEE, a native state of India, in the Rajputana agency.
Area, 1242 sq. m.; pop. (1901), 156,786; estimated revenue about
L330,000. Almost the entire territory is composed of hills and broken
ground, but there are no lofty peaks, the highest having an elevation of
less than 1400 ft. above sea-level. The Chambal river flows along the
south-east boundary of the state. Iron ore and building stone comprise
the mineral resources. The prevailing agricultural products are millets,
which form the staple food of the people. The only manufactures consist
of a little weaving, dyeing, wood-turning and stone-cutting. The
principal imports are piece goods, salt, sugar, cotton, buffaloes and
bullocks; the exports rice and goats. The feudal aristocracy of the
state consists of Jadu Rajputs connected with the ruling house. They pay
a tribute in lieu of constant military service, but in case of emergency
or on occasions of state display they are bound to attend on the chief
with their retainers. The maharaja is the head of the clan, which claims
descent from Krishna. Maharaja Bhanwar Pal Deo, who was born in 1862 and
succeeded in 1866, was appointed G.C.I.E. in 1897, on the occasion of
Queen Victoria's diamond jubilee.
The town of KARAULI had a population in 1901 of 23,482. It dates from
1348, and is well situated in a position naturally defended by ravines
on the north and east, while it is further protected by a great wall.
The palace of the maharaja is a handsome block of buildings dating
mainly from the middle of the 18th century.
KAREN, one of the chief hill races of Burma. The Karens inhabit the
central Pegu Yoma range, forming the watershed between the Sittang and
Irrawaddy rivers, the Paunglaung range between the Sittang and the
Salween, and the eastern slopes of the Arakan Yoma mountains to the west
of the Irrawaddy delta. They are supposed to be the descendants of
Chinese tribes driven southwards by the pressure of the Shan races,
before they were again made to retire into the hills by the expansion of
the Mon power. Their own traditions ascribe their original home to the
west of the sandy desert of Gobi stretching between China and Tibet.
According to the census of 1901 they numbered in all 727,235 persons
within British India, divided into the Sgaw, 86,434, the Pwo, 174,070,
and the Bghai, 4936, while 457,355 are returned as "unspecified." The
Sgaw and Pwo are collectively known as the "White Karens," and chiefly
inhabit British territory. They take their name from the colour of their
clothes. The Bghai, or "Red Karens," who are supposed by some to be an
entirely distinct race, chiefly inhabit the independent hill state of
Karen-ni (q.v.). The Karen is of a squarer build than the Burman, his
skin is fairer, and he has more of the Mongolian obliquity of the eyes.
In character also the people differ from the Burmese. They are
singularly devoid of humour, they are stolid and cautious, and lack
altogether the light gaiety and fascination of the Burmese. They are
noted for truthfulness and chastity, but are dirty and addicted to
drink. The White Karens furnish perhaps the most notable instance of
conversion to Christianity of any native race in the British empire.
Prepared by prophecies current among them, and by curious traditions of
a biblical flavour, in addition to their antagonism to the dominant
Burmese, they embraced with fervour the new creed brought to them by the
missionaries, so that out of the 147,525 Christians in Burma according
to the census of 1901 upwards of a hundred thousand were Karens. The Red
Karens differ considerably from the White Karens. They are the wildest
and most lawless of the so-called Karen tribes. Every male belonging to
the clan used to have the rising sun tattooed in bright vermilion on his
back. The men are small and wizened, but athletic, and have broad
reddish-brown faces. Their dress consists of a short pair of breeches,
usually of a reddish colour, with black and white stripes interwoven
perpendicularly or like a tartan, and a handkerchief is tied round the
head. The Karen language is tonal, and belongs to the Siamese-Chinese
branch of the Indo-Chinese family.
See D. M. Smeaton, _The Loyal Karens of Burma_ (1887); J. Nisbet,
_Burma under British Rule_ (1901); M. and B. Ferrars, _Burma_ (1900);
and O'Connor Scott, _The Silken East_ (1904). (J. G. Sc.)
KAREN-NI, the country of the Red Karens, a collection of small states,
formerly independent, but now feudatory to Burma. It is situated
approximately between 18 deg. 50' and 19 deg. 55' N. and between 97 deg.
10' and 97 deg. 50' E. The tract is bounded on the N. by the Shan states
of Mong Pai, Hsatung and Mawkmai; on the E. by Siam; on the S. by the
Papun district of Lower Burma; and on the W. a stretch of mountainous
country, inhabited by the Bre and various other small tribes, formerly
in a state of independence, divides it from the districts of Toungoo and
Yamethin. It is divided in a general way into eastern and western
Karen-ni; the former consisting of one state, Gantarawadi, with an
approximate area of 2500 sq. m.; the latter of the four small states of
Kyebogyi, area about 350 sq. m.; Bawlake, 200 sq. m.; Nammekon, 50 sq.
m.; and Naungpale, about 30 sq. m. The small states of western Karen-ni
were formerly all subject to Bawlake, but the subordination has now
ceased. Karen-ni consists of two widely differing tracts of country,
which roughly mark now, and formerly actually did mark, the division
into east and west. Gantarawadi has, however, encroached westwards
beyond the boundaries which nature would assign to it. The first of
these two divisions is the southern portion of the valley of the Hpilu,
or Balu stream, an open, fairly level plain, well watered and in some
parts swampy. The second division is a series of chains of hills,
intersected by deep valleys, through which run the two main rivers, the
Salween and the Pawn, and their feeder streams. Many of the latter are
dried up in the hot season and only flow freely during the rains. The
whole country being hilly, the most conspicuous ridge is that lying
between the Pawn and the Salween, which has an average altitude of 5000
ft. It is crossed by several tracks, passable for pack-animals, the most
in use being the road between Sawlon, the capital of Gantarawadi and Man
Mau. The principal peak east of the Salween is on the Loi Lan ridge,
7109 ft. above mean sea-level. Parts of this ridge form the boundary
between eastern Karen-ni and Mawkmai on the west and Siam on the east.
It falls away rapidly to the south, and at Pang Salang is crossed at a
height of 2200 ft. by the road from Hsataw to Mehawnghsawn. West of the
Balu valley the continuation of the eastern rim of the Myelat plateau
rises in Loi Nangpa to about 5000 ft. The Nam Pawn is a large river,
with an average breadth of 100 yds., but is unnavigable owing to its
rocky bed. Even timber cannot be floated down it without the assistance
of elephants. The Salween throughout Karen-ni is navigated by large
native craft. Its tributary, the Me Pai, on the eastern bank, is
navigable as far as Mehawnghsawn in Siamese territory. The Balu stream
flows out of the Inle lake, and is navigable from that point to close on
Lawpita, where it sinks into the ground in a marsh or succession of
funnel holes. Its breadth averages 50 yds., and its depth is 15 ft. in
some places.
The chief tribes are the Red Karens (24,043), Bres (3500), and Padaungs
(1867). Total revenue, Rs. 37,000. An agent of the British government,
with a guard of military police, is posted at the village of Loikaw.
Little of the history of the Red Karens is known; but it appears to be
generally admitted that Bawlake was originally the chief state of the
whole country, east and west, but eastern Karen-ni under Papaw-gyi early
became the most powerful. Slaving raids far into the Shan states brought
on invasions from Burma, which, however, were not very successful.
Eastern Karen-ni was never reduced until Sawlapaw, having defied the
British government, was overcome and deposed by General Collett in the
beginning of 1889. Sawlawi was then appointed myoza, and received a
_sanad_, or patent of appointment, on the same terms as the chiefs of
the Shan states. The independence of the Western Karen-ni states had
been guaranteed by the British government in a treaty with King Mindon
in 1875. They were, however, formally recognized as feudatories in 1892
and were presented with _sanads_ on the 23rd of January of that year.
Gantarawadi pays a regular tribute of Rs. 5000 yearly, whereas these
chieflets pay an annual _kadaw_, or _nuzzur_, of about Rs. 100. They are
forbidden to carry out a sentence of death passed on a criminal without
the sanction of the superintendent of the southern Shan states, but
otherwise retain nearly all their customary law.
Tin, or what is called tin, is worked in Bawlake. It appears, however,
to be very impure. It is worked intermittently by White Karens on the
upper waters of the Hkemapyu stream. Rubies, spinels and other stones
are found in the upper Tu valley and in the west of Nammekon state,
but they are of inferior quality. The trade in teak is the chief or
only source of wealth in Karen-ni. The largest and most important
forests are those on the left bank of the Salween. Others lie on both
banks of the Nam Pawn, and in western Karen-ni on the Nam Tu. The
yearly out-turn is estimated at over 20,000 logs, and forest officers
have estimated that an annual out-turn of 9000 logs might be kept up
without injury to the forests. Some quantity of cutch is exported, as
also stick-lac, which the Red Karens graft so as to foster the
production. Other valuable forest produce exists, but is not exported.
Rice, areca-nuts, and betel-vine leaf are the chief agricultural
products. The Red Karen women weave their own and their husbands'
clothing. A characteristic manufacture is the _pa-si_ or Karen metal
drum, which is made at Ngwedaung. These drums are from 2(1/2) to 3 ft.
across the boss, with sides of about the same depth. The sound is out
of proportion to the metal used, and is inferior to that of the Shan
and Burmese gongs. It is thought that the population of Karen-ni is
steadily decreasing. The birth-rate of the people is considered to
exceed the death-rate by very little, and the Red Karen habit of life
is most unwholesome. Numbers have enlisted in the Burma police, but
there are various opinions as to their value. (J. G. Sc.)
KARIKAL, a French settlement in India, situated on the south-east coast,
within the limits of Tanjore district, with an area of 53 sq. m., and a
population (1901) of 56,595. The site was promised to the French by the
Tanjore raja in 1738, in return for services rendered, but was only
obtained by them by force in 1739. It was captured by the British in
1760, restored in 1765, again taken in 1768, and finally restored in
1817. The town is neatly built on one of the mouths of the Cauvery, and
carries on a brisk trade with Ceylon, exporting rice and importing
chiefly European articles and timber. A _chef de l'administration_,
subordinate to the government at Pondicherry, is in charge of the
settlement, and there is a tribunal of first instance.
KARLI, a village of British India, in the Poona district of the Bombay
presidency, famous for its rock caves. Pop. (1901), 903. The great cave
of Karli is said by Fergusson to be without exception the largest and
finest _chaitya_ cave in India; it was excavated at a time when the
style was in its greatest purity, and is splendidly preserved. The great
_chaitya_ hall is 126 ft. long, 45 ft. 7 in. wide, and about 46 ft.
high. A row of ornamental columns rises on either side to the ribbed
teak roof, and at the far end of the nave is a massive _dagoba_. Dating
from the beginning of the Christian era or earlier, this cave has a
wooden roof, which repeats the pattern of the walls, and which Fergusson
considers to be part of the original design. Since wood rapidly
deteriorates in India owing to the climate and the ravages of white
ants, the state of preservation of this roof is remarkable.
KARLOWITZ, or CARLOWITZ (Hungarian, _Karloeza_; Croatian, Karlovci), a
city of Croatia-Slavonia, in the county of Syrmia; on the right bank of
the Danube, and on the railway from Peterwardein, 6 m. N.W. to Belgrade.
Pop. (1900), 5643. Karlowitz is the seat of an Orthodox metropolitan,
and has several churches and schools, and a hospital. The fruit-farms
and vineyards of the Fruska Gora, a range of hills to the south, yield
excellent plum brandy and red wine. An obelisk at Slankamen, 13 m. E. by
S., commemorates the defeat of the Turks by Louis of Baden, in 1691. The
treaty of Karlowitz, between Austria, Turkey, Poland and Venice, was
concluded in 1699; in 1848-1849 the city was the headquarters of Servian
opposition to Hungary. It was included, until 1881, in the Military
Frontier.
KARLSKRONA [CARLSCRONA,] a seaport of Sweden, on the Baltic coast, chief
town of the district (_lan_) of Blekinge, and headquarters of the
Swedish navy. Pop. (1900), 23,955. It is pleasantly situated upon
islands and the mainland, 290 m. S.S.W. of Stockholm by rail. The
harbour is capacious and secure, with a sufficient depth of water for
the largest vessels. It has three entrances; the principal, and the only
one practicable for large vessels, is to the south of the town, and is
defended by two strong forts, at Drottningskar on the island of Aspo,
and on the islet of Kungsholm. The dry docks, of great extent, are cut
out of the solid granite. There is slip-accommodation for large vessels.
Karlskrona is the seat of the Royal Naval Society, and has a
navy-arsenal and hospital, and naval and other schools. Charles XI., the
founder of the town as naval headquarters (1680), is commemorated by a
bronze statue (1897). There are factories for naval equipments,
galvanized metal goods, felt hats, canvas, leather and rice, and
breweries and granite quarries. Exports are granite and timber; imports,
coal, flour, provisions, hides and machinery.
KARLSRUHE, or CARLSRUHE, a city of Germany, capital of the grand-duchy of
Baden, 33 m. S.W. of Heidelberg, on the railway Frankfort-on-Main-Basel,
and 39 m. N.W. of Stuttgart. Pop. (1895), 84,030; (1905), 111,200. It
stands on an elevated plain, 5 m. E. of the Rhine and on the fringe of
the Hardtwald forest. Karlsruhe takes its name from Karl Wilhelm,
margrave of Baden, who, owing to disputes with the citizens of Durlach,
erected here in 1715 a hunting seat, around which the town has been
built. The city is surrounded by beautiful parks and gardens. The palace
(Schloss), built in 1751-1776 on the site of the previous erection of
1715, is a plain building in the old French style, composed of a centre
and two wings, presenting nothing remarkable except the octagon tower
(_Bleiturm_), from the summit of which a splendid view of the city and
surrounding country is obtained, and the marble saloon, in which the
meridian of Cassini was fixed or drawn. In front of the palace is the
Great Circle, a semicircular line of buildings, containing the government
offices. From the palace the principal streets, fourteen in number,
radiate in the form of an expanded fan, in a S.E., S. and S.W. direction,
and are again intersected by parallel streets. This fan-like plan of the
older city has, however, been abandoned in the more modern extensions.
Karlsruhe has several fine public squares, the principal of which are the
Schlossplatz, with Schwanthaler's statue of the grand duke Karl Friedrich
in the centre, and market square (Marktplatz), with a fountain and a
statue of Louis, grand duke of Baden. In the centre of the Rondelplatz is
an obelisk in honour of the grand duke Karl Wilhelm. The finest street is
the Kaiserstrasse, running from east to west and having a length of a
mile and a half and a uniform breadth of 72 ft. In it are several of the
chief public buildings, notably the technical high school, the arsenal
and the post office. Among other notable buildings are the town hall; the
theatre; the hall of representatives; the mint; the joint museum of the
grand-ducal and national collections (natural history, archaeology,
ethnology, art and a library of over 150,000 volumes); the palace of the
heir-apparent, a late Renaissance building of 1891-1896; the imperial
bank (1893); the national industrial hall, with an exhibition of
machinery; the new law courts; and the hall of fine arts, which shelters
a good picture gallery. The city has six Evangelical and four Roman
Catholic Churches. The most noteworthy of these are the Evangelical town
church, the burial-place of the margraves of Baden; the Christuskirche,
and the Bernharduskirche. Karlsruhe possesses further the Zahringen
museum of curiosities, which is in the left wing of the Schloss; an
architectural school (1891); industrial art school and museum; cadet
school (1892); botanical and electro-technical institutes; and
horticultural and agricultural schools. Of its recent public monuments
may be mentioned one to Joseph Victor von Scheffel (1826-1886); a bronze
equestrian statue of the emperor William I. (1896); and a memorial of the
1870-71 war. Karlsruhe is the headquarters of the XIV. German army corps.
Since 1870 the industry of the city has grown rapidly, as well as the
city itself. There are large railway workshops; and the principal
branches of industry are the making of locomotives, carriages, tools and
machinery, jewelry, furniture, gloves, cement, carpets, perfumery,
tobacco and beer. There is an important arms factory. Maxau, on the
Rhine, serves as the river port of Karlsruhe and is connected with it by
a canal finished in 1901.
See Fecht, _Geschichte der Haupt- und Residenzstadt Karlsruhe_
(Karlsruhe, 1887); F. von Weech, _Karlsruhe, Geschichte der Stadt und
ihrer Verwaltung_ (Karlsruhe, 1893-1902); Naeher, _Die Umgebung der
Residenz Karlsruhe_ (Karlsruhe, 1888); and the annual _Chronik der
Haupt- und Residenzstadt Karlsruhe._
KARLSTAD [CARLSTAD], a town of Sweden, the capital of the district
(_lan_) of Vermland, on the island of Tingvalla under the northern shore
of Lake Vener, 205 m. W. of Stockholm by the Christiania railway. Pop.
(1900), 11,869. The fine Klar River here enters the lake, descending
from the mountains of the frontier. To the north-west lies the Fryksdal
or valley of the Nors River, containing three beautiful lakes and
fancifully named the "Swedish Switzerland." In this and other parts of
the district are numerous iron-works. Karlstad was founded in 1584. It
is the seat of a bishop and has a cathedral. Trade is carried on by way
of the lake and the Gota canal. There are mechanical works, match
factories and stockinet factories, and a mineral spring rich in iron,
the water of which is bottled for export. Under the constitution of
united Sweden and Norway, in the event of the necessity of electing a
Regent and the disagreement of the parliaments of the two countries,
Karlstad was indicated as the meeting-place of a delegacy for the
purpose. Here, on the 31st of August 1905 the conference met to decide
upon the severance of the union between Sweden and Norway, the delegates
concluding their work on the 23rd of September.
KARLSTADT or CARLSTADT (Hungarian, _Karolyvaros_; Croatian, _Karlovac_),
a royal free city, municipality and garrison town in the county of
Agram, Croatia-Slavonia; standing on hilly ground beside the river
Kulpa, which here receives the Korana and the Dobra. Pop. (1900), 7396.
Karlstadt is on the railway from Agram to Fiume. It consists of the
fortress, now obsolete, the inner town and the suburbs. Besides the
Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches, its chief buildings are the
Franciscan monastery, law-courts and several large schools, including
one for military cadets. Karlstadt has a considerable transit trade in
grain, wine, spirits and honey, and manufactures the liqueur called
_rosoglio_.
KARMA, sometimes written KARMAN, a Sanskrit noun (from the root _kri_,
to do), meaning deed or action. In addition to this simple meaning it
has also, both in the philosophical and the colloquial speech of India a
technical meaning, denoting "a person's deeds as determining his future
lot." This is not merely in the vague sense that on the whole good will
be rewarded and evil punished, but that every single act must work out
to the uttermost its inevitable consequences, and receive its
retribution, however many ages the process may require. Every part of
the material universe--man, woman, insect, tree, stone, or whatever it
be--is the dwelling of an eternal spirit that is working out its
destiny, and while receiving reward and punishment for the past is
laying up reward and punishment for the future. This view of existence
as an endless and concomitant sowing and reaping is accepted by learned
and unlearned alike as accounting for those inequalities in human life
which might otherwise lead men to doubt the justice of God. Every act of
every person has not only a moral value producing merit or demerit, but
also an inherent power which works out its fitting reward or punishment.
To the Hindu this does not make heaven and hell unnecessary. These two
exist in many forms more or less grotesque, and after death the soul
passes to one of them and there receives its due; but that existence too
is marked by desire and action, and is therefore productive of merit or
demerit, and as the soul is thus still entangled in the meshes of karma
it must again assume an earthly garb and continue the strife. Salvation
is to the Hindu simply deliverance from the power of karma, and each of
the philosophic systems has its own method of obtaining it. The last
book of the Laws of Manu deals with _karmaphalam_, "the fruit of karma,"
and gives many curious details of the way in which sin is punished and
merit rewarded. The origin of the doctrine cannot be traced with
certainty, but there is little doubt that it is post-vedic, and that it
was readily accepted by Buddha in the 6th century B.C. As he did not
believe in the existence of soul he had to modify the doctrine (see
BUDDHISM).
KARMAN, JOZSEF (1769-1795), Hungarian author, was born at Losoncz on the
14th of March 1769, the son of a Calvinist pastor. He was educated at
Losoncz and Pest, whence he migrated to Vienna. There he made the
acquaintance of the beautiful and eccentric Countess Markovics, who was
for a time his mistress, but she was not, as has often been supposed,
the heroine of his famous novel _Fanni Hagyomanai_ (Fanny's testament).
Subsequently he settled in Pest as a lawyer. His sensibility, social
charm, liberal ideas (he was one of the earliest of the Magyar
freemasons) and personal beauty, opened the doors of the best houses to
him. He was generally known as the Pest Alcibiades, and was especially
at home in the salons of the Protestant magnates. In 1792, together with
Count Raday, he founded the first theatrical society at Buda. He
maintained that Pest, not Pressburg, should be the literary centre of
Hungary, and in 1794 founded the first Hungarian quarterly, _Urania_,
but it met with little support and ceased to exist in 1795, after three
volumes had appeared. Karman, who had long been suffering from an
incurable disease, died in the same year. The most important
contribution to _Urania_ was his sentimental novel, _Fanni Hagyomanai_,
much in the style of _La nouvelle Heloise_ and _Werther_, the most
exquisite product of Hungarian prose in the 18th century and one of the
finest psychological romances in the literature. Karman also wrote two
satires and fragments of an historical novel, while his literary
programme is set forth in his dissertation _Anemzet csinosodasa_.
Karman's collected works were published in Abafi's _Nemzeti Konyvtar_
(Pest, 1878), &c., preceded by a life of Karman. See F. Barath,
_Joseph Karman_ (Hung., Vas. Ujs, 1874); Zsolt Beothy, article on
Karman in _Kepes Irodalomtortenet_ (Budapest, 1894). (R. N. B.)
KARNAK, a village in Upper Egypt (pop. 1907, 12,585), which has given
its name to the northern half of the ruins of Thebes on the east bank of
the Nile, the southern being known as Luxor (q.v.). The Karnak ruins
comprise three great enclosures built of crude brick. The northernmost
and smallest of these contained a temple of the god Mont, built by
Amenophis III., and restored by Rameses II. and the Ptolemies. Except a
well-preserved gateway dating from the reign of Ptolemy Euergetes I.,
little more than the plan of the foundations is traceable. Its axis, the
line of which is continued beyond the enclosure wall by an avenue of
sphinxes, pointed down-stream (N.E.). The southern enclosure contained a
temple of the goddess Mut, also built by Amenophis III., and almost as
ruinous as the last, but on a much larger scale. At the back is the
sacred lake in the shape of a horse-shoe. The axis of the temple runs
approximately northward, and is continued by a great avenue of rams to
the southern pylons of the central enclosure. This last is of vast
dimensions, forming approximately a square of 1500 ft., and it contains
the greatest of all known temples, the Karnak temple of Ammon (see
ARCHITECTURE, sect. "Egyptian," with plan).
Inside and outside each of these enclosures there were a number of
subsidiary temples and shrines, mostly erected by individual kings to
special deities. The triad of Thebes was formed by Ammon, his wife Mut
and their son Khons. The large temple of Khons is in the enclosure of
the Ammon temple, and the temple of Mut, as already stated, is connected
with the latter by the avenue of rams. The Mont temple, on the other
hand, is isolated from the others and turned away from them; it is
smaller than that of Khons. Mont, however, may perhaps be considered a
special god of Thebes; he certainly was a great god from very ancient
times in the immediate neighbourhood, his seats being about 4 m. N.E. at
Medamot, the ancient Madu, and about 10 m. S.W. on the west bank at
Hermonthis.
It is probable that a temple of Ammon existed at Karnak under the Old
Kingdom, if not in the prehistoric age; but it was unimportant, and no
trace of it has been discovered. Slight remains of a considerable temple
of the Middle Kingdom survive behind the shrine of the great temple, and
numbers of fine statues of the twelfth and later dynasties have been
found; two of these were placed against the later seventh pylon, while a
large number were buried in a great pit, in the area behind that pylon,
which has yielded an enormous number of valuable and interesting
monuments reaching to the age of the Ptolemies. The axis of the early
temple lay from E. to W., and was followed by the main line of the later
growth; but at the beginning of the eighteenth dynasty, Amenophis I.
built a temple south of the west front of the old one, and at right
angles to it, and thus started a new axis which was later developed in
the series of pylons VII.-X., and the avenue to the temple of Mut. The
VIIIth pylon in particular was built by Hatshepsut, probably as an
approach to this temple of Amenophis, but eventually Tethmosis III.
cleared the latter away entirely. Thebes was then the royal residence,
and Ammon of Karnak was the great god of the state. Tethmosis I. built a
court round the temple of the Middle Kingdom, entered through a pylon
(No. V.), and later added the pylon No. IV. with obelisks in front of
it. Hatshepsut placed two splendid obelisks between the Pylons IV. and
V., and built a shrine in the court of Tethmosis I., in front of the old
temple. Tethmosis III., greatest of the Pharaohs, remodelled the
buildings about the obelisks of his unloved sister with the deliberate
intention of hiding them from view, and largely reconstructed the
surroundings of the court. At a later date, after his wars were over, he
altered Hatshepsut's sanctuary, engraving on the walls about it a record
of his campaigns; to this time also is to be attributed the erection of
a great festival hall at the back of the temple. The small innermost
pylon (No. VI.) is likewise the work of Tethmosis III. Amenophis III.,
though so great a builder at Thebes, seems to have contented himself
with erecting a great pylon (No. III.) at the west end. The closely
crowded succession of broad pylons here suggests a want of space for
westward expansion, and this is perhaps explained by a trace of a quay
found by Legrain in 1905 near the southern line of pylons; a branch of
the Nile or a large canal may have limited the growth. As has been
stated, Tethmosis III. continued on the southern axis; he destroyed the
temple of Amenophis I. and erected a larger pylon (No. VII.) to the
north of Hatshepsut's No. VIII. To these Haremheb added two great pylons
and the long avenue of ram-figures, changing the axis slightly so as to
lead direct to the temple of Mut built by Amenophis III. All of these
southern pylons are well spaced. In the angle between these pylons and
the main temple was the great rectangular sacred lake. By this time the
temple of Karnak had attained to little more than half of its ultimate
length from east to west.
With the XIXth Dynasty there is a notable change perhaps due to the
filling of the hypothetical canal. No more was added on the southern
line of building, but westward Rameses I. erected pylon No. II. at an
ample distance from that of Amenophis III., and Seti I. and Rameses II.
utilized the space between for their immense Hall of Columns, one of the
most celebrated achievements of Egyptian architecture. The materials of
which the pylon is composed bear witness to a temple having stood near
by of the heretic and unacknowledged kings of the XVIIIth Dynasty.
Haremheb's pylon No. IX. was likewise constructed out of the ruins of a
temple dedicated by Amenophis IV. (Akhenaten) to the sun-god Harmakhis.
Rameses III. built a fine temple, still well preserved, to Ammon at
right angles to the axis westward of pylon No. II.; Sheshonk I. (Dynasty
XXII.) commenced a great colonnaded court in front of the pylon,
enclosing part of this temple and a smaller triple shrine built by Seti
II. In the centre of the court Tirhaka (Tirhaka, Dynasty XXV.) set up
huge columns 64 ft. high, rivalling those of the central aisle in the
Hall of Columns, for some building now destroyed. A vast unfinished
pylon at the west end (No. I.), 370 ft. wide and 142(1/2) ft. high, is
of later date than the court, and is usually attributed to the Ptolemaic
age. It will be observed that the successive pylons diminish in size
from the outside inwards. Portions of the solid crude-brick scaffolding
are still seen banked against this pylon. About 100 metres west of it is
a stone quay, on the platform of which stood a pair of obelisks of Seti
II.; numerous graffiti recording the height of the Nile from the XXIst
to the XXVIth Dynasties are engraved on the quay.
Besides the kings named above, numbers of others contributed in greater
or less measure to the building or decoration of the colossal temple.
Alexander the Great restored a chamber in the festival hall of Tethmosis
III., and Ptolemy Soter built the central shrine of granite in the name
of Philip Arrhidaeus. The walls throughout, as usually in Egyptian
temples, are covered with scenes and inscriptions, many of these, such
as those which record the annals of Tethmosis III., the campaign of Seti
I. in Syria, the exploit of Rameses II. at the battle of Kadesh and his
treaty with the Hittites, and the dedication of Sheshonk's victories to
Ammon, are of great historical importance. Several large stelae with
interesting inscriptions have been found in the ruins, and statues of
many ages of workmanship. In December 1903 M. Legrain, who has been
engaged for several years in clearing the temple area systematically,
first tapped an immense deposit of colossal statues, stelae and other
votive objects large and small in the space between pylon No. VII. and
the great hypostyle hall. After three seasons' work, much of it in deep
water, 750 large monuments have been extracted, while the small figures,
&c. in bronze and other materials amount to nearly 20,000. The value of
the find, both from the artistic and historical standpoints, is immense.
The purpose of the deposit is still in doubt; many of the objects are of
the finest materials and finest workmanship, and in perfect
preservation: even precious metals are not absent. Multitudes of objects
in wood, ivory, &c., have decayed beyond recovery. That all were waste
pieces seems incredible. They are found lying in the utmost confusion;
in date they range from the XIIth Dynasty to the Ptolemaic period.
The inundation annually reaches the floor of the temple, and the
saltpetre produced from the organic matter about the ruins, annually
melting and crystallizing, has disintegrated the soft sandstone in the
lower courses of the walls and the lower drums and bases of the columns.
There is moreover no solid foundation in any part of the temple. Slight
falls of masonry have taken place from time to time, and the
accumulation of rubbish was the only thing that prevented a great
disaster. Repairs, often on a large scale, have therefore gone on side
by side with the clearance, especially since the fall of many columns in
the great hall in 1899. All the columns which fell in that year were
re-erected by 1908.
The temple of Khons, in the S.W. corner of the great enclosure, is
approached by an avenue of rams, and entered through a fine pylon
erected by Euergetes I. It was built by Rameses III. and his successors
of the XXth Dynasty, with Hrihor of Dynasty XXI. Excavations in the
opposite S.E. corner have revealed flint weapons and other sepulchral
remains of the earliest periods, proving that the history of Thebes goes
back to a remote antiquity.
See Baedeker's _Handbook for Egypt_; also _Description de l'Egypte.
Atlas, Antiquites_ (tome iii.); A. Mariette, _Karnak, Etude
topographique et archeologique_; L. Borchardt, _Zur Baugeschichte des
Ammontempels von Karnak_; G. Legrain in _Recueil des travaux relatifs
a l'arch. Egypt._, vol. xxvii. &c.; and reports in _Annales du service
des antiquites de l'Egypte_. (F. Ll. G.)
KARNAL, a town and district of British India, in the Delhi division of
the Punjab. The town is 7 m. from the right bank of the Jumna, with a
railway station 76 m. N. of Delhi. Pop. (1901), 23,559. There are
manufactures of cotton cloth and boots, besides considerable local trade
and an annual horse fair.
The DISTRICT OF KARNAL stretches along the right bank of the Jumna,
north of Delhi. It is entirely an alluvial plain, but is crossed by the
low uplift of the watershed between the Indian Ocean and the Bay of
Bengal. Area, 3153 sq. m.; pop. (1901), 883,225, showing an increase of
nearly 3% in the decade. The principal crops are millets, wheat, pulse,
rice, cotton and sugar-cane. There are several factories for ginning and
pressing cotton. The district is traversed by the Delhi-Umballa-Kalka
railway, and also by the Western Jumna canal. It suffered from famine in
1896-1897, and again to some extent in 1899-1900.
No district of India can boast of a more ancient history than Karnal, as
almost every town or stream is connected with the legends of the
_Mahabharata_. The town of Karnal itself is said to owe its foundation
to Raja Karna, the mythical champion of the Kauravas in the great war
which forms the theme of the national epic. Panipat, in the south of the
district, is said to have been one of the pledges demanded from
Duryodhana by Yudisthira as the price of peace in that famous conflict.
In historical times the plains of Panipat have three times proved the
theatre of battles which decided the fate of Upper India. It was here
that Ibrahim Lodi and his vast host were defeated in 1526 by the veteran
army of Baber; in 1556 Akbar reasserted the claims of his family on the
same battlefield against the Hindu general of the house of Adil Shah,
which had driven the heirs of Baber from the throne for a brief
interval; and at Panipat too, on the 7th of January 1761, the Mahratta
confederation was defeated by Ahmad Shah Durani. During the troublous
period which then ensued the Sikhs managed to introduce themselves, and
in 1767 one of their chieftains, Desu Singh, appropriated the fort of
Kaithal, which had been built during the reign of Akbar. His
descendants, the bhais of Kaithal, were reckoned amongst the most
important Cis-Sutlej princes. Different portions of this district have
lapsed from time to time into the hands of the British.
KAROLYI, ALOYS, COUNT (1825-1889), Austro-Hungarian diplomatist, was
born in Vienna on the 8th of August 1825. The greatness of the Hungarian
family of Karolyi dates from the time of Alexander Karolyi (1668-1743),
one of the generals of Francis Rakoczy II., who in 1711 negotiated the
peace of Szatmar between the insurgent Hungarians and the new king, the
emperor Charles VI., was made a count of the Empire in 1712, and
subsequently became a field marshal in the imperial army. Aloys Karolyi
entered the Austrian diplomatic service, and was attached successively
to embassies at various European capitals. In 1858 he was sent to St
Petersburg on a special mission to seek the support of Russia against
Napoleon III. He was ambassador at Berlin in 1866 at the time of the
rupture between Prussia and Austria, and after the Seven Weeks' War was
charged with the negotiation of the preliminaries of peace at
Nikolsburg. He was again sent to Berlin in 1871, acted as second
plenipotentiary at the Berlin congress of 1878, and was sent in the same
year to London, where he represented Austria for ten years. He died on
the 2nd of December 1889 at Totmegyer.
KAROSS, a cloak made of sheepskin, or the hide of other animals, with
the hair left on. It is properly confined to the coat of skin without
sleeves worn by the Hottentots and Bushmen of South Africa. These
karosses are now often replaced by a blanket. Their chiefs wore karosses
of the skin of the wild cat, leopard or caracal. The word is also
loosely applied to the cloaks of leopard-skin worn by the chiefs and
principal men of the Kaffir tribes. Kaross is probably either a genuine
Hottentot word, or else an adaptation of the Dutch _kuras_ (Portuguese
_couraca_), a cuirass. In a vocabulary dated 1673 _karos_ is described
as a "corrupt Dutch word."
KARR, JEAN BAPTISTE ALPHONSE (1808-1890), French critic and novelist,
was born in Paris, on the 24th of November 1808, and after being
educated at the College Bourbon, became a teacher there. In 1832 he
published a novel, _Sous les tilleuls_, characterized by an attractive
originality and a delightful freshness of personal sentiment. A second
novel, _Une heure trop tard_, followed next year, and was succeeded by
many other popular works. His _Vendredi soir_ (1835) and _Le Chemin le
plus court_ (1836) continued the vein of autobiographical romance with
which he had made his first success. _Genevieve_ (1838) is one of his
best stories, and his _Voyage autour de mon jardin_ (1845) was
deservedly popular. Others were _Feu Bressier_ (1848), and _Fort en
theme_ (1853), which had some influence in stimulating educational
reform. In 1839 Alphonse Karr, who was essentially a brilliant
journalist, became editor of _Le Figaro_, to which he had been a
constant contributor; and he also started a monthly journal, _Les
Guepes_, of a keenly satirical tone, a publication which brought him the
reputation of a somewhat bitter wit. His epigrams were frequently
quoted; e.g. "plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose," and, on the
proposal to abolish capital punishment, "je veux bien que messieurs les
assassins commencent." In 1848 he founded _Le Journal_. In 1855 he went
to live at Nice, where he indulged his predilections for floriculture,
and gave his name to more than one new variety. Indeed he practically
founded the trade in cut flowers on the Riviera. He was also devoted to
fishing, and in _Les Soirees de Sainte-Adresse_ (1853) and _Au bord de
la mer_ (1860) he made use of his experiences. His reminiscences, _Livre
de bord_, were published in 1879-1880. He died at St Raphael (Var), on
the 29th of September 1890.
KARRER, FELIX (1825-1903), Austrian geologist, was born in Venice on the
11th of March 1825. He was educated in Vienna, and served for a time in
the war department, but he retired from the public service at the age of
thirty-two, and devoted himself to science. He made especial studies of
the Tertiary formations and fossils of the Vienna Basin, and
investigated the geological relations of the thermal and other springs
in that region. He became an authority on the foraminifera, on which
subject he published numerous papers. He wrote also a little book
entitled _Der Boden der Hauptstadte Europas_ (1881). He died in Vienna
on the 19th of April 1903.
KARROO, two extensive plateaus in the Cape province, South Africa, known
respectively as the Great and Little Karroo. Karroo is a corruption of
_Karusa_, a Hottentot word meaning dry, barren, and its use as a
place-name indicates the character of the plateaus so designated. They
form the two intermediate "steps" between the coast-lands and the inner
plateau which constitutes the largest part of South Africa. The Little
(also called Southern) Karroo is the table-land nearest the southern
coast-line of the Cape, and is bounded north by the Zwaarteberg, which
separates it from the Great Karroo. From west to east the Little Karroo
has a length of some 200 m., whilst its average width is 30 m. West of
the Zwaarteberg the Little Karroo merges into the Great Karroo. Eastward
it is limited by the hills which almost reach the sea in the direction
of St Francis and Algoa Bays. The Great Karroo is of much larger extent.
Bounded south, as stated, by the Zwaarteberg, further east by the
Zuurberg (of the coast chain), its northern limit is the mountain range
which, under various names, such as Nieuwveld and Sneeuwberg, forms the
wall of the inner plateau. To the south-west and west it is bounded by
the Hex River Mountains and the Cold Bokkeveld, eastward by the Great
Fish River. West to east it extends fully 350 m. in a straight line,
varying in breadth from more than 80 to less than 40 m. Whilst the
Little Karroo is divided by a chain of hills which run across it from
east to west, and varies in altitude from 1000 to 2000 ft., the Great
Karroo has more the aspect of a vast plain and has a level of from 2000
to 3000 ft. The total area of the Karroo plateaus is stated to be over
100,000 sq. m. The plains are dotted with low ranges of _kopjes_. The
chief characteristics of the Karroo are the absence of running water
during a great part of the year and the consequent parched aspect of the
country. There is little vegetation save stunted shrubs, such as the
mimosa (which generally marks the river beds), wild pomegranate, and wax
heaths, known collectively as Karroo bush. After the early rains the
bush bursts into gorgeous purple and yellow blossoms and vivid greens,
affording striking evidence of the fertility of the soil. Such parts of
the Karroo as are under perennial irrigation are among the most
productive lands in South Africa. Even the parched bush provides
sufficient nourishment for millions of sheep and goats. There are also
numerous ostrich farms, in particular in the districts of Oudtshoorn and
Ladismith in the Little Karroo, where lucerne grows with extraordinary
luxuriance. The Karroo is admirably adapted to sufferers from pulmonary
complaints. The dryness of the air tempers the heat of summer, which
reaches in January a mean maximum of 87 deg. F., whilst July, the
coldest month, has a mean minimum of 36 deg. F. A marked feature of the
climate is the great daily range (nearly 30 deg.) in temperature; the
Karroo towns are also subject to violent dust storms. Game, formerly
plentiful, has been, with the exception of buck, almost exterminated. In
a looser sense the term Karroo is also used of the vast northern plains
of the Cape which are part of the inner table-land of the continent.
(See CAPE COLONY.)
KARS, a province of Russian Transcaucasia, having the governments of
Kutais and Tiflis on the N., those of Tiflis and Erivan on the E., and
Asiatic Turkey on the S. and W. Its area amounts to 7410 sq. m. It is a
mountainous, or rather a highland, country, being in reality a plateau,
with ranges of mountains running across it. The northern border is
formed by the Arzyan range, a branch of the Ajari Mts., which attains
altitudes of over 9000 ft. In the south the Kara-dagh reach 10,270 ft.
in Mount Ala-dagh, and the Agry-dagh 10,720 ft. in Mount Ashakh; and in
the middle Allah-akhbar rises to 10,215 ft. The passes which connect
valley with valley often lie at considerable altitudes, the average of
those in the S.E. being 9000 ft. Chaldir-gol (altitude 6520 ft.) and one
or two other smaller lakes lie towards the N.E.; the Chaldir-gol is
overhung on the S.W. by the Kysyr-dagh (10,470 ft.). The east side of
the province is throughout demarcated by the Arpa-chai, which receives
from the right the Kars river, and as it leaves the province at its S.E.
corner joins the Aras. The Kura rises within the province not far from
the Kysyr-dagh and flows across it westwards, then eastwards and
north-eastwards, quitting it in the north-east. The winters are very
severe. The towns of Kaghyshman (4620 ft.) and Sarykamish (7800 ft.)
have a winter temperature like that of Finland, and at the latter place,
with an annual mean (35 deg. F.) equal to that of Hammerfest in the
extreme north of Norway, the thermometer goes down in winter to 40 deg.
below zero and rises in summer to 99 deg. The annual mean temperature at
Kars is 40.5 deg. and at Ardahan, farther north, 37 deg. The Alpine
meadows (_yailas_) reach up to 1000 ft. and afford excellent pasturage
in spring and summer. The province is almost everywhere heavily
forested. Firs and birches flourish as high as 7000 ft., and the vine up
to above 3000 ft. Cereals ripen well, and barley and maize grow up to
considerable altitudes. Large numbers of cattle and sheep are bred.
Extensive deposits of salt occur at Kaghyshman and Olty. The population
was 167,610 in 1883 and 292,863 in 1897. The estimated population in
1906 was 349,100. It is mixed. In remote antiquity the province was
inhabited by Armenians, the ruins of whose capital, Ani, attest the
ancient prosperity of the country. To the Armenians succeeded the Turks,
while Kurds invaded the Alpine pasturages above the valley of the Aras;
and after them Kabardians, Circassians, Ossetes and Kara-papaks
successively found a refuge in this highland region. After the
Russo-Turkish War of 1877-78, when this region was transferred to Russia
by the treaty of Berlin, some 82,750 Turks emigrated to Asia Minor,
their places being taken by nearly 22,000 Armenians, Greeks and
Russians. At the census of 1897 the population consisted principally of
Armenians (73,400), Kurds (43,000), Greeks (32,600), Kara-papaks
(30,000), Russians, Turks and Persians. The capital is Kars. The
province is divided into four districts, the chief towns of which are
Kars (q.v.), Ardahan (pop. 800 in 1897), Kaghyshman (3435) and Olty.
(J. T. Be.)
KARS, a fortified town of Russian Transcaucasia, in the province of
Kars, formerly at the head of a sanjak in the Turkish vilayet of
Erzerum. It is situated in 40 deg. 37' N. and 43 deg. 6' E., 185 m. by
rail S.W. of Tiflis, on a dark basalt spur of the Soghanli-dagh, above
the deep ravine of the Kars-chai, a sub-tributary of the Aras. Pop.
(1878), 8672; (1897), 20,891. There are three considerable
suburbs--Orta-kapi to the S., Bairam Pasha to the E., and Timur Pasha on
the western side of the river. At the N.W. corner of the town,
overhanging the river, is the ancient citadel, in earlier times a strong
military post, but completely commanded by the surrounding eminences.
The place is, however, still defended by a fort and batteries. There is
a 10th century cathedral, Kars being the see of a bishop of the Orthodox
Greek Church. Coarse woollens, carpets and felt are manufactured.
During the 9th and 10th centuries the seat of an independent Armenian
principality, Kars was captured and destroyed by the Seljuk Turks in the
11th century, by the Mongols in the 13th, and by Timur (Tamerlane) in
1387. The citadel, it would appear, was built by Sultan Murad III.
during the war with Persia, at the close of the 16th century. It was
strong enough to withstand a siege by Nadir Shah of Persia, in 1731, and
in 1807 it successfully resisted the Russians. After a brave defence it
surrendered on the 23rd of June 1828 to the Russian general Count I. F.
Paskevich, 11,000 men becoming prisoners of war. During the Crimean War
the Turkish garrison, guided by General Williams (Sir W. Fenwick
Williams of Kars) and other foreign officers, kept the Russians at bay
during a protracted siege; but, after the garrison had been devastated
by cholera, and food had utterly failed, nothing was left but to
capitulate (Nov. 1855). The fortress was again stormed by the Russians
in the war of 1877-78, and on its conclusion was transferred to Russia.
See Kmety, _The Defence of Kars_ (1856), translated from the German;
H. A. Lake, _Kars and our Captivity in Russia_ (London, 1856); and
_Narrative of the Defence of Kars_ (London, 1857); Dr Sandwith,
_Narrative of the Siege of Kars_ (London, 1856); C. B. Norman,
_Armenia and the Campaign of 1877_ (London, 1878); Greene, _Russian
Army and its Campaigns in Turkey_ (1879).
KARSHI, a town of Bokhara, in Central Asia, situated 96 m. S.E. of the
city of Bokhara, in a plain at the junction of two main confluents of
the Kashka-darya. It is a large and straggling place, with a citadel,
and the population amounts to 25,000. There are three colleges, and the
Biki mosque is a fine building inlaid with blue and white tiles. Along
the river stretches a fine promenade sheltered by poplars. Poppies and
tobacco are largely grown, the tobacco being deemed the best in Central
Asia. There is a considerable trade in grain; but the commercial
prosperity of Karshi is mainly due to its being a meeting-point for the
roads from Samarkand, Bokhara, Hissar, Balkh and Maimana, and serves as
the market where the Turkomans and Uzbegs dispose of their carpets,
knives and firearms. Its coppersmiths turn out excellent work. Karshi
was a favourite residence of Timur (Tamerlane).
KARST, in physical geography, the region east of the northern part of
the Adriatic. It is composed of high and dry limestone ridges. The
country is excessively faulted by a long series of parallel fractures
that border the N.E. Adriatic and continue inland that series of steps
which descend beneath the sea and produce the series of long parallel
islands off the coast of Triest and along the Dalmatian shore. It has
been shown by E. Suess (_Antlitz der Erde_, vol. i. pt. 2, ch. iii.)
that the N. Adriatic is a sunken dish that has descended along these
fractures and folds, which are not uncommonly the scene of earthquakes,
showing that these movements are still in progress. The crust is very
much broken in consequence and the water sinks readily through the
broken limestone rocks, which owing to their nature are also very
absorbent. The result is that the scenery is barren and desolate, and as
this structure always, wherever found, gives rise to similar features, a
landscape of this character is called a Karst landscape. The water
running in underground channels dissolves and denudes away the
underlying rock, producing great caves as at Adelsberg, and breaking the
surface with sinks, potholes and unroofed chasms. The barren nature of a
purely limestone country is seen in the treeless regions of some parts
of Derbyshire, while the underground streams and sinks of parts of
Yorkshire, and the unroofed gorge formed by the Cheddar cliffs, give
some indication of the action that in the high fractured mountains of
the Karst produces a depressing landscape which has some of the features
of the "bad lands" of America, though due to a different cause.
KARSTEN, KARL JOHANN BERNHARD (1782-1853), German mineralogist, was born
at Butzow in Mecklenburg, on the 26th of November 1782. He was author of
several comprehensive works, including _Handbuch der Eisenhuttenkunde_
(2 vols., 1816; 3rd ed., 1841); _System der Metallurgie geschichtlich,
statistisch, theoretisch und technisch_ (5 vols. with atlas, 1831-1832);
_Lehrbuch der Salinenkunde_ (2 vols., 1846-1847). He was well known as
editor of the _Archiv fur Bergbau und Huttenwesen_ (20 vols.,
1818-1831); and (with H. von Dechen) of the _Archiv fur Mineralogie,
Geognosie, Bergbau und Huttenkunde_ (26 vols., 1820-1854). He died at
Berlin on the 22nd of August 1853. His son, Dr Hermann Karsten
(1809-1877), was professor of mathematics and physics in the university
of Rostock.
KARTIKEYA, in Hindu mythology, the god of war. Of his birth there are
various legends. One relates that he had no mother but was produced by
Siva alone, and was suckled by six nymphs of the Ganges, being
miraculously endowed with six faces that he might simultaneously obtain
nourishment from each. Another story is that six babes, miraculously
conceived, were born of the six nymphs, and that Parvati, the wife of
Siva, in her great affection for them, embraced the infants so closely
that they became one, but preserved six faces, twelve arms, feet, eyes,
&c. Kartikeya became the victor of giants and the leader of the armies
of the gods. He is represented as riding a peacock. In southern India he
is known as Subramanya.
KARUN, an important river of Persia. Its head-waters are in the mountain
cluster known since at least the 14th century as Zardeh Kuh (13,000 ft.)
and situated in the Bakhtiari country about 115 m. W. of Isfahan. In its
upper course until it reaches Shushter it is called Ab i Kurang (also
Kurand and Kuran), and in the _Bundahish_, an old cosmographical work in
Pahlavi, it is named Kharae.[1] From the junction of the two principal
sources in the Zardeh Kuh at an altitude of about 8000 ft., the Ab i
Kurang is a powerful stream, full, deep and flowing with great velocity
for most of its upper course between precipices varying in height from
1000 to 3000 ft. The steepness and height of its banks make it in
general useless for irrigation purposes. From its principal sources to
Shushter the distance as the crow flies is only about 75 m., but the
course of the river is so tortuous that it travels 250 m. before it
reaches that city. Besides being fed on its journey through the
Bakhtiari country by many mountain-side streams, fresh-water and salt,
it receives various tributaries, the most important being the Ab i
Bazuft from the right and the Ab i Barz from the left. At Shushter it
divides into two branches, one the "Gerger," an artificial channel cut
in olden times and flowing east of the city, the other the "Shutait"
flowing west. These two branches, which are navigable to within a few
miles below Shushter, unite after a run of about 50 m. at Band i Kir, 24
m. S. of Shushter, and there also take up the Ab i Diz (river of
Dizful). From Band i Kir to a point two miles above Muhamrah the river
is called Karun (Rio Carom of the Portuguese writers of the 16th and
17th centuries) and is navigable all the way with the exception of about
two miles at Ahvaz, where a series of cliffs and rocky shelves cross the
river and cause rapids. Between Ahvaz and Band i Kir (46 m. by river, 24
m. by road) the river has an average depth of about 20 ft., but below
Ahvaz down to a few miles above Muhamrah it is in places very shallow,
and vessels with a draught exceeding 3 ft. are liable to ground. About
12 m. above Muhamrah and branching off to the left is a choked-up river
bed called the "blind Karun," by which the Karun found its way to the
sea in former days. Ten miles farther a part of the river branches off
to the left and due S. by a channel called Bahmashir (from
Bahman-Ardashir, the name of the district in the early middle ages)
which is navigable to the sea for vessels of little draught. The
principal river, here about a quarter of a mile broad and 20 to 30 ft.
deep, now flows west, and after passing Muhamrah enters into the Shatt
el Arab about 20 m. below Basra. This part of the river, from the
Bahmashir to the Shatt, is a little over three miles in length and, as
its name, Hafar ("dug") implies, an artificial channel. It was dug c.
A.D. 980 by Azud ed-Dowleh to facilitate communication by water between
Basra and Ahvaz, as related by the Arab geographer Mukaddasi A.D. 986.
The total length of the river is 460 to 470 m. while the distance from
the sources to its junction with the Shatt el Arab is only 160 m. as the
crow flies. The Karun up to Ahvaz was opened to international navigation
on the 30th of October 1888, and Messrs Lynch of London established a
fortnightly steamer service on it immediately after.
To increase the water supply of Isfahan Shah Tahmasp I. (1524-1576) and
some of his successors, notably Shah Abbas I. (1587-1629), undertook
some works for diverting the Kurang into a valley which drains into the
Zayendeh-rud, the river of Isfahan, by tunnelling, or cutting through a
narrow rocky ridge separating the two river systems. The result of many
years' work, a cleft 300 yds. long, 15 broad and 18 deep, cut into the
rock, probably amounting to no more than one-twentieth of the necessary
work, can be seen at the junction of the two principal sources of the
Kurang.
On the upper Karun see Mrs Bishop, _Journeys in Persia and Kurdistan_
(London, 1891); Lord Curzon, _Persia and the Persian Question_
(London, 1892); Lieut.-Colonel H. A. Sawyer, "The Bakhtiari Mountains
and Upper Elam," _Geog. Journal_ (Dec. 1894). (A. H.-S.)
FOOTNOTE:
[1] The _real_ principal source of the river has been correctly
located at ten miles above the _reputed_ principal source, but the
name Kurang has been erroneously explained as standing for Kuh i rang
and has been given to the mountain with the real principal source.
Kuh i rang has been wrongly explained as meaning the "variegated
mountain."
KARWAR, or CARWAR, a seaport of British India, administrative
headquarters of North Kanara district in the Bombay presidency; 295 m.
S. of Bombay city. Pop. (1901), 16,847. As early as 1660 the East India
Company had a factory here, with a trade in muslin and pepper; but it
suffered frequently from Dutch, Portuguese and native attacks, and in
1752 the English agent was withdrawn. Old Karwar fell into ruins, but a
new town grew up after the transfer of North Kanara to the Bombay
presidency. It is the only safe harbour all the year round between
Bombay and Cochin. In the bay is a cluster of islets called the Oyster
Rocks, on the largest of which is a lighthouse. Two smaller islands in
the bay afford good shelter to native craft during the strong north-west
winds that prevail from February to April. The commercial importance of
Karwar has declined since the opening of the railway to Marmagao in
Portuguese territory.
KARWI, a town of British India, in the Banda district of the United
Provinces, on a branch of the Indian Midland railway; pop. (1901), 7743.
Before the Mutiny it was the residence of a Mahratta noble, who lived in
great state, and whose accumulations constituted the treasure afterwards
famous as "the Kirwee and Banda Prize Money."
KARYOGAMY (Gr. [Greek: karuon], nut or kernel, thus "nucleus," and
[Greek: gamos], marriage), in biology: (1) the fusion of nuclei to form
a single nucleus in syngamic processes (see REPRODUCTION); (2) the
process of pairing in Infusoria (q.v.), in which two migratory nuclei
are interchanged and fuse with two stationary nuclei, while the
cytoplasmic bodies of the two mates are in intimate temporary union.
KASAI, or CASSAI, a river of Africa, the chief southern affluent of the
Congo. It enters the main stream in 3 deg. 10' S., 16 deg. 16' E. after
a course of over 800 m. from its source in the highlands which form the
south-western edge of the Congo basin--separating the Congo and Zambezi
systems. The Kasai and its many tributaries cover a very large part of
the Congo basin. The Kasai rises in about 12 deg. S., 19 deg. E. and
flows first in a north-easterly direction. About 10 deg. 35' S., 22 deg.
15' E. it makes a rectangular bend northward and then takes a
north-westerly direction. Five rivers--the Luembo, Chiumbo, Luijimo or
Luashimo, Chikapa and Lovua or Lowo--rise west of the Kasai and run in
parallel courses for a considerable distance, falling successively into
the parent stream (between 7 deg. and 6 deg. S.) as it bends westward in
its northern course. The Luembo and Chiumbo join and enter the Kasai as
one river. A number of rapids occur in these streams. A few miles below
the confluence of the Lowo, the last of the five rivers named to join
the Kasai, the main stream is interrupted by the Wissmann Falls which,
though not very high, bar further navigation from the north. Below this
point the river receives several right-hand (eastern) tributaries. These
also have their source in the Zambezi-Congo watershed, rising just north
of 12 deg. S., flowing north in parallel lines, and in their lower
course bending west to join the Kasai. The chief of these affluents are
the Lulua and the Sankuru, the Lulua running between the Kasai and the
Sankuru. The Sankuru makes a bold curve westward on reaching 4 deg. S.,
following that parallel of latitude a considerable distance. Its waters
are of a bright yellow colour. After the junction of the two rivers (in
4 deg. 17' S., 20 deg. 15' E.), the united stream of the Kasai flows
N.W. to the Congo. From the south it is joined by the Loange and the
Kwango. The Kwango is a large river rising a little north of 12 deg. S.,
and west of the source of the Kasai. Without any marked bends it flows
north--is joined from the east by the Juma, Wamba and other streams--and
has a course of 600 m. before joining the Kasai in 3 deg. S., 18' E. The
lower reaches of the Kwango are navigable; the upper course is
interrupted by rapids. On the north (in 3 deg. 8' S., 17 deg. E.) the
lower Kasai is joined by the Lukenye or Ikatta. This river, the most
northerly affluent of the Kasai, rises between 24 deg. and 25 deg. E.,
and about 3 deg. S. in swampy land through which the Lomami (another
Congo affluent) flows northward. The Lukenye has an east to west
direction flowing across a level country once occupied by a lake, of
which Lake Leopold II. (q.v.), connected with the lower course of the
Lukenye, is the scanty remnant. Below the lake the Lukenye is known as
the Mfini. Near its mouth the Kasai, in its lower course generally a
broad stream strewn with islands, is narrowed to about half a mile on
passing through a gap in the inner line of the West African highlands,
by the cutting of which the old lake of the Kasai basin must have been
drained. The Kasai enters the Congo with a minimum depth of 25 feet and
a breadth of about 700 yards, at a height of 942 ft. above the sea. The
confluence is known as the Kwa mouth, Kwa being an alternative name for
the lower Kasai. The volume of water entering the Congo averages 321,000
cub. ft. per second: far the largest amount discharged by any of the
Congo affluents. In floodtime the current flows at the rate of 5 or 6 m.
an hour. The Kasai and its tributaries are navigable for over 1500 m. by
steamer.
The Kwango affluent of the Kasai was the first of the large affluents
of the Congo known to Europeans. It was reached by the Portuguese from
their settlements on the west coast in the 16th century. Of its lower
course they were ignorant. Portuguese travellers in the 18th century
are believed to have reached the upper Kasai, but the first accurate
knowledge of the river basin was obtained by David Livingstone, who
reached the upper Kasai from the east and explored in part the upper
Kwango (1854-1855). V. L. Cameron and Paul Pogge crossed the upper
Kasai in the early "seventies." The Kwa mouth was seen by H. M.
Stanley in his journey down the Congo in 1877, and he rightly regarded
it as the outlet of the Kwango, though not surmising it was also the
outlet of the Kasai. In 1882 Stanley ascended the river to the
Kwango-Kasai confluence and thence proceeding up the Mfini discovered
Lake Leopold II. In 1884 George Grenfell journeyed up the river beyond
the Kwango confluence. The systematic exploration of the main stream
and its chief tributaries was, however, mainly the work of Hermann von
Wissmann, Ludwig Wolf, Paul Pogge and other Germans during 1880-1887.
(See Wissmann's books, especially _Im Innern Afrikas_, Leipzig, 1888.)
On his third journey, 1886, Wissmann was accompanied by Grenfell.
Major von Mechow, an Austrian, explored the middle Kwango in 1880, and
its lower course was subsequently surveyed by Grenfell and Holman
Bentley, a Baptist missionary. In 1899-1900 a Belgian expedition under
Captain C. Lemaire traced the Congo-Zambezi watershed, obtaining
valuable information concerning the upper courses of the southern
Kasai tributaries. The upper Kasai basin and its peoples were further
investigated by a Hungarian traveller, E. Torday, in 1908-1909. (See
Torday's paper in _Geog. Jour._, 1910; also CONGO and the authorities
there cited.)
KASBEK (Georgian, _Mkin-vari_; Ossetian, _Urs-khokh_), one of the chief
summits of the Caucasus, situated in 42 deg. 42' N. and 44 deg. 30' E.,
7 m. as the crow flies from a station of the same name on the high road
to Tiflis. Its altitude is 16,545 ft. It rises on the range which runs
north of the main range (main water-parting), and which is pierced by
the gorges of the Ardon and the Terek. It represents an extinct volcano,
built up of trachyte and sheathed with lava, and has the shape of a
double cone, whose base lies at an altitude of 5800 ft. Owing to the
steepness of its slopes, its eight glaciers cover an aggregate surface
of not more than 8 sq. m., though one of them, Maliev, is 36 m. long.
The best-known glacier is the Dyevdorak, or Devdorak, which creeps down
the north-eastern slope into a gorge of the same name, reaching a level
of 7530 ft. At its eastern foot runs the Georgian military road through
the pass of Darial (7805 ft.). The summit was first climbed in 1868 by
D. W. Freshfield, A. W. Moore, and C. Tucker, with a Swiss guide.
Several successful ascents have been made since, the most valuable in
scientific results being that of Pastukhov (1889) and that of G.
Merzbacher and L. Purtscheller in 1890. Kasbek has a great literature,
and has left a deep mark in Russian poetry.
See D. W. Freshfield in _Proc. Geog. Soc._ (November 1888) and _The
Exploration of the Caucasus_ (2nd ed., 2 vols., 1902); Hatisian's
"Kazbek Glaciers" in _Izvestia Russ. Geog. Soc._ (xxiv., 1888);
Pastukhov in _Izvestia of the Caucasus Branch of Russ. Geog. Soc._ (x.
1, 1891, with large-scale map).
KASHAN, a small province of Persia, situated between Isfahan and Kum. It
is divided into the two districts _germsir_, the "warm," and _sardsir_,
the "cold," the former with the city of Kashan in the plains, the latter
in the hills. It has a population of 75,000 to 80,000, and pays a yearly
revenue of about L18,000. KASHAN (Cashan) is the provincial capital, in
34 deg. 0' N. and 51 deg. 27' E., at an elevation of 3190 ft., 150 m.
from Teheran; pop. 35,000, including a few hundred Jews occupied as
silk-winders, and a few Zoroastrians engaged in trade. Great quantities
of silk stuffs, from raw material imported from Gilan, and copper
utensils are manufactured at Kashan and sent to all parts of Persia.
Kashan also exports rose-water made in villages in the hilly districts
about 20 m. from the city, and is the only place in Persia where cobalt
can be obtained, from the mine at Kamsar, 19 m. to the south. At the
foot of the hills 4 m. W. of the city are the beautiful gardens of Fin,
the scene of the official murder, on the 9th of January 1852, of Mirza
Taki Khan, Amir Nizam, the grand vizier, one of the ablest ministers
that Persia has had in modern times.
KASHGAR, an important city of Chinese Turkestan, in 39 deg. 24' 26" N.
lat., 76 deg. 6' 47" E. long., 4043 ft. above sea-level. It consists of
two towns, Kuhna Shahr or "old city," and Yangi Shahr or "new city,"
about five miles apart, and separated from one another by the Kyzyl Su,
a tributary of the Tarim river. It is called Su-leh by the Chinese,
which perhaps represents an original Solek or Sorak. This name seems to
be older than Kashgar, which is said to mean "variegated houses."
Situated at the junction of routes from the valley of the Oxus, from
Khokand and Samarkand, Almati, Aksu, and Khotan, the last two leading
from China and India, Kashgar has been noted from very early times as a
political and commercial centre. Like all other cities of Central Asia,
it has changed hands repeatedly, and was from 1864-1887 the seat of
government of the Amir Yakub Beg, surnamed the Atalik Ghazi, who
established and for a brief period ruled with remarkable success a
Mahommedan state comprising the chief cities of the Tarim basin from
Turfan round along the skirt of the mountains to Khotan. But the kingdom
collapsed with his death and the Chinese retook the country in 1877 and
have held it since.
Kuhna Shahr is a small fortified city on high ground overlooking the
river Tuman. Its walls are lofty and supported by buttress bastions with
loopholed turrets at intervals; the fortifications, however, are but of
hard clay and are much out of repair. The city contains about 2500
houses. Beyond the bridge, a little way off, are the ruins of ancient
Kashgar, which once covered a large extent of country on both sides of
the Tuman, and the walls of which even now are 12 feet wide at the top
and twice that in height. This city--Aski Shahr (Old Town) as it is now
called--was destroyed in 1514 by Mirza Ababakar (Abubekr) on the
approach of Sultan Said Khan's army. About two miles to the north beyond
the river is the shrine of Hazrat Afak, the saint king of the country,
who died and was buried here in 1693. It is a handsome mausoleum faced
with blue and white glazed tiles, standing under the shade of some
magnificent silver poplars. About it Yakub Beg erected a commodious
college, mosque and monastery, the whole being surrounded by rich
orchards, fruit gardens and vineyards. The Yangi Shahr of Kashgar is, as
its name implies, modern, having been built in 1838. It is of oblong
shape running north and south, and is entered by a single gateway. The
walls are lofty and massive and topped by turrets, while on each side is
a projecting bastion. The whole is surrounded by a deep and wide ditch,
which can be filled from the river, at the risk, however, of bringing
down the whole structure, for the walls are of mud, and stand upon a
porous sandy soil. In the time of the Chinese, before Yakub Beg's sway,
Yangi Shahr held a garrison of six thousand men, and was the residence
of the _amban_ or governor. Yakub erected his _orda_ or palace on the
site of the amban's residence, and two hundred ladies of his harem
occupied a commodious enclosure hard by. The population of Kashgar has
been recently estimated at 60,000 in the Kuhna Shahr and only 2000 in
the Yangi Shahr.
With the overthrow of the Chinese rule in 1865 the manufacturing
industries of Kashgar declined. Silk culture and carpet manufacture have
flourished for ages at Khotan, and the products always find a ready sale
at Kashgar. Other manufactures consist of a strong coarse cotton cloth
called _kham_ (which forms the dress of the common people, and for
winter wear is padded with cotton and quilted), boots and shoes,
saddlery, felts, furs and sheepskins made up into cloaks, and various
articles of domestic use. A curious street sight in Kashgar is presented
by the hawkers of meat pies, pastry and sweetmeats, which they trundle
about on hand-barrows just as their counterparts do in Europe; while the
knife-grinder's cart, and the vegetable seller with his tray or basket
on his head, recall exactly similar itinerant traders further west.
The earliest authentic mention of Kashgar is during the second period
of ascendancy of the Han dynasty, when the Chinese conquered the
Hiungnu, Yutien (Khotan), Sulei (Kashgar), and a group of states in
the Tarim basin almost up to the foot of the Tian Shan mountains. This
happened in 76 B.C. Kashgar does not appear to have been known in the
West at this time but Ptolemy speaks of Scythia beyond the Imaus,
which is in a _Kasia Regio_, possibly exhibiting the name whence
Kashgar and Kashgaria (often applied to the district) are formed. Next
ensues a long epoch of obscurity. The country was converted to
Buddhism and probably ruled by Indo-Scythian or Kushan kings. Hsuan
Tswang passed through Kashgar (which he calls Ka-sha) on his return
journey from India to China. The Buddhist religion, then beginning to
decay in India, was working its way to a new growth in China, and
contemporaneously the Nestorian Christians were establishing
bishoprics at Herat, Merv and Samarkand, whence they subsequently
proceeded to Kashgar, and finally to China itself. In the 8th century
came the Arab invasion from the west, and we find Kashgar and
Turkestan lending assistance to the reigning queen of Bokhara, to
enable her to repel the enemy. But although the Mahommedan religion
from the very commencement sustained checks, it nevertheless made its
weight felt upon the independent states of Turkestan to the north and
east, and thus acquired a steadily growing influence. It was not,
however, till the 10th century that Islam was established at Kashgar,
under the Uighur kingdom (see TURKS). The Uighurs appear to have been
the descendants of the people called Tolas and to have been one of the
many Turkish tribes who migrated westwards from China. Boghra Khan,
the most celebrated prince of this line, was converted to
Mahommedanism late in the 10th century and the Uighur kingdom lasted
until 1120 but was distracted by complicated dynastic struggles. The
Uighurs employed an alphabet based upon the Syriac and borrowed from
the Nestorian missionaries. They spoke a dialect of Turkish preserved
in the Kudatku Bilik, a moral treatise composed in 1065. Their kingdom
was destroyed by an invasion of the Kara-Kitais, another Turkish tribe
pressing westwards from the Chinese frontier, who in their turn were
swept away in 1219 by Jenghiz Khan. His invasion gave a decided check
to the progress of the Mahommedan creed, but on his death, and during
the rule of the Jagatai Khans, who became converts to that faith, it
began to reassert its ascendancy. Marco Polo visited the city, which
he calls Cascar, about 1275 and left some notes on it.
In 1389-1390 Timur ravaged Kashgar, Andijan and the intervening
country. Kashgar passed through a troublous time, and in 1514, on the
invasion of the Khan Sultan Said, was destroyed by Mirza Ababakar, who
with the aid of ten thousand men built the new fort with massive
defences higher up on the banks of the Tuman. The dynasty of the
Jagatai Khans collapsed in 1572 by the dismemberment of the country
between rival representatives; and soon after two powerful Khoja
factions, the White and Black Mountaineers (_Ak_ and _Kara Taghluk_),
arose, whose dissensions and warfares, with the intervention of the
Kalmucks of Dzungaria, fill up the history till 1759, when a Chinese
army from Ili (Kulja) invaded the country, and, after perpetrating
wholesale massacres, finally consolidated their authority by settling
therein Chinese emigrants, together with a Manchu garrison. The
Chinese had thoughts of pushing their conquests towards western
Turkestan and Samarkand, the chiefs of which sent to ask assistance of
the Afghan king Ahmed Shah. This monarch despatched an embassy to
Peking to demand the restitution of the Mahommedan states of Central
Asia, but the embassy was not well received, and Ahmed Shah was too
much engaged with the Sikhs to attempt to enforce his demands by arms.
The Chinese continued to hold Kashgar, with sundry interruptions from
Mahommedan revolts--one of the most serious occurring in 1827, when
the territory was invaded and the city taken by Jahanghir Khoja;
Chang-lung, however, the Chinese general of Ili, recovered possession
of Kashgar and the other revolted cities in 1828. A revolt in 1829
under Mahommed Ali Khan and Yusuf, brother of Jahanghir, was more
successful, and resulted in the concession of several important trade
privileges to the Mahommedans of the district of Alty Shahr (the "six
cities"), as it was then named. Until 1846 the country enjoyed peace
under the just and liberal rule of Zahir-ud-din, the Chinese governor,
but in that year a fresh Khoja revolt under Kath Tora led to his
making himself master of the city, with circumstances of unbridled
licence and oppression. His reign was, however, brief, for at the end
of seventy-five days, on the approach of the Chinese, he fled back to
Khokand amid the jeers of the inhabitants. The last of the Khoja
revolts (1857) was of about equal duration with the previous one, and
took place under Wali-Khan, a degraded debauchee, and the murderer of
the lamented traveller Adolf Schlagintweit.
The great Tungani (Dungani) revolt, or insurrection of the Chinese
Mahommedans, which broke out in 1862 in Kan-suh, spread rapidly to
Dzungaria and through the line of towns in the Tarim basin. The
Tungani troops in Yarkand rose, and (10th of August 1863) massacred
some seven thousand Chinese, while the inhabitants of Kashgar, rising
in their turn against their masters, invoked the aid of Sadik Beg, a
Kirghiz chief, who was reinforced by Buzurg Khan, the heir of
Jahanghir, and Yakub Beg, his general, these being despatched at
Sadik's request by the ruler of Khokand to raise what troops they
could to aid his Mahommedan friends in Kashgar. Sadik Beg soon
repented of having asked for a Khoja, and eventually marched against
Kashgar, which by this time had succumbed to Buzurg Khan and Yakub
Beg, but was defeated and driven back to Khokand. Buzurg Khan
delivered himself up to indolence and debauchery, but Yakub Beg, with
singular energy and perseverance, made himself master of Yangi Shahr,
Yangi-Hissar, Yarkand and other towns, and eventually became sole
master of the country, Buzurg Khan proving himself totally unfitted
for the post of ruler. Kashgar and the other cities of the Tarim basin
remained under Yakub Beg's rule until 1877, when the Chinese regained
possession of their ancient dominion. (C. E. D. B.; C. El.)
KASHI, or KASI, formerly the Persian word for all glazed and enamelled
pottery irrespectively; now the accepted term for certain kinds of
enamelled tile-work, including brick-work and tile-mosaic work,
manufactured in Persia and parts of Mahommedan India, chiefly during the
16th and 17th centuries.[1]
Undoubtedly originating in the Semitic word for glass, _kas_, it is
quite possible that the name _kashi_ is immediately derived from Kashan,
a town in Persia noted for its _faience_. This ancient pottery site, in
turn, probably receives its name from the old-time industry; as a "city
of the plain" it would obviously have no claim to the farther-eastern
suffix _shan_, meaning a mountain. Sir George Birdwood wisely considers
that "the art of glazing earthenware has, in Persia, descended in an
almost unbroken tradition from the period of the greatness of Chaldaea
and Assyria ... the name _kas_, by which it is known in Arabic and
Hebrew, carries us back to the manufacture of glass and enamels for
which great Sidon was already famous 1500 years before Christ ... the
designs used in the decoration of Sind and Punjab glazed pottery also go
to prove how much these Indian wares have been influenced by Persian
examples and the Persian tradition of the much earlier art of Nineveh
and Babylon" (_The Industrial Arts of India_, 1880). The two native
names for glass, _kanch_ and _shisha_, common to Persia and India, are,
seemingly, modifications of kashi. The Indian tradition of Chinese
potters settling in bygone days at Lahore and Hala respectively, still
lingers in the Punjab and Sind provinces, and evidently travelled
eastward from Persia with the Moguls. Howbeit in Lahore the name Chini
is sometimes wrongly applied to _kashi_ work; and the so-called
Chini-ka-Rauza mausoleum at Agra is an instance of this misuse. It now
seems an established fact that a colony of Chinese ceramic experts
migrated to Isfahan during the 16th century (probably in the reign, and
at the invitation, of Shah Abbas I.), and there helped to revive the
jaded pottery industry of that district.
_Kashi_ work consisted of two kinds: (a) Enamel-faced tiles and
bricks of strongly fired red earthenware, or terra-cotta; (b)
Enamel-faced tiles and tesserae of lightly fired "lime-mortar," or
sandstone. Tile-mosaic work is described by some authorities as the
true _kashi_. From examination of figured tile-mosaic patterns, it
would appear that, in some instances, the shaped tesserae had been cut
out of enamelled slabs or tiles after firing; in other examples to
have been cut into shape before receiving their facing of coloured
enamel. Mosaic panels in the fort at Lahore are described by J. L.
Kipling as "showing a _gul dasta_, or foliated pattern of a branching
tree, each leaf of which is a separate piece of pottery." Conventional
representations of foliage, flowers and fruit, intricate geometrical
figures, interlacing arabesques, and decorative
calligraphy--inscriptions in Arabic and Persian--constitute the
ordinary _kashi_ designs. The colours chiefly used were cobalt blue,
copper blue (turquoise colour), lead-antimoniate yellow (mustard
colour), manganese purple, iron brown and tin white. A colour-scheme,
popular with Mogul and contemporary Persian _kashigars_, was the
design, in cobalt blue and copper blue, reserved on a ground of deep
mustard yellow. Before applying the enamel colours, the rough face of
the tile, or the tesserae, received a thin coating of slip of variable
composition. It is probably owing to some defect in this part of the
process, or to imperfect firing, that the enamelled tile surfaces on
many old buildings, particularly on the south side, have weathered and
flaked away.
In India the finest examples of _kashi_ work are in the Punjab and
Sind provinces. At Lahore, amongst many beautiful structures, the most
notable are the mosque of Wazir Khan (A.D. 1634) and the gateways of
three famous pleasure gardens, the Shalamar Bagh (A.D. 1637), the
Gulabi Bagh (A.D. 1640), and the Charburji (c. A.D. 1665). At Tatta
the Jami Masjid, built by Shah Jahan (c. A.D. 1645), is a splendid
illustration; whilst in that "vast cemetery of six square miles" on
the adjacent Malki plateau, are numerous Mahommedan tombs (A.D.
1570-1640) with extraordinary _kashi_ ornamentation. Delhi, Multan,
Jullundur, Shahdara, Lahore cantonment, Agra and Hyderabad (Sind), all
possess excellent monuments of the best period viz. those erected
during the reigns of Akbar and Jahangir (A.D. 1556-1628).
In Persia, at Isfahan, Kashan, Meshed and Kerman are a few buildings
and ruins showing the old _kashi_ work; the palace of Chehel Situn in
Isfahan, built during the reign of Shah Abbas I. (c. A.D. 1600), is a
magnificent specimen of this art.
Occasional revivals of the manufacture have taken place both in India
and Persia. Mahommed Sharif, a potter of Jullundur in the Punjab,
reproduced the Mogul enamelled tile-work in 1885, and there is a
manuscript record of a certain Ustad Ali Mahommed, of Isfahan, who
revived the Persian processes in 1887. (W. B.*; C. S. C.)
FOOTNOTE:
[1] Kashi, the Hindu name for the sacred city of Benares, has no
ceramic significance.
KASHMIR, or CASHMERE, a native state of India, including much of the
Himalayan mountain system to the north of the Punjab. It has been fabled
in song for its beauty (e.g. in Moore's _Lalla Rookh_), and is the chief
health resort for Europeans in India, while politically it is important
as guarding one of the approaches to India on the north-west frontier.
The proper name of the state is Jammu and Kashmir, and it comprises in
all an estimated area of 80,900 sq. m., with a population (1901) of
2,905,578, showing an increase of 14.21% in the decade. It is bounded on
the north by some petty hills chiefships and by the Karakoram mountains;
on the east by Tibet; and on the south and west by the Punjab and
North-West Frontier provinces. The state is in direct political
subordination to the Government of India, which is represented by a
resident. Its territories comprise the provinces of Jammu (including the
jagir of Punch), Kashmir, Ladakh, Baltistan and Gilgit; the Shin states
of Yaghistan, of which the most important are Chilas, Darel and Tangir,
are nominally subordinate to it, and the two former pay a tribute of
gold dust. The following are the statistics for the main divisions of
the state:--
Area in sq. m. Pop. in 1901.
Jammu 5,223 1,521,307
Kashmir 7,922 1,157,394
Frontier Districts 443 226,877
The remainder of the state consists of uninhabited mountains, and its
only really important possessions are the districts of Jammu and
Kashmir.
_Physical Conformation._--The greater portion of the country is
mountainous, and with the exception of a strip of plain on the
south-west, which is continuous with the great level of the Punjab, may
be conveniently divided into the following regions:
(1) The outer hills and the central mountains of Jammu district.
(2) The valley of Kashmir.
(3) The far side of the great central range, including Ladakh,
Baltistan and Gilgit.
The hills in the outer region of Jammu, adjoining the Punjab plains,
begin with a height of 100 to 200 ft., followed by a tract of rugged
country, including various ridges running nearly parallel, with long
narrow valleys between. The average height of these ridges is from 3000
to 4000 ft. The central mountains are commonly 8000 to 10,000 ft.,
covered with pasture or else with forest. Then follow the more lofty
mountain ranges, including the region of perpetual snow. A great chain
of snowy mountains branching off south-east and north-west divides the
drainage of the Chenab and the Jhelum rivers from that of the higher
branches of the Indus. It is within spurs from this chain that the
valley of Kashmir is enclosed amid hills which rise from 14,000 to
15,000 ft., while the valley itself forms a cup-like basin at an
elevation of 5000 to 6000 ft. All beyond that great range is a wide
tract of mountainous country, bordering the north-western part of Tibet
and embracing Ladakh, Baltistan and Gilgit.
The length of the Kashmir valley, including the inner slopes of its
surrounding hills, is about 120 m. from north-west to south-east with
a maximum width of about 75 m. The low and comparatively level floor
of the basin is 84 m. long and 20 to 24 m. broad.
The hills forming the northern half-circuit of the Kashmir valley, and
running beyond, include many lofty mountain masses and peaks, the most
conspicuous of which, a little outside the confines of Kashmir, is
Nanga Parbat, the fourth highest mountain in the world, 26,656 ft.
above the sea, with an extensive area of glacier on its eastern face.
The great ridge which is thrown off to the south-west by Nanga Parbat
rises, at a distance of 12 m., to another summit 20,740 ft. in height,
from which run south-west, and south-east the ridges which are the
northern watershed boundary of Kashmir. The former range, after
running 70 m. south-west, between the valleys of the Kishenganga and
the Kunhar or Nain-sukh, turns southward, closely pressing the river
Jhelum, after it has received the Kishenganga, with a break a few
miles farther south which admits the Kunhar. This range presents
several prominent summits, the highest two 16,487 and 15,544 ft. above
the sea. The range which runs south-east from the junction peak above
mentioned divides the valley of the Kishenganga from that of the Astor
and other tributaries of the Indus. The highest point on this range,
where it skirts Kashmir, is 17,202 ft. above the sea. For more than 50
m. from Nanga Parbat there are no glaciers on this range; thence
eastward they increase; one, near the Zoji-la pass, is only 10,850 ft.
above the sea. The mountains at the east end of the valley, running
nearly north and south, drain inwards to the Jhelum, and on the other
side to the Wardwan, a tributary of the Chenab. The highest part of
this eastern boundary is 14,700 ft. There no are glaciers. The highest
point on the Panjal range, which forms the south and south-west
boundary, is 15,523 ft. above the sea.
The river Jhelum (q.v.) or Behat (Sanskrit (_Vitasta_)--the Hydaspes
of Greek historians and geographers--flows north-westward through the
middle of the valley. After a slow and winding course it expands about
25 m. below Srinagar, over a slight depression in the plain, and forms
the Wular lake and marsh, which is about 12(1/2) m. by 5 m. in extent,
and surrounded by the lofty mountains which tower over the north and
north-east of the valley. Leaving the lake on the south-west side,
near the town of Sopur, the river pursues its sluggish course
south-westward, about 18 m. to the gorge at Baramulla. From this point
the stream is more rapid through the narrow valley which conducts it
westward 75 m. to Muzaffarabad, where it turns sharply south, joined
by the Kishenganga. At Islamabad, about 40 m. above Srinagar, the
river is 5400 ft. above sea-level, and at Srinagar 5235 ft. It has
thus a fall of about 4 ft. per mile in this part of its course. For
the next 24 m. to the Wular lake, and thence to Baramulla, its fall is
only about 2(1/4) ft. in the mile. On the 80 m. of the river in the
flat valley between Islamabad and Baramulla, there is much boat
traffic; but none below Baramulla, till the river comes out into the
plains.
On the north-east side of this low narrow plain of the Jhelum is a
broad hilly tract between which and the higher boundary range runs the
Kishenganga River. Near the east end of this interior hilly tract, and
connected with the higher range, is one summit 17,839 ft. Around this
peak and between the ridges which run from it are many small glaciers.
These heights look down on one side into the beautiful valley of the
Sind River, and on another into the valley of the Lidar, which join
the Jhelum. Among the hills north of Srinagar rises one conspicuous
mountain mass, 16,903 ft. in height, from which on its north side
descend tributaries of the Kishenganga, and on the south the Wangat
River, which flows into the Sind. By these rivers and their numerous
affluents the whole valley of Kashmir is watered abundantly.
Around the foot of many spurs of the hills which run down on the
Kashmir plain are pieces of low table-land, called karewa. These
terraces vary in height at different parts of the valley from 100 to
300 ft. above the alluvial plain. Those which are near each other are
mostly about the same level, and separated by deep ravines. The level
plain in the middle of the Kashmir valley consists of fine clay and
sand, with water-worn pebbles. The karewas consist of horizontal beds
of clay and sand, the lacustrine nature of which is shown by the
shells which they contain.
Two passes lead northward from the Kashmir valley, the Burzil (13,500
ft.) and the Kamri (14,050). The Burzil is the main pass between
Srinagar and Gilgit via Astor. It is usually practicable only between
the middle of July and the middle of September. The road from Srinagar
to Lehin Ladakh follows the Sind valley to the Zoji-la-pass (11,300
ft.) Only a short piece of the road, where snow accumulates, prevents
this pass being used all the year. At the south-east end of the valley
are three passes, the Margan (11,500 ft.), the Hoksar (13,315) and the
Marbal (11,500), leading to the valleys of the Chenab and the Ravi.
South of Islamabad, on the direct route to Jammu and Sialkot, is the
Banihal pass (9236 ft.). Further west on the Panjal range is the Pir
Panjal or Panchal pass (11,400 ft.), with a second pass, the Rattan
Pir (8200 ft.), across a second ridge about 15 m. south-west of it.
Between the two passes is the beautifully situated fort of Baramgali.
This place is in the domain of the raja of Punch, cousin and tributary
of the maharaja of Kashmir. At Rajaori, south of these passes, the
road divides: one line leads to Bhimber and Gujrat, the other to Jammu
and Sialkot by Aknur. South-west of Baramulla is the Haji Pir pass
(8500 ft.), which indicates the road to Punch. From Punch one road
leads down to the plains at the town of Jhelum, another eastward
through the hills to the Rattan Pir pass and Rajaori. Lastly, there is
the river pass of the Jhelum, which is the easy route from the valley
westward, having two ways down to the plains, one by Muzaffarabad and
the Hazara valley to Hasan Abdal, the other by the British hill
station of Murree to Rawalpindi.
_Geology._--The general strike of the beds, and of the folds which
have affected them, is from N.W. to S.E., parallel to the mountain
ranges. Along the south-western border lies the zone of Tertiary beds
which forms the Sub-Himalayas. Next to this is a great belt of
Palaeozoic rocks, through which rise the granite, gneiss and schist of
the Zanskar and Dhauladhar ranges and of the Pir Panjal. In the midst
of the Palaeozoic area lie the alluvium and Pleistocene deposits of
the Srinagar valley, and the Mesozoic and Carboniferous basin of the
upper part of the Sind valley. Beyond the great Palaeozoic belt is a
zone of Mesozoic and Tertiary beds which commences at Kargil and
extends south-eastward past the Kashmir boundary to Spiti and beyond.
Finally, in Baltistan and the Ladakh range there is a broad zone
composed chiefly of gneiss and schist of ancient date.
The oldest fossils found belong either to the Ordovician or Silurian
systems. But it is not until the Carboniferous is reached that fossils
become at all abundant (so far as is yet known). The Mesozoic deposits
belong chiefly to the Trias and Jura, but Cretaceous beds have been
found near the head of the Tsarap valley. The Tertiary system includes
representatives of all the principal divisions recognized in other
parts of the Himalayas.
_Climate._--The valley of Kashmir, sheltered from the south-west
monsoon by the Panjal range, has not the periodical rains of India.
Its rainfall is irregular, greatest in the spring months. Occasional
storms in the monsoon pass over the crests of the Panjal and give
heavy rain on the elevated plateaus on the Kashmir side. And again
clouds pass over the valley and are arrested by the higher hills on
the north-east side. Snow falls on the surrounding hills at intervals
from October to March. In the valley the first snow generally falls
about the end of December, but never to any great amount. The hottest
months are July, August and the greater part of September, during
which the noon shade temperature varies from 85 deg. to 90 deg. and
occasionally 95 deg. at Srinagar, probably the hottest place in the
valley. The coldest months are January and February, when for several
weeks the average minimum temperature is about 15 deg. below freezing.
As a health resort the province, excluding Srinagar, which is
insanitary and relaxing, has no rival anywhere in the neighbourhood of
India. Its climate is admirably adapted to the European constitution,
and in consequence of the varied range of temperature and the facility
of moving about the visitor is enabled with ease to select places at
elevations most congenial to him. Formerly only 200 passes a year were
issued by the government, but now no restriction is placed on
visitors, and their number increases annually. European sportsmen and
travellers, in addition to residents of India, resort there freely.
The railway to Rawalpindi, and a driving road thence to Srinagar make
the valley easy of access. When the temperature in Srinagar rises at
the beginning of June, there is a general exodus to Gulmarg, which has
become a fashionable hill-station. This great influx of visitors has
resulted in a corresponding diminution of game. Special game
preservation rules have been introduced, and _nullahs_ are let out for
stated periods with a restriction on the number of head to be shot.
The wild animals of the country include ibex, markhor, oorial, the
Kashmir stag, and black and brown bears. Many sportsmen now cross into
Ladakh and the Pamirs.
_People._--The great majority of the inhabitants of Kashmir are
professedly Mahommedans, but their conversion to the faith of Islam is
comparatively recent and they are still strongly influenced by their
ancient superstitions. At the census of 1901 out of a total population
in the whole state of 2,905,578, there were 2,154,695 Mahommedans,
689,073 Hindus, 35,047 Buddhists and 25,828 Sikhs. The Hindus are mostly
found in Jammu, and the Buddhists are confined to Ladakh. In Kashmir
proper the few Hindus (60,682) are almost all Brahmans, known as
Pundits. Superstition has made the Kashmiri timid; tyranny has made him
a liar; while physical disasters have made him selfish and pessimistic.
Up to recent times the cultivator lived under a system of _begar_, which
entitled an official to take either labour or commodities free of
payment from the villages. Having no security of property, the people
had no incentive to effort, and with no security for life they lost the
independence of free men. But the land settlement of 1889 swept all
these abuses away. Restrictive monopolies, under which bricks, lime,
paper and certain other manufactures were closed to private enterprise,
were abolished. The results of the settlement are thus enumerated by Sir
Walter Lawrence: "Little by little, confidence has sprung up. Land which
had no value in 1889 is now eagerly sought after by all classes.
Cultivation has extended and improved. Houses have been rebuilt and
repaired, fields fenced in, orchards planted, vegetable gardens well
stocked and new mills constructed. Women no longer are seen toiling in
the fields, for their husbands are now at home to do the work, and the
long journeys to Gilgit are a thing of the past. When the harvest is
ripe the peasant reaps it at his own good time, and not a soldier ever
enters the villages." In consequence of this improvement in their
conditions of life and of the influx of wealth into the country brought
by visitors, the Kashmiri grows every year in material prosperity and
independence of character. The Kashmir women have a reputation for
beauty which is not altogether deserved, but the children are always
pretty.
The language spoken in Kashmir is akin to that of the Punjab, though
marked by many peculiarities. It possesses an ancient literature, which
is written in a special character (see KASHMIRI).
_Natural Calamities._--The effect of physical calamities partly
incidental to the climate of Kashmir, upon the character of its
inhabitants has been referred to. The list includes fires, floods,
earthquakes, famines and cholera. The ravages of fire are chiefly felt
in Srinagar, where the wood houses and their thatched roofs fall an
easy prey to the flames. The national habit of carrying a _kangar_, or
small brazier, underneath the clothes for the purpose of warming the
body, is a fruitful cause of fires. Srinagar is said to have been
burnt down eighteen times. Many disastrous floods are recorded, the
greatest being the terrible inundation which followed the slipping of
the Khadanyar mountain below Baramula in A.D. 879. The channel of the
Jhelum river was blocked and a large part of the valley submerged. In
1841 a serious flood caused great damage to life and property; there
was another in 1893, when six out of the seven bridges in Srinagar
were washed away, 25,426 acres under crops were submerged and 2225
houses were wrecked; another flood occurred in July 1903, when the
bund between the Dal Lake and the canal gave way, and the lake rose 10
ft. in half an hour. Between two and three thousand houses in and
around Srinagar collapsed, while over 40 miles of the tonga road were
submerged. Since the 15th century eleven great earthquakes have
occurred, all of long duration and accompanied by great loss of life.
During the 19th century there were four severe earthquakes, the last
two occurring in 1864 and 1885, when some 3500 people were killed.
Native historians record nineteen great famines, the last two
occurring in 1831 and 1877. In 1878 it was reported that only
two-fifths of the total population of the valley survived. During the
19th century also there were ten epidemics of cholera, all more or
less disastrous, while the worst (in 1892) was probably the last.
During that year 5781 persons died in Srinagar and 5931 in the
villages. The centre of infection is generally supposed to be the
squalid capital of Srinagar, and some efforts to improve its
sanitation have been made of recent years.
_Crops._--The staple crop of the valley is rice, which forms the chief
food of the people. Indian corn comes next; wheat, barley and oats are
also grown. Every kind of English vegetable thrives well, especially
asparagus, artichoke, seakale, broad beans, scarlet-runners, beetroot,
cauliflower and cabbage. Fruit trees are met with all over the valley,
wild but bearing fruit, and the cultivated orchards yield pears,
apples, peaches, cherries, &c., equal to the best European produce.
The chief trees are deodar, firs and pines, chenar or plane, maple,
birch and walnut. There are state departments of viticulture, hops,
horticulture and sericulture. A complete list of the flora and fauna
of the valley will be found in Sir Walter Lawrence's book on Kashmir.
_Industries._--The chief industry of Srinagar was formerly the weaving
of the celebrated Kashmir shawl, which dates back to the days of the
emperor Baber. These shawls first became fashionable in Europe in the
reign of Napoleon, when they fetched from L10 to L100; but the
industry received a blow at the time of the Franco-German War, and the
famine of 1877 scattered the weavers. The place of the Kashmir shawl
has to some extent been taken by the Kashmir carpet, but the most
thriving industry now is that of silk-weaving. Srinagar is also
celebrated for its silver-work, papier mache and wood-carving. The
minerals and metals of the Jammu district are promising, and a company
has been formed to work them. Coal of fair quality has been found, but
the difficulties of transport interfere with its working.
_History._--The metrical chronicle of the kings of Kashmir, called
_Rajatarangini_, was pronounced by Professor H. H. Wilson to be the only
Sanskrit composition yet discovered to which the title of history can
with any propriety be applied. It first became known to the Mahommedans
when, on Akbar's invasion of Kashmir in 1588, a copy was presented to
the emperor. A translation into Persian was made by his order, and a
summary of its contents, from this Persian translation, is given by
Abu'l Fazl in the _A'in-i-Akbari_. The _Rajatarangini_, the first of a
series of four Sanskrit histories, was written about the middle of the
12th century by P. Kalhana. His work, in six books, makes use of earlier
writings now lost. Commencing with traditional history of very early
times, it comes down to the reign of Sangrama Deva, 1006; the second
work, by Jonaraja, takes up the history in continuation of Kalhana's,
and, entering the Mahommedan period, gives an account of the reigns down
to that of Zain-ul-ab-ad-din, 1412. P. Srivara carried on the record to
the accession of Fah Shah, 1486. And the fourth work, called
_Rajavalipataka_, by Prajnia Bhatta, completes the history to the time
of the incorporation of Kashmir in the dominions of the Mogul emperor
Akbar, 1588.
In the _Rajatarangini_ it is stated that the valley of Kashmir was
formerly a lake, and that it was drained by the great _rishi_ or sage,
Kasyapa, son of Marichi, son of Brahma, by cutting the gap in the hills
at Baramulla (Varaha-mula). When Kashmir had been drained, he brought in
the Brahmans to occupy it. This is still the local tradition, and in the
existing physical condition of the country we may see some ground for
the story which has taken this form. The name of Kasyapa is by history
and tradition connected with the draining of the lake, and the chief
town or collection of dwellings in the valley was called Kasyapa-pur--a
name which has been plausibly identified with the [Greek: Kaspapyros] of
Hecataeus (Steph. Byz., _s.v._) and [Greek: Kaspatyros] of Herodotus
(iii. 102, iv. 44). Kashmir is the country meant also by Ptolemy's
[Greek: Kasperia]. The ancient name Kasyapa-pur was applied to the
kingdom of Kashmir when it comprehended great part of the Punjab and
extended beyond the Indus. In the 7th century Kashmir is said by the
Chinese traveller Hsuan Tsang to have included Kabul and the Punjab, and
the hill region of Gandhara, the country of the Gandarae of classical
geography.
At an early date the Sanskrit name of the country became _KasmIr_. The
earliest inhabitants, according to the _Rajatarangini_, were the people
called Naga, a word which signifies "snake." The history shows the
prevalence in early times of tree and serpent worship, of which some
sculptured stones found in Kashmir still retain the memorials. The town
of Islamabad is called also by its ancient name Anant-nag ("eternal
snake"). The source of the Jhelum is at Vir-nag (the powerful snake),
&c. The other races mentioned as inhabiting this country and the
neighbouring hills are Gandhari, Khasa and Daradae. The Khasa people are
supposed to have given the name Kasmir. In the _Mahabharata_ the Kasmira
and Daradae are named together among the Kshattriya races of northern
India. The question whether, in the immigration of the Aryans into
India, Kashmir was taken on the way, or entered afterwards by that
people after they had reached the Punjab from the north-west, appears to
require an answer in favour of the latter view (see vol. ii. of Dr J.
Muir's _Sanskrit Texts_). The Aryan races of Kashmir and surrounding
hills, which have at the present time separate geographical
distribution, are given by Mr Drew as _Kashmiri_ (mostly Mahommedan), in
the Kashmir basin and a few scattered places outside; _Dard_ (mostly
Mahommedan) in Gilgit and hills north of Kashmir; _Dogra_ (Hindu) in
Jamma; _Dogra_ (Mahommedan, called _Chibali_) in Punch and hill country
west of Kashmir; _Pahari_ or mountaineers (Hindu) in Kishtwar, east of
Kashmir, and hills about the valley of the Chenab.
In the time of Asoka, about 245 B.C., one of the Indian Buddhist
missions was sent to Kashmir and Gandhara. After his death Brahmanism
revived. Then in the time of the three Kushan princes, Huvishka, Jushka
and Kanishka, who ruled over Kashmir about the beginning of the
Christian era, Buddhism was to a great extent restored, though for
several centuries the two religions existed together in Kashmir,
Hinduism predominating. Yet Kashmir, when Buddhism was gradually losing
its hold, continued to send Buddhist teachers to other lands. In this
Hindu-Buddhist period, and chiefly between the 5th and 10th centuries of
the Christian era, were erected the Hindu temples in Kashmir. In the 6th
and 7th centuries Kashmir was visited by some of the Chinese Buddhist
pilgrims to India. The country is called _Shie-mi_ in the narrative of
To Yeng and Sung Yun (578). One of the Chinese travellers of the next
century was for a time an elephant-tamer to the king of Kashmir. Hsuan
Tsang spent two years (631-633) in Kashmir (_Kia-chi-mi-lo_). He entered
by Baramula and left by the Pir Panjal pass. He describes the hill-girt
valley, and the abundance of flowers and fruits, and he mentions the
tradition about the lake. He found in Kashmir many Buddhists as well as
Hindus. In the following century the kings of Kashmir appear to have
paid homage and tribute to China, though this is not alluded to in the
Kashmir chronicle. Hindu kings continued to reign till about 1294, when
Udiana Deva was put to death by his Mahommedan vizier, Amir Shah, who
ascended the throne under the name of Shams-ud-din.
Of the Mahommedan rulers mentioned in the Sanskrit chronicles, one, who
reigned about the close of the 14th century, has made his name prominent
by his active opposition to the Hindu religion, and his destruction of
temples. This was Sikandar, known as _But-shikan_, or the
"idol-breaker." It was in his time that India was invaded by Timur, to
whom Sikandar made submission and paid tribute. The country fell into
the hands of the Moguls in 1588. In the time of Alamgir it passed to
Ahmad Shah Durani, on his third invasion of India (1756); and from that
time it remained in the hands of Afghans till it was wrested from them
by Ranjit Singh, the Sikh monarch of the Punjab, in 1819. Eight Hindu
and Sikh governors under Ranjit Singh and his successors were followed
by two Mahommedans similarly appointed, the second of whom, Shekh
Imam-ud-din, was in charge when the battles of the first Sikh war 1846
brought about new relations between the British Government and the
Sikhs.
Gulab Singh, a Dogra Rajput, had from a humble position been raised to
high office by Ranjit Singh, who conferred on him the small principality
of Jammu. On the final defeat of the Sikhs at Sobraon (February 1846),
Gulab Singh was called to take a leading part in arranging conditions of
peace. The treaty of Lahore (March 9, 1846) sets forth that, the British
Government having demanded, in addition to a certain assignment of
territory, a payment of a crore and a half of rupees (1(1/2) millions
sterling), and the Sikh government being unable to pay the whole, the
maharaja (Dhulip Singh) cedes, as equivalent for one crore, the hill
country belonging to the Punjab between the Beas and the Indus,
including Kashmir and Hazara. The governor-general, Sir Henry Hardinge,
considered it expedient to make over Kashmir to the Jammu chief,
securing his friendship while the British government was administering
the Punjab on behalf of the young maharaja. Gulab Singh was well
prepared to make up the payment in default of which Kashmir was ceded to
the British; and so, in consideration of his services in restoring
peace, his independent sovereignty of the country made over to him was
recognized, and he was admitted to a separate treaty. Gulab Singh had
already, after several extensions of territory east and west of Jammu,
conquered Ladakh (a Buddhist country, and till then subject to Lhasa),
and had then annexed Skardo, which was under independent Mahommedan
rulers. He had thus by degrees half encircled Kashmir, and by this last
addition his possessions attained nearly their present form and extent.
Gulab Singh died in 1857, and was succeeded by his son, Ranbir Singh,
who died in 1885. The next ruler, Maharaja Partab Singh, G.C.S.I. (b.
1850), immediately on his accession inaugurated the settlement reforms
already described. His rule was remarkable for the reassertion of the
Kashmir sovereignty over Gilgit (q.v.). Kashmir imperial service troops
participated in the Black Mountain expedition of 1891, the Hunza Nagar
operations of 1891, and the Tirah campaign of 1897-1898. The total
revenue of the state is about L666,000.
See Drew, _Jammu and Kashmir_ (1875); M. A. Stein, _Kalhana's
Rajatarangini_ (1900); W. R. Lawrence, _The Valley of Kashmir_ (1895);
Colonel A. Durand, _The Making of a Frontier_ (1899); R. Lydekker,
"The Geology of the Kashmir and Chamba Territories," _Records of the
Geological Survey of India_, vol. xxii. (1883); J. Duke, _Kashmir
Handbook_ (1903). (T. H. H.*)
KASHMIRI (properly _Kasmiri_), the name of the vernacular language
spoken in the valley of Kashmir (properly _Kasmir_) and in the hills
adjoining. In the Indian census of 1901 the number of speakers was
returned at 1,007,957. By origin it is the most southern member of the
Dard group of the Pisaca languages (see INDO-ARYAN LANGUAGES). The other
members of the group are Shina, spoken to its north in the country round
Gilgit, and Kohistani, spoken in the hill country on both sides of the
river Indus before it debouches on to the plains of India. The Pisaca
languages also include Khowar, the vernacular of Chitral, and the Kafir
group of speeches, of which the most important is the Bashgali of
Kafiristan. Of all these forms of speech Kashmiri is the only one which
possesses a literature, or indeed an alphabet. It is also the only one
which has been dealt with in the census of India, and it is therefore
impossible to give even approximate figures for the numbers of speakers
of the others. The whole family occupies the three-sided tract of
country between the Hindu-Kush and the north-western frontier of British
India.
As explained in INDO-ARYAN LANGUAGES, the Pisaca languages are Aryan,
but are neither Iranian nor Indo-Aryan. They represent the speech of an
independent Aryan migration over the Hindu-Kush directly into their
present inhospitable seats, where they have developed a phonetic system
of their own, while they have retained unchanged forms of extreme
antiquity which have long passed out of current use both in Persia and
in India. Their speakers appear to have left the main Aryan body after
the great fission which resulted in the Indo-Aryan migration, but before
all the typical peculiarities of Iranian speech had fully developed.
They are thus representatives of a stage of linguistic progress later
than that of Sanskrit, and earlier than that which we find recorded in
the Iranian Avesta.
The immigrants into Kashmir must have been Shins, speaking a language
closely allied to the ancestor of the modern Shina. They appear to have
dispossessed and absorbed an older non-Aryan people, whom local
tradition now classes as Nagas, or Snake-gods, and, at an early period,
to have come themselves under the influence of Indo-Aryan immigrants
from the south, who entered the valley along the course of the river
Jhelam. The language has therefore lost most of its original Pisaca
character, and is now a mixed one. Sanskrit has been actively studied
for many centuries, and the Kashmiri vocabulary, and even its grammar,
are now largely Indian. So much is this the case that, for convenience'
sake, it is now frequently classed (see INDO-ARYAN LANGUAGES) as
belonging to the north-western group of languages, instead of as
belonging to the Pisaca family as its origin demands. It cannot be said
that either classification is wrong.
Kashmiri has few dialects. In the valley there are slight changes of
idiom from place to place, but the only important variety is Kishtwari,
spoken in the hills south-west of Kashmir. Smaller dialects, such as
Pogul and Rambani of the hills south of the Banihal pass, may also be
mentioned. The language itself is an old one. Pure Kashmiri words are
preserved in the Sanskrit _Rajatarangini_ written by Kalhana in the 12th
century A.D., and, judging from these specimens, the language does not
appear to have changed materially since his time.
_General Character of the Language._--Kashmiri is a language of great
philological interest. The two principal features which at once strike
the student are the numerous epenthetic changes of vowels and consonants
and the employment of pronominal suffixes. In both cases the phenomena
are perfectly plain, cause and effect being alike presented to the eye
in the somewhat complicated systems of declension and conjugation. The
Indo-Aryan languages proper have long ago passed through this stage, and
many of the phenomena now presented by them are due to its influence,
although all record of it has disappeared. In this way a study of
Kashmiri explains a number of difficulties found by the student of
Indo-Aryan vernaculars.[1]
In the following account the reader is presumed to be in possession of
the facts recorded in the articles INDO-ARYAN LANGUAGES and PRAKRIT,
and the following contractions will be employed: Ksh. = Kashmiri; Skr.
= Sanskrit; P. = Pisaca; Sh. = Shina.
A. _Vocabulary._ The vocabulary of Kashmiri is, as has been explained,
mixed. At its basis it has a large number of words which are also
found in the neighbouring Shina, and these are such as connote the
most familiar ideas and such as are in most frequent use. Thus, the
personal pronouns, the earlier numerals, the words for "father,"
"mother," "fire," "the sun," are all closely connected with
corresponding Shina words. There is also a large Indian element,
consisting partly of words derived from Sanskrit vocables introduced
in ancient times, and partly of words borrowed in later days from the
vernaculars of the Punjab. Finally, there is a considerable Persian
(including Arabic) element due to the long Mussulman domination of the
Happy Valley. Many of these have been considerably altered in
accordance with Kashmiri phonetic rules, so that they sometimes appear
in strange forms. Thus the Persian _lagam_, a bridle, has become
_lakam_, and the Arabic _babat_, concerning, appears as _bapat_. The
population speaking Kashmiri is mainly Mussulman, there being, roughly
speaking, nine Mahommedan Kashmiris to less than one Hindu. This
difference of religion has strongly influenced the vocabulary. The
Mussulmans use Persian and Arabic words with great freedom, while the
Hindus, or "Pandits" as they are called, confine their borrowings
almost entirely to words derived from Sanskrit. As the literary class
is mostly Hindu, it follows that Kashmiri literature, taken as a
whole, while affording most interesting and profitable study, hardly
represents the actual language spoken by the mass of the people. There
are, however, a few good Kashmiri works written by Mussulmans in their
own dialect.
B. _Written Characters._ Mussulmans and Christian missionaries employ
an adaptation of the Persian character for their writings. This
alphabet is quite unsuited for representing the very complex Kashmiri
vowel system. Hindus employ the Sarada alphabet, of Indian origin and
akin to the well-known Nagari. Kashmiri vowel sounds can be recorded
very successfully in this character, but there is, unfortunately, no
fixed system of spelling. The Nagari alphabet is also coming into use
in printed books, no Sarada types being yet in existence.
C. _Phonetics._ Comparing the Kashmiri with the Sanskrit alphabet (see
SANSKRIT), we must first note a considerable extension of the vowel
system. Not only does Ksh. possess the vowels _a_, _a_, _i_, _i_, _u_,
_u_, _r_, _e_, _ai_, _o_, _au_, and the _anunasika_ or nasal symbol ~,
but it has also a flat _a_ (like the _a_ in "hat") a flat _e_ (like
the _e_ in "met"), a short _o_ (like the _o_ in "hot") and a broad _a_
(like the _a_ in "all"). It also has a series of what natives call
"_matra_-vowels," which are represented in the Roman character by
small letters above the line, viz. _^a_, _^i_, _^u_, _^u_. Of these,
_^a_ is simply a very short indeterminate sound something like that of
the Hebrew _sh^awa mobile_, except that it may sometimes be the only
vowel in a word, as in _ts^ah_, thou. The _^i_ is a hardly audible
_i_, while _^u_ and _^u_ are quite inaudible at the end of a syllable.
When ^i or ^u is followed by a consonant in the same syllable _^i_
generally and _^u_ always becomes a full _i_ or _u_ respectively and
is so pronounced. On the other hand, in similar circumstances, _^u_
remains unchanged in writing, but is pronounced like a short German
_u_. It should be observed that this _^u_ always represents an older
_i_, and is still considered to be a palatal, not, like _^u_, a labial
vowel. Although these matra-vowels are so slightly heard, they
exercise a great influence on the sound of a preceding syllable. We
may compare the sound of _a_ in the English word "mar." If we add _e_
to the end of this word we get "mare," in which the sound of the _a_
is altogether changed, although the _e_ is not itself pronounced in
its proper place. The back-action of these matra-vowels is technically
known as _umlaut_ or "epenthesis," and is the most striking feature of
the Kashmiri language, the structure of which is unintelligible
without a thorough knowledge of the system. In the following pages
when a vowel is epenthetically affected by a matra-vowel the fact will
be denoted by a dot placed under it, thus _kar^u_. This is not the
native system, according to which the change is indicated sometimes by
a diacritical mark and sometimes by writing a different letter. The
changes of pronunciation effected by each matra-vowel are shown in the
following table. If natives employ a different letter to indicate the
change the fact is mentioned. In other cases they content themselves
with diacritical marks. When no entry is made, it should be understood
that the sound of the vowel remains unaltered:--
+------+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
|Pre- | _Pronunciation when followed by_ |
|ceding+----------------+----------------+-----------------+----------------+
|Vowel.| _a-matra_ | _i-matra_ | _u-matra_ | _u-matra_ |
+------+----------------+----------------+-----------------+----------------+
| a. | a (ad^ar, | a^i (kar^i, pr.| u (as in German:| o (like first |
| | be moist) (some| ka^ir^i, made, | kar^u, pr. kur, | o in "promote";|
| | thing like a | plural masc.) | made, fem. | kar^u, pr. kor,|
| | short German o)| | sing.) | made, masc. |
| | | | | sing.) |
| | | | | |
| /a. | o (kan^ar, | o^i (German o; | o (mar^u, pr. | a (mar^u, pr. |
| | pr. kon^ar, | mar^i, pr. | mor, killed, | mar, written, |
| | make one-eyed) | mo^ir^i, | fem. sing.) | mor^u, killed, |
| | (like a long | killed, masc. | | masc. sing.) |
| | German o) | plur.) | | |
| | | | | |
| i. | -- | -- | yu (liv^u, pr. | yu (liv^u, pr. |
| | | | lyuv, plastered,| lyuv, written |
| | | | fem. sing.) | lyuv^u, plas- |
| | | | | tered, masc. |
| | | | | sing.) |
| | | | | |
| /i. | -- | -- | -- | yu (nil^u, pr. |
| | | | | nyul, written |
| | | | | nyul^u, blue, |
| | | | | masc. sing.) |
| | | | | |
| u. | -- | u^i (gur^i, pr.| -- | -- |
| | | gu^ir^i, | | |
| | | horses) | | |
| | | | | |
| /u. | -- | u^i (gur^i, pr.| -- | -- |
| | | gu^ir^i, | | |
| | | cowherds) | | |
| | | | | |
| )e. | i (led^ar, | -- | yu (tsel^u, pr. | yu (tsel^u, pr.|
| | pr. lid^ar, | | tsyul, squeezed,| tsyul, written |
| | be yellow) | | fem. sing.) | tsyul^u, |
| | | | | squeezed, |
| | | | | masc. sing.) |
| | | | | |
| /e. | -- | i (pher^i, pr. | i (pher^u, pr. | yu (pher^u pr. |
| | | and written | phir, written, | phyur, written |
| | | phir^i, turned,| phir^u, turned, | phyur^u, |
| | | masc. plur.) | fem. sing.) | turned, masc. |
| | | | | sing.) |
| | | | | |
| )o. | u (hokh^ar, | o^i (woth^i, | u (woth^u, pr. | o (woth^u pr. |
| | pr. hukh^ar, | pr. (woth^u, | wuth, arisen, | woth, arisen, |
| | make dry) | arisen, masc. | fem. sing.) | masc. sing.) |
| | | plur.) | | |
| | | | | |
| /o. | -- | u^i (bu^iz^i, | u (boz^u, pr. | u (boz^u, pr. |
| | | pr. bu^iz^i, | buz, written, | buz, written |
| | | written buz^i, | buz^u, heard, | buz^u, heard, |
| | | heard. masc. | fem. sing.) | masc. sing.) |
| | | plur.) | | |
+------+----------------+----------------+-----------------+----------------+
The letters _u_ and _i_, even when not _u_-matra or _i_-matra, often
change a preceding long _a_ to _a_, which is usually written _o_, and
_a_ respectively. Thus _rawukh_, they have lost, is pronounced
_rawukh_, and, in the native character, is written _rowukh_.
Similarly _malis_ becomes _malis_ (_molis_). The diphthong _ai_ is
pronounced _o_ when it commences a word; thus, _aith_, eight, is
pronounced _oth_. When _i_ and _u_ commence a word they are pronounced
_yi_ and _wu_ respectively. With one important exception, common to
all Pisaca languages, Kashmiri employs every consonant found in the
Sanskrit alphabet. The exception is the series of aspirated
consonants, _gh_, _jh_, _dh_, _dh_ and _bh_, which are wanting in
Ksh., the corresponding unaspirated consonants being substituted for
them. Thus, Skr. _ghotakas_, but Ksh. _gur^u_, a horse; Skr.
_bhavati_, Ksh. _bovi_, he will be. There is a tendency to use dental
letters where Hindi employs cerebrals, as in Hindi _uth_, Ksh. _woth_,
arise. Cerebral letters are, however, owing to Sanskrit influence, on
the whole better preserved in Ksh. than in the other Pisaca languages.
The cerebral _s_ has almost disappeared, _s_ being employed instead.
The only common word in which it is found is the numeral _sah_, six,
which is merely a learned spelling for _sah_, due to the influence of
the Skr. _sat_. From the palatals _c_, _ch_, _j_, a new series of
consonants has been formed, viz. _ts_, _tsh_ (aspirate of _ts_--i.e.
_ts_ + _h_, not _t_ + _sh_), and _z_ (as in English, not _dz_). Thus,
Skr. _coras_, Ksh. _tsur_, a thief; Skr. _chalayati_, Ksh. _tshali_,
he will deceive; Skr. _jalam_, Ksh. _zal_, water. The sibilant _s_,
and occasionally _s_, are frequently represented by _h_. Thus, Skr.
_dasa_, Ksh. _dah_, ten; Skr. _siras_, Ksh. _hir_, a head. We may
compare with this the Persian word _Hind_, India (compare the Greek
[Greek: Indos], an Indian), derived from the Skr. _Sindhus_, the river
Indus. When such an _h_ is followed by a palatal letter the _s_
returns; thus, from the base _his-_, like this, we have the nominative
masculine _hih^u_, but the feminine _his^u_, and the abstract noun
_hisyar_, because _^u_ and _y_ are palatal letters.
The palatal letters _i_, _e_, _u-matra_ and _y_ often change a
preceding consonant. The modifications will be seen from the following
examples: _rat-_, night; nom. plur. _rats^u_; _woth_, arise;
_wotsh^u_, she arose: _lad_, build; _laz^u_, she was built: _ran_,
cook; _ran^u_, she was cooked; _pat^u_, a tablet; Ag. sing. _paci_:
_kath-_, a stalk; nom. plur. _kache: bad-_, great; nom. plur. fem.
_baje_: _batuk^u_, a duck; fem. _bat^ac^u_: _hokh^u_, dry; fem.
_hoch^u; srog^u_, cheap; _srojyar_, cheapness: _wal^u_, a ring; fem.
_waj^u_, a small ring; _los_, be weary; _los^u_ or _lots^u_, she was
weary. These changes are each subject to certain rules. Cerebral
letters (_t_, _th_, _d_) change only before _i_, _e_ or _y_, and not
before _u-matra_. The others, on the contrary, do not change _i_, but
do change before _e_, _y_ or _u-matra_.
No word can end in an unaspirated surd consonant. If such a consonant
falls at the end of a word it is aspirated. Thus, _ak_, one, becomes
_akh_ (but acc. _akis_); _kat_, a ram, becomes _kath_; and hat, a
hundred, _hath_.
D. _Declension_. If the above phonetic rules are borne in mind,
declension in Kashmiri is a fairly simple process. If attention is not
paid to them, the whole system at once becomes a field of inextricable
confusion. In the following pages it will be assumed that the reader
is familiar with them.
Nouns substantive and adjective have two genders, a masculine and a
feminine. Words referring to males are masculine, and to females are
feminine. Inanimate things are sometimes masculine and sometimes
feminine. Pronouns have three genders, arranged on a different
principle. One gender refers to male living beings, another to female
living beings, and a third (or neuter) to all inanimate things whether
they are grammatically masculine or feminine. Nouns ending in _^u_ are
masculine, and most, but not all, of those ending in _^i_, _^u_, _e_
or _n_ are feminine. Of nouns ending in consonants, some are
masculine, and some are feminine. No rule can be formulated regarding
these, except that all abstract nouns ending in _ar_ (a very numerous
class) are masculine. There are four declensions. The first consists
of masculine nouns ending in a consonant, in _a_, _e_ or _^u_ (very
few of these last two). The second consists of the important class of
masculine nouns in _^u_; the third of feminine nouns in _^i_, _^u_, or
_n_ (being the feminines corresponding to the masculine nouns of the
second declension); and the fourth of feminine nouns ending in _^a_,
_e_ or a consonant.
The noun possesses two numbers, a singular and a plural, and in each
number there are, besides the nominative, three organic cases, the
accusative, the case of the agent (see below, under "verbs"), and the
ablative. The accusative, when not definite, may also be the same in
form as the nominative. The following are the forms which a noun takes
in each declension, the words chosen as examples being: First
declension, _tsur_, a thief; second declension, _mal^u_, a father;
third declension, _maj^u_, a mother; fourth declension, (a) _mal_, a
garland, (b) _rat-_, night.
+------+------------+----------------+------------+-------------------------+
| | First | Second | Third | Fourth Declension. |
| | Declension.| Declension. | Declension.| a. b. |
+------+------------+----------------+------------+-------+-----------------+
|Sing.:| | | | | |
| Nom. | tsur | mal^u (pr. mal)| maj^u (moj)| mal | rath |
| Acc. | tsuras | malis (molis) | maje | mali | rats^u (rots) |
| Ag. | tsuran | mal^i (mo^il^i)| maji | mali | rats^u (rots) |
| Abl. | tsura | mali | maji | mali | rats^u (rots) |
|Plur.:| | | | | |
| Nom | tsur | mal^i (mo^il^i)| maje | mala | rats^u (rots) |
| Acc. | tsuran | malen | majen | malan | rats^un (rotsun)|
| Ag. | | | | | |
| and | | | | | |
| Abl. | tsurau | malyau | majyau | malau | rats^uv (rotsuv)|
+------+------------+----------------+------------+-------+-----------------+
The declension 4_b_ is confined to certain nouns in _t_, _th_, _d_,
_n_, _h_ and _l_, in which the final consonant is liable to change
owing to a following _u-matra_.
Other cases are formed (as in true Indo-Aryan languages) by the
addition of postpositions, some of which are added to the accusative,
while others are added to the ablative case. To the former are added
_manz_, in; _kit^u_, to or for; _sutin_, with, and others. To the
ablative are added _sutin_, when it signifies "by means of"; _putshy_,
for; _peth^a_, from, and others. For the genitive, masculine nouns in
the singular, signifying animate beings, take _sand^u_, and if they
signify things without life, take _k^u_. All masculine plural nouns
and all feminine nouns whether singular or plural take _hand^u_.
_Sand^u_ and _hand^u_ are added to the accusative, which drops a final
_s_, while _k^u_ is added to the ablative. Thus, _tsura sand^u_, of
the thief; _mal^i sand^u_, of the father; _sonak^u_ (usually written
_sonuk^u_), of gold (_son_, abl. sing. _sona_); _tsuran nand^u_, of
thieves; _karen hand^u_, of bracelets (second declension); _maje
hand^u_, of the mother; _majen hand^u_, of the mothers. Masculine
proper names, however, take _n^u_ in the singular, as in
_Radhakrsnan^u_ of Radhakrishna. These genitive terminations, and also
the dative termination _kit^u_, are adjectives, and agree with the
governing noun in gender, number and case. Thus, _tsura sand^u
neciv^u_, the son of the thief; _tsura sand^i neciv^i_, by the son of
the thief; _tsura sanz^u kor^u_, the daughter of the thief; _kulik^u
lang_, a bough of the tree; _kulic^u land^u_, a twig of the tree.
_Sand^u_, has fem. sing. _sanz^u_, masc. plur. _sand^i_, fem. plur.
_sanza_. Similarly _hand^u_. _K^u_ has fem. sing. _c^u_, masc. plur.
_k^i_, fem. plur. _ce_; _n^u_, fem. sing. _n_, masc. plur. _n^i_, fem.
plur. _ne_. Similarly for the dative we have the following forms:
_malis kit^u pan^u_, water (masc.) for the father; _malis kits^u gav_,
a cow for the father; _malis kit^i rav_, blankets (masc. plur.) for
the father; _malis kitsa pothe_, books (fem. plur.) for the father.
All these postpositions of the genitive and _kit^u_ of the dative are
declined regularly as substantives, the masculine ones belonging to
the second declension and the feminine ones to the third. Note that
the feminine plural of _sand^u_ is _sanza_, not _sanze_, as we might
expect; so also feminine nouns in _ts^u_, _tsh^u_, _z^u_ and _s^u_.
Adjectives ending in _^u_ (second declension) form the feminine in
_^u_, with the usual changes of the preceding consonant. Thus _tat^u_,
hot, fem. _tats^u_ (pronounced _tuts_). Other adjectives do not change
for gender. All adjectives agree with the qualified noun in gender,
number and case, the postposition, if any, being added to the latter
word of the two. Take, for example, _chat^u_, white, and _gur^u_, a
horse. From these we have _chat^u gur^u_, a white horse; acc. sing.
_chatis guris_; nom. plur. _chat^i gur^i_; and _chatyau guryau sutin_,
by means of white horses.
The first two personal pronouns are _boh_, I; _me_, me, by me; _as^i_,
we; _ase_, us, by us; and _ts^ah_, thou; _tse_, thee, by thee;
_toh^i_, ye; _tohe_ you, by you. Possessive pronouns are employed
instead of the genitive. Thus, _myan^u_, my; _san^u_, our; _cyan^u_,
thy; _tuhand^u_, your. For the third person, we have sing. masc.
_suh_, fem. _soh_, neut. _tih_; acc. sing. (masc. or fem.) _tamis_ or
_tas_, neut. _tath_; agent sing. masc. neut. _tam^i_, fem. _tami_. The
plural is of common gender throughout. Nom. _tim_; acc. _timan_; ag.
_timau_. The possessive pronoun is _tasand^u_, of him, of her;
_tamyuk^n_, of it; _tihand^u_, of them. The neuter gender is used for
all things without life.
Other pronouns are:--This: _yih_ (com. gen.); acc. masc. fem. _yimis_,
or _nomis_, neut, _yith_, _noth_; ag. masc. neut., _yim^i_, _nom^i_,
fem. _yimi_, _nomi_; nom. plur. _yim_, fem. _yima_, and so on.
That (within sight): masc. neut. _huh_, fem. _hoh_; acc. masc. fem.
_humis_ or _amis_, neut. _huth_, and so on; nom. plur. masc _hum_.
Who, masc. _yus_, fem. _yossa_, neut. _yih_; acc. masc. fem. _yemis_,
_yes_, neut. _yeth_; ag. masc. neut. _yem^i_, fem. _yemi_; nom. plur.
masc. _yim_, and so on.
Who? masc. _kus_, fem. _kossa_, neut. _kyah_; acc. masc. fem. _kamis_,
_kas_, neut. _kath_; ag. masc. neut. _kam^i_, fem. _kami_; nom. plur.
masc. _kam_.
Self, _pana_. Anyone, someone, _kah_, _kuh_, or _katshah_, neut.
_ketshah_.
Kashmiri makes very free use of pronominal suffixes, which are added
to verbs to supply the place of personal terminations. These represent
almost any case, and are as follows:--
+--------+---------------+----------------+---------------+
| | First Person. | Second Person. | Third Person. |
| +---------------+----------------+---------------+
| Sing.--| | | |
| Nom. | _s_ | _kh_, _h_ | none |
| Acc. | _m_ | _th_, _y_ | _s_ |
| Dat. | _m_ | _y_ | _s_ |
| Ag. | _m_ | _th_, _y_ | _n_ |
| Plur.--| | | |
| Nom. | none | _wa_ | none |
| Other | | | |
| cases | none | _wa_ | _kh_, _h_ |
+--------+---------------+----------------+---------------+
Before these the verbal terminations are often slightly changed for
the sake of euphony, and, when necessary for the pronunciation, the
vowel _a_ is inserted as a junction vowel.
In this connexion we may mention another set of suffixes also commonly
added to verbs, with an adverbial force. Of these _na_ negatives the
verb, as in _chuh_, he is; _chuna_, he is not; _a_ asks a question,
as in _chwa_, is he? _ti_ adds emphasis, as in _chuti_, he is indeed;
and _tya_ asks a question with emphasis, as in _chutya_, is he indeed?
Two or three suffixes may be employed together, as in _kar^u_, was
made, _karu-m_, was made by me, _kar^u-m-akh_, thou wast made by me;
_kar^u-m-akh-a_, wast thou made by me? The two _kh_ suffixes become
_h_ when they are followed by a pronominal suffix commencing with a
vowel, as in _kar^u-h-as_ (for _kar^u-kh-as_), I was made by them.
E. _Conjugation._ As in the case of the modern Indo-Aryan vernaculars,
the conjugation of the verb is mainly participial. Three only of the
old tenses, the present, the future and the imperative have survived,
the first having become a future, and the second a past conditional.
These three we may call radical tenses. The rest, viz. the Kashmiri
present, imperfect, past, aorist, perfect and other past tenses are
all participial.
The verb substantive, which is also used as an auxiliary verb, has two
tenses, a present and a past. The former is made by adding the
pronominal suffixes of the nominative to a base _chu(h)_, and the
latter by adding the same to a base _as^u_. Thus:--
+---+--------------------------------------+------------------------------------+
| | _Singular_ | _Plural_ |
| +------------------+-------------------+------------------+-----------------+
| | Masculine | Feminine | Masculine | Feminine |
+---+------------------+-------------------+------------------+-----------------+
| 1 | chu-s , I am | che-s, I am | _chih_, we are | _cheh_, we are |
| 2 | chu-kh, thou art | che-kh, thou art | chi-wa, you are | che-wa, you are |
| 3 | chuh, he is | cheh, she is | chih, they are | cheh, they are |
+---+------------------+-------------------+------------------+-----------------+
| 1 | asu-s, I was | as^u-s, I was | as^i, we were | asa, we were |
| 2 | asu-kh, thou wast| as^u-kh, thou wast| as^i-wa, you were| asa-wa, you were|
| 3 | as^u, he was | as^u, she was | as^i, they were | asa, they were |
+---+------------------+-------------------+------------------+-----------------+
As for the finite verb, the modern future (old present), and the past
conditional (old future) do not change for gender, and do not employ
suffixes, but retain relics of the old personal terminations of the
tenses from which they are derived. They are thus conjugated, taking
the verbal root _kar_, as the typical verb.
+---+--------------------------+--------------------------------------|
| | Future, I shall make, &c.|Past Conditional, (if) I had made, &c.|
| +------------+-------------+-----------------+--------------------+
| | _Singular_ | _Plural_ | _Singular_ | _Plural_ |
+---+------------+-------------+-----------------+--------------------+
| 1 | kara | karav | karaha | karahav |
| 2 | karakh | kariv | karahakh | kar^ihiv |
| 3 | kari | karan | karihe | karahan |
+---+------------+-------------+-----------------+--------------------+
For the imperative we have 2nd person singular, _kar_, plur. _kariv_;
third person singular and plural _karin_.
Many of the above forms will be intelligible from a consideration of
the closely allied Sanskrit, although they are not derived from that
language; but some (e.g. those of the second person singular) can only
be explained by the analogy of the Iranian and of the Pisaca
languages.
The present participle is formed by adding _an_ to the root; thus,
_karan_, making. It does not change for gender. From this we get a
present and an imperfect, formed by adding respectively the present
and past tenses of the auxiliary verb. Thus, _karan chus_, I
(masculine) am making, I make; _karan ches_, I (feminine) am making, I
make; _karan asus_, I (masculine) was making; and so on.
There are several past participles, all of which are liable to change
for gender, and are utilized in conjugation. We have:--
+-------------------------+--------------------------+------------------------+
| | _Singular_ | _Plural_ |
| +------------+-------------+------------+-----------+
| | Masculine | Feminine | Masculine | Feminine |
+-------------------------+------------+-------------+------------+-----------+
| Weak past participle | kar^u | kar^u | kar^i | kare |
| Strong past participle | karyov | karyeya | karyey | karyeya |
| Pluperfect participle | karyav | karyeya | kareyey | karyeya |
| Compound past participle| kar^umat^u | kar^umats^u | kar^imat^i | karematsa |
+-------------------------+------------+-------------+------------+-----------+
In the strong past participle and the pluperfect participle, the final
_v_ and _y_ (like the final _h_ of _chuh_ quoted above) are not parts
of the original words, but are only added for the sake of euphony. The
true words are _karyo_, _karye_, _karya_ and _karyeye_. There are
three conjugations. The first includes all transitive verbs. These
have both the weak and the strong past participles. The second
conjugation consists of sixty-six common intransitive verbs, which
also have both of these participles. The third conjugation consists of
the remaining intransitive verbs. These have only the strong past
participle. The weak past participle in the first two conjugations
refers to something which has lately happened, and is used to form an
immediate past tense. The strong past participle is more indefinite,
and is employed to form a tense corresponding to the Greek aorist. The
pluperfect participle refers to something which happened a long time
ago, and is used to form the past tense of narration. As the third
conjugation has no weak past participle, the strong past participle is
employed to make the immediate past, and the pluperfect participle is
employed to make the aorist past, while the new pluperfect participle
is formed to make the tense of narration. Thus, from the root _wuph_,
fly (third conjugation) we have _wuphyov_, he flew just now, while
_karyov_ (first conjugation) means "he was made at some indefinite
time"; _wuphyav_, he flew at some indefinite time, but _karyav_, he
was made a long time ago; finally, the new participle of the third
conjugation, _wuphiyav_, he flew a long time ago.
The corresponding tenses are formed by adding pronominal suffixes to
the weak, the strong, or the pluperfect participle. In the last two
the final _v_ and _y_, being no longer required by euphony, are
dropped. In the case of transitive verbs the participles are passive
by derivation and in signification, and hence the suffix indicating
the subject must be in the agent case. Thus _kar^u_ means "made." For
"I made" we must say "made by me," _karu-m_; for "thou madest,"
_karu-th_, made by thee, and so on. If the thing made is feminine the
participle must be feminine, and similarly if it is plural it must be
plural. Thus, _karu-m_, I made him; _kar^u-m_, I made her; _kari-m_, I
made them (masculine); and _kare-m_, I made them (feminine). Similarly
from the other two participles we have _karyo-m_, I made him;
_karyeya-m_, I made her; _karya-m_, I made him (a long time ago). The
past participles of intransitive verbs are not passive, and hence the
suffix indicating the subject must be in the nominative form. Thus
_tsal^u_, escaped (second conjugation); _tsalu-s_, escaped-I, I
(masculine) escaped; _tsaj^u-s_, I (feminine) escaped, and so on.
Similarly for the third conjugation, _wuphyov_, flew; _wuphyo-s_, I
(masculine) flew; _wuphyeya-s_, I (feminine) flew, &c.
As explained above, these suffixes may be piled one on another. As a
further example we may give _kar^u_, made; _karu-n_, made by him, he
made; _karu-n-as_, made by him I, he made me, or (as -_s_ also means
"for him") he made for him; _karu-n-as-a_, did he make me? or, did he
make for him? and so on.
Tenses corresponding to the English perfect and pluperfect are formed
by conjugating the auxiliary verb, adding the appropriate suffixes,
with the compound past participle. Thus _kar^umat^u chu-n-as_, made
am-by-him-I, he has made me; _tsal^umat^u chu-kh_, escaped art thou,
thou hast escaped; _wuphyomat^u chu-s_, flown am-I, I have flown.
Similarly for the pluperfect, _kar^umat^u asu-n-as_, made
was-by-him-I, he had made me, and so on.
Many verbs have irregular past participles. Thus _mar_, die, has
_mud^u_; _di_, give, has _dit^u_; _khi_, eat, has _khyauv_ for its
weak, and _kheyov_ for its strong participle, while _ni_, take, has
_nyuv_ and _niyov_, respectively. Others must be learnt from the
regular grammars.
The infinitive is formed by adding -_un_ to the root; thus _kar-un_,
to make. It is declined like a somewhat irregular noun of the first
declension, its accusative being _karanas_. There are three forms of
the noun of agency, of which typical examples are _kar-awun^u_,
_kar-an-wal^u_, and _kar-an-grakh_, a maker.
The passive is formed by conjugating the verb _yi_, come, with the
ablative of the infinitive. Thus, _karana yiwan chuh_, it is coming by
making, or into making, i.e. it is being made. A root is made active
or causal by adding -_anaw_, -_aw_, or -_^araw_. Thus, _kar-anaw_,
cause to make; _kumal_, be tender, _kumal-aw_, make tender; _kal_, be
dumb, _kal-^araw_, make dumb. Some verbs take one form and some
another, and there are numerous irregularities, especially in the case
of the last.
F. _Indeclinables._ Indeclinables (adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions
and interjections) must be learnt from the dictionary. The number of
interjections is very large, and they are distinguished by minute
rules depending on the gender of the person addressed and the exact
amount of respect due to him.
_Literature._--Kashmiri possesses a somewhat extensive literature, which
has been very little studied. The missionary William Carey published in
1821 a version of the New Testament (in the Sarada character), which was
the first book published in the language. In 1885 the Rev. J. Hinton
Knowles published at Bombay a collection of Kashmiri proverbs and
sayings, and K. F. Burkhard in 1895 published an edition of Mahmud
Gami's poem on Yusuf and Zulaikha. This, with the exception of later
translations of the Scriptures in the Persian character and a few minor
works, is all the literature that has been printed or about which
anything has been written. Mahmud Gami's poem is valuable as an example
of the Kashmiri used by Mussulmans. For Hindu literature, we may quote a
history of Krishna by Dinanatha. The very popular _Lalla-vakya_, a poem
on Saiva philosophy by a woman named _Lalladevi_, is said to be the
oldest work in the language which has survived. Another esteemed work is
the _Siva Parinaya_ of Krsna Rajanaka, a living author. These and other
books which have been studied by the present writer have little
independent value, being imitations of Sanskrit literature. Nothing is
known about the dates of most of the authors.
AUTHORITIES.--The scientific study of Kashmiri is of very recent date.
The only printed lexicographical work is a short vocabulary by W. J.
Elmslie (London, 1872). K. F. Burkhard brought out a grammar of the
Mussulman dialect in the _Proceedings of the Royal Bavarian Academy of
Science_ for 1887-1889, of which a translation by G. A. Grierson
appeared in the _Indian Antiquary_ of 1895 and the following years
(reprinted as a separate publication, Bombay, 1897). T. R. Wade's
Grammar (London, 1888) is the merest sketch, and the only attempt at a
complete work of the kind in English is G. A. Grierson's _Essays on
Kacmiri Grammar_ (London and Calcutta, 1899). A valuable native
grammar in Sanskrit, the _Kasmirasabdamrta_ of Isvara Kaula, has been
edited by the same writer (Calcutta, 1888). For an examination of the
origin of Kashmiri grammatical forms and the Pisaca question
generally, see G. A. Grierson's "On Certain Suffixes in the Modern
Indo-Aryan Vernaculars" in the _Zeitschrift fur Vergleichende
Sprachforschung auf dem Gebiete der Indogermanischen Sprachen_ for
1903 and _The Pisaca Languages of North-Western India_ (London, 1906).
The only important text which has been published is Burkhard's
edition, with a partial translation, of Mahmud Gami's "Yusuf and
Zulaikha" in the _Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenlandischen
Gesellschaft_ for 1895 and 1899. The text of the _Siva Parinaya_,
edited by G. A. Grierson, is in course of publication by the Asiatic
Society of Bengal. (G. A. Gr.)
FOOTNOTE:
[1] See G. A. Grierson, "On Pronominal Suffixes in the Kacmiri
Languages," and "On the Radical and Participial Tenses of the Modern
Indo-Aryan Languages," in _Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal_,
vol. lxiv. (1895), pt. i. pp. 336 and 352.
KASHUBES (sing. _Kaszub_, plur. _Kaszebe_), a Slavonic people numbering
about 200,000, and living on the borders of West Prussia and Pomerania,
along the Baltic coast between Danzig and Lake Garden, and inland as far
as Konitz. They have no literature and no history, as they consist of
peasants and fishermen, the educated classes being mostly Germans or
Poles. Their language has been held to be but a dialect of Polish, but
it seems better to separate it, as in some points it is quite
independent, in some it offers a resemblance to the language of the
Polabs (q.v.). This is most seen in the western dialect of the so-called
Slovinci (of whom there are about 250 left) and Kabatki, whereas the
eastern Kashube is more like Polish, which is encroaching upon and
assimilating it. Lorentz calls the western dialect a language, and
distinguishes 38 vowels. The chief points of Kashube as against Polish
are that all its vowels can be nasal instead of a and e only, that it
has preserved quantity and a free accent, has developed several special
vowels, e.g. _o, oe, u_, and has preserved the original order, e.g.
_gard_ as against _grod_. The consonants are very like Polish. (See also
SLAVS.)
AUTHORITIES.--F. Lorentz, _Slovinzische Grammatik_ (St Petersburg,
1903) and "Die gegenseitigen Verhaltnisse der sogen. Lechischen
Sprachen," in _Arch. f. Slav. Phil._ xxiv. (1902); J. Baudouin de
Courtenay, "Kurzes Resume der Kaschubischen Frage," ibid. xxvi.
(1904); G. Bronisch, _Kaschubische Dialektstudien_ (Leipzig,
1896-1898); S. Ramult, _Stownik jezyka pomorskiego czyli
kaszubskiego_, i.e. "Dictionary of the Seacoast (Pomeranian) or
Kashube Language" (Cracow, 1893). (E. H. M.)
KASIMOV, a town of Russia, in the government of Ryazan, on the Oka
river, in 54 deg. 56' N. and 41 deg. 3' E., 75 m. E.N.E. of Ryazan. Pop.
(1897), 13,545, of whom about 1000 were Tatars. It is famed for its
tanneries and leather goods, sheepskins and post-horse bells. Founded in
1152, it was formerly known as Meshcherski Gorodets. In the 15th century
it became the capital of a Tatar khanate, subject to Moscow, and so
remained until 1667. The town possesses a cathedral, and a mosque
supposed to have been built by Kasim, founder of the Tatar principality.
Near the mosque stands a mausoleum built by Shah-Ali in 1555. Lying on
the direct road from Astrakhan to Moscow and Nizhniy-Novgorod, Kasimov
is a place of some trade, and has a large annual fair in July. The
waiters in the best hotels of St Petersburg are mostly Kasimov Tatars.
See Veliaminov-Zernov, _The Kasimov Tsars_ (St Petersburg, 1863-1866).
KASSA (Germ. _Kaschau_; Lat. _Cassovia_), the capital of the county of
Abauj-Torna, in Hungary, 170 m. N.E. of Budapest by rail. Pop. (1900),
35,856. Kassa is one of the oldest and handsomest towns of Hungary, and
is pleasantly situated on the right bank of the Hernad. It is surrounded
on three sides by hills covered with forests and vineyards, and opens to
the S.E. towards a pretty valley watered by the Hernad and the Tarcza.
Kassa consists of the inner town, which was the former old town
surrounded with walls, and of three suburbs separated from it by a
broad glacis. The most remarkable building, considered the grandest
masterpiece of architecture in Hungary, is the Gothic cathedral of St
Elizabeth. Begun about 1270 by Stephen V., it was continued (1342-1382)
by Queen Elizabeth, wife of Charles I., and her son Louis I., and
finished about 1468, in the reign of Matthias I. (Corvinus). The
interior was transformed in the 18th century to the Renaissance style,
and the whole church thoroughly restored in 1877-1896. The church of St
Michael and the Franciscan or garrison church date from the 13th
century. The royal law academy, founded in 1659, and sanctioned by
golden bull of King Leopold I. in 1660, has an extensive library; there
are also a museum, a Roman Catholic upper gymnasium and seminary for
priests, and other schools and benevolent institutions. Kassa is the see
of a Roman Catholic bishopric. It is the chief political and commercial
town of Upper Hungary, and the principal _entrepot_ for the commerce
between Hungary and Galicia. Its most important manufactures are
tobacco, machinery, iron, furniture, textiles and milling. About 3 m.
N.W. of the town are the baths of Banko, with alkaline and ferruginous
springs, and about 12 m. N.E. lies Rank-Herlein, with an intermittent
chalybeate spring. About 20 m. W. of Kassa lies the famous
Premonstratensian abbey of Jaszo, founded in the 12th century. The abbey
contains a rich library and valuable archives. In the neighbourhood is a
fine stalactite grotto, which often served as a place of refuge to the
inhabitants in war time.
Kassa was created a town and granted special privileges by Bela IV. in
1235, and was raised to the rank of a royal free town by Stephen V. in
1270. In 1290 it was surrounded with walls. The subsequent history
presents a long record of revolts, sieges and disastrous conflagrations.
In 1430 the plague carried off a great number of the inhabitants. In
1458 the right of minting money according to the pattern and value of
the Buda coinage was granted to the municipality by King Matthias I. The
bishopric was established in 1804. In the revolutionary war of 1848-49
the Hungarians were twice defeated before the walls of Kassa by the
Austrians under General Schlick, and the town was held successively by
the Austrians, Hungarians and Russians.
KASSALA, a town and _mudiria_ of the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan. The town, a
military station of some importance, lies on the river Gash (Mareb) in
15 deg. 28' N., 36 deg. 24' E., 260 m. E.S.E. of Khartum and 240 m. W.
of Massawa, the nearest seaport. Pop. about 20,000. It is built on a
plain, 1700 ft. above the sea, at the foot of the Abyssinian highlands
15 m. W. of the frontier of the Italian colony of Eritrea. Two
dome-shaped mountains about 2600 ft. high, jebels Mokram and Kassala,
rise abruptly from the plain some 3 m. to the east and south-east. These
mountains and the numerous gardens Kassala contains give to the place a
picturesque appearance. The chief buildings are of brick, but most of
the natives dwell in grass _tukls_. A short distance from the town is
Khatmia, containing a tomb mosque with a high tower, the headquarters of
the Morgani family. The sheikhs El Morgani are the chiefs of a religious
brotherhood widely spread and of considerable influence in the eastern
Sudan. The Morgani family are of Afghan descent. Long settled in Jidda,
the head of the family removed to the Sudan about 1800 and founded the
Morgani sect. Kassala was founded by the Egyptians in 1840 as a
fortified post from which to control their newly conquered territory
near the Abyssinian frontier. In a few years it grew into a place of
some importance. In November 1883 it was besieged by the dervishes. The
garrison held out till the 30th of July 1885 when owing to lack of food
they capitulated. Kassala was captured from the dervishes by an Italian
force under Colonel Baratieri on the 17th of July 1894 and by the
Italians was handed over on Christmas day 1897 to Egypt. The bulk of the
inhabitants are Hallenga "Arabs."
Kassala _mudiria_ contains some of the most fertile land in the
Anglo-Egyptian Sudan. It corresponds roughly with the district formerly
known as Taka. It is a region of light rainfall, and cultivation depends
chiefly on the Gash flood. The river is however absolutely dry from
October to June. White durra of excellent quality is raised.
KASSASSIN, a village of Lower Egypt 22 m. by rail W. of Ismailia on the
Suez Canal. At this place, on the 28th of August and again on the 9th of
September 1882 the British force operating against Arabi Pasha was
attacked by the Egyptians--both attacks being repulsed (see EGYPT:
_Military Operations_).
KASSITES, an Elamite tribe who played an important part in the history
of Babylonia. They still inhabited the north-western mountains of Elam,
immediately south of Holwan, when Sennacherib attacked them in 702 B.C.
They are the Kossaeans of Ptolemy, who divides Susiana between them and
the Elymaeans; according to Strabo (xi. 13, 3, 6) they were the
neighbours of the Medes. Th. Noldeke (_Gott. G. G._, 1874, pp. 173 seq.)
has shown that they are the Kissians of the older Greek authors who are
identified with the Susians by Aeschylus (_Choeph._ 424, Pers. 17, 120)
and Herodotus (v. 49, 52). We already hear of them as attacking
Babylonia in the 9th year of Samsu-iluna the son of Khammurabi, and
about 1780 B.C. they overran Babylonia and founded a dynasty there which
lasted for 576 years and nine months. In the course of centuries,
however, they were absorbed into the Babylonian population; the kings
adopted Semitic names and married into the royal family of Assyria. Like
the other languages of the non-Semitic tribes of Elam that of the
Kassites was agglutinative; a vocabulary of it has been handed down in a
cuneiform tablet, as well as a list of Kassite names with their Semitic
equivalents. It has no connexion with Indo-European, as has erroneously
been supposed. Some of the Kassite deities were introduced into the
Babylonian pantheon, and the Kassite tribe of Khabira seems to have
settled in the Babylonian plain.
See Fr. Delitzsch, _Die Sprache der Kossaer_ (1884). (A. H. S.)
KASTAMUNI, or KASTAMBUL. (1) A vilayet of Asia Minor which includes
Paphlagonia and parts of Pontus and Galatia. It is divided into four
sanjaks--Kastamuni, Boli, Changra and Sinope--is rich in mineral wealth,
and has many mineral springs and extensive forests, the timber being
used for charcoal and building and the bark for tanning. The products
are chiefly cereals, fruits, opium, cotton, tobacco, wool, ordinary
goat-hair and mohair, in which there is a large trade. There are
coal-mines at and near Eregli (anc. _Heracleia_) which yield steam coal
nearly as good in quality as the English, but they are badly worked. Its
population comprises about 993,000 Moslems and 27,000 Christians. (2)
The capital of the vilayet, the ancient _Castamon_, altitude 2500 ft.,
situated in the narrow valley of the Geuk Irmak (_Amnias_), and
connected by a carriage road, 54 m., with its port Ineboli on the Black
Sea. The town is noted for its copper utensils, but the famous copper
mines about 36 m. N., worked from ancient times to the 19th century, are
now abandoned. There are over 30 mosques in the town, a dervish
monastery, and numerous theological colleges (_medresses_), and the
Moslem inhabitants have a reputation for bigotry. The climate though
subject to extremes of heat and cold is healthy; in winter the roads are
often closed by snow. The population of 16,000 includes about 2500
Christians. Castamon became an important city in later Byzantine times.
It lay on the northern trunk-road to the Euphrates and was built round a
strong fortress whose ruins crown the rocky hill west of the town. It
was taken by the Danishmand Amirs of Sivas early in the 12th century,
and passed to the Turks in 1393. (J. G. C. A.)
KASTORIA (Turkish _Kesrie_), a city of Macedonia, European Turkey, in
the vilayet of Monastir, 45 m. S. by W. of Monastir (Bitolia). Pop.
(1905), about 10,000, one-third of whom are Greeks, one-third Slavs, and
the remainder Albanians or Turks. Kastoria occupies part of a peninsula
on the western shore of Lake Kastoria, which here receives from the
north its affluent the Zhelova. The lake is formed in a deep hollow
surrounded by limestone mountains, and is drained on the south by the
Bistritza, a large river which flows S.E. nearly to the Greek frontier,
then sharply turns N.E., and finally enters the Gulf of Salonica. The
lake has an area of 20 sq. m., and is 2850 ft. above sea-level. Kastoria
is the seat of an Orthodox archbishop. It is usually identified with the
ancient _Celetrum_, captured by the Romans under Sulpicius, during the
first Macedonian campaign, 200 B.C., and better known for the defence
maintained by Bryennius against Alexis I. in 1084. A Byzantine wall with
round towers runs across the peninsula.
KASUR, a town of British India, in the Lahore district of the Punjab,
situated on the north bank of the old bed of the river Beas, 34 m. S.E.
of Lahore. Pop. (1901), 22,022. A Rajput colony seems to have occupied
the present site before the earliest Mahommedan invasion; but Kasur does
not appear in history until late in the Mussulman period, when it was
settled by a Pathan colony from beyond the Indus. It has an export trade
in grain and cotton, and manufactures of cotton and leather goods.
KATAGUM, the sub-province of the double province of Kano in the British
protectorate of Northern Nigeria. It lies approximately between 11 deg.
and 13 deg. N. and 8 deg. 20' and 10 deg. 40' E. It is bounded N. by the
French Sudan, E. by Bornu, S. by Bauchi, and W. by Kano. Katagum
consists of several small but ancient Mahommedan emirates--Katagum,
Messau, Gummel, Hadeija, Machena, with a fringe of Bedde pagans on its
eastern frontier towards Bornu, and other pagans on the south towards
Bauchi. The Waube flows from Kano through the province via Hadeija and
by Damjiri in Bornu to Lake Chad, affording a route for the transport of
goods brought by the Zungeru-Zaria-Kano railway to the headquarters of
Katagum and western Bornu. Katagum is a fertile province inhabited by an
industrious people whose manufactures rival those of Kano.
In ancient times the province of Katagum formed the debateable country
between Bornu and the Hausa states. Though Mahommedan it resisted the
Fula invasion. Its northern emirates were for a long time subject to
Bornu, and its customs are nearly assimilated to those of Bornu. The
province was taken under administrative control by the British in
October 1903. In 1904 the capitals of Gummel, Hadeija, Messau and
Jemaari, were brought into touch with the administration and native and
provincial courts established. At the beginning of 1905 Katagum was
incorporated as a sub-province with the province of Kano, and the
administrative organization of a double province was extended over the
whole. Hadeija, which is a very wealthy town and holds an important
position both as a source of supplies and a centre of trade, received a
garrison of mounted infantry and became the capital of the sub-province.
Hadeija was an old Habe town and its name, an evident corruption of
Khadija, the name of the celebrated wife and first convert of Mahomet,
is a strong presumption of the incorrectness of the Fula claim to have
introduced Islam to its inhabitants. The ruling dynasty of Hadeija was,
however, overthrown by Fula usurpation towards the end of the 18th
century, and the Fula ruler received a flag and a blessing from Dan
Fodio at the beginning of his sacred war in the opening years of the
19th century. Nevertheless the habit of independence being strong in the
town of Hadeija the little emirate held its own against Sokoto, Bornu
and all comers. Though included nominally within the province at Katagum
it was the boast of Hadeija that it had never been conquered. It had
made nominal submission to the British in 1903 on the successful
conclusion of the Kano-Sokoto campaign, and in 1905, as has been stated,
was chosen as the capital of the sub-province. The emir's attitude
became, however, in the spring of 1906 openly antagonistic to the
British and a military expedition was sent against him. The emir with
his disaffected chiefs made a plucky stand but after five hours' street
fighting the town was reduced. The emir and three of his sons were
killed, and a new emir, the rightful heir to the throne, who had shown
himself in favour of a peaceful policy, was appointed. The offices of
the war chiefs in Hadeija were abolished and 150 yards of the town wall
were broken down.
Slave dealing is at an end in Katagum. The military station at Hadeija
forms a link in the chain of British forts which extends along the
northern frontier of the protectorate. (See NIGERIA.) (F. L. L.)
KATANGA, a district of Belgian Congo, forming the south-eastern part of
the colony. Area, approximately, 180,000 sq. m.; estimated population
1,000,000. The natives are members of the Luba-Lunda group of Bantus.
It is a highly mineralized region, being specially rich in copper ore.
Gold, iron and tin are also mined. Katanga is bounded S. and S.E. by
Northern Rhodesia, and British capital is largely interested in the
development of its resources, the administration of the territory being
entrusted to a committee on which British members have seats. Direct
railway communication with Cape Town and Beira was established in 1909.
There is also a rail and river service via the Congo to the west coast.
(See CONGO FREE STATE.)
KATER, HENRY (1777-1835), English physicist of German descent, was born
at Bristol on the 16th of April 1777. At first he purposed to study law;
but this he abandoned on his father's death in 1794, and entered the
army, obtaining a commission in the 12th regiment of foot, then
stationed in India, where he rendered valuable assistance in the great
trigonometrical survey. Failing health obliged him to return to England;
and in 1808, being then a lieutenant, he entered on a distinguished
student career in the senior department of the Royal Military College at
Sandhurst. Shortly after he was promoted to the rank of captain. In 1814
he retired on half-pay, and devoted the remainder of his life to
scientific research. He died at London on the 26th of April 1835.
His first important contribution to scientific knowledge was the
comparison of the merits of the Cassegrainian and Gregorian telescopes,
from which (_Phil. Trans._, 1813 and 1814) he deduced that the
illuminating power of the former exceeded that of the latter in the
proportion of 5 : 2. This inferiority of the Gregorian he explained as
being probably due to the mutual interference of the rays as they
crossed at the principal focus before reflection at the second mirror.
His most valuable work was the determination of the length of the
second's pendulum, first at London and subsequently at various stations
throughout the country (_Phil. Trans._, 1818, 1819). In these researches
he skilfully took advantage of the well-known property of reciprocity
between the centres of suspension and oscillation of an oscillating
body, so as to determine experimentally the precise position of the
centre of oscillation; the distance between these centres was then the
length of the ideal simple pendulum having the same time of oscillation.
As the inventor of the floating collimator, Kater rendered a great
service to practical astronomy (_Phil. Trans._, 1825, 1828). He also
published memoirs (_Phil. Trans._, 1821, 1831) on British standards of
length and mass; and in 1832 he published an account of his labours in
verifying the Russian standards of length. For his services to Russia in
this respect he received in 1814 the decoration of the order of St.
Anne; and the same year he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society.
His attention was also turned to the subject of compass needles, his
Bakerian lecture "On the Best Kind of Steel and Form for a Compass
Needle" (_Phil. Trans._, 1821) containing the results of many
experiments. The treatise on "Mechanics" in Lardner's _Cyclopaedia_
was partly written by him; and his interest in more purely
astronomical questions was evidenced by two communications to the
Astronomical Society's _Memoirs_ for 1831-1833--the one on an
observation of Saturn's outer ring, the other on a method of
determining longitude by means of lunar eclipses.
KATHA, a district in the northern division of Upper Burma, with an area
of 6994 sq. m., 3730 of which consists of the former separate state of
Wuntho. It is bounded N. by the Upper Chindwin, Bhamo and Myitkyina
districts, E. by the Kaukkwe River as far as the Irrawaddy, thence east
of the Irrawaddy by the Shan State of Mong Mit (Momeik), and by the
Shweli River, S. by the Ruby Mines district and Shwebo, and W. by the
Upper Chindwin district. Three ranges of hills run through the district,
known as the Minwun, Gangaw and Mangin ranges. They separate the three
main rivers--the Irrawaddy, the Meza and the Mu. The Minwun range runs
from north to south, and forms for a considerable part of its length the
dividing line between the Katha district proper and what formerly was
the Wuntho state. Its average altitude is between 1500 and 2000 ft. The
Gangaw range runs from the north of the district for a considerable
portion of its length close to and down the right bank of the Irrawaddy
as far as Tigyaing, where the Myatheindan pagoda gives its name to the
last point. Its highest point is 4400 ft., but the average is between
1500 and 2000 ft. The Katha branch of the railway crosses it at Petsut,
a village 12 miles west of Katha town. The Mangin range runs through
Wuntho (highest peak, Maingthon, 5450 ft.).
Gold, copper, iron and lead are found in considerable quantities in the
district. The Kyaukpazat gold-mines, worked by an English company, gave
good returns, but the quartz reef proved to be a mere pocket and is now
worked out. The iron, copper and lead are not now worked. Jade and
soapstone also exist, and salt is produced from brine wells. There are
three forest reserves in Katha, with a total area of 1119 sq. m. The
population in 1901 was 176,223, an increase of 32% in the decade. The
number of Shans is about half that of Burmese, and of Kadus half that of
Shans. The Shans are mostly in the Wuntho sub-division. Rice is the
chief crop in the plains, tea, cotton, sesamum and hill rice in the
hills. The valley of the Meza, which is very malarious, was used as a
convict settlement under Burmese rule. The district was first occupied
by British troops in 1886, but it was not finally quieted till 1890,
when the Wuntho sawbwa was deposed and his state incorporated in Katha
district.
KATHA is the headquarters of the district. The principal means of
communication are the Irrawaddy Flotilla steamers, which run between
Mandalay and Bhamo, and the railway which communicates with Sagaing to
the south and Myitkyina to the north. A ferry-steamer plies between
Katha and Bhamo.
KATHIAWAR, or KATTYWAR, a peninsula of India, within the Gujarat
division of Bombay, giving its name to a political agency. Total area,
about 23,400 sq. m.; pop. (1901), 2,645,805. These figures include a
portion of the British district of Ahmedabad, a portion of the state of
Baroda, and the small Portuguese settlement of Diu. The peninsula is
bounded N. by the Runn of Cutch, E. by Ahmedabad district and the Gulf
of Cambay, and S. and W. by the Arabian Sea. The extreme length is 220
m.; the greatest breadth about 165 m. Generally speaking, the surface is
undulating, with low ranges running in various directions. With the
exception of the Tangha and Mandav hills, in the west of Jhalawar, and
some unimportant hills in Hallar, the northern portion of the country is
flat; but in the south, from near Gogo, the Gir range runs nearly
parallel with the coast, and at a distance of about 20 m. from it, along
the north of Babriawar and Sorath, to the neighbourhood of Girnar.
Opposite this latter mountain is the solitary Osam hill, and then still
farther west is the Barada group, between Hallar and Barada, running
about 20 m. north and south from Gumli to Ranawao. The Girnar group of
mountains is an important granitic mass, the highest peak of which rises
to 3500 ft. The principal river is the Bhadar, which rises in the Mandav
hills, and flowing S.W. falls into the sea at Navi-Bandar; it is
everywhere marked by highly cultivated lands adjoining its course of
about 115 m. Other rivers are the Aji, Machhu and Satrunji--the last
remarkable for romantic scenery. Four of the old races, the Jaitwas,
Churasamas, Solunkis and Walas still exist as proprietors of the soil
who exercised sovereignty in the country prior to the immigration of the
Jhalas, Jadejas, Purmars, Kathis, Gohels, Jats, Mahommedans and
Mahrattas, between whom the country is now chiefly portioned out.
Kathiawar has many notable antiquities, comprising a rock inscription of
Asoka, Buddhist caves, and fine Jain temples on the sacred hill of
Girnar and at Palitana.
The political agency of Kathiawar has an area of 20,882 sq. m. In 1901
the population was 2,329,196, showing a decrease of 15% in the decade
due to the results of famine. The estimated gross revenue of the several
states is L1,278,000; total tribute (payable to the British, the gaekwar
of Baroda and the nawab of Junagarh), L70,000. There are altogether 193
states of varying size and importance, of which 14 exercise independent
jurisdiction, while the rest are more or less under British
administration. The eight states of the first class are Junagaw,
Nawanagar, Bhaunagar, Porbandar, Dhrangadra, Morvi, Gondal and
Jafarabad. The headquarters of the political agent are at Rajkot, in the
centre of the peninsula, where also is the Rajkumar college, for the
education of the sons of the chiefs. There is a similar school for
_girasias_, or chiefs of lower rank, at Gondal. An excellent system of
metre-gauge railways has been provided at the cost of the leading
states. Maritime trade is also very active, the chief ports being
Porbandar, Mangrol and Verawal. In 1903-1904 the total sea-borne exports
were valued at L1,300,000, and the imports at L1,120,000. The
progressive prosperity of Kathiawar received a shock from the famine of
1899-1900, which was felt everywhere with extreme severity.
KATKOV, MICHAEL NIKIFOROVICH (1818-1887), Russian journalist, was born
in Moscow in 1818. On finishing his course at the university he devoted
himself to literature and philosophy, and showed so little individuality
that during the reign of Nicholas I. he never once came into
disagreeable contact with the authorities. With the Liberal reaction and
strong reform movement which characterized the earlier years of
Alexander II.'s reign (1855-1881) he thoroughly sympathized, and for
some time he warmly advocated the introduction of liberal institutions
of the British type, but when he perceived that the agitation was
assuming a Socialistic and Nihilist tinge, and that in some quarters of
the Liberal camp indulgence was being shown to Polish national
aspirations, he gradually modified his attitude until he came to be
regarded by the Liberals as a renegade. At the beginning of 1863 he
assumed the management and editorship of the _Moscow Gazette_, and he
retained that position till his death in 1887. During these twenty-four
years he exercised considerable influence on public opinion and even on
the Government, by representing with great ability the moderately
Conservative spirit of Moscow in opposition to the occasionally
ultra-Liberal and always cosmopolitan spirit of St Petersburg. With the
Slavophils he agreed in advocating the extension of Russian influence in
south-eastern Europe, but he carefully kept aloof from them and
condemned their archaeological and ecclesiastical sentimentality. Though
generally temperate in his views, he was extremely incisive and often
violent in his modes of expressing them, so that he made many enemies
and sometimes incurred the displeasure of the press-censure and the
ministers, against which he was more than once protected by Alexander
III. in consideration of his able advocacy of national interests. He is
remembered chiefly as an energetic opponent of Polish national
aspirations, of extreme Liberalism, of the system of public instruction
based on natural science, and of German political influence. In this
last capacity he helped to prepare the way for the Franco-Russian
alliance.
KATMANDU (less correctly KHATMANDU), the capital of the state of Nepal,
India, situated on the bank of the Vishnumati river at its confluence
with the Baghmati, in 27 deg. 36' N., 85 deg. 24' E. The town, which is
said to have been founded about 723, contains a population estimated at
70,000, occupying 5000 houses made of brick, and usually from two to
four storeys high. Many of the houses have large projecting wooden
windows or balconies, richly carved. The maharaja's palace, a huge,
rambling, ungainly building, stands in the centre of the town, which
also contains numerous temples. One of these, a wooden building in the
centre of the town, gives it its name (_kat_ = wood). The streets are
extremely narrow, and the whole town very dirty. A British resident is
stationed about a mile north of the town.
KATO, TAKA-AKIRA (1859- ), Japanese statesman, was born at Nagoya, and
commenced life as an employee in the great firm of Mitsu Bishi. In 1887
he became private secretary to Count Okuma, minister of state for
foreign affairs. Subsequently he served as director of a bureau in the
finance department, and from 1894 to 1899 he represented his country at
the court of St James. He received the portfolio of foreign affairs in
the fourth Ito cabinet (1900-1901), which remained in office only a few
months. Appointed again to the same position in the Saionji cabinet
(1906), he resigned after a brief interval, being opposed to the
nationalization of the private railways, which measure the cabinet
approved. He then remained without office until 1908, when he again
accepted the post of ambassador in London. He was decorated with the
grand cross of St Michael and St George, and earned the reputation of
being one of the strongest men among the junior statesmen.
KATRINE, LOCH, a fresh-water lake of Scotland, lying almost entirely in
Perthshire. The boundary between the counties of Perth and Stirling runs
from Glengyle, at the head of the lake, down the centre to a point
opposite Stronachlachar from which it strikes to the south-western shore
towards Loch Arklet. The loch, which has a south-easterly trend, is
about 8 m. long, and its greatest breadth is 1 m. It lies 364 ft. above
the sea-level. It occupies an area of 4(3/4) square miles and has a
drainage basin of 37(1/2) square miles. The average depth is 142 ft.,
the greatest depth being 495 ft. The average annual rainfall is 78
inches. The mean temperature at the surface is 56.4 deg. F., and at the
bottom 41 deg. F. The scenery has been immortalized in Sir Walter
Scott's _Lady of the Lake_. The surrounding hills are of considerable
altitude, the most remarkable being the head of Ben A'an (1750 ft.) and
the grassy craigs and broken contour of Ben Venue (2393 ft.). It is fed
by the Gyle and numerous burns, and drained by the Achray to Loch Achray
and thence by the Black Avon to Loch Vennacher. Since 1859 it has formed
the chief source of the water-supply of Glasgow, the aqueduct leaving
the lake about 1(1/2) m. S.E. of Stronachlachar. By powers obtained in
1885 the level of the lake was increased by 5 ft. by a system of sluices
regulating the outflow of the Achray. One result of this damming up has
been to submerge the Silver Strand and to curtail the dimensions of
Ellen's Isle. The principal points on the shores are Glengyle, formerly
a fastness of the Macgregors, the Trossachs, the Goblins' Cave on Ben
Venue, and Stronachlachar (Gaelic, "the mason's nose"), from which there
is a ferry to Coilachra on the opposite side. A road has been
constructed from the Trossachs for nearly six miles along the northern
shore. During summer steamers ply between the Trossachs and
Stronachlachar and there is a daily service of coaches from the
Trossachs to Callander (about 10 m.) and to Aberfoyle (9 m.), and
between Stronachlachar, to Inversnaid on Loch Lomond (about 4(1/2) m.).
The road to Inversnaid runs through the Macgregors' country referred to
in Scott's _Rob Roy_.
KATSENA, an ancient state of the western Sudan, now included in the
province of Kano in the British protectorate of Northern Nigeria.
Katsena was amongst the oldest of the Hausa states. There exist
manuscripts which carry back its history for about 1000 years and
tradition ascribes the origin of the Hausa population, which is known
also by the name of Habe or Habeche, to the union of Bajibda of Bagdad
with a prehistoric queen of Daura. The conquest of the Habe of Katsena
by the Fula about the beginning of the 19th century made little
difference to the country. The more cultivated Habe were already
Mahommedan and the new rulers adopted the existing customs and system of
government. These were in many respects highly developed and included
elaborate systems of taxation and justice.
The capital of the administrative district is a town of the same name,
in 13 deg. N., 7 deg. 41' E., being 160 m. E. by S. of the city of
Sokoto, and 84 m. N.W. of Kano. The walls of Katsena have a circuit of
between 13 and 14 miles, but only a small part of the enclosed space is
inhabited. In the 17th and 18th centuries it appears to have been the
largest town in the Hausa countries, and its inhabitants at that time
numbered some 100,000. The date of the foundation of the present town
must be comparatively modern, for it is believed to have been moved from
its ancient site and at the time of Leo Africanus (c. 1513) there was no
place of any considerable size in the province of Katsena. Before that
period Katsena boasted of being the chief seat of learning throughout
the Hausa states and this reputation was maintained to the time of the
Fula conquest. In the beginning of the 19th century the town fell into
the hands of the Fula, but only after a protracted and heroic defence.
In March 1903 Sir F. Lugard visited Katsena on his way from Sokoto and
the emir and chiefs accepted British suzerainty without fighting. The
Katsena district has since formed an administrative district in the
double province of Kano and Katagum. The emir was unfaithful to his oath
of allegiance to the British crown, and was deposed in 1904. His
successor was installed and took the oath of allegiance in December of
the same year. Katsena is a rich and populous district.
See the _Travels_ of Heinrich Barth (new ed., London, 1890, chs.
xxiii. and xxiv.). Consult also the _Annual Reports_ on Northern
Nigeria issued by the Colonial Office, London, particularly the Report
for 1902.
KATSENA is also the name of a town in the district of Katsena-Allah, in
the province of Muri, Northern Nigeria. This district is watered by a
river of the same name which takes its rise in the mountains of the
German colony of Cameroon, and flows into the Benue at a point above
Abinsi.
KATSURA, TARO, MARQUESS (1847- ), Japanese soldier and statesman, was
born in 1847 in Choshu. He commenced his career by fighting under the
Imperial banner in the civil war of the Restoration, and he displayed
such talent that he was twice sent at public expense to Germany (in 1870
and 1884) to study strategy and tactics. In 1886 he was appointed
vice-minister of war, and in 1891 the command of division devolved on
him. He led the left wing of the Japanese army in the campaign of
1894-95 against China, and made a memorable march in the depth of winter
from the north-east shore of the Yellow Sea to Haicheng, finally
occupying Niuchwang, and effecting a junction with the second army corps
which moved up the Liaotung peninsula. For these services he received
the title of viscount. He held the portfolio of war from 1898 to 1901,
when he became premier and retained office for four and a half years, a
record in Japan. In 1902 his cabinet concluded the first _entente_ with
England, which event procured for Katsura the rank of count. He also
directed state affairs throughout the war with Russia, and concluded the
offensive and defensive treaty of 1905 with Great Britain, receiving
from King Edward the grand cross of the order of St Michael and St
George, and being raised by the mikado to the rank of marquess. He
resigned the premiership in 1905 to Marquess Saionji, but was again
invited to form a cabinet in 1908. Marquess Katsura might be considered
the chief exponent of conservative views in Japan. Adhering strictly to
the doctrine that ministries were responsible to the emperor alone and
not at all to the diet, he stood wholly aloof from political parties,
only his remarkable gift of tact and conciliation enabling him to govern
on such principles.
KATTERFELTO (or KATERFELTO), GUSTAVUS (d. 1799), quack doctor and
conjurer, was born in Prussia. About 1782 he came to London, where his
advertisements in the newspapers, headed "Wonders! Wonders! Wonders!"
enabled him to trade most profitably upon the credulity of the public
during the widespread influenza epidemic of that year. His public
entertainment, which, besides conjuring, included electrical and
chemical experiments and demonstrations with the microscope, extracted a
flattering testimonial from the royal family, who witnessed it in 1784.
The poet William Cowper refers to Katterfelto in _The Task_; he became
notorious for a long tour he undertook, exciting marvel by his conjuring
performances.
KATTOWITZ, a town in the Prussian province of Silesia, on the Rawa, near
the Russian frontier, 5 m. S.E. from Beuthen by rail. Pop. (1875),
11,352; (1905), 35,772. There are large iron-works, foundries and
machine shops in the town, and near it zinc and anthracite mines. The
growth of Kattowitz, like that of other places in the same district, has
been very rapid, owing to the development of the mineral resources of
the neighbourhood. In 1815 it was a mere village, and became a town in
1867. It has monuments to the emperors William I. and Frederick III.
See G. Hoffmann, _Geschichte der Stadt Kattowitz_ (Kattowitz, 1895).
KATWA, or CUTWA, a town of British India, in Burdwan district, Bengal,
situated at the confluence of the Bhagirathi and Ajai rivers. Pop.
(1901), 7220. It was the residence of many wealthy merchants, but its
commercial importance has declined as it is without railway
communication and the difficulties of the river navigation have
increased. It was formerly regarded as the key to Murshidabad. The old
fort, of which scarcely a vestige remains, is noted as the scene of the
defeat of the Mahrattas by Ali Vardi Khan.
KATYDID, the name given to certain North American insects, belonging to
the family _Locustidae_, and related to the green or tree grasshoppers
of England. As in other members of the family, the chirrup, alleged to
resemble the words "Katydid," is produced by the friction of a file on
the underside of the left forewing over a ridge on the upperside of the
right. Several species, belonging mostly to the genera _Microcentonus_
and _Cyrtophallus_, are known.
KAUFBEUREN, a town in the kingdom of Bavaria, on the Wertach, 55 m. S.W.
of Munich by rail. Pop. (1905), 8955. Kaufbeuren is still surrounded by
its medieval walls and presents a picturesque appearance. It has a
handsome town hall with fine paintings, an old tower (the Hexenturm, or
witches' tower), a museum and various educational institutions. The most
interesting of the ecclesiastical buildings is the chapel of St Blasius,
which was restored in 1896. The chief industries are cotton spinning,
weaving, bleaching, dyeing, printing, machine building and lithography,
and there is an active trade in wine, beer and cheese. Kaufbeuren is
said to have been founded in 842, and is first mentioned in chronicles
of the year 1126. It appears to have become a free imperial city about
1288, retaining the dignity until 1803, when it passed to Bavaria. It
was formerly a resort of pilgrims, and Roman coins have been found in
the vicinity.
See F. Stieve, _Die Reichsstadt Kaufbeuren und die bayrische
Restaurationspolitik_ (Munich, 1870); and Schroder, _Geschichte der
Stadt und Katholischen Pfarrei Kaufbeuren_ (Augsburg, 1903).
KAUFFMANN, [MARIA ANNA] ANGELICA (1741-1807), the once popular artist
and Royal Academician, was born at Coire in the Grisons, on the 30th of
October 1741. Her father, John Josef Kauffmann, was a poor man and
mediocre painter, but apparently very successful in teaching his
precocious daughter. She rapidly acquired several languages, read
incessantly, and showed marked talents as a musician. Her greatest
progress, however, was in painting; and in her twelfth year she had
become a notability, with bishops and nobles for her sitters. In 1754
her father took her to Milan. Later visits to Italy of long duration
appear to have succeeded this excursion; in 1763 she visited Rome,
returning to it again in 1764. From Rome she passed to Bologna and
Venice, being everywhere feted and caressed, as much for her talents as
for her personal charms. Writing from Rome in August 1764 to his friend
Franke, Winckelmann refers to her exceptional popularity. She was then
painting his picture, a half-length, of which she also made an etching.
She spoke Italian as well as German, he says; and she also expressed
herself with facility in French and English--one result of the
last-named accomplishment being that she painted all the English
visitors to the Eternal City. "She may be styled beautiful," he adds,
"and in singing may vie with our best virtuosi." While at Venice, she
was induced by Lady Wentworth, the wife of the English ambassador to
accompany her to London, where she appeared in 1766. One of her first
works was a portrait of Garrick, exhibited in the year of her arrival at
"Mr Moreing's great room in Maiden Lane." The rank of Lady Wentworth
opened society to her, and she was everywhere well received, the royal
family especially showing her great favour.
Her firmest friend, however, was Sir Joshua Reynolds. In his pocket-book
her name as "Miss Angelica" or "Miss Angel" appears frequently, and in
1766 he painted her, a compliment which she returned by her "Portrait of
Sir Joshua Reynolds," aetat. 46. Another instance of her intimacy with
Reynolds is to be found in the variation of Guercino's "Et in Arcadia
ego" produced by her at this date, a subject which Reynolds repeated a
few years later in his portrait of Mrs Bouverie and Mrs Crewe. When,
about November 1767, she was entrapped into a clandestine marriage with
an adventurer who passed for a Swedish count (the Count de Horn)
Reynolds befriended her, and it was doubtless owing to his good offices
that her name is found among the signatories to the famous petition to
the king for the establishment of the Royal Academy. In its first
catalogue of 1769 she appears with "R.A." after her name (an honour
which she shared with another lady and compatriot, Mary Moser); and she
contributed the "Interview of Hector and Andromache," and three other
classical compositions. From this time until 1782 she was an annual
exhibitor, sending sometimes as many as seven pictures, generally
classic or allegorical subjects. One of the most notable of her
performances was the "Leonardo expiring in the Arms of Francis the
First," which belongs to the year 1778. In 1773 she was appointed by the
Academy with others to decorate St Paul's, and it was she who, with
Biagio Rebecca, painted the Academy's old lecture room at Somerset
House. It is probable that her popularity declined a little in
consequence of her unfortunate marriage; but in 1781, after her first
husband's death (she had been long separated from him), she married
Antonio Zucchi (1728-1795), a Venetian artist then resident in England.
Shortly afterwards she retired to Rome, where she lived for twenty-five
years with much of her old prestige. In 1782 she lost her father; and in
1795--the year in which she painted the picture of Lady Hamilton--her
husband. She continued at intervals to contribute to the Academy, her
last exhibit being in 1797. After this she produced little, and in
November 1807 she died, being honoured by a splendid funeral under the
direction of Canova. The entire Academy of St Luke, with numerous
ecclesiastics and virtuosi, followed her to her tomb in S. Andrea delle
Fratte, and, as at the burial of Raphael, two of her best pictures were
carried in procession.
The works of Angelica Kauffmann have not retained their reputation.
She had a certain gift of grace, and considerable skill in
composition. But her drawing is weak and faulty; her figures lack
variety and expression; and her men are masculine women. Her
colouring, however, is fairly enough defined by Waagen's term
"cheerful." Rooms decorated by her brush are still to be seen in
various quarters. At Hampton Court is a portrait of the duchess of
Brunswick; in the National Portrait Gallery, a portrait of herself.
There are other pictures by her at Paris, at Dresden, in the Hermitage
at St Petersburg, and in the Alte Pinakothek at Munich. The Munich
example is another portrait of herself; and there is a third in the
Uffizi at Florence. A few of her works in private collections have
been exhibited among the "Old Masters" at Burlington House. But she is
perhaps best known by the numerous engravings from her designs by
Schiavonetti, Bartolozzi and others. Those by Bartolozzi especially
still find considerable favour with collectors. Her life was written
in 1810 by Giovanni de Rossi. It has also been used as the basis of a
romance by Leon de Wailly, 1838; and it prompted the charming novel
contributed by Mrs Richmond Ritchie to the _Cornhill Magazine_ in 1875
under the title of "Miss Angel." (A. D.)
KAUFMANN, CONSTANTINE PETROVICH (1818-1882), Russian general, was born
at Maidani on the 3rd of March 1818. He entered the engineer branch in
1838, served in the campaigns in the Caucasus, rose to be colonel, and
commanded the sappers and miners at the siege of Kars in 1855. On the
capitulation of Kars he was deputed to settle the terms with General Sir
W. Fenwick Williams. In 1861 he became director-general of engineers at
the War Office, assisting General Milutin in the reorganization of the
army. Promoted lieut.-general in 1864, he was nominated
aide-de-camp-general and governor of the military conscription of Vilna.
In 1867 he became governor of Turkestan, and held the post until his
death, making himself a name in the expansion of the empire in central
Asia. He accomplished a successful campaign in 1868 against Bokhara,
capturing Samarkand and gradually subjugating the whole country. In 1873
he attacked Khiva, took the capital, and forced the khan to become a
vassal of Russia. Then followed in 1875 the campaign against Khokand, in
which Kaufmann defeated the khan, Nasr-ed-din. Khokand north of the
Syrdaria was annexed to Russia, and the independence of the rest of the
country became merely nominal. This rapid absorption of the khanates
brought Russia into close proximity to Afghanistan, and the reception of
Kaufmann's emissaries by the Amir was a main cause of the British war
with Afghanistan in 1878. Although Kaufmann was unable to induce his
government to support all his ambitious schemes of further conquest, he
sent Skobeleff in 1880 and 1881 against the Akhal Tekkes, and was
arranging to add Merv to his annexations when he died suddenly at
Tashkend on the 15th of May 1882.
KAUKAUNA, a city of Outagamie county, Wisconsin, U.S.A., on the Fox
river 7 m. N.E. of Appleton and about 100 m. N. of Milwaukee. Pop.
(1900), 5115, of whom 1044 were foreign-born (1905) 4991; (1910) 4717.
Kaukauna is served by the Chicago & North-Western railway (which has
car-shops here), by inter-urban electric railway lines connecting with
other cities in the Fox river, valley, and by river steamboats. It has a
Carnegie library, a hospital and manufactories of pulp, paper, lumber
and woodenware. Dams on the Fox River furnish a good water-power. The
city owns its waterworks. A small settlement of Indian traders was made
here as early as 1820; in 1830 a Presbyterian mission was established,
but the growth of the place was slow, and the city was not chartered
until 1885.
KAULBACH, WILHELM VON (1805-1874), German painter, was born in
Westphalia on the 15th of October 1805. His father, who was poor,
combined painting with the goldsmith's trade, but means were found to
place Wilhelm, a youth of seventeen, in the art academy of Dusseldorf,
then becoming renowned under the directorship of Peter von Cornelius.
Young Kaulbach contended against hardships, even hunger. But his courage
never failed; and, uniting genius with industry, he was ere long
foremost among the young national party which sought to revive the arts
of Germany. The ambitious work by which Louis I. sought to transform
Munich into a German Athens afforded the young painter an appropriate
sphere. Cornelius had been commissioned to execute the enormous frescoes
in the Glyptothek, and his custom was in the winters, with the aid of
Kaulbach and others, to complete the cartoons at Dusseldorf, and in the
summers, accompanied by his best scholars, to carry out the designs in
colour on the museum walls in Munich. But in 1824 Cornelius became
director of the Bavarian academy. Kaulbach, not yet twenty, followed,
took up his permanent residence in Munich, laboured hard on the public
works, executed independent commissions, and in 1849, when Cornelius
left for Berlin, succeeded to the directorship of the academy, an office
which he held till his death on the 7th of April 1874. His son Hermann
(1846-1909) also became a distinguished painter.
Kaulbach matured, after the example of the masters of the Middle Ages,
the practice of mural or monumental decoration; he once more conjoined
painting with architecture, and displayed a creative fertility and
readiness of resource scarcely found since the era of Raphael and
Michelangelo. Early in the series of his multitudinous works came the
famous Narrenhaus, the appalling memories of a certain madhouse near
Dusseldorf; the composition all the more deserves mention for points of
contact with Hogarth. Somewhat to the same category belong the
illustrations to _Reineke Fuchs_. These, together with occasional
figures or passages in complex pictorial dramas, show how dominant and
irrepressible were the artist's sense of satire and enjoyment of fun;
character in its breadth and sharpness is depicted with keenest relish,
and at times the sardonic smile bursts into the loudest laugh. Thus
occasionally the grotesque degenerates into the vulgar, the grand into
the ridiculous, as in the satire on "the Pigtail Age" in a fresco
outside the New Pinakothek. Yet these exceptional extravagances came not
of weakness but from excess of power. Kaulbach tried hard to become
Grecian and Italian; but he never reached Phidias or Raphael; in short
the blood of Durer, Holbein and Martin Schongauer ran strong in his
veins. The art products in Munich during the middle of the 19th century
were of a quantity to preclude first-rate quality, and Kaulbach
contracted a fatal facility in covering wall and canvas by the acre. He
painted in the Hofgarten, the Odeon, the Palace and on the external
walls of the New Pinakothek. His perspicuous and showy manner also
gained him abundant occupation as a book illustrator: in the pages of
the poets his fancy revelled; he was glad to take inspiration from
Wieland, Goethe, even Klopstock; among his engraved designs are the
Shakespeare gallery, the Goethe gallery and a folio edition of the
Gospels. With regard to these examples of "the Munich school," it was
asserted that Kaulbach had been unfortunate alike in having found
Cornelius for a master and King Louis for a patron, that he attempted
"subjects far beyond him, believing that his admiration for them was
the same as inspiration"; and supplied the lack of real imagination by
"a compound of intellect and fancy."
Nevertheless in such compositions as the Destruction of Jerusalem and
the Battle of the Huns Kaulbach shows creative imagination. As a
dramatic poet he tells the story, depicts character, seizes on action
and situation, and thus as it were takes the spectator by storm. The
manner may be occasionally noisy and ranting, but the effect after its
kind is tremendous. The cartoon, which, as usual in modern German art,
is superior to the ultimate picture, was executed in the artist's prime
at the age of thirty. At this period, as here seen, the knowledge was
little short of absolute; subtle is the sense of beauty; playful,
delicate, firm the touch; the whole treatment artistic.
Ten or more years were devoted to what the Germans term a "cyclus"--a
series of pictures depicting the Tower of Babel, the Age of Homer, the
Destruction of Jerusalem, the Battle of the Huns, the Crusades and the
Reformation. These major tableaux, severally 30 ft. long, and each
comprising over one hundred figures above life-size, are surrounded by
minor compositions making more than twenty in all. The idea is to
congregate around the world's historic dramas the prime agents of
civilization; thus here are assembled allegoric figures of Architecture
and other arts, of Science and other kingdoms of knowledge, together
with lawgivers from the time of Moses, not forgetting Frederick the
Great. The chosen situation for this imposing didactic and theatric
display is the Treppenhaus or grand staircase in the new museum, Berlin;
the surface is a granulated, absorbent wall, specially prepared; the
technical method is that known as "water-glass," or "liquid flint," the
infusion of silica securing permanence. The same medium was adopted in
the later wall-pictures in the Houses of Parliament, Westminster.
The painter's last period brings no new departure; his ultimate works
stand conspicuous by exaggerations of early characteristics. The series
of designs illustrative of Goethe, which had an immense success, were
melodramatic and pandered to popular taste. The vast canvas, more than
30 ft. long, the Sea Fight at Salamis, painted for the Maximilianeum,
Munich, evinces wonted imagination and facility in composition; the
handling also retains its largeness and vigour; but in this astounding
scenic uproar moderation and the simplicity of nature are thrown to the
winds, and the whole atmosphere is hot and feverish.
Kaulbach's was a beauty-loving art. He is not supreme as a colourist;
he belongs in fact to a school that holds colour in subordination; but
he laid, in common with the great masters, the sure foundation of his
art in form and composition. Indeed, the science of composition has
seldom if ever been so clearly understood or worked out with equal
complexity and exactitude; the constituent lines, the relation of the
parts to the whole, are brought into absolute agreement; in modern
Germany painting and music have trodden parallel paths, and Kaulbach
is musical in the melody and harmony of his compositions. His
narrative too is lucid, and moves as a stately march or royal triumph;
the sequence of the figures is unbroken; the arrangement of the groups
accords with even literary form; the picture falls into incident,
episode, dialogue, action, plot, as a drama. The style is eclectic; in
the Age of Homer the types and the treatment are derived from Greek
marbles and vases; then in the Tower of Babel the severity of the
antique gives place to the suavity of the Italian renaissance; while
in the Crusades the composition is let loose into modern romanticism,
and so the manner descends into the midst of the 19th century. And yet
this scholastically compounded art is so nicely adjusted and smoothly
blended that it casts off all incongruity and becomes homogeneous as
the issue of one mind. But a fickle public craved for change; and so
the great master in later years waned in favour, and had to witness,
not without inquietude, the rise of an opposing party of naturalism
and realism. (J. B. A.)
KAUNITZ-RIETBURG, WENZEL ANTON, PRINCE VON (1711-1794), Austrian
chancellor and diplomatist, was born at Vienna on the 2nd of February
1711. His father, Max Ulrich, was the third count of Kaunitz, and
married an heiress, Maria Ernestine Franziska von Rietburg. The family
was ancient, and was believed to have been of Slavonic origin in
Moravia. Wenzel Anton, being a second son, was designed for the church,
but on the death of his elder brother he was trained for the law and for
diplomacy, at Vienna, Leipzig and Leiden, and by travel. His family had
served the Habsburgs with some distinction, and Kaunitz had no
difficulty in obtaining employment. In 1735 he was a _Reichshofrath_.
When the Emperor Charles VI. died in 1740, he is said to have hesitated
before deciding to support Maria Theresa. If so, his hesitation did not
last long, and left no trace on his loyalty. From 1742 to 1744 he was
minister at Turin, and in the latter year was sent as minister with the
Archduke Charles of Lorraine, the governor of Belgium. He was therefore
an eye-witness of the campaigns in which Marshal Saxe overran Belgium.
At this time he was extremely discouraged, and sought for his recall.
But he had earned the approval of Maria Theresa, who sent him as
representative of Austria to the peace congress of Aix-la-Chapelle in
1748. His tenacity and dexterity established his reputation as a
diplomatist. He confirmed his hold on the regard and confidence of the
empress by the line he took after the conclusion of the peace. In 1749
Maria Theresa appealed to all her counsellors for advice as to the
policy Austria ought to pursue in view of the changed conditions
produced by the rise of Prussia. The great majority of them, including
her husband Francis I., were of opinion that the old alliance with the
sea Powers, England and Holland, should be maintained. Kaunitz, either
because he was really persuaded that the old policy must be given up, or
because he saw that the dominating idea in the mind of Maria Theresa was
the recovery of Silesia, gave it as his opinion that Frederick was now
the "most wicked and dangerous enemy of Austria," that it was hopeless
to expect the support of Protestant nations against him, and that the
only way of recovering Silesia was by an alliance with Russia and
France. The empress eagerly accepted views which were already her own,
and entrusted the adviser with the execution of his own plans. An
ambassador to France from 1750 to 1752, and after 1753 as "house, court
and state chancellor," Kaunitz laboured successfully to bring about the
alliance which led to the Seven Years' War. It was considered a great
feat of diplomacy, and established Kaunitz as the recognized master of
the art. His triumph was won in spite of personal defects and
absurdities which would have ruined most men. Kaunitz had manias rarely
found in company with absolute sanity. He would not hear of death, nor
approach a sick man. He refused to visit his dying master Joseph II. for
two whole years. He would not breathe fresh air. On the warmest summer
day he kept a handkerchief over his mouth when out of doors, and his
only exercise was riding under glass, which he did every morning for
exactly the same number of minutes. He relaxed from his work in the
company of a small dependent society of sycophants and buffoons. He was
consumed by a solemn, garrulous and pedantic vanity. When in 1770 he met
Frederick the Great at Mahrisch-Neustadt, he came with a summary of
political principles, which he called a catechism, in his pocket, and
assured the king that he must be allowed to speak without interruption.
When Frederick, whose interest it was to humour him, promised to listen
quietly, Kaunitz rolled his mind out for two hours, and went away with
the firm conviction that he had at last enlightened the inferior
intellect of the king of Prussia as to what politics really were. Within
a very short time Frederick had completely deceived and out-manoeuvred
him. With all his pomposity and conceit, Kaunitz was astute, he was
laborious and orderly; when his advice was not taken he would carry out
the wishes of his masters, while no defeat ever damped his pertinacity.
To tell his history from 1750 till his retirement in 1792 would be to
tell part of the internal history of Austria, and all the international
politics of eastern and central Europe. His governing principle was to
forward the interests of "the august house of Austria," a phrase
sometimes repeated at every few lines of his despatches. In internal
affairs he in 1758 recommended, and helped to promote, a simplification
of the confused and subdivided Austrian administration. But his main
concern was always with diplomacy and foreign policy. Here he strove
with untiring energy, and no small measure of success, to extend the
Austrian dominions. After the Seven Years' War he endeavoured to avoid
great risks, and sought to secure his ends by alliances, exchanges and
claims professing to have a legal basis, and justified at enormous
length by arguments both pedantic and hypocritical. The French
Revolution had begun to alter all the relations of the Powers before his
retirement. He never understood its full meaning. Yet the circular
despatch which he addressed to the ambassadors of the emperor on the
17th of July 1794 contains the first outlines of Metternich's policy of
"legitimacy," and the first proposal for the combined action of the
powers, based on the full recognition of one another's rights, to defend
themselves against subversive principles. Kaunitz died at his house, the
Garten Palast, near Vienna, on the 27th of June 1794. He married on the
6th of May 1736, Maria Ernestine von Starhemberg, who died on the 6th of
September 1754. Four sons were born of the marriage.
See Hormayr, _Oesterreichischer Plutarch_ (Vienna, 1823), for a
biographical sketch based on personal knowledge. Also see Brunner,
_Joseph II.: Correspondance avec Cobenzl et Kaunitz_ (Mayence, 1871);
A. Beer, _Joseph II., Leopold II. und Kaunitz_ (Vienna, 1873).
KAUP, JOHANN JAKOB (1803-1873), German naturalist, was born at Darmstadt
on the 10th of April 1803. After studying at Gottingen and Heidelberg he
spent two years at Leiden, where his attention was specially devoted to
the amphibians and fishes. He then returned to Darmstadt as an assistant
in the grand ducal museum, of which in 1840 he became inspector. In 1829
he published _Skizze zur Entwickelungsgeschichte der europaischen
Thierwelt_, in which he regarded the animal world as developed from
lower to higher forms, from the amphibians through the birds to the
beasts of prey; but subsequently he repudiated this work as a youthful
indiscretion, and on the publication of Darwin's _Origin of Species_ he
declared himself against its doctrines. The extensive fossil deposits in
the neighbourhood of Darmstadt gave him ample opportunities for
palaeontological inquiries, and he gained considerable reputation by his
_Beitrage zur naheren Kenntniss der urweltlichen Saugethiere_
(1855-1862). He also wrote _Classification der Saugethiere und Vogel_
(1844), and, with H. G. Brown (1800-1862) of Heidelberg, _Die
Gavial-artigen Reste aus dem Lias_ (1842-1844). He died at Darmstadt on
the 4th of July 1873.
KAURI PINE, in botany, _Agathis australis_, a conifer native of New
Zealand where it is abundant in forests in the North Island between the
North Cape and 38 deg. south latitude. The forests are rapidly
disappearing owing to use as timber and to destruction by fires. It is a
tall resiniferous tree, usually ranging from 80 to 100 ft. in height,
with a trunk 4 to 10 ft. in diameter, but reaching 150 ft., with a
diameter of 15 to 22 ft.; it has a straight columnar trunk and a rounded
bushy head. The thick resiniferous bark falls off in large flat flakes.
The leaves, which persist for several years, are very thick and
leathery; on young trees they are lance-shaped 2 to 4 in. long and 1/4
to 1/2 in. broad, becoming on mature trees linear-oblong or
obovate-oblong and 3/4 to 1(1/2) in. long. The ripe cones are almost
spherical, erect, and 2 to 3 in. in diameter; the broad, flat, rather
thin cone-scales fall from the axis when ripe. Each scale bears a single
compressed seed with a membranous wing. The timber is remarkable for its
strength, durability and the ease with which it is worked. The resin,
kauri-gum, is an amber-like deposit dug in large quantities from the
sites of previous forests, in lumps generally varying in size from that
of a hen's egg to that of a man's head. The colour is of a rich brown or
amber yellow, or it may be almost colourless and translucent. It is of
value for varnish-making.
KAVA (CAVA or AVA), an intoxicating, but non-alcoholic beverage,
produced principally in the islands of the South Pacific, from the roots
or leaves of a variety of the pepper plant (_Piper methysticum_). The
method of preparation is somewhat peculiar. The roots or leaves are
first chewed by young girls or boys, care being taken that only those
possessing sound teeth and excellent general health shall take part in
this operation. The chewed material is then placed in a bowl, and water
or coco-nut milk is poured over it, the whole is well stirred, and
subsequently the woody matter is removed by an ingenious but simple
mechanical manipulation. The resulting liquid, which has a muddy or
_cafe-au-lait_ appearance, or is of a greenish hue if made from leaves,
is now ready for consumption. The taste of the liquid is at first sweet,
and then pungent and acrid. The usual dose corresponds to about two
mouthfuls of the root. Intoxication (but this apparently only applies to
those not inured to the use of the liquor) follows in about twenty
minutes. The drunkenness produced by kava is of a melancholy, silent and
drowsy character. Excessive drinking is said to lead to skin and other
diseases, but _per contra_ many medicinal virtues are ascribed to the
preparation. There appears to be little doubt that the active principle
in this beverage is a poison of an alkaloidal nature. It seems likely
that this substance is not present as such (i.e. as a free alkaloid) in
the plant, but that it exists in the form of a glucoside, and that by
the process of chewing this glucoside is split up by one of the ferments
in the saliva into the free alkaloid and sugar.
See _Pharm. Journ_. iii. 474; iv. 85; ix. 219; vii. 149; _Comptes
Rendus_, l. 436, 598; lii. 206; _Journ. de Pharm._ (1860) 20; (1862)
218; Seeman, _Flora Vitiensis_, 260; Beachy, _Voyage of the
"Blossom,"_ ii. 120.
KAVADH (KABADES, KAUADES), a Persian name which occurs first in the
mythical history of the old Iranian kingdom as Kai Kobadh (Kaikobad). It
was borne by two kings of the Sassanid dynasty.
(1) KAVADH I., son of Peroz, crowned by the nobles in 488 in place of
his uncle Balash, who was deposed and blinded. At this time the empire
was utterly disorganized by the invasion of the Ephthalites or White
Huns from the east. After one of their victories against Peroz, Kavadh
had been a hostage among them during two years, pending the payment of a
heavy ransom. In 484 Peroz had been defeated and slain with his whole
army. Balash was not able to restore the royal authority. The hopes of
the magnates and high priests that Kavadh would suit their purpose were
soon disappointed. Kavadh gave his support to the communistic sect
founded by Mazdak, son of Bamdad, who demanded that the rich should
divide their wives and their wealth with the poor. His intention
evidently was, by adopting the doctrine of the Mazdakites, to break the
influence of the magnates. But in 496 he was deposed and incarcerated in
the "Castle of Oblivion (Lethe)" in Susiana, and his brother Jamasp
(Zamaspes) was raised to the throne. Kavadh, however, escaped and found
refuge with the Ephthalites, whose king gave him his daughter in
marriage and aided him to return to Persia. In 499 he became king again
and punished his opponents. He had to pay a tribute to the Ephthalites
and applied for subsidies to Rome, which had before supported the
Persians. But now the emperor Anastasius refused subsidies, expecting
that the two rival powers of the East would exhaust one another in war.
At the same time he intervened in the affairs of the Persian part of
Armenia. So Kavadh joined the Ephthalites and began war against the
Romans. In 502 he took Theodosiopolis in Armenia, in 503 Amida
(Diarbekr) on the Tigris. In 505 an invasion of Armenia by the western
Huns from the Caucasus led to an armistice, during which the Romans paid
subsidies to the Persians for the maintenance of the fortifications on
the Caucasus. When Justin I. (518-527) came to the throne the conflict
began anew. The Persian vassal, Mondhir of Hira, laid waste Mesopotamia
and slaughtered the monks and nuns. In 531 Belisarius was beaten at
Callinicum. Shortly afterwards Kavadh died, at the age of eighty-two, in
September 531. During his last years his favourite son Chosroes had had
great influence over him and had been proclaimed successor. He also
induced Kavadh to break with the Mazdakites, whose doctrine had spread
widely and caused great social confusion throughout Persia. In 529 they
were refuted in a theological discussion held before the throne of the
king by the orthodox Magians, and were slaughtered and persecuted
everywhere; Mazdak himself was hanged. Kavadh evidently was, as
Procopius (_Pers._ i. 6) calls him, an unusually clear-sighted and
energetic ruler. Although he could not free himself from the yoke of the
Ephthalites, he succeeded in restoring order in the interior and fought
with success against the Romans. He built some towns which were named
after him, and began to regulate the taxation.
(2) KAVADH II. SHEROE (Siroes), son of Chosroes II., was raised to the
throne in opposition to his father in February 628, after the great
victories of the emperor Heraclius. He put his father and eighteen
brothers to death, began negotiations with Heraclius, but died after a
reign of a few months. (Ed. M.)
KAVALA, or CAVALLA, a walled town and seaport of European Turkey in the
vilayet of Salonica, on the Bay of Kavala, an inlet of the Aegean Sea.
Pop. (1905), about 5000. Kavala is built on a promontory stretching
south into the bay, and opposite the island of Thasos. There is a
harbour on each side of the promontory. The resident population is
increased in summer by an influx of peasantry, of whom during the season
5000 to 6000 are employed in curing tobacco and preparing it for export.
The finest Turkish tobacco is grown in the district, and shipped to all
parts of Europe and America, to the annual value of about L1,250,000.
Mehemet Ali was born here in 1769, and founded a Turkish school which
still exists. His birthplace, an unpretentious little house in one of
the tortuous older streets, can be distinguished by the tablet which the
municipal authorities have affixed to its front wall. Numerous Roman
remains have been found in the neighbourhood, of which the chief is the
large aqueduct on two tiers of arches which still serves to supply the
town and dilapidated citadel with water from Mount Pangeus.
Kavala has been identified with Neapolis, at which St Paul landed on
his way from Samothrace to Philippi (Acts xvi. 11). Neapolis was the
port of Philippi, as Kavala now is of Seres; in the bay on which it
stands the fleet of Brutus and Cassius was stationed during the battle
of Philippi. Some authorities identify Neapolis with Datum ([Greek:
Daton]), mentioned by Herodotus as famous for its gold mines.
KAVANAGH, ARTHUR MACMORROUGH (1831-1889), Irish politician, son of
Thomas Kavanagh, M.P., who traced his descent to the ancient kings of
Leinster, was born in Co. Carlow, Ireland, on the 25th of March 1831. He
had only the rudiments of arms and legs, but in spite of these physical
defects had a remarkable career. He learnt to ride in the most fearless
way, strapped to a special saddle, and managing the horse with the
stumps of his arms; and also fished, shot, drew and wrote, various
mechanical contrivances being devised to supplement his limited physical
capacities. He travelled extensively in Egypt, Asia Minor, Persia and
India between 1846 and 1853, and after succeeding to the family estates
in the latter year, he married in 1855 his cousin, Miss Frances Mary
Leathley. Assisted by his wife, he was a most philanthropic landlord,
and was an active county magistrate and chairman of the board of
guardians. A Conservative and a Protestant, he sat in Parliament for Co.
Wexford from 1866 to 1868, and for Co. Carlow from 1868 to 1880. He was
opposed to the disestablishment of the Irish Church, but supported the
Land Act of 1870, and sat on the Bessborough Commission. In 1886 he was
made a member of the Privy Council in Ireland. He died of pneumonia on
the 25th of December 1889, in London. It is supposed that his
extraordinary career suggested the idea of "Lucas Malet's" novel, _The
History of Sir Richard Calmady_.
KAVANAGH, JULIA (1824-1877), British novelist, was born at Thurles in
Tipperary, Ireland, in 1824. She was the daughter of Morgan Peter
Kavanagh (d. 1874), author of various worthless philological works and
some poems. Julia spent several years of her early life with her parents
in Normandy, laying there the foundation of a mastery of the French
language and insight into French modes of thought, which was perfected
by her later frequent and long residences in France. Miss Kavanagh's
literary career began with her arrival in London about 1844, and her
uneventful life affords few incidents to the biographer. Her first book
was _Three Paths_ (1847), a story for the young; but her first work to
attract notice was _Madeleine, a Tale of Auvergne_ (1848). Other books
followed: _A Summer and Winter in the Two Sicilies_ (1858); _French
Women of Letters_ (1862); _English Women of Letters_ (1862); _Woman in
France during the 18th Century_ (1850); and _Women of Christianity_
(1852). The scenes of her stories are almost always laid in France, and
she handles her French themes with fidelity and skill. Her style is
simple and pleasing rather than striking; and her characters are
interesting without being strongly individualized. Her most popular
novels were perhaps _Adele_ (1857), _Queen Mab_ (1863), and _John
Dorrien_ (1875). On the outbreak of the Franco-German War Julia Kavanagh
removed with her mother from Paris to Rouen. She died at Nice on the
28th of October 1877.
KAVASS, or CAVASS (adapted from the Turkish _qawwas_, a bow-maker;
Arabic _qaws_, a bow), a Turkish name for an armed police-officer; also
for a courier such as it is usual to engage when travelling in Turkey.
KAVIRONDO, a people of British East Africa, who dwell in the valley of
the Nzoia River, on the western slopes of Mount Elgon, and along the
north-east coast of Victoria Nyanza. Kavirondo is the general name of
two distinct groups of tribes, one Bantu and the other Nilotic. Both
groups are immigrants, the Bantu from the south, the Nilotic from the
north. The Bantu appear to have been the first comers. The Nilotic
tribes, probably an offshoot of the Acholi (q.v.), appear to have
crossed the lake to reach their present home, the country around
Kavirondo Gulf. Of the two groups the Bantu now occupy a more northerly
position than their neighbours, and "are practically the most northerly
representatives of that race" (Hobley). Their further progress north was
stopped by the southward movement of the Nilotic tribes, while the
Nilotic Kavirondo in their turn had their wanderings arrested by an
irruption of Elgumi people from the east. The Elgumi are themselves
probably of Nilotic origin. Both groups of Kavirondo are physically
fine, the Nilotic stock appearing more virile than the Bantu. The Bantu
Kavirondo are divided into three principal types--the Awa-Rimi, the
Awa-Ware and the Awa-Kisii. By the Nilotic Kavirondo their Bantu
neighbours are known as Ja-Mwa. The generic name for the Nilotic tribes
is Ja-Luo. The Bantu Kavirondo call them Awa-Nyoro. The two groups have
many characteristics in common. A characteristic feature of the people
is their nakedness. Among the Nilotic Kavirondo married men who are
fathers wear a small piece of goat-skin, which though practically
useless as a covering must be worn according to tribal etiquette. Even
among men who have adopted European clothing this goat-skin must still
be worn underneath. Contact with whites has led to the adoption of
European clothing by numbers of the men, but the women, more
conservative, prefer nudity or the scanty covering which they wore
before the advent of Europeans. Among the Bantu Kavirondo married women
wear a short fringe of black string in front and a tassel of banana
fibre suspended from a girdle behind, this tassel having at a distance
the appearance of a tail. Hence the report of early travellers as to a
tailed race in Africa. The Nilotic Kavirondo women wear the tail, but
dispense with the fringe in front. For "dandy" they wear a goat-skin
slung over the shoulders. Some of the Bantu tribes practise
circumcision, the Nilotic tribes do not. Patterns are tattooed on chest
and stomach for ornament. Men, even husbands, are forbidden to touch the
women's tails, which must be worn even should any other clothing be
wrapped round the body. The Kavirondo are noted for their independent
and pugnacious nature, their honesty and their sexual morality, traits
particularly marked among the Bantu tribes. There are more women than
men, and thus the Kavirondo are naturally inclined towards polygamy.
Among the Bantu tribes a man has the refusal of all the younger sisters
of his wife as they attain puberty. Practically no woman lives unmarried
all her life, for if no suitor seeks her, she singles out a man and
offers herself to him at a "reduced price," an offer usually accepted,
as the women are excellent agricultural labourers. The Nilotic Kavirondo
incline to exogamy, endeavouring always to marry outside their clan.
Girls are betrothed at six or seven, and the husband-elect continually
makes small presents to his father-in-law-elect till the bride reaches
womanhood. It is regarded as shameful if the girl be not found a virgin
on her wedding day. She is sent back to her parents, who have to return
the marriage price, and pay a fine. The wife's adultery was formerly
punished with death, and the capital penalty was also inflicted on young
men and girls guilty of unchastity. Among the Bantu Kavirondo the usual
minimum price for a wife is forty hoes, twenty goats and one cow, paid
in instalments. The Nilotic Kavirondo pay twenty sheep and two to six
cows; the husband-elect can claim his bride when he has made half
payment. If a woman dies without bearing children, the amount of her
purchase is returnable by her father, unless the widower consents to
replace her by another sister. The women are prolific and the birth of
twins is common. This is considered a lucky event, and is celebrated by
feasting and dances. Among the Bantu Kavirondo the mother of twins must
remain in her hut for seven days. Among the Nilotic Kavirondo the
parents and the infants must stay in the hut for a whole month. If a
Bantu mother has lost two children in succession the next child born is
taken out at dawn and placed on the road, where it is left till a
neighbour, usually a woman friend who has gone that way on purpose,
picks it up. She takes it to its mother who gives a goat in return. A
somewhat similar custom prevails among the Nilotic tribes. Names are not
male and female, and a daughter often bears her father's name.
The Kavirondo bury their dead. Among one of the Bantu tribes, the
Awa-Kisesa, a chief is buried in the floor of his own hut in a sitting
position, but at such a depth that the head protrudes. Over the head
an earthenware pot is placed, and his principal wives have to remain
in the hut till the flesh is eaten by ants or decomposes, when the
skull is removed and buried close to the hut. Later the skeleton is
unearthed, and reburied with much ceremony in the sacred burial place
of the tribe. Married women of the Bantu tribes are buried in their
hut lying on their right side with legs doubled up, the hut being then
deserted. Among the Nilotic tribes the grave is dug beneath the
verandah of the hut. Men of the Bantu tribes are buried in an open
space in the midst of their huts; in the Nilotic tribes, if the first
wife of the deceased be alive he is buried in her hut, if not, beneath
the verandah of the hut in which he died. A child is buried near the
door of its mother's hut. A sign of mourning is a cord of banana fibre
worn round the neck and waist. A chief chooses, sometimes years before
his death, one of his sons to succeed him, often giving a brass
bracelet as insignia. A man's property is divided equally among his
children.
The Kavirondo are essentially an agricultural people: both men and
women work in the fields with large iron hoes. In addition to sorghum,
_Eleusine_ and maize, tobacco and hemp are both cultivated and smoked.
Both sexes smoke, but the use of hemp is restricted to men and
unmarried women, as it is thought to injure child-bearing women. Hemp
is smoked in a hubble-bubble. The Kavirondo cultivate sesamum and make
an oil from its seeds which they burn in little clay lamps. These
lamps are of the ancient saucer type, the pattern being, in Hobley's
opinion, introduced into the country by the coast people. While some
tribes live in isolated huts, those in the north have strongly walled
villages. The walls are of mud and formerly, among the Nilotic tribes,
occasionally of stone. Since the advent of the British the security of
the country has induced the Kavirondo to let the walls fall into
disrepair. Their huts are circular with conical thatched roof, and
fairly broad verandah all round. A portion of the hut is partitioned
off as a sleeping-place for goats, and the fowls sleep indoors in a
large basket. Skins form the only bedsteads. In each hut are two
fireplaces, about which a rigid etiquette prevails. Strangers or
distant relatives are not allowed to pass beyond the first, which is
near the door, and is used for cooking. At the second, which is nearly
in the middle of the hut, sit the hut owner, his wives, children,
brothers and sisters. Around this fireplace the family sleep. Cooking
pots, water pots and earthenware grain jars are the only other
furniture. The food is served in small baskets. Every full grown man
has a hut to himself, and one for each wife. The huts of the Masaba
Kavirondo of west Elgon have the apex of the roof surmounted by a
carved pole which Sir H. H. Johnston says is obviously a phallus.
Among the Bantu Kavirondo a father does not eat with his sons, nor do
brothers eat together. Among the Nilotic tribes father and sons eat
together, usually in a separate hut with open sides. Women eat apart
and only after the men have finished. The Kavirondo keep cattle,
sheep, goats, fowls and a few dogs. Women do not eat sheep, fowls or
eggs, and are not allowed to drink milk except when mixed with other
things. The flesh of the wild cat and leopard is esteemed by most of
the tribes. From _Eleusine_ a beer is made. The Kavirondo are plucky
hunters, capturing the hippopotamus with ropes and traps, and
attacking with spears the largest elephants. Fish, of which they are
very fond, are caught by line and rod or in traps. Bee-keeping is
common, and where trees are scarce the hives are placed on the roof of
the hut. Among the Bantu Kavirondo goats and sheep are suffocated, the
snout being held until the animal dies. Though a peaceful people the
Kavirondo fight well. Their weapons are spears with rather long flat
blades without blood-courses, and broad-bladed swords. Some use
slings, and most carry shields. Bows and arrows are also used;
firearms are however displacing other weapons. Kavirondo warfare was
mainly defensive and intertribal, this last a form of vendetta. When a
man had killed his enemy in battle he shaved his head on his return
and he was rubbed with "medicine" (generally goat's dung), to defend
him from the spirit of the dead man. This custom the Awa-Wanga
abandoned when they obtained firearms. The young warriors were made to
stab the bodies of their slain enemies. Kavirondo industries are
salt-making, effected by burning reeds and water-plants and passing
water through the ashes; the smelting of iron ore (confined to the
Bantu tribes); pottery and basket-work.
The Kavirondo have many tribes, divided, Sir H. H. Johnston suspects,
totemically. Their religion appears to be a vague ancestor-worship,
but the northern tribes have two gods, Awafwa and Ishishemi, the
spirits of good and evil. To the former cattle and goats are
sacrificed. The Kavirondo have great faith in divination from the
entrails of a sheep. Nearly everybody and everything is to the
Kavirondo ominous of good or evil. They have few myths or traditions;
the ant-bear is the chief figure in their beast-legends. They believe
in witchcraft and practise trial by ordeal. As a race the Kavirondo
are on the increase. This is due to their fecundity and morality.
Those who live in the low-lying lands suffer from a mild malaria,
while abroad they are subject to dysentery and pneumonia. Epidemics of
small-pox have occurred. Native medicine is of the simplest. They
dress wounds with butter and leaves, and for inflammation of the lungs
or pleurisy pierce a hole in the chest. There are no
medicine-men--the women are the doctors. Certain of the incisor teeth
are pulled out. If a man retains these he will, it is thought, be
killed in warfare. Among certain tribes the women also have incisor
teeth extracted, otherwise misfortune would befall their husbands. For
the same reason the wife scars the skin of her forehead or stomach. A
Kavirondo husband, before starting on a perilous journey, cuts scars
on his wife's body to ensure him good luck. Of dances the Kavirondo
have four--the birth dance, the death dance, that at initiation and
one of a propitiatory kind in seasons of drought. Their music is
plaintive and sometimes pretty, produced by a large lyre-shaped
instrument. They use also various drums.
The Ja-Luo women use for ear ornaments small beads attached to pieces
of brass. Like the aggry beads of West Africa these beads are not of
local manufacture nor of recent introduction. They are ancient, in
colour generally blue, occasionally yellow or green, and are picked up
in certain districts after heavy rain. By the natives they are
supposed to come down with the rain. They are identical in shape and
colour with ancient Egyptian beads and other beads obtained from
ancient cities in Baluchistan.
See C. W. Hobley, _Eastern Uganda, an Ethnological Survey_ (Anthrop.
Inst., _Occasional Papers_, No. 1, London, 1902); Sir H. H. Johnston,
_Uganda Protectorate_ (1902); J. F. Cunningham, _Uganda and its
Peoples_ (1905); Paul Kollmann, _The Victoria Nyanza_ (1899).
(T. A. J.)
KAW, or KANSA, a tribe of North American Indians of Siouan stock. They
were originally an offshoot of the Osages. Their early home was in
Missouri, whence they were driven to Kansas by the Dakotas. They were
moved from one reservation to another, till in 1873 they were settled in
Indian Territory; they have since steadily decreased, and now number
some 200.
KAWARDHA, a feudatory state of India, within the Central Provinces;
area, 798 sq. m.; pop. (1901), 57,474, showing a decrease of 37% in the
decade, due to famine; estimated revenue, L7000. Half the state consists
of hill and forest. The residence of the chief, who is a Raj Gond, is at
Kawardha (pop. 4772), which is also the headquarters of the Kabirpanthi
sect (see KABIR).
KAY, JOHN (1742-1826), Scottish caricaturist, was born near Dalkeith,
where his father was a mason. At thirteen he was apprenticed to a
barber, whom he served for six years. He then went to Edinburgh, where
in 1771 he obtained the freedom of the city by joining the corporation
of barber-surgeons. In 1785, induced by the favour which greeted certain
attempts of his to etch in aquafortis, he took down his barber's pole
and opened a small print shop in Parliament Square. There he continued
to flourish, painting miniatures, and publishing at short intervals his
sketches and caricatures of local celebrities and oddities, who abounded
at that period in Edinburgh society. He died on the 21st of February
1826.
Kay's portraits were collected by Hugh Paton and published under the
title _A series of original portraits and caricature etchings by the
late John Kay, with biographical sketches and illustrative anecdotes_
(Edin., 2 vols. 4to, 1838; 8vo ed., 4 vols., 1842; new 4to ed., with
additional plates, 2 vols., 1877), forming a unique record of the
social life and popular habits of Edinburgh at its most interesting
epoch.
KAY, JOSEPH (1821-1878), English economist, was born at Salford,
Lancashire, on the 27th of February 1821. Educated privately and at
Trinity College, Cambridge, he was called to the bar at the Inner Temple
in 1848. He was appointed judge of the Salford Hundred court of record
in 1862 and in 1869 was made a queen's counsel. He is best known for a
series of works on the social condition of the poor in France,
Switzerland, Holland, Germany and Austria, the materials for which he
gathered on a four years' tour as travelling bachelor of his university.
They were _The Education of the Poor in England and Europe_ (London,
1846); _The Social Condition of the People in England and Europe_
(London, 1850, 2 vols.); _The Condition and Education of Poor Children
in English and in German Towns_ (Manchester, 1853). He was also the
author of _The Law relating to Shipmasters and Seamen_ (London, 1875)
and _Free Trade in Land_ (1879, with a memoir). He died at Dorking,
Surrey, on the 9th of October 1878.
KAYAK, or CAYAK, an Eskimo word for a fishing boat, in common use from
Greenland to Alaska. It has been erroneously derived from the Arabic
_caique_, supposed to have been applied to the native boats by early
explorers. The boat is made by covering a light wooden framework with
sealskin. A hole is pierced in the centre of the top of the boat, and
the _kayaker_ (also dressed in sealskin) laces himself up securely when
seated to prevent the entrance of water. The kayak is propelled like a
canoe by a double-bladed paddle. The name _kayak_ is properly only
applied to the boat used by an Eskimo man--that used by a woman is
called an _umiak_.
KAYASTH, the writer caste of Northern India, especially numerous and
influential in Bengal. In 1901 their total number in all India was more
than two millions. Their claim to be Kshattriyas who have taken to
clerical work is not admitted by the Brahmans. Under Mahommedan rule
they learnt Persian, and filled many important offices. They are now
eager students of English, and have supplied not only several judges to
the high court but also the first Hindu to be a member of the
governor-general's council. In Bombay their place is taken by the
Prabhus, and in Assam by the Kalitas (Kolitas); in Southern India there
is no distinct clerical caste.
KAYE, SIR JOHN WILLIAM (1814-1876), English military historian, was the
son of Charles Kaye, a solicitor, and was educated at Eton and the Royal
Military College, Addiscombe. From 1832 to 1841 he was an officer in the
Bengal Artillery, afterwards spending some years in literary pursuits
both in India and in England. In 1856 he entered the civil service of
the East India Company, and when the government of India was transferred
to the British crown succeeded John Stuart Mill as secretary of the
political and secret department of the India office. In 1871 he was made
a K.C.S.I. He died in London on the 24th of July 1876. Kaye's numerous
writings include _History of the Sepoy War in India_ (London,
1864-1876), which was revised and continued by Colonel G. B. Malleson
and published in six volumes in 1888-1889; _History of the War in
Afghanistan_ (London, 1851), republished in 1858 and 1874;
_Administration of the East India Company_ (London, 1853); _The Life and
Correspondence of Charles, Lord Metcalfe_ (London, 1854); _The Life and
Correspondence of Henry St George Tucker_ (London, 1854); _Life and
Correspondence of Sir John Malcolm_ (London, 1856); _Christianity in
India_ (London, 1859); _Lives of Indian Officers_ (London, 1867); and
two novels, _Peregrine Pultney_ and _Long engagements_. He also edited
several works dealing with Indian affairs; wrote _Essays of an Optimist_
(London, 1870); and was a frequent contributor to periodicals.
KAYSER, FRIEDRICH HEINRICH EMANUEL (1845- ), German geologist and
palaeontologist, was born at Konigsberg, on the 26th of March 1845. He
was educated at Berlin where he took his degree of Ph.D. in 1870. In
1882 he became professor of geology in the university at Marburg. He
investigated fossils of various ages and from all parts of the world,
but more especially from the Palaeozoic formations, including those of
South Africa, the Polar regions, and notably the Devonian fossils of
Germany, Bohemia and other parts of Europe.
Among his separate works are _Lehrbuch der Geologie_ (2 vols., ii.),
_Geologische Formationskunde_ 1891 (2nd ed., 1902), and i. _Allgemeine
Geologie_ (1893), vol. ii. (the volume first issued) was translated
and edited by P. Lake, 1893, under the title _Textbook of Comparative
Geology_. Another work is _Beitrage zur Kenntniss der Fauna der
Siegenschen Grauwacke_ (1892).
KAY-SHUTTLEWORTH, SIR JAMES PHILLIPS, BART. (1804-1877), English
politician and educationalist, was born at Rochdale, Lancashire, on the
20th of July 1804, the son of Robert Kay. At first engaged in a Rochdale
bank, in 1824 he became a medical student at Edinburgh University.
Settling in Manchester about 1827, he worked for the Ancoats and Ardwick
Dispensary, and the experience which he thus gained of the conditions of
the poor in the Lancashire factory districts, together with his interest
in economic science, led to his appointment in 1835 as poor law
commissioner in Norfolk and Suffolk and later in the London districts.
In 1839 he was appointed first secretary of the committee formed by the
Privy Council to administer the Government grant for the public
education in Great Britain. He is remembered as having founded at
Battersea, London, in conjunction with E. Carleton Tufnell, the first
training college for school teachers (1839-1840); and the system of
national school education of the present day, with its public
inspection, trained teachers and its support by state as well as local
funds, is largely due to his initiative. In 1842 he married Lady Janet
Shuttleworth, assuming by royal licence his bride's name and arms. A
breakdown in his health led him to resign his post on the committee in
1849, but subsequent recovery enabled him to take an active part in the
working of the central relief committee instituted under Lord Derby,
during the Lancashire cotton famine of 1861-1865. He was created a
baronet in 1849. Until the end of his life he interested himself in the
movements of the Liberal party in Lancashire, and the progress of
education. He died in London on the 26th of May 1877. His _Physiology,
Pathology and Treatment of Asphyxia_ became a standard textbook, and he
also wrote numerous papers on public education.
His son, Sir Ughtred James Kay-Shuttleworth (b. 1844), became a
well-known Liberal politician, sitting in parliament for Hastings from
1869 to 1880 and for the Clitheroe division of Lancashire from 1885 till
1902, when he was created Baron Shuttleworth. He was chancellor of the
duchy of Lancaster in 1886, and secretary to the Admiralty in 1892-1895.
KAZALA, or KAZALINSK, a fort and town in the Russian province of
Syr-darya in West Turkestan, at the point where the Kazala River falls
into the Syr-darya, about 50 m. from its mouth in Lake Aral, in 45 deg.
45' N. and 62 deg. 7' E., "at the junction," to quote Schuyler, "of all
the trade routes in Central Asia, as the road from Orenburg meets here
with the Khiva, Bokhara and Tashkent roads." Besides carrying on an
active trade with the Kirghiz of the surrounding country, it is of
growing importance in the general current of commerce. Pop. (1897),
7600. The floods in the river make it an island in spring; in summer it
is parched by the sun and hot winds, and hardly a tree can be got to
grow. The streets are wide, but the houses, as well as the fairly strong
fort, are built of mud bricks.
KAZAN, a government of middle Russia, surrounded by the governments of
Vyatka, Ufa, Samara, Simbirsk, Nizhniy-Novgorod and Kostroma. Area
24,601 sq. m. It belongs to the basins of the Volga and its tributary
the Kama, and by these streams the government is divided into three
regions; the first, to the right of the main river, is traversed by deep
ravines sloping to the north-east, towards the Volga, and by two ranges
of hills, one of which (300 to 500 ft.) skirts the river; the second
region, between the left bank of the Volga and the left bank of the
Kama, is an open steppe; and the third, between the left bank of the
Volga and the right bank of the Kama, resembles in its eastern part the
first region, and in its western part is covered with forest. Marls,
limestones and sandstones, of Permian or Triassic age, are the principal
rocks; the Jurassic formation appears in a small part of the Tetyushi
district in the south; and Tertiary rocks stretch along the left bank of
the Volga. Mineral springs (iron, sulphur and petroleum) exist in
several places. The Volga is navigable throughout its course of 200 m.
through Kazan, as well as the Kama (120 m.); and the Vyatka, Kazanka,
Rutka, Tsivyl, Greater Kokshaga, Ilet, Vetluga and Mesha, are not
without value as waterways. About four hundred small lakes are
enumerated within the government; the upper and lower Kaban supply the
city of Kazan with water.
The climate is severe, the annual mean temperature being 37.8 deg. F.
The rainfall amounts to 16 in. Agriculture is the chief occupation, and
82% of the population are peasants. Out of 7,672,600 acres of arable
land, 4,516,500 are under crops--chiefly rye and oats, with some wheat,
barley, buckwheat, lentils, flax, hemp and potatoes. But there generally
results great scarcity, and even famine, in bad years. Live stock are
numerous. Forests cover 35% of the total area. Bee-keeping is an
important industry. Factories employ about 10,000 persons and include
flour-mills, distilleries, factories for soap, candles and tallow, and
tanneries. A great variety of petty trades, especially those connected
with wood, are carried on in the villages, partly for export. The fairs
are well attended. There is considerable shipping on the Volga, Kama,
Vyatka and their tributaries. Kazan is divided into twelve districts.
The chief town is Kazan (q.v.). The district capitals, with their
populations in 1897 are: Cheboksary (4568), Chistopol (20,161),
Kozmodemyansk (5212), Laishev (5439), Mamadyzh (4213), Spask (2779),
Sviyazhsk (2363), Tetyushi (4754). Tsarevokokshaisk (1654), Tsivylsk
(2337) and Yadrin (2467). Population (1879), 1,872,437; (1897),
2,190,185, of whom 1,113,555 were women, and 176,396 lived in towns. The
estimated population in 1906 was 2,504,400. It consists principally of
Russians and Tatars, with a variety of Finno-Turkish tribes: Chuvashes,
Cheremisses, Mordvinians, Votyaks, Mescheryaks, and some Jews and Poles.
The Russians belong to the Orthodox Greek Church or are Nonconformists;
the Tatars are Mussulmans; and the Finno-Turkish tribes are either
pagans or belong officially to the Orthodox Greek Church, the respective
proportions being (in 1897): Orthodox Greek, 69.4% of the whole;
Nonconformists, 1%; Mussulmans, 28.8%. (P. A. K.; J. T. Be.)
KAZAN (called by the Cheremisses _Ozon_), a town of eastern Russia,
capital of the government of the same name, situated in 55 deg. 48' N.
and 49 deg. 26" E., on the river Kazanka, 3 m. from the Volga, which
however reaches the city when it overflows its banks every spring. Kazan
lies 650 m. E. from Moscow by rail and 253 m. E. of Nizhniy-Novgorod by
the Volga. Pop. (1883), 140,726; (1900), 143,707, all Russians except
for some 20,000 Tatars. The most striking feature of the city is the
_kreml_ or citadel, founded in 1437, which crowns a low hill on the N.W.
Within its wall, capped with five towers, it contains several churches,
amongst them the cathedral of the Annunciation, founded in 1562 by Gury,
the first archbishop of Kazan, Kazan being an archiepiscopal see of the
Orthodox Greek Church. Other buildings in the kreml are a magnificent
monastery, built in 1556; an arsenal; the modern castle in which the
governor resides; and the red brick Suyumbeka tower, 246 ft. high, which
is an object of great veneration to the Tatars as the reputed
burial-place of one of their saints. A little E. of the kreml is the
Bogoroditski convent, built in 1579 for the reception of the Black
Virgin of Kazan, a miracle-working image transferred to Moscow in 1612,
and in St Petersburg since 1710. Kazan is the intellectual capital of
eastern Russia, and an important seat of Oriental scholarship. Its
university, founded in 1804, is attended by nearly 1000 students.
Attached to it are an excellent library of 220,000 vols., an
astronomical observatory, a botanical garden and various museums. The
ecclesiastical academy, founded in 1846, contains the old library of the
Solovetsk (Solovki) monastery, which is of importance for the history of
Russian religious sects. The city is adorned with bronze statues of Tsar
Alexander II., set up facing the kreml in 1895, and of the poet G. R.
Derzhavin (1743-1816); also with a monument commemorating the capture of
Kazan by Ivan the Terrible. The central parts of the city consist
principally of small one-storeyed houses, surrounded by gardens, and are
inhabited chiefly by Russians, while some 20,000 Tatars dwell in the
suburbs. Kazan is, further, the intellectual centre of the Russian
Mahommedans, who have here their more important schools and their
printing-presses. Between the city and the Volga is the Admiralty
suburb, where Peter the Great had his Caspian fleet built for his
campaigns against Persia. The more important manufactures are leather
goods, soap, wax candles, sacred images, cloth, cottons, spirits and
bells. A considerable trade is carried on with eastern Russia, and with
Turkestan and Persia. Previous to the 13th century, the present
government of Kazan formed part of the territory of the Bulgarians, the
ruins of whose ancient capital, Bolgari or Bolgary, lie 60 m. S. of
Kazan. The city of Kazan itself stood, down to the 13th century, 30 m.
to the N.E., where traces of it can still be seen. In 1438 Ulugh
Mahommed (or Ulu Makhmet), khan of the Golden Horde of the Mongols,
founded, on the ruins of the Bulgarian state, the kingdom of Kazan,
which in its turn was destroyed by Ivan the Terrible of Russia in 1552
and its territory annexed to Russia. In 1774 the city was laid waste by
the rebel Pugachev. It has suffered repeatedly from fires, especially in
1815 and 1825. The Kazan Tatars, from having lived so long amongst
Russians and Finnish tribes, have lost a good many of the characteristic
features of their Tatar (Mongol) ancestry, and bear now the stamp of a
distinct ethnographic type. They are found also in the neighbouring
governments of Vyatka, Ufa, Orenburg, Samara, Saratov, Simbirsk, Tambov
and Nizhniy-Novgorod. They are intelligent and enterprising, and are
engaged principally in trade.
See Pineghin's _Kazan Old and New_ (in Russian); Velyaminov-Zernov's
_Kasimov Tsars_ (3 vols., St Petersburg, 1863-1866); Zarinsky's
_Sketches of Old Kazan_ (Kazan, 1877); Trofimov's _Siege of Kazan in_
1552 (Kazan, 1890); Firsov's books on the history of the native
population (Kazan, 1864 and 1869); and Shpilevski, on the antiquities
of the town and government, in _Izvestia i Zapiski_ of the Kazan
University (1877). A bibliography of the Oriental books published in
the city is printed in _Bulletins_ of the St Petersburg Academy
(1867). Compare also L. Leger's "Kazan et les tartares," in _Bibl.
Univ. de Geneve_ (1874). (P. A. K.; J. T. Be.)
KAZERUN, a district and town of the province of Fars in Persia. The
district is situated between Shiraz and Bushire. In its centre is the
Kazerun Valley with a direction N.W. to S.E., a fertile plain 30 m. long
and 7 to 8 m. broad, bounded S.E. by the Parishan Lake (8 m. long, 3 m.
broad) N.W. by the Boshavir River, with the ruins of the old city of
Beh-Shahpur (Beshaver, Boshavir, also, short, Shapur) and Sassanian
bas-reliefs on its banks. There also, in a cave, is a statue of Shapur.
The remainder of the district is mostly hilly country intersected by
numerous streams, plains and hills being covered with zizyphus, wild
almond and oak. The district is divided into two divisions: town and
villages, the latter being called Kuh i Marreh and again subdivided into
(1) Pusht i Kuh; (2) Yarruk; (3) Shakan. It has forty-six villages and a
population of about 15,000; it produces rice of excellent quality,
cotton, tobacco and opium, but very little corn, and bread made of the
flour of acorns is a staple of food in many villages. Wild almonds are
exported.
Kazerun, the chief place of the district, is an unwalled town situated
in the midst of the central plain, in 29 deg. 37' N., 51 deg. 43' E. at
an elevation of 2800 ft., 70 m. from Shiraz, and 96 m. from Bushire. It
has a population of about 8000, and is divided into four quarters
separated by open spaces. Adjoining it on the W. is the famous Nazar
garden, with noble avenues of orange trees planted by a former governor,
Hajji Ali Kuli Khan, in 1767. A couple of miles N. of the city behind a
low range of hills are the imposing ruins of a marble building said to
stand over the grave of Sheik Amin ed din Mahommed b. Zia ed din Mas'ud,
who died A.H. 740 (A.D. 1339). S.E. of the city on a huge mound are
ruins of buildings with underground chambers, popularly known as Kal'eh
i Gabr, "castle of the fire-worshippers."
KAZINCZY, FERENCZ (1750-1831), Hungarian author, the most indefatigable
agent in the regeneration of the Magyar language and literature at the
end of the 18th and beginning of the 19th century, was born on the 27th
of October 1759, at Er-Semlyen, in the county of Bihar, Hungary. He
studied law at Kassa and Eperies, and in Pest, where he also obtained a
thorough knowledge of French and German literature, and made the
acquaintance of Gideon Raday, who allowed him the use of his library. In
1784 Kazinczy became subnotary for the county of Abauj; and in 1786 he
was nominated inspector of schools at Kassa. There he began to devote
himself to the restoration of the Magyar language and literature by
translations from classical foreign works, and by the augmentation of
the native vocabulary from ancient Magyar sources. In 1788, with the
assistance of Baroti Szabo and John Bacsanyi, he started at Kassa the
first Magyar literary magazine, _Magyar Muzeum_; the _Orpheus_, which
succeeded it in 1790, was his own creation. Although, upon the accession
of Leopold II, Kazinczy, as a non-Catholic, was obliged to resign his
post at Kassa, his literary activity in no way decreased. He not only
assisted Gideon Raday in the establishment and direction of the first
Magyar dramatic society, but enriched the repertoire with several
translations from foreign authors. His _Hamlet_, which first appeared at
Kassa in 1790, is a rendering from the German version of Schroder.
Implicated in the democratic conspiracy of the abbot Martinovics,
Kazinczy was arrested on the 14th of December 1794, and condemned to
death; but the sentence was commuted to imprisonment. He was released in
1801, and shortly afterwards married Sophia Torok, daughter of his
former patron, and retired to his small estate at Szephalom or
"Fairhill," near Sator-Ujhely, in the county of Zemplen. In 1828 he took
an active part in the conferences held for the establishment of the
Hungarian academy in the historical section of which he became the first
corresponding member. He died of Asiatic cholera, at Szephalom, on the
22nd of August 1831.
Kazinczy, although possessing great beauty of style, cannot be
regarded as a powerful and original thinker; his fame is chiefly due
to the felicity of his translations from the masterpieces of Lessing,
Goethe, Wieland, Klopstock, Ossian, La Rochefoucauld, Marmontel,
Moliere, Metastasio, Shakespeare, Sterne, Cicero, Sallust, Anacreon,
and many others. He also edited the works of Baroczy (Pest, 1812, 8
vols.) and of the poet Zrinyi (1817, 2 vols.), and the poems of Dayka
(1813, 3 vols.) and of John Kis, (1815, 3 vols.). A collective edition
of his works (_Szep Literatura_), consisting for the most part of
translations, was published at Pest, 1814-1816, in 9 vols. His
original productions (_Eredeti Mukai_), largely made up of letters,
were edited by Joseph Bajza and Francis Toldy at Pest, 1836-1845, in 5
vols. Editions of his poems appeared in 1858 and in 1863.
KAZVIN, a province and town of Persia. The province is situated N.W. of
Teheran and S. of Gilan. On the W. it is bounded by Khamseh. It pays a
yearly revenue of about L22,000, and contains many rich villages which
produce much grain and fruit, great quantities of the latter being dried
and exported.
Kazvin, the capital of the province, is situated at an elevation of 4165
ft., in 36 deg. 15' N. and 50 deg. E., and 92 m. by road from Teheran.
The city is said to have been founded in the 4th century by the
Sassanian king Shapur II (309-379). It has been repeatedly damaged by
earthquakes. Many of its streets and most of the magnificent buildings
seen there by Chardin in 1674 and other travellers during the 17th
century are in ruins. The most remarkable remains are the palace of the
Safawid shahs and the mosque with its large blue dome. In the 16th
century Shah Tahmasp I. (1524-1576) made Kazvin his capital, and it
remained so till Shah Abbas I. (1587-1629) transferred the seat of
government to Isfahan. The town still bears the title Dar es Salteneh,
"the seat of government." Kazvin has many baths and cisterns fed by
underground canals. The system of irrigation formerly carried on by
these canals rendered the plain of Kazvin one of the most fertile
regions in Persia; now most of the canals are choked up. The city has a
population of about 50,000 and a thriving transit trade, particularly
since 1899 when the carriage road between Resht and Teheran with Kazvin
as a half-way stage was opened under the auspices of the Russian
"Enzeli-Teheran Road Company." Great quantities of rice, fish and silk
are brought to it from Gilan for distribution in Persia and export to
Turkey.
KEAN, EDMUND (1787-1833), was born in London on the 17th of March[1]
1787. His father was probably Edmund Kean, an architect's clerk; and his
mother was an actress, Ann Carey, grand-daughter of Henry Carey. When in
his fourth year Kean made his first appearance on the stage as Cupid in
Noverre's ballet of _Cymon_. As a child his vivacity and cleverness, and
his ready affection for those who treated him with kindness, made him a
universal favourite, but the harsh circumstances of his lot, and the
want of proper restraint, while they developed strong self-reliance,
fostered wayward tendencies. About 1794 a few benevolent persons
provided the means of sending him to school, where he mastered his tasks
with remarkable ease and rapidity; but finding the restraint
intolerable, he shipped as a cabin boy at Portsmouth. Discovering that
he had only escaped to a more rigorous bondage, he counterfeited both
deafness and lameness with a histrionic mastery which deceived even the
physicians at Madeira. On his return to England he sought the protection
of his uncle Moses Kean, mimic, ventriloquist and general entertainer,
who, besides continuing his pantomimic studies, introduced him to the
study of Shakespeare. At the same time Miss Tidswell, an actress who had
been specially kind to him from infancy, taught him the principles of
acting. On the death of his uncle he was taken charge of by Miss
Tidswell, and under her direction he began the systematic study of the
principal Shakespearian characters, displaying the peculiar originality
of his genius by interpretations entirely different from those of
Kemble. His talents and interesting countenance induced a Mrs Clarke to
adopt him, but the slight of a visitor so wounded his pride that he
suddenly left her house and went back to his old surroundings. In his
fourteenth year he obtained an engagement to play leading characters for
twenty nights in York Theatre, appearing as Hamlet, Hastings and Cato.
Shortly afterwards, while he was in the strolling troupe belonging to
Richardson's show, the rumour of his abilities reached George III., who
commanded him to recite at Windsor. He subsequently joined Saunders's
circus, where in the performance of an equestrian feat he fell and broke
his legs--the accident leaving traces of swelling in his insteps
throughout his life. About this time he picked up music from Charles
Incledon, dancing from D'Egville, and fencing from Angelo. In 1807 he
played leading parts in the Belfast theatre with Mrs Siddons, who began
by calling him "a horrid little man" and on further experience of his
ability said that he "played very, very well," but that "there was too
little of him to make a great actor." An engagement in 1808 to play
leading characters in Beverley's provincial troupe was brought to an
abrupt close by his marriage (July 17) with Miss Mary Chambers of
Waterford, the leading actress. For several years his prospects were
very gloomy, but in 1814 the committee of Drury Lane theatre, the
fortunes of which were then so low that bankruptcy seemed inevitable,
resolved to give him a chance among the "experiments" they were making
to win a return of popularity. When the expectation of his first
appearance in London was close upon him he was so feverish that he
exclaimed "If I succeed I shall go mad." His opening at Drury Lane on
the 26th of January 1814 as Shylock roused the audience to almost
uncontrollable enthusiasm. Successive appearances in Richard III.,
Hamlet, Othello, Macbeth and Lear served to demonstrate his complete
mastery of the whole range of tragic emotion. His triumph was so great
that he himself said on one occasion, "I could not feel the stage under
me." On the 29th of November 1820 Kean appeared for the first time in
New York as Richard III. The success of his visit to America was
unequivocal, although he fell into a vexatious dispute with the press.
On the 4th of June 1821 he returned to England.
Probably his irregular habits were prejudicial to the refinement of his
taste, and latterly they tended to exaggerate his special defects and
mannerisms. The adverse decision in the divorce case of Cox v. Kean on
the 17th of January 1825 caused his wife to leave him, and aroused
against him such bitter feeling, shown by the almost riotous conduct of
the audiences before which he appeared about this time, as nearly to
compel him to retire permanently into private life. A second visit to
America in 1825 was largely a repetition of the persecution which, in
the name of morality, he had suffered in England. Some cities showed him
a spirit of charity; many audiences submitted him to the grossest
insults and endangered his life by the violence of their disapproval. In
Quebec he was much impressed with the kindness of some Huron Indians who
attended his performances, and he was made chief of the tribe, receiving
the name Alanienouidet. Kean's last appearance in New York was on the
5th of December 1826 in Richard III., the role in which he was first
seen in America. He returned to England and was ultimately received with
all the old favour, but the contest had made him so dependent on the use
of stimulants that the gradual deterioration of his gifts was
inevitable. Still, even in their decay his great powers triumphed during
the moments of his inspiration over the absolute wreck of his physical
faculties, and compelled admiration after his gait had degenerated into
a weak hobble, and the lightning brilliancy of his eyes had become dull
and bloodshot, and the tones of his matchless voice marred by rough and
grating hoarseness. His appearance in Paris was a failure owing to a fit
of drunkenness. His last appearance on the stage was at Covent Garden,
on the 25th of March 1833 when he played Othello to the Iago of his son
Charles. At the words "Villain, be sure," in scene 3 of act iii., he
suddenly broke down, and crying in a faltering voice "O God, I am dying.
Speak to them, Charles," fell insensible into his son's arms. He died at
Richmond on the 15th of May 1833.
It was in the impersonation of the great creations of Shakespeare's
genius that the varied beauty and grandeur of the acting of Kean were
displayed in their highest form, although probably his most powerful
character was Sir Giles Overreach in Massinger's _A New Way to Pay Old
Debts_, the effect of his first impersonation of which was such that the
pit rose _en masse_, and even the actors and actresses themselves were
overcome by the terrific dramatic illusion. His only personal
disadvantage as an actor was his small stature. His countenance was
strikingly interesting and unusually mobile; he had a matchless command
of facial expression; his fine eyes scintillated with the slightest
shades of emotion and thought; his voice, though weak and harsh in the
upper register, possessed in its lower range tones of penetrating and
resistless power, and a thrilling sweetness like the witchery of the
finest music; above all, in the grander moments of his passion, his
intellect and soul seemed to rise beyond material barriers and to
glorify physical defects with their own greatness. Kean specially
excelled as the exponent of passion. In Othello, Iago, Shylock and
Richard III., characters utterly different from each other, but in which
the predominant element is some form of passion, his identification with
the personality, as he had conceived it, was as nearly as possible
perfect, and each isolated phase and aspect of the plot was elaborated
with the minutest attention to details, and yet with an absolute
subordination of these to the distinct individuality he was endeavouring
to portray. Coleridge said, "Seeing him act was like reading Shakespeare
by flashes of lightning." If the range of character in which Kean
attained supreme excellence was narrow, no one except Garrick has been
so successful in so many great impersonations. Unlike Garrick, he had no
true talent for comedy, but in the expression of biting and saturnine
wit, of grim and ghostly gaiety, he was unsurpassed. His eccentricities
at the height of his fame were numerous. Sometimes he would ride
recklessly on his horse Shylock throughout the night. He was presented
with a tame lion with which he might be found playing in his
drawing-room. The prizefighters Mendoza and Richmond the Black were
among his visitors. Grattan was his devoted friend. In his earlier days
Talma said of him, "He is a magnificent uncut gem; polish and round him
off and he will be a perfect tragedian." Macready, who was much
impressed by Kean's Richard III. and met the actor at supper, speaks of
his "unassuming manner ... partaking in some degree of shyness" and of
the "touching grace" of his singing. Kean's delivery of the three words
"I answer--NO!" in the part of Sir Edward Mortimer in _The Iron Chest_,
cast Macready into an abyss of despair at rivalling him in this role. So
full of dramatic interest is the life of Edmund Kean that it formed the
subject for a play by the elder Dumas, entitled _Kean on desordre et
genie_, in which Frederick-Lemaitre achieved one of his greatest
triumphs.
See Francis Phippen, _Authentic Memoirs of Edmund Kean_ (1814); B. W.
Procter (Barry Cornwall), _The Life of Edmund Kean_ (1835); F. W.
Hawkins, _The Life of Edmund Kean_ (1869); J. Fitzgerald Molloy, _The
Life and Adventures of Edmund Kean_ (1888); Edward Stirling, _Old
Drury Lane_ (1887).
His son, CHARLES JOHN KEAN (1811-1868), was born at Waterford, Ireland,
on the 18th of January 1811. After preparatory education at Worplesdon
and at Greenford, near Harrow, he was sent to Eton College, where he
remained three years. In 1827 he was offered a cadetship in the East
India Company's service, which he was prepared to accept if his father
would settle an income of L400 on his mother. The elder Kean refused to
do this, and his son determined to become an actor. He made his first
appearance at Drury Lane on the 1st of October 1827 as Norval in Home's
_Douglas_, but his continued failure to achieve popularity led him to
leave London in the spring of 1828 for the provinces. At Glasgow, on the
1st of October in this year, father and son acted together in Arnold
Payne's _Brutus_, the elder Kean in the title-part and his son as Titus.
After a visit to America in 1830, where he was received with much
favour, he appeared in 1833 at Covent Garden as Sir Edmund Mortimer in
Colman's _The Iron Chest_, but his success was not pronounced enough to
encourage him to remain in London, especially as he had already won a
high position in the provinces. In January 1838, however, he returned to
Drury Lane, and played Hamlet with a success which gave him a place
among the principal tragedians of his time. He was married to the
actress Ellen Tree (1805-1880) on the 29th of January 1842, and paid a
second visit to America with her from 1845 to 1847. Returning to
England, he entered on a successful engagement at the Haymarket, and in
1850, with Robert Keeley, became lessee of the Princess Theatre. The
most noteworthy feature of his management was a series of gorgeous
Shakespearian revivals. Charles Kean was not a great tragic actor. He
did all that could be done by the persevering cultivation of his powers,
and in many ways manifested the possession of high intelligence and
refined taste, but his defects of person and voice made it impossible
for him to give a representation at all adequate of the varying and
subtle emotions of pure tragedy. But in melodramatic parts such as the
king in Boucicault's adaptation of Casimir Delavigne's _Louis XI._, and
Louis and Fabian dei Franchi in Boucicault's adaptation of Dumas's _The
Corsican Brothers_, his success was complete. From his "tour round the
world" Kean returned in 1866 in broken health, and died in London on the
22nd of January 1868.
See _The Life and Theatrical Times of Charles Kean_, by John William
Cole (1859).
FOOTNOTE:
[1] This date is apparently settled by a letter from Kean in 1829, to
Dr Gibson (see _Rothesay Express_ for the 28th of June 1893, where
the letter is printed and vouched for), inviting him to dinner on the
17th of March to celebrate Kean's birthday; various other dates have
been given in books of reference, the 4th of November having been
formerly accepted by this Encyclopaedia.
KEANE, JOHN JOSEPH (1839- ), American Roman Catholic archbishop, was
born in Ballyshannon, Co. Donegal, Ireland, on the 12th of September
1839. His family settled in America when he was seven years old. He was
educated at Saint Charles's College, Ellicott City, Maryland, and at
Saint Mary's Seminary, Baltimore, and in 1866 was ordained a priest and
made curate of St Patrick's, Washington, D.C. On the 25th of August 1878
he was consecrated Bishop of Richmond, to succeed James Gibbons, and he
had established the Confraternity of the Holy Ghost in that diocese, and
founded schools and churches for negroes before his appointment as
rector of the Catholic University, Washington, D.C., in 1886, and his
appointment in 1888 to the see of Ajasso. He did much to upbuild the
Catholic University, but his democratic and liberal policy made him
enemies at Rome, whence there came in 1896 a request for his resignation
of the rectorate, and where he spent the years 1897-1900 as canon of St
John Lateran, assistant bishop at the pontifical throne, and counsellor
to the Propaganda. In 1900 he was consecrated archbishop of Dubuque,
Iowa. He took a prominent part in the Catholic Young Men's National
Union and in the Total Abstinence Union of North America; and was in
general charge of the Catholic delegation to the World's Parliament of
Religions held at the Columbian Exposition in 1893. He lectured widely
on temperance, education and American institutions, and in 1890 was
Dudleian lecturer at Harvard University.
A selection from his writings and addresses was edited by Maurice
Francis Egan under the title _Onward and Upward: A Year Book_
(Baltimore, 1902).
KEARNEY, a city and the county-seat of Buffalo county, Nebraska, U.S.A.,
about 130 m. W. of Lincoln. Pop. (1890), 8074; (1900), 5634 (650
foreign-born); (1910), 6202. It is on the main overland line of the
Union Pacific, and on a branch of the Burlington & Missouri River
railroad. The city is situated in the broad, flat bottom-lands a short
distance N. of the Platte River. Lake Kearney, in the city, has an area
of 40 acres. The surrounding region is rich farming land, devoted
especially to the growing of alfalfa and Indian corn. At Kearney are a
State Industrial School for boys, a State Normal School, the Kearney
Military Academy, and a Carnegie library. Good water-power is provided
by a canal from the Platte River about 17 m. above Kearney, and the
city's manufactures include foundry and machine-shop products, flour and
bricks. Kearney Junction, as Kearney was called from 1872 to 1875, was
settled a year before the two railways actually formed their junction
here, where the city was planned. Kearney became a town in 1873, a city
of the second class and the county seat in 1874, and a city of the first
class in 1901. It is to be distinguished from an older and once famous
prairie city, popularly known as "Dobey Town" (i.e. Adobe), founded in
the early 'fifties on the edge of the reservation of old Fort Kearney
(removed in 1848 from Nebraska City), in Kearney county, on the S. shore
of the Platte about 6 m. S.E. of the present Kearney; here in 1861 the
post office of Kearney City was established. In the days of the prairie
freighting caravans Dobey Town was one of the most important towns
between Independence, Missouri, and the Pacific coast, and it had a
rough, wild, picturesque history; but it lost its immense freighting
interests after the Union Pacific had been extended through it in 1866.
The site of Dobey Town, together with the Fort, was abandoned in 1871.
Fort Kearney and the city too were named in honour of General Stephen W.
Kearny, and the name was at first correctly spelt without a second "e."
KEARNY, PHILIP (1815-1862), American soldier, was born in New York on
the 2nd of June 1815, and was originally intended for the legal
profession. He graduated at Columbia University (1833), but his bent was
decidedly towards soldiering, and in 1837 he obtained a commission in
the cavalry regiment of which his uncle, (General) Stephen Watts Kearny
(1794-1848), was colonel and Lieutenant Jefferson Davis adjutant. Two
years later he was sent to France to study the methods of cavalry
training in vogue there. Before his return to the United States in 1840
he had served, on leave, in Algeria. He had inherited a large fortune,
but he remained in the service, and his wide experience of cavalry work
caused him to be employed on the headquarters staff of the army. After
six more years' service Kearny left the army, but almost immediately
afterwards he rejoined, bringing with him a company of cavalry, which he
had raised and equipped chiefly at his own expense, to take part in the
Mexican war. In December 1846 he was promoted captain. In leading a
brilliant cavalry charge at Churubusco he lost his left arm, but he
remained at the front, and won the brevet of major for his gallantry at
Contreras and Churubusco. In 1851 he again resigned, to travel round the
world. He saw further active service with his old comrades of the French
cavalry in the Italian war of 1859, and received the cross of the Legion
of Honour for his conduct at Solferino. Up to the outbreak of the
American Civil War he lived in Paris, but early in 1861 he hastened home
to join the Federal army. At first as a brigade commander and later as a
divisional commander of infantry in the Army of the Potomac, he infused
into his men his own cavalry spirit of dash and bravery. At
Williamsburg, Seven Pines, and Second Bull Run, he displayed his usual
romantic courage, but at Chantilly (Sept. 1, 1862), after repulsing an
attack of the enemy, he rode out in the dark too far to the front, and
mistaking the Confederates for his own men was shot dead. His body was
sent to the Federal lines with a message from General Lee, and was
buried in Trinity Churchyard, New York. His commission as major-general
of volunteers was dated July 4, 1862, but he never received it.
See J. W. de Peyster, _Personal and Military History of Philip Kearny_
(New York, 1869).
KEARNY, a town of Hudson county, New Jersey, U.S.A., between the Passaic
and Hackensack rivers, adjoining Harrison, and connected with Newark by
bridges over the Passaic. Pop. (1900), 10,896, of whom 3597 were
foreign-born; (1910 census), 18,659. The New York & Greenwood Lake
division of the Erie railroad has a station at Arlington, the principal
village (in the N.W. part), which contains attractive residences of
Newark, Jersey City and New York City business men. The town covers an
area of about 7 sq. m., including a large tract of marsh-land. In Kearny
are railway repair shops of the Pennsylvania system, and a large
abattoir; and there are numerous manufactures. The value of the town's
factory products increased from $1,607,002 in 1900 to $4,427,904 in
1905, or 175.5%. Among its institutions are the State Soldiers' Home,
removed here from Newark in 1880, a Carnegie library, two Italian homes
for orphans, and a Catholic Industrial School for boys.
The neck of land between the Passaic and the Hackensack rivers, for 7 m.
N. from where they unite, was purchased from the proprietors of East
Jersey and from the Indians by Captain William Sandford in 1668 and
through Nathaniel Kingsland, sergeant-major of Barbadoes, received the
name "New Barbadoes." After the town under this name had been extended
considerably to the northward, the town of Lodi was formed out of the S.
portion in 1825, the town of Harrison was founded out of the S. portion
of Lodi in 1840, and in 1867 a portion of Harrison was set apart as a
township and named in honour of General Philip Kearny, a former
resident. Kearny was incorporated as a town in 1895.
KEARY, ANNIE (1825-1879), English novelist, was born near Wetherby,
Yorkshire, on the 3rd of March 1825, the daughter of an Irish clergyman.
She was the author of several children's books and novels, of which the
best known is _Castle Daly_, an Irish story. She also wrote an _Early
Egyptian History_ (1861) and _The Nation Around_ (1870). She died at
Eastbourne on the 3rd of March 1879.
KEATE, JOHN (1773-1852), English schoolmaster, was born at Wells,
Somersetshire, in 1773, the son of Prebendary William Keate. He was
educated at Eton and King's College, Cambridge, where he had a brilliant
career as a scholar; taking holy orders, he became, about 1797, an
assistant master at Eton College. In 1809 he was elected headmaster. The
discipline of the school was then in a most unsatisfactory condition,
and Dr Keate (who took the degree of D.D. in 1810) took stern measures
to improve it. His partiality for the birch became a by-word, but he
succeeded in restoring order and strengthening the weakened authority of
the masters. Beneath an outwardly rough manner the little man concealed
a really kind heart, and when he retired in 1834, the boys, who admired
his courage, presented him with a handsome testimonial. A couple of
years before he had publicly flogged eighty boys on one day. Keate was
made a canon of Windsor in 1820. He died on the 5th of March 1852 at
Hartley Westpall, Hampshire, of which parish he had been rector since
1824.
See Maxwell Lyte, _History of Eton College_ (3rd ed., 1899); Collins,
_Etoniana_; Harwood, _Alumni Etonienses; Annual Register_ (1852);
_Gentleman's Magazine_ (1852).
KEATS, JOHN (1795-1821), English poet, was born on the 29th or 31st of
October 1795 at the sign of the Swan and Hoop, 24 The Pavement,
Moorfields, London. He published his first volume of verse in 1817, his
second in the following year, his third in 1820, and died of consumption
at Rome on the 23rd of February 1821 in the fourth month of his
twenty-sixth year. (For the biographical facts see the later section of
this article.)
In Keats's first book there was little foretaste of anything greatly or
even genuinely good; but between the marshy and sandy flats of sterile
or futile verse there were undoubtedly some few purple patches of floral
promise. The style was frequently detestable--a mixture of sham
Spenserian and mock Wordsworthian, alternately florid and arid. His
second book, _Endymion_, rises in its best passages to the highest level
of Barnfield and of Lodge, the two previous poets with whom, had he
published nothing more, he might most properly have been classed; and
this, among minor minstrels, is no unenviable place. His third book
raised him at once to a foremost rank in the highest class of English
poets. Shelley, up to twenty, had written little or nothing that would
have done credit to a boy of ten; and of Keats also it may be said that
the merit of his work at twenty-five was hardly by comparison more
wonderful than its demerit at twenty-two. His first book fell as flat as
it deserved to fall; the reception of his second, though less
considerate than on the whole it deserved, was not more contemptuous
than that of immeasurably better books published about the same time by
Coleridge, Landor and Shelley. A critic of exceptional carefulness and
candour might have noted in the first book so singular an example of a
stork among the cranes as the famous and notable sonnet on Chapman's
Homer; a just judge would have indicated, a partial advocate might have
exaggerated, the value of such golden grain amid a garish harvest of
tares as the hymn to Pan and the translation into verse of Titian's
Bacchanal which glorify the weedy wilderness of _Endymion_. But the
hardest thing said of that poem by the _Quarterly_ reviewer was
unconsciously echoed by the future author of _Adonais_--that it was all
but absolutely impossible to read through; and the obscener insolence of
the "Blackguard's Magazine," as Landor afterwards very justly labelled
it, is explicable though certainly not excusable if we glance back at
such a passage as that where Endymion exchanges fulsome and liquorish
endearments with the "known unknown _from whom his being sips such
darling (!) essence_." Such nauseous and pitiful phrases as these, and
certain passages in his correspondence, make us understand the source of
the most offensive imputations or insinuations levelled against the
writer's manhood; and, while admitting that neither his love-letters,
nor the last piteous outcries of his wailing and shrieking agony, would
ever have been made public by merciful or respectful editors, we must
also admit that, if they ought never to have been published, it is no
less certain that they ought never to have been written; that a manful
kind of man or even a manly sort of boy, in his love-making or in his
suffering, will not howl and snivel after such a lamentable fashion. One
thing hitherto inexplicable a very slight and rapid glance at his
amatory correspondence will amply suffice to explain: how it came to
pass that the woman so passionately beloved by so great a poet should
have thought it the hopeless attempt of a mistaken kindness to revive
the memory of a man for whom the best that could be wished was complete
and compassionate oblivion. For the side of the man's nature presented
to her inspection, this probably was all that charity or reason could
have desired. But that there was a finer side to the man, even if
considered apart from the poet, his correspondence with his friends and
their general evidence to his character give more sufficient proof than
perhaps we might have derived from the general impression left on us by
his works; though indeed the preface to _Endymion_ itself, however
illogical in its obviously implied suggestion that the poem published
was undeniably unworthy of publication, gave proof or hint at least that
after all its author was something of a man. And the eighteenth of his
letters to Miss Brawne stands out in bright and brave contrast with such
as seem incompatible with the traditions of his character on its manlier
side. But if it must be said that he lived long enough only to give
promise of being a man, it must also be said that he lived long enough
to give assurance of being a poet who was not born to come short of the
first rank. Not even a hint of such a probability could have been
gathered from his first or even from his second appearance; after the
publication of his third volume it was no longer a matter of possible
debate among judges of tolerable competence that this improbability had
become a certainty. Two or three phrases cancelled, two or three lines
erased, would have left us in _Lamia_ one of the most faultless as
surely as one of the most glorious jewels in the crown of English
poetry. _Isabella_, feeble and awkward in narrative to a degree almost
incredible in a student of Dryden and a pupil of Leigh Hunt, is
overcharged with episodical effects of splendid and pathetic expression
beyond the reach of either. _The Eve of St Agnes_, aiming at no doubtful
success, succeeds in evading all casual difficulty in the line of
narrative; with no shadow of pretence to such interest as may be derived
from stress of incident or depth of sentiment, it stands out among all
other famous poems as a perfect and unsurpassable study in pure colour
and clear melody--a study in which the figure of Madeline brings back
upon the mind's eye, if only as moonlight recalls a sense of sunshine,
the nuptial picture of Marlowe's Hero and the sleeping presence of
Shakespeare's Imogen. Beside this poem should always be placed the less
famous but not less precious _Eve of St Mark_, a fragment unexcelled for
the simple perfection of its perfect simplicity, exquisite alike in
suggestion and in accomplishment. The triumph of _Hyperion_ is as nearly
complete as the failure of _Endymion_; yet Keats never gave such proof
of a manly devotion and rational sense of duty to his art as in his
resolution to leave this great poem unfinished; not, as we may gather
from his correspondence on the subject, for the pitiful reason assigned
by his publishers, that of discouragement at the reception given to his
former work, but on the solid and reasonable ground that a Miltonic
study had something in its very scheme and nature too artificial, too
studious of a foreign influence, to be carried on and carried out at
such length as was implied by his original design. Fortified and
purified as it had been on a first revision, when much introductory
allegory and much tentative effusion of sonorous and superfluous verse
had been rigorously clipped down or pruned away, it could not long have
retained spirit enough to support or inform the shadowy body of a
subject so little charged with tangible significance. The faculty of
assimilation as distinguished from imitation, than which there can be no
surer or stronger sign of strong and sure original genius, is not more
evident in the most Miltonic passages of the revised _Hyperion_ than in
the more Shakespearian passages of the unrevised tragedy which no
radical correction could have left other than radically incorrigible. It
is no conventional exaggeration, no hyperbolical phrase of flattery with
more sound than sense in it, to say that in this chaotic and puerile
play of _Otho the Great_ there are such verses as Shakespeare might not
without pride have signed at the age when he wrote and even at the age
when he rewrote the tragedy of _Romeo and Juliet_. The dramatic fragment
of _King Stephen_ shows far more power of hand and gives far more
promise of success than does that of Shelley's _Charles the First_. Yet
we cannot say with any confidence that even this far from extravagant
promise would certainly or probably have been kept; it is certain only
that Keats in these attempts did at least succeed in showing a
possibility of future excellence as a tragic or at least a romantic
dramatist. In every other line of high and serious poetry his triumph
was actual and consummate; here only was it no more than potential or
incomplete. As a ballad of the more lyrical order, _La Belle dame sans
merci_ is not less absolutely excellent, less triumphantly perfect in
force and clearness of impression, that as a narrative poem is _Lamia_.
In his lines on Robin Hood, and in one or two other less noticeable
studies of the kind, he has shown thorough and easy mastery of the
beautiful metre inherited by Fletcher from Barnfield and by Milton from
Fletcher. The simple force of spirit and style which distinguishes the
genuine ballad manner from all spurious attempts at an artificial
simplicity was once more at least achieved in his verses on the
crowning creation of Scott's humaner and manlier genius--Meg Merrilies.
No little injustice has been done to Keats by such devotees as fix their
mind's eye only on the more salient and distinctive notes of a genius
which in fact was very much more various and tentative, less limited and
peculiar, than would be inferred from an exclusive study of his more
specially characteristic work. But within the limits of that work must
we look of course for the genuine credentials of his fame; and highest
among them we must rate his unequalled and unrivalled odes. Of these
perhaps the two nearest to absolute perfection, to the triumphant
achievement and accomplishment of the very utmost beauty possible to
human words, may be that to Autumn and that on a Grecian Urn; the most
radiant, fervent and musical is that to a Nightingale; the most
pictorial and perhaps the tenderest in its ardour of passionate fancy is
that to Psyche; the subtlest in sweetness of thought and feeling is that
on Melancholy. Greater lyrical poetry the world may have seen than any
that is in these; lovelier it surely has never seen, nor ever can it
possibly see. From the divine fragment of an unfinished ode to Maia we
can but guess that if completed it would have been worthy of a place
beside the highest. His remaining lyrics have many beauties about them,
but none perhaps can be called thoroughly beautiful. He has certainly
left us one perfect sonnet of the first rank and as certainly he has
left us but one.
Keats has been promoted by modern criticism to a place beside
Shakespeare. The faultless force and the profound subtlety of his deep
and cunning instinct for the absolute expression of absolute natural
beauty can hardly be questioned or overlooked; and this is doubtless the
one main distinctive gift or power which denotes him as a poet among all
his equals, and gives him a right to rank for ever beside Coleridge and
Shelley. As a man, the two admirers who did best service to his memory
were Lord Houghton and Matthew Arnold. These alone, among all of their
day who have written of him without the disadvantage or advantage of a
personal acquaintance, have clearly seen and shown us the manhood of the
man. That ridiculous and degrading legend which imposed so strangely on
the generous tenderness of Shelley, while evoking the very natural and
allowable laughter of Byron, fell to dust at once for ever on the
appearance of Lord Houghton's biography, which gave perfect proof to all
time that "men have died and worms have eaten them" but not for fear of
critics or through suffering inflicted by reviews. Somewhat too
sensually sensitive Keats may have been in either capacity, but the
nature of the man was as far as was the quality of the poet above the
pitiful level of a creature whose soul could "let itself be snuffed out
by an article"; and, in fact, owing doubtless to the accident of a death
which followed so fast on his early appearance and his dubious reception
as a poet, the insolence and injustice of his reviewers in general have
been comparatively and even considerably exaggerated. Except from the
chief fountain-head of professional ribaldry then open in the world of
literary journalism, no reek of personal insult arose to offend his
nostrils; and the tactics of such unwashed malignants were inevitably
suicidal; the references to his brief experiment of apprenticeship to a
surgeon which are quoted from _Blackwood_, in the shorter as well as in
the longer memoir by Lord Houghton, could leave no bad odour behind them
save what might hang about men's yet briefer recollection of his
assailant's unmemorable existence. The false Keats, therefore, whom
Shelley pitied and Byron despised would have been, had he ever existed,
a thing beneath compassion or contempt. That such a man could have had
such a genius is almost evidently impossible; and yet more evident is
the proof which remains on everlasting record that none was ever further
from the chance of decline to such degradation than the real and actual
man who made that name immortal. (A. C. S.)
Subjoined are the chief particulars of Keats's life.
He was the eldest son of Thomas Keats and his wife Frances Jennings, and
was baptized at St Botolph's, Bishopsgate, on the 18th of December 1795.
The entry of his baptism is supplemented by a marginal note stating that
he was born on the 31st of October. Thomas Keats was employed in the
Swan and Hoop livery stables, Finsbury Pavement, London. He had married
his master's daughter, and managed the business on the retirement of his
father-in-law. In April 1804 Thomas Keats was killed by a fall from his
horse, and within a year of this event Mrs Keats married William
Rawlings, a stable-keeper. The marriage proved an unhappy one, and in
1806 Mrs Rawlings, with her children John, George, Thomas and Frances
Mary (afterwards Mrs Llanos, d. 1889), went to live at Edmonton with her
mother, who had inherited a considerable competence from her husband.
There is evidence that Keats's parents were by no means of the
commonplace type that might be hastily inferred from these associations.
They had desired to send their sons to Harrow, but John Keats and his
two brothers were eventually sent to a school kept by John Clarke at
Enfield, where he became intimate with his master's son, Charles Cowden
Clarke. His vivacity of temperament showed itself at school in a love of
fighting, but in the last year of his school life he developed a great
appetite for reading of all sorts. In 1810 he left school to be
apprenticed to Mr Thomas Hammond, a surgeon in Edmonton. He was still
within easy reach of his old school, where he frequently borrowed books,
especially the works of Spenser and the Elizabethans. With Hammond he
quarrelled before the termination of his apprenticeship, and in 1814 the
connexion was broken by mutual consent. His mother had died in 1810, and
in 1814 Mrs Jennings. The children were left in the care of two
guardians, one of whom, Richard Abbey, seems to have made himself solely
responsible. John Keats went to London to study at Guy's and St Thomas's
hospitals, living at first alone at 8 Dean Street, Borough, and later
with two fellow students in St Thomas's Street. It does not appear that
he neglected his medical studies, but his chief interest was turned to
poetry. In March 1816 he became a dresser at Guy's, but about the same
time his poetic gifts were stimulated by an acquaintance formed with
Leigh Hunt. His friendship with Benjamin Haydon, the painter, dates from
later in the same year. Hunt introduced him to Shelley, who showed the
younger poet a constant kindness. In 1816 Keats moved to the Poultry to
be with his brothers George and Tom, the former of whom was then
employed in his guardian's counting-house, but much of the poet's time
was spent at Leigh Hunt's cottage at Hampstead. In the winter of
1816-1817 he definitely abandoned medicine, and in the spring appeared
_Poems by John Keats_ dedicated to Leigh Hunt, and published by Charles
and James Ollier. On the 14th of April he left London to find quiet for
work. He spent some time at Shanklin, Isle of Wight, then at Margate and
Canterbury, where he was joined by his brother Tom. In the summer the
three brothers took lodgings in Well Walk, Hampstead, where Keats formed
a fast friendship with Charles Wentworth Dilke and Charles Armitage
Brown. In September of the same year (1817) he paid a visit to his
friend, Benjamin Bailey, at Oxford, and in November he finished
_Endymion_ at Burford Bridge, near Dorking. His youngest brother had
developed consumption, and in March John went to Teignmouth to nurse him
in place of his brother George, who had decided to sail for America with
his newly married wife, Georgiana Wylie. In May (1818) Keats returned to
London, and soon after appeared _Endymion: A Poetic Romance_ (1818),
bearing on the title-page as motto "The stretched metre of an antique
song." Late in June Keats and his friend Armitage Brown started on a
walking tour in Scotland, vividly described in the poet's letters. The
fatigue and hardship involved proved too great a strain for Keats, who
was forbidden by an Inverness doctor to continue his tour. He returned
to London by boat, arriving on the 18th of August. The autumn was spent
in constant attendance on his brother Tom, who died at the beginning of
December. There is no doubt that he resented the attacks on him in
_Blackwood's Magazine_ (August 1818), and the _Quarterly Review_ (April
1818, published only in September), but his chief preoccupations were
elsewhere. After his brother's death he went to live with his friend
Brown. He had already made the acquaintance of Fanny Brawne, a girl of
seventeen, who lived with her mother close by. For her Keats quickly
developed a consuming passion. He was in indifferent health, and, owing
partly to Mr Abbey's mismanagement, in difficulties for money.
Nevertheless his best work belongs to this period. In July 1819 he went
to Shanklin, living with James Rice. They were soon joined by Brown. The
next two months Keats spent with Brown at Winchester, enjoying an
interval of calmness due to his absence from Fanny Brawne. At Winchester
he completed _Lamia_ and _Otho the Great_, which he had begun in
conjunction with Brown, and began his historical tragedy of _King
Stephen_. Before Christmas he had returned to London and his bondage to
Fanny. In January 1820 his brother George paid a short visit to London,
but received no confidence from him. The fatal nature of Keats's illness
showed itself on the 3rd of February, but in March he recovered
sufficiently to be present at the private view of Haydon's picture of
"Christ's Entry into Jerusalem." In May he removed to a lodging in
Wesleyan Place, Kentish Town, to be near Leigh Hunt who eventually took
him into his house. In July appeared his third and last book, _Lamia,
Isabella, The Eve of St Agnes and other Poems_ (1820). Keats left the
Hunts abruptly in August in consequence of a delay in receiving one of
Fanny Brawne's letters which had been broken open by a servant. He went
to Wentworth Place, where he was taken in by the Brawnes. The suggestion
that he should spend the winter in Italy was followed up by an
invitation from Shelley to Pisa. This, however, he refused. But on the
18th of September 1820 he set out for Naples in company with Joseph
Severn, the artist, who had long been his friend. The travellers settled
in the Piazza de Spagna, Rome. Keats was devotedly tended by Dr
(afterwards Sir) James Clarke and Severn, and died on the 23rd of
February 1821. He was buried on the 27th in the old Protestant cemetery,
near the pyramid of Cestius.
Bibliography.--Keats's friends provided the material for the
authoritative biography of the poet by Richard Monckton Milnes
(afterwards Lord Houghton) entitled _Life, Letters and Literary
Remains of John Keats_ (1848; revised ed., 1867). _The Poetical Works
of John Keats_ were issued with a memoir by R. M. Milnes in 1854,
1863, 1865, 1866, 1867, and in the Aldine edition, 1876. The standard
edition of Keats is _The Poetical Works and other Writings of John
Keats now first brought together, including Poems and numerous Letters
not before published, edited with notes and appendices_ by Harry
Buxton Forman (4 vols., 1883; re-issue with corrections and additions,
1889). Of the many other editions of Keats's poems may be mentioned
that in the Muses' Library, _The Poems of John Keats_ (1896), edited
by G. Thorn Drury with an introduction by Robert Bridges, and another
by E. de Selincourt, 1905. _The Letters of John Keats to Fanny Brawne_
(1889) were edited with introduction and notes by H. Buxton Forman,
and the _Letters of John Keats to his Family and Friends_ (1891) by
Sidney Colvin, who is also the author of the monograph, _Keats_
(1887), in the English Men of Letters Series. See also _The Papers of
a Critic. Selected from the Writings of the late Charles Wentworth
Dilke_ (1875), and for further bibliographical information and
particulars of MS. sources the "Editor's Preface," &c. to a reprint
edited by H. Buxton Forman (Glasgow, 1900). A facsimile of Keats's
autograph MS. of "Hyperion," purchased by the British Museum in 1904,
was published by E. de Selincourt (Oxford, 1905). (M. Br.)
KEBLE, JOHN (1792-1866), English poet and divine, the author of the
_Christian Year_, was born on St Mark's Day (April 25), 1792, at
Fairford, Gloucestershire. He was the second child of the Rev. John
Keble and his wife Sarah Maule. Descended from a family which had
attained some legal eminence in the time of the Commonwealth, John
Keble, the father of the poet, was vicar of Coln St Aldwyn, but lived at
Fairford, about 3 m. distant from his cure. He was a clergyman of the
old High Church school, whose adherents, untouched by the influence of
the Wesleys, had moulded their piety on the doctrines on the non-jurors
and the old Anglican divines. Himself a good scholar, he did not send
his son to any school, but educated him and his brother at home so well
that both obtained scholarships at Corpus Christi College, Oxford. John
was elected scholar of Corpus in his fifteenth, and fellow of Oriel in
his nineteenth year, April 1811. In Easter term 1810 he had obtained
double first class honours, a distinction which had been obtained only
once before, by Sir Robert Peel. After his election to the Oriel
fellowship Keble gained the University prizes, both for the English
essay and also for the Latin essay. But he was more remarkable for the
rare beauty of his character than even for academic distinctions. Sir
John Taylor Coleridge, his fellow scholar at Corpus and his life-long
friend, says of him, after their friendship of five and fifty years had
closed, "It was the singular happiness of his nature, remarkable even in
his undergraduate days, that love for him was always sanctified by
reverence--reverence that did not make the love less tender, and love
that did but add intensity to the reverence." Oriel College was, at the
time when Keble became a fellow, the centre of all the finest ability in
Oxford. Copleston, Davison, Whately, were among the fellows who elected
Keble; Arnold, Pusey, Newman, were soon after added to the society. In
1815 Keble was ordained deacon, and priest in 1816. His real bent and
choice were towards a pastoral cure in a country parish; but he remained
in Oxford, acting first as a public examiner in the schools, then as a
tutor in Oriel, till 1823. In summer he sometimes took clerical work,
sometimes made tours on foot through various English counties, during
which he was composing poems, which afterwards took their place in the
_Christian Year_. He had a rare power of attracting to himself the
finest spirits, a power which lay not so much in his ability or his
genius as in his character, so simple, so humble, so pure, so unworldly,
yet wanting not that severity which can stand by principle and maintain
what he holds to be the truth. In 1823 he returned to Fairford, there to
assist his father, and with his brother to serve one or two small and
poorly endowed curacies in the neighbourhood of Coln. He had made a
quiet but deep impression on all who came within his influence in
Oxford, and during his five years of college tutorship had won the
affection of his pupils. But it was to pastoral work, and not to
academic duty, that he thenceforth devoted himself, associating with it,
and scarcely placing on a lower level, the affectionate discharge of his
duties as a son and brother. Filial piety influenced in a quite unusual
degree his feelings and his action all life through. It was in 1827, a
few years after he settled at Fairford, that he published the _Christian
Year_. The poems which make up that book had been the silent gathering
of years. Keble had purposed in his own mind to keep them beside him,
correcting and improving them, as long as he lived, and to leave them to
be published only "when he was fairly out of the way." This resolution
was at length overcome by the importunities of his friends, and above
all by the strong desire of his father to see his son's poems in print
before he died. Accordingly they were printed in two small volumes in
Oxford, and given to the world in June 1827, but with no name on the
title-page. The book continued to be published anonymously, but the name
of the author soon transpired.
Between 1827 and 1872 one hundred and fifty-eight editions had issued
from the press, and it has been largely reprinted since. The author, so
far from taking pride in his widespread reputation, seemed all his life
long to wish to disconnect his name with the book, and "as if he would
rather it had been the work of some one else than himself." This feeling
arose from no false modesty. It was because he knew that in these poems
he had painted his own heart, the best part of it; and he doubted
whether it was right thus to exhibit himself, and by the revelation of
only his better self, to win the good opinion of the world.
Towards the close of 1831 Keble was elected to fill the chair of the
poetry professorship in Oxford, as successor to his friend and admirer,
Dean Milman. This chair he occupied for ten eventful years. He delivered
a series of lectures, clothed in excellent idiomatic Latin (as was the
rule), in which he expounded a theory of poetry which was original and
suggestive. He looked on poetry as a vent for overcharged feeling, or a
full imagination, or some imaginative regret, which had not found their
natural outlet in life and action. This suggested to him a distinction
between what he called primary and secondary poets--the first employing
poetry to relieve their own hearts, the second, poetic artists,
composing poetry from some other and less impulsive motive. Of the
former kind were Homer, Lucretius, Burns, Scott; of the latter were
Euripides, Dryden, Milton. This view was set forth in an article
contributed to the _British Critic_ in 1838 on the life of Scott, and
was more fully developed in two volumes of _Praelectiones Academicae_.
His regular visits to Oxford kept him in intercourse with his old
friends in Oriel common room, and made him familiar with the currents of
feeling which swayed the university. Catholic emancipation and the
Reform Bill had deeply stirred, not only the political spirit of Oxford,
but also the church feeling which had long been stagnant. Cardinal
Newman writes, "On Sunday July 14, 1833, Mr Keble preached the assize
sermon in the University pulpit. It was published under the title of
_National Apostasy_. I have ever considered and kept the day as the
start of the religious movement of 1833." The occasion of this sermon
was the suppression, by Earl Grey's Reform ministry, of ten Irish
bishoprics. Against the spirit which would treat the church as the mere
creature of the state Keble had long chafed inwardly, and now he made
his outward protest, asserting the claim of the church to a heavenly
origin and a divine prerogative. About the same time, and partly
stimulated by Keble's sermon, some leading spirits in Oxford and
elsewhere began a concerted and systematic course of action to revive
High Church principles and the ancient patristic theology, and by these
means both to defend the church against the assaults of its enemies, and
also to raise to a higher tone the standard of Christian life in
England. This design embodied itself in the Tractarian movement, a name
it received from the famous _Tracts for the Times_, which were the
vehicle for promulgating the new doctrines. If Keble is to be reckoned,
as Newman would have it, as the primary author of the movement, it was
from Pusey that it received one of its best known names, and in Newman
that it soon found its genuine leader. To the tracts Keble made only
four contributions:--No. 4, containing an argument, in the manner of
Bishop Butler, to show that adherence to apostolical succession is the
safest course; No. 13, which explains the principle on which the Sunday
lessons in the church service are selected; No. 40, on marriage with one
who is unbaptized; No. 89, on the mysticism attributed to the early
fathers of the church. Besides these contributions from his own pen, he
did much for the series by suggesting subjects, by reviewing tracts
written by others, and by lending to their circulation the weight of his
personal influence.
In 1835 Keble's father died at the age of ninety, and soon after this
his son married Miss Clarke, left Fairford, and settled at Hursley
vicarage in Hampshire, a living to which he had been presented by his
friend and attached pupil, Sir William Heathcote, and which continued to
be Keble's home and cure for the remainder of his life.
In 1841 the tracts were brought to an abrupt termination by the
publication of Newman's tract No. 90. All the Protestantism of England
was in arms against the author of the obnoxious tract. Keble came
forward at the time, desirous to share the responsibility and the blame,
if there was any; for he had seen the tract before it was published, and
approved it. The same year in which burst this ecclesiastical storm saw
the close of Keble's tenure of the professorship of poetry, and
thenceforward he was seen but rarely in Oxford. No other public event
ever affected Keble so deeply as the secession of Newman to the Church
of Rome in 1845. It was to him both a public and a private sorrow, which
nothing could repair. But he did not lose heart; at once he threw
himself into the double duty, which now devolved on himself and Pusey,
of counselling the many who had hitherto followed the movement, and who,
now in their perplexity, might be tempted to follow their leader's
example, and at the same time of maintaining the rights of the church
against what he held to be the encroachments of the state, as seen in
such acts as the Gorham judgment, and the decision on _Essays and
Reviews_. In all the ecclesiastical contests of the twenty years which
followed 1845, Keble took a part, not loud or obtrusive, but firm and
resolute, in maintaining those High Anglican principles with which his
life had been identified. These absorbing duties, added to his parochial
work, left little time for literature. But in 1846 he published the
_Lyra Innocentium_; and in 1863 he completed a life of Bishop Wilson.
In the late autumn of the latter year, Keble left Hursley for the sake
of his wife's health, and sought the milder climate of Bournemouth.
There he had an attack of paralysis, from which he died on the 29th of
March 1866. He was buried in his own churchyard at Hursley; and in
little more than a month his wife was laid by her husband's side.
Keble also published _A Metrical Version of the Psalter_ (1839), _Lyra
Innocentium_ (1846), and a volume of poems was published posthumously.
But it is by the _Christian Year_ that he won the ear of the religious
world. It was a happy thought that dictated the plan of the book, to
furnish a meditative religious lyric for each Sunday of the year, and
for each saint's day and festival of the English Church. The subject
of each poem is generally suggested by some part of the lessons or the
gospel or the epistle for the day. One thing which gives these poems
their strangely unique power is the sentiment to which they appeal,
and the saintly character of the poet who makes the appeal, illumining
more or less every poem.
The intimacy with the Bible which is manifest in the pages of the
_Christian Year_; and the unobtrusive felicity with which Biblical
sentiments and language are introduced have done much to endear these
poems to all Bible readers. "The exactness of the descriptions of
Palestine, which Keble had never visited, have been noted, and
verified on the spot," by Dean Stanley. He points to features of the
lake of Gennesareth, which were first touched in the _Christian Year_;
and he observes that throughout the book "the Biblical scenery is
treated graphically as real scenery, and the Biblical history and
poetry as real history and poetry."
As to its style, the _Christian Year_ is calm and grave in tone, and
subdued in colour, as beseems its subjects and sentiments. The
contemporary poets whom Keble most admired were Scott, Wordsworth and
Southey; and of their influence traces are visible in his diction. Yet
he has a style of language and a cadence of his own, which steal into
the heart with strangely soothing power. Some of the poems are
faultless, after their kind, flowing from the first stage to the last,
lucid in thought, vivid in diction, harmonious in their pensive
melody. In others there are imperfections in rhythm, conventionalities
of language, obscurities or over-subtleties of thought, which mar the
reader's enjoyment. Yet even the most defective poems commonly have,
at least, a single verse, expressing some profound thought or tender
shade of feeling, for which the sympathetic reader willingly pardons
artistic imperfections in the rest.
Keble's life was written by his life-long friend Mr Justice J. T.
Coleridge. The following is a complete list of his writings:--1. Works
published in Keble's lifetime: _Christian Year_ (1827); _Psalter_
(1839); _Praelectiones Academicae_ (1844); _Lyra Innocentium_ (1846);
_Sermons Academical_ (1848); _Argument against Repeal of Marriage
Law_, and _Sequel_ (1857); _Eucharistical Adoration_ (1857); _Life of
Bishop Wilson_ (1863); _Sermons Occasional and Parochial_ (1867). 2.
Posthumous publications: _Village Sermons on the Baptismal Service_
(1868); _Miscellaneous Poems_ (1869); _Letters of Spiritual Counsel_
(1870); _Sermons for the Christian Year, &c._ (11 vols., 1875-1880);
_Occasional Papers and Reviews_ (1877); _Studia Sacra_ (1877);
_Outlines of Instruction or Meditation_ (1880).
KECSKEMET, a town of Hungary, in the county of Pest-Pilis-Solt-Kiskun,
65 m. S.S.E. of Budapest by rail. Pop. (1900), 56,786. Kecskemet is a
poorly built and straggling town, situated in the extensive Kecskemet
plain. It contains monasteries belonging to the Piarist and Franciscan
orders, a Catholic (founded in 1714), a Calvinistic and a Lutheran
school. The manufacture of soap and leather are the principal
industries. Besides the raising of cereals, fruit is extensively
cultivated in the surrounding district; its apples and apricots are
largely exported, large quantities of wine are produced, and
cattle-rearing constitutes another great source of revenue. Kecskemet
was the birthplace of the Hungarian dramatist Jozsef Katona (1792-1830),
author of the historical drama, _Bank-Ban_ (1815).
KEDDAH (from Hindu _Khedna_, to chase), the term, used in India for the
enclosure constructed to entrap elephants. In Ceylon the word employed
in the same meaning is _corral_.
KEDGEREE (Hindostani, _khichri_), an Indian dish, composed of boiled
rice and various highly-flavoured ingredients. Kedgeree is of two kinds,
white and yellow. The white is made with grain, onions, ghee (clarified
butter), cloves, pepper and salt. Yellow kedgeree includes eggs, and is
coloured by turmeric. Kedgeree is a favourite and universal dish in
India; among the poorer classes it is frequently made of rice and pulse
only, or rice and beans. In European cookery kedgeree is a similar dish
usually made with fish.
KEEL, the bottom timber or combination of plates of a ship or boat,
extending longitudinally from bow to stern, and supporting the framework
(see SHIP-BUILDING). The origin of the word has been obscured by
confusion of two words, the Old Norwegian _kjole_ (cf. Swedish _kol_)
and a Dutch and German _kiel_. The first had the meaning of the English
"keel," the other of ship, boat. The modern usage in Dutch and German
has approximated to the English. The word _kiel_ is represented in old
English by _ceol_, a word applied to the long war galleys of the
Vikings, in which sense "keel" or "keele" is still used by
archaeologists. On the Tyne "keel" is the name given to a flat-bottomed
vessel used to carry coals to the colliers. There is another word
"keel," meaning to cool, familiar in Shakespeare (_Love's Labour Lost_,
v. ii. 930), "while greasy Joan doth keel the pot," i.e. prevents a pot
from boiling over by pouring in cold water, &c., stirring or skimming.
This is from the Old English _celan_, to cool, a common Teutonic word,
cf. German _kuhlen_.
KEELEY, MARY ANNE (1806-1899), English actress, was born at Ipswich on
the 22nd of November 1805 or 1806. Her maiden name was Goward, her
father being a brazier and tinman. After some experience in the
provinces, she first appeared on the stage in London on the 2nd of July
1825, in the opera _Rosina_. It was not long before she gave up "singing
parts" in favour of the drama proper, where her powers of
character-acting could have scope. In June 1829 she married Robert
Keeley (1793-1869), an admirable comedian, with whom she had often
appeared. Between 1832 and 1842 they acted at Covent Garden, at the
Adelphi with Buckstone, at the Olympic with Charles Mathews, and at
Drury Lane with Macready. In 1836 they visited America. In 1838 she made
her first great success as Nydia, the blind girl, in a dramatized
version of Bulwer Lytton's _The Last Days of Pompeii_, and followed this
with an equally striking impersonation of Smike in _Nicholas Nickleby_.
In 1839 came her decisive triumph with her picturesque and spirited
acting as the hero of a play founded upon Harrison Ainsworth's _Jack
Sheppard_. So dangerous was considered the popularity of the play, with
its glorification of the prison-breaking felon, that the lord
chamberlain ultimately forbade the performance of any piece upon the
subject. It is perhaps mainly as Jack Sheppard that Mrs Keeley lived in
the memory of playgoers, despite her long subsequent career in plays
more worthy of her remarkable gifts. Under Macready's management she
played Nerissa in _The Merchant of Venice_, and Audrey in _As You Like
It_. She managed the Lyceum with her husband from 1844 to 1847; acted
with Webster and Kean at the Haymarket; returned for five years to the
Adelphi; and made her last regular public appearance at the Lyceum in
1859. A public reception was given her at this theatre on her 90th
birthday. She died on the 12th of March 1899.
See Walter Goodman, _The Keeleys on the Stage and off_ (London, 1895).
KEELING ISLANDS (often called COCOS and COCOS-KEELING ISLANDS), a group
of coral islands in the Indian Ocean, between 12 deg. 4' and 12 deg. 13'
S., and 96 deg. 49'-57' E., but including a smaller island in 11 deg.
50' N. and 96 deg. 50' E. The group furnished Charles Darwin with the
typical example of an atoll or lagoon island. There are altogether
twenty-three small islands, 9(1/2) m. being the greatest width of the
whole atoll. The lagoon is very shallow and the passages between many of
the islands are fordable on foot. An opening on the northern side of the
reef permits the entrance of vessels into the northern part of the
lagoon, which forms a good harbour known as Port Refuge or Port Albion.
The coco-nut (as the name Cocos Islands indicates) is the characteristic
product and is cultivated on all the islands. The flora is scanty in
species. One of the commonest living creatures is a monstrous crab which
lives on the coco-nuts; and in some places also there are great colonies
of the pomegranate crab. The group was visited by Dr H. O. Forbes in
1878, and later, at the expense of Sir John Murray, by Dr Guppy, Mr
Ridley and Dr Andrews. The object of their visits was the investigation
of the fauna and flora of the atoll, more especially of the formation of
the coral reefs. Dr Guppy was fortunate in reaching North Keeling
Island, where a landing is only possible during the calmest weather. The
island he found to be about a mile long, with a shallow enclosed lagoon,
less than 3 ft. deep at ordinary low water, with a single opening on its
east or weather side. A dense vegetation of iron-wood (_Cordia_) and
other trees and shrubs, together with a forest of coco-nut palms, covers
its surface. It is tenanted by myriads of sea-fowl, frigate-birds,
boobies, and terns (_Gygis candida_), which find here an excellent
nesting-place, for the island is uninhabited, and is visited only once
or twice a year. The excrement from this large colony has changed the
carbonate of lime in the soil and the coral nodules on the surface into
phosphates, to the extent in some cases of 60-70%, thus forming a
valuable deposit, beneficial to the vegetation of the island itself and
promising commercial value. The lagoon is slowly filling up and becoming
cultivable land, but the rate of recovery from the sea has been
specially marked since the eruption of Krakatoa, the pumice from which
was washed on to it in enormous quantity, so that the lagoon advanced
its shores from 20 to 30 yards. Forbes's and Guppy's investigations go
to show that, contrary to Darwin's belief, there is no evidence of
upheaval or of subsidence in either of the Keeling groups.
The atoll has an exceedingly healthy climate, and might well be used as
a sanatorium for phthisical patients, the temperature never reaching
extremes. The highest annual reading of the thermometer hardly ever
exceeds 89 deg. F. or falls beneath 70 deg. The mean temperature for the
year is 78.5 deg. F., and as the rainfall rarely exceeds 40 in. the
atmosphere never becomes unpleasantly moist. The south-east trade blows
almost ceaselessly for ten months of the year. Terrific storms sometimes
break over the island; and it has been more than once visited by
earthquakes. A profitable trade is done in coco-nuts, but there are few
other exports. The imports are almost entirely foodstuffs and other
necessaries for the inhabitants, who form a patriarchal colony under a
private proprietor.
The islands were discovered in 1609 by Captain William Keeling on his
voyage from Batavia to the Cape. In 1823 Alexander Hare, an English
adventurer, settled on the southernmost island with a number of slaves.
Some two or three years after, a Scotchman, J. Ross, who had commanded a
brig during the English occupation of Java, settled with his family (who
continued in the ownership) on Direction Island, and his little colony
was soon strengthened by Hare's runaway slaves. The Dutch Government had
in an informal way claimed the possession of the islands since 1829; but
they refused to allow Ross to hoist the Dutch flag, and accordingly the
group was taken under British protection in 1856. In 1878 it was
attached to the government of Ceylon, and in 1882 placed under the
authority of the governor of the Straits Settlements. The ownership and
superintendency continued in the Ross family, of whom George Clunies
Ross died in 1910, and was succeeded by his son Sydney.
See C. Darwin, _Journal of the Voyage of the "Beagle,"_ and
_Geological Observations on Coral Reefs_; also Henry O. Forbes, _A
Naturalist's Wanderings in the Eastern Archipelago_ (London, 1884); H.
B. Guppy, "The Cocos-Keeling Islands," _Scottish Geographical
Magazine_ (vol. v., 1889).
KEEL-MOULDING, in architecture, a round on which there is a small
fillet, somewhat like the keel of a ship. It is common in the Early
English and Decorated styles.
KEENE, CHARLES SAMUEL (1823-1891), English black-and-white artist, the
son of Samuel Browne Keene, a solicitor, was born at Hornsey on the 10th
of August 1823. Educated at the Ipswich Grammar School until his
sixteenth year, he early showed artistic leanings. Two years after the
death of his father he was articled to a London solicitor, but, the
occupation proving uncongenial, he was removed to the office of an
architect, Mr Pilkington. His spare time was now spent in drawing
historical and nautical subjects in water-colour. For these trifles his
mother, to whose energy and common sense he was greatly indebted, soon
found a purchaser, through whom he was brought to the notice of the
Whympers, the wood-engravers. This led to his being bound to them as
apprentice for five years. His earliest known design is the
frontispiece, signed "Chas. Keene," to _The Adventures of Dick Boldhero
in Search of his Uncle_, &c. (Darton & Co., 1842). His term of
apprenticeship over, he hired as studio an attic in the block of
buildings standing, up to 1900, between the Strand and Holywell Street,
and was soon hard at work for the _Illustrated London News_. At this
time he was a member of the "Artists' Society" in Clipstone Street,
afterwards removed to the Langham studios. In December 1851 he made his
first appearance in _Punch_ and, after nine years of steady work, was
called to a seat at the famous table. It was during this period of
probation that he first gave evidence of those transcendent qualities
which make his work at once the joy and despair of his brother
craftsmen. On the starting of _Once a Week_, in 1859, Keene's services
were requisitioned, his most notable series in this periodical being the
illustrations to Charles Reade's _A Good Fight_ (afterwards rechristened
_The Cloister and the Hearth_) and to George Meredith's _Evan
Harrington_. There is a quality of conventionality in the earlier of
these which completely disappears in the later. In 1858 Keene, who was
endowed with a fine voice and was an enthusiastic admirer of
old-fashioned music, joined the "Jermyn Band," afterwards better known
as the "Moray Minstrels." He was also for many years a member of
Leslie's Choir, the Sacred Harmonic Society, the Catch, Glee and Canon
Club, and the Bach Choir. He was also an industrious performer on the
bagpipes, of which instrument he brought together a considerable
collection of specimens. About 1863 the Arts Club in Hanover Square was
started, with Keene as one of the original members. In 1864 John Leech
died, and Keene's work in _Punch_ thenceforward found wider
opportunities. It was about this time that the greatest of all modern
artists of his class, Menzel, discovered Keene's existence, and became a
subscriber to _Punch_ solely for the sake of enjoying week by week the
work of his brother craftsman. In 1872 Keene, who, though fully
possessed of the humorous sense, was not within measurable distance of
Leech as a jester, and whose drawings were consequently not sufficiently
"funny" to appeal to the laughter-loving public, was fortunate enough to
make the acquaintance of Mr Joseph Crawhall, who had been in the habit
for many years of jotting down any humorous incidents he might hear of
or observe, illustrating them at leisure for his own amusement. These
were placed unreservedly at Keene's disposal, and to their inspiration
we owe at least 250 of his most successful drawings in the last twenty
years of his connexion with _Punch_. A list of more than 200 of these
subjects is given at the end of _The Life and Letters of Charles Keene
of "Punch."_ In 1879 Keene removed to 239 King's Road, Chelsea, which he
occupied until his last illness, walking daily to and from his house,
112 Hammersmith Road. In 1881 a volume of his _Punch_ drawings was
published by Messrs Bradbury & Agnew, with the title _Our People_. In
1883 Keene, who had hitherto been a strong man, developed symptoms of
dyspepsia and rheumatism. By 1889 these had increased to an alarming
degree, and the last two years of his life were passed in acute
suffering borne with the greatest courage. He died unmarried, after a
singularly uneventful life, on the 4th of January 1891, and his body
lies in Hammersmith cemetery.
Keene, who never had any regular art training, was essentially an
artists' artist. He holds the foremost place amongst English craftsmen
in black and white, though his work has never been appreciated at its
real value by the general public. No doubt the main reason for this
lack of public recognition was his unconventionality. He drew his
models exactly as he saw them, not as he knew the world wanted to see
them. He found enough beauty and romance in all that was around him,
and, in his _Punch_ work, enough subtle humour in nature seized at her
most humorous moments to satisfy him. He never required his models to
grin through a horse collar, as Gillray did, or to put on their
company manners, as was du Maurier's wont. But Keene was not only a
brilliant worker in pen and ink. As an etcher he has also to be
reckoned with, notwithstanding the fact that his plates numbered not
more than fifty at the outside. Impressions of them are exceedingly
rare, and hardly half a dozen of the plates are now known to be in
existence. He himself regarded them only as experiments in a difficult
but fascinating medium. But in the opinion of the expert they suffice
to place him among the best etchers of the 19th century. Apart from
the etched frontispieces to some of the _Punch_ pocket-books, only
three, and these by no means the best, have been published. Writing
in _L'Artiste_ for May 1891 of a few which he had seen, Bracquemond
says: "By the freedom, the largeness of their drawing and execution,
these plates must be classed amongst modern etchings of the first
rank." A few impressions are in the British Museum, but in the main
they were given away to friends and lie hidden in the albums of the
collector.
AUTHORITIES.--G. S. Layard, _Life and Letters of Charles Keene of
"Punch"; The Work of Charles Keene_, with an introduction and notes by
Joseph Pennell, and a bibliography by W. H. Chesson; M. H. Spielmann,
_The History of "Punch"_; M. Charpentier, _La Vie Moderne_, No. 14
(1880); M. H. Spielmann, _Magazine of Art_ (March 1891); M.
Bracquemond, _L'Artiste_ (May 1891); G. S. Layard, _Scribner's_ (April
1892); Joseph Pennell, _Century_ (Oct. 1897); George du Maurier,
_Harper's_ (March 1898). (G. S. I.)
KEENE, LAURA (c. 1820-1873), Anglo-American actress and manager, whose
real name was Mary Moss, was born in England. In 1851, in London, she
was playing Pauline in _The Lady of Lyons_. She made her first
appearance in New York on the 20th of September 1852, on her way to
Australia. She returned in 1855 and till 1863 managed Laura Keene's
theatre, in which was produced, in 1858, _Our American Cousin_. It was
her company that was playing at Ford's theatre, Washington, on the night
of Lincoln's assassination. Miss Keene was a successful melodramatic
actress, and an admirable manager. She died at Montclair, New Jersey, on
the 4th of November 1873.
See John Creahan's _Life of Laura Keene_ (1897).
KEENE, a city and the county-seat of Cheshire county, New Hampshire,
U.S.A., on the Ashuelot river, about 45 m. S.W. of Concord, N.H., and
about 92 m. W.N.W. of Boston. Pop. (1900), 9165, of whom 1255 were
foreign-born; (1910 census), 10,068. Area, 36.5 sq. m. It is served by
the Boston & Maine railroad and by the Fitchburg railroad (leased by the
Boston & Maine). The site is level, but is surrounded by ranges of lofty
hills--Monadnock Mountain is about 10 m. S.E. Most of the streets are
pleasantly shaded. There are three parks, with a total area of about 219
acres; and in Central Square stands a soldiers' and sailors' monument
designed by Martin Milmore and erected in 1871. The principal buildings
are the city hall, the county buildings and the city hospital. The
Public Library had in 1908 about 16,300 volumes. There are repair shops
of the Boston & Maine railroad here, and manufactures of boots and
shoes, woollen goods, furniture (especially chairs), pottery, &c. The
value of the factory product in 1905 was $2,690,967. The site of Keene
was one of the Massachusetts grants made in 1733, but Canadian Indians
made it untenable and it was abandoned from 1746 until 1750. In 1753 it
was incorporated and was named Keene, in honour of Sir Benjamin Keene
(1697-1757), the English diplomatist, who as agent for the South Sea
Company and Minister in Madrid, and as responsible for the commercial
treaty between England and Spain in 1750, was in high reputation at the
time; it was chartered as a city in 1874.
KEEP, ROBERT PORTER (1844-1904), American scholar, was born in
Farmington, Connecticut, on the 26th of April 1844. He graduated at Yale
in 1865, was instructor there for two years, was United States consul at
the Piraeus in Greece in 1869-1871, taught Greek in Williston Seminary,
Easthampton, Massachusetts, in 1876-1885, and was principal of Norwich
Free Academy, Norwich, Conn., from 1885 to 1903, the school owing its
prosperity to him hardly less than to its founders. In 1903 he took
charge of Miss Porter's school for girls at Farmington, Conn., founded
in 1844 and long controlled by his aunt, Sarah Porter. He died in
Farmington on the 3rd of June 1904.
KEEP (corresponding to the French _donjon_), in architecture the inmost
and strongest part of a medieval castle, answering to the citadel of
modern times. The arrangement is said to have originated with Gundulf,
bishop of Rochester (d. 1108), architect of the White Tower. The Norman
keep is generally a very massive square tower. There is generally a well
in a medieval keep, ingeniously concealed in the thickness of a wall or
in a pillar. The most celebrated keeps of Norman times in England are
the White Tower in London, those at Rochester Arundel and Newcastle,
Castle Hedingham, &c. When the keep was circular, as at Conisborough and
Windsor, it was called a "shell-keep" (see CASTLE). The verb "to keep,"
from which the noun with its particular meaning here treated was formed,
appears in O.E. as _cepan_, of which the derivation is unknown; no words
related to it are found in cognate languages. The earliest meaning (c.
1000) appears to have been to lay hold of, to seize, from which its
common uses of to guard, observe, retain possession of, have developed.
KEEWATIN, a district of Canada, bounded E. by Committee Bay, Fox
Channel, and Hudson and James bays, S. and S.W. by the Albany and
English rivers, Manitoba, Lake Winnipeg, and Nelson river, W. by the
100th meridian, and N. by Simpson and Rae straits and gulf and peninsula
of Boothia; thus including an area of 445,000 sq. m. Its surface is in
general barren and rocky, studded with innumerable lakes with
intervening elevations, forest-clad below 60 deg. N., but usually bare
or covered with moss or lichens, forming the so-called "barren lands" of
the north. With the exception of a strip of Silurian and Devonian rocks,
40 to 80 m. wide, extending from the vicinity of the Severn river to the
Churchill, and several isolated areas of Cambrian and Huronian, the
district is occupied by Laurentian rocks. The principal river is the
Nelson, which, with its great tributary, the Saskatchewan, is 1450 m.
long; other tributaries are the Berens, English, Winnipeg, Red and
Assiniboine. The Hayes, Severn and Winisk also flow from the south-west
into Hudson Bay, and the Ekwan, Attawapiskat and Albany, 500 m. long,
into James Bay. The Churchill, 925 m., Thlewliaza, Maguse, and Ferguson
rivers discharge into Hudson Bay on the west side; the Kazan, 500 m.,
and Dubawnt, 660 m., into Chesterfield Inlet; and Back's river, rising
near Aylmer Lake, flows north-eastwards 560 m. to the Arctic Ocean. The
principal lakes are St Joseph and Seul on the southern boundary;
northern part of Lake Winnipeg, 710 ft. above the sea; Island; South
Indian; Etawney; Nueltin; Yathkyed, at an altitude of 300 ft.; Maguse;
Kaminuriak; Baker, 30 ft.; Aberdeen, 130 ft.; and Garry. The principal
islands are Southampton, area 17,800 sq. m.; Marble Island, the usual
wintering place for whaling vessels; and Bell and Coats Islands, in
Hudson Bay; and Akimiski, in James Bay.
A few small communities at the posts of the Hudson Bay Company
constitute practically the whole of the white population. In 1897 there
were 852 Indians in the Churchill and Nelson rivers district, but no
figures are available for the district as a whole. The principal posts
in Keewatin are Norway House, near the outlet of Lake Winnipeg; Oxford
House, on the lake of the same name; York Factory, at the mouth of Hayes
river; and Forts Severn and Churchill, at the mouths of the Severn and
Churchill rivers respectively. In 1905 the district of Keewatin was
included in the North-West Territories and the whole placed under an
administrator or acting governor. The derivation of the name is from the
Cree--the "north wind."
KEF, more correctly El-Kef (the Rock), a town of Tunisia, 125 m. by rail
S.S.W. of the capital, and 75 m. S.E. of Bona in Algeria. It occupies
the site of the Roman colony of Sicca Veneria, and is built on the steep
slope of a rock in a mountainous region through which flows the
Mellegue, an affluent of the Mejerda. Situated at the intersection of
main routes from the west and south, Kef occupies a position of
strategic importance. Though distant some 22 m. from the Algerian
frontier it was practically a border post, and its walls and citadel
were kept in a state of defence by the Tunisians. The town with its
half-dozen mosques and tortuous, dirty streets, is still partly walled.
The southern part of the wall has however been destroyed by the French,
and the remainder is being left to decay. Beyond the part of the wall
destroyed is the French quarter. The _kasbah_, or citadel, occupies a
rocky eminence on the west side of the town. It was built, or rebuilt,
by the Turks, the material being Roman. It has been restored by the
French, who maintain a garrison here.
The Roman remains include fragments of a large temple dedicated to
Hercules, and of the baths. The ancient cisterns remain, but are empty,
being used as part of the barracks. The town is however supplied by
water from the same spring which filled the cisterns. The Christian
cemetery is on the site of a basilica. There are ruins of another
Christian basilica, excavated by the French, the apse being intact and
the narthex serving as a church. Many stones with Roman inscriptions are
built into the walls of Arab houses. The modern town is much smaller
than the Roman colony. Pop. about 6000, including about 100 Europeans
(chiefly Maltese).
The Roman colony of Sicca Veneria appears from the character of its
worship of Venus (Val. Max. ii. 6, S 15) to have been a Phoenician
settlement. It was afterwards a Numidian stronghold, and under the
Caesars became a fashionable residential city and one of the chief
centres of Christianity in North Africa. The Christian apologist
Arnobius the Elder lived here.
See H. Barth, _Die Kustenlander des Mittelmeeres_ (1849); _Corpus
Inscript. Lat._, vol. viii.; Sombrun in _Bull. de la soc. de geog. de
Bordeaux_ (1878). Also Cardinal Newman's Callista: _a Sketch of the
Third Century_ (1856), for a "reconstruction" of the manner of life of
the early Christians and their oppressors.
KEHL, a town in the grand-duchy of Baden, on the right bank of the
Rhine, opposite Strassburg, with which it is connected by a railway
bridge and a bridge of boats. Pop. 4000. It has a considerable river
trade in timber, tobacco and coal, which has been developed by the
formation of a harbour with two basins. The chief importance of Kehl is
its connexion with the military defence of Strassburg, to the strategic
area of which it belongs. It is encircled by the strong forts Bose,
Blumenthal and Kirchbach of that system. In 1678 Kehl was taken from the
imperialists by the French, and in 1683 a new fortress, built by Vauban,
was begun. In 1697 it was restored to the Empire and was given to Baden,
but in 1703 and again in 1733 it was taken by the French, who did not
however retain it for very long. In 1793 the French again took the town,
which was retaken by the Austrians and was restored to Baden in 1803. In
1808 the French, again in possession, restored the fortifications, but
these were dismantled in 1815, when Kehl was again restored to Baden. In
August 1870, during the Franco-German War, the French shelled the
defenceless town.
KEIGHLEY (locally KEITHLEY), a municipal borough in the Keighley
parliamentary division of the West Riding of Yorkshire, England, 17 m.
W.N.W. of Leeds, on branches of the Great Northern and Midland railways.
Pop. (1901), 41,564. It is beautifully situated in a deep valley near
the junction of the Worth with the Aire. A canal between Liverpool and
Hull affords it water communication with both west and east coasts. The
principal buildings are the parish church of St Andrew (dating from the
time of Henry I., modernized in 1710, rebuilt with the exception of the
tower in 1805, and again rebuilt in 1878), and the handsome Gothic
mechanics' institute and technical school (1870). A grammar school was
founded in 1713, the operations of which have been extended so as to
embrace a trade school (1871) for boys, and a grammar school for girls.
The principal industries are manufactures of woollen goods, spinning,
sewing and washing machines, and tools. The town was incorporated in
1882, and the corporation consists of a mayor, 6 aldermen and 18
councillors.
KEI ISLANDS [_Ke_, _Key_, _Kii_, &c.; native, _Ewab_], a group in the
Dutch East Indies, in the residency of Amboyna, between 5 deg. and 6
deg. 5' S. and 131 deg. 50' and 133 deg. 15' E., and consisting of four
parts: Nuhu-Iut or Great Kei, Roa or Little Kei, the Tayanda, and the
Kur group. Great Kei differs physically in every respect from the other
groups. It is of Tertiary formation (Miocene), and has a chain of
volcanic elevations along the axis, reaching a height of 2600 ft. Its
area is 290 sq. m., the total land area of the group being 572 sq. m.
All the other islands are of post-Tertiary formation and of level
surface. The group has submarine connexion, under relatively shallow
sea, with the Timorlaut group to the south-west and the chain of islands
extending north-west towards Ceram; deep water separates it on the east
from the Aru Islands and on the west from the inner islands of the Banda
Sea. Among the products are coco-nuts, sago, fish, trepang, timber,
copra, maize, yams and tobacco. The population is about 23,000, of whom
14,900 are pagans, and 8300 Mahommedans.
The inhabitants are of three types. There is the true Kei Islander, a
Polynesian by his height and black or brown wavy hair, with a complexion
between the Papuan black and the Malay yellow. There is the pure Papuan,
who has been largely merged in the Kei type. Thirdly, there are the
immigrant Malays. These (distinguished by the use of a special language
and by the profession of Mohammedanism) are descendants of natives of
the Banda islands who fled eastward before the encroachments of the
Dutch. The pagans have rude statues of deities and places of sacrifice
indicated by flat-topped cairns. The Kei Islanders are skilful in
carving and celebrated boat-builders.
See C. M. Kan, "Onze geographische kennis der Keij-Eilanden," in
_Tijdschrift Aardrijkskundig Genootschap_ (1887); Martin, "Die
Kei-inseln u. ihr Verhaltniss zur Australisch-Asiatischen Grenzlinie,"
ibid. part vii. (1890); W. R. van Hoevell, "De Kei-Eilanden," in
_Tijdschr. Batavian. Gen._ (1889); "Verslagen van de wetenschappelijke
opnemingen en onderzoekingen op de Keij-Eilanden" (1889-1890), by
Planten and Wertheim (1893), with map and ethnographical atlas of the
south-western and south-eastern islands by Pleyte; Langen, _Die Key-
oder Kii-Inseln_ (Vienna, 1902).
KEIM, KARL THEODOR (1825-1878), German Protestant theologian, was born
at Stuttgart on the 17th of December 1825. His father, Johann Christian
Keim, was headmaster of a gymnasium. Here Karl Theodor received his
early education, and then proceeded to the Stuttgart Obergymnasium. In
1843 he went to the university of Tubingen, where he studied philosophy
under J. F. Reiff, a follower of Hegel, and Oriental languages under
Heinrich Ewald and Heinrich Meier. F. C. Baur, the leader of the new
Tubingen school, was lecturing on the New Testament and on the history
of the church and of dogma, and by him in particular Keim was greatly
impressed. The special bent of Keim's mind is seen in his prize essay,
_Verhaltniss der Christen in den ersten drei Jahrhunderten bis
Konstantin zum romischen Reiche_ (1847). His first published work was
_Die Reformation der Reichstadt Ulm_ (1851). In 1850 he visited the
university of Bonn, where he attended some of the lectures of Friedrich
Bleek, Richard Rothe, C. M. Arndt and Isaak Dorner. He taught at
Tubingen from June 1851 until 1856, when, having become a pastor, he was
made deacon at Esslingen, Wurttemberg. In 1859 he was appointed
archdeacon; but a few months later he was called to the university of
Zurich as professor of theology (1859-1873), where he produced his
important works. Before this he had written on church history (e.g.
_Schwabische Reformationsgeschichte bis zum Augsburger Reichstag_,
1855). His inaugural address at Zurich on the human development of
Jesus, _Die menschliche Entwicklung Jesu Christi_ (1861), and his _Die
geschichtliche Wurde Jesu_ (1864) were preparatory to his chief work,
_Die Geschichte Jesu von Nazara in ihrer Verkettung mit dem Gesamtleben
seines Volkes_ (3 vols., 1867-1872; Eng. trans., _Jesus of Nazareth, and
the National Life of Israel_, 6 vols.), 1873-1882. In 1873 Keim was
appointed professor of theology at Giessen. This post he resigned,
through ill-health, shortly before his death on the 17th of November
1878. He belonged to the "mediation" school of theology.
Chief works, besides the above: _Reformationsblatter der Reichsstadt
Esslingen_ (1860); _Ambrosius Blarer, der Schwabische Reformator_
(1860); _Der Ubertritt Konstantins d. Gr. zum Christenthum_ (1862);
his sermons, _Freundesworte zur Gemeinde_ (2 vols., 1861-1862); and
_Celsus' wahres Wort_ (1873). In 1881 H. Ziegler published one of
Keim's earliest works, _Rom und das Christenthum_, with a biographical
sketch. See also Ziegler's article in Herzog-Hauck,
_Realencyklopadie_.
KEITH, the name of an old Scottish family which derived its name from
the barony of Keith in East Lothian, said to have been granted by
Malcolm II., king of Scotland, to a member of the house for services
against the Danes. The office of great marishal of Scotland, afterwards
hereditary in the Keith family, may have been conferred at the same
time; for it was confirmed, together with possession of the lands of
Keith, to Sir Robert Keith by a charter of King Robert Bruce, and
appears to have been held as annexed to the land by the tenure of grand
serjeanty. Sir Robert Keith commanded the Scottish horse at Bannockburn,
and was killed at the battle of Neville's Cross in 1346. At the close
of the 14th century Sir William Keith, by exchange of lands with Lord
Lindsay, obtained the crag of Dunnottar in Kincardineshire, where he
built the castle of Dunnottar, which became the stronghold of his
descendants. He died about 1407. In 1430 a later Sir William Keith was
created Lord Keith, and a few years afterwards earl marishal, and these
titles remained in the family till 1716. William, fourth earl marishal
(d. 1581), was one of the guardians of Mary queen of Scots during her
minority, and was a member of her privy council on her return to
Scotland. While refraining from extreme partisanship, he was an adherent
of the Reformation; he retired into private life at Dunnottar Castle
about 1567, thereby gaining the sobriquet "William of the Tower." He was
reputed to be the wealthiest man in Scotland. His eldest daughter Anne
married the regent Murray. His grandson George, 5th earl marishal (c.
1553-1623), was one of the most cultured men of his time. He was
educated at King's College, Aberdeen, where he became a proficient
classical scholar, afterwards studying divinity under Theodore Beza at
Geneva. He was a firm Protestant, and took an active part in the affairs
of the kirk. His high character and abilities procured him the
appointment of special ambassador to Denmark to arrange the marriage of
James VI. with the Princess Anne. He was subsequently employed on a
number of important commissions; but he preferred literature to public
affairs, and about 1620 he retired to Dunnottar, where he died in 1623.
He is chiefly remembered as the founder in 1593 of the Marischal College
in the university of Aberdeen, which he richly endowed. From an uncle he
inherited the title of Lord Altrie about 1590. William, 7th earl
marishal (c. 1617-1661), took a prominent part in the Civil War, being
at first a leader of the covenanting party in north-east Scotland, and
the most powerful opponent of the marquess of Huntly. He co-operated
with Montrose in Aberdeenshire and neighbouring counties against the
Gordons. With Montrose he signed the Bond of Cumbernauld in August 1640,
but took no active steps against the popular party till 1648, when he
joined the duke of Hamilton in his invasion of England, escaping from
the rout at Preston. In 1650 Charles II. was entertained by the marishal
at Dunnottar; and in 1651 the Scottish regalia were left for safe
keeping in his castle. Taken prisoner in the same year, he was committed
to the Tower and was excluded from Cromwell's Act of Grace. He was made
a privy councillor at the Restoration and died in 1661. Sir John Keith
(d. 1714), brother of the 7th earl marishal, was, at the Restoration,
given the hereditary office of knight marishal of Scotland, and in 1677
was created earl of Kintore, and Lord Keith of Inverurie and Keith-Hall,
a reward for his share in preserving the regalia of Scotland, which were
secretly conveyed from Dunnottar to another hiding-place, when the
castle was besieged by Cromwell's troops, and which Sir John, perilously
to himself, swore he had carried abroad and delivered to Charles II.,
thus preventing further search. From him are descended the earls of
Kintore.
GEORGE, 10th earl marishal (c. 1693-1778), served under Marlborough, and
like his brother Francis, Marshal Keith (q.v.), was a zealous Jacobite,
taking part in the rising of 1715, after which he escaped to the
continent. In the following year he was attainted, his estates and
titles being forfeited to the Crown. He lived for many years in Spain,
where he concerned himself with Jacobite intrigues, but he took no part
in the rebellion of 1745, proceeding about that year to Prussia, where
he became, like his brother, intimate with Frederick the Great.
Frederick employed him in several diplomatic posts, and he is said to
have conveyed valuable information to the earl of Chatham, as a reward
for which he received a pardon from George II., and returned to Scotland
in 1759. His heir male, on whom, but for the attainder of 1716, his
titles would have devolved, was apparently his cousin Alexander Keith of
Ravelston, to whom the attainted earl had sold the castle and lands of
Dunnottar in 1766. From Alexander Keith was descended, through the
female line, Sir Patrick Keith Murray of Ochtertyre, who sold the
estates of Dunnottar and Ravelston. After the attainder of 1716 the
right of the Keiths of Ravelston to be recognized as the representatives
of the earls marishal was disputed by Robert Keith (1681-1757), bishop
of Fife, a member of another collateral branch of the family. The bishop
was a writer of some repute, his chief work, _The History of the Affairs
of the Church and State of Scotland_ (Edinburgh, 1734), being of
considerable value for the reigns of James V., James VI., and Mary Queen
of Scots. He also published a _Catalogue of the Bishops of Scotland_
(Edinburgh, 1755), and other less important historical and theological
works.
ROBERT KEITH (d. 1774), descended from a younger son of the 2nd earl
marishal, was British minister in Vienna in 1748, and subsequently held
other important diplomatic appointments, being known to his numerous
friends, among whom were the leading men of letters of his time, as
"Ambassador Keith." His son, Sir Robert Murray Keith (1730-1795), was on
Lord George Sackville's staff at the battle of Minden. He became colonel
of a regiment (the 87th foot) known as Keith's Highlanders, who won
distinction in the continental wars, but were disbanded in 1763; he was
then employed in the diplomatic service, in which he achieved
considerable success by his honesty, courage, and knowledge of
languages. In 1781 he became lieutenant-general; in 1789 he was made a
privy councillor.
From the Keith family through the female line was descended George Keith
Elphinstone, Baron Keith of Stonehaven, Marishal and afterwards Viscount
Keith (q.v.), whose titles became extinct at the death of his daughter
Margaret, Baroness Keith, in 1867.
See _Calendar of Documents relating to Scotland_, edited by J. Bain (4
vols., Edinburgh, 1881-1888); Peter Buchan, _An Account of the Ancient
and Noble Family of Keith_ (Edinburgh, 1828); _Memoirs and
Correspondence of Sir Robert Murray Keith_, edited by Mrs. Gillespie
Smyth (London, 1849); John Spalding, _Memorialls of the Trubles in
Scotland, 1624-1645_ (2 vols., Spalding Club Publ. 21, 23, Aberdeen,
1850-1851); Sir Robert Douglas, _The Peerage of Scotland_ (Edinburgh,
1813); G.E.C., _Complete Peerage_, vol. iv. (London, 1892).
(R. J. M.)
KEITH, FRANCIS EDWARD JAMES (1696-1758), Scottish soldier and Prussian
field marshal, was the second son of William, 9th earl marishal of
Scotland, and was born on the 11th of June 1696 at the castle of
Inverugie near Peterhead. Through his careful education under Robert
Keith, bishop of Fife, and subsequently at Edinburgh University in
preparation for the legal profession, he acquired that taste for
literature which afterwards secured him the esteem of the most
distinguished savants of Europe; but at an early period his preference
for a soldier's career was decided. The rebellion of 1715, in which he
displayed qualities that gave some augury of his future eminence,
compelled him to seek safety on the Continent. After spending two years
in Paris, chiefly at the university, he in 1719 took part in the
ill-starred expedition of the Pretender to the Highlands of Scotland. He
then passed some time at Paris and Madrid in obscurity and poverty, but
eventually obtained a colonelcy in the Spanish army, and, it is said,
took part in the siege of Gibraltar (1726-27). Finding his Protestantism
a barrier to promotion, he obtained from the king of Spain a
recommendation to Peter II. of Russia, from whom he received (1728) the
command of a regiment of the guards. He displayed in numerous campaigns
the calm, intelligent and watchful valour which was his chief
characteristic, obtaining the rank of general of infantry and the
reputation of being one of the ablest officers in the Russian service as
well as a capable and liberal civil administrator. Judging, however,
that his rewards were not commensurate with his merits, he in 1747
offered his services to Frederick II. of Prussia, who at once gave him
the rank of field marshal, in 1749 made him governor of Berlin, and soon
came to cherish towards him, as towards his brother, the 10th earl
marishal, a strong personal regard. In 1756 the Seven Years' War broke
out. Keith was employed in high command from the first, and added to his
Russian reputation on every occasion by resolution and promptitude of
action, not less than by care and skill. In 1756 he commanded the troops
covering the investment of Pirna, and distinguished himself at Lobositz.
In 1757 he commanded at the siege of Prague; later in this same
campaign he defended Leipzig against a greatly superior force, was
present at Rossbach, and, while the king was fighting the campaign of
Leuthen, conducted a foray into Bohemia. In 1758 he took a prominent
part in the unsuccessful Moravian campaign, after which he withdrew from
the army to recruit his broken health. He returned in time for the
autumn campaign in the Lausitz, and was killed on the 14th of October
1758 at the battle of Hochkirch. His body was honourably buried on the
field by Marshal Daun and General Lacy, the son of his old commander in
Russia, and was shortly afterwards transferred by Frederick to the
garrison church of Berlin. Many memorials were erected to him by the
king, Prince Henry, and others. Keith died unmarried, but had several
children by his mistress, Eva Mertens, a Swedish prisoner captured by
him in the war of 1741-43. In 1889 the 1st Silesian infantry regiment
No. 22 of the German army received his name.
See K. A. Varnhagen von Ense, _Biographische Denkmale_, part 7 (1844);
_Fragment of a Memoir of Field-Marshal James Keith, written by
himself_ (1714-1734; edited by Thomas Constable for the Spalding Club,
1843); T. Carlyle, _Frederick the Great, passim_; V.
Paczynaski-Tenczyn, _Leben des G. F. M. Jakob Keith_ (Berlin, 1889);
Peter Buchan, Account of the Family of Keith (Edinburgh, 1878); Anon.,
_Memoir of Marshal Keith_ (Peterhead, 1869); Pauli, _Leben grosser
Helden_, part iv.
KEITH, GEORGE (c. 1639-1716), British divine, was born at Aberdeen about
1639 and was educated for the Presbyterian ministry at Marischal College
in his native city. In 1662 he became a Quaker and worked with Robert
Barclay (q.v.). After being imprisoned for preaching in 1676 he went to
Holland and Germany on an evangelistic tour with George Fox and William
Penn. Two further terms of imprisonment in England induced him (1684) to
emigrate to America, where he was surveyor-general in East New Jersey
and then a schoolmaster at Philadelphia. He travelled in New England
defending Quakerism against the attacks of Increase and Cotton Mather,
but after a time fell out with his own folk on the subject of the
atonement, accused them of deistic views, and started a community of his
own called "Christian Quakers" or "Keithians." He endeavoured to advance
his views in London, but the Yearly Meeting of 1694 disowned him, and he
established a society at Turner's Hall in Philpot Lane, where he so far
departed from Quaker usage as to administer the two sacraments. In 1700
he conformed to the Anglican Church, and from 1702 to 1704 was an agent
of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in America. He died on
the 27th of March 1716 at Edburton in Sussex, of which parish he was
rector. Among his writings were _The Deism of William Penn and his
Brethren_ (1699); _The Standard of the Quakers examined; or, an Answer
to the Apology of Robert Barclay_ (1702); _A Journal of Travels_ (1706).
Gilbert Burnet, bishop of Salisbury, a fellow-Aberdonian, speaks of him
as "the most learned man that ever was in that sect, and well versed in
the Oriental tongues, philosophy and mathematics."
KEITH, GEORGE KEITH ELPHINSTONE, VISCOUNT (1746-1823), British admiral,
fifth son of the 10th Lord Elphinstone, was born in Elphinstone Tower,
near Stirling, on the 7th of January 1746. Two of his brothers went to
sea, and he followed their example by entering the navy in 1761, in the
"Gosport," then commanded by Captain Jervis, afterwards Earl St Vincent.
In 1767 he made a voyage to the East Indies in the Company's service,
and put L2000 lent him by an uncle to such good purpose in a private
trading venture that he laid the foundation of a handsome fortune. He
became lieutenant in 1770, commander in 1772, and post captain in 1775.
During the war in America he was employed against the privateers, and
with a naval brigade at the occupation of Charleston, S.C. In January
1781, when in command of the "Warwick" (50), he captured a Dutch 50-gun
ship which had beaten off an English vessel of equal strength a few days
before. After peace was signed he remained on shore for ten years,
serving in Parliament as member first for Dumbartonshire, and then for
Stirlingshire. When war broke out again in 1793 he was appointed to the
"Robust" (74), in which he took part in the occupation of Toulon by lord
Hood. He particularly distinguished himself by beating a body of the
French ashore at the head of a naval brigade of English and Spaniards.
He was entrusted with the duty of embarking the fugitives when the town
was evacuated. In 1794 he was promoted rear-admiral, and in 1795 he was
sent to occupy the Dutch colonies at the Cape of Good Hope and in India.
He had a large share in the capture of the Cape in 1795, and in August
1796 captured a whole Dutch squadron in Saldanha Bay. In the interval he
had gone on to India, where his health suffered, and the capture at
Saldanha was effected on his way home. When the Mutiny at the Nore broke
out in 1797 he was appointed to the command, and was soon able to
restore order. He was equally successful at Plymouth, where the squadron
was also in a state of effervescence. At the close of 1798 he was sent
as second in command to St Vincent. It was for a long time a thankless
post, for St Vincent was at once half incapacitated by ill-health and
very arbitrary, while Nelson, who considered that Keith's appointment
was a personal slight to himself, was peevish and insubordinate. The
escape of a French squadron which entered the Mediterranean from Brest
in May 1799 was mainly due to jarrings among the British naval
commanders. Keith followed the enemy to Brest on their retreat, but was
unable to bring them to action. He returned to the Mediterranean in
November as commander-in-chief. He co-operated with the Austrians in the
siege of Genoa, which surrendered on the 4th of June 1800. It was
however immediately afterwards lost in consequence of the battle of
Marengo, and the French made their re-entry so rapidly that the admiral
had considerable difficulty in getting his ships out of the harbour. The
close of 1801 and the beginning of the following year were spent in
transporting the army sent to recover Egypt from the French. As the
naval force of the enemy was completely driven into port, the British
admiral had no opportunity of an action at sea, but his management of
the convoy carrying the troops, and of the landing at Aboukir, was
greatly admired. He was made a baron of the United Kingdom--an Irish
barony having been conferred on him in 1797. On the renewal of the war
in 1803 he was appointed commander-in-chief in the North Sea, which post
he held till 1807. In February 1812 he was appointed commander-in-chief
in the Channel, and in 1814 he was raised to a viscounty. During his
last two commands he was engaged first in overlooking the measures taken
to meet a threatened invasion, and then in directing the movements of
the numerous small squadrons and private ships employed on the coasts of
Spain and Portugal, and in protecting trade. He was at Plymouth when
Napoleon surrendered and was brought to England in the "Bellerophon" by
Captain Maitland (1777-1839). The decisions of the British government
were expressed through him to the fallen Emperor. Lord Keith refused to
be led into disputes, and confined himself to declaring steadily that he
had his orders to obey. He was not much impressed by the appearance of
his illustrious charge, and thought that the airs of Napoleon and his
suite were ridiculous. Lord Keith died on the 10th of March 1823 at
Tullyallan, his property in Scotland, and was buried in the parish
church. A portrait of him by Owen is in the Painted Hall in Greenwich.
He was twice married: in 1787 to Jane Mercer, daughter of Colonel
William Mercer of Aldie; and in 1808 to Hester Maria Thrale, who is
spoken of as "Queenie" in Boswell's _Life of Johnson_ and Mme.
D'Arblay's _Diary_. He had a daughter by each marriage, but no son. Thus
the viscounty became extinct on his death, but the English and Irish
baronies descended to his elder daughter Margaret (1788-1867), who
married the Comte de Flahault de la Billarderie, only to become extinct
on her death.
There is a panegyrical _Life of Lord Keith_ by Alex. Allardyce
(Edinburgh, 1882); and biographical notices will be found in John
Marshall's _Royal Naval Biography_, i. 43 (1823-1835), and the _Naval
Chronicle_, X. 1. (D. H.)
KEITH, a police burgh of Banffshire, Scotland, on the Isla, 53(1/4) m.
N.W. of Aberdeen by the Great North of Scotland railway. Pop. (1901),
4753. A branch of the Highland railway also gives access to Elgin, and
there is a line to Buckie and Portessie on the Moray Firth. The burgh
includes Old Keith and New Keith on the east bank of the Isla, and
Fife-Keith on the west bank. Though Old Keith has a charter dating from
William the Lion it fell into gradual decay; New Keith, founded in the
18th century by the second earl of Seafield, being better situated for
the growth of a town. Fife-Keith has sprung up since 1816. The principal
public buildings include the Turner memorial hospital, the Longmore
hall, and the Institute. In the Roman Catholic church there is a
painting of the "Incredulity of St Thomas," presented by Charles X. of
France. The industries include manufactures of tweeds, blankets,
agricultural implements, and boots and shoes; there are also
distilleries, breweries, flour mills, and lime and manure works. But the
main importance of Keith lies in the fact that it is the centre of the
agricultural trade of the shire. The "Summer Eve Fair" held in September
is the largest cattle and horse fair in the north of Scotland; the town
is also the headquarters of the dressed-meat trade in the north.
KEJ, or KECH, the chief place in a district of the province of Makran in
Baluchistan, which has given its name to Kej-Makran, as distinguished
from Persian Makran. There is no town, but a number of small villages
dominated by a fort built upon a rock, on the eastern bank of the Kej
River. This fort, like many others similarly placed throughout the
country, is supposed to be impregnable, but is of no strength except
against the matchlocks of the surrounding tribes. Kej (or Kiz) was an
important trade centre in the days of Arab supremacy in Sind, and the
rulers of Kalat at various times marched armies into the province with a
view to maintaining their authority. At the beginning of the 19th
century it had the reputation of a commercial centre, trading through
Panjgur with Kandahar, with Karachi via Bela, and with Muscat and the
Persian Gulf by the seaport of Gwadar, distant about 80 m. The present
Khan of Kalat exercises but a feeble sway over this portion of his
dominion, although he appoints a governor to the province. The principal
tribe residing around Kej is that of the Gichki, who claim to be of
Rajput origin, and to have settled in Makran during the 17th century,
having been driven out of Rajputana. The climate during summer is too
hot for Europeans. During winter, however, it is temperate. The
principal exports consist of dates, which are considered of the finest
quality. A local revolt against Kalat rendered an expedition against Kej
necessary in 1898. Colonel Mayne reduced the fortress and restored order
in the surrounding districts.
KEKULE, FRIEDRICH AUGUST (1829-1896), German chemist, was born at
Darmstadt on the 7th of September 1829. While studying architecture at
Giessen he came under the influence of Liebig and was induced to take up
chemistry. From Giessen he went to Paris, and then, after a short
sojourn in Switzerland, he visited England. Both in Paris and in England
he enjoyed personal intercourse with the leading chemists of the period.
On his return to Germany he started a small chemical laboratory at
Heidelberg, where, with a very slender equipment, he carried out several
important researches. In 1858 he was appointed professor of chemistry at
Ghent, and in 1865 was called to Bonn to fill a similar position, which
he held till his death in that town on the 13th of June 1896. Kekule's
main importance lies in the far-reaching contributions which he made to
chemical theory, especially in regard to the constitution of the carbon
compounds. The doctrine of atomicity had already been enunciated by E.
Frankland, when in 1858 Kekule published a paper in which, after giving
reasons for regarding carbon as a tetravalent element, he set forth the
essential features of his famous doctrine of the linking of atoms. He
explained that in substances containing several carbon atoms it must be
assumed that some of the affinities of each carbon atom are bound by the
affinities of the atoms of other elements contained in the substance,
and some by an equal number of the affinities of the other carbon atoms.
The simplest case is when two carbon atoms are combined so that one
affinity of the one is tied to one affinity of the other; two,
therefore, of the affinities of the two atoms are occupied in keeping
the two atoms together, and only the remaining six are available for
atoms of other elements. The next simplest case consists in the mutual
interchange of two affinity units, and so on. This conception led Kekule
to his "closed-chain" or "ring" theory of the constitution of benzene
which has been called the "most brilliant piece of prediction to be
found in the whole range of organic chemistry," and this in turn led in
particular to the elucidation of the constitution of the "aromatic
compounds," and in general to new methods of chemical synthesis and
decomposition, and to a deeper insight into the composition of
numberless organic bodies and their mutual relations. Professor F. R.
Japp, in the Kekule memorial lecture he delivered before the London
Chemical Society on the 15th of December 1897, declared that
three-fourths of modern organic chemistry is directly or indirectly the
product of Kekule's benzene theory, and that without its guidance and
inspiration the industries of the coal-tar colours and artificial
therapeutic agents in their present form and extension would have been
inconceivable.
Many of Kekule's papers appeared in the _Annalen der Chemie_, of which
he was editor, and he also published an important work, _Lehrbuch der
organischen Chemie_, of which the first three volumes are dated 1861,
1866 and 1882, while of the fourth only one small section was issued
in 1887.
KELLER, ALBERT (1845- ), German painter, was born at Gais, in
Switzerland; he studied at the Munich Academy under Lenbach and Ramberg,
and must be counted among the leading colourists of the modern German
school. Travels in Italy, France, England and Holland, and a prolonged
sojourn in Paris, helped to develop his style, which is marked by a
sense of elegance and refinement all too rare in German art. His scenes
of society life, such as the famous "Dinner" (1890), are painted with
thoroughly Parisian _esprit_, and his portraits are marked by the same
elegant distinction. He is particularly successful in the rendering of
rustling silk and satin dresses and draperies. His historical and
imaginative works are as modern in spirit and as unacademical as his
portraits. At the Munich Pinakothek is his painting "Jairi Tochterlein"
(1886), whilst the Konigsberg Museum contains his "Roman Bath," and the
Liebieg collection in Reichenberg the "Audience with Louis XV.," the
first picture that drew attention to his talent. Among other important
works he painted "Faustina in the Temple of Juno at Praeneste," "The
Witches' Sleep" (1888), "The Judgment of Paris," "The Happy Sister,"
"Temptation" (1892), "Autumn" (1893), "An Adventure" (1896), and "The
Crucifixion."
KELLER, GOTTFRIED (1819-1890), German poet and novelist, was born at
Zurich on the 19th of July 1819. His father, a master joiner, dying
while Gottfried was young, his early education was neglected; he,
however, was in 1835 apprenticed to a landscape painter, and
subsequently spent two years (1840-1842) in Munich learning to paint.
Interest in politics drew him into literature, and his talents were
first disclosed in a volume of short poems, _Gedichte_ (1846). This
obtained him recognition from the government of his native canton, and
he was in 1848 enabled to take a short course of philosophical study at
the university of Heidelberg. From 1850 to 1855 he lived in Berlin,
where he wrote his most important novel, _Der grune Heinrich_
(1851-1853; revised edition 1879-1880), remarkable for its delicate
autographic portraiture and the beautiful episodes interwoven with the
action. This was followed by _Die Leute von Seldwyla_ (1856), studies of
Swiss provincial life, including in _Romeo und Julia auf dem Dorfe_ one
of the most powerful short stories in the German language, and in _Die
drei gerechten Kammmacher_, almost as great a masterpiece of humorous
writing. Returning to his native city with a considerable reputation, he
received in 1861 the appointment of secretary to the canton. For a time
his creative faculty seemed paralysed by his public duties, but in 1872
appeared _Sieben Legenden_, and in 1874 a second series of _Die Leute
von Seldwyla_, in both of which books he displayed no abatement of power
and originality. He retired from the public service in 1876 and employed
his leisure in the production of _Zuricher Novellen_ (1878), _Das
Sinngedicht_, a collection of short stories (1881), and a novel, _Martin
Salander_ (Berlin, 1886). He died on the 15th of July 1890 at Hottingen.
Keller's place among German novelists is very high. Few have united such
fancy and imagination to such uncompromising realism, or such tragic
earnestness to such abounding humour. As a lyric poet, his genius is no
less original; he takes rank with the best German poets of this class
in the second half of the 19th century.
Keller's _Gesammelte Werke_ were published in 10 vols. (1889-1890), to
which was added another volume, _Nachgelassene Schriften und
Dichtungen_, containing the fragment of a tragedy (1893). In English
appeared, _G. Keller: A Selection of his Tales translated with a
Memoir by Kate Freiligrath-Kroeker_ (1891). For a further estimate of
Keller's life and works cf. O. Brahm (1883); E. Brenning, _G. Keller
nach seinem Leben und Dichten_ (1892); F. Baldensperger, _G. Keller;
sa vie et ses oeuvres_ (1893); A. Frey, _Erinnerungen an Gottfried
Keller_ (1893); J. Baechtold, _Kellers Leben. Seine Briefe und
Tagebucher_ (Berlin, 1894-1897); A. Koster, _G. Keller_ (1900; 2nd
ed., 1907); and for his work as a painter, H. E. von Berlepsch,
_Gottfried Keller als Maler_ (1895).
KELLER, HELEN ADAMS (1880- ), American blind deaf-mute, was born at
Tuscumbia, Alabama, in 1880. When barely two years old she was deprived
of sight, smell and hearing, by an attack of scarlet fever. At the
request of her parents, who were acquainted with the success attained in
the case of Laura Bridgman (q.v.), one of the graduates of the Perkins
Institution at Boston, Miss Anne M. Sullivan, who was familiar with the
teachings of Dr S. G. Howe (q.v.), was sent to instruct her at home.
Unfortunately an exact record of the steps in her education was not
kept; but from 1888 onwards, at the Perkins Institution, Boston, and
under Miss Sarah Fuller at the Horace Mann school in New York, and at
the Wright Humason school, she not only learnt to read, write, and talk,
but became proficient, to an exceptional degree, in the ordinary
educational curriculum. In 1900 she entered Radcliffe College, and
successfully passed the examinations in mathematics, &c. for her degree
of A.B. in 1904. Miss Sullivan, whose ability as a teacher must be
considered almost as marvellous as the talent of her pupil, was
throughout her devoted companion. The case of Helen Keller is the most
extraordinary ever known in the education of blind deaf-mutes (see DEAF
AND DUMB _ad fin._), her acquirements including several languages and
her general culture being exceptionally wide. She wrote _The Story of My
Life_ (1902), and volumes on _Optimism_ (1903), and _The World I Live
in_ (1908), which both in literary style and in outlook on life are a
striking revelation of the results of modern methods of educating those
who have been so handicapped by natural disabilities.
KELLERMANN, FRANCOIS CHRISTOPHE DE (1735-1820), duke of Valmy and
marshal of France, came of a Saxon family, long settled in Strassburg
and ennobled, and was born there on the 28th of May 1735. He entered the
French army as a volunteer, and served in the Seven Years' War and in
Louis XV.'s Polish expedition of 1771, on returning from which he was
made a lieutenant-colonel. He became brigadier in 1784, and in the
following year _marechal-de-camp_. In 1789 Kellermann enthusiastically
embraced the cause of the Revolution, and in 1791 became general of the
army in Alsace. In April 1792 he was made a lieutenant-general, and in
August of the same year there came to him the opportunity of his
lifetime. He rose to the occasion, and his victory of Valmy (see FRENCH
REVOLUTIONARY WARS) over the Prussians, in Goethe's words, "opened a new
era in the history of the world." Transferred to the army on the
Moselle, Kellermann was accused by General Custine of neglecting to
support his operations on the Rhine; but he was acquitted at the bar of
the Convention in Paris, and placed at the head of the army of the Alps
and of Italy, in which position he showed himself a careful commander
and excellent administrator. Shortly afterwards he received instructions
to reduce Lyons, then in revolt against the Convention, but shortly
after the surrender he was imprisoned in Paris for thirteen months. Once
more honourably acquitted, he was reinstated in his command, and did
good service in maintaining the south-eastern border against the
Austrians until his army was merged into that of General Bonaparte in
Italy. He was then sixty-two years of age, still physically equal to his
work, but the young generals who had come to the front in these two
years represented the new spirit and the new art of war, and
Kellermann's active career came to an end. But the hero of Valmy was
never forgotten. When Napoleon came to power Kellermann was named
successively senator (1800), honorary marshal of France (1803), and
duke of Valmy (1808). He was frequently employed in the administration
of the army, the control of the line of communications, and the command
of reserve troops, and his long and wide experience made him one of
Napoleon's most valuable assistants. In 1814 he voted for the deposition
of the emperor and became a peer under the royal government. After the
"Hundred Days" he sat in the Chamber of Peers and voted with the
Liberals. He died at Paris on the 23rd of September 1820.
See J. G. P. de Salve, _Fragments historiques sur M. le marechal de
Kellermann_ (Paris, 1807), and De Botidoux, _Esquisse de la carriere
militaire de F. C. Kellermann, duc de Valmy_ (Paris, 1817).
His son, FRANCOIS ETIENNE DE KELLERMANN, duke of Valmy (1770-1835),
French cavalry general, was born at Metz and served for a short time in
his father's regiment of Hussars previous to entering the diplomatic
service in 1791. In 1793 he again joined the army, serving chiefly under
his father's command in the Alps, and rising in 1796 to the rank of
_chef de brigade_. In the latter part of Bonaparte's celebrated Italian
campaign of 1796-97 the younger Kellermann attracted the future
emperor's notice by his brilliant conduct at the forcing of the
Tagliamento. He was made general of brigade at once, and continued in
Italy after the peace of Campo Formio, being employed successively in
the armies of Rome and Naples under Macdonald and Championnet. In the
campaign of 1800 he commanded a cavalry brigade under the First Consul,
and at Marengo (q.v.) he initiated and carried out one of the most
famous cavalry charges of history, which, with Desaix's infantry attack,
regained the lost battle and decided the issue of the war. He was
promoted general of division at once, but as early as the evening of the
battle he resented what he thought to be an attempt to belittle his
exploit. A heated controversy followed as to the influence of
Kellermann's charge on the course of the battle, and in this controversy
he displayed neither tact nor forbearance. However, his merits were too
great for his career to be ruined either by his conduct in the dispute
or by the frequent scandals, and even by the frauds, of his private
life. Unlike his father's, his title to fame did not rest on one
fortunate opportunity. Though not the most famous, he was perhaps the
ablest of all Napoleon's cavalry leaders, and distinguished himself at
Austerlitz (q.v.), in Portugal under Junot (on this occasion as a
skilful diplomatist), at the brilliant cavalry combat of Tormes (Nov.
28, 1809), and on many other occasions in the Peninsular War. His
rapacity was more than ever notorious in Spain, yet Napoleon met his
unconvincing excuses with the words, "General, whenever your name is
brought before me, I think of nothing but Marengo." He was on sick leave
during the Russian expedition of 1812, but in 1813 and 1814 his skill
and leading were as conspicuous as ever. He retained his rank under the
first Restoration, but joined Napoleon during the Hundred Days, and
commanded a cavalry corps in the Waterloo campaign. At Quatre Bras he
personally led his squadrons in the famous cavalry charge, and almost
lost his life in the melee, and at Waterloo he was again wounded. He was
disgraced at the second Restoration, and, on succeeding to his father's
title and seat in the Chamber of Peers in 1820, at once took up and
maintained till the fall of Charles X. in 1830 an attitude of determined
opposition to the Bourbons. He died on the 2nd of June 1835.
His son FRANCOIS CHRISTOPHE EDMOND DE KELLERMANN, duke of Valmy
(1802-1868), was a distinguished statesman, political historian, and
diplomatist under the July Monarchy.
KELLGREN, JOHAN HENRIK (1751-1795), Swedish poet and critic, was born at
Floby in West Gothland, on the 1st of December 1751. He studied at the
university of Abo, and had already some reputation as a poet when in
1774 he there became a "docent" in aesthetics. Three years later he
removed to Stockholm, where in conjunction with Assessor Carl Lenngren
he began in 1778 the publication of the journal _Stockholmsposten_, of
which he was sole editor from 1788 onwards. Kellgren was librarian to
Gustavus III. from 1780, and from 1785 his private secretary. On the
institution of the Swedish Academy in 1786 he was appointed one of its
first members. He died at Stockholm on the 20th of April 1795. His
strong satiric tendency led him into numerous controversies, the chief
that with the critic Thomas Thorild, against whom he directed his satire
_Nyt forsok till orimmad vers_, where he sneers at the "raving of
Shakespeare" and "the convulsions of Goethe." His lack of humour
detracts from the interest of his polemical writings. His poetical works
are partly lyrical, partly dramatic; of the plays the versification
belongs to him, the plots being due to Gustavus III. The songs
interspersed in the four operas which they produced in common, viz.,
_Gustaf Vasa_, _Gustaf Adolf och Ebba Brahe_, _Aeneas i Kartago_, and
_Drottning Kristina_, are wholly the work of Kellgren. From about the
year 1788 a higher and graver feeling pervades Kellgren's verses, partly
owing to the influence of the works of Lessing and Goethe, but probably
more directly due to his controversy with Thorild. Of his minor poems
written before that date the most important are the charming spring-song
_Vinterns valde lyktar_, and the satirical _Mina lojen_ and _Man eger ej
snille for det man ar galen_. The best productions of what is called his
later period are the satire _Ljusets fiender_, the comic poem _Dumboms
lefverne_, the warmly patriotic _Kantat d._ 1. _jan._ 1789, the ode
_Till Kristina_, the fragment _Sigwart och Hilma_, and the beautiful
song _Nya skapelsen_, both in thought and form the finest of his works.
Among his lyrics are the choicest fruits of the Gustavian age of Swedish
letters. His earlier efforts, indeed, express the superficial doubt and
pert frivolousness characteristic of his time; but in the works of his
riper years he is no mere "poet of pleasure," as Thorild contemptuously
styled him, but a worthy exponent of earnest moral feeling and wise
human sympathies in felicitous and melodius verse.
His _Samlade skrifter_ (3 vols., 1796; a later edition, 1884-1885)
were revised by himself. His correspondence with Rosenstein and with
Clewberg was edited by H. Schuck (1886-1887 and 1894). See Wieselgren,
_Sveriges skona litteratur_ (1833-1849); Atterbom, _Svenska siare och
skalder_ (1841-1855); C. W. Bottiger in _Transactions of the Swedish
Academy_, xlv. 107 seq. (1870); and Gustaf Ljunggren's _Kellgren,
Leopold, och Thorild, and his Svenska vitterhetens hafder_
(1873-1877).
KELLOGG, CLARA LOUISE (1842- ), American singer, was born at
Sumterville, South Carolina, in July 1842, and was educated in New York
for the musical profession, singing first in opera there in 1861. Her
fine soprano voice and artistic gifts soon made her famous. She appeared
as prima donna in Italian opera in London, and at concerts, in 1867 and
1868; and from that time till 1887 was one of the leading public
singers. She appeared at intervals in London, but was principally
engaged in America. In 1874 she organized an opera company which was
widely known in the United States, and her enterprise and energy in
directing it were remarkable. In 1887 she married Carl Strakosch, and
retired from the profession.
KELLS, a market town of county Meath, Ireland, on the Blackwater, 9(3/4)
m. N.W. of Navan on a branch of the Great Northern railway. Pop. of
urban district (1901), 2428. The prosperity of the town depends chiefly
upon its antiquarian remains. The most notable is St Columbkille's
house, originally an oratory, but afterwards converted into a church,
the chancel of which was in existence in 1752. The present church is
modern, with the exception of the bell-tower, rebuilt in 1578. Near the
church there is a fine though imperfect specimen of the ancient round
tower, 99 ft. in height; and there are several ancient crosses, the
finest being that now erected in the market-place. Kells was originally
a royal residence, whence its ancient name _Ceanannus_, meaning the
_dun_ or circular northern fort, in which the king resided, and the
intermediate name _Kenlis_, meaning head fort. Here Conn of the Hundred
Fights resided in the 2nd century; and here was a palace of Dermot, king
of Ireland, in 544-565. The other places in Ireland named Kells are
probably derived from _Cealla_, signifying church. In the 6th century
Kells, it is said, was granted to St Columbkille. Of the monastery which
he is reported to have founded there are no remains, and the town owes
its chief ecclesiastical importance to the bishopric founded about 807,
and united to Meath in the 13th century. The ecclesiastical
establishment was noted as a seat of learning, and a monument of this
remains in the _Book of Kells_ an illuminated copy of the Gospels in
Latin, containing also local records, dating from the 8th century, and
preserved in the library of Trinity College, Dublin. The illumination is
executed with extraordinary delicacy, and the work is asserted to be the
finest extant example of early Christian art of this kind. Neighbouring
antiquities are the church of Dulane, with a fine doorway, and the _dun_
or fortification of Dimor, the principal erection of a series of
defences on the hills about 6 m. W. of Kells. Among several seats in the
vicinity is that of the Marquess of Headfort. Kells returned two members
to the Irish parliament before the Union.
KELLY, EDWARD (1854-1880), Australian bushranger, was born at Wallan
Wallan, Victoria. His father was a transported Belfast convict, and his
mother's family included several thieves. As boys he and his brothers
were constantly in trouble for horse-stealing, and "Ned" served three
years' imprisonment for this offence. In April 1878, an attempt was made
to arrest his brother Daniel on a similar charge. The whole Kelly family
resisted this and Ned wounded one of the constables. Mrs Kelly and some
of the others were captured, but Ned and Daniel escaped to the hills,
where they were joined by two other desperadoes, Byrne and Hart. For two
years, despite a reward of L8000 offered jointly by the governments of
Victoria and New South Wales for their arrest, the gang under the
leadership of Kelly terrorized the country on the borderland of Victoria
and New South Wales, "holding up" towns and plundering banks. Their
intimate knowledge of the district, full of convenient hiding-places,
and their elaborate system of well-paid spies, ensured the direct
pecuniary interest of many persons and contributed to their long
immunity from capture. They never ill-treated a woman, nor preyed upon
the poor, thus surrounding themselves with an attractive atmosphere of
romance. In June 1880, however, they were at last tracked to a wooden
shanty at Glenrowan, near Benalla, which the police surrounded, riddled
with bullets, and finally set on fire. Kelly himself, who was outside,
could, he claimed, easily have escaped had he not refused to desert his
companions, all of whom were killed. He was severely wounded, captured
and taken to Beechworth, where he was tried, convicted and hanged in
October 1880. The total cost of the capture of the Kelly gang was
reckoned at L115,000.
See F. A. Hare, _The Last of the Bushrangers_ (London, 1892).
KELLY, SIR FITZROY (1796-1880), English judge, was born in London in
October 1796, the son of a captain in the Royal Navy. In 1824 he was
called to the bar, where he gained a reputation as a skilled pleader. In
1834 he was made a king's counsel. A strong Tory, he was returned as
member of parliament for Ipswich in 1835, but was unseated on petition.
In 1837 however he again became member for that town. In 1843 he sat for
Cambridge, and in 1852 was elected member for Harwich, but, a vacancy
suddenly occurring in East Suffolk, he preferred to contest that seat
and was elected. He was solicitor-general in 1845 (when he was
knighted), and again in 1852. In 1858-1859 he was attorney-general in
Lord Derby's second administration. In 1866 he was raised to the bench
as chief baron of the exchequer and made a member of the Privy Council.
He died at Brighton on the 18th of September 1880.
See E. Foss, _Lives of the Judges_ (1870).
KELLY, HUGH (1739-1777), Irish dramatist and poet, son of a Dublin
publican, was born in 1739 at Killarney. He was apprenticed to a
staymaker, and in 1760 went to London. Here he worked at his trade for
some time, and then became an attorney's clerk. He contributed to
various newspapers, and wrote pamphlets for the booksellers. In 1767 he
published _Memoirs of a Magdalen, or the History of Louisa Mildmay_ (2
vols.), a novel which obtained considerable success. In 1766 he
published anonymously _Thespis; or, A Critical Examination into the
Merits of All the Principal Performers belonging to Drury Lane Theatre_,
a poem in the heroic couplet containing violent attacks on the principal
contemporary actors and actresses. The poem opens with a panegyric on
David Garrick, however, and bestows foolish praise on friends of the
writer. This satire was partly inspired by Churchill's _Rosciad_, but
its criticism is obviously dictated chiefly by personal prejudice. In
1767 he produced a second part, less scurrilous in tone, dealing with
the Covent Garden actors. His first comedy, _False Delicacy_, written in
prose, was produced by Garrick at Drury Lane on the 23rd of January
1768, with the intention of rivalling Oliver Goldsmith's _Good-Natured
Man_. It is a moral and sentimental comedy, described by Garrick in the
prologue as a sermon preached in acts. Although Samuel Johnson described
it as "totally void of character," it was very popular and had a great
sale. In French and Portuguese versions it drew crowded houses in Paris
and Lisbon. Kelly was a journalist in the pay of Lord North, and
therefore hated by the party of John Wilkes, especially as being the
editor of the _Public Ledger_. His _Thespis_ had also made him many
enemies; and Mrs Clive refused to act in his pieces. The production of
his second comedy, _A Word to the Wise_ (Drury Lane, 3rd of March 1770),
occasioned a riot in the theatre, repeated at the second performance,
and the piece had to be abandoned. His other plays are: _Clementina_
(Covent Garden, 23rd of February 1771), a blank verse tragedy, given out
to be the work of a "young American Clergyman" in order to escape the
opposition of the Wilkites; _The School for Wives_ (Drury Lane, 11th of
December 1773), a prose comedy given out as the work of Major
(afterwards Sir William) Addington; a two-act piece, _The Romance of an
Hour_ (Covent Garden, 2nd of December 1774), borrowed from Marmontel's
tale _L'Amitie a l'epreuve_; and an unsuccessful comedy, _The Man of
Reason_ (Covent Garden, 9th of February 1776). He was called to the bar
at the Middle Temple in 1774, and determined to give up literature. He
failed in his new profession and died in poverty on the 3rd of February
1777.
See _The Works of Hugh Kelly, to which is prefixed the Life of the
Author_ (1778); Genest, _History of the Stage_ (v. 163, 263-269, 308,
399, 457, 517). Pamphlets in reply to _Thespis_ are: "Anti-Thespis
..." (1767); "The Kellyad ..." (1767), by Louis Stamma; and "The
Rescue or Thespian Scourge ..." (1767), by John Brown-Smith.
KELLY, MICHAEL (1762-1826), British actor, singer and composer, was the
son of a Dublin wine-merchant and dancing-master. He had a musical
education at home and in Italy, and for four years from 1783 was engaged
to sing at the Court Theatre at Vienna, where he became a friend of
Mozart. In 1786 he sang in the first performance of the _Nozze di
Figaro_. Appearing in London, at Drury Lane in 1787, he had a great
success, and thenceforth was the principal English tenor at that
theatre. In 1793 he became acting-manager of the King's Theatre, and he
was in great request at concerts. He wrote a number of songs (including
"The Woodpecker"), and the music for many dramatic pieces, now fallen
into oblivion. In 1826 he published his entertaining _Reminiscences_, in
writing which he was helped by Theodore Hook. He combined his
professional work with conducting a music-shop and a wine-shop, but with
disastrous financial results. He died at Margate on the 9th of October
1826.
KELP (in M.E. _culp_ or _culpe_, of unknown origin; the Fr. equivalent
is _varech_), the ash produced by the incineration of various kinds of
sea-weed (_Algae_) obtainable in great abundance on the west coasts of
Ireland and Scotland, and the coast of Brittany. It is prepared from the
deep-sea tangle (_Laminaria digitata_), sugar wrack (_L. saccharina_),
knobbed wrack (_Fucus nodosus_), black wrack (_F. serratus_), and
bladder wrack (_F. vesiculosus_). The Laminarias yield what is termed
"drift-weed kelp," obtainable only when cast up on the coasts by storms
or other causes. The species of _Fucus_ growing within the tidal range
are cut from the rocks at low water, and are therefore known as
"cut-weeds." The weeds are first dried in the sun and are then collected
into shallow pits and burned till they form a fused mass, which while
still hot is sprinkled with water to break it up into convenient pieces.
A ton of kelp is obtained from 20 to 22 tons of wet sea-weed. The
average composition may vary as follows: potassium sulphate, 10 to 12%;
potassium chloride, 20 to 25%; sodium carbonate, 5%; other sodium and
magnesium salts, 15 to 20%; and insoluble ash from 40 to 50%. The
relative richness in iodine of different samples varies largely, good
drift kelp yielding as much as 10 to 15 lb. per ton of 22(1/2) cwts.,
whilst cut-weed kelp will not give more than 3 to 4 lb. The use of kelp
in soap and glass manufacture has been rendered obsolete by the modern
process of obtaining carbonate of soda cheaply from common salt (see
IODINE).
KELSO, a police burgh and market town of Roxburghshire, Scotland, on the
left bank of the Tweed, 52 m. (43 m. by road) S.E. of Edinburgh and
10(1/4) m. N.E. of Jedburgh by the North British railway. Pop. (1901),
4008. The name has been derived from the Old Welsh _calch_, or
Anglo-Saxon _cealc_, "chalk", and the Scots _how_, "hollow," a
derivation more evident in the earlier forms Calkon and Calchon, and
illustrated in Chalkheugh, the name of a locality in the town. The
ruined abbey, dedicated to the Virgin and St John the Evangelist, was
founded in 1128 by David I. for monks from Tiron in Picardy, whom he
transferred hither from Selkirk, where they had been installed fifteen
years before. The abbey, the building of which was completed towards the
middle of the 13th century, became one of the richest and most powerful
establishments in Scotland, claiming precedence over the other
monasteries and disputing for a time the supremacy with St Andrews. It
suffered damage in numerous English forays, was pillaged by the 4th earl
of Shrewsbury in 1522, and was reduced to ruins in 1545 by the earl of
Hertford (afterwards the Protector Somerset). In 1602 the abbey lands
passed into the hands of Sir Robert Ker of Cessford, 1st earl of
Roxburghe. The ruins were disfigured by an attempt to render part of
them available for public worship, and one vault was long utilized as
the town gaol. All excrescences, however, were cleared away at the
beginning of the 19th century, by the efforts of the Duke of Roxburghe.
The late Norman and Early Pointed cruciform church has an unusual
ground-plan, the west end of the cross forming the nave and being
shorter than the chancel. The nave and transepts extend only 23 ft. from
the central tower. The remains include most of the tower, nearly the
whole of the walls of the south transept, less than half of the west
front with a fragment of the richly moulded and deeply-set doorway, the
north and west sides of the north transept, and a remnant of the
chancel. The chancel alone had aisles, while its main circular arches
were surmounted by two tiers of triforium galleries. The predominant
feature is the great central tower, which, as seen from a distance,
suggests the keep of a Norman castle. It rested on four Early Pointed
arches, each 45 ft. high (of which the south and west yet exist)
supported by piers of clustered columns. Over the Norman porch in the
north transept is a small chamber with an interlaced arcade surmounted
by a network gable.
The Tweed is crossed at Kelso by a bridge of five arches constructed in
1803 by John Rennie. The public buildings include a court house, the
town hall, corn exchange, high school and grammar school (occupying the
site of the school which Sir Walter Scott attended in 1783). The public
park lies in the east of the town, and the race-course to the north of
it. The leading industries are the making of fishing tackle,
agricultural machinery and implements, and chemical manures, besides
coach-building, cabinet-making and upholstery, corn and saw mills, iron
founding, &c. James and John Ballantyne, friends of Scott, set up a
press about the end of the 18th century, from which there issued, in
1802, the first two volumes of the _Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border_;
but when the brothers transferred their business to Edinburgh printing
languished. The _Kelso Mail_, founded by James Ballantyne in 1797, is
now the oldest of the Border newspapers. The town is an important
agricultural centre, there being weekly corn and fortnightly cattle
markets, and, every September, a great sale of Border rams.
Kelso became a burgh of barony in 1634 and five years later received
the Covenanters, under Sir Alexander Leslie, on their way to the
encampment on Duns Law. On the 24th of October 1715 the Old Pretender
was proclaimed James VIII. in the market square, but in 1745 Prince
Charles Edward found no active adherents in the town.
About 1 m. W. of Kelso is Floors or Fleurs Castle, the principal seat
of the duke of Roxburghe. The mansion as originally designed by Sir
John Vanbrugh in 1718 was severely plain, but in 1849 William Henry
Playfair converted it into a magnificent structure in the Tudor style.
On the peninsula formed by the junction of the Teviot and the Tweed
stood the formidable castle and flourishing town of Roxburgh, from
which the shire took its name. No trace exists of the town, and of the
castle all that is left are a few ruins shaded by ancient ash trees.
The castle was built by the Northumbrians, who called it Marchidum, or
Marchmound, its present name apparently meaning Rawic's burgh, after
some forgotten chief. After the consolidation of the kingdom of
Scotland it became a favoured royal residence, and a town gradually
sprang up beneath its protection, which reached its palmiest days
under David I., and formed a member of the Court of Four Burghs with
Edinburgh, Stirling and Berwick. It possessed a church, court of
justice, mint, mills, and, what was remarkable for the 12th century,
grammar school. Alexander II. was married and Alexander III. was born
in the castle. During the long period of Border warfare, the town was
repeatedly burned and the castle captured. After the defeat of Wallace
at Falkirk the castle fell into the hands of the English, from whom it
was delivered in 1314 by Sir James Douglas. Ceded to Edward III. in
1333, it was regained in 1342 by Sir Alexander Ramsay of Dalhousie,
only to be lost again four years later. The castle was finally retaken
and razed to the ground in 1460. It was at the siege that the king,
James II., was killed by the explosion of a huge gun called "the
Lion." On the fall of the castle the town languished and was finally
abandoned in favour of the rising burgh of Kelso. The town, whose
patron-saint was St James, is still commemorated by St James's Fair,
which is held on the 5th of every August on the vacant site, and is
the most popular of Border festivals.
Sandyknowe or Smailholm Tower, 6 m. W. of Kelso, dating from the 15th
century, is considered the best example of a Border Peel and the most
perfect relic of a feudal structure in the South of Scotland. Two m.
N. by E. of Kelso is the pretty village of Ednam (Edenham, "The
Village on the Eden"), the birthplace of the poet James Thomson, to
whose memory an obelisk, 52 ft. high, was erected on Ferney Hill in
1820.
KELVIN, WILLIAM THOMSON, BARON (1824-1907), British physicist, the
second son of James Thomson, LL.D., professor of mathematics in the
university of Glasgow, was born at Belfast, Ireland, on the 26th of June
1824, his father being then teacher of mathematics in the Royal
Academical Institution. In 1832 James Thomson accepted the chair of
mathematics at Glasgow, and migrated thither with his two sons, James
and William, who in 1834 matriculated in that university, William being
then little more than ten years of age, and having acquired all his
early education through his father's instruction. In 1841 William
Thomson entered Peterhouse, Cambridge, and in 1845 took his degree as
second wrangler, to which honour he added that of the first Smith's
Prize. The senior wrangler in his year was Stephen Parkinson, a man of a
very different type of mind, yet one who was a prominent figure in
Cambridge for many years. In the same year Thomson was elected fellow of
Peterhouse. At that time there were few facilities for the study of
experimental science in Great Britain. At the Royal Institution Faraday
held a unique position, and was feeling his way almost alone. In
Cambridge science had progressed little since the days of Newton.
Thomson therefore had recourse to Paris, and for a year worked in the
laboratory of Regnault, who was then engaged in his classical researches
on the thermal properties of steam. In 1846, when only twenty-two years
of age, he accepted the chair of natural philosophy in the university of
Glasgow, which he filled for fifty-three years, attaining universal
recognition as one of the greatest physicists of his time. The Glasgow
chair was a source of inspiration to scientific men for more than half a
century, and many of the most advanced researches of other physicists
grew out of the suggestions which Thomson scattered as sparks from his
anvil. One of his earliest papers dealt with the age of the earth, and
brought him into collision with the geologists of the Uniformitarian
school, who were claiming thousands of millions of years for the
formation of the stratified portions of the earth's crust. Thomson's
calculations on the conduction of heat showed that at some time between
twenty millions and four hundred millions, probably about one hundred
millions, of years ago, the physical conditions of the earth must have
been entirely different from those which now obtain. This led to a long
controversy, in which the physical principles held their ground. In 1847
Thomson first met James Prescott Joule at the Oxford meeting of the
British Association. A fortnight later they again met in Switzerland,
and together measured the rise of the temperature of the water in a
mountain torrent due to its fall. Joule's views of the nature of heat
strongly influenced Thomson's mind, with the result that in 1848
Thomson proposed his absolute scale of temperature, which is
independent of the properties of any particular thermometric substance,
and in 1851 he presented to the Royal Society of Edinburgh a paper on
the dynamical theory of heat, which reconciled the work of N. L. Sadi
Carnot with the conclusions of Count Rumford, Sir H. Davy, J. R. Mayer
and Joule, and placed the dynamical theory of heat and the fundamental
principle of the conservation of energy in a position to command
universal acceptance. It was in this paper that the principle of the
dissipation of energy, briefly summarized in the second law of
thermodynamics, was first stated.
Although his contributions to thermodynamics may properly be regarded as
his most important scientific work, it is in the field of electricity,
especially in its application to submarine telegraphy, that Lord Kelvin
is best known to the world at large. From 1854 he is most prominent
among telegraphists. The stranded form of conductor was due to his
suggestion; but it was in the letters which he addressed in November and
December of that year to Sir G. G. Stokes, and which were published in
the _Proceedings of the Royal Society_ for 1855, that he discussed the
mathematical theory of signalling through submarine cables, and
enunciated the conclusion that in long cables the retardation due to
capacity must render the speed of signalling inversely proportional to
the square of the cable's length. Some held that if this were true ocean
telegraphy would be impossible, and sought in consequence to disprove
Thomson's conclusion. Thomson, on the other hand, set to work to
overcome the difficulty by improvement in the manufacture of cables, and
first of all in the production of copper of high conductivity and the
construction of apparatus which would readily respond to the slightest
variation of the current in the cable. The mirror galvanometer and the
siphon recorder, which was patented in 1867, were the outcome of these
researches; but the scientific value of the mirror galvanometer is
independent of its use in telegraphy, and the siphon recorder is the
direct precursor of one form of galvanometer (d'Arsonval's) now commonly
used in electrical laboratories. A mind like that of Thomson could not
be content to deal with any physical quantity, however successfully from
a practical point of view, without subjecting it to measurement.
Thomson's work in connexion with telegraphy led to the production in
rapid succession of instruments adapted to the requirements of the time
for the measurement of every electrical quantity, and when electric
lighting came to the front a new set of instruments was produced to meet
the needs of the electrical engineer. Some account of Thomson's
electrometer is given in the article on that subject, while every modern
work of importance on electric lighting describes the instruments which
he has specially designed for central station work; and it may be said
that there is no quantity which the electrical engineer is ordinarily
called upon to measure for which Lord Kelvin did not construct the
suitable instrument. Currents from the ten-thousandth of an ampere to
ten thousand amperes, electrical pressures from a minute fraction of a
volt to 100,000 volts, come within the range of his instruments, while
the private consumer of electric energy is provided with a meter
recording Board of Trade units.
When W. Weber in 1851 proposed the extension of C. F. Gauss's system of
absolute units to electromagnetism, Thomson took up the question, and,
applying the principles of energy, calculated the absolute electromotive
force of a Daniell cell, and determined the absolute measure of the
resistance of a wire from the heat produced in it by a known current. In
1861 it was Thomson who induced the British Association to appoint its
first famous committee for the determination of electrical standards,
and it was he who suggested much of the work carried out by J. Clerk
Maxwell, Balfour Stewart and Fleeming Jenkin as members of that
committee. The oscillatory character of the discharge of the Leyden jar,
the foundation of the work of H. R. Hertz and of wireless telegraphy
were investigated by him in 1853.
It was in 1873 that he undertook to write a series of articles for _Good
Words_ on the mariner's compass. He wrote the first, but so many
questions arose in his mind that it was five years before the second
appeared. In the meanwhile the compass went through a process of
complete reconstruction in his hands a process which enabled both the
permanent and the temporary magnetism of the ship to be readily
compensated, while the weight of the 10-in. card was reduced to
one-seventeenth of that of the standard card previously in use, although
the time of swing was increased. Second only to the compass in its value
to the sailor is Thomson's sounding apparatus, whereby soundings can be
taken in 100 fathoms by a ship steaming at 16 knots; and by the
employment of piano-wire of a breaking strength of 140 tons per square
inch and an iron sinker weighing only 34 lb., with a self-registering
pressure gauge, soundings can be rapidly taken in deep ocean. Thomson's
tide gauge, tidal harmonic analyser and tide predicter are famous, and
among his work in the interest of navigation must be mentioned his
tables for the simplification of Sumner's method for determining the
position of a ship at sea.
It is impossible within brief limits to convey more than a general idea
of the work of a philosopher who published more than three hundred
original papers bearing upon nearly every branch of physical science;
who one day was working out the mathematics of a vortex theory of matter
on hydrodynamical principles or discovering the limitations of the
capabilities of the vortex atom, on another was applying the theory of
elasticity to tides in the solid earth, or was calculating the size of
water molecules, and later was designing an electricity meter, a dynamo
or a domestic water-tap. It is only by reference to his published papers
that any approximate conception can be formed of his life's work; but
the student who had read all these knew comparatively little of Lord
Kelvin if he had not talked with him face to face. Extreme modesty,
almost amounting to diffidence, was combined with the utmost kindliness
in Lord Kelvin's bearing to the most elementary student, and nothing
seemed to give him so much pleasure as an opportunity to acknowledge the
efforts of the humblest scientific worker. The progress of physical
discovery during the last half of the 19th century was perhaps as much
due to the kindly encouragement which he gave to his students and to
others who came in contact with him as to his own researches and
inventions; and it would be difficult to speak of his influence as a
teacher in stronger terms than this.
One of his former pupils, Professor J. D. Cormack, wrote of him: "It is
perhaps at the lecture table that Lord Kelvin displays most of his
characteristics.... His master mind, soaring high, sees one vast
connected whole, and, alive with enthusiasm, with smiling face and
sparkling eye, he shows the panorama to his pupils, pointing out the
similarities and differences of its parts, the boundaries of our
knowledge, and the regions of doubt and speculation. To follow him in
his flights is real mental exhilaration."
In 1852 Thomson married Margaret, daughter of Walter Crum of
Thornliebank, who died in 1870; and in 1874 he married Frances Anna,
daughter of Charles R. Blandy of Madeira. In 1866, perhaps chiefly in
acknowledgment of his services to trans-Atlantic telegraphy, Thomson
received the honour of knighthood, and in 1892 he was raised to the
peerage with the title of Baron Kelvin of Largs. The Grand Cross of the
Royal Victorian Order was conferred on him in 1896, the year of the
jubilee of his professoriate. In 1890 he became president of the Royal
Society, and he received the Order of Merit on its institution in 1902.
A list of the degrees and other honours which he received during the
fifty-three years he held his Glasgow chair would occupy as much space
as this article; but any biographical sketch would be conspicuously
incomplete if it failed to notice the celebration in 1896 of the jubilee
of his professorship. Never before had such a gathering of rank and
science assembled as that which filled the halls in the university of
Glasgow on the 15th, 16th and 17th of June in that year. The city
authorities joined with the university in honouring their most
distinguished citizen. About 2500 guests were received in the university
buildings, the library of which was devoted to an exhibition of the
instruments invented by Lord Kelvin, together with his certificates,
diplomas and medals. The Eastern, the Anglo-American and the Commercial
Cable companies united to celebrate the event, and from the university
library a message was sent through Newfoundland, New York, Chicago, San
Francisco, Los Angeles, New Orleans, Florida and Washington, and was
received by Lord Kelvin seven and a half minutes after it had been
despatched, having travelled about 20,000 miles and twice crossed the
Atlantic during the interval. It was at the banquet in connexion with
the jubilee celebration that the Lord Provost of Glasgow thus summarized
Lord Kelvin's character: "His industry is unwearied; and he seems to
take rest by turning from one difficulty to another--difficulties that
would appal most men and be taken as enjoyment by no one else.... This
life of unwearied industry, of universal honour, has left Lord Kelvin
with a lovable nature that charms all with whom he comes in contact."
Three years after this celebration Lord Kelvin resigned his chair at
Glasgow, though by formally matriculating as a student he maintained his
connexion with the university, of which in 1904 he was elected
chancellor. But his retirement did not mean cessation of active work or
any slackening of interest in the scientific thought of the day. Much of
his time was given to writing and revising the lectures on the wave
theory of light which he had delivered at Johns Hopkins University,
Baltimore, in 1884, but which were not finally published till 1904. He
continued to take part in the proceedings of various learned societies;
and only a few months before his death, at the Leicester meeting of the
British Association, he attested the keenness with which he followed the
current developments of scientific speculation by delivering a long and
searching address on the electronic theory of matter. He died on the
17th of December 1907 at his residence, Netherhall, near Largs,
Scotland; there was no heir to his title, which became extinct.
In addition to the Baltimore lectures, he published with Professor P.
G. Tait a standard but unfinished _Treatise on Natural Philosophy_
(1867). A number of his scientific papers were collected in his
_Reprint of Papers on Electricity and Magnetism_ (1872), and in his
_Mathematical and Physical Papers_ (1882, 1883 and 1890), and three
volumes of his _Popular Lectures and Addresses_ appeared in 1889-1894.
He was also the author of the articles on "Heat" and "Elasticity" in
the 9th edition of the _Encyclopaedia Britannica_.
See Andrew Gray, _Lord Kelvin_ (1908); S. P. Thompson, _Life of Lord
Kelvin_ (1910), which contains a full bibliography of his writings.
(W. G.; H. M. R.)
KEMBLE, the name of a family of English actors, of whom the most famous
were Mrs Siddons (q.v.) and her brother John Philip Kemble, the eldest
of the twelve children of ROGER KEMBLE (1721-1802), a strolling player
and manager, who in 1753 married an actress, Sarah Wood.
JOHN PHILIP KEMBLE (1757-1823), the second child, was born at Prescot,
Lancashire, on the 1st of February 1757. His mother was a Roman
Catholic, and he was educated at Sedgeley Park Catholic seminary, near
Wolverhampton, and the English college at Douai, with the view of
becoming a priest. But at the conclusion of the four years' course he
discovered that he had no vocation for the priesthood, and returning to
England he joined the theatrical company of Crump & Chamberlain, his
first appearance being as Theodosius in Lee's tragedy of that name at
Wolverhampton on the 8th of January 1776. In 1778 he joined the York
company of Tate Wilkinson, appearing at Wakefield as Captain Plume in
Farquhar's _The Recruiting Officer_; in Hull for the first time as
Macbeth on the 30th of October, and in York as Orestes in Ambrose
Philips's _Distressed Mother_. In 1781 he obtained a "star" engagement
at Dublin, making his first appearance there on the 2nd of November as
Hamlet. He also achieved great success as Raymond in _The Count of
Narbonne_, a play taken from Horace Walpole's _Castle of Otranto_.
Gradually he won for himself a high reputation as a careful and finished
actor, and this, combined with the greater fame of his sister, led to an
engagement at Drury Lane, where he made his first appearance on the 30th
of September 1783 as Hamlet. In this role he awakened interest and
discussion among the critics rather than the enthusiastic approval of
the public. But as Macbeth on the 31st of March 1785 he shared in the
enthusiasm aroused by Mrs Siddons, and established a reputation among
living actors second only to hers. Brother and sister had first appeared
together at Drury Lane on the 22nd of November 1783, as Beverley and Mrs
Beverley in Moore's _The Gamester_, and as King John and Constance in
Shakespeare's tragedy. In the following year they played Montgomerie and
Matilda in Cumberland's _The Carmelite_, and in 1785 Adorni and Camiola
in Kemble's adaptation of Massinger's _A Maid of Honour_, and Othello
and Desdemona. Between 1785 and 1787 Kemble appeared in a variety of
roles, his Mentevole in Jephson's _Julia_ producing an overwhelming
impression. On the 8th of December 1787 he married Priscilla Hopkins
Brereton (1756-1845), the widow of an actor and herself an actress.
Kemble's appointment as manager of Drury Lane in 1788 gave him full
opportunity to dress the characters less according to tradition than in
harmony with his own conception of what was suitable. He was also able
to experiment with whatever parts might strike his fancy, and of this
privilege he took advantage with greater courage than discretion. His
activity was prodigious, the list of his parts including a large number
of Shakespearian characters and also a great many in plays now
forgotten. In his own version of _Coriolanus_, which was revived during
his first season, the character of the "noble Roman" was so exactly
suited to his powers that he not only played it with a perfection that
has never been approached, but, it is said, unconsciously allowed its
influence to colour his private manner and modes of speech. His tall and
imposing person, noble countenance, and solemn and grave demeanour were
uniquely adapted for the Roman characters in Shakespeare's plays; and,
when in addition he had to depict the gradual growth and development of
one absorbing passion, his representation gathered a momentum and
majestic force that were irresistible. His defect was in flexibility,
variety, rapidity; the characteristic of his style was method,
regularity, precision, elaboration even of the minutest details, founded
on a thorough psychological study of the special personality he had to
represent. His elocutionary art, his fine sense of rhythm and emphasis,
enabled him to excel in declamation, but physically he was incapable of
giving expression to impetuous vehemence and searching pathos. In
Coriolanus and Cato he was beyond praise, and possibly he may have been
superior to both Garrick and Kean in Macbeth, although it must be
remembered that in it part of his inspiration must have been caught from
Mrs Siddons. In all the other great Shakespearian characters he was,
according to the best critics, inferior to them, least so in Lear,
Hamlet and Wolsey, and most so in Shylock and Richard III. On account of
the eccentricities of Sheridan, the proprietor of Drury Lane, Kemble
withdrew from the management, and, although he resumed his duties at the
beginning of the season 1800-1801, he at the close of 1802 finally
resigned connexion with it. In 1803 he became manager of Covent Garden,
in which he had acquired a sixth share for L23,000. The theatre was
burned down on the 20th of September 1808, and the raising of the prices
after the opening of the new theatre, in 1809, led to riots, which
practically suspended the performances for three months. Kemble had been
nearly ruined by the fire, and was only saved by a generous loan,
afterwards converted into a gift, of L10,000 from the duke of
Northumberland. Kemble took his final leave of the stage in the part of
Coriolanus on the 23rd of June 1817. His retirement was probably
hastened by the rising popularity of Edmund Kean. The remaining years of
his life were spent chiefly abroad, and he died at Lausanne on the 26th
of February 1823.
See Boaden, _Life of John Philip Kemble_ (1825); Fitzgerald, _The
Kembles_ (1871).
STEPHEN KEMBLE (1758-1822), the second son of Roger, was rather an
indifferent actor, ever eclipsed by his wife and fellow player,
Elizabeth Satchell Kemble (c. 1763-1841), and a man of such portly
proportions that he played Falstaff without padding. He managed theatres
in Edinburgh and elsewhere.
CHARLES KEMBLE (1775-1854), a younger brother of John Philip and
Stephen, was born at Brecon, South Wales, on the 25th of November 1775.
He, too, was educated at Douai. After returning to England in 1792, he
obtained a situation in the post-office, but this he soon resigned for
the stage, making his first recorded appearance at Sheffield as Orlando
in _As You Like It_ in that year. During the early period of his career
as an actor he made his way slowly to public favour. For a considerable
time he played with his brother and sister, chiefly in secondary parts,
and this with a grace and finish which received scant justice from the
critics. His first London appearance was on the 21st of April 1794, as
Malcolm to his brother's Macbeth. Ultimately he won independent fame,
especially in such characters as Archer in George Farquhar's _Beaux'
Stratagem_, Dorincourt in Mrs Cowley's _Belle's Stratagem_, Charles
Surface and Ranger in Dr Benjamin Hoadley's _Suspicious Husband_. His
Laertes and Macduff were hardly less interesting than his brother's
Hamlet and Macbeth. In comedy he was ably supported by his wife, Marie
Therese De Camp (1774-1838), whom he married on the 2nd of July 1806.
His visit, with his daughter Fanny, to America during 1832 and 1834,
aroused much enthusiasm. The later period of his career was clouded by
money embarrassments in connexion with his joint proprietorship in
Covent Garden theatre. He formally retired from the stage in December
1836, but his final appearance was on the 10th of April 1840. For some
time he held the office of examiner of plays. In 1844-1845 he gave
readings from Shakespeare at Willis's Rooms. He died on the 12th of
November 1854. Macready regarded his Cassio as incomparable, and summed
him up as "a first-rate actor of second-rate parts."
See _Gentleman's Magazine_, January 1855; _Records of a Girlhood_, by
Frances Anne Kemble.
ELIZABETH WHITLOCK (1761-1836), who was a daughter of Roger Kemble, made
her first appearance on the stage in 1783 at Drury Lane as Portia. In
1785 she married Charles E. Whitlock, went with him to America and
played with much success there. She had the honour of appearing before
President Washington. She seems to have retired about 1807, and she died
on the 27th of February 1836. Her reputation as a tragic actress might
have been greater had she not been Mrs Siddons's sister.
FRANCES ANNE KEMBLE (Fanny Kemble) (1800-1893), the actress and author,
was Charles Kemble's elder daughter; she was born in London on the 27th
of November 1809, and educated chiefly in France. She first appeared on
the stage on the 25th of October 1829 as Juliet at Covent Garden. Her
attractive personality at once made her a great favourite, her
popularity enabling her father to recoup his losses as a manager. She
played all the principal women's parts, notably Portia, Beatrice and
Lady Teazle, but Julia in Sheridan Knowles's _The Hunchback_, especially
written for her, was perhaps her greatest success. In 1832 she went with
her father to America, and in 1834 she married there a Southern planter,
Pierce Butler. They were divorced in 1849. In 1847 she returned to the
stage, from which she had retired on her marriage, and later, following
her father's example, appeared with much success as a Shakespearian
reader. In 1877 she returned to England, where she lived--using her
maiden name--till her death in London on the 15th of January 1893.
During this period Fanny Kemble was a prominent and popular figure in
the social life of London. Besides her plays, _Francis the First_,
unsuccessfully produced in 1832, _The Star of Seville_ (1837), a volume
of _Poems_ (1844), and a book of Italian travel, _A Year of Consolation_
(1847), she published a volume of her _Journal_ in 1835, and in 1863
another (dealing with life on the Georgia plantation), and also a volume
of _Plays_, including translations from Dumas and Schiller. These were
followed by _Records of a Girlhood_ (1878), _Records of Later Life_
(1882), _Notes on some of Shakespeare's Plays_ (1882), _Far Away and
Long Ago_ (1889), and _Further Records_ (1891). Her various volumes of
reminiscences contain much valuable material for the social and dramatic
history of the period.
ADELAIDE KEMBLE (1814-1879), Charles Kemble's second daughter, was an
opera singer of great promise, whose first London appearance was made in
_Norma_ on the 2nd of November 1841. In 1843 she married Edward John
Sartoris, a rich Italian, and retired after a brief but brilliant
career. She wrote _A Week in a French Country House_ (1867), a bright
and humorous story, and of a literary quality not shared by other tales
that followed. Her son, Algernon Charles Sartoris, married General U. S.
Grant's daughter.
Among more recent members of the Kemble family, mention may also be made
of Charles Kemble's grandson, HENRY KEMBLE (1848-1907), a sterling and
popular London actor.
KEMBLE, JOHN MITCHELL (1807-1857), English scholar and historian, eldest
son of Charles Kemble the actor, was born in 1807. He received his
education partly from Dr Richardson, author of the _Dictionary of the
English Language_, and partly at the grammar school of Bury St Edmunds,
where he obtained in 1826 an exhibition to Trinity College, Cambridge.
At the university his historical essays gained him high reputation. The
bent of his studies was turned more especially towards the Anglo-Saxon
period through the influence of the brothers Grimm, under whom he
studied at Gottingen (1831). His thorough knowledge of the Teutonic
languages and his critical faculty were shown in his _Beowulf_
(1833-1837), _Uber die Stammtafel der Westsachsen_ (1836), _Codex
Diplomaticus Aevi Saxonici_ (1839-1848), and in many contributions to
reviews; while his _History of the Saxons in England_ (1849; new ed.
1876), though it must now be read with caution, was the first attempt at
a thorough examination of the original sources of the early period of
English history. He was editor of the _British and Foreign Review_ from
1835 to 1844; and from 1840 to his death was examiner of plays. In 1857
he published _State Papers and Correspondence illustrative of the Social
and Political State of Europe from the Revolution to the Accession of
the House of Hanover_. He died at Dublin on the 26th of March 1857. His
_Horae Ferales, or Studies in the Archaeology of Northern Nations_, was
completed by Dr R. G. Latham, and published in 1864. He married the
daughter of Professor Amadeus Wendt of Gottingen in 1836; and had two
daughters and a son; the elder daughter was the wife of Sir Charles
Santley, the singer.
KEMENY, ZSIGMOND, BARON (1816-1875), Hungarian author, came of a noble
but reduced family. In 1837 he studied jurisprudence at Marosvasarhely,
but soon devoted himself entirely to journalism and literature. His
first unfinished work, _On the Causes of the Disaster of Mohacs_ (1840),
attracted much attention. In the same year he studied natural history
and anatomy at Vienna University. In 1841, along with Lajos Kovacs, he
edited the Transylvanian newspaper _Erdelyi Hirado_. He also took an
active part in provincial politics and warmly supported the principles
of Count Stephen Szechenyi. In 1846 he moved to Pest, where his
pamphlet, _Korteskedes es ellenszerei_ (Partisanship and its Antidote),
had already made him famous. Here he consorted with the most eminent of
the moderate reformers, and for a time was on the staff of the _Pesti
Hirlap_. The same year he brought out his first great novel, _Pal
Gyulay_. He was elected a member of the revolutionary diet of 1848 and
accompanied it through all its vicissitudes. After a brief exile he
accepted the amnesty and returned to Hungary. Careless of his
unpopularity, he took up his pen to defend the cause of justice and
moderation, and in his two pamphlets, _Forradalom utan_ (After the
Revolution) and _Meg egysz o a forradalom utan_ (One word more after the
Revolution), he defended the point of view which was realized by Deak in
1867. He subsequently edited the _Pesti Naplo_, which became virtually
Deak's political organ. Kemeny also published several political essays
(e.g. _The Two Wesselenyis_, and _Stephen Szechenyi_) which are among
the best of their kind in any literature. His novels published during
these years, such as _Ferj es no_ (Husband and Wife), _Szivorvenyei_
(The Heart's Secrets), &c., also won for him a foremost rank among
contemporary novelists. During the 'sixties Kemeny took an active part
in the political labours of Deak, whose right hand he continued to be,
and popularized the Composition of 1867 which he had done so much to
bring about. He was elected to the diet of 1867 for one of the divisions
of Pest, but took no part in the debates. The last years of his life
were passed in complete seclusion in Transylvania. To the works of
Kemeny already mentioned should be added the fine historical novel
_Rajongok_ (The Fanatics) (Pest, 1858-1859), and _Collected Speeches_
(Hung.) (Pest, 1889).
See L. Nogrady, _Baron Sigismund Kemeny's Life and Writings_ (Hung.)
(Budapest, 1902); G. Beksics, _Sigismund Kemeny, the Revolution and
the Composition_ (Hung.) (Budapest, 1888). (R. N. B.)
KEMP, WILLIAM (fl. 1600), English actor and dancer. He probably began
his career as a member of the earl of Leicester's company, but his name
first appears after the death of Leicester in a list of players
authorized by an order of the privy council in 1593 to play 7 m. out of
London. Ferdinand Stanley, Lord Strange, was the patron of the company
of which Kemp was the leading member until 1598, and in 1594 was
summoned with Burbage and Shakespeare to act before the queen at
Greenwich. He was the successor, both in parts and reputation, of
Richard Tarlton. But it was as a dancer of jigs that he won his greatest
popularity, one or two actors dancing and singing with him, and the
words doubtless often being improvised. Examples of the music may be
seen in the MS. collection of John Dowland now in the Cambridge
University library. At the same time Kemp was given parts like Dogberry,
and Peter in _Romeo and Juliet_; indeed his name appears by accident in
place of those of the characters in early copies. Kemp seems to have
exhibited his dancing on the Continent, but in 1602 he was a member of
the earl of Worcester's players, and Philip Henslowe's diary shows
several payments made to him in that year.
KEMPE, JOHN (c. 1380-1454), English cardinal, archbishop of Canterbury,
and chancellor, was son of Thomas Kempe, a gentleman of Ollantigh, in
the parish of Wye near Ashford, Kent. He was born about 1380 and
educated at Merton College, Oxford. He practised as an ecclesiastical
lawyer, was an assessor at the trial of Oldcastle, and in 1415 was made
dean of the Court of Arches. Then he passed into the royal service, and
being employed in the administration of Normandy was eventually made
chancellor of the duchy. Early in 1419 he was elected bishop of
Rochester, and was consecrated at Rouen on the 3rd of December. In
February 1421 he was translated to Chichester, and in November following
to London. During the minority of Henry VI. Kempe had a prominent
position in the English council as a supporter of Henry Beaufort, whom
he succeeded as chancellor in March 1426. In this same year he was
promoted to the archbishopric of York. Kempe held office as chancellor
for six years; his main task in government was to keep Humphrey of
Gloucester in check. His resignation on the 28th of February 1432 was a
concession to Gloucester. He still enjoyed Beaufort's favour, and
retaining his place in the council was employed on important missions,
especially at the congress of Arras in 1435, and the conference at
Calais in 1438. In December 1439 he was created cardinal, and during the
next few years took less share in politics. He supported Suffolk over
the king's marriage with Margaret of Anjou; but afterwards there arose
some difference between them, due in part to a dispute about the
nomination of the cardinal's nephew, Thomas Kempe, to the bishopric of
London. At the time of Suffolk's fall in January 1450 Kempe once more
became chancellor. His appointment may have been due to the fact that he
was not committed entirely to either party. In spite of his age and
infirmity he showed some vigour in dealing with Cade's rebellion, and by
his official experience and skill did what he could for four years to
sustain the king's authority. He was rewarded by his translation to
Canterbury in July 1452, when Pope Nicholas added as a special honour
the title of cardinal-bishop of Santa Rufina. As Richard of York gained
influence, Kempe became unpopular; men called him "the cursed cardinal,"
and his fall seemed imminent when he died suddenly on the 22nd of March
1454. He was buried at Canterbury, in the choir. Kempe was a politician
first, and hardly at all a bishop; and he was accused with some justice
of neglecting his dioceses, especially at York. Still he was a capable
official, and a faithful servant to Henry VI., who called him "one of
the wisest lords of the land" (_Paston Letters_, i. 315). He founded a
college at his native place at Wye, which was suppressed at the
Reformation.
For contemporary authorities see under HENRY VI. See also J. Raine's
_Historians of the Church of York_, vol. ii.; W. Dugdale's
_Monasticon_, iii. 254, vi. 1430-1432; and W. F. Hook's _Lives of
Archbishops of Canterbury_, v. 188-267. (C. L. K.)
KEMPEN, a town in the Prussian Rhine Province, 40 m. N. of Cologne by
the railway to Zevenaar. Pop. (1900), 6319. It has a monument to Thomas
a Kempis, who was born there. The industries are considerable, and
include silk-weaving, glass-making and the manufacture of electrical
plant. Kempen belonged in the middle ages to the archbishopric of
Cologne and received civic rights in 1294. It is memorable as the scene
of a victory gained, on the 17th of January 1642, by the French and
Hessians over the Imperialists.
See Terwelp, _Die Stadt Kempen_ (Kempen, 1894), and Niessen,
_Heimatkunde des Kreises Kempen_ (Crefeld, 1895).
KEMPENFELT, RICHARD (1718-1782), British rear-admiral, was born at
Westminster in 1718. His father, a Swede, is said to have been in the
service of James II., and subsequently to have entered the British army.
Richard Kempenfelt went into the navy, and saw his first service in the
West Indies, taking part in the capture of Portobello. In 1746 he
returned to England, and from that date to 1780, when he was made
rear-admiral, saw active service in the East Indies with Sir George
Pocock and in various quarters of the world. In 1781 he gained, with a
vastly inferior force, a brilliant victory, fifty leagues south-west of
Ushant, over the French fleet under De Guichen, capturing twenty prizes.
In 1782 he hoisted his flag on the "Royal George," which formed part of
the fleet under Lord Howe. In August this fleet was ordered to refit at
top speed at Portsmouth, and proceed to the relief of Gibraltar. A leak
having been located below the waterline of the "Royal George," the
vessel was careened to allow of the defect being repaired. According to
the version of the disaster favoured by the Admiralty, she was
overturned by a breeze. But the general opinion of the navy was that the
shifting of her weights was more than the old and rotten timbers of the
"Royal George" could stand. A large piece of her bottom fell out, and
she went down at once. It is estimated that not fewer than 800 persons
went down with her, for besides the crew there were a large number of
tradesmen, women and children on board. Kempenfelt, who was in his
cabin, perished with the rest. Cowper's poem, the "Loss of the Royal
George," commemorates this disaster. Kempenfelt effected radical
alterations and improvements in the signalling system then existing in
the British navy. A painting of the loss of the "Royal George" is in the
Royal United Service Institution, London.
See Charnock's _Biog. Nav._, vi. 246, and Ralfe's _Naval Biographies_,
i. 215.
KEMPT, SIR JAMES (1764-1854), British soldier, was gazetted to the 101st
Foot in India in 1783, but on its disbandment two years later was placed
on half-pay. It is said that he took a clerkship in Greenwood's, the
army agents (afterwards Cox & Co.). He attracted the notice of the Duke
of York, through whom he obtained a captaincy (very soon followed by a
majority) in the newly raised 113th Foot. But it was not long before his
regiment experienced the fate of the old 101st; this time however Kempt
was retained on full pay in the recruiting service. In 1799 he
accompanied Sir Ralph Abercromby to Holland, and later to Egypt as an
aide-de-camp. After Abercromby's death Kempt remained on his successor's
staff until the end of the campaign in Egypt. In April 1803 he joined
the staff of Sir David Dundas, but next month returned to regimental
duty, and a little later received a lieutenant-colonelcy in the 81st
Foot. With his new regiment he went, under Craig, to the Mediterranean
theatre of operations, and at Maida the light brigade led by him bore
the heaviest share of the battle. Employed from 1807 to 1811 on the
staff in North America, Brevet-Colonel Kempt at the end of 1811 joined
Wellington's army in Spain with the local rank of major-general, which
was, on the 1st of January 1812, made substantive. As one of Picton's
brigadiers, Kempt took part in the great assault on Badajoz and was
severely wounded. On rejoining for duty, he was posted to the command of
a brigade of the Light Division (43rd, 52nd and 95th Rifles), which he
led at Vera, the Nivelle (where he was again wounded), Bayonne, Orthez
and Toulouse. Early in 1815 he was made K.C.B., and in July for his
services at Waterloo, G.C.B. At that battle he commanded the 28th, 32nd
and 79th as a brigadier under his old chief, Picton, and on Picton's
death succeeded to the command of his division. From 1828 to 1830 he was
Governor-General of Canada, and at a critical time displayed firmness
and moderation. He was afterwards Master-General of the Ordnance. At the
time of his death in 1854 he had been for some years a full General.
KEMPTEN, a town in the kingdom of Bavaria on the Iller, 81 m. S.W. of
Munich by rail. Pop. (1905), 20,663. The town is well built, has many
spacious squares and attractive public grounds, and contains a castle, a
handsome town-hall, a gymnasium, &c. The old palace of the abbots of
Kempten, dating from the end of the 17th century, is now partly used as
barracks, and near to it is the fine abbey church. The industries
include wool-spinning and weaving and the manufacture of paper, beer,
machines, hosiery and matches. As the commercial centre of the Algau,
Kempten carries on active trade in timber and dairy produce. Numerous
remains have been discovered on the Lindenberg, a hill in the vicinity.
Kempten, identified with the Roman Cambodunum, consisted in early times
of two towns, the old and the new. The continual hostility that existed
between these was intensified by the welcome given by the old town, a
free imperial city since 1289, to the Reformed doctrines, the new town
keeping to the older faith. The Benedictine abbey of Kempten, said to
have been founded in 773 by Hildegarde, the wife of Charlemagne, was an
important house. In 1360 its abbot was promoted to the dignity of a
prince of the Empire by the emperor Charles IV.; the town and abbey
passed to Bavaria in 1803. Here the Austrians defeated the French on the
17th of September 1796.
See Forderreuther, _Die Stadt Kempten und ihre Umgebung_ (Kempten,
1901); Haggenmuller, _Geschichte der Stadt und der gefursteten
Grafschaft Kempten_, vol. i. (Kempten, 1840); and Meirhofer,
_Geschichtliche Darstellung der denkwurdigsten Schicksale der Stadt
Kempten_ (Kempten, 1856).
KEN, THOMAS (1637-1711), the most eminent of the English non-juring
bishops, and one of the fathers of modern English hymnology, was born at
Little Berkhampstead, Herts, in 1637. He was the son of Thomas Ken of
Furnival's Inn, who belonged to an ancient stock,--that of the Kens of
Ken Place, in Somersetshire; his mother was a daughter of the now
forgotten poet, John Chalkhill, who is called by Walton an "acquaintant
and friend of Edmund Spenser." Ken's step-sister, Anne, was married to
Izaak Walton in 1646, a connexion which brought Ken from his boyhood
under the refining influence of this gentle and devout man. In 1652 Ken
entered Winchester College, and in 1656 became a student of Hart Hall,
Oxford. He gained a fellowship at New College in 1657, and proceeded
B.A. in 1661 and M.A. in 1664. He was for some time tutor of his
college; but the most characteristic reminiscence of his university life
is the mention made by Anthony Wood that in the musical gatherings of
the time "Thomas Ken of New College, a junior, would be sometimes among
them, and sing his part." Ordained in 1662, he successively held the
livings of Little Easton in Essex, Brighstone (sometimes called Brixton)
in the Isle of Wight, and East Woodhay in Hampshire; in 1672 he resigned
the last of these, and returned to Winchester, being by this time a
prebendary of the cathedral, and chaplain to the bishop, as well as a
fellow of Winchester College. He remained there for several years,
acting as curate in one of the lowest districts, preparing his _Manual
of Prayers for the use of the Scholars of Winchester College_ (first
published in 1674), and composing hymns. It was at this time that he
wrote, primarily for the same body as his prayers, his morning, evening
and midnight hymns, the first two of which, beginning "Awake, my soul,
and with the sun" and "Glory to Thee, my God, this night," are now
household words wherever the English tongue is spoken. The latter is
often made to begin with the line "All praise to Thee, my God, this
night," but in the earlier editions over which Ken had control, the line
is as first given.[1] In 1674 Ken paid a visit to Rome in company with
young Izaak Walton, and this journey seems mainly to have resulted in
confirming his regard for the Anglican communion. In 1679 he was
appointed by Charles II. chaplain to the Princess Mary, wife of William
of Orange. While with the court at the Hague, he incurred the
displeasure of William by insisting that a promise of marriage, made to
an English lady of high birth by a relative of the prince, should be
kept; and he therefore gladly returned to England in 1680, when he was
immediately appointed one of the king's chaplains. He was once more
residing at Winchester in 1683 when Charles came to the city with his
doubtfully composed court, and his residence was chosen as the home of
Nell Gwynne; but Ken stoutly objected to this arrangement, and succeeded
in making the favourite find quarters elsewhere. In August of this same
year he accompanied Lord Dartmouth to Tangier as chaplain to the fleet,
and Pepys, who was one of the company, has left on record some quaint
and kindly reminiscences of him and of his services on board. The fleet
returned in April 1684, and a few months after, upon a vacancy occurring
in the see of Bath and Wells, Ken, now Dr Ken, was appointed bishop. It
is said that, upon the occurrence of the vacancy, Charles, mindful of
the spirit he had shown at Winchester, exclaimed, "Where is the good
little man that refused his lodging to poor Nell?" and determined that
no other should be bishop. The consecration took place at Lambeth on the
25th of January 1685; and one of Ken's first duties was to attend the
deathbed of Charles, where his wise and faithful ministrations won the
admiration of everybody except Bishop Burnet. In this year he published
his _Exposition on the Church Catechism_, perhaps better known by its
sub-title, _The Practice of Divine Love_. In 1688, when James reissued
his "Declaration of Indulgence," Ken was one of the "seven bishops" who
refused to publish it. He was probably influenced by two considerations:
first, by his profound aversion from Roman Catholicism, to which he felt
he would be giving some episcopal recognition by compliance; but, second
and more especially, by the feeling that James was compromising the
spiritual freedom of the church. Along with his six brethren, Ken was
committed to the Tower on the 8th of June 1688, on a charge of high
misdemeanour; the trial, which took place on the 29th and 30th of the
month, and which resulted in a verdict of acquittal, is matter of
history. With the revolution which speedily followed this impolitic
trial, new troubles encountered Ken; for, having sworn allegiance to
James, he thought himself thereby precluded from taking the oath to
William of Orange. Accordingly, he took his place among the non-jurors,
and, as he stood firm to his refusal, he was, in August 1691, superseded
in his bishopric by Dr Kidder, dean of Peterborough. From this time he
lived mostly in retirement, finding a congenial home with Lord Weymouth,
his friend from college days, at Longleat in Wiltshire; and though
pressed to resume his diocese in 1703, upon the death of Bishop Kidder,
he declined, partly on the ground of growing weakness, but partly no
doubt from his love for the quiet life of devotion which he was able to
lead at Longleat. His death took place there on the 19th of March 1711.
Although Ken wrote much poetry, besides his hymns, he cannot be called
a great poet; but he had that fine combination of spiritual insight
and feeling with poetic taste which marks all great hymn-writers. As a
hymn-writer he has had few equals in England; it can scarcely be said
that even Keble, though possessed of much rarer poetic gifts,
surpassed him in his own sphere (see HYMNS). In his own day he took
high rank as a pulpit orator, and even royalty had to beg for a seat
amongst his audiences; but his sermons are now forgotten. He lives in
history, apart from his three hymns, mainly as a man of unstained
purity and invincible fidelity to conscience, weak only in a certain
narrowness of view which is a frequent attribute of the intense
character which he possessed. As an ecclesiastic he was a High
Churchman of the old school.
Ken's poetical works were published in collected form in four volumes
by W. Hawkins, his relative and executor, in 1721; his prose works
were issued in 1838 in one volume, under the editorship of J. T.
Round. A brief memoir was prefixed by Hawkins to a selection from
Ken's works which he published in 1713; and a life, in two volumes, by
the Rev. W. L. Bowles, appeared in 1830. But the standard biographies
of Ken are those of J. Lavicount Anderdon (_The Life of Thomas Ken,
Bishop of Bath and Wells, by a Layman_, 1851; 2nd ed., 1854) and of
Dean Plumptre (2 vols., 1888; revised, 1890). See also the Rev. W.
Hunt's article in the _Dict. Nat. Biog._
FOOTNOTE:
[1] The fact, however, that in 1712--only a year after Ken's
death--his publisher, Brome, published the hymn with the opening
words "All praise," has been deemed by such a high authority as the
1st earl of Selborne sufficient evidence that the alteration had
Ken's authority.
KEN, a river of Northern India, tributary to the Jumna on its right
bank, flowing through Bundelkhand. An important reservoir in its upper
basin, which impounds about 180 million cubic feet of water, irrigates
about 374,000 acres in a region specially liable to drought.
KENA, or KENEH (sometimes written _Qina_), a town of Upper Egypt on a
canal about a mile E. of the Nile and 380 m. S.S.E. of Cairo by rail.
Pop. (1907), 20,069. Kena, the capital of a province of the same name,
was called by the Greeks Caene or Caenepolis (probably the [Greek: Nee
polis] of Herodotus; see AKHMIM) in distinction from Coptos (q.v.), 15
m. S., to whose trade it eventually succeeded. It is a remarkable fact
that its modern name should be derived from a purely Greek word, like
Iskenderia from Alexandria, and Nekrash from Naucratis; in the absence
of any known Egyptian name it seems to point to Kena having originated
in a foreign settlement in connexion with the Red Sea trade. It is a
flourishing town, specially noted for the manufacture of the porous
water jars and bottles used throughout Egypt. The clay for making them
is obtained from a valley north of Kena. The pottery is sent down the
Nile in specially constructed boats. Kena is also known for the
excellence of the dates sold in its bazaars and for the large colony of
dancing girls who live there. It carries on a trade in grain and dates
with Arabia, via Kosseir on the Red Sea, 100 m. E. in a direct line.
This inconsiderable traffic is all that is left of the extensive
commerce formerly maintained--chiefly via Berenice and Coptos--between
Upper Egypt and India and Arabia. The road to Kosseir is one of great
antiquity. It leads through the valley of Hammamat, celebrated for its
ancient breccia quarries and deserted gold mines. During the British
operations in Egypt in 1801 Sir David Baird and his force marched along
this road to Kena, taking sixteen days on the journey from Kosseir.
KENDAL, DUKEDOM OF. The English title of duke of Kendal was first
bestowed in May 1667 upon Charles (d. 1667), the infant son of the duke
of York, afterwards James II. Several persons have been created earl of
Kendal, among them being John, duke of Bedford, son of Henry IV.; John
Beaufort, duke of Somerset (d. 1444); and Queen Anne's husband, George,
prince of Denmark.
In 1719 Ehrengarde Melusina (1667-1743), mistress of the English king
George I., was created duchess of Kendal. This lady was the daughter of
Gustavus Adolphus, count of Schulenburg (d. 1691), and was born at Emden
on the 25th of December 1667. Her father held important positions under
the elector of Brandenburg; her brother Matthias John (1661-1747) won
great fame as a soldier in Germany and was afterwards commander-in-chief
of the army of the republic of Venice. Having entered the household of
Sophia, electress of Hanover, Melusina attracted the notice of her son,
the future king, whose mistress she became about 1690. When George
crossed over to England in 1714, the "Schulenburgin," as Sophia called
her, followed him and soon supplanted her principal rival, Charlotte
Sophia, Baroness von Kilmannsegge (c. 1673-1725), afterwards countess of
Darlington, as his first favourite. In 1716 she was created duchess of
Munster; then duchess of Kendal; and in 1723 the emperor Charles VI.
made her a princess of the Empire. The duchess was very avaricious and
obtained large sums of money by selling public offices and titles; she
also sold patent rights, one of these being the privilege of supplying
Ireland with a new copper coinage. This she sold to a Wolverhampton iron
merchant named William Wood (1671-1730), who flooded the country with
coins known as "Wood's halfpence," thus giving occasion for the
publication of Swift's famous _Drapier's Letters_. In political matters
she had much influence with the king, and she received L10,000 for
procuring the recall of Bolingbroke from exile. After George's death in
1727 she lived at Kendal House, Isleworth, Middlesex, until her death on
the 10th of May 1743. The duchess was by no means a beautiful woman, and
her thin figure caused the populace to refer to her as the "maypole." By
the king she had two daughters: Petronilla Melusina (c. 1693-1778), who
was created countess of Walsingham in 1722, and who married the great
earl of Chesterfield; and Margaret Gertrude, countess of Lippe
(1703-1773).
KENDAL, WILLIAM HUNTER (1843- ), English actor, whose family name was
Grimston, was born in London on the 16th of December 1843, the son of a
painter. He made his first stage appearance at Glasgow in 1862 as Louis
XIV., in _A Life's Revenge_, billed as "Mr Kendall." After some
experience at Birmingham and elsewhere, he joined the Haymarket company
in London in 1866, acting everything from burlesque to Romeo. In 1869 he
married Margaret (Madge) Shafto Robertson (b. 1849), sister of the
dramatist, T. W. Robertson. As "Mr and Mrs Kendal" their professional
careers then became inseparable. Mrs Kendal's first stage appearance was
as Marie, "a child," in _The Orphan of the Frozen Sea_ in 1854 in
London. She soon showed such talent both as actress and singer that she
secured numerous engagements, and by 1865 was playing Ophelia and
Desdemona. She was Mary Meredith in _Our American Cousin_ with Sothern,
and Pauline to his Claud Melnotte. But her real triumphs were at the
Haymarket in Shakespearian revivals and the old English comedies. While
Mr Kendal played Orlando, Charles Surface, Jack Absolute and Young
Marlowe, his wife made the combination perfect with her Rosalind, Lady
Teazle, Lydia Languish and Kate Hardcastle; and she created Galatea in
Gilbert's _Pygmalion and Galatea_ (1871). Short seasons followed at the
Court theatre and at the Prince of Wales's, at the latter of which they
joined the Bancrofts in _Diplomacy_ and other plays. Then in 1879 began
a long association with Mr (afterwards Sir John) Hare as joint-managers
of the St James's theatre, some of their notable successes being in _The
Squire_, _Impulse_, _The Ironmaster_ and _A Scrap of Paper_. In 1888,
however, the Hare and Kendal regime came to an end. From that time Mr
and Mrs Kendal chiefly toured in the provinces and in America, with an
occasional season at rare intervals in London.
KENDAL, a market town and municipal borough in the Kendal parliamentary
division of Westmorland, England, 251 m. N.N.W. from London on the
Windermere branch of the London & North-Western railway. Pop. (1901),
14,183. The town, the full name of which is Kirkby-Kendal or
Kirkby-in-Kendal, is the largest in the county. It is picturesquely
placed on the river Kent, and is irregularly built. The white-walled
houses with their blue-slated roofs, and the numerous trees, give it an
attractive appearance. To the S.W. rises an abrupt limestone eminence,
Scout Scar, which commands an extensive view towards Windermere and the
southern mountains of the Lake District. The church of the Holy Trinity,
the oldest part of which dates from about 1200, is a Gothic building
with five aisles and a square tower. In it is the helmet of Major Robert
Philipson, who rode into the church during service in search of one of
Cromwell's officers, Colonel Briggs, to do vengeance on him. This major
was notorious as "Robin the Devil," and his story is told in Scott's
_Rokeby_. Among the public buildings are the town hall, classic in
style; the market house, and literary and scientific institution, with a
museum containing a fossil collection from the limestone of the
locality. Educational establishments include a free grammar school, in
modern buildings, founded in 1525 and well endowed; a blue-coat school,
science and art school, and green-coat Sunday school (1813). On an
eminence east of the town are the ruins of Kendal castle, attributed to
the first barons of Kendal. It was the birthplace of Catherine Parr,
Henry VIII.'s last queen. On the Castlebrow Hill, an artificial mound
probably of pre-Norman origin, an obelisk was raised in 1788 in memory
of the revolution of 1688. The woollen manufactures of Kendal have been
noted since 1331, when Edward III. is said to have granted letters of
protection to John Kemp, a Flemish weaver who settled in the town; and,
although the coarse cloth known to Shakespeare as "Kendal green" is no
longer made, its place is more than supplied by active manufactures of
tweeds, railway rugs, horse clothing, knitted woollen caps and jackets,
worsted and woollen yarns, and similar goods. Other manufactures of
Kendal are machine-made boots and shoes, cards for wool and cotton,
agricultural and other machinery, paper, and, in the neighbourhood,
gunpowder. There is a large weekly market for grain, and annual horse
and cattle fairs. The town is governed by a mayor, 6 aldermen and 18
councillors. Area, 2622 acres.
The outline of a Roman fort is traceable at Watercrook near Kendal. The
barony and castle of Kendal or Kirkby-in-Kendal, held by Turold before
the Conquest, were granted by William I. to Ivo de Taillebois, but the
barony was divided into three parts in the reign of Richard II., one
part with the castle passing to Sir William Parr, knight, ancestor of
Catherine Parr. After the death of her brother William Parr, marquess of
Northampton, his share of the barony called Marquis Fee reverted to
Queen Elizabeth. The castle, being evidently deserted, was in ruins in
1586. Kendal was plundered by the Scots in 1210, and was visited by the
rebels in 1715 and again in 1745 when the Pretender was proclaimed king
there. Burgesses in Kendal are mentioned in 1345, and the borough with
"court housez" and the fee-farm of free tenants is included in a
confirmation charter to Sir William Parr in 1472. Richard III. in 1484
granted the inhabitants of the barony freedom from toll, passage and
pontage, and the town was incorporated in 1576 by Queen Elizabeth under
the title of an alderman and 12 burgesses, but Charles I. in 1635
appointed a mayor, 12 aldermen and 20 capital burgesses. Under the
Municipal Reform Act of 1835 the corporation was again altered. From
1832 to 1885 Kendal sent one member to parliament, but since the last
date its representation has been merged in that of the southern division
of the county. A weekly market on Saturday granted by Richard I. to
Roger Fitz Reinfred was purchased by the corporation from the earl of
Lonsdale and Captain Bagot, lords of the manor, in 1885 and 1886. Of the
five fairs which are now held three are ancient, that now held on the
29th of April being granted to Marmaduke de Tweng and William de Ros in
1307, and those on the 8th and 9th of November to Christiana, widow of
Ingelram de Gynes, in 1333.
See _Victoria County History, Westmorland_; Cornelius Nicholson, _The
Annals of Kendal_ (1861).
KENDALL, HENRY CLARENCE (1841-1882), Australian poet, son of a
missionary, was born in New South Wales on the 18th of April 1841. He
received only a slight education, and in 1860 he entered a lawyer's
office in Sydney. He had always had literary tastes, and sent some of
his verses in 1862 to London to be published in the _Athenaeum_. Next
year he obtained a clerkship in the Lands Department at Sydney, being
afterwards transferred to the Colonial Secretary's office; and he
combined this work with the writing of poetry and with journalism. His
principal volumes of verse were _Leaves from an Australian Forest_
(1869) and _Songs from the Mountains_ (1880), his feeling for nature, as
embodied in Australian landscape and bush-life, being very true and full
of charm. In 1869 he resigned his post in the public service, and for
some little while was in business with his brothers. Sir Henry Parkes
took an interest in him, and eventually appointed him to an
inspectorship of forests. He died on the 1st of August 1882. In 1886 a
memorial edition of his poems was published at Melbourne.
KENEALY, EDWARD VAUGHAN HYDE (1819-1880), Irish barrister and author,
was born at Cork on the 2nd of July 1819, the son of a local merchant.
He was educated at Trinity College, Dublin; was called to the Irish bar
in 1840 and to the English bar in 1847; and obtained a fair practice in
criminal cases. In 1868 he became a Q.C. and a bencher of Gray's Inn. It
was not, however, till 1873, when he became leading counsel for the
Tichborne claimant, that he came into any great prominence. His violent
conduct of the case became a public scandal, and after the verdict
against his client he started a paper to plead his cause and to attack
the judges. His behaviour was so extreme that in 1874 he was disbenched
and disbarred by his Inn. He then started an agitation throughout the
country to ventilate his grievances, and in 1875 was elected to
parliament for Stoke; but no member would introduce him when he took his
seat. Dr Kenealy, as he was always called, gradually ceased to attract
attention, and on the 16th of April 1880 he died in London. He published
a great quantity of verse, and also of somewhat mystical theology. His
second daughter, Dr Arabella Kenealy, besides practising as a physician,
wrote some clever novels.
KENG TUNG, the most extensive of the Shan States in the province of
Burma. It is in the southern Shan States' charge and lies almost
entirely east of the Salween river. The area of the state is rather over
12,000 sq. m. It is bounded N. by the states of Mang Lon, Mong Lem and
Keng Hung (Hsip Hsawng Panna), the two latter under Chinese control; E.
by the Mekong river, on the farther side of which is French Lao
territory; S. by the Siamese Shan States, and W. in a general way by the
Salween river, though it overlaps it in some places. The state is known
to the Chinese as Meng Keng, and was frequently called by the Burmese
"the 32 cities of the Gon" (Hkon). Keng Tung has expanded very
considerably since the establishment of British control, by the
inclusion of the districts of Hsen Yawt, Hsen Mawng, Mong Hsat, Mong Pu,
and the cis-Mekong portions of Keng Cheng, which in Burmese times were
separate charges. The "classical" name of the state is Khemarata or
Khemarata Tungkapuri. About 63% of the area lies in the basin of the
Mekong river and 37% in the Salween drainage area. The watershed is a
high and generally continuous range. Some of its peaks rise to over 7000
ft., and the elevation is nowhere much below 5000 ft. Parallel to this
successive hill ranges run north and south. Mountainous country so
greatly predominates that the scattered valleys are but as islands in a
sea of rugged hills. The chief rivers, tributaries of the Salween, are
the Nam Hka, the Hwe Long, Nam Pu, and the Nam Hsim. The first and last
are very considerable rivers. The Nam Hka rises in the Wa or Vu states,
the Nam Hsim on the watershed range in the centre of the state. Rocks
and rapids make both unnavigable, but much timber goes down the Nam
Hsim. The lower part of both rivers forms the boundary of Keng Tung
state. The chief tributaries of the Mekong are the Nam Nga, the Nam Lwe,
the Nam Yawng, Nam Lin, Nam Hok and Nam Kok. Of these the chief is the
Nam Lwe, which is navigable in the interior of the state, but enters the
Mekong by a gorge broken up by rocks. The Nam Lin and the Nam Kok are
also considerable streams. The lower course of the latter passes by
Chieng Rai in Siamese territory. The lower Nam Hok or Me Huak forms the
boundary with Siam.
The existence of minerals was reported by the sawbwa, or chief, to
Francis Garnier in 1867, but none is worked or located. Gold is washed
in most of the streams. Teak forests exist in Mong Pu and Mong Hsat,
and the sawbwa works them as government contracts. One-third of the
price realized from the sale of the logs at Moulmein is retained as
the government royalty. There are teak forests also in the Mekong
drainage area in the south of the state, but there is only a local
market for the timber. Rice, as elsewhere in the Shan States, is the
chief crop. Next to it is sugar-cane, grown both as a field crop and
in gardens. Earth-nuts and tobacco are the only other field crops in
the valleys. On the hills, besides rice, cotton, poppy and tea are the
chief crops. The tea is carelessly grown, badly prepared, and only
consumed locally. A great deal of garden produce is raised in the
valleys, especially near the capital. The state is rich in cattle, and
exports them to the country west of the Salween. Cotton and opium are
exported in large quantities, the former entirely to China, a good
deal of the latter to northern Siam, which also takes shoes and
sandals. Tea is carried through westwards from Keng Hung, and silk
from the Siamese Shan States. Cotton and silk weaving are dying out as
industries. Large quantities of shoes and sandals are made of buffalo
and bullock hide, with Chinese felt uppers and soft iron hobnails.
There is a good deal of pottery work. The chief work in iron is the
manufacture of guns, which has been carried on for many years in
certain villages of the Sam Tao district. The gun barrels and springs
are rude but effective, though not very durable. The revenue of the
state is collected as the Burmese _thathameda_, a rude system of
income-tax. From 1890, when the state made its submission, the annual
tributary offerings made in Burmese times were continued to the
British government, but in 1894 these offerings were converted into
tribute. For the quinquennial period 1903-1908 the state paid Rs.
30,000 (L2000) annually.
The population of the state was enumerated for the first time in 1901,
giving a total of 190,698. According to an estimate made by Mr G. C.
Stirling, the political officer in charge of the state, in 1897-1898,
of the various tribes of Shans, the Hkun and Lu contribute about
36,000 each, the western Shans 32,000, the Lem and Lao Shans about
7000, and the Chinese Shans about 5000. Of the hill tribes, the Kaw or
Aka are the most homogeneous with 22,000, but probably the Wa (or Vu),
disguised under various tribal names, are at least equally numerous.
Nominal Buddhists make up a total of 133,400, and the remainder are
classed as animists. Spirit-worship is, however, very conspicuously
prevalent amongst all classes even of the Shans. The present sawbwa or
chief received his patent from the British government on the 9th of
February 1897. The early history of Keng Tung is very obscure, but
Burmese influence seems to have been maintained since the latter half,
at any rate, of the 16th century. The Chinese made several attempts to
subdue the state, and appear to have taken the capital in 1765-66, but
were driven out by the united Shan and Burmese troops. The same fate
seems to have attended the first Siamese invasion of 1804. The second
and third Siamese invasions, in 1852 and 1854, resulted in great
disaster to the invaders, though the capital was invested for a time.
Keng Tung, the capital, is situated towards the southern end of a
valley about 12 m. long and with an average breadth of 7 m. The town
is surrounded by a brick wall and moat about 5 m. round. Only the
central and northern portions are much built over. Pop. (1901), 5695.
It is the most considerable town in the British Shan States. In the
dry season crowds attend the market held according to Shan custom
every five days, and numerous caravans come from China. The military
post formerly was 7 m. west of the town, at the foot of the watershed
range. At first the headquarters of a regiment was stationed there;
this was reduced to a wing, and recently to military police. The site
was badly chosen and proved very unhealthy, and the headquarters both
military and civil have been transferred to Loi Ngwe Long, a ridge
6500 ft. above sea-level 12 m. south of the capital. The rainfall
probably averages between 50 and 60 in. for the year. The temperature
seems to rise to nearly 100 deg. F. during the hot weather, falling 30
deg. or more during the night. In the cold weather a temperature of 40
deg. or a few degrees more or less appears to be the lowest
experienced. The plain in which the capital stands has an altitude of
3000 ft. (J. G. Sc.)
KENILWORTH, a market town in the Rugby parliamentary division of
Warwickshire, England; pleasantly situated on a tributary of the Avon,
on a branch of the London & North-Western railway, 99 m. N.W. from
London. Pop. of urban district (1901), 4544. The town is only of
importance from its antiquarian interest and the magnificent ruins of
its old castle. The walls originally enclosed an area of 7 acres. The
principal portions of the building remaining are the gatehouse, now used
as a dwelling-house; Caesar's tower, the only portion built by Geoffrey
de Clinton now extant, with massive walls 16 ft. thick; the Merwyn's
tower of Scott's _Kenilworth_; the great hall built by John of Gaunt
with windows of very beautiful design; and the Leicester buildings,
which are in a very ruinous condition. Not far from the castle are the
remains of an Augustinian monastery founded in 1122, and afterwards made
an abbey. Adjoining the abbey is the parish church of St Nicholas,
restored in 1865, a structure of mixed architecture, containing a fine
Norman doorway, which is supposed to have been the entrance of the
former abbey church.
Kenilworth (_Chinewrde_, _Kenillewurda_, _Kinelingworthe_, _Kenilord_,
_Killingworth_) is said to have been a member of Stoneleigh before the
Norman Conquest and a possession of the Saxon kings, whose royal
residence there was destroyed in the wars between Edward and Canute. The
town was granted by Henry I. to Geoffrey de Clinton, a Norman who built
the castle round which the whole history of Kenilworth centres. He also
founded a monastery here about 1122. Geoffrey's grandson released his
right to King John, and the castle remained with the crown until Henry
III. granted it to Simon de Montfort, earl of Leicester. The famous
"Dictum de Kenilworth" was proclaimed here in 1266. After the battle of
Evesham the rebel forces rallied at the castle, which, after a siege of
six months, was surrendered by Henry de Hastings, the governor, on
account of the scarceness of food and of the "pestilent disease" which
raged there. The king then granted it to his son Edmund. Through John of
Gaunt it came to Henry IV. and was granted by Elizabeth in 1562 to
Robert Dudley, afterwards earl of Leicester, but on his death in 1588
again merged in the possessions of the Crown. The earl spent large sums
on restoring the castle and grounds, and here in July 1575 he
entertained Queen Elizabeth at "excessive cost," as described in Scott's
_Kenilworth_. On the queen's first entry "a small floating island
illuminated by a great variety of torches ... made its appearance upon
the lake," upon which, clad in silks, were the Lady of the Lake and two
nymphs waiting on her, and for the several days of her stay "rare shews
and sports were there exercised." During the civil wars the castle was
dismantled by the soldiers of Cromwell and was from that time abandoned
to decay. The only mention of Kenilworth as a borough occurs in a
charter of Henry I. to Geoffrey de Clinton and in the charters of Henry
I. and Henry II. to the church of St Mary of Kenilworth confirming the
grant of lands made by Geoffrey to this church, and mentioning that he
kept the land in which his castle was situated and also land for making
his borough, park and fishpond. The town possesses large tanneries.
KENITES, in the Bible a tribe or clan of the south of Palestine, closely
associated with the Amalekites, whose hostility towards Israel, however,
it did not share. On this account Saul spared them when bidden by Yahweh
to destroy Amalek; David, too, whilst living in Judah, appears to have
been on friendly terms with them (1 Sam. xv. 6; xxx. 29). Moses himself
married into a Kenite family (Judges i. 16), and the variant tradition
would seem to show that the Kenites were only a branch of the Midianites
(see JETHRO, MIDIAN). Jael, the slayer of Sisera (see DEBORAH), was the
wife of Heber the Kenite, who lived near Kadesh in Naphtali; and the
appearance of the clan in this locality may be explained from the
nomadic habits of the tribe, or else as a result of the northward
movement in which at least one other clan or tribe took part (see Dan).
There is an obscure allusion to their destruction in an appendage to the
oracles of Balaam (Num. xxiv. 21 seq., see G. B. Gray, _Intern. Crit.
Comm._ p. 376); and with this, the only unfavourable reference to them,
may perhaps be associated the curse of Cain. Although some connexion
with the name of Cain is probable, it is difficult, however, to explain
the curse (for one view, see LEVITES). More important is the prominent
part played by the Kenite (or Midianite) father-in-law of Moses, whose
help and counsel are related in Exod. xviii.; and if, as seems probable,
the Rechabites (q.v.) were likewise of Kenite origin (1 Chron. ii. 55),
this obscure tribe had evidently an important part in shaping the
religion of Israel.
See on this question, HEBREW RELIGION, and Budde, _Religion of Israel
to the Exile_, vol. i.; G. A. Barton, _Semitic Origins_, pp. 272 sqq.;
L. B. Paton, _Biblical World_ (1906, July and August). On the
migration of the Kenites into Palestine (cf. Num. x. 29 with Judges i.
16), see CALEB, GENESIS, JERAHMEEL, JUDAH. (S. A. C.)
KENMORE, a village and parish of Perthshire, Scotland, 6 m. W. of
Aberfeldy. Pop. of parish (1901), 1271. It is situated at the foot of
Loch Tay, near the point where the river Tay leaves the lake. Taymouth
Castle, the seat of the Marquess of Breadalbane, stands near the base of
Drummond Hill in a princely park through which flows the Tay. It is a
stately four-storeyed edifice with corner towers and a central pavilion,
and was built in 1801 (the west wing being added in 1842) on the site of
the mansion erected in 1580 for Sir Colin Campbell of Glenorchy. The old
house was called Balloch (Gaelic, _bealach_, "the outlet of a lake").
Two miles S.W. of Kenmore are the Falls of the Acharn, 80 ft. high. When
Wordsworth and his sister visited them in 1803 the grotto at the cascade
was fitted up to represent a "hermit's mossy cell." At the village of
Fortingall, on the north side of Loch Tay, are the shell of a yew
conjectured to be 3000 years old and the remains of a Roman camp.
Glenlyon House was the home of Campbell of Glenlyon, chief agent in the
massacre of Glencoe. At Garth, 2(1/2) m. N.E., are the ruins of an
ancient castle, said to have been a stronghold of Alexander Stewart, the
Wolf of Badenoch (1343-1405), in close proximity to the modern mansion
built for Sir Donald Currie.
KENMURE, WILLIAM GORDON, 6th viscount (d. 1716), Jacobite leader, son of
Alexander, 5th viscount (d. 1698), was descended from the same family as
Sir John Gordon of Lochinvar (d. 1604), whose grandson, Sir John Gordon
(d. 1634), was created Viscount Kenmure in 1633. The family had
generally adhered to the Presbyterian cause, but Robert, the 4th
viscount, had been excepted from the amnesty granted to the Scottish
royalists in 1654, and the 5th viscount, who had succeeded his kinsman
Robert in 1663, after some vacillation, had joined the court of the
exiled Stuarts. The 6th viscount's adherence to the Pretender in 1715 is
said to have been due to his wife Mary Dalzell (d. 1776), sister of
Robert, 6th earl of Carnwath. He raised the royal standard of Scotland
at Lochmaben on the 12th of October 1715, and was joined by about two
hundred gentlemen, with Carnwath, William Maxwell, 5th earl of
Nithsdale, and George Seton, 5th earl of Wintoun. This small force
received some additions before Kenmure reached Hawick, where he learnt
the news of the English rising. He effected a junction with Thomas
Forster and James Radclyffe, 3rd earl of Derwentwater, at Rothbury.
Their united forces of some fourteen hundred men, after a series of
rather aimless marches, halted at Kelso, where they were reinforced by a
brigade under William Mackintosh. Threatened by an English army under
General George Carpenter, they eventually crossed the English border to
join the Lancashire Jacobites, and the command was taken over by
Forster. Kenmure was taken prisoner at Preston on the 13th of November,
and was sent to the Tower. In the following January he was tried with
other Jacobite noblemen before the House of Lords, when he pleaded
guilty, and appealed to the king's mercy. Immediately before his
execution on Tower Hill on the 24th of February he reiterated his belief
in the claims of the Pretender. His estates and titles were forfeited,
but in 1824 an act of parliament repealed the forfeiture, and his direct
descendant, John Gordon (1750-1840), became Viscount Kenmure. On the
death of the succeeding peer, Adam, 8th viscount, without issue in 1847,
the title became dormant.
KENNEDY, the name of a famous and powerful Scottish family long settled
in Ayrshire, derived probably from the name Kenneth. Its chief seat is
at Culzean, or Colzean, near Maybole in Ayrshire.
A certain Duncan who became earl of Carrick early in the 13th century is
possibly an ancestor of the Kennedys, but a more certain ancestor is
John Kennedy of Dunure, who obtained Cassillis and other lands in
Ayrshire about 1350. John's descendant, Sir James Kennedy, married Mary,
a daughter of King Robert III. and their son, Sir Gilbert Kennedy, was
created Lord Kennedy before 1458. Another son was James Kennedy (c.
1406-1465), bishop of St Andrews from 1441 until his death in July 1465.
The bishop founded and endowed St Salvator's college at St Andrews and
built a large and famous ship called the "St Salvator." Andrew Lang
(_History of Scotland_, vol. i.) says of him, "The chapel which he built
for his college is still thronged by the scarlet gowns of his students;
his arms endure on the oaken doors; the beautiful silver mace of his
gift, wrought in Paris, and representing all orders of spirits in the
universe, is one of the few remaining relics of ancient Scottish plate."
Before the bishop had begun to assist in ruling Scotland, a kinsman, Sir
Hugh Kennedy, had helped Joan of Arc to drive the English from France.
One of Gilbert Kennedy's sons was the poet, Walter Kennedy (q.v.), and
his grandson David, third Lord Kennedy (killed at Flodden, 1513), was
created earl of Cassillis before 1510; David's sister Janet Kennedy was
one of the mistresses of James IV. The earl was succeeded by his son
Gilbert, a prominent figure in the history of Scotland from 1513 until
he was killed at Prestwick on the 22nd of December 1527. His son
Gilbert, the 3rd earl (c. 1517-1558), was educated by George Buchanan,
and was a prisoner in England after the rout of Solway Moss in 1542. He
was soon released and was lord high treasurer of Scotland from 1554 to
1558, although he had been intriguing with the English and had offered
to kill Cardinal Beaton in the interests of Henry VIII. He died somewhat
mysteriously at Dieppe late in 1558 when returning from Paris, where he
had attended the marriage of Mary Queen of Scots, and the dauphin of
France. He was the father of the "king of Carrick" and the brother of
Quintin Kennedy (1520-1564), abbot of Crossraguel. The abbot wrote
several works defending the doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church, and
in 1562 had a public discussion on these questions with John Knox, which
took place at Maybole and lasted for three days. He died on the 22nd of
August 1564.
Gilbert Kennedy, 4th earl of Cassillis (c. 1541-1576), called the "king
of Carrick," became a protestant, but fought for Queen Mary at Langside
in 1568. He is better known through his cruel treatment of Allan
Stewart, the commendator abbot of Crossraguel, Stewart being badly
burned by the earl's orders at Dunure in 1570 in order to compel him to
renounce his title to the abbey lands which had been seized by
Cassillis. This "ane werry greedy man" died at Edinburgh in December
1576. His son John (c. 1567-1615), who became the 5th earl, was lord
high treasurer of Scotland in 1599 and his lifetime witnessed the
culmination of a great feud between the senior and a younger branch of
the Kennedy family. He was succeeded as 6th earl by his nephew John (c.
1595-1668), called "the grave and solemn earl." A strong presbyterian,
John was one of the leaders of the Scots in their resistance to Charles
I. In 1643 he went to the Westminster Assembly of Divines and several
times he was sent on missions to Charles I. and to Charles II.; for a
time he was lord justice general and he was a member of Cromwell's House
of Lords. His son, John, became the 7th earl, and one of his daughters,
Margaret, married Gilbert Burnet, afterwards bishop of Salisbury. His
first wife, Jean (1607-1642), daughter of Thomas Hamilton, 1st earl of
Haddington, has been regarded as the heroine of the ballad "The Gypsie
Laddie," but this identity is now completely disproved. John, the 7th
earl, "the heir," says Burnet, "to his father's stiffness, but not to
his other virtues," supported the revolution of 1688 and died on the
23rd of July 1701; his grandson John, the 8th earl, died without sons in
August 1759.
The titles and estates of the Kennedys were now claimed by William
Douglas, afterwards duke of Queensberry, a great-grandson in the female
line of the 7th earl and also by Sir Thomas Kennedy, Bart., of Culzean,
a descendant of the 3rd earl, i.e. by the heir general and the heir
male. In January 1762 the House of Lords decided in favour of the heir
male, and Sir Thomas became the 9th earl of Cassillis. He died unmarried
on the 30th of November 1775, and his brother David, the 10th earl, also
died unmarried on the 18th of December 1792, when the baronetcy became
extinct. The earldom of Cassillis now passed to a cousin, Archibald
Kennedy, a captain in the royal navy, whose father, Archibald Kennedy
(d. 1763), had migrated to America in 1722 and had become collector of
customs in New York. His son, the 11th earl, had estates in New Jersey
and married an American heiress; in 1765 he was said to own more houses
in New York than any one else. He died in London on the 30th of December
1794, and was succeeded by his son Archibald (1770-1846), who was
created Baron Ailsa in 1806 and marquess of Ailsa in 1831. His
great-grandson Archibald (b. 1847) became 3rd marquess.
See the article in vol. ii. of Sir R. Douglas's _Peerage of Scotland_,
edited by Sir J. B. Paul (1905). This is written by Lord Ailsa's son
and heir, Archibald Kennedy, earl of Cassillis (b. 1872).
KENNEDY, BENJAMIN HALL (1804-1889), English scholar, was born at Summer
Hill, near Birmingham, on the 6th of November 1804, the eldest son of
Rann Kennedy (1772-1851), who came of a branch of the Ayrshire family
which had settled in Staffordshire. Rann Kennedy was a scholar and man
of letters, several of whose sons rose to distinction. B. H. Kennedy was
educated at Birmingham and Shrewsbury schools, and St John's College,
Cambridge. After a brilliant university career he was elected fellow and
classical lecturer of St John's College in 1828. Two years later he
became an assistant master at Harrow, whence he went to Shrewsbury as
headmaster in 1836. He retained this post until 1866, the thirty years
of his rule being marked by a long series of successes won by his
pupils, chiefly in classics. When he retired from Shrewsbury a large sum
was collected as a testimonial to him, and was devoted partly to the new
school buildings and partly to the founding of a Latin professorship at
Cambridge. The first two occupants of the chair were both Kennedy's old
pupils, H. A. J. Munro and J. E. B. Mayor. In 1867 he was elected
regius professor of Greek at Cambridge and canon of Ely. From 1870 to
1880 he was a member of the committee for the revision of the New
Testament. He was an enthusiastic advocate for the admission of women to
a university education, and took a prominent part in the establishment
of Newnham and Girton colleges. He was also a keen politician of liberal
sympathies. He died near Torquay on the 6th of April 1889. Among a
number of classical school-books published by him are two, a _Public
School Latin Primer_ and _Public School Latin Grammar_, which were for
long in use in nearly all English schools.
His other chief works are: Sophocles, _Oedipus Tyrannus_ (2nd ed.,
1885), Aristophanes, _Birds_ (1874); Aeschylus, _Agamemnon_ (2nd ed.,
1882), with introduction, metrical translation and notes; a commentary
on Virgil (3rd ed., 1881); and a translation of Plato, _Theaetetus_
(1881). He contributed largely to the collection known as _Sabrinae
Corolla_, and published a collection of verse in Greek, Latin and
English under the title of _Between Whiles_ (2nd ed., 1882), with many
autobiographical details.
His brother, CHARLES RANN KENNEDY (1808-1867), was educated at
Shrewsbury school and Trinity College, Cambridge, where he graduated as
senior classic (1831). He then became a barrister. From 1849-1856 he was
professor of law at Queen's College, Birmingham. As adviser to Mrs
Swinfen, the plaintiff in the celebrated will case Swinfen v. Swinfen
(1856), he brought an action for remuneration for professional services,
but the verdict given in his favour at Warwick assizes was set aside by
the court of Common Pleas, on the ground that a barrister could not sue
for the recovery of his fees. The excellence of Kennedy's scholarship is
abundantly proved by his translation of the orations of Demosthenes
(1852-1863, in Bohn's _Classical Library_), and his blank verse
translation of the works of Virgil (1861). He was also the author of
_New Rules for Pleading_ (2nd ed., 1841) and _A Treatise on Annuities_
(1846). He died in Birmingham on the 17th of December 1867.
Another brother, REV. WILLIAM JAMES KENNEDY (1814-1891), was a prominent
educationalist, and the father of Lord Justice Sir William Rann Kennedy
(b. 1846), himself a distinguished Cambridge scholar.
KENNEDY, THOMAS FRANCIS (1788-1879), Scottish politician, was born near
Ayr in 1788. He studied for the bar and became advocate in 1811. Having
been elected M.P. for the Ayr burghs in 1818, he devoted the greater
part of his life to the promotion of Liberal reforms. In 1820 he married
the only daughter of Sir Samuel Romilly. He was greatly assisted by Lord
Cockburn, then Mr Henry Cockburn, and a volume of correspondence
published by Kennedy in 1874 forms a curious and interesting record of
the consultations of the two friends on measures which they regarded as
requisite for the political regeneration of their native country. One of
the first measures to which he directed his attention was the withdrawal
of the power of nominating juries from the judges, and the imparting of
a right of peremptory challenge to prisoners. Among other subjects were
the improvement of the parish schools, of pauper administration, and of
several of the corrupt forms of legal procedure which then prevailed. In
the construction of the Scottish Reform Act Kennedy took a prominent
part; indeed he and Lord Cockburn may almost be regarded as its authors.
After the accession of the Whigs to office in 1832 he held various
important offices in the ministry, and most of the measures of reform
for Scotland, such as burgh reform, the improvements in the law of
entail, and the reform of the sheriff courts, owed much to his sagacity
and energy. In 1837 he went to Ireland as paymaster of civil services,
and set himself to the promotion of various measures of reform. Kennedy
retired from office in 1854, but continued to take keen interest in
political affairs, and up to his death in 1879 took a great part in both
county and parish business. He had a stern love of justice, and a
determined hatred of everything savouring of jobbery or dishonesty.
KENNEDY, WALTER (c. 1460-c. 1508), Scottish poet, was the third son of
Gilbert, 1st Lord Kennedy. He matriculated at Glasgow University in
1475 and took his M.A. degree in 1478. In 1481 he was one of four
examiners in his university, and in 1492 he acted as depute for his
nephew, the hereditary bailie of Carrick. He is best known for his share
in the _Flyting_ with Dunbar (q.v.). In this coarse combat of wits
Dunbar taunts his rival with his Highland speech (the poem is an
expression of Gaelic and "Inglis," i.e. English, antagonism); and
implies that he had been involved in treason, and had disguised himself
as a beggar in Galloway. With the exception of this share in the
_Flyting_ Kennedy's poems are chiefly religious in character. They
include _The Praise of Aige_, _Ane Agit Manis Invective against Mouth
Thankless_, _Ane Ballat in Praise of Our Lady_, _The Passion of Christ_
and _Pious Counsale_. They are printed in the rare supplement to David
Laing's edition of _William Dunbar_ (1834), and they have been re-edited
by Dr J. Schipper in the proceedings of the Kais. Akad. der
Wissenschaften (Vienna).
See also the prolegomena in the Scottish Text Society's edition of
Dunbar; and (for the life) Pitcairn's edition of the _Historie of the
Kennedies_ (1830).
KENNEL, a small hut or shelter for a dog, also extended to a group of
buildings for a pack of hounds (see DOG). The word is apparently from a
Norman-French _kenil_ (this form does not occur, but is seen in the
Norman _kinet_, a little dog), modern French _chenil_, from popular
Latin _canile_, place for a dog, _canis_, cf. _ovile_, sheep-cote. The
word "kennel," a gutter, a drain in a street or road, is a corruption of
the Middle English _canel, cannel_, in modern English "channel," from
Latin _canalis_, canal.
KENNETH, the name of two kings of the Scots.
KENNETH I., MacAlpin (d. c. 860), often described as the first king of
Scotland (kingdom of Scone), was the son of the Alpin, called king of
the Scots, who had been slain by the Picts in 832 or 834, whilst
endeavouring to assert his claim to the Pictish throne. On the death of
his father, Kenneth is said to have succeeded him in the kingdom of the
Scots. The region of his rule is matter of conjecture, though Galloway
seems the most probable suggestion, in which case he probably led a
piratic host against the Picts. On the father's side he was descended
from the Conall Gabhrain of the old Dalriadic Scottish kingdom, and the
claims of father and son to the Pictish throne were probably through
female descent. Their chief support seems to have been found in Fife. In
the seventh year of his reign (839 or 841) he took advantage of the
effects of a Danish invasion of the Pictish kingdom to attack the
remaining Picts, whom he finally subdued in 844 or 846. In 846 or 848 he
transported the relics of St Columba to a church which he had
constructed at Scone. He is said also to have carried out six invasions
of Northumbria, in the course of which he burnt Dunbar and took Melrose.
According to the _Scalacronica_ of Sir Thomas Gray he drove the Angles
and Britons over the Tweed, reduced the land as far as that river, and
first called his kingdom Scotland. In his reign there appears to have
been a serious invasion by Danish pirates, in which Cluny and Dunkeld
were burnt. He died in 860 or 862, after a reign of twenty-eight years,
at Forteviot and was buried at Iona. The double dates are due to a
contest of authorities. Twenty-eight years is the accepted length of his
reign, and according to the chronicle of Henry of Huntingdon it began in
832. The Pictish Chronicle, however, gives Tuesday, the 13th of February
as the day, and this suits 862 only, in which case his reign would begin
in 834.
KENNETH II. (d. 995), son of Malcolm I., king of Alban, succeeded
Cuilean, son of Indulph, who had been slain by the Britons of
Strathclyde in 971 in Lothian. Kenneth began his reign by ravaging the
British kingdom, but he lost a large part of his force on the river
Cornag. Soon afterwards he attacked Eadulf, earl of the northern half of
Northumbria, and ravaged the whole of his territory. He fortified the
fords of the Forth as a defence against the Britons and again invaded
Northumbria, carrying off the earl's son. About this time he gave the
city of Brechin to the church. In 977 he is said to have slain Amlaiph
or Olaf, son of Indulph, king of Alban, perhaps a rival claimant to the
throne. According to the English chroniclers, Kenneth paid homage to
King Edgar for the cession of Lothian, but these statements are probably
due to the controversy as to the position of Scotland. The _mormaers_,
or chiefs, of Kenneth were engaged throughout his reign in a contest
with Sigurd the Norwegian, earl of Orkney, for the possession of
Caithness and the northern district of Scotland as far south as the
Spey. In this struggle the Scots attained no permanent success. In 995
Kenneth, whose strength like that of the other kings of his branch of
the house of Kenneth MacAlpin lay chiefly north of the Tay, was slain
treacherously by his own subjects, according to the later chroniclers at
Fettercairn in the Mearns through an intrigue of Einvela, daughter of
the earl of Angus. He was buried at Iona.
See _Chronicles of the Picts and Scots_, ed. W. F. Skene (Edinburgh,
1867), and W. F. Skene, _Celtic Scotland_ (Edinburgh, 1876).
KENNETT, WHITE (1660-1728), English bishop and antiquary, was born at
Dover in August 1660. He was educated at Westminster school and at St
Edmund's Hall, Oxford, where, while an undergraduate, he published
several translations of Latin works, including Erasmus _In Praise of
Folly_. In 1685 he became vicar of Ambrosden, Oxfordshire. A few years
afterwards he returned to Oxford as tutor and vice-principal of St
Edmund's Hall, where he gave considerable impetus to the study of
antiquities. George Hickes gave him lessons in Old English. In 1695 he
published _Parochial Antiquities_. In 1700 he became rector of St
Botolph's, Aldgate, London, and in 1701 archdeacon of Huntingdon. For a
eulogistic sermon on the first duke of Devonshire he was in 1707
recommended to the deanery of Peterborough. He afterwards joined the Low
Church party, strenuously opposed the Sacheverel movement, and in the
Bangorian controversy supported with great zeal and considerable
bitterness the side of Bishop Hoadly. His intimacy with Charles
Trimnell, bishop of Norwich, who was high in favour with the king,
secured for him in 1718 the bishopric of Peterborough. He died at
Westminster in December 1728.
Kennett published in 1698 an edition of Sir Henry Spelman's _History
of Sacrilege_, and he was the author of fifty-seven printed works,
chiefly tracts and sermons. He wrote the third volume (Charles
I.-Anne) of the composite _Compleat History of England_ (1706), and a
more detailed and valuable _Register and Chronicle_ of the
Restoration. He was much interested in the Society for the Propagation
of the Gospel.
The _Life of Bishop White Kennett_, by the Rev. William Newton
(anonymous), appeared in 1730. See also Nichols's _Literary
Anecdotes_, and I. Disraeli's _Calamities of Authors_.
KENNEY, JAMES (1780-1849), English dramatist, was the son of James
Kenney, one of the founders of Boodles' Club in London. His first play,
a farce called _Raising the Wind_ (1803), was a success owing to the
popularity of the character of "Jeremy Diddler." Kenney produced more
than forty dramas and operas between 1803 and 1845, and many of his
pieces, in which Mrs Siddons, Madame Vestris, Foote, Lewis, Liston and
other leading players appeared from time to time, enjoyed a considerable
vogue. His most popular play was _Sweethearts and Wives_, produced at
the Haymarket theatre in 1823, and several times afterwards revived; and
among the most successful of his other works were: _False Alarms_
(1807), a comic opera with music by Braham; _Love, Law and Physic_
(1812); _Spring and Autumn_ (1827); _The Illustrious Stranger, or
Married and Buried_ (1827); _Masaniello_ (1829); _The Sicilian Vespers_,
a tragedy (1840). Kenney, who numbered Charles Lamb and Samuel Rogers
among his friends, died in London on the 25th of July 1849. He married
the widow of the dramatist Thomas Holcroft, by whom he had two sons and
two daughters.
His second son, CHARLES LAMB KENNEY (1823-1881), made a name as a
journalist, dramatist and miscellaneous writer. Commencing life as a
clerk in the General Post Office in London, he joined the staff of _The
Times_, to which paper he contributed dramatic criticism. In 1856,
having been called to the bar, he became secretary to Ferdinand de
Lesseps, and in 1857 he published _The Gates of the East_ in support of
the projected construction of the Suez Canal. Kenney wrote the words for
a number of light operas, and was the author of several popular songs,
the best known of which were "Soft and Low" (1865) and "The Vagabond"
(1871). He also published a _Memoir of M. W. Balfe_ (1875), and
translated the _Correspondence_ of Balzac. He included Thackeray and
Dickens among his friends in a literary coterie in which he enjoyed the
reputation of a wit and an accomplished writer of _vers de societe_. He
died in London on the 25th of August 1881.
See John Genest, _Some Account of the English Stage, 1660-1830_, vols.
vii. and viii. (10 vols., London, 1832); P. W. Clayden, _Rogers and
his Contemporaries_ (2 vols., London, 1889); _Dict. National Biog_.
KENNGOTT, GUSTAV ADOLPH (1818-1897), German mineralogist, was born at
Breslau on the 6th of January 1818. After being employed in the
Hofmineralien Cabinet at Vienna, he became professor of mineralogy in
the university of Zurich. He was distinguished for his researches on
mineralogy, crystallography and petrology. He died at Lugano, on the 7th
of March 1897.
PUBLICATIONS.--_Lehrbuch der reinen Krystallographie_ (1846);
_Lehrbuch der Mineralogie_ (1852 and 1857; 5th ed., 1880); _Ubersicht
der Resultate mineralogischer Forschungen in den Jahren 1844-1865_ (7
vols., 1852-1868); _Die Minerale der Schweiz_ (1866); _Elemente der
Petrographie_ (1868).
KENNICOTT, BENJAMIN (1718-1783), English divine and Hebrew scholar, was
born at Totnes, Devonshire, on the 4th of April 1718. He succeeded his
father as master of a charity school, but by the liberality of friends
he was enabled to go to Wadham College, Oxford, in 1744, where he
distinguished himself in Hebrew and divinity. While an undergraduate he
published two dissertations, _On the Tree of Life in Paradise, with some
Observations on the Fall of Man_, and _On the Oblations of Cain and
Abel_ (2nd ed., 1747), which procured him the honour of a bachelor's
degree before the statutory time. In 1747 he was elected fellow of
Exeter College, and in 1750 he took his degree of M.A. In 1764 he was
made a fellow of the Royal Society, and in 1767 keeper of the Radcliffe
Library. He was also canon of Christ Church (1770) and rector of Culham
(1753), in Oxfordshire, and was subsequently presented to the living of
Menheniot, Cornwall, which he was unable to visit and resigned two years
before his death. He died at Oxford, on the 18th of September 1783.
His chief work is the _Vetus Testamentum hebraicum cum variis
lectionibus_ (2 vols. fol., Oxford, 1776-1780). Before this appeared
he had written two dissertations entitled _The State of the Printed
Hebrew Text of the Old Testament considered_, published respectively
in 1753 and 1759, which were designed to combat the then current ideas
as to the "absolute integrity" of the received Hebrew text. The first
contains "a comparison of 1 Chron. xi. with 2 Sam. v. and xxiii. and
observations on seventy MSS., with an extract of mistakes and various
readings"; the second defends the claims of the Samaritan Pentateuch,
assails the correctness of the printed copies of the Chaldee
paraphrase, gives an account of Hebrew MSS. of the Bible known to be
extant, and catalogues one hundred MSS. preserved in the British
Museum and in the libraries of Oxford and Cambridge. In 1760 he issued
his proposals for collating all Hebrew MSS. of date prior to the
invention of printing. Subscriptions to the amount of nearly L10,000
were obtained, and many learned men addressed themselves to the work
of collation, Bruns of Helmstadt making himself specially useful as
regarded MSS. in Germany, Switzerland and Italy. Between 1760 and 1769
ten "annual accounts" of the progress of the work were given; in its
course 615 Hebrew MSS. and 52 printed editions of the Bible were
either wholly or partially collated, and use was also made (but often
very perfunctorily) of the quotations in the Talmud. The materials
thus collected, when properly arranged and made ready for the press,
extended to 30 vols. fol. The text finally followed in printing was
that of Van der Hooght--unpointed however, the points having been
disregarded in collation--and the various readings were printed at the
foot of the page. The Samaritan Pentateuch stands alongside the Hebrew
in parallel columns. The _Dissertatio generalis_, appended to the
second volume, contains an account of the MSS. and other authorities
collated, and also a review of the Hebrew text, divided into periods,
and beginning with the formation of the Hebrew canon after the return
of the Jews from the exile. Kennicott's great work was in one sense a
failure. It yielded no materials of value for the emendation of the
received text, and by disregarding the vowel points overlooked the one
thing in which some result (grammatical if not critical) might have
been derived from collation of Massoretic MSS. But the negative result
of the publication and of the _Variae lectiones_ of De Rossi,
published some years later, was important. It showed that the Hebrew
text can be emended only by the use of the versions aided by
conjecture.
Kennicott's work was perpetuated by his widow, who founded two
university scholarships at Oxford for the study of Hebrew. The fund
yields an income of L200 per annum.
KENNINGTON, a district in the south of London, England, within the
municipal borough of Lambeth. There was a royal palace here until the
reign of Henry VII. Kennington Common, now represented by Kennington
Park, was the site of a gallows until the end of the 18th century, and
was the meeting-place appointed for the great Chartist demonstration of
the 10th of April 1848. Kennington Oval is the ground of the Surrey
County Cricket Club. (See LAMBETH.)
KENORA (formerly RAT PORTAGE), a town and port of entry in Ontario,
Canada, and the chief town of Rainy River district, situated at an
altitude of 1087 ft. above the sea. Pop. (1891), 1806; (1901) 5222. It
is 133 m. by rail east of Winnipeg, on the Canadian Pacific railway, and
at the outlet of the Lake of the Woods. The Winnipeg river has at this
point a fall of 16 ft., which, with the lake as a reservoir, furnishes
an abundant and unfailing water-power. The industrial establishments
comprise reduction works, saw-mills and flour-mills, one of the latter
being the largest in Canada. It is the distributing point for the gold
mines of the district, and during the summer months steamboat
communication is maintained on the lake. There is important sturgeon
fishing.
KENOSHA, a city and the county-seat of Kenosha county, Wisconsin,
U.S.A., on the S.W. shore of Lake Michigan, 35 m. S. of Milwaukee and 50
m. N. of Chicago. Pop. (1900), 11,606, of whom 3333 were foreign-born;
(1910), 21,371. It is served by the Chicago & North-Western railway, by
interurban electric lines connecting with Chicago and Milwaukee, and by
freight and passenger steamship lines on Lake Michigan. It has a good
harbour and a considerable lake commerce. The city is finely situated on
high bluffs above the lake, and is widely known for its healthiness. At
Kenosha is the Gilbert M. Simmons library, with 19,300 volumes in 1908.
Just south of the city is Kemper Hall, a Protestant Episcopal school for
girls, under the charge of the Sisters of St Mary, opened in 1870 as a
memorial to Jackson Kemper (1789-1870), the first missionary bishop
(1835-1859), and the first bishop of Wisconsin (1854-1870) of the
Protestant Episcopal Church. Among Kenosha's manufactures are brass and
iron beds (the Simmons Manufacturing Co.), mattresses, typewriters,
leather and brass goods, wagons, and automobiles--the "Rambler"
automobile being made at Kenosha by Thomas B. Jeffery and Co. There is
an extensive sole-leather tannery. The total value of the factory
product in 1905 was $12,362,600, the city ranking third in product value
among the cities of the state. Kenosha, originally known as Southport,
was settled about 1832, organized as the village of Southport in 1842,
and chartered in 1850 as a city under its present name.
KENSETT, JOHN FREDERICK (1818-1872), American artist, was born in
Cheshire, Connecticut, on the 22nd of March 1818. After studying
engraving he went abroad, took up painting, and exhibited at the Royal
Academy, London, in 1845. In 1849 he was elected to the National Academy
of Design, New York, and in 1859 he was appointed a member of the
committee to superintend the decoration of the United States Capitol at
Washington, D.C. After his death the contents of his studio realized at
public auction over $150,000. He painted landscapes more or less in the
manner of the Hudson River School.
KENSINGTON, a western metropolitan borough of London, England, bounded
N.E. by Paddington, and the city of Westminster, S.E. by Chelsea, S.W.
by Fulham, N.W. by Hammersmith, and extending N. to the boundary of the
county of London. Pop. (1901), 176,628. It includes the districts of
Kensal Green (partly) in the north, Notting Hill in the north-central
portion, Earl's Court in the south-west, and Brompton in the south-east.
A considerable but indefinite area adjoining Brompton is commonly called
South Kensington; but the area known as West Kensington is within the
borough of Fulham.
The name appears in early forms as _Chenesitun_ and _Kenesitune_. Its
origin is obscure, and has been variously connected with a Saxon royal
residence (King's town), a family of the name of Chenesi, and the word
_caen_, meaning wood, from the forest which originally covered the
district and was still traceable in Tudor times. The most probable
derivation, however, finds in the name a connection with the Saxon tribe
or family of Kensings. The history of the manor is traceable from the
time of Edward the Confessor, and after the Conquest it was held of the
Bishop of Coutances by Aubrey de Vere. Soon after this it became the
absolute property of the de Veres, who were subsequently created Earls
of Oxford. The place of the manorial courts is preserved in the name of
the modern district of Earl's Court. With a few short intervals the
manor continued in the direct line until Tudor times. There were also
three sub-manors, one given by the first Aubrey de Vere early in the
12th century to the Abbot of Abingdon, whence the present parish church
is called St Mary Abbots; while in another, Knotting Barnes, the origin
of the name Notting Hill is found.
The brilliant period of history for which Kensington is famous may be
dated from the settlement of the Court here by William III. The village,
as it was then, had a reputation for healthiness through its gravel soil
and pure atmosphere. A mansion standing on the western flank of the
present Kensington Gardens had been the seat of Heneage Finch, Lord
Chancellor and afterwards Earl of Nottingham. It was known as Nottingham
House, but when bought from the second earl by William, who was desirous
of avoiding residence in London as he suffered from asthma, it became
known as Kensington Palace. The extensive additions and alterations made
by Wren according to the taste of the King resulted in a severely plain
edifice of brick; the orangery, added in Queen Anne's time, is a better
example of the same architect's work. In the palace died Mary, William's
consort, William himself, Anne and George II., whose wife Caroline did
much to beautify Kensington Gardens, and formed the beautiful lake
called the Serpentine (1733). But a higher interest attaches to the
palace as the birthplace of Queen Victoria in 1819; and here her
accession was announced to her. By her order, towards the close of her
life, the palace became open to the public.
Modern influences, one of the most marked of which is the widespread
erection of vast blocks of residential flats, have swept away much that
was reminiscent of the historical connexions of the "old court suburb."
Kensington Square, however, lying south of High Street in the vicinity
of St Mary Abbots church, still preserves some of its picturesque
houses, nearly all of which were formerly inhabited by those attached to
the court; it numbered among its residents Addison, Talleyrand, John
Stuart Mill, and Green the historian. In Young Street, opening from the
Square, Thackeray lived for many years. His house here, still standing,
is most commonly associated with his work, though he subsequently moved
to Onslow Square and to Palace Green. Another link with the past is
found in Holland House, hidden in its beautiful park north of Kensington
Road. It was built by Sir Walter Cope, lord of the manor, in 1607, and
obtained its present name on coming into the possession of Henry Rich,
earl of Holland, through his marriage with Cope's daughter. He extended
and beautified the mansion. General Fairfax and General Lambert are
mentioned as occupants after his death, and later the property was let,
William Penn of Pennsylvania being among those who leased it. Addison,
marrying the widow of the 6th earl, lived here until his death in 1719.
During the tenancy of Henry Fox, third Lord Holland (1773-1840), the
house gained a European reputation as a meeting-place of statesmen and
men of letters. The formal gardens of Holland House are finely laid out,
and the rooms of the house are both beautiful in themselves and enriched
with collections of pictures, china and tapestries. Famous houses no
longer standing were Campden House, in the district north-west of the
parish church, formerly known as the Gravel Pits; and Gore House, on the
site of the present Albert Hall, the residence of William Wilberforce,
and later of the countess of Blessington.
The parish church of St Mary Abbots, High Street, occupies an ancient
site, but was built from the designs of Sir Gilbert Scott in 1869. It is
in Decorated style, and has one of the loftiest spires in England. In
the north the borough includes the cemetery of Kensal Green (with the
exception of the Roman Catholic portion, which is in the borough of
Hammersmith); it was opened in 1838, and great numbers of eminent
persons are buried here. The Roman Catholic church of Our Lady of
Victories lies close to Kensington Road, and in Brompton Road is the
Oratory of St Philip Neri, a fine building with richly decorated
interior, noted for the beauty of its musical services, as is the
Carmelite Church in Church Street. St Charles's Roman Catholic College
(for boys), near the north end of Ladbroke Grove, was founded by
Cardinal Manning in 1863; the buildings are now used as a training
centre for Catholic school mistresses. Of secular institutions the
principal are the museums in South Kensington. The Victoria and Albert,
commonly called the South Kensington, Museum contains various exhibits
divided into sections, and includes the buildings of the Royal College
of Science. Close by is the Natural History Museum, in a great building
by Alfred Waterhouse, opened as a branch of the British Museum in 1880.
Near this stood Cromwell House, erroneously considered to have been the
residence of Oliver Cromwell, the name of which survives in the adjacent
Cromwell Road. In Kensington Gardens, near the upper end of Exhibition
Road, which separates the two museums, was held the Great Exhibition of
1851, the hall of which is preserved as the Crystal Palace at Sydenham.
The greater part of the gardens, however, with the Albert Memorial,
erected by Queen Victoria in memory of Albert, prince consort, the
Albert Hall, opposite to it, one of the principal concert-halls in
London, and the Imperial Institute to the south, are actually within the
city of Westminster, though commonly connected with Kensington. The
gardens (275 acres) were laid out in the time of Queen Anne, and have
always been a popular and fashionable place of recreation. Extensive
grounds at Earl's Court are open from time to time for various
exhibitions. Further notable buildings in Kensington are the town-hall
and free library in High Street, which is also much frequented for its
excellent shops, and the Brompton Consumption Hospital, Fulham Road. In
Holland Park Road is the house of Lord Leighton (d. 1896), given to the
nation, and open, with its art collection, to the public.
Kensington is a suffragan bishopric in the diocese of London. The
parliamentary borough of Kensington has north and south divisions, each
returning one member. The borough council consists of a mayor, 10
aldermen and 60 councillors. Area, 2291.1 acres.
KENT, EARLS AND DUKES OF. The first holder of the English earldom of
Kent was probably Odo, bishop of Bayeux, and the second a certain
William de Ypres (d. 1162), both of whom were deprived of the dignity.
The regent Hubert de Burgh obtained this honour in 1227, and in 1321 it
was granted to Edmund Plantagenet, the youngest brother of Edward II.
Edmund (1301-1330), who was born at Woodstock on the 5th of August 1301,
received many marks of favour from his brother the king, whom he
steadily supported until the last act in Edward's life opened in 1326.
He fought in Scotland and then in France, and was a member of the
council when Edward III. became king in 1327. Soon at variance with
Queen Isabella and her lover, Roger Mortimer, Edmund was involved in a
conspiracy to restore Edward II., who he was led to believe was still
alive; he was arrested, and beheaded on the 19th of March 1330. Although
he had been condemned as a traitor his elder son Edmund (c. 1327-1333)
was recognized as earl of Kent, the title passing on his death to his
brother John (c. 1330-1352).
After John's childless death the earldom appears to have been held by
his sister Joan, "the fair maid of Kent," and in 1360 Joan's husband,
Sir Thomas de Holand, or Holland, was summoned to parliament as earl of
Kent. Holand, who was a soldier of some repute, died in Normandy on the
28th of December 1360, and his widow married Edward the Black Prince,
by whom she was the mother of Richard II. The next earl was Holand's
eldest son Thomas (1350-1397), who was marshal of England from 1380 to
1385, and was in high favour with his half-brother, Richard II. The 3rd
earl of Kent of the Holand family was his son Thomas (1374-1400). In
September 1397, a few months after becoming earl of Kent, Thomas was
made duke of Surrey as a reward for assisting Richard II. against the
lords appellant; but he was degraded from his dukedom in 1399, and was
beheaded in January of the following year for conspiring against Henry
IV. However, his brother Edmund (1384-1408) was allowed to succeed to
the earldom, which became extinct on his death in Brittany in September
1408.
In the same century the title was revived in favour of William, a
younger son of Ralph Neville, 1st earl of Westmorland, and through his
mother Joan Beaufort a grandson of John of Gaunt, duke of Lancaster.
William (c. 1405-1463), who held the barony of Fauconberg in right of
his wife, Joan, gained fame during the wars in France and fought for the
Yorkists during the Wars of the Roses. His prowess is said to have been
chiefly responsible for the victory of Edward IV. at Towton in March
1461, and soon after this event he was created earl of Kent and admiral
of England. He died in January 1463, and, as his only legitimate issue
were three daughters, the title of earl of Kent again became extinct.
Neville's natural son Thomas, "the bastard of Fauconberg" (d. 1471), was
a follower of Warwick, the "Kingmaker."
The long connexion of the family of Grey with this title began in 1465,
when Edmund, Lord Grey of Ruthin, was created earl of Kent. Edmund (c.
1420-1489) was the eldest son of Sir John Grey, while his mother,
Constance, was a daughter of John Holand, duke of Exeter. During the
earlier part of the Wars of the Roses Grey fought for Henry VI.; but by
deserting the Lancastrians during the battle of Northampton in 1460 he
gave the victory to the Yorkists. He was treasurer of England and held
other high offices under Edward IV. and Richard III. His son and
successor, George, 2nd earl of Kent (c. 1455-1503), also a soldier,
married Anne Woodville, a sister of Edward IV.'s queen, Elizabeth, and
was succeeded by his son Richard (1481-1524). After Richard's death
without issue, his half-brother and heir, Henry (c. 1495-1562), did not
assume the title of earl of Kent on account of his poverty; but in 1572
Henry's grandson Reginald (d. 1573), who had been member of parliament
for Weymouth, was recognized as earl; he was followed by his brother
Henry (1541-1615), and then by another brother, Charles (c. 1545-1623).
Charles's son, Henry, the 8th earl (c. 1583-1639), married Elizabeth
(1581-1651), daughter of Gilbert Talbot, 7th earl of Shrewsbury. This
lady, who was an authoress, took for her second husband the jurist John
Selden. Henry died without children in November 1639, when the earldom
of Kent, separated from the barony of Ruthin, passed to his cousin
Anthony (1557-1643), a clergyman, who was succeeded by his son Henry
(1594-1651), Lord Grey of Ruthin. Henry had been a member of parliament
from 1640 to 1643, and as a supporter of the popular party was speaker
of the House of Lords until its abolition. The 11th earl was his son
Anthony (1645-1702), whose son Henry became 12th earl in August 1702,
lord chamberlain of the royal household from 1704 to 1710, and in 1706
was created earl of Harold and marquess of Kent, becoming duke of Kent
four years later. All his sons predeceased their father, and when the
duke died in June 1740, his titles of earl, marquess and duke of Kent
became extinct.
In 1799 Edward Augustus, fourth son of George III., was created duke of
Kent and Strathearn by his father. Born on the 2nd of November 1767,
Edward served in the British army in North America and elsewhere,
becoming a field marshal in 1805. To quote Sir Spencer Walpole, Kent, a
stern disciplinarian, "was unpopular among his troops; and the storm
which was created by his well-intentioned effort at Gibraltar to check
the licentiousness and drunkenness of the garrison compelled him finally
to retire from the governorship of this colony." Owing to pecuniary
difficulties his later years were mainly passed on the continent of
Europe. He died at Sidmouth on the 23rd of January 1820. In 1818 the
duke married Maria Louisa Victoria (1786-1861), widow of Emich Charles,
prince of Leiningen (d. 1814), and sister of Leopold I., king of the
Belgians; and his only child was Queen Victoria (q.v.).
KENT, JAMES (1763-1847), American jurist, was born at Philippi in New
York State on the 31st of July 1763. He graduated at Yale College in
1781, and began to practise law at Poughkeepsie, in 1785 as an attorney,
and in 1787 at the bar. In 1791 and 1702-93 Kent was a representative of
Dutchess county in the state Assembly. In 1793 he removed to New York,
where Governor Jay, to whom the young lawyer's Federalist sympathies
were a strong recommendation, appointed him a master in chancery for the
city. He was professor of law in Columbia College in 1793-98 and again
served in the Assembly in 1796-97. In 1797 he became recorder of New
York, in 1798 judge of the supreme court of the state, in 1804 chief
justice, and in 1814 chancellor of New York. In 1822 he became a member
of the convention to revise the state constitution. Next year,
Chancellor Kent resigned his office and was re-elected to his former
chair. Out of the lectures he now delivered grew the _Commentaries on
American Law_ (4 vols., 1826-1830), which by their learning, range and
lucidity of style won for him a high and permanent place in the
estimation of both English and American jurists. Kent rendered most
essential service to American jurisprudence while serving as chancellor.
Chancery law had been very unpopular during the colonial period, and had
received little development, and no decisions had been published. His
judgments of this class (see Johnson's _Chancery Reports_, 7 vols.,
1816-1824) cover a wide range of topics, and are so thoroughly
considered and developed as unquestionably to form the basis of American
equity jurisprudence. Kent was a man of great purity of character and of
singular simplicity and guilelessness. He died in New York on the 12th
of December 1847.
To Kent we owe several other works (including a _Commentary on
International Law_) of less importance than the _Commentaries_. See J.
Duer's _Discourse on the Life, Character and Public Services of James
Kent_ (1848); _The National Portrait Gallery of Distinguished
Americans_, vol. ii. (1852); W. Kent, _Memoirs and Letters of
Chancellor Kent_ (Boston, 1898).
KENT, WILLIAM (1685-1748), English "painter, architect, and the father
of modern gardening," as Horace Walpole in his _Anecdotes of Painting_
describes him, was born in Yorkshire in 1685. Apprenticed to a
coach-painter, his ambition soon led him to London, where he began life
as a portrait and historical painter. He found patrons, who sent him in
1710 to study in Italy; and at Rome he made other friends, among them
Lord Burlington, with whom he returned to England in 1719. Under that
nobleman's roof Kent chiefly resided till his death on the 12th of April
1748--obtaining abundant commissions in all departments of his art, as
well as various court appointments which brought him an income of L600 a
year. Walpole says that Kent was below mediocrity in painting. He had
some little taste and skill in architecture, of which Holkham palace is
perhaps the most favourable example. The mediocre statue of Shakespeare
in Westminster Abbey sufficiently stamps his powers as a sculptor. His
merit in landscape gardening is greater. In Walpole's language, Kent
"was painter enough to taste the charms of landscape, bold and
opinionative enough to dare and to dictate, and born with a genius to
strike out a great system from the twilight of imperfect essays." In
short, he was the first in English gardening to vindicate the natural
against the artificial. Banishing all the clipped monstrosities of the
topiary art in yew, box or holly, releasing the streams from the
conventional canal and marble basin, and rejecting the mathematical
symmetry of ground plan then in vogue for gardens, Kent endeavoured to
imitate the variety of nature, with due regard to the principles of
light and shade and perspective. Sometimes he carried his imitation too
far, as when he planted dead trees in Kensington gardens to give a
greater air of truth to the scene, though he himself was one of the
first to detect the folly of such an extreme. Kent's plans were designed
rather with a view to immediate effect over a comparatively small area
than with regard to any broader or subsequent results.
KENT, one of the kingdoms of Anglo-Saxon Britain, the dimensions of
which seem to have corresponded with those of the present county (see
below). According to tradition it was the first part of the country
occupied by the invaders, its founders, Hengest and Horsa, having been
employed by the British king Vortigern against the Picts and Scots.
Their landing, according to English tradition, took place between
450-455, though in the Welsh accounts the Saxons are said to have
arrived in 428 (cf. _Hist. Britt._ 66). According to _The Anglo-Saxon
Chronicle_, which probably used some lost list of Kentish kings, Hengest
reigned 455-488, and was succeeded by his son Aesc (Oisc), who reigned
till 512; but little value can be attached to these dates. Documentary
history begins with Aethelberht, the great-grandson of Aesc, who reigned
probably 560-616. He married Berhta, daughter of the Frankish king
Haribert, or Charibert, an event which no doubt was partly responsible
for the success of the mission of Augustine, who landed in 597.
Aethelberht was at this time supreme over all the English kings south of
the Humber. On his death in 616 he was succeeded by his son Eadbald, who
renounced Christianity and married his stepmother, but was shortly
afterwards converted by Laurentius, the successor of Augustine. Eadbald
was succeeded in 640 by his son Erconberht, who enforced the acceptance
of Christianity throughout his kingdom, and was succeeded in 664 by his
son Ecgbert, the latter again by his brother Hlothhere in 673. The early
part of Hlothhere's reign was disturbed by an invasion of Aethelred of
Mercia. He issued a code of laws, which is still extant, together with
his nephew Eadric, the son of Ecgbert, but in 685 a quarrel broke out
between them in which Eadric called in the South Saxons. Hlothhere died
of his wounds, and was succeeded by Eadric, who, however, reigned under
two years.
The death of Eadric was followed by a disturbed period, in which Kent
was under kings whom Bede calls "_dubii vel externi_." An unsuccessful
attempt at conquest seems to have been made by the West Saxons, one of
whose princes, Mul, brother of Ceadwalla, is said to have been killed in
687. There is some evidence for a successful invasion by the East Saxon
king Sigehere during the same year. A king named Oswine, who apparently
belonged to the native dynasty, seems to have obtained part of the
kingdom in 688. The other part came in 689 into the hands of Swefheard,
probably a son of the East Saxon king Sebbe. Wihtred, a son of Ecgbert,
succeeded Oswine about 690, and obtained possession of the whole kingdom
before 694. From him also we have a code of laws. At Wihtred's death in
725 the kingdom was divided between his sons Aethelberht, Eadberht and
Alric, the last of whom appears to have died soon afterwards.
Aethelberht reigned till 762; Eadberht, according to the _Chronicle_,
died in 748, but some doubtful charters speak of him as alive in
761-762. Eadberht was succeeded by his son Eardwulf, and he again by
Eanmund, while Aethelberht was succeeded by a king named Sigered. From
764-779 we find a king named Ecgbert, who in the early part of his reign
had a colleague named Heaberht. At this period Kentish history is very
obscure. Another king named Aethelberht appears in 781, and a king
Ealhmund in 784, but there is some reason for suspecting that Offa
annexed Kent about this time. On his death (796) Eadberht Praen made
himself king, but in 798 he was defeated and captured by Coenwulf, who
made his own brother Cuthred king in his place. On Cuthred's death in
807 Coenwulf seems to have kept Kent in his own possession. His
successors Ceolwulf and Beornwulf likewise appear to have held Kent, but
in 825 we hear of a king Baldred who was expelled by Ecgbert king of
Wessex. Under the West Saxon dynasty Kent, together with Essex, Sussex
and Surrey, was sometimes given as a dependent kingdom to one of the
royal family. During Ecgbert's reign it was entrusted to his son
Aethelwulf, on whose accession to the throne of Wessex, in 839, it was
given to Aethelstan, probably his son, who lived at least till 851. From
855 to 860 it was governed by Aethelberht son of Aethelwulf. During the
last years of Alfred's reign it seems to have been entrusted by him to
his son Edward. Throughout the 9th century we hear also of two earls,
whose spheres of authority may have corresponded to those of the two
kings whom we find in the 8th century. The last earls of whom we have
any record were the two brothers Sigehelm and Sigewulf, who fell at the
Holm in 905 when the Kentish army was cut off by the Danes, on Edward
the Elder's return from his expedition into East Anglia. At a later
period Kent appears to have been held, together with Sussex, by a single
earl.
The internal organization of the kingdom of Kent seems to have been
somewhat peculiar. Besides the division into West Kent and East Kent,
which probably corresponds with the kingdoms of the 8th century, we
find a number of lathes, apparently administrative districts under
reeves, attached to royal villages. In East Kent there were four of
these, namely, Canterbury, Eastry, Wye and Lymne, which can be traced
back to the 9th century or earlier. In the 11th century we hear of two
lathes in West Kent, those of Sutton and Aylesford.
The social organization of the Kentish nation was wholly different
from that of Mercia and Wessex. Instead of two "noble" classes we find
only one, called at first eorlcund, later as in Wessex, gesithcund.
Again below the ordinary freeman we find three varieties of persons
called _laetas_, probably freedmen, to whom we have nothing analogous
in the other kingdoms. Moreover the wergeld of the ceorl, or ordinary
freeman, was two or three times as great as that of the same class in
Wessex and Mercia, and the same difference of treatment is found in
all the compensations and fines relating to them. It is not unlikely
that the peculiarities of Kentish custom observable in later times,
especially with reference to the tenure of land, are connected with
these characteristics. An explanation is probably to be obtained from
a statement of Bede--that the settlers in Kent belonged to a different
nationality from those who founded the other kingdoms, namely the
Jutes (q.v.).
See Bede, _Historiae ecclesiasticae_, edited by C. Plummer (Oxford,
1896); _Two of the Saxon Chronicles_, edited by J. Earle and C.
Plummer (Oxford, 1892-1899); W. de G. Birch, _Cartularium Saxonicum_
(London, 1885-1889); B. Seebohm, _Tribal Custom in Anglo-Saxon Law_
(London, 1902); H. M. Chadwick, _Studies on Anglo-Saxon Institutions_
(Cambridge, 1905); and T. W. Shore, _Origin of the Anglo-Saxon Race_
(London, 1906). (F. G. M. B.)
KENT, a south-eastern county of England, bounded N. by the Thames
estuary, E. and S.E. by the English Channel, S.W. by Sussex, and W. by
Surrey. In the north-west the administrative county of London encroaches
upon the ancient county of Kent, the area of which is 1554.7 sq. m. The
county is roughly triangular in form, London lying at the apex of the
western angle, the North Foreland at that of the eastern and Dungeness
at that of the southern. The county is divided centrally, from west to
east, by the well-marked range of hills known as the North Downs,
entering Kent from Surrey. In the west above Westerham these hills
exceed 800 ft.; to the east the height is much less, but even in Kent
(for in Surrey they are higher) the North Downs form a more striking
physical feature than their height would indicate. They are intersected,
especially on the north, by many deep valleys, well wooded. At three
points such valleys cut completely through the main line of the hills.
In the west the Darent, flowing north to the Thames below Dartford,
pierces the hills north of Sevenoaks, but its waters are collected
chiefly from a subsidiary ridge of the Downs running parallel to the
main line and south of it, and known as the Ragstone Ridge, from 600 to
800 ft. in height. The Medway, however, cuts through the entire hill
system, rising in the Forest Ridges of Sussex, flowing N.E. and E. past
Tonbridge, collecting feeders from south and east (the Teise, Beult and
others) near Yalding, and then flowing N.E. and N. through the hills,
past Maidstone, joining the Thames at its mouth through a broad estuary.
The rich lowlands, between the Downs and the Forest Ridges to the south
(which themselves extend into Kent), watered by the upper Medway and its
feeders, are called the Vale of Kent, and fall within the district well
known under the name of the Weald. The easternmost penetration of the
Downs is that effected by the Stour (Great Stour) which rises on their
southern face, flows S.E. to Ashford, where it receives the East Stour,
then turns N.E. past Wye and Canterbury, to meander through the lowlands
representing the former channel which isolated the Isle of Thanet from
the mainland. The channel was called the Wantsume, and its extent may be
gathered from the position of the village of Fordwich near Canterbury,
which had formerly a tidal harbour, and is a member of the Cinque Port
of Sandwich. The Little Stour joins the Great Stour in these lowlands
from a deep vale among the Downs.
About two-thirds of the boundary line of Kent is formed by tidal water.
The estuary of the Thames may be said to stretch from London Bridge to
Sheerness in the Isle of Sheppey, which is divided from the mainland by
the narrow channel (bridged at Queensbridge) of the Swale. Sheerness
lies at the mouth of the Medway, a narrow branch of which cuts off a
tongue of land termed the Isle of Grain lying opposite Sheerness. Along
the banks of the Thames the coast is generally low and marshy,
embankments being in several places necessary to prevent inundation. At
a few points, however, as at Gravesend, spurs of the North Downs descend
directly upon the shore. In the estuary of the Medway there are a number
of low marshy islands, but Sheppey presents to the sea a range of slight
cliffs from 80 to 90 ft. in height. The marshes extend along the Swale
to Whitstable, whence stretches a low line of clay and sandstone cliffs
towards the Isle of Thanet, when they become lofty and grand, extending
round the Foreland southward to Pegwell Bay. The coast from Sheppey
round to the South Foreland is skirted by numerous flats and sands, the
most extensive of which are the Goodwin Sands off Deal. From Pegwell Bay
south to a point near Deal the coast is flat, and the drained marshes or
levels of the lower Stour extend to the west; but thence the coast rises
again into chalk cliffs, the eastward termination of the North Downs,
the famous white cliffs which form the nearest point of England to
continental Europe, overlooking the Strait of Dover. These cliffs
continue round the South Foreland to Folkestone, where they fall away,
and are succeeded west of Sandgate by a flat shingly shore. To the south
of Hythe this shore borders the wide expanse of Romney Marsh, which,
immediately west of Hythe, is overlooked by a line of abrupt hills, but
for the rest is divided on the north from the drainage system of the
Stour only by a slight uplift. The marsh, drained by many channels,
seldom rises over a dozen feet above sea-level. At its south-eastern
extremity, and at the extreme south of the county, is the shingly
promontory of Dungeness. Within historic times much of this marsh was
covered by the sea, and the valley of the river Rother, which forms part
of the boundary of Kent with Sussex, entering the sea at Rye harbour,
was represented by a tidal estuary for a considerable distance inland.
_Geology._--The northern part of the county lies on the southern rim
of the London basin; here the beds are dipping northwards. The
southern part of the county is occupied by a portion of the Wealden
anticline. The London Clay occupies the tongue of land between the
estuaries of the Thames and Medway, as well as Sheppey and a district
about 8 m. wide stretching southwards from Whitstable to Canterbury,
and extending eastwards to the Isle of Thanet. It reappears at Pegwell
Bay, and in the neighbourhood of London it rises above the plastic
clay into the elevation of Shooter's Hill, with a height of about 450
ft. and a number of smaller eminences. The thickness of the formation
near London is about 400 ft., and at Sheppey it reaches 480 ft. At
Sheppey it is rich in various kinds of fossil fish and shells. The
plastic clay, which rests chiefly on chalk, occupies the remainder of
the estuary of the Thames, but at several places it is broken through
by outcrops of chalk, which in some instances run northwards to the
banks of the river. The Lower Tertiaries are represented by three
different formations known as the Thanet beds, the Woolwich and
Reading beds, and the Oldhaven and Blackheath beds. The Thanet beds
resting on chalk form a narrow outcrop rising into cliffs at Pegwell
Bay and Reculver, and consist (1) of a constant base bed of clayey
greenish sand, seldom more than 5 ft. in thickness; (2) of a thin and
local bed composed of alternations of brown clay and loam; (3) of a
bed of fine light buff sand, which in west Kent attains a thickness of
more than 60 ft.; (4) of bluish grey sandy marl containing fossils,
and almost entirely confined to east Kent, the thickness of the
formation being more than 60 ft.; and (5) of fine light grey sand of
an equal thickness, also fossiliferous. The middle series of the Lower
Tertiaries, known as the Woolwich and Reading beds, rests either on
the Thanet beds or on chalk, and consists chiefly of irregular
alternations of clay and sand of very various colours, the former
often containing estuarine and oyster shells and the latter flint
pebbles. The thickness of the formation varies from 15 to 80 ft., but
most commonly it is from 25 to 40 ft. The highest and most local
series of the Lower Tertiaries is the Oldhaven and Blackheath beds
lying between the London Clay and the Woolwich beds. They consist
chiefly of flint pebbles or of light-coloured quartzose sand, the
thickness being from 20 to 30 ft, and, are best seen at Oldhaven and
Blackheath. To the south the London basin is succeeded by the North
Downs, an elevated ridge of country consisting of an outcrop of chalk
which extends from Westerham to Folkestone with an irregular breadth
generally of 3 to 6 miles, but expanding to nearly 12 miles at
Dartford and Gravesend and also to the north of Folkestone. After
dipping below the London Clay at Canterbury, it sends out an outcrop
which forms the greater part of Thanet. Below the chalk is a thin crop
of Upper Greensand between Otford and Westerham. To the south of the
Downs there is a narrow valley formed by the Gault, a fossiliferous
blue clay. This is succeeded by an outcrop of the Lower
Greensand--including the Folkestone, Sandgate and Hythe beds with the
thin Atherfield Clay at the base--which extends across the country
from west to east with a breadth of from 2 to 7 m., and rises into the
picturesque elevations of the Ragstone hills. The remains of
_Iguanodon_ occur in the Hythe beds. The valley, which extends from
the borders of Sussex to Hythe, is occupied chiefly by the Weald
clays, which contain a considerable number of marine and freshwater
fossils. Along the borders of Sussex there is a narrow strip of
country consisting of picturesque sandy hills, formed by the Hastings
beds, whose highest elevation is nearly 400 ft. and the south-west
corner of the county is occupied by Romney Marsh, which within a
comparatively recent period has been recovered from the sea. Valley
gravels border the Thames, and Pleistocene mammalia have been found in
fissures in the Hythe beds at Ightham, where ancient stone implements
are common. Remains of crag deposits lie in pipes in the chalk near
Lenham. Coal-measures, as will be seen, have been found near Dover.
The London Clay is much used for bricks, coarse pottery and Roman
cement. Lime is obtained from the Chalk and Greensand formations.
Ironstone is found in the Wadhurst Clay, a subdivision of the Hastings
beds, clays and calcareous ironstone in the Ashdown sand, but the
industry has long been discontinued. The last Wealden furnace was put
out in 1828.
_Climate and Agriculture._--The unhealthiness of certain portions of
the county caused by the marshes is practically removed by draining.
In the north-eastern districts the climate is somewhat uncertain, and
damage is often done to early fruit-blossoms and vegetation by cold
easterly winds and late frosts. In the large portion of the county
sheltered by the Downs the climate is milder and more equable, and
vegetation is somewhat earlier. The average temperature for January is
37.9 deg. F. at Canterbury, and 39.8 deg. at Dover; for July 63.3 deg.
and 61.6 deg. respectively, and the mean annual 50 deg. and 50.2 deg.
respectively. Rainfall is light, the mean annual being 27.72 in. at
Dover, and 23.31 at Margate, compared with 23.16 at Greenwich. The
soil is varied in character, but on the whole rich and under high
cultivation. The methods of culture and the kinds of crop produced are
perhaps more widely diversified than those of any other county in
England. Upon the London Clay the land is generally heavy and stiff,
but very fruitful when properly manured and cultivated. The marsh
lands along the banks of the Thames, Medway, Stour and Swale consist
chiefly of rich chalk alluvium. In the Isle of Thanet a light mould
predominates, which has been much enriched by fish manure. The valley
of the Medway, especially the district round Maidstone, is the most
fertile part of the county, the soil being a deep loam with a subsoil
of brick-earth. On the ragstone the soil is occasionally thin and much
mixed with small portions of sand and stone; but in some situations
the ragstone has a thick covering of clay loam, which is most suitable
for the production of hops and fruits. In the district of the Weald
marl prevails, with a substratum of clay. The soil of Romney Marsh is
a clay alluvium.
No part of England surpasses the more fertile portions of this county
in the peculiar richness of its rural scenery. About three-quarters of
the total area is under cultivation. Oats and wheat are grown in
almost equal quantities, barley being of rather less importance. A
considerable acreage is under beans, and in Thanet mustard, spinach,
canary seed and a variety of other seeds are raised. But the county is
specially noted for the cultivation of fruit and hops. Market gardens
are very numerous in the neighbourhood of London. The principal
orchard districts are the valleys of the Darent and Medway, and the
tertiary soils overlying the chalk, between Rochester and Canterbury.
The county is specially famed for cherries and filberts, but apples,
pears, plums, gooseberries, strawberries, raspberries and currants are
also largely cultivated. In some cases apples, cherries, filberts and
hops are grown in alternate rows. The principal hop districts are the
country between Canterbury and Faversham, the valley of the Medway in
mid Kent, and the district of the Weald. Much of the Weald, which
originally was occupied by a forest, is still densely wooded, and
woods are specially extensive in the valley of the Medway. Fine oaks
and beeches are numerous, and yew trees of great size and age are seen
in some Kentish churchyards, as at Stansted, while the fine oak at
Headcorn is also famous. A large extent of woodland consists of ash
and chestnut plantations, maintained for the growth of hop poles.
Cattle are grazed in considerable numbers on the marsh lands, and
dairy farms are numerous in the neighbourhood of London. For the
rearing of sheep Kent is one of the chief counties in England. A breed
peculiar to the district, known as Kents, is grazed on Romney Marsh,
but Southdowns are the principal breed raised on the uplands.
Bee-keeping is extensively practised. Dairy schools are maintained by
the technical education committee of the county council. The
South-eastern Agricultural College at Wye is under the control of the
county councils of Kent and Surrey.
_Other Industries._--There were formerly extensive iron-works in the
Weald. Another industry now practically extinct was the manufacture of
woollen cloth. The neighbourhood of Lamberhurst and Cranbrook was the
special seat of these trades. Among the principal modern industries
are paper-making, carried on on the banks of the Darent, Medway, Cray
and neighbouring streams; engineering, chemical and other works along
the Thames; manufactures of bricks, tiles, pottery and cement,
especially by the lower Medway and the Swale. A variety of industries
is connected with the Government establishments at Chatham and
Sheerness. Ship-building is prosecuted here and at Gravesend, Dover
and other ports. Gunpowder is manufactured near Erith and Faversham
and elsewhere.
Deep-sea fishing is largely prosecuted all round the coast. Shrimps,
soles and flounders are taken in great numbers in the estuaries of the
Thames and Medway, along the north coast and off Ramsgate. The history
of the Kentish oyster fisheries goes back to the time of the Roman
occupation, when the fame of the oyster beds off _Rutupiae_
(Richborough) extended even to Rome. The principal beds are near
Whitstable, Faversham, Milton, Queenborough and Rochester, some being
worked by ancient companies or gilds of fishermen.
After the cessation in 1882 of works in connexion with the Channel
tunnel, to connect England and France, coal-boring was attempted in
the disused shaft, west of the Shakespeare Cliff railway tunnel near
Dover. In 1890 coal was struck at a depth of 1190 ft., and further
seams were discovered later. The company which took up the mining was
unsuccessful, and boring ceased in 1901, but the work was resumed by
the Consolidated Kent Collieries Corporation, and an extension of
borings revealed in 1905 the probability of a successful development
of the mining industry in Kent.
_Communications._--Railway communications are practically monopolized
by the South Eastern & Chatham Company, a monopoly which has not
infrequently been the cause of complaint on the part of farmers,
traders and others. This system includes some of the principal
channels of communication with the continent, through the ports of
Dover, Folkestone and Queenborough. The county contains four of the
Cinque Ports, namely, Dover, Hythe, New Romney and Sandwich. Seaside
resorts are numerous and populous--on the north coast are Minster
(Sheppey), Whitstable and Herne Bay; there is a ring of
watering-places round the Isle of Thanet--Birchington, Westgate,
Margate, Broadstairs, Ramsgate; while to the south are Sandwich, Deal,
Walmer, St Margaret's-at-Cliffe, Dover, Folkestone, Sandgate and
Hythe. Tunbridge Wells is a favourite inland watering-place. The
influence of London in converting villages into outer residential
suburbs is to be observed at many points, whether seaside, along the
Thames or inland. The county is practically without inland water
communications, excluding the Thames. The Royal military canal which
runs along the inland border of Romney Marsh, and connects the Rother
with Hythe, was constructed in 1807 as part of a scheme of defence in
connexion with the martello towers or small forts along the coast.
_Population and Administration._--The area of the ancient county is
995,014 acres, with a population in 1901 of 1,348,841. In 1801 the
population was 308,667. Excluding the portion which falls within the
administrative county of London the area is 974,950 acres, with a
population in 1891 of 807,269 and in 1901 of 935,855. The area of the
administrative county is 976,881 acres. The county contains 5 lathes, a
partition peculiar to the county. The municipal boroughs are Bromley
(pop. 27,354), Canterbury, a city and county borough (24,889), Chatham
(37,057), Deal (10,581), Dover (41,794), Faversham (11,290), Folkestone
(30,650), Gillingham (42,530), Gravesend (27,196), Hythe (5557), Lydd
(2675), Maidstone (33,516), Margate (23,118), New Romney (1328),
Queenborough (1544), Ramsgate (27,733), Rochester, a city (30,590),
Sandwich (3170), Tenterden (3243), Tunbridge Wells (33,373). The urban
districts are Ashford (12,808), Beckenham (26,331), Bexley (12,918),
Broadstairs and St Peter's (6466), Cheriton (7091), Chislehurst (7429),
Dartford (18,644), Erith (25,296), Foots Cray (5817), Herne Bay (6726),
Milton (7086), Northfleet (12,906), Penge (22,465), Sandgate (2294),
Sevenoaks (8106), Sheerness (18,179), Sittingbourne (8943), Southborough
(6977), Tonbridge (12,736), Walmer (5614), Whitstable (7086), Wrotham
(3571). Other small towns are Rainham (3693) near Chatham, Aylesford
(2678), East Mailing (2391) and West Mailing (2312) in the Maidstone
district; Edenbridge (2546) and Westerham (2905) on the western border
of the county; Cranbrook (3949), Goudhurst (2725) and Hawkhurst (3136)
in the south-west. Among villages which have grown into residential
towns through their proximity to London, beyond those included among
the boroughs and urban districts, there should be mentioned Orpington
(4259). The county is in the south-eastern circuit, and assizes are held
at Maidstone. It has two courts of quarter sessions, and is divided into
17 petty sessional divisions. The boroughs having separate commissions
of the peace and courts of quarter sessions are Canterbury, Deal, Dover,
Faversham, Folkestone, Gravesend, Hythe, Maidstone, Margate, Rochester,
Sandwich and Tenterden; while those of Lydd, New Romney, Ramsgate and
Tunbridge Wells have separate commissions of the peace. The liberty of
Romney Marsh has petty and general sessions. The justices of the Cinque
Ports exercise certain jurisdiction, the non-corporate members of the
Cinque Ports of Dover and Sandwich having separate commissions of the
peace and courts of quarter sessions. The central criminal court has
jurisdiction over certain parishes adjacent to London. All those civil
parishes within the county of Kent of which any part is within twelve
miles of, or of which no part is more than fifteen miles from, Charing
Cross are within the metropolitan police district. The total number of
civil parishes is 427. Kent is mainly in the diocese of Canterbury, but
has parts in those of Rochester, Southwark and Chichester. It contains
476 ecclesiastical parishes or districts, wholly or in part. The county
(extra-metropolitan) is divided into 8 parliamentary divisions, namely,
North-western or Dartford, Western or Sevenoaks, South-western or
Tunbridge, Mid or Medway, North-eastern or Faversham, Southern or
Ashford, Eastern or St Augustine's and the Isle of Thanet, each
returning one member; while the boroughs of Canterbury, Chatham, Dover,
Gravesend, Hythe, Maidstone and Rochester each return one member.
_History._--For the ancient kingdom of Kent see the preceding article.
The shire organization of Kent dates from the time of Aethelstan, the
name as well as the boundary being that of the ancient kingdom, though
at first probably with the addition of the suffix "shire," the form
"Kentshire" occurring in a record of the folkmoot at this date. The
inland shire-boundary has varied with the altered course of the Rother.
In 1888 the county was diminished by the formation of the county of
London.
At the time of the Domesday Survey Kent comprised sixty hundreds, and
there was a further division into six lests, probably representing the
shires of the ancient kingdom, of which two, Sutton and Aylesford,
correspond with the present-day lathes. The remaining four, Borowast
Lest, Estre Lest, Limowast Lest and Wiwart Lest, existed at least as
early as the 9th century, and were apparently named from their
administrative centres, Burgwara (the burg being Canterbury), Eastre,
Lymne and Wye, all of which were meeting places of the Kentish Council.
The five modern lathes (Aylesford, St Augustine, Scray, Sheppey and
Sutton-at-Hone) all existed in the time of Edward I., with the
additional lathe of Hedeling, which was absorbed before the next reign
in that of St Augustine. The _Nomina Villarum_ of the reign of Edward
II. mentions all the sixty-six modern hundreds, more than two-thirds of
which were at that date in the hands of the church.
Sheriffs of Kent are mentioned in the time of Aethelred II., and in Saxon
times the shiremoot met three times a year on Penenden Heath near
Maidstone. After the Conquest the great ecclesiastical landholders
claimed exemption from the jurisdiction of the shire, and in 1279 the
abbot of Battle claimed to have his own coroner in the hundred of Wye.
In the 13th century twelve liberties in Kent claimed to have separate
bailiffs. The assizes for the county were held in the reign of Henry
III. at Canterbury and Rochester, and also at the Lowey of Tonbridge
under a mandate from the Crown as a distinct liberty; afterwards at
different intervals at East Greenwich, Dartford, Maidstone,
Milton-next-Gravesend and Sevenoaks; from the Restoration to the present
day they have been held at Maidstone. The liberty of Romney Marsh has
petty and quarter sessions under its charters.
Kent is remarkable as the only English county which comprises two entire
bishoprics, Canterbury, the see for East Kent, having been founded in
597, and Rochester, the see for West Kent, in 600. In 1291 the
archdeaconry of Canterbury was co-extensive with that diocese and
included the deaneries of Westbere, Bridge, Sandwich, Dover, Elham,
Lympne, Charing, Sutton, Sittingbourne, Ospringe and Canterbury; the
archdeaconry of Rochester, also co-extensive with its diocese, included
the deaneries of Rochester, Dartford, Malling and Shoreham. In 1845 the
deaneries of Charing, Sittingbourne and Sutton were comprised in the new
archdeaconry of Maidstone, which in 1846 received in addition the
deaneries of Dartford, Malling and Shoreham from the archdeaconry of
Rochester. In 1853 the deaneries of Malling and Charing were subdivided
into North and South Malling and East and West Charing. Lympne was
subdivided into North and South Lympne in 1857 and Dartford into East
and West Dartford in 1864. Gravesend and Cobham deaneries were created
in 1862 and Greenwich and Woolwich in 1868, all in the archdeaconry of
Rochester. In 1873 East and West Bridge deaneries were created in the
archdeaconry of Canterbury, and Croydon in the archdeaconry of
Maidstone. In 1889 Tunbridge deanery was created in the archdeaconry of
Maidstone. In 1906 the deaneries of East and West Dartford, North and
South Malling, Greenwich and Woolwich were abolished, and Shoreham and
Tunbridge were transferred from Maidstone to Rochester archdeaconry.
Between the Conquest and the 14th century the earldom of Kent was held
successively by Odo, bishop of Bayeux, William of Ypres and Hubert de
Burgh (sheriff of the county in the reign of Henry III.), none of whom,
however, transmitted the honour, which was bestowed by Edward I. on his
youngest son Edmund of Woodstock, and subsequently passed to the
families of Holland and Neville (see KENT, EARLS AND DUKES OF). In the
Domesday Survey only five lay tenants-in-chief are mentioned, all the
chief estates being held by the church, and the fact that the Kentish
gentry are less ancient than in some remoter shires is further explained
by the constant implantation of new stocks from London. Greenwich is
illustrious as the birthplace of Henry VIII., Mary and Elizabeth. Sir
Philip Sidney was born at Penshurst, being descended from William de
Sidney, chamberlain to Henry II. Bocton Malherbe was the seat of the
Wottons, from whom descended Nicholas Wotton, privy councillor to Henry
VIII., Edward VI., Mary and Elizabeth. The family of Leiborne of
Leiborne Castle, of whom Sir Roger Leiborne took an active part in the
barons' wars, became extinct in the 14th century. Sir Francis Walsingham
was born at Chislehurst, where his family had long flourished; Hever
Castle was the seat of the Boleyns and the scene of the courtship of
Anne Boleyn by Henry VIII. Allington Castle was the birthplace of Sir
Thomas Wyat.
Kent, from its proximity to London, has been intimately concerned in
every great historical movement which has agitated the country, while
its busy industrial population has steadily resisted any infringement of
its rights and liberties. The chief events connected with the county
under the Norman kings were the capture of Rochester by William Rufus
during the rebellion of Odo of Bayeux; the capture of Dover and Leeds
castles by Stephen; the murder of Thomas a Becket at Canterbury in 1170;
the submission of John to the pope's legate at Dover in 1213, and the
capture of Rochester Castle by the king in the same year. Rochester
Castle was in 1216 captured by the dauphin of France, to whom nearly all
Kent submitted, and during the wars of Henry III. with his barons was
captured by Gilbert de Clare. In the peasants' rising of 1381 the rebels
plundered the archbishop's palace at Canterbury, and 100,000 Kentishmen
gathered round Wat Tyler of Essex. In 1450 Kent took a leading part in
Jack Cade's rebellion; and in 1554 the insurrection of Sir Thomas Wyat
began at Maidstone. On the outbreak of the Great Rebellion feeling was
much divided, but after capturing Dover Castle the parliament soon
subdued the whole county. In 1648, however, a widespread insurrection
was organized on behalf of Charles, and was suppressed by Fairfax. The
county was among the first to welcome back Charles II. In 1667 the Dutch
fleet under De Ruyter advanced up the Medway, levelling the fort at
Sheerness and burning the ships at Chatham. In the Kentish petition of
1701 drawn up at Maidstone the county protested against the peace policy
of the Tory party.
Among the earliest industries of Kent were the iron-mining in the Weald,
traceable at least to Roman times, and the salt industry, which
nourished along the coast in the 10th century. The Domesday Survey,
besides testifying to the agricultural activity of the country, mentions
over one hundred salt-works and numerous valuable fisheries, vines at
Chart Sutton and Leeds, and cheese at Milton. The Hundred Rolls of the
reign of Edward I. frequently refer to wool, and Flemish weavers settled
in the Weald in the time of Edward III. Tiles were manufactured at Wye
in the 14th century. Valuable timber was afforded by the vast forest of
the Weald, but the restrictions imposed on the felling of wood for fuel
did serious detriment to the iron-trade, and after the statute of 1558
forbidding the felling of timber for iron-smelting within fourteen miles
of the coast the industry steadily declined. The discovery of coal in
the northern counties dealt the final blow to its prosperity. Cherries
are said to have been imported from Flanders and first planted in Kent
by Henry VIII., and from this period the culture of fruits (especially
apples and cherries) and of hops spread rapidly over the county.
Thread-making at Maidstone and silk-weaving at Canterbury existed in the
16th century, and before 1590 one of the first paper-mills in England
was set up at Dartford. The statute of 1630 forbidding the exportation
of wool, followed by the Plague of 1665, led to a serious trade
depression, while the former enactment resulted in the vast smuggling
trade which spread along the coast, 40,000 packs of wool being smuggled
to Calais from Kent and Sussex in two years.
In 1290 Kent returned two members to parliament for the county, and in
1295 Canterbury, Rochester and Tunbridge were also represented;
Tunbridge however made no returns after this date. In 1552 Maidstone
acquired representation, and in 1572 Queenborough. Under the act of 1832
the county returned four members in two divisions, Chatham was
represented by one member and Greenwich by two, while Queenborough was
disfranchised. Under the act of 1868 the county returned six members in
three divisions and Gravesend returned one member. By the act of 1885
the county returned eight members in eight divisions, and the
representation of Canterbury, Maidstone and Rochester was reduced to one
member each. By the London Government Act of 1892 the borough of
Greenwich was taken out of Kent and made one of the twenty-eight
metropolitan boroughs of the county of London.
_Antiquities._--As was to be expected from its connexion with the
early history of England, and from its beauty and fertility, Kent
possessed a larger than average number of monastic foundations. The
earliest were the priory of Christ's Church and the abbey of St Peter
and St Paul, now called St Augustine's, both at Canterbury, founded by
Augustine and the monks who accompanied him to England. Other Saxon
foundations were the nunneries at Folkestone (630), Lyminge (633;
nunnery and monastery), Reculver (669), Minster-in-Thanet (670),
Minster-in-Sheppey (675), and the priory of St Martin at Dover (696),
all belonging to the Benedictine order. Some of these were refounded,
and the principal monastic remains now existing are those of the
Benedictine priories at Rochester (1089), Folkestone (1095), Dover
(1140); the Benedictine nunneries at Malling (time of William Rufus),
Minster-in-Sheppey (1130), Higham (founded by King Stephen), and
Davington (1153); the Cistercian Abbey at Boxley (1146); the Cluniac
abbey at Faversham (1147) and priory at Monks Horton (time of Henry
II.), the preceptory of Knights Templars at Swingfield (time of Henry
II.); the Premonstratensian abbey of St Radigund's, near Dover (1191);
the first house of Dominicans in England at Canterbury (1221); the
first Carmelite house in England, at Aylesford (1240); and the priory
of Augustinian nuns at Dartford (1355). Other houses of which there
are slight remains are Lesnes abbey, near Erith, and Bilsington priory
near Ashford, established in 1178 and 1253 respectively, and both
belonging to the Augustinian canons; and the house of Franciscans at
Canterbury (1225). But no remains exist of the priories of Augustinian
canons at Canterbury (St Gregory's; 1084), Leeds, near Maidstone
(1119), Tunbridge (middle of 12th century), Combwell, near Cranbrook
(time of Henry II.); the nunnery of St Sepulchre at Canterbury (about
1100) and Langdon abbey, near Walmer (1192), both belonging to the
Benedictines; the Trinitarian priory of Mottenden near Headcorn, the
first house of Crutched Friars in England (1224), where miracle plays
were presented in the church by the friars on Trinity Sunday; the
Carmelite priories at Sandwich (1272) and Losenham near Tenterden
(1241); and the preceptory of Knights of St John of Jerusalem at West
Peckham, near Tunbridge (1408).
Even apart from the cathedral churches of Canterbury and Rochester,
the county is unsurpassed in the number of churches it possesses of
the highest interest. For remains of a date before the Conquest the
church of Lyminge is of first importance. Here, apart from the
monastic remains, there may be seen portions of the church founded by
Aethelburga, wife of Edwin, king of Northumberland, and rebuilt, with
considerable use of Roman material, in 965 by St Dunstan. There is
similar early work in the church of Paddlesworth, not far distant.
Among numerous Norman examples the first in interest is the small
church at Barfreston, one of the most perfect specimens of its kind in
England, with a profusion of ornament, especially round the south
doorway and east window. The churches of St Margaret-at-Cliff,
Patrixbourne and Darenth are hardly less noteworthy, while the tower
of New Romney church should also be mentioned. Among several
remarkable Early English examples none is finer than Hythe church, but
the churches of SS. Mary and Eanswith, Folkestone, Minster-in-Thanet,
Chalk, with its curious porch, Faversham and Westwell, with fine
contemporary glass, are also worthy of notice. Stone church, near
Dartford, a late example of this style, transitional to Decorated, is
very fine; and among Decorated buildings Chartham church exhibits in
some of its windows the peculiar tracery known as Kentish Decorated.
Perpendicular churches, though numerous, are less remarkable, but the
fine glass of this period in Nettlestead church may be noticed. The
church of Cobham contains one of the richest collections of ancient
brasses in England.
Kent is also rich in examples of ancient architecture other than
ecclesiastical. The castles of Rochester and Dover are famous; those
of Canterbury and Chilham are notable among others. Ancient mansions
are very numerous; among these are the castellated Leeds Castle in the
Maidstone district, Penshurst Place, Hever Castle near Edenbridge,
Saltwood and Westenhanger near Hythe, the Mote House at Ightham near
Wrotham, Knole House near Sevenoaks, and Cobham Hall. Minor examples
of early domestic architecture abound throughout the county.
AUTHORITIES.--A full bibliography of the many earlier works on the
county and its towns is given in J. R. Smith's _Bibliotheca Cantiana_
(London, 1837). There may be mentioned here W. Lambarde,
_Perambulation of Kent_ (London, 1576, 1826); R. Kilburne,
_Topographie or Survey of the County of Kent_ (London, 1659); J. and
T. Philipot, _Villare Cantianum_ (London, 1659, 1776); J. Harris,
_History of Kent_ (London, 1719); E. Hasted, _History and
Topographical Survey of Kent_ (4 vols. folio, Canterbury, 1778-1799;
2nd ed., 12 vols. 8vo, Canterbury, 1797-1801); W. H. Ireland, _History
of the County of Kent_ (London, 1828-1830); C. Sandys, _Consuetudines
Kantiae_ (London, 1851); A. Hussey, _Notes on the Churches of Kent_
(London, 1852); L. B. Larking, _The Domesday Book of Kent_ (1869); R.
Furley, _History of the Weald of Kent_ (Ashford, 1871-1874); W. A.
Scott Robertson, _Kentish Archaeology_ (London, 1876-1884); Sir S. R.
Glynne, _Notes on Churches of Kent_, ed. W. H. Gladstone (London,
1877); J. Hutchinson, _Men of Kent and Kentish Men_ (London, 1892);
_Victoria County History_, "Kent." See also _Archaeologia Cantiana_
(translations of the Kent Archaeological Society, London, from 1858).
KENTIGERN, ST, or MUNGO ("dear friend," a name given to him, according
to Jocelyn, by St Servanus), a Briton of Strathclyde, called by the
Goidels _In Glaschu_, "the Grey Hound," was, according to the legends
preserved in the lives which remain, of royal descent. His mother when
with child was thrown down from a hill called Dunpelder (Traprain Law,
Haddingtonshire), but survived the fall and escaped by sea to Culross on
the farther side of the Firth of Forth, where Kentigern was born. It is
possible that she may have been a nun, as a convent had been founded in
earlier times on Traprain Law. The life then describes the training of
the boy by Servanus, but the date of the latter renders this impossible.
Returning to Strathclyde Kentigern lived for some time at Glasgow, near
a cemetery ascribed to St Ninian, and was eventually made bishop of that
region by the king and clergy. This story is partially attested by Welsh
documents, in which Kentigern appears as the bishop of Garthmwl,
apparently the ruler of the region about Glasgow. Subsequently he was
opposed by a pagan king called Morken, whose relatives after his death
succeeded in forcing the saint to retire from Strathclyde. He thereupon
took refuge with St David at Menevia (St David's), and eventually
founded a monastery at Llanelwy (St Asaph's), for which purpose he
received grants from Maelgwn, prince of Gwynedd. After the battle of
Ardderyd in 573 in which King Rhydderch, leader of the Christian party
in Strathclyde, was victorious, Kentigern was recalled. He fixed his see
first at Hoddam in Dumfriesshire, but afterwards returned to Glasgow.
He is credited with missionary work in Galloway and north of the Firth
of Forth, but most of the dedications to him which survive are north of
the Mounth in the upper valley of the Dee. The meeting of Kentigern and
Columba probably took place soon after 584, when the latter began to
preach in the neighbourhood of the Tay.
AUTHORITIES.--_Lives_ of St Kentigern; Fragment used by John of
Fordun, and complete "Life" by Jocelyn of Furness in Forbes's
_Historians of Scotland_ (Edinburgh, 1874), vol. v.; _Four Ancient
Books of Wales_ (Edinburgh, ed. W. F. Skene, 1868), ii. 457; _Myvyrian
Archaeology_ (London, 1801), ii. 34; D. R. Thomas, _History of Diocese
of St Asaph_ (London, 1874), p. 5; Index of Llyfr Coch Asaph,
_Archaeologia Cambrensis_, 3rd series, 1868, vol. xiv. p. 151; W. F.
Skene, _Celtic Scotland_ (Edinburgh, 1877), ii. 179 ff.; John Rhys,
_Celtic Britain_ (London, 1904), pp. 145, 146, 174, 199, 250.
KENTON, a city and the county seat of Hardin county, Ohio, U.S.A., on
the Scioto river, 60 m. N.W. of Columbus. Pop. (1900), 6852, including
493 foreign-born and 271 negroes; (1910), 7185. It is served by the
Erie, the Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago & St Louis, and the Ohio
Central railways. It is built on the water-parting between Lake Erie and
the Gulf of Mexico, here about 1,000 ft. above sea-level. There are
shops of the Ohio Central railway here, and manufactories of hardware.
The municipality owns and operates its waterworks. Kenton was named in
honour of Simon Kenton (1755-1836), a famous scout and Indian fighter,
who took part in the border warfare, particularly in Kentucky and Ohio,
during the War of American Independence and afterwards. It was platted
and became the county seat in 1833, and was chartered as a city in 1885.
KENT'S CAVERN, or KENT'S HOLE, the largest of English bone caves, famous
as affording evidence of the existence of Man in Devon (England)
contemporaneously with animals now extinct or no longer indigenous. It
is about a mile east of Torquay harbour and is of a sinuous nature,
running deeply into a hill of Devonian limestone. Although long known
locally, it was not until 1825 that it was scientifically examined by
Rev. J. McEnery, who found worked flints in intimate association with
the bones of extinct mammals. He recognized the fact that they proved
the existence of man in Devonshire while those animals were alive, but
the idea was too novel to be accepted by his contemporaries. His
discoveries were afterwards verified by Godwin Austen, and ultimately by
the Committee of the British Association, whose explorations were
carried on under the guidance of Wm. Pengelly from 1865 to 1880. There
are four distinct strata in the cave. (1) The surface is composed of
dark earth and contains medieval remains, Roman pottery and articles
which prove that it was in use during the Iron, Bronze and Neolithic
Ages. (2) Below this is a stalagmite floor, varying in thickness from 1
to 3 ft., and covering (3) the red earth which contained bones of the
hyaena, lion, mammoth, rhinoceros and other animals, in association with
flint implements and an engraved antler, which proved man to have been
an inhabitant of the cavern during its deposition. Above this and below
the stalagmite there is in one part of the cave a black band from 2 to 6
in. thick, formed of soil like No. 2, containing charcoal, numerous
flint implements, and the bones and teeth of animals, the latter
occasionally perforated as if used for ornament. (4) Filling the bottom
of the cave was a hard breccia, with the remains of bears and flint
implements, the latter in the main ruder than those found above; in some
places it was no less than 12 ft. thick. The most remarkable animal
remains found in Kent's Cavern are those of the Sabre-toothed tiger,
_Machairodus latidens_ of Sir Richard Owen. While the value of McEnery's
discoveries was in dispute the exploration of the cave of Brixham near
Torquay in 1858 proved that man was coeval with the extinct mammalia,
and in the following year additional proof was offered by the implements
that were found in Wookey Hole, Somerset. Similar remains have been met
with in the caves of Wales, and in England as far north as Derbyshire
(Cresswell), proving that over the whole of southern and middle England
men, in precisely the same stage of rude civilization, hunted the
rhinoceros, the mammoth and other extinct animals.
See Sir John Evans, _Ancient Stone Implements of Great Britain_
(London, 1897); Lord Avebury's _Prehistoric Times_ (1900); W.
Pengelly, _Address to the British Association_ (1883) and Life of him
by his daughter (1897); Godwin Austen, _Proc. Geo. Soc. London_, 111.
286; Pengelly, "Literature of Kent's Cavern" in _Trans. Devonshire
Association_ (1868); William Boyd Dawkins, _Cave-hunting and Early Man
in Britain_.
KENTUCKY, a South Central State of the United States of America,
situated between 36 deg. 30' and 39 deg. 6' N., and 82 deg. and 89 deg.
38' W. It is bounded N., N.W., and N.E. by Illinois, Indiana and Ohio;
E. by the Big Sandy river and its E. fork, the Tug, which separates it
from West Virginia, and by Virginia; S.E. and S. by Virginia and
Tennessee; and W. by the Mississippi river, which separates it from
Missouri. It has an area of 40,598 sq. m.; of this, 417 sq. m.,
including the entire breadth of the Ohio river, over which it has
jurisdiction, are water surface.
_Physiography._--From mountain heights along its eastern border the
surface of Kentucky is a north-western slope across two much dissected
plateaus to a gracefully undulating lowland in the north central part
and a longer western slope across the same plateaus to a lower and
more level lowland at the western extremity. The narrow mountain belt
is part of the western edge of the Appalachian Mountain Province in
which parallel ridges of folded mountains, the Cumberland and the
Pine, have crests 2000-3000 ft. high, and the Big Black Mountain rises
to 4000 ft. The highest point in the state is The Double on the
Virginia state line, in the eastern part of Harlan county with an
altitude of over 4100 ft. The entire eastern quarter of the state,
coterminous with the Eastern Kentucky coal-field, is commonly known as
the region of the "mountains," but with the exception of the narrow
area just described it properly belongs to the Alleghany Plateau
Province. This plateau belt is exceedingly rugged with sharp ridges
alternating with narrow valleys which have steep sides but are seldom
more than 1500 ft. above the sea. The remainder of the state which
lies east of the Tennessee river is divided into the Highland Rim
Plateau and a lowland basin, eroded in the Highland Rim Plateau and
known as the Blue Grass Region; this region is separated from the
Highland Rim Plateau by a semicircular escarpment extending from
Portsmouth, Ohio, at the mouth of the Scioto river, to the mouth of
the Salt river below Louisville; it is bounded north by the Ohio
river. The Highland Rim Plateau, lying to the south, east and west of
the escarpment, embraces fully one-half of the state, slopes from
elevations of 1000-1200 ft. or more in the east to about 500 ft. in
the north-west, and is generally much less rugged than the Alleghany
Plateau; a peculiar feature of the southern portion of it is the
numerous circular depressions (sink holes) in the surface and the
cavernous region beneath. Kentucky is noted for its caves, the
best-known of which are Mammoth Cave and Colossal Cavern (qq.v.). The
caves are cut in the beds of limestone (lying immediately below the
coal-bearing series) by streams that pass beneath the surface in the
"sink holes," and according to Professor N. S. Shaler there are
altogether "doubtless a hundred thousand miles of ways large enough to
permit the easy passage of man." Down the steep slopes of the
escarpment the Highland Rim Plateau drops 200 ft. or more to the
famous Blue Grass Region, in which erosion has developed on limestone
a gracefully undulating surface. This Blue Grass Region is like a
beautiful park, without ragged cliffs, precipitous slopes, or flat
marshy bottoms, but marked by rounded hills and dales. Especially
within a radius of 20 m. around Lexington, the country is clothed with
an unusually luxuriant vegetation. During spring, autumn, and winter
in particular, the blue-grass (_Poa compressa_ and _Poa pratensis_)
spreads a mat, green, thick, fine and soft, over much of the country,
and it is a good winter pasture; about the middle of June it blooms,
and, owing to the hue of its seed vessels, gives the landscape a
bluish hue. Another lowland area embraces that small part of the state
in the extreme south-east which lies west of the Tennessee river; this
belongs to that part of the Coastal Plain Region which extends north
along the Mississippi river; it has in Kentucky an average elevation
of less than 500 ft. Most of the larger rivers of the state have their
sources among the mountains or on the Alleghany Plateau and flow more
or less circuitously in a general north-western direction into the
Ohio. Although deep river channels are common, falls or impassable
rapids are rare west of the Alleghany Plateau, and the state has an
extensive mileage of navigable waters. The Licking, Kentucky, Green
and Tradewater are the principal rivers wholly within the state. The
Cumberland, after flowing for a considerable distance in the
south-east and south central part of the state, passes into Tennessee
at a point nearly south of Louisville, and in the extreme south-west
the Cumberland and the Tennessee, with only a short distance between
them, cross Kentucky and enter the Mississippi at Smithland and
Paducah respectively. The drainage of the region under which the
caverns lie is mostly underground.
[Illustration: Map of Kentucky.]
_Fauna and Flora._--The first white settlers found great numbers of
buffaloes, deer, elks, geese, ducks, turkeys and partridges, also many
bears, panthers, lynx, wolves, foxes, beavers, otters, minks,
musk-rats, rabbits, squirrels, raccoons, woodchucks, opossums and
skunks, and the streams were inhabited by trout, perch,
buffalo-fish, sun-fish, mullet, eels, and suckers. Of the larger game
there remain only a few deer, bears and lynx in the mountain
districts, and the numbers of small game and fish have been greatly
reduced. In its primeval state Kentucky was generally well timbered,
but most of the middle section has been cleared and here the blue
grass is now the dominant feature of the flora. Extensive forest areas
still remain both in the east and the west. In the east oak, maple,
beech, chestnut, elm, tulip-tree (locally "yellow poplar"), walnut,
pine and cedar trees are the most numerous; in the west the forests
are composed largely of cypress, ash, oak, hickory, chestnut, walnut,
beech, tulip-tree, gum and sycamore trees. Locust, pawpaw, cucumber,
buck-eye, black mulberry and wild cherry trees also abound, and the
grape, raspberry and strawberry are native fruits.
_Climate._--The climate is somewhat more mild and even than that of
the neighbouring states. The mean annual temperature, about 50 deg. F.
on the mountains in the S.E., and 60 deg. W. of the Tennessee, is
about 55 deg. F. for the entire state; the thermometer seldom
registers as high as 100 deg. or as low as -10 deg. The mean annual
precipitation ranges from about 38 in. in the north-east to 50 in. in
the south, and is about 46 in. for the entire state; it is usually
distributed evenly throughout the year and very little is in the form
of snow. The prevailing winds blow from the west or south-west;
rain-bearing winds blow mostly from the south; and the cold waves come
from the north or north-west.
_Soil._--The best soils are the alluvium in the bottom-lands along
some of the larger rivers and that of the Blue Grass Region, which is
derived from a limestone rich in organic matter (containing
phosphorus) and rapidly decomposing. The soil within a radius of some
20 m. around Lexington is especially rich; outside of this area the
Blue Grass soil is less rich in phosphorus and contains a larger
mixture of sand. The soils of the Highland Rim Plateau as well as of
the lowland west of the Tennessee river vary greatly, but the most
common are a clay, containing more or less carbonate of lime, and a
sandy loam. On the escarpment around the Blue Grass Region the soils
are for the most part either cherty or stiff with clay and of inferior
quality. On the mountains and on the Alleghany Plateau, also, much of
the soil is very light and thin.
_Agriculture._--Kentucky is chiefly an agricultural state. Of the
752,531 of its inhabitants who, in 1900, were engaged in some gainful
occupation, 408,185 or 54.2%, were agriculturists, and of its total
land surface 21,979,422 acres, or 85.9%, were included in farms. The
percentage of improved farm land increased from 35.2 in 1850 to 49.9
in 1880 and to 62.5 in 1900. The number of farms increased from 74,777
in 1850 to 166,453 in 1880 and to 234,667 in 1900; and their average
size decreased from 226.7 acres in 1850 to 129.1 acres in 1880 and to
93.7 acres in 1900, these changes being largely due to the breaking up
of slave estates, the introduction of a considerable number of negro
farmers, and the increased cultivation of tobacco and market-garden
produce. In the best stock-raising country, e.g. in Fayette county,
the opposite tendency prevailed during the latter part of this period
and old farms of a few hundred acres were combined to form some vast
estates of from 2000 to 4000 acres. Of the 234,667 farms in 1900,
155,189 contained less than 100 acres, 76,450 contained between 100
and 500 acres, and 558 contained more than 1000 acres; 152,216 or
64.86%, were operated by owners or part owners, of whom 5320 were
negroes; 16,776 by cash tenants, of whom 789 were negroes; and 60,289
by share tenants, of whom 4984 were negroes. In 1900 the value of farm
land and improvements was $291,117,430; of buildings on farms,
$90,887,460; of livestock, $73,739,106. In the year 1899 the value of
all farm products was $123,266,785 (of which $21,128,530 was the value
of products fed to livestock), including the following items: crops,
$74,783,365; animal products, $44,303,940; and forest products,
$4,179,840. The total acreage of all crops in 1899 was 6,582,696.
Indian corn is the largest and most valuable crop. As late as 1849,
when it produced 58,672,591 bu., Kentucky was the second largest
Indian-corn producing state in the Union. In 1899 the crop had
increased to 73,974,220 bu. and the acreage was 3,319,257 (more than
half the acreage of all crops in the state), but the rank had fallen
to ninth in product and eleventh in acreage; in 1909 (according to the
_Yearbook_ of the United States Department of Agriculture) the crop
was 103,472,000 bu. (ninth among the states of the United States), and
the acreage was 3,568,000 (twelfth among the states). Among the
cereals wheat is the next largest crop; it increased from 2,142,822
bu. in 1849 to 11,356,113 bu. in 1879, and to 14,264,500 bu. in 1899;
in 1909 it was only 7,906,000 bu. The crop of each of the other
cereals is small and in each case was less in 1899 than in 1849. The
culture of tobacco, which is the second most valuable crop in the
state, was begun in the north part about 1780 and in the west and
south early in the 19th century, but it was late in that century
before it was introduced to any considerable extent in the Blue Grass
Region, where it was then in a measure substituted for the culture of
hemp. By 1849 Kentucky ranked second only to Virginia in the
production of tobacco, and in 1899 it was far ahead of any other state
in both acreage and yield, there being in that year 384,805 acres,
which was 34.9% of the total acreage in the continental United States,
yielding 314,288,050 lb. As compared with the state's Indian corn crop
of that year, the acreage was only a little more than one-ninth, but
the value ($18,541,982) was about 63%. In 1909 the tobacco acreage in
Kentucky was 420,000, the crop was 350,700,000 lb., valued at
$37,174,200; the average price per pound had increased from 5.9 cents
in 1899 to 10.6 cents in 1909. The two most important tobacco-growing
districts are: the Black Patch, in the extreme south-west corner of
the state, which with the adjacent counties in Tennessee grows a black
heavy leaf bought almost entirely by the agents of foreign governments
(especially Austria, Spain and Italy) and called "regie" tobacco; and
the Blue Grass Region, as far east as Maysville, and the hill country
south and east, whose product, the red and white Burley, is a
fine-fibred light leaf, peculiarly absorbent of licorice and other
adulterants used in the manufacture of sweet chewing tobacco, and
hence a peculiarly valuable crop, which formerly averaged 22 cents a
pound for all grades.[1] The high price received by the hill growers
of the Burley induced farmers in the Blue Grass to plant Burley
tobacco there, where the crop proved a great success, more than twice
as much (sometimes 2000 lb.) being grown to the acre in the Blue Grass
as in the hills and twice as large patches being easily managed. In
the hill country the share tenant could usually plant and cultivate
only four acres of tobacco, had to spend 120 days working the crop,
and could use the same land for tobacco only once in six years. So,
although a price of 6.5 cents a pound covered expenses of the planter
of Burley in the Blue Grass, who could use the same land for tobacco
once in four years, this price did not repay the hill planter. The
additional production of the Blue Grass Region sent the price of
Burley tobacco down to this figure and below it. The planters in the
Black Patch had met a combination of the buyers by forming a pool, the
Planters' Protective Association, into which 40,000 growers were
forced by "night-riding" and other forms of coercion and persuasion,
and had thus secured an advance to 11 cents a pound from the "regie"
buyers and had shown the efficacy of pooling methods in securing
better prices for the tobacco crop. Following their example, the
planters of the Burley formed the Burley Tobacco Society, a Burley
pool, with headquarters at Winchester and associated with the American
Society of Equity, which promoted in general the pooling of different
crops throughout the country. The tobacco planters secured legislation
favourable to the formation of crop pools. The Burley Tobacco Society
attempted to pool the entire crop and thus force the buyers of the
American Tobacco Company of New Jersey (which usually bought more than
three-fourths of the crop of Burley) to pay a much higher price for
it. In 1906 and in 1907 the crop was very large; the pool sold its
lower grades of the 1906 crop at 16 cents a pound to the American
Tobacco Company and forced the independent buyers out of business; and
the Burley Society decided in 1907 to grow no more tobacco until the
1906 and 1907 crops were sold, making the price high enough to pay for
this period of idleness. Members of the pool had used force to bring
planters into the pool; and now some tobacco growers, especially in
the hills, planted new crops in the hope of immediate return, and a
new "night-riding" war was begun on them. Bands of masked men rode
about the country both in the Black Patch and in the Burley, burning
tobacco houses of the independent planters, scraping their
newly-planted tobacco patches, demanding that planters join their
organization or leave the country, and whipping or shooting the
recalcitrants. Governor Willson, immediately after his inauguration,
took measures to suppress disorder. In general the Planters'
Protective Association in the Black Patch was more successful in its
pool than the Burley Tobacco Society in its, and there was more
violence in the "regie" than in the "Burley" district. In November
1908 the lawlessness subsided in the Burley after the agreement of the
American Tobacco Company to purchase the remainder of the 1906 crop at
a "round" price of 20(1/2) cents and a part of the 1907 crop at an
average price of 17 cents, thus making it profitable to raise a full
crop in 1909.
Kentucky is the principal hemp-growing state of the Union; the crop of
1899, which was grown on 14,107 acres and amounted to 10,303,560 lb.,
valued at $468,454, was 87.7% of the hemp crop of the whole country.
But the competition of cheaper labour in other countries reduced the
profits on this plant and the product of 1899 was a decrease from
78,818,000 lb. in 1859. Hay and forage, the fourth in value of the
state's crops in 1899, were grown on 683,139 acres and amounted to
776,534 tons, valued at $6,100,647; in 1909 the acreage of hay was
480,000 and the crop of 653,000 tons was valued at $7,771,000. In 1899
the total value of fruit grown in Kentucky was $2,491,457 (making the
state rank thirteenth among the states of the Union in the value of
this product), of which $1,943,645 was the value of orchard fruits and
$435,462 that of small fruits. Among fruits, apples are produced in
greatest abundance, 6,053,717 bu. in 1899, an amount exceeded in only
nine states; in 1889 the crop had been 10,679,389 bu. and was exceeded
only by the crop of Ohio and by that of Michigan. Kentucky also grows
considerable quantities of cherries, pears, plums and peaches, and,
for its size, ranks high in its crops of strawberries, blackberries
and raspberries. Indian corn is grown in all parts of the state but
most largely in the western portion. Wheat is grown both in the Blue
Grass Region and farther west; and the best country for fruit is along
the Ohio river between Cincinnati and Louisville and in the hilly land
surrounding the Blue Grass Region. In the eastern part of the state
where crops are generally light, Indian corn, oats and potatoes are
the principal products, but tobacco, flax and cotton are grown. The
thoroughbred Kentucky horse has long had a world-wide reputation for
speed; and the Blue Grass Region, especially Fayette, Bourbon and
Woodford counties, is probably the finest horse-breeding region in
America and has large breeding farms. In Fayette county, in 1900, the
average value of colts between the ages of one and two years was
$377.78. In the Blue Grass Region many thoroughbred shorthorn cattle
and fine mules are raised. The numbers of horses, mules, cattle and
sheep increased quite steadily from 1850 to 1900, but the number of
swine in 1880 and in 1900 was nearly one-third less than in 1850. In
1900 the state had 497,245 horses, 198,110 mules, 364,025 dairy cows,
755,714 other neat cattle, 1,300,832 sheep and 2,008,989 swine; in
1910 there were in Kentucky 407,000 horses, 207,000 mules, 394,000
milch cows, 665,000 other neat cattle, 1,060,000 sheep and 989,000
swine. The principal sheep-raising counties in 1905 were Bourbon,
Scott and Harrison, and the principal hog-raising counties were
Graves, Hardin, Ohio, Union and Hickman.
_Forests and Timber._--More than one-half of the state (about 22,200
sq. m.) was in 1900 still wooded. In 1900 of the total cut of 777,218
M. ft., B.M., 392,804 were white oak and 279,740 M. ft. were
tulip-tree. Logging is the principal industry of several localities,
especially in the east, and the lumber product of the state increased
in value from $1,502,434 in 1850 to $4,064,361 in 1880, and to
$13,774,911 in 1900. The factory product in 1900 was valued at
$13,338,533 and in 1905 at $14,539,000. In 1905 of a total of 586,371
M. ft., B.M., of sawed lumber, 295,776 M. ft. were oak and 153,057 M.
ft. were "poplar."
The planing mill industry is increasing rapidly, as it is found
cheaper to erect mills near the forests; between 1900 and 1905 the
capital of planing mills in the state increased 117.2% and the value
of products increased 142.8%.
_Manufactures._--Kentucky's manufactures are principally those for
which the products of her farms and forests furnish the raw material.
The most distinctive of these is probably distilled liquors, the
state's whisky being famous. A colony of Roman Catholic immigrants
from Maryland settled in 1787 along the Salt river about 50 m. S.S.E.
of Louisville and with the surplus of their Indian corn crop made
whisky, a part of which they sold at settlements on the Ohio and the
Mississippi. The industry was rapidly developed by distillers, who
immediately after the suppression of the Whisky Insurrection, in 1794,
removed from Pennsylvania and settled in what is now Mason county and
was then a part of Bourbon county--the product is still known as
"Bourbon" whisky. During the first half of the 19th century the
industry became of considerable local importance in all parts of the
state, but since the Civil War the heavy tax imposed has caused its
concentration in large establishments. In 1900 nearly 40% and in 1905
more than one-third of the state's product was distilled in
Louisville. Good whisky is made in Maryland and in parts of
Pennsylvania from rye, but all efforts in other states to produce from
Indian corn a whisky equal to the Bourbon have failed, and it is
probable that the quality of the Bourbon is largely due to the
character of the Kentucky lime water and the Kentucky yeast germs. The
average annual product of the state from 1880 to 1900 was about
20,000,000 gallons; in 1900 the product was valued at $9,786,527; in
1905 at $11,204,649. In 1900 and in 1905 Kentucky ranked fourth among
the states in the value of distilled liquors.
The total value of all manufactured products of the state increased
from $126,719,857 in 1890 to $154,166,365 in 1900, or 21.7%, and from
1900 to 1905 the value of factory-made products alone increased from
$126,508,660 to $159,753,968, or 26.3%.[2] Measured by the value of
the product, flour and grist mill products rose from third in rank in
1900 to first in rank in 1905, from $13,017,043 to $18,007,786, or
38.3%; and chewing and smoking tobacco and snuff fell during the same
period from first to third in rank, from $14,948,192 to $13,117,000,
or 12.3%; in 1900 Kentucky was second, in 1905 third, among the states
in the value of this product. Lumber and timber products held second
rank both in 1900 ($13,338,533) and in 1905 ($14,539,000). Distilled
liquors were fourth in rank in 1900 and in 1905. Men's clothing rose
from tenth in rank in 1900 to fifth in rank in 1905, from $3,420,365
to $6,279,078, or 83.6%. Other important manufactures, with their
product values in 1900 and in 1905, are iron and steel ($5,004,572 in
1900; $6,167,542 in 1905); railway cars ($4,248,029 in 1900;
$5,739,071 in 1905); packed meats ($5,177,167 in 1900; $5,693,731 in
1905); foundry and machine shop products ($4,434,610 in 1900;
$4,699,559 in 1905); planing mill products, including sash, doors and
blinds ($1,891,517 in 1900; $4,593,251 in 1905--an increase already
remarked); carriages and wagons ($2,849,713 in 1900; $4,059,438 in
1905); tanned and curried leather ($3,757,016 in 1900; $3,952,277 in
1905); and malt liquors ($3,186,627 in 1900; $3,673,678 in 1905).
Other important manufactures (each with a product value in 1905 of
more than one million dollars) were cotton-seed oil and cake (in 1900
Kentucky was fifth and in 1905 sixth among the states in the value of
cotton-seed oil and cake), cooperage, agricultural implements, boots
and shoes, cigars and cigarettes, saddlery and harness, patent
medicines and compounds, cotton goods, furniture, confectionery,
carriage and wagon materials, wooden packing boxes, woollen goods,
pottery and terra cotta ware, structural iron-work, and turned and
carved wood. Louisville is the great manufacturing centre, the value
of its products amounting in 1905 to $83,204,125, 52.1% of the product
of the entire state, and showing an increase of 25.9% over the value
of the city's factory products in 1900. Ashland is the principal
centre of the iron industry.
_Minerals._--The mineral resources of Kentucky are important and
valuable, though very little developed. The value of all manufactures
in 1900 was $154,166,365, and the value of manufactures based upon
products of mines or quarries in the same year was $25,204,788; the
total value of mineral products was $19,294,341 in 1907. Bituminous
coal is the principal mineral, and in 1907 Kentucky ranked eighth
among the coal-producing states of the Union; the output in 1907
amounted to 10,753,124 short tons, and in 1902 to 6,766,984 short tons
as compared with 2,399,755 tons produced in 1889. In 1902 the amount
was about equally divided between the eastern coalfield, which is for
the most part in Greenup, Boyd, Carter, Lawrence, Johnson, Lee,
Breathitt, Rockcastle, Pulaski, Laurel, Knox, Bell and Whitley
counties, and has an area of about 11,180 sq. m., and the western
coalfield, which is in Henderson, Union, Webster, Daviess, Hancock,
McLean, Ohio, Hopkins, Butler, Muhlenberg and Christian counties, and
has an area of 5800 sq. m. In 1907 the output of the western district
was 6,295,397 tons; that of the eastern, 4,457,727. The largest
coal-producing counties in 1907 were Hopkins (2,064,154 short tons)
and Muhlenberg (1,882,913 short tons) in the western coalfield, and
Bell (1,437,886 short tons) and Whitley (762,923 short tons) in the
south-western part of the eastern coalfield. All Kentucky coal is
either bituminous or semi-bituminous, but of several varieties. Of
cannel coal Kentucky is the largest producer in the Union, its output
for 1902 being 65,317 short tons, and, according to state reports, for
1903, 72,856 tons (of which 46,314 tons were from Morgan county), and
for 1904, 68,400 tons (of which 52,492 tons were from Morgan county);
according to the _Mineral Resources of the United States_ for 1907
(published by the United States Geological Survey) the production of
Kentucky in 1907 of cannel coal (including 4650 tons of semi-cannel
coal) was 77,733 tons, and exclusive of semi-cannel coal the output of
Kentucky was much larger than that of any other state. Some of the
coal mined in eastern Kentucky is an excellent steam producer,
especially the Jellico coal of Whitley county, Kentucky, and of
Campbell county, Tennessee. But with the exception of that mined in
Hopkins and Bell counties, very little is fit for making coke; in 1880
the product was 4250 tons of coke (value $12,250), in 1890, 12,343
tons ($22,191); in 1900, 95,532 tons ($235,505); in 1902, 126,879 tons
($317,875), the maximum product up to 1906; and in 1907, 67,068 tons
($157,288). Coal was first mined in Kentucky in Laurel or Pulaski
county in 1827; between 1829 and 1835 the annual output was from 2000
to 6000 tons; in 1840 it was 23,527 tons and in 1860 it was 285,760
tons.
Petroleum was discovered on Little Rennick's Creek, near Burkesville,
in Cumberland county, in 1829, when a flowing oil well (the "American
well," whose product was sold as "American oil" to heal rheumatism,
burns, &c.) was struck by men boring for a "salt well," and after a
second discovery in the 'sixties at the mouth of Crocus Creek a small
but steady amount of oil was got each year. Great pipe lines from
Parkersburg, West Virginia, to Somerset, Pulaski county, and with
branches to the Ragland, Barbourville and Prestonburg fields, had in
1902 a mileage of 275 m. The principal fields are in the "southern
tier," from Wayne to Allen county, including Barren county; farther
east, Knox county, and Floyd and Knott counties; to the north-east the
Ragland field in Bath and Rowan counties on the Licking river. In 1902
the petroleum produced in the state amounted to 248,950 barrels,
valued at $172,837, a gain in quantity of 81.4% over 1901. Kentucky is
the S.W. extreme of the natural gas region of the west flank of the
Appalachian system; the greatest amount is found in Martin county in
the east, and Breckinridge county in the north-west. The value of the
state's natural gas output increased from $38,993 in 1891 to $99,000
in 1896, $286,243 in 1900, $365,611 in 1902, and $380,176 in 1907.
Iron ore has been found in several counties, and an iron furnace was
built in Bath county, in the N. E. part of the state, as early as
1791, but since 1860 this mineral has received little attention. In
1902 it was mined only in Bath, Lyon and Trigg counties, of which the
total product was 71,006 long tons, valued at only $86,169; in 1904
only 35,000 tons were mined, valued at the mines at $35,000.
In 1898 there began an increased activity in the mining of fluorspar,
and Crittenden, Fayette and Livingston counties produced in 1902,
29,030 tons (valued at $143,410) of this mineral, in 1903 30,835 tons
(valued at $153,960) and in 1904 19,096 tons (valued at $111,499),
amounts (and values) exceeding those produced in any other state for
these years; but in 1907 the quantity (21,058 tons) was less than the
output of Illinois. Lead and zinc are mined in small quantities near
Marion in Crittenden county and elsewhere in connexion with mining for
fluorspar; in 1907 the output was 75 tons of lead valued at $7950 and
358 tons of zinc valued at $42,244. Jefferson, Jessamine, Warren,
Grayson and Caldwell counties have valuable quarries of an excellent
light-coloured oolitic limestone, resembling the Bedford limestone of
Indiana, and best known under the name of the finest variety, the
"Bowling Green stone" of Warren county; and sandstones good for
structural purposes are found in both coal regions, and especially in
Rowan county. In 1907 the total value of limestone quarried in the
state was $891,500, and of all stone, $1,002,450. Fire and pottery
clay and cement rock also abound within the state. The value of clay
products was $2,406,350 in 1905 (when Kentucky was tenth among the
states) and was $2,611,364 in 1907 (when Kentucky was eleventh among
the states). The manufacture of cement was begun in 1829 at
Shippingport, a suburb of Louisville, whence the natural cement of
Kentucky and Indiana, produced within a radius of 15 m. from
Louisville, is called "Louisville cement." In 1905 the value of
natural cement manufactured in the state (according to the United
States Geological Survey) was only $83,000. The manufacture of
Portland cement is of greater importance.
There are mineral springs, especially salt springs, in various parts
of the state, particularly in the Blue Grass Region; these are now of
comparatively little economic importance; no salt was reported among
the state's manufactures for 1905, and in 1907 only 736,920 gallons of
mineral waters were bottled for sale. Historically and geologically,
however, these springs are of considerable interest. According to
Professor N. S. Shaler, state geologist in 1873-1880, "When the rocks
whence they flow were formed on the Silurian sea-floors, a good deal
of the sea-water was imprisoned in the strata, between the grains of
sand or mud and in the cavities of the shells that make up a large
part of these rocks. This confined sea-water is gradually being
displaced by the downward sinking of the rain-water through the rifts
of the strata, and thus finds its way to the surface: so that these
springs offer to us a share of the ancient seas, in which perhaps a
hundred million of years ago the rocks of Kentucky were laid down." To
these springs in prehistoric and historic times came annually great
numbers of animals for salt, and in the marshes and swamps around some
of them, especially Big Bone Lick (in Boone county, about 20 m. S.W.
of Cincinnati) have been found many bones of extinct mammals, such as
the mastodon and the long-legged bison.[3] The early settlers and the
Indians came to the springs to shoot large game for food, and by
boiling the waters the settlers obtained valuable supplies of salt.
Several of the Kentucky springs have been somewhat frequented as
summer resorts; among these are the Blue Lick in Nicholas county
(about 48 m. N.E. of Lexington), Harrodsburg, Crab Orchard in Lincoln
county (about 115 m. S.E. of Louisville), Rock Castle springs in
Pulaski county (about 23 m. E. of Somerset) and Paroquet Springs (near
Shepherdsville, Bullitt county), which was a well-known resort before
the Civil War, and near which, at Bullitt Lick, the first salt works
in Kentucky are said to have been erected.
Pearls are found in the state, especially in the Cumberland River, and
it is supposed that there are diamonds in the kimberlite deposits in
Elliott county.
_Transportation._--Kentucky in 1909 had 3,503.98 m. of railway.
Railway building was begun in the state in 1830, and in 1835 the first
train drawn by a steam locomotive ran from Lexington to Franklin, a
distance of 27 m. Not until 1851 was the line completed to Louisville.
Kentucky's trade during the greater part of the 19th century was very
largely with the South, and with the facilities which river navigation
afforded for this the development of a railway system was retarded. Up
to 1880 the railway mileage had increased to only 1,530; but during
the next ten years it increased to 2,942, and railways were in
considerable measure substituted for water craft. The principal lines
are the Louisville & Nashville, the Chesapeake & Ohio, the Illinois
Central, and the Cincinnati Southern (Queen & Crescent route). Most of
the lines run south or south-west from Cincinnati and Louisville, and
the east border of the state still has a small railway mileage and
practically no wagon roads, most of the travel being on horseback. The
wagon roads of the Blue Grass Region are excellent, because of the
plentiful and cheap supply of stone for road building. The assessment
of railway property, and in some measure the regulation of railway
rates, are entrusted to a state railway commission.
_Population._--The population of Kentucky in 1880[4] was 1,648,690; in
1890, 1,858,635, an increase within the decade of 12.7 %; in 1900 it was
2,147,174; and in 1910 it had reached 2,289,905. Of the total population
of 1900, 284,865 were coloured and 50,249 were foreign-born; of the
coloured, 284,706 were negroes, 102 were Indians, and 57 were Chinese;
of the foreign-born, 27,555 were natives of Germany, 9874 were natives
of Ireland, and 3256 were natives of England. Of the foreign-born,
21,427, or 42.6 %, were inhabitants of the city of Louisville, leaving a
population outside of this city of which 98.4 % were native born. The
rugged east section of the state, a part of Appalachian America, is
inhabited by a people of marked characteristics, portrayed in the
fiction of Miss Murfree ("Charles Egbert Craddock") and John Fox, Jr.
They are nearly all of British--English and Scotch-Irish--descent, with
a trace of Huguenot. They have good native ability, but through lack of
communication with the outside world their progress has been retarded.
Before the Civil War they were owners of land, but for the most part not
owners of slaves, so that a social and political barrier, as well as the
barriers of nature, separated them from the other inhabitants of the
state. In their speech several hundred words persist which elsewhere
have been obsolete for three centuries or occur only in dialects in
England. Their life is still in many respects very primitive; their
houses are generally built of logs, their clothes are often of homespun,
Indian corn and ham form a large part of their diet, and their means of
transportation are the saddle-horse and sleds and wheeled carts drawn by
oxen or mules. In instincts and in character, also, the typical
"mountaineers" are to a marked degree primitive; they are, for the most
part, very ignorant; they are primitively hospitable and are
warm-hearted to friends and strangers, but are implacable in their
enmities and are prone to vendettas and family feuds, which often result
in the killing in open fight or from ambush of members of one faction by
members of another; and their relative seclusion and isolation has
brought them, especially in some districts, to a disregard for law, or
to a belief that they must execute justice with their own hands. This
appears particularly in their attitude toward revenue officers sent to
discover and close illicit stills for the distilling from Indian corn of
so-called "moon-shine" whisky (consisting largely of pure alcohol). The
taking of life and "moon-shining," however, have become less and less
frequent among them, and Berea College, at Berea, the Lincoln Memorial
University, and other schools in Kentucky and adjoining states have done
much to educate them and bring them more in harmony with the outside
community.
The population of Kentucky is largely rural. However, in the decade
between 1890 and 1900 the percentage of urban population (i.e.
population of places of 4000 inhabitants or more) to the total
population increased from 17.5 to 19.7 and the percentage of
semi-urban (i.e. population of incorporated places with a population
of less than 4000) to the total increased from 8.86 to 9.86 %; but
48.3 % of the urban population of 1900 was in the city of Louisville.
In 1910 the following cities each had a population of more than 5000.
Louisville (223,928), Covington (53,270), Lexington (35,099), Newport
(30,309), Paducah (22,760), Owensboro (16,011), Henderson (11,452),
Frankfort, the capital (10,465), Hopkinsville (9419), Bowling Green
(9173), Ashland (8688), Middlesboro (7305), Winchester (7156), Dayton
(6979), Bellevue (6683), Maysville (6141), Mayfield (5916), Paris
(5859), Danville (5420), Richmond (5340). Of historical interest are
Harrodsburg (q.v.), the first permanent settlement in the state, and
Bardstown (pop. in 1900, 1711), the county-seat of Nelson county.
Bardstown was settled about 1775, largely by Roman Catholics from
Maryland. It was the see of a Roman Catholic bishop from 1810 to 1841,
and the seat of St Joseph's College (Roman Catholic) from 1824 to
1890; and was for some time the home of John Fitch (1743-1798), the
inventor, who built his first boat here. The Nazareth Literary and
Benevolent Institution, at Nazareth (2 m. N. of Bardstown), was
founded in 1829 and is a well-known Roman Catholic school for girls.
Boonesborough, founded by Daniel Boone in 1775, in what is now Madison
county, long ago ceased to exist, though a railway station named
Boone, on the Louisville & Nashville railroad, is near the site of the
old settlement.
In 1906 there were 858,324 communicants of different religious
denominations in the state, including 311,583 Baptists, 165,908 Roman
Catholics, 156,007 Methodists, 136,110 Disciples of Christ, 47,822
Presbyterians and 8091 Protestant Episcopalians.
_Administration._--Kentucky is governed under a constitution adopted in
1891.[5] A convention to revise the constitution or to draft a new one
meets on the call of two successive legislatures, ratified by a majority
of the popular vote, provided that majority be at least one-fourth of
the total number of votes cast at the preceding general election.
Ordinary amendments are proposed by a three-fifths majority in each
house, and are also subject to popular approval. With the usual
exceptions of criminals, idiots and insane persons, all male citizens
of the United States, who are at least 21 years of age, and have lived
in the state one year, in the county six months, and in the voting
precinct sixty days next preceding the election, are entitled to vote.
The legislature provides by law for registration in cities of the first,
second, third and fourth classes--the minimum population for a city of
the fourth class being 3000. Corporations are forbidden to contribute
money for campaign purposes on penalty of forfeiting their charters, or,
if not chartered in the state, their right to carry on business in the
state. The executive is composed of a governor, a lieutenant-governor, a
treasurer, an auditor of public accounts, a register of the land office,
a commissioner of agriculture, labour, and statistics, a secretary of
state, an attorney-general and a superintendent of public instruction.
All are chosen by popular vote for four years and are ineligible for
immediate re-election, and each must be at least 30 years of age and
must have been a resident citizen of the state for two years next
preceding his election. If a vacancy occurs in the office of governor
during the first two years a new election is held; if it occurs during
the last two years the lieutenant-governor serves out the term.
Lieutenant-governor Beckham, elected in 1900 to fill out the unexpired
term of Governor Goebel (assassinated in 1900), was re-elected in 1903,
the leading lawyers of the state holding that the constitutional
inhibition on successive terms did not apply in such a case.
The governor is commander-in-chief of the militia when it is not
called into the service of the United States; he may remit fines and
forfeitures, commute sentences, and grant reprieves and pardons,
except in cases of impeachment; and he calls extraordinary sessions of
the legislature. His control of patronage, however, is not extensive
and his veto power is very weak. He may veto any measure, including
items in appropriation bills, but the legislature can repass such a
measure by a simple majority of the total membership in each house.
Among the various state administrative boards are the board of
equalization of five members, the board of health of nine members, a
board of control of state institutions with four members (bipartisan),
and the railroad commission, the prison commission, the state election
commission and the sinking fund commission of three members each.
Legislative power is vested in a General Assembly, which consists of a
Senate and a House of Representatives. Senators are elected for four
years, one-half retiring every two years; representatives are elected
for two years. The minimum age for a representative is 24 years, for a
senator 30 years. There are thirty-eight senators and one hundred
representatives. The Senate sits as a court for the trial of
impeachment cases. A majority of either house constitutes a quorum,
but as regards ordinary bills, on the third reading, not only must
they receive a majority of the quorum, but that majority must be at
least two-fifths of the total membership of the house. For the
enactment of appropriation bills and bills creating a debt a majority
of the total membership in each house is required. All revenue
measures must originate in the House of Representatives, but the
Senate may introduce amendments. There are many detailed restrictions
on local and special legislation. The constitution provides for local
option elections on the liquor question in counties, cities, towns and
precincts; in 1907, out of 119 counties 87 had voted for prohibition.
The judiciary consists of a court of appeals, circuit courts,
quarterly courts, county courts, justice of the peace courts, police
courts and fiscal courts. The court of appeals is composed of from
five to seven judges (seven in 1909), elected, one from each appellate
district, for a term of eight years. The senior judge presides as
chief justice and in case two or more have served the same length of
time one of them is chosen by lot. The governor may for any reasonable
cause remove judges on the address of two-thirds of each house of the
legislature. The counties are grouped into judicial circuits, those
containing a population of more than 150,000 constituting separate
districts; each district has a judge and a commonwealth's attorney.
The county officials are the judge, clerk, attorney, sheriff, jailor,
coroner, surveyor and assessor, elected for four years. Each county
contains from three to eight justice of the peace districts. The
financial board of the county is composed of the county judge and the
justices of the peace, or of the county judge and three commissioners
elected on a general ticket.
The municipalities are divided into six classes according to
population, a classification which permits considerable special local
legislation in spite of the constitutional inhibition. Marriages
between whites and persons of negro descent are prohibited by law, and
a marriage of insane persons is legally void. Among causes for
absolute divorce are adultery, desertion for one year, habitual
drunkenness for one year, cruelty, ungovernable temper, physical
incapacity at time of marriage, and the joining by either party of any
religious sect which regards marriage as unlawful. A homestead law
declares exempt from execution an unmortgaged dwelling-house (with
appurtenances) not to exceed $1000 in value, and certain property,
such as tools of one's trade, libraries (to the value of $500) of
ministers and lawyers, and provisions for one year for each member of
a family. Child labour is regulated by an act passed by the General
Assembly in 1908; this act prohibits the employment of children less
than 14 years of age in any gainful occupation during the session of
school or in stores, factories, mines, offices, hotels or messenger
service during vacations, and prohibits the employment of children
between 14 and 16 unless they have employment certificates issued by a
superintendent of schools or some other properly authorized person,
showing the child's ability to read and write English, giving
information as to the child's age (based upon a birth certificate if
possible), and identifying the child by giving height and weight and
colour of eyes and hair. These certificates must be kept on file and
lists of children employed must be posted by employers; labour
inspectors receive monthly lists from local school boards of children
receiving certificates; and children under 16 are not to work more
than 10 hours a day or 60 hours a week, or between 7 p.m. and 7 a.m.
_Charitable and Penal Institutions._--The charitable and penal
institutions are managed by separate boards of trustees appointed by
the governor. There are a deaf and dumb institution at Danville
(1823), an institution for the blind at Louisville (1842), and an
institution for the education of feeble-minded children at Frankfort
(1860). The Eastern Lunatic Asylum at Lexington, established in 1815
as a private institution, came under the control of the state in 1824.
The Central Lunatic Asylum at Anchorage, founded in 1869 as a house of
refuge for young criminals, became an asylum in 1873. The Western
Lunatic Asylum at Hopkinsville was founded in 1848. The main
penitentiary at Frankfort was completed in 1799 and a branch was
established at Eddyville in 1891. Under an act of 1898 two houses of
reform for juvenile offenders, one for boys, the other for girls, were
established near Lexington.
_Education._--The early history of the schools of Kentucky shows that
the rural school conditions have been very unsatisfactory. A system of
five trustees, with a sixty-day term of school, was replaced by a
three trustee system, first with a one-hundred-day term of school, and
subsequently with a one-hundred-and-twenty-day term of school
annually. The state fund has not been supplemented locally for the
payment of teachers, who have consequently been underpaid. The rural
teachers, however, have been paid from the state fund, so that the
poorer districts receive aid from the richer districts of the
commonwealth. The rural schools are supervised by a superintendent in
each county. Throughout the state white and negro children are taught
in separate schools. The state makes provision for revenue for school
purposes as follows: (1) the interest on the Bond of the Commonwealth
for $1,327,000.00; (2) dividends on 798 shares of the capital stock of
the Bank of Kentucky--representing a par value of $79,800.00; (3) the
interest at 6 % on the Bond of the Commonwealth for $381,986.08, which
is a perpetual obligation in favour of the several counties; (4) the
interest at 6 % on $606,641.03, which was received from the United
States; (5) the annual tax of 26(1/2) cents on each $100 of value of all
real and personal estate and corporate franchises directed to be
assessed for taxation; (6) a certain portion of fines, forfeitures and
licences realized by the state; and (7) a portion of the dog taxes of
each county. The present school system of Kentucky may be summarized
under three heads: the rural schools, the graded schools, and the high
schools (which are further classified as city and county high
schools). The 1908 session of the General Assembly passed an act
providing: that each county of the state be the unit for taxation;
that the county tax be mandatory; that there be a local subdistrict
tax; and that each county be divided into four, six or eight
educational divisions, that one trustee be elected for each
subdistrict, that the trustees of the subdistricts form division
Boards of Education, and that the chairmen of these various division
boards form a County Board of Education together with the county
superintendent, who is _ex officio_ chairman. This system of taxation
and supervision is a great advance in the administration of public
schools. Any subdistrict, town or city of the fifth or sixth class may
provide for a graded school by voting for an _ad valorem_ and poll tax
which is limited as to amount. There were in 1909 135 districts which
had complied with this act, and were known as Graded Common School
districts. By special charters the General Assembly has also
established 25 special graded schools. Statutes provide that all
children between the ages of 7 and 14 years living in such districts
must attend school annually for at least eight consecutive weeks. In
each city of the first, second and third class there must be, and of
the fourth class there may be, maintained under control of a city
Board of Education a system of public schools, in which all children
between the ages of 6 and 20 residing in the city may be taught at
public expense. There were in 1909 62 city public high schools whose
graduates are admitted to the State University without examination. A
truancy act (1908) provides that every child between the ages of 7 and
14 years living in a city of the first, second, third or fourth class
must attend school regularly for the full term of said school. It was
provided by statute that before June 1910, there should have been
established in each county of the state at least one County High
School to which all common school graduates of the county should be
admitted without charge. Separate institutes for white and coloured
teachers are conducted annually in each county. These institutes are
held for a five or ten day session and attendance is required of every
teacher. The state provides for the issuance of three kinds of
certificates. A state diploma issued by the State Board of Examiners
is good for life. A state certificate issued by the State Board of
Examiners is good for eight years with one renewal. County
certificates issued by the County Board of Examiners are of three
classes, valid for one, two and four years respectively.
According to a school census there was in 1908-1909 a school
population of 739,352, of which 587,051 were reported from the rural
districts. In the school year 1907-1908 the school population was
734,617, the actual enrolment in public schools was 441,377, the
average attendance was 260,843; there were approximately 3392 male and
5257 female white teachers and 1274 negro teachers; and the total
revenue for school purposes was $3,805,997, of which sum $2,437,942.56
came from the state treasury.
What was formerly the State Agricultural and Mechanical College at
Lexington became the State University by legislative enactment (1908);
there is no tuition fee except in the School of Law. The State
University has a Department of Education. The state maintains for the
whites two State Normal Schools, which were established in 1906--one,
for the eastern district, at Richmond, and the other, for the western
district, at Bowling Green. Under the law establishing State Normal
Schools, each county is entitled to one or more appointments of
scholarships, one annually for every 500 white school children listed
in the last school census. A Kentucky Normal and Industrial School
(1886) for negroes is maintained at Frankfort. Among the private and
denominational colleges in Kentucky are Central University
(Presbyterian), at Danville; Transylvania University, at Lexington;
Georgetown College (Baptist) at Georgetown; Kentucky Wesleyan College
(M.E. South), at Winchester; and Berea College (non-sectarian) at
Berea.
_Finance._--Kentucky, in common with other states in this part of the
country, suffered from over-speculation in land and railways during
1830-1850. The funded debt of the state amounted to four and one-half
millions of dollars in 1850, when the hew constitution limited the
power of the legislature to contract further obligations or to
decrease or misapply the sinking funds. From 1850 to 1880 there was a
gradual reduction except during the years of the war. The system of
classifying the revenue into separate funds has frequently produced
annual deficits, which are, as a rule only nominal, since the total
receipts exceed the total expenditures. In 1902 the net bonded debt,
exclusive of about two millions of dollars held for educational
purposes, was $1,171,394, but this debt was paid in full in the years
immediately following. The sinking fund commission is composed of the
governor, attorney-general, secretary of state, auditor and treasurer.
The first banking currency in Kentucky was issued in 1802 by a
co-operative insurance company established by Mississippi Valley
traders. The Bank of Kentucky, established at Frankfort in 1806, had a
monopoly for several years. In 1818-1819 the legislature chartered 46
banks, nearly all of which went into liquidation during the panic of
1819. The Bank of the Commonwealth was chartered in 1820 as a state
institution and the charter of the Bank of Kentucky was revoked in
1822. A court decision denying the legal tender quality of the notes
issued by the Bank of the Commonwealth gave rise to a bitter
controversy which had considerable influence upon the political
history of the state. This bank failed in 1829. In 1834 the
legislature chartered the Bank of Kentucky, the Bank of Louisville and
the Northern Bank of Kentucky. These institutions survived the panic
of 1837 and soon came to be recognized as among the most prosperous
and the most conservative banks west of the Alleghanies. The state
banking laws are stringent and most of the business is still
controlled by banks operating under state charters.
_History._--The settlement and the development of that part of the
United States west of the Alleghany Mountains has probably been the most
notable feature of American history since the close of the Seven Years'
War (1763). Kentucky was the first settlement in this movement, the
first state west of the Alleghany Mountains admitted into the Union. In
1763 the Kentucky country was claimed by the Cherokees as a part of
their hunting grounds, by the Six Nations (Iroquois) as a part of their
western conquests, and by Virginia as a part of the territory granted to
her by her charter of 1609, although it was actually inhabited only by a
few Chickasaws near the Mississippi river and by a small tribe of
Shawnees in the north, opposite what is now Portsmouth, Ohio. The early
settlers were often attacked by Indian raiders from what is now
Tennessee or from the country north of the Ohio, but the work of
colonization would have been far more difficult if those Indians had
lived in the Kentucky region itself. Dr Thomas Walker (1715-1794), as an
agent and surveyor of the Loyal Land Company, made an exploration in
1750 into the present state from the Cumberland Gap, in search of a
suitable place for settlement but did not get beyond the mountain
region. In the next year Christopher Gist, while on a similar mission
for the Ohio Company, explored the country westward from the mouth of
the Scioto river. In 1752 John Finley, an Indian trader, descended the
Ohio river in a canoe to the site of Louisville. It was Finley's
descriptions that attracted Daniel Boone, and soon after Boone's first
visit, in 1767, travellers through the Kentucky region became numerous.
The first permanent English settlement was established at Harrodsburg in
1774 by James Harrod, and in October of the same year the Ohio Indians,
having been defeated by Virginia troops in the battle of Point Pleasant
(in what is now West Virginia), signed a treaty by which they
surrendered their claims south of the Ohio river. In March 1775 Richard
Henderson and some North Carolina land speculators met about 1200
Cherokee Indians in council on the Watauga river and concluded a treaty
with them for the purchase of all the territory south of the Ohio river
and between the Kentucky and Cumberland rivers. The purchase was named
Transylvania, and within less than a month after the treaty was signed,
Boone, under its auspices, founded a settlement at Boonesborough which
became the headquarters of the colony. The title was declared void by
the Virginia government in 1778, but Henderson and his associates
received 200,000 acres in compensation, and all sales made to actual
settlers were confirmed. During the War of Independence the colonists
were almost entirely neglected by Virginia and were compelled to defend
themselves against the Indians who were often under British leadership.
Boonesborough was attacked in April and in July 1777 and in August 1778.
Bryant's (or Bryan's) Station, near Lexington, was besieged in August
1782 by about 600 Indians under the notorious Simon Girty, who after
raising the siege drew the defenders, numbering fewer than 200, into an
ambush and in the battle of Blue Licks which ensued the Kentuckians lost
about 67 killed and 7 prisoners. Kentucky county, practically
coterminous with the present state of Kentucky and embracing all the
territory claimed by Virginia south of the Ohio river and west of Big
Sandy Creek and the ridge of the Cumberland Mountains, was one of three
counties which was formed out of Fincastle county in 1776. Four years
later, this in turn was divided into three counties, Jefferson, Lincoln
and Fayette, but the name Kentucky was revived in 1782 and was given to
the judicial district which was then organized for these three counties.
The War of Independence was followed by an extensive immigration from
Virginia, Maryland and North Carolina[6] of a population of which fully
95%, excluding negro slaves, were of pure English, Scotch or
Scotch-Irish descent. The manners, customs and institutions of Virginia
were transplanted beyond the mountains. There was the same political
rivalry between the slave-holding farmers of the Blue Grass Region and
the "poor whites" of the mountain districts that there was in Virginia
between the tide-water planters and the mountaineers. Between these
extremes were the small farmers of the "Barrens"[7] in Kentucky and of
the Piedmont Region in Virginia. The aristocratic influences in both
states have always been on the Southern and Democratic side, but while
they were strong enough in Virginia to lead the state into secession
they were unable to do so in Kentucky.
At the close of the War of Independence the Kentuckians complained
because the mother state did not protect them against their enemies and
did not give them an adequate system of local government. Nine
conventions were held at Danville from 1784 to 1790 to demand separation
from Virginia. The Virginia authorities expressed a willingness to grant
the demand provided Congress would admit the new district into the Union
as a state. The delay, together with the proposal of John Jay, the
Secretary for Foreign Affairs and commissioner to negotiate a commercial
treaty with the Spanish envoy, to surrender navigation rights on the
lower Mississippi for twenty-five years in order to remove the one
obstacle to the negotiations, aroused so much feeling that General James
Wilkinson and a few other leaders began to intrigue not only for a
separation from Virginia, but also from the United States, and for the
formation of a close alliance with the Spanish at New Orleans. Although
most of the settlers were too loyal to be led into any such plot they
generally agreed that it might have a good effect by bringing pressure
to bear upon the Federal government. Congress passed a preliminary act
in February 1791, and the state was formally admitted into the Union on
the 1st of June 1792. In the Act of 1776 for dividing Fincastle county,
Virginia, the ridge of the Cumberland Mountains was named as a part of
the east boundary of Kentucky; and now that this ridge had become a part
of the boundary between the states of Virginia and Kentucky they, in
1799, appointed a joint commission to run the boundary line on this
ridge. A dispute with Tennessee over the southern boundary was settled
in a similar manner in 1820.[8] The constitution of 1792 provided for
manhood suffrage and for the election of the governor and of senators by
an electoral college. General Isaac Shelby was the first governor. The
people still continued to have troubles with the Indians and with the
Spanish at New Orleans. The Federal government was slow to act, but its
action when taken was effective. The power of the Indians was overthrown
by General Anthony Wayne's victory in the battle of Fallen Timbers,
fought the 20th of August 1794 near the rapids of the Maumee river a few
miles above the site of Toledo, Ohio; and the Mississippi question was
settled temporarily by the treaty of 1795 and permanently by the
purchase of Louisiana in 1803. In 1798-1799 the legislature passed the
famous Kentucky Resolutions in protest against the alien and sedition
acts.
For several years the Anti-Federalists or Republicans had contended that
the administration at Washington had been exercising powers not
warranted by the constitution, and when Congress had passed the alien
and sedition laws the leaders of that party seized upon the event as a
proper occasion for a spirited public protest which took shape
principally in resolutions passed by the legislatures of Kentucky and
Virginia. The original draft of the Kentucky Resolutions of 1798 was
prepared by Vice-President Thomas Jefferson, although the fact that he
was the author of them was kept from the public until he acknowledged it
in 1821. They were introduced in the House of Representatives by John
Breckinridge on the 8th of November, were passed by that body with some
amendments but with only one dissenting vote on the 10th, were
unanimously concurred in by the Senate on the 13th, and were approved by
Governor James Garrard on the 16th. The first resolution was a statement
of the ultra states'-rights view of the relation of the states to the
Federal government[9] and subsequent resolutions declare the alien and
sedition laws unconstitutional and therefore "void and of no force,"
principally on the ground that they provided for an exercise of powers
which were reserved to the state. The resolutions further declare that
"this Commonwealth is determined, as it doubts not its co-states are,
tamely to submit to undelegated and therefore unlimited powers in no man
or body of men on earth," and that "these and successive acts of the
same character, unless arrested on the threshold, may tend to drive
these states into revolution and blood." Copies of the resolutions were
sent to the governors of the various states, to be laid before the
different state legislatures, and replies were received from
Connecticut, Delaware, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Rhode
Island, Vermont and Virginia, but all except that from Virginia were
unfavourable. Nevertheless the Kentucky legislature on the 22nd of
November 1799 reaffirmed in a new resolution the principles it had laid
down in the first series, asserting in this new resolution that the
state "does now unequivocally declare its attachment to the Union, and
to that compact [the Constitution], agreeably to its obvious and real
intention, and will be among the last to seek its dissolution," but that
"the principle and construction contended for by sundry of the state
legislatures, that the General Government is the exclusive judge of the
extent of the powers delegated to it, stop nothing [short] of
_despotism_--since the discretion of those who administer the
government, and not the _Constitution_, would be the measure of their
powers," "that the several states who formed that instrument, being
sovereign and independent, have the unquestionable right to judge of the
infraction," and "that a _nullification by those sovereignties of all
unauthorized acts done under color of that instrument is the rightful
remedy_." These measures show that the state was Democratic-Republican
in its politics and pro-French in its sympathies, and that it was
inclined to follow the leadership of that state from which most of its
people had come.
The constitution of 1799 adopted the system of choosing the governor and
senators by popular vote and deprived the supreme court of its original
jurisdiction in land cases. The Burr conspiracy (1804-1806) aroused some
excitement in the state. Many would have followed Burr in a
filibustering attack upon the Spanish in the South-West, but scarcely
any would have approved of a separation of Kentucky from the Federal
Union. No battles were fought in Kentucky during the War of 1812, but
her troops constituted the greater part of the forces under General
William Henry Harrison. They took part in the operations at Fort Wayne,
Fort Meigs, the river Raisin and the Thames.
The Democratic-Republicans controlled the politics of the state without
any serious opposition until the conflict in 1820-1826, arising from the
demands for a more adequate system of currency and other measures for
the relief of delinquent debtors divided the state into what were known
as the relief and anti-relief parties. After nearly all the forty-six
banks chartered by the legislature in 1818 had been wrecked in the
financial panic of 1819, the legislature in 1820 passed a series of laws
designed for the benefit of the debtor class, among them one making
state bank notes a legal tender for all debts. A decision of the Clark
county district court declaring this measure unconstitutional was
affirmed by the court of appeals. The legislature in 1824 repealed all
of the laws creating the existing court of appeals and then established
a new one. This precipitated a bitter campaign between the anti-relief
or "old court" party and the relief or "new court" party, in which the
former was successful. The old court party followed the lead of Henry
Clay and John Quincy Adams in national politics, and became National
Republicans and later Whigs. The new court party followed Andrew Jackson
and Martin Van Buren and became Democrats. The electoral vote of the
state was cast for Jackson in 1828 and for Clay in 1832. During the next
thirty years Clay's conservative influence dominated the politics of the
state.[10] Kentucky voted the Whig ticket in every presidential election
from 1832 until the party made its last campaign in 1852. When the Whigs
were destroyed by the slavery issue some of them immediately became
Democrats, but the majority became Americans, or Know-Nothings. They
elected the governor in 1855 and almost succeeded in carrying the state
for their presidential ticket in 1856. In 1860 the people of Kentucky
were drawn toward the South by their interest in slavery and by their
social relations, and toward the North by business ties and by a
national sentiment which was fostered by the Clay traditions. They
naturally assumed the leadership in the Constitutional Union movement of
1860, casting the vote of the state for Bell and Everett. After the
election of President Lincoln they also led in the movement to secure
the adoption of the Crittenden Compromise or some other peaceful
solution of the difficulties between the North and the South.
A large majority of the state legislature, however, were Democrats, and
in his message to this body, in January 1861, Governor Magoffin, also a
Democrat, proposed that a convention be called to determine "the future
of Federal and inter-state relations of Kentucky;" later too, in reply
to the president's call for volunteers, he declared, "Kentucky will
furnish no troops for the wicked purpose of subduing her sister Southern
States." Under these conditions the Unionists asked only for the
maintenance of neutrality, and a resolution to this effect was carried
by a bare majority--48 to 47. Some of the secessionists took this as a
defeat and left the state immediately to join the Confederate ranks. In
the next month there was an election of congressmen, and an
anti-secession candidate was chosen in nine out of ten districts. An
election in August of one-half the Senate and all of the House of
Representatives resulted in a Unionist majority in the new legislature
of 103 to 35, and in September, after Confederate troops had begun to
invade the state, Kentucky formally declared its allegiance to the
Union. From September 1861 to the fall of Fort Donelson in February 1862
that part of Kentucky which is south and west of the Green River was
occupied by the Confederate army under General A. S. Johnston, and at
Russellville in that district a so-called "sovereignty convention"
assembled on the 18th of November. This body, composed mostly of
Kentucky men who had joined the Confederate army, passed an ordinance of
secession, elected state officers, and sent commissioners to the
Confederate Congress, which body voted on the 9th of December to admit
Kentucky into the Confederacy. Throughout the war Kentucky was
represented in the Confederate Congress--representatives and senators
being elected by Confederate soldiers from the state. The officers of
this "provisional government," headed by G. W. Johnson, who had been
elected "governor," left the state when General A. S. Johnston withdrew;
Johnson himself was killed at Shiloh, but an attempt was subsequently
made by General Bragg to install this government at Frankfort. General
Felix K. Zollicoffer (1812-1862) had entered the south-east part of the
state through Cumberland Gap in September, and later with a Confederate
force of about 7000 men attempted the invasion of central Kentucky, but
in October 1861 he met with a slight repulse at Wild Cat Mountain, near
London, Laurel county, and on the 19th of January 1862, in an engagement
near Mill Springs, Wayne county, with about an equal force under General
George H. Thomas, he was killed and his force was utterly routed. In
1862 General Braxton Bragg in command of the Confederates in eastern
Tennessee, eluded General Don Carlos Buell, in command of the Federal
Army of the Ohio stationed there, and entering Kentucky in August 1862
proceeded slowly toward Louisville, hoping to win the state to the
Confederate cause and gain recruits for the Confederacy in the state.
His main army was preceded by a division of about 15,000 men under
General Edmund Kirby Smith, who on the 30th of August defeated a Federal
force under General Wm. Nelson near Richmond and threatened Cincinnati.
Bragg met with little opposition on his march, but Buell, also marching
from eastern Tennessee, reached Louisville first (Sept. 24), turned on
Bragg, and forced him to withdraw. On his retreat, Bragg attempted to
set up a Confederate government at Frankfort, and Richard J. Hawes, who
had been chosen as G. W. Johnson's successor, was actually
"inaugurated," but naturally this state "government" immediately
collapsed. On the 8th of October Buell and Bragg fought an engagement at
Perryville which, though tactically indecisive, was a strategic victory
for Buell; and thereafter Bragg withdrew entirely from the state into
Tennessee. This was the last serious attempt on a large scale by the
Confederates to win Kentucky; but in February 1863 one of General John
H. Morgan's brigades made a raid on Mount Sterling and captured it; in
March General Pegram made a raid into Pulaski county; in March 1864
General N. B. Forrest assaulted Fort Anderson at Paducah but failed to
capture it; and in June General Morgan made an unsuccessful attempt to
take Lexington.
Although the majority of the people sympathized with the Union, the
emancipation of the slaves without compensation even to loyal owners,
the arming of negro troops, the arbitrary imprisonment of citizens and
the interference of Federal military officials in purely civil affairs
aroused so much feeling that the state became strongly Democratic, and
has remained so almost uniformly since the war. Owing to the panic of
1893, distrust of the free silver movement and the expenditure of large
campaign funds, the Republicans were successful in the gubernational
election of 1895 and the presidential election of 1896. The election of
1899 was disputed. William S. Taylor, Republican, was inaugurated
governor on the 12th of December, but the legislative committee on
contests decided in favour of the Democrats. Governor-elect Goebel was
shot by an assassin on the 30th of January 1900, was sworn into office
on his deathbed, and died on the 3rd of February. Taylor fled the state
to escape trial on the charge of murder. Lieutenant-Governor Beckham
filled out the unexpired term and was re-elected in 1903. In 1907 the
Republicans again elected their candidate for governor.
GOVERNORS OF KENTUCKY
Isaac Shelby Democratic-Republican 1792-1796
James Garrard " " 1796-1804
Christopher Greenup " " 1804-1808
Charles Scott " " 1808-1812
Isaac Shelby " " 1812-1816
George Madison* " " 1816
Gabriel Slaughter (acting) " " 1816-1820
John Adair " " 1820-1824
Joseph Desha " " 1824-1828
Thomas Metcalfe National " 1828-1832
John Breathitt* Democrat 1832-1834
James T. Morehead (acting) " 1834-1836
James Clark* Whig 1836
Charles A. Wickliffe (acting) " 1836-1840
Robert P. Letcher " 1840-1844
William Owsley " 1844-1848
John J. Crittenden[+] " 1848-1850
John L. Helm[+] Democrat 1850-1851
Lazarus W. Powell " 1851-1855
Charles S. Morehead American 1855-1859
Beriah Magoffin Democrat 1859-1862
James F. Robinson " 1862-1863
Thomas E. Bramlette " 1863-1867
John L. Helm* " 1867
John W. Stevenson[++] " 1867-1871
Preston H. Leslie[++] " 1871-1875
James B. McCreary " 1875-1879
Luke P. Blackburn " 1879-1883
J. Proctor Knott " 1883-1887
Simon B. Buckner " 1887-1891
John Y. Brown " 1891-1895
William O. Bradley Republican 1895-1899
William S. Taylor[+++] " 1899-1900
William Goebel* Democrat 1900
J. C. W. Beckham " 1900-1907
Augustus E. Willson Republican 1907-
* Died in office.
[+] Governor Crittenden resigned on the 31st of July to become
Attorney-General of the United States and John L. Helm served out
the unexpired term.
[++] Governor Stevenson resigned on the 13th of February 1871 to
become U.S. Senator from Kentucky. P. H. Leslie filled out the
remainder of the term and was elected in 1871 for a full term.
[+++] Taylor's election was contested by Goebel, who received the
certificate of election.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.--For descriptions of physical features and accounts of
natural resources see _Reports of the Kentucky Geological Survey_, the
_Biennial Reports of the Bureau of Agriculture, Labor and Statistics_,
the _Reports_ of the United States Census and various publications of
the U.S. Geological Survey, and other publications listed in Bulletin
301 (_Bibliography and Index of North American Geology_ for 1901-1905)
and other bibliographies of the Survey. For an early description, see
Gilbert Imlay, _A Topographical Description of the Western Territory
of North America_ (London, 3rd ed., 1797), in which John Filson's
"Discovery, Settlement and Present State of Kentucke" (1784) is
reprinted. For a brief description of the Blue Grass Region, see James
Lane Allen's _The Blue Grass Region of Kentucky and other Kentucky
Articles_ (New York, 1900). An account of the social and industrial
life of the people in the "mountain" districts is given in William H.
Haney's _The Mountain People of Kentucky_ (Cincinnati, 1906). For
administration, see the _Official Manual for the Use of the Courts,
State and County Officials and General Assembly of the State of
Kentucky_ (Lexington), which contains the Constitution of 1891; _The
Report of the Debates and Proceedings of the Convention ... of 1849_
(Frankfort, 1849); _The Official Report of the Proceedings and Debates
of the Constitutional Convention of 1890_ (4 vols., Frankfort, 1890);
B. H. Young, _History and Texts of Three Constitutions of Kentucky_
(Louisville, 1890); J. F. Bullitt and John Feland, _The General
Statutes of Kentucky_ (Frankfort and Louisville, 1877, revised
editions, 1881, 1887); and the _Annual Reports_ of state officers and
boards. For history see R. M. McElroy's _Kentucky in the Nation's
History_ (New York, 1909, with bibliography); or (more briefly) N. S.
Shaler's _Kentucky_ (Boston, 1885), in the American Commonwealths
Series. John M. Brown's _The Political Beginnings of Kentucky_
(Louisville, 1889) is a good monograph dealing with the period before
1792; it should be compared with Thomas M. Green's _The Spanish
Conspiracy: A Review of Early Spanish Movements in the Southwest_
(Cincinnati, 1891), written in reply to it. Among older histories are
Humphrey Marshall, _The History of Kentucky ... and the Present State
of the Country_ (2 vols., Frankfort, 1812, 1824), extremely
Federalistic in tone; Mann Butler, _History of Kentucky from its
Exploration and Settlement by the Whites to the close of the
Southwestern Campaign of 1813_ (Louisville, 1834; 2nd ed., Cincinnati,
1836), and Lewis Collins, _The History of Kentucky_ (2 vols., revised
edition, Covington, Ky., 1874), a valuable store-house of facts, the
basis of Shaler's work. E. D. Warfield's _The Kentucky Resolutions_ of
1798 (New York, 2nd ed., 1887) is an excellent monograph. For the
Civil War history see "Campaigns in Kentucky and Tennessee," in the
7th volume of _Papers of the Military Historical Society of
Massachusetts_ (Boston, 1908); Thomas Speed, _The Union Cause in
Kentucky_ (New York, 1907); Basil W. Duke, _History of Morgan's
Cavalry_ (Cincinnati, 1867), and general works on the history of the
war. See also Alvin F. Lewis, _History of Higher Education in
Kentucky_, in Circulars of Information of the U.S. Bureau of Education
(Washington, 1899), and R. G. Thwaites, _Daniel Boone_ (New York,
1902). There is much valuable material in the _Register_ (Frankfort,
1903 seq.) of the Kentucky State Historical Society, and especially in
the publications of the Filson Club of Louisville. Among the latter
are R. T. Durrett's _John Filson, the first Historian of Kentucky_
(1884); Thomas Speed, _The Wilderness Road_ (1886); W. H. Perrin, _The
Pioneer Press of Kentucky_ (1888); G. W. Ranck, _Boonesborough: Its
Founding, Pioneer Struggles, Indian Experiences, Transylvania Days and
Revolutionary Annals_ (1901), and _The Centenary of Kentucky_ (1892),
containing an address, "The State of Kentucky: its Discovery,
Settlement, Autonomy and Progress in a Hundred Years," by Reuben T.
Durrett.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] North of the Black Patch is a district in which is grown a
heavy-leaf tobacco, a large part of which is shipped to Great
Britain; and farther north and east a dark tobacco is grown for the
American market.
[2] In the census of 1905 statistics for other than factory-made
products, such as those of the hand trades, were not included.
[3] For a full account of the "licks," see vol. i. pt. ii. of the
_Memoirs of the Kentucky Geological Survey_ (1876).
[4] The population of the state at the previous censuses was: 73,677
in 1790; 220,955 in 1800; 406,511 in 1810; 564,317 in 1820; 687,917
in 1830; 779,828 in 1840; 982,405 in 1850; 1,155,684 in 1860 and
1,321,011 in 1870.
[5] There were three previous constitutions--those of 1792, 1799 and
1850.
[6] Most of the early settlers of Kentucky made their way thither
either by the Ohio river (from Fort Pitt) or--the far larger
number--by way of the Cumberland Gap and the "Wilderness Road." This
latter route began at Inglis's Ferry, on the New river, in what is
now West Virginia, and proceeded west by south to the Cumberland Gap.
The "Wilderness Road," as marked by Daniel Boone in 1775, was a mere
trail, running from the Watauga settlement in east Tennessee to the
Cumberland Gap, and thence by way of what are now Crab Orchard,
Danville and Bardstown, to the Falls of the Ohio, and was passable
only for men and horses until 1795, when the state made it a wagon
road. Consult Thomas Speed, _The Wilderness Road_ (Louisville, Ky.,
1886), and Archer B. Hulbert, _Boone's Wilderness Road_ (Cleveland,
O., 1903).
[7] The "Barrens" were in the north part of the state west of the
Blue Grass Region, and were so called merely because the Indians had
burned most of the forests here in order to provide better pasturage
for buffaloes and other game.
[8] The southern boundary to the Tennessee river was surveyed in
1779-1780 by commissioners representing Virginia and North Carolina,
and was supposed to be run along the parallel of latitude 36 deg.
30', but by mistake was actually run north of that parallel. By a
treaty of 1819 the Indian title to the territory west of the
Tennessee was extinguished, and commissioners then ran a line along
the parallel of 36 deg. 30' from the Mississippi to the Tennessee. In
1820 commissioners representing Kentucky and Tennessee formally
adopted the line of 1779-1780 and the line of 1819 as the boundary
between the two states.
[9] This resolution read as follows: Resolved, that the several
states composing the United States of America are not united on the
principle of unlimited submission to their general government; but
that by compact under the style of a Constitution for the United
States and of amendments thereto, they constituted a general
government for special purposes, delegated to that government certain
definite powers, reserving each state to itself the residuary mass of
right to their own self-government; and that whensoever the general
government assumes undelegated powers its acts are unauthoritative,
void, and of no force: That to this compact each state acceded as a
state, and is an integral party, its co-states forming, as to itself,
the other party: That the government created by this compact was not
made the exclusive or final judge of the extent of the powers
delegated to itself, since that would have made its discretion, and
not the Constitution, the measure of its powers; but that, as in all
other cases of compact among parties having no common judge, each
party has an equal right to judge for itself as well of infractions
as of the mode and measure of redress.
[10] He died in 1852, but the traditions which he represented
survived.
KENYA, a great volcanic mountain in British East Africa, situated just
south of the equator in 37 deg. 20' E. It is one of the highest
mountains of Africa, its highest peak reaching an altitude of 17,007 ft.
(with a possible error of 30 ft. either way). The central core, which
consists of several steep pyramids, is that of a very denuded old
volcano, which when its crater was complete may have reached 2000 ft.
above the present summit. Lavas dip in all directions from the central
crystalline core, pointing to the conclusion that the main portion of
the mountain represents a single volcanic mass. From the central peaks,
of which the axis runs from W.N.W. to S.S.E., ridges radiate outwards,
separated by broad valleys, ending upwards in vast cirques. The most
important ridges centre in the peak Lenana (16,300 ft.) at the eastern
end of the central group, and through it runs the chief water-parting of
the mountain, in a generally north to south direction. Three main
valleys, known respectively as Hinde, Gorges and Hobley valleys, run
down from this to the east, and four--Mackinder, Hausberg, Teleki and
Hohnel--to the west. From the central peaks fifteen glaciers, all lying
west of the main divide, descend to the north and south, the two largest
being the Lewis and Gregory glaciers, each about 1 m. long, which, with
the smaller Kolb glacier, lie immediately west of the main divide. Most
of the glaciers terminate at an altitude of 14,800-14,900 ft., but the
small Cesar glacier, drained to the Hausberg valley, reaches to 14,450.
Glaciation was formerly much more extensive, old moraines being observed
down to 12,000 ft. In the upper parts of the valleys a number of lakes
occur, occupying hollows and rock basins in the agglomerates and ashes,
fed by springs, and feeding many of the streams that drain the mountain
slopes. The largest of these are Lake Hohnel, lying at an altitude of
14,000 ft., at the head of the valley of the same name, and measuring
600 by 400 yds.; and Lake Michaelson (12,700 ft.?) in the Gorges Valley.
At a distance from the central core the radiating ridges become less
abrupt and descend with a gentle gradient, finally passing somewhat
abruptly, at a height of some 7000 ft., into the level plateau. These
outer slopes are clothed with dense forest and jungle, composed chiefly
of junipers and _Podocarpus_, and between 8000 and 9800 ft. of huge
bamboos. The forest zone extends to about 10,500 ft., above which is the
steeper alpine zone, in which pasturages alternate with rocks and crags.
This extends to a general height of about 15,000 ft., but in damp,
sheltered valleys the pasturages extend some distance higher. The only
trees or shrubs in this zone are the giant _Senecio_ (groundsel) and
_Lobelia_, and tree-heaths, the _Senecio_ forming groves in the upper
valleys. Of the fauna of the lower slopes, tracks of elephant, leopard
and buffalo have been seen, between 11,500 and 14,500 ft. That of the
alpine zone includes two species of dassy (_Procavia_), a coney
(_Hyrax_), and a rat (_Otomys_). The bird fauna is of considerable
interest, the finest species of the upper zone being an eagle-owl, met
with at 14,000 ft. At 11,000 ft. was found a brown chat, with a good
deal of white in the tail. Both the fauna and flora of the higher levels
present close affinities with those of Mount Elgon, of other mountains
of East Africa and of Cameroon Mountain. The true native names of the
mountain are said to be Kilinyaga, Doenyo Ebor (white mountain) and
Doenyo Egeri (spotted mountain). It was first seen, from a distance, by
the missionary Ludwig Krapf in 1849; approached from the west by Joseph
Thomson in 1883; partially ascended by Count S. Teleki (1889), J. W.
Gregory (1893) and Georg Kolb (1896); and its summit reached by H. J.
Mackinder in 1899.
See J. W. Gregory, _The Great Rift-Valley_ (London, 1896); H. J.
Mackinder, "Journey to the Summit of Mount Kenya," _Geog. Jnl._, May
1900. (E. He.)
KENYON, LLOYD KENYON, 1ST BARON (1732-1802), lord chief-justice of
England, was descended by his father's side from an old Lancashire
family; his mother was the daughter of a small proprietor in Wales. He
was born at Gredington, Flintshire, on the 5th of October 1732. Educated
at Ruthin grammar school, he was in his fifteenth year articled to an
attorney at Nantwich, Cheshire. In 1750 he entered at Lincoln's Inn,
London, and in 1756 was called to the bar. As for several years he was
almost unemployed, he utilized his leisure in taking notes of the cases
argued in the court of King's Bench, which he afterwards published.
Through answering the cases of his friend John Dunning, afterwards Lord
Ashburton, he gradually became known to the attorneys, after which his
success was so rapid that in 1780 he was made king's counsel. He showed
conspicuous ability in the cross-examination of the witnesses at the
trial of Lord George Gordon, but his speech was so tactless that the
verdict of acquittal was really due to the brilliant effort of Erskine,
the junior counsel. This want of tact, indeed, often betrayed Kenyon
into striking blunders; as an advocate he was, moreover, deficient in
ability of statement; and his position was achieved chiefly by hard
work, a good knowledge of law and several lucky friendships. Through the
influence of Lord Thurlow, Kenyon in 1780 entered the House of Commons
as member for Hindon, and in 1782 he was, through the same friendship,
appointed attorney-general in Lord Buckingham's administration, an
office which he continued to hold under Pitt. In 1784 he received the
mastership of the rolls, and was created a baronet. In 1788 he was
appointed lord chief justice as successor to Lord Mansfield, and the
same year was raised to the peerage as Baron Kenyon of Gredington. As he
had made many enemies, his elevation was by no means popular with the
bar; but on the bench, in spite of his capricious and choleric temper,
he proved himself not only an able lawyer, but a judge of rare and
inflexible impartiality. He died at Bath, on the 4th of April 1802.
Kenyon was succeeded as 2nd baron by his son George (1776-1855), whose
great-grandson, Lloyd (b. 1864), became the 4th baron in 1869.
See _Life_ by Hon. G. T. Kenyon, 1873.
KEOKUK, a city of Lee county, Iowa, U.S.A., on the Mississippi river, at
the mouth of the Des Moines, in the S.E. corner of the state, about 200
m. above St Louis. Pop. (1900), 14,641; (1905), 14,604, including 1534
foreign-born; (1910), 14,008. It is served by the Chicago, Burlington &
Quincy, the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific, the Wabash, and the Toledo,
Peoria & Western railways. There is a bridge (about 2200 ft. long)
across the Mississippi, and another (about 1200 ft. long) across the Des
Moines. The city has a public library and St Joseph and Graham
hospitals, and is the seat of the Keokuk Medical College (1849). There
is a national cemetery here. Much of the city is built on bluffs along
the Mississippi. Keokuk is at the foot of the Des Moines Rapids, round
which the Federal Government has constructed a navigable canal (opened
1877) about 9 m. long, with a draft at extreme low water of 5 ft.; at
the foot a great dam, 1(1/2) m. long and 38 ft. high, has been
constructed. Keokuk has various manufactures; its factory product in
1905 was valued at $4,225,915, 38.6% more than in 1900. The city was
named after Keokuk, a chief of the Sauk and Foxes (1780-1848), whose
name meant "the watchful" or "he who moves alertly." In spite of Black
Hawk's war policy in 1832 Keokuk was passive and neutral, and with a
portion of his nation remained peaceful while Black Hawk and his
warriors fought. His grave, surmounted by a monument, is in Rand Park.
The first house on the site of the city was built about 1820, but
further settlement did not begin until 1836. Keokuk was laid out as a
town in 1837, was chartered as a city in 1848, and in 1907 was one of
five cities of the state governed by a special charter.
KEONJHAR, a tributary state of India, within the Orissa division of
Bengal; area, 3096 sq. m.; pop. (1901), 285,758; estimated revenue,
L20,000. The state is an offshoot from Mayurbhanj. Part of it consists
of rugged hills, rising to more than 3000 ft. above sea-level. The
residence of the raja is at Keonjhar (pop. 4532).
KEONTHAL, a petty hill state in the Punjab, India, with an area of 116
sq. m.; pop. (1901), 22,499; estimated revenue, L4400. The chief, a
Rajput, received the title of raja in 1857. After the Gurkha War in
1815, a portion of Keonthal, which had been occupied by the Gurkhas, was
sold to the maharaja of Patiala, the remainder being restored to its
hereditary chief. In 1823 the district of Punar was added to the
Keonthal state. The raja exercises rights of lordship over the petty
states of Kothi, Theog, Madhan and Ratesh.
KEPLER, JOHANN (1571-1630), German astronomer, was born on the 27th of
December 1571, at Weil, in the duchy of Wurttemberg, of which town his
grandfather was burgomaster. He was the eldest child of an ill-assorted
union. His father, Henry Kepler, was a reckless soldier of fortune; his
mother, Catherine Guldenmann, the daughter of the burgomaster of
Eltingen, was undisciplined and ill-educated. Her husband found
campaigning in Flanders under Alva a welcome relief from domestic life;
and, after having lost all he possessed by a forfeited security and
tried without success the trade of tavern-keeping in the village of
Elmendingen, he finally, in 1589, deserted his family. The misfortune
and misconduct of his parents were not the only troubles of Kepler's
childhood. He recovered from small-pox in his fourth year with crippled
hands and eyesight permanently impaired; and a constitution enfeebled by
premature birth had to withstand successive shocks of severe illness.
His schooling began at Leonberg in 1577--the year, as he himself tells
us, of a great comet; but domestic bankruptcy occasioned his
transference to field-work, in which he was exclusively employed for
several years. Bodily infirmity, combined with mental aptitude, were
eventually considered to indicate a theological vocation; he was, in
1584, placed at the seminary of Adelberg, and thence removed, two years
later, to that of Maulbronn. A brilliant examination for the degree of
bachelor procured him, in 1588, admittance on the foundation to the
university of Tubingen, where he laid up a copious store of classical
erudition, and imbibed Copernican principles from the private
instructions of his teacher and life-long friend, Michael Maestlin. As
yet, however, he had little knowledge of, and less inclination for,
astronomy; and it was with extreme reluctance that he turned aside from
the more promising career of the ministry to accept, early in 1594, the
vacant chair of that science at Gratz, placed at the disposal of the
Tubingen professors by the Lutheran states of Styria.
The best recognized function of German astronomers in that day was the
construction of prophesying almanacs, greedily bought by a credulous
public. Kepler thus found that the first duties required of him were of
an astrological nature, and set himself with characteristic alacrity to
master the rules of the art as laid down by Ptolemy and Cardan. He,
moreover, sought in the events of his own life a verification of the
theory of planetary influences; and it is to this practice that we owe
the summary record of each year's occurrences which, continued almost to
his death, affords for his biography a slight but sure foundation. But
his thoughts were already working in a higher sphere. He early attained
to the settled conviction that for the actual disposition of the solar
system some abstract intelligible reason must exist, and this, after
much meditation, he believed himself to have found in an imaginary
relation between the "five regular solids" and the number and distances
of the planets. He notes with exultation the 9th of July 1595, as the
date of the pseudo-discovery, the publication of which in _Prodromus
Dissertationum Cosmographicarum seu Mysterium Cosmographicum_ (Tubingen,
1596) procured him much fame, and a friendly correspondence with the two
most eminent astronomers of the time, Tycho Brahe and Galileo.
Soon after his arrival at Gratz, Kepler contracted an engagement with
Barbara von Muhleck, a wealthy Styrian heiress, who, at the age of
twenty-three, had already survived one husband and been divorced from
another. Before her relatives could be brought to countenance his
pretensions, Kepler was obliged to undertake a journey to Wurttemberg to
obtain documentary evidence of the somewhat obscure nobility of his
family, and it was thus not until the 27th of April 1597 that the
marriage was celebrated. In the following year the archduke Ferdinand,
on assuming the government of his hereditary dominions, issued an edict
of banishment against Protestant preachers and professors. Kepler
immediately fled to the Hungarian frontier, but, by the favour of the
Jesuits, was recalled and reinstated in his post. The gymnasium,
however, was deserted; the nobles of Styria began to murmur at
subsidizing a teacher without pupils; and he found it prudent to look
elsewhere for employment. His refusal to subscribe unconditionally to
the rigid formula of belief adopted by the theologians of Tubingen
permanently closed against him the gates of his _alma mater_. His
embarrassment was relieved however by an offer from Tycho Brahe of the
position of assistant in his observatory near Prague, which, after a
preliminary visit of four months, he accepted. The arrangement was made
just in time; for in August 1600 he received definitive notice to leave
Gratz, and, having leased his wife's property, he departed with his
family for Prague.
By Tycho's unexpected death (Oct. 24, 1601) a brilliant career seemed to
be thrown open to Kepler. The emperor Rudolph II. immediately appointed
him to succeed his patron as imperial mathematician, although at a
reduced salary of 500 florins; the invaluable treasure of Tycho's
observations was placed at his disposal; and the laborious but congenial
task was entrusted to him of completing the tables to which the grateful
Dane had already affixed the title of _Rudolphine_. The first works
executed by him at Prague were, nevertheless, a homage to the
astrological proclivities of the emperor. In _De fundamentis astrologiae
certioribus_ (Prague, 1602) he declared his purpose of preserving and
purifying the grain of truth which he believed the science to contain.
Indeed, the doctrine of "aspects" and "influences" fitted excellently
with his mystical conception of the universe, and enabled him to
discharge with a semblance of sincerity the most lucrative part of his
professional duties. Although he strictly limited his prophetic
pretensions to the estimate of tendencies and probabilities, his
forecasts were none the less in demand. Shrewd sense and considerable
knowledge of the world came to the aid of stellar lore in the
preparation of "prognostics" which, not unfrequently hitting off the
event, earned him as much credit with the vulgar as his cosmical
speculations with the learned. He drew the horoscopes of the emperor and
Wallenstein, as well as of a host of lesser magnates; but, though keenly
alive to the unworthy character of such a trade, he made necessity his
excuse for a compromise with superstition. "Nature," he wrote, "which
has conferred upon every animal the means of subsistence, has given
astrology as an adjunct and ally to astronomy." He dedicated to the
emperor in 1603 a treatise on the "great conjunction" of that year
(_Judicium de trigono igneo_); and he published his observations on a
brilliant star which appeared suddenly (Sept. 30, 1604), and remained
visible for seventeen months, in _De stella nova in pede Serpentarii_
(Prague, 1606). While sharing the opinion of Tycho as to the origin of
such bodies by condensation of nebulous matter from the Milky Way, he
attached a mystical signification to the coincidence in time and place
of the sidereal apparition with a triple conjunction of Mars, Jupiter
and Saturn.
The main task of his life was not meanwhile neglected. This was nothing
less than the foundation of a new astronomy, in which physical cause
should replace arbitrary hypothesis. A preliminary study of optics led
to the publication, in 1604, of his _Astronomiae pars optica_,
containing important discoveries in the theory of vision, and a notable
approximation towards the true law of refraction. But it was not until
1609 that, the "great Martian labour" being at length completed, he was
able, in his own figurative language, to lead the captive planet to the
foot of the imperial throne. From the time of his first introduction to
Tycho he had devoted himself to the investigation of the orbit of Mars,
which, on account of its relatively large eccentricity, had always been
especially recalcitrant to theory, and the results appeared in
_Astronomia nova_ [Greek: haitiologetos], _seu Physica coelestis tradita
commentariis de motibus stellae Martis_ (Prague, 1609). In this, the
most memorable of Kepler's multifarious writings, two of the cardinal
principles of modern astronomy--the laws of elliptical orbits and of
equal areas--were established (see ASTRONOMY: _History_); important
truths relating to gravity were enunciated, and the tides ascribed to
the influence of lunar attraction; while an attempt to explain the
planetary revolutions in the then backward condition of mechanical
knowledge produced a theory of vortices closely resembling that
afterwards adopted by Descartes. Having been provided, in August 1610,
by Ernest, archbishop of Cologne, with one of the new Galilean
instruments, Kepler began, with unspeakable delight, to observe the
wonders revealed by it. He had welcomed with a little essay called
_Dissertatio cum Nuncio Sidereo_ Galileo's first announcement of
celestial novelties; he now, in his _Dioptrice_ (Augsburg, 1611),
expounded the theory of refraction by lenses, and suggested the
principle of the "astronomical" or inverting telescope. Indeed the work
may be said to have founded the branch of science to which it gave its
name.
The year 1611 was marked by Kepler as the most disastrous of his life.
The death by small-pox of his favourite child was followed by that of
his wife, who, long a prey to melancholy, was on the 3rd of July
carried off by typhus. Public calamity was added to private bereavement.
On the 23rd of May 1611 Matthias, brother of the emperor, assumed the
Bohemian crown in Prague, compelling Rudolph to take refuge in the
citadel, where he died on the 20th of January following. Kepler's
fidelity in remaining with him to the last did not deprive him of the
favour of his successor. Payments of arrears, now amounting to upwards
of 4000 florins, was not, however, in the desperate condition of the
imperial finances, to be hoped for; and he was glad, while retaining his
position as court astronomer, to accept (in 1612) the office of
mathematician to the states of Upper Austria. His residence at Linz was
troubled by the harsh conduct of the pastor Hitzler, in excluding him
from the rites of his church on the ground of supposed Calvinistic
leanings--a decision confirmed, with the addition of an insulting
reprimand, on his appeal to Wurttemberg. In 1613 he appeared with the
emperor Matthias before the diet of Ratisbon as the advocate of the
introduction into Germany of the Gregorian calendar; but the attempt was
for the time frustrated by anti-papal prejudice. The attention devoted
by him to chronological subjects is evidenced by the publication about
this period of several essays in which he sought to prove that the birth
of Christ took place five years earlier than the commonly accepted date.
Kepler's second courtship forms the subject of a highly characteristic
letter addressed by him to Baron Stralendorf, in which he reviews the
qualifications of eleven candidates for his hand, and explains the
reasons which decided his choice in favour of a portionless orphan girl
named Susanna Reutlinger. The marriage was celebrated at Linz, on the
30th of October 1613, and seems to have proved a happy and suitable one.
The abundant vintage of that year drew his attention to the defective
methods in use for estimating the cubical contents of vessels, and his
essay on the subject (_Nova Stereometria Doliorum_, Linz, 1615) entitles
him to rank among those who prepared the discovery of the infinitesimal
calculus. His observations on the three comets of 1618 were published in
_De Cometis_, contemporaneously with _De Harmonice Mundi_ (Augsburg,
1619), of which the first lineaments had been traced twenty years
previously at Gratz. This extraordinary production is memorable as
having announced the discovery of the "third law"--that of the
sesquiplicate ratio between the planetary periods and distances. But the
main purport of the treatise was the exposition of an elaborate system
of celestial harmonies depending on the various and varying velocities
of the several planets, of which the sentient soul animating the sun was
the solitary auditor. The work exhibiting this fantastic emulation of
extravagance with genius was dedicated to James I. of England, and the
compliment was acknowledged with an invitation to that island, conveyed
through Sir Henry Wotton. Notwithstanding the distracted state of his
own country, he refused to abandon it, as he had previously, in 1617,
declined the post of successor to G. A. Magini in the mathematical chair
of Bologna.
The insurmountable difficulties presented by the lunar theory forced
Kepler, after an enormous amount of fruitless labour, to abandon his
design of comprehending the whole scheme of the heavens in one great
work to be called _Hipparchus_, and he then threw a portion of his
materials into the form of a dialogue intended for the instruction of
general readers. The _Epitome Astronomiae Copernicanae_ (Linz and
Frankfort, 1618-1621), a lucid and attractive textbook of Copernican
science, was remarkable for the prominence given to "physical
astronomy," as well as for the extension to the Jovian system of the
laws recently discovered to regulate the motions of the planets. The
first of a series of ephemerides, calculated on these principles, was
published by him at Linz in 1617; and in that for 1620, dedicated to
Baron Napier, he for the first time employed logarithms. This important
invention was eagerly welcomed by him, and its theory formed the subject
of a treatise entitled _Chilias Logarithmorum_, printed in 1624, but
circulated in manuscript three years earlier, which largely contributed
to bring the new method into general use in Germany.
His studies were interrupted by family trouble. The restless
disposition and unbridled tongue of Catherine Kepler, his mother,
created for her numerous enemies in the little town of Leonberg; while
her unguarded conduct exposed her to a species of calumny at that time
readily circulated and believed. As early as 1615 suspicions of sorcery
began to be spread against her, which she, with more spirit than
prudence, met with an action for libel. The suit was purposely
protracted, and at length, in 1620, the unhappy woman, then in her
seventy-fourth year, was arrested on a formal charge of witchcraft.
Kepler immediately hastened to Wurttemberg, and owing to his
indefatigable exertions she was acquitted after having suffered thirteen
month's imprisonment, and endured with undaunted courage the formidable
ordeal of "territion," or examination under the imminent threat of
torture. She survived her release only a few months, dying on the 13th
of April 1622.
Kepler's whole attention was now devoted to the production of the new
tables. "Germany," he wrote, "does not long for peace more anxiously
than I do for their publication." But financial difficulties, combined
with civil and religious convulsions, long delayed the accomplishment of
his desires. From the 24th of June to the 29th of August 1626, Linz was
besieged, and its inhabitants reduced to the utmost straits by bands of
insurgent peasants. The pursuit of science needed a more tranquil
shelter; and on the raising of the blockade, Kepler obtained permission
to transfer his types to Ulm, where, in September 1627, the _Rudolphine
Tables_ were at length given to the world. Although by no means free
from errors, their value appears from the fact that they ranked for a
century as the best aid to astronomy. Appended were tables of logarithms
and of refraction, together with Tycho's catalogue of 777 stars,
enlarged by Kepler to 1005.
Kepler's claims upon the insolvent imperial exchequer amounted by this
time to 12,000 florins. The emperor Ferdinand II., too happy to transfer
the burden, countenanced an arrangement by which Kepler entered the
service of the duke of Friedland (Wallenstein), who assumed the full
responsibility of the debt. In July 1628 Kepler accordingly arrived with
his family at Sagan in Silesia, where he applied himself to the printing
of his ephemerides up to the year 1636, and whence he issued, in 1629, a
_Notice to the Curious in Things Celestial_, warning astronomers of
approaching transits. That of Mercury was actually seen by Gassendi in
Paris on the 7th of November 1631 (being the first passage of a planet
across the sun ever observed); that of Venus, predicted for the 6th of
December following, was invisible in western Europe. Wallenstein's
promises to Kepler were but imperfectly fulfilled. In lieu of the sums
due, he offered him a professorship at Rostock, which Kepler declined.
An expedition to Ratisbon, undertaken for the purpose of representing
his case to the diet, terminated his life. Shaken by the journey, which
he had performed entirely on horseback, he was attacked with fever, and
died at Ratisbon, on the 15th of November (N.S.), 1630, in the
fifty-ninth year of his age. An inventory of his effects showed him to
have been possessed of no inconsiderable property at the time of his
death. By his first wife he had five, and by his second seven children,
of whom only two, a son and a daughter, reached maturity.
The character of Kepler's genius is especially difficult to estimate.
His tendency towards mystical speculation formed a not less
fundamental quality of his mind than its strong grasp of positive
scientific truth. Without assigning to each element its due value, no
sound comprehension of his modes of thought can be attained. His idea
of the universe was essentially Pythagorean and Platonic. He started
with the conviction that the arrangement of its parts must correspond
with certain abstract conceptions of the beautiful and harmonious. His
imagination, thus kindled, animated him to those severe labours of
which his great discoveries were the fruit. His demonstration that the
planes of all the planetary orbits pass through the centre of the sun,
coupled with his clear recognition of the sun as the moving power of
the system, entitles him to rank as the founder of physical astronomy.
But the fantastic relations imagined by him of planetary movements and
distances to musical intervals and geometrical constructions seemed to
himself discoveries no less admirable than the achievements which have
secured his lasting fame. Outside the boundaries of the solar system,
the metaphysical side of his genius, no longer held in check by
experience, fully asserted itself. The Keplerian like the Pythagorean
cosmos was threefold, consisting of the centre, or sun, the surface,
represented by the sphere of the fixed stars, and the intermediate
space, filled with ethereal matter. It is a mistake to suppose that he
regarded the stars as so many suns. He quotes indeed the opinion of
Giordano Bruno to that effect, but with dissent. Among his happy
conjectures may be mentioned that of the sun's axial rotation,
postulated by him as the physical cause of the revolutions of the
planets, and soon after confirmed by the discovery of sun-spots; the
suggestion of a periodical variation in the obliquity of the ecliptic;
and the explanation as a solar atmospheric effect of the radiance
observed to surround the totally eclipsed sun.
It is impossible to consider without surprise the colossal amount of
work accomplished by Kepler under numerous disadvantages. But his iron
industry counted no obstacles, and secured for him the highest triumph
of genius, that of having given to mankind the best that was in him.
In private character he was amiable and affectionate; his generosity
in recognizing the merits of others secured him against the worst
shafts of envy; and a life marked by numerous disquietudes was cheered
and ennobled by sentiments of sincere piety.
Kepler's extensive literary remains, purchased by the empress
Catherine II. in 1724 from some Frankfort merchants, and long
inaccessibly deposited in the observatory of Pulkowa, were fully
brought to light, under the able editorship of Dr Ch. Frisch, in the
first complete edition of his works. This important publication
(_Joannis Kepleri opera omnia_, Frankfort, 1858-1871, 8 vols. 8vo)
contains, besides the works already enumerated and several minor
treatises, a posthumous scientific satire entitled _Joh. Keppleri
Somnium_ (first printed in 1634) and a vast mass of his
correspondence. A careful biography is appended, founded mainly on his
private notes and other authentic documents. His correspondence with
Herwart von Hohenburg, unearthed by C. Anschutz at Munich, was printed
at Prague in 1886.
AUTHORITIES--C. G. Reuschle, _Kepler und die Astronomie_ (Frankfort,
1871); Karl Goebel, _Uber Keplers astronomische Anschauungen_ (Halle,
1871); E. F. Apelt, _Johann Keplers astronomische Weltansicht_
(Leipzig, 1849); J. L. C. Breitschwert, _Johann Keplers Leben und
Wirken_ (Stuttgart, 1831); W. Forster, _Johann Kepler und die Harmonie
der Spharen_ (Berlin, 1862); R. Wolf, _Geschichte der Astronomie_
(Munich, 1877); J. von Hasner, _Tycho Brahe und J. Kepler in Prag_
(1872); H. Brocard, _Essai sur la Meteorologie de Kepler_ (Grenoble,
1879, 1881); Siegmund Gunther, _Johannes Kepler und der
tellurisch-kosmische Magnetismus_ (Wien, 1888); N. Herz, _Keplers
Astrologie_ (1895); Ludwig Gunther, Keplers _Traum vom Mond_ (1898; an
annotated translation of the _Somnium_); A. Muller, _Johann Keppler,
der Gesetzgeber der neueren Astronomie_ (1903); _Allgemeine Deutsche
Biographie_, Bd. XV. (1882). (A. M. C.)
KEPPEL, AUGUSTUS KEPPEL, VISCOUNT (1725-1786), British admiral, second
son of the second earl of Albemarle, was born on the 25th of April 1725.
He went to sea at the age of ten, and had already five years of service
to his credit when he was appointed to the "Centurion," and was sent
with Anson round the world in 1740. He had a narrow escape of being
killed in the capture of Paita (Nov. 13, 1741), and was named acting
lieutenant in 1742. In 1744 he was promoted to be commander and post
captain. Until the peace of 1748 he was actively employed. In 1747 he
ran his ship the "Maidstone" (50) ashore near Belleisle while chasing a
French vessel, but was honourably acquitted by a court martial, and
reappointed to another command. After peace had been signed he was sent
into the Mediterranean to persuade the dey of Algiers to restrain the
piratical operations of his subjects. The dey is said to have complained
that the king of England should have sent a beardless boy to treat with
him, and to have been told that if the beard was the necessary
qualification for an ambassador it would have been easy to send a "Billy
goat." After trying the effect of bullying without success, the dey made
a treaty, and Keppel returned in 1751. During the Seven Years' War he
saw constant service. He was in North America in 1755, on the coast of
France in 1756, was detached on a cruise to reduce the French
settlements on the west coast of Africa in 1758, and his ship the
"Torbay" (74) was the first to get into action in the battle of Quiberon
in 1759. In 1757 he had formed part of the court martial which had
condemned Admiral Byng, and had been active among those who had
endeavoured to secure a pardon for him; but neither he nor those who had
acted with him could produce any serious reason why the sentence should
not be carried out. When Spain joined France in 1762 he was sent as
second in command with Sir George Pocock in the expedition which took
Havannah. His health suffered from the fever which carried off an
immense proportion of the soldiers and sailors, but the L25,000 of
prize money which he received freed him from the unpleasant position of
younger son of a family ruined by the extravagance of his father. He
became rear-admiral in October 1762, was one of the Admiralty Board from
July 1765 to November 1766, and was promoted vice-admiral on the 24th of
October 1770. When the Falkland Island dispute occurred in 1770 he was
to have commanded the fleet to be sent against Spain, but a settlement
was reached, and he had no occasion to hoist his flag. The most
important and the most debated period of his life belongs to the opening
years of the war of American Independence. Keppel was by family
connexion and personal preference a strong supporter of the Whig
connexion, led by the Marquess of Rockingham and the Duke of Richmond.
He shared in all the passions of his party, then excluded from power by
the resolute will of George III. As a member of Parliament, in which he
had a seat for Windsor from 1761 till 1780, and then for Surrey, he was
a steady partisan, and was in constant hostility with the "King's
Friends." In common with them he was prepared to believe that the king's
ministers, and in particular Lord Sandwich, then First Lord of the
Admiralty, were capable of any villany. When therefore he was appointed
to command the Western Squadron, the main fleet prepared against France
in 1778, he went to sea predisposed to think that the First Lord would
be glad to cause him to be defeated. It was a further misfortune that
when Keppel hoisted his flag one of his subordinate admirals should have
been Sir Hugh Palliser (1723-1796), who was a member of the Admiralty
Board, a member of parliament, and in Keppel's opinion, which was
generally shared, jointly responsible with his colleagues for the bad
state of the navy. When, therefore, the battle which Keppel fought with
the French on the 27th of July 1778 ended in a highly unsatisfactory
manner, owing mainly to his own unintelligent management, but partly
through the failure of Sir Hugh Palliser to obey orders, he became
convinced that he had been deliberately betrayed. Though he praised Sir
Hugh in his public despatch he attacked him in private, and the Whig
press, with the unquestionable aid of Keppel's friends, began a campaign
of calumny to which the ministerial papers answered in the same style,
each side accusing the other of deliberate treason. The result was a
scandalous series of scenes in parliament and of courts martial. Keppel
was first tried and acquitted in 1779, and then Palliser was also tried
and acquitted. Keppel was ordered to strike his flag in March 1779.
Until the fall of Lord North's ministry he acted as an opposition member
of parliament. When it fell in 1782 be became First Lord, and was
created Viscount Keppel and Baron Elden. His career in office was not
distinguished, and he broke with his old political associates by
resigning as a protest against the Peace of Paris. He finally
discredited himself by joining the Coalition ministry formed by North
and Fox, and with its fall disappeared from public life. He died
unmarried on the 2nd of October 1786. Burke, who regarded him with great
affection, said that he had "something high" in his nature, and that it
was "a wild stock of pride on which the tenderest of all hearts had
grafted the milder virtues." His popularity disappeared entirely in his
later years. His portrait was six times painted by Sir Joshua Reynolds.
The copy which belonged originally to Burke is now in the National
Gallery.
There is a full _Life of Keppel_ (1842), by his grand-nephew, the Rev.
Thomas Keppel. (D. H.)
KEPPEL, SIR HENRY (1809-1904), British admiral, son of the 4th earl of
Albemarle and of his wife Elizabeth, daughter of Lord de Clifford, was
born on the 14th of June 1809, and entered the navy from the old naval
academy of Portsmouth in 1822. His family connexions secured him rapid
promotion, at a time when the rise of less fortunate officers was very
slow. He became lieutenant in 1829 and commander in 1833. His first
command in the "Childers" brig (16) was largely passed on the coast of
Spain, which was then in the midst of the convulsions of the Carlist
war. Captain Keppel had already made himself known as a good seaman. He
was engaged with the squadron stationed on the west coast of Africa to
suppress the slave trade. In 1837 he was promoted post captain, and
appointed in 1841 to the "Dido" for service in China and against the
Malay pirates, a service which he repeated in 1847, when in command of
H.M.S. "Maeander." The story of his two commands was told by himself in
two publications, _The Expedition to Borneo of H.M.S. "Dido" for the
Suppression of Piracy_ (1846), and in _A Visit to the Indian Archipelago
in H. M. S. "Maeander"_ (1853). The substance of these books was
afterwards incorporated into his autobiography, which was published in
1809 under the title _A Sailor's Life under four Sovereigns_. In 1853 he
was appointed to the command of the "St Jean d'Acre" of 101 guns for
service in the Crimean War. But he had no opportunity to distinguish
himself at sea in that struggle. As commander of the naval brigade
landed to co-operate in the siege of Sevastopol, he was more fortunate,
and he had an honourable share in the latter days of the siege and
reduction of the fortress. After the Crimean War he was again sent out
to China, this time in command of the "Raleigh," as commodore to serve
under Sir M. Seymour. The "Raleigh" was lost on an uncharted rock near
Hong-Kong, but three small vessels were named to act as her tenders, and
Commodore Keppel commanded in them, and with the crew of the "Raleigh,"
in the action with the Chinese at Fatshan Creek (June 1, 1857). He was
honourably acquitted for the loss of the "Raleigh," and was named to the
command of the "Alligator," which he held till his promotion to
rear-admiral. For his share in the action at Fatshan Creek he was made
K.C.B. The prevalence of peace gave Sir Henry Keppel no further chance
of active service, but he held successive commands till his retirement
from the active list in 1879, two years after he attained the rank of
Admiral of the Fleet. He died at the age of 95 on the 17th of January
1904.
KER, JOHN (1673-1726), Scottish spy, was born in Ayrshire on the 8th of
August 1673. His true name was Crawfurd, his father being Alexander
Crawfurd of Crawfurdland; but having married Anna, younger daughter of
Robert Ker, of Kersland, Ayrshire, whose only son Daniel Ker was killed
at the battle of Steinkirk in 1692, he assumed the name and arms of Ker
in 1697, after buying the family estates from his wife's elder sister.
Having become a leader among the extreme Covenanters, he made use of his
influence to relieve his pecuniary embarrassments, selling his support
at one time to the Jacobites, at another to the government, and whenever
possible to both parties at the same time. He held a licence from the
government in 1707 permitting him to associate with those whose
disloyalty was known or suspected, proving that he was at that date the
government's paid spy; and in his _Memoirs_ Ker asserts that he had a
number of other spies and agents working under his orders in different
parts of the country. He entered into correspondence with Catholic
priests and Jacobite conspirators, whose schemes, so far as he could
make himself cognisant of them, he betrayed to the government. But he
was known to be a man of the worst character, and it is improbable that
he succeeded in gaining the confidence of people of any importance. The
duchess of Gordon was for a time, it is true, one of his correspondents,
but in 1707 she had discovered him to be "a knave." He went to London in
1709, where he seems to have extracted considerable sums of money from
politicians of both parties by promising or threatening, as the case
might be, to expose Godolphin's relations with the Jacobites. In 1713,
if his own story is to be believed, business of a semi-diplomatic nature
took Ker to Vienna, where, although he failed in the principal object of
his errand, the emperor made him a present of his portrait set in
jewels. Ker also occupied his time in Vienna, he says, by gathering
information which he forwarded to the electress Sophia; and in the
following year on his way home he stopped at Hanover to give some advice
to the future king of England as to the best way to govern the English.
Although in his own opinion Ker materially assisted in placing George I.
on the English throne, his services were unrewarded, owing, he would
have us believe, to the incorruptibility of his character. Similar
ingratitude was the recompense for his revelations of the Jacobite
intentions in 1715; and as he was no more successful in making money
out of the East India Company, nor in certain commercial schemes which
engaged his ingenuity during the next few years, he died in a debtors'
prison, on the 8th of July 1726. While in the King's Bench he sold to
Edmund Curll the bookseller, a fellow-prisoner, who was serving a
sentence of five months for publishing obscene books, the manuscript of
(or possibly only the materials on which were based) the _Memoirs of
John Ker of Kersland_, which Curll published in 1726 in three parts, the
last of which appeared after Ker's death. For issuing the first part of
the _Memoirs_, which purported to make disclosures damaging to the
government, but which Curll in self-justification described as
"vindicating the memory of Queen Anne," the publisher was sentenced to
the pillory at Charing Cross; and he added to the third part of the
_Memoirs_ the indictment on which he had been convicted.
See the above-mentioned _Memoirs_ (London, 1726-1727), and in
particular the "preface" to part i.; George Lockhart, _The Lockhart
Papers_ (2 vols., London, 1817); Nathaniel Hooke, _Correspondence_,
edited by W. D. Macray (Roxburghe Club, 2 vols., London, 1870), in
which Ker is referred to under several pseudonyms, such as "Wicks,"
"Trustie," "The Cameronian Mealmonger," &c.
KERAK, a town in eastern Palestine, 10 m. E. of the southern angle of
the Lisan promontory of the Dead Sea, on the top of a rocky hill about
3000 ft. above sea-level. It stands on a platform forming an irregular
triangle with sides about 3000 ft. in length, and separated by deep
ravines from the ranges around on all sides but one. The population is
estimated at 6000 Moslems and 1800 Orthodox Greek Christians. Kerak is
identified with the Moabite town of Kir-Hareseth (destroyed by the
Hebrew-Edomite coalition, 2 Kings iii. 25), and denounced by Isaiah
under the name Kir of Moab (xv. 1), Kir-Hareseth (xvi. 7) or Kir-Heres
(xvi. 11): Jeremiah also refers to it by the last name (xxxix. 31, 36).
The modern name, in the form [Greek: Charax], appears in 2 Macc. xii.
17. Later, Kerak was the seat of the archbishop of Petra. The Latin
kings of Jerusalem, recognizing its importance as the key of the E.
Jordan region, fortified it in 1142; from 1183 it was attacked
desperately by Saladin, to whom at last it yielded in 1188. The Arabian
Ayyubite princes fortified the town, as did the Egyptian Mameluke
sultans. The fortifications were repaired by Bibars in the 13th century.
For a long time after the Turkish occupation of Palestine and Egypt it
enjoyed a semi-independence, but in 1893 a Turkish governor with a
strong garrison was established there, which has greatly contributed to
secure the safety of travellers and the general quiet of the district.
The town is an irregular congeries of flat mud-roofed houses. In the
Christian quarter is the church of St George; the mosque also is a
building of Christian origin. The town is surrounded by a wall with five
towers; entrance now is obtained through breaches in the wall, but
formerly it was accessible only by means of tunnels cut in the rocky
substratum. The castle, now used as the headquarters of the garrison and
closed to visitors, is a remarkably fine example of a crusaders'
fortress. (R. A. S. M.)
KERALA, or CHERA, the name of one of the three ancient Dravidian
kingdoms of the Tamil country of southern India, the other two being the
Chola and the Pandya. Its original territory comprised the country now
contained in the Malabar district, with Travancore and Cochin, and later
the country included in the Coimbatore district and a part of Salem. The
boundaries, however, naturally varied much from time to time. The
earliest references to this kingdom appear in the edicts of Asoka, where
it is called _Keralaputra_ (i.e. son of Kerala), a name which in a
slightly corrupt form is known to Pliny and the author of the
_Periplus_. There is evidence of a lively trade carried on by sea with
the Roman empire in the early centuries of the Christian era, but of the
political history of the Kerala kingdom nothing is known beyond a list
of rajas compiled from inscriptions, until in the 10th century the
struggle began with the Cholas, by whom it was conquered and held till
their overthrow by the Mahommedans in 1310. These in their turn were
driven out by a Hindu confederation headed by the chiefs of Vijayanagar,
and Kerala was absorbed in the Vijayanagar empire until its destruction
by the Mahommedans in 1565. For about 80 years it seems to have
preserved a precarious independence under the naiks of Madura, but in
1640 was conquered by the Adil Shah dynasty of Bijapur and in 1652
seized by the king of Mysore.
See V. A. Smith, _Early Hist. of India_, chap. xvi. (2nd ed., Oxford,
1908).
KERASUND (anc. _Choerades_, _Pharnacia_, _Cerasus_), a town on the N.
coast of Asia Minor, in the Trebizond vilayet, and the port--an exposed
roadstead--of Kara-Hissar Sharki, with which it is connected by a
carriage road. Pop. just under 10,000, Moslems being in a slight
minority. The town is situated on a rocky promontory, crowned by a
Byzantine fortress, and has a growing trade. It exports filberts (for
which product it is the centre), walnuts, hides and timber. Cerasus was
the place from which the wild cherry was introduced into Italy by
Lucullus and so to Europe (hence Fr. _cerise_, "cherry").
KERATRY, AUGUSTE HILARION, COMTE DE (1769-1859), French writer and
politician, was born at Rennes on the 28th of December 1769. Coming to
Paris in 1790, he associated himself with Bernardin de St Pierre. After
being twice imprisoned during the Terror he retired to Brittany, where
he devoted himself to literature till 1814. In 1818 he returned to Paris
as deputy for Finistere, and sat in the Chamber till 1824, becoming one
of the recognized liberal leaders. He was re-elected in 1827, took an
active part in the establishment of the July monarchy, was appointed a
councillor of state (1830), and in 1837 was made a peer of France. After
the _coup d'etat_ of 1851 he retired from public life. Among his
publications were _Contes et Idylles_ (1791); _Lysus et Cydippe_, a poem
(1801); _Inductions morales et physiologiques_ (1817); _Documents pour
servir a l'histoire de France_ (1820); _Du Beau dans les arts
d'imitation_ (1822); _Le Dernier des Beaumanoir_ (1824). His last work,
_Clarisse_ (1854), a novel, was written when he was eighty-five. He died
at Port-Marly on the 7th of November 1859.
His son, comte Emile de Keratry (1832- ), became deputy for Finistere
in 1869, and strongly supported the war with Germany in 1870. He was in
Paris during part of the siege, but escaped in a balloon, and joined
Gambetta. In 1871 Thiers appointed him to the prefecture, first of the
Haute-Garonne, and subsequently of the Bouches-du-Rhone, but he resigned
in the following year. He is the author of _La Contre-guerilla francaise
au Mexique_ (1868); _L'Elevation et la chute de l'empereur Maximilien_
(1867); _Le Quatre-septembre et le gouvernement de la defense nationale_
(1872); _Mourad V._ (1878), and some volumes of memories.
KERBELA, or MESHED-HOSAIN, a town of Asiatic Turkey, the capital of a
sanjak of the Bagdad vilayet, situated on the extreme western edge of
the alluvial river plain, about 60 m. S.S.W. of Bagdad and 20 m. W. of
the Euphrates, from which a canal extends almost to the town. The
surrounding territory is fertile and well cultivated, especially in
fruit gardens and palm-groves. The newer parts of the city are built
with broad streets and sidewalks, presenting an almost European
appearance. The inner town, surrounded by a dilapidated brick wall, at
the gates of which octroi duties are still levied, is a dirty Oriental
city, with the usual narrow streets. Kerbela owes its existence to the
fact that Hosain, a son of 'Ali, the fourth caliph, was slain here by
the soldiers of Yazid, the rival aspirant to the caliphate, on the 10th
of October A.D. 680 (see CALIPHATE, sec. B, S 2). The most important
feature of the town is the great shrine of Hosain, containing the tomb
of the martyr, with its golden dome and triple minarets, two of which
are glided. Kerbela is a place of pilgrimage of the Shi'ite Moslems, and
is only less sacred to them than Meshed 'Ali and Mecca. Some 200,000
pilgrims from the Shi'ite portions of Islam are said to journey annually
to Kerbela, many of them carrying the bones of their relatives to be
buried in its sacred soil, or bringing their sick and aged to die there
in the odour of sanctity. The mullahs, who fix the burial fees, derive
an enormous revenue from the faithful. Formerly Kerbela was a
self-governing hierarchy and constituted an inviolable sanctuary for
criminals; but in 1843 the Turkish government undertook to deprive the
city of some of these liberties and to enforce conscription. The
Kerbelese resisted, and Kerbela was bombarded (hence the ruined
condition of the old walls) and reduced with great slaughter. Since then
it has formed an integral part of the Turkish administration of Irak.
The enormous influx of pilgrims naturally creates a brisk trade in
Kerbela and the towns along the route from Persia to that place and
beyond to Nejef. The population of Kerbela, necessarily fluctuating, is
estimated at something over 60,000, of whom the principal part are
Shi'ites, chiefly Persians, with a goodly mixture of British Indians. No
Jews or Christians are allowed to reside there.
See Chodzko, _Theatre persan_ (Paris, 1878); J. P. Peters, _Nippur_
(1897). (J. P. Pe.)
KERCH, or KERTCH, a seaport of S. Russia, in the government of Taurida,
on the Strait of Kerch or Yenikale, 60 m. E.N.E. of Theodosia, in 45
deg. 21' N. and 36 deg. 30' E. Pop. (1897), 31,702. It stands on the
site of the ancient _Panticapaeum_, and, like most towns built by the
ancient Greek colonists in this part of the world, occupies a beautiful
situation, clustering round the foot and climbing up the sides of the
hill (called after Mithradates) on which stood the ancient citadel or
acropolis. The church of St John the Baptist, founded in 717, is a good
example of the early Byzantine style. That of Alexander Nevsky was
formerly the Kerch museum of antiquities, founded in 1825. The more
valuable objects were subsequently removed to the Hermitage at St
Petersburg, while those that remained at Kerch were scattered during the
English occupation in the Crimean War. The existing museum is a small
collection in a private house. Among the products of local industry are
leather, tobacco, cement, beer, aerated waters, lime, candles and soap.
Fishing is carried on, and there are steam saw-mills and flour-mills. A
rich deposit of iron ore was discovered close to Kerch in 1895, and
since then mining and blasting have been actively prosecuted. The
mineral mud-baths, one of which is in the town itself and the other
beside Lake Chokrak (9 m. distant), are much frequented. Notwithstanding
the deepening of the strait, so that ships are now able to enter the Sea
of Azov, Kerch retains its importance for the export trade in wheat,
brought thither by coasting vessels. Grain, fish, linseed, rapeseed,
wool and hides are also exported. About 6 m. N.E. are the town and old
Turkish fortress of Yenikale, administratively united with Kerch. Two
and a half miles to the south are strong fortified works defending the
entrance to the Sea of Azov.
The Greek colony of Panticapaeum was founded about the middle of the 6th
century B.C., by the town of Miletus. From about 438 B.C. till the
conquest of this region by Mithradates the Great, king of Pontus, about
100 B.C., the town and territory formed the kingdom of the Bosporus,
ruled over by an independent dynasty. Phanaces, the son of Mithradates,
became the founder of a new line under the protection of the Romans,
which continued to exist till the middle of the 4th century A.D., and
extended its power over the maritime parts of Tauris. After that the
town--which had already begun to be known as Bospora--passed
successively into the hands of the Eastern empire, of the Khazars, and
of various barbarian tribes. In 1318, the Tatars, who had come into
possession in the previous century, ceded the town to the Genoese, who
soon raised it into new importance as a commercial centre. They usually
called the place Cerchio, a corruption of the Russian name K'rtchev
(whence Kerch), which appears in the 11th century inscription of
Tmutarakan (a Russian principality at the north foot of the Caucasus).
Under the Turks, whose rule dates from the end of the 15th century,
Kerch was a military port; and as such it plays a part in the
Russo-Turkish wars. Captured by the Russians under Dolgorukov in 1771,
it was ceded to them along with Yenikale by the peace of
Kuchuk-Kainarji, and it became a centre of Russian naval activity. Its
importance was greatly impaired by the rise of Odessa and Taganrog; and
in 1820 the fortress was dismantled. Kerch suffered severely during the
Crimean War.
Archaeologically Kerch is of particular interest, the kurgans or
sepulchral mounds of the town and vicinity having yielded a rich
variety of the most beautiful works of art. Since 1825 a large number
of tombs have been opened. In the Altun or Zolotai-oba (Golden Mound)
was found a great stone vault similar in style to an Egyptian pyramid;
and within, among many objects of minor note, were golden dishes
adorned with griffins and beautiful arabesques. In the Kul-oba, or
Mound of Cinders (opened in 1830-1831), was a similar tomb, in which
were found what would appear to be the remains of one of the kings of
Bosporus, of his queen, his horse and his groom. The ornaments and
furniture were of the most costly kind; the king's bow and buckler
were of gold; his very whip intertwined with gold; the queen had
golden diadems, necklace and breast-jewels, and at her feet lay a
golden vase. In the Pavlovskoi kurgan (opened in 1858) was the tomb of
a Greek lady, containing among other articles of dress and decoration
a pair of fine leather boots (a unique discovery) and a beautiful vase
on which is painted the return of Persephone from Hades and the
setting out of Triptolemus for Attica. In a neighbouring tomb was what
is believed to be "the oldest Greek mural painting which has come down
to us," dating probably from the 4th century B.C. Among the minor
objects discovered in the kurgans perhaps the most noteworthy are the
fragments of engraved boxwood, the only examples known of the art
taught by the Sicyonian painter Pamphilus.
Very important finds of old Greek art continue to be made in the
neighbourhood, as well as at Taman, on the east side of the Strait of
Kerch. The catacombs on the northern slope of Mithradates Hill, of
which nearly 200 have been explored since 1859, possess considerable
interest, not only for the relics of old Greek art which some of them
contain (although most were plundered in earlier times), but
especially as material for the history and ethnography of the
Cimmerian Bosporus. In 1890 the first Christian catacomb bearing a
distinct date (491) was discovered. Its walls were covered with Greek
inscriptions and crosses.
See H. D. Seymour's _Russia on the Black Sea and Sea of Azoff_
(London, 1855); J. B. Telfer, _The Crimea_ (London, 1876); P. Bruhn,
_Tchernomore, 1852-1877_ (Odessa, 1878); Gilles, _Antiquites du
Bosphore Cimmerien_ (1854); D. Macpherson, _Antiquities of Kertch_
(London, 1857); _Compte rendu de la Commission Imp. Archeologique_ (St
Petersburg); L. Stephani, _Die Alterthumer vom Kertsch_ (St
Petersburg, 1880); C. T. Newton, _Essays on Art and Archaeology_
(London, 1880); _Reports_ of the [Russian] Imp. Archaeological
Commission; _Izvestia_ (Bulletin) of the Archives Commission for
Taurida; _Antiquites du Bosphore Cimmerien, conservees au Musee
Imperial de l'Ermitage_ (St Petersburg, 1854); _Inscriptiones antiquae
orae septentrionalis Ponti Euxini graecae et latinae_, with a preface
by V. V. Latyshev (St Petersburg, 1890); _Materials for the
Archaeology of Russia_, published by the Imp. Arch. Commission (No. 6,
St Petersburg, 1891). (P. A. K.; J. T. Be.)
KERCKHOVEN, JAN POLYANDER VAN DEN (1568-1646), Dutch Protestant divine,
was born at Metz, in 1568. He became French preacher at Dort in 1591,
and afterwards succeeded Franz Gomarus as professor of theology at
Leiden. He was invited by the States General of Holland to revise the
Dutch translation of the Bible, and it was he who edited the canons of
the synod of Dort (1618-1619).
His many published works include _Responsio ad sophismata A.
Cocheletii doctoris surbonnistae_ (1610), _Dispute contre l'adoration
des reliques des Saincts trespasses_ (1611), _Explicatio somae
prophetae_ (1625).
KERGUELEN ISLAND, KERGUELEN'S LAND, or DESOLATION ISLAND, an island in
the Southern Ocean, to the S.E. of the Cape of Good Hope, and S.W. of
Australia, and nearly half-way between them. Kerguelen lies between 48
deg. 39' and 49 deg. 44' S. and 68 deg. 42' and 70 deg. 35' E. Its
extreme length is about 85 m., but the area is only about 1400 sq. m.
The island is throughout mountainous, presenting from the sea in some
directions the appearance of a series of jagged peaks. The various
ridges and mountain masses are separated by steep-sided valleys, which
run down to the sea, forming deep fjords, so that no part of the
interior is more than 12 m. from the sea. The chief summits are Mounts
Ross (6120 ft.), Richards (4000), Crozier (3251), Wyville Thomson
(3160), Hooker (2600), Moseley (2400). The coast-line is extremely
irregular, and the fjords, at least on the north, east and south, form a
series of well-sheltered harbours. As the prevailing winds are westerly,
the safest anchorage is on the north-east. Christmas Harbour on the
north and Royal Sound on the south are noble harbours, the latter with a
labyrinth of islets interspersed over upwards of 20 m. of land-locked
waters. The scenery is generally magnificent. A district of considerable
extent in the centre of the island is occupied by snowfields, whence
glaciers descend east and west to the sea. The whole island, exclusive
of the snowfields, abounds in freshwater lakes and pools in the hills
and lower ground. Hidden deep mudholes are frequent.
Kerguelen Island is of undoubted volcanic origin, the prevailing rock
being basaltic lavas, intersected occasionally by dikes, and an active
volcano and hot springs are said to exist in the south-west of the
island. Judging from the abundant fossil remains of trees, the island
must have been thickly clothed with woods and other vegetation of
which it has no doubt been denuded by volcanic action and submergence,
and possibly by changes of climate. It presents evidences of having
been subjected to powerful glaciation, and to subsequent immersion and
immense denudation. The soundings made by the "Challenger" and
"Gazelle" and the affinities which in certain respects exist between
the islands, seem to point to the existence at one time of an
extensive land area in this quarter, of which Kerguelen, Prince
Edward's Islands, the Crozets, St Paul and Amsterdam are the remains.
The Kerguelen plateau rises in many parts to within 1500 fathoms of
the surface of the sea. Beds of coal and of red earth are found in
some places. The summits of the flat-topped hills about Betsy Cove, in
the south-east of the island, are formed of caps of basalt.
According to Sir J. D. Hooker the vegetation of Kerguelen Island is of
great antiquity; and may have originally reached it from the American
continent; it has no affinities with Africa. The present climate is
not favourable to permanent vegetation; the island lies within the
belt of rain at all seasons of the year, and is reached by no drying
winds; its temperature is kept down by the surrounding vast expanse of
sea, and it lies within the line of the cold Antarctic drift. The
temperature, however, is equable. The mean annual temperature is about
39 deg. F., while the summer temperature has been observed to approach
70 deg. Tempests and squalls are frequent, and the weather is rarely
calm. On the lower slopes of the mountains a rank vegetation exists,
which, from the conditions mentioned, is constantly saturated with
moisture. A rank grass, _Festuca Cookii_, grows thickly in places up
to 300 ft., with _Azorella_, _Cotula plumosa_, &c. Sir J. D. Hooker
enumerated twenty-one species of flowering plants, and seven of ferns,
lycopods, and _Characeae_; at least seventy-four species of mosses,
twenty-five of _Hepaticae_, and sixty-one of lichens are known, and
there are probably many more. Several of the marine and many species
of freshwater algae are peculiar to the island. The characteristic
feature of the vegetation, the Kerguelen's Land cabbage, was formerly
abundant, but has been greatly reduced by rabbits introduced on to the
island. Fur-seals are still found in Kerguelen, though their numbers
have been reduced by reckless slaughter. The sea-elephant and
sea-leopard are characteristic. Penguins of various kinds are
abundant; a teal (_Querquedula Eatoni_) peculiar to Kerguelen and the
Crozets is also found in considerable numbers, and petrels, especially
the giant petrel (_Ossifraga gigantea_), skuas, gulls, sheath-bills
(_Chionis minor_), albatross, terns, cormorants and Cape pigeons
frequent the island. There is a considerable variety of insects, many
of them with remarkable peculiarities of structure, and with a
predominance of forms incapable of flying.
The island was discovered by the French navigator, Yves Joseph de
Kerguelen-Tremarec, a Breton noble (1745-1797), on the 13th of February
1772, and partly surveyed by him in the following year. He was one of
those explorers who had been attracted by the belief in a rich southern
land, and this island, the South France of his first discovery, was
afterwards called by him Desolation Land in his disappointment. Captain
Cook visited the island in 1776, and, among other expeditions, the
"Challenger" spent some time here, and its staff visited and surveyed
various parts of it in January 1874. It was occupied from October 1874
to February 1875 by the expeditions sent from England, Germany and the
United States to observe the transit of Venus. The German South Polar
expedition in 1901-1902 established a meteorological and magnetic
station at Royal Sound, under Dr Enzensperger, who died there. In
January 1893 Kerguelen was annexed by France, and its commercial
exploitation was assigned to a private company.
See Y. J. de Kerguelen-Tremarec, _Relation de deux voyages dans les
mers australes_ (Paris, 1782); Narratives of the Voyages of Captain
Cook and the "Challenger" Expedition; _Phil. Trans._, vol. 168,
containing account of the collections made in Kerguelen by the British
transit of Venus expedition in 1874-1875; Lieutard, "Mission aux iles
Kerguelen," &c., _Annales hydrographiques_ (Paris, 1893).
KERGUELEN'S LAND CABBAGE, in botany, _Pringlea antiscorbutica_ (natural
order Cruciferae), a plant resembling in habit, and belonging to the
same family as, the common cabbage (_Brassica oleracea_). The
cabbage-like heads of leaves abound in a pale yellow highly pungent
essential oil, which gives the plant a peculiar flavour but renders it
extremely wholesome. It was discovered by Captain Cook during his first
voyage, but the first account of it was published by (Sir) Joseph Hooker
in _The Botany of the Antarctic Voyage_ of the "Erebus" and "Terror" in
1839-1843. During the stay of the latter expedition on the island, daily
use was made of this vegetable either cooked by itself or boiled with
the ship's beef, pork or pea-soup. Hooker observes of it, "This is
perhaps the most interesting plant procured during the whole of the
voyage performed in the Antarctic Sea, growing as it does upon an island
the remotest of any from a continent, and yielding, besides this
esculent, only seventeen other flowering plants."
KERKUK, or QERQUQ, the chief town of a sanjak in the Mosul vilayet of
Asiatic Turkey, situated among the foot hills of the Kurdistan Mountains
at an elevation of about 1100 ft. on both banks of the Khassa Chai, a
tributary of the Tigris, known in its lower course as Adhem. Pop.
estimated at 12,000 to 15,000, chiefly Mahommedan Kurds. Owing to its
position at the junction of several routes, Kerkuk has a brisk transit
trade in hides, Persian silks and cottons, colouring materials, fruit
and timber; but it owes its principal importance to its petroleum and
naphtha springs. There are also natural warm springs at Kerkuk, used to
supply baths and reputed to have valuable medical properties. In the
neighbourhood of the city is a burning mountain, locally famous for many
centuries. Kerkuk is evidently an ancient site, the citadel standing
upon an artificial mound 130 ft. high. It was a metropolitan see of the
Chaldean Christians. There is a Jewish quarter beneath the citadel, and
the reputed sarcophagi of Daniel and the Hebrew children are shown in
one of the mosques. (J. P. Pe.)
KERMADEC, a small group of hilly islands in the Pacific, about 30 deg.
S., 178 deg. W., named from D'Entrecasteaux's captain, Huon Kermadec, in
1791. They are British possessions. The largest of the group is Raoul or
Sunday Island, 20 m. in circumference, 1600 ft. high, and thickly
wooded. The flora and fauna belong for the most part to those of New
Zealand, on which colony the islands are also politically dependent,
having been annexed in 1887.
KERMAN (the ancient _Karmania_), a province of Persia, bounded E. by
Seistan and Baluchistan, S. by Baluchistan and Fars, W. by Fars, and N.
by Yezd and Khorasan. It is of very irregular shape, expanding in the
north to Khorasan and gradually contracting in the south to a narrow
wedge between Fars and Baluchistan; the extreme length between Seistan
and Fars (E. and W.) is about 400 m., the greatest breadth (N. and S.)
from south of Yezd to the neighbourhood of Bander Abbasi about 300 m.,
and the area is estimated at about 60,000 sq. m. Kerman is generally
described as consisting of two parts, an uninhabitable desert region in
the north and a habitable mountainous region in the south, but recent
explorations require this view to be considerably modified. There are
mountains and desert tracts in all parts, while much of what appears on
maps as forming the western portion of the great Kerman desert consists
of the fertile uplands of Kuhbanan, Raver and others stretching along
the eastern base of the lofty range which runs from Yezd south-east to
Khabis. West of and parallel to this range are two others, one
culminating north-west of Bam in the Kuh Hazar (14,700 ft.), the other
continued at about the same elevation under the name of the Jamal Bariz
(also Jebel Bariz) south-eastward to Makran. These chains traverse
fertile districts dividing them into several longitudinal valleys of
considerable length, but not averaging more than 12 m. in width. Snow
lies on them for a considerable part of the year, feeding the springs
and canals by means of which large tracts in this almost rainless region
in summer are kept under cultivation. Still farther west the Kuh Dina
range is continued from Fars, also in a south-easterly direction to
Bashakird beyond Bander Abbasi. Between the south-western highlands and
the Jamal Bariz there is some arid and unproductive land, but the true
desert of Kerman lies mainly in the north and north-east, where it
merges northwards in the great desert "Lut," which stretches into
Khorasan.[1] These southern deserts differ from the kavir of central
Persia mainly in three respects: they are far less saline, are more
sandy and drier, and present in some places tracts of 80 to 100 miles
almost absolutely destitute of vegetation. Yet they are crossed by
well-known tracks running from Kerman eastwards and north-eastwards to
Seistan and Khorasan and frequently traversed by caravans. It appears
that these sandy wastes are continually encroaching on the fertile
districts, and this is the case even in Narmashir, which is being
invaded by the sands of the desolate plains extending thence
north-westwards to Bam. There are also some _kefeh_ or salt swamps
answering to the kavir in the north, but occurring only in isolated
depressions and nowhere of any great extent. The desert of Kerman lies
about 1000 ft., or less, above the sea, apparently on nearly the same
level as the Lut, from which it cannot be geographically separated. The
climate, which varies much with the relief of the land, has the
reputation of being unhealthy, because the cool air from the hills is
usually attended by chills and agues. Still many of the upland valleys
enjoy a genial and healthy climate. The chief products are cotton, gums,
dates of unrivalled flavour from the southern parts, and wool, noted for
its extreme softness, and the soft underhair of goats (_kurk_), which
latter are used in the manufacture of the Kerman shawls, which in
delicacy of texture yield only to those of Kashmir, while often
surpassing them in design, colour and finish. Besides woollen goods
(shawls, carpets, &c.) Kerman exports mainly cotton, grain and dates,
receiving in return from India cotton goods, tea, indigo, china, glass,
sugar, &c. Wheat and barley are scarce. Bander Abbasi is the natural
outport; but, since shipping has shown a preference for Bushire farther
west, the trade of Kerman has greatly fallen off.
For administrative purposes the province is divided into nineteen
districts, one being the capital of the same name with its immediate
neighbourhood (_humeh_); the others are Akta and Urzu; Anar; Bam and
Narmashir; Bardsir; Jiruft; Khabis; Khinaman; Kubenan (Kuhbanan);
Kuhpayeh; Pariz; Rafsinjan; Rahbur; Raver; Rayin; Rudbar and Bashakird;
Sardu; Sirjan; Zerend. The inhabitants number about 700,000, nearly
one-third being nomads. (A. H.-S.)
FOOTNOTE:
[1] The word _lut_ means bare, void of vegetation, arid, waterless,
and has nothing in common with the Lot of Holy Writ, as many have
supposed.
KERMAN, capital of the above province, situated in 30 deg. 17' N., 56
deg. 59' E., at an elevation of 6100 ft. Its population is estimated at
60,000, including about 2000 Zoroastrians, 100 Jews, and a few
Shikarpuri Indians. Kerman has post and telegraph offices (Indo-European
Telegraph Department), British and Russian consulates, and an agency of
the Imperial bank of Persia. The neighbouring districts produce little
grain and have to get their supplies for four or five months of the year
from districts far away. A traveller has stated that it was easier to
get a mann (6(1/2) lb.) of saffron at Kerman than a mann of barley for
his horse, and in 1879 Sir A. Houtum-Schindler was ordered by the
authorities to curtail his excursions in the province "because his
horses and mules ate up all the stock." Kerman manufactures great
quantities of carpets and felts, and its carpets are almost unsurpassed
for richness of texture and durability. The old name of the city was
Guvashir. Adjoining the city on hills rising 400 to 500 ft. above the
plain in the east are the ruins of two ancient forts with walls built of
sun-dried bricks on stone foundations. Some of the walls are in perfect
condition. Among the mosques in the city two deserve special notice, one
the Masjid i Jama, a foundation of the Muzaffarid ruler Mubariz ed din
Mahommed dating from A.H. 1349, the other the Masjid i Malik built by
Malik Kaverd Seljuk (1041-1072).
KERMANSHAH, or KERMANSHAHAN, an important province of Persia, situated
W. of Hamadan, N. of Luristan, and S. of Kurdistan, and extending in the
west to the Turkish frontier. Its population is about 400,000, and it
pays a yearly revenue of over L20,000. Many of its inhabitants are
nomadic Kurds and Lurs who pay little taxes. The plains are well watered
and very fertile, while the hills are covered with rich pastures which
support large flocks of sheep and goats. The sheep provide a great part
of the meat supply of Teheran. The province also produces much wheat and
barley, and could supply great quantities for export if the means of
transport were better.
KERMANSHAH (_Kermisin_ of Arab geographers), the capital of the
province, is situated at an elevation of 5100 ft., in 34 deg. 19' N.,
and 46 deg. 59' E., about 220 m. from Bagdad, and 250 m. from Teheran.
Although surrounded by fortifications with five gates and three miles in
circuit, it is now practically an open town, for the walls are in ruins
and the moat is choked with rubbish. It has a population of about
40,000. The town is situated on the high road between Teheran and
Bagdad, and carries on a transit trade estimated in value at L750,000
per annum.
KERMES (Arab. _qirmiz_; see CRIMSON), a crimson dye-stuff, now
superseded by cochineal, obtained from _Kermes ilicis_ (= _Coccus
ilicis_, Lat. = _C. vermilio_, G. Planchon). The genus _Kermes_ belongs
to the _Coccidae_ or Scale-insects, and its species are common on oaks
wherever they grow. The species from which kermes is obtained is common
in Spain, Italy and the South of France and the Mediterranean basin
generally, where it feeds on _Quercus coccifera_, a small shrub. As in
the case of other scale-insects, the males are relatively small and are
capable of flight, while the females are wingless. The females of the
genus _Kermes_ are remarkable for their gall-like form, and it was not
until 1714 that their animal nature was discovered.
In the month of May, when full grown, the females are globose, 6 to 7
millim. in diameter, of a reddish-brown colour, and covered with an
ash-coloured powder. They are found attached to the twigs or buds by a
circular lower surface 2 millim. in diameter, and surrounded by a
narrow zone of white cottony down. At this time there are concealed
under a cavity, formed by the approach of the abdominal wall of the
insect to the dorsal one, thousands of eggs of a red colour, and
smaller than poppy seed, which are protruded and ranged regularly
beneath the insect. At the end of May or the beginning of June the
young escape by a small orifice, near the point of attachment of the
parent. They are then of a fine red colour, elliptic and convex in
shape, but rounded at the two extremities, and bear two threads half
as long as their body at their posterior extremity. At this period
they are extremely active, and swarm with extraordinary rapidity all
over the food plant, and in two or three days attach themselves to
fissures in the bark or buds, but rarely to the leaves. In warm and
dry summers the insects breed again in the months of August and
September, according to Emeric, and then they are more frequently
found attached to the leaves. Usually they remain immovable and
apparently unaltered until the end of the succeeding March, when their
bodies become gradually distended and lose all trace of abdominal
rings. They then appear full of a reddish juice resembling discoloured
blood. In this state, or when the eggs are ready to be extruded, the
insects are collected. In some cases the insects from which the young
are ready to escape are dried in the sun on linen cloths--care being
taken to prevent the escape of the young from the cloths until they
are dead. The young insects are then sifted from the shells, made into
a paste with vinegar, and dried on skins exposed to the sun, and the
paste packed in skins is then ready for exportation to the East under
the name of "pate d'ecarlate."
In the pharmacopoeia of the ancients kermes triturated with vinegar
was used as an outward application, especially in wounds of the
nerves. From the 9th to the 16th century this insect formed an
ingredient in the "confectio alkermes," a well known medicine, at one
time official in the London pharmacopoeia as an astringent in doses of
20 to 60 grains or more. Syrup of kermes was also prepared. Both these
preparations have fallen into disuse.
Mineral kermes is trisulphide of antimony, containing a variable portion
of trioxide of antimony both free and combined with alkali. It was known
as _poudre des Chartreux_ because in 1714 it is said to have saved the
life of a Carthusian monk who had been given up by the Paris faculty;
but the monk Simon who administered it on that occasion called it
_Alkermes mineral_. Its reputation became so great that in 1720 the
French government bought the recipe for its preparation. It still
appears in the pharmacopoeias of many European countries and in that of
the United States. The product varies somewhat according to the mode of
preparation adopted. According to the French directions the official
substance is obtained by adding 60 grammes of powdered antimony
trisulphide to a boiling solution of 1280 grammes of crystallized sodium
carbonate in 12,800 grammes of distilled water and boiling for one hour.
The liquid is then filtered hot, and on being allowed to cool slowly
deposits the kermes, which is washed and dried at 100 deg. C.; prepared
in this way it is a brown-red velvety powder, insoluble in water.
See G. Planchon, _Le Kermes du chene_ (Montpellier, 1864); Lewis,
_Materia Medica_ (1784), pp. 71, 365; _Memorias sobre la grana Kermes
de Espana_ (Madrid, 1788); Adams, _Paulus Aegineta_, iii. 180;
Beckmann, _History of Inventions_.
KERMESSE (also KERMIS and KIRMESS), originally the mass said on the
anniversary of the foundation of a church and in honour of the patron,
the word being equivalent to "Kirkmass." Such celebrations were
regularly held in the Low Countries and also in northern France, and
were accompanied by feasting, dancing and sports of all kinds. They
still survive, but are now practically nothing more than country fairs
and the old allegorical representations are uncommon. The Brussels
Kermesse is, however, still marked by a procession in which the effigies
of the Mannikin and medieval heroes are carried. At Mons the Kermesse
occurs annually on Trinity Sunday and is called the procession of
Lumecon (Walloon for _limacon_, a snail): the hero is Gilles de Chin,
who slays a terrible monster, captor of a princess, in the Grand Place.
This is the story of George and the Dragon. At Hasselt the Kermesse (now
only septennial) not only commemorates the Christian story of the
foundation of the town, but even preserves traces of a pagan festival.
The word Kermesse (generally in the form "Kirmess" ) is applied in the
United States to any entertainment, especially one organized in the
interest of charity.
See Demetrius C. Boulger, _Belgian Life in Town and Country_ (1904).
KERN, JAN HENDRIK (1833- ), Dutch Orientalist, was born in Java of
Dutch parents on the 6th of April 1833. He studied at Utrecht, Leiden and
Berlin, where he was a pupil of the Sanskrit scholar, Albrecht Weber.
After some years spent as professor of Greek at Maestricht, he became
professor of Sanskrit at Benares in 1863, and in 1865 at Leiden. His
studies included the Malay languages as well as Sanskrit. His chief work
is _Geschiedenis van het Buddhisme in Indie_ (Haarlem, 2 vols.,
1881-1883); in English he wrote a translation (Oxford, 1884) of the
_Saddharma Pundarika_ and a _Manual of Indian Buddhism_ (Strassburg,
1896) for Buhler Kielhorn's _Grundriss der indoarischen Philologie_.
KERNEL (O.E. _cyrnel_, a diminutive of "corn," seed, grain), the soft
and frequently edible part contained within the hard outer husk of a nut
or the stone of a fruit; also used in botany of the nucleus of a seed,
the body within its several integuments or coats, and generally of the
nucleus or core of any structure; hence, figuratively, the pith or gist
of any matter.
KERNER, JUSTINUS ANDREAS CHRISTIAN (1786-1862), German poet and medical
writer, was born on the 18th of September 1786 at Ludwigsburg in
Wurttemberg. After attending the classical schools of Ludwigsburg and
Maulbronn, he was apprenticed in a cloth factory, but, in 1804, owing to
the good services of Professor Karl Philipp Conz (1762-1827) of
Tubingen, was enabled to enter the university there; he studied medicine
but had also time for literary pursuits in the company of Uhland, Gustav
Schwab and others. He took his doctor's degree in 1808, spent some time
in travel, and then settled as a practising physician in Wildbad. Here
he completed his _Reiseschatten von dem Schattenspieler Luchs_ (1811),
in which his own experiences are described with caustic humour. He next
co-operated with Uhland and Schwab in producing the _Poetischer Almanack
fur 1812_, which was followed by the _Deutscher Dichterwald_ (1813), and
in these some of Kerner's best poems were published. In 1815 he obtained
the official appointment of district medical officer (_Oberamtsarzt_) in
Gaildorf, and in 1818 was transferred in a like capacity to Weinsberg,
where he spent the rest of his life. His house, the site of which at the
foot of the historical Schloss Weibertreu was presented by the
municipality to their revered physician, became the Mecca of literary
pilgrims. Hospitable welcome was extended to all, from the journeyman
artisan to crowned heads. Gustavus IV. of Sweden came thither with a
knapsack on his back. The poets Count Christian Friedrich Alexander von
Wurttemberg (1801-1844) and Lenau (q.v.) were constant guests, and
thither came also in 1826 Friederike Hauffe (1801-1829), the daughter of
a forester in Prevorst, a somnambulist and clairvoyante, who forms the
subject of Kerner's famous work _Die Seherin von Prevorst, Eroffnungen
uber das innere Leben des Menschen und uber das Hineinragen einer
Geisterwelt in die unsere_ (1829; 6th ed., 1892). In 1826 he published a
collection of _Gedichte_ which were later supplemented by _Der letzte
Blutenstrauss_ (1852) and _Winterbluten_ (1859). Among others of his
well-known poems are the charming ballad _Der reichste Furst_; a
drinking song, _Wohlauf, noch getrunken_, and the pensive _Wanderer in
der Sagemuhle_.
In addition to his literary productions, Kerner wrote some popular
medical books of great merit, dealing with animal magnetism, a treatise
on the influence of sebacic acid on animal organisms, _Das Fettgift oder
die Fettsaure und ihre Wirkungen auf den tierischen Organismus_ (1822);
a description of Wildbad and its healing waters, _Das Wildbad im
Konigreich Wurttemberg_ (1813); while he gave a pretty and vivid account
of his youthful years in _Bilderbuch aus meiner Knabenzeit_ (1859); and
in _Die Besturmung der wurttembergischen Stadt Weinsberg im Jahre 1525_
(1820), showed considerable skill in historical narrative. In 1851 he
was compelled, owing to increasing blindness, to retire from his medical
practice, but he lived, carefully tended by his daughters, at Weinsberg
until his death on the 21st of February 1862. He was buried beside his
wife, who had predeceased him in 1854, in the churchyard of Weinsberg,
and the grave is marked by a stone slab with an inscription he himself
had chosen: _Friederike Kerner und ihr Justinus_. Kerner was one of the
most inspired poets of the Swabian school. His poems, which largely deal
with natural phenomena, are characterized by a deep melancholy and a
leaning towards the supernatural, which, however, is balanced by a
quaint humour, reminiscent of the Volkslied.
Kerner's _Ausgewahlte poetische Werke_ appeared in 2 vols. (1878);
_Samtliche poetische Werke_, ed. by J. Gaismaier, 4 vols. (1905); a
selection of his poems will also be found in Reclam's
_Universalbibliothek_ (1898). His correspondence was edited by his son
in 1897. See also D. F. Strauss, _Kleine Schriften_ (1866); A.
Reinhard, _J. Kerner und das Kernerhaus zu Weinsberg_ (1862; 2nd ed.,
1886); G. Rumelin, _Reden und Aufsatze_, vol. iii. (1894); M.
Niethammer (Kerner's daughter), _J. Kerners Jugendliebe und mein
Vaterhaus_ (1877); A. Watts, _Life and Works of Kerner_ (London,
1884); T. Kerner, _Das Kernerhaus und seine Gaste_ (1894).
KERRY, a county of Ireland in the province of Munster, bounded W. by the
Atlantic Ocean, N. by the estuary of the Shannon, which separates it
from Clare, E. by Limerick and Cork, and S.E. by Cork. The area is
1,159,356 acres, or 1811 sq. m., the county being the fifth of the Irish
counties in extent. Kerry, with its combination of mountain, sea and
plain, possesses some of the finest scenery of the British Islands. The
portion of the county south of Dingle Bay consists of mountain masses
intersected by narrow valleys. Formerly the mountains were covered by a
great forest of fir, birch and yew, which was nearly all cut down to be
used in smelting iron, and the constant pasturage of cattle prevents the
growth of young trees. In the north-east towards Killarney the hills
rise abruptly into the ragged range of Macgillicuddy's Reeks, the
highest summit of which, Carntual (Carrantuohill), has a height of 3414
ft. The next highest summit is Caper (3200 ft.), and several others are
over 2500 ft. Lying between the precipitous sides of the Tomies, the
Purple Mountains and the Reeks is the famous Gap of Dunloe. In the
Dingle promontory Brandon Mountain attains a height of 3127 ft. The
sea-coast, for the most part wild and mountainous, is much indented by
inlets, the largest of which, Tralee Bay, Dingle Bay and Kenmare River,
lie in synclinal troughs, the anticlinal folds of the rocks forming
extensive promontories. Between Kenmare River and Dingle Bay the land is
separated by mountain ridges into three valleys. The extremity of the
peninsula between Dingle Bay and Tralee Bay is very precipitous, and
Mount Brandon, rising abruptly from the ocean, is skirted at its base
(in part) by a road from which magnificent views are obtained. From near
the village of Ballybunion to Kilconey Point near the Shannon there is a
remarkable succession of caves, excavated by the sea. One of these
caves inspired Tennyson with some lines in "Merlin and Vivien," which he
wrote on the spot. The principal islands are the picturesque Skelligs,
Valencia Island and the Blasquet Islands.
The principal rivers are the Blackwater, which, rising in the Dunkerran
Mountains, forms for a few miles the boundary line between Kerry and
Cork, and then passes into the latter county; the Ruaughty, which with a
course resembling the arc of a circle falls into the head of the Kenmare
River; the Inny and Ferta, which flow westward, the one into
Ballinskellig Bay and the other into Valencia harbour; the Flesk, which
flows northward through the lower Lake of Killarney, after which it
takes the name of Laune, and flows north-westward to Dingle Bay; the
Caragh, which rises in the mountains of Dunkerran, after forming several
lakes falls into Castlemaine harbour; the Maine, which flows from Castle
Island and south-westward to the sea at Castlemaine harbour, receiving
the northern Flesk, which rises in the mountains that divide Cork from
Kerry; and the Feale, Gale and Brick, the junction of which forms the
Cashin, a short tidal river which flows into the estuary of the Shannon.
The lakes of Kerry are not numerous, and none is of great size, but
those of Killarney (q.v.) form one of the most important features in the
striking and picturesque mountain scenery amidst which they are
situated. The other principal lakes are Lough Currane (Waterville Lake)
near Ballinskellig, and Lough Caragh near Castlemaine harbour. Salmon
and trout fishing with the rod is extensively prosecuted in all these
waters. Near the summit of Mangerton Mountain an accumulation of water
in a deep hollow forms what is known as the Devil's Punchbowl, the
surplus water, after making a succession of cataracts, flowing into
Muckross Lake at the foot of the mountain. There are chalybeate mineral
springs near Killarney, near Valencia Island, and near the mouth of the
Inny; sulphurous chalybeate springs near Dingle, Castlemaine and Tralee;
and a saline spring at Magherybeg in Corkaguiney, which bursts out of
clear white sand a little below high-water mark. Killarney is an inland
centre widely celebrated and much visited on account of its scenic
attractions; there are also several well-known coast resorts, among them
Derrynane, at the mouth of Kenmare Bay, the residence of Daniel
O'Connell the "liberator"; Glenbeigh on Dingle Bay, Parknasilla on
Kenmare Bay, Waterville (an Atlantic telegraph station) between
Ballinskellig Bay and Lough Currane, and Tarbert, a small coast town on
the Shannon estuary. Others of the smaller villages have grown into
watering-places, such as Ballybunion, Castlegregory and Portmagee.
_Geology._--Kerry includes on the north and east a considerable area
of Carboniferous shales and sandstones, reaching the coal-measures,
with unproductive coals, east of Listowel and on the Glanruddery
Mountains. The Carboniferous Limestone forms a fringe to these beds,
and is cut off by the sea at Knockaneen Bay, Tralee and Castlemaine.
In all the great promontories, Old Red Sandstone, including Jukes's
"Glengariff Grits," forms the mountains, while synclinal hollows of
Carboniferous Limestone have become submerged to form marine inlets
between them. The Upper Lake of Killarney lies in a hollow of the Old
Red Sandstone, which here rises to its greatest height in
Macgillicuddy's Reeks; Lough Leane however, with its low shores, rests
on Carboniferous Limestone. In the Dingle promontory the Old Red
Sandstone is strikingly unconformable on the Dingle beds and the Upper
Silurian series; the latter include volcanic rocks of Wenlock age. The
evidences of local glaciation in this county, especially on the wild
slopes of the mountains, are as striking as in North Wales. A
copper-mine was formerly worked at Muckross, near Killarney, in which
cobalt ores also occurred. Slate is quarried in Valencia Island.
_Fauna._--Foxes are numerous, and otters and badgers are not uncommon.
The alpine hare is very abundant. The red deer inhabits the mountains
round Killarney. The golden eagle, once frequently seen in the higher
mountain regions, is now rarely met. The sea eagle haunts the lofty
marine cliffs, the mountains and the rocky islets. The osprey is
occasionally seen, and also the peregrine falcon. The merlin is
common. The common owl is indigenous, the long-eared owl resident, and
the short-eared owl a regular winter visitor. Rock pigeons breed on
the sea-cliffs, and the turtle-dove is an occasional visitant. The
great grey seal is found in Brandon and Dingle bays.
_Climate and Agriculture._--Owing to the vicinity of the sea and the
height of the mountains, the climate is very moist and unsuitable for
the growth of cereals, but it is so mild even in winter that arbutus
and other trees indigenous to warm climates grow in the open air, and
several flowering plants are found which are unknown in England. In
the northern parts the land is generally coarse and poor, except in
the valleys, where a rich soil has been formed by rocky deposits. In
the Old Red Sandstone valleys there are many very fertile regions, and
several extensive districts now covered by bog admit of easy
reclamation so as to form very fruitful soil, but other tracts of
boggy land scarcely promise a profitable return for labour expended on
their reclamation. Over one-third of the total area is quite barren.
The numbers of live stock of every kind are generally increased or
sustained. Dairy-farming is very largely followed. The Kerry breed of
cattle--small finely-shaped animals, black or red in colour, with
small upturned horns--are famed for the quality both of their flesh
and milk, and are in considerable demand for the parks surrounding
mansion-houses. The "Dexter," a cross between the Kerry and an unknown
breed, is larger but without its fine qualities. Little regard is paid
to the breed of sheep, but those in most common use have been crossed
with a merino breed from Spain. Goats share with sheep the sweet
pasturage of the higher mountain ridges, while cattle occupy the lower
slopes.
_Other Industries._--In former times there was a considerable linen
trade in Kerry, but this is now nearly extinct, the chief manufacture
being that of coarse woollens and linens for home use. At Killarney a
variety of articles are made from the wood of the arbutus. A
considerable trade in agricultural produce is carried on at Tralee,
Dingle and Kenmare, and in slate and stone at Valencia. The deep-sea
and coast fisheries are prosperous, and there are many small fishing
settlements along the coast, but the centres of the two fishery
districts are Valencia and Dingle. Salmon fishing is also an industry,
for which the district centres are Kenmare and Killarney.
_Communications._--The Great Southern & Western railway almost
monopolizes the lines in the county. The principal line traverses the
centre of the county, touching Killarney, Tralee and Listowel, and
passing ultimately to Limerick. Branches are from Headford to Kenmare;
Farranfore to Killorglin, Cahersiveen and Valencia harbour, Tralee to
Fenit and to Castlegregory; and the Listowel and Ballybunion railway.
All these are lines to the coast. The Tralee and Dingle railway
connects these two towns. The only inland branch is from Tralee to
Castleisland.
_Population and Administration._--The population (179,136 in 1891;
165,726 in 1901) decreases to an extent about equal to the average of
the Irish counties, but the emigration returns are among the heaviest.
The chief towns are Tralee (the county town, pop. 9867); Killarney
(5656), Listowel (3605) and Cahersiveen or Cahirciveen (2013), while
Dingle, Kenmare, Killorglin and Castleisland are smaller towns. The
county comprises 9 baronies, and contains 85 civil parishes. Assizes
are held at Tralee, and quarter sessions at Cahersiveen, Dingle,
Kenmare, Killarney, Listowel and Tralee. The headquarters of the
constabulary force is at Tralee. Previous to the Union the county
returned eight members to the Irish parliament, two for the county,
and two for each of the boroughs of Tralee, Dingle and Ardfert. At the
Union the number was reduced to three, two for the county and one for
the borough of Tralee; but the divisions now number four: north,
south, east and west, each returning one member. The county is in the
Protestant diocese of Limerick and the Roman Catholic dioceses of
Kerry and Limerick.
_History._--The county is said to have derived its name from Ciar, who
with his tribe, the _Ciarraidhe_, is stated to have inhabited about the
beginning of the Christian era the territory lying between Tralee and
the Shannon. That portion lying south of the Maine was at a later period
included in the kingdom of Desmond (q.v.). Kerry suffered frequently
from invasions of the Danes in the 9th and 10th centuries, until they
were finally overthrown at the battle of Clontarf in 1014. In 1172
Dermot MacCarthy, king of Cork and Desmond, made submission to Henry II.
on certain conditions, but was nevertheless gradually compelled to
retire within the limits of Kerry, which is one of the areas generally
considered to have been made shire ground by King John. An English
adventurer, Raymond le Gros, received from this MacCarthy a large
portion of the county round Lixnaw. In 1579-1580 attempts were made by
the Spaniards to invade Ireland, landing at Limerick harbour, near
Dingle, and a fortress was erected here, but was destroyed by the
English in 1580. The Irish took advantage of the disturbed state of
England at the time of the Puritan revolution to attempt the overthrow
of the English rule in Kerry, and ultimately obtained possession of
Tralee, but in 1652 the rebellion was completely subdued, and a large
number of estates were afterwards confiscated.
There are remains of a round tower at Aghadoe, near Killarney, and
another, one of the finest and most perfect specimens in Ireland, 92 ft.
high, at Rattoe, not far from Ballybunion. On the summit of a hill to
the north of Kenmare River is the remarkable stone fortress known as
Staigue Fort. There are several stone cells in the principal Skellig
island, where penance, involving the scaling of dangerous rocks, was
done by pilgrims, and where there were formerly monastic remains which
have been swept away by the sea. The principal groups of sepulchral
stones are those on the summits of the Tomie Mountains, a remarkable
stone fort at Cahersiveen, a circle of stones with cromlech in the
parish of Tuosist, and others with inscriptions near Dingle. The remote
peninsula west of a line from Dingle to Smerwick harbour is full of
remains of various dates. The most notable monastic ruins are those of
Innisfallen, founded by St Finian, a disciple of St Columba, and the
fine remains of Muckross Abbey, founded by the Franciscans, but there
are also monastic remains at Ardfert, Castlemaine, Derrynane, Kilcoleman
and O'Dorney. Among ruined churches of interest are those of Aghadoe,
Kilcrohane, Lough Currane, Derrynane and Muckross. The cathedral of
Ardfert, founded probably in 1253, was partly destroyed during the
Cromwellian wars, but was restored in 1831. Some interesting portions
remain (see TRALEE). There is a large number of feudal castles.
KERSAINT, ARMAND GUY SIMON DE COETNEMPREN, COMTE DE (1742-1793), French
sailor and politician, was born at Paris on the 29th of July 1742. He
came of an old family, his father, Guy Francois de Coetnempren, comte de
Kersaint, being a distinguished naval officer. He entered the navy in
1755, and in 1757, while serving on his father's ship, was promoted to
the rank of ensign for his bravery in action. By 1782 he was a captain,
and in this year took part in an expedition to Guiana. At that time the
officers of the French navy were divided into two parties--the reds or
nobles, and the blues or _roturiers_. At the outbreak of the Revolution,
Kersaint, in spite of his high birth, took the side of the latter. He
adopted the new ideas, and in a pamphlet entitled _Le Bon Sens_ attacked
feudal privileges; he also submitted to the Constituent Assembly a
scheme for the reorganization of the navy, but it was not accepted. On
the 4th of January 1791 Kersaint was appointed administrator of the
department of the Seine by the electoral assembly of Paris. He was also
elected as a _depute suppleant_ to the Legislative Assembly, and was
called upon to sit in it in place of a deputy who had resigned. From
this time onward his chief aim was the realization of the navy scheme
which he had vainly submitted to the Constituent Assembly. He soon saw
that this would be impossible unless there were a general reform of all
institutions, and therefore gave his support to the policy of the
advanced party in the Assembly, denouncing the conduct of Louis XVI.,
and on the 10th of August 1792 voting in favour of his deposition.
Shortly after, he was sent on a mission to the _armee du Centre_,
visiting in this way Soissons, Reims, Sedan and the Ardennes. While thus
occupied he was arrested by the municipality of Sedan; he was set free
after a few days' detention. He took an active part in one of the last
debates of the Legislative Assembly, in which it was decided to publish
a _Bulletin officiel_, a report continued by the next Assembly, and
known by the name of the _Bulletin de la Convention Nationale_. Kersaint
was sent as a deputy to the Convention by the department of
Seine-et-Oise in September 1792, and on the 1st of January 1793 was
appointed vice-admiral. He continued to devote himself to questions
concerning the navy and national defence, prepared a report on the
English political system and the navy, and caused a decree to be passed
for the formation of a committee of general defence, which after many
modifications was to become the famous Committee of Public Safety. He
had also had a decree passed concerning the navy on the 11th of January
1793. He had, however, entered the ranks of the Girondins, and had voted
in the trial of the king against the death penalty and in favour of the
appeal to the people. He resigned his seat in the Convention on the 20th
of January. After the death of the king his opposition became more
marked; he denounced the September massacres, but when called upon to
justify his attitude confined himself to attacking Marat, who was at the
time all-powerful. His friends tried in vain to obtain his appointment
as minister of the marine; and he failed to obtain even a post as
officer. He was arrested on the 23rd of September at Ville d'Avray, near
Paris, and taken before the Revolutionary Tribunal, where he was accused
of having conspired for the restoration of the monarchy, and of having
insulted national representation by resigning his position in the
legislature. He was executed on the 4th of December 1793.
His brother, GUY PIERRE (1747-1822), also served in the navy, and took
part in the American war of independence. He did not accept the
principles of the Revolution, but emigrated. He was restored to his rank
in the navy in 1803, and died in 1822, after having been _prefet
maritime_ of Antwerp, and prefect of the department of Meurthe.
See Kersaint's own works, _Le Bon Sens_ (1789); the _Rubicon_ (1789);
_Considerations sur la force publique et l'institution des gardes
nationales_ (1789); _Lettre a Mirabeau_ (1791); _Moyens presentes a
l'Assemblee nationale pour retablir la paix et l'ordre dans les
colonies_; also E. Chevalier, _Histoire de la Marine francaise sous la
premiere Republique_; E. Charavay, _L'Assemblee electorale de Paris en
1790 et 1791_ (Paris, 1890); and Agenor Bardoux, _La Duchesse de
Duras_ (Paris, 1898), the beginning of which deals with Kersaint,
whose daughter married Amedee de Duras. (R. A.*)
KERVYN DE LETTENHOVE, CONSTANTINE BRUNO, BARON, (1817-1891), Belgian
historian, was born at Saint-Michel-les-Bruges in 1817. He was a member
of the Catholic Constitutional party and sat in the Chamber as member
for Eecloo. In 1870 he was appointed a member of the cabinet of Anethan
as minister of the interior. But his official career was short. The
cabinet appointed as governor of Lille one Decker, who had been
entangled in the financial speculations of Langand-Dumonceau by which
the whole clerical party had been discredited, and which provoked riots.
The cabinet was forced to resign, and Kervyn de Lettenhove devoted
himself entirely to literature and history. He had already become known
as the author of a book on Froissart (Brussels, 1855), which was crowned
by the French Academy. He edited a series of chronicles--_Chroniques
relatives a l'histoire de la Belgique sous la domination des ducs de
Bourgogne_ (Brussels, 1870-1873), and _Relations politiques des Pays Bas
et de l'Angleterre sous le regne de Philippe II._ (Brussels, 1882-1892).
He wrote a history of _Les Hugenots et les Gueux_ (Bruges, 1883-1885) in
the spirit of a violent Roman Catholic partisan, but with much industry
and learning. He died at Saint-Michel-les-Bruges in 1891.
See _Notices biographiques et bibliographiques de l'academie de
Belgique_ for 1887.
KESHUB CHUNDER SEN (KESHAVA CHANDRA SENA) (1838-1884), Indian religious
reformer, was born of a high-caste family at Calcutta in 1838. He was
educated at one of the Calcutta colleges, where he became proficient in
English literature and history. For a short time he was a clerk in the
Bank of Bengal, but resigned his post to devote himself exclusively to
literature and philosophy. At that time Sir William Hamilton, Hugh
Blair, Victor Cousin, J. H. Newman and R. W. Emerson were among his
favourite authors. Their works made the deepest impression on him, for,
as he expressed it, "Philosophy first taught me insight and reflection,
and turned my eyes inward from the things of the external world, so that
I began to reflect on my position, character and destiny." Like many
other educated Hindus, Keshub Chunder Sen had gradually dissociated
himself from the popular forms of the native religion, without
abandoning what he believed to be its spirit. As early as 1857 he joined
the Brahma Samaj, a religious association aiming at the reformation of
Hinduism. Keshub Chunder Sen threw himself with enthusiasm into the work
of this society and in 1862 himself undertook the ministry of one of its
branches. In the same year he helped to found the Albert College and
started the _Indian Mirror_, a weekly journal in which social and moral
subjects were discussed. In 1863 he wrote _The Brahma Samaj Vindicated_.
He also travelled about the country lecturing and preaching. The steady
development of his reforming zeal led to a split in the society, which
broke into two sections, Chunder Sen putting himself at the head of the
reform movement, which took the name "Brahma Samaj of India," and tried
to propagate its doctrines by missionary enterprise. Its tenets at this
time were the following: (1) The wide universe is the temple of God. (2)
Wisdom is the pure land of pilgrimage. (3) Truth is the everlasting
scripture. (4) Faith is the root of all religions. (5) Love is the true
spiritual culture. (6) The destruction of selfishness is the true
asceticism. In 1866 he delivered an address on "Jesus Christ, Europe and
Asia," which led to the false impression that he was about to embrace
Christianity. This helped to call attention to him in Europe, and in
1870 he paid a visit to England. The Hindu preacher was warmly welcomed
by almost all denominations, particularly by the Unitarians, with whose
creed the new Brahma Samaj had most in common, and it was the committee
of the British and Foreign Unitarian Association that organized the
welcome soiree at Hanover Square Rooms on the 12th of April. Ministers
of ten different denominations were on the platform, and among those who
officially bade him welcome were Lord Lawrence and Dean Stanley. He
remained for six months in England, visiting most of the chief towns.
His eloquence, delivery and command of the language won universal
admiration. His own impression of England was somewhat disappointing.
Christianity in England appeared to him too sectarian and narrow, too
"muscular and hard," and Christian life in England more materialistic
and outward than spiritual and inward. "I came here an Indian, I go back
a confirmed Indian; I came here a Theist, I go back a confirmed Theist.
I have learnt to love my own country more and more." These words spoken
at the farewell soiree may furnish the key to the change in him which so
greatly puzzled many of his English friends. He developed a tendency
towards mysticism and a greater leaning to the spiritual teaching of the
Indian philosophies, as well as a somewhat despotic attitude towards the
Samaj. He gave his child daughter in marriage to the raja of Kuch Behar;
he revived the performance of mystical plays, and himself took part in
one. These changes alienated many followers, who deserted his standard
and founded the Sadharana (General) Brahma Samaj (1878). Chunder Sen did
what he could to reinvigorate his own section by a new infusion of
Christian ideas and phrases, e.g. "the New Dispensation," "the Holy
Spirit." He also instituted a sacramental meal of rice and water. Two
lectures delivered between 1881 and 1883 throw a good deal of light on
his latest doctrines. They were "The Marvellous Mystery, the Trinity,"
and "Asia's Message to Europe." This latter is an eloquent plea against
the Europeanizing of Asia, as well as a protest against Western
sectarianism. During the intervals of his last illness he wrote _The New
Samhita, or the Sacred Laws of the Aryans of the New Dispensation_. He
died in January 1884, leaving many bitter enemies and many warm friends.
See the article BRAHMA SAMAJ; also P. Mozoomdar, _Life and Teachings
of Keshub Chunder Sen_ (1888).
KESMARK (Ger. Kasmark), a town of Hungary, in the county of Szepes, 240
m. N.E. of Budapest by rail. Pop. (1900), 5560. It is situated on the
Poprad, at an altitude of 1950 ft., and is surrounded on all sides by
mountains. Among its buildings are the Roman Catholic parish church, a
Gothic edifice of the 15th century with fine carved altars; a wooden
Protestant church of the 17th century; and an old town-hall. About 12 m.
W. of Kesmark lies the famous watering-place Tatrafured (Ger. Schmecks),
at the foot of the Schlagendorfer peak in the Tatra Mountains. Kesmark
is one of the oldest and most important Saxon settlements in the north
of Hungary, and became a royal free town at the end of the 13th century,
In 1440 it became the seat of the counts of Szepes (Ger., _Zips_), and
in 1464 it was granted new privileges by King Matthias Corvinus. During
the 16th century, together with the other Saxon towns in the Szepes
county, it began to lose both its political and commercial importance.
It remained a royal free town until 1876.
KESTREL (Fr. _Cresserelle_ or _Crecerelle_, O. Fr. _Quercerelle_ and
_Quercelle_, in Burgundy _Cristel_), the English name[1] for one of the
smaller falcons. This bird, though in the form of its bill and length
of its wings one of the true falcons, and by many ornithologists placed
among them under its Linnaean name of _Falco tinnunculus_, is by others
referred to a distinct genus _Tinnunculus_ as _T. alaudarius_--the last
being an epithet wholly inappropriate. We have here a case in which the
propriety of the custom which requires the establishment of a genus on
structural characters may seem open to question. The differences of
structure which separate _Tinnunculus_ from _Falco_ are of the
slightest, and, if insisted upon, must lead to including in the former
birds which obviously differ from kestrels in all but a few characters
arbitrarily chosen; and yet, if structural characters be set aside, the
kestrels form an assemblage readily distinguishable by several
peculiarities from all other _Falconidae_, and an assemblage separable
from the true Falcons of the genus _Falco_, with its subsidiary groups
_Aesalon_, _Hypotriorchis_, and the rest (see FALCON). Scarcely any one
outside the walls of an ornithological museum or library would doubt for
a moment whether any bird shown to him was a kestrel or not; and Gurney
has stated his belief (_Ibis_, 1881, p. 277) that the aggregation of
species placed by Bowdler Sharpe (_Cat. Birds Brit. Mus._ i. 423-448)
under the generic designation of _Cerchneis_ (which should properly be
_Tinnunculus_) includes "three natural groups sufficiently distinct to
be treated as at least separate subgenera, bearing the name of
_Dissodectes_, _Tinnunculus_ and _Erythropus_." Of these the first and
last are not kestrels, but are perhaps rather related to the hobbies
(_Hypotriorchis_).
The ordinary kestrel of Europe, _Falco tinnunculus_ or _Tinnunculus
alaudarius_, is by far the commonest bird of prey in the British
Islands. It is almost entirely a summer migrant, coming from the south
in early spring and departing in autumn, though examples (which are
nearly always found to be birds of the year) occasionally occur in
winter, some arriving on the eastern coast in autumn. It is most often
observed while hanging in the air for a minute or two in the same spot,
by means of short and rapid beats of its wings, as, with head pointing
to windward and expanded tail, it is looking out for prey--which
consists chiefly of mice, but it will at times take a small bird, and
the remains of frogs, insects and even earthworms have been found in its
crop. It generally breeds in the deserted nest of a crow or pie, but
frequently in rocks, ruins, or even in hollow trees--laying four or five
eggs, mottled all over with dark brownish-red, sometimes tinged with
orange and at other times with purple. Though it may occasionally snatch
up a young partridge or pheasant, the kestrel is the most harmless bird
of prey, if it be not, from its destruction of mice and cockchafers, a
beneficial species. Its range extends over nearly the whole of Europe
from 68 deg. N. lat., and the greater part of Asia--though the form
which inhabits Japan and is abundant in north-eastern China has been by
some writers deemed distinct and called _T. japonicus_--it is also found
over a great part of Africa, being, however, unknown beyond Guinea on
the west and Mombasa on the east coast (_Ibis_, 1881, p. 457). The
southern countries of Europe have also another and smaller species of
kestrel, _T. tinnunculoides_ (the _T. cenchris_ and _T. naumanni_ of
some writers), which is widely spread in Africa and Asia, though
specimens from India and China are distinguished as _T. pekinensis_.
Three other species are found in Africa--_T. rupicola_, _T.
rupicoloides_ and _T. alopex_--the first a common bird in the Cape,
while the others occur in the interior. Some of the islands of the
Ethiopian region have peculiar species of kestrel, as the _T. newtoni_
of Madagascar, _T. punctatus_ of Mauritius and _T. gracilis_ of the
Seychelles; while, on the opposite side, the kestrel of the Cape Verde
Islands has been separated as _T. neglectus_.
The _T. sparverius_, commonly known in Canada and the United States as
the "sparrow-hawk," is a beautiful little bird. Various attempts have
been made to recognize several species, more or less in accordance with
locality, but the majority of ornithologists seem unable to accept the
distinctions which have been elaborated chiefly by Bowdler Sharpe in his
_Catalogue_ and R. Ridgway (_North American Birds_, iii. 150-175), the
former of whom recognizes six species, while the latter admits but
three--_T. sparverius_, _T. leucophrys_ and _T. sparverioides_--with
five geographical races of the first, viz. the typical _T. sparverius_
from the continent of North America except the coast of the Gulf of
Mexico; _T. australis_ from the continent of South America except the
North Atlantic and Caribbean coasts; _T. isabellinus_, inhabiting
continental America from Florida to Fr. Guiana; _T. dominicensis_ from
the Lesser Antilles as far northwards as St Thomas; and lastly _T.
cinnamominus_ from Chile and western Brazil. _T. leucophrys_ is said to
be from Haiti and Cuba; and _T. sparverioides_ peculiar to Cuba only.
This last has been generally allowed to be a good species, though Dr
Gundlach, the best authority on the birds of that island, in his
_Contribucion a la Ornitologia Cubana_ (1876), will not allow its
validity. More recently it was found (Ibis, 1881, pp. 547-564) that _T.
australis_ and _T. cinnamominus_ cannot be separated, that Ridgway's _T.
leucophrys_ should properly be called _T. dominicensis_, and his _T.
dominicensis T. antillarum_; while Ridgway has recorded the supposed
occurrence of _T. sparverioides_ in Florida. Of other kestrels _T.
moluccensis_ is widely spread throughout the islands of the Malay
Archipelago, while _T. cenchroides_ seems to inhabit the whole of
Australia, and has occurred in Tasmania (_Proc. Roy. Soc. Tasmania_,
1875, pp. 7, 8). No kestrel is found in New Zealand, but an approach to
the form is made by the very peculiar _Hieracidea_ (or _Harpe_)
_novae-zelandiae_ (of which a second race or species has been described,
_H. brunnea_ or _H. ferox_), the "sparrow-hawk," "quail-hawk" and
"bush-hawk" of the colonists--a bird of much higher courage than any
kestrel, and perhaps exhibiting the more generalized and ancestral type
from which both kestrels and falcons may have descended. (A. N.)
FOOTNOTE:
[1] Other English names are windhover and standgale (the last often
corrupted into stonegale and stannell).
KESWICK, a market town in the Penrith parliamentary division of
Cumberland, England, served by the joint line of the Cockermouth Keswick
& Penrith, and London & North-Western railways. Pop. of urban district
(1901), 4451. It lies in the northern part of the Lake District, in an
open valley on the banks of the river Greta, with the mountain of
Skiddaw to the north and the lovely lake of Derwentwater to the south.
It is much frequented by visitors as a centre for this famous
district--for boating on Derwentwater and for the easy ascent of
Skiddaw. Many residences are seen in the neighbourhood, and the town as
a whole is modern. Fitz Park, opened in 1887, is a pleasant recreation
ground. The town-hall contains a museum of local geology, natural
history, &c. In the parish church of Crosthwaite, 3/4 m. distant, there
is a monument to the poet Southey. His residence, Greta Hall, stands at
the end of the main street, close by the river. Keswick is noted for its
manufacture of lead pencils; and the plumbago (locally wad) used to be
supplied from mines in Borrowdale. Char, caught in the neighbouring
lakes, are potted at Keswick in large quantities and exported.
KESWICK CONVENTION, an annual summer reunion held at the above town for
the main purpose of "promoting practical holiness" by meetings for
prayer, discussion and personal intercourse. It has no denominational
limits, and is largely supported by the "Evangelical" section of the
Church of England. The convention, started in a private manner by Canon
Harford-Battersby, then vicar of Keswick, and Mr Robert Wilson in 1874,
met first in 1875, and rapidly grew after the first few years, both in
numbers and influence, in spite of attacks on the alleged
"perfectionism" of some of its leaders and on the novelty of its
methods. Its members take a deep interest in foreign missions.
In the _History of the C.M.S._, vol. iii. (by Eugene Stock), the
missionary influence of the "Keswick men" in Cambridge and elsewhere
may be readily traced. See also _The Keswick Convention_: its
_Message, its Method and its Men_, edited by C. F. Harford (1906).
KET (or KETT), ROBERT (d. 1549), English rebel, is usually called a
tanner, but he certainly held the manor of Wymondham in Norfolk. With
his brother William he led the men of Wymondham in their quarrel with a
certain Flowerden, and having thus come into prominence, he headed the
men of Norfolk when they rose in rebellion in 1549 owing to the
hardships inflicted by the extensive enclosures of common lands and by
the general policy of the protector Somerset. A feast held at Wymondham
in July 1549 developed into a riot and gave the signal for the outbreak.
Leading his followers to Norwich, Ket formed a camp on Mousehold Heath,
where he is said to have commanded 16,000 men, introduced a regular
system of discipline, administered justice and blockaded the city. He
refused the royal offer of an amnesty on the ground that innocent and
just men had no need of pardon, and on the 1st of August 1549 attacked
and took possession of Norwich. John Dudley, earl of Warwick, marched
against the rebels, and after his offer of pardon had been rejected he
forced his way into the city, driving its defenders before him. Then,
strengthened by the arrival of some foreign mercenaries, he attacked the
main body of the rebels at Dussindale on the 27th of August. Ket's men
were easily routed by the trained soldiery, and Robert and William Ket
were seized and taken to London, where they were condemned to death for
treason. On the 7th of December 1549 Robert was executed at Norwich, and
his body was hanged on the top of the castle, while that of William was
hanged on the church tower at Wymondham.
See F. W. Russell, _Kett's Rebellion_ (1859), and J. A. Froude,
_History of England_, vol. iv. (London, 1898).
KETCH, JOHN (d. 1686), English executioner, who as "Jack Ketch" gave the
nickname for nearly two centuries to his successors, is believed to have
been appointed public hangman in the year 1663. The first recorded
mention of him is in _The Plotters Ballad, being Jack Ketch's
incomparable Receipt for the Cure of Traytorous Recusants and Wholesome
Physick for a Popish Contagion_, a broadside published in December 1672.
The execution of William, Lord Russell, on the 21st of July 1683 was
carried out by him in a clumsy way, and a pamphlet is extant which
contains his "Apologie," in which he alleges that the prisoner did not
"dispose himself as was most suitable" and that he was interrupted while
taking aim. On the scaffold, on the 15th of July 1685, the duke of
Monmouth, addressing Ketch, referred to his treatment of Lord Russell,
the result being that Ketch was quite unmanned and had to deal at least
five strokes with his axe, and finally use a knife, to sever Monmouth's
head from his shoulders. In 1686 Ketch was deposed and imprisoned at
Bridewell, but when his successor, Pascha Rose, a butcher, was, after
four months in the office, hanged at Tyburn, Ketch was reappointed. He
died towards the close of 1686.
KETCHUP, also written _catsup_ and _katchup_ (said to be from the
Chinese _koe-chiap_ or _ke-tsiap_, brine of pickled fish), a sauce or
relish prepared principally from the juice of mushrooms and of many
other species of edible fungi, salted for preservation and variously
spiced. The juices of various fruits, such as cucumbers, tomatoes, and
especially green walnuts, are used as a basis of ketchup, and shell-fish
ketchup, from oysters, mussels and cockles, is also made; but in general
the term is restricted to sauces having the juice of edible fungi as
their basis.
KETENES, in chemistry, a group of organic compounds which may be
considered as internal anhydrides of acetic acid and its substitution
derivatives. Two classes may be distinguished: the aldo-ketenes,
including ketene itself, together with its mono-alkyl derivatives and
carbon suboxide, and the keto-ketenes which comprise the dialkyl
ketenes. The aldo-ketenes are colourless compounds which are not capable
of autoxidation, are polymerized by pyridine or quinoline, and are inert
towards compounds containing the groupings C:N and C:O. The keto-ketenes
are coloured compounds, which undergo autoxidation readily, form ketene
bases on the addition of pyridine and quinoline, and yield addition
compounds with substances containing the C:N and C:O groupings. The
ketenes are usually obtained by the action of zinc on ethereal or ethyl
acetate solutions of halogen substituted acid chlorides or bromides.
They are characterized by their additive reactions: combining with water
to form acids, with alcohols to form esters, and with primary amines to
form amides.
_Ketene_, CH2:CO, was discovered by N. T. M. Wilsmore (_Jour. Chem.
Soc._, 1907, vol. 91, p. 1938) among the gaseous products formed when
a platinum wire is electrically heated under the surface of acetic
anhydride. It is also obtained by the action of zinc on bromacetyl
bromide (H. Staudinger, _Ber._ 1908, 41, p. 594). At ordinary
temperatures it is a gas, but it may be condensed to a liquid and
finally solidified, the solid melting at -151 deg. C. It is
characterized by its penetrating smell. On standing for some time a
brown-coloured liquid is obtained, from which a colourless liquid
boiling at 126-127 deg. C., has been isolated (Wilsmore, ibid., 1908,
93, p. 946). Although originally described as acetylketen, it has
proved to be a cyclic compound (Ber., 1909, 42, p. 4908). It is
soluble in water, the solution showing an acid reaction, owing to the
formation of aceto-acetic acid, and with alkalis it yields acetates.
It differs from the simple ketenes in that it is apparently unacted
upon by phenols and alcohols. _Dimethyl ketene_, (CH3)2C:CO1 obtained
by the action of zinc on [alpha]-brom-isobutyryl bromide, is a
yellowish coloured liquid. At ordinary temperatures it rapidly
polymerizes (probably to a tetramethylcylobutanedione). It boils at 34
deg. C (750 mm.) (Staudinger, Ber. 1905, 38, p. 1735; 1908, 41, p.
2208). Oxygen rapidly converts it into a white explosive solid.
_Diethyl ketene_, (C2H5)2C:CO, is formed on heating diethylmalonic
anhydride (Staudinger, ibid.). _Diphenyl ketene_, (C6H5)2C:CO,
obtained by the action of zinc on diphenyl-chloracetyl chloride, is an
orange-red liquid which boils at 146 deg. C. (12 mm.). It does not
polymerize. Magnesium phenyl bromide gives triphenyl vinyl alcohol.
KETI, a seaport of British India, in Karachi district, Sind, situated on
the Hajamro branch of the Indus. Pop. (1901), 2127. It is an important
seat of trade, where seaborne goods are transferred to and from river
boats.
KETONES, in chemistry, organic compounds of the type R.CO.R', where R,
R' = alkyl or aryl groups. If the groups R and R' are identical, the
ketone is called a _simple_ ketone, if unlike, a _mixed_ ketone. They
may be prepared by the oxidation of secondary alcohols; by the addition
of the elements of water to hydrocarbons of the acetylene type RC CH; by
oxidation of primary alcohols of the type RR'CH.CH2OH:RR'.CH.CH2OH -->
R.CO.R' + H2O + H2CO2; by distillation of the calcium salts of the fatty
acids, C_(n)H_(2n)O2; by heating the sodium salts of these acids
C_(n)H_(2n)O2 with the corresponding acid anhydride to 190 deg. C. (W. H.
Perkin, _Jour. Chem. Soc._, 1886, 49, p. 322); by the action of
anhydrous ferric chloride on acid chlorides (J. Hamonet, _Bull. de la
soc. chim._, 1888, 50, p. 357),
2C2H5COCl --> C2H5.CO.CH(CH3).COCl
--> C2H5.CO.CH(CH3).CO2H --> C2H5.CO.CH2.CH3;
and by the action of zinc alkyls on acid chlorides (M. Freund, Ann.,
1861, 118, p. 1), 2CH3COCl + ZnC(H3)2 = ZnCl2 + 2CH3.CO.CH3. In the last
reaction complex addition products are formed, and must be quickly
decomposed by water, otherwise tertiary alcohols are produced (A. M.
Butlerow, _Jahresb._, 1864, p. 496; _Ann._ 1867, 144, p. 1). They may
also be prepared by the decomposition of ketone chlorides with water; by
the oxidation of the tertiary hydroxyacids; by the hydrolysis of the
ketonic acids or their esters with dilute alkalis or baryta water (see
ACETO-ACETIC ESTER); by the hydrolysis of alkyl derivatives of acetone
dicarboxylic acid, HO2C.CH2.CO.CHR.CO2H; and by the action of the
Grignard reagent on nitriles (E. Blaise, _Comptes rendus_, 1901, 132, p.
38),
R.CN + R'M_(g)I --> RR'C:N.M_(g)I --> R.CO.R' + NH3 + M_(g)I.OH.
The ketones are of neutral reaction, the lower members of the series
being colourless, volatile, pleasant-smelling liquids. They do not
reduce silver solutions, and are not so readily oxidized as the
aldehydes. On oxidation, the molecule is split at the carbonyl group and
a mixture of acids is obtained. Sodium amalgam reduces them to secondary
alcohols; phosphorus pentachloride replaces the carbonyl oxygen by
chlorine, forming the ketone chlorides. Only those ketones which contain
a methyl group are capable of forming crystalline addition compounds
with the alkaline bisulphites (F. Grimm, _Ann._, 1871, 157, p. 262).
They combine with hydrocyanic acid to form nitriles, which on hydrolysis
furnish hydroxyacids,
(CH2)2CO --> (CH3)2C.OH.CN --> (CH3)2.C.OH.CO2H;
with phenylhydrazine they yield hydrazones; with hydrazine they yield in
addition ketazines RR'.C:N.N:C.RR' (T. Curtius), and with hydroxylamine
ketoximes. The latter readily undergo the "Beckmann" transformation on
treatment with acid chlorides, yielding substituted acid amides.
RR'.C:NOH --> RC(NR').OH --> R.CO.NHR'
(see OXIMES, also A. Hantzsch, Ber., 1891, 24, p. 13). The ketones react
with mercaptan to form mercaptols (E. Baumann, _Ber._, 1885, 18, p.
883), and with concentrated nitric acid they yield dinitroparaffins (G.
Chancel, _Bull. de la soc. chim._, 1879, 31, p. 503). With nitrous acid
(obtained from amyl nitrite and gaseous hydrochloric acid, the ketone
being dissolved in acetic acid) they form isonitrosoketones, R.CO.CH:NOH
(L. Claisen, _Ber._, 1887, 20, pp. 656, 2194). With ammonia they yield
complex condensation products; acetone forming di- and tri-acetonamines
(W. Heintz, _Ann._ 1875, 178, p. 305; 1877, 189, p. 214). They also
condense with aldehydes, under the influence of alkalis or sodium
ethylate (L. Claisen, _Ann._, 1883, 218, pp. 121, 129, 145; 1884, 223,
p. 137; S. Kostanecki and G. Rossbach, _Ber._, 1896, 29, pp. 1488, 1495,
1893, &c.). On treatment with the Grignard reagent, in absolute ether
solution, they yield addition products which are decomposed by water
with production of tertiary alcohols (V. Grignard, _Comptes rendus_,
1900, 130, P. 1322 et seq.),
RR'CO --> RR'.C(OM_(g)I).R" --> RR'R".C(OH) + M_(g)I.OH.
Ketones do not polymerize in the same way as aldehydes, but under the
influence of acids and bases yield condensation products; thus acetone
gives mesityl oxide, phorone and mesitylene (see below).
For _dimethyl ketone_ or acetone, see ACETONE. _Diethyl ketone_,
(C2H5)2.CO, is a pleasant-smelling liquid boiling at 102.7 deg. C.
With concentrated nitric acid it forms dinitroethane, and it is
oxidized by chromic acid to acetic and propionic acids.
_Methylnonylketone_, CH3.CO.C9H19, is the chief constituent of oil of
rue, which also contains _methylheptylketone_, CH3.CO.C7H15, a liquid
of boiling-point 85-90 deg. C. (7 mm.), which yields normal caprylic
acid on oxidation with hypobromites.
_Mesityl oxide_, (CH3)2C:CH.CO.CH3, is an aromatic smelling liquid of
boiling point 129.5-130 deg. C. It is insoluble in water, but readily
dissolves in alcohol. On heating with dilute sulphuric acid it yields
acetone, but with the concentrated acid it gives mesitylene, C9H12.
Potassium permanganate oxidizes it to acetic acid and
hydroxyisobutyric acid (A. Pinner, _Ber._, 1882, 15, p. 591). It forms
hydroxyhydrocollidine when heated with acetamide and anhydrous zinc
chloride (F. Canzoneri and G. Spica, _Gazz. chim. Ital._, 1884, 14, p.
349). _Phorone_, (CH3)2C:CH.CO.CH:C(CH3)2, forms yellow crystals which
melt at 28 deg. C. and boil at 197.2 deg. C. When heated with
phosphorus pentoxide it yields acetone, water and some pseudo-cumene.
Dilute nitric acid oxidizes it to acetic and oxalic acids, while
potassium permanganate oxidizes it to acetone, carbon dioxide and
oxalic acid.
DIKETONES.--The diketones contain two carbonyl groups, and are
distinguished as [alpha] or 1.2 diketones, [beta] or 1.3 diketones,
[gamma] or 1.4 diketones, &c., according as they contain the groupings
-CO.CO-, -CO.CH2.CO-, -CO.CH2.CH2.CO-, &c.
The [alpha]-diketones may be prepared by boiling the product of the
action of alkaline bisulphites on isonitrosoketones with 15% sulphuric
acid (H. v. Pechmann, _Ber._, 1887, 20, p. 3112; 1889, 22, p. 2115),
CH3.CO.C:(N.OH).CH3 --> CH3.CO.C:(NHSO3).CH3 --> CH3.CO.CO.CH3; or by
the action of isoamyl nitrite on the isonitrosoketones (O. Manasse,
_Ber._, 1888, 21, p. 2177), C2H5.CO.C = (NOH).CH3 + 11C5HONO =
C2H5.CO.CO.CH3 + C5H11OH + N2O. They condense with orthodiamines to
form quinoxalines (O. Hinsberg, _Ann._, 1887, 237, p. 327), and with
ammonia and aldehydes to form imidazoles. _Diacetyl_, CH3.CO.CO.CH3,
is a yellowish green liquid, which boils at 87-88 deg.C., and
possesses a pungent smell. It combines with sodium bisulphite and with
hydrocyanic acid. Dilute alkalis convert it into paraxyloquinone.
The [beta]-diketones form characteristic copper salts, and in
alcoholic solution they combine with semicarbazide to form products
which on boiling with ammoniacal silver nitrate solution give
pyrazoles (T. Posner, _Ber._, 1901, 34, p. 3975); with hydroxylamine
they form isoxazoles, and with phenylhydrazine pyrazoles. _Acetyl
acetone_, CH3.CO.CH2.CO.CH3, may be prepared by the action of
aluminium chloride on acetyl chloride, or by condensing ethyl acetate
with acetone in the presence of sodium (L. Claisen). It is a liquid of
boiling point 136 deg. C. It condenses readily with aniline to give
[alpha][gamma]-dimethyl quinoline.
The [gamma]-diketones are characterized by the readiness with which
they yield furfurane, pyrrol and thiophene derivatives, the furfurane
derivatives being formed by heating the ketones with a dehydrating
agent, the thiophenes by heating with phosphorus pentasulphide, and
the pyrrols by the action of alcoholic ammonia or amines. _Acetonyl
acetone_, CH3.CO.CH2.CH2.CO.CH3, a liquid boiling at 194 deg. C., may
be obtained by condensing sodium aceto-acetate with mono-chloracetone
(C. Paal, Ber., 1885, 18, p. 59),
CH3COCH2Cl + Na.CH.COCH3(COOR)
--> CH3CO.CH2.CH.COCH3(COOR)
--> CH3CO.CH2.CH2.COCH3;
or by the hydrolysis of diaceto-succinic ester, prepared by the action
of iodine on sodium aceto-acetate (L. Knorr, _Ber._, 1889, 22, pp.
169, 2100).
1.5 diketones have been prepared by L. Claisen by condensing
ethoxymethylene aceto-acetic esters and similar compounds with
[beta]-ketonic esters and with 1.3 diketones. The ethoxymethylene
aceto-acetic esters are prepared by condensing aceto-acetic ester with
ortho-formic ester in the presence of acetic anhydride (German patents
77354, 79087, 79863). The 1.5 diketones of this type, when heated with
aqueous ammonia, form pyridine derivatives. Those in which the keto
groups are in combination with phenyl residues give pyridine
derivatives on treatment with hydroxylamine, thus benzamarone,
C6H5CH[CH(C6H5).CO.C6H5], gives pentaphenylpyridine, NC5(C6H5)5. On
the general reactions of the 1.5 diketones, see E. Knoevenagel
(_Ann._, 1894, 281, p. 25 et seq.) and H. Stobbe (_Ber._, 1902, 35, p.
1445).
Many cyclic ketones are known, and in most respects they resemble the
ordinary aliphatic ketones (see POLYMETHYLENES; TERPENES).
KETTELER, WILHELM EMMANUEL, BARON VON (1811-1877), German theologian and
politician, was born at Harkotten, in Bavaria, on the 25th of December
1811. He studied theology at Gottingen, Berlin, Heidelberg and Munich,
and was ordained priest in 1844. He resolved to consecrate his life to
maintaining the cause of the freedom of the Church from the control of
the State. This brought him into collision with the civil power, an
attitude which he maintained throughout a stormy and eventful life.
Ketteler was rather a man of action than a scholar, and he first
distinguished himself as one of the deputies of the Frankfort National
Assembly, a position to which he was elected in 1848, and in which he
soon became noted for his decision, foresight, energy and eloquence. In
1850 he was made bishop of Mainz, by order of the Vatican, in preference
to the celebrated Professor Leopold Schmidt, of Giessen, whose Liberal
sentiments were not agreeable to the Papal party. When elected, Ketteler
refused to allow the students of theology in his diocese to attend
lectures at Giessen, and ultimately founded an opposition seminary in
the diocese of Mainz itself. He also founded orders of School Brothers
and School Sisters, to work in the various educational agencies he had
called into existence, and he laboured to institute orphanages and
rescue homes. In 1858 he threw down the gauntlet against the State in
his pamphlet on the rights of the Catholic Church in Germany. In 1863 he
adopted Lassalle's Socialistic views, and published his _Die Arbeitfrage
und das Christenthum_. When the question of papal infallibility arose,
he opposed the promulgation of the dogma on the ground that such
promulgation was inopportune. But he was not resolute in his opposition.
The opponents of the dogma complained at the very outset that he was
wavering, half converted by his hosts, the members of the German College
at Rome, and further influenced by his own misgivings. He soon deserted
his anti-Infallibilist colleagues, and submitted to the decrees in
August 1870. He was the warmest opponent of the State in the
_Kulturkampf_ provoked by Prince Bismarck after the publication of the
Vatican decrees, and was largely instrumental in compelling that
statesman to retract the pledge he had rashly given, never to "go to
Canossa." To such an extent did Bishop von Ketteler carry his
opposition, that in 1874 he forbade his clergy to take part in
celebrating the anniversary of the battle of Sedan, and declared the
Rhine to be a "Catholic river." He died at Burghausen, Upper Bavaria, on
the 13th of July 1877. (J. J. L.*)
KETTERING, a market town in the eastern parliamentary division of
Northamptonshire, England, 72 m. N.N.W. from London by the Midland
railway. Pop. of urban district (1891), 19,454; (1901), 28,653. The
church of SS Peter and Paul, mainly Perpendicular, has a lofty and
ornate tower and spire. The chief manufactures are boots, shoes,
brushes, stays, clothing and agricultural implements. There are
iron-works in the immediate neighbourhood. The privilege of market was
granted in 1227 by a charter of Henry III.
KETTLE, SIR RUPERT ALFRED (1817-1894), English county court judge, was
born at Birmingham on the 9th of January 1817. His family had for some
time been connected with the glass-staining business. In 1845 he was
called to the bar, and in 1859 he was made judge of the Worcestershire
county courts, becoming also a bencher of the Middle Temple (1882). He
acted as arbitrator in several important strikes, and besides being the
first president of the Midland iron trade wages board, he was largely
responsible for the formation of similar boards in other staple trades.
His name thus became identified with the organization of a system of
arbitration between employers and employed, and in 1880 he was knighted
for his services in this capacity. In 1851 he married; one of his sons
subsequently became a London police magistrate. Kettle died on the 6th
of October 1894 at Wolverhampton.
KETTLEDRUM[1] (Fr. _timbales_; Ger. _Pauken_; Ital. _timpani_; Sp.
_timbal_), the only kind of drum (q.v.) having a definite musical pitch.
The kettledrum consists of a hemispherical pan of copper, brass or
silver, over which a piece of vellum is stretched tightly by means of
screws working on an iron ring, which fits closely round the head of the
drum. In the bottom of the pan is a small vent-hole, which prevents the
head being rent by the concussion of air. The vellum head may thus be
slackened or tightened at will to produce any one of the notes within
its compass of half an octave. Each kettledrum gives but one note at a
time, and as it takes some little time to alter all the screws, two or
three kettledrums, sometimes more, each tuned to a different note, are
used in an orchestra or band. For centuries kettledrums have been made
and used in Europe in pairs, one large and one small; the relative
proportions of the two instruments being well defined and invariable.
Even when eight pairs of drums, all tuned to different notes, are used,
as by Berlioz in his "Grand Requiem," there are still but the two sizes
of drums to produce all the notes. Various mechanisms have been tried
with the object of facilitating the change of pitch, but the simple
old-fashioned model is still the most frequently used in England. Two
sticks, of which there are several kinds, are employed to play the
kettledrum; the best of these are made of whalebone for elasticity, and
have a small wooden knob at one end, covered with a thin piece of fine
sponge. Others have the button covered with felt or india-rubber. The
kettledrum is struck at about a quarter of the diameter from the ring.
The compass of kettledrums collectively is not much more than an
octave, between [music notes]; the larger instruments, which it is
inadvisable to tune below F, take any one of the following notes:--
[Music notes].
and the smaller are tuned to one of the notes completing the chromatic
and enharmonic scale from [music notes]. These limits comprise all the
notes of artistic value that can be obtained from kettledrums. When
there are but two drums--the term "drum" used by musicians always
denotes the kettledrum--they are generally tuned to the tonic and
dominant or to the tonic and subdominant, these notes entering into
the composition of most of the harmonies of the key. Formerly the
kettledrums used to be treated as transposing instruments, the
notation, as for the horn, being in C, the key to which the
kettledrums were to be tuned being indicated in the score. Now
composers write the real notes.
The tone of a good kettledrum is sonorous, rich, and of great power.
When noise rather than music is required uncovered sticks are used.
The drums may be muffled or _covered_ by placing a piece of cloth or
silk over the vellum to damp the sound, a device which produces a
lugubrious, mysterious effect and is indicated in the score by the
words _timpani coperti_, _timpani con sordini_, _timbales_
_couvertes_, _gedampfte Pauken_. Besides the beautiful effects
obtained by means of delicate gradations of tone, numerous rhythmical
figures may be executed on one, two or more notes. German drummers who
were renowned during the 17th and 18th centuries, borrowing the terms
from the trumpets with which the kettledrums were long associated,
recognized the following beats:--
[Illustration: Music notes.
Single tonguing (_Einfache Zungen_)
Double tonguing (_Doppel oder gerissene Zungen_)
Legato tonguing (_Tragende Zungen_)
Whole double-tonguing (_Ganze Doppel-Zungen_)
Double cross-beat[2] (_Doppel Kreuzschlage_)
The roll (_Wirbel_)
The double roll (_Doppel Wirbel_)]
It is generally stated that Beethoven was the first to treat the
kettledrum as a solo instrument, but in _Dido_, an opera by C.
Graupner performed at the Hamburg Opera House in 1707, there is a
short solo for the kettledrum.[3]
The tuning of the kettledrum is an operation requiring time, even when
the screw-heads, as is now usual, are T-shaped; to expedite the
change, therefore, efforts have been made in all countries to invent
some mechanism which would enable the performer to tune the drum to a
fixed note by a single movement. The first mechanical kettledrums date
from the beginning of the 19th century. In Holland a system was
invented by J. C. N. Stumpff[4]; in France by Labbaye in 1827; in
Germany Einbigler patented a system in Frankfort-on-Main in 1836[5];
in England Cornelius Ward in 1837; in Italy C. A. Boracchi of Monza in
1839.[6]
The drawback in most of these systems is the complicated nature of the
mechanism, which soon gets out of order, and, being very cumbersome
and heavy, it renders the instrument more or less of a fixture.
Potter's kettledrum with instantaneous system of tuning, the best
known at the present day in England, and used in some military bands
with entire success, is a complete contrast to the above. There is
practically no mechanism; the system is simple, ingenious, and neither
adds to the weight nor to the bulk of the instrument. There are no
screws round the head of Potter's kettledrum; an invisible system of
cords in the interior, regulated by screws and rods in the form of a
Maltese cross, is worked from the outside by a small handle connected
to a dial, on the face of which are twenty-eight numbered notches. By
means of these the performer is able to tune the drum instantly to any
note within the compass by remembering the numbers which correspond to
each note and pointing the indicator to it on the face of the dial.
Should the cords become slightly stretched, flattening the pitch,
causing the representative numbers to change, the performer need only
give his indicator an extra turn to bring his instrument back to
pitch, each note having several notches at its service. The internal
mechanism, being of an elastic nature, has no detrimental effect on
the tone but tends to increase its volume and improve its quality.
The origin of the kettledrum is remote and must be sought in the East.
Its distinctive characteristic is a hemispherical or convex vessel,
closed by means of a single parchment or skin drawn tightly over the
aperture, whereas other drums consist of a cylinder, having one end or
both covered by the parchment, as in the side-drum and tambourine
respectively. The Romans were acquainted with the kettledrum, including
it among the _tympana_; the _tympanum leve_, like a sieve, was the
tambourine used in the rites of Bacchus and Cybele.[7] The comparatively
heavy tympanum of bronze mentioned by Catullus was probably the small
kettledrum which appears in pairs on monuments of the middle ages.[8]
Pliny[9] states that half pearls having one side round and the other
flat were called _tympania_. If the name _tympania_ (Gr. [Greek:
tympanon], from [Greek: typtein], to strike) was given to pearls of a
certain shape because they resembled the kettledrum, this argues that
the instrument was well known among the Romans. It is doubtful, however,
if it was adopted by them as a military instrument, since it is not
mentioned by Vegetius,[10] who defines very clearly the duties of the
service instruments _buccina_, _tuba_, _cornu_ and _lituus_.
The Greeks also knew the kettledrum, but as a warlike instrument of
barbarians. Plutarch[11] mentions that the Parthians, in order to
frighten their enemies, in offering battle used not the horn or _tuba_,
but hollow vessels covered with a skin, on which they beat, making a
terrifying noise with these tympana. Whether the kettledrum penetrated
into western Europe before the fall of the Roman Empire and continued to
be included during the middle ages among the tympana has not been
definitely ascertained. Isidore of Seville gives a somewhat vague
description of tympanum, conveying the impression that his information
has been obtained second-hand: "Tympanum est pellis vel corium ligno ex
una parte extentum. Est enim pars media symphoniae in similitudinem
cribri. Tympanum autem dictum quod medium est. Unde, et margaritum
medium tympanum dicitur, et ipsum ut symphonia ad virgulam
percutitur."[12] It is clear that in this passage Isidore is referring
to Pliny.
The names given during the middle ages to the kettledrum are derived
from the East. We have _attambal_ or _attabal_ in Spain, from the
Persian _tambal_, whence is derived the modern French _timbales_;
_nacaire_, _naquaire_ or _nakeres_ (English spelling), from the Arabic
_nakkarah_ or _noqqarich_ (Bengali, _nagara_), and the German _Pauke_,
M.H.G. _Buke_ or _Puke_, which is probably derived from _byk_, the
Assyrian name of the instrument.
[Illustration: (Geo. Potter & Co. of Aldershot.)
FIG. 1.--Mechanical Kettledrum, showing the system of cords inside the
head.
This regiment is now the 21st (Empress of India) Lancers.]
A line in the chronicles of Joinville definitely establishes the
identity of the _nakeres_ as a kind of drum: "Lor il fist sonner les
tabours que l'on appelle _nacaires_." The nacaire is among the
instruments mentioned by Froissart as having been used on the occasion
of Edward III.'s triumphal entry into Calais in 1347: "trompes,
tambours, nacaires, chalemies, muses."[13] Chaucer mentions them in the
description of the tournament in the _Knight's Tale_ (line 2514):--
"Pipes, trompes, _nakeres_ and clarionnes,
That in the bataille blowen blody sonnes."
The earliest European illustration showing kettledrums is the scene
depicting Pharaoh's banquet in the fine illuminated MS. book of Genesis
of the 5th or 6th century, preserved in Vienna. There are two pairs of
shallow metal bowls on a table, on which a woman is performing with two
sticks, as an accompaniment to the double pipes.[14] As a companion
illumination may be cited the picture of an Eastern banquet given in a
14th century MS. at the British Museum (Add. MS. 27,695), illuminated by
a skilled Genoese. The potentate is enjoying the music of various
instruments, among which are two kettledrums strapped to the back of a
Nubian slave. This was the earlier manner of using the instrument
before it became inseparably associated with the trumpet, sharing its
position as the service instrument of the cavalry. Jost Amman[15] gives
a picture of a pair of kettledrums with banners being played by an armed
knight on horseback.
[Illustration: (From Hartel u. Wickhoff's "Die Wiener Genesis,"
_Jahrbuch der kunslhistorischen Sammlungen des allerhochsten
Kaiserhauses_.)
FIG. 2.--Kettledrums in an early Christian MS.]
[Illustration: FIG. 3.--Medieval Kettledrums, 14th century. (Brit.
Museum.)]
As in the case of the trumpet, the use of the kettledrum was placed
under great restrictions in Germany and France and to some extent in
England, but it was used in churches with the trumpet.[16] No French or
German regiment was allowed kettledrums unless they had been captured
from the enemy, and the _timbalier_ or the _Heerpauker_ on parade, in
reviews and marches generally, rode at the head of the squadron; in
battle his position was in the wings. In England, before the
Restoration, only the Guards were allowed kettledrums, but after the
accession of James II. every regiment of horse was provided with
them.[17] Before the Royal Regiment of Artillery was established, the
master-general of ordnance was responsible for the raising of trains of
artillery. Among his retinue in time of war were a trumpeter and
kettledrummer. The kettledrums were mounted on a chariot drawn by six
white horses. They appeared in the field for the first time in a train
of artillery during the Irish rebellion of 1689, and the charges for
ordnance include the item, "large kettledrums mounted on a carriage
with cloaths marked I.R. and cost L158, 9s."[18] A model of the
kettledrums with their carriage which accompanied the duke of
Marlborough to Holland in 1702 is preserved in the Rotunda Museum at
Woolwich. The kettledrums accompanied the Royal Artillery train in the
Vigo expedition and during the campaign in Flanders in 1748. Macbean[19]
states that they were mounted on a triumphal car ornamented and gilt,
bearing the ordnance flag and drawn by six white horses. The position of
the car on march was in front of the flag gun, and in camp in front of
the quarters of the duke of Cumberland with the artillery guns packed
round them. The kettledrummer had by order "to mount the kettledrum
carriage every night half an hour before the sun sett and beat till gun
fireing." In 1759 the kettledrums ceased to form part of the
establishment of the Royal Artillery, and they were deposited, together
with their carriage, in the Tower, at the same time as a pair captured
at Malplaquet in 1709. These Tower drums were frequently borrowed by
Handel for performances of his oratorios.
The kettledrums still form part of the bands of the Life Guards and
other cavalry regiments. (K. S.)
FOOTNOTES:
[1] From "drum" and "kettle," a covered metal vessel for boiling
water or other liquid; the O.E. word is _cetel_, cf. Du. _ketel_,
Ger. _Kessel_, borrowed from Lat. _catillus_, dim. of _catinus_,
bowl.
[2] This rhythmical use of kettledrums was characteristic of the
military instrument of percussion, rather than the musical member of
the orchestra. During the middle ages and until the end of the 18th
century, the two different notes obtainable from the pair of
kettledrums were probably used more as a means of marking and varying
the rhythm than as musical notes entering into the composition of the
harmonies. The kettledrums, in fact, approximated to the side drums
in technique. The contrast between the purely rhythmical use of
kettledrums, given above, and the more modern musical use is well
exemplified by the well-known solo for four kettledrums in
Meyerbeer's _Robert le Diable_, beginning thus--
[Music notes].
[3] See Wilhelm Kleefeld, _Das Orchester der Hamburger Oper_
(1678-1738); _Internationale Musikgesellschaft_, Sammelband i. 2, p.
278 (Leipzig, 1899).
[4] See J. Georges Kastner, _Methode complete et raisonnee de
timbales_ (Paris), p. 19, where several of the early mechanical
kettledrums are described and illustrated.
[5] See Gustav Schilling's _Encyklopadie der gesammten musikal.
Wissenschaften_ (Stuttgart, 1840), vol. v., art. "Pauke."
[6] See _Manuale pel Timpanista_ (Milan, 1842), where Boracchi
describes and illustrates his invention.
[7] Catullus, lxiii. 8-10; Claud. _De cons. Stilich._ iii. 365;
Lucret. ii. 618; Virg. _Aen._ ix. 619, &c.
[8] John Carter, _Specimens of Ancient Sculpture_, bas-relief from
seats of choir of Worcester cathedral and of collegiate church of St
Katherine near the Tower of London (plates, vol. i. following p. 53
and vol. ii. following p. 22).
[9] _Nat. Hist._ ix. 35, 23.
[10] _De re militari_, ii. 22; iii. 5, &c.
[11] _Crassus_, xxiii. 10. See also Justin xli. 2, and Polydorus,
lib. 1, cap. xv.
[12] See Isidore of Seville, _Etymologiarum_, lib. iii. cap. 21, 141;
Migne, _Patr. curs. completus_, lxxxii. 167.
[13] _Pantheon litteraire_ (Paris, 1837), J. A. Buchon, vol. i. cap.
322, p. 273.
[14] Reproduced by Franz Wickhoff, "Die Wiener Genesis," supplement
to the 15th and 16th volumes of the _Jahrb. d. kunsthistorischen
Sammlungen d. allerhochsten Kaiserhauses_ (Vienna, 1895); see
frontispiece in colours and plate illustration XXXIV.
[15] _Artliche u. kunstreiche Figuren zu der Reutterey_
(Frankfort-on-Main, 1584).
[16] See Michael Praetorius, _Syntagma Musicum_ and _Monatshefte f.
Musikgeschichte_, Jahrgang x. 51.
[17] See Georges Kastner, _op. cit._, pp. 10 and 11; Johann Ernst
Altenburg, _Versuch einer Anleitung z. heroisch-musikalischen
Trompeter u. Paukerkunst_ (Halle, 1795), p. 128; and H. G. Farmer,
_Memoirs of the Royal Artillery Band_ p. 23, note 1 (London, 1904).
[18] Miller's _Artillery Regimental History_; see also H. G. Farmer,
_op. cit._, p. 22; illustration 1702, p. 26.
[19] _Memoirs of the Royal Artillery._
KEUPER, in geology the third or uppermost subdivision of the Triassic
system. The name is a local miners' term of German origin; it
corresponds to the French _marnes irisees_. The formation is well
exposed in Swabia, Franconia, Alsace and Lorraine and Luxemburg; it
extends from Basel on the east side of the Rhine into Hanover, and
northwards it spreads into Sweden and through England into Scotland and
north-east Ireland; it appears flanking the central plateau of France
and in the Pyrenees and Sardinia. In the German region it is usual to
divide the Keuper into three groups, the _Rhaetic_ or upper Keuper, the
middle, _Hauptkeuper_ or _gypskeuper_, and the lower, _Kohlenkeuper_ or
_Lettenkohle_. In Germany the lower division consists mainly of grey
clays and _schieferletten_ with white, grey and brightly coloured
sandstone and dolomitic limestone. The upper part of this division is
often a grey dolomite known as the Grenz dolomite; the impure coal
beds--_Lettenkohle_--are aggregated towards the base. The middle
division is thicker than either of the others (at Gottingen, 450
metres); it consists of a marly series below, grey, red and green marls
with gypsum and dolomite--this is the _gypskeuper_ in its restricted
sense. The higher part of the series is sandy, hence called the
_Steinmergel_; it is comparatively free from gypsum. To this division
belong the Myophoria beds (_M. Raibliana_) with galena in places; the
Estheria beds (_E. laxitesta_); the Schelfsandstein, used as a
building-stone; the Lehrberg and Berg-gyps beds; Semionotus beds (_S.
Bergeri_) with building-stone of Coburg; and the Burgand
Stubensandstein. The salt, which is associated with gypsum, is exploited
in south Germany at Dreuze, Pettoncourt, Vie in Lorraine and Wimpfen on
the Neckar. A 1/2-metre coal is found on this horizon in the Erzgebirge,
and another, 2 metres thick, has been mined in Upper Silesia. The upper
Keuper, Rhaetic or _Avicula contorta_ zone in Germany is mainly sandy
with dark grey shales and marls; it is seldom more than 25 metres thick.
The sandstones are used for building purposes at Bayreuth, Culmbach and
Bamberg. In Swabia and the Wesergebirge are several "bone-beds," thicker
than those in the middle Keuper, which contain a rich assemblage of
fossil remains of fish, reptiles and the mammalian teeth of _Microlestes
antiquus_ and _Triglyptus Fraasi_. The name Rhaetic is derived from the
Rhaetic Alps where the beds are well developed; they occur also in
central France, the Pyrenees and England. In S. Tirol and the Judicarian
Mountains the Rhaetic is represented by the Kossener beds. In the Alpine
region the presence of coral beds gives rise to the so-called
"Lithodendron Kalk."
In Great Britain the Keuper contains the following sub-divisions:
_Rhaetic or Penarth beds_, grey, red and green marls, black shales and
so-called "white lias" (10-150 ft.). _Upper Keuper marl_, red and grey
marls and shales with gypsum and rock salt (800-3000 ft.). _Lower
Keuper sandstone_, marls and thin sandstones at the top, red and white
sandstones (including the so-called "waterstones") below, with breccias
and conglomerates at the base (150-250 ft.). The basal or "dolomitic
conglomerate" is a shore or scree breccia derived from local materials;
it is well developed in the Mendip district. The rock-salt beds vary
from 1 in. to 100 ft. in thickness; they are extensively worked (mined
and pumped) in Cheshire, Middlesbrough and Antrim. The Keuper covers a
large area in the midlands and around the flanks of the Pennine range;
it reaches southward to the Devonshire coast, eastward into Yorkshire
and north-westward into north Ireland and south Scotland. As in Germany,
there are one or more "bone beds" in the English Rhaetic with a similar
assemblage of fossils. In the "white lias" the upper hard limestone is
known as the "sun bed" or "Jew stone"; at the base is the Cotham or
landscape marble.
Representatives of the Rhaetic are found in south Sweden, where the
lower portion contains workable coals, in the Himalayas, Japan, Tibet,
Burma, eastern Siberia and in Spitzbergen. The upper portion of the
Karroo beds of South Africa and part of the Otapiri series of New
Zealand are probably of Rhaetic age.
The Keuper is not rich in fossils; the principal plants are
cypress-like conifers (_Walchia_, _Voltzia_) and a few calamites with
such forms as _Equisetum arenaceum_ and _Pterophyllum Jaegeri_,
_Avicula contorta_, _Protocardium rhaeticum_, _Terebratula gregaria_,
_Myophoria costata_, _M. Goldfassi_ and _Lingula tenuessima_,
_Anoplophoria lettica_ may be mentioned among the invertebrates.
Fishes include _Ceratodus_, _Hybodus_ and _Lepidotus_. Labyrinthodonts
represented by the footprints of Cheirotherium and the bones of
_Labyrinthodon_, _Mastodonsaurus_ and _Capitosaurus_. Among the
reptiles are _Hyperodapedon_, _Palaeosaurus_, _Zanclodon_,
_Nothosaurus_ and _Belodon_. _Microlestes_, the earliest known
mammalian genus, has already been mentioned.
See also the article TRIASSIC SYSTEM. (J. A. H.)
KEW, a township in the Kingston parliamentary division of Surrey,
England, situated on the south bank of the Thames, 6 m. W.S.W. of Hyde
Park Corner, London. Pop. (1901), 2699. A stone bridge of seven arches,
erected in 1789, connecting Kew with Brentford on the other side of the
river, was replaced by a bridge of three arches opened by Edward VII. in
1903 and named after him. Kew has increased greatly as a residential
suburb of London; the old village consisted chiefly of a row of houses
with gardens attached, situated on the north side of a green, to the
south of which is the church and churchyard and at the west the
principal entrance to Kew Gardens. From remains found in the bed of the
river near Kew bridge it has been conjectured that the village marks the
site of an old British settlement. The name first occurs in a document
of the reign of Henry VII., where it is spelt Kayhough. The church of St
Anne (1714) has a mausoleum containing the tomb of the duke of Cambridge
(d. 1850) son of George III., and is also the burial-place of Thomas
Gainsborough the artist, Jeremiah Meyer the painter of miniatures (d.
1789), John Zoffany the artist (d. 1810), Joshua Kirby the architect (d.
1774), and William Aiton the botanist and director of Kew Gardens (d.
1793).
The free school originally endowed by Lady Capel in 1721 received
special benefactions from George IV., and the title of "the king's free
school."
The estate of Kew House about the end of the 17th century came into the
possession of Lord Capel of Tewkesbury, and in 1721 of Samuel Molyneux,
secretary to the prince of Wales, afterwards George II. After his death
it was leased by Frederick prince of Wales, son of George II., and was
purchased about 1789 by George III., who devoted his leisure to its
improvement. The old house was pulled down in 1802, and a new mansion
was begun from the designs of James Wyatt, but the king's death
prevented its completion, and in 1827 the portion built was removed.
Dutch House, close to Kew House, was sold by Robert Dudley, earl of
Leicester, to Sir Hugh Portman, a Dutch merchant, late in the 16th
century, and in 1781 was purchased by George III. as a nursery for the
royal children. It is a plain brick structure, now known as Kew Palace.
The Royal Botanic Gardens of Kew originated in the exotic garden formed
by Lord Capel and greatly extended by the princess dowager, widow of
Frederick, prince of Wales, and by George III., aided by the skill of
William Aiton and of Sir Joseph Banks. In 1840 the gardens were adopted
as a national establishment, and transferred to the department of woods
and forests. The gardens proper, which originally contained only about
11 acres, were subsequently increased to 75 acres, and the pleasure
grounds or arboretum adjoining extend to 270 acres. There are extensive
conservatories, botanical museums, including the magnificent herbarium
and a library. A lofty Chinese pagoda was erected in 1761. A flagstaff
159 ft. high is made out of the fine single trunk of a Douglas pine. In
the neighbouring Richmond Old Park is the important Kew Observatory.
KEWANEE, a city of Henry county, Illinois, U.S.A., in the N. W. part of
the state, about 55 m. N. by W. of Peoria. Pop. (1900), 8382, of whom
2006 were foreign-born; (1910 census), 9307. It is served by the Chicago
Burlington & Quincy railroad and by the Galesburg & Kewanee Electric
railway. Among its manufactures are foundry and machine-shop products,
boilers, carriages and wagons, agricultural implements, pipe and
fittings, working-men's gloves, &c. In 1905 the total factory product
was valued at $6,729,381, or 61.5% more than in 1900. Kewanee was
settled in 1836 by people from Wethersfield, Connecticut, and was first
chartered as a city in 1897.
KEY, SIR ASTLEY COOPER (1821-1888), English admiral, was born in London
in 1821, and entered the navy in 1833. His father was Charles Aston Key
(1793-1849), a well-known surgeon, the pupil of Sir Astley Cooper, and
his mother was the latter's niece. After distinguishing himself in
active service abroad, on the South American station (1844-1846), in the
Baltic during the Crimean War (C.B. 1855) and China (1857), Key was
appointed in 1858 a member of the royal commission on national defence,
in 1860 captain of the steam reserve at Devonport, and in 1863 captain
of H.M.S. "Excellent" and superintendent of the Royal Naval College. He
had a considerable share in advising as to the reorganization of
administration, and in 1866, having become rear-admiral, was made
director of naval ordnance. Between 1869 and 1872 he held the offices of
superintendent of Portsmouth dockyard, superintendent of Malta dockyard,
and second in command in the Mediterranean. In 1872 he was made
president of the projected Royal Naval College at Greenwich, which was
organized by him, and after its opening in 1873 he was made a K.C.B, and
a vice-admiral. In 1876 he was appointed commander-in-chief on the North
American and West Indian station. Having become full admiral in 1878, he
was appointed in 1879 principal A.D.C., and soon afterwards first naval
lord of the admiralty, retaining this post till 1885. In 1882 he was
made G.C.B. He died at Maidenhead on the 3rd of March, 1888.
See _Memoirs of Sir Astley Cooper Key_, by Vice-Admiral Colomb (1898).
KEY, THOMAS HEWITT (1799-1875), English classical scholar, was born in
London on the 20th of March, 1799. He was educated at St John's and
Trinity Colleges, Cambridge, and graduated 19th wrangler in 1821. From
1825 to 1827 he was professor of mathematics in the university of
Virginia, and after his return to England was appointed (1828) professor
of Latin in the newly founded university of London. In 1832 he became
joint headmaster of the school founded in connexion with that
institution; in 1842 he resigned the professorship of Latin, and took up
that of comparative grammar together with the undivided headmastership
of the school. These two posts he held till his death on the 29th of
November 1875. Key is best known for his introduction of the crude-form
(the uninflected form or stem of words) system, in general use among
Sanskrit grammarians, into the teaching of the classical languages. This
system was embodied in his _Latin Grammar_ (1846). In _Language, its
Origin and Development_ (1874), he upholds the onomatopoeic theory. Key
was prejudiced against the German "Sanskritists," and the etymological
portion of his _Latin Dictionary_, published in 1888, was severely
criticized on this account. He was a member of the Royal Society and
president of the Philological Society, to the _Transactions_ of which he
contributed largely.
See _Proceedings of the Royal Society_, vol. xxiv. (1876); R. Ellis in
the _Academy_ (Dec. 4, 1875); J. P. Hicks, _T. Hewitt Key_ (1893),
where a full list of his works and contributions is given.
KEY (in O. Eng. _caeg_; the ultimate origin of the word is unknown; it
appears only in Old Frisian _kei_ of other Teutonic languages; until the
end of the 17th century the pronunciation was _kay_, as in other words
in O. Eng. ending in _aeg_; cf. _daeg_, day; _claeg_, clay; the _New
English Dictionary_ takes the change to kee to be due to northern
influence), an instrument of metal used for the opening and closing of a
lock (see LOCK). Until the 14th century bronze and not iron was most
commonly used. The terminals of the stem of the keys were frequently
decorated, the "bow" or loop taking the form sometimes of a trefoil,
with figures inscribed within it; this decoration increased in the 16th
century, the terminals being made in the shape of animals and other
figures. Still more elaborate ceremonial keys were used by court
officials; a series of chamberlains' keys used during the 18th and 19th
centuries in several courts in Europe is in the British Museum. The
terminals are decorated with crowns, royal monograms and ciphers. The
word "key" is by analogy applied to things regarded as means for the
opening or closing of anything, for the making clear that which is
hidden. Thus it is used of an interpretation as to the arrangement of
the letters or words of a cipher, of a solution of mathematical or other
problems, or of a translation of exercises or books, &c., from a foreign
language. The term is also used figuratively of a place of commanding
strategic position. Thus Gibraltar, the "Key of the Mediterranean," was
granted in 1462 by Henry IV. of Castile, the arms, _gules_, a castle
proper, with key pendant to the gate, _or_; these arms form the badge of
the 50th regiment of foot (now 2nd Batt. Essex Regiment) in the British
army, in memory of the part which it took in the siege of 1782. The word
is also frequently applied to many mechanical contrivances for
unfastening or loosening a valve, nut, bolt, &c., such as a spanner or
wrench, and to the instruments used in tuning a pianoforte or harp or in
winding clocks or watches. A farther extension of the word is to
appliances or devices which serve to lock or fasten together distinct
parts of a structure, as the "key-stone" of an arch, the wedge or piece
of wood, metal, &c., which fixes a joint, or a small metal instrument,
shaped like a U, used to secure the bands in the process of sewing in
bookbinding.
In musical instruments the term "key" is applied in certain wind
instruments, particularly of the wood-wind type, to the levers which
open and close valves in order to produce various notes, and in keyboard
instruments, such as the organ or the pianoforte, to the exterior white
or black parts of the levers which either open or shut the valves to
admit the wind from the bellows to the pipes or to release the hammers
against the strings (see KEYBOARD). It is from this application of the
word to these levers in musical instruments that the term is also used
of the parts pressed by the finger in typewriters and in telegraphic
instruments.
A key is the insignia of the office of chamberlain in a royal household
(see CHAMBERLAIN and LORD CHAMBERLAIN). The "power of the keys"
(_clavium potestas_) in ecclesiastical usage represents the authority
given by Christ to Peter by the words, "I will give unto thee the keys
of the kingdom of heaven" (Matt. xvi. 19). This is claimed by the Roman
Church to have been transmitted to the popes as the successors of St
Peter.
"Key" was formerly the common spelling of "quay," a wharf, and is still
found in America for "cay," an island reef or sandbank off the coast of
Florida (see QUAY).
The origin of the name Keys or House of Keys, the lower branch of the
legislature, the court of Tynwald, of the Isle of Man, has been much
discussed, but it is generally accepted that it is a particular
application of the word "key" by English- and not Manx-speaking
people. According to A. W. Moore, _History of the Isle of Man_, i.
160 sqq. (1900), in the Manx statutes and records the name of the
house was in 1417 _Claves Manniae et Claves legis_, Keys of Man and
Keys of the Law; but the popular and also the documentary name till
1585 seems to have been "the 24," in Manx _Kiare as feed_. From 1585
to 1734 the name was in the statutes, &c., "the 24 Keys," or simply
"the Keys." Moore suggests that the name was possibly originally due
to an English "clerk of the rolls," the members of the house being
called in to "unlock or solve the difficulties of the law." There is
no evidence for the suggestion that Keys is an English corruption of
_Kiare-as_, the first part of _Kiare as feed_. Another suggestion is
that it is from a Scandinavian word _keise_, chosen.
KEYBOARD, or MANUAL (Fr. _clavier_; Ger. _Klaviatur_; Ital.
_tastatura_), a succession of keys for unlocking sound in stringed, wind
or percussion musical instruments, together with the case or board on
which they are arranged. The two principal types of keyboard instruments
are the organ and the piano; their keyboards, although similarly
constructed, differ widely in scope and capabilities. The keyboard of
the organ, a purely mechanical contrivance, is the external means of
communicating with the valves or pallets that open and close the
entrances to the pipes. As its action is incapable of variation at the
will of the performer, the keyboard of the organ remains without
influence on the quality and intensity of the sound. The keyboard of the
piano, on the contrary, besides its purely mechanical function, also
forms a sympathetic vehicle of transmission for the performer's
rhythmical and emotional feeling, in consequence of the faithfulness
with which it passes on the impulses communicated by the fingers. The
keyboard proper does not, in instruments of the organ and piano types,
contain the complete mechanical apparatus for directly unlocking the
sound, but only that external part of it which is accessible to the
performer.
The first instrument provided with a keyboard was the organ; we must
therefore seek for the prototype of the modern keyboard in connexion
with the primitive instrument which marks the transition between the
mere syrinx provided with bellows, in which all the pipes sounded at
once unless stopped by the fingers, and the first organ in which sound
was elicited from a pipe only when unlocked by means of some
mechanical contrivance. The earliest contrivance was the simple
slider, unprovided with a key or touch-piece and working in a groove
like the lid of a box, which was merely pushed in or drawn out to open
or close the hole that formed the communication between the wind chest
and the hole in the foot of the pipe. These sliders fulfilled in a
simple manner the function of the modern keys, and preceded the groove
and pallet system of the modern organ. We have no clear or trustworthy
information concerning the primitive organ with sliders. Athanasius
Kircher[1] gives a drawing of a small mouth-blown instrument under the
name of _Magraketha_ (_Mashroqitha'_, Dan. iii. 5), and Ugolini[2]
describes a similar one, but with a pair of bellows, as the magrephah
of the treatise _'Arakhin_.[3] By analogy with the evolution of the
organ in central and western Europe from the 8th to the 15th century,
of which we are able to study the various stages, we may conclude that
in principle both drawings were probably fairly representative, even
if nothing better than efforts of the imagination to illustrate a
text.
The invention of the keyboard with balanced keys has been placed by
some writers as late as the 13th or 14th century, in spite of its
having been described by both Hero of Alexandria and Vitruvius and
mentioned by poets and writers. The misconception probably arose from
the easy assumption that the organ was the product of Western skill
and that the primitive instruments with sliders found in 11th century
documents[4] represent the sum of the progress made in the evolution;
in reality they were the result of a laborious effort to reconquer a
lost art. The earliest trace of a balanced keyboard we possess is
contained in Hero's description of the hydraulic organ said to have
been invented by Ctesibius of Alexandria in the 2nd century B.C. After
describing the other parts (see ORGAN), Hero passes on to the sliders
with perforations corresponding with the open feet of the speaking
pipes which, when drawn forward, traverse and block the pipes. He
describes the following contrivances: attached to the slider is a
three-limbed, pivoted elbow-key, which, when depressed, pushes the
slider inwards; in order to provide for its automatic return when the
finger is lifted from the key, a slip of horn is attached by a gut
string to each elbow-key. When the key is depressed and the slider
pushed home, the gut string pulls the slip of horn and straightens it.
As soon as the key is released, the piece of horn, regaining its
natural bent by its own elasticity, pulls the slider out so that the
perforation of the slider overlaps and the pipe is silenced.[5] The
description of the keyboard by Vitruvius Pollio, a variant of that of
Hero, is less accurate and less complete.[6] From evidence discussed
in the article ORGAN, it is clear that the principle of a balanced
keyboard was well understood both in the 2nd and in the 5th century
A.D. After this all trace of this important development disappears,
sliders of all kinds with and without handles doing duty for keys
until the 12th or 13th century, when we find the small portative
organs furnished with narrow keys which appear to be balanced; the
single bellows were manipulated by one hand while the other fingered
the keys. As this little instrument was mainly used to accompany the
voice in simple chaunts, it needed few keys, at most nine or twelve.
The pipes were flue-pipes. A similar little instrument, having tiny
invisible pipes furnished with beating reeds and a pair of bellows
(therefore requiring two performers) was known as the regal. There are
representations of these medieval balanced keyboards with keys of
various shapes, the most common being the rectangular with or without
rounded corners and the T-shaped. Until the 14th century all the keys
were in one row and of the same level, and although the B flat was
used for modulation, it was merely placed between A and B natural in
the sequence of notes. During the 14th century small square additional
keys made their appearance, one or two to the octave, inserted between
the others in the position of our black keys but not raised. An
example of this keyboard is reproduced by J. F. Riano[7] from a fresco
in the Cistercian monastery of Nuestra Senora de Piedra in Aragon,
dated 1390.
So far the history of the keyboard is that of the organ. The only
stringed instruments with keys before this date were the _organistrum_
and the _hurdy-gurdy_, in which little tongues of wood manipulated by
handles or keys performed the function of the fingers in stopping the
strings on the neck of the instruments, but they did not influence the
development of the keyboard. The advent of the immediate precursors of
the pianoforte was at hand. In the _Wunderbuch_[8] (1440), preserved
in the Grand Ducal Library at Weimar, are represented a number of
musical instruments, all named. Among them are a _clavichordium_ and a
_clavicymbalum_ with narrow additional keys let in between the wider
ones, one to every group of two large keys. The same arrangement
prevailed in a _clavicymbalum_ figured in an anonymous MS. attributed
to the 14th century, preserved in the public library at Ghent[9]; from
the lettering over the jacks and strings, of which there are but
eight, it would seem as though the draughtsman had left the
accidentals out of the scheme of notation. These are the earliest
known representations of instruments with keyboards. The exact date at
which our chromatic keyboard came into use has not been discovered,
but it existed in the 15th century and may be studied in the picture
of St Cecilia playing the organ on the Ghent altarpiece painted by the
brothers Hubert and Jan van Eyck. Praetorius distinctly states that
the large Halberstadt organ had the keyboard which he figures (plates
xxiv. and xxv.) from the outset, and reproduces the inscription
asserting that the organ was built in 1361 by the priest Nicolas Fabri
and was renovated in 1495 by Gregorius Kleng. The keyboard of this
organ has the arrangement of the present day with raised black notes;
it is not improbable that Praetorius's statement was correct, for
Germany and the Netherlands led the van in organ-building during the
middle ages.
At the beginning of the 16th century, to facilitate the playing of
contrapuntal music having a drone bass or _point d'orgue_, the
arrangement of the pipes of organs and of the strings of spinets and
harpsichords was altered, with the result that the lowest octave of
the keyboard was made in what is known as short measure, or mi, re,
ut, i.e. a diatonic with B flat included, but grouped in the space of
a sixth instead of appearing as a full octave. In order to carry out
this device, the note below F was C, instead of E, the missing D and E
and the B flat being substituted for the three sharps of F, G and A,
and appearing as black notes, thus:--
D E B[flat]
C F G A B C,
or if the lowest note appeared to be B, it sounded as G and the
arrangement was as follows:--
A B
G C D E F G.
This was the most common scheme for the short octave during the 16th
and 17th centuries, although others are occasionally found. Praetorius
also gives examples in which the black notes of the short octave were
divided into two halves, or separate keys, the forward half for the
drone note, the back half for the chromatic semitone, thus:--
F[sharp] G[sharp]
| |
D E B[flat]
C F G A B C
This arrangement, which accomplishes its object without sacrifice, was
to be found early in the 17th century in the organs of the monasteries
of Riddageshausen and of Bayreuth in Vogtland.
See A. J. Hipkins, _History of the Pianoforte_ (London, 1896), and the
older works of Girolamo Diruta (1597), Praetorius (1618), and Mersenne
(1636). (K. S.)
FOOTNOTES:
[1] See _Musurgia_, bk. II., iv. S 3.
[2] _Thes. Antiq. Sacra._ (Venice, 1744-1769), xxxii. 477.
[3] II. 3 and fol. 10, 2. _'Arakhin_ ("Valuations") is a treatise in
the Babylonian Talmud. The word _Magrephah_ occurs in the _Mishna_,
the description of the instrument in the _gemara_.
[4] See the Cividale Prayer Book of St Elizabeth in Arthur Haseloff's
_Eine Sachs.-thuring. Malerschule_, pl. 26, No. 57, also Bible of St
Etienne Harding at Dijon (see ORGAN: _History_).
[5] See the original Greek with translation by Charles Maclean in
"The Principle of the Hydraulic Organ," _Intern. Musikges._ vi. 2,
219-220 (Leipzig 1905).
[6] See Clement Loret's account in _Revue archeologique_, pp. 76-102
(Paris, 1890).
[7] _Early Hist. of Spanish Music_ (London, 1807).
[8] Reproduced by Dr Alwin Schulz in _Deutsches Leben im XIV. u. XV.
Jhdt._, figs. 522 seq. (Vienna, 1892).
[9] "De diversis monocordis, pentacordis, etc., ex quibus diversa
formantur instrumenta musica," reproduced by Edm. van der Straeten in
_Hist. de la musique aux Pays-Bas_, i. 278.
KEYSTONE, the central voussoir of an arch (q.v.). The Etruscans and the
Romans emphasized its importance by decorating it with figures and
busts, and, in their triumphal arches, projected it forward and utilized
it as an additional support to the architrave above. Throughout the
Italian period it forms an important element in the design, and serves
to connect the arch with the horizontal mouldings running above it. In
Gothic architecture there is no keystone, but the junction of pointed
ribs at their summit is sometimes decorated with a boss to mask the
intersection.
KEY WEST (from the Spanish _Cayo Hueso_, "Bone Reef"), a city, port of
entry, and the county-seat of Monroe county, Florida, U.S.A., situated
on a small coral island (4(1/2) m. long and about 1 m. wide) of the same
name, 60 m. S. W. of Cape Sable, the most southerly point of the
mainland. It is connected by lines of steamers with Miami and Port
Tampa, with Galveston, Texas, with Mobile, Alabama, with Philadelphia
and New York City, and with West Indian ports, and by regular schooner
lines with New York City, the Bahamas, British Honduras, &c. There is
now an extension of the Florida East Coast railway from Miami to Key
West (155 m.). Pop. (1880), 9890; (1890), 18,080; (1900), 17,114, of
whom 7266 were foreign-born and 5562 were negroes; (1910 census),
19,945. The island is notable for its tropical vegetation and climate.
The jasmine, almond, banana, cork and coco-nut palm are among the trees.
The oleander grows here to be a tree, and there is a banyan tree, said
to be the only one growing out of doors in the United States. There are
many species of plants in Key West not found elsewhere in North America.
The mean annual temperature is 76 deg. F., and the mean of the hottest
months is 82.2 deg. F.; that of the coldest months is 69 deg. F.; thus
the mean range of temperature is only 13 deg. The precipitation is 35
in.; most of the rain falls in the "rainy season" from May to November,
and is preserved in cisterns by the inhabitants as the only supply of
drinking water. The number of cloudy days per annum averages 60. The
city occupies the highest portion of the island. The harbour
accommodates vessels drawing 27 ft.; vessels of 27-30 ft. draft can
enter by either the "Main Ship" channel or the south-west channel; the
south-east channel admits vessels of 25 ft. draft or less; and four
other channels may be used by vessels of 15-19 ft. draft. The harbour is
defended by Fort Taylor, built on the island of Key West in 1846, and
greatly improved and modernized after the Spanish-American War of 1898.
Among the buildings are the United States custom house, the city hall, a
convent, and a public library.
In 1869 the insignificant population of Key West was greatly increased
by Cubans who left their native island after an attempt at revolution;
they engaged in the manufacture of tobacco, and Key West cigars were
soon widely known. Towards the close of the 19th century this industry
suffered from labour troubles, from the competition of Tampa, Florida,
and from the commercial improvement of Havana, Cuba; but soon after 1900
the tobacco business of Key West began to recover. Immigrants from the
Bahama Islands form another important element in the population. They
are known as "Conchs," and engage in sponge fishing. In 1905 the value
of factory products was $4,254,024 (an increase of 37.7% over the value
in 1900); the exports in 1907 were valued at $852,457; the imports were
valued at $994,472, the excess over the exports being due to the fact
that the food supply of the city is derived from other Florida ports and
from the West Indies.
According to tradition the native Indian tribes of Key West, after
being almost annihilated by the Caloosas, fled to Cuba. There are relics
of early European occupation of the island which suggest that it was
once the resort of pirates. The city was settled about 1822. The
Seminole War and the war of the United States with Mexico gave it some
military importance. In 1861 Confederate forces attempted to seize Fort
Taylor, but they were successfully resisted by General William H.
French.
KHABAROVSK (known as KHABAROVKA until 1895), a town of Asiatic Russia,
capital of the Amur region and of the Maritime Province. Pop. (1897),
14,932. It was founded in 1858 and is situated on a high cliff on the
right bank of the Amur, at its confluence with the Usuri, in 48 deg. 28'
N. and 135 deg. 6' E. It is connected by rail with Vladivostok (480 m.),
and is an important entrepot for goods coming down the Usuri and its
tributary the Sungacha, as well as a centre of trade, especially in
sables. The town is built of wood, and has a large cathedral, a monument
(1891) to Count Muraviev-Amurskiy, a cadet corps (new building 1904), a
branch of the Russian Geographical Society, with museum, and a technical
railway school.
KHAIRAGARH, a feudatory state in the Central Provinces, India. Area, 931
sq. m.; pop. (1901), 137,554, showing a decrease of 24% in the decade
due to the effects of famine; estimated revenue, L20,000; tribute L4600.
The chief, who is descended from the old Gond royal family, received the
title of raja as an hereditary distinction in 1898. The state includes a
fertile plain, yielding rice and cotton. Its prosperity has been
promoted by the Bengal-Nagpur railway, which has a station at
Dongargarh, the largest town (pop. 5856), connected by road with
Khairagarh town, the residence of the raja.
KHAIREDDIN (_Khair-ed-Din_ = "Joy of Religion") (d. 1890), Turkish
statesman, was of Circassian race, but nothing is known about his birth
and parentage. In early boyhood he was in the hands of a Tunisian
slave-dealer, by whom he was sold to Hamuda Pasha, then bey of Tunis,
who gave him his freedom and a French education. When Khaireddin left
school the bey made him steward of his estates, and from this position
he rose to be minister of finance. When the prime minister, Mahmud ben
Ayad, absconded to France with the treasure-chest of the beylic, Hamuda
despatched Khaireddin to obtain the extradition of the fugitive. The
mission failed; but the six years it occupied enabled Khaireddin to make
himself widely known in France, to become acquainted with French
political ideas and administrative methods, and, on his return to
Tunisia, to render himself more than ever useful to his government.
Hamuda died while Khaireddin was in France, but he was highly
appreciated by the three beys--Ahmet (1837), Mohammed (1855), and Sadok
(1859)--who in turn followed Hamuda, and to his influence was due the
sequence of liberal measures which distinguished their successive
reigns. Khaireddin also secured for the reigning family the confirmation
from the sultan of Turkey of their right of succession to the beylic.
But although Khaireddin's protracted residence in France had imbued him
with liberal ideas, it had not made him a French partisan, and he
strenuously opposed the French scheme of establishing a protectorate
over Tunisia upon which France embarked in the early 'seventies. This
rendered him obnoxious to Sadok's prime minister--an apostate Jew named
Mustapha ben Ismael--who succeeded in completely undermining the bey's
confidence in him. His position thus became untenable in Tunisia, and
shortly after the accession of Abdul Hamid he acquainted the sultan with
his desire to enter the Turkish service. In 1877 the sultan bade him
come to Constantinople, and on his arrival gave him a seat on the Reform
Commission then sitting at Tophane. Early in 1879 the sultan appointed
him grand vizier, and shortly afterwards he prepared a scheme of
constitutional government, but Abdul Hamid refused to have anything to
do with it. Thereupon Khaireddin resigned office, on the 28th of July
1879. More than once the sultan offered him anew the grand vizierate,
but Khaireddin persistently refused it, and thus incurred disfavour. He
died on the 30th of January 1890, practically a prisoner in his own
house.
KHAIRPUR, or KHYRPOOR, a native state of India, in the Sind province of
Bombay. Area, 6050 sq. m.; pop. (1901), 199,313, showing an apparent
increase of 55% in the decade; estimated revenue, L90,000. Like other
parts of Sind, Khairpur consists of a great alluvial plain, very rich
and fertile in the neighbourhood of the Indus and the irrigation canals,
the remaining area being a continuous series of sand-hill ridges covered
with a stunted brushwood, where cultivation is altogether impossible. A
small ridge of limestone hills passes through the northern part of the
state, being a continuation of a ridge known as the Ghar, running
southwards from Rohri. The state is watered by five canals drawn off
from the Indus, besides the Eastern Nara, a canal which follows an old
bed of the Indus. In the desert tracts are pits of _natron_.
KHAIRPUR town is situated on a canal 15 m. E. of the Indus, with a
railway station, 20 m. S. of Sukkur, on the Kotri-Rohri branch of the
North-Western railway, which here crosses a corner of the state. Pop.
(1901), 14,014. There are manufactures of cloth, carpets, goldsmiths'
work and arms, and an export trade in indigo, grain and oilseeds.
The chief, or mir, of Khairpur belongs to a Baluch family, known as
the Talpur, which rose on the fall of the Kalhora dynasty of Sind.
About 1813, during the troubles in Kabul incidental to the
establishment of the Barakzai dynasty, the mirs were able to withhold
the tribute which up to that date had been somewhat irregularly paid
to the rulers of Afghanistan. In 1832 the individuality of the
Khairpur state was recognized by the British government in a treaty
under which the use of the river Indus and the roads of Sind were
secured. When the first Kabul expedition was decided on, the mir of
Khairpur, Ali Murad, cordially supported the British policy; and the
result was that, after the battles of Meeanee and Daba had put the
whole of Sind at the disposal of the British, Khairpur was the only
state allowed to retain its political existence under the protection
of the paramount power. The chief mir, Faiz Mahommed Khan, G.C.I.E.,
who was an enlightened ruler, died in 1909, shortly after returning
from a pilgrimage to the Shiite shrine of Kerbela.
KHAJRAHO, a village of Central India, in the state of Chhatarpur, famous
for its old temples; pop. (1901), 1242. It is believed to have been the
capital of the ancient kingdom of Jijhoti, corresponding with modern
Bundelkhand. The temples consist of three groups: Saiva, Vaishnav and
Jain, almost all built in the 10th and 11th centuries. They are covered
outside and inside with elaborate sculptures, and also bear valuable
inscriptions.
KHAKI (from Urdu _khak_, dust), originally a dust-coloured fabric, of
the character of canvas, drill or holland, used by the British and
native armies in India. It seems to have been first worn by the Guides,
a mixed regiment of frontier troops, in 1848, and to have spread to
other regiments during the following years. Some at any rate of the
British troops had uniforms of khaki during the Indian Mutiny (1857-58),
and thereafter drill or holland (generally called "khaki" whatever its
colour) became the almost universal dress of British and native troops
in Asia and Africa. During the South African War of 1899-1902, drill of
a sandy shade of brown was worn by all troops sent out from Great
Britain and the Colonies. Khaki drill, however, proved unsuitable
material for the cold weather in the uplands of South Africa, and after
a time the troops were supplied with dust-coloured serge uniforms. Since
1900 all drab and green-grey uniforms have been, unofficially at any
rate, designated khaki.
KHALIFA, THE. ABDULLAH ET TAAISHA (Seyyid Abdullah ibn Seyyid Mahommed)
(1846-1899), successor of the mahdi Mahommed Ahmed, born in 1846 in the
south-western portion of Darfur, was a member of the Taaisha section of
the Baggara or cattle-owning Arabs. His father, Mahommed et Taki, had
determined to emigrate to Mecca with his family; but the unsettled state
of the country long prevented him, and he died in Africa after advising
his eldest son, Abdullah, to take refuge with some religious sheikh on
the Nile, and to proceed to Mecca on a favourable opportunity. Abdullah,
who had already had much connexion with slave-hunters, and had fought
against the Egyptian conquest of Darfur, departed for the Nile valley
with this purpose; hearing on the way of the disputes of Mahommed Ahmed,
who had not yet claimed a sacred character, with the Egyptian officials,
he went to him in spite of great difficulties, and, according to his
own statement, at once recognized in him the mahdi ("guide") divinely
appointed to regenerate Islam in the latter days. His advice to Mahommed
to stir up revolt in Darfur and Kordofan being justified by the result,
he became his most trusted counsellor, and was soon declared principal
khalifa or vicegerent of the mahdi, all of whose acts were to be
regarded as the mahdi's own. The mahdi on his deathbed (1885) solemnly
named him his successor; and for thirteen years Abdullah ruled over what
had been the Egyptian Sudan. Khartum was deserted by his orders, and
Omdurman, at first intended as a temporary camp, was made his capital.
At length the progress of Sir Herbert (afterwards Lord) Kitchener's
expedition compelled him to give battle to the Anglo-Egyptian forces
near Omdurman, where on the 2nd of September 1898 his army, fighting
with desperate courage, was almost annihilated. The khalifa, who had not
left Omdurman since the death of the mahdi, fled to Kordofan with the
remnant of his host. On the 25th of November 1899 he gave battle to a
force under Colonel (afterwards General Sir) F. R. Wingate, and was
slain at Om Debreikat. He met death with great fortitude, refusing to
fly, and his principal amirs voluntarily perished with him.
The khalifa was a man of iron will and great energy, and possessed some
military skill. By nature tyrannical, he was impatient of all opposition
and appeared to delight in cruelty. It must be remembered, however, that
he had to meet the secret or open hostility of all the tribes of the
Nile valley and that his authority was dependent on his ability to
overawe his opponents. He maintained in public the divine character of
the power he inherited from the mahdi and inspired his followers to
perform prodigies of valour. Although he treated many of his European
captives with terrible severity he never had any of them executed. It is
said that their presence in Omdurman ministered to his vanity--one of
the most marked features of his character. In private life he showed
much affection for his family.
Personal sketches of the khalifa are given in Slatin Pasha's _Fire and
Sword in the Sudan_ (London, 1896), and in Father Ohrwalder's _Ten
Years in the Mahdi's Camp_ (London, 1892). See also Sir F. R.
Wingate's _Mahdiism and the Egyptian Sudan_ (London, 1891).
KHALIL IBN AHMAD [ABU 'ABDURRAHMAN UL-KHALIL IBN AHMAD IBN 'AMR IBN
TAMIM] (718-791), Arabian philologist, was a native of Oman. He was
distinguished for having written the first Arabic dictionary and for
having first classified the Arabic metres and laid down their rules. He
was also a poet, and lived the ascetic life of a poor student. His
grammatical work was carried on by his pupil Sibawaihi. The dictionary
known as the _Kitab-ul-'Ain_ is ascribed, at least in its inception, to
Khalil. It was probably finished by one of his pupils and was not known
in Bagdad until 862. The words were not arranged in alphabetical order
but according to physiological principles, beginning with _'Ain_ and
ending with _Ya_. The work seems to have been in existence as late as
the 14th century, but is now only known from extracts in manuscript.
Various grammatical works are ascribed to Khalil, but their
authenticity seems doubtful; cf. C. Brockelmann, _Gesch. der
arabischen Literatur_, i. 100 (Weimar, 1898). (G. W. T.)
KHAMGAON, a town of India, in the Buldana district of Berar, 340 m. N.E.
of Bombay. Pop. (1901), 18,341. It is an important centre of the cotton
trade. The cotton market, the second in the province, was established
about 1820. Khamgaon was connected in 1870 with the Great Indian
Peninsula railway by a short branch line.
KHAMSEH, a small but important province of Persia, between Kazvin and
Tabriz. It consisted formerly of five districts, whence its name
Khamseh, "the five," but is now subdivided into seventeen districts. The
language of the inhabitants is Turkish. The province pays a revenue of
about L20,000 per annum, and its capital is Zenjan.
KHAMSIN (Arabic for "fifty"), a hot oppressive wind arising in the
Sahara. It blows in Egypt at intervals for about fifty days during
March, April and May, and fills the air with sand. In Guinea the wind
from the Sahara is known as harmattan (q.v.).
KHAMTIS, a tribe of the north-east frontier of India, dwelling in the
hills bordering the Lakhimpur district of Assam. They are of Shan
origin, and appear to have settled in their present abode in the middle
of the 18th century. In 1839 they raided the British outpost of Sadiya,
but they have since given no trouble. Their headquarters are in a valley
200 m. from Sadiya, which can be reached only over high passes and
through dense jungle. In 1901 the number of speakers of Khamti was
returned as only 1490, mostly in Burma.
KHAN (from the Turki, hence Persian and Arabic _Khan_), a title of
respect in Mahommedan countries. It is a contracted form of _khaqan_
(khakan), a word equivalent to sovereign or emperor, used among the
Mongol and Turki-nomad hordes. The title khan was assumed by Jenghis
when he became supreme ruler of the Mongols; his successors became known
in Europe as the Great Khans (sometimes as the Chams, &c.) of Tatary or
Cathay. Khan is still applied to semi-independent rulers, such as the
khans of Russian Turkestan, or the khan of Kalat in Baluchistan, and is
also used immediately after the name of rulers such as the sultan of
Turkey; the meaning of the term has also extended downwards, until in
Persia and Afghanistan it has become an affix to the name of any
Mahommedan gentleman, like Esquire, and in India it has become a part of
many Mahommedan names, especially when Pathan descent is claimed. The
title of Khan Bahadur is conferred by the British government on
Mahommedans and also on Parsis.
KHANDESH, EAST and WEST, two districts of British India, in the central
division of Bombay. They were formed in 1906 by the division of the old
single district of Khandesh. Their areas are respectively 4544 sq. m.
and 5497 sq. m., and the population on these areas in 1901 was 957,728
and 469,654. The headquarters of East Khandesh are at Jalgaon, and those
of West Khandesh at Dhulia.
The principal natural feature is the Tapti river, which flows through
both districts from east to west and divides each into two unequal
parts. Of these the larger lie towards the south, and are drained by the
rivers Girna, Bori and Panjhra. Northwards beyond the alluvial plain,
which contains some of the richest tracts in Khandesh, the land rises
towards the Satpura hills. In the centre and east the country is level,
save for some low ranges of barren hills, and has in general an arid,
unfertile appearance. Towards the north and west, the plain rises into a
difficult and rugged country, thickly wooded, and inhabited by wild
tribes of Bhils, who chiefly support themselves on the fruits of the
forests and by wood-cutting. The drainage of the district centres in the
Tapti, which receives thirteen principal tributaries in its course
through Khandesh. None of the rivers is navigable, and the Tapti flows
in too deep a bed to be useful for irrigation. The district on the
whole, however, is fairly well supplied with surface water. Khandesh is
not rich in minerals. A large area is under forest; but the jungles have
been denuded of most of their valuable timber. Wild beasts are numerous.
In 1901 the population of the old single district was 1,427,382, showing
an increase of less than 1% in the decade. Of the aboriginal tribes the
Bhils are the most important. They number 167,000, and formerly were a
wild and lawless robber tribe. Since the introduction of British rule,
the efforts made by kindly treatment, and by the offer of suitable
employment, to win the Bhils from their disorderly life have been most
successful. Many of them are now employed in police duties and as
village watchmen. The principal crops are millets, cotton, pulse, wheat
and oilseeds. There are many factories for ginning and pressing cotton,
and a cotton-mill at Jalgaon. The eastern district is traversed by the
Great Indian Peninsula railway, which branches at Bhusawal (an important
centre of trade) towards Jubbulpore and Nagpur. Both districts are
crossed by the Tapti Valley line from Surat. Khandesh suffered somewhat
from famine in 1896-1897, and more severely in 1899-1900.
KHANDWA, a town of British India, in the Nimar district of the Central
Provinces, of which it is the headquarters, 353 m. N.E. of Bombay by
rail. Pop. (1901), 19,401. Khandwa is an ancient town, with Jain and
other temples. As a centre of trade, it has superseded the old capital
of Burhanpur. It is an important railway junction, where the Malwa line
from Indore meets the main line of the Great Indian Peninsula. There are
factories for ginning and pressing cotton, and raw cotton is exported.
KHANSA (Tumadir bint 'Amr, known as al-Khansa) (d. c. 645), Arabian
poetess of the tribe Sulaim, a branch of Qais, was born in the later
years of the 6th century and brought up in such wealth and luxury as the
desert could give. Refusing the offer of Duraid ibn us-Simma, a poet and
prince, she married Mirdas and had by him three sons. Afterwards she
married again. Before the time of Islam she lost her brothers Sakhr and
Moawiya in battle. Her elegies written on these brothers and on her
father made her the most famous poetess of her time. At the fair of
'Ukaz Nabigha Dhubyani is said to have placed A'sha first among the
poets then present and Khansa second above Hassan ibn Thabit. Khansa
with her tribe accepted Islam somewhat late, but persisted in wearing
the heathen sign of mourning, against the precepts of Islam. Her four
sons fought in the armies of Islam and were slain in the battle of
Kadisiya. Omar wrote her a letter congratulating her on their heroic end
and assigned her a pension. She died in her tent c. 645. Her daughter
'Amra also wrote poetry. Opinion was divided among later critics as to
whether Khansa or Laila (see ARABIC LITERATURE: S _Poetry_) was the
greater.
Her diwan has been edited by L. Cheikho (Beirut, 1895) and translated
into French by De Coppier (Beirut, 1889). Cf. T. Noldeke's _Beitrage
zur Kenntniss der Poesie der alten Araber_ (Hanover, 1864). Stories of
her life are contained in the _Kitab ul-Aghani_, xiii. 136-147.
(G. W. T.)
KHAR, a small but very fertile province of Persia, known by the ancients
as Choara and Choarene; pop. about 10,000. The governor of the province
resides at Kishlak Khar, a large village situated 62 m. S.E. of Teheran,
or at Aradan, a village 10 m. farther E. The province has an abundant
water-supply from the Hableh-rud, and produces great quantities of
wheat, barley and rice. Of the L6000 which it pays to the state, more
than L4000 is paid in kind--wheat, barley, straw and rice.
KHARAGHODA, a village of British India, in the Ahmedabad district of
Bombay, situated on the Little Runn of Cutch, and the terminus of a
branch railway; pop. (1901), 2108. Here is the government factory of
salt, known as Baragra salt, producing nearly 2,000,000 cwt. a year,
most of which is exported to other provinces in Central and Northern
India.
KHARGA (WAH EL-KHARGA, the outer oasis), the largest of the Egyptian
oases, and hence frequently called the Great Oasis. It lies in the
Libyan desert between 24 deg. and 26 deg. N. and 30 deg. and 31 deg. E.,
the chief town, also called Kharga, being 435 m. by rail S. by W. of
Cairo. It is reached by a narrow-gauge line (opened in 1908) from Kharga
junction, a station on the Nile valley line near Farshut. The oasis
consists of a depression in the desert some 1200 sq. m. in extent, and
is about 100 m. long N. to S. and from 12 to 50 broad E. to W. Formerly,
and into historic times, a lake occupied a considerable part of the
depression, and the thick deposits of clay and sand then laid down now
form the bulk of the cultivated lands of the oasis. It includes,
however, a good deal of desert land. The inhabitants numbered (1907
census) 8348. They are of Berber stock. Administratively the oasis forms
part of the mudiria of Assiut. It is practically rainless, and there is
not now a single natural flowing spring. There are, however, numerous
wells, water being obtained freely from the porous sandstone which
underlies a great part of the Libyan desert. Some very ancient wells are
400 ft. deep. In water-bearing sandstones near the surface there are
underground aqueducts dating from Roman times. The oasis contains many
groves of date palms, there being over 60,000 adult trees in 1907. The
dom palm, tamarisk, acacia and wild senna are also found. Rice, barley
and wheat are the chief cereals cultivated, and lucerne for fodder.
Besides agriculture the only industry is basket and mat making--from
palm leaves and fibre. Since 1906 extensive boring and land reclamation
works have been undertaken in the oasis.
The name of the oasis appears in hieroglyphics as _Kenem_, and that of
its capital as _Hebi_ (the plough). In Pharaonic times it supported a
large population, but the numerous ruins are mostly of later date. The
principal ruin, a temple of Ammon, built under Darius, is of sandstone,
142 ft. long by 63 ft. broad and 30 ft. in height. South-east is another
temple, a square stone building with the name of Antoninus Pius over one
off the entrances. On the eastern escarpment of the oasis on the way to
Girga are the remains of a large Roman fort with twelve bastions. On the
road to Assiut is a fine Roman columbarium or dove-cote. Next to the
great temple the most interesting ruin in the oasis is, however, the
necropolis, a burial-place of the early Christians, placed on a hill 3
m. N. of the town of Kharga. There are some two hundred rectangular tomb
buildings in unburnt brick with ornamented fronts. In most of the tombs
is a chamber in which the mummy was placed, the Egyptian Christians at
first continuing this method of preserving the bodies of their dead. In
several of the tombs and in the chapel of the cemetery is painted the
Egyptian sign of life, which was confounded with the Christian cross.
The chapel is basilican; in it and in another building in the necropolis
are crude frescoes of biblical subjects.
Kharga town (pop. 1907 census, 5362) is picturesquely situated amid palm
groves. The houses are of sun-dried bricks, the streets narrow and
winding and for the most part roofed over, the roofs carrying upper
storeys. Some of the streets are cut through the solid rock. South of
the town are the villages of Genna, Guehda (with a temple dedicated to
Ammon, Mut and Khonsu), Bulak (pop. 1012), Dakakin, Beris (pop. 1564),
Dush (with remains of a fine temple bearing the names of Domitian and
Hadrian), &c.
Kharga is usually identified with the city of Oasis mentioned by
Herodotus as being seven days' journey from Thebes and called in Greek
the Island of the Blessed. The oasis was traversed by the army of
Cambyses when on its way to the oasis of Ammon (Siwa), the army
perishing in the desert before reaching its destination. During the
Roman period, as it had also been in Pharaonic times, Kharga was used as
a place of banishment, the most notable exile being Nestorius, sent
thither after his condemnation by the council of Ephesus. Later it
became a halting-place for the caravans of slaves brought from Darfur to
Egypt.
About 100 m. W. of Kharga is the oasis of Dakhla, the inner or receding
oasis, so named in contrast to Kharga as being farther from the Nile.
Dakhla has a population (1907) of 18,368. Its chief town, El Kasr, has
3602 inhabitants. The principal ruin, of Roman origin and now called
Deir el Hagar (the stone convent), is of considerable size. The Theban
triad were the chief deities worshipped here. Some 120 m. N.W. of Dakhla
is the oasis of Farafra, population about 1000, said to be the first of
the oases conquered by the Moslems from the Christians. It is noted for
the fine quality of its olives. The Baharia, or Little Oasis (pop. about
6000), lies 80 m. N.N.E. of Farafra. Many of its inhabitants, who are of
Berber race, are Senussites. Baharia is about 250 m. E.S.E. of the oasis
of Siwa (see EGYPT: _The Oases_; and SIWA).
See H. Brugsch, _Reise nach dem grossen Oase el-Khargeh in der
Libyschen Wuste_ (Leipzig, 1878); H. J. L. Beadnell, _An Egyptian
Oasis_ (London, 1909); Murray's _Handbook for Egypt_, 11th ed.
(London, 1907); _Geological and Topographical Report on Kharga Oasis_
(1899), on _Farafra Oasis_ (1899), on _Dakhla Oasis_ (1900), on
_Baharia Oasis_ (1903), all issued by the Public Works Department,
Cairo. (F. R. C.)
KHARKOV, a government of Little Russia, surrounded by those of Kursk,
Poltava, Ekaterinoslav, territory of the Don Cossacks, and Voronezh, and
belonging partly to the basin of the Don and partly to that of the
Dnieper. The area is 21,035 sq. m. In general the government is a
table-land, with an elevation of 300 to 450 ft., traversed by deep-cut
river valleys. The soil is for the most part of high fertility, about
57% of the surface being arable land and 24% natural pasture; and though
the winter is rather severe, the summer heat is sufficient for the
ripening of grapes and melons in the open air. The bulk of the
population is engaged in agricultural pursuits and the breeding of
sheep, cattle and horses, though various manufacturing industries have
developed rapidly, more especially since the middle of the 19th century.
Horses are bred for the army, and the yield of wool is of special
importance. The ordinary cereals, maize, buckwheat, millet, hemp, flax,
tobacco, poppies, potatoes and beetroot are all grown, and bee-keeping
and silkworm-rearing are of considerable importance. Sixty-three per
cent. of the land is owned by the peasants, 25% by the nobility, 6% by
owners of other classes, and 6% by the crown and public institutions.
Beetroot sugar factories, cotton-mills, distilleries, flour-mills,
tobacco factories, brickworks, breweries, woollen factories, iron-works,
pottery-kilns and tanneries are the leading industrial establishments.
Gardening is actively prosecuted. Salt is extracted at Slavyansk. The
mass of the people are Little Russians, but there are also Great
Russians, Kalmucks, Germans, Jews and Gypsies. In 1867 the total
population was 1,681,486, and in 1897 2,507,277, of whom 1,242,892 were
women and 367,602 lived in towns. The estimated population in 1906 was
2,983,900. The government is divided into eleven districts. The chief
town is Kharkov (q.v.). The other district towns, with their populations
in 1897, are Akhtyrka (25,965 in 1900), Bogodukhov (11,928), Izyum
(12,959), Kupyansk (7256), Lebedin (16,684), Starobyelsk (13,128), Sumy
(28,519 in 1900), Valki (8842), Volchansk (11,322), and Zmiyev (4652).
KHARKOV, a town of southern Russia, capital of the above government, in
56 deg. 37' N. and 25 deg. 5' E., in the valley of the Donets, 152 m. by
rail S.S.E. of Kursk. Oak forests bound it on two sides. Pop. (1867),
59,968; (1900), 197,405. Kharkov is an archiepiscopal see of the
Orthodox Greek Church, and the headquarters of the X. army corps. The
four annual fairs are among the busiest in Russia, more especially the
Kreshchenskaya or Epiphany fair, which is opened on the 6th (19th) of
January, and the Pokrovsky fair in the autumn. The turnover at the
former is estimated at L3,000,000 to L4,000,000. Thousands of horses are
bought and sold. At the Trinity (Troitsa) fair in June an extensive
business (L800,000) is done in wool. A great variety of manufactured
goods are produced in the town--linen, felt, beetroot sugar, tobacco,
brandy, soap, candles, cast-iron. Kharkov is an educational centre for
the higher and middle classes. Besides a flourishing university,
instituted in 1805, and attended by from 1600 to 1700 students, it
possesses a technological institute (400 students), a railway
engineering school, an observatory, a veterinary college, a botanical
garden, a theological seminary, and a commercial school. The university
building was formerly a royal palace. The library contains 170,000
volumes; and the zoological collections are especially rich in the birds
and fishes of southern Russia. Public gardens occupy the site of the
ancient military works; and the government has a model farm in the
neighbourhood. Of the Orthodox churches one has the rank of cathedral
(1781). Among the public institutions are a people's palace (1903) and
an industrial museum.
The foundation of Kharkov is assigned to 1650, but there is
archaeological evidence of a much earlier occupation of the district,
if not of the site. The Cossacks of Kharkov remained faithful to the
tsar during the rebellions of the latter part of the 17th century; in
return they received numerous privileges, and continued to be a strong
advance-guard of the Russian power, till the final subjugation of all
the southern region. With other military settlements Kharkov was
placed on a new footing in 1765; and at the same time it became the
administrative centre of the Ukraine.
KHARPUT, the most important town in the Kharput (or Mamuret el-Aziz)
vilayet of Asia Minor, situated at an altitude of 4350 ft., a few miles
south of the Murad Su or Eastern Euphrates, and almost as near the
source of the Tigris, on the Samsun-Sivas-Diarbekr road. Pop. about
20,000. The town is built on a hill terrace about 1000 ft. above a
well-watered plain of exceptional fertility which lies to the south and
supports a large population. Kharput probably stands on or near the site
of _Carcathiocerta_ in Sophene, reached by Corbulo in A.D. 65. The early
Moslem geographers knew it as Hisn Ziyad, but the Armenian name was
Khartabirt or Kharbirt, whence Kharput. Cedrenus (11th century) writes
[Greek: Charpote]. There is a story that in 1122 Joscelin (Jocelyn) of
Courtenay, and Baldwin II., king of Jerusalem, both prisoners of the
Amir Balak in its castle, were murdered by being cast from its cliffs
after an attempted rescue. The story is told by William of Tyre, who
calls the place Quart Piert or Pierre, but it is a mere romance. Kharput
is an important station of the American missionaries, who have built a
college, a theological seminary, and boys' and girls' schools. In
November 1895 Kurds looted and burned the Armenian villages on the
plain; and in the same month Kharput was attacked and the American
schools were burned down. A large number of the Gregorian and Protestant
Armenian clergy and people were massacred, and churches, monasteries and
houses were looted. The vilayet Kharput was founded in 1888, being the
result of a provincial rearrangement, designed to ensure better control
over the disturbed districts of Kurdistan. It has much mineral wealth, a
healthy climate and a fertile soil. The seat of government is Mezere, on
the plain 3 m. S. of Kharput. (D. G. H.)
KHARSAWAN, a feudatory state of India, within the Chota Nagpur division
of Bengal; area 153 sq. m.; pop. (1901), 36,540; estimated revenue
L2600. Since the opening of the main line of the Bengal-Nagpur railway
through the state trade has been stimulated, and it is believed that
both iron and copper can be worked profitably.
KHARTUM, the capital of the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, on the left bank of
the Blue Nile immediately above its junction with the White Nile in 15
deg. 36' N., 32 deg. 32' E., and 1252 ft. above the sea. It is 432 m. by
rail S.W. of Port Sudan, on the Red Sea, and 1345 m. S. of Cairo by rail
and steamer. Pop. (1907) with suburbs, but excluding Omdurman, 69,349.
The city, laid out on a plan drawn up by Lord Kitchener in 1898, has a
picturesque aspect with its numerous handsome stone and brick buildings
surrounded by gardens and its groves of palms and other trees. The river
esplanade, 2 m. long, contains the chief buildings. Parallel with it is
Khedive Avenue, of equal length. The rest of the city is in squares, the
streets forming the design of the union jack. In the centre of the
esplanade is the governor-general's palace, occupying the site of the
palace destroyed by the Mahdists in 1885. It is a three-storeyed
building with arcaded verandas and a fine staircase leading to a loggia
on the first floor. Here a tablet indicates the spot in the old palace
where General Gordon fell. In the gardens, which cover six acres, is a
colossal stone "lamb" brought from the ruins of Soba, an ancient
Christian city on the Blue Nile. The "lamb" is in reality a ram of
Ammon, and has an inscription in Ethiopian hieroglyphs. In front of the
southern facade, which looks on to Khedive Avenue, is a bronze statue of
General Gordon seated on a camel, a copy of the statue by Onslow Ford at
Chatham, England. Government offices and private villas are on either
side of the palace, and beyond, on the east, are the Sudan Club, the
military hospital, and the Gordon Memorial College. The college, the
chief educational centre in the Sudan, is a large, many-windowed
building with accommodation for several hundred scholars and research
laboratories and an economic museum. At the western end of the esplanade
are the zoological gardens, the chief hotel, the Coptic church and the
Mudiria House (residence of the governor of Khartum). Running south from
Khedive Avenue at the spot where the Gordon statue stands, is Victoria
Avenue, leading to Abbas Square, in the centre of which is the great
mosque with two minarets. On the north-east side of the square are the
public markets. The Anglican church, dedicated to All Saints, the
principal banks and business houses, are in Khedive Avenue. There are
Maronite and Greek churches, an Austrian Roman Catholic mission, a large
and well-equipped civil hospital and a museum for Sudan archaeology.
Outside the city are a number of model villages (each of the principal
tribes of the Sudan having its own settlement) in which the dwellings
are built after the tribal fashion. Adjacent are the parade ground and
racecourse and the golf-links. A line of fortifications extends south of
the city from the Blue to the White Nile. The buildings are used as
barracks. Barracks for British troops occupy the end of the line facing
the Blue Nile.
On the right (northern) bank of the Blue Nile is the suburb of Khartum
North, formerly called Halfaya,[1] where is the principal railway
station. It is joined to the city by a bridge (completed 1910)
containing a roadway and the railway, Khartum itself being served by
steam trams and rickshaws. The steamers for the White and the Blue Nile
start from the quay along the esplanade. West of the zoological gardens
is the point of junction of the Blue and White Niles and here is a ferry
across to Omdurman (q.v.) on the west bank of the White Nile a mile or
two below Khartum. In the river immediately below Khartum is Tuti
Island, on which is an old fort and an Arab village.
From its geographical position Khartum is admirably adapted as a
commercial and political centre. It is the great entrepot for the trade
of the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan. By the Nile waterways there is easy
transport from the southern and western equatorial provinces and from
Sennar and other eastern districts. Through Omdurman come the exports of
Kordofan and Darfur, while by the Red Sea railway there is ready access
to the markets of the world. The only important manufacture is the
making of bricks.
The population is heterogeneous. The official class is composed chiefly
of British and Egyptians; the traders are mostly Greeks, Syrians and
Copts, while nearly all the tribes of the Sudan are represented in the
negro and Arab inhabitants.
At the time of the occupation of the Sudan by the Egyptians a small
fishing village existed on the site of the present city. In 1822 the
Egyptians established a permanent camp here and out of this grew the
city, which in 1830 was chosen as the capital of the Sudanese
possessions of Egypt. It got its name from the resemblance of the
promontory at the confluence of the two Niles to an elephant's trunk,
the meaning of _khartum_ in the dialect of Arabic spoken in the
locality. The city rapidly acquired importance as the Sudan was opened
up by travellers and traders, becoming, besides the seat of much
legitimate commerce, a great slave mart. It was chosen as the
headquarters of Protestant and Roman Catholic missions, and had a
population of 50,000 or more. Despite its size it contained few
buildings of any architectural merit; the most important were the
palace of the governor-general and the church of the Austrian mission.
The history of the city is intimately bound up with that of the Sudan
generally, but it may be recalled here that in 1884, at the time of
the Mahdist rising, General Gordon was sent to Khartum to arrange for
the evacuation by the Egyptians of the Sudan. At Khartum he was
besieged by the Mahdists, whose headquarters were at Omdurman. Khartum
was captured and Gordon killed on the 26th of January 1885, two days
before the arrival off the town of a small British relief force, which
withdrew on seeing the city in the hands of the enemy. Nearly every
building in Khartum was destroyed by the Mahdists and the city
abandoned in favour of Omdurman, which place remained the headquarters
of the mahdi's successor, the khalifa Abdullah, till September 1898,
when it was taken by the Anglo-Egyptian forces under General
(afterwards Lord) Kitchener, and the seat of government again
transferred to Khartum. It speedily arose from its ruins, being
rebuilt on a much finer scale than the original city. In 1899 the
railway from Wadi Haifa was completed to Khartum, and in 1906 through
communication by rail was established with the Red Sea.
FOOTNOTE:
[1] The village of Halfaya, a place of some importance before the
foundation of Khartum, is 4 m. to the N., on the eastern bank of the
Nile. From the 15th century up to 1821 it was the capital of a small
state, tributary to Sennar, regarded as a continuation of the
Christian kingdom of Aloa (see DONGOLA).
KHASI AND JAINTIA HILLS, a district of British India, in the Hills
division of Eastern Bengal and Assam. It occupies the central plateau
between the valleys of the Brahmaputra and the Surma. Area, 6027 sq. m.;
pop. (1901), 202,250, showing an increase of 2% in the decade.
The district consists of a succession of steep ridges running east and
west, with elevated table-lands between. On the southern side, towards
Sylhet, the mountains rise precipitously from the valley of the Barak or
Surma. The first plateau is about 4000 ft. above sea-level. Farther
north is another plateau, on which is situated the station of Shillong,
4900 ft. above the sea; behind lies the Shillong range, of which the
highest peak rises to 6450 ft. On the north side, towards Kamrup, are
two similar plateaus of lower elevation. The general appearance of all
these table-lands is that of undulating downs, covered with grass, but
destitute of large timber. At 3000 ft. elevation the indigenous pine
predominates over all other vegetation, and forms almost pure pine
forests. The highest ridges are clothed with magnificent clumps of
timber trees, which superstition has preserved from the axe of the
wood-cutter. The characteristic trees in these sacred groves chiefly
consist of oaks, chestnuts, magnolias, &c. Beneath the shade grow rare
orchids, rhododendrons and wild cinnamon. The streams are merely
mountain torrents; many of them pass through narrow gorges of wild
beauty. From time immemorial, Lower Bengal has drawn its supply of lime
from the Khasi Hills, and the quarries along their southern slope are
inexhaustible. Coal of fair quality crops out at several places, and
there are a few small coal-mines.
The Khasi Hills were conquered by the British in 1833. They are
inhabited by a tribe of the same name, who still live in primitive
communities under elective chiefs in political subordination to the
British government. There are 25 of these chiefs called _Siems_, who
exercise independent jurisdiction and pay no tribute. According to the
census of 1901 the Khasis numbered 107,500. They are a peculiar race,
speaking a language that belongs to the Mon-Anam family, following the
rule of matriarchal succession, and erecting monolithic monuments over
their dead. The Jaintia Hills used to form a petty Hindu principality
which was annexed in 1835. The inhabitants, called Syntengs, a cognate
tribe to the Khasis, were subjected to a moderate income tax, an
innovation against which they rebelled in 1860 and 1862. The revolt was
stamped out by the Khasi and Jaintia Expedition of 1862-63. The
headquarters of the district were transferred in 1864 from Cherrapunji
to Shillong, which was afterwards made the capital of the province of
Assam. A good cart-road runs north from Cherrapunji through Shillong to
Gauhati on the Brahmaputra; total length, 97 m. The district was the
focus of the great earthquake of the 12th of June 1897, which not only
destroyed every permanent building, but broke up the roads and caused
many landslips. The loss of life was put at only 916, but hundreds died
subsequently of a malignant fever. In 1901 the district had 17,321
Christians, chiefly converts of the Welsh Calvinistic Mission.
See _District Gazetteer_ (1906); Major P. R. T. Gurdon, _The Khasis_
(1907).
KHASKOY (also _Chaskoi_, _Haskoi_, _Khaskioi_, _Chaskovo_, _Haskovo_, and
in Bulgarian _Khaskovo_), the capital of the department of Khaskoy in the
eastern Rumelia, Bulgaria; 45 m. E.S.E. of Philippopolis. Pop. (1900),
14,928. The town has a station 7 m. N. on the Philippopolis-Adrianople
section of the Belgrade-Constantinople railway. Carpets and woollen goods
are manufactured, and in the surrounding country tobacco and silk are
produced.
KHATTAK, an important Pathan tribe in the North-West Frontier Province
of India, inhabiting the south-eastern portion of the Peshawar district
and the south-eastern and eastern portions of Kohat. They number 24,000,
and have always been quiet and loyal subjects of the British government.
They furnish many recruits to the Indian army, and make most excellent
soldiers.
KHAZARS (known also as Chozars, as [Greek: Akatziroi] or [Greek:
Chazaroi] in Byzantine writers, as Khazirs in Armenian and Khwalisses in
Russian chronicles, and Ugri Bielii in Nestor), an ancient people who
occupied a prominent place amongst the secondary powers of the Byzantine
state-system. In the epic of Firdousi Khazar is the representative name
for all the northern foes of Persia, and legendary invasions long before
the Christian era are vaguely attributed to them. But the Khazars are an
historic figure upon the borderland of Europe and Asia for at least 900
years (A.D. 190-1100). The epoch of their greatness is from A.D. 600 to
950. Their home was in the spurs of the Caucasus and along the shores of
the Caspian--called by medieval Moslem geographers Bahr-al-Khazar ("sea
of the Khazars"); their cities, all populous and civilized commercial
centres, were Itil, the capital, upon the delta of the Volga, the "river
of the Khazars," Semender (Tarkhu), the older capital, Khamlidje or
Khalendsch, Belendscher, the outpost towards Armenia, and Sarkel on the
Don. They were the Venetians of the Caspian and the Euxine, the
organizers of the transit between the two basins, the universal carriers
between East and West; and Itil was the meeting-place of the commerce of
Persia, Byzantium, Armenia, Russia and the Bulgarians of the middle
Volga. The tide of their dominion ebbed and flowed repeatedly, but the
normal Khazari may be taken as the territory between the Caucasus, the
Volga and the Don, with the outlying province of the Crimea, or Little
Khazaria. The southern boundary never greatly altered; it did at times
reach the Kur and the Aras, but on that side the Khazars were confronted
by Byzantium and Persia, and were for the most part restrained within
the passes of the Caucasus by the fortifications of Dariel. Amongst the
nomadic Ugrians and agricultural Slavs of the north their frontier
fluctuated widely, and in its zenith Khazaria extended from the Dnieper
to Bolgari upon the middle Volga, and along the eastern shore of the
Caspian to Astarabad.
_Ethnology._--The origin of the Khazars has been much disputed, and
they have been variously regarded as akin to the Georgians,
Finno-Ugrians and Turks. This last view is perhaps the most probable.
Their king Joseph, in answer to the inquiry of Hasdai Ibn Shaprut of
Cordova (c. 958), stated that his people sprang from Thogarmah,
grandson of Japhet, and the supposed ancestor of the other peoples of
the Caucasus. The Arab geographers who knew the Khazars best connect
them either with the Georgians (Ibn Athir) or with the Armenians
(Dimishqi, ed. Mehren, p. 263); whilst Ahmad ibn Fadlan, who passed
through Khazaria on a mission from the caliph Moqtadir (A.D. 921),
positively asserts that the Khazar tongue differed not only from the
Turkish, but from that of the bordering nations, which were Ugrian.
Nevertheless there are many points connected with the Khazars which
indicate a close connexion with Ugrian or Turkish peoples. The
official titles recorded by Ibn Fadlan are those in use amongst the
Tatar nations of that age, whether Huns, Bulgarians, Turks or Mongols.
The names of their cities can be explained only by reference to
Turkish or Ugrian dialects (Klaproth, _Mem. sur les Khazars_; Howorth,
_Khazars_). Some too amongst the medieval authorities (Ibn Hauqal and
Istakhri) note a resemblance between the speech in use amongst the
Khazars and the Bulgarians; and the modern Magyar--a Ugrian
language--can be traced back to a tribe which in the 9th century
formed part of the Khazar kingdom. These characteristics, however, are
accounted for by the fact that the Khazars were at one time subject to
the Huns (A.D. 448 et seq.), at another to the Turks (c. 580), which
would sufficiently explain the signs of Tatar influence in their
polity, and also by the testimony of all observers, Greeks, Arabs and
Russians, that there was a double strain within the Khazar nation.
There were _Khazars_ and _Kara_ (black) _Khazars_. The Khazars were
fair-skinned, black-haired and of a remarkable beauty and stature;
their women indeed were sought as wives equally at Byzantium and
Bagdad; while the Kara Khazars were ugly, short, and were reported by
the Arabs almost as dark as Indians. The latter were indubitably the
Ugrian nomads of the steppe, akin to the Tatar invaders of Europe, who
filled the armies and convoyed the caravans of the ruling caste. But
the Khazars proper were a civic commercial people, the founders of
cities, remarkable for somewhat elaborate political institutions, for
persistence and for good faith--all qualities foreign to the Hunnic
character.
They have been identified with the [Greek: Akatziroi] (perhaps
Ak-Khazari, or White Khazars) who appear upon the lower Volga in the
Byzantine annals, and thence they have been deduced, though with less
convincing proof, either from the [Greek: Agathyrsoi] (Agathyrsi) or
the [Greek: Katiaroi] of Herodotus, iv. 104. There was throughout
historic times a close connexion which eventually amounted to
political identity between the Khazars and the Barsileens (the Passils
of Moses of Chorene) who occupied the delta of the Volga; and the
Barsileens can be traced through the pages of Ptolemy (_Geog._ v. 9),
of Pliny (iv. 26), of Strabo (vii. 306), and of Pomponius Mela (ii. c.
1, p. 119) to the so-called Royal Scyths, [Greek: Skythai basilees],
who were known to the Greek colonies upon the Euxine, and whose
political superiority and commercial enterprise led to this rendering
of their name. Such points, however, need not here be further pursued
than to establish the presence of this white race around the Caspian
and the Euxine throughout historic times. They appear in European
history as White Huns (Ephthalites), White Ugrians (Sar-ogours), White
Bulgarians. Owing to climatic causes the tract they occupied was
slowly drying up. They were the outposts of civilization towards the
encroaching desert, and the Tatar nomadism that advanced with it. They
held in precarious subjection the hordes whom the conditions of the
climate and the soil made it impossible to supplant. They bore the
brunt of each of the great waves of Tatar conquests, and were
eventually overwhelmed.
_History._--Amidst this white race of the steppe the Khazars can be
first historically distinguished at the end of the 2nd century A.D.
They burst into Armenia with the Barsileens, A.D. 198. They were
repulsed and attacked in turn. The pressure of the nomads of the
steppe, the quest of plunder or revenge, these seem the only motives
of these early expeditions; but in the long struggle between the Roman
and Persian empires, of which Armenia was often the battlefield, and
eventually the prize, the attitude of the Khazars assumed political
importance. Armenia inclined to the civilization and ere long to the
Christianity of Rome, whilst her Arsacid princes maintained an
inveterate feud with the Sassanids of Persia. It became therefore the
policy of the Persian kings to call in the Khazars in every collision
with the empire (200-350). During the 4th century however, the growing
power of Persia culminated in the annexation of eastern Armenia. The
Khazars, endangered by so powerful a neighbour, passed from under
Persian influence into that remote alliance with Byzantium which
thenceforth characterized their policy, and they aided Julian in his
invasion of Persia (363). Simultaneously with the approach of Persia
to the Caucasus the terrible empire of the Huns sprang up among the
Ugrians of the northern steppes. The Khazars, straitened on every
side, remained passive till the danger culminated in the accession of
Attila (434). The emperor Theodosius sent envoys to bribe the Khazars
([Greek: Akatziroi]) to divert the Huns from the empire by an attack
upon their flank. But there was a Hunnic party amongst the Khazar
chiefs. The design was betrayed to Attila; and he extinguished the
independence of the nation in a moment. Khazaria became the apanage of
his eldest son, and the centre of government amongst the eastern
subjects of the Hun (448). Even the iron rule of Attila was preferable
to the time of anarchy that succeeded it. Upon his death (454) the
wild immigration which he had arrested revived. The Khazars and the
Sarogours (i.e. White Ogors, possibly the Barsileens of the Volga
delta) were swept along in a flood of mixed Tatar peoples which the
conquests of the Avars had set in motion. The Khazars and their
companions broke through the Persian defences of the Caucasus. They
appropriated the territory up to the Kur and the Aras, and roamed at
large through Iberia, Georgia and Armenia. The Persian king implored
the emperor Leo I. to help him defend Asia Minor at the Caucasus
(457), but Rome was herself too hard pressed, nor was it for fifty
years that the Khazars were driven back and the pass of Derbent
fortified against them (c. 507).
Throughout the 6th century Khazaria was the mere highway for the wild
hordes to whom the Huns had opened the passage into Europe, and the
Khazars took refuge (like the Venetians from Attila) amongst the
seventy mouths of the Volga. The pressure of the Turks in Asia
precipitated the Avars upon the West. The conquering Turks followed in
their footsteps (560-580). They beat down all opposition, wrested even
Bosporus in the Crimea from the empire, and by the annihilation of the
Ephthalites completed the ruin of the White Race of the plains from
the Oxus to the Don. The empires of Turks and Avars, however, ran
swiftly their barbaric course, and the Khazars arose out of the chaos
to more than their ancient renown. They issued from the land of
Barsilia, and extended their rule over the Bulgarian hordes left
masterless by the Turks, compelling the more stubborn to migrate to
the Danube (641). The agricultural Slavs of the Dnieper and the Oka
were reduced to tribute, and before the end of the 7th century the
Khazars had annexed the Crimea, had won complete command of the Sea of
Azov, and, seizing upon the narrow neck which separates the Volga from
the Don, had organized the portage which has continued since an
important link in the traffic between Asia and Europe. The alliance
with Byzantium was revived. Simultaneously, and no doubt in concert,
with the Byzantine campaign against Persia (589), the Khazars had
reappeared in Armenia, though it was not till 625 that they appear as
Khazars in the Byzantine annals. They are then described as "Turks
from the East," a powerful nation which held the coasts of the Caspian
and the Euxine, and took tribute of the Viatitsh, the Severians and
the Polyane. The khakan, enticed by the promise of an imperial
princess, furnished Heraclius with 40,000 men for his Persian war, who
shared in the victory over Chosroes at Nineveh.
Meanwhile the Moslem empire had arisen. The Persian empire was struck
down (637), and the Moslems poured into Armenia. The khakan, who had
defied the summons sent him by the invaders, now aided the Byzantine
patrician in the defence of Armenia. The allies were defeated, and the
Moslems undertook the subjugation of Khazaria (651). Eighty years of
warfare followed, but in the end the Moslems prevailed. The khakan and
his chieftains were captured and compelled to embrace Islam (737), and
till the decay of the Mahommedan empire Khazaria with all the other
countries of the Caucasus paid an annual tribute of children and of
corn (737-861). Nevertheless, though overpowered in the end, the
Khazars had protected the plains of Europe from the Mahommedans, and
made the Caucasus the limit of their conquests.
In the interval between the decline of the Mahommedan empire and the
rise of Russia the Khazars reached the zenith of their power. The
merchants of Byzantium, Armenia and Bagdad met in the markets of Itil
(whither since the raids of the Mahommedans the capital had been
transferred from Semender), and traded for the wax, furs, leather and
honey that came down the Volga. So important was this traffic held at
Constantinople that, when the portage to the Don was endangered by the
irruption of a fresh horde of Turks (the Petchenegs), the emperor
Theophilus himself despatched the materials and the workmen to build
for the Khazars a fortress impregnable to their forays (834). Famous
as the one stone structure is in that stoneless region, the post
became known far and wide amongst the hordes of the steppe as Sarkel
or the White Abode. Merchants from every nation found protection and
good faith in the Khazar cities. The Jews, expelled from
Constantinople, sought a home amongst them, developed the Khazar
trade, and contended with Mahommedans and Christians for the
theological allegiance of the Pagan people. The dynasty accepted
Judaism (c. 740), but there was equal tolerance for all, and each man
was held amenable to the authorized code and to the official judges of
his own faith. At the Byzantine court the khakan was held in high
honour. The emperor Justinian Rhinotmetus took refuge with him during
his exile and married his daughter (702). Justinian's rival Vardanes
in turn sought an asylum in Khazaria, and in Leo IV. (775) the
grandson of a Khazar sovereign ascended the Byzantine throne. Khazar
troops were amongst the bodyguard of the imperial court; they fought
for Leo VI. against Simeon of Bulgaria; and the khakan was honoured in
diplomatic intercourse with the seal of three solidi, which marked him
as a potentate of the first rank, above even the pope and the
Carolingian monarchs. Indeed his dominion became an object of
uneasiness to the jealous statecraft of Byzantium, and Constantine
Porphyrogenitus, writing for his son's instruction in the government,
carefully enumerates the Alans, the Petchenegs, the Uzes and the
Bulgarians as the forces he must rely on to restrain it.
It was, however, from a power that Constantine did not consider that
the overthrow of the Khazars came. The arrival of the Varangians
amidst the scattered Slavs (862) had united them into a nation. The
advance of the Petchenegs from the East gave the Russians their
opportunity. Before the onset of those fierce invaders the precarious
suzerainty of the khakan broke up. By calling in the Uzes, the Khazars
did indeed dislodge the Petchenegs from the position they had seized
in the heart of the kingdom between the Volga and the Don, but only to
drive them inwards to the Dnieper. The Hungarians, severed from their
kindred and their rulers, migrated to the Carpathians, whilst Oleg,
the Russ prince of Kiev, passed through the Slav tribes of the Dnieper
basin with the cry "Pay nothing to the Khazars" (884). The kingdom
dwindled rapidly to its ancient limits between the Caucasus, the Volga
and the Don, whilst the Russian traders of Novgorod and Kiev
supplanted the Khazars as the carriers between Constantinople and the
North. When Ibn Fadlan visited Khazaria forty years later, Itil was
even yet a great city, with baths and market-places and thirty
mosques. But there was no domestic product nor manufacture; the
kingdom depended solely upon the now precarious transit dues, and
administration was in the hands of a major domus also called khakan.
At the assault of Swiatoslav of Kiev the rotten fabric crumbled into
dust. His troops were equally at home on land and water. Sarkel, Itil
and Semender surrendered to him (965-969). He pushed his conquests to
the Caucasus, and established Russian colonies upon the Sea of Azov.
The principality of Tmutarakan, founded by his grandson Mstislav
(988), replaced the kingdom of Khazaria, the last trace of which was
extinguished by a joint expedition of Russians and Byzantines (1016).
The last of the khakans, George, Tzula, was taken prisoner. A remnant
of the nation took refuge in an island of the Caspian (Siahcouye);
others retired to the Caucasus; part emigrated to the district of
Kasakhi in Georgia, and appear for the last time joining with Georgia
in her successful effort to throw off the yoke of the Seljuk Turks
(1089). But the name is thought to survive in Kadzaria, the Georgian
title for Mingrelia, and in Kadzaro, the Turkish word for the Lazis.
Till the 13th century the Crimea was known to European travellers as
Gazaria; the "ramparts of the Khazars" are still distinguished in the
Ukraine; and the record of their dominion survives in the names of
Kazarek, Kazaritshi, Kazarinovod, Kozar-owka, Kozari, and perhaps in
Kazan.
AUTHORITIES.--_Khazar_: The letter of King Joseph to R. Hasdai Ibn
Shaprut, first published by J. Akrish, _Kol Mebasser_ (Constantinople,
1577), and often reprinted in editions of Jehuda hal-Levy's _Kuzari_.
German translations by Zedner (Berlin, 1840) and Cassel, _Magyar.
Alterth._ (Berlin, 1848); French by Carmoly, _Rev. Or._ (1841). Cf.
Harkavy, _Russische Revue_, iv. 69; Graetz, _Geschichte_, v. 364, and
Carmoly, _Itineraires de la Terre Sainte_ (Brussels, 1847).
_Armenian_: Moses of Chorene; cf. Saint-Martin, _Memoires historiques
et geographiques sur l'Armenie_ (Paris, 1818). _Arabic_: The account
of Ibn Fadlan (921) is preserved by Yakut, ii. 436 seq. See also
Istakhry (ed. de Geoje, pp. 220 seq.), _Mas'udy_, ch. xvii. pp. 406
seq. of Sprenger's translation; _Ibn Haukal_ (ed. de Goeje, pp. 279
seq.) and the histories of Ibn el Athir and Tabary. Much of the Arabic
material has been collected and translated by Fraehn, "Veteres
Memoriae Chasarorum" in _Mem. de St Pet._ (1822); Dorn (from the
Persian Tabary), _Mem. de St Pet._ (1844); Dufremery, _Journ. As._
(1849). See also D'Ohsson's imaginary _Voyage d'Abul Cassim_, based on
these sources. _Byzantine Historians_: The relative passages are
collected in Stritter's _Memoriae populorum_ (St Petersburg, 1778).
_Russian_: The _Chronicle_ ascribed to Nestor.
_Modern_: Klaproth, "Mem. sur les Khazars," in _Journ. As._ 1st
series, vol. iii.; id., _Tableaux hist. de l'Asie_ (Paris, 1823); id.,
_Tabl. hist. de Caucases_ (1827); memoirs on the Khazars by Harkavy
and by Howorth (_Congres intern. des Orientalistes_, vol. ii.);
Latham, _Russian and Turk_, pp. 209-217; Vivien St Martin, _Etudes de
geog. ancienne_ (Paris, 1850); id., _Recherches sur les populations du
Caucase_ (1847); id., "Sur les Khazars," in _Nouvelles ann. des
voyages_ (1857); D'Ohsson, _Peuples du Caucase_ (Paris, 1828); S.
Krauss, "Zur Geschichte der Chazaren," in _Revue orientale pour les
etudes Ourals-altaiques_ (1900). (P. L. G.; C. El.)
KHEDIVE, a Persian word meaning prince or sovereign, granted as a title
by the sultan of Turkey in 1867 to his viceroy in Egypt, Ismail, in
place of that of "vali."
KHERI, a district of British India, in the Lucknow division of the
United Provinces, which takes its name from a small town with a railway
station 81 m. N.W. of Lucknow. The area of the district is 2963 sq. m.,
and its population in 1901 was 905,138. It consists of a series of
fairly elevated plateaus, separated by rivers flowing from the
north-west, each bordered by alluvial land. North of the river Ul, the
country is considered very unhealthy. Through this tract, probably the
bed of a lake, flow two rivers, the Kauriala and Chauka, changing their
courses constantly, so that the surface is seamed with deserted river
beds much below the level of the surrounding country. The vegetation is
very dense, and the stagnant waters are the cause of endemic fevers. The
people reside in the neighbourhood of the low ground, as the soil is
more fertile and less expensive to cultivate than the forest-covered
uplands. South of the Ul, the scene changes. Between every two rivers or
tributaries stretches a plain, considerably less elevated than the tract
to the north. There is very little slope in any of these plains for many
miles, and marshes are formed, from which emerge the headwaters of many
secondary streams, which in the rains become dangerous torrents, and
frequently cause devastating floods. The general drainage of the country
is from north-west to south-east. Several large lakes exist, some formed
by the ancient channels of the northern rivers, being fine sheets of
water, from 10 to 20 ft. deep and from 3 to 4 m. long; in places they
are fringed with magnificent groves. The whole north of the district is
covered with vast forests, of which a considerable portion are
government reserves. _Sal_ occupies about two-thirds of the forest area.
The district is traversed by a branch of the Oudh & Rohilkhand railway
from Lucknow to Bareilly.
KHERSON, a government of south Russia, on the N. coast of the Black Sea,
bounded W. by the governments of Bessarabia and Podolia, N. by Kiev and
Poltava, S. by Ekaterinoslav and Taurida. The area is 27,497 sq. m. The
aspect of the country, especially in the south, is that of an open
steppe, and almost the whole government is destitute of forest. The
Dniester marks the western and the Dnieper the south-eastern boundary;
the Bug, the Ingul and several minor streams drain the intermediate
territory. Along the shore stretch extensive lagoons. Iron, kaolin and
salt are the principal minerals. Nearly 45% of the land is owned by the
peasants, 31% by the nobility, 12% by other classes, and 12% by the
crown, municipalities and public institutions. The peasants rent
1,730,000 acres more from the landlords. Agriculture is well developed
and 9,000,000 acres (51.1%) are under crops. Agricultural machinery is
extensively used. The vine is widely grown, and yields 1,220,000 gallons
of wine annually. Some tobacco is grown and manufactured. Besides the
ordinary cereals, maize, hemp, flax, tobacco and mustard are commonly
grown; the fruit trees in general cultivation include the cherry, plum,
peach, apricot and mulberry; and gardening receives considerable
attention. Agriculture has been greatly improved by some seventy German
colonies. Cattle-breeding, horse-breeding and sheep-farming are pursued
on a large scale. Some sheep farmers own 30,000 or 40,000 merinos each.
Fishing is an important occupation. There are manufactures of wool, hemp
and leather; also iron-works, machinery and especially agricultural
machinery works, sugar factories, steam flour-mills and chemical works.
The ports of Kherson, Ochakov, Nikolayev, and especially Odessa, are
among the principal outlets of Russian commerce; Berislav, Alexandriya
Elisavetgrad, Voznesenask, Olviopol and Tiraspol play an important part
in the inland traffic. In 1871 the total population was 1,661,892, and
in 1897 2,744,040, of whom 1,332,175 were women and 785,094 lived in
towns. The estimated pop. in 1906 was 3,257,600. Besides Great and
Little Russians, it comprises Rumanians, Greeks, Germans (123,453),
Bulgarians, Bohemians, Swedes, and Jews (30% of the total), and some
Gypsies. About 84% belong to the Orthodox Greek Church; there are also
numerous Stundists. The government is divided into six districts, the
chief towns of which are: Kherson (q.v.), Alexandriya (14,002 in 1897),
Ananiev (16,713), Elisavetgrad (66,182 in 1900), Odessa (449,673 in
1900), and Tiraspol (29,323 in 1900). This region was long subject to
the sway of the Tatar khans of the Crimea, and owes its rapid growth to
the colonizing activity of Catherine II., who between 1778 and 1792
founded the cities of Kherson, Odessa and Nikolayev. Down to 1803 this
government was called Nikolayev.
KHERSON, a town of south Russia, capital of the above government, on a
hill above the right bank of the Dnieper, about 19 m. from its mouth.
Founded by the courtier Potemkin in 1778 as a naval station and seaport,
it had become by 1786 a place of 10,000 inhabitants, and, although its
progress was checked by the rise of Odessa and the removal (in 1794) of
the naval establishments to Nikolayev, it had in 1900 a population of
73,185. The Dnieper at this point breaks into several arms, forming
islands overgrown with reeds and bushes; and vessels of burden must
anchor at Stanislavskoe-selo, a good way down the stream. Of the traffic
on the river the largest share is due to the timber, wool, cereals,
cattle and hides trade; wool-dressing, soap-boiling, tallow-melting,
brewing, flour-milling and the manufacture of tobacco are the chief
industries. Kherson is a substantially built and regular town. The
cathedral is the burial-place of Potemkin, and near Kherson lie the
remains of John Howard, the English philanthropist, who died here in
1790. The fortifications have fallen into decay. The name Kherson was
given to the town from the supposition that the site was formerly that
of Chersonesus Heracleotica, the Greek city founded by the Dorians of
Heraclea.
KHEVENHULLER, LUDWIG ANDREAS (1683-1744), Austrian field-marshal, Count
of Aschelberg-Frankenburg, came of a noble family, which, originally
Franconian, settled in Carinthia in the 11th century. He first saw
active service under Prince Eugene in the War of the Spanish Succession,
and by 1716 had risen to the command of Prince Eugene's own regiment of
dragoons. He distinguished himself greatly at the battles of
Peterwardein and Belgrade, and became in 1723 major-general of cavalry
(_General-Wachtmeister_), in 1726 proprietary colonel of a regiment and
in 1733 lieutenant field marshal. In 1734 the War of the Polish
Succession brought him into the field again. He was present at the
battle of Parma (June 29), where Count Mercy, the Austrian commander,
was killed, and after Mercy's death he held the chief command of the
army in Italy till Field Marshal Konigsegg's arrival. Under Konigsegg he
again distinguished himself at the battle of Guastalla (September 19).
He was once more in command during the operations which followed the
battle, and his skilful generalship won for him the grade of general of
cavalry. He continued in military and diplomatic employment in Italy to
the close of the war. In 1737 he was made field marshal, Prince Eugene
recommending him to his sovereign as the best general in the service.
His chief exploit in the Turkish War, which soon followed his promotion,
was at Radojevatz (September 28, 1737), where he cut his way through a
greatly superior Turkish army. It was in the Austrian Succession War
that his most brilliant work was done. As commander-in-chief of the army
on the Danube he not only drove out the French and Bavarian invaders of
Austria in a few days of rapid marching and sharp engagements (January,
1742), but overran southern Bavaria, captured Munich, and forced a large
French corps in Linz to surrender. Later in the summer of 1742, owing to
the inadequate forces at his disposal, he had to evacuate his conquests,
but in the following campaign, though now subordinated to Prince Charles
of Lorraine, Khevenhuller reconquered southern Bavaria, and forced the
emperor in June to conclude the unfavourable convention of
Nieder-Schonfeld. He disapproved the advance beyond the Rhine which
followed these successes, and the event justified his fears, for the
Austrians had to fall back from the Rhine through Franconia and the
Breisgau, Khevenhuller himself conducting the retreat with admirable
skill. On his return to Vienna, Maria Theresa decorated the field
marshal with the order of the Golden Fleece. He died suddenly at Vienna
on the 26th of January 1744.
He was the author of various instructional works for officers and
soldiers (_Des G. F. M. Grafen v. Khevenhuller Observationspunkte fur
sein Dragoner-regiment_ (1734 and 1748) and a _reglement_ for the
infantry (1737), and of an important work on war in general, _Kurzer
Begriff aller militarischen Operationen_ (Vienna, 1756; French
version, _Maximes de guerre_, Paris, 1771).
KHEVSURS, a people of the Caucasus, kinsfolk of the Georgians. They live
in scattered groups in East Georgia to the north and north-west of Mount
Borbalo. Their name is Georgian and means "People of the Valleys." For
the most part nomadic, they are still in a semi-barbarous state. They
have not the beauty of the Georgian race. They are gaunt and thin to
almost a ghastly extent, their generally repulsive aspect being
accentuated by their large hands and feet and their ferocious
expression. In complexion and colour of hair and eyes they vary greatly.
They are very muscular and capable of bearing extraordinary fatigue.
They are fond of fighting, and still wear armour of the true medieval
type. This panoply is worn when the law of vendetta, which is sacred
among them as among most Caucasian peoples, compels them to seek or
avoid their enemy. They carry a spiked gauntlet, the terrible marks of
which are borne by a large proportion of the Khevsur faces.
Many curious customs still prevail among the Khevsurs, as for instance
the imprisonment of the woman during childbirth in a lonely hut, round
which the husband parades, firing off his musket at intervals. After
delivery, food is surreptitiously brought the mother, who is kept in
her prison a month, after which the hut is burnt. The boys are usually
named after some wild animal, e.g. bear or wolf, while the girls'
names are romantic, such as Daughter of the Sun, Sun of my Heart.
Marriages are arranged by parents when the bride and bridegroom are
still in long clothes. The chief ceremony is a forcible abduction of
the girl. Divorce is very common, and some Khevsurs are polygamous.
Formerly no Khevsur might die in a house, but was always carried out
under the sun or stars. The Khevsurs like to call themselves
Christians, but their religion is a mixture of Christianity,
Mahommedanism and heathen rites. They keep the Sabbath of the
Christian church, the Friday of the Moslems and the Saturday of the
Jews. They worship sacred trees and offer sacrifices to the spirits of
the earth and air. Their priests are a combination of medicine-men and
divines.
See G. F. R. Radde, _Die Chevs'uren und ihr Land_ (Cassel, 1878);
Ernest Chantre, _Recherches anthropologiques dans le Caucase_ (Lyons,
1885-1887).
KHILCHIPUR, a mediatized chiefship in Central India, under the Bhopal
agency; area, 273 sq. m.; pop. (1901), 31,143; estimated revenue, L7000;
tribute payable to Sindhia, L700. The residence of the chief, who is a
Khichi Rajput of the Chauhan clan, is at Khilchipur (pop. 5121).
KHINGAN, two ranges of mountains in eastern Asia.
(1) GREAT KHINGAN is the eastern border ridge of the immense plateau
which may be traced from the Himalaya to Bering Strait and from the
Tian-shan Mountains to the Khingan Mountains. It is well known from 50
deg. N. to Kalgan (41 deg. N., 115 deg. E.), where it is crossed by the
highway from Urga to Peking. As a border ridge of the Mongolian plateau,
it possesses very great orographical importance, in that it is an
important climatic boundary, and constitutes the western limits of the
Manchurian flora. The base of its western slope, which is very gentle,
lies at altitudes of 3000 to 3500 ft. Its crest rises to 4800 to 6500
ft., but its eastern slope sinks very precipitately to the plains of
Manchuria, which have only 1500 to 2000 ft. of altitude. On this stretch
one or two subordinate ridges, parallel to the main range and separated
from it by longitudinal valleys, fringe its eastern slope, thus marking
two different terraces and giving to the whole system a width of from 80
to 100 m. Basalts, trachytes and other volcanic formations are found in
the main range and on its south-eastern slopes. The range was in
volcanic activity in 1720-1721.
South-west of Peking the Great Khingan is continued by the In-shan
mountains, which exhibit similar features to those of the Great
Khingan, and represent the same terraced escarpment of the Mongolian
plateau. Moreover, it appears from the map of the Russian General
Staff (surveys of Skassi, V. A. Obruchev, G. N. Potanin, &c.) that
similar terrace-shaped escarpments--but considerably wider apart than
in Manchuria--occur in the Shan-si province of China, along the
southern border of the South Mongolian plateau. These escarpments are
pierced by the Yellow River or Hwang-ho south of the Great Wall,
between 38 deg. and 39 deg. N., and in all probability a border range
homologous to the Great Khingan separates the upper tributaries of the
Hwang-ho (namely the Tan-ho) from those of the Yang-tsze-kiang. But
according to Obruchev the escarpments of the Wei-tsi-shan and
Lu-huang-lin, by which southern Ordos drops towards the Wei-ho
(tributary of the Hwang-ho), can hardly be taken as corresponding to
the Kalgan escarpment. They fall with gentle slopes only towards the
high plains on the south of them, while a steep descent towards the
low plain seems to exist further south only, between 32 deg. and 34
deg. Thus the southern continuations of the Great Khingan, south of 38
deg. N., possibly consist of two separate escarpments. At its northern
end the place where the Great Khingan is pierced by the Amur has not
been ascertained by direct observation. Prince P. Kropotkin considers
that the upper Amur emerges from the high plateau and its
border-ridge, the Khingan, below Albazin and above Kumara.[1] If this
view prevail--Petermann has adopted it for his map of Asia, and it has
been upheld in all the Gotha publications--it would appear that the
Great Khingan joins the Stanovoi ridge or Jukjur, in that portion of
it which faces the west coast of the Sea of Okhotsk. At any rate the
Khingan, separating the Mongolian plateau from the much lower plains
of the Sungari and the Nonni, is one of the most important
orographical dividing-lines in Asia.
See Semenov's _Geographical Dictionary_ (in Russian); D. V. Putiata,
_Expedition to the Khingan in 1891_ (St Petersburg, 1893); Potanin,
"Journey to the Khingan," in _Izvestia Russ. Geog. Soc._ (1901).
(2) The name LITTLE KHINGAN is applied indiscriminately to two distinct
mountain ranges. The proper application of the term would be to reserve
it for the typical range which the Amur pierces 40 m. below
Ekaterino-Nikolsk (on the Amur), and which is also known as the Bureya
mountains, and as Dusse-alin. This range, which may be traced from the
Amur to the Sea of Okhotsk, seems to be cleft twice by the Sungari and
to be continued under different local names in the same south-westerly
direction to the peninsula of Liao-tung in Manchuria. The other range to
which the name of Little Khingan is applied is that of the Ilkhuri-alin
mountains (51 deg. N., 122 deg.-126 deg. E.), which run in a
north-westerly direction between the upper Nonni and the Amur, west of
Blagovyeshchensk. (P. A. K.; J. T. Be.)
FOOTNOTE:
[1] See his sketch of the orography of East Siberia (French trans.,
with addenda, published by the _Institut Geographique_ of Brussels in
1902).
KHIVA, formerly an important kingdom of Asia, but now a much reduced
khanate, dependent upon Russia, and confined to the delta of the
Amu-darya (Oxus). Its frontier runs down the left bank of the Amu, from
40 deg. 15' N., and down its left branch to Lake Aral; then, for about
40 m. along the south coast of Lake Aral, and finally southwards,
following the escarpment of the Ust-Urt plateau. From the Transcaspian
territory of Russia Khiva is separated by a line running almost
W.N.W.-E.S.E. under 40 deg. 30' N., from the Uzboi depression to the
Amu-darya. The length of the khanate from north to south is 200 m., and
its greatest width 300 m. The area of the Khiva oasis is 5210 sq. m.
while the area of the steppes is estimated at 17,000 sq. m. The
population of the former is estimated at 400,000, and that of the latter
also at 400,000 (nomadic). The water of the Amu is brought by a number
of irrigation canals to the oasis, the general declivity of the surface
westwards facilitating the irrigation. Several old beds of the Amu
intersect the territory. The water of the Amu and the very thin layer of
ooze which it deposits render the oasis very fertile. Millet, rice,
wheat, barley, oats, peas, flax, hemp, madder, and all sorts of
vegetables and fruit (especially melons) are grown, as also the vine and
cotton. The white-washed houses scattered amidst the elms and poplars,
and surrounded by flourishing fields, produce the most agreeable
contrast with the arid steppes. Livestock, especially sheep, camels,
horses and cattle, is extensively bred by the nomads.
The population is composed of four divisions: Uzbegs (150,000 to
200,000), the dominating race among the settled inhabitants of the
oasis, from whom the officials are recruited; Sarts and Tajiks,
agriculturists and tradespeople of mixed race; Turkomans (c. 170,000),
who live in the steppes, south and west of the oasis, and formerly
plundered the settled inhabitants by their raids; and the Kara-kalpaks,
or Black Bonnets, a Turki tribe some 50,000 in number. They live south
of Lake Aral, and in the towns of Kungrad, Khodsheili and Kipchak form
the prevailing element. They cultivate the soil, breed cattle, and their
women make carpets. There are also about 10,000 Kirghiz, and when the
Russians took Khiva in 1873 there were 29,300 Persian slaves, stolen by
Turkoman raiders, and over 6500 liberated slaves, mostly Kizil-bashes.
The former were set free and the slave trade abolished. Of domestic
industries, the embroidering of cloth, silks and leather is worthy of
notice. The trade of Khiva is considerable: cotton, wool, rough woollen
cloth and silk cocoons are exported to Russia, and various animal
products to Bokhara. Cottons, velveteen, hardware and pepper are
imported from Russia, and silks, cotton, china and tea from Bokhara.
Khivan merchants habitually attend the Orenburg and Nizhniy-Novgorod
fairs.
_History._--The present khanate is only a meagre relic of the great
kingdom which under the name of Chorasmia, Kharezm (Khwarizm) and Urgenj
(Jurjaniya, Gurganj) held the keys of the mightiest river in Central
Asia. Its possession has consequently been much disputed from early
times, but the country has undergone great changes, geographical as well
as political, which have lessened its importance. The Oxus (Amu-darya)
has changed its outlet, and no longer forms a water-way to the Caspian
and thence to Europe, while Khiva is entirely surrounded by territory
either directly administered or protected by Russia.
Chorasmia is mentioned by Herodotus, it being then one of the Persian
provinces, over which Darius placed satraps, but nothing material of it
is known till it was seized by the Arabs in A.D. 680. When the power of
the caliphs declined the governor of the province probably became
independent; but the first king known to history is Mamun-ibn-Mahommed
in 995. Khwarizm fell under the power of Mahmud of Ghazni in 1017, and
subsequently under that of the Seljuk Turks. In 1097 the governor
Kutb-ud-din assumed the title of king, and one of his descendants,
'Ala-ud-din-Mahommed, conquered Persia, and was the greatest prince in
Central Asia when Jenghiz Khan appeared in 1219. Khiva was conquered
again by Timur in 1379; and finally fell under the rule of the Uzbegs in
1512, who are still the dominant race under the protection of the
Russians.
Russia established relations with Khiva in the 17th century. The
Cossacks of the Yaik during their raids across the Caspian learnt of the
existence of this rich territory and made more than one plundering
expedition to the chief town Urgenj. In 1717 Peter the Great, having
heard of the presence of auriferous sand in the bed of the Oxus,
desiring also to "open mercantile relations with India through Turan"
and to release from slavery some Russian subjects, sent a military force
to Khiva. When within 100 miles of the capital they encountered the
troops of the khan. The battle lasted three days, and ended in victory
for the Russian arms. The Khivans, however, induced the victors to break
up their army into small detachments and treacherously annihilated them
in detail. It was not until the third decade of the 19th century that
the attention of the Muscovite government was again directed to the
khanate. In 1839 a force under General Perovsky moved from Orenburg
across the Ust-Urt plateau to the Khivan frontiers, to occupy the
khanate, liberate the captives and open the way for trade. This
expedition likewise terminated in disaster. In 1847 the Russians founded
a fort at the mouth of the Jaxartes or Syr-darya. This advance deprived
the Khivans not only of territory, but of a large number of tax-paying
Kirghiz, and also gave the Russians a base for further operations. For
the next few years, however, the attention of the Russians was taken up
with Khokand, their operations on that side culminating in the capture
of Tashkent in 1865. Free in this quarter, they directed their thoughts
once more to Khiva. In 1869 Krasnovodsk on the east shore of the
Caspian was founded, and in 1871-1872 the country leading to Khiva from
different parts of Russian Turkestan was thoroughly explored and
surveyed. In 1873 an expedition to Khiva was carefully organized on a
large scale. The army of 10,000 men placed at the disposal of General
Kaufmann started from three different bases of operation--Krasnovodsk,
Orenburg and Tashkent. Khiva was occupied almost without opposition. All
the territory (35,700 sq. m. and 110,000 souls) on the right bank of the
Oxus was annexed to Russia, while a heavy war indemnity was imposed upon
the khanate. The Russians thereby so crippled the finances of the state
that the khan is in complete subjection to his more powerful neighbour.
(J. T. Be.; C. El.)
KHIVA, capital of the khanate of Khiva, in Western Asia, 25 m. W. of the
Amu-darya and 240 m. W.N.W. of Bokhara. Pop. about 10,000. It is
surrounded by a low earthen wall, and has a citadel, the residence of
the khan and the higher officials. There are a score of mosques, of
which the one containing the tomb of Polvan, the patron saint of Khiva,
is the best, and four large _madrasas_ (Mahommedan colleges). Large
gardens exist in the western part of the town. A small Russian quarter
has grown up. The inhabitants make carpets, silks and cottons.
KHNOPFF, FERNAND EDMOND JEAN MARIE (1858- ), Belgian painter and
etcher, was born at the chateau de Grembergen (Termonde), on the 12th of
September 1858, and studied under X. Mellery. He developed a very
original talent, his work being characterized by great delicacy of
colour, tone and harmony, as subtle in spiritual and intellectual as in
its material qualities. "A Crisis" (1881) was followed by "Listening to
Schumann," "St Anthony" and "The Queen of Sheba" (1883), and then came
one of his best known works, "The Small Sphinx" (1884). His "Memories"
(1889) and "White, Black and Gold" (1901) are in the Brussels Museum;
"Portrait of Mlle R." (1889) in the Venice Museum; "A Stream at Fosset"
(1897) at Budapest Museum; "The Empress" (1899) in the collection of the
emperor of Austria, and "A Musician" in that of the king of the
Belgians. "I lock my Door upon Myself" (1891), which was exhibited at
the New Gallery, London, in 1902 and there attracted much attention, was
acquired by the Pinakothek at Munich. Other works are "Silence" (1890),
"The Idea of Justice" (1905) and "Isolde" (1906), together with a
polychrome bust "Sibyl" (1894) and an ivory mask (1897). In quiet
intensity of feeling Khnopff was influenced by Rossetti, and in
simplicity of line by Burne-Jones, but the poetry and the delicately
mystic and enigmatic note of his work are entirely individual. He did
good work also as an etcher and dry-pointist.
See L. Dumont-Wilden, _Fernand Khnopff_ (Brussels, 1907).
KHOI, a district and town in the province of Azerbaijan, Persia, towards
the extreme north-west frontier, between the Urmia Lake and the river
Aras. The district contains many flourishing villages, and consists of
an elevated plateau 60 m. by 10 to 15, highly cultivated by a skilful
system of drainage and irrigation, producing fertile meadows, gardens
and fields yielding rich crops of wheat and barley, cotton, rice and
many kinds of fruit. In the northern part and bounding on Maku lies the
plain of Chaldaran (Kalderan), where in August 1514 the Turks under
Sultan Selim I. fought the Persians under Shah Ismail and gained a great
victory.
The town of KHOI lies in 38 deg. 37' N., 45 deg. 15' E., 77 m. (90 by
road) N.W. of Tabriz, at an elevation of 3300 ft., on the great trade
route between Trebizond and Tabriz, and about 2 m. from the left bank of
the Kotur Chai (river from Kotur) which is crossed there by a
seven-arched bridge and is known lower down as the Kizil Chai, which
flows into the Aras. The walled part of the town is a quadrilateral with
faces of about 1200 yds. in length and fortifications consisting of two
lines of bastions, ditches, &c., much out of repair. The population
numbers about 35,000, a third living inside the walls. The Armenian
quarter, with about 500 families and an old church, is outside the
walls. The city within the walls forms one of the best laid out towns in
Persia, cool streams and lines of willows running along the broad and
regular streets. There are some good buildings, including the governor's
residence, several mosques, a large brick bazaar and a fine
caravanserai. There is a large transit trade, and considerable local
traffic across the Turkish border. The city surrendered to the Russians
in 1827 without fighting and after the treaty of peace (Turkman Chai,
Feb. 1828) was held for some time by a garrison of 3000 Russian troops
as a guarantee for the payment of the war indemnity. In September 1881
Khoi suffered much from a violent earthquake. It has post and telegraph
offices.
KHOJENT, or KHOJEND, a town of the province of Syr-darya, in Russian
Turkestan, on the left bank of the Syr-darya or Jaxartes, 144 m. by rail
S.S.E. from Tashkent, in 40 deg. 17' N. and 69 deg. 30' E., and on the
direct road from Bokhara to Khokand. Pop. (1900), 31,881. The Russian
quarter lies between the river and the native town. Near the river is
the old citadel, on the top of an artificial square mound, about 100 ft.
high. The banks of the river are so high as to make its water useless to
the town in the absence of pumping gear. Formerly the entire commerce
between the khanates of Bokhara and Khokand passed through this town,
but since the Russian occupation (1866) much of it has been diverted.
Silkworms are reared, and silk and cotton goods are manufactured. A
coarse ware is made in imitation of Chinese porcelain. The district
immediately around the town is taken up with cotton plantations, fruit
gardens and vineyards. The majority of the inhabitants are Tajiks.
Khojent has always been a bone of contention between Khokand and
Bokhara. When the amir of Bokhara assisted Khudayar Khan to regain his
throne in 1864, he kept possession of Khojent. In 1866 the town was
stormed by the Russians; and during their war with Khokand in 1875 it
played an important part.
KHOKAND, or KOKAN, a town of Asiatic Russia, in the province of
Ferghana, on the railway from Samarkand to Andijan, 85 m. by rail S.W.
of the latter, and 20 m. S. of the Syr-darya. Pop. (1900), 86,704.
Situated at an altitude of 1375 ft., it has a severe climate, the
average temperatures being--year, 56 deg.; January, 22 deg.; July, 65
deg. Yearly rainfall, 3.6 in. It is the centre of a fertile irrigated
oasis, and consists of a citadel, enclosed by a wall nearly 12 m. in
circuit, and of suburbs containing luxuriant gardens. The town is
modernized, has broad streets and large squares, and a particularly
handsome bazaar. The former palace of the khans, which recalls by its
architecture the mosques of Samarkand, is the best building in the town.
Khokand is one of the most important centres of trade in Turkestan. Raw
cotton and silk are the principal exports, while manufactured goods are
imported from Russia. Coins bearing the inscription "Khokand the
Charming," and known as _khokands_, have or had a wide currency.
The khanate of Khokand was a powerful state which grew up in the 18th
century. Its early history is not well known, but the town was founded
in 1732 by Abd-ur-Rahim under the name of Iski-kurgan, or
Kali-i-Rahimbai. This must relate, however, to the fort only, because
Arab travellers of the 10th century mention Hovakend or Hokand, the
position of which has been identified with that of Khokand. Many other
populous and wealthy towns existed in this region at the time of the
Arab conquest of Ferghana. In 1758-1759 the Chinese conquered Dzungaria
and East Turkestan, and the begs or rulers of Ferghana recognized
Chinese suzerainty. In 1807 or 1808 Alim, son of Narbuta, brought all
the begs of Ferghana under his authority, and conquered Tashkent and
Chimkent. His attacks on the Bokharan fortress of Ura-tyube were however
unsuccessful, and the country rose against him. He was killed in 1817 by
the adherents of his brother Omar. Omar was a poet and patron of
learning, but continued to enlarge his kingdom, taking the sacred town
of Azret (Turkestan), and to protect Ferghana from the raids of the
nomad Kirghiz built fortresses on the Syr-darya, which became a basis
for raids of the Khokand people into Kirghiz land. This was the origin
of a conflict with Russia. Several petty wars were undertaken by the
Russians after 1847 to destroy the Khokand forts, and to secure
possession, first, of the Ili (and so of Dzungaria), and next of the
Syr-darya region, the result being that in 1866, after the occupation of
Ura-tyube and Jizakh, the khanate of Khokand was separated from Bokhara.
During the forty-five years after the death of Omar (he died in 1822)
the khanate of Khokand was the seat of continuous wars between the
settled Sarts and the nomad Kipchaks, the two parties securing the upper
hand in turns, Khokand falling under the dominion or the suzerainty of
Bokhara, which supported Khudayar-khan, the representative of the
Kipchak party, in 1858-1866; while Alim-kul, the representative of the
Sarts, put himself at the head of the _gazawat_ (Holy War) proclaimed in
1860, and fought bravely against the Russians until killed at Tashkent
in 1865. In 1868 Khudayar-khan, having secured independence from
Bokhara, concluded a commercial treaty with the Russians, but was
compelled to flee in 1875, when a new Holy War against Russia was
proclaimed. It ended in the capture of the strong fort of Makhram, the
occupation of Khokand and Marghelan (1875), and the recognition of
Russian superiority by the amir of Bokhara, who conceded to Russia all
the territory north of the Naryn river. War, however, was renewed in the
following year. It ended, in February 1876, by the capture of Andijan
and Khokand and the annexation of the Khokand khanate to Russia. Out of
it was made the Russian province of Ferghana.
AUTHORITIES.--The following publications are all in Russian: Kuhn,
_Sketch of the Khanate of Khokand_ (1876); V. Nalivkin, _Short History
of Khokand_ (French trans., Paris, 1889); Niazi Mohammed, _Tarihi
Shahrohi_, or _History of the Rulers of Ferghana_, edited by Pantusov
(Kazan, 1885); Maksheev, _Historical Sketch of Turkestan and the
Advance of the Russians_ (St Petersburg, 1890); N. Petrovskiy, _Old
Arabian Journals of Travel_ (Tashkent, 1894); _Russian Encyclopaedic
Dictionary_, vol. xv. (1895). (P. A. K.; J. T. Be.)
KHOLM (Polish _Chelm_), a town of Russian Poland, in the government of
Lublin, 45 m. by rail E.S.E. of the town of Lublin. Pop. (1897), 19,236.
It is a very old city and the see of a bishop, and has an archaeological
museum for church antiquities.
KHONDS, or KANDHS, an aboriginal tribe of India, inhabiting the
tributary states of Orissa and the Ganjam district of Madras. At the
census of 1901 they numbered 701,198. Their main divisions are into
Kutia or hill Khonds and plain-dwelling Khonds; the landowners are known
as Raj Khonds. Their religion is animistic, and their pantheon includes
eighty-four gods. They have given their name to the Khondmals, a
subdivision of Angul district in Orissa: area, 800 sq. m.; pop. (1901),
64,214. The Khond language, Kui, spoken in 1901 by more than half a
million persons, is much more closely related to Telugu than is Gondi.
The Khonds are a finer type than the Gonds. They are as tall as the
average Hindu and not much darker, while in features they are very
Aryan. They are undoubtedly a mixed Dravidian race, with much Aryan
blood.
The Khonds became notorious, on the British occupation of their district
about 1835, from the prevalence and cruelty of the human sacrifices they
practised. These "Meriah" sacrifices, as they were called, were intended
to further the fertilization of the earth. It was incumbent on the
Khonds to purchase their victims. Unless bought with a price they were
not deemed acceptable. They seldom sacrificed Khonds, though in hard
times Khonds were obliged to sell their children and they could then be
purchased as Meriahs. Persons of any race, age or sex, were acceptable
if purchased. Numbers were bought and kept and well treated; and Meriah
women were encouraged to become mothers. Ten or twelve days before the
sacrifice the victim's hair was cut off, and the villagers having
bathed, went with the priest to the sacred grove to forewarn the
goddess. The festival lasted three days, and the wildest orgies were
indulged in.
See Major Macpherson, _Religious Doctrines of the Khonds_; his account
of their religion in _Jour. R. Asiatic Soc._ xiii. 220-221 and his
_Report upon the Khonds of Ganjam and Cuttack_ (Calcutta, 1842); also
_District Gazetteer of Angul_ (Calcutta, 1908).
KHORASAN, or KHORASSAN (i.e. "land of the sun"), a geographical term
originally applied to the eastern of the four quarters (named from the
cardinal points) into which the ancient monarchy of the Sassanians was
divided. After the Arab conquest the name was retained both as the
designation of a definite province and in a looser sense. Under the new
Persian empire the expression has gradually become restricted to the
north-eastern portion of Persia which forms one of the five great
provinces of that country. The province is conterminous E. with
Afghanistan, N. with Russian Transcaspian territory, W. with Astarabad
and Shahrud-Bostam, and S. with Kerman and Yezd. It lies mainly within
29 deg. 45'-38 deg. 15' N. and 56 deg.-61 deg. E., extending about 320
m. east and west and 570 m. north and south, with a total area of about
150,000 sq. m. The surface is mountainous. The ranges generally run in
parallel ridges, inclosing extensive valleys, with a normal direction
from N.W. to S.E. The whole of the north is occupied by an extensive
highland system composed of a part of the Elburz and its continuation
extending to the Paropamisus. This system, sometimes spoken of
collectively as the Kuren Dagh, or Kopet Dagh from its chief sections,
forms in the east three ranges, the Hazar Masjed, Binalud Kuh and
Jagatai, enclosing the Meshed-Kuchan valley and the Jovain plain. The
former is watered by the Kashaf-rud (Tortoise River), or river of
Meshed, flowing east to the Hari-rud, their junction forming the Tejen,
which sweeps round the Daman-i-Kuh, or northern skirt of the outer
range, towards the Caspian but loses itself in the desert long before
reaching it. The Jovain plain is watered by the Kali-i-mura, an
unimportant river which flows south to the Great Kavir or central
depression. In the west the northern highlands develop two branches: (1)
the Kuren Dagh, stretching through the Great and Little Balkans to the
Caspian at Krasnovodsk Bay, (2) the Ala Dagh, forming a continuation of
the Binalud Kuh and joining the mountains between Bujnurd and Astarabad,
which form part of the Elburz system. The Kuren Dagh and Ala Dagh
enclose the valley of the Atrek River, which flows west and south-west
into the Caspian at Hassan Kuli Bay. The western offshoots of the Ala
Dagh in the north and the mountains of Astarabad in the south enclose
the valley of the Gurgan River, which also flows westwards and parallel
to the Atrek to the south-eastern corner of the Caspian. The outer range
has probably a mean altitude of 8000 ft., the highest known summits
being the Hazar Masjed (10,500) and the Kara Dagh (9800). The central
range seems to be higher, culminating with the Shah-Jehan Kuh (11,000)
and the Ala Dagh (11,500). The southern ridges, although generally much
lower, have the highest point of the whole system in the Shah Kuh
(13,000) between Shahrud and Astarabad. South of this northern highland
several parallel ridges run diagonally across the province in a
N.W.-S.E. direction as far as Seistan.
Beyond the Atrek and other rivers watering the northern valleys a few
brackish and intermittent rivers lose themselves in the Great Kavir,
which occupies the central and western parts of the province. The true
character of the kavir, which forms the distinctive feature of east
Persia, has scarcely been determined, some regarding it as the bed of a
dried-up sea, others as developed by the saline streams draining to it
from the surrounding highlands. Collecting in the central depressions,
which have a mean elevation of scarcely more than 500 ft. above the
Caspian, the water of these streams is supposed to form saline deposits
with a thin hard crust, beneath which the moisture is retained for a
considerable time, thus producing those dangerous and slimy quagmires
which in winter are covered with brine, in summer with a treacherous
incrustation of salt. Dr Sven Hedin explored the central depressions in
1906.
The surface of Khorasan thus consists mainly of highlands, saline,
swampy deserts and upland valleys, some fertile and well-watered. Of the
last, occurring mainly in the north, the chief are the longitudinal
valley stretching from near the Herat frontier through Meshed, Kuchan
and Shirvan to Bujnurd, the Derrehgez district, which lies on the
northern skirt of the outer range projecting into the Akhal Tekkeh
domain, now Russian territory, and the districts of Nishapur and
Sabzevar which lie south of the Binalud and Jagatai ranges. These
fertile tracts produce rice and other cereals, cotton, tobacco, opium
and fruits in profusion. Other products are manna, suffron, asafoetida
and other gums. The chief manufactures are swords, stoneware, carpets
and rugs, woollens, cottons, silks and sheepskin pelisses (_pustin_,
Afghan _poshtin_).
The administrative divisions of the province are: 1, Nishapur; 2,
Sabzevar; 3, Jovain; 4, Asfarain; 5, Bujnurd; 6, Kuchan; 7, Derrehgez;
8, Kelat; 9, Chinaran; 10, Meshed; 11, Jam; 12, Bakharz; 13, Radkan;
14, Serrakhs; 15, Sar-i-jam; 16, Bam and Safiabad; 17, Turbet i
Haidari; 18, Turshiz; 19, Khaf; 20, Tun and Tabbas; 21, Kain; 22,
Seistan.
The population consists of Iranians (Tajiks, Kurds, Baluchis),
Mongols, Tatars and Arabs, and is estimated at about a million. The
Persians proper have always represented the settled, industrial and
trading elements, and to them the Kurds and the Arabs have become
largely assimilated. Even many of the original Tatar, Mongol and other
nomad tribes (_ilat_), instead of leading their former roving and
unsettled life of the _sahara-nishin_ (dwellers in the desert), are
settled and peaceful _shahr-nishin_ (dwellers in towns). In religion
all except some Tatars and Mongols and the Baluchis have conformed to
the national Shiah faith. The revenues (cash and kind) of the province
amount to about L180,000 a year, but very little of this amount
reaches the Teheran treasury. The value of the exports and imports
from and into the whole province is a little under a million sterling
a year. The province produces about 10,000 tons of wool and a third of
this quantity, or rather more, valued at L70,000 to L80,000, is
exported via Russia to the markets of western Europe, notably to
Marseilles, Russia keeping only a small part. Other important articles
of export, all to Russia, are cotton, carpets, shawls and turquoises,
the last from the mines near Nishapur. (A. H.-S.)
KHORREMABAD, a town of Persia, capital of the province of Luristan, in
33 deg. 32' N., 48 deg. 15' E., and at an elevation of 4250 ft. Pop.
about 6000. It is situated 138 m. W.N.W. of Isfahan and 117 m. S.E. of
Kermanshah, on the right bank of the broad but shallow Khorremabad
river, also called Ab-i-istaneh, and, lower down, Kashgan Rud. On an
isolated rock between the town and the river stands a ruined castle, the
Diz-i-siyah (black castle), the residence of the governor of the
district (then called Samha) in the middle ages, and, with some modern
additions, one of them consisting of rooms on the summit, called Felek
ul aflak (heaven of heavens), the residence of the governors of Luristan
in the beginning of the 19th century. At the foot of the castle stands
the modern residence of the governor, built c. 1830, with several
spacious courts and gardens. On the left bank of the river opposite the
town are the ruins of the old city of Samha. There are a minaret 60 ft.
high, parts of a mosque, an aqueduct, a number of walls of other
buildings and a four-sided monolith, measuring 9(1/2) ft. in height, by
3 ft. long and 2(1/3) broad, with an inscription partly illegible,
commemorating Mahmud, a grandson of the Seljuk king Malik Shah, and
dated A.H. 517, or 519 (A.D. 1148-1150). There also remain ten arches of
a bridge which led over the river from Samha on to the road to
Shapurkhast, a city situated some distance west.
KHORSABAD, a Turkish village in the vilayet of Mosul, 12(1/2) m. N.E. of
that town, and almost 20 m. N. of ancient Nineveh, on the left bank of
the little river Kosar. Here, in 1843, P. E. Botta, then French consul
at Mosul, discovered the remains of an Assyrian palace and town, at
which excavations were conducted by him and Flandin in 1843-1844, and
again by Victor Place in 1851-1855. The ruins proved to be those of the
town of Dur-Sharrukin, "Sargon's Castle," built by Sargon, king of
Assyria, as a royal residence. The town, in the shape of a rectangular
parallelogram, with the corners pointing approximately toward the
cardinal points of the compass, covered 741 acres of ground. On the
north-west side, half within and half without the circuit of the walls,
protruding into the plain like a great bastion, stood the royal palace,
on a terrace, 45 ft. in height, covering about 25 acres. The palace
proper was divided into three sections, built around three sides of a
large court on the south-east or city side, into which opened the great
outer gates, guarded by winged stone bulls, each section containing
suites of rooms built around several smaller inner courts. In the centre
was the _serai_, occupied by the king and his retinue, with an extension
towards the north, opening on a large inner court, containing the public
reception rooms, elaborately decorated with sculptures and historical
inscriptions, representing scenes of hunting, worship, feasts, battles,
and the like. The harem, with separate provisions for four wives,
occupied the south corner, the domestic quarters, including stables,
kitchen, bakery, wine cellar, &c., being at the east corner, to the
north-east of the great entrance court. In the west corner stood a
temple, with a stage-tower (_ziggurat_) adjoining. The walls of the
rooms, which stood only to the height of one storey, were from 9 to 25
ft. in thickness, of clay, faced with brick, in the reception rooms
wainscoted with stone slabs or tiles, elsewhere plastered, or, in the
harem, adorned with fresco paintings and arabesques. Here and there the
floors were formed of tiles or alabaster blocks, but in general they
were of stamped clay, on which were spread at the time of occupancy mats
and rugs. The exterior of the palace wall exhibited a system of groups
of half columns and stepped recesses, an ornament familiar in Babylonian
architecture. The palace and city were completed in 707 B.C., and in 706
Sargon took up his residence there. He died the following year, and
palace and city seem to have been abandoned shortly thereafter. Up to
1909 this was the only Assyrian palace which had ever been explored
systematically, in its entirety, and fortunately it was found on the
whole in an admirable state of preservation. An immense number of
statues and bas-reliefs, excavated by Botta, were transported to Paris,
and formed the first Assyrian museum opened to the world. The objects
excavated by Place, together with the objects found by Fresnel's
expedition in Babylonia and a part of the results of Rawlinson's
excavations at Nineveh, were unfortunately lost in the Tigris, on
transport from Bagdad to Basra. Flandin had, however, made careful
drawings and copies of all objects of importance from Khorsabad. The
whole material was published by the French government in two monumental
publications.
See P. E. Botta and E. Flandin, _Monument de Ninive_ (Paris,
1849-1850; 5 vols. 400 plates); Victor Place, _Ninive et l'Assyrie,
avec des essais de restauration par F. Thomas_ (Paris, 1866-1869; 3
vols.). (J. P. Pe.)
KHOTAN (locally ILCHI), a town and oasis of East Turkestan, on the
Khotan-darya, between the N. foot of the Kuen-lun and the edge of the
Takla-makan desert, nearly 200 m. by caravan road S.E. from Yarkand.
Pop., about 5000. The town consists of a labyrinth of narrow, winding,
dirty streets, with poor, square, flat-roofed houses, half a dozen
_madrasas_ (Mahommedan colleges), a score of mosques, and some _masars_
(tombs of Mahommedan saints). Dotted about the town are open squares,
with tanks or ponds overhung by trees. For centuries Khotan was famous
for jade or nephrite, a semi-precious stone greatly esteemed by the
Chinese for making small fancy boxes, bottles and cups, mouthpieces for
pipes, bracelets, &c. The stone is still exported to China. Other local
products are carpets (silk and felt), silk goods, hides, grapes, rice
and other cereals, fruits, tobacco, opium and cotton. There is an active
trade in these goods and in wool with India, West Turkestan and China.
The oasis contains two small towns, Kara-kash and Yurun-kash, and over
300 villages, its total population being about 150,000.
Khotan, known in Sanskrit as Kustana and in Chinese as Yu-than, Yu-tien,
Kiu-sa-tan-na, and Khio-tan, is mentioned in Chinese chronicles in the
2nd century B.C. In A.D. 73 it was conquered by the Chinese, and ever
since has been generally dependent upon the Chinese empire. During the
early centuries of the Christian era, and long before that, it was an
important and flourishing place, the capital of a kingdom to which the
Chinese sent embassies, and famous for its glass-wares, copper tankards
and textiles. About the year A.D. 400 it was a city of some
magnificence, and the seat of a flourishing cult of Buddha, with temples
rich in paintings and ornaments of the precious metals; but from the 5th
century it seems to have declined. In the 8th century it was conquered,
after a struggle of 25 years, by the Arab chieftain Kotaiba ibn Moslim,
from West Turkestan, who imposed Islam upon the people. In 1220 Khotan
was destroyed by the Mongols under Jenghiz Khan. Marco Polo, who passed
through the town in 1274, says that "Everything is to be had there [at
Cotan, i.e. Khotan] in plenty, including abundance of cotton, with
flax, hemp, wheat, wine, and the like. The people have vineyards and
gardens and estates. They live by commerce and manufactures, and are no
soldiers."[1] The place suffered severely during the Dungan revolt
against China in 1864-1875, and again a few years later when Yakub Beg
of Kashgar made himself master of East Turkestan.
The KHOTAN-DARYA rises in the Kuen-lun Mountains in two headstreams, the
Kara-kash and the Yurun-kash, which unite towards the middle of the
desert, some 90 m. N. of the town of Khotan. The conjoint stream then
flows 180 m. northwards across the desert of Takla-makan, though it
carries water only in the early summer, and empties itself into the
Tarim a few miles below the confluence of the Ak-su with the
Yarkand-darya (Tarim). In crossing the desert it falls 1250 ft. in a
distance of 270 m. Its total length is about 300 m. and the area it
drains probably nearly 40,000 sq. m.
See J. P. A. Remusat, _Histoire de la ville de Khotan_ (Paris, 1820);
and Sven Hedin, _Through Asia_ (Eng. trans., London, 1898), chs. lx.
and lxii., and _Scientific Results of a Journey in Central Asia_,
1899-1902, vol. ii. (Stockholm, 1906). (J. T. Be.)
FOOTNOTE:
[1] Sir H. Yule, _The Book of Ser Marco Polo_, bk. i. ch. xxxvi. (3rd
ed., London, 1903).
KHOTIN, or KHOTEEN (variously written Khochim, Choczim, and Chocim), a
fortified town of South Russia, in the government of Bessarabia, in 48
deg. 30' N. and 26 deg. 30' E., on the right bank of the Dniester, near
the Austrian (Galician) frontier, and opposite Podolian Kamenets. Pop.
(1897), 18,126. It possesses a few manufactures (leather, candles, beer,
shoes, bricks), and carries on a considerable trade, but has always been
of importance mainly as a military post, defending one of the most
frequented passages of the Dniester. In the middle ages it was the seat
of a Genoese colony; and it has been in Polish, Turkish and Austrian
possession. The chief events in its annals are the defeat of the Turks
in 1621 by Ladislaus IV., of Poland, in 1673 by John Sobieski, of
Poland, and in 1739 by the Russians under Munnich; the defeat of the
Russians by the Turks in 1768; the capture by the Russians in 1769, and
by the Austrians in 1788; and the occupation by the Russians in 1806. It
finally passed to Russia with Bessarabia in 1812 by the peace of
Bucharest.
KHULNA, a town and district of British India, in the Presidency division
of Bengal. The town stands on the river Bhairab, and is the terminus of
the Bengal Central railway, 109 m. E. of Calcutta. Pop. (1901), 10,426.
It is the most important centre of river-borne trade in the delta.
The DISTRICT OF KHULNA lies in the middle of the delta of the Ganges,
including a portion of the Sundarbans or seaward fringe of swamps. It
was formed out of Jessore in 1882. Area (excluding the Sundarbans), 2077
sq. m. Besides the Sundarbans, the north-east part of the district is
swampy; the north-west is more elevated and drier, while the central
part, though low-lying, is cultivated. The whole is alluvial. In 1901
the population was 1,253,043, showing an increase of 6% in the decade.
Rice is the principal crop; mustard, jute and tobacco are also grown,
and the fisheries are important. Sugar is manufactured from the date
palm. The district is entered by the Bengal Central railway, but by far
the greater part of the traffic is carried by water.
See _District Gazetteer_ (Calcutta, 1908).
KHUNSAR, a town of Persia, sometimes belonging to the province of
Isfahan, at others to Irak, 96 m. N.W. of Isfahan, in 33 deg. 9' N., 50
deg. 23' E., at an elevation of 7600 ft. Pop., about 10,000. It is
picturesquely situated on both sides of a narrow valley through which
the Khunsar River, a stream about 12 ft. wide, flows in a north-east
direction to Kuom. The town and its fine gardens and orchards straggle
some 6 m. along the valley with a mean breadth of scarcely half a mile.
There is a great profusion of fruit, the apples yielding a kind of cider
which, however, does not keep longer than a month. The climate is cool
in summer and cold in winter. There are five caravanserais, three
mosques and a post office.
KHURJA, a town of British India, in the Bulandshahr district of the
United Provinces, 27 m. N.W. of Aligarh, near the main line of the East
Indian railway. Pop. (1901), 29,277. It is an important centre of trade
in grain, indigo, sugar and _ghi_, and has cotton gins and presses and a
manufacture of pottery. Jain traders form a large and wealthy class; and
the principal building in the town is a modern Jain temple, a fine domed
structure richly carved and ornamented in gold and colours.
KHYBER PASS, the most important of the passes which lead from
Afghanistan into India. It is a narrow defile winding between cliffs of
shale and limestone 600 to 1000 ft. high, stretching up to more lofty
mountains behind. No other pass in the world has possessed such
strategic importance or retains so many historic associations as this
gateway to the plains of India. It has probably seen Persian and Greek,
Seljuk, Tatar, Mongol and Durani conquerors, with the hosts of Alexander
the Great, Mahmud of Ghazni, Jenghiz Khan, Timur, Baber, Nadir Shah,
Ahmed Shah, and numerous other warrior chiefs pass and repass through
its rocky defiles during a period of 2000 years. The mountain barrier
which separates the Peshawar plains from the Afghan highlands differs in
many respects from the mountain barrier which intervenes between the
Indus plains and the plateau farther south. To the south this barrier
consists of a series of flexures folded parallel to the river, through
which the plateau drainage breaks down in transverse lines forming
gorges and clefts as it cuts through successive ridges. West of Peshawar
the strike of the mountain systems is roughly from west to east, and
this formation is maintained with more or less regularity as far south
as the Tochi River and Waziristan. Almost immediately west of Peshawar,
and stretching along the same parallel of latitude from the meridian of
Kabul to within ten miles of the Peshawar cantonment, is the great
central range of the Safed Koh, which forms throughout its long,
straight line of rugged peaks the southern wall, or water-divide, of the
Kabul River basin. About the meridian of 71 E. it forks, sending off to
the north-east what is locally known as a spur to the Kabul River, but
which is geographically only part of that stupendous water-divide which
hedges in the Kunar and Chitral valleys, and, under the name of the
Shandur Range, unites with the Hindu Kush near the head of the
Taghdumbash Pamir. The Kabul River breaks through this northern spur of
the Safed Koh; and in breaking through it is forced to the northward in
a curved channel or trough, deeply sunk in the mountains between
terrific cliffs and precipices, where its narrow waterway affords no
foothold to man or beast for many miles. To reach the Kabul River within
Afghan territory it is necessary to pass over this water-divide; and the
Khyber stream, flowing down from the pass at Landi Kotal to a point in
the plains opposite Jamrud, 9 m. W. of Peshawar, affords the
opportunity.
Pursuing the main road from Peshawar to Kabul, the fort of Jamrud, which
commands the British end of the Khyber Pass, lies some 11 m. W. of
Peshawar. The road leads through a barren stony plain, cut up by
water-courses and infested by all the worst cut-throats in the Peshawar
district. Some three miles beyond Jamrud the road enters the mountains
at an opening called Shadi Bagiar, and here the Khyber proper begins.
The highway runs for a short distance through the bed of a ravine, and
then joins the road made by Colonel Mackeson in 1839-1842, until it
ascends on the left-hand side to a plateau called Shagai. From here can
be seen the fort of Ali Masjid, which commands the centre of the pass,
and which has been the scene of more than one famous siege. Still going
westward the road turns to the right, and by an easy zigzag descends to
the river of Ali Masjid, and runs along its bank. The new road along
this cliff was made by the British during the Second Afghan War
(1879-80), and here is the narrowest part of the Khyber, not more than
15 ft. broad, with the Rhotas hill on the right fully 2000 ft. overhead.
Some three miles farther on the valley widens, and on either side lie
the hamlets and some sixty towers of the Zakka Khel Afridis. Then comes
the Loargi Shinwari plateau, some seven miles in length and three in its
widest part, ending at Landi Kotal, where is another British fort, which
closes this end of the Khyber and overlooks the plains of Afghanistan.
After leaving Landi Kotal the great Kabul highway passes between low
hills, until it debouches on the Kabul River and leads to Dakka. The
whole of the Khyber Pass from end to end lies within the country of the
Afridis, and is now recognized as under British control. From Shadi
Bagiar on the east to Landi Kotal on the west is about 20 m. in a
straight line.
The Khyber has been adopted by the British as the main road to Kabul,
but its difficulties (before they were overcome by British engineers)
were such that it was never so regarded by former rulers of India. The
old road to India left the Kabul River near its junction with the Kunar,
and crossed the great divide between the Kunar valley and Bajour; then
it turned southwards to the plains. During the first Afghan War the
Khyber was the scene of many skirmishes with the Afridis and some
disasters to the British troops. In July 1839 Colonel Wade captured the
fortress of Ali Masjid. In 1842, when Jalalabad was blockaded, Colonel
Moseley was sent to occupy the same fort, but was compelled to evacuate
it after a few days owing to scarcity of provisions. In April of the
same year it was reoccupied by General Pollock in his advance to Kabul.
It was at Ali Masjid that Sir Neville Chamberlain's friendly mission to
the amir Shere Ali was stopped in 1878, thus causing the second Afghan
War; and on the outbreak of that war Ali Masjid was captured by Sir
Samuel Browne. The treaty which closed the war in May 1879 left the
Khyber tribes under British control. From that time the pass was
protected by jezailchis drawn from the Afridi tribe, who were paid a
subsidy by the British government. For 18 years, from 1879 onward,
Colonel R. Warburton controlled the Khyber, and for the greater part of
that time secured its safety; but his term of office came to an end
synchronously with the wave of fanaticism which swept along the
north-west border of India during 1897. The Afridis were persuaded by
their mullahs to attack the pass, which they themselves had guaranteed.
The British government were warned of the intended movement, but only
withdrew the British officers belonging to the Khyber Rifles, and left
the pass to its fate. The Khyber Rifles, deserted by their officers,
made a half-hearted resistance to their fellow-tribesmen, and the pass
fell into the hands of the Afridis, and remained in their possession for
some months. This was the chief cause of the Tirah Expedition of 1897.
The Khyber Rifles were afterwards strengthened, and divided into two
battalions commanded by four British officers.
See _Eighteen Years in the Khyber_, by Sir Robert Warburton (1900);
_Indian Borderland_, by Sir T. Holdich (1901). (T. H. H.*)
KIAKHTA, a town of Siberia, one of the chief centres of trade between
Russia and China, on the Kiakhta, an affluent of the Selenga, and on an
elevated plain surrounded by mountains, in the Russian government of
Transbaikalia, 320 m. S.W. of Chita, the capital, and close to the
Chinese frontier, in 50 deg. 20' N., 106 deg. 40' E. Besides the lower
town or Kiakhta proper, the municipal jurisdiction comprises the
fortified upper town of Troitskosavsk, about 2 m. N., and the settlement
of Ust-Kiakhta, 10 m. farther distant. The lower town stands directly
opposite to the Chinese emporium of Maimachin, is surrounded by walls,
and consists principally of one broad street and a large exchange
courtyard. From 1689 to 1727 the trade of Kiakhta was a government
monopoly, but in the latter year it was thrown open to private
merchants, and continued to improve until 1860, when the right of
commercial intercourse was extended along the whole Russian-Chinese
frontier. The annual December fairs for which Kiakhta was formerly
famous, and also the regular traffic passing through the town, have
considerably fallen off since that date. The Russians exchange here
leather, sheepskins, furs, horns, woollen cloths, coarse linens and
cattle for teas (in value 95% of the entire imports), porcelain,
rhubarb, manufactured silks, nankeens and other Chinese produce. The
population, including Ust-Kiakhta (5000) and Troitskosavsk (9213 in
1897), is nearly 20,000.
KIANG-SI, an eastern province of China, bounded N. by Hu-peh and
Ngan-hui, S. by Kwang-tung, E. by Fu-kien, and W. by Hu-nan. It has an
area of 72,176 sq. m., and a population returned at 22,000,000. It is
divided into fourteen prefectures. The provincial capital is Nan-ch'ang
Fu, on the Kan Kiang, about 35 m. from the Po-yang Lake. The whole
province is traversed in a south-westerly and north-easterly direction
by the Nan-shan ranges. The largest river is the Kan Kiang, which rises
in the mountains in the south of the province and flows north-east to
the Po-yang Lake. It was over the Meiling Pass and down this river that,
in old days, embassies landing at Canton proceeded to Peking. During the
summer time it has water of sufficient depth for steamers of light draft
as far as Nan-ch'ang, and it is navigable by native craft for a
considerable distance beyond that city. Another river of note is the
Chang Kiang, which has its source in the province of Ngan-hui and flows
into the Po-yang Lake, connecting in its course the Wu-yuen district,
whence come the celebrated "Moyune" green teas, and the city of
King-te-chen, celebrated for its pottery, with Jao-chow Fu on the lake.
The black "Kaisow" teas are brought from the Ho-kow district, where they
are grown, down the river Kin to Juy-hung on the lake, and the Siu-ho
connects by a navigable stream I-ning Chow, in the neighbourhood of
which city the best black teas of this part of China are produced, with
Wu-ching, the principal mart of trade on the lake. The principal
products of the province are tea, China ware, grass-cloth, hemp, paper,
tobacco and tallow. Kiu-kiang, the treaty port of the province, opened
to foreign trade in 1861, is on the Yangtsze-kiang, a short distance
above the junction of the Po-yang Lake with that river.
KIANG-SU, a maritime province of China, bounded N. by Shantung, S. by
Cheh-kiang, W. by Ngan-hui, and E. by the sea. It has an area of 45,000
sq. m., and a population estimated at 21,000,000. Kiang-su forms part of
the great plain of northern China. There are no mountains within its
limits, and few hills. It is watered as no other province in China is
watered. The Grand Canal runs through it from south to north; the
Yangtsze-kiang crosses its southern portion from west to east; it
possesses several lakes, of which the T'ai-hu is the most noteworthy,
and numberless streams connect the canal with the sea. Its coast is
studded with low islands and sandbanks, the results of the deposits
brought down by the Hwang-ho. Kiang-su is rich in places of interest.
Nanking, "the Southern Capital," was the seat of the Chinese court until
the beginning of the 15th century, and it was the headquarters of the
T'ai-p'ing rebels from 1853, when they took the city by assault, to
1864, when its garrison yielded to Colonel Gordon's army. Hang-chow Fu
and Su-chow Fu, situated on the T'ai-hu, are reckoned the most beautiful
cities in China. "Above there is Paradise, below are Su and Hang," says
a Chinese proverb. Shang-hai is the chief port in the province. In 1909
it was connected by railway (270 m. long) via Su-Chow and Chin-kiang
with Nanking. Tea and silk are the principal articles of commerce
produced in Kiang-su, and next in importance are cotton, sugar and
medicines. The silk manufactured in the looms of Su-chow is famous all
over the empire. In the mountains near Nanking, coal, plumbago, iron ore
and marble are found. Shang-hai, Chin-kiang, Nanking and Su-chow are the
treaty ports of the province.
KIAOCHOW BAY, a large inlet on the south side of the promontory of
Shantung, in China. It was seized in November 1897 by the German fleet,
nominally to secure reparation for the murder of two German missionaries
in the province of Shantung. In the negotiations which followed, it was
arranged that the bay and the land on both sides of the entrance within
certain defined lines should be leased to Germany for 99 years. During
the continuance of the lease Germany exercises all the rights of
territorial sovereignty, including the right to erect fortifications.
The area leased is about 117 sq. m., and over a further area, comprising
a zone of some 32 m., measured from any point on the shore of the bay,
the Chinese government may not issue any ordinances without the consent
of Germany. The native population in the ceded area is about 60,000. The
German government in 1899 declared Kiaochow a free port. By arrangement
with the Chinese government a branch of the Imperial maritime customs
has been established there for the collection of duties upon goods
coming from or going to the interior, in accordance with the general
treaty tariff. Trade centres at Ts'ingtao, a town within the bay. The
country in the neighbourhood is mountainous and bare, but the lowlands
are well cultivated. Ts'ingtao is connected by railway with Chinan Fu,
the capital of the province; a continuation of the same line provides
for a junction with the main Lu-Han (Peking-Hankow) railway. The value
of the trade of the port during 1904 was L2,712,145 (L1,808,113 imports
and L904,032 exports).
KICKAPOO ("he moves about"), the name of a tribe of North American
Indians of Algonquian stock. When first met by the French they were in
central Wisconsin. They subsequently removed to the Ohio valley. They
fought on the English side in the War of Independence and that of 1812.
In 1852 a large band went to Texas and Mexico and gave much trouble to
the settlers; but in 1873 the bulk of the tribe was settled on its
present reservation in Oklahoma. They number some 800, of whom about a
third are still in Mexico.
KIDD, JOHN (1775-1851), English physician, chemist and geologist, born
at Westminster on the 10th of September 1775, was the son of a naval
officer, Captain John Kidd. He was educated at Bury St Edmunds and
Westminster, and afterwards at Christ Church, Oxford, where he graduated
B.A. in 1797 (M.D. in 1804). He also studied at Guy's Hospital, London
(1797-1801), where he was a pupil of Sir Astley Cooper. He became reader
in chemistry at Oxford in 1801, and in 1803 was elected the first
Aldrichian professor of chemistry. He then voluntarily gave courses of
lectures on mineralogy and geology: these were delivered in the dark
chambers under the Ashmolean Museum, and there J. J. and W. D.
Conybeare, W. Buckland, C. G. B. Daubeny and others gained their first
lessons in geology. Kidd was a popular and instructive lecturer, and
through his efforts the geological chair, first held by Buckland, was
established. In 1818 he became a F.R.C.P.; in 1822 regius professor of
medicine in succession to Sir Christopher Pegge; and in 1834 he was
appointed keeper of the Radcliffe Library. He delivered the Harveian
oration before the Royal College of Physicians in 1834. He died at
Oxford on the 7th of September 1851.
PUBLICATIONS.--_Outlines of Mineralogy_ (2 vols., 1809); _A Geological
Essay on the Imperfect Evidence in Support of a Theory of the Earth_
(1815); _On the Adaptation of External Nature to the Physical
Condition of Man_, 1833 (Bridgewater Treatise).
KIDD, THOMAS (1770-1850), English classical scholar and schoolmaster,
was born in Yorkshire. He was educated at Giggleswick School and Trinity
College, Cambridge. He held numerous scholastic and clerical
appointments, the last being the rectory of Croxton, near Cambridge,
where he died on the 27th of August 1850. Kidd was an intimate friend of
Porson and Charles Burney the younger. He contributed largely to
periodicals, chiefly on classical subjects, but his reputation mainly
rests upon his editions of the works of other scholars: _Opuscula
Ruhnkeniana_ (1807), the minor works of the great Dutch scholar David
Ruhnken; _Miscellanea Critica_ of Richard Dawes (2nd ed., 1827); _Tracts
and Miscellaneous Criticisms_ of Richard Porson (1815). He also
published an edition of the works of Horace (1817) based upon Bentley's
recension.
KIDD, WILLIAM [CAPTAIN KIDD] (c. 1645-1701), privateer and pirate, was
born, perhaps, in Greenock, Scotland, but his origin is quite obscure.
He told Paul Lorraine, the ordinary of Newgate, that he was "about 56"
at the time of his condemnation for piracy in 1701. In 1691 an award
from the council of New York of L150 was given him for his services
during the disturbances in the colony after the revolution of 1688. He
was commissioned later to chase a hostile privateer off the coast, is
described as an owner of ships, and is known to have served with credit
against the French in the West Indies. In 1695 he came to London with a
sloop of his own to trade. Colonel R. Livingston (1654-1724), a
well-known New York landowner, recommended him to the newly appointed
colonial governor Lord Bellomont, as a fit man to command a vessel to
cruise against the pirates in the Eastern seas (see PIRATE).
Accordingly the "Adventure Galley," a vessel of 30 guns and 275 tons,
was privately fitted out, and the command given to Captain Kidd, who
received the king's commission to arrest and bring to trial all pirates,
and a commission of reprisals against the French. Kidd sailed from
Plymouth in May 1696 for New York, where he filled up his crew, and in
1697 reached Madagascar, the pirates' principal rendezvous. He made no
effort whatever to hunt them down. On the contrary he associated himself
with a notorious pirate named Culliford. The fact would seem to be that
Kidd meant only to capture French ships. When he found none he captured
native trading vessels, under pretence that they were provided with
French passes and were fair prize, and he plundered on the coast of
Malabar. During 1698-1699 complaints reached the British government as
to the character of his proceedings. Lord Bellomont was instructed to
apprehend him if he should return to America. Kidd deserted the
"Adventure" in Madagascar, and sailed for America in one of his prizes,
the "Quedah Merchant," which he also left in the West Indies. He reached
New England in a small sloop with several of his crew and wrote to
Bellomont, professing his ability to justify himself and sending the
governor booty. He was arrested in July 1699, was sent to England and
tried, first for the murder of one of his crew, and then with others for
piracy. He was found guilty on both charges, and hanged at Execution
Dock, London, on the 23rd of May 1701. The evidence against him was that
of two members of his crew, the surgeon and a sailor who turned king's
evidence, but no other witnesses could be got in such circumstances, as
the judge told him when he protested. "Captain Kidd's Treasure" has been
sought by various expeditions and about L14,000 was recovered from
Kidd's ship and from Gardiner's Island (off the E. end of Long Island);
but its magnitude was palpably exaggerated. He left a wife and child at
New York. The so-called ballad about him is a poor imitation of the
authentic chant of Admiral Benbow.
Much has been written about Kidd, less because of the intrinsic
interest of his career than because the agreement made with him by
Bellomont was the subject of violent political controversy. The best
popular account is in _An Historical Sketch of Robin Hood and Captain
Kidd_ by W. W. Campbell (New York, 1853), in which the essential
documents are quoted. But see PIRATE.
KIDDERMINSTER, a market town and municipal and parliamentary borough of
Worcestershire, England, 135(1/2) m. N.W. by W. from London and 15 m. N.
of Worcester by the Great Western railway, on the river Stour and the
Staffordshire and Worcestershire canal. Pop. (1901), 24,692. The parish
church of All Saints, well placed above the river, is a fine Early
English and Decorated building, with Perpendicular additions. Of other
buildings the principal are the town hall (1876), the corporation
buildings, and the school of science and art and free library. There is
a free grammar school founded in 1637. A public recreation ground,
Brinton Park, was opened in 1887. Richard Baxter, who was elected by the
townsfolk as their minister in 1641, was instrumental in saving the town
from a reputation of ignorance and depravity caused by the laxity of
their clergy. He is commemorated by a statue, as is Sir Rowland Hill,
the introducer of penny postage, who was born here in 1795.
Kidderminster is chiefly celebrated for its carpets. The permanency of
colour by which they are distinguished is attributed to the properties
of the water of the Stour, which is impregnated with iron and fuller's
earth. Worsted spinning and dyeing are also carried on, and there are
iron foundries, tinplate works, breweries, malthouses, &c. The
parliamentary borough returns one member. The town is governed by a
mayor, 6 aldermen and 18 councillors. Area, 1214 acres.
In 736 lands upon the river Stour, called Stour in Usmere, which have
been identified with the site of Kidderminster (_Chideminstre_), were
given to Earl Cyneberght by King Aethelbald to found a monastery. If this
monastery was ever built, it was afterwards annexed to the church of
Worcester, and the lands on the Stour formed part of the gift of
Coenwulf, king of the Mercians, to Deneberht, bishop of Worcester, but
were exchanged with the same king in 816 for other property. At the
Domesday Survey, Kidderminster was still in the hands of the king and
remained a royal manor until Henry II. granted it to Manser Biset. The
poet Edmund Waller was one of the 17th century lords of the manor. The
town was possibly a borough in 1187 when the men paid L4 to an aid. As a
royal possession it appears to have enjoyed various privileges in the
12th century, among them the right of choosing a bailiff to collect the
toll and render it to the king, and to elect six burgesses and send them
to the view of frankpledge twice a year. The first charter of
incorporation, granted in 1636, appointed a bailiff and 12 capital
burgesses forming a common council. The town was governed under this
charter until the Municipal Reform Act of 1835. Kidderminster sent two
members to the parliament of 1295, but was not again represented until
the privilege of sending one member was conferred by the Reform Act of
1832. The first mention of the cloth trade for which Kidderminster was
formerly noted occurs in 1334, when it was enacted that no one should
make woollen cloth in the borough without the bailiff's seal. At the end
of the 18th century the trade was still important, but it began to
decline after the invention of machinery, probably owing to the poverty
of the manufacturers. The manufacture of woollen goods was however
replaced by that of carpets, introduced in 1735. At first only the
"Kidderminster" carpets were made, but in 1749 a Brussels loom was set
up in the town and Brussels carpets were soon produced in large
quantities.
See _Victoria County History: Worcestershire_; J. R. Burton, _A
History of Kidderminster, with Short Accounts of some Neighbouring
Parishes_ (1890).
KIDNAPPING (from _kid_, a slang term for a child, and _nap_ or _nab_, to
steal), originally the stealing and carrying away of children and others
to serve as servants or labourers in the American plantations; it was
defined by Blackstone as the forcible abduction or stealing away of a
man, woman or child from their own country and sending them into
another. The difference between kidnapping, abduction (q.v.) and false
imprisonment is not very great; indeed, kidnapping may be said to be a
form of assault and false imprisonment, aggravated by the carrying of
the person to some other place. The term is, however, more commonly
applied in England to the offence of taking away children from the
possession of their parents. By the Offences against the Person Act
1861, "whosoever shall unlawfully, by force or fraud, lead or take away
or decoy or entice away or detain any child under the age of fourteen
years with intent to deprive any parent, guardian or other person having
the lawful care or charge of such child of the possession of such child,
or with intent to steal any article upon or about the person of such
child, to whomsoever such article may belong, and whosoever shall with
any such intent receive or harbour any such child, &c.," shall be guilty
of felony, and is liable to penal servitude for not more than seven
years, or to imprisonment for any term not more than two years with or
without hard labour. The abduction or unlawfully taking away an
unmarried girl under sixteen out of the possession and against the will
of her father or mother, or any other person having the lawful care or
charge of her, is a misdemeanour under the same act. The term is used in
much the same sense in the United States.
The kidnapping or forcible taking away of persons to serve at sea is
treated under IMPRESSMENT.
KIDNEY DISEASES.[1] (For the anatomy of the kidneys, see URINARY
SYSTEM.) The results of morbid processes in the kidney may be grouped
under three heads: the actual lesions produced, the effects of these on
the composition of the urine, and the effects of the kidney-lesion on
the body at large. Affections of the kidney are congenital or acquired.
When acquired they may be the result of a pathological process limited
to the kidney, in which case they are spoken of as primary, or an
accompaniment of disease in other parts of the body, when they may be
spoken of as secondary.
_Congenital Affections._--The principal congenital affections are
anomalies in the number or position of the kidneys or of their ducts;
atrophy; cystic disease and growths. The most common abnormality is
the existence of a _single kidney_; rarely a supernumerary kidney may
be present. The presence of a single kidney may be due to failure of
development, or to atrophy in foetal life; it may also be dependent on
the fusion of originally separate kidneys in such a way as to lead to
the formation of a _horse-shoe kidney_, the two organs being connected
at their lower ends. In some cases of horse-shoe kidney the organs are
united merely by fibrous tissue. Occasionally the two kidneys are
fused end to end, with two ureters. A third variety is that where the
fusion is more complete, producing a disk-like mass with two ureters.
The kidneys may be situated in _abnormal positions_; thus they may be
in front of the sacro-iliac articulation, in the pelvis, or in the
iliac fossa. The importance of such displacements lies in the fact
that the organs may be mistaken for tumours. In some cases _atrophy_
is associated with mal-development, so that only the medullary portion
of the kidney is developed; in others it is associated with arterial
obstruction, and sometimes it may be dependent upon obstruction of the
ureter. In _congenital cystic disease_ the organ is transformed into a
mass of cysts, and the enlargement of the kidneys may be so great as
to produce difficulties in birth. The cystic degeneration is caused by
obstruction of the uriniferous tubules or by anomalies in development,
with persistence of portions of the Wolffian body. In some cases
cystic degeneration is accompanied by anomalies in the ureters and in
the arterial supply. _Growths of the kidney_ are sometimes found in
infants; they are usually malignant, and may consist of a peculiar
form of sarcoma, which has been spoken of as rhabdo-sarcoma, owing to
the presence in the mass of involuntary muscular fibres. The existence
of these tumours is dependent on anomalies of development; the tissue
which forms the primitive kidney belongs to the same layer as that
which gives rise to the muscular system (mesoblast). _Anomalies of the
excretory ducts_: in some cases the ureter is double, in others it is
greatly dilated; in others the pelvis of the kidney may be greatly
dilated, with or without dilatation of the ureter.
_Acquired Affections. Movable Kidney._--One or both of the kidneys in
the adult may be preternaturally mobile. This condition is more common
in women, and is usually the result of a severe shaking or other form
of injury, or of the abdominal walls becoming lax as a sequel to
abdominal distension, to emaciation or pregnancy, or to the effects of
tight-lacing. The more extreme forms of movable kidney are dependent,
generally, on anomalies in the arrangement of the peritoneum, so that
the organ has a partial mesentery; and to this condition, where the
kidney can be moved freely from one part of the abdomen to another,
the term _floating kidney_ is applied. But more usually the organ is
loose under the peritoneum, and not efficiently supported in its fatty
bed. Movable kidney produces a variety of symptoms, such as pain in
the loin and back, faintness, nausea and vomiting--and the function of
the organ may be seriously interfered with, owing to the ureter
becoming kinked. In this way hydronephrosis, or distension of the
kidney with urine, may be produced. The return of blood through the
renal vein may also be hindered, and temporary vascular engorgement of
the kidney, with haematuria, may be produced.
In some cases the movable kidney may be satisfactorily kept in its
place by a pad and belt, but in other cases an operation has to be
undertaken. This consists in exposing the kidney (generally the right)
through an incision below the last rib, and fixing it in its proper
position by several permanent sutures of silk or silkworm gut. The
operation is neither difficult nor dangerous, and its results are
excellent.
_Embolism._--The arrangement of the blood-vessels of the kidney is
peculiarly favourable to the production of wedge-shaped areas of
necrosis, the result of a blocking by clots. Sometimes the clot is
detached from the interior of the heart, the effect being an arrest of
the circulation in the part of the kidney supplied by the blocked
artery. In other cases, the plug is infective owing to the presence of
septic micro-organisms, and this is likely to lead to the formation of
small pyaemic abscesses. It is exceptional for the large branches of
the renal artery to be blocked, so that the symptoms produced in the
ordinary cases are only the temporary appearance of blood or albumen
in the urine. Blocking of the main renal vessels as a result of
disease of the walls of the vessels may lead to disorganization of the
kidneys. Blocking of the veins, leading to extreme congestion of the
kidney, also occurs. It is seen in cases of extreme weakness and
wasting, sometimes in septic conditions, as in puerperal pyaemia,
where a clot, formed first in one of the pelvic veins, may spread up
the vena cava and secondarily block the renal veins. Thrombosis of the
renal vein also occurs in malignant disease of the kidney and in
certain forms of chronic Bright's disease.
_Passive congestion_ of the kidneys occurs in heart-diseases and
lung-diseases, where the return of venous blood is interfered with. It
may also be produced by tumours pressing on the vena cava. The
engorged kidneys become brownish red, enlarged and fibroid, and they
secrete a scanty, high-coloured urine.
_Active congestion_ is produced by the excretion in the urine of such
materials as turpentine and cantharides and the toxins of various
diseases. These irritants produce engorgement and inflammation of the
kidney, much as they would that of any other structures with which
they come in contact. Renal disturbance is often the result of the
excretion of microbic poisons. Extreme congestion of the kidneys may
be produced by exposure to cold, owing to some intimate relationship
existing between the cutaneous and the renal vessels, the constriction
of the one being accompanied by the dilatation of the other. Infective
diseases, such as typhoid fever, pneumonia, scarlet fever, in fact,
most acute specific diseases, produce during their height a temporary
nephritis, not usually followed by permanent alteration in the kidney;
but some acute diseases cause a nephritis which may lay the foundation
of permanent renal disease. This is most common as a result of scarlet
fever.
_Bright's disease_ is the term applied to certain varieties of acute
and chronic inflammation of the kidney. Three forms are usually
recognized--acute, chronic and the granular or cirrhotic kidney. In
the more common form of granular kidney the renal lesion is only part
of a widespread affection involving the whole arterial system, and is
not actually related to Bright's disease. _Chronic Bright's disease_
is sometimes the sequel to acute Bright's disease, but in a great
number of cases the malady is chronic from the beginning. The lesions
of the kidney are probably produced by irritation of the
kidney-structures owing to the excretion of toxic substances either
ingested or formed in the body; it is thought by some that the malady
may arise as a result of exposure to cold. The principal causes of
Bright's disease are alcoholism, gout, pregnancy and the action of
such poisons as lead; it may also occur as a sequel to acute diseases,
such as scarlet fever. Persons following certain occupations are
peculiarly liable to Bright's disease, e.g. engineers who work in hot
shops and pass out into the cold air scantily clothed; and painters,
in whom the malady is dependent on the action of lead on the kidney.
In the case of alcohol and lead the poison is ingested; in the case of
scarlet fever, pneumonia, and perhaps pregnancy, the toxic agent
causing the renal affection is formed in the body. In Bright's disease
all the elements of the kidney, the glomeruli, the tubular epithelium,
and the interstitial tissue, are affected. When the disease follows
scarlet fever, the glomerular structures are mostly affected, the
capsules being thickened by fibrous tissue, and the glomerular tuft
compressed and atrophied. The epithelium of the convoluted tubules
undergoes degeneration; considerable quantities of it are shed, and
form the well-known casts in the urine. The tubules become blocked by
the epithelium, and distended with the pent-up urine; this is one
cause of the increase in size that the kidneys undergo in certain
forms of Bright's disease. The lesions in the tubules and in the
glomeruli are not generally uniform. The interstitial tissue is always
affected, and exudation, proliferation and formation of fibrous tissue
occur. In the granular and contracted kidney the lesion in the
interstitial tissue reaches a high degree of development, little renal
secreting tissue being left. Such tubules as remain are dilated, and
the epithelium lining them is altered, the cells becoming hyaline and
losing their structure. The vessels are narrowed owing to thickening
of the subendothelial layer, and the muscular coat undergoes
hypertrophic and fibroid changes, so that the vessels are abnormally
rigid. When the overgrowth of fibrous tissue is considerable, the
surface of the organ becomes uneven, and it is for this reason that
the term _granular kidney_ has been applied to the condition. In acute
Bright's disease the kidney is increased in size and engorged with
blood, the changes described above being in active progress. In the
chronic form the kidney may be large or small, and is usually white or
mottled. If large, the cortex is thickened, pale and waxy, and the
pyramids are congested; if small, the fibrous change has advanced and
the cortex is diminished. Bright's disease, both acute and chronic, is
essentially a disease of the cortical secreting portion of the kidney.
The true granular kidney, classified by some as a third variety, is
usually part of a general arterial degeneration, the overgrowth of
fibrous tissue in the kidney and the lesions in the arteries being
well marked.
The principal degenerations affecting the kidney are the fatty and the
albuminoid. _Fatty degeneration_ often reaches a high degree in
alcoholics, where fatty degeneration of the heart and liver are also
present. _Albuminoid disease_ is frequently associated with some
varieties of Bright's disease, and is also seen as a result of chronic
bone disease, or of long-continued suppuration involving other parts
of the body, or of syphilis. It is due to irritation of the kidneys by
toxic products.
_Growths of the Kidney._--The principal growths are tubercle, adenoma,
sarcoma and carcinoma. In addition, fatty and fibrous growths, the
nodules of glanders and the gummata of syphilis, may be mentioned.
Tuberculous disease is sometimes primary; more frequently it is
secondary to tubercle in other portions of the genito-urinary
apparatus. The genito-urinary tract may be infected by tubercle in
two ways; _ascending_, in which the primary lesion is in the testicle,
epididymis, or urinary bladder, the lesion travelling up by the ureter
or the lymphatics to the kidney; _descending_, where the tubercle
bacillus reaches the kidney through the blood-vessels. In the latter
case, miliary tubercles, as scattered granules, are seen, especially
in the cortex of the kidney; the lesion is likely to be bilateral. In
primary tuberculosis, and in ascending tuberculosis, the lesion is at
first unilateral. _Malignant disease_ of the kidney takes the form of
sarcoma or carcinoma. Sometimes it is dependent on the malignant
growths starting in what are spoken of as "adrenal rests" in the
cortex of the kidney. Sarcoma is most often seen in the young;
carcinoma in the middle-aged and elderly. Carcinoma may be primary or
secondary, but the kidney is not so prone to malignant disease as
other organs, such as the stomach, bowel or liver.
_Cystic Kidneys._--Cysts may be single--sometimes of large size.
Scattered small cysts are met with in chronic Bright's disease and in
granular contracted kidney, where the dilatation of tubules reaches a
high degree. Certain growths, such as adenomata, are liable to cystic
degeneration, and cysts are also found in malignant disease. Finally,
there is a rare condition of general cystic disease somewhat similar
to the congenital affection. In this form the kidneys, greatly
enlarged, consist of a congeries of cysts separated by the remains of
renal tissue.
_Parasitic Affections._--The more common parasites affecting the
kidney, or some other portion of the urinary tract, and causing
disease, are filaria, bilharzia and the cysticercus form of the
_taenia echinococcus_ (hydatids). The presence of _filaria_ in the
thoracic duct and other lymph-channels may determine the presence of
chyle in the urine, together with the ova and young forms of the
filaria, owing to the distension and rupture of a lymphatic vessel
into some portion of the urinary tract. This is the common cause of
chyluria in hot climates, but chyluria is occasionally seen in the
United Kingdom without filaria. _Bilharzia_, especially in Egypt and
South Africa, causes haematuria. The cysticercus form of the _taenia
echinococcus_ leads to the production of hydatid cysts in the kidney;
this organ, however, is not so often affected as the liver.
_Stone in the Kidney._--Calculi are frequently found in the kidney,
consisting usually of uric acid, sometimes of oxalates, more rarely of
phosphates. Calculous disease of the bladder (q.v.) is generally the
sequel to the formation of a stone in the kidney, which, passing down,
becomes coated by the salts in the urine. Calculi are usually formed
in the pelvis of the kidney, and their formation is dependent either
on the excessive amounts of uric acid, oxalic acid, &c., in the urine,
or on an alteration in the composition of the urine, such as increased
acidity, or on uric acid or oxalate of lime being present in an
abnormal amount. The formation of abnormal crystals is often due to
the presence of some colloid, such as blood, mucus or albumen, in the
secretion, modifying the crystalline form. Once a minute calculus has
been formed, its subsequent growth is highly probable, owing to the
deposition on it of the urinary constituent forming it. Calculi formed
in the pelvis of the kidney may be single and may reach a very large
size, forming, indeed, an actual cast of the interior of the expanded
kidney. At other times they are multiple and of varying size. They may
give rise to no symptoms, or on the other hand may cause distressing
renal colic, especially when they are small and loose and are passed
or are trying to be passed. Serious complications may result from the
presence of a stone in the kidney, such as hydronephrosis, from the
urinary secretion being pent up behind the obstruction, or complete
suppression, which is apparently produced reflexly through the nervous
system. In such cases the surgical removal of the stone is often
followed by the restoration of the renal secretion.
The symptoms of _renal calculus_ may be very slight, or they may be
entirely absent if the stone is moulding itself into the interior of
the kidney; but if the stone is movable, heavy and rough, it may cause
great distress, especially during exercise. There will probably be
blood in the urine; and there will be pain in the loin and thigh and
down into the testicle. The testicle also may be drawn up by its
suspensory muscle, and there may be irritability of the bladder. With
stone in one kidney the pains may be actually referred to the kidney
of the other side. Generally, but not always, there is tenderness in
the loin. If the stone is composed of lime it may throw a shadow on
the Rontgen plate, but other stones may give no shadow.
_Renal colic_ is the acute pain felt when a small stone is travelling
down the ureter to the bladder. The pain is at times so acute that
fomentations, morphia and hot baths fail to ease it, and nothing short
of chloroform gives relief.
For the _operative treatment of renal calculus_ an incision is made a
little below the last rib, and, the muscles having been traversed, the
kidney is reached on the surface which is not covered by peritoneum.
Most likely the stone is then felt, so it is cut down upon and
removed. If it is not discoverable on gently pinching the kidney
between the finger and thumb, the kidney had better be opened in its
convex border and explored by the finger. Often it has happened that
when a man has presented most of the symptoms of renal calculus and
has been operated on with a negative result as regards finding a
stone, all the symptoms have nevertheless disappeared as the direct
result of the blank operation.
_Pyelitis._--Inflammation of the pelvis of the kidney is generally
produced by the extension of gonorrhoeal or other septic inflammation
upwards from the bladder and lower urinary tract, or by the presence
of stone or of tubercle in the pelvis of the kidney. Pyonephrosis, or
distension of the kidney with pus, may result as a sequel to pyelitis
or as a complication of hydronephrosis; in many cases the inflammation
spreads to the capsule of the kidney, and leads to the formation of an
abscess outside the kidney--a _perinephritic abscess_. In some cases a
perinephritic abscess results from a septic plug in a blood-vessel of
the kidney, or it may occur as the result of an injury to the loose
cellular tissue surrounding the kidney, without lesion of the kidney.
_Hydronephrosis_, or distension of the kidney with pent-up urine,
results from obstruction of the ureter, although all obstructions of
the ureter are not followed by it, calculous obstruction, as already
noted, often causing complete suppression of urine. Obstruction of the
ureter, causing hydronephrosis, is likely to be due to the impaction
of a stone, or to pressure on the ureter from a tumour in the
pelvis--as, for instance, a cancer of the uterus--or to some
abnormality of the ureter. Sometimes a kink of the ureter of a movable
kidney causes hydronephrosis. The hydronephrosis produced by
obstruction of the ureter may be intermittent; and when a certain
degree of distension is produced, either as a result of the shifting
of the calculus or of some other cause, the obstruction is temporarily
relieved in a great outflow of urine, and the urinary discharge is
re-established. When the hydronephrosis has long existed the kidney is
converted into a sac, the remains of the renal tissues being spread
out as a thin layer.
_Effects on the Urine._--Diseases of the kidney produce alterations in
the composition of the urine; either the proportion of the normal
constituents being altered, or substances not normally present being
excreted. In most diseases the quantity of urinary water is
diminished, especially in those in which the activity of the
circulation is impaired. There are diseases, however, more especially
the granular kidney and certain forms of chronic Bright's disease, in
which the quantity of urinary water is considerably increased,
notwithstanding the profound anatomical changes that have occurred in
the kidney. There are two forms of suppression of the urine: one is
_obstructive suppression_, seen where the ureter is blocked by stone
or other morbid process; the other is _non-obstructive suppression_,
which is apt to occur in advanced diseases of the kidney. In other
cases complete suppression may occur as the result of injuries to
distant parts of the body, as after severe surgical operations. In
some diseases in which the quantity of urinary water excreted is
normal, or even greater than normal, the efficiency of the renal
activity is really diminished, inasmuch as the urine contains few
solids. In estimating the efficiency of the kidneys, it is necessary
to take into consideration the so-called "solid urine," that is to
say, the quantity of solid matter daily excreted, as shown by the
specific gravity of the urine. The nitrogenous constituents--urea,
uric acid, creatinin, &c.--vary greatly in amount in different
diseases. In most renal diseases the quantities of these substances
are diminished because of the physiological impairment of the kidney.
The chief abnormal constituents of the urine are serum-albumen,
serum-globulin, albumoses (albuminuria), blood (haematuria), blood
pigment (haemoglobinuria), pus (pyuria), chyle (chyluria) and pigments
such as melanuria and urobilinuria.
_Effects on the Body at large._--These may be divided into the
persistent and the intermittent or transitory. The most important
persistent effects produced by disease of the kidney are, first,
nutritional changes leading to general ill health, wasting and
cachexia; and, secondly, certain cardio-vascular phenomena, such as
enlargement (hypertrophy) of the heart, and thickening of the inner,
and degeneration of the middle, coat of the smaller arteries. Amongst
the intermittent or transitory effects are dropsy, secondary
inflammations of certain organs and serous cavities, and uraemia. Some
of these effects are seen in every form of severe kidney disease, and
uraemia may occur in any advanced kidney disease. Renal dropsy is
chiefly seen in certain forms of Bright's disease, and the cardiac and
arterial changes are commonest in cases of granular or contracted
kidney, but may be absent in other diseases which destroy the kidney
tissue, such as hydronephrosis. _Uraemia_ is a toxic condition, and
three varieties of it are recognized--the acute, the chronic and the
latent. Many of these effects are dependent upon the action of poisons
retained in the body owing to the deficient action of the kidneys. It
is also probable that abnormal substances having a toxic action are
produced as a result of a perverted metabolism. Uraemia is of toxic
origin, and it is probable that the dropsy of renal disease is due to
effects produced in the capillaries by the presence of abnormal
substances in the blood. High arterial tension, cardiac hypertrophy
and arterial degeneration may also be of toxic origin, or they may be
produced by an attempt of the body to maintain an active circulation
through the greatly diminished amount of kidney tissue available.
_Rupture of the kidney_ may result from a kick or other direct injury.
Vomiting and collapse are likely to ensue, and most likely blood will
appear in the urine, or a tumour composed of blood and urine may form
in the renal region. An incision made into the swelling from the loin
may enable the surgeon to see the torn kidney. An attempt should be
made to save the kidney by suturing and draining; unless the damage
is obviously past repair, the kidney should not be removed without
giving nature a chance. (J. R. B.; E. O.*)
FOOTNOTE:
[1] The word "kidney" first appears in the early part of the 14th
century in the form _kidenei_, with plural _kideneiren_, _kideneris_,
_kidneers_, &c. It has been assumed that the second part of the word
is "neer" or "near" (cf. Ger. _Niere_), the common dialect word for
"kidney" in northern, north midland and eastern counties of England
(see J. Wright, _English Dialect Dictionary_, 1903, _s.v._ Near), and
that the first part represents the O.E. _cwieth_, belly, womb; this
the _New English Dictionary_ considers improbable; there is only one
doubtful instance of singular _kidnere_ and the ordinary form ended
in -_ei_ or _ey_. Possibly this represents M.E. _ey_, plur. _eyren_,
egg, the name being given from the resemblance in shape. The first
part is uncertain.
KIDWELLY (_Cydweli_), a decayed market-town and municipal borough of
Carmarthenshire, Wales, situated (as its name implies) near the junction
of two streams, the Gwendraeth Fawr and the Gwendraeth Fach, a short
distance from the shores of Carmarthen Bay. Pop. (1901), 2285. It has a
station on the Great Western railway. The chief attraction of Kidwelly
is its magnificent and well-preserved castle, one of the finest in South
Wales, dating chiefly from the 13th century and admirably situated on a
knoll above the Gwendraeth Fach. The parish church of St Mary, of the
14th century, possesses a lofty tower with a spire. The quiet little
town has had a stirring history. It was a place of some importance when
William de Londres, a companion of Fitz Hamon and his conquering
knights, first erected a castle here. In 1135 Kidwelly was furiously
attacked by Gwenllian, wife of Griffith ap Rhys, prince of South Wales,
and a battle, fought close to the town at a place still known as Maes
Gwenllian, ended in the total defeat and subsequent execution of the
Welsh princess. Later, the extensive lordship of Kidwelly became the
property through marriage of Henry, earl of Lancaster, and to this
circumstance is due the exclusive jurisdiction of the town. Kidwelly
received its first charter of incorporation from Henry VI.; its present
charter dating from 1618. The decline of Kidwelly is due to the
accumulation of sand at the mouth of the river, and to the consequent
prosperity of the neighbouring Llanelly.
KIEF, KEF or KEIF (a colloquial form of the Arabic _kaif_, pleasure or
enjoyment), the state of drowsy contentment produced by the use of
narcotics. To "do kef," or to "make kef," is to pass the time in such a
state. The word is used in northern Africa, especially in Morocco, for
the drug used for the purpose.
KIEL, the chief naval port of Germany on the Baltic, a town of the
Prussian province of Schleswig-Holstein. Pop. (1900), 107,938; (1905),
163,710, including the incorporated suburbs. It is beautifully situated
at the southern end on the Kieler Busen (bay or harbour of Kiel), 70 m.
by rail N. from Hamburg. It consists of a somewhat cramped old town,
lying between the harbour and a sheet of water called Kleiner Kiel, and
a better built and more spacious new town, which has been increased by
the incorporation of the garden suburbs of Brunswick and Dusternbrook.
In the old town stands the palace, built in the 13th century, enlarged
in the 18th and restored after a fire in 1838. It was once the seat of
the dukes of Holstein-Gottorp, who resided here from 1721 to 1773, and
became the residence of Prince Henry of Prussia. Other buildings are the
church of St Nicholas (restored in 1877-1884), dating from 1240, with a
lofty steeple; the old town-hall on the market square; the church of the
Holy Ghost; three fine modern churches, those of St James, and St Jurgen
and of St Ansgar; and the theatre. Further to the north and facing the
bay is the university, founded in 1665 by Christian Albert, duke of
Schleswig, and named after him "Christian Albertina." The new buildings
were erected in 1876, and connected with them are a library of 240,000
volumes, a zoological museum, a hospital, a botanical garden and a
school of forestry. The university, which is celebrated as a medical
school, is attended by nearly 1000 students, and has a teaching staff of
over 100 professors and docents. Among other scientific and educational
institutions are the Schleswig-Holstein museum of national antiquities
in the old university buildings, the Thaulow museum (rich in
Schleswig-Holstein wood-carving of the 16th and 17th centuries), the
naval academy, the naval school and the school for engineers.
The pride of Kiel is its magnificent harbour, which has a comparatively
uniform depth of water, averaging 40 ft., and close to the shores 20 ft.
Its length is 11 m. and its breadth varies from 1/4 m. at the southern
end to 4(1/2) m. at the mouth. Its defences, which include two forts on
the west and four on the east side, all situated about 5 m. from the
head of the harbour at the place (Friedrichsort) where its shores
approach one another, make it a place of great strategic strength. The
imperial docks (five in all) and ship-building yards are on the east
side facing the town, between Gaarden and Ellerbeck, and comprise
basins capable of containing the largest war-ships afloat. The imperial
yard employs 7000 hands, and another 7000 are employed in two large
private ship-building works, the Germania (Krupp's) and Howalds'. The
Kaiser Wilhelm Canal, commonly called the Kiel Canal, connecting the
Baltic with the North Sea at Brunsbuttel, has its eastern entrance at
Wik, 1(1/2) m. N. of Kiel (see GERMANY: _Waterways_). The town and
adjacent villages, e.g. Wik, Heikendorf and Laboe, are resorted to for
sea-bathing, and in June of each year a regatta, attended by yachts from
all countries, is held. The _Kieler Woche_ is one of the principal
social events in Germany, and corresponds to the "Cowes week" in
England. Kiel is connected by day and night services with Korsor in
Denmark by express passenger boats. The harbour yields sprats which are
in great repute. The principal industries are those connected with the
imperial navy and ship-building, but embrace also flour-mills,
oil-works, iron-foundries, printing-works, saw-mills, breweries,
brick-works, soap-making and fish-curing. There is an important trade in
coal, timber, cereals, fish, butter and cheese.
The name of Kiel appears as early as the 10th century in the form Kyl
(probably from the Anglo-Saxon _Kille_ = a safe place for ships). Kiel
is mentioned as a city in the next century; in 1242 it received the
Lubeck rights; in the 14th century it acquired various trading
privileges, having in 1284 entered the Hanseatic League. In recent times
Kiel has been associated with the peace concluded in January 1814
between Great Britain, Denmark and Sweden, by which Norway was ceded to
Sweden. In 1773 Kiel became part of Denmark, and in 1866 it passed with
the rest of Schleswig-Holstein to Prussia. Since being made a great
naval arsenal, Kiel has rapidly developed in prosperity and population.
See Prahl, _Chronika der Stadt Kiel_ (Kiel, 1856); Erichsen,
_Topographie des Landkreises Kiel_ (Kiel, 1898); H. Eckardt, _Alt-Kiel
in Wort und Bild_ (Kiel, 1899); P. Hasse, _Das Kieler Stadtbuch,
1264-1289_ (Kiel, 1875); _Das alteste Kieler Rentebuch 1300, 1487_,
edited by C. Reuter (Kiel, 1893); _Das zweite Kieler Rentebuch 1487,
1586_, edited by W. Stern (Kiel, 1904); and the _Mitteilungen der
Gesellschaft fur Kieler Stadtgeschichte_ (Kiel, 1877, 1904).
KIELCE, a government in the south-west of Russian Poland, surrounded by
the governments of Piotrkow and Radom and by Austrian Galicia. Area,
3896 sq. m. Its surface is an elevated plateau 800 to 1000 ft. in
altitude, intersected in the north-east by a range of hills reaching
1350 ft. and deeply trenched in the south. It is drained by the Vistula
on its south-east border, and by its tributaries, the Nida and the
Pilica, which have a very rapid fall and give rise to inundations.
Silurian and Devonian quartzites, dolomite, limestones and sandstones
prevail in the north, and contain rich iron ores, lead and copper ores.
Carboniferous deposits containing rich coal seams occur chiefly in the
south, and extend into the government of Piotrkow. Permian limestones
and sandstones exist in the south. The Triassic deposits contain very
rich zinc ores of considerable thickness and lead. The Jurassic deposits
consist of iron-clays and limestones, containing large caves. The
Cretaceous deposits yield gypsum, chalk and sulphur. White and black
marble are also extracted. The soil is of great variety and fertile in
parts, but owing to the proximity of the Carpathians, the climate is
more severe than might be expected. Rye, wheat, oats, barley and
buckwheat are grown; modern intensive culture is spreading, and land
fetches high prices, the more so as the peasants' allotments were small
at the outset and are steadily decreasing. Out of a total of 2,193,300
acres suitable for cultivation 53.4% are actually cultivated. Grain is
exported. Gardening is a thriving industry in the south; beet is grown
for sugar in the south-east. Industries are considerably developed: zinc
ores are extracted, as well as some iron and a little sulphur. Tiles,
metallic goods, leather, timber goods and flour are the chief products
of the manufactures. Pop. (1897), 765,212, for the most part Poles, with
11% Jews; (1906, estimated), 910,900. By religion 88% of the people are
Roman Catholics. Kielce is divided into seven districts, the chief towns
of which, with populations in 1897, are Kielce (q.v.), Jedrzejow (Russ.
Andreyev, 5010), Miechow (4156), Olkusz (3491), Pinczow (8095), Stopnica
(4659) and Wloszczowa (23,065).
KIELCE, a town of Russian Poland, capital of the above government, 152
m. by rail S. of Warsaw, situated in a picturesque hilly country. Pop.
(1890), 12,775; (1897), 23,189. It has a castle, built in 1638 and for
some time inhabited by Charles XII.; it was renowned for its portrait
gallery and the library of Zaluski, which was taken to St Petersburg.
The squares and boulevards are lined with handsome modern buildings. The
principal factories are hemp-spinning, cotton-printing and cement works.
The town was founded in 1173 by a bishop of Cracow. In the 16th century
it was famous for its copper mines, but they are no longer worked.
KIEPERT, HEINRICH (1818-1899), German geographer, was born at Berlin on
the 31st of July 1818. He was educated at the university there, studying
especially history, philology and geography. In 1840-1846, in
collaboration with Karl Ritter, he issued his first work, _Atlas von
Hellas und den hellenischen Kolonien_, which brought him at once into
eminence in the sphere of ancient historical cartography. In 1848 his
_Historisch-geographischer Atlas der alten Welt_ appeared, and in 1854
the first edition of the _Atlas antiquus_, which has obtained very wide
recognition, being issued in English, French, Russian, Dutch and
Italian. In 1894 Kiepert produced the first part of a larger atlas of
the ancient world under the title _Formae orbis antiqui_; his valuable
maps in _Corpus inscriptionum latinarum_ must also be mentioned. In
1877-1878 his _Lehrbuch der alten Geographie_ was published, and in 1879
_Leitfaden der alten Geographie_, which was translated into English (_A
Manual of Ancient Geography_, 1881) and into French. Among Kiepert's
general works one of the most important was the excellent _Neuer
Handatlas uber alle Teile der Erde_ (1855 et seq.), and he also compiled
a large number of special and educational maps. Asia Minor was an area
in which he took particular interest. He visited it four times in
1841-1888; and his first map (1843-1846), together with his _Karte des
osmanischen Reiches in Asien_ (1844 and 1869), formed the highest
authority for the geography of the region. Kiepert was professor of
geography in the university of Berlin from 1854. He died at Berlin on
the 21st of April 1899. He left unpublished considerable material in
various departments of his work, and with the assistance of this his son
Richard (b. 1846), who followed his father's career, was enabled to
issue a map of Asia Minor in 24 sheets, on a scale of 1 : 400,000 (1902
et seq.), and to carry on the issue of _Formae orbis antiqui_.
KIERKEGAARD, SOREN AABY (1813-1855), Danish philosopher, the seventh
child of a Jutland hosier, was born in Copenhagen on the 5th of May
1813. As a boy he was delicate, precocious and morbid in temperament. He
studied theology at the university of Copenhagen, where he graduated in
1840 with a treatise _On Irony_. For two years he travelled in Germany,
and in 1842 settled finally in Copenhagen, where he died on the 11th of
November 1855. He had lived in studious retirement, subject to physical
suffering and mental depression. His first volume, _Papers of a Still
Living Man_ (1838), a characterization of Hans Andersen, was a failure,
and he was for some time unnoticed. In 1843 he published _Euten--Eller_
(_Either--or_) (4th ed., 1878), the work on which his reputation mainly
rests; it is a discussion of the ethical and aesthetic ideas of life. In
his last years he carried on a feverish agitation against the theology
and practice of the state church, on the ground that religion is for the
individual soul, and is to be separated absolutely from the state and
the world. In general his philosophy was a reaction against the
speculative thinkers--Steffens (q.v.), Niels Treschow (1751-1833) and
Frederik Christian Sibbern (1785-1872); it was based on the absolute
dualism of Faith and Knowledge. His chief follower was Rasmus Nielsen
(1809-1884) and he was opposed by Georg Brandes, who wrote a brilliant
account of his life and works. As a dialectician he has been described
as little inferior to Plato, and his influence on the literature of
Denmark is considerable both in style and in matter. To him Ibsen owed
his character Brand in the drama of that name.
See his posthumous autobiographical sketch, _Syns punktetfor min
Forfattervirksomhed_ ("Standpoint of my Literary Work"); Georg
Brandes, _Soren Kierkegaard_ (Copenhagen, 1877); A. Barthold, _Noten
zu K.'s Lebensgeschichte_ (Halle, 1876), _Die Bedeutung der
asthetischen Schriften S. Kierkegaarde_ (Halle, 1879) and _S. K.'s
Personlichkeit in ihrer Verwirklichung der Ideale_ (Gutersloh, 1886);
F. Petersen, _S. K.'s Christendomsforkyndelae_ (Christiania, 1877).
For Kierkegaard's relation to recent Danish thought, see Hoffding's
_Archiv fur Geschichte der Philosophie_ (1888), vol. ii.
KIEV, KIEFF, or KIYEFF, a government of south-western Russia,
conterminous with those of Minsk, Poltava, Chernigov, Podolia, Kherson
and Volhynia; area 19,686 sq. m. It represents a deeply trenched
plateau, 600 to 800 ft. in altitude, reaching 950 to 1050 ft. in the
west, assuming a steep character in the middle, and sloping gently
northwards to the marshy regions of the Pripet, while on the east it
falls abruptly to the valley of the Dnieper, which lies only 250 to 300
ft. above the sea. General A. Tillo has shown that neither geologically
nor tectonically can "spurs of the Carpathians" penetrate into Kiev.
Many useful minerals are extracted, such as granites, gabbro,
labradorites of a rare beauty, syenites and gneiss, marble, grinding
stones, pottery clay, phosphorites, iron ore and mineral colours.
Towards the southern and central parts the surface is covered by deep
rich "black earth." Nearly the whole of the government belongs to the
basin of the Dnieper, that river forming part of its eastern boundary.
In the south-west are a few small tributaries of the Bug. Besides the
Dnieper the only navigable stream is its confluent the Pripet. The
climate is more moderate than in middle Russia, the average temperatures
at the city of Kiev being--year, 44.5 deg.; January, 21 deg.; July, 68
deg.; yearly rainfall, 22 inches. The lowlands of the north are covered
with woods; they have the flora of the Polyesie, or marshy woodlands of
Minsk, and are peopled with animals belonging to higher latitudes.[1]
The population, which was 2,017,262 in 1863, reached 3,575,457 in 1897,
of whom 1,791,503 were women, and 147,878 lived in towns; and in 1904 it
reached 4,042,526, of whom 2,030,744 were women. The estimated
population in 1906 was 4,206,100. In 1897 there were 2,738,977 Orthodox
Greeks, 14,888 Nonconformists, 91,821 Roman Catholics, 423,875 Jews, and
6820 Protestants.
No less than 41 % of the land is in large holdings, and 45 % belongs to
the peasants. Out of an area of 12,600,000 acres, 11,100,000 acres are
available for cultivation, 4,758,000 acres are under crops, 650,000
acres under meadows, and 1,880,000 acres under woods. About 290,000
acres are under beetroot, for sugar. The crops principally grown are
wheat, rye, oats, millet, barley and buckwheat, with, in smaller
quantities, hemp, flax, vegetables, fruit and tobacco. Camels have been
used for agricultural work. Bee-keeping and gardening are general. The
chief factories are sugar works and distilleries. The former produce
850,000 to 1,150,000 tons of sugar and over 50,000 tons of molasses
annually. The factories include machinery works and iron foundries,
tanneries, steam flour-mills, petroleum refineries and tobacco
factories. Two main railways, starting from Kiev and Cherkasy
respectively, cross the government from N.E. to S.W., and two lines
traverse its southern part from N.W. to S.E., parallel to the Dnieper.
Steamers ply on the Dnieper and some of its tributaries. Wheat, rye,
oats, barley and flour are exported. There are two great fairs, at Kiev
and Berdichev respectively, and many of minor importance. Trade is very
brisk, the river traffic alone being valued at over one million sterling
annually. The government is divided into twelve districts. The chief
town is Kiev (q.v.)and the district towns, with their populations in
1897, Berdichev (53,728), Cherkasy (29,619), Chigirin (9870), Kanev
(8892), Lipovets (6068), Radomysl (11,154), Skvira (16,265), Tarashcha
(11,452), Uman (28,628), Vasilkov (17,824) and Zvenigorodka (16,972).
The plains on the Dnieper have been inhabited since probably the
Palaeolithic period, and the burial-grounds used since the Stone Age.
The burial mounds (_kurgans_) of both the Scythians and the Slavs,
traces of old forts (_gorodishche_), stone statues, and more recent
caves offer abundant material for anthropological and ethnographical
study.
FOOTNOTE:
[1] Schmahlhausen's _Flora of South-West Russia_ (Kiev, 1886)
contains a good description of the flora of the province.
KIEV, a city of Russia, capital of the above government, on the right or
west bank of the Dnieper, in 50 deg. 27' 12" N. and 30 deg. 30' 18" E.,
628 m. by rail S.W. of Moscow and 406 m. by rail N.N.E. of Odessa. The
site of the greater part of the town consists of hills or bluffs
separated by ravines and hollows, the elevation of the central portions
being about 300 ft. above the ordinary level of the Dnieper. On the
opposite side of the river the country spreads out low and level like a
sea. Having received all its important tributaries, the Dnieper is here
a broad (400 to 580 yds.) and navigable stream; but as it approaches the
town it divides into two arms and forms a low grassy island of
considerable extent called Tukhanov. During the spring floods there is a
rise of 16 or even 20 ft., and not only the island but the country along
the left bank and the lower grounds on the right bank are laid under
water. The bed of the river is sandy and shifting, and it is only by
costly engineering works that the main stream has been kept from
returning to the more eastern channel, along which it formerly flowed.
Opposite the southern part of the town, where the currents have again
united, the river is crossed by a suspension bridge, which at the time
of its erection (1848-1853) was the largest enterprise of the kind in
Europe. It is about half a mile in length and 52(1/2) ft. in breadth,
and the four principal spans are each 440 ft. The bridge was designed by
Vignoles, and cost about L400,000. Steamers ply in summer to Kremenchug,
Ekaterinoslav, Mogilev, Pinsk and Chernigov. Altogether Kiev is one of
the most beautiful cities in Russia, and the vicinity too is
picturesque.
Until 1837 the town proper consisted of the Old Town, Pechersk and
Podoli; but in that year three districts were added, and in 1879 the
limits were extended to include Kurenevka, Lukyanovka, Shulyavka and
Solomenka. The administrative area of the town is 13,500 acres.
The Old Town, or Old Kiev quarter (Starokievskaya Chast), occupies the
highest of the range of hills. Here the houses are most closely built,
and stone structures most abundant. In some of the principal streets are
buildings of three to five storeys, a comparatively rare thing in
Russia, indeed in the main street (Kreshchatik) fine structures have
been erected since 1896. In the 11th century the area was enclosed by
earthen ramparts, with bastions and gateways; but of these the only
surviving remnant is the Golden Gate. In the centre of the Old Town
stands the cathedral of St Sophia, the oldest cathedral in the Russian
empire. Its external walls are of a pale green and white colour, and it
has ten cupolas, four spangled with stars and six surmounted each with a
cross. The golden cupola of the four-storeyed campanile is visible for
many miles across the steppes. The statement frequently made that the
church was a copy of St Sophia's in Constantinople has been shown to be
a mistake. The building measures in length 177 ft., while its breadth is
118 ft. But though the plan shows no imitation of the great Byzantine
church, the decorations of the interior (mosaics, frescoes, &c.) do
indicate direct Byzantine influence. During the occupation of the church
by the Uniats or United Greek Church in the 17th century these were
covered with whitewash, and were only discovered in 1842, after which
the cathedral was internally restored; but the chapel of the Three
Pontiffs has been left untouched to show how carefully the old style has
been preserved or copied. Among the mosaics is a colossal representation
of the Virgin, 15 ft. in height, which, like the so-called
"indestructible wall" in which it is inlaid, dates from the time
(1019-1054) of Prince Yaroslav. This prince founded the church in 1037
in gratitude for his victory over the Petchenegs, a Turkish race then
settled in the Dnieper valley. His sarcophagus, curiously sculptured
with palms, fishes, &c., is preserved. The church of St Andrew the
Apostle occupies the spot where, according to Russian tradition, that
apostle stood when as yet Kiev was not, and declared that the hill would
become the site of a great city. The present building, in florid rococo
style, dates from 1744-1767. The church of the Tithes, rebuilt in
1828-1842, was founded in the close of the 10th century by Prince
Vladimir in honour of two martyrs whom he had put to death; and the
monastery of St Michael (or of the Golden Heads--so called from the
fifteen gilded cupolas of the original church) claims to have been built
in 1108 by Svyatopolk II., and was restored in 1655 by the Cossack
chieftain Bogdan Chmielnicki. On a plateau above the river, the
favourite promenade of the citizens, stands the Vladimir monument (1853)
in bronze. In this quarter, some distance back from the river, is the
new and richly decorated Vladimir cathedral (1862-1896), in the
Byzantine style, distinguished for the beauty and richness of its
paintings.
Until 1820 the south-eastern district of Pechersk was the industrial and
commercial quarter; but it has been greatly altered in carrying out
fortifications commenced in that year by Tsar Nicholas I. Most of the
houses are small and old-fashioned. The monastery--the
Kievo-Pecherskaya--is the chief establishment of its kind in Russia; it
is visited every year by about 250,000 pilgrims. Of its ten or twelve
conventual churches the chief is that of the Assumption. There are four
distinct quarters in the monastery, each under a superior, subject to
the archimandrite: the Laura proper or New Monastery, that of the
Infirmary, and those of the Nearer and the Further Caves. These caves or
catacombs are the most striking characteristic of the place; the name
Pechersk, indeed, is connected with the Russian _peshchera_, "a cave."
The first series of caves, dedicated to St Anthony, contains eighty
saints' tombs; the second, dedicated to St Theodosius, a saint greatly
venerated in Russia, about forty-five. The bodies were formerly exposed
to view; but the pilgrims who now pass through the galleries see nothing
but the draperies and the inscriptions. Among the more notable names are
those of Nestor the chronicler, and Iliya of Murom, the Old Cossack of
the Russian epics. The foundation of the monastery is ascribed to two
saints of the 11th century--Anthony and Hilarion, the latter
metropolitan of Kiev. By the middle of the 12th century it had become
wealthy and beautiful. Completely ruined by the Mongol prince Batu in
1240, it remained deserted for more than two centuries. Prince Simeon
Oblkovich was the first to begin the restoration. A conflagration laid
the buildings waste in 1716, and their present aspect is largely due to
Peter the Great. The cathedral of the Assumption, with seven gilded
cupolas, was dedicated in 1089, destroyed by the Mongols in 1240, and
restored in 1729; the wall-paintings of the interior are by V.
Vereshchagin. The monastery contains a school of picture-makers of
ancient origin, whose productions are widely diffused throughout the
empire, and a printing press, from which have issued liturgical and
religious works, the oldest known examples bearing the date 1616. It
possesses a wonder-working ikon or image of the "Death of the Virgin,"
said to have been brought from Constantinople in 1073, and the second
highest bell-tower in Russia.
The Podol quarter lies on the low ground at the foot of the bluffs. It
is the industrial and trading quarter of the city, and the seat of the
great fair of the "Contracts," the transference of which from Dubno in
1797 largely stimulated the commercial prosperity of Kiev. The present
regular arrangement of its streets arose after the great fire of 1811.
Lipki district (from the _lipki_ or lime trees, destroyed in 1833) is of
recent origin, and is mainly inhabited by the well-to-do classes. It is
sometimes called the palace quarter, from the royal palace erected
between 1868 and 1870, on the site of the older structure dating from
the time of Tsaritsa Elizabeth. Gardens and parks abound; the palace
garden is exceptionally fine, and in the same neighbourhood are the
public gardens with the place of amusement known as the Chateau des
Fleurs.
In the New Buildings, or the Lybed quarter, are the university and the
botanical gardens. The Ploskaya Chast (Flat quarter) or Obolon contains
the lunatic asylum; the Lukyanovka Chast, the penitentiary and the camp
and barracks; and the Bulvarnaya Chast, the military gymnasium of St
Vladimir and the railway station. The educational and scientific
institutions of Kiev rank next to those of the two capitals. Its
university, removed from Vilna to Kiev in 1834, has about 2500 students,
and is well provided with observatories, laboratories, libraries and
museums; five scientific societies and two societies for aid to poor
students are attached to it. There are, besides, a theological academy,
founded in 1615; a society of church archaeology, which possesses a
museum built in 1900, very rich in old ikons, crosses, &c., both Russian
and Oriental; an imperial academy of music; university courses for
ladies; a polytechnic, with 1300 students--the building was completed in
1900 and stands on the other side of Old Kiev, away from the river. Of
the learned societies the more important are the medical (1840), the
naturalists' (1869), the juridical (1876), the historical of Nestor the
Chronicler (1872), the horticultural (1875), and the dramatic (1879),
the archaeological commission (1843), and the society of church
archaeology.
Kiev is the principal centre for the sugar industry of Russia, as well
as for the general trade of the region. Its Stryetenskaya fair is
important. More than twenty caves were discovered on the slope of a hill
(Kirilov Street), and one of them, excavated in 1876, proved to have
belonged to neolithic troglodytes. Numerous graves, both from the pagan
and the Christian periods, the latter containing more than 2000
skeletons, with a great number of small articles, were discovered in the
same year in the same neighbourhood. Many colonial Roman coins of the
3rd and 4th centuries, and silver _dirhems_, stamped at Samarkand,
Balkh, Merv, &c., were also found in 1869.
In 1862 the population of Kiev was returned as 70,341; in 1874 the total
was given as 127,251; and in 1902 as 319,000. This includes 20,000 Poles
and 12,000 Jews. Kiev is the headquarters of the IX. Army Corps, and of
a metropolitan of the Orthodox Greek Church.
The history of Kiev cannot be satisfactorily separated from that of
Russia. According to Nestor's legend it was founded in 864 by three
brothers, Kiy, Shchek and Khoriv, and after their deaths the
principality was seized by two Varangians (Scandinavians), Askold and
Dir, followers of Rurik, also in 864. Rurik's successor Oleg conquered
Kiev in 882 and made it the chief town of his principality. It was in
the waters of the Dnieper opposite the town that Prince Vladimir, the
first saint of the Russian church, caused his people to be baptized
(988), and Kiev became the seat of the first Christian church, of the
first Christian school, and of the first library in Russia. For three
hundred and seventy-six years it was an independent Russian city; for
eighty years (1240-1320) it was subject to the Mongols; for two
hundred and forty-nine years (1320-1569) it belonged to the Lithuanian
principality; and for eighty-five years to Poland (1569-1654). It was
finally united to the Russian empire in 1686. The city was devastated
by the khan of the Crimea in 1483. The Magdeburg rights, which the
city enjoyed from 1516, were abolished in 1835, and the ordinary form
of town government introduced; and in 1840 it was made subject to the
common civil law of the empire.
The Russian literature concerning Kiev is voluminous. Its bibliography
will be found in the _Russian Geographical Dictionary_ of P. Semenov,
and in the _Russian Encyclopaedic Dictionary_, published by Brockhaus
and Efron (vol. xv., 1895). Among recent publications are: Rambaud's
_La Russie epique_ (Pans, 1876); Avenarius, _Kniga o Kievskikh
Bogatuiryakh_ (St Petersburg, 1876), dealing with the early Kiev
heroes; Zakrevski, _Opisanie Kieva_ (1868); the materials issued by
the commission for the investigation of the ancient records of the
city; Taranovskiy, _Gorod Kiev_ (Kiev, 1881); De Baye, _Kiev, la mere
des villes russes_ (Paris, 1896); Goetz, _Das Kiewer Hohlenkloster als
Kulturzentrum des Vormongolischen Russlands_ (Passau, 1904). See also
Count Bobrinsky, _Kurgans of Smiela_ (1897); and N. Byelyashevsky,
_The Mints of Kiev_. (P. A. K.; J. T. Be.)
KILBARCHAN, a burgh of barony of Renfrewshire, Scotland, 1 m. from
Milliken Park station on the Glasgow & South-Western railway, 13 m. W.
by S. of Glasgow. Pop. (1901), 2886. The public buildings include a
hall, library and masonic lodge (dating from 1784). There is also a
park. In a niche in the town steeple (erected in 1755) is the statue of
the famous piper, who died about the beginning of the 17th century and
is commemorated in the elegy on "The Life and Death of Habbie Simson,
Piper of Kilbarchan" by Robert Sempill of Beltrees (1595-1665). The
chief industries are manufactures of linen (introduced in 1739 and
dating the rise of the prosperity of the town), cotton, silks and
"Paisley" shawls, and calico-printing, besides quarries, coal and iron
mines in the neighbourhood. Two miles south-west is a great rock of
greenstone called Clochoderick, 12 ft. in height, 22 ft. in length, and
17 ft. in breadth. About 2 m. north-west on Gryfe Water, lies Bridge of
Weir (pop. 2242), the industries of which comprise tanning, currying,
calico-printing, thread-making and wood-turning. It has a station on the
Glasgow & South-Western railway. Immediately to the south-west of Bridge
of Weir are the ruins of Ranfurly Castle, the ancient seat of the
Knoxes. Sir John de Knocks (fl. 1422) is supposed to have been the
great-grandfather of John Knox; and Andrew Knox (1550-1633), one of the
most distinguished members of the family, was successively bishop of the
Isles, abbot of Icolmkill (Iona), and bishop of Raphoe. About 4 m. N.W.
of Bridge of Weir lies the holiday resort of Kilmalcolm (pronounced
Kilmacome; pop. 2220), with a station on the Glasgow & South-Western
railway. It has a golf-course, public park and hydropathic
establishment. Several charitable institutions have been built in and
near the town, amongst them the well-known Quarrier's Orphan Homes of
Scotland.
KILBIRNIE, a town in north Ayrshire, Scotland, on the Garnock, 20(1/2)
m. S.W. of Glasgow, with stations on the Glasgow & South-Western and the
Caledonian railways. Pop. (1901), 4571. The industries include
flax-spinning, rope works, engineering works, and manufactures of linen
thread, wincey, flannels and fishing-nets, and there are iron and steel
works and coal mines in the vicinity. The parish church is of historical
interest, most of the building dating from the Reformation. In the
churchyard are the recumbent effigies of Captain Thomas Crawford of
Jordanhill (d. 1603), who in 1575 effected the surprise of Dumbarton
Castle, and his lady. Near Kilbirnie Place, a modern mansion, are the
ruins of Kilbirnie Castle, an ancient seat of the earls of Crawford,
destroyed by fire in 1757. About 1 m. E. is Kilbirnie Loch, 1(1/3) m.
long.
KILBRIDE, WEST, a town on the coast of Ayrshire, Scotland, near the
mouth of Kilbride Burn, 4 m. N.N.W. of Ardrossan and 35(3/4) m. S.W. of
Glasgow by the Glasgow & South-Western railway. Pop. (1901), 2315. It
has been growing in repute as a health resort; the only considerable
industry is weaving. In the neighbourhood are the ruins of Law Castle,
Crosbie Castle and Portincross Castle, the last, dating from the 13th
century, said to be a seat of the Stuart kings. Farland Head, with
cliffs 300 ft. high, lies 2 m. W. by N.; and the inland country is
hilly, one point, Kaim Hill, being 1270 ft. above sea-level.
KILDARE, a county of Ireland in the province of Leinster, bounded W. by
Queen's County and King's County, N. by Meath, E. by Dublin and Wicklow,
and S. by Carlow. The area is 418,496 acres or about 654 sq. m. The
greater part of Kildare belongs to the great central plain of Ireland.
In the east of the county this plain is bounded by the foot-hills of the
mountains of Dublin and Wicklow; in the centre it is interrupted by an
elevated plateau terminated on the south by the hills of Dunmurry, and
on the north by the Hill of Allen (300 ft.) which rises abruptly from
the Bog of Allen. The principal rivers are the Boyne, which with its
tributary the Blackwater rises in the north part of the county, but soon
passes into Meath; the Barrow, which forms the boundary of Kildare with
Queen's County, and receives the Greese and the Lane shortly after
entering Kildare; the Lesser Barrow, which flows southward from the Bog
of Allen to near Rathangan; and the Liffey, which enters the county near
Ballymore Eustace, and flowing north-west and then north-east quits it
at Leixlip, having received the Morrel between Celbridge and Clane, and
the Ryewater at Leixlip. Trout are taken in the upper waters, and there
are salmon reaches near Leixlip.
_Geology._--The greater part of the county is formed of typical grey
Carboniferous limestone, well seen in the flat land about Clane. The
natural steps at the Salmon Falls at Leixlip are formed from similar
strata. Along the south-east the broken ground of Silurian shales
forms the higher country, rising towards the Leinster chain. The
granite core of the latter, with its margin of mica-schist produced by
the metamorphism of the Silurian beds, appears in the south round
Castledermot. A parallel ridge of Silurian rocks, including an
interesting series of basic lavas, rises from the plain north of
Kildare town (Hill of Allen and Chair of Kildare), with some Old Red
Sandstone on its flanks. The limestone in this ridge is rich in
fossils of Bala age, and has been compared with that at Portrane in
county Dublin. The low ground is diversified by eskers and masses of
glacial gravel, notably at the dry sandy plateau of the Curragh; but
in part it retains sufficient moisture to give rise to extensive bogs.
The Liffey, which comes down as a mountain-stream in the Silurian
area, forming a picturesque fall in the gorge of Pollaphuca, wanders
through the limestone region between low banks as a true river of the
plain.
_Climate and Industries._--Owing to a considerable degree to the large
extent of bog, the climate of the northern districts is very moist,
and fogs are frequent, but the eastern portion is drier, and the
climate of the Liffey valley is very mild and healthy. The soil,
whether resting on the limestone or on the clay slate, is principally
a rich deep loam inclining occasionally to clay, easily cultivated and
very fertile if properly drained. About 40,000 acres in the northern
part of the county are included in the Bog of Allen, which is,
however, intersected in many places by elevated tracts of firm ground.
To the east of the town of Kildare is the Curragh, an undulating down
upwards of 4800 acres in extent. The most fertile and highly
cultivated districts of Kildare are the valleys of the Liffey and a
tract in the south watered by the Greese. The demesne lands along the
valley of the Liffey are finely wooded. More attention is paid to
drainage and the use of manures on the larger farms than is done in
many other parts of Ireland. The pastures which are not subjected to
the plough are generally very rich and fattening. The proportion of
tillage to pasture is roughly as 1 to 2(1/2). Wheat is a scanty crop,
but oats, barley, turnips and potatoes are all considerably
cultivated. Cattle and sheep are grazed extensively, and the numbers
are well sustained. Of the former, crosses with the shorthorn or the
Durham are the commonest breed. Leicesters are the principal breed of
sheep. Poultry farming is a growing industry.
Though possessing a good supply of water-power the county is almost
destitute of manufactures; there are a few small cotton, woollen and
paper mills, as well as breweries and distilleries, and several corn
mills. Large quantities of turf are exported to Dublin by canal. The
main line of the Midland Great Western follows the northern boundary
of the county, with a branch to Carbury and Edenderry; and that of the
Great Southern & Western crosses the county by way of Newbridge and
Kildare, with southward branches to Naas (and Tullow, county Carlow)
and to Athy and the south. The northern border is traversed by the
Royal Canal, which connects Dublin with the Shannon at Cloondara.
Farther south the Grand Canal, which connects Dublin with the Shannon
at Shannon Harbour, occupies the valley of the Liffey until at Sallins
it enters the Bog of Allen, passing into King's County near the source
of the Boyne. Several branch canals afford communication with the
southern districts.
_Population and Administration._--The decreasing population (70,206 in
1891; 63,566 in 1901) shows an unusual excess of males over females, in
spite of an excess of male emigrants. About 86% of the population are
Roman Catholics. The county comprises 14 baronies and contains 110 civil
parishes. Assizes are held at Naas, and quarter sessions at Athy,
Kildare, Maynooth and Naas. The military stations at Newbridge and the
Curragh constitute the Curragh military district, and the barracks at
Athy and Naas are included in the Dublin military district. The
principal towns are Athy (pop. 3599), Naas (3836) and Newbridge (2903);
with Maynooth (which is the seat of a Roman Catholic college),
Celbridge, Kildare (the county town), Monasterevan, Kilcullen and
Leixlip. Ballitore, one of the larger villages, is a Quaker settlement,
and at a school here Edmund Burke was educated. Kildare returned ten
members to the Irish parliament, of whom eight represented boroughs; it
sends only two (for the north and south divisions of the county) to the
parliament of the United Kingdom. The county is in the Protestant
diocese of Dublin and the Roman Catholic dioceses of Dublin and of
Kildare and Leighlin.
_History and Antiquities._--According to a tale in the Book of Leinster
the original name of Kildare was _Druim Criaidh_ (Drumcree), which it
retained until the time of St Brigit, after which it was changed to
_Cilldara_, the church of the oak, from an old oak under whose shadow
the saint had constructed her cell. For some centuries it was under the
government of the Macmurroughs, kings of Leinster, but with the
remainder of Leinster it was granted by Henry II. to Strongbow. On the
division of the palatinate of Leinster among the five grand-daughters of
Strongbow, Kildare fell to Sibilla, the fourth daughter, who married
William de Ferrars, earl of Derby. Through the marriage of the only
daughter of William de Ferrars it passed to William de Vescy--who, when
challenged to single combat by John Fitz Thomas, baron of Offaly, for
accusing him of treason, fled to France. His lands were thereupon in
1297 bestowed on Fitz Thomas, who in 1316 was created earl of Kildare,
and in 1317 was appointed sheriff of Kildare, the office remaining in
the family until the attainder of Gerald, the ninth earl, in the reign
of Henry VIII. Kildare was a liberty of Dublin until 1296, when an act
was passed constituting it a separate county.
In the county are several old gigantic pillar-stones, the principal
being those at Punchestown, Harristown, Jigginstown and Mullamast. Among
remarkable earthworks are the raths at Mullamast, Knockcaellagh near
Kilcullen, Ardscull near Naas, and the numerous sepulchral mounds in the
Curragh. Of the round towers the finest is that of Kildare; there are
remains of others at Taghadoe, Old Kilcullen, Oughterard and
Castledermot. Formerly there were an immense number of religious houses
in the county. There are remains of a Franciscan abbey at Castledermot.
At Graney are ruins of an Augustinian nunnery and portions of a building
said to have belonged to the Knights Templars. The town of Kildare has
ruins of four monastic buildings, including the nunnery founded by St
Brigit. The site of a monastery at Old Kilcullen, said to date from the
time of St Patrick, is marked by two stone crosses, one of which is
curiously sculptured. The fine abbey of Monasterevan is now the seat of
the marquess of Drogheda. On the Liffey are the remains of Great Connel
Abbey near Celbridge, of St Wolstan's near Celbridge, and of New Abbey.
At Moone, where there was a Franciscan monastery, are the remains of an
ancient cross with curious sculpturings. Among castles may be mentioned
those of Athy and Castledermot, built about the time of the Anglo-Norman
invasion; Maynooth Castle, built by the Fitzgeralds; Kilkea, originally
built by the seventh earl of Kildare, and restored within the 19th
century; and Timolin, erected in the reign of King John.
KILDARE, a market town and the county town of county Kildare, Ireland,
in the south parliamentary division, a junction on the main line of the
Great Southern & Western railway, 30. m. S.W. from Dublin, the branch
line to Athy, Carlow and Kilkenny diverging southward. Pop. (1901),
1576. The town is of high antiquarian interest. There is a Protestant
cathedral church, the diocese of which was united with Dublin in 1846.
St Brigit or Bridget founded the religious community in the 5th century,
and a fire sacred to the memory of the saint is said to have been kept
incessantly burning for several centuries (until the Reformation) in a
small ancient chapel called the Fire House, part of which remains. The
cathedral suffered with the town from frequent burnings and destructions
at the hands of the Danes and the Irish, and during the Elizabethan
wars. The existing church was partially in ruins when an extensive
restoration was begun in 1875 under the direction of G.E. Street; while
the choir, which dated from the latter part of the 17th century, was
rebuilt in 1896. Close to the church are an ancient cross and a very
fine round tower (its summit unhappily restored with a modern
battlement) 105(1/2) ft. high, with a doorway with unusual ornament of
Romanesque character. There are remains of a castle of the 13th century,
and of a Carmelite monastery. From the elevated situation of the town, a
striking view of the great central plain of Ireland is afforded. Kildare
was incorporated by James II., and returned two members to the Irish
parliament.
KILHAM, ALEXANDER (1762-1798), English Methodist, was born at Epworth,
Lincolnshire, on the 10th of July 1762. He was admitted by John Wesley
in 1785 into the regular itinerant ministry. He became the leader and
spokesman of the democratic party in the Connexion which claimed for the
laity the free election of class-leaders and stewards, and equal
representation with ministers at Conference. They also contended that
the ministry should possess no official authority or pastoral
prerogative, but should merely carry into effect the decisions of
majorities in the different meetings. Kilham further advocated the
complete separation of the Methodists from the Anglican Church. In the
violent controversy that ensued he wrote many pamphlets, often
anonymous, and frequently not in the best of taste. For this he was
arraigned before the Conference of 1796 and expelled, and he then
founded the Methodist New Connexion (1798, merged since 1906 in the
United Methodist Church). He died in 1798, and the success of the church
he founded is a tribute to his personality and to the principles for
which he strove. Kilham's wife (Hannah Spurr, 1774-1832), whom he
married only a few months before his death, became a Quaker, and worked
as a missionary in the Gambia and at Sierra Leone; she reduced to
writing several West African vernaculars.
KILIA, a town of S. Russia, in the government of Bessarabia, 100 m. S.W.
of Odessa, on the Kilia branch of the Danube, 20 m. from its mouth. Pop.
(1897), 11,703. It has steam flour-mills and a rapidly increasing trade.
The town, anciently known as Chilia, Chele, and Lycostomium, was a place
of banishment for political dignitaries of Byzantium in the 12th-13th
centuries. After belonging to the Genoese from 1381-1403 it was occupied
successively by Walachia and Moldavia, until in 1484 it fell into the
hands of the Ottoman Turks. It was taken from them by the Russians in
1790. After being bombarded by the Anglo-French fleet in July 1854, it
was given to Rumania on the conclusion of the war; but in 1878 was
transferred to Russia with Bessarabia.
KILIAN (CHILIAN, KILLIAN), ST, British missionary bishop and the apostle
of eastern Franconia, where he began his labours towards the end of the
7th century. There are several biographies of him, the first of which
dates back to the 9th century (_Bibliotheca hagiographica latina_, Nos.
4660-4663). The oldest texts which refer to him are an 8th century
necrology at Wurzburg and the notice by Hrabanus Maurus in his
martyrology. According to Maurus, Kilian was a native of Ireland, whence
with his companions he went to eastern Franconia. After having preached
the gospel in Wurzburg, the whole party were put to death by the orders
of an unjust judge named Gozbert. It is difficult to fix the period with
precision, as the judge (or duke) Gozbert is not known through other
sources. Kilian's comrades, Coloman and Totman, were, according to the
Wurzburg necrology, respectively priest and deacon. The elevation of the
relics of the three martyrs was performed by Burchard, the first bishop
of Wurzburg, and they are venerated in the cathedral of that town. His
festival is celebrated on the 8th of July.
See _Acta Sanctorum_, Julii, ii. 599-619; F. Emmerich, _Der heilige
Kilian_ (Wurzburg, 1896); J. O'Hanlon, _Lives of the Irish Saints_,
vii. 122-143 (Dublin, 1875-1904); A. Hauck, _Kirchengeschichte
Deutschlands_, 3rd ed., i. 382 seq. (H. De.)
KILIMANJARO, a great mountain in East Africa, its centre lying in 3 deg.
5' S. and 37 deg. 23' E. It is the highest known summit of the
continent, rising as a volcanic cone from a plateau of about 3000 ft. to
19,321 ft. Though completely isolated it is but one of several summits
which crown the eastern edge of the great plateau of equatorial Africa.
About 200 m. almost due north, across the wide expanse of the Kapte and
Kikuyu uplands, lies Mount Kenya, somewhat inferior in height and mass
to Kilimanjaro; and some 25 m. due west rises the noble mass of Mount
Meru.
The major axis of Kilimanjaro runs almost east and west, and on it rise
the two principal summits, Kibo in the west, Mawenzi (Ki-mawenzi) in the
east. Kibo, the higher, is a truncated cone with a nearly perfect
extinct crater, and marks a comparatively recent period of volcanic
activity; while Mawenzi (16,892 ft.) is the very ancient core of a
former summit, of which the crater walls have been removed by
denudation. The two peaks, about 7 m. apart, are connected by a saddle
or plateau, about 14,000 ft. in altitude, below which the vast mass
slopes with great regularity in a typical volcanic curve, especially in
the south, to the plains below. The sides are furrowed on the south and
east by a large number of narrow ravines, down which flow streams which
feed the Pangani and Lake Jipe in the south and the Tsavo tributary of
the Sabaki in the east. South-west of Kibo, the Shira ridge seems to be
of independent origin, while in the north-west a rugged group of cones,
of comparatively recent origin, has poured forth vast lava-flows. In
the south-east the regularity of the outline is likewise broken by a
ridge running down from Mawenzi.
The lava slopes of the Kibo peak are covered to a depth of some 200 ft.
with an ice-cap, which, where ravines occur, takes the form of genuine
glaciers. The crater walls are highest on the south, three small peaks,
uncovered by ice, rising from the rim on this side. To the central and
highest of these, the culminating point of the mountain, the name Kaiser
Wilhelm Spitze has been given. The rim here sinks precipitously some 600
ft. to the interior of the crater, which measures rather over 2000 yds.
in diameter, and is in part covered by ice, in part by a bare cone of
ashes. On the west the rim is breached, allowing the passage of an
important glacier formed from the snow which falls within the crater.
Lower down this cleft, which owed its origin to dislocation, is occupied
by two glaciers, one of which reaches a lower level (13,800 ft.) than
any other on Kilimanjaro. On the north-west three large glaciers reach
down to 16,000 ft.
Mawenzi peak has no permanent ice-cap, though at times snow lies in
patches. The rock of which it is composed has become very jagged by
denudation, forming stupendous walls and precipices. On the east the
peak falls with great abruptness some 6500 ft. to a vast ravine, due
apparently to dislocation and sinking of the ground. Below this the
slope is more gradual and more symmetrical. Like the other high
mountains of eastern Africa, Kilimanjaro presents well-defined zones of
vegetation. The lowest slopes are arid and scantily covered with scrub,
but between 4000 and 6000 ft. on the south side the slopes are well
watered and cultivated. The forest zone begins, on the south, at about
6500 ft., and extends to 9500, but in the north it is narrower, and in
the north-west, the driest quarter of the mountain, almost disappears.
In the alpine zone, marked especially by tree lobelias and _Senecio_,
flowering plants extend up to 15,700 ft. on the sheltered south-west
flank of Mawenzi, but elsewhere vegetation grows only in dwarfed patches
beyond 13,000 ft. The special fauna and flora of the upper zone are akin
to those of other high African mountains, including Cameroon. The
southern slopes, between 4000 and 6000 ft., form the well-peopled
country of Chaga, divided into small districts.
As the natives believe that the summit of Kilimanjaro is composed of
silver, it is conjectured that Aristotle's reference to "the so-called
Silver Mountain" from which the Nile flows was based on reports about
this mountain. It is possible, however, that the "Silver Mountain" was
Ruwenzori (q.v.), from whose snow-clad heights several headstreams of
the Nile do descend. It is also possible, though improbable, that
Ruwenzori and not Kilimanjaro nor Kenya may be the range known to
Ptolemy and to the Arab geographers of the middle ages as the
Mountains of the Moon. Reports of the existence of mountains covered
with snow were brought to Zanzibar about 1845 by Arab traders.
Attracted by these reports Johannes Rebmann of the Church Missionary
Society journeyed inland from Mombasa in 1848 and discovered
Kilimanjaro, which is some 200 m. inland. Rebmann's account, though
fully borne out by his colleague Dr Ludwig Krapf, was at first
received with great incredulity by professional geographers. The
matter was finally set at rest by the visits paid to the mountain by
Baron Karl von der Decken (1861 and 1862) and Charles New (1867), the
latter of whom reached the lower edge of the snow. Kilimanjaro has
since been explored by Joseph Thomson (1883), Sir H. H. Johnston
(1884), and others. It has been the special study of Dr Hans Meyer,
who made four expeditions to it, accomplishing the first ascent to the
summit in 1889. In the partition of Africa between the powers of
western Europe, Kilimanjaro was secured by Germany (1886) though the
first treaties concluded with native chiefs in that region had been
made in 1884 by Sir H. H. Johnston on behalf of a British company. On
the southern side of the mountain at Moshi is a German government
station.
See R. Thornton (the geologist of von der Decken's party) in _Proc. of
Roy. Geog. Soc._ (1861-1862); Ludwig Krapf, _Travels in East Africa_
(1860); Charles New, _Life ... in East Africa_ (1873); Sir J. D.
Hooker in _Journal of Linnean Society_ (1875); Sir H. H. Johnston,
_The Kilimanjaro Expedition_ (1886); Hans Meyer, _Across East African
Glaciers_ (1891); _Der Kilimanjaro_ (Berlin, 1900). Except the
last-named all these works were published in London. (E. He.)
KILIN, or CH'-I-LIN, one of the four symbolical creatures which in
Chinese mythology are believed to keep watch and ward over the Celestial
Empire. It is a unicorn, portrayed in Chinese art as having the body and
legs of a deer and an ox's tail. Its advent on earth heralds an age of
enlightened government and civic prosperity. It is regarded as the
noblest of the animal creation and as the incarnation of fire, water,
wood, metal and earth. It lives for a thousand years, and is believed to
step so softly as to leave no footprints and to crush no living thing.
KILKEE, a seaside resort of county Clare, Ireland, the terminus of a
branch of the West Clare railway. Pop. (1901), 1661. It lies on a small
and picturesque inlet of the Atlantic named Moore Bay, with a beautiful
sweep of sandy beach. The coast, fully exposed to the open ocean,
abounds in fine cliff scenery, including numerous caves and natural
arches, but is notoriously dangerous to shipping. Moore Bay is safe and
attractive for bathers. Bishop's Island, a bold isolated rock in the
vicinity, has remains of an oratory and house ascribed to the recluse St
Senan.
KILKENNY, a county of Ireland, in the province of Leinster, bounded N.
by Queen's County, E. by Carlow and Wexford, S. by Waterford, and W. by
Waterford and Tipperary. The area is 511,775 acres, or about 800 sq. m.
The greater part of Kilkenny forms the south-eastern extremity of the
great central plain of Ireland, but in the south-east occurs an
extension of the mountains of Wicklow and Carlow, and the plain is
interrupted in the north by a hilly region forming part of the
Castlecomer coal-field, which extends also into Queen's County and
Tipperary. The principal rivers, the Suir, the Barrow and the Nore, have
their origin in the Slieve Bloom Mountains (county Tipperary and Queen's
County), and after widely divergent courses southward discharge their
waters into Waterford Harbour. The Suir forms the boundary of the county
with Waterford, and is navigable for small vessels to Carrick. The Nore,
which is navigable to Innistioge, enters the county at its north-western
boundary, and flows by Kilkenny to the Barrow, 9 m. above Ross, having
received the King's River at Jerpoint and the Argula near Innistioge.
The Barrow, which is navigable beyond the limits of Kilkenny into
Kildare, forms the eastern boundary of the county from near New Bridge.
There are no lakes of any extent, but turloughs or temporary lakes are
occasionally formed by the bursting up of underground streams.
The coal of the Castlecomer basin is anthracite, and the most productive
portions of the bed are in the centre of the basin at Castlecomer.
Hematitic iron of a rich quality is found in the Cambro-Silurian rocks
at several places; and tradition asserts that silver shields were made
about 850 B.C. at Argetros or Silverwood on the Nore. Manganese is
obtained in some of the limestone quarries, and also near the Barrow.
Marl is abundant in various districts. Pipeclay and potter's clay are
found, and also yellow ochre. Copper occurs near Knocktopher.
The high synclinal coal-field forms the most important feature of the
north of the county. A prolongation of the field runs out south-west
by Tullaroan. The lower ground is occupied by Carboniferous limestone.
The Old Red Sandstone, with a Silurian core, forms the high ridge of
Slievenaman in the south; and its upper laminated beds contain
_Archanodon_, the earliest known freshwater mollusc, and
plant-remains, at Kiltorcan near Ballyhale. The Leinster granite
appears mainly as inliers in the Silurian of the south-east. The
Carboniferous sandstones furnish the hard pavement-slabs sold as
"Carlow flags." The black limestone with white shells in it at
Kilkenny is quarried as an ornamental marble. Good slates are quarried
at Kilmoganny, in the Silurian inlier on the Slievenaman range.
On account of the slope of the country, and the nature of the soil, the
surface occupied by bog or wet land is very small, and the air is dry
and healthy. So temperate is it in winter that the myrtle and arbutus
grow in the open air. There is less rain than at Dublin, and vegetation
is earlier than in the adjacent counties. Along the banks of the Suir,
Nore and Barrow a very rich soil has been formed by alluvial deposits.
Above the Coal-measures in the northern part of the county there is a
moorland tract devoted chiefly to pasturage. The soil above the
limestone is for the most part a deep and rich loam admirably adapted
for the growth of wheat. The heath-covered hills afford honey with a
flavour of peculiar excellence. Proportionately to its area, Kilkenny
has an exceptionally large cultivable area. The proportion of tillage
to pasturage is roughly as 1 to 2(1/4). Oats, barley, turnips and
potatoes are all grown; the cultivation of wheat has very largely
lapsed. Cattle, sheep, pigs and poultry are extensively reared, the
Kerry cattle being in considerable request.
The linen manufacture introduced into the county in the 17th century by
the duke of Ormonde to supersede the woollen manufacture gradually
became extinct, and the woollen manufacture now carried on is also very
small. There are, however, breweries, distilleries, tanneries and
flour-mills, as well as marble polishing works. The county is traversed
from N. to S. by the Maryborough, Kilkenny and Waterford branch of the
Great Southern & Western railway, with a connexion from Kilkenny to
Bagenalstown on the Kildare and Carlow line; and the Waterford and
Limerick line of the same company runs for a short distance through the
southern part of the county.
The population (87,496 in 1891; 79,159 in 1901) includes about 94% of
Roman Catholics. The decrease of population is a little above the
average, though emigration is distinctly below it. The chief towns and
villages are Kilkenny (q.v.), Callan (1840), Castlecomer, Thomastown and
Graigue. The county comprises 10 baronies and contains 134 civil
parishes. The county includes the parliamentary borough of Kilkenny, and
is divided into north and south parliamentary divisions, each returning
one member. Kilkenny returned 16 members to the Irish parliament, two
representing the county. Assizes are held at Kilkenny, and quarter
sessions at Kilkenny, Pilltown, Urlingford, Castlecomer, Callan, Grace's
Old Castle and Thomastown. The county is in the Protestant diocese of
Ossory and the Roman Catholic dioceses of Ossory and Kildare and
Leighlin.
Kilkenny is one of the counties generally considered to have been
created by King John. It had previously formed part of the kingdom of
Ossory, and was one of the liberties granted to the heiresses of
Strongbow with palatinate rights. Circular groups of stones of very
ancient origin are on the summits of Slieve Grian and the hill of
Cloghmanta. There are a large number of cromlechs as well as raths (or
encampments) in various parts of the county. Besides numerous forts and
mounds there are five round towers, one adjoining the Protestant
cathedral of Kilkenny, and others at Tulloherin, Kilree, Fertagh and
Aghaviller. All, except that at Aghaviller, are nearly perfect. There
are remains of a Cistercian monastery at Jerpoint, said to have been
founded by Dunnough, King of Ossory, and of another belonging to the
same order at Graigue, founded by the earl of Pembroke in 1212. The
Dominicans had an abbey at Rosbercon founded in 1267, and another at
Thomastown, of which there are some remains. The Carmelites had a
monastery at Knocktopher. There were an Augustinian monastery at
Inistioge, and priories at Callan and Kells, of all of which there are
remains. There are also ruins of several old castles, such as those of
Callan, Legan, Grenan and Clonamery, besides the ancient portions of
Kilkenny Castle.
KILKENNY, a city and municipal and parliamentary borough (returning one
member), the capital of county Kilkenny, Ireland, finely situated on the
Nore, and on the Great Southern and Western railway, 81 m. S.W. of
Dublin. Pop. (1901), 10,609. It consists of Englishtown (or Kilkenny
proper) and Irishtown, which are separated by a small rivulet, but
although Irishtown retains its name, it is now included in the borough
of Kilkenny. The city is irregularly built, possesses several spacious
streets with many good houses, while its beautiful environs and imposing
ancient buildings give it an unusual interest and picturesque
appearance. The Nore is crossed by two handsome bridges. The cathedral
of St Canice, from whom the town takes its name, dates in its present
form from about 1255. The see of Ossory, which originated in the
monastery of Aghaboe founded by St Canice in the 6th century, and took
its name from the early kingdom of Ossory, was moved to Kilkenny
(according to conjecture) about the year 1200. In 1835 the diocese of
Ferns and Leighlin was united to it. With the exception of St Patrick's,
Dublin, the cathedral is the largest ecclesiastical building in
Ireland, having a length from east to west of 226 ft., and a breadth
along the transepts from north to south of 123 ft. It occupies an
eminence at the western extremity of Irishtown. It is a cruciform
structure mainly in Early English style, with a low massive tower
supported on clustered columns of the black marble peculiar to the
district. The building was extensively restored in 1865. It contains
many old sepulchral monuments and other ancient memorials. The north
transept incorporates the parish church. The adjacent library of St
Canice contains numerous ancient books of great value. A short distance
from the south transept is a round tower 100 ft. high; the original cap
is wanting. The episcopal palace near the east end of the cathedral was
erected in the time of Edward III. and enlarged in 1735. Besides the
cathedral the principal churches are the Protestant church of St Mary, a
plain cruciform structure of earlier foundation than the present
cathedral; that of St John, including a portion of the hospital of St
John founded about 1220; and the Roman Catholic cathedral, of the
diocese of Ossory, dedicated to St Mary (1843-1857), a cruciform
structure in the Early Pointed style, with a massive central tower.
There are important remains of two monasteries--the Dominican abbey
founded in 1225, and now used as a Roman Catholic church; and the
Franciscan abbey on the banks of the Nore, founded about 1230. But next
in importance to the cathedral is the castle, the seat of the marquess
of Ormonde, on the summit of a precipice above the Nore. It was
originally built by Strongbow, but rebuilt by William Marshall after the
destruction of the first castle in 1175; and many additions and
restorations by members of the Ormonde family have maintained it as a
princely residence. The Protestant college of St John, originally
founded by Pierce Butler, 8th earl of Ormonde, in the 16th century, and
re-endowed in 1684 by James, 1st duke of Ormonde, stands on the banks of
the river opposite the castle. In it Swift, Farquhar, Congreve and
Bishop Berkeley received part of their education. On the outskirts of
the city is the Roman Catholic college of St Kyran (Kieran), a Gothic
building completed about 1840. The other principal buildings are the
modern court-house, the tholsel or city court (1764), the city and
county prison, the barracks and the county infirmary. In the
neighbourhood are collieries as well as long-established quarries for
marble, the manufactures connected with which are an important industry
of the town. The city also possesses corn-mills, breweries and
tanneries. Not far from the city are the remarkable limestone caverns of
Dunmore, which have yielded numerous human remains. The corporation of
Kilkenny consists of a mayor, 6 aldermen and 18 councillors.
Kilkenny proper owes its origin to an English settlement in the time of
Strongbow, and it received a charter from William Marshall, who married
Strongbow's daughter. This charter was confirmed by Edward III., and
from Edward IV. Irishtown received the privilege of choosing a portreeve
independent of Kilkenny. By Elizabeth the boroughs, while retaining
their distinct rights, were constituted one corporation, which in 1609
was made a free borough by James I., and in the following year a free
city. From James II. the citizens received a new charter, constituting
the city and liberties a distinct county, to be styled the county of the
city of Kilkenny, the burgesses of Irishtown continuing, however, to
elect a portreeve until the passing of the Muncipal Reform Act. Frequent
parliaments were held at Kilkenny from the 14th to the 16th century, and
so late as the reign of Henry VIII. it was the occasional residence of
the lord-lieutenant. In 1642 it was the meeting-place of the assembly of
confederate Catholics. In 1648 Cromwell, in the hope of obtaining
possession of the town by means of a plot, advanced towards it, but
before his arrival the plot was discovered. In 1650 it was, however,
compelled to surrender after a long and resolute defence. At a very
early period Kilkenny and Irishtown returned each two members to the
Irish parliament, but since the Union one member only has been returned
to Westminster for the city of Kilkenny.
The origin of the expression "to fight like Kilkenny cats," which,
according to the legend, fought till only their tails were left, has
been the subject of many conjectures. It is said to be an allegory on
the disastrous municipal quarrels of Kilkenny and Irishtown which
lasted from the end of the 14th to the end of the 17th centuries
(_Notes and Queries_, 1st series, vol. ii. p. 71). It is referred also
to the brutal sport of some Hessian soldiers, quartered in Kilkenny
during the rebellions of 1798 or 1803, who tied two cats together by
their tails, hung them over a line and left them to fight. A soldier
is said to have freed them by cutting off their tails to escape
censure from the officers (ibid. 3rd series, vol. v. p. 433). Lastly,
it is attributed to the invention of J. P. Curran. As a sarcastic
protest against cock-fighting in England, he declared that he had
witnessed in Sligo (?) fights between trained cats, and that once they
had fought so fiercely that only their tails were left (ibid. 7th
series, vol. ii. p. 394).
KILKENNY, STATUTE OF, the name given to a body of laws promulgated in
1366 with the object of strengthening the English authority in Ireland.
In 1361, when Edward III. was on the English throne, he sent one of his
younger sons, Lionel, duke of Clarence, who was already married to an
Irish heiress, to represent him in Ireland. From the English point of
view the country was in a most unsatisfactory condition. Lawless and
predatory, the English settlers were hardly distinguishable from the
native Irish, and the authority of the English king over both had been
reduced to vanishing point. In their efforts to cope with the prevailing
disorder Lionel and his advisers summoned a parliament to meet at
Kilkenny early in 1366 and here the statute of Kilkenny was passed into
law. This statute was written in Norman-French, and nineteen of its
clauses are merely repetitions of some ordinances which had been drawn
up at Kilkenny fifteen years earlier. It began by relating how the
existing state of lawlessness was due to the malign influence exercised
by the Irish over the English, and, like Magna Carta, its first positive
provision declared that the church should be free. As a prime remedy for
the prevailing evils all marriages between the two races were forbidden.
Englishmen must not speak the Irish tongue, nor receive Irish minstrels
into their dwellings, nor even ride in the Irish fashion; while to give
or sell horses or armour to the Irish was made a treasonable offence.
Moreover English and not Breton law was to be employed, and no Irishman
could legally be received into a religious house, nor presented to a
benefice. The statute also contained clauses for compelling the English
settlers to keep the laws. For each county four wardens of the peace
were to be appointed, while the sheriffs were to hold their tourns twice
a year and were not to oppress the people by their exactions. An attempt
was made to prevent the emigration of labourers, and finally the
spiritual arm was invoked to secure obedience to these laws by threats
of excommunication. The statute, although marking an interesting stage
in the history of Ireland, had very little practical effect.
The full text is published in the _Statutes and Ordinances of Ireland.
John to Henry V._, by H. F. Berry (1907).
KILLALA (pron. _Killalla_), a small town on the north coast of county
Mayo, Ireland, in the northern parliamentary division, on the western
shore of a fine bay to which it gives name. Pop. (1901), 510. It is a
terminus of a branch of the Midland Great Western railway. Its trade is
almost wholly diverted to Ballina on the river Moy, which enters the
bay, but Killala is of high antiquarian and historical interest. It was
for many centuries a bishop's see, the foundation being attributed to St
Patrick in the 5th century, but the diocese was joined with Achonry
early in the 17th century and with Tuam in 1833. The cathedral church of
St Patrick is a plain structure of the 17th century. There is a fine
souterrain, evidently connected with a rath, or encampment, in the
graveyard. A round tower, 84 ft. in height, stands boldly on an isolated
eminence. Close to Killala the French under Humbert landed in 1798,
being diverted by contrary winds from the Donegal coast. Near the Moy
river, south of Killala, are the abbeys of Moyne and Roserk or
Rosserick, both Decorated in style, and both possessing fine cloisters.
At Rathfran, 2 m. N., is a Dominican abbey (1274), and in the
neighbourhood are camps, cromlechs, and an inscribed ogham stone, 12 ft.
in height. Killala gives name to a Roman Catholic diocese, the seat of
which, however, is at Ballina.
KILLALOE, a town of county Clare, Ireland, in the east parliamentary
division, at the lower extremity of Lough Derg on the river Shannon, at
the foot of the Slieve Bernagh mountains. Pop. (1901), 885. It is
connected, so as to form one town, with Ballina (county Tipperary) by a
bridge of 13 arches. Ballina is the terminus of a branch of the Great
Southern and Western railway, 15 m. N.E. of Limerick. Slate is quarried
in the vicinity, and there were formerly woollen manufactures. The
cathedral of St Flannan occupies the site of a church founded by St
Dalua in the 6th century. The present building is mainly of the 12th
century, a good cruciform example of the period, preserving, however, a
magnificent Romanesque doorway. It was probably completed by Donall
O'Brien, king of Munster, but part of the fabric dates from a century
before his time. In the churchyard is an ancient oratory said to date
from the period of St Dalua. Near Killaloe stood Brian Boru's palace of
Kincora, celebrated in verse by Moore; for this was the capital of the
kings of Munster. Killaloe is frequented by anglers for the Shannon
salmon-fishing and for trout-fishing in Lough Derg. Killaloe gives name
to Protestant and Roman Catholic dioceses.
KILLARNEY, a market town of county Kerry, Ireland, in the east
parliamentary division, on a branch line of the Great Southern & Western
railway, 185(1/4) m. S.W. from Dublin. Pop. of urban district (1901),
5656. On account of the beautiful scenery in the neighbourhood the town
is much frequented by tourists. The principal buildings are the Roman
Catholic cathedral and bishop's palace of the diocese of Kerry, designed
by A. W. Pugin, a large Protestant church and several hotels. Adjoining
the town is the mansion of the earl of Kenmare. There is a school of
arts and crafts, where carving and inlaying are prosecuted. The only
manufacture of importance now carried on at Killarney is that of fancy
articles from arbutus wood; but it owed its origin to iron-smelting
works, for which abundant fuel was obtained from the neighbouring
forests.
The lakes of Killarney, about 1(1/2) m. from the town, lie in a basin
between several lofty mountain groups, some of which rise abruptly from
the water's edge, and all clothed with trees and shrubbery almost to
their summits. The lower lake, or Lough Leane (area 5001 acres), is
studded with finely wooded islands, on the largest of which, Ross
Island, are the ruins of Ross Castle, an old fortress of the
O'Donoghues; and on another island, the "sweet Innisfallen" of Moore,
are the picturesque ruins of an abbey founded by St Finian the leper at
the close of the 6th century. Between the lower lake and the middle or
Torc lake (680 acres in extent) stands Muckross Abbey, built by
Franciscans about 1440. With the upper lake (430 acres), thickly studded
with islands, and close shut in by mountains, the lower and middle lakes
are connected by the Long Range, a winding and finely wooded channel,
2(1/2) m. in length, and commanding magnificent views of the mountains.
Midway in its course is a famous echo caused by the Eagle's Nest, a
lofty pyramidal rock.
Besides the lakes of Killarney themselves, the immediate neighbourhood
includes many features of natural beauty and of historic interest. Among
the first are Macgillicuddy's Reeks and the Torc and Purple Mountains,
the famous pass known as the Gap of Dunloe, Mount Mangerton, with a
curious depression (the Devil's Punchbowl) near its summit, the
waterfalls of Torc and Derrycunihy, and Lough Guitane, above Lough
Leane. Notable ruins and remains, besides Muckross and Innisfallen,
include Aghadoe, with its ruined church of the 12th century (formerly a
cathedral) and remains of a round tower; and the Ogham Cave of Dunloe, a
souterrain containing inscribed stones. The waters of the neighbourhood
provide trout and salmon, and the flora is of high interest to the
botanist. Innumerable legends centre round the traditional hero
O'Donoghue.
KILLDEER, a common American plover, so called in imitation of its
whistling cry, the _Charadrius vociferus_ of Linnaeus, and the
_Aegialitis vocifera_ of modern ornithologists. About the size of a
snipe, it is mostly sooty-brown above, but showing a bright buff on the
tail coverts, and in flight a white bar on the wings; beneath it is
pure white except two pectoral bands of deep black. It is one of the
finest as well as the largest of the group commonly known as ringed
plovers or ring dotterels,[1] forming the genus _Aegialitis_ of Boie.
Mostly wintering in the south or only on the sea-shore of the more
northern states, in spring it spreads widely over the interior, breeding
on the newly ploughed lands or on open grass-fields. The nest is made in
a slight hollow, and is often surrounded with small pebbles and
fragments of shells. Here the hen lays her pear-shaped, stone-coloured
eggs, four in number, and always arranged with their pointed ends
touching each other, as is the custom of most Limicoline birds. The
parents exhibit the greatest anxiety for their offspring on the approach
of an intruder. It is the best-known bird of its family in the United
States, where it is less abundant in the north-east than farther south
or west. In Canada it does not range farther northward than 56 deg. N.;
it is not known in Greenland, and hardly in Labrador, though it is a
passenger in Newfoundland every spring and autumn.[2] In winter it finds
its way to Bermuda and to some of the Antilles, but it is not recorded
from any of the islands to the windward of Porto Rico. In the other
direction, however, it travels down the Isthmus of Panama and the west
coast of South America to Peru. The killdeer has several other congeners
in America, among which may be noticed _Ae. semipalmata_, curiously
resembling the ordinary ringed plover of the Old World, _Ae. hiaticula_,
except that it has its toes connected by a web at the base; and Ae.
nivosa, a bird inhabiting the western parts of both the American
continents, which in the opinion of some authors is only a local form of
the widely spread _Ae. alexandrina_ or _cantiana_, best known as Kentish
plover, from its discovery near Sandwich towards the end of the 18th
century, though it is far more abundant in many other parts of the Old
World. The common ringed plover, _Ae. hiaticula_, has many of the habits
of the killdeer, but is much less often found away from the sea-shore,
though a few colonies may be found in dry warrens in certain parts of
England many miles from the coast, and in Lapland at a still greater
distance. In such localities it paves its nest with small stones (whence
it is locally known as "Stone hatch"), a habit almost unaccountable
unless regarded as an inherited instinct from shingle-haunting
ancestors. (A. N.)
FOOTNOTES:
[1] The word dotterel seems properly applicable to a single species
only, the _Charadrius morinellus_ of Linnaeus, which, from some of
its osteological characters, may be fitly regarded as the type of a
distinct genus, _Eudromias_. Whether any other species agree with it
in the peculiarity alluded to is at present uncertain.
[2] A single example is said to have been shot near Christchurch, in
Hampshire, England, in April 1857 (_Ibis_, 1862, p. 276).
KILLIECRANKIE, a pass of Perthshire, Scotland, 3(3/4) m. N.N.W. of
Pitlochry by the Highland railway. Beginning close to Killiecrankie
station it extends southwards to the bridge of Garry for nearly 1(1/2)
m. through the narrow, extremely beautiful, densely wooded glen in the
channel of which flows the Garry. A road constructed by General Wade in
1732 runs up the pass, and between this and the river is the railway,
built in 1863. The battle of the 27th of July 1689, between some 3000
Jacobites under Viscount Dundee and the royal force, about 4000 strong,
led by General Hugh Mackay, though named from the ravine, was not
actually fought in the pass. When Mackay emerged from the gorge he found
the Highlanders already in battle array on the high ground on the right
bank of the Girnaig, a tributary of the Garry, within half a mile of
where the railway station now is. Before he had time to form on the more
open table-land, the clansmen charged impetuously with their claymores
and swept his troops back into the pass and the Garry. Mackay lost
nearly half his force, the Jacobites about 900, including their leader.
Urrard House adjoins the spot where Viscount Dundee received his
death-wound.
KILLIGREW, SIR HENRY (d. 1603), English diplomatist, belonged to an old
Cornish family and became member of parliament for Launceston in 1553.
Having lived abroad during the whole or part of Mary's reign, he
returned to England when Elizabeth came to the throne and at once began
to serve the new queen as a diplomatist. He was employed on a mission to
Germany, and in conducting negotiations in Scotland, where he had
several interviews with Mary Queen of Scots. He was knighted in 1591,
and after other diplomatic missions in various parts of Europe he died
early in 1603. Many of Sir Henry's letters on public matters are in the
Record Office, London, and in the British Museum. His first wife,
Catherine (c. 1530-1583), daughter of Sir Anthony Cooke (1504-1576),
tutor to Edward VI., was a lady of talent.
Another celebrated member of this family was Sir ROBERT KILLIGREW (c.
1579-1633), who was knighted by James I. in the same year (1603) as his
father, Sir William Killigrew. Sir William was an officer in Queen
Elizabeth's household and a member of parliament; he died in November
1622. Sir Robert was a member of all the parliaments between 1603 and
his death, but he came more into prominence owing to his alleged
connexion with the death of Sir Thomas Overbury. A man of some
scientific knowledge, he had been in the habit of supplying powders to
Robert Carr, earl of Somerset, but it is not certain that the fatal
powder came from the hands of Killigrew. He died early in 1633, leaving
five sons, three of whom attained some reputation (see below).
KILLIGREW, THOMAS (1612-1683), English dramatist and wit, son of Sir
Robert Killigrew, was born in Lothbury, London, on the 7th of February
1612. Pepys says that as a boy he satisfied his love of the stage by
volunteering at the Red Bull to take the part of a devil, thus seeing
the play for nothing. In 1633 he became page to Charles I., and was
faithfully attached to the royal house throughout his life. In 1635 he
was in France, and has left an account (printed in the _European
Magazine_, 1803) of the exorcizing of an evil spirit from some nuns at
Loudun. In 1641 he published two tragi-comedies, _The Prisoners_ and
_Claracilla_, both of which had probably been produced before 1636. In
1647 he followed Prince Charles into exile. His wit, easy morals and
accommodating temper recommended him to Charles, who sent him to Venice
in 1651 as his representative. Early in the following year he was
recalled at the request of the Venetian ambassador in Paris. At the
Restoration he became groom of the bedchamber to Charles II., and later
chamberlain to the queen. He received in 1660, with Sir William
Davenant, a patent to erect a new playhouse, the performances in which
were to be independent of the censorship of the master of the revels.
This infringement of his prerogative caused a dispute with Sir Henry
Herbert, then holder of the office, but Killigrew settled the matter by
generous concessions. He acted independently of Davenant, his company
being known as the King's Servants. They played at the Red Bull, until
in 1663 he built for them the original Theatre Royal in Drury Lane.
Pepys writes in 1664 that Killigrew intended to have four opera seasons
of six weeks each during the year, and with this end in view paid
several visits to Rome to secure singers and scene decorators. In 1664
his plays were published as _Comedies and Tragedies_. _Written by Thomas
Killigrew._ They are _Claracilla_; _The Princess, or Love at First
Sight_; _The Parson's Wedding_; _The Pilgrim_; _Cicilia and Clorinda, or
Love in Arms_; _Thomaso, or the Wanderer_; and _Bellamira, her Dream, or
Love of Shadows_. _The Parson's Wedding_ (acted c. 1640, reprinted in
the various editions of Dodsley's _Old Plays_ and in the _Ancient
British Drama_) is an unsavoury play, which displays nevertheless
considerable wit, and some of its jokes were appropriated by Congreve.
It was revived after the Restoration in 1664 and 1672 or 1673, all the
parts being in both cases taken by women. Killigrew succeeded Sir Henry
Herbert as master of the revels in 1673. He died at Whitehall on the
19th of March 1683. He was twice married, first to Cecilia Crofts, maid
of honour to Queen Henrietta Maria, and secondly to Charlotte de Hesse,
by whom he had a son Thomas (1657-1719), who was the author of a
successful little piece, _Chit-Chat_, played at Drury Lane on the 14th
of February 1719, with Mrs Oldfield in the part of Florinda.
Killigrew enjoyed a greater reputation as a wit than as a dramatist.
Sir John Denham said of him:--
Had Cowley ne'er spoke, Killigrew ne'er writ,
Combined in one, they'd made a matchless wit.
Many stories are related of his bold speeches to Charles I. Pepys
(Feb. 12, 1668) records that he was said to hold the title of King's
Fool or Jester, with a cap and bells at the expense of the king's
wardrobe, and that he might therefore revile or jeer anybody, even the
greatest, without offence.
His elder brother, Sir WILLIAM KILLIGREW (1606-1695), was a court
official under Charles I. and Charles II. He attempted to drain the
Lincolnshire fens, and was the author of four plays (printed 1665 and
1666) of some merit.
A younger brother, Dr HENRY KILLIGREW (1613-1700), was chaplain and
almoner to the duke of York, and master of the Savoy after the
Restoration. A juvenile play of his, _The Conspiracy_, was printed
surreptitiously in 1638, and in an authenticated version in 1653 as
_Pallantus and Eudora_. He had two sons, HENRY KILLIGREW (d. 1712), an
admiral, and JAMES KILLIGREW, also a naval officer, who was killed in an
encounter with the French in January 1695; and a daughter, ANNE
(1660-1685), poet and painter, who was maid of honour to the duchess of
York, and was the subject of an ode by Dryden, which Samuel Johnson
thought the noblest in the language.
A sister, ELIZABETH KILLIGREW, married Francis Boyle, 1st Viscount
Shannon, and became a mistress of Charles II.
KILLIN, a village and parish of Perthshire, Scotland, at the
south-western extremity of Loch Tay, 4 m. N.E. of Killin Junction on a
branch line of the Callander & Oban railway. Pop. of parish (1901),
1423. It is situated near the confluence of the rivers and glens of the
Dochart and Lochay, and is a popular tourist centre, having
communication by steamer with Kenmore at the other end of the lake, and
thence by coach to Aberfeldy, the terminus of a branch of the Highland
railway. It has manufactures of tweeds. In a field near the village a
stone marks the site of what is known as Fingal's Grove. An island in
the Dochart (which is crossed at Killin by a bridge of five arches) is
the ancient burial-place of the clan Macnab. Finlarig Castle, a
picturesque mass of ivy-clad ruins, was a stronghold of the Campbells of
Glenorchy, and several earls of Breadalbane were buried in ground
adjoining it, where the modern mausoleum of the family stands. Three
miles up the Lochay, which rises in the hills beyond the forest of
Mamlorn and has a course of 15 m., the river forms a graceful cascade.
The Dochart, issuing from Loch Dochart, flows for 13 m. in a
north-easterly direction and falls into Loch Tay. The ruined castle on
an islet in the loch once belonged to the Campbells of Lochawe.
KILLIS, a town of N. Syria, in the vilayet of Aleppo, 60 m. N. of Aleppo
city. It is situated in an extremely fertile plain, and is completely
surrounded with olive groves, the produce of which is reckoned the
finest oil of all Syria; and its position on the carriage-road from
Aleppo to Aintab and Birejik gives it importance. The population
(20,000) consists largely of Circassians, Turkomans and Arabs, the town
lying just on the northern rim of the Arab territory. As Killis lies
also very near the proposed junction of the Bagdad and the Beirut-Aleppo
railways (at Tell Habesh), it is likely to increase in importance.
KILLYBEGS, a seaport and market town of county Donegal, Ireland, in the
south parliamentary division, on the north coast on Donegal Bay, the
terminus of the Donegal railway. Pop. (1901), 607. It derives some
importance from its fine land-locked harbour, which, affording
accommodation to large vessels, is used as a naval station, and is the
centre of an important fishery. There is a large pier for the fishing
vessels. The manufacture of carpets occupies a part of the population,
employing both male and female labour--the productions being known as
Donegal carpets. There are slight remains of a castle and ancient
church; and a mineral spring is still used. The town received a charter
from James I., and was a parliamentary borough, returning two members,
until the Union.
KILLYLEAGH, a small seaport and market town of county Down, Ireland, in
the east parliamentary division, on the western shore of Strangford
Lough. Pop. (1901), 1410. Linen manufacture is the principal industry,
and agricultural produce is exported. Killyleagh was an important
stronghold in early times, and the modern castle preserves the towers of
the old building. Sir John de Courcy erected this among many other
fortresses in the neighbourhood; it was besieged by Shane O'Neill
(1567), destroyed by Monk (1648), and subsequently rebuilt. The town was
incorporated by James I., and returned two members to the Irish
parliament.
KILMAINE, CHARLES EDWARD (1751-1799), French general, was born at Dublin
on the 19th of October 1751. At the age of eleven he went with his
father, whose surname was Jennings, to France, where he changed his name
to Kilmaine, after a village in Mayo. He entered the French army as an
officer in a dragoon regiment in 1774, and afterwards served as a
volunteer in the Navy (1778), during which period he was engaged in the
fighting in Senegal. From 1780 to 1783 he took part in the War of
American Independence under Rochambeau, rejoining the army on his return
to France. In 1791, as a retired captain, he took the civic oath and was
recalled to active service, becoming lieutenant-colonel in 1792, and
colonel, brigadier-general, and lieutenant-general in 1793. In this last
capacity he distinguished himself in the wars on the northern and
eastern frontiers. But he became an object of suspicion on account of
his foreign birth and his relations with England. He was suspended on
the 4th of August 1793, and was not recalled to active service till
1795. He then took part in the Italian campaigns of 1796 and 1797, and
was made commandant of Lombardy. He afterwards received the command of
the cavalry in Bonaparte's "army of England," of which, during the
absence of Desaix, he was temporarily commander-in-chief (1798). He died
on the 15th of December 1799.
See J. G. Alger, _Englishmen in the French Revolution_ (1889); Eugene
Fieffe, _Histoire des troupes etrangeres au service de France_ (1854);
Etienne Charavay, _Correspondance de Carnot_, tome iii.
KILMALLOCK, a market town of county Limerick, Ireland, in the east
parliamentary division, 124(1/4) m. S.W. of Dublin by the Great Southern
& Western main line. Pop. (1901), 1206. It commands a natural route (now
followed by the railway) through the hills to the south and south-west,
and is a site of great historical interest. It received a charter in the
reign of Edward III., at which time it was walled and fortified, and
entered by four gates, two of which remain. It was a military post of
importance in Elizabeth's reign, but its fortifications were for the
most part demolished by order of Cromwell. Two castellated mansions are
still to be seen. The church of St Peter and St Paul belonged to a
former abbey, and has a tower at the north-west corner which is a
converted round tower. The Dominican Abbey, of the 13th century, has
Early English remains of great beauty and a tomb to Edmund, the last of
the White Knights, a branch of the family of Desmond intimately
connected with Kilmallock, who received their title from Edward III. at
the battle of Halidon Hill. The foundation of Kilmallock, however, is
attributed to the Geraldines, who had several towns in this vicinity.
Eight miles from the town is Lough Gur, near which are numerous stone
circles and other remains. Kilmallock returned two members to the Irish
parliament.
KILMARNOCK, a municipal and police burgh of Ayrshire, Scotland, on
Kilmarnock Water, a tributary of the Irvine, 24 m. S.W. of Glasgow by
the Glasgow & South-Western railway. Pop. (1901), 35,091. Among the
chief buildings are the town hall, court-house, corn-exchange (with the
Albert Tower, 110 ft. high), observatory, academy, corporation art
gallery, institute (containing a free library and a museum), Kay
schools, School of Science and Art, Athenaeum, theatre, infirmary,
Agricultural Hall, and Philosophical Institution. The grounds of
Kilmarnock House, presented to the town in 1893, were laid out as a
public park. In Kay Park (48(3/4) acres), purchased from the duke of
Portland for L9000, stands the Burns Memorial, consisting of two storeys
and a tower, and containing a museum in which have been placed many
important MSS. of the poet and the McKie library of Burns's books. The
marble statue of the poet, by W. G. Stevenson, stands on a terrace on
the southern face. A Reformers' monument was unveiled in Kay Park in
1885. Kilmarnock rose into importance in the 17th century by its
production of striped woollen "Kilmarnock cowls" and broad blue bonnets,
and afterwards acquired a great name for its Brussels, Turkey and
Scottish carpets. Tweeds, blankets, shawls, tartans, lace curtains,
cottons and winceys are also produced. The boot and shoe trade is
prosperous, and there are extensive engineering and hydraulic machinery
works. But the iron industry is prominent, the town being situated in
the midst of a rich mineral region. Here, too, are the workshops of the
Glasgow & South-Western railway company. Kilmarnock is famous for its
dairy produce, and every October holds the largest cheese-show in
Scotland. The neighbourhood abounds in freestone and coal. The burgh,
which is governed by a provost and council, unites with Dumbarton, Port
Glasgow, Renfrew and Rutherglen in returning one member to parliament.
Alexander Smith, the poet (1830-1867), whose father was a lace-pattern
designer, and Sir James Shaw (1764-1843), lord mayor of London in 1806,
to whom a statue was erected in the town in 1848, were natives of
Kilmarnock. It dates from the 15th century, and in 1591 was made a burgh
of barony under the Boyds, the ruling house of the district. The last
Boyd who bore the title of Lord Kilmarnock was beheaded on Tower Hill,
London, in 1746, for his share in the Jacobite rising. The first edition
of Robert Burns's poems was published here in 1786.
KILMAURS, a town in the Cunningham division of Ayrshire, Scotland, on
the Carmel, 21(1/2) m. S. by W. of Glasgow by the Glasgow &
South-Western railway. Pop. (1901), 1803. Once noted for its cutlery,
the chief industries now are shoe and bonnet factories, and there are
iron and coal mines in the neighbourhood. The parish church dates from
1170, and was dedicated either to the Virgin or to a Scottish saint of
the 9th century called Maure. It was enlarged in 1403 and in great part
rebuilt in 1888. Adjoining it is the burial-place of the earls of
Glencairn, the leading personages in the district during several
centuries, some of whom bore the style of Lord Kilmaurs. Their family
name was Cunningham, adopted probably from the manor which they acquired
in the 12th century. The town was made a burgh of barony in 1527 by the
earl of that date. Burns's patron, the thirteenth earl, on whose death
the poet wrote his touching "Lament," sold the Kllmaurs estate in 1786
to the marchioness of Titchfield.
KILN (O.E. _cylene_, from the Lat. _culina_, a kitchen, cooking-stove),
a place for burning, baking or drying. Kilns may be divided into two
classes--those in which the materials come into actual contact with the
flames, and those in which the furnace is beneath or surrounding the
oven. Lime-kilns are of the first class, and brick-kilns, pottery-kilns,
&c., of the second, which also includes places for merely drying
materials, such as hop-kilns, usually called "oasts" or "oast-houses."
KILPATRICK, NEW, or EAST, also called BEARSDEN, a town of
Dumbartonshire, Scotland, 5(1/2) m. N.W. of Glasgow by road, with a
station on the North British railway company's branch line from Glasgow
to Milngavie. Pop. (1901), 2705. The town is largely inhabited by
business men from Glasgow. The public buildings include the Shaw
convalescent home, Buchanan, Retreat, house of refuge for girls,
library, and St Peter's College, a fine structure, presented to the
Roman Catholic Church in 1892 by the archbishop of Glasgow. There is
some coal-mining, and lime is manufactured. Remains of the Wall of
Antoninus are close to the town. At Garscube and Garscadden, both within
1(1/2) m. of New Kilpatrick, are extensive iron-works, and at the former
place coal is mined and stone quarried.
KILPATRICK, OLD, a town of Dumbartonshire, Scotland, on the right bank
of the Clyde, 10(1/2) m. N.W. of Glasgow by rail, with stations on the
North British and Caledonian railways. Pop. (1901), 1533. It is
traditionally the birthplace of St Patrick, whose father is said to
have acted there as a Roman magistrate. Roman remains occur in the
district, and the Wall of Antoninus ran through the parish. To the
north, occupying an area of about 6 m. from east to west and 5 m. from
north to south run the Kilpatrick Hills, of which the highest points are
Duncomb and Fynloch Hill (each 1313 ft.).
KILRUSH, a seaport and watering-place of county Clare, Ireland, in the
west parliamentary division, on the north shore of the Shannon estuary
45 m. below Limerick. Pop. of urban district (1901), 4179. It is the
terminus of a branch of the West Clare railway. The only seaport of
importance in the county, it has a considerable export trade in peat
fuel, extensive fisheries, and flagstone quarries; while general fairs,
horse fairs and annual agricultural shows are held. The inner harbour
admits only small vessels, but there is a good pier a mile south of the
town. Off the harbour lies Scattery Island (_Inis Cathaigh_), where St
Senan (d. 544) founded a monastery. There are the remains of his oratory
and house and of seven rude churches or chapels, together with a round
tower and a holy well still in repute. The island also received the
epithet of Holy, and was a favourite burial-ground until modern times.
KILSYTH, a police burgh of Stirlingshire, Scotland, on the Kelvin, 13 m.
N.N.E. of Glasgow by the North British railway, and close to the Forth
and Clyde canal. Pop. (1901), 7292. The principal buildings are the town
and public halls, and the academy. The chief industries are coal-mining
and iron-works; there are also manufactures of paper and cotton, besides
quarrying of whinstone and sandstone. There are considerable remains of
the Wall of Antoninus south of the town, and to the north the ruins of
the old castle. Kilsyth dates from the middle of the 17th century and
became a burgh of barony in 1826. It was the scene of Montrose's defeat
of the Covenanters on the 15th of August 1645. The town was the centre
of remarkable religious revivals in 1742-3 and 1839, the latter
conducted by William Chalmers Burns (1815-1868), the missionary to
China.
KILT, properly the short loose skirt or petticoat, reaching to the knees
and usually made of tartan, forming part of the dress of a Scottish
Highlander (see COSTUME). The word means that which is "girded or tucked
up," and is apparently of Scandinavian origin, cf. Danish _kilte_, to
tuck up. The early kilt was not a separate garment but was merely the
lower part of the plaid, in which the Highlander wrapped himself,
hanging down in folds below the belt.
KILWA (Quiloa), a seaport of German East Africa, about 200 m. S. of
Zanzibar. There are two Kilwas, one on the mainland--Kilwa Kivinje; the
other, the ancient city, on an island--Kilwa Kisiwani. Kilwa Kivinje, on
the northern side of Kilwa Bay, is regularly laid out, the houses in the
European quarter being large and substantial. The government house and
barracks are fortified and are surrounded by fine public gardens. The
adjacent country is fertile and thickly populated, and the trade of the
port is considerable. Much of it is in the hands of Banyans. Kilwa is a
starting-point for caravans to Lake Nyasa. Pop. about 5000. Most of the
inhabitants are Swahili.
Kilwa Kisiwani, 18 m. to the south of the modern town, possesses a deep
harbour sheltered from all winds by projecting coral reefs. The island
on which it is built is separated from the mainland by a shallow and
narrow channel. The ruins of the city include massive walls and
bastions, remains of a palace and of two large mosques, of which the
domed roofs are in fair preservation, besides several Arab forts. The
new quarter contains a customs house and a few Arab buildings. Pop.
about 600. On the island of Songa Manara, at the southern end of Kilwa
Bay, hidden in dense vegetation, are the ruins of another city, unknown
to history. Fragments of palaces and mosques in carved limestone exist,
and on the beach are the remains of a lighthouse. Chinese coins and
pieces of porcelain have been found on the sea-shore, washed up from the
reefs.
The sultanate of Kilwa is reputed to have been founded about A.D. 975
by Ali ibn Hasan, a Persian prince from Shiraz, upon the site of the
ancient Greek colony of Rhapta. The new state, at first confined to
the town of Kilwa, extended its influence along the coast from
Zanzibar to Sofala, and the city came to be regarded as the capital of
the Zenj "empire" (see ZANZIBAR: "Sultanate"). An Arab chronicle gives
a list of over forty sovereigns who reigned at Kilwa in a period of
five hundred years (cf. A. M. H. J. Stokvis, _Manuel d'histoire_,
Leiden, 1888, i. 558). Pedro Alvares Cabral, the Portuguese navigator,
was the first European to visit it. His fleet, on its way to India,
anchored in Kilwa Bay in 1500. Kilwa was then a large and wealthy
city, possessing, it is stated, three hundred mosques. In 1502 Kilwa
submitted to Vasco da Gama, but the sultan neglecting to pay the
tribute imposed upon him, the city in 1505 was occupied by the
Portuguese. They built a fort there; the first erected by them on the
east coast of Africa. Fighting ensued between the Arabs and the
Portuguese, the city was destroyed; and in 1512 the Portuguese, whose
ranks had been decimated by fever, temporarily abandoned the place.
Subsequently Kilwa became one of the chief centres of the slave trade.
Towards the end of the 17th century it fell under the dominion of the
imams of Muscat, and on the separation in 1856 of their Arabian and
African possessions became subject to the sultan of Zanzibar. With the
rest of the southern part of the sultan's continental dominions Kilwa
was acquired by Germany in 1890 (see AFRICA, S 5; and GERMAN EAST
AFRICA).
KILWARDBY, ROBERT (d. 1279), archbishop of Canterbury and cardinal,
studied at the university of Paris, where he soon became famous as a
teacher of grammar and logic. Afterwards joining the order of St Dominic
and turning his attention to theology, he was chosen provincial prior of
his order in England in 1261, and in October 1272 Pope Gregory X.
terminated a dispute over the vacant archbishopric of Canterbury by
appointing Kilwardby. Although the new archbishop crowned Edward I. and
his queen Eleanor in August 1274, he took little part in business of
state, but was energetic in discharging the spiritual duties of his
office. He was charitable to the poor, and showed liberality to the
Dominicans. In 1278 Pope Nicholas III. made him cardinal-bishop of Porto
and Santa Rufina; he resigned his archbishopric and left England,
carrying with him the registers and other valuable property belonging to
the see of Canterbury. He died in Italy on the 11th of September 1279.
Kilwardby was the first member of a mendicant order to attain a high
position in the English Church. Among his numerous writings, which
became very popular among students, are _De ortu scientiarum_, _De
tempore_, _De Universali_, and some commentaries on Aristotle.
See N. Trevet, _Annales sex regum Angliae_, edited by T. Hog (London,
1845); W. F. Hook, _Lives of the Archbishops of Canterbury_, vol. iii.
(London, 1860-1876); J. Quetif and J. Echard, _Scriptores ordinis
Predicatorum_ (Paris, 1719-1721).
KILWINNING, a municipal and police burgh of Ayrshire, Scotland, on the
right bank of the Garnock, 24 m. S.W. of Glasgow by the Caledonian
railway, and 26(3/4) m. by the Glasgow & South-Western railway. Pop.
(1901), 4440. The chief buildings include the public library, the
Masonic hall and the district hospital. The centre of interest, however,
is the ruined abbey, originally one of the richest in Scotland. Founded
about 1140 by Hugh de Morville, lord of Cunninghame, for Tyronensian
monks of the Benedictine order, it was dedicated to St Winnin, who lived
on the spot in the 8th century and has given his name to the town. This
beautiful specimen of Early English architecture was partly destroyed in
1561, and its lands were granted to the earl of Eglinton and others.
Kilwinning is the traditional birthplace of Scottish freemasonry, the
lodge, believed to have been founded by the foreign architects and
masons who came to build the abbey, being regarded as the mother lodge
in Scotland. The royal company of archers of Kilwinning--dating, it is
said, as far back as 1488--meet every July to shoot at the popinjay. The
industry in weaving shawls and lighter fabrics has died out; and the
large iron, coal and fire-clay works at Eglinton, and worsted spinning,
employ most of the inhabitants. About a mile from Kilwinning is Eglinton
Castle, the seat of the earls of Eglinton, built in 1798 in the English
castellated style.
KIMBERLEY, JOHN WODEHOUSE, 1ST EARL OF (1826-1902), English statesman,
was born on the 7th of January 1826, being the eldest son of the Hon.
Henry Wodehouse and grandson of the 2nd Baron Wodehouse (the barony
dating from 1797), whom he succeeded in 1846. He was educated at Eton
and Christ Church, Oxford, where he took a first-class degree in
classics in 1847; in the same year married Lady Florence Fitzgibbon (d.
1895), daughter of the last earl of Clare. He was by inheritance a
Liberal in politics, and in 1852-1856 and 1859-1861 he was under
secretary of state for foreign affairs in Lord Aberdeen's and Lord
Palmerston's ministries. In the interval (1856-1858) he had been
envoy-extraordinary to Russia; and in 1863 he was sent on a special
mission to Copenhagen on the forlorn hope of finding a peaceful solution
of the Schleswig-Holstein question. The mission was a failure, but
probably nothing else was possible. In 1864 he became under secretary
for India, but towards the end of the year was made Lord-Lieutenant of
Ireland. In that capacity he had to grapple with the first
manifestations of Fenianism, and in recognition of his vigour and
success he was created (1866) earl of Kimberley. In July 1866 he vacated
his office with the fall of Lord Russell's ministry, but in 1868 he
became Lord Privy Seal in Mr Gladstone's cabinet, and in July 1870 was
transferred from that post to be secretary of state for the colonies. It
was the moment of the great diamond discoveries in South Africa, and the
new town of Kimberley was named after the colonial secretary of the day.
After an interval of opposition from 1874 to 1880, Lord Kimberley
returned to the Colonial Office in Mr Gladstone's next ministry; but at
the end of 1882 he exchanged this office first for that of chancellor of
the duchy of Lancaster and then for the secretaryship of state for
India, a post he retained during the remainder of Mr Gladstone's tenure
of power (1882-1886, 1892-1894), though in 1892-1894 he combined with it
that of the lord presidency of the council. In Lord Rosebery's cabinet
(1894-1895) he was foreign secretary. Lord Kimberley was an admirable
departmental chief, but it is difficult to associate his own personality
with any ministerial act during his occupation of all these posts. He
was at the colonial office when responsible government was granted to
Cape Colony, when British Columbia was added to the Dominion of Canada,
and during the Boer War of 1880-81, with its conclusion at Majuba; and
he was foreign secretary when the misunderstanding arose with Germany
over the proposed lease of territory from the Congo Free State for the
Cape to Cairo route. He was essentially a loyal Gladstonian party man.
His moderation, common sense, and patriotism had their influence,
nevertheless, on his colleagues. As leader of the Liberal party in the
House of Lords he acted with undeviating dignity; and in opposition he
was a courteous antagonist and a critic of weight and experience. He
took considerable interest in education, and after being for many years
a member of the senate of London University, he became its chancellor in
1899. He died in London on the 8th of April 1902, being succeeded in the
earldom by his eldest and only surviving son, Lord Wodehouse (b. 1848).
KIMBERLEY, a town of the Cape province, South Africa, the centre of the
Griqualand West diamond industry, 647 m. N.E. of Cape Town and 310 m.
S.W. of Johannesburg by rail. Pop. (1904), 34,331, of whom 13,556 were
whites. The town is built on the bare veld midway between the Modder and
Vaal Rivers and is 4012 ft. above the sea. Having grown out of camps
formed round the diamond mines, its plan is very irregular and in
striking contrast with the rectangular outline common to South African
towns. Grouped round market square are the law courts, with a fine clock
tower, the post and telegraph offices and the town-hall. The public
library and the hospital are in Du Toits Pan Road. In the district of
Newton, laid out during the siege of 1899-1900, a monument to those who
fell during the operations has been erected where four roads meet. Siege
Avenue, in the suburb of Kenilworth, 250 ft. wide, a mile and a quarter
long, and planted with 16 rows of trees, was also laid out during the
siege. In the public gardens are statues of Queen Victoria and Cecil
Rhodes. The diamond mines form, however, the chief attraction of the
town (see DIAMOND). Of these the Kimberley is within a few minutes' walk
of market square. The De Beers mine is one mile east of the Kimberley
mine. The other principal mines, Bultfontein, Du Toits Pan and
Wesselton, are still farther distant from the town. Barbed wire fencing
surrounds the mines, which cover about 180 acres.
The Kaffirs who work in the mines are housed in large compounds. Wire
netting is spread over these enclosures, and every precaution taken to
prevent the illicit disposal of diamonds. Ample provision is made for
the comfort of the inmates, who in addition to food and lodging earn
from 17s. to 24s. a week. Most of the white workmen employed live at
Kenilworth, laid out by the De Beers company as a "model village."
Beaconsfield, near Du Toits Pan Mine, is also dependent on the diamond
industry.
Kimberley was founded in 1870 by diggers who discovered diamonds on the
farms of Du Toits Pan and Bultfontein. In 1871 richer diamonds were
found on the neighbouring farm of Vooruitzight at places named De Beers
and Colesberg Kopje. There were at first three distinct mining camps,
one at Du Toits Pan, another at De Beers (called De Beers Rush or Old De
Beers) and the third at the Colesberg Kopje (called De Beers New Rush,
or New Rush simply). The Colesberg Kopje mine was in July 1873 renamed
Kimberley in honour of the then secretary of state for the colonies, the
1st earl of Kimberley, by whose direction the mines were--in 1871--taken
under the protection of Great Britain. Kimberley was also chosen as the
name of the town into which the mining camps developed. Doubt having
arisen as to the rights of the crown to the minerals on Vooruitzight
farm, litigation ensued, ending in the purchase of the farm by the state
for L100,000 in 1875. In 1880 the town was incorporated in Cape Colony
(see GRIQUALAND). In 1874 a great part of the population left for the
newly discovered gold diggings in the Lydenburg district of the
Transvaal, but others took their place. Among those early attracted to
Kimberley were Cecil Rhodes and "Barney" Barnato, who in time came to
represent two groups of financiers controlling the mines. The
amalgamation of their interests in 1889--when the De Beers group
purchased the Kimberley mine for L5,338,650--put the whole diamond
production of the Kimberley fields in the hands of one company, the De
Beers Consolidated Mines, Ltd., so named after the former owners of the
farms on which are situated the chief mines. Kimberley in consequence
became largely dependent on the good-will of the De Beers corporation,
the town having practically no industries other than diamond mining.
Horse-breeding is carried on to a limited extent. The value of the
annual output of diamonds averages about L4,500,000. The importance of
the industry led to the building of a railway from Cape Town, opened in
1885. On the outbreak of war between the British and the Boers in 1899
Kimberley was invested by a Boer force. The siege began on the 12th of
October and lasted until the 15th of February 1900, when the town was
relieved by General Sir John French. Among the besieged was Cecil
Rhodes, who placed the resources of the De Beers company at the disposal
of the defenders. In 1906 the town was put in direct railway
communication with Johannesburg, and in 1908 the completion of the line
from Bloemfontein gave Natal direct access to Kimberley, which thus
became an important railway centre.
KIMERIDGIAN, in geology, the basal division of the Upper Oolites in the
Jurassic system. The name is derived from the hamlet of Kimeridge or
Kimmeridge near the coast of Dorsetshire, England. It appears to have
been first suggested by T. Webster in 1812; in 1818, in the form
Kimeridge Clay, it was used by Buckland. From the Dorsetshire coast,
where it is splendidly exposed in the fine cliffs from St Alban's Head
to Gad Cliff, it follows the line of Jurassic outcrop through Wiltshire,
where there is a broad expanse between Westbury and Devizes, as far as
Yorkshire, there it appears in the vale of Pickering and on the coast in
Filey Bay. It generally occupied broad valleys, of which the vale of
Aylesbury may be taken as typical. Good exposures occur at Seend, Calne,
Swindon, Wootton Bassett, Faringdon, Abingdon, Culham, Shotover Hill,
Brill, Ely and Market Rasen. Traces of the formation are found as far
north as the east coast of Cromarty and Sutherland at Eathie and
Helmsdale.
In England the Kimeridgian is usually divisible into an Upper Series,
600-650 ft. in the south, dark bituminous shales, paper shales and
clays with layers and nodules of cement-stones and septaria. These
beds merge gradually into the overlying Portlandian formation. The
Lower Series, with a maximum thickness of 400 ft., consists of clays
and dark shales with septaria, cement-stones and calcareous "doggers."
These lithological characters are very persistent. The Upper
Kimeridgian is distinguished as the zone of _Perisphincles biplex_,
with the sub-zone of _Discina latissima_ in the higher portions.
_Cardioceras alternans_ is the zonal ammonite characteristic of the
lower division, with the sub-zone of _Ostrea deltoidea_ in the lower
portion. _Exogyra virgula_ is common in the upper part of the lower
division, and the lower part of the Upper Kimeridgian. A large number
of ammonites are peculiar to this formation, including _Reineckia
eudoxus_, _R. Thurmanni_, _Aspidoceras longispinus_, &c. Large
dinosaurian reptiles are abundant, _Cetiosaurus_, _Gigantosaurus_,
_Megalosaurus_, also plesiosaurs and ichthyosaurs; crocodilian and
chelonian remains are also found. _Protocardia striatula_, _Thracia
depressa_, _Belemnites abreviatus_, _B. Blainvillei_, _Lingula
ovalis_, _Rhynchonella inconstans_ and _Exogyra nana_ are
characteristic fossils. Alum has been obtained from the Kimeridge
Clay, and the cement-stones have been employed in Purbeck; coprolites
are found in small quantities. Bricks, tiles, flower-pots, &c., are
made from the clay at Swindon, Gillingham, Brill, Ely, Horncastle, and
other places. The so-called "Kimeridge coal" is a highly bituminous
shale capable of being used as fuel, which has been worked on the
cliff at Little Kimeridge.
The "Kimeridgien" of continental geologists is usually made to contain
the three sub-divisions of A. Oppel and W. Waagen, viz.:--
/ Upper (Virgulian) with _Exogyra virgula_
Kimeridgien < Middle (Pteroceran) with _Pteroceras oceani_
\ Lower (Astartian) with _Astarte supracorallina_;
but the upper portion of this continental Kimeridgian is equivalent to
some of the British Portlandian; while most of the Astartian
corresponds to the Corallian. A. de Lapparent now recognizes only the
Virgulian and Pteroceran in the Kimeridgien. Clays and marls with
occasional limestones and sandstones represent the Kimeridgien of most
of northern Europe, including Russia. In Swabia and some other parts
of Germany the curious ruiniform marble _Felsenkalk_ occurs on this
horizon, and most of the Kimeridgien of southern Europe, including the
Alps, is calcareous. Representatives of the formation occur in
Caucasia, Algeria, Abyssinia, Madagascar; in South America with
volcanic rocks, and possibly in California (Maripan beds), Alaska and
King Charles's Land.
See "Jurassic Rocks of Britain," vols. v. and i., _Memoirs of the
Geological Survey_ (vol. v. contains references to literature up to
1895). (J. A. H.)
KIMHI, or QIMHI, the family name of three Jewish grammarians and
biblical scholars who worked at Narbonne in the 12th century and the
beginning of the 13th, and exercised great influence on the study of the
Hebrew language. The name, as is shown by manuscript testimony, was also
pronounced _Kamhi_ and further mention is made of the French surname
Petit.
JOSEPH KIMHI was a native of southern Spain, and settled in Provence,
where he was one of the first to set forth in the Hebrew language the
results of Hebraic philology as expounded by the Spanish Jews in their
Arabic treatises. He was acquainted moreover with Latin grammar, under
the influence of which he resorted to the innovation of dividing the
Hebrew vowels into five long vowels and five short, previous grammarians
having simply spoken of seven vowels without distinction of quantity.
His grammatical textbook, _Sefer Ha-Zikkaron_, "Book of Remembrance"
(ed. W. Bacher, Berlin, 1888), was marked by methodical
comprehensiveness, and introduced into the theory of the verbs a new
classification of the stems which has been retained by later scholars.
In the far more ample _Sefer Ha-Galuy_, "Book of Demonstration" (ed.
Matthews, Berlin, 1887), Joseph Kimhi attacks the philological work of
the greatest French Talmud scholar of that day, R. Jacob Tam, who
espoused the antiquated system of Menahem b. Saruq, and this he
supplements by an independent critique of Menahem. This work is a mine
of varied exegetical and philological details. He also wrote
commentaries--the majority of which are lost--on a great number of the
scriptural books. Those on Proverbs and Job have been published. He
composed an apologetic work under the title _Sefer Ha-Berith_ ("Book of
the Bond"), a fragment of which is extant, and translated into Hebrew
the ethico-philosophical work of Bahya ibn Paquda ("Duties of the
Heart"). In his commentaries he also made contributions to the
comparative philology of Hebrew and Arabic.
MOSES KIMHI was the author of a Hebrew grammar, known--after the first
three words--as _Mahalak Shebile Ha-daat_, or briefly as _Mahalak_. It
is an elementary introduction to the study of Hebrew, the first of its
kind, in which only the most indispensable definitions and rules have a
place, the remainder being almost wholly occupied by paradigms. Moses
Kimhi was the first who made the verb _paqadh_ a model for conjugation,
and the first also who introduced the now usual sequence in the
enumeration of stem-forms. His handbook was of great historical
importance as in the first half of the 16th century it became the
favourite manual for the study of Hebrew among non-Judaic scholars (1st
ed., Pesaro, 1508). Elias Levita (q.v.) wrote Hebrew explanations, and
Sebastian Munster translated it into Latin. Moses Kimhi also composed
commentaries to the biblical books; those on Proverbs, Ezra and Nehemiah
are in the great rabbinical bibles falsely ascribed to Abraham ibn Ezra.
DAVID KIMHI (c. 1160-1235), also known as _Redaq_ (= R. David Kimhi),
eclipsed the fame both of his father and his brother. From the writings
of the former he quotes a great number of explanations, some of which
are known only from this source. His _magnum opus_ is the _Sefer
Miklol_, "Book of Completeness." This falls into two divisions: the
grammar, to which the title of the whole, _Miklol_, is usually applied
(first printed in Constantinople, 1532-1534, then, with the notes of
Elias Levita, at Venice, 1545), and the lexicon, _Sefer Hashorashim_,
"Book of Roots," which was first printed in Italy before 1480, then at
Naples in 1490, and at Venice in 1546 with the annotations of Elias. The
model and the principal source for this work of David Kimhi's was the
book of R. Jonah (Abulwalid), which was cast in a similar bipartite
form; and it was chiefly due to Kimhi's grammar and lexicon that, while
the contents of Abulwalid's works were common knowledge, they themselves
remained in oblivion for centuries. In spite of this dependence on his
predecessors his work shows originality, especially in the arrangement
of his material. In the grammar he combined the paradigmatic method of
his brother Moses with the procedure of the older scholars who devoted a
close attention to details. In his dictionary, again, he recast the
lexicological materials independently, and enriched lexicography itself,
especially by his numerous etymological explanations. Under the title
_Et Sofer_, "Pen of the Writer" (Lyk, 1864), David Kimhi composed a sort
of grammatical compendium as a guide to the correct punctuation of the
biblical manuscripts; it consists, for the most part, of extracts from
the _Miklol_. After the completion of his great work he began to write
commentaries on portions of the Scriptures. The first was on Chronicles,
then followed one on the Psalms, and finally his exegetical
masterpiece--the commentary on the prophets. His annotations on the
Psalms are especially interesting for the polemical excursuses directed
against the Christian interpretation. He was also responsible for a
commentary on Genesis (ed. A. Gunsburg, Pressburg, 1842), in which he
followed Moses Maimonides in explaining biblical narratives as visions.
He was an enthusiastic adherent of Maimonides, and, though far advanced
in years, took an active part in the battle which raged in southern
France and Spain round his philosophico-religious writings. The
popularity of his biblical exegesis is demonstrated by the fact that the
first printed texts of the Hebrew Bible were accompanied by his
commentary: the Psalms 1477, perhaps at Bologna; the early Prophets,
1485, Soncino; the later Prophets, ibid. 1486.
His commentaries have been frequently reprinted, many of them in Latin
translations. A new edition of that on the Psalms was begun by
Schiller-Szinessy (_First Book of Psalms_, Cambridge, 1883). Abr.
Geiger wrote of the three excursuses Kimhis in the Hebrew periodical
_Ozar Nehmad_ (vol. ii., 1857 = A. Geiger, _Gesammelte Schriften_, v.
1-47). See further the _Jewish Encyclopedia_. (W. Ba.)
KIN (O.E. _cyn_, a word represented in nearly all Teutonic languages,
cf. Du. _kunne_, Dan. and Swed. _kon_, Goth _kuni_, tribe; the Teutonic
base is _kunya_; the equivalent Aryan root _gan_-to beget, produce, is
seen in Gr. [Greek: genos], Lat. _genus_, cf. "kind"), a collective word
for persons related by blood, as descended from a common ancestor. In
law, the term "next of kin" is applied to the person or persons who, as
being in the nearest degree of blood relationship to a person dying
intestate, share according to degree in his personal estate (see
INTESTACY, and INHERITANCE). "Kin" is frequently associated with "kith"
in the phrase "kith and kin," now used as an emphasized form of "kin"
for family relatives. It properly means one's "country and kin," or
one's "friends and kin." Kith (O.E. _cyethethe_ and _cyeth_, native land,
acquaintances) comes from the stem of _cunnan_, to know, and thus means
the land or people one knows familiarly.
The suffix -_kin_, chiefly surviving in English surnames, seems to
have been early used as a diminutive ending to certain Christian names
in Flanders and Holland. The termination is represented by the
diminutive -_chen_ in German, as in _Kindchen_, _Hauschen_, &c. Many
English words, such as "pumpkin," "firkin," seem to have no diminutive
significance, and may have been assimilated from earlier forms, e.g.
"pumpkin" from "pumpion."
KINCARDINESHIRE, or THE MEARNS, an eastern county of Scotland, bounded
E. by the North Sea, S. and S.W. by Forfarshire, and N.W. and N. by
Aberdeenshire. Area, 243,974 acres, or 381 sq. m. In the west and
north-west the Grampians are the predominant feature. The highest of
their peaks is Mount Battock (2555 ft.), where the counties of Aberdeen,
Forfar and Kincardine meet, but there are a score of hills exceeding
1500 ft. in height. In the extreme north, on the confines of
Aberdeenshire, the Hill of Fare, famous for its sheep walks, attains an
altitude of 1545 ft. In the north the county slopes from the Grampians
to the picturesque and finely-wooded valley of the Dee, and in the south
it falls to the Howe (Hollow) of the Mearns, which is a continuation
north-eastwards of Strathmore. The principal rivers are Bervie Water (20
m. long), flowing south-eastwards to the North Sea; the Water of Feugh
(20 m.) taking a north-easterly direction and falling into the Dee at
Banchory, and forming near its mouth a beautiful cascade; the Dye (15
m.) rising in Mount Battock and ending its course in the Feugh; Luther
Water (14 m.) springing not far from the castle of Drumtochty and
meandering pleasantly to its junction with the North Esk; the Cowie (13
m.) and the Carron (8(1/2) m.) entering the sea at Stonehaven. The Dee
and North Esk serve as boundary streams during part of their course, the
one of Aberdeenshire, the other of Forfarshire. Loch Loirston, in the
parish of Nigg, and Loch Lumgair, in Dunnottar parish, both small, are
the only lakes in the shire. Of the glens Glen Dye in the north centre
of the county is remarkable for its beauty, and the small Den Fenella,
to the south-east of Laurencekirk, contains a picturesque waterfall. Its
name perpetuates the memory of Fenella, daughter of a thane of Angus,
who was slain here after betraying Kenneth II. to his enemies, who
(according to local tradition) made away with him in Kincardine Castle.
Excepting in the vicinity of St Cyrus, the coast from below Johnshaven
to Girdle Ness presents a bold front of rugged cliffs, with an average
height of from 100 to 250 ft., interrupted only by occasional creeks and
bays, as at Johnshaven, Gourdon, Bervie, Stonehaven, Portlethen, Findon,
Cove and Nigg.
_Geology._--The great fault which traverses Scotland from shore to
shore passes through this county from Craigeven Bay, about a mile
north of Stonehaven, by Fenella Hill to Edzell. On the northern side
of this line are the old crystalline schists of the Dalradian group;
on the southern side Old Red Sandstone occupies all the remaining
space. Good exposures of the schists are seen, repeatedly folded, in
the cliffs between Aberdeen and Stonehaven. They consist of a lower
series of greenish slates and a higher, more micaceous and schistose
series with grits; bands of limestone occur in these rocks near
Bunchory. Besides the numerous minor flexures the schists are bent
into a broad synclinal fold which crosses the county, its axis lying
in a south-westerly-north-easterly direction. Rising through the
schists are several granite masses, the largest being that forming the
high ground around Mt Battock; south of the Dee are several smaller
masses, some of which have been extensively quarried. The lower part
of the Old Red Sandstone consists of flags, red sandstones and purple
clays in great thickness; these are followed by coarse conglomerates,
well seen in the cliff at Dunnottar Castle, with ashy grits and some
thin sheets of diabase. The diabase forms the Bruxie and Leys Hills
and some minor elevations. Above the volcanic series more red
sandstones, conglomerates and marls appear. The Old Red Sandstone is
folded synclinally in a direction continuing the vale of Strathmore;
south of this is an anticline, as may be seen on the coast between St
Cyrus and Kinneff. Glacial striae on the higher ground and debris on
the lower ground show that the direction taken by the ice flow was
south-eastward on the hills but as the shore was approached it
gradually took on an easterly and finally a northerly direction.
_Climate and Agriculture._--The climate is healthy, but often cold,
owing to the exposure to east winds. The average temperature for the
year is 45 deg. F., for July 58 deg., and for January 37 deg. The
average annual rainfall is 34 in. Much of the Grampian territory is
occupied by grouse moors, but the land by the Dee, in the Howe and
along the coast, is scientifically farmed and yields well. The soil of
the Howe is richer and stronger than that in the Dee valley, but the
most fertile region is along the coast, where the soil is generally
deep loam resting on clay, although in some places it is poor and
thin, or stiff and cold. Oats are the principal crop, wheat is not
largely grown, but the demands of the distillers maintain a very
considerable acreage under barley. Rather more than one-tenth of the
total area is under wood. Turnips form the main green crop, but
potatoes are extensively raised. A little more than half the holdings
consist of 50 acres and under. Great attention is paid to livestock.
Shorthorns are the most common breed, but the principal home-bred
stock is a cross between shorthorned and polled, though there are many
valuable herds of pure polled. Cattle-feeding is carried on according
to the most advanced methods. Blackfaced sheep are chiefly kept on the
hill runs, Cheviots or a cross with Leicesters being usually found on
the lowland farms. Most of the horses are employed in connexion with
the cultivation of the soil, but several good strains, including
Clydesdales, are retained for stock purposes. Pigs are also reared in
considerable numbers.
_Other Industries._--Apart from agriculture, the principal industry is
the fishing, of which Stonehaven is the centre. The coast being
dangerous and the harbours difficult in rough weather, the fishermen
often run great risks. The village of Findon (pron. _Finnan_) has
given its name to the well-known smoked haddocks, which were first
cured in this way at that hamlet. The salmon fisheries of the sea and
the rivers yield a substantial annual return. Manufactures are of
little more than local importance. Woollens are made at Stonehaven,
and at Bervie, Laurencekirk and a few other places flax-spinning and
weaving are carried on. There are also some distilleries, breweries
and tanneries. Stonehaven, Gourdon and Johnshaven are the chief ports
for seaborne trade.
The Deeside railway runs through the portion of the county on the
northern bank of the Dee. The Caledonian and North British railways
run to Aberdeen via Laurencekirk to Stonehaven, using the same metals,
and there is a branch line of the N.B.R. from Montrose to Bervie.
There are also coaches between Blairs and Aberdeen, Bervie and
Stonehaven, Fettercairn and Edzell, Banchory and Birse, and other
points.
_Population and Government._--The population was 35,492 in 1891, and
40,923 in 1901, when 103 persons spoke Gaelic and English. The chief town
is Stonehaven (pop. in 1901, 4577) with Laurencekirk (1512) and Banchory
(1475), but part of the city of Aberdeen, with a population of 9386, is
within the county. The county returns one member to parliament, and
Bervie, the only royal burgh, belongs to the Montrose group of
parliamentary burghs. Kincardine is united in one sheriffdom with the
shires of Aberdeen and Banff, and one of the Aberdeen sheriffs-substitute
sits at Stonehaven. The county is under school-board jurisdiction. The
academy at Stonehaven and a few of the public schools earn grants for
higher education. The county council hands over the "residue" grant to
the county secondary education committee, which expends it in technical
education grants. At Blairs, in the north-east of the shire near the Dee,
is a Roman Catholic college for the training of young men for the
priesthood.
_History._--The annals of Kincardineshire as a whole are almost blank.
The county belonged of old to the district of Pictavia and apparently
was overrun for a brief period by the Romans. In the parish of
Fetteresso are the remains of the camp of Raedykes, in which, according
to tradition, the Caledonians under Galgacus were lodged before their
battle with Agricola. It is also alleged that in the same district
Malcolm I. was killed (954) whilst endeavouring to reduce the unruly
tribes of this region. Mearns, the alternative name for the county, is
believed to have been derived from Mernia, a Scottish king, to whom the
land was granted, and whose brother, Angus, had obtained the adjoining
shire of Forfar. The antiquities consist mostly of stone circles,
cairns, tumuli, standing stones and a structure in the parish of
Dunnottar vaguely known as a "Picts' kiln." By an extraordinary
reversion of fortune the town which gave the shire its name has
practically vanished. It stood about 2 m. N.E. of Fettercairn, and by
the end of the 16th century had declined to a mere hamlet, being
represented now only by the ruins of the royal castle and an ancient
burial-ground. The Bruces, earls of Elgin, also bear the title of earl
of Kincardine.
See A. Jervise, _History and Traditions of the Lands of the Lindsays_
(1853), _History and Antiquities of the Mearns_ (1858), _Memorials of
Angus and the Mearns_ (1861); J. Anderson, _The Black Book of
Kincardineshire_ (Stonehaven, 1879); C. A. Mollyson, _The Parish of
Fordoun_ (Aberdeen, 1893); A. C. Cameron, _The History of Fettercairn_
(Paisley, 1899).
KINCHINJUNGA, or KANCHANJANGA, the third (or second; see K2) highest
mountain in the world. It is a peak of the eastern Himalayas, situated
on the boundary between Sikkim and Nepal, with an elevation of 28,146
ft. Kinchinjunga is best seen from the Indian hill-station of
Darjeeling, where the view of this stupendous mountain, dominating all
intervening ranges and rising from regions of tropical undergrowth to
the altitude of eternal snows, is one of the grandest in the world.
KIND (O.E. _ge-cynde_, from the same root as is seen in "kin," _supra_),
a word in origin meaning birth, nature, or as an adjective, natural.
From the application of the term to the natural disposition or
characteristic which marks the class to which an object belongs, the
general and most common meaning of "class," genus or species easily
develops; that of race, natural order or group, is particularly seen in
such expressions as "mankind." The phrase "payment in kind," i.e. in
goods or produce as distinguished from money, is used as equivalent to
the Latin _in specie_; in ecclesiastical usage "communion in both kinds"
or "in one kind" refers to the elements of bread and wine (Lat.
_species_) in the Eucharist. The present main sense of the adjective
"kind," i.e. gentle, friendly, benevolent, has developed from the
meaning "born," "natural," through "of good birth, disposition or
nature," "naturally well-disposed."
KINDERGARTEN, a German word meaning "garden of children," the name given
by Friedrich Froebel to a kind of "play-school" invented by him for
furthering the physical, moral and intellectual growth of children
between the ages of three and seven. For the theories on which this type
of school was based see FROEBEL. Towards the end of the 18th century
Pestalozzi planned, and Oberlin formed, day-asylums for young children.
Schools of this kind took in the Netherlands the name of "play school,"
and in England, where they have especially thriven, of "infant schools"
(q.v.). But Froebel's idea of the "Kindergarten" differed essentially
from that of the infant schools. The child required to be prepared for
society by being early associated with its equals; and young children
thus brought together might have their employments, especially their
chief employment, play, so organized as to draw out their capacities of
feeling and thinking, and even of inventing and creating.
Froebel therefore invented a course of occupations, most of which are
social games. Many of the games are connected with the "gifts," as he
called the simple playthings provided for the children. These "gifts"
are, in order, six coloured balls, a wooden ball, a cylinder and a cube,
a cube cut to form eight smaller cubes, another cube cut to form eight
parallelograms, square and triangular tablets of coloured wood, and
strips of lath, rings and circles for pattern-making. In modern
kindergartens much stress has been laid on such occupations as
sand-drawing, modelling in clay and paper, pattern-making, plaiting, &c.
The artistic faculty was much thought of by Froebel, and, as in the
education of the ancients, the sense of rhythm in sound and motion was
cultivated by music and poetry introduced in the games. Much care was to
be given to the training of the senses, especially those of sight, sound
and touch. Intuition or first-hand experience (_Anschauung_) was to be
recognized as the true basis of knowledge, and though stories were to be
told, instruction of the imparting and "learning-up" kind was to be
excluded. Froebel sought to teach the children not what to think but how
to think, in this following in the steps of Pestalozzi, who had done for
the child what Bacon nearly two hundred years before had done for the
philosopher. Where possible the children were to be much in the open
air, and were each to cultivate a little garden.
The first kindergarten was opened at Blankenburg, near Rudolstadt, in
1837, but after a needy existence of eight years was closed for want
of funds. In 1851 the Prussian government declared that "schools
founded on Froebel's principles or principles like them could not be
allowed." As early as 1854 it was introduced into England, and Henry
Barnard reported on it that it was "by far the most original,
attractive and philosophical form of infant development the world has
yet seen" (_Report to Governor of Connecticut_, 1854). The great
propagandist of Froebelism, the Baroness Berta von Marenholtz-Bulow
(1811-1893), drew the attention of the French to the kindergarten from
the year 1855, and Michelet declared that Froebel had "solved the
problem of human education." In Italy the kindergarten was introduced
by Madame Salis-Schwabe. In Austria it is recognized and regulated by
the government, though the Volks-Kindergarten are not numerous. But by
far the greatest developments of the kindergarten system are in the
United States and in Belgium. The movement was begun in the United
States by Miss Elizabeth Peabody in 1867, aided by Mrs Horace Mann and
Dr Henry Barnard. The first permanent kindergarten was established in
St Louis in 1873 by Miss Susan Blow and Dr W. T. Harris. In Belgium
the mistresses of the "Ecoles gardiennes" are instructed in the "idea
of the kindergarten" and "Froebel's method," and in 1880 the minister
of public instruction issued a programme for the "Ecoles Gardiennes
Communales," which is both in fact and in profession a kindergarten
manual.
For the position of the kindergarten system in the principal countries
of the world see _Report of a Consultative Committee upon the School
Attendance of Children below the Age of Five_, English Board of
Education Reports (Cd. 4259, 1908); and "The Kindergarten," by Laura
Fisher, _Report of the United States Commissioner for Education for
1903_, vol. i. ch. xvi. (Washington, 1905).
KINDI [ABU YUSUF YA'QUB IBN ISHAQ UL-KINDI, sometimes called
pre-eminently "The Philosopher of the Arabs"] flourished in the 9th
century, the exact dates of his birth and death being unknown. He was
born in Kufa, where his father was governor under the Caliphs Mahdi and
Harun al-Rashid. His studies were made in Basra and Bagdad, and in the
latter place he remained, occupying according to some a government
position. In the orthodox reaction under Motawakkil, when all philosophy
was suspect, his library was confiscated, but he himself seems to have
escaped. His writings--like those of other Arabian philosophers--are
encyclopaedic and are concerned with most of the sciences; they are said
to have numbered over two hundred, but fewer than twenty are extant.
Some of these were known in the middle ages, for Kindi is placed by
Roger Bacon in the first rank after Ptolemy as a writer on optics. His
work _De Somniorum Visione_ was translated by Gerard of Cremona (q.v.)
and another was published as _De medicinarum compositarum gradibus
investigandis Libellus_ (Strassburg, 1531). He was one of the earliest
translators and commentators of Aristotle, but like Farabi (q.v.)
appears to have been superseded by Avicenna.
See G. Flugel, _Al Kindi genannt der Philosoph der Araber_ (Leipzig,
1857), and T. J. de Boer, _Geschichte der Philosophie im Islam_
(Stuttgart, 1901), pp. 90 sqq.; also ARABIAN PHILOSOPHY. (G. W. T.)
KINEMATICS (from Gr. [Greek: kinema], a motion), the branch of mechanics
which discusses the phenomena of motion without reference to force or
mass (see MECHANICS).
KINETICS (from Gr. [Greek: kinein], to move), the branch of mechanics
which discusses the phenomena of motion as affected by force; it is the
modern equivalent of dynamics in the restricted sense (see MECHANICS).
KING, CHARLES WILLIAM (1818-1888), English writer on ancient gems, was
born at Newport (Mon.) on the 5th of September 1818. He entered Trinity
College, Cambridge, in 1836; graduated in 1840, and obtained a
fellowship in 1842; he was senior fellow at the time of his death in
London on the 25th of March 1888. He took holy orders, but never held
any cure. He spent much time in Italy, where he laid the foundation of
his collection of gems, which, increased by subsequent purchases in
London, was sold by him in consequence of his failing eyesight and was
presented in 1881 to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. King was
recognized universally as one of the greatest authorities in this
department of art. His chief works on the subject are: _Antique Gems,
their Origin, Uses and Value_ (1860), a complete and exhaustive
treatise; _The Gnostics and their Remains_ (2nd ed. by J. Jacobs, 1887,
which led to an animated correspondence in the _Athenaeum_); _The
Natural History of Precious Stones and Gems and of the Precious Metals_
(1865); _The Handbook of Engraved Gems_ (2nd ed., 1885); _Early
Christian Numismatics_ (1873). King was thoroughly familiar with the
works of Greek and Latin authors, especially Pausanias and the elder
Pliny, which bore upon the subject in which he was most interested; but
he had little taste for the minutiae of verbal criticism. In 1869 he
brought out an edition of Horace, illustrated from antique gems; he also
translated Plutarch's _Moralia_ (1882) and the theosophical works of the
Emperor Julian (1888) for Bonn's Classical Library.
KING, CLARENCE (1842-1901), American geologist, was born at Newport,
Rhode Island, U.S.A., on the 6th of January 1842. He graduated at Yale
in 1862. His most important work was the geological exploration of the
fortieth parallel, of which the main reports (1876 and 1877) comprised
the geological and topographical atlas of the Rocky Mountains, the Green
River and Utah basins, and the Nevada plateau and basin. When the United
States Geological Survey was consolidated in 1879 King was chosen
director, and he vigorously conducted investigations in Colorado, and in
the Eureka district and on the Comstock lode in Nevada. He held office
for a year only; in later years his only noteworthy contribution to
geology was an essay on the age of the earth, which appeared in the
annual report of the Smithsonian Institution for 1893. He died at
Phoenix, Arizona, on the 24th of December 1901.
KING, EDWARD (1612-1637), the subject of Milton's _Lycidas_, was born in
Ireland in 1612, the son of Sir John King, a member of a Yorkshire
family which had migrated to Ireland. Edward King was admitted a
pensioner of Christ's College, Cambridge, on the 9th of June 1626, and
four years later was elected a fellow. Milton, though two years his
senior and himself anxious to secure a fellowship, remained throughout
on terms of the closest friendship with his rival, whose amiable
character seems to have endeared him to the whole college. King served
from 1633 to 1634 as praelector and tutor of his college, and was to
have entered the church. His career, however, was cut short by the
tragedy which inspired Milton's verse. In 1637 he set out for Ireland to
visit his family, but on the 10th of August the ship in which he was
sailing struck on a rock near the Welsh coast, and King was drowned. Of
his own writings many Latin poems contributed to different collections
of Cambridge verse survive, but they are not of sufficient merit to
explain the esteem in which he was held.
A collection of Latin, Greek and English verse written in his memory
by his Cambridge friends was printed at Cambridge in 1638, with the
title _Justa Edouardo King naufrago ab amicis moerentibus amoris et_
[Greek: mneias charin]. The second part of this collection has a
separate title-page, _Obsequies to the Memorie of Mr Edward King, Anno
Dom. 1638_, and contains thirteen English poems, of which _Lycidas_[1]
(signed J. M.) is the last.
FOOTNOTE:
[1] J. W. Hales, in the _Athenaeum_ for the 1st of August 1891,
suggests that in writing King's elegy Milton had in his mind, besides
the idylls of Theocritus, a Latin eclogue of Giovanni Baptista
Amalteo entitled _Lycidas_, in which Lycidas bids farewell to the
land he loves and prays for gentle breezes on his voyage. He was
familiar with the Italian Latin poets of the Renaissance, and he may
also have been influenced in his choice of the name by the shepherd
Lycidas in Sannazaro's eclogue _Phillis_.
KING, EDWARD (1829-1910), English bishop, was the second son of the Rev.
Walter King, archdeacon of Rochester and rector of Stone, Kent.
Graduating from Oriel College, Oxford, he was ordained in 1854, and four
years later became chaplain and lecturer at Cuddesdon Theological
College. He was principal at Cuddesdon from 1863 to 1873, when he became
regius professor of pastoral theology at Oxford and canon of Christ
Church. To the world outside he was only known at this time as one of Dr
Pusey's most intimate friends and as a leading member of the English
Church Union. But in Oxford, and especially among the younger men, he
exercised an exceptional influence, due, not to special profundity of
intellect, but to his remarkable charm in personal intercourse, and his
abounding sincerity and goodness. In 1885 Dr King was made bishop of
Lincoln. The most eventful episode of his episcopate was his prosecution
(1888-1890) for ritualistic practices before the archbishop of
Canterbury, Dr Benson, and, on appeal, before the judicial committee of
the Privy Council (see LINCOLN JUDGMENT). Dr King, who loyally conformed
his practices to the archbishop's judgment, devoted himself unsparingly
to the work of his diocese; and, irrespective of his High Church views,
he won the affection and reverence of all classes by his real
saintliness of character. The bishop, who never married, died at Lincoln
on the 8th of March 1910.
See the obituary notice in _The Times_, March 9, 1910.
KING, HENRY (1591-1669), English bishop and poet, eldest son of John
King, afterwards bishop of London, was baptized on the 16th of January
1591. With his younger brother John he proceeded from Westminster School
to Christ Church, Oxford, where both matriculated on the 20th of January
1609. Henry King entered the church, and after receiving various
ecclesiastical preferments he was made bishop of Chichester in 1642,
receiving at the same time the rich living of Petworth, Sussex. On the
29th of December of that year Chichester surrendered to the
Parliamentary army, and King was among the prisoners. After his release
he found an asylum with his brother-in-law, Sir Richard Hobart of
Langley, Buckinghamshire, and afterwards at Richkings near by, with Lady
Salter, said to have been a sister of Dr Brian Duppa (1588-1662). King
was a close friend of Duppa and personally acquainted with Charles I. In
one of his poems dated 1649 he speaks of the _Eikon Basilike_ as the
king's own work. Restored to his benefice at the Restoration, King died
at Chichester on the 30th of September 1669. His works include _Poems,
Elegies, Paradoxes and Sonets_ (1657), _The Psalmes of David from the
New Translation of the Bible, turned into Meter_ (1651), and several
sermons. He was one of the executors of John Donne, and prefixed an
elegy to the 1663 edition of his friend's poems.
King's Poems and Psalms were edited, with a biographical sketch, by
the Rev. J. Hannah (1843).
KING, RUFUS (1755-1827), American political leader, was born on the 24th
of March 1755 at Scarborough, Maine, then a part of Massachusetts. He
graduated at Harvard in 1777, read law at Newburyport, Mass., with
Theophilus Parsons, and was admitted to the bar in 1780. He served in
the Massachusetts General Court in 1783-1784 and in the Confederation
Congress in 1784-1787. During these critical years he adopted the
"states' rights" attitude. It was largely through his efforts that the
General Court in 1784 rejected the amendment to the Articles of
Confederation authorizing Congress to levy a 5% impost. He was one of
the three Massachusetts delegates in Congress in 1785 who refused to
present the resolution of the General Court proposing a convention to
amend the articles. He was also out of sympathy with the meeting at
Annapolis in 1786. He did good service, however, in opposing the
extension of slavery. Early in 1787 King was moved by the Shays
Rebellion and by the influence of Alexander Hamilton to take a broader
view of the general situation, and it was he who introduced the
resolution in Congress, on the 21st of February 1787, sanctioning the
call for the Philadelphia constitutional convention. In the convention
he supported the large-state party, favoured a strong executive,
advocated the suppression of the slave trade, and opposed the counting
of slaves in determining the apportionment of representatives. In 1788
he was one of the most influential members of the Massachusetts
convention which ratified the Federal Constitution. He married Mary
Alsop (1769-1819) of New York in 1786 and removed to that city in 1788.
He was elected a member of the New York Assembly in the spring of 1789,
and at a special session of the legislature held in July of that year
was chosen one of the first representatives of New York in the United
States Senate. In this body he served in 1789-1796, supported Hamilton's
financial measures, Washington's neutrality proclamation and the Jay
Treaty, and became one of the recognized leaders of the Federalist
party. He was minister to Great Britain in 1796-1803 and again in
1825-1826, and was the Federalist candidate for vice-president in 1804
and 1808, and for president in 1816, when he received 34 electoral
votes to 183 cast for Monroe. He was again returned to the Senate in
1813, and was re-elected in 1819 as the result of a struggle between the
Van Buren and Clinton factions of the Democratic-Republican party. In
the Missouri Compromise debates he supported the anti-slavery programme
in the main, but for constitutional reasons voted against the second
clause of the Tallmadge Amendment providing that all slaves born in the
state after its admission into the Union should be free at the age of
twenty-five years. He died at Jamaica, Long Island, on the 29th of April
1827.
_The Life and Correspondence of Rufus King_, begun about 1850 by his
son, Charles King, was completed by his grandson, Charles R. King, and
published in six volumes (New York, 1894-1900).
Rufus King's son, JOHN ALSOP KING (1788-1867), was educated at Harrow
and in Paris, served in the war of 1812 as a lieutenant of a cavalry
company, and was a member of the New York Assembly in 1819-1821 and of
the New York Senate in 1823. When his father was sent as minister to
Great Britain in 1825 he accompanied him as secretary of the American
legation, and when his father returned home on account of ill health he
remained as charge d'affaires until August 1826. He was a member of the
New York Assembly again in 1832 and in 1840, was a Whig representative
in Congress in 1849-1851, and in 1857-1859 was governor of New York
State. He was a prominent member of the Republican party, and in 1861
was a delegate to the Peace Conference in Washington.
Another son, CHARLES KING (1789-1867), was also educated abroad, was
captain of a volunteer regiment in the early part of the war of 1812,
and served in 1814 in the New York Assembly, and after working for some
years as a journalist was president of Columbia College in 1849-1864.
A third son, JAMES GORE KING (1791-1853), was an assistant
adjutant-general in the war of 1812, was a banker in Liverpool and
afterwards in New York, and was president of the New York & Erie
railroad until 1837, when by his visit to London he secured the loan to
American bankers of L1,000,000 from the governors of the Bank of
England. In 1849-1851 he was a representative in Congress from New
Jersey.
Charles King's son, RUFUS KING (1814-1876), graduated at the U.S.
Military Academy in 1833, served for three years in the engineer corps,
and, after resigning from the army, became assistant engineer of the New
York & Erie railroad. He was adjutant-general of New York state in
1839-1843, and became a brigadier-general of volunteers in the Union
army in 1861, commanded a division in Virginia in 1862-1863, and, being
compelled by ill health to resign from the army, was U.S. minister to
the Papal States in 1863-1867.
His son, CHARLES KING (b. 1844), served in the artillery until 1870 and
in the cavalry until 1879; he was appointed brigadier-general U.S.
Volunteers in the Spanish War in 1898, and served in the Philippines. He
wrote _Famous and Decisive Battles_ (1884), _Campaigning with Crook_
(1890), and many popular romances of military life.
KING, THOMAS (1730-1805), English actor and dramatist, was born in
London on the 20th of August 1730. Garrick saw him when appearing as a
strolling player in a booth at Windsor, and engaged him for Drury Lane.
He made his first appearance there in 1748 as the Herald in _King Lear_.
He played the part of Allworth in the first presentation of Massinger's
_New Way to Pay Old Debts_ (1748), and during the summer he played Romeo
and other leading parts in Bristol. For eight years he was the leading
comedy actor at the Smock Alley theatre in Dublin, but in 1759 he
returned to Drury Lane and took leading parts until 1802. One of his
earliest successes was as Lord Ogleby in _The Clandestine Marriage_
(1766), which was compared to Garrick's Hamlet and Kemble's Coriolanus,
but he reached the climax of his reputation when he created the part of
Sir Peter Teazle at the first representation of _The School for Scandal_
(1777). He was the author of a number of farces, and part-owner and
manager of several theatres, but his fondness for gambling brought him
to poverty. He died on the 11th of December 1805.
KING, WILLIAM (1650-1729), Anglican divine, the son of James King, an
Aberdeen man who migrated to Antrim, was born in May 1650. He was
educated at Trinity College, Dublin, and after being presented to the
parish of St Werburgh, Dublin, in 1679, became dean of St Patrick's in
1689, bishop of Derry in 1691, and archbishop of Dublin in 1702. In 1718
he founded the divinity lectureship in Trinity College, Dublin, which
bears his name. He died in May 1729. King was the author of _The State
of the Protestants in Ireland under King James's Government_ (1691), but
is best known by his _De Origine Mali_ (1702; Eng. trans., 1731), an
essay deemed worthy of a reply by Bayle and Leibnitz. King was a strong
supporter of the Revolution, and his voluminous correspondence is a
valuable help to our knowledge of the Ireland of his day.
See _A Great Archbishop of Dublin, William King, D.D._, edited by Sir
C. S. King, Bart. (1908).
KING, WILLIAM (1663-1712), English poet and miscellaneous writer, son of
Ezekiel King, was born in 1663. From his father he inherited a small
estate and he was connected with the Hyde family. He was educated at
Westminster School under Dr Busby, and at Christ Church, Oxford (B.A.
1685; D.C.L. 1692). His first literary enterprise was a defence of
Wycliffe, written in conjunction with Sir Edward Hannes (d. 1710) and
entitled _Reflections upon Mons. Varillas's History of Heresy ..._
(1688). He became known as a humorous writer on the Tory and High Church
side. He took part in the controversy aroused by the conversion of the
once stubborn non-juror William Sherlock, one of his contributions being
an entertaining ballad, "The Battle Royal," in which the disputants are
Sherlock and South. In 1694 he gained the favour of Princess Anne by a
defence of her husband's country entitled _Animadversions on the
Pretended Account of Denmark_, in answer to a depreciatory pamphlet by
Robert (afterwards Viscount) Molesworth. For this service he was made
secretary to the princess. He supported Charles Boyle in his controversy
with Richard Bentley over the genuineness of the _Epistles of Phalaris_,
by a letter (printed in _Dr Bentley's Dissertations ..._ (1698), more
commonly known as _Boyle against Bentley_), in which he gave an account
of the circumstances of Bentley's interview with the bookseller Bennet.
Bentley attacked Dr King in his _Dissertation_ in answer (1699) to this
book, and King replied with a second letter to his friend Boyle. He
further satirized Bentley in ten _Dialogues of the Dead relating to ...
the Epistles of Phalaris_ (1699). In 1700 he published _The
Transactioneer, with some of his Philosophical Fancies, in two
Dialogues_, ridiculing the credulity of Hans Sloane, who was then the
secretary of the Royal Society. This was followed up later with some
burlesque _Useful Transactions in Philosophy_ (1709). By an able defence
of his friend, James Annesley, 5th earl of Anglesey, in a suit brought
against him by his wife before the House of Lords in 1701, he gained a
legal reputation which he did nothing further to advance. He was sent to
Ireland in 1701 to be judge of the high court of admiralty, and later
became sole commissioner of the prizes, keeper of the records in the
Bermingham Tower of Dublin Castle, and vicar-general to the primate.
About 1708 he returned to London. He served the Tory cause by writing
for _The Examiner_ before it was taken up by Swift. He wrote four
pamphlets in support of Sacheverell, in the most considerable of which,
"A Vindication of the Rev. Dr Henry Sacheverell ... in a Dialogue
between a Tory and a Whig" (1711), he had the assistance of Charles
Lambe of Christ Church and of Sacheverell himself. In December 1711
Swift obtained for King the office of gazetteer, worth from L200 to
L250. King was now very poor, but he had no taste for work, and he
resigned his office on the 1st of July 1712. He died on the 25th of
December in the same year.
The other works of William King include: _A Journey to London, in the
year 1698_. _After the Ingenious Method of that made by Dr Martin
Lister to Paris, in the same Year ..._ (1699), which was considered by
the author to be his best work; _Adversaria, or Occasional Remarks on
Men and Manners_, a selection from his critical note-book, which shows
wide and varied reading; _Rufinus, or An Historical Essay on the
Favourite Ministry_ (1712), a satire on the duke of Marlborough. His
chief poems are: _The Art of Cookery: in imitation of Horace's Art
of Poetry_. _With some Letters to Dr Lister and Others_ (1708), one of
his most amusing works; _The Art of Love; in imitation of Ovid ..._
(1709); "Mully of Mountoun," and a burlesque "Orpheus and Eurydice." A
volume of _Miscellanies in Prose and Verse_ appeared in 1705; his
_Remains ..._ were edited by J. Brown in 1732; and in 1776 John
Nichols produced an excellent edition of his _Original Works ... with
Historical Notes and Memoirs of the Author_. Dr Johnson included him
in his _Lives of the Poets_, and his works appear in subsequent
collections.
King is not to be confused with another WILLIAM KING (1685-1763),
author of a mock-heroic poem called _The Toast_ (1736) satirizing the
countess of Newburgh, and principal of St Mary Hall, Oxford.
KING [OF OCKHAM], PETER KING, 1ST BARON (1669-1734), lord chancellor of
England, was born at Exeter in 1669. In his youth he was interested in
early church history, and published anonymously in 1691 _An Enquiry into
the Constitution, Discipline, Unity and Worship of the Primitive Church
that flourished within the first Three Hundred Years after Christ_. This
treatise engaged the interest of his cousin, John Locke, the
philosopher, by whose advice his father sent him to the university of
Leiden, where he stayed for nearly three years. He entered the Middle
Temple in 1694 and was called to the bar in 1698. In 1700 he was
returned to parliament for Beer Alston in Devonshire; he was appointed
recorder of Glastonbury in 1705 and recorder of London in 1708. He was
chief justice of the common pleas from 1714 to 1725, when he was
appointed speaker of the House of Lords and was raised to the peerage.
In June of the same year he was made lord chancellor, holding office
until compelled by a paralytic stroke to resign in 1733. He died at
Ockham, Surrey, on the 22nd of July 1734. Lord King as chancellor failed
to sustain the reputation which he had acquired at the common law bar.
Nevertheless he left his mark on English law by establishing the
principles that a will of immovable property is governed by the _lex
loci rei sitae_, and that where a husband had a legal right to the
personal estate of his wife, which must be asserted by a suit in equity,
the court would not help him unless he made a provision out of the
property for the wife, if she required it. He was also the author of the
Act (4 Geo. II. c. 26) by virtue of which English superseded Latin as
the language of the courts. Lord King published in 1702 a _History of
the Apostles' Creed_ (Leipzig, 1706; Basel, 1750) which went through
several editions and was also translated into Latin.
His great-great-grandson, WILLIAM (1805-1893), married in 1835 the only
daughter of Lord Byron the poet, and was created earl of Lovelace in
1838. Another descendant, PETER JOHN LOCKE KING (1811-1885), who was
member of parliament for East Surrey from 1847 to 1874, won some fame as
an advocate of reform, being responsible for the passing of the Real
Estate Charges Act of 1854, and for the repeal of a large number of
obsolete laws.
KING (O. Eng. _cyning_, abbreviated into _cyng_, _cing_; cf. O. H. G.
_chun- kuning_, _chun- kunig_, M.H.G. _kunic_, _kunec_, _kunc_, Mod.
Ger. _Konig_, O. Norse _konungr_, _kongr_, Swed. _konung_, _kung_), a
title, in its actual use generally implying sovereignty of the most
exalted rank. Any inclusive definition of the word "king" is, however,
impossible. It always implies sovereignty, but in no special degree or
sense; e.g. the sovereigns of the British Empire and of Servia are both
kings, and so too, at least in popular parlance, are the chiefs of many
barbarous peoples, e.g. the Zulus. The use of the title is, in fact,
involved in considerable confusion, largely the result of historic
causes. Freeman, indeed, in his _Comparative Politics_ (p. 138) says:
"There is a common idea of kingship which is at once recognized however
hard it may be to define it. This is shown among other things by the
fact that no difficulty is ever felt as to translating the word king and
the words which answer to it in other languages." This, however, is
subject to considerable modification. "King," for instance, is used to
translate the Homeric [Greek: anax] equally with the Athenian [Greek:
Basileus] or the Roman _rex_. Yet the Homeric "kings" were but tribal
chiefs; while the Athenian and Roman kings were kings in something more
than the modern sense, as supreme priests as well as supreme rulers and
lawgivers (see ARCHON; and ROME: _History_). In the English Bible, too,
the title of king is given indiscriminately to the great king of Persia
and to potentates who were little more than Oriental sheiks. A more
practical difficulty, moreover, presented itself in international
intercourse, before diplomatic conventions became, in the 19th century,
more or less stereotyped. Originally the title of king was superior to
that of emperor, and it was to avoid the assumption of the superior
title of rex that the chief magistrates of Rome adopted the names of
_Caesar_, _imperator_ and _princeps_ to signalize their authority. But
with the development of the Roman imperial idea the title emperor came
to mean more than had been involved in that of _rex_; very early in the
history of the Empire there were subject kings; while with the
Hellenizing of the East Roman Empire its rulers assumed the style of
[Greek: basileus], no longer to be translated "king" but "emperor." From
this Roman conception of the supremacy of the emperor the medieval
Empire of the West inherited its traditions. With the barbarian
invasions the Teutonic idea of kingship had come into touch with the
Roman idea of empire and with the theocratic conceptions which this had
absorbed from the old Roman and Oriental views of kingship. With these
the Teutonic kingship had in its origin but little in common.
Etymologically the Romance and Teutonic words for king have quite
distinct origins. The Latin _rex_ corresponds to the Sanskrit _rajah_,
and meant originally steersman. The Teutonic king on the contrary
corresponds to the Sanskrit _ganaka_, and "simply meant father, the
father of a family, the king of his own kin, the father of a clan, the
father of a people."[1] The Teutonic kingship, in short, was national;
the king was the supreme representative of the people, "hedged with
divinity" in so far as he was the reputed descendant of the national
gods, but with none of that absolute theocratic authority associated
with the titles of _rex_ or [Greek: basileus]. This, however, was
modified by contact with Rome and Christianity. The early Teutonic
conquerors had never lost their reverence for the Roman emperor, and
were from time to time proud to acknowledge their inferiority by
accepting titles, such as "patrician," by which this was implied. But by
the coronation of Charles, king of the Franks, as emperor of the West,
the German kingship was absorbed into the Roman imperial idea, a process
which exercised a profound effect on the evolution of the Teutonic
kingship generally. In the symmetrical political theory of medieval
Europe pope and emperor were sun and moon, kings but lesser satellites;
though the theory only partially and occasionally corresponded with the
facts. But the elevation of Charlemagne had had a profound effect in
modifying the _status_ of kingship in nations that never came under his
sceptre nor under that of his successors. The shadowy claim of the
emperors to universal dominion was in theory everywhere acknowledged;
but independent kings hastened to assert their own dignity by
surrounding themselves with the ceremonial forms of the Empire and
occasionally, as in the case of the Saxon _bretwaldas_ in England, by
assuming the imperial style. The mere fact of this usurpation showed
that the title of king was regarded as inferior to that of emperor; and
so it continued, as a matter of sentiment at least, down to the end of
the Holy Roman Empire in 1806 and the cheapening of the imperial title
by its multiplication in the 19th century. To the last, moreover, the
emperor retained the prerogative of creating kings, as in the case of
the king of Prussia in 1701, a right borrowed and freely used by the
emperor Napoleon. Since 1814 the title of king has been assumed or
bestowed by a consensus of the Powers; e.g. the elector of Hanover was
made king by the congress of Vienna (1814), and _per contra_ the title
of king was refused to the elector of Hesse by the congress of
Aix-la-Chapelle (1818). In general the title of king is now taken to
imply a sovereign and independent international position. This was
implied in the recognition of the title of king in the rulers of Greece,
Rumania, Servia and Bulgaria when these countries were declared
absolutely independent of Turkey. The fiction of this independent
sovereignty is preserved even in the case of the kings of Bavaria,
Saxony and Wurttemberg, who are technically members of a free
confederation of sovereign states, but are not independent, since their
relations with foreign Powers are practically controlled by the king of
Prussia as German emperor.
Divine Right of Kings.
The theory of the "divine right" of kings, as at present understood, is
of comparatively modern growth. The principle that the kingship is
"descendible in one sacred family," as George Canning put it, is not
only still that of the British constitution, as that of all monarchical
states, but is practically that of kingship from the beginning. This is,
however, quite a different thing from asserting with the modern
upholders of the doctrine of "divine right" not only that "legitimate"
monarchs derive their authority from, and are responsible to, God alone,
but that this authority is by divine ordinance hereditary in a certain
order of succession. The power of popular election remained, even though
popular choice was by custom or by religious sentiment confined within
the limits of a single family. The custom of primogeniture grew up owing
to the obvious convenience of a simple rule that should avoid ruinous
contests; the so-called "Salic Law" went further, and by excluding
females, removed another possible source of weakness. Neither did the
Teutonic kingship imply absolute power. The idea of kingship as a
theocratic function which played so great a part in the political
controversies of the 17th century, is due ultimately to Oriental
influences brought to bear through Christianity. The crowning and
anointing of the emperors, borrowed from Byzantium and traceable to the
influence of the Old Testament, was imitated by lesser potentates; and
this "sacring" by ecclesiastical authority gave to the king a character
of special sanctity. The Christian king thus became, in a sense, like
the Roman _rex_, both king and priest. Shakespeare makes Richard II.
say, "Not all the water in the rough rude sea can wash the balm off from
an anointed king" (act iii. sc. 2); and this conception of the kingship
tended to gather strength with the weakening of the prestige of the
papacy and of the clergy generally. Before the Reformation the anointed
king was, within his realm, the accredited vicar of God for secular
purposes; after the Reformation he became this in Protestant states for
religious purposes also. In England it is not without significance that
the sacerdotal vestments, generally discarded by the clergy--dalmatic,
alb and stole--continued to be among the insignia of the sovereign (see
CORONATION). Moreover, this sacrosanct character he acquired not by
virtue of his "sacring," but by hereditary right; the coronation,
anointing and vesting were but the outward and visible symbol of a
divine grace adherent in the sovereign by virtue of his title. Even
Roman Catholic monarchs, like Louis XIV., would never have admitted that
their coronation by the archbishop constituted any part of their title
to reign; it was no more than the consecration of their title. In
England the doctrine of the divine right of kings was developed to its
extremest logical conclusions during the political controversies of the
17th century. Of its exponents the most distinguished was Hobbes, the
most exaggerated Sir Robert Filmer. It was the main issue to be decided
by the Civil War, the royalists holding that "all Christian kings,
princes and governors" derive their authority direct from God, the
parliamentarians that this authority is the outcome of a contract,
actual or implied, between sovereign and people. In one case the king's
power would be unlimited, according to Louis XIV.'s famous saying:
"_L'etat, c'est moi!_" or limitable only by his own free act; in the
other his actions would be governed by the advice and consent of the
people, to whom he would be ultimately responsible. The victory of this
latter principle was proclaimed to all the world by the execution of
Charles I. The doctrine of divine right, indeed, for a while drew
nourishment from the blood of the royal "martyr"; it was the guiding
principle of the Anglican Church of the Restoration; but it suffered a
rude blow when James II. made it impossible for the clergy to obey both
their conscience and their king; and the revolution of 1688 made an end
of it as a great political force. These events had effects far beyond
England. They served as precedents for the crusade of republican France
against kings, and later for the substitution of the democratic kingship
of Louis Philippe, "king of the French by the grace of God and the will
of the people," for the "legitimate" kingship of Charles X., "king of
France by the grace of God."
The theory of the crown in Britain, as held by descent modified and
modifiable by parliamentary action, and yet also "by the grace of God,"
is in strict accordance with the earliest traditions of the English
kingship; but the rival theory of inalienable divine right is not dead.
It is strong in Germany and especially in Prussia; it survives as a
militant force among the Carlists in Spain and the Royalists in France
(see LEGITIMISTS); and even in England a remnant of enthusiasts still
maintain the claims of a remote descendant of Charles I. to the throne
(see JACOBITES).
See J. Neville Figgis, _Theory of the Divine Right of Kings_
(Cambridge, 1896). (W. A. P.)
FOOTNOTE:
[1] Max Muller, _Lect. Sci. Lang._, 2nd series, p. 255, "All people,
save those who fancy that the name _king_ has something to do with a
Tartar _khan_ or with a 'canning' ... man, are agreed that the
English _cyning_ and the Sanskrit _ganaka_ both come from the same
root, from that widely spread root whence comes our own cyn or kin
and the Greek [Greek: genos]. The only question is whether there is
any connexion between _cyning_ and _ganaka_ closer than that which is
implied in their both coming from the same original root. That is to
say, are we to suppose that cyning and ganaka are strictly the same
word common to Sanskrit and Teutonic, or is it enough to think that
_cyning_ is an independent formation made after the Teutons had
separated themselves from the common stock? ... The difference
between the two derivations is not very remote, as the _cyn_ is the
ruling idea in any case; but if we make the word immediately cognate
with _ganaka_ we bring in a notion about 'the father of his people'
which has no place if we simply derive _cyning_ from _cyn_." See also
O. Schrader, _Reallexikon der Indogermanischen Altertumskunde_
(Strassburg, 1901) _s.v._ "Konig": the _chuning_ (King) is but the
_chunni_ (Kin) personified; cf. A.S. _leod_ masc. = "prince"; _leod_
fem. = "race," i.e. Lat. _gens_.
KING-BIRD, the _Lanius tyrannus_ of Linnaeus, and the _Tyrannus
carolinensis_ or _T. pipiri_ of most later writers, a common and
characteristic inhabitant of North America, ranging as high as 57 deg.
N. lat. or farther, and westward to the Rocky Mountains, beyond which it
is found in Oregon, in Washington (State), and in British Columbia,
though apparently not occurring in California. In Canada and the
northern states of the Union it is a summer visitor, wintering in the
south, but also reaching Cuba; and, passing through Central America, it
has been found in Bolivia and eastern Peru. Both the scientific and
common names of this species are taken from the way in which the cock
will at times assume despotic authority over other birds, attacking them
furiously as they fly, and forcing them to divert or altogether desist
from their course. Yet it is love of his mate or his young that prompts
this bellicose behaviour, for it is only in the breeding season that he
indulges in it; but then almost every large bird that approaches his
nest, from an eagle downwards, is assaulted, and those alone that
possess greater command of flight can escape from his repeated charges,
which are accompanied by loud and shrill cries. On these occasions it
may be that the king-bird displays the emblem of his dignity, which is
commonly concealed; for, being otherwise rather plainly
coloured--dark-ashy grey above and white beneath--the erectile feathers
of the crown of the head, on being parted, form as it were a deep
furrow, and reveal their base, which is of a bright golden-orange in
front, deepening into scarlet, and then passing into silvery white. This
species seems to live entirely on insects, which it captures on the
wing; it is in bad repute with bee-keepers,[1] though, according to Dr
E. Coues, it "destroys a thousand noxious insects for every bee it
eats." It builds, often in an exposed situation, a rather large nest,
coarsely constructed outside, but neatly lined with fine roots or
grasses, and lays five or six eggs of a pale salmon colour, beautifully
marked with blotches and spots of purple, brown and orange, generally
disposed in a zone near the larger end.
Nearly akin to the king-bird is the petchary or chicheree, so called
from its loud and petulant cry, _T. dominicensis_, or _T. griseus_, one
of the most characteristic and conspicuous birds of the West Indies, and
the earliest to give notice of the break of day. In habits, except that
it eats a good many berries, it is the very counterpart of its congener,
and is possibly even more jealous of any intruder. At all events its
pugnacity extends to animals from which it could not possibly receive
any harm, and is hardly limited to any season of the year.
[Illustration: King-Bird.]
In several respects both of these birds, with several of their allies,
resemble some of the shrikes; but it must be clearly understood that the
likeness is but of analogy, and that there is no near affinity between
the two families _Laniidae_ and _Tyrannidae_, which belong to wholly
distinct sections of the great Passerine order; and, while the former is
a comparatively homogeneous group, much diversity of form and habits is
found among the latter. Similarly many of the smaller _Tyrannidae_ bear
some analogy to certain _Muscicapidae_, with which they were at one time
confounded (see FLYCATCHER), but the difference between them is deep
seated.[2] Nor is this all, for out of the seventy genera, or
thereabouts, into which the _Tyrannidae_ have been divided,
comprehending perhaps three hundred and fifty species, all of which are
peculiar to the New World, a series of forms can be selected which find
a kind of parallel to a series of forms to be found in the other group
of _Passeres_; and the genus _Tyrannus_, though that from which the
family is named, is by no means a fair representative of it; but it
would be hard to say which genus should be so accounted. The birds of
the genus _Muscisaxicola_ have the habits and almost the appearance of
wheat-ears; the genus _Alectorurus_ calls to mind a water-wagtail;
_Euscarthmus_ may suggest a titmouse, _Elaenia_ perhaps a willow-wren;
but the greatest number of forms have no analogous bird of the Old World
with which they can be compared; and, while the combination of delicate
beauty and peculiar external form possibly attains its utmost in the
long-tailed _Milvulus_, the glory of the family may be said to culminate
in the king of king-birds, _Muscivora regia_. (A. N.)
FOOTNOTES:
[1] It is called in some parts the bee-martin.
[2] Two easy modes of discriminating them externally may be
mentioned. All the _Laniidae_ and _Muscicapidae_ have but _nine_
primary quills in their wings, and their tarsi are covered with
scales in front only; while in the _Tyrannidae_ there are ten
primaries, and the tarsal scales extend the whole way round. The more
recondite distinction in the structure of the trachea seems to have
been first detected by Macgillivray, who wrote the anatomical
descriptions published in 1839 by Audubon (_Orn. Biography_, v. 421,
422); but its value was not appreciated till the publication of
Johannes Muller's classical treatise on the vocal organs of Passerine
birds (_Abhandl. k. Akad. Wissensch. Berlin_, 1845, pp. 321, 405).
KING-CRAB, the name given to an Arachnid, belonging to the order
Xiphosurae, of the grade Delobranchia or Hydropneustea. King-crabs, of
which four, possibly five, existing species are known, were formerly
referred to the genus _Limulus_, a name still applied to them in all
zoological textbooks. It has recently been shown, however, that the
structural differences between some of the species are sufficiently
numerous and important to warrant the recognition of three
genera--_Xiphosura_, of which _Limulus_ is a synonym, _Tachypleus_ and
_Carcinoscorpius_. In _Xiphosura_ the genital operculum structurally
resembles the gill-bearing appendages in that the inner branches consist
of three distinct segments, the distal of which is lobate and projects
freely beyond the margin of the adjacent distal segment of the outer
branch; the entosternite (see ARACHNIDA) has two pairs of antero-lateral
processes, and in the male only the ambulatory appendages of the second
pair are modified as claspers. In _Tachypleus_ and _Carcinoscorpius_, on
the other hand, the genital operculum differs from the gill-bearing
appendages in that the inner branches consist of two segments, the
distal of which are apically pointed, partially or completely fused in
the middle line, and do not project beyond the distal segments of the
outer branches; the entosternite has only one pair of antero-lateral
processes, and in the male the second and third pairs of ambulatory
limbs are modified as claspers. _Tachypleus_ differs from
_Carcinoscorpius_ in possessing a long movable spur upon the fourth
segment of the sixth ambulatory limb, in having the postanal spine
triangular in section instead of round, and the claspers in the male
hemichelate, owing to the suppression of the immovable finger, which is
well developed in _Carcinoscorpius_. At the present time king-crabs have
a wide but discontinuous distribution. _Xiphosura_, of which there is
but one species, _X. polyphemus_, ranges along the eastern side of North
America from the coast of Maine to Yucatan. _Carcinoscorpius_, which is
also represented by a single species, _C. rotundicauda_, extends from
the Bay of Bengal to the coast of the Moluccas and the Philippines,
while of the two better-known species of _Tachypleus_, _T. gigas_ (=
_moluccanus_) ranges from Singapore to Torres Straits, and _T.
tridentatus_ from Borneo to southern Japan. A third species, _T.
hoeveni_, has been recorded from the Moluccas. But although _Xiphosura_
is now so widely sundered geographically from _Tachypleus_ and
_Carcinoscorpius_, the occurrence of the remains of extinct species of
king-crabs in Europe, both in Tertiary deposits and in Triassic,
Jurassic and Cretaceous strata, suggests that there was formerly a
continuous coast-line, with tropical or temperate conditions, extending
from Europe westward to America, and eastward to southern Asia. There
are, however, no grounds for the assumption that the supposed coast-line
between America and Europe synchronized with that between Europe and
south Asia. King-crabs do not appear to differ from each other in
habits. Except in the breeding season they live in water ranging in
depth from about two to six fathoms, and creep about the bottom or bury
themselves in the sand. Their food consists for the most part of soft
marine worms, which are picked up in the nippers, thrust into the mouth,
and masticated by the basal segments of the appendages between which the
mouth lies. At the approach of the breeding season, which in the case of
_Xiphosura polyphemus_ is in May, June and July, king-crabs advance in
pairs into very shallow water at the time of the high tides, the male
holding securely to the back of the female by means of his clasping
nippers. No actual union between the sexes takes place, the spawn of the
female being fertilized by the male at the time of being laid in the
sand or soon afterwards. This act accomplished, the two retreat again
into deeper water. Deposited in the mud or sand near high-water mark,
the eggs are eventually hatched by the heat of the sun, to which they
are exposed every day for a considerable time. The newly hatched young
is minute and subcircular in shape, but bears a close resemblance to its
parents except in the absence of the caudal spine and in the presence of
a fringe of stiff bristles round the margin of the body. During growth
it undergoes a succession of moults, making its exit from the old
integument through a wide split running round the edge of the carapace.
Moulting is effected in exactly the same way in scorpions, Pedipalpi,
and normally in spiders. The caudal spine appears at the second moult
and gradually increases in length with successive changes of the skin.
This organ is of considerable importance, since it enables the king-crab
to right itself when overturned by rough water or other causes. Without
it the animal would remain helpless like an upturned turtle, because it
is unable to reach the ground with its legs when lying on its back.
Before the tail is sufficiently developed to be used for that purpose,
the young king-crab succeeds in regaining the normal position by
flapping its flattened abdominal appendages and rising in the water by
that means. The king-crab fishery is an industry of some importance in
the United States, and in the East Indies the natives eat the animal and
tip their lances and arrows with the caudal spine. They also use the
hollow empty shell as a water-ladle or pan--hence the name "pan-fish" or
"saucepan-crab" by which the animal is sometimes known. Fossil
king-crabs have been recorded from strata of the Tertiary and Secondary
epochs, and related but less specialized types of the same order are
found in rocks of Palaeozoic age. Of these the most important are
_Belinurus_ of the Carboniferous, _Protolimulus_ of the Devonian, and
_Hemiaspis_ of the Silurian periods. These ancient forms differ
principally from true king-crabs in having the segments of the
opisthosoma or hinder half of the body distinctly defined instead of
welded into a hexagonal shield. (R. I. P.)
[Illustration: FIG. 1.
1, _Limulus polyphemus_, adult (dorsal aspect).
2, _Limulus polyphemus_, young (dorsal aspect).
3, _Prestwichia rotundata_, Coal M., Shropshire.
4, _Prestwichia Birtwelli_, Coal M., Lancashire.
5, _Neolimulus falcatus_, U. Silurian, Lanark.
6, _Hemiaspis limuloides_, L. Ludlow, Leintwardine, Shropshire.
7, _Pseudoniscus aculeatus_, U. Silurian, Russia.]
KINGFISHER (Ger.[1] _Konigsfischer_; Walloon _Roi-peheux_ = _pecheur_),
the _Alcedo ispida_ of ornithologists, one of the most beautiful and
well-known of European birds, being found, though nowhere very
abundantly, in every European country, as well as in North Africa and
South-Western Asia as far as Sindh. Its blue-green back and rich
chestnut breast render it conspicuous as it frequents the streams and
ponds whence it procures its food, by plunging almost perpendicularly
into the water, and emerging a moment after with the prey--whether a
small fish, crustacean, or an aquatic insect--it has captured. In hard
frosts it resorts to the sea-shore, but a severe winter is sure to
occasion a great mortality in the species, for many of its individuals
seem unable to reach the tidal waters where only in such a season they
could obtain sustenance; and to this cause rather than any other is
perhaps to be ascribed its general scarcity. Very early in the year it
prepares its nest, which is at the end of a tunnel bored by itself in a
bank, and therein the six or eight white, glossy, translucent eggs are
laid, sometimes on the bare soil, but often on the fishbones which,
being indigestible, are thrown up in pellets by the birds; and, in any
case, before incubation is completed these _rejectamenta_ accumulate so
as to form a pretty cup-shaped structure that increases in bulk after
the young are hatched, but, mixed with their fluid excretions and with
decaying fishes brought for their support, soon becomes a dripping fetid
mass.
The kingfisher is the subject of a variety of legends and superstitions,
both classical and medieval. Of the latter one of the most curious is
that having been originally a plain grey bird it acquired its present
bright colours by flying towards the sun on its liberation from Noah's
ark, when its upper surface assumed the hue of the sky above it and its
lower plumage was scorched by the heat of the setting orb to the tint it
now bears.[2] More than this, the kingfisher was supposed to possess
many virtues. Its dried body would avert thunderbolts, and if kept in a
wardrobe would preserve from moths the woollen stuffs therein laid, or
hung by a thread to the ceiling of a chamber would point with its bill
to the quarter whence the wind blew. All readers of Ovid (_Metam._, bk.
xi.) know how the faithful but unfortunate Ceyx and Alcyone were changed
into kingfishers--birds which bred at the winter solstice, when through
the influence of Aeolus, the wind-god and father of the fond wife, all
gales were hushed and the sea calmed so that their floating nest might
ride uninjured over the waves during the seven proverbial "Halcyon
days"; while a variant or further development of the fable assigned to
the halcyon itself the power of quelling storms.[3]
The common kingfisher of Europe is the representative of a well-marked
family of birds, the _Alcedinidae_ or _Halcyonidae_ of ornithologists,
which is considered by most authorities[4] to be closely related to the
_Bucerotidae_ (see HORNBILL); but the affinity can scarcely be said as
yet to be proved. Be that as it may, the present family forms the
subject of an important work by Bowdler Sharpe.[5] Herein are described
one hundred and twenty-five species, nearly all of them being
beautifully figured by Keulemans, and that number may be taken even now
as approximately correct; for, while the validity of a few has been
denied by some eminent men, nearly as many have since been made known,
and it seems likely that two or three more described by older writers
may yet be rediscovered. These one hundred and twenty-five species
Sharpe groups in nineteen genera, and divides into two sub-families,
_Alcedininae_ and _Daceloninae_,[6] the one containing five and the
other fourteen genera. With existing anatomical materials perhaps no
better arrangement could have been made, but the method afterwards
published by Sundevall (_Tentamen_, pp. 95, 96) differs from it not
inconsiderably. Here, however, it will be convenient to follow Sharpe.
Externally, which is almost all we can at present say, kingfishers
present a great uniformity of structure. One of their most remarkable
features is the feebleness of their feet, and the union (syndactylism)
of the third and fourth digits for the greater part of their length;
while, as if still further to show the comparatively functionless
character of these members, in two of the genera, _Alcyone_ and _Ceyx_,
the second digit is aborted, and the birds have but three toes. In most
forms the bill does not differ much from that of the common _Alcedo
ispida_, but in _Syma_ its edges are serrated, while in _Carcineutes_,
_Dacelo_ and _Melidora_ the maxilla is prolonged, becoming in the last a
very pronounced hook. Generally the wings are short and rounded, and the
tail is in many forms inconspicuous; but in _Tanysiptera_, one of the
most beautiful groups, the middle pair of feathers is greatly elongated
and spatulate, while this genus possesses only ten rectrices, all the
rest having twelve. Sundevall relies on a character not noticed by
Sharpe, and makes his principal divisions depend on the size of the
scapulars, which in one form a mantle, and in the other are so small as
not to cover the back. The _Alcedinidae_ are a cosmopolitan family, but
only one genus, _Ceryle_, is found in America, and that extends as well
over a great part of the Old World, though not into the Australian
region, which affords by far the greater number both of genera and
species, having no fewer than ten of the former and fifty-nine of the
latter peculiar to it.[7]
In habits kingfishers display considerable diversity, though all, it
would seem, have it in common to sit at times motionless on the watch
for their prey, and on its appearance to dart upon it, seize it as they
fly or dive, and return to a perch where it may be conveniently
swallowed. But some species, and especially that which is the type of
the family, are not always content to await at rest their victim's
showing itself. They will hover like a hawk over the waters that conceal
it, and, in the manner already described, precipitate themselves upon
it. This is particularly the way with those that are fishers in fact as
well as in name; but no inconsiderable number live almost entirely in
forests, feeding on insects, while reptiles furnish the chief sustenance
of others. The last is characteristic of at least one Australian form,
which manages to thrive in the driest districts of that country, where
not a drop of water is to be found for miles, and the air is at times
heated to a degree that is insupportable by most animals. The belted
kingfisher of North America, _Ceryle alcyon_, is a characteristic bird
of that country, though its habits greatly resemble those of the
European species; and the so-called "laughing jackass" of New South
Wales and South Australia, _Dacelo gigas_--with its kindred forms, _D.
leachi_, _D. cervina_ and _D. occidentalis_, from other parts of the
country--deserve special mention. Attention must also be called to the
speculations of Dr Bowdler Sharpe (op. cit., pp. xliv.-xlvii.) on the
genetic affinity of the various forms of _Alcedinidae_, and it is to be
regretted that hitherto no light has been shed by palaeontologists on
this interesting subject, for the only fossil referred to the
neighbourhood of the family is the _Halcyornis toliapicus_ of Sir R.
Owen (_Br. Foss. Mamm. and Birds_, p. 554) from the Eocene of
Sheppey--the very specimen said to have been previously placed by Konig
(_Icon. foss. secliles_, fig. 153) in the genus _Larus_. (A. N.)
FOOTNOTES:
[1] But more commonly called _Eisvogel_, which finds its counterpart
in the Anglo-Saxon _Isern_ or _Isen_.
[2] Rolland, _Faune populaire de la France_, ii. 74.
[3] In many of the islands of the Pacific Ocean the prevalent
kingfisher is the object of much veneration.
[4] Cf. Eyton, _Contrib. Ornithology_ (1850), p. 80; Wallace, _Ann.
Nat. History_, series 2, vol. xviii. pp. 201, 205; and Huxley, _Proc.
Zool. Society_ (1867), p. 467.
[5] _A Monograph of the Alcedinidae or Family of the Kingfishers_, by
R. B. Sharpe, 4to (London, 1868-1871). Some important anatomical
points were briefly noticed by Professor Cunningham (_Proc. Zool.
Soc._, 1870, p. 280).
[6] The name of this latter sub-family as constituted by Sharpe would
seem to be more correctly _Ceycinae_--the genus _Ceyx_, founded in
1801 by Lacepede, being the oldest included in it. The word _Dacelo_,
invented by Leach in 1815, is simply an anagram of _Alcedo_, and,
though of course without any etymological meaning, has been very
generally adopted.
[7] Cf. Wallace. _Geog. Distr. Animals_, ii. 315.
KINGHORN, a royal and police burgh of Fifeshire, Scotland. Pop. (1901),
1550. It is situated on the Firth of Forth, 2(1/4) m. E. by N. of
Burntisland, on the North British railway. The public buildings include
a library and town-hall. It enjoys some repute as a summer resort. The
leading industries are ship-building, bleaching and the making of flax
and glue. At the time of his visit Daniel Defoe found thread-making in
vogue, which employed the women while the men were at sea. Alexander
III. created Kinghorn a burgh, but his connexion with the town proved
fatal to him. As he was riding from Inverkeithing on the 12th of March
1286 he was thrown by his horse and fell over the cliffs, since called
King's Wud End, a little to the west of the burgh, and killed. A
monument was erected in 1887 to mark the supposed scene of the accident.
The Witch Hill used to be the place of execution of those poor wretches.
Kinghorn belongs to the Kirkcaldy district group of parliamentary
burghs. At PETTYCUR, 1 m. to the south, is a good harbour for its size,
and at Kinghorn Ness a battery has been established in connexion with
the fortifications on Inchkeith. The hill above the battery was
purchased by government in 1903 and is used as a point of observation.
About 1 m. to the north of Kinghorn is the estate of Grange, which
belonged to Sir William Kirkcaldy. INCHKEITH, an island in the fairway
of the Firth of Forth, 2(1/2) m. S. by E. of Kinghorn and 3(1/2) m. N.
by E. of Leith, belongs to the parish of Kinghorn. It has a
north-westerly and south-easterly trend, and is nearly 1 m. long and 1/4
m. wide. It is a barren rock, on the summit of which stands a lighthouse
visible at night for 21 m. In 1881 forts connected by a military road
were erected on the northern, western and southern headlands.
KINGLAKE, ALEXANDER WILLIAM (1800-1891), English historian and
traveller, was born at Taunton on the 5th of August 1809. His father, a
successful solicitor, intended his son for a legal career. Kinglake went
to Eton and Trinity College, Cambridge, where he matriculated in 1828,
being a contemporary and friend of Tennyson and Thackeray. After leaving
Cambridge he joined Lincoln's Inn, and was called to the bar in 1837.
While still a student he travelled, in 1835, throughout the East, and
the impression made upon him by his experiences was so powerful that he
was seized with a desire to record them in literature. _Eothen_, a
sensitive and witty record of impressions keenly felt and remembered,
was published in 1844, and enjoyed considerable reputation. In 1854 he
went to the Crimea, and was present at the battle of the Alma. During
the campaign he made the acquaintance of Lord Raglan, who was so much
attracted by his talents that he suggested to Kinglake the plan for an
elaborate _History of the Crimean War_, and placed his private papers at
the writer's disposal. For the rest of his life Kinglake was engaged
upon the task of completing this monumental history. Thirty-two years
elapsed between its commencement and the publication of the last volume,
and eight volumes in all appeared at intervals between 1863 and 1887.
Kinglake lived principally in London, and sat in parliament for
Bridgwater from 1857 until the disfranchisement of the borough in 1868.
He died on the 2nd of January 1891. Kinglake's life-work, _The History
of the Crimean War_, is in scheme and execution too minute and
conscientious to be altogether in proportion, but it is a wonderful
example of painstaking and talented industry. It is not without errors
of partisanship, but it shows remarkable skill in the moulding of vast
masses of despatches and technical details into an absorbingly
interesting narrative; it is illumined by natural descriptions and
character-sketches of great fidelity and acumen; and, despite its
length, it remains one of the most picturesque, most vivid and most
actual pieces of historical narrative in the English language.
KINGLET, a name applied in many books to the bird called by Linnaeus
_Motacilla regulus_, and by most modern ornithologists _Regulus
cristatus_, the golden-crested or golden-crowned wren of ordinary
persons. This species is the type of a small group which has been
generally placed among the _Sylviidae_ or true warblers, but by certain
systematists it is referred to the titmouse family, _Paridae_. That the
kinglets possess many of the habits and actions of the latter is
undeniable, but on the other hand they are not known to differ in any
important points of organization or appearance from the former--the
chief distinction being that the nostril is covered by a single bristly
feather directed forwards. The golden-crested wren is the smallest of
British birds, its whole length being about 3(1/2) in., and its wing
measuring only 2 in. from the carpal joint. Generally of an olive-green
colour, the top of its head is bright yellow, deepening into orange, and
bounded on either side by a black line, while the wing coverts are dull
black, and some of them tipped with white, forming a somewhat
conspicuous bar. The cock has a pleasant but weak song. The nest is a
beautiful object, thickly felted of the softest moss, wool, and spiders'
webs, lined with feathers, and usually built under and near the end of
the branch of a yew, fir or cedar, supported by the interweaving of two
or three laterally diverging and pendent twigs, and sheltered by the
rest. The eggs are from six to ten in number, of a dull white sometimes
finely freckled with reddish-brown. The species is particularly social,
living for the most part of the year in family parties, and often
joining bands of any species of titmouse in a common search for food.
Though to be met with in Britain at all seasons, the bird in autumn
visits the east coast in enormous flocks, apparently emigrants from
Scandinavia, while hundreds perish in crossing the North Sea, where they
are well known to the fishermen as "woodcock's pilots." A second and
more local European species is the fire-crested wren, _R. ignicapillus_,
easily recognizable by the black streak on each side of the head, before
and behind the eye, as well as by the deeper colour of its crown. A
third species, _R. maderensis_, inhabits the Madeiras, to which it is
peculiar; and examples from the Himalayas and Japan have been
differentiated as _R. himalayensis_ and _R. japonicus_. North America
has two well-known species, _R. satrapa_, very like the European _R.
ignicapillus_, and the ruby-crowned wren, _R. calendula_, which is
remarkable for a loud song that has been compared to that of a
canary-bird or a skylark, and for having the characteristic nasal
feather in a rudimentary or aborted condition. (A. N.)
KINGS, FIRST AND SECOND BOOKS OF, two books of the Bible, the last of
the series of Old Testament histories known as the Earlier or Former
Prophets. They were originally reckoned as a single book (Josephus;
Origen _ap._ Eus., _H.E._ vi. 25; Peshitta; Talmud), though modern
Bibles follow the bipartition which is derived from the Septuagint. In
that version they are called the third and fourth books of "kingdoms"
([Greek: Basileion]), the first and second being our books of Samuel.
The division into two books is not felicitous, and even the old Hebrew
separation between Kings and Samuel must not be taken to mean that the
history from the birth of Samuel to the exile was treated by two
distinct authors in independent volumes. We cannot speak of the author
of Kings or Samuel, but only of an editor or of successive editors whose
main work was to arrange in a continuous form extracts or abstracts from
earlier sources. The introduction of a chronological scheme and of a
series of editorial comments and additions, chiefly designed to enforce
the religious meaning of the history, gives a kind of unity to the book
of Kings as we now read it; but beneath this we can still distinguish a
variety of documents, which, though sometimes mutilated in the process
of piecing together, retain sufficient individuality of style and colour
to prove their original independence.
Of these documents one of the best defined is the vivid picture of
David's court at Jerusalem (2 Sam. ix.-xx.) from which the first two
chapters of 1 Kings manifestly cannot be separated. As it would be
unreasonable to suppose that the editor of the history of David closed
his work abruptly before the death of the king, breaking off in the
middle of a valuable memoir which lay before him, this observation leads
us to conclude that the books of Samuel and Kings are not independent
histories. They have at least one source in common, and a single
editorial hand was at work on both. From an historical point of view,
however, the division which makes the beginning of Solomon's reign the
beginning of a new book is very convenient. The conquest of Palestine by
the Israelite tribes, recounted in the book of Joshua, leads up to the
era of the "judges" (Judg. ii. 6-23; iii. sqq.), and the books of Samuel
follow with the institution of the monarchy and the first kings. The
books of Kings bring to a close the life of David (c. 975 B.C.), which
forms the introduction to the reign of Solomon (1 Kings ii. 12-xi.), the
troubles in whose time prepared the way for the separation into the two
distinct kingdoms, viz. Judah and the northern tribes of Israel (xii.
sqq.). After the fall of Samaria, the history of these Israelites is
rounded off with a review (2 Kings xvii.-xviii. 12). The history of the
surviving kingdom of Judah is then carried down to the destruction of
Jerusalem and the exile (5 and 6), and, after an account of the Chaldean
governorship, concludes with the release of the captive king Jehoiachin
(561 B.C.) and with an allusion to his kind treatment during the rest of
his lifetime.
The most noticeable feature in the book is the recurring interest in the
centralization of worship in the Temple at Jerusalem as prescribed in
Deuteronomy and enforced by Josiah. Amidst the great variety in style
and manner which marks the several parts of the history, features which
are imbued with the teaching of Deuteronomy recur regularly in similar
stereotyped forms. They point in fact to a specific redaction, and thus
it would seem that the editor who treated the foundation of the Temple,
the central event of Solomon's life, as a religious epoch of the first
importance, regarded this as the beginning of a new era--the history of
Israel under the one sanctuary.
Successive Redactions.
When we assume that the book of Kings was thrown into its present form
by a Deuteronomistic redactor we do not affirm that he was the first who
digested the sources of the history into a continuous work, nor must we
ascribe absolute finality to his work. He gave the book a definite shape
and character, but the recognized methods of Hebrew literature left it
open to additions and modifications by later hands. Even the redaction
in the spirit of Deuteronomy seems itself to have had more than one
stage, as Ewald long ago recognized.
The evidence to be detailed presently shows that there was a certain
want of definiteness about the redaction. The mass of disjointed
materials, not always free from inconsistencies, which lay before the
editor in separate documents or in excerpts already partially arranged
by an earlier hand, could not have been reduced to real unity without
critical sifting, and an entire recasting of the narrative in a way
foreign to the ideas and literary habits of the Hebrews. The unity
which the editor aimed at was limited to (a) chronological continuity
in the events recorded and (b) a certain uniformity in the treatment
of the religious meaning of the narrative. Even this could not be
perfectly attained in the circumstances, and the links of the history
were not firmly enough riveted to prevent disarrangement or
rearrangement of details by later scribes.
(a) The continued efforts of successive redactors can be traced in the
chronology of the book. The chronological method of the narrative
appears most clearly in the history after Solomon, where the events of
each king's reign are thrown into a kind of stereotyped framework on
this type: "In the twentieth year of Jeroboam, king of Israel, Asa
began to reign over Judah, and reigned in Jerusalem forty-one years."
... "In the third year of Asa, king of Judah, Baasha began to reign
over Israel in Tirzah twenty-four years." The history moves between
Judah and Israel according to the date of each accession; as soon as a
new king has been introduced, everything that happened in his reign is
discussed, and wound up by another stereotyped formula as to the death
and burial of the sovereign; and to this mechanical arrangement the
natural connexion of events is often sacrificed. In this scheme the
elaborate synchronisms between contemporary monarchs of the north and
south give an aspect of great precision to the chronology. But in
reality the data for Judah and Israel do not agree, and remarkable
deviations are sometimes found. The key to the chronology is 1 Kings
vi. 1, which, as Wellhausen has shown, was not found in the original
Septuagint, and contains internal evidence of post-Chaldean date. In
fact the system as a whole is necessarily later than 535 B.C., the
fixed point from which it counts back, and although the numbers for
the duration of the reigns may be based upon early sources, the
synchronisms appear to have been inserted at a much later stage in the
history of the text.
(b) Another aspect in the redaction may be called theological. Its
characteristic is the retrospective application to the history of a
standard belonging to the later developments of Old Testament
religion. Thus the redactor regards the sins of Jeroboam as the real
cause of the downfall of Israel (2 Kings xvii. 21 seq.), and passes an
unfavourable judgment upon all its rulers, not merely to the effect
that they did evil in the sight of Yahweh but that they followed in
the way of Jeroboam. But his opinion was manifestly not shared by
Elijah or Elisha, nor by the original narrator of the lives of these
prophets. Moreover, the redactor in 1 Kings iii. 2 seq. regards
worship at the high places as sinful after the building of the Temple,
although even the best kings before Hezekiah made no attempt to
suppress these shrines. This feature in the redaction displays itself
not only in occasional comments or homiletical excursuses, but in that
part of the narrative in which all ancient historians allowed
themselves free scope for the development of their reflections--the
speeches placed in the mouths of actors in the history. Here also
there is often textual evidence that the theological element is
somewhat loosely attached to the earlier narrative and underwent
successive additions.
General Structure.
Consequently it is necessary to distinguish between the older sources
and the peculiar setting in which the history has been placed; between
earlier records and that specific colouring which, from its affinity to
Deuteronomy and to other portions of the Old Testament which appear to
have been similarly treated under the influence of its teaching, may be
conveniently termed "Deuteronomistic." For his sources the compiler
refers chiefly to two distinct works, the "words" or "chronicles" of the
kings of Israel and those of the kings of Judah. Precisely how much is
copied from these works and how much has been expressed in the
compiler's own language is of course uncertain. It is found on
inspection that the present history consists usually of an epitome of
each reign. It states the king's age at succession (so Judah only),
length of reign, death and burial, with allusions to his buildings,
wars, and other political events.[1] In the case of Judah, also, the
name of the royal or queen-mother is specifically mentioned. The
references to the respective "chronicles," made as though they were
still accessible, are wanting in the case of Jehoram and Hoshea of
Israel, and of Solomon, Ahaziah, Athaliah, Jehoahaz, Jehoiachin and
Zedekiah of Judah. But for Solomon the authority cited, "book of the
acts of Solomon" (1 Kings xi. 41), presumably presupposes Judaean
chronicles, and the remaining cases preserve details of an annalistic
character. Moreover, distinctive annalistic material is found for the
Israelite kings Saul and Ishbosheth in 1 Sam. xiii. 1; xiv. 47-51; 2
Sam. ii. 8-10a (including even their age at accession), and for David in
2 Sam. ii. 11 and parts of v. and viii.
The use which the compiler makes of his sources shows that his aim was
not the _history_ of the past but its _religious significance_. It is
rare that even qualified praise is bestowed upon the kings of Israel
(Jehoram, 2 Kings iii. 2; Jehu x. 30; Hoshea xvii. 2). Kings of great
historical importance are treated with extreme brevity (Omri, Jeroboam
(2), Uzziah), and similar meagreness of historical information is
apparent when the editorial details and the religious judgments are
eliminated from the accounts of Nadab, Baasha, and the successors of
Jeroboam (2) in Israel or of Abijam and Manasseh in Judah.
Solomon.
To gain a more exact idea of the character of the book we may divide the
history into three sections: (1) the life of Solomon, (2) the kingdoms
of Ephraim (or Samaria)[2] and Judah, and (3) the separate history of
Judah after the fall of Samaria. I. _Solomon_.--The events which lead up
to the death of David and the accession of Solomon (1 Kings i., ii.) are
closely connected with 2 Sam. ix.-xx. The unity is broken by the
appendix 2 Sam. xxi. xxi.-xxiv. which is closely connected, as regards
general subject-matter, with _ibid._ v.-viii.; the literary questions
depend largely upon the structure of the books of Samuel (q.v.). It is
evident, at least, that either the compiler drew upon other sources for
the occasion and has been remarkably brief elsewhere, or that his
epitomes have been supplemented by the later insertion of material not
necessarily itself of late origin. At present 1 Kings i., ii. are both
the close of David's life (no source is cited) and the necessary
introduction to Solomon. But Lucian's recension of the Septuagint (ed.
Lagarde), as also Josephus, begin the book at ii. 12, thus separating
the annalistic accounts of the two. Since the contents of 1 Kings
iii.-xi. do not form a continuous narrative, the compiler's authority
("Acts of S." xi. 41) can hardly have been an ordinary chronicle. The
chapters comprise (a) sundry notices of the king's prosperous and
peaceful career, severed by (b) a description of the Temple and other
buildings; and they conclude with (c) some account of the external
troubles which prove to have unsettled the whole of his reign. After an
introduction (iii.), a contains generalizing statements of Solomon's
might, wealth and wisdom (iv. 20 seq., 25, 29-34; x. 23-25, 27) and
stories of a distinctly late and popular character (iii. 16-28, x. i-10,
13). The present lack of unity can in some cases be remedied by the
Septuagint, which offers many deviations from the Hebrew text; this
feature together with the present form of the parallel texts in
Chronicles will exemplify the persistence of fluctuation to a late
period (4th-2nd cent. B.C.).
Thus iii. 2 seq. cannot be by the same hand as v. 4, and v. 2 is
probably a later Deut. gloss upon v. 3 (earlier Deut.), which
represents the compiler's view and (on the analogy of the framework)
comes closely after ii. 12.[3] Ch. iii. 1 can scarcely be severed from
ix. 16, and in the Septuagint they appear in iv. in the order: iv.
1-19 (the officers), 27 seq. (their duties), 22-24 (the daily
provision), 29-34 (Solomon's reputation), iii. 1; ix. 16-17a (alliance
with Egypt); iv. 20 seq. 25 are of a generalizing character and recur
in the Septuagint with much supplementary matter in ii. Ch. iv. 26 is
naturally related to x. 26 (cf. 2 Chron. i. 14) and takes its place in
Lucian's recension (cf. 2 Chron. ix. 25). There is considerable
variation again in ix. 10-x. 29, and the order ix. 10-14, 26-28, x.
1-22 (so partly Septuagint) has the advantage of recording
continuously Solomon's dealings with Hiram. The intervening verses
belong to a class of floating notices (in a very unnatural order)
which seem to have got stranded almost by chance at different points
in the two recensions; contrast also 2 Chron. viii. Solomon's
preliminary arrangements with Hiram in ch. v. have been elaborated to
emphasize the importance of the Temple (vv. 3-5, cf. 2 Sam. vii.);
further difficulty is caused by the relation between 13 seq. and 15
seq. (see 2 Chron. ii. 17 seq.) and between both of these and ix. 20
seq. xi. 28. The account of the royal buildings now sandwiched in
between the related fragments of a is descriptive rather than
narrative, and the accurate details might have been obtained by actual
observation of the Temple at a date long subsequent to Solomon. It is
not all due to a single hand. Ch. vi. 11-14 (with several late
phrases) break the connexion and are omitted by the Septuagint; vv.
15-22, now untranslatable, appear in a simple and intelligible form in
the Septuagint. The account of the dedication contains many signs of a
late date; viii. 14-53, 54-61 are due to a Deuteronomic writer, and
that they are an expansion of the older narrative (vv. 1-13) is
suggested by the fact that the ancient fragment, vv. 12, 13 (imperfect
in the Hebrew) appears in the Septuagint after v. 53 in completer form
and with a reference to the book of Jashar as source ([Greek: biblion
tes odes] [Hebrew: sefer (hashir) hayashar]). The redactional
insertion displaced it in one recension and led to its mutilation in
the other. With viii. 27-30, cf. generally Isa. xl.-lvi.; vv. 44-51
presuppose the exile, vv. 54-61 are wanting in Chron., and even the
older parts of this chapter have also been retouched in conformity
with later (even post-exilic) ritual and law. The Levites who appear
at v. 4 in contrast to the priests, in a way unknown to the pre-exilic
history, are not named in the Septuagint, which also omits the
post-exilic term "congregation" (_'edah_) in v. 5. There is a general
similarity of subject with Deut. xxviii.
The account of the end of Solomon's reign deals with (a) his religious
laxity (xi. 1-13, now in a Deuteronomic form), as the punishment for
which the separation of the two kingdoms is announced; and (b) the rise
of the adversaries who, according to xi. 25, had troubled the whole of
his reign, and therefore cannot have been related originally as the
penalty for the sins of his old age. Both, however, form an introduction
to subsequent events, and the life of Solomon concludes with a brief
annalistic notice of his death, length of reign, successor, and place of
burial. (See further SOLOMON.)
The Divided Kingdom.
II. _Ephraim and Judah._--In the history of the two kingdoms the
redactor follows a fixed scheme determined, as has been seen, by the
order of succession. The fluctuation of tradition concerning the
circumstances of the schism is evident from a comparison with the
Septuagint, and all that is related of Ahijah falls under suspicion of
being foreign to the oldest history.[4] The story of the man of God from
Judah (xiii.) is shown to be late by its general tone (conceptions of
prophetism and revelation),[5] and by the term "cities of Samaria" (v.
32, for Samaria as a _province_, cf. 2 Kings xvii. 24, 26; for the
building of the city by Omri see 1 Kings xvi. 24). It is a late Judaean
narrative inserted after the Deuteronomic redaction, and breaks the
connexion between xii. 31 and xiii. 33 seq. The latter describe the
idolatrous worship instituted by the first king of the schismatic north,
and the religious attitude occurs regularly throughout the compiler's
epitome, however brief the reigns of the kings. In the account of Nadab,
xv. 25 seq., 29b, 30 seq. are certainly the compiler's, and the
synchronism in v. 28 must also be editorial; xv. 32 (Septuagint omit)
and 16 are duplicates leading up to the Israelite and Judaean accounts
of Baasha respectively. But xv. 33-xvi. 7 contains little annalistic
information, and the prophecy in xvi. 1-4 is very similar to xiv. 7-11,
which in turn breaks the connexion between vv. 6 and 12. Ch. xvi. 7 is a
duplicate to vv. 1-4 and out of place; the Septuagint inserts it in the
_middle_ of v. 8. The brief reign of Elah preserves an important entract
in xvi. 9, but the date in v. 10a (LXX. omits) presupposes the late
finished chronological scheme. Zimri's seven days receive the inevitable
condemnation, but the older material embedded in the framework (xvi.
15b-18) is closely connected with v. 9 and is continued in the
non-editorial portions of Omri's reign (xvi. 21 seq., length of reign in
v. 23, and v. 24). The achievements of Omri to which the editor refers
can fortunately be gathered from external sources (see OMRI). Under
Omri's son Ahab the separate kingdoms converge.
Next, as to Judah: the vivid account of the accession of Rehoboam in
xii. 1-16 is reminiscent of the full narratives in 2 Sam. ix.-xx.; 1
Kings i., ii. (cf. especially v. 16 with 2 Sam. xx. 1); xii. 15b refers
to the prophecy of Ahijah (see above), and "unto this day," v. 19,
cannot be by a contemporary author; v. 17 (LXX. omits) finds a parallel
in 2 Chron. xi. 16 seq., and could represent an Ephraimite standpoint.
The Judaean standpoint is prominent in vv. 21-24, where (a) the
inclusion of Benjamin and (b) the cessation of war (at the command of
Shemaiah) conflict with (a) xi. 32, 36, xii. 20 and (b) xiv. 30
respectively. Rehoboam's history, resumed by the redactor in xiv. 21-24,
continues with a brief account of the spoiling of the Temple and palace
by Sheshonk (Shishak). (The incident appears in 2 Chron. xii. in a
rather different context, _before_ the details which now precede v. 21
seq.) The reign of Abijam is entirely due to the editor, whose brief
statement of the war in xv. 7b is supplemented by a lengthy story in 2
Chron. xiii. (where the name is Abijah). Ch. xv. 5b (last clause) and v.
6 are omitted by the Septuagint, the former is a unique gloss (see 2
Sam. xi. seq.), the latter is a mere repetition of xiv. 30; with xv. 2
cf. v. 10. The account of Asa's long reign contains a valuable summary
of his war with Baasha, xv. 16-22; the isolated v. 15 is quite obscure
and is possibly related to v. 18 (but cf. vii. 51). His successor
Jehoshaphat is now dealt with completely in xxii. 41-50 after the death
of Ahab; but the Septuagint, which follows a different chronological
scheme (placing his accession in the reign of Omri), gives the summary
(with some variations) after xvi. 28. Another light is thrown upon the
incomplete annalistic fragments (xxii. 44, 47-49) by 2 Chron. xx. 35-37:
the friendship between Judah and Israel appears to have been displeasing
to the redactor of Kings.
Ephraim from Ahab to Jehu.
The history of the few years between the close of Ahab's life and the
accession of Jehu covers about one-third of the entire book of Kings.
This is due to the inclusion of a number of narratives which are partly
of a political character, and partly are interested in the work of
contemporary prophets. The climax is reached in the overthrow of Omri's
dynasty by the usurper Jehu, when, after a period of close intercourse
between Israel and Judah, its two kings perished. The annals of each
kingdom would naturally deal independently with these events, but the
present literary structure of 1 Kings xvii.-2 Kings xi. is extremely
complicated by the presence of the narratives referred to. First as
regards the framework, the epitome of Ahab is preserved in xvi. 29-34
and xxii. 39; it contains some unknown references (his ivory house and
cities), and a stern religious judgment upon his Phoenician alliance, on
which the intervening chapters throw more light. The colourless summary
of his son Ahaziah (xxii. 51-53)[6] finds its conclusion in 2 Kings i.
17 seq. where v. 18 should precede the accession of his brother Jehoram
(v. 17b). Jehoram is again introduced in iii. 1-3 (note the variant
synchronism), but the usual conclusion is wanting. In Judah, Jehoshaphat
was succeeded by his son Jehoram, who had married Athaliah the daughter
of Ahab and Jezebel (viii. 16-24); to the annalistic details (vv. 20-22)
2 Chron. xxi. 11 sqq. adds a novel narrative. His son Ahaziah (viii. 25
sqq.) is similarly denounced for his relations with Israel. He is again
introduced in the isolated ix. 29, while Lucian's recension adds after
x. 36 a variant summary of his reign but _without_ the regular
introduction. Further confusion appears in the Septuagint, which inserts
after i. 18 (Jehoram of Israel) a notice corresponding to iii. 1-3, and
concludes "and the anger of the Lord was kindled against the house of
Ahab." This would be appropriate in a position nearer ix. seq. where the
deaths of Jehoram and Ahaziah are described. These and other examples of
serious disorder in the framework may be associated with the literary
features of the narratives of Elijah and Elisha.
Of the more detailed narratives those that deal with the northern
kingdom are scarcely Judaean (see 1 Kings xix. 3), and they do not
criticize Elijah's work, as the Judaean compiler denounces the whole
history of the north. But they are plainly not of one origin. To
supplement the articles ELIJAH and ELISHA, it is to be noticed that
the account of Naboth's death in the history of Elijah (1 Kings xxi.)
differs in details from that in the history of Elisha and Jehu (2
Kings ix.), and the latter more precise narrative presupposes events
recorded in the extant accounts of Elijah but not these events
themselves. In 1 Kings xx., xxii. 1-28 (xxi. follows xix. in the LXX.)
Ahab is viewed rather more favourably than in the Elijah-narratives
(xix., xxi.) or in the compiler's summary. Ch. xxii. 6, moreover,
proves that there is some exaggeration in xviii. 4, 13; the great
contest between Elijah and the king, between Yahweh and Baal, has been
idealized. The denunciation of Ahab in xx. 35-43 has some notable
points of contact with xiii. and seems to be a supplement to the
preceding incidents. Ch. xxii. is important for its ideas of
prophetism (especially vv. 19-23; cf. Ezek. xiv. 9; 2 Sam. xxiv. 1 [in
contrast to 1 Chron. xxi. 1]); a gloss at the end of v. 28, omitted by
the Septuagint, wrongly identifies Micaiah with the well-known Micah
(i. 2). Although the punishment passed upon Ahab in xxi. 20 sqq.
(20b-26 betray the compiler's hand; cf. xiv. 10 seq.) is modified in
v. 29, this is ignored in the account of his death, xxii. 38, which
takes place at Samaria (see below).
The episode of Elijah and Ahaziah (2 Kings i.) is marked by the
revelation through an angel. The prophet's name appears in an unusual
form (viz. _eliyyah_, not -_yahu_), especially in vv. 2-8. The
prediction of Ahaziah's fate finds a parallel in 2 Chron. xxi. 12-15;
the more supernatural additions have been compared with the late story
in 1 Sam. xix. 18-24. The ascension of Elijah (2 Kings ii.) is related
as the introduction to the work of Elisha, which apparently begins
before the death of Jehoshaphat (see iii. 1, 11 sqq.; contrast 2
Chron. _loc. cit._). Among the stories of Elisha are some which find
him at the head of the prophetic gilds (iv. 1, 38-44, vi. 1-7), whilst
in others he has friendly relations with the "king of Israel" and the
court. As a personage of almost superhuman dignity he moves in certain
narratives where political records appear to have been utilized to
describe the activity of the prophets. The Moabite campaign (iii.)
concerns a revolt already referred to in the isolated i. 1; there are
parallels with the story of Jehoshaphat and Ahab (iii. 7, 11 seq.; cf.
1 Kings xxii. 4 seq., 7 sqq.), contrast, however, xxii. 7 (where
Elijah is not even named) and iii. 11 seq. But Jehoshaphat's death has
been already recorded (1 Kings xxii. 50), and, while Lucian's
recension in 2 Kings iii. reads Ahaziah, i. 17 presupposes the
accession of the _Judaean_ Jehoram. Other political narratives may
underlie the stories of the Aramaean wars; with vi. 24-vii. 20 (after
the complete cessation of hostilities in vi. 23) compare the general
style of 1 Kings xx., xxii.; with the famine in Samaria, vi. 25; cf.
ibid. xvii.; with the victory, cf. ibid. xx. The account of Elisha and
Hazael (viii. 7-15) implies friendly relations with Damascus (in v. 12
the terrors of war are in the future), but the description of Jehu's
accession (ix.) is in the midst of hostilities. Ch. ix. 7-10a are a
Deuteronomic insertion amplifying the message in vv. 3-6 (cf. 1 Kings
xxi. 20 seq.). The origin of the repetition in ix. 14-15a (cf. viii.
28 seq.) is not clear. The oracle in ix. 25 seq. is not that in 1
Kings xxi. 19 seq., and mentions the additional detail that Naboth's
sons were slain. Here his field or portion is located near Jezreel,
but in 1 Kings xxi. 18 his vineyard is by the royal palace in Samaria
(cf. xxii. 38 and contrast xxi. 1, where the LXX. omits reference to
Jezreel). This fluctuation reappears in 2 Kings x. 1, 11 seq., and 17;
in ix. 27 compared with 2 Chron. xxii. 9; and in the singular
duplication of an historical incident, viz. the war against the
Aramaeans at Ramoth-Gilead (a) by Jehoshaphat and Ahab, and (b) by
Ahaziah and Jehoram, in each case with the death of the Israelite
king, at Samaria and Jezreel respectively (see above and observe the
contradiction in 1 Kings xxi. 29 and xxii. 38). These and other
critical questions in this section are involved with (a) the
probability that Elisha's work belongs rather to the accession of
Jehu, with whose dynasty he was on most intimate terms until his death
some forty-five years later (2 Kings xiii. 14-21), and (b) the problem
of the wars between Israel and Syria which appear to have begun only
in the time of Jehu (x. 32). See _Jew. Quart. Rev._ (1908), pp.
597-630, and JEWS: _History_, S 11 seq.
Dynasty of Jehu.
In the annals of Jehu's dynasty the editorial introduction to Jehu
himself is wanting (x. 32 sqq.), although Lucian's recension in x. 36
concludes in annalistic manner the lives of Jehoram of Israel and
Ahaziah of Judah. The summary mentions the beginning of the Aramaean
wars, the continuation of which is found in the redactor's account of
his successor Jehoahaz (xiii. 1-9). But xiii. 4-6 modify the disasters,
and by pointing to the "saviour" or deliverer (cf. Judg. iii. 9, 15)
anticipate xiv. 27. The self-contained account of his son Jehoash (xiii.
10-13) is supplemented (a) by the story of the death of Elisha (vv.
14-21) and (b) by some account of the Aramaean wars (vv. 22-25), where
v. 23, like vv. 4-6 (Lucian's recension actually reads it after v. 7),
is noteworthy for the sympathy towards the northern kingdom. Further (c)
the defeat of Amaziah of Judah appears in xiv. 8-14 after the annals of
Judah, although from an Israelite source (v. 11b Bethshemesh defined as
belonging to Judah, see also v. 15, and with the repetition of the
concluding statements in v. 15 seq., see xiii. 12 seq.). These features
and the transference of xiii. 12 seq. after xiii. 25 in Lucian's
recension point to late adjustment. In Judaean history, Jehu's reform
and the overthrow of Jezebel in the north (ix., x. 15-28) find their
counterpart in the murder of Athaliah and the destruction of the temple
of Baal in Judah (xi. 18). But the framework is incomplete. The
editorial conclusion of the reign of Ahaziah, the introduction to that
of Athaliah, and the sources for both are wanting. A lengthy Judaean
document is incorporated detailing the accession of Joash and the
prominence of the abruptly introduced priest Jehoiada. The interest in
the Temple and temple-procedure is obvious; and both xi. and xii. have
points of resemblance with xxii. seq. (see below and cf. also xi. 4, 7,
11, 19, with 1 Kings xiv. 27 seq.). The usual epitome is found in xi.
21-xii. 3 (the age at accession should follow the synchronism, so
Lucian), with fragments of annalistic matter in xii. 17-21 (another
version in 2 Chron. xxiv. 23 sqq.). For Joash's son Amaziah see above;
xiv. 6 refers to Deut. xxiv. 16, and 2 Chron. xxv. 5-16 replaces v. 7 by
a lengthy narrative with some interesting details. Azariah or Uzziah is
briefly summarized in xv. 1-7, hence the notice in xiv. 22 seems out of
place; perhaps the usual statements of Amaziah's death and burial (cf.
xiv. 20b, 22b), which were to be expected after v. 18, have been
supplemented by the account of the rebellion (vv. 19, 20a, 21).[7] The
chronological notes for the accession of Azariah imply different views
of the history of Judah after the defeat of Amaziah; with xiv. 17, cf.
xiii. 10, xiv. 2, 23, but contrast xv. 1, and again v. 8.[8]
The important reign of Jeroboam (2) is dismissed as briefly as that of
Azariah (xiv. 23-29). The end of the Aramaean war presupposed by v. 25
is supplemented by the sympathetic addition in v. 26 seq. (cf. xiii. 4
seq. 23). Of his successors Zechariah, Shallum and Menahem only the
briefest records remain, now imbedded in the editorial framework (xv.
8-25). The summary of Pekah (perhaps the same as Pekahiah, the confusion
being due to the compiler) contains excerpts which form the continuation
of the older material in v. 25 (cf. also vv. 10, 14, 16, 19, 20). For an
apparently similar adjustment of an earlier record to the framework see
above on 1 Kings xv. 25-31, xvi. 8-25. The account of Hoshea's
conspiracy (xv. 29 seq.) gives the Israelite version with which
Tiglath-Pileser's own statement can now be compared. Two accounts of the
fall of Samaria are given, one of which is under the reign of the
contemporary Judaean Hezekiah (xvii. i-6, xviii. 9-12); the chronology
is again intricate. Reflections on the disappearance of the northern
kingdom appear in xvii. 7-23 and xviii. 12; the latter belongs to the
Judaean history. The former is composite; xvii. 21-23 (cf. v. 18) look
back to the introduction of calf-worship by Jeroboam (1), and agree with
the compiler's usual standpoint; but vv. 19-20 include Judah and
presuppose the exile. The remaining verses survey types of idolatry
partly of a general kind (vv. 9-12, 16a), and partly characteristic of
Judah in the last years of the monarchy (vv. 16b, 17). The brief account
of the subsequent history of Israel in xvii. 24-41 is not from one
source, since the piety of the new settlers (v. 32-34a, 41) conflicts
with the later point of view in 34b-40. The last-mentioned supplements
the epilogue in xvii. 7-23, forms a solemn conclusion to the history of
the northern kingdom, and is apparently aimed at the Samaritans.
Judah.
III. _Later History of Judah._--The summary of Jotham (xv. 32-38) shows
interest in the Temple (v. 35) and alludes to the hostility of Pekah (v.
37) upon which the Israelite annals are silent. 2. Chron. xxvii. expands
the former but replaces the latter by other not unrelated details (see
UZZIAH). But xv. 37 is resumed afresh in the account of the reign of
Ahaz (xvi. 5 sqq.; the text in v. 6 is confused)--another version in 2
Chron. xxviii. 5 sqq.--and is supplemented by a description, evidently
from the Temple records, in which the ritual innovations by "king Ahaz"
(in contrast to "Ahaz" alone in vv. 5-9) are described (vv. 10-18).
There is further variation of detail in 2 Chron. xxviii. 20-27. The
summary of Hezekiah (xviii. 1-8) emphasizes his important religious
reforms (greatly expanded in 2 Chron. xxix. seq. from a later
standpoint), and includes two references to his military achievements.
Of these v. 8 is ignored in Chron., and v. 7 is supplemented by (a) the
annalistic extract in vv. 13-16, and (b) narratives in which the great
contemporary prophet Isaiah is the central figure. The latter are later
than Isaiah himself (xix. 37 refers to 681 B.C.) and reappear, with some
abbreviation and rearrangement, in Isa. xxxvi.-xxxix. (see ISAIAH). They
are partly duplicate (cf. xix. 7 with vv. 28, 33; vv. 10-13 with xviii.
28-35), and consist of two portions, xviii. 17-xix. 8 (Isa. xxxvi.
2-xxxvii. 8) and xix. 9b-35 (Isa. xxxvii. 9b-36); to which of these xix.
9a and v. 36 seq. belong is disputed. 2 Chron. xxxii. (where these
accounts are condensed) is in general agreement with 2 Kings xviii. 7,
as against vv. 14-16. The poetical fragment, xix. 21-28, is connected
with the sign in vv. 29-31; both seem to break the connexion between
xix. 20 and 32 sqq. Chap. xx. 1-19 appears to belong to an earlier
period in Hezekiah's reign (see v. 6 and cf. 2 Chron. xxxii. 25 seq.);
with vv. 1-11 note carefully the forms in Isa. xxxviii. 1-8, 21 seq.,
and 2 Chron. xxxii. 24-26; with xx. 12-19 (Isa. xxxix) contrast the
brief allusion in 2 Chron. xxxii. 31. In v. 17 seq. the exile is
foreshadowed. Use has probably been made of a late cycle of
Isaiah-stories; such a work is actually mentioned in 2 Chron. xxxii. 32.
The accounts of the reactionary kings Manasseh and Amon, although now by
the compiler, give some reference to political events (see xxi. 17, 23
seq.); xxi. 7-15 refer to the exile and find a parallel in xxiii. 26
seq., and xxi. 10 sqq. are replaced in 2 Chron. xxxiii. 10-20 by a novel
record of Manasseh's penitence (see also ibid. v. 23 and note omission
of 2 Kings xxiii. 26 from Chron).
Josiah's reign forms the climax of the history. The usual framework
(xxii. 1; 2, xxiii. 28, 30b) is supplemented by narratives dealing with
the Temple repairs and the reforms of Josiah. These are closely related
to xi. seq. (cf. xxii. 3-7 with xii. 4 sqq.), but show many signs of
revision; xxii. 16 seq., xxiii. 26 seq., point distinctly to the exile,
and xxiii. 16-20 is an insertion (the altar in v. 16 is already
destroyed in v. 15) after 1 Kings xiii. But it is difficult elsewhere to
distinguish safely between the original records and the later additions.
In their present shape the reforms of Josiah are described in terms that
point to an acquaintance with the teaching of Deuteronomy which
promulgates the reforms themselves.[9]
The annalistic notice in xxiii. 29 seq. (contrast xxii. 20) should
precede v. 28; 2 Chron. xxxv. 20-27 gives another version in the
correct position and ignores 2 Kings xxiii. 24-27 (see however the
Septuagint). For the last four kings of Judah, the references to the
worship at the high places (presumably abolished by Josiah) are
wanting, and the literary source is only cited for Jehoiakim; xxiv. 3
seq. (and probably v. 2), which treat the fall of Judah as the
punishment for Manasseh's sins, are a Deuteronomistic insertion (2
Chron. xxxvi. 6 sqq. differs widely; see, however, the Septuagint); v.
13 seq. and v. 15 seq. are duplicates. With xxiv. 18-xxv. 21 cf. Jer.
lii. 1-27 (the text of the latter, especially vv. 19 sqq. is
superior); and the fragments _ibid._ xxxix. 1-10. Ch. xxv. 22-26
appears in much fuller form in Jer. xl. seq. (see xl. 7-9, xli. 1-3,
17 seq.). It is noteworthy that Jeremiah does not enter into the
history in Kings (contrast Isaiah above). The book of Chronicles in
general has a briefer account of the last years, and ignores both the
narratives which also appear in Jeremiah and the concluding hopeful
note struck by the restoration of Jehoiachin (xxv. 27-30). This last,
with the addition of statistical data, forms the present conclusion
also of the book of Jeremiah.
_Conclusions._--A survey of these narratives as a whole strengthens our
impression of the merely mechanical character of the redaction by which
they are united. Though editors have written something of their own in
almost every chapter, generally from the standpoint of religious
pragmatism, there is not the least attempt to work the materials into a
history in our sense of the word; and in particular the northern and
southern histories are practically independent, being merely pieced
together in a sort of mosaic in consonance with the chronological
system, which we have seen to be really later than the main redaction.
It is very probable that the order of the pieces was considerably
readjusted by the author of the chronology; of this indeed the
Septuagint still shows traces. But with all its imperfections as judged
from a modern standpoint, the redaction has the great merit of
preserving material nearer to the actual history than would have been
the case had narratives been rewritten from much later standpoints--as
often in the book of Chronicles.
Questions of date and of the growth of the literary process are still
unsettled, but it is clear that there was an independent history of
(north) Israel with its own chronological scheme. It was based upon
annals and fuller political records, and at some period apparently
passed through circles where the purely domestic stories of the prophets
(Elisha) were current.[10] This was ultimately taken over by a Judaean
editor who was under the influence of the far-reaching reforms ascribed
to the 18th year of Josiah (621 B.C.). Certain passages seem to imply
that in his time the Temple was still standing and the Davidic dynasty
uninterrupted. Also the phrase "unto this day" sometimes apparently
presupposes a pre-exilic date. On the other hand, the history is carried
down to the end of Jehoiachin's life (xxv. 27 refers to his fifty-fifth
year, vv. 29 seq. look back on his death), and a number of allusions
point decisively to the post-exilic period. Consequently, most scholars
are agreed that an original pre-exilic Deuteronomic compilation made
shortly after Josiah's reforms received subsequent additions from a
later Deuteronomic writer.
These questions depend upon several intricate literary and historical
problems. At the outset (a) the compiler deals with history from the
Deuteronomic standpoint, selecting certain notices and referring further
to _separate_ chronicles of Israel and Judah. The canonical book of
Chronicles refers to such a _combined_ work, but is confined to Judah;
it follows the religious judgment passed upon the kings, but it
introduces new details apparently derived from extant annals, replaces
the annalistic excerpts found in Kings by other passages, or uses new
narratives which at times are clearly based upon older sources. Next (b)
the Septuagint proves that Kings did not reach its present form until a
very late date; "each represents a stage and not always the same stage
in the long protracted labours of the redactors" (Kuenen).[11] In
agreement with this are the unambiguous indications of the post-exilic
age (especially in the Judaean history) consisting of complete
passages, obvious interpolations, and also sporadic phrases in
narratives whose pre-exilic origin is sometimes clear and sometimes only
to be presumed. Further (c), the Septuagint supports the independent
conclusion that the elaborate synchronisms belong to a late stage in the
redaction. Consequently it is necessary to allow that the previous
arrangement of the material may have been different; the actual wording
of the introductory notices was necessarily also affected. In general,
it becomes ever more difficult to distinguish between passages
incorporated by an early redactor and those which may have been inserted
later, though possibly from old sources. Where the regular framework is
disturbed such considerations become more cogent. The relation of
annalistic materials in 1 Sam. (xiii. i; xiv. 47-51, &c.) to the longer
detailed narratives will bear upon the question, as also the relation of
2 Sam. ix-xx. to 1 Kings i. seq. (see SAMUEL, BOOKS OF). Again (d) the
lengths of the reigns of the Judaean kings form an integral part of the
framework, and their total, with fifty years of exile, allows four
hundred and eighty years from the beginning of the Temple to the return
from Babylon.[12] This round number (cf. again 1 Kings vi. 1) points to
a date subsequent to 537, and Robertson Smith has observed that almost
all events dated by the years of the kings of Jerusalem have reference
to the affairs of the Temple. This suggests a connexion between the
chronology and the incorporation of those narratives in which the Temple
is clearly the centre of interest. (e) But, apart from the question of
the origin of the more detailed Judaean records, the arguments for a
pre-exilic Judaean Deuteronomic compilation are not quite decisive. The
phrase "unto this day" is not necessarily valid (cf. 2 Chron. v. 9,
viii. 8, xxi. 10 with 1 Kings viii. 8, ix. 21, 2 Kings viii. 22), and
depends largely upon the compiler's sagacity. Also, the existence of the
Temple and of the Davidic dynasty (1 Kings viii. 14-53; ix. 3; xi.
36-38; xv. 4; 2 Kings viii. 19; cf. 2 Chron. xiii. 5) is equally
applicable to the time of the second temple when Zerubbabel, the Davidic
representative, kindled new hopes and aspirations. Indeed, if the object
of the Deuteronomic compiler is to show from past history that "the
sovereign is responsible for the purity of the national religion"
(Moore, _Ency. Bib._ col. 2079), a date somewhere after the death of
Jehoiachin (released in 561) in the age of Zerubbabel and the new Temple
equally satisfies the conditions. With this is concerned (f) the
question whether, on historical grounds, the account of the introduction
of Deuteronomic reforms by Josiah is trustworthy.[13] Moreover, although
a twofold Deuteronomic redaction of Kings is generally recognized, the
criteria for the presumably pre-exilic form are not so decisive as those
which certainly distinguish the post-exilic portions, and it is
frequently very difficult to assign Deuteronomic passages to the earlier
rather than to the later. Again, apart from the contrast between the
Israelite detailed narratives (relatively early) and those of Judaean
origin (often secondary), it is noteworthy that the sympathetic
treatment of northern history in 2 Kings xiii. 4 seq. 23, xiv. 26 has
literary parallels in the Deuteronomic redaction of Judges (where
Israelite tradition is again predominant), but is quite distinct from
the hostile feeling to the north which is also Deuteronomic. Even the
northern prophet Hosea (q.v.) approximates the Deuteronomic standpoint,
and the possibility that the first Deuteronomic compilation of Kings
could originate outside Judah is strengthened by the fact that an
Israelite source could be drawn upon for an impartial account of Judaean
history (2 Kings xiv. 8-15). Finally, (g) literary and historical
problems here converge. Although Judaean writers ultimately rejected as
heathen a people who could claim to be followers of Yahweh (Ezra iv. 2;
2 Kings xvii. 28, 33; contrast ibid. 34-40, a _secondary_ insertion),
the anti-Samaritan feeling had previously been at most only in an
incipient stage, and there is reason to infer that relations between the
peoples of north and south had been closer.[14] The book of Kings
reveals changing historical conditions in its literary features, and it
is significant that the very age where the background is to be sought is
that which has been (intentionally?) left most obscure: the chronicler's
history of the Judaean monarchy (Chron.--Ezra--Nehemiah), as any
comparison will show, has its own representation of the course of
events, and has virtually superseded both Kings and Jeremiah, which have
now an abrupt conclusion. (See further S. A. Cook, _Jew. Quart. Rev._
(1907), pp. 158 sqq.; and the articles JEWS: _History_, SS 20, 22;
PALESTINE: _History_).
LITERATURE.--A. Kuenen, _Einleitung_; J. Wellhausen, _Compos. d.
Hexateuch_, pp. 266-302; H. Winckler, _Alttest. Untersuchungen_
(1892); and B. Stade, _Akademische Reden_ (1899; on 1 Kings v.-vii.; 2
Kings x.-xiv.; xv.-xxi.); S. R. Driver, _Lit. of O. T._ (1909); see
also C. Holzhey, _Das Buch. d. Konige_ (1899); the commentaries of
Benzinger (1899) and Kittel (1900), and especially F. C. Kent,
_Israel's Hist. and Biog. Narr._ (1905). The article by W. R. Smith,
_Ency. Brit._, 9th ed. (partly retained here), is revised and
supplemented by E. Kautzsch in the _Ency. Bib._ For the Hebrew text
see Klostermann's _Sam. u. Konige_ (1887); C. F. Burney, _Notes on the
Hebrew Text_ (1903); and Stade and Schwally's edition in Haupt's
_Sacred Books of the Old Testament_ (1904). For English readers, J.
Skinner's commentary in the _Century Bible_, and W. E. Barnes in the
_Cambridge Bible_, are useful introductions. (S. A. C.)
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Cp. the brief annalistic form of the Babylonian chronicles (for a
specimen, see C. F. Kent, _Israel's Hist. and Biog. Narratives_, p.
502 seq.). For a synchronistic history of Assyria and Babylonia,
prepared for diplomatic purposes, see Schrader's _Keilinschr. Bibl._
i. 194 sqq.; also L. W. King, _Studies in Eastern Hist._ i.
(Tukulti-Ninib), pp. i, 75 seq. (with interesting variant
traditions).
[2] The term "Israel" as applied to the northern kingdom is apt to be
ambiguous, since as a general national name, with a religious
significance, it can include or suggest the inclusion of Judah.
[3] Here and elsewhere a careful study (e.g. of the marginal
references in the Revised Version) will prove the close relation
between the "Deuteronomic" passages and the book of Deuteronomy
itself. The bearing of this upon the traditional date of that book
should not be overlooked.
[4] See art. JEROBOAM; also W. R. Smith, _Old Test. in Jew. Church_,
pp. 117 sqq.; H. Winckler, _Alttest. Untersuchungen_, pp. 1 sqq., and
the subsequent criticisms by C. F. Burney (_Kings_, pp. 163 sqq.); J.
Skinner (_Kings_, pp. 443 sqq.); and Ed. Meyer (_Israeliten u.
Nachbarstamme_, pp. 357 sqq.).
[5] Notice should everywhere be taken of those prophetical stories
which have the linguistic features of the Deuteronomic writers, or
which differ in style and expression from the prophecies of Amos,
Hosea and others, previous to Jeremiah.
[6] The division of the two books at this point is an innovation
first made in the LXX. and Vulgate.
[7] Both xiv. 22 and xv. 5 presuppose fuller records of which 2
Chron. xxvi. 6-7, 16-20 may represent merely later and less
trustworthy versions.
[8] See F. Ruhl, _Deutsche Zeit. f. Geschichtwissens_, xii. 54 sqq.;
also JEWS: _History_, S 12.
[9] See further the special study by E. Day, _Journ. Bib. Lit._
(1902), pp. 197 sqq.
[10] Cf. similarly the prophetic narratives in the books of Samuel
(q.v.).
[11] "The LXX. of Kings is not a corrupt reproduction of the Hebrew
_receptus_, but represents another recension of the text. Neither
recension can claim absolute superiority. The defects of the LXX. lie
on the surface, and are greatly aggravated by the condition of the
Greek text, which has suffered much in transmission, and particularly
has in many places been corrected after the later Greek versions that
express the Hebrew _receptus_ of the 2nd century of our era. Yet the
LXX. not only preserves many good readings in detail, but throws much
light on the long-continued process of redaction at the hand of
successive editors or copyists of which the extant Hebrew of Kings is
the outcome. Even the false readings of the Greek are instructive,
for both recensions were exposed to corrupting influences of
precisely the same kind" (W. R. SMITH).
[12] See W. R. Smith, _Journ. of Philology_, x. 209 sqq.; _Prophets
of Israel_, p. 147. seq.; and K. Marti, _Ency. Bib._ art.
"Chronology."
[13] Against earlier doubts by Havet (1878), Vernes (1887) and Horst
(1888), see W. E. Addis, _Documents of Hexateuch_, ii. 2 sqq.; but
the whole question has been reopened by E. Day (loc. cit. above) and
R. H. Kennett (_Journ. Theol. Stud._, July 1906, 481 sqq.).
[14] See Kennett. _Journ. Theol. Stud._ 1905, pp. 169 sqq.; 1906, pp.
488 sqq.; and cf. J. A. Montgomery, _The Samaritans_ (1907), pp. 47,
53 seq., 57, 59, 61 sqq.
KING'S BENCH, COURT OF, in England, one of the superior courts of common
law. This court, the most ancient of English courts--in its correct
legal title, "the court of the king before the king himself," _coram
ipso rege_--is far older than parliament itself, for it can be traced
back clearly, both in character and the essence of its jurisdiction, to
the reign of King Alfred. The king's bench, and the two offshoots of the
_aula regia_, the common pleas and the exchequer, for many years
possessed co-ordinate jurisdiction, although there were a few cases in
which each had exclusive authority, and in point of dignity precedence
was given to the court of king's bench, the lord chief justice of which
was also styled lord chief justice of England, being the highest
permanent judge of the Crown. The court of exchequer attended to the
business of the revenue, the common pleas to private actions between
citizens, and the king's bench retained criminal cases and such other
jurisdiction as had not been divided between the other two courts. By an
act of 1830 the court of exchequer chamber was constituted as a court of
appeal for errors in law in all three courts. Like the court of
exchequer, the king's bench assumed by means of an ingenious fiction the
jurisdiction in civil matters which properly belonged to the common
pleas.
Under the Judicature Act 1873 the court of king's bench became the
king's bench division of the High Court of Justice. It consists of the
lord chief justice and fourteen puisne judges. It exercises original
jurisdiction and also appellate jurisdiction from the county courts and
other inferior courts. By the act of 1873 (sec. 45) this appellate
jurisdiction is conferred upon the High Court generally, but in practice
it is exercised by a divisional court of the king's bench division only.
The determination of such appeals by the High Court is final, unless
leave to appeal is given by the court which heard the appeal or by the
court of appeal. There was an exception to this rule as regards certain
orders of quarter sessions, the history of which involves some
complication. But by sec. 1 (5) of the Court of Session Act 1894 the
rule applies to all cases where there is a right of appeal to the High
Court from any court or person. It may be here mentioned that if leave
is given to appeal to the court of appeal there is a further appeal to
the House of Lords, except in bankruptcy (Bankruptcy Appeals (County
Courts) Act 1884), when the decision of the court of appeal on appeal
from a divisional court sitting in appeal is made final and conclusive.
There are masters in the king's bench division. Unlike the masters in
the chancery division, they have original jurisdiction, and are not
attached to any particular judge. They hear applications in chambers,
act as taxing masters and occasionally as referees to conduct inquiries,
take accounts, and assess damages. There is an appeal from the master to
the judge in chambers. Formerly there was an appeal from the judge in
chambers to a divisional court in every case and thence to the court of
appeal, until the multiplication of appeals in small interlocutory
matters became a scandal. Under the Supreme Court of Judicature
(Procedure) Act 1894 there is no right of appeal to the court of appeal
in any interlocutory matters (except those mentioned in subs. (b))
without the leave of the judge or of the court of appeal, and in matters
of "practice and procedure" the appeal lies (with leave) directly to the
court of appeal from the judge in chambers.
KINGSBRIDGE, a market town in the Totnes parliamentary division of
Devonshire, England, 48 m. S.S.W. of Exeter, on a branch of the Great
Western railway. Pop. of urban district (1901), 3025. It lies 6 m. from
the English Channel, at the head of an inlet or estuary which receives
only small streams, on a sharply sloping site. The church of St Edmund
is mainly Perpendicular, but there are Transitional Norman and Early
English portions. The town-hall contains a natural history museum. A
house called Pindar Lodge stands on the site of the birthplace of John
Wolcot ("Peter Pindar," 1738-1819). William Cookworthy (1705-1780), a
porcelain manufacturer, the first to exploit the deposits of kaolin in
the south-west of England, was also born at Kingsbridge. The township of
Dodbrooke, included within the civil parish, adjoins Kingsbridge on the
north-east. Some iron-founding and ship-building, with a coasting trade,
are carried on.
Kingsbridge (_Kyngysbrygge_) was formerly included in the manor of
Churchstow, the first trace of its separate existence being found in the
Hundred Roll of 1276, which records that in the manor of Churchstow
there is a new borough, which has a Friday market and a separate assize
of bread and ale. The name Kingsbridge however does not appear till half
a century later. When Kingsbridge became a separate parish is not
certainly known, but it was before 1414 when the church was rebuilt and
consecrated to St Edmund. In 1461 the abbot of Buckfastleigh obtained a
Saturday market at Kingsbridge and a three-days' fair at the feast of St
Margaret, both of which are still held. The manor remained in possession
of the abbot until the Dissolution, when it was granted to Sir William
Petre. Kingsbridge was never represented in parliament or incorporated
by charter, the government being by a portreeve, and down to the present
day the steward of the manor holds a court leet and court baron and
appoints a portreeve and constables. In 1798 the town mills were
converted into a woollen manufactory, which up to recent times produced
large quantities of cloth, and the serge manufacture was introduced
early in the 19th century. The town has been famous from remote times
for a beverage called "white ale." Included in Kingsbridge is the little
town of Dodbrooke, which at the time of the Domesday Survey had a
population of 42, and a flock of 108 sheep and 27 goats; and in 1257 was
granted a Wednesday market and a fair at the Feast of St Mary Magdalene.
See "Victoria County History": _Devonshire; Kingsbridge and Sulcombe,
with the intermediate Estuary, historically and topographically
depicted_ (Kingsbridge, 1819); S. F. Fox, _Kingsbridge Estuary_
(Kingsbridge, 1864).
KING'S COUNTY, a county of Ireland in the province of Leinster, bounded
N. by Meath and Westmeath, W. by Roscommon, Galway and Tipperary (the
boundary with the first two counties being the river Shannon); S. by
Tipperary and Queen's County, and E. by Kildare. The area is 493,999
acres or about 772 sq. m. The greater part of the county is included in
the central plain of Ireland. In the south-east the Slieve Bloom
Mountains form the boundary between King's County and Queen's County,
and run into the former county from south-west to north-east for a
distance of about 20 m. consisting of a mass of lofty and precipitous
crags through which there are two narrow passes, the Black Gap and the
Gap of Glandine. In the north-east Croghan Hill, a beautiful green
eminence, rises to a height over 700 ft. The remainder of the county is
flat, but a range of low hills crosses its north-eastern division to the
north of the Barrow. In the centre of the county from east to west a
large portion is occupied by the Bog of Allen. The county shares in the
advantage of the navigation of the Shannon, which skirts its western
side. The Brosna, which issues from Loch Ennell in Westmeath, enters the
county near the town of Clara, and flowing south-westwards across its
north-west corner, discharges itself into the Shannon after receiving
the Clodagh and the Broughill. A small portion of the north-eastern
extremity is skirted by the upper Boyne. The Barrow forms the
south-eastern boundary with Queen's County. The Little Brosna, which
rises in the Slieve Bloom Mountains, forms the boundary of King's County
with Tipperary, and falls into the Shannon.
This county lies in the great Carboniferous Limestone plain, with
clay-soils and bogs upon its surface, and many drier deposits of
esker-gravels rising as green hills above the general level. The Slieve
Bloom Mountains, consisting of Old Red Sandstone with Silurian inliers,
form a bold feature in the south. North of Philipstown, the prominent
mass of Croghan Hill is formed of basic volcanic rocks contemporaneous
with the Carboniferous Limestone, and comparable with those in Co.
Limerick.
Notwithstanding the large area occupied by bogs, the climate is
generally healthy, and less moist than that of several neighbouring
districts. The whole of the county would appear to have been covered
formerly by a vast forest, and the district bordering on Tipperary is
still richly wooded. The soil naturally is not of great fertility except
in special cases, but is capable of being rendered so by the judicious
application of bog and lime manures according to its special defects. It
is generally either a deep bog or a shallow gravelly loam. On the
borders of the Slieve Bloom Mountains there are some very rich and
fertile pastures, and there are also extensive grazing districts on the
borders of Westmeath, which are chiefly occupied by sheep. Along the
banks of the Shannon there are some fine tracts of meadow land. With the
exception of the tract occupied by the Bog of Allen, the remainder of
the county is nearly all under tillage, the most productive portion
being that to the north-west of the Hill of Croghan. The percentage of
tillage to pasture is roughly as 1 to 2(1/4). Oats, barley and rye,
potatoes and turnips, are all considerably grown; wheat is almost
neglected, and the acreage of all crops has a decreasing tendency.
Cattle, sheep, pigs and poultry are bred increasingly; dairies are
numerous in the north of the county, and the sheep are pastured chiefly
in the hilly districts.
The county is traversed from S.E. to N.W. by the Portarlington,
Tullamore, Clara and Athlone line of the Great Southern and Western
railway, with a branch from Clara to Banagher; from Roscrea (Co.
Tipperary) a branch of this company runs to Parsonstown (Birr); while
the Midland Great Western has branches from its main line from Enfield
(Co. Kildare) to Edenderry, and from Streamstown (Co. Westmeath) to
Clara. The Grand Canal runs through the length of the county from east
to west, entering the Shannon at Shannon harbour.
The population (65,563 in 1891; 60,187 in 1901), decreasing through
emigration, includes about 89% of Roman Catholics. The decrease is
rather below the average. The chief towns are Tullamore (the county
town, pop. 4639) and Birr or Parsonstown (4438), with Edenderry and
Clara. Philipstown near Tullamore was formerly the capital of the county
and was the centre of the kingdom of Offaly. The county comprises 12
baronies and 46 civil parishes. It returns two members to parliament,
for the Birr and Tullamore divisions respectively. Previous to the
Union, King's County returned six members to parliament, two for the
county, and two for each of the boroughs of Philipstown and Banagher.
Assizes are held at Tullamore and quarter sessions at Parsonstown,
Philipstown and Tullamore. The county is divided into the Protestant
dioceses of Killaloe, Meath and Ossory; and the Roman Catholic dioceses
of Ardagh, Kildare and Leighlin, Ossory and Clonfert.
King's County, with portions of Tipperary, Queen's County and Kildare,
at an early period formed one kingdom under the name of Offaly, a title
which it retained after the landing of the English. Subsequently it was
known as Glenmallery, Western Glenmallery pretty nearly corresponding to
the present King's County, and Eastern Glenmallery to Queen's County. By
a statute of 1556 the western district was constituted a shire under the
name of King's County in honour of Philip, consort of Queen Mary--the
principal town, formerly the seat of the O'Connors, being called
Philipstown; and the eastern district at the same time received the name
of Queen's County in honour of Mary. Perhaps the oldest antiquarian
relic is the large pyramid of white stones in the Slieve Bloom Mountains
called the Temple of the Sun or the White Obelisk. There are a
considerable number of Danish raths, and a chain of moats commanding the
passes of the bogs extended throughout the county. On the borders of
Tipperary is an ancient causeway leading presumably to a crannog or
lake-dwelling. The most important ecclesiastical ruins are those of the
seven churches of Clonmacnoise (q.v.) on the Shannon in the north-west
of the county, where an abbey was founded by St Kieran in 648, and where
the remains include those of churches, two round towers, crosses,
inscribed stones and a castle. Among the more famous religious houses in
addition to Clonmacnoise were Durrow Abbey, founded by St Columba in
550; Monasteroris founded in the 14th century by John Bermingham, earl
of Louth; and Seirkyran Abbey, founded in the beginning of the 5th
century. The principal old castles are Rathmore, probably the most
ancient in the county; Banagher, commanding an important pass on the
Shannon; Leap Castle, in the Slieve Bloom Mountains; and Birr or
Parsonstown, now the seat of the earl of Rosse.
KINGSDOWN, THOMAS PEMBERTON LEIGH, BARON (1793-1867), the eldest son of
Thomas Pemberton, a chancery barrister, was born in London on the 11th
of February 1793. He was called to the bar at Lincoln's Inn in 1816, and
at once acquired a lucrative equity practice. He sat in parliament for
Rye (1831-1832) and for Ripon (1835-1843). He was made a king's counsel
in 1829. Of a retiring disposition, he seldom took part in parliamentary
debates, although in 1838 in the case of _Stockdale_ v. _Hansard_ he
took a considerable part in upholding the privileges of parliament. In
1841 he accepted the post of attorney-general for the duchy of Cornwall.
In 1842 a relative, Sir Robert H. Leigh, left him a life interest in his
Wigan estates, amounting to some L15,000 a year; he then assumed the
additional surname of Leigh. Having accepted the chancellorship of the
duchy of Cornwall and a privy councillorship, he became a member of the
judicial committee of the privy council, and for nearly twenty years
devoted his energies and talents to the work of that body; his
judgments, more particularly in prize cases, of which he took especial
charge, are remarkable not only for legal precision and accuracy, but
for their form and expression. In 1858, on the formation of Lord Derby's
administration, he was offered the Great Seal, but declined; in the same
year, however, he was raised to the peerage as Baron Kingsdown. He died
at his seat, Lorry Hill, near Sittingbourne, Kent, on the 7th of October
1867. Lord Kingsdown never married, and his title became extinct.
See _Recollections of Life at the Bar and in Parliament_, by Lord
Kingsdown (privately printed for friends, 1868); _The Times_ (8th of
October 1867).
KING'S EVIL, an old, but not yet obsolete, name given to the scrofula,
which in the popular estimation was deemed capable of cure by the royal
touch. The practice of "touching" for the scrofula, or "King's Evil,"
was confined amongst the nations of Europe to the two Royal Houses of
England and France. As the monarchs of both these countries owned the
exclusive right of being anointed with the pure chrism, and not with the
ordinary sacred oil, it has been surmised that the common belief in the
sanctity of the chrism was in some manner inseparably connected with
faith in the healing powers of the royal touch. The kings both of France
and England claimed a sole and special right to this supernatural gift:
the house of France deducing its origin from Clovis (5th century) and
that of England declaring Edward th e Confessor the first owner of this
virtue. That the Saxon origin of the royal power of healing was the
popular theory in England is evident from the striking and accurate
description of the ceremony in _Macbeth_ (act vi. scene iii.).
Nevertheless the practice of this rite cannot be traced back to an
earlier date than the reign of Edward III. in England, and of St Louis
(Louis IX.) in France; consequently, it is believed that the performance
of healing by the touch emanated in the first instance from the French
Crusader-King, whose miraculous powers were subsequently transmitted to
his descendant and representative, Isabella of Valois, wife of Edward
II. of England. In any case, Queen Isabella's son and heir, Edward III.,
claimant to the French throne through his mother, was the first English
king to order a public display of an attribute that had hitherto been
associated with the Valois kings alone. From his reign dates the use of
the "touch-piece," a gold medal given to the sufferer as a kind of
talisman, which was originally the angel coin, stamped with designs of
St Michael and of a three-masted ship.
The actual ceremony seems first to have consisted of the sovereign's
personal act of washing the diseased flesh with water, but under Henry
VII. the use of an ablution was omitted, and a regular office was drawn
up for insertion in the Service Book. At the "Ceremonies for the
Healing" the king now merely touched his afflicted subject in the
presence of the court chaplain who offered up certain prayers and
afterwards presented the touch-piece, pierced so that it might be
suspended by a ribbon round the patient's neck. Henry VII.'s office was
henceforth issued with variations from time to time under successive
kings, nor did it disappear from certain editions of the Book of Common
Prayer until the middle of the 18th century. The practice of the Royal
Healing seems to have reached the height of its popularity during the
reign of Charles II., who is stated on good authority to have touched
over 100,000 strumous persons. So great a number of applicants becoming
a nuisance to the Court, it was afterwards enacted that special
certificates should in future be granted to individuals demanding the
touch, and such certificates are occasionally to be found amongst old
parish registers of the close of the 17th century. After the Revolution,
William of Orange refused to touch, and referred all applicants to the
exiled James II. at St Germain; but Queen Anne touched frequently, one
of her patients being Dr Samuel Johnson in his infancy. The Hanoverian
kings declined to touch, and there exists no further record of any
ceremony of healing henceforward at the English court. The practice,
however, was continued by the exiled Stuarts, and was constantly
performed in Italy by James Stuart, "the Old Pretender," and by his two
sons, Charles and Henry (Cardinal York). (H. M. V.)
KINGSFORD, WILLIAM (1819-1898), British engineer and Canadian historian,
was born in London on the 23rd of December 1819. He first studied
architecture, but disliking the confinement of an office enlisted in the
1st Dragoon Guards, obtaining his discharge in Canada in 1841. After
serving for a time in the office of the city surveyor of Montreal he
made a survey for the Lachine canal (1846-1848), and was employed in the
United States in the building of the Hudson River railroad in 1849, and
in Panama on the railroad being constructed there in 1851. In 1853 he
was surveyor and, afterwards district superintendent for the Grand Trunk
railroad, remaining in the employment of that company until 1864. The
following year he went to England but returned to Canada in 1867 in the
hope of taking part in the construction of the Intercolonial Railway. In
this he was unsuccessful, but from 1872 to 1879 he held a government
post in charge of the harbours of the Great Lakes and the St Lawrence.
He had previously written books on engineering and topographical
subjects, and in 1880 he began to study the records of Canadian history
at Ottawa. Among other books he published _Canadian Archaeology_ (1886)
and _Early Bibliography of Ontario_ (1892). But the great work of his
life was a _History of Canada_ in 10 volumes (1887-1897), ending with
the union of Upper and Lower Canada in 1841. Kingsford died on the 28th
of September 1898.
KINGSLEY, CHARLES (1819-1875), English clergyman, poet and novelist, was
born on the 12th of June 1819, at Holne vicarage, Dartmoor, Devon. His
early years were spent at Barnack in the Fen country and at Clovelly in
North Devon. The scenery of both made a great impression on his mind,
and was afterwards described with singular vividness in his writings. He
was educated at private schools and at King's College, London, after his
father's promotion to the rectory of St Luke's, Chelsea. In 1838 he
entered Magdalene College, Cambridge, and in 1842 he was ordained to the
curacy of Eversley in Hampshire, to the rectory of which he was not long
afterwards presented, and this, with short intervals, was his home for
the remaining thirty-three years of his life. In 1844 he married Fanny,
daughter of Pascoe Grenfell, and in 1848 he published his first volume,
_The Saint's Tragedy_. In 1859 he became chaplain to Queen Victoria; in
1860 he was appointed to the professorship of modern history at
Cambridge, which he resigned in 1869; and soon after he was appointed to
a canonry at Chester. In 1873 this was exchanged for a canonry at
Westminster. He died at Eversley on the 23rd of January 1875.
With the exception of occasional changes of residence in England,
generally for the sake of his wife's health, one or two short holiday
trips abroad, a tour in the West Indies, and another in America to visit
his eldest son settled there as an engineer, his life was spent in the
peaceful, if active, occupations of a clergyman who did his duty
earnestly, and of a vigorous and prolific writer. But in spite of this
apparently uneventful life, he was for many years one of the most
prominent men of his time, and by his personality and his books he
exercised considerable influence on the thought of his generation.
Though not profoundly learned, he was a man of wide and various
information, whose interests and sympathies embraced many branches of
human knowledge. He was an enthusiastic student in particular of natural
history and geology. Sprung on the father's side from an old English
race of country squires, and on his mother's side from a good West
Indian family who had been slaveholders for generations, he had a keen
love of sport and a genuine sympathy with country-folk, but he had at
the same time something of the scorn for lower races to be found in the
members of a dominant race.
With the sympathetic organization which made him keenly sensible of the
wants of the poor, he threw himself heartily into the movement known as
Christian Socialism, of which Frederick Denison Maurice was the
recognized leader, and for many years he was considered as an extreme
radical in a profession the traditions of which were conservative. While
in this phase he wrote his novels _Yeast_ and _Alton Locke_, in which,
though he pointed out unsparingly the folly of extremes, he certainly
sympathized not only with the poor, but with much that was done and said
by the leaders in the Chartist movement. Yet even then he considered
that the true leaders of the people were a peer and a dean, and there
was no real inconsistency in the fact that at a later period he was
among the most strenuous defenders of Governor Eyre in the measures
adopted by him to put down the Jamaican disturbances. He looked rather
to the extension of the co-operative principle and to sanitary reform
for the amelioration of the condition of the people than to any radical
political change. His politics might therefore have been described as
Toryism tempered by sympathy, or as Radicalism tempered by hereditary
scorn of subject races. He was bitterly opposed to what he considered to
be the medievalism and narrowness of the Oxford Tractarian Movement. In
_Macmillan's Magazine_ for January 1864 he asserted that truth for its
own sake was not obligatory with the Roman Catholic clergy, quoting as
his authority John Henry Newman (q.v.). In the ensuing controversy
Kingsley was completely discomfited. He was a broad churchman, who held
what would be called a liberal theology, but the Church, its
organization, its creed, its dogma, had ever an increasing hold upon
him. Although at one period he certainly shrank from reciting the
Athanasian Creed in church, he was towards the close of his life found
ready to join an association for the defence of this formulary. The more
orthodox and conservative elements in his character gained the upper
hand as time went on, but careful students of him and his writings will
find a deep conservatism underlying the most radical utterances of his
earlier years, while a passionate sympathy for the poor, the afflicted
and the weak held possession of him till the last hour of his life.
Both as a writer and in his personal intercourse with men, Kingsley was
a thoroughly stimulating teacher. As with his own teacher, Maurice, his
influence on other men rather consisted in inducing them to think for
themselves than in leading them to adopt his own views, never, perhaps,
very definite. But his healthy and stimulating influence was largely due
to the fact that he interpreted the thoughts which were stirring in the
minds of many of his contemporaries.
As a preacher he was vivid, eager and earnest, equally plain-spoken and
uncompromising when preaching to a fashionable congregation or to his
own village poor. One of the very best of his writings is a sermon
called _The Message of the Church to Working Men_; and the best of his
published discourses are the _Twenty-five Village Sermons_ which he
preached in the early years of his Eversley life.
As a novelist his chief power lay in his descriptive faculties. The
descriptions of South American scenery in _Westward Ho!_, of the
Egyptian desert in _Hypatia_, of the North Devon scenery in _Two Years
Ago_, are among the most brilliant pieces of word-painting in English
prose-writing; and the American scenery is even more vividly and more
truthfully described when he had seen it only by the eye of his
imagination than in his work _At Last_, which was written after he had
visited the tropics. His sympathy for children taught him how to secure
their interests. His version of the old Greek stories entitled _The
Heroes_, and _Water-babies_ and _Madam How and Lady Why_, in which he
deals with popular natural history, take high rank among books for
children.
As a poet he wrote but little, but there are passages in _The Saint's
Tragedy_ and many isolated lyrics, which are worthy of a place in all
standard collections of English literature. _Andromeda_ is a very
successful attempt at naturalizing the hexameter as a form of English
verse, and reproduces with great skill the sonorous roll of the Greek
original.
In person Charles Kingsley was tall and spare, sinewy rather than
powerful, and of a restless excitable temperament. His complexion was
swarthy, his hair dark, and his eye bright and piercing. His temper was
hot, kept under rigid control; his disposition tender, gentle and
loving, with flashing scorn and indignation against all that was ignoble
and impure; he was a good husband, father and friend. One of his
daughters, Mary St Leger Kingsley (Mrs Harrison), has become well known
as a novelist under the pseudonym of "Lucas Malet."
Kingsley's life was written by his widow in 1877, entitled _Charles
Kingsley, his Letters and Memories of his Life_, and presents a very
touching and beautiful picture of her husband, but perhaps hardly does
justice to his humour, his wit, his overflowing vitality and boyish
fun.
The following is a list of Kingsley's writings:--_Saint's Tragedy_, a
drama (1848); _Alton Locke_, a novel (1849); _Yeast_, a novel (1849);
_Twenty-five Village Sermons_ (1849); _Phaeton, or Loose Thoughts for
Loose Thinkers_ (1852); _Sermons on National Subjects_ (1st series,
1852); _Hypatia_, a novel (1853); _Glaucus, or the Wonders of the
Shore_ (1855); _Sermons on National Subjects_ (2nd series, 1854);
_Alexandria and her Schools_ (1854); _Westward Ho!_ a novel (1855);
_Sermons for the Times_ (1855); _The Heroes_, Greek fairy tales
(1856); _Two Years Ago_, a novel (1857); _Andromeda and other Poems_
(1858); _The Good News of God_, sermons (1859); _Miscellanies_ (1859);
_Limits of Exact Science applied to History_ (Inaugural Lectures,
1860); _Town and Country Sermons_ (1861); _Sermons on the Pentateuch_
(1863); _Water-babies_ (1863); _The Roman and the Teuton_ (1864);
_David and other Sermons_ (1866); _Hereward the Wake_, a novel (1866);
_The Ancient Regime_ (Lectures at the Royal Institution, 1867); _Water
of Life and other Sermons_ (1867); _The Hermits_ (1869); _Madam How
and Lady Why_ (1869); _At last_ (1871); _Town Geology_ (1872);
_Discipline and other Sermons_ (1872); _Prose Idylls_ (1873); _Plays
and Puritans_ (1873); _Health and Education_ (1874); _Westminster
Sermons_ (1874); _Lectures delivered in America_ (1875). He was a
large contributor to periodical literature; many of his essays are
included in _Prose Idylls_ and other works in the above list. But no
collection has been made of some of his more characteristic writings
in the _Christian Socialist_ and _Politics for the People_, many of
them signed by the pseudonym he then assumed, "Parson Lot."
KINGSLEY, HENRY (1830-1876), English novelist, younger brother of
Charles Kingsley, was born at Barnack, Northamptonshire, on the 2nd of
January 1830. In 1853 he left Oxford, where he was an undergraduate at
Worcester College, for the Australian goldfields. This venture, however,
was not a success, and after five years he returned to England. He
achieved considerable popularity with his _Recollections of Geoffrey
Hamlyn_ (1859), a novel of Australian life. This was the first of a
series of novels of which _Ravenshoe_ (1861) and _The Hillyars and The
Burtons_ (1865) are the best known. These stories are characterized by
much vigour, abundance of incident, and healthy sentiment. He edited for
eighteen months the _Edinburgh Daily Review_, for which he had acted as
war correspondent during the Franco-German War. He died at Cuckfield,
Sussex, on the 24th of May 1876.
KINGSLEY, MARY HENRIETTA (1862-1900), English traveller, ethnologist and
author, daughter of George Henry Kingsley (1827-1892), was born in
Islington, London, on the 13th of October 1862. Her father, though less
widely known than his brothers, Charles and Henry (see above), was a man
of versatile abilities, with a passion for travelling which he managed
to indulge in combination with his practice as a doctor. He wrote one
popular book of travel, _South Sea Bubbles, by the Earl and the Doctor_
(1872), in collaboration with the 13th earl of Pembroke. Mary Kingsley's
reading in history, poetry and philosophy was wide if desultory, but she
was most attracted to natural history. Her family moved to Cambridge in
1886, where she studied the science of sociology. The loss of both
parents in 1892 left her free to pursue her own course, and she resolved
to study native religion and law in West Africa with a view to
completing a book which her father had left unfinished. With her study
of "raw fetish" she combined that of a scientific collector of
fresh-water fishes. She started for the West Coast in August 1893; and
at Kabinda, at Old Calabar, Fernando Po and on the Lower Congo she
pursued her investigations, returning to England in June 1894. She
gained sufficient knowledge of the native customs to contribute an
introduction to Mr R. E. Dennett's _Notes on the Folk Lore of the Fjort_
(1898). Miss Kingsley made careful preparations for a second visit to
the same coast; and in December 1894, provided by the British Museum
authorities with a collector's equipment, she proceeded via Old Calabar
to French Congo, and ascended the Ogowe River. From this point her
journey, in part across country hitherto untrodden by Europeans, was a
long series of adventures and hairbreadth escapes, at one time from the
dangers of land and water, at another from the cannibal Fang. Returning
to the coast Miss Kingsley went to Corisco and to the German colony of
Cameroon, where she made the ascent of the Great Cameroon (13,760 ft.)
from a direction until then unattempted. She returned to England in
October 1895. The story of her adventures and her investigations in
fetish is vividly told in her _Travels in West Africa_ (1897). The book
aroused wide interest, and she lectured to scientific gatherings on the
fauna, flora and folk-lore of West Africa, and to commercial audiences
on the trade of that region and its possible developments, always with a
protest against the lack of detailed knowledge characteristic of modern
dealings with new fields of trade. In both cases she spoke with
authority, for she had brought back a considerable number of new
specimens of fishes and plants, and had herself traded in rubber and oil
in the districts through which she passed. But her chief concern was for
the development of the negro on African, not European, lines and for the
government of the British possessions on the West Coast by methods which
left the native "a free unsmashed man--not a whitewashed slave or an
enemy." With undaunted energy Miss Kingsley made preparations for a
third journey to the West Coast, but the Anglo-Boer War changed her
plans, and she decided to go first to South Africa to nurse fever
cases. She died of enteric fever at Simon's Town, where she was engaged
in tending Boer prisoners, on the 3rd of June 1900. Miss Kingsley's
works, besides her _Travels_, include _West African Studies, The Story
of West Africa_, a memoir of her father prefixed to his _Notes on Sport
and Travel_ (1899), and many contributions to the study of West African
law and folk-lore. To continue the investigation of the subjects Miss
Kingsley had made her own "The African Society" was founded in 1901.
Valuable biographical information from the pen of Mr George A.
Macmillan is prefixed to a second edition (1901) of the _Studies_.
KING'S LYNN (LYNN or LYNN REGIS), a market town, seaport and municipal
and parliamentary borough of Norfolk, England, on the estuary of the
Great Ouse near its outflow into the Wash. Pop. (1901), 20,288. It is 97
m. N. by E. from London by the Great Eastern railway, and is also served
by the Midland and Great Northern joint line. On the land side the town
was formerly defended by a fosse, and there are still considerable
remains of the old wall, including the handsome South Gate of the 15th
century. Several by-channels of the river, passing through the town, are
known as fleets, recalling the similar _flethe_ of Hamburg. The Public
Walks forms a pleasant promenade parallel to the wall, and in the centre
of it stands a picturesque octagonal Chapel of the Red Mount, exhibiting
ornate Perpendicular work, and once frequented by pilgrims. The church
of St Margaret, formerly the priory church, is a fine building with two
towers at the west end, one of which was formerly surmounted by a spire,
blown down in 1741. Norman or transitional work appears in the base of
both towers, of which the southern also shows Early English and
Decorated work, while the northern is chiefly Perpendicular. There is a
fine Perpendicular east window of circular form. The church possesses
two of the finest monumental brasses in existence, dated respectively
1349 and 1364. St Nicholas chapel, at the north end of the town, is also
of rich Perpendicular workmanship, with a tower of earlier date. All
Saints' church in South Lynn is a beautiful Decorated cruciform
structure. Of a Franciscan friary there remains the Perpendicular Grey
Friars' Steeple, and the doorway remains of a priests' college founded
in 1502. At the grammar school, founded in the reign of Henry VIII., but
occupying modern buildings, Eugene Aram was usher. Among the other
public buildings are the guildhall, with Renaissance front, the corn
exchange, the picturesque custom-house of the 17th century, the
athenaeum (including a museum, hall and other departments), the Stanley
Library and the municipal buildings. The fisheries of the town are
important, including extensive mussel-fisheries under the jurisdiction
of the corporation, and there are also breweries, corn-mills, iron and
brass foundries, agricultural implement manufactories, ship-building
yards, rope and sail works. Lynn Harbour has an area of 30 acres and an
average depth at low tide of 10 ft. There is also good anchorage in the
roads leading from the Wash to the docks. There are two docks of 6(3/4)
and 10 acres area respectively. A considerable traffic is carried on by
barges on the Ouse. The municipal and parliamentary boroughs of Lynn are
co-extensive; the parliamentary borough returns one member. The town is
governed by a mayor, 6 aldermen and 18 councillors. Area, 3061 acres.
As Lynn (Lun, Lenne, Bishop's Lynn) owes its origin to the trade which
its early settlers carried by the Ouse and its tributaries its history
dates from the period of settled occupation by the Saxons. It belonged
to the bishops of Thetford before the Conquest and remained with the see
when it was translated to Norwich. Herbert de Losinga (c. 1054-1119)
granted its jurisdiction to the cathedral of Norwich but this right was
resumed by a later bishop, John de Gray, who in 1204 had obtained from
John a charter establishing Lynn as a free borough. A fuller grant in
1206 gave the burgesses a gild merchant, the husting court to be held
once a week only, and general liberties according to the customs of
Oxford, saving the rights of the bishop and the earl of Arundel, whose
ancestor William D'Albini had received from William II. the moiety of
the tolbooth. Among numerous later charters one of 1268 confirmed the
privilege granted to the burgesses by the bishop of choosing a mayor;
another of 1416 re-established his election by the aldermen alone. Henry
VIII. granted Lynn two charters, the first (1524) incorporating it under
mayor and aldermen; the second (1537) changing its name to King's Lynn
and transferring to the corporation all the rights hitherto enjoyed by
the bishop. Edward VI. added the possessions of the gild of the Trinity,
or gild merchant, and St George's gild, while Queen Mary annexed South
Lynn. Admiralty rights were granted by James I. Lynn, which had declared
for the Crown in 1643, surrendered its privileges to Charles II. in
1684, but recovered its charter on the eve of the Revolution. A fair
held on the festival of St Margaret (July 20) was included in the grant
to the monks of Norwich about 1100. Three charters of John granting the
bishop fairs on the feasts of St Nicholas, St Ursula and St Margaret are
extant, and another of Edward I., changing the last to the feast of St
Peter ad Vincula (Aug. 1). A local act was passed in 1558-1559 for
keeping a mart or fair once a year. In the eighteenth century besides
the pleasure fair, still held in February, there was another in October,
now abolished. A royal charter of 1524 established the cattle, corn and
general provisions market, still held every Tuesday and Saturday. Lynn
has ranked high among English seaports from early times.
See E. M. Beloe, _Our Borough_ (1899); H. Harrod, _Report on Deeds,
&c._;, of King's Lynn (1874); _Victoria County History: Norfolk_.
KING'S MOUNTAIN, a mountainous ridge in Gaston county, North Carolina
and York county, South Carolina, U.S.A. It is an outlier of the Blue
Ridge running parallel with it, i.e. N.E. and S.W., but in contrast with
the other mountains of the Blue Ridge, King's Mountain has a crest
marked with sharp and irregular notches. Its highest point and great
escarpment are in North Carolina. About 1(1/2) m. S. of the line between
the two states, where the ridge is about 60 ft. above the surrounding
country and very narrow at the top, the battle of King's Mountain was
fought on the 7th of October 1780 between a force of about 100
Provincial Rangers and about 1000 Loyalist militia under Major Patrick
Ferguson (1744-1780), and an American force of about 900 backwoodsmen
under Colonels William Campbell (1745-1781), Benjamin Cleveland
(1738-1806), Isaac Shelby, John Sevier and James Williams (1740-1780),
in which the Americans were victorious. The British loss is stated as
119 killed (including the commander), 123 wounded, and 664 prisoners;
the American loss was 28 killed (including Colonel Williams) and 62
wounded. The victory largely contributed to the success of General
Nathanael Greene's campaign against Lord Cornwallis. There has been some
dispute as to the exact site of the engagement, but the weight of
evidence is in favour of the position mentioned above, on the South
Carolina side of the line. A monument erected in 1815 was replaced in
1880 by a much larger one, and a monument for which Congress
appropriated $30,000 in 1906, was completed in 1909.
See L. C. Draper, _King's Mountain and its Heroes_ (Cincinnati, 1881);
and Edward McCrady, _South Carolina in the Revolution 1775-1780_ (New
York, 1901).
KINGSTON, ELIZABETH, DUCHESS OF (1720-1788), sometimes called countess
of Bristol, was the daughter of Colonel Thomas Chudleigh (d. 1726), and
was appointed maid of honour to Augusta, princess of Wales, in 1743,
probably through the good offices of her friend, William Pulteney, earl
of Bath. Being a very beautiful woman Miss Chudleigh did not lack
admirers, among whom were James, 6th duke of Hamilton, and Augustus John
Hervey, afterwards 3rd earl of Bristol. Hamilton, however, left England,
and on the 4th of August 1744 she was privately married to Hervey at
Lainston, near Winchester. Both husband and wife being poor, their union
was kept secret to enable Elizabeth to retain her post at court, while
Hervey, who was a naval officer, rejoined his ship, returning to England
towards the close of 1746. The marriage was a very unhappy one, and the
pair soon ceased to live together; but when it appeared probable that
Hervey would succeed his brother as earl of Bristol, his wife took
steps to obtain proof of her marriage. This did not, however, prevent
her from becoming the mistress of Evelyn Pierrepont, 2nd duke of
Kingston, and she was not only a very prominent figure in London
society, but in 1765 in Berlin she was honoured by the attentions of
Frederick the Great. By this time Hervey wished for a divorce from his
wife; but Elizabeth, although equally anxious to be free, was unwilling
to face the publicity attendant upon this step. However she began a suit
of jactitation against Hervey. This case was doubtless collusive, and
after Elizabeth had sworn she was unmarried, the court in February 1769
pronounced her a spinster. Within a month she married Kingston, who died
four years later, leaving her all his property on condition that she
remained a widow. Visiting Rome the duchess was received with honour by
Clement XIV.; after which she hurried back to England to defend herself
from a charge of bigamy, which had been preferred against her by
Kingston's nephew, Evelyn Meadows (d. 1826). The house of Lords in 1776
found her guilty, and retaining her fortune she hurriedly left England
to avoid further proceedings on the part of the Meadows family, who had
a reversionary interest in the Kingston estates. She lived for a time in
Calais, and then repaired to St Petersburg, near which city she bought
an estate which she named "Chudleigh." Afterwards she resided in Paris,
Rome, and elsewhere, and died in Paris on the 26th of August 1788. The
duchess was a coarse and licentious woman, and was ridiculed as Kitty
Crocodile by the comedian Samuel Foote in a play _A Trip to Calais_,
which, however, he was not allowed to produce. She is said to have been
the original of Thackeray's characters, Beatrice and Baroness Bernstein.
There is an account of the duchess in J. H. Jesse's _Memoirs of the
Court of England 1688-1760_, vol. iv. (1901).
KINGSTON, WILLIAM HENRY GILES (1814-1880), English novelist, son of Lucy
Henry Kingston, was born in London on the 28th of February 1814. Much of
his youth was spent at Oporto, where his father was a merchant, but when
he entered the business, he made his headquarters in London. He early
wrote newspaper articles on Portuguese subjects. These were translated
into Portuguese, and the author received a Portuguese order of
knighthood and a pension for his services in the conclusion of the
commercial treaty of 1842. In 1844 his first book, _The Circassian
Chief_, appeared, and in 1845 _The Prime Minister, a Story of the Days
of the Great Marquis of Pombal_. The _Lusitanian Sketches_ describe
Kingston's travels in Portugal. In 1851 _Peter the Whaler_, his first
book for boys, came out. These books proved so popular that Kingston
retired from business, and devoted himself to the production of tales of
adventure for boys. Within thirty years he wrote upwards of one hundred
and thirty such books. He had a practical knowledge of seamanship, and
his stories of the sea, full of thrilling adventures and hairbreadth
escapes, exactly hit the taste of his boy readers. Characteristic
specimens of his work are _The Three Midshipmen_; _The Three
Lieutenants_; _The Three Commanders_; and _The Three Admirals_. He also
wrote popular accounts of famous travellers by land and sea, and
translated some of the stories of Jules Verne.
In all philanthropic schemes Kingston took deep interest; he was the
promoter of the mission to seamen; and he acted as secretary of a
society for promoting an improved system of emigration. He was editor of
the _Colonist_ for a short time in 1844 and of the _Colonial Magazine
and East Indian Review_ from 1849 to 1851. He was a supporter of the
volunteer movement in England from the first. He died at Willesden on
the 5th of August 1880.
KINGSTON, the chief city of Frontenac county, Ontario, Canada, at the
north-eastern extremity of Lake Ontario, and the mouth of the Cataraqui
River. Pop. (1901), 17,961. It is an important station on the Grand
Trunk railway, the terminus of the Kingston & Pembroke railway, and has
steamboat communication with other ports on Lake Ontario and the Bay of
Quinte, on the St Lawrence and the Rideau canal. It contains a fine
stone graving dock, 280 ft. long, 100 ft. wide, and with a depth of 16
ft. at low water on the sill. The fortifications, which at one time
made it one of the strongest fortresses in Canada, are now out of date.
The sterility of the surrounding country, and the growth of railways
have lessened its commercial importance, but it still contains a number
of small factories, and important locomotive works and ship-building
yards. As an educational and residential centre it retains high rank,
and is a popular summer resort. It is the seat of an Anglican and of a
Roman Catholic bishopric, of the Royal Military College (founded by the
Dominion government in 1875), of an artillery school, and of Queen's
University, an institution founded in 1839 under the nominal control of
the Presbyterian church, now including about 1200 students. In the
suburbs are a Dominion penitentiary, and a provincial lunatic asylum.
Founded by the French in 1673, under the name of Kateracoui, soon
changed to Fort Frontenac, it played an important part in the wars
between English and French. Taken and destroyed by the English in 1758,
it was refounded in 1782 under its present name, and was from 1841 to
1844 the capital of Canada.
KINGSTON, a city and the county-seat of Ulster county, New York, U.S.A.,
on the Hudson River, at the mouth of Rondout Creek, about 90 m. N. of
New York and about 53 m. S. of Albany. Pop. (1900), 24,535--3551 being
foreign-born; (1910 census) 25,908. It is served by the West Shore
(which here crosses Rondout Creek on a high bridge), the New York
Ontario & Western, the Ulster & Delaware, and the Wallkill Valley
railways, by a ferry across the river to Rhinecliff, where connexion is
made with the New York Central & Hudson River railroad, and by steamboat
lines to New York, Albany and other river points. The principal part of
the city is built on a level plateau about 150 ft. above the river;
other parts of the site vary from flatlands to rough highlands. To the
N.W. is the mountain scenery of the Catskills, to the S.W. the
Shawangunk Mountains and Lake Mohonk, and in the distance across the
river are the Berkshire Hills. The most prominent public buildings are
the post office and the city hall; in front of the latter is a Soldiers'
and Sailors' Monument. The city has a Carnegie library. The "Senate
House"--now the property of the state, with a colonial museum--was
erected about 1676; it was the meeting place of the first State Senate
in 1777, and was burned (except the walls) in October of that year. The
court house (1818) stands on the site of the old court house, in which
Governor George Clinton was inaugurated in July 1777, and in which Chief
Justice John Jay held the first term of the New York Supreme Court in
September 1777. The Elmendorf Tavern (1723) was the meeting-place of the
New York Council of Safety in October 1777. Kingston Academy was
organized in 1773, and in 1864 was transferred to the Kingston Board of
Education and became part of the city's public school system; its
present building dates from 1806. Kingston's principal manufactures are
tobacco, cigars and cigarettes, street railway cars and boats; other
manufactures are Rosendale cement, bricks, shirts, lace curtains,
brushes, motor wheels, sash and blinds. The city ships large quantities
of building and flag stones quarried in the vicinity. The total value of
the factory product in 1905 was $5,000,922, an increase of 26.5% since
1900.
In 1614 a small fort was built by the Dutch at the mouth of Rondout
Creek, and in 1652 a settlement was established in the vicinity and
named Esopus after the Esopus Indians, who were a subdivision of the
Munsee branch of the Delawares, and whose name meant "small river,"
referring possibly to Rondout Creek. The settlement was deserted in
1655-56 on account of threatened Indian attacks. In 1658 a stockade was
built by the order of Governor Peter Stuyvesant, and from this event the
actual founding of the city is generally dated. In 1659 the massacre of
several drunken Indians by the soldiers caused a general rising of the
Indians, who unsuccessfully attacked the stockade, killing some of the
soldiers and inhabitants, and capturing and torturing others.
Hostilities continued into the following year. In 1661 the governor
named the place Wiltwyck and gave it a municipal charter. In 1663 it
suffered from another Indian attack, a number of the inhabitants being
slain or taken prisoners. The English took possession in 1664, and in
1660 Wiltwyck was named Kingston, after Kingston Lisle, near Wantage,
England, the family seat of Governor Francis Lovelace. In the same year
the English garrison was removed. In 1673-1674 Kingston was again
temporarily under the control of the Dutch, who called it Swanenburg. In
1777 the convention which drafted the new state constitution met in
Kingston, and during part of the year Kingston was the seat of the new
state government. On the 16th of October 1777 the British under General
Sir John Vaughan (1748-95) sacked it and burned nearly all its
buildings. In 1908 the body of George Clinton was removed from
Washington, D.C., and reinterred in Kingston on the 250th anniversary of
the building of the stockade. In 1787 Kingston was one of the places
contemplated as a site for the national capital. In 1805 it was
incorporated as a village, and in 1872 it absorbed the villages of
Rondout and Wilbur and was made a city.
See M. Schoonmaker, _History of Kingston_ (New York, 1888).
KINGSTON, a borough of Luzerne county, Pennsylvania, U.S.A., on the
North Branch of the Susquehanna river, opposite Wilkes-Barre. Pop.
(1900), 3846 (1039 foreign-born); (1910) 6449. Kingston is served by the
Delaware, Lackawanna &. Western and the Lehigh Valley railways. It is
the seat of Wyoming Seminary (1844; co-educational), a well-known
secondary school. Anthracite coal is mined here; there are railway
repair and machine-shops; and among the borough's manufactures are
hosiery, silk goods, underwear and adding machines. Kingston (at first
called "Kingstown," from Kings Towne, Rhode Island) was commonly known
in its early days as the "Forty Township," because the first permanent
settlement was made by forty pioneers from Connecticut, who were sent
out by the Susquehanna Company and took possession of the district in
its name in 1769. In 1772 the famous "Forty Fort," a stockade
fortification, was built here, and in 1777 it was rebuilt, strengthened
and enlarged. Here on the 3rd of July 1778 about 400 men and boys met,
and under the command of Colonel Zebulon Butler (1731-95) went out to
meet a force of about 1100 British troops and Indians, commanded by
Major John Butler and Old King (Sayenqueraghte). The Americans were
defeated in the engagement that followed, and many of the prisoners
taken were massacred or tortured by the Indians. A monument near the
site of the fort commemorates the battle and massacre. Kingston was
incorporated as a borough in 1857. (See WYOMING VALLEY.)
KINGSTON, the capital and chief port of Jamaica, West Indies. Pop.
(1901), 46,542, mostly negroes. It is situated in the county of Surrey,
in the south-east of the island, standing on the north shore of a
land-locked harbour--for its size one of the finest in the world--and
with its suburbs occupying an area of 1080 acres. The town contains the
principal government offices. It has a good water supply, a telephone
service and a supply of both gas and electric light, while electric
trams ply between the town and its suburbs. The Institute of Jamaica
maintains a public library, museum and art gallery especially devoted to
local interests. The old parish church in King Street, dating probably
from 1692 was the burial-place of William Hall (1699) and Admiral Benbow
(1702). The suburbs are remarkable for their beauty. The climate is dry
and healthy, and the temperature ranges from 93 deg. to 66 deg. F.
Kingston was founded in 1693, after the neighbouring town of Port Royal
had been ruined by an earthquake in 1692. In 1703, Port Royal having
been again laid waste by fire, Kingston became the commercial, and in
1872 the political, capital of the island. On several occasions Kingston
was almost entirely consumed by fire, the conflagrations of 1780, 1843,
1862 and 1882 being particularly severe. On the 14th of January 1907 it
was devastated by a terrible earthquake. A long immunity had led to the
erection of many buildings not specially designed to withstand such
shocks, and these and the fire which followed were so destructive that
practically the whole town had to be rebuilt. (See JAMAICA.)
KINGSTON-ON-THAMES, a market town and municipal borough in the Kingston
parliamentary division of Surrey, England, 11 m. S.W. of Charing Cross,
London; on the London and South-Western railway. Pop. (1901), 34,375.
It has a frontage with public walks and gardens upon the right bank of
the Thames, and is in close proximity to Richmond and Bushey Parks, its
pleasant situation rendering it a favourite residential district. The
ancient wooden bridge over the river, which was in existence as early as
1223, was superseded by a structure of stone in 1827. The parish church
of All Saints, chiefly Perpendicular in style, contains several brasses
of the 15th century, and monuments by Chantrey and others; the grammar
school, rebuilt in 1878, was originally founded as a chantry by Edward
Lovekyn in 1305, and converted into a school by Queen Elizabeth. Near
the parish church stood the chapel of St Mary, where it is alleged the
Saxon kings were crowned. The ancient stone said to have been used as a
throne at these coronations was removed to the market-place in 1850. At
Norbiton, within the borough, is the Royal Cambridge Asylum for
soldiers' widows (1854). At Kingston Hill is an industrial and training
school for girls, opened in 1892. There are large market gardens in the
neighbourhood, and the town possesses oil-mills, flour-mills, breweries
and brick and tile works. The borough is under a mayor, 8 aldermen and
24 councillors. Area, 1133 acres.
The position of Kingston (_Cyningestun_, _Chingestune_) on the Thames
where there was probably a ford accounts for its origin; its later
prosperity was due to the bridge which existed in 1223 and possibly long
before. In 836 or 838 it was the meeting-place of the council under
Ecgbert, and in the 10th century some if not all of the West Saxon kings
were crowned at Kingston. In the time of Edward the Confessor it was a
royal manor, and in 1086 included a church, five mills and three
fisheries. Domesday also mentions bedels in Kingston. The original
charters were granted by John in 1200 and 1209, by which the free men of
Kingston were empowered to hold the town in fee-farm for ever, with all
the liberties that it had while in the king's hands. Henry III.
sanctioned the gild-merchant which had existed previously, and granted
other privileges. These charters were confirmed and extended by many
succeeding monarchs down to Charles I. Henry VI. incorporated the town
under two bailiffs. Except for temporary surrenders of their corporate
privileges under Charles II. and James II. the government of the borough
continued in its original form until 1835, when it was reincorporated
under the title of mayor, aldermen and burgesses. Kingston returned two
members to parliament in 1311, 1313, 1353 and 1373, but never
afterwards. The market, still held on Saturdays, was granted by James
I., and the Wednesday market by Charles II. To these a cattle-market on
Thursdays has been added by the corporation. The only remaining fair,
now held on the 13th of November, was granted by Henry III., and was
then held on the morrow of All Souls and seven days following.
KINGSTON-UPON-HULL, EARLS AND DUKES OF. These titles were borne by the
family of Pierrepont, or Pierrepoint, from 1628 to 1773.
ROBERT PIERREPONT (1584-1643), second son of Sir Henry Pierrepont of
Holme Pierrepont, Nottinghamshire, was member of parliament for
Nottingham in 1601, and was created Baron Pierrepont and Viscount Newark
in 1627, being made earl of Kingston-upon-Hull in the following year. He
remained neutral on the outbreak of the Civil War; but afterwards he
joined the king, and was appointed lieutenant-general of the counties of
Lincoln, Rutland, Huntingdon, Cambridge and Norfolk. Whilst defending
Gainsborough he was taken prisoner, and was accidentally killed on the
25th of July 1643 while being conveyed to Hull. The earl had five sons,
one of whom was Francis Pierrepont (d. 1659), a colonel in the
parliamentary army and afterwards a member of the Long Parliament; and
another was William Pierrepont (q.v.), a leading member of the
parliamentary party.
His son HENRY PIERREPONT (1606-1680), 2nd earl of Kingston and 1st
marquess of Dorchester, was member of parliament for Nottinghamshire,
and was called to the House of Lords as Baron Pierrepont in 1641. During
the earlier part of the Civil War he was at Oxford in attendance upon
the king, whom he represented at the negotiations at Uxbridge. In 1645
he was made a privy councillor and created marquess of Dorchester; but
in 1647 he compounded for his estates by paying a large fine to the
parliamentarians. Afterwards the marquess, who was always fond of books,
spent his time mainly in London engaged in the study of medicine and
law, his devotion to the former science bringing upon him a certain
amount of ridicule and abuse. After the Restoration he was restored to
the privy council, and was made recorder of Nottingham and a fellow of
the Royal Society. Dorchester had two daughters, but no sons, and when
he died in London on the 8th of December 1680 the title of marquess of
Dorchester became extinct. He was succeeded as 3rd earl of Kingston by
Robert (d. 1682), a son of Robert Pierrepont of Thoresby,
Nottinghamshire, and as 4th earl by Robert's brother William (d. 1690).
EVELYN PIERREPONT (c. 1655-1726), 5th earl and 1st duke of Kingston,
another brother had been member of parliament for East Retford before
his accession to the peerage. While serving as one of the commissioners
for the union with Scotland he was created marquess of Dorchester in
1706, and took a leading part in the business of the House of Lords. He
was made a privy councillor and in 1715 was created duke of Kingston;
afterwards serving as lord privy seal and lord president of the council.
The duke, who died on the 5th of March 1726, was a prominent figure in
the fashionable society of his day. He was twice married, and had five
daughters, among whom was Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (q.v.), and one son,
William, earl of Kingston (d. 1713).
The latter's son, EVELYN PIERREPONT (1711-1773), succeeded his
grandfather as second duke of Kingston. When the rebellion of 1745 broke
out he raised a regiment called "Kingston's light horse," which
distinguished itself at Culloden. The duke, who attained the rank of
general in the army, is described by Horace Walpole as "a very weak man,
of the greatest beauty and finest person in England." He is chiefly
famous for his connexion with Elizabeth Chudleigh, who claimed to be
duchess of Kingston (q.v.). The Kingston titles became extinct on the
duke's death without children on the 23rd of September 1773, but on the
death of the duchess in 1788 the estates came to his nephew Charles
Meadows (1737-1816), who took the name of Pierrepont and was created
Baron Pierrepont and Viscount Newark in 1796, and Earl Manvers in 1806.
His descendant, the present Earl Manvers, is thus the representative of
the dukes of Kingston.
KINGSTOWN, a seaport of Co. Dublin, Ireland, in the south parliamentary
division, at the south-eastern extremity of Dublin Bay, 6 m. S.E. from
Dublin by the Dublin & South-Eastern railway. Pop. of urban district
(1901), 17,377. It is a large seaport and favourite watering-place, and
possesses several fine streets, with electric trams, and terraces
commanding picturesque sea views. The original name of Kingstown was
Dunleary, which was exchanged for the present designation after the
embarkation of George IV. at the port on his return from Ireland in
1821, an event which is also commemorated by a granite obelisk erected
near the harbour. The town was a mere fishing village until the
construction of an extensive harbour, begun in 1817 and finally
completed in 1859. The eastern pier has a length of 3500 ft. and the
western of 4950 ft., the total area enclosed being about 250 acres, with
a varying depth of from 15 to 27 ft. Kingstown is the station of the
City of Dublin Steam Packet Company's mail steamers to Holyhead in
connexion with the London & North-Western railway. It has large export
and import trade both with Great Britain and foreign countries. The
principal export is cattle, and the principal imports corn and
provisions. Kingstown is the centre of an extensive sea-fishery; and
there are three yacht clubs: the Royal Irish, Royal St George and Royal
Alfred.
KING-TE CHEN, a town near Fu-liang Hien, in the province of Kiang-si,
China, and the principal seat of the porcelain manufacture in that
empire. Being situated on the south bank of the river Chang, it was in
ancient times known as _Chang-nan Chen_, or "town on the south of the
river Chang." It is unwalled, and straggles along the bank of the river.
The streets are narrow, and crowded with a population which is reckoned
at a million, the vast majority of whom find employment at the porcelain
factories. Since the Ch'in dynasty (557-589) this has been the great
trade of the place, which was then called by its earlier name. In the
reign of King-te (Chen-tsung) of the Sung dynasty, early in the 11th
century A.D., a manufactory was founded there for making vases and
objects of art for the use of the emperor. Hence its adoption of its
present title. Since the time of the Ming dynasty a magistrate has been
specially appointed to superintend the factories and to despatch at
regulated intervals the imperial porcelain to Peking. The town is
situated on a vast plain surrounded by mountains, and boasts of three
thousand porcelain furnaces. These constantly burning fires are the
causes of frequent conflagrations, and at night give the city the
appearance of a place on fire. The people are as a rule orderly, though
they have on several occasions shown a hostile bearing towards foreign
visitors. This is probably to be accounted for by a desire to keep their
art as far as possible a mystery, which appears less unreasonable when
it is remembered that the two kinds of earth of which the porcelain is
made are not found at King-te Chen, but are brought from K'i-mun in the
neighbouring province of Ngan-hui, and that there is therefore no reason
why the trade should be necessarily maintained at that place. The two
kinds of earth are known as pai-tun-tsze, which is a fine fusible quartz
powder, and kaolin, which is not fusible, and is said to give strength
to the ware. Both materials are prepared in the shape of bricks at
K'i-mun, and are brought down the Chang to the seat of the manufacture.
KINGUSSIE, a town of Inverness-shire, Scotland. Pop. (1901), 987. It
lies at a height of 750 ft. above sea-level, on the left bank of the
Spey, here crossed by a bridge, 46(1/2) m. S. by S.E. of Inverness by
the Highland railway. It was founded towards the end of the 18th century
by the duke of Gordon, in the hope of its becoming a centre of woollen
manufactures. This expectation, however, was not realized, but in time
the place grew popular as a health resort, the scenery in every
direction being remarkably picturesque. On the right bank of the river
is Ruthven, where James Macpherson was born in 1736, and on the left
bank, some 2(1/2) m. from Kingussie, is the house of Belleville
(previously known as Raitts) which he acquired from Mackintosh of Borlum
and where he died in 1796. The mansion, renamed Balavil by Macpherson's
great-grandson, was burned down in 1903, when the fine library
(including some MSS. of Sir David Brewster, who had married the poet's
second daughter) was destroyed. Of Ruthven Castle, one of the residences
of the Comyns of Badenoch, only the ruins of the walls remain. Here the
Jacobites made an ineffectual rally under Lord George Murray after the
battle of Culloden.
KING WILLIAM'S TOWN, a town of South Africa, in the Cape province and on
the Buffalo River, 42 m. by rail W.N.W. of the port of East London. Pop.
(1904), 9506, of whom 5987 were whites. It is the headquarters of the
Cape Mounted Police. "King," as the town is locally called, stands 1275
ft. above the sea at the foot of the Amatola Mountains, and in the midst
of a thickly populated agricultural district. The town is well laid out
and most of the public buildings and merchants' stores are built of
stone. There are manufactories of sweets and jams, candles, soap,
matches and leather, and a large trade in wool, hides and grains is done
with East London. "King" is also an important entrepot for trade with
the natives throughout Kaffraria, with which there is direct railway
communication. Founded by Sir Benjamin D'Urban in May 1835 during the
Kaffir War of that year, the town is named after William IV. It was
abandoned in December 1836, but was reoccupied in 1846 and was the
capital of British Kaffraria from its creation in 1847 to its
incorporation in 1865 with Cape Colony. Many of the colonists in the
neighbouring districts are descendants of members of the German legion
disbanded after the Crimean War and provided with homes in Cape Colony;
hence such names as Berlin, Potsdam, Braunschweig, Frankfurt, given to
settlements in this part of the country.
KINKAJOU (_Cercoleptes caudivolvulus_ or _Potos flavus_), the single
species of an aberrant genus of the raccoon family (_Procyonidae_). It
has been split up into a number of local races. A native of the forests
of the warmer parts of South and Central America, the kinkajou is about
the size of a cat, of a uniform pale, yellowish-brown colour, nocturnal
and arboreal in its habits, feeding on fruit, honey, eggs and small
birds and mammals, and is of a tolerably gentle disposition and easily
tamed. (See CARNIVORA.)
KINKEL, JOHANN GOTTFRIED (1815-1882), German poet, was born on the 11th
of August 1815 at Obercassel near Bonn. Having studied theology at Bonn
and afterwards in Berlin, he established himself at Bonn in 1836 as
_privat docent_ of theology, later became master at the gymnasium there,
and was for a short time assistant preacher in Cologne. Changing his
religious opinions, he abandoned theology and delivered lectures on the
history of art, in which he had become interested on a journey to Italy
in 1837. In 1846 he was appointed extraordinary professor of the history
of art at Bonn University. For his share in the revolution in the
Palatinate in 1849 Kinkel was arrested and, sentenced to penal servitude
for life, was interned in the fortress of Spandau. His friend Carl
Schurz contrived in November 1850 to effect his escape to England,
whence he went to the United States. Returning to London in 1853, he for
several years taught German and lectured on German literature, and in
1858 founded the German paper _Hermann_. In 1866 he accepted the
professorship of archaeology and the history of art at the Polytechnikum
in Zurich, in which city he died on the 13th of November 1882.
The popularity which Kinkel enjoyed in his day was hardly justified by
his talent; his poetry is of the sweetly sentimental type which was much
in vogue in Germany about the middle of the 19th century. His _Gedichte_
first appeared in 1843, and have gone through several editions. He is to
be seen to most advantage in the verse romances, _Otto der Schutz, eine
rheinische Geschichte in zwolf Abenteuern_ (1846) which in 1896 had
attained its 75th edition, and _Der Grobschmied von Antwerpen_ (1868).
Among Kinkel's other works may be mentioned the tragedy _Nimrod_ (1857),
and his history of art, _Geschichte der bildenden Kunste bei den
christlichen Volkern_ (1845). Kinkel's first wife, Johanna, _nee_ Mockel
(1810-1858), assisted her husband in his literary work, and was herself
an author of considerable merit. Her admirable autobiographical novel
_Hans Ibeles in London_ was not published until 1860, after her death.
She also wrote on musical subjects.
See A. Strodtmann, _Gottfried Kinkel_ (2 vols., Hamburg, 1851); and O.
Henne am Rhyn, _G. Kinkel, ein Lebensbild_ (Zurich, 1883).
KINNING PARK, a southern suburb of Glasgow, Scotland. Pop. (1901),
13,852. It is situated on the left bank of the Clyde between Glasgow,
with which it is connected by tramway and subway, and Govan. Since 1850
it has grown from a rural village to a busy centre mainly inhabited by
artisans and labourers. Its principal industries are engineering, bread
and biscuit baking, soap-making and paint-making.
KINNOR (Gr. [Greek: kinyra]), the Hebrew name for an ancient stringed
instrument, the first mentioned in the Bible (Gen. iv. 21), where it is
now always translated "harp." The identification of the instrument has
been much discussed, but, from the standpoint of the history of musical
instruments, the weight of evidence is in favour of the view that the
Semitic _kinnor_ is the Greek _cithara_ (q.v.). This instrument was
already in use before 2000 B.C. among the Semitic races and in a higher
state of development than it ever attained in Greece during the best
classic period. It is unlikely that an instrument (which also appears on
Hebrew coins) so widely known and used in various parts of Asia Minor in
remote times, and occurring among the Hittite sculptures, should pass
unmentioned in the Bible, with the exception of the verses in Dan. iii.
KINO, the West African name of an astringent drug introduced into
European medicine in 1757 by John Fothergill. When described by him it
was believed to have been brought from the river Gambia in West Africa,
and when first imported it was sold in England as _Gummi rubrum
astringens gambiense_. It was obtained from _Pterocarpus erinaceus_. The
drug now recognized as the legitimate kind is East Indian, Malabar or
Amboyna kino, which is the evaporated juice obtained from incisions in
the trunk of _Pterocarpus Marsupium_ (Leguminosae), though Botany Bay
or eucalyptus kino is used in Australia. When exuding from the tree it
resembles red-currant jelly, but hardens in a few hours after exposure
to the air and sun. When sufficiently dried it is packed into wooden
boxes for exportation. When these are opened it breaks up into angular
brittle fragments of a blackish-red colour and shining surface. In cold
water it is only partially dissolved, leaving a pale flocculent residue
which is soluble in boiling water but deposited again on cooling. It is
soluble in alcohol and caustic alkalis, but not in ether.
The chief constituent of the drug is kino-tannic acid, which is present
to the extent of about 75 %; it is only very slightly soluble in cold
water. It is not absorbed at all from the stomach and only very slowly
from the intestine. Other constituents are gum, pyrocatechin, and
kinoin, a crystalline neutral principle. Kino-red is also present in
small quantity, being an oxidation product of kino-tannic acid. The
useful preparations of this drug are the tincture (dose (1/2)-1 drachm),
and the _pulvis kino compositus_ (dose 5-20 gr.) which contains one part
of opium in twenty. The drug is frequently used in diarrhoea, its value
being due to the relative insolubility of kino-tannic acid, which
enables it to affect the lower part of the intestine. In this respect it
is parallel with catechu. It is not now used as a gargle, antiseptics
being recognized as the rational treatment for sore-throat.
KINORHYNCHA, an isolated group of minute animals containing the single
genus _Echinoderes_ F. Dujardin, with some eighteen species. They occur
in mud and on sea-weeds at the bottom of shallow seas below low-water
mark and devour organic debris.
[Illustration: (After Hartog, from _Cambridge Natural History_, vol.
ii., "Worms, &c.," by permission of Messrs. Macmillan & Co., Ltd.)
b, bristle; cs, caudal spine; ph, pharynx; s & s', the spines on the two
segments of the proboscis; sg, salivary glands; st, stomach.]
The body is enclosed in a stout cuticle, prolonged in places into spines
and bristles. These are especially conspicuous in two rings round the
proboscis and in the two posterior caudal spines. The body is divided
into eleven segments and the protrusible proboscis apparently into two,
and the cuticle of the central segment is thickened to form three
plates, one dorsal and two ventrolateral. The cuticle is secreted by an
epidermis in which no cell boundaries are to be seen; it sends out
processes into the bristles. The mouth opens at the tip of the
retractile proboscis; it leads into a short thin-walled tube which opens
into an oval muscular gizzard lined with a thick cuticle; at the
posterior end of this are some minute glands and then follows a large
stomach slightly sacculated in each segment, this tapers through the
rectum to the terminal anus. A pair of pear-shaped, ciliated glands
inside lie in the eighth segment and open on the ninth. They are
regarded as kidneys. The nervous system consists of a ganglion or brain,
which lies dorsally about the level of the junction of the pharynx and
the stomach, a nerve ring and a segmented neutral cord. The only sense
organs described are eyes, which occur in some species, and may number
one to four pairs.
The Kinorhyncha are dioecious. The testes reach forward to the fifth and
even to the second segment, and open one each side of the anus. The
ovaries open in a similar position but never reach farther forward than
the fourth segment. The external openings in the male are armed with a
pair of hollowed spines. The animals are probably oviparous.
LITERATURE.--F. Dujardin, _Ann. Sci. Nat._, 3rd series, Zool. xv.
1851, p. 158; W. Reinhard, _Zeitschr. wiss. Zool._ xlv. 1887, pp.
401-467, t. xx.-xxii.; C. Zelinka, _Verh. d. Deutsch. Zool. Ges._,
1894. (A. E. S.)
KINROSS-SHIRE, a county of Scotland, bounded N. and W. by Perthshire, on
the extreme S.W. by Clackmannanshire and S. and E. by Fifeshire. Its
area is 52,410 acres or 81.9 sq. m. Excepting Clackmannan it is the
smallest county in Scotland both in point of area and of population. On
its confines the shire is hilly. To the N. and W. are several peaks of
the Ochils, the highest being Innerdouny (1621 ft.) and Mellock (1573);
to the E. are the heights of the Lomond group, such as White Craigs
(1492 ft.) and Bishop Hill; to the S. are Benarty (1131 ft.) on the Fife
border and farther west the Cleish Hills, reaching in Dumglow an
altitude of 1241 ft. With the exception of the Leven, which drains Loch
Leven and of which only the first mile of its course belongs to the
county, all the streams are short. Green's Burn, the North and South
Queich, and the Gairney are the principal. Loch Leven, the only lake, is
remarkable rather for its associations than its natural features. The
scenery on the Devon, west of the Crook, the river here forming the
boundary with Perthshire, is of a lovely and romantic character. At one
place the stream rushes through the rocky gorge with a loud clacking
sound which has given to the spot the name of the Devil's Mill, and
later it flows under the Rumbling Bridge. In reality there are two
bridges, one built over the other, in the same vertical line. The lower
one dates from 1713 and is unused; but the loftier and larger one,
erected in 1816, commands a beautiful view. A little farther west is the
graceful cascade of the Caldron Linn, the fall of which was lessened,
however, by a collapse of the rocks in 1886.
_Geology._--The northern higher portion of the county is occupied by
the Lower Old Red Sandstone volcanic lavas and agglomerates of the
Ochils. The coarse character of some of the lower agglomerate beds is
well seen in the gorge at Rumbling Bridge. The beds dip gently towards
the S.S.E.; in a north-easterly direction they contain more sandy
sediments, and the agglomerates and breccias frequently become
conglomerates. The plain of Kinross is occupied by the soft
sandstones, marls and conglomerates of the upper Old Red Sandstone,
which rest unconformably upon the lower division with a strong dip.
Southward and eastward these rocks dip conformably beneath the Lower
Carboniferous cement stone series of the Calciferous Sandstone group.
The overlying Carboniferous limestone occupies only a small area in
the south and east of the county. Intrusive basalt sheets have been
intercalated between some of the Carboniferous strata, and the
superior resisting power of this rock has been the cause of the
existence of West Lomond, Benarty, Cleish Hills and Bishop Hill, which
are formed of soft marls and sandstones capped by basalt. The Hurlet
limestone is worked on the Lomond and Bishop Hills. East- and
west-running dikes of basalt are found in the north-east of the
county, traversing the Old Red volcanic rocks. Kames of gravel and
sand and similar glacial detritus are widely spread over the older
rocks.
_Climate and Industries._--The lower part of the county is generally
well sheltered and adapted to all kinds of crops; and the climate,
though wet and cold, offers no hindrance to high farming. The average
annual rainfall is 35.5 inches, and the temperature for the year is 48
deg. F., for January 38 deg. F. and for July 59 deg. 5 F. More than half
of the holdings exceed 50 acres each. Much of the land has been
reclaimed, the mossy tracts when drained and cultivated being very
fertile. Barley is the principal crop, and oats also is grown largely,
but the acreage under wheat is small. Turnips and potatoes are the chief
green crops, the former the more important. The raising of livestock is
pursued with great enterprise, the hilly land being well suited for this
industry, although many cattle are pastured on the lowland farms. The
cattle are mainly a native breed, which has been much improved by
crossing. The number of sheep is high for the area. Although most of the
horses are used for agricultural work, a considerable proportion are
kept solely for breeding. Tartans, plaids and other woollens, and linen
are manufactured at Kinross and Milnathort, which is besides an
important centre for livestock sales. Brewing and milling are also
carried on in the county town, but stock-raising and agriculture are the
staple interests. The North British railway company's lines, from the
south and west run through the county via Kinross, and the Mid-Fife line
branches off at Mawcarse Junction.
_Population and Government._--The population was 6673 in 1891 and 6981
in 1901, when 55 persons spoke Gaelic and English. The only towns are
Kinross (pop. in 1901, 2136) and Milnathort (1052). Kinross is the
county town, and of considerable antiquity. The county unites with
Clackmannanshire to return one member to parliament. It forms a
sheriffdom with Fifeshire and a sheriff-substitute sits at Kinross. The
shire is under school-board jurisdiction.
_History._--For several centuries the shire formed part of Fife, and
during that period shared its history. Towards the middle of the 13th
century, however, the parishes of Kinross and Orwell seem to have been
constituted into a shire, which, at the date (1305) of Edward I.'s
ordinance for the government of Scotland, had become an hereditary
sheriffdom, John of Kinross then being named for the office. James I.
dispensed with the attendance of small barons in 1427 and introduced the
principle of representation, when the shire returned one member to the
Scots parliament. The inclusion of the Fife parishes of Portmoak, Cleish
and Tullibole in 1685, due to the influence of Sir William Bruce, the
royal architect and heritable sheriff, converted the older shire into
the modern county. Excepting, however, the dramatic and romantic
episodes connected with the castle of Loch Leven, the annals of the
shire, so far as the national story is concerned, are vacant. As to its
antiquities, there are traces of an ancient fort or camp on the top of
Dumglow, and on a hill on the northern boundary of the parish of Orwell
a remarkable cairn, called Cairn-a-vain, in the centre of which a stone
cist was discovered in 1810 containing an urn full of bones and
charcoal. Close to the town of Kinross, on the margin of Loch Leven,
stands Kinross House, which was built in 1685 by Sir William Bruce as a
residence for the Duke of York (James II.) in case the Exclusion Bill
should debar him from the throne of England. The mansion, however, was
never occupied by royalty.
See Ae. J. G. Mackay, _History of Fife and Kinross_ (Edinburgh, 1896);
W. J. N. Liddall, _The Place Names of Fife and Kinross_ (Edinburgh,
1895); C. Ross, _Antiquities of Kinross-shire_ (Perth, 1886); R. B.
Begg, _History of Lochleven Castle_ (Kinross, 1887).
KINSALE, a market town and seaport of Co. Cork, Ireland, in the
south-east parliamentary division, on the east shore of Kinsale Harbour
(the estuary of the Bandon river) 24 m. south of Cork by the Cork Bandon
& South Coast railway, the terminus of a branch line. Pop. of urban
district (1901), 4250. The town occupies chiefly the acclivity of
Compass Hill, and while of picturesque appearance is built in a very
irregular manner, the streets being narrow and precipitous. The Charles
Fort was completed by the duke of Ormonde in 1677 and captured by the
earl of Marlborough in 1690. The parish church of St Multose is an
ancient but inelegant structure, said to have been founded as a
conventual church in the 12th century by the saint to whom it is
dedicated. Kinsale, with the neighbouring villages of Scilly and Cove,
is much frequented by summer visitors, and is the headquarters of the
South of Ireland Fishing Company, with a fishery pier and a commodious
harbour with 6 to 8 fathoms of water; but the general trade is of little
importance owing to the proximity of Queenstown and Cork. The Old Head
of Kinsale, at the west of the harbour entrance, affords fine views of
the coast, and is commonly the first British land sighted by ships bound
from New York, &c., to Queenstown.
Kinsale is said to derive its name from _cean taile_, the headland in
the sea. At an early period the town belonged to the De Courcys, a
representative of whom was created baron of Kinsale or Kingsale in 1181.
It received a charter of incorporation from Edward III., having
previously been a borough by prescription, and its privileges were
confirmed and extended by various subsequent sovereigns. For several
centuries previous to the Union it returned two members to the Irish
parliament. It was the scene of an engagement between the French and
English fleets in 1380, was forcibly entered by the English in 1488,
captured by the Spaniards and retaken by the English in 1601, and
entered by the English in 1641, who expelled the Irish inhabitants.
Finally, it was the scene of the landing of James II. and of the French
army sent to his assistance in 1689, and was taken by the English in the
following year.
KINTORE, a royal and police burgh of Aberdeenshire, Scotland. Pop.
(1901), 789. It is situated on the Don, 13(1/4) m. N.W. of Aberdeen by
the Great North of Scotland railway. It is a place of some antiquity,
having been made a royal burgh in the reign of William the Lion (d.
1214). Kintore forms one of the Elgin group of parliamentary burghs, the
others being Banff, Cullen, Elgin, Inverurie and Peterhead. One mile to
the south-west are the ruins of Hallforest Castle, of which two storeys
still exist, once a hunting-seat of Robert Bruce and afterwards a
residence of the Keiths, earls marischal. There are several examples of
sculptured stones and circles in the parish, and 2 m. to the north-west
is the site of Bruce's camp, which is also ascribed to the period of the
Romans. Near it is Thainston House, the residence of Sir Andrew Mitchell
(1708-1771), the British envoy to Frederick the Great. Kintore gives the
title of earl in the Scottish, and of baron in the British peerage to
the head of the Keith-Falconer family.
KIOTO (KYOTO), the former capital of Japan, in the province of
Yamashiro, in 35 deg. 01' N., 135 deg. 46' E. Pop. (1903), 379,404. The
Kamo-gawa, upon which it stands, is a mere rivulet in ordinary times,
trickling through a wide bed of pebbles; but the city is traversed by
several aqueducts, and was connected with Lake Biwa in 1890 by a canal
6(7/8) m. long, which carries an abundance of water for manufacturing
purposes, brings the great lake and the city into navigable
communication, and forms with the Kamo-gawa canal and the Kamo-gawa
itself a through route to Osaka, from which Kioto is 25 m. distant by
rail. Founded in the year 793, Kioto remained the capital of the empire
during nearly eleven centuries. The emperor Kwammu, when he selected
this remarkably picturesque spot for the residence of his court, caused
the city to be laid out with mathematical accuracy, after the model of
the Tang dynasty's capital in China. Its area, 3 m. by 3(1/2), was
intersected by 18 principal thoroughfares, 9 running due north and
south, and 9 due east and west, the two systems being connected at
intervals by minor streets. At the middle of the northern face stood the
palace, its enclosure covering three-quarters of a square mile, and from
it to the centre of the south face ran an avenue 283 ft. wide and 3(1/2)
m. long. Conflagrations and subsequent reconstructions modified the
regularity of this plan, but much of it still remains, and its story is
perpetuated in the nomenclature of the streets. In its days of greatest
prosperity Kioto contained only half a million inhabitants, thus never
even approximating to the size of the Tokugawa metropolis, Yedo, or the
Hojo capital Kamakura. The emperor Kwammu called it Heian-jo, or the
"city of peace," when he made it the seat of government; but the people
knew it as Miyako, or Kyoto, terms both of which signify "capital," and
in modern times it is often spoken of as Saikyo, or western capital, in
opposition to Tokyo, or eastern capital. Having been so long the
imperial, intellectual, political and artistic metropolis of the realm,
the city abounds with evidences of its unique career. Magnificent
temples and shrines, grand monuments of architectural and artistic
skill, beautiful gardens, gorgeous festivals, and numerous _ateliers_
where the traditions of Japanese art are obeyed with attractive results,
offer to the foreign visitor a fund of interest. Clear water ripples
everywhere through the city, and to this water Kioto owes something of
its importance, for nowhere else in Japan can fabrics be bleached so
white or dyed in such brilliant colours. The people, like their
neighbours of Osaka, are full of manufacturing energy. Not only do they
preserve, amid all the progress of the age, their old-time eminence as
producers of the finest porcelain, faience, embroidery, brocades,
bronze, _cloisonne_ enamel, fans, toys and metal-work of all kinds, but
they have also adapted themselves to the foreign market, and weave and
dye quantities of silk fabrics, for which a large and constantly growing
demand is found in Europe and America. Nowhere else can be traced with
equal clearness the part played in Japanese civilization by Buddhism,
with its magnificent paraphernalia and imposing ceremonial spectacles;
nowhere else, side by side with this luxurious factor, can be witnessed
in more striking juxtaposition the austere purity and severe simplicity
of the Shinto cult; and nowhere else can be more intelligently observed
the fine faculty of the Japanese for utilizing, emphasizing and
enhancing the beauties of nature. The citizens' dwellings and the shops,
on the other hand, are insignificant and even sombre in appearance,
their exterior conveying no idea of the pretty chambers within or of the
tastefully laid-out grounds upon which they open behind. Kioto is
celebrated equally for its cherry and azalea blossoms in the spring, and
for the colours of its autumn foliage.
KIOWAS, a tribe and stock of North American Indians. Their former range
was around the Arkansas and Canadian rivers, in Indian Territory
(Oklahoma), Colorado and New Mexico. A fierce people, they made raids
upon the settlers in western Texas until 1868, when they were placed on
a reservation in Indian Territory. In 1874 they broke out again, but in
the following year were finally subdued. In number about 1200, and
settled in Oklahoma, they are the sole representatives of the Kiowan
linguistic stock.
See J. Mooney, "Calendar History of the Kiowa Indians," _17th Report
of Bureau of American Ethnology_ (Washington, 1898).
KIPLING, RUDYARD (1865- ), British author, was born in Bombay on the
30th of December 1865. His father, John Lockwood Kipling (1837-1911), an
artist of considerable ability, was from 1875 to 1893 curator of the
Lahore museum in India. His mother was Miss Alice Macdonald of
Birmingham, two of whose sisters were married respectively to Sir E.
Burne-Jones and Sir Edward Poynter. He was educated at the United
Services College, Westward Ho, North Devon, of which a somewhat lurid
account is given in his story _Stalky and Co._ On his return to India he
became at the age of seventeen the sub-editor of the Lahore _Civil and
Military Gazette_. In 1886, in his twenty-first year, he published
_Departmental Ditties_, a volume of light verse chiefly satirical, only
in two or three poems giving promise of his authentic poetical note. In
1887 he published _Plain Tales from the Hills_, a collection mainly of
the stories contributed to his own journal. During the next two years he
brought out, in six slim paper-covered volumes of Wheeler's Railway
Library (Allahabad), _Soldiers Three_, _The Story of the Gadsbys_, _In
Black and White_, _Under the Deodars_, _The Phantom 'Rickshaw_ and _Wee
Willie Winkee_, at a rupee apiece. These were in form and substance a
continuation of the _Plain Tales_. This series of tales, all written
before the author was twenty-four, revealed a new master of fiction. A
few, but those the best, he afterwards said that his father gave him.
The rest were the harvest of his own powers of observation vitalized by
imagination. In method they owed something to Bret Harte; in matter and
spirit they were absolutely original. They were unequal, as his books
continued to be throughout; the sketches of Anglo-Indian social life
being generally inferior to the rest. The style was to some extent
disfigured by jerkiness and mannered tricks. But Mr Kipling possessed
the supreme spell of the story-teller to entrance and transport. The
freshness of the invention, the variety of character, the vigour of
narrative, the raciness of dialogue, the magic of atmosphere, were alike
remarkable. The soldier-stories, especially the exuberant vitality of
the cycle which contains the immortal Mulvaney, established the author's
fame throughout the world. The child-stories and tales of the British
official were not less masterly, while the tales of native life and of
adventure "beyond the pale" disclosed an even finer and deeper vein of
romance. India, which had been an old story for generations of
Englishmen, was revealed in these brilliant pictures as if seen for the
first time in its variety, colour and passion, vivid as mirage,
enchanting as the _Arabian Nights_. The new author's talent was quickly
recognized in India, but it was not till the books reached England that
his true rank was appreciated and proclaimed. Between 1887 and 1889 he
travelled through India, China, Japan and America, finally arriving in
England to find himself already famous. His travel sketches, contributed
to _The Civil and Military Gazette_ and _The Pioneer_, were afterwards
collected (the author's hand having been forced by unauthorized
publication) in the two volumes _From Sea to Sea_ (1899). A further set
of Indian tales, equal to the best, appeared in _Macmillan's Magazine_
and were republished with others in _Life's Handicap_ (1891). In _The
Light that Failed_ (1891, after appearing with a different ending in
_Lippincott's Magazine_) Mr Kipling essayed his first long story
(dramatized 1905), but with comparative unsuccess. In his subsequent
work his delight in the display of descriptive and verbal technicalities
grew on him. His polemic against "the sheltered life" and "little
Englandism" became more didactic. His terseness sometimes degenerated
into abruptness and obscurity. But in the meanwhile his genius became
prominent in verse. Readers of the _Plain Tales_ had been impressed by
the snatches of poetry prefixed to them for motto, certain of them being
subscribed "Barrack Room Ballad." Mr Kipling now contributed to the
_National Observer_, then edited by W. E. Henley, a series of _Barrack
Room Ballads_. These vigorous verses in soldier slang, when published in
a book in 1892, together with the fine ballad of "East and West" and
other poems, won for their author a second fame, wider than he had
attained as a story-teller. In this volume the Ballads of the "Bolivar"
and of the "Clampherdown," introducing Mr Kipling's poetry of the ocean
and the engine-room, and "The Flag of England," finding a voice for the
Imperial sentiment, which--largely under the influence of Mr Kipling's
own writings--had been rapidly gaining force in England, gave the
key-note of much of his later verse. In 1898 Mr Kipling paid the first
of several visits to South Africa and became imbued with a type of
imperialism that reacted on his literature, not altogether to its
advantage. Before finally settling in England Mr Kipling lived some
years in America and married in 1892 Miss Caroline Starr Balestier,
sister of the Wolcott Balestier to whom he dedicated _Barrack Room
Ballads_, and with whom in collaboration he wrote the _Naulahka_ (1891),
one of his less successful books. The next collection of stories, _Many
Inventions_ (1893), contained the splendid Mulvaney extravaganza, "My
Lord the Elephant"; a vividly realized tale of metempsychosis, "The
Finest Story in the World"; and in that fascinating tale "In the Rukh,"
the prelude to the next new exhibition of the author's genius. This came
in 1894 with _The Jungle Book_, followed in 1895 by _The Second Jungle
Book_. With these inspired beast-stories Kipling conquered a new world
and a new audience, and produced what many critics regard as his most
flawless work. His chief subsequent publications were _The Seven Seas_
(poems), 1896; _Captains Courageous_ (a yarn of deep-sea fishery), 1897;
_The Day's Work_ (collected stories), 1898; _A Fleet in Being_ (an
account of a cruise in a man-of-war), 1898; _Stalky and Co._ (mentioned
above), 1899; _From Sea to Sea_ (mentioned above), 1899; _Kim_, 1901;
_Just So Stories_ (for children), 1902; _The Five Nations_ (poems,
concluding with what proved Mr Kipling's most universally known and
popular poem, "Recessional," originally published in _The Times_ on the
17th of July 1897 on the occasion of Queen Victoria's second jubilee),
1903; _Traffics and Discoveries_ (collected stories), 1904; _Puck of
Pook's Hill_ (stories), 1906; _Actions and Reactions_ (stories), 1909.
Of these _Kim_ was notable as far the most successful of Mr Kipling's
longer narratives, though it is itself rather in the nature of a string
of episodes. But everything he wrote, even to a farcical extravaganza
inspired by his enthusiasm for the motor-car, breathed the meteoric
energy that was the nature of the man. A vigorous and unconventional
poet, a pioneer in the modern phase of literary Imperialism, and one of
the rare masters in English prose of the art of the short story, Mr
Kipling had already by the opening of the 20th century won the most
conspicuous place among the creative literary forces of his day. His
position in English literature was recognized in 1907 by the award to
him of the Nobel prize.
See Rudyard Kipling's chapter in _My First Book_ (Chatto, 1894); "A
Bibliography of Rudyard Kipling," by John Lane, in _Rudyard Kipling: a
Criticism_, by Richard de Gallienne; "Mr Kipling's Short Stories" in
_Questions at Issue_, by Edmund Gosse (1893); "Mr Kipling's Stories"
in _Essays in Little_, by Andrew Lang; "Mr Kipling's Stories," by J.
M. Barrie in the _Contemporary Review_ (March 1891); articles in the
_Quarterly Review_ (July 1892) and _Edinburgh Review_ (Jan. 1898); and
section on Kipling in _Poets of the Younger Generation_, by William
Archer (1902). See also for bibliography to 1903 _English Illustrated
Magazine_, new series, vol. xxx. pp. 298 and 429-432. (W. P. J.)
KIPPER, properly the name by which the male salmon is known at some
period of the breeding season. At the approach of this season the male
fish develops a sharp cartilaginous beak, known as the "kip," from which
the name "kipper" is said to be derived. The earliest uses of the word
(in Old English _cypera_ and Middle English _kypre_) seem to include
salmon of both sexes, and there is no certainty as to the etymology.
Skeat derives it from the Old English _kippian_, "to spawn." The term
has been applied by various writers to salmon both during and after
milting; early quotations leave the precise meaning of the word obscure,
but generally refer to the unwholesomeness of the fish as food during
the whole breeding season. It has been usually accepted, without much
direct evidence, that from the practice of rendering the breeding (i.e.
"kipper") salmon fit for food by splitting, salting and smoke-drying
them, the term "kipper" is also used of other fish, particularly
herrings cured in the same way. The "bloater" as distinct from the
"kipper" is a herring cured whole without being split open.
KIPPIS, ANDREW (1725-1795), English nonconformist divine and biographer,
son of Robert Kippis, a silk-hosier, was born at Nottingham on the 28th
of March 1725. From school at Sleaford in Lincolnshire he passed at the
age of sixteen to the nonconformist academy at Northampton, of which Dr
Doddridge was then president. In 1746 Kippis became minister of a church
at Boston; in 1750 he removed to Dorking in Surrey; and in 1753 he
became pastor of a Presbyterian congregation at Westminster, where he
remained till his death on the 8th of October 1795. Kippis took a
prominent part in the affairs of his church. From 1763 till 1784 he was
classical and philological tutor in Coward's training college at Hoxton;
and subsequently for some years at another institution of the same kind
at Hackney. In 1778 he was elected a fellow of the Antiquarian Society,
and a fellow of the Royal Society in 1779.
Kippis was a very voluminous writer. He contributed largely to _The
Gentleman's Magazine_, _The Monthly Review_ and _The Library_; and he
had a good deal to do with the establishment and conduct of _The New
Annual Register_. He published also a number of sermons and occasional
pamphlets; and he prefixed a life of the author to a collected edition
of Dr Nathaniel Lardner's _Works_ (1788). He wrote a life of Dr
Doddridge, which is prefixed to Doddridge's _Exposition of the New
Testament_ (1792). His chief work is his edition of the _Biographia
Britannica_, of which, however, he only lived to publish 5 vols.
(folio, 1778-1793). In this work he had the assistance of Dr Towers.
See notice by A. Rees, D.D., in _The New Annual Register_ for 1795.
KIRBY, WILLIAM (1759-1850), English entomologist, was born at Witnesham
in Suffolk on the 19th of September 1759. From the village school of
Witnesham he passed to Ipswich grammar school, and thence to Caius
College, Cambridge, where he graduated in 1781. Taking holy orders in
1782, he spent his entire life in the peaceful seclusion of an English
country parsonage at Barham in Suffolk. His favourite study was natural
history; and eventually entomology engrossed all his leisure. His first
work of importance was his _Monographia Apum Angliae_ (2 vols. 8vo,
1802), which as the first scientific treatise on its subject brought him
into notice with the leading entomologists of his own and foreign
countries. The practical result of a friendship formed in 1805 with
William Spence, of Hull, was the jointly written _Introduction to
Entomology_ (4 vols., 1815-1826; 7th ed., 1856), one of the most popular
books of science that have ever appeared. In 1830 he was chosen to write
one of the _Bridgewater Treatises_, his subject being _The History,
Habits, and Instincts of Animals_ (2 vols., 1835). This undeniably fell
short of his earlier works in point of scientific value. He died on the
4th of July 1850.
Besides the books already mentioned he was the author of many papers
in the _Transactions of the Linnean Society_, the _Zoological Journal_
and other periodicals; _Strictures on Sir James Smith's Hypothesis
respecting the Lilies of the Field of our Saviour and the Acanthus of
Virgil_ (1819); _Seven Sermons on our Lord's Temptations_ (1829); and
he wrote the sections on insects in the _Account of the Animals seen
by the late Northern Expedition while within the Arctic Circle_
(1821), and in _Fauna Boreali-Americana_ (1837). His _Life_ by the
Rev. John Freeman, published in 1852, contains a list of his works.
KIRCHER, ATHANASIUS (1601-1680), German scholar and mathematician, was
born on the 2nd of May 1601, at Geisa near Fulda. He was educated at the
Jesuit college of Fulda, and entered upon his noviciate in that order at
Mainz in 1618. He became professor of philosophy, mathematics, and
Oriental languages at Wurzburg, whence he was driven (1631) by the
troubles of the Thirty Years' War to Avignon. Through the influence of
Cardinal Barberini he next (1635) settled in Rome, where for eight years
he taught mathematics in the Collegio Romano, but ultimately resigned
this appointment to study hieroglyphics and other archaeological
subjects. He died on the 28th of November 1680.
Kircher was a man of wide and varied learning, but singularly devoid
of judgment and critical discernment. His voluminous writings in
philology, natural history, physics and mathematics often accordingly
have a good deal of the historical interest which attaches to
pioneering work, however imperfectly performed; otherwise they now
take rank as curiosities of literature merely. They include _Ars
Magnesia_ (1631); _Magnes, sive de arte magnetica opus tripartitum_
(1641); and _Magneticum naturae regnum_ (1667); _Prodromus Coptus_
(1636); _Lingua Aegyptiaca restituta_ (1643); _Obeliscus Pamphilius_
(1650); and _Oedipus Aegyptiacus, hoc est universalis doctrinae
hieroglyphicae instauratio_ (1652-1655)--works which may claim the
merit of having first called attention to Egyptian hieroglyphics; _Ars
magna lucis et umbrae in mundo_ (1645-1646); _Musurgia universalis,
sive ars magna consoni et dissoni_ (1650); _Polygraphia, seu
artificium linguarum quo cum omnibus mundi populis poterit quis
respondere_ (1663); _Mundus subterraneus, quo subterrestris mundi
opificium, universae denique naturae divitiae, abditorum effectuum
causae demonstrantur_ (1665-1678); _China illustrata_ (1667); _Ars
magna sciendi_ (1669); and _Latium_ (1669), a work which may still be
consulted with advantage. The _Specula Melitensis Encyclica_ (1638)
gives an account of a kind of calculating machine of his invention.
The valuable collection of antiquities which he bequeathed to the
Collegio Romano has been described by Buonanni (_Musaeum
Kircherianum_, 1709; republished by Battara in 1773).
KIRCHHEIM-UNTER-TECK, a town of Germany, in the kingdom of Wurttemberg,
is prettily situated on the Lauter, at the north-west foot of the Rauhe
Alb, 15 m. S.E. of Stuttgart by rail. Pop. (1905), 8830. The town has a
royal castle built in 1538, two schools and several benevolent
institutions. The manufactures include cotton goods, damask,
pianofortes, machinery, furniture, chemicals and cement. The town also
has wool-spinning establishments and breweries, and a corn exchange. It
is the most important wool market in South Germany, and has also a trade
in fruit, timber and pigs. In the vicinity are the ruins of the castle
of Teck, the hereditary stronghold of the dukes of that name. Kirchheim
has belonged to Wurttemberg since 1381.
KIRCHHOFF, GUSTAV ROBERT (1824-1887), German physicist, was born at
Konigsberg (Prussia) on the 12th of March 1824, and was educated at the
university of his native town, where he graduated Ph.D. in 1847. After
acting as _privat-docent_ at Berlin for some time, he became
extraordinary professor of physics at Breslau in 1850. Four years later
he was appointed professor of physics at Heidelberg, and in 1875 he was
transferred to Berlin, where he died on the 17th of October 1887.
Kirchhoff's contributions to mathematical physics were numerous and
important, his strength lying in his powers of stating a new physical
problem in terms of mathematics, not merely in working out the solution
after it had been so formulated. A number of his papers were concerned
with electrical questions. One of the earliest was devoted to electrical
conduction in a thin plate, and especially in a circular one, and it
also contained a theorem which enables the distribution of currents in a
network of conductors to be ascertained. Another discussed conduction in
curved sheets; a third the distribution of electricity in two
influencing spheres; a fourth the determination of the constant on which
depends the intensity of induced currents; while others were devoted to
Ohm's law, the motion of electricity in submarine cables, induced
magnetism, &c. In other papers, again, various miscellaneous topics were
treated--the thermal conductivity of iron, crystalline reflection and
refraction, certain propositions in the thermodynamics of solution and
vaporization, &c. An important part of his work was contained in his
_Vorlesungen uber mathematische Physik_ (1876), in which the principles
of dynamics, as well as various special problems, were treated in a
somewhat novel and original manner. But his name is best known for the
researches, experimental and mathematical, in radiation which led him,
in company with R. W. von Bunsen, to the development of spectrum
analysis as a complete system in 1859-1860. He can scarcely be called
its inventor, for not only had many investigators already used the prism
as an instrument of chemical inquiry, but considerable progress had been
made towards the explanation of the principles upon which spectrum
analysis rests. But to him belongs the merit of having, most probably
without knowing what had already been done, enunciated a complete
account of its theory, and of thus having firmly established it as a
means by which the chemical constituents of celestial bodies can be
discovered through the comparison of their spectra with those of the
various elements that exist on this earth.
KIRCHHOFF, JOHANN WILHELM ADOLF (1826-1908), German classical scholar
and epigraphist, was born in Berlin on the 6th of January 1826. In 1865
he was appointed professor of classical philology in the university of
his native city. He died on the 26th of February 1908. He is the author
of _Die Homerische Odyssee_ (1859), putting forward an entirely new
theory as to the composition of the _Odyssey_; editions of Plotinus
(1856), Euripides (1855 and 1877-1878). Aeschylus (1880), Hesiod (_Works
and Days_, 1889), Xenophon, _On the Athenian Constitution_ (3rd ed.,
1889); _Uber die Entstehungszeit des Herodotischen Geschichtswerkes_
(2nd ed., 1878); _Thukydides und sein Urkundenmaterial_ (1895).
The following works are the result of his epigraphical and
palaeographical studies: _Die Umbrischen Sprachdenkmaler_ (1851); _Das
Stadlrecht von Bantia_ (1853), on the tablet discovered in 1790 at
Oppido near Banzi, containing a plebiscite relating to the municipal
affairs of the ancient Bantia; _Das Gotische Runenalphabet_ (1852);
_Die Frankischen Runen_ (1855); _Studien zur Geschichte des
Griechischen Alphabets_ (4th ed., 1887). The second part of vol. iv.
of the _Corpus Inscriptionum Graecarum_ (1859, containing the
Christian inscriptions) and vol. i. of the _C. I. Atticarum_ (1873,
containing the inscriptions before 403) with supplements thereto (vol.
iv. pts. 1-3, 1877-1891) are edited by him.
KIRGHIZ, a large and widespread division of the Turkish family, of which
there are two main branches, the Kara-Kirghiz of the uplands and the
Kirghiz-Kazaks of the steppe. They jointly number about 3,000,000, and
occupy an area of perhaps the same number of square miles, stretching
from Kulja westwards to the lower Volga, and from the headstreams of the
Ob southwards to the Pamir and the Turkoman country. They seem closely
allied ethnically to the Mongolians and in speech to the Tatars. But
both Mongols and Tatars belonged themselves originally to one racial
stock and formed part of the same hordes or nomadic armies: also the
Western Turks have to a large extent lost their original physique and
become largely assimilated to the regular "Caucasian" type. But the
Kirghiz have either remained nearly altogether unmixed, as in the
uplands, or else have intermingled in the steppe mainly with the Volga
Kalmucks in the west, and with the Dzungarian nomads in the east, all
alike of Mongol stock. Hence they have everywhere to a large extent
preserved the common Mongolian features, while retaining their primitive
Tatar speech. Physically they are a middle-sized, square-built race,
inclined to stoutness, especially in the steppe, mostly with long black
hair, scant beard or none, small, black and oblique eyes, though blue or
grey also occur in the south, broad Mongoloid features, high cheekbones,
broad, flat nose, small mouth, brachycephalous head, very small hands
and feet, dirty brown or swarthy complexion, often yellowish, but also
occasionally fair. These characteristics, while affiliating them
directly to the Mongol stock, also betray an admixture of foreign
elements, probably due to Finnish influences in the north, and Tajik or
Iranian blood in the south. Their speech also, while purely Turkic in
structure, possesses, not only many Mongolian and a few Persian and even
Arabic words, but also some terms unknown to the other branches of the
Mongolo-Tatar linguistic family, and which should perhaps be traced to
the Kiang-Kuan, Wu-sun, Ting-ling, and other peoples of South Siberia
partly absorbed by them.
_The Kara-Kirghiz._--The Kara or "Black" Kirghiz, so called from the
colour of their tents, are known to the Russians either as Chernyie
(Black) or Dikokammenyie (Wild Stone or Rocky) Kirghiz, and are the
Block Kirghiz of some English writers. They are on the whole the purest
and best representatives of the race, and properly speaking to them
alone belongs the distinctive national name Kirghiz or Krghiz. This term
is commonly traced to a legendary chief, Kirghiz, sprung of Oghuz-Khan,
ninth in descent from Japheth. It occurs in its present form for the
first time in the account of the embassy sent in 569 by the East Roman
emperor Justin II. to the Uighur Khan, Dugla-Ditubulu, where it is
stated that this prince presented a slave of the Kirghiz tribe to
Zemark, head of the mission. In the Chinese chronicles the word assumes
the form Ki-li-ki-tz', and the writers of the Yuan dynasty (1280-1367)
place the territory of these people 10,000 li north-west of Pekin, about
the headstreams of the Yenisei. In the records of the T'ang dynasty
(618-907) they are spoken of under the name of Kha-kia-tz' (pronounced
Khaka, and sometimes transliterated Haka), and it is mentioned that
these Khakas were of the same speech as the Khoei-khu. From this it
follows that they were of Mongolo-Tatar stock, and are wrongly
identified by some ethnologists with the Kiang-Kuan, Wu-sun, or
Ting-ling, all of whom are described as tall, with red hair, "green" or
grey eyes, and fair complexion, and must therefore have been of Finnish
stock, akin to the present Soyotes of the upper Yenisei.
The Kara-Kirghiz are by the Chinese and Mongolians called _Burut_,
where _ut_ is the Mongolian plural ending, as in Tangut, Yakut,
modified to _yat_ in Buryat, the collective name of the Siberian
Mongolians of the Baikal district. Thus the term _Bur_ is the common
Mongolian designation both of the Baikal Mongols and of the
Kara-Kirghiz, who occupied this very region and the upper Yenisei
valley generally till comparatively recent times. For the original
home of their ancestors, the Khakas, lay in the south of the present
governments of Yeniseisk and Tomsk, stretching thence southwards
beyond the Sayan range to the Tannuola hills in Chinese territory.
Here the Russians first met them in the 17th century, and by the aid
of the Kazaks exterminated all those east of the Irtish, driving the
rest farther west and south-westwards. Most of them took refuge with
their kinsmen, the Kara-Kirghiz nomad highlanders, whose homes, at
least since the 13th century, have been the Ala-tau range, the
Issyk-kul basin, the Tekes, Chu and Talass river valleys, the
Tian-shan range, the uplands draining both to the Tarim and to the
Jaxartes and Oxus, including Khokand, Karateghin and Shignan
southwards to the Pamir table-land, visited by them in summer. They
thus occupy most of the uplands along the Russo-Chinese frontier,
between 35 deg. and 50 deg. N. lat. and between 70 deg. and 85 deg. E.
long.
The Kara-Kirghiz are all grouped in two main sections--the On or
"Right" in the east, with seven branches (Bogu, Sary-Bagishch,
Son-Bagishch, Sultu or Solye, Cherik, Sayak, Bassinz), and the Sol or
"Left" in the west, with four branches (Kokche or Kuchy, Soru, Mundus,
Kitai or Kintai). The Sol section occupies the region between the
Talass and Oxus headstreams in Ferghana (Khokand) and Bokhara, where
they come in contact with the Galchas or Highland Tajiks. The On
section lies on both sides of the Tian-shan, about Lake Issyk-kul, and
in the Chu, Tekes and Narin (upper Jaxartes) valleys.
The total number of Kara-Kirghiz exceeds 800,000.
All are essentially nomads, occupied mainly with stock breeding,
chiefly horses of a small but hardy breed, sheep of the fat-tailed
species, oxen used both for riding and as pack animals, some goats,
and camels of both species. Agriculture is limited chiefly to the
cultivation of wheat, barley and millet, from the last of which a
coarse vodka or brandy is distilled. Trade is carried on chiefly by
barter, cattle being taken by the dealers from China, Turkestan and
Russia in exchange for manufactured goods.
The Kara-Kirghiz are governed by the "manaps," or tribal rulers, who
enjoy almost unlimited authority, and may even sell or kill their
subjects. In religious matters they differ little from the Kazaks,
whose practices are described below. Although generally recognizing
Russian sovereignty since 1864, they pay no taxes.
_The Kazaks._--Though not unknown to them, the term Kirghiz is never
used by the steppe nomads, who always call themselves simply Kazaks,
commonly interpreted as riders. The first authentic reference to this
name is by the Persian poet and historian Firdousi (1020), who speaks of
the Kazak tribes as much dreaded steppe marauders, all mounted and armed
with lances. From this circumstance the term Kazak came to be gradually
applied to all freebooters similarly equipped, and it thus spread from
the Aralo-Caspian basin to South Russia, where it still survives under
the form of Cossack, spelt Kazak or Kozak in Russian. Hence though Kazak
and Cossack are originally the same word, the former now designates a
Mongolo-Tatar nomad race, the latter various members of the Slav family.
Since the 18th century the Russians have used the compound expression
Kirghiz-Kazak, chiefly in order to distinguish them from their own
Cossacks, at that time overrunning Siberia. Siegmund Herberstein
(1486-1566) is the first European who mentions them by name, and it is
noteworthy that he speaks of them as "Tartars," that is, a people rather
of Turki than Mongolian stock.
In their present homes, the so-called "Kirghiz steppes," they are far
more numerous and widespread than their Kara-Kirghiz kinsmen,
stretching almost uninterruptedly from Lake Balkash round the Aral and
Caspian Seas westwards to the lower Volga, and from the river Irtish
southwards to the lower Oxus and Ust-Urt plateau. Their domain, which
is nearly 2,000,000 sq. m. in extent, thus lies mainly between 45 deg.
and 55 deg. N. lat. and from 45 deg. to 80 deg. E. long. Here they
came under the sway of Jenghiz Khan, after whose death they fell to
the share of his son Juji, head of the Golden Horde, but continued to
retain their own khans. When the Uzbegs acquired the ascendancy, many
of the former subjects of the Juji and Jagatai hordes fell off and
joined the Kazaks. Thus about the year 1500 were formed two powerful
states in the Kipchak and Kheta steppes, the Mogul-Ulus and the Kazak,
the latter of whom, under their khan Arslane, are said by Sultan Baber
to have had as many as 400,000 fighting men. Their numbers continued
to be swollen by voluntary or enforced accessions from the fragments
of the Golden Horde, such as the Kipchaks, Naimans, Konrats, Jalairs,
Kankali, whose names are still preserved in the tribal divisions of
the Kazaks. And as some of these peoples were undoubtedly of true
Mongolian stock, their names have given a colour to the statement that
all the Kazaks were rather of Mongol than of Turki origin. But the
universal prevalence of a nearly pure variety of the Turki speech
throughout the Kazak steppes is almost alone sufficient to show that
the Tatar element must at all times have been in the ascendant. Very
various accounts have been given of the relationship of the Kipchak to
the Kirghiz, but at present they seem to form a subdivision of the
Kirghiz-Kazaks. The Kara-Kalpaks are an allied but apparently separate
tribe.
The Kirghiz-Kazaks have long been grouped in three large "hordes" or
encampments, further subdivided into a number of so-called "races,"
which are again grouped in tribes, and these in sections, branches and
auls, or communities of from five to fifteen tents. The division into
hordes has been traditionally referred to a powerful khan, who divided
his states amongst his three sons, the eldest of whom became the
founder of the Ulu-Yuz, or Great Horde, the second of the Urta-Yuz, or
Middle Horde, and the third of the Kachi-Yuz, or Little Horde. The
last two under their common khan Abulkhair voluntarily submitted in
1730 to the Empress Anne. Most of the Great Horde were subdued by
Yunus, khan of Ferghana, in 1798, and all the still independent tribes
finally accepted Russian sovereignty in 1819.
Since 1801 a fourth division, known as the Inner or Bukeyevskaya
Horde, from the name of their first khan, Bukei, has been settled in
the Orenburg steppe.
But these divisions affect the common people alone, all the higher
orders and ruling families being broadly classed as White and Black
Kost or Bones. The White Bones comprise only the khans and their
descendants, besides the issue of the khojas or Moslem "saints." The
Black Bones include all the rest, except the _Telengut_ or servants of
the khans, and the _Kul_ or slaves.
The Kazaks are an honest and trustworthy people, but heavy, sluggish,
sullen and unfriendly. Even the hospitality enjoined by the Koran is
displayed only towards the orthodox Sunnite sect. So essentially nomadic
are all the tribes that they cannot adopt a settled life without losing
the very sentiment of their nationality, and becoming rapidly absorbed
in the Slav population. They dwell exclusively in semicircular tents
consisting of a light wooden framework, and red cloth or felt covering,
with an opening above for light and ventilation.
The camp life of the Kazaks seems almost unendurable to Europeans in
winter, when they are confined altogether to the tent, and exposed to
endless discomforts. In summer the day is spent mostly in sleep or
drinking koumiss, followed at night by feasting and the recital of
tales, varied with songs accompanied by the music of the flute and
balalaika. But horsemanship is the great amusement of all true Kazaks,
who may almost be said to be born in the saddle. Hence, though excellent
riders, they are bad walkers. Though hardy and long-lived, they are
uncleanly in their habits and often decimated by small-pox and Siberian
plague. They have no fixed meals, and live mainly on mutton and goat and
horse flesh, and instead of bread use the so-called balamyk, a mess of
flour fried in dripping and diluted in water. The universal drink is
koumiss, which is wholesome, nourishing and a specific against all chest
diseases.
The dress consists of the chapan, a flowing robe of which one or two are
worn in summer and several in winter, fastened with a silk or leather
girdle, in which are stuck a knife, tobacco pouch, seal and a few other
trinkets. Broad silk or cloth pantaloons are often worn over the chapan,
which is of velvet, silk, cotton or felt, according to the rank of the
wearer. Large black or red leather boots, with round white felt pointed
caps, complete the costume, which is much the same for both sexes.
Like the Kara-Kirghiz, the Kazaks are nominally Sunnites, but Shamanists
at heart, worshipping, besides the Kudai or good divinity, the Shaitan
or bad spirit. Their faith is strong in the _talchi_ or soothsayer and
other charlatans, who know everything, can do everything, and heal all
disorders at pleasure. But they are not fanatics, though holding the
abstract doctrine that the "Kafir" may be lawfully oppressed, including
in this category not only Buddhists and Christians, but even Mahommedans
of the Shiah sect. There are no fasts or ablutions, mosques or mollahs,
or regular prayers. Although Mussulmans since the beginning of the 16th
century, they have scarcely yet found their way to Mecca, their pilgrims
visiting instead the more convenient shrines of the "saints" scattered
over eastern Turkestan. Unlike the Mongolians, the Kazaks treat their
dead with great respect, and the low steppe hills are often entirely
covered with monuments raised above their graves.
Letters are neglected to such an extent that whoever can merely write is
regarded as a savant, while he becomes a prodigy of learning if able to
read the Koran in the original. Yet the Kazaks are naturally both
musical and poetical, and possess a considerable number of national
songs, which are usually repeated with variations from mouth to mouth.
The Kazaks still choose their own khans, who, though confirmed by the
Russian government, possess little authority beyond their respective
tribes. The real rulers are the elders or umpires and sultans, all
appointed by public election. Brigandage and raids arising out of tribal
feuds, which were formerly recognized institutions, are now severely
punished, sometimes even with death. Capital punishment, usually by
hanging or strangling, is inflicted for murder and adultery, while
three, nine or twenty-seven times the value of the stolen property is
exacted for theft.
The domestic animals, daily pursuits and industries of the Kazaks differ
but slightly from those of the Kara-Kirghiz. Some of the wealthy steppe
nomads own as many as 20,000 of the large fat-tailed sheep. Goats are
kept chiefly as guides for these flocks; and the horses, though small,
are hardy, swift, light-footed and capable of covering from 50 to 60
miles at a stretch. Amongst the Kazaks there are a few workers in
silver, copper and iron, the chief arts besides, being skin dressing,
wool spinning and dyeing, carpet and felt weaving. Trade is confined
mainly to an exchange of live stock for woven and other goods from
Russia, China and Turkestan.
Since their subjection to Russia the Kazaks have become less lawless,
but scarcely less nomadic. A change of habit in this respect is opposed
alike to their tastes and to the climatic and other outward conditions.
See also TURKS.
LITERATURE.--Alexis Levshin, _Description des hordes et des steppes
des Kirghiz-Kazaks_, translated from the Russian by Ferry de Cigny
(1840); W. Radloff, _Proben der Volksliteratur der Turkischen Stamme
Sudsiberiens_; Ch. de Ujfalvy, _Le Kohistan, le Ferghanah, et
Kouldja_; also _Bull. de la Soc. de Geo._ (1878-1879); Semenoff, paper
in _Petermann's Mittheilungen_ (1859), No. 3; Valikhanov's _Travels in
1858-1859_; Madame de Ujfalvy, papers in _Tour du Monde_ (1874);
Vambery, _Die primitive Cultur des Turko-Tatarischen Volkes_; P. S.
Pallas, _Observations sur les Kirghiz_ (1769; French trans., 1803);
Andriev, "La Horde Moyenne," in _Bull. de la Soc. de Geogr. de St
Petersburg_ (1875); Radomtsev, _Excursion dans le steppe Kirghiz_;
Lansdell, _Russian Centralasia_ (1885); Jadrinzer, _La Siberie_
(1886). Skrine and Ross, _Heart of Asia_ (1899); E. H. Parker, _A
Thousand Years of the Tartars_ (1895). Various Russian works by
Nalivkin, published in Turkestan, contain much valuable information,
and N. N. Pantusov, _Specimens of Kirghiz Popular Poetry_, with
Russian translations (Kazan, 1903-1904).
KIRIN, a province of central Manchuria, with a capital bearing the same
name. The province has an area of 90,000 sq. m., and a population of
6,500,000. The chief towns besides the capital are Kwang-cheng-tsze, 80
m. N.W. of the capital, and Harbin on the Sungari river. The city of
KIRIN is situated at the foot of the Lau-Ye-Ling mountains, on the left
bank of the Sungari or Girin-ula, there 300 yds. wide, and is served by
a branch of the Manchurian railway. The situation is one of exceptional
beauty; but the streets are narrow, irregular and indescribably filthy.
The western part of the town is built upon a swamp and is under water a
great part of the year. The dockyards are supplied with machinery from
Europe and are efficient. Tobacco is the principal article of trade, the
kind grown in the province being greatly prized throughout the Chinese
empire under the name of "Manchu leaf." Formerly ginseng was also an
important staple, but the supply from this quarter of the country has
been exhausted. Outside the town lies a plain "thickly covered with open
coffins containing the dead bodies of Chinese emigrants exposed for
identification and removal by their friends; if no claim is made during
ten years the remains are buried on the spot." Kirin was chosen by the
emperor K'anghi as a military post during the wars with the Eleuths; and
it owes its Chinese name of Ch'uen-ch'ang, i.e. Naval Yard, to his
building there the vessels for the transport of his troops. The
population was estimated at 300,000 in 1812; in 1909 it was about
120,000.
KIRK, SIR JOHN (1832- ), British naturalist and administrator, son of
the Rev. John Kirk, was born at Barry, near Arbroath, on the 19th of
December 1832. He was educated at Edinburgh for the medical profession,
and after serving on the civil medical staff throughout the Crimean War,
was appointed in February 1858 physician and naturalist to David
Livingstone's second expedition to Central Africa. He was by
Livingstone's side in most of his journeyings during the next five
years, and was one of the first four white men to behold Lake Nyassa
(Sept. 16, 1859). He was finally invalided home on the 9th of May 1863.
The reputation he gained during this expedition led to his appointment
in January 1866 as acting surgeon to the political agency at Zanzibar.
In 1868 he became assistant political agent, being raised to the rank of
consul-general in 1873 and agent in 1880. He retired from that post in
1887. The twenty-one years spent by Kirk in Zanzibar covered the most
critical period of the history of European intervention in East Africa;
and during the greater part of that time he was the virtual ruler of the
country. With Seyyid Bargash, who became sultan in 1870, he had a
controlling influence, and after the failure of Sir Bartle Frere's
efforts he succeeded in obtaining (June 5, 1873) the sultan's signature
to a treaty abolishing the slave trade in his dominions. In 1877 Bargash
offered to a British merchant--Sir W. Mackinnon--a lease of his mainland
territories, and he gave Kirk a declaration in which he bound himself
not to cede territory to any other power than Great Britain, a
declaration ignored by the British government. When Germany in 1885
claimed districts considered by the sultan to belong to Zanzibar, Kirk
intervened to prevent Bargash going in person to Berlin to protest and
induced him to submit to the dismemberment of his dominions. In the
delicate negotiations which followed Kirk used his powers to checkmate
the German designs to supplant the British in Zanzibar itself; this he
did without destroying the Arab form of government. He also directed the
efforts, this time successful, to obtain for Britain a portion of the
mainland--Bargash in May 1887 granting to Mackinnon a lease of territory
which led to the foundation of British East Africa. Having thus served
both Great Britain and Zanzibar, Kirk resigned his post (July 1887),
retiring from the consular service. In 1889-1890 he was a
plenipotentiary at the slave trade conference in Brussels, and was one
of the delegates who fixed the tariff duties to be imposed in the Congo
basin. In 1895 he was sent by the British government on a mission to the
Niger; and on his return he was appointed a member of the Foreign Office
committee for constructing the Uganda railway. As a naturalist Kirk took
high rank, and many species of the flora and fauna of Central Africa
were made known by him, and several bear his name, e.g. the _Otogale
kirkii_ (a lemuroid), the _Madoqua kirkii_ (a diminutive antelope), the
_Landolphia kirkii_ and the _Clematis kirkii_. For his services to
geography he received in 1882 the patrons' medal of the Royal
Geographical Society, of which society he became foreign secretary. Kirk
was created K.C.B. in 1900. He married, in 1867, Miss Helen Cooke.
KIRKBY, JOHN (d. 1290), English ecclesiastic and statesman, entered the
public service as a clerk of the chancery during the reign of Henry III.
Under Edward I. he acted as keeper of the great seal during the frequent
absences of the chancellor, Robert Burnell, being referred to as
vice-chancellor. In 1282 he was employed by the king to make a tour
through the counties and boroughs for the purpose of collecting money;
this and his other services to Edward were well rewarded, and although
not yet ordained priest he held several valuable benefices in the
church. In 1283 he was chosen bishop of Rochester, but owing to the
opposition of the archbishop of Canterbury, John Peckham, he did not
press his claim to this see. In 1286, however, two years after he had
become treasurer, he was elected bishop of Ely, and he was ordained
priest and then consecrated by Peckham. He died at Ely on the 26th of
March 1290. Kirkby was a benefactor to his see, to which he left some
property in London, including the locality now known as Ely Place, where
for many years stood the London residence of the bishop of Ely.
_Kirkby's Quest_ is the name given to a survey of various English
counties which was made under the bishop's direction probably in 1284
and 1285. For this see _Inquisitions and Assessments relating to
Feudal Aids_, 1284-1431, vol. i. (London, 1899).
KIRKCALDY (locally pronounced _Kerkawdi_), a royal, municipal and police
burgh and seaport of Fifeshire, Scotland. Pop. (1901), 34,079. It lies
on the Firth of Forth, 26 m. N. of Edinburgh by the North British
railway, via the Forth Bridge. Although Columba is said to have planted
a church here, the authoritative history of the town does not begin for
several centuries after the era of the saint. In 1240 the church was
bestowed by David, bishop of St Andrews, on Dunfermline Abbey, and in
1334 the town with its harbour was granted by David II. to the same
abbey, by which it was conveyed to the bailies and council in 1450, when
Kirkcaldy was created a royal burgh. In the course of another century it
had become an important commercial centre, the salt trade of the
district being then the largest in Scotland. In 1644, when Charles I.
raised it to a free port, it owned a hundred vessels, and six years
later it was assessed as the sixth town in the kingdom. After the Union
its shipping fell off, Jacobite troubles and the American War of
Independence accelerating the decline. But its linen manufactures, begun
early in the 18th century, gradually restored prosperity; and when other
industries had taken root its fortunes advanced by leaps and bounds, and
there is now no more flourishing community in Scotland. The chief
topographical feature of the burgh is its length, from which it is
called the "lang toun." Formerly it consisted of little besides High
Street, with closes and wynds branching off from it; but now that it has
absorbed Invertiel, Linktown and Abbotshall on the west, and Pathhead,
Sinclairtown and Gallatown on the east, it has reached a length of
nearly 4 m. Its public buildings include the parish church, in the
Gothic style, St Brycedale United Free church, with a spire 200 ft.
high, a town-hall, corn exchange, public libraries, assembly rooms,
fever hospital, sheriff court buildings, people's club and institute,
high school (1894)--on the site of the ancient burgh school (1582)--the
Beveridge hall and free library, and the Adam Smith memorial hall. To
the west lies Beveridge Park of 110 acres, including a large sheet of
water, which was presented to the town in 1892. The harbour has an inner
and outer division, with wet dock and wharves. Plans for its extension
were approved in 1903. They include the extension of the east pier, the
construction of a south pier 800 ft. in length, and of a tidal harbour 5
acres in area and a dock of 4 acres. Besides the manufacture of
sheeting, towelling, ticks, dowlas and sail-cloth, the principal
industries include flax-spinning, net-making, bleaching, dyeing,
tanning, brewing, brass and iron founding, and there are potteries,
flour-mills, engineering works, fisheries, and factories for the making
of oil-cloth and linoleum. In 1847 Michael Nairn conceived the notion of
utilizing the fibre of cork and oil-paint in such a way as to produce a
floor-covering more lasting than carpet and yet capable of taking a
pattern. The result of his experiments was oil-cloth, in the manufacture
of which Kirkcaldy has kept the predominance to which Nairn's enterprise
entitled it. Indeed, this and the kindred linoleum business (also due to
Nairn, who in 1877 built the first linoleum factory in Scotland) were
for many years the monopoly of Kirkcaldy. There is a large direct export
trade with the United States. Among well-known natives of the town were
Adam Smith, Henry Balnaves of Halhill, the Scottish reformer and lord of
session in the time of Queen Mary; George Gillespie, the theologian and
a leading member of the Westminster Assembly, and his younger brother
Patrick (1617-1675), a friend of Cromwell and principal of Glasgow
University; John Ritchie (1778-1870), one of the founders of the
_Scotsman_; General Sir John Oswald (1771-1840), who had a command at
San Sebastian and Vittoria. Sir Michael Scott of Balwearie castle, about
1(1/2) m. W. of the town, was sent with Sir David Wemyss to bring the
Maid of Norway to Scotland in 1290; Sir Walter Scott was therefore in
error in adopting the tradition that identified him with the wizard of
the same name, who died in 1234. Carlyle and Edward Irving were teachers
in the town, where Irving spent seven years, and where he made the
acquaintance of the lady he afterwards married. Kirkcaldy combines with
Dysart, Kinghorn and Burntisland to return one member to parliament.
KIRKCALDY OF GRANGE, SIR WILLIAM (c. 1520-1573), Scottish politician,
was the eldest son of Sir James Kirkcaldy of Grange (d. 1556), a member
of an old Fifeshire family. Sir James was lord high treasurer of
Scotland from 1537 to 1543 and was a determined opponent of Cardinal
Beaton, for whose murder in 1546 he was partly responsible. William
Kirkcaldy assisted to compass this murder, and when the castle of St
Andrews surrendered to the French in July 1547 he was sent as a prisoner
to Normandy, whence he escaped in 1550. He was then employed in France
as a secret agent by the advisers of Edward VI., being known in the
cyphers as _Corax_; and later he served in the French army, where he
gained a lasting reputation for skill and bravery. The sentence passed
on Kirkcaldy for his share in Beaton's murder was removed in 1556, and
returning to Scotland in 1557 he came quickly to the front; as a
Protestant he was one of the leaders of the lords of the congregation in
their struggle with the regent, Mary of Lorraine, and he assisted to
harass the French troops in Fife. He opposed Queen Mary's marriage with
Darnley, being associated at this time with Murray, and was forced for a
short time to seek refuge in England. Returning to Scotland, he was
accessory to the murder of Rizzio, but he had no share in that of
Darnley; and he was one of the lords who banded themselves together to
rescue Mary after her marriage with Bothwell. After the fight at
Carberry Hill the queen surrendered herself to Kirkcaldy, and his
generalship was mainly responsible for her defeat at Langside. He seems,
however, to have believed that an arrangement with Mary was possible,
and coming under the influence of Maitland of Lethington, whom in
September 1569 he released by a stratagem from his confinement in
Edinburgh, he was soon "vehemently suspected of his fellows." After the
murder of Murray Kirkcaldy ranged himself definitely among the friends
of the imprisoned queen. About this time he forcibly released one of his
supporters from imprisonment, a step which led to an altercation with
his former friend John Knox, who called him a "murderer and
throat-cutter." Defying the regent Lennox, Kirkcaldy began to strengthen
the fortifications of Edinburgh castle, of which he was governor, and
which he held for Mary, and early in 1573 he refused to come to an
agreement with the regent Morton because the terms of peace did not
include a section of his friends. After this some English troops arrived
to help the Scots, and in May 1573 the castle surrendered. Strenuous
efforts were made to save Kirkcaldy from the vengeance of his foes, but
they were unavailing; Knox had prophesied that he would be hanged, and
he was hanged on the 3rd of August 1573.
See Sir James Melville's _Memoirs_, edited by T. Thomson (Edinburgh,
1827); J. Grant, _Memoirs and Adventures of Sir W. Kirkaldy_
(Edinburgh, 1849); L. A. Barbe, _Kirkcaldy of Grange_ (1897); and A.
Lang, _History of Scotland_, vol. ii. (1902).
KIRKCUDBRIGHT (pron. _Ker-ku-bri_), a royal and police burgh, and county
town of Kirkcudbrightshire, Scotland. Pop. (1901), 2386. It is situated
at the mouth of the Dee, 6 m. from the sea and 30 m. S.W. of Dumfries by
the Glasgow & South-Western railway, being the terminus of a branch
line. The old form of the name of the town was Kilcudbrit, from the
Gaelic _Cil Cudbert_, "the chapel of Cuthbert," the saint's body having
lain here for a short time during the seven years that lapsed between
its exhumation at Lindisfarne and the re-interment at Chester-le-Street.
The estuary of the Dee is divided at its head by the peninsula of St
Mary's Isle, but though the harbour is the best in south-western
Scotland, the great distance to which the tide retreats impairs its
usefulness. Among the public buildings are the academy, Johnstone public
school, the county buildings, town-hall, museum, Mackenzie hall and
market cross, the last-named standing in front of the old court-house,
which is now used as a drill hall and fire-station. No traces remain of
the Greyfriars' or Franciscan convent founded by Alexander II., nor of
the nunnery that was erected in the parish of Kirkcudbright. The
ivy-clad ruins of Bomby castle, founded in 1582 by Sir Thomas Maclellan,
ancestor of the barons of Kirkcudbright, stand at the end of the chief
street. The town, which witnessed much of the international strife and
Border lawlessness, was taken by Edward I. in 1300. It received its
royal charter in 1455. After the battle of Towton, Henry VI. crossed the
Solway (August 1461) and landed at Kirkcudbright to join Queen Margaret
at Linlithgow. It successfully withstood the English siege in 1547 under
Sir Thomas Carleton, but after the country had been overrun was
compelled to surrender at discretion. Lord Maxwell, earl of Morton, as a
Roman Catholic, mustered his tenants here to act in concert with the
Armada; but on the approach of King James VI. to Dumfries he took ship
at Kirkcudbright and was speedily captured. The burgh is one of the
Dumfries district group of parliamentary burghs. On St Mary's Isle was
situated the seat of the earl of Selkirk, at whose house Robert Burns
gave the famous Selkirk grace:--
"Some ha'e meat; and canna eat,
And some wad eat that want it;
But we ha'e meat, and we can eat,
And sae the Lord be thankit."
Fergus, lord of Galloway, a celebrated church-builder of the 12th
century, had his principal seat on Palace Isle in a lake called after
him Loch Fergus, near St Mary's Isle, where he erected the priory de
Trayle, in token of his penitence for rebellion against David I. The
priory was afterwards united as a dependent cell to the abbey of
Holyrood. DUNDRENNAN ABBEY, 4(1/2) m. S.E., was, however, his greatest
achievement. It was a Cistercian house, colonized from Rievaulx, and was
built in 1140. There now remain only the transept and choir, a unique
example of the Early Pointed style. Tongueland (or Tungland), 2(1/2) m.
N. by E., has interesting historical associations. It was the site of a
Premonstratensian abbey built by Fergus, and it was here that Queen Mary
rested in her flight from the field of Langside (May 13, 1568). The well
near Tongueland bridge from which she drank still bears the name of the
Queen's Well.
KIRKCUDBRIGHTSHIRE (also known as the STEWARTRY OF KIRKCUDBRIGHT and
EAST GALLOWAY), a south-western county of Scotland, bounded N. and N.W.
by Ayrshire, W. and S.W. by Wigtownshire, S. and S.E. by the Irish Sea
and Solway Firth, and E. and N.E. by Dumfriesshire. It includes the
small islands of Hestan and Little Ross, which are utilized as
lighthouse stations. It has an area of 575,565 acres or 899 sq. m. The
north-western part of the shire is rugged, wild and desolate. In this
quarter the principal mountains are Merrick (2764 ft.), the highest in
the south of Scotland, and the group of the Rinns of Kells, the chief
peaks of which are Corscrine (2668), Carlins Cairn (2650), Meikle
Millyea (2446) and Millfire (2350). Towards the south-west the chief
eminences are Lamachan (2349), Larg (2216), and the bold mass of
Cairnsmore of Fleet (2331). In the south-east the only imposing height
is Criffel (1866). In the north rises the majestic hill of Cairnsmuir of
Carsphairn (2612), and close to the Ayrshire border is the Windy
Standard (2287). The southern section of the shire is mostly level or
undulating, but characterized by much picturesque scenery. The shore is
generally bold and rocky, indented by numerous estuaries forming natural
harbours, which however are of little use for commerce owing to the
shallowness of the sea. Large stretches of sand are exposed in the
Solway at low water and the rapid flow of the tide has often occasioned
loss of life. The number of "burns" and "waters" is remarkable, but
their length seldom exceeds 7 or 8 m. Among the longer rivers are the
Cree, which rises in Loch Moan and reaches the sea near Creetown after a
course of about 30 m., during which it forms the boundary, at first of
Ayrshire and then of Wigtownshire; the Dee or Black Water of Dee (so
named from the peat by which it is coloured), which rises in Loch Dee
and after a course mainly S.E. and finally S., enters the sea at St
Mary's Isle below Kirkcudbright, its length being nearly 36 m.; the Urr,
rising in Loch Urr on the Dumfriesshire border, falls into the sea a few
miles south of Dalbeattie 27 m. from its source; the Ken, rising on the
confines of Ayrshire, flows mainly in a southerly direction and joins
the Dee at the southern end of Loch Ken after a course of 24 m. through
lovely scenery; and the Deugh which, rising on the northern flank of the
Windy Standard, pursues an extraordinarily winding course of 20 m.
before reaching the Ken. The Nith, during the last few miles of its
flow, forms the boundary with Dumfriesshire, to which county it almost
wholly belongs. The lochs and mountain tarns are many and well
distributed; but except Loch Ken, which is about 6 m. long by 1/2 m.
wide, few of them attain noteworthy dimensions. There are several passes
in the hill regions, but the only well-known glen is Glen Trool, not far
from the district of Carrick in Ayrshire, the fame of which rests partly
on the romantic character of its scenery, which is very wild around Loch
Trool, and more especially on its associations with Robert Bruce. It was
here that when most closely beset by his enemies, who had tracked him to
his fastness by sleuth hounds, Bruce with the aid of a few faithful
followers won a surprise victory over the English in 1307 which proved
the turning-point of his fortunes.
_Geology._--Silurian and Ordovician rocks are the most important in
this county; they are thrown into oft-repeated folds with their axes
lying in a N.E.-S.W. direction. The Ordovician rocks are graptolitic
black shales and grits of Llandeilo and Caradoc age. They occupy all
the northern part of the county north-west of a line which runs some 3
m. N. of New Galloway and just S. of the Rinns of Kells. South-east of
this line graptolitic Silurian shales of Llandovery age prevail; they
are found around Dalry, Creetown, New Galloway, Castle Douglas and
Kirkcudbright. Overlying the Llandovery beds on the south coast are
strips of Wenlock rocks; they extend from Bridgehouse Bay to
Auchinleck and are well exposed in Kirkcudbright Bay, and they can be
traced farther round the coast between the granite and the younger
rocks. Carboniferous rocks appear in small faulted tracts,
unconformable on the Silurian, on the shores of the Solway Firth. They
are best developed about Kirkbean, where they include a basal red
breccia followed by conglomerates, grits and cement stones of
Calciferous Sandstone age. Brick-red sandstones of Permian age just
come within the county on the W. side of the Nith at Dumfries.
Volcanic necks occur in the Permian and basalt dikes penetrate the
Silurian at Borgue, Kirkandrews, &c. Most of the highest ground is
formed by the masses of granite which have been intruded into the
Ordovician and Silurian rocks; the Criffel mass lies about Dalbeattie
and Bengairn, another mass extends east and west between the
Cairnsmore of Fleet and Loch Ken, another lies N.W. and S.E. between
Loch Doon and Loch Dee and a small mass forms the Cairnsmore of
Carsphairn. Glacial deposits occupy much of the low ground; the ice,
having travelled in a southerly or south-easterly direction, has left
abundant striae on the higher ground to indicate its course. Radiation
of the ice streams took place from the heights of Merrick, Kells, &c.;
local moraines are found near Carsphairn and in the Deagh and Minnoch
valleys. Glacial drumlins of boulder clay lie in the vales of the Dee,
Cree and Urr.
_Climate and Agriculture._--The climate and soil are better fitted for
grass and green crops than for grain. The annual rainfall averages 45.7
in. The mean temperature for the year is 48 deg. F.; for January 38.5
deg.; for July 59 deg. The major part of the land is either waste or
poor pasture. More than half the holdings consist of 50 acres and over.
Oats is the predominant grain crop, the acreage under barley being small
and that under wheat insignificant. Turnips are successfully cultivated,
and potatoes are the only other green crop raised on a moderately large
scale. Sheep-rearing has been pursued with great enterprise. The average
is considerably in excess of that for Scotland. Blackfaced and Cheviots
are the most common on the high ground, and a cross of Leicester with
either is also in favour. Cattle-breeding is followed with steady
success; the black polled Galloway is the general breed, but Aryshires
have been introduced for dairying, cheese-making occupying much of the
farmers' attention. Horses are extensively raised, a breed of
small-sized hardy and spirited animals being specifically known as
Galloways. Most of the horses are used in agricultural work, but a large
number are also kept for stock; Clydesdales are bred to some extent.
Pig-rearing is an important pursuit, pork being supplied to the English
markets in considerable quantities. During the last quarter of the 19th
century the number of pigs increased 50%. Bee-keeping has been followed
with special care and the honey of the shire is consequently in good
repute. The proportion of woodland in the county is small.
_Industries._--The shire ranks next to Aberdeen as a granite-yielding
county and the quarries occupy a large number of hands. In some towns
and villages there are manufactures of linen, woollen and cotton goods;
at various places distilling, brewing, tanning and paper-making are
carried on, and at Dalbeattie there are brick and tile works. There is a
little ship-building at Kirkcudbright. The Solway fishery is of small
account, but salmon fishing is prosecuted at the mouth of certain
rivers, the Dee fish being notable for their excellence.
The only railway communication is by the Glasgow & South-Western railway
running from Dumfries to Castle Douglas, from which there is a branch to
Kirkcudbright, and the Portpatrick and Wigtownshire railway, beginning
at Castle Douglas and leaving the county at Newton Stewart. These are
supplemented by coaches between various points, as from New Galloway to
Carsphairn, from Dumfries to New Abbey and Dalbeattie, and from
Auchencairn to Dalbeattie.
_Population and Government._--The population was 39,985 in 1891 and
39,383 in 1901, when 98 persons spoke Gaelic and English. The chief
towns are Castle Douglas (pop. in 1901, 3018), Dalbeattie (3469),
Kirkcudbright (2386), Maxwelltown (5796) with Creetown (991), and
Gatehouse of Fleet (1013). The shire returns one member to parliament,
and the county town (Kirkcudbright) belongs to the Dumfries district
group of parliamentary burghs, and Maxwelltown is combined with
Dumfries. The county forms part of the sheriffdom of Dumfries and
Galloway, and there is a resident sheriff-substitute at Kirkcudbright.
The county is under school-board jurisdiction. There is an academy at
Kirkcudbright, high schools at Dumfries and Newton Stewart, and
technical classes at Kirkcudbright, Dalbeattie, Castle Douglas and
Dumfries.
_History._--The country west of the Nith was originally peopled by a
tribe of Celtic Gaels called Novantae, or Atecott Picts, who, owing to
their geographical position, which prevented any ready intermingling
with the other Pictish tribes farther north, long retained their
independence. After Agricola's invasion in A.D. 79 the country nominally
formed part of the Roman province, but the evidence is against there
ever having been a prolonged effective Roman occupation. After the
retreat of the Romans the Novantae remained for a time under their own
chiefs, but in the 7th century accepted the overlordship of Northumbria.
The Saxons, soon engaged in struggles with the Norsemen, had no leisure
to look after their tributaries, and early in the 9th century the
Atecotts made common cause with the Vikings. Henceforward they were
styled, probably in contempt, _Gallgaidhel_, or stranger Gaels (i.e.
Gaels who fraternized with the foreigners), the Welsh equivalent for
which, _Gallwyddel_, gave rise to the name of _Galloway_ (of which
Galway is a variant), which was applied to their territory and still
denotes the Stewartry of Kirkcudbright and the shire of Wigtown. When
Scotland was consolidated under Kenneth MacAlpine (crowned at Scone in
844), Galloway was the only district in the south that did not form part
of the kingdom; but in return for the services rendered to him at this
crisis Kenneth gave his daughter in marriage to the Galloway chief, Olaf
the White, and also conferred upon the men of Galloway the privilege of
marching in the van of the Scottish armies, a right exercised and
recognized for several centuries. During the next two hundred years the
country had no rest from Danish and Saxon incursions and the continual
lawlessness of the Scandinavian rovers. When Malcolm Canmore defeated
and slew Macbeth in 1057 he married the dead king's widow Ingibiorg, a
Pictish princess, an event which marked the beginning of the decay of
Norse influence. The Galloway chiefs hesitated for a time whether to
throw in their lot with the Northumbrians or with Malcolm; but language,
race and the situation of their country at length induced them to become
lieges of the Scottish king. By the close of the 11th century the
boundary between England and Scotland was roughly delimited on existing
lines. The feudal system ultimately destroyed the power of the Galloway
chiefs, who resisted the innovation to the last. Several of the lords or
"kings" of Galloway, a line said to have been founded by Fergus, the
greatest of them all, asserted in vain their independence of the
Scottish crown; and in 1234 the line became extinct in the male branch
on the death of Fergus's great-grandson Alan. One of Alan's daughters,
Dervorguila, had married John de Baliol (father of the John de Baliol
who was king of Scotland from 1292 until his abdication in 1296), and
the people, out of affection for Alan's daughter, were lukewarm in
support of Robert Bruce. In 1308 the district was cleared of the English
and brought under allegiance to the king, when the lordship of Galloway
was given to Edward Bruce. Later in the 14th century Galloway espoused
the cause of Edward Baliol, who surrendered several counties, including
Kirkcudbright, to Edward III. In 1372 Archibald the Grim, a natural son
of Sir James Douglas "the Good," became Lord of Galloway and received in
perpetual fee the Crown lands between the Nith and Cree. He appointed a
steward to collect his revenues and administer justice, and there thus
arose the designation of the _Stewartry_ of Kirkcudbright. The
high-handed rule of the Douglases created general discontent, and when
their treason became apparent their territory was overrun by the king's
men in 1455; Douglas was attainted, and his honours and estates were
forfeited. In that year the great stronghold of the Thrieve, the most
important fortress in Galloway, which Archibald the Grim had built on
the Dee immediately to the west of the modern town of Castle Douglas,
was reduced and converted into a royal keep. (It was dismantled in 1640
by order of the Estates in consequence of the hostility of its keeper,
Lord Nithsdale, to the Covenant.) The famous cannon Mons Meg, now in
Edinburgh Castle, is said, apparently on insufficient evidence, to have
been constructed in order to aid James III. in this siege. As the
Douglases went down the Maxwells rose, and the debateable land on the
south-east of Dumfriesshire was for generations the scene of strife and
raid, not only between the two nations but also among the leading
families, of whom the Maxwells, Johnstones and Armstrongs were always
conspicuous. After the battle of Solway Moss (1542) the shires of
Kirkcudbright and Dumfries fell under English rule for a short period.
The treaty of Norham (March 24, 1550) established a truce between the
nations for ten years; and in 1552, the Wardens of the Marches
consenting, the debateable land ceased to be matter for debate, the
parish of Canonbie being annexed to Dumfriesshire, that of Kirkandrews
to Cumberland. Though at the Reformation the Stewartry became fervent in
its Protestantism, it was to Galloway, through the influence of the
great landowners and the attachment of the people to them, that Mary
owed her warmest adherents, and it was from the coast of Kirkcudbright
that she made her luckless voyage to England. Even when the crowns were
united in 1603 turbulence continued; for trouble arose over the attempt
to establish episcopacy, and nowhere were the Covenanters more cruelly
persecuted than in Galloway. After the union things mended slowly but
surely, curious evidence of growing commercial prosperity being the
enormous extent to which smuggling was carried on. No coast could serve
the "free traders" better than the shores of Kirkcudbright, and the
contraband trade flourished till the 19th century. The Jacobite risings
of 1715 and 1745 elicited small sympathy from the inhabitants of the
shire.
See Sir Herbert Maxwell, _History of Dumfries and Galloway_
(Edinburgh, 1896); Rev. Andrew Symson, _A Large Description of
Galloway_ (1684; new ed., 1823); Thomas Murray, _The Literary History
of Galloway_ (1822); Rev. William Mackenzie, _History of Galloway_
(1841); P. H. McKerlie, _History of the Lands and their Owners in
Galloway_ (Edinburgh, 1870-1879); _Galloway Ancient and Modern_
(Edinburgh, 1891); J. A. H. Murray, _Dialect of the Southern Counties
of Scotland_ (London, 1873).
KIRKE, PERCY (c. 1646-1691), English soldier, was the son of George
Kirke, a court official to Charles I. and Charles II. In 1666 he
obtained his first commission in the Lord Admiral's regiment, and
subsequently served in the Blues. He was with Monmouth at Maestricht
(1673), and was present during two campaigns with Turenne on the Rhine.
In 1680 he became lieutenant-colonel, and soon afterwards colonel of one
of the Tangier regiments (afterwards the King's Own Royal Lancaster
Regt.) In 1682 Kirke became governor of Tangier, and colonel of the old
Tangier regiment (afterwards the Queen's Royal West Surrey). He
distinguished himself very greatly as governor, though he gave offence
by the roughness of his manners and the wildness of his life. On the
evacuation of Tangier "Kirke's Lambs" (so called from their badge)
returned to England, and a year later their colonel served as a
brigadier in Faversham's army. After Sedgemoor the rebels were treated
with great severity; but the charges so often brought against the
"Lambs" are now known to be exaggerated, though the regiment shared to
the full in the ruthless hunting down of the fugitives. It is often
stated that it formed Jeffreys's escort in the "Bloody Assize," but this
is erroneous. Brigadier Kirke took a notable part in the Revolution
three years later, and William III. promoted him. He commanded at the
relief of Derry, and made his last campaign in Flanders in 1691. He
died, a lieutenant-general, at Brussels in October of that year. His
eldest son, Lieut.-General Percy Kirke (1684-1741), was also colonel of
the "Lambs."
KIRKEE (or KIRKI), a town and military cantonment of British India in
Poona district, Bombay, 4 m. N.W. of Poona city. Pop. (1901), 10,797. It
is the principal artillery station in the Bombay presidency, and has a
large ammunition factory. It was the scene of a victory over Baji Rao,
the last peshwa, in 1817.
KIRKINTILLOCH, a municipal and police burgh of Dumbartonshire, Scotland.
Pop. (1901), 10,680. It is situated 8 m. N.E. of Glasgow, by the North
British railway, a portion of the parish extending into Lanarkshire. It
lies on the Forth & Clyde canal, and the Kelvin--from which Lord Kelvin,
the distinguished scientist, took the title of his barony--flows past
the town, where it receives from the north the Glazert and from the
south the Luggie, commemorated by David Gray. The Wall of Antoninus ran
through the site of the town, the Gaelic name of which (_Caer_, a fort,
not _Kirk_, a church) means "the fort at the end of the ridge." The town
became a burgh of barony under the Comyns in 1170. The cruciform parish
church with crow-stepped gables dates from 1644. The public buildings
include the town-hall, with a clock tower, the temperance hall, a
convalescent home, the Broomhill home for incurables (largely due to
Miss Beatrice Clugston, to whom a memorial was erected in 1891), and the
Westermains asylum. In 1898 the burgh acquired as a private park the
Peel, containing traces of the Roman Wall, a fort, and the foundation of
Comyn's Castle. The leading industries are chemical manufactures,
iron-founding, muslin-weaving, coal mining and timber sawing. LENZIE, a
suburb, a mile to the south of the old town, contains the imposing
towered edifice in the Elizabethan style which houses the Barony asylum.
David Gray, the poet, was born at Merkland, near by, and is buried in
Kirkintilloch churchyard, where a monument was erected to his memory in
1865.
KIRK-KILISSEH (KIRK-KILISSE or KIRK-KILISSIA), a town of European
Turkey, in the vilayet of Adrianople, 35 m. E. of Adrianople. Pop.
(1905), about 16,000, of whom about half are Greeks, and the remainder
Bulgarians, Turks and Jews. Kirk-Kilisseh is built near the headwaters
of several small tributaries of the river Ergene, and on the western
slope of the Istranja Dagh. It owes its chief importance to its position
at the southern outlet of the Fakhi defile over these mountains, through
which passes the shortest road from Shumla to Constantinople. The name
Kirk-Kilisseh signifies "four churches," and the town possesses many
mosques and Greek churches. It has an important trade with
Constantinople in butter and cheese, and also exports wine, brandy,
cereals and tobacco.
KIRKSVILLE, a city and the county-seat of Adair county, Missouri,
U.S.A., about 129 m. N. by W. of Jefferson City. Pop. (1900), 5966,
including 112 foreign-born and 291 negroes; (1910), 6347. It is served
by the Wabash and the Quincy, Omaha & Kansas City railways. It lies on a
rolling prairie at an elevation of 975 ft. above the sea. It is the seat
of the First District Missouri State Normal School (1870); of the
American School of Osteopathy (opened 1892); and of the related A. T.
Still Infirmary (incorporated 1895), named in honour of its founder,
Andrew Taylor Still (b. 1820), the originator of osteopathic treatment,
who settled here in 1875. In 1908 the School of Osteopathy had 18
instructors and 398 students. Grain and fruit are grown in large
quantities, and much coal is mined in the vicinity of Kirksville. Its
manufactures are shoes, bricks, lumber, ice, agricultural implements,
wagons and handles. Kirksville was laid out in 1842, and was named in
honour of Jesse Kirk. It was incorporated as a town in 1857 and
chartered as a city of the third class in 1892. In April 1899 a cyclone
caused serious damage to the city.
KIRKWALL (Norse, _Kirkjuvagr_, "church bay"), a royal, municipal and
police burgh, seaport and capital of the Orkney Islands, county of
Orkney, Scotland. Pop. (1901), 3711. It is situated at the head of a bay
of the same name on the east of the island of Pomona, or Mainland, 247
m. N. of Leith and 54 m. N. of Wick by steamer. Much of the city is
quaint-looking and old-fashioned, its main street (nearly 1 m. long)
being in parts so narrow that two vehicles cannot pass each other. The
more modern quarters are built with great regularity and the suburbs
contain several substantial villas surrounded by gardens. Kirkwall has
very few manufactures. The linen trade introduced in the middle of the
18th century is extinct, and a like fate has overtaken the kelp and
straw-plaiting industries. Distilling however prospers, and the town is
important not only as regards its shipping and the deep-sea fishery, but
also as a distributing centre for the islands and the seat of the
superior law courts. The port has two piers. Kirkwall received its first
charter from James III. in 1486, but the provisions of this instrument
being disregarded by such men as Robert (d. 1592) and Patrick Stewart
(d. 1614), 1st and 2nd earls of Orkney, and others, the Scottish
parliament passed an act in 1670 confirming the charter granted by
Charles II. in 1661. The prime object of interest is the cathedral of St
Magnus, a stately cruciform red sandstone structure in the severest
Norman, with touches of Gothic. It was founded by Jarl Rognvald (Earl
Ronald) in 1137 in memory of his uncle Jarl Magnus who was assassinated
in the island of Egilshay in 1115, and afterwards canonized and adopted
as the patron saint of the Orkneys. The remains of St Magnus were
ultimately interred in the cathedral. The church is 234 ft. long from
east to west and 56 ft. broad, 71 ft. high from floor to roof, and 133
ft. to the top of the present spire--the transepts being the oldest
portion. The choir was lengthened and the beautiful eastern rose window
added by Bishop Stewart in 1511, and the porch and the western end of
the nave were finished in 1540 by Bishop Robert Reid. Saving that the
upper half of the original spire was struck by lightning in 1671, and
not rebuilt, the cathedral is complete at all points, but it underwent
extensive repairs in the 19th century. The disproportionate height and
narrowness of the building lend it a certain distinction which otherwise
it would have lacked. The sandstone has not resisted the effects of
weather, and much of the external decorative work has perished. The
choir is used as the parish church. The _skellat_, or fire-bell, is not
rung now. The church of St Olaf, from which the town took its name, was
burned down by the English in 1502; and of the church erected on its
site by Bishop Reid--the greatest building the Orkneys ever had--little
more than the merest fragment survives. Nothing remains of the old
castle, a fortress of remarkable strength founded by Sir Henry Sinclair
(d. 1400), earl and prince of Orkney and 1st earl of Caithness, its last
vestiges having been demolished in 1865 to provide better access to the
harbour; and the earthwork to the east of the town thrown up by the
Cromwellians has been converted into a battery of the Orkney Artillery
Volunteers. Adjoining the cathedral are the ruins of the bishop's
palace, in which King Haco died after his defeat at Largs in 1263. The
round tower, which still stands, was added in 1550 by Bishop Reid. It is
known as the Mass Tower and contains a niche in which is a small effigy
believed to represent the founder, who also endowed the grammar school
which is still in existence. To the east of the remains of the bishop's
palace are the ruins of the earl's palace, a structure in the Scottish
Baronial style, built about 1600 for Patrick Stewart, 2nd earl of
Orkney, and on his forfeiture given to the bishops for a residence.
Tankerness House is a characteristic example of the mansion of an Orkney
laird of the olden time. Other public buildings include the municipal
buildings, the sheriff court and county buildings, Balfour hospital, and
the fever hospital. There is daily communication with Scrabster pier
(Thurso), via Scapa pier, on the southern side of the waist of Pomona,
about 1(1/2) m. to the S. of Kirkwall; and steamers sail at regular
intervals from the harbour to Wick, Aberdeen and Leith. Good roads place
the capital in touch with most places in the island and a coach runs
twice a day to Stromness. Kirkwall belongs to the Wick district group of
parliamentary burghs, the others being Cromarty, Dingwall, Dornoch and
Tain.
KIRRIEMUIR, a police burgh of Forfarshire, Scotland. Pop. (1901), 4096.
It is situated on a height above the glen through which the Gairie
flows, 6(1/4) m. N.W. of Forfar by a branch line of the Caledonian railway
of which it is the terminus. There are libraries, a public hall and a
park. The staple industry is linen-weaving. The hand-loom lingered
longer here than in any other place in Scotland and is not yet wholly
extinct. The Rev. Dr Alexander Whyte (b. 1837) and J. M. Barrie (b.
1860) are natives, the latter having made the town famous under the name
of "Thrums." The original Secession church--the kirk of the Auld
Lichts--was founded in 1806 and rebuilt in 1893. Kinnordy, 1(1/2) m. N.W.,
was the birthplace of Sir Charles Lyell the geologist; and Cortachy
castle, a fine mansion in the Scottish Baronial style, about 4 m. N., is
the seat of the earl of Airlie.
KIRSCH (or KIRSCHENWASSER), a potable spirit distilled from cherries.
Kirsch is manufactured chiefly in the Black Forest in Germany, and in
the Vosges and Jura districts in France. Generally the raw material
consists of the wild cherry known as _Cerasus avium_. The cherries are
subjected to natural fermentation and subsequent distillation.
Occasionally a certain quantity of sugar and water are added to the
cherries after crushing, and the mass so obtained is filtered or pressed
prior to fermentation. The spirit is usually "run" at a strength of
about 50% of absolute alcohol. Compared with brandy or whisky the
characteristic features of kirsch are (a) that it contains relatively
large quantities of higher alcohols and compound ethers, and (b) the
presence in this spirit of small quantities of hydrocyanic acid, partly
as such and partly in combination as benzaldehyde-cyanhydrine, to which
the distinctive flavour of kirsch is largely due.
KIR-SHEHER, the chief town of a sanjak of the same name in the Angora
vilayet of Asia Minor, situated on a tributary of the Kizil Irmak
(_Halys_), on the Angora-Kaisarieh road. It is on the line of the
projected railway from Angora to Kaisarieh. The town gives its name to
the excellent carpets made in the vicinity. On the outskirts there is a
hot chalybeate spring. Population about 9000 (700 Christians, mostly
Armenians). Kir-sheher represents the ancient _Mocissus_, a small town
which became important in the Byzantine period: it was enlarged by the
emperor Justinian, who re-named it _Justinianopolis_, and made it the
capital of a large division of Cappadocia, a position it still retains.
KIRWAN, RICHARD (1733-1812), Irish scientist, was born at
Cloughballymore, Co. Galway, in 1733. Part of his early life was spent
abroad, and in 1754 he entered the Jesuit novitiate either at St Omer or
at Hesdin, but returned to Ireland in the following year, when he
succeeded to the family estates through the death of his brother in a
duel. In 1766, having conformed to the established religion two years
previously, he was called to the Irish bar, but in 1768 abandoned
practice in favour of scientific pursuits. During the next nineteen
years he resided chiefly in London, enjoying the society of the
scientific men living there, and corresponding with many savants on the
continent of Europe, as his wide knowledge of languages enabled him to
do with ease. His experiments on the specific gravities and attractive
powers of various saline substances formed a substantial contribution to
the methods of analytical chemistry, and in 1782 gained him the Copley
medal from the Royal Society, of which he was elected a fellow in 1780;
and in 1784 he was engaged in a controversy with Cavendish in regard to
the latter's experiments on air. In 1787 he removed to Dublin, where
four years later he became president of the Royal Irish Academy. To its
proceedings he contributed some thirty-eight memoirs, dealing with
meteorology, pure and applied chemistry, geology, magnetism, philology,
&c. One of these, on the primitive state of the globe and its subsequent
catastrophe, involved him in a lively dispute with the upholders of the
Huttonian theory. His geological work was marred by an implicit belief
in the universal deluge, and through finding fossils associated with the
trap rocks near Portrush he maintained basalt was of aqueous origin. He
was one of the last supporters in England of the phlogistic hypothesis,
for which he contended in his _Essay on Phlogiston and the Constitution
of Acids_ (1787), identifying phlogiston with hydrogen. This work,
translated by Madame Lavoisier, was published in French with critical
notes by Lavoisier and some of his associates; Kirwan attempted to
refute their arguments, but they proved too strong for him, and he
acknowledged himself a convert in 1791. His other books included
_Elements of Mineralogy_ (1784), which was the first systematic work on
that subject in the English language, and which long remained standard;
_An Estimate of the Temperature of Different Latitudes_ (1787); _Essay
of the Analysis of Mineral Waters_ (1799), and _Geological Essays_
(1799). In his later years he turned to philosophical questions,
producing a paper on human liberty in 1798, a treatise on logic in 1807,
and a volume of metaphysical essays in 1811, none of any worth. Various
stories are told of his eccentricities as well as of his conversational
powers. He died in Dublin in June 1812.
KISFALUDY, KAROLY [CHARLES] (1788-1830), Hungarian author, was born at
Tete, near Raab, on the 6th of February 1788. His birth cost his mother
her life and himself his father's undying hatred. He entered the army as
a cadet in 1804; saw active service in Italy, Servia and Bavaria
(1805-1809), especially distinguishing himself at the battle of Leoben
(May 25, 1809), and returned to his quarters at Pest with the rank of
first lieutenant. It was during the war that he composed his first
poems, e.g. the tragedy _Gyilkos_ ("The Murder," 1808), and numerous
martial songs for the encouragement of his comrades. It was now, too,
that he fell hopelessly in love with the beautiful Katalin Heppler, the
daughter of a wealthy tobacco merchant. Tiring of the monotony of a
soldier's life, yet unwilling to sacrifice his liberty to follow
commerce or enter the civil service, Kisfaludy, contrary to his father's
wishes, now threw up his commission and made his home at the house of a
married sister at Vorrock, where he could follow his inclinations. In
1812 he studied painting at the Vienna academy and supported himself
precariously by his brush and pencil, till the theatre at Vienna proved
a still stronger attraction. In 1812 he wrote the tragedy _Klara Zach_,
and in 1815 went to Italy to study art more thoroughly. But he was back
again within six months, and for the next three years flitted from place
to place, living on the charity of his friends, lodging in hovels and
dashing off scores of daubs which rarely found a market. The united and
repeated petitions of the whole Kisfaludy family failed to bring about a
reconciliation between the elder Kisfaludy and his prodigal son. It was
the success of his drama _Ilka_, written for the Fehervar dramatic
society, that first made him famous and prosperous. The play was greeted
with enthusiasm both at Fehervar and Buda (1819). Subsequent plays, _The
Voivode Stiber_ and _The Petitioners_ (the first original Magyar
dramas), were equally successful. Kisfaludy's fame began to spread. He
had found his true vocation as the creator of the Hungarian drama. In
May 1820 he wrote three new plays for the dramatic society (he could
always turn out a five-act drama in four days) which still further
increased his reputation. From 1820 onwards, under the influence of the
great critic Kazinczy, he learnt to polish and refine his style, while
his friend and adviser Gyorgy Gaal (who translated some of his dramas
for the Vienna stage) introduced him to the works of Shakespeare and
Goethe. By this time Kisfaludy had evolved a literary theory of his own
which inclined towards romanticism; and in collaboration with his elder
brother Alexander (see below) he founded the periodical _Aurora_ (1822),
which he edited to the day of his death. The _Aurora_ was a notable
phenomenon in Magyar literature. It attracted towards it many of the
rising young authors of the day (including Vorosmarty, Bajza and
Czuczor) and speedily became the oracle of the romanticists. Kisfaludy's
material position had now greatly improved, but he could not shake off
his old recklessness and generosity, and he was never able to pay a
tithe of his debts. The publication of _Aurora_ so engrossed his time
that practically he abandoned the stage. But he contributed to _Aurora_
ballads, epigrams, short epic pieces, and, best of all, his comic
stories. Kisfaludy was in fact the founder of the school of Magyar
humorists and his comic types amuse and delight to this day. When the
folk-tale became popular in Europe, Kisfaludy set to work upon
folk-tales also and produced (1828) some of the masterpieces of that
genre. He died on the 21st of November 1830. Six years later the great
literary society of Hungary, the _Kisfaludy Tarsasag_, was founded to
commemorate his genius. Apart from his own works it is the supreme merit
of Kisfaludy to have revived and nationalized the Magyar literature,
giving it a range and scope undreamed of before his time.
The first edition of Kisfaludy's works, in 10 volumes, appeared at
Buda in 1831, shortly after his death, but the 7th edition (Budapest
1893) is the best and fullest. See Ferenc Toldy, _Lives of the Magyar
Poets_ (Hung.) (Budapest, 1870); Zsolt Beothy, _The Father of
Hungarian Comedy_ (Budapest, 1882); Tamas Szana, _The Two Kisfaludys_
(Hung.) (Budapest, 1876). Kisfaludy's struggles and adventures are
also most vividly described in Jokai's novel, _Eppur si muove_
(Hung.).
SANDOR [ALEXANDER] KISFALUDY (1772-1844), Hungarian poet, elder brother
of the preceding, was born at Zala on the 27th of September 1772,
educated at Raab, and graduated in philosophy and jurisprudence at
Pressburg. He early fell under the influence of Schiller and Kleist, and
devoted himself to the resuscitation of the almost extinct Hungarian
literature. Disgusted with his profession, the law, he entered the Life
Guards (1793) and plunged into the gay life of Vienna, cultivating
literature, learning French, German and Italian, painting, sketching,
assiduously frequenting the theatre, and consorting on equal terms with
all the literary celebrities of the Austrian capital. In 1796 he was
transferred to the army in Italy for being concerned with some of his
brother officers of the Vienna garrison in certain irregularities. When
Milan was captured by Napoleon Kisfaludy was sent a prisoner of war to
Vaucluse, where he studied Petrarch with enthusiasm and fell violently
in love with Caroline D'Esclapon, a kindred spirit to whom he addressed
his melancholy _Himfy Lays_, the first part of the subsequently famous
sonnets. On returning to Austria he served with some distinction in the
campaigns of 1798 and 1799 on the Rhine and in Switzerland; but tiring
of a military life and disgusted at the slowness of his promotion, he
quitted the army in September 1799, and married his old love Roza
Szegedy at the beginning of 1800. The first five happy years of their
life were passed at Kam in Vas county, but in 1805 they removed to Sumeg
where Kisfaludy gave himself up entirely to literature.
At the beginning of the 19th century he had published a volume of
erotics which made him famous, and his reputation was still further
increased by his _Regek_ or Tales. During the troublous times of 1809,
when the gentry of Zala county founded a confederation, the palatine
appointed Kisfaludy one of his adjutants. Subsequently, by command, he
wrote an account of the movement for presentation to King Francis, which
was committed to the secret archives, and Kisfaludy was forbidden to
communicate its contents. In 1820 the Marczebanya Institute crowned his
_Tales_ and the palatine presented him with a prize of 400 florins in
the hall of the Pest county council. In 1822 he started the _Aurora_
with his younger brother Karoly (see above). When the academy was
founded in 1830 Kisfaludy was the first county member elected to it. In
1835 he resigned because he was obliged to share the honour of winning
the academy's grand prize with Vorosmarty. After the death of his first
wife (1832) he married a second time, but by neither of his wives had he
any child. The remainder of his days were spent in his Tusculum among
the vineyards of Sumeg and Somla. He died on the 28th of October 1844.
Alexander Kisfaludy stands alone among the rising literary schools of
his day. He was not even influenced by his friend the great critic
Kazinczy, who gave the tone to the young classical writers of his day.
Kisfaludy's art was self-taught, solitary and absolutely independent. If
he imitated any one it was Petrarch; indeed his famous _Himfy szerelmei_
("The Loves of Himfy"), as his collected sonnets are called, have won
for him the title of "The Hungarian Petrarch." But the passion of
Kisfaludy is far more sincere and real than ever Petrarch's was, and he
completely Magyarized everything he borrowed. After finishing the
sonnets Kisfaludy devoted himself to more objective writing, as in the
incomparable _Regek_, which reproduce the scenery and the history of the
delightful counties which surround Lake Balaton. He also contributed
numerous tales and other pieces to _Aurora_. Far less successful were
his plays, of which _Hunyadi Janos_ (1816), by far the longest drama in
the Hungarian language, need alone be mentioned.
The best critical edition of Sandor Kisfaludy's works is the fourth
complete edition, by David Angyal, in eight volumes (Budapest, 1893).
See Tamas Szana, _The two Kisfaludys_ (Hung.) (Budapest, 1876); Imre
Sandor, _The Influence of the Italian on the Hungarian Literature_
(Hung.) (Budapest, 1878); Kalman Sumegi, _Kisfaludy and his Tales_
(Hung.) (Budapest, 1877). (R. N. B.)
KISH, or KAIS (the first form is Persian and the second Arabic), an
island in the Persian Gulf. It is mentioned in the 12th century as being
the residence of an Arab pirate from Oman, who exacted a tribute from
the pearl fisheries of the gulf and had the title of "King of the Sea,"
and it rose to importance in the 13th century with the fall of Siraf as
a transit station of the trade between India and the West. In the 14th
century it was supplanted by Hormuz and lapsed into its former
insignificance. The island is nearly 10 m. long and 5 m. broad, and
contains a number of small villages, the largest, Mashi, with about 100
houses, being situated on its north-eastern corner in 26 deg. 34' N. and
54 deg. 2' E. The highest part of the island has an elevation of 120 ft.
The inhabitants are Arabs, and nearly all pearl fishers, possessing many
boats, which they take to the pearl banks on the Arabian coast. The
water supply is scanty and there is little vegetation, but sufficient
for sustaining some flocks of sheep and goats and some cattle. Near the
centre of the north coast are the ruins of the old city, now known as
Harira, with remains of a mosque, with octagonal columns, masonry,
water-cisterns (two 150 ft. long, 40 ft. broad, 24 ft. deep) and a fine
underground canal, or aqueduct, half a mile long and cut in the solid
rock 20 ft. below the surface. Fragments of glazed tiles and brown and
blue pottery, of thin white and blue Chinese porcelain, of green celadon
(some with white scroll-work or figures in relief), glass beads,
bangles, &c., are abundant. Kish is the Kataia of Arrian; Chisi and Quis
of Marco Polo; Quixi, Queis, Caez, Cais, &c., of Portuguese writers; and
Khenn, or Kenn, of English.
KISHANGARH, a native state of India, in the Rajputana agency. Area, 858
sq. m.; pop. (1901), 90,970, showing a decrease of 27% in the decade,
due to the famine of 1899-1900; estimated revenue, L34,000; there is no
tribute. The state was founded in the reign of the emperor Akbar, by a
younger son of the raja of Jodhpur. In 1818 Kishangarh first came into
direct relations with the British government, by entering into a treaty,
together with the other Rajput states, for the suppression of the
Pindari marauders by whom the country was at that time overrun. The
chief, whose title is maharaja, is a Rajput of the Rathor clan. Maharaja
Madan Singh ascended the throne in 1900 at the age of sixteen, and
attended the Delhi Durbar of 1903 as a cadet in the Imperial Cadet
Corps. The administration, under the _diwan_, is highly spoken of.
Irrigation from tanks and wells has been extended; factories for ginning
and pressing cotton have been started; and the social reform movement,
for discouraging excessive expenditure on marriages, has been very
successful. The state is traversed by the Rajputana railway. The town of
KISHANGARH is 18 m. N.W. of Ajmere by rail. Pop. (1901), 12,663. It is
the residence of many Jain merchants.
KISHINEV (_Kishlanow_ of the Moldavians), a town of south-west Russia,
capital of the government of Bessarabia, situated on the right bank of
the Byk, a tributary of the Dniester, and on the railway between Odessa
and Jassy in Rumania, 120 m. W.N.W. from the former. At the beginning of
the 19th century it was but a poor village, and in 1812 when it was
acquired by Russia from Moldavia it had only 7000 inhabitants; twenty
years later its population numbered 35,000, while in 1862 it had with
its suburbs 92,000 inhabitants, and in 1900 125,787, composed of the
most varied nationalities--Moldavians, Walachians, Russians, Jews (43%),
Bulgarians, Tatars, Germans and Gypsies. A massacre (_pogrom_) of the
Jews was perpetrated here in 1903. The town consists of two parts--the
old or lower town, on the banks of the Byk, and the new or upper town,
situated on high crags, 450 to 500 ft. above the river. The wide suburbs
are remarkable for their gardens, which produce great quantities of
fruits (especially plums, which are dried and exported), tobacco,
mulberry leaves for silkworms, and wine. The buildings of the town are
sombre, shabby and low, but built of stone; and the streets, though wide
and shaded by acacias, are mostly unpaved. Kishinev is the seat of the
archbishop of Bessarabia, and has a cathedral, an ecclesiastical
seminary with 800 students, a college, and a gardening school, a museum,
a public library, a botanic garden, and a sanatorium with sulphur
springs. The town is adorned with statues of Tsar Alexander II. (1886)
and the poet Pushkin (1885). There are tallow-melting houses, steam
flour-mills, candle and soap works, distilleries and tobacco factories.
The trade is very active and increasing, Kishinev being a centre for the
Bessarabian trade in grain, wine, tobacco, tallow, wool and skins,
exported to Austria and to Odessa. The town played an important part in
the war between Russia and Turkey in 1877-78, as the chief centre of the
Russian invasion.
KISHM (also Arab. _Jazirat ut-tawilah_, Pers. _Jazarih i daraz_, i.e.
Long Island), an island at the mouth of the Persian Gulf, separated from
the Persian mainland by the Khor-i-Jafari, a strait which at its
narrowest point is less than 2 m. broad. On British Admiralty charts it
figures as "Clarence Strait," the name given to it by British surveyors
in 1828 in honour of the duke of Clarence (William IV.). The island is
70 m. long, its main axis running E.N.E. by W.S.W. Its greatest breadth
is 22 m. and the mean breadth about 7 m. A range of hills from 300 to
600 ft. high, with strongly marked escarpments, runs nearly parallel to
the southern coast; they are largely composed, like those of Hormuz and
the neighbouring mainland, of rock salt, which is regularly quarried in
several places, principally at Nimakdan (i.e. salt-cellar) and Salakh on
the south coast, and forms one of the chief products of the island,
finding its way to Muscat, India and Zanzibar. In the centre of the
island some hills, consisting of sandstone and marl, rise to an
elevation of 1300 ft. In its general aspect the island is parched and
barren-looking, like the south of Persia, but it contains fertile
portions, which produce grain, dates, grapes, melons, &c. Traces of
naphtha were observed near Salakh, but extensive boring operations in
1892 did not lead to any result. The town of Kishm (pop. 5000) is on the
eastern extremity of the island. The famous navigator, William Baffin,
was killed here in January 1622 by a shot from the Portuguese castle
close by, which a British force was then besieging. Lafit (Laft, Leit),
the next place in importance (reduced by a British fleet in 1809), is
situated about midway on the northern coast in the most fertile part of
the island. There are also many flourishing villages. At Basidu or
Bassadore (correct name Baba Sa'idu), on the western extremity of the
island, the British government maintained until 1879 a sanatorium for
the crews of their gunboats in the gulf, with barracks for a company of
sepoys belonging to the marine battalion at Bombay, workshops, hospital,
&c. The village is still British property, but its occupants are reduced
to a couple of men in charge of a coal depot, a provision store and
about 90 villagers. In December 1896 a terrible earthquake destroyed
about four-fifths of the houses on the island and over 1000 persons lost
their lives. The total population is generally estimated at about 15,000
to 20,000, but the German Admiralty's _Segelhandbuch fur den Persischen
Golf_ for 1907 has 40,000.
Kishm is the ancient _Oaracta_, or _Uorochta_, a name said to have
survived until recently in a village called Brokt, or Brokht. It was
also called the island of the Beni Kavan, from an Arab tribe of that
name which came from Oman. (A. H.-S.)
KISKUNFELEGYHAZA, a town of Hungary, in the county of
Pest-Pilis-Solt-Kiskun, 80 m. S.S.E. of Budapest by rail. Pop. (1900),
33,242. Among the principal buildings are a fine town hall, a Roman
Catholic gymnasium and a modern large parish church. The surrounding
country is covered with vineyards, fruit gardens, and tobacco and corn
fields. The town itself, which is an important railway junction, is
chiefly noted for its great cattle-market. Numerous Roman urns and other
ancient relics have been dug up in the vicinity. In the 17th century the
town was completely destroyed by the Turks, and it was not recolonized
and rebuilt till 1743.
KISLOVODSK, a town and health-resort of Russian Caucasia, in the
province of Terek, situated at an altitude of 2690 ft., in a deep
caldron-shaped valley on the N. side of the Caucasus, 40 m. by rail S.W.
of Pyatigorsk. Pop. (1897), 4078. The limestone hills which surround the
town rise by successive steps or terraces, and contain numerous caves.
The mineral waters are strongly impregnated with carbonic acid gas and
have a temperature of 51 deg. F. The principal spring is known as Narsan,
and its water is called by the Circassians the "drink of heroes."
KISMET, fate, destiny, a term used by Mahommedans to express all the
incidents and details of man's lot in life. The word is the Turkish form
of the Arabic _gismat_, from _gasama_, to divide.
KISS, the act of pressing or touching with the lips, cheek, hand or lips
of another, as a sign or expression of love, affection, reverence or
greeting. Skeat (_Etym. Dict._, 1898) connects the Teut. base _kussa_
with Lat. _gustus_, taste, and with Goth. _kustus_, test, from _kinsan_,
to choose, and takes "kiss" as ultimately a doublet of "choice."
For the liturgical _osculum pacis_ or "kiss of peace," see PAX. See
further C. Nyrop, _The Kiss and its History_, trans. by W. F. Harvey
(1902); J. J. Claudius, _Dissertatio de salulationibus veterum_
(Utrecht, 1702); and "_Baisers d'etiquette_" (1689) in _Archives
curieuses de l'histoire de France_ (1834-1890, series ii. tom. 12).
KISSAR, or GYTARAH BARBARYEH, the ancient Nubian lyre, still in use in
Egypt and Abyssinia. It consists of a body having instead of the
traditional tortoiseshell back a shallow, round bowl of wood, covered
with a sound-board of sheepskin, in which are three small round
sound-holes. The arms, set through the sound-board at points distant
about the third of the diameter from the circumference, have the
familiar fan shape. Five gut strings, knotted round the bar and raised
from the sound-board by means of a bridge tailpiece similar to that in
use on the modern guitar, are plucked by means of a plectrum by the
right hand for the melody, while the left hand sometimes twangs some of
the strings as a soft drone accompaniment.
KISSINGEN, a town and watering-place of Germany, in the kingdom of
Bavaria, delightfully situated in a broad valley surrounded by high and
well-wooded hills, on the Franconian Saale, 656 ft. above sea-level, 62
m. E. of Frankfort-on-Main, and 43 N.E. of Wurzburg by rail. Pop.
(1900), 4757. Its streets are regular and its houses attractive. It has
an Evangelical, an English, a Russian and three Roman Catholic churches,
a theatre, and various benevolent institutions, besides all the usual
buildings for the lodging, cure and amusement of the numerous visitors
who are attracted to this, the most popular watering-place in Bavaria.
In the Kurgarten, a tree-shaded expanse between the Kurhaus and the
handsome colonnaded Konversations-Saal, are the three principal springs,
the Rakoczy, the Pandur and the Maxbrunnen, of which the first two,
strongly impregnated with iron and salt, have a temperature of 51.26
deg. F.; the last (50.72 deg.) is like Selters or Seltzer water. At
short distances from the town are the intermittent artesian spring
Solensprudel, the Schonbornsprudel and the Theresienquelle; and in the
same valley as Kissingen are the minor spas of Bocklet and Bruckenau.
The waters of Kissingen are prescribed for both internal and external
use in a great variety of diseases. They are all highly charged with
salt, and productive government salt-works were at one time stationed
near Kissingen. The number of persons who visit the place amounts to
about 20,000 a year. The manufactures of the town, chiefly carriages and
furniture, are unimportant; there is also a trade in fruit and wine.
The salt springs were known in the 9th century, and their medicinal
properties were recognized in the 16th, but it was only during the 19th
century that Kissingen became a popular resort. The town belonged to the
counts of Henneberg until 1394, when it was sold to the bishop of
Wurzburg. With this bishopric it passed later to Bavaria. On the 10th of
July 1866 the Prussians defeated the Bavarians with great slaughter near
Kissingen. On the 13th of July 1874 the town was the scene of the
attempt of the fanatic Kullmann to assassinate Prince Bismarck, to whom
a statue has been erected. There are also monuments to Kings Louis I.
and Maximilian I. of Bavaria.
See Balling, _Die Heilquellen und Bader zu Kissingen_ (Kissingen,
1886); A. Sotier, _Bad Kissingen_ (Leipzig, 1883); Werner, _Bad
Kissingen als Kurort_ (Berlin, 1904); Leusser, _Kissingen fur
Herzkranke_ (Wurzburg, 1902); Diruf, _Kissingen und seine Heilquellen_
(Wurzburg, 1892); and Roth, _Bad Kissingen_ (Wurzburg, 1901).
KISTNA, or KRISHNA, a large river of southern India. It rises near the
Bombay sanatorium of Mahabaleshwar in the Western Ghats, only about 40
m. from the Arabian Sea, and, as it discharges into the Bay of Bengal,
it thus flows across almost the entire peninsula from west to east. It
has an estimated basin area of 97,000 sq. m., and its length is 800 m.
Its source is held sacred, and is frequented by pilgrims in large
numbers. From Mahabaleshwar the Kistna runs southward in a rapid course
into the nizam's dominions, then turns to the east, and ultimately falls
into the sea by two principal mouths, carrying with it the waters of the
Bhima from the north and the Tungabadhra from the south-west. Along this
part of the coast runs an extensive strip of land which has been
entirely formed by the detritus washed down by the Kistna and Godavari.
The river channel is throughout too rocky and the stream too rapid to
allow navigation even by small native craft. In utility for irrigation
the Kistna is also inferior to its two sister streams, the Godavari and
Cauvery. By far the greatest of its irrigation works is the Bezwada
anicut, begun by Sir Arthur Cotton in 1852. Bezwada is a small town at
the entrance of the gorge by which the Kistna bursts through the Eastern
Ghats and immediately spreads over the alluvial plain. The channel there
is 1300 yds. wide. During the dry season the depth of water is barely 6
ft., but sometimes it rises to as much as 36 ft., the maximum flood
discharge being calculated at 1,188,000 cub. ft. per second. Of the two
main canals connected with the dam, that on the left bank breaks into
two branches, the one running 39 m. to Ellore, the other 49 m. to
Masulipatam. The canal on the right bank proceeds nearly parallel to the
river, and also sends off two principal branches, to Nizampatam and
Comamur. The total length of the main channels is 372 m. and the total
area irrigated in 1903-1904 was about 700,000 acres.
KISTNA (or KRISHNA), a district of British India, in the N.E. of the
Madras Presidency. Masulipatam is the district headquarters. Area, 8490
sq. m. The district is generally a flat country, but the interior is
broken by a few low hills, the highest being 1857 ft. above sea-level.
The principal rivers are the Kistna, which cuts the district into two
portions, and the Munyeru, Paleru and Naguleru (tributaries of the
Gundlakamma and the Kistna); the last only is navigable. The Kolar lake,
which covers an area of 21 by 14 m., and the Romparu swamp are natural
receptacles for the drainage on the north and south sides of the Kistna
respectively.
In 1901 the population was 2,154,803, showing an increase of 16% in the
decade. Subsequently the area of the district was reduced by the
formation of the new district of Guntur (q.v.), though Kistna received
an accretion of territory from Godavari district. The population in 1901
on the area as reconstituted (5899 sq. m.) was 1,744,138. The Kistna
delta system of irrigation canals, which are available also for
navigation, connect with the Godavari system. The principal crops are
rice, millets, pulse, oil-seeds, cotton, indigo, tobacco and a little
sugar-cane. There are several factories for ginning and pressing cotton.
The cigars known in England as Lunkas are partly made from tobacco grown
on _lankas_ or islands in the Kistna. The manufacture of chintzes at
Masulipatam is a decaying industry, but cotton is woven everywhere for
domestic use. Salt is evaporated, under government supervision, along
the coast. Bezwada, at the head of the delta, is a place of growing
importance, as the central junction of the East Coast railway system,
which crosses the inland portion of the district in three directions.
Some seaborne trade, chiefly coasting, is carried on at the open
roadsteads of Masulipatam and Nizampatam, both in the delta. The Church
Missionary Society supports a college at Masulipatam.
The early history of Kistna is inseparable from that of the northern
Circars. Dharanikota and the adjacent town of Amravati were the seats of
early Hindu and Buddhist governments; and the more modern Rajahmundry
owed its importance to later dynasties. The Chalukyas here gave place to
the Cholas, who in turn were ousted by the Reddi kings, who flourished
during the 14th century, and built the forts of Bellamkonda, Kondavi and
Kondapalli in the north of the district, while the Gajapati dynasty of
Orissa ruled in the north. Afterwards the entire district passed to the
Kutb Shahis of Golconda, until annexed to the Mogul empire by Aurangzeb
in 1687. Meantime the English had in 1611 established a small factory at
Masulipatam, where they traded with varying fortune from 1759, when,
Masulipatam being captured from the French by Colonel Forde, with a
force sent by Lord Clive from Calcutta, the power of the English in the
greater part of the district was complete.
KIT (1) (probably an adaptation of the Middle Dutch _kitie_, a wooden
tub, usually with a lid and handles; in modern Dutch _kit_ means a
tankard), a tub, basket or pail used for holding milk, butter, eggs,
fish and other goods; also applied to similar receptacles for various
domestic purposes, or for holding a workman's tools, &c. By transference
"kit" came to mean the tools themselves, but more commonly personal
effects such as clothing, especially that of a soldier or sailor, the
word including the knapsack or other receptacle in which the effects are
packed. (2) The name (perhaps a corruption of "cittern" Gr. [Greek:
kithara]) of a small violin, about 16 in. long, and played with a bow of
nearly the same length, much used at one time by dancing-masters. The
French name is _pochette_, the instrument being small enough to go into
the pocket.
KITAZATO, SHIBASABURO (1856- ), Japanese doctor of medicine, was born
at Kumamoto in 1856 and studied in Germany under Koch from 1885 to 1891.
He became one of the foremost bacteriologists of the world, and enjoyed
the credit of having discovered the bacilli of tetanus, diphtheria and
plague, the last in conjunction with Dr Aoyama, who accompanied him to
Hong-Kong in 1894 during an epidemic at that place.
KIT-CAT CLUB, a club of Whig wits, painters, politicians and men of
letters, founded in London about 1703. The name was derived from that of
Christopher Cat, the keeper of the pie-house in which the club met in
Shire Lane, near Temple Bar. The meetings were afterwards held at the
Fountain tavern in the Strand, and latterly in a room specially built
for the purpose at Barn Elms, the residence of the secretary, Jacob
Tonson, the publisher. In summer the club met at the Upper Flask,
Hampstead Heath. The club originally consisted of thirty-nine,
afterwards of forty-eight members, and included among others the duke of
Marlborough, Lords Halifax and Somers, Sir Robert Walpole, Vanbrugh,
Congreve, Steele and Addison. The portraits of many of the members were
painted by Sir Godfrey Kneller, himself a member, of a uniform size
suited to the height of the Barn Elms room in which the club dined. The
canvas, 36 X 28 in., admitted of less than a half-length portrait but
was sufficiently long to include a hand, and this is known as the
kit-cat size. The club was dissolved about 1720.
KITCHEN (O.E. _cycene_; this and other cognate forms, such as Dutch
_keuken_, Ger. _Kuche_, Dan. _kokken_, Fr. _cuisine_, are formed from
the Low Lat. _cucina_, Lat. _coquina_, _coquere_, to cook), the room or
place in a house set apart for cooking, in which the culinary and other
domestic utensils are kept. The range or cooking-stove fitted with
boiler for hot water, oven and other appliances, is often known as a
"kitchener" (see COOKERY and HEATING). Archaeologists have used the term
"kitchen-midden," i.e. kitchen rubbish-heap (Danish _kokken-modding_)
for the rubbish heaps of prehistoric man, containing bones, remains of
edible shell-fish, implements, &c. (see SHELL-HEAPS). "Midden," in
Middle English _mydding_, is a Scandinavian word, from _myg_, muck,
filth, and _dyng_, heap; the latter word gives the English "dung."
KITCHENER, HORATIO HERBERT KITCHENER, VISCOUNT (1850- ), British field
marshal, was the son of Lieut.-Colonel H. H. Kitchener and was born at
Bally Longford, Co. Kerry, on the 24th of June 1850. He entered the
Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, in 1868, and was commissioned second
lieutenant, Royal Engineers, in 1871. As a subaltern he was employed in
survey work in Cyprus and Palestine, and on promotion to captain in 1883
was attached to the Egyptian army, then in course of re-organization
under British officers. In the following year he served on the staff of
the British expeditionary force on the Nile, and was promoted
successively major and lieutenant-colonel by brevet for his services.
From 1886 to 1888 he was commandant at Suakin, commanding and receiving
a severe wound in the action of Handub in 1888. In 1888 he commanded a
brigade in the actions of Gamaizieh and Toski. From 1889 to 1892 he
served as adjutant-general of the army. He had become brevet-colonel in
the British army in 1888, and he received the C.B. in 1889 after the
action of Toski. In 1892 Colonel Kitchener succeeded Sir Francis (Lord)
Grenfell as sirdar of the Egyptian army, and three years later, when he
had completed his predecessor's work of re-organizing the forces of the
khedive, he began the formation of an expeditionary force on the vexed
military frontier of Wady Halfa. The advance into the Sudan (see EGYPT,
_Military Operations_) was prepared by thorough administrative work on
his part which gained universal admiration. In 1896 Kitchener won the
action of Ferket (June 7) and advanced the frontier and the railway to
Dongola. In 1897 Sir Archibald Hunter's victory of Abu Hamed (Aug. 7)
carried the Egyptian flag one stage farther, and in 1898 the resolve to
destroy the Mahdi's power was openly indicated by the despatch of a
British force to co-operate with the Egyptians. The sirdar, who in 1896
became a British major-general and received the K.C.B., commanded the
united force, which stormed the Mahdist zareba on the river Atbara on
the 8th of April, and, the outposts being soon afterwards advanced to
Metemmeh and Shendy, the British force was augmented to the strength of
a division for the final advance on Khartum. Kitchener's work was
crowned and the power of the Mahdists utterly destroyed by the victory
of Omdurman (Sept. 2), for which he was raised to the peerage as Baron
Kitchener of Khartoum, received the G.C.B., the thanks of parliament and
a grant of L30,000. Little more than a year afterwards, while still
sirdar of the Egyptian army, he was promoted lieutenant-general and
appointed chief-of-staff to Lord Roberts in the South African War (see
TRANSVAAL, _History_). In this capacity he served in the campaign of
Paardeberg, the advance on Bloemfontein and the subsequent northward
advance to Pretoria, and on Lord Roberts' return to England in November
1900 succeeded him as commander-in-chief, receiving at the same time the
local rank of general. In June 1902 the long and harassing war came to
its close, and Kitchener was rewarded by advancement to the dignity of
viscount, promotion to the substantive rank of general "for
distinguished service," the thanks of parliament and a grant of L50,000.
He was also included in the Order of Merit.
Immediately after the peace he went to India as commander-in-chief in
the East Indies, and in this position, which he held for seven years, he
carried out not only many far-reaching administrative reforms but a
complete re-organization and strategical redistribution of the British
and native forces. On leaving India in 1909 he was promoted field
marshal, and succeeded the duke of Connaught as commander-in-chief and
high commissioner in the Mediterranean. This post, not of great
importance in itself, was regarded as a virtual command of the colonial
as distinct from the home and the Indian forces, and on his appointment
Lord Kitchener (after a visit to Japan) undertook a tour of inspection
of the forces of the empire, and went to Australia and New Zealand in
order to assist in drawing up local schemes of defence. In this mission
he was highly successful, and earned golden opinions. But soon after his
return to England in April 1910 he declined to take up his Mediterranean
appointment, owing to his dislike of its inadequate scope, and he was
succeeded in June by Sir Ian Hamilton.
KITE,[1] the _Falco milvus_ of Linnaeus and _Milvus ictinus_ of modern
ornithologists, once probably the most familiar bird of prey in Great
Britain, and now one of the rarest. Three or four hundred years ago
foreigners were struck with its abundance in the streets of London. It
was doubtless the scavenger in ordinary of that and other large towns
(as kindred species now are in Eastern lands), except where its place
was taken by the raven; for Sir Thomas Browne (c. 1662) wrote of the
latter at Norwich--"in good plentie about the citty which makes so few
kites to be seen hereabout." John Wolley has well remarked of the modern
Londoners that few "who see the paper toys hovering over the parks in
fine days of summer, have any idea that the bird from which they derive
their name used to float all day in hot weather high over the heads of
their ancestors." Even at the beginning of the 19th century the kite
formed a feature of many a rural landscape in England, as they had done
in the days when the poet Cowper wrote of them. "But an evil time soon
came upon the species. It must have been always hated by the henwife,
but the resources of civilization in the shape of the gun and the gin
were denied to her. They were, however, employed with fatal zeal by the
gamekeeper; for the kite, which had long afforded the supremest sport to
the falconer, was now left friendless,"[2] and in a very few years it
seems to have been exterminated throughout the greater part of England,
certain woods in the Western Midlands, as well as Wales, excepted. In
these latter a small remnant still exists; but the well-wishers of this
beautiful species are naturally chary of giving information that might
lead to its further persecution. In Scotland there is no reason to
suppose that its numbers suffered much diminution until about 1835, or
even later, when the systematic destruction of "vermin" on so many moors
was begun. In Scotland, however, it is now as much restricted to certain
districts as in England or Wales, and those districts it would be most
inexpedient to indicate.
The kite is, according to its sex, from 25 to 27 in. in length, about
one half of which is made up by its deeply forked tail, capable of great
expansion, and therefore a powerful rudder, enabling the bird while
soaring on its wide wings, more than 5 ft. in extent, to direct its
circling course with scarcely a movement that is apparent to the
spectator below. Its general colour is pale reddish-brown or cinnamon,
the head being greyish-white, but almost each feather has the shaft
dark. The tail feathers are broad, of a light red, barred with deep
brown, and furnish the salmon fisher with one of the choicest materials
of his "flies." The nest, nearly always built in the crotch of a large
tree, is formed of sticks intermixed with many strange substances
collected as chance may offer, but among them rags[3] seem always to
have a place. The eggs, three or four in number, are of a dull white,
spotted and blotched with several shades of brown, and often lilac. It
is especially mentioned by old authors that in Great Britain the kite
was resident throughout the year; whereas on the Continent it is one of
the most regular and marked migrants, stretching its wings towards the
south in autumn, wintering in Africa, and returning in spring to the
land of its birth.
There is a second European species, not distantly related, the _Milvus
migrans_ or _M. ater_ of most authors,[4] smaller in size, with a
general dull blackish-brown plumage and a less forked tail. In some
districts this is much commoner than the red kite, and on one occasion
it has appeared in England. Its habits are very like those of the
species already described, but it seems to be more addicted to fishing.
Nearly allied to this black kite are the _M. aegyptius_ of Africa, the
_M. govinda_ (the common pariah kite of India),[5] the _M. melanotis_ of
Eastern Asia, and the _M. affinis_ and _M. isurus_; the last is by some
authors removed to another genus or sub-genus as _Lophoictinia_, and is
peculiar to Australia, while _M. affinis_ also occurs in Ceylon, Burma,
and some of the Malay countries as well. All these may be considered
true kites, while those next to be mentioned are more aberrant forms.
First there is _Elanus_, the type of which is _E. caeruleus_, a
beautiful little bird, the black-winged kite of English authors, that
comes to the south of Europe from Africa, and has several congeners--_E.
axillaris_ and _E. scriptus_ of Australia being most worthy of notice.
An extreme development of this form is found in the African _Nauclerus
riocourii_, as well as in _Elanoides furcatus_, the swallow-tailed kite,
a widely-ranging bird in America, and remarkable for its length of wing
and tail, which gives it a marvellous power of flight, and serves to
explain the unquestionable fact of its having twice appeared in Great
Britain. To _Elanus_ also _Ictinia_, another American form, is allied,
though perhaps more remotely, and it is represented by _I.
mississippiensis_, the Mississippi kite, which is by some considered to
be but the northern race of the Neotropical _I. plumbea_. _Gampsonyx_,
_Rostrhamus_ and _Cymindis_, all belonging to the Neotropical region,
complete the series of forms that seem to compose the sub-family
_Milvinae_, though there may be doubt about the last, and some
systematists would thereto add the perns or honey-buzzards, _Perninae_.
(A. N.)
FOOTNOTES:
[1] In O.E. is _cyta_; no related word appears in cognate languages.
Glede, cognate with "glide," is also another English name.
[2] George, third earl of Orford, died in 1791, and Colonel Thornton,
who with him had been the latest follower of this highest branch of
the art of falconry, broke up his hawking establishment not many
years after. There is no evidence that the pursuit of the kite was in
England or any other country reserved to kings or privileged persons,
but the taking of it was quite beyond the powers of the ordinary
trained falcons, and in older days practically became limited to
those of the sovereign. Hence the kite had attached to it, especially
in France, the epithet of "royal," which has still survived in the
specific appellation of _regalis_ applied to it by many
ornithologists. The scandalous work of Sir Antony Weldon (_Court and
Character of King James_, p. 104) bears witness to the excellence of
the kite as a quarry in an amusing story of the "British Solomon,"
whose master-falconer, Sir Thomas Monson, being determined to outdo
the performance of the French king's falconer, who, when sent to
England to show sport, "could not kill one kite, ours being more
magnanimous than the French kite," at last succeeded, after an outlay
of L1000, in getting a cast of hawks that took nine kites
running--"never missed one." On the strength of this, James was
induced to witness a flight at Royston, "but the kite went to such a
mountee as all the field lost sight of kite and hawke and all, and
neither kite nor hawke were either seen or heard of to this present."
[3] Thus justifying the advice of Shakespeare's Autolycus (_Winter's
Tale_, iv. 3)--"When the kite builds, look to lesser linen"--very
necessary in the case of the laundresses in olden time, when the bird
commonly frequented their drying-grounds.
[4] Dr R. Bowdler Sharpe (_Cat. Birds Brit. Mus._ i. 322) calls it
_M. korschun_, but the figure of S. G. Gmelin's _Accipiter Korschun_,
whence the name is taken, unquestionably represents the moor-buzzard
(_Circus aeruginosus_).
[5] The Brahminy kite of India, _Haliastur Indus_, seems to be rather
a fishing eagle.
KITE-FLYING, the art of sending up into the air, by means of the wind,
light frames of varying shapes covered with paper or cloth (called
kites, after the bird--in German _Drache_, dragon), which are attached
to long cords or wires held in the hand or wound on a drum. When made in
the common diamond form, or triangular with a semicircular head, kites
usually have a pendulous tail appended for balancing purposes. The
tradition is that kites were invented by Archytas of Tarentum four
centuries before the Christian era, but they have been in use among
Asiatic peoples and savage tribes like the Maoris of New Zealand from
time immemorial. Kite-flying has always been a national pastime of the
Koreans, Chinese, Japanese, Tonkinese, Annamese, Malays and East
Indians. It is less popular among the peoples of Europe. The origin of
the sport, although obscure, is usually ascribed to religion. With the
Maoris it still retains a distinctly religious character, and the ascent
of the kite is accompanied by a chant called the kite-song. The Koreans
attribute its origin to a general, who, hundreds of years ago,
inspirited his troops by sending up a kite with a lantern attached,
which was mistaken by his army for a new star and a token of divine
succour. Another Korean general is said to have been the first to put
the kite to mechanical uses by employing one to span a stream with a
cord, which was then fastened to a cable and formed the nucleus of a
bridge. In Korea, Japan and China, and indeed throughout Eastern Asia,
even the tradespeople may be seen indulging in kite-flying while waiting
for customers. Chinese and Japanese kites are of many shapes, such as
birds, dragons, beasts and fishes. They vary in size, but are often as
much as 7 ft. in height or breadth, and are constructed of bamboo strips
covered with rice paper or very thin silk. In China the ninth day of the
ninth month is "Kites' Day," when men and boys of all classes betake
themselves to neighbouring eminences and fly their kites. Kite-fighting
is a feature of the pastime in Eastern Asia. The cord near the kite is
usually stiffened with a mixture of glue and crushed glass or porcelain.
The kite-flyer manoeuvres to get his kite to windward of that of his
adversary, then allows his cord to drift against his enemy's, and by a
sudden jerk to cut it through and bring its kite to grief. The Malays
possess a large variety of kites, mostly without tails. The Sultan of
Johor sent to the Columbian Exposition at Chicago in 1893 a collection
of fifteen different kinds. Asiatic musical kites bear one or more
perforated reeds or bamboos which emit a plaintive sound that can be
heard for great distances. The ignorant, believing that these kites
frighten away evil spirits, often keep them flying all night over their
houses.
There are various metaphorical uses of the term "kite-flying," such as
in commercial slang, when "flying a kite" means raising money on credit
(cf. "raising the wind"), or in political slang for seeing "how the wind
blows." And "flying-kites," in nautical language, are the topmost sails.
Kite-flying for scientific purposes began in the middle of the 18th
century. In 1752 Benjamin Franklin made his memorable kite experiment,
by which he attracted electricity from the air and demonstrated the
electrical nature of lightning. A more systematic use of kites for
scientific purposes may, however, be said to date from the experiments
made in the last quarter of the 19th century. (E. B.)
_Meteorological Use._--Many European and American meteorological
services employ kites regularly, and obtain information not only of the
temperature, but also of the humidity and velocity of the air above. The
kites used are mostly modifications of the so-called box-kites, invented
by L. Hargrave. Roughly these kites may be said to resemble an ordinary
box with the two ends removed, and also the middle part of each of the
four sides. The original Hargrave kite, the form generally used, has a
rectangular section; in Russia a semicircular section with the curved
part facing the wind is most in favour; in England the diamond-shaped
section is preferred for meteorological purposes owing to its simplicity
of construction. Stability depends on a multitude of small details of
construction, and long practice and experience are required to make a
really good kite. The sizes most in use have from 30 to 80 sq. ft. of
sail area. There is no difficulty about raising a kite to a vertical
height of one or even two miles on suitable days, but heights exceeding
three miles are seldom reached. On the 29th of November 1905 at
Lindenberg, the Prussian Aeronautical Observatory, the upper one of a
train of six kites attained an altitude of just four miles. The total
lifting surface of these six kites was nearly 300 sq. ft., and the
length of wire a little over nine miles. The kites are invariably flown
on a steel wire line, for the hindrance to obtaining great heights is
not due so much to the weight of the line as to the wind pressure upon
it, and thus it becomes of great importance to use a material that
possesses the greatest possible strength, combined with the smallest
possible size. Steel piano wire meets this requirement, for a wire of
1/32 in. diameter will weigh about 16 lb. to the mile, and stand a
strain of some 250-280 lb. before it breaks. Some stations prefer to use
one long piece of wire of the same gauge throughout without a join,
others prefer to start with a thin wire and join on thicker and thicker
wire as more kites are added. The process of kite-flying is as follows.
The first kite is started either with the self-recording instruments
secured in it, or hanging from the wire a short distance below it. Wire
is then paid out, whether quickly or slowly depends on the strength of
the wind, but the usual rate is from two to three miles per hour. The
quantity that one kite will take depends on the kite and on the wind,
but roughly speaking it may be said that each 10 sq. ft. of lifting
surface on the kite should carry 1000 ft. of 1/32 in. wire without
difficulty. When as much wire as can be carried comfortably has run out
another kite is attached to the line, and the paying out is continued;
after a time a third is added, and so on. Each kite increases the strain
upon the wire, and moreover adds to the height and makes it more
uncertain what kind of wind the upper kites will encounter; it also adds
to the time that is necessary to haul in the kites. In each way the risk
of their breaking away is increased, for the wind is very uncertain and
is liable to alter in strength. Since to attain an exceptional height
the wire must be strained nearly to its breaking point, and under such
conditions a small increase in the strength of the wind will break the
wire, it follows that great heights can only be attained by those who
are willing to risk the trouble and expense of frequently having their
wire and train of kites break away. The weather is the essential factor
in kite-flying. In the S.E. of England in winter it is possible on about
two days out of three, and in summer on about one day out of three. The
usual cause of failure is want of wind, but there are a few days when
the wind is too strong. (For meteorological results, &c., see
METEOROLOGY.) (W. H. Di.)
_Military Use._--A kite forms so extremely simple a method of lifting
anything to a height in the air that it has naturally been suggested as
being suitable for various military purposes, such as signalling to a
long distance, carrying up flags, or lamps, or semaphores. Kites have
been used both in the army and in the navy for floating torpedoes on
hostile positions. As much as two miles of line have been paid out. For
purposes of photography a small kite carrying a camera to a considerable
height may be caused to float over a fort or other place of which a
bird's-eye view is required, the shutter being operated by electric
wire, or slow match, or clockwork. Many successful photographs have been
thus obtained in England and America.
The problem of lifting a man by means of kites instead of by a captive
balloon is a still more important one. The chief military advantages to
be gained are: (1) less transport is required; (2) they can be used in a
strong wind; (3) they are not so liable to damage, either from the
enemy's fire or from trees, &c., and are easier to mend; (4) they can be
brought into use more quickly; (5) they are very much cheaper, both in
construction and in maintenance, not requiring any costly gas.
Captain B. F. S. Baden-Powell, of the Scots Guards, in June 1894
constructed, at Pirbright Camp, a huge kite 36 ft. high, with which he
successfully lifted a man on different occasions. He afterwards improved
the contrivance, using five or six smaller kites attached together in
preference to one large one. With this arrangement he frequently
ascended as high as 100 ft. The kites were hexagonal, being 12 ft. high
and 12 ft. across. The apparatus, which could be packed in a few minutes
into a simple roll, weighed in all about 1 cwt. This appliance was
proved to be capable of raising a man even during a dead calm, the
retaining line being fixed to a wagon and towed along. Lieut. H. D. Wise
made some trials in America in 1897 with some large kites of the
Hargrave pattern (Hargrave having previously himself ascended in
Australia), and succeeded in lifting a man 40 ft. above the ground. In
the Russian army a military kite apparatus has also been tried, and was
in evidence at the manoeuvres in 1898. Experiments have also been
carried out by most of the European powers. (B. F. S. B.-P.)
KIT-FOX (_Canis [Vulpes] velox_), a small fox, from north-western
America, measuring less than a yard in length, with a tail of nearly a
third this length. There is a good deal of variation in the colour of
the fur, the prevailing tint being grey. A specimen in the Zoological
Gardens of London had the back and tail dark grey, the tail tipped with
black, and a rufous wash on the cheeks, shoulders, flanks and outer
surface of the limbs, with the under surface white. The specific name
was given on account of the extraordinary swiftness of the animal. (See
CARNIVORA.)
KITTO, JOHN (1804-1854), English biblical scholar, was the son of a
mason at Plymouth, where he was born on the 4th of December 1804. An
accident brought on deafness, and in November 1819 he was sent to the
workhouse, where he was employed in making list shoes. In 1823 a fund
was raised on his behalf, and he was sent to board with the clerk of the
guardians, having his time at his own disposal, and the privilege of
making use of a public library. After preparing a small volume of
miscellanies, which was published by subscription, he studied dentistry
with Anthony Norris Groves in Exeter. In 1825 he obtained congenial
employment in the printing office of the Church Missionary Society at
Islington, and in 1827 was transferred to the same society's
establishment at Malta. There he remained for eighteen months, but
shortly after his return to England he accompanied Groves and other
friends on a private missionary enterprise to Bagdad, where he obtained
personal knowledge of Oriental life and habits which he afterwards
applied with tact and skill in the illustration of biblical scenes and
incidents. Plague broke out, the missionary establishment was broken up,
and in 1832 Kitto returned to England. On arriving in London he was
engaged in the preparation of various serial publications of the Society
for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, the most important of which were
the _Pictorial History of Palestine_ and the _Pictorial Bible_. The
_Cyclopaedia of Biblical Literature_, edited under his superintendence,
appeared in two volumes in 1843-1845 and passed through three editions.
His _Daily Bible Illustrations_ (8 vols. 1849-1853) received an
appreciation which is not yet extinct. In 1850 he received an annuity of
L100 from the civil list. In August 1854 he went to Germany for the
waters of Cannstatt on the Neckar, where on the 25th of November he
died.
See Kitto's own work, _The Lost Senses_ (1845); J. E. Ryland's
_Memoirs of Kitto_ (1856); and John Eadie's _Life of Kitto_ (1857).
KITTUR, a village of British India, in the Belgaum district of Bombay;
pop. (1901), 4922. It contains a ruined fort, formerly the residence of
a Mahratta chief. In connexion with a disputed succession to this
chiefship in 1824, St John Thackeray, an uncle of the novelist, was
killed when approaching the fort under a flag of truce; and a nephew of
Sir Thomas Munro, governor of Madras, fell subsequently when the fort
was stormed.
KITZINGEN, a town of Germany, in the kingdom of Bavaria on the Main, 95
m. S.E. of Frankfort-on-Main by rail, at the junction of the main-lines
to Passau, Wurzburg and Schweinfurt. Pop. (1900), 8489. A bridge, 300
yards long, connects it with its suburb Etwashausen on the left bank of
the river. A railway bridge also spans the Main at this point. Kitzingen
is still surrounded by its old walls and towers, and has an Evangelical
and two Roman Catholic churches, two municipal museums, a town-hall, a
grammar school, a richly endowed hospital and two old convents. Its
chief industries are brewing, cask-making and the manufacture of cement
and colours. Considerable trade in wine, fruit, grain and timber is
carried on by boats on the Main. Kitzingen possessed a Benedictine abbey
in the 8th century, and later belonged to the bishopric of Wurzburg.
See F. Bernbeck, _Kitzinger Chronik 745-1565_ (Kitzingen, 1899).
KIU-KIANG FU, a prefecture and prefectural city in the province of
Kiang-si, China. The city, which is situated on the south bank of the
Yangtsze-kiang, 15 m. above the point where the Kan Kiang flows into
that river from the Po-yang lake, stands in 29 deg. 42' N. and 116 deg.
8' E. The north face of the city is separated from the river by only the
width of a roadway, and two large lakes lie on its west and south
fronts. The walls are from 5 to 6 m. in circumference, and are more than
usually strong and broad. As is generally the case with old cities in
China, Kiu-Kiang has repeatedly changed its name. Under the Tsin dynasty
(A.D. 265-420), it was known as Sin-Yang, under the Liang dynasty
(502-557) as Kiang Chow, under the Suy dynasty (589-618) as Kiu-Kiang,
under the Sung dynasty (960-1127) as Ting-Kiang, and under the Ming
dynasty (1368-1644) it assumed the name it at present bears. Kiu-Kiang
has played its part in the history of the empire, and has been
repeatedly besieged and sometimes taken, the last time being in February
1853, when the T'ai-p'ing rebels gained possession of the city. After
their manner they looted and utterly destroyed it, leaving only the
remains of a single street to represent the once flourishing town. The
position of Kiu-Kiang on the Yangtsze-kiang and its proximity to the
channels of internal communication through the Po-yang lake, more
especially to those leading to the green-tea-producing districts of the
provinces of Kiang-si and Ngan-hui, induced Lord Elgin to choose it as
one of the treaty ports to be opened under the terms of his treaty
(1861). Unfortunately, however, it stands above instead of below the
outlet of the Po-yang lake, and this has proved to be a decided drawback
to its success as a commercial port. The immediate effect of opening the
town to foreign trade was to raise the population in one year from
10,000 to 40,000. The population in 1908, exclusive of foreigners, was
officially estimated at 36,000. The foreign settlement extends westward
from the city, along the bank of the Yangtsze-kiang, and is bounded on
its extreme west by the P'un river, which there runs into the Yangtsze.
The bund, which is 500 yards long, was erected by the foreign community.
The climate is good, and though hot in the summer months is invariably
cold and bracing in the winter. According to the customs returns the
value of the trade of the port amounted in 1902 to L2,854,704, and in
1904 to L3,489,816, of which L1,726,506 were imports and L1,763,310
exports. In 1904 322,266 lb. of opium were imported.
KIUSTENDIL, the chief town of a department in Bulgaria, situated in a
mountainous country, on a small affluent of the Struma, 43 m. S.W. of
Sofia by rail. Pop. (1906), 12,353. The streets are narrow and uneven,
and the majority of the houses are of clay or wood. The town is chiefly
notable for its hot mineral springs, in connexion with which there are
nine bathing establishments. Small quantities of gold and silver are
obtained from mines near Kiustendil, and vines, tobacco and fruit are
largely cultivated. Some remains survive of the Roman period, when the
town was known as Pautalia, Ulpia Pautalia, and Pautalia Aurelii. In the
10th century it became the seat of a bishopric, being then and during
the later middle ages known by the Slavonic name of Velbuzhd. After the
overthrow of the Servian kingdom it came into the possession of
Constantine, brother of the despot Yovan Dragash, who ruled over
northern Macedonia. Constantine was expelled and killed by the Turks in
1394. In the 15th century Kiustendil was known as Velbushka Banya, and
more commonly as Konstantinova Banya (Constantine's Bath), from which
has developed the Turkish name Kiustendil.
KIVU, a considerable lake lying in the Central African (or Albertine)
rift-valley, about 60 m. N. of Tanganyika, into which it discharges its
waters by the Rusizi River. On the north it is separated from the basin
of the Nile by a line of volcanic peaks. The length of the lake is about
55 m., and its greatest breadth over 30, giving an area, including
islands, of about 1100 sq. m. It is about 4830 ft. above sea-level and
is roughly triangular in outline, the longest side lying to the west.
The coast-line is much broken, especially on the south-east, where the
indentations present a fjord-like character. The lake is deep, and the
shores are everywhere high, rising in places in bold precipitous cliffs
of volcanic rock. A large island, Kwijwi or Kwichwi, oblong in shape and
traversed by a hilly ridge, runs in the direction of the major axis of
the lake, south-west of the centre, and there are many smaller islands.
The lake has many fish, but no crocodiles or hippopotami. South of Kivu
the rift-valley is blocked by huge ridges, through which the Rusizi now
breaks its way in a succession of steep gorges, emerging from the lake
in a foaming torrent, and descending 2000 ft. to the lacustrine plain at
the head of Tanganyika. The lake fauna is a typically fresh-water one,
presenting no affinities with the marine or "halolimnic" fauna of
Tanganyika and other Central African lakes, but is similar to that shown
by fossils to have once existed in the more northern parts of the
rift-valley. The former outlet or extension in this direction seems to
have been blocked in recent geological times by the elevation of the
volcanic peaks which dammed back the water, causing it finally to
overflow to the south. This volcanic region is of great interest and has
various names, that most used being Mfumbiro (q.v.), though this name is
sometimes restricted to a single peak. Kivu and Mfumbiro were first
heard of by J. H. Speke in 1861, but not visited by a European until
1894, when Count von Gotzen passed through the country on his journey
across the continent. The lake and its vicinity were subsequently
explored by Dr R. Kandt, Captain Bethe, E. S. Grogan, J. E. S. Moore,
and Major St Hill Gibbons. The ownership of Kivu and its neighbourhood
was claimed by the Congo Free State and by Germany, the dispute being
settled in 1910, after Belgium had taken over the Congo State. The
frontier agreed upon was the west bank of the Rusizi, and the west shore
of the lake. The island of Kwijwi also fell to Belgium.
See R. Kandt, _Caput Nili_ (Berlin, 1904), and _Karte des Kivusees_,
1: 285,000, with text by A. v. Bockelmann (Berlin, 1902); E. S. Grogan
and A. H. Sharpe, _From the Cape to Cairo_ (London, 1900); J. E. S.
Moore, _To the Mountains of the Moon_ (London, 1901); A. St H.
Gibbons, _Africa from South to North_, ii. (London, 1904).
KIWI, or KIWI-KIWI, the Maori name--first apparently introduced to
zoological literature by Lesson in 1828 (_Man. d'Ornithologie_, ii.
210, or _Voy. de la "Coquille," zoologie_, p. 418), and now very
generally adopted in English--of one of the most characteristic forms of
New Zealand birds, the _Apteryx_ of scientific writers. This remarkable
bird was unknown till George Shaw described and figured it in 1813
(_Nat. Miscellany_, pls. 1057, 1058) from a specimen brought to him from
the southern coast of that country by Captain Barcley of the ship
"Providence." At Shaw's death, in the same year, it passed into the
possession of Lord Stanley, afterwards 13th earl of Derby, and president
of the Zoological Society, and it is now with the rest of his collection
in the Liverpool Museum. Considering the state of systematic ornithology
at the time, Shaw's assignment of a position to this new and strange
bird, of which he had but the skin, does him great credit, for he said
it seemed "to approach more nearly to the Struthious and Gallinaceous
tribes than to any other." And his credit is still greater when we find
the venerable John Latham, who is said to have examined the specimen
with Shaw, placing it some years later among the penguins (_Gen. Hist.
Birds_, x. 394), being apparently led to that conclusion through its
functionless wings and the backward situation of its legs. In this false
allocation, James Francis Stephens also in 1826 acquiesced (_Gen.
Zoology_, xiii. 70). Meanwhile in 1820 K. J. Temminck, who had never
seen a specimen, had assorted it with the dodo in an order to which he
applied the name of _Inertes_ (_Man. d'Ornithologie_, i. cxiv.). In 1831
R. P. Lesson, who had previously (_loc. cit._) made some blunders about
it, placed it (_Traite d'Ornithologie_, p. 12), though only, as he says,
"par analogie et _a priori_," in his first division of birds, "Oiseaux
Anomaux," which is equivalent to what we now call _Ratitae_, making of
it a separate family "Nullipennes." At that time no second example was
known, and some doubt was felt, especially on the Continent, as to the
very existence of such a bird [1]--though Lesson had himself when in the
Bay of Islands in April 1824 (_Voy. "Coquille," ut supra_) heard of it;
and a few years later J. S. C. Dumont d'Urville had seen its skin, which
the naturalists of his expedition procured, worn as a tippet by a Maori
chief at Tolaga Bay (Houa-houa),[2] and in 1830 gave what proves to be
on the whole very accurate information concerning it (_Voy.
"Astrolabe,"_ ii. 107). To put all suspicion at rest, Lord Derby sent
his unique specimen for exhibition at a meeting of the Zoological
Society, on the 12th of February 1833 (_Proc. Zool. Society_, 1833, p.
24), and a few months later (_tom. cit._, p. 80) William Yarrell
communicated to that body a complete description of it, which was
afterwards published in full with an excellent portrait (_Trans. Zool.
Society_, vol. i. p. 71, pl. 10). Herein the systematic place of the
species, as akin to the Struthious birds, was placed beyond cavil, and
the author called upon all interested in zoology to aid in further
research as to this singular form. In consequence of this appeal a
legless skin was within two years sent to the society (_Proceedings_,
1835, p. 61) obtained by W. Yate of Waimate, who said it was the second
he had seen, and that he had kept the bird alive for nearly a fortnight,
while in less than another couple of years additional information (_op.
cit._, 1837, p. 24) came from T. K. Short to the effect that he had seen
two living, and that all Yarrell had said was substantially correct,
except underrating its progressive powers. Not long afterwards Lord
Derby received and in March 1838 transmitted to the same society the
trunk and viscera of an _Apteryx_, which, being entrusted to Sir R.
Owen, furnished that eminent anatomist, in conjunction with other
specimens of the same kind received from Drs Lyon and George Bennett,
with the materials of the masterly monograph laid before the society in
instalments, and ultimately printed in its _Transactions_ (ii. 257; iii.
277). From this time the whole structure of the kiwi has certainly been
far better known than that of nearly any other bird, and by degrees
other examples found their way to England, some of which were
distributed to the various museums of the Continent and of America.[3]
[Illustration: Kiwi.]
In 1847 much interest was excited by the reported discovery of another
species of the genus (_Proceedings_, 1847, p. 51); and though the story
was not confirmed, a second species was really soon after made known by
John Gould (_tom. cit._, p. 93; _Transactions_, vol. iii, p. 379, pl.
57) under the name of _Apteryx oweni_--a just tribute to the great
master who had so minutely explained the anatomy of the group. Three
years later A. D. Bartlett drew attention to the manifest difference
existing among certain examples, all of which had hitherto been regarded
as specimens of _A. australis_, and the examination of a large series
led him to conclude that under that name two distinct species were
confounded. To the second of these, the third of the genus (according to
his views), he gave the name of _A. mantelli_ (_Proceedings_, 1850, p.
274), and it soon turned out that to this new form the majority of the
specimens already obtained belonged. In 1851 the first kiwi known to
have reached England alive was presented to the Zoological Society by
Eyre, then lieutenant-governor of New Zealand. This was found to belong
to the newly described _A. mantelli_, and some careful observations on
its habits in captivity were published by John Wolley and another
(_Zoologist_, pp. 3409, 3605).[4] Subsequently the society has received
several other live examples of this form, besides one of the real _A.
australis_ (_Proceedings_, 1872, p. 861), some of _A. oweni_, and one of
a supposed fourth species, _A. haasti_, characterized in 1871 by Potts
(_Ibis_, 1872, p. 35; _Trans. N. Zeal. Institute_, iv. 204; v. 195).[5]
The kiwis form a group of the subclass _Ratitae_ to which the rank of an
order may fitly be assigned, as they differ in many important
particulars from any of the other existing forms of Ratite birds. The
most obvious feature the _Apteryges_ afford is the presence of a back
toe, while the extremely aborted condition of the wings, the position of
the nostrils--almost at the tip of the maxilla--and the absence of an
after-shaft in the feathers, are characters nearly as manifest, and
others not less determinative, though more recondite, will be found on
examination. The kiwis are peculiar to New Zealand, and it is believed
that _A. mantelli_ is the representative in the North Island of the
southern _A. australis_, both being of a dark reddish-brown,
longitudinally striped with light yellowish-brown, while _A. oweni_, of
a light greyish-brown transversely barred with black, is said to occur
in both islands. About the size of a large domestic fowl, they are birds
of nocturnal habit, sleeping, or at least inactive, by day, feeding
mostly on earth-worms, but occasionally swallowing berries, though in
captivity they will eat flesh suitably minced. Sir Walter Buller writes
(_B. of New Zealand_, p. 362):--
"The kiwi is in some measure compensated for the absence of wings by
its swiftness of foot. When running it makes wide strides and carries
the body in an oblique position, with the neck stretched to its full
extent and inclined forwards. In the twilight it moves about
cautiously and as noiselessly as a rat, to which, indeed, at this time
it bears some outward resemblance. In a quiescent posture, the body
generally assumes a perfectly rotund appearance; and it sometimes, but
only rarely, supports itself by resting the point of its bill on the
ground. It often yawns when disturbed in the daytime, gaping its
mandibles in a very grotesque manner. When provoked it erects the
body, and, raising the foot to the breast, strikes downwards with
considerable force and rapidity, thus using its sharp and powerful
claws as weapons of defence.... While hunting for its food the bird
makes a continual sniffing sound through the nostrils, which are
placed at the extremity of the upper mandible. Whether it is guided as
much by touch as by smell I cannot safely say; but it appears to me
that both senses are used in the action. That the sense of touch is
highly developed seems quite certain, because the bird, although it
may not be audibly sniffing, will always first touch an object with
the point of its bill, whether in the act of feeding or of surveying
the ground; and when shut up in a cage or confined in a room it may be
heard, all through the night, tapping softly at the walls.... It is
interesting to watch the bird, in a state of freedom, foraging for
worms, which constitute its principal food: it moves about with a slow
action of the body; and the long, flexible bill is driven into the
soft ground, generally home to the very root, and is either
immediately withdrawn with a worm held at the extreme tip of the
mandibles, or it is gently moved to and fro, by an action of the head
and neck, the body of the bird being perfectly steady. It is amusing
to observe the extreme care and deliberation with which the bird draws
the worm from its hiding-place, coaxing it out as it were by degrees,
instead of pulling roughly or breaking it. On getting the worm fairly
out of the ground, it throws up its head with a jerk, and swallows it
whole."
The foregoing extract refers to _A. mantelli_, but there is little doubt
of the remarks being equally applicable to _A. australis_, and probably
also to _A. oweni_, though the different proportion of the bill in the
last points to some diversity in the mode of feeding. (A. N.)
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Cuvier in the second edition of his _Regne Animal_ only referred
to it in a footnote (i. 498).
[2] Cruise in 1822 (_Journ. Residence in New Zealand_, p. 313) had
spoken of an "emeu" found in that island, which must of course have
been an _Apteryx_.
[3] In 1842, according to Broderip (_Penny Cyclopaedia_, xxiii. 146),
two had been presented to the Zoological Society by the New Zealand
Company, and two more obtained by Lord Derby, one of which he had
given to Gould. In 1844 the British Museum possessed three, and the
sale catalogue of the Rivoli Collection, which passed in 1846 to the
Academy of Natural Sciences at Philadelphia, includes a single
specimen--probably the first taken to America.
[4] This bird in 1859 laid an egg, and afterwards continued to lay
one or two more every year. In 1865 a male of the same species was
introduced, but though a strong disposition to breed was shown on the
part of both, and the eggs, after the custom of the _Ratitae_, were
incubated by him, no progeny was hatched (_Proceedings_, 1868, p.
329).
[5] A fine series of figures of all these supposed species is given
by Rowley (_Orn. Miscellany_, vol. i. pls. 1-6). Some others, as _A.
maxima_, _A. mollis_, and _A. fusca_ have also been indicated, but
proof of their validity has yet to be adduced.
KIZILBASHES (Turkish, "Red-Heads"), the nickname given by the Orthodox
Turks to the Shiitic Turkish immigrants from Persia, who are found
chiefly in the plains from Kara-Hissar along Tokat and Amasia to Angora.
During the wars with Persia the Turkish sultans settled them in these
districts. They are strictly speaking persianized Turks, and speak pure
Persian. There are many Kizilbashes in Afghanistan. Their immigration
dates only from the time of Nadir Shah (1737). They are an industrious
honest folk, chiefly engaged in trade and as physicians, scribes, and so
on. They form the bulk of the amir's cavalry. Their name seems to have
been first used in Persia of the Shiites in allusion to their red caps.
See Ernest Chantre, _Recherches anthropologiques dans l'Asie
occidentale_ (Lyons, 1895).
KIZIL IRMAK, i.e. "Red River" (anc. _Halys_), the largest river in Asia
Minor, rising in the Kizil Dagh at an altitude of 6500 ft., and running
south-west past Zara to Sivas. Below Sivas it flows south to the
latitude of Kaisarieh, and then curves gradually round to the north.
Finally, after a course of about 600 m., it discharges its waters into
the Black Sea between Sinope and Samsun, where it forms a large delta.
The only important tributaries are the Delije Irmak on the right and the
Geuk Irmak on the left bank.
KIZLYAR (KIZLIAR, or KIZLAR), a town of Russia, in Caucasia, in the
province of Terek, 120 m. N.E. of Vladikavkaz, in the low-lying delta of
the river Terek, about 35 m. from the Caspian. The population decreased
from 8309 in 1861 to 7353 in 1897. The town lies to the left of the main
stream between two of the larger secondary branches, and is subject to
flooding. The town proper, which spreads out round the citadel, has
Tatar, Georgian and Armenian quarters. The public buildings include the
Greek cathedral, dating from 1786; a Greek nunnery, founded by the
Georgian chief Daniel in 1736; the Armenian church of SS Peter and Paul,
remarkable for its size and wealth. The population is mainly supported
by the gardens and vineyards irrigated by canals from the river. A
government vineyard and school of viticulture are situated 3(1/2) m. from
the town. About 1,200,000 gallons of Kizlyar wine are sold annually at
the fair of Nizhniy-Novgorod. Silk and cotton are woven. Kizlyar is
mentioned as early as 1616, but the most notable accession of
inhabitants (Armenians, Georgians and Persians) took place in 1715. Its
importance as a fortress dates from 1736, but the fortress is no longer
kept in repair.
KIZYL-KUM, a desert of Western Asia, stretching S.E. of the Aral Lake
between the river Syr-darya on the N.E. and the river Amu-darya on the
S.W. It measures some 370 by 220 m., and is in part covered with
drift-sand or dunes, many of which are advancing slowly but steadily
towards the S.W. In character they resemble those of the neighbouring
Kara-kum desert (see KARA-KUM). On the whole the Kizyl-kum slopes S.W.
towards the Aral Lake, where its altitude is only about 160 ft. as
compared with 2000 in the S.E. In the vicinity of that lake the surface
is covered with Aralo-Caspian deposits; but in the S.E., as it ascends
towards the foothills of the Tian-shan system, it is braided with deep
accumulations of fertile loess.
KJERULF, HALFDAN (1815-1868), Norwegian musical composer, the son of a
high government official, was born at Christiania on the 15th of
September 1815. His early education was at Christiania University, for a
legal career, and not till he was nearly 26--on the death of his
father--was he able to devote himself entirely to music. As a fact, he
actually started on his career as a music teacher and composer of songs
before ever having seriously studied music at all, and not for ten years
did he attract any particular notice. Then, however, his Government paid
for a year's instruction for him at Leipzig. For many years after his
return to Norway Kjerulf tried in vain to establish serial classical
concerts, while he himself was working with Bjornson and other writers
at the composition of lyrical songs. His fame rests almost entirely on
his beautiful and manly national part-songs and solos; but his
pianoforte music is equally charming and simple. Kjerulf died at
Grefsen, on the 11th of August 1868.
KJERULF, THEODOR (1825-1888), Norwegian geologist, was born at
Christiania on the 30th of March 1825. He was educated in the university
at Christiania, and subsequently studied at Heidelberg, working in
Bunsen's laboratory. In 1858 he became professor of geology in the
university of his native city, and he was afterwards placed in charge of
the geological survey of the country, then established mainly through
his influence. His contributions to the geology of Norway were numerous
and important, especially in reference to the southern portion of the
country, and to the structure and relations of the Archaean and
Palaeozoic rocks, and the glacial phenomena. His principal results were
embodied in his work _Udsigt over det sydlige Norges Geologi_ (1879). He
was author also of some poetical works. He died at Christiania on the
25th of October 1888.
KLADNO, a mining town of Bohemia, Austria, 18 m. W.N.W. of Prague by
rail. Pop. (1900), 18,600, mostly Czech. It is situated in a region very
rich in iron-mines and coal-fields and possesses some of the largest
iron and steel works in Bohemia. Near it is the mining town of
Buschtehrad (pop. 3510), situated in the centre of very extensive
coal-fields. Buschtehrad was originally the name of the castle only.
This was from the 15th century to 1630 the property of the lords of
Kolovrat, and came by devious inheritance through the grand-dukes of
Tuscany, to the emperor Francis Joseph. The name Buschtehrad was first
given to the railway, and then to the town, which had been called Buckow
since its foundation in 1700. There is another castle of Buschtehrad
near Horic. Kladno, which for centuries had been a village of no
importance, was sold in 1705 by the grand-duchess Anna Maria of Tuscany
to the cloister in Brewnow, to which it still belongs. The mining
industry began in 1842.
KLAFSKY, KATHARINA (1855-1896), Hungarian operatic singer, was born at
Szt Janos, Wieselburg, of humble parents. Being employed at Vienna as a
nurserymaid, her fine soprano voice led to her being engaged as a chorus
singer, and she was given good lessons in music. By 1882 she became
well-known in Wagnerian roles at the Leipzig theatre, and she increased
her reputation at other German musical centres. In 1892 she appeared in
London, and had a great success in Wagner's operas, notably as
Brunnhilde and as Isolde, her dramatic as well as vocal gifts being of
an exceptional order. She sang in America in 1895, but died of brain
disease in 1896.
A _Life_, by L. Ordemann, was published in 1903 (Leipzig).
KLAGENFURT (Slovene, _Celovec_), the capital of the Austrian duchy of
Carinthia, 212 m. S.W. of Vienna by rail. Pop. (1900), 24,314. It is
picturesquely situated on the river Glan, which is in communication with
the Worther-see by the 3 m. long Lend canal. Among the more noteworthy
buildings are the parish church of St Aegidius (1709), with a tower 298
ft. in height; the cathedral of SS Peter and Paul (1582-1593, burnt
1723, restored 1725); the churches of the Benedictines (1613), of the
Capuchins (1646), and of the order of St Elizabeth (1710). To these must
be added the palace of the prince-bishop of Gurk, the _burg_ or castle,
existing in its present form since 1777; and the _Landhaus_ or house of
assembly, dating from the end of the 14th century, and containing a
museum of natural history, and collection of minerals, antiquities,
seals, paintings and sculptures. The most interesting public monument is
the great _Lindwurm_ or Dragon, standing in the principal square (1590).
The industrial establishments comprise white lead factories, machine and
iron foundries, and commerce is active, especially in the mineral
products of the region.
Upon the Zollfeld to the north of the city once stood the ancient Roman
town of Virunum. During the Middle Ages Klagenfurt became the property
of the crown, but by a patent of Maximilian I. of the 24th of April
1518, it was conceded to the Carinthian estates, and has since then
taken the place of St Veit as capital of Carinthia. In 1535, 1636, 1723
and 1796 Klagenfurt suffered from destructive fires, and in 1690 from
the effects of an earthquake. On the 29th of March 1797 the French took
the city, and upon the following day it was occupied by Napoleon as his
headquarters.
KLAJ (latinized CLAJUS), JOHANN (1616-1656), German poet, was born at
Meissen in Saxony. After studying theology at Wittenberg he went to
Nuremberg as a "candidate for holy orders," and there, in conjunction
with Georg Philipp Harsdorffer, founded in 1644 the literary society
known as the Pegnitz order. In 1647 he received an appointment as master
in the Sebaldus school in Nuremberg, and in 1650 became preacher at
Kitzingen, where he died in 1656. Klaj's poems consist of dramas,
written in stilted language and redundant with adventures, among which
are _Hollen- und Himmelfahrt Christi_ (Nuremberg, 1644), and _Herodes,
der Kindermorder_ (Nuremberg, 1645), and a poem, written jointly with
Harsdorffer, _Pegnesische Schafergedicht_ (1644), which gives in
allegorical form the story of his settlement in Nuremberg.
See Tittmann, _Die Nurnberger Dichterschule_ (Gottingen, 1847).
KLAMATH, a small tribe of North American Indians of Lutuamian stock.
They ranged around the Klamath river and lakes, and are now on the
Klamath reservation, southern Oregon.
See A. S. Gatschet, "Klamath Indians of Oregon," _Contributions to
North American Ethnology_, vol. ii. (Washington, 1890).
KLAPKA, GEORG (1820-1892), Hungarian soldier, was born at Temesvar on
the 7th of April 1820, and entered the Austrian army in 1838. He was
still a subaltern when the Hungarian revolution of 1848 broke out, and
he offered his services to the patriot party. He served in important
staff appointments during the earlier part of the war which followed;
then, early in 1849, he was ordered to replace General Meszaros, who had
been defeated at Kaschau, and as general commanding an army corps he
had a conspicuous share in the victories of Kapolna, Isaszeg, Waitzen,
Nagy Sarlo and Komarom. Then, as the fortune of war turned against the
Hungarians, Klapka, after serving for a short time as minister of war,
took command at Komarom, from which fortress he conducted a number of
successful expeditions until the capitulation of Vilagos in August put
an end to the war in the open field. He then brilliantly defended
Komarom for two months, and finally surrendered on honourable terms.
Klapka left the country at once, and lived thenceforward for many years
in exile, at first in England and afterwards chiefly in Switzerland. He
continued by every means in his power to work for the independence of
Hungary, especially at moments of European war, such as 1854, 1859 and
1866, at which an appeal to arms seemed to him to promise success. After
the war of 1866 (in which as a Prussian major-general he organized a
Hungarian corps in Silesia) Klapka was permitted by the Austrian
government to return to his native country, and in 1867 was elected a
member of the Hungarian Chamber of Deputies, in which he belonged to the
Deak party. In 1877 he made an attempt to reorganize the Turkish army in
view of the war with Russia. General Klapka died at Budapest on the 17th
of May 1892. A memorial was erected to his memory at Komarom in 1896.
He wrote _Memoiren_ (Leipzig, 1850); _Der Nationalkrieg in Ungarn_,
&c. (Leipzig, 1851); a history of the Crimean War, _Der Krieg im
Orient ... bis Ende Juli 1855_ (Geneva, 1855); and _Aus meinen
Erinnerungen_ (translated from the Hungarian, Zurich, 1887).
KLAPROTH, HEINRICH JULIUS (1783-1835), German Orientalist and traveller,
was born in Berlin on the 11th of October 1783, the son of the chemist
Martin Heinrich Klaproth (q.v.). He devoted his energies in quite early
life to the study of Asiatic languages, and published in 1802 his
_Asiatisches Magazin_ (Weimar, 1802-1803). He was in consequence called
to St Petersburg and given an appointment in the academy there. In 1805
he was a member of Count Golovkin's embassy to China. On his return he
was despatched by the academy to the Caucasus on an ethnographical and
linguistic exploration (1807-1808), and was afterwards employed for
several years in connexion with the academy's Oriental publications. In
1812 he moved to Berlin; but in 1815 he settled in Paris, and in 1816
Humboldt procured him from the king of Prussia the title and salary of
professor of Asiatic languages and literature, with permission to remain
in Paris as long as was requisite for the publication of his works. He
died in that city on the 28th of August 1835.
The principal feature of Klaproth's erudition was the vastness of the
field which it embraced. His great work _Asia polyglotta_ (Paris, 1823
and 1831, with _Sprachatlas_) not only served as a _resume_ of all
that was known on the subject, but formed a new departure for the
classification of the Eastern languages, more especially those of the
Russian Empire. To a great extent, however, his work is now
superseded. The _Itinerary of a Chinese Traveller_ (1821), a series of
documents in the military archives of St Petersburg purporting to be
the travels of George Ludwig von ----, and a similar series obtained
from him in the London foreign office, are all regarded as spurious.
Klaproth's other works include: _Reise in den Kaukasus und Georgien in
den Jahren 1807 und 1808_ (Halle, 1812-1814; French translation,
Paris, 1823); _Geographisch-historische Beschreibung des ostlichen
Kaukasus_ (Weimar, 1814); _Tableaux historiques de l'Asie_ (Paris,
1826); _Memoires relatifs a l'Asie_ (Paris, 1824-1828); _Tableau
historique, geographique, ethnographique et politique de Caucase_
(Paris, 1827); and _Vocabulaire et grammaire de la langue georgienne_
(Paris, 1827).
KLAPROTH, MARTIN HEINRICH (1743-1817), German chemist, was born at
Wernigerode on the 1st of December 1743. During a large portion of his
life he followed the profession of an apothecary. After acting as
assistant in pharmacies at Quedlinburg, Hanover, Berlin and Danzig
successively he came to Berlin on the death of Valentin Rose the elder
in 1771 as manager of his business, and in 1780 he started an
establishment on his own account in the same city, where from 1782 he
was pharmaceutical assessor of the Ober-Collegium Medicum. In 1787 he
was appointed lecturer in chemistry to the Royal Artillery, and when the
university was founded in 1810 he was selected to be the professor of
chemistry. He died in Berlin on the 1st of January 1817. Klaproth was
the leading chemist of his time in Germany. An exact and conscientious
worker, he did much to improve and systematize the processes of
analytical chemistry and mineralogy, and his appreciation of the value
of quantitative methods led him to become one of the earliest adherents
of the Lavoisierian doctrines outside France. He was the first to
discover uranium, zirconium and titanium, and to characterize them as
distinct elements, though he did not obtain any of them in the pure
metallic state; and he elucidated the composition of numerous substances
till then imperfectly known, including compounds of the then newly
recognized elements: tellurium, strontium, cerium and chromium.
His papers, over 200 in number, were collected by himself in _Beitrage
zur chemischen Kenntniss der Mineralkorper_ (5 vols., 1795-1810) and
_Chemische Abhandlungen gemischten Inhalts_ (1815). He also published
a _Chemisches Worterbuch_ (1807-1810), and edited a revised edition of
F. A. C. Gren's _Handbuch der Chemie_ (1806).
KLEBER, JEAN BAPTISTE (1753-1800), French general, was born on the 9th
of March 1753, at Strassburg, where his father was a builder. He was
trained, partly at Paris, for the profession of architect, but his
opportune assistance to two German nobles in a tavern brawl obtained for
him a nomination to the military school of Munich. Thence he obtained a
commission in the Austrian army, but resigned it in 1783 on finding his
humble birth in the way of his promotion. On returning to France he was
appointed inspector of public buildings at Belfort, where he studied
fortification and military science. In 1792 he enlisted in the Haut-Rhin
volunteers, and was from his military knowledge at once elected adjutant
and soon afterwards lieutenant-colonel. At the defence of Mainz he so
distinguished himself that though disgraced along with the rest of the
garrison and imprisoned, he was promptly reinstated, and in August 1793
promoted general of brigade. He won considerable distinction in the
Vendean war, and two months later was made a general of division. In
these operations began his intimacy with Marceau, with whom he defeated
the Royalists at Le Mans and Savenay. For openly expressing his opinion
that lenient measures ought to be pursued towards the Vendeans he was
recalled; but in April 1794 he was once more reinstated and sent to the
Army of the Sambre-and-Meuse. He displayed his skill and bravery in the
numerous actions around Charleroi, and especially in the crowning
victory of Fleurus, after which in the winter of 1794-95 he besieged
Mainz. In 1795 and again in 1796 he held the chief command of an army
temporarily, but declined a permanent appointment as commander-in-chief.
On the 13th of October 1795 he fought a brilliant rearguard action at
the bridge of Neuwied, and in the offensive campaign of 1796 he was
Jourdan's most active and successful lieutenant. Having, after the
retreat to the Rhine (see FRENCH REVOLUTIONARY WARS), declined the chief
command, he withdrew into private life early in 1798. He accepted a
division in the expedition to Egypt under Bonaparte, but was wounded in
the head at Alexandria in the first engagement, which prevented his
taking any further part in the campaign of the Pyramids, and caused him
to be appointed governor of Alexandria. In the Syrian campaign of 1799,
however, he commanded the vanguard, took El-Arish, Gaza and Jaffa, and
won the great victory of Mount Tabor on the 15th of April 1799. When
Napoleon returned to France towards the end of 1799 he left Kleber in
command of the French forces. In this capacity, seeing no hope of
bringing his army back to France or of consolidating his conquests, he
made the convention of El-Arish. But when Lord Keith, the British
admiral, refused to ratify the terms, he attacked the Turks at
Heliopolis, though with but 10,000 men against 60,000, and utterly
defeated them on the 20th of March 1800. He then retook Cairo, which had
revolted from the French. Shortly after these victories he was
assassinated at Cairo by a fanatic on the 14th of June 1800, the same
day on which his friend and comrade Desaix fell at Marengo. Kleber was
undoubtedly one of the greatest generals of the French revolutionary
epoch. Though he distrusted his powers and declined the responsibility
of supreme command, there is nothing in his career to show that he would
have been unequal to it. As a second in command he was not excelled by
any general of his time. His conduct of affairs in Egypt at a time when
the treasury was empty and the troops were discontented for want of pay,
shows that his powers as an administrator were little--if at
all--inferior to those he possessed as a general.
Ernouf, the grandson of Jourdan's chief of staff, published in 1867 a
valuable biography of Kleber. See also Reynaud, _Life of Merlin de
Thionville_; Ney, Memoirs; Dumas, _Souvenirs_; Las Casas, _Memorial de
Ste Helene_; J. Charavaray, _Les Generaux morts pour la patrie_;
General Pajol, _Kleber_; lives of Marceau and Desaix; M. F. Rousseau,
_Kleber et Menou en Egypte_ (Paris, 1900).
KLEIN, JULIUS LEOPOLD (1810-1876), German writer of Jewish origin, was
born at Miskolcz, in Hungary. He was educated at the gymnasium in Pest,
and studied medicine in Vienna and Berlin. After travelling in Italy and
Greece, he settled as a man of letters in Berlin, where he remained
until his death on the 2nd of August 1876. He was the author of many
dramatic works, among others the historical tragedies _Maria von Medici_
(1841); _Luines_ (1842); _Zenobia_ (1847); _Moreto_ (1859); _Maria_
(1860); _Strafford_ (1862) and _Heliodora_ (1867); and the comedies _Die
Herzogin_ (1848); _Ein Schutzling_ (1850); and _Voltaire_ (1862). The
tendency of Klein as a dramatist was to become bombastic and obscure,
but many of his characters are vigorously conceived, and in nearly all
his tragedies there are passages of brilliant rhetoric. He is chiefly
known as the author of the elaborate though uncompleted _Geschichte des
Dramas_ (1865-1876), in which he undertook to record the history of the
drama from the earliest times. He died when about to enter upon the
Elizabethan period, to the treatment of which he had looked forward as
the chief part of his task. The work, which is in thirteen bulky
volumes, gives proof of immense learning, but is marred by
eccentricities of style and judgment.
Klein's _Dramatische Werke_ were collected in 7 vols. (1871-1872).
KLEIST, BERND HEINRICH WILHELM VON (1777-1811), German poet, dramatist
and novelist, was born at Frankfort-on-Oder on the 18th of October 1777.
After a scanty education, he entered the Prussian army in 1792, served
in the Rhine campaign of 1796 and retired from the service in 1799 with
the rank of lieutenant. He next studied law and philosophy at the
university of Frankfort-on-Oder, and in 1800 received a subordinate post
in the ministry of finance at Berlin. In the following year his roving,
restless spirit got the better of him, and procuring a lengthened leave
of absence he visited Paris and then settled in Switzerland. Here he
found congenial friends in Heinrich Zschokke (q.v.) and Ludwig Friedrich
August Wieland (1777-1819), son of the poet; and to them he read his
first drama, a gloomy tragedy, _Die Familie Schroffenstein_ (1803),
originally entitled _Die Familie Ghonorez_. In the autumn of 1802 Kleist
returned to Germany; he visited Goethe, Schiller and Wieland in Weimar,
stayed for a while in Leipzig and Dresden, again proceeded to Paris, and
returning in 1804 to his post in Berlin was transferred to the
_Domanenkammer_ (department for the administration of crown lands) at
Konigsberg. On a journey to Dresden in 1807 Kleist was arrested by the
French as a spy, and being sent to France was kept for six months a
close prisoner at Chalons-sur-Marne. On regaining his liberty he
proceeded to Dresden, where in conjunction with Adam Heinrich Muller
(1779-1829) he published in 1808 the journal _Phobus_. In 1809 he went
to Prague, and ultimately settled in Berlin, where he edited (1810-1811)
the _Berliner Abendblatter_. Captivated by the intellectual and musical
accomplishments of a certain Frau Henriette Vogel, Kleist, who was
himself more disheartened and embittered than ever, agreed to do her
bidding and die with her, carrying out this resolution by first shooting
the lady and then himself on the shore of the Wannsee near Potsdam, on
the 21st of November 1811. Kleist's whole life was filled by a restless
striving after ideal and illusory happiness, and this is largely
reflected in his work. He was by far the most important North German
dramatist of the Romantic movement, and no other of the Romanticists
approaches him in the energy with which he expresses patriotic
indignation.
His first tragedy, _Die Familie Schroffenstein_, has been already
referred to; the material for the second, _Penthesilea_ (1808), queen
of the Amazons, is taken from a Greek source and presents a picture of
wild passion. More successful than either of these was his romantic
play, _Das Kathchen von Heilbronn, oder Die Feuerprobe_ (1808), a
poetic drama full of medieval bustle and mystery, which has retained
its popularity. In comedy, Kleist made a name with _Der zerbrochene
Krug_ (1811), while _Amphitryon_ (1808), an adaptation of Moliere's
comedy, is of less importance. Of Kleist's other dramas, _Die
Hermannschlacht_ (1809) is a dramatic treatment of an historical
subject and is full of references to the political conditions of his
own times. In it he gives vent to his hatred of his country's
oppressors. This, together with the drama _Prinz Friedrich von
Homburg_, the latter accounted Kleist's best work, was first published
by Ludwig Tieck in _Kleists hinterlassene Schriften_ (1821). _Robert
Guiskard_, a drama conceived on a grand plan, was left a fragment.
Kleist was also a master in the art of narrative, and of his
_Gesammelte Erzahlungen_ (1810-1811), _Michael Kohlhaas_, in which the
famous Brandenburg horse dealer in Luther's day (see KOHLHASE) is
immortalized, is one of the best German stories of its time. He also
wrote some patriotic lyrics. His _Gesammelte Schriften_ were published
by Ludwig Tieck (3 vols. 1826) and by Julian Schmidt (new ed. 1874);
also by F. Muncker (4 vols. 1882); by T. Zolling (4 vols. 1885); by K.
Siegen, (4 vols. 1895); and in a critical edition by E. Schmidt (5
vols. 1904-1905). His _Ausgewahlte Dramen_ were published by K. Siegen
(Leipzig, 1877); and his letters were first published by E. von Bulow,
_Heinrich von Kleists Leben und Briefe_ (1848).
See further A. Wilbrandt, _Heinrich von Kleist_ (1863); O. Brahm,
_Heinrich von Kleist_ (1884); R. Bonafous, _Henri de Kleist, sa vie et
ses oeuvres_ (1894); H. Conrad, _Heinrich von Kleist als Mensch und
Dichter_ (1896); G. Minde-Pouet, _Heinrich von Kleist, seine Sprache
und sein Stil_ (1897); R. Steig, _Heinrich von Kleists Berliner
Kampfe_ (1901); F. Servaes, _Heinrich von Kleist_ (1902); S.
Wukadinowic, _Kleist-Studien_ (1904); S. Rahmer, _H. von Kleist als
Mensch und Dichter_ (1909).
KLEIST, EWALD CHRISTIAN VON (1715-1759), German poet, was born at
Zeblin, near Koslin in Pomerania, on the 7th of March 1715. After
attending the Jesuit school in Deutschkrona and the gymnasium in Danzig,
he proceeded in 1731 to the university of Konigsberg, where he studied
law and mathematics. On the completion of his studies, he entered the
Danish army, in which he became an officer in 1736. Recalled to Prussia
by Frederick II. in 1740, he was appointed lieutenant in a regiment
stationed at Potsdam, where he became acquainted with J. W. L. Gleim
(q.v.), who interested him in poetry. After distinguishing himself at
the battle of Mollwitz (April 10, 1741) and the siege of Neisse (1741),
he was promoted captain in 1749 and major in 1756. Quartered during the
winter of 1757-1758 in Leipzig, he found relief from his irksome
military duties in the society of Gotthold Ephraim Lessing (q.v.).
Shortly afterwards in the battle of Kunersdorf, on the 12th of August
1759, he was mortally wounded while leading the attack, and died at
Frankfort-on-Oder on the 24th of August following.
Kleist's chief work is a poem in hexameters, _Der Fruhling_ (1749), for
which Thomson's _Seasons_ largely supplied ideas. In his description of
the beauties of nature Kleist shows real poetical genius, an almost
modern sentiment and fine taste. He also wrote some charming odes,
idylls and elegies, and a small epic poem _Cissides und Paches_ (1759),
the subject being two Thessalian friends who die an heroic death for
their country in a battle against the Athenians.
Kleist published in 1756 the first collection of his _Gedichte_, which
was followed by a second in 1758. After his death his friend Karl
Wilhelm Ramler (q.v.) published an edition of _Kleists samtliche
Werke_ in 2 vols. (1760). A critical edition was published by A.
Sauer, in 3 vols. (1880-1882). Cf. further, A. Chuquet, _De Ewaldi
Kleistii vita et scriptis_ (Paris, 1887), and H. Prohle, _Friedrich
der Grosse und die deutsche Literatur_ (1872).
KLERKSDORP, a town of the Transvaal, 118 m. S.W. of Johannesburg and 192
m. N.E. of Kimberley by rail. Pop. (1904), 4276 of whom 2203 were
whites. The town, built on the banks of the Schoonspruit 10 m. above its
junction with the Vaal, possesses several fine public buildings. In the
neighbourhood are gold-mines, the reef appearing to form the western
boundary of the Witwatersrand basin. Diamonds (green in colour) and coal
are also found in the district. Klerksdorp was one of the villages
founded by the first Boers who crossed the Vaal, dating from 1838. The
modern town, which is on the side of the _spruit_ opposite the old
village, was founded in 1888.
KLESL (or KHLESL), MELCHIOR (1552-1630), Austrian statesman and
ecclesiastic, was the son of a Protestant baker, and was born in Vienna.
Under the influence of the Jesuits he was converted to Roman
Catholicism, and having finished his education at the universities of
Vienna and Ingolstadt, he was made chancellor of the university of
Vienna; and as official and vicar-general of the bishop of Passau he
exhibited the zeal of a convert in forwarding the progress of the
counter-reformation in Austria. He became bishop of Vienna in 1598; but
more important was his association with the archduke Matthias which
began about the same time. Both before and after 1612, when Matthias
succeeded his brother Rudolph II. as emperor, Klesl was the originator
and director of his policy, although he stoutly opposed the concessions
to the Hungarian Protestants in 1606. He assisted to secure the election
of Matthias to the imperial throne, and sought, but without success, to
strengthen the new emperor's position by making peace between the
Catholics and the Protestants. When during the short reign of Matthias
the question of the imperial succession demanded prompt attention, the
bishop, although quite as anxious as his opponents to retain the empire
in the house of Habsburg and to preserve the dominance of the Roman
Catholic Church, advised that this question should be shelved until some
arrangement with the Protestant princes had been reached. This counsel
was displeasing to the archduke Maximilian and to Ferdinand, afterwards
the emperor Ferdinand II. who believed that Klesl was hostile to the
candidature of the latter prince. It was, however, impossible to shake
his influence with the emperor; and in June 1618, a few months before
the death of Matthias, he was seized by order of the archdukes and
imprisoned at Ambras in Tirol. In 1622 Klesl, who had been a cardinal
since 1615, was transferred to Rome by order of Pope Gregory XV., and
was released from imprisonment. In 1627 Ferdinand II. allowed him to
return to his episcopal duties in Vienna, where he died on the 18th of
September 1630.
See J. Freiherr von Hammer-Purgstall, _Khlesls Leben_ (Vienna,
1847-1851); A. Kerschbaumer, _Kardinal Klesl_ (Vienna, 1865); and
_Klesls Briefe an Rudolfs II. Obersthofmeister A. Freiherr von
Dietrichstein_, edited by V. Bibl. (Vienna, 1900).
KLINGER, FRIEDRICH MAXIMILIAN VON (1752-1831), German dramatist and
novelist, was born of humble parentage at Frankfort-on-Main, on the 17th
of February 1752. His father died when he was a child, and his early
years were a hard struggle. He was enabled, however, in 1774 to enter
the university of Giessen, where he studied law; and Goethe, with whom
he had been acquainted since childhood, helped him in many ways. In 1775
Klinger gained with his tragedy _Die Zwillinge_ a prize offered by the
Hamburg theatre, under the auspices of the actress Sophie Charlotte
Ackermann (1714-1792) and her son the famous actor and playwright,
Friedrich Ludwig Schroder (1744-1816). In 1776 Klinger was appointed
_Theaterdichter_ to the "Seylersche Schauspiel-Gesellschaft" and held
this post for two years. In 1778 he entered the Austrian military
service and took part in the Bavarian war of succession. In 1780 he went
to St Petersburg, became an officer in the Russian army, was ennobled
and attached to the Grand Duke Paul, whom he accompanied on a journey to
Italy and France. In 1785 he was appointed director of the corps of
cadets, and having married a natural daughter of the empress Catharine,
was made praeses of the Academy of Knights in 1799. In 1803 Klinger was
nominated by the emperor Alexander curator of the university of Dorpat,
an office he held until 1817; in 1811 he became lieutenant-general. He
then gradually gave up his official posts, and after living for many
years in honourable retirement, died at Dorpat on the 25th of February
1831.
Klinger was a man of vigorous moral character and full of fine feeling,
though the bitter experiences and deprivations of his youth are largely
reflected in his dramas. It was one of his earliest works, _Sturm und
Drang_ (1776), which gave its name to this literary epoch. In addition
to this tragedy and _Die Zwillinge_ (1776), the chief plays of his early
period of passionate fervour and restless "storm and stress" are _Die
neue Arria_ (1776), _Simsone Grisaldo_ (1776) and _Stilpo und seine
Kinder_ (1780). To a later period belongs the fine double tragedy of
_Medea in Korinth_ and _Medea auf dem Kaukasos_ (1791). In Russia he
devoted himself mainly to the writing of philosophical romances, of
which the best known are _Fausts Leben, Taten und Hollenfahrt_ (1791),
_Geschichte Giafars des Barmeciden_ (1792) and _Geschichte Raphaels de
Aquillas_ (1793). This series was closed in 1803 with _Betrachtungen und
Gedanken uber verschiedene Gegenstande der Welt und der Literatur_. In
these works Klinger gives calm and dignified expression to the leading
ideas which the period of _Sturm und Drang_ had bequeathed to German
classical literature.
Klinger's works were published in twelve volumes (1809-1815), also
1832-1833 and 1842. The most recent edition is in eight volumes
(1878-1880); but none of these is complete. A selection will be found
in A. Sauer, _Sturmer und Dranger_, vol. i. (1883). See E. Schmidt,
_Lenz und Klinger_ (1878); M. Rieger, _Klinger in der Sturm- und
Drangperiode_ (1880); and _Klinger in seiner Reife_ (1896).
KLINGER, MAX (1857- ), German painter, etcher and sculptor, was born at
Plagwitz near Leipzig. He attended the classes at the Carlsruhe art
school in 1874, and went in the following year to Berlin, where in 1878
he created a sensation at the Academy exhibition with two series of
pen-and-ink drawings--the "Series upon the Theme of Christ" and
"Fantasies upon the Finding of a Glove." The daring originality of these
imaginative and eccentric works caused an outburst of indignation, and
the artist was voted insane; nevertheless the "Glove" series was bought
by the Berlin National Gallery. His painting of "The Judgment of Paris"
caused a similar storm of indignant protest in 1887, owing to its
rejection of all conventional attributes and the naive directness of the
conception. His vivid and somewhat morbid imagination, with its leaning
towards the gruesome and disagreeable, and the Goyaesque turn of his
mind, found their best expression in his "cycles" of etchings:
"Deliverances of Sacrificial Victims told in Ovid," "A Brahms Phantasy,"
"Eve and the Future," "A Life," and "Of Death"; but in his use of the
needle he does not aim at the technical excellence of the great masters;
it supplies him merely with means of expressing his ideas. After 1886
Klinger devoted himself more exclusively to painting and sculpture. In
his painting he aims neither at classic beauty nor modern truth, but at
grim impressiveness not without a touch of mysticism. His "Pieta" at the
Dresden Gallery, the frescoes at the Leipzig University, and the "Christ
in Olympus," at the Modern Gallery in Vienna, are characteristic
examples of his art. The Leipzig Museum contains his sculptured "Salome"
and "Cassandra." In sculpture he favours the use of varicoloured
materials in the manner of the Greek chryselephantine sculpture. His
"Beethoven" is a notable instance of his work in this direction.
KLIPSPRINGER, the Boer name of a small African mountain-antelope
(_Oreotragus saltator_), ranging from the Cape through East Africa to
Somaliland and Abyssinia, and characterized by its blunt rounded hoofs,
thick pithy hair and gold-spangled colouring. The klipspringer
represents a genus by itself, the various local forms not being worthy
of more than racial distinction. The activity of these antelopes is
marvellous.
KLONDIKE, a district in Yukon Territory, north-western Canada,
approximately in 64 deg. N. and 140 deg. W. The limits are rather
indefinite, but the district includes the country to the south of the
Klondike River, which comes into the Yukon from the east and has several
tributaries, as well as Indian River, a second branch of the Yukon,
flowing into it some distance above the Klondike. The richer
gold-bearing gravels are found along the creeks tributary to these two
rivers within an area of about 800 sq. m. The Klondike district is a
dissected peneplain with low ridges of rounded forms rising to 4250 ft.
above the sea at the Dome which forms its centre. All of the
gold-bearing creeks rise not far from the Dome and radiate in various
directions toward the Klondike and Indian rivers, the most productive
being Bonanza with its tributary Eldorado, Hunker, Dominion and Gold
Run. Of these, Eldorado, for the two or three miles in which it was
gold-bearing, was much the richest, and for its length probably
surpassed any other known placer deposit. Rich gravel was discovered on
Bonanza Creek in 1896, and a wild rush to this almost inaccessible
region followed, a population of 30,000 coming in within the next three
or four years with a rapidly increasing output of gold, reaching in 1900
the climax of $22,000,000. Since then the production has steadily
declined, until in 1906 it fell to $5,600,000. The richest gravels were
worked out before 1910, and most of the population had left the Klondike
for Alaska and other regions; so that Dawson, which for a time was a
bustling city of more than 10,000, dwindled to about 3000 inhabitants.
As the ground was almost all frozen, the mines were worked by a thawing
process, first by setting fires, afterwards by using steam, new methods
being introduced to meet the unusual conditions. Later dredges and
hydraulic mining were resorted to with success.
The Klondike, in spite of its isolated position, brought together miners
and adventurers from all parts of the world, and it is greatly to the
credit of the Canadian government and of the mounted police, who were
entrusted with the keeping of order, that life and property were as safe
as elsewhere and that no lawless methods were adopted by the miners as
in placer mining camps in the western United States. The region was at
first difficult of access, but can now be reached with perfect comfort
in summer, travelling by well-appointed steamers on the Pacific and the
Yukon River. Owing to its perpetually frozen soil, summer roads were
excessively bad in earlier days, but good wagon roads have since been
constructed to all the important mining centres. Dawson itself has all
the resources of a civilized city in spite of being founded on a frozen
peat-bog; and is supplied with ordinary market vegetables from farms
just across the river. During the winter, when for some time the sun
does not appear above the hills, the cold is intense, though usually
without wind, but the well-chinked log houses can be kept comfortably
warm. When winter travel is necessary dog teams and sledges are
generally made use of, except on the stage route south to White Horse,
where horses are used. A telegraph line connects Dawson with British
Columbia, but the difficulties in keeping it in order are so great over
the long intervening wilderness that communication is often broken. Gold
is practically the only economic product of the Klondike, though small
amounts of tin ore occur, and lignite coal has been mined lower down on
the Yukon. The source of the gold seems to have been small stringers of
quartz in the siliceous and sericitic schists which form the bed rock of
much of the region, and no important quartz veins have been discovered;
so that unlike most other placer regions the Klondike has not developed
lode mines to continue the production of gold when the gravels are
exhausted.
KLOPP, ONNO (1822-1903), German historian, was born at Leer on the 9th
of October 1822, and was educated at the universities of Bonn, Berlin
and Gottingen. For a few years he was a teacher at Leer and at
Osnabruck; but in 1858 he settled at Hanover, where he became intimate
with King George V., who made him his _Archivrat_. Thoroughly disliking
Prussia, he was in hearty accord with George in resisting her aggressive
policy; and after the annexation of Hanover in 1866 he accompanied the
exiled king to Hietzing. He became a Roman Catholic in 1874. He died at
Penzing, near Vienna, on the 9th of August 1903. Klopp is best known as
the author of _Der Fall des Hauses Stuart_ (Vienna, 1875-1888), the
fullest existing account of the later Stuarts.
His _Der Konig Friedrich II. und seine Politik_ (Schaffhausen, 1867)
and _Geschichte Ostfrieslands_ (Hanover, 1854-1858) show his dislike
of Prussia. His other works include _Der dreissigjahrige Krieg bis zum
Tode Gustav Adolfs_ (Paderborn, 1891-1896); a revised edition of his
_Tilly im dreissigjahrigen Kriege_ (Stuttgart, 1861); a life of George
V., _Konig Georg V._ (Hanover, 1878); _Phillipp Melanchthon_ (Berlin,
1897). He edited _Corrispondenza epistolare tra Leopoldo I. imperatore
ed il P. Marco l'Aviano capuccino_ (Gratz, 1888). Klopp also wrote
much in defence of George V. and his claim to Hanover, including the
_Offizieller Bericht uber die Kriegsereignisse zwischen Hannover und
Preussen im Juni 1866_ (Vienna, 1867), and he edited the works of
Leibnitz in eleven volumes (1861-1884).
See W. Klopp, _Onno Klopp: ein Lebenslauf_ (Wehberg, 1907).
KLOPSTOCK, GOTTLIEB FRIEDRICH (1724-1803), German poet, was born at
Quedlinburg, on the 2nd of July 1724, the eldest son of a lawyer, a man
of sterling character and of a deeply religious mind. Both in his
birthplace and on the estate of Friedeburg on the Saale, which his father
later rented, young Klopstock passed a happy childhood; and more
attention having been given to his physical than to his mental
development he grew up a strong healthy boy and was an excellent horseman
and skater. In his thirteenth year Klopstock returned to Quedlinburg
where he attended the gymnasium, and in 1739 proceeded to the famous
classical school of Schulpforta. Here he soon became an adept in Greek
and Latin versification, and wrote some meritorious idylls and odes in
German. His original intention of making the emperor Henry I. ("The
Fowler") the hero of an epic, was, under the influence of Milton's
_Paradise Lost_, with which he became acquainted through Bodmer's
translation, abandoned in favour of the religious epic. While yet at
school, he had already drafted the plan of _Der Messias_, upon which his
fame mainly rests. On the 21st of September 1745 he delivered on quitting
school a remarkable "leaving oration" on epic poetry--_Abschiedsrede uber
die epische Poesie, kultur- und literargeschichtlich erlautert_--and next
proceeded to Jena as a student of theology, where he elaborated the first
three cantos of the _Messias_ in prose. The life at this university being
uncongenial to him, he removed in the spring of 1746 to Leipzig, and here
joined the circle of young men of letters who contributed to the _Bremer
Beitrage_. In this periodical the first three cantos of the _Messias_ in
hexameters were anonymously published in 1748. A new era in German
literature had commenced, and the name of the author soon became known.
In Leipzig he also wrote a number of odes, the best known of which is _An
meine Freunde_ (1747), afterwards recast as _Wingolf_ (1767). He left the
university in 1748 and became a private tutor in the family of a relative
at Langensalza. Here unrequited love for a cousin (the "Fanny" of his
odes) disturbed his peace of mind. Gladly therefore he accepted in 1750
an invitation from Jakob Bodmer (q.v.), the translator of _Paradise
Lost_, to visit him in Zurich. Here Klopstock was at first treated with
every kindness and respect and rapidly recovered his spirits. Bodmer,
however, was disappointed to find in the young poet of the _Messias_ a
man of strong worldly interests, and a coolness sprang up between the two
friends.
At this juncture Klopstock received from Frederick V. of Denmark, on the
recommendation of his minister Count von Bernstorff (1712-1772), an
invitation to settle at Copenhagen, with an annuity of 400 talers, with
a view to the completion of the _Messias_. The offer was accepted; on
his way to the Danish capital Klopstock met at Hamburg the lady who in
1754 became his wife, Margareta (Meta) Moller, (the "Cidli" of his
odes), an enthusiastic admirer of his poetry. His happiness was short;
she died in 1758, leaving him almost broken-hearted. His grief at her
loss finds pathetic expression in the 15th canto of the _Messias_. The
poet subsequently published his wife's writings, _Hinterlassene Werke
von Margareta Klopstock_ (1759), which give evidence of a tender,
sensitive and deeply religious spirit. Klopstock now relapsed into
melancholy; new ideas failed him, and his poetry became more and more
vague and unintelligible. He still continued to live and work at
Copenhagen, and next, following Heinrich Wilhelm von Gerstenberg (q.v.),
turned his attention to northern mythology, which he conceived should
replace classical subjects in a new school of German poetry. In 1770, on
the dismissal by King Christian VII. of Count Bernstorff from office, he
retired with the latter to Hamburg, but retained his pension together
with the rank of councillor of legation. Here, in 1773, he issued the
last five cantos of the _Messias_. In the following year he published
his strange scheme for the regeneration of German letters, _Die
Gelehrtenrepublik_ (1774). In 1775 he travelled south, and making the
acquaintance of Goethe on the way, spent a year at the court of the
margrave of Baden at Karlsruhe. Thence, in 1776, with the title of
_Hofrat_ and a pension from the margrave, which he retained together
with that from the king of Denmark, he returned to Hamburg where he
spent the remainder of his life. His latter years he passed, as had
always been his inclination, in retirement, only occasionally relieved
by association with his most intimate friends, busied with philological
studies, and hardly interesting himself in the new developments of
German literature. The American War of Independence and the Revolution
in France aroused him, however, to enthusiasm. The French Republic sent
him the diploma of honorary citizenship; but, horrified at the terrible
scenes the Revolution had enacted in the place of liberty, he returned
it. When 67 years of age he contracted a second marriage with Johanna
Elisabeth von Winthem, a widow and a niece of his late wife, who for
many years had been one of his most intimate friends. He died at Hamburg
on the 14th of March 1803, mourned by all Germany, and was buried with
great pomp and ceremony by the side of his first wife in the churchyard
of the village of Ottensen.
Klopstock's nature was best attuned to lyrical poetry, and in it his
deep, noble character found its truest expression. He was less suited
for epic and dramatic representation; for, wrapt up in himself, a
stranger to the outer world, without historical culture, and without
even any interest in the events of his time, he was lacking in the art
of plastic representation such as a great epic requires. Thus the
_Messias_, despite the magnificent passages which especially the
earlier cantos contain, cannot satisfy the demands such a theme must
necessarily make. The subject matter, the Redemption, presented
serious difficulties to adequate epic treatment. The Gospel story was
too scanty, and what might have been imported from without and
interwoven with it was rejected by the author as profane. He had
accordingly to resort to Christian mythology; and here again,
circumscribed by the dogmas of the Church, he was in danger of
trespassing on the fundamental truths of the Christian faith. The
personality of Christ could scarcely be treated in an individual form,
still less could angels and devils--and in the case of God Himself it
was impossible. The result was that, despite the groundwork--the
Gospels, the _Acts of the Apostles_, the _Revelation of St John_, and
the model ready to hand in Milton's _Paradise Lost_--material elements
are largely wanting and the actors in the poem, Divine and human, lack
plastic form. That the poem took twenty-five years to complete could
not but be detrimental to its unity of design; the original enthusiasm
was not sustained until the end, and the earlier cantos are far
superior to the later. Thus the intense public interest the work
aroused in its commencement had almost vanished before its completion.
It was translated into seventeen languages and led to numerous
imitations. In his odes Klopstock had more scope for his peculiar
talent. Among the best are _An Fanny_; _Der Zurchersee_; _Die tote
Klarissa_; _An Cidli_; _Die beiden Musen_; _Der Rheinwein_; _Die
fruhen Graber_; _Mein Vaterland_. His religious odes mostly take the
form of hymns, of which the most beautiful is _Die Fruhlingsfeier_.
His dramas, in some of which, notably _Hermanns Schlacht_ (1769) and
_Hermann und die Fursten_ (1784), he celebrated the deeds of the
ancient German hero Arminius, and in others, _Der Tod Adams_ (1757)
and _Salomo_ (1764), took his materials from the Old Testament, are
essentially lyrical in character and deficient in action. In addition
to _Die Gelehrtenrepublik_, he was also the author of _Fragmente uber
Sprache und Dichtkunst_ (1779) and _Grammatische Gesprache_ (1794),
works in which he made important contributions to philology and to the
history of German poetry.
Klopstock's _Werke_ first appeared in seven quarto volumes
(1798-1809). At the same time a more complete edition in twelve octavo
volumes was published (1798-1817), to which six additional volumes
were added in 1830. More recent editions were published in 1844-1845,
1854-1855, 1879 (ed. by R. Boxberger), 1884 (ed. by R. Hamel) and 1893
(a selection edited by F. Muncker). A critical edition of the _Odes_
was published by F. Muncker and J. Pawel in 1889; a commentary on
these by H. Duntzer (1860; 2nd ed., 1878). For Klopstock's
correspondence see K. Schmidt, _Klopstock und seine Freunde_ (1810);
C. A. H. Clodius, _Klopstocks Nachlass_ (1821); J. M. Lappenberg,
_Briefe von und an Klopstock_ (1867). Cf. further K. F. Cramer,
_Klopstock, er und uber ihn_ (1780-1792); J. G. Gruber, _Klopstocks
Leben_ (1832); R. Hamel, _Klopstock-Studien_ (1879-1880); F. Muncker,
_F. G. Klopstock_, the most authoritative biography, (1888); E.
Bailly, _Etude sur la vie et les oeuvres de Klopstock_ (Paris, 1888).
KLOSTERNEUBURG, a town of Austria, in Lower Austria, 5(1/2) m. N.W. of
Vienna by rail. Pop. (1900), 11,595. It is situated on the right bank of
the Danube, at the foot of the Kahlenberg, and is divided by a small
stream into an upper and a lower town. As an important pioneer station
Klosterneuburg has various military buildings and stores, and among the
schools it possesses an academy of wine and fruit cultivation.
On a hill rising directly from the banks of the Danube stand the
magnificent buildings (erected 1730-1834) of the Augustine canonry,
founded in 1106 by Margrave Leopold the Holy. This foundation is the
oldest and richest of the kind in Austria; it owns much of the land
upon which the north-western suburbs of Vienna stand. Among the points
of interest within it are the old chapel of 1318, with Leopold's tomb
and the altar of Verdun, dating from the 12th century, the treasury and
relic-chamber, the library with 30,000 volumes and many MSS., the
picture gallery, the collection of coins, the theological hall, and the
wine-cellar, containing an immense tun like that at Heidelberg. The
inhabitants of Klosterneuburg are mainly occupied in making wine, of
excellent quality. There is a large cement factory outside the town. In
Roman times the castle of Citium stood in the region of Klosterneuburg.
The town was founded by Charlemagne, and received its charter as a town
in 1298.
KLOTZ, REINHOLD (1807-1870), German classical scholar, was born near
Chemnitz in Saxony on the 13th of March 1807. In 1849 he was appointed
professor in the university of Leipzig in succession to Gottfried
Hermann, and held this post till his death on the 10th of August 1870.
Klotz was a man of unwearied industry, and devoted special attention to
Latin literature.
He was the author of editions of several classical authors, of which
the most important were: the complete works of Cicero (2nd ed.,
1869-1874); Clement of Alexandria (1831-1834); Euripides (1841-1867),
in continuation of Pflugk's edition, but unfinished; Terence
(1838-1840), with the commentaries of Donatus and Eugraphius. Mention
should also be made of: _Handworterbuch der lateinischen Sprache_ (5th
ed., 1874); _Romische Litteraturgeschichte_ (1847), of which only the
introductory volume appeared; an edition of the treatise _De Graecae
linguae particulis_ (1835-1842) of Matthaeus Deverius (Devares), a
learned Corfiote (c. 1500-1570), and corrector of the Greek MSS. in
the Vatican; the posthumous _Index Ciceronianus_ (1872) and _Handbuch
der lateinischen Stilistik_ (1874). From 1831-1855 Klotz was editor of
the _Neue Jahrbucher fur Philologie_ (Leipzig). During the troubled
times of 1848 and the following years he showed himself a strong
conservative.
A memoir by his son Richard will be found in the _Jahrbucher_ for
1871, pp. 154-163.
KNARESBOROUGH, a market town in the Ripon parliamentary division of the
West Riding of Yorkshire, England, 16(1/2) m. W. by N. from York by a
branch of the North Eastern railway. Pop. of urban district (1901),
4979. Its situation is most picturesque, on the steep left bank of the
river Nidd, which here follows a well-wooded valley, hemmed in by
limestone cliffs. The church of St John the Baptist is Early English,
but has numerous Decorated and Perpendicular additions; it is a
cruciform building containing several interesting monuments.
Knaresborough Castle was probably founded in 1070 by Serlo de Burgh. Its
remains, however, are of the 14th century, and include a massive keep
rising finely from a cliff above the Nidd. After the battle of Marston
Moor it was taken by Fairfax, and in 1648 it was ordered to be
dismantled. To the south of the castle is St Robert's chapel, an
excavation in the rock constructed into an ecclesiastical edifice in the
reign of Richard I. Several of the excavations in the limestone, which
is extensively quarried, are incorporated in dwelling-houses. A little
farther down the river is St Robert's cave, which is supposed to have
been the residence of the hermit, and in 1744 was the scene of the
murder of Daniel Clarke by Eugene Aram, whose story is told in Lytton's
well-known novel. Opposite the castle is the Dropping Well, the waters
of which are impregnated with lime and have petrifying power, this
action causing the curious and beautiful incrustations formed where the
water falls over a slight cliff. The Knaresborough free grammar school
was founded in 1616. There is a large agricultural trade, and linen and
leather manufactures and the quarries also employ a considerable number
of persons.
Knaresborough (_Canardesburg_, _Cnarreburc_, _Cknareburg_), which
belonged to the Crown before the Conquest, formed part of William the
Conqueror's grant to his follower Serlo de Burgh. Being forfeited by his
grandson Eustace FitzJohn in the reign of Stephen, Knaresborough was
granted to Robert de Stuteville, from whose descendants it passed
through marriage to Hugh de Morville, one of the murderers of Thomas
Becket, who with his three accomplices remained in hiding in the castle
for a whole year. During the 13th and 14th centuries the castle and
lordship changed hands very frequently; they were granted successively
to Hubert de Burgh, whose son forfeited them after the battle of
Evesham, to Richard, earl of Cornwall, whose son Edmund died without
issue; to Piers Gaveston, and lastly to John of Gaunt, duke of
Lancaster, and so to the Crown as parcel of the duchy of Lancaster. In
1317 John de Lilleburn, who was holding the castle of Knaresborough for
Thomas duke of Lancaster against the king, surrendered under conditions
to William de Ros of Hamelak, but before leaving the castle managed to
destroy all the records of the liberties and privileges of the town
which were kept in the castle. In 1368 an inquisition was taken to
ascertain these privileges, and the jurors found that the burgesses held
"all the soil of their borough yielding 7s. 4d. yearly and doing suit at
the king's court." In the reign of Henry VIII. Knaresborough is said by
Leland to be "no great thing and meanely builded but the market there is
quik." During the civil wars Knaresborough was held for some time by the
Royalists, but they were obliged to surrender, and the castle was among
those ordered to be destroyed by parliament in 1646. A market on
Wednesday and a fortnightly fair on the same day from the Feast of St
Mark to that of St Andrew are claimed under a charter of Charles II.
confirming earlier charters. Lead ore was found and worked on
Knaresborough Common in the 16th century. From 1555 to 1867 the town
returned two members to parliament, but in the latter year the number
was reduced to one, and in 1885 the representation was merged in that of
the West Riding.
KNAVE (O.E. _cnafa_, cognate with Ger. _Knabe_, boy), originally a male
child, a boy (Chaucer, _Canterbury Tales_: "Clerk's Tale," I. 388). Like
Lat. _puer_, the word was early used as a name for any boy or lad
employed as a servant, and so of male servants in general (Chaucer:
"Pardoner's Tale," 1. 204). The current use of the word for a man who is
dishonest and crafty, a rogue, was however an early usage, and is found
in Layamon (c. 1205). In playing-cards the lowest court card of each
suit, the "jack," representing a medieval servant, is called the
"knave." (See also VALET.)
KNEBEL, KARL LUDWIG VON (1744-1834), German poet and translator, was
born at the castle of Wallerstein in Franconia on the 30th of November
1744. After having studied law for a short while at Halle, he entered
the regiment of the crown prince of Prussia in Potsdam and was attached
to it as officer for ten years. Disappointed in his military career,
owing to the slowness of promotion, he retired in 1774, and accepting
the post of tutor to Prince Konstantin of Weimar, accompanied him and
his elder brother, the hereditary prince, on a tour to Paris. On this
journey he visited Goethe in Frankfort-on-Main, and introduced him to
the hereditary prince, Charles Augustus. This meeting is memorable as
being the immediate cause of Goethe's later intimate connexion with the
Weimar court. After Knebel's return and the premature death of his pupil
he was pensioned, receiving the rank of major. In 1798 he married the
singer Luise von Rudorf, and retired to Ilmenau; but in 1805 he removed
to Jena, where he lived until his death on the 23rd of February 1834.
Knebel's _Sammlung kleiner Gedichte_ (1815), issued anonymously, and
_Distichen_ (1827) contain many graceful sonnets, but it is as a
translator that he is best known. His translation of the elegies of
Propertius, _Elegien des Properz_ (1798), and that of Lucretius' _De
rerum natura_ (2 vols., 1831) are deservedly praised. Since their first
acquaintance Knebel and Goethe were intimate friends, and not the least
interesting of Knebel's writings is his correspondence with the eminent
poet, _Briefwechsel mit Goethe_ (ed. G. E. Guhrauer, 2 vols., 1851).
Knebel's _Literarischer Nachlass und Briefwechsel_ was edited by K. A.
Varnhagen von Ense and T. Mundt in 3 vols. (1835; 2nd ed., 1840). See
Hugo von Knebel-Doberitz, _Karl Ludwig von Knebel_ (1890).
KNEE (O.E. _cneow_, a word common to Indo-European languages, cf. Ger.
_Knie_, Fr. _genou_, Span, _hinojo_, Lat. _genu_, Gr. [Greek: gonu],
Sansk. _janu_), in human anatomy, the articulation of the upper and
lower parts of the leg, the joint between the femur and the tibia (see
JOINTS). The word is also used of articulation resembling the knee-joint
in shape or position in other animals; it thus is applied to the carpal
articulation of the fore leg of a horse, answering to the ankle in man,
or to the tarsal articulation or heel of a bird's foot.
KNELLER, SIR GODFREY (1648-1723), a portrait painter whose celebrity
belongs chiefly to England, was born in Lubeck in the duchy of Holstein,
of an ancient family, on the 8th of August 1648. He was at first
intended for the army, and was sent to Leyden to learn mathematics and
fortification. Showing, however, a marked preference for the fine arts,
he studied in the school of Rembrandt, and under Ferdinand Bol in
Amsterdam. In 1672 he removed to Italy, directing his chief attention to
Titian and the Caracci; Carlo Maratta gave him some guidance and
encouragement. In Rome, and more especially in Venice, Kneller earned
considerable reputation by historical paintings as well as portraits. He
next went to Hamburg, painting with still increasing success. In 1674 he
came to England at the invitation of the duke of Monmouth, was
introduced to Charles II., and painted that sovereign, much to his
satisfaction, several times. Charles also sent him to Paris, to take the
portrait of Louis XIV. When Sir Peter Lely died in 1680, Kneller, who
produced in England little or nothing in the historical department,
remained without a rival in the ranks of portrait painting; there was no
native-born competition worth speaking of. Charles appointed him court
painter; and he continued to hold the same post into the days of George
I. Under William III. (1692) he was made a knight, under George I.
(1715) a baronet, and by order of the emperor Leopold I. a knight of the
Roman Empire. Not only his court favour but his general fame likewise
was large: he was lauded by Dryden, Addison, Steele, Prior, Tickell and
Pope. Kneller's gains also were very considerable; aided by habits of
frugality which approached stinginess, he left property yielding an
annual income of L2000. His industry was maintained till the last. His
studio had at first been in Covent Garden, but in his closing years he
lived in Kneller Hall, Twickenham. He died of fever, the date being
generally given as the 7th of November 1723, though some accounts say
1726. He was buried in Twickenham church, and has a monument in
Westminster Abbey. An elder brother, John Zachary Kneller, an ornamental
painter, had accompanied Godfrey to England, and had died in 1702. The
style of Sir Godfrey Kneller as a portrait painter represented the
decline of that art as practised by Vandyck; Lely marks the first grade
of descent, and Kneller the second. His works have much freedom, and are
well drawn and coloured; but they are mostly slight in manner, and to a
great extent monotonous, this arising partly from the habit which he had
of lengthening the oval of all his heads. The colouring may be called
brilliant rather than true. He indulged much in the common-places of
allegory; and, though he had a quality of dignified elegance not
unallied with simplicity, genuine simple nature is seldom to be traced
in his works. His fame has greatly declined, and could not but do so
after the advent of Reynolds. Among Kneller's principal paintings are
the "Forty-three Celebrities of the Kit-Cat Club," and the "Ten Beauties
of the Court of William III.," now at Hampton Court; these were painted
by order of the queen; they match, but match unequally, the "Beauties of
the Court of Charles II.," painted by Lely. He executed altogether the
likenesses of ten sovereigns, and fourteen of his works appear in the
National Portrait Gallery. It is said that Kneller's own favourite
performance was the portrait of the "Converted Chinese" in Windsor
Castle. His later works are confined almost entirely to England, not
more than two or three specimens having gone abroad after he had settled
here. (W. M. R.)
KNICKERBOCKER, HARMEN JANSEN (c. 1650-c. 1720), Dutch colonist of New
Netherland (New York), was a native of Wyhe (Wie), Overyssel, Holland.
Before 1683 he settled near what is now Albany, New York, and there in
1704 he bought through Harme Gansevoort one-fourth of the land in
Dutchess county near Red Hook, which had been patented in 1688 to Peter
Schuyler, who in 1722 deeded seven (of thirteen) lots in the upper
fourth of his patent to the seven children of Knickerbocker. The eldest
of these children, Johannes Harmensen, received from the common council
of the city of Albany a grant of 50 acres of meadow and 10 acres of
upland on the south side of Schaghticoke Creek. This Schaghticoke estate
was held by Johannes Harmensen's son Johannes (1723-1802), a colonel in
the Continental Army in the War of Independence, and by his son Harmen
(1779-1855), a lawyer, a federalist representative in Congress in
1809-1811, a member of the New York Assembly in 1816, and a famous
gentleman of the old school, who for his courtly hospitality in his
manor was called "the prince of Schaghticoke" and whose name was
borrowed by Washington Irving for use in his (Diedrich) _Knickerbocker's
History of New York_ (1809). Largely owing to this book, the name
"Knickerbockers" has passed into current use as a designation of the
early Dutch settlers in New York and their descendants. The son of
Johannes, David Buel Knickerbacker (1833-1894), who returned to the
earlier spelling of the family name, graduated at Trinity College in
1853 and at the General Theological Seminary in 1856, was a rector for
many years at Minneapolis, Minnesota, and in 1883 was consecrated
Protestant Episcopal bishop of Indiana.
See the series of articles by W. B. Van Alstyne on "The Knickerbocker
Family," beginning in vol. xxix., No. 1 (Jan. 1908) of the _New York
Genealogical and Biographical Record_.
KNIFE (O.E. _cnif_, a word appearing in different forms in many Teutonic
languages, cf. Du. _knijf_, Ger. _Kneif_, a shoemaker's knife, Swed.
_knif_; the ultimate origin is unknown; Skeat finds the origin in the
root of "nip," formerly "knip"; Fr. _canif_ is also of Teutonic origin),
a small cutting instrument, with the blade either fixed to the handle or
fastened with a hinge so as to clasp into the handle (see CUTLERY). For
the knives chipped from flint by prehistoric man see ARCHAEOLOGY and
FLINT IMPLEMENTS.
KNIGGE, ADOLF FRANZ FRIEDRICH, FREIHERR VON (1752-1796), German author,
was born on the family estate of Bredenbeck near Hanover on the 16th of
October 1752. After studying law at Gottingen he was attached
successively to the courts of Hesse-Cassel and Weimar as
gentleman-in-waiting. Retiring from court service in 1777, he lived a
private life with his family in Frankfort-on-Main, Hanau, Heidelberg and
Hanover until 1791, when he was appointed _Oberhauptmann_ (civil
administrator) in Bremen, where he died on the 6th of May 1796. Knigge,
under the name "Philo," was one of the most active members of the
_Illuminati_, a mutual moral and intellectual improvement society
founded by Adam Weishaupt (1748-1830) at Ingolstadt, and which later
became affiliated to the Freemasons. Knigge is known as the author of
several novels, among which _Der Roman meines Lebens_ (1781-1787; new
ed., 1805) and _Die Reise nach Braunschweig_ (1792), the latter a rather
coarsely comic story, are best remembered. His chief literary
achievement was, however, _Uber den Umgang mit Menschen_ (1788), in
which he lays down rules to be observed for a peaceful, happy and useful
life; it has been often reprinted.
Knigge's _Schriften_ were published in 12 volumes (1804-1806). See K.
Goedeke, _Adolf, Freiherr von Knigge_ (1844); and H. Klencke, _Aus
einer alten Kiste_ (_Briefe, Handschriften und Dokumente aus dem
Nachlasse Knigges_) (1853).
KNIGHT, CHARLES (1791-1873), English publisher and author, the son of a
bookseller and printer at Windsor, was born on the 15th of March 1791.
He was apprenticed to his father, but on the completion of his
indentures he took up journalism and interested himself in several
newspaper speculations. In 1823, in conjunction with friends he had made
as publisher (1820-1821) of _The Etonian_, he started _Knight's
Quarterly Magazine_, to which W. M. Praed, Derwent Coleridge and
Macaulay contributed. The venture was brought to a close with its sixth
number, but it initiated for Knight a career as publisher and author
which extended over forty years. In 1827 Knight was compelled to give up
his publishing business, and became the superintendent of the
publications of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, for
which he projected and edited _The British Almanack and Companion_,
begun in 1828. In 1829 he resumed business on his own account with the
publication of _The Library of Entertaining Knowledge_, writing several
volumes of the series himself. In 1832 and 1833 he started _The Penny
Magazine_ and _The Penny Cyclopaedia_, both of which had a large
circulation. _The Penny Cyclopaedia_, however, on account of the heavy
excise duty, was only completed in 1844 at a great pecuniary sacrifice.
Besides many illustrated editions of standard works, including in 1842
_The Pictorial Shakespeare_, which had appeared in parts (1838-1841),
Knight published a variety of illustrated works, such as _Old England_
and _The Land we Live in_. He also undertook the series known as _Weekly
Volumes_. He himself contributed the first volume, a biography of
William Caxton. Many famous books, Miss Martineau's _Tales_, Mrs
Jameson's _Early Italian Painters_ and G. H. Lewes's _Biographical
History of Philosophy_, appeared for the first time in this series. In
1853 he became editor of _The English Cyclopaedia_, which was
practically only a revision of _The Penny Cyclopaedia_, and at about the
same time he began his _Popular History of England_ (8 vols.,
1856-1862). In 1864 he withdrew from the business of publisher, but he
continued to write nearly to the close of his long life, publishing _The
Shadows of the Old Booksellers_ (1865), an autobiography under the title
_Passages of a Working Life during Half a Century_ (2 vols., 1864-1865),
and an historical novel, _Begg'd at Court_ (1867). He died at
Addlestone, Surrey, on the 9th of March 1873.
See A. A. Clowes, _Knight, a Sketch_ (1892); and F. Espinasse, in _The
Critic_ (May 1860).
KNIGHT, DANIEL RIDGWAY (1845- ), American artist, was born at
Philadelphia, Penn., in 1845. He was a pupil at the Ecole des
Beaux-Arts, Paris, under Gleyre, and later worked in the private studio
of Meissonier. After 1872 he lived in France, having a house and studio
at Poissy on the Seine. He painted peasant women out of doors with great
popular success. He was awarded the silver medal and cross of the Legion
of Honour, Exposition Universelle, Paris, 1889, and was made a knight of
the Royal Order of St Michael of Bavaria, Munich, 1893, receiving the
gold medal of honour from the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts,
Philadelphia, 1893. His son, Ashton Knight, is also known as a landscape
painter.
KNIGHT, JOHN BUXTON (1843-1908), English landscape painter, was born at
Sevenoaks, Kent; he started as a schoolmaster, but painting was his
hobby, and he subsequently devoted himself to it. In 1861 he had his
first picture hung at the Academy. He was essentially an open-air
painter, constantly going on sketching tours in the most picturesque
spots of England, and all his pictures were painted out of doors. He
died at Dover on the 2nd of January 1908. The Chantrey trustees bought
his "December's Bareness Everywhere" for the nation in the following
month. Most of his best pictures had passed into the collection of Mr
Iceton of Putney (including "White Walls of Old England" and "Hereford
Cathedral"), Mr Walter Briggs of Burley in Wharfedale (especially
"Pinner"), and Mr S. M. Phillips of Wrotham (especially two
water-colours of Richmond Bridge).
KNIGHTHOOD and CHIVALRY. These two words, which are nearly but not quite
synonymous, designate a single subject of inquiry, which presents itself
under three different although connected and in a measure intermingled
aspects. It may be regarded in the first place as a mode or variety of
feudal tenure, in the second place as a personal attribute or dignity,
and in the third place as a scheme of manners or social arrangements.
The first of these aspects is discussed under the headings FEUDALISM and
KNIGHT SERVICE: we are concerned here only with the second and third.
For the more important religious as distinguished from the military
orders of knighthood or chivalry the reader is referred to the headings
ST JOHN OF JERUSALEM, KNIGHTS OF; TEUTONIC KNIGHTS; and TEMPLARS.
"The growth of knighthood" (writes Stubbs) "is a subject on which the
greatest obscurity prevails": and, though J. H. Round has done much to
explain the introduction of the system into England,[1] its actual
origin on the continent of Europe is still obscure in many of its most
important details.
The words _knight_ and _knighthood_ are merely the modern forms of the
Anglo-Saxon or Old English _cniht_ and _cnihthad_. Of these the primary
signification of the first was a boy or youth, and of the second that
period of life which intervenes between childhood and manhood. But some
time before the middle of the 12th century they had acquired the meaning
they still retain of the French _chevalier_ and _chevalerie_. In a
secondary sense _cniht_ meant a servant or attendant answering to the
German _Knecht_, and in the Anglo-Saxon Gospels a disciple is described
as a _leorning cniht_. In a tertiary sense the word appears to have been
occasionally employed as equivalent to the Latin _miles_--usually
translated by _thegn_--which in the earlier middle ages was used as the
designation of the domestic as well as of the martial officers or
retainers of sovereigns and princes or great personages.[2] Sharon
Turner suggests that _cniht_ from meaning an attendant simply may have
come to mean more especially a military attendant, and that in this
sense it may have gradually superseded the word thegn.[3] But the word
thegn itself, that is, when it was used as the description of an
attendant of the king, appears to have meant more especially a military
attendant. As Stubbs says "the thegn seems to be primarily the warrior
gesith"--the gesithas forming the chosen band of companions (_comites_)
of the German chiefs (_principes_) noticed by Tacitus--"he is probably
the gesith who had a particular military duty in his master's service";
and he adds that from the reign of Athelstan "the gesith is lost sight
of except very occasionally, the more important class having become
thegns, and the lesser sort sinking into the rank of mere servants of
the king."[4] It is pretty clear, therefore, that the word cniht could
never have superseded the word thegn in the sense of a military
attendant, at all events of the king. But besides the king, the
ealdormen, bishops and king's thegns themselves had their thegns, and to
these it is more than probable that the name of _cniht_ was applied.
Around the Anglo-Saxon magnates were collected a crowd of retainers and
dependants of all ranks and conditions; and there is evidence enough to
show that among them were some called _cnihtas_ who were not always the
humblest or least considerable of their number.[5] The testimony of
Domesday also establishes the existence in the reign of Edward the
Confessor of what Stubbs describes as a "large class" of landholders who
had commended themselves to some lord, and he regards it as doubtful
whether their tenure had not already assumed a really feudal character.
But in any event it is manifest that their condition was in many
respects similar to that of a vast number of unquestionably feudal and
military tenants who made their appearance after the Norman Conquest. If
consequently the former were called _cnihtas_ under the Anglo-Saxon
regime, it seems sufficiently probable that the appellation should have
been continued to the latter--practically their successors--under the
Anglo-Norman regime. And if the designation of knights was first applied
to the military tenants of the earls, bishops and barons--who although
they held their lands of mesne lords owed their services to the
king--the extension of that designation to the whole body of military
tenants need not have been a very violent or prolonged process.
Assuming, however, that _knight_ was originally used to describe the
military tenant of a noble person, as _cniht_ had sometimes been used to
describe the thegn of a noble person, it would, to begin with, have
defined rather his social status than the nature of his services. But
those whom the English called _knights_ the Normans called _chevaliers_,
by which term the nature of their services was defined, while their
social status was left out of consideration. And at first _chevalier_ in
its general and honorary signification seems to have been rendered not
by _knight_ but by _rider_, as may be inferred from the Anglo-Saxon
Chronicle, wherein it is recorded under the year 1085 that William the
Conqueror "dubbade his sunu Henric to ridere."[6] But, as E. A. Freeman
says, "no such title is heard of in the earlier days of England. The
thegn, the ealdorman, the king himself, fought on foot; the horse might
bear him to the field, but when the fighting itself came he stood on
his native earth to receive the onslaught of her enemies."[7] In this
perhaps we may behold one of the most ancient of British insular
prejudices, for on the Continent the importance of cavalry in warfare
was already abundantly understood. It was by means of their horsemen
that the Austrasian Franks established their superiority over their
neighbours, and in time created the Western Empire anew, while from the
word _caballarius_, which occurs in the _Capitularies_ in the reign of
Charlemagne, came the words for knight in all the Romance languages.[8]
In Germany the chevalier was called _Ritter_, but neither _rider_ nor
_chevalier_ prevailed against _knight_ in England. And it was long after
_knighthood_ had acquired its present meaning with us that _chivalry_
was incorporated into our language. It may be remarked too in passing
that in official Latin, not only in England but all over Europe, the
word _miles_ held its own against both _eques_ and _caballarius_.
Origin of Medieval Knighthood.
Concerning the origin of knighthood or chivalry as it existed in the
middle ages--implying as it did a formal assumption of and initiation
into the profession of arms--nothing beyond more or less probable
conjecture is possible. The medieval knights had nothing to do in the
way of derivation with the "equites" of Rome, the knights of King
Arthur's Round Table, or the Paladins of Charlemagne. But there are
grounds for believing that some of the rudiments of chivalry are to be
detected in early Teutonic customs, and that they may have made some
advance among the Franks of Gaul. We know from Tacitus that the German
tribes in his day were wont to celebrate the admission of their young
men into the ranks of their warriors with much circumstance and
ceremony. The people of the district to which the candidate belonged
were called together; his qualifications for the privileges about to be
conferred upon him were inquired into; and, if he were deemed fitted and
worthy to receive them, his chief, his father, or one of his near
kinsmen presented him with a shield and a lance. Again, among the Franks
we find Charlemagne girding his son Louis the Pious, and Louis the Pious
girding his son Charles the Bald with the sword, when they arrived at
manhood.[9] It seems certain here that some ceremony was observed which
was deemed worthy of record not for its novelty, but as a thing of
recognized importance. It does not follow that a similar ceremony
extended to personages less exalted than the sons of kings and emperors.
But if it did we must naturally suppose that it applied in the first
instance to the mounted warriors who formed the most formidable portion
of the warlike array of the Franks. It was among the Franks indeed, and
possibly through their experiences in war with the Saracens, that
cavalry first acquired the pre-eminent place which it long maintained in
every European country. In early society, where the army is not a paid
force but the armed nation, the cavalry must necessarily consist of the
noble and wealthy, and cavalry and chivalry, as Freeman observes,[10]
will be the same. Since then we discover in the _Capitularies_ of
Charlemagne actual mention of "caballarii" as a class of warriors, it
may reasonably be concluded that formal investiture with arms applied to
the "caballarii" if it was a usage extending beyond the sovereign and
his heir-apparent. "But," as Hallam says, "he who fought on horseback
and had been invested with peculiar arms in a solemn manner wanted
nothing more to render him a knight;" and so he concludes, in view of
the verbal identity of "chevalier" and "caballarius," that "we may refer
chivalry in a general sense to the age of Charlemagne."[11] Yet, if the
"caballarii" of the _Capitularies_ are really the precursors of the
later knights, it remains a difficulty that the Latin name for a knight
is "miles," although "caballarius" became in various forms the
vernacular designation.
Knighthood in England.
Before it was known that the chronicle ascribed to Ingulf of Croyland is
really a fiction of the 13th or 14th century, the knighting of Heward or
Hereward by Brand, abbot of Burgh (now Peterborough), was accepted from
Selden to Hallam as an historical fact, and knighthood was supposed, not
only to have been known among the Anglo-Saxons, but to have had a
distinctively religious character which was contemned by the Norman
invaders. The genuine evidence at our command altogether fails to
support this view. When William of Malmesbury describes the knighting of
Athelstan by his grandfather Alfred the Great, that is, his investiture
"with a purple garment set with gems and a Saxon sword with a golden
sheath," there is no hint of any religious observance. In spite of the
silence of our records, Dr Stubbs thinks that kings so well acquainted
with foreign usages as Ethelred, Canute and Edward the Confessor could
hardly have failed to introduce into England the institution of chivalry
then springing up in every country of Europe; and he is supported in
this opinion by the circumstance that it is nowhere mentioned as a
Norman innovation. Yet the fact that Harold received knighthood from
William of Normandy makes it clear either that Harold was not yet a
knight, which in the case of so tried a warrior would imply that
"dubbing to knighthood" was not yet known in England even under Edward
the Confessor, or, as Freeman thinks, that in the middle of the 11th
century the custom had grown in Normandy into "something of a more
special meaning" than it bore in England.
Regarded as a method of military organization, the feudal system of
tenures was always far better adapted to the purposes of defensive than
of offensive warfare. Against invasion it furnished a permanent
provision both in men-at-arms and strongholds; nor was it unsuited for
the campaigns of neighbouring counts and barons which lasted for only a
few weeks, and extended over only a few leagues. But when kings and
kingdoms were in conflict, and distant and prolonged expeditions became
necessary, it was speedily discovered that the unassisted resources of
feudalism were altogether inadequate. It became therefore the manifest
interest of both parties that personal services should be commuted into
pecuniary payments. Then there grew up all over Europe a system of
fining the knights who failed to respond to the sovereign's call or to
stay their full time in the field; and in England this fine developed,
from the reign of Henry II. to that of Edward II., into a regular
war-tax called _escuage_ or _scutage_ (q.v.). In this way funds for war
were placed at the free disposal of sovereigns, and, although the
feudatories and their retainers still formed the most considerable
portion of their armies, the conditions under which they served were
altogether changed. Their military service was now far more the result
of special agreement. In the reign of Edward I., whose warlike
enterprises after he was king were confined within the four seas, this
alteration does not seem to have proceeded very far, and Scotland and
Wales were subjugated by what was in the main, if not exclusively, a
feudal militia raised as of old by writ to the earls and barons and the
sheriffs.[12] But the armies of Edward III., Henry V. and Henry VI.
during the century of intermittent warfare between England and France
were recruited and sustained to a very great extent on the principle of
contract.[13] On the Continent the systematic employment of mercenaries
was both an early and a common practice.
The Crusades.
Besides consideration for the mutual convenience of sovereigns and their
feudatories, there were other causes which materially contributed
towards bringing about those changes in the military system of Europe
which were finally accomplished in the 13th and 14th centuries. During
the Crusades vast armies were set on foot in which feudal rights and
obligations had no place, and it was seen that the volunteers who
flocked to the standards of the various commanders were not less but
even more efficient in the field than the vassals they had hitherto been
accustomed to lead. It was thus established that pay, the love of
enterprise and the prospect of plunder--if we leave zeal for the sacred
cause which they had espoused for the moment out of sight--were quite as
useful for the purpose of enlisting troops and keeping them together as
the tenure of land and the solemnities of homage and fealty. Moreover,
the crusaders who survived the difficulties and dangers of an expedition
to Palestine were seasoned and experienced although frequently
impoverished and landless soldiers, ready to hire themselves to the
highest bidder, and well worth the wages they received. Again, it was
owing to the crusades that the church took the profession of arms under
her peculiar protection, and thenceforward the ceremonies of initiation
into it assumed a religious as well as a martial character.
Knighthood independent of Feudalism.
To distinguished soldiers of the cross the honours and benefits of
knighthood could hardly be refused on the ground that they did not
possess a sufficient property qualification--of which perhaps they had
denuded themselves in order to their equipment for the Holy War. And
thus the conception of knighthood as of something distinct from
feudalism both as a social condition and a personal dignity arose and
rapidly gained ground. It was then that the analogy was first detected
between the order of knighthood and the order of priesthood, and that an
actual union of monachism and chivalry was effected by the establishment
of the religious orders of which the Knights Templars and the Knights
Hospitallers were the most eminent examples. As comprehensive in their
polity as the Benedictines or Franciscans, they gathered their members
from, and soon scattered their possessions over, every country in
Europe. And in their indifference to the distinctions of race and
nationality they merely accommodated themselves to the spirit which had
become characteristic of chivalry itself, already recognized, like the
church, as a universal institution which knit together the whole warrior
caste of Christendom into one great fraternity irrespective alike of
feudal subordination and territorial boundaries. Somewhat later the
adoption of hereditary surnames and armorial bearings marked the
existence of a large and noble class who either from the subdivision of
fiefs or from the effects of the custom of primogeniture were very
insufficiently provided for. To them only two callings were generally
open, that of the churchman and that of the soldier, and the latter as a
rule offered greater attractions than the former in an era of much
licence and little learning. Hence the favourite expedient for men of
birth, although not of fortune, was to attach themselves to some prince
or magnate in whose military service they were sure of an adequate
maintenance and might hope for even a rich reward in the shape of booty
or of ransom.[14] It is probably to this period and these circumstances
that we must look for at all events the rudimentary beginnings of the
military as well as the religious orders of chivalry. Of the existence
of any regularly constituted companionships of the first kind there is
no trustworthy evidence until between two and three centuries after
fraternities of the second kind had been organized. Soon after the
greater crusading societies had been formed similar orders, such as
those of St James of Compostella, Calatrava and Alcantara, were
established to fight the Moors in Spain instead of the Saracens in the
Holy Land. But the members of these orders were not less monks than
knights, their statutes embodied the rules of the cloister, and they
were bound by the ecclesiastical vows of celibacy, poverty and
obedience. From a very early stage in the development of chivalry,
however, we meet with the singular institution of brotherhood in arms;
and from it the ultimate origin if not of the religious fraternities at
any rate of the military companionships is usually derived.[15] By this
institution a relation was created between two or more monks by
voluntary agreement, which was regarded as of far more intimacy and
stringency than any which the mere accident of consanguinity implied.
Brothers in arms were supposed to be partners in all things save the
affections of their "lady-loves." They shared in every danger and in
every success, and each was expected to vindicate the honour of another
as promptly and zealously as his own. The plot of the medieval romance
of _Amis and Amiles_ is built entirely on such a brotherhood. Their
engagements usually lasted through life, but sometimes only for a
specified period or during the continuance of specified circumstances,
and they were always ratified by oath, occasionally reduced to writing
in the shape of a solemn bond and often sanctified by their reception of
the Eucharist together. Romance and tradition speak of strange
rites--the mingling and even the drinking of blood--as having in remote
and rude ages marked the inception of these martial and fraternal
associations.[16] But in later and less barbarous times they were
generally evidenced and celebrated by a formal and reciprocal exchange
of weapons and armour. In warfare it was customary for knights who were
thus allied to appear similarly accoutred and bearing the same badges or
cognisances, to the end that their enemies might not know with which of
them they were in conflict, and that their friends might be unable to
accord more applause to one than to the other for his prowess in the
field. It seems likely enough therefore that there should grow up bodies
of knights banded together by engagements of fidelity, although free
from monastic obligations; wearing a uniform or livery, and naming
themselves after some special symbol or some patron saint of their
adoption. And such bodies placed under the command of a sovereign or
grand master, regulated by statutes, and enriched by ecclesiastical
endowments would have been precisely what in after times such orders as
the Garter in England, the Golden Fleece in Burgundy, the Annunziata in
Savoy and the St Michael and Holy Ghost in France actually were.[17]
Grades of Knighthood.
During the 14th and 15th centuries, as well as somewhat earlier and
later, the general arrangements of a European army were always and
everywhere pretty much the same.[18] Under the sovereign the constable
and the marshal or marshals held the chief commands, their authority
being partly joint and partly several. Attendant on them were the
heralds, who were the officers of their military court, wherein offences
committed in the camp and field were tried and adjudged, and among whose
duties it was to carry orders and messages, to deliver challenges and
call truces, and to identify and number the wounded and the slain. The
main divisions of the army were distributed under the royal and other
principal standards, smaller divisions under the banners of some of the
greater nobility or of knights banneret, and smaller divisions still
under the pennons of knights or, as in distinction from knights banneret
they came to be called, knights bachelors. All knights whether bachelors
or bannerets were escorted by their squires. But the banner of the
banneret always implied a more or less extensive command, while every
knight was entitled to bear a pennon and every squire a pencel. All
three flags were of such a size as to be conveniently attached to and
carried on a lance, and were emblazoned with the arms or some portion of
the bearings of their owners. But while the banner was square the
pennon, which resembled it in other respects, was either pointed or
forked at its extremity, and the pencel, which was considerably less
than the others, always terminated in a single tail or streamer.[19]
If indeed we look at the scale of chivalric subordination from another
point of view, it seems to be more properly divisible into four than
into three stages, of which two may be called provisional and two final.
The bachelor and the banneret were both equally knights, only the one
was of greater distinction and authority than the other. In like manner
the squire and the page were both in training for knighthood, but the
first had advanced further in the process than the second. It is true
that the squire was a combatant while the page was not, and that many
squires voluntarily served as squires all their lives owing to the
insufficiency of their fortunes to support the costs and charges of
knighthood. But in the ordinary course of a chivalrous education the
successive conditions of page and squire were passed through in boyhood
and youth, and the condition of knighthood was reached in early manhood.
Every feudal court and castle was in fact a school of chivalry, and
although princes and great personages were rarely actually pages or
squires, the moral and physical discipline through which they passed was
not in any important particular different from that to which less
exalted candidates for knighthood were subjected.[20] The page, or, as
he was more anciently and more correctly called, the "valet" or
"damoiseau," commenced his service and instruction when he was between
seven and eight years old, and the initial phase continued for seven or
eight years longer. He acted as the constant personal attendant of both
his master and mistress. He waited on them in their hall and accompanied
them in the chase, served the lady in her bower and followed the lord to
the camp.[21] From the chaplain and his mistress and her damsels he
learnt the rudiments of religion, of rectitude and of love,[22] from his
master and his squires the elements of military exercise, to cast a
spear or dart, to sustain a shield, and to march with the measured tread
of a soldier; and from his master and his huntsmen and falconers the
"mysteries of the woods and rivers," or in other words the rules and
practices of hunting and hawking. When he was between fifteen and
sixteen he became a squire. But no sudden or great alteration was made
in his mode of life. He continued to wait at dinner with the pages,
although in a manner more dignified according to the notions of the age.
He not only served but carved and helped the dishes, proffered the first
or principal cup of wine to his master and his guests, and carried to
them the basin, ewer or napkin when they washed their hands before and
after meat. He assisted in clearing the hall for dancing or minstrelsy,
and laid the tables for chess or draughts, and he also shared in the
pastimes for which he had made preparation. He brought his master the
"vin de coucher" at night, and made his early refection ready for him in
the morning. But his military exercises and athletic sports occupied an
always increasing portion of the day. He accustomed himself to ride the
"great horse," to tilt at the quintain, to wield the sword and
battle-axe, to swim and climb, to run and leap, and to bear the weight
and overcome the embarrassments of armour. He inured himself to the
vicissitudes of heat and cold, and voluntarily suffered the pains or
inconveniences of hunger and thirst, fatigue and sleeplessness. It was
then too that he chose his "lady-love," whom he was expected to regard
with an adoration at once earnest, respectful, and the more meritorious
if concealed. And when it was considered that he had made sufficient
advancement in his military accomplishments, he took his sword to the
priest, who laid it on the altar, blessed it, and returned it to
him.[23] Afterwards he either remained with his early master, relegating
most of his domestic duties to his younger companions, or he entered the
service of some valiant and adventurous lord or knight of his own
selection. He now became a "squire of the body," and truly an "armiger"
or "scutifer," for he bore the shield and armour of his leader to the
field, and, what was a task of no small difficulty and hazard, cased and
secured him in his panoply of war before assisting him to mount his
courser or charger. It was his function also to display and guard in
battle the banner of the baron or banneret or the pennon of the knight
he served, to raise him from the ground if he were unhorsed, to supply
him with another or his own horse if his was disabled or killed, to
receive and keep any prisoners he might take, to fight by his side if he
was unequally matched, to rescue him if captured, to bear him to a place
of safety if wounded, and to bury him honourably when dead. And after he
had worthily and bravely, borne himself for six or seven years as a
squire, the time came when it was fitting that he should be made a
knight. This, at least, was the current theory; but it is specially
dangerous in medieval history to assume too much correspondence between
theory and fact. In many castles, and perhaps in most, the discipline
followed simply a natural and unwritten code of "fagging" and seniority,
as in public schools or on board men-of-war some hundred years or so
ago.
Modes of conferring Knighthood.
Two modes of conferring knighthood appear to have prevailed from a very
early period in all countries where chivalry was known. In both of them
the essential portion seems to have been the accolade or stroke of the
sword. But while in the one the accolade constituted the whole or nearly
the whole of the ceremony, in the other it was surrounded with many
additional observances. The former and simpler of these modes was
naturally that used in war: the candidate knelt before "the chief of the
army or some valiant knight," who struck him thrice with the flat of a
sword, pronouncing a brief formula of creation and of exhortation which
varied at the creator's will.[24]
In this form a number of knights were made before and after almost every
battle between the 11th and the 16th centuries, and its advantages on
the score of both convenience and economy gradually led to its general
adoption both in time of peace and time of war. On extraordinary
occasions indeed the more elaborate ritual continued to be observed. But
recourse was had to it so rarely that in England about the beginning of
the 15th century it came to be exclusively appropriated to a special
king of knighthood. When Segar, garter king of arms, wrote in the reign
of Queen Elizabeth, this had been accomplished with such completeness
that he does not even mention that there were two ways of creating
knights bachelors. "He that is to be made a knight," he says, "is
striken by the prince with a sword drawn upon his back or shoulder, the
prince saying, 'Soys Chevalier,' and in times past was added 'Saint
George.' And when the knight rises the prince sayeth 'Avencez.' This is
the manner of dubbing knights at this present, and that term 'dubbing'
was the old term in this point, not 'creating.' This sort of knights are
by the heralds called knights bachelors." In our days when a knight is
personally made he kneels before the sovereign, who lays a sword drawn,
ordinarily the sword of state, on either of his shoulders and says,
"Rise," calling him by his Christian name with the addition of "Sir"
before it.
Very different were the solemnities which attended the creation of a
knight when the complete procedure was observed. "The ceremonies and
circumstances at the giving this dignity," says Selden, "in the elder
time were of two kinds especially, which we may call courtly and sacred.
The courtly were the feasts held at the creation, giving of robes, arms,
spurs and the like. The sacred were the holy devotions and what else was
used in the church at or before the receiving of the dignity."[25] But
the leading authority on the subject is an ancient tract written in
French, which will be found at length either in the original or
translated by Segar, Dugdale, Byshe and Nicolas, among other English
writers.[26] Daniel explains his reasons for transcribing it, "tant a
cause du detail que de la naivete du stile et encore plus de la
bisarrerie des ceremonies que se faisoient pourtant alors fort
serieusement," while he adds that these ceremonies were essentially
identical in England, France, Germany, Spain and Italy.
The process of inauguration was commenced in the evening by the
placing of the candidate under the care of two "esquires of honour
grave and well seen in courtship and nurture and also in the feats of
chivalry," who were to be "governors in all things relating to him."
Under their direction, to begin with, a barber shaved him and cut his
hair. He was then conducted by them to his appointed chamber, where a
bath was prepared hung within and without with linen and covered with
rich cloths, into which after they had undressed him he entered. While
he was in the bath two "ancient and grave knights" attended him "to
inform, instruct and counsel him touching the order and feats of
chivalry," and when they had fulfilled their mission they poured some
of the water of the bath over his shoulders, signing the left shoulder
with the cross, and retired. He was then taken from the bath and put
into a plain bed without hangings, in which he remained until his body
was dry, when the two esquires put on him a white shirt and over that
"a robe of russet with long sleeves having a hood thereto like unto
that of an hermit." Then the "two ancient and grave knights" returned
and led him to the chapel, the esquires going before them "sporting
and dancing" with "the minstrels making melody." And when they had
been served with wines and spices they went away leaving only the
candidate, the esquires, "the priest, the chandler and the watch," who
kept the vigil of arms until sunrise, the candidate passing the night
"bestowing himself in orisons and prayers." At daybreak he confessed
to the priest, heard matins, and communicated in the mass, offering a
taper and a piece of money stuck in it as near the lighted end as
possible, the first "to the honour of God" and the second "to the
honour of the person that makes him a knight." Afterwards he was taken
back to his chamber, and remained in bed until the knights, esquires
and minstrels went to him and aroused him. The knights then dressed
him in distinctive garments, and they then mounted their horses and
rode to the hall where the candidate was to receive knighthood; his
future squire was to ride before him bareheaded bearing his sword by
the point in its scabbard with his spurs hanging from its hilt. And
when everything was prepared the prince or subject who was to knight
him came into the hall, and, the candidate's sword and spurs having
been presented to him, he delivered the right spur to the "most noble
and gentle" knight present, and directed him to fasten it on the
candidate's right heel, which he kneeling on one knee and putting the
candidate's right foot on his knee accordingly did, signing the
candidate's knee with the cross, and in like manner by another "noble
and gentle" knight the left spur was fastened to his left heel. And
then he who was to create the knight took the sword and girded him
with it, and then embracing him he lifted his right hand and smote him
on the neck or shoulder, saying, "Be thou a good knight," and kissed
him. When this was done they all went to the chapel with much music,
and the new knight laying his right hand on the altar promised to
support and defend the church, and ungirding his sword offered it on
the altar. And as he came out from the chapel the master cook awaited
him at the door and claimed his spurs as his fee, and said, "If you
do anything contrary to the order of chivalry (which God forbid), I
shall hack the spurs from your heels."[27]
The full solemnities for conferring knighthood seem to have been so
largely and so early superseded by the practice of dubbing or giving the
accolade alone that in England it became at last restricted to such
knights as were made at coronations and some other occasions of state.
And to them the particular name of Knights of the Bath was assigned,
while knights made in the ordinary way were called in distinction from
them knights of the sword, as they were also called knights bachelors in
distinction from knights banneret.[28] It is usually supposed that the
first creation of knights of the Bath under that designation was at the
coronation of Henry IV.; and before the order of the Bath as a
companionship or capitular body was instituted the last creation of them
was at the coronation of Charles II. But all knights were also knights
of the spur or "equites aurati," because their spurs were golden or
gilt,--the spurs of squires being of silver or white metal,--and these
became their peculiar badge in popular estimation and proverbial speech.
In the form of their solemn inauguration too, as we have noticed, the
spurs together with the sword were always employed as the leading and
most characteristic ensigns of knighthood.[29]
With regard to knights banneret, various opinions have been entertained
as to both the nature of their dignity and the qualifications they were
required to possess for receiving it at different periods and in
different countries. On the Continent the distinction which is commonly
but incorrectly made between the nobility and the gentry has never
arisen, and it was unknown here while chivalry existed and heraldry was
understood. Here, as elsewhere in the old time, a nobleman and a
gentleman meant the same thing, namely, a man who under certain
conditions of descent was entitled to armorial bearings. Hence Du Cange
divides the medieval nobility of France and Spain into three classes:
first, barons or ricos hombres; secondly, chevaliers or caballeros; and
thirdly, ecuyers or infanzons; and to the first, who with their several
special titles constituted the greater nobility of either country, he
limits the designation of banneret and the right of leading their
followers to war under a banner, otherwise a "drapeau quarre" or square
flag.[30] Selden shows especially from the parliament rolls that the
term banneret has been occasionally employed in England as equivalent to
baron.[31] In Scotland, even as late as the reign of James VI., lords of
parliament were always created bannerets as well as barons at their
investiture, "part of the ceremony consisting in the display of a
banner, and such 'barones majores' were thereby entitled to the
privilege of having one borne by a retainer before them to the field of
a quadrilateral form."[32] In Scotland, too, lords of parliament and
bannerets were also called bannerents, banrents or baronets, and in
England banneret was often corrupted to baronet. "Even in a patent
passed to Sir Ralph Fane, knight under Edward VI., he is called
'baronettus' for 'bannerettus.'"[33] In this manner it is not improbable
that the title of baronet may have been suggested to the advisers of
James I. when the order of Baronets was originally created by him, for
it was a question whether the recipients of the new dignity should be
designated by that or some other name.[34] But there is no doubt that as
previously used it was merely a corrupt synonym for banneret, and not
the name of any separate dignity. On the Continent, however, there are
several recorded examples of bannerets who had an hereditary claim to
that honour and its attendant privileges on the ground of the nature of
their feudal tenure.[35] And generally, at any rate to commence with, it
seems probable that bannerets were in every country merely the more
important class of feudatories, the "ricos hombres" in contrast to the
knights bachelors, who in France in the time of St Louis were known as
"pauvres hommes." In England all the barons or greater nobility were
entitled to bear banners, and therefore Du Cange's observations would
apply to them as well as to the barons or greater nobility of France and
Spain. But it is clear that from a comparatively early period bannerets
whose claims were founded on personal distinction rather than on feudal
tenure gradually came to the front, and much the same process of
substitution appears to have gone on in their case as that which we have
marked in the case of simple knights. According to the _Sallade_ and the
_Division du Monde_, as cited by Selden, bannerets were clearly in the
beginning feudal tenants of a certain magnitude and importance and
nothing more, and different forms for their creation are given in time
of peace and in time of war.[36] But in the French _Gesta Romanorum_ the
warlike form alone is given, and it is quoted by both Selden and Du
Cange. From the latter a more modern version of it is given by Daniel as
the only one generally in force.
[Illustration: PLATE I.
INSIGNIA OF SOME OF THE PRINCIPAL ORDERS OF KNIGHTHOOD, DRAWN BY
GRACIOUS PERMISSION FROM THOSE IN THE POSSESSION OF HIS LATE MAJESTY
KING EDWARD VII AND ARRANGED IN ACCORDANCE WITH HIS MAJESTY'S WISHES AND
COMMAND.
THE ORDER OF THE GARTER.
(i.) THE GARTER; (ii) THE COLLAR AND GEORGE; (iii.) THE LESSER GEORGE
AND RIBBON; (iv.) STAR.
_Drawn by William Gibb._
_Niagara Litho. Co., Buffalo, N. Y._]
The knight bachelor whose services and landed possessions entitled him
to promotion would apply formally to the commander in the field for the
title of banneret. If this were granted, the heralds were called to cut
publicly the tails from his pennon: or the commander, as a special
honour, might cut them off with his own hands.[37] The earliest
contemporary mention of knights banneret is in France, Daniel says, in
the reign of Philip Augustus, and in England, Selden says in the reign
of Edward I. But in neither case is reference made to them in such a
manner as to suggest that the dignity was then regarded as new or even
uncommon, and it seems pretty certain that its existence on one side
could not have long preceded its existence on the other side of the
Channel. Sir Alan Plokenet, Sir Ralph Daubeney and Sir Philip Daubeney
are entered as bannerets on the roll of the garrison of Caermarthen
Castle in 1282, and the roll of Carlaverock records the names and arms
of eighty-five bannerets who accompanied Edward I. in his expedition
into Scotland in 1300.
What the exact contingent was which bannerets were expected to supply to
the royal host is doubtful.[38] But, however this may be, in the reign
of Edward III. and afterwards bannerets appear as the commanders of a
military force raised by themselves and marshalled under their banners:
their status and their relations both to the crown and to their
followers were mainly the consequences of voluntary contract not of
feudal tenure. It is from the reigns of Edward III. and Richard II. also
that the two best descriptions we possess of the actual creation of a
banneret have been transmitted to us.[39] Sir Thomas Smith, writing
towards the end of the 16th century, says, after noticing the conditions
to be observed in the creation of bannerets, "but this order is almost
grown out of use in England";[40] and, during the controversy which
arose between the new order of baronets and the crown early in the 17th
century respecting their precedence, it was alleged without
contradiction in an argument on behalf of the baronets before the privy
council that "there are not bannerets now in being, peradventure never
shall be."[41] Sir Ralph Fane, Sir Francis Bryan and Sir Ralph Sadler
were created bannerets by the Lord Protector Somerset after the battle
of Pinkie in 1547, and the better opinion is that this was the last
occasion on which the dignity was conferred. It has been stated indeed
that Charles I. created Sir John Smith a banneret after the battle of
Edgehill in 1642 for having rescued the royal standard from the enemy.
But of this there is no sufficient proof. It was also supposed that
George III. had created several naval officers bannerets towards the end
of the last century, because he knighted them on board ship under the
royal standard displayed. This, however, is unquestionably an error.[42]
Existing Orders of Knighthood.
On the continent of Europe the degree of knight bachelor disappeared
with the military system which had given rise to it. It is now therefore
peculiar to the British Empire, where, although very frequently
conferred by letters patent, it is yet the only dignity which is still
even occasionally created--as every dignity was formerly created--by
means of a ceremony in which the sovereign and the subject personally
take part. Everywhere else dubbing or the accolade seems to have become
obsolete, and no other species of knighthood, if knighthood it can be
called, is known except that which is dependent on admission to some
particular order. It is a common error to suppose that baronets are
hereditary knights. Baronets are not knights unless they are knighted
like anybody else; and, so far from being knights because they are
baronets, one of the privileges granted to them shortly after the
institution of their dignity was that they, not being knights, and their
successors and their eldest sons and heirs-apparent should, when they
attained their majority, be entitled if they desired to receive
knighthood.[43] It is a maxim of the law indeed that, as Coke says, "the
knight is by creation and not by descent," and, although we hear of such
designations as the "knight of Kerry" or the "knight of Glin," they are
no more than traditional nicknames, and do not by any means imply that
the persons to whom they are applied are knights in a legitimate sense.
Notwithstanding, however, that simple knighthood has gone out of use
abroad, there are innumerable grand crosses, commanders and companions
of a formidable assortment of orders in almost every part of the
world.[44] (See the section on "Orders of Knighthood" below.)
The United Kingdom has eight orders of knighthood--the Garter, the
Thistle, St Patrick, the Bath, the Star of India, St Michael and St
George, the Indian Empire and the Royal Victorian Order; and, while the
first is undoubtedly the oldest as well as the most illustrious anywhere
existing, a fictitious antiquity has been claimed and is even still
frequently conceded to the second and fourth, although the third,
fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth appear to be as contentedly as they
are unquestionably recent.
Order of the Garter.
It is, however, certain that the "most noble" Order of the Garter at
least was instituted in the middle of the 14th century, when English
chivalry was outwardly brightest and the court most magnificent. But in
what particular year this event occurred is and has been the subject of
much difference of opinion. All the original records of the order until
after 1416 have perished, and consequently the question depends for its
settlement not on direct testimony but on inference from circumstances.
The dates which have been selected vary from 1344 (given by Froissart,
but almost certainly mistaken) to 1351. The evidence may be examined at
length in Nicolas and Beltz; it is indisputable that in the wardrobe
account from September 1347 to January 1349, the 21st and 23rd Edward
III., the issue of certain habits with garters and the motto embroidered
on them is marked for St George's Day; that the letters patent relating
to the preparation of the royal chapel of Windsor are dated in August
1348; and that in the treasury accounts of the prince of Wales there is
an entry in November 1348 of the gift by him of "twenty-four garters to
the knights of the Society of the Garter."[45] But that the order,
although from this manifestly already fully constituted in the autumn of
1348, was not in existence before the summer of 1346 Sir Harris Nicolas
proves pretty conclusively by pointing out that nobody who was not a
knight could under its statutes have been admitted to it, and that
neither the prince of Wales nor several others of the original
companions were knighted until the middle of that year.
Regarding the occasion there has been almost as much controversy as
regarding the date of its foundation. The "vulgar and more general
story," as Ashmole calls it, is that of the countess of Salisbury's
garter. But commentators are not at one as to which countess of
Salisbury was the heroine of the adventure, whether she was Katherine
Montacute or Joan the Fair Maid of Kent, while Heylyn rejects the legend
as "a vain and idle romance derogatory both to the founder and the
order, first published by Polydor Vergil, a stranger to the affairs of
England, and by him taken upon no better ground than fama vulgi, the
tradition of the common people, too trifling a foundation for so great a
building."[46]
Another legend is that contained in the preface to the Register or Black
Book of the order, compiled in the reign of Henry VIII., by what
authority supported is unknown, that Richard I., while his forces were
employed against Cyprus and Acre, had been inspired through the
instrumentality of St George with renewed courage and the means of
animating his fatigued soldiers by the device of tying about the legs of
a chosen number of knights a leathern thong or garter, to the end that
being thereby reminded of the honour of their enterprise they might be
encouraged to redoubled efforts for victory. This was supposed to have
been in the mind of Edward III. when he fixed on the garter as the
emblem of the order, and it was stated so to have been by Taylor, master
of the rolls, in his address to Francis I. of France on his investiture
in 1527.[47] According to Ashmole the true account of the matter is that
"King Edward having given forth his own garter as the signal for a
battle which sped fortunately (which with Du Chesne we conceive to be
that of Crecy), the victory, we say, being happily gained, he thence
took occasion to institute this order, and gave the garter (assumed by
him for the symbol of unity and society) preeminence among the ensigns
of it." But, as Sir Harris Nicolas points out--although Ashmole is not
open to the correction--this hypothesis rests for its plausibility on
the assumption that the order was established before the invasion of
France in 1346. And he further observes that "a great variety of
devices and mottoes were used by Edward III.; they were chosen from the
most trivial causes and were of an amorous rather than of a military
character. Nothing," he adds, "is more likely than that in a crowded
assembly a lady should accidentally have dropped her garter; that the
circumstance should have caused a smile in the bystanders; and that on
its being taken up by Edward he should have reproved the levity of his
courtiers by so happy and chivalrous an exclamation, placing the garter
at the same time on his own knee, as 'Dishonoured be he who thinks ill
of it.' Such a circumstance occurring at a time of general festivity,
when devices, mottoes and conceits of all kinds were adopted as
ornaments or badges of the habits worn at jousts and tournaments, would
naturally have been commemorated as other royal expressions seem to have
been by its conversion into a device and motto for the dresses at an
approaching hastilude."[48] Moreover, Sir Harris Nicolas contends that
the order had no loftier immediate origin than a joust or tournament. It
consisted of the king and the Black Prince, and 24 knights divided into
two bands of 12 like the tilters in a hastilude----at the head of the
one being the first, and of the other the second; and to the companions
belonging to each, when the order had superseded the Round Table and had
become a permanent institution, were assigned stalls either on the
sovereign's or the prince's side of St George's Chapel. That Sir Harris
Nicolas is accurate in this conjecture seems probable from the selection
which was made of the "founder knights." As Beltz observes, the fame of
Sir Reginald Cobham, Sir Walter Manny and the earls of Northampton,
Hereford and Suffolk was already established by their warlike exploits,
and they would certainly have been among the original companions had the
order been then regarded as the reward of military merit only. But,
although these eminent warriors were subsequently elected as vacancies
occurred, their admission was postponed to that of several very young
and in actual warfare comparatively unknown knights, whose claims to the
honour may be most rationally explained on the assumption that they had
excelled in the particular feats of arms which preceded the institution
of the order. The original companionship had consisted of the sovereign
and 25 knights, and no change was made in this respect until 1786, when
the sons of George III. and his successors were made eligible
notwithstanding that the chapter might be complete. In 1805 another
alteration was effected by the provision that the lineal descendants of
George II. should be eligible in the same manner, except the Prince of
Wales for the time being, who was declared to be "a constituent part of
the original institution"; and again in 1831 it was further ordained
that the privilege accorded to the lineal descendants of George II.
should extend to the lineal descendants of George I. Although, as Sir
Harris Nicolas observes, nothing is now known of the form of admitting
ladies into the order, the description applied to them in the records
during the 14th and 15th centuries leaves no doubt that they were
regularly received into it. The queen consort, the wives and daughters
of knights, and some other women of exalted position, were designated
"Dames de la Fraternite de St George," and entries of the delivery of
robes and garters to them are found at intervals in the Wardrobe
Accounts from the 50th Edward III. (1376) to the 10th of Henry VII.
(1495), the first being Isabel, countess of Bedford, the daughter of the
one king, and the last being Margaret and Elizabeth, the daughters of
the other king. The effigies of Margaret Byron, wife of Sir Robert
Harcourt, K.G., at Stanton Harcourt, and of Alice Chaucer, wife of
William de la Pole, duke of Suffolk, K.G., at Ewelme, which date from
the reigns of Henry VI. and Edward IV., have garters on their left arms.
(See further under "Orders of Knighthood" below.)
Persons empowered to confer Knighthood.
It has been the general opinion, as expressed by Sainte Palaye and
Mills, that formerly all knights were qualified to confer
knighthood.[49] But it may be questioned whether the privilege was thus
indiscriminately enjoyed even in the earlier days of chivalry. It is
true that as much might be inferred from the testimony of the romance
writers; historical evidence, however, tends to limit the proposition,
and the sounder conclusion appears to be, as Sir Harris Nicolas says,
that the right was always restricted in operation to sovereign princes,
to those acting under their authority or sanction, and to a few other
personages of exalted rank and station.[50] In several of the writs for
distraint of knighthood from Henry III. to Edward III. a distinction is
drawn between those who are to be knighted by the king himself or by the
sheriffs of counties respectively, and bishops and abbots could make
knights in the 11th and 12th centuries.[51] At all periods the
commanders of the royal armies had the power of conferring knighthood;
as late as the reign of Elizabeth it was exercised among others by Sir
Henry Sidney in 1583, and Robert, earl of Essex, in 1595, while under
James I. an ordinance of 1622, confirmed by a proclamation of 1623, for
the registration of knights in the college of arms, is rendered
applicable to all who should receive knighthood from either the king or
any of his lieutenants.[52] Many sovereigns, too, both of England and of
France, have been knighted after their accession to the throne by their
own subjects, as, for instance, Edward III. by Henry, earl of Lancaster,
Edward VI. by the lord protector Somerset, Louis XI. by Philip, duke of
Burgundy, and Francis I. by the Chevalier Bayard. But when in 1543 Henry
VIII. appointed Sir John Wallop to be captain of Guisnes, it was
considered necessary that he should be authorized in express terms to
confer knighthood, which was also done by Edward VI. in his own case
when he received knighthood from the duke of Somerset.[53] But at
present the only subject to whom the right of conferring knighthood
belongs is the lord-lieutenant of Ireland, and to him it belongs merely
by long usage and established custom. But, by whomsoever conferred,
knighthood at one time endowed the recipient with the same status and
attributes in every country wherein chivalry was recognized. In the
middle ages it was a common practice for sovereigns and princes to dub
each other knights much as they were afterwards, and are now, in the
habit of exchanging the stars and ribbons of their orders. Henry II. was
knighted by his great-uncle David I. of Scotland, Alexander III. of
Scotland by Henry III., Edward I. when he was prince by Alphonso X. of
Castile, and Ferdinand of Portugal by Edmund of Langley, earl of
Cambridge.[54] And, long after the military importance of knighthood had
practically disappeared, what may be called its cosmopolitan character
was maintained: a knight's title was recognized in all European
countries, and not only in that country in which he had received it. In
modern times, however, by certain regulations, made in 1823, and
repeated and enlarged in 1855, not only is it provided that the
sovereign's permission by royal warrant shall be necessary for the
reception by a British subject of any foreign order of knighthood, but
further that such permission shall not authorize "the assumption of any
style, appellation, rank, precedence, or privilege appertaining to a
knight bachelor of the United Kingdom."[55]
Degradation.
Since knighthood was accorded either by actual investiture or its
equivalent, a counter process of degradation was regarded as necessary
for the purpose of depriving anybody who had once received it of the
rank and condition it implied.[56] The cases in which a knight has been
formally degraded in England are exceedingly few, so few indeed that two
only are mentioned by Segar, writing in 1602, and Dallaway says that
only three were on record in the College of Arms when he wrote in 1793.
The last case was that of Sir Francis Michell in 1621, whose spurs were
hacked from his heels, his sword-belt cut, and his sword broken over his
head by the heralds in Westminster Hall.[57]
Roughly speaking, the age of chivalry properly so called may be said to
have extended from the beginning of the crusades to the end of the Wars
of the Roses. Even in the way of pageantry and martial exercise it did
not long survive the middle ages. In England tilts and tourneys, in
which her father had so much excelled, were patronized to the last by
Queen Elizabeth, and were even occasionally held until after the death
of Henry, prince of Wales. But on the Continent they were discredited by
the fatal accident which befell Henry II. of France in 1559. The golden
age of chivalry has been variously located. Most writers would place it
in the early 13th century, but Gautier would remove it two or three
generations further back. It may be true that, in the comparative
scarcity of historical evidence, 12th-century romances present a more
favourable picture of chivalry at that earlier time; but even such
historical evidence as we possess, when carefully scrutinized, is enough
to dispel the illusion that there was any period of the middle ages in
which the unselfish championship of "God and the ladies" was anything
but a rare exception.
It is difficult to describe the true spirit and moral influence of
knighthood, if only because the ages in which it flourished differed so
widely from our own. At its very best, it was always hampered by the
limitations of medieval society. Moreover, many of the noblest precepts
of the knightly code were a legacy from earlier ages, and have survived
the decay of knighthood just as they will survive all transitory human
institutions, forming part of the eternal heritage of the race. Indeed,
the most important of these precepts did not even attain to their
highest development in the middle ages. As a conscious effort to bring
religion into daily life, chivalry was less successful than later
puritanism; while the educated classes of our own day far surpass the
average medieval knight in discipline, self-control and outward or
inward refinement. Freeman's estimate comes far nearer to the historical
facts than Burke's: "The chivalrous spirit is above all things a class
spirit. The good knight is bound to endless fantastic courtesies towards
men and still more towards women of a certain rank; he may treat all
below that rank with any decree of scorn and cruelty. The spirit of
chivalry implies the arbitrary choice of one or two virtues to be
practised in such an exaggerated degree as to become vices, while the
ordinary laws of right and wrong are forgotten. The false code of honour
supplants the laws of the commonwealth, the law of God and the eternal
principles of right. Chivalry again in its military aspect not only
encourages the love of war for its own sake without regard to the cause
for which war is waged, it encourages also an extravagant regard for a
fantastic show of personal daring which cannot in any way advance the
objects of the siege or campaign which is going on. Chivalry in short is
in morals very much what feudalism is in law: each substitutes purely
personal obligations devised in the interests of an exclusive class, for
the more homely duties of an honest man and a good citizen" (_Norman
Conquest_, v. 482). The chivalry from which Burke drew his ideas was, so
far as it existed at all, the product of a far later age. In its own
age, chivalry rested practically, like the highest civilization of
ancient Greece and Rome, on slave labour;[58] and if many of its most
brilliant outward attractions have now faded for ever, this is only
because modern civilization tends so strongly to remove social barriers.
The knightly ages will always enjoy the glory of having formulated a
code of honour which aimed at rendering the upper classes worthy of
their exceptional privileges; yet we must judge chivalry not only by its
formal code but also by its practical fruits. The ideal is well summed
up by F. W. Cornish: "Chivalry taught the world the duty of noble
service willingly rendered. It upheld courage and enterprise in
obedience to rule, it consecrated military prowess to the service of the
Church, glorified the virtues of liberality, good faith, unselfishness
and courtesy, and above all, courtesy to women. Against these may be set
the vices of pride, ostentation, love of bloodshed, contempt of
inferiors, and loose manners. Chivalry was an imperfect discipline, but
it was a discipline, and one fit for the times. It may have existed in
the world too long: it did not come into existence too early; and with
all its shortcomings it exercised a great and wholesome influence in
raising the medieval world from barbarism to civilization" (p. 27). This
was the ideal, but to give the reader a clear view of the actual
features of knightly society in their contrast with that of our own day,
it is necessary to bring out one or two very significant shadows.
Far too much has been made of the extent to which the knightly code, and
the reverence paid to the Virgin Mary, raised the position of women
(e.g. Gautier, p. 360). As Gautier himself admits, the feudal system
made it difficult to separate the woman's person from her fief: instead
of the freedom of Christian marriage on which the Church in theory
insisted, lands and women were handed over together, as a business
bargain, by parents or guardians. In theory, the knight was the defender
of widows and orphans; but in practice wardships and marriages were
bought and sold as a matter of everyday routine like stocks and shares
in the modern market. Lord Thomas de Berkeley (1245-1321) counted on
this as a regular and considerable source of income (Smyth, _Lives_, i.
157). Late in the 15th century, in spite of the somewhat greater liberty
of that age, we find Stephen Scrope writing nakedly to a familiar
correspondent "for very need [of poverty], I was fain to sell a little
daughter I have for much less than I should have done by possibility,"
i.e. than the fair market price (Gairdner, _Paston Letters_,
Introduction, p. clxxvi; cf. ccclxxi). Startling as such words are, it
is perhaps still more startling to find how frequently and naturally, in
the highest society, ladies were degraded by personal violence. The
proofs of this which Schultz and Gautier adduce from the _Chansons de
Geste_ might be multiplied indefinitely. The Knight of La Tour-Landry
(1372) relates, by way of warning to his daughters, a tale of a lady who
so irritated her husband by scolding him in company, that he struck her
to the earth with his fist and kicked her in the face, breaking her
nose. Upon this the good knight moralizes: "And this she had for her
euelle and gret langage, that she was wont to saie to her husbonde. And
therfor the wiff aught to suffre and lete her husbonde haue the wordes,
and to be maister, for that is her worshippe; for it is shame to here
striff betwene hem, and in especial before folke. But y saie not but
whanne thei be allone, but she may tolle hym with goodly wordes, and
counsaile hym to amende yef he do amys" (La Tour, chap. xviii.; cf.
xvii. and xix.). The right of wife-beating was formally recognized by
more than one code of laws, and it was already a forward step when, in
the 13th century, the _Coutumes du Beauvoisis_ provided "que le mari ne
doit battre sa femme que _raisonnablement_" (Gautier, p. 349). This was
a natural consequence not only of the want of self-control which we see
everywhere in the middle ages, but also of the custom of contracting
child-marriages for unsentimental considerations. Between 1288 and 1500
five marriages are recorded in the direct line of the Berkeley family in
which the ten contracting parties averaged less than eleven years of
age: the marriage contract of another Lord Berkeley was drawn up before
he was six years old. Moreover, the same business considerations which
dictated those early marriages clashed equally with the strict theory of
knighthood. In the same Berkeley family, the lord Maurice IV. was
knighted in 1338 at the age of seven to avoid the possible evils of
wardship, and Thomas V. for the same reason in 1476 at the age of five.
Smyth's record of this great family shows that, from the middle of the
13th century onwards, the lords were not only statesmen and warriors,
but still more distinguished as gentlemen-farmers on a great scale, even
selling fruit from the castle gardens, while their ladies would go round
on tours of inspection from dairy to dairy. The lord Thomas III.
(1326-1361), who was noted as a special lover of tournaments, spent in
two years only L90, or an average of about L15 per tournament; yet he
was then laying money by at the rate of L450 a year, and, a few years
later, at the rate of L1150, or nearly half his income! Indeed, economic
causes contributed much to the decay of romantic chivalry. The old
families had lost heavily from generation to generation, partly by
personal extravagances, but also by gradual alienations of land to the
Church and by the enormous expenses of the crusades. Already, in the
13th century, they were hard pressed by the growing wealth of the
burghers, and even the greatest nobles could scarcely keep up their
state without careful business management. It is not surprising
therefore, to find that at least as early as the middle of the 13th
century the commercial side of knighthood became very prominent.
Although by the code of chivalry no candidate could be knighted before
the age of twenty-one, we have seen how great nobles like the Berkeleys
obtained that honour for their infant heirs in order to avoid possible
pecuniary loss; and French writers of the 14th century complained of
this knighting of infants as a common and serious abuse.[59] Moreover,
after the knight's liability to personal service in war had been
modified in the 12th century by the scutage system, it became necessary
in the first quarter of the 13th to compel landowners to take up the
knighthood which in theory they should have coveted as an honour--a
compulsion which was soon systematically enforced (_Distraint of
Knighthood_, 1278), and became a recognized source of royal income. An
indirect effect of this system[60] was to break down another rule of the
chivalrous code--that none could be dubbed who was not of gentle
birth.[61] This rule, however, had often been broken before; even the
romances of chivalry speak not infrequently of the knighting of serfs or
_jongleurs_;[62] and other causes besides distraint of knighthood tended
to level the old distinctions. While knighthood was avoided by poor
nobles, it was coveted by rich citizens. It is recorded in 1298 as "an
immemorial custom" in Provence that rich burghers enjoyed the honour of
knighthood; and less than a century later we find Sacchetti complaining
that the dignity is open to any rich upstart, however disreputable his
antecedents.[63] Similar causes contributed to the decay of knightly
ideas in warfare. Even in the 12th century, when war was still rather
the pastime of kings and knights than a national effort, the strict
code of chivalry was more honoured in the breach than in the
observance.[64] But when the Hundred Years' War brought a real national
conflict between England and France, when archery became of supreme
importance, and a large proportion even of the cavalry were mercenary
soldiers, then the exigencies of serious warfare swept away much of that
outward display and those class-conventions on which chivalry had always
rested. Simeon Luce (chap. vi.) has shown how much the English successes
in this war were due to strict business methods. Several of the best
commanders (e.g. Sir Robert Knolles and Sir Thomas Dagworth) were of
obscure birth, while on the French side even Du Guesclin had to wait
long for his knighthood because he belonged only to the lesser nobility.
The tournament again, which for two centuries had been under the ban of
the Church, was often almost as definitely discouraged by Edward III. as
it was encouraged by John of France; and while John's father opened the
Crecy campaign by sending Edward a challenge in due form of chivalry,
Edward took advantage of this formal delay to amuse the French king with
negotiations while he withdrew his army by a rapid march from an almost
hopeless position. A couple of quotations from Froissart will illustrate
the extent to which war had now become a mere business. Much as he
admired the French chivalry, he recognized their impotence at Crecy.
"The sharp arrows ran into the men of arms and into their horses, and
many fell, horse and men.... And also among the Englishmen there were
certain rascals that went afoot with great knives, and they went in
among the men of arms, and slew and murdered many as they lay on the
ground, both earls, barons, knights and squires, whereof the king of
England was after displeased, for he had rather they had been taken
prisoners." How far Edward's solicitude was disinterested may be gauged
from Froissart's parallel remark about the battle of Aljubarrota, where,
as at Agincourt, the handful of victors were obliged by a sudden panic
to slay their prisoners. "Lo, behold the great evil adventure that fell
that Saturday. For they slew as many good prisoners as would well have
been worth, one with another, four hundred thousand franks." In 1402
Lord Thomas de Berkeley bought, as a speculation, 24 Scottish prisoners.
Similar practical considerations forced the nobles of other European
countries either to conform to less sentimental methods of warfare and
to growing conceptions of nationality, or to become mere Ishmaels of the
type which outlived the middle ages in Gotz von Berlichingen and his
compeers.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.--Froissart is perhaps the source from which we may
gather most of chivalry in its double aspect, good and bad. The
brilliant side comes out most clearly in Joinville, the _Chronique de
Du Guesclin_, and the _Histoire de Bayart_; the darker side appears in
the earlier chronicles of the crusades, and is especially emphasized
by preachers and moralists like Jacques de Vitry, Etienne de Bourbon,
Nicole Bozon and John Gower. John Smyth's _Lives of the Berkeleys_
(Bristol and Gloucs. Archaeol. Soc, 2 vols.) and the _Book of the
Knight of La Tour-Landry_ (ed. A. de Montaiglon, or in the old English
trans. published by the Early English Text Soc.) throw a very vivid
light on the inner life of noble families. Of modern books, besides
those quoted by their full titles in the notes, the best are A.
Schultz, _Hofisches Leben z. Zeit der Minnesanger_ (Leipzig, 1879); S.
Luce, _Hist. de Du Guesclin et de son Epoque_ (2nd ed., Paris, 1882),
masterly but unfortunately unfinished at the author's death; Leon
Gautier, _La Chevalerie_ (Paris, 1883), written with a strong
apologetic bias, but full and correct in its references; and F. W.
Cornish, _Chivalry_ (London, 1901), too little reference to the more
prosaic historical documents, but candid and without intentional
partiality. (G. G. Co.)
ORDERS OF KNIGHTHOOD
When orders ceased to be fraternities and became more and more marks of
favour and a means of recognizing meritorious services to the Crown and
country, the term "orders" became loosely applied to the insignia and
decorations themselves. Thus "orders," irrespective of the title or
other specific designation they confer, fall in Great Britain generally
into three main categories, according as the recipients are made
"knights grand cross," "knights commander," or "companions." In some
orders the classes are more numerous, as in the Royal Victorian, for
instance, which has five, numerous foreign orders a like number, some
six, while the Chinese "Dragon" boasts no less than eleven degrees.
Generally speaking, the insignia of the "knights grand cross" consist of
a star worn on the left breast and a badge, usually some form either of
the cross _patee_ or of the Maltese cross, worn suspended from a ribbon
over the shoulder or, in certain cases, on days of high ceremonial from
a collar. The "commanders" wear the badge from a ribbon round the neck,
and the star on the breast; the "companions" have no star and wear the
badge from a narrow ribbon at the button-hole.
Orders may, again, be grouped according as they are (1) PRIME ORDERS OF
CHRISTENDOM, conferred upon an exclusive class only. Here belong, _inter
alia_, the well-known orders of the _Garter_ (England), _Golden Fleece_
(Austria and Spain), _Annunziata_ (Italy), _Black Eagle_ (Prussia), _St
Andrew_ (Russia), _Elephant_ (Denmark) and _Seraphim_ (Sweden). Of these
the first three only, which are usually held to rank _inter se_ in the
order given, are historically identified with chivalry. (2) FAMILY
ORDERS, bestowed upon members of the royal or princely class, or upon
humbler individuals according to classes, in respect of "personal"
services rendered to the family. To this category belong such orders as
the Royal Victorian and the Hohenzollern (Prussia). (3) ORDERS OF MERIT,
whether military, civil or joint orders. Such have, as a rule, at least
three, oftener five classes, and here belong such as the _Order of the
Bath_ (British), _Red Eagle_ (Prussia), _Legion of Honour_ (France).
There are also certain orders, such as the recently instituted _Order of
Merit_ (British), and the _Pour le Merite_ (Prussia), which have but one
class, all members being on an equality of rank within the order.
Of the three great military and religious orders, branches survive of
two, the Teutonic Order (_Der hohe deutsche Ritter Orden_ or _Marianen
Orden_) and the Knights of St John of Jerusalem (_Johanniter Orden_,
_Malteser Orden_), for the history of which and the present state see
TEUTONIC ORDER and ST JOHN OF JERUSALEM, KNIGHTS OF THE ORDER OF.
_Great Britain._--The history and constitution of the "most noble"
_Order of the Garter_ has been treated above. The officers of the order
are five--the prelate, chancellor, registrar, king of arms and
usher--the first, third and fifth having been attached to it from the
commencement, while the fourth was added by Henry V. and the second by
Edward IV. The prelate has always been the bishop of Winchester; the
chancellor was formerly the bishop of Salisbury, but is now the bishop
of Oxford; the registrarship and the deanery of Windsor have been united
since the reign of Charles I.; the king of arms, whose duties were in
the beginning discharged by Windsor herald, is Garter Principal King of
Arms; and the usher is the gentleman usher of the Black Rod. The chapel
of the order is St George's Chapel, Windsor. The insignia of the order
are illustrated on Plate I.
The "most ancient" _Order of the Thistle_, was founded by James II. in
1687, and dedicated to St Andrew. It consisted of the sovereign and
eight knights companions, and fell into abeyance at the Revolution of
1688. In 1703 it was revived by Queen Anne, when it was ordained to
consist of the sovereign and 12 knights companions, the number being
increased to 16 by statute in 1827. The officers of the order are the
dean, the secretary, Lyon King of Arms and the gentleman usher of the
Green Rod. The chapel, in St Giles's, Edinburgh, was begun in 1909. The
star, badge and ribbon of the order are illustrated on Plate II., figs.
5 and 6. The collar is formed of thistles, alternating with sprigs of
rue, and the motto is _Nemo me impune lacessit_.
[Illustration: PLATE II.
THE BATH. (i) STAR; (ii.) GRAND CROSS (Mil.); (iii) STAR; (iv.) GRAND
CROSS (Civ.); THE THISTLE. (v.) STAR; (vi.) BADGE. THE ST. PATRICK.
(vii.) BADGE; (viii.) STAR. THE ST. MICHAEL AND ST. GEORGE. (ix.) STAR;
(x.) GRAND CROSS.
_Drawn by William Gibb._
_Niagara Litho. Co., Buffalo, N. Y._]
The "most illustrious" _Order of St Patrick_ was instituted by George
III. in 1788, to consist of the sovereign, the lord lieutenant of
Ireland as grand master and 15 knights companions, enlarged to 22 in
1833. The chancellor of the order is the chief secretary to the lord
lieutenant of Ireland, and the king of arms is Ulster King of Arms;
Black Rod is the usher. The chapel is in St Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin.
The star, badge and ribbon are illustrated on Plate II., figs. 7 and 8.
The collar is formed of alternate roses with red and white leaves, and
gold harps linked by gold knots; the badge is suspended from a harp
surmounted by an imperial jewelled crown. The motto is _Quis separabit_?
The "most honourable" _Order of the Bath_ was established by George I.
in 1725, to consist of the sovereign, a grand master and 36 knights
companions. This was a pretended revival of an order supposed to have
been created by Henry IV. at his coronation in 1399. But, as has been
shown in the preceding section, no such order existed. Knights of the
Bath, although they were allowed precedence before knights bachelors,
were merely knights bachelors who were knighted with more elaborate
ceremonies than others and on certain great occasions. In 1815 the order
was instituted, in three classes, "to commemorate the auspicious
termination of the long and arduous contest in which the Empire has been
engaged"; and in 1847 the civil knights commanders and companions were
added. Exclusive of the sovereign, royal princes and distinguished
foreigners, the order is limited to 55 military and 27 civil knights
grand cross, 145 military and 108 civil knights commanders, and 705
military and 298 civil companions. The officers of the order are the
dean (the dean of Westminster), Bath King of Arms, the registrar, and
the usher of the Scarlet Rod. The ribbon and badges of the knights grand
cross (civil and military) and the stars are illustrated on Plate II.,
figs. 1, 2, 3 and 4.
The "most distinguished" _Order of St Michael and St George_ was founded
by the prince regent, afterwards George IV., in 1818, in commemoration
of the British protectorate of the Ionian Islands, "for natives of the
Ionian Islands and of the island of Malta and its dependencies, and for
such other subjects of his majesty as may hold high and confidential
situations in the Mediterranean." By statute of 1832 the lord high
commissioner of the Ionian Islands was to be the grand master, and the
order was directed to consist of 15 knights grand crosses, 20 knights
commanders and 25 cavaliers or companions. After the repudiation of the
British protectorate of the Ionian Islands, the order was placed on a
new basis, and by letters patent of 1868 and 1877 it was extended and
provided for such of "the natural born subjects of the Crown of the
United Kingdom as may have held or shall hold high and confidential
offices within her majesty's colonial possessions, and in reward for
services rendered to the crown in relation to the foreign affairs of the
Empire." It is now (by the enlargement of 1902) limited to 100 knights
grand cross, of whom the first or principal is grand master, exclusive
of extra and honorary members, of 300 knights commanders and 600
companions. The officers are the prelate, chancellor, registrar,
secretary and officer of arms. The chapel of the order, in St Paul's
Cathedral, was dedicated in 1906. The badge of the knights grand cross
and the ribbon are illustrated on Plate II., figs. 9 and 10. The star of
the knights grand cross is a seven-rayed star of silver with a small ray
of gold between each, in the centre is a red St George's cross bearing a
medallion of St Michael encountering Satan, surrounded by a blue fillet
with the motto _Auspicium melioris aevi_.
The _Order of St Michael and St George_ ranks between the "most exalted"
_Order of the Star of India_ and the "most eminent" _Order of the Indian
Empire_, of both of which the viceroy of India for the time being is _ex
officio_ grand master. Of these the first was instituted in 1861 and
enlarged in 1876, 1897 and 1903, in three classes, knights grand
commanders, knights commanders and companions, and the second was
established (for "companions" only) in 1878 and enlarged in 1887, 1892,
1897 and 1903, also in the same three classes, in commemoration of
Queen Victoria's assumption of the imperial style and title of the
Empress of India. The badges, stars and ribbons of the knights grand
commanders of the two orders are illustrated on Plate III., figs. 3, 4,
5 and 6. The collar of the _Star of India_ is composed of alternate
links of the lotus flower, red and white roses and palm branches
enamelled on gold, with an imperial crown in the centre; that of the
_Indian Empire_ is composed of elephants, peacocks and Indian roses.
The _Royal Victorian Order_ was instituted by Queen Victoria on the 25th
of April 1896, and conferred for personal services rendered to her
majesty and her successors on the throne. It consists of the sovereign,
chancellor, secretary and five classes--knights grand commanders,
knights commanders, commanders and members of the fourth and fifth
classes, the distinction between these last divisions lying in the badge
and in the precedence enjoyed by the members. The knights of this order
rank in their respective classes immediately after those of the _Indian
Empire_, and its numbers are unlimited. The badge, star and ribbon of
the knights grand cross are illustrated on Plate III., figs. 1 and 2.
To the class of orders without the titular appellation "knight" belongs
the _Order of Merit_, founded by King Edward VII. on the occasion of his
coronation. The order is founded on the lines of the Prussian _Ordre
pour le merite_ (see below), yet more comprehensive, including those who
have gained distinction in the military and naval services of the
Empire, and such as have made themselves a great name in the fields of
science, art and literature. The number of British members has been
fixed at twenty-four, with the addition of such foreign persons as the
sovereign shall appoint. The names of the first recipients were: Earl
Roberts, Viscount Wolseley, Viscount Kitchener, Sir Henry Keppel, Sir
Edward Seymour, Lord Lister, Lord Rayleigh, Lord Kelvin, John Morley, W.
E. H. Lecky, G. F. Watts and Sir William Huggins. The only foreign
recipients up to 1910 were Field Marshals Yamagata and Oyama and Admiral
Togo. A lady, Miss Florence Nightingale, received the order in 1907. The
badge is a cross of red and blue enamel surmounted by an imperial crown;
the central blue medallion bears the inscription "For Merit" in gold,
and is surrounded by a wreath of laurel. The badge of the military and
naval members bears two crossed swords in the angles of the cross. The
ribbon is garter blue and crimson and is worn round the neck.
The _Distinguished Service Order_, an order of military merit, was
founded on the 6th of September 1886 by Queen Victoria, its object
being to recognize the special services of officers in the army and
navy. Its numbers are unlimited, and its designation the letters
D.S.O. It consists of one class only, who take precedence immediately
after the 4th class of the Royal Victorian Order. The badge is a white
and gold cross with a red centre bearing the imperial crown surrounded
by a laurel wreath. The ribbon is red edged with blue. The _Imperial
Service Order_ was likewise instituted on the 26th of June 1902, and
finally revised in 1908, to commemorate King Edward's coronation, and
is specially designed as a recognition of faithful and meritorious
services rendered to the British Crown by the administrative members
of the civil service in various parts of the Empire, and is to consist
of companions only. The numbers are limited to 475, of whom 250 belong
to the home and 225 to the civil services of the colonies and
protectorates (Royal Warrant, June 1909). Women as well as men are
eligible. The members of the order have the distinction of adding the
letters I.S.O. after their names. In precedence the order ranks after
the _Distinguished Service Order_. The badge is a gold medallion
bearing the royal cipher and the words "For Faithful Service" in blue;
for men it rests on a silver star, for women it is surrounded by a
silver wreath. The ribbon is one blue between two crimson stripes.
In addition to the above, there are two British orders confined to
ladies. The _Royal Order of Victoria and Albert_, which was instituted
in 1862, is a purely court distinction. It consists of four classes,
and it has as designation the letters V.A. The _Imperial Order of the
Crown of India_ is conferred for like purposes as the Order of the
Indian Empire. Its primary object is to recognize the services of
ladies connected with the court of India. The letters C.I. are its
designation.
The sovereign's permission by royal warrant is necessary before a
British subject can receive a foreign order of knighthood. For other
decorations, see under MEDALS.
_The Golden Fleece_ (_La Toison d'Or_) ranks historically and in
distinction as one of the great knightly orders of Europe. It is now
divided into two branches, of Austria and Spain. It was founded on the
10th of January, 1429/30 by Philip the Good, duke of Burgundy, on the
day of his marriage with Isabella of Portugal at Bruges, in her honour
and dedicated to the Virgin and St Andrew. No certain origin can be
given for the name. It seems to have been in dispute even in the early
history of the order. Four different sources have been suggested; the
classical myth of the voyage of Jason and the Argonauts for the golden
fleece, the scriptural story of Gideon, the staple trade of Flanders in
wool, and the fleece of golden hair of Marie de Rambrugge, the duke's
mistress. Motley (_Rise of Dutch Rep._, i. 48) says: "What could be more
practical and more devout than the conception? Did not the Lamb of God,
suspended at each knight's heart, symbolize at once the woollen fabrics
to which so much of Flemish wealth and Burgundian power was owing, and
the gentle humility of Christ which was ever to characterize the order?"
At its constitution the number of the knights was limited to 24,
exclusive of the grand master, the sovereign. The members were to be
_gentilshommes de nom et d'armes et sans reproche_, not knights of any
other order, and vowed to join their sovereign in the defence of the
Catholic faith, the protection of Holy Church, and the upholding of
virtue and good morals. The sovereign undertook to consult the knights
before embarking on a war, all disputes between the knights were to be
settled by the order, at each chapter the deeds of each knight were held
in review, and punishments and admonitions were dealt out to offenders;
to this the sovereign was expressly subject. Thus we find that the
emperor Charles V. accepted humbly the criticism of the knights of the
Fleece on his over-centralization of the government and the wasteful
personal attention to details (E. A. Armstrong, _Charles V._, 1902, ii.
373). The knights could claim as of right to be tried by their fellows
on charges of rebellion, heresy and treason, and Charles V. conferred on
the order exclusive jurisdiction over all crimes committed by the
knights. The arrest of the offender had to be by warrant signed by at
least six knights, and during the process of charge and trial he
remained not in prison but _dans l'aimable compagnie du dit ordre_. It
was in defiance of this right that Alva refused the claim of Counts
Egmont and Horn to be tried by the knights of the Fleece in 1568. During
the 16th century the order frequently acted as a consultative body in
the state; thus in 1539 and 1540 Charles summons the knights with the
council of state and the privy council to decide what steps should be
taken in face of the revolt of Ghent (Armstrong, _op. cit._, i. 302), in
1562 Margaret of Parma, the regent, summons them to Brussels to debate
the dangerous condition of the provinces (Motley, i. 48), and they were
present at the abdication of Charles in the great hall at Brussels in
1555. The history of the order and its subsequent division into the two
branches of Austria and Spain may be briefly summarized. By the marriage
of Mary, only daughter of Charles the Bold of Burgundy to Maximilian,
archduke of Austria, 1477, the grand mastership of the order came to the
house of Habsburg and, with the Netherlands provinces, to Spain in 1504
on the accession of Philip, Maximilian's son, to Castile. On the
extinction of the Habsburg dynasty in Spain by the death of Charles II.
in 1700 the grand-mastership, which had been filled by the kings of
Spain after the loss of the Netherlands, was claimed by the emperor
Charles VI., and he instituted the order in Vienna in 1713. Protests
were made at various times by Philip V., but the question has never been
finally decided by treaty, and the Austrian and Spanish branches have
continued as independent orders ever since as the principal order of
knighthood in the respective states. It may be noticed that while the
Austrian branch excludes any other than Roman Catholics from the order,
the Spanish Fleece may be granted to Protestants. The badges of the two
branches vary slightly in detail, more particularly in the attachment of
fire-stones (_fusils_ or _furisons_) and steels by which the fleece is
attached to the ribbon of the collar. The Spanish form is given on Plate
IV., fig. 2. The collar is composed of alternate links of furisons and
double steels interlaced to form the letter B for Burgundy. A
magnificent exhibition of relics, portraits of knights and other
objects connected with the order of the Golden Fleece was held at Bruges
in 1907.
The chief history of the order is Baron de Reiffenberg's _Histoire de
l'Ordre de la Toison d'Or_ (1830); see also an article by Sir J.
Balfour Paul, Lyon King of Arms, in the _Scottish Historical Review_
(July 1908).
_Austria-Hungary._--The following are the principal orders other than
that of the Golden Fleece (_supra_). _The Order of St Stephen of
Hungary_, the royal Hungarian order, founded in 1764 by the empress
Maria Theresa, consists of the grand master (the sovereign), 20
knights grand cross, 30 knights commanders and 50 knights. The badge
is a green enamelled cross with gold borders, suspended from the
Hungarian crown; the red enamelled medallion in the centre of the
cross bears a white patriarchal cross issuing from a coroneted green
mound; on either side of the cross are the letters M.T. in gold, and
the whole is surrounded by a white fillet with the legend _Publicum
Meritorum Praemium_. The ribbon is green with a crimson central
stripe. The collar, only worn by the knights grand cross, is of gold,
and consists of Hungarian crowns linked together alternately by the
monograms of St Stephen, S.S., and the foundress, M.T.; the centre of
the collar is formed by a flying lark encircled by the motto _Stringit
amore_. An illustration of the star of the grand cross is given on
Plate V. fig. 4. _The Order of Leopold_, for civil and military
service, was founded in 1808 by the emperor Francis I. in memory of
his father Leopold II. The three classes take precedence next after
the corresponding classes of the order of St Stephen. The badge is a
red enamelled cross bordered with white and gold and surmounted by the
imperial crown; the red medallion in the centre bears the letters
F.I.A., and on the encircling white fillet is the inscription
_Integritati et Merito_. When conferred for service in war the cross
rests on a green laurel wreath. The ribbon is scarlet with two white
stripes. The collar consists of imperial crowns, the initials F. and
L. and oak wreaths. _The Order of the Iron Crown_, i.e. of Lombardy,
was founded by Napoleon as king of Italy in 1809, and refounded as an
Austrian order of civil and military merit in 1816 by the emperor
Francis I.; the number of knights is limited to 100--20 grand cross,
30 commanders, 50 knights. The badge consists of the double-headed
imperial eagle with sword and orb; below it is the jewelled iron crown
of Lombardy, and above the imperial crown; on the breast of the eagle
is a gold-bordered blue shield with the letter F. in gold. The
military decoration for war service also bears two green laurel
branches. The ribbon is yellow edged with narrow blue stripes. The
collar is formed of Lombard crowns, oak wreaths and the monogram F. P.
(_Franciscus Primus_). _The Order of Francis Joseph_, for personal
merit of every kind, was founded in 1849 by the emperor Francis Joseph
I. It is of the three usual classes and is unlimited in numbers. The
badge is a black and gold imperial eagle surmounted by the imperial
crown. The eagle bears a red cross with a white medallion, containing
the letters F. J., and to the beaks of the two heads of the eagle is
attached a chain on which is the legend _Viribus Unitis_. The ribbon
is deep red. The _Order of Maria Theresa_ was founded by the empress
Maria Theresa in 1757. It is a purely military order and is given to
officers for personal distinguished conduct in the field. There are
three classes. There were originally only two, grand cross and
knights. The emperor Joseph II. added a commanders' class in 1765. The
badge is a white cross with gold edge, in the centre a red medallion
with a white gold-edged _fesse_, surrounded by a fillet with the
inscription _Fortitudini_. The ribbon is red with a white central
stripe. The _Order of Elizabeth Theresa_, also a military order for
officers, was founded in 1750 by the will of Elizabeth Christina,
widow of the emperor Charles VI. It was renovated in 1771 by her
daughter, the empress Maria Theresa. The order is limited to 21
knights in three divisions. The badge is an oval star with eight
points, enamelled half red and white, dependent from a gold imperial
crown. The central medallion bears the initials of the founders, with
the encircling inscription _M. Theresa parentis gratiam perennem
voluit_. The ribbon is black. The _Order of the Starry Cross_, for
high-born ladies of the Roman Catholic faith who devote themselves to
good works, spiritual and temporal, was founded in 1668 by the empress
Eleanor, widow of the emperor Ferdinand III. and mother of Leopold I.,
to commemorate the recovery of a relic of the true cross from a
dangerous fire in the imperial palace at Vienna. The relic was
supposed to have been peculiarly treasured by the emperor Maximilian
I. and the emperor Frederick III. The patroness of the order must be a
princess of the imperial Austrian house. The badge is the black
double-headed eagle surrounded by a blue-enamelled ornamented border,
with the inscription _Salus et Gloria_ on a white fillet; the eagle
bears a red Greek cross with gold and blue borders. The _Order of
Elizabeth_, also for ladies, was founded in 1898.
[Illustration: PLATE III.
ROYAL VICTORIAN ORDER. (i.) GRAND CROSS; (ii.) STAR. ORDER OF THE
INDIAN EMPIRE. (iii.) BADGE OF KNIGHT GRAND COMMANDER; (iv.) STAR. THE
STAR OF INDIA. (v.) STAR; (vi.) BADGE OF KNIGHT GRAND COMMANDER.
_Drawn by William Gibb._
_Niagara Litho. Co., Buffalo, N. Y._]
_Belgium._--The _Order of Leopold_, for civil and military merit, was
founded in 1832 by Leopold I., with four classes, a fifth being added
in 1838. The badge is a white enamelled cross, with gold borders and
balls, suspended from a royal crown and resting on a green laurel and
oak wreath. In the centre a medallion, surrounded by a red fillet with
the motto of the order, _L'union fait la force_, bears a golden
Belgian lion on a black field. The ribbon is watered red. The _Order
of the Iron Cross_, the badge of which is a black cross with gold
borders, with a gold centre bearing a lion, was instituted by Leopold
II. in 1867 as an order of civil merit. The military cross was
instituted in 1885. There are also the following orders instituted by
Leopold II. for service in the Congo State: the _Order of the African
Star_ (1888), the _Royal Order of the Lion_ (1891) and the _Congo
Star_ (1889).
_Bulgaria._--The _Order of SS Cyril and Methodius_ was instituted in
1909 by King Ferdinand to commemorate the elevation of the
principality to the position of an independent kingdom. It now takes
precedence of the _Order of St Alexander_, which was founded by Prince
Alexander in 1881, and reconstituted by Prince Ferdinand in 1888.
There are six classes. The plain white cross, suspended from the
Bulgarian crown, bears the name of the patron saint in old Cyrillic
letters in the centre.
_Denmark._--The _Order of the Elephant_, one of the chief European
orders of knighthood, was, it is said, founded by Christian I. in
1462; a still earlier origin has been assigned to it, but its regular
institution was that of Christian V. in 1693. The order, exclusive of
the sovereign and his sons, is limited to 30 knights, who must be of
the Protestant religion. The badge of the order is illustrated on
Plate IV. fig. 5. The ribbon is light watered blue, the collar of
alternate gold elephants with blue housings and towers, the star of
silver with a purple medallion bearing a silver or brilliant cross
surrounded by a silver laurel wreath. The motto is _Magnanime
pretium_. The _Order of the Dannebrog_ is, according to Danish
tradition, of miraculous origin, and was founded by Valdemar II. in
1219 as a memorial of a victory over the Esthonians, won by the
appearance in the sky of a red banner bearing a white cross.
Historically the order dates from the foundation in 1671 by Christian
V. at the birth of his son Frederick, the statutes being published in
1693. Originally restricted to 50 knights and granted as a family or
court decoration, it was reconstituted as an unlimited order of merit
in 1808 by Frederick VI.; alterations have been made in 1811 and 1864.
It now consists of three classes--grand cross, commander (two grades),
knight, and of one rank of ordinary members (_Dannebrogs maender_).
The badge of the order is, with variations for the different classes,
a white enamelled Danish cross with red and gold borders, bearing in
the centre the letter W (V) and on the four arms the inscription _Gud
og Kongen_ (For God and King). The ribbon is white with red edging.
_France._--_The Legion of Honour_, the only order of France, and one
which in its higher grades ranks in estimation with the highest European
orders, was instituted by Napoleon Bonaparte on the 19th of May 1802 (29
Floreal of the year X.) as a general military and civil order of merit.
All soldiers on whom "swords of honour" had been already conferred were
declared _legionaries ipso facto_, and all citizens after 25 years'
service were declared eligible, whatever their birth, rank or religion.
On admission all were to swear to co-operate so far as in them lay for
the assertion of the principles of liberty and equality. The
organization as laid down by Napoleon in 1804 was as follows: Napoleon
was grand master; a grand council of 7 grand officers administered the
order; the order was divided into 15 "cohorts" of 7 grand officers, 20
commanders, 30 officers and 350 legionaries, and at the headquarters of
the cohorts, for which the territory of France was separated into 15
divisions, were maintained hospitals for the support of the sick and
infirm legionaries. Salaries (_traitements_) varying in each rank were
attached to the order. In 1805 the rank of "Grand Eagle" (now Grand
Cross, or _Grand Cordon_) was instituted, taking precedence of the grand
officers. At the Restoration many changes were made, the old military
and religious orders were restored, and the _Legion of Honour_, now
_Ordre Royale de la Legion d'Honneur_, took the lowest rank. The
revolution of July 1830 restored the order to its unique place. The
constitution of the order now rests on the decrees of the 16th of March
and 24th of November 1852, the law of the 25th of July 1873, the decree
of the 29th of December 1892, and the laws of the 16th of April 1895 and
the 28th of January 1897, and a decree of the 26th of June 1900. The
president of the republic is the grand master of the order; the
administration is in the hands of a grand chancellor, who has a council
of the order nominated by the grand master. The chancellery is housed in
the _Palais de la Legion de l'Honneur_, which, burnt during the Commune,
was rebuilt in 1878. The order consists of the five classes of grand
cross (limited to 80), grand officer (200), commander (1000), officers
(4000), and chevalier or knight, in which the number is unlimited. These
limitations in number do not affect the foreign recipients of the order.
Salaries (_traitements_) are attached to the military and naval
recipients of the order when on the active list, viz. 3000 francs for
grand cross, 2000 francs for grand officers, 1000 francs for commanders,
250 francs for chevaliers. The numbers of the recipients of the order
_sans traitement_ are limited through all classes. In ordinary
circumstances twenty years of military, naval or civil service must have
been performed before a candidate can be eligible for the rank of
chevalier, and promotions can only be made after definite service in the
lower rank. Extraordinary service in time of war and extraordinary
services in civil life admit to any rank. Women have been decorated,
notably Rosa Bonheur, Madame Curie and Madame Bartet. The Napoleonic
form of the grand cross and ribbon is illustrated on Plate IV, fig. 6;
the cross from which the drawing was made was given to King Edward VII.
when prince of Wales in 1863. In the present order of the French
Republic the symbolical head of the Republic appears in the centre, and
a laurel wreath replaces the imperial crown; the inscription round the
medallion is _Republique francaise_. Since 1805 there has existed an
institution, _Maison d'education de la Legion d'Honneur_, for the
education of the daughters, granddaughters, sisters and nieces of
members of the Legion of Honour. There are three houses, at Saint Denis,
at Ecouen and Les Loges (see _Dictionnaire de l'administration
francaise_, by M. Block and E. Magnero, 1905, _s.v._ "Decorations").
Among the orders swept away at the French Revolution, restored in part
at the Restoration, and finally abolished at the revolution of July
1830 were the following: The _Order of St Michael_ was founded by
Louis XI. in 1469 for a limited number of knights of noble birth.
Later the numbers were so much increased under Charles IX. that it
became known as _Le Collier a toutes betes_. In 1816 the order was
granted for services in art and science. In view of the low esteem
into which the _Order of St Michael_ had fallen, Henry III. founded in
1578 the _Order of the Holy Ghost_ (_St Esprit_). The badge of the
order was a white Maltese cross decorated in gold, with the gold
lilies of France at the angles, in the centre a white dove with wings
outstretched, the ribbon was sky blue (_cordon bleu_). The motto of
the order was _Duce et auspice_. The _Order of St Louis_ was founded
by Louis XIV. in 1693 for military merit, and the _Order of Military
Merit_ by Louis XV. in 1759, originally for Protestant officers.
_Germany._--i. _Anhalt._ The _Order of Albert the Bear_, a family
order or _Hausorden_, was founded in 1836 by the dukes Henry of
Anhalt-Kothen, Leopold Frederick of Anhalt-Dessau and Alexander
Charles of Anhalt-Bernburg. Changes in the constitution have been made
at various dates. It now consists of five classes, grand cross,
commander (2 classes) and knights (2 classes). The badge is a gold
oval bearing in gold a crowned and collared bear on a crenellated
wall; below the ring by which the badge is attached to the ribbon is a
shield with the arms of the house of Anhalt, on the reverse those of
the house of Ascania. Round the oval is the motto _Furchte Gott und
folge seine Befehle_. The ribbon is green with two red stripes. The
grand master alone wears a collar.
ii. _Baden._ The _Order of Fidelity or Loyalty_ (_Hausorden der
Treue_) was instituted by William, margrave of Baden-Durlach in 1715,
and reconstituted in 1803 by the elector Charles Frederick. There is
now only one class, for princes of the reigning house, foreign
sovereigns and eminent men of the state. The badge is a red enamelled
cross with gold borders and double C's interlaced in the angles; in
the centre a white medallion with red monogram over a green mound
surmounted by the word _Fidelitas_ in black; the cross is suspended
from a ducal crown. The ribbon is orange with silver edging. The
military _Order of Charles Frederick_ was founded in 1807. There are
three classes. The badge is a white cross resting on a green laurel
wreath, the ribbon is red with a yellow stripe bordered with white.
The order is conferred for long and meritorious military service. The
_Order of the Zahringen Lion_ was founded in 1812 in commemoration of
the descent of the reigning house of Baden from the dukes of
Zahringen. It has been reconstituted in 1840 and 1877. It now consists
of five classes. The badge is a green enamel cross with gold clasps in
the angles; in the central medallion an enamelled representation of
the ruined castle of Zahringen. The ribbon is green with two orange
stripes. Since 1896 the _Order of Berthold I._ has been a distinct
order; it was founded in 1877 as a higher class of the _Zahringen
Lion_.
iii. _Bavaria._ The _Order of St Hubert_, one of the oldest and most
distinguished knightly orders, was founded in 1444 by duke Gerhard V.
of Julich-Berg in honour of a victory over Count Arnold of Egmont at
Ravensberg on the 3rd of November, St Hubert's day. The knights wore a
collar of golden hunting horns, whence the order was also known as the
_Order of the Horn_. Statutes were granted in 1476, but the order fell
into abeyance at the extinction of the dynasty in 1609. It was revived
in 1708 by the elector palatine, John William of Neuberg, and its
constitution was altered at various times, its final form being given
by the elector Maximilian Joseph, first king of Bavaria, in 1808.
Exclusive of the sovereign and princes of the blood, and foreign
sovereigns and princes, it consists of twelve capitular knights of the
rank of count or _Freiherr_. The badge of the order and the ribbon are
illustrated in Plate V. fig. 3. The central medallion represents the
conversion of St Hubert. The collar is composed of gold and blue
enamel figures of the conversion linked by the Gothic monogram I.T.V.,
_In Trau Vast_, the motto of the order, alternately red and green. The
_Order of St George_, said to have been founded in the 12th century as
a crusading order and revived by the emperor Maximilian I. in 1494,
dates historically from its institution in 1729 by the elector Charles
Albert, afterwards the emperor Charles VII. It was confirmed by the
elector Charles Theodore in 1778 and by the elector Maximilian Joseph
IV. as the second Bavarian order. Various new statutes have been
granted from 1827 to 1875. The order is divided into two branches, "of
German and foreign languages," and it also has a "spiritual class."
The members of the order must be Roman Catholics. The badge is a blue
enamelled cross with white and gold edging suspended from the mouth of
a gold lion's head; in the angles of the cross are blue lozenges
containing the letters V.I.B.I., _Virgini Immaculatae Bavaria
Immaculata_. The central medallion contains a figure of the Immaculate
Conception. The medallion on the reverse contains a figure of St
George and the Dragon and the corresponding initials J.U.P.F., _Justus
ut Palma Florebit_, the motto of the order. Besides the above Bavaria
possesses the _Military Order of Maximilian Joseph_, 1806, and the
_Civil Orders of Merit of St Michael_, 1693, and of the _Bavarian
Crown_, 1808, and other minor orders and decorations, civil and
military. There are also the two illustrious orders for ladies, the
_Order of Elizabeth_, founded in 1766, and the _Order of Theresa_, in
1827. The foundations of _St Anne of Munich_ and of _St Anne of
Wurzburg_ for ladies are not properly orders.
iv. _Brunswick._ The _Order of Henry the Lion_, for military and civil
merit, was founded by Duke William in 1834. There are five classes,
and a cross of merit of two classes. The badge is a blue enamelled
cross dependent from a lion surmounted by the ducal crown; the angles
of the cross are filled by crowned W's and the centre bears the arms
of Brunswick, a crowned pillar and a white horse, between two sickles.
The ribbon is deep red bordered with yellow.
v. _Hanover._ The _Order of St George_ (one class only) was instituted
by King Ernest Augustus I. in 1839 as the family order of the house of
Hanover; the _Royal Guelphic Order_ (three classes) by George, prince
regent, afterwards George IV. of Great Britain, in 1815; and the
_Order of Ernest Augustus_ by George V. of Hanover in 1865. These
orders have not been conferred since 1866, when Hanover ceased to be a
kingdom, and the _Royal Guelphic Order_, which from its institution
was more British than Hanoverian, not since the death of William IV.
in 1837. The last British grand cross was the late duke of Cambridge.
vi. _Hesse._ Of the various orders founded by the houses of
Hesse-Cassel and Hesse-Darmstadt the following are still bestowed in
the grand duchy of Hesse. The _Order of Louis_, founded by the grand
duke Louis I. of Hesse-Darmstadt in 1807; there are five classes; the
black, red and gold bordered cross bears the initial L. in the centre,
the ribbon is black with red borders; the _Order of Philip the
Magnanimous_, founded by the grand duke Louis II. in 1840 has five
classes; the white cross of the badge bears the effigy of Philip
surrounded by the motto _Si Deus vobiscum quis contra nos_. The _Order
of the Golden Lion_ was founded in 1770 by the landgrave Frederick II.
of Hesse-Cassel, the knights are 41 in number and take precedence of
the members of the two former orders. The badge is an open oval of
gold with the Hessian lion in the centre. The ribbon is crimson.
vii. _Mecklenburg._ The grand duchies of Mecklenburg-Schwerin and
Mecklenburg-Strelitz possess jointly the _Order of the Wendish Crown_,
founded in 1864 by the grand dukes Frederick Francis II. of Schwerin
and Frederick William of Strelitz; there are four classes, with two
divisions of the grand cross, and also an affiliated cross of merit;
the grand cross can be granted to ladies. The badge is a white cross
bearing on a blue centre the Wendish crown, surrounded by the motto,
for the Schwerin knights, _Per aspera ad astra_, for the Strelitz
knights, _Avito viret honore_. The _Order of the Griffin_, founded in
1884 by Frederick Francis III. of Schwerin, was made common to the
duchies in 1904.
viii. _Oldenberg._ The _Order of Duke Peter Frederick Louis_, a family
order and order of merit, was founded by the grand duke Paul Frederick
Augustus in memory of his father in 1838. It has two divisions, each
of five classes, of capitular knights and honorary members. The badge
is a white gold bordered cross suspended from a crown, in the centre
the crowned monogram P.F.L. surrounded by the motto _Ein Gott, Ein
Recht, Eine Wahrheit_; the ribbon is dark blue bordered with red.
ix. _Prussia._ The _Order of the Black Eagle_, one of the most
distinguished of European orders, was founded in 1701 by the elector
of Brandenburg, Frederick I., in memory of his coronation as king of
Prussia. The order consists of one class only and the original
statutes limited the number, exclusive of the princes of the royal
house and foreign members, to 30. But the number has been exceeded. It
is only conferred on those of royal lineage and upon high officers of
state. It confers the nobiliary particle _von_. Only those who have
received the _Order of the Red Eagle_ are eligible. An illustration of
the badge of the order with ribbon is given on Plate IV. fig. 3. The
star of silver bears the black eagle on an orange ground surrounded by
a silver fillet on which is the motto of the order _Suum Cuique_. The
collar is formed of alternate black eagles and a circular medallion
with the motto on a white centre surrounded by the initials F.R.
repeated in green, the whole in a circle of blue with four gold crowns
on the exterior rim. The _Order of the Red Eagle_, the second of the
Prussian orders, was founded originally as the _Order of Sincerity_
(_L'Ordre de la Sincerite_) in 1705 by George William, hereditary
prince of Brandenburg-Bayreuth. The original constitution and insignia
are now entirely changed, with the exception of the red eagle which
formed the centre of the cross of the badge. The order had almost
fallen into oblivion when it was revived in 1734 by the margrave
George Frederick Charles as the _Order of the Brandenburg Red Eagle_.
It consisted of 30 nobly born knights. The numbers were increased and
a grand cross class added in 1759. On the cession of the principality
to Prussia in 1791 the order was transferred and King Frederick
William raised it to that place in Prussian orders which it has since
maintained. The order was divided into four classes in 1810 and there
are now five classes with numerous subdivisions. It is an order of
civil and military merit. The grand cross resembles the badge of the
Black Eagle, but is white and the eagles in the corners red, the
central medallion bearing the initials W.R. (those of William I.)
surrounded by a blue fillet with the motto _Sincere et Constanter_.
The numerous classes and subdivisions have exceedingly complicated
distinguishing marks, some bearing crossed swords, a crown, or an
oak-leaf surmounting the cross. The ribbon is white with two orange
stripes.
The _Order for Merit_ (_Ordre pour le Merite_), one of the most highly
prized of European orders of merit, has now two divisions, military
and for science and art. It was originally founded by the electoral
prince Frederick, afterwards Frederick I. of Prussia, in 1667 as the
_Order of Generosity_; it was given its present name and granted for
civil and military distinction by Frederick the Great, 1740. In 1810
the order was made one for military merit against the enemy in the
field exclusively. In 1840 the class for distinction for science and
art, or peace class (_Friedensklasse_) was founded by Frederick
William IV., for those "who have gained an illustrious name by wide
recognition in the spheres of science and art." The number is limited
to 30 German and 30 foreign members. The _Academy of Sciences and
Arts_ on a vacancy nominates three candidates, from which one is
selected by the king. It is interesting to note that this was the only
distinction which Thomas Carlyle would accept. The badge of the
military order is a blue cross with gold uncrowned eagles in the
angles; on the topmost arm is the initial F., with a crown; on the
other arms the inscription _Pour le Merite_. The ribbon is black with
a silver stripe at the edges. In 1866 a special grand cross was
instituted for the crown prince (afterwards Frederick III.) and Prince
Frederick Charles. It was in 1879 granted to Count von Moltke as a
special distinction. The badge of the class for science or art is a
circular medallion of white, with a gold eagle in the centre
surrounded by a blue border with the inscription _Pour le Merite_; on
the white field the letters [reverse F]F. II. four times repeated, and
four crowns in gold projecting from the rim. The ribbon is the same as
for the military class. The _Order of the Crown_, founded by William
I. in 1861, ranks with the Red Eagle. There are four classes, with
many subdivisions. Other Prussian orders are the _Order of William_,
instituted by William II. in 1896; a Prussian branch of the knights of
St John of Jerusalem, _Johanniter Orden_, in its present form dating
from 1893; and the family _Order of the House of Hohenzollern_,
founded in 1851 by Frederick William IV. There are two divisions,
military and civil, divided into four classes. The military badge is a
white cross with black and gold edging, resting on a green oak and
laurel wreath; the central medallion bears the Prussian Eagle with the
arms of Hohenzollern, and is surrounded by a blue fillet with the
motto _Vom Fels zum Meer_; the civil badge is a black eagle, with the
head encircled with a blue fillet with the motto. There are also for
ladies the _Order of Service_, founded in 1814 by Frederick William
III., in one class, but enlarged in 1850 and in 1865. The decoration
of merit for ladies (_Verdienst-kreuz_), founded in 1870, was raised
to an order in 1907. For the famous military decoration, the _Iron
Cross_, see MEDALS.
x. _Saxony._--The _Order of the Crown of Rue_ (_Rauten Krone_) was
founded as a family order by Frederick Augustus I. in 1807. It is of
one class only, and the sons and nephews of the sovereign are born
knights of the order. It is granted to foreign ruling princes and
subjects of high rank. The badge is a pale green enamelled cross
resting on a gold crown with eight rue leaves, the centre is white
with the crowned monogram of the founder surrounded by a green circlet
of rue; the star bears in its centre the motto _Providentiae Memor_.
The ribbon is green. Other Saxon orders are the military _Order of St
Henry_, for distinguished service in the field, founded in 1736 in one
class; since 1829 it has had four classes; the ribbon is sky blue with
two yellow stripes, the gold cross bears in the centre the effigy of
the emperor Henry II.; the _Order of Albert_, for civil and military
merit, founded in 1850 by Frederick Augustus II. in memory of Duke
Albert the Bold, the founder of the Albertine line of Saxony, has six
classes; the _Order of Civil Merit_, was founded in 1815. For ladies
there are the _Order of Sidonia_, 1870, in memory of the wife of
Albert the Bold, the mother (_Stamm-Mutter_) of the Albertine line;
and the _Maria Anna Order_, 1906.
[Illustration: PLATE IV.
(i.) THE ST. ANDREW (Russia). (ii.) THE GOLDEN FLEECE (Spain). (iii.)
THE BLACK EAGLE (Prussia). (iv.) THE TOWER AND SWORD (Portugal). (v.)
THE ELEPHANT (Denmark). (vi.) THE LEGION OF HONOUR
(France-Napoleonic). (vii.) THE ANNUNZIATA (Italy).
_Drawn by William Gibb._
_Niagara Litho. Co., Buffalo, N. Y._]
xi. The duchies of _Saxe Altenburg_, _Saxe Coburg Gotha_ and _Saxe
Meiningen_ have in common the family _Order of Ernest_, founded in
1833 in memory of Duke Ernest the Pious of Saxe Gotha and as a revival
of the _Order of German Integrity_ (_Orden der deutschen Redlichkeit_)
founded in 1690. Saxe Coburg Gotha and Saxe Meiningen have also
separate crosses of merit in science and art.
xii. _Saxe Weimar._--The _Order of the White Falcon_ or _of Vigilance_
was founded in 1732 and renewed in 1815.
xiii. _Wurttemberg._--The _Order of the Crown of Wurttemberg_ was
founded in 1818, uniting the former _Order of the Golden Eagle_ and an
order of civil merit. It has five classes. The badge is a white cross
surmounted by the royal crown, in the centre the initial F surrounded
by a crimson fillet on which is the motto _Furchtlos und Treu_; in the
angles of the cross are four golden leopards; the ribbon is crimson
with two black stripes. Besides the military _Order of Merit_ founded
in 1759, and the silver cross of merit, 1900, Wurttemberg has also the
_Order of Frederick_, 1830, and the _Order of Olga_, 1871, which is
granted to ladies as well as men.
_Greece._--The _Order of the Redeemer_ was founded as such in 1833 by
King Otto, being a conversion of a decoration of honour instituted in
1829 by the National Assembly at Argos. There are five classes, the
numbers being regulated for each. An illustration of the badge and
ribbon of the grand cross is given on Plate V. fig. 1.
_Holland._--The _Order of William_, for military merit, was founded in
1815 by William I.; there are four classes; the badge is a white cross
resting on a green laurel Burgundian cross, in the centre the
Burgundian flint-steel, as in the order of the Golden Fleece. The
motto _Voer Moed, Belied, Trouw_ (For Valour, Devotion, Loyalty),
appears on the arms of the cross. The cross is surmounted by a
jewelled crown; the ribbon is orange with dark blue edging. The _Order
of the Netherlands Lion_, for civil merit, was founded in 1818; there
are four classes. The family _Order of the Golden Lion of Nassau_
passed in 1890 to the grand duchy of Luxembourg (see under LUXEMBURG).
In 1892 Queen Wilhelmina instituted the _Order of Orange-Nassau_ with
five classes. The _Teutonic Order_ (q.v.), surviving in the Ballarde
(Bailiwick) of Utrecht, was officially established in the Netherlands
by the States General in 1580. It was abolished by Napoleon in 1811
and was restored in 1815.
_Italy._--The _Order of the Annunziata_, the highest order of
knighthood of the Italian kingdom, was instituted in 1362 by Amadeus
VI., count of Savoy, as the Order of the Collare or Collar, from the
silver collar made up of love-knots and roses, which was its badge, in
honour of the fifteen joys of the Virgin; hence the number of the
knights was restricted to fifteen, the fifteen chaplains recited
fifteen masses each day, and the clauses of the original statute of
the order were fifteen (Amadeus VIII. added five others in 1434).
Charles III. decreed that the order should be called the Annunziata,
and made some other alterations in 1518. His son and successor,
Emmanuel Philibert, made further modifications in the statute and the
costume. The church of the order was originally the Carthusian
monastery of Pierre-chatel in the district of Bugey, but after Charles
Emmanuel I. had given Bugey and Bresse to France in 1601 the church of
the order was transferred to the Camaldolese monastery near Turin.
That religious order having been suppressed at the time of the French
Revolution, King Charles Albert decreed in 1840 that the Carthusian
church of Collegno should be the chapel of the order. The knights of
the Annunziata have the title of "cousins of the king," and enjoy
precedence over all the other officials of the state. The costume of
the order is of white satin embroidered in silk, with a purple velvet
cloak adorned with roses and gold embroidery, but it is now never
worn; in the collar the motto _Fert_ is inserted, on the meaning of
which there is great uncertainty,[65] and from it hangs a pendant
enclosing a medallion representing the Annunciation (see Plate IV.
fig. 7). An account of the order is given in Count Luigi Cibrario's
_Ordini Cavallereschi_ (Turin, 1846) with coloured plates of the
costume and badges.
The _Order of St Maurice and St Lazarus_ (SS Maurizio e Lazzaro), is a
combination of two ancient orders. The Order of St Maurice was
originally founded by Amadeus VIII., duke of Savoy, in 1434, when he
retired to the hermitage of Ripaille, and consisted of a group of
half-a-dozen councillors who were to advise him on such affairs of
state as he continued to control. When he became pope as Felix V. the
order practically ceased to exist. It was re-established at the
instance of Emmanuel Philibert by Pope Pius V. in 1572 as a military
and religious order, and the following year it was united to that of
St Lazarus by Gregory XIII. The latter order had been founded as a
military and religious community at the time of the Latin kingdom of
Jerusalem with the object of assisting lepers, many of whom were among
its members. Popes, princes and nobles endowed it with estates and
privileges, including that of administering and succeeding to the
property of lepers, which eventually led to grave abuses. With the
advance of the Saracens the knights of St Lazarus, when driven from
the Holy Land and Egypt, migrated to France (1291) and Naples (1311),
where they founded leper hospitals. The order in Naples, which alone
was afterwards recognized as the legitimate descendant of the
Jerusalem community, was empowered to seize and confine anyone
suspected of leprosy, a permission which led to the establishment of a
regular inquisitorial system of blackmail. In the 15th and 16th
centuries dissensions broke out among the knights, and the order
declined in credit and wealth, until finally the grand master,
Giannotto Castiglioni, resigned his position in favour of Emmanuel
Philibert, duke of Savoy, in 1571. Two years later the orders of St
Lazarus and St Maurice were incorporated into one community, the
members of which were to devote themselves to the defence of the Holy
See and to fight its enemies as well as to continue assisting lepers.
The galleys of the order subsequently took part in various expeditions
against the Turks and the Barbary pirates. Leprosy, which had almost
disappeared in the 17th century, broke out once more in the 18th, and
in 1773 a hospital was established by the order at Aosta, made famous
by Xavier de Maistre's tale, _Le Lepreux de la cite d'Aoste_. The
statutes were published in 1816, by which date the order had lost its
military character; it was reformed first by Charles Albert (1831),
and later by Victor Emmanuel II., king of Italy (1868). The knighthood
of St Maurice and St Lazarus is now a dignity conferred by the king of
Italy (the grand master) on persons distinguished in the public
service, science, art and letters, trade, and above all in charitable
works, to which its income is devoted. There are five classes. The
badge of the combined order is composed of the white cross with
trefoil termination of St Lazarus resting on the green cross of St
Maurice; both crosses are bordered gold. The first four classes wear
the badge suspended from a royal crown. The ribbon is dark green.
See L. Cibrario, _Descrizione storica degli Ordini Cavallereschi_,
vol. i. (Turin, 1846); _Calendario Reale_, an annual publication
issued in Rome.
The military _Order of Savoy_ was founded in 1815 by Victor Emmanuel
of Sardinia; badge modified 1855 and 1857. It has now five classes.
The badge is a white cross, the arms of which expand and terminate in
an obtuse angle; round the cross is a green laurel and oak wreath; the
central medallion is red, bearing in gold two crossed swords, the
initials of the founder and the date 1855. The ribbon is red with a
central stripe of blue. The _Civil Order of Savoy_, founded in 1831 by
Charles Albert of Sardinia, is of one class, and in statutes of 1868
is limited to 60 members. The badge is the plain Savoy cross in blue,
with silver medallion, the ribbon is blue with white borders. The
_Order of the Crown of Italy_ was founded in 1868 by Victor Emmanuel
II. in commemoration of the union of Italy into a kingdom. There are
five classes.
_Luxemburg._--The _Order of the Golden Lion_ was founded as a family
order of the house of Nassau by William III. of the Netherlands and
Adolphus of Nassau jointly. On the death of William in 1890 it passed
to the grand duke of Luxemburg; it has only one class. The _Order of
Adolphus of Nassau_, for civil and military merit, in four classes,
was founded in 1858, and the _Order of the Oak Crown_ as a general
order of merit, in five classes, in 1841, modified 1858.
_Monaco._--The _Order of St Charles_, five classes, was founded in
1858 by Prince Charles III. and remodelled in 1863. It is a general
order of merit.
_Montenegro._--The _Order of St Peter_, founded in 1852, is a family
order, in one class, and only given to members of the princely family;
the _Order of Danilo_, or of the _Independence of Montenegro_, is a
general order of merit, in four classes, with subdivisions, also
founded in 1852.
_Norway._--The _Order of St Olaf_ was founded in 1847 by Oscar I. in
honour of St Olaf, the founder of Christianity in Norway, as a general
order of merit, military and civil. There are three classes, the last
two being, in 1873 and 1890, subdivided into two grades each. The
badge and ribbon is illustrated on Plate V, fig. 5. The reverse bears
the motto _Ret og Sandhed_ (Right and Truth). The _Order of the
Norwegian Lion_, founded in 1904 by Oscar II., has only one class;
foreigners on whom the order is conferred must be sovereigns or heads
of states or members of reigning houses.
_Papal._--The arrangement and constitution of the papal orders was
remodelled by a brief of Pius X. in 1905. The _Order of Christ_, the
supreme pontifical order, is of one class only; for the history of
this ancient order see _Portugal_ (_infra_). The badge and ribbon is
the same as the older Portuguese form. The _Order of Pius_ was founded
in 1847 by Pius IX.; there are now three classes; the badge is an
eight-pointed blue star with golden flames between the rays, a white
centre bears the founder's name; the ribbon is blue with two red
stripes at each border. The _Order of St Gregory the Great_, founded
in 1831, is in two divisions, civil and military, each having three
classes. The _Order of St Sylvester_ was originally founded as the
_Order of the Golden Spur_ by Paul IV. in 1559 as a military body,
though tradition assigns it to Constantine the Great and Pope
Sylvester. It was reorganized as an order of merit by Gregory XVI. in
1841. In 1905 the order was divided into three classes, and a separate
order, that of the _Golden Spur_ or _Golden Legion_ (_Militia Aurata_)
was established, in one class, with the numbers limited to a hundred.
The cross _Pro Ecclesia et Pontifice_, instituted by Leo XIII. in
1888 is a decoration, not an order. There remains the venerable _Order
of the Holy Sepulchre_, of which tradition assigns the foundation to
Godfrey de Bouillon. It was, however, probably founded as a military
order for the protection of the Holy Sepulchre by Alexander VI. in
1496. The right to nominate to the order was shared with the pope as
grand master by the guardian of the _Patres Minores_ in Jerusalem,
later by the Franciscans, and then by the Latin patriarch in
Jerusalem. In 1905 the latter was nominated grand master, but the pope
reserves the joint right of nomination. The badge of the order is a
red Jerusalem cross with red Latin crosses in the angles.
_Portugal._--The _Order of Christ_ was founded on the abolition of the
Templars by Dionysius or Diniz of Portugal and in 1318 in conjunction
with Pope John XXII., both having the right to nominate to the order.
The papal branch survives as a distinct order. In 1522 it was formed
as a distinct Portuguese order and the grand mastership vested in the
crown of Portugal. In 1789 its original religious aspect was
abandoned, and with the exception that its members must be of the
Roman Catholic faith, it is entirely secularized. There are three
classes. The original badge of the order was a long red cross with
expanded flat ends bearing a small cross in white; the ribbon is red.
The modern badge is a blue enamelled cross resting on a green laurel
wreath; the central medallion, in white, contains the old red and
white cross. The older form is worn with the collar by the
grand-crosses. The _Order of the Tower and Sword_ was founded in 1808
in Brazil by the regent, afterwards king John VI. of Portugal, as a
revival of the old _Order of the Sword_, said to have been founded by
Alfonso V. in 1459. It was remodelled in 1832 under its present name
and constitution as a general order of military and civil merit. There
are five classes. The badge of the order and ribbon is illustrated on
Plate IV. fig 4. The _Order of St Benedict of Aviz_ (earlier of
_Evora_), founded in 1162 as a religious military order, was
secularized in 1789 as an order of military merit, in four classes.
The badge is a green cross _fleury_; the ribbon is green. The _Order
of St James of the Sword_, or James of Compostella, is a branch of the
Spanish order of that name (see under SPAIN). It also was secularized
in 1789, and in 1862 was constituted an order of merit for science,
literature and art, in five classes. The badge is the lily-hilted
sword of St James, enamelled red with gold borders; the ribbon is
violet. In 1789 these three orders were granted a common badge uniting
the three separate crosses in a gold medallion; the joint ribbon is
red, green and violet, and to the separate crosses was added a red
sacred heart and small white cross. There are also the _Order of Our
Lady of Villa Vicosa_ (1819), for both sexes, and the _Order of St
Isabella_, 1801, for ladies.
_Rumania._--The _Order of the Star of Rumania_ was founded in 1877,
and the _Order of the Crown of Rumania_ in 1881, both in five classes,
for civil and military merit; the ribbon of the first is red with blue
borders, of the second light blue with two silver stripes.
_Russia._--The _Order of St Andrew_ was founded in 1698 by Peter the
Great. It is the chief order of the empire, and admission carries with
it according to the statutes of 1720 the orders of _St Anne_,
_Alexander Nevsky_, and the _White Eagle_; there is only one class.
The badge and ribbon is illustrated in Plate IV. fig 5. The collar is
composed of three members alternately, the imperial eagle bearing on a
red medallion a figure of St George slaying the Dragon, the badge of
the grand duchy of Moskow, the cipher of the emperor Paul I. in gold
on a blue ground, surmounted by the imperial crown, and surrounded by
a trophy of weapons and green and white flags, and a circular red and
gold star with a blue St Andrew's cross. The _Order of St Catherine_,
for ladies, ranks next to the St Andrew. It was founded under the name
of the _Order of Rescue_ by Peter the Great in 1714 in honour of the
empress Catherine and the part she had taken in rescuing him at the
battle of the Pruth in 1711. There are two classes. The grand cross is
only for members of the imperial house and ladies of the highest
nobility. The second class was added in 1797. The badge of the order
is a cross of diamonds bearing in a medallion the effigy of St
Catherine. The ribbon is red with the motto _For Love and Fatherland_
in silver letters. The _Order of St Alexander Nevsky_ was founded in
1725 by the empress Catherine I. There is only one class. The badge is
a red enamelled cross with gold eagles in the angles, bearing in a
medallion the mounted effigy of St Alexander Nevsky. The ribbon is
red. The _Order of the White Eagle_ was founded in 1713 by Augustus
II. of Poland and was adopted as a Russian order in 1831; there is one
class. The _Order of St Anne_ was founded by Charles Frederick, duke
of Holstein-Gottorp in 1735 in honour of his wife, Anna Petrovna,
daughter of Peter the Great. It was adopted as a Russian order in 1797
by their grandson, the emperor Paul. There are four classes. Other
orders are those of _St Vladimir_, founded by Catherine II., 1782,
four classes, and of _St Stanislaus_, founded originally as a Polish
order by Stanislaus Augustus Poniatowski in 1765, and adopted as a
Russian order in 1831.
The military _Order of St George_ was founded by the empress Catherine
II. in 1769 for military service on land and sea, with four classes; a
fifth class for non-commissioned officers and men, the _St George's
Cross_, was added in 1807. The badge is a white cross with gold
borders, with a red central medallion on which is the figure of St
George slaying the dragon. The ribbon is orange with three black
stripes.
_Servia._--The _Order of the White Eagle_, the principal order, was
founded by Milan I. in 1882, statutes 1883, in five classes; the
ribbon is blue and red; the _Order of St Sava_, founded 1883, also in
five classes, is an order of merit for science and art; the _Order of
the Star of Karageorgevitch_, four classes, was founded by Peter I. in
1904. The orders of _Milosch the Great_, founded by Alexander I. in
1898 and of _Takovo_, founded originally by Michael Obrenovitch in
1863, reconstituted in 1883, are since the dynastic revolution of 1903
no longer bestowed. The _Order of St Lazarus_ is not a general order,
the cross and collar being only worn by the king.
_Spain._--The Spanish branch of the _Order of the Golden Fleece_ has
been treated above. The three most ancient orders of Spain--of _St
James of Compostella_, or _St James of the Sword_, of _Alcantara_ and
of _Calatrava_--still exist as orders of merit, the first in three
classes, the last two as orders of military merit in one class. They
were all originally founded as military religious orders, like the
crusading Templars and the Hospitallers, but to fight for the true
faith against the Moors in Spain. The present badges of the orders
represent the crosses that the knights wore on their mantles. That of
St James of Compostella is the red lily-hilted sword of St James; the
ribbon is also red. The other two orders wear the cross
_fleury_--_Alcantara_ red, _Calatrava_ green, with corresponding
ribbons. A short history of these orders may be here given. Tradition
gives the foundation of the _Order of Knights of St James of
Compostella_ to Ramiro II., king of Leon, in the 10th century, to
commemorate a victory over the Moors, but, historically the order
dates from the confirmation in 1175 by Pope Alexander III. It gained
great reputation in the wars against the Moors and became very
wealthy. In 1493 the grand-mastership was annexed by Ferdinand the
Catholic, and was vested permanently in the crown of Spain by Pope
Adrian VI. in 1522.
The _Order of Knights of Alcantara_, instituted about 1156 by the
brothers Don Suarez and Don Gomez de Barrientos for protection against
the Moors. In 1177 they were confirmed as a religious order of
knighthood under Benedictine rule by Pope Alexander III. Until about
1213 they were known as the Knights of San Julian del Pereyro; but
when the defence of Alcantara, newly wrested from the Moors by
Alphonso IX. of Castile, was entrusted to them they took their name
from that city. For a considerable time they were in some degree
subject to the grand master of the kindred order of Calatrava.
Ultimately, however, they asserted their independence by electing a
grand master of their own, the first holder of the office being Don
Diego Sanche. During the rule of thirty-seven successive grand
masters, similarly chosen, the influence and wealth of the order
gradually increased until the Knights of Alcantara were almost as
powerful as the sovereign. In 1494-1495 Juan de Zuniga was prevailed
upon to resign the grand-mastership to Ferdinand, who thereupon vested
it in his own person as king; and this arrangement was ratified by a
bull of Pope Alexander VI., and was declared permanent by Pope Adrian
VI. in 1523. The yearly income of Zuniga at the time of his
resignation amounted to 150,000 ducats. In 1540 Pope Paul III.
released the knights from the strictness of Benedictine rule by giving
them permission to marry, though second marriage was forbidden. The
three vows were henceforth _obedientia_, _castitas conjugalis_ and
_conversio morum_. In modern times the history of the order has been
somewhat chequered. When Joseph Bonaparte became king of Spain in
1808, he deprived the knights of their revenues, which were only
partially recovered on the restoration of Ferdinand VII. in 1814. The
order ceased to exist as a spiritual body in 1835.
The _Order of Knights of Calatrava_ was founded in 1158 by Don Sancho
III. of Castile, who presented the town of Calatrava, newly wrested
from the Moors, to them to guard. In 1164 Pope Alexander III. granted
confirmation as a religious military order under Cistercian rule. In
1197 Calatrava fell into the hands of the Moors and the order removed
to the castle of Salvatierra, but recovered their town in 1212. In
1489 Ferdinand seized the grand-mastership, and it was finally vested
in the crown of Spain in 1523. The order became a military order of
merit in 1808 and was reorganized in 1874. The _Royal and Illustrious
Order of Charles III._ was founded in 1771 by Charles III., in two
classes; altered in 1804, it was abolished by Joseph Bonaparte in
1809, together with all the Spanish orders except the Golden Fleece,
and the _Royal Order of the Knights of Spain_ was established. In 1814
Ferdinand VII. revived the order, and in 1847 it received its present
constitution, viz. of three classes (the commanders in two divisions).
The badge of the order is a blue and white cross suspended from a
green laurel wreath, in the angles are golden lilies, and the oval
centre bears a figure of the Virgin in a golden glory. The ribbon is
blue and white. The _Order of Isabella the Catholic_ was founded in
1815 under the patronage of St Isabella, wife of Diniz of Portugal;
originally instituted to reward loyalty in defence of the Spanish
possessions in America, it is now a general order of merit, in three
classes. The badge is a red rayed cross with gold rays in the angles,
in the centre a representation of the pillars of Hercules; the cross
is attached to the yellow and white ribbon by a green laurel wreath.
Other Spanish orders are the _Maria Louisa_, 1792, for noble ladies;
the military and naval orders of merit of _St Ferdinand_, founded by
the Cortes in 1811, five classes; of _St Ermenegild_ (_Hermenegildo_),
1814, three classes, of _Military Merit_ and _Naval Merit_, 1866, and
of _Maria Christina_, 1890; the _Order of Beneficencia_ for civil
merit, 1856; that of _Alfonso XII._ for merit in science, literature
and art, 1902, and the _Civil Order of Alfonso XII._, 1902.
[Illustration: PLATE V.
(i) THE REDEEMER (Greece). (ii) THE ORDER OF THE KNIGHTS OF ST. JOHN
OF JERUSALEM (English Branch, Badge of the Sovereign and Patron).
(iii) THE ST. HUBERT (Bavaria). (iv) THE ST. STEPHEN (Hungary). (v).
THE ST. OLAF (Norway). (vi). THE SERAPHIM (Sweden).
_Drawn by William Gibb._
_Niagara Litho. Co., Buffalo, N. Y._]
_Sweden._--The _Order of the Seraphim_ (the "Blue Ribbon"). Tradition
attributes the foundation of this most illustrious order of knighthood
to Magnus I. in 1280, more certainty attaches to the fact that the
order was in existence in 1336. In its modern form the order dates
from its reconstitution in 1748 by Frederick I., modified by statutes
of 1798 and 1814. Exclusive of the sovereign and the princes of the
blood, the order is limited to 23 Swedish and 8 foreign members. The
native members must be already members of the _Order of the Sword_ or
the _Pole Star_. There is a prelate of the order which is administered
by a chapter; the chapel of the knights is in the Riddar Holmskyrka at
Stockholm. The badge and ribbon of the grand cross is illustrated on
Plate V. fig. 6. The collar is formed of alternate gold seraphim and
blue enamelled patriarchal crosses. The motto is _Iesus Hominum
Salvator_. The _Order of the Sword_ (the "Yellow Ribbon"), the
principal Swedish military order, was founded, it is said, by Gustavus
I. Vasa in 1522, and was re-established by Frederick I., with the
_Seraphim_ and the _Pole Star_ in 1748; modifications have been made
in 1798, 1814 and 1889. There are five classes, with subdivisions. The
badge is a white cross, in the angles gold crowns, the points of the
cross joined by gold swords entwined with gold and blue belts, in the
blue centre an upright sword with the three crowns in gold, the whole
surmounted by the royal crown. The ribbon is yellow with blue edging.
The _Order of the Pole Star_ (_Polar Star_, _North Star_, the "Black
Ribbon"), founded in 1748 for civil merit, has since 1844 three
classes. The white cross bears a five-pointed silver star on a blue
medallion. The ribbon is black. The _Order of Vasa_ (the "Green
Ribbon"), founded by Gustavus III. in 1772 as an order of merit for
services rendered to the national industries and manufactures, has
three classes, with subdivisions. The white cross badge bears on a
blue centre the charge of the house of Vasa, a gold sheaf shaped like
a vase with two handles. The ribbon is green. The _Order of Charles
XIII._, founded in 1811, is granted to Freemasons of high degree. It
is thus quite unique.
_Turkey._--The _Nischan-i-Imtiaz_, or _Order of Privilege_, was
founded by Abdul Hamid II. in 1879 as a general order of merit in one
class; the _Nischan-el-Iftikhar_, or _Order of Glory_, also one class,
founded 1831 by Mahmoud II.; the _Nischan-i-Mejidi_, the _Mejidieh_,
was founded as a civil and military order of merit in 1851 by Abdul
Medjid. There are five classes; the badge is a silver sun of seven
clustered rays, with crescent and star between each cluster; on a gold
centre is the sultan's name in black Turkish lettering, surrounded by
a red fillet inscribed with the words _Zeal_, _Devotion_, _Loyalty_;
it is suspended from a red crescent and star; the ribbon is red with
green borders. The khedive of Egypt has authority, delegated by the
sultan, to grant this order. The _Nischan-i-Osmanie_, the _Osmanieh_,
for civil and military merit, was founded by Abdul Aziz in 1862; it
has four classes. The badge is a gold sun with seven gold-bordered
green rays; the red centre bears the crescent, and it is also
suspended from a gold crescent and star; the ribbon is green bordered
with red. The _Nischan-i-Schefakat of Compassion or Benevolence_, was
instituted for ladies, in three classes, in 1878 by the sultan in
honour of the work done for the non-combatant victims of the
Russo-Turkish war of 1877 in connexion with the Turkish Compassionate
Fund started by the late Baroness Burdett-Coutts. She was one of the
first to receive the order. There are also the family order, for
Turkish princes, the _Hanedani-Ali-Osman_, founded in 1893, and the
_Ertogroul_, in 1903.
_Non-European Orders._--Of the various states of Central and South
America, Nicaragua has the _American Order of San Juan_ or _Grey
Town_, founded in 1857, in three classes; and Venezuela that of the
_Bust of Bolivar_, 1854, five classes; the ribbon is yellow, blue and
red. Mexico has abolished its former orders, the _Mexican Eagle_,
1865, and _Our Lady of Guadalupe_, 1853; as has Brazil those of the
_Southern Cross_, 1822, _Dom Pedro I._, 1826, _the Rose_, 1829, and
the Brazilian branches of the Portuguese orders of _Christ_, _St
Benedict of Aviz_ and _St James_. The republican _Order of Columbus_,
founded in 1890, was abolished in 1891.
_China._--There are no orders for natives, and such distinctions as
are conferred by the different coloured buttons of the mandarins, the
grades indicated by the number of peacocks' feathers, the gift of the
yellow jacket and the like, are rather insignia of rank or personal
marks of honour than orders, whether of knighthood or merit, in the
European sense. For foreigners, however, the emperor in 1882
established the sole order, that of the _Imperial Double Dragon_, in
five classes, the first three of which are further divided into three
grades each, making eleven grades in all. The recipients eligible for
the various classes are graded, from the first grade of the first
class for reigning sovereigns down to the fifth class for merchants
and manufacturers. The insignia of the order are unique in shape and
decoration. Of the three grades of the first class the badge is a
rectangular gold and yellow enamel plaque, decorated with two upright
blue dragons, with details in green and white, between the heads for
the first grade a pearl, for the second a ruby, for the third a coral,
set in green, white and gold circles. The size of the plaque varies
for the different classes. The badges of the other four classes are
round plaques, the first three with indented edges, the last plain; in
the second class the dragons are in silver on a yellow and gold
ground, the jewel is a cut coral; the grades differ in the colour,
shape, &c., of the borders and indentations; in the third class the
dragons are gold, the ground green, the jewel a sapphire; in the
fourth the silver dragons are on a blue ground, the jewel a lapis
lazuli; in the fifth green dragons on a silver ground, the jewel a
pearl. The ribbons, decorated with embroidered dragons, differ for the
various grades and classes.
_Japan._--The Japanese orders have all been instituted by the emperor
Mutsu Hito. In design and workmanship the insignia of the orders are
beautiful examples of the art of the native enamellers. The _Order of
the Chrysanthemum_ (_Kikkwa Daijasho_), founded in 1877, has only one
class. It is but rarely conferred on others than members of the royal
house or foreign rulers or princes. The badge of the order may be
described as follows: From a centre of red enamel representing the sun
issue 32 white gold-bordered rays in four sharply projecting groups,
between the angles of which are four yellow conventional chrysanthemum
flowers with green leaves forming a circle on which the rays rest; the
whole is suspended from a larger yellow chrysanthemum. The ribbon is
deep red bordered with purple. The collar, which may be granted with
the order or later, is composed of four members repeated, two gold
chrysanthemums, one with green leaves, the other surrounded by a
wreath of palm, and two elaborate arabesque designs. The _Order of the
Paulownia Sun_ (_Tokwa Daijasho_), founded in 1888, in one class, may
be in a sense regarded as the highest class of the _Rising Sun_
(_Kiokujitsasho_) founded in eight classes, in 1875. The badge of both
orders is essentially the same, viz. the red sun with white and gold
rays; in the former the lilac flowers of the Paulownia tree, the
flower of the Tycoon's arms, take a prominent part. The ribbon of the
first order is deep red with white edging, of the second scarlet with
white central stripe. The last two classes of the _Rising Sun_ wear a
decoration formed of the Paulownia flower and leaves. The _Order of
the Mirror_ or _Happy Sacred Treasure_ (_Zaihosho_) was founded in
1888, with eight classes. The cross of white and gold clustered rays
bears in a blue centre a silver star-shaped mirror. The ribbon is pale
blue with orange stripes. There is also an order for ladies, that of
the _Crown_, founded in five classes in 1888. The military order of
Japan is the _Order of the Golden Kite_, founded in 1890, in seven
classes. The badge has an elaborate design; it consists of a star of
purple, red, yellow, gold and silver rays, on which are displayed old
Japanese weapons, banners and shields in various coloured enamels, the
whole surmounted by a golden kite with outstretched wings. The ribbon
is green with white stripes.
_Persia._--The _Order of the Sun and Lion_, founded by Fath 'Ali Shah
in 1808, has five classes. There is also the _Nischan-i-Aftab_, for
ladies, founded in 1873.
_Siam._--The _Sacred Order_, or the _Nine Precious Stones_, was
founded in 1869, in one class only, for the Buddhist princes of the
royal house. The _Order of the White Elephant_, founded in 1861, is in
five classes. This is the principal general order. The badge is a
striking example of Oriental design adapted to a European conventional
form. The circular plaque is formed of a triple circle of lotus leaves
in gold, red and green, within a blue circlet with pearls a richly
caparisoned white elephant on a gold ground, the whole surmounted by
the jewelled gold pagoda crown of Siam; the collar is formed of
alternate white elephants, red, blue and white royal monograms and
gold pagoda crowns. The ribbon is red with green borders and small
blue and white stripes. Other orders are the _Siamese Crown_ (_Mongkut
Siam_), five classes, founded 1869; the family _Order of
Chulah-Chon-Clao_, three classes, 1873; and the _Maha Charkrkri_,
1884, only for princes and princesses of the reigning family.
(C. We.)
FOOTNOTES:
[1] _Feudal England_, pp. 225 sqq.
[2] Du Cange, _Gloss._, _s.v._ "Miles."
[3] _History of England_, iii. 12.
[4] Stubbs, _Constitutional History_, i. 156.
[5] _Ibid._ i. 156, 366; Turner, iii. 125-129.
[6] Ingram's edition, p. 290.
[7] _Comparative Politics_, p. 74.
[8] Baluze, _Capitularia Regum Francorum_, ii. 794, 1069.
[9] Du Cange, _Gloss._, _s.v._ "Arma."
[10] Freeman, _Comparative Politics_, p. 73.
[11] Hallam, _Middle Ages_, iii. 392.
[12] Stubbs, _Const. Hist._ ii. 278; also compare Grosse, _Military
Antiquities_, i. 65 seq.
[13] There has been a general tendency to ignore the extent to which
the armies of Edward III. were raised by compulsory levies even after
the system of raising troops by free contract had begun. Luce (ch.
vi.) points out how much England relied at this time on what would
now be called conscription: and his remarks are entirely borne out by
the Norwich documents published by Mr W. Hudson (Norf, and Norwich
Archaeological Soc. xiv. 263 sqq.), by a Lynn corporation document of
18th Edw. III. (Hist. MSS. Commission Report XI. Appendix pt. iii. p.
189), and by Smyth's _Lives of the Berkeleys_, i. 312, 319, 320.
[14] J. B. de Lacurne de Sainte Palaye, _Memoires sur l'Ancienne
Chevalerie_, i. 363, 364 (ed. 1781).
[15] Du Cange, _Dissertation sur Joinville_, xxi.; Sainte Palaye,
_Memoires_, i. 272; G. F. Beltz, _Memorials of the Order of the
Garter_ (1841,) p. xxvii.
[16] Du Cange, _Dissertation_, xxi., and _Lancelot du Lac_, among
other romances.
[17] Anstis, _Register of the Order of the Garter_, i. 63.
[18] Grose, _Military Antiq._ i. 207 seq.; Stubbs, _Const. Hist._ ii.
276 seq., and iii. 278 seq.
[19] Grose's _Military Antiquities_, ii. 256.
[20] Sainte Palaye, _Memoires_, i. 36; Froissart, bk. iii. ch. 9.
[21] Sainte Palaye, _Memoires_, pt. i. and Mills, _History of
Chivalry_, vol. i. ch. 2.
[22] See the long sermon in the romance of _Petit Jehan de Saintre_,
pt. i. ch. v., and compare the theory there set forth with the actual
behaviour of the chief personages. Even Gautier, while he contends
that chivalry did much to refine morality, is compelled to admit the
prevailing immorality to which medieval romances testify, and the
extraordinary free behaviour of the unmarried ladies. No doubt these
romances, taken alone, might give as unfair an idea as modern French
novels give of Parisian morals, but we have abundant other evidence
for placing the moral standard of the age of chivalry definitely
below that of educated society in the present day.
[23] Sainte Palaye, _Memoires_, i. 11 seq.: "C'est peut-etre a cette
ceremonie et non a celles de la chevalerie qu'on doit rapporter ce
qui se lit dans nos historiens de la premiere et de la seconde race
au sujet des premieres armes que les Rois et les Princes remettoient
avec solemnite au ieunes Princes leurs enfans."
[24] There are several obscure points as to the relation of the
longer and shorter ceremonies, as well as the origin and original
relation of their several parts. There is nothing to show whence came
"dubbing" or the "accolade." It seems certain that the word "dub"
means to strike, and the usage is as old as the knighting of Henry by
William the Conqueror (_supra_, pp. 851, 852). So, too, in the Empire
a dubbed knight is "ritter geschlagen." The "accolade" may
etymologically refer to the embrace, accompanied by a blow with the
hand, characteristic of the longer form of knighting. The derivation
of "adouber," corresponding to "dub," from "adoptare," which is given
by Du Cange, and would connect the ceremony with "adoptio per arma,"
is certainly inaccurate. The investiture with arms, which formed a
part of the longer form of knighting, and which we have seen to rest
on very ancient usage, may originally have had a distinct meaning. We
have observed that Lanfranc invested Henry I. with arms, while
William "dubbed him to rider." If there was a difference in the
meaning of the two ceremonies, the difficulty as to the knighting of
Earl Harold (_supra_, p. 852) is at least partly removed.
[25] Selden, _Titles of Honor_, 639.
[26] Daniel, _Histoire de la Milice Francoise_, i. 99-104; Byshe's
Upton, _De Studio Militari_, pp. 21-24; Dugdale, _Warwickshire_, ii.
708-710; Segar, Honor _Civil and Military_, pp. 69 seq. and Nicolas,
_Orders of Knighthood_, vol. ii. (_Order of the Bath_) pp. 19 seq....
It is given as "the order and manner of creating Knights of the Bath
in time of peace according to the custom of England," and
consequently dates from a period when the full ceremony of creating
knights bachelors generally had gone out of fashion. But as Ashmole,
speaking of Knights of the Bath, says, "if the ceremonies and
circumstances of their creation be well considered, it will appear
that this king [Henry IV.] did not institute but rather restore the
ancient manner of making knights, and consequently that the Knights
of the Bath are in truth no other than knights bachelors, that is to
say, such as are created with those ceremonies wherewith knights
bachelors were formerly created." (Ashmole, _Order of the Garter_, p.
15). See also Selden, _Titles of Honor_, p. 678, and the
_Archaeological Journal_, v. 258 seq.
[27] As may be gathered from Selden, Favyn, La Colombiers, Menestrier
and Sainte Palaye, there were several differences of detail in the
ceremony at different times and in different places. But in the main
it was everywhere the same both in its military and its
ecclesiastical elements. In the _Pontificale Romanum_, the old _Ordo
Romanus_ and the manual or Common Prayer Book in use in England
before the Reformation forms for the blessing or consecration of new
knights are included, and of these the first and the last are quoted
by Selden.
[28] Selden, _Titles of Honor_, p. 678; Ashmole, _Order of the
Garter_, p. 15; Favyn, _Theatre d'Honneur_, ii. 1035.
[29] "If we sum up the principal ensigns of knighthood, ancient and
modern, we shall find they have been or are a horse, gold ring,
shield and lance, a belt and sword, gilt spurs and a gold chain or
collar."--Ashmole, _Order of the Garter_, pp. 12, 13.
[30] On the banner see Grose, _Military Antiquities_, ii. 257; and
Nicolas, _British Orders of Knighthood_, vol. i. p. xxxvii.
[31] _Titles of Honor_, pp. 356 and 608. See also Hallam, _Middle
Ages_, iii. 126 seq. and Stubbs, _Const. Hist._ iii. 440 seq.
[32] Riddell's _Law and Practice in Scottish Peerages_, p. 578; also
Nisbet's _System of Heraldry_, ii. 49 and Selden's _Titles of Honor_,
p. 702.
[33] Selden, _Titles of Honor_, pp. 608 and 657.
[34] See "Project concerninge the conferinge of the title of vidom,"
wherein it is said that "the title of vidom (vicedominus) was an
ancient title used in this kingdom of England both before and since
the Norman Conquest" (_State Papers_, James I. Domestic Series,
lxiii. 150 B, probable date April 1611).
[35] Selden, _Titles of Honor_, pp. 452 seq.
[36] _Ibid._ pp. 449 seq.
[37] Du Cange, _Dissertation_, ix.; Selden, _Titles of Honor_, p.
452; Daniel, _Milice Francoise_, i. 86 (Paris, 1721).
[38] Selden, _Titles of Honor_, p. 656; Grose, _Military
Antiquities_, ii. 206.
[39] Froissart, Bk. I. ch. 241 and Bk. II. ch. 53. The recipients
were Sir John Chandos and Sir Thos. Trivet.
[40] _Commonwealth of England_ (ed. 1640), p. 48.
[41] _State Papers_, Domestic Series, James the First, lxvii. 119.
[42] "Thursday, June 24th: His Majesty was pleased to confer the
honour of knights banneret on the following flag officers and
commanders under the royal standard, who kneeling kissed hands on the
occasion: Admirals Pye and Sprye; Captains Knight, Bickerton and
Vernon," _Gentleman's Magazine_ (1773) xliii. 299. Sir Harris Nicolas
remarks on these and the other cases (_British Orders of Knighthood_,
vol. xliii.) and Sir William Fitzherbert published anonymously a
pamphlet on the subject, _A Short Inquiry into the Nature of the
Titles conferred at Portsmouth_, &c., which is very scarce, but is to
be found under the name of "Fitzherbert" in the catalogue of the
British Museum Library.
[43] "Sir Henry Ferrers, Baronet, was indicted by the name of Sir
Henry Ferrers, Knight, for the murther of one Stone whom one
Nightingale feloniously murthered, and that the said Sir Henry was
present aiding and abetting, &c. Upon this indictment Sir Henry
Ferrers being arraigned said he never was knighted, which being
confessed, the indictment was held not to be sufficient, wherefore he
was indicted de novo by the name of Sir Henry Ferrers, Baronet."
Brydall, _Jus Imaginis apud Anglos, or the Law of England relating to
the Nobility and Gentry_ (London, 1675), p. 20. Cf. _Patent Rolls_,
10 Jac. I., pt. x. No. 18; Selden, _Titles of Honor_, p. 687.
[44] Louis XIV. introduced the practice of dividing the members of
military orders into several degrees when he established the order of
St Louis in 1693.
[45] G. F. Beltz, _Memorials of the Most Noble Order of the Garter_
(1841), p. 385.
[46] Heylyn, _Cosmographie and History of the Whole World_, bk. i. p.
286.
[47] Beltz, _Memorials_, p. xlvi.
[48] _Orders of Knighthood_, vol. i. p. lxxxiii.
[49] Memoires, i. 67, i. 22; _History of Chivalry_; Gibbon, _Decline
and Fall_, vii. 200.
[50] _Orders of Knighthood_, vol. i. p. xi.
[51] Selden, _Titles of Honor_, p. 638.
[52] Harleian MS. 6063; Hargrave MS. 325.
[53] _Patent Rolls_, 35th Hen. VIII., pt. xvi., No. 24; Burnet,
_Hist. of Reformation_, i. 15.
[54] Spelman, "De milite dissertatio," _Posthumous Works_, p. 181.
[55] _London Gazette_, December 6, 1823, and May 15, 1855.
[56] On the Continent very elaborate ceremonies, partly heraldic and
partly religious, were observed in the degradation of a knight, which
are described by Sainte Palaye, _Memoires_, i. 316 seq., and after
him by Mills, _History of Chivalry_, i. 60 seq. Cf. _Titles of
Honor_, p. 653.
[57] Dallaway's _Heraldry_, p. 303.
[58] Even in 13th century England more than half the population were
serfs, and as such had no claim to the privileges of Magna Carta;
disputes between a serf and his lord were decided in the latter's
court, although the king's courts attempted to protect the serf's
life and limb and necessary implements of work. By French feudal law,
the villein had no appeal from his lord save to God (Pierre de
Fontaines, _Conseil_, ch. xxi. art. 8); and, though common sense and
natural good feeling set bounds in most cases to the tyranny of the
nobles, yet there was scarcely any injustice too gross to be
possible. "How mad are they who exult when sons are born to their
lords!" wrote Cardinal Jacques de Vitry early in the 13th century
(_Exempla_, p. 64, Folk Lore Soc. 1890).
[59] Sainte Palaye, ii. 90.
[60] Medley, _English Constitutional History_ (2nd ed., pp. 291,
466), suggests that Edward might have deliberately calculated this
degradation of the older feudal ideal.
[61] Being made to "ride the barriers" was the penalty for anybody
who attempted to take part in a tournament without the qualification
of name and arms. Guillim (_Display of Heraldry_, p. 66) and Nisbet
(_System of Heraldry_, ii. 147) speak of this subject as concerning
England and Scotland. See also Ashmole's _Order of the Garter_, p.
284. But in England knighthood has always been conferred to a great
extent independently of these considerations. At almost every period
there have been men of obscure and illegitimate birth who have been
knighted. Ashmole cites authorities for the contention that
knighthood ennobles, insomuch that whosoever is a knight it
necessarily follows that he is also a gentleman; "for, when a king
gives the dignity to an ignoble person whose merit he would thereby
recompense, he is understood to have conferred whatsoever is
requisite for the completing of that which he bestows." By the common
law, if a villein were made a knight he was thereby enfranchised and
accounted a gentleman, and if a person under age and in wardship were
knighted both his minority and wardship terminated. (_Order of the
Garter_, p. 43; Nicolas, _British Orders of Knighthood_, i. 5.)
[62] Gautier, pp. 21, 249.
[63] Du Cange, _s.v. miles_ (ed. Didot, t. iv. p. 402); Sacchetti,
_Novella_, cliii. All the medieval _orders_ of knighthood, however,
insisted in their statutes on the noble birth of the candidate.
[64] Lecoy de la Marche (_Chaire francaise au moyen age_, 2nd ed., p.
387) gives many instances to prove that "al chevalerie, au xiii^e
siecle, est deja sur son declin." But already about 1160 Peter of
Blois had written, "The so-called order of knighthood is nowadays
mere disorder" (_ordo militum nunc est, ordinem non tenere_. Ep.
xciv.: the whole letter should be read); and, half a century earlier
still, Guibert of Nogent gives an equally unflattering picture of
contemporary chivalry in his _De vita sua_ (Migne, _Pat. Lat._, tom.
clvi.).
[65] It has been taken as the Latin word meaning "he bears" or as
representing the initials of the legend _Fortitudo Ejus Rhodum
Tenuit_, with an allusion to a defence of the island of Rhodes by an
ancient count of Savoy.
KNIGHT-SERVICE, the dominant and distinctive tenure of land under the
feudal system. It is associated in its origin with that development in
warfare which made the mailed horseman, armed with lance and sword, the
most important factor in battle. Till within recent years it was
believed that knight-service was developed out of the liability, under
the English system, of every five hides to provide one soldier in war.
It is now held that, on the contrary, it was a novel system which was
introduced after the Conquest by the Normans, who relied essentially on
their mounted knights, while the English fought on foot. They were
already familiar with the principle of knight-service, the knight's fee,
as it came to be termed in England, being represented in Normandy by the
_fief du haubert_, so termed from the hauberk or coat of mail (_lorica_)
which was worn by the knight. Allusion is made to this in the coronation
charter of Henry I. (1100), which speaks of those holding by
knight-service as _milites qui per loricam terras suas deserviunt_.
The Conqueror, it is now held, divided the lay lands of England among
his followers, to be held by the service of a fixed number of knights in
his host, and imposed the same service on most of the great
ecclesiastical bodies which retained their landed endowments. No record
evidence exists of this action on his part, and the quota of
knight-service exacted was not determined by the area or value of the
lands granted (or retained), but was based upon the _unit_ of the feudal
host, the _constabularia_ of ten knights. Of the tenants-in-chief or
barons (i.e. those who held directly of the crown), the principal were
called on to find one or more of these units, while of the lesser ones
some were called on for five knights, that is, half a _constabularia_.
The same system was adopted in Ireland when that country was conquered
under Henry II. The baron who had been enfeoffed by his sovereign on
these terms could provide the knights required either by hiring them for
pay or, more conveniently when wealth was mainly represented by land, by
a process of subenfeoffment, analogous to that by which he himself had
been enfeoffed. That is to say, he could assign to an under-tenant a
certain portion of his fief to be held by the service of finding one or
more knights. The land so held would then be described as consisting of
one or more knights' fees, but the knight's fee had not, as was formerly
supposed, any fixed area. This process could be carried farther till
there was a chain of mesne lords between the tenant-in-chief and the
actual holder of the land; but the liability for performance of the
knight-service was always carefully defined.
The primary obligation incumbent on every knight was service in the
field, when called upon, for forty days a year, with specified armour
and arms. There was, however, a standing dispute as to whether he could
be called upon to perform this service outside the realm, nor was the
question of his expenses free from difficulty. In addition to this
primary duty he had, in numerous cases at least, to perform that of
"castle ward" at his lord's chief castle for a fixed number of days in
the year. On certain baronies also was incumbent the duty of providing
knights for the guard of royal castles, such as Windsor, Rockingham and
Dover. Under the feudal system the tenant by knight-service had also the
same pecuniary obligations to his lord as had his lord to the king.
These consisted of (1) "relief," which he paid on succeeding to his
lands; (2) "wardship," that is, the profits from his lands during a
minority; (3) "marriage," that is, the right of giving in marriage,
unless bought off, his heiress, his heir (if a minor) and his widow; and
also of the three "aids" (see Aids).
The chief sources of information for the extent and development of
knight-service are the returns (_cartae_) of the barons (i.e. the
tenants-in-chief) in 1166, informing the king, at his request, of the
names of their tenants by knight-service with the number of fees they
held, supplemented by the payments for "scutage" (see SCUTAGE) recorded
on the pipe rolls, by the later returns printed in the _Testa de
Nevill_, and by the still later ones collected in _Feudal Aids_. In the
returns made in 1166 some of the barons appear as having enfeoffed more
and some less than the number of knights they had to find. In the latter
case they described the balance as being chargeable on their "demesne,"
that is, on the portion of their fief which remained in their own hands.
These returns further prove that lands had already been granted for the
service of a fraction of a knight, such service being in practice
already commuted for a proportionate money payment; and they show that
the total number of knights with which land held by military service was
charged was not, as was formerly supposed, sixty thousand, but,
probably, somewhere between five and six thousand. Similar returns were
made for Normandy, and are valuable for the light they throw on its
system of knight-service.
The principle of commuting for money the obligation of military service
struck at the root of the whole system, and so complete was the change
of conception that "tenure by knight-service of a mesne lord becomes,
first in fact and then in law, tenure by escuage (i.e. scutage)." By the
time of Henry III., as Bracton states, the test of tenure was scutage;
liability, however small, to scutage payment made the tenure military.
The disintegration of the system was carried farther in the latter half
of the 13th century as a consequence of changes in warfare, which were
increasing the importance of foot soldiers and making the service of a
knight for forty days of less value to the king. The barons, instead of
paying scutage, compounded for their service by the payment of lump
sums, and, by a process which is still obscure, the nominal quotas of
knight-service due from each had, by the time of Edward I., been largely
reduced. The knight's fee, however, remained a knight's fee, and the
pecuniary incidents of military tenure, especially wardship, marriage,
and fines on alienation, long continued to be a source of revenue to the
crown. But at the Restoration (1660) tenure by knight-service was
abolished by law (12 Car. II. c. 24), and with it these vexatious
exactions were abolished.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.--The returns of 1166 are preserved in the _Liber Niger_
(13th cent.), edited by Hearne, and the _Liber Rubeus_ or _Red Book of
the Exchequer_ (13 cent.), edited by H. Hall for the Rolls Series in
1896. The later returns are in _Testa de Nevill_ (Record Commission,
1807) and in the Record Office volumes of _Feudal Aids_, arranged
under counties. For the financial side of knight-service the early
pipe rolls have been printed by the Record Commission and the Pipe
Roll Society, and abstracts of later ones will be found in _The Red
Book of the Exchequer_, which may be studied on the whole question;
but the editor's view must be received with caution and checked by J.
H. Round's _Studies on the Red Book of the Exchequer_ (for private
circulation). The _Baronia Anglica_ of Madox may also be consulted.
The existing theory on knight-service was enunciated by Mr Round in
_English Historical Review_, vi., vii., and reissued by him in his
_Feudal England_ (1895). It is accepted by Pollock and Maitland
(_History of English Law_), who discuss the question at length; by Mr
J. F. Baldwin in his _Scutage and Knight-service in England_
(University of Chicago Press, 1897), a valuable monograph with
bibliography; and by Petit-Dutaillis, in his _Studies supplementary to
Stubbs' Constitutional History_ (Manchester University Series, 1908).
(J. H. R.)
KNIGHTS OF THE GOLDEN CIRCLE, a semi-military secret society in the
United States in the Middle West, 1861-1864, the purpose of which was to
bring the Civil War to a close and restore the "Union as it was." There
is some evidence that before the Civil War there was a Democratic secret
organization of the same name, with its principal membership in the
Southern States. After the outbreak of the Civil War many of the
Democrats of the Middle West, who were opposed to the war policy of the
Republicans, organized the Knights of the Golden Circle, pledging
themselves to exert their influence to bring about peace. In 1863, owing
to the disclosure of some of its secrets, the organization took the name
of Order of American Knights, and in 1864 this became the Sons of
Liberty. The total membership of this order probably reached 250,000 to
300,000, principally in Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Wisconsin,
Kentucky and south-western Pennsylvania. Fernando Wood of New York seems
to have been the chief officer and in 1864 Clement L. Vallandigham
became the second in command. The great importance of the Knights of the
Golden Circle and its successors was due to its opposition to the war
policy of the Republican administration. The plan was to overthrow the
Lincoln government in the elections and give to the Democrats the
control of the state and Federal governments, which would then make
peace and invite the Southern States to come back into the Union on the
old footing. In order to obstruct and embarrass the Republican
administration the members of the order held peace meetings to influence
public opinion against the continuance of the war; purchased arms to be
used in uprisings, which were to place the peace party in control of the
Federal government, or failing in that to establish a north-western
confederacy; and took measures to set free the Confederate prisoners in
the north and bring the war to a forced close. All these plans failed at
the critical moment, and the most effective work done by the order was
in encouraging desertion from the Federal armies, preventing
enlistments, and resisting the draft. Wholesale arrests of leaders and
numerous seizures of arms by the United States authorities resulted in a
general collapse of the order late in 1864. Three of the leaders were
sentenced to death by military commissions, but sentence was suspended
until 1866, when they were released under the decision of the United
States Supreme Court in the famous case _Ex parte Milligan_.
AUTHORITIES.--_An Authentic Exposition of the Knights of the Golden
Circle_ (Indianapolis, 1863); J. F. Rhodes, _History of the United
States from the Compromise of 1850_ (New York, 1905) vol. v.; E.
McPherson, _Political History of the Rebellion_ (Washington, 1876);
and W. D. Foulke, _Life of O. P. Morton_ (2 vols., New York, 1899).
(W. L. F.)
KNIPPERDOLLINCK (or KNIPPERDOLLING), BERNT (BEREND or BERNHARDT) (c.
1490-1536), German divine, was a prosperous cloth-merchant at Munster
when in 1524 he joined Melchior Rinck and Melchior Hofman in a business
journey to Stockholm, which developed into an abortive religious errand.
Knipperdollinck, a man of fine presence and glib tongue, noted from his
youth for eccentricity, had the ear of the Munster populace when in 1527
he helped to break the prison of Tonies Kruse, in the teeth of the
bishop and the civic authorities. For this he made his peace with the
latter; but, venturing on another business journey, he was arrested,
imprisoned for a year, and released on payment of a high fine--in regard
of which treatment he began an action before the Imperial Chamber.
Though his aims were political rather than religious, he attached
himself to the reforming movement of Bernhardt Rothmann, once (1529)
chaplain of St Mauritz, outside Munster, now (1532) pastor of the city
church of St Lamberti. A new bishop directed a mandate (April 17, 1532)
against Rothmann, which had the effect of alienating the moderates in
Munster from the democrats. Knipperdollinck was a leader of the latter
in the surprise (December 26, 1532) which made prisoners of the
negotiating nobles at Telgte, in the territory of Munster. In the end,
Munster was by charter from Philip of Hesse (February 14, 1533)
constituted an evangelical city. Knipperdollinck was made a burgomaster
in February 1534. Anabaptism had already (September 8, 1533) been
proclaimed at Munster by a journeyman smith; and, before this, Heinrich
Roll, a refugee, had brought Rothmann (May 1533) to a rejection of
infant baptism. From the 1st of January 1534 Roll preached Anabaptist
doctrines in a city pulpit; a few days later, two Dutch emissaries of
Jan Matthysz, or Matthyssen, the master-baker and Anabaptist prophet of
Haarlem, came on a mission to Munster. They were followed (January 13)
by Jan Beukelsz (or Bockelszoon, or Buchholdt), better known as John of
Leiden. It was his second visit to Munster; he came now as an apostle of
Matthysz. He was twenty-five, with a winning personality, great gifts as
an organizer, and plenty of ambition. Knipperdollinck, whose daughter
Clara was ultimately enrolled among the wives of John of Leiden, came
under his influence. Matthysz himself came to Munster (1534) and lived
in Knipperdollinck's house, which became the centre of the new movement
to substitute Munster for Strassburg (Melchior Hofmann's choice) as the
New Jerusalem. On the death of Matthysz, in a foolish raid (April 5,
1534), John became supreme. Knipperdollinck, with one attempt at revolt,
when he claimed the kingship for himself, was his subservient henchman,
wheedling the Munster democracy into subjection to the fantastic rule of
the "king of the earth." He was made second in command, and executioner
of the refractory. He fell in with the polygamy innovation, the protest
of his wife being visited with a penance. In the military measures for
resisting the siege of Munster he took no leading part. On the fall of
the city (June 25, 1535) he hid in a dwelling in the city wall, but was
betrayed by his landlady. After six months' incarceration, his trial,
along with his comrades, took place on the 19th of January, and his
execution, with fearful tortures, on the 22nd of January 1536.
Knipperdollinck attempted to strangle himself, but was forced to endure
the worst. His body, like those of the others, was hung in a cage on the
tower of St Lamberti, where the cages are still to be seen. An alleged
portrait, from an engraving of 1607, is reproduced in the appendix to A.
Ross's Pansebeia, 1655.
See L. Keller, _Geschichte der Wiedertaufer und ihres Reichs zu
Munster_ (1880); C. A. Cornelius, _Historische Arbeiten_ (1899); E.
Belfort Bax, _Rise and Fall of the Anabaptists_ (1903). (A. Go.*)
KNITTING (from O.E. _cnyttan_, to knit; cf. Ger. _Knutten_; the root is
seen in "knot"), the art of forming a single thread or strand of yarn
into a texture or fabric of a loop structure, by employing needles or
wires. "Crochet" work is an analogous art in its simplest form. It
consists of forming a single thread into a single chain of loops. All
warp knit fabrics are built on this structure. Knitting may be said to
be divided into two principles, viz. (1) hand knitting and (2)
frame-work knitting (see HOSIERY). In hand knitting, the wires, pins or
needles used are of different lengths or gauges, according to the class
of work wanted to be produced. They are made of steel, bone, wood or
ivory. Some are headed to prevent the loops from slipping over the ends.
Flat or selvedged work can only be produced on them. Others are pointed
at both ends, and by employing three or more a circular or
circular-shaped fabric can be made. In hand knitting each loop is formed
and thrown off individually and in rotation and is left hanging on the
new loop formed. The cotton, wool and silk fibres are the principal
materials from which knitting yarns are manufactured, wool being the
most important and most largely used. "Lamb's-wool," "wheeling,"
"fingering" and worsted yarns are all produced from the wool fibre, but
may differ in size or fineness and quality. Those yarns are largely used
in the production of knitted underwear. Hand knitting is to-day
principally practised as a domestic art, but in some of the remote parts
of Scotland and Ireland it is prosecuted as an industry to some extent.
In the Shetland Islands the wool of the native sheep is spun, and used
in its natural colour, being manufactured into shawls, scarfs, ladies'
jackets, &c. The principal trade of other districts is hose and
half-hose, made from the wool of the sheep native to the district. The
formation of the stitches in knitting may be varied in a great many
ways, by "purling" (knitting or throwing loops to back and front in rib
form), "slipping" loops, taking up and casting off and working in
various coloured yarns to form stripes, patterns, &c. The articles may
be shaped according to the manner in which the wires and yarns are
manipulated.
KNOBKERRIE (from the Taal or South African Dutch, _knopkirie_, derived
from Du. _knop_, a knob or button, and _kerrie_, a Bushman or Hottentot
word for stick), a strong, short stick with a rounded knob or head used
by the natives of South Africa in warfare and the chase. It is employed
at close quarters, or as a missile, and in time of peace serves as a
walking-stick. The name has been extended to similar weapons used by the
natives of Australia, the Pacific islands, and other places.
KNOLLES, RICHARD (c. 1545-1610), English historian, was a native of
Northamptonshire, and was educated at Lincoln College, Oxford. He became
a fellow of his college, and at some date subsequent to 1571 left Oxford
to become master of a school at Sandwich, Kent, where he died in 1610.
In 1603 Knolles published his _Generall Historie of the Turkes_, of
which several editions subsequently appeared, among them a good one
edited by Sir Paul Rycaut (1700), who brought the history down to 1699.
It was dedicated to King James I., and Knolles availed himself largely
of Jean Jacques Boissard's _Vitae et Icones Sultanorum Turcicorum_
(Frankfort, 1596). Although now entirely superseded, it has considerable
merits as regards style and arrangement. Knolles published a translation
of J. Bodin's _De Republica_ in 1606, but the _Grammatica Latina, Graeca
et Hebraica_, attributed to him by Anthony Wood and others, is the work
of the Rev. Hanserd Knollys (c. 1599-1691), a Baptist minister.
See the _Athenaeum_, August 6, 1881.
KNOLLES (or KNOLLYS), SIR ROBERT (c. 1325-1407), English soldier,
belonged to a Cheshire family. In early life he served in Brittany, and
he was one of the English survivors who were taken prisoners by the
French after the famous "combat of the thirty" in March 1351. He was,
however, quickly released and was among the soldiers of fortune who took
advantage of the distracted state of Brittany, at this time the scene of
a savage civil war, to win fame and wealth at the expense of the
wretched inhabitants. After a time he transferred his operations to
Normandy, when he served under the allied standards of England and of
Charles II. of Navarre. He led the "great company" in their work of
devastation along the valley of the Loire, fighting at this time for his
own hand and for booty, and winning a terrible reputation by his
ravages. After the conclusion of the treaty of Bretigny in 1360 Knolles
returned to Brittany and took part in the struggle for the possession of
the duchy between John of Montfort (Duke John IV.) and Charles of Blois,
gaining great fame by his conduct in the fight at Auray (September
1364), where Du Guesclin was captured and Charles of Blois was slain.
In 1367 he marched with the Black Prince into Spain and fought at the
battle of Najera; in 1369 he was with the prince in Aquitaine. In 1370
he was placed by Edward III. at the head of an expedition which invaded
France and marched on Paris, but after exacting large sums of money as
ransom a mutiny broke up the army, and its leader was forced to take
refuge in his Breton castle of Derval and to appease the disappointed
English king with a large monetary gift. Emerging from his retreat
Knolles again assisted John of Montfort in Brittany, where he acted as
John's representative; later he led a force into Aquitaine, and he was
one of the leaders of the fleet sent against the Spaniards in 1377. In
1380 he served in France under Thomas of Woodstock, afterwards duke of
Gloucester, distinguishing himself by his valour at the siege of Nantes;
and in 1381 he went with Richard II. to meet Wat Tyler at Smithfield. He
died at Sculthorpe in Norfolk on the 15th of August 1407. Sir Robert
devoted much of his great wealth to charitable objects. He built a
college and an almshouse at Pontefract, his wife's birthplace, where the
almshouse still exists; he restored the churches of Sculthorpe and
Harpley; and he helped to found an English hospital in Rome. Knolles won
an immense reputation by his skill and valour in the field, and ranks as
one of the foremost captains of his age. French writers call him
Canolles, or Canole.
KNOLLYS, the name of an English family descended from Sir Thomas Knollys
(d. 1435), lord mayor of London. The first distinguished member of the
family was Sir Francis Knollys (c. 1514-1596), English statesman, son of
Robert Knollys, or Knolles (d. 1521), a courtier in the service and
favour of Henry VII. and Henry VIII. Robert had also a younger son,
Henry, who took part in public life during the reign of Elizabeth and
who died in 1583.
Francis Knollys, who entered the service of Henry VIII. before 1540,
became a member of parliament in 1542 and was knighted in 1547 while
serving with the English army in Scotland. A strong and somewhat
aggressive supporter of the reformed doctrines, he retired to Germany
soon after Mary became queen, returning to England to become a privy
councillor, vice-chamberlain of the royal household and a member of
parliament under Queen Elizabeth, whose cousin Catherine (d. 1569),
daughter of William Carey and niece of Anne Boleyn, was his wife. After
serving as governor of Plymouth, Knollys was sent in 1566 to Ireland,
his mission being to obtain for the queen confidential reports about the
conduct of the lord-deputy Sir Henry Sidney. Approving of Sidney's
actions he came back to England, and in 1568 was sent to Carlisle to
take charge of Mary Queen of Scots, who had just fled from Scotland;
afterwards he was in charge of the queen at Bolton Castle and then at
Tutbury Castle. He discussed religious questions with his prisoner,
although the extreme Protestant views which he put before her did not
meet with Elizabeth's approval, and he gave up the position of guardian
just after his wife's death in January 1569. In 1584 he introduced into
the House of Commons, where since 1572 he had represented Oxfordshire,
the bill legalizing the national association for Elizabeth's defence,
and he was treasurer of the royal household from 1572 until his death on
the 19th of July 1596. His monument may still be seen in the church of
Rotherfield Grays, Oxfordshire. Knollys was repeatedly free and frank in
his objections to Elizabeth's tortuous foreign policy; but, possibly
owing to his relationship to the queen, he did not lose her favour, and
he was one of her commissioners on such important occasions as the
trials of Mary Queen of Scots, of Philip Howard earl of Arundel, and of
Anthony Babington. An active and lifelong Puritan, his attacks on the
bishops were not lacking in vigour, and he was also very hostile to
heretics. He received many grants of land from the queen, and was chief
steward of the city of Oxford and a knight of the garter.
Sir Francis's eldest son Henry (d. 1583), and his sons Edward (d. c.
1580), Robert (d. 1625), Richard (d. 1596), Francis (d. c. 1648), and
Thomas, were all courtiers and served the queen in parliament or in the
field. His daughter Lettice (1540-1634) married Walter Devereux, earl of
Essex, and then Robert Dudley, earl of Leicester; she was the mother of
Elizabeth's favourite, the 2nd earl of Essex.
Some of Knollys's letters are in T. Wright's _Queen Elizabeth and her
Times_ (1838) and the _Burghley Papers_, edited by S. Haynes (1740);
and a few of his manuscripts are still in existence. A speech which
Knollys delivered in parliament against some claims made by the
bishops was printed in 1608 and again in W. Stoughton's _Assertion for
True and Christian Church Policie_ (London, 1642).
Sir Francis Knollys's second son William (c. 1547-1632) served as a
member of parliament and a soldier during the reign of Queen Elizabeth,
being knighted in 1586. His eldest brother Henry, having died without
sons in 1583, William inherited his father's estates in Oxfordshire,
becoming in 1596 a privy councillor and comptroller of the royal
household; in 1602 he was made treasurer of the household. Sir William
enjoyed the favour of the new king James I., whom he had visited in
Scotland in 1585, and was made Baron Knollys in 1603 and Viscount
Wallingford in 1616. But in this latter year his fortunes suffered a
temporary reverse. Through his second wife Elizabeth (1586-1658),
daughter of Thomas Howard, earl of Suffolk, Knollys was related to
Frances, countess of Somerset, and when this lady was tried for the
murder of Sir Thomas Overbury her relatives were regarded with
suspicion; consequently Lord Wallingford resigned the treasurership of
the household and two years later the mastership of the court of wards,
an office which he had held since 1614. However, he regained the royal
favour, and was created earl of Banbury in 1626. He died in London on
the 25th of May 1632.
His wife, who was nearly forty years her husband's junior, was the
mother of two sons, Edward (1627-1645) and Nicholas (1631-1674), whose
paternity has given rise to much dispute. Neither is mentioned in the
earl's will, but in 1641 the law courts decided that Edward was earl of
Banbury, and when he was killed in June 1645 his brother Nicholas took
the title. In the Convention Parliament of 1660 some objection was taken
to the earl sitting in the House of Lords, and in 1661 he was not
summoned to parliament; he had not succeeded in obtaining his writ of
summons when he died on the 14th of March 1674.
Nicholas's son Charles (1662-1740), the 4th earl, had not been summoned
to parliament when in 1692 he killed Captain Philip Lawson in a duel.
This raised the question of his rank in a new form. Was he, or was he
not, entitled to trial by the peers? The House of Lords declared that he
was not a peer and therefore not so entitled, but the court of king's
bench released him from his imprisonment on the ground that he was the
earl of Banbury and not Charles Knollys a commoner. Nevertheless the
House of Lords refused to move from its position, and Knollys had not
received a writ of summons when he died in April 1740. His son Charles
(1703-1771), vicar of Burford, Oxfordshire, and his grandsons, William
(1726-1776) and Thomas Woods (1727-1793), were successively titular
earls of Banbury, but they took no steps to prove their title. However,
in 1806 Thomas Woods's son William (1763-1824), who attained the rank of
general in the British army, asked for a writ of summons as earl of
Banbury, but in 1813 the House of Lords decided against the claim.
Several peers, including the great Lord Erskine, protested against this
decision, but General Knollys himself accepted it and ceased to call
himself earl of Banbury. He died in Paris on the 20th of March 1834. His
eldest son, Sir William Thomas Knollys (1797-1883), entered the army and
served with the Guards during the Peninsular War. Remaining in the army
after the conclusion of the peace of 1815 he won a good reputation and
rose high in his profession. From 1855 to 1860 he was in charge of the
military camp at Aldershot, then in its infancy, and in 1861 he was made
president of the council of military education. From 1862 to 1877 he was
comptroller of the household of the prince of Wales, afterwards King
Edward VII. From 1877 until his death on the 23rd of June 1883 he was
gentleman usher of the black rod; he was also a privy councillor and
colonel of the Scots Guards. His son Francis (b. 1837), private
secretary to Edward VII. and George V., was created Baron Knollys in
1902; another son, Sir Henry Knollys (b. 1840), became private secretary
to King Edward's daughter Maud, queen of Norway.
See Sir N. H. Nicolas, _Treatise on the Law of Adulterine Bastardy_
1833); and G. E. C(okayne), _Complete Peerage_ (1887), vol. i.
KNOT, a Limicoline bird very abundant at certain seasons on the shores
of Britain and many countries of the northern hemisphere. Camden in the
edition of his _Britannia_ published in 1607 (p. 408) inserted a passage
not found in the earlier issues of that work, connecting the name with
that of King Canute, and this account of its origin has been usually
received. But no other evidence in its favour is forthcoming, and
Camden's statement is merely the expression of an opinion,[1] so that
there is perhaps ground for believing him to have been mistaken, and
that the clue afforded by Sir Thomas Browne, who (c. 1672) wrote the
name "Gnatts or Knots," may be the true one.[2] Still the statement was
so determinedly repeated by successive authors that Linnaeus followed
them in calling the species _Tringa canutus_, and so it remains with
nearly all modern ornithologists.[3] Rather larger than a snipe, but
with a shorter bill and legs, the knot visits the coasts of some parts
of Europe, Asia and North America at times in vast flocks; and, though
in temperate climates a good many remain throughout the winter, these
are nothing in proportion to those that arrive towards the end of
spring, in England generally about the 15th of May, and after staying a
few days pass northward to their summer quarters, while early in autumn
the young of the year throng to the same places in still greater
numbers, being followed a little later by their parents. In winter the
plumage is ashy-grey above (save the rump, which is white) and white
beneath. In summer the feathers of the back are black, broadly margined
with light orange-red, mixed with white, those of the rump white, more
or less tinged with red, and the lower parts are of a nearly uniform
deep bay or chestnut. The birds which winter in temperate climates
seldom attain the brilliancy of colour exhibited by those which arrive
from the south; the luxuriance generated by the heat of a tropical sun
seems needed to develop the full richness of hue. The young when they
come from their birthplace are clothed in ashy-grey above, each feather
banded with dull black and ochreous, while the breast is more or less
deeply tinged with warm buff. Much curiosity has long existed among
zoologists as to the egg of the knot, of which not a single identified
or authenticated specimen is known to exist in collections. The species
was found breeding abundantly on the North Georgian (now commonly called
the Parry) Islands by Parry's Arctic expedition, as well as soon after
on Melville Peninsula by Captain Lyons, and again during the voyage of
Sir George Nares on the northern coast of Grinnell Land and the shores
of Smith Sound, where Major Feilden obtained examples of the newly
hatched young (_Ibis_, 1877, p. 407), and observed that the parents fed
largely on the buds of _Saxifraga oppositifolia_. These are the only
localities in which this species is known to breed, for on none of the
arctic lands lying to the north of Europe or Asia has it been
unquestionably observed.[4] In winter its wanderings are very extensive,
as it is recorded from Surinam, Brazil, Walfisch Bay in South Africa,
China, Queensland and New Zealand. Formerly this species was extensively
netted in England, and the birds fattened for the table, where they were
esteemed a great delicacy, as witness the entries in the Northumberland
and Le Strange Household Books; and the British Museum contains an old
treatise on the subject: "The maner of kepyng of knotts, after Sir
William Askew and my Lady, given to my Lord Darcy, 25 Hen. VIII." (_MSS.
Sloane_, 1592, 8 _cat._ 663). (A. N.)
FOOTNOTES:
[1] His words are simply "_Knotts_, i. _Canuti aues_, vt opinor e
Dania enim aduolare creduntur." In the margin the name is spelt
"Cnotts," and he possibly thought it had to do with a well-known
story of that king. Knots undoubtedly frequent the sea-shore, where
Canute is said on one occasion to have taken up his station, but they
generally retreat, and that nimbly, before the advancing surf, which
he is said in the story not to have done.
[2] In this connexion we may compare the French _maringouin_,
ordinarily a gnat or mosquito, but also, among the French Creoles of
America, a small shore-bird, either a _Tringa_ or an _Aegialitis_,
according to Descourtilz (_Voyage_, ii. 249). See also Littre's
_Dictionnaire_, _s.v._
[3] There are few of the _Limicolae_, to which group the knot
belongs, that present greater changes of plumage according to age or
season, and hence before these phases were understood the species
became encumbered with many synonyms, as _Tringa cinerea_,
_ferruginea_, _grisea_, _islandica_, _naevia_ and so forth. The
confusion thus caused was mainly cleared away by Montagu and
Temminck.
[4] The _Tringa canutus_ of Payer's expedition seems more likely to
have been _T. maritima_, which species is not named among the birds
of Franz Josef Land, though it can hardly fail to occur there.
KNOT (O.E. _cnotta_, from a Teutonic stem _knutt_; cf. "knit," and Ger.
_knoten_), an intertwined loop of rope, cord, string or other flexible
material, used to fasten two such ropes, &c., to one another, or to
another object. (For the various forms which such "knots" may take see
below.) The word is also used for the distance-marks on a log-line, and
hence as the equivalent of a nautical mile (see LOG), and for any hard
mass, resembling a knot drawn tight, especially one formed in the trunk
of a tree at the place of insertion of a branch. Knots in wood are the
remains of dead branches which have become buried in the wood of the
trunk or branch on which they were borne. When a branch dies down or is
broken off, the dead stump becomes grown over by a healing tissue, and,
as the stem which bears it increases in thickness, gradually buried in
the newer wood. When a section is made of the stem the dead stump
appears in the section as a knot; thus in a board it forms a circular
piece of wood, liable to fall out and leave a "knot-hole." "Knot" or
"knob" is an architectural term for a bunch of flowers, leaves or other
ornamentation carved on a corbel or on a boss. The word is also applied
figuratively to any intricate problem, hard to disentangle, a use
stereotyped in the proverbial "Gordian knot," which, according to the
tradition, was cut by Alexander the Great (see GORDIUM).
[Illustration: FIG 1.]
[Illustration: FIG 2.]
Knots, Bends, Hitches, Splices and Seizings are all ways of fastening
cords or ropes, either to some other object such as a spar, or a ring,
or to one another. The "knot" is formed to make a knob on a rope,
generally at the extremity, and by untwisting the strands at the end and
weaving them together. But it may be made by turning the rope on itself
through a loop, as for instance, the "overhand knot" (fig. 1). A "bend"
(from the same root as "bind"), and a "hitch" (an O.E. word), are ways
of fastening or tying ropes together, as in the "Carrick bend" (fig.
21), or round spars as the Studding Sail Halyard Bend (fig. 19), and the
Timber Hitch (fig. 20). A "splice" (from the same root as "split") is
made by untwisting two rope ends and weaving them together. A "seizing"
(Fr. _saisir_) is made by fastening two spars to one another by a rope,
or two ropes by a third, or by using one rope to make a loop on
another--as for example the Racking Seizing (fig. 41), the Round Seizing
(fig. 40), and the Midshipman's Hitch (fig. 29). The use of the words is
often arbitrary. There is, for instance, no difference in principle
between the Fisherman's Bend (fig. 18) and the Timber Hitch (fig. 20).
Speaking generally, the Knot and the Seizing are meant to be permanent,
and must be unwoven in order to be unfastened, while the Bend and Hitch
can be undone at once by pulling the ropes in the reverse direction from
that in which they are meant to hold. Yet the Reef Knot (figs. 3 and 4)
can be cast loose with ease, and is wholly different in principle, for
instance, from the Diamond Knot (figs. 42 and 43). These various forms
of fastening are employed in many kinds of industry, as for example in
scaffolding, as well as in seamanship. The governing principle is that
the strain which pulls against them shall draw them tighter. The
ordinary "knots and splices" are described in every book on seamanship.
_Overhand Knot_ (fig. 1).--Used at the end of ropes to prevent their
unreeving and as the commencement of other knots. Take the end _a_
round the end _b_.
_Figure-of-Eight Knot_ (fig. 2).--Used only to prevent ropes from
unreeving; it forms a large knob.
[Illustration: FIG. 3.]
[Illustration: FIG. 4.]
_Reef Knot_ (figs. 3, 4).--Form an overhand knot as above. Then take
the end _a_ over the end _b_ and through the bight. If the end _a_
were taken under the end _b_, a _granny_ would be formed. This knot is
so named from being used in tying the reef-points of a sail.
[Illustration: FIG. 5.]
[Illustration: FIG. 6.]
[Illustration: FIG. 7.]
_Bowline_ (figs. 5-7).--Lay the end _a_ of a rope over the standing
part _b_. Form with _b_ a bight _c_ over _a_. Take _a_ round behind
_b_ and down through the bight _c_. This is a most useful knot
employed to form a loop which will not slip. _Running bowlines_ are
formed by making a bowline round its own standing part above _b_. It
is the most common and convenient temporary running noose.
[Illustration: FIG. 8.]
[Illustration: FIG. 9.]
[Illustration: FIG. 10.]
_Bowline on a Bight_ (figs. 8, 9).--The first part is made similar to
the above with the double part of the rope; then the bight _a_ is
pulled through sufficiently to allow it to be bent over past _d_ and
come up in the position shown in fig. 9. It makes a more comfortable
sling for a man than a single bight.
_Half-Hitch_ (fig. 10).--Pass the end _a_ of the rope round the
standing part _b_ and through the bight.
_Two Half-Hitches_ (fig. 11).--The half-hitch repeated; this is
commonly used, and is capable of resisting to the full strength of the
rope. A stop from _a_ to the standing part will prevent it jamming.
[Illustration: FIG. 11.]
[Illustration: FIG. 12.]
[Illustration: FIG. 13.]
_Clove Hitch_ (figs. 12, 13).--Pass the end _a_ round a spar and cross
it over _b_. Pass it round the spar again and put the end _a_ through
the second bight.
_Blackwall Hitch_ (fig. 14).--Form a bight at the end of a rope, and
put the hook of a tackle through the bight so that the end of the rope
may be jammed between the standing part and the back of the hook.
_Double Blackwall Hitch_ (fig. 15).--Pass the end _a_ twice round the
hook and under the standing part _b_ at the last cross.
[Illustration: FIG. 14.]
[Illustration: FIG. 15.]
[Illustration: FIG. 16.]
[Illustration: FIG. 17.]
_Cat's-paw_ (fig. 16).--Twist up two parts of a lanyard in opposite
directions and hook the tackle in the eyes _i_, _i_. A piece of wood
should be placed between the parts at _g_. A large lanyard should be
clove-hitched round a large toggle and a strap passed round it below
the toggle.
_Marling-spike Hitch_ (fig. 17).--Lay the end _a_ over _c_; fold the
loop over on the standing part _b_; then pass the marline-spike
through, over both parts of the bight and under the part _b_. Used for
tightening each turn of a seizing.
[Illustration: FIG. 18.]
[Illustration: FIG. 19.]
[Illustration: FIG. 20.]
_Fisherman's Bend_ (fig. 18).--Take two turns round a spar, then a
half-hitch round the standing part and between the spar and the turns,
lastly a half-hitch round the standing part.
_Studding-sail Halyard Bend_ (fig. 19).--Similar to the above, except
that the end is tucked under the first round turn; this is more snug.
A _magnus hitch_ has two round turns and one on the other side of the
standing part with the end through the bight.
_Timber Hitch_ (fig. 20).--Take the end _a_ of a rope round a spar,
then round the standing part _b_, then several times round its own
part _c_, against the lay of the rope.
[Illustration: FIG. 21.]
_Carrick Bend_ (fig. 21).--Lay the end of one hawser over its own part
to form a bight as _e'_, _b_; pass the end of another hawser up
through that bight near _b_, going out over the first end at _c_,
crossing under the first long part and over its end at _d_, then under
both long parts, forming the loops, and above the first short part at
_b_, terminating at the end _e"_, in the opposite direction
vertically and horizontally to the other end. The ends should be
securely stopped to their respective standing parts, and also a stop
put on the becket or extreme end to prevent it catching a pipe or
chock; in that form this is the best quick means of uniting two large
hawsers, since they cannot jam. When large hawsers have to work
through small pipes, good security may be obtained either by passing
ten or twelve taut racking turns with a suitable strand and securing
each end to a standing part of the hawser, or by taking half as many
round turns taut, crossing the ends between the hawsers over the
seizing and reef-knotting the ends. This should be repeated in three
places and the extreme ends well stopped. Connecting hawsers by
bowline knots is very objectionable, as the bend is large and the
knots jam.
_Sheet Bend_ (fig. 22).--Pass the end of one rope through the bight of
another, round both parts of the other, and under its own standing
part. Used for bending small sheets to the clews of sails, which
present bights ready for the hitch. An ordinary net is composed of a
series of sheet bends. A _weaver's knot_ is made like a sheet bend.
_Single Wall Knot_ (fig. 23).--Unlay the end of a rope, and with the
strand a form a bight. Take the next strand _b_ round the end of _a_.
Take the last strand _c_ round the end of _b_ and through the bight
made by _a_. Haul the ends taut.
_Single Wall Crowned_ (fig. 24).--Form a single wall, and lay one of
the ends, _a_, over the knot. Lay _b_ over _a_, and _c_ over _b_ and
through the bight of _a_. Haul the ends taut.
[Illustration: FIG. 22.]
[Illustration: FIG. 23.]
[Illustration: FIG. 24.]
_Double Wall and Double Crown_ (fig. 25).--Form a single wall crowned;
then let the ends follow their own parts round until all the parts
appear double. Put the ends down through the knot.
_Matthew Walker_ (figs. 26, 27).--Unlay the end of a rope. Take the
first strand round the rope and through its own bight; the second
strand round the rope, through the bight of the first, and through its
own bight; the third through all three bights. Haul the ends taut.
[Illustration: FIG. 25.]
[Illustration: FIG. 26.]
[Illustration: FIG. 27.]
[Illustration: FIG. 28.]
_Inside Clinch_ (fig. 28).--The end is bent close round the standing
part till it forms a circle and a half, when it is securely seized at
_a_, _b_ and _c_, thus making a running eye; when taut round anything
it jams the end. It is used for securing hemp cables to anchors, the
standing parts of topsail sheets, and for many other purposes. If the
eye were formed outside the bight an _outside clinch_ would be made,
depending entirely on the seizings, but more ready for slipping.
_Midshipman's Hitch_ (fig. 29).--Take two round turns inside the
bight, the same as a half-hitch repeated; stop up the end or let
another half-hitch be taken or held by hand. Used for hooking a tackle
for a temporary purpose.
[Illustration: FIG. 29.]
[Illustration: FIG. 30.]
[Illustration: FIG. 31.]
[Illustration: FIG. 32.]
_Turk's Head_ (fig. 30).--With fine line (very dry) make a clove hitch
round the rope; cross the bights twice, passing an end the reverse way
(up or down) each time; then keeping the whole spread flat, let each
end follow its own part round and round till it is too tight to
receive any more. Used as an ornament variously on side-ropes and
foot-ropes of jibbooms. It may also be made with three ends, two
formed by the same piece of line secured through the rope and one
single piece. Form with them a diamond knot; then each end crossed
over its neighbour follows its own part as above.
_Spanish Windlass_ (fig. 31).--An iron bar and two marling-spikes are
taken; two parts of a seizing are twisted like a cat's-paw (fig. 16),
passed round the bar, and hove round till sufficiently taut. In
heaving shrouds together to form an eye two round turns are taken with
a strand and the two ends hove upon. When a lever is placed between
the parts of a long lashing or frapping and hove round, we have what
is also called a Spanish windlass.
_Slings_ (fig. 32).--This is simply the bight of a rope turned up over
its own part; it is frequently made of chain, when a shackle (bow up)
takes the place of the bight at _s_ and another at _y_, connecting the
two ends with the part which goes round the mast-head. Used to sling
lower yards. For boat's yards it should be a grummet with a thimble
seized in at _y_. As the tendency of all yards is to cant forward with
the weight of the sail, the part marked by an arrow should be the
fore-side--easily illustrated by a round ruler and a piece of twine.
_Sprit-Sail Sheet Knot_ (fig. 33).--This knot consists of a double
wall and double crown made by the two ends, consequently with six
strands, with the ends turned down. Used formerly in the clews of
sails, now as an excellent stopper, a lashing or shackle being placed
at _s_ and a lanyard round the head at _l_.
[Illustration: FIG. 33.]
[Illustration: FIG. 34.]
[Illustration: FIG. 35.]
_Turning in a Dead-Eye Cutter-Stay fashion_ (fig. 34).--A bend is made
in the stay or shroud round its own part and hove together with a bar
and strand; two or three seizings diminishing in size (one round and
one or two either round or flat) are hove on taut and snug, the end
being at the side of the fellow part. The dead-eye is put in and the
eye driven down with a commander.
_Turning in a Dead-Eye end up_ (fig. 35).--The shroud is measured
round the dead-eye and marked where a throat-seizing is hove on; the
dead-eye is then forced into its place, or it may be put in first. The
end beyond _a_ is taken up taut and secured with a round seizing;
higher still the end is secured by another seizing. As it is important
that the lay should always be kept in the rope as much as possible,
these eyes should be formed conformably, either right-handed or
left-handed. It is easily seen which way a rope would naturally kink
by putting a little extra twist into it. A shroud whose dead-eye is
turned in end up will bear a fairer strain, but is more dependent on
the seizings; the under turns of the throat are the first to break and
the others the first to slip. With the cutter-stay fashion the
standing part of the shroud gives way under the nip of the eye. A rope
will afford the greatest resistance to strain when secured round large
thimbles with a straight end and a sufficient number of flat or
racking seizings. To splice shrouds round dead-eyes is objectionable
on account of opening the strands and admitting water, thus hastening
decay. In small vessels, especially yachts, it is admissible on the
score of neatness; in that case a round seizing is placed between the
dead-eye and the splice. The dead-eyes should be in diameter 1(1/2)
times the circumference of a hemp shroud and thrice that of wire; the
lanyard should be half the nominal size of hemp and the same size as
wire: thus, hemp-shroud 12 in., wire 6 in., dead-eye 18 in., lanyard 6
in.
[Illustration: FIG. 36.]
_Short Splice_ (fig. 36).--The most common description of splice is
when a rope is lengthened by another of the same size, or nearly so.
Fig. 36 represents a splice of this kind: the strands have been
unlaid, married and passed through with the assistance of a
marling-spike, over one strand and under the next, twice each way. The
ends are then cut off close. To render the splice neater the strands
should have been halved before turning them in a second time, the
upper half of each strand only being turned in; then all are cut off
smooth. _Eye Splice._--Unlay the strands and place them upon the same
rope spread at such a distance as to give the size of the eye; enter
the centre strand (unlaid) under a strand of the rope (as above), and
the other two in a similar manner on their respective sides of the
first; taper each end and pass them through again. If neatness is
desired, reduce the ends and pass them through once more; cut off
smooth and serve the part disturbed tightly with suitable hard line.
Uses too numerous to mention. _Cut Splice._--Made in a similar manner
to an eye splice, but of two pieces of rope, therefore with two
splices. Used for mast-head pendants, jib-guys, breast backstays, and
even odd shrouds, to keep the eyes of the rigging lower by one part.
It is not so strong as two separate eyes. _Horseshoe Splice._--Made
similar to the above, but one part much shorter than the other, or
another piece of rope is spliced across an eye, forming a horseshoe
with two long legs. Used for back-ropes on dolphin striker, back stays
(one on each side) and cutter's runner pendants. _Long Splice._--The
strands must be unlaid about three times as much as for a short splice
and married--care being taken to preserve the lay or shape of each.
Unlay one of the strands still further and follow up the vacant space
with the corresponding strand of the other part, fitting it firmly
into the rope till only a few inches remain. Treat the other side in a
similar manner. There will then appear two long strands in the centre
and a long and a short one on each side. The splice is practically
divided into three distinct parts; at each the strands are divided and
the corresponding halves knotted (as shown on the top of fig. 38) and
turned in twice. The half strand may, if desired, be still further
reduced before the halves are turned in for the second time. This and
all other splices should be well stretched and hammered into shape
before the ends are cut off. The long splice alone is adapted to
running ropes.
[Illustration: FIG. 37.]
_Shroud Knot_ (fig. 37).--Pass a stop at such distance from each end
of the broken shroud as to afford sufficient length of strands, when
it is unlaid, to form a single wall knot on each side after the parts
have been married; it will then appear as represented in the figure,
the strands having been well tarred and hove taut separately. The part
_a_ provides the knot on the opposite side and the ends _b_, _b_; the
part _c_ provides the knot and the ends _d_, _d_. After the knot has
been well stretched the ends are tapered, laid smoothly between the
strands of the shroud, and firmly served over. This knot is used when
shrouds or stays are broken. _French Shroud Knot._--Marry the parts
with a similar amount of and as before; stop one set of strands taut
up on the shroud (to keep the parts together), and turn the ends back
on their own part, forming bights. Make a single wall knot with the
other three strands round the said bights and shroud; haul the knot
taut first and stretch the whole; then heave down the bights close: it
will look like the ordinary shroud knot. It is very liable to slip. If
the ends by which the wall knot is made after being hove were passed
through the bights, it would make the knot stronger. The ends would be
tapered and served.
[Illustration: FIG. 38.]
_Flemish Eye_ (fig. 38).--Secure a spar or toggle twice the
circumference of the rope intended to be rove through the eye; unlay
the rope which is to form the eye about three times its circumference,
at which part place a strong whipping. Point the rope vertically under
the eye, and bind it taut up by the core if it is four-stranded rope,
otherwise by a few yarns. While doing so arrange six or twelve pieces
of spun-yarn at equal distances on the wood and exactly halve the
number of yarns that have been unlaid. If it is a small rope, select
two or three yarns from each side near the centre; cross them over the
top at _a_, and half-knot them tightly. So continue till all are
expended and drawn down tightly on the opposite side to that from
which they came, being thoroughly intermixed. Tie the pieces of
spun-yarn which were placed under the eye tightly round various parts,
to keep the eye in shape when taken off the spar, till they are
replaced by turns of marline hove on as taut as possible, the hitches
forming a central line outside the eye. Heave on a good seizing of
spun-yarn close below the spar, and another between six and twelve
inches below the first; it may then be parcelled and served; the eye
is served over twice, and well tarred each time. As large ropes are
composed of so many yarns, a greater number must be knotted over the
toggle each time; a 4-in. rope has 132 yarns, which would require 22
knottings of six each time; a 10-in. rope has 834 yarns, therefore, if
ten are taken from each side every time, about twice that number of
hitches will be required; sometimes only half the yarns are hitched,
the others being merely passed over. The chief use of these eyes has
been to form the collars of stays, the whole stay in each case having
to be rove through it--a very inconvenient device. It is almost
superseded for that purpose by a leg spliced in the stay and lashing
eyes abaft the mast, for which it is commonly used at present. This
eye is not always called by the same name, but the weight of evidence
is in favour of calling it a Flemish eye. _Ropemaker's Eye_, which
also has alternative names, is formed by taking out of a rope one
strand longer by 6 in. or a foot than the required eye, then placing
the ends of the two strands a similar distance below the disturbance
of the one strand, that is, at the size of the eye; the single strand
is led back through the vacant space it left till it arrives at the
neck of the eye, with a similar length of spare end to the other two
strands. They are all seized together, scraped, tapered, marled and
served. The principal merit is neatness. _Mouse on a Stay._--Formed by
turns of coarse spun-yarn hove taut round the stay, over parcelling at
the requisite distance from the eye to form the collar; assistance is
given by a padding of short yarns distributed equally round the rope,
which, after being firmly secured, especially at what is to be the
under part, are turned back over the first layer and seized down
again, thus making a shoulder; sometimes it is formed with parcelling
only. In either case it is finished by marling, followed by serving or
grafting. The use is to prevent the Flemish eye in the end of the stay
from slipping up any farther.
_Rolling Hitch_ (fig. 39).--Two round turns are taken round a spar or
large rope in the direction in which it is to be hauled and one
half-hitch on the other side of the hauling part. This is very
useful, as it can be put on and off quickly.
[Illustration: FIG. 39.]
[Illustration: FIG. 40.]
_Round Seizing_ (fig. 40).--So named when the rope it secures does not
cross another and there are three sets of turns. The size of the
seizing line is about one-sixth (nominal) that of the ropes to be
secured, but varies according to the number of turns to be taken. An
eye is spliced in the line and the end rove through it, embracing both
parts. If either part is to be spread open, commence farthest from
that part; place tarred canvas under the seizing; pass the line round
as many times (with much slack) as it is intended to have under-turns;
and pass the end back through them all and through the eye. Secure the
eye from rendering round by the ends of its splice; heave the turns on
with a marling-spike (see fig. 17), perhaps seven or nine; haul the
end through taut, and commence again the riding turns in the hollows
of the first. If the end is not taken back through the eye, but pushed
up between the last two turns (as is sometimes recommended), the
riders must be passed the opposite way in order to follow the
direction of the under-turns, which are always one more in number than
the riders. When the riders are complete, the end is forced between
the last lower turns and two cross turns are taken, the end coming up
where it went down, when a wall knot is made with the strands and the
ends cut close; or the end may be taken once round the shroud. _Throat
Seizing._--Two ropes or parts of ropes are laid on each other parallel
and receive a seizing similar to that shown in figure 35--that is with
upper and riding but no cross turns. As the two parts of rope are
intended to turn up at right angles to the direction in which they
were secured, the seizing should be of stouter line and short, not
exceeding seven lower and six riding turns. The end is better secured
with a turn round the standing part. Used for turning in dead-eyes and
variously. _Flat Seizing._--Commenced similarly to the above, but it
has neither riding nor cross turns.
[Illustration: FIG. 41.]
[Illustration: FIG. 42.]
[Illustration: FIG. 43.]
_Racking Seizing_ (fig. 41).--A running eye having been spliced round
one part of the rope, the line is passed entirely round the other
part, crossed back round the first part, and so on for ten to twenty
turns, according to the expected strain, every turn being hove as
tight as possible; after which round turns are passed to fill the
spaces at the back of each rope, by taking the end _a_ over both parts
into the hollow at _b_, returning at _c_, and going over to _d_. When
it reaches e a turn may be taken round that rope only, the end rove
under it, and a half-hitch taken, which will form a clove-hitch; knot
the end and cut it close. When the shrouds are wire (which is half the
size of hemp) and the end turned up round a dead-eye of any kind, wire
seizings are preferable. It appears very undesirable to have wire
rigging combined with plates or screws for setting it up, as in case
of accident--such as that of the mast going over the side, a shot or
collision breaking the ironwork--the seamen are powerless.
_Diamond Knot_ (figs. 42, 43).--The rope must be unlaid as far as the
centre if the knot is required there, and the strands handled with
great care to keep the lay in them. Three bights are turned up as in
fig. 42, and the end of _a_ is taken over _b_ and up the bight _c_.
The end of _b_ is taken over _c_ and up through _a_. The end _c_ is
taken over a and through _b_. When hauled taut and the strands are
laid up again it will appear as in fig. 43. Any number of knots may be
made on the same rope. They were used on man-ropes, the foot-ropes on
the jibboom, and similar places, where it was necessary to give a good
hold for the hands or feet. Turk's heads are now generally used.
_Double Diamond._--Made by the ends of a single diamond following
their own part till the knot is repeated. Used at the upper end of a
side rope as an ornamental stopper-knot.
_Stropping-Blocks._--There are various modes of securing blocks to
ropes; the most simple is to splice an eye at the end of the rope a
little longer than the block and pass a round seizing to keep it in
place; such is the case with jib-pendants. As a general rule, the
parts of a strop combined should possess greater strength than the
parts of the fall which act against it. The shell of an ordinary block
should be about three times the circumference of the rope which is to
reeve through it, as a 9-in. block for a 3-in. rope; but small ropes
require larger blocks in proportion, as a 4-in. block for a 1-in.
rope. When the work to be done is very important the blocks are much
larger: brace-blocks are more than five times the nominal size of the
brace. Leading-blocks and sheaves in racks are generally smaller than
the blocks through which the ropes pass farther away, which appears to
be a mistake, as more power is lost by friction. A clump-block should
be double the nominal size of the rope. A single strop may be made by
joining the ends of a rope of sufficient length to go round the block
and thimble by a common short splice, which rests on the crown of the
block (the opposite end to the thimble) and is stretched into place by
a jigger; a strand is then passed twice round the space between the
block and the thimble and hove taut by a Spanish windlass to cramp the
parts together ready for the reception of a small round seizing. The
cramping or pinching into shape is sometimes done by machinery
invented by a rigger in Portsmouth dockyard. The strop may be made the
required length by a long splice, but it would not possess any
advantage.
[Illustration: FIG. 44.]
[Illustration: FIG. 45.]
_Grummet-Strop_ (fig. 44).--Made by unlaying a piece of rope of the
desired size about a foot more than three times the length required
for the strop. Place the centre of the rope round the block and
thimble; mark with chalk where the parts cross; take one strand out of
the rope; bring the two chalk marks together; and cross the strand in
the lay on both sides, continuing round and round till the two ends
meet the third time; they are then halved, and the upper halves
half-knotted and passed over and under the next strands, exactly as
one part of a long splice. A piece of worn or well-stretched rope will
better retain its shape, upon which success entirely depends. The
object is neatness, and if three or multiples of three strops are to
be made it is economical.
_Double Strop_ (fig. 45).--Made with one piece of rope, the splice
being brought as usual to the crown of the block _t_, the bights
fitting into scores some inches apart, converging to the upper part,
above which the thimble receives the bights _a_, _a_; and the four
parts of the strop are secured at _s_, _s_ by a round seizing doubly
crossed. If the block be not then on the right slew (the shell
horizontal or vertical) a union thimble is used with another strop,
which produces the desired effect; thus the fore and main
brace-blocks, being very large and thin, are required (for appearance)
to lie horizontally; a single strop round the yard vertically has a
union thimble between it and the double strop round the block. The
double strop is used for large blocks; it gives more support to the
shell than the single strop and admits of smaller rope being used.
Wire rope is much used for block-strops; the fitting is similar. Metal
blocks are also used in fixed positions; durability is their chief
recommendation. Great care should be taken that they do not chafe the
ropes which pass by them as well as those which reeve through.
_Selvagee Strop._--Twine, rope-yarn or rope is warped round two or
more pegs placed at the desired distance apart, till it assumes the
requisite size and strength; the two ends are then knotted or spliced.
Temporary firm seizings are applied in several places to bind the
parts together before the rope or twine is removed from the pegs,
after which it is marled with suitable material. A large strop should
be warped round four or six pegs in order to give it the shape in
which it is to be used. This description of strop is much stronger and
more supple than rope of similar size. Twine strops (covered with
duck) are used for boats' blocks and in similar places requiring
neatness. Rope-yarn and spun-yarn strops are used for attaching
luff-tackles to shrouds and for many similar purposes. To bring to a
shroud or hawser, the centre of the strop is passed round the rope and
each part crossed three or four times before hooking the "luff"; a
spun-yarn stop above the centre will prevent slipping and is very
necessary with wire rope. As an instance of a large selvagee
block-strop being used--when the "Melville" was hove down at Chusan
(China), the main-purchase-block was double stropped with a selvagee
containing 28 parts of 3-in. rope; that would produce 112 parts in
the neck, equal to a breaking strain of 280 tons, which is more than
four parts of a 19-in cable. The estimated strain it bore was 80 tons.
_Stoppers_ for ordinary running ropes are made by splicing a piece of
rope to a bolt or to a hook and thimble, unlaying 3 or 4 ft., tapering
it by cutting away some of the yarns, and marling it down securely,
with a good whipping also on the end. It is used by taking a
half-hitch round the rope which is to be hauled upon, dogging the end
up in the lay and holding it by hand. The rope can come through it
when hauled, but cannot go back.
[Illustration: FIG. 46.]
_Whipping and Pointing._--The end of every working rope should at
least be whipped to prevent it fagging out; in ships of war and yachts
they are invariably pointed. Whipping is done by placing the end of a
piece of twine or knittle-stuff on a rope about an inch from the end,
taking three or four turns taut over it (working towards the end); the
twine is then laid on the rope again lengthways contrary to the first,
leaving a slack bight of twine; and taut turns are repeatedly passed
round the rope, over the first end and over the bight, till there are
in all six to ten turns; then haul the bight taut through between the
turns and cut it close. To point a rope, place a good whipping a few
inches from the end, according to size; open out the end entirely;
select all the outer yarns and twist them into knittles either singly
or two or three together; scrape down and taper the central part,
marling it firmly. Turn every alternate knittle and secure the
remainder down by a turn of twine or a smooth yarn hitched close up,
which acts as the weft in weaving. The knittles are then reversed and
another turn of the weft taken, and this is continued till far enough
to look well. At the last turn the ends of the knittles which are laid
back are led forward over and under the weft and hauled through
tightly, making it present a circle of small bights, level with which
the core is cut off smoothly. Hawsers and large ropes have a becket
formed in their ends during the process of pointing. A piece of 1 to
1(1/2) in. rope about 1(1/2) to 2 ft. long is spliced into the core by
each end while it is open: from four to seven yarns (equal to a
strand) are taken at a time and twisted up; open the ends of the
becket only sufficient to marry them close in; turn in the twisted
yarns between the strands (as splicing) three times, and stop it above
and below. Both ends are treated alike; when the pointing is completed
a loop a few inches in length will protrude from the end of the rope,
which is very useful for reeving it. A hauling line or reeving line
should only be rove through the becket as a fair lead. _Grafting_ is
very similar to pointing, and frequently done the whole length of a
rope, as a side-rope. Pieces of white line more than double the length
of the rope, sufficient in number to encircle it, are made up in hanks
called foxes; the centre of each is made fast by twine and the weaving
process continued as in pointing. Block-strops are sometimes so
covered; but, as it causes decay, a small wove mat which can be taken
off occasionally is preferable.
_Sheep-Shank_ (fig. 46).--Formed by making a long bight in a
topgallant back-stay, or any rope which it is desirable to shorten,
and taking a half-hitch near each bend, as at _a_, _a_. Rope-yarn
stops at _b_, _b_ are desirable to keep it in place till the strain is
brought on it. Wire rope cannot be so treated, and it is injurious to
hemp rope that is large and stiff.
_Knotting Yarns_ (fig. 47).--This operation becomes necessary when, a
comparatively short piece of junk is to be made into spun-yarn, or
large rope into small, which is called twice laid. The end of each
yarn is divided, rubbed smooth and married (as for splicing). Two of
the divided parts, as _c_, _c_ and _d_, _d_, are passed in opposite
directions round all the other parts and knotted. The ends e and f
remain passive. The figure is drawn open, but the forks of A and B
should be pressed close together, the knot hauled taut and the ends
cut off.
[Illustration: FIG. 47.]
[Illustration: FIG. 48.]
_Butt Slings_ (fig. 48).--Made of 4-in. rope, each pair being 26 ft.
in length, with an eye spliced in one end, through which the other is
rove before being placed over one end of the cask; the rope is then
passed round the opposite side of the cask and two half-hitches made
with the end, forming another running eye, both of which are beaten
down taut as the tackle receives the weight. Slings for smaller casks
requiring care should be of this description, though of smaller rope,
as the cask cannot possibly slip out. _Bale Slings_ are made by
splicing the ends of about 3 fathoms of 3-in. rope together, which
then looks like a long strop, similar to the double strop represented
in fig. 45--the bights _t_ being placed under the cask or bale and one
of the bights _a_, _a_ rove through the other and attached to the
whip or tackle.
For a complete treatise on the subject the reader may be referred to
_The Book of Knots, being a Complete Treatise on the Art of Cordage,
illustrated by 172 Diagrams, showing the Manner of making every Knot,
Tie and Splice_, by Tom Bowling (London, 1890).
_Mathematical Theory of Knots._
In the scientific sense a knot is an endless physical line which cannot
be deformed into a circle. A physical line is flexible and inextensible,
and cannot be cut--so that no lap of it can be drawn through another.
The founder of the theory of knots is undoubtedly Johann Benedict
Listing (1808-1882). In his "Vorstudien zur Topologie" (_Gottinger
Studien_, 1847), a work in many respects of startling originality, a few
pages only are devoted to the subject.[1] He treats knots from the
elementary notion of twisting one physical line (or thread) round
another, and shows that from the projection of a knot on a surface we
can thus obtain a notion of the relative situation of its coils. He
distinguishes "reduced" from "reducible" forms, the number of crossings
in the reduced knot being the smallest possible. The simplest form of
reduced knot is of two species, as in figs. 49 and 50. Listing points
out that these are formed, the first by right-handed the second by
left-handed twisting. In fact, if three half-twists be given to a long
strip of paper, and the ends be then pasted together, the two edges
become one line, which is the knot in question. We may free it by
slitting the paper along its middle line; and then we have the juggler's
trick of putting a knot on an endless unknotted band. One of the above
forms cannot be deformed into the other. The one is, in Listing's
language, the "perversion" of the other, i.e. its image in a plane
mirror. He gives a method of symbolizing reduced knots, but shows that
in this method the same knot may, in certain cases, be represented by
different symbols. It is clear that the brief notice he published
contains a mere sketch of his investigations.
The most extensive dissertation on the properties of knots is that of
Peter Guthrie Tait (_Trans. Roy. Soc. Edin._, xxviii. 145, where the
substance of a number of papers in the _Proceedings_ of the same society
is reproduced). It was for the most part written in ignorance of the
work of Listing, and was suggested by an inquiry concerning vortex
atoms.
[Illustration: FIG. 49.]
[Illustration: FIG. 50.]
[Illustration: FIG. 51.]
[Illustration: FIG. 52.]
Tait starts with the almost self-evident proposition that, if any
plane closed curve have double points only, in passing continuously
along the curve from one of these to the same again an even number of
double points has been passed through. Hence the crossings may be
taken alternately over and under. On this he bases a scheme for the
representation of knots of every kind, and employs it to find all the
distinct forms of knots which have, in their simplest projections, 3,
4, 5, 6 and 7 crossings only. Their numbers are shown to be 1, 1, 2, 4
and 8. The unique knot of three crossings has been already given as
drawn by Listing. The unique knot of four crossings merits a few
words, because its properties lead to a very singular conclusion. It
can be deformed into any of the four forms--figs. 51 and 52 and their
perversions. Knots which can be deformed into their own perversion
Tait calls "amphicheiral" (from the Greek [Greek: amphi], on both
sides, around, [Greek: cheir], hand), and he has shown that there is
at least one knot of this kind for every even number of crossings. He
shows also that "links" (in which two endless physical lines are
linked together) possess a similar property; and he then points out
that there is a third mode of making a complex figure of endless
physical lines, without either knotting or linking. This may be called
"lacing" or "locking." Its nature is obvious from fig. 53, in which it
will be seen that no one of the three lines is knotted, no two are
linked, and yet the three are inseparably fastened together.
The rest of Tait's paper deals chiefly with numerical characteristics
of knots, such as their "knottiness," "beknottedness" and
"knotfulness." He also shows that any knot, however complex, can be
fully represented by three closed plane curves, none of which has
double points and no two of which intersect. It may be stated here
that the notion of beknottedness is founded on a remark of Gauss, who
in 1833 considered the problem of the number of inter-linkings of two
closed circuits, and expressed it by the electro-dynamic measure of
the work required to carry a unit magnetic pole round one of the
interlinked curves, while a unit electric current is kept circulating
in the other. This original suggestion has been developed at
considerable length by Otto Boeddicker (_Erweiterung der Gauss'schen
Theorie der Verschlingungen_ (Stuttgart, 1876). This author treats
also of the connexion of knots with Riemann's surfaces.
[Illustration: FIG. 53.]
[Illustration: FIG. 54.]
It is to be noticed that, although every knot in which the crossings
are alternately over and under is irreducible, the converse is not
generally true. This is obvious at once from fig. 54, which is merely
the three-crossing knot with a doubled string--what Listing calls
"paradromic."
Christian Felix Klein, in the _Mathematische Annalen_, ix. 478, has
proved the remarkable proposition that knots cannot exist in space of
four dimensions. (P. G. T.)
FOOTNOTE:
[1] See P. G. Tait "On Listing's _Topologie_," _Phil. Mag._, xvii.
30.
KNOUT (from the French transliteration of a Russian word of Scandinavian
origin; cf. A.-S. _cnotta_, Eng. knot), the whip used in Russia for
flogging criminals and political offenders. It is said to have been
introduced under Ivan III. (1462-1505). The knout had different forms.
One was a lash of raw hide, 16 in. long, attached to a wooden handle, 9
in. long. The lash ended in a metal ring, to which was attached a second
lash as long, ending also in a ring, to which in turn was attached a few
inches of hard leather ending in a beak-like hook. Another kind
consisted of many thongs of skin plaited and interwoven with wire,
ending in loose wired ends, like the cat-o'-nine tails. The victim was
tied to a post or on a triangle of wood and stripped, receiving the
specified number of strokes on the back. A sentence of 100 or 120 lashes
was equivalent to a death sentence; but few lived to receive so many.
The executioner was usually a criminal who had to pass through a
probation and regular training; being let off his own penalties in
return for his services. Peter the Great is traditionally accused of
knouting his son Alexis to death, and there is little doubt that the boy
was actually beaten till he died, whoever was the executioner. The
emperor Nicholas I. abolished the earlier forms of knout and substituted
the pleti, a three-thonged lash. Ostensibly the knout has been abolished
throughout Russia and reserved for the penal settlements.
KNOWLES, SIR JAMES (1831-1908), English architect and editor, was born
in London in 1831, and was educated, with a view to following his
father's profession, as an architect at University College and in Italy.
His literary tastes also brought him at an early age into the field of
authorship. In 1860 he published _The Story of King Arthur_. In 1867 he
was introduced to Tennyson, whose house, Aldworth, on Blackdown, he
designed; this led to a close friendship, Knowles assisting Tennyson in
business matters, and among other things helping to design scenery for
_The Cup_, when Irving produced that play in 1880. Knowles became
intimate with a number of the most interesting men of the day, and in
1869, with Tennyson's co-operation, he started the Metaphysical Society,
the object of which was to attempt some intellectual _rapprochement_
between religion and science by getting the leading representatives of
faith and unfaith to meet and exchange views.
The members from first to last were as follows: Dean Stanley, Seeley,
Roden Noel, Martineau, W. B. Carpenter, Hinton, Huxley, Pritchard,
Hutton, Ward, Bagehot, Froude, Tennyson, Tyndall, Alfred Barry, Lord
Arthur Russell, Gladstone, Manning, Knowles, Lord Avebury, Dean
Alford, Alex. Grant, Bishop Thirlwall, F. Harrison, Father Dalgairns,
Sir G. Grove, Shadworth Hodgson, H. Sidgwick, E. Lushington, Bishop
Ellicott, Mark Pattison, duke of Argyll, Ruskin, Robert Lowe, Grant
Duff, Greg, A. C. Fraser, Henry Acland, Maurice, Archbishop Thomson,
Mozley, Dean Church, Bishop Magee, Croom Robertson, FitzJames Stephen,
Sylvester, J. C. Bucknill, Andrew Clark, W. K. Clifford, St George
Mivart, M. Boulton, Lord Selborne, John Morley, Leslie Stephen, F.
Pollock, Gasquet, C. B. Upton, William Gull, Robert Clarke, A. J.
Balfour, James Sully and A. Barratt.
Papers were read and discussed at the various meetings on such subjects
as the ultimate grounds of belief in the objective and moral sciences,
the immortality of the soul, &c. An interesting description of one of
the meetings was given by Magee (then bishop of Peterborough) in a
letter of 13th of February 1873:--
"Archbishop Manning in the chair was flanked by two Protestant bishops
right and left; on my right was Hutton, editor of the _Spectator_, an
Arian; then came Father Dalgairns, a very able Roman Catholic priest;
opposite him Lord A. Russell, a Deist; then two Scotch metaphysical
writers, Freethinkers; then Knowles, the very broad editor of the
_Contemporary_; then, dressed as a layman and looking like a country
squire, was Ward, formerly Rev. Ward, and earliest of the perverts to
Rome; then Greg, author of _The Creed of Christendom_, a Deist; then
Froude, the historian, once a deacon in our Church, now a Deist; then
Roden Noel, an actual Atheist and red republican, and looking very
like one! Lastly Ruskin, who read a paper on miracles, which we
discussed for an hour and a half! Nothing could be calmer, fairer, or
even, on the whole, more reverent then the discussion. In my opinion,
we, the Christians, had much the best of it. Dalgairns, the priest,
was very masterly; Manning, clever and precise and weighty; Froude,
very acute, and so was Greg. We only wanted a Jew and a Mahommedan to
make our Religious Museum complete" (_Life_, i. 284).
The last meeting of the society was held on 16th May 1880. Huxley said
that it died "of too much love"; Tennyson, "because after ten years of
strenuous effort no one had succeeded in even defining metaphysics."
According to Dean Stanley, "We all meant the same thing if we only knew
it." The society formed the nucleus of the distinguished list of
contributors who supported Knowles in his capacity as an editor. In 1870
he became editor of the _Contemporary Review_, but left it in 1877 and
founded the _Nineteenth Century_ (to the title of which, in 1901, were
added the words _And After_). Both periodicals became very influential
under him, and formed the type of the new sort of monthly review which
came to occupy the place formerly held by the quarterlies. In 1904 he
received the honour of knighthood. He died at Brighton on the 13th of
February 1908.
KNOWLES, JAMES SHERIDAN (1784-1862), Irish dramatist and actor, was born
in Cork, on the 12th of May 1784. His father was the lexicographer,
James Knowles (1759-1840), cousin-german of Richard Brinsley Sheridan.
The family removed to London in 1793, and at the age of fourteen Knowles
published a ballad entitled _The Welsh Harper_, which, set to music, was
very popular. The boy's talents secured him the friendship of Hazlitt,
who introduced him to Lamb and Coleridge. He served for some time in the
Wiltshire and afterwards in the Tower Hamlets militia, leaving the
service to become pupil of Dr Robert Willan (1757-1812). He obtained the
degree of M.D., and was appointed vaccinator to the Jennerian Society.
Although, however, Dr Willan generously offered him a share in his
practice, he resolved to forsake medicine for the stage, making his
first appearance probably at Bath, and playing Hamlet at the Crow
Theatre, Dublin. At Wexford he married, in October 1809, Maria
Charteris, an actress from the Edinburgh Theatre. In 1810 he wrote
_Leo_, in which Edmund Kean acted with great success; another play,
_Brian Boroihme_, written for the Belfast Theatre in the next year, also
drew crowded houses, but his earnings were so small that he was obliged
to become assistant to his father at the Belfast Academical Institution.
In 1817 he removed from Belfast to Glasgow, where, besides conducting a
flourishing school, he continued to write for the stage. His first
important success was _Caius Gracchus_, produced at Belfast in 1815; and
his _Virginius_, written for Edmund Kean, was first performed in 1820 at
Covent Garden. In _William Tell_ (1825) Macready found one of his
favourite parts. His best-known play, _The Hunchback_, was produced at
Covent Garden in 1832; _The Wife_ was brought out at the same theatre in
1833; and _The Love Chase_ in 1837. In his later years he forsook the
stage for the pulpit, and as a Baptist preacher attracted large
audiences at Exeter Hall and elsewhere. He published two polemical
works--the _Rock of Rome_ and the _Idol Demolished by its own
Priests_--in both of which he combated the special doctrines of the
Roman Catholic Church. Knowles was for some years in the receipt of an
annual pension of L200, bestowed by Sir Robert Peel. He died at Torquay
on the 30th of November 1862.
A full list of the works of Knowles and of the various notices of him
will be found in the _Life_ (1872), privately printed by his son,
Richard Brinsley Knowles (1820-1882), who was well known as a
journalist.
KNOW NOTHING (or AMERICAN) PARTY, in United States history, a political
party of great importance in the decade before 1860. Its principle was
political proscription of naturalized citizens and of Roman Catholics.
Distrust of alien immigrants, because of presumptive attachment to
European institutions, has always been more or less widely diffused, and
race antagonisms have been recurrently of political moment; while
anti-Catholic sentiment went back to colonial sectarianism. These were
the elements of the political "nativism"--i.e. hostility to foreign
influence in politics--of 1830-1860. In these years Irish immigration
became increasingly preponderant; and that of Catholics was even more
so. The geographical segregation and the clannishness of foreign voters
in the cities gave them a power that Whigs and Democrats alike (the
latter more successfully) strove to control, to the great aggravation of
naturalization and election frauds. "No one can deny that ignorant
foreign suffrage had grown to be an evil of immense proportions" (J. F.
Rhodes). In labour disputes, political feuds and social clannishness,
the alien elements--especially the Irish and German--displayed their
power, and at times gave offence by their hostile criticism of American
institutions.[1] In immigration centres like Boston, Philadelphia and
New York, the Catholic Church, very largely foreign in membership and
proclaiming a foreign allegiance of disputed extent, was really "the
symbol and strength of foreign influence" (Scisco); many regarded it as
a transplanted foreign institution, un-American in organization and
ideas.[2] Thus it became involved in politics. The decade 1830-1840 was
marked by anti-Catholic (anti-Irish) riots in various cities and by
party organization of nativists in many places in local elections. Thus
arose the American-Republican (later the Native-American) Party, whose
national career begun practically in 1845, and which in Louisiana in
1841 first received a state organization. New York City in 1844 and
Boston in 1845 were carried by the nativists, but their success was due
to Whig support, which was not continued,[3] and the national
organization was by 1847--in which year it endorsed the Whig nominee for
the presidency--practically dead. Though some Whig leaders had strong
nativist leanings, and though the party secured a few representatives in
Congress, it accomplished little at this time in national politics. In
the early 'fifties nativism was revivified by an unparalleled inflow of
aliens. Catholics, moreover, had combated the Native-Americans
defiantly. In 1852 both Whigs and Democrats were forced to defend their
presidential nominees against charges of anti-Catholic sentiment. In
1853-1854 there was a wide-spread "anti-popery" propaganda and riots
against Catholics in various cities. Meanwhile the Know Nothing Party
had sprung from nativist secret societies, whose relations remain
obscure.[4] Its organization was secret; and hence its name--for a
member, when interrogated, always answered that he knew nothing about
it. Selecting candidates secretly from among those nominated by the
other parties, and giving them no public endorsement, the Know Nothings,
as soon as they gained the balance of power, could shatter at will Whig
and Democratic calculations. Their power was evident by 1852--from which
time, accordingly, "Know Nothingism" is most properly dated. The charges
they brought against naturalization abuses were only too well founded;
and those against election frauds not less so--though, unfortunately,
the Know Nothings themselves followed scandalous election methods in
some cities. The proposed proscription of the foreign-born knew no
exceptions: many wished never to concede to them all the rights of
natives, nor to their children unless educated in the public schools. As
for Catholics, the real animus of Know Nothingism was against
_political_ Romanism; therefore, secondarily, against papal allegiance
and episcopal church administration (in place of administration by lay
trustees, as was earlier common practice in the United States); and,
primarily, against public aid to Catholic schools, and the alleged greed
(i.e. the power and success) of the Irish in politics. The times were
propitious for the success of an aggressive third party; for the Whigs
were broken by the death of Clay and Webster and the crushing defeat of
1852, and both the Whig and Democratic parties were disintegrating on
the slavery issue. But the Know Nothings lacked aggression. In entering
national politics the party abandoned its mysteries, without making
compensatory gains; when it was compelled to publish a platform of
principles, factions arose in its ranks; moreover, to draw recruits the
faster from Whigs and Democrats, it "straddled" the slavery question,
and this, although a temporary success, ultimately meant ruin. In 1854,
however, Know Nothing gains were remarkable.[5] Thereafter the
organization spread like wildfire in the South, in which section there
were almost no aliens, and the Whig dissolution was far advanced. The
Virginia election of May 1855 proved conclusively, however, that Know
Nothingism was no stronger against the Democrats than was the Whig party
it had absorbed; it was the same organization under a new name. In the
North it was even clearer that slavery must be faced. Know Nothing
evasion probably helped the South,[6] but neither Republicans nor
Democrats would endure the evasion; Douglas and Seward, and later
(1855-1856) their parties, denounced it. In the North-West the Know
Nothings were swept into the anti-slavery movement in 1854 without
retaining their organization. In the state campaigns of 1855 professions
were measured to the latitude. The national platform of 1856 (adopted by
a secret grand council), besides including anti-alien and anti-Catholic
planks, offered sops to the North, the South and the "doughfaces" on the
slavery issue. Millard Fillmore was nominated for the presidency. The
anti-slavery delegates of eight Northern states bolted the convention,
and eight months later the Republican wave swept the Know Nothings out
of the North.[7] The national field being thus lost, the state councils
became supreme, and local opportunism fostered variation and weakness.
By 1859 the party was confined almost entirely to the border states. The
Constitutional Union--the "Do Nothing"--Party of 1860 was mainly
composed of Know Nothing remnants.[8] The year 1860 practically marked,
also, the disappearance of the party as a local power.[9]
Except in city politics nativism had no vitality; in state and national
politics it really had no excuse. Race antipathies gave it local
cohesive power in the North; various causes, already mentioned, advanced
it in the South; and as a device to win offices it was of wide-spread
attraction. Its only real contribution to government was the proof that
nativism is not Americanism. Public opinion has never accepted its
estimate of the alien nor of Catholic citizens. Some of its anti-Church
principles, however--as the non-support of denominational schools--have
been generally accepted; others--as the refusal to exclude the
(Protestant) Bible from public schools--have been generally rejected;
others--as the taxation of all Church property--remain disputed.
See L. D. Scisco, _Political Nativism in New York State_ (doctoral
thesis, Columbia University, New York, 1901); L. F. Schmeckebier,
_Know Nothing Party in Maryland_ (Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore,
1899); G. H. Haynes, "A Know Nothing Legislature" (Mass., 1855), in
_American Historical Assoc. Report_, pt. 1 (1896); J. B. McMaster,
_With the Fathers_, including "The Riotous Career of the Know
Nothings" (New York, 1896); H. F. Desmond, _The Know Nothing Party_
(Washington, 1905).
FOOTNOTES:
[1] E.g. for some extraordinary "reform" programmes among German
immigrants see Schmeckebier (as below), pp. 48-50.
[2] "The actual offence of the Catholic Church was its non-conformity
to American methods of church administration and popular education"
(Scisco).
[3] The Whigs bargained aid in New York city for "American" support
in the state, and charged that the latter was not given. Millard
Fillmore attributed the Whig loss of the state (see LIBERTY PARTY) to
the disaffection of Catholic Whigs angered by the alliance with the
nativists.
[4] The Order of United Americans and the Order of the Star Spangled
Banner, established in New York respectively in 1845 and 1850, were
the most important sources of its membership.
[5] This year "American Party" became the official name. Its strength
in Congress was almost thirty-fold that of 1852. It elected
governors, legislatures, or both, in four New England states, and in
Maryland, Kentucky and California; minor officers elsewhere; and
almost won six Southern states.
[6] For it delayed anti-slavery organization in the North, and
presumably discouraged immigration, which was a source of strength to
the North rather than to the South.
[7] They carried only Maryland. The popular vote in the North was
under one-seventh, in the South above three-sevenths, of the total
vote cast.
[8] Note the presidential vote. Seward's loss of the Republican
nomination was partly due to Know Nothing hostility.
[9] Its firmest hold was in Maryland. Its rule in Baltimore
(1854-1860) was marked by disgraceful riots and abuses.
KNOX, HENRY (1750-1806), American general, was born in Boston,
Massachusetts, of Scottish-Irish parentage, on the 25th of July 1750. He
was prominent in the colonial militia and tried to keep the Boston crowd
and the British soldiers from the clash known as the Boston massacre
(1770). In 1771 he opened the "London Book-Store" in Boston. He had read
much of tactics and strategy, joined the American army at the outbreak
of the War of Independence, and fought at Bunker Hill, planned the
defences of the camps of the army before Boston, and brought from Lake
George and border forts much-needed artillery. At Trenton he crossed the
river before the main body, and in the attack rendered such good service
that he was made brigadier-general and chief of artillery in the
Continental army on the following day. He was present at Princeton; was
chiefly responsible for the mistake in attacking the "Chew House" at
Germantown; urged New York as the objective of the campaign of 1778;
served with efficiency at Monmouth and at Yorktown; and after the
surrender of Cornwallis was promoted major-general, and served as a
commissioner on the exchange of prisoners. His services throughout the
war were of great value to the American cause; he was one of General
Washington's most trusted advisers, and he brought the artillery to a
high degree of efficiency. From December 1783 until June 1784 he was the
senior officer of the United States army. In April 1783 he had drafted a
scheme of a society to be formed by the American officers and the French
officers who had served in America during the war, and to be called the
"Cincinnati"; of this society he was the first secretary-general
(1783-1799) and in 1805 became vice-president-general. In 1785-1794 Knox
was secretary of war, being the first man to hold this position after
the organization of the Federal government in 1789. He urged
ineffectually a national militia system, to enroll all citizens over 18
and under 60 in the "advanced corps," the "main corps" or the "reserve,"
and for this and his close friendship with Washington was bitterly
assailed by the Republicans. In 1793 he had begun to build his house,
Montpelier, at Thomaston, Maine, where he speculated unsuccessfully in
the holdings of the Eastern Land Association; and he lived there until
his death on the 25th of October 1806.
See F. S. Drake, _Memoir of General Henry Knox_ (Boston, 1873); and
Noah Brooks, _Henry Knox_ (New York, 1900) in the "American Men of
Energy" series.
KNOX, JOHN (c. 1505-1572), Scottish reformer and historian. Of his early
life very little is certainly known, in spite of the fact that his
_History of the Reformation_ and his private letters, especially the
latter, are often vividly autobiographical. Even the year of his birth,
usually given as 1505, is matter of dispute. Beza, in his _Icones_,
published in 1580, makes it 1515; Sir Peter Young (tutor to James VI. of
Scotland), writing to Beza from Edinburgh in 1579, says 1513; and a
strong case has been made out for holding that the generally accepted
date is due to an error in transcription (see Dr Hay Fleming in the
_Bookman_, Sept. 1905). But Knox seems to have been reticent about his
early life, even to his contemporaries. What is known is that he was a
son of William Knox, who lived in or near the town of Haddington, that
his mother's name was Sinclair, and that his forefathers on both sides
had fought under the banner of the Bothwells. William Knox was "simple,"
not "gentle"--perhaps a prosperous East Lothian peasant. But he sent his
son John to school (no doubt the well-known grammar school of
Haddington), and thereafter to the university, where, like his
contemporary George Buchanan, he sat "at the feet" of John Major. Major
was a native of Haddington, who had recently returned to Scotland from
Paris with a great academical reputation. He retained to the last, as
his _History of Greater Britain_ shows, the repugnance characteristic of
the university of Paris to the tyranny of kings and nobles; but like it,
he was now alarmed by the revolt of Luther, and ceased to urge its
ancient protest against the supremacy of the pope. He exchanged his
"regency" or professorship in Glasgow University for one in that of St
Andrews in 1523. If Knox's college time was later than that date (as it
must have been, if he was born near 1515), it was no doubt spent, as
Beza narrates, at St Andrews, and probably exclusively there. But in
Major's last Glasgow session a "Joannes Knox" (not an uncommon name,
however, at that time in the west of Scotland) matriculated there; and
if this were the future reformer, he may thereafter either have followed
his master to St Andrews or returned from Glasgow straight to
Haddington. But till twenty years after that date his career has not
been again traced. Then he reappears in his native district as a priest
without a university degree (Sir John Knox) and a notary of the diocese
of St Andrews. In 1543 he certainly signed himself "minister of the
sacred altar" under the archbishop of St Andrews. But in 1546 he was
carrying a two-handed sword in defence of the reformer George Wishart,
on the day when the latter was arrested by the archbishop's order. Knox
would have resisted, though the arrest was by his feudal superior, Lord
Bothwell; but Wishart himself commanded his submission, with the words
"One is sufficient for a sacrifice," and was handed over for trial at St
Andrews. And next year the archbishop himself had been murdered, and
Knox was preaching in St Andrews a fully developed Protestantism.
Knox gives us no information as to how this startling change in himself
was brought about. During those twenty years Scotland had been slowly
tending to freedom in religious profession, and to friendship with
England rather than with France. The Scottish hierarchy, by this time
corrupt and even profligate, saw the twofold danger and met it firmly.
James V., the "Commons' King" had put himself into the hands of the
Beatons, who in 1528 burned Patrick Hamilton. On James's death there was
a slight reaction, but the cardinal-archbishop took possession of the
weak regent Arran, and in 1546 burned George Wishart. England had by
this time rejected the pope's supremacy. In Scotland by a recent statute
it was death even to argue against it; and Knox after Wishart's
execution was fleeing from place to place, when, hearing that certain
gentlemen of Fife had slain the cardinal and were in possession of his
castle of St Andrews, he gladly joined himself to them. In St Andrews he
taught "John's Gospel" and a certain catechism--probably that which
Wishart had got from "Helvetia" and translated; but his teaching was
supposed to be private and tutorial and for the benefit of his friends'
"bairns." The men about him however--among them Sir David Lindsay of the
Mount, "Lyon King" and poet--saw his capacity for greater things, and,
on his at first refusing "to run where God had not called him," planned
a solemn appeal to Knox from the pulpit to accept "the public office and
charge of preaching." At the close of it the speaker (in Knox's own
narrative) "said to those that were present, 'Was not this your charge
to me? And do ye not approve this vocation?' They answered, 'It was, and
we approve it.' Whereat the said Johnne, abashed, burst forth in most
abundant tears and withdrew himself to his chamber," remaining there in
"heaviness" for days, until he came forth resolved and prepared. Knox is
probably not wrong in regarding this strange incident as the spring of
his own public life. The St Andrews invitation was really one to danger
and death; John Rough, who spoke it, died a few years after in the
flames at Smithfield. But it was a call which many in that ardent dawn
were ready to accept, and it had now at length found, or made, a
statesman and leader of men. For what to the others was chiefly a
promise of personal salvation became for the indomitable will of Knox an
assurance also of victory, even in this world, over embattled forces of
ancient wrong. It is certain at least that from this date he never
changed and scarcely even varied his public course. And looking back
upon that course afterwards, he records with much complacency how his
earliest St Andrews sermon built up a whole fabric of aggressive
Protestantism upon Puritan theory, so that his startled hearers
muttered, "Others sned (snipped) the branches; this man strikes at the
root."
Meantime the system attacked was safe for other thirteen years. In June
1547 St Andrews yielded to the French fleet, and the prisoners,
including Knox, were thrown into the galleys on the Loire, to remain in
irons and under the lash for at least nineteen months. Released at last
(apparently through the influence of the young English king, Edward
VI.), Knox was appointed one of the licensed preachers of the new faith
for England, and stationed in the great garrison of Berwick, and
afterwards at Newcastle. In 1551 he seems to have been made a royal
chaplain; in 1552 he was certainly offered an English bishopric, which
he declined; and during most of this year he used his influence, as
preacher at court and in London, to make the new English settlement more
Protestant. To him at least is due the Prayer-book rubric which explains
that, when kneeling at the sacrament is ordered, "no adoration is
intended or ought to be done." While in Northumberland Knox had been
betrothed to Margaret Bowes, one of the fifteen children of Richard
Bowes, the captain of Norham Castle. Her mother, Elizabeth, co-heiress
of Aske in Yorkshire, was the earliest of that little band of
women-friends whose correspondence with Knox on religious matters throws
an unexpected light on his discriminating tenderness of heart. But now
Mary Tudor succeeded her brother, and Knox in March 1554 escaped into
five years' exile abroad, leaving Mrs. Bowes a fine treatise on
"Affliction," and sending back to England two editions of a more acrid
"Faithful Admonition" on the crisis there. He first drifted to
Frankfort, where the English congregation divided as English Protestants
have always done, and the party opposed to Knox got rid of him at last
by a complaint to the authorities of treason against the emperor Charles
V. as well as Philip and Mary. At Geneva he found a more congenial
pastorate. Christopher Goodman (c. 1520-1603) and he, with other exiles,
began there the Puritan tradition, and prepared the earlier English
version of the Bible, "the household book of the English-speaking
nations" during the great age of Elizabeth. Here, and afterwards at
Dieppe (where he preached in French), Knox kept in communication with
the other Reformers, studied Greek and Hebrew in the interest of
theology, and having brought his wife and her mother from England in
1555 lived for years a peaceful life.
But even here Knox was preparing for Scotland, and facing the
difficulties of the future, theoretical as well as practical. In his
first year abroad he consulted Calvin and Bullinger as to the right of
the civil "authority" to prescribe religion to his subjects--in
particular, whether the godly should obey "a magistrate who enforces
idolatry and condemns true religion," and whom should they join "in the
case of a religious nobility resisting an idolatrous sovereign." In
August 1555 be visited his native country and found the queen-mother,
Mary of Lorraine, acting as regent in place of the real "sovereign," the
youthful and better-known Mary, now being brought up at the court of
France. Scripture-reading and the new views had spread widely, and the
regent was disposed to wink at this in the case of the "religious
nobility." Knox was accordingly allowed to preach privately for six
months throughout the south of Scotland, and was listened to with an
enthusiasm which made him break out, "O sweet were the death which
should follow such forty days in Edinburgh as here I have had three!"
Before leaving he even addressed a letter to the regent, urging her to
favour the Evangel. She accepted it jocularly as a "pasquil," and Knox
on his departure was condemned and burned in effigy. But he left behind
him a "Wholesome Counsel" to Scottish heads of families, reminding them
that within their own houses they were "bishop and kings," and
recommending the institution of something like the early apostolic
worship in private congregations. Of the Protestant barons Knox, though
in exile, seems to have been henceforward the chief adviser; and before
the end of 1557 they, under the name of the "Lords of the Congregation,"
had entered into the first of the religious "bands" or "covenants"
afterwards famous in Scotland. In 1558 he published his "Appellation" to
the nobles, estates and commonalty against the sentence of death
recently pronounced upon him, and along with it a stirring appeal "To
his beloved brethren, the Commonalty of Scotland," urging that the care
of religion fell to them also as being "God's creatures, created and
formed in His own image," and having a right to defend their conscience
against persecution. About this time, indeed, there was in Scotland a
remarkable approximation to that solution of the toleration difficulty
which later ages have approved; for the regent was understood to favour
the demand of the "congregation" that at least the penal statutes
against heretics "be suspended and abrogated," and "that it be lawful to
us to use ourselves in matters of religion and conscience as we must
answer to God." It was a consummation too ideal for that early date; and
next year the regent, whose daughter was now queen of France and there
mixed up with the persecuting policy of the Guises, forbade the reformed
preaching in Scotland. A rupture ensued at once, and Knox appeared in
Edinburgh on the 2nd of May 1559 "even in the brunt of the battle." He
was promptly "blown to the horn" at the Cross there as an outlaw, but
escaped to Dundee, and commenced public preaching in the chief towns of
central Scotland. At Perth and at St Andrews his sermons were followed
by the destruction of the monasteries, institutions disliked in that age
in Scotland alike by the devout and the profane. But while he notes that
in Perth the act was that of "the rascal multitude," he was glad to
claim in St Andrews the support of the civic "authority"; and indeed the
burghs, which were throughout Europe generally in favour of freedom,
soon became in Scotland a main support of the Reformation. Edinburgh was
still doubtful, and the queen regent held the castle; but a truce
between her and the lords for six months to the 1st of January 1560 was
arranged on the footing that every man there "may have freedom to use
his own conscience to the day foresaid"--a freedom interpreted to let
Knox and his brethren preach publicly and incessantly.
Scotland, like its capital, was divided. Both parties lapsed from the
freedom-of-conscience solution to which each when unsuccessful appealed;
both betook themselves to arms; and the immediate future of the little
kingdom was to be decided by its external alliances. Knox now took a
leading part in the great transaction by which the friendship of France
was exchanged for that of England. He had one serious difficulty. Before
Elizabeth's accession to the English crown, and after the queen mother
in Scotland had disappointed his hopes, he had published a treatise
against what he called "The Monstrous Regiment (regimen or government)
of Women"; though the despotism of that despotic age was scarcely
appreciably worse when it happened to be in female hands. Elizabeth
never forgave him; but Cecil corresponded with the Scottish lords, and
their answer in July 1559, in Knox's handwriting, assures England not
only of their own constancy, but of "a charge and commandment to our
posterity, that the amity and league between you and us, contracted and
begun in Christ Jesus, may by them be kept inviolated for ever." The
league was promised by England; but the army of France was first in the
field, and towards the end of the year drove the forces of the
"congregation" from Leith into Edinburgh, and then out of it in a
midnight rout to Stirling--"that dark and dolorous night," as Knox long
afterwards said, "wherein all ye, my lords, with shame and fear left
this town," and from which only a memorable sermon by their great
preacher roused the despairing multitude into new hope. Their leaders
renounced allegiance to the regent; she ended her not unkindly, but as
Knox calls it "unhappy," life in the castle of Edinburgh; the English
troops, after the usual Elizabethan delays and evasions, joined their
Scots allies; and the French embarked from Leith. On the 6th of July
1560 a treaty was at last made, nominally between Elizabeth and the
queen of France and Scotland; while Cecil instructed his mistress's
plenipotentiaries to agree "that the government of Scotland be granted
to the nation of the land." The revolution was in the meantime complete;
and Knox, who takes credit for having done much to end the enmity with
England which was so long thought necessary for Scotland's independence,
was strangely enough destined, beyond all other men, to leave the stamp
of a more inward independence upon his country and its history.
At the first meeting of the Estates, in August 1560, the Protestants
were invited to present a confession of their faith. Knox and three
others drafted it, and were present when it was offered and read to the
parliament. The statute-book says it was "by the estates of Scotland
ratified and approved, as wholesome and sound doctrine grounded upon the
infallible truth of God's word." The Scots confession, though of course
drawn up independently, is in substantial accord with the others then
springing up in the countries of the Reformation, but is Calvinist
rather than Lutheran. It remained for two centuries the authorized
Scottish creed, though in the first instance the faith of only a
fragment of the people. Yet its approval became the basis for three acts
passed a week later; the first of which, abolishing the pope's authority
and jurisdiction in Scotland, may perhaps have been consistent with
toleration, as the second, rescinding old statutes which had established
and enforced that and other catholic tenets, undoubtedly was. But the
third, inflicting heavy penalties, with death on a third conviction, on
those who should celebrate mass or even be present at it, showed that
the reformer and his friends had crossed the line, and that their
position could no longer be described as, in Knox's words, "requiring
nothing but the liberty of conscience, and our religion and fact to be
tried by the word of God." He was prepared indeed to fall back upon
that, in the event of the Estates at any time refusing sanction to
either church or creed, as their sovereign in Paris promptly refused it.
But the parliament of 1560 gave no express sanction to the Reformed
Church, and Knox did not wait until it should do so. Already "in our
towns and places reformed," as the Confession puts it, there were local
or "particular kirks," and these grew and spread and were provincially
united, till, in the last month of this memorable year, the first
General Assembly of their representatives met, and became the "universal
kirk," or "the whole church convened." It had before it the plan for
church government and maintenance, drafted in August at the same time
with the Confession, under the name of _The Book of Discipline_, and by
the same framers. Knox was even more clearly in this case the chief
author, and he had by this time come to desire a much more rigid
Presbyterianism than he had sketched in his "Wholesome Counsel" of 1555.
In planning it he seems to have used his acquaintance with the
"Ordonnances" of the Genevan Church under Calvin, and with the "Forma"
of the German Church in London under John Laski (or A. Lasco). Starting
with "truth" contained in Scripture as the church's foundation, and the
Word and Sacraments as means of building it up, it provides ministers
and elders to be elected by the congregations, with a subordinate class
of "readers," and by their means sermons and prayers each "Sunday" in
every parish. In large towns these were to be also on other days, with a
weekly meeting for conference or "prophesying." The "plantation" of new
churches is to go on everywhere under the guidance of higher church
officers called superintendents. All are to help their brethren, "for no
man may be permitted to live as best pleaseth him within the Church of
God." And above all things the young and the ignorant are to be
instructed, the former by a regular gradation or ladder of parish or
elementary schools, secondary schools and universities. Even the poor
were to be fed by the Church's hands; and behind its moral influence,
and a discipline over both poor and rich, was to be not only the
coercive authority of the civil power but its money. Knox had from the
first proclaimed that "the teinds (tithes of yearly fruits) by God's law
do not appertain of necessity to the kirkmen." And this book now demands
that out of them "must not only the ministers be sustained, but also the
poor and schools." But Knox broadens his plan so as to claim also the
property which had been really gifted to the Church by princes and
nobles--given by them indeed, as he held, without any moral right and to
the injury of the people, yet so as to be Church patrimony. From all
such property, whether land or the sheaves and fruits of land, and also
from the personal property of burghers in the towns, Knox now held that
the state should authorize the kirk to claim the salaries of the
ministers, and the salaries of teachers in the schools and universities,
but above all, the relief of the poor--not only of the absolutely
"indigent" but of "your poor brethren, the labourers and handworkers of
the ground." For the danger now was that some gentlemen were already
cruel in exactions of their tenants, "requiring of them whatever before
they paid to the Church, so that the papistical tyranny shall only be
changed into the tyranny of the lords or of the laird." The danger
foreseen alike to the new Church, and to the commonalty and poor, began
to be fulfilled a month later, when the lords, some of whom had already
acquired, as others were about to acquire, much of the Church property,
declined to make any of it over for Knox's magnificent scheme. It was,
they said, "a devout imagination." Seven years afterwards, however, when
the contest with the Crown was ended, the kirk was expressly
acknowledged as the only Church in Scotland, and jurisdiction given it
over all who should attempt to be outsiders; while the preaching of the
Evangel and the planting of congregations went on in all the accessible
parts of Scotland. Gradually too stipends for most Scottish parishes
were assigned to the ministers out of the yearly _teinds_; and the
Church received--what it retained even down to recent times--the
administration both of the public schools and of the Poor Law of
Scotland. But the victorious rush of 1560 was already somewhat stayed,
and the very next year raised the question whether the transfer of
intolerance to the side of the new faith was as wise as it had at first
seemed to be successful.
Mary Queen of Scots had been for a short time also queen of France, and
in 1561 returned to her native land, a young widow on whom the eyes of
Europe were fixed. Knox's objections to the "regiment of women" were
theoretical, and in the present case he hoped at first for the best,
favouring rather his queen's marriage with the heir of the house of
Hamilton. Mary had put herself into the hands of her half-brother, Lord
James Stuart afterwards earl of Moray, the only man who could perhaps
have pulled her through. A proclamation now continued the "state of
religion" begun the previous year; but mass was celebrated in the
queen's household, and Lord James himself defended it with his sword
against Protestant intrusion. Knox publicly protested; and Moray, who
probably understood and liked both parties, brought the preacher to the
presence of his queen. There is nothing revealed to us by "the broad
clear light of that wonderful book,"[1] _The History of the Reformation
in Scotland_, more remarkable than the four Dialogues or interviews,
which, though recorded only by Knox, bear the strongest stamp of truth,
and do almost more justice to his opponent than to himself. Mary took
the aggressive and very soon raised the real question. "Ye have taught
the people to receive another religion than their princes can allow; and
how can that doctrine be of God, seeing that God commands subjects to
obey their princes?" The point was made keener by the fact that Knox's
own Confession of Faith (like all those of that age, in which an
unbalanced monarchical power culminated) had held kings to be appointed
"for maintenance of the true religion," and suppression of the false;
and the reformer now fell back on his more fundamental principle, that
"right religion took neither original nor authority from worldly
princes, but from the Eternal God alone." All through this dialogue too,
as in another at Lochleven two years afterwards, Knox was driven to
axioms, not of religion but of constitutionalism, which Buchanan and he
may have learned from their teacher Major, but which were not to be
accepted till a later age. "'Think ye,' quoth she, 'that subjects,
having power, may resist their princes?' 'If their princes exceed their
bounds, Madam, they may be resisted and even deposed,'" Knox replied.
But these dialectics, creditable to both parties, had little effect upon
the general situation. Knox had gone too far in intolerance, and Moray
and Maitland of Lethington gradually withdrew their support. The court
and parliament, guided by them, declined to press the queen or to pass
the Book of Discipline; and meantime the negotiations as to the queen's
marriage with a Spanish, a French or an Austrian prince revealed the
real difficulty and peril of the situation. Her marriage to a great
Catholic prince would be ruinous to Scotland, probably also to England,
and perhaps to all Protestantism. Knox had already by letter formally
broken with the earl of Moray, "committing you to your own wit, and to
the conducting of those who better please you"; and now, in one of his
greatest sermons before the assembled lords, he drove at the heart of
the situation--the risk of a Catholic marriage. The queen sent for him
for the last time and burst into passionate tears as she asked, "What
have you to do with my marriage? Or what are you within this
commonwealth?" "A subject born within the same," was the answer of the
son of the East Lothian peasant; and the Scottish nobility, while
thinking him overbold, refused to find him guilty of any crime, even
when, later on, he had "convocated the lieges" to Edinburgh to meet a
crown prosecution. In 1564 a change came. Mary had wearied of her
guiding statesmen, Moray and the more pliant Maitland; the Italian
secretary David Rizzio, through whom she had corresponded with the pope,
now more and more usurped their place; and a weak fancy for her handsome
cousin, Henry Darnley, brought about a sudden marriage in 1565 and swept
the opposing Protestant lords into exile. Darnley, though a Catholic,
thought it well to go to Knox's preaching; but was so unfortunate as to
hear a very long sermon, with allusions not only to "babes and women" as
rulers, but to Ahab who did not control his strong-minded wife. Mary and
the lords still in her council ordered Knox not to preach while she was
in Edinburgh, and he was absent or silent during the weeks in which the
queen's growing distaste for her husband, and advancement of Rizzio over
the nobility remaining in Edinburgh, brought about the conspiracy by
Darnley, Morton and Ruthven. Knox does not seem to have known beforehand
of Rizzio's "slaughter," which had been intended to be a semi-judicial
act; but soon after it he records that "that vile knave Davie was justly
punished, for abusing of the commonwealth, and for other villainy which
we list not to express." The immediate effect however of what Knox thus
approved was to bring his cause to its lowest ebb, and on the very day
when Mary rode from Holyrood to her army, he sat down and penned the
prayer, "Lord Jesus, put an end to this my miserable life, for justice
and truth are not to be found among the sons of men!" He added a short
autobiographic fragment, whose mingled self-abasement and exultation are
not unworthy of its striking title--"John Knox, with deliberate mind, to
his God." During the rest of the year he was hidden in Ayrshire or
elsewhere, and throughout 1566 he was forbidden to preach when the court
was in Edinburgh. But he was influential at the December Assembly in the
capital where a greater tragedy was now preparing, for Mary's
infatuation for Bothwell was visible to all. At the Assembly's request,
however, Knox undertook a long visit to England, where his two sons by
his first wife were being educated, and were afterwards to be Fellows of
St John's, Cambridge, the younger becoming a parish clergyman. It was
thus during the reformer's absence that the murder of Darnley, the
abduction and subsequent marriage of Mary, the flight of Bothwell, and
the imprisonment in Lochleven of the queen, unrolled themselves before
the eyes of Scotland. Knox returned in time to guide the Assembly which
sat on the 25th of June 1567 in dealing with this unparalleled crisis,
and to wind up the revolution by preaching at Stirling on the 9th of
July 1567, after Mary's abdication, at the coronation of the infant
king.
His main work was now really done; for the parliament of 1567 made Moray
regent, and Knox was only too glad to have his old friend back in power,
though they seem to have differed on the question whether the queen
should be allowed to pass into retirement without trial for her
husband's death, as they had differed all along on the question of
tolerating her private religion. Knox's victory had not come too early,
for his physical strength soon began to fail. But Mary's escape in 1568
resulted only in her defeat at Langside, and in a long imprisonment and
death in England. In Scotland the regent's assassination in 1570 opened
a miserable civil war, but it made no permanent change. The massacre of
St Bartholomew rather united English and Scottish Protestantism; and
Knox in St Giles' pulpit, challenging the French ambassador to report
his words, denounced God's vengeance on the crowned murderer and his
posterity. When open war broke out between Edinburgh Castle, held by
Mary's friends, and the town, held for her son, both parties agreed that
the reformer, who had already had a stroke of paralysis, should remove
to St Andrews. While there he wrote his will, and published his last
book, in the preface to which he says, "I heartily take my good-night of
the faithful of both realms ... for as the world is weary of me, so am I
of it." And when he now merely signs his name, it is "John Knox, with my
dead hand and glad heart." In the autumn of 1572 he returned to
Edinburgh to die, probably in the picturesque house in the "throat of
the Bow," which for generations has been called by his name. With him
were his wife and three young daughters; for though he had lost Margaret
Bowes at the close of his year of triumph 1560, he had four years after
married Margaret Stewart, a daughter of his friend Lord Ochiltree. She
was a bride of only seventeen and was related to the royal house; yet,
as his Catholic biographer put it, "by sorcery and witchcraft he did so
allure that poor gentlewoman that she could not live without him." But
lords, ladies and burghers also crowded around his bed, and his
colleague and his servant have severally transmitted to us the words in
which his weakness daily strove with pain, rising on the day before his
death into a solemn exultation--yet characteristically, not so much on
his own account as for "the troubled Church of God." He died on the 24th
of November 1572, and at his funeral in St Giles' Churchyard the new
Regent Morton, speaking under the hostile guns of the castle, expressed
the first surprise of those around as they looked back on that stormy
life, that one who had "neither flattered nor feared any flesh" had now
"ended his days in peace and honour." Knox himself had a short time
before put in writing a larger claim for the historic future, "What I
have been to my country, though this unthankful age will not know, yet
the ages to come will be compelled to bear witness to the truth."
Knox was a rather small man, with a well-knit body; he had a powerful
face, with dark blue eyes under a ridge of eyebrow, high cheek-bones,
and a long black beard which latterly turned grey. This description,
taken from a letter in 1579 by his junior contemporary Sir Peter Young,
is very like Beza's fine engraving of him in the _Icones_--an engraving
probably founded on a portrait which was to be sent by Young to Beza
along with the letter. The portrait, which was unfortunately adopted by
Carlyle, has neither pedigree nor probability. After his two years in
the French galleys, if not before, Knox suffered permanently from gravel
and dyspepsia, and he confesses that his nature "was for the most part
oppressed with melancholy." Yet he was always a hard worker; as sole
minister of Edinburgh studying for two sermons on Sunday and three
during the week, besides having innumerable cares of churches at home
and abroad. He was undoubtedly sincere in his religious faith, and most
disinterested in his devotion to it and to the good of his countrymen.
But like too many of them, he was self-conscious, self-willed and
dogmatic; and his transformation in middle life, while it immensely
enriched his sympathies as well as his energies, left him unable to put
himself in the place of those who retained the views which he had
himself held. All his training too, university, priestly and in foreign
parts, tended to make him logical overmuch. But this was mitigated by a
strong sense of humour (not always sarcastic, though sometimes savagely
so), and by tenderness, best seen in his epistolary friendships with
women; and it was quite overborne by an instinct and passion for great
practical affairs. Hence it was that Knox as a statesman so often struck
successfully at the centre of the complex motives of his time, leaving
it to later critics to reconcile his theories of action. But hence too
he more than once took doubtful shortcuts to some of his most important
ends; giving the ministry within the new Church more power over laymen
than Protestant principles would suggest, and binding the masses outside
who were not members of it, equally with their countrymen who were, to
join in its worship, submit to its jurisdiction, and contribute to its
support. And hence also his style (which contemporaries called
anglicized and modern), though it occasionally rises into liturgical
beauty, and often flashes into vivid historical portraiture, is
generally kept close to the harsh necessities of the few years in which
he had to work for the future. That work was indeed chiefly done by the
living voice; and in speaking, this "one man," as Elizabeth's very
critical ambassador wrote from Edinburgh, was "able in one hour to put
more life in us than five hundred trumpets continually blustering in our
ears." But even his eloquence was constraining and constructive--a
personal call for immediate and universal co-operation; and that
personal influence survives to this day in the institutions of his
people, and perhaps still more in their character. His countrymen indeed
have always believed that to Knox more than to any other man Scotland
owes her political and religious individuality. And since his 19th
century biography by Dr Thomas McCrie, or at least since his recognition
in the following generation by Thomas Carlyle, the same view has taken
its place in literature.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.--Knox's books, pamphlets, public documents and letters
are collected into the great edition in six volumes of _Knox's Works_,
by David Laing (Edinburgh, 1846-1864), with introductions, appendices
and notes. Of his books the chief are the following: 1.--_The History
of the Reformation in Scotland_, incorporating the Confession and the
Book of Discipline. Begun by Knox as a party manifesto in 1560, it was
continued and revised by himself in 1566 as so to form four books,
with a fifth book apparently written after his death from materials
left by him. It was partly printed in London in 1586 by Vautrollier,
but was suppressed by authority and published by David Buchanan, with
a _Life_, in 1664. 2.--_On Predestination: an Answer to an Anabaptist_
(London, 1591). 3.--_On Prayer_ (1554). 4.--_On Affliction_ (1556).
5.--_Epistles_, and _Admonition_, both to English Brethren in 1554.
6.--_The First Blast of the Trumpet against the Monstrous Regiment of
Women_ (1558). 7.--_An Answer to a Scottish Jesuit_ (1572).
Knox's life is more or less touched upon by all the Scottish histories
and Church histories which include his period, as well as in the mass
of literature as to Queen Mary. Dr Laing's edition of the _Works_
contains important biographical material. But among the many express
biographies two especially should be consulted--those by Thomas McCrie
(Edinburgh, 1811; revised and enlarged in 1813, the later editions
containing valuable notes by the author); and by P. Hume Brown
(Edinburgh, 1895). _John Knox and the Reformation_, by Andrew Lang
(London, 1905), is not so much a biography as a collection of
materials, bearing upon many parts of the life, but nearly all on the
unfavourable side. (A. T. I.)
FOOTNOTE:
[1] John Hill Burton (_Hist. of Scotland_, iii. 339). Mr Burton's
view (differing from that of Professor Hume Brown) was that the
dialogues--the earlier of them at least--must have been spoken in the
French tongue, in which Knox had recently preached for a year.
KNOX, PHILANDER CHASE (1853- ), American lawyer and political leader,
was born in Brownsville, Pennsylvania, on the 4th of May 1853. He
graduated from Mount Union College (Ohio) in 1872, and was admitted to
the Pennsylvania bar in 1875. He settled in Pittsburg, where he
continued in private practice, with the exception of two years' service
(1876-1877) as assistant United States district attorney, acquiring a
large practice as a corporation lawyer. In April 1901 he became
attorney-general of the United States in the cabinet of President
McKinley, and retained this position after the accession of President
Roosevelt until June 1904, when he was appointed by Governor Pennypacker
of Pennsylvania to fill the unexpired term of Matthew S. Quay in the
United States Senate; in 1905 he was re-elected to the Senate for the
full term. In March 1909 he became secretary of state in the cabinet of
President Taft.
KNOXVILLE, a city and the county-seat of Knox county, Tennessee, U.S.A.,
in the E. part of the state, 160 m. E. of Nashville, and about 190 m.
S.E. of Louisville, Kentucky, on the right bank of the Tennessee river,
4 m. below the point where it is formed by the junction of the French
Broad and Holston Rivers. Pop. (1880), 9693; (1890), 22,535; (1900),
32,637, of whom 7359 were negroes and 895 were foreign-born; (1910
census), 36,346. It is served by the main line and by branches of the
Louisville & Nashville and the Southern railways, by the Knoxville &
Bristol railway (Morristown to Knoxville, 58 m.), by the short Knoxville
& Augusta railroad (Knoxville to Walland, 26 m.), and by passenger and
freight steamboat lines on the Tennessee river, which is here navigable
for the greater part of the year. A steel and concrete street-car bridge
crosses the Tennessee at Knoxville. Knoxville is picturesquely situated
at an elevation of from 850 to 1000 ft. in the valley between the Smoky
Mountains and the Cumberland Mountains, and is one of the healthiest
cities in the United States. There are several beautiful parks, of which
Chilhowie and Fountain City are the largest, and among the public
buildings are a city-hall, Federal building, court-house, the Knoxville
general hospital, the Lincoln memorial hospital, the Margaret McClung
industrial home, a Young Men's Christian Association building and the
Lawson-McGhee public library. A monument to John Sevier stands on the
site of the blockhouse first built there. Knoxville is the seat of
Knoxville College (United Presbyterian, 1875) for negroes, East
Tennessee institute, a secondary school for girls, the Baker-Himel
school for boys, Tennessee Medical College (1889), two commercial
schools and the university of Tennessee. The last, a state
co-educational institution, was chartered as Blount College in 1794 and
as East Tennessee College in 1807, but not opened until 1820--the
present name was adopted in 1879. It had in 1907-1908 106 instructors,
755 students (536 in academic departments), and a library of 25,000
volumes. With the university is combined the state college of
agriculture and engineering; and a large summer school for teachers is
maintained. At Knoxville are the Eastern State insane asylum, state
asylums for the deaf and dumb (for both white and negro), and a national
cemetery in which more than 3200 soldiers are buried. Knoxville is an
important commercial and industrial centre and does a large jobbing
business. It is near hardwood forests and is an important market for
hardwood mantels. Coal-mines in the vicinity produce more than 2,000,000
tons annually, and neighbouring quarries furnish the famous Tennessee
marble, which is largely exported. Excellent building and pottery clays
are found near Knoxville. Among the city's industrial establishments are
flour and grist mills, cotton and woollen mills, furniture, desk, office
supplies and sash, door, and blind factories, meat-packing
establishments, clothing factories, iron, steel and boiler works,
foundries and machine shops, stove works and brick and cement works. The
value of the factory product increased from $6,201,840 in 1900 to
$12,432,880 in 1905, or 100.5%, in 1905 the value of the flour and grist
mill products alone being $2,048,509. Just outside the city the Southern
railway maintains large car and repair shops. Knoxville was settled in
1786 by James White (1737-1815), a North Carolina pioneer, and was first
known as "White's Fort"; it was laid out as a town in 1791, and named in
honour of General Henry Knox, then secretary of war in Washington's
cabinet. In 1791 the _Knoxville Gazette_, the first newspaper in
Tennessee (the early issue, printed at Rogersville) began publication.
From 1792 to 1796 Knoxville was the capital of the "Territory South of
the Ohio," and until 1811 and again in 1817 it was the capital of the
state. In 1796 the convention which framed the constitution of the new
state of Tennessee met here, and here later in the same year the first
state legislature was convened. Knoxville was chartered as a city in
1815. In its early years it was several times attacked by the Indians,
but was never captured. During the Civil War there was considerable
Union sentiment in East Tennessee, and in the summer of 1863 the Federal
authorities determined to take possession of Knoxville as well as
Chattanooga and to interrupt railway communications between the
Confederates of the East and West through this region. As the
Confederates had erected only slight defences for the protection of the
city, Burnside, with about 12,000 men, easily gained possession on the
2nd of September 1863. Fortifications were immediately begun for its
defence, and on the 4th of November, Bragg, thinking his position at
Chattanooga impregnable against Grant, Sherman, Thomas and Hooker,
despatched a force of 20,000 men under Longstreet to engage Burnside.
Longstreet arrived in the vicinity on the 16th of November, and on the
following day began a siege, which was continued with numerous assaults
until the 28th, when a desperate but unsuccessful attack was made on
Fort Sanders, and upon the approach of a relief force under Sherman,
Longstreet withdrew on the night of the 4th of December. The Confederate
losses during the siege were 182 killed, 768 wounded and 192 captured or
missing; the Union losses were 92 killed, 394 wounded and 207 captured
or missing. West Knoxville (incorporated in 1888) and North Knoxville
(incorporated in 1889) were annexed to Knoxville in 1898.
See the sketch by Joshua W. Caldwell in _Historic Towns of the
Southern States_, edited by L. P. Powell (New York, 1900); and W.
Rule, G. F. Mellen and J. Wooldridge, _Standard History of Knoxville_
(Chicago, 1900).
KNUCKLE (apparently the diminutive of a word for "bone," found in Ger.
_Knochen_), the joint of a finger, which, when the hand is shut, is
brought into prominence. In mechanical use the word is applied to the
round projecting part of a hinge through which the pin is run, and in
ship-building to an acute angle on some of the timbers. A
"knuckle-duster," said to have originally come from the criminal slang
of the United States, is a brass or metal instrument fitting on to the
hand across the knuckles, with projecting studs and used for inflicting
a brutal blow.
KNUCKLEBONES (HUCKLEBONES, DIBS, JACKSTONES, CHUCK-STONES, FIVE-STONES),
a game of very ancient origin, played with five small objects,
originally the knucklebones of a sheep, which are thrown up and caught
in various ways. Modern "knucklebones" consist of six points, or knobs,
proceeding from a common base, and are usually of metal. The winner is
he who first completes successfully a prescribed series of throws,
which, while of the same general character, differ widely in detail. The
simplest consists in tossing up one stone, the _jack_, and picking up
one or more from the table while it is in the air; and so on until all
five stones have been picked up. Another consists in tossing up first
one stone, then two, then three and so on, and catching them on the back
of the hand. Different throws have received distinctive names, such as
"riding the elephant," "peas in the pod," and "horses in the stable."
The origin of knucklebones is closely connected with that of dice, of
which it is probably a primitive form, and is doubtless Asiatic.
Sophocles, in a fragment, ascribed the invention of draughts and
knucklebones (_astragaloi_) to Palamedes, who taught them to his Greek
countrymen during the Trojan War. Both the _Iliad_ and the _Odyssey_
contain allusions to games similar in character to knucklebones, and the
Palamedes tradition, as flattering to the national pride, was generally
accepted throughout Greece, as is indicated by numerous literary and
plastic evidences. Thus Pausanias (_Corinth_ xx.) mentions a temple of
Fortune in which Palamedes made an offering of his newly invented game.
According to a still more ancient tradition, Zeus, perceiving that
Ganymede longed for his playmates upon Mount Ida, gave him Eros for a
companion and golden dibs with which to play, and even condescended
sometimes to join in the game (Apollonius). It is significant, however,
that both Herodotus and Plato ascribe to the game a foreign origin.
Plato (_Phaedrus_) names the Egyptian god Theuth as its inventor, while
Herodotus relates that the Lydians, during a period of famine in the
days of King Atys, originated this game and indeed almost all other
games except chess. There were two methods of playing in ancient times.
The first, and probably the primitive method, consisted in tossing up
and catching the bones on the back of the hand, very much as the game
is played to-day. In the Museum of Naples may be seen a painting
excavated at Pompeii, which represents the goddesses Latona, Niobe,
Phoebe, Aglaia and Hileaera, the last two being engaged in playing at
Knucklebones (see GREEK ART, fig. 42). According to an epigram of
Asclepiodotus, astragals were given as prizes to school-children, and we
are reminded of Plutarch's anecdote of the youthful Alcibiades, who,
when a teamster threatened to drive over some of his knucklebones that
had fallen into the wagon-ruts, boldly threw himself in front of the
advancing team. This simple form of the game was generally played only
by women and children, and was called _pentalitha_ or five-stones. There
were several varieties of it besides the usual toss and catch, one being
called _tropa_, or hole-game, the object having been to toss the bones
into a hole in the earth. Another was the simple and primitive game of
"odd or even."
The second, probably derivative, form of the game was one of pure
chance, the stones being thrown upon a table, either with the hand or
from a cup, and the values of the sides upon which they fell counted. In
this game the shape of the pastern-bones used for astralagoi, as well as
for the _tali_ of the Romans, with whom knucklebones was also popular,
determined the manner of counting. The pastern-bone of a sheep, goat or
calf has, besides two rounded ends upon which it cannot stand, two broad
and two narrow sides, one of each pair being concave and one convex. The
convex narrow side, called _chios_ or "the dog" counted 1; the convex
broad side 3; the concave broad side 4; and the concave narrow side 6.
Four astragals were used and 35 different scores were possible at a
single throw, many receiving distinctive names such as Aphrodite, Midas,
Solon, Alexander, and, among the Romans, Venus, King, Vulture, &c. The
highest throw in Greece, counting 40, was the Euripides, and was
probably a combination throw, since more than four sixes could not be
thrown at one time. The lowest throw, both in Greece and Rome, was the
Dog.
See _Cassell's Book of Sports and Pastimes_ (London, 1896); _Games and
Songs of American Children_, by W. W. Newell (1893); and _The Young
Folks' Cyclopaedia of Games and Sports_ (New York, 1899), for the
modern children's game. For the history see _Les Jeux des Anciens_, by
L. Becq de Fouquieres (Paris, 1869); _Das Knochelspiel der Alten_, by
Bolle (Wismar, 1886); _Die Spiele der Griechen und Romer_, by W.
Richter (Leipzig, 1887).
KNUTSFORD, a market town in the Knutsford parliamentary division of
Cheshire, England; on the London & North-Western and Great Central
railways, 24 m. E.N.E. of Chester, on the Cheshire Lines and London &
North-Western railway. Pop. of urban district (1901), 5172. It is
pleasantly situated on an elevated ridge, with the fine domains of
Tatton Park and Tabley respectively north and west of it. The meres in
these domains are especially picturesque. Knutsford is noted in modern
times as the scene of Mrs Gaskell's novel _Cranford_. Among several
ancient houses the most interesting are a cottage with the date 1411
carved on its woodwork, and the Rose and Crown tavern, dated 1641. A
number of curious old customs linger in the town, such as the practice
of working designs in coloured sand, when a wedding takes place, before
the bride's house. In what is probably the oldest Unitarian graveyard in
the kingdom Mrs Gaskell lies buried; and in a churchyard a mile from the
town stood the ancient church, which, though partially rebuilt in the
time of Henry VIII., fell into ruin in 1741. The church of St John,
built in 1744, and enlarged in 1879, was supplemented, in 1880, by St
Cross Church, in Perpendicular style. The town has a grammar school,
founded before the reign of Henry VIII., but reorganized in 1885. Lord
Egerton built the Egerton schools in 1893. The industries comprise
cotton, worsted and leather manufactures; but Knutsford is mainly a
residential town, as many Manchester merchants have settled here,
attracted by the fine climate and surroundings. Knutsford was the
birthplace of Sir Henry Holland, Physician Extraordinary to Queen
Victoria (1788-1873); and his son, the second Sir Henry, who was
secretary of state for the colonies (1887-1892), was raised to the
peerage in 1888 with the title of Baron Knutsford.
The name Knutsford (_Cunetesford_, _Knotesford_) is said to signify
Cnut's ford, but there is no evidence of a settlement here previous to
Domesday. In 1086 Erthebrand held Knutsford immediately of William
FitzNigel, baron of Halton, who was himself a mesne lord of Hugh Lupus
earl of Chester. In 1292 William de Tabley, lord of both Over and Nether
Knutsford, granted free burgage to his burgesses in both Knutsfords.
This charter is the only one which gives Knutsford a claim to the title
of borough. It provided that the burgesses might elect a bailiff from
amongst themselves every year. The office however carried little real
power with it, and soon lapsed. In the same year as the charter to
Knutsford the king granted to William de Tabley a market every Saturday
at Nether Knutsford, and a three days' fair at the Feast of St Peter and
St Paul. When this charter was confirmed by Edward III. another market
(Friday) and another three days' fair (Feast of St Simon and St Jude)
were added. The Friday market was certainly dropped by 1592, if it was
ever held. May-day revels are still kept up here and attract large
crowds from the neighbourhood. A silk mill was erected here in 1770, and
there was also an attempt to foster the cotton trade, but the lack of
means of communication made the undertaking impossible.
See Henry Green, _History of Knutsford_ (1859).
KOALA (_Phascolarctus cinereus_), a stoutly built marsupial, of the
family _Phascolmyidae_, which also contains the wombats. This animal,
which inhabits the south-eastern parts of the Australian continent, is
about 2 ft. in length, and of an ash-grey colour, an excellent climber,
residing generally in lofty eucalyptus trees, the buds and tender shoots
of which form its principal food, though occasionally it descends to the
ground in the night in search of roots. From its shape the koala is
called by the colonists the "native bear"; the term "native sloth" being
also applied to it, from its arboreal habits and slow deliberate
movements. The flesh is highly prized by the natives, and is palatable
to Europeans. The skins are largely imported into England, for the
manufacture of articles in which a cheap and durable fur is required.
KOBDO, a town of the Chinese Empire, in north-west Mongolia, at the
northern foot of the Mongolian Altai, on the right bank of the Buyantu
River, 13 m. from its entrance into Lake Khara-usu; 500 m. E.S.E. of
Biysk (Russian), and 470 m. W. of Ulyasutai. It is situated amidst a
dreary plain, and consists of a fortress, the residence of the governor
of the Kobdo district, and a small trading town, chiefly peopled by
Chinese and a few Mongols. It is, however, an important centre for trade
between the cattle-breeding nomads and Peking. It was founded by the
Chinese in 1731, and pillaged by the Mussulmans in 1872. The district of
Kobdo occupies the north-western corner of Mongolia, and is peopled
chiefly by Mongols, and also by Kirghiz and a few Soyotes, Uryankhes and
Khotons. It is governed by a Chinese commissioner, who has under him a
special Mongol functionary (Mongol, _dzurgan_). The chief monastery is
at Ulangom. Considerable numbers of sheep (about 1,000,000), sheepskins,
sheep and camel wool are exported to China, while Chinese cottons, brick
tea and various small goods are imported. Leather, velveteen, cotton,
iron and copper goods boxes, &c., are imported from Russia in exchange
for cattle, furs and wool. The absence of a cart road to Biysk hinders
the development of this trade.
KOBELL, WOLFGANG XAVER FRANZ, BARON VON (1803-1882), German
mineralogist, was born at Munich on the 19th of July 1803. He studied
chemistry and mineralogy at Landshut (1820-1823), and in 1826 became
professor of mineralogy in the university of Munich. He introduced some
new methods of mineral analyses, and in 1835 invented the stauroscope
for the study of the optical properties of crystals. He contributed
numerous papers to scientific journals, and described many new minerals.
He died at Munich on the 11th of November, 1882.
PUBLICATIONS.--_Charakteristik der Mineralien_ (2 vols. 1830-1831);
_Tafeln zur Bestimmung der Mineralien_ &c. (1833; and later editions,
ed. 12, by K. Oebbeke, 1884); _Grundzuge der Mineralogie_ (1838);
_Geschichte der Mineralogie von 1650-1860_ (1864).
KOCH, ROBERT (1843-1910), German bacteriologist, was born at Klausthal,
Hanover, on the 11th of December 1843. He studied medicine at Gottingen,
and it was while he was practising as a physician at Wollstein that he
began those bacteriological researches that made his name famous. In
1876 he obtained a pure culture of the bacillus of anthrax, announcing a
method of preventive inoculation against that disease seven years later.
He became a member of the Sanitary Commission at Berlin and a professor
at the School of Medicine in 1880, and five years later he was appointed
to a chair in Berlin University and director of the Institute of Health.
In 1882, largely as the result of the improved methods of
bacteriological investigation he was able to elaborate, he discovered
the bacillus of tuberculosis; and in the following year, having been
sent on an official mission to Egypt and India to study the aetiology of
Asiatic cholera, he identified the comma bacillus as the specific
organism of that malady. In 1890 great hopes were aroused by the
announcement that in tuberculin he had prepared an agent which exercised
an inimical influence on the growth of the tubercle bacillus, but the
expectations that were formed of it as a remedy for consumption were not
fulfilled, though it came into considerable vogue as a means of
diagnosing the existence of tuberculosis in animals intended for food.
At the Congress on Tuberculosis held in London in 1901 he maintained
that tuberculosis in man and in cattle is not the same disease, the
practical inference being that the danger to men of infection from milk
and meat is less than from other human subjects suffering from the
disease. This statement, however, was not regarded as properly proved,
and one of its results was the appointment of a British Royal Commission
to study the question. Dr Koch also investigated the nature of
rinderpest in South Africa in 1896, and found means of combating the
disease. In 1897 he went to Bombay at the head of a commission formed to
investigate the bubonic plague, and he subsequently undertook extensive
travels in pursuit of his studies on the origin and treatment of
malaria. He was summoned to South Africa a second time in 1903 to give
expert advice on other cattle diseases, and on his return was elected a
member of the Berlin Academy of Sciences. In 1906-1907 he spent eighteen
months in East Africa, investigating sleeping-sickness. He died at
Baden-Baden of heart-disease on the 28th of May 1910. Koch was
undoubtedly one of the greatest bacteriologists ever known, and a great
benefactor of humanity by his discoveries. Honours were showered upon
him, and in 1905 he was awarded the Nobel prize for medicine.
Among his works may be mentioned: _Weitere Mitteilungen uber ein
Heilmittel gegen Tuberkulose_ (Leipzig, 1891); and _Reiseberichte uber
Rinderpest, Bubonenpest in Indien und Afrika, Tsetse- oder
Surra-Krankheit, Texasfieber, tropische Malaria, Schwarzwasserfieber_
(Berlin, 1898). From 1886 onwards he edited, with Dr Karl Flugge, the
_Zeitschrift fur Hygiene und Infektionskrankheiten_ (published at
Leipzig). See Loeffler, "Robert Koch, zum 60ten Geburtstage" in _Deut.
Medizin. Wochenschr._ (No. 50, 1903).
KOCH, a tribe of north-eastern India, which has given its name to the
state of Kuch Behar (q.v.). They are probably of Mongolian stock, akin
to the Mech, Kachari, Garo and Tippera tribes, and originally spoke,
like these, a language of the Bodo group. But since one of their chiefs
established a powerful kingdom at Kuch Behar in the 16th century they
have gradually become Hinduized, and now adopt the name of Rajbansi (=
"of royal blood"). In 1901 the number in Eastern Bengal and Assam was
returned at nearly 2(1/2) millions.
KOCK, CHARLES PAUL DE (1793-1871), French novelist, was born at Passy on
the 21st of May 1793. He was a posthumous child, his father, a banker of
Dutch extraction, having been a victim of the Terror. Paul de Kock began
life as a banker's clerk. For the most part he resided on the Boulevard
St Martin, and was one of the most inveterate of Parisians. He died in
Paris on the 27th of April 1871. He began to write for the stage very
early, and composed many operatic libretti. His first novel, _L'Enfant
de ma femme_ (1811), was published at his own expense. In 1820 he began
his long and successful series of novels dealing with Parisian life with
_Georgette, ou la mere du Tabellion_. His period of greatest and most
successful activity was the Restoration and the early days of Louis
Philippe. He was relatively less popular in France itself than abroad,
where he was considered as the special painter of life in Paris. Major
Pendennis's remark that he had read nothing of the novel kind for thirty
years except Paul de Kock, "who certainly made him laugh," is likely to
remain one of the most durable of his testimonials, and may be classed
with the legendary question of a foreign sovereign to a Frenchman who
was paying his respects, "Vous venez de Paris et vous devez savoir des
nouvelles. Comment se porte Paul de Kock?" The disappearance of the
_grisette_ and of the cheap dissipation described by Henri Murger
practically made Paul de Kock obsolete. But to the student of manners
his portraiture of low and middle class life in the first half of the
19th century at Paris still has its value.
The works of Paul de Kock are very numerous. With the exception of a few
not very felicitous excursions into historical romance and some
miscellaneous works of which his share in _La Grande ville, Paris_
(1842), is the chief, they are all stories of middle-class Parisian
life, of _guinguettes_ and _cabarets_ and equivocal adventures of one
sort or another. The most famous are _Andre le Savoyard_ (1825) and _Le
Barbier de Paris_ (1826).
His _Memoires_ were published in 1873. See also Th. Trimm, _La Vie de
Charles Paul de Kock_ (1873).
KODAIKANAL, a sanatorium of southern India, in the Madura district of
Madras, situated in the Palni hills, about 7000 ft. above sea-level;
pop. (1901), 1912, but the number in the hot season would be much
larger. It is difficult of access, being 44 m. from a railway station,
and the last 11 m. are impracticable for wheeled vehicles. It contains a
government observatory, the appliances of which are specially adapted
for the study of terrestrial magnetism, seismology and solar physics.
KODAMA, GENTARO, COUNT (1852-1907), Japanese general, was born in
Choshu. He studied military science in Germany, and was appointed
vice-minister of war in 1892. He became governor-general of Formosa in
1900, holding at the same time the portfolio of war. When the conflict
with Russia became imminent in 1903, he gave up his portfolio to become
vice-chief of the general staff, a sacrifice which elicited much public
applause. Throughout the Russo-Japanese War (1904-5) he served as chief
of staff to Field Marshal Oyama, and it was well understood that his
genius guided the strategy of the whole campaign, as that of General
Kawakami had done in the war with China ten years previously. General
Kodama was raised in rapid succession to the ranks of baron, viscount
and count, and his death in 1907 was regarded as a national calamity.
KODUNGALUR (or CRANGANUR), a town of southern India, in Cochin state,
within the presidency of Madras. Though now a place of little
importance, its historical interest is considerable. Tradition assigns
to it the double honour of having been the first field of St Thomas's
labours (A.D. 52) in India and the seat of Cheraman Perumal's
government. The visit of St Thomas is generally considered mythical; but
it is certain that the Syrian Church was firmly established here before
the 9th century (Burnell), and probably the Jews' settlement was still
earlier. The latter, in fact, claim to hold grants dated A.D. 378. The
cruelty of the Portuguese drove most of the Jews to Cochin. Up to 1314,
when the Vypin harbour was formed, the only opening in the Cochin
backwater, and outlet for the Periyar, was at Kodungalur, which must
then have been the best harbour on the coast. In 1502 the Syrian
Christians invoked the protection of the Portuguese. In 1523 the latter
built their first fort there, and in 1565 enlarged it. In 1661 the Dutch
took the fort, the possession of which for the next forty years was
contested between this nation, the zamorin, and the raja of Kodungalur.
In 1776 Tippoo seized the stronghold. The Dutch recaptured it two years
later, and, having ceded it to Tippoo in 1784, sold it to the Travancore
raja, and again in 1789 to Tippoo, who destroyed it in the following
year. The country round Kodungalur now forms an autonomous principality,
tributary to the raja of Cochin.
KOENIG, KARL DIETRICH EBERHARD (1774-1851), German palaeontologist, was
born at Brunswick in 1774, and was educated at Gottingen. In 1807 he
became assistant keeper, and in 1813 he was appointed keeper, of the
department of natural history in the British Museum, and afterwards of
geology and mineralogy, retaining the post until the close of his life.
He described many fossils in the British Museum in a classic work
entitled _Icones fossilium sectiles_ (1820-1825). He died in London on
the 6th of September 1851.
KOESFELD, a town of Germany, in the Prussian province of Westphalia, on
the Berkel, 38 m. by rail N.N.W. of Dortmund. Pop. (1905), 8449. It has
three Roman Catholic churches, one of which--the Gymnasial Kirche--is
used by the Protestant community. Here are the ruins of the Ludgeri
Castle, formerly the residence of the bishops of Munster, and also the
castle of Varlar, the residence of the princes of Salm-Horstmar. The
leading industries include the making of linen goods and machinery.
KOHAT, a town and district of British India, in the Peshawar division of
the North-West Frontier Province. The town is 37 m. south of Peshawar by
the Kohat Pass, along which a military road was opened in 1901. The
population in 1901 was 30,762, including 12,670 in the cantonment, which
is garrisoned by artillery, cavalry and infantry. In the Tirah campaign
of 1897-98 Kohat was the starting-point of Sir William Lockhart's
expedition against the Orakzais and Afridis. It is the military base for
the southern Afridi frontier as Peshawar is for the northern frontier of
the same tribe, and it lies in the heart of the Pathan country.
The DISTRICT OF KOHAT has an area of 2973 sq. m. It consists chiefly of
a bare and intricate mountain region east of the Indus, deeply scored
with river valleys and ravines, but enclosing a few scattered patches of
cultivated lowland. The eastern or Khattak country especially comprises
a perfect labyrinth of ranges, which fall, however, into two principal
groups, to the north and south of the Teri Toi river. The Miranzai
valley, in the extreme west, appears by comparison a rich and fertile
tract. In its small but carefully tilled glens, the plane, palm, fig and
many orchard trees flourish luxuriantly; while a brushwood of wild
olive, mimosa and other thorny bushes clothes the rugged ravines upon
the upper slopes. Occasional grassy glades upon their sides form
favourite pasture grounds for the Waziri tribes. The Teri Toi, rising on
the eastern limit of Upper Miranzai, runs due eastward to the Indus,
which it joins 12 m. N. of Makhad, dividing the district into two main
portions. The drainage from the northern half flows southward into the
Teri Toi itself, and northward into the parallel stream of the Kohat
Toi. That of the southern tract falls northwards also into the Teri Toi,
and southwards towards the Kurram and the Indus. The frontier mountains,
continuations of the Safed Koh system, attain in places a considerable
elevation, the two principal peaks, Dupa Sir and Mazi Garh, just beyond
the British frontier, being 8260 and 7940 ft. above the sea
respectively. The Waziri hills, on the south, extend like a wedge
between the boundaries of Bannu and Kohat, with a general elevation of
less than 4000 ft. The salt-mines are situated in the low line of hills
crossing the valley of the Teri Toi, and extending along both banks of
that river. The deposit has a width of a quarter of a mile, with a
thickness of 1000 ft.; it sometimes forms hills 200 ft. in height,
almost entirely composed of solid rock-salt, and may probably rank as
one of the largest veins of its kind in the world. The most extensive
exposure occurs at Bahadur Khel, on the south bank of the Teri Toi. The
annual output is about 16,000 tons, yielding a revenue of L40,000.
Petroleum springs exude from a rock at Panoba, 23 m. east of Kohat; and
sulphur abounds in the northern range. In 1901 the population was
217,865, showing an increase of 11% in the decade. The frontier tribes
on the Kohat border are the Afridis, Orakzais, Zaimukhts and Turis. All
these are described under their separate names. A railway runs from
Kushalgarh through Kohat to Thal, and the river Indus has been bridged
at Kushalgarh.
KOHAT PASS, a mountain pass in the North-West Frontier Province of
India, connecting Kohat with Peshawar. From the north side the defile
commences at 4(1/2) m. S.W. of Fort Mackeson, whence it is about 12 or
13 m. to the Kohat entrance. The pass varies from 400 yds. to 1(1/4) m.
in width, and its summit is some 600 to 700 ft. above the plain. It is
inhabited by the Adam Khel Afridis, and nearly all British relations
with that tribe have been concerned with this pass, which is the only
connexion between two British districts without crossing and recrossing
the Indus (see AFRIDI). It is now traversed by a cart-road.
KOHISTAN, a tract of country on the Peshawar border of the North-West
Frontier Province of India. Kohistan means the "country of the hills"
and corresponds to the English word highlands; but it is specially
applied to a district, which is very little known, to the south and west
of Chilas, between the Kagan valley and the river Indus. It comprises an
area of over 1000 sq. m., and is bounded on the N.W. by the river Indus,
on the N.E. by Chilas, and on the S. by Kagan, the Chor Glen and Allai.
It consists roughly of two main valleys running east and west, and
separated from each other by a mountain range over 16,000 ft. high. Like
the mountains of Chilas, those in Kohistan are snow-bound and rocky
wastes from their crests downwards to 12,000 ft. Below this the hills
are covered with fine forest and grass to 5000 or 6000 ft., and in the
valleys, especially near the Indus, are fertile basins under
cultivation. The Kohistanis are Mahommedans, but not of Pathan race, and
appear to be closely allied to the Chilasis. They are a well-built,
brave but quiet people who carry on a trade with British districts, and
have never given the government much trouble. There is little doubt that
the Kohistanis are, like the Kafirs of Kafiristan, the remnants of old
races driven by Mahommedan invasions from the valleys and plains into
the higher mountains. The majority have been converted to Islam within
the last 200 years. The total population is about 16,000.
An important district also known as Kohistan lies to the north of Kabul
in Afghanistan, extending to the Hindu Kush. The Kohistani Tajiks proved
to be the most powerful and the best organized clans that opposed the
British occupation of Kabul in 1879-80. Part of their country is highly
cultivated, abounding in fruit, and includes many important villages. It
is here that the remains of an ancient city have been lately discovered
by the amir's officials, which may prove to be the great city of
Alexander's founding, known to be to the north of Kabul, but which had
hitherto escaped identification.
The name of Kohistan is also applied to a tract of barren and hilly
country on the east border of Karachi district, Sind.
KOHL. (1) The name of the cosmetic used from the earliest times in the
East by women to darken the eyelids, in order to increase the lustre of
the eyes. It is usually composed of finely powdered antimony, but smoke
black obtained from burnt almond-shells or frankincense is also used.
The Arabic word _kohl_, from which has been derived "alcohol," is
derived from _kahala_, to stain. (2) "Kohl" or "kohl-rabi" (cole-rape,
from Lat. _caulis_, cabbage) is a kind of cabbage (q.v.), with a
turnip-shaped top, cultivated chiefly as food for cattle.
KOHLHASE, HANS, a German historical figure about whose personality some
controversy exists. He is chiefly known as the hero of Heinrich von
Kleist's novel, _Michael Kohlhaas_. He was a merchant, and not, as some
have supposed, a horsedealer, and he lived at Kolln in Brandenburg. In
October 1532, so the story runs, whilst proceeding to the fair at
Leipzig, he was attacked and his horses were taken from him by the
servants of a Saxon nobleman, one Gunter von Zaschwitz. In consequence
of the delay the merchant suffered some loss of business at the fair and
on his return he refused to pay the small sum which Zaschwitz demanded
as a condition of returning the horses. Instead Kohlhase asked for a
substantial amount of money as compensation for his loss, and failing to
secure this he invoked the aid of his sovereign, the elector of
Brandenburg. Finding however that it was impossible to recover his
horses, he paid Zaschwitz the sum required for them, but reserved to
himself the right to take further action. Then unable to obtain redress
in the courts of law, the merchant, in a _Fehdebrief_, threw down a
challenge, not only to his aggressor, but to the whole of Saxony. Acts
of lawlessness were soon attributed to him, and after an attempt to
settle the feud had failed, the elector of Saxony, John Frederick I.,
set a price upon the head of the angry merchant. Kohlhase now sought
revenge in earnest. Gathering around him a band of criminals and of
desperadoes he spread terror throughout the whole of Saxony; travellers
were robbed, villages were burned and towns were plundered. For some
time the authorities were practically powerless to stop these outrages,
but in March 1540 Kohlhase and his principal associate, Georg
Nagelschmidt, were seized, and on the 22nd of the month they were broken
on the wheel in Berlin.
The life and fate of Kohlhase are dealt with in several dramas. See
Burkhardt, _Der historische Hans Kohlhase und H. von Kleists Michael
Kohlhaas_ (Leipzig, 1864).
KOKOMO, a city and the county-seat of Howard county, Indiana, U.S.A., on
the Wildcat River, about 50 m. N. of Indianapolis. Pop. (1890), 8261;
(1900), 10,609 of whom 499 were foreign-born and 359 negroes; (1910
census), 17,010. It is served by the Lake Erie & Western, the Pittsburg
Cincinnati Chicago & St Louis, and the Toledo St Louis & Western
railways, and by two interurban electric lines. Kokomo is a centre of
trade in agricultural products, and has various manufactures, including
flint, plate and opalescent glass, &c. The total value of the factory
product increased from $2,062,156 in 1900 to $3,651,105 in 1905, or
77.1%; and in 1905 the glass product was valued at $864,567, or 23.7% of
the total. Kokomo was settled about 1840 and became a city (under a
state law) in 1865.
KOKO-NOR (or KUKU-NOR) (_Tsing-hai_ of the Chinese, and _Tso-ngombo_ of
the Tanguts), a lake of Central Asia, situated at an altitude of 9975
ft., in the extreme N.E. of Tibet, 30 m. from the W. frontier of the
Chinese province of Kan-suh, in 100 deg. E. and 37 deg. N. It lies
amongst the eastern ranges of the Kuen-lun, having the Nan-shan
Mountains to the north, and the southern Koko-nor range (10,000 ft.) on
the south. It measures 66 m. by 40 m., and contains half a dozen
islands, on one of which is a Buddhist (i.e. Lamaist) monastery, to
which pilgrims resort. The water is salt, though an abundance of fish
live in it, and it often remains frozen for three months together in
winter. The surface is at times subject to considerable variations of
level. The lake is entered on the west by the river Buhain-gol. The
nomads who dwell round its shores are Tanguts.
KOKSHAROV, NIKOLAI IVANOVICH VON (1818-1893), Russian mineralogist and
major-general in the Russian army, was born at Ust-Kamenogork in Tomsk,
on the 5th of December 1818 (O.S.). He was educated at the military
school of mines in St Petersburg. At the age of twenty-two he was
selected to accompany R. I. Murchison and De Verneuil, and afterwards De
Keyserling, in their geological survey of the Russian Empire.
Subsequently he devoted his attention mainly to the study of mineralogy
and mining, and was appointed director of the Institute of Mines. In
1865 he became director of the Imperial Mineralogical Society of St
Petersburg. He contributed numerous papers on euclase, zircon, epidote,
orthite, monazite and other mineralogical subjects to the St Petersburg
and Vienna academies of science, to Poggendorf's _Annalen_, Leonhard and
Brown's _Jahrbuch_, &c. He also issued as separate works _Materialen zur
Mineralogie Russlands_ (10 vols., 1853-1891), and _Vorlesungen uber
Mineralogie_ (1865). He died in St Petersburg on the 3rd of January 1893
(O.S.).
KOKSTAD, a town of South Africa, the capital of Griqualand East, 236 m.
by rail S.W. of Durban, 110 m. N. by W. of Port Shepstone, and 150 m. N.
of Port St John, Pondoland. Pop. (1904), 2903, of whom a third were
Griquas. The town is built on the outer slopes of the Drakensberg and is
4270 ft. above the sea. Behind it Mount Currie rises to a height of 7297
ft. An excellent water supply is derived from the mountains. The town is
well laid out, and possesses several handsome public buildings. It is
the centre of a thriving agricultural district and has a considerable
trade in wool, grain, cattle and horses with Basutoland, Pondoland and
the neighbouring regions of Natal. The town is named after the Griqua
chief Adam Kok, who founded it in 1869. In 1879 it came into the
possession of Cape Colony and was granted municipal government in 1893.
It is the residence of the Headman of the Griqua nation. (See KAFFRARIA
and GRIQUALAND.)
KOLA, a peninsula of northern Russia, lying between the Arctic Ocean on
the N. and the White Sea on the S. It forms part of the region of
Lapland and belongs administratively to the government of Archangel. The
Arctic coast, known as the Murman coast (Murman being a corruption of
Norman), is 260 m. long, and being subject to the influence of the North
Atlantic drift, is free from ice all the year round. It is a rocky
coast, built of granite, and rising to 650 ft., and is broken by several
excellent bays. On one of these, Kola Bay, the Russian government
founded in 1895 the naval harbour of Alexandrovsk. From May to August a
productive fishery is carried on along this coast. Inland the peninsula
rises up to a plateau, 1000 ft. in general elevation, and crossed by
several ranges of low mountains, which go up to over 3000 ft. in
altitude. The lower slopes of these mountains are clothed with forest up
to 1300 ft., and in places thickly studded with lakes, some of them of
very considerable extent, e.g. Imandra (330 sq. m.), Ump-jaur,
Nuorti-jarvi, Guolle-jaur or Kola Lake, and Lu-jaur. From these issue
streams of appreciable magnitude, such as the Tuloma, Voronya, Yovkyok
or Yokanka, and Ponoi, all flowing into the Arctic, and the Varsuga and
Umba, into the White Sea. The area of the peninsula is estimated at
50,000 sq. m.
See A. O. Kihlmann and Palmen, _Die Expedition nach der Halbinsel
Kola_ (1887-1892) (Helsingfors); A. O. Kihlmann, _Bericht einer
naturwissenschaftlichen Reise durch Russisch-Lappland_ (Helsingfors,
1890); and W. Ramsay, _Geologische Beobachtungen auf der Halbinsel
Kola_ (Helsingfors, 1899).
KOLABA (or COLABA), a district of British India, in the southern
division of Bombay. Area, 2131 sq. m.; pop. (1901), 605,566, showing an
increase of 2% in the decade. The headquarters are at Alibagh. Lying
between the Western Ghats and the sea, Kolaba district abounds in hills,
some being spurs running at right angles to the main range, while others
are isolated peaks or lofty detached ridges. The sea frontage, of about
20 m., is throughout the greater part of its length fringed by a belt of
coco-nut and betel-nut palms. Behind this belt lies a stretch of flat
country devoted to rice cultivation. In many places along the banks of
the salt-water creeks there are extensive tracts of salt marshland, some
of them reclaimed, some still subject to tidal inundation, and others
set apart for the manufacture of salt. The district is traversed by a
few small streams. Tidal inlets, of which the principal are the Nagothna
on the north, the Roha or Chaul in the west, and the Bankot creek in the
south, run inland for 30 or 40 m., forming highways for a brisk trade in
rice, salt, firewood, and dried fish. Near the coast especially, the
district is well supplied with reservoirs. The Western Ghats have two
remarkable peaks--Raigarh, where Sivaji built his capital, and
Miradongar. There are extensive teak and black wood forests, the value
of which is increased by their proximity to Bombay. The Great Indian
Peninsula railway crosses part of the district, and communication with
Bombay is maintained by a steam ferry. Owing to its nearness to that
city, the district has suffered severely from plague. Kolaba district
takes its name from a little island off Alibagh, which was one of the
strongholds of Angria, the Mahratta pirate of the 18th century. The same
island has given its name to Kolaba Point, the spur of Bombay Island
running south that protects the entrance to the harbour. On Kolaba Point
are the terminus of the Bombay & Baroda railway, barracks for a European
regiment, lunatic asylum and observatory.
KOLAR, a town and district of India, in the state of Mysore. The town is
43 m. E. of Bangalore. Pop. (1901), 12,210. Although of ancient
foundation, it has been almost completely modernized. Industries include
the weaving of blankets and the breeding of turkeys for export.
The DISTRICT OF KOLAR has an area of 3180 sq. m. It occupies the portion
of the Mysore table-land immediately bordering the Eastern Ghats. The
principal watershed lies in the north-west, around the hill of Nandidrug
(4810 ft.), from which rivers radiate in all directions; and the whole
country is broken by numerous hill ranges. The chief rivers are the
Palar, the South Pinakini or Pennar, the North Pinakini, and the
Papagani, which are industriously utilized for irrigation by means of
anicuts and tanks. The rocks of the district are mostly syenite or
granite, with a small admixture of mica and feldspar. The soil in the
valleys consists of a fertile loam; and in the higher levels sand and
gravel are found. The hills are covered with scrub, jungle and
brushwood. In 1901 the population was 723,600, showing an increase of
22% in the decade. The district is traversed by the Bangalore line of
the Madras railway, with a branch 10 m. long, known as the Kolar
Goldfields railway. Gold prospecting in this region began in 1876, and
the industry is now settled on a secure basis. Here are situated the
mines of the Mysore, Champion Reef, Ooregum, and Nandidrug companies. To
the end of 1904 the total value of gold produced was 21 millions
sterling, and there had been paid in dividends 9 millions, and in
royalty to the Mysore state one million. The municipality called the
Kolar Gold Fields had in 1901 a population of 38,204; it has suffered
severely from plague. Electricity from the falls of the Cauvery (93 m.
distant) is utilized as the motive power in the mines. Sugar manufacture
and silk and cotton weaving are the other principal industries in the
district. The chief historical interest of modern times centres round
the hill fort of Nandidrug, which was stormed by the British in 1791,
after a bombardment of 21 days.
KOLBE, ADOLPHE WILHELM HERMANN (1818-1884), German chemist, was born on
the 27th of September 1818 at Elliehausen, near Gottingen, where in 1838
he began to study chemistry under F. Wohler. In 1842 he became assistant
to R. W. von Bunsen at Marburg, and three years later to Lyon Playfair
at London. From 1847 to 1851 he was engaged at Brunswick in editing the
_Dictionary of Chemistry_ started by Liebig, but in the latter year he
went to Marburg as successor to Bunsen in the chair of chemistry. In
1865 he was called to Leipzig in the same capacity, and he died in that
city on the 25th of November 1884. Kolbe had an important share in the
great development of chemical theory that occurred about the middle of
the 19th century, especially in regard to the constitution of organic
compounds, which he viewed as derivatives of inorganic ones, formed from
the latter--in some cases directly--by simple processes of substitution.
Unable to accept Berzelius's doctrine of the unalterability of organic
radicals, he also gave a new interpretation to the meaning of copulae
under the influence of his fellow-worker Edward Frankland's conception
of definite atomic saturation-capacities, and thus contributed in an
important degree to the subsequent establishment of the structure
theory. Kolbe was a very successful teacher, a ready and vigorous
writer, and a brilliant experimentalist whose work revealed the nature
of many compounds the composition of which had not previously been
understood. He published a _Lehrbuch der organischen Chemie_ in 1854,
smaller textbooks of organic and inorganic chemistry in 1877-1883, and
_Zur Entwickelungsgeschichte der theoretischen Chemie_ in 1881. From
1870 he was editor of the _Journal fur praktische Chemie_, in which many
trenchant criticisms of contemporary chemists and their doctrines
appeared from his pen.
KOLBERG (or COLBERG), a town of Germany, and seaport of the Prussian
province of Pomerania, on the right bank of the Persante, which falls
into the Baltic about a mile below the town, and at the junction of the
railway lines to Belgard and Gollnow. Pop. (1905), 22,804. It has a
handsome market-place with a statue of Frederick William III.; and there
are extensive suburbs, of which the most important is Munde. The
principal buildings are the huge red-brick church of St Mary, with five
aisles, one of the most remarkable churches in Pomerania, dating from
the 14th century; the council-house (Rathaus), erected after the plans
of Ernst F. Zwirner; and the citadel. Kolberg also possesses four other
churches, a theatre, a gymnasium, a school of navigation, and an
exchange. Its bathing establishments are largely frequented and attract
a considerable number of summer visitors. It has a harbour at the mouth
of the Persante, where there is a lighthouse. Woollen cloth, machinery
and spirits are manufactured; there is an extensive salt-mine in the
neighbouring Zillenberg; the salmon and lamprey fisheries are important;
and a fair amount of commercial activity is maintained. In 1903 a
monument was erected to the memory of Gneisenau and the patriot, Joachim
Christian Nettelbeck (1738-1824), through whose efforts the town was
saved from the French in 1806-7.
Originally a Slavonic fort, Kolberg is one of the oldest places of
Pomerania. At an early date it became the seat of a bishop, and although
it soon lost this distinction it obtained municipal privileges in 1255.
From about 1276 it ranked as the most important place in the episcopal
principality of Kamin, and from 1284 it was a member of the Hanseatic
League. During the Thirty Years' War it was captured by the Swedes in
1631, passing by the treaty of Westphalia to the elector of Brandenburg,
Frederick William I., who strengthened its fortifications. The town was
a centre of conflict during the Seven Years' War. In 1758 and again in
1760 the Russians besieged Kolberg in vain, but in 1762 they succeeded
in capturing it. Soon restored to Brandenburg, it was vigorously
attacked by the French in 1806 and 1807, but it was saved by the long
resistance of its inhabitants. In 1887 the fortifications of the town
were razed, and it has since become a fashionable watering-place,
receiving annually nearly 15,000 visitors.
See Riemann, _Geschichte der Stadt Kolberg_ (Kolberg, 1873); Stoewer,
_Geschichte der Stadt Kolberg_ (Kolberg, 1897); Schonlein, _Geschichte
der Belagerungen Kolbergs in den Jahren 1758, 1760, 1761 und 1807_
(Kolberg, 1878); and Kempin, _Fuhrer durch Bad Kolberg_ (Kolberg,
1899).
KOLCSEY, FERENCZ (1790-1838), Hungarian poet, critic and orator, was
born at Szodemeter, in Transylvania, on the 8th of August 1790. In his
fifteenth year he made the acquaintance of Kazinczy and zealously
adopted his linguistic reforms. In 1809 Kolcsey went to Pest and became
a "notary to the royal board." Law proved distasteful, and at Cseke in
Szatmar county he devoted his time to aesthetical study, poetry,
criticism, and the defence of the theories of Kazinczy. Kolcsey's early
metrical pieces contributed to the _Transylvanian Museum_ did not
attract much attention, whilst his severe criticisms of Csokonai, Kis,
and especially Berzsenyi, published in 1817, rendered him very
unpopular. From 1821 to 1826 he published many separate poems of great
beauty in the _Aurora_, _Hebe_, _Aspasia_, and other magazines of polite
literature. He joined Paul Szemere in a new periodical, styled _Elet es
literatura_ ("Life and Literature"), which appeared from 1826 to 1829,
in 4 vols., and gained for Kolcsey the highest reputation as a critical
writer. From 1832 to 1835 he sat in the Hungarian Diet, where his
extreme liberal views and his singular eloquence soon rendered him
famous as a parliamentary leader. Elected on the 17th of November 1830 a
member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, he took part in its first
grand meeting; in 1832, he delivered his famous oration on Kazinczy, and
in 1836 that on his former opponent Daniel Berzsenyi. When in 1838 Baron
Wesselenyi was unjustly thrown into prison upon a charge of treason,
Kolcsey eloquently though unsuccessfully conducted his defence; and he
died about a week afterwards (August 24) from internal inflammation. His
collected works, in 6 vols., were published at Pest, 1840-1848, and his
journal of the diet of 1832-1836 appeared in 1848. A monument erected to
the memory of Kolcsey was unveiled at Szatmar-Nemeti on the 25th of
September 1864.
See G. Steinacker, _Ungarische Lyriker_ (Leipzig, and Pest, 1874); F.
Toldy, _Magyar Koltok elete_ (2 vols., Pest, 1871); J. Ferenczy and J.
Danielik, _Magyar Irok_ (2 vols., Pest, 1856-1858).
KOLDING, a town of Denmark in the _amt_ (county) of Vejle, on the east
coast of Jutland, on the Koldingfjord, an inlet of the Little Belt, 9
m. N. of the German frontier. Pop. (1901), 12,516. It is on the Eastern
railway of Jutland. The harbour throughout has a depth of over 20 ft. A
little to the north-west is the splendid remnant of the royal castle
Koldinghuus, formerly called Oernsborg or Arensborg. It was begun by
Duke Abel in 1248; in 1808 it was burned. The large square tower was
built by Christian IV. (1588-1648), and was surmounted by colossal
statues, of which one is still standing. It contains an antiquarian and
historical museum (1892). The name of Kolding occurs in the 10th
century, but its earliest known town-rights date from 1321. In 1644 it
was the scene of a Danish victory over the Swedes, and on the 22nd of
April 1849 of a Danish defeat by the troops of Schleswig-Holstein. A
comprehensive view of the Little Belt with its islands, and over the
mainland, is obtained from the Skamlingsbank, a slight elevation 8(1/2)
m. S.E., where an obelisk (1863) commemorates the effort made to
preserve the Danish language in Schleswig.
KOLGUEV, KOLGUEFF or KALGUYEV, an island off the north-west of Russia in
Europe, belonging to the government of Archangel. It lies about 50 m.
from the nearest point of the mainland, and is of roughly oval form, 54
m. in length from N.N.E. to S.S.W. and 39 m. in extreme breadth. It lies
in a shallow sea, and is quite low, the highest point being 250 ft.
above the sea. Peat-bogs and grass lands cover the greater part of the
surface; there are several considerable streams and a large number of
small lakes. The island is of recent geological formation; it consists
almost wholly of disintegrated sandstone or clay (which rises at the
north-west into cliffs up to 60 ft. high), with scattered masses of
granite. Vegetation is scanty, but bears, foxes and other Arctic
animals, geese, swans, &c., provide means of livelihood for a few
Samoyed hunters.
KOLHAPUR, a native state of India, within the Deccan division of Bombay.
It is the fourth in importance of the Mahratta principalities, the other
three being Baroda, Gwalior and Indore; and it is the principal state
under the political control of the government of Bombay. Together with
its _jagirs_ or feudatories, it covers an area of 3165 sq. m. In 1901
the population was 910,011. The estimated revenue is L300,000. Kolhapur
stretches from the heart of the Western Ghats eastwards into the plain
of the Deccan. Along the spurs of the main chain of the Ghats lie wild
and picturesque hill slopes and valleys, producing little but timber,
and till recently covered with rich forests. The centre of the state is
crossed by several lines of low hills running at right angles from the
main range. In the east the country becomes more open and presents the
unpicturesque uniformity of a well-cultivated and treeless plain, broken
only by an occasional river. Among the western hills are the ancient
Mahratta strongholds of Panhala, Vishalgarh, Bavda and Rungna. The
rivers, though navigable during the rains by boats of 2 tons burthen,
are all fordable during the hot months. Iron ore is found in the hills,
and smelting was formerly carried on to a considerable extent; but now
the Kolhapur mineral cannot compete with that imported from Europe.
There are several good stone quarries. The principal agricultural
products are rice, millets, sugar-cane, tobacco, cotton, safflower and
vegetables.
The rajas of Kolhapur trace their descent from Raja Ram, a younger son
of Sivaji the Great, the founder of the Mahratta power. The prevalence
of piracy caused the British government to send expeditions against
Kolhapur in 1765 and 1792; and in the early years of the 19th century
the misgovernment of the chief compelled the British to resort to
military operations, and ultimately to appoint an officer to manage the
state. In recent years the state has been conspicuously well governed,
on the pattern of British administration. The raja Shahu Chhatrapati,
G.C.S.I. (who is entitled to a salute of 21 guns) was born in 1874, and
ten years later succeeded to the throne by adoption. The principal
institutions are the Rajaram college, the high school, a technical
school, an agricultural school, and training-schools for both masters
and mistresses. The state railway from Miraj junction to Kolhapur town
is worked by the Southern Mahratta company. In recent years the state
has suffered from both famine and plague.
The town of KOLHAPUR, or KARVIR, is the terminus of a branch of the
Southern Mahratta railway, 30 m. from the main line. Pop. (1901),
54,373. Besides a number of handsome modern public buildings, the town
has many evidences of antiquity. Originally it appears to have been an
important religious centre, and numerous Buddhist remains have been
discovered in the neighbourhood.
KOLIN, or NEU-KOLIN (also _Kollin_; Czech, _Novy Kolin_), a town of
Bohemia, Austria, 40 m. E. of Prague by rail. Pop. (1900), 15,025,
mostly Czech. It is situated on the Elbe, and amongst its noteworthy
buildings may be specially mentioned the beautiful early Gothic church
of St Bartholomew, erected during the latter half of the 14th century.
The industries of the town include sugar-refining, steam mills, brewing,
and the manufacture of starch, syrup, spirits, potash and tin ware. The
neighbourhood is known for the excellence of its fruit and vegetables.
Kolin is chiefly famous on account of the battle here on the 18th of
June 1757, when the Prussians under Frederick the Great were defeated by
the Austrians under Daun (see SEVEN YEARS' WAR). The result was the
raising of the siege of Prague and the evacuation of Bohemia by the
Prussians. Kolin was colonized in the 13th century by German settlers
and made a royal city. In 1421 it was captured by the men of Prague, and
the German inhabitants who refused to accept "the four articles" were
expelled. In 1427 the town declared against Prague, was besieged by
Prokop the Great, and surrendered to him upon conditions at the close of
the year.
KOLIS, a caste or tribe of Western India, of uncertain origin. Possibly
the name is derived from the Turki _kuleh_ a slave; and, according to
one theory, this name has been passed on to the familiar word "cooly"
for an agricultural labourer. They form the main part of the inferior
agricultural population of Gujarat, where they were formerly notorious
as robbers; but they also extend into the Konkan and the Deccan. In 1901
the number of Kolis in all India was returned as nearly 3(3/4) millions;
but this total includes a distinct weaving caste of Kolis or Koris in
northern India.
KOLLIKER, RUDOLPH ALBERT VON (1817-1905), Swiss anatomist and
physiologist, was born at Zurich on the 6th of July 1817. His father and
his mother were both Zurich people, and he in due time married a lady
from Aargau, so that Switzerland can claim him as wholly her own, though
he lived the greater part of his life in Germany. His early education
was carried on in Zurich, and he entered the university there in 1836.
After two years, however, he moved to the university of Bonn, and later
to that of Berlin, becoming at the latter place the pupil of Johannes
Muller and of F. G. J. Henle. He graduated in philosophy at Zurich in
1841, and in medicine at Heidelberg in 1842. The first academic post
which he held was that of prosector of anatomy under Henle; but his
tenure of this office was brief, for in 1844 his native city called him
back to its university to occupy a chair as professor extraordinary of
physiology and comparative anatomy. His stay here too, however, was
brief, for in 1847 the university of Wurzburg, attracted by his rising
fame, offered him the post of professor of physiology and of
microscopical and comparative anatomy. He accepted the appointment, and
at Wurzburg he remained thenceforth, refusing all offers tempting him to
leave the quiet academic life of the Bavarian town, where he died on the
2nd of November 1905.
Kolliker's name will ever be associated with that of the tool with which
during his long life he so assiduously and successfully worked, the
microscope. The time at which he began his studies coincided with that
of the revival of the microscopic investigation of living beings. Two
centuries earlier the great Italian Malpighi had started, and with his
own hand had carried far the study by the help of the microscope of the
minute structure of animals and plants. After Malpighi this branch of
knowledge, though continually progressing, made no remarkable bounds
forward until the second quarter of the 19th century, when the
improvement of the compound microscope on the one hand, and the
promulgation by Theodor Schwann and Matthias Schleiden of the "cell
theory" on the other, inaugurated a new era of microscopic
investigation. Into this new learning Kolliker threw himself with all
the zeal of youth, wisely initiated into it by his great teacher Henle,
whose sober and exact mode of inquiry went far at the time to give the
new learning a right direction and to counteract the somewhat fantastic
views which, under the name of the cell theory, were tending to be
prominent. Henle's labours were for the most part limited to the
microscopic investigation of the minute structure of the tissues of man
and of the higher animals, the latter being studied by him mainly with
the view of illustrating the former. But Kolliker had another teacher
besides Henle, the even greater Johannes Muller, whose active mind was
sweeping over the whole animal kingdom, striving to pierce the secrets
of the structure of living creatures of all sorts, and keeping steadily
in view the wide biological problems of function and of origin, which
the facts of structure might serve to solve. We may probably trace to
the influence of these two great teachers, strengthened by the spirit of
the times, the threefold character of Kolliker's long-continued and
varied labours. In all of them, or in almost all of them, the microscope
was the instrument of inquiry, but the problem to be solved by means of
the instrument belonged now to one branch of biology, now to another.
At Zurich, and afterwards at Wurzburg, the title of the chair which he
held laid upon him the duty of teaching comparative anatomy, and very
many of the numerous memoirs which he published, including the very
first paper which he wrote, and which appeared in 1841 before he
graduated, "On the Nature of the so-called Seminal Animalcules," were
directed towards elucidating, by help of the microscope, the structure
of animals of the most varied kinds--that is to say, were zoological in
character. Notable among these were his papers on the Medusae and allied
creatures. His activity in this direction led him to make zoological
excursions to the Mediterranean Sea and to the coasts of Scotland, as
well as to undertake, conjointly with his friend C. T. E. von Siebold,
the editorship of the _Zeitschrift fur Wissenschaftliche Zoologie_,
which, founded in 1848, continued under his hands to be one of the most
important zoological periodicals.
At the time when Kolliker was beginning his career the influence of Karl
Ernst von Baer's embryological teaching was already being widely felt,
men were learning to recognize the importance to morphological and
zoological studies of a knowledge of the development of animals; and
Kolliker plunged with enthusiasm into the relatively new line of
inquiry. His earlier efforts were directed to the invertebrata, and his
memoir on the development of cephalopods, which appeared in 1844, is a
classical work; but he soon passed on to the vertebrata, and studied not
only the amphibian embryo and the chick, but also the mammalian embryo.
He was among the first, if not the very first, to introduce into this
branch of biological inquiry the newer microscopic technique--the
methods of hardening, section-cutting and staining. By doing so, not
only was he enabled to make rapid progress himself, but he also placed
in the hands of others the means of a like advance. The remarkable
strides forward which embryology made during the middle and during the
latter half of the 19th century will always be associated with his name.
His _Lectures on Development_, published in 1861, at once became a
standard work.
But neither zoology nor embryology furnished Kolliker's chief claim to
fame. If he did much for these branches of science, he did still more
for histology, the knowledge of the minute structure of the animal
tissues. This he made emphatically his own. It may indeed be said that
there is no fragment of the body of man and of the higher animals on
which he did not leave his mark, and in more places than one his mark
was a mark of fundamental importance. Among his earlier results may be
mentioned the demonstration in 1847 that smooth or unstriated muscle is
made up of distinct units, of nucleated muscle-cells. In this work he
followed in the footsteps of his master Henle. A few years before this
men were doubting whether arteries were muscular, and no solid
histological basis as yet existed for those views as to the action of
the nervous system on the circulation, which were soon to be put
forward, and which had such a great influence on the progress of
physiology. By the above discovery Kolliker completed that basis.
Even to enumerate, certainly to dwell on, all his contributions to
histology would be impossible here: smooth muscle, striated muscle,
skin, bone, teeth, blood-vessels and viscera were all investigated by
him; and he touched none of them without striking out some new truths.
The results at which he arrived were recorded partly in separate
memoirs, partly in his great textbook on microscopical anatomy, which
first saw the light in 1850, and by which he advanced histology no less
than by his own researches. In the case of almost every tissue our
present knowledge contains something great or small which we owe to
Kolliker; but it is on the nervous system that his name is written in
largest letters. So early as 1845, while still at Zurich, he supplied
what was as yet still lacking, the clear proof that nerve-fibres are
continuous with nerve-cells, and so furnished the absolutely necessary
basis for all sound speculations as to the actions of the central
nervous system. From that time onward he continually laboured, and
always fruitfully, at the histology of the nervous system, and more
especially at the difficult problems presented by the intricate patterns
in which fibres and cells are woven together in the brain and spinal
cord. In his old age, at a time when he had fully earned the right to
fold his arms, and to rest and be thankful, he still enriched
neurological science with results of the highest value. From his early
days a master of method, he saw at a glance the value of the new Golgi
method for the investigation of the central nervous system, and, to the
great benefit of science, took up once more in his old age, with the aid
of a new means, the studies for which he had done so much in his youth.
It may truly be said that much of that exact knowledge of the inner
structure of the brain, which is rendering possible new and faithful
conceptions of its working, came from his hands.
Lastly, Kolliker was in his earlier years professor of physiology as
well as of anatomy; and not only did his histological labours almost
always carry physiological lessons, but he also enriched physiology with
the results of direct researches of an experimental kind, notably those
on curare and some other poisons. In fact, we have to go back to the
science of centuries ago to find a man of science of so many-sided an
activity as he. His life constituted in a certain sense a protest
against that specialized differentiation which, however much it may
under certain aspects be regretted, seems to be one of the necessities
of modern development. In Johannes Muller's days no one thought of
parting anatomy and physiology; nowadays no one thinks of joining them
together. Kolliker did in his work join them together, and indeed said
himself that he thought they ought never to be kept apart.
Naturally a man of so much accomplishment was not left without honours.
Formerly known simply as Kolliker, the title "von" was added to his
name. He was made a member of the learned societies of many countries;
in England, which he visited more than once, and where he became well
known, the Royal Society made him a fellow in 1860, and in 1897 gave him
its highest token of esteem, the Copley medal. (M. F.)
KOLLONTAJ, HUGO (1750-1812), Polish politician and writer, was born in
1750 at Niecislawice in Sandomir, and educated at Pinczow and Cracow.
After taking orders he went (1770) to Rome, where he obtained the degree
of doctor of theology and common law, and devoted himself
enthusiastically to the study of the fine arts, especially of
architecture and painting. At Rome too he obtained a canonry attached to
Cracow cathedral, and on his return to Poland in 1755 threw himself
heart and soul into the question of educational reform. His efforts were
impeded by the obstruction of the clergy of Cracow, who regarded him as
an adventurer; but he succeeded in reforming the university after his
own mind, and was its rector for three years (1782-1785). Kollontaj next
turned his attention to politics. In 1786 he was appointed
_referendarius_ of Lithuania, and during the Four Years' Diet
(1788-1792) displayed an amazing and many-sided activity as one of the
reformers of the constitution. He grouped around him all the leading
writers, publicists and progressive young men of the day; declaimed
against prejudices; stimulated the timid; inspired the lukewarm with
enthusiasm; and never rested till the constitution of the 3rd of May
1791 had been carried through. In June 1791 Kollontaj was appointed
vice-chancellor. On the triumph of the reactionaries and the fall of the
national party, he secretly placed in the king's hands his adhesion to
the triumphant Confederation of Targowica, a false step, much blamed at
the time, but due not to personal ambition but to a desire to save
something from the wreck of the constitution. He then emigrated to
Dresden. On the outbreak of Kosciuszko's insurrection he returned to
Poland, and as member of the national government and minister of finance
took a leading part in affairs. But his radicalism had now become of a
disruptive quality, and he quarrelled with and even thwarted Kosciuszko
because the dictator would not admit that the Polish republic could only
be saved by the methods of Jacobinism. On the other hand, the more
conservative section of the Poles regarded Kollontaj as "a second
Robespierre," and he is even suspected of complicity in the outrages of
the 17th and 18th of June 1794, when the Warsaw mob massacred the
political prisoners. On the collapse of the insurrection Kollontaj
emigrated to Austria, where from 1795 to 1802 he was detained as a
prisoner. He was finally released through the mediation of Prince Adam
Czartoryski, and returned to Poland utterly discredited. The remainder
of his life was a ceaseless struggle against privation and prejudice. He
died at Warsaw on the 28th of February 1812.
Of his numerous works the most notable are: _Political Speeches as
Vice-Chancellor_ (Pol.) (in 6 vols., Warsaw, 1791); _On the Erection
and Fall of the Constitution of May_ (Pol.) (Leipzig, 1793; Paris,
1868); _Correspondence with T. Czacki_ (Pol.) (Cracow, 1854); _Letters
written during Emigration, 1792-1794_ (Pol.) (Posen, 1872).
See Ignacz Badeni, _Necrology of Hugo Kollontaj_ (Pol.) (Cracow,
1819); Henryk Schmitt, _Review of the Life and Works of Kollontaj_
(Pol.) (Lemberg, 1860); Wojciek Grochowski, "Life of Kollontaj" (Pol.)
in _Tygod Illus._ (Warsaw, 1861). (R. N. B.)
KOLOMEA (Polish, _Kolomyja_), a town of Austria, in Galicia, 122 m. S.
of Lemberg by rail. Pop. (1900), 34,188, of which half were Jews. It is
situated on the Pruth, and has an active trade in agricultural products.
To the N.E. of Kolomea, near the Dniester, lies the village of
Czernelica, with ruins of a strongly fortified castle, which served as
the residence of John Sobieski during his campaigns against the Turks.
Kolomea is a very old town and is mentioned already in 1240, but the
assertion that it was a Roman settlement under the name of _Colonia_ is
not proved. It was the principal town of the Polish province of Pokutia,
and it suffered severely during the 15th and 16th centuries from the
attacks of the Moldavians and the Tatars.
KOLOMNA, a town of Russia, in the government of Moscow, situated on the
railway between Moscow and Ryazan, 72 m. S.E. of Moscow, at the
confluence of the Moskva river with the Kolomenka. Pop. (1897), 20,970.
It is an old town, mentioned in the annals in 1177, and until the 14th
century was the capital of the Ryazan principality. It suffered greatly
from the invasions of the Tatars in the 13th century, who destroyed it
four times, as well as from the wars of the 17th century; but it always
recovered and has never lost its commercial importance. During the 19th
century it became a centre for the manufacture of silks, cottons, ropes
and leather. Here too are railway workshops, where locomotives and
wagons are made. Kolomna carries on an active trade in grain, cattle,
tallow, skins, salt and timber. It has several old churches of great
archaeological interest, including two of the 14th century, one being
the cathedral. One gate (restored in 1895) of the fortifications of the
Kreml still survives.
KOLOZSVAR (Ger. _Klausenburg_; Rum. _Cluj_), a town of Hungary, in
Transylvania, the capital of the county of Kolozs, and formerly the
capital of the whole of Transylvania, 248 m. E.S.E. of Budapest by rail.
Pop. (1900), 46,670. It is situated in a picturesque valley on the banks
of the Little Szamos, and comprises the inner town (formerly surrounded
with walls) and five suburbs. The greater part of the town lies on the
right bank of the river, while on the other side is the so-called Bridge
Suburb and the citadel (erected in 1715). Upon the slopes of the citadel
hill there is a gipsy quarter. With the exception of the old quarter,
Kolozsvar is generally well laid out, and contains many broad and fine
streets, several of which diverge at right angles from the principal
square. In this square is situated the Gothic church of St Michael
(1396-1432); in front is a bronze equestrian statue of King Matthias
Corvinus by the Hungarian sculptor Fadrusz (1902). Other noteworthy
buildings are the Reformed church, built by Matthias Corvinus in 1486
and ceded to the Calvinists by Bethlen Gabor in 1622; the house in which
Matthias Corvinus was born (1443), which contains an ethnographical
museum; the county and town halls, a museum, and the university
buildings. A feature of Kolozsvar is the large number of handsome
mansions belonging to the Transylvanian nobles, who reside here during
the winter. It is the seat of a Unitarian bishop, and of the
superintendent of the Calvinists for the Transylvanian circle. Kolozsvar
is the literary and scientific centre of Transylvania, and is the seat
of numerous literary and scientific associations. It contains a
university (founded in 1872), with four faculties--theology, philosophy,
law and medicine--frequented by about 1900 students in 1905; and amongst
its other educational establishments are a seminary for Unitarian
priests, an agricultural college, two training schools for teachers, a
commercial academy, and several secondary schools for boys and girls.
The industry comprises establishments for the manufacture of woollen and
linen cloth, paper, sugar, candles, soap, earthenwares, as well as
breweries and distilleries.
Kolozsvar is believed to occupy the site of a Roman settlement named
_Napoca_. Colonized by Saxons in 1178, it then received its German name
of _Klausenburg_, from the old word Klause, signifying a "mountain
pass." Between the years 1545 and 1570 large numbers of the Saxon
population left the town in consequence of the introduction of Unitarian
doctrines. In 1798 the town was to a great extent destroyed by fire. As
capital of Transylvania and the seat of the Transylvanian diets,
Kolozsvar from 1830 to 1848 became the centre of the Hungarian national
movement in the grand principality; and in December 1848 it was taken
and garrisoned by the Hungarians under General Bem.
KOLPINO, one of the chief iron-works of the crown in Russia, in the
government of St Petersburg, 16 m. S.E. of the city of St Petersburg, on
the railway to Moscow, and on the Izhora river. Pop. (1897), 8076. A
sacred image of St Nicholas in the Trinity church is visited by numerous
pilgrims on the 22nd of May every year. Here is an iron-foundry of the
Russian admiralty.
KOLS, a generic name applied by Hindus to the Munda, Ho and Oraon tribes
of Bengal. The Mundas are an aboriginal tribe of Dravidian physical
type, inhabiting the Chota Nagpur division, and numbering 438,000 in
1901. The majority of them are animists in religion, but Christianity is
making rapid strides among them. The village community in its primitive
form still exists among the Mundas; the discontent due to the oppression
of their landlords led to the Munda rising of 1899, and to the remedy of
the alleged grievances by a new settlement of the district. The Hos, who
are closely akin to the Mundas, also inhabit the Chota Nagpur division;
in 1901 they numbered 386,000. They were formerly a very pugnacious
race, who successfully defended their territory against all comers until
they were subdued by the British in the early part of the 19th century,
being known as the Larka (or fighting) Kols. They are still great
sportsmen, using the bow and arrow. Like the Mundas they are animists,
but they show little inclination for Christianity. Both Mundas and Hos
speak dialects of the obscure linguistic family known as Munda or Kol.
See _Imp. Gazetteer of India_, vols. xiii., xviii. (Oxford, 1908).
KOLYVAN. (1) A town of West Siberia, in the government of Tomsk, on the
Chaus river, 5 m. from the Ob and 120 m. S.S.W. of the city of Tomsk. It
is a wealthy town, the merchants carrying on a considerable export trade
in cattle, hides, tallow, corn and fish. It was founded in 1713 under
the name of Chausky Ostrog, and has grown rapidly. Pop. (1897), 11,703.
(2) KOLYVANSKIY ZAVOD, another town of the same government, in the
district of Biysk, Altai region, on the Byelaya river, 192 m. S.E. of
Barnaul; altitude, 1290 ft. It is renowned for its stone-cutting
factory, where marble, jasper, various porphyries and breccias are
worked into vases, columns, &c. Pop., 5000. (3) Old name of Reval
(q.v.).
KOMAROM (Ger., _Komorn_), the capital of the county of Komarom, Hungary,
65 m. W.N.W. of Budapest by rail. Pop. (1900), 16,816. It is situated at
the eastern extremity of the island Csallokoz or Grosse Schutt, at the
confluence of the Waag with the Danube. Just below Komarom the two arms
into which the Danube separates below Pressburg, forming the Grosse
Schutt island, unite again. Since 1896 the market-town of Uj-Szony,
which lies on the opposite bank of the Danube, has been incorporated
with Komarom. The town is celebrated chiefly for its fortifications,
which form the centre of the inland fortifications of the
Austro-Hungarian monarchy. A brisk trade in cereals, timber, wine and
fish is carried on. Komarom is one of the oldest towns of Hungary,
having received its charter in 1265. The fortifications were begun by
Matthias Corvinus, and were enlarged and strengthened during the Turkish
wars (1526-64). New forts were constructed in 1663 and were greatly
enlarged between 1805 and 1809. In 1543, 1594, 1598 and 1663 it was
beleaguered by the Turks. It was raised to the dignity of a royal free
town in 1751. During the revolutionary war of 1848-49 Komarom was a
principal point of military operations, and was long unsuccessfully
besieged by the Austrians, who on the 11th of July 1849 were defeated
there by General Gorgei, and on the 3rd of August by General Klapka. On
the 27th of September the fortress capitulated to the Austrians upon
honourable terms, and on the 3rd and 4th of October was evacuated by the
Hungarian troops. The treasure of the Austrian national bank was removed
here from Vienna in 1866, when that city was threatened by the
Prussians.
KOMATI, a river of south-eastern Africa. It rises at an elevation of
about 5000 ft. in the Ermelo district of the Transvaal, 11 m. W. of the
source of the Vaal, and flowing in a general N. and E. direction reaches
the Indian Ocean at Delagoa Bay, after a course of some 500 miles. In
its upper valley near Steynsdorp are gold-fields, but the reefs are
almost entirely of low grade ore. The river descends the Drakensberg by
a pass 30 m. S. of Barberton, and at the eastern border of Swaziland is
deflected northward, keeping a course parallel to the Lebombo mountains.
Just W. of 32 deg. E. and in 25 deg. 25' S. it is joined by one of the
many rivers of South Africa named Crocodile. This tributary rises, as
the Elands river, in the Bergendal (6437 ft.) near the upper waters of
the Komati, and flows E. across the high veld, being turned northward as
it reaches the Drakensberg escarpment. The fall to the low veld is over
2000 ft. in 30 m., and across the country between the Drakensberg and
the Lebombo (100 m.) there is a further fall of 3000 ft. A mile below
the junction of the Crocodile and Komati, the united stream, which from
this point is also known as the Manhissa, passes to the coast plain
through a cleft 626 ft. high in the Lebombo known as Komati Poort, where
are some picturesque falls. At Komati Poort, which marks the frontier
between British and Portuguese territory, the river is less than 60 m.
from its mouth in a direct line, but in crossing the plain it makes a
wide sweep of 200 m., first N. and then S., forming lagoon-like expanses
and backwaters and receiving from the north several tributaries. In
flood time there is a connexion northward through the swamps with the
basin of the Limpopo. The Komati enters the sea 15 m. N. of Lourenco
Marques. It is navigable from its mouth, where the water is from 12 to
18 ft. deep, to the foot of the Lebombo.
The railway from Lourenco Marques to Pretoria traverses the plain in a
direct line, and at mile 45 reaches the Komati. It follows the south
bank of the river and enters the high country at Komati Poort. At a
small town with the same name, 2 m. W. of the Poort, on the 23rd of
September 1900, during the war with England, 3000 Boers crossed the
frontier and surrendered to the Portuguese authorities. From the Poort
westward the railway skirts the south bank of the Crocodile river
throughout its length.
KOMOTAU (Czech, _Chomutov_), a town of Bohemia, Austria 79 m. N.N.W. of
Prague by rail. Pop. (1900), 15,925, almost exclusively German. It has
an old Gothic church, and its town-hall was formerly a commandery of the
Teutonic knights. The industrial establishments comprise manufactories
of woollen cloth, linen and paper, dyeing houses, breweries,
distilleries, vinegar works and the central workshops of the Buschtehrad
railway. Lignite is worked in the neighbourhood. Komotau was originally
a Czech market-place, but in 1252 it came into the possession of the
Teutonic Order and was completely Germanized. In 1396 it received a town
charter; and in 1416 the knights sold both town and lordship to
Wenceslaus IV. On the 16th of March 1421, the town was stormed by the
Taborites, sacked and burned. After several changes of ownership,
Komotau came in 1588 to Popel of Lobkovic, who established the Jesuits
here, which led to trouble between the Protestant burghers and the
over-lord. In 1594 the lordship fell to the crown, and in 1605 the town
purchased its freedom and was created a royal city.
KOMURA, JUTARO, COUNT (1855- ), Japanese statesman, was born in Hiuga.
He graduated at Harvard in 1877, and entered the foreign office in Tokyo
in 1884. He served as charge d'affaires in Peking, as Japanese minister
in Seoul, in Washington, in St Petersburg, and in Peking (during the
Boxer trouble), earning in every post a high reputation for diplomatic
ability. In 1901 he received the portfolio of foreign affairs, and held
it throughout the course of the negotiations with Russia and the
subsequent war (1904-5), being finally appointed by his sovereign to
meet the Russian plenipotentiaries at Portsmouth, and subsequently the
Chinese representatives in Peking, on which occasions the Portsmouth
treaty of September 1905 and the Peking treaty of November in the same
year were concluded. For these services, and for negotiating the second
Anglo-Japanese alliance, he received the Japanese title of count and was
made a K.C.B. by King Edward VII. He resigned his portfolio in 1906 and
became privy councillor, from which post he was transferred to the
embassy in London, but he returned to Tokyo in 1908 and resumed the
portfolio of foreign affairs in the second Katsura cabinet.
KONARAK or KANARAK, a ruined temple in India, in the Puri district of
Orissa, which has been described as for its size "the most richly
ornamented building--externally at least--in the whole world." It was
erected in the middle of the 13th century, and was dedicated to the
sun-god. It consisted of a tower, probably once over 180 ft. high, with
a porch in front 140 ft. high, sculptured with figures of lions,
elephants, horses, &c.
KONG, the name of a town, district and range of hills in the N.W. of the
Ivory Coast colony, French West Africa. The hills are part of the band
of high ground separating the inner plains of West Africa from the coast
regions. In maps of the first half of the 19th century the range is
shown as part of a great mountain chain supposed to run east and west
across Africa, and is thus made to appear a continuation of the
Mountains of the Moon, or the snow-clad heights of Ruwenzori. The
culminating point of the Kong system is the Pic des Kommono, 4757 ft.
high. In general the summits of the hills are below 2000 ft. and not
more than 700 ft. above the level of the country. The "circle of Kong,"
one of the administrative divisions of the Ivory Coast colony, covers
46,000 sq. m. and has a population of some 400,000. The inhabitants are
negroes, chiefly Bambara and Mandingo. About a fourth of the population
profess Mahommedanism; the remainder are spirit worshippers. The town of
Kong, situated in 9 deg. N., 4 deg. 20' W., is not now of great
importance. Probably Rene Caillie, who spent some time in the western
part of the country in 1827, was the first European to visit Kong. In
1888 Captain L. G. Binger induced the native chiefs to place themselves
under the protection of France, and in 1893 the protectorate was
attached to the Ivory Coast colony. For a time Kong was overrun by the
armies of Samory (see SENEGAL), but the capture of that chief in 1898
was followed by the peaceful development of the district by France (see
IVORY COAST).
KONGSBERG, a mining town of Norway in Buskerud _amt_ (county), on the
Laagen, 500 ft. above the sea, and 61 m. W.S.W. of Christiania by rail.
Pop. (1900), 5585. With the exception of the church and the town-house,
the buildings are mostly of wood. The origin and whole industry of the
town are connected with the government silver-mines in the
neighbourhood. Their first discovery was made by a peasant in 1623,
since which time they have been worked with varying success. During the
18th century Kongsberg was more important than now, and contained double
its present population. Within the town are situated the smelting-works,
the mint, and a Government weapon factory. Three miles below the Laagen
forms a fine fall of 140 ft. (Labrofos). The neighbouring Jonksnut (2950
ft.) commands extensive views of the Telemark. A driving-road from
Kongsberg follows a favourite route for travellers through this
district, connecting with routes to Sand and Odde on the west coast.
KONIA. (1) A vilayet in Asia Minor which includes the whole, or parts
of, Pamphylia, Pisidia, Phrygia, Lycaonia, Cilicia and Cappadocia. It
was formed in 1864 by adding to the old eyalet of Karamania the western
half of Adana, and part of south-eastern Anadoli. It is divided into
five sanjaks: Adalia, Buldur, Hamid-abad, Konia and Nigdeh. The
population (990,000 Moslems and 80,000 Christians) is for the most part
agricultural and pastoral. The only industries are carpet-weaving and
the manufacture of cotton and silk stuffs. There are mines of chrome,
mercury, cinnabar, argentiferous lead and rock salt. The principal
exports are salt, minerals, opium, cotton, cereals, wool and livestock;
and the imports cloth-goods, coffee, rice and petroleum. The vilayet is
now traversed by the Anatolian railway, and contains the railhead of the
Ottoman line from Smyrna.
(2) The chief town [anc. _Iconium_ (q.v.)], altitude 3320 ft., situated
at the S.W. edge of the vast central plain of Asia Minor, amidst
luxuriant orchards famous in the middle ages for their yellow plums and
apricots and watered by streams from the hills. Pop. 45,000, including
5000 Christians. There are interesting remains of Seljuk buildings, all
showing strong traces of Persian influence in their decorative details.
The principal ruin is that of the palace of Kilij Arslan II., which
contained a famous hall. The most important mosques are the great
_Tekke_, which contains the tomb of the poet Mevlana Jelal ed-din Rumi,
a mystic (sufi) poet, founder of the order of Mevlevi (whirling)
dervishes, and those of his successors, the "Golden" mosque and those of
Ala ed-Din and Sultan Selim. The walls, largely the work of Ala ed-Din
I., are preserved in great part and notable for the number of ancient
inscriptions built into them. They once had twelve gates and were 30
ells in height. The climate is good--hot in summer and cold, with snow,
in winter. Konia is connected by railway with Constantinople and is the
starting-point of the extension towards Bagdad. After the capture of
Nicaea by the Crusaders (1097), Konia became the capital of the Seljuk
Sultans of Rum (see SELJUKS and TURKS). It was temporarily occupied by
Godfrey, and again by Frederick Barbarossa, but this scarcely affected
its prosperity. During the reign of Ala ed-Din I. (1219-1236) the city
was thronged with artists, poets, historians, jurists and dervishes,
driven westwards from Persia and Bokhara by the advance of the Mongols,
and there was a brief period of great splendour. After the break up of
the empire of Rum, Konia became a secondary city of the amirate of
Karamania and in part fell to ruin. In 1472 it was annexed to the
Osmanli empire by Mahommed II. In 1832 it was occupied by Ibrahim Pasha
who defeated and captured the Turkish general, Reshid Pasha, not far
from the walls. It had come to fill only part of its ancient circuit,
but of recent years it has revived considerably, and, since the railway
reached it, has acquired a semi-European quarter, with a German hotel,
cafes and Greek shops, &c.
See W. M. Ramsay, _Historical Geography of Asia Minor_ (1890); _St
Paul the Traveller_ (1895); G. Le Strange, _Lands of the E. Caliphate_
(1905). (D. G. H.)
KONIECPOLSKI, STANISLAUS (1591-1646), Polish soldier, was the most
illustrious member of an ancient Polish family which rendered great
services to the Republic. Educated at the academy of Cracow, he learned
the science of war under the great Jan Chodkiewicz, whom he accompanied
on his Muscovite campaigns, and under the equally great Stanislaus
Zolkiewski, whose daughter Catherine he married. On the death of his
first wife he wedded, in 1619, Christina Lubomirska. In 1619 he took
part in the expedition against the Turks which terminated so
disastrously at Cecora, and after a valiant resistance was captured and
sent to Constantinople, where he remained a close prisoner for three
years. On his return he was appointed commander of all the forces of the
Republic, and at the head of an army of 25,000 men routed 60,000 Tatars
at Martynow, following up this success with fresh victories, for which
he received the thanks of the diet and the palatinate of Sandomeria from
the king. In 1625 he was appointed guardian of the Ukraine against the
Tatars, but in 1626 was transferred to Prussia to check the victorious
advance of Gustavus Adolphus. Swedish historians have too often ignored
the fact that Koniecpolski's superior strategy neutralized all the
efforts of the Swedish king, whom he defeated again and again, notably
at Homerstein (April 1627) and at Trzciand (April 1629). But for the
most part the fatal parsimony of his country compelled Koniecpolski to
confine himself to the harassing guerrilla warfare in which he was an
expert. In 1632 he was appointed to the long vacant post of _hetman
wielki koronny_, or commander in chief of Poland, and in that capacity
routed the Tatars at Sasowy Rogi (April 1633) and at Paniawce (April and
October 1633), and the Turks, with terrific loss, at Abazd Basha. To
keep the Cossacks of the Ukraine in order he also built the fortress of
Kudak. As one of the largest proprietors in the Ukraine he suffered
severely from Cossack depredations and offered many concessions to them.
Only after years of conflict, however, did he succeed in reducing these
unruly desperadoes to something like obedience. In 1644 he once more
routed the Tatars at Ockmatow, and again in 1646 at Brody. This was his
last exploit, for he died the same year, to the great grief of
Wladislaus IV., who had already concerted with him the plan for a
campaign on a grand scale against the Turks, and relied principally upon
the Grand Hetman for its success. Though less famous than his
contemporaries Zolkiehwski and Chodkiewicz, Koniecpolski was fully their
equal as a general, and his inexorable severity made him an ideal
lord-marcher.
See an unfinished biography in the _Tyg. Illus. of Warsaw_ for 1863;
Stanislaw Przylenski, _Memorials of the Koniecpolskis_ (Pol.)
(Lemberg, 1842). (R. N. B.)
KONIG, KARL RUDOLPH (1832-1901), German physicist, was born at
Konigsberg (Prussia) on the 26th of November 1832, and studied at the
university of his native town, taking the degree of Ph.D. About 1852 he
went to Paris, and became apprentice to the famous violin-maker, J. B.
Vuillaume, and some six years later he started business on his own
account. He called himself a "maker of musical instruments," but the
instruments for which his name is best known are tuning-forks, which
speedily gained a high reputation among physicists for their accuracy
and general excellence. From this business Konig derived his livelihood
for the rest of his life. He was, however, very far from being a mere
tradesman, and even as a manufacturer he regarded the quality of the
articles that left his workshop as a matter of greater solicitude than
the profits they yielded. Acoustical research was his real interest, and
to that he devoted all the time and money he could spare from his
business. An exhibit which he sent to the London Exhibition of 1862
gained a gold medal, and at the Philadelphia Exposition at 1876 great
admiration was expressed for a tonometric apparatus of his manufacture.
This consisted of about 670 tuning-forks, of as many different pitches,
extending over four octaves, and it afforded a perfect means for
testing, by enumeration of the beats, the number of vibrations producing
any given note and for accurately tuning any musical instrument. An
attempt was made to secure this apparatus for the university of
Pennsylvania, and Konig was induced to leave it behind him in America on
the assurance that it would be purchased; but, ultimately, the money not
being forthcoming, the arrangement fell through, to his great
disappointment and pecuniary loss. Some of the forks he disposed of to
the university of Toronto and the remainder he used as a nucleus for
the construction of a still more elaborate tonometer. While the range of
the old apparatus was only between 128 and 4096 vibrations a second, the
lowest fork of the new one made only 16 vibrations a second, while the
highest gave a sound too shrill to be perceptible by the human ear.
Konig will also be remembered as the inventor and constructor of many
other beautiful pieces of apparatus for the investigation of acoustical
problems, among which may be mentioned his wave-sirens, the first of
which was shown at Philadelphia in 1876. His original work dealt, among
other things, with Wheatstone's sound-figures, the characteristic notes
of the different vowels, manometric flames, &c.; but perhaps the most
important of his researches are those devoted to the phenomena produced
by the interference of two tones, in which he controverted the views of
H. von Helmholtz as to the existence of summation and difference tones.
He died in Paris on the 2nd of October 1901.
KONIGGRATZ (Czech, _Hradec Kralove_), a town and episcopal see of
Bohemia, Austria, 74 m. E. of Prague by rail. Pop. (1900), 9773, mostly
Czech. It is situated in the centre of a very fertile region called the
"Golden Road," and contains many buildings of historical and
architectural interest. The cathedral was founded in 1303 by Elizabeth,
wife of Wenceslaus II; and the church of St John, built in 1710, stands
on the ruins of the old castle. The industries include the manufacture
of musical instruments, machinery, colours, and _carton-pierre_, as well
as gloves and wax candles. The original name of Koniggratz, one of the
oldest settlements in Bohemia, was _Chlumec Dobroslavsky_; the name
_Hradec_, or "the Castle," was given to it when it became the seat of a
count, and _Kralove_, "of the queen" (Ger. _Konigin_), was prefixed when
it became one of the dower towns of the queen of Wenceslaus II.,
Elizabeth of Poland, who lived here for thirty years. It remained a
dower town till 1620. Koniggratz was the first of the towns to declare
for the national cause during the Hussite wars. After the battle of the
White Mountain (1620) a large part of the Protestant population left the
place. In 1639 the town was occupied for eight months by the Swedes.
Several churches and convents were pulled down to make way for the
fortifications erected under Joseph II. The fortress was finally
dismantled in 1884. Near Koniggratz took place, on the 3rd of July 1866,
the decisive battle (formerly called Sadowa) of the Austro-Prussian war
(see SEVEN WEEKS' WAR).
KONIGINHOF (_Dvur Kralove_ in Czech), the seat of a provincial district
and of a provincial law-court, is situated in north-eastern Bohemia on
the left bank of the Elbe, about 160 kilometres from Prague. Brewing,
corn-milling and cotton-weaving are the principal industries. Pop. about
11,000. The city is of very ancient origin. Founded by King Wenceslaus
II. of Bohemia (1278-1305), it was given by him to his wife Elizabeth,
and thus received the name of Dvur Kralove (the court of the queen).
During the Hussite wars, Dvur Kralove was several times taken and
retaken by the contending parties. In a battle fought partly within the
streets of the town, the Austrian army was totally defeated by the
Prussians on the 29th of June 1866. In the 19th century Dvur Kralove
became widely known as the spot where a MS. was found that was long
believed to be one of the oldest written documents in the Czech
language. In 1817 Wenceslas Hanka, afterwards for a long period
librarian of the Bohemian museum, declared that he had found in the
church tower in the town of Dvur Kralove when on a visit there, a very
ancient MS. containing epic and lyric poems. Though Dobrovsky, the
greatest Czech philologist of the time, from the first expressed
suspicions, the MS. known as the Kralodvorsky Rukopis manuscript of
Koniginhof was long accepted as genuine, frequently printed and
translated into most European languages. Doubts as to the genuineness of
the document never, however, ceased, and they became stronger when Hanka
was convicted of having fabricated other false Bohemian documents. A
series of works and articles written by Professors Goll, Gebauer,
Masoryk, and others have recently proved that the MS. is a forgery, and
hardly any Bohemian scholars of the present day believe in its
genuineness.
The discussion of the authenticity of the MS. of Dvur Kralove lasted
with short interruptions about seventy years, and the Bohemian works
written on the subject would fill a considerable library. Count
Lutzow's _History of Bohemian Literature_ gives a brief account of the
controversy.
KONIGSBERG (Polish _Krolewiec_), a town of Germany, capital of the
province of East Prussia and a fortress of the first rank. Pop. (1880),
140,800; (1890), 161,666; (1905), 219,862 (including the incorporated
suburbs). It is situated on rising ground, on both sides of the Pregel,
4(1/2) m. from its mouth in the Frische Haff, 397 m. N. E. of Berlin, on
the railway to Eydtkuhnen and at the junction of lines to Pillau, Tilsit
and Kranz. It consists of three parts, which were formerly independent
administrative units, the Altstadt (old town), to the west, Lobenicht to
the east, and the island Kneiphof, together with numerous suburbs, all
embraced in a circuit of 9(1/2) miles. The Pregel, spanned by many
bridges, flows through the town in two branches, which unite below the
Grune Brucke. Its greatest breadth within the town is from 80 to 90
yards, and it is usually frozen from November to March. Konigsberg does
not retain many marks of antiquity. The Altstadt has long and narrow
streets, but the Kneiphof quarter is roomier. Of the seven market-places
only that in the Altstadt retains something of its former appearance.
Among the more interesting buildings are the Schloss, a long rectangle
begun in 1255 and added to later, with a Gothic tower 277 ft. high and a
chapel built in 1592, in which Frederick I. in 1701 and William I. in
1861 crowned themselves kings of Prussia; and the cathedral, begun in
1333 and restored in 1856, a Gothic building with a tower 164 ft. high,
adjoining which is the tomb of Kant. The Schloss was originally the
residence of the Grand Masters of the Teutonic order and later of the
dukes of Prussia. Behind is the parade-ground, with the statues of
Albert I. and of Frederick William III. by August Kiss, and the grounds
also contain monuments to Frederick I. and William I. To the east is the
Schlossteich, a long narrow ornamental lake covering 12 acres. The
north-west side of the parade-ground is occupied by the new university
buildings, completed in 1865; these and the new exchange on the south
side of the Pregel are the finest architectural features of the town.
The university (Collegium Albertinum) was founded in 1544 by Albert I.,
duke of Prussia, as a "purely Lutheran" place of learning. It is chiefly
distinguished for its mathematical and philosophical studies, and
possesses a famous observatory, established in 1811 by Frederick William
Bessel, a library of about 240,000 volumes, a zoological museum, a
botanical garden, laboratories and valuable mathematical and other
scientific collections. Among its famous professors have been Kant (who
was born here in 1724 and to whom a monument was erected in 1864), J. G.
von Herder, Bessel, F. Neumann and J. F. Herbart. It is attended by
about 1000 students and has a teaching staff of over 100. Among other
educational establishments, Konigsberg numbers four classical schools
(gymnasia) and three commercial schools, an academy of painting and a
school of music. The hospitals and benevolent institutions are numerous.
The town is less well equipped with museums and similar institutions,
the most noteworthy being the Prussia museum of antiquities, which is
especially rich in East Prussian finds from the Stone age to the Viking
period. Besides the cathedral the town has fourteen churches.
Konigsberg is a naval and military fortress of the first order. The
fortifications were begun in 1843 and were only completed in 1905,
although the place was surrounded by walls in early times. The works
consist of an inner wall, brought into connexion with an outlying system
of works, and of twelve detached forts, of which six are on the right
and six on the left bank of the Pregel. Between them lie two great
forts, that of Friedrichsburg on an island in the Pregel and that of the
Kaserne Kronprinz on the east of the town, both within the environing
ramparts. The protected position of its harbour has made Konigsberg one
of the most important commercial cities of Germany. A new channel has
recently been made between it and its port, Pillau, 29 miles distant, on
the outer side of the Frische Haff, so as to admit vessels drawing 20
feet of water right up to the quays of Konigsberg, and the result has
been to stimulate the trade of the city. It is protected for a long
distance by moles, in which a break has been left in the Fischhauser
Wiek, to permit of freer circulation of the water and to prevent damage
to the mainland.
The industries of Konigsberg have made great advances within recent
years, notable among them are printing-works and manufactures of
machinery, locomotives, carriages, chemicals, toys, sugar, cellulose,
beer, tobacco and cigars, pianos and amber wares. The principal exports
are cereals and flour, cattle, horses, hemp, flax, timber, sugar and
oilcake. There are two pretty public parks, one in the Hufen, with a
zoological garden attached, another the Luisenwahl which commemorates
the sojourn of Queen Louisa of Prussia in the town in the disastrous
year 1806.
The Altstadt of Konigsberg grew up around the castle built in 1255 by the
Teutonic Order, on the advice of Ottaker II. King of Bohemia, after whom
the place was named. Its first site was near the fishing village of
Steindamm, but after its destruction by the Prussians in 1263 it was
rebuilt in its present position. It received civic privileges in 1286, the
two other parts of the present town--Lobenicht and Kneiphof--receiving
them a few years later. In 1340 Konigsberg entered the Hanseatic League.
From 1457 it was the residence of the grand master of the Teutonic Order,
and from 1525 till 1618 of the dukes of Prussia. The trade of Konigsberg
was much hindered by the constant shifting and silting up of the channels
leading to its harbour; and the great northern wars did it immense harm,
but before the end of the 17th century it had almost recovered.
In 1724 the three independent parts were united into a single town by
Frederick William I.
Konigsberg suffered severely during the war of liberation and was
occupied by the French in 1807. In 1813 the town was the scene of the
deliberations which led to the successful uprising of Prussia against
Napoleon. During the 19th century the opening of a railway system in
East Prussia and Russia gave a new impetus to its commerce, making it
the principal outlet for the Russian staples--grain, seeds, flax and
hemp. It has now regular steam communication with Memel, Stettin, Kiel,
Amsterdam and Hull.
See Faber, _Die Haupt- und Residenzstadt Konigsberg in Preussen_
(Konigsberg, 1840); Schubert, _Zur 600-jahrigen Jubelfeier
Konigsbergs_ (Konigsberg, 1855); Beckherrn, _Geschichte der
Befestigungen Konigsbergs_ (Konigsberg, 1890); H. G. Prutz, _Die
konigliche Albertus-Universitat zu Konigsberg im 19 Jahrhundert_
(Konigsberg, 1894); Armstedt, _Geschichte der koniglichen Haupt- und
Residenzstadt Konigsberg_ (Stuttgart, 1899); M. Schultze, _Konigsberg
und Ostpreussen zu Anfang 1813_ (Berlin, 1901); and Gordak, _Wegweiser
durch Konigsberg_ (Konigsberg, 1904).
KONIGSBORN, a spa of Germany, in the Prussian province of Westphalia,
immediately to the N. of the town of Unna, of which it practically forms
a suburb. It has large saltworks, producing annually over 15,000 tons.
The brine springs, in connexion with which there is a hydropathic
establishment, have a temperature of 93 deg. F., and are efficacious in
skin diseases, rheumatism and scrofula.
See Wegele, _Bad Konigsborn und seine Heilmittel_ (Essen, 1902).
KONIGSHUTTE, a town of Germany, in the Prussian province of Silesia,
situated in the middle of the Upper Silesian coal and iron district, 3
m. S. of Beuthen and 122 m. by rail S.E. of Breslau. Pop. (1852), 4495;
(1875), 26,040; (1900), 57,919. In 1869 it was incorporated with various
neighbouring villages, and raised to the dignity of a town. It has two
Protestant and three Roman Catholic churches and several schools and
benevolent institutions. The largest iron-works in Silesia is situated
at Konigshutte, and includes puddling works, rolling-mills, and
zinc-works. Founded in 1797, it was formerly in the hands of government,
but is now carried on by a company. There are also manufactures of
bricks and glass and a trade in wood and coal. Nearly one-half of the
population of the town consists of Poles.
See Mohr, _Geschichte der Stadt Konigshutte_ (Konigshutte, 1890).
KONIGSLUTTER, a town of Germany, in the duchy of Brunswick, on the
Lutter 36 m. E. of Brunswick by the railway to Eisleben and Magdeburg.
Pop. (1905), 3260. It possesses an Evangelical church, a castle and some
interesting old houses. Its chief manufactures are sugar, machinery,
paper and beer. Near the town are the ruins of a Benedictine abbey
founded in 1135. In its beautiful church, which has not been destroyed,
are the tombs of the emperor Lothair II., his wife Richenza, and of his
son-in-law, Duke Henry the Proud of Saxony and Bavaria.
KONIGSMARK, MARIA AURORA, COUNTESS OF (1662-1728), mistress of Augustus
the Strong, elector of Saxony and king of Poland, belonged to a noble
Swedish family, and was born on the 8th of May 1662. Having passed some
years at Hamburg, where she attracted attention both by her beauty and
her talents, Aurora went in 1694 to Dresden to make inquiries about her
brother Philipp Christoph, count of Konigsmark, who had suddenly and
mysteriously disappeared from Hanover. Here she was noticed by Augustus,
who made her his mistress; and in October 1696 she gave birth to a son
Maurice, afterwards the famous marshal de Saxe. The elector however
quickly tired of Aurora, who then spent her time in efforts to secure
the position of abbess of Quedlinburg, an office which carried with it
the dignity of a princess of the Empire, and to recover the lost
inheritance of her family in Sweden. She was made coadjutor abbess and
lady-provost (_Propstin_) of Quedlinburg, but lived mainly in Berlin,
Dresden and Hamburg. In 1702 she went on a diplomatic errand to Charles
XII. of Sweden on behalf of Augustus, but her adventurous journey ended
in failure. The countess, who was described by Voltaire as "the most
famous woman of two centuries," died at Quedlinburg on the 16th of
February 1728.
See F. Cramer, _Denkwurdigkeiten der Grafin M. A. Konigsmark_
(Leipzig, 1836); and _Biographische Nachrichten von der Grafin M. A.
Konigsmark_ (Quedlinburg, 1833); W. F. Palmblad, _Aurora Konigsmark
und ihre Verwandte_ (Leipzig, 1848-1853); C. L. de Pollnitz, _La Saxe
galante_ (Amsterdam, 1734); and O. J. B. von Corvin-Wiersbitzki,
_Maria Aurora, Grafin von Konigsmark_ (Rudolstadt, 1902).
KONIGSMARK, PHILIPP CHRISTOPH, COUNT OF (1665-1694), was a member of a
noble Swedish family, and is chiefly known as the lover of Sophia
Dorothea, wife of the English king George I. then electoral prince of
Hanover. Born on the 14th of March 1665, Konigsmark was a brother of the
countess noticed above. After wandering and fighting in various parts of
Europe he entered the service of Ernest Augustus, elector of Hanover.
Here he made the acquaintance of Sophia Dorothea, and assisted her in
one or two futile attempts to escape from Hanover. Regarded, rightly or
wrongly, as the lover of the princess, he was seized, and disappeared
from history, probably by assassination, on the 1st of July 1694. One
authority states that George I. was accustomed to boast about this deed;
but this statement is doubted, and the Hanoverian court resolutely
opposed all efforts to clear up the mystery. It is not absolutely
certain that Sophia Dorothea was guilty of a criminal intrigue with
Konigsmark, as it is probable that the letters which purport to have
passed between the pair are forgeries. The question of her guilt or
innocence, however, has been and still remains a fruitful and popular
subject for romance and speculation.
See _Briefwechsel des Grafen Konigsmark und der Prinzessin Sophie
Dorothea von Celle_, edited by W. F. Palmblad (Leipzig, 1847); A.
Kocher, "Die Prinzessin von Ahlden," in the _Historische Zeitschrift_
(Munich, 1882); and W. H. Wilkins, _The Love of an Uncrowned Queen_
(London, 1900).
KONIGSSEE, or Lake of St Bartholomew, a lake of Germany, in the kingdom
of Bavaria, province of Upper Bavaria, about 2(1/2) m. S. from
Berchtesgaden, 1850 ft. above sea-level. It has a length of 5 m., and a
breadth varying from 500 yards to a little over a mile, and attains a
maximum depth of 600 ft. The Konigssee is the most beautiful of all the
lakes in the German Alps, pent in by limestone mountains rising to an
altitude of 6500 ft., the flanks of which descend precipitously to the
green waters below. The lake abounds in trout, and the surrounding
country is rich in game. On a promontory by the side of the lake is a
chapel to which pilgrimages are made on St Bartholomew's Day. Separated
by a narrow strip of land from the Konigssee is the Obersee, a smaller
lake.
KONIGSTEIN, a town of Germany, in the kingdom of Saxony, situated in a
deep valley on the left bank of the Elbe, at the influx of the Biela, in
the centre of Saxon Switzerland, 25 m. S.E. of Dresden by the railway to
Bodenbach and Testchen. It contains a Roman Catholic and a Protestant
church, a monument to the composer Julius Otto, and has some small
manufactures of machinery, celluloid, paper, vinegar and buttons. It is
chiefly remarkable for the huge fortress, lying immediately to the
north-west of the town, which crowns a sandstone rock rising abruptly
from the Elbe to a height of 750 ft. Across the Elbe lies the
Lilienstein, a similar formation, but unfortified. The fortress of
Konigstein was probably a Slav stronghold as early as the 12th century,
but it is not mentioned in chronicles before the year 1241, when it was
a fief of Bohemia. In 1401 it passed to the margraves of Meissen and by
the treaty of Eger in 1459 it was formally ceded by Bohemia to Saxony.
About 1540 the works were strengthened, and the place was used as a
_point d'appui_ against inroads from Bohemia. Hence the phrase
frequently employed by historians that Konigstein is "the key to
Bohemia." As a fact, the main road from Dresden into that country lies
across the hills several miles to the south-west, and the fortress has
exercised little, if any, influence in strategic operations, either
during the middle ages or in modern times. It was further strengthened
under the electors Christian I., John George I. and Frederick Augustus
II. of Saxony, the last of whom completed it in its present form. During
the Prussian invasion of Saxony in 1756 it served as a place of refuge
for the King of Poland, Augustus III., as it did also in 1849, during
the Dresden insurrection of May in that year, to the King of Saxony,
Frederick Augustus II. and his ministers. It was occupied by the
Prussians in 1867, who retained possession of it until the peace of
1871. It is garrisoned by detachments of several Saxon infantry
regiments, and serves as a treasure house for the state and also as a
place of detention for officers sentenced to fortress imprisonment. A
remarkable feature of the place is a well, hewn out of the solid rock to
a depth of 470 ft.
See Klemm, _Der Konigstein in alter und neuer Zeit_ (Leipzig, 1905);
and Gautsch, _Aelteste Geschichte der sachsischen Schweiz_ (Dresden,
1880).
KONIGSWINTER, a town and summer resort of Germany, in the Prussian Rhine
province, on the right bank of the Rhine, 24 m. S.S.E. of Cologne by the
railway to Frankfort-on-Main, at the foot of the Siebengebirge. Pop.
(1905), 3944. The romantic Drachenfels (1010 ft.), crowned by the ruins
of a castle built early in the 12th century by the archbishop of
Cologne, rises behind the town. From the summit, to which there is a
funicular railway, there is a magnificent view, celebrated by Byron in
_Childe Harold's Pilgrimage_. A cave in the hill is said to have
sheltered the dragon which was slain by the hero Siegfried. The mountain
is quarried, and from 1267 onward supplied stone (trachyte) for the
building of Cologne cathedral. The castle of Drachenburg, built in 1883,
is on the north side of the hill. Konigswinter has a Roman Catholic and
an Evangelical church, some small manufactures and a little shipping. It
has a monument to the poet, Wolfgang Muller. Near the town are the ruins
of the abbey of Heisterbach.
KONINCK, LAURENT GUILLAUME DE (1809-1887), Belgian palaeontologist and
chemist, was born at Louvain on the 3rd of May 1809. He studied medicine
in the university of his native town, and in 1831 he became assistant in
the chemical schools. He pursued the study of chemistry in Paris, Berlin
and Giessen, and was subsequently engaged in teaching the science at
Ghent and Liege. In 1856 he was appointed professor of chemistry in the
Liege University, and he retained this post until the close of his life.
About the year 1835 he began to devote his leisure to the investigation
of the Carboniferous fossils around Liege, and ultimately he became
distinguished for his researches on the palaeontology of the Palaeozoic
rocks, and especially for his descriptions of the mollusca, brachiopods,
crustacea and crinoids of the Carboniferous limestone of Belgium. In
recognition of this work the Wollaston medal was awarded to him in 1875
by the Geological Society of London, and in 1876 he was appointed
professor of palaeontology at Liege. He died at Liege on the 16th of
July 1887.
PUBLICATIONS.--_Elements de chimie inorganique_ (1839); _Description
des animaux fossiles qui se trouvent dans le terrain Carbonifere de
Belgique_ (1842-1844, supp. 1851); _Recherches sur les animaux
fossiles_ (1847, 1873). See _Notice sur L. G. de Koninck_, by E.
Dupont; _Annuaire de l'Acad. roy. de Belgique_ (1891), with portrait
and bibliography.
KONINCK, PHILIP DE [de Coninck, de Koningh, van Koening] (1619-1688),
Dutch landscape painter, was born in Amsterdam in 1619. Little is known
of his history, except that he was a pupil of Rembrandt, whose influence
is to be seen in all his work. He painted chiefly broad sunny
landscapes, full of space, light and atmosphere. Portraits by him,
somewhat in the manner of Rembrandt, also exist; there are examples of
these in the galleries at Copenhagen and Christiania. Of his landscapes
the principal are "Vue de l'embouchure d'une riviere," at the Hague; a
slightly larger replica is in the National Gallery, London; "Lisiere
d'un bois," and "Paysage" (with figures by A. Vandevelde) at Amsterdam;
and landscapes in Brussels, Florence (Uffizi), Berlin and Cologne.
Several of his works have been falsely attributed to Rembrandt, and many
more to his namesake and fellow-townsman SALOMON DE KONINCK (1609-1656),
who was also a disciple of Rembrandt; his paintings and etchings consist
mainly of portraits and biblical scenes.
Both these painters are to be distinguished from DAVID DE KONINCK
(1636-?1687), who is also known as "Rammelaar." He was born in Antwerp.
He studied there under Jan Fyt, and later settled in Rome, where he is
stated to have died in 1687; this is, however, doubtful. His pictures
are chiefly landscapes with animals, and still-life.
KONITZ, a town of Germany, in the province of West Prussia, at the
junction of railways to Schneidemuhl and Gnesen, 68 m. S.W. of Danzig.
Pop. (1905), 11,014. It is still surrounded by its old fortifications,
has two Evangelical and two Roman Catholic churches, a new town-hall,
handsome public offices, and a prison. It has iron-foundries, saw-mills,
electrical works, and manufactures of bricks. Konitz was the first
fortified post established in Prussia by Hermann Balk, who in 1230 had
been commissioned as _Landmeister_, by the grand-master of the Teutonic
order, to reduce the heathen Prussians. For a long time it continued to
be a place of military importance.
See Uppenkamp, _Geschichte der Stadt Konitz_ (Konitz, 1873).
KONKAN, or CONCAN, a maritime tract of Western India, situated within
the limits of the Presidency of Bombay, and extending from the
Portuguese settlement of Goa on the S. to the territory of Daman,
belonging to the same nation, on the N. On the E. it is bounded by the
Western Ghats, and on the W. by the Indian Ocean. This tract comprises
the three British districts of Thana, Ratnagiri and Kolaba, and the
native states of Janjira and Sawantwari. It may be estimated at 300 m.
in length, with an average breadth of about 40. From the mountains on
its eastern frontier, which in one place attain a height of 4700 ft.,
the surface, marked by a succession of irregular hilly spurs from the
Ghats, slopes to the westward, where the mean elevation of the coast is
not more than 100 ft. above the level of the sea. Several mountain
streams, but none of any magnitude, traverse the country in the same
direction. One of the most striking characteristics of the climate is
the violence of the monsoon rains--the mean annual fall at Mahabaleshwar
amounting to 239 in. The coast has a straight general outline, but is
much broken into small bays and harbours. This, with the uninterrupted
view along the shore, and the land and sea breezes, which force vessels
steering along the coast to be always within sight of it, rendered this
country from time immemorial the seat of piracy; and so formidable had
the pirates become in the 18th century, that all ships suffered which
did not receive a pass from their chiefs. The Great Mogul maintained a
fleet for the express purpose of checking them, and they were frequently
attacked by the Portuguese. British commerce was protected by occasional
expeditions from Bombay; but the piratical system was not finally
extinguished until 1812. The southern Konkan has given its name to a
dialect of Marathi, which is the vernacular of the Roman Catholics of
Goa.
KONTAGORA, a province in the British protectorate of Northern Nigeria,
on the east bank of the Niger to the north of Nupe and opposite Borgu.
It is bounded W. by the Niger, S. by the province of Nupe, E. by that of
Zaria, and N. by that of Sokoto. It has an area of 14,500 sq. m. and a
population estimated at about 80,000. At the time of the British
occupation of Northern Nigeria the province formed a Fula emirate.
Before the Fula domination, which was established in 1864, the ancient
pagan kingdom of Yauri was the most important of the lesser kingdoms
which occupied this territory. The Fula conquest was made from Nupe on
the south and a tribe of independent and warlike pagans continued to
hold the country between Kontagora and Sokoto on the north. The province
was brought under British domination in 1901 as the result of a military
expedition sent to prevent audacious slave-raiding in British protected
territory and of threats directed against the British military station
of Jebba on the Niger. The town of Kontagora was taken in January of
1901. The emir Ibrahim fled, and was not captured till early in 1902.
The province, after having been held for a time in military occupation,
was organized for administration on the same system as the rest of the
protectorate. In 1903 Ibrahim, after agreeing to take the oath of
allegiance to the British crown and to accept the usual conditions of
appointment, which include the abolition of the slave trade within the
province, was reinstated as emir and the British garrison was withdrawn.
Since then the development of the province has progressed favourably.
Roads have been opened and Kontagora connected by telegraph with
headquarters at Zungeru. British courts of justice have been established
at the British headquarters, and native courts in every district. In
1904 an expedition reduced to submission the hitherto independent tribes
in the northern belt, who had up to that time blocked the road to
Sokoto. Their arms were confiscated and their country organized as a
district of the province under a chief and a British assistant resident.
KOORINGA [BURRA], a town of Burra county, South Australia on Burra
Creek, 101 m. by rail N. by E. of Adelaide. Pop. (1901), 1994. It is the
centre of a mining and agricultural district in which large areas are
devoted to wheat-growing. The famous Burra Burra copper mine, discovered
by a shepherd in 1844, is close to the town, while silver and lead ore
is also found in the vicinity.
KOPENICK (COPENICK), a town of Germany, in the Prussian province of
Brandenburg, on an island in the Spree, 9 m. S.E. from Berlin by the
railway to Furstenwalde. Pop. (1905), 27,721. It contains a royal
residence, which was built on the site of a palace which belonged to the
great elector, Frederick William. This is surrounded by gardens and
contains a fine banqueting hall and a chapel. Other buildings are a
Roman Catholic and a Protestant church and a teachers' seminary. The
varied industries embrace the manufacture of glass, linoleum,
sealing-wax and ink. In the vicinity is Spindlersfeld, with important
dye-works.
Kopenick, which dates from the 12th century, received municipal rights
in 1225. Shortly afterwards, it became the bone of contention between
Brandenburg and Meissen, but, at the issue of the feud, remained with
the former, becoming a favourite residence of the electors of
Brandenburg. In the palace the famous court martial was held in 1730,
which condemned the crown-prince of Prussia, afterwards Frederick the
Great, to death. In 1906 the place derived ephemeral fame from the
daring feat of a cobbler, one Wilhelm Voigt, who, attired as a captain
in the army, accompanied by soldiers, whom his apparent rank deceived,
took the mayor prisoner, on a fictitious charge of having falsified
accounts and absconded with a considerable sum of municipal money. The
"captain of Kopenick" was arrested, tried, and sentenced to a term of
imprisonment.
See Graf zu Dohna, _Kurfurstliche Schlosser in der Mark Brandenburg_
(Berlin, 1890).
KOPISCH, AUGUST (1799-1853), German poet, was born at Breslau on the
26th of May 1799. In 1815 he began the study of painting at the Prague
academy, but an injury to his hand precluded the prospects of any great
success in this profession, and he turned to literature. After a
residence in Dresden Kopisch proceeded, in 1822, to Italy, where, at
Naples, he formed an intimate friendship with the poet August, count of
Platen Hallermund. He was an expert swimmer, a quality which enabled him
in company with Ernst Fries to discover the blue grotto of Capri. In
1828 he settled at Berlin and was granted a pension by Frederick William
IV., who in 1838 conferred upon him the title of professor. He died at
Berlin on the 3rd of February 1853. Kopisch produced some very original
poetry, light in language and in form. He especially treated legends and
popular subjects, and among his _Gedichte_ (Berlin, 1836) are some naive
and humorous little pieces such as _Die Historie von Noah_, _Die
Heinzelmannchen_, _Das grune Tier_ and _Der Scheiderjunge von
Krippstedt_, which became widely popular. He also published a
translation of Dante's _Divine Comedy_ (Berlin, 1840), and under the
title _Agrumi_ (Berlin, 1838) a collection of translations of Italian
folk songs.
Kopisch's collected works were published in 5 vols. (Berlin, 1856.)
KOPP, HERMANN FRANZ MORITZ (1817-1892), German chemist, was born on the
30th of October 1817 at Hanau, where his father, Johann Heinrich Kopp
(1777-1858), a physician, was professor of chemistry, physics and
natural history at the Lyceum.
After attending the gymnasium of his native town, he studied at Marburg
and Heidelberg, and then, attracted by the fame of Liebig, went in 1839
to Giessen, where he became a _privatdozent_ in 1841, and professor of
chemistry twelve years later. In 1864 he was called to Heidelberg in the
same capacity, and he remained there till his death on the 20th of
February 1892. Kopp devoted himself especially to physico-chemical
inquiries, and in the history of chemical theory his name is associated
with several of the most important correlations of the physical
properties of substances with their chemical constitution. Much of his
work was concerned with specific volumes, the conception of which he set
forth in a paper published when he was only twenty-two years of age; and
the principles he established have formed the basis of subsequent
investigations in that subject, although his results have in some cases
undergone modification. Another question to which he gave much attention
was the connexion of the boiling-point of compounds, organic ones in
particular, with their composition. In addition to these and other
laborious researches, Kopp was a prolific writer. In 1843-1847 he
published a comprehensive _History of Chemistry_, in four volumes, to
which three supplements were added in 1869-1875. The _Development of
Chemistry in Recent Times_ appeared in 1871-1874, and in 1886 he
published a work in two volumes on _Alchemy in Ancient and Modern
Times_. In addition he wrote (1863) on theoretical and physical
chemistry for the Graham-Otto _Lehrbuch der Chemie_, and for many years
assisted Liebig in editing the _Annalen der Chemie_ and the
_Jahresbericht_.
He must not be confused with EMIL KOPP (1817-1875), who, born at
Warselnheim, Alsace, became in 1847 professor of toxicology and
chemistry at the Ecole superieure de Pharmacie at Strasburg, in 1849
professor of physics and chemistry at Lausanne, in 1852 chemist to a
Turkey-red factory near Manchester, in 1868 professor of technology at
Turin, and finally, in 1871, professor of technical chemistry at the
Polytechnic of Zurich, where he died in 1875.
KOPRULU, or KUPRILI (Bulgarian _Valesa_, Greek _Velissa_), a town of
Macedonia, European Turkey, in the vilayet of Salonica, situated 600
ft. above sea-level, on the river Vardar, and on the Salonica-Mitrovitza
railway, 25 m. S.E. of Uskub. Pop. (1905), about 22,000. Koprulu has a
flourishing trade in silk; maize and mulberries are cultivated in the
neighbourhood. The Greek and Bulgarian names of the town may be corrupt
forms of the ancient Bylazora, described by Polybius as the chief city
of Paeonia.
KORA, or CORA, an ancient town of Northern India, in the Fatehpur
district of the United Provinces. Pop. (1901), 2806. As the capital of a
Mahommedan province, it gave its name to part of the tract (with
Allahabad) granted by Lord Clive to the titular Mogul emperor, Shah
Alam, in 1765.
KORAN. The Koran (Kor'an) is the sacred Book of Islam, on which the
religion of more than two hundred millions of Mahommedans is founded,
being regarded by them as the immediate word of God. And since the use
of the Koran in public worship, in schools and otherwise, is much more
extensive than, for example, the reading of the Bible in most Christian
countries, it has been truly described as the most widely-read book in
existence. This circumstance alone is sufficient to give it an urgent
claim on our attention, whether it suit our taste and fall in with our
religious and philosophical views or not. Besides, it is the work of
Mahomet, and as such is fitted to afford a clue to the spiritual
development of that most successful of all prophets and religious
personalities. It must be owned that the first perusal leaves on a
European an impression of chaotic confusion--not that the book is so
very extensive, for it is not quite as large as the New Testament. This
impression can in some degree be modified only by the application of a
critical analysis with the assistance of Arabian tradition.
Mahomet's View of Revelation.
To the faith of the Moslems, as has been said, the Koran is the word of
God, and such also is the claim which the book itself advances. For
except in sur. i.--which is a prayer for men--and some few passages
where Mahomet (vi. 104, 114; xxvii. 93; xlii. 8) or the angels (xix. 65;
xxxvii. 164 sqq.) speak in the first person without the intervention of
the usual imperative "say" (sing. or pl.), the speaker throughout is
God, either in the first person singular or more commonly the plural of
majesty "we." The same mode of address is familiar to us from the
prophets of the Old Testament; the human personality disappears, in the
moment of inspiration, behind the God by whom it is filled. But all the
greatest of the Hebrew prophets fall back speedily upon the unassuming
human "I"; while in the Koran the divine "I" is the stereotyped form of
address. Mahomet, however, really felt himself to be the instrument of
God; this consciousness was no doubt brighter at his first appearance
than it afterwards became, but it never entirely forsook him.
Nevertheless we cannot doubt his good-faith, not even in the cases in
which the moral quality of his actions leaves most to be desired. In
spite of all, the dominant fact remains, that to the end he was zealous
for his God and for the salvation of his people, nay, of the whole of
humanity, and that he never lost the unconquerable certainty of his
divine mission.
The rationale of revelation is explained in the Koran itself as follows:
In heaven is the original text ("the mother of the book," xliii. 3; "a
concealed book," lv. 77; "a well-guarded tablet," lxxxv. 22). By the
process of "sending down" (_tanzil_), one piece after another was
communicated to the Prophet. The mediator was an angel, who is called
sometimes the "Spirit" (xxvi. 193), sometimes the "holy Spirit" (xvi.
104), and at a later time "Gabriel" (only in ii. 91, 92; lxvi. 4). This
angel dictates the revelation to the Prophet, who repeats it after him,
and afterwards proclaims it to the world (lxxxvii. 6, &c.). It is plain
that we have here a somewhat crude attempt of the Prophet to represent
to himself the more or less unconscious process by which his ideas arose
and gradually took shape in his mind. It is no wonder if in such
confused imagery the details are not always self-consistent. When, for
example, this heavenly archetype is said to be in the hands of "exalted
scribes" (lxxx. 13 sqq.), this seems a transition to a quite different
set of ideas, namely, the books of fate, or the record of all human
actions--conceptions which are actually found in the Koran. It is to be
observed, at all events, that Mahomet's transcendental idea of God, as a
Being exalted altogether above the world, excludes the thought of direct
intercourse between the Prophet and God.
Component Parts of the Koran.
It is an explicit statement of the Koran that the sacred book was
revealed ("sent down") by God, not all at once, but piecemeal and
gradually (xxv. 34). This is evident from the actual composition of the
book, and is confirmed by Moslem tradition. That is to say, Mahomet
issued his revelations in fly-leaves of greater or less extent. A single
piece of this kind was called either, like the entire collection,
_kor'an_, i.e. "recitation," "reading," or, better still, is the
equivalent of Aramaic _geryana_ "lectionary"; or _kitab_, "writing"; or
_sura_, which is perhaps the late-Hebrew _shura_, and means literally
"series." The last became, in the lifetime of Mahomet, the regular
designation of the individual sections as distinguished from the whole
collection; and accordingly it is the name given to the separate
chapters of the existing Koran. These chapters are of very unequal
length. Since many of the shorter ones are undoubtedly complete in
themselves, it is natural to assume that the longer, which are sometimes
very comprehensive, have arisen from the amalgamation of various
originally distinct revelations. This supposition is favoured by the
numerous traditions which give us the circumstances under which this or
that short piece, now incorporated in a larger section, was revealed;
and also by the fact that the connexion of thought in the present suras
often seems to be interrupted. And in reality many pieces of the long
suras have to be severed out as originally independent; even in the
short ones parts are often found which cannot have been there at first.
At the same time we must beware of carrying this sifting operation too
far,--as Noldeke now believes himself to have done in his earlier works,
and as Sprenger also sometimes seems to do. That some suras were of
considerable length from the first is seen, for example, from xii.,
which contains a short introduction, then the history of Joseph, and
then a few concluding observations, and is therefore perfectly
homogeneous. In like manner, xx., which is mainly occupied with the
history of Moses, forms a complete whole. The same is true of xviii.,
which at first sight seems to fall into several pieces; the history of
the seven sleepers, the grotesque narrative about Moses, and that about
Alexander "the Horned," are all connected together, and the same rhyme
through the whole sura. Even in the separate narrations we may observe
how readily the Koran passes from one subject to another, how little
care is taken to express all the transitions of thought, and how
frequently clauses are omitted, which are almost indispensable. We are
not at liberty, therefore, in every case where the connexion in the
Koran is obscure, to say that it is really broken, and set it down as
the clumsy patchwork of a later hand. Even in the old Arabic poetry such
abrupt transitions are of very frequent occurrence. It is not uncommon
for the Koran, after a new subject has been entered on, to return
gradually or suddenly to the former theme,--a proof that there at least
separation is not to be thought of. In short, however imperfectly the
Koran may have been redacted, in the majority of cases the present suras
are identical with the originals.
How these revelations actually arose in Mahomet's mind is a question
which it is almost as idle to discuss as it would be to analyse the
workings of the mind of a poet. In his early career, sometimes perhaps
in its later stages also, many revelations must have burst from him in
uncontrollable excitement, so that he could not possibly regard them
otherwise than as divine inspirations. We must bear in mind that he was
no cold systematic thinker, but an Oriental visionary, brought up in
crass superstition, and without intellectual discipline; a man whose
nervous temperament had been powerfully worked on by ascetic
austerities, and who was all the more irritated by the opposition he
encountered, because he had little of the heroic in his nature. Filled
with his religious ideas and visions, he might well fancy he heard the
angel bidding him recite what was said to him. There may have been many
a revelation of this kind which no one ever heard but himself, as he
repeated it to himself in the silence of the night (lxxiii. 4). Indeed
the Koran itself admits that he forgot some revelations (lxxxvii. 7).
But by far the greatest part of the book is undoubtedly the result of
deliberation, touched more or less with emotion, and animated by a
certain rhetorical rather than poetical glow. Many passages are based
upon purely intellectual reflection. It is said that Mahomet
occasionally uttered such a passage immediately after one of those
epileptic fits which not only his followers, but (for a time at least)
he himself also, regarded as tokens of intercourse with the higher
powers. If that is the case, it is impossible to say whether the trick
was in the utterance of the revelation or in the fit itself.
The Koran Written.
How the various pieces of the Koran took literary form is uncertain.
Mahomet himself, so far as we can discover, never wrote down anything.
The question whether he could read and write has been much debated among
Moslems, unfortunately more with dogmatic arguments and spurious
traditions than authentic proofs. At present one is inclined to say that
he was not altogether ignorant of these arts, but that from want of
practice he found it convenient to employ some one else whenever he had
anything to write. After the migration to Medina (A.D. 622) we are told
that short pieces--chiefly legal decisions--were taken down immediately
after they were revealed, by an adherent whom he summoned for the
purpose; so that nothing stood in the way of their publication. Hence it
is probable that in Mecca, where the art of writing was commoner than in
Medina, he had already begun to have his oracles committed to writing.
That even long portions of the Koran existed in written form from an
early date may be pretty safely inferred from various indications;
especially from the fact that in Mecca the Prophet had caused insertions
to be made, and pieces to be erased in his previous revelations. For we
cannot suppose that he knew the longer suras by heart so perfectly that
he was able after a time to lay his finger upon any particular passage.
In some instances, indeed, he may have relied too much on his memory.
For example, he seems to have occasionally dictated the same sura to
different persons in slightly different terms. In such cases, no doubt,
he may have partly intended to introduce improvements; and so long as
the difference was merely in expression, without affecting the sense, it
could occasion no perplexity to his followers. None of them had literary
pedantry enough to question the consistency of the divine revelation on
that ground. In particular instances, however, the difference of reading
was too important to be overlooked. Thus the Koran itself confesses that
the unbelievers cast it up as a reproach to the Prophet that God
sometimes substituted one verse for another (xvi. 103). On one occasion,
when a dispute arose between two of his own followers as to the true
reading of a passage which both had received from the Prophet himself,
Mahomet is said to have explained that the Koran was revealed in seven
forms. In this apparently genuine dictum seven stands, of course, as in
many other cases, for an indefinite but limited number. But one may
imagine what a world of trouble it has cost the Moslem theologians to
explain the saying in accordance with their dogmatic beliefs. A great
number of explanations are current, some of which claim the authority of
the Prophet himself; as, indeed, fictitious utterances of Mahomet play
throughout a conspicuous part in the exegesis of the Koran. One very
favourite, but utterly untenable interpretation is that the "seven
forms," are seven different Arabic dialects.
Abrogated Readings.
When such discrepancies came to the cognizance of Mahomet it was
doubtless his desire that only one of the conflicting texts should be
considered authentic; only he never gave himself much trouble to have
his wish carried into effect. Although in theory he was an upholder of
verbal inspiration, he did not push the doctrine to its extreme
consequences; his practical good sense did not take these things so
strictly as the theologians of later centuries. Sometimes, however, he
did suppress whole sections or verses, enjoining his followers to efface
or forget them, and declaring them to be "abrogated." A very remarkable
case is that of the two verses in liii., when he had recognized three
heathen goddesses as exalted beings, possessing influence with God. This
had occurred in a moment of weakness, in order that by such a promise,
which yet left Allah in his lofty position, he might gain over his
fellow-countrymen. This object he achieved, but soon his conscience
smote him, and he declared these words to have been an inspiration of
Satan.
Abrogated Laws.
So much for abrogated readings; the case is somewhat different when we
come to the abrogation of laws and directions to the Moslems, which
often occurs in the Koran. There is nothing in this at variance with
Mahomet's idea of God. God is to him an absolute despot, who declares a
thing right or wrong from no inherent necessity but by his arbitrary
fiat. This God varies his commands at pleasure, prescribes one law for
the Christians, another for the Jews, and a third for the Moslems; nay,
he even changes his instructions to the Moslems when it pleases him.
Thus, for example, the Koran contains very different directions, suited
to varying circumstances, as to the treatment which idolaters are to
receive at the hands of believers. But Mahomet showed no anxiety to have
these superseded enactments destroyed. Believers could be in no
uncertainty as to which of two contradictory passages remained in force;
and they might still find edification in that which had become obsolete.
That later generations might not so easily distinguish the "abrogated"
from the "abrogating" did not occur to Mahomet, whose vision, naturally
enough, seldom extended to the future of his religious community.
Current events were invariably kept in view in the revelations. In
Medina it called forth the admiration of the Faithful to observe how
often God gave them the answer to a question whose settlement was
urgently required at the moment. The same naivete appears in a remark of
the Caliph Othman about a doubtful case: "If the Apostle of God were
still alive, methinks there had been a Koran passage revealed on this
point." Not unfrequently the divine word was found to coincide with the
advice which Mahomet had received from his most intimate disciples.
"Omar was many a time of a certain opinion," says one tradition, "and
the Koran was then revealed accordingly."
Contents of the Koran.
The contents of the different parts of the Koran are extremely varied.
Many passages consist of theological or moral reflections. We are
reminded of the greatness, the goodness, the righteousness of God as
manifested in Nature, in history, and in revelation through the
prophets, especially through Mahomet. God is magnified as the One, the
All-powerful. Idolatry and all deification of created beings, such as
the worship of Christ as the Son of God, are unsparingly condemned. The
joys of heaven and the pains of hell are depicted in vivid sensuous
imagery, as is also the terror of the whole creation at the advent of
the last day and the judgment of the world. Believers receive general
moral instruction, as well as directions for special circumstances. The
lukewarm are rebuked, the enemies threatened with terrible punishment,
both temporal and eternal. To the sceptical the truth of Islam is held
forth; and a certain, not very cogent, method of demonstration
predominates. In many passages the sacred book falls into a diffuse
preaching style, others seem more like proclamations or general orders.
A great number contain ceremonial or civil laws, or even special
commands to individuals down to such matters as the regulation of
Mahomet's harem. In not a few definite questions are answered which had
actually been propounded to the Prophet by believers or infidels.
Mahomet himself, too, repeatedly receives direct injunctions, and does
not escape an occasional rebuke. One sura (i.) is a prayer, two (cxiii.
cxiv.) are magical formulas. Many suras treat of a single topic, others
embrace several.
Narratives.
From the mass of material comprised in the Koran--and the account we
have given is far from exhaustive--we should select the histories of the
ancient prophets and saints as possessing a peculiar interest. The
purpose of Mahomet is to show from these histories how God in former
times had rewarded the righteous and punished their enemies. For the
most part the old prophets only serve to introduce a little variety in
point of form, for they are almost in every case facsimiles of Mahomet
himself. They preach exactly like him, they have to bring the very same
charges against their opponents, who on their part behave exactly as the
unbelieving inhabitants of Mecca. The Koran even goes so far as to make
Noah contend against the worship of certain false gods, mentioned by
name, who were worshipped by the Arabs of Mahomet's time. In an address
which is put in the mouth of Abraham (xxvi. 75 sqq.), the reader quite
forgets that it is Abraham, and not Mahomet (or God himself), who is
speaking. Other narratives are intended rather for amusement, although
they are always well seasoned with edifying phrases. It is no wonder
that the godless Korrishites thought these stories of the Koran not
nearly so entertaining as those of Rostam and Ispandiar, related by Nadr
the son of Harith, who had learned in the course of his trade journeys
on the Euphrates the heroic mythology of the Persians. But the Prophet
was so exasperated by this rivalry that when Nadr fell into his power
after the battle of Badr, he caused him to be executed; although in all
other cases he readily pardoned his fellow-countrymen.
Relation to the Old and New Testaments.
These histories are chiefly about Scripture characters, especially those
of the Old Testament. But the deviations from the Biblical narratives
are very marked. Many of the alterations are found in the legendary
anecdotes of the Jewish Haggada and the New Testament Apocrypha; but
many more are due perhaps to misconceptions such as only a listener (not
the reader of a book) could fall into. One would suppose that the most
ignorant Jew could never have mistaken Haman, the minister of Ahasuerus,
for the minister of Pharaoh, as happens in the Koran, or identified
Miriam, the sister of Moses, with Mary (= Mariam), the mother of Christ.
So long, however, as we have no closer acquaintance with Arab Judaism
and Christianity, we must always reckon with the possibility that many
of these mistakes were due to adherents of these religions who were his
authorities, or were a naive reproduction of versions already widely
accepted by his contemporaries. In addition to his misconceptions there
are sundry capricious alterations, some of them very grotesque, due to
Mahomet himself. For instance, in his ignorance of everything out of
Arabia, he makes the fertility of Egypt--where rain is almost never seen
and never missed--depend on rain instead of the inundations of the Nile
(xii. 49).
It is uncertain whether his account of Alexander was borrowed from Jews
or Christians, since the romance of Alexander belonged to the
stereotyped literature of that age. The description of Alexander as "the
Horned" in the Koran is, however, in accordance with the result of
recent researches, to be traced to a Syrian legend dating from A.D.
514-515 (Th. Noldeke, "Beitrage zur Gesch. des Alexanderromanes" in
_Denkschriften Akad. Wien_, vol. xxxviii. No. 5, p. 27, &c.). According
to this, God caused horns to grow on Alexander's head to enable him to
overthrow all things. This detail of the legend is ultimately traceable,
as Hottinger long ago supposed, to the numerous coins on which Alexander
is represented with the ram's horns of Ammon.[1] Besides Jewish and
Christian histories there are a few about old Arabian prophets. In these
he seems to have handled his materials even more freely than in the
others.
The opinion has already been expressed that Mahomet did not make use of
written sources. Coincidences and divergences alike can always be
accounted for by oral communications from Jews who knew a little and
Christians who knew next to nothing. Even in the rare passages where we
can trace direct resemblances to the text of the Old Testament (cf. xxi.
105 with Ps. xxxvii. 29; i. 5 with Ps. xxvii. 11) or the New (cf. vii.
48 with Luke xvi. 24; xlvi. 19 with Luke xvi. 25), there is nothing more
than might readily have been picked up in conversation with any Jew or
Christian. In Medina, where he had the opportunity of becoming
acquainted with Jews of some culture, he learned some things out of the
Mishna, e.g. v. 35 corresponds almost word for word with Mishna
_Sanhedrin_ iv. 5; compare also ii. 183 with Mishna _Berak'hoth_ i. 2.
That these are only cases of oral communication will be admitted by any
one with the slightest knowledge of the circumstances. Otherwise we
might even conclude that Mahomet had studied the Talmud; e.g. the
regulation as to ablution by rubbing with sand, where water cannot be
obtained (iv. 46), corresponds to a talmudic ordinance (_Berak'hoth_ 15
a). Of Christianity he can have been able to learn very little, even in
Medina; as may be seen from the absurd travesty of the institution of
the Eucharist in v. 112 sqq. For the rest, it is highly improbable that
before the Koran any real literary production--anything that could be
strictly called a book--existed in the Arabic language.
Style.
In point of style and artistic effect, the different parts of the Koran
are of very unequal value. An unprejudiced and critical reader will
certainly find very few passages where his aesthetic susceptibilities
are thoroughly satisfied. But he will often be struck, especially in the
older pieces, by a wild force of passion, and a vigorous, if not rich,
imagination. Descriptions of heaven and hell, and allusions to God's
working in Nature, not unfrequently show a certain amount of poetic
power. In other places also the style is sometimes lively and
impressive; though it is rarely indeed that we come across such strains
of touching simplicity as in the middle of xciii. The greater part of
the Koran is decidedly prosaic; much of it indeed is stiff in style. Of
course, with such a variety of material, we cannot expect every part to
be equally vivacious, or imaginative, or poetic. A decree about the
right of inheritance, or a point of ritual, must necessarily be
expressed in prose, if it is to be intelligible. No one complains of the
civil laws in Exodus or the sacrificial ritual in Leviticus, because
they want the fire of Isaiah or the tenderness of Deuteronomy. But
Mahomet's mistake consists in persistent and slavish adherence to the
semi-poetic form which he had at first adopted in accordance with his
own taste and that of his hearers. For instance, he employs rhyme in
dealing with the most prosaic subjects, and thus produces the
disagreeable effect of incongruity between style and matter. It has to
be considered, however, that many of those sermonizing pieces which are
so tedious to us, especially when we read two or three in succession
(perhaps in a very inadequate translation), must have had a quite
different effect when recited under the burning sky and on the barren
soil of Mecca. There, thoughts about God's greatness and man's duty,
which are familiar to us from childhood, were all new to the hearers--it
is hearers we have to think of in the first instance, not readers--to
whom, at the same time, every allusion had a meaning which often escapes
our notice. When Mahomet spoke of the goodness of the Lord in creating
the clouds, and bringing them across the cheerless desert, and pouring
them out on the earth to restore its rich vegetation, that must have
been a picture of thrilling interest to the Arabs, who are accustomed to
see from three to five years elapse before a copious shower comes to
clothe the wilderness once more with luxuriant pastures. It requires an
effort for us, under our clouded skies, to realize in some degree the
intensity of that impression.
Rhetorical Form and Rhyme.
The fact that scraps of poetical phraseology are specially numerous in
the earlier suras, enables us to understand why the prosaic mercantile
community of Mecca regarded their eccentric townsman as a "poet," or
even a "possessed poet." Mahomet himself had to disclaim such titles,
because he felt himself to be a divinely inspired prophet; but we too,
from our standpoint, shall fully acquit him of poetic genius. Like many
other predominantly religious characters, he had no appreciation of
poetic beauty; and if we may believe one anecdote related of him, at a
time when every one made verses, he affected ignorance of the most
elementary rules of prosody. Hence the style of the Koran is not
poetical but rhetorical; and the powerful effect which some portions
produce on us is gained by rhetorical means. Accordingly the sacred book
has not even the artistic form of poetry; which, among the Arabs,
includes a stringent metre, as well as rhyme. The Koran is never
metrical, and only a few exceptionally eloquent portions fall into a
sort of spontaneous rhythm. On the other hand, the rhyme is regularly
maintained; although, especially in the later pieces, after a very
slovenly fashion. Rhymed prose was a favourite form of composition among
the Arabs of that day, and Mahomet adopted it; but if it imparts a
certain sprightliness to some passages, it proves on the whole a
burdensome yoke. The Moslems themselves have observed that the tyranny
of the rhyme often makes itself apparent in derangement of the order of
words, and in the choice of verbal forms which would not otherwise have
been employed; e.g. an imperfect instead of a perfect. In one place, to
save the rhyme, he calls Mount Sinai _Sinin_ (xcv. 2) instead of _Sina_
(xxiii. 20); in another Elijah is called _Ilyasin_ (xxxvii. 130) instead
of _Ilyas_ (vi. 85; xxxvii. 123). The substance even is modified to suit
exigencies of rhyme. Thus the Prophet would scarcely have fixed on the
unusual number of _eight_ angels round the throne of God (lxix. 17) if
the word _thamaniyah_, "eight," had not happened to fall in so well with
the rhyme. And when lv. speaks of _two_ heavenly gardens, each with
_two_ fountains and _two_ kinds of fruit, and again of _two_ similar
gardens, all this is simply because the dual termination (_an_)
corresponds to the syllable that controls the rhyme in that whole sura.
In the later pieces, Mahomet often inserts edifying remarks, entirely
out of keeping with the context, merely to complete his rhyme. In Arabic
it is such an easy thing to accumulate masses of words with the same
termination, that the gross negligence of the rhyme in the Koran is
doubly remarkable. One may say that this is another mark of the
Prophet's want of mental training, and incapacity for introspective
criticism.
Stylistic Weaknesses.
Dogma of the Stylistic Perfection of the Koran.
On the whole, while many parts of the Koran undoubtedly have
considerable rhetorical power, even over an unbelieving reader, the
book, aesthetically considered, is by no means a first-rate performance.
To begin with what we are most competent to criticize, let us look at
some of the more extended narratives. It has already been noticed how
vehement and abrupt they are where they ought to be characterized by
epic repose. Indispensable links, both in expression and in the sequence
of events, are often omitted, so that to understand these histories is
sometimes far easier for us than for those who heard them first, because
we know most of them from better sources. Along with this, there is a
great deal of superfluous verbiage; and nowhere do we find a steady
advance in the narration. Contrast in these respects the history of
Joseph (xii.) and its glaring improprieties with the admirably conceived
and admirably executed story in Genesis. Similar faults are found in the
non-narrative portions of the Koran. The connexion of ideas is extremely
loose, and even the syntax betrays great awkwardness. Anacolutha are of
frequent occurrence, and cannot be explained as conscious literary
devices. Many sentences begin with a "when" or "on the day when" which
seems to hover in the air, so that the commentators are driven to supply
a "think of this" or some such ellipsis. Again, there is no great
literary skill evinced in the frequent and needless harping on the same
words and phrases; in xviii., for example, "till that" (_hatta idha_)
occurs no fewer than eight times. Mahomet, in short, is not in any sense
a master of style. This opinion will be endorsed by any European who
reads through the book with an impartial spirit and some knowledge of
the language, without taking into account the tiresome effect of its
endless iterations. But in the ears of every pious Moslem such a
judgment will sound almost as shocking as downright atheism or
polytheism. Among the Moslems, the Koran has always been looked on as
the most perfect model of style and language. This feature of it is in
their dogmatic the greatest of all miracles, the incontestable proof of
its divine origin. Such a view on the part of men who knew Arabic
infinitely better than the most accomplished European Arabist will ever
do, may well startle us. In fact, the Koran boldly challenged its
opponents to produce ten suras, or even a single one, like those of the
sacred book, and they never did so. That, to be sure, on calm
reflection, is not so very surprising. Revelations of the kind which
Mahomet uttered, no unbeliever could produce without making himself a
laughing-stock. However little real originality there is in Mahomet's
doctrines, as against his own countrymen he was thoroughly original,
even in the form of his oracles. To compose such revelations at will was
beyond the power of the most expert literary artist; it would have
required either a prophet or a shameless impostor. And if such a
character appeared _after_ Mahomet, still he could never be anything but
an imitator, like the false prophets who arose about the time of his
death and afterwards. That the adversaries should produce any sample
whatsoever of poetry or rhetoric equal to the Koran is not at all what
the Prophet demands. In that case he would have been put to shame, even
in the eyes of many of his own followers, by the first poem that came to
hand. Nevertheless, it is on a false interpretation of this challenge
that the dogma of the incomparable excellence of the style and diction
of the Koran is based. The rest has been accomplished by dogmatic
prejudice, which is quite capable of working other miracles besides
turning a defective literary production into an unrivalled masterpiece
in the eyes of believers. This view once accepted, the next step was to
find everywhere evidence of the perfection of the style and language.
And if here and there, as one can scarcely doubt, there was among the
old Moslems a lover of poetry who had his difficulties about this dogma,
he had to beware of uttering an opinion which might have cost him his
head. We know of at least one rationalistic theologian who defined the
dogma in such a way that we can see he did not believe it (Shahrastani,
p. 39). The truth is, it would have been a miracle indeed if the style
of the Koran had been perfect. For although there was at that time a
recognized poetical style, already degenerating to mannerism, a
developed prose style did not exist. All beginnings are difficult; and
it can never be esteemed a serious charge against Mahomet that his book,
the first prose work of a high order in the language, testifies to the
awkwardness of the beginner. And further, we must always remember that
entertainment and aesthetic effect were at most subsidiary objects. The
great aim was persuasion and conversion; and, say what we will, that aim
has been realized on the most imposing scale.
Foreign words.
Mahomet repeatedly calls attention to the fact that the Koran is not
written, like other sacred books, in a strange language, but in Arabic,
and therefore is intelligible to all. At that time, along with foreign
ideas, many foreign words had crept into the language; especially
Aramaic terms for religious conceptions of Jewish or Christian origin.
Some of these had already passed into general use, while others were
confined to a more limited circle. Mahomet, who could not fully express
his new ideas in the common language of his countrymen, but had
frequently to find out new terms for himself, made free use of such
Jewish and Christian words, as was done, though perhaps to a smaller
extent, by certain thinkers and poets of that age who had more or less
risen above the level of heathenism. In Mahomet's case this is the less
wonderful because he was indebted to the instruction of Jews and
Christians, whose Arabic--as the Koran pretty clearly intimates with
regard to one of them--was very defective. On the other hand, it is yet
more remarkable that several of such borrowed words in the Koran have a
sense which they do not possess in the original language. It is not
necessary that this phenomenon should in every case be due to the same
cause. Just as the prophet often misunderstood traditional traits of the
sacred history, he may, as an unlearned man, likewise have often
employed foreign expressions wrongly. Other remarkable senses of words
were possibly already acclimatized in the language of Arabian Jews or
Christians. Thus, _forqan_ means really "redemption," but Mahomet uses
it for "revelation." The widespread opinion that this sense first
asserted itself in reference to the Arab root [Arabic word] (_faraqa_),
"sever," or "decide," is open to considerable doubt. There is, for
instance, no difficulty in deriving the Arab meaning of "revelation"
from the common Aramaic "salvation," and this transference must have
taken place in a community for which salvation formed the central object
of faith, i.e. either amongst those Jews who looked to the coming of a
Messiah or more probably, among Christians, since Christianity is in a
very peculiar sense the religion of salvation. _Milla_ is properly
"word" (= Aramaic _melltha_), but in the Koran "religion." It is
actually used of the religion of the Jews and Christians (once), of the
heathen (5 times), but mostly (8 times) of the religion of Abraham,
which Mahomet in the Medina period places on the same level with Islam.
Although of the Aramaic dialects none employs the term _Melltha_ in the
sense of religion, it appears that the prophet found such a use.
_Illiyun_, which Mahomet uses of a heavenly book (Sura 83; 18, 19), is
clearly the Hebrew _elyon_, "high" or "exalted." It is, however,
doubtful in what sense this word appeared to him, either as a name of
God, as in the Old Testament it often occurs and regularly without the
article, or actually as the epithet of a heavenly book, although this
use cannot be substantiated from Jewish literature. So again the word
_mathani_ is, as Geiger has conjectured, the regular plural of the
Aramaic _mathnitha_, which is the same as the Hebrew _Mishnah_, and
denotes in Jewish usage a legal decision of some of the ancient Rabbins.
But in the Koran Mahomet appears to have understood it in the sense of
"saying" or "sentence" (cf. xxxix. 24). On the other hand, it is by no
means certain that by "the Seven Mathani" (xv. 87) the seven verses of
Sura i. are meant. Words of undoubtedly Christian origin are less
frequent in the Koran. It is an interesting fact that of these a few
have come over from the Abyssinian; such as _hawariyun_ "apostles,"
_maida_ "table," _munafig_ "doubter, sceptic," _ragun_ "cursed,"
_mihrab_ "temple"; the first three of these make their first appearance
in suras of the Medina period. The word _shaitan_ "Satan," which was
likewise borrowed, at least in the first instance, from the Abyssinian,
had probably been already introduced into the language. Sprenger has
rightly observed that Mahomet makes a certain parade of these foreign
terms, as of other peculiarly constructed expressions; in this he
followed a favourite practice of contemporary poets. It is the tendency
of the imperfectly educated to delight in out-of-the-way expressions,
and on such minds they readily produce a remarkably solemn and
mysterious impression. This was exactly the kind of effect that Mahomet
desired, and to secure it he seems even to have invented a few odd
vocables, as _ghislin_ (lxix. 36), _sijjin_ (lxxxiii. 7, 8), _tasnim_
(lxxxiii. 27), and _salsabil_ (lxxvi. 18). But, of course, the necessity
of enabling his hearers to understand ideas which they must have found
sufficiently novel in themselves, imposed tolerably narrow limits on
such eccentricities.
Date of the Several Parts.
The constituents of our present Koran belong partly to the Mecca
period[2] (before A.D. 622), partly to the period commencing with the
migration to Medina (from the autumn of 622 to 8th June 632). Mahomet's
position in Medina was entirely different from that which he had
occupied in his native town. In the former he was from the first the
leader of a powerful party, and gradually became the autocratic ruler of
Arabia; in the latter he was only the despised preacher of a small
congregation. This difference, as was to be expected, appears in the
Koran. The Medina pieces, whether entire suras or isolated passages
interpolated in Meccan suras, are accordingly pretty broadly distinct,
as to their contents, from those issued in Mecca. In the great majority
of cases there can be no doubt whatever whether a piece first saw the
light in Mecca or in Medina; and for the most part the internal evidence
is borne out by Moslem tradition. And since the revelations given in
Medina frequently take notice of events about which we have fairly
accurate information, and whose dates are at least approximately known,
we are often in a position to fix their date with at any rate
considerable certainty; here again tradition renders valuable
assistance. Even with regard to the Medina passages, however, a great
deal remains uncertain, partly because the allusions to historical
events and circumstances are generally rather obscure, partly because
traditions about the occasion of the revelation of the various pieces
are often fluctuating, and often rest on misunderstanding or arbitrary
conjecture. An important criterion for judging the period during which
individual Meccan suras, interpolated in Medina revelations, arose
(e.g. _Sur._ xvi. 124, vi. 162) is provided by the Ibrahim legend, the
great importance of which, as throwing light on the evolution of
Mahomet's doctrine in its relation to older revealed religions, has been
convincingly set forth by Dr Snouck Hurgronje in his dissertation for
the doctor's degree and in later essays.[3] According to this, Ibrahim,
after the controversy with the Jews, first of all became Mahomet's
special forerunner in Medina, then the first Moslem, and finally the
founder of the Ka'ba. But at all events it is far easier to arrange in
some sort of chronological order the Medina suras than those composed in
Mecca. There is, indeed, one tradition which professes to furnish a
chronological list of all the suras. But not to mention that it occurs
in several divergent forms, and that it takes no account of the fact
that our present suras are partly composed of pieces of different dates,
it contains so many suspicious or undoubtedly false statements, that it
is impossible to attach any great importance to it. Besides, it is a
priori unlikely that a contemporary of Mahomet should have drawn up such
a list; and if any one had made the attempt he would have found it
almost impossible to obtain reliable information as to the order of the
earlier Meccan suras. We have in this list no genuine tradition, but
rather the lucubrations of an undoubtedly conscientious Moslem critic,
who may have lived about a century after the Flight.
The Meccan Suras.
Among the revelations put forth in Mecca there is a considerable number
of (for the most part) short suras, which strike every attentive reader
as being the oldest. They are in an altogether different strain from
many others, and in their whole composition they show least resemblance
to the Medina pieces. It is no doubt conceivable--as Sprenger
supposes--that Mahomet might have returned at intervals to his earlier
manner; but since this group possesses a remarkable similarity of style,
and since the gradual formation of a different style is on the whole an
unmistakable fact, the assumption has little probability; and we shall
therefore abide by the opinion that these form a distinct group. At the
opposite extreme from them stands another cluster, showing quite obvious
affinities with the style of the Medina suras, which must therefore be
assigned to the later part of the Prophet's work in Mecca. Between these
two groups stand a number of other Meccan suras, which in every respect
mark the transition from the first period to the third. It need hardly
be said that the three periods--which were first distinguished by
Professor Weil--are not separated by sharp lines of division. With
regard to some suras, it may be doubtful whether they ought to be
reckoned amongst the middle group, or with one or other of the extremes.
And it is altogether impossible, within these groups, to establish even
a probable chronological arrangement of the individual revelations. In
default of clear allusions to well-known events, or events whose date
can be determined, we might indeed endeavour to trace the psychological
development of the Prophet by means of the Koran, and arrange its parts
accordingly. But in such an undertaking one is always apt to take
subjective assumptions or mere fancies for established data. Good
traditions about the origin of the Meccan revelations are not very
numerous. In fact the whole history of Mahomet previous to the Flight is
so imperfectly related that we are not even sure in what year he
appeared as a prophet. Probably it was in A.D. 610; it may have been
somewhat earlier, but scarcely later. If, as one tradition says, xxx. 1
seq. ("The Romans are overcome in the nearest neighbouring land") refers
to the defeat of the Byzantines by the Persians, not far from Damascus,
about the spring of 614, it would follow that the third group, to which
this passage belongs, covers the greater part of the Meccan period. And
it is not in itself unlikely that the passionate vehemence which
characterizes the first group was of short duration. Nor is the
assumption contradicted by the tolerably well attested, though far from
incontestable statement, that when Omar was converted (A.D. 615 or 616),
xx., which belongs to the second group, already existed in writing. But
the reference of xxx. 1 seq. to this particular battle is by no means so
certain that positive conclusions can be drawn from it. It is the same
with other allusions in the Meccan suras to occurrences whose chronology
can be partially ascertained. It is better, therefore, to rest satisfied
with a merely relative determination of the order of even the three
great clusters of Meccan revelations.
Oldest Meccan Suras.
In the pieces of the first period the convulsive excitement of the
Prophet often expresses itself with the utmost vehemence. He is so
carried away by his emotion that he cannot choose his words; they seem
rather to burst from him. Many of these pieces remind us of the oracles
of the old heathen soothsayers, whose style is known to us from
imitations, although we have perhaps not a single genuine specimen. Like
those other oracles, the suras of this period, which are never very
long, are composed of short sentences with tolerably pure but rapidly
changing rhymes. The oaths, too, with which many of them begin were
largely used by the soothsayers. Some of these oaths are very uncouth
and hard to understand, some of them perhaps were not meant to be
understood, for indeed all sorts of strange things are met with in these
chapters. Here and there Mahomet speaks of visions, and appears even to
see angels before him in bodily form. There are some intensely vivid
descriptions of the resurrection and the last day which must have
exercised a demonic power over men who were quite unfamiliar with such
pictures. Other pieces paint in glowing colours the joys of heaven and
the pains of hell. However, the suras of this period are not all so wild
as these; and those which are conceived in a calmer mood appear to be
the oldest. Yet, one must repeat, it is exceedingly difficult to make
out any strict chronological sequence. For instance, it is by no means
certain whether the beginning of xcvi. is really, what a widely
circulated tradition calls it, the oldest part of the whole Koran. That
tradition goes back to the Prophet's favourite wife Ayesha; but as she
was not born at the time when the revelation is said to have been made,
it can only contain at the best what Mahomet told her years afterwards,
from his own not very clear recollection, with or without fictitious
additions, and this woman is little trustworthy. Moreover, there are
other pieces mentioned by others as the oldest. In any case xcvi. 1 sqq.
is certainly very early. According to the traditional view, which
appears to be correct, it treats of a vision in which the Prophet
receives an injunction to recite a revelation conveyed to him by the
angel. It is interesting to observe that here already two things are
brought forward as proofs of the omnipotence and care of God: one is the
creation of man out of a seminal drop--an idea to which Mahomet often
recurs; the other is the then recently introduced art of writing, which
the Prophet instinctively seizes on as a means of propagating his
doctrines. It was only after Mahomet encountered obstinate resistance
that the tone of the revelations became thoroughly passionate. In such
cases he was not slow to utter terrible threats against those who
ridiculed the preaching of the unity of God, of the resurrection, and of
the judgment. His own uncle Abu Lahab had rudely repelled him, and in a
brief special sura (cxi.) he and his wife are consigned to hell. The
suras of this period form almost exclusively the concluding portions of
the present text. One is disposed to assume, however, that they were at
one time more numerous, and that many of them were lost at an early
period.
Since Mahomet's strength lay in his enthusiastic and fiery imagination
rather than in the wealth of ideas and clearness of abstract thought on
which exact reasoning depends, it follows that the older suras, in which
the former qualities have free scope, must be more attractive to us than
the later. In the suras of the second period the imaginative glow
perceptibly diminishes; there is still fire and animation, but the tone
becomes gradually more prosaic. As the feverish restlessness subsides,
the periods are drawn out, and the revelations as a whole become longer.
The truth of the new doctrine is proved by accumulated instances of
God's working in nature and in history; the objections of opponents,
whether advanced in good faith or in jest, are controverted by
arguments; but the demonstration is often confused or even weak. The
histories of the earlier prophets, which had occasionally been briefly
touched on in the first period, are now related, sometimes at great
length. On the whole, the charm of the style is passing away.
The Fatiha.
There is one piece of the Koran, belonging to the beginning of this
period, if not to the close of the former, which claims particular
notice. This is Sura i., the Lord's Prayer of the Moslems, a vigorous
hymn of praise to God, the Lord of both worlds, which ends in a petition
for aid and true guidance (_huda_). The words of this sura, which is
known as _al-fatiha_ ("the opening one"), are as follows:--
(1) In the name of God, the compassionate compassioner. (2) Praise be
[literally "is"] to God, the Lord of the worlds, (3) the compassionate
compassioner, (4) the Sovereign of the day of judgment. (5) Thee do we
worship and of Thee do we beg assistance. (6) Direct us in the right
way; (7) in the way of those to whom Thou hast been gracious, on whom
there is no wrath, and who go not astray.
The thoughts are so simple as to need no explanation; and yet the prayer
is full of meaning. It is true that there is not a single original idea
of Mahomet's in it. Of the seven verses of the sura no less than five
(verses 1, 2, 3, 4, 6) have an extremely suspicious relationship with
the stereotyped formulae of Jewish and Christian liturgies. Verse 6
agrees, word for word, with Ps. xxvii. 11. On the other hand, the
question must remain open whether Mahomet only gave free renderings of
the several borrowed formulae, or whether in actually composing them he
kept existing models. The designation of God as the "Compassioner,"
_Rahman_, is simply the Jewish _Rahmana_, which was a favourite name for
God in the Talmudic period. The word had long before Mahomet's time been
used for God in southern Arabia (cf. e.g. the Sabaean Inscriptions,
Glaser, 554, line 32; 618, line 2).
Mahomet seems for a while to have entertained the thought of adopting
_al-Rahman_ as a proper name of God, in place of _Allah_, which was
already used by the heathens.[4] This purpose he ultimately
relinquished, but it is just in the suras of the second period that the
use of _Rahman_ is specially frequent. If, for this reason, it is to a
certain extent certain that Sura i. belongs to this period, yet we can
neither prove that it belongs to the beginning of the Mecca period nor
that the present introductory formula "In the name of God," &c.,
belonged to it from the first. It may therefore even be doubted whether
Mahomet at the outset looked upon the latter as revealed. Tradition, of
course, knows in this connexion no doubt, and looks upon the Fatiha
precisely as the most exalted portion of the Koran. Every Moslem who
says his five prayers regularly--as the most of them do--repeats it not
less than twenty times a day.
Latest Meccan Suras.
The suras of the third Meccan period, which form a fairly large part of
our present Koran, are almost entirely prosaic. Some of the revelations
are of considerable extent, and the single verses also are much longer
than in the older suras. Only now and then a gleam of poetic power
flashes out. A sermonizing tone predominates. The suras are very
edifying for one who is already reconciled to their import, but to us at
least they do not seem very well fitted to carry conviction to the minds
of unbelievers. That impression, however, is not correct, for in reality
the demonstrations of these longer Meccan suras appear to have been
peculiarly influential for the propagation of Islam. Mahomet's mission
was not to Europeans, but to a people who, though quick-witted and
receptive, were not accustomed to logical thinking, while they had
outgrown their ancient religion.
Medinan Suras.
When we reach the Medina period it becomes, as has been indicated, much
easier to understand the revelations in their historical relations,
since our knowledge of the history of Mahomet in Medina is tolerably
complete. In many cases the historical occasion is perfectly clear, in
others we can at least recognize the general situation from which they
arose, and thus approximately fix their time. There still remains,
however, a remnant, of which we can only say that it belongs to Medina.
The style of this period bears a fairly close resemblance to that of the
latest Meccan period. It is for the most part pure prose, enriched by
occasional rhetorical embellishments. Yet even here there are many
bright and impressive passages, especially in those sections which may
be regarded as proclamations to the army of the faithful. For the
Moslems Mahomet has many different messages. At one time it is a summons
to do battle for the faith; at another, a series of reflections on
recently experienced success or misfortune, or a rebuke for their weak
faith; or an exhortation to virtue, and so on. He often addresses
himself to the "doubters," some of whom vacillate between faith and
unbelief, others make a pretence of faith, while others scarcely take
the trouble even to do that. They are no consolidated party, but to
Mahomet they are all equally vexatious, because, as soon as danger has
to be encountered, or a contribution is levied, they all alike fall
away. There are frequent outbursts, ever increasing in bitterness,
against the Jews, who were very numerous in Medina and its neighbourhood
when Mahomet arrived. He has much less to say against the Christians,
with whom he never came closely in contact; and as for the idolaters,
there was little occasion in Medina to have many words with them. A part
of the Medina pieces consists of formal laws belonging to the
ceremonial, civil and criminal codes; or directions about certain
temporary complications. The most objectionable parts of the whole Koran
are those which treat of Mahomet's relations with women. The laws and
regulations were generally very concise revelations, but most of them
have been amalgamated with other pieces of similar or dissimilar import,
and are now found in very long suras.
Such is an imperfect sketch of the composition and the internal history
of the Koran, but it is probably sufficient to show that the book is a
very heterogeneous collection. If only those passages had been preserved
which had a permanent value for the theology, the ethics, or the
jurisprudence of the Moslems, a few fragments would have been amply
sufficient. Fortunately for knowledge, respect for the sacredness of the
letter has led to the collection of all the revelations that could
possibly be collected--the "abrogating" along with the "abrogated,"
passages referring to passing circumstances as well as those of lasting
importance. Every one who takes up the book in the proper religious
frame of mind, like most of the Moslems, reads pieces directed against
long-obsolete absurd customs of Mecca just as devoutly as the weightiest
moral precepts--perhaps even more devoutly, because he does not
understand them so well.
Mysterious Letters.
At the head of twenty-nine of the suras stand certain initial letters,
from which no clear sense can be obtained. Thus, before ii. iii. xxxi.
xxxii. we find [Arabic word] (_Alif Lam Mim_), before xl.-xlvi.
[Arabic word] (_Ha Mim_). Noldeke at one time suggested that these
initials did not belong to Mahomet's text, but might be the monograms
of possessors of codices, which, through negligence on the part of the
editors, were incorporated in the final form of the Koran; he now
deems it more probable that they are to be traced to the Prophet
himself, as Sprenger, Loth and others suppose. One cannot indeed admit
the truth of Loth's statement that in the proper opening words of
these suras we may generally find an allusion to the accompanying
initials; but it can scarcely be accidental that the first verse of
the great majority of them (in iii. it is the second verse) contains
the word "book," "revelation," or some equivalent. They usually begin
with: "This is the book," or "Revelation ('down sending') of the
book," or something similar. Of suras which commence in this way only
a few (xviii. xxiv. xxv. xxxix.) want the initials, while only xxix.
and xxx. have the initials and begin differently. These few exceptions
may easily have proceeded from ancient corruptions; at all events they
cannot neutralize the evidence of the greater number. Mahomet seems to
have meant these letters for a mystic reference to the archetypal text
in heaven. To a man who regarded the art of writing, of which at the
best he had but a slight knowledge, as something supernatural, and who
lived amongst illiterate people, an A B C may well have seemed more
significant than to us who have been initiated into the mysteries of
this art from our childhood. The Prophet himself can hardly have
attached any particular meaning to these symbols: they served their
purpose if they conveyed an impression of solemnity and enigmatical
obscurity. In fact, the Koran admits that it contains many things
which neither can be, nor were intended to be, understood (iii. 5). To
regard these letters as ciphers is a precarious hypothesis, for the
simple reason that cryptography is not to be looked for in the very
infancy of Arabic writing. If they are actually ciphers, the
multiplicity of possible explanations at once precludes the hope of a
plausible interpretation. None of the efforts in this direction,
whether by Moslem scholars or by Europeans, has led to convincing
results. This remark applies even to the ingenious conjecture of
Sprenger, that the letters [Arabic word] (_Kaf He Ye Ain Sad_) before
xix. (which treats of John and Jesus, and, according to tradition, was
sent to the Christian king of Abyssinia) stand for _Jesus Nazarenus
Rex Judaeorum_. Sprenger arrives at this explanation by a very
artificial method; and besides, Mahomet was not so simple as the
Moslem traditionalists, who imagined that the Abyssinians could read a
piece of the Arabic Koran. It need hardly be said that the Moslems
have from of old applied themselves with great assiduity to the
decipherment of these initials, and have sometimes found the deepest
mysteries in them. Generally, however, they are content with the
prudent conclusion that God alone knows the meaning of these letters.
Transmission of the Koran.
Zaid's First Koran.
It is probable (see above) that Mahomet had already caused revelations
to be written down at Mecca, and that this began from the moment when he
felt certain that he was the transmitter of the actual text of a
heavenly book to mankind. It is even true that he may at some time or
another have formed the intention of collecting these revelations. The
idea of a heavenly model would in itself have suggested such a course
and, only in an inferior degree to this, the necessity of setting a new
and uncorrupted document of the divine will over against the sacred
scriptures of the Jews and Christians, the people of the Book, as the
Koran calls them. In any case, when Mahomet died, the separate pieces of
the Koran, notwithstanding their theoretical sacredness, existed only in
scattered copies; they were consequently in great danger of being
partially or entirely destroyed. Many Moslems knew large portions by
heart, but certainly no one knew the whole; and a merely oral
propagation would have left the door open to all kinds of deliberate and
inadvertent alterations. But now, after the death of the Prophet, most
of the Arabs revolted against his successor, and had to be reduced to
submission by force. Especially sanguinary was the struggle against the
prophet Maslama (Mubarrad, _Kamil_ 443, 5), commonly known by the
derisive diminutive Mosailima. At that time (A.D. 633) many of the most
devoted Moslems fell, the very men who knew most Koran pieces by heart.
Omar then began to fear that the Koran might be entirely forgotten, and
he induced the Caliph Abu Bekr to undertake the collection of all its
parts. The Caliph laid the duty on Zaid ibn Thabit, a native of Medina,
then about twenty-two years of age, who had often acted as amanuensis to
the Prophet, in whose service he is even said to have learned the Jewish
letters. The account of this collection of the Koran has reached us in
several substantially identical forms, and goes back to Zaid himself.
According to it, he collected the revelations from copies written on
flat stones, pieces of leather, ribs of palm-leaves (not palm-leaves
themselves), and such-like material, but chiefly "from the breasts of
men," i.e. from their memory. From these he wrote a fair copy, which he
gave to Abu Bekr, from whom it came to his successor Omar, who again
bequeathed it to his daughter Hafsa, one of the widows of the Prophet.
This redaction, commonly called _al-sohof_ ("the leaves"), had from the
first no canonical authority; and its internal arrangement can only be
conjectured.
Othman's Koran.
The Moslems were as far as ever from possessing a uniform text of the
Koran. The bravest of their warriors sometimes knew deplorably little
about it; distinction on _that_ field they cheerfully accorded to pious
men like Ibn Mas'ud. It was inevitable, however, that discrepancies
should emerge between the texts of professed scholars, and as these men
in their several localities were authorities on the reading of the
Koran, quarrels began to break out between the levies from different
districts about the true form of the sacred book. During a campaign in
A.H. 30 (A.D. 650-651), Hodhaifa, the victor in the great and decisive
battle of Nehaveand (see CALIPHATE; and PERSIA: _History_) perceived
that such disputes might become dangerous, and therefore urged on the
caliph Othman the necessity for a universally binding text. The matter
was entrusted to Zaid, who had made the former collection, with three
leading Koreishites. These brought together as many copies as they could
lay their hands on, and prepared an edition which was to be canonical
for all Moslems. To prevent any further disputes, they burned all the
other codices except that of Hafsa, which, however, was soon afterwards
destroyed by Merwan the governor of Medina. The destruction of the
earlier codices was an irreparable loss to criticism; but, for the
essentially political object of putting an end to controversies by
admitting only one form of the common book of religion and of law, this
measure was necessary.
The result of these labours is in our hands; as to how they were
conducted we have no trustworthy information, tradition being here too
much under the influence of dogmatic presuppositions. The critical
methods of a modern scientific commission will not be expected of an age
when the highest literary education for an Arab consisted in ability to
read and write. It now appears highly probable that this second
redaction took this simple form: Zaid read off from the codex which he
had previously written, and his associates, simultaneously or
successively, wrote one copy each to his dictation. These three
manuscripts will therefore be those which the caliph, according to
trustworthy tradition, sent in the first instance as standard copies to
Damascus, Basra and Kufa to the warriors of the provinces of which these
were the capitals, while he retained one at Medina. Be that as it may,
it is impossible now to distinguish in the present form of the book what
belongs to the first redaction from what is due to the second.
In the arrangement of the separate sections, a classification according
to contents was impracticable because of the variety of subjects often
dealt with in one sura. A chronological arrangement was out of the
question, because the chronology of the older pieces must have been
imperfectly known, and because in some cases passages of different dates
had been joined together. Indeed, systematic principles of this kind
were altogether disregarded at that period. The pieces were accordingly
arranged in indiscriminate order, the only rule observed being to place
the long suras first and the shorter towards the end, and even that was
far from strictly adhered to. The two magic formulae, suras cxiii.,
cxiv. owe their position at the end of the collection to their peculiar
contents, which differ from all the other suras; they are protecting
spells for the faithful. Similarly it is by reason of its contents that
sura i. stands at the beginning: not only because it is in praise of
Allah, as Psalm i. is in praise of the righteous man, but because it
gives classical expression to important articles of the faith. These are
the only special traces of design. The combination of pieces of
different origin may proceed partly from the possessors of the codices
from which Zaid compiled his first complete copy, partly from Zaid
himself. The individual suras are separated simply by the
superscription: "In the name of God, the compassionate Compassioner,"
which is wanting only in the ninth. The additional headings found in our
texts (the name of the suras, the number of verses, &c.) were not in the
original codices, and form no integral part of the Koran.
It is said that Othman directed Zaid and his associates, in cases of
disagreement, to follow the Koreish dialect; but, though well attested,
this account can scarcely be correct. The extremely primitive writing of
those days was quite incapable of rendering such minute differences as
can have existed between the pronunciation of Mecca and that of Medina.
The Koran not complete.
Othman's Koran was not complete. Some passages are evidently
fragmentary; and a few detached pieces are still extant which were
originally parts of the Koran, although they have been omitted by Zaid.
Amongst these are some which there is no reason to suppose Mahomet
desired to suppress. Zaid may easily have overlooked a few stray
fragments, but that he purposely omitted anything which he believed to
belong to the Koran is very unlikely. It has been conjectured that in
deference to his superiors he kept out of the book the names of
Mahomet's enemies, if they or their families came afterwards to be
respected. But it must be remembered that it was never Mahomet's
practice to refer explicitly to contemporary persons and affairs in the
Koran. Only a single friend, his adopted son Zaid (xxxiii. 37), and a
single enemy, his uncle Abu Lahab (cxi.)--and these for very special
reasons--are mentioned by name; and the name of the latter has been left
in the Koran with a fearful curse annexed to it, although his son had
embraced Islam before the death of Mahomet, and his descendants belonged
to the noblest families. So, on the other hand, there is no single verse
or clause which can be plausibly made out to be an interpolation by Zaid
at the instance of Abu Bekr, Omar, or Othman. Slight clerical errors
there may have been, but the Koran of Othman contains none but genuine
elements--though sometimes in very strange order. All efforts of
European scholars to prove the existence of later interpolations in the
Koran have failed.
Of the four exemplars of Othman's Koran, one was kept in Medina, and one
was sent to each of the three metropolitan cities, Kufa, Basra, and
Damascus. It can still be pretty clearly shown in detail that these four
codices deviated from one another in points of orthography, in the
insertion or omission of a wa ("and") and such-like minutiae; but these
variations nowhere affect the sense. All later manuscripts are derived
from these four originals.
Other Editions.
At the same time, the other forms of the Koran did not at once become
extinct. In particular we have some information about the codex of Ubay
ibn Ka'b. If the list which gives the order of its suras is correct, it
must have contained substantially the same materials as our text; in
that case Ubay ibn Ka'b must have used the original collection of Zaid.
The same is true of the codex of Ibn Mas'ud, of which we have also a
catalogue. It appears that the principle of putting the longer suras
before the shorter was more consistently carried out by him than by
Zaid. He omits i. and the magical formulae of cxiii., cxiv. Ubay, on the
other hand, had embodied two additional short prayers, which we may
regard as Mahomet's. One can easily understand that differences of
opinion may have existed as to whether and how far formularies of this
kind belonged to the Koran. Some of the divergent readings of both these
texts have been preserved as well as a considerable number of other
ancient variants. Most of them are decidedly inferior to the received
readings, but some are quite as good, and a few deserve preference.
Ibn Mas'ud.
The only man who appears to have seriously opposed the general
introduction of Othman's text is Ibn Mas'ud. He was one of the oldest
disciples of the Prophet, and had often rendered him personal service;
but he was a man of contracted views, although he is one of the pillars
of Moslem theology. His opposition had no effect. Now when we consider
that at that time there were many Moslems who had heard the Koran from
the mouth of the Prophet, that other measures of the imbecile Othman met
with the most vehement resistance on the part of the bigoted champions
of the faith, that these were still further incited against him by some
of his ambitious old comrades until at last they murdered him, and
finally that in the civil wars after his death the several parties were
glad of any pretext for branding their opponents as infidels;--when we
consider all this, we must regard it as a strong testimony in favour of
Othman's Koran that no party found fault with his conduct in this
matter, or repudiated the text formed by Zaid, who was one of the most
devoted adherents of Othman and his family, and that even among the
Shiites criticism of the caliph's action is only met with as a rare
exception.
Later History of the Text.
But this redaction is not the close of the textual history of the
Koran. The ancient Arabic alphabet was very imperfect; it not only
wanted marks for the short and in part even for the long vowels, but
it often expressed several consonants by the same sign, e.g. one and
the same character could mean B, T, Th at the beginning and N and J
(I) in the middle of words. Hence there were many words which could
be read in very different ways. This variety of possible readings was
at first very great, and many readers seem to have actually made it
their object to discover pronunciations which were new, provided they
were at all appropriate to the ambiguous text. There was also a
dialectic licence in grammatical forms, which had not as yet been
greatly restricted. An effort was made by many to establish a more
refined pronunciation for the Koran than was usual in common life or
in secular literature. The various schools of "readers" differed very
widely from one another; although for the most part there was no
important divergence as to the sense of words. A few of them gradually
rose to special authority, and the rest disappeared. Seven readers are
generally reckoned chief authorities, but for practical purposes this
number was continually reduced in process of time; so that at present
only two "reading-styles" are in actual use,--the common style of
Hafs, and that of Nafi'; which prevails in Africa to the west of
Egypt. There is, however, a very comprehensive massoretic literature
in which a number of other styles are indicated. The invention of
vowel-signs of diacritic points to distinguish similarly formed
consonants, and of other orthographic signs, soon put a stop to
arbitrary conjectures on the part of the readers. Many zealots
objected to the introduction of these innovations in the sacred text,
but theological consistency had to yield to practical necessity. In
accurate codices, indeed, all such additions, as well as the titles of
the sura, &c., are written in coloured ink, while the black characters
profess to represent exactly the original of Othman. But there is
probably no copy quite faithful in this respect. Moreover, the right
recitation of the Koran is an art which even people of Arab tongue can
only learn with great difficulty. In addition to the nuances of
pronunciation already alluded to, there is a semi-musical modulation.
In these matters also the various schools differ.
Manuscripts.
In European libraries, besides innumerable modern manuscripts of the
Koran, there are also codices, or fragments, of high antiquity, some
of them probably dating from the 1st century of the Flight. For the
restoration of the text, however, the works of ancient scholars on its
readings and modes of writing are more important than the manuscripts;
which, however elegantly they may be written and ornamented, proceed
from irresponsible copyists. The original, written by Othman himself,
has indeed been exhibited in various parts of the Mahommedan world.
The library of the India Office contains one such manuscript, bearing
the subscription: "Written by 'Othman the son of 'Affan." These, of
course, are barefaced forgeries, although of very ancient date; so are
those which profess to be from the hand of 'Ali, one of which is
preserved in the same library. In recent times the Koran has been
often printed and lithographed, both in the East and the West. In
Mahommedan countries lithography alone is employed.
Commentators.
Shortly after Mahomet's death certain individuals applied themselves
to the exposition of the Koran. Much of it was obscure from the
beginning, other sections were unintelligible apart from a knowledge
of the circumstances of their origin. Unfortunately, those who took
possession of this field were not very honourable. Ibn 'Abbas, a
cousin of Mahomet, and the chief source of the traditional exegesis of
the Koran, has, on theological and other grounds, given currency to a
number of falsehoods; and at least some of his pupils have emulated
his example. These earliest expositions dealt more with the sense and
connexion of whole verses than with the separate words. Afterwards, as
the knowledge of the old language declined, and the study of philology
arose, more attention began to be paid to the explanation of vocables.
A good many fragments of this older theological and philological
exegesis have survived from the first two centuries of the Flight,
although we have no complete commentary of this period. The great
commentary of Tabari, A.D. 839-923, of which for the last few years we
have possessed an Oriental edition in 30 parts (Cairo A.H. 1321 = A.D.
1903), is very full when it comes to speak of canonical law, as well
as in its accounts of the occasions of the several revelations; for,
as in his great historical work, he faithfully records a large number
of traditions with the channels by which they have come down to us
(genealogical trees, _isnad_). In other respects the hopes based upon
this commentary have not been fulfilled.
Translations.
Another very famous commentary is that of Zamakhshari (A.D.
1075-1144), edited by Nassau-Lees, Calcutta, 1859; but this scholar,
with his great insight and still greater subtlety, is too apt to read
his own scholastic ideas into the Koran. The favourite commentary of
Baidawi (d. A.D. 1286), edited by Fleischer (Leipzig, 1846-1848), is
little more than an abridgment of Zamakhshari's. Thousands of
commentaries on the Koran, some of them of prodigious size, have been
written by Moslems; and even the number of those still extant in
manuscript is by no means small. Although these works all contain much
that is useless or false, yet they are invaluable aids to our
understanding of the sacred book. An unbiased European can, no doubt,
see many things at a glance more clearly than a good Moslem who is
under the influence of religious prejudice; but we should still be
helpless without the exegetical literature of the Mahommedans. Even
the Arabian Moslems would only understand the Koran very dimly and
imperfectly if they did not give special attention to the study of its
interpretation. The advantage of being in a language commonly
understood, which the holy book claims for itself, has vanished in
the course of thirteen centuries. According to the dominant view,
however, the ritual use of the Koran is not in the least concerned
with the sacred words being understood, but solely with their being
quite properly recited. Nevertheless, a great deal remains to be
accomplished by European scholarship for the correct interpretation of
the Koran. We want, for example, an exhaustive classification and
discussion of all the Jewish elements in the Koran; a praiseworthy
beginning was made in Geiger's youthful essay _Was hat Mohamed aus dem
Judenthum aufgenommen?_ (Bonn, 1833; the "second revised edition,"
Leipzig, 1902, is only a reprint). We want especially a thorough
commentary, executed with the methods and resources of modern science.
No European language, it would seem, can even boast of a translation
which completely satisfies modern requirements. The best are in
English; where we have the extremely paraphrastic, but for its time
admirable translation of George Sale (repeatedly printed), that of
Rodwell (1861), which seeks to give the pieces in chronological order,
and that of Palmer (1880), who wisely follows the traditional
arrangements. The introduction which accompanies Palmer's translation
is not in all respects abreast of the most recent scholarship.
Considerable extracts from the Koran are well translated in E. W.
Lane's _Selections from the Kur-an_. Not much can be said in praise of
the complete translations into the German language, neither of that of
Ullmann, which has appeared in several editions, nor of that of
Henning (Leipzig) and Grigull (Halle), all of them shallow amateurs
who have no notion of the difficulties to be met with in the task, and
are almost entirely dependent on Sale. Friedrich Ruckert's excellent
version (published by August Muller, Frankfort-on-Maine, 1888) gives
only selections. M. Klamroth's translation of the fifty oldest suras,
_Die funfzig altesten Suren_ (Hamburg, 1890) attempts successfully to
reproduce the rhymed form of the originals. The publication of the
translation of the Koran by the great Leipzig Arabic scholar, H. L.
Fleischer (d. 1888) has so far unfortunately been delayed. (For modern
editions, commentaries, &c., see MAHOMMEDAN RELIGION: _Bibliography_).
Besides commentaries on the whole Koran, or on special parts and
topics, the Moslems possess a whole literature bearing on their sacred
book. There are works on the spelling and right pronunciation of the
Koran, works on the beauty of its language, on the number of its
verses, words and letters, &c.; nay, there are even works which would
nowadays be called "historical and critical introductions." Moreover,
the origin of Arabic philology is intimately connected with the
recitation and exegesis of the Koran. To exhibit the importance of the
sacred book for the whole mental life of the Moslems would be simply
to write the history of that life itself; for there is no department
in which its all-pervading, but unfortunately not always salutary,
influence has not been felt.
Eternity of the Koran.
The unbounded reverence of the Moslems for the Koran reaches its
climax in the dogma that this book, as the divine word, i.e. thought,
is immanent in God, and consequently _eternal_ and _uncreated_. This
dogma, which was doubtless due to the influence of the Christian
doctrine of the eternal Word of God, has been accepted by almost all
Mahommedans since the beginning of the 3rd century. Some theologians
did indeed protest against it with great energy; it was in fact too
preposterous to declare that a book composed of unstable words and
letters, and full of variants, was absolutely divine. But what were
the distinctions and sophisms of the theologians for, if they could
not remove such contradictions, and convict their opponents of heresy?
BIBLIOGRAPHY.--The following works may be especially consulted: Weil,
_Einleitung in den Koran_ (2nd ed., 1878); Th. Noldeke, _Geschichte
des Qoran's_ (Gottingen, 1860; 2nd ed. by Friedrich Schwally, 1908);
the Lives of Mahomet by William Muir and Aloys Sprenger (vols.
i.-iii., Berlin, 1861-1865; 2nd ed., 1869); C. Snouck Hurgronje, _Het
mekkaansche Feest_ (Leiden, 1880), _De Islam_ (de Gids, 1886, ii.
257-273, 454-498, iii. 90-134); "Une nouvelle biographie de Mohammed,"
_Revue de l'histoire des religions_, tome 29, p. 48 f., 149 sqq.;
Leone Caetani, _Annali dell'Islam_, i. (Milan, 1905), ii.(Milan,
1907); Frants Buhl, _Muhammeds Liv_ (Copenhagen, 1903).
(Th. N.; Fr. Sy.)
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Reproductions of such Ptolemaic and Lysimachan coins are to be
found in J. J. Bernouilli, _Die erhaltenen Darstellungen Alexanders
d. Gr._ (Munich, 1905), Tab. VIII.; also in Theodor Schreiber,
"Studien uber das Bildniss Alexanders des Gr." in the _Abh. Sachs.
Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften_, Bd. xxi. (1903), Tab. XIII.
[2] For the schemes of Noldeke and Grimm see MAHOMMEDAN RELIGION.
[3] See Bibliography at end.
[4] Since in Arabic also the root [Arabic word] signifies "to have
pity," the Arabs must have at once perceived the force of the new
name. While the foreign word _Rahman_ is, in accordance with its
origin, everywhere in the Koran to be understood as "Merciful," there
is some doubt as to _Rahim_. The close connexion of the two
expressions, it is true, makes it probable that Mahomet only added
the adjective _Rahim_ to the substantive _Rahman_ in order to
strengthen the conception. But the genuine Arab meaning of _Rahim_ is
"gracious," and thus, the old Mahommedan Arab papyri render this word
by [Greek: philanthropos].
KORAT, the capital of the provincial division (_Monton_) of Nakawn Racha
Sema, or "the frontier country," in Siam; in 102 deg. 5' E., 14 deg. 59'
N. Pop. about 7000, mixed Cambodian and Siamese. It is the headquarters
of a high commissioner and of an army division. It is the terminus of a
railway from Bangkok, 170 m. distant, and the distributing centre for
the whole of the plateau district which forms the eastern part of Siam.
There are copper mines of reputed wealth in the neighbourhood. It is the
centre of a silk-growing district and is the headquarters of the
government sericultural department, instituted in 1904 with the
assistance of Japanese experts for the purpose of improving the quality
of Siamese silk. The government is that of an ordinary provincial
division of Siam. A French vice-consul resides here. Since the founding
of Ayuthia in the 14th century, Korat has been tributary to, or part
of, Siam, with occasional lapses into independence or temporary
subjection to Cambodia. Before that period it was probably part of
Cambodia, as appears from the nature of the ruins still to be seen in
its neighbourhood. In 1896 the last vestige of its tributary condition
vanished with the introduction of the present system of Siamese rural
administration.
KORDOFAN, a country of north-east Africa, forming a _mudiria_ (province)
of the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan. It lies mainly between 12 deg. and 16 deg.
W. and 29 deg. and 32(1/2) deg. E., and has an area of about 130,000 sq.
m., being bounded W. by Darfur, N. by the Bayuda steppes, E. by the
White Nile mudiria and S. by the country of the Shilluks and other negro
tribes, forming part of the Upper Nile mudiria.
The greater part of Kordofan consists of undulating plains, riverless,
barren, monotonous, with an average altitude of 1500 ft. Thickets and
small acacias dot the steppes, which, green during the _kharif_ or rainy
season, at other times present a dull brown burnt-up aspect. In the
west, isolated peaks, such as Jebel Abu Senum and Jebel Kordofan, rise
from 150 to 600 ft. above the plain. North-west are the mountain groups
of Kaja and Katul (2000 to 3000 ft.), in the east are the Jebel Daier
and Jebel Tagale (Togale), ragged granitic ranges with precipitous
sides. In the south are flat, fertile and thickly wooded plains, which
give place to jungle at the foot of the hills of Dar Nuba, the district
forming the south-east part of Kordofan. Dar Nuba is well-watered, the
scenery is diversified and pretty, affording a welcome contrast to that
of the rest of the country. Some of the Nuba hills exceed 3000 ft. in
height. The south-western part of the country, a vast and almost level
plain, is known as Dar Homr. A granitic sand with abundance of mica and
feldspar forms the upper stratum throughout the greater part of
Kordofan; but an admixture of clay, which is observable in the north,
becomes strongly marked in the south, where there are also stretches of
black vegetable mould. Beneath there appears to be an unbroken surface
of mica schist. Though there are no perennial rivers, there are
watercourses (_khors_ or _wadis_) in the rainy season; the chief being
the Khor Abu Habl, which traverses the south-central region. In Dar Homr
the Wadi el Ghalla and the Khor Shalango drain towards the Homr affluent
of the Bahr el Ghazal. During the rainy season there is a considerable
body of water in these channels, but owing partly to rapid evaporation
and partly to the porous character of the soil the surface of the
country dries rapidly. The water which has found its way through the
granitic sand flows over the surface of the mica schist and settles in
the hollows, and by sinking wells to the solid rock a supply of water
can generally be obtained. It is estimated that (apart from those in a
few areas where the sand stratum is thin and water is reached at the
depth of a few feet) there are about 900 of these wells. They are narrow
shafts going down usually 30 to 50 ft., but some are over 200 ft. deep.
The water is raised by rope and bucket at the cost of enormous labour,
and in few cases is any available for irrigation. The very cattle are
trained to go a long time without drinking. Entire villages migrate
after the harvest to the neighbourhood of some plentiful well. In a few
localities the surface depressions hold water for the greater part of
the year but there is only one permanent lake--Keilat, which is some
four miles by two. As there is no highland area draining into Kordofan,
the underground reservoirs are dependent on the local rainfall, and a
large number of the wells are dry during many months. The rainy season
lasts from mid-June to the end of September, rain usually falling every
three or four days in brief but violent showers. In general the climate
is healthy except in the rainy season, when large tracts are converted
into swamps and fever is very prevalent. In the _shita_ or cold weather
(October to February inclusive) there is a cold wind from the north. The
seif or hot weather lasts from March to mid-June; the temperature rarely
exceeds 105 deg. F.
The chief constituent of the low scrub which covers the northern part
of the country is the grey gum acacia (_hashob_). In the south the red
gum acacias (_talh_) are abundant. In Dar Hamid, in the N.W. of
Kordofan, date, dom and other palms grow. The basbab or calabash tree,
known in the eastern Sudan as the _tebeldi_ and locally _Homr_, is
fairly common and being naturally hollow the trees collect water,
which the natives regularly tap. Another common source of water supply
is a small kind of water melon which grows wild and is also
cultivated. In the dense jungles of the south are immense creepers,
some of them rubber-vines. The cotton plant is also found. The fauna
includes the elephant, rhinoceros, buffalo, giraffe, lion, leopard,
cheetah, roan-antelope, hartebeeste, kudu and many other kinds of
antelope, wart-hog, hares, quail, partridge, jungle-fowl, bustard and
guinea-fowl. Nearly all the kinds of game mentioned are found chiefly
in the western and southern districts. The ril or addra gazelle found
in N. and N.W. Kordofan are not known elsewhere in the eastern Sudan.
Reptiles, sand-flies and mosquitoes are common. Ostriches are found in
the northern steppes. The chief wealth of the people consists in the
gum obtained from the grey acacias, in oxen, camels and ostrich
feathers. The finest cattle are of the humped variety, the bulls of
the Baggara being trained to the saddle and to carry burdens. There
are large herds of camel, the camel-owning Arabs usually owning also
large numbers of sheep and goats. Dukhn, a species of millet which can
grow in the arid northern districts is there the chief grain crop, its
place in the south being taken by durra. Dukhn is, however, the only
crop cultivated in Dar Homr. From this grain a beer called _merissa_
is brewed. Barley and cotton are cultivated in some districts. A
little gold dust is obtained, but the old gold and other mines in the
Tagale country have been, apparently, worked out. Iron is found in
many districts and is smelted in a few places. In the absence of fuel
the industry is necessarily a small one. There are large beds of
hematite some 60 m. N.W. and the same distance N.E. of El Obeid.
_Inhabitants._--The population of Kordofan was officially estimated in
1903 to be 550,000. The inhabitants are roughly divisible into two
types--Arabs in the plains and Nubas in the hills. Many of the villagers
of the plains are however of very mixed blood--Arab, Egyptian, Turkish,
Levantine and Negro. It is said that some village communities are
descended from the original negro inhabitants. They all speak Arabic.
The most important village tribe is the Gowama, who own most of the
gum-producing country. Other large tribes are the Dar Hamid and the
Bederia--the last-named living round El Obeid. The nomad Arabs are of
two classes, camel owners (_Siat El Ilbil_) and cattle owners
(_Baggara_), the first-named dwelling in the dry northern regions, the
Baggara in southern Kordofan. Of the camel-owning tribes the chief are
the Hamar and the Kabbabish. Many of the Hamar have settled down in
villages. The Baggara are great hunters, and formerly were noted slave
raiders. They possess many horses, but when journeying place their
baggage on their oxen. They use a stabbing spear, small throwing spears,
and a broad-bladed short sword. Some of the richer men possess suits of
chain armour. The principal Baggara tribes are the Hawazma, Meseria,
Kenana, Habbania, and Homr. The Homr are said to have entered Kordofan
from Wadai about the end of the 18th century and to have come from North
Africa. They speak a purer Arabic than the riverain tribes. The Nubas
are split into many tribes, each under a _mek_ or king, who is not
uncommonly of Arab descent. The Nubas have their own language, though
the inhabitants of each hill have usually a different dialect. They are
a primitive race, very black, of small build but distinctive negro
features. They have feuds with one another and with the Baggara. During
the _mahdia_ they maintained their independence. The Nubas appear to
have been the aboriginal inhabitants of the country and are believed to
be the original stock of the Nubians of the Nile Valley (see NUBIA). In
the northern hills are communities of black people with woolly hair but
of non-negro features. They speak Arabic and are called Nuba Arabs. Some
of the southern hills are occupied by Arab-speaking negroes, escaped
slaves and their descendants, who called themselves after the tribe they
formerly served and who have little intercourse with the Nubas.
The capital, El Obeid (q.v.), is centrally situated. On it converge
various trade routes, notably from Darfur and from Dueim, a town on the
White Nile 125 m. above Khartum, which served as port for the province.
Thence was despatched the gum for the Omdurman market. But the railway
from Khartum to El Obeid, via Sennar, built in 1909-1911, crosses the
Nile some 60 m. farther south above Abba Island. Nahud (pop. about
10,000), 165 m. W.S.W. of El Obeid, is a commercial centre which has
sprung into importance since the fall of the dervishes. All the trade
with Darfur passes through the town, the chief commerce being in cattle,
feathers, ivory and cotton goods. Trade is largely in the hands of
Greeks, Syrians, Danagla and Jaalin. Taiara, on the route between El
Obeid and the Nile, was destroyed by the dervishes but has been rebuilt
and is a thriving mart for the gum trade. El Odoaiya or Eddaiya is the
headquarters of the Homr country. It and Baraka in the Muglad district
are on the trade road between Nahud and Shakka in Darfur.
Bara is a small town some 50 m. N.N.E. of Obeid. Talodi and Tendek are
government stations in the Nuba country. The Nubas have no large towns.
They live in villages on the hillsides or summits. The usual habitation
built both by Arabs and Nubas is the tukl, a conical-shaped hut made of
stone, mud, wattle and daub or straw. The Nuba tukls are the better
built. In the chief towns houses are built of mud bricks with flat
roofs.
_History._--Of the early history of Kordofan there is little record. It
never formed an independent state. About the beginning of the 16th
century Funj from Sennar settled in the country; towards the end of that
century Kordofan was conquered by Suleiman Solon, sultan of Darfur.
About 1775 it was conquered by the Funj, and there followed a
considerable immigration of Arab tribes into the country. The Sennari
however suffered a decisive defeat in 1784 and thereafter under Darfur
viceroys the country enjoyed prosperity. In 1821 Kordofan was conquered
by Mahommed Bey the defterdar, son-in-law of Mehemet Ali, pasha of
Egypt. It remained under Egyptian rule till 1882 when Mahommed Ahmed,
the mahdi, raised the country to revolt. It was in Kordofan that Hicks
Pasha and his army, sent to crush the revolt, were annihilated (Nov.
1883). The Baggara of Kordofan from that time onward were the chief
supporters of the mahdi, and his successor, the khalifa Abdullah, was a
Baggara. In Kordofan in 1899 the khalifa met his death, the country
having already passed into the hands of the new Sudan government. The
chief difficulty experienced by the administration was to habituate the
Arabs and Nubas, both naturally warlike, to a state of peace. In
consequence of the anti-slave raiding measures adopted, the Arabs of
Talodi in May 1906 treacherously massacred the mamur of that place and
40 men of the Sudanese regiment. The promptness with which this
disturbance was suppressed averted what otherwise might have been a
serious rising. (See SUDAN: _Anglo-Egyptian_, S "History.")
See _The Anglo-Egyptian Sudan_, edited by Count Gleichen (London,
1905); H. A. MacMichael, _Notes on the History of Kordofan before the
Egyptian Conquest_ (Cairo, 1907); John Petherick, _Egypt, the Sudan,
and Central Africa_ (London, 1861); Ignaz Pallme, _Beschreibung von
Kordofan_ (Stuttgart, 1843; trans. _Travels in Kordofan_, London,
1844); Major H. G. Prout, _General Report on Province of Kordofan_
(Cairo, 1877); Ernst Marno, _Reise in der egypt. Equat. Provinz_
(Vienna, 1879); papers (with maps) by Capt. W. Lloyd in the _Geog.
Journ._ (June 1907 and March 1910); and the bibliography given under
SUDAN: _Anglo-Egyptian_.
KOREA, or COREA (CH'AO HSIEN, DAI HAN). Its mainland portion consists of
a peninsula stretching southwards from Manchuria, with an estimated
length of about 600 m., an extreme breadth of 135 m., and a coast-line
of 1740 m. It extends from 34 deg. 18' to 43 deg. N., and from 124 deg.
36' to 130 deg. 47' E. Its northern boundary is marked by the Tumen and
Yalu rivers; the eastern boundary by the Sea of Japan; the southern
boundary by Korea Strait; and the western boundary by the Yalu and the
Yellow Sea. For 11 m. along the Tumen river the north frontier is
conterminous with Russia (Siberia); otherwise Korea has China
(Manchuria) on its land frontier. Nearly the whole surface of the
country is mountainous. (For map, see JAPAN.)
The south and west coasts are fringed by about 200 islands (exclusive of
islets), two-thirds of which are inhabited; 100 of them are from 100 to
2000 ft. in height, and many consist of bold bare masses of volcanic
rock. The most important are Quelpart and the Nan Hau group. The latter,
36 m. from the eastern end of Quelpart, possesses the deep,
well-sheltered and roomy harbour of Port Hamilton, which lies between
the north points of the large and well-cultivated islands of Sun-ho-dan
and So-dan, which have a population of 2000. Aitan, between their
south-east points, completes this noble harbour. The east coast of Korea
is steep and rock-bound, with deep water and a tidal rise and fall of 1
to 2 ft. The west coast is often low and shelving, and abounds in
mud-banks, and the tidal rise and fall is from 20 to 36 ft. Korean
harbours, except two or three which are closed by drift ice for some
weeks in winter, are ice-free. Among them are Port Shestakov, Port
Lazarev, and Won-san (Gensan), in Broughton Bay;[1] Fusan, Ma-san-po, at
the mouth of the Nak-tong, on the south coast; Mok-po, Chin-nampo, near
the mouth of the Tai-dong; and Chemulpo, near the mouth of the Han, the
port of the capital and the sea terminus of the first Korean railway on
the west coast.
Korea is distinctly mountainous, and has no plains deserving the name.
In the north there are mountain groups with definite centres, the most
notable being Paik-tu San or Pei-shan (8700 ft.) which contains the
sources of the Yalu and Tumen. From these groups a lofty range runs
southwards, dividing the empire into two unequal parts. On its east,
between it and the coast, which it follows at a moderate distance, is a
fertile strip difficult of access, and on the west it throws off so many
lateral ranges and spurs as to break up the country into a chaos of
corrugated and precipitous hills and steep-sided valleys, each with a
rapid perennial stream. Farther south this axial range, which includes
the Diamond Mountain group, falls away towards the sea in treeless spurs
and small and often infertile levels. The northern groups and the
Diamond Mountain are heavily timbered, but the hills are covered mainly
with coarse, sour grass and oak and chestnut scrub. The rivers are
shallow and rocky, and are usually only navigable for a few miles from
the sea. Among the exceptions are the Yalu (Amnok), Tumen, Tai-dong,
Naktong, Mok-po, and Han. The last, rising in Kang-won-do, 30 m. from
the east coast, cuts Korea nearly in half, reaching the sea on the west
coast near Chemulpo; and, in spite of many serious rapids, is a valuable
highway for commerce for over 150 miles.
_Geology._--The geology of Korea is very imperfectly known.
Crystalline schists occupy a large part of the country, forming all
the higher mountain ranges. They are always strongly folded and it is
in them that the mineral wealth of Korea is situated. Towards the
Manchurian frontier they are covered unconformably by some 1600 ft. of
sandstones, clay-slates and limestones, which contain Cambrian fossils
and are the equivalents of a part of the Sinian system of China.
Carboniferous beds, consisting chiefly of slates, sandstones and
conglomerates, are found in the south-eastern provinces. They contain
a few seams of coal, but the most important coal-bearing deposits of
the country belong to the Tertiary period. Recent eruptive and
volcanic rocks are met with in the interior of Korea and also in the
island of Quelpart. The principal mountain in the latter, Hal-la-san
(or Mount Auckland), according to Chinese stories, was in eruption in
the year 1007. With this possible exception there are no active
volcanoes in Korea, and the region has also been remarkably free from
earthquakes throughout historic times.
_Climate._--The climate is superb for nine months of the year, and the
three months of rain, heat and damp are not injurious to health.
Koreans suffer from malaria, but Europeans and their children are
fairly free from climatic maladies, and enjoy robust health. The
summer mean temperature of Seoul is about 75 deg. F., that of winter
about 33 deg.; the average rainfall, 36.3 in. in the year, and of the
rainy season 21.86 in. The rains come in July and August on the west
and north-east coasts, and from April to July on the south coast, the
approximate mean annual rainfall of these localities being 30, 35 and
42 in. respectively. These averages are based on the observations of
seven years only.
_Flora._--The plants and animals await study and classification. Among
the indigenous trees are the _Abies excelsa_, _Abies microsperma_,
_Pinus sinensis_, _Pinus pinea_, three species of oak, five of maple,
lime, birch, juniper, mountain ash, walnut, Spanish chestnut, hazel,
willow, hornbeam, hawthorn, plum, pear, peach, _Rhus vernicifera_, (?)
_Rhus semipinnata_, _Acanthopanax ricinifolia_, _Zelkawa_, _Thuja
orientalis_, _Elaeagnus_, _Sophora Japonica_, &c. Azaleas and
rhododendrons are widely distributed, as well as other flowering
shrubs and creepers, _Ampelopsis Veitchii_ being universal. Liliaceous
plants and cruciferae are numerous. The native fruits, except walnuts
and chestnuts, are worthless. The persimmon attains perfection, and
experiment has proved the suitability of the climate to many foreign
fruits. The indigenous economic plants are few, and are of no
commercial value, excepting wild _ginseng_, bamboo, which is applied
to countless uses, and "tak-pul" (_Hibiscus Manihot_), used in the
manufacture of paper.
_Fauna._--The tiger takes the first place among wild animals. He is of
great size, his skin is magnificent, and he is so widely distributed
as to be a peril to man and beast. Tiger-hunting is a profession with
special privileges. Leopards are numerous, and have even been shot
within the walls of Seoul. There are deer (at least five species),
boars, bears, antelopes, beavers, otters, badgers, tiger-cats, marten,
an inferior sable, striped squirrels, &c. Among birds there are black
eagles, peregrines (largely used in hawking), and, specially protected
by law, turkey bustards, three varieties of pheasants, swans, geese,
common and spectacled teal, mallards, mandarin ducks white and pink
ibis, cranes, storks, egrets, herons, curlews, pigeons, doves,
nightjars, common and blue magpies, rooks, crows, orioles, halcyon and
blue kingfishers, jays, nut-hatches, redstarts, snipe, grey shrikes,
hawks, kites, &c. But, pending further observations, it is not
possible to say which of the smaller birds actually breed in Korea and
which only make it a halting-place in their annual migrations.
_Area and Population._--The estimated area is 82,000 sq. m.--somewhat
under that of Great Britain. The first complete census was taken in
1897, and returned the population in round numbers at 17,000,000,
females being in the majority. It was subsequently, however, estimated
at a maximum of 12,000,000. There is a foreign population of about
65,000, of whom 60,000 are Japanese. It is estimated that little more
than half the arable land is under cultivation, and that the soil could
support an additional 7,000,000. The native population is absolutely
homogeneous. Northern Korea, with its severe climate, is thinly peopled,
while the rich and warm provinces of the south and west are populous. A
large majority of the people are engaged in agriculture. There is little
emigration, except into Russian and Chinese territory, but some Koreans
have emigrated to Hawaii and Mexico.
The capital is the inland city of Seoul, with a population of nearly
200,000. Among other towns, Songdo (Kaisong), the capital from about 910
to 1392, is a walled city of the first rank, 25 m. N.W. of Seoul, with a
population of 60,000. It possesses the stately remains of the palace of
the Korean kings of the Wang dynasty, is a great centre of the grain
trade and the sole centre of the _ginseng_ manufacture, makes wooden
shoes, coarse pottery and fine matting, and manufactures with sesamum
oil the stout oiled paper for which Korea is famous. Phyong-yang, a city
on the Tai-dong, had a population of 60,000 before the war of 1894, in
which it was nearly destroyed; but it fast regained its population. It
lies on rocky heights above a region of stoneless alluvium on the east,
and with the largest and richest plain in Korea on the west. It has five
coal-mines within ten miles, and the district is rich in iron, silk,
cotton, and grain. It has easy communication with the sea (its port
being Chin-nampo), and is important historically and commercially.
Auriferous quartz is worked by a foreign company in its neighbourhood.
Near the city is the illustrated standard of land measurement cut by
Ki-tze in 1124 B.C.
With the exceptions of Kang-hwa, Chong-ju, Tung-nai, Fusan, and Won-san,
it is very doubtful if any other Korean towns reach a population of
15,000. The provincial capitals and many other cities are walled. Most
of the larger towns are in the warm and fertile southern provinces. One
is very much like another, and nearly all their streets are replicas of
the better alleys of Seoul. The actual antiquities of Korea are dolmens,
sepulchral pottery, and Korean and Japanese fortifications.
_Race._--The origin of the Korean people is unknown. They are of the
Mongol family; their language belongs to the so-called Turanian group,
is polysyllabic, possesses an alphabet of 11 vowels and 14 consonants,
and a script named _En-mun_. Literature of the higher class and official
and upper class correspondence are exclusively in Chinese characters,
but since 1895 official documents have contained an admixture of
_En-mun_. The Koreans are distinct from both Chinese and Japanese in
physiognomy, though dark straight hair, dark oblique eyes, and a tinge
of bronze in the skin are always present. The cheek-bones are high; the
nose inclined to flatness; the mouth thin-lipped and refined among
patricians, and wide and full-lipped among plebeians; the ears are
small, and the brow fairly well developed. The expression indicates
quick intelligence rather than force and mental calibre. The male height
averages 5 ft. 4(1/2) in. The hands and feet are small and well-formed.
The physique is good, and porters carry on journeys from 100 to 200 lb.
Men marry at from 18 to 20 years, girls at 16, and have large families,
in which a strumous taint is nearly universal. Women are secluded and
occupy a very inferior position. The Koreans are rigid monogamists, but
concubinage has a recognized status.
_Production and Industries._ i. _Minerals._--Extensive coal-fields,
producing coal of fair quality, as yet undeveloped, occur in Hwang-hai
Do and elsewhere. Iron is abundant, especially in Phyong-an Do, and rich
copper ore, silver and galena are found. Crystal is a noted product of
Korea, and talc of good quality is also present. In 1885 the rudest
process of "placer" washing produced an export of gold dust amounting to
L120,000; quartz-mining methods were subsequently introduced, and the
annual declared value of gold produced rose to about L450,000; but much
is believed to have been sent out of the country clandestinely. The
reefs were left untouched till 1897, when an American company, which had
obtained a concession in Phyong-an Do in 1895, introduced the latest
mining appliances, and raised the declared export of 1898 to L240,047,
believed to represent a yield for that year of L600,000. Russian,
German, English, French and Japanese applicants subsequently obtained
concessions. The _concessionnaires_ regard Korean labour as docile and
intelligent. The privilege of owning mines in Korea was extended to
aliens under the Mining Regulations of 1906.
ii. _Agriculture._--Korean soil consists largely of light sandy loam,
disintegrated lava, and rich, stoneless alluvium, from 3 to 10 ft. deep.
The rainfall is abundant during the necessitous months of the year,
facilities for the irrigation of the rice crop are ample, and drought
and floods are seldom known. Land is held from the proprietors on the
terms of receiving seed from them and returning half the produce, the
landlord paying the taxes. Any Korean can become a landowner by
reclaiming and cultivating unoccupied crown land for three years free of
taxation, after which he pays taxes annually. Good land produces two
crops a year. The implements used are two makes of iron-shod wooden
ploughs; a large shovel, worked by three or five men, one working the
handle, the others jerking the blade by ropes attached to it; a short
sharp-pointed hoe, a bamboo rake, and a wooden barrow, all of rude
construction. Rice is threshed by beating the ears on a log; other
grains, with flails on mud threshing-floors. Winnowing is performed by
throwing up the grain on windy days. Rice is hulled and grain coarsely
ground in stone querns or by water pestles. There are provincial
horse-breeding stations, where pony stallions, from 10 to 12 hands high,
are bred for carrying burdens. Magnificent red bulls are bred by the
farmers for ploughing and other farming operations, and for the
transport of goods. Sheep and goats are bred on the imperial farms, but
only for sacrifice. Small, hairy, black pigs, and fowls, are universal.
The cultivation does not compare in neatness and thoroughness with that
of China and Japan. There are no trustworthy estimates of the yield of
any given measurement of land. The farmers put the average yield of rice
at thirty-fold, and of other grain at twenty-fold. Korea produces all
cereals and root crops except the tropical, along with cotton, tobacco,
a species of the Rhea plant used for making grass-cloth, and the
_Brousonettia papyrifera_. The articles chiefly cultivated are rice,
millet, beans, _ginseng_ (at Songdo), cotton, hemp, oil-seeds, bearded
wheat, oats, barley, sorghum, and sweet and Irish potatoes. Korean
agriculture suffers from infamous roads, the want of the exchange of
seed, and the insecurity of the gains of labour. It occupies about
three-fourths of the population.
iii. _Other Industries._--The industries of Korea, apart from supplying
the actual necessaries of a poor population, are few and rarely
collective. They consist chiefly in the manufacture of sea-salt, of
varied and admirable paper, thin and poor silk, horse-hair crinoline for
hats, fine split bamboo blinds, hats and mats, coarse pottery, hemp
cloth for mourners, brass bowls and grass-cloth. Won-san and Fusan are
large fishing centres, and salt fish and fish manure are important
exports; but the prolific fishing-grounds are worked chiefly by Japanese
labour and capital. Paper and _ginseng_ are the only manufactured
articles on the list of Korean exports. The arts are nil.
_Commerce._--A commercial treaty was concluded with Japan in 1876, and
treaties with the European countries and the United States of America
were concluded subsequently. An imperial edict of the 20th of May 1904
annulled all Korean treaties with Russia. After the opening of certain
Korean ports to foreign trade, the customs were placed under the
management of European commissioners nominated by Sir Robert Hart from
Peking. The ports and other towns open are Seoul, Chemulpo, Fusan,
Won-san, Chin-nampo, Mok-po, Kun-san, Ma-san-po, Song-chin, Wiju,
Yong-ampo, and Phyong-yang. The value of foreign trade of the open ports
has fluctuated considerably, but has shown a tendency to increase on the
whole. For example, in 1884 imports were valued at L170,113 and exports
at L95,377. By 1890 imports had risen to L790,261, and thereafter
fluctuated greatly, standing at only L473,598 in 1893, but at L1,017,238
in 1897, and L1,382,352 in 1901, but under abnormal conditions in 1904
this last amount was nearly doubled. Exports in 1890 were valued at
L591,746; they also fluctuated greatly, falling to L316,072 in 1893, but
standing at L863,828 in 1901, and having a further increase in some
subsequent years. These figures exclude the value of gold dust. The
principal imports are cotton goods, railway materials, mining supplies
and metals, tobacco, kerosene, timber, and clothing. Japanese cotton
yarns are imported to be woven into a strong cloth on Korean hand-looms.
Beans and peas, rice, cowhides, and ginseng are the chief exports, apart
from gold.
_Communications._--Under Japanese auspices a railway from Chemulpo to
Seoul was completed in 1900. This became a branch of the longer line
from Fusan to Seoul (286 m.), the concession for which was granted in
1898. This line was pushed forward rapidly on the outbreak of the
Russo-Japanese War, and the whole was opened early in 1905. A railway
from Seoul to Wiju was planned under French engineers, but the work
was started by the Korean government. This line also, however, was
taken over by the Japanese military authorities, and the first trains
ran through early in 1905, in which year Japan obtained control of the
whole of the Korean internal communications. The main roads centring
in Seoul are seldom fit even for the passage of ox-carts, and the
secondary roads are bad bridle-tracks, frequently degenerating into
"rock ladders." Some improvements, however, have been effected under
Japanese direction. The inland transit of goods is almost entirely on
the backs of bulls carrying from 450 to 600 lb., on ponies carrying
200 lb., and on men carrying from 100 to 150 lb., bringing the average
cost up to a fraction over 8d. per mile per ton. The corvee exists,
with its usual hardships. Bridges are made of posts, carrying a
framework either covered with timber or with pine branches and earth.
They are removed at the beginning of the rainy season, and are not
replaced for three months. The larger rivers are unbridged, but there
are numerous government ferries. The infamous roads and the risks
during the bridgeless season greatly hamper trade. Japanese steamers
ply on the Han between Chemulpo and Seoul.
A postal system, established in 1894-1895, has been gradually
extended. There are postage stamps of four values. The Japanese, under
the agreement of 1905, took over the postal, telegraphic and telephone
services. Korea is connected with the Chinese and Japanese telegraph
systems by a Japanese line from Chemulpo via Seoul to Fusan, and by a
line acquired by the empire between Seoul and Wiju. The state has also
lines from Seoul to the open ports, &c. Korea has regular steam
communication with ports in Japan, the Gulf of Pechili, Shanghai, &c.
Her own mercantile marine is considerable.
_Government._--From 1895, when China renounced her claims to suzerainty,
to 1910 the king (since 1897 emperor) was in theory an independent
sovereign, Japan in 1904 guaranteeing the welfare and dignity of the
imperial house. Under a treaty signed at Seoul on the 17th of November
1905, Japan directed the external relations of Korea, and Japanese
diplomatic and consular representatives took charge of Korean subjects
and interests in foreign countries. Japan undertook the maintenance of
existing treaties between Korea and foreign powers; and Korea agreed
that her future foreign treaties should be concluded through the medium
of Japan. A resident-general represented Japan at Seoul, to direct
diplomatic affairs, the first being the Marquis Ito. Under a further
convention of July 1907, the resident-general's powers were enormously
increased. In administrative reforms the Korean government followed his
guidance; laws could not be enacted nor administrative measures
undertaken without his consent; the appointment and dismissal of high
officials, and the engagement of foreigners in government employ, were
subject to his pleasure. Each department of state has a Japanese
vice-minister, and a large proportion of Japanese officials were
introduced into these departments as well as Japanese chiefs of the
bureaus of police and customs. By a treaty dated August 22nd 1910, which
came into effect seven days later the emperor of Korea made "complete
and permanent cession to the emperor of Japan of all rights of
sovereignty over the whole of Korea." The entire direction of the
administration was then taken over by the Japanese resident-general, who
was given the title of governor-general. The jurisdiction of the
consular courts was abolished but Japan guaranteed the continuance of
the existing Korean tariff for ten years.
_Local Administration._--Korea for administrative purposes is divided
into provinces and prefectures or magistracies. Japanese reforms in
this department have been complete. Each provincial government has a
Japanese secretary, police inspector and clerks. The secretary may
represent the governor in his absence.
_Law._--A criminal code, scarcely equalled for barbarity, though twice
mitigated by royal edict since 1785, remained in force in its main
provisions till 1895. Subsequently, a mixed commission of revision
carried out some good work. Elaborate legal machinery was devised,
though its provisions were constantly violated by the imperial will
and the gross corruption of officials. Five classes of law courts were
established, and provision was made for appeals in both civil and
criminal cases. Abuses in legal administration and in tax-collecting
were the chief grievances which led to local insurrections. Oppression
by the throne and the official and noble classes prevailed
extensively; but the weak protected themselves by the use of the
_Kyei_, or principle of association, which developed among Koreans
into powerful trading gilds, trades-unions, mutual benefit
associations, money-lending gilds, &c. Nearly all traders, porters and
artisans were members of gilds, powerfully bound together and strong
by combined action and mutual helpfulness in time of need. Under the
Japanese regime the judiciary and the executive were rigidly
separated. The law courts, including the court of cassation, three
courts of appeal, eight local courts, and 115 district courts, were
put under Japanese judges, and the codification of the laws was
undertaken. The prison system was also reformed.
_Finance and Money._--Until 1904 the finances of Korea were completely
disorganized; the currency was chaotic, and the budget was an official
formality making little or no attempt at accuracy. By agreement of the
22nd of August 1904, Korea accepted a Japanese financial adviser, and
valuable reforms were quickly entered upon under the direction of the
first Japanese official, Mr T. Megata. He had to contend against
corrupt officialdom, indiscriminate expenditure, and absence of
organization in the collection of revenue, apart from the confusion
with regard to the currency. This last was nominally on a silver
standard. The coins chiefly in use were (i) copper _cash_, which were
strung in hundreds on strings of straw, and, as about 9lb. weight was
equal to one shilling, were excessively cumbrous, but were
nevertheless valued at their face value; (ii) nickel coins, which,
being profitable to mint, were issued in enormous quantities, quickly
depreciated, and were moreover extensively forged. The Dai Ichi Ginko
(First Bank of Japan), which has a branch in Seoul and agencies in
other towns, was made the government central treasury, and its notes
were recognized as legal tender in Korea. The currency of Korea being
thus fixed, the first step was to reorganize the nickel coinage. From
the 1st of August 1905 the old nickels paid into the treasury were
remitted and the issue carefully regulated; so also with the cash,
which was retained as a subsidiary coinage, while a supplementary
coinage was issued of silver 10-sen pieces and bronze 1-sen and
half-sen pieces. To aid the free circulation of money and facilitate
trade, the government grants subsidies for the establishment of
co-operative warehouse companies with bonded warehouses. Regulations
have also been promulgated with respect to promissory notes, which
have long existed in Korea. They took the form of a piece of paper
about an inch broad and five to eight inches long, on which was
written the sum, the date of payment and the name of the payer and
payee, with their seals; the paper was then torn down its length, and
one half given to each party. The debtor was obliged to pay the amount
of the debt to any person who presented the missing half of the bill.
The readiness with which they were accepted led to over-issue, and,
consequently, financial crises. The new regulations require the
amount of the notes to be expressed in yen, not to be payable in old
nickel coins or cash. The notes can only be issued by members of a
note association, a body constituted under government regulations,
whose members must uphold the credit and validity of their notes. The
notes must also be made payable to a definite person and require
endorsement, safeguards which were previously lacking. Administrative
reform was also taken in hand; the large number of superfluous and
badly paid officials was considerably reduced, and the status and
salary of all existing government officials considerably improved. An
endeavour was made to publish an annual budget, in which the revenue
and expenditure should accurately represent the sums actually received
and expended. Regulations were framed for the purpose of establishing
adequate supervision over the revenue and expenditure for the
abolition of irregular taxation and extortions, as well as the
practice of farming out the collection of the revenue to individuals,
and, generally, to adapt the whole collection and expenditure of the
national revenue to modern ideas of public finance. Down to 1910 the
sum expended by Japan on Korean reforms was estimated to approach
fifteen millions sterling. Among reforms not specifically referred to
may be mentioned the improvement of coastwise navigation, the
provision of posts, roads, railways, public buildings, hospitals and
sanitary works, and the official advancement of industries.
_Religion._--Buddhism, which swayed Korea from the 10th to the 14th
century, has been discredited for three centuries, and its priests are
ignorant, immoral and despised. Confucianism is the official cult, and
all officials offer sacrifices and homage at stated seasons in the
Confucian temples. Confucian ethics are the basis of morality and
social order. Ancestor-worship is universal. The popular cult is,
however, the propitiation of demons, a modification of the Shamanism
of northern Asia. The belief in demons, mostly malignant, keeps the
Koreans in constant terror, and much of their substance is spent on
propitiations. Sorceresses and blind sorcerers are the intermediaries.
At the close of the 19th century the fees annually paid to these
persons were estimated at L150,000; there were in Seoul 1000
sorceresses, and very large sums are paid to the male sorcerers and
geomancers.
Putting aside the temporary Christian work of a Jesuit chaplain to the
Japanese Christian General Konishe, in 1594 during the Japanese
invasion, as well as that on a larger scale by students who received
the evangel in the Roman form from Peking in 1792, and had made 4000
converts by the end of 1793, the first serious attempt at the
conversion of Korea was made by the French _Societe des Missions
Etrangeres_ in 1835. In spite of frequent persecutions, there were
16,500 converts in 1857 and 20,000 in 1866, in which year the French
bishops and priests were martyred by order of the emperor's father,
and several thousand native Christians were beheaded, banished or
imprisoned. This mission in 1900 had about 30 missionaries and 40,000
converts. In 1884 and 1885, toleration being established, Protestant
missionaries of the American Presbyterian and Methodist Episcopal
Churches entered Korea, and were followed by a large number of agents
of other denominations. An English bishop, clergy, doctors and nursing
sisters arrived in 1890. Hospitals, orphanages, schools and an
admirable college in Seoul have been founded, along with tri-lingual
(Chinese, Korean and English) printing-presses; religious, historical
and scientific works and much of the Bible have been translated into
_En-mun_, and periodicals of an enlightened nature in the Korean
script are also circulated. The progress of Protestant missions was
very slow for some years, but from 1895 converts multiplied.
_Education._--The "Royal Examinations" in Chinese literature held in
Seoul up to 1894, which were the entrance to official position, being
abolished, the desire for a purely Chinese education diminished. In
Seoul there were established an imperial English school with two
foreign teachers, a reorganized Confucian college, a normal college
under a very efficient foreign principal, Japanese, Chinese, Russian
and French schools, chiefly linguistic, several Korean primary
schools, mission boarding-schools, and the _Pai Chai_ College
connected with the American Methodist Episcopal Church, under imperial
patronage, and subsidized by government, in which a liberal education
of a high class was given and _En-mun_ receives much attention. The
Koreans are expert linguists, and the government made liberal grants
to the linguistic schools. In the primary schools boys learn
arithmetic, and geography and Korean history are taught, with the
outlines of the governmental systems of other civilized countries. The
education department has been entirely reorganized under the Japanese
regime, Japanese models being followed.
_History._--By both Korean and Chinese tradition Ki-tze--a councillor of
the last sovereign of the 3rd Chinese dynasty, a sage, and the reputed
author of parts of the famous Chinese classic, the _Shu-King_--is
represented as entering Korea in 1122 B.C. with several thousand Chinese
emigrants, who made him their king. The peninsula was then peopled by
savages living in caves and subterranean holes. By both learned and
popular belief in Korea Ki-tze is recognized as the founder of Korean
social order, and is greatly reverenced. He called the new kingdom
_Ch'ao-Hsien_, pacified and policed its borders, and introduced laws
and Chinese etiquette and polity. Korean ancient history is far from
satisfying the rigid demands of modern criticism, but it appears that
Ki-tze's dynasty ruled the peninsula until the 4th century B.C., from
which period until the 10th century A.D. civil wars and foreign
aggressions are prominent. Nevertheless, Hiaksai, which with Korai and
Shinra then constituted Korea, was a centre of literary culture in the
4th century, through which the Chinese classics and the art of writing
reached the other two kingdoms. Buddhism, a forceful civilizing element,
reached Hiaksai in A.D. 384, and from it the sutras and images of
northern Buddhism were carried to Japan, as well as Chinese letters and
ethics. Internecine wars were terminated about 913 by Wang the Founder,
who unified the peninsula under the name Korai, made Song-do its
capital, and endowed Buddhism as the state religion. In the 11th century
Korea was stripped of her territory west of the Yalu by a warlike horde
of Tungus stock, since which time her frontiers have been stationary.
The Wang dynasty perished in 1392, an important epoch in the peninsula,
when Ni Taijo, or Litan, the founder of the present dynasty, ascended
the throne, after his country had suffered severely from Jenghiz and
Khublai Khan. He tendered his homage to the first Ming emperor of China,
received from him his investiture as sovereign, and accepted from him
the Chinese calendar and chronology, in itself a declaration of fealty.
He revived the name _Ch'ao-Hsien_, changed the capital from Song-do to
Seoul, organized an administrative system, which with some modifications
continued till 1895, and exists partially still, carried out vigorous
reforms, disestablished Buddhism, made merit in Chinese literary
examinations the basis of appointment to office, made Confucianism the
state religion, abolished human sacrifices and the burying of old men
alive, and introduced that Confucian system of education, polity, and
social order which has dominated Korea for five centuries. Either this
king or an immediate successor introduced the present national costume,
the dress worn by the Chinese before the Manchu conquest. The early
heirs of this vigorous and capable monarch used their power, like him,
for the good of the people; but later decay set in, and Japanese
buccaneers ravaged the coasts, though for two centuries under Chinese
protection Korea was free from actual foreign invasion. In 1592 occurred
the epoch-making invasion of Korea by a Japanese army of 300,000 men, by
order of the great regent Hideyoshi. China came to the rescue with
60,000 men, and six years of a gigantic and bloody war followed, in
which Japan used firearms for the first time against a foreign foe.
Seoul and several of the oldest cities were captured, and in some
instances destroyed, the country was desolated, and the art treasures
and the artists were carried to Japan. The Japanese troops were recalled
in 1598 at Hideyoshi's death. The port and fishing privileges of Fusan
remained in Japanese possession, a heavy tribute was exacted, and until
1790 the Korean king stood in humiliating relations towards Japan. Korea
never recovered from the effects of this invasion, which bequeathed to
all Koreans an intense hatred of the Japanese.
In 1866, 1867, and 1871 French and American punitive expeditions
attacked parts of Korea in which French missionaries and American
adventurers had been put to death, and inflicted much loss of life, but
retired without securing any diplomatic successes, and Korea continued
to preserve her complete isolation. The first indirect step towards
breaking it down had been taken in 1860, when Russia obtained from China
the cession of the Usuri province, thus bringing a European power down
to the Tumen. A large emigration of famine-stricken Koreans and
persecuted Christians into Russian territory followed. The emigrants
were very kindly received, and many of them became thrifty and
prosperous farmers. In 1876 Japan, with the consent of China, wrung a
treaty from Korea by which Fusan was fully opened to Japanese settlement
and trade, and Won-san (Gensan) and Inchiun (Chemulpo) were opened to
her in 1880. In 1882 China promulgated her "Trade and Frontier
Regulations," and America negotiated a commercial treaty, followed by
Germany and Great Britain in 1883, Italy and Russia in 1884, France in
1886, and Austria in 1892. A "Trade Convention" was also concluded with
Russia. Seoul was opened in 1884 to foreign residence, and the provinces
to foreign travel, and the diplomatic agents of the contracting powers
obtained a recognized status at the capital. These treaties terminated
the absolute isolation which Korea had effectually preserved. During the
negotiations, although under Chinese suzerainty, she was treated with as
an independent state. Between 1897 and 1899, under diplomatic pressure,
a number of ports were opened to foreign trade and residence. From 1882
to 1894 the chief event in the newly opened kingdom was a plot by the
Tai-won-Kun, the father of the emperor, to seize on power, which led to
an attack on the Japanese legation, the members of which were compelled
to fight their way, and that not bloodlessly, to the sea. Japan secured
ample compensation; and the Chinese resident, aided by Chinese troops,
deported the Tai-won-Kun to Tientsin. In 1884 at an official banquet the
leaders of the progressive party assassinated six leading Korean
statesmen, and the intrigues in Korea of the banished or escaped
conspirators created difficulties which were very slow to subside. In
spite of a constant struggle for ascendancy between the queen and the
returned Tai-won-Kun, the next decade was one of quiet. China, always
esteemed in Korea, consolidated her influence under the new conditions
through a powerful resident; prosperity advanced, and certain reforms
were projected by foreign "advisers." In May 1894 a more important
insurrectionary rising than usual led the king to ask armed aid from
China. She landed 2000 troops on the 10th of June, having previously, in
accordance with treaty provisions, notified Japan of her intention. Soon
after this Japan had 12,000 troops in Korea, and occupied the capital
and the treaty ports. Then Japan made three sensible proposals for
Korean reform, to be undertaken jointly by herself and China. China
replied that Korea must be left to reform herself, and that the
withdrawal of the Japanese troops must precede negotiations. Japan
rejected this suggestion, and on the 23rd of July attacked and occupied
the royal palace. After some further negotiations and fights by land and
sea between Japan and China war was declared formally by Japan, and
Korea was for some time the battle-ground of the belligerents. The
Japanese victories resulted for Korea in the solemn renunciation of
Chinese suzerainty by the Korean king, the substitution of Japanese for
Chinese influence, the introduction of many important reforms under
Japanese advisers, and of checks on the absolutism of the throne.
Everything promised well. The finances flourished under the capable
control of Mr (afterwards Sir) M'Leavy Brown, C.M.G. Large and judicious
retrenchments were carried out in most of the government departments. A
measure of judicial and prison reform was granted. Taxation was placed
on an equable basis. The pressure of the trade gilds was relaxed. Postal
and educational systems were introduced. An approach to a constitution
was made. The distinction between patrician and plebeian, domestic
slavery, and beating and slicing to death were abolished. The age for
marriage of both sexes was raised. Chinese literary examinations ceased
to be a passport to office. Classes previously degraded were
enfranchised, and the alliance between two essentially corrupt systems
of government was severed. For about eighteen months all the departments
were practically under Japanese control. On the 8th of October 1895 the
Tai-won-Kun, with Korean troops, aided by Japanese troops under the
orders of Viscount Miura, the Japanese minister, captured the palace,
assassinated the queen, and made a prisoner of the king, who, however,
four months later, escaped to the Russian legation, where he remained
till the spring of 1897. Japanese influence waned. The engagements of
the advisers were not renewed. A strong retrograde movement set in.
Reforms were dropped. The king, with the checks upon his absolutism
removed, reverted to the worst traditions of his dynasty, and the
control and arrangements of finance were upset by Russia.
At the close of 1897 the king assumed the title of emperor, and changed
the official designation of the empire to _Dai Han_--Great Han. By 1898
the imperial will, working under partially new conditions, produced
continual chaos, and by 1900 succeeded in practically overriding all
constitutional restraints. Meanwhile Russian intrigue was constantly
active. At last Japan resorted to arms, and her success against Russia
in the war of 1904-5 enabled her to resume her influence over Korea. On
the 23rd of February 1904 an agreement was determined whereby Japan
resumed her position as administrative adviser to Korea, guaranteed the
integrity of the country, and bound herself to maintain the imperial
house in its position. Her interests were recognized by Russia in the
treaty of peace (September 5, 1905), and by Great Britain in the
Anglo-Japanese agreement of the 12th of August 1905. The Koreans did not
accept the restoration of Japanese influence without demur. In August
1905 disturbances arose owing to an attempt by some merchants to obtain
special assistance from the treasury on the pretext of embarrassment
caused by Japanese financial reforms; these disturbances spread to some
of the provinces, and the Japanese were compelled to make a show of
force. Prolonged negotiations were necessary to the completion of the
treaty of the 17th of November 1905, whereby Japan obtained the control
of Korea's foreign affairs and relations, and the confirmation of
previous agreements, the far-reaching results of which have been
indicated. Nor was opposition to Japanese reforms confined to popular
demonstration. In 1907 a Korean delegacy, headed by Prince Yong, a
member of the imperial family, was sent out to lay before the Hague
conference of that year, and before all the principal governments, a
protest against the treatment of Korea by Japan. While this was of
course fruitless from the Korean point of view, it indicated that the
Japanese must take strong measures to suppress the intrigues of the
Korean court.
At the instigation of the Korean ministry the emperor abdicated on the
19th of July 1907, handing over the crown to his son. Somewhat serious
_emeutes_ followed in Seoul and elsewhere, and the Japanese proposals
for a new convention, increasing the powers of the resident general, had
to be presented to the cabinet under a strong guard. The convention was
signed on the 25th of July. One of the reforms immediately undertaken
was the disbanding of the Korean standing army, which led to an
insurrection and an intermittent guerrilla warfare which, owing to the
nature of the country, was not easy to subdue. Under the direction of
Prince Ito (q.v.) the work of reform was vigorously prosecuted. In July
1909, General Teranchi, Japanese minister of war, became
resident-general, with the mission to bring about annexation. This was
effected peacefully in August 1910, the emperor of Korea by formal
treaty surrendering his country and crown. (See JAPAN.)
AUTHORITIES.--The first Asiatic notice of Korea is by Khordadbeh, an
Arab geographer of the 9th century A.D., in his _Book of Roads and
Provinces_, quoted by Baron Richthofen in his great work on _China_,
p. 575. The earliest European source of information is a narrative by
H. Hamel, a Dutchman, who was shipwrecked on the coast of Quelpart in
1654, and held in captivity in Korea for thirteen years. The amount of
papers on Korea scattered through English, German, French and Russian
magazines, and the proceedings of geographical societies, is very
great, and for the last three centuries Japanese writers have
contributed largely to the sum of general knowledge of the peninsula.
The list which follows includes some of the more recent works which
illustrate the history, manners and customs, and awakening of Korea:
_British Foreign Office Reports on Korean Trade, Annual Series_
(London); _Bibliographie koreanne_ (3 vols., Paris, 1897); Mrs. I. L.
Bishop, _Korea and her Neighbours_ (2 vols., London, 1897); M. von
Brandt, _Ostasiatische Fragen_ (Leipzig, 1897); A. E. J. Cavendish and
H. E. Goold Adams, _Korea, and the Sacred White Mountain_ (London,
1894); Stewart Culin, _Korean Games_ (Philadelphia, 1895); Curzon,
_Problems of the Far East_ (London, 1896); Dallet, _Histoire de
l'eglise de Koree_ (2 vols., Paris, 1874); J. S. Gale, _Korean
Sketches_ (Edinburgh, 1898); W. E. Griffis, _The Hermit Nation_ (8th
and revised edition, New York, 1907); H. Hamel, _Relation du naufrage
d'un vaisseau Halindois, &c., traduite du Flamond par M. Minutoli_
(Paris, 1670); Okoji Hidemoto, _Der Feldzug der Japanir gegen Korea im
Jahre 1597; translated from Japanese by Professor von Pfizmaier_ (2
vols., Vienna, 1875); M. Jametel, "La Koree: ses ressources, son
avenir commercial," _L'Economiste francaise_ (Paris, July 1881);
Percival Lowell, _Choson: The Land of the Morning Calm_ (London,
Boston, 1886); L. J. Miln, _Quaint Korea_ (Harper, New York, 1895);
V. de Laguerie, _La Koree independante, russe ou japonaise?_ (Paris,
1898); J. Ross, _Korea: Its History, Manners and Customs_ (Paisley,
1880); W. H. Wilkinson, _The Korean Government: Constitutional Changes
in Korea during the period 23rd July 1894--30th June 1896_ (Shanghai,
1896); A. Hamilton, _Korea_ (London, 1903); C. J. D. Taylor, _Koreans
at Home_ (London, 1904); E. Boudaret, _En Coree_ (Paris, 1904);
Laurent-Cremazy, _Le Code penal de la Coree_ (Paris, 1904); G. T.
Ladd, _In Korea with Marquis Ito_ (London, 1908); Dictionaries and
vocabularies by W. F. Myers (English secretary of Legation at Peking),
the French missionaries, and others, were superseded in 1898 by a
large and learned volume by the Rev J. S. Gale, a Presbyterian
missionary, who devoted some years to the work. On geology, see C.
Gottsche, "Geologische Skizze von Korea," _Sitz. preuss. Akad. Wiss._
(Berlin, Jahrg. 1886, pp. 857-873, Pl. viii.). A summary of this
paper, with a reproduction of the map, is given by L. Pervinquiere in
_Rev. sci._ Paris, 5th series, vol. i. (1904), pp. 545-552.
(I. L. B.; O. J. R. H.)
FOOTNOTE:
[1] Named after William Robert Broughton (1762-1821), an English
navigator who explored these seas in 1795-1798.
KOREA, a tributary state of India, transferred from Bengal to the
Central Provinces in 1905; area, 1631 sq. m.; pop. (1901), 35,113, or
only 22 persons per sq. m.; estimated revenue, L1200. It consists of an
elevated table-land, with hills rising to above 3000 ft. Such traffic as
there is is carried by means of pack-bullocks.
KORESHAN ECCLESIA, THE, or CHURCH ARCHTRIUMPHANT, a communistic body,
founded by Cyrus R. Teed, a medical practitioner, who was born at Utica,
New York, in 1839. Teed was regarded by his adherents as "the new
Messiah now in the World," and many other extravagant views both in
science and economics are held by them. Two communities were founded: in
Chicago (1886) and at Estero, in Lee county, Florida (1894), where in
1903 the Chicago community removed. Their name is derived from Koresh,
the Hebrew form of Cyrus, and they have a journal, _The Flaming Sword_.
KORIN, OGATA (c. 1657-1716), Japanese painter and lacquerer, was born at
Koto, the son of a wealthy merchant who had a taste for the arts and is
said to have given his son some elementary instruction therein. Korin
also studied under Soken Yamamoto, Kano, Tsunenobu and Gukei Sumiyoshi;
and he was greatly influenced by his predecessors Koyetsu and Sotatsu.
On arriving at maturity, however, he broke away from all tradition, and
developed a very original and quite distinctive style of his own, both
in painting and in the decoration of lacquer. The characteristic of this
is a bold impressionism, which is expressed in few and simple highly
idealized forms, with an absolute disregard either of realism or of the
usual conventions. In lacquer Korin's use of white metals arid of
mother-of-pearl is notable; but herein he followed Koyetsu. Korin died
on the 2nd of June 1716, at the age of fifty-nine. His chief pupils were
Kagei Tatebashi and Shiko Watanable; but the present knowledge and
appreciation of his work are largely due to the efforts of Hoitsu Sakai,
who brought about a revival of Korin's style.
See A. Morrison, _The Painters of Japan_ (1902); S. Tajima,
_Masterpieces selected from the Korin School_ (1903); S. Hoitsu, _The
100 Designs by Korin_ (1815) and _More Designs by Korin_ (1826).
(E. F. S.)
KORKUS, an aboriginal tribe of India, dwelling on the Satpura hills in
the Central Provinces. They are of interest as being the westernmost
representatives of the Munda family of speech. They are rapidly becoming
hinduized, as may be gathered from the figures of the census of 1901,
which show 140,000 Korkus by race, but only 88,000 speakers of the Korku
language.
KORMOCZBANYA (German, _Kremnitz_), an old mining town, in the county of
Bars, in Hungary, 158 m. N. of Budapest by rail. Pop. (1900), 4299. It
is situated in a deep valley in the Hungarian Ore Mountains region.
Among its principal buildings are the castle, several Roman Catholic
(from the 13th and 14th centuries) and Lutheran churches, a Franciscan
monastery (founded 1634), the town-hall, and the mint where the
celebrated Kremnitz gold ducats were formerly struck. The bulk of the
inhabitants find employment in connexion with the gold and silver mines.
By means of a tunnel 9 m. in length, constructed in 1851-1852, the water
is drained off from the mines into the river Gran. According to
tradition, Kormoczbanya was founded in the 8th century by Saxons. The
place is mentioned in documents in 1317, and became a royal free town
in 1328, being therefore one of the oldest free towns in Hungary.
KORNER, KARL THEODOR (1791-1813), German poet and patriot, often called
the German "Tyrtaeus," was born at Dresden on the 23rd of September
1791. His father, Christian Gottfried Korner (1756-1831), a
distinguished Saxon jurist, was Schiller's most intimate friend. He was
educated at the Kreuzschule in Dresden and entered at the age of
seventeen the mining academy at Freiburg in Saxony, where he remained
two years. Here he occupied himself less with science than with verse, a
collection of which appeared under the title _Knospen_ in 1810. In this
year he went to the university of Leipzig, in order to study law; but he
became involved in a serious conflict with the police and was obliged to
continue his studies in Berlin. In August 1811 Korner went to Vienna,
where he devoted himself entirely to literary pursuits; he became
engaged to the actress Antonie Adamberger, and, after the success of
several plays produced in 1812, he was appointed poet to the
Hofburgtheater. When the German nation rose against the French yoke, in
1813, Korner gave up all his prospects at Vienna and joined Lutzow's
famous corps of volunteers at Breslau. On his march to Leipzig he passed
through Dresden, where he issued his spirited _Aufruf an die Sachsen_,
in which he called upon his countrymen to rise against their oppressors.
He became lieutenant towards the end of April, and took part in a
skirmish at Kitzen near Leipzig on the 7th of June, when he was severely
wounded. After being nursed by friends at Leipzig and Carlsbad, he
rejoined his corps and fell in an engagement outside a wood near
Gadebusch in Mecklenburg on the 26th of August 1813. He was buried by
his comrades under an oak close to the village of Wobbelin, where there
is a monument to him.
The abiding interest in Korner is patriotic and political rather than
literary. His fame as a poet rests upon his patriotic lyrics, which were
published by his father under the title _Leier und Schwert_ in 1814.
These songs, which fired the poet's comrades to deeds of heroism in
1813, bear eloquent testimony to the intensity of the national feeling
against Napoleon, but judged as literature they contain more bombast
than poetry. Among the best known are "Lutzow's wilde verwegene Jagd,"
"Gebet wahrend der Schlacht" (set to music by Weber) and "Das
Schwertlied." This last was written immediately before his death, and
the last stanza added on the fatal morning. As a dramatist Korner was
remarkably prolific, but his comedies hardly touch the level of
Kotzebue's and his tragedies, of which the best is _Zriny_ (1814), are
rhetorical imitations of Schiller's.
His works have passed through many editions. Among the more recent
are: _Samtliche Werke_ (Stuttgart, 1890), edited by Adolf Stern; by H.
Zimmer (2 vols., Leipzig, 1893) and by E. Goetze (Berlin, 1900). The
most valuable contributions to our knowledge of the poet have been
furnished by E. Peschel, the founder and director of the Korner Museum
in Dresden, in _Theodor Korners Tagebuch und Kriegslieder, aus dem
Jahre 1813_ (Freiburg, 1893) and, in conjunction with E. Wildenow,
_Theodor Korner und die Seinen_ (Leipzig, 1898).
KORNEUBURG, a town of Austria, in Lower Austria, 9 m. N.W. of Vienna by
rail. Pop. (1900), 8298. It is situated on the left bank of the Danube,
opposite Klosterneuburg. It is a steamship station and an important
emporium of the salt and corn trade. The industry comprises the
manufacture of coarse textiles, pasteboard, &c. Its charter as a town
dates from 1298, and it was a much frequented market in the preceding
century. At the beginning of the 15th century it was surrounded by
walls, and in 1450 a fortress was erected. It was frequently involved in
the conflict between the Hungarian king Matthias Corvinus and the
emperor Frederick William III., and also during the Thirty Years' War.
KOROCHA, a town of central Russia, in the government of Kursk, 75 m.
S.S.E. of the city of Kursk, on the Korocha river. Pop. (1897), 14,405.
Its inhabitants live by gardening, exporting large quantities of dried
cherries, by making candles and leather, and by trade; the merchants
purchase cattle, grain and salt in the south and send them to Moscow.
Founded in 1638, Korocha was formerly a small fort intended to check the
Tatar invasions.
KORSOR, a seaport of Denmark, in the _amt_ (county) of the island of
Zealand, 69 m. by rail W.S.W. of Copenhagen, on the east shore of the
Great Belt. Pop. (1901), 6054. The harbour, which is formed by a bay of
the Baltic, has a depth throughout of 20 ft. It is the point of
departure and arrival of the steam ferry to Nyborg on Funen, lying on
the Hamburg, Schleswig, Fredericia and Copenhagen route. There is also
regular communication by water with Kiel. The chief exports are fish,
cereals, bacon; imports, petroleum and coal. A market town since the
14th century, Korsor has ruins of an old fortified castle, on the south
side of the channel, dating from the 14th and 17th centuries.
KORTCHA (Slavonic, _Goritza_ or _Koritza_), a city of Albania, European
Turkey, in the vilayet of Iannina, in a wide plain watered by the Devol
and Dunavitza rivers, and surrounded by mountains on every side except
the north, where Lake Malik constitutes the boundary. Pop. (1905), about
10,000, including Greeks, Albanians and Slavs. Kortcha is the see of an
Orthodox Greek metropolitan, whose large cathedral is richly decorated
in the interior with paintings and statues. The Kortcha school for
girls, conducted by American missionaries, is the only educational
establishment in which the Turkish government permits the use of
Albanian as the language of instruction. The local trade is chiefly
agricultural.
KORYAKS, a Mongoloid people of north-eastern Siberia, inhabiting the
coast-lands of the Bering Sea to the south of the Anadyr basin and the
country to the immediate north of the Kamchatka Peninsula, the
southernmost limit of their range being Tigilsk. They are akin to the
Chukchis, whom they closely resemble in physique and in manner of life.
Thus they are divided into the settled fishing tribes and the nomad
reindeer breeders and hunters. The former are described as being more
morally and physically degraded even than the Chukchis, and hopelessly
poor. The Koryaks of the interior, on the other hand, still own enormous
reindeer herds, to which they are so attached that they refuse to part
with an animal to a stranger at any price. They are in disposition
brave, intelligent and self-reliant, and recognize no master. They have
ever tenaciously resisted Russian aggression, and in their fights with
the Cossacks have proved themselves recklessly brave. When outnumbered
they would kill their women and children, set fire to their homes, and
die fighting. Families usually gather in groups of sixes or sevens,
forming miniature states, in which the nominal chief has no
predominating authority, but all are equal. The Koryaks are polygamous,
earning their wives by working for their fathers-in-law. The women and
children are treated well, and Koryak courtesy and hospitality are
proverbial. The chief wedding ceremony is a forcible abduction of the
bride. They kill the aged and infirm, in the belief that thus to save
them from protracted sufferings is the highest proof of affection. The
victims choose their mode of death, and young Koryaks practise the art
of giving the fatal blow quickly and mercifully. Infanticide was
formerly common, and one of twins was always sacrificed. They burn their
dead. The prevailing religion is Shamanism; sacrifices are made to evil
spirits, the heads of the victims being placed on stones facing east.
See G. Kennan, _Tent Life in Siberia_ (1871); "Uber die Koriaken u.
ihnen nahe verwandten Tchouktchen," in _Bul. Acad. Sc. St.
Petersburg_, xii. 99.
KOSCIUSCO, the highest mountain in Australia, in the range of the
Australian Alps, towards the south-eastern extremity of New South Wales.
Its height is 7328 ft. An adjacent peak to the south, Mueller's Peak,
long considered the highest in the continent, is 7268 ft. high. A
meteorological station was established on Kosciusco in 1897.
KOSCIUSZKO, TADEUSZ ANDRZEJ BONAWENTURA (1746-1817), Polish soldier and
statesman, the son of Ludwik Kosciuszko, sword-bearer of the palatinate
of Brzesc, and Tekla Ratomska, was born in the village of
Mereczowszczyno. After being educated at home he entered the corps of
cadets at Warsaw, where his unusual ability and energy attracted the
notice of Prince Adam Casimir Czartoryski, by whose influence in 1769 he
was sent abroad at the expense of the state to complete his military
education. In Germany, Italy and France he studied diligently,
completing his course at Brest, where he learnt fortification and naval
tactics, returning to Poland in 1774 with the rank of captain of
artillery. While engaged in teaching the daughters of the Grand Hetman,
Sosnowski of Sosnowica, drawing and mathematics, he fell in love with
the youngest of them, Ludwika, and not venturing to hope for the consent
of her father, the lovers resolved to fly and be married privately.
Before they could accomplish their design, however, the wooer was
attacked by Sosnowski's retainers, but defended himself valiantly till,
covered with wounds, he was ejected from the house. This was in 1776.
Equally unfortunate was Kosciuszko's wooing of Tekla Zurowska in 1791,
the father of the lady in this case also refusing his consent.
In the interval between these amorous episodes Kosciuszko won his spurs
in the New World. In 1776 he entered the army of the United States as a
volunteer, and brilliantly distinguished himself, especially during the
operations about New York and at Yorktown. Washington promoted
Kosciuszko to the rank of a colonel of artillery and made him his
adjutant. His humanity and charm of manner made him moreover one the
most popular of the American officers. In 1783 Kosciuszko was rewarded
for his services and his devotion to the cause of American independence
with the thanks of Congress, the privilege of American citizenship, a
considerable annual pension with landed estates, and the rank of
brigadier-general, which he retained in the Polish service.
In the war following upon the proclamation of the constitution of the
3rd of May 1791 and the formation of the reactionary Confederation of
Targowica (see POLAND: _History_), Kosciuszko took a leading part. As
the commander of a division under Prince Joseph Poniatowski he
distinguished himself at the battle of Zielence in 1792, and at Dubienka
(July 18) with 4000 men and 10 guns defended the line of the Bug for
five days against the Russians with 18,000 men and 60 guns, subsequently
retiring upon Warsaw unmolested. When the king acceded to the
Targowicians, Kosciuszko with many other Polish generals threw up his
commission and retired to Leipzig, which speedily became the centre of
the Polish emigration. In January 1793, provided with letters of
introduction from the French agent Perandier, Kosciuszko went on a
political mission to Paris to induce the revolutionary government to
espouse the cause of Poland. In return for assistance he promised to
make the future government of Poland as close a copy of the French
government as possible; but the Jacobins, already intent on detaching
Prussia from the anti-French coalition, had no serious intention of
fighting Poland's battles. The fact that Kosciuszko's visit synchronized
with the execution of Louis XVI. subsequently gave the enemies of Poland
a plausible pretext for accusing her of Jacobinism, and thus prejudicing
Europe against her. On his return to Leipzig Kosciuszko was invited by
the Polish insurgents to take the command of the national armies, with
dictatorial power. He hesitated at first, well aware that a rising in
the circumstances was premature. "I will have nothing to do with Cossack
raiding," he replied; "if war we have, it must be a regular war." He
also insisted that the war must be conducted on the model of the
American War of Independence, and settled down in the neighbourhood of
Cracow to await events. When, however, he heard that the insurrection
had already broken out, and that the Russian armies were concentrating
to crush it, Kosciuszko hesitated no longer, but hastened to Cracow,
which he reached on the 23rd of March 1794. On the following day his
arms were consecrated according to ancient custom at the church of the
Capucins, by way of giving the insurrection a religious sanction
incompatible with Jacobinism. The same day, amidst a vast concourse of
people in the market-place, Kosciuszko took an oath of fidelity to the
Polish nation; swore to wage war against the enemies of his country; but
protested at the same time that he would fight only for the independence
and territorial integrity of Poland.
The insurrection had from the first a purely popular character. We find
none of the great historic names of Poland in the lists of the original
confederates. For the most part the confederates of Kosciuszko were
small squires, traders, peasants and men of low degree generally. Yet
the comparatively few gentlemen who joined the movement sacrificed
everything to it. Thus, to take but a single instance, Karol Prozor sold
the whole of his ancestral estates and thus contributed 1,000,000
thalers to the cause. From the 24th of March to the 1st of April
Kosciuszko remained at Cracow organizing his forces. On the 3rd of April
at Raclawice, with 4000 regulars, and 2000 peasants armed only with
scythes and pikes, and next to no artillery, he defeated the Russians,
who had 5000 veterans and 30 guns. This victory had an immense moral
effect, and brought into the Polish camp crowds of waverers to what had
at first seemed a desperate cause. For the next two months Kosciuszko
remained on the defensive near Sandomir. He durst not risk another
engagement with the only army which Poland so far possessed, and he had
neither money, officers nor artillery. The country, harried incessantly
during the last two years, was in a pitiable condition. There was
nothing to feed the troops in the very provinces they occupied, and
provisions had to be imported from Galicia. Money could only be obtained
by such desperate expedients as the melting of the plate of the churches
and monasteries, which was brought in to Kosciuszko's camp at Pinczow
and subsequently coined at Warsaw, minus the royal effigy, with the
inscription: "Freedom, Integrity and Independence of the Republic,
1794." Moreover, Poland was unprepared. Most of the regular troops were
incorporated in the Russian army, from which it was very difficult to
break away, and until these soldiers came in Kosciuszko had principally
to depend on the valour of his scythemen. But in the month of April the
whole situation improved. On the 17th of that month the 2000 Polish
troops in Warsaw expelled the Russian garrison after days of street
fighting, chiefly through the ability of General Mokronowski, and a
provisional government was formed. Five days later Jakob Jasinski drove
the Russians from Wilna.
By this time Kosciuszko's forces had risen to 14,000, of whom 10,000
were regulars, and he was thus able to resume the offensive. He had
carefully avoided doing anything to provoke Austria or Prussia. The
former was described in his manifestoes as a potential friend; the
latter he never alluded to as an enemy. "Remember," he wrote, "that the
only war we have upon our hands is war to the death against the
Muscovite tyranny." Nevertheless Austria remained suspicious and
obstructive; and the Prussians, while professing neutrality, very
speedily effected a junction with the Russian forces. This Kosciuszko,
misled by the treacherous assurances of Frederick William's ministers,
never anticipated, when on the 4th of June he marched against General
Denisov. He encountered the enemy on the 5th of June at Szczekociny, and
then discovered that his 14,000 men had to do not merely with a Russian
division but with the combined forces of Russia and Prussia, numbering
25,000 men. Nevertheless, the Poles acquitted themselves manfully, and
at dusk retreated in perfect order upon Warsaw unpursued. Yet their
losses had been terrible, and of the six Polish generals present three,
whose loss proved to be irreparable, were slain, and two of the others
were seriously wounded. A week later another Polish division was
defeated at Kholm; Cracow was taken by the Prussians on the 22nd of
June; and the mob at Warsaw broke upon the gaols and murdered the
political prisoners in cold blood. Kosciuszko summarily punished the
ringleaders of the massacres and had 10,000 of the rank and file drafted
into his camp, which measures had a quieting effect. But now dissensions
broke out among the members of the Polish government, and it required
all the tact of Kosciuszko to restore order amidst this chaos of
suspicions and recriminations. At this very time too he had need of all
his ability and resource to meet the external foes of Poland. On the 9th
of July Warsaw was invested by Frederick William of Prussia with an army
of 25,000 men and 179 guns, and the Russian general Fersen with 16,000
men and 74 guns, while a third force of 11,000 occupied the right bank
of the Vistula. Kosciuszko for the defence of the city and its outlying
fortifications could dispose of 35,000 men, of whom 10,000 were
regulars. But the position, defended by 200 inferior guns, was a strong
one, and the valour of the Poles and the engineering skill of
Kosciuszko, who was now in his element, frustrated all the efforts of
the enemy. Two unsuccessful assaults were made upon the Polish positions
on the 26th of August and the 1st of September, and on the 6th the
Prussians, alarmed by the progress of the Polish arms in Great Poland,
where Jan Henryk Dabrowski captured the Prussian fortress of Bydogoszcz
and compelled General Schwerin with his 20,000 men to retire upon
Kalisz, raised the siege. Elsewhere, indeed, after a brief triumph the
Poles were everywhere worsted, and Suvarov, after driving them before
him out of Lithuania was advancing by forced marches upon Warsaw. Even
now, however, the situation was not desperate, for the Polish forces
were still numerically superior to the Russian. But the Polish generals
proved unequal to carrying out the plans of the dictator; they allowed
themselves to be beaten in detail, and could not prevent the junction of
Suvarov and Fersen. Kosciuszko himself, relying on the support of
Poninski's division 4 m. away, attacked Fersen at Maciejowice on the
10th of October. But Poninski never appeared, and after a bloody
encounter the Polish army of 7000 was almost annihilated by the 16,000
Russians; and Kosciuszko, seriously wounded and insensible, was made a
prisoner on the field of battle. The long credited story that he cried
"Finis Poloniae!" as he fell is a fiction.
Kosciuszko was conveyed to Russia, where he remained till the accession
of Paul in 1796. On his return on the 19th of December 1796 he paid a
second visit to America, and lived at Philadelphia till May 1798, when
he went to Paris, where the First Consul earnestly invited his
co-operation against the Allies. But he refused to draw his sword unless
Napoleon undertook to give the restoration of Poland a leading place in
his plans; and to this, as he no doubt foresaw, Bonaparte would not
consent. Again and again he received offers of high commands in the
French army, but he kept aloof from public life in his house at
Berville, near Paris, where the emperor Alexander visited him in 1814.
At the Congress of Vienna his importunities on behalf of Poland finally
wearied Alexander, who preferred to follow the counsels of Czartoryski;
and Kosciuszko retired to Solothurn, where he lived with his friend
Zeltner. Shortly before his death, on the 2nd of April 1817, he
emancipated his serfs, insisting only on the maintenance of schools on
the liberated estates. His remains were carried to Cracow and buried in
the cathedral; while the people, reviving an ancient custom, raised a
huge mound to his memory near the city.
Kosciuszko was essentially a democrat, but a democrat of the school of
Jefferson and Lafayette. He maintained that the republic could only be
regenerated on the basis of absolute liberty and equality before the
law; but in this respect he was far in advance of his age, and the
aristocratic prejudices of his countrymen compelled him to resort to
half measures. He wrote _Manoeuvres of Horse Artillery_ (New York, 1808)
and a description of the campaign of 1792 (in vol. xvi. of E.
Raczynski's _Sketch of the Poles and Poland_ (Posen, 1843).
See Jozef Zajaczek, _History of the Revolution of_ 1794 (Pol.)
(Lemberg, 1881); Leonard Jakob Borejko Chodzko, _Biographie du general
Kosciuszko_ (Fontainebleau, 1837); Karol Falkenstein, _Thaddaus
Kosciuszko_ (2nd ed., Leipzig, 1834; French ed., Paris, 1839); Antoni
Choloniewski, _Tadeusz Kosciuszko_ (Pol.) (Lemberg, 1902); Franciszek
Rychlicki, _T. Kosciuszko and the Partition of Poland_ (Pol.) (Cracow,
1875). (R. N. B.)
KOSEN, a village and summer resort of Germany, in the Prussian province
of Saxony, 33 m. by rail S. by W. of Halle, on the Saale. Pop. (1905),
2990. The town has a mineral spring, which is used for bathing, being
efficacious for rheumatism and other complaints. Kosen, which became a
town in 1869, has large mill-works; it has a trade in wood and wine. On
the adjacent Rudelsburg, where there is a ruined castle, the German
students have erected a monument to their comrades who fell in the
Franco-German War of 1870-71. Hereon are also memorials to Bismarck and
to the emperor William I. The town is famous as the central
meeting-place of the German students' corps, which hold an annual
congress here every Whitsuntide.
See Techow, _Fuhrer durch Kosen und Umgegend_ (Kosen, 1889); and
Rosenberg, _Kosen_ (Naumburg, 1877).
KOSHER, or KASHER (Hebrew clean, right, or fit), the Jewish term for any
food or vessels for food made ritually fit for use, in contradistinction
to those _pasul_, unfit, and _terefah_, forbidden. Thus the vessels used
at the Passover are "kosher," as are also new metal vessels bought from
a Gentile after they have been washed in a ritual bath. But the term is
specially used of meat slaughtered in accordance with the law of Moses.
The _schochat_ or butcher must be a devout Jew and of high moral
character, and be duly licensed by the chief rabbi. The
slaughtering--the object of which is to insure the complete bleeding of
the body, the Jews being forbidden to eat blood--is done by severing the
windpipe with a long and razor-sharp knife by one continuous stroke
backwards and forwards. No unnecessary force is permitted, and no
stoppage must occur during the operation. The knife is then carefully
examined, and if there be the slightest flaw in its blade the meat
cannot be eaten, as the cut would not have been clean, the uneven blade
causing a thrill to pass through the beast and thus driving the blood
again through the arteries. After this every portion of the animal is
thoroughly examined, for if there is any organic disease the devout Jew
cannot taste the meat. In order to soften meat before it is salted, so
as to allow the salt to extract the blood more freely, the meat is
soaked in water for about half an hour. It is then covered with salt for
about an hour and afterwards washed three times. Kosher meat is labelled
with the name of the slaughterer and the date of killing.
KOSLIN, or COSLIN, a town of Germany, in the Prussian province of
Pomerania, at the foot of the Gollenberg (450 ft.), 5 m. from the
Baltic, and 105 m. N.E. of Stettin by rail. Pop. (1905), 21,474. The
town has two Evangelical and a Roman Catholic church, a gymnasium, a
cadet academy and a deaf and dumb asylum. In the large market place is
the statue of the Prussian king Frederick William I., erected in 1824,
and there is a war memorial on the Friedrich Wilhelm Platz. The
industries include the manufacture of soap, tobacco, machinery, paper,
bricks and tiles, beer and other goods. Koslin was built about 1188 by
the Saxons, and raised to the rank of a town in 1266. In 1532 it
accepted the doctrines of the Reformation. It was severely tried in the
Thirty Years' War and in the Seven Years' War, and in 1720 it was burned
down. On the Gollenberg stands a monument to the memory of the
Pomeranians who fell in the war of 1813-15.
KOSSOVO, or Kosovo, a vilayet of European Turkey, comprising the sanjak
of Uskub in Macedonia, and the sanjaks of Prizren and Novibazar (q.v.)
in northern Albania. Pop. (1905), about 1,100,000; area, 12,700 sq. m.
For an account of the physical features of Kossovo, see ALBANIA and
MACEDONIA. The inhabitants are chiefly Albanians and Slavs, with smaller
communities of Greeks, Turks, Vlachs and gipsies. A few good roads
traverse the vilayet (see USKUB), and the railway from Salonica
northward bifurcates at Uskub, the capital, one branch going to
Mitrovitza in Albania, the other to Nish in Servia. Despite the
undoubted mineral wealth of the vilayet, the only mines working in 1907
were two chrome mines, at Orasha and Verbeshtitza. In the volume of its
agricultural trade, however, Kossovo is unsurpassed by any Turkish
province. The exports, worth about L950,000, include livestock, large
quantities of grain and fruit, tobacco, vegetables, opium, hemp and
skins. Rice is cultivated for local consumption, and sericulture is a
growing industry, encouraged by the Administration of the Ottoman Debt.
The yearly value of the imports is approximately L1,200,000; these
include machinery and other manufactured goods, metals, groceries,
chemical products and petroleum, which is used in the flour-mills and
factories on account of the prohibitive price of coal. There is
practically no trade with Adriatic ports; two-thirds of both exports and
imports pass through Salonica, the remainder going by rail into Servia.
The chief towns, Uskub (32,000), Prizren (30,000), Koprulu (22,000),
Ishtib [Slav. _Stip_] (21,000), Novibazar (12,000) and Prishtina
(11,000) are described in separate articles.
In the middle ages the vilayet formed part of the Servian Empire, its
northern districts are still known to the Serbs as Old Servia (_Stara
Srbiya_). The plain of Kossovo (Kossovopolje, "Field of Blackbirds"), a
long valley lying west of Prishtina and watered by the Sibnitza, a
tributary of the Servian Ibar, is famous in Balkan history and legend as
the scene of the battle of Kossovo (1389), in which the power of Servia
was destroyed by the Turks. (See SERVIA: _History_.)
KOSSUTH, FERENCZ LAJOS AKOS (1841- ), Hungarian statesman, the son of
Lajos Kossuth, was born on the 16th of November 1841, and educated at
the Paris Polytechnic and the London University, where in 1859 he won a
prize for political economy. After working as a civil engineer on the
Dean Forest railway he went (1861) to Italy, where he resided for the
next thirty-three years, taking a considerable part in the railway
construction of the peninsula, and at the same time keeping alive the
Hungarian independence question by a whole series of pamphlets and
newspaper articles. At Cesena in 1876 he married Emily Hoggins. In 1885
he was decorated for his services by the Italian government. His last
great engineering work was the construction of the steel bridges for the
Nile. In 1894 he escorted his father's remains to Hungary, and the
following year resolved to settle in his native land and took the oath
of allegiance. As early as 1867 he had been twice elected a member of
the Hungarian diet, but on both occasions refused to accept the mandate.
On the 10th of April 1895 he was returned for Tapolca and in 1896 for
Cegled, and from that time took an active part in Hungarian politics. In
the autumn of 1898 he became the leader of the obstructionists or
"Independence Party," against the successive Szell, Khuen-Hadervary,
Szapary and Stephen Tisza administrations (1898-1904), exercising great
influence not only in parliament but upon the public at large through
his articles in the _Egyetertes_. The elections of 1905 having sent his
party back with a large majority, he was received in audience by the
king and helped to construct the Wekerle ministry, of which he was one
of the most distinguished members.
See Sturm, _The Almanack of the Hungarian Diet_ (1905-1910), art.
"Kossuth" (Hung.) (Budapest, 1905).
KOSSUTH, LAJOS [Louis] (1802-1894), Hungarian patriot, was born at
Monok, a small town in the county of Zemplin, on the 19th of September
1802. His father, who was descended from an old untitled noble family
and possessed a small estate, was by profession an advocate. Louis, who
was the eldest of four children, received from his mother a strict
religious training. His education was completed at the Calvinist college
of Sarospatak and at the university of Budapest. At the age of nineteen
he returned home and began practice with his father. His talents and
amiability soon won him great popularity, especially among the peasants.
He was also appointed steward to the countess Szapary, a widow with
large estates, and as her representative had a seat in the county
assembly. This position he lost owing to a quarrel with his patroness,
and he was accused of appropriating money to pay a gambling debt. His
fault cannot have been very serious, for he was shortly afterwards (he
had in the meantime settled in Pesth) appointed by Count Hunyady to be
his deputy at the National Diet in Pressburg (1825-1827, and again in
1832). It was a time when, under able leaders, a great national party
was beginning the struggle for reform against the stagnant Austrian
government. As deputy he had no vote, and he naturally took little share
in the debates, but it was part of his duty to send written reports of
the proceedings to his patron, since the government, with a
well-grounded fear of all that might stir popular feeling, refused to
allow any published reports. Kossuth's letters were so excellent that
they were circulated in MS. among the Liberal magnates, and soon
developed into an organized parliamentary gazette (_Orszagyulesi
tudositasok_), of which he was editor. At once his name and influence
spread. In order to increase the circulation, he ventured on
lithographing the letters. This brought them under the official censure,
and was forbidden. He continued the paper in MS., and when the
government refused to allow it to be circulated through the post sent it
out by hand. In 1836 the Diet was dissolved. Kossuth continued the
agitation by reporting in letter form the debates of the county
assemblies, to which he thereby gave a political importance which they
had not had when each was ignorant of the proceedings of the others. The
fact that he embellished with his own great literary ability the
speeches of the Liberals and Reformers only added to the influence of
his news-letters. The government in vain attempted to suppress the
letters, and other means having failed, he was in May 1837, with
Weszelenyi and several others, arrested on a charge of high treason.
After spending a year in prison at Ofen, he was tried and condemned to
four more years' imprisonment. His confinement was strict and injured
his health, but he was allowed the use of books. He greatly increased
his political information, and also acquired, from the study of the
Bible and Shakespeare, a wonderful knowledge of English. His arrest had
caused great indignation. The Diet, which met in 1839, supported the
agitation for the release of the prisoners, and refused to pass any
government measures; Metternich long remained obdurate, but the danger
of war in 1840 obliged him to give way. Immediately after his release
Kossuth married Teresa Meszleny, a Catholic, who during his prison days
had shown great interest in him. Henceforward she strongly urged him on
in his political career; and it was the refusal of the Roman priests to
bless their union that first prompted Kossuth to take up the defence of
mixed marriages.
He had now become a popular leader. As soon as his health was restored
he was appointed (January 1841) editor of the _Pesti Hirlap_, the newly
founded organ of the party. Strangely enough, the government did not
refuse its consent. The success of the paper was unprecedented. The
circulation soon reached what was then the immense figure of 7000. The
attempts of the government to counteract his influence by founding a
rival paper, the _Vilag_, only increased his importance and added to the
political excitement. The warning of the great reformer Szechenyi that
by his appeal to the passions of the people he was leading the nation to
revolution was neglected. Kossuth, indeed, was not content with
advocating those reforms--the abolition of entail, the abolition of
feudal burdens, taxation of the nobles--which were demanded by all the
Liberals. By insisting on the superiority of the Magyars to the Slavonic
inhabitants of Hungary, by his violent attacks on Austria (he already
discussed the possibility of a breach with Austria), he raised the
national pride to a dangerous pitch. At last, in 1844, the government
succeeded in breaking his connexion with the paper. The proprietor, in
obedience to orders from Vienna (this seems the most probable account),
took advantage of a dispute about salary to dismiss him. He then applied
for permission to start a paper of his own. In a personal interview
Metternich offered to take him into the government service. The offer
was refused, and for three years he was without a regular position. He
continued the agitation with the object of attaining both the political
and commercial independence of Hungary. He adopted the economic
principles of List, and founded a society, the "Vedegylet," the members
of which were to consume none but home produce. He advocated the
creation of a Hungarian port at Fiume. With the autumn of 1847 the great
opportunity of his life came. Supported by the influence of Louis
Batthyany, after a keenly fought struggle he was elected member for
Budapest in the new Diet. "Now that I am a deputy, I will cease to be an
agitator," he said. He at once became chief leader of the Extreme
Liberals. Deak was absent. Batthyany, Szechenyi, Szemere, Eotvos, his
rivals, saw how his intense personal ambition and egoism led him always
to assume the chief place, and to use his parliamentary position to
establish himself as leader of the nation; but before his eloquence and
energy all apprehensions were useless. His eloquence was of that nature,
in its impassioned appeals to the strongest emotions, that it required
for its full effect the highest themes and the most dramatic situations.
In a time of rest, though he could never have been obscure, he would
never have attained the highest power. It was therefore a necessity of
his nature, perhaps unconsciously, always to drive things to a crisis.
The crisis came, and he used it to the full.
On the 3rd of March 1848, as soon as the news of the revolution in
Paris had arrived, in a speech of surpassing power he demanded
parliamentary government for Hungary and constitutional government for
the rest of Austria. He appealed to the hope of the Habsburgs, "our
beloved Archduke Francis Joseph," to perpetuate the ancient glory of the
dynasty by meeting half-way the aspirations of a free people. He at once
became the leader of the European revolution; his speech was read aloud
in the streets of Vienna to the mob by which Metternich was overthrown
(March 13), and when a deputation from the Diet visited Vienna to
receive the assent of the emperor to their petition it was Kossuth who
received the chief ovation. Batthyany, who formed the first responsible
ministry, could not refuse to admit Kossuth, but he gave him the
ministry of finance, probably because that seemed to open to him fewest
prospects of engrossing popularity. If that was the object, it was in
vain. With wonderful energy he began developing the internal resources
of the country: he established a separate Hungarian coinage--as always,
using every means to increase the national self-consciousness; and it
was characteristic that on the new Hungarian notes which he issued his
own name was the most prominent inscription; hence the name of _Kossuth
Notes_, which was long celebrated. A new paper was started, to which was
given the name of _Kossuth Hirlapia_, so that from the first it was
Kossuth rather than the Palatine or the president of the ministry whose
name was in the minds of the people associated with the new government.
Much more was this the case when, in the summer, the dangers from the
Croats, Serbs and the reaction at Vienna increased. In a great speech of
11th July he asked that the nation should arm in self-defence, and
demanded 200,000 men; amid a scene of wild enthusiasm this was granted
by acclamation. When Jellachich was marching on Pesth he went from town
to town rousing the people to the defence of the country, and the
popular force of the _Honved_ was his creation. When Batthyany resigned
he was appointed with Szemere to carry on the government provisionally,
and at the end of September he was made President of the Committee of
National Defence. From this time he was in fact, if not in name, the
dictator. With marvellous energy he kept in his own hands the direction
of the whole government. Not a soldier himself, he had to control and
direct the movements of armies; can we be surprised if he failed, or if
he was unable to keep control over the generals or to establish that
military co-operation so essential to success? Especially it was Gorgei
(q.v.) whose great abilities he was the first to recognize, who refused
obedience; the two men were in truth the very opposite to one another:
the one all feeling, enthusiasm, sensibility; the other cold, stoical,
reckless of life. Twice Kossuth deposed him from the command; twice he
had to restore him. It would have been well if Kossuth had had something
more of Gorgei's calculated ruthlessness, for, as has been truly said,
the revolutionary power he had seized could only be held by
revolutionary means; but he was by nature soft-hearted and always
merciful; though often audacious, he lacked decision in dealing with
men. It has been said that he showed a want of personal courage; this is
not improbable, the excess of feeling which made him so great an orator
could hardly be combined with the coolness in danger required of a
soldier; but no one was able, as he was, to infuse courage into others.
During all the terrible winter which followed, his energy and spirit
never failed him. It was he who overcame the reluctance of the army to
march to the relief of Vienna; after the defeat of Schwechat, at which
he was present, he sent Bem to carry on the war in Transylvania. At the
end of the year, when the Austrians were approaching Pesth, he asked for
the mediation of Mr Stiles, the American envoy. Windischgratz, however,
refused all terms, and the Diet and government fled to Debrecszin,
Kossuth taking with him the regalia of St Stephen, the sacred Palladium
of the Hungarian nation. Immediately after the accession of the Emperor
Francis Joseph all the concessions of March had been revoked and Kossuth
with his colleagues outlawed. In April 1849, when the Hungarians had won
many successes, after sounding the army, he issued the celebrated
declaration of Hungarian independence, in which he declared that "the
house of Habsburg-Lorraine, perjured in the sight of God and man, had
forfeited the Hungarian throne." It was a step characteristic of his
love for extreme and dramatic action, but it added to the dissensions
between him and those who wished only for autonomy under the old
dynasty, and his enemies did not scruple to accuse him of aiming at the
crown himself. For the time the future form of government was left
undecided, but Kossuth was appointed responsible governor. The hopes of
ultimate success were frustrated by the intervention of Russia; all
appeals to the western powers were vain, and on the 11th of August
Kossuth abdicated in favour of Gorgei, on the ground that in the last
extremity the general alone could save the nation. How Gorgei used his
authority to surrender is well known; the capitulation was indeed
inevitable, but a greater man than Kossuth would not have avoided the
last duty of conducting the negotiations so as to get the best terms.
With the capitulation of Villagos Kossuth's career was at an end. A
solitary fugitive, he crossed the Turkish frontier. He was hospitably
received by the Turkish authorities, who, supported by Great Britain,
refused, notwithstanding the threats of the allied emperors, to
surrender him and the other fugitives to the merciless vengeance of the
Austrians. In January 1849 he was removed from Widdin, where he had been
kept in honourable confinement, to Shumla, and thence to Katahia in Asia
Minor. Here he was joined by his children, who had been confined at
Pressburg; his wife (a price had been set on her head) had joined him
earlier, having escaped in disguise. In September 1851 he was liberated
and embarked on an American man-of-war. He first landed at Marseilles,
where he received an enthusiastic welcome from the people, but the
prince-president refused to allow him to cross France. On the 23rd of
October he landed at Southampton and spent three weeks in England, where
he was the object of extraordinary enthusiasm, equalled only by that
with which Garibaldi was received ten years later. Addresses were
presented to him at Southampton, Birmingham and other towns; he was
officially entertained by the lord mayor of London; at each place he
pleaded the cause of his unhappy country. Speaking in English, he
displayed an eloquence and command of the language scarcely excelled by
the greatest orators in their own tongue. The agitation had no immediate
effect, but the indignation which he aroused against Russian policy had
much to do with the strong anti-Russian feeling which made the Crimean
War possible.
From England he went to the United States of America: there his
reception was equally enthusiastic, if less dignified; an element of
charlatanism appeared in his words and acts which soon destroyed his
real influence. Other Hungarian exiles protested against the claim he
appeared to make that he was the one national hero of the revolution.
Count Casimir Batthyany attacked him in _The Times_, and Szemere, who
had been prime minister under him, published a bitter criticism of his
acts and character, accusing him of arrogance, cowardice and duplicity.
He soon returned to England, where he lived for eight years in close
connexion with Mazzini, by whom, with some misgiving, he was persuaded
to join the Revolutionary Committee. Quarrels of a kind only too common
among exiles followed; the Hungarians were especially offended by his
claim still to be called governor. He watched with anxiety every
opportunity of once more freeing his country from Austria. An attempt to
organize a Hungarian legion during the Crimean War was stopped; but in
1859 he entered into negotiations with Napoleon, left England for Italy,
and began the organization of a Hungarian legion, which was to make a
descent on the coast of Dalmatia. The Peace of Villafranca made this
impossible. From that time he resided in Italy; he refused to follow the
other Hungarian patriots, who, under the lead of Deak, accepted the
composition of 1867; for him there could be no reconciliation with the
house of Habsburg, nor would he accept less than full independence and a
republic. He would not avail himself of the amnesty, and, though elected
to the Diet of 1867, never took his seat. He never lost the affections
of his countrymen, but he refrained from an attempt to give practical
effect to his opinions, nor did he allow his name to become a new cause
of dissension. A law of 1879, which deprived of citizenship all
Hungarians who had voluntarily been absent ten years, was a bitter blow
to him.
He died in Turin on the 20th of March 1894; his body was taken to Pesth,
where he was buried amid the mourning of the whole nation, Maurus Jokai
delivering the funeral oration. A bronze statue, erected by public
subscription, in the Kerepes cemetery, commemorates Hungary's purest
patriot and greatest orator.
Many points in Kossuth's career and character will probably always
remain the subject of controversy. His complete works were published
in Hungarian at Budapest in 1880-1895. The fullest account of the
Revolution is given in Helfert, _Geschichte Oesterreichs_ (Leipzig,
1869, &c.), representing the Austrian view, which may be compared with
that of C. Gracza, _History of the Hungarian War of Independence,
1848-1849_ (in Hungarian) (Budapest, 1894). See also E. O. S.,
_Hungary and its Revolutions, with a Memoir of Louis Kossuth_ (Bohn,
1854); Horvath, _25 Jahre aus der Geschichte Ungarns, 1823-1848_
(Leipzig, 1867); Maurice, _Revolutions of 1848-1849_; W. H. Stiles,
_Austria in 1848-1849_ (New York, 1852); Szemere, _Politische
Charakterskizzen: III. Kossuth_ (Hamburg, 1853); Louis Kossuth,
_Memoirs of my Exile_ (London, 1880); Pulszky, _Meine Zeit, mein
Leben_ (Pressburg, 1880); A. Somogyi, _Ludwig Kossuth_ (Berlin, 1894).
(J. W. He.)
KOSTER (or COSTER), LAURENS (c. 1370-1440), Dutch printer, whose claims
to be considered at least one of the inventors of the art (see
TYPOGRAPHY) have been recognized by many investigators. His real name
was Laurens Janssoen-Koster (i.e. sacristan) being merely the title
which he bore as an official of the great parish church of Haarlem. We
find him mentioned several times between 1417 and 1434 as a member of
the great council, as an assessor (_scabinus_), and as the city
treasurer. He probably perished in the plague that visited Haarlem in
1439-1440; his widow is mentioned in the latter year. His descendants,
through his daughter Lucia, can be traced down to 1724.
See Peter Scriver, _Beschryvinge der Stad Harlem_ (Haarlem, 1628);
Scheltema, _Levensschets van Laurens d. Koster_ (Haarlem, 1834); Van
der Linde, _De Haarlemsche Costerlegende_ (Hague, 1870).
KOSTROMA, a government of central Russia, surrounded by those of
Vologda, Vyatka, Nizhniy-Novgorod, Vladimir and Yaroslav, lying mostly
on the left bank of the upper Volga. It has an area of 32,480 sq. m. Its
surface is generally undulating, with hilly tracts on the right bank of
the Volga, and extensive flat and marshy districts in the east. Rocks of
the Permian system predominate, though a small tract belongs to the
Jurassic, and both are overlain by thick deposits of Quaternary clays.
The soil in the east is for the most part sand or a sandy clay; a few
patches, however, are fertile black earth. Forests, yielding excellent
timber for ship-building, and in many cases still untouched, occupy 61%
of the area of the government. The export of timber is greatly
facilitated by the navigable tributaries of the Volga, e.g. the
Kostroma, Unzha, Neya, Vioksa and Vetluga. The climate is severe; frosts
of -22 deg. F. are common in January, and the mean temperature of the
year is only 3 deg. 1 (summer, 64 deg. 5; winter, -13 deg. 3). The
population, which numbered 1,176,000 in 1870 and 1,424,171 in 1897, is
almost entirely Russian. The estimated population in 1906 was 1,596,700.
Out of 20,000,000 acres, 7,861,500 acres belong to private owners,
6,379,500 to the peasant communities, 3,660,800 to the crown, and
1,243,000 to the imperial family. Agriculture is at a low ebb; only
4,000,000 acres are under crops (rye, oats, wheat and barley), and the
yield of corn is insufficient for the wants of the population. Flax and
hops are cultivated to an increasing extent. But market-gardening is of
some importance. Bee-keeping was formerly an important industry. The
chief articles of commerce are timber, fuel, pitch, tar, mushrooms, and
wooden wares for building and household purposes, which are largely
manufactured by the peasantry and exported to the steppe governments of
the lower Volga and the Don. Boat-building is also carried on. Some
other small industries, such as the manufacture of silver and copper
wares, leather goods, bast mats and sacks, lace and felt boots, are
carried on in the villages; but the trade in linen and towelling,
formerly the staple, is declining. There are cotton, flax and linen
mills, engineering and chemical works, distilleries, tanneries and paper
mills. The government of Kostroma is divided into twelve districts, the
chief towns of which, with populations in 1897, are Kostroma (q.v.),
Bui (2626), Chukhloma (2200), Galich (6182), Kineshma (7564), Kologriv
(2566), Makariev (6068), Nerekhta (3002), Soligalich (3420), Varnavin
(1140), Vetluga (5200) and Yurievets (4778).
KOSTROMA, a town of Russia, capital of the government of the same name,
230 m. N.N.E. of Moscow and 57 m. E.N.E. from Yaroslav, on the left bank
of the Volga, at the mouth of the navigable Kostroma, with suburbs on
the opposite side of the Volga. Pop. (1897), 41,268. Its glittering
gilded cupolas make it a conspicuous feature in the landscape as it
climbs up the terraced river bank. It is one of the oldest towns of
Russia, having been founded in 1152. Its fort was often the refuge of
the princes of Moscow during war, but the town was plundered more than
once by the Tatars. The cathedral, built in 1239 and rebuilt in 1773, is
situated in the kreml, or citadel, and is a fine monument of old Russian
architecture. In the centre of the town is a monument to the peasant
Ivan Susanin and the tsar Michael (1851). The former sacrificed his own
life in 1669 by leading the Poles astray in the forests in order to save
the life of his own tsar Michael Fedeorovich. On the opposite bank of
the Volga, close to the water's edge, stands the monastery of Ipatiyev,
founded in 1330, with a cathedral built in 1586, both associated with
the election of Tsar Michael (1669). Kostroma has been renowned since
the 16th century for its linen, which was exported to Holland, and the
manufacture of linen and linen-yarn is still kept up to some extent. The
town has also cotton-mills, tanneries, saw-mills, an iron-foundry and a
machine factory. It carries on an active trade--importing grain, and
exporting linen, linen yarn, leather, and especially timber and wooden
wares.
KOSZEG (Ger. _Guns_), a town in the county of Vas, in Hungary, 173 m. W.
of Budapest by rail. Pop. (1900), 7422. It is pleasantly situated in the
valley of the Guns, and is dominated towards the west by the peaks of
Altenhaus (2000 ft.) and of the Geschriebene Stein (2900 ft.). It
possesses a castle of Count Esterhazy, a modern Roman Catholic Church in
Gothic style and two convents. It has important cloth factories and a
lively trade in fruit and wine. The town has a special historical
interest for the heroic and successful defence of the fortress by
Nicolas Jurisics against a large army of Sultan Soliman, in July-August
1532, which frustrated the advance of the Turks to Vienna for that year.
To the south-east of Koszeg, at the confluence of the Guns with the
Raab, is situated the town of Sarvar (pop. 3158), formerly fortified,
where in 1526 the first printing press in Hungary was established.
KOTAH, a native state of India, in the Rajputana agency, with an area of
5684 sq. m. The country slopes gently northwards from the high
table-land of Malwa, and is drained by the Chambal with its tributaries,
all flowing in a northerly or north-easterly direction. The Mokandarra
range, from 1200 to 1600 ft. above sea-level, runs from south-east to
north-west. The Mokandarra Pass through these hills, in the
neighbourhood of the highest peak (1671 ft.), has been rendered
memorable by the passage of Colonel Monson's army on its disastrous
retreat in 1804. There are extensive game preserves, chiefly covered
with grass. In addition to the usual Indian grains, wheat, cotton,
poppy, and a little tobacco of good quality are cultivated. The
manufactures are very limited. Cotton fabrics are woven, but are being
rapidly superseded by the cheap products of Bombay and Manchaster.
Articles of wooden furniture are also constructed. The chief articles of
export are opium and grain; salt, cotton and woollen cloth are imported.
Kotah is an offshoot from Bundi state, having been bestowed upon a
younger son of the Bundi raja by the emperor Shah Jahan in return for
services rendered him when the latter was in rebellion against his
father Jahangir. In 1897 a considerable portion of the area taken to
form Jhalawar (q.v.) in 1838 was restored to Kotah. In 1901 the
population was 544,879, showing a decrease of 24% due to the results of
famine. The estimated revenue is L206,000; tribute, L28,000. The maharao
Umad Singh, was born in 1873, and succeeded in 1889. He was educated at
the Mayo College, Ajmere, and became a major in the British army. A
continuation of the branch line of the Indian Midland railway from Goona
to Baran passes through Kotah, and it is also traversed by a new line,
opened in 1909. The state suffered from drought in 1896-1897, and again
more severely in 1899-1900.
The town of Kotah is on the right bank of the Chambal. Pop. (1901),
33,679. It is surrounded and also divided into three parts by massive
walls, and contains an old and a new palace of the maharao and a number
of fine temples. Muslins are the chief articles of manufacture, but the
town has no great trade, and this and the unhealthiness of the site may
account for the decrease in population.
KOTAS (Kotar, Koter, Kohatur, Gauhatar), an aboriginal tribe of the
Nilgiri hills, India. They are a well-made people, of good features,
tall, and of a dull copper colour, but some of them are among the
fairest of the hill tribes. They recognize no caste among themselves,
but are divided into _keris_ (streets), and a man must marry outside his
_keri_. Their villages (of which there are seven) are large, averaging
from thirty to sixty huts. They are agriculturists and herdsmen, and the
only one of the hill tribes who practise industrial arts, being
excellent as carpenters, smiths, tanners and basket-makers. They do
menial work for the Todas, to whom they pay a tribute. They worship
ideal gods, which are not represented by any images. Their language is
an old and rude dialect of Kanarese. In 1901 they numbered 1267.
KOTKA, a seaport of Finland, in the province of Viborg, 35 m. by rail
from Kuivola junction on the Helsingfors railway, on an island of the
same name at the mouth of the Kymmene river. Pop. (1904), 7628. It is
the chief port for exports from and imports to east Finland and a centre
of the timber trade.
KOTRI, a town of British India, in Karachi district, Sind, situated on
the right bank of the Indus. Pop. (1901), 7617. Kotri is the junction of
branches of the North-Western railway, serving each bank of the Indus,
which is here crossed by a railway bridge. It was formerly the station
for Hyderabad, which lies across the Indus, and the headquarters of the
Indus steam flotilla, now abolished in consequence of the development of
railway facilities. Besides its importance as a railway centre, however,
Kotri still has a considerable general transit trade by river.
KOTZEBUE, AUGUST FRIEDRICH FERDINAND VON (1761-1819), German dramatist,
was born on the 3rd of May, 1761, at Weimar. After attending the
gymnasium of his native town, he went in his sixteenth year to the
university of Jena, and afterwards studied about a year in Duisburg. In
1780 he completed his legal course and was admitted an advocate. Through
the influence of Graf Gortz, Prussian ambassador at the Russian court,
he became secretary of the governor-general of St Petersburg. In 1783 he
received the appointment of assessor to the high court of appeal in
Reval, where he married the daughter of a Russian lieutenant-general. He
was ennobled in 1785, and became president of the magistracy of the
province of Esthonia. In Reval he acquired considerable reputation by
his novels, _Die Leiden der Ortenbergischen Familie_ (1785) and
_Geschichte meines Vaters_ (1788), and still more by the plays _Adelheid
von Wulfingen_ (1789), _Menschenhass und Reue_ (1790) and _Die Indianer
in England_ (1790). The good impression produced by these works was,
however, almost effaced by a cynical dramatic satire, _Doktor Bahrdt mit
der eisernen Stirn_, which appeared in 1790 with the name of Knigge on
the title-page. After the death of his first wife Kotzebue retired from
the Russian service, and lived for a time in Paris and Mainz; he then
settled in 1795 on an estate which he had acquired near Reval and gave
himself up to literary work. Within a few years he published six volumes
of miscellaneous sketches and stories (_Die jungsten Kinder meiner
Laune_, 1793-1796) and more than twenty plays, the majority of which
were translated into several European languages. In 1798 he accepted the
office of dramatist to the court theatre in Vienna, but owing to
differences with the actors he was soon obliged to resign. He now
returned to his native town, but as he was not on good terms with
Goethe, and had openly attacked the Romantic school, his position in
Weimar was not a pleasant one. He had thoughts of returning to St
Petersburg, and on his journey thither he was, for some unknown reason,
arrested at the frontier and transported to Siberia. Fortunately he had
written a comedy which flattered the vanity of the emperor Paul I.; he
was consequently speedily brought back, presented with an estate from
the crown lands of Livonia, and made director of the German theatre in
St Petersburg. He returned to Germany when the emperor Paul died, and
again settled in Weimar; he found it, however, as impossible as ever to
gain a footing in literary society, and turned his steps to Berlin,
where in association with Garlieb Merkel (1769-1850) he edited _Der
Freimutige_ (1803-1807) and began his _Almanach dramatischer Spiele_
(1803-1820). Towards the end of 1806 he was once more in Russia, and in
the security of his estate in Esthonia wrote many satirical articles
against Napoleon in his journals _Die Biene_ and _Die Grille_. As
councillor of state he was attached in 1816 to the department for
foreign affairs in St Petersburg, and in 1817 went to Germany as a kind
of spy in the service of Russia, with a salary of 15,000 roubles. In a
weekly journal (_Literarisches Wochenblatt_) which he published in
Weimar he scoffed at the pretensions of those Germans who demanded free
institutions, and became an object of such general dislike that he was
obliged to move to Mannheim. He was especially detested by the young
enthusiasts for liberty, and one of them, Karl Ludwig Sand, a
theological student, stabbed him, in Mannheim, on the 23rd of March
1819. Sand was executed, and the government made his crime an excuse for
placing the universities under strict supervision.
Besides his plays, Kotzebue wrote several historical works, which,
however, are too one-sided and prejudiced to have much value. Of more
interest are his autobiographical writings, _Meine Flucht nach Paris im
Winter_ 1790 (1791), _Uber meinen Aufenthalt in Wien_ (1799), _Das
merkwurdigste Jahr meines Lebens_ (1801), _Erinnerungen aus Paris_
(1804), and _Erinnerungen von meiner Reise aus Liefland nach Rom und
Neapel_ (1805). As a dramatist he was extraordinarily prolific, his
plays numbering over 200; his popularity, not merely on the German, but
on the European stage, was unprecedented. His success, however, was due
less to any conspicuous literary or poetic ability than to an
extraordinary facility in the invention of effective situations; he
possessed, as few German playwrights before or since, the unerring
instinct for the theatre; and his influence on the _technique_ of the
modern drama from Scribe to Sardou and from Bauernfeld to Sudermann is
unmistakable. Kotzebue is to be seen to best advantage in his comedies,
such as _Der Wildfang_, _Die beiden Klingsberg_ and _Die deutschen
Kleinstadter_, which contain admirable genre pictures of German life.
These plays held the stage in Germany long after the once famous
_Menschenhass und Reue_ (known in England as _The Stranger_), _Graf
Benjowsky_, or ambitious exotic tragedies like _Die Sonnenjungfrau_ and
_Die Spanier in Peru_ (which Sheridan adapted as _Pizarro_) were
forgotten.
Two collections of Kotzebue's dramas were published during his
lifetime: _Schauspiele_ (5 vols., 1797); _Neue Schauspiele_ (23 vols.,
1798-1820). His _Samtliche dramatische Werke_ appeared in 44 vols., in
1827-1829, and again, under the title _Theater_, in 40 vols., in
1840-1841. A selection of his plays in 10 vols, appeared at Leipzig in
1867-1868. Cp. H. Doring, _A. von Kotzebues Leben_ (1830); W. von
Kotzebue, _A. von Kotzebue_ (1881); Ch. Rabany, _Kotzebue, sa vie et
son temps_ (1893); W. Sellier, _Kotzebue in England_ (1901).
KOTZEBUE, OTTO VON (1787-1846), Russian navigator, second son of the
foregoing, was born at Reval on the 30th of December 1787. After being
educated at the St Petersburg school of cadets, he accompanied
Krusenstern on his voyage of 1803-1806. After his promotion to
lieutenant Kotzebue was placed in command of an expedition, fitted out
at the expense of the imperial chancellor, Count Rumantsoff, in the brig
"Rurick." In this vessel, with only twenty-seven men, Kotzebue set out
on the 30th of July 1815 to find a passage across the Arctic Ocean and
explore the less-known parts of Oceania. Proceeding by Cape Horn, he
discovered the Romanzov, Rurik and Krusenstern Islands, then made for
Kamchatka, and in the middle of July proceeded northward, coasting along
the north-west coast of America, and discovering and naming Kotzebue
Gulf or Sound and Krusenstern Cape. Returning by the coast of Asia, he
again sailed to the south, sojourned for three weeks at the Sandwich
Islands, and on the 1st of January 1817 discovered New Year Island.
After some further cruising in the Pacific he again proceeded north, but
a severe attack of illness compelling him to return to Europe, he
reached the Neva on the 3rd of August 1818, bringing home a large
collection of previously unknown plants and much new ethnological
information. In 1823 Kotzebue, now a captain, was entrusted with the
command of an expedition in two ships of war, the main object of which
was to take reinforcements to Kamchatka. There was, however, a staff of
scientists on board, who collected much valuable information and
material in geography, ethnography and natural history. The expedition,
proceeding by Cape Horn, visited the Radak and Society Islands, and
reached Petropavlovsk in July 1824. Many positions along the coast were
rectified, the Navigator islands visited, and several discoveries made.
The expedition returned by the Marianna, Philippine, New Caledonia and
Hawaiian Islands, reaching Kronstadt on the 10th of July 1826. There are
English translations of both Kotzebue's narratives: _A Voyage of
Discovery into the South Sea and Beering's Straits for the Purpose of
exploring a North-East Passage, undertaken in the Years 1815-1818_ (3
vols. 1821), and _A New Voyage Round the World in the Years 1823-1826_
(1830). Three years after his return from his second voyage, Kotzebue
died at Reval on the 15th of February 1846.
KOUMISS, milk-wine, or milk brandy, a fermented alcoholic beverage
prepared from milk. It is of very ancient origin, and according to
Herodotus was known to the Scythians. The name is said to be derived
from an ancient Asiatic tribe, the Kumanes or Komans. It is one of the
staple articles of diet of the Siberian and Caucasian races, but of late
years it has also been manufactured on a considerable scale in western
Europe, on account of its valuable medicinal properties. It is generally
made from mares' or camels' milk by a process of fermentation set up by
the addition to the fresh milk of a small quantity of the finished
article. This fermentation, which appears to be of a symbiotic nature,
being dependent on the action of two distinct types of organisms, the
one a fission fungus, the other a true yeast, eventuates in the
conversion of a part of the milk sugar into lactic acid and alcohol.
Koumiss generally contains 1 to 2% of alcohol, 0.5 to 1.5% of lactic
acid, 2 to 4% of milk sugar and 1 to 2% of fat. _Kefir_ is similar to
koumiss, but is usually prepared from cows' milk, and the fermentation
is brought about by the so-called Kefir Grains (derived from a plant).
KOUMOUNDOUROS, ALEXANDROS (1814-1883), Greek statesman, whose name is
commonly spelt Coumoundouros, was born in 1814. His studies at the
university of Athens were repeatedly interrupted for lack of means, and
he began to earn his living as a clerk. He took part in the Cretan
insurrection of 1841, and in the demonstration of 1843, by which the
Greek constitution was obtained from King Otto, he was secretary to
General Theodoraki Grivas. He then settled down to the bar at Kalamata
in Messenia, where he married a lady belonging to the Mavromichalis
family. He was elected to the chamber in 1851, and four years later his
eloquence and ability had secured the president's chair for him. He
became minister of finance in 1856, and again in 1857 and 1859. He
adhered to the moderate wing of the Liberal party until the revolution
of 1862 and the dethronement of King Otto, when he was minister of
justice in the provincial government. He was twice minister of the
interior under Kanaris, in 1864 and in 1865. In March 1865 he became
prime minister, and he formed several subsequent administrations in the
intervals of the ascendancy of Tricoupi. During the Cretan insurrection
of 1866-68 he made active warlike preparations against Turkey, but was
dismissed by King George, who recognized that Greece could not act
without the support of the Powers. He was again premier at the time of
the outbreak of the insurrection in Thessaly in January 1878, and
supported by Delyanni as minister of foreign affairs he sent an army of
10,000 men to help the insurgents against Turkey. The troops were
recalled on the understanding that Greece should be represented at the
Congress of Berlin. In October 1880 the fall of the Tricoupi ministry
restored him to power, when he resumed his warlike policy, but repeated
appeals to the courts of Europe yielded little practical result, and
Koumoundouros was obliged to reduce his territorial demands and to
accept the limited cessions in Thessaly and Epirus, which were carried
out in July 1881. His ministry was overturned in 1882 by the votes of
the new Thessalian deputies, who were dissatisfied with the
administrative arrangements of the new province, and he died at Athens
on the 9th of March 1883.
KOUSSO (KOSSO or CUSSO), a drug which consists of the panicles of the
pistillate flowers of _Brayera anthelmintica_, a handsome rosaceous tree
60 ft. high, growing throughout the table-land of Abyssinia, at an
elevation of 3000 to 8000 ft. above the sea-level. The drug as imported
is in the form of cylindrical rolls, about 18 in. in length and 2 in. in
diameter, and comprises the entire inflorescence or panicle kept in form
by a band wound transversely round it. The active principle is koussin
or kosin, C31H38O10, which is soluble in alcohol and alkalis, and may be
given in doses of thirty grains. Kousso is also used in the form of an
unstrained infusion of 1/4 to 1/2 oz. of the coarsely powdered flowers,
which are swallowed with the liquid. It is considered to be an effectual
vermifuge for _Taenia solium_. In its anthelmintic action it is nearly
allied to male fern, but it is much inferior to that drug and is very
rarely used in Great Britain.
KOVALEVSKY, SOPHIE (1850-1891), Russian mathematician, daughter of
General Corvin-Krukovsky, was born at Moscow on the 15th of January
1850. As a young girl she was fired by the aspiration after intellectual
liberty that animated so many young Russian women at that period, and
drove them to study at foreign universities, since their own were closed
to them. This led her, in 1868, to contract one of those conventional
marriages in vogue at the time, with a young student, Waldemar
Kovalevsky, and the two went together to Germany to continue their
studies. In 1869 she went to Heidelberg, where she studied under H. von
Helmholtz, G. R. Kirchhoff, L. Konigsberger and P. du Bois-Reymond, and
from 1871-1874 read privately with Karl Weierstrass at Berlin, as the
public lectures were not then open to women. In 1874 the university of
Gottingen granted her a degree _in absentia_, excusing her from the oral
examination on account of the remarkable excellence of the three
dissertations sent in, one of which, on the theory of partial
differential equations, is one of her most remarkable works. Another was
an elucidation of P. S. Laplace's mathematical theory of the form of
Saturn's rings. Soon after this she returned to Russia with her husband,
who was appointed professor of palaeontology at Moscow, where he died in
1883. At this time Madame Kovalevsky was at Stockholm, where Gustaf
Mittag Leffler, also a pupil of Weierstrass, who had been recently
appointed to the chair of mathematics at the newly founded university,
had procured for her a post as lecturer. She discharged her duties so
successfully that in 1884 she was appointed full professor. This post
she held till her death on the 10th of February 1891. In 1888 she
achieved the greatest of her successes, gaining the Prix Bordin offered
by the Paris Academy. The problem set was "to perfect in one important
point the theory of the movement of a solid body round an immovable
point," and her solution added a result of the highest interest to those
transmitted to us by Leonhard Euler and J. L. Lagrange. So remarkable
was this work that the value of the prize was doubled as a recognition
of unusual merit. Unfortunately Madame Kovalevsky did not live to reap
the full reward of her labours, for she died just as she had attained
the height of her fame and had won recognition even in her own country
by election to membership of the St Petersburg Academy of Science.
See E. de Kerbedz, "Sophie de Kowalevski," _Benidiconti del circolo
mathematico di Palermo_ (1891); the obituary notice by G. Mittag
Leffler in the _Acta mathematica_, vol. xvi.; and J. C. Poggendorff,
_Biographisch-literarisches Handworterbuch_.
KOVNO (in Lithuanian _Kauna_), a government of north-western Russia,
bounded N. by the governments of Courland and Vitebsk, S.E. by that of
Vilna, and S. and S.W. by Suwalki and the province of East Prussia, a
narrow strip touching the Baltic near Memel. It has an area of 15,687
sq. m. The level uniformity of its surface is broken only by two low
ridges which nowhere rise above 800 ft. The geological character is
varied, the Silurian, Devonian, Jurassic and Tertiary systems being all
represented; the Devonian is that which occurs most frequently, and all
are covered with Quaternary boulder-clays. The soil is either a sandy
clay or a more fertile kind of black earth. The government is drained by
the Niemen, Windau, Courland Aa and Dvina, which have navigable
tributaries. In the flat depressions covered with boulder-clays there
are many lakes and marshes, while forests occupy about 25(1/2)% of the
surface. The climate is comparatively mild, the mean temperature at the
city of Kovno being 44 deg.F. The population was 1,156,040 in 1870, and
1,553,244 in 1897. The estimated population in 1906 was 1,683,600. It is
varied, consisting of Lithuanians proper and Zhmuds (together 74%), Jews
(14%), Germans (2(1/2)%), Poles (9%), with Letts and Russians; 76.6% are
Roman Catholics, 13.7% Jews, 4.5% Protestants, and 5% belong to the
Greek Church. Of the total 788,102 were women in 1897 and 147,878 were
classed as urban. The principal occupation of the inhabitants is
agriculture, 63% of the surface being under crops; both grain (wheat,
rye, oats and barley) and potatoes are exported. Flax is cultivated and
the linseed exported. Dairying flourishes, and horse and cattle breeding
are attracting attention. Fishing is important, and the navigation on
the rivers is brisk. A variety of petty domestic industries are carried
on by the Jews, but only to a slight extent in the villages. As many as
18,000 to 24,000 men are compelled every year to migrate in search of
work. The factories consist principally of distilleries, tobacco and
steam flour-mills, and hardware manufactories. Trade, especially the
transit trade, is brisk, from the situation of the government on the
Prussian frontier, the custom-houses of Yerburg and Tauroggen being
amongst the most important in Russia. The chief towns of the seven
districts into which the government is divided, with their populations
in 1897, are Kovno (q.v.), Novo-Alexandrovsk (6370), Ponevyezh (13,044),
Rosieny (7455), Shavli (15,914), Telshi (6215) and Vilkemir (13,509).
The territory which now constitutes the government of Kovno was formerly
known as Samogitia and formed part of Lithuania. During the 13th, 14th
and 15th centuries the Livonian and Teutonic Knights continually invaded
and plundered it, especially the western part, which was peopled with
Zhmuds. In 1569 it was annexed, along with the rest of the principality
of Lithuania, to Poland; and it suffered very much from the wars of
Russia with Sweden and Poland, and from the invasion of Charles XII. in
1701. In 1795 the principality of Lithuania was annexed to Russia, and
until 1872, when the government of Kovno was constituted, the territory
now forming it was a part of the government of Vilna.
KOVNO, a town and fortress of Russia, capital of the government of the
same name, stands at the confluence of the Niemen with the Viliya, 550
m. S.W. of St Petersburg by rail, and 55 m. from the Prussian frontier.
Pop. (1863), 23,937; (1903), 73,743, nearly one-half being Jews. It
consists of a cramped Old Town and a New Town stretching up the side of
the Niemen. It is a first-class fortress, being surrounded at a mean
distance of 2(1/2) m. by a girdle of forts, eleven in number. The town
lies for the most part in the fork and is guarded by three forts in the
direction of Vilna, one covers the Vilna bridge, while the southern
approaches are protected by seven. Kovno commands and bars the railway
Vilna-Eydtkuhnen. Its factories produce nails, wire-work and other metal
goods, mead and bone-meal. It is an important entrepot for timber,
cereals, flax, flour, spirits, bone-meal, fish, coal and building-stone
passing from and to Prussia. The city possesses some 15th-century
churches. It was founded in the 11th century; and from 1384 to 1398
belonged to the Teutonic Knights. Tsar Alexis of Russia plundered and
burnt it in 1655. Here the Russians defeated the Poles on the 26th of
June 1831.
KOVROV, a town of Russia, in the government of Vladimir, 40 m. N.E. of
the city of Vladimir by the railway from Moscow to Nizhniy-Novgorod, and
on the Klyazma River. It has railway-carriage works, cotton mills, steam
flour mills, tallow works and quarries of limestone, and carries on an
active trade in the export of wooden wares and in the import of grain,
salt and fish, brought from the Volga governments. Pop. (1890), 6600;
(1900), 16,806.
KOWTOW, or KOTOU, the Chinese ceremonial act of prostration as a sign of
homage, submission, or worship. The word is formed from _ko_, knock, and
_tou_, head. To the emperor, the "kowtow" is performed by kneeling three
times, each act accompanied by touching the ground with the forehead.
KOZLOV, a town of Russia, in the government of Tambov, on the Lyesnoi
Voronezh River, 45 m. W.N.W. of the city of Tambov by rail. Pop. (1900),
41,555. Kozlov had its origin in a small monastery, founded in the
forest in 1627; nine years later, an earthwork was raised close by, for
the protection of the Russian frontier against the Tatars. Situated in a
very fertile country, on the highway to Astrakhan and at the head of
water communication with the Don, the town soon became a centre of
trade; as the junction of the railways leading to the Sea of Azov, to
Tsaritsyn on the lower Volga, to Saratov and to Orel, its importance has
recently been still further increased. Its export of cattle, grain,
meat, eggs (22,000,000), tallow, hides, &c., is steadily growing, and it
possesses factories, flour mills, tallow works, distilleries, tanneries
and glue works.
KRAAL, also spelt _craal_, _kraul_, &c. (South African Dutch, derived
possibly from a native African word, but probably from the Spanish
_corral_, Portuguese _curral_, an enclosure for horses, cattle and the
like), in South and Central Africa, a native village surrounded by a
palisade, mud wall or other fencing roughly circular in form; by
transference, the community living within the enclosure. Folds for
animals and enclosures made specially for defensive purposes are also
called kraals.
KRAFFT (or KRAFT), ADAM (c. 1455-1507), German sculptor, of the
Nuremberg school, was born, probably at Nuremberg, about the middle of
the 15th century, and died, some say in the hospital, at Schwabach,
about 1507. He seems to have emerged as sculptor about 1490, the date of
the seven reliefs of scenes from the life of Christ, which, like almost
every other specimen of his work, are at Nuremberg. The date of his last
work, an Entombment, with fifteen life-size figures, in the Holzschuher
chapel of the St John's cemetery, is 1507. Besides these, Krafft's chief
works are several monumental reliefs in the various churches of
Nuremberg; he produced the great Schreyer monument (1492) for St
Sebald's at Nuremberg, a skilful though mannered piece of sculpture
opposite the Rathaus, with realistic figures in the costume of the time,
carved in a way more suited to wood than stone, and too pictorial in
effect; Christ bearing the Cross, above the altar of the same church;
and various works made for public and private buildings, as the relief
over the door of the Wagehaus, a St George and the Dragon, several
Madonnas, and some purely decorative pieces, as coats of arms. His
masterpiece is perhaps the magnificent tabernacle, 62 ft. high, in the
church of St Laurence (1493-1500). He also made the great tabernacle for
the Host, 80 ft. high, covered with statuettes, in Ulm Cathedral, and
the very spirited "Stations of the Cross" on the road to the Nuremberg
cemetery.
See _Adam Krafft und seine Schule_, by Friedrich Wanderer (1869);
_Adam Krafft und die Kunstler seiner Zeit_, by Berthold Daun (1897);
Albert Gumbel in _Repertorium fur Kunstwissenschaft_, Bd. xxv. Heft 5,
1902.
KRAGUYEVATS (also written KRAGUIEVATZ and KRAGUJEVAC), the capital of
the Kraguyevats department of Servia; situated 59 m. S.S.W. of Belgrade,
in a valley of the Shumadia, or "forest-land," and on the Lepenitsa, a
small stream flowing north-east to join the Morava. On the opposite bank
stands the picturesque hamlet of Obilichevo, with a large powder
factory. Kraguyevats itself is the main arsenal of Servia, and
possesses an iron-foundry and a steam flour-mill. It is the seat of the
district prefecture, of a tribunal, of a fine library, and of a large
garrison. It boasts the finest college building and the finest modern
cathedral (in Byzantine style) in Servia. In the first years of Servia's
autonomy under Prince Milosh, it was the residence of the prince and the
seat of government (1818-1839). Even later, between 1868 and 1880, the
national assembly (_Narodna Skupshtina_) usually met there. In 1885 it
was connected by a branch line (Kraguyevats-Lapovo) with the principal
railway (Belgrade-Nish), and thenceforward the prosperity of the town
steadily increased. Pop. (1900), 14,160.
KRAKATOA (KRAKATAO, KRAKATAU), a small volcanic island in Sunda Strait,
between the islands of Java and Sumatra, celebrated for its eruption in
1883, one of the most stupendous ever recorded. At some early period a
large volcano rose in the centre of the tract where the Sunda Strait now
runs. Long before any European had visited these waters an explosion
took place by which the mountain was so completely blown away that only
the outer portions of its base were left as a broken ring of islands.
Subsequent eruptions gradually built up a new series of small cones
within the great crater ring. Of these the most important rose to a
height of 2623 ft. above the sea and formed the peak of the volcanic
island of Krakatoa. But compared with the great neighbouring volcanoes
of Java and Sumatra, the islets of the Sunda Strait were comparatively
unknown. Krakatoa was uninhabited, and no satisfactory map or chart of
it had been made. In 1680 it appears to have been in eruption, when
great earthquakes took place and large quantities of pumice were
ejected. But the effects of this disturbance had been so concealed by
the subsequent spread of tropical vegetation that the very occurrence of
the eruption had sometimes been called in question. At last, about 1877,
earthquakes began to occur frequently in the Sunda Strait and continued
for the next few years. In 1883 the manifestations of subterranean
commotion became more decided, for in May Krakatoa broke out in
eruption. For some time the efforts of the volcano appear to have
consisted mainly in the discharge of pumice and dust, with the usual
accompaniment of detonations and earthquakes. But on the 26th of August
a succession of paroxysmal explosions began which lasted till the
morning of the 28th. The four most violent took place on the morning of
the 27th. The whole of the northern and lower portion of the island of
Krakatoa, lying within the original crater ring of prehistoric times,
was blown away; the northern part of the cone of Rakata almost entirely
disappeared, leaving a vertical cliff which laid bare the inner
structure of that volcano. Instead of the volcanic island which had
previously existed, and rose from 300 to 1400 ft. above the sea, there
was now left a submarine cavity, the bottom of which was here and there
more than 1000 ft. below the sea-level. This prodigious evisceration was
the result of successive violent explosions of the superheated vapour
absorbed in the molten magma within the crust of the earth. The vigour
and repetition of these explosions, it has been suggested, may have been
caused by sudden inrushes of the water of the ocean as the throat of the
volcano was cleared and the crater ring was lowered and ruptured. The
access of large bodies of cold water to the top of the column of molten
lava would probably give rise at once to some minor explosions, and then
to a chilling of the surface of the lava and a consequent temporary
diminution or even cessation of the volcanic eructations. But until the
pent-up water-vapour in the lava below had found relief it would only
gather strength until it was able to burst through the chilled crust and
overlying water, and to hurl a vast mass of cooled lava, pumice and dust
into the air.
The amount of material discharged during the two days of paroxysmal
energy was enormous, though there are no satisfactory data for even
approximately estimating it. A large cavity was formed where the island
had previously stood, and the sea-bottom around this crater was covered
with a wide and thick sheet of fragmentary materials. Some of the
surrounding islands received such a thick accumulation of ejected stones
and dust as to bury their forests and greatly to increase the area of
the land. So much was the sea filled up that a number of new islands
rose above its level. But a vast body of the fine dust was carried far
and wide by aerial currents, while the floating pumice was transported
for many hundreds of miles on the surface of the ocean. At Batavia, 100
m. from the centre of eruption, the sky was darkened by the quantity of
ashes borne across it, and lamps had to be used in the houses at midday.
The darkness even reached as far as Bandong, a distance of nearly 150
miles. It was computed that the column of stones, dust and ashes
projected from the volcano shot up into the air for a height of 17 m. or
more. The finer particles coming into the higher layers of the
atmosphere were diffused over a large part of the surface of the earth,
and showed their presence by the brilliant sunset glows to which they
gave rise. Within the tropics they were at first borne along by
air-currents at an estimated rate of about 73 m. an hour from east to
west, until within a period of six weeks they were diffused over nearly
the whole space between the latitudes 30 deg. N. and 45 deg. S.
Eventually they spread northwards and southwards and were carried over
North and South America, Europe, Asia, South Africa and Australasia. In
the Old World they spread from the north of Scandinavia to the Cape of
Good Hope.
Another remarkable result of this eruption was the world-wide
disturbance of the atmosphere. The culminating paroxysm on the morning
of the 27th of August gave rise to an atmospheric wave or oscillation,
which, travelling outwards from the volcano as a centre, became a great
circle at 180 deg. from its point of origin, whence it continued
travelling onwards and contracting till it reached a node at the
antipodes to Krakatoa. It was then reflected or reproduced, travelling
backwards again to the volcano, whence it once more returned in its
original direction. "In this manner its repetition was observed not
fewer than seven times at many of the stations, four passages having
been those of the wave travelling from Krakatoa, and three those of the
wave travelling from its antipodes, subsequently to which its traces
were lost" (Sir R. Strachey).
The actual sounds of the volcanic explosions were heard over a vast
area, especially towards the west. Thus they were noticed at Rodriguez,
nearly 3000 English miles away, at Bangkok (1413 m.), in the Philippine
Islands (about 1450 m.), in Ceylon (2058 m.) and in West and South
Australia (from 1300 to 2250 m.). On no other occasion have sound-waves
ever been perceived at anything like the extreme distances to which the
detonations of Krakatoa reached.
Not less manifest and far more serious were the effects of the
successive explosions of the volcano upon the waters of the ocean. A
succession of waves was generated which appear to have been of two
kinds, long waves with periods of more than an hour, and shorter but
higher waves, with irregular and much briefer intervals. The greatest
disturbance, probably resulting from a combination of both kinds of
waves, reached a height of about 50 ft. The destruction caused by the
rush of such a body of sea-water along the coasts and low islands was
enormous. All vessels lying in harbour or near the shore were stranded,
the towns, villages and settlements close to the sea were either at
once, or by successive inundations, entirely destroyed, and more than
36,000 human beings perished. The sea-waves travelled to vast distances
from the centre of propagation. The long wave reached Cape Horn (7818
geographical miles) and possibly the English Channel (11,040 m.). The
shorter waves reached Ceylon and perhaps Mauritius (2900 m.).
See R. D. M. Verbeek, _Krakatau_ (Batavia, 1886); "The Eruption of
Krakatoa and Subsequent Phenomena," _Report of the Krakatoa Committee
of the Royal Society_ (London, 1888).
KRAKEN, in Norwegian folk-lore, a sea-monster, believed to haunt the
coasts of Norway. It was described in 1752 by the Norwegian bishop
Pontoppidan as having a back about a mile and a half round and a body
which showed above the sea like an island, and its arms were long enough
to enclose the largest ship. The further assertion that the kraken
darkened the water around it by an excretion suggests that the myth was
based on the appearance of some gigantic cuttle-fish.
See J. Gibson, _Monsters of the Sea_ (1887); A. S. Packard, "Colossal
Cuttle-fishes," _American Naturalist_ (Salem, 1873), vol. vii.; A. E.
Verrill, "The Colossal Cephalopods of the Western Atlantic," in
_American Naturalist_ (Salem, 1875), vol. ix.; and "Gigantic Squids,"
in _Trans. of Connecticut Academy_ (1879), vol. v.
KRALYEVO (sometimes written KRALJEVO or KRALIEVO), a city of Servia, and
capital of a department bearing the same name. Kralyevo is built beside
the river Ibar, 4 m. W. of its confluence with the Servian Morava; and
in the midst of an upland valley, between the Kotlenik Mountains, on the
north, and the Stolovi Mountains, on the south. Formerly known as
Karanovats, Kralyevo received its present name, signifying "the King's
Town," from King Milan (1868-1889), who also made it a bishopric,
instead of Chachak, 22 m. W. by N. Kralyevo is a garrison town, with a
prefecture, court of first instance, and an agricultural school. But by
far its most interesting feature is the Coronation church belonging to
Jicha monastery. Here six or seven kings are said to have been crowned.
The church is Byzantine in style, and has been partially restored; but
the main tower dates from the year 1210, when it was founded by St Sava,
the patron saint of Servia. Pop. (1900), about 3600.
The famous monastery of Studenitsa, 24 m. S. by W. of Kralyevo, stands
high up among the south-western mountains, overlooking the Studenitsa, a
tributary of the Ibar. It consists of a group of old-fashioned timber
and plaster buildings, a tall belfry, and a diminutive church of white
marble, founded in 1190 by King Stephen Nemanya, who himself turned monk
and was canonized as St Simeon. The carvings round the north, south and
west doors have been partially defaced by the Turks. The inner walls are
decorated with Byzantine frescoes, among which only a painting of the
Last Supper, and the portraits of five saints, remain unrestored. The
dome and narthex are modern additions. Besides the silver shrine of St
Simeon, many gold and silver ornaments, church vessels and old
manuscripts, there are a set of vestments and a reliquary, believed by
the monks to have been the property of St Sava.
KRANTZ (or CRANTZ), ALBERT (c. 1450-1517), German historian, was a
native of Hamburg. He studied law, theology and history at Rostock and
Cologne, and after travelling through western and southern Europe was
appointed professor, first of philosophy and subsequently of theology,
in the university of Rostock, of which he was rector in 1482. In 1493 he
returned to Hamburg as theological lecturer, canon and prebendary in the
cathedral. By the senate of Hamburg he was employed on more than one
diplomatic mission abroad, and in 1500 he was chosen by the king of
Denmark and the duke of Holstein as arbiter in their dispute regarding
the province of Dithmarschen. As dean of the cathedral chapter, to which
office he was appointed in 1508, Krantz applied himself with zeal to the
reform of ecclesiastical abuses, but, though opposed to various
corruptions connected with church discipline, he had little sympathy
with the drastic measures of Wycliffe or Huss. With Luther's protest
against the abuse of Indulgences he was in general sympathy, but with
the reformer's later attitude he could not agree. When, on his
death-bed, he heard of the ninety-five theses, he is said, on good
authority, to have exclaimed: "Brother, Brother, go into thy cell and
say, God have mercy upon me!" Krantz died on the 7th of December 1517.
Krantz was the author of a number of historical works which for the
period when they were written are characterized by exceptional
impartiality and research. The principal of these are _Chronica
regnorum aquilonarium Daniae, Sueciae, et Norvagiae_ (Strassburg,
1546); _Vandalia, sive Historia de Vandalorum vera origine_, &c.
(Cologne, 1518); _Saxonia_ (1520); and _Metropolis, sive Historia de
ecclesiis sub Carolo Magno in Saxonia_ (Basel, 1548). See life by N.
Wilckens (Hamburg, 1722).
KRASNOVODSK, a seaport of Russian Transcaspia, on the N. shore of
Balkhan or Krasnovodsk Bay, on the S. side of the Caspian Sea, opposite
to Baku, and at 69 ft. below sea-level. Pop. (1897), 6359. It is
defended by a fort. Here begins the Transcaspian railway to Merv and
Bokhara. There is a fishing industry, and salt and sulphur are
obtained. Krasnovodsk, which is the capital of the Transcaspian
province, was founded in 1869.
KRASNOYARSK, a town of Eastern Siberia, capital of the government of
Yeniseisk, on the left bank of the Yenisei River, at its confluence with
the Kacha, and on the highway from Moscow to Irkutsk, 670 m. by rail
N.W. from the latter. Pop. (1900), 33,337. It has a municipal museum and
a railway technical school. It was founded by Cossacks in 1628, and
during the early years of its existence it was more than once besieged
by the Tatars and the Kirghiz. Its commercial importance depends
entirely upon the gold-washings of the Yeniseisk district. Brick-making,
soap-boiling, tanning and iron-founding are carried on. The climate is
very cold, but dry. The Yenisei River is frozen here for 160 days in the
year.
KRASZEWSKI, JOSEPH IGNATIUS (1812-1887), Polish novelist and
miscellaneous writer, was born at Warsaw on the 28th of July 1812, of an
aristocratic family. He showed a precocious talent for authorship,
beginning his literary career with a volume of sketches from society as
early as 1829, and for more than half a century scarcely ever
intermitting his literary production, except during a period of
imprisonment upon a charge of complicity in the insurrection of 1831. He
narrowly escaped being sent to Siberia, but, rescued by the intercession
of powerful friends, he settled upon his landed property near Grodno,
and devoted himself to literature with such industry that a mere
selection from his fiction alone, reprinted at Lemberg from 1871 to
1875, occupies 102 volumes. He was thus the most conspicuous literary
figure of his day in Poland. His extreme fertility was suggestive of
haste and carelessness, but he declared that the contrivance of his plot
gave him three times as much trouble as the composition of his novel.
Apart from his gifts as a story-teller, he did not possess extraordinary
mental powers; the "profound thoughts" culled from his writings by his
admiring biographer Bohdanowicz are for the most part mere truisms. His
copious invention is nevertheless combined with real truth to nature,
especially evinced in the beautiful little story of _Jermola the Potter_
(1857), from which George Eliot appears to have derived the idea of
_Silas Marner_, though she can only have known it at second hand.
Compared with the exquisite art of _Silas Marner_, _Jermola_ appears
rude and unskilful, but it is not on this account the less touching in
its fidelity to the tenderest elements of human nature. Kraszewski's
literary activity falls into two well-marked epochs, the earlier when,
residing upon his estate, he produced romances like _Jermola_, _Ulana_
(1843), _Kordecki_ (1852), devoid of any special tendency, and that
after 1863, when the suspicions of the Russian government compelled him
to settle in Dresden. To this period belong several political novels
published under the pseudonym of _Boleslawita_, historical fictions such
as _Countess Cosel_, and the "culture" romances _Morituri_ (1874-1875)
and _Resurrecturi_ (1876), by which he is perhaps best known out of his
own country. In 1884 he was accused of plotting against the German
government and sentenced to seven years' imprisonment in a fortress, but
was released in 1886, and withdrew to Geneva, where he died on the 19th
of March 1887. His remains were brought to Poland and interred at
Cracow. Kraszewski was also a poet and dramatist; his most celebrated
poem is his epic _Anafielas_ (3 vols., 1840-1843) on the history of
Lithuania. He was indefatigable as literary critic, editor and
translator, wrote several historical works, and was conspicuous as a
restorer of the study of national archaeology in Poland. Among his most
valuable works were _Litwa_ (Warsaw, 2 vols., 1847-1850), a collection
of Lithuanian antiquities; and an aesthetic history of Poland (Posen, 3
vols., 1873-1875). (R. G.)
KRAUSE, KARL CHRISTIAN FRIEDRICH (1781-1832), German philosopher, was
born at Eisenberg on the 4th of May 1781, and died at Munich on the 27th
of September 1832. Educated at first at Eisenberg, he proceeded to Jena,
where he studied philosophy under Hegel and Fichte and became
_privatdozent_ in 1802. In the same year, with characteristic
imprudence, he married a wife without dowry. Two years after, lack of
pupils compelled him to move to Rudolstadt and later to Dresden, where
he gave lessons in music. In 1805 his ideal of a universal world-society
led him to join the Freemasons, whose principles seemed to tend in the
direction he desired. He published two books on Freemasonry, _Die drei
altesten Kunsturkunden der Freimaurerbruderschaft_ and _Hohere
Vergeistigung der echt uberlieferten Grundsymbole der Freimaurerei_, but
his opinions drew upon him the opposition of the Masons. He lived for a
time in Berlin and became a _privatdozent_, but was unable to obtain a
professorship. He therefore proceeded to Gottingen and afterwards to
Munich, where he died of apoplexy at the very moment when the influence
of Franz von Baader had at last obtained a position for him.
One of the so-called "Philosophers of Identity," Krause endeavoured to
reconcile the ideas of a God known by Faith or Conscience and the world
as known to sense. God, intuitively known by Conscience, is not a
personality (which implies limitations), but an all-inclusive essence
(_Wesen_), which contains the Universe within itself. This system he
called _Panentheism_, a combination of Theism and Pantheism. His theory
of the world and of humanity is universal and idealistic. The world
itself and mankind, its highest component, constitute an organism
(_Gliedbau_), and the universe is therefore a divine organism
(_Wesengliedbau_). The process of development is the formation of higher
unities, and the last stage is the identification of the world with God.
The form which this development takes, according to Krause, is Right or
the Perfect Law. Right is not the sum of the conditions of external
liberty but of absolute liberty, and embraces all the existence of
nature, reason and humanity. It is the mode, or rationale, of all
progress from the lower to the highest unity or identification. By its
operation the reality of nature and reason rises into the reality of
humanity. God is the reality which transcends and includes both nature
and humanity. Right is, therefore, at once the dynamic and the safeguard
of progress. Ideal society results from the widening of the organic
operation of this principle from the individual man to small groups of
men, and finally to mankind as a whole. The differences disappear as the
inherent identity of structure predominates in an ever-increasing
degree, and in the final unity Man is merged in God.
The comparatively small area of Krause's influence was due partly to the
overshadowing brilliance of Hegel, and partly to two intrinsic defects.
The spirit of his thought is mystical and by no means easy to follow,
and this difficulty is accentuated, even to German readers, by the use
of artificial terminology. He makes use of germanized foreign terms
which are unintelligible to the ordinary man. His principal works are
(beside those quoted above): _Entwurf des Systems der Philosophie_
(1804); _System der Sittenlehre_ (1810); _Das Urbild der Menschheit_
(1811); and _Vorlesungen uber das System der Philosophie_ (1828). He
left behind him at his death a mass of unpublished notes, part of which
has been collected and published by his disciples, H. Ahrens
(1808-1874), Leonhardi, Tiberghien and others.
See H. S. Lindemann, _Uebersichtliche Darstellung des Lebens ...
Krauses_ (1839); P. Hohlfeld, _Die Krausesche Philosophie_ (1879); A.
Procksch, _Krause, ein Lebensbild nach seinen Briefen_ (1880); R.
Eucken, _Zur Erinnerung an Krause_ (1881); B. Martin, _Krauses Leben
und Bedeutung_ (1881), and Histories of Philosophy by Zeller,
Windelband and Hoffding.
KRAWANG, a residency of the island of Java, Dutch East Indies, bounded
E. and S. by Charibon and the Preanger, W. by Batavia, and N. by the
Java Sea, and comprising a few insignificant islands. The natives are
Sundanese, but contain a large admixture of Middle Javanese and
Bantamers in the north, where they established colonies in the 17th
century. Like the residency of Batavia, the northern half of Krawang is
flat and occasionally marshy, while the southern half is mountainous and
volcanic. Warm and cold mineral, salt and sulphur springs occur in the
hills. Salt is extracted by the government, though in smaller quantities
now than formerly. The principal products are rice, coffee, sugar,
vanilla, indigo and nutmeg. Fishing is practised along the coast and
forest culture in the hills, while the industries also include the
manufacture of coarse linen, sacks and leather tanning. Gold and silver
were formerly thought to be hidden in the Parang mountain in the
Gandasoli district south-west of Purwakarta, and mining was begun by the
Dutch East India Company in 1722. The largest part of the residency
consists of private lands, and only the Purwakarta and Krawang divisions
forming the middle and north-west sections come directly under
government control. The remainder of the residency is divided between
the Pamanukan-Chiasem lands occupying the whole eastern half of the
residency and the Tegalwaru lands in the south-western corner. The
former is owned by a company and forms the largest estate in Java. The
Tegalwaru is chiefly owned by Chinese proprietors. Purwakarta is the
capital of the residency. Subang and Pamanukan both lie at the junction
of several roads near the borders of Cheribon and are the chief centres
of activity in the east of the residency.
KRAY VON KRAJOVA, PAUL, FREIHERR (1735-1804), Austrian soldier. Entering
the Austrian army at the age of nineteen, he arrived somewhat rapidly at
the grade of major, but it was many years before he had any opportunity
of distinguishing himself. In 1784 he suppressed a rising in
Transylvania, and in the Turkish wars he took an active part at Porczeny
and the Vulcan Pass. Made major-general in 1790, three years later he
commanded the advanced guard of the Allies operating in France. He
distinguished himself at Famars, Charleroi, Fleurus, Weissenberg, and
indeed at almost every encounter with the troops of the French Republic.
In the celebrated campaign of 1796 on the Rhine and Danube he did
conspicuous service as a corps commander. At Wetzlar he defeated Kleber,
and at Amberg and Wurzburg he was largely responsible for the victory of
the archduke Charles. In the following year he was less successful,
being twice defeated on the Lahn and the Main. Kray commanded in Italy
in 1799, and reconquered from the French the plain of Lombardy. For his
victories of Verona, Mantua, Legnago and Magnano he was promoted
_Feldzeugmeister_, and he ended the campaign by further victories at
Novi and Fossano. Next year he commanded on the Rhine against Moreau.
(For the events of this memorable campaign see FRENCH REVOLUTIONARY
WARS.) As a consequence of the defeats he underwent at Biberach,
Messkirch, &c., Kray was driven into Ulm, but by a skilful march round
Moreau's flank succeeded in escaping to Bohemia. He was relieved of his
command by the Austrian government, and passed his remaining years in
retirement. He died in 1804. Kray was one of the best representatives of
the old Austrian army. Tied to an obsolete system and unable from habit
to realize the changed conditions of warfare, he failed, but his enemies
held him in the highest respect as a brave, skilful and chivalrous
opponent. It was he who at Altenkirchen cared for the dying Marceau, and
the white uniforms of Kray and his staff mingled with the blue of the
French in the funeral procession of the young general of the Republic.
KREMENCHUG, a town of south-west Russia, in the government of Poltava,
on the left bank of the Dnieper (which periodically overflows its
banks), 73 m. S.W. of the city of Poltava, on the Kharkov-Nikolayev
railway. Pop. (1887), 31,000; (1897, with Kryukov suburb), 58,648. The
most notable public buildings are the cathedral (built in 1808), the
arsenal and the town-hall. The town is supposed to have been founded in
1571. From its situation at the southern terminus of the navigable
course of the Dnieper, and on the highway from Moscow to Odessa, it
early acquired great commercial importance, and by 1655 it was a wealthy
town. From 1765 to 1789 it was the capital of "New Russia." It has a
suburb, Kryukov, on the right bank of the Dnieper, united with the town
by a railway bridge. Nearly all commercial transactions in salt with
White Russia are effected at Kremenchug. The town is also the centre of
the tallow trade with Warsaw; considerable quantities of timber are
floated down to this place. Nearly all the trade in the brandy
manufactured in the government of Kharkov, and destined for the
governments of Ekaterinoslav and Taurida, is concentrated here, as also
is the trade in linseed between the districts situated on the left
affluents of the Dnieper and the southern ports. Other articles of
commerce are rye, rye-flour, wheat, oats and buckwheat, which are sent
partly up the Dnieper to Pinsk, partly by land to Odessa and Berislav,
but principally to Ekaterinoslav, on light boats floated down during the
spring floods. The Dnieper is crossed at Kremenchug by a tubular bridge
1081 yds. long; there is also a bridge of boats. The manufactures
consist of carriages, agricultural machinery, tobacco, steam
flour-mills, steam saw-mills and forges.
KREMENETS (Polish, _Krzemieniec_), a town of south-west Russia, in the
government of Volhynia, 130 m. W. of Zhitomir, and 25 m. E. of Brody
railway station (Austrian Galicia). Pop. (1900), 16,534. It is situated
in a gorge of the Kremenets Hills. The Jews, who are numerous, carry on
a brisk trade in tobacco and grain exported to Galicia and Odessa. The
picturesque ruins of an old castle on a crag close by the town are
usually known as the castle of Queen Bona, i.e. Bona Sforza (wife of
Sigismund I. of Poland); it was built, however, in the 8th or 9th
century. The Mongols vainly besieged it in 1241 and 1255. From that time
Kremenets was under the dominion alternately of Lithuania and Poland,
till 1648, when it was taken by the Zaporogian Cossacks. From 1805 to
1832 its Polish lyceum was the centre of superior instruction for the
western provinces of Little Russia; but after the Polish insurrection of
1831 the lyceum was transferred to Kiev, and is now the university of
that town.
KREMS, a town of Austria, in lower Austria, 40 m. W.N.W. of Vienna by
rail. Pop. (1900), 12,657. It is situated at the confluence of the Krems
with the Danube. The manufactures comprise steel goods, mustard and
vinegar, and a special kind of white lead (_Kremser Weiss_) is prepared
from deposits in the neighbourhood. The trade is mainly in these
products and in wine and saffron. The Danube harbour of Krems is at the
adjoining town of Stein (pop., 4299).
KREMSIER, (Czech, _Kromeriz_), a town of Austria, in Moravia, 37 m. E.
by N. of Brunn by rail. Pop. (1900), 13,991, mostly Czech. It is
situated on the March, in the fertile region of the Hanna, and not far
from the confluence of these two rivers. It is the summer residence of
the bishop of Olmutz, whose palace, surrounded by a fine park and
gardens, and containing a picture gallery, library and various
collections, forms the chief object of interest. Its industries include
the manufacture of machinery and iron-founding, brewing and
corn-milling, and there is a considerable trade in corn, cattle, fruit
and manufactures. In 1131 Kremsier was the seat of a bishopric. It
suffered considerably during the Hussite war; and in 1643 it was taken
and burned by the Swedes. After the rising of 1848 the Austrian
parliament met in the palace at Kremsier from November 1848 till March
1849. In August 1885 a meeting took place here between the Austrian and
the Russian emperors.
KREUTZER, KONRADIN (1780-1849), German musical composer, was born on the
22nd of November 1780 in Messkirch in Baden, and died on the 14th of
December 1849 in Riga. He owes his fame almost exclusively to one opera,
_Das Nachtlager von Granada_ (1834), which kept the stage for half a
century in spite of the changes in musical taste. It was written in the
style of Weber, and is remarkable especially for its flow of genuine
melody and depth of feeling. The same qualities are found in Kreutzer's
part-songs for men's voices, which at one time were extremely popular in
Germany, and are still listened to with pleasure. Amongst these "Der Tag
des Herrn" ("The Lord's Day") may be named as the most excellent.
Kreutzer was a prolific composer, and wrote a number of operas for the
theatre at Vienna, which have disappeared from the stage and are not
likely to be revived. He was from 1812 to 1816 Kapellmeister to the king
of Wurttemberg, and in 1840 became conductor of the opera at Cologne.
His daughter, Cecilia Kreutzer, was a singer of some renown.
KREUTZER, RUDOLPH (1766-1831), French violinist, of German extraction,
was born at Versailles, his father being a musician in the royal chapel.
Rudolph gradually became famous as a violinist, playing with great
success at various continental capitals. It was to him that in 1803
Beethoven dedicated his famous violin sonata (_op._ 47) known as the
"Kreutzer." Apart, however, from his fame as a violinist, Kreutzer was
also a prolific composer; he wrote twenty-nine operas, many of which
were successfully produced, besides nineteen violin concertos and
chamber music. He died at Geneva in 1831.
KREUZBURG, a town of Germany, in the Prussian province of Silesia, on
the Stober, 24 m. N.N.E. of Oppeln. Pop. (1905), 10,919. It has an
Evangelical and a Roman Catholic church, a gymnasium and a teacher's
seminary. Here are flour-mills, distilleries, iron-works, breweries, and
manufactories of sugar and of machinery. Kreuzburg, which became a town
in 1252, was the birthplace of the novelist Gustav Freytag.
KREUZNACH (_Creuznach_), a town and watering-place of Germany, in the
Prussian Rhine province, situated on the Nahe, a tributary of the Rhine,
9 m. by rail S. of Bingerbruck. Pop. (1900), 21,321. It consists of the
old town on the right bank of the river, the new town on the left, and
the Bade Insel (bath island), connected by a fine stone bridge. The town
has two Evangelical and three Roman Catholic churches, a gymnasium, a
commercial school and a hospital. There is a collection of Roman and
medieval antiquities, among which is preserved a fine Roman mosaic
discovered in 1893. On the Bade Insel is the Kurhaus (1872) and also the
chief spring, the Elisabethquelle, impregnated with iodine and bromine,
and prescribed for scrofulous, bronchial and rheumatic disorders. The
chief industries are marble-polishing and the manufacture of leather,
glass and tobacco. Vines are cultivated on the neighbouring hills, and
there is a trade in wine and corn.
The earliest mention of the springs of Kreuznach occurs in 1478, but it
was only in the early part of the 19th century that Dr Prieger, to whom
there is a statue in the town, brought them into prominence. Now the
annual number of visitors amounts to several thousands. Kreuznach was
evidently a Roman town, as the ruins of a Roman fortification, the
Heidenmauer, and various antiquities have been found in its immediate
neighbourhood. In the 9th century it was known as Cruciniacum, and it
had a palace of the Carolingian kings. In 1065 the emperor Henry IV.
presented it to the bishopric of Spires; in the 13th century it obtained
civic privileges and passed to the counts of Sponheim; in 1416 it became
part of the Palatinate. The town was ceded to Prussia in 1814. In 1689
the French reduced the strong castle of Kauzenberg to the ruin which now
stands on a hill above Kreuznach.
See Schneegans, _Historisch-topographische Beschreibung Kreuznachs und
seiner Umgebung_ (7th ed., 1904); Engelmann, _Kreuznach und seine
Heilquellen_ (8th ed., 1890); and Stabel, _Das Solbad Kreuznach fur
Arzte dargestellt_ (Kreuznach, 1887).
KRIEGSPIEL (KRIEGSSPIEL), the original German name, still used to some
extent in England, for the War Game (q.v.).
KRIEMHILD (_Grimhild_), the heroine of the Nibelungenlied and wife of
the hero Siegfried. The name (from O. H. Ger. _grima_, a mask or helm,
and _hiltja_ or _hilta_, war) means "the masked warrior woman," and has
been taken to prove her to have been originally a mythical, daemonic
figure, an impersonation of the powers of darkness and of death. In the
north, indeed, the name _Grimhildr_ continued to have a purely mythical
character and to be applied only to daemonic beings; but in Germany, the
original home of the Nibelungen myth, it certainly lost all trace of
this significance, and in the _Nibelungenlied_ Kriemhild is no more than
a beautiful princess, the daughter of King Dancrat and Queen Uote, and
sister of the Burgundian kings Gunther, Giselher and Gernot, the masters
of the Nibelungen hoard. As she appears in the Nibelungen legend,
however, Kriemhild would seem to have an historical origin, as the wife
of Attila, king of the Huns, as well as sister of the Nibelung kings.
According to Jordanes (c. 49), who takes his information from the
contemporary and trustworthy account of Priscus, Attila died of a
violent hemorrhage at night, as he lay beside a girl named Ildico (i.e.
O. H. Ger. Hildiko). The story got abroad that he had perished by the
hand of a woman in revenge for her relations slain by him; according to
some (e.g. Saxo Poeta and the Quedlinburg chronicle) it was her father
whom she revenged; but when the treacherous overthrow of the Burgundians
by Attila had become a theme for epic poets, she figured as a Burgundian
princess, and her act as done in revenge for her brothers. Now the name
Hildiko is the diminutive of Hilda or Hild, which again--in accordance
with a custom common enough--may have been used as an abbreviation of
Grimhild (cf. _Hildr_ for _Brynhildr_). It has been suggested (Symons,
_Heldensage_, p. 55) that when the legend of the overthrow of the
Burgundians, which took place in 437, became attached to that of the
death of Attila (453), Hild, the supposed sister of the Burgundian
kings, was identified with the daemonic Grimhild, the sister of the
mythical Nibelung brothers, and thus helped the process by which the
Nibelung myth became fused with the historical story of the fall of the
Burgundian kingdom. The older story, according to which Grimhild slays
her husband Attila in revenge for her brothers, is preserved in the
Norse tradition, though Grimhild's part is played by Gudrun, a change
probably due to the fact, mentioned above, that the name Grimhild still
retained in the north its sinister significance. The name of Grimhild is
transferred to Gudrun's mother, the "wise wife," a semi-daemonic figure,
who brews the potion that makes Sigurd forget his love for Brunhild and
his plighted troth. In the _Nibelungenlied_, however, the primitive
supremacy of the blood-tie has given place to the more modern idea of
the supremacy of the passion of love, and Kriemhild marries Attila
(Etzel) in order to compass the death of her brothers, in revenge for
the murder of Siegfried. Theodor Abeling, who is disposed to reject or
minimize the mythical origins, further suggests a confusion of the story
of Attila's wife Ildico with that of the murder of Sigimund the
Burgundian by the sons of Chrothildis, wife of Clovis. (See
NIBELUNGENLIED.)
See B. Symons, _Germanische Heldensage_ (Strassburg, 1905); F. Zarnke,
_Das Nibelungenlied_, p. ii. (Leipzig, 1875); T. Abeling, _Einleitung
in das Nibelungenlied_ (Freiburg-im-Breisgau, 1909). (W. A. P.)
KRILOFF (or KRUILOV), IVAN ANDREEVICH (1768-1844), the great national
fabulist of Russia, was born on the 14th of February 1768, at Moscow,
but his early years were spent at Orenburg and Tver. His father, a
distinguished military officer, died in 1779; and young Kriloff was left
with no richer patrimony than a chest of old books, to be brought up by
the exertions of a heroic mother. In the course of a few years his
mother removed to St Petersburg, in the hope of securing a government
pension; and there Kriloff obtained a post in the civil service, but he
gave it up immediately after his mother's death in 1788. Already in 1783
he had sold to a bookseller a comedy of his own composition, and by this
means had procured for himself the works of Moliere, Racine, Boileau;
and now, probably under the influence of these writers, he produced
_Philomela_ and _Cleopatra_, which gave him access to the dramatic
circle of Knyazhin. Several attempts he made to start a literary
magazine met with little success; but, together with his plays, they
served to make the author known in society. For about four years
(1797-1801) Kriloff lived at the country seats of Prince Sergius
Galitzin, and when the prince was appointed military governor of Livonia
he accompanied him as official secretary. Of the years which follow his
resignation of this post little is known, the common opinion being that
he wandered from town to town under the influence of a passion for
card-playing. Before long he found his place as a fabulist, the first
collection of his _Fables_, 23 in number, appearing in 1809. From 1812
to 1841 he held a congenial appointment in the Imperial Public
Library--first as assistant, and then as head of the Russian books
department. He died on the 21st of November 1844. His statue in the
Summer Garden is one of the finest monuments in St Petersburg.
Honours were showered upon Kriloff while he yet lived: the Academy of
Sciences admitted him a member in 1811, and bestowed upon him its gold
medal; in 1838 a great festival was held under imperial sanction to
celebrate the jubilee of his first appearance as an author; and the
emperor assigned him a handsome pension. Before his death about 77,000
copies of his Fables had found sale in Russia; and his wisdom and humour
had become the common possession of the many. He was at once poet and
sage. His fables for the most part struck root in some actual event, and
they told at once by their grip and by their beauty. Though he began as
a translator and imitator he soon showed himself a master of invention,
who found abundant material in the life of his native land. To the
Russian ear his verse is of matchless quality; while word and phrase are
direct, simple and eminently idiomatic, colour and cadence vary with the
theme.
A collected edition of Kriloff's works appeared at St Petersburg,
1844. Of the numerous editions of his _Fables_, which have been often
translated, may be mentioned that illustrated by Trutovski, 1872. The
author's life has been written in Russian by Pletneff, by Lebanoff and
by Grot, _Liter, zhizn Kruilova_. "Materials" for his life are
published in vol. vi. of the _Sbornik Statei_ of the literary
department of the Academy of Sciences. W. R. S. Ralston prefixed an
excellent sketch to his English prose version of the _Fables_ (1868;
2nd ed. 1871). Another translation, by T. H. Harrison, appeared in
1883.
KRISHNA (the Dark One), an incarnation of Vishnu, or rather the form in
which Vishnu himself is the most popular object of worship throughout
northern India. In origin, Krishna, like Rama, was undoubtedly a deified
hero of the Kshatriya caste. In the older framework of the _Mahabharata_
he appears as a great chieftain and ally of the Pandava brothers; and it
is only in the interpolated episode of the _Bhagavad-gita_ that he is
identified with Vishnu and becomes the revealer of the doctrine of
_bhakti_ or religious devotion. Of still later date are the popular
developments of the modern cult of Krishna associated with Radha, as
found in the _Vishnu Purana_. Here he is represented as the son of a
king saved from a slaughter of the innocents, brought up by a cowherd,
sporting with the milkmaids, and performing miraculous feats in his
childhood. The scene is laid in the neighbourhood of Muttra, on the
right bank of the Jumna, where the whole country to the present day is
holy ground. Another place associated with incidents of his later life
is Dwarka, the westernmost point in the peninsula of Kathiawar. The two
most famous preachers of Krishna-worship and founders of sects in his
honour were Vallabha and Chaitanya, both born towards the close of the
15th century. The followers of the former are now found chiefly in
Rajputana and Gujarat. They are known as Vallabhacharyas, and their
_gosains_ or high priests as maharajas, to whom semi-divine honours are
paid. The licentious practices of this sect were exposed in a lawsuit
before the high court at Bombay in 1862. Chaitanya was the Vaishnav
reformer of Bengal, with his home at Nadiya. A third influential
Krishna-preacher of the 19th century was Swami Narayan, who was
encountered by Bishop Heber in Gujarat, where his followers at this day
are numerous and wealthy. Among the names of Krishna are _Gopal_, the
cowherd; _Gopinath_, the lord of the milkmaids; and _Mathuranath_, the
lord of Muttra. His legitimate consort was Rukmini, daughter of the king
of Berar; but Radha is always associated with him in his temples. (See
HINDUISM.)
KRISHNAGAR, a town of British India, headquarters of Nadia district in
Bengal, situated on the left bank of the river Jalangi and connected
with Ranaghat, on the Eastern Bengal railway, by a light railway. Pop.
(1901), 24,547. It is the residence of the raja of Nadia and contains a
government college. Coloured clay figures are manufactured.
KRISTIANSTAD (CHRISTIANSTAD), a port of Sweden, chief town of the
district (_lan_) of Kristianstad, on a peninsula in Lake Sjovik, an
expansion of the river Helge, 10 m. from the Baltic. Pop. (1900),
10,318. Its harbour, custom-house, &c., are at Ahus at the mouth of the
river. It is among the first twelve manufacturing towns of Sweden as
regards value of output, having engineering works, flour-mills,
distilleries, weaving mills and sugar factories. Granite and wood-pulp
are exported, and coal and grain imported. The town is the seat of the
court of appeal for the provinces of Skane and Blekinge. It was founded
and fortified in 1614 by Christian IV. of Denmark, who built the fine
ornate church. The town was ceded to Sweden in 1658, retaken by
Christian V. in 1676, and again acquired by Sweden in 1678.
KRIVOY ROG, a town of south Russia, in the government of Kherson, on the
Ingulets River, near the station of the same name on the Ekaterinoslav
railway, 113 m. S.W. of the city of Ekaterinoslav. Pop. (1900), about
10,000. It is the centre of a district very rich in minerals, obtained
from a narrow stretch of crystalline schists underlying the Tertiary
deposits. Iron ores (60 to 70% of iron), copper ores, colours, brown
coal, graphite, slate, and lithographic stone are obtained--nearly
2,000,000 tons of iron ore annually.
KROCHMAL, NAHMAN (1785-1840), Jewish scholar, was born at Brody in
Galicia in 1785. He was one of the pioneers in the revival of Jewish
learning which followed on the age of Moses Mendelssohn. His chief work
was the _Moreh Nebuche hazeman_ ("Guide for the Perplexed of the Age"),
a title imitated from that of the 12th-century "Guide for the Perplexed"
of Maimonides (q.v.). This book was not published till after the
author's death, when it was edited by Zunz (1851). The book is a
philosophy of Jewish history, and has a double importance. On the one
side it was a critical examination of the Rabbinic literature and much
influenced subsequent investigators. On the other side, Krochmal, in the
words of N. Slouschz, "was the first Jewish scholar who views Judaism,
not as a distinct and independent entity, but as a part of the whole of
civilization." Krochmal, under Hegelian influences, regarded the
nationality of Israel as consisting in its religious genius, its
spiritual gifts. Thus Krochmal may be called the originator of the idea
of the mission of the Jewish people, "cultural Zionism" as it has more
recently been termed. He died at Tarnopol in 1840.
See S. Schechter, _Studies in Judaism_ (1896), pp. 56 seq.; N.
Slouschz, _Renascence of Hebrew Literature_ (1909), pp. 63 seq.
(I. A.)
KRONENBERG, a town of Germany in the Prussian Rhine Province, 6 m. S.W.
from Elberfeld, with which it is connected by railway and by an electric
tramway line. Pop. (1905), 11,340. It is a scattered community,
consisting of an agglomeration of seventy-three different hamlets. It
has a Roman Catholic and two Protestant churches, a handsome modern
town-hall and considerable industries, consisting mainly of steel and
iron manufactures.
KRONSTADT or CRONSTADT, a strongly fortified seaport town of Russia, the
chief naval station of the Russian fleet in the northern seas, and the
seat of the Russian admiralty. Pop. (1867), 45,115; (1897), 59,539. It
is situated on the island of Kotlin, near the head of the Gulf of
Finland, 20 m. W. of St Petersburg, of which it is the chief port, in 59
deg. 59' 30" N. and 29 deg. 46' 30" E. Kronstadt, always strong, has
been thoroughly refortified on modern principles. The old "three-decker"
forts, five in number, which formerly constituted the principal defences
of the place, and defied the Anglo-French fleets during the Crimean War,
are now of secondary importance. From the plans of Todleben a new fort,
Constantine, and four batteries were constructed (1856-1871) to defend
the principal approach, and seven batteries to cover the shallower
northern channel. All these modern fortifications are low and thickly
armoured earthworks, powerfully armed with heavy Krupp guns in turrets.
The town itself is surrounded with an _enceinte_. The island of Kotlin,
or Kettle (Finn., _Retusari_, or Rat Island) in general outline forms an
elongated triangle, 7(1/2) m. in length by about 1 in breadth, with its
base towards St Petersburg. The eastern or broad end is occupied by the
town of Kronstadt, and shoals extend for a mile and a half from the
western point of the island to the rock on which the Tolbaaken
lighthouse is built. The island thus divides the seaward approach to St
Petersburg into two channels; that on the northern side is obstructed by
shoals which extend across it from Kotlin to Lisynos on the Finnish
mainland, and is only passable by vessels drawing less than 15 ft. of
water; the southern channel, the highway to the capital, is narrowed by
a spit which projects from opposite Oranienbaum on the Russian
mainland, and, lying close to Kronstadt, has been strongly guarded by
batteries. The approach to the capital has been greatly facilitated by
the construction in 1875-1885 of a canal, 23 ft. deep, through the
shallows. The town of Kronstadt is built on level ground, and is thus
exposed to inundations, from one of which it suffered in 1824. On the
south side of the town there are three harbours--the large western or
merchant harbour, the western flank of which is formed by a great mole
joining the fortifications which traverse the breadth of the island on
this side; the middle harbour, used chiefly for fitting out and
repairing vessels; and the eastern or war harbour for vessels of the
Russian navy. The Peter and Catherine canals, communicating with the
merchant and middle harbours, traverse the town. Between them stood the
old Italian palace of Prince Menshikov, the site of which is now
occupied by the pilot school. Among other public buildings are the naval
hospital, the British seaman's hospital (established in 1867), the civic
hospital, admiralty (founded 1785), arsenal, dockyards and foundries,
school of marine engineering, the cathedral of St Andrew, and the
English church. The port is ice-bound for 140 to 160 days in the year,
from the beginning of December till April. A very large proportion of
the inhabitants are sailors, and large numbers of artisans are employed
in the dockyards. Kronstadt was founded in 1710 by Peter the Great, who
took the island of Kotlin from the Swedes in 1703, when the first
fortifications were constructed. (P. A. K.; J. T. Be.)
KROONSTAD, a town of Orange River Colony, 127 m. by rail N.E. of
Bloemfontein and 130 m. S.W. of Johannesburg. Pop. (1904), 7191, of whom
3708 were whites. Kroonstad lies 4489 ft. above the sea and is built on
the banks of the Valsch River, a perennial tributary of the Vaal. It is
a busy town, being the centre of a rich agricultural district and of the
diamond and coal-mining industry of the north-western parts of the
colony. It is also a favourite residential place and resort of visitors
from Johannesburg. It enjoys a healthy climate, affords opportunities
for boating rare in South Africa, and boasts a golf-links. The principal
building is the Dutch Reformed church in the centre of the market
square.
On the capture of Bloemfontein by the British during the Anglo-Boer War
of 1899-1902 Kroonstad was chosen by the Orange Free State Boers as the
capital of the state, a dignity it held from the 13th of March to the
11th of May 1900. On the following day the town was occupied by Lord
Roberts. The linking of the town in 1906 with the Natal system made the
route via Kroonstad the shortest railway connexion between Cape Town and
Durban. Another line goes N.W. from Kroonstad to Klerksdorp, passing (17
miles) the Lace diamond mine and (45 miles) the coal mines at
Vierfontein.
KROPOTKIN, PETER ALEXEIVICH, PRINCE (1842- ), Russian geographer,
author and revolutionary, was born at Moscow in 1842. His father, Prince
Alexei Petrovich Kropotkin, belonged to the old Russian nobility; his
mother, the daughter of a general in the Russian army, had remarkable
literary and liberal tastes. At the age of fifteen Prince Peter
Kropotkin, who had been designed by his father for the army, entered the
Corps of Pages at St Petersburg (1857). Only a hundred and fifty
boys--mostly children of the nobility belonging to the court--were
educated in this privileged corps, which combined the character of a
military school endowed with special rights and of a Court institution
attached to the imperial household. Here he remained till 1862, reading
widely on his own account, and giving special attention to the works of
the French encyclopaedists and to modern French history. Before he left
Moscow Prince Kropotkin had developed an interest in the condition of
the Russian peasantry, and this interest increased as he grew older. The
years 1857-1861 witnessed a rich growth in the intellectual forces of
Russia, and Kropotkin came under the influence of the new
Liberal-revolutionary literature, which indeed largely expressed his own
aspirations. In 1862 he was promoted from the Corps of Pages to the
army. The members of the corps had the prescriptive right of choosing
the regiment to which they would be attached. Kropotkin had never
wished for a military career, but, as he had not the means to enter the
St Petersburg University, he elected to join a Siberian Cossack regiment
in the recently annexed Amur district, where there were prospects of
administrative work. For some time he was aide de camp to the governor
of Transbaikalia at Chita, subsequently being appointed attache for
Cossack affairs to the governor-general of East Siberia at Irkutsk.
Opportunities for administrative work, however, were scanty, and in 1864
Kropotkin accepted charge of a geographical survey expedition, crossing
North Manchuria from Transbaikalia to the Amur, and shortly afterwards
was attached to another expedition which proceeded up the Sungari River
into the heart of Manchuria. Both these expeditions yielded most
valuable geographical results. The impossibility of obtaining any real
administrative reforms in Siberia now induced Kropotkin to devote
himself almost entirely to scientific exploration, in which he continued
to be highly successful. In 1867 he quitted the army and returned to St
Petersburg, where he entered the university, becoming at the same time
secretary to the physical geography section of the Russian Geographical
Society. In 1873 he published an important contribution to science, a
map and paper in which he proved that the existing maps of Asia entirely
misrepresented the physical formation of the country, the main
structural lines being in fact from south-west to north-east, not from
north to south, or from east to west as had been previously supposed. In
1871 he explored the glacial deposits of Finland and Sweden for the
Russian Geographical Society, and while engaged in this work was offered
the secretaryship of that society. But by this time he had determined
that it was his duty not to work at fresh discoveries but to aid in
diffusing existing knowledge among the people at large, and he
accordingly refused the offer, and returned to St Petersburg, where he
joined the revolutionary party. In 1872 he visited Switzerland, and
became a member of the International Workingmen's Association at Geneva.
The socialism of this body was not, however, advanced enough for his
views, and after studying the programme of the more violent Jura
Federation at Neuchatel and spending some time in the company of the
leading members, he definitely adopted the creed of anarchism (q.v.)
and, on returning to Russia, took an active part in spreading the
nihilist propaganda. In 1874 he was arrested and imprisoned, but escaped
in 1876 and went to England, removing after a short stay to Switzerland,
where he joined the Jura Federation. In 1877 he went to Paris, where he
helped to start the socialist movement, returning to Switzerland in
1878, where he edited for the Jura Federation a revolutionary newspaper,
_Le Revolte_, subsequently also publishing various revolutionary
pamphlets. Shortly after the assassination of the tsar Alexander II.
(1881) Kropotkin was expelled from Switzerland by the Swiss government,
and after a short stay at Thonon (Savoy) went to London, where he
remained for nearly a year, returning to Thonon towards the end of 1882.
Shortly afterwards he was arrested by the French government, and, after
a trial at Lyons, sentenced by a police-court magistrate (under a
special law passed on the fall of the Commune) to five years'
imprisonment, on the ground that he had belonged to the International
Workingmen's Association (1883). In 1886 however, as the result of
repeated agitation on his behalf in the French Chamber, he was released,
and settled near London.
Prince Kropotkin's authority as a writer on Russia is universally
acknowledged, and he has contributed largely to the _Encyclopaedia
Britannica_. Among his other works may be named _Paroles d'un revolte_
(1884); _La Conquete du pain_ (1888); _L'Anarchie: sa philosophie, son
ideal_ (1896); _The State, its Part in History_ (1898); _Fields,
Factories and Workshops_ (1899); _Memoirs of a Revolutionist_ (1900);
_Mutual Aid, a Factor of Evolution_ (1902); _Modern Science and
Anarchism_ (Philadelphia, 1903); _The Desiccation of Asia_ (1904); The
Orography of Asia (1904); and _Russian Literature_ (1905).
KROTOSCHIN (in Polish, _Krotoszyn_), a town of Germany, in the Prussian
province of Posen, 32 m. S.E. of Posen. Pop. (1900), 12,373. It has
three churches, a synagogue, steam saw-mills, and a steam brewery, and
carries on trade in grain and seeds. The castle of Krotoschin is the
chief place of a mediatized principality which was formed in 1819 out of
the domains of the Prussian crown and was granted to the prince of Thurn
and Taxis in compensation for the relinquishment by him of the monopoly
of the Prussian postal system, formerly held by his family.
KRUDENER, BARBARA JULIANA, BARONESS VON (1764-1824), Russian religious
mystic and author, was born at Riga in Livonia on the 11th of November
1764. Her father, Otto Hermann von Vietinghoff, who had fought as a
colonel in Catherine II.'s wars, was one of the two councillors for
Livonia and a man of immense wealth; her mother, _nee_ Countess Anna
Ulrica von Munnich, was a grand-daughter of the celebrated field
marshal. Juliana, as she was usually called, was one of a numerous
family. Her education, according to her own account, consisted of
lessons in French spelling, deportment and sewing; and at the age of
eighteen (Sept. 29, 1782) she was married to Baron Burckhard Alexis
Constantin von Krudener, a widower sixteen years her senior. The baron,
a diplomatist of distinction, was cold and reserved; the baroness was
frivolous, pleasure-loving, and possessed of an insatiable thirst for
attention and flattery; and the strained relations due to this
incompatibility of temper were embittered by her limitless extravagance,
which constantly involved herself and her husband in financial
difficulties. At first indeed all went well. On the 31st of January 1784
a son was born to them, named Paul after the grand-duke Paul (afterwards
emperor), who acted as god-father. The same year Baron Krudener became
ambassador at Venice,[1] where he remained until transferred to
Copenhagen in 1786.
In 1787 the birth of a daughter (Juliette) aggravated the nervous
disorders from which the baroness had for some time been suffering, and
it was decided that she must go to the south for her health; she
accordingly left, with her infant daughter and her step-daughter Sophie.
In 1789 she was at Paris when the states general met; a year later, at
Montpellier, she met a young cavalry captain, Charles Louis de
Fregeville, and a passionate attachment sprang up between them. They
returned together to Copenhagen, where the baroness told her husband
that her heart could no longer be his. The baron was coldly kind; he
refused to hear of a divorce and attempted to arrange a _modus vivendi_,
which was facilitated by the departure of De Fregeville for the war. All
was useless; Juliana refused to remain at Copenhagen, and, setting out
on her travels, visited Riga, St Petersburg--where her father had become
a senator[2]--Berlin, Leipzig and Switzerland. In 1798 her husband
became ambassador at Berlin, and she joined him there. But the stiff
court society of Prussia was irksome to her; money difficulties
continued; and by way of climax, the murder of the tsar Paul, in whose
favour Baron Krudener had stood high, made the position of the
ambassador extremely precarious. The baroness seized the occasion to
leave for the baths of Teplitz, whence she wrote to her husband that the
doctors had ordered her to winter in the south. He died on the 14th of
June 1802, without ever having seen her again.
Meanwhile the baroness had been revelling in the intellectual society of
Coppet and of Paris. She was now thirty-six; her charms were fading, but
her passion for admiration survived. She had tried the effect of the
shawl dance, in imitation of Emma, Lady Hamilton; she now sought fame in
literature, and in 1803, after consulting Chateaubriand and other
writers of distinction, published her _Valerie_, a sentimental romance,
of which under a thin veil of anonymity she herself was the heroine. In
January 1804 she returned to Livonia.
At Riga occurred her "conversion." A gentleman of her acquaintance when
about to salute her fell dying at her feet. The shock overset her not
too well balanced mind; she sought for consolation, and found it in the
ministrations of her shoemaker, an ardent disciple of the Moravian
Brethren. Though she had "found peace," however, the disorder of her
nerves continued, and she was ordered by her doctor to the baths of
Wiesbaden. At Konigsberg she had an interview with Queen Louise, and,
more important still, with one Adam Muller, a rough peasant, to whom the
Lord had revealed a prophetic mission to King Frederick William III.
"Chiliasm" was in the air. Napoleon was evidently Antichrist; and the
"latter days" were about to be accomplished. Under the influence of the
pietistic movement the belief was widely spread, in royal courts, in
country parsonages, in peasants' hovels: a man would be raised up "from
the north ... from the rising of the sun" (Isa. xli. 25); Antichrist
would be overthrown, and Christ would come to reign a thousand years
upon the earth. The interview determined the direction of the baroness's
religious development. A short visit to the Moravians at Herrenhut
followed; then she went, via Dresden, to Karlsruhe, to sit at the feet
of Heinrich Jung-Stilling (q.v.), the high priest of occultist pietism,
whose influence was supreme at the court of Baden and infected those of
Stockholm and St Petersburg.[3] By him she was instructed in the
chiliastic faith and in the mysteries of the supernatural world. Then,
hearing that a certain pastor in the Vosges, Jean Frederic Fontaines,
was prophesying and working miracles, she determined to go to him. On
the 5th of June 1801, accordingly, she arrived at the Protestant
parsonage of Sainte Marie-aux-Mines, accompanied by her daughter
Juliette, her step-daughter Sophie and a Russian valet.
This remained for two years her headquarters. Fontaines, half-charlatan,
half-dupe, had introduced into his household a prophetess named Marie
Gottliebin Kummer,[4] whose visions, carefully calculated for her own
purposes, became the oracle of the divine mysteries for the baroness.
Under this influence she believed more firmly than ever in the
approaching millennium and her own mission to proclaim it. Her rank, her
reckless charities, and her exuberant eloquence produced a great effect
on the simple country folk; and when, in 1809, it was decided to found a
colony of the "elect" in order to wait for "the coming of the Lord,"
many wretched peasants sold or distributed all they possessed and
followed the baroness and Fontaines into Wurttemberg, where the
settlement was established at Catharinenplaisir and the chateau of
Bonnigheim, only to be dispersed (May 1) by an unsympathetic
government.[5] Further wanderings followed: to Lichtenthal near Baden;
to Karlsruhe and the congenial society of pietistic princesses; to Riga,
where she was present at the death-bed of her mother (Jan. 24, 1811);
then back to Karlsruhe. The influence of Fontaines, to whom she had been
"spiritually married" (Madame Fontaines being content with the part of
Martha in the household, so long as the baroness's funds lasted), had
now waned, and she had fallen under that of Johann Kaspar Wegelin
(1766-1833), a pious linen-draper of Strassburg, who taught her the
sweetness of "complete annihilation of the will and mystic death." Her
preaching and her indiscriminate charities now began to attract curious
crowds from afar; and her appearance everywhere was accompanied by an
epidemic of visions and prophesyings, which culminated in the appearance
in 1811 of the comet, a sure sign of the approaching end. In 1812 she
was at Strassburg, whence she paid more than one visit to J. F. Oberlin
(q.v.), the famous pastor of Waldbach in Steinthal (Ban de la Roche),
and where she had the glory of converting her host, Adrien de
Lazay-Marnesia, the prefect. In 1813 she was at Geneva, where she
established the faith of a band of young pietists in revolt against the
Calvinist Church authorities--notably Henri Louis Empeytaz, afterwards
destined to be the companion of her crowning evangelistic triumph. In
September 1814 she was again at Waldbach, where Empeytaz had preceded
her; and at Strassburg, where the party was joined by Franz Karl von
Berckheim, who afterwards married Juliette.[6] At the end of the year
she returned with her daughters and Empeytaz to Baden, a fateful
migration.
The empress Elizabeth of Russia was now at Karlsruhe; and she and the
pietist ladies of her entourage hoped that the emperor Alexander might
find at the hands of Madame de Krudener the peace which an interview
with Jung-Stilling had failed to bring him. The baroness herself wrote
urgent letters to Roxane de Stourdza, sister of the tsar's Rumanian
secretary, begging her to procure an interview. There seemed to be no
result; but the correspondence paved the way for the opportunity which a
strange chance was to give her of realizing her ambition. In the spring
of 1815 the baroness was settled at Schluchtern, a piece of Baden
territory _enclave_ in Wurttemberg, busy persuading the peasants to sell
all and fly from the wrath to come. Near this, at Heilbronn, the emperor
Alexander established his headquarters on the 4th of June. That very
night the baroness sought and obtained an interview. To the tsar, who
had been brooding alone over an open Bible, her sudden arrival seemed an
answer to his prayers; for three hours the prophetess preached her
strange gospel, while the most powerful man in Europe sat, his face
buried in his hands, sobbing like a child; until at last he declared
that he had "found peace." At the tsar's request she followed him to
Heidelberg and later to Paris, where she was lodged at the Hotel
Montchenu, next door to the imperial headquarters in the Elysee Palace.
A private door connected the establishments, and every evening the
emperor went to take part in the prayer-meetings conducted by the
baroness and Empeytaz. Chiliasm seemed to have found an entrance into
the high councils of Europe, and the baroness von Krudener had become a
political force to be reckoned with. Admission to her religious
gatherings was sought by a crowd of people celebrated in the
intellectual and social world; Chateaubriand came, and Benjamin
Constant, Madame Recamier, the duchesse de Bourbon, and Madame de Duras.
The fame of the wonderful conversion, moreover, attracted other members
of the chiliastic fraternity, among them Fontaines, who brought with him
the prophetess Marie Kummer.
In this religious forcing-house the idea of the Holy Alliance germinated
and grew to rapid maturity. On the 26th of September the portentous
proclamation, which was to herald the opening of a new age of peace and
goodwill on earth, was signed by the sovereigns of Russia, Austria and
Prussia (see HOLY ALLIANCE; and EUROPE: _History_). Its authorship has
ever been a matter of dispute. Madame de Krudener herself claimed that
she had suggested the idea, and that Alexander had submitted the draft
for her approval. This is probably correct, though the tsar later, when
he had recovered his mental equilibrium, reproved her for her
indiscretion in talking of the matter. His eyes, indeed, had begun to be
opened before he left Paris, and Marie Kummer was the unintentional
cause. At the very first seance the prophetess, whose revelations had
been praised by the baroness in extravagant terms, had the evil
inspiration to announce in her trance to the emperor that it was God's
will that he should endow the religious colony to which she belonged!
Alexander merely remarked that he had received too many such revelations
before to be impressed. The baroness's influence was shaken but not
destroyed, and before he left Paris Alexander gave her a passport to
Russia. She was not, however, destined to see him again.
She left Paris on the 22nd of October 1815, intending to travel to St
Petersburg by way of Switzerland. The tsar, however, offended by her
indiscretions and sensible of the ridicule which his relations with her
had brought upon him, showed little disposition to hurry her arrival.
She remained in Switzerland, where she presently fell under the
influence of an unscrupulous adventurer named J. G. Kellner. For months
Empeytaz, an honest enthusiast, struggled to save her from this man's
clutches, but in vain. Kellner too well knew how to flatter the
baroness's inordinate vanity: the author of the Holy Alliance could be
none other than the "woman clothed with the sun" of Rev. xii. 1. She
wandered with Kellner from place to place, proclaiming her mission,
working miracles, persuading her converts to sell all and follow her.
Crowds of beggars and rapscallions of every description gathered
wherever she went, supported by the charities squandered from the common
fund. She became a nuisance to the authorities and a menace to the
peace; Wurttemberg had expelled her, and the example was followed by
every Swiss canton she entered in turn. At last, in August 1817, she set
out for her estate in Livonia, accompanied by Kellner and a remnant of
the elect.
The emperor Alexander having opened the Crimea to German and Swiss
chiliasts in search of a land of promise, the baroness's son-in-law
Berckheim and his wife now proceeded thither to help establish the new
colonies. In November 1820 the baroness at last went herself to St
Petersburg, where Berckheim was lying ill. She was there when the news
arrived of Ypsilanti's invasion of the Danubian principalities, which
opened the war of Greek independence. She at once proclaimed the divine
mission of the tsar to take up arms on behalf of Christendom. Alexander,
however, had long since exchanged her influence for that of Metternich,
and he was far from anxious to be forced into even a holy war. To the
baroness's overtures he replied in a long and polite letter, the gist of
which was that she must leave St Petersburg at once. In 1823 the death
of Kellner, whom to the last she regarded as a saint, was a severe blow
to her. Her health was failing, but she allowed herself to be persuaded
by Princess Galitzin to accompany her to the Crimea, where she had
established a Swiss colony. Here, at Karasu Bazar, she died on the 25th
of December 1824.
Sainte-Beuve said of Madame de Krudener: "Elle avait un immense besoin
que le monde s'occupat d'elle...; l'amour propre, toujours l'amour
propre...!" A kindlier epitaph might, perhaps, be written in her own
words, uttered after the revelation of the misery of the Crimean
colonists had at last opened her eyes: "The good that I have done will
endure; the evil that I have done (for how often have I not mistaken for
the voice of God that which was no more than the result of my
imagination and my pride) the mercy of God will blot out."
Much information about Madame de Krudener, coloured by the author's
views, is to be found in H. L. Empeytaz's _Notice sur Alexandre,
empereur de Russie_ (2nd ed., Paris, 1840). The _Vie de Madame de
Krudener_ (2 vols., Paris, 1849), by the Swiss banker and Philhellene
J. G. Eynard, was long the standard life and contains much material,
but is far from authoritative. In English appeared the _Life and
Letters of Madame de Krudener_, by Clarence Ford (London, 1893). The
most authoritative study, based on a wealth of original research, is
E. Muhlenbeck's _Etude sur les origines de la Sainte-Alliance_ (Paris,
1909), in which numerous references are given. (W. A. P.)
FOOTNOTES:
[1] A portrait of Madame de Krudener and her son as "Venus disarming
Cupid," by Angelica Kauffmann, of this period, is in the Louvre.
[2] He died while she was there in 1792.
[3] The consorts of Alexander I. of Russia and of Gustavus Adolphus
IV. of Sweden were princesses of Baden.
[4] She had been condemned some years previously in Wurttemberg to
the pillory and three years' imprisonment as a "swindler"
(_Betrugerin_), on her own confession. Her curious history is given
in detail by M. Muhlenbeck.
[5] In 1809 it was obviously inconvenient to have people proclaiming
Napoleon as "the Beast."
[6] Berckheim had been French commissioner of police in Mainz and had
abandoned his post in 1813.
KRUG, WILHELM TRAUGOTT (1770-1842), German philosopher and author, was
born at Radis in Prussia on the 22nd of June 1770, and died at Leipzig
on the 12th of January 1842. He studied at Wittenberg under Reinhard and
Jehnichen, at Jena under Reinhold, and at Gottingen. From 1801 to 1804
he was professor of philosophy at Frankfort-on-the-Oder, after which he
succeeded Kant in the chair of logic and metaphysics at the university
of Konigsberg. From 1809 till his death he was professor of philosophy
at Leipzig. He was a prolific writer on a great variety of subjects, in
all of which he excelled as a popularizer rather than as an original
thinker. In philosophy his method was psychological; he attempted to
explain the Ego by examining the nature of its reflection upon the facts
of consciousness. Being is known to us only through its presentation in
consciousness; consciousness only in its relation to Being. Both Being
and Consciousness, however, are immediately known to us, as also the
relation existing between them. By this Transcendental Synthesis he
proposed to reconcile Realism and Idealism, and to destroy the
traditional difficulty between transcendental, or pure, thought and
"things in themselves." Apart from the intrinsic value of his work, it
is admitted that it had the effect of promoting the study of philosophy
and of stimulating freedom of thought in religion and politics. His
principal works are: _Briefe uber den neuesten Idealismus_ (1801);
_Versuch uber die Principien der philosophischen Erkenntniss_ (1801);
_Fundamentalphilosophie_ (1803); _System der theoretischen Philosophie_
(1806-1810), _System der praktischen Philosophie_ (1817-1819); _Handbuch
der Philosophie_ (1820; 3rd ed., 1828); _Logik oder Denklehre_ (1827);
_Geschichte der Philos. alter Zeit_ (1815; 2nd ed., 1825); _Allgemeines
Handworterbuch der philosophischen Wissenschaften_ (1827-1834; 2nd ed.,
1832-1838); _Universal-philosophische Vorlesungen fur Gebildete
beiderlei Geschlechts_. His work _Beitrage zur Geschichte der Philos.
des XIX. Jahrh._ (1835-1837) contains interesting criticisms of Hegel
and Schelling.
See also his autobiography, _Meine Lebensreise_ (Leipzig, 2nd ed.,
1840).
KRUGER, STEPHANUS JOHANNES PAULUS (1825-1904), president of the
Transvaal Republic, was born in Colesberg, Cape Colony, on the 10th of
October 1825. His father was Caspar Jan Hendrick Kruger, who was born in
1796, and whose wife bore the name of Steyn. In his ancestry on both
sides occur Huguenot names. The founder of the Kruger family appears to
have been a German named Jacob Kruger, who in 1713 was sent with others
by the Dutch East India Company to the Cape. At the age of ten Paul
Kruger--as he afterwards came to be known--accompanied his parents in
the migration, known as the Great Trek, from the Cape Colony to the
territories north of the Orange in the years 1835-1840. From boyhood his
life was one of adventure. Brought up on the borderland between
civilization and barbarism, constantly trekking, fighting and hunting,
his education was necessarily of the most primitive character. He learnt
to read and to write, and was taught the narrowest form of Dutch
Presbyterianism. His literature was almost confined to the Bible, and
the Old Testament was preferred to the New. It is related of Kruger, as
indeed it has been said of Piet Retief and others of the early Boer
leaders, that he believed himself the object of special Divine guidance.
At about the age of twenty-five he is said to have disappeared into the
veldt, where he remained alone for several days, under the influence of
deep religious fervour. During this sojourn in the wilderness Kruger
stated that he had been especially favoured by God, who had communed
with and inspired him. Throughout his life he professed this faith in
God's will and guidance, and much of his influence over his followers is
attributable to their belief in his sincerity and in his enjoyment of
Divine favour. The Dutch Reformed Church in the Transvaal, pervaded by a
spirit and faith not unlike those which distinguished the Covenanters,
was divided in the early days into three sects. Of these the narrowest,
most puritanical, and most bigoted was the Dopper sect, to which Kruger
belonged. His Dopper following was always unswerving in its support, and
at all critical times in the internal quarrels of the state rallied
round him. The charge of hypocrisy, frequently made against Kruger--if
by this charge is meant the mere juggling with religion for purely
political ends--does not appear entirely just. The subordination of
reason to a sense of superstitious fanaticism is the keynote of his
character, and largely the explanation of his life. Where faith is so
profound as to believe the Divine guidance _all_, and the individual
intelligence _nil_, a man is able to persuade himself that any course he
chooses to take is the one he is directed to take. Where bigotry is so
blind, reason is but dust in the balance. At the same time there were
incidents in Kruger's life which but ill conform to any Biblical
standard he might choose to adopt or feel imposed upon him. Even van
Oordt, his eloquent historian and apologist, is cognisant of this fact.
When the lad, who had already taken part in fights with the Matabele and
the Zulus, was fourteen his family settled north of the Vaal and were
among the founders of the Transvaal state. At the age of seventeen Paul
found himself an assistant field cornet, at twenty he was field cornet,
and at twenty-seven held a command in an expedition against the Bechuana
chief Sechele--the expedition in which David Livingstone's mission-house
was destroyed.
In 1853 he took part in another expedition against Montsioa. When not
fighting natives in those early days Kruger was engaged in distant
hunting excursions which took him as far north as the Zambezi. In 1852
the Transvaal secured the recognition of its independence from Great
Britain in the Sand River convention. For many years after this date the
condition of the country was one bordering upon anarchy, and into the
faction strife which was continually going on Kruger freely entered. In
1856-1857 he joined M. W. Pretorius in his attempt to abolish the
district governments in the Transvaal and to overthrow the Orange Free
State government and compel a federation between the two countries. The
raid into the Free State failed; the blackest incident in connexion with
it was the attempt of the Pretorius and Kruger party to induce the
Basuto to harass the Free State forces behind, while they were attacking
them in front.
From this time forward Kruger's life is so intimately bound up with the
history of his country, and even in later years of South Africa, that a
study of that history is essential to an understanding of it (see
TRANSVAAL and SOUTH AFRICA). In 1864, when the faction fighting ended
and Pretorius was president, Kruger was elected commandant-general of
the forces of the Transvaal. In 1870 a boundary dispute arose with the
British government, which was settled by the Keate award (1871). The
decision caused so much discontent in the Transvaal that it brought
about the downfall of President Pretorius and his party; and Thomas
Francois Burgers, an educated Dutch minister, resident in Cape Colony,
was elected to succeed him. During the term of Burgers' presidency
Kruger appeared to great disadvantage. Instead of loyally supporting the
president in the difficult task of building up a stable state, he did
everything in his power to undermine his authority, going so far as to
urge the Boers to pay no taxes while Burgers was in office. The faction
of which he was a prominent member was chiefly responsible for bringing
about that _impasse_ in the government of the country which drew such
bitter protest from Burgers and terminated in the annexation by the
British in April 1877. At this period of Transvaal history it is
impossible to trace any true patriotism in the action of the majority of
the inhabitants. The one idea of Kruger and his faction was to oust
Burgers from office on any pretext, and, if possible, to put Kruger in
his place. When the downfall of Burgers was assured and annexation
offered itself as the alternative resulting from his downfall, it is
true that Kruger opposed it. But matters had gone too far. Annexation
became an accomplished fact, and Kruger accepted paid office under the
British government. He continued, however, so openly to agitate for the
retrocession of the country, being a member of two deputations which
went to England endeavouring to get the annexation annulled, that in
1878 Sir Theophilus Shepstone, the British administrator, dismissed him
from his service. In 1880 the Boer rebellion occurred, and Kruger was
one of the famous triumvirate, of which General Piet Joubert and
Pretorius were the other members, who, after Majuba, negotiated the
terms of peace on which the Pretoria convention of August 1881 was
drafted. In 1883 he was elected president of the Transvaal, receiving
3431 votes as against 1171 recorded for Joubert.
In November 1883 President Kruger again visited England, this time for
the purpose of getting another convention. The visit was successful, the
London convention, which for years was a subject of controversy, being
granted by Lord Derby in 1884 on behalf of the British government. The
government of the Transvaal being once more in the hands of the Boers,
the country rapidly drifted towards that state of national bankruptcy
from which it had only been saved by annexation in 1877. In 1886, the
year in which the Rand mines were discovered, President Kruger was by no
means a popular man even among his own followers; as an administrator of
internal affairs he had shown himself grossly incompetent, and it was
only the specious success of his negotiations with the British
government which had retained him any measure of support. In 1888 he was
elected president for a second term of office. In 1889 Dr. Leyds, a
young Hollander, was appointed state secretary, and the system of state
monopolies around which so much corruption grew up was soon in full
course of development. The principle of government monopoly in trade
being thus established, President Kruger now turned his attention to the
further securing of Boer political monopoly. The Uitlanders were
increasing in numbers, as well as providing the state with a revenue. In
1890, 1891, 1892, and 1894 the franchise laws (which at the time of the
convention were on a liberal basis) were so modified that all Uitlanders
were practically excluded altogether. In 1893 Kruger had to face a third
presidential election, and on this occasion the opposition he had raised
among the burgers, largely by the favouritism he displayed to the
Hollander party, was so strong that it was fully anticipated that his
more liberal opponent, General Joubert, would be elected. Before the
election was decided Kruger took care to conciliate the volksraad
members, as well as to see that at all the volksraad elections, which
occurred shortly before the presidential election, his supporters were
returned, or, if not returned, that his opponents were objected to on
some trivial pretext, and by this means prevented from actually sitting
in the volksraad until the presidential election was over. The Hollander
and _concessionnaire_ influence, which had become a strong power in the
state, was all in favour of President Kruger. In spite of these facts
Kruger's position was insecure. "General Joubert was, without any doubt
whatever, elected by a very considerable majority."[1] But the figures
as announced gave Kruger a majority of about 700 votes. General Joubert
accused the government of tampering with the returns, and appealed to
the volksraad. The appeal, however, was fruitless, and Kruger retained
office. The action taken by President Kruger at this election, and his
previous actions in ousting President Burgers and in absolutely
excluding the Uitlanders from the franchise, all show that at any cost,
in his opinion, the government must remain a close corporation, and that
while he lived he must remain at the head of it.
From 1877 onward Kruger's external policy was consistently anti-British,
and on every side--in Bechuanaland, in Rhodesia, in Zululand--he
attempted to enlarge the frontiers of the Transvaal at the expense of
Great Britain. In these disputes he usually gained something, and it was
not until 1895 that he was definitely defeated in his endeavours to
obtain a seaport. His internal policy was blind, reckless and
unscrupulous, and inevitably led to disaster. It may be summed up in his
own words when replying to a deputation of Uitlanders, who desired to
obtain the legalization of the use of the English language in the
Transvaal. "This," said Kruger, "is my country; these are my laws. Those
who do not like to obey my laws can leave my country." This rejection of
the advances of the Uitlanders--by whose aid he could have built up a
free and stable republic--led to his downfall, though the failure of the
Jameson Raid in the first days of 1896 gave him a signal opportunity to
secure the safety of his country by the grant of real reforms. But the
Raid taught him no lesson of this kind, and despite the intervention of
the British government the Uitlanders' grievances were not remedied.
In 1898 Kruger was elected president of the Transvaal for the fourth and
last time. In 1899 relations between the Transvaal and Great Britain had
become so strained, by reason of the oppression of the foreign
population, that a conference was arranged at Bloemfontein between Sir
Alfred (afterwards Lord) Milner, the high commissioner, and President
Kruger. Kruger was true to his principles. At every juncture in his life
his object had been to gain for himself and his own narrow policy
everything that he could, while conceding nothing in return. It was for
this reason that he invariably failed to come to any arrangement with
Sir John Brand while the latter was president of the Free State. In
1889, the very year following President Brand's death, he was able to
make a treaty with President Reitz, his successor, which bound each of
the Boer republics to assist the other in case its independence was
menaced, unless the quarrel could be shown to be an unjust one on the
part of the state so menaced. In effect it bound the Free State to share
all the hazardous risk of the reckless anti-British Transvaal policy,
without the Free State itself receiving anything in return. Kruger thus
achieved one of the objects of his life. With such a history of apparent
success, it is not to be wondered at that the Transvaal president came
to Bloemfontein to meet Sir Alfred Milner in no mood for concession. It
is true that he made an ostensible offer on the franchise question, but
that proposal was made dependent on so many conditions that it was a
palpable sham. Every proposition which Sir Alfred Milner made was met by
the objection that it threatened the independence of the Transvaal. This
retort was President Kruger's rallying cry whenever he found himself in
the least degree pressed, either from within or without the state. To
admit Uitlanders to the franchise, to no matter how moderate a degree,
would destroy the independence of the state. In October 1899, after a
long and fruitless correspondence with the British government, war with
Great Britain was ushered in by an ultimatum from the Transvaal.
Immediately after the ultimatum Natal and the Cape Colony were invaded
by the Boers both of the Transvaal and the Free State. Yet one of the
most memorable utterances made by Kruger at the Bloemfontein conference
was couched in the following terms: "We follow out what God says,
'Accursed be he that removeth his neighbour's landmark.' As long as your
Excellency lives you will see that we shall never be the attacking party
on another man's land." The course of the war that followed is described
under TRANSVAAL. In 1900, Bloemfontein and Pretoria having been occupied
by British troops, Kruger, too old to go on commando, with the consent
of his executive proceeded to Europe, where he endeavoured to induce the
European powers to intervene on his behalf, but without success.
From this time he ceased to have any political influence. He took up his
residence at Utrecht, where he dictated a record of his career,
published in 1902 under the title of _The Memoirs of Paul Kruger_. He
died on the 14th of July 1904 at Clarens, near Vevey, on the shores of
the Lake of Geneva, whither he had gone for the sake of his health. He
was buried at Pretoria on the following 16th of December, Dingaan's Day,
the anniversary of the day in 1838 when the Boers crushed the Zulu king
Dingaan--a fight in which Kruger, then a lad of thirteen, had taken
part. Kruger was thrice married, and had a large family. His second wife
died in 1891. When he went to Europe he left his third wife in Lord
Roberts's custody at Pretoria, but she gradually failed, and died there
(July 1901). It was in her grave that the body of her husband was laid.
It is recorded that when a statue to President Kruger at Pretoria was
erected, it was by Mrs. Kruger's wish that the hat was left open at the
top, in order that the rain-water might collect there for the birds to
drink.
See J. F. van Oordt, _P. Kruger en de opkomst d. Zuid-Afrikaansche
Republiek_ (Amsterdam, 1898); the _Memoirs_ already mentioned; F. R.
Statham, _Paul Kruger and his Times_ (1898); and, among works with a
wider scope, G. M. Theal, _History of South Africa_ (for events down
to 1872 only); Sir J. P. Fitzpatrick, _The Transvaal from Within_
(1899); _The Times History of the War in South Africa_ (1900-9); and
A. P. Hillier, _South African Studies_ (1900).
FOOTNOTE:
[1] Sir Percy Fitzpatrick, in _The Transvaal from Within_, ch. iii.
KRUGERSDORP, a town of the Transvaal, 21 m. N.W. of Johannesburg by
rail. Pop. (1904), 20,073, of whom 6946 were whites. It is built on the
Witwatersrand at an elevation of 5709 ft. above the sea, and is a mining
centre of some importance. It is also the starting-point of a railway to
Zeerust and Mafeking. Krugersdorp was founded in 1887 at the time of the
discovery of gold on the Rand and is named after President Kruger.
Within the municipal area is the Paardekraal monument erected to
commemorate the victory gained by the Boers under Andries Pretorius in
1838 over the Zulu king Dingaan, and on the 16th of December each year,
kept as a public holiday, large numbers of Boers assemble at the
monument to celebrate the event. Here in December 1880 a great meeting
of Boers resolved again to proclaim the independence of the Transvaal.
The formal proclamation was made on Dingaan's Day, and after the defeat
of the British at Majuba Hill in 1881 that victory was also commemorated
at Paardekraal on the 16th of December. The monument, which was damaged
during the war of 1899-1902, was restored by the British authorities.
It was at Doornkop, near Krugersdorp, that Dr L. S. Jameson and his
"raiders" surrendered to Commandant Piet Cronje on the 2nd of January
1896 (see TRANSVAAL: _History_). At Sterkfontein, 8 m. N.W. of
Krugersdorp, are limestone caves containing beautiful stalactites.
KRUMAU (in Czech, _Krumlov_), is a town in Bohemia situated on the banks
of the Moldau (Vitava). It has about 8000 inhabitants, partly of Czech,
partly of German nationality. Krumau is principally celebrated because
its ancient castle was long the stronghold of the Rosenberg family,
known also as _pani z ruze_, the lords of the rose. Henry II. of
Rosenberg (d. 1310) was the first member of the family to reside at
Krumau. His son Peter I. (d. 1349) raised the place to the rank of a
city. The last two members of the family were two brothers, William,
created prince of Ursini-Rosenberg in 1556 (d. 1592), and Peter Vok, who
played a very large part in Bohemian history. Their librarian was
Wenceslas Brezan, who has left a valuable work on the annals of the
Rosenberg family. Peter Vok of Rosenberg, a strong adherent of the
Utraquist party, sold Krumau shortly before his death (1611), because
the Jesuits had established themselves in the neighbourhood.
The lordship, one of the most extensive in the monarchy, was bought by
the emperor Rudolph II. for his natural son, Julius of Austria. In 1622
the emperor Ferdinand II. presented the lordship to his minister, Hans
Ulrich von Eggenberg, and in 1625 raised it to the rank of an hereditary
duchy in his favour. From the Eggenberg family Krumau passed in 1719 to
Prince Adam Franz Karl of Schwarzenberg, who was created duke of Krumau
in 1723. The head of the Schwarzenberg family bears the title of duke of
Krumau. The castle, one of the largest and finest in Bohemia, preserves
much of its ancient character.
See W. Brezan, _Zivot Vilema z Rosenberka_ (Life of William of
Rosenberg), 1847; also _Zivot Petra Voka z Rosenberka_ (Life of Peter
Vok of Rosenberg), 1880.
KRUMBACHER, CARL (1856-1909), German Byzantine scholar, was born at
Kurnach in Bavaria on the 23rd of September 1856. He was educated at the
universities of Munich and Leipzig, and held the professorship of the
middle age and modern Greek language and literature in the former from
1897 to his death. His greatest work is his _Geschichte der
byzantinischen Litteratur_ (from Justinian to the fall of the Eastern
Empire, 1453), a second edition of which was published in 1897, with the
collaboration of A. Ehrhard (section on theology) and H. Gelzer (general
sketch of Byzantine history, A.D. 395-1453). The value of the work is
greatly enhanced by the elaborate bibliographies contained in the body
of the work and in a special supplement. Krumbacher also founded the
_Byzantinische Zeitschrift_ (1892) and the _Byzantinisches Archiv_
(1898). He travelled extensively and the results of a journey to Greece
appeared in his _Griechische Reise_ (1886). Other works by him are:
_Casia_ (1897), a treatise on a 9th-century Byzantine poetess, with the
fragments; _Michael Glykas_ (1894); "Die griechische Litteratur des
Mittelalters" in P. Hinneberg's _Die Kultur der Gegenwart_, i. 8 (1905);
_Das Problem der neugriechischen Schriftsprache_ (1902), in which he
strongly opposed the efforts of the purists to introduce the classical
style into modern Greek literature, and _Populare Aufsatze_ (1909).
KRUMEN (KROOMEN, KROOBOYS, KRUS, or CROOS), a negro people of the West
Coast of Africa. They dwell in villages scattered along the coast of
Liberia from below Monrovia nearly to Cape Palmas. The name has been
wrongly derived from the English word "crew," with reference to the fact
that Krumen were the first West African people to take service in
European vessels. It is probably from Kraoh, the primitive name of one
of their tribes. Under Krumen are now grouped many kindred tribes, the
Grebo, Basa, Nifu, &c., who collectively number some 40,000. The Krus
proper live in the narrow strip of coast between the Sino river and Cape
Palmas, where are their five chief villages, Kruber, Little Kru, Settra
Kru, Nana Kru and King William's Town. They are traditionally from the
interior, but have long been noted as skilful seamen and daring
fishermen. They are a stout, muscular, broad-chested race, probably the
most robust of African peoples. They have true negro features--skin of a
blue-black hue and woolly and abundant hair. The women are of a lighter
shade than negro women generally, and in several respects come much
nearer to a European standard. Morally as well as physically the Krumen
are one of the most remarkable races in Africa. They are honest, brave,
proud, so passionately fond of freedom that they will starve or drown
themselves to escape capture, and have never trafficked in slaves.
Politically the Krus are divided into small commonwealths, each with an
hereditary chief whose duty is simply to represent the people in their
dealings with strangers. The real government is vested in the elders,
who wear as insignia iron rings on their legs. Their president, the head
fetish-man, guards the national symbols, and his house is sanctuary for
offenders till their guilt is proved. Personal property is held in
common by each family. Land also is communal, but the rights of the
actual cultivator cease only when he fails to farm it.
At 14 or 15 the Kru "boys" eagerly contract themselves for voyages of
twelve or eighteen months. Generally they prefer work near at home, and
are to be found on almost every ship trading on the Guinea coast. As
soon as they have saved enough to buy a wife they return home and settle
down. Krumen ornament their faces with tribal marks--black or blue lines
on the forehead and from ear to ear. They tattoo their arms and mutilate
the incisor teeth. As a race they are singularly intelligent, and
exhibit their enterprise in numerous settlements along the coast. Sierra
Leone, Grand Bassa and Monrovia all have their Kru towns. Dr Bleek
classifies the Kru language with the Mandingo family, and in this he is
followed by Dr R. G. Latham; Dr Kolle, who published a Kru grammar
(1854), considers it as distinct.
See A. de Quatrefages and E. T. Hamy, _Crania ethnica_, ix. 363
(1878-1879); Schlagintweit-Sakunlunski, in the _Sitzungsberichte_ of
the academy at Munich (1875); Nicholas, in _Bull. de la Soc.
d'Anthrop._ (Paris, 1872); J. Buttikofer, _Reisebilder aus Liberia_
(Leiden, 1890); Sir H. H. Johnston, _Liberia_ (London, 1906).
KRUMMACHER, FRIEDRICH ADOLF (1767-1845), German theologian, was born on
the 13th of July 1767 at Tecklenburg, Westphalia. Having studied
theology at Lingen and Halle, he became successively rector of the
grammar school at Mors (1793), professor of theology at Duisburg (1800),
preacher at Crefeld, and afterwards at Kettwig, _Consistorialrath_ and
superintendent in Bernburg, and, after declining an invitation to the
university of Bonn, pastor of the Ansgariuskirche in Bremen (1824). He
died at Bremen on the 14th of April 1845. He was the author of many
religious works, but is best known by his _Parabeln_ (1805; 9th ed.
1876; Eng. trans. 1844).
A. W. Moller published his life and letters in 1849.
His brother GOTTFRIED DANIEL KRUMMACHER (1774-1837), who studied
theology at Duisburg and became pastor successively in Barl (1798),
Wulfrath (1801) and Elberfeld (1816), was the leader of the "pietists"
of Wupperthal, and published several volumes of sermons, including one
entitled _Die Wanderungen Israels durch d. Wuste nach Kanaan_ (1834).
FRIEDRICH WILHELM KRUMMACHER (1796-1868), son of Friedrich Adolf,
studied theology at Halle and Jena, and became pastor successively at
Frankfort (1819), Ruhrort (1823), Gemarke, near Barmen in the Wupperthal
(1825), and Elberfeld (1834). In 1847 he received an appointment to the
Trinity Church in Berlin, and in 1853 he became court chaplain at
Potsdam. He was an influential promoter of the Evangelical Alliance. His
best-known works are _Elias der Thisbiter_ (1828-1833; 6th ed. 1874;
Eng. trans. 1838); _Elisa_ (1837) and _Das Passionsbuch, der leidende
Christus_ (1854, in _English The Suffering Saviour_, 1870). His
_Autobiography_ was published in 1869 (Eng. trans. 1871).
EMIL WILHELM KRUMMACHER (1798-1886), another son, was born at Mors in
1798. In 1841 he became pastor in Duisburg. He wrote, amongst other
works, _Herzensmanna aus Luthers Werken_ (1852). His son Hermann
(1828-1890), who was appointed _Consistorialrath_ in Stettin in 1877,
was the author of _Deutsches Leben in Nordamerika_ (1874).
KRUPP, ALFRED (1812-1887), German metallurgist, was born at Essen on the
26th of April 1812. His father, Friedrich Krupp (1787-1826), had
purchased a small forge in that town about 1810, and devoted himself to
the problem of manufacturing cast steel; but though that product was put
on the market by him in 1815, it commanded but little sale, and the firm
was far from prosperous. After his death the works were carried on by
his widow, and Alfred, as the eldest son, found himself obliged, a boy
of fourteen, to leave school and undertake their direction. For many
years his efforts met with little success, and the concern, which in
1845 employed only 122 workmen, did scarcely more than pay its way. But
in 1847 Krupp made a 3 pdr. muzzle-loading gun of cast steel, and at the
Great Exhibition of London in 1851 he exhibited a solid flawless ingot
of cast steel weighing 2 tons. This exhibit caused a sensation in the
industrial world, and the Essen works sprang into fame. Another
successful invention, the manufacture of weldless steel tires for
railway vehicles, was introduced soon afterwards. The profits derived
from these and other steel manufactures were devoted to the expansion of
the works and to the development of the artillery with which the name of
Krupp is especially associated (see ORDNANCE). The model settlement,
which is one of the best-known features of the Krupp works, was started
in the 'sixties, when difficulty began to be found in housing the
increasing number of workmen; and now there are various "colonies,"
practically separate villages, dotted about to the south and south-west
of the town, with schools, libraries, recreation grounds, clubs, stores,
&c. The policy also was adopted of acquiring iron and coal mines, so
that the firm might have command of supplies of the raw material
required for its operations. Alfred Krupp, who was known as the "Cannon
King," died at Essen on the 14th of July 1887, and was succeeded by his
only son, Friedrich Alfred Krupp (1854-1902), who was born at Essen on
the 17th of February 1854. The latter devoted himself to the financial
rather than to the technical side of the business, and under him it
again underwent enormous expansion. Among other things he in 1896 leased
the "Germania" ship-building yard at Kiel, and in 1902 it passed into
the complete ownership of the firm. In the latter year, which was also
the year of his death, on the 22nd of November, the total number of men
employed at Essen and its associated works was over 40,000. His elder
daughter Bertha, who succeeded him, was married in October 1906 to Dr
Gustav von Bohlen und Halbach, who on that occasion received the right
to bear the name Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach. The enormous increase in
the German navy involved further expansion in the operations of the
Krupp firm as manufacturers of the armour plates and guns required for
the new ships, and in 1908 its capital, then standing at L9,000,000, was
augmented by L2,500,000.
KRUSENSTERN, ADAM IVAN (1770-1846), Russian navigator, hydrographer and
admiral, was born at Haggud in Esthonia on the 19th of November 1770. In
1785 he entered the corps of naval cadets, after leaving which, in 1788,
with the grade of midshipman, he served in the war against Sweden.
Having been appointed to serve in the British fleet for several years
(1793-1799), he visited America, India and China. After publishing a
paper pointing out the advantages of direct communication between Russia
and China by Cape Horn and the Cape of Good Hope, he was appointed by
the emperor Alexander I. to make a voyage to the east coast of Asia to
endeavour to carry out the project. Two English ships were bought, in
which the expedition left Kronstadt in August 1803 and proceeded by Cape
Horn and the Sandwich Islands to Kamchatka, and thence to Japan.
Returning to Europe by the Cape of Good Hope, after an extended series
of explorations, Krusenstern reached Kronstadt in August 1806, his being
the first Russian expedition to circumnavigate the world. The emperor
conferred several honours upon him, and he ultimately became admiral. As
director of the Russian naval school Krusenstern did much useful work.
He was also a member of the scientific committee of the marine
department, and his contrivance for counteracting the influence of the
iron in vessels on the compass was adopted in the navy. He died at Reval
on the 24th of August 1846.
Krusenstern's _Voyage Round the World in 1803-1806_ was published at
St Petersburg in 1810-1814, in 3 vols., with folio atlas of 104 plates
and maps (Eng. ed., 2 vols. 1813; French ed., 2 vols., and atlas of 30
plates, 1820). His narrative contains a good many important
discoveries and rectifications, especially in the region of Japan, and
the contributions made by the various savants were of much scientific
importance. A valuable work is his _Atlas de l'Ocean Pacifique_, with
its accompanying _Recueil des memoires hydrographiques_ (St
Petersburg, 1824-1827). See _Memoir_ by his daughter, Madame Charlotte
Bernhardi, translated by Sir John Ross (1856).
KRUSHEVATS (or KRUSEVAC), a town of Servia, lying in a fertile region of
hills and dales near the right bank of the Servian Morava. Pop. (1900),
about 10,000. Krushevats is the capital of a department bearing the same
name, and has an active trade in tobacco, hemp, flax, grain and
livestock, for the sale of which it possesses about a dozen markets. It
was in Krushevats that the last Servian tsar, Lazar, assembled his army
to march against the Turks, and lose his empire, at Kosovo, in 1389. The
site of his palace is marked by a ruined enclosure containing a fragment
of the tower of Queen Militsa, whither, according to legend, tidings of
the defeat were brought her by crows from the battlefield. Within the
enclosure stands a church, dating from the reign of Stephen Dushan
(1336-1356), with beautiful rose windows and with imperial peacocks,
dragons and eagles sculptured on the walls. Several old Turkish houses
were left at the beginning of the 20th century, besides an ancient
Turkish fountain and bath.
KSHATTRIYA, one of the four original Indian castes, the other three
being the Brahman, the Vaisya and the Sudra. The Kshattriya was the
warrior caste, and their function was to protect the people and abstain
from sensual pleasures. On the rise of Brahmin ascendancy the
Kshattriyas were repressed, and their consequent revolt gave rise to
Buddhism and Jainism, the founders of both these religions belonging to
the Kshattriya caste. Though, according to tradition, the Kshattriyas
were all exterminated by Parasurama, the rank is now conceded to the
modern Rajputs, and also to the ruling families of native states. (See
CASTE.)
KUBAN, a river of southern Russia, rising on the W. slope of the Elbruz,
in the Caucasus, at an altitude of 13,930 ft., races down the N. face of
the Caucasus as a mountain-torrent, but upon getting down to the
lower-lying steppe country S. of Stavropol it turns, at 1075 ft.
altitude, towards the N.W., and eventually, assuming a westerly course,
enters the Gulf of Kyzyl-tash, on the Black Sea, in the vicinity of the
Straits of Kerch. Its lower course lies for some distance through
marshes, where in times of overflow its breadth increases from the
normal 700 ft. to over half a mile. Its total length is 500 m., the area
of its basin 21,480 sq. m. It is navigable for steamers for 73 m., as
far as the confluence of its tributary, the Laba (200 m. long). This,
like its other affluents, the Byelaya (155 m.), Urup, and Great and
Little Zelenchuk, joins it from the left. The Kuban is the ancient
Hypanis and Vardanes and the Pshishche of the Circassians.
KUBAN, a province of Russian Caucasia, having the Sea of Azov on the W.,
the territory of Don Cossacks on the N., the government of Stavropol and
the province of Terek on the E., and the government of Kutais and the
Black Sea district on the S. and S.W. It thus contains the low and
marshy lowlands on the Sea of Azov, the western portion of the fertile
steppes of northern Caucasia, and the northern slopes of the Caucasus
range from its north-west extremity to the Elbruz. The area is 36,370
sq. m. On the south the province includes the parallel ranges of the
Black Mountains (Kara-dagh), 3000 to 6000 ft. high, which are
intersected by gorges that grow deeper and wider as the main range is
approached. Owing to a relatively wet climate and numerous streams,
these mountains are densely clothed with woods, under the shadow of
which a thick undergrowth of rhododendrons, "Caucasian palms" (_Buxus
sempervirens_), ivy, clematis, &c., develops, so as to render the
forests almost impassable. These cover altogether nearly 20% of the
aggregate area. Wide, treeless plains, from 1000 to 2000 ft. high,
stretch north of the Kuban, and are profusely watered by that river and
its many tributaries--the Little and Great Zelenchuk, Urup, Laba,
Byelaya, Pshish--mountain torrents that rush through narrow gorges from
the Caucasus range. In its lower course the Kuban forms a wide, low
delta, covered with rushes, haunted by wild boar, and very unhealthy.
The same characteristics mark the low plains on the east of the Sea of
Azov, dotted over with numerous semi-stagnant lakes. Malaria is the
enemy of these regions, and is especially deadly on the Taman Peninsula,
as also along the left bank of the lower and middle Kuban.
There is considerable mineral wealth. Coal is found on the Kuban and its
tributaries, but its extraction is still insignificant (less than 10,000
tons per annum). Petroleum wells exist in the district of Maikop, but
the best are in the Taman Peninsula, where they range over 570 sq. m.
Iron ores, silver and zinc are found; alabaster is extracted, as also
some salt, soda and Epsom salts. The best mineral waters are at Psekup
and Taman, where there are also numbers of mud volcanoes, ranging from
small hillocks to hills 365 ft. high and more. The soil is very fertile
in the plains, parts of which consist of black earth and are being
rapidly populated.
The population reached 1,928,419 in 1897, of whom 1,788,622 were
Russians, 13,926 Armenians, 20,137 Greeks and 20,778 Germans. There were
at the same date 945,873 women, and only 156,486 people lived in towns.
The estimated population in 1906 was 2,275,400. The aborigines were
represented by 100,000 Circassians, 5000 Nogai Tatars and some Ossetes.
The Circassians or Adyghe, who formerly occupied the mountain valleys,
were compelled, after the Russian conquest in 1861, either to settle on
the flat land or to emigrate; those who refused to move voluntarily were
driven across the mountains to the Black Sea coast. Most of them (nearly
200,000) emigrated to Turkey, where they formed the Bashi-bazouks.
Peasants from the interior provinces of Russia occupied the plains of
the Kuban, and they now number over 1,000,000, while the Kuban Cossacks
in 1897 numbered 804,372 (405,428 women). In point of religion 90% of
the population were in 1897 members of the Orthodox Greek Church, 4%
Raskolniks and other Christians and 5.4% Mahommedans, the rest being
Jews.
Wheat is by far the chief crop (nearly three-quarters of the total area
under crops are under wheat); rye, oats, barley, millet, Indian corn,
some flax and potatoes, as also tobacco, are grown. Agricultural
machinery is largely employed, and the province is a reserve granary for
Russia. Livestock, especially sheep, is kept in large numbers on the
steppes. Bee-keeping is general, and gardening and vine-growing are
spreading rapidly. Fishing in the Black Sea and Sea of Azov, as also in
the Kuban, is important.
Two main lines of railway intersect the province, one running N.W. to
S.E., from Rostov to Vladikavkaz, and another starting from the former
south-westwards to Novorossiysk on the north coast of the Black Sea. The
province is divided into seven districts, the chief towns of which, with
their populations in 1897, are Ekaterinodar, capital of the province
(65,697), Anapa (6676), Labinsk (6388), Batalpashinsk (8100), Maikop
(34,191), Temryuk (14,476) and Yeisk (35,446).
The history of the original settlements of the various native tribes,
and their language and worship before the introduction of Mahommedanism,
remain a blank page in the legends of the Caucasus. The peninsula of
Taman, a land teeming with relics of ancient Greek colonists, has been
occupied successively by the Cimmerians, Sarmatians, Khazars, Mongols
and other nations. The Genoese, who established an extensive trade in
the 13th century, were expelled by the Turks in 1484, and in 1784 Russia
obtained by treaty the entire peninsula and the territory on the right
bank of the Kuban, the latter being granted by Catherine II. in 1792 to
the Cossacks of the Dnieper. Then commenced the bloody struggle with
the Circassians, which continued for more than half a century. Not only
domestic, but even field work, is conducted mostly by the women, who are
remarkable for their physical strength and endurance. The native
mountaineers, known under the general name of Circassians, but locally
distinguished as the Karachai, Abadsikh, Khakuchy, Shapsugh, have
greatly altered their mode of life since the pacification of the
Caucasus, still, however, maintaining Mahommedanism, speaking their
vernacular, and strictly observing the customs of their ancestors.
Exports include wheat, tobacco, leather, wool, petroleum, timber, fish,
salt and live cattle; imports, dry goods, grocery and hardware. Local
industry is limited to a few tanneries, petroleum refineries and spirit
distilleries. (P. A. K.; J. T. Be.)
KUBELIK, JAN (1880- ), Bohemian violinist, was born near Prague, of
humble parentage. He learnt the violin from childhood, and appeared in
public at Prague in 1888, subsequently being trained at the
Conservatorium by the famous teacher Ottakar Sevcik. From him he learnt
an extraordinary technique, and from 1898 onwards his genius was
acclaimed at concerts throughout Europe. He first appeared in London in
1900, and in America in 1901, creating a _furore_ everywhere. In 1903 he
married the Countess Czaky Szell.
KUBERA (or KUVERA), in Hindu mythology, the god of wealth. Originally he
appears as king of the powers of evil, a kind of Pluto. His home is
Alaka in Mount Kailasa, and his garden, the world's treasure-house, is
Chaitraratha, on Mount Mandara. Kubera is half-brother to the demon
Ravana, and was driven from Ceylon by the latter.
KUBLAI KHAN (or KAAN, as the supreme ruler descended from Jenghiz was
usually distinctively termed in the 13th century) (1216-1294), the most
eminent of the successors of Jenghiz (Chinghiz), and the founder of the
Mongol dynasty in China. He was the second son of Tule, youngest of the
four sons of Jenghiz by his favourite wife. Jenghiz was succeeded in the
khanship by his third son Okkodai, or Ogdai (1229), he by his son Kuyuk
(1246), and Kuyuk by Mangu, eldest son of Tule (1252). Kublai was born
in 1216, and, young as he was, took part with his younger brother Hulagu
(afterwards conqueror of the caliph and founder of the Mongol dynasty in
Persia) in the last campaign of Jenghiz (1226-27). The Mongol poetical
chronicler, Sanang Setzen, records a tradition that Jenghiz himself on
his death-bed discerned young Kublai's promise and predicted his
distinction.
Northern China, Cathay as it was called, had been partially conquered by
Jenghiz himself, and the conquest had been followed up till the Kin or
"golden" dynasty of Tatars, reigning at K'ai-feng Fu on the Yellow
River, were completely subjugated (1234). But China south of the
Yangtsze-kiang remained many years later subject to the native dynasty
of Sung, reigning at the great city of Lingan, or Kinsai (_King-sz'_,
"capital"), now known as Hang-chow Fu. Operations to subdue this region
had commenced in 1235, but languished till Mangu's accession. Kublai was
then named his brother's lieutenant in Cathay, and operations were
resumed. By what seems a vast and risky strategy, of which the motives
are not quite clear, the first campaign of Kublai was directed to the
subjugation of the remote western province of Yunnan. After the capture
of Tali Fu (well known in recent years as the capital of a Mahommedan
insurgent sultan), Kublai returned north, leaving the war in Yunnan to a
trusted general. Some years later (1257) the khan Mangu himself entered
on a campaign in west China, and died there, before Ho-chow in
Sze-ch'uen (1259).
Kublai assumed the succession, but it was disputed by his brother
Arikbugha and by his cousin Kaidu, and wars with these retarded the
prosecution of the southern conquest. Doubtless, however, this was
constantly before Kublai as a great task to be accomplished, and its
fulfilment was in his mind when he selected as the future capital of his
empire the Chinese city that we now know as Peking. Here, in 1264, to
the north-east of the old city, which under the name of Yenking had been
an occasional residence of the Kin sovereigns, he founded his new
capital, a great rectangular plot of 18 m. in circuit. The (so-called)
"Tatar city" of modern Peking is the city of Kublai, with about
one-third at the north cut off, but Kublai's walls are also on this
retrenched portion still traceable.
The new city, officially termed T'ai-tu ("great court"), but known among
the Mongols and western people as Kaan-baligh ("city of the khan") was
finished in 1267. The next year war against the Sung Empire was resumed,
but was long retarded by the strenuous defence of the twin cities of
Siang-yang and Fan-cheng, on opposite sides of the river Han, and
commanding two great lines of approach to the basin of the
Yangtsze-kiang. The siege occupied nearly five years. After this Bayan,
Kublai's best lieutenant, a man of high military genius and noble
character, took command. It was not, however, till 1276 that the Sung
capital surrendered, and Bayan rode into the city (then probably the
greatest in the world) as its conqueror. The young emperor, with his
mother, was sent prisoner to Kaan-baligh; but two younger princes had
been despatched to the south before the fall of the city, and these
successively were proclaimed emperor by the adherents of the native
throne. An attempt to maintain their cause was made in Fu-kien, and
afterwards in the province of Kwang-tung; but in 1279 these efforts were
finally extinguished, and the faithful minister who had inspired them
terminated the struggle by jumping with his young lord into the sea.
Even under the degenerate Sung dynasty the conquest of southern China
had occupied the Mongols during half a century of intermittent
campaigns. But at last Kublai was ruler of all China, and probably the
sovereign (at least nominally) of a greater population than had ever
acknowledged one man's supremacy. For, though his rule was disputed by
the princes of his house in Turkestan, it was acknowledged by those on
the Volga, whose rule reached to the frontier of Poland, and by the
family of his brother Hulagu, whose dominion extended from the Oxus to
the Arabian desert. For the first time in history the name and character
of an emperor of China were familiar as far west as the Black Sea and
not unknown in Europe. The Chinese seals which Kublai conferred on his
kinsmen reigning at Tabriz are stamped upon their letters to the kings
of France, and survive in the archives of Paris. Adventurers from
Turkestan, Persia, Armenia, Byzantium, even from Venice, served him as
ministers, generals, governors, envoys, astronomers or physicians;
soldiers from all Asia to the Caucasus fought his battles in the south
of China. Once in his old age (1287) Kublai was compelled to take the
field in person against a serious revolt, raised by Nayan, a prince of
his family, who held a vast domain on the borders of Manchuria. Nayan
was taken and executed. The revolt had been stirred up by Kaidu, who
survived his imperial rival, and died in 1301. Kublai himself died in
1294, at the age of seventy-eight.
Though a great figure in Asiatic history, and far from deserving a niche
in the long gallery of Asiatic tyrants, Kublai misses a record in the
short list of the good rulers. His historical locus was a happy one,
for, whilst he was the first of his race to rise above the innate
barbarism of the Mongols, he retained the force and warlike character of
his ancestors, which vanished utterly in the effeminacy of those who
came after him. He had great intelligence and a keen desire for
knowledge, with apparently a good deal of natural benevolence and
magnanimity. But his love of splendour, and his fruitless expeditions
beyond sea, created enormous demands for money, and he shut his eyes to
the character and methods of those whom he employed to raise it. A
remarkable narrative of the oppressions of one of these, Ahmed of
Fenaket, and of the revolt which they provoked, is given by Marco Polo,
in substantial accordance with the Chinese annals.
Kublai patronized Chinese literature and culture generally. The great
astronomical instruments which he caused to be made were long preserved
at Peking, but were carried off to Berlin in 1900. Though he put hardly
any Chinese into the first ranks of his administration, he attached many
to his confidence, and was personally popular among them. Had his
endeavour to procure European priests for the instruction of his
people, of which we know through Marco Polo, prospered, the Roman
Catholic church, which gained some ground under his successors, might
have taken stronger root in China. Failing this momentary effort, Kublai
probably saw in the organized force of Tibetan Buddhism the readiest
instrument in the civilization of his countrymen, and that system
received his special countenance. An early act of his reign had been to
constitute a young lama of intelligence and learning the head of the
Lamaite Church, and eventually also prince of Tibet, an act which may be
regarded as a precursory form of the rule of the "grand lamas" of Lassa.
The same ecclesiastic, Mati Dhwaja, was employed by Kublai to devise a
special alphabet for use with the Mongol language. It was chiefly based
on Tibetan forms of Nagari; some coins and inscriptions in it are
extant; but it had no great vogue, and soon perished. Of the splendour
of his court and entertainments, of his palaces, summer and winter, of
his great hunting expeditions, of his revenues and extraordinary paper
currency, of his elaborate system of posts and much else, an account is
given in the book of Marco Polo, who passed many years in Kublai's
service.
We have alluded to his foreign expeditions, which were almost all
disastrous. Nearly all arose out of a hankering for the nominal
extension of his empire by claiming submission and tribute. Expeditions
against Japan were several times repeated; the last, in 1281, on an
immense scale, met with huge discomfiture. Kublai's preparations to
avenge it were abandoned owing to the intense discontent which they
created. In 1278 he made a claim of submission upon Champa, an ancient
state representing what we now call Cochin China. This eventually led to
an attempt to invade the country through Tongking, and to a war with the
latter state, in which the Mongols had much the worst of it. War with
Burma (or Mien, as the Chinese called it) was provoked in very similar
fashion, but the result was more favourable to Kublai's arms. The
country was overrun as far as the Irrawaddy delta, the ancient capital,
Pagan, with its magnificent temples, destroyed, and the old royal
dynasty overthrown. The last attempt of the kind was against Java, and
occurred in the last year of the old khan's reign. The envoy whom he had
commissioned to claim homage was sent back with ignominy. A great
armament was equipped in the ports of Fu-kien to avenge this insult; but
after some temporary success the force was compelled to re-embark with a
loss of 3000 men. The death of Kublai prevented further action.
Some other expeditions, in which force was not used, gratified the
khan's vanity by bringing back professions of homage, with presents, and
with the curious reports of foreign countries in which Kublai delighted.
Such expeditions extended to the states of southern India, to eastern
Africa, and even to Madagascar.
Of Kublai's twelve legitimate sons, Chingkim, the favourite and
designated successor, died in 1284/5; and Timur, the son of Chingkim,
took his place. No great king arose in the dynasty after Kublai. He had
in all nine successors of his house on the throne of Kaan-baligh, but
the long and imbecile reign of the ninth, Toghon Timur, ended (1368) in
disgrace and expulsion and the native dynasty of Ming reigned in their
stead. (H. Y.)
KUBUS, a tribe inhabiting the central parts of Sumatra. They are nomadic
savages living entirely in the forests in shelters of branches and
leaves built on platforms. It has been suggested that they represent a
Sumatran aboriginal race; but Dr J. G. Garson, reporting on Kubu skulls
and skeletons submitted to him by Mr. H. O. Forbes, declared them
decidedly Malay, though the frizzle in the hair might indicate a certain
mixture of negrito blood (_Jour. Anthrop. Instit._, April 1884). They
are of a rich olive-brown tint, their hair jet black and inclined to
curl, and, though not dwarfs, are below the average height.
KUCHAN, a fertile and populous district of the province Khorasan in
Persia, bounded N. by the Russian Transcaspian territory, W. by Bujnurd,
S. by Isfarain, and extending in the E. to near Radkan. Its area is
about 3000 sq. m. and its population, principally composed of Zafaranlu
Kurds, descendants of tribes settled there by Shah Abbas I. in the 17th
century, is estimated at 100,000. About 3000 families are nomads and
live in tents. The district produces much grain, 25,000 to 30,000 tons
yearly, and contains two towns, Kuchan and Shirvan (pop. 6000), and many
villages.
KUCHAN, the capital of the district, has suffered much from the effects
of earthquakes, notably in 1875, 1894 and 1895. The last earthquake laid
the whole town in ruins and caused considerable loss of life. About 8000
of the survivors removed to a site 7(1/2) m. E. and there built a new
town named Nasseriyeh after Nasr-ud-din Shah, but known better as Kuchan
i jadid, i.e. New Kuchan, and about 1000 remained in the ruined city in
order to be near their vineyards and gardens. The geographical position
of the old town is 37 deg. 8' N., 58 deg. 25' E., elevation 4100 ft. The
new town has been regularly laid out with broad streets and spacious
bazaars, and, situated as it is half-way between Meshed and Askabad on
the cart-road connecting those two places, has much trade. Its
population is estimated at 10,000. There are telegraph and post offices.
KUCH BEHAR, or COOCH BEHAR, a native state of India, in Bengal,
consisting of a submontane tract, not far from Darjeeling, entirely
surrounded by British territory. Area, 1307 sq. m. Pop. (1901), 566,974;
estimated revenue, L140,000. The state forms a level plain of triangular
shape, intersected by numerous rivers. The greater portion is fertile
and well cultivated, but tracts of jungle are to be seen in the
north-east corner, which abuts upon Assam. The soil is uniform in
character throughout, consisting of a light, friable loam, varying in
depth from 6 in. to 3 ft., superimposed upon a deep bed of sand. The
whole is detritus, washed down by torrents from the neighbouring
Himalayas. The rivers all pass through the state from north to south, to
join the main stream of the Brahmaputra. Some half-dozen are navigable
for small trading boats throughout the year, and are nowhere fordable;
and there are about twenty minor streams which become navigable only
during the rainy season. The streams have a tendency to cut new channels
for themselves after every annual flood, and they communicate with one
another by cross-country watercourses. Rice is grown on three-fourths of
the cultivated area. Jute and tobacco are also largely grown for export.
The only special industries are the weaving of a strong silk obtained
from worms fed on the castor-oil plant, and of a coarse jute cloth used
for screens and bedding. The external trade is chiefly in the hands of
Marwari immigrants from Rajputana. Among other improvements a railway
has been constructed, with the assistance of a loan from the British
government. The earthquake of the 12th of June 1897 caused damage to
public buildings, roads, &c., in the state to the estimated amount of
L100,000.
The Koch or Rajbansi, from which the name of the state is derived, are a
widely spread tribe, evidently of aboriginal descent, found throughout
all northern Bengal, from Purnea district to the Assam valley. They are
akin to the Indo-Chinese races of the north-east frontier; but they have
now become largely hinduized, especially in their own home, where the
appellation "Koch" has come to be used as a term of reproach. Their
total number in all India was returned in 1901 as nearly 2(1/2) millions.
As in the case of many other small native states, the royal family of
Kuch Behar lays claim to a divine origin in order to conceal an impure
aboriginal descent. The greatest monarch of the dynasty was Nar Narayan,
the son of Visu Singh, who began to reign about 1550. He conquered the
whole of Kamrup, built temples in Assam, of which ruins still exist
bearing inscriptions with his name, and extended his power southwards
over what is now part of the British districts of Rangpur and Purnea.
His son, Lakshmi Narayan, who succeeded him in Kuch Behar, became
tributary to the Mogul Empire. In 1772 a competitor for the throne,
having been driven out of the country by his rivals, applied for
assistance to Warren Hastings. A detachment of sepoys was accordingly
marched into the state; the Bhutias, whose interference had led to this
intervention, were expelled, and forced to sue for peace through the
mediation of the lama of Tibet. By the treaty made on this occasion,
April 1773, the raja acknowledged subjection to the Company, and made
over to it one-half of his annual revenues. In 1863, on the death of the
raja, leaving a son and heir only ten months old, a British commissioner
was appointed to undertake the direct management of affairs during the
minority of the prince, and many important reforms were successfully
introduced. The maharaja Sir Nripendra Narayan, G.C.I.E., born in 1862,
was educated under British guardianship at Patna and Calcutta, and
became hon. lieutenant-colonel of the 6th Bengal Cavalry. In 1897-98 he
served in the Tirah campaign on the staff of General Yeatman-Biggs, and
received the distinction of a C.B. He was present at the Jubilee in
1887, the Diamond Jubilee of 1897, and King Edward's Coronation in 1902,
and became a well-known figure in London society. In 1878 he married a
daughter of Keshub Chunder Sen, the Brahmo leader. His eldest son was
educated in England.
The town of Kuch Behar is situated on the river Tursa, and has a railway
station. Pop. (1901), 10,458. It contains a college affiliated to the
Calcutta University.
KUDU (_koodoo_), the native name for a large species of African antelope
(q.v.), with large corkscrew-like horns in the male, and the body marked
with narrow vertical white lines in both sexes. The female is hornless.
_Strepsiceros capensis_ (or _S. strepsiceros_) is the scientific name of
the true kudu, which ranges from the Cape to Somaliland; but there is
also a much smaller species (_S. imberbis_) in East and North-East
Africa.
[Illustration: Male Kudu.]
KUENEN, ABRAHAM (1828-1891), Dutch Protestant theologian, the son of an
apothecary, was born on the 16th of September 1828, at Haarlem, North
Holland. On his father's death it became necessary for him to leave
school and take a humble place in the business. By the generosity of
friends he was educated at the gymnasium at Haarlem and afterwards at the
university of Leiden. He studied theology, and won his doctor's degree by
an edition of thirty-four chapters of Genesis from the Arabic version of
the Samaritan Pentateuch. In 1853 he became professor extraordinarius of
theology at Leiden, and in 1855 full professor. He married a daughter of
W. Muurling, one of the founders of the Groningen school, which made the
first pronounced breach with Calvinistic theology in the Reformed Church
of Holland. Kuenen himself soon became one of the main supports of the
modern theology, of which J. N. Scholten (1811-1885) and Karel Willem
Opzoomer (b. 1821) were the chief founders, and of which Leiden became
the headquarters. His first great work, an historico-critical
introduction to the Old Testament, _Historisch-kritisch onderzoek naar
het onstaan en de verzameling van de boeken des Ouden Verbonds_ (3 vols.,
1861-1865; 2nd ed., 1885-1893; German by T. Weber and C. T. Muller,
1885-1894), followed the lines of the dominant school of Heinrich Ewald.
But before long he came under the influence of J. W. Colenso, and learned
to regard the prophetic narrative of Genesis, Exodus, and Numbers as
older than what was by the Germans denominated _Grundschrift_ ("Book of
Origins"). In 1869-1870 he published his book on the religion of Israel,
_De godsdienst van Israel tot den ondergang van der Joodschen Staat_
(Eng. trans., 1874-1875). This was followed in 1875 by a study of Hebrew
prophecy, _De profeten en de profetie onder Israel_ (Eng. trans., 1877),
largely polemical in its scope, and specially directed against those who
rest theological dogmas on the fulfilment of prophecy. In 1882 Kuenen
went to England to deliver a course of Hibbert lectures, _National
Religions and Universal Religion_; in the following year he presided at
the congress of Orientalists held at Leiden. In 1886 his volume on the
Hexateuch was published in England. He died at Leiden on the 10th of
December 1891.
Kuenen was also the author of many articles, papers and reviews; a
series on the Hexateuch, which appeared in the _Theologisch
Tijdschrift_, of which in 1866 he became joint editor, is one of the
finest products of modern criticism. His collected works were
translated into German and published by K. Budde in 1894. Several of
his works have been translated into English by Philip Wicksteed. See
the article in Herzog-Hauck, _Realencyklopadie_.
KUEN-LUN, or KWEN-LUN, a term used to designate generally the mountain
ranges which run along the northern edge of the great Tibetan plateau in
Central Asia. In a wider application it means the succession of ranges
which extend from the Pamirs on the W. to 113 deg. E., until it strikes
against or merges in the steep escarpments of the S.E. flank of the
Mongolian plateau. In the narrower acceptation it applies only to those
ranges which part the desert of Takla-makan on the N. from the Tibetan
plateau on the S. between the Pamirs and the transverse glen of the
Kara-muren, that is, nearly to the longitude of the town of Cherchen
(about 85(1/2) deg. E.). Although the use of the name is thus restricted
in geographical usage, the mountain system so designated does, as a
fact, extend eastwards as far as the great depression of Tsaidam (say 95
deg. E.), though it is uncertain whether its direct orographical
continuation eastwards is to be identified with the Astin-tagh, or, as
F. Grenard and K. Bogdanovich believe--and with them Sven Hedin is
inclined to agree--with the parallel ranges of Kalta-alaghan and
Arka-tagh, which lie S. of the Astin-tagh. At any rate the Astin-tagh,
whether it is the principal continuation of the Kuen-lun or only a
subsidiary flanking system, is itself the westward continuation of the
Nan-shan or Southern Mountains, which reach down far into China (to 113
deg. E.).
Taken in its widest meaning, the Kuen-lun Mountains thus stretch in a
wavy line for nearly 2500 m. from E. to W., and while in the W. their
constituent ranges are folded and squeezed by lateral compression into a
breadth of some 150-200 m., their summits being forced up to
correspondingly higher altitudes, in the E. they spread out to a breadth
of some 600 m., the ranges being in that quarter less folded, and
consequently both flatter and lower. In the tectonic structure of Asia
the Kuen-lun forms, as it were, the backbone of the continent. In point
of age it is very much older than either the Himalayas to the S. or the
Tian-shan to the N. But although the crests of its component ranges
reach altitudes of 21,500 to 22,000 ft., they are not as a rule
overtopped by individual peaks of commanding and towering elevation, as
the Himalayas are, but run on the whole tolerably uniform and relatively
at little greater altitude than the lofty valleys which separate them
one from another. It is a strikingly marked characteristic of the
northern edge of the Tibetan plateau that its outermost border-range
(e.g. Western Kuen-lun and Astin-tagh) is throughout double; and this
"twinning" of the mountain-ranges, as also of the intermont lake-basins
among the Kuen-lun ranges, is a peculiar feature of the Tibetan plateau.
The supreme orographic importance of this great Central Asian mountain
system was recognized in a fashion even by the geographers of ancient
Greece. They used to suppose that an immense range of mountains
crossed Asia from west to east on the parallel of the island of
Rhodes, extending through Asia Minor, the Kurdish highlands, the N. of
Persia, the N. of Bactria (Afghanistan), the Hindu-kush, and so on
into China. This long range they supposed to separate the waters which
flow N. to the Arctic from those which flow S. to the Indian Ocean. K.
Ritter (_Asien_, ii.) was the first of modern geographers to recognize
the true character of the Kuen-lun as a border range of the Tibetan
plateau; and Baron von Richthofen (_China_, i. 1876) still further
defined and accentuated the conception of the system by representing
it as a complex arrangement of several parallel ranges, running in
wavy lines from the Pamirs (76 deg. E.) eastwards to 118 deg. E. But
though von Richthofen's general conception of the Kuen-lun system was
broadly sound and in accordance with facts, the details both of his
description and of that of his pupil Wegener[1] require now very
considerable revision, and need even to be in part recast, as a
consequence of explorations and investigations made since they wrote
by, amongst others, the Russian explorers N. M. Przhevalsky, M. V.
Pyevtsov, V. I. Roboroysky, P. K. Kozlov, K. Bogdanovich, V. A.
Obruchev, and (?) Skassi; by the Englishmen A. D. Carey, A. Dalgleish,
St G. R. Littledale, H. Bower, H. H. P. Deasy and M. S. Wellby; by the
American W. W. Rockhill; the Frenchmen J. L. Dutreuil de Rhins, F.
Grenard, P. G. Bonvalot and Prince Henri d'Orleans; by the Hungarians
L. von Loczy and Count Szechenyi; and above all by the Swede Sven
Hedin.
_Western Kuen-lun._--On the east the Pamir highlands are fenced off
from the East Turkestan lowlands by the double border-ridge of
Sarik-kol (the Sarik-kol range and the Muztagh or Kashgar range),
which has its eastern foot down in the Tarim basin (4000-4500 ft.) and
its western up on the Pamirs at 10,500 to 13,000 ft. above sea-level,
while its own summits, e.g. the Muztagh-ata (25,780 ft.), shoot up far
above the limits of perpetual snow. This double border-ridge is
continued east of the meridian of Yarkand or Yarkent (77 deg. E.) by a
succession of twin ranges, all running, though under different names,
from the W.N.W. to the E.S.E. According to the investigations of F.
Stoliczka and K. Bogdanovich, the same fossils occur in both sets of
border ranges, in the Sarik-kol and in their eastward continuations,
e.g. corals, _Stromatophorae_, _Bryozoa_, _Atrypa reticularis_, _A.
latilinguis_ and _A. aspera_, _Spirifer verneuili_, &c., and these the
latter geologist assigns to the Devonian epoch. These eastward
continuations of the double border-range of the Pamirs are the
constituent ranges of the Kuen-lun proper. The names given to them are
the Kilian or Kiliang, the Khotan and the Keriya Mountains in the more
northerly range and the Raskem or Raskan, the Sughet and the
Ullugh-tagh Mountains in the more southerly range. Although they all
decrease in altitude from west to east, they nevertheless reach
elevations of 19,000 ft., with individual peaks ascending some
2000-2500 ft. higher. From the East Turkestan lowlands on the north
the ascent is very steep, and the passes across both sets of ranges
lie at great altitudes; for example, the pass of Sanju-davan in the
lower range is 16,325 ft. above sea-level, and the Kyzyl-davan,
farther east, is 16,900 ft., while the Sughet-davan in the higher
range is 17,825 ft. The latter range is separated from the Karakorum
Mountains by the deeply trenched gorge of the Raskem or Yarkand-darya,
while the deep glen of the Kara-kash or Khotan-darya intervenes
between the upper (Sughet Mountains) and the lower (Kilian Mountains)
border-ranges. Altogether this western extremity of the Kuen-lun
system is a very rugged mountainous region, a consequence partly of
the intricacy of the flanking ranges and spurs, partly of the powerful
lateral compression to which they have been subjected, and partly of
the great and abrupt differences in vertical elevation between the
crests of the ranges and the bottoms of the deep, narrow, rugged glens
between them. In the broad orographical disposition of the ranges
there is considerable similarity between north Tibet and west Persia,
in that in both cases the ranges are crowded together in the west, but
spread out wider as they advance towards the east. To the two
principal ranges in this part of the system F. Grenard, who
accompanied J. L. Dutreuil de Rhins on his journey in 1890-1895, gives
the names the Altyn-tagh and Ustun-tagh, though he names no less than
six parallel ranges altogether. Now as Altyn-tagh[2] is an accepted,
though in point of fact erroneous, name for Astin-tagh, it is clear
that Grenard considers the main Kuen-lun ranges to be continued
directly by the Astin-tagh.
From the transverse breach of the Keriya-darya (about 81(1/2) deg. E.)
to that of the Kara-muren in the longitude of Cherchen (about 85(1/2)
deg. E.) the parallel border-ranges of the Tibetan plateau trend to
the E.N.E., and here occur in the lower or outer range the passes of
Dalai-kurghan-art (14,290 ft.), Choka-davan, i.e. Littledale's Chokur
Pass (9530 ft.) and others at altitudes ranging from 8600 to 11,500
ft., while in the upper range are the At-to-davan (16,600 ft.),
Yapkak-lik-davan (15,550 ft.), Sarshu-davan (15,680 ft.) and others
not named at 16,590 and 17,300 ft.
_Middle Kuen-lun._--Between the upper transverse glens of the
Kara-muren (or Mitt River) and the Cherchen-darya stretches the short
range of Tokuz-davan. From it, on the east side of the Cherchen-daryt,
in about 86 deg. E., the component ranges of the middle Kuen-lun begin
to diverge and radiate outwards (i.e. to north and to south) like the
fingers of the outspread human hand. And here at least four principal
ranges or groups of ranges admit of being discriminated, namely the
Astin-tagh, the Chimen-tagh, the Kalta-alaghan and the Arka-tagh, all
belonging to the mountainous country which borders on the north the
actual plateau region of Tibet. Although these several ranges, or
systems of ranges, differ considerably in their orographical
characteristics, the following description will apply generally to the
entire region from the Astin-tagh southwards to the Arka-tagh. The
broad features of the surface configuration are a series of nearly
parallel mountain-ranges, running from W.S.W. E.N.E. to W.N.W. E.S.E.,
and separated by high intermont valleys, which are choked with
disintegrated material and divided into a chequered pattern of
self-contained, shallow lacustrine basins. As a rule the crests of the
ranges are worn down by aerial denudation and have the general
appearance of rounded domes. Hard rock (mostly granite and crystalline
schists, with red sandstone in places) appears only in the transverse
glens, which are often choked with their debris in the form either of
gravel-and-shingle or loose blocks of stone or both. The flanks of the
mountains are so deeply buried in disintegrated material that the
difference in vertical altitude between the floors of the valleys and
the summits of the ranges is comparatively small. But as each
successive range, proceeding south, represents a higher step in the
terraced ascent from the desert of Gobi to the plateau of Tibet, the
ranges when viewed from the north frequently appear like veritable
upstanding mountain ranges, and this appearance is accentuated by the
general steepness of the ascent; whereas, when viewed on the other
hand from the south, these several ranges, owing to their long and
gentle slope in that direction, have the appearance of comparatively
gentle swellings of the earth's surface rather than of well-defined
mountain ranges. As a rule, the streams flow alternately east and west
down the intermont latitudinal valleys, until they break through some
transverse glen in the range on the northern side of the valley. In
the western parts of the system they mostly go to feed the Kara-muren
or the Cherchen-darya, while farther east they flow down into some
larger self-contained basin of internal drainage, such as the
Achik-kol, the two lakes Kara-kol, or the Ghaz-kol, and even yet
farther east make their way, some of them into the lakes of the
Tsaidam depression or become lost in its sands or in those of the
Kum-tagh desert on the north, or go to feed the headstreams of the
great rivers, the Hwang-ho (Yellow River) and the Yangtsze-kiang (Blue
River) in the south. It appears to be a rule that the rivers which
eventually terminate in the deserts of Gobi and Takla-makan grow
increasingly larger in magnitude from east to west. Another law
appears to distinguish the hydrography of at any rate the great
latitudinal valleys of the Arka-tagh and the Chimen valley (north of
the Chimen-tagh): the streams flow close under the foot of the range
that shuts in each individual valley on the north. But in respect of
precipitation there is a very marked difference between the valleys of
the north and those of the south. Whereas both the mountains and
valleys of the Astin-tagh and of the Akato-tagh (the next large range
to the Astin-tagh on the south) are arid and desolate in the extreme,
smitten as it were with the desiccating breath of the desert, those of
the Arka-tagh and beyond are supersaturated with moisture, so that, at
any rate in summer, the surface is in many parts little better than a
quaking quagmire. Throughout vegetation is scanty and faunal life poor
in species, though in some respects certain of the species, e.g. wild
yaks, wild asses (_kulans_), antelopes (_orongo_ and others), marmots,
hares and partridges exist locally in large numbers. The wild camel
approaches the north outliers of the Astin-tagh, but rarely, if ever,
ventures to enter their fastnesses. Bears, wolves, foxes, goats
(_kokmet_), wild sheep (_arkharis_), lizards, earth-rats, and a small
rodent (_teshikan_), with ravens, eagles, wild ducks and wild geese
are the other varieties principally encountered. The vegetation
consists almost entirely of scrubby bushes of several varieties,
including tamarisks and wild briers, of reeds (_kamish_), and of grass
on the _yaylaks_ (pasture-grounds) of the middle ranges. On the
Arka-tagh even the moss, the last surviving representative of the
flora, disappears entirely. In the eastern Astin-tagh a variety of
wild tea (_chay_, mountain tea) is used by the Mongols. Gold is
obtained in very small quantities in a few places in the Astin-tagh
and the Kalta-alaghan. The nomenclature of the numerous ranges in this
part of the Kuen-lun is extremely confusing, owing to different
travellers having applied the same name to different ranges and to
different travellers have applied different names to what is probably
often identically the same range. In this article the nomenclature
adopted is that employed by the latest, and probably the most
thorough, explorer of this part of Central Asia, namely, Sven Hedin.
Nevertheless, owing to the fact that nearly all the longer and more
important crossings of Tibet and its northern montane region have been
made from north to south, or vice versa, that is, transversely across
the ranges, and comparatively few from east to west along the
intermont latitudinal valleys, the identifications between ranges in
the east and ranges in the west are in more than one instance more or
less doubtful.
The _Astin-tagh_, although it occupies a similar position to the twin
ranges of the Western Kuen-lun, in that it forms the outermost
escarpment or border-ridge on the north of the Tibetan plateau, would
appear in the opinion of the most competent judges (e.g. Grenard,
Bogdanovich, Sven Hedin, Przhevalsky), to be only a branch or
subsidiary range of the main range of the Kuen-lun. It is not however
a single, long, continuous chain, as it is shown, for example, on the
map of the Russian general staff, but consists of two parallel main
ranges, and in the east of three, and even to the N.E. of Tsaidam of
four, parallel main ranges, flanked throughout by several subsidiary
chains, spurs and offshoots. Beyond that it swells out into the vast
_massif_ of Anambaruin-ula, which is traversed by at least three minor
parallel chains. But on the east of the Anambaruin-ula it once more
contracts to two main ranges, the more southerly being that which
Przhevalsky called the Humboldt Range (crossed by a pass at 13,200
ft.). This branch is probably continued in the range which overhangs
the Koko-nor on the south, namely, the south Koko-nor Range. The
northern branch merges eastwards into the Nan-shan or Southern
Mountains.[3] The passes in the Lower Astin-tagh range from altitudes
of 10,150 to 10,700 ft., and in the Upper Astin-tagh at 11,770 to
15,680 ft. (Tash-davan), though one pass beside the Charkhlik-su is
only 9660 ft. high. And as the relative altitudes of crest and pass
remain approximately the same as in the Western Kuen-lun, it is
evident how greatly the general elevation of the twin border ridge
decreases towards the east. But there exists a striking difference
between the crests of the Astin-tagh and those of the ranges which
give rise to the gigantic ridge and furrow arrangement on the Tibetan
plateau. "Here in the Astin-tagh the mountains, like those in the
Kuruk-tagh,[4] are indeed severely weathered, but they always consist,
from base to summit, of hard rock, bare and barren, most frequently
piled up in eccentric, rugged masses, denticulated, pinnacled crests
and peaks. On the Tibetan plateau, on the other hand, most of the
ranges are distinguished by their rounded outlines and soft
consistency, and their striking poverty in hard rock, which in the
best cases only crops out near the summits. There too disintegration
has been to a remarkable extent operative. This gives rise to the
great morphological difference, that in the former regions, the
Astin-tagh and the Kuruk-tagh, the products of disintegration are
almost always carried away by the wind, and so disappear; no matter
how powerful or how active the disintegration may be, none of the
loosened material ever succeeds either in gathering amongst the
mountains or in accumulating at their foot. The climate is so arid,
and precipitation so extremely rare, that the fine powdery material
falls a helpless prey to the winds. On the other hand, the
precipitation on the Tibetan plateau is so copious, and so uniformly
distributed, that it is able to retain the loosened material _in
situ_, and causes it to heap itself up in rounded masses on the flanks
of the mountains that are its primitive source of origin, these
projecting in great part like skeletons from the midst of their own
ruins."[5] The twin ranges of the Astin-tagh are fairly equivalent in
point of magnitude and regularity; but while the Lower Range, on the
north, sensibly decreases in altitude towards the east, the Upper
Range, on the south, maintains its general altitude in a remarkable
way, and is gapped by steep, wild, deeply incised transverse glens
directed towards the north, and generally fenced in by dark
precipitous walls of rock. The great valley between the two is "cut up
into a series of self-contained basins, each serving as the gathering
ground of the brooks that run down off the adjacent mountains. Outside
the lower end of each large transverse glen there is a scree of
sedimentary matter. These screes are however very flat and their lower
edges generally reach all the way down to the central part of the
basin, which is occupied by an expanse of yellow clay, perfectly flat
and fairly hard, as well as dry and barren, often cracked into
polygonal cakes and drawn out in the direction of the long axis of the
valley.... But though the great morphological features of this
latitudinal valley forcibly recall the latitudinal valleys of Tibet,
the climatic differences give rise to differences between the basins
corresponding to the differences between the mountain-ranges
themselves. For while the self-contained basins of Tibet generally
possess a salt lake in the middle, into which brooks and streams of
greater or less magnitude gather, often from very considerable
distances, these self-contained basins of the Astin-tagh are very
small in area, and it is extremely seldom that their central parts
receive any water at all, only in fact after copious rain. These
terminal lakes, or more accurately sedimentary plains, are therefore
almost always dry."[6]
The next parallel range on the south, the _Akato-tagh_, and the valley
which separates it from the Astin-tagh, are equally arid and
waterless. The valley, known by the general name of Kakir, meaning a
"hard, dry, sterile expanse of clay," is chequered with shallow
self-contained basins of the usual type and has remarkably gentle
slopes up to the mountains on both north and south. Its surface
slopes from altitudes of 10,100 to 10,600 ft. in the west, where is
the lake of Uzunshor (9650 ft.) to 9400 ft. in the east, in which
direction it continues as far as the Anambaruin-ula (see below) and
the plain or flat basin of Sartang, a north extension of Tsaidam. This
range of Akato-tagh, the Altun Range of Carey, is the same as that
which on the map of the Russian general staff bears the name
Chimen-tagh. Like the Astin-tagh it stretches towards the E.N.E., and,
like it, appears to be built up of granite and schists, but its crest
is greatly denuded, so that it is a mere crumbling skeleton protruding
above the deep mantle of disintegrated material which masks its
flanks. The slopes on both north and south are extremely gentle, but
that on the south is eight to ten times as long as that on the north.
In the east the range is mostly narrow, and dies away on the edge of
the Tsaidam depression; but in the west it swells out into the lofty
and imposing mass of the Ilve-chimen or Shia-manglay, which is capped
with perpetual snow. This part of the range is crossed by the pass of
Chopur-alik at an altitude of 16,160 ft., but farther east the passes
lie at altitudes of 13,380 to 10,520 ft. The latitudinal valley that
intervenes between the Akato-tagh and the next great range on the
south, the Chimen-tagh, slopes for the most part eastwards, from
12,500 ft. down to the shallow salt lake of Ghaz-kol or Chimen-koli
(9305 ft.). In the western part of this valley occurs the very
important transverse water-divide of Gulcha-davan (14,150 ft.), which
separates the basin of the Cherchen-darya that goes down into the
Tarim basin from the area that drains down to the Ghaz-kol, which
belongs to the Tsaidam depression. This, the Chimen valley, contains
in places a good deal of drift-sand, which however is stationary in
the mass and heaped up along the northern foot of the Chimen-tagh.
Nevertheless the Akato-tagh is only of secondary importance in the
general Kuen-lun system, being nothing more than a central ridge
running along the broad Kakir valley that separates the Astin-tagh
from the Chimen-tagh.
The latter range, the _Chimen-tagh_, is identical in its western parts
with the Piazlik-tagh and in the east must be equated with the Tsaidam
chain of Przhevalsky; and it is probably continued westwards by the
range which the Russian explorers call the Moscow Range or the
Achik-tagh, running north of the Achik-kol and, according to
Przhevalsky, connecting on the west with the Tokuz-davan. The
Chimen-tagh rises into imposing summits, some rounded, some pyramidal
in outline, which are capped with snow, though the snow melts in
summer. This range acts as a "breakwater" to the clouds, arresting and
condensing the moisture which is carried northwards by the south
winds. Hence its slopes are not so arid as those of the Akato-tagh and
the Astin-tagh. Snow falls all the year round on the Chimen-tagh, even
in July, and water is abundant everywhere. The southern slope of the
range is gentle but short, the northern slope long and steep. Grass is
able to grow, and animal life is more abundant. The range is crossed
by passes at 13,970, 13,230 and 13,760 ft., and the Piazlik-tagh by a
pass at an altitude of 13,640 ft.
The next important range, still going south, is the _Kalta-alaghan_,
Carey's Chimen-tagh Range, Przhevalsky's Columbus Range and the range
which is variously designated (e.g. by Pyevtsov) as the Ambal-ashkan,
Kalga-lagan and Ara-tagh. This last is, however, properly the name of
a short secondary range which rises along the middle (_ara_ = middle)
of the valley between the Chimen-tagh and the Kalta-alaghan. Not only
is it of lower elevation than them both, but it dies away towards the
west, the valleys on each side of it meeting round its extremity to
form one broad, open valley, with an altitude of 11,790 to 13,725 ft.
The Ara-tagh is crossed by a pass at an altitude of 14,345 ft. In the
Kalta-alaghan, which is the culminating range of this part of the
Kuen-lun, and is overtopped by towering, snow-clad peaks, the passes
climb to considerably higher altitudes, namely, 14,560, 14,470, 14,430
and 14,190 ft., while the pass of Avraz-davan ascends to 15,700 ft.
This range appears to be linked on to the Tokuz-davan by the
Muzluk-tagh, in which there are passes at 16,870 and 15,450 ft. It is
possible however that the Muzluk-tagh belongs more intimately to the
Chimen-tagh system, that is, to the Moscow or Achik-kol ranges, Indeed
Bogdanovich considers that the Tokuz-davan, the Muzluk-tagh, the
Moscow Range and the Chimen-tagh form one single closely connected
chain, in which he also places Przhevalsky's isolated peak of Mount
Kreml (15,055 ft.). Sven Hedin, whilst agreeing that this may possibly
be the true conception, inclines to the view that the Achik-kol Range
dies away towards the E., and that the Chimen-tagh and the
Kalta-alaghan merge westwards into the border-ranges that lie north of
the Muzluk-tagh and the Tokuz-davan. Unlike most of the other parallel
ranges of N. Tibet, the Kalta-alaghan does not decrease, but it
increases in elevation towards the east, where, like the Chimen-tagh,
it abuts upon and merges in the ranges that border Tsaidam on the
south.
Immediately south of the Kalta-alaghan comes a relatively deep
depression, the _Kum-kol valley_, forming a very well-marked feature
in the physical conformation of this region. It is crossed
transversely by a water-divide which separates the basin of the
twin-lakes of Kum-kol (12,700 ft.) from the basin of Tsaidam, some
3500 ft. lower. The floor of the valley consequently slopes away in
both directions, like the Chimen valley between the Akato-tagh and the
Chimen-tagh; and in so far as it slopes westwards towards the Kum-kol
lakes it differs from nearly all the other great latitudinal valleys
that run parallel with it, because they slope generally towards the
east. Not far from the Kum-kol lakes there is a drift-sand area,
though the dunes are stationary. The upper lake of Kum-kol
(Chon-kum-kol) (12,730 ft.), which contains fresh water, is of small
area (8 sq. m.) and in depth nowhere exceeds 13 ft.; but the lower
lake (Ayak-kum-kol) (12,685 ft.), which is salt, is much bigger (283
sq. m.) and goes down to depths of 64 and 79 ft. Farther west, lying
between the Muzluk-tagh and the Arka-tagh, is the lake of Achik-kol
(13,940 ft.), 16(1/2) m. broad and 50 m. in circuit.
The next great parallel range is the lofty and imposing _Arka-tagh_,
the Przhevalsky Range of the Russian geographers, which has its
eastward continuations in the Marco Polo Range (general altitude
15,750-16,250 ft.) and Gurbu-naiji Mountains of Przhevalsky. The
Arka-tagh[7] is the true backbone of the Kuen-lun system, and in
Central Asia is exceeded in elevation only by the Tang-la, a long way
farther south, this last being probably an eastern wing of the
Karakorum Mountains of the Pamirs region. At the same time the
Arka-tagh is the actual border-range of the Tibetan plateau properly
so-called; to the south of it none of the long succession of lofty
parallel ranges which ridge the Tibetan highlands seems to have any
connexion with the Kuen-lun system. Of great length, the Arka-tagh,
which is a mountain-system rather than a range, varies greatly in
configuration in different parts, sometimes exhibiting a sharply
defined main crest, with several lower flanking ranges, and sometimes
consisting of numerous parallel crests of nearly uniform altitude.
Amongst these it is possible to distinguish in the middle of the
system four predominant ranges, of which the second from the north is
probably the principal range, though the fourth is the highest. The
passes across the first range (north) lie at altitudes of 15,675,
16,420, 17,320 and 18,300 ft.; across the second at 16,830, 17,020,
17,070 and 17,220 ft.; across the third at 16,800, 16,660, 17,065,
17,830 and 17,880 ft.; and across the fourth at 16,540, 16,765,
16,780, 18,100 and 18,110 ft. The crests of the ranges lie
comparatively little higher than the valleys which separate them, the
altitudes in the latter running at 14,940 to 16,700 ft., if not
higher, and being only 500 to 1000 ft. lower than the crests of the
accompanying ranges. The Arka-tagh ranges do not culminate in lofty
jagged, pinnacled peaks, but in broad rounded, flattened domes, a
characteristic feature of the system throughout. These Arka-tagh
mountains are built up, at all events superficially, of sand and
powdery, finely sifted disintegrated material. Where the hard rock
does crop out on the surface, it is so excessively weathered as to be
with difficulty recognized as rock at all. The culminating summits of
the ranges generally present the appearance of a flat, rounded
swelling, and when they are crowned with glaciers, as many of them
are, these shape themselves into what may be described as a mantle, a
breast-plate, or a flat cap, from which lappets and fringes project at
intervals; nowhere do there exist any of the long, narrow, winding
glacier tongues which are so characteristic of the Alps of Europe. But
not the slightest indication has been discovered that these mountains
were ever panoplied with ice. The process of disintegration and
levelling down has reached such an advanced stage that, if ever there
did exist evidences of former glaciation, they have now become
entirely obliterated, even to the complete pulverization of the
erratic blocks, supposing there were any. The view that meets the eye
southwards from the heights of the Kalta-alaghan is the picture of a
chaos of mountain chains, ridges, crests, peaks, spurs, detached
masses, in fact, montane conformations of every possible description
and in every possible arrangement. Immediately north of the Arka-tagh
the country is studded with three or four exceptionally conspicuous
and imposing detached mountain masses, all capped with snow and some
of them carrying small glaciers. Amongst them are Shapka Monomakha or
the Monk's Cap; the Chulak-akkan, which may however be only Shapka
Monomakha seen from a different point of view; Tomurlik-tagh[8] (i.e.
the Iron Mountain); and farther west, Ullugh-muz-tagh, which,
according to Grenard, reaches an altitude of 24,140 ft. But the
relations in which these detached mountain-masses stand to one another
and to the Arka-tagh behind them have not yet been elucidated. In the
vicinity of the Ullugh-muz-tagh there exist numerous indications of
former volcanic activity, the eminences and summits frequently being
capped with tuff, and smaller fragments of tuff are scattered over
other parts of the Arka-tagh ranges.
The next succeeding parallel range, the _Koko-shili_, which is
continued eastwards by the Bayan-khara-ula, between the upper
headstreams of the Hwang-ho or Yellow River and the Yangtsze-kiang,
belongs orographically to the plateau of Tibet.
The succession of ranges which follow one another from the deserts of
Takla-makan and Gobi up to the plateau proper of Tibet rise in steps
or terraces, each range being higher than the range to the north of it
and lower than the range to the south of it. The difference in
altitude between the lowest, most northerly range, the Lower
Astin-tagh, and the most southerly of the Arka-tagh ranges amounts to
nearly 7500 ft. With one exception, namely the climb out of the
Kum-kol valley to the Arka-tagh, the first three steps are
individually the biggest; whereas the Upper Astin-tagh exceeds the
Lower Astin-tagh by an altitude of some 1350 ft., it is itself
exceeded by the Akato-tagh to the extent of 1760 ft. There is also a
considerable rise of 880 ft. from the Akato-tagh to the Chimen-tagh.
But between the Chimen-tagh, the Ara-tagh and the Kalta-alaghan there
is comparatively little difference in point of elevation, namely, 730
ft. in all. The biggest ascent is that from the Kalta-alaghan to the
Arka-tagh, namely, nearly 1850 ft. The ranges of the Arka-tagh, again,
run at pretty nearly the same absolute general altitudes, namely,
16,470 to 17,260 ft. When the altitudes of the intermont latitudinal
valleys are compared, the significance orographically of the Chimen
valley and of the Kum-kol valley is strikingly emphasized. Both are
much more deeply excavated than all the other latitudinal valleys that
run parallel to them, the Chimen valley being 875 ft. above the valley
to the north of it, but no less than 2235 ft. below the valley to the
south of it. The case of the Kum-kol valley is altogether exceptional,
for it lies not higher, but 680 ft. lower, than the valley to the
north of it, and consequently the climb up out of it to the first (on
north) of the Arka-tagh valleys amounts to no less than 2900 ft. Hence
these ten parallel ranges of the middle Kuen-lun system may be grouped
in three divisions--(1) the more strictly border ranges of the Upper
and Lower Astin-tagh and the Akato-tagh; (2) the three ranges of
Chimen-tagh, Ara-tagh and Kalta-alaghan, which may be considered as
forming a transitional system between the foregoing and the third
division; (3) the Arka-tagh, which constitute the elevated rampart of
the Tibetan plateau proper. (J. T. Be.)
The _Nan-shan Highlands_ overlook Tsaidam on the N.E. They embrace a
region 380 m. long and 260 m. wide, entirely occupied with parallel
mountain ranges all running from the N.W. to the S.E. Broad, flat,
longitudinal valleys, at altitudes of 12,000 to 14,000 ft. (9000 to
10,000 at the south-western border) and dotted with lakes (Koko-nor,
9970 ft.; Khara-nor, 13,285 ft.), fill up the space between these
mountain ranges. In the S.E. the Nan-shan highlands abut upon the
highlands of the Chinese province of Kan-suh, and near the great
northward bend of the Hwang-ho they meet the escarpments by which the
Great Khingan and the In-shan ranges are continued, and by which the
Mongolian plateau steps down to the lowlands of China. On the N.E. the
Nan-shan highlands have their foot on the Mongolian plateau (average
altitude, 4000 ft.), i.e. in the Ala-shan. On the N.W. they are
fringed by a border range, the Da-sue-shan, a continuation of the
Astin-tagh, which rises to 12,200-13,000 ft. in its passes, and is
pierced by several rivers flowing west to Lake Khala-chi or Khara-nor.
This border-range, which continues on to the 97th meridian, separates
the Nan-shan range from the Pe-shan range.
On the S.W. the Nan-shan mountains consist of short irregular chains,
separated by broad plains, dotted with lakes, which differ but
slightly in altitude from Tsaidam (8800-9000 ft.). Next a succession
of narrow ranges intervene between this lower border terrace and the
higher terrace (12,000-13,500 ft.). The first mountain range on this
higher terrace is Ritter's range, covered in part with extensive
snow-fields. The passes at both ends of this snow-clad _massif_ lie at
altitudes of 15,990 ft. and 14,680 ft. The next range is Humboldt or
Ama-surgu range, which runs N.W. to S.E. from the Astin-tagh to about
38 deg. N., and is perhaps continued by the southern Kuku (Koko)-nor
range, which strikes the Hwang-ho with an elevation of 7440 ft. It
includes, in fact, several other parallel ranges--e.g. the Mushketov,
Semenov, Suess, Alexander III., Bain-sarlyk--the mutual relations of
which are, however, not yet definitely settled.
Small lateral chains of mountains, rising some 2000 ft. above the
general level of that plateau, connect the central Nan-shan with the
next parallel ranges, namely, those of the eastern Nan-shan. The
mutual relations of the latter, as well as the names of the several
constituent chains, are equally unsettled. Thus, one of them is named
indiscriminately Nan-shan, Richthofen Range and Momo-shan. In fact,
the region is dominated by three ranges of nearly equal altitude, all
lifting many of their peaks above the snow-line. Finally, there is a
range of mountains, about 10,000 ft. high, named Lung-shan by
Obruchev, which borders the Kan-chow and Lian-chow valley on the N.E.,
and belongs to the Nan-shan system. But the string of oases in Kan-suh
province, which stretches between the towns named, lies on the lower
level of the Mongolian plateau (4000 to 5000 ft.), so that the
Lung-shan ought possibly to be regarded as a continuation of the
Pe-shan mountains of the Gobi.
Generally speaking, the Nan-shan highlands are a region raised 12,000
to 14,000 ft. above the sea, and intersected by wild, stony and partly
snow-clad mountains, towering another 4000 to 7000 ft. above its
surface, and arranged in narrow parallel chains all running N.W. to
S.E. The chains of mountains are severally from 8 to 17 m. wide,
seldom as much as 35, while the broad, flat valleys between them
attain widths of 20 to 27 m. As a rule the passes are at an altitude
of 12,000 to 14,000 ft., and the peaks reach 18,000 to 20,000 ft. in
the western portion of the highlands, while in the eastern portion
they may be about 2000 ft. lower. The glaciers also attain a greater
development in the western portion of the Nan-shan, but the valleys
are dry, and the slopes of both the mountains and the valleys,
furrowed by deep ravines, are devoid of vegetation. Good pasture
grounds are only found near the streams. The soil is dry gravel and
clay, upon which bushes of _Ephedra_, _Nitraria_ and _Salsolaceae_
grow sparsely. In the north-eastern Nan-shan, on the contrary, a
stream runs through each gorge, and both the mountain slopes and the
bottoms of the valleys are covered with vegetation. Forests of
conifers (_Picea obovata_) and deciduous trees--Przhevalsky's poplar,
birch, mountain ash, &c., and a variety of bushes--are common
everywhere. Higher up, in the picturesque gorges, grow rhododendrons,
willows, _Potentilla fruticosa_, _Spriaeae_, _Lonicereae_, &c., and
the rains must evidently be more copious and better distributed. In
the central Nan-shan it is only the north-eastern slopes that bear
forests. In the south, where the Nan-shan enters Kan-suh province,
extensive accumulations of loess make their appearance, and it is only
the northern slopes of the hills that are clothed with trees.
(P. A. K.)
AUTHORITIES.--An enumeration of the works published before 1890, and a
map of itineraries, will be found in Wegener's _Versuch einer
Orographie des Kuen-lun_ (Marburg, 1891), but his map is only
approximately correct. Of the books published since 1890 the most
important are Sven Hedin's _Scientific Results of a Journey in Central
Asia_, 1899-1902 (Stockholm, 1905-1907, 6 vols.), with an elaborate
atlas and a general map of Tibet on the scale of 1 : 1,000,000; H. H.
P. Deasy's _In Tibet and Chinese Turkestan_ (London, 1901), with a
good map; F. Grenard's vol. (iii.) of J. L. Dutreuil de Rhins's
_Mission scientifique dans la haute Asie, 1890-1895_ (n.p., 1897),
also with a very useful map; W. W. Rockhill's _Diary of a Journey
through Mongolia and Tibet in 1891 and 1892_ (Washington, 1894); M. S.
Wellby's _Through Unknown Tibet_ (London, 1898); P. G. Bonvalot's _De
Paris au Tonkin a travers le Tibet inconnu_ (Paris, 1892); St G. R.
Littledale's "A Journey across Tibet," in _Geog. Journal_ (May 1896);
H. Bower's _Diary of a Journey across Tibet_ (London, 1894); the
_Izvestia_ of the Russian Geog. Soc. and _Geog. Journal_, both
_passim_.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] In "Orographie des Kwen-lun," in _Zeitschrift der Gesellschaft
fur Erdkunde zu Berlin_ (1891).
[2] It is used, for instance, on the map of "Inner-Asien" (No. 62) of
_Stieler's Hand-atlas_ (ed. 1905) and in the _Atlas_ of the Russian
General Staff. Etymologically the correct form is Astin-tagh or
Astun-tagh, meaning the Lower or Nearer Mountains. Ustun-tagh, which
appears on Stieler's map as an _alternative_ name for Altyn-tagh,
means Higher or Farther Mountains, and though not used locally of any
specific range, would be appropriately employed to designate the
higher and more southerly of the twin border-ranges of the Tibetan
plateau.
[3] The Northern Mountains are the Pe-shan in the desert of Gobi (see
GOBI).
[4] On the opposite or north side of the desert of Lop (desert of
Gobi).
[5] Sven Hedin, _Scientific Results_, iii. 308.
[6] _Ibid._ 310-311.
[7] This is the correct form, Arka-tagh meaning the Farther or
Remoter Mountains. The form Akka-tagh is incorrect.
[8] The form Tumenlik-tagh is erroneous.
KUFA, a Moslem city, situated on the shore of the Hindieh canal, about 4
m. E. by N. of Nejef (32 deg. 4' N., 44 deg. 20' E.), was founded by the
Arabs after the battle of Kadesiya in A.D. 638 as one of the two
capitals of the new territory of Irak, the whole country being divided
into the _sawads_, or districts, of Basra and Kufa. The caliph 'Ali made
it his residence and the capital of his caliphate. After the removal of
the capital to Bagdad, in the middle of the following century, Kufa lost
its importance and began to fall into decay. At the beginning of the
19th century, travellers reported extensive and important ruins as
marking the ancient site. Since that time the ruins have served as
quarries for bricks for the building of Nejef, and at the present time
little remains but holes in the ground, representing excavations for
bricks, with broken fragments of brick and glass strewn over a
considerable area. A mosque still stands on the spot where 'Ali is
reputed to have worshipped. (For history see CALIPHATE.)
KUHN, FRANZ FELIX ADALBERT (1812-1881), German philologist and
folklorist, was born at Konigsberg in Neumark on the 19th of November
1812. From 1841 he was connected with the Kollnisches Gymnasium at
Berlin, of which he was appointed director in 1870. He died at Berlin on
the 5th of May 1881. Kuhn was the founder of a new school of comparative
mythology, based upon comparative philology. Inspired by Grimm's
_Deutsche Mythologie_, he first devoted himself to German stories and
legends, and published _Markische Sagen und Marchen_ (1842),
_Norddeutsche Sagen, Marchen und Gebrauche_ (1848), and _Sagen,
Gebrauche und Marchen aus Westfalen_ (1859). But it is on his researches
into the language and history of the Indo-Germanic peoples as a whole
that his reputation is founded. His chief works in this connexion are:
_Zur altesten Geschichte der Indogermanischen Volker_ (1845), in which
he endeavoured to give an account of the earliest civilization of the
Indo-Germanic peoples before their separation into different families,
by comparing and analysing the original meaning of the words and stems
common to the different languages; _Die Herabkunft des Feuers und des
Gottertranks_ (1859; new ed. by E. Kuhn, under title of _Mythologische
Studien_, 1886); and _Uber Entwicklungsstufen der Mythenbildung_ (1873),
in which he maintained that the origin of myths was to be looked for in
the domain of language, and that their most essential factors were
polyonymy and homonymy. The _Zeitschrift fur vergleichende
Sprachforschung auf dem Gebiete der Indogermanischen Sprachen_, with
which he was intimately connected, is the standard periodical on the
subject.
See obituary notice by C. Bruchmann in Bursian's _Biographisches
Jahrbuch_ (1881) and J. Schmidt in the above _Zeitschrift_, xxvi. n.s.
6.
KUHNE, WILLY (1837-1900), German physiologist, was born at Hamburg on
the 28th of March 1837. After attending the gymnasium at Luneburg, he
went to Gottingen, where his master in chemistry was F. Wohler and in
physiology R. Wagner. Having graduated in 1856, he studied under various
famous physiologists, including E. Du Bois-Reymond at Berlin, Claude
Bernard in Paris, and K. F. W. Ludwig and E. W. Brucke in Vienna. At the
end of 1863 he was put in charge of the chemical department of the
pathological laboratory at Berlin, under R. von Virchow; in 1868 he was
appointed professor of physiology at Amsterdam; and in 1871 he was
chosen to succeed H. von Helmholtz in the same capacity at Heidelberg,
where he died on the 10th of June 1900. His original work falls into two
main groups--the physiology of muscle and nerve, which occupied the
earlier years of his life, and the chemistry of digestion, which he
began to investigate while at Berlin with Virchow. He was also known for
his researches on vision and the chemical changes occurring in the
retina under the influence of light. The visual purple, described by
Franz Boll in 1876, he attempted to make the basis of a photochemical
theory of vision, but though he was able to establish its importance in
connexion with vision in light of low intensity, its absence from the
retinal area of most distinct vision detracted from the completeness of
the theory and precluded its general acceptance.
KUKA, or KUKAWA, a town of Bornu, a Mahommedan state of the central
Sudan, incorporated in the British protectorate of Nigeria (see Bornu).
Kuka is situated in 12 deg. 55' N. and 13 deg. 34' E., 4(1/2) m. from
the western shores of Lake Chad, in the midst of an extensive plain. It
is the headquarters of the British administration in Bornu, and was
formerly the residence of the native sovereign, who in Bornu bears the
title of shehu.
The modern town of Kuka was founded c. 1810 by Sheikh Mahommed al Amin
al Kanemi, the deliverer of Bornu from the Fula invaders. It is supposed
to have received its name from the _kuka_ or monkey bread tree
(_Adansonia digitata_), of which there are extensive plantations in the
neighbourhood. Kuka or Kaoukaou was a common name in the Sudan in the
middle ages. The number of towns of this name gave occasion for much
geographical confusion, but Idrisi writing in the 12th century, and Ibn
Khaldun in the 14th century, both mention two important towns called
Kaou Kaou, of which one would seem to have occupied a position very near
to that of the modern Kuka. Ibn Khaldun speaks of it as the capital of
Bornu and as situated on the meridian of Tripoli. In 1840 the present
town was laid waste by Mahommed Sherif, the sultan of Wadai; and when it
was restored by Sheikh Omar he built two towns separated by more than
half a mile of open country, each town being surrounded by walls of
white clay. It was probably owing to there being two towns that the
plural _Kukawa_ became the ordinary designation of the town in Kano and
throughout the Sudan, though the inhabitants used the singular _Kuka_.
The town became wealthy and populous (containing some 60,000
inhabitants), being a centre for caravans to Tripoli and a
stopping-place of pilgrims from the Hausa countries going across Africa
to Mecca. The chief building was the great palace of the sheikh. Between
1823 and 1872 Kuka was visited by several English and German travellers.
In 1893 Bornu was seized by the ex-slave Rabah (q.v.), an adventurer
from the Bahr-el-Ghazal, who chose a new capital, Dikwa, Kuka falling
into complete decay. The town was found in ruins in 1902 by the British
expedition which replaced on the throne of Bornu a descendant of the
ancient rulers. In the same year the rebuilding of Kuka was begun and
the town speedily regained part of its former importance. It is now one
of the principal British stations of eastern Bornu. Owing, however, to
the increasing importance of Maidugari, a town 80 m. S.S.W. of Kuka, the
court of the shehu was removed thither in 1908.
For an account of Kuka before its destruction by Rabah, see the
_Travels_ of Heinrich Barth (new ed., London, 1890); and _Sahara und
Sudan_, by Gustav Nachtigal (Berlin, 1879), i. 581-748.
KU KLUX KLAN, the name of an American secret association of Southern
whites united for self-protection and to oppose the Reconstruction
measures of the United States Congress, 1865-1876. The name is generally
applied not only to the order of Ku Klux Klan, but to other similar
societies that existed at the same time, such as the Knights of the
White Camelia, a larger order than the Klan; the White Brotherhood; the
White League; Pale Faces; Constitutional Union Guards; Black Cavalry;
White Rose; The '76 Association; and hundreds of smaller societies that
sprang up in the South after the Civil War. The object was to protect
the whites during the disorders that followed the Civil War, and to
oppose the policy of the North towards the South, and the result of the
whole movement was a more or less successful revolution against the
Reconstruction and an overthrow of the governments based on negro
suffrage. It may be compared in some degree to such European societies
as the Carbonara, Young Italy, the Tugendbund, the Confreries of France,
the Freemasons in Catholic countries, and the Vehmgericht.
The most important orders were the Ku Klux Klan and the Knights of the
White Camelia. The former began in 1865 in Pulaski, Tennessee, as a
social club of young men. It had an absurd ritual and a strange uniform.
The members accidentally discovered that the fear of it had a great
influence over the lawless but superstitious blacks, and soon the club
expanded into a great federation of regulators, absorbing numerous local
bodies that had been formed in the absence of civil law and partaking of
the nature of the old English neighbourhood police and the ante-bellum
slave patrol. The White Camelia was formed in 1867 in Louisiana and
rapidly spread over the states of the late Confederacy. The period of
organization and development of the Ku Klux movement was from 1865 to
1868; the period of greatest activity was from 1868 to 1870, after which
came the decline.
The various causes assigned for the origin and development of this
movement were: the absence of stable government in the South for several
years after the Civil War; the corrupt and tyrannical rule of the alien,
renegade and negro, and the belief that it was supported by the Federal
troops which controlled elections and legislative bodies; the
disfranchisement of whites; the spread of ideas of social and political
equality among the negroes; fear of negro insurrections; the arming of
negro militia and the disarming of the whites; outrages upon white women
by black men; the influence of Northern adventurers in the Freedmen's
Bureau (q.v.) and the Union League (q.v.) in alienating the races; the
humiliation of Confederate soldiers after they had been paroled--in
general, the insecurity felt by Southern whites during the decade after
the collapse of the Confederacy.
In organization the Klan was modelled after the Federal Union. Its
Prescript or constitution, adopted in 1867, and revised in 1868,
provided for the following organization: The entire South was the
Invisible Empire under a Grand Wizard, General N. B. Forrest; each state
was a Realm under a Grand Dragon; several counties formed a Dominion
under a Grand Titan; each county was a Province under a Grand Giant; the
smallest division being a Den under a Grand Cyclops. The staff officers
bore similar titles, relics of the time when the order existed only for
amusement: Genii, Hydras, Furies, Goblins, Night Hawks, Magi, Monks and
Turks. The private members were called Ghouls. The Klan was twice
reorganized, in 1867 and in 1868, each time being more centralized; in
1869 the central organization was disbanded and the order then gradually
declined. The White Camelia with a similar history had a similar
organization, without the queer titles. Its members were called Brothers
and Knights, and its officials Commanders.
The constitutions and rituals of these secret orders have declarations
of principles, of which the following are characteristic: to protect and
succour the weak and unfortunate, especially the widows and orphans of
Confederate soldiers; to protect members of the white race in life,
honour and property from the encroachments of the blacks; to oppose the
Radical Republican party and the Union League; to defend constitutional
liberty, to prevent usurpation, emancipate the whites, maintain peace
and order, the laws of God, the principles of 1776, and the political
and social supremacy of the white race--in short, to oppose African
influence in government and society, and to prevent any intermingling of
the races.
During the Reconstruction the people of the South were divided thus:
nearly all native whites (the most prominent of whom were disfranchised)
on one side irrespective of former political faith, and on the other
side the ex-slaves organized and led by a few native and Northern whites
called respectively scalawags and carpet-baggers, who were supported by
the United States government and who controlled the Southern state
governments. The Ku Klux movement in its wider aspects was the effort of
the first class to destroy the control of the second class. To control
the negro the Klan played upon his superstitious fears by having night
patrols, parades and drills of silent horsemen covered with white
sheets, carrying skulls with coals of fire for eyes, sacks of bones to
rattle, and wearing hideous masks. In calling upon dangerous blacks at
night they pretended to be the spirits of dead Confederates, "just from
Hell," and to quench their thirst would pretend to drink gallons of
water which was poured into rubber sacks concealed under their robes.
Mysterious signs and warnings were sent to disorderly negro politicians.
The whites who were responsible for the conduct of the blacks were
warned or driven away by social and business ostracism or by violence.
Nearly all southern whites (except "scalawags"), whether members of the
secret societies or not, in some way took part in the Ku Klux movement.
As the work of the societies succeeded, they gradually passed out of
existence. In some communities they fell into the control of violent men
and became simply bands of outlaws, dangerous even to the former
members; and the anarchical aspects of the movement excited the North to
vigorous condemnation.[1] The United States Congress in 1871-1872
enacted a series of "Force Laws" intended to break up the secret
societies and to control the Southern elections. Several hundred arrests
were made, and a few convictions were secured. The elections were
controlled for a few years, and violence was checked, but the Ku Klux
movement went on until it accomplished its object by giving protection
to the whites, reducing the blacks to order, replacing the whites in
control of society and state, expelling the worst of the carpet-baggers
and scalawags, and nullifying those laws of Congress which had resulted
in placing the Southern whites under the control of a party composed
principally of ex-slaves.
AUTHORITIES.--J. C. Lester and D. L. Wilson, _Ku Klux Klan_ (New York,
1905); W. L. Fleming, _Civil War and Reconstruction in Alabama_ (New
York, 1905), and _Documentary History of Reconstruction_ (Cleveland,
1906); J. W. Garner, _Reconstruction in Mississippi_ (New York, 1901);
W. G. Brown, _Lower South in American History_ (New York, 1901); J. M.
Beard, _Ku Klux Sketches_ (Philadelphia, 1876); J. W. Burgess,
_Reconstruction and the Constitution_ (New York, 1901). (W. L. F.)
FOOTNOTE:
[1] The judgment of the historian William Garrott Brown, himself a
Southerner, is worth quoting: "That violence was often used cannot be
denied. Negroes were often whipped, and so were carpet-baggers. The
incidents related in such stories as Tourgee's _A Fool's Errand_ all
have their counterparts in the testimony before congressional
committees and courts of law. In some cases, after repeated warnings,
men were dragged from their beds and slain by persons in disguise,
and the courts were unable to find or to convict the murderers.
Survivors of the orders affirm that such work was done in most cases
by persons not connected with them or acting under their authority.
It is impossible to prove or disprove their statements. When such
outrages were committed, not on worthless adventurers, who had no
station in the Northern communities from which they came, but on
cultivated persons who had gone South from genuinely philanthropic
motives--no matter how unwisely or tactlessly they went about their
work--the natural effect was to horrify and enrage the North."
KUKU KHOTO (Chinese _Kwei-hwa_), a city of the Chinese province of
Shan-si, situated to the north of the Great Wall, in 40 deg. 50' N. and
111 deg. 45' E., about 160 m. W. of Kalgan. It lies in the valley of a
small river which joins the Hwang-ho 50 m. to the south. There are two
distinct walled towns in Kuku Khoto, at an interval of a mile and a
half; the one is the seat of the civil governor and is surrounded by the
trading town, and the other is the seat of the military governor, and
stands in the open country. In the first or old town more especially
there are strong traces of western Asiatic influence; the houses are not
in the Chinese style, being built all round with brick or stone and
having flat roofs, while a large number of the people are still
Mahommedans and, there is little doubt, descended from western settlers.
The town at the same time is a great seat of Buddhism--the lamaseries
containing, it is said, no less than 20,000 persons devoted to a
religious life. As the southern terminus of the routes across the desert
of Gobi from Ulyasutai and the Tian Shan, Kuku Khoto is a great mart for
the exchange of flour, millet and manufactured goods for the raw
products of Mongolia. A Catholic and a Protestant mission are maintained
in the town. Lieut. Watts-Jones, R.E., was murdered at Kwei-hwa during
the Boxer outbreak in 1900.
Early notices of Kuku Khoto will be found in Gerbillon (1688-1698, in
Du Halde (vol. ii., Eng. ed.), and in Astley's _Collection_ (vol. iv.)
KULJA (Chinese, _Ili-ho_), a territory in north-west China; bounded,
according to the treaty of St Petersburg of 1881, on the W. by the
Semiryechensk province of Russian Turkestan, on the N. by the Boro-khoro
Mountains, and on the S. by the mountains Khan-tengri, Muz-art, Terskei,
Eshik-bashi and Narat. It comprises the valleys of the Tekez (middle and
lower portion), Kunghez, the Ili as far as the Russian frontier and its
tributary, the Kash, with the slopes of the mountains turned towards
these rivers. Its area occupies about 19,000 sq. m. (Grum-Grzimailo).
The valley of the Kash is about 160 m. long, and is cultivated in its
lower parts, while the Boro-khoro Mountains are snow-clad in their
eastern portion, and fall with very steep slopes to the valley. The
Avral Mountains, which separate the Kash from the Kunghez, are lower,
but rocky, naked and difficult of access. The valley of the Kunghez is
about 120 m. long; the river flows first in a gorge, then amidst
thickets of rushes, and very small portions of its valley are fit for
cultivation. The Narat Mountains in the south are also very wild, but
are covered with forests of deciduous trees (apple tree, apricot tree,
birch, poplar, &c.) and pine trees. The Tekez flows in the mountains,
and pierces narrow gorges. The mountains which separate it from the
Kunghez are also snow-clad, while those to the south of it reach 24,000
ft. of altitude in Khan-tengri, and are covered with snow and
glaciers--the only pass through them being the Muzart. Forests and
alpine meadows cover their northern slopes. Agriculture was formerly
developed on the Tekez, as is testified by old irrigation canals. The
Ili is formed by the junction of the Kunghez with the Tekez, and for 120
m. it flows through Kulja, its valley reaching a width of 50 m. at
Horgos-koljat. This valley is famed for its fertility, and is admirably
irrigated by canals, part of which, however, fell into decay after
55,000 of the inhabitants migrated to Russian territory in 1881. The
climate of this part of the valley is, of course, continental--frosts of
-22 deg. F. and heats of 170 deg. F. being experienced--but snow lasts
only for one and a half months, and the summer heat is tempered by the
proximity of the high mountains. Apricots, peaches, pears and some vines
are grown, as also some cotton-trees near the town of Kulja, where the
average yearly temperature is 48 deg. 5 F. (January 15 deg., July 77
deg.). Barley is grown up to an altitude of 6500 ft.
The population may number about 125,000, of whom 75,000 are settled and
about 50,000 nomads (Grum-Grzimailo). The Taranchis from East Turkestan
represent about 40% of the population; about 40,000 of them left Kulja
when the Russian troops evacuated the territory, and the Chinese
government sent some 8000 families from different towns of Kashgaria to
take their place. There are, besides, about 20,000 Sibos and Solons,
3500 Kara-kidans, a few Dungans, and more than 10,000 Chinese. The
nomads are represented by about 18,000 Kalmucks, and the remainder by
Kirghiz. Agriculture is insufficient to satisfy the needs of the
population, and food is imported from Semiryechensk. Excellent beds of
coal are found in different places, especially about Kulja, but the
fairly rich copper ores and silver ores have ceased to be worked.
The chief towns are Suidun, capital of the province, and Kulja. The
latter (Old Kulja) is on the Ili river. It is one of the chief cities of
the region, owing to the importance of its bazaars, and is the seat of
the Russian consul and a telegraph station. The walled town is nearly
square, each side being about a mile in length; and the walls are not
only 30 ft. high but broad enough on the top to serve as a carriage
drive. Two broad streets cut the enclosed area into four nearly equal
sections. Since 1870 a Russian suburb has been laid out on a wide scale.
The houses of Kulja are almost all clay-built and flat-roofed, and
except in the special Chinese quarter in the eastern end of the town
only a few public buildings show the influence of Chinese architecture.
Of these the most noteworthy are the Taranchi and Dungan mosques, both
with turned-up roofs, and the latter with a pagoda-looking minaret. The
population is mainly Mahommedan, and there are only two Buddhist
pagodas. A small Chinese Roman Catholic church has maintained its
existence through all the vicissitudes of modern times. Paper and
vermicelli are manufactured with rude appliances in the town. The
outskirts are richly cultivated with wheat, barley, lucerne and poppies.
Schuyler estimated the population, which includes Taranchis, Dungans,
Sarts, Chinese, Kalmucks and Russians, at 10,000 in 1873; it has since
increased.
New Kulja, Manchu Kulja, or Ili, which lies lower down the valley on the
same side of the stream, has been a pile of ruins since the terrible
massacre of all its inhabitants by the insurgent Dungans in 1868. It was
previously the seat of the Chinese government for the province, with a
large penal establishment and strong garrison; its population was about
70,000.
_History._--Two centuries B.C. the region was occupied by the fair and
blue-eyed Ussuns, who were driven away in the 6th century of our era by
the northern Huns. Later the Kulja territory became a dependency of
Dzungaria. The Uighurs, and in the 12th century the Kara-Khitai, took
possession of it in turn. Jenghiz Khan conquered Kulja in the 13th
century, and the Mongol Khans resided in the valley of the Ili. It is
supposed (Grum-Grzimailo) that the Oirads conquered it at the end of the
16th or the beginning of the 17th century; they kept it till 1755, when
the Chinese annexed it. During the insurrection of 1864 the Dungans and
the Taranchis formed here the Taranchi sultanate, and this led to the
occupation of Kulja by the Russians in 1871. Ten years later the
territory was restored to China.
KULM (CULM). (1) A town of Germany, in the province of West Prussia, 33
m. by rail N.W. of Thorn, on an elevation above the plain, and 1 m. E.
of the Vistula. Pop. (1905), 11,665. It is surrounded by old walls,
dating from the 13th century, and contains some interesting buildings,
notably its churches, of which two are Roman Catholic and two
Protestant, and its medieval town-hall. The cadet school, founded here
in 1776 by Frederick the Great, was removed to Koslin in 1890. There are
large oil mills, also iron foundries and machine shops, as well as an
important trade in agricultural produce, including fruit and vegetables.
Kulm gives name to the oldest bishopric in Prussia, although the bishop
resides at Pelplin. It was presented about 1220 by Duke Conrad of
Masovia to the bishop of Prussia. Frederick II. pledged it in 1226 to
the Teutonic order, to whom it owes its early development. By the second
peace of Thorn in 1466 it passed to Poland, and it was annexed to
Prussia in 1772. It joined the Hanseatic League, and used to carry on
very extensive manufactures of cloth.
(2) A village of Bohemia about 3 m. N.E. of Teplitz, at the foot of the
Erzgebirge, celebrated as the scene of a battle in which the French were
defeated by the Austrians, Prussians and Russians on the 29th and 30th
of August 1813 (see NAPOLEONIC CAMPAIGNS).
KULMBACH, or CULMBACH, a town of Germany, in the Bavarian province of
Upper Franconia, picturesquely situated on the Weisser Main, and the
Munich-Bamberg-Hof railway, 11 m. N.W. from Bayreuth. Pop. (1900), 9428.
It contains a Roman Catholic and three Protestant churches, a museum and
several schools. The town has several linen manufactories and a large
cotton spinnery, but is chiefly famed for its many extensive breweries,
which mainly produce a black beer, not unlike English porter, which is
largely exported. Connected with these are malting and bottling works.
On a rocky eminence, 1300 ft. in height, to the south-east of the town
stands the former fortress of Plassenburg, during the 14th and 15th
centuries the residence of the margraves of Bayreuth, called also
margraves of Brandenburg-Kulmbach. It was dismantled in 1807, and is now
used as a prison. Kulmbach and Plassenburg belonged to the dukes of
Meran, and then to the counts of Orlamunde, from whom they passed in the
14th century to the Hohenzollerns, burgraves of Nuremberg, and thus to
the margraves of Bayreuth.
See F. Stein, _Kulmbach und die Plassenburg in alter und neuer Zeit_
(Kulmbach, 1903); Huther, _Kulmbach und Umgebung_ (Kulmbach, 1886);
and C. Meyer, _Quellen zur Geschichte der Stadt Kulmbach_ (Munich,
1895).
KULMSEE, a town of Germany, in the Prussian province of West Prussia, on
a lake, 14 m. by rail N. of Thorn and at the junction of railways to
Bromberg and Marienburg. Pop. (1900), 8987. It has a fine Roman Catholic
cathedral, which was built in the 13th, and restored in the 15th
century, and an Evangelical church. Until 1823 the town was the seat of
the bishops of Kulm.
KULP, a town of Russian Transcaucasia, in the government of Erivan, 60
m. W.S.W. from the town of Erivan and 2 m. S. of the Aras river. Pop.
(1897), 3074. Close by is the Kulp salt mountain, about 1000 ft. high,
consisting of beds of clay intermingled with thick deposits of rock
salt, which has been worked from time immemorial. Regular galleries are
cut in the transparent, horizontal salt layers, from which cubes of
about 70 lb. weight are extracted, to the amount of 27,500 tons every
year.
KULU, a subdivision of Kangra district, Punjab, British India, which
nominally includes the two Himalayan cantons or _waziris_ of Lahul and
Spiti. The _tahsil_ of Kulu has an area of 1054 sq. m., of which only 60
sq. m. are cultivated; pop. (1901), 68,954. The Sainj, which joins the
Beas at Largi, divides the tract into two portions, Kulu proper and
Soraj. Kulu proper, north of the Sainj, together with inner Soraj, forms
a great basin or depression in the midst of the Himalayan system, having
the narrow gorge of the Beas at Largi as the only outlet for its waters.
North and east the Bara Bangahal and mid-Himalayan ranges rise to a mean
elevation of 18,000 ft., while southward the Jalori and Dhaoladhar
ridges attain a height of 11,000 ft. The higher villages stand 9000 ft.
above the sea; and even the cultivated tracts have probably an average
elevation of 5000 ft. The houses consist of four-storeyed chalets in
little groups, huddled closely together on the ledges or slopes of the
valleys, picturesquely built with projecting eaves and carved wooden
verandas. The Beas, which, with its tributaries, drains the entire
basin, rises at the crest of the Rohtang pass, 13,326 ft. above the sea,
and has an average fall of 125 ft. per mile. Its course presents a
succession of magnificent scenery, including cataracts, gorges,
precipitous cliffs, and mountains clad with forests of deodar, towering
above the tiers of pine on the lower rocky ledges. It is crossed by
several suspension bridges. Great mineral wealth exists, but the
difficulty of transport and labour prevents its development. Hot springs
occur at three localities, much resorted to as places of pilgrimage. The
character of the hillmen resembles that of most other mountaineers in
its mixture of simplicity, independence and superstition. Tibetan
polyandry still prevails in Soraj, but has almost died out elsewhere.
The temples are dedicated rather to local deities than to the greater
gods of the Hindu pantheon. Kulu is an ancient Rajput principality,
which was conquered by Ranjit Singh about 1812. Its hereditary ruler,
with the title of rai, is now recognized by the British government as
_jagirdar_ of Rupi.
KUM, a small province in Persia, between Teheran on the N. and Kashan on
the S. It is divided into seven _buluk_ (districts): (1) Humeh, with
town; (2) Kumrud; (3) Vazkerud; (4) Kinar Rud Khaneh; (5) Kuhistan; (6)
Jasb; (7) Ardahal; has a population of 45,000 to 50,000, and pays a
yearly revenue of about L8000. The province produces much grain and a
fine quality of cotton with a very long staple.
KUM, the capital, in 34 deg. 39' N. and 50 deg. 55' E., on the Anarbar
river, which rises near Khunsar, has an elevation of 3100 ft. It owes
much of its importance to the fact that it contains the tomb of Imam
Reza's sister Fatmeh, who died there A.D. 816, and large numbers of
pilgrims visit the city during six or seven months of the year. The
fixed population is between 25,000 and 30,000. A carriage road 92 m. in
length, constructed in 1890-1893, connects the city with Teheran. It has
post and telegraph offices.
See _Eastern Persian Irak_, R. G. S. suppl. (London, 1896).
KUMAIT IBN ZAID (679-743), Arabian poet, was born in the reign of the
first Omayyad caliph and lived in the reigns of nine others. He was,
however, a strong supporter of the house of Hashim and an enemy of the
South Arabians. He was imprisoned by the caliph Hisham for his verse in
praise of the Hashimites, but escaped by the help of his wife and was
pardoned by the intercession of the caliph's son Maslama. Taking part in
a rebellion, he was killed by the troops of Khalid ul-Qasri.
His poems, the _Hashimiyyat_, have been edited by J. Horovitz (Leiden,
1904). An account of him is contained in the _Kitab ul-Aghani_, xv.
113-130. (G. W. T.)
KUMAON, or KUMAUN, an administrative division of British India, in the
United Provinces, with headquarters at Naini Tal. It consists of a large
Himalayan tract, together with two submontane strips called the Tarai
and the Bhabhar; area 13,725 sq. m.; pop. (1901), 1,207,030, showing an
increase of less than 2% in the decade. The submontane strips were up to
1850 an almost impenetrable forest, given up to wild animals; but since
then the numerous clearings have attracted a large population from the
hills, who cultivate the rich soil during the hot and cold seasons,
returning to the hills in the rains. The rest of Kumaon is a maze of
mountains, some of which are among the loftiest known. In a tract not
more than 140 m. in length and 40 m. in breadth there are over thirty
peaks rising to elevations exceeding 18,000 ft. (see HIMALAYA). The
rivers rise chiefly in the southern slope of the Tibetan watershed north
of the loftiest peaks, amongst which they make their way down valleys of
rapid declivity and extraordinary depth. The principal are the Sarda
(Kali), the Pindar and Kailganga, whose waters join the Alaknanda. The
valuable timber of the yet uncleared forest tracts is now under official
supervision. The chief trees are the chir, or three-leaved Himalayan
pine, the cypress, fir, alder, sal or iron-wood, and _saindan_.
Limestone, sandstone, slate, gneiss and granite constitute the principal
geological formations. Mines of iron, copper, gypsum, lead and asbestos
exist; but they are not thoroughly worked. Except in the submontane
strips and deep valleys the climate is mild. The rainfall of the outer
Himalayan range, which is first struck by the monsoon, is double that of
the central hills, in the average proportion of 80 in. to 40. No winter
passes without snow on the higher ridges, and in some years it is
universal throughout the mountain tract. Frosts, especially in the
valleys, are often severe. Kumaon is occasionally visited by epidemic
cholera. Leprosy is most prevalent in the east of the district. Goitre
and cretinism afflict a small proportion of the inhabitants. The hill
fevers at times exhibit the rapid and malignant features of plague.
In 1891 the division was composed of the three districts of Kumaon,
Garhwal and the Tarai; but the two districts of Kumaon and the Tarai
were subsequently redistributed and renamed after their headquarters,
Naini Tal and Almora. Kumaon proper constituted an old Rajput
principality, which became extinct at the beginning of the 19th century.
The country was annexed after the Gurkha war of 1815, and was governed
for seventy years on the non-regulation system by three most successful
administrators--Mr Traill, Mr J. H. Batten and Sir Henry Ramsay.
KUMASI, or COOMASSIE, the capital of Ashanti, British West Africa, in 6
deg. 34' 50" N., 2 deg. 12' W., 168 m. by rail N. of Sekondi and 120 m.
by road N.N.W. of Cape Coast. Pop. (1906), 6280; including suburbs, over
12,000. Kumasi is situated on a low rocky eminence, from which it
extends across a valley to the hill opposite. It lies in a clearing of
the dense forest which covers the greater part of Ashanti, and occupies
an area about 1(1/2) m. in length and over 3 m. in circumference. The
land immediately around the town, once marshy, has been drained. On the
north-west is the small river Dah, one of the headstreams of the Prah.
The name Kum-asi, more correctly Kum-ase (under the okum tree) was given
to the town because of the number of those trees in its streets. The
most imposing building in Kumasi is the fort, built in 1896. It is the
residence of the chief commissioner and is capable of holding a garrison
of several hundred men. There are also officers' quarters and
cantonments outside the fort, European and native hospitals, and
stations of the Basel and Wesleyan missions. The native houses are built
with red clay in the style universal throughout Ashanti. They are
somewhat richly ornamented, and those of the better class are enclosed
in compounds within which are several separate buildings. Near the
railway station are the leading mercantile houses. The principal Ashanti
chiefs own large houses, built in European style, and these are leased
to strangers.
Before its destruction by the British in 1874 the city presented a
handsome appearance and bore many marks of a comparatively high state of
culture. The king's palace, built of red sandstone, had been modelled,
it is believed, on Dutch buildings at Elmina. It was blown up by Sir
Garnet (subsequently Viscount) Wolseley's forces on the 6th of February
1874, and but scanty vestiges of it remain. The town was only partially
rebuilt on the withdrawal of the British troops, and it is difficult
from the meagre accounts of early travellers to obtain an adequate idea
of the capital of the Ashanti kingdom when at the height of its
prosperity (middle of the 18th to middle of the 19th century). The
streets were numerous, broad and regular; the main avenue was 70 yds.
wide. A large market-place existed on the south-east, and behind it in a
grove of trees was the Spirit House. This was the place of execution. Of
its population before the British occupation there is no trustworthy
information. It appears not to have exceeded 20,000 in the first quarter
of the 19th century. This is owing partly to the fact that the
commercial capital of Ashanti, and the meeting-place of several caravan
routes from the north and east, was Kintampo, a town farther north. The
decline of Kumasi after 1874 was marked. A new royal palace was built,
but it was of clay, not brick, and within the limits of the former town
were wide stretches of grass-grown country. In 1896 the town again
suffered at the hands of the British, when several of the largest and
most ancient houses in the royal and priestly suburb of Bantama were
destroyed by fire. In the revolt of 1900 Kumasi was once more injured.
The railway from the coast, which passes through the Tarkwa and Obuassi
gold-fields, reached Kumasi in September 1903. Many merchants at the
Gold Coast ports thereupon opened branches in Kumasi. A marked revival
in trade followed, leading to the rapid expansion of the town. By 1906
Kumasi had supplanted the coast towns and had become the distributing
centre for the whole of Ashanti.
KUMISHAH, a district and town in the province of Isfahan, Persia. The
district, which has a length of 50 and a breadth of 16 m., and contains
about 40 villages, produces much grain. The town is situated on the high
road from Isfahan to Shiraz, 52 m. S. of the former. It was a
flourishing city several miles in circuit when it was destroyed by the
Afghans in 1722, but is now a decayed place, with crumbled walls and
mouldering towers and a population of barely 15,000. It has post and
telegraph offices. South of the city and extending to the village
Maksudbeggi, 16 m. away, is a level plain, which in 1835 (February 28)
was the scene of a battle in which the army (2000 men, 16 guns) of
Mahommed Shah, commanded by Sir H. Lindsay-Bethune, routed the much
superior combined forces (6000 men) of the shah's two rebellious uncles,
Firman-Firma and Shuja es Saltana.
KUMQUAT (_Citrus japonica_), a much-branched shrub from 8 to 12 ft.
high, the branches sometimes bearing small thorns, with dark green
glossy leaves and pure white orange-like flowers standing singly or
clustered in the leaf-axils. The bright orange-yellow fruit is round or
ellipsoidal, about 1 in. in diameter, with a thick minutely tuberculate
rind, the inner lining of which is sweet, and a watery acidulous pulp.
It has long been cultivated in China and Japan, and was introduced to
Europe in 1846 by Mr Fortune, collector for the London Horticultural
Society, and shortly after into North America. It is much hardier than
most plants of the orange tribe, and succeeds well when grafted on the
wild species, _Citrus trifoliata_. It is largely used by the Chinese as
a sweetmeat preserved in sugar.
KUMTA, or COOMPTA, a sea-coast town of British India, in the North
Kanara district of Bombay, 40 m. S. of Karwar. Pop. (1901), 10,818. It
has an open roadstead, with a considerable trade. Carving in sandal-wood
is a speciality. The commercial importance of Kumta has declined since
the opening of the Southern Mahratta railway system.
KUMYKS, a people of Turkish stock in Caucasia, occupying the Kumyk
plateau in north Daghestan and south Terek, and the lands bordering the
Caspian. It is supposed that Ptolemy knew them under the name of Kami
and Kamaks. Various explorers see in them descendants of the Khazars. A.
Vambery supposes that they settled in their present quarters during the
flourishing period of the Khazar kingdom in the 8th century. It is
certain that some Kabardians also settled later. The Russians built
forts in their territory in 1559 and under Peter I. Having long been
more civilized than the surrounding Caucasian mountaineers, the Kumyks
have always enjoyed some respect among them. The upper terraces of the
Kumyk plateau, which the Kumyks occupy, leaving its lower parts to the
Nogai Tatars, are very fertile.
KUNAR, a river and valley of Afghanistan, on the north-west frontier of
British India. The Kunar valley (Khoaspes in the classics) is the
southern section of that great river system which reaches from the Hindu
Kush to the Kabul river near Jalalabad, and which, under the names of
Yarkhun, Chitral, Kashkar, &c., is more extensive than the Kabul basin
itself. The lower reaches of the Kunar are wide and comparatively
shallow, the river meandering in a multitude of channels through a broad
and fairly open valley, well cultivated and fertile, with large
flourishing villages and a mixed population of Mohmand and other tribes
of Afghan origin. Here the hills to the eastward are comparatively low,
though they shut in the valley closely. Beyond them are the Bajour
uplands. To the west are the great mountains of Kafiristan, called
Kashmund, snow-capped, and running to 14,000 ft. of altitude. Amongst
them are many wild but beautiful valleys occupied by Kafirs, who are
rapidly submitting to Afghan rule. From 20 to 30 miles up the river on
its left bank, under the Bajour hills, are thick clusters of villages,
amongst which are the ancient towns of Kunar and Pashat. The chief
tributary from the Kafiristan hills is the Pechdara, which joins the
river close to Chagan Sarai. It is a fine, broad, swift-flowing stream,
with an excellent bridge over it (part of Abdur Rahman's military road
developments), and has been largely utilized for irrigation. The
Pechdara finds its sources in the Kafir hills, amongst forests of pine
and deodar and thick tangles of wild vine and ivy, wild figs,
pomegranates, olives and oaks, and dense masses of sweet-scented shrubs.
Above Chagan Sarai, as far as Arnawai, where the Afghan boundary crosses
the river, and above which the valley belongs to Chitral, the river
narrows to a swift mountain stream obstructed by boulders and hedged in
with steep cliffs and difficult "parris" or slopes of rocky hill-side.
Wild almond here sheds its blossoms into the stream, and in the dawn of
summer much of the floral beauty of Kashmir is to be found. At Asmar
there is a slight widening of the valley, and the opportunity for a
large Afghan military encampment, spreading to both sides of the river
and connected by a very creditable bridge built on the cantilever
system. There are no apparent relics of Buddhism in the Kunar, such as
are common about Jalalabad or Chitral, or throughout Swat and Dir. This
is probably due to the late occupation of the valley by Kafirs, who
spread eastwards into Bajour within comparatively recent historical
times, and who still adhere to their fastnesses in the Kashmund hills.
The Kunar valley route to Chitral and to Kafiristan is being developed
by Afghan engineering. It may possibly extend ultimately unto Badakshan,
in which case it will form the most direct connexion between the Oxus
and India, and become an important feature in the strategical geography
of Asia. (T. H. H.*)
KUNBIS, the great agricultural caste of Western India, corresponding to
the Kurmis in the north and the Kapus in the Telugu country. Ethnically
they cannot be distinguished from the Mahrattas, though the latter name
is sometimes confined to the class who claim higher rank as representing
the descendants of Sivaji's soldiers. In some districts of the Deccan
they form an actual majority of the population, which is not the case
with any other Indian caste. In 1901 the total number of both Kunbis and
Mahrattas in all India was returned at nearly 8(3/4) millions.
KUNDT, AUGUST ADOLPH EDUARD EBERHARD (1839-1894), German physicist, was
born at Schwerin in Mecklenburg on the 18th of November 1839. He began
his scientific studies at Leipzig, but afterwards went to Berlin. At
first he devoted himself to astronomy, but coming under the influence of
H. G. Magnus, he turned his attention to physics, and graduated in 1864
with a thesis on the depolarization of light. In 1867 he became
_privatdozent_ in Berlin University, and in the following year was
chosen professor of physics at the Zurich Polytechnic; then, after a
year or two at Wurzburg, he was called in 1872 to Strassburg, where he
took a great part in the organization of the new university, and was
largely concerned in the erection of the Physical Institute. Finally in
1888 he went to Berlin as successor to H. von Helmholtz in the chair of
experimental physics and directorship of the Berlin Physical Institute.
He died after a protracted illness at Israelsdorf, near Lubeck, on the
21st of May 1894. As an original worker Kundt was especially successful
in the domains of sound and light. In the former he developed a valuable
method for the investigation of aerial waves within pipes, based on the
fact that a finely divided powder--lycopodium, for example--when dusted
over the interior of a tube in which is established a vibrating column
of air, tends to collect in heaps at the nodes, the distance between
which can thus be ascertained. An extension of the method renders
possible the determination of the velocity of sound in different gases.
In light Kundt's name is widely known for his inquiries in anomalous
dispersion, not only in liquids and vapours, but even in metals, which
he obtained in very thin films by means of a laborious process of
electrolytic deposition upon platinized glass. He also carried out many
experiments in magneto-optics, and succeeded in showing, what Faraday
had failed to detect, the rotation under the influence of magnetic force
of the plane of polarization in certain gases and vapours.
KUNDUZ, a khanate and town of Afghan Turkestan. The khanate is bounded
on the E. by Badakshan, on the W. by Tashkurghan, on the N. by the Oxus
and on the S. by the Hindu Kush. It is inhabited mainly by Uzbegs. Very
little is known about the town, which is the trade centre of a
considerable district, including Kataghan, where the best horses in
Afghanistan are bred.
KUNENE, formerly known also as Nourse, a river of South-West Africa,
with a length of over 700 m., mainly within Portuguese territory, but in
its lower course forming the boundary between Angola and German
South-West Africa. The upper basin of the river lies on the inner
versant of the high plateau region which runs southwards from Bihe
parallel to the coast, forming in places ranges of mountains which give
rise to many streams running south to swell the Kunene. The main stream
rises in 12 deg. 30' S. and about 160 m. in a direct line from the sea
at Benguella, runs generally from north to south through four degrees
of latitude, but finally flows west to the sea through a break in the
outer highlands. A little south of 16 deg. S. it receives the Kulonga
from the east, and in about 16 deg. 50' the Kakulovar from the west. The
Kakulovar has its sources in the Serra da Chella and other ranges of the
Humpata district behind Mossamedes, but, though the longest tributary of
the Kunene, is but a small river in its lower course, which traverses
the arid region comprised within the lower basin of the Kunene. Between
the mouths of the Kulonga and Kakulovar the Kunene traverses a swampy
plain, inundated during high water, and containing several small lakes
at other parts of the year. From this swampy region divergent branches
run S.E. They are mainly intermittent, but the Kwamatuo, which leaves
the main stream in about 15 deg. 8' E., 17 deg. 15' S., flows into a
large marsh or lake called Etosha, which occupies a depression in the
inner table-land about 3400 ft. above sea-level. From the S.E. end of
the Etosha lake streams issue in the direction of the Okavango, to which
in times of great flood they contribute some water. From the existence
of this divergent system it is conjectured that at one time the Kunene
formed part of the Okavango, and thus of the Zambezi basin. (See NGAMI.)
On leaving the swampy region the Kunene turns decidedly to the west, and
descends to the coast plain by a number of cataracts, of which the chief
(in 17 deg. 25' S., 14 deg. 20' E.) has a fall of 330 ft. The river
becomes smaller in volume as it passes through an almost desert region
with little or no vegetation. The stream is sometimes shallow and
fordable, at others confined to a narrow rocky channel. Near the sea the
Kunene traverses a region of sand-hills, its mouth being completely
blocked at low water. The river enters the Atlantic in 17 deg. 18' S.,
11 deg. 40' E. There are indications that a former branch of the river
once entered a bay to the south.
KUNERSDORF, a village of Prussia, 4 m. E. of Frankfurt-on-Oder, the
scene of a great battle, fought on the 12th of August 1759, between the
Prussian army commanded by Frederick the Great and the allied Russians
under Soltykov and Austrians under Loudon, in which Frederick was
defeated with enormous losses and his army temporarily ruined. (See
SEVEN YEARS' WAR.)
KUNGRAD, a trading town of Asiatic Russia, in the province of Syr-darya,
in the delta of the Amu-darya, 50 m. S. of Lake Aral; altitude 260 ft.
It is the centre of caravan routes leading to the Caspian Sea and the
Uralsk province.
KUNGUR, a town of eastern Russia, in the government of Perm, on the
highway to Siberia, 58 m. S.S.E. of the city of Perm. Pop. (1892),
12,400; (1897), 14,324. Tanneries and the manufacture of boots, gloves,
leather, overcoats, iron castings and machinery are the chief
industries. It has trade in boots, iron wares, cereals, tallow and
linseed exported, and in tea imported direct from China.
KUNKEL (or KUNCKEL) VON LOWENSTJERN, JOHANN (1630-1703), German chemist,
was born in 1630 (or 1638), near Rendsburg, his father being alchemist
to the court of Holstein. He became chemist and apothecary to the dukes
of Lauenburg, and then to the elector of Saxony, Johann Georg II., who
put him in charge of the royal laboratory at Dresden. Intrigues
engineered against him caused him to resign this position in 1677, and
for a time he lectured on chemistry at Annaberg and Wittenberg. Invited
to Berlin by Frederick William, in 1679 he became director of the
laboratory and glass works of Brandenburg, and in 1688 Charles XI.
brought him to Stockholm, giving him the title of Baron von Lowenstjern
in 1693 and making him a member of the council of mines. He died on the
20th of March 1703 (others say 1702) at Dreissighufen, his country house
near Pernau. Kunkel shares with Boyle the honour of having discovered
the secret of the process by which Brand of Hamburg had prepared
phosphorus in 1669, and he found how to make artificial ruby (red glass)
by the incorporation of purple of Cassius. His work also included
observations on putrefaction and fermentation, which he spoke of as
sisters, on the nature of salts, and on the preparation of pure metals.
Though he lived in an atmosphere of alchemy, he derided the notion of
the alkahest or universal solvent, and denounced the deceptions of the
adepts who pretended to effect the transmutation of metals; but he
believed mercury to be a constituent of all metals and heavy minerals,
though he held there was no proof of the presence of "sulphur
comburens."
His chief works were _Oeffentliche Zuschrift von dem Phosphor Mirabil_
(1678); _Ars vitriaria experimentalis_ (1689) and _Laboratorium
chymicum_ (1716).
KUNLONG, the name of a district and ferry on the Salween, in the
northern Shan States of Burma. Both are insignificant, but the place has
gained notoriety from being the nominal terminus in British territory of
the railway across the northern Shan States to the borders of Yunnan,
with its present terminus at Lashio. In point of fact, however, this
terminus will be 7 m. below the ferry and outside of Kunlong circle. At
present Kunlong ferry is little used, and the village was burnt by
Kachins in 1893. It is served by dug-outs, three in number in 1899, and
capable of carrying about fifteen men on a trip. Formerly the trade was
very considerable, and the Burmese had a customs station on the island,
from which the place takes its name; but the rebellion in the great
state of Theinni, and the southward movement of the Kachins, as well as
the Mahommedan rebellion in Yunnan, diverted the caravans to the
northern route to Bhamo, which is still chiefly followed. The Wa, who
inhabit the hills immediately overlooking the Nam Ting valley, now make
the route dangerous for traders. The great majority of these Wa live in
unadministered British territory.
KUNZITE, a transparent lilac-coloured variety of spodumene, used as a
gem-stone. It was discovered in 1902 near Pala, in San Diego county,
California, not far from the locality which yields the fine specimens of
rubellite and lepidolite, well known to mineralogists. The mineral was
named by Dr C. Baskerville after Dr George F. Kunz, the gem expert of
New York, who first described it. Analysis by R. O. E. Davis showed it
to be a spodumene. Kunzite occurs in large crystals, some weighing as
much as 1000 grams each, and presents delicate hues from rosy lilac to
deep pink. It is strongly dichroic. Near the surface it may lose colour
by exposure. Kunzite becomes strongly phosphorescent under the Rontgen
rays, or by the action of radium or on exposure to ultra-violet rays.
(See SPODUMENE.)
KUOPIO, a province of Finland, which includes northern Karelia, bounded
on the N.W. and N. by Uleaborg, on the E. by Olonets, on the S.E. by
Viborg, on the S. by St Michel and on the W. by Vasa. Its area covers
16,500 sq. m., and the population (1900) was 313,951, of whom 312,875
were Finnish-speaking. The surface is hilly, reaching from 600 to 800
ft. of altitude in the north (Suomenselka hills), and from 300 to 400
ft. in the south. It is built up of gneisso-granites, which are covered,
especially in the middle and east, with younger granites, and partly of
gneisses, quartzite, and talc schists and augitic rocks. The whole is
covered with glacial and later lacustrine deposits. The soil is of
moderate fertility, but often full of boulders. Large lakes cover 16% of
surface, marshes and peat bogs over 29% of the area, and forests occupy
2,672,240 hectares. Steamers ply along the lakes as far as Joensuu. The
climate is severe, the average temperature being for the year 36 deg.
F., for January 13 deg. and for July 63 deg. Only 2.3% of the whole
surface is under cultivation. Rye, barley, oats and potatoes are the
chief crops, and in good years these meet the needs of the population.
Dairy farming and cattle breeding are of rapidly increasing importance.
Nearly 38,800 tons of iron ore are extracted every year, and nearly
12,000 tons of pig iron and 6420 tons of iron and steel are obtained in
ten iron-works. Engineering and chemical works, tanneries, saw-mills,
paper-mills and distilleries are the chief industrial establishments.
The preparation of carts, sledges and other wooden goods is an important
domestic industry. Timber, iron, butter, furs and game are exported. The
chief towns of the government are Kuopio (13,519), Joensuu (3954) and
Iisalmi (1871).
KUOPIO, capital of the Finnish province of that name, situated on Lake
Kalla-vesi, 180 m. by rail from the Kuivola junction of the St
Petersburg-Helsingfors main line. Pop. (1904), 13,519. It is
picturesquely situated, is the seat of a bishop, and has a cathedral,
two lyceums and two gymnasia (both for boys and girls), a commercial and
several professional schools. There is an agricultural school at Levais,
close by. Kuopio, in consequence of its steamer communication with
middle Finland and the sea (via Saima Canal), is a trading centre of
considerable importance.
KUPRILI, spelt also KOPRILI, KOEPRULU, KEUPRULU, &c., the name of a
family of Turkish statesmen.
1. MAHOMMED KUPRILI (c. 1586-1661) was the grandson of an Albanian who
had settled at Kupri in Asia Minor. He began life as a scullion in the
imperial kitchen, became cook, then purse-bearer to Khosrev Pasha, and
so, by wit and favour, rose to be master of the horse, "pasha of two
tails," and governor of a series of important cities and sanjaks. In
1656 he was appointed governor of Tripoli; but before he had set out to
his new post he was nominated to the grand vizierate at the instance of
powerful friends. He accepted office only on condition of being allowed
a free hand. He signalized his accession to power by suppressing an
_emeute_ of orthodox Mussulman fanatics in Constantinople (Sept. 22),
and by putting to death certain favourites of the powerful Valide
Sultana, by whose corruption and intrigues the administration had been
confused. A little later (January 1657) he suppressed with ruthless
severity a rising of the spahis; a certain Sheik Salim, leader of the
fanatical mob of the capital, was drowned in the Bosporus; and the Greek
Patriarch, who had written to the voivode of Wallachia to announce the
approaching downfall of Islam, was hanged. This impartial severity was a
foretaste of Kuprili's rule, which was characterized throughout by a
vigour which belied the expectations based upon his advanced years, and
by a ruthlessness which in time grew to be almost blood-lust. His
justification was the new life which he breathed into the decaying bones
of the Ottoman empire.
Having cowed the disaffected elements in the state, he turned his
attention to foreign enemies. The victory of the Venetians off Chios
(May 2, 1657) was a severe blow to the Turkish sea-power, which Kuprili
set himself energetically to repair. A second battle, fought in the
Dardanelles (July 17-19), ended by a lucky shot blowing up the Venetian
flag-ship; the losses of the Ottoman fleet were repaired, and in the
middle of August Kuprili appeared off Tenedos, which was captured on the
31st and reincorporated permanently in the Turkish empire. Thus the
Ottoman prestige was restored at sea, while Kuprili's ruthless
enforcement of discipline in the army and suppression of revolts,
whether in Europe or Asia, restored it also on land. It was, however,
due to his haughty and violent temper that the traditional friendly
relations between Turkey and France were broken. The French ambassador,
de la Haye, had delayed bringing him the customary gifts, with the idea
that he would, like his predecessors, speedily give place to a new grand
vizier; Kuprili was bitterly offended, and, on pretext of an abuse of
the immunities of diplomatic correspondence, bastinadoed the
ambassador's son and cast him and the ambassador himself into prison. A
special envoy, sent by Louis XIV., to make inquiries and demand
reparation, was treated with studied insult; and the result was that
Mazarin abandoned the Turkish alliance and threw the power of France on
to the side of Venice, openly assisting the Venetians in the defence of
Crete.
Kuprili's restless energy continued to the last, exhibiting itself on
one side in wholesale executions, on the other in vast building
operations. By his orders castles were built at the mouth of the Don and
on the bank of the Dnieper, outworks against the ever-aggressive Tatars,
as well as on either shore of the Dardanelles. His last activity as a
statesman was to spur the sultan on to press the war against Hungary. He
died on the 31st of October 1661. The advice which, on his death-bed, he
is said to have given to the sultan is characteristic of his
Machiavellian statecraft. This was: never to pay attention to the advice
of women, to allow nobody to grow too rich, to keep his treasury well
filled, and himself and his troops constantly occupied. Had he so
desired, Kuprili might have taken advantage of the revolts of the
Janissaries to place himself on the throne; instead, he recommended the
sultan to appoint his son as his successor, and so founded a dynasty of
able statesmen who occupied the grand vizierate almost without
interruption for half a century.
2. FAZIL AHMED KUPRILI (1635-1676), son of the preceding, succeeded his
father as grand vizier in 1661 (this being the first instance of a son
succeeding his father in that office since the time of the Chenderelis).
He began life in the clerical career, which he left, at the age of
twenty-three, when he had attained the rank of _muderris_. Usually
humane and generous, he sought to relieve the people of the excessive
taxation and to secure them against unlawful exactions. Three years
after his accession to office Turkey suffered a crushing defeat at the
battle of St Gothard and was obliged to make peace with the Empire. But
Kuprili's influence with the sultan remained unshaken, and five years
later Crete fell to his arms (1669). The next war in which he was called
upon to take part was with Poland, in defence of the Cossacks, who had
appealed to Turkey for protection. At first successful, Kuprili was
defeated by the Poles under John Sobieski at Khotin and Lemberg; the
Turks, however, continued to hold their own, and finally in October 1676
consented to honourable terms of peace by the treaty of Zurawno (October
16, 1676), retaining Kaminiec, Podolia and the greater part of the
Ukraine. Three days later Ahmed Kuprili died. His military capacity was
far inferior to his administrative qualities. He was a liberal protector
of art and literature, and the kindliness of his disposition formed a
marked contrast to the cruelty of his father; but he was given to
intemperance, and the cause of his death was dropsy brought on by
alcoholic abuse.
3. ZADE MUSTAFA KUPRILI (1637-1691), surnamed Fazil, son of Mahommed
Kuprili, became grand vizier to Suleiman II. in 1689. Called to office
after disaster had driven Turkey's forces from Hungary and Poland and
her fleets from the Mediterranean, he began by ordering strict economy
and reform in the taxation; himself setting the example, which was
widely followed, of voluntary contributions for the army, which with the
navy he reorganized as quickly as he could. His wisdom is shown by the
prudent measures which he took by enacting the _Nizam-i-jedid_, or new
regulations for the improvement of the condition of the Christian rayas,
and for affording them security for life and property; a conciliatory
attitude which at once bore fruit in Greece, where the people abandoned
the Venetian cause and returned to their allegiance to the Porte. He met
his death at the battle of Salankamen in 1691, when the total defeat of
the Turks by the Austrians under Prince Louis of Baden led to their
expulsion from Hungary.
4. HUSSEIN KUPRILI (surnamed AMUJA-ZADE) was the son of Hassan, a
younger brother of Mahommed Kuprili. After occupying various important
posts he became grand vizier in 1697, and owing to his ability and
energy the Turks were able to drive the Austrians back over the Save,
and Turkish fleets were sent into the Black Sea and the Mediterranean.
The efforts of European diplomacy succeeded in inducing Austria and
Turkey to come to terms by the treaty of Carlowitz, whereby Turkey was
shorn of her chief conquests (1699). After this event Hussein Kuprili,
surnamed "the Wise," devoted himself to the suppression of the revolts
which had broken out in Arabia, Egypt and the Crimea, to the reduction
of the Janissaries, and to the institution of administrative and
financial reform. Unfortunately the intrigues against him drove him from
office in 1702, and soon afterwards he died.
5. NUMAN KUPRILI, son of Mustafa Fazil, became grand vizier in 1710. The
expectations formed of him were not fulfilled, as although he was
tolerant, wise and just like his father, he injudiciously sought to take
upon himself all the details of administration, a task which proved to
be beyond his powers. He failed to introduce order into the
administration and was dismissed from office in less than fourteen
months after his appointment.
6. ABDULLAH KUPRILI, a son of Mustafa Fazil Kuprili, was appointed
Kaimmakam or _locum tenens_ of the grand vizier in 1703. He commanded
the Persian expedition in 1723 and captured Tabriz in 1725, resigning
his office in 1726. In 1735 he again commanded against the Persians, but
fell at the disastrous battle of Bagaverd, thus emulating his father's
heroic death at Selankamen.
KURAKIN, BORIS IVANOVICH, PRINCE (1676-1727), Russian diplomatist, was
the brother-in-law of Peter the Great, their wives being sisters. He was
one of the earliest of Peter's pupils. In 1697 he was sent to Italy to
learn navigation. His long and honourable diplomatic career began in
1707, when he was sent to Rome to induce the pope not to recognize
Charles XII.'s candidate, Stanislaus Leszczynski, as king of Poland.
From 1708 to 1712 he represented Russia at London, Hanover, and the
Hague successively, and, in 1713, was the principal Russian
plenipotentiary at the peace congress of Utrecht. From 1716 to 1722 he
held the post of ambassador at Paris, and when, in 1724, Peter set forth
on his Persian campaign, Kurakin was appointed the supervisor of all the
Russian ambassadors accredited to the various European courts. "The
father of Russian diplomacy," as he has justly been called, was
remarkable throughout his career for infinite tact and insight, and a
wonderfully correct appreciation of men and events. He was most useful
to Russia perhaps when the Great Northern war (see SWEDEN, _History_)
was drawing to a close. Notably he prevented Great Britain from
declaring war against Peter's close ally, Denmark, at the crisis of the
struggle. Kurakin was one of the best-educated Russians of his day, and
his autobiography, carried down to 1709, is an historical document of
the first importance. He intended to write a history of his own times
with Peter the Great as the central figure, but got no further than the
summary, entitled _History of Tsar Peter Aleksievich and the People
Nearest to Him_ (1682-1694) (Rus.).
See _Archives of Prince A. Th. Kurakin_ (Rus.) (St Petersburg, 1890);
A. Bruckner, _A Russian Tourist in Western Europe in the beginning of
the XVIIIth Century_ (Rus.) (St Petersburg, 1892). (R. N. B.)
KURBASH, or KOURBASH (from the Arabic _qurbash_, a whip; Turkish
_qirbach_; and French _courbache_), a whip or strap about a yard in
length, made of the hide of the hippopotamus or rhinoceros. It is an
instrument of punishment and torture used in various Mahommedan
countries, especially in the Turkish empire. "Government by kurbash"
denotes the oppression of a people by the constant abuse of the kurbash
to maintain authority, to collect taxes, or to pervert justice. The use
of the kurbash for such purposes, once common in Egypt, has been
abolished by the British authorities.
KURDISTAN, in its wider sense, the "country of the Kurds" (Koords),
including that part of Mount Taurus which buttresses the Armenian
table-land (see ARMENIA), and is intersected by the Batman Su, the
Bohtan Su, and other tributaries of the Tigris; and the wild mountain
district, watered by the Great and Little Zab, which marks the western
termination of the great Iranian plateau.
_Population._--The total Kurd population probably exceeds two and a half
millions, namely, Turkish Kurds 1,650,000, Persian 800,000, Russian
50,000, but there are no trustworthy statistics. The great mass of the
population has its home in Kurdistan. But Kurds are scattered
irregularly over the country from the river Sakaria on the west to Lake
Urmia on the east, and from Kars on the north to Jebel Sinjar on the
south. There is also an isolated settlement in Khorasan. The tribes,
_ashiret_, into which the Kurds are divided, resemble in some respects
the Highland clans of Scotland. Very few of them number more than 10,000
souls, and the average is about 3000. The sedentary and pastoral Kurds,
_Yerli_, who live in villages in winter and encamp on their own
pasture-grounds in summer, form an increasing majority of the
population. The nomad Kurds, _Kocher_, who always dwell in tents, are
the wealthiest and most independent. They spend the summer on the
mountains and high plateaus, which they enter in May and leave in
October; and pass the winter on the banks of the Tigris and on the great
plain north of Jebel Sinjar, where they purchase right of pasturage
from the Shammar Arabs. Each tribe has its own pasture-grounds, and
trespass by other tribes is a fertile source of quarrel. During the
periodical migrations Moslem and Christian alike suffer from the
predatory instincts of the Kurd, and disturbances are frequent in the
districts traversed. In Turkey the sedentary Kurds pay taxes; but the
nomads only pay the sheep tax, which is collected as they cross the
Tigris on their way to their summer pastures.
_Character._--The Kurd delights in the bracing air and unrestricted
liberty of the mountains. He is rarely a muleteer or camel-man, and does
not take kindly to handicrafts. The Kurds generally bear a very
indifferent reputation, a worse reputation perhaps, than they really
deserve. Being aliens to the Turks in language and to the Persians in
religion, they are everywhere treated with mistrust, and live as it were
in a state of chronic warfare with the powers that be. Such a condition
is not of course favourable to the development of the better qualities
of human nature. The Kurds are thus wild and lawless; they are much
given to brigandage; they oppress and frequently maltreat the Christian
populations with whom they are brought in contact,--these populations
being the Armenians in Diarbekr, Erzerum and Van, the Jacobites and
Syrians in the Jebel-Tur, and the Nestorians and Chaldaeans in the
Hakkari country.
Perhaps the most distinguishing characteristic of the Kurdish chief is
pride of ancestry. This feeling is in many cases exaggerated, for in
reality the present tribal organization does not date from any great
antiquity. In the list indeed of eighteen principal tribes of the nation
which was drawn up by the Arabian historian Masudi, in the 10th century,
only two or three names are to be recognized at the present day. A
14th-century list, however, translated by Quatremere,[1] presents a
great number of identical names, and there seems no reason to doubt that
certain Kurdish families can trace their descent from the Omayyad
caliphs, while only in recent years the Baban chief of Suleimania,
representing the old Sohrans, and the Ardelan chief of Sinna,[2]
representing an elder branch of the Gurans, each claimed an ancestry of
at least five hundred years. There was up to a recent period no more
picturesque or interesting scene to be witnessed in the east than the
court of one of these great Kurdish chiefs, where, like another Saladin,
the bey ruled in patriarchal state, surrounded by an hereditary
nobility, regarded by his clansmen with reverence and affection, and
attended by a bodyguard of young Kurdish warriors, clad in chain armour,
with flaunting silken scarfs, and bearing javelin, lance and sword as in
the time of the crusades.
Though ignorant and unsophisticated the Kurd is not wanting in natural
intelligence. In recent years educated Kurds have held high office under
the sultan, including that of grand vizier, have assisted in translating
the Bible into Turkish, and in editing a newspaper. The men are lithe,
active and strong, but rarely of unusual stature. The women do not veil,
and are allowed great freedom. The Kurds as a race are proud, faithful
and hospitable, and have rude but strict feelings of honour. They are,
however, much under the influence of dervishes, and when their
fanaticism is aroused their habitual lawlessness is apt to degenerate
into savage barbarity. They are not deficient in martial spirit, but
have an innate dislike to the restraints of military service. The
country is rich in traditions and legends, and in lyric and in epic
poems, which have been handed down from earlier times and are recited in
a weird melancholy tone.
_Antiquities._--Kurdistan abounds in antiquities of the most varied and
interesting character. But it has been very little opened up to modern
research. A series of rock-cut cuneiform inscriptions extend from
Malatia on the west to Miandoab (in Persia) on the east, and from the
banks of the Aras on the north to Rowanduz on the south, which record
the glories of a Turanian dynasty, who ruled the country of Nairi during
the 8th and 7th centuries, B.C., contemporaneously with the lower
Assyrian empire. Intermingled with these are a few genuine Assyrian
inscriptions of an earlier date; and in one instance, at Van, a later
tablet of Xerxes brings the record down to the period of Grecian
history. The most ancient monuments of this class, however, are to be
found at Holwan and in the neighbourhood, where the sculptures and
inscriptions belong probably to the Guti and Luli tribes, and date from
the early Babylonian period.
In the northern Kurdish districts which represent the Arzanene,
Intilene, Anzitene, Zabdicene, and Moxuene of the ancients, there are
many interesting remains of Roman cities, e.g. at Arzen, Miyafarikin
(anc. _Martyropolis_), Sisauronon, and the ruins of Dunisir near Dara,
which Sachau identified with the Armenian capital of Tigranocerta. Of
the Macedonian and Parthian periods there are remains both sculptured
and inscribed at several points in Kurdistan; at Bisitun or Behistun
(q.v.), in a cave at Amadia, at the Mithraic temple of Kereftu, on the
rocks at Sir Pul-o-Zohab near the ruins of Holwan, and probably in some
other localities, such as the Balik country between Lahijan and
Koi-Sanjak; but the most interesting site in all Kurdistan, perhaps in
all western Asia, is the ruined fire temple of Pai Kuli on the southern
frontier of Suleimania. Among the debris of this temple, which is
scattered over a bare hillside, are to be found above one hundred slabs,
inscribed with Parthian and Pahlavi characters, the fragments of a wall
which formerly supported the eastern face of the edifice, and bore a
bilingual legend of great length, dating from the Sassanian period.
There are also remarkable Sassanian remains in other parts of
Kurdistan--at Salmus to the north, and at Kermanshah and Kasr-i-Shirin
on the Turkish frontier to the south.
_Language._--The Kurdish language, Kermanji, is an old Persian patois,
intermixed to the north with Chaldaean words and to the south with a
certain Turanian element which may not improbably have come down from
Babylonian times. Several peculiar dialects are spoken in secluded
districts in the mountains, but the only varieties which, from their
extensive use, require to be specified are the Zaza and the Guran. The
Zaza is spoken throughout the western portion of the Dersim country,
and is said to be unintelligible to the Kermanji-speaking Kurds. It is
largely intermingled with Armenian, and may contain some trace of the
old Cappadocian, but is no doubt of the same Aryan stock as the
standard Kurdish. The Guran dialect again, which is spoken throughout
Ardelan and Kermanshah[3] chiefly differs from the northern Kurdish in
being entirely free from any Semitic intermixture. It is thus somewhat
nearer to the Persian than the Kermanji dialect, but is essentially
the same language. It is a mistake to suppose that there is no
Kurdish literature. Many of the popular Persian poets have been
translated into Kurdish, and there are also books relating to the
religious mysteries of the Ali-Illahis in the hands of the Dersimlis
to the north and of the Gurans of Kermanshah to the south. The New
Testament in Kurdish was printed at Constantinople in 1857. The Rev.
Samuel Rhea published a grammar and vocabulary of the Hakkari dialect
in 1872. In 1879 there appeared, under the auspices of the imperial
academy of St Petersburg a French-Kurdish dictionary compiled
originally by Mons. Jaba, many years Russian consul at Erzerum, but
completed by Ferdinand Justi by the help of a rich assortment of
Kurdish tales and ballads, collected by Socin and Prym in Assyria.
_Religion._--The great body of the nation, in Persia as well as in
Turkey, are Sunnis of the Shafi'ite sect, but in the recesses of the
Dersim to the north and of Zagros to the south there are large
half-pagan communities, who are called indifferently Ali-Illahi and
Kizjil-bash, and who hold tenets of some obscurity, but of
considerable interest. Outwardly professing to be Shi'ites or
"followers of Ali," they observe secret ceremonies and hold esoteric
doctrines which have probably descended to them from very early ages,
and of which the essential condition is that there must always be upon
the earth a visible manifestation of the Deity. While paying reverence
to the supposed incarnations of ancient days, to Moses, David, Christ,
Ali and his tutor Salman-ul-Farisi, and several of the Shi'ite imams
and saints, they have thus usually some recent local celebrity at
whose shrine they worship and make vows; and there is, moreover, in
every community of Ali-Illahis some living personage, not necessarily
ascetic, to whom, as representing the godhead, the superstitious
tribesmen pay almost idolatrous honours. Among the Gurans of the south
the shrine of Baba Yadgar, in a gorge of the hills above the old city
of Holwan, is thus regarded with a supreme veneration. Similar
institutions are also found in other parts of the mountains, which may
be compared with the tenets of the Druses and Nosairis in Syria and
the Ismailites in Persia.
_History._--With regard to the origin of the Kurds, it was formerly
considered sufficient to describe them as the descendants of the
Carduchi, who opposed the retreat of the Ten Thousand through the
mountains, but modern research traces them far beyond the period of the
Greeks. At the dawn of history the mountains overhanging Assyria were
held by a people named _Gutu_, a title which signified "a warrior," and
which was rendered in Assyrian by the synonym of _Gardu_ or _Kardu_, the
precise term quoted by Strabo to explain the name of the Cardaces
([Greek: Kardakes]). These _Gutu_ were a Turanian tribe of such power as
to be placed in the early cuneiform records on an equality with the
other nations of western Asia, that is, with the Syrians and Hittites,
the Susians, Elamites, and Akkadians of Babylonia; and during the whole
period of the Assyrian empire they seem to have preserved a more or less
independent political position. After the fall of Nineveh they coalesced
with the Medes, and, in common with all the nations inhabiting the high
plateaus of Asia Minor, Armenia and Persia, became gradually Aryanized,
owing to the immigration at this period of history of tribes in
overwhelming numbers which, from whatever quarter they may have sprung,
belonged certainly to the Aryan family.
The _Gutu_ or Kurdu were reduced to subjection by Cyrus before he
descended upon Babylon, and furnished a contingent of fighting men to
his successors, being thus mentioned under the names of Saspirians and
Alarodians in the muster roll of the army of Xerxes which was preserved
by Herodotus.
In later times they passed successively under the sway of the
Macedonians, the Parthians, and Sassanians, being especially befriended,
if we may judge from tradition as well as from the remains still
existing in the country, by the Arsacian monarchs, who were probably of
a cognate race. Gotarzes indeed, whose name may perhaps be translated
"chief of the _Gutu_," was traditionally believed to be the founder of
the Gurans, the principal tribe of southern Kurdistan,[4] and his name
and titles are still preserved in a Greek inscription at Behistun near
the Kurdish capital of Kermanshah. Under the caliphs of Bagdad the Kurds
were always giving trouble in one quarter or another. In A.D. 838, and
again in 905, there were formidable insurrections in northern Kurdistan;
the amir, Adod-addaula, was obliged to lead the forces of the caliphate
against the southern Kurds, capturing the famous fortress of Sermaj, of
which the ruins are to be seen at the present day near Behistun, and
reducing the province of Shahrizor with its capital city now marked by
the great mound of Yassin Teppeh. The most flourishing period of Kurdish
power was probably during the 12th century of our era, when the great
Saladin, who belonged to the Rawendi branch of the Hadabani tribe,
founded the Ayyubite dynasty of Syria, and Kurdish chiefships were
established, not only to the east and west of the Kurdistan mountains,
but as far as Khorasan upon one side and Egypt and Yemen on the other.
During the Mongol and Tatar domination of western Asia the Kurds in the
mountains remained for the most part passive, yielding a reluctant
obedience to the provincial governors of the plains.
When Sultan Selim I., after defeating Shah Ismail, 1514, annexed Armenia
and Kurdistan, he entrusted the organization of the conquered
territories to Idris, the historian, who was a Kurd of Bitlis. Idris
found Kurdistan bristling with castles, held by hereditary tribal chiefs
of Kurd, Arab, and Armenian descent, who were practically independent,
and passed their time in tribal warfare or in raiding the agricultural
population. He divided the territory into sanjaks or districts, and,
making no attempt to interfere with the principle of heredity, installed
the local chiefs as governors. He also resettled the rich pastoral
country between Erzerum and Erivan, which had lain waste since the
passage of Timur, with Kurds from the Hakkiari and Bohtan districts. The
system of administration introduced by Idris remained unchanged until
the close of the Russo-Turkish War of 1828-29. But the Kurds, owing to
the remoteness of their country from the capital and the decline of
Turkey, had greatly increased in influence and power, and had spread
westwards over the country as far as Angora. After the war the Kurds
attempted to free themselves from Turkish control, and in 1834 it became
necessary to reduce them to subjection. This was done by Reshid Pasha.
The principal towns were strongly garrisoned, and many of the Kurd beys
were replaced by Turkish governors. A rising under Bedr Khan Bey in 1843
was firmly repressed, and after the Crimean War the Turks strengthened
their hold on the country. The Russo-Turkish War of 1877-78 was followed
by the attempt of Sheikh Obaidullah, 1880-81, to found an independent
Kurd principality under the protection of Turkey. The attempt, at first
encouraged by the Porte, as a reply to the projected creation of an
Armenian state under the suzerainty of Russia (see ARMENIA), collapsed
after Obaidullah's raid into Persia, when various circumstances led the
central government to reassert its supreme authority. Until the
Russo-Turkish War of 1828-29 there had been little hostile feeling
between the Kurds and the Armenians, and as late as 1877-1878 the
mountaineers of both races had got on fairly well together. Both
suffered from Turkey, both dreaded Russia. But the national movement
amongst the Armenians, and its encouragement by Russia after the last
war, gradually aroused race hatred and fanaticism. In 1891 the activity
of the Armenian Committees induced the Porte to strengthen the position
of the Kurds by raising a body of Kurdish irregular cavalry, which was
well armed and called Hamidieh after the Sultan. The opportunities thus
offered for plunder and the gratification of race hatred brought out the
worst qualities of the Kurds. Minor disturbances constantly occurred,
and were soon followed by the massacre of Armenians at Sasun and other
places, 1894-96, in which the Kurds took an active part.
AUTHORITIES.--Rich, _Narrative of a Residence in Koordistan_ (1836);
Wagner, _Reise nach Persien und dem Lande der Kurden_ (Leipzig, 1852);
Consul Taylor in _R. G. S. Journal_ (1865); Millingen, _Wild Life
among the Koords_ (1870); Von Luschan, "Die Wandervolker Kleinasiens,"
in _V^n. d. G. fur Anthropologie_ (Berlin, 1886); Clayton, "The
Mountains of Kurdistan," in _Alpine Journal_ (1887); Binder, _Au
Kurdistan_ (Paris, 1887); Naumann, _Vom Goldnen Horn zu den Quellen
des Euphrat_ (Munich, 1893); Murray, _Handbook to Asia Minor, &c._
(1895); Lerch, _Forschungen uber die Kurden_ (St Petersburg, 1857-58);
Jaba, _Dict. Kurde-Francais_ (St Petersburg, 1879); Justi, _Kurdische
Grammatik_ (1880); Prym and Socin, _Kurdische Sammlungen_ (1890);
Makas, _Kurdische Studien_ (1901); Earl Percy, _Highlands of Asiatic
Turkey_ (1901); Lynch, _Armenia_ (1901); A. V. Williams Jackson,
_Persia, Past and Present_ (1906). (C. W. W.; H. C. R.)
FOOTNOTES:
[1] See _Notices et Extraits des MSS._, xiii. 305. Of the tribes
enumerated in this work of the 14th century who still retain a
leading place among the Kurds, the following names may be quoted:
_Guranieh_ of Dartang, modern Gurans; _Zengeneh_, in Hamadan hills,
now in Kermanshah; _Hasnani_ of Kerkuk and Arbil, now in the Dersim
mountains, having originally come from Khorasan according to
tradition; _Sohrieh_ of Shekelabad and Tel-Haftun, modern Sohran,
from whom descend the Baban of Suleimanieh; _Zerzari_ of Hinjarin
mountains, modern Zerzas of Ushnu (cuneiform pillars of Kel-i-shin
and Sidek noticed by author); _Julamerkieh_, modern Julamerik, said
to be descended from the caliph Merwan-ibn-Hakam; _Hakkarieh_,
Hakkari inhabiting _Zuzan_ of Arab geography; _Bokhtieh_, modern
Bohtan. The _Rowadi_, to whom Saladin belonged, are probably modern
Rawendi, as they held the fortress of Arbil (Arbela). Some twenty
other names are mentioned, but the orthography is so doubtful that it
is useless to try to identify them.
[2] The _Sheref-nama_, a history of the Kurds dating from the 16th
century, tells us that "towards the close of the reign of the
Jenghizians, a man named Baba Ardilan, a descendant of the governors
of Diarbekr, and related to the famous Ahmed-ibn-Merwan, after
remaining for some time among the Gurans, gained possession of the
country of Shahrizor" and the Ardelan family history, with the
gradual extension of their power over Persian Kurdistan, is then
traced down to the Saffavid period.
[3] The Guran are mentioned in the _Mesalik-el-Absar_ as the dominant
tribe in southern Kurdistan in the 14th century, occupying very much
the same seats as at present, from the Hamadan frontier to Shahrizor.
Their name probably signifies merely "the mountaineers," being
derived from _gur_ or _giri_, "a mountain," which is also found in
Zagros, i.e. _za-giri_, "beyond the mountain," or _Pusht-i-koh_, as
the name is translated in Persian. They are a fine, active and hardy
race, individually brave, and make excellent soldiers, though in
appearance very inferior to the tribal Kurds of the northern
districts. These latter indeed delight in gay colours, while the
Gurans dress in the most homely costume, wearing coarse blue cotton
vests, with felt caps and coats. In a great part of Kurdistan the
name Guran has become synonymous with an agricultural peasantry, as
opposed to the migratory shepherds.
[4] "The Kalhur tribe are traditionally descended from
Gudarz-ibn-Gio, whose son Roham was sent by Bahman Keiani to destroy
Jerusalem and bring the Jews into captivity. This Roham is the
individual usually called Bokht-i-nasser (Nebuchadrezzar) and he
ultimately succeeded to the throne. The neighbouring country has ever
since remained in the hands of his descendants, who are called
Gurans" (_Sheref-Nama_, Persian MS.). The same popular tradition
still exists in the country, and [Greek: GOTARZEO GEOPOTHROS] is
found on the rock at Behistun, showing that Gudarz-ibn-Gio was really
an historic personage. See _Journ. Roy. Geog. Soc._ ix. 114.
KURDISTAN, in the narrower sense, a province of Persia, situated in the
hilly districts between Azerbaijan and Kermanshah, and extending to the
Turkish frontier on the W., and bounded on the E. by Gerrus and Hamadan.
In proportion to its size and population it pays a very small yearly
revenue--only about L14,000--due to the fact that a great part of the
population consists of wild and disorderly nomad Kurds. Some of these
nomads pass their winters in Turkish territory, and have their summer
pasture-grounds in the highlands of Kurdistan. This adds much to the
difficulty of collecting taxation. The province is divided into sixteen
districts, and its eastern part, in which the capital is situated, is
known as Ardelan. The capital is Senendij, usually known as Sinna (not
Sihna, or Sahna, as some writers have it), situated 60 m. N.W. of
Hamadan, in 35 deg. 15' N., 47 deg. 18' E., at an elevation of 5300 ft.
The city has a population of about 35,000 and manufactures great
quantities of carpets and felts for the supply of the province and for
export. Some of the carpets are very fine and expensive, rugs 2 yards by
1(1/2) costing L15 to L20. Post and telegraph offices have been
established since 1879.
KURGAN, a town (founded 1553) of West Siberia, in the government of
Tobolsk, on the Siberian railway, 160 m. E. of Chelyabinsk, and on the
left bank of the Tobol, in a wealthy agricultural district. Pop. (1897),
10,579. Owing to its position at the terminus of steam navigation up the
river Tobol, it has become second only to Tyumen as a commercial centre.
It has a public library and a botanic garden. There is a large trade in
cattle with Petropavlovsk, and considerable export of grain, tallow,
meat, hides, butter, game and fish, there being three large fairs in the
year. In the vicinity are a great number of prehistoric kurgans or
burial-mounds.
KURIA MURIA ISLANDS, a group of five islands in the Arabian Sea, close
under the coast of Arabia, belonging to Britain and forming a dependency
of Aden. They are lofty and rocky, and have a total area of 28 sq. m.,
that of the largest, Hallania, being 22 sq. m. They are identified with
the ancient _Insulae Zenobii_, and were ceded by the sultan of Muscat to
Britain in 1854 for the purposes of a cable station. They are inhabited
by a few families of Arabs, who however speak a dialect differing
considerably from the ordinary Arabic. The islands yield some guano.
KURILES (Jap. _Chishima_, "thousand islands"), a chain of small islands
belonging to Japan, stretching in a north-easterly direction from Nemuro
Bay, on the extreme east of the island of Yezo, to Chishima-kaikyo
(Kuriles Strait), which separates them from the southernmost point of
Kamchatka. They extend from 44 deg. 45' to 50 deg. 56' N. and from 145
deg. 25' to 156 deg. 32' E. Their coasts measure 1496 m.; their area is
6159 sq. m.; their total number is 32, and the names of the eight
principal islands, counting from the south, are Kunashiri, Shikotan,
Etorofu (generally called Etorop, and known formerly to Europe as Staten
Island), Urup, Simusir, Onnekotan, Paramoshiri (Paramusir) and
Shumshiri. From Noshapzaki (Notsu-no-sake or Notsu Cape), the most
easterly point of Nemuro province, to Tomari, the most westerly point in
Kunashiri, the distance is 7(1/3) m., and the Kuriles Strait separating
Shumshiri from Kamchatka is about the same width. The name "Kurile" is
derived from the Russian _kurit_ (to smoke), in allusion to the active
volcanic character of the group. The dense fogs that envelop these
islands, and the violence of the currents in their vicinity, have
greatly hindered exploration, so that little is known of their
physiography. They lie entangled in a vast net of sea-weed; are the
resort of innumerable birds, and used to be largely frequented by seals
and sea-otters, which, however, have been almost completely driven away
by unregulated hunting. Near the south-eastern coast of Kunashiri stands
a mountain called Rausunobori (3005 ft. high), round whose base sulphur
bubbles up in large quantities, and hot springs as well as a hot stream
are found. On the west coast of the same island is a boiling lake,
called Ponto, which deposits on its bed and round its shores black sand,
consisting almost entirely of pure sulphur. This island has several
lofty peaks; Ponnobori-yama near the east coast, and Chachanobori and
Rurindake in the north. Chachanobori (about 7382 ft.) is described by
Messrs Chamberlain and Mason as "a cone within a cone, the inner and
higher of the two being--so the natives say--surrounded by a lake." The
island has extensive forests of conifers with an undergrowth of ferns
and flowering plants, and bears are numerous. The chief port of
Kunashiri is Tomari, on the south coast. The island of Shikotan is
remarkable for the growth of a species of bamboo (called
Shikotan-chiku), having dark brown spots on the cane. Etorofu has a
coast-line broken by deep bays, of which the principal are Naibo-wan,
Rubetsu-wan and Bettobuwan on the northern shore and Shitokap-wan on the
southern. It is covered almost completely with dense forest, and has a
number of streams abounding with salmon. Shana, the chief port, is in
Rubetsu Bay. This island, the principal of the group, is divided into
four provinces for administrative purposes, namely, Etorofu, Furubetsu,
Shana and Shibetoro. Its mountains are Atosha-nobori (4035 ft.) in
Etorofu; Chiripnupari (5009 ft.) in Shana; and Mokoro-nobori (3930 ft.)
and Atuiyadake (3932 ft.) in Shibetoro. Among the other islands three
only call for notice on account of their altitudes, namely, Ketoi-jima,
Rashua-jima and Matua-jima, which rise to heights of 3944, 3304 and 5240
ft. respectively.
_Population._--Not much is known about the aborigines. By some
authorities Ainu colonists are supposed to have been the first settlers,
and to have arrived there via Yezo; by others, the earliest comers are
believed to have been a hyperborean tribe travelling southwards by way
of Kamchatka. The islands themselves have not been sufficiently explored
to determine whether they furnish any ethnological evidences. The
present population aggregates about 4400, or 0.7 per sq. m., of whom
about 600 are Ainu (q.v.). There is little disposition to emigrate
thither from Japan proper, the number of settlers being less than 100
annually.
_History._--The Kurile Islands were discovered in 1634 by the Dutch
navigator Martin de Vries. The three southern islands, Kunashiri,
Etorofu, and Shikotan, are believed to have belonged to Japan from a
remote date, but at the beginning of the 18th century the Russians,
having conquered Kamchatka, found their way to the northern part of the
Kuriles in pursuit of fur-bearing animals, with which the islands then
abounded. Gradually these encroachments were pushed farther south,
simultaneously with aggressions imperilling the Japanese settlements in
the southern half of Sakhalin. Japan's occupation was far from effective
in either region, and in 1875 she was not unwilling to conclude a
convention by which she agreed to withdraw altogether from Sakhalin
provided that Russia withdrew from the Kuriles.
An officer of the Japanese navy, Lieut. Gunji, left Tokyo with about
forty comrades in 1892, his intention being to form a settlement on
Shumshiri, the most northerly of the Kurile Islands. They embarked in
open boats, and for that reason, as well as because they were going to
constitute themselves their country's extreme outpost, the enterprise
attracted public enthusiasm. After a long struggle the immigrants became
fairly prosperous.
See Capt. H. J. Snow, _Notes on the Kurile Islands_ (London, 1896).
KURISCHES HAFF, a lagoon of Germany, on the Baltic coast of East
Prussia, stretching from Labiau to Memel, a distance of 60 m., has an
area of nearly 680 sq. m. It is mostly shallow and only close to Memel
attains a depth of 23 ft. It is thus unnavigable except for small
coasting and fishing boats, and sea-going vessels proceed through the
Memeler Tief (Memel Deep), which connects the Baltic with Memel and has
a depth of 19 ft. and a breadth of 800 to 1900 ft. The Kurisches Haff is
separated from the Baltic by a long spit, or tongue of land, the
so-called Kurische Nehrung, 72 m. in length and with a breadth of 1 to 2
miles. The latter is fringed throughout its whole length by a chain of
dunes, which rise in places to a height of nearly 200 ft. and threaten,
unless checked, to be pressed farther inland and silt up the whole Haff.
See Berendt, _Geologie des Kurischen Haffs_ (Konigsberg, 1869);
Sommer, _Das Kurische Haff_ (Danzig, 1889); A. Bezzenberger, _Die
Kurische Nehrung und ihre Bewohner_ (Stuttgart, 1889); and Lindner,
_Die Preussische Wuste einst und jetzt, Bilder von der Kurischen
Nehrung_ (Osterwieck, 1898).
KURNOOL, or KARNUL, a town and district of British India, in the Madras
presidency. The town is built on a rocky soil at the junction of the
Hindri and Tungabhadra rivers 33 m. from a railway station. The old
Hindu fort was levelled in 1865, with the exception of one of the gates,
which was preserved as a specimen of ancient architecture. Cotton cloth
and carpets are manufactured. Pop. (1901), 25,376, of whom half are
Mussulmans.
The DISTRICT OF KURNOOL has an area of 7578 sq. m., pop. (1901),
872,055, showing an increase of 6% in the decade. Two long mountain
ranges, the Nallamalais and the Yellamalais, extend in parallel lines,
north and south, through its centre. The principal heights of the
Nallamalai range are Biranikonda (3149 ft.), Gundlabrahmeswaram (3055
ft.), and Durugapukonda (3086 ft.). The Yellamalai is a low range,
generally flat-topped with scarped sides; the highest point is about
2000 ft. Several low ridges run parallel to the Nallamalais, broken here
and there by gorges, through which mountain streams take their course.
Several of these gaps were dammed across under native rule, to form
tanks for purposes of irrigation. The principal rivers are the
Tungabhadra and Kistna, which bound the district on the north. When in
flood, the Tungabhadra averages 900 yards broad and 15 ft. deep. The
Kistna here flows chiefly through uninhabited jungles, sometimes in long
smooth reaches, with intervening shingly rapids. The Bhavanasi rises on
the Nallamalais, and falls into the Kistna at Sungameswaram, a place of
pilgrimage. During the 18th century Kurnool formed the _jagir_ of a
semi-independent Pathan Nawab, whose descendant was dispossessed by the
British government for treason in 1838. The principal crops are millets,
cotton, oil-seeds, and rice, with a little indigo and tobacco. Kurnool
suffered very severely from the famine of 1876-1877, and to a slight
extent in 1896-1897. It is the chief scene of the operations of the
Madras Irrigation Company taken over by government in 1882. The canal,
which starts from the Tungabhadra river near Kurnool town, was
constructed at a total cost of two millions sterling, but has not been a
financial success. A more successful work is the Cumbum tank, formed
under native rule by damming a gorge of the Gundlakamma river. Apart
from the weaving of coarse cotton cloth, the chief industrial
establishments are cotton presses, indigo vats, and saltpetre
refineries. The district is served by the Southern Mahratta railway.
KUROKI, ITEI, COUNT (1844- ), Japanese general, was born in Satsuma. He
distinguished himself in the Chino-Japanese War of 1894-95. He commanded
the I. Army in the Russo-Japanese War (1904-5), when he won the opening
battle of the war at the Yalu river, and afterwards advanced through the
mountains and took part with the other armies in the battles of
Liao-Yang, Shaho and Mukden (see RUSSO-JAPANESE WAR). He was created
baron for his services in the former war, and count for his services in
the latter.
KUROPATKIN, ALEXEI NIKOLAIEVICH (1848- ), Russian general, was born in
1848 and entered the army in 1864. From 1872 to 1874 he studied at the
Nicholas staff college, after which he spent a short time with the
French troops in Algiers. In 1875 he was employed in diplomatic work in
Kashgaria and in 1876 he took part in military operations in Turkistan,
Kokan and Samerkand. In the war of 1877-78 against Turkey he earned a
great reputation as chief of staff to the younger Skobelev, and after
the war he wrote a detailed and critical history of the operations which
is still regarded as the classical work on the subject and is available
for other nations in the German translation by Major Krahmer. After the
war he served again on the south-eastern borders in command of the
Turkestan Rifle Brigade, and in 1881 he won further fame by a march of
500 miles from Tashkent to Geok-Tepe, taking part in the storming of the
latter place. In 1882 he was promoted major-general, at the early age of
34, and he henceforth was regarded by the army as the natural successor
of Skobelev. In 1890 he was promoted lieutenant-general, and thirteen
years later, having acquired in peace and war the reputation of being
one of the foremost soldiers in Europe, he quitted the post of minister
of war which he then held and took command of the Russian army then
gathering in Manchuria for the contest with Japan. His ill-success in
the great war of 1904-5, astonishing as it seemed at the time, was
largely attributable to his subjection to the superior command of
Admiral Alexeiev, the tsar's viceroy in the Far East, and to internal
friction amongst the generals, though in his history of the war (Eng.
trans., 1909) he frankly admitted his own mistakes and paid the highest
tribute to the gallantry of the troops who had been committed to battle
under conditions unfavourable to success. After the defeat of Mukden and
the retirement of the whole army to Tieling he resigned the command to
General Linievich, taking the latter officer's place at the head of one
of the three armies in Manchuria. (See RUSSO-JAPANESE WAR.)
KURO SIWO, or KURO SHIO (literally blue salt), a stream current in the
Pacific Ocean, easily distinguishable by the warm temperature and blue
colour of its waters, flowing north-eastwards along the east coast of
Japan, and separated from it by a strip of cold water. The current
persists as a stream to about 40 N., between the meridians of 150 deg.
E. and 160 deg. E., when it merges in the general easterly drift of the
North Pacific. The Kuro Siwo is the analogue of the Gulf Stream in the
Atlantic.
KURRAM, a river and district on the Kohat border of the North-West
Frontier province of India. The Kurram river drains the southern flanks
of the Safed Koh, enters the plains a few miles above Bannu, and joins
the Indus near Isa-Khel after a course of more than 200 miles. The
district has an area of 1278 sq. m.; pop. (1901), 54,257. It lies
between the Miranzai Valley and the Afghan border, and is inhabited by
the Turis, a tribe of Turki origin who are supposed to have subjugated
the Bangash Pathans five hundred years ago. It is highly irrigated, well
peopled, and crowded with small fortified villages, orchards and groves,
to which a fine background is afforded by the dark pine forests and
alpine snows of the Safed Koh. The beauty and climate of the valley
attracted some of the Mogul emperors of Delhi, and the remains exist of
a garden planted by Shah Jahan. Formerly the Kurram valley was under the
government of Kabul, and every five or six years a military expedition
was sent to collect the revenue, the soldiers living meanwhile at free
quarters on the people. It was not until about 1848 that the Turis were
brought directly under the control of Kabul, when a governor was
appointed, who established himself in Kurram. The Turis, being Shiah
Mahommedans, never liked the Afghan rule. During the second Afghan War,
when Sir Frederick Roberts advanced by way of the Kurram valley and the
Peiwar Kotal to Kabul, the Turis lent him every assistance in their
power, and in consequence their independence was granted them in 1880.
The administration of the Kurram valley was finally undertaken by the
British government, at the request of the Turis themselves, in 1890.
Technically it ranks, not as a British district, but as an agency or
administered area. Two expeditions in the Kurram valley also require
mention: (1) The Kurram expedition of 1856 under Brigadier Chamberlain.
The Turis on the first annexation of the Kohat district by the British
had given much trouble. They had repeatedly leagued with other tribes to
harry the Miranzai valley, harbouring fugitives, encouraging resistance,
and frequently attacking Bangash and Khattak villages in the Kohat
district. Accordingly in 1856 a British force of 4896 troops traversed
their country, and the tribe entered into engagements for future good
conduct. (2) The Kohat-Kurram expedition of 1897 under Colonel W. Hill.
During the frontier risings of 1897 the inhabitants of the Kurram
valley, chiefly the Massozai section of the Orakzais, were infected by
the general excitement, and attacked the British camp at Sadda and other
posts. A force of 14,230 British troops traversed the country, and the
tribesmen were severely punished. In Lord Curzon's reorganization of the
frontier in 1900-1901, the British troops were withdrawn from the forts
in the Kurram valley, and were replaced by the Kurram militia,
reorganized in two battalions, and chiefly drawn from the Turi tribe.
KURSEONG, or KARSIANG, a sanatorium of northern India, in the Darjeeling
district of Bengal, 20 m. S. of Darjeeling and 4860 ft. above sea-level;
pop. (1901), 4469. It has a station on the mountain railway, and is a
centre of the tea trade. It also contains boys' and girls' schools for
Europeans and Eurasians.
KURSK, a government of middle Russia, bounded N. by the government of
Orel, E. by that of Voronezh, S. by Kharkov and W. by Chernigov. Area,
17,932 sq. m. It belongs to the central plateau of middle Russia, of
which it mostly occupies the southern slope, the highest parts being in
Orel and Kaluga, to the north of Kursk. Its surface is 700 to 1100 ft.
high, deeply trenched by ravines, and consequently assumes a hilly
aspect when viewed from the river valleys. Cretaceous and Eocene rocks
prevail, and chalk, iron-stone, potters' clay and phosphates are among
the economic minerals. No fewer than four hundred streams are counted
within its borders, but none of them is of any service as waterways. A
layer of fertile loess covers the whole surface, and Kursk belongs
almost entirely to the black-earth region. The flora is distinct from
that of the governments to the north, not only on account of the
black-earth flora which enters into its composition, but also of the
plants of south-western Russia which belong to it, a characteristic
which is accentuated in the southern portion of the government. The
climate is milder than that of middle Russia generally, and winds from
the south-east and the south-west prevail in winter. The average
temperatures are--for the year 42 deg. F., for January 14 deg. F. and
for July 67 deg. F. The very interesting magnetic phenomenon, known as
the Byelgorod anomaly, covering an oval area 20 m. long and 12 m. wide,
has been studied near the town of this name. The population, 1,893,597
in 1862, was 2,391,091 in 1897, of whom 1,208,488 were women and 199,676
lived in towns. The estimated pop. in 1906 was 2,797,000. It is
thoroughly Russian (76% Great Russians and 24% Little Russians), and 94%
are peasants who own over 59% of the land, and live mostly in large
villages. Owing to the rapid increase of the peasantry and the small
size of the allotments given at the emancipation of the serfs in 1861,
emigration, chiefly to Siberia, is on the increase, while 80,000 to
100,000 men leave home every summer to work in the neighbouring
governments. Three-quarters of the available land is under crops,
chiefly rye, other crops being wheat, oats, barley, buckwheat, millet,
potatoes, sugar-beets, hemp, flax, sunflowers and fruits. Grain is
exported in considerable quantities. Bees are commonly kept, as also are
large numbers of livestock. Factories (steam flour-mills,
sugar-factories, distilleries, wool-washing, tobacco factories) give
occupation to about 23,000 workers. Domestic and petty trades are on the
increase in the villages, and new ones are being introduced, the chief
products being boots, ikons (sacred images) and shrines, toys, caps,
vehicles, baskets, and pottery. About 17 m. from the chief town is held
the Korennaya fair, formerly the greatest in South Russia, and still
with an annual trade valued at L900,000. The Kursk district contains
more than sixty old town sites; and barrows or burial mounds (_kurgans_)
are extremely abundant. Notwithstanding the active efforts of the local
councils (_zemstvos_), less than 10% of the population read and write.
The government is crossed from north to south and from west to south by
two main lines of railway. The trade in grain, hemp, hemp-seed oil,
sheepskins, hides, tallow, felt goods, wax, honey and leather goods is
very brisk. There are fifteen districts, the chief towns of which, with
their populations in 1897, are Kursk (q.v.) Byelgorod (21,850), Dmitriev
(7315), Fatezh (4959), Graivoron (7669), Korocha (14,405), Lgov (5376),
Novyi Oskol (2762), Oboyan (11872), Putivl (8965), Rylsk (11,415),
Staryi Oskol (16,662), Shchigry (3329), Suja (12,856) and Tim (7380).
There are more than twenty villages which have from 5000 to 12,000
inhabitants each. (P. A K.; J. T. Be.)
KURSK, a town of Russia, capital of the government of the same name, at
the junction of the railways from Moscow, Kiev and Kharkov, 330 m.
S.S.W. from Moscow. Pop. (1897), 52,896. It is built on two hills (750
ft.), the slopes of which are planted with orchards. The environs all
round are well wooded and the woods are famous for their nightingales.
Among the public buildings the more noticeable are a monastery with an
image of the Virgin, greatly venerated since 1295; the Orthodox Greek
cathedral (18th century); and the episcopal palace, Kursk being a
bishopric of the national church. It is essentially a provincial town,
and is revered as the birthplace of Theodosius, one of the most
venerated of Russian saints. It has a public garden, and has become the
seat of several societies (medical, musical, educational and for sport).
Its factories include steam flour-mills, distilleries, tobacco-works,
hemp-crushing mills, tanneries, soap-works and iron-works. It has a
great yearly fair (_Korennaya_), and an active trade in cereals, linen,
leather, fruit, horses, cattle, hides, sheepskins, furs, down, bristles,
wax, tallow and manufactured goods.
Kursk was in existence in 1032. It was completely destroyed by the
Mongols in 1240. The defence of the town against an incursion of the
Turkish Polovtsi (or Comans or Cumani) is celebrated in _The Triumph of
Igor_, an epic which forms one of the most valuable relics of early
Russian literature. From 1586 to the close of the 18th century the
citadel was a place of considerable strength; the remains are now
comparatively few.
KURTZ, JOHANN HEINRICH (1809-1890), German Lutheran theologian, was born
at Montjoie near Aix la Chapelle on the 13th of December 1809, and was
educated at Halle and Bonn. Abandoning the idea of a commercial career,
he gave himself to the study of theology and became religious instructor
at the gymnasium of Mitau in 1835, and ordinary professor of theology
(church history, 1850; exegesis, 1859) at Dorpat. He resigned his chair
in 1870 and went to live at Marburg, where he died on the 26th of April
1890. Kurtz was a prolific writer, and many of his books, especially the
_Lehrbuch der heiligen Geschichte_ (1843), became very popular. In the
field of biblical criticism he wrote a _Geschichte des Alten Bundes_
(1848-1855), _Zur Theologie der Psalmen_ (1865) and _Erklarung des
Briefs an die Hebraer_ (1869). His chief work was done in church
history, among his productions being _Lehrbuch der Kirchengeschichte fur
Studierende_ (1849), _Abriss der Kirchengeschichte_ (1852) and _Handbuch
der allgemeinen Kirchengeschichte_ (1853-1856). Several of his books
have been translated into English.
KURUMAN, a town in the Bechuanaland division of Cape Colony, 120 m. N.W.
of Kimberley and 85 m. S.W. of Vryburg. It is a station of the London
Missionary Society, founded in 1818, and from 1821 to 1870 was the scene
of the labours of Robert Moffat (q.v.) who here translated the Bible
into the Bechuana tongue. In the middle period of the 19th century
Kuruman was the rendezvous of all travellers going north or south. Of
these the best known is David Livingstone. The trunk railway line
passing considerably to the east of the town, Kuruman is no longer a
place of much importance. It is pleasantly situated on the upper course
of the Kuruman river, being beautified by gardens and orchards, and
presents a striking contrast to the desert conditions of the surrounding
country. Its name is that of the son and heir of Mosilikatze, the
founder of the Matabele nation. Kuruman disappeared during his father's
lifetime and the succession passed to Lobengula (see RHODESIA:
_History_). In November 1899 the town was besieged by a Boer force. The
garrison, less than a hundred strong, held out for six weeks against
over 1000 of the enemy, but was forced to surrender on the 1st of
January 1900. In June following it was reoccupied by the British.
KURUMBAS and KURUBAS, aboriginal tribes of southern India, by some
thought to be of distinct races. There are two types of Kurumbas, those
who live on the Nilgiri plateau, speak the Kurumba dialect and are mere
savages; and those who live in the plains, speak Kanarese and are
civilized. The former are a small people, with wild matted hair and
scanty beard, sickly-looking, pot-bellied, large-mouthed, with
projecting jaws, prominent teeth and thick lips. Their villages are
called _mottas_, groups of four or five huts, built in mountain glens or
forests. At the 1901 census the numbers were returned at 4083.
See James W. Breeks, _An Account of Primitive Tribes of the Nilgiris_
(1873); Dr John Shortt, _Hill Ranges of Southern India_, pt. i. 47-53;
Rev. F. Metz, _Tribes Inhabiting the Neilgherry Hills_ (Mangalore,
1864).
KURUNEGALA, the chief town in the north-western province of Ceylon. Pop.
of the town, 6483; of the district, 249,429. It was the residence of the
kings of Ceylon from A.D. 1319 to 1347, and is romantically situated
under the shade of Adagalla (the rock of the Tusked Elephant), which is
600 ft. high. It was in 1902 the terminus of the Northern railway (59 m.
from Colombo), which has since been extended 200 m. farther, to the
northernmost coast of the Jaffna Peninsula. Kurunegala is the centre of
rice, coco-nut, tea, coffee and cocoa cultivation.
KURUNTWAD, or KURANDVAD, a native state of India, in the Deccan division
of Bombay, forming part of the Southern Mahratta jagirs. Originally
created in 1772 by a grant from the peshwa, the state was divided in
1811 into two parts, one of which, called Shedbal, lapsed to the British
government in 1857. In 1855 Kuruntwad was further divided between a
senior and a junior branch. The territory of both is widely scattered
among other native states and British districts. Area of the senior
branch, 185 sq. m.; pop. (1901), 42,474; revenue, L13,000. Area of
junior branch, 114 sq. m.; pop. (1901), 34,003; revenue, L9000. The
joint tribute is L640. The chiefs are Brahmans by caste, of the
Patwardhan family. The town of Kuruntwad, in which both branches have
their residence, is on the right bank of the Panchganga river near its
junction with the Kistna. Pop. (1901), 10,451.
KURZ, HERMANN (1813-1873), German poet and novelist, was born at
Reutlingen on the 30th of November 1813. Having studied at the
theological seminary at Maulbronn and at the university of Tubingen, he
was for a time assistant pastor at Ehningen. He then entered upon a
literary career, and in 1863 was appointed university librarian at
Tubingen, where he died on the 10th of October 1873. Kurz is less known
to fame by his poems, _Gedichte_ (1836) and _Dichtungen_ (1839), than by
his historical novels, _Schillers Heimatjahre_ (1843, 3rd ed., 1899) and
_Der Sonnenwirt_ (1854, 2nd ed., 1862), and his excellent translations
from English, Italian and Spanish. He also published a successful modern
German version of Gottfried von Strassburg's _Tristan und Isolde_
(1844). His collected works were published in ten volumes (Stuttgart,
1874), also in twelve volumes (Leipzig, 1904).
His daughter, ISOLDE KURZ, born on the 21st of December 1853 at
Stuttgart, takes a high place among contemporary lyric poets in Germany
with her _Gedichte_ (Stuttgart, 1888, 3rd ed. 1898) and _Neue Gedichte_
(1903). Her short stories, _Florentiner Novellen_ (1890, 2nd ed. 1893),
_Phantasien und Marchen_ (1890), _Italienische Erzahlungen_ (1895) and
_Von Dazumal_ (1900) are distinguished by a fine sense of form and
clear-cut style.
KUSAN ("lake" or "inland bay"), a small group of North American Indian
tribes, formerly living on the Coos river and the coast of Oregon. They
call themselves Anasitch, and other names given them have been Ka-us or
KWO-KWOOS, Kowes and Cook-koo-oose. They appear to be in no way related
to their neighbours. The few survivors, mostly of mixed blood, are on
the Siletz reservation, Oregon.
KUSHALGARH, a village in the Kohat district of the North-West Frontier
province of India. It is only notable as the point at which the Indus is
bridged to permit of the extension of the strategic frontier railway
from Rawalpindi to the Miranzai and Kurram valleys.
KUSHK, a river of Afghanistan, which also gives its name to the chief
town in the Afghan province of Badghis, and to a military post on the
border of Russian Turkestan. The river Kushk, during a portion of its
course, forms the boundary between Afghan and Russian territory; but the
town is some 20 m. from the border. Kushk, or Kushkinski Post, is now a
fourth-class Russian fortress, on a Russian branch railway from Merv,
the terminus of which is 12 m. to the south, at Chahil Dukteran. It is
served by both the Transcaspian and the Orenburg-Tashkent railways. The
terminus is only 66 m. from Herat, and in the event of war would become
an important base for a Russian advance. Some confusion has arisen
through the popular application of the name of Kushk to this terminus,
though it is situated neither at the Russian post nor at the old town.
(T. H. H.*)
KUSTANAISK, a town of Asiatic Russia, in the province of Turgai, on the
Tobol river, 410 m. E.N.E. of Orenburg, in a very fertile part of the
steppes. Pop. (1897), 14,065. The first buildings were erected in 1871,
and it has since grown with American-like rapidity. The immigrants from
Russia built a large village, which became the centre of the district
administration in 1884, and a town in 1893, under the name of
Nicolaevsk, changed later into Kustanaisk. It is an educational centre,
and a cathedral has been built. There are tanneries, tallow works,
potteries, and a fair for cattle, while its trade makes it a rival to
Orenburg and Troitsk.
KUSTENLAND (coast-land or littoral), a common name for the three
crown-lands of Austria, Gorz and Gradisca, Istria and Trieste. Their
combined area is 3084 sq. m., and their population in 1900 was 755,183.
They are united for certain administrative purposes under the governor
of Trieste, the legal and financial authorities of which also exercise
jurisdiction over the entire littoral.
KUTAIAH, KUTAYA, or KIUTAHIA, the chief town of a sanjak in the vilayet
of Brusa (Khudavendikiar), Asia Minor, is situated on the Pursaksu, an
affluent of the Sakaria (anc. _Sangarius_). The town lies at an
important point of the great road across Asia Minor from Constantinople
to Aleppo, and is connected by a branch line with the main line from
Eski-shehr to Afium Kara-Hissar, of the Anatolian railway. It has a busy
trade; pop. estimated at 22,000. Kutaiah has been identified with the
ancient Cotiaeum.
See V. Cuinet, _Turquie d'Asie_, vol. iv. (Paris, 1894).
KUTAIS, a government of Russian Transcaucasia, situated between the
Caucasus range on the N. and the Black Sea on the W., the government of
Tiflis on the E. and the province of Kars on the S. Area, 14,313 sq. m.
The government includes the districts of Guria, Mingrelia, Imeretia,
Abkhasia and Svanetia, and consists of four distinct parts: (1) the
lowlands, drained by the Rion, and continued N.W. along the shore of the
Black Sea; (2) the southern slopes of the main Caucasus range; (3) the
western slopes of the Suram mountains, which separate Kutais from
Tiflis; and (4) the slopes of the Armenian highlands, as well as a
portion of the highlands themselves, drained by the Chorokh and its
tributary, the Ajaris-tskhali, which formerly constituted the Batum
province. Generally speaking, the government is mountainous in the north
and south. Many secondary ridges and spurs shoot off the main range,
forming high, narrow valleys (see CAUCASUS). The district of Batum and
Artvin in the S.W., which in 1903 were in part separated for
administration as the semi-military district of Batum, are filled up by
spurs of the Pontic range, 9000 to 11,240 ft. high, the Arzyan ridge
separating them from the plateau of Kars. Deep gorges, through which
tributaries of the Chorokh force their passage to the main river,
intersect these highlands, forming most picturesque gorges. The lowlands
occupy over 2400 sq. m. They are mostly barren in the littoral region,
but extremely fertile higher up the Rion.
The climate is very moist and warm. The winters are often without frost
at all in the lowlands, while the lowest temperatures observed are 18
deg. F. at Batum and 9 deg. at Poti. The mountains condense the moisture
brought by the west winds, and the yearly amount of rain varies from 50
to 120 in. The chief rivers are the Rion, which enters the Black Sea at
Poti; the Chorokh, which enters the same sea at Batum; and the Ingur,
the Kodor and the Bzyb, also flowing into the Black Sea in Abkhasia. The
vegetation is extremely rich, its character suggesting the sub-tropic
regions of Japan (see CAUCASIA). The population belongs almost entirely
to the Kartvelian or Georgian group, and is distributed as follows:
Imeretians, 41.2%; Mingrelians and Lazes, 22.5%; Gurians, 7.3%; Ajars,
5.8%; Svanetians, 1.3%; of other nationalities there are 6% of
Abkhasians, 2.6% of Turks, 2.3% of Armenians, besides Russians, Jews,
Greeks, Persians, Kurds, Ossetes and Germans. By religion 87% of the
population are Greek Orthodox and only 10% Mussulmans. The total
population was 933,773 in 1897, of whom 508,468 were women and 77,702
lived in towns. The estimated population in 1906 was 924,800. The land
is excessively subdivided, and, owing to excellent cultivation, fetches
very high prices. The chief crops are maize, wheat, barley, beans, rye,
hemp, potatoes and tobacco. Maize, wine and timber are largely exported.
Some cotton-trees have been planted. The vine, olive, mulberry and all
sorts of fruit trees are cultivated, as also many exotic plants
(eucalyptus, cork-oak, camellia, and even tea). Manganese ore is the
chief mineral, and is extracted for export to the extent of 160,000 to
180,000 tons annually, besides coal, lead and silver ores, copper,
naphtha, some gold, lithographic stone and marble. Factories are still
in infancy, but silk is spun. A railway runs from the Caspian Sea, via
Tiflis and the Suram tunnel, to Kutais, and thence to Poti and Batum,
and from Kutais to the Tkvibuli coal and manganese mines. The export of
both local produce and goods shipped by rail from other ports of
Transcaucasia is considerable, Batum and Poti being the two chief ports
of Caucasia. Kutais is divided into seven districts, of which the chief
towns, with their populations in 1897, are Kutais, capital of the
province (q.v.); Lailashi (834), chief town of Lechgum, of which
Svanetia makes a separate administrative unit; Ozurgeti (4694); Oni,
chief town of Racha; Senaki (101); Kvirili, of Sharopan district;
Zugdidi; and two semi-military districts--Batum (28,512) with Artvin
(7000) and Sukhum-kaleh (7809). (P. A. K.--J. T. Be.)
KUTAIS, a town of Russian Caucasia, capital of the government of the
same name, 60 m. by rail E. of Poti and 5 m. from the Rion station of
the railway between Poti and Tiflis. Pop. (1897), 32,492. It is one of
the oldest towns of Caucasia, having been the ancient capital (Aea or
Kutaea) of Colchis, and later the capital of Imeretia (from 792);
Procopius mentions it under the name of Kotatision. Persians, Mongols,
Turks and Russians have again and again destroyed the town and its
fortress. In 1810 it became Russian. It is situated on both banks of the
Rion river, which is spanned by three bridges. Its most remarkable
building is the ruined cathedral, erected in the 11th century by the
Bagratids, the ruling dynasty of Georgia, and destroyed by the Turks in
1692; it is the most important representative extant of Georgian
architecture. The fort, mentioned by Procopius, is now a heap of ruins,
destroyed by the Russians in 1770. The inhabitants make hats and silks,
and trade in agricultural produce and wine. On the right bank of the
Rion is a government model garden, with a model farm.
KUT-EL-AMARA, a small town in Turkish Asia, on the east bank of the
Tigris (32 deg. 29' 19" N., 44 deg. 45' 37" E.) at the point where the
Shatt-el-Hai leaves that stream. It is a coaling station of the steamers
plying between Basra and Bagdad, and an important Turkish post for the
control of the lower Tigris.
KUTENAI (Kutonaga), a group of North-American Indian tribes forming the
distinct stock of Kitunahan. Their former range was British Columbia,
along the Kootenay lake and river. They were always friendly to the
whites and noted for their honesty. In 1904 there were some 550 in
British Columbia; and in 1908 there were 606 on the Flathead Agency,
Montana.
KUTTALAM, or COURTALLUM, a sanatorium of southern India, in the
Tinnevelly district of Madras; pop. (1901), 1197. Though situated only
450 ft. above sea-level, it possesses the climate of a much higher
elevation, owing to the breezes that reach it through a gap in the
Ghats. It has long been a favourite resort for European visitors, the
season lasting from July to September; and it has recently been made
more accessible by the opening of the railway from Tinnevelly into
Travancore. The scenery is most picturesque, including a famous
waterfall.
KUTTENBERG (Czech, _Kutna Hora_), a town of Bohemia, Austria, 45 m. E.
by S. of Prague. Pop. (1900), 14,799, mostly Czech. Amongst its
buildings are the Gothic five-naved church of St Barbara, begun in 1368,
the Gothic church of St Jacob (14th century) and the Late Gothic Trinity
church (end of 15th century). The Walscher Hof, formerly a royal
residence and mint, was built at the end of the 13th century, and the
Gothic Steinerne Haus, which since 1849 serves as town-hall, contains
one of the richest archives in Bohemia. The industry includes
sugar-refining, brewing, the manufacture of cotton and woollen stuffs,
leather goods and agricultural implements.
The town of Kuttenberg owes its origin to the silver mines, the
existence of which can be traced back to the first part of the 13th
century. The city developed with great rapidity, and at the outbreak of
the Hussite troubles, early in the 14th century, was next to Prague the
most important in Bohemia, having become the favourite residence of
several of the Bohemian kings. It was here that, on the 18th of January
1410, Wenceslaus IV. signed the famous decree of Kuttenberg, by which
the Bohemian nation was given three votes in the elections to the
faculty of Prague University as against one for the three other
"nations." In the autumn of the same year Kuttenberg was the scene of
horrible atrocities. The fierce mining population of the town was mainly
German, and fanatically Catholic, in contrast with Prague, which was
Czech and utraquist. By way of reprisals for the Hussite outrages in
Prague, the miners of Kuttenberg seized on any Hussites they could find,
and burned, beheaded or threw them alive into the shafts of disused
mines. In this way 1600 people are said to have perished, including the
magistrates and clergy of the town of Kaurim, which the Kuttenbergers
had taken. In 1420 the emperor Sigismund made the city the base for his
unsuccessful attack on the Taborites; Kuttenberg was taken by Zizka, and
after a temporary reconciliation of the warring parties was burned by
the imperial troops in 1422, to prevent its falling again into the hands
of the Taborites. Zizka none the less took the place, and under Bohemian
auspices it awoke to a new period of prosperity. In 1541 the richest
mine was hopelessly flooded; in the insurrection of Bohemia against
Ferdinand I. the city lost all its privileges; repeated visitations of
the plague and the horrors of the Thirty Years' War completed its ruin.
Half-hearted attempts after the peace to repair the ruined mines failed;
the town became impoverished, and in 1770 was devastated by fire. The
mines were abandoned at the end of the 18th century; one mine was again
opened by the government in 1874, but the work was discontinued in 1903.
KUTUSOV [GOLENISHCHEV-KUTUZOV], MIKHAIL LARIONOVICH, PRINCE OF SMOLENSK
(1745-1813), Russian field marshal, was born on the 16th of September
1745 at St Petersburg, and entered the Russian army in 1759 or 1760. He
saw active service in Poland, 1764-69, and against the Turks, 1770-74;
lost an eye in action in the latter year; and after that travelled for
some years in central and western Europe. In 1784 he became
major-general, in 1787 governor-general of the Crimea; and under
Suvorov, whose constant companion he became, he won considerable
distinction in the Turkish War of 1788-91, at the taking of Ochakov,
Odessa, Benda and Ismail, and the battles of Rimnik and Mashin. He was
now (1791) a lieutenant-general, and successively occupied the positions
of ambassador at Constantinople, governor-general of Finland, commandant
of the corps of cadets at St Petersburg, ambassador at Berlin, and
governor-general of St Petersburg. In 1805 he commanded the Russian
corps which opposed Napoleon's advance on Vienna (see NAPOLEONIC
CAMPAIGNS), and won the hard-fought action of Durrenstein on the
18th-19th of November.
On the eve of Austerlitz (q.v.) he tried to prevent the Allied generals
from fighting a battle, and when he was overruled took so little
interest in the event that he fell asleep during the reading of the
orders. He was, however, present at the battle itself, and was wounded.
From 1806 to 1811 Kutusov was governor-general of Lithuania and Kiev,
and in 1811, being then commander-in-chief in the war against the Turks,
he was made a prince. Shortly after this he was called by the unanimous
voice of the army and the people to command the army that was retreating
before Napoleon's advance. He gave battle at Borodino (q.v.), and was
defeated, but not decisively, and after retreating to the south-west of
Moscow, he forced Napoleon to begin the celebrated retreat. The old
general's cautious pursuit evoked much criticism, but at any rate he
allowed only a remnant of the Grand Army to regain Prussian soil. He was
now field marshal and prince of Smolensk--this title having been given
him for a victory over part of the French army at that place in November
1812. Early in the following year he carried the war into Germany, took
command of the allied Russians and Prussians, and prepared to raise all
central Europe in arms against Napoleon's domination, but before the
opening of the campaign he fell ill and died on the 25th of March 1813
at Bunzlau. Memorials have been erected to him at that place and at St
Petersburg.
Mikhailovsky-Danilevski's life of Kutusov (St Petersburg, 1850) was
translated into French by A. Fizelier (Paris, 1850).
KUWET (KUWEIT, KOWEIT), a port in Arabia at the north-western angle of
the Persian Gulf in 29 deg. 20' N. and 48 deg. E., about 80 m. due S. of
Basra and 60 m. S.W. of the mouth of the Shat el Arab. The name Kuwet is
the diminutive form of Kut, a common term in Irak for a walled village;
it is also shown in some maps as Grane or Grain, a corruption of Kuren,
the diminutive of Karn, a horn. It lies on the south side of a bay 20 m.
long and 5 m. wide, the mouth of which is protected by two islands,
forming a fine natural harbour, with good anchorage in from 4 to 9
fathoms of water. The town has 15,000 inhabitants and is clean and well
built; the country around being practically desert, it depends entirely
on the sea and its trade, and its sailors have a high reputation as the
most skilful and trustworthy on the Persian Gulf; while its position as
the nearest port to Upper Nejd gives it great importance as the port of
entry for rice, piece goods, &c., and of export for horses, sheep, wool
and other products of the interior. Kuwet was recommended in 1850 by
General F. R. Chesney as the terminus of his proposed Euphrates Valley
railway, and since 1898, when the extension of the Anatolian railway to
Bagdad and the Gulf has been under discussion, attention has again been
directed to it. An alternative site for the terminus has been suggested
in Um Khasa, at the head of the Khor `Abdallah, where a branch of the
Shat el Arab formerly entered the sea; it lies some 20 m. N.E. of Kuwet
and separated from it by the island of Bubian, which has for some time
been in Turkish occupation. An attempt by Turkey to occupy Kuwet in 1898
was met by a formal protest from Great Britain against any infringement
of the _status quo_, and in 1899 Sheikh Mubarak of Kuwet placed his
interests under British protection.
The total trade passing through Kuwet in 1904-1905 was valued at
L160,000. The imports include arms and ammunition, piece goods, rice,
coffee, sugar, &c.; and the exports, horses, pearls, dates, wool, &c.
The steamers of the British India Steamship Company call fortnightly.
(R. A. W.)
KUZNETSK, two towns of Russia. (1) A town in the government of Saratov,
74 m. by rail east of Penza. It has grown rapidly since the development
of the railway system in the Volga basin. It has manufactures of
agricultural machinery and hardware, in a number of small factories and
workshops, besides tanneries, rope-works, boot and shoe making in
houses, and there is considerable trade in sheepskins, grain, salt and
wooden goods exported to the treeless regions of south-east Russia. Pop.
(1897), 21,740. (2) A town in West Siberia, in the government of Tomsk,
150 m. E.N.E. of Barnaul, on the Upper Tom river, at the head of
navigation. It has trade in grain, cattle, furs, cedarwood, nuts, wax,
honey and tallow, and is the centre of a coal-mining district. Pop.
(1897), 3141.
KVASS, or KWASS (a Russian word for "leaven"), one of the national
alcoholic drinks of Russia, and popular also in eastern Europe. It is
made, by a simultaneous acid and alcoholic fermentation, of wheat, rye,
barley and buckwheat meal or of rye-bread, with the addition of sugar or
fruit. It has been a universal drink in Russia since the 16th century.
Though in the large towns it is made commercially, elsewhere it is
frequently an article of domestic production. Kvass is of very low
alcoholic content (0.7 to 2.2%). There are, beside the ordinary kind,
superior forms of the drink, such as apple or raspberry kvass.
KWAKIUTL, a tribe of North-American Indians of Wakashan stock. They
number about 2000. Formerly the term was used of the one tribe in the
north-east of Vancouver, but now it is the collective name for a group
of Wakashan peoples. The Kwakiutl Indians are remarkable for their
conservatism in all matters and specially their adherence to the custom
of Potlatch, which it is sometimes suggested originated with them.
Tribal government is in the hands of secret societies. There are three
social ranks, hereditary chiefs, middle and third estates, most of the
latter being slaves or their descendants. Entry to the societies is
forbidden the latter, and can only be obtained by the former after
torture and fasting. The _hamatsa_ or cannibal society is only open to
those who have been members of a lower society for eight years.
KWANGCHOW BAY (KWANGCHOW WAN), a coaling station on the south coast of
China, acquired, along with other concessions, by the French government
in April 1898. It is situated on the east side of the peninsula of
Lienchow, in the province of Kwang-tung, and directly north of the
island of Hainan. It is held on lease for 99 years on similar terms to
those by which Kiaochow is held by Germany, Port Arthur by Japan and
Wei-hai-wei by Great Britain. The cession includes the islands lying in
the bay; these enclose a roadstead 18 m. long by 6 m. wide, with
admirable natural defences and a depth at no part of less than 33 ft.
The bay forms the estuary of the Ma-Ts'e river, navigable by the largest
men-of-war for 12 m. from the coast. The limits of the concession inland
were fixed in November 1899. On the left bank of the Ma-Ts'e France
gained from Kow Chow Fu a strip of territory 11 m. by 6 m., and on the
right bank a strip 15 m. by 11 m. from Lei Chow Fu. The country is well
populated; the capital and chief town is Lei Chow. The cession carries
with it full territorial jurisdiction during the continuance of the
lease. In January 1900 it was placed under the authority of the
governor-general of Indo-China, who in the same month appointed a civil
administrator over the country, which was divided into three districts.
The population of the territory is about 189,000. A mixed tribunal has
been instituted, but the local organization is maintained for purposes
of administration. In addition to the territory acquired, the right has
been given to connect the bay by railway with the city and harbour of
Ompon, situated on the west side of the peninsula, and in consequence of
difficulties which were offered by the provincial government on the
occasion of taking possession, and which compelled the French to have
recourse to arms, the latter demanded and obtained exclusive mining
rights in the three adjoining prefectures. Two lines of French
steamships call at the bay. By reason of the great strategical
importance of the bay, and the presence of large coal-beds in the near
neighbourhood, much importance is attached by the French to the
acquirement of Kwangchow Wan.
KWANG-SI, a southern province of China, bounded N. by Kwei-chow and
Hu-nan, E. and S. by Kwang-tung, S.W. and W. by French Indo-Chino and
Yun-nan. It covers an area of 80,000 sq. m. It is the least populous
province of China, its inhabitants numbering (1908) little over
5,000,000. The Skias, an aboriginal race, form two-thirds of the
population. The provincial capital is Kwei-lin Fu, or City of the Forest
of Cinnamon Trees, and there are besides ten prefectural cities. The
province is largely mountainous. The principal rivers are the Si-kiang
and the Kwei-kiang, or Cinnamon River, which takes its rise in the
district of Hing-gan, in the north of the province, and in the
neighbourhood of that of the Siang river, which flows northward through
Hu-nan to the Tung-t'ing Lake. The Kwei-kiang, on the other hand, takes
a southerly course, and passes the cities of Kwei-lin, Yang-so Hien,
P'ing-le Fu, Chao-p'ing Hien, and so finds its way to Wu-chow Fu, where
it joins the waters of the Si-kiang. Another considerable river is the
Liu-kiang, or Willow River, which rises in the mountains inhabited by
the Miao-tsze, in Kwei-chow. Leaving its source it takes a
south-easterly direction, and enters Kwang-si, in the district of
Hwai-yuen. After encircling the city of that name, it flows south as
far as Liu-ch'eng Hien, where it forms a junction with the Lung-kiang,
or Dragon River. Adopting the trend of this last-named stream, which has
its head-waters in Kwei-chow, the mingled flow passes eastward, and
farther on in a south-easterly direction, by Lai-chow Fu, Wu-suan Hien,
and Sin-chow Fu, where it receives the waters of the Si-kiang, and
thenceforth changes its name for that of its affluent. The treaty ports
in Kwang-si are Wu-chow Fu, Lung-chow and Nanning Fu.
KWANG-TUNG, a southern province of China, bounded N. by Hu-nan, Kiang-si
and Fu-kien, S. and E. by the sea, and W. by Kwang-si. It contains an
area, including the island of Hainan, of 75,500 sq. m., and is divided
into nine prefectures; and the population is estimated at about
30,000,000. Its name, which signifies "east of Kwang," is derived,
according to Chinese writers, from the fact of its being to the east of
the old province of Hu-kwang, in the same way that Kwang-si derives its
name from its position to the west of Hu-kwang. Kwang-tung extends for
more than 600 m. from east to west, and for about 420 from north to
south. It may be described as a hilly region, forming part as it does of
the Nan Shan ranges. These mountains, speaking generally, trend in a
north-east and south-westerly direction, and are divided by valleys of
great fertility. The principal rivers of the province are the Si-kiang,
the Pei-kiang, or North River, which rises in the mountains to the north
of the province, and after a southerly course joins the Si-kiang at
San-shui Hien; the Tung-kiang, or East River, which, after flowing in a
south-westerly direction from its source in the north-east of the
province, empties itself into the estuary which separates the city of
Canton from the sea; and the Han River, which runs a north and south
course across the eastern portion of the province, taking its rise in
the mountains on the western frontier of Fu-kien and emptying itself
into the China Sea in the neighbourhood of Swatow. Kwang-tung is one of
the most productive provinces of the empire. Its mineral wealth is very
considerable, and the soil of the valleys and plains is extremely
fertile. The principal article of export is silk, which is produced in
the district forming the river delta, extending from Canton to Macao and
having its apex at San-shui Hien. Three large coal-fields exist in the
province, namely, the Shao-chow Fu field in the north; the Hwa Hien
field, distant about 30 m. from Canton; and the west coast field, in the
south-west. The last is by far the largest of the three and extends over
the districts of Wu-ch'uen, Tien-pai, Yang-kiang, Yang-ch'un, Gan-p'ing,
K'ai-p'ing, Sin-hing, Ho-shan, Sin-hwang, and Sin-ning. The coal from
the two first-named fields is of an inferior quality, but that in the
west coast field is of a more valuable kind. Iron ore is found in about
twenty different districts, notably in Ts'ing-yuen, Ts'ung-hwa,
Lung-men, and Lu-feng. None, however, is exported in its raw state, as
all which is produced is manufactured in the province, and principally
at Fat-shan, which has been called the Birmingham of China. The
Kwang-tung coast abounds with islands, the largest of which is Hainan,
which forms part of the prefecture of K'iung-chow Fu. This island
extends for about 100 m. from north to south and the same distance from
east to west. The southern and eastern portions of Hainan are
mountainous, but on the north there is a plain of some extent. Gold is
found in the central part; and sugar, coco-nuts, betel-nuts, birds'
nests, and agar agar, or sea vegetable, are among the other products of
the island. Canton, Swatow, K'iung-chow (in Hainan), Pakhoi, San-shui
are among the treaty ports. Three ports in the province have been ceded
or leased to foreign powers--Macao to Portugal, Hong-Kong (with Kowloon)
to Great Britain, and Kwangchow to France.
KWANZA (COANZA or QUANZA), a river of West Africa, with a course of
about 700 m. entirely within the Portuguese territory of Angola. The
source lies in about 13 deg. 40' S., 17 deg. 30' E. on the Bihe plateau,
at an altitude of over 5000 ft. It runs first N.E. and soon attains
fairly large dimensions. Just north of 12 deg. it is about 60 yds. wide
and 13 to 16 ft. deep. From this point to 10 deg. it flows N.W.,
receiving many tributaries, especially the Luando from the east. In
about 10 deg., and at intervals during its westerly passage through the
outer plateau escarpments, its course is broken by rapids, the river
flowing in a well-defined valley flanked by higher ground. The lowest
fall is that of Kambamba, or Livingstone, with a drop of 70 ft. Thence
to the sea, a distance of some 160 m., it is navigable by small
steamers, though very shallow in the dry season. The river enters the
sea in 9 deg. 15' S., 13 deg. 20' E., 40 m. S. of Loanda. There is a
shifting bar at its mouth, difficult to cross, but the river as a
waterway has become of less importance since the fertile district in its
middle basin has been served by the railway from Loanda to Ambaca (see
ANGOLA).
KWEI-CHOW, a south-western province of China, bounded N. by Sze-ch'uen,
E. by Hu-nan, S. by Kwang-si, and W. by Yun-nan. It contains 67,000 sq.
m., and has a population of about 8,000,000. Kwei-yang Fu is the
provincial capital, and besides this there are eleven prefectural cities
in the province. With the exception of plains in the neighbourhood of
Kwei-yang Fu, Ta-ting Fu, and Tsun-i Fu, in the central and northern
regions, the province may be described as mountainous. The mountain
ranges in the south are largely inhabited by Miao-tsze, who are the
original owners of the soil and have been constantly goaded into a state
of rebellion by the oppression to which they have been subjected by the
Chinese officials. To this disturbing cause was added another in 1861 by
the spread of the Mahommedan rebellion in Yun-nan into some of the
south-western districts of the province. The devastating effects of
these civil wars were most disastrous to the trade and the prosperity of
Kwei-chow. The climate is by nature unhealthy, the supply of running
water being small, and that of stagnant water, from which arises a fatal
malaria, being considerable. The agricultural products of the province
are very limited, and its chief wealth lies in its minerals. Copper,
silver, lead, and zinc are found in considerable quantities, and as
regards quicksilver, Kwei-chow is probably the richest country in the
world. This has been from of old the chief product of the province, and
the belt in which it occurs extends through the whole district from
south-west to north-east. One of the principal mining districts is K'ai
Chow, in the prefecture of Kwei-yang Fu, and this district has the
advantage of being situated near Hwang-p'ing Chow, from which place the
products can be conveniently and cheaply shipped to Hankow. Cinnabar,
realgar, orpiment and coal form the rest of the mineral products of
Kwei-chow. Wild silk is another valuable article of export. It is
chiefly manufactured in the prefecture of Tsun-i Fu.
KYAUKPYU, a district in the Arakan division of Lower Burma, on the
eastern coast of the Bay of Bengal. It consists of, first, a strip of
mainland along the Bay of Bengal, extending from the An pass, across the
main range, to the Ma-i River, and, secondly, the large islands of
Ramree and Cheduba, with many others to the south, lying off the coast
of Sandoway. The mainland in the north and east is highly mountainous
and forest-clad, and the lower portion is cut up into numerous islands
by a network of tidal creeks. Between the mainland and Ramree lies a
group of islands separated by deep, narrow, salt-water inlets, forming
the north-eastern shore of Kyaukpyu harbour, which extends for nearly 30
m. along Ramree in a south-easterly direction, and has an average
breadth of 3 m. The principal mountains are the Arakan Yomas, which send
out spurs and sub-spurs almost to the sea-coast. The An pass, an
important trade route, rises to a height of 4664 ft. above sea-level.
The Dha-let and the An rivers are navigable by large boats for 25 and 45
m. respectively. Above these distances they are mere mountain torrents.
Large forests of valuable timber cover an area of about 650 sq. m.
Kyaukpyu contains numerous "mud volcanoes," from which marsh gas is
frequently discharged, with occasional issue of flame. The largest of
these is situated in the centre of Cheduba island. Earth-oil wells exist
in several places in the district. The oil when brought to the surface
has the appearance of a whitish-blue water, which gives out brilliant
straw-coloured rays, and emits a strong pungent odour. Limestone, iron
and coal are also found. Area 4387 sq. m.; pop. (1901), 168,827,
showing an increase in the decade of 2.3%.
The chief town, Kyaukpyu, had a population in 1901 of 3145. It has a
municipal committee of twelve members, three _ex officio_ and nine
appointed by the local government, and there is a third-class district
gaol. Kyaukpyu is a port under the Indian Ports Act (X. of 1889), and
the steamers of the British India Navigation Company call there once a
week going and coming between Rangoon and Calcutta.
KYAUKSE, a district in the Meiktila division of Upper Burma, with an
area of 1274 sq. m., and a population in 1901 of 141,253. It is also
known as the _Ko-kayaing_, so called from the original nine canals of
the district. It consists of a generally level strip running north and
south at the foot of the Shan Hills, and of a hilly region rising up
these hills to the east, and including the Yeyaman tract, which lies
between 21 deg. 30' and 21 deg. 40' N. and 96 deg. 15' and 96 deg. 45'
E., with peaks rising to between 4500 and 5000 ft. This tract is rugged
and scored by ravines, and is very sparsely inhabited. The Panlaung and
Zawgyi rivers from the Shan States flow through the district and are
utilized for the numerous irrigation canals. Notwithstanding this, much
timber is floated down, and the Panlaung is navigable for small boats
all the year round. Rain is very scarce, but the canals supply ample
water for cultivation and all other purposes. They are said to have been
dug by King Nawrahta in 1092. He is alleged to have completed the system
of nine canals and weirs in three years' time. Others have been
constructed since the annexation of Upper Burma. At that time many were
in serious disrepair, but most of them have been greatly improved by the
construction of proper regulators and sluices. Two-thirds of the
population are dependent entirely on cultivation for their support, and
this is mainly rice on irrigated land. In the Yeyaman tract the chief
crop is rice. The great majority of the population is pure Burmese, but
in the hills there are a good many Danus, a cross between Shans and
Burmese. The railway runs through the centre of the rice-producing area,
and feeder roads open up the country as far as the Shan foot-hills. The
greater part of the district consists of state land, the cultivators
being tenants of government, but there is a certain amount of hereditary
freehold.
KYAUKSE town is situated on the Zawgyi River and on the Rangoon-Mandalay
railway line, and is well laid out in regular streets, covering an area
of about a square mile. It has a population (1901) of 5420, mostly
Burmese, with a colony of Indian traders. Above it are some bare rocky
hillocks, picturesquely studded with pagodas.
KYD, THOMAS (1558-1594), one of the most important of the English
Elizabethan dramatists who preceded Shakespeare. Kyd remained until the
last decade of the 19th century in what appeared likely to be
impenetrable obscurity. Even his name was forgotten until Thomas Hawkins
about 1773 discovered it in connexion with _The Spanish Tragedy_ in
Thomas Heywood's _Apologie for Actors_. But by the industry of English
and German scholars a great deal of light has since been thrown on his
life and writings. He was the son of Francis Kyd, citizen and scrivener
of London, and was baptized in the church of St Mary Woolnoth, Lombard
Street, on the 6th of November 1558. His mother, who survived her son,
was named Agnes, or Anna. In October 1565 Kyd entered the newly founded
Merchant Taylors' School, where Edmund Spenser and perhaps Thomas Lodge
were at different times his school-fellows. It is thought that Kyd did
not proceed to either of the universities; he apparently followed, soon
after leaving school, his father's business as a scrivener. But Nashe
describes him as a "shifting companion that ran through every art and
throve by none." He showed a fairly wide range of reading in Latin. The
author on whom he draws most freely is Seneca, but there are many
reminiscences, and occasionally mistranslations of other authors. Nashe
contemptuously said that "English Seneca read by candlelight yeeldes
many good sentences," no doubt exaggerating his indebtedness to Thomas
Newton's translation. John Lyly had a more marked influence on his
manner than any of his contemporaries. It is believed that he produced
his famous play, _The Spanish Tragedy_, between 1584 and 1589; the
quarto in the British Museum (which is probably earlier than the
Gottingen and Ellesmere quartos, dated 1594 and 1599) is undated, and
the play was licensed for the press in 1592. The full title runs, _The
Spanish Tragedie containing the Lamentable End of Don Horatio and
Bel-imperia; with the Pitiful Death of Old Hieronimo_, and the play is
commonly referred to by Henslowe and other contemporaries as
_Hieronimo_. This drama enjoyed all through the age of Elizabeth and
even of James I. and Charles I. so unflagging a success that it has been
styled the most popular of all old English plays. Certain expressions in
Nashe's preface to the 1589 edition of Robert Greene's _Menaphon_ may be
said to have started a whole world of speculation with regard to Kyd's
activity. Much of this is still very puzzling; nor is it really
understood why Ben Jonson called him "sporting Kyd." In 1592 there was
added a sort of prologue to _The Spanish Tragedy_, called _The First
Part of Jeronimo, or The Warres of Portugal_, not printed till 1605.
Professor Boas concludes that Kyd had nothing to do with this
melodramatic production, which gives a different version of the story
and presents Jeronimo as little more than a buffoon. On the other hand,
it becomes more and more certain that what German criticism calls the
_Ur-Hamlet_, the original draft of the tragedy of the prince of Denmark,
was a lost work by Kyd, probably composed by him in 1587. This theory
has been very elaborately worked out by Professor Sarrazin, and
confirmed by Professor Boas; these scholars are doubtless right in
holding that traces of Kyd's play survive in the first two acts of the
1603 first quarto of _Hamlet_, but they probably go too far in
attributing much of the actual language of the last three acts to Kyd.
Kyd's next work was in all probability the tragedy of _Soliman and
Perseda_, written perhaps in 1588 and licensed for the press in 1592,
which, although anonymous, is assigned to him on strong internal
evidence by Mr Boas. No copy of the first edition has come down to us;
but it was reprinted, after Kyd's death, in 1599. In the summer or
autumn of 1590 Kyd seems to have given up writing for the stage, and to
have entered the service of an unnamed lord, who employed a troop of
"players." Kyd was probably the private secretary of this nobleman, in
whom Professor Boas sees Robert Radcliffe, afterwards fifth earl of
Sussex. To the wife of the earl (Bridget Morison of Cassiobury) Kyd
dedicated in the last year of his life his translation of Garnier's
_Cornelia_ (1594), to the dedication of which he attached his initials.
Two prose works of the dramatist have survived, a treatise on domestic
economy, _The Householder's Philosophy_, translated from the Italian of
Tasso (1588); and a sensational account of _The Most Wicked and Secret
Murdering of John Brewer, Goldsmith_ (1592). His name is written on the
title-page of the unique copy of the last-named pamphlet at Lambeth, but
probably not by his hand. That many of Kyd's plays and poems have been
lost is proved by the fact that fragments exist, attributed to him,
which are found in no surviving context. Towards the close of his life
Kyd was brought into relations with Marlowe. It would seem that in 1590,
soon after he entered the service of this nobleman, Kyd formed his
acquaintance. If he is to be believed, he shrank at once from Marlowe as
a man "intemperate and of a cruel heart" and "irreligious." This,
however, was said by Kyd with the rope round his neck, and is scarcely
consistent with a good deal of apparent intimacy between him and
Marlowe. When, in May 1593, the "lewd libels" and "blasphemies" of
Marlowe came before the notice of the Star Chamber, Kyd was immediately
arrested, papers of his having been found "shuffled" with some of
Marlowe's, who was imprisoned a week later. A visitation on Kyd's papers
was made in consequence of his having attached a seditious libel to the
wall of the Dutch churchyard in Austin Friars. Of this he was innocent,
but there was found in his chamber a paper of "vile heretical conceits
denying the deity of Jesus Christ." Kyd was arrested and put to the
torture in Bridewell. He asserted that he knew nothing of this document
and tried to shift the responsibility of it upon Marlowe, but he was
kept in prison until after the death of that poet (June 1, 1593). When
he was at length dismissed, his patron refused to take him back into his
service. He fell into utter destitution, and sank under the weight of
"bitter times and privy broken passions." He must have died late in
1594, and on the 30th of December of that year his parents renounced
their administration of the goods of their deceased son, in a document
of great importance discovered by Professor Schick.
The importance of Kyd, as the pioneer in the wonderful movement of
secular drama in England, gives great interest to his works, and we are
now able at last to assert what many critics have long conjectured, that
he takes in that movement the position of a leader and almost of an
inventor. Regarded from this point of view, _The Spanish Tragedy_ is a
work of extraordinary value, since it is the earliest specimen of
effective stage poetry existing in English literature. It had been
preceded only by the pageant-poems of Peele and Lyly, in which all that
constitutes in the modern sense theatrical technique and effective
construction was entirely absent. These gifts, in which the whole power
of the theatre as a place of general entertainment was to consist, were
supplied earliest among English playwrights to Kyd, and were first
exercised by him, so far as we can see, in 1586. This, then, is a more
or less definite starting date for Elizabethan drama, and of peculiar
value to its historians. Curiously enough, _The Spanish Tragedy_, which
was the earliest stage-play of the great period, was also the most
popular, and held its own right through the careers of Shakespeare, Ben
Jonson, and Fletcher. It was not any shortcoming in its harrowing and
exciting plot, but the tameness of its archaic versification, which
probably led in 1602 to its receiving "additions," which have been a
great stumbling-block to the critics. It is known that Ben Jonson was
paid for these additional scenes, but they are extremely unlike all
other known writings of his, and several scholars have independently
conjectured that John Webster wrote them. Of Kyd himself it seems
needful to point out that neither the Germans nor even Professor Boas
seems to realize how little definite merit his poetry has. He is
important, not in himself, but as a pioneer. The influence of Kyd is
marked on all the immediate predecessors of Shakespeare, and the bold
way in which scenes of violent crime were treated on the Elizabethan
stage appears to be directly owing to the example of Kyd's innovating
genius. His relation to _Hamlet_ has already been noted, and _Titus
Andronicus_ presents and exaggerates so many of his characteristics that
Mr Sidney Lee and others have supposed that tragedy to be a work of
Kyd's touched up by Shakespeare. Professor Boas, however, brings cogent
objections against this theory, founding them on what he considers the
imitative inferiority of _Titus Andronicus_ to _The Spanish Tragedy_.
The German critics have pushed too far their attempt to find indications
of Kyd's influence on later plays of Shakespeare. The extraordinary
interest felt for Kyd in Germany is explained by the fact that _The
Spanish Tragedy_ was long the best known of all Elizabethan plays
abroad. It was acted at Frankfort in 1601, and published soon afterwards
at Nuremberg. It continued to be a stock piece in Germany until the
beginning of the 18th century; it was equally popular in Holland, and
potent in its effect upon Dutch dramatic literature.
Kyd's works were first collected and his life written by Professor F.
S. Boas in 1901. Of modern editions of _The Spanish Tragedy_ may be
mentioned that by Professor J. M. Manly in _Specimens of the
Pre-Shakespearean Drama_, vol. ii. (Boston, 1897), and by J. Schick in
the _Temple Dramatists_ (1898). See also _Cornelia_ (ed. H. Gassner,
1894); C. Markscheffel, _T. Kyd's Tragodien_ (1885); Gregor Sarrazin,
Thomas Kyd und sein Kreis (1892); G. O. Fleischer, "Bemerkungen uber
Thomas Kyd's Spanish Tragedy" (_Jahresbericht der Drei-Konigschule zu
Dresden-Neustadt_ (1896); J. Schick, "T. Kyd's Spanish Tragedy"
(_Literarhistorische Forschungen_, vol. 19, 1901); and R. Koppel, in
Prolss, _Altengl. Theater_ (vol. i., 1904). (E. G.)
KYFFHAUSER, a double line of hills in Thuringia, Germany. The northern
part looks steeply down upon the valley of the Goldene Aue, and is
crowned by two ruined castles, Rothenburg (1440 ft.) on the west, and
Kyffhausen (1542 ft.) on the east. The latter, built probably in the
10th century, was frequently the residence of the Hohenstaufen emperors,
and was finally destroyed in the 16th century. The existing ruins are
those of the Oberburg with its tower, and of the Unterburg with its
chapel. The hill is surmounted by an imposing monument to the emperor
William I., the equestrian statue of the emperor being 31 ft. high and
the height of the whole 210 ft. This was erected in 1896. According to
an old and popular legend, the emperor Frederick Barbarossa sits asleep
beside a marble table in the interior of the mountain, surrounded by his
knights, awaiting the destined day when he shall awaken and lead the
united peoples of Germany against her enemies, and so inaugurate an era
of unexampled glory. But G. Vogt has advanced cogent reasons (see _Hist.
Zeitschrift_, xxvi. 131-187) for believing that the real hero of the
legend is the other great Hohenstaufen emperor, Frederick II., not
Frederick I. Around him gradually crystallized the hopes of the German
peoples, and to him they looked for help in the hour of their sorest
need. But this is not the only legend of a slumbering future deliverer
which lives on in Germany. Similar hopes cling to the memory of
Charlemagne, sleeping in a hill near Paderborn; to that of the Saxon
hero Widukind, in a hill in Westphalia; to Siegfried, in the hill of
Geroldseck; and to Henry I., in a hill near Goslar.
See Richter, _Das deutsche Kyffhausergebirge_ (Eisleben, 1876);
Lemcke, _Der deutsche Kaisertraum und der Kyffhauser_ (Magdeburg,
1887); and _Fuhrer durch das Kyffhausergebirge_ (Sangerhausen, 1891);
Baltzer, _Das Kyffhausergebirge_ (Rudolstadt, 1882); A. Fulda, _Die
Kyffhausersage_ (Sangerhausen, 1889); and Anemuller, _Kyffhauser und
Rothenburg_ (Detmold, 1892).
KYNASTON, EDWARD (c. 1640-1706), English actor, was born in London and
first appeared in Rhodes's company, having been, like Betterton, a clerk
in Rhodes's book-shop before he set up a company in the Cockpit in Drury
Lane. Kynaston was probably the last and certainly the best of the male
actors of female parts, for which his personal beauty admirably fitted
him. His last female part was Evadne in _The Maid's Tragedy_ in 1661
with Killigrew's company. In 1665 he was playing important male parts at
Covent Garden. He joined Betterton at Lincoln's Inn Fields in 1695,
after which he received less important roles, retiring in 1699. He died
in 1706, and was buried on the 18th of January.
KYNETON, a town of Dalhousie county, Victoria, Australia, on the river
Campaspe, 56 m. by rail N.N.W. of Melbourne. Pop. (1901), 3274. It is
the centre of a prosperous agricultural and pastoral district. Important
stock sales and an annual exhibition of stock are held. There are,
moreover, some rich gold quartz reefs in the neighbourhood. Kyneton lies
at an elevation of 1687 ft., and the scenery of the district, which
includes some beautiful waterfalls, attracts visitors in summer.
KYOSAI, SHO-FU (1831-1889), Japanese painter, was born at Koga in the
province of Shimotsuke, Japan, in 1831. After working for a short time,
as a boy, with Kuniyoshi, he received his artistic training in the
studio of Kano Dohaku, but soon abandoned the formal traditions of his
master for the greater freedom of the popular school. During the
political ferment which produced and followed the revolution of 1867,
Kyosai attained a considerable reputation as a caricaturist. He was
three times arrested and imprisoned by the authorities of the shogunate.
Soon after the assumption of effective power by the mikado, a great
congress of painters and men of letters was held, at which Kyosai was
present. He again expressed his opinion of the new movement in a
caricature, which had a great popular success, but also brought him into
the hands of the police--this time of the opposite party. Kyosai must be
considered the greatest successor of Hokusai (of whom, however, he was
not a pupil), and as the first political caricaturist of Japan. His
work--like his life--is somewhat wild and undisciplined, and
"occasionally smacks of the _sake_ cup." But if he did not possess
Hokusai's dignity, power and reticence, he substituted an exuberant
fancy, which always lends interest to draughtsmanship of very great
technical excellence. In addition to his caricatures, Kyosai painted a
large number of pictures and sketches, often choosing subjects from the
folk-lore of his country. A fine collection of these works is preserved
in the British Museum; and there are also good examples in the National
Art Library at South Kensington, and the Musee Guimet at Paris. Among
his illustrated books may be mentioned _Yehon Taka-kagami_,
Illustrations of Hawks (5 vols., 1870, &c.); _Kyosai Gwafu_ (1880);
_Kyosai Dongwa_; _Kyosai Raku-gwa_; _Kyosai Riaku-gwa_; _Kyosai Mangwa_
(1881); _Kyosai Suigwa_ (1882); and _Kyosai Gwaden_ (1887). The latter
is illustrated by him under the name of Kawanabe Toyoku, and two of its
four volumes are devoted to an account of his own art and life. He died
in 1889.
See Guimet (E.) and Regamey (F.), _Promenades japonaises_ (Paris,
1880); Anderson (W.), _Catalogue of Japanese Painting in the British
Museum_ (London, 1886); Mortimer Menpes, "A Personal View of Japanese
Art: A Lesson from Kyosai," _Magazine of Art_ (1888). (E. F. S.)
KYRIE (in full _kyrie eleison_, or _eleeson_, Gr. [Greek: kyrie
eleeson]; cf. Ps. cxxii. 3, Matt. XV. 22, &c., meaning "Lord, have
mercy"), the words of petition used at the beginning of the Mass and in
other offices of the Eastern and Roman Churches. In the Anglican Book of
Common Prayer the Kyrie is introduced into the orders for Morning and
Evening Prayer, and also, with an additional petition, as a response
made by the congregation after the reading of each of the Ten
Commandments at the opening of the Communion Service. These responses
are usually sung, and the name Kyrie is thus also applied to their
musical setting. In the Lutheran Church the Kyrie is still said or sung
in the original Greek. "Kyrielle," a shortened form of _Kyrie eleison_,
is applied to eight-syllabled four-line verses, the last line in each
verse being repeated as a refrain.
KYRLE, JOHN (1637-1724), "the Man of Ross," English philanthropist, was
born in the parish of Dymock, Gloucestershire, on the 22nd of May 1637.
His father was a barrister and M.P., and the family had lived at Ross,
in Herefordshire, for many generations. He was educated at Balliol
College, Oxford, and having succeeded to the property at Ross took up
his abode there. In everything that concerned the welfare of the little
town in which he lived he took a lively interest--in the education of
the children, the distribution of alms, in improving and embellishing
the town. He delighted in mediating between those who had quarrelled and
in preventing lawsuits. He was generous to the poor and spent all he had
in good works. He lived a great deal in the open air working with the
labourers on his farm. He died on the 7th of November 1724, and was
buried in the chancel of Ross Church. His memory is preserved by the
Kyrie Society, founded in 1877, to better the lot of working people, by
laying out parks, encouraging house decoration, window gardening and
flower growing. Ross was eulogized by Pope in the third _Moral Epistle_
(1732), and by Coleridge in an early poem (1794).
KYSHTYM, a town of Russia, in the government of Perm, 56 m. by rail N.N.W.
of Chelyabinsk, on a river of the same name which connects two lakes. Pop.
(1897), 12,331. The official name is Verkhne-Kyshtymskiy-Zavod, or Upper
Kyshtym Works, to distinguish it from the Lower (Nizhne) Kyshtym Works,
situated two miles lower down the same river.